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chen-chen-chen-again-chen · 2 years ago

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Hi, hello, hola! Thank you for the tag today, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe! Instead of six sentences, today I bring you "six somethings" - six places I'm excited to eat while I'm in London (March 24-April 7)!

If anyone has any recommendations for favourite places to eat in London, PLEASE let me know! 🍽️😋

I'll tag up here because this post is a long boi. Hello hello hello to a buncha folks! @aristocratic-otter @captain-aralias @cutestkilla @thewholelemon @dohrnaira @ebbpettier @facewithoutheart @hushed-chorus @ionlydrinkhotwater @imagineacoolusername @larkral @raenestee @onepintobean @theimpossibledemon @whogaveyoupermission @tectonicduck

6.) Pret (Heathrow)

I know Shepard loses his tiny mind over the sandwiches from Pret, but. I dream of their Chocolate Moose. I have an absurd amount of food allergies, so finding a Chen-friendly, ready made chocolate mousse is a dream come true. So excited to cram it into my face after I clear Customs.

From My Good Egg, Good morning, good night, good morning:

“All right.” Simon goes back to fiddling with Bunce’s phone, and then he says to Bunce, hopeful, “Any chance you brought the rest of my baguette from Pret?”

Bunce says, slowly and carefully, “Simon. I do not know the whereabouts of your airport sandwich. I was rather busy figuring out where you had disappeared to.”

5.) Borough Market

I have very fond memories of Borough Market from the first/last time I visited London back in 2018. I remember sticking my head in a jar full of dried truffles and just inhaling all that amazing, savoury, umami truffly goodness. (Like, you know, the way that normal humans do.)

From What's Left by @cutestkilla:

I’ve been hanging around Borough Market quite a bit, and I’ve had everything from cheese and croissants to chorizo and balsamic vinegar (in small sample portions only). I think, though, that my favourite thing so far was a fresh buttered wild garlic scone that I bought with some of my stolen money after trying a sample.

4.) MotherMash (Covent Garden)

I also had a good time with a pal at MotherMash years ago - I think instead of pie, I had bangers and mash with gravy, and a tiny, perfect apple pie. My spouse has never been here, but he does frequently say, "I would like to eat a whole pie," and now he will be able to eat TWO pies - one for his main, and one for dessert.

From A cake with your name on it:

Baz was still fuming about the tasting when we met up at his flat for dinner. We had takeaway from MotherMash, and Baz kept stabbing his steak and Stoutheart pie instead of eating it.

“I’ve never met such an idiot,” he said. “A bumbler. A fool. An absolute nightmare.”

“Okay,” I said. “We still have that list from my mother with three other bakeries.”

Baz whipped his head around to stare at me.

“No,” he said, loudly. Too loudly. He was oddly flushed. “I don’t care if I have to murder and then resurrect him - Simon Snow is making our wedding cake.”

3.) Brick Lane Beigel Bake (Shoreditch)

I asked my spouse, EarlobeGreyTea, what he wanted to do or eat or see while we're in London and all he would say, over and over again, was "Bagel." He is a remarkably easygoing travel companion.

From an earlier draft of My Good Egg, which ended up getting cut/changed:

They get to Brick Lane before Baz can embarrass himself any further, and he waits outside of a bagel shop until Simon comes out with a salt beef bagel crammed into his mouth, and a very full paper bag. “This one’s for you,” he says, holding out a salmon and cream cheese bagel to Baz.

Baz takes it, but doesn’t bite into it right away. “Thank you,” he says, slowly, thinking that maybe offering food is one of Simon’s love languages as well, along with killing things. The rats seem to be a lucky intersection.

2.) E Pellici's (Bethnal Green)

I think my favourite full English breakfast that I ever had was at Pellici's, which is tiny and and owned by an Italian family. The owner spent most of the time I was there embarrassing one of his teenage employees and a girl who was interviewing him for a school project. The owner high fived me when I bought a t-shirt and he went slack-jawed at my powerful, resounding high five. It was great.

From an unpublished bit of My Good Egg:

In the car, Baz passes both slices of fruitcake to Simon, and Simon practically dances in his seat.

“Are you sure?” Simon asks, “like, really, really sure? Cause I’m telling you, this is really fucking amazing fruitcake, and you can’t buy it most of the time unless you order it special - they don’t even have it on the menu anymore.” “They’re yours, Simon,” Baz says. Honestly, Simon Snow is impossible. He was ready to kill a man for Baz, or not kill a man for him, and now he’s beaming at Baz because of some fruitcake. He needs to pin Simon to a mattress and keep him there — with handcuffs, with a collar, with a ring.

1.) Dishoom (King's Cross)

Dishoom is like... truly magical. That house black daal is no joke. I lack words to describe how amazing the food is - just check out their site (but honestly, it will make you hungry). Everything I've ever had there was fucking delicious and the place and the atmosphere is so gorgeous, just lush and colourful and immersive.

I shared another snippet before about Dishoom from My Good Egg, but here's Simon on the phone with Agatha right after he's ordered takeaway:

“Hey Ags. How’re you – no, I’m not bleeding or throwing up or on fire. I – yeah, I know you said not to call you when you’re at work unless I was bleeding or throwing up or on fire, but this is an – look, it’s not for me this time, all right? Or Penny. It’s for a friend – okay, rude, I have friends other than you and Penny!” Pause. “Yes, Agatha, we’re friends, even if you – yeah, I know you said you would never do another house visit, but you said that the last time, too!”

Baz leans back so he can catch Bunce’s eyes, and mouths, What the fuck?

Bunce just rolls her eyes and shrugs, like, He’s Simon, what can you do about it?

“Well,” Simon says, triumphant, “we already ordered the daal for you, so there!” Pause. “Yeah, love you too. Bye.”

RIPs & Honourable Mentions

Cinnamon Soho (also mentioned in "A cake with your name on it") - They closed down during the pandemic. But they had a delicious Indian afternoon tea 🥲

Cereal Killer Cafe - This place was rec'd to me by one of my British co-workers (his seven kids were mad for it), but sadly, they closed their storefront during the pandemic and went online. (In my headcanon, this was where Winifred from My Good Egg wanted to go for her(?) first(?) birthday)

Fortnum & Mason - I WILL be going here to buy tea and biscuits (and to replace one of my favourite tote bags, LOL), but not for high tea or afternoon tea. (We have a few other places lined up for that, including The Swan at the Globe and Tea House Theatre). Sorry, Daphne!

Nando's - I suggested to my spouse that we should get cheeky Nando's and have top bants and he gave me a dead-eyed look as if his soul left his body

Again, if you have any recommendations of favourite places to eat in London, please let me know!

I mean, I suppose I'll be doing other things besides eating, like hanging out with my beautiful friends, going to stationery shops, visiting the flower market, seeing shows and things... but really, food is the main draw. 😂😂😂

Happy Sunday!

#six something sunday!#delicious things to consoom #with fic snippets #my good egg #good night good morning good night #a cake with your name on it #what's left by cutekilla #London 2023 #my fic tag

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awrldalone · 1 year ago

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4th September 2023

Today I finished moving into my new apartment. It took a few days, but now I think I have finally settled. A lot has happened in the months since my previous entry, almost a whole year has passed – I stopped writing because everything felt so repetitive, and constantly talking about it made me feel stuck in this murky whirlpool of cold days and aimless studying. I was drowning in myself, repeating the same words, complaining about the same problems. Endlessly.

I felt like a stick of wood stuck in the river current, an abandoned lighthouse in the storm.

Typing does not come as easy now. Documenting everything paralyzes me. Part of me feels betrayed: how dare I write about what I did today when there is no record of yesterday, of the months from February to August? I dare.

I visited a Musée Cernuschi today. It is an impressive collection of Asian art, mainly from China and Japan and Vietnam, collected by one of those nineteenth century rich French men. The sheer size of some of the sculptures stunned me. An extremely detailed bronze dragon, which was an incense burner, a winding tiger covered in some golden metal and an enormous statue of buddha got all of my attention, but the pottery was also, simply, pretty. Mundane things have a right to be pieces of art – in an ideal world a small bowl should be no less beautiful than Botticelli's Madonna della Melagrana. For this reason I have been struggling to buy things, stuff for my apartment.

It's a small room at the sixth floor of a beautiful old building, no elevator. I can see the roofs of Paris from my window. I am living in Paris now and it feels... odd. Some might say it feels like a dream, but everything feels so real, material, concrete. It's not perfect, and i know that living here will be hard, but it's better.

Moving has not gone smoothly, I had to take care of a lot of things, like signing an electricity contract and changing the washing machine and cleaning for hours, but now I'm here, on my bed, listening to music from my phone and trying not to use up all my internet data before I get WIFI installed.

–

February I got back together with my boyfriend. Everything is still so complicated, but right after I went back to Maastricht I left, without telling anyone, not even my parents, and I flew all the way to Lyon with only a few sweaters and my history of law textbook in my bag. I spent a few days with him, and everything was perfect again.

Then, during carnival we went to the mountains together. He tried to teach me how to ski, and I failed miserably, falling in the snow countless times. His parents own a little apartment, furnished with a warm wood that makes it feel smaller than it is, but never claustrophobic. He got sick and I played doctor, but it was all just an excuse for him to skip his classes and for me to stay at his place.

In March, it was his turn to come. It was a snowy month, cold, not much happened– he stayed over for a weekend. I installed a DS emulator on his laptop and we played Pokémon instead of studying, and I started doubting everything again. I always doubt everything. I still don't know if it's meticulousness or an unnerving inability to let myself have good things. We made chocolate covered strawberries, but the chocolate was not tempered and the fruit was wet.

We saw each other about once a month. My old glasses broke as I picked them up after having washed my face. The frame split without a word or a warning, and one of the lenses fell to the ground.

Once, in April, he came to Venice as I went back home for a few days during Easter. At the end of the month I went all the way to Lyon by bus and train, stopping in Lille for a few hours. Lille is a peculiar city, it feels more Belgian than French, the only way to describe it is a city proud to have been built at the border between two countries.

After my university's MUN, in May, I took the bus again to Lille, and the train again to Lyon, because M.'s university was having an end of year party. Then, we did not see each other for a long time. I got into Sorbonne. I was waitlisted at first, and I spent a few days biting my nails at the library, among all the medicine students.

I took a train to Paris in June to look for an apartment. I spend a few weeks between Venice and Rome with a Korean friend of mine. I travelled through central Italy – Assisi and Firenze and Siena – with some friends.

A lot happened. A lot. But if I started writing down everything I would not be faithful to time. It irks me to see that the most eventful moments have been centered around my relationship. I am my own person, and the passage of my time should not be dictated by kisses. Love cannot be my metronome. I am not sure if I am happy to be in a relationship: Ce. and I talked about this a few weeks ago, in Florence, and we both agreed that making decisions while in high waters is always a bad idea. She was also in high waters, with her mouth under the waves. I need to let things fall into place before I can understand my feelings fully. Perhaps writing about them will help clear out my head. Perhaps I can't just wait for things to sort them out by themselves, I need to keep unraveling this ball of yarn just to roll it back up.

Ago ergo sum. Our mandate is to create.

-c.

#diary

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jodilinbio · 17 days ago

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NOTE: This section was written in 2005 and edited in 2024.

The year 2005 has just begun, and I’ve been through some very drastic changes in the last few years. We lost our big, beautiful house (not for reasons I once feared), and we’ve now lived in Klamath Falls, Oregon, for just over a year.

Although I’m not sure this is the ideal place for us, and even though we haven’t been here long, I guess you could say I somewhat prefer Oregon over Arizona—at least, I think I do. I don’t like the cold and snow of Oregon, but it certainly has its pros over Arizona. Before I explain how and why we ended up here, I must first cover the events between March 2002 and June 2004.

Most of 2002 was uneventful, though it was still filled with the usual stresses and problems. Things kept breaking, money remained tight, and our old neighbors continued to rule our lives.

Scott surprised me in early April 2003 by telling me I could start reporting once a month instead of twice.

The biggest surprise came on the 30th of that month when the phone rang at 6:30 in the morning. As soon as I saw Scott’s name on the Caller ID, my heart pounded with anxiety. My first thought was that the freeloading assholes had done something else to me. After everything they’d already put me through, I was constantly fearful and paranoid, wondering what false accusations they might concoct to keep me trapped in their web of hatred. I feared they would try something just as my probation was due to end to keep it going—but that wasn’t for another six months.

Or so I thought.

“Hello?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady when I picked up the phone.

“Hey, it’s Scott. Did you hear the news?”

“No. What news? What’s wrong?”

That’s when he told me nothing was wrong, and that he was shocked to receive a fax that morning from the judge (a different one than the one who had screwed me), saying I was now off probation. The state had opposed it, of course, but that was it. I was free! Free!!!

I jumped for joy all day long, running up and down the house, laughing and grinning like a madwoman. It was so unexpected. I had no reason to believe this would happen. No one had given me any breaks before, so I’d long since given up hope. But sometimes life really is full of surprises.

Although I immensely enjoyed my newfound freedom—after seven long years of being chained to these sick people—I was also a bit apprehensive. I felt like a sitting duck. Would the news of my early release, something they would surely be furious about, provoke any vengeful behavior? Fortunately, nothing happened during the rest of our time in Arizona, which was a little over a year after Scott’s call. So, if they were simply biding their time to look less obvious, I was spared from whatever they might have done.

I vowed never to let this long, frustrating ordeal stop me from speaking my mind in the future, and I did—when the next person burned me.

That next person was Teddy Bear, though she didn’t hurt me nearly as much as the freeloaders had.

At the very end of 2001, Mary wrote to tell me that Teddy Bear had been transferred to Madison because of too many rumors about her flirting with inmates. Chavez was the one who told Mary, and that’s when I first started to doubt Teddy Bear’s promises of us getting together. First off, if you really liked and missed someone, wouldn’t you bend the rules a little, even if it meant not quite waiting a year? After all, it’s not like anyone would have seen us together way out in the boonies.

I also wondered what she thought when she saw my year-after-release letter sent to Estrella, assuming she didn’t know that I knew about the transfer. Did she figure it would be forwarded to her, or did she just not care? Sure enough, she never responded to my letter, even though I sent it directly to Madison in May 2002, letting her know Mary had told me about her transfer.

I was devastated when she blew me off without so much as a simple explanation. I cried for four months straight and was even tempted to run back to Helen, but I knew Helen couldn’t change anything, and eventually, I’d get over her—and I did. In the end, I was glad Teddy Bear ignored my letter, knowing her presence might have put Tom in an awkward position, even though we were evolving into just good friends like most long-term couples.

Still, I was determined to give her a piece of my mind without letting past experiences stop me. So, just a few months after getting off probation, I sent her a letter. I wasn’t trying to get her fired or seek revenge. I just wanted her to know she played with my emotions, and that I wasn’t some object without feelings.

For reasons unknown to me, my psychic abilities intensified during our time in Maricopa. I was able to “influence” more than half the scratch tickets we bought, though they usually only won a few bucks each.

Tom was searching for an old pickup truck to have a backup vehicle and something to haul large items. He was looking for one made in the 80s, but in my visions, I saw a 70s truck in either white or gold. Sure enough, for $500, he found two dumpy Datsuns. One was a green ‘77, the other a white ‘79. He stripped the green one and used its parts to get the white one running, which took several months.

The first time our well went out was in late 2001. I predicted it would happen again two years later, and unfortunately, it did—just two weeks shy of the date.

Now, here’s how we ended up here. For years, I said that once we freed ourselves from the welfare bum’s grip, we’d plunge into a whole new long-term crisis—and we did. One that would alter our lives in a very big way.

In June 2003, Bank of America fired Tom for speaking out against bringing religion into the workplace. We were both frustrated, and still are, with how so many people mix religion, along with beliefs we consider hogwash, into almost everything and try to force it on others. Hey, not everyone is religious, but some people just don’t seem to understand that. Arizona, being a predominantly non-white Christian state, didn’t support his refusal to conform, so he was let go.

I found it unnerving, even scary, to know that someone I’d never met could turn our lives upside down so easily, leaving us with no way to fight back. People often fail to realize the long-term effects of vengeful behavior on others. As I had asked myself many times when the sick assholes from Phoenix had control over our lives: How could someone have such power and leave us so helpless?

My faith in God was shattered. I felt like some force had it in for us, pitting one person after another against us—people we were powerless to fight.

Tom started collecting unemployment while searching for a job that could cover our expenses. After two months with no luck, he had to settle for a minimum-wage job at a Nissan proving grounds in August. The only benefit was that it was close to home. Although they kept promising him benefits and a raise, he was forced to quit by late November and return to unemployment. It seemed pointless to work for the same amount he could collect by not working, and besides, we needed time to prep the house for sale once it became clear we were going to lose it.

As sad as I was to leave our spacious home, beautifully furnished and decorated, I was also relieved. We both were. Tom never liked the house, calling it a waste of space and not cozy. Plus, we had gone through so much trouble with it—leaky pipes, a broken hot water tank, well issues, loose dogs, and trash blowing onto our land. People in the area didn’t secure their trash well, and without proper trash services, the high winds scattered debris everywhere. The neighborhood was also building up fast. Three new houses appeared in front of our neighbors during our final months, and there were now three rental properties behind us with two more on the way. It was getting noisier, too.

Sometimes I wondered if something evil inhabited the land, or maybe even the house itself. Foul odors would appear for hours without explanation. I also slept worse there than I did in our Phoenix home. Between sonic booms, loud engines, and random knocking from either people or woodpeckers, I was lucky to get more than a few nights a week of undisturbed sleep.

We wanted to find a more secluded place with greater privacy. We realized we had bitten off more than we could chew with the Maricopa property and thought it would be best not to go for something as extravagant next time. We figured a wooded area would provide the privacy we wanted, which wasn’t possible in the flat open desert without money to plant trees and hedges.

We decided Oregon would be our best option with its mountainous, forested terrain. We won a 2.3-acre parcel of land on eBay from a man named Michael in Portland. The land was located in the Klamath Falls Forest Estate near the California border. Neither of us had ever been to Oregon, though Tom thought he might have visited relatives there as a child. I wasn’t thrilled about returning to a place with a cold, snowy climate but figured it might be okay now that I didn’t have to walk or ride a bike to school like I did as a kid—or run errands like I had to as an adult in Springfield.

I wondered if there was something wrong with Oregon since the population was relatively low. I assumed it was just because the weather was so cold and snowy in most parts, though Portland didn’t get as cold as Klamath Falls. It rained more there instead.

After Tom left the proving grounds, we went on a selling spree, selling old items on eBay and at local swap meets. He sold old computer equipment, and I sold collectible dolls I no longer wanted. The first time we sold stuff at a swap meet, we did well. The second time, not as much, but by then, it was so hot no one wanted to stay outside for long.

On December 28, 2004, I grew so fed up with the congestion my inhalers were causing that I placed one of my spells on myself—something I’d somehow mastered—and quit them altogether. After moving to Oregon, I lost most of the lung tightness I had and found myself breathing better than ever.

In February 2004, we got Blondie, the rat we still have. I thought no rat could compare to Little Buddy, but Blondie surpassed him by far! He’s the most loving, smart, and dog-like rat we’ve ever had. Not many rats will climb up your leg to see you after exploring for a while. He even jumps up on the bed by climbing the comforter.

In late April, we contacted a realtor who found us an investor to buy our house. Since we didn’t have time to sell it properly, we were forced to settle for a measly five grand. Huey, the buyer, understood our frustrations with the bank and how they were jerking us around and withholding information. We knew we couldn’t trust anything the bank said anyway, given how they falsified documents—something Tom had witnessed several times while working there.

Huey wanted to divide the 10-acre parcel into five 2-acre lots. We sold the place to him on April 27 and were given until June 12 to leave, which happened to be Huey’s birthday. He said to contact him if we needed more time.

We also won a 20-foot 1975 Midas RV for $1,500 on eBay, which we called Gert because it was so old and ugly. The plan was to live in that, along with any tents or small sheds we might build, until we could construct a dome house—a project we estimated would take two to three years. We also planned to install solar panels since our land was 1,500 feet from the nearest power lines. But as I learned over and over, life rarely goes according to plan. It seemed like every time we made a plan, we ended up doing something entirely different. More and more, I felt like we were just leaves blowing in the wind, destined to end up wherever fate took us.

During the next month and a half, we sold off most of our furniture. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get nearly what it was worth, but it was better than nothing. A Mexican family that owned a furniture store bought most of it, including our 1991 Ford Taurus.

The last few days in Arizona were hot, hectic, and filled with emotion. At one point, I stood in the middle of my empty office and cried, thinking of all the stories I’d written in that room, the journal entries, and the music I’d listened to. Then I remembered all the stress, the unhappy journal entries, and that made up for it—at least some of it anyway. Tom was excited to leave, and so was I, though I knew I would miss the house.

The move from Arizona to Oregon turned out to be harder than the move from Phoenix, even though we had far less stuff. This time, we had to cram everything into the RV, plus the truck towing it.

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frustratedpoetwrites · 4 years ago

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Mr. March

Happy Birthday James Potter

So my plan was to post this on Saturday as that is the special day, but I've already been sitting on this for a few days and I am impatient for you all to read it. I hope you like it. Have to include a TW for a car crash.

read on AO3

Lily stared at her office calendar again, wondering once more if she should probably take it down. It wasn’t exactly PC and, even though she had checked that nobody was offended by it, she didn’t know if it was exactly acceptable to have a calendar of shirtless male firemen in a workplace anymore.

It had been part of her Secret Santa present (Marlene), and she had just put it up on the wall of her office in January, not taking that much notice of it. Not really anyway. Until March came around.

Mr March was wearing the boots and fireproof trousers with his chest bare, the same as all the others, the suspenders hanging at his waist. His light brown skin had been oiled and looked flawless contrasting against the tribal tattoo that covered his right shoulder and down the top half of his arm. The same arm that was holding a coiled hose making his bicep bulge slightly. He had dark penetrating eyes that were looking right back at her with a sparkle like he was thinking of some private joke just between them, his dark curling hair looked beautifully tousled in that way that photographers liked to do, to make you think their subject had just wandered out of bed, or someone had just had their fingers running through it. Once again she caught herself staring at him, biting the end of her finger in a wistful daydream, and not doing her work.

Mr March needed to be taken off the wall completely. He had already made her move the location of the calendar so it wasn’t constantly in her eye-line while she was sitting at her computer anymore. She found herself drifting off far too often fantasising about those strong arms rescuing her. Lord, she needed to get a life outside the office. Going home to her cat was not quite the same.

March moved to April and as nice to look at as the next picture was, she stopped noticing the calendar quite so much and she stopped thinking about taking it down.

“Have you seen the news?” her colleague and best friend Marlene came in asking her, as she sat down on the small sofa in the corner of her office. Lily did not stop what she was doing straight away as her friend asked the question, but finished typing out her sentence, added her sign off to the email, then clicked send. Only when she got the swoosh sound did she turn to the blonde woman waiting expectantly.

“I’m trying to get all my stuff done before my holiday next week so I haven’t stopped. What news?” she asked as Marlene pointed out the window where the spring sunshine was brightening up her office.

“Some blizzard is coming in. A blizzard in fucking April! Management is sending everyone home early. Didn't you get the email? I thought they would’ve sent it to you first?” Lily turned back to her computer frowning, realising she hadn’t turned off the do not disturb from her last Zoom meeting just after lunch. She clicked it off and hit refresh, then sighed as her screen filled with unread messages.

“You go, it’s fine, and send everyone else home too.” She told Marlene spotting a few ‘urgent’ flags and wondering how many of them actually were as urgent as the sender thought they were.

“What about you, Lil? The news says it’s another beast from the east. It might look okay now but who knows in an hour,” her friend told her concern clearly etched on her face. Lily smiled, feeling great affection for her friend and her worrying about her.

“I promise as soon as I get through these I’ll go,” she reassured her, although Marlene did not seem overly convinced and was squinting at her suspiciously. Lily half thought she might try to force her out the office and go home with her instead. As appealing as getting blind drunk and staying over at her best friend's house was, she didn’t want to leave anything half done here, as this was her last chance to try and catch up for a while. “If it gets too late or the snow’s too bad I’ll just stay. It’s not the first time.” This seemed to appease her enough to not force the issue any further. Instead she wished her a nice week off and bid her farewell.

continue.

#jily #one shot #fireman james #James Potter #Lily Evans #muggle au #modern setting au #car accident tw #happy birthday James Potter #tj writes

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tefilovesreading · 4 years ago

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Long overdue. Charlie Gillespie x OC

A/N: I’m really happy to finally share this one, it took me a while to finish it but I’m proud with the final result. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Summary: Charlie and Olivia used to be best friends, until he left their hometown to pursue his acting career without saying goodbye to his best friend, ruining their friendship. They meet again four years later.

Word count: +6k

Warning: some swearing, mention of a panic attack, angst????

Special thanks to my lovely @theamazingtomholland for helping me out and your sweet words! Also thanks to @thelawiswiththerose !!

MASTERLIST

When Olivia was just a kid, her grandfather used to joke about how she would grow up to become a historian because her memory was amazing,and she believed him. Until she realized that she had an excellent memory only when it came to things that matter to her or that made her the young woman she was now. She remembered meeting her current best friend on April 7th,four years ago. She knew her heart got broken for the first time on March 31st when she was only fifteen, it was a Monday, and she didn’t cry because she needed to get through her classes. Or how she lost a piece of herself when her grandpa died when she was just five years old on May 31st.

She unlocked her phone and felt her heart get a little bit heavier when she saw the date on the screen:

August 26.

Four years ago, when they both were eighteen, things were easier for sure, at least for Charlie. Olivia wasn’t doing bad either but seeing her childhood best friend kiss another girl in front of her wasn’t something she enjoyed. How could someone watch the person they’ve loved for years kiss someone else and not feel like they were getting their heart crushed little by little?

They spent the day with their friends, celebrating Charlie’s last birthday near the river before he moved to Toronto to pursue his acting career a week later. Olivia could still remember how happy he looked sitting next to the bonfire; his arms wrapped around his then- girlfriend laughing about something his friend had said. Sat just across from them, giving the couple and herself some space, she knew her heart was going to break again that night. And it did because he ditched her at the end of the night when he was supposed to make sure she got home safely just like he promised her parents he would.

She remembered how scared she felt walking back home in the dark by herself even when she knew their neighbourhood was safe and she wasn’t far from her house. But she was terrified of darkness and Charlie was the only one in their group of friends that knew it. Olivia cursed his name over and over again for putting her in that position, for leaving her alone, and thinking about the reason made her feel sick. Of course, she knew why he left without telling her but admitting it out loud wasn’t something she was willing to do.

Her phone vibrated in her hand and she rubbed her eyes, making her put that memory away. It was her mother letting her know that their flight had just landed, and they were ready for their two weeks in the Caribbean.

“Seems like it’s gonna be just us, Peanut,” she whispered to the black dog curled up next to her on the couch. Scratching the dog’s belly, she turned her attention back to the TV where Meryl Streep was singing Money, Money, Money.

Her stomach growled, remembering that she barely had eaten something and it was already dinner time.

Noises outside her house caught her attention, they sounded a lot like laughs, instead of making her way to the kitchen, she went to the closest window and peeked outside just enough for her heart to drop.

He was there laughing without a care in the world, his hair falling back in messy waves that her fingers suddenly needed to touch.

Closing the curtains before her neighbors could see her, she wiped furiously the lonely tear that managed to escape from her eyes before it could leave a trail down her cheek.

What was he doing here? He was supposed to be in Los Angeles, not here. She made sure not to be in town whenever she thought he could come back, spending numerous mother’s days somewhere else, or making sure she wasn’t home for his mother’s birthday. Christmas was easier because her entire family gathered up in her grandma’s house every single year. But he never came back to their hometown for his birthday, until this year.

The anger she felt after his birthday four years ago came back like an earthquake, making her body tremble with the feeling she kept bottled up for so long.

It wasn’t just the fact that Charlie left her on her own when he promised to take her back home. He didn’t apologize the day after for leaving her alone or the day after that one. Hell, he didn’t try to talk to her that entire week and when the week came to its end, he just left, not even saying goodbye to her.

Charlie moved out and never looked back. As if he completely forgot about the girl that was his best friend since they both were eight years old. The same girl that stood up for him whenever the mean guys at their school made fun of him for not getting the part after his first couple auditions. The same girl he spent so many summers playing with, countless winters playing in the snow with her until they felt like their fingers were beyond frozen.

That was what she was hurt and mad about. He forgot about her existence and all the memories they ever made together. And Olivia couldn’t do the same because even if she hated to admit it, she still loved him, maybe not like she used to, but she still had love to give to the boy standing outside the house she used to spend so much of her free time when she was younger.

And because the universe was against her, the dog ran towards the front door, barking at it and letting her know that she wanted to go out for a walk.

“We can’t go now, baby,” she shushed Peanut, but the small dog didn’t try to pay attention to her words and kept barking and spinning in excitement. She wanted to go out now and not even a treat would make her change her mind, “you are so stubborn, Pea.”

Peanut was a small dog, but her barks were resonating all over the house, breaking the silence and she knew it was about time someone came and ringed the doorbell to make sure everything was alright. A fast exit, that was what she needed, she could put her earbuds on and pretend she was going for a run, give them a small nod if they still were outside and get out of there as fast as she could.

She put her sneakers on, put on some music, opened the door, and tugged lightly on the dog leash to make her dog walk. Not looking at the people standing in the driveway was a difficult task, because she never stopped greeting the rest of the Gillespie family. How could she? It wasn’t their fault that her friendship with Charlie went to shit.

“Hey!” Meghan called her and turning her head slowly she nodded at them and pointed to her earbuds as if she were on the phone.

Charlie looked at her and realized she was avoiding his eyes, not even acknowledging his presence. Looking at the way her features had changed, turning her into a beautiful young woman, the childish features were long gone, which let him know how long it has been since the last time he saw her in person. Her long light brown hair was now up to her shoulders and a few shades lighter. Watching her walk away made his heart ache in a way he didn’t feel since he moved out.

“I didn’t know the Gibson still lived here.” The words came out loud enough for his sister to listen to what he said, and she punched him in the arm.

“She made sure to be out of town every time you came home, dumbass,” making a grimace he nodded, not wanting to talk about the subject, “I still don’t understand what happened between you guys, you were really good friends, and I was sure you liked her as more than a friend.”

He rolled his eyes, knowing damn well Meghan wasn’t going to just drop it, “it’s none of your business.”

“My guess is you told her you liked her, and she rejected you,” Patrick said with a knowing look on his face. Charlie snorted and shook his head.

“Again,” he warned, “drop it, guys.” His brother held his hand up and went inside, leaving him alone with his younger sister.

“All I’m gonna say is you should try to not mess with her, Charlie,” Meghan held him by his arm, making sure he was paying attention to her word, “it was awful to see how sad and broken she was when you left and I know you said it’s none of my business, but I was her friend too and she pushed me away for whatever the fuck happened between you two.”

“I won’t, Meg,” he promised, guiding her inside so Olivia didn’t have to see him once she came back. But if he was being honest, he didn’t want to see the pain in her face she failed to hide when she saw him standing next to Meghan.

Sprinting back to her house, Olivia let out a sigh of relief when she saw that Charlie wasn’t outside anymore. She didn’t really know how to feel, sure she felt as angry as she did four years ago but seeing Charlie in person after so long brought a feeling she didn’t know how to describe. And of course, she wasn’t blind and knew that he looked even better than he did before he left, so that didn’t really help her situation.

Looking back to his house one last time, she caught him in the window, and he gave her a small smile she didn’t return. Instead, she unlocked the front door and slammed it shut. If Charlie thought that she would act as if nothing happened, he was wrong. Not even his smile could erase how betrayed she felt.

After a long early walk with Peanut the next day, she hoped she wouldn’t have to go out and run into Charlie again. The feeling that he was going to try and approach her the next time they ran into each other gave her goosebumps. Olivia knew that talking things out would make her feel a lot better, but she wasn’t ready to do it. He would want to know why she was so angry and hurt and that meant she would have to tell him she used to be in love with him and how betrayed she felt when he left without apologizing, leaving behind their friendship as if it meant absolutely nothing to him.

With an iced tea in one hand and a book in the other, she made herself comfortable in the hammock her father hanged every summer. Peanut was trying to catch her tail and the only noise Olivia could hear were the birds above her.

She lost track of time and Peanut’s barks brought her back to reality. Crouched in her garden was Charlie, trying to get the black dog to stay put so he could pet her, but she was too excited to see someone and was running around him and barking.

“What are you doing here?” her voice came out hoarse, her body too tense with Charlie just a few feet away.

“I wanted to say hi,” he responded without looking at her and still trying to pet Peanut.

“Peanut come here,” Olivia commanded, and the little dog ran up to her owner, “you need to leave.”

“C’mon, Liv,” Charlie stood up and looked at her with puppy eyes, “I just wanna talk.”

“Olivia,” she corrected him and picked up her dog, “you need to leave now.”

“Why?” he demanded to know once he saw her walking towards the door. She turned around stunned by his audacity.

“You have no right to be here, Charlie,” he raised his eyebrows, taken back at her harsh answer, “you don’t get to call me Liv or come into my house so I’m telling you again. Leave. Now.”

“Just listen to me, please,” Olivia shook her head and went inside, slamming the door behind her.

She was able to take a couple of steps away from the door when she had to kneel, feeling like she was about to pass out, her heart pounding fast in her chest and her lungs barely being able to hold air inside them. Peanut licked her face trying to calm her down, but the tears kept falling down her cheeks.

“Liv, please.” Charlie’s voice sounded worried on the other side of the door. “Let me in.” A whimpering sound came out of her mouth and the next thing she heard was the door being open.

She wished Charlie’s embrace could comfort her and calm her down, but she kept crying into her hands. Her heart too fragile now that Charlie was everywhere, his smell, his touch, and his voice were too much for her.

Charlie picked her up and took her to her bedroom. A strong feeling of nostalgia took over him when he saw the room hadn’t changed much, probably because she also moved out and moved on with her life after he left.

“I’ll get you a glass of water and then I’m gonna leave, I promise.” A scoff was all he received.

“As if you knew how to keep one,” she muttered with bitterness when she heard him leave her room.

He placed a glass of water on her nightstand, “do you want me to call my sister to keep you company?” she shook her head and closed her eyes too tired to keep fighting against him.

“Are you feeling better?” Charlie asked again and wiped a tear from Olivia’s cheek with his thumb. With a small nod, she turned her back to him. “Liv, I really wanna talk.”

“Stop calling me Liv, please.” The mattress shifted when Charlie sat beside her, not wanting to leave yet.

“I’ve never called you Olivia.”

“Charlie.” Her voice sounded raspy and incredibly tired and he couldn’t help but feel guilty for making her feel like that. “I really need you to leave me alone and let me get my shit together. Please.”

“Right,” Charlie stood up quickly and looked around not really knowing what else to say, “I’m sorry, Olivia. I never meant to make you feel like I cornered you or something.”

She didn’t respond, and when she heard the front door closing, she covered her head with a pillow and let out a scream. She hated to feel so powerless, so confused and so hurt. It felt like he just decided to reopen a wound that took too long to close and now it was painfully bleeding again.

It was heartbreaking to see her sobbing on the floor and not being able to calm her, to tell her that he never meant to leave like that.

“Where were you?” his sister questioned when she saw him with guilt all over his face, “Charlie, I told you not to mess with Olivia. What did you do now?”

“I don’t know.” He did though. He knew what did just a few minutes ago and what he did four years ago.

“Is she alright?” the hazel-eyed boy nodded and then shrugged, rubbing his palms over his face, feeling the frustration take over his body.

“I needed to talk to her, but she shot me down the moment she saw me, and then I think she was about to have a panic attack or something. She was better when I left.”

Charlie didn’t remember seeing her like that when they still were friends, Olivia was so determined and optimistic, not as impulsive as he was but always open for a new adventure or a trip with him and his siblings. But then, he started to have feelings for his best friend and decided that it wasn’t worth it to ruin their friendship and buried those feelings by getting a girlfriend just to act as if he wasn’t in love with Olivia. He knew it was mutual but what was the point of dating if he was going to move to Toronto and she was going to stay in New Brunswick.

Leaving her after his birthday four years ago was one of the things he regretted the most. He knew damn well she was afraid of the dark and yet he broke his promise. Charlie tried to put some distance between them so it wouldn’t hurt as much once he moved out, but he ended up messing everything.

“She didn’t even let me call her Liv, Meg.” His sister sat next to him and hugged him.

“We stopped calling her like that after you left,” she explained feeling sorry for him, “I guess it reminded her of you too much since you were the one that gave her the nickname.”

At lunchtime, Charlie made his way to his ex-best friend’s house with a portion of his birthday cake and the Tuna Pasta Salad his mom cooked for lunch. It wasn’t like he was planning to have lunch with her, but if getting her lunch and dessert gave him another shot, he’d even consider getting her breakfast the next morning.

He opened the backdoor just like he just did when they were younger and went straight into the kitchen, hoping she wouldn’t catch him sneaking into her house.

“Fuck it,” he whispered when he didn’t hear noise upstairs. With the food now in a tray, Charlie went upstairs.

Liv was in the same place she was before he left earlier. The Scottie lifted her head when he entered the room but didn’t bark at him and curled up again next to her sleeping owner. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he put the tray down and let out his breath.

“Hey,” his voice broke the silence they were in and Olivia moved in her sleep but didn’t wake up, “I got you food, Liv,” He said again this time a little bit louder.

“What?” she questioned; her mind fuzzy with sleep to understand what was happening.

“My mom made lunch and if I’m not wrong, it was your favorite.” The answer was simple, but why would he even bother to get her lunch if she told him to leave her alone.

“What time is it?” she asked again sitting up in bed rubbing her left eye with her hand.

“Time for you to eat,” the boy pointed to the tray next to her and stood up, “I brought you cake, I thought you’d like it.”

“Thanks?” Charlie let out a soft laugh and left. “Charlie!” She called out and he came back with a hopeful look in his eyes. “I made it,” Olivia pointed at the cake and his cheek started to turn pink in embarrassment.

“You made my birthday cake.”

Olivia shrugged as if it was nothing. “Meg asked me to,” she grabbed the fork and continued, “you know it’s my job, right?”

“What do you mean?” Charlie sat again in the bed taking every chance to keep the conversation going.

“I have a bakery.” She had a fucking bakery, and he didn’t even know. How would he? He never made questions about her, but he thought his family would tell him such a big thing. “Thanks for the food.” And that was his sign for him to leave.

“Thanks for the birthday cake.”

Olivia had her own bakery and made him a birthday cake, it was her job but still, she knew it was for him and made it anyway. That had to mean something, right?

Charlie was right, it was her favorite meal. She could have graduated from one of the most prestigious cooking schools in Canada but not even her fancy cooking school could beat Jeannette’s salad. She remembered Jeannette telling her that the magic was in her secret ingredient when she was younger and after all this time, she still wasn’t able to figure out what it was.

Her phone vibrated with a new notification and she smiled when she saw a picture of her parents with cocktails in their hands. She hated the fact that she’d have to leave a couple of days before they came back, but she needed to go and pack the few things she still had left in her old apartment back in Vancouver and move all her stuff across the country and into her new apartment.

The doorbell woke up the puppy from her nap and ran towards the door, letting Olivia know someone was outside.

“You would never think those barks belong to such a tiny animal,” Meghan chuckled when she opened the door and Peanut started to jump around her.

“Oh, I know, I get startled sometimes and she’s only eight months old,” she let the girl in not before giving the house across the street a nervous look.

“Char and my brothers went out,” Olivia nodded and thanked her quietly for the information, “I was bored so I thought you’d want to hang out.”

“Oh, sure,” she smiled at Charlie’s sister and felt guilty for all those times she said no whenever Meghan invited her over to hang out like they used to do, “I wanted to go to the farm and pick some fresh berries. I don’t know if you wanna go with me.”

“I don’t know,” Meghan scrunched her nose, and the gesture reminded the older girl of Charlie. If she didn’t grow up with them, she could’ve thought they were twins, “I’ll go only if you make me muffins.”

“That’s unfair,” Olivia said playfully, “I’m gonna change and we can head out.”

“I’m gonna stay right here so I can play with this cute baby,” Meghan cooed the dog and sat on the floor to play with her.

Running back into her room, she changed into some overalls and a top. She wanted to be comfortable on the farm and be able to move around without worrying about her skirt getting caught in the branches.

“I swear you and my brother are the only people I know that love wearing overalls,” Olivia’s cheeks blushed at her words, remembering very well how often Charlie used to come over wearing overalls and no shirt underneath.

“They’re comfy,” she said looking at her outfit with slight embarrassment.

“You look great, Liv.” Her eyes darted back at Meghan and decided not to make a big deal about the nickname.

“Your car or mine?” she questioned, picking up the keys and her bag.

“Yours, I don’t feel like driving.”

When Charlie landed his first role, he would spend a lot of time out of town filming, and eventually, both girls became closer. She could never compare her friendship with Meghan with the one she once had with Charlie because they were inseparable, they spent so much time together she was sure she had her first period when they were playing over at his house and both freaked out because they didn’t know what to do. Later that day he came over to her house with a chocolate bar and a single flower.

“My mom said you’d probably want some chocolate, so I got you your favourite.” She remembered the eleven years old Charlie said with his cheeks burning red.

She sighed at the memory, realizing how even such an important milestone in her life somehow involved the boy that was messing with her head lately.

“So…,” Meghan started once they both were on the road, “Charlie almost threw a tantrum because none told him you had a bakery.”

Olivia chuckled just imagining Charlie pouting with his arms crossed over his chest, “he never asked you guys.”

“It’s not that he didn’t ask about you,” She bit the inside of her cheek getting a little bit uncomfortable with the conversation, “I guess we all decided not to tell him about your life like he didn’t really deserve updates about you.”

“I get it,” stopping the car at a red light, she smiled at the girl sitting next to her, “I’m glad you didn’t have to deal with questions about me because if he wanted to know something, he should’ve asked me himself.”

Not like she’d have answered his calls or texts because she didn’t know if she would have. She thought she might have answered if he had reached out for her, but he never did.

Hanging out with Meghan was like breathing fresh air, both girls laughing and messing around while they picked fresh blueberries, their fingers getting tinted with the fruit’s juice. Snapping the last picture with their blueberries, they went back home.

“Can I post this one?” Meghan asked, showing her the picture where a smiling Olivia was holding a single blueberry in front of the camera while Meghan stuck her tongue out.

“Sure, I like it. Send me the others so I can post one too,” she commented, looking at the picture quickly before turning her attention back to the road ahead.

Once they got back home, Meghan took place in one of the stools in the kitchen, while Olivia got everything she needed to bake. She was about to start the mixer when her friend got a text and cursed under her breath.

“Everything alright?” she wondered with a raised eyebrow, confused at her friend’s reaction.

“I have to teach a dance class and I completely forgot about it,” with an apology written all over her face, she stood up and gathered her stuff, “I’m sorry, Liv, but I need to go or I’m gonna have a bunch of angry moms complaining about my absence.”

“Yeah, sure. Go don’t worry,” Olivia assured her with a chuckle, “I’ll take these babies to your house once they’re ready.”

“You’re the best. Thank you!” Meghan stated before running back to her own house.

Deciding it was better to put on some music while she baked, she went to connect her phone to the Bluetooth speaker when the back door opened, and Charlie waved at her with a shy expression on his face.

“Meg said you could use some help with the muffins.”

“Uhm…” Olivia frowned her brows slightly, knowing this was Charlie trying to apologize and make things better, “just put on some music,” she handed him the speaker and started the mixer.

She wasn’t sure how she felt with him sitting on the stool his sister was on just a few minutes ago, but the burning anger she felt the first day she saw him was missing. But they were far from being friends again, she told herself.

“How was your hike?” The words left her mouth quietly as an attempt to make small conversation and feel a little less observed by him.

“It was great, we got a bunch of nice pictures,” and there it was, she smiled to herself when she heard the excitement in Charlie’s voice, “we had to come back earlier because Pat’s bike got a flat tire, but it was fun.”

“So, you guys went cycling,” she stated the obvious just to make him talk about his little trip. God, she missed the way Charlie used to tell her about his day and how excited he was about little things, the same excitement he had now as he told her about the perfect spot that he found to take pictures and how he promised to a couple that he would send the cute picture he took of them as soon as he could.

Charlie used to remind her of a puppy, filled with excitement and energy and she let out a chuckle when she realised he was just like he was when they were teenagers.

“Did I miss my own joke?” he questioned, tilting his head with amusement.

Olivia shrugged, without bothering to look at him, too busy with her task, and said, “you’re just like a puppy, Charlie.”

“You used to tell me that a lot back then,” he pondered biting his lower lip, the energy in the room shifting at the mention of the friendship they used to have.

“I know.”

She didn’t know what else to say because she didn’t know how she felt about their interaction. Or the fact that Charlie was sitting there, just a few feet away from her just like they used to be when they were younger. Him watching and telling her stories while she busied herself with a new recipe.

“I’m glad one of us actually became a chef,” Charlie spoke again, breaking the silence. The girl didn’t respond, she poured the mix into the muffin cups not letting his words disrupt her. Once the tray was in the oven, she turned around and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the nostalgia wash away and the resentment took its place.

“Some of us stick to what we said, Charles.” The bitterness in her voice made the boy close his eyes, knowing very well the course this conversation was about to take.

“How many times do I have to apologize, Olivia?” She scoffed and shook her head in disbelief.

“You haven't said sorry not even once, Charlie.” Sure he said sorry for getting into her backyard without permission and invading her space the past two days, but he never apologized for the shitty move he did four years ago.

“You don’t even let me talk!” He argued back.

“Oh, come on, Charlie!” Olivia rolled her eyes and pointed a finger at him, “don’t start with that bullshit because you had a whole week to apologize for leaving me on my own when you said you’d walk me home, but you chose to stay quiet and then leave the town without even saying goodbye.”

“Shit, Liv,” he whispered when he saw her eyes welling up with tears, “please don’t cry.”

“Do you even realize how bad I felt when you left without saying goodbye?” she questioned drying her cheeks with the back of her hand, “I saw you get in that car with all your belongings and I waited for you to come and say goodbye, to text me or call me but you just left and now you come here as if nothing happened.”

“Liv, I’m sorry,” he told her, standing up so he could get closer to the girl that was facing him with hurt in her eyes, fighting to hold back the tears from falling. “You need to believe when I tell you I’m fucking sorry for doing that.”

She jerked away from him when he tried to hold her. “Thanks for the apology,” Olivia inhaled deeply, the scent of Charlie’s cologne too intoxicating now that she was trying not to fall apart in front of him.

“If you want me to go, I’ll go,” he mumbled, understanding she probably needed some space.

“I’ll take the muffins to your place once they’re done.”

Charlie stood there, right in front of the girl that once was his partner in crime, but now they were practically strangers to each other and that was all his fault. He wished he could hold Olivia in his arms and tell her over and over again how deeply sorry he was for being such a coward, for leaving her without an explanation. He just wanted to take away all the pain he already caused her and somehow still manage to hurt her again. With a heavy sigh, the boy turned around and headed back to his house.

She sat in one of the stools, trying to calm her heart down and process whatever just happened. Charlie apologized but the annoying feeling that she needed more than just an apology didn’t leave her chest. An explanation would be good, maybe that way she would be able to actually forgive him and understand why he did it because right now, she didn’t really see them being friends again. Not when she was still holding a grudge against him.

Standing outside Charlie’s front door, with a tray full of freshly baked muffins in her hands, Olivia decided to go through the side door. She was met with nothing but silence while she made her way into the kitchen and saw a figure sitting with a guitar near the river through the window. Unlike her house, Charlie’s backyard was next to the river and the woods, where she remembered playing hide and seek with Charlie and Meghan when they were little.

She left the tray on the kitchen counter and headed to where Charlie was sitting. It was weird walking around his house, after all, she avoided the Gillespie family as much as she could when Charlie left and kept their interaction to a minimum, and hadn’t been inside in a long time.

“Hey,” she said softly, taking place next to him, “I brought the muffins.”

“Thanks, Liv,” he gave her a small smile before he continued playing a soft melody on his guitar.

“I still don’t understand why you did it,” Olivia managed to say after a few minutes of sitting together in complete silence.

“I didn’t want to, it just happened and then I fucked up things even more by not saying goodbye,” he explained and looked at her, “I thought I could just sneak out with Quinn because your house wasn’t far, I mean we were right here that day, and I wasn’t really thinking.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t talk to me that week before you left.”

He placed the guitar by his side, turning around to give Olivia his full attention, she looked at him with a mix of sadness and shyness in her brown eyes.

“When I left with Quinn we were going to her place and hook up, I’m sure you know that, but we didn’t ‘cause I called her Liv right before we did anything,” her cheeks blushed at his confession but unable to believe his words entirely, “that’s why we broke up soon after my birthday, and I was so fucking embarrassed about my feelings…”

“You were embarrassed because you liked me, way to go, Charlie,” she interrupted him slightly offended.

“I didn’t say that, let me finish,” He demanded getting frustrated with the conversation, “I was embarrassed because I called her your name because I was thinking of you in a moment I shouldn’t have,” he paused unsure of how Olivia was going to react at his next word, “that’s when I realised my feelings for you were a lot stronger than I thought and I got scared because I knew I was leaving.”

“Charlie,” she told him, confusion laced in her voice “did you even like Quinn?”

“No, not really. I kinda forced myself to be with her ‘cause I didn’t want to ruin our friendship” Charlie answered and then let out a sad laugh, “I guess it didn’t work out as good as I thought.”

“You know I liked you, right?” her voice was barely a whisper and her stomach fluttered when she saw him smile at her and nodded in response, “was I that obvious really?” When Charlie nodded again she covered her face with her hands in pure embarrassment.

“I’m really sorry, Liv,” he apologized again, and she rested her head on his shoulder, “if I could take all that back I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“I guess I understand now,” Charlie could hear the soft smile even if he wasn’t seeing her face, “don’t get me wrong, it hurt like shit to see how you moved on as if I didn’t exist, but I get that you were scared and we both ended up messing up our friendship.”

“Do you think we’ll ever be able to be friends again?” Olivia turned around, meeting his gaze and sighed.

“Maybe?” she answered, scrunching her nose unsure of it.

They stayed like that for a while, Charlie’s gaze moving from her eyes to her lips from time to time, debating if he should just go for it or not. It was her that took the initiative and leaned in, pressing their lips together in a kiss that, just like the apology, was long overdue.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he murmured against her lips before kissing her again, leaving the shyness behind and cupping her face between his hands pulling her closer as if that way they could make up all the time they spent apart.

They both pulled away when they heard his older brother hollering at them from the balcony and Olivia laughed when Charlie flipped him the middle finger. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

Of course, they still needed to talk a lot and find a way to work things out now that their feelings were out on display. But she had a good feeling about giving them a new shot, because, after all those years, they still managed to find their way back to each other.

#charlie gillespie imagine #charlie gillespie x oc #charlie gillespie fanfic #charlie gillespie one shot #jatp cast imagine #charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie x y/n #luke patterson x reader #jatp imagine

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gureishi · 4 years ago

Note

prompt 2 with v tysm take care of you ^^

Thank you for this wonderful request, and apologies for taking my time writing it!

I thought a whole lot about this prompt and Jihyun and my mind said PINING and I wrote this long, sprawling thing. It’s a slightly different format from my other requests—I hope you don’t mind! Writing this made me feel all kinds of things. ♡♡

two: fall into yours arms again

JihyunxReader, G, words: 3620

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

97 days

It’s windy today.

You wake up late and throw open the window that you can reach from your bed. The sun’s already high in the sky and beating down through the thin, gauzy curtains. You need to buy new curtains.

The window sticks; you push; it opens. The cool breeze whips through your hair, in stark contrast to the sun—nauseatingly hot and dry. The wind cools your neck, wipes away the last remnants of what you suspect was a nightmare.

Though it’s June, the air still smells of spring. The azaleas in the community garden down the street have wilted, but some of their fragrance is in the air today, and it startles you, spins your head around.

He left in March and the chaos of April and May have been locked away in your memory, behind a wall that says think about this later. Now it’s undeniably summer, the days lengthening, your tendency to sleep through the morning worsening. Time has slowed: the afternoons feel languid and the nights unbearably long. You stretch, letting your shirt—his shirt—fall off your shoulder. It’s long lost its scent by now, grown softer as you’ve slept in it, worn it while cleaning up the little loft you once lived in by yourself. You lived here what feels like forever ago, before you made the misguided decision that led to your life turning upside down and now, somehow, righting itself in ways you still don’t understand.

“I miss you,” you mouth into the wind.

。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

191 days

When you get home you’re shivering, underdressed and underprepared for the turn in the weather. You turn the key in the lock, shoulders hunched against the cruel chill that has abruptly permeated your quiet little neighborhood.

You slip inside and shut the door, the wind chimes jangling harshly. You toss your things haphazardly to the side—keys, bag, sunglasses, coffee cup. Everything you needed for the day except a stupid jacket.

The house is cool, too—the wood floors retain some of the warmth of summer but you haven’t turned the heat on yet out of some convoluted mixture of stubbornness and frugality. You shrug on your thickest, floppiest sweater and move through the house, closing the windows one at a time. You shouldn’t have left them open to begin with.

You survey the mess you’ve made: bag spilling out onto your multicolored shag rug, sunglasses hanging over the hand-painted lamp on the side table. You decide to leave them there.

As you so often do lately, you slip into the well-worn chair at your small desk in the corner, under the little window that faces north. You rub your hands together, gaze at the growing pile of paper, stacked precariously high. You know there’s work to be done, emails to be answered—instead, you pull a new sheet of paper toward you, begin a letter than can never be sent.

“How are you?” you write. “It’s getting cold here. I hope it’s warm where you are.” You pause, well-chewed pen cap in your mouth. Scrawl the words you know he won’t read on the paper you have no way to send to him. “I think about you,” you write. “Every single day.”

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277 days

You laugh and wave and laugh again as you see the grey cloud your warm breath makes in the air.

You call out a last goodbye toward your friends’ receding backs and then wrap your scarf more tightly around your neck, feeling the cold more strongly now that you’re alone. You make your way back through your neighborhood, stopping only to pet the head of the tabby cat that your down-the-street neighbor lets roam free. The sun is setting—the midday chill is turning to a biting evening cold.

You approach your little loft: open the gate, half-run down the path. When, you think, will this feel like a home again? How long, you wonder, till this feels more real that those two weeks that are still illuminated in your memory, brighter even than the events of yesterday or last month or last summer?

Automatically, you check your mailbox. Automatically, you riffle through the bills you can just barely pay and the magazines subscribed to by the apartment’s former occupants. At the very bottom, there’s an envelope, one side covered completely in stamps. You climb the steps, peering at it curiously. You recognize the writing.

You trip.

You should get back up and go in the house and turn on the lights—open the letter where it’s warm and bright. But instead you stay right where you are, on the bottom step, jacket twisted up under you. You tear off one mitten, your hands shaking a little, and open the envelope.

“Dearest,” he’s written. “I don’t know if I’ve sent this the right way or how long it will take to reach you.”

There are already frozen tears on your eyelashes, blurring your vision. You wipe them away frantically with your other hand, still engulfed in your warm, chunky mitten.

“There’s no regular post office where I am so I had to improvise,” he goes on. His thin, messy scrawl is the same as you remember it. You can feet your heartbeat in your fingertips. “Still, that’s no excuse. I’ve written so many letters to you and thrown so many away. I never knew where to begin. I hope you can forgive me.”

The tears are falling hard and fast now, and you give up on wiping them, squinting to read the minuscule letters he’s crammed onto one single sheet of paper.

He describes where he’s staying in detail. It’s beautiful and evocative and you can tell that he’s stalling.

He asks after you—how your work has been going, how you’ve settled back into your own home, if you’ve been eating well. He asks after the RFA too, one at a time, by name. This answers a question that’s been lingering in the back of your mind—so it’s true, you think. He’s written to no one else.

The final paragraph is neater that the rest, as if he’s written and re-written it, practiced and copied it over.

“I am trying to live in the present moment and not worry over the future,” he says. “But every night I can’t help but imagine the life we could have together, when we are both ready. Do you imagine it too?” Your eyes are blurry with tears. “I miss you,” he writes, and you mouth the words as you read them, almost able to hear them in his sweet, gentle voice.

“If you don’t feel like writing me, I’ll understand,” he says. “But I’ll be at this address for some time, so please do write, if you like.” You think of all the letters, the ever-growing pile on and under your desk. You giggle through your tears, imagining how much it would cost to send them all.

He signs the letter “Yours.” At the bottom he’s added cramped letters, so small you have to bend over, nose almost touching the paper, to read them. “By the way,” he writes. “Please call me Jihyun.”

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352 days

To you, March will always be him: the sudden rain showers in the midst of sunny days are his eyes and the scent of plum blossoms in the air is the indescribable warmth of his arms.

There’s a string of pictures now above your bed—you’ve hung each one that he’s sent, strung them up on a piece of bright green yarn. When you told him you’d started doing this, he began sending them with a hole already punched in the top—delicate, perfectly round, just the right size.

You sit on the floor, bare legs extended in front of you, a book propped on your lap.

“All the snow has melted except for the one, long icicle outside my window,” you write. “I think I’ve grown attached to it, and I’ll be sad when it’s gone.”

Your letters have grown longer over the months—his last was five whole pages, front and back. He sends photographs he’s taken of the beautiful landscape where he’s living and sketches he’s made, mostly of nature—and a few of you.

He includes vague references to his companion, and though he’s never mentioned him by name, it’s become clear to you who he’s with. It’s brought you immense comfort to know—if not in much detail—that he is alive and well.

“Tomorrow I’ll be seeing everyone,” you write. “I know you both still need more time, but not being able to give them any news is killing me. Not everyone is doing so well, you know.” You bite your lip, consider crossing off the last few lines. You don’t. He’s healing—and you’d give anything in the world to ensure that he has the space and time he needs. That they both do. But the time you spend with the other members has been dwindling and the evidence of their suffering—some of them more than others—is becoming abundantly clear.

“I think I want to have a party,” you write. “Not for months, maybe longer, but I want to start thinking about it. I think it might help.”

You sip from the glass of water you’ve set on the floor next to you, swirl it around a little to listen to the sound of the ice clinking.

“I miss you desperately,” you write. “And I love you, Jihyun.”

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478 days

The song that plays through your headphones is soft and pretty, not nearly loud enough to drown out the shouting of the street vendors and the overall atmosphere of chaos. It’s Sunday, and you’ve ventured into the city to shop. You don’t love the crowds or the fast pace, but you do relish the savory scents drifting from food stalls and the feeling of your thin pants swooshing against your legs.

You hoist the two large fabric grocery bags up; they’re nearly slipping out of your sweat-slick hands again. The mid-afternoon July sun beats down on you. You slow your pace.

It’s been a few weeks since you’ve gotten a letter. This isn’t shocking—he’s staying somewhere new now, and it’s even more remote than before. He has to travel into town to mail his letters, so the gaps between them have grown longer. You’re used to it, but you still can’t help feeling like a cold hand is clenching around your heart whenever you check the mailbox and find it empty.

You reach the train station, grip both bags with one hand so you can tap your card. You go through the motions: standing in the station, boarding the train. As you have so many times, you repeat the words of his last letter in your mind. You know it by heart.

“I bought plane tickets last week,” he wrote. “He hasn’t been feeling well the last few days and we decided together to cancel them.”

This isn’t a first either—the tickets bought, the tickets cancelled. And you know that it isn’t just Jihyun’s “companion” who needs more time. They are both still healing—physically, mentally, emotionally.

“Please tell me when you decide on a date for the party,” he wrote. “I’m sorry to hear the plans aren’t going smoothly. And I’m sorrier that I can’t offer the other members some solace—particularly where it concerns him. I must respect his wish for privacy.”

The train is packed; you set your bags at your feet so you can hold on. The gentle rocking motion is familiar; the air conditioning is a relief.

“I saw a flower yesterday that I couldn’t identify. It was raining here, but the flower’s petals were open. I was afraid it would wilt from the force of the rain, but it didn’t. I watched it for a long time, and saw the raindrops collect inside it. I thought of you.”

The train rumbles to a stop. More people get on. You adjust. A new song plays in your headphones—it’s slow and a little melancholy.

“Every morning I imagine the things I will do with you in our bright and beautiful future,” he wrote.

The train picks up speed again. Sweaty people read newspapers and speak quietly to one another, underscored by the gentle music in your ears. You close your eyes.

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555 days

You run to catch the bus, the leaves crunching delightfully under your feet. It’s pulling into your stop as you’re crossing the street and—why does this always happen?—you bow your head and sprint, waving frantically at the driver.

The driver sees you. Smiles. Waits.

“Thank you,” you pant, jumping the steps two at a time.

“It’s okay. I remember you.”

Ouch.

You stumble to a seat and collapse into it. If you’re late for the bus often enough that the driver remembers you, you’ve really got to try and pull yourself together.

You comb a hand through your sweaty hair. It’s hard, as it turns out, planning an RFA party while keeping up with your old life—you’ve got one foot in the world of working and cleaning and paying bills and the other in the world of CEOs and mysterious guests and anonymous donors.

As you’re catching your breath, you pull the newest letter from your bag. It arrived just this morning—perhaps that was why you almost missed the bus again—and you’ve only read it once so far. You scan the page with eager eyes, searching as you so often do for clues and hints and promises hidden between the lopsided words.

“I made a painting today,” he tells you. “I won’t describe it to you, because I want to show it to you in person.”

But when? you want to ask. You can’t help the frustration that’s creeping under your skin. The bus rocks; you lean your head against the window.

“I’ve realized something,” he writes. “I wonder what you think about it. I feel closer to you than I’ve felt to anyone before. And yet every day I find things I still don’t know about you, because of our circumstances. What are your favorite things to eat? What smells make you reminisce about the past? What music makes you sleepy?”

You sigh, fold up the letter. It’s true, you think. You love him with a warmth that encompasses your whole being—a feeling you’d never even dared to imagine. But how does his face look in the morning when he sleeps through his alarm? Which groceries does he always forget to buy?

You don’t write these questions down. Instead you turn over the letter, scribble on the back.

“The party will be March 24th.”

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641 days

It hardly snows this winter, but it rains. The sound of the rain fills your dreams: it pounds on the roof of your little apartment, and you wake up and run to the kitchen to check that the window is closed. It fills your waking hours, thrumming on your giant umbrella as you navigate the narrow streets of the city. When it lets up, you still hear it, humming in your eardrums, reverberating inside your chest.

You sit at your desk again. No longer is it covered in stacks of paper, records of yearning—those letters have been long sent or put away in pretty boxes with colored lids. Your laptop buzzes, hopelessly trying to cool itself down. You press send and cut the frightening number of messages in your inbox down by just one more.

You lean back in your chair. The rain goes tap tap tap on the roof and you rub your sore neck. It’s a Friday night and even in this weather, you can hear the distant sounds of people gathering at the bar on the corner. You open another email.

“I’m working hard,” you wrote in your last letter to him. “Sometimes I feel that I can barely keep up with it all. Other times I’m sure I’m burying myself in all of this work on purpose, making myself busy so I don’t have to feel lonely.”

You scan the email with expert eyes, dash off a quick reply. Both are true, you suppose—planning a proper party, not one hastily thrown together in a few weeks under extreme circumstances, is a full-time job all on its own. But you are lonely, you think, taking a break to stretch your arms over your head. There are people around you all the time, but your chest feels hollow. “I’m taking good care of myself,” you wrote to him last week. “I do feel fulfilled. But…”

But you can no longer re-create in your mind the exact way that he smells, the sweet freshness of nuzzling your face into his shoulder. You can’t always hear his voice clearly in your mind when you read the sweet, beautiful words he writes to you. “I love you like the way the ocean crashes into the rocks and then spills peacefully over the sand,” he writes. “Does that make sense?”

It does.

You shake your head to clear it, type a few brief, carefully-worded lines.

“I’m ready,” you say out loud, and the words echo in your apartment: warm and cluttered and bright and full to the brim with thoughts of him. “I’m ready when you are.”

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702 days

For the first time, you wait to read his letter.

You find it in the mailbox as you’re leaving in the morning and you whisper “patience” to yourself as you walk to the bus. You wait at the light, you cross the street. You sit at the bus stop for two whole minutes before the bus arrives and the driver raises his eyebrows at you in surprise.

“Patience,” you whisper to yourself again as you exit the bus, breathing in the fresh, early-spring air. And “patience,” you think, as you greet the venue manager and listen to her running through the event checklist for what feels like the eight hundredth time.

“Almost,” you tell yourself as you leave, taking a picture on your phone of the orange and purple sky. You board the bus again, watch the sunset fade into star-speckled navy through the smudged window.

“Now,” you say out loud as you unlock the door to your flat, hanging your light jacket and keys on the hooks you’ve recently mounted by the door. “Now.”

You tear into the letter as you make your way to the bedroom, turning on lamps as you go, bathing the room in amber light.

You pull out the paper and your hands, steady all day, start to shake. You hold it up to the light. It’s shorter than usual. He’s written your name at the top and he’s answered your questions, described a walk he took on the waterfront yesterday, offered updates on the plants growing beside the house where he’s staying.

And at the bottom, he’s sketched a picture in light blue ink. His lines are soft and wavy, but the details are clear: it’s two plane tickets. They’re dated.

You inhale sharply.

Thirty-two more days.

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734 days

It’s warm, but not too warm. The lights are dim, but not too dim. The air is lightly scented like spring flowers and rain, but it’s not overwhelming, and the chatter of the crowd is enthusiastic and warm.

In other words, you’ve done a very good job.

You step onto the balcony for a moment, patting your red cheeks with both hands. You’ve been receiving compliments all night and it’s made you feel like you’re floating several centimeters off the ground. You’re proud of yourself—you worked hard for this.

But as the night’s worn on, your anticipation has built to a fever pitch, and you have to keep reminding yourself to breathe. If he were arriving on any other day, you’d be meeting him in private— and would you feel more or less nervous, then? You can’t decide.

But of course it’s today, because the most important events of your life always seem to coalesce around each other. There’s a beautiful garden surrounding the party venue and you take comfort in the ivy wrapped around the wrought-iron trellis; it reaches almost as high as your eye level and its balance of sturdiness and delicacy gives you strength.

You slip back inside, take in the groups of expensively-dressed people clustered around tall, elegant tables. There’s a string quartet in one corner and a mouth-watering array of hors d’oeuvres arranged toward the back wall.You straighten out your clothes surreptitiously, sneak a peak at the clock, flash a bright smile at the nearest group of guests .

And then, for a reason you’ll never be able to explain, you know what’s about to happen. Your eyes fly to the door. You gravitate toward it like a moth to a lamp and you know no one else has noticed but somehow you feel that the room has quieted for you.

The door opens. Your hands fly to your mouth.

“Hi,” he says.

He’s always been spring to you but it’s as if he’s brought summer with him. He’s taller than you remember and his collared shirt is open and he’s got the warmest smile you’ve seen in your whole life. Your thrill and worry and hope are reflected in his bright eyes.

He holds out a hand—cautiously, as if afraid you’ll float away. You take it and his fingers are soft and cool, like the petals of a flower.

“Welcome home,” you say. “Jihyun.”

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in my future mysme writings <3

@currentlyprocrastinating @thesirenwashere @ultrasupernini @cro0kedme @otomefoxystar @dawn-skies06 @nad-zeta

#mystic messenger #mysticmessenger #mysme #request #gureishi writes requests #jihyun kim #v #jihyun x reader #v x reader #hunterelys

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carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory · 4 years ago

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A Little Harbinger of Spring…

by Bob Androw

As I begin to write this, it’s early March, the sun is shining, the temperature outside is climbing over 50°F and I’m starting to think… “I need to go look for some deer poop!”

As an entomologist, I’ve developed a mental calendar not based on seasons or months… but rather on what species of insects are likely to be out and about on any given day of the year. Once summer arrives, the specificity disappears and it just becomes a question of whether it’s a “good bug day” or not – based entirely on the weather and my chances of prying myself out of the museum (or the house, in these new times) to go somewhere and chase them.

During autumn, the onset of wet weather and cooling temperatures gradually reduces the number of active insects. Like most organisms, I tend to head for shelter from the outside environment, settling indoors to wait out the winter. Of course, winter is time for “bug work” as well – but rather than hunting living specimens, time is dedicated to catching up on the lab work set aside during ‘collecting’ season. This entails pinning and labeling specimens collected earlier in the year, performing identifications, data-basing specimen records, and working on manuscripts.

But then there’s spring – that pivotal period that influences one to keep checking the weather forecast, hoping for warming days. This seemingly never-arriving season focuses one’s attention on how fast the last snow is melting off. It’s a time that has me searching for signs of plant shoots breaking the soil surface and tree buds exhibiting tiny slivers of green to announce the upcoming burst of foliage.

Hardwood forest habitat in late winter at Powdermill Nature Reserve in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. Image courtesy of the Powdermill Nature Reserve Facebook page.

Once these signs converge to indicate spring is just around the corner – it’s time to test the theory that winter is finally ending by – you got it! – going to look for deer poop!

Now, don’t get me wrong – deer regularly poop all year round – which is good for them – but during the first warm days of spring – or more accurately the warmest days of late winter – a little beetle becomes active and begins its own search for deer dung.

A typical pile of deer dung. The pellet in the lower left corner shows a hole created by a feeding beetle.

The species Dialytellus tragicus (Schmidt, 1916) is a mere 3mm in length and one of only two species in the genus Dialytellus. My favorite location to search for it is the museum’s field research station, Powdermill Nature Reserve, in the Laurel Highlands. Dialytellus tragicus is found in forested areas of the northeastern United States, but is sporadic in distribution and never seems to be overly common. The other species in the genus, Dialytellus dialytoides (Fall, 1907), is more widely distributed in the eastern states, much more common, and is taken frequently in pitfall traps. The genus Dialytellus is a member of the large subfamily Aphodiinae in the large family Scarabaeidae, the scarab beetles.

The Aphodiinae is a diverse group of small to tiny beetles, with over 400 species occurring in the United States and Canada. Nearly all of them are specialists on animal dung for feeding as adults and for provisioning their larvae with food. Many are considered ‘generalists’ which means they will utilize whatever dung they find – from cattle, horses, deer, pigs, dogs, and even humans (Oh, there are some stories to tell there…). Some species dig tunnels in the soil under dung and create brood chambers where they lay eggs on dung brought down from the source on the ground surface, but most lay eggs directly in the dung and the larvae develop within.

A fair number of aphodiine species are ‘specialists’, utilizing dung from only certain species of animals. In the Great Plains region of the U.S., the group reaches its greatest diversity of species for North America, with most species being obligate associates with prairie dogs, living in the burrows and feeding in the dung ‘middens’ that the resident prairie dogs create. In the Pacific Northwest, aphodiines are often associated with the burrows of marmots. In the Southeast, many species are associated only with pocket gophers, while a few have evolved to live only in the nests of squirrels, or packrats, feeding on decaying nest materials. Some of these specialized beetles have even evolved to live in ant nests, feeding on plant detritus in the ants’ garbage heaps.

Dialytellus tragicus (Schmidt, 1916). Specimen data: PENNSYLVANIA: Westmoreland County, Powdermill Nature Reserve, 15 March 2003, in deer dung, R. Androw, coll. Image from BugGuide.net, courtesy of Blaine Mathison, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dialytellus tragicus is able to pull me out of the house and into the woods in late winter on an annual search first for piles of deer dung, and then if lucky, beetles. The beetles can be found inside the deer dung pellet, which means the search entails splitting dung pellets to find the precious one with a beetle inside. Thankfully, deer dung is dry and hard and has little odor, so the process is less offensive than it sounds. Still, I would guess that laying on one’s side in the leaves, splitting pellets with a forceps as if they were little coconuts with prizes inside, isn’t a common way to celebrate the onset of Spring – no Facebook group for us folks!

Most specimens that I have collected have been found during the middle two weeks of March, always on days where the temperatures have been over 50°F for at least the preceding three days. It takes a few days of warmer weather to get the beetles up and moving. I’ve learned that searching for them later in the year – say mid-April – never produces specimens of D. tragicus, but instead produces numerous specimens of another aphodiine, the extremely abundant generalist, Oscarinus rusicola (Melsheimer, 1845). Circumstantial evidence would suggest that as D. tragicus evolved alongside O. rusicola in eastern forests of North America it shifted its period of activity to earlier in the season to avoid competition for resources with the more abundant O. rusicola.

By the end of February of any normal year, the urge to get out of the house and into the woods starts to become irresistible, but the insects are more patient – waiting for the perfect number of degree-days to become active. Knowing this little beetle is out there early – and is not necessarily easy to find – provides the perfect impetus to shake off the winter dust and go out to look for it. In a year like the one we’ve all suffered through, this little beetle is even more appreciated as an excuse to rouse and get moving again.

Bob Androw is a Collection Manager for Invertebrate Zoology. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

#Carnegie Museum of Natural History #Spring #Beetles #Entomology #Entomologist

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fishmongeringstudies · 3 years ago

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eight: if time can't heal it and love can't save it and hope won't keep you alive anymore

it turns out the ceiling light in my room was kind of busted. for three months i thought light fixtures in america were just Like That but looking at this one, right now, i realize light fixtures are supposed to be Like This, by which i mean bright enough to see your hands under, by which i mean bright enough to illuminate someone's eyes and fifteen gold earrings and teeth. the teeth are important. though if they aren't laughing very much i guess it won't matter.

lately i've been telling myself the same narrative over and over again in a grim attempt to retain my sanity. it goes like this: dear me, i say while punching a wall like a well-muscled thirty-something year old white male starring in a hollywood film in which his wife runs away with another man and he's heartbroken and super hung up over it but mainly disappointed to find that instant noodles don't taste as good without soft-boiled eggs in them. dear me, i repeat for dramatic effect. then i say it thirty more times, really fast, like bloody mary in your bathroom mirror on steroids.

dear bloody, bloody me. are you listening? so i know things aren't going so great right now and i know you struggle to walk down this hallway without thinking about someone's shadow on the wall and i know the last two months have been so awful you sleep in two hour bursts now like batman on a three week stakeout, like someone who can't afford to take their eyes off the door, but one day you're going to have the best fucking story to tell at dinner parties, and everyone's going to be mesmerized because 1) you're really good at telling stories that are so fucked up they're funny and 2) you're really hot and this story is so fucked up it's funny and you're always going to be hot so they're all going to fall in love with you and you're going to break all their hearts in alphabetical order and it's going to be great.

dear me: i know you're miserable.

i know how i've set this up. you're leaning forward in your seat now. we're at the dinner party i talked about in march, april, may. you're in a tux or a dress with a ruffled collar and i'm talking about how my first semester of college in america was a joke, and you look super hot and i look super hot and everyone looks super hot because all my friends are hot and funny and good at telling stories, but right before you can ask me what i mean by a joke (was it a good joke? a bad joke? did anyone get hurt?), i put my glass on the table and wander off into the crowd.

that is to say: it is not the time yet to tell The Story. but we can talk about the aftermath.

this room looks out over the other side of the building. it has a view of the greenhouse, partially obscured by a large tree with green, heart-shaped leaves. the bedframe is situated at such a ridiculous height that i can sit underneath it without hitting my head, and there's blu tack stuck to the walls, the shadow of spring, old signs of life. one of the drawers in the dresser is crooked. there's a table light that doesn't work. there are water rings on the table.

during the last leg of finals week i dragged myself out of my room for dinner because i refused to sit at my desk and be sad on a friday evening, even though the alternative was to sit in one of those white lawn chairs on the grass and be sad under a slate-gray sky, and halfway through the bit where the protagonist accidentally gets locked inside the room where he's being served a three-course meal and the staff tell him to punch a hole in the wall to get out and he's like i can't do that, i can't break this nice-looking wall and then he breaks the nice-looking wall, when the day was getting late enough that the sky was starting to look less slate-gray and more like a black eye, someone came up to me with a rolled-up yoga mat slung over one shoulder and a camera in her hands. 'i need to shoot something for a final project due tomorrow,' she said. 'can i borrow your hands?'

even the cornered mouse has broken someone's nose before. paintings on cave walls were made by people with skin just like ours. when you feel like you've been backed into a corner and you have nothing and will never have anything ever again, remember this: you are part of someone's spring 2021 final project. you with your super fucked up fingers and your book about the guy who, after punching himself out of that wall, went home with half a rewritten manuscript and met his old lover who, instead of getting married, realized he had followed the wrong person home and had thus taken the necessary steps to rectify his mistake. i am describing the final beats of andrew greer's less. but no conclusion is worth much without a beginning.

where does this story begin? was it that snowed-in morning in washington dc when i stepped off the plane feeling like i'd left half of my heart in the seat pocket? was it the long car ride to school, leaving muffin-crumbs all over the upholstery, the cold wind in my face and the radio blaring through the soft, serrated static? was it that first evening in the half-lit hallway?

it's hard to identify the start of a nightmare. fear has a tendency to reach backwards in time with painted nails and skin, and strangle your past selves so as to prevent the re-introduction of light. this part i won't tell at the dinner party, so i can tell you. in my first semester of college in america i made the wrong friend a few times. one of them was really, really wrong.

but it's never too late to call quits. walk off the set. get in your car. go home. and if you need to, if home becomes homicide, ask for help. the world isn't all mouse-traps and misery. some people want you to flourish. i know it's a hard idea to wrap your head around. you're sitting across from me in a mcdonald's with your metal straw sticking out of your mouth and you're frowning at me. you think i'm full of shit.

it's true though. one day i'll drive you to a dinner party and i'll tell you about my personal sleep paralysis demon, circa 2021, and you'll be mesmerized because i'm good at telling fucked up stories in a way that makes people laugh and my voice will be really hot so everyone will be super bothered by 1) how fucked up this guy is and 2) my really hot voice and then the story will end and i'll smile in the half-light and end with my signature line about how first impressions are all wrong and you should never trust a stranger who says they want the best for you and also people who talk to you in bathrooms are not doing okay and you should stay away from them. and then i'll say but this lady was really nice, and my friends stayed mad when i got too tired to be anything but miserable, and i nicknamed him richard the slut after richard from the secret history by donna tartt, which i was rereading at the time, and one time someone said 'i'll never be able to look at him without thinking of 'richard the slut' again' and i laughed so hard i punctured a lung, and have i mentioned i have really funny friends? you'll say no. i'll say it again. i have really funny friends. you're a really funny friend.

today i pour strawberry-lime kool aid into two teacups and we reminisce about the good old days, when we thought everyone had a sense of basic human decency.

maybe i'll sleep with the light on tonight. i mean look at it. it's such a nice light.

05.28.21

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velvetthunder1999 · 4 years ago

Text

All the time on Earth

Part 9 - Hogsmeade Rendezvous

Summary: You and George spend the whole day together in Hogsmeade, falling for each other more and more

Warning: None, fluff

Word count: 3.4K

George Weasley x Reader

Masterlist

“Fred cannot come with us,” said George sitting down next to you. “Teachers know we’ll get nothing done together so they send us to detention on seperate days.”

“When’s yours?” you asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“They act like after writing some lines I wouldn’t do it again,” he rolled his eyes. “Or that I‘d regret what I did.”

“Do you?”

“Hexing Slytherins on corridors? Never.”

He looked at you, waiting for you to smile. You pressed your lips together, fighting a snicker.

“C’mon, that was funny!”

“I’m trying not to encourage you too much.”

“Yeah?” he looked deeply into your eyes. “Not even a little?”

You two locked eyes. He was stubborn. He raised his eyebrows, teasing you. You were about to loose. A grin appeared on his face. The edge of your lips curled up, then you burst out laughing.

He felt quite pleased with himself.

“So, what do you want to do today?” you asked. “I have sandwiches from the kitchen so we don’t have to hurry back too early.”

Spending more time with you? For George it was an absolute win.

“I don’t know. Where would you wanna go?

“Well, Honeydukes, obviously. And Ginny said there’s a café not far from the post office, I’d like to try that.”

“Alright” he said. “I need to go to Zonko’s as well. The only problem is — never mind.”

“What?” you asked kindly. God, you were always so kind.

“I don’t really have much money in the moment,” he casted down his eyes, even though he didn’t want to.

“Oh, that’s okay,” you said, searching in your pockets. “How much do you have? I’m not very rich at the moment, either. I have…. four… seventeen… twenty — I have four galleons and twenty one sickles.”

You put the coins on the table. George searched around in his own pockets.

“It’s three galleons, one sickle and seven knuts. Brilliant,” he sad in a sad voice.

“Oh, it’s okay,” you said, reassuringly patting his hand. “We can always act like rich people.”

George snorted.

“What do you mean?”

You raised your head and your tone became rather snobbish.

“Well, darling, a bright mind always finds way to make ends according to his needs.”

George started laughing then pressed his fingers together like he was holding a tea cup.

“Indeed, indeed, my dear. Now, please let me escort you to the nearest gate. Let us enjoy this splendid day!

You laughed then stood up, grabbing his hand and pulling him up, too.

“Alright, come on!” you let go of him and George felt his palms very empty. “Let’s go.”

You hurried down to the Entrance Hall and got dressed in your coats before stepping outside. It was unusually cold this day; the night before had been snowing, probably for the last time this school year. It was already the end of March.

Cold wind welcomed you outside as you started making your way to the village. You tied your scarf around your neck, but you still seemed to be freezing. George saw how you were shivering and stopped walking.

“Are you cold?”

“Yeah a little, so let’s hurry up. I wanna drink something warm.”

“Wait,” he said, a bit nervous. Then he started rubbing your arms to make you warmer, “Better?”

“Yeah, you should do my ears instead,” you said smiling and before he could say anything you grabbed his hands and put them over your ears. You laughed and asked teasingly. “Ah, better, you think we can walk like this?”

George didn’t know how to respond, all he could focus on was his hands on your cheeks. But you were not wearing any hat for the winter and your ears were really cold.

“Do you wanna go back and get you a hat?” he asked, still holding your face. He didn’t really want to let go but he didn’t want to be awkward either. He pointed at the castle. “We’re still pretty close.”

“No, it’s alright. I don’t have a hat, maybe I should buy one.”

“Your mum doesn’t make you one for Christmas?”

He already regretted the sentence as soon as he had said it.

“I’m sorry, I mean — Y/N, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

You smiled at him and gently squeezed his arm through his coat.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it, really,” you started walking again and George followed. “So your mum’s making you all those jumpers and hats? That’s really sweet.”

“Yeah, you know it’s easier than buying everything.”

“More personal, too.”

He saw some kind of longing in your eyes. He stopped again and took his knitted hat from his head, holding it out for you.

“Here. Take it.”

You looked at him, confused.

“What?”

“Yeah, take it. I’ll get an other one. And you’re freezing, aren’t ya?”

You hesitated.

“I don’t wanna take your stuff, it’s yours.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

His smile seemed to convince you. You took the hat and put it on, nicely adjusting your locks of hair.

“Thank you. How do I look?” you asked him, posing.

“Beautiful,” blurted out George.

He couldn’t say anything else. You were beautiful, with your scarf matching your eyes, with his hat on your head. You were wearing his hat. His chest was so warm, and his heart was beating really, really fast.

You were caught off guard by the comment and even though you looked a bit shy, you still gave him a warm smile in return.

“Well, thank you. Can we go?”

You sped up and reached the village in ten minutes. You decided to check out that café first that Ginny mentioned, which turned out to be Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop. After you both looked at the pink door and windows filled with pink and purple tea cups, you agreed without words that this was not a place for you.

“Zonko’s?” you said, fighting a laugh.

“Yes. Please,” said George still hallucinating from all the pink.

You went over to Zonko’s where you ran into Lee. You three had a laugh about Fred who was probably bored out of his mind at detention. Then George bought everything he wanted and the two of you headed to Honeydukes.

George was searching your face all the time, unable to look away from you for more than ten seconds. He continuosly glanced at your hat, his hat, and couldn’t help but imagining how nice it would be, you always wearing his clothes, because you wouldn’t be just friends anymore, because you would be so much more than that.

“You know if you like the hat, I can always send an owl to mum, ask her to make you one.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. When’s your birthday? I’ll have your present by then.”

“Well, you have time, my birthday was just in February.”

“Wait, what?” he exclaimed. “But it’s the end of March! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t really care for it” you shrugged. “Ginny got me a nice perfume, though.”

George was not satisfied with the answer at all.

“I have to get you something.”

Your laugh was a bit dry.

“Oh, you don’t need to get me anything.”

“At least something from Honeydukes. Please, Y/N.”

He looked in your eyes. Your stern expression seemed to melt a little.

“We’ll see,” you said.

As you entered the store you quickly grabbed a package and went to the counter to pay for it. The lady smiled at you and said, “Three sickles, darling.” You reached for the money but George was faster. He placed the coins on the counter.

“Hey!” you said, half laughing, half scolding. “You didn’t need to do that!”

“Never mind that, I wanted to.”

“Alright, you know what? When’s your birthday?”

“It’s gonna be in April.”

“Perfect. Let’s see — Fizzing Whizbees. You like those, don’t you?”

You grabbed the package and gave it to the lady.

“This one’s also three sickles.”

“Great,” you gave the money to the lady and turned to George. “Happy Early Birthday.”

“Thanks,” he said, feeling a bit weird. When you left the store and were walking again, he looked at you and said, “Why didn’t you let me give you something?”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t want to owe people.”

“But you wouldn’t owe me. I’d get you something for your birthday, then you get me something for mine. Next year it starts over.”

“Yeah, we don’t know that, do we?”

Your tone was so dark it made George concerned.

“Are you saying we’re not gonna be friends next year?”

“I’ve never said that.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

You stopped, looking at George. It seemed like you were arguing with yourself. George felt a nervous feeling in his stomach. He was afraid he did something that he wasn’t even aware of. Or that you don’t find him trustworthy enough to tell him what’s bothering you.

You sighed and shook your head. You put a weak smile on you face and grabbed George’s hand again.

“I’m sorry. I know lately I’m a bit rough. Exams and everything. It’s nothing against you, though.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

George believed you. Your anwer seemed genuine. And you were still holding his hand which just made him dizzy.

“Are you hungry?” you said, letting go of him again. “It’s almost one o’clock. We should eat the sandwiches.”

You two found a little shelter at the end of the village that consisted of three benches under a wooden roof. It was good enough for you since it wasn’t covered in snow; you sat down and opened your bag to get the food. You had two portion each, you gave one to George and then took a bite out of yours.

George found it quite idyllic, sitting at the foot of the mountains, eating lunch, adoring you from up close, smiling to himself whenever you meet his eyes or say something nice.

“George?”

“Mm?”

“I cannot eat if you keep staring at me.”

“What?” he said dully. “I wasn’t staring.”

“Sure,” you laughed. George felt his ears going red alongside with his whole face.

“You just… reminded me of someone,” he lied.

“Yeah?” you said, a bit disappointed. “Who?”

Shit. George couldn’t think. You made him so nervous. So awkward. He was happy Fred couldn’t see this cause he’d never hear the end of it. He raised his head, ready to mumble something — and then pointed next to the house in front of you.

“Bloody hell, look at that huge dog!”

You followed his glaze and your eyes grew wide.

“I’ve seen this dog before! Enormous, isn’t it?”

The dog saw the two of you and now was getting closer and closer. It stopped ten feet away from you and started wagging its tail. He looked at you with an incredibly smart expression, then sat down and held up its paws. George saw you looking at your sandwich then the dog.

“He must be hungry,” you said.

“I know. Wanna give him something?”

“Here. Come on…” you held out your sandwich to the dog.

“Careful, Y/N,” said George, but rather just to make sure. The dog didn’t seem to be wild, he looked quite friendly.

You put the food down and the dog ate it in three bites. George gave the rest of his sandwich to him as well. You reached for another.

“I wonder if someone’s missing him. I don’t see a collar, though.”

“He must’ve got used to the forest. Kids feeding him, probably.”

“Yeah. Hello — ” you wanted to pet the dog but that didn’t let you. He backed away after grabbing the sandwich out of your hands. “Hey!”

George laughed at your pouting expression then you two watched as the dog jogged away, wagging its tail happily.

“Come on, love, let’s go to the Three Broomsticks.”

You left the benches and headed to the pub. The streets were full of students now, a lot of them decided to only come down after they had lunch in the Great Hall. You were walking quite close to George, every time your hand brushed against his all he could think of is how badly he wanted to hold yours. He felt a sad smile appearing on his face. He should tell you. He should be brave. He’s a bloody Gryffindor, after all. But the idea of you rejecting him gave him bigger fear than he’d be able to handle.

You two entered the Three Broomstick and you told George to find a place while you get the drinks. George sat down and was watching you from afar. You soon returned to him with two butterbeers in your hand. George reached for the money, but you stopped him.

“No, it’s okay. I lost my bet, remember?”

“What bet?”

He remembered the night you two made the bet, of course. Him winning it made him disappointed, though; he’d really wanted to have a reason to come down to the pub and buy you something. You actually remembering it, though, made him feel better than the actual drink.

“The second task. Harry didn’t come up first.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Thank you,” he switched to a formal tone, mocking Percy. “I hope this was a good lesson about gambling, dear Y/N.”

You laughed.

“Yes, absolutely. Didn’t mind loosing that much, though.”

“How come?”

“I’m having a drink with you,” you shrugged, smiling. George’s heart seemed to melt. It was like he just jumped into a large cauldron of hot butterbeer. He though he was gonna die if he didn’t kiss you in that second.

“So who do you think’s gonna win?” you asked. George needed a second to return to reality.

“Er — well, a lot of people are betting on Diggory, but he’s tied with Harry, so …”

You two were talking about the Tournament, guessing what the third task’s gonna be. When you emptied your bottles it was almost dinner time in the castle and you decided that it was time to head back.

George did everything he could think of; he helped with your coat, he opened the door for you when you left and he offered his arm on a slippery road. When you took it and gently held on to him, he felt giddy and had to force himself to hide the wide grin on his face.

By the time you two reached the gates, the sun was about to go down and the air became cooler.

“So, I imagine you’re happy winter is about to end,” said George with a suspicious smile on his face.

“Yeah… Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing…” George stopped and bent down and put his hands into the snow. “It would just be a big shame if — you know — someone — decided to use this last occasion for a snow fight.”

Your eyes grew wide. You started backing up.

“George, what are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said, collecting a big pile of snow. “No need to worry.”

He formed a snowball and threw it at you, it hit you on the shoulder. You shrieked and gave him a disapproving look. George’s another ball hit you on your ankle.

“George!” you said, squatting down and cleaning you shoes. “Those are new boots!”

George took a step closer to you, scared. Oh, no, he messed up again! He gently touched your shoulder, apologising.

“Y/N, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —”

Before he could finish you took a handful of snow and threw it in his face. You started laughing and got up, forming a proper snowball this time.

“C’mon ginger boy, I thought you wanted to play!

“You little rascal!”

He laughed and ducked when you threw a ball at him. He quickly started making ammunition but you were fast; you hit him with two other balls by the time he had made one.

“You’re a bit slow, eh?” you laughed.

“Careful what you say to a Beater, darling!”

He hit you with a ball on the back. You hit him on the leg, then you missed the next one.

“Not aiming that good, Y/N?”

“Oh, shut up!” you laughed and you missed the other one, too.

As you were making a new ball, George used the opportunity to get closer to you. When you looked up he wrapped you in his arms, making you unable to move. You let out a squeeky sound, half shrieking half laughing and said, “Let me go, George.”

“Can’t do love, I’m about to win.”

He toppled you, still holding you safely, but only two feet away from the snow. You lost your balance and grabbed him, putting your arms around his neck.

“George, stop!” you ordered but couldn’t stop your nervous laughing. “Don’t you dare!”

“Yeah?” said George grinning, lowering you closer to the snow. “Why not?”

“You’ll pay for this! I — I’m gonna — I’m gonna figure out something!”

“Mm, dreadful threats, you have there. Anything else?”

He was holding you in his arms, your arms were around him. He could not take his eyes off your cheeks, red from the cold and from the wind. Your eyes were full of fear but also trust; trust that he would not let you go, not even if his life depended on it. George felt a nervous tickle in his stomach as he leaned closer and closer. He glanced at your lips, ready to make his move, when a snowball hit him on the back of his head.

He lost his balance and dropped you.

“Ouch” you said. “What the hell was that?”

George stood up quickly and grabbed his wand. He was furious. He saw two huge boys running towards the castle and he heard them laughing. With a sly movement of his wand, he made two huge, hard snowballs and hit Crabbe and Goyle on their backs. The Slytherins let out a painful sound and fell into the snow.

George looked at you and held out his hand.

“I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” you said, letting him help you up. “You?”

“I’ll kill them, I swear,” he said growling, then started picking pieces of snow out of your hair. You gave him a smile.

“I have no doubt about that. Come on, let’s go inside. I’m freezing.”

He put away his wand and followed you to the castle. He had enough. He wanted to hold your hand, he wanted to touch you, hold you, kiss you. He reached towards your hand, but just in that moment you pointed at the ground.

“Nice one, Georgie.”

He looked at Crabbe and Goyle who were still lying there, trying to spit out the snow from their mouth. Yeah, nice one. He was quite proud of himself, too.

When you entered the Entrance Hall, George motioned towards the Great Hall.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, I just run up real quick” you said. “Change my clothes. Save me a seat?”

“Sure. See you in a bit.”

You ran up the stairs and he went to the Gryffindor table where Fred was already eating a plate of stew. When he saw his brother a grin appeared on his face, and when George sat down next to him, he leaned over.

“Sooo…?”

George burried his face into his hands.

“Murder me, Fred.”

“What happened?”

George shook his head. Fred watched him, concerned.

“Did you tell her?”

“I almost kissed her.”

“What?! What do you mean almost?”

George looked up and pointed at the arriving Crabbe and Goyle. Their clothes were wet, Crabbe had a bleeding nose. Fred’s face dropped.

“I see. You want the other one to have a nosebleed, too, Georgie?”

George snorted.

“That would be nice.”

“So what now?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Tell her! Let’s end this rubbish, for crying out loud!”

George didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to explain it. It was like the universe was trying to prevent him to do what he wants.

When you came down in your fresh clothes and gave him his hat back, he put a fake smile on his face. He was frustrated. He was angry. He was sad, and he was disappointed. He had a really great day, but why on Earth did it have to end like this? Should he tell you after dinner? He felt like all his courage was left in the snow outside. In the heat of the moment he could’ve done it. In here, back in reality he was not sure he’ll be able to.

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chen-chen-chen-again-chen · 2 years ago

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Hi, hello, hola, and happy Stab Caesar Day! Tumblr ate my original draft because, um, I guess its hunger is horrible and insatiable? But here I am for take two. Thank you to @artsyunderstudy, @larkral, and @forabeatofadrum, who tagged me today and who continue to craft delightful things.

Updates on My Good Egg (Good morning, good night, good morning): My plan of posting Chapter 4 today ain't gonna happen. I updated the author's notes, but the next posting date is TBD. I need to focus on my health right now, and then I'll be travelling for a bit (March 24-April 7). But hey, if you've been meaning to read this one, now's a great time to catch up? 🤣

In the meanwhile, I'll share a snippet featuring several of my OCs, Baz's queer, chaotic uni friends. Behind the cut for mild spice. 🌶️

Bunce goes off with Simon so that she can pump the American bartender for information, and as soon as they’re out of earshot, Emma leans forward, her eyes glittering. “Well?”

“Well what.”

“I told Liu and Ramesh you got kidnapped,” Emma says, waving her hand dismissively, “and of course we’re all very worried and hope you’re doing okay and acclimating to regular life again, but have. You. Ridden. That.”

Baz regrets downing a few rats before they left for the pub, because it means he has enough blood in him to blush. “We’ve been figuring out this kidnapping situation,” he says coolly. “It hasn’t left much time for carnal pursuits.”

“Baz,” Liu says, aghast. “Why haven’t you fucked that nice himbo? He’s clearly gagging for it - he couldn’t stop staring at your arse in those jeans.”

“Is he a himbo?” Ramesh says. He pulls out a pen and starts to doodle a triple Venn diagram on a napkin. “He seemed like more of a twunk to me. And he’s got a great bear belly.”

“Ladies,” Emma says, her hands fluttering in mock-distress, “please don’t objectify that sweet boy before Baz gets to objectify him. Baz will eat his fill of the man-meat and then give us a report.”

(Please put in the comments/tags if you think Simon Snow is a twunk, a himbo, or something else delightful. 🤣)

Hello tags and tagbacks: @whogaveyoupermission, @cutestkilla, @facewithoutheart, @captain-aralias, @fatalfangirl, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @whogaveyoupermission (THE EDGING CONTINUES), @raenestee, @ileadacharmedlife, @shrekgogurt, @hushed-chorus, @shemakesmeforget, @theimpossibledemon, @imagineacoolusername

More about the hiatus for My Good Egg:

(Warning for some hard stuff, Big Feelings, trauma recovery. Feel free to skip and just bask in Ides of March posts instead!)

Okay, so introspective life/writing blather here... I keep meaning to write a post, at some point, about some of the best practices that I follow when I am writing about material that is heavy, like in Baker boxer teacher grief or the Rosethorn girl universe.

A lot of stuff that works for me is probably self-evident: go slow, be gentle, ground yourself, talk to safe people, have a release valve, be able to walk away, offer yourself a lot of self-care and self-compassion, take care of the soft animal of your body. And don't feel like you have to put everything in - some of what you can write can just be for you, and it can be enough to have written it, and not include it in the finished product.

I honestly didn't expect Good morning, good night, good morning to get me where I live. It is, as I've always maintained, a dumb horny rom com (that somehow developed a plot and backstory and plot TWISTS and OCs but ANYWAY). But there was a line in Chapter 3 that kept rattling around in me:

“You were a kid,” Simon says, his voice low and angry. “You were just a kid.”

This is not the first time I've been triggered by own fic (and probably won't be the last, LOL!), but this one did me a doozy. I've had to take a few steps back, and just focus on recovering from trauma that's been reactivated in my body. It is wild what the body remembers, and how it holds onto pain.

(There is, at the same time, other stuff happening with my family with grief and estrangement and just a whole mischegoss of hard feelings, so that adds another element into the mix.)

To circle back round to My Good Egg: I'm putting it to the side for now while I tend to my health and just recovering from the past few weeks. It's funny - I don't think it's a particularly angsty story or one that does a super deep dive into trauma, but I need to take some pieces off my plate right now, and this fic is one of them.

I will always keep writing - the WIP game has been a delightful brain refresher, and I have a very fun Six Sentence Sunday post that I'm already excited to share. But for now, My Good Egg is gonna have a li'l nap. When I come back to it, I think I'll switch over to writing the second draft in its entirety, and then posting the chapters weekly, whenever that happens. I'm not putting a timeline on it right now.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk making your way through this personal essay, if you've gotten this far. I am continually blown away and delighted by everyone who engages with the fic, and I am so excited to serve you up some treats in the future.

To end on a lighter note, here is an exchange with my spouse, the inestimable EarlobeGreyTea who continues to offer thoughtful and nuanced feedback on this fic, Exhibit A:

EarlobeGreyTea: Did they fuck in this chapter?

Me: No Me: And they didn't fuck in the previous chapter Me: It's the EROTIC Grope Fest. It doesn't have to have explicit sex (yet) EarlobeGreyTea: Yeah, I guess it isn't the Sloppy Fuck Fest

Love you all. ❤️❤️❤️

#WIP Wednesday #My Good Egg #good morning good night good morning #life and writing #long boi #big mood #my fic tag

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ohnobjyx · 4 years ago

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Plum blossoms in the snow (I)

Part 4: April and May (I)

We have gotten to the mid point of the story.

Disclaimer: I try to keep things objective (if I include my personal opinion, it’s in cursive and in brackets), but I’m biased because of the XZ friendly content I’m usually exposed to and by my own views of their situation. Open to discussion, but please make sure you’ve enough information to do so.

In March, slowly but surely, the incident was put behind. After the anger comes the aceptance, so to say. With so many people’s inputs, his fans started to let the topic cool down, while giving him their support.

So everything was coming back to their place and seemed a lot calmer than a month before. This didn’t sit well with some people.

Antis’ attacks

The antis were quite active, trying to spark a conflict one after another, because the topic had been silent for a little bit. Remember: more interactions, more followers, more money so ignore the antis always (unless they attack you, if so, report them).

To name a few:

On early April, they placed so many negative reviews on CQL in Douban that the score fell from 7′9 to 7′3. However, people didn’t react as they wanted them to, and instead the score rose steadily back to 7′7 (as of now).

When a brand of a product that XZ endorses admitted to economic fraud, antis attacked the brand, the product and XZ. Their argument was that because XZ is so popular, more people bought the product he endorses, thus contributing to the fraud. Some fans fell for it, protesting that what the brand does had nothing to do with XZ.

Some of the antis pretended to be XZ’s fans, and with that “disguise”, attacked other netizens, prompting a statement from XZ’s fans support group. In the statement, they reject this kind of behaviour and insist that everyone should be careful with what they say and how they act.

All of this, along with spreading rumors, was trying to revive the discussion and the fan war to get more attention and followers (people have a short span of attention, especially on the internet), and profit from it.

Around mid April, both w/ibo and bil/bili blocked antis’ accounts, making antis say that XZ’s company must have paid them to do so.

Endorsements

It was positive though that in April he started to appear again in commercials and banners.

(The one on the left is a commercial from February, I couldn’t find another one with a better resolution from April. By the way, from an interview done before New Year’s Eve for that brand, we get these two little moments: 1 and 2).

You may have noticed that the endorsement for the drink it’s a joined endorsement with another celebrity. Antis tried to pit the two group of fans against one another, but fans didn’t fell for it (the learning process was hard and long, but it was showing results).

Remember the one from the right. That’s a funny one, later in July.

Plum blossoms and stars

In April, XZ reappeared again in w/ibo with that drawing of plum blossoms from his Oasis account (on 200410). Previously, he had shared a post for the National Mourning Day for the people who’ve died because of the COVID-19, and before that, it was a post from February 22, before 2/27.

There are 4 main flowers in Chinese culture (one for each season), and each has a widely known meaning attached to them.

Plum blossoms are one them, and often represent resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, because it’s a flower that blooms a brilliant red in the middle of winter and snow. It can also be a harbinger of spring.

So his first message after all of this mess to be one of perseverance and hope。 I personally find it very meaningful as to what his attitude towards the entertainment industry is.

This also calmed a lot of his fans, who had been worried of him succumbing to the antis and retiring from the industry. There had been a lot of rumours saying the he had got depression from all of this conflict, and this update effectively silenced those.

A few days later he sang a cover of the song “The hymn of the red plum blossom” for an online event “Beautiful China”. It’s a classical opera song from a film, very patriotic and well-chosen for such an event, but it could also represent his situation with the “coming of spring”. Musicians later analysed this song and deemed it too difficult for him to sing (he doesn’t have enough range for this kind of songs), but praised him for his spirit to try new, difficult things, and to bring classic songs to young people: “he’s like the plum blossom in winter: persistent against difficulties”.

XZ updated his Oasis again late in April, with a drawing inspired by posters from his university days: “hope”, “perseverance”, “acquisition”.

(This is the picture he updated on 200420, and below is a screeshot from the post in which he explains that those are drawings from his university days).

Reporting to the police

On 21st of April, XZ’s Studio issued a statement.

3 accounts (among others) had used XZ’s photos and videos to slander his name, so the studio had collected the evidence and had turned it all to the police. The accounts had been spreading rumours about him for months (about him dating other guys, plastic surgery) and insulting him for his acting skills and lack of respect towards women.

What we find most surprising is that, even in the face of a lawsuit, the antis didn’t relent and kept on trying to “black” (slander) him.

Those 3 accounts were, in their own words, chased and insulted by XZ’s fans, so they wanted to report XZ’s studio in return, for damaging their reputation.

(I don’t know exactly how this ended. I think the lawsuit is still going on, since these things take time, but the general outcome of this seems good for him. Most of the comments I’ve seen goes like “xz was just waiting for the right moment to act”, “staying silent and apologizing while collecting proof of a crime”.)

“Light Spot”

On April 25, XZ released a new song, and remarked that he thanks all well-meaning criticism and guidance, and that he’ll continue to grow from here. The song is Light Spot. There was again some drama related to this song, antis never take a rest it seems.

XZ’s apology

That week, XZ posted on w/ibo, apologizing for the troubles caused and asking people not to hurt others.

The source of the problem this time were rumours of him participating in HJ’s variety show (HJ is the host from Happy Camp with curly hair). Rumours said that he had invited XZ to participate in his new variety show on his own initiative. Haters attacked him for this, in order to prevent XZ from going to the program (remember that some of the antis’ objective is to make XZ retire from entertainment industry).

The TV station had to release a statement saying that XZ won’t participate in HJ’s show. XZ must have seen all the commotion and posted his comment asking people not to hurt HJ because of him.

Tracking down the antis

The leader of all of this commotion with HJ was a w/ibo user (let’s call her “B”) that had been a XZ hater for a long while, and her account was banned soon after this. Along with hers, many others hater accounts were blocked by w/ibo, prompted by XZ’s studio, according to other antis.

Though their accounts were blocked, B tried to come back (and even with the same username), and attacked XZ again for making “false donations” to Wuhan, and accusing him of being immoral. XZ’s Studio finally posted definite proof that their donation had been real.

B accused him of being a racist and having “abnormal sexual orientation”. She also managed to make her accusations a hot topic on w/ibo quite frequently.

This hater, with others, surprised many people in their tenacity and persistence to defame XZ. People analysed her behaviour and tendencies and extracted conclusions like these about this kind of “professional” antis:

She knows how the entertainment industry works, so she works in it or has sources inside the industry.

She knows what kind of topic will attract attention from other users.

She has good resources and is very intelligent and manipulative at the same time, so she is capable of making two groups unite against a third, for example.

She’s likely to cooperate with XZ’ competitors to spread rumors about him, to allow his competitors to get more endorsements. She incites haters and antis to boycott XZ endorsements in order to do this.

(I was asked previously if YH couldn’t have participated too in the smear campaign, to gain more endorsements for WYB. At the time, I’d been very sure that these kind of things are too much of a hassle, but now I’m not so sure that no one would do this. I mean, I don’t think YH would do this for WYB, since he is very popular and successful on his own, but for other YH’s employees or other companies for their idols... I’m not so sure anymore. But this is all especulation from me).

She often has material that a “normal” fan can’t get access to. Among the fans, there are some that are called fan representatives. They can often access the companies and agencies, so they have more information and images about a star than any other. Of course, they can’t spread it if they stop being their fan, but that doesn’t stop B from buying pictures from them.

There are also “spies” inside the fandom, who get information about a fandom from the inside.

So, in short, a great part of the general public likes the rumours and the stories she makes up, it doesn’t matter if they are true or not, and that gives her more followers.

Before XZ, she attacked the male leads from The Guardian (ZYL and BY), and used the same tactic.

(Which confirms our theory that this storm will pass for XZ, most likely because she moves on to attacking another person, but that’s a whole other story).

So at the end of April, w/ibo started to ban all the accounts that spread malicious and hate content, the numerous accounts of B among them, even though all of them had been ticked by w/ibo before (like the blue tick in twitter).

Even after being reported to the police, the account doesn’t seem to stop, making people suspect that there is money behind of this and that it’s not an account managed by one person, but rather a team. They’ll do the same to whoever is popular at the moment, so it’s not even personal, it doesn’t matter who it is, XZ, ZYL, BY, whoever.

(I don’t like conspiracy theories... if there’s no data to back them up, it all remains speculation, and it spreads more information that no one knows it’s true or not. However, this whole thing with the antis is very strange. I suppose will see what happens once XZ comes back to limelight).

Haters are also something every idol has to face.

The haters dig into an idol’s past, and make up rumours based on that. For example, XZ had a gf while he was studyinghis degree, but they broke up. Haters then said that it was because of this that he went to South Korea and got plastic surgery (false, some people do have this kind of amazing genes), and that’s why he’s so good looking. Since lies are mixed in truth, some people, especially those who just know his name, or that he’s an actor, have trouble picking it apart.

Rumours also place idols in a tight position. If they don’t answer, people will think the rumours are true. But if they sue them, haters aren’t afraid either, because the process is long, and in this process they are still getting views and new followers. It may also shift the attention to them, which is exactly what they want.

All in all, the world is complex, but even in the middle of snow you may find a little plum blossom.

←Part 3: Why does it snow? | Part 4 (II): Plums blossoms in the snow (II)→

#gg's situation series #I should have planned 8 parts instead of 7 #in my defense #I thought May would be shorter #part 4 of 7 (I)#my posts

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futurewriter2000 · 3 years ago

Text

' There are a lot of things that remind me of you. More than things should make another person nostalgic, literally everything makes me nostalgic for you.

It's odd because I got over you but the bus rides remind me of you. The day you bought me a bus ticket and the way you laid your head on the bus window. Your hair were so greasy and you closed your eyes meanwhile I talked. The scene was like picked out from a movie and I remembered it since then. Every time I ride the bus, I sit on our designated seats and for one person, four seats are too much. It almost makes me feel selfish but I just grew attached to it. I remember you sitting across me or two seats next to me. I remember your ripped jeans, white and black, both pairs that you wore. I remember the bus station you waited on, and the path you walked me home on and your block... and the bus station near my block where we met to go out and the bus station I walked you to... and the bench we sat on... and I just remember so much of you that it still makes my eyes tear up.

I remember the conversations we had about horror movies and anime... and I remember how other conversations we had made right triangle and Pythagoras' theorem a thing for us. I remember conversations about having trust issues and when you had told me about your ex and a random girl, who stole your favorite bandana hoodie. I remember the water that you bought us that morning when we got high on the meadow and my shoes were covered in drawings of your cat you named Snow and the triangles, flowers... I cannot wear the grandma jacket I wore that day. Every time I spray myself with Dolce Gabbana The One parfume, it reminds me of you because I wore it for you. I remember how I couldn't climb the stupid wall because it was too high and we just spent laughing for five solid minutes. I remember you telling me that you loved my energy. That morning you sent me your plushie with wack eyes, your favorite hoodie, your plant... I came home with such a smile on my face- God, I told so many people about that day because it was like a movie. With you it was always like a movie.

I didn't know what was going through your head since then but something did because when I was working morning shifts, standing there completely asleep as I had no time for my coffee, you scared me half to death and laughed. People thought you and me had something... we did, actually. We did have something but nobody knew what, not even us. I don't know why but since that moment you started to push me away and I remember that so clearly for some odd reason.

I could say that it felt like a summer fling but it happened from November till March. Then in April... you just started disappearing and how can somebody just disappear? I beat myself sensless since then. Crying and crying and crying and crying because I lost somebody special but it wasn't just that. I believed that somehow you thought I wasn't good enough to be in your life... or funny enough or that I was just too weird for you- I don't know. I just felt I was losing my mind over you. That you just left without saying anything... not even a goodbye. You just disappeared.

I worked those night shifts without you and I sat at the same table we sat, we met, we talking about pencils, us drinking red-bulls (some days you bought them for us, some days I bought them for us), you trying coconut chips and judging me for it, me getting you pistachios, me making no sense with a story because you just listened and I got lost because nobody listened that much to me... I didn't know where to eat because we spent time everywhere in that place. The stupid heater and you standing there looking at it like you had seen God. The bench where I sat and you stood, smoking. Some days I woke up and even though you weren't there, I smelled it and I took such a deep breath of it because I missed you so much. You making no sense by asking me why I don't smoke. Which is saved in my drawer of our weird conversations about how to fall asleep if you cannot sleep, how some scenes in horror movies are actually funny instead of scary, throwing up while high- which reminds me of the day we went to get burgers for us three and I paid and you looked at me and were like so confused of why. Well, I like to give to my friends and that is who I considered you to be for all those months.

I should have seen the red flags thought. The mood swings you got out of the blue, the tired eyes and the way you snapped at me sometimes, the hot and cold energy, the way you invited us to spend New Years but bailed, the invite to your birthday party and you bailed even though all of us got you a birthday present already... you said only pistachios from me would be fine... I didn't take that at all. Some people told me to get you a ring and I thought that was a bit too weird. It might look like I was proposing to you and you always were curious of what I got you for your birthday. I feel like you still are at some point. I got you matching Rick and Morty bucket hats... and pistachios because you don't eat sweets.

God, there are so many memories that place me back in that time. You telling me to must watch that show... my mask getting stuck to my brand new piercing and you helping me get it off... every time it got stuck to my hair. It got stuck just this week again and I thought of you and a rush of memories came with that but I just brushed it off. They don't affect me like they would... like they did when you left, I was working the same place where I was that day we were by ourselves. You drew on my shoes, every time we went on a break, Maria- I hope you still remember her because I do and she was the sweetest person. The grandma sweater that I adore, now it always hangs in my closet. My parfume- and the duck tape- OH! And my uniform that I drew on that same day. The cereal that sucks by the way. You have a terrible taste in cereal, which reminds me that you promised me a chicken burger and I had never recieved it from you.

And then I quit because I was so lost without you. I quit and I spent a month and a half gathering myself together. And the first night after I quit there, I met a great guy but by the end of the night I still thought of you. That was when I needed to start the whole letting go of you process that was going quite well... up until I thought of you out of the blue when I was blending strawberries and banana. I have no clue how you popped into my head like that but you did at times but this time making a smoothie had no connections to you- so I thought that maybe you were heavily thinking of me. Since then, you had been on my mind all the time. I went back to work and it was weird at first but I was okay. I wasn't crying on the bus back home, that's for one. Which meant that I was a step further than I was before but I still wanted to see you. I still wanted to see just a peek of you that you were alive. Maybe at the bus station, maybe at the path, maybe somewhere in my town but... the only day I didn't take the bus, my co-worker said she saw you. And I was shocked at first and I was mad that the only time I didn't take the bus, I could see you. Then she said you didn't really look well and I got upset because if I hate something more than sea food, it's hearing that somebody I used to care for a lot isn't doing well. I cried that day for you, after a long time but also decided that day that you're not my problem anymore. You're not a burden, you're not something I have to think of all the time... and I was glad I didn't see you that day because if I would, I'd be stuck again. I don't want to be stuck again... ever... because you mean a lot to me but not seeing you made you mean less to me. I know the moment we see each other again, you'll mean a lot to me again but I won't be emotionally attached like I used to be.

I moved on. I got over you. Something I didn't think I would. Back then when I was moving on, I was crying because I was moving on and I didn't want to. I loved memories of us, us in general. I missed your laugh and your smile and your eyes, your hair, your jacket, your jeans... just you but that's all they were becoming. Memories. All the people from my past start coming back to me and when they did, I just put you among them. You're behind. You're the past but a great yet complicated past.

And now there is somebody new in my life and I don't know where this will take us but he's great. He's stable and honest... and great. He sort of talks like you, which reminds me of you but he's not you and I like that about him. He's funny and smart and he likes books. He's got a really nice smile and he's interested in the same things I am. He keeps asking me questions and he listens to my answers. He's sweet and he also made me realise that I should really stop missing out on good things because of you.

You were a good thing in my life... up to a point you weren't anymore.

But now he's a good thing in my life and he makes promises he can keep. I love that about him...'

#this is my coping mechanism #Love #friendship #friends #strangers with memories i guess #stranger #moving on #Heartbreak

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goose-books · 4 years ago

Photo

goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

#max.txt #and that's a wrap!!! what a goddamn year.#okay. breath in. tags:#quark tag #third eye tag #(i think there are like. two posts in that one?)#amt tag #darkling tag #tmr tag #vvvid tag #wow that was a lot of text. if you read all this... [blows you a kiss] thank you!#max actually writes #year in review

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noragami-ru-manga · 5 years ago

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Chronology of Noragami

To match the events in Noragami with real-life data, we’ve used everything: festivities mentioned, important events that have occurred in Japan, natural disasters, seasonal flower blossoming, study trimesters, exams and school holidays, moon phases that have appeared in the manga, solar and lunar eclipses, Hiyori and Yukine’s birthdays, Hiyori’s diary, and even Yato’s clothes.

Several members of Noragami_ru Manga discussed the series and its time frames, armed with both inspiration and critical thinking. There was a lot of information to process; some of the manga events were very easy to match with the calendar, while others really fell out of the timeline. A prime example is chapter 73. It was impossible to reconcile with any given date and broke the straight string of the events that did line up. Sometimes Hiyori’s diary would cavort and list its dates at random. However, we do know that the events of Noragami happen within the time frame of a little over a year. This one’s easy to check and prove. The manga started when Hiyori met Yato, several days later they found Yukine and a year later, right after his first birthday, Yukine was accosted by Mizuchi and ended up stinging Yato. Yato then decided to end his father’s attacks once and for all and went to confront him.

Adachitoka started working on Noragami in 2010, and the first chapter was published by Kodansha in January 2011. These dates were the first ones to come to mind. Naturally, other years were carefully examined; members of the fandom stocked up with “magnifying glasses” and “microscopes” and meticulously checked and double-checked several other calendars and tried to reconcile them with the events of the manga. But years 2010-2011 were the ones that fit the best, and very soon you’ll see why. Get ready, dear members, readers and (un)expected guests. We can’t promise you over-the-top fun times. But we hope that you will be pleasantly surprised and look at Noragami and its amazing universe in a different light. Let’s go!

This is our first main clue:

Hiyori says that it’s been two weeks since she first met Yato and became a half-ayakashi. The same day in the evening, they’ll find Yukine. “We had an early snow that day… I wonder if that’s why Yato named him Yukine?”, Hiyori will recollect a year later. It was 29 November, the end of 2010. The sky is overcast, it’s snowing, the moon can’t be seen so it’s impossible to match its phase with the calendar. But we will reconcile memorable dates with moon phases later.

Here we can see young moon behind the trees. It’s an early winter evening; Hiyori comes home and brings Yukine along. Judging by the moon phase, it’s sometime between 10-12 December 2010. Hiyori’s parents come home and say that they’ve been at the class reunion. Those are usually held on Saturdays. If so, the date is 11 December.

The encounter and the first fight with Bishamon happen during fool moon:

First signs of indelible blight start showing on Yato’s skin; Nora appears and tries to persuade him to give up on Yukine and use her instead. The fool moon at the picture looks like it’s been marred by dirt. Date-wise these coincide with 20-21 December 2010. A full lunar eclipse happened that night in real life. In Japan it could be seen in the evening, after the moon rising. Here is a quote from the Russian Wikipedia: “Since this lunar eclipse coincided with winter solstice, 21 December became “the darkest day” in the last 372 years. The next lunar eclipse on 21 December will happen only in 2094”.

The next is “Christmas” chapter (22-26 December). Yato is wearing a Santa cap, there’s a festive shop sign on the wall:

In chapter 9 Hiyori goes on a temple visit to Tenjin’s shrine and New Year’s celebration with her friends. She miraculously avoids death on 1 January:

7 January to 25 March is the last school trimester in Japan. Hiyori is wondering where Yato is. It’s the 3-4th lunar day, when there’s no moon yet, but there are signs of a very slim crescent.

Yato’s epiphany in girl’s bathroom

Soon enough, Yato and Yukine will have to go through misogi – the ablution ritual.

By the way, these two important events changed places in the anime. There, Yato was dying from blight sometime near the end of December, perhaps on that same “darkest day” of the lunar eclipse. Several days later, on New Year’s, Nora set her ayakashi on Hiyori.

Yato meets up with Nora during another full moon. Why can’t they just sleep on these moonlit nights?

Is it 20 January 2011? Or is it already 18 February?

Yukine meets Suzuha when the first spring flowers start blooming:

Hiyori is graduating from middle school and preparing to enter high school. Plumes are blooming (which means it’s either February or March), and Hiyori has her promotion exams coming when she is kidnapped by Kugaha. Yato and Yukine rash to Bishamon’s residence to rescue the girl:

Yato engages Bishamon in battle on the night of the crescent moon:

If we try to match first flowers blooming on the ground with plum blossoming, then it can’t be February, which means it’s the beginning of March. A crescent like this generally appears on 7-9th lunar day. Date-wise it lines up with 10-12 March 2011. The date that interests us is 11 March, since it was a memorable one for Japan. A huge earthquake occurred that day on the eastern cost of Honshu, resulting in a giant tsunami. Nearly 16 thousand people died and 2.5 thousand went missing.

In Noragami this event leads to the gods’ council in Takamagahara:

Bishamon manages to prove that her fall was the sorcerer’s doing, so the Heavens start their hunt on Ebisu. As a result, the actual perpetrator who’s used Aiha and Kugaha to set two warrior gods against each other goes unpunished, whereas Ebisu becomes a scapegoat.

Sakura starts blooming when Hiyori enters high school:

First trimester begins on 1 April. Hiyori is ignoring Yato. According to the calendar, it’s the new moon. Fujisaki enters the scene.

However, as soon as Suzuha’s sakura starts blooming, Hiyory gathers Yato and Yukine, Tenjin, Kofuku and Bishamon and their shinki for flower gazing. There’s even a date this time – 13 April.

The events of chapter 26 happen in early May. End of April – beginning of May are holidays in Japan, which Hiyori spends at home with her parents. Her diary, which we will examine later, is absolutely blank during this time. Hiyori’s mom says that it’s only May, but the water reservoir is empty. There’s also a newscast on TV about possible water shortage in summer, possibly due to abnormal weather conditions

This time Nora appears on a moonless night and kidnaps Yato. Two weeks later Hiyori is seen looking for Yato, asking Daikoku and Tenjin about him. She is doing it with a purpose, since she has plans for 8 May.

Hiyori’s diary here deserves special attention:

It’s easy to match the dates with the calendar. For example, 10th is a Monday, January, therefore, 11th is a Tuesday. The next page of the diary has another Monday on it – 17th. The dates on the second frame are hard to match with anything, but there’s a mention of the picnic on the third one – 12-13 April, the days are Tuesday and Wednesday. On the fifth frame the pages with dates from 25 April to 7 May are empty. But there’s a trip to Capyper Land scheduled on Sunday.

Yato says he’s been living at his father’s for a month when he is sent to rescue Ebisu from Yomi:

Hiyori’s friends make her go to Capyper Land with them on one of the May weekends. Yukine has been in Takamagahara for a while, where the time flow is different from Earth’s, which is why he’s lost track of time for a bit and only realizes that summer is coming when he meets Hiyori:

There’s unrest in the Heavens. A storm is also brewing on Earth, as noted by Mayu:

2011 was an unlucky year for Japan. Typhoon Songda approached the country at the end of May. Here’s an extract from a real-life news article: “Disasters come treading on each other’s heels. Typhoon Songda, which has been raging near Japan, is approaching Fukushima-1 nuclear station. Bad weather might cause floods and landslides, which the experts fear might result in another radiation leak”.

During old moon Yato is still in Yomi with Ebisu. Storms are raging in Japan and in Takamagahara. A partial solar eclipse is approaching, which you’d think would bother the goddess of sun herself. In Japan it’s supposed to happen early in the morning on 1 June. But?.. Apparently off-screen, Amaterasu lifts her divine ass and goes searching for… the god of the moon, who went missing from the world of the living?

Amaterasu helps rescue the gods from Yomi. When Yato flies out of the vent straight into Hiyori’s arms, it’s already 15 June – there’s a full moon in the sky. According to the calendar, there was a full lunar eclipse that night. Yato is covered in dirt and blight:

After meeting with the reincarnated Ebisu, Yato releases Hiiro:

Judging by these frames, it was Hiiro who used to cut Yato’s hair. Sometime later it starts growing out, so Yato has to pull it into a ponytail since he doesn’t have his free hairdresser now. Though he will get one in Takemikazuchi several months later.

Yato misses Hiyori’s birthday on 28 June. However, he takes her to Capyper Land on one of the weekends. School holidays start on 20 July. Hiyori is seen wearing either dresses or sundresses. It’s also summer when Hiyori sees Yato’s memories and learns about the god’s greatest secret.

Hiyori starts going to school in chapter 48, so it’s September. The month does not begin well: Fujisaki asks the girl to leave Yato alone, and she challenges him. Right after that he uses the second brush from Yomi to summon ayakashi. Those cause chaos at the hospital that Hiyori blames herself for and starts turning into an ayakashi, going further away from the Near shore. It was also in the beginning of September 2011 that tropical storm Talas approached Japan, resulting in 59 casualties. The damage it caused is considered to be one of the biggest ones in the last 20 years. It’s no wonder Hiyori is blaming herself for the disasters; after all, as early as March, right after Yato’s battle with Bishamon and the unrest in Takamagahara and on Earth, Tenjin said to the girl that Yato did that because of her and nearly turned into an aramitama (raging spirit).

In chapter 53 Yukine is secretly reading Hiyori’s letters and says that they haven’t seen each other in two months:

Which means it’s the beginning of November. Fate brings Yato to another Iki and returns him to Hiyori once more. Their ties are written straight with crooked lines.

Yato starts preparing for Kamuhakari and makes clothes for Yukine and himself. Kiun appears and demands that he attends the divine council itself as well. It means that apart from feasting on free food, which was Yato’s intention, he will also have to participate in boring god meetings.

Tama the cat, who also appears at Kamuhakari, ruins this whole line of calendar match-ups. She died in June 2015, not long before chapter 58 was released, and Adachitoka honored her this way.

Bishamon misses Kamuhakari because she goes looking for the burial hafuri. Kazuma comes to Iwami. Full moon is shining through the window, which means it’s 11 November:

Hiyori goes back home from the festivities while Yato has to stay at the boring part of Kamuhakari. The girl notes that it’s been three days since she came back, and recalls that it’s been a year since she met Yato. It happens around 14-16 November. She also thinks that they should throw a party for Yukine, cause it’s almost a year since they found him (two weeks after she met Yato). Yukine’s birthday will be on 29 November. But a lot of events will happen in Takamagahara before that.

By the way, the time flow in Takamagahara is just as messed up as in Yomi. One day for Yato is the same as three days for Hiyori. The moon is old again. And the time in Takamagahara flows three times faster:

There’s also a peculiarity to Yato’s clothes.

“Yato comes to Kamuhakari in white clothes. But then the battle with the Heavens begins. Yato loses his divine white sleeve in his fight with Takemikazuchi. Then only the white cape remains. Finally, he appears in front of Amaterasu dressed in black.

We don’t know how long the battle lasted, but the time in Takamagahara flows differently than on Earth. It’s possible that it’s been two weeks on Earth between the beginning of Kamuhakari and Amaterasu’s trial. Also, during the new moon (when the side of the Moon facing the Earth isn’t lit by the Sun) the sun and the moon go side by side; sometimes the moon overshadows the sun a little, partially or completely. Yes, I’m still hoping an eclipse happened during the trial. Compare this: when Bishamon was at the brink of falling into the state of aramitama, her blight was dark. But Yato’s is black, and the stains it left on Amaterasu’s clothes are black”. (Ivan)

And the calendar? A partial solar eclipse happened on 25 November 2011. Japan was not supposed to see it. However, a black spot landed on Amaterasu and scared her.

“I think that’s the whole point, that the solar eclipse wasn’t seen in Japan. It could only be seen in Antarctica and partially in South Africa and New Zealand. So the picture in chapter 71 is correct. Amaterasu is showering every god and shinki present with her sunlight, then the eclipse starts. Yato, who is tired of the battle and tormented by his shinki’s sufferings, catches his “wave” and tries to make the eclipse happen in Japan as well (albeit figuratively – by striking down the sun goddess), but Take interrupts the moon god’s show of power. Amaterasu looks somewhat tired throughout the trial; maybe she isn’t feeling well, among other things?” (Yana)

The full moon in chapter 73 messes up all the calculations once again.

See, there has already been a full moon not that long ago. Hiyori had spent a day at the Kamuhakari, then waited for Yato’s return for three days, and there’s only one week left till Yukine’s birthday. There can’t be a full moon twice in two weeks’ time. Perhaps Adachitoka started the chapter with Ebisu’s kidnapping as an extra first and then turned it into a full chapter; they added the mention of Yukine’s birthday but either left the moon the way it was drawn for the extra or simply forgot about it.

The next chapter messes up the dates again.

27 November is on Monday in Hiyori’s diary and there’s a note “Fujisaki-senpai was absent again today”. The thing is, 27 November 2011 is Sunday. It was Monday in 2017, when the chapter was released. It was a hard year: one of the mangakas had to take a long sick leave, and the manga soon went on a 14 month long hiatus.

Sometime before the birthday the Heavens summon Yato and he’s questioned by the sacred treasures and then Amaterasu herself.

Yato wakes up covered in blight after Yukine’s birthday. Take’s shinki conduct another misogi, and Yukine admits that Nora kissed him the day before.

Yato goes looking for a shinki that can help him take down Fujisaki. Amaterasu has set a deadline for him on Ooharai, the Great Purification ritual (30-31 December). There has to be a crescent moon in the beginning of December – a very slim one, shaped as a bow. Kazuma comes to Yato and becomes his shinki.

In chapter 79 the dates in Hiyori’s diary are correct: 28 November is Monday, 29 November – Tuesday.

And it’s almost full moon in Chapter 81 when Yukine starts wondering about his past, with the crack on his name growing.

Please focus your attention on the top frames with the moon. Keep your hands on the table and lift your eyes off the bottom frames.

The next full moon is on 10 December 2011, and it’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse, too. Unfortunately, since chapter 81 there hasn’t been any other chapter that had a full moon in it. However, we do have Hiyori’s words in chapter 85 about missing the chance to spend Christmas with her friends. It means that the events of the latest chapters take place between Christmas and New Year’s.

Ooharai is near.

***

Author of chronology: Yana Tarasova

Inspired, came up with ideas and then checked and double-checked them: Darina Episheva, Yana Tarasova, Amoeba Proteus, Ivan Ivanov

Comprised into an article by: Ivan Ivanov

English translation by: Anastasia Bazheeva

#noragami #noragami manga #noragami chronology #noragami meta

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