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mariamariquinha · 2 years ago

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Bossa Nova (Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x f!reader) - Three

Two | Four

Summary: Kojak the fish, not the guy from TV.

Word count: 2.152.

Warnings: Bad words, mentions of death, violence, blood, a hint of gore but very subtle (got a little descriptive), crime scenes, slight mention of drinking alcohol, Nick being the fucking bitch he is, references of Kojak (the TV show), references of Hollywood artists and... Yeah, that’s it, I guess.

Author’s Note: Took me a lot of time to write this, my mind was like sboidbIOFNkd but I think it’s a good chapter. I've never watched Kojak carefully, but he's a classic for those who enjoy these type of TV shows like me.

Oh, and... People talk with their pets a lot, okay?

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

Join my taglist! Don’t forget to reblog, comment and like! As always, I would love to know what you’re all thinking! ❤

****

“Is that a fish?”

You jumped at the sudden question. The lab was so silent, safe from the music slowly blasting on your small (and allowed-ish) radio device, that you couldn’t really receive any noise without a reaction closer to it. You turned around abruptly, spotting Benny leaning over your desk and eyeing a frame you had of Kojak.

He almost opened his mouth to apologize for scaring you, but your eyes gazed at the picture and then at him again.

“... Yeah. Kojak,” You subtly turned off the radio.

“Huh?”

“The fish. I bought it at a fair a few months ago, he's one of those guppys, you know?” By the look on his face, he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. “Name’s Kojak.”

“Kojak.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Like the TV show?” There was a curious smile staring straight at you. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“I'd say he's more of a high maintenance guy.”

Benny was quiet for a moment, looking at the photo a little longer before letting out a brief 'humpf', like a funny idea that took quite some time for him to find some amusement in it.

“You said there’s updates,” He pointed out at the small screen behind you. “Is it the security footage?”

“Mm?” You blinked dumbly at him before taking notice of what you were doing. “Oh yeah. Thought Nick would want to see.”

“What’s up?” He started to walk in your direction with a frown.

“I had some problems with it, mostly because of the quality of the thing. The equipment is quite old, the image is kind of rubbish, but I managed to do some manual adjustments and I think we have a face.”

‘Quite’ was a compliment – the thing looked to be older than Woodstock. Either way, you spent a considerable time on it, so as soon as you had something, you didn’t feel like wasting any second keeping it to yourself. It was better to give something off for some well-deserved time without someone breathing on your neck.

“There we go.”

It was a very short frame because it would take hours to render an entire video under those conditions. The guy was blond, hair down to his shoulders – the recording ended when he pointed the gun out of a van, but there was something closer to a clean face there.

Benny probably thought about the same thing, because he pressed closely to you with interest.

“And who would be-”

“Travis Brown,” You grabbed the profile sheet placed on your right, gesturing to him on your left. “I did facial identification and it's in the database.”

“Huh,” He hesitated a bit before accepting the file, but did so eventually, reading it calmly before looking between you and the document. “And he’s supposed to be in jail.”

“Well, apparently he’s one of those involved in the prison escape in Edinburg about three years ago,” You handed him another file.

“Here says he’s dead.”

“Yep.”

Look, from what you knew of the detective, he wasn't really used to airing his thoughts, at least not verbally. Maybe that's why you were embarrassed to watch the silence that followed as he took the file from your hand, because it wasn't like you could read the guy's thoughts. You were on the team of people who were agitated in this aspect, who valued a dynamic tête-à-tête; of course it would make you anxious.

“Makes me wonder if there’s something you can’t do,” His voice came out more like a smiling murmur, which made you shrug.

“Eh.”

“Eh?” He raised his eyes and eyebrows at you.

“It’s my job.”

“Humble,” Benny pondered more to himself, looking back at the info in hand. “That’s why Big Nick likes you.”

He didn't like you – he needed you. The idea of ingratiating yourself with him didn't sit well with you, like a poorly fitted idea or an anomaly. Not that you were the best person in the world, but you were sure you would never have friends like him. He dealt with you. It was way different. It was like a honeymoon phase marriage with a mixed couple therapy phase. You wouldn't hesitate to set boundaries, he wouldn't hesitate to do his best to respect that and not miss a good addition in his complicated investigations.

“I can think of better reasons for him to like me.”

1. Nick had a backlog of complaints to HR for abuse of power. Considering that all the people who officially complained were fired or removed or transferred and he was still in the same place as always, you preferred to spend your lack of education on him and that eventually seemed like a good solution for both of you. Tell him to fuck himself once with your head held up at the right angle and you fall on his graces.

2. You never had a good relationship with Walsh, and his enemy's enemy was his friend. That was the rule. With the wave of cases involving drug trafficking, having an 'ally' who wouldn't give in so easily to the opposing side was valuable, even though the two were supposed to be on the same side.

3. Emma didn't think you were that valuable and, seeing your desire to be a field agent, gave you an opening so she could have peace of mind regarding the complaints from the other agents and Nick. In the end, you two ended up dealing with your stuff with each other. Easy as that.

Dinner, tickets to the Giants, expensive drinks in that dodgy bar that was one step away from being a strip club – he was willing to pay your price. You even wondered if you demanded a Bee Gees show, he would give up. Yeah, let’s do this, he would say. Let’s talk to Robin and Maurice Gibb to make that shit happen.

But in the middle of it all, between arguments and moments of stress, you could add a new reason.

4. You always accepted.

There was something about the challenge, perhaps. You always liked things that distracted you as much as possible from your personal issues that probably existed due to your commitment with work – be surrounded by men and you’ll have a lot to fix for them or to keep yourself busy. Infinite cycle.

“I’m sure you do. You’re always thinking.”

“Am I?”

“Sure thing,” He nodded with a laugh. “You’re just too much of a good girl.”

Benny touched you – on the shoulder.

Benny looked at you with a warm expression – straight into your eyes.

Benny squeezed the same shoulder affectionately – just to slide lightly through your arm before letting you go.

“... So you already have your reason why he likes me so much,” You smiled back. “Not his type but does the job. Full package, no distractions.”

He eyed you for a moment too long, head tilted to the side.

“Yeah. You’re really not his type,” Benny shook the files in the air. “I'll catch your ghost.”

“As you should.”

“We're talking properly for the first time in years and you're already showing me your claws? Go easy, ma.”

“I can't get lost in the character.”

“You could make the effort. Just for me, that is.”

“I was never nice to you?”

“Well, we never talk. At least not a lot. Should change that,” He started to walk out of the lab nonchalantly. “We already have the same taste for food.”

“That’s a lot in common, huh.”

“Tweet, tweet, baby. I'm a cop in a cage,” The Telly Savalas imitation wasn’t all bad, you could give him that.

Absentmindedly, you watched him with the same silly face until he turned the hall out of your reach with the glass doors. After a few seconds, when he was already out of sight and you, clearly, out of mind, you blinked and frowned like something terrible just happened.

Well. Flirting with Benny was really that much of a terrible idea?

****

“I’m not one to like to spread bad news,” Emma said, not even giving you a chance to leave the lab.

“What happened?”

“They caught Travis Brown.”

“... And is it bad?”

“He’s almost dead for real now.”

****

The personnel cuts in the Department were somewhat severe, but manageable. That was why people like you existed, because you filled holes and had the ability to resolve situations however you could.

The fact that it was late at night when Emma told you to go to the hospital made you a little embarrassed, but it wasn't like you had plans for anything, so you went. Camera in hand, conventional evidence collection kit: you entered the place and were almost swallowed by a handful of things happening at once.

It took you about 10 minutes to get information about Travis Brown – five more to get to the floor he was at. There were at least five or six other police officers near the bedroom door, all heavily armed, and it was the first time you felt a certain relief in seeing Nick.

“He really is that guy, huh,” You said as low as you could, looking between O’Brien and the other cops.

“He could pretend he was dead, so you take it from here” He sighed, not quite sure of your presence there. “Where’s Gina?”

“Homicide. I’m what you have at the moment.”

Nick hummed in dissatisfaction.

“We have about 15 minutes tops before Walsh arrives. Henderson and Z are with him in the scene, but I don't know how long they’ll keep him there.”

“Well, you have a lot of reinforcement here, use it. Traffic related or not, it's still your case. And probably another 15 different state governments, by the looks of it.”

You entered the room and there were two more police officers monitoring Travis. This made you a little tense – it was the first time you had been in a situation like this. There was a lot of pomp, a lot of attention; certainly no one gave you media training in case you left there and were approached alone.

Travis looked like a rag, however, half dead with his face completely disfigured and recognizable only by one of his eyes still open and his hair, which were still the same on the tape. You looked at the two police officers, greeted them, and tried not to look too nervous as you began to do your job. Whatever happened outside the doors would be something to deal with later.

****

“All set?” Benny was in front of you as soon as you left Travis’s room.

Were you giving your nervousness away? Did you seem as uncomfortable as you felt like?

“Where’s Nick?” You asked instead, adjusting the strap of your camera on your shoulder.

“He’s dealing with the press. Emma’s there with him.”

“Thank God…” You huffed, palm scratching your forehead and closing your eyes for a second.

“You good?”

“Yeah, yeah, just… It’s weird. All of these people, I mean. I feel like I’m the eye of a hurricane.”

“If you stick with us for longer, that’s what’s on the table for you.”

“Seems like it.”

You looked around once more, fingers gripping the handle of your briefcase a little too tightly. You could feel Benny watching you, practically staring at you, and the silence between you became a little awkward, enough so you weren’t even looking at him.

“Can you drive back to the station?” He asked.

“Mm-hm.”

“You sure? ‘Cause he told me to keep an eye out if you-”

“No, no, don’t worry! I’m good. Thanks,” Your weak smile made him frown a little, but he didn’t press. With a slight nod, he gave you suggestions to leave through the ambulance exit, and you left without looking back.

****

That night, Kojak was still awake when you got back home. There was no wine, no chance of you turning off your phone, but you took a bottle of water to take that dose of pills you forgot to take at the right time.

“What are you still doing up, huh? Waiting for me?” He followed the tip of your finger touching the glass and gave his body a little spin before swimming unassumingly away. You kept looking at the inside of the aquarium for another moment before spinning around yourself to get a better look at the whole living room.

Everything was quiet, organized and clean. Pacific. It was a strange sensation, one you didn't like. At least it was over, so you could have some time for yourself before the next shift, and turn that tense tiredness into a successful day because you really worked.

Your back wouldn't allow you to lie on your carpet; still, after a good shower, you curled up in the comfort of your bed and faced the ceiling again.

Tweet, tweet, baby. How could this be the last thing you thought about before you closed your eyes?

****

No pressure tags:

@cheesybadgers

@paintlavillered

@sexuallover

#benny borracho magalon #benny magalon x reader #benny magalon fic #den of thieves #den of thieves fic #maurice compte

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baiwu-jinji · 4 years ago

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“My beloved is a brave, noble, and gracious special someone”

“我的心上人，是个勇敢的金枝玉叶的贵人“

This is Hua Cheng’s words to Xie Lian towards the end of the novel. I haven’t gotten that far into the story yet, but this line is so famous among Chinese fans that even I couldn’t help but know it lol. The original Chinese of this line is more nuanced and thus worth explaining, so let’s break down this sentence for a bit.

The word “beloved” in the original Chinese is “心上人”, which literally means “the person on my heart.” So “beloved” refers to someone that you cherish in your heart (and who’s always on your mind).

The Chinese phrase for “noble” is “金枝玉叶”, which literally means “gold branches and jade leaves.” The phrase was originally used to describe beautiful plants, but is later mostly used to descibe those of noble birth. High-born people are analogized to “gold branches and jade leaves” because in a class society, nobilities are simply deemed to have more worth than the common people.

So actually the word “noble” here doesn’t have the connotation of “having fine personal qualities and high moral principles,” it just refers to Xie Lian’s noble birth. But it also shows the high regard Hua Cheng holds Xie Lian in, because after so many years of being the dirt-poor God of Rubbish, after so many years of enduring the ignominy of being a failure and laughing stock, Xie Lian is still “gold branches and jade leaves” in Hua Cheng’s heart. Xie Lian’s image remains unmarred and unstained for Hua Cheng.

The phrase for “gracious, special someone” in Chinese is “贵人”. “贵人” could simply mean “aristocrat,” “nobility,” but it does also have the meaning of “special someone.” And a person is usually referred to as “special” (“贵人”) because they have given you pivotal help and support in a critical time of your life. So when you say “he’s the special somone in my life” (他是我命中的贵人), people would understand it as that this person has helped you immensely at some point. And this “special someone” who has given Hua Cheng immesurable help in his hardest times is Xie Lian.

So the sentence could somewhat be interpreted as “the person I cherish in my heart is brave and of noble birth, the special someone who has given me the help I most needed.”

#xie lian #hua cheng #hualian #tgcf #tgcf novel #heaven official's blessing

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baekhvuns · 3 years ago

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I finally got fluffy San back, he looked so cute with his hair down :"( and Seonghwa doing the Spiderman pose during the fan sign, plsss fucking nerd gonna kiss his forehead if he doesn't stop. Just a DILF professor Mingi and his son

https://twitter.com/princechoisan/status/1522298616538439680?t=_gXTXq4Mao6HwtmjhLLV-Q&s=19

Also, Hwa pls NOOOOO: https://twitter.com/holyseonghwa/status/1522308376813834240?t=ozeIi5Z7DtNeFADrmHIosg&s=19 Just search your name on twt and you'll see it all 💀

Omfg at first I thought your pcs were of Ateez only, but I zoomed in and Mr Kai???

Perhaps that girl is a Shinestar idk, thankfully I rarely comment and try to keep it civil, lmao but it's so funny what a reunion. I feel bad for parents with demonic children cause you can tell some of them are trying yet the kids are just evil... but many just don't give a fuck CAUSE THEY'RE KIDS LET THEM HAVE FUN, well Melissa your kid is throwing M&Ms at everyone...yeah that happened actually, one kid hit my glasses and I almost unleashed hell. It was yeeeeeears ago when I worked in a store. Also some kids would steal sweets, actually if they asked I would give them some (we weren't supposed to do that, but I didn't care for that job anyways) but if they stole and left the wrappers for us to clean 🔫🔫🔫🔫 and some parents thought it was acceptable. Hell adults did the same shit and sometimes I would chase after them with the wrappers to call them out or sneak up on them while they were consuming and be like "enjoying your stolen treat?" they thought they were being subtle. I didn't give a shit about them stealing from the shop I just didn't want to collect their rubbish and seeing them go 👁👄👁 was always funny as hell, good times!

I can't eat kinder surprise chocolate now though I miss it :((( also the toys nowadays are pretty shitty from what I've seen same with Happy Meals, wtf the quality went 📉📉📉📉 *boomer mode on* back in my days we got cool collections like elephants, vampires, aliens, hippos, cats, crocodiles... (the fact I searched for them and it said VINTAGE 90S TOYS made me feel so old wtf 🤧 they were sold in the early 00s as well wdym 🤚🏻)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/252318507984?_ul=MX - Another proof I was obsessed with collecting stuff from the start. Did you have Bratz or other dolls too? And are you familiar with those skinny bitches from McDonald's lolol sorry for the ancient looking photo, they were called Betty Spaghetty

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/DdMAAOSw-mdetCar/s-l300.jpg

And the doggos: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwpcxqIWEAAm8w0?format=jpg&name=small

Fun fact I left the Husky one at the airport in Rome 😢 but then I found out that my cousin switched our Huskies cause hers was a bit damaged (I didn't realise lmao) so I eventually took hers (well mine) as a revenge. She thought it got lost 🤭

The speshol came from this jsushwhahbdshaj https://youtube.com/shorts/UITdXUUEsQI?feature=share

WE ARE NOT ROOTING FOR YOU omg nooo 💔💔💔 but tbh what's with people creating boring leads... I mean some deserve better they're plain, but just like people irl so it's kinda hypocritical to call them uninteresting while most people are this way. But some characters are just... they're just there and all attention is supposed to be on them, but even their dog is more interesting and relatable. Some Y/N's are the same way, I don't need to relate to them 100%, but omfg make them bearable at least!

BM is not exactly a murder and crime mystery, I mean there's murder, crime and mysteries 😂 but it's about dystopian worlds basically, the consequences of technology, lots of angst - pretty mind fucking stuff. - DV 💖

hi!!!

HE RLY DID !!! like yellow whipped cream 😭😭😭 LMFAOOOO IM FIRST GET IN LIKE 🔫 pls…not dilf mingi pls pls 🤚🏼😭

Also, Hwa pls NOOOOO: https://twitter.com/holyseonghwa/status/1522308376813834240?t=ozeIi5Z7DtNeFADrmHIosg&s=19 Just search your name on twt and you'll see it all 💀

LMFAOOOO PLS IF HE EVER HAD THAT ABILITY IT WOULD BE SO EMBARRASSING WHEN HE FINDS HOW HORNY SHINESTARS ARE 😭😭😭😭 no fr search ur name bro

Omfg at first I thought your pcs were of Ateez only, but I zoomed in and Mr Kai???

mr kai runs this body <3 kind of strange that ik exo since debut yet have two albums from them and ik ateez for more than half their time and have their entire discography 😀

AS I WAS WRITING THIS THERES KIDS 😭 A GROUP OF KIDS OUTSIDE SCREAMING AND RUNNING AND u know those noise making things u get for birthdays?? the one u blow in and it goes “eeeee” …..that’s what’s been going on it’s BEEN HOURS IM CRYING GENUINELY THERES TEARS IN MY WYES FHWJDHWKFKLW THE AMT OF TIMES I WENT TO THE WINDOW TO GIVE THEM A GLARE BUT THEIR MOTHERS WINT EGEN STOP THEM IMSCRCEKAJMG,,,,

LMFAOOOO 😭😭😭😭 FBWKDH U DDINT CARE IF THEY STOLE BUT IF THEY THREW WRAPPERS LMFAOOO 😭😭😭😭😭 it’s on site, one of my friends worked at walmart, he saw someone steal bananas and never reported bc he said “im not paid enough too” 😭😭😭

OH NAURRR 😭😭😭 no fr happy meals r so changed now and for what ?????? LMFAOOOO NOT VINTAGE 😭😭😭😭😭

do u rmr the 2010 shrek happy meals??? i had this shrek himself https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LOzL3G94TR4

BDMWBDKW I DID!!! i had a 2008 yasmin or sasha doll,,,, idk which out of the two but i had one of those and the way i was so obsessed fbwhdhd SKINNY BITCHES 😭😭😭 LMFAOOO BETTY SPAGHETTY I DO I RMR 😭😭😭

omg do u rmr this doll https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/barbie-barbie-love-doll-taffy-dog-1916951645 i have this exact one with me rn, hair chopped and highlighted with a highlighter 😭😭😭😭

The speshol came from this jsushwhahbdshaj https://youtube.com/shorts/UITdXUUEsQI?feature=share

LMFAOOOO PLS 😭😭😭😭 THEYRE SO FUNNY 😭😭

no that’s so true, so true so true 1000% like main characters r supposed to have an oomph but also be like normal ppl u know?? YEAH MAKE THEM BAREABLE 😭😭 like those older kdrama girlies have more personality than the new ones 🔫

OHHHHHH DYSTOPIAN 👁👄👁

#✉️ : ask #dv 💖 anon

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years ago

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To the Tulula Anon (Part 2)

Alas, Tumblr only allows you to put so many screenshots into a single text post. Curse the Tumblr gods for daring to try and limit my power, I shall not stand for this! Nah, I totally will. Let us continue.

Actually, the image of MC and Tonks talking to Tulip in followup alongside Merula doing the same thing with Diego kind of reminds me of that incorrect quote that I see a lot sometimes, where one person recounts the kiss and everyone freaks out with excitement, and the other person’s group is just like “Tongue? Cool.” I dunno if anyone’s seen that but it makes me crack up. MC and Tonks being exasperated with Tulip’s wonderful inability to quit Merula is giving me life. Really, that could apply to anyone we ship with Merula as she is a literal trash bag, an actual rubbish bin. Liz spotted it before any of us, she knows how true it is. Diego seeming like such a romantic but actually giving the worst possible advice to Merula even though he thinks it’s genuine wisdom? That also has added years onto my lifespan.

Part of me can imagine Tulip keeping this close to her chest, but part of me feels like she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, that she would just need to talk to someone about it. Either way, Year 5 is late enough that everyone can probably tell how Tulip feels, and that there’s something brewing there. I mean, it’s like you said. She always defends Merula and mentions her good qualities whenever anyone else criticises her. Couple that with her attempts to involve Merula in the investigation and offer alliances, usually without running it by MC first. Then again, Year 5 in particular was also the time period that Merula was not only in alliance with MC and the others, she was basically acting like a friend to them. So it probably would be far less of a shock to everyone involved. As far as who would win the bet, I’d imagine Tonks would be able to provide input about Tulip, Diego would provide for Merula. MC may or may not know either of them as well as Tonks and Diego, but they’re the only one who knows them both rather well. Plus, you know, they have the plot armor. So they would win.

You know, it’s quite silly because it’s such an obvious lie, the “I didn’t mean to kiss you” bit, and anyone with common sense would know that of course Merula is trying to cover her bases, certainly someone as smart as Tulip. But that wouldn’t stop Merula from trying, from aggressively insisting that her version of events is the truth. It’s actually quite comical, like those animes where the character blurts out their dark secret and then loudly clarifies that “No one heard that.” And when no one responds, they shout it more threateningly so everyone else gets the memo and responds with agreement that they didn’t. I can just picture Merula doing that. I feel like Tulip would just find it hilarious/adorable and wouldn’t even know what to say.

Side note: Please, oh please, never apologize for the lovely content that you send me! It always cheers me up to see messages from you!

#Tulip Karasu x Merula Snyde #Tulip Karasu #Merula Snyde #The Tulula Anon #Tulula #Diego Caplan #Nymphadora Tonks #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #HPHM Jacob's Sibling #I tried to put the photos side by side #But you can only do that on mobile #And if you even edit the post on desktop #it auto resets to have the photos like this #It's really annoying #Especially since I want to add read more links #And don't even TRY to add one of those if you're editing on mobile #Or edit a post that already has one even #It WILL completely fuck it up #Yes I'm a bit frustrated with Tumblr right now #Oh here's something else that editing on mobile does #It takes the post title and moves it to just be the first line of the post #No way to fix that or even know it happened until afterward either #Seriously this hellsite is stuck together with paperclips and string

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kathrynethegreat · 5 years ago

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Dr.Lecter and Leda and the Swan

The below is from an essay by the artist Anne Shingleton discussing Leda and the Swan, her artwork, and why she believes Hannibal Lecter likes it. The essay was originally provided by the now defunct Hannotations from the contributors BloodandIvory and NyxFixx. Minor content edits by me, but you can read the full essay here. You can also learn more about Anne Shingleton and her artwork at her official website.

[Lecter’s] absentee landlord apparently had a fixation on Leda and the Swan, The interspecies coupling was represented in no less than four brozes of varying quality, the best a reproduction by Donetello, and eight pantings. One painting delighted Dr.Lecter, an Anne Shingleton with its genius anatomical articulation and some real heat in the fucking. The others he draped. - Hannibal, Chapter 97, by Thomas Harris

Ever since the misty dawn of Greek mythology, Leda and her doting swan have lived and loved in countless poets' lays and, less ephemerally, in thousands upon thousands of embodiments in paint, line, stone and metal.

They appear in the arts of Rome and Hellas in a profusion of sizes and materials, from golden bracelet pendants and silver table ornaments to great sculptures cast in bronze and hewn from marble (such as the Great Relief in the British Museum), from delicate drawings on precious ceramics to colourful frescoes on the walls of atria and chambers. But after the decline of Rome they nodded off into the many long centuries of bleak post-Roman Europe, awaking briefly now and then and here there to invigorate some ornamental arts and crafts of the Middle Ages.

(The essay, as well as an image of Anne Shingleton’s version of Leda and the Swan is below the cut. It’s a little bit graphic, so fair warning)

Leda and the Swan by Anne Shingleton

It was the Italian Renaissance with its exuberant rediscovery of classical antiquity & say, from about 1400 or so onward that brought them once again into the limelight of profane (in the sense of non-ecclesiastical) imagery. Nearly all the great Renaissance artists drew, painted or sculpted their Ledas, conspicuous among these being an oil-on-canvas by Leonardo Da Vinci, known only through several copies by his followers, and Michaelangelo’s stunning marble, today in Florence's Bargello. From there they coupled their way through the next five centuries and far beyond Italy's shores and borders, into and out of the Baroque and Rococo, into the nineteenth century to brighten some sclerotic corners of Neo-Classicism, and eventually even into Art Nouveau, there briefly to beguile a languorous Belle Époque. After August 1914 they withered, along with the rest of Europe's humanistic culture.

Nevertheless, even today, in our own age of mostly meretricious rubbish art mass-produced to con newly-rich illiterates, they glow softly still among the now very distant and still receding constellations of our classical heritage.

Who, then, was Leda, and who the swan?

Antiquity sang several different versions of her tale. Most agree that she was the daughter of Thestius, king of Aetola, and the wife of Tyndraeus, king of Lacedaemon. Somehow she inflamed the passions of Zeus, Some said that he saw her bathing in a sparkling sun-drenched stream, others that Hephaistos had told him about her dissatisfaction with her husband's ways in bed, and others still that he was only out to spite his consort, Hera.

In any event, he was smitten and, having just lately visited Danae as a shower of gold, Europa as a bull, Io as a cloud, Ganymede as an eagle and others still in guises no less inventive, he decided to assume yet another one for his tryst with Leda: he would swoop down majestically on snowy pinions . . . as a swan.

Mythology fails to tell us whether these forms were mere travelling costumes, so to speak, and whether, as we may well suppose, upon arrival at the bedside he reassumed his customary and divine semblance of a robust, virile man in the prime of his maturity. I've heard that a swan's penis - to be precise: a cob's - is exactly like a circumcised human one in miniature, and that this gave rise to the amorous-swan legends . . . but I confess that I've never checked it out with a cygnologist, though I should've done so long ago. Perhaps some thoughtful cygnologist will let me know?

In any event, swan or man, he had his way with her, or she with him, or each with the other. Of it came an egg, or, in other versions, three eggs, and in others still seven, and you mustn't act surprised: when a fertile lady mates with a cob she'll lay eggs - faultless logic, that, and winsome science.

One tremendous event that soon followed was to become a bedrock and fountainhead of Western culture: for whilst out of two eggs hatched the twins Castor and Polydeuces.

I relinquish the podium to Homer.

My own versions…. differ a little from the conventional ones. For one thing, neither my painted nor my sculpted Zeus arrives in the form of a swan but rather dressed up as one . . . he's wearing a (rather skimpy) swan costume, under which he is very much the Chief Olympian: strong, handsome, supremely male, his ebullient libido refined by aeons (he being immortal) of experience and divine dedication to his beloved's (not always female) pleasure.

For another thing, most Leda depictions are intra-coital: it's happening, nobody can figure out just how but they're at it. My painting instead shows them as post-coital.

In the painting, the oil lamp on the rocks just right of the love nest is still burning but night is fleeing, crescent Selene is fading, colours are being reborn everywhere. First light is bathing the two dreamy, sated lovers. Birds chirp in chorus. An exquisite post-orgasmic Leda is savouring the last after-tremors of her lique-factions while scenting the dewy flowering of day. Zeus has retired to the top of the bower, his costume all awry, a smile of surfeit on his lips. Post coitum omne animal triste, said Aristotle: after mating all creatures are sad. I think there is truth in that, but it is more complex, less formulaic. The martyrs enter the arena hand in hand but the lions eat them one by one. Lovers in the act dispense with the meum-teum sense (Robert Graves), but after the shared orgasmic heats, the post-orgasmic chills overtake them one by one, and, slowly, deliciously if all went well, they drift apart, sometimes a little numbed, nearly always bewildered, on separate outbound tides. Even, or perhaps especially, if they're gods. My painted Leda and her god are poised over this hot-cold watershed. Until the next time…

Why does the doctor 'delight' in the Leda story? I don't know. Best ask Tom Harris. But I'll have a guess.

As he does in The Silence of the Lambs, as does so much literature both old and modern, Harris draws unconsciously or knowingly - I don't know which - on the world of myth and fable, that genome of the collective human subconscious. The leitmotif in both Silence and Hannibal, not deafening or intrusive but audible throughout from the dark beyond the firelight, is that of The Beauty and The Beast. Since I'm neither a poet nor a scholar I'll refrain from windy disquisitions, but to me the parallels between that fable and the interbraiding of the lives of Hannibal and Clarice Starling seem clear enough.

Clarice-Leda has taken vestal vows, has dedicated her body and soul to the FBI: not for her the traditional role of wife and woman as prescribed by patriarchal orthodoxy. Like the life of chaste and virginal Beauty, Clarice's life, so far as we've been told, is manless, and hence, conventional wisdom would have it, arid. The fable now demands that she be sexually fulfilled, 'sexually' having here a wide, deep, polyhedral meaning far beyond mere genital tiddlywinks.

Lecter-Swan is a beast, no doubt of that, and no need to dwell on definitions. The fable now demands that she make him human, meaning here humane.

And behold, in the book, though alas not in the film, both undergo the magical transformation: Beauty turns the Beast humane, the Beast wafts Beauty to, up and over the moany summit where she is, presumably, fulfilled. Both are reborn from scratch - from the egg, so to speak, through each other.

I think that could well be why the doctor delights in the one painting in the room that he leaves uncovered for Clarice to see.

Anne Shingleton

#leda and the swan #anne shingleton #hannibal #hannibal lecter #thomas harris tetralogy

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anony-mony-moose · 4 years ago

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Let’s Stay Together - Izzy Stradlin x Reader (Part 2)

Y/N starts her new job, agrees that Izzy’s water is hot, and narrowly dodges an interrogation from Duff

warnings for swearing, mentions of drug use, and very mild Duff abuse (specifically his toe)

also on ao3 :)

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“First off, you gotta be able to clean dishes.”

“Oh don’t worry about that.” I delivered my most charming smile. “I’m a dab hand when it comes to soap and water, Angus.”

Izzy huffed quietly in amusement as he set down a chopping board, and I had to work to keep the pleasant expression on my face.

“I don’t doubt it, Y/N/N.” Angus replied jovially, eyes twinkling under his undulating brow. “Only other condition is I have to like you enough to be around you five days a week.”

I bit my lip and sighed dramatically. “Shit, well if it’s not meant to be... Where’s my coat?”

He belted out a laugh and strode further into the kitchen, slapping my back (and politely ignoring the way I jumped about a foot in the air).

“Come on, we gotta get you set up before the orders start. It’ll get real busy soon. You wouldn’t think so, on a Thursday afternoon...” He continued as he led me to the sinks at the back, marching past Izzy who shot me a wink and laughed silently at the mock-bewildered face I pulled.

There isn’t much you can explain about washing up, further than pointing to a sink and then some dishes, but Angus gave it a shot anyway, doling out helpful tips like, “This one’s the cold tap, that one’s hot. Be careful, alright? The hot water is pretty damn hot.” Eventually, mercifully, his commentary ran dry and he bustled over to dice veg with Izzy at one of the counters. A few hours passed with me scrubbing my way through various pots and pans, occasionally enjoying Angus’ happy chatter about this and that whenever service calmed down. He had something to say about just about everything, that man.

Although you wouldn’t know it from the way he spoke, Angus Walker was only in his early thirties. Smoking one too many packs a day for about ten too many years had reduced his voice to a low scratchy rumble, and it matched perfectly with the strange little rambling tales he liked to share. His funniest kitchen war stories usually centred around his time starting out in Chicago. They were also evidently his favourites to tell - he’d get properly invested, slipping into thickly accented voices for each character. The way he reminisced, you’d think he was referring to things that took place fifty years ago.

Although not especially close, we’d been familiar since I first arrived in LA. Of course, since Izzy got the job doing food prep for him at Andrea’s, we bumped into quite regularly - it was usually Angus who answered the back door, and he was very generous with Izzy’s smoke breaks whenever I came calling. Weirdly enough though, Duff had also previously worked for him at a bakery, which was conveniently only ten minutes up the road from the call centre I was temping at at the time (another job which bit the dust pretty fast). I used to pop by everyday over my lunch hour to chat with all the staff in the break room. Duff made a habit of stuffing my pockets on my way out with all the goods that didn’t survive the ovens, constantly trying to feed me up, and even back then Angus would always turn a blind eye.

All round, he was just a really nice bloke. Didn’t half harp on though, I mused, tuning in to follow the end of a lengthy discussion about the guy I’d replaced.

“Damn sight better to have you on the team, anyway.” He concluded, pottering away to rummage around for something in the walk-in. I turned and caught a knowing smirk from Izzy.

“Comin’ out for a smoke?” He asked, jerking his head towards the door.

I nodded and swivelled round to check with Angus.

“Sure honey, take all the time you need! I’ll hold down the fort over here!” He hollered in reply and I stifled a small laugh. I had a feeling he was just grateful for a new, even marginally more responsive ear to chew off as he worked - Izzy could be an absolute brick wall when he set his mind to it.

We stepped outside into a light drizzle and the man in question burst into laughter, ducking with a delighted grin as I clouted him round the back of the head.

“You are a such a fuckin’ flirt!” He wheezed, only spurred on by my unsuccessful attempts to look unamused. His shoulders shook as he plucked a crumpled pack of Marlboro’s from his back pocket, still chuckling as he passed one to me.

“Angus doesn’t mind.” I mumbled, glancing away to hide my smirk.

He cackled again. “No, he fuckin’ doesn’t.”

Our elbows knocked together, a short fit of giggles escaped me before I could properly stamp it down. My voice trembled when I replied, “My skills really are wasted on this shit, huh?”

All it took was a glance and we both devolved into hysterics again.

You could probably forgive us for feeling a bit crazed that afternoon. Neither of us had got even a glimpse of sleep, having been kept up all night by Slash and a steady supply of pills from his various pockets; the man really did have everything stashed away in there. The day had broken and morning was well on it’s way to noon when Slash finally left to restock, Izzy and I tagging along just for something to do. I didn’t have much memory of our bleary walk around town to find a dealer, apart from a single clear image of the cold, grey sunlight dancing over Izzy’s face. A little weird, granted, but I figured that could be easily blamed on the pills.

It was a bit of a miracle that we actually to made it to Andrea’s on time. It was even more of a miracle that we weren’t just turned away in our bedraggled state. Getting a good look now we were outside, Izzy still looked objectively awful, with big red rings shadowing his eyes and a slightly twitchy quality to all his movements. An unruly part of my brain helpfully reminded me that despite this, he was still extremely attractive. Another, more unruly part suggested that, yes, I definitely still wanted to shag him like this, and hey presto, now I was imagining him pinning me against that metal door and fucking those hangover jitters out of me. Christ.

No sleep, an ever-intensifying comedown, and an incorrigible imagination – the real miracle would be surviving to the end of this shift.

*****

“Sheena is-“ The words garbled as I dunked my head back under the showerhead to rinse. “A punk rocker, no-o-o-o-ow!” My feet slipped a little, stumbling over an empty beer can which floated above the drain, and I splashed my face to wash off the soapy water, still singing cheerily. “She’s a punk, punk,” I climbed out of the tub to snatch up the towel from the floor, (“A punk rocker!”) giving myself a quick once over (“Punk, punk-“) before hitching it up around me. (“A punk rocker-er!”) I shook my hair out enthusiastically and immediately winced as that stubborn hungover headache clattered around my skull again like an enraged bull, battering away at my temples. I could hardly wait to meet the guys and get a drink inside me, if only to get rid of the incessant pounding in my head.

I plugged on determinedly with the song, neatly bringing the chorus to an end as I left the bathroom (spoiler: she is still definitely a punk rocker). A wry grin was leering at me from the other side of the door.

“Is she now?”

I hid a smile and squeezed some more water out of my hair as I pushed past to search out some clothes.

“Yeah, weren’t you listenin’? I thought me and Joey made it pretty clear.”

A loud thunk sounded from the window. He brushed behind me to answer it, hand flitting over my bare shoulder briefly, and I swallowed as I sifted haphazardly through the accumulated rubbish on the floor for my skirt. I sighed, standing up to ask Izzy if he remembered where we’d lobbed it before, and the unkempt stranger outside jeered suddenly. How he had the energy, I had no idea. The sheen of sweat on his forehead hinted at a pretty nasty case of dopesickness – after all, that was why he’d come knocking.

“Shit, Stradlin, what else you got hidin’ in there?” My nose scrunched up in irritation, any sympathy vanishing instantly, but Izzy beat me to it.

“Fuck off.” He hissed and reached out to give him a harsh shove, and the man stumbled backwards, startled.

“Jeez, man, I was j-“ The window slammed shut in his face and he gawked through the dirty glass for a second before dashing off into the alley, probably remembering the fresh dose of smack in his hand. Izzy lingered, glowering at his retreating back. On second thoughts, maybe it was the glower that sent him running.

“Um, have you seen-“ I began as he turned and said, “I should’ve beat his fuckin’ ass for that. Sorry.”

I blinked, taken aback by the ferocity in his tone. “It’s fine, Iz.” He eyed me dubiously. “Really. I would’ve said the same thing, I mean-“ I flounced a hand across my body, adopting a terrible imitation of a Californian drawl, “Have you seen this bod?”

He snorted and produced my lost mini-skirt from somewhere in his unmade bed, offering it to me as he changed the subject abruptly.

“How was my shower?”

“Uh... Functional?” That was… An oddly pointed question. “I’m clean as a whistle now, so…” I yanked a pair of tights up over my arse and stepped into the skirt.

“Hot enough for you?”

So that was what he was getting at. I smirked drily and rolled my eyes as I clipped up my bra. “Put Nicky’s to shame.”

“Good to hear.” He handed me a dark blue shirt and watched me slip it on with a smirk to match mine. “You ready to head out?”

I glanced up, pausing my buttoning, to raise an eyebrow. “Feelin’ impatient, Izzy?”

His hands covered mine to fasten the last few buttons up to my chest, surely feeling the way my heartbeat revved up a little in anticipation. He dipped his head, just enough to lock eyes with me, that wicked smirk still firmly in place, and practically purred, “Always.”

*****

“Y/L/N!”

Duff waved me down as he left his apartment block, leaping out into the road and racing over to meet me outside Izzy’s building, barely avoiding a motorbike as it whizzed past.

“Hey, man.” His grin was infectious, bright even in the persistent spitting rain, and it managed to take some of the bite from my grumbling reply.

“You’re a bit chipper for this time in the afternoon, aren’t you?”

“You left very early last night.” No time to waste on small talk, apparently.

I started walking purposefully in the direction of the Strip, not sparing him a glance as he plodded along beside me. I didn’t have to see his face to know that there was still a teasing grin plastered all over it.

“You weren’t the only one.”

“I wasn’t?”

He raised his eyebrows, almost managing to keep a serious expression.

I bit down a giddy smile (Jesus, where was that coming from?) and dug my hands into the pockets of Izzy’s coat. “Piss off, Duff.”

“I didn’t even say anything!”

I narrowed my eyes at him pointedly, (yep, there was the grin) and stopped to help shield him from the wind as he lit a cigarette. He repeated it and passed one to me.

“Cheers.” We strode on, my hair whipping and snapping around me like a whirlwind. I huddled further into the leather, firmly ignoring the unmistakeably Izzy scent that was ingrained in the collar, and the heat it sparked inside me.

“Gee, that’s a nice jacket you’re wearing.” Duff continued gleefully, a generous helping of sarcasm injected into his voice. I sighed and shook my head in exasperation. “Now where have I seen it before?”

I shot him an amused look. “What’s up, McKagan?”

“Who, me? Ohhh, nothin’ at all, zilch. Just makin’ a couple of observations, that’s all.”

“Sure about that?”

“Totally.” He paused as I dodged a frenzied woman in a pantsuit. “So many different things to observe, don’t you think?”

I snorted. “I don’t know, Duff, but I bet you’re gonna tell me.”

“You and Izzy disappear together last night, now you’re wearin’ his clothes this morning,” I checked, a little alarmed to find that I actually was wearing his shirt again today, while Duff threw his hands up in the air. “God, what could it all mean?”

I spluttered, laughing, and ducked under the awning of the liquor store to take one last drag of smoke before heading in. Of course, he followed me.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” The change rattled in my hand as I scoured the shelf in front of me, hardly paying attention to Duff swanning around on the side of the aisle.

“I’m just sayin’,” He called, “If I didn’t know better I’d say you two were gettin’ pretty cosy.”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed another cheap bottle of rum, sidling past him to deposit everything at the checkout.

“Hey Al, how’s it goin’?” I sighed, counting out the last of my quarters on the tabletop.

“He givin’ you trouble, sweetheart?” He nodded gruffly over my head at the giant blonde softie behind me, currently inspecting the label of a bottle of red wine.

I laughed, trying to imagine what Duff might look like to an untrained eye. He could be pretty scary when he needed to, after all. “No, he’s fine.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Duff’s hands landed on my shoulders and I flinched a little despite myself.

“If you’re sure.” Al muttered under his breath, patiently divvying up my assortment of coins and dollar bills. “You got another fifty cents, honey?”

I winced. That was all the cash I had. Duff’s touch disappeared from my shoulders to delve into his jean pockets, rooting around hastily.

“Sorry man, that’s all I got. I’ll leave the-“

“No, no, don’t be silly. Owe me it, alright?”

“But hey, I have-“ I silenced Duff with a light stomp on his toe.

“Thanks mate, I really appreciate it.” I gathered up the bottles under my arm, promising to be back with the remainder soon.

“Hey, forget it Y/N. Tell you what, keep that fifty. Buy some fuckin’ breakfast next time, okay?”

I snickered and waved as we turned to leave. “Will do! See you later!”

The bell above the door jingled chirpily as we left and Duff paused to spark another couple of cigarettes for us before stepping back out into the street. I frowned as he continued back the way we’d just come. He hadn’t really just left his apartment to follow me to the shop, had he?

“Are you goin’ home?”

“Nah, I’m late for work.” He said, looking remarkably unfazed.

“Shouldn’t you be walkin’ the other way, then?”

“I’ll walk you back first.” I opened my mouth to protest but he forged ahead before I could. “Didn’t get to the bottom of my observations yet.”

I sighed and waited for him to continue, but he stayed quiet instead, even when Izzy’s building came back into sight.

“What do you want me to say?” I said finally. “I thought everybody knew already, we fuck now and then. It’s not exactly big news.”

We stopped outside the door and I puffed away the last few tokes of my cigarette as I waited for him to reply. He was smiling fondly at me, and I found it infuriating for some reason.

“And you’re sure it’s just sex?”

“Uh, yeah.” I frowned. “Is that not what I said?”

He was still smiling and appearing quite entertained by my confusion, and I shook him off, wrinkling my nose, when he reached down to ruffle my hair.

“You know, you’re a real dumbass, Y/N/N.”

I scowled. “Yes, thanks, I did know that.”

He rocked back on his heels to fix me with a calculating stare.

“What does Izzy think?” He said carefully. Huh?

“What the fuck d’you mean, what does-”

“Shit!” Duff blurted, eyes widening comically. “I gotta get to work!” He turned on his heel and started sprinting back into town, shouldering through the midday stragglers and throwing out frantic apologies as he barged past people. In the space of about ten seconds, he was gone, flying out of view round the corner with a final shout of “Come see me when you get your head outta your ass!”

I stood there, dumbfounded. What the hell did he mean by that?

Curiously enough, he wasn’t the only one who’d suggested… Well, whatever it was he’d been trying to suggest. Axl had pulled me aside when we were out the night before last, bellowing in my ear that he was happy for me and Iz, of all things. If that wasn’t unsettling enough, him and Slash had taken to calling Izzy’s apartment ‘the love nest�� since I’d started hanging around there constantly, bedding down with Izzy every single night this week - as if I needed a reminder. I spent more time there than I did anywhere else at the moment, and it was getting a bit ridiculous. I’d been offered a roof to crash under for one night, and here I was, a week later, making myself a permanent fixture. He hadn’t mentioned it yet though, which seemed kind of unusual for someone normally so blunt.

I was still lost in thought as I twisted the cap off one of the bottles and gulped down a bolstering mouthful of whisky, trudging into the hallway to rap on Izzy’s door. The whole thing was very weird, I decided, screwing the cap back on. Very weird, indeed. And here I was, returning again. Bloody hell, what a disaster.

But then the door swung open, and I was greeted with a greedy kiss, emitting a pleased (if a little surprised) moan. Izzy was just as gloriously naked as I’d left him, with keen hands pulling me inside and pushing me up against the back of the door to kiss the breath out of me, already stripping me of his jacket and depositing it in a heap on the floor next to the booze.

“You were gone a long time.” He gasped, somehow still managing an air of nonchalance, even as he tore my (his) shirt up over my head. I wriggled out of it and launched myself back into his embrace, pressing up for another filthy kiss. His hands carded through my damp hair, and he broke away panting, confused. “It’s rainin’?”

I huffed, laughing a little, and dragged him with me towards the bed. “You wanna talk about the weather right now?”

His mouth stretched out to form a grin, and crashed back into mine - and all thoughts of Duff and his oddly foreboding questions swiftly evaporated.

#izzy stradlin #izzy stradlin x reader #izzy stradlin fanfiction #izzy stradlin fanfic #duff mckagan #axl rose #saul hudson #steven adler #gnr #gnr x reader #gnr fanfiction #gnr fanfic

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camelliacats · 4 years ago

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the girl with the pink ribbon

Another random drabble.

Fic: "the girl with the pink ribbon" [FFN] [AO3]

Pairings/Characters: pre-Luca Caruso/Alice Tolipan

Rating: K

Words: ~900

Additional info: romance, Maydayverse, Harry's era, 3rd person POV

Summary: They're just first years, but a random thought of Luca's might be the start of something new.

They met on the train, as so many students do.

He landed a compartment with a pair of brothers and some dark-haired girl. Then she came in, and another boy followed not long after.

To Luca Michali Caruso, the people didn't really matter to him. If he made friends at Hogwarts, then good. If he had to wait until he joined a House, then whatever. If he had to wait until after his education was complete, then he could manage.

The brothers sitting across from him weren't very interesting, but they at least were amusing. They seemed to be nothing but excited about everything. Meanwhile, the dark-haired girl appeared to be the older brother's companion, and she seemed used to at least her friend's personality.

The other boy who joined them chatted when needed but wasn't entirely talkative. But the slight girl sitting to Luca's right was polite and sweet.

"I'm Alice Tolipan," she told him.

"Luca Caruso," he said. He furtively eyed her. She was tiny, and not just short. Her complexion was average and her hair was a dim yet shiny blond. On her left side, she had a pink ribbon plaited through a chunk of her hair. He thought that was very different compared to what he saw all the other girls do.

"Are you excited for Hogwarts?"

He shrugged. "I don't care either way. I always knew I'd be going."

"Yes, but," she said, his dark-haired, pale-eyed image reflecting in her stone-colored eyes, "there has to be some excitement, don't you think? I mean, Hogwarts! We'll get to learn so much! And maybe Madam Hooch will do a better job of teaching me to fly than my mum." She rolled her eyes a bit, and he got the feeling that that didn't quite match up with her initial polite qualities.

Alice Tolipan definitely was amusing.

She managed to keep him talking for the duration of the trip, which was a feat in and of itself. By the time they reached the school, Luca felt a little more open to the concept of friends, and they joined the other boy who was their age and the younger brother in one of the boats up to the school.

Alice held the torch for their boat along with Luca. The ride was generally fine until they reached land. The younger brother was the last one out of the boat, and he capsized. He was rescued by the Giant Squid in the Black Lake, however, so he was fine.

Alice giggled at that, and Luca cracked a smile. Maybe Hogwarts would be more than okay.

The Sorting happened, and Luca ended up in Gryffindor with Squid-boy—er, Dennis Creevey—and Nigel Wolpert, their other train ride companion. Alice, on the other hand, went to Hufflepuff, and Luca couldn't fight the tiny frown he had at the announcement. It was harder for people to stay friends with those outside their House.

But Alice didn't let that stop them. She got along with her roommates, but she spent much of her time with Luca, Nigel, and Dennis, and with Luca even when the other two weren't around.

They seemed to be the only students who didn't really care that the Triwizard Tournament was happening at Hogwarts. Alice didn't have an eye for the Durmstrang lot and Luca could care less about the Beauxbatons bevy. In fact, they didn't even participate in the Potter–Diggory rivalry.

"I almost wish we could have a normal school year instead of this," she told him as they played Gobstones in the Gryffindor common room. He often let her in there, and no one seemed to mind.

"I'll give you that," he agreed. "At least Christmas is coming up."

"Yes, but so is that Yule Ball," Alice muttered.

Luca glanced at her, but her eyes were focused on the game. "I think it's a load of rubbish."

The witch sighed and nodded. "Yes, you're probably right." She stood and stretched and went to one of the windows. She crossed her arms and rested them on the windowsill, leaning on the cold stone of the castle. "Not to mention that we're not old enough to go. Although, who wants to dress up in frilly gowns and starched shirts and dance until their feet ache?"

Luca had always fancied himself mature for his age, if much could be said for a mature eleven-year-old. But he felt exactly like a pre-adolescent boy in that moment. And why did he feel that way?

Because he saw Alice Vanessa Tolipan standing at the window in his common room, pausing playing Gobstones with him, and thinking aloud for him to hear. She stood in her wrinkled uniform decorated in yellow and black, with her eyes half closed and her nose turning red from the coolness of the window's glass. She turned her head, giving him a smile that he understood he liked very much, and her hair swung, pink ribbon floating freely and teasingly.

And Luca knew that friends and dances and Hogwarts and witches…well, one certain witch…mattered.

They more than mattered.

And the girl with the pink ribbon certainly more than mattered.

But Luca pinched himself. "Come on, let's play," he said, changing the subject and summoning her back to the game. Because he also felt that it was too early to think that far into the future….

:3 Considering all the angst I've recently written, I REALLY needed to write something fluffy, and this was! Their friendship's cute to me, and they're together in my headcanon, yup. Some of the early description about their meeting comes from my fic, "Different." Lastly, Luca and Alice were in the D.A., which is why we have their names but nothing much else about them, so their descriptions and Houses are of my own making. Not to worry, though! I'll deffo be writing more of them, not to mention that they'll be popping up in my other fics now, too. Haha, Luca as friends with Dennis and Nigel…too cute! X3 And Rose Zeller was mentioned! Yay…! Hooray for minor charries! XD

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave an anon/unsigned review via the FFN link or comment via the AO3 link at the top of the post, especially if you enjoyed this!

~mew

2017 note: Barely anything to edit here, coming back to this 2013 fic. Tho, I have to say, I had to fix something in my old A/N, because I consider both this fic and "Different" to be Maydayverse fics (my overall headcanon). Ahhh, I've doodled Lucalice a bit, but I rly want to write them more. =w=

#hp #harry potter #lucalice #luca caruso #alice tolipan #<1000 #romance #maydayverse #rated: G #trio era #3rd POV

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chopstickchild · 4 years ago

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ok i need to rant for a bit (read at your own risk)

also tw for body image issues

for a bit of background, i do ballet, and im pretty damn serious about it. as in its the centre of my life and i plan to make a career of it.

well my mom is rly supportive about this, but sometimes she gets to be a bit too much. as in extremely insensitive about how her « helping me » makes me feel. the subject of obsession tends to be something important, or some milestone, such as a performance, competition, or audition. in this case it’s two audition videos: one for a prestigious international competition (which could change my life if i got in), and the other video is an audition video for my dream school (and again, life changing if i get in).

These two videos are EXTREMELY important, and we wanted everything to be as perfect as possible, but the focus on perfectionism is where the problem lies. i’ve gotten better about not dragging myself down over every single detail, but my mom on the hand has not. she doesn’t obsess over my dancing (i do that enough already) but over details like lighting, camera angle, the line my leotard makes, my shoe color, my bun angle, the amount of makeup, the video quality, etc. she has a really good eye for those sort of things since she used to be an artist (and majored in fine art), and if she was the one filming my videos there would be no problem there.

But evidently there is a problem (which is why i’m writing this all out cause istg if i don’t i WILL lose it). Actually there’s two, one per video, though the second problem has nothing much to do with everything mentioned before.

The first issue is something that’s been haunting me for two weeks, and not in the good halloween haunting way. The video for the competition was filmed over the course of a few weeks by one of my teachers, and she and my mom have an *interesting* relationship. as in ive learned to brush off my mom cussing her out in car rides or at home (which happened today twice lol). My teacher wouldn’t allow my mom to be in the studio to help with lighting, camera angle, etc., saying that the studio wouldn’t allow more than two people in at a time (a lie, cause when we went with my contemporary teacher for one section of the video my mom was able to go in and film that portion). My teacher is a really well intention person by the way, but since my mom is so similar to how her mom was, being in her prescence triggers her which i think may be why she tried to make it so she wouldn’t have to interact with her as much.

So anyways my teacher and i worked on the audition video and we finally completed it, but the way she filmed it was not up to my moms standards. so we filmed it again. and right now it’s STILL not up to my mom’s standards, but at this point there’s literally nothing we can do. the deadline is in a few days and there’s no way we can refilm it then. in terms of my dancing, i feel pretty satisfied, though it’s not perfect, but i feel ok sending it in. but for thé past few weeks i’ve been constantly hearing how the video isn’t good enough, and how it doesn’t present me well enough, and if my mom could just have filmed the barre and centre i would look so much better. and that if i really want to catch the judges eyes then the video quality would need to be better. and i argue back at that point, saying my dancing should be enough to do that, and that i’m not auditoning for a film school but for a DANCE competition. and i know my mom has a point. we are drawn to things well presented, even if the content may not be the best. but after hearing that my video is not up to par for WEEKS it hurts a lot. and if i ask her to stop focusing so much on that because at this point all that is doing is making us feel unsatisfied with something unchangable, i’m ignored and she goes on saying i don’t understand her point. I’m also told that she’s saying all this because she cares so much and wants me to succeed. and that is all true, but i don’t CARE that she’s saying all this because she wants to help me with my goal. there are so many more productive things to do than fixating on unchangable shit, and there’s a voice inside telling me that if she really cared about me, the real actual me and not the dancer side of me, she would take a moment to understand how much certain things she says hurts. no matter the intentions behind, no matter that she always adds that my dancing wasn’t the problem and that it was all my teachers fault (which also pokes me in a different way), i ALWAYS leave that conversation with an extremely tight knot in my chest and a bunch of self doubt. sometimes when the convo evolves into an argument, my mom tells me that it’s cause she’s stressed about this and the video and because she cares so much, but i’ve reached the point where i don’t give a fuck. i’m stressed too, and i care a TON. i sacrificed so fucking much for this (not to say she hasn’t like good lord i worry so much about her sometimes) but being stressed and caring about something does not excuse harping on about something someone has EXPLICITLY told you to please stop going on a bout and try to let go of. multiple times. which is why i really want to scream sometimes, and why i decided to just let it out here. (it’s worked by the way. as of right now the knot inside has loosened and the negative energy about this problem has almost dissolved, which why i’m now moving on to the second issue)

ISSUE NO. 2- thé audition video for my dream school. now this is a different direction than the other video problem because this video hasn’t been filmed yet. so i should start out with saying that as a by product of doing ballet, i have body image issues. it got worse over the course of the past year because i put on a few pounds. and i know that honestly, i shouldn’t worry too much, but doing an art form where your body is constantly critiques in so many ways kinda has a way of making you always wish it was better. now my mom knows about how i feel about my body, and in the past she has completely invalidated my feelings if i try to talk about it (because in her eyes i’m perfect yaddayaddayadda and i’m just manifesting these insecurities out of nowhere cause i have nothing to be worried about). the thing is tho (and i’m pretty thankful for this) is that she will tell me if i’ve gained weight, and she will help me if i want to lose some and stuff. so it’s like she has this weird mix of telling me to not worry about my weight cause i’m perfectly fine, but also telling me that i need to watch what i eat more and that i need to lose a little weight. and i hate it so much. recently i just stopped weighing myself every morning cause i realized i was literally basing how i felt the whole day off the number on the scale. and honestly i’m so much happier now cause i stopped. everything is the same except that one thing, and i have no intention to start obsessively weighing myself again.

And that brings me to issue two. because we were talking about the video for the school, and my mom said “you need to start weighing yourself every morning again”. well i saw every single color of the rainbow when she said that, and i was enraged. because my instinct was to be angry in order to protect one of my biggest insecurities, my body. the implications that came from telling me i needed to start weighing myself more HURT, and thinking about it right now is making me almost cry. and her saying that also pissed me off SO MUCH. because my mom KNOWS how i feel about my body, about my weight, and my eating habits. i have explicitly stated MANY time that i would prefer if she would not make those little comments about those subjects, and i have let her know how much it hurts me. i don’t think she understood that though, despite the amount of times i’ve completely shut down or started crying. but that one comment is hanging over my head right now, acting as a smoke cloud twisting around my heart and making me have some rlly self deprecating thoughts. and so tomorrow morning if she asks me what my weight is i don’t know what i’ll do. i’m considering just saying something above what ik she wants it to be, no matter what i may actually be, but i’ve also considered just tossing the scale in the rubbish bin. actually won’t do that though cause i would get in a ton of trouble lol. but a problem is that as a result of her comment, i’ve also begun considering starving myself, of making myself throw up, and other unhealthy ways to lose weight because right now, i feel like my body is too fat filled, too squishy for ballet. which is bullshit but the negative voice is drowning the positive one out now.

ok i have gotten all the rant energy out now, and no longer feel like punching a wall, cry screaming, cussing out the next person i see, or any assortment of high negative energy release techniques that would hurt others or myself. if you read this far, props to you cause i sure as hell would not have been able to make it thru that 😂.

also i should add that my mom and i are SUPER close and she honestly a great person in every aspect except certain dance related stuff. i really really appreciate everything she has done for me, all her sacrifices and all the effort she has put in to make sure i am where i am now. it’s just sometimes i feel like she forgets that i’m a person with feelings about topics, not just a dancer. thank you for coming to my tedtalk 😌

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writingsilly · 4 years ago

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Underwater (ch. V)

Description: Your bad behaviour led you to stay the whole summer in your town of birth with your grandfather. The very first day, you went for a walk to the beach and had an encounter with a stranger that would change your whole life.

Pairing: Reader x Merman!Taehyung.

Genre: Angst, suspense, sci-fi.

Trigger warnings (!!!): Blood, swearing, angst.

Click here to read in AO3!

V: Information

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“You’re gonna accept what I just said just like that?” He asked.

That was a good question, actually. Taehyung had done nothing but show you how decisive and dangerous he was, but was he worth your trust? It did not matter how much time you thought about it, though. He had made a request and you had to follow it.

So you did not say anything. Your throat was still burning, even swallowing was unbearably painful.

Taehyung sighed and stretched his arm, displaying a golden bracelet right in front of your face. You would not have thought much about it if a little pendant had not shone in the moonlight. It was a little larger than a coin with a small wave carved in it.

“This may seem like a cheap piece of rubbish,” he said, “but it’s actually a family relic. It has been worn by several kings, and a queen, within generations. Now, it’s my turn to wear it.”

You leaned over, ready to touch the pendant to examine it, but Taehyung was fast to pull back his arm.

“This,” he spoke again, his tone severe, warning, “I’m doing it because it’s the only way for you to believe me. I need you to believe me, not to ask questions. Got it?”

With that being said, he took off the bracelet and grabbed your wrist, pulling it so that you would show your opened palm. He let the cold chain in your hand. You heard the clicking of the metal and wondered if that was real gold or some kind of painted metal.

But now that you had this, what were you supposed to do with it? It could be a useless accessory, for all you knew.

“This town holds more information on mermaids than you might think. You just need to know where to look. Not everything you might find is true, but, I have to admit, some humans have got close to us,” he let out the last part with some kind of sadness.

If you asked any questions, you knew that Taehyung would not answer them clearly. Even when he tried so hard to hide, be mysterious, you noticed certain things. You knew better not to test him or push your luck. Whatever he gave, you would have to work with it. So moments like these, where he would give information in exchange for nothing, were special and rare.

You looked at him, hoping for him to tell you more. His naked chest expanded while he turned his gaze to the night sky. He looked so lost in thought, maybe even memories. With his profile, unbelievably well-proportioned, being highlighted by the moon, you felt your eyes glued to his image. There was always something interesting to watch, to discover, being his tanned skin or the mole hidden between his inferior eyelashes. You could not lie and say that Taehyung was not a fair creature, but that was not a surprise. You may not be an expert, but if there was something you knew about mermaids it was that their beauty was undeniable, mermen were not the exception to that fact, you confirmed it after meeting Taehyung. The air around him seemed to buzz with the most elegant harmony you had ever heard and, even in the dark, he radiated a golden light. He was luminescent, all the time. A vibrating light followed his figure with every move. Such lively energy for a being so despicable.

Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him. The first one being; looks are deceiving.

“Look for information,” he simply added. “You might stop flinching every time I look at you if you know what you’re dealing with. You might also know the seriousness of my threats, too.”

You closed your hand around the bracelet. It was the only thing you could do if you thought about it. This pendant held more than what the eye could see, and if you wanted to get out of this alive, and save your grandfather in the process, you had to do whatever it took.

You could go home once Taehyung indicated you what he wanted you to do and told you, yet again, what would happen if you did not obey. According to him, he “did not want to be more time than necessary between impure humans, no offence.” Of course, you replied with a dry “not taken” because even when you were not sure what he and his people thought to know about humans, you could easily name a few things about your kind that fell on the category of vile.

Taehyung knew exactly what he wanted to learn, he did not hesitate to tell you point by point, which were simply three; friendship, family and love. If something came up in the middle of your lessons, he would ask, he informed you. You were just begging that it would not happen. The less you had to teach him, the faster he would go back to the depths of the sea to rule his underwater reign or whatever. You did not know him, at all, but something told you that Taehyung would be a cold-blooded king. He did not hesitate to make his point with you, you doubted it would be different somewhere else. And you did not know why, but you wondered if that was a good quality of him if you talked about being king.

Once in bed, you could not help but wonder about his world. How different it might be from yours, how humans affected it, because, surely, all those talks about global warming were not to be taken as a simple joke. Your world influenced theirs directly. But you also thought about his people. If Taehyung thought of you as such evil creatures, did the rest of them believe the same? Or were they just scared of the information they were given about humans?

That was when it hit you; they knew nothing about you, just as you knew nothing about them. When talking about knowledge of one another, it was like a dog chasing its own tail; someone had to step in, put an end to it, and Taehyung was doing just that, you guessed.

“Are you planning something for today?”

The already gooey cereal stared back at you until you decided you were done with it and pushed it away from you. The thought of you browsing books of mermaids and fairy tales, all under the gaze of these overly curious inhabitants of this town… Yeah, that seemed like a good way to spend your way if you did not want to die.

“I’m going to the bookstore,” you replied with a smile. And your throat still hurt. A lot. But you had you ignore it if you did not want questions you could not answer.

Your grandfather seemed excited by the idea, as his eyes lighted up and his lazy posture changed suddenly, as he leaned slightly over the table like he was about to tell you the juiciest secret ever.

“The best store in town is the one you went to yesterday,” he informed you with a wink, “Miss Kim has the rarest books, the ones that you can’t find on the internet, all for a good price. Tell her I sent you and she might lend them to you.”

Not that you were disappointed by the first thing he said, but when he mentioned Miss Kim, your eyes widened.

“You know her?” You asked, a little bit hesitant, to which he only replied with a shrug and a smile that annoyed you because of the lack of verbal confirmation.

You were under the impression that your grandfather never left his house unless he wanted to take a walk or to buy groceries, or something he needed with urgency, but with this new information, you were left in the dark. You had never thought of him as someone mysterious, but now you had to? Not that you blamed him. You were hiding things from him as well.

“That’s all I’m gonna get?” You asked again. “Fine. I’ll have to ask her, then.”

Another thing to look into, you would add it to the list.

The unforgiving sun was punishing you with all its force. Your cap seemed useless at this point. It just encapsulated the heat, and after a few minutes walking over the hot road, you started to wonder if your head could sweat this much, or if it could even sweat. Today, you had chosen to wear sneakers, not sandals, as you had gained a brand new appreciation for your feet over these three days. Once you thought you might lose one over a demon under a dock, there was no turning back from that, was there?

With your eyes literally on your feet, because you did not want to lose your sight by looking at the sky, you made your way to the book store. With Taehyung’s bracelet burning your skin from the back pocket of your shorts, just to make itself go noticed, you sighed. Luckily for you, you remembered the way well. Your life depended on it, so no biggie, right?

It was strange to walk around town and not to hear cars or people talking on their phones. You had grown used to the sounds and lights of the city. You could not quite decide if you liked it better or not. In the city, even when you had never thought of it as home like this town was, you never felt completely alone. Even when you tried to get away from everything and everyone, there was always the distant lights of the buildings, the cars, the busy streets to keep you company. Here, however, the only thing you received were dirty looks from silent people. In a town this small, everyone knew everyone, their story, some of their secrets, because they always get discovered one way or another. The story of the little girl who went to the city and came back years after. That must have been quite a piece of gossip when you left. So, you were sure they knew you were that girl. You were sure that they were wondering why you came back, and why your father was not with you.

It was weird to be in the middle of people who knew about you, but you knew nothing about.

“You came back?”

You turned around and found Namjoon, all dimples and baggy clothes that made you question his sanity and if his body felt how damn hot it was today. He walked towards you while he put his phone in his pocket. The height difference would have made you laugh if circumstances were different.

You nodded with your eyes on his. His smile grew only bigger, and you appreciated it.

“Glad to see you again, then. My grandmother is out, so…”

You already knew what was coming. He was going to say that you should come back another day, but the thing was, you did not have another day. You were meant to meet Taehyung tonight and give him his bracelet back. You could not let Namjoon say it.

“Is–” your voice cracked, and you noticed how Namjoon was taken back by your sudden interruption. You coughed to cover that up. “Is there any way that you could let me in? I wouldn’t ask, but I’m desperate.”

You could not stop to care about how pathetic you might have looked in Namjoon’s eyes, but it was not necessary because he let out a chuckle, his smile meeting his eyes, and reached his back pocket. The sound of metal clicking together had never felt so relieving.

“I was going to let you in, but hearing you beg is so much fun. Now, add a “please” and a “thank you” and I might open the door.”

“You’re enjoying my suffering, aren’t you?”

He hummed.

“Every part of it,” he confirmed. You glared at him and crossed your arms. Namjoon laughed. “Fine. Only ‘cause you came back.”

The moment you entered the store, the characteristic smell of old books hit you with full force. You had not noticed it before, but now you could see why your grandfather told you that this was the best bookstore in town (if there were more). Besides the numerous shelves full of books, they were also scattered all over the dusty floor, like they did not matter, forgotten.

“What were you looking for?” Namjoon asked while he closed the door behind him.

Hell, if you only knew...

The number of books was intimidating and you had not started yet.

The problem with Miss Kim’s book store was that it was a mess. There were books, of course, scented candles (some of them used), unlabelled boxes which awakened your curiosity. Without any help, you could be years looking for a trustful source of information. Something had told you that the internet was not going to be useful, so you chose to come here, but looking at this disaster, you were reconsidering reading that article on sea creatures you had found in liveyourfantasy.com.

No, books were more reliable.

“How many books do you have here?”

Namjoon frowned, surely asking himself why on earth would you be interested in that, but then shrugged.

“Grandma is always getting new books. The boxes are full of them.”

So that was what they contained. Now you were sure that there was no way you could find any book related to mermaids if you did it by yourself.

“Do you have anything about mermaids?”

Come to think of it, sea creatures were kind of one of the few attractions this little town had. Of course they were only a simple trick to lure tourists here, but you could not be the only one who had ever come here and asked for a book related to it. Although you were confident that Namjoon would not ask any questions, he allowed himself to look at you with a puzzled expression. And you could not exactly blame him. You had come here, desperate, and all for a book about mermaids? It seemed strange. You would have reacted the same way.

But anything Namjoon was thinking to ask, he shut it up, as he walked behind the desk and typed on the ancient computer covered in dust. It took some time, loaded with awkward coughs (mostly from you). While you waited, you stared at him. You noticed the eye bags, deep, that described an endless night. His messy hair confirmed it.

“Rough night?”

You did not know what came over you. Namjoon seemed like a nice guy, someone who you would like to be friends with if your situation was not so complicated. And maybe that was why you could not help but feel interested in him, in what he had done last night that kept him awake.

“I was actually with Yoongi and Jimin,” he answered with a smile, looking at you for just a second before returning his gaze to the computer screen.

“Your friends?”

“Yes. I asked them about that Kim Taehyung you told me about.”

You had completely forgotten about that little detail. Not that it mattered. Now you knew that his friends had never heard of Taehyung because he did not exist on the surface. All you had on him was his name… And the fact that he was a merman.

“Oh, well. Whatever they know...” you chuckled. Dismissing the subject, trying to make Namjoon forget all about it, that was what you wanted to do. “I gave up. I don’t think he’d like to meet me again, so–”

“What makes you say that?”

He sounded so surprised. He led all his attention to you. The atmosphere between shifted so quickly, it almost left you without air or words to say. One of the most sincere looks you had seen in a long time was Namjoon’s. Under it, you found yourself almost babbling as if you had done something wrong. He was waiting for your answer, though, so you pushed it out of your throat.

“No reason. Just a feeling,” you mumbled.

Once again, whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself. That only made you even more interested in what his mind held. You could tell, there were a lot of things unsaid in that head of his and you wondered if he would ever speak them out, if he would feel relieved or regret it if someone hears them.

“Oh!” He exclaimed out of the blue. “We have some books about them, actually. Thought we had sold them all. Are you looking for tales...”

“Informative works, if that makes any sense?”

A few days ago, it would not have made any sense to you. Things could change so quickly around here, it was scary.

“Well, information…” he hummed, and with a few clicks of the mouse, he smiled. “The book is quite old, but we have it in pretty good conditions, considering.”

He walked to a random shelf and ran his finger through the spines of the books displayed until he found the one he was looking for. It was almost at the end, waiting to be held and given a look. An ancient, worn-out book, all black, it was the kind of book that could have gone unnoticed easily.

As he checked it out to confirm it was, in fact, the book he was looking for, you read the spine of it. In golden, cursive letters, it read “Mysteries of the Sea”. Before handing it to you, Namjoon gave you a secretive look.

“This one is one of the oldest books we own. The author is unknown, but–”

“Unknown?”

You did not let him give it to you as a normal person would do, you just snatched it from his hands. It was heavy, and when you opened it, you realised that your first impressions were correct; the pages were yellow and a little crumpled. There were no chapters, just words and words with no division apart from paragraphs. It did not seem that it had an actual end.

As he had stated, there was no name of the author, which seemed strange. You had always thought that the best part of achieving something, like writing a book or directing a movie, was to put your name on it and make everyone remember it.

“I assume it was a woman the one who wrote it?” Namjoon suggested. “Some books were written by women, but their names are nowhere to be seen, it’s not uncommon.”

“Why?”

“With books this old, you can imagine, right? A woman writing and publishing her own work at that time? It would’ve brought embarrassment to her family.”

It sounded stupid, but the book felt much heavier after hearing that. There was no way you could confirm that story, but if it was true; if that woman truly wanted it published despite what her family might have thought, it had to be significant, something she had thought it may help others, not only her. In your mind, going against your family was not something you chose to do just because. There had to be something worth that courage.

With new determination, maybe even renewed hope, you clutched it against your chest.

“How much?”

Namjoon let out a long sigh, but smiled, and shrugged. “It’s yours if you want it.”

“But–”

“But, only if you promise to come back,” he finished your sentence.

“You mean to the bookstore or this town?”

“Let’s start with the bookstore,” he replied, “for now.”

The thing about Namjoon, he was sincere, he seemed sincere. He was the kind of person that made you trust. But not satisfied with that, the universe also gave him another quality; everything he said seemed like a promise. How many days had passed since you first met him? One. Nevertheless, he managed to make you feel like he had known you since forever.

And you could not say no to him. He had helped you a lot, and you actually enjoyed his company. Why would you say no? Because you did not want anyone involved with you until you could get rid of a certain someone.

The sound of the bell right above the door made you turn around. Two guys of the same height walked in with the same expression of confusion that you probably had. One of them, carrying a big paper bag, wet at the bottom, spotted dazzling blue hair and an oversized black shirt with ripped jeans and sandals of the same colour. The other one, three cups of soda in hand, looked straight out of a fairy tale, with pale pink hair and simpler clothes; a white t-shirt and black shorts and sandals.

“Who’s she?” One guy asked as he set the bag on the desk.

“Another grandchild,” Namjoon smiled. You belonged somewhere, even after you had left years ago, he made sure you knew that.

The answer seemed to be enough for him, because he looked at you, acknowledging your presence, and dropped all his weight on the chair. Unbothered, he proceeded to take out food from the bag; three complete burgers. When he noticed your stare, he lifted one close to your face.

“Want some?” A teasing tone that reminded you of Taehyung was not quite what you were expecting from a boy this short. It caught you off guard when a freezing shiver went down your spine.

Now, everyone in the room was looking at you. As much as you wanted to talk, your throat was shut, aching, itching. The pain made you simply shake your head.

“Yoongi, you’re making her uncomfortable,” Namjoon warned.

So he was Yoongi. Despite feeling like someone had punched your stomach, you gave him another look. He did not budge under your scrutiny. It was not hard to tell that he was a tough guy. Namjoon had come off like that too when you first met him, but he was fast to vanish that idea of him out of your head. Yoongi seemed like he was not going to do that any time soon. He even raised his eyebrows when he noticed that you were not redirecting your gaze elsewhere but his face.

“Whatever,” he finally said and broke eye contact with you.

“Well,” the other one, Jimin, you assumed, broke the tension, “if you’re another grandchild, join us!”

The bubbly personality of Jimin, which you were fast to notice, was so welcoming. You truly wanted to sit down, relax for a second, feel like Hoseok and Jungkook were with you again, but could you really do that when you felt Taehyung breathing down your neck?

“You can tell us more about that Kim Taehyung?” Namjoon suggested.

“Oh, so she’s the one you talked to us about?” Jimin exclaimed. He glanced between you and Namjoon. “Now, I see it.”

Namjoon cleared his throat and left the table saying something along the lines of “I’ll get you chairs.”

He was gone, and you could already feel Yoongi and Jimin’s curiosity drown the room. They wanted to ask about Taehyung, you knew that. Whatever they asked, though, you were sure you would never be able to answer. You were also looking for answers and the book that Namjoon had just given you might hold some, you hoped.

As you sat down on the chair Namjoon provided, you tried to avoid Yoongi and Jimin’s gaze. It was not like you did not understand why they were so curious about you. You were kind of expecting Namjoon so ask more questions, but you were grateful that he had not crossed that line yet. And even he did, there was nothing you could do, actually. You felt like running away as far as your legs would take you, but the thought of Taehyung being somewhere in the shadows, waiting for you to be alone was enough to clear your head from those runaway ideas. You were in that funny position where you did not feel safe anywhere.

“What you got there?” Yoongi asked, still chewing his burger, as he pointed at the book you were still pressing against your chest.

“She’s actually interested in mermaids and all that jazz,” Namjoon answered before you could.

Yoongi raised his eyebrows, still looking at you and you felt how your cheeks turned red and warm under those dark eyes.

“You sure you’re from here? Only tourists are interested in that crap.”

“Yoongi!” Jimin butted in.

“What? That’s the only reason people ever come here!”

You wished you could be like Yoongi, so clueless. The way he said things, like there were not a big deal, was something you envied. He walked around, no worries on his mind, not looking over his shoulder every time he heard something suspicious in the bushes. That was a luxury you could not afford anymore. Thinking it through just confirmed it; you could not bring new people to your life. It did not matter how nice they seemed, or how safe they made you feel. You could not include them in your mess.

“Leave her alone, Yoongi,” Namjoon chuckled. “She’s one of us now.”

But it was too late for that.

“It hurts to see her. When the sea is so calm, silent and transparent, it hurts to see her rise to the surface because I know she will have to go back in an hour or two, if I am lucky enough.

Her kind is mysterious. I know it because she doesn’t like to talk about her world underwater. I accept it because I choose to believe that with time, she will warm up to me and tell me all about her, her life, her dreams. Everything my heart desires is to know more about her. It was not only about her people anymore. It was just about her. All my life, I’ve been wondering why are people so interested in mermaids. It took about five minutes with her for me to finally understand the fuzz over these beings. I noticed that every once in awhile, she would accidentally slip up some detail about herself. I try to remember them all, but they are so simple that it only makes me want to cry whenever I try to put them on paper and fail miserably due to my poor memory. I can’t bring my dairy to out meetings in the dock. If she ever found out that I’m writing about her, she would be so furious. I’m scared that she won’t want to see me ever again if she finds out. Nevertheless, I choose to write about her. My life is boring, as you might have assumed. She is the only thing that keeps me from falling on a monotonous spiral of useless and meaningless tasks like going grocery shopping or helping with the bookstore. Sometimes I wonder if I’m as special to her as she is to me. Maybe I’m what she needs to scape her world. In the mornings, I often think about the reasons why she would ignore the dangers and come back to me. My world is not ready for her kind. I’m still getting used to her, how she looks, how different it feels to have her around. The mere thought of someone finding out about her existence is enough to keep these words to myself, under my bed. She often tells me that the ocean can be even crueller than the surface. She warns me that if I get too close to them, it might be dangerous. I don’t care, that’s what I always tell her. We always find a spot, a limit where both of our worlds meet so we can see each other. But I’m scared that the more I see her, the closer I get to touch her, the needier I’ll be…”

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harianadimples · 5 years ago

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I Know You’re Not Far, But I Still Can’t Handle All The Distance

1.8k: hariana friendship rise warning(s): unedited soz just had to get this one out before I overthink

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“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanna sing.”

Harry stops playing for a moment so he could hear what Ariana had to say.

“My fans have been wanting me to jump on Instagram Live to sing a few songs but I really can’t handle all that real-time shit. I just want to sing and then dip so I’m just going to record a quick video. I think it’d be a nice surprise to have you join in, finally feed your fans some new content of you.”

“Hmm, I suppose but I won’t sing.”

“Why not? They’ve been wanting some sort of duet for a while, you know.”

“Um, and show the world how rubbish I am singing next to you?”

“You are not rubbish! Have you forgotten our killer duet of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ when we watched ‘Wayne’s World’?”

“No, I just wanna listen to y’voice. I miss it,” Harry pouts, leaning into his elbow as it rested on the hood of the piano.

“Okay, then, H,” Ariana rolls her eyes, smiling as she fixes herself. “Suppose you’d like a relatively easy song to play. How does ‘My Everything’ sound? For old time’s sake?”

“I Know You’re Not Far, But I Still Can’t Handle All The Distance”

The one inspired by an alternate universe where Harry played the piano for Ariana’s 2020 version of ‘My Everything’ while in Quarantine

-:-:-:-

“‘Lo love, how are you?” Harry asks as he fixes his laptop screen, leaning it just right so the light coming from his bedroom window wouldn’t cause such a harsh glare. When it was just right he could see Ariana much better but it seemed like her picture needed another moment to catch up with her voice, as behind the frozen image he could hear her giggling softly.

“That was quick,” Ariana’s voice strays as if she walked away for a moment, but the picture’s finally changed and is moving so Harry just waits on his phone until she appears again. When the movement settles Harry sees that Ariana is sitting in her living room. “I’m good by the way; miss hugging everyone, I swear when we’re given the all clear I’m inviting y’all over and cooking the biggest fucking Italian dinner y’all will ever have,” she says.

“I could so go for Italian right now,” Harry sighs as he sets his phone down and shifts himself up a bit so he can be more comfortable, “Been eating all the bread in this household m’tooting up a storm in here.”

“That is… horrendous.”

Harry chuckles at her reaction, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie. “‘ave you got the pups with you?”

“Always,” Ariana smiles, “Toulouse is right here, Pignoli is watching me from the other sofa and Myron’s having a nap.”

“Miss the little ones so much–,” Harry is suddenly interrupted by a guttural snort which scares even Ariana. She soon breaks into laughter as she picks up Piggy Smallz who’d been lurking behind her. “Aw does miss Piggy want her Harry love too, my big girl?” Piggy makes a noise which sounds extremely happy which causes laughs all round.

“Yeah, miss ‘aving the wind knocked out of me whenever you give me kisses,” Harry chuckles.

Of her pets, Piggy became to be the most territorial over Harry.

It started when Harry went to support Ariana at her Sweetener Tour show in London. He’d finally gotten the privilege to meet Piggy in person, and after some time holding her thinking they’d become the best of friends, she took a massive shit which splattered on his white pants. He just had to have been wearing an all-white outfit that evening.

“You reading anything good?” Harry asks.

“Um… I’m currently reading ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’. Seems good so far.”

“‘Kay, adding it to my cart right now,” Harry mumbles. “I’ve read like two books so far. Trying to get through this third one but I keep fallin’ asleep. So nice to just sleep.”

“I know right. It’s weird actually getting like fourteen hours of sleep for once, instead of two.”

“You deserve the rest though. Bloody insane, your tour. Can’t believe the year you had. I like… honoured to have witnessed history unfold, y’know?”

“Oh please, can we talk about your music though. I genuinely cried listening to ‘She’ earlier, like full-out, ruined-my-makeup, swollen-eyes, everything– just… tears.”

“Thanks? I guess?”

“No, H, really. My mind can’t fully comprehend Mitch’s solo in that song.”

“Oh, well, thanks, I’m only the one singing the song.”

“It’s nice to hear you exploring different vocal dynamics. You have the range and it really shines on a song like ‘She’. These are all things I’ve told you before H.”

“I know but it’s nice to have my voice praised by the vocalist of our generation.”

“Oh my God–.”

“No, seriously, I have not stopped listening to the song you showed me a couple days ago. Can’t believe you posted it to your socials.”

“Yeah I don’t really care if I get in trouble at this point, I’m like in that place mentally, emotionally, whatever where I’m creating and it’s nice and free and I just wanna share that. But thank you.”

“That reminds me I’m writing something and sort of like putting the skeleton of the music together and I was wonderin’ if you mind if I use your vocals for the synth?”

“Yeah sure, use whatever’s on google drive.”

This folder on Google Drive that Ariana’s referring to, is a shared folder with a couple vocal notes they’ve made in the past that they’ve sometimes dipped into for production samples. Harry’s relatively new to using vocal samples as instrumentation on a song since his previous record was mostly classic rock inspired. Apart from double tracking his voice, the extent of his vocal exploration on that record had been the infamous duck sound on “Woman”.

With Fine Line he’d really been inspired by Ariana’s vocal production and wanted to do a lot more of it on this record. With his producers he got a lot better at curating his own sound but if it weren’t for Ariana’s support he wouldn’t have known where to start with figuring out what else his voice can do.

He liked the idea of sampling someone’s voice, hiding it within a song where no one knows it’s even there. Who better than Ariana to be that voice.

“Can I hear what you got so far?” Ariana asks.

Harry nods and gets out of bed (with great effort which makes Ariana roll her eyes). He brings his laptop with him as he descends down the corridor. He enters the living room where a grand piano sits in the centre and props the laptop down on its surface as he sits by the keys.

“Fair warning, m’still learning,” Harry says as he plays a few random notes to prep his fingers before he begins to play.

Harry’s only got a verse and a pre-chorus, and a sort-of chorus figured out. It’s mid-tempo for now, but it might change once he can get in the studio. He starts singing, trying not to focus entirely on his fingers playing but he’s still a beginner so he’s got his head down more or less the whole time. When he finishes, he looks up again and is honestly… not surprised to see Ariana crying into her sleeve-covered hands.

“It’s sooo good.”

“Obviously, it’s not done yet–.”

“The first verse got me, but that pre-chorus– damn it,” Ariana quickly, and quite dramatically wipes under her eyes as Harry smiles with warm cheeks, kind of loving the praise coming from her, “like you’re so fucking talented, and can I just say your piano playing has improved a lot! You have nothing to worry about.”

“Thanks love,” Harry looks down and plays a few keys, hoping the terrible MacBook camera quality would hide his sudden bashfulness.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanna sing.”

Harry stops playing for a moment so he could hear what Ariana had to say.

“Hmm, I suppose but I won’t sing.”

“Why not? They’ve been wanting some sort of duet for a while, you know.”

“Um, and show the world how rubbish I am singing next to you?”

“You are not rubbish! Have you forgotten our killer duet of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ when we watched ‘Wayne’s World’?”

“No, I just wanna listen to y’voice. I miss it,” Harry pouts, leaning into his elbow as it rested on the hood of the piano.

“Okay, then, H,” Ariana rolls her eyes, smiling as she fixes herself. “Suppose you’d like a relatively easy song to play. How does ‘My Everything’ sound? For old time’s sake?”

“You’re in luck, that’s literally my go-to practice song at the moment. Surprisingly quite a vocal heavy track, or maybe I just don’t know how to sing.”

“Harry I fucking swear to God, you say one more self-deprecating thing–.”

“Sorry, sorry, m’just blown away every time I listen to it. Right then, let me take this old thing off. Gotta look good if I’m gonna be playing next to you,” Harry says as he pulls his hoodie off and sets it aside. He’s got on a black t-shirt that’s two days old and counting but the camera probably won’t pick up much quality anyway so he’s got nothing to worry about. Harry pulls his hair out of its scrunchy and runs his fingers through until his fringe looked somewhat contained.

“Got sent some cute-ass nails today,” Ariana says as Harry leans up close to his screen, being met with her brand new white nails with small light-grey clouds on the very tips. “Cute,” he agrees. “My nails are looking God-awful. Fuck, you think the camera will pick them up?”

The blue colour on his nails had mostly chipped off, leaving them in a ‘too naked to be fully edgy’ situation that has Harry hiding his hands from sight.

“I barely noticed.”

“I’ll just angle the camera so they don’t show.”

“You ready then? I’m gonna record the screen. Hopefully it works.”

“Okay, yeah, hold on. Okay, yeah.”

They eventually do two takes. One to see if it was actually recording and sounded good, and the second was the actual recording that Ariana planned to post.

This should have been easy, real simple, considering it isn’t their first time just hanging out, singing songs on the piano or whatever. Literally the other day she sent him a voice note singing some random meme and it didn’t phase him at all because it’s expected at this point. When it’s just them it’s not nearly as nerve wracking. Now he’s torn between wanting to play the piano well as to not mess her up, wanting to sound good to prove to himself that he’s doing better at playing like she’s said, but also wanting to just melt into himself and listen to her sing.

It seems this internal struggle appeared very well in the video as he and Ariana watched it back. Ariana sang beautifully; effortlessly as per usual, while Harry looked genuinely lost between playing and listening to her sing which with their videos side-by-side made it look like Harry was sort of in disbelief that the person next to him was singing so angelically, which wouldn’t even be far from the truth.

“Hah, that’s funny,” Ariana grins, “I’m posting it now. Prepare to become a meme.”

The video quickly went viral apparently. Neither Harry or Ariana would know since right after she posted the video they did as she wished and let it be, allowing the internet to have at it while they curled up in their beds and put on “Tiger King” to see what the hype was all about.

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mattpitman · 5 years ago

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Flummox.

There is a lot of confusion out in the world at the moment. We seem to be heading back to school in two weeks and I am worried that things will go back to how they were and much of the progress we have made in the past 2 months may be lost. I am grateful again, to live in this state (Victoria) and I feel the cautious approach was an educated way forward. As a science teacher I appreciate administering more tests, collecting more data, and conducting further analysis. But it seems that educated way of managing a serious pandemic might be lost in the Twitter feeds and Facebook posts of some others.

Either way, face to face or remote, continuous learning is so important.

Education is so important.

This weekend as I looked at the crowd forming outside Parliament House I thought: did our system let these people down? Who organised this random group? Are they just antagonists? A group of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and full-time Facebook posters?

Why haven’t they realised that is not Bill Gates’ house?

Education is so important.

Then there has been the absolute joke that stands for professional journalism. One Victorian newspaper in particular (no names, but I think you probably know), has had an absolute awful run of late; prediction disguised as fact and opinion disguised as policy. Those articles and those “journalists” are as dangerous as the virus. Dragging us further and further apart and away from the truth while masquerading as honest.

Why would you write and publish such rubbish?

Education is so important.

I am a bit of a “word nerd”. I love trying to bring back words that I subjectively believe do not get the frequency they deserve. The eye-rolls from my VCE students usually confirm that I am on to a winner. The word this week is: Flummox.

Flummox is to “confuse someone so much that they do not know what to do”.

Those protests, in my opinion, demonstrated a lack of critical thinking and autonomous thought. Adults who followed rather than determining their own path and who sort truth from their news feed. Future citizens need to be more equipped to deal with the onslaught of misinformation that has increasingly become the norm. I want citizens who ask before acting and question when flummoxed.

Looking at the confusion that is being created and the manner in which select “adults” are coping with it all, I can’t imagine what a young person is thinking as they try to digest everything that is thrown at them each day. Those protests and those articles, if nothing else, made me much more determined to ensure my students are constantly being challenged to question every time they join my classes online, face to face or otherwise.

I recently stumbled across (while randomly reading), Kent Beck’s article “The Product Development Triathlon” on Medium. Kent has a lot of ideas floating around the internet but the concept in this article is his 3x model for product development: explore, expand and extract.

“Explore: Successful exploration is unpredictable, so the highest expected value strategy is to reduce the cost of experimentation and put a little investment into many, uncorrelated experiments. If you’re lucky, one of these experiments turns out to be unexpectedly successful, which leads to:

Expand: Unanticipated bottlenecks appear. All you have time for is to eliminate the next bottleneck just before it derails you. Once growth becomes routine, it’s time to:

Extract: now the shape of the problem and solution spaces are clear. One euro in equals three euros out. Playbooks emerge: here’s how you roll out the service in a new city.”

Doesn’t this look a little like the transition to remote learning?

As a sector we dabbled in online learning, flipping a classroom here, trying an app or two there, then...

Drastic changes occur rapidly as our experimentation takes off and becomes the predominant method of delivery and communication. Those who had experimented more were perhaps better off than those who didn’t so much. Throughout his period we’ve come to bottleneck after bottleneck and managed to keep our classes running and our heads above water. In many cases we have also improved and increased the quality of our pedagogy and developed robust, contemporary learning programs. We are now in...

Extract. The “shape of the problem” is clear. We must maintain the ground we have covered as we return to school.

It might actually be more accurate to call this period that is approaching “explore”. I feel more than ever we are ready to take bigger risks and challenge what a lesson looks like. Our mindsets have shifted from purely “does this address the curriculum?” to “does this benefit the learner?” We can’t risk returning to a predictable way of operating. We need to explore for our students sake.

Finally.

I recently observed a huge increase in a student’s result on a formative assessment task. At first I was sceptical, I did some quick Google checks to ensure there weren’t obvious signs of plagiarism, but the student had produced those responses and completed that task by themselves. A parent teacher phone call confirmed that the student had sat quietly and completed the task without any additional assistance. I asked a student what had changed and they replied:

“I don’t have to worry about other students any more. I can ask you questions whenever I want. Asking questions really helped. I wasn’t worried about not knowing the answer because we talked about it already and I knew what I needed to do this time”.

Remote learning has removed the “noise” for this student and allowed them to perform at a much higher level.

I can’t and won’t say that remote learning works for everyone, but removing some of the “noise” created an environment of clarity, allowing this student to ask questions and avoid confusion. In the classroom, this particular student was so confused (flummoxed?) they likely didn’t know where to start.

Is some of that confusion my fault, of course! I am on my own learning journey, consistently trying to be better. The key is reflection. This change up has definitely provided me plenty of opportunities to take stock and re-evaluate. To stop and realise. This reflection is essential as we head back towards that classroom again. The next two weeks will be dedicated to designing my own “return to school program” in order to cater for all of my students: those who have embraced online and those who are desperate to return.

This pandemic is a horrible thing, but for this student (and myself) it provided the environment they needed to succeed. I am hoping there are plenty more student success stories to come as we continue to provide continuous learning programs all over the country. As we continue to explore, expand and extract we are all redefining what teaching is and what education looks like in 2020 and beyond.

Flummox is to “confuse someone so much that they do not know what to do”.

To flourish is to “grow or develop successfully”.

Whether it’s online or offline, let’s get all students from flummox to flourish.

Here’s a few things that have inspired me this past week as an educator and a leader:

Haileybury Teachers of the Future: Science

Haileybury are a school community that explored online learning before all of this happened and are kind enough to share their expertise in these webinars. The Science team delivered a very insightful program this week and the Junior School team are lined up for Thursday 21st May @ 4pm. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gr6cFaK

Artificial Intelligence(AI) in K-12

(https://emma-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/paqab/71de919fd20c5e29fc83197664a59888/CoSN_AI_Report_2020_R8_4.24.pdf)

Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) released this fascinating report exploring the augmentation of learning with A.I. rather than replacing the teacher. Well worth a look!

HGSE: Education now

(https://www.gse.harvard.edu/education-now)

Harvard University Graduate School of Education have been offering some great webinars early (for Australia) on Thursday mornings covering a variety of topics. Upcoming this week is “Teaching to Navigate Challenge and Uncertainty," a conversation with Sarah Dryden-Peterson (Ed.D.’09) about preparing young people — and ourselves — to adapt to change, confront inequities, and strengthen our communities in a time of turmoil. All of the previous offerings are available on the website. I highly recommend last weeks episode which featured current students on the panel.

Game Changers Podcast

(https://soundcloud.com/user-127023293/season-1-epilogue)

Adriano and Phil wrap up the first series of the podcast and set the stage for the second series which releases this week.

Image: dictionary.com (https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/funny-words/#flummox)

#education #theexistingreality #flummox #reflection #randomthoughts #random

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kalluun-patangaroa · 5 years ago

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Suede

SKY magazine, December 1993

written by Simon Witter

"HELLO! WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE?!" asks Brett Anderson rhetorically, staring at the fluff he has just removed from his ear. "I haven't taken these earrings off for about nine years."

It may seem an incongruous moment to ask the 27-year-old indie pin-up about his personal style, but hey, that's the kind of guy I am. "Tatty," replies Brett with a wry smile. "I haven't been able to get out and go shopping."

Brett Anderson, frontman of Suede – the British pop sensation of 93 – is hotly rumoured to have a great dress sense. Today however, perched uncomfortably behind an executive desk at the central London HQ of his record company, his head inadvertently framed by a halo of Right Said Fred promotional balloons, he is sporting a navy blue jeans'n'top ensemble he accurately describes as "just anything". Brett has been telling me how he spends most of his time with people who work in shops or are unemployed – "real people, not in the business" – so I presume this boutique bonding provides a clue to his supposed, though temporarily non-evident, style savvy.

"Oh no," he gasps. "Not clothes shops! Most of my friends are in food shops. So I know a good bit of brie when I see it."

The thought of Brett Anderson having, at any point in his life, ever eaten food, conjures images of pigs flapping their trotters as they sail past this second floor window. But we press on with the personal style enquiry.

"I want to change it at the moment," he says. "I'm sick of wearing second-hand things. I used to have a grudge against new clothes because I don't like wearing things that another thousand people are wearing. It's nothing to do with being into clothes from years ago, or tatty clothes at all. I'm quite keen to toy around with my style until I eventually find something, to have clothes made for me. There's never anything, when I go out and look for clothes, that I really love. I've got quite a strong vision of what I want, which would be very, very well fitted things. I don't like baggy things. I like lots of ethnic looks. I really like the Spanish look, that sort of matador thing." By way of explanation, Brett strikes a pose, clicking imaginary castanets above his head. "I like that shape. Prince wears a really brilliant little thing sometimes. When I kept getting my bellybutton out, it was really a desire to achieve that shape more than anything, nothing to do with flaunting my navel."

It's well worth flashing your bellybutton while you still can, I assure him, a rueful hand on my own expanding waistline.

"Yep," he smiles. "Well I can't anymore. Not after that chinese last night."

In May of 1992 Suede released their first single, 'The Drowners'. They had already been on the cover of Melody Maker – before they had a record out – and would grace 18 other British magazine covers over the next year, including the cover of Q on just their second single. Their eponymous debut album, released last March, went straight to No. One in the charts and went on to win the Mercury Prize, and last autumn they released a full-length concert video Love & Poison. At this rate, it will be time for their memoirs by easter.

Within the bizarre, incestuous fishbowl of the British music media, Suede have become almost self-damagingly important. After a couple of wilderness years spent faffing about, finding their feet and being universally loathed, their overnight transformation into the most hyped band in the world was nothing short of miraculous. Yet it created impossibly high expectations of their music. A German friend told me how surprised he was, after long distance exposure to their media glare, to discover how average Suede sounded – a judgment that casual discovery of the first album would hardly have elicited. And while touring America, their support act the Cranberries famously outshone them by an enormous factor when it came to album sales. Yet phase one of Suede's career has been – or appeared to be – so extraordinary, that they are going to be hard-pressed to follow it up with anything similarly momentous.

For now, we have 'Stay Together', a new, epically long single. As a measure of Suede's magnitude in the reality-starved world of British indie pop, I am treated to an absurd preview of the track the day before meeting Brett. Before entering the listening room I am subjected to a bag search to check – I kid you not! – that I'm not carrying a concealed tape recorder.

In LA, the world capital of muso control freakism, I was played U2's Desire, the immediate-follow up to their 15-million selling Joshua Tree album, eons before its release without anyone thinking twice. Yet now, without a hint of humour or irony, I am being treated as if I not only know anyone who cares what the next Suede single sounds like, but would be willing to pay for a tape of it recorded through a leather bag.

After regaining consciousness, I join in the fiasco, insist on a full body search (well, at less reputable establishments you'd have to pay good money for this touchy-feely experience) and am seated. The label boss places two speakers on each side of my head, facing my ears from about 20" away, turns it up LOUD, and begins to do that embarrassing, pseudo appreciative in-chair grooving that only people who work in record companies and recording studios have the gall to indulge in. "It's not pompous," he assures me, "even though it's eight minutes long."

Of course any pop song – as opposed to dance record – that lasts eight minutes is by definition pompous. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was gloriously, defiantly pompous with a side order of pomposity to go. But, despite the circumstances, 'Stay Together' sounds like a fine, many-hued song, liberally doused with Bernard Butler's life-saving guitar, that is destined neither to win many new fans nor shock the devotees.

"It's about a sense of unrest I feel about the world," Brett tells me the following day, in an ill-advised shot at an explanation. "An attempt to make some sense when everything seems to be going slightly insane. I do get a real sense of impending doom, but not in a depressing way, not like we're all gonna die, let's go and rape people. I feel quite content with it. We're living under some shadow, and I'm not quite sure what it is. It's a bit like the fears I felt when I was growing up, when things were unstable and there was the threat of nuclear war, or the fear that your parents could die of aerosol poisoning."

Brett grew up, together with Suede drummer Mat Osman, in the soulless satellite town of Haywards Heath, between London and Brighton. According to Osman, if they'd been the tea party fops people make them out to be, they would've formed a grunge band. They only wanted to be really glamorous because of their stultifyingly dull working class backgrounds. Some might say that that would lead to the three-Es-a-night, dance-and-forget syndrome, rather than the formation of a glam rock band.

"Hopefully we're not a glam rock band," Brett shudders defensively. "You can escape those surroundings by taking a load of Es and ignoring it. Another way is to create your own myth, to try and become romantic in your own eyes, to create something beautiful out of the rubbish and the shit. It all sounds very Oscar Wilde, but that's the way we did it. None of us were brought up in workhouses, but we haven't had easy lives at all."

Suede claim to be obsessed with fame because they were excluded from it. Yet surely fame is the one classless thing people aren't born into?

"Lots of people are constantly privileged," says Brett, who has clearly spent an unhealthy amount of time pondering the abstract qualities of fame. "If you're born in Soho to rich professional parents, and you've got Jonathan Wotsisname coming round to your house every night to see your father, then you've got this world that you slip easily into. When you're excluded from it there's a desperation, you're desperate to have it. It doesn't come as second nature to you, like professionally famous people who hang out in Beverly Hills. It's not something you're comfortable with, but that mutates it into something far more interesting, a bit prickly and far more creative, because you're not just sitting there lapping it up."

Suede's appearance coincided not unfortunately with the post-Madchester 70s revival. But was their styling something more than just the result of being unable to afford new clothes? Personally, I had thought the emergence of Gary Numan had killed off the idea of anyone ever again wanting to be David Bowie (not to mention Bowie's recent records). Then along came Suede, with their rough guitars, their androgyny and their theatrical singer.

"I never thought of ourselves as '70s," Brett insists. "David Bowie is a genius, but the rest of all that rubbish I always found laughable. As for the clothes, I always thought we looked more 60s than 70s. It's all tied up with this whole kitsch thing, this Magpie and Porridge and rediscovering the culture of British music journalists' youths. Kids of 14 didn't know what anyone was talking about, it was just that the people in power had reached a certain age where they were getting sentimental about their youth and started remembering Magpie. That's all it was, all a complete load of rubbish. As soon as we were aware that this scene was going on, we wanted nothing to do with it."

Brett's voice is a highly variable instrument, perfect and beautiful on slow numbers like 'The Next Life', but occasionally, when he affects that archly operatic Bowie yodel, a whiney, sneering sound like Rik Mayall on speed boring into your brain – absolutely maddening. It goes without saying that his delivery owes much to the most overrated British pop star of the last decade, Morrissey.

"I forced my voice in that way because of how we were born, musically, playing shitholes. It was the only way I could make myself heard. I didn't want to sing in the murmuring way that was the style of the time. I wanted to project my voice, because I was writing songs that I wanted people to hear the words of. I wasn't just writing about fluffy little clouds, which is what everyone was doing at the time. People read into my intonations a theatrical seventiesness, but it was a complete accident."

Overworked as the subject is, it's hard to avoid asking why Brett thinks his androgyny caused such a fuss. It's not the first time it has been done; it's not even the tenth time. Genderless, mincing fops are to classic British pop what hairspray is to American rock, a staple ingredient. Brett, by comparison to most, is pretty tame.

"I don't know," he sighs. "We certainly weren't thinking 'oh let's be androgynous', it's just the way we are. I'm naturally quite an effeminate person – not all the time, I do play on things. I think it was because, at the time, people were so incredibly boring. We had been through five years of the cult of non-personality, and we never wanted to go with the flow. When everyone had their heads down, chugging away, we wanted to twist things a little bit. It's like at school, when you find that something annoys someone, you keep on doing it more and more. And that's what happened really."

A female psychologist wrote recently about the overt sexual expression of pre-pubertal girls at pop concerts, the way in which, amidst the non-contact hysteria of the pop experience, they could sometimes experience their first orgasm. She was, admittedly, talking about a Take That show, but I can't help wondering if it looks like that from the stage to Brett Anderson?

"No, nothing like that," he purrs, "nothing sexual. I always feel like people are putting it on."

Having their first fake orgasm?

"It's a bizarre thing in my head. I know they really like me, but I can't really take it seriously. When I'm onstage, and it's working, I feel like I can do absolutely anything. I feel as though there's no limit, even in the sense that I could fall asleep if I felt like it, because I'm that relaxed. I feel much more comfortable on stage than walking down the street. I could go off into a corner and do a crossword or shave my head. I feel ridiculously relaxed. I really enjoy the power of being onstage. It's to do with the circuit of the flow between the audience and you, when it's an audience willing you to be good. Your own power is an expression of how the audience is feeling, but I can't say I ever feel sexual, even if it looks that way. I think that to call the power purely sexual is to belittle it. When I've been to incredible gigs, it hasn't been a sexual thing, it has been something far more magical than that. "

Brett and Osman came to London in the mid 80s to study, respectively, architecture and politics at UCL and LSE. Suede began after they placed an ad in the NME in 1989, but initial concerts had audiences shouting "Fuck off!", critics calling them effete wankers and record companies running for the hills - a three-pronged invitation to eat shit and die that would have spelt the end for most bands.

"That X factor that made people despise us," muses Brett, "was something we managed to turn around in our favour. It's like being in love with someone, and exactly the same things you adore about them, completely horrify you when you've fallen out of love. We went away and learnt how to write songs, and came back transformed. And those qualities that originally pissed people off, we transformed into something provocative. I think the fact that we went through all that rubbish was a fucking good thing for us. People forget that the Beatles spent five years in Hamburg. No one would touch them in England, cos everyone thought they were an utter load of shit. They spent five years getting it together, suffering a bit and fighting for it."

A typical lyric from those hard years was Brett's line about "shitting paracetomol on the escalator". When they were recently described as chemically saturated, I had assumed more interesting chemicals were involved.

"That's about pure mundanity, being off your face every night and your staple diet coming from your bathroom cabinet. It's a metaphor for a humdrum life, going up and down the London underground, which I spent five years of my life doing."

In many ways this – Suede's poignant soundtracking of new depression Britain – is their strength. But if they are Her Majesty's equivalent of slackers, it hasn't made America any more amenable to their cause. Indeed, despite Brett's avowed loathing of the British character – "negativity, small-mindedness, lack of faith" – there may well be a Britishness about Suede which prevents America from getting the point.

Brett makes the mistake of quoting a Smiths song to me – something about innocence, fragility and trust – forcing me to point out that American audiences don't want to be trusted with something precious, they want to rock out with their cocks out. Evan Dando may wear a dress and pigtails, but the wider American market is notoriously unkeen on sexual ambiguity. Queen were big in America until the early 80s, when Freddie Mercury started appearing in full clone gear. They never toured America again, and didn't have a single hit until after his death (and then only thanks to Wayne's World). In fact, America's association of guitars and manliness make Suede fundamentally unsuited.

"No!" storms Brett. "I don't think we're fundamentally unmanly. All you have to do is come and watch us live. We're about sexuality, power and emotion, things that everybody feels."

Whether or not America is destined to fall for his Morrissey-meets-Larry Grayson stage persona, Brett's much-aired desire to move to America (and less well-known plan to live in Paris) has, for now, been replaced by a much smaller act of bedouinism.

"I've moved from Notting Hill to Highgate," he announces proudly, "from a fashionable place to a place where you're living in the last century pretty much. I was living in a very small flat in Notting Hill and it was driving me insane, I couldn't write and was being bombarded with nonsense all day long. I needed the peace and quiet, and now I have a bigger flat with a studio room in it and I'm writing quite prolifically. It's more serene, there's more space to think. It's quite a beautiful place, but you do feel like you're living in the last century, like you're some sort of oddity, or in a play. You keep going into these odd characters. But it's a great place."

In person, and despite the affectation of much of his thought processes, Brett Anderson is quite charming. An endearing smile – which seems to hibernate when cameras are around – plays constantly around his face, suggesting shared confidences which, to some extent, he delivers. Like so many people cocooned by over-protective minions, he is refreshingly open and approachable. I like him. But he is deeply shocked and incredulous when I paint a picture of the special treatment afforded him by those he works with.

"They treat me with the respect I deserve," he jokes defensively. "I don't have tea with Lenny Kravitz. My best friend works in a chip shop, and that's why I like it, it's a complete escape. One of the beautiful things about being successful is that it can rub off onto your friends as well. Not fame and all that bullshit – the really brilliant thing about being successful is the self-confidence, the sense of life having a purpose, that life is a wonderful thing. You open the shutters in the morning and the sunshine pours through. That sense of vitality about life can completely rub off on your friends. Sometimes it doesn't, it can go the other way, with friends ignoring you cos they think you don't have time for them, but that never happens with your proper friends."

And yet, engulfed in the sweltering perversity of his peer group, Brett has come to hold some pretty crap views, views that seem utterly irrelevant beyond the borders of saddo indie land. He worries about being thought a sell-out, thinks Suede are radically honest because they admit to having ambition – as if people didn't get over all that bollocks a decade ago – and, worst of all, that people don't talk enough about music in interviews. Oh dear!

But, despite all this, Brett's public image remains unshatterably cool. He exudes waves of sultry, sulky hipness. I feel an urge to know what naff items lurk in the corners of Chateau Anderson, his ownership of which will shock Suede devotees to the core. Brett tells me he's been to see Aladdin, listens to jazz music, likes The Orb and Verve and has just bought the new Shamen single. To prove it, he even does his Mr C impression - "Comin' on like a vibe, y'know!". This won't do at all.

"I like Terence Trent D'Arby," he admits, trying harder. "I think he's really good."

It's good, but it's not right.

"I bought Billy Joel's River Of Dreams album. I like that one."

Aha – as Inspector Clouseau used to say – now we are getting somewhere! What about films?

"No, I've got impeccable taste when it comes to films."

No feature length On The Buses video stashed chez Brett?

"No. I have got Crocodile Dundee."

Bingo and Bullseye! So much for impeccable taste.

"Well, my perennial favourite is Performance," he flusters wildly. "I can virtually quote the whole film from start to finish. And there's a brilliant film which I've just discovered called The Shout, with John Hurt, Alan Bates and Susanna York. It's about a man who has spent years in the Australian bush learning the secrets of the bush doctors coming to this ridiculously reserved Cornish village and turning two people's lives upside down. It's like an animal alive within this village, and when he shouts, everyone within a mile radius dies. If Alan Bates' part had been played by Vincent Price, it would've been laughable, but it's incredibly powerful, one of those great lost films."

It's a nice try, but nothing can erase the impression created by Billy Joel and Crocodile Dundee.

#suede #brett anderson #press #interview #sky #1993

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prissyhalliwell · 5 years ago

Text

A Tradition to Remember

This is my @rumbellechristmasinjuly gift for @jenitosam! This story is inspired by her prompt (cozy, holiday, feast, happy ending) and her adorable Rumbelle fan art!

Summary: A book club is only as good as the book it reads. Belle has no idea how important her choice will become. I Read on AO3

_______________________________________________________________

Storybrooke, Present Day

Mr. Gold stared at the cover of the deep emerald book, the gold embossed print jumping off the cover as if mocking him.

Her Handsome Hero

Gold snorted. What utter rubbish.

He glanced up from his armchair as Belle French, Storybrooke’s irresistible librarian, walked into his living room, bringing with her two steaming cups of tea from the kitchen.

“So,” she said, giving him a warm smile as she passed him a cup and gestured at the book in his hands, “what do you think?”

Gold bit back his first comment, not wanting to insult Belle’s choice of book. It would hardly be the best way to start this new chapter of their friendship.

Pun intended, of course.

When Belle had first asked him to start a book club with her, he’d initially been delighted. They’d had many chats about literature over the years, often while he was checking out new reading material or she was perusing his shop’s antique book collection. The chance to make these interactions more regular was a very agreeable one, especially during Storybrooke’s long winter months. The idea of being cozy and huddled up in front of a fire with Belle - he had insisted on holding these chats at his house instead of her drafty old apartment above the library or worse yet, in the even draftier library itself - was even more appealing.

The only downside so far seemed to be the reading material itself. He’d spent years carefully crafting his reputation as Storybrooke’s resident monster. If word got out that the fearsome Mr. Gold not only attended a book club, but one that was reading a book called “Her Handsome Hero”, he’d be laughed out of town.

“Perhaps we could start with another book?” Gold asked hopefully, as Belle settled into the matching armchair next to his. “I’m sure one of the classics would do nicely. What about Dickens?” At the shake of Belle’s head, he felt a bit of panic creep into his voice. “One of the Brontës? I’d even be open to Austen…”

She placed a reassuring hand on his knee. “You’ll like it. I promise.”

He grunted, ignoring the warmth of her hand as it seeped through his trousers and into his leg, leaving the skin beneath tingling. “Care to make a wager on that?”

She chuckled. “I promise it’s more intriguing once you open the cover.”

“I fail to see how anything with a title like this could be intriguing,” Gold grumbled. “Sounds more like a trashy romance or some horrible made-for-TV movie.”

“It’s not like that!” Belle protested. “I read the first few chapters the other day before I realized it was perfect for us.” She scooted her chair several inches closer to his and dropped her voice conspiratorially. “This book is actually a mystery!”

He looked at the cover doubtfully. “Does the butler kill the handsome hero? That would certainly be an enjoyable twist.”

Belle shook her head. “No, I mean the actual book itself is a mystery! I found it in the middle of the Reference section, wedged between two out-of-date atlases. It’s not in the card catalog or the computer system. I even tried to look it up online. As far as the internet is concerned, this book doesn’t even exist!”

Now that was intriguing. He set his tea down and looked at the book more closely. It was clearly very old, but was still in pristine shape, despite being lost between the stacks for who knows how many years. He had many antique books that he sold for hundreds of dollars each that were in worse shape than this.

The cover’s illustrations were still clear and unfaded, an intricate gold border around the book’s edge and an image of a proud-looking knight with long, flowing locks that irritated Gold for some reason he couldn’t name.

He flipped through the first few pages, but there was nothing there to help him either. No publisher, no date, not even a dedication to some beloved family member. The pages simply jumped straight into the story, starting with the ever so cliche “Once upon a time…”

He was about to comment on this when something Belle had said finally registered to him.

“Does this mean you only have one copy?” he asked, realizing for the first time that she had only brought one book.

Belle’s cheeks turned a fetching color of pink. “I’m afraid so. We’ll have to share and um...take turns reading out loud to each other.”

Now it was Gold’s turn to go a bit pink. He could feel his face heat up and hoped his blush wasn’t as obvious as Belle’s.

Not that there was anything to be embarrassed about, he told himself. It’s not like Belle had suggested anything indecent. But somehow, the idea of reading out loud to each other just sounded rather...intimate.

Gold wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Or how he felt about reading aloud. He wouldn’t mind hearing Belle’s beautiful, lilting Australian accent, but there was nothing appealing about his own accent - not fully Americanized, but no longer truly Scottish after all these years - that Belle could want to hear.

She clearly had not thought this idea all the way through.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, he returned to a safer topic. “Well, if it’s not tasteless drivel, then what is it about?” he asked, handing her back the book.

Belle’s eyes lit up. “From what I’ve read already, it’s definitely a fantasy novel, but the main focus is on the values of compassion and forgiveness - the qualities that truly make a hero.” She smiled reassuringly. “So definitely not a trashy romance.”

Gold felt slightly mollified. “I suppose that sounds slightly better. I didn’t really figure you for the type to read cheap romance novels.”

A slight blush colored Belle’s cheeks once again. Gold grinned. “Well, at least not in a book club then.”

“Oh, you!” Belle smacked his leg playfully with the book. “You’re terrible.”

His grin widened. “Perhaps you should kick me out of the club in punishment. Who knows what trouble I’ll cause?”

He gave her his most mischievous smile. Belle didn’t even blink.

“That’s exactly why you have to stay. It’s much easier to keep you out of trouble if I can keep an eye on you.” She flipped open the book. “Now, shall we begin?”

Gold sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.

------------

Enchanted Forest, 28 Years Ago

If Rumplestiltskin had thought his Yuletide tradition of stubbornly refusing to celebrate the holiday would be permitted to continue once Belle arrived in his life, he was sorely disappointed.

The Great Hall had been decked in more festivity than it had seen in the last 300 years combined. Candles had been added to every available surface that his interfering maid could reach. Their soft light gave the Great Hall added warmth, and the holly and berries that Belle had festively arranged around them added a bit of color to the room.

Rumplestiltskin hated it.

His entire home had become redecorated for Yuletide, barely resembling the dreary space he had inhabited for so many years. Everything was festive, except for the master of the castle, and he felt woefully out of place in his own home.

He supposed it was his own fault for not putting his foot down when Belle had hung up the very first mistletoe. But how could he have known that it would get this out of control so quickly?

It was the only explanation he could find for why he now found himself staring down at a book that a beaming Belle held out to him excitedly.

“This has been my favorite book since I was a child,” she explained proudly. “My mother and I used to read it together all the time.”

“Ah,” Rumplestiltskin said awkwardly, noticing the title and the picture of the heroic knight etched on the cover. “How...fitting.”

Either Belle didn’t catch the sarcasm in his tone or she chose to ignore it. “I thought we could read it during our Yuletide celebration.” A spot of pink appeared on her cheeks. “You know, to pass the time, especially on these long winter nights…”

“I see.” Rumplestiltskin stared at the title, his imagination already running wild with speculation. “I’m well aware of your love of books, but...well, this seems like it might be a little uh...risque for a young lady.”

Belle’s lips trembled as she tried to keep back a smile. “You’re worried about a book corrupting me?”

“I just think it would be frowned upon for a noblewoman such as yourself - ”

Belle rolled her eyes. “Rumple, if you were worried about my reputation, you probably shouldn’t have whisked me off to live with you in your castle after insinuating that you were well-endowed.”

Rumplestiltskin blanched. “Ah, you understood that, did you?”

“Yes, and it was very wicked of you.” Belle’s tone was reproving but the merriment in her eyes gave her true feelings away.

“Wicked, you say?” Rumplestiltskin scratched his chin. “Well, seems only fair that I should be punished then.”

Belle’s eyes grew as wide as tea saucers. “Punished?” she asked, her voice slightly higher than usual.

“Oh yes. I should go organize my lab immediately in penance.”

Belle let out the breath she had been holding with a laugh. “Oh, Rumple. You really are terrible.” She dropped the book gently into his lap. “But you’re not going anywhere. If you insist on being punished, we have the perfect instrument of torture right here.”

Rumplestiltskin groaned. It was going to be a long Yuletide.

------------

Two days into reading the book, Rumplestiltskin’s view had still not changed. If anything, it had gotten worse.

“This is absolutely ridiculous!” he huffed, slamming the book shut.

Belle crossed her arms, openly glaring at him. “What’s so ridiculous about it, may I ask?”

That list was quite long in his opinion, but he decided to start with his biggest complaint. “The hero, for one! This moron is so obsessed with looking brave that he walks straight into danger at every available opportunity.” Rumplestiltskin rolled his eyes. “He barely takes a breath after hearing there’s a dragon in a lair before racing off to fight it.”

“Perhaps you’re just jealous that you’ve never slayed a dragon,” Belle said dryly.

He gave her a wide smile, full of teeth. “I am the dragon, dearie.”

Instead of being intimidated as he’d hoped, she merely patted his leg consolingly. “Of course you are, Rumple.” Her eyes danced with amusement. “An extremely grumpy one.”

He pointed a taloned-finger at her. “Don’t be cheeky. Or I might just conjure up the giant spider from your book and feed you to it.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Belle’s eyes grew wide. “You hate spiders even more than I do.”

“What? That’s just...ridiculous,” Rumplestiltskin stammered. “I’ve never even - where’d you get such a silly idea?” He leaned forward, coming nose to nose with her. “Who have you been talking to?”

Belle burst into peals of laughter, throwing her head back in glee. “Oh, if you could see your face right now!” She held her side, her belly continuing to shake with laughter.

Rumplestiltskin glared at her through narrowed eyes. “If you figure out how to control yourself, I’ll be upstairs in my lab.”

Before he could snap his fingers and disappear, Belle reached out a hand to stop him, her giggles slowly subsiding to an occasional hiccup. “No, wait. I’ll behave, I promise. Let’s keep reading.”

Slightly mollified, Rumplestiltskin opened the book and began reading where he had left off earlier.

It was only hours later in his lab, well after Belle had gone to bed for the night, that he realized how easily she had distracted him from his complaints about the book and deftly maneuvered him back into reading it again in mere minutes.

A slight smile curled on his lips. It seemed he had underestimated that maid of his once again.

------------

The other mystery, which was why Belle was so insistent on reading the book with him in the first place, finally came to him after several days of intense pondering. In hindsight, he realized how slow he had been to figure it out, since it was clearly the only logical conclusion.

“Ah ha, I’ve got you!” He declared from his seat at his spinning wheel, causing Belle to jump where she had been placing the tea things on the Great Hall’s dining table.

“Wha-what?” she asked, flustered.

He sprang up from the spinning wheel and began to stalk towards her. “I’ve figured out why you wanted to read that book with me.”

Belle blushed. “Oh?”

She was holding her hands together tightly, as if she was nervous about his discovery. But surely Belle knew he wouldn’t hurt her after all this time? Even if he found her joke to be in poor taste. Not that his feelings were hurt, of course. He didn’t care what anyone thought about him, even if he liked Belle more than most people. Knowing what she thought of him was actually very helpful, now that he thought about it. And it’s not like others hadn’t called him far worse.

“Yes, yes, dearie. The parallels are quite obvious, even for an old fool like myself.”

“Parallels?” Belle frowned. “I don’t understand.”

He waved her denial away dismissively. “It’s no use denying it. The sorcerer Gideon met earlier in the book is obviously evil and has been the one pulling the strings all along. Undoubtedly, they’ll face off in a final battle in the end of the story.” He touched his hand to his chest and gave a mocking bow. “I’m sure you couldn’t help but be reminded of him when you met me.”

Belle’s eyes grew wide in understanding. She rushed towards him, catching him off guard as she grabbed his hands in hers.

“You have it all wrong. I’ve never seen you that way.” At his doubtful look, she paused. “Alright, maybe for the first few days...but to be fair, you were purposely trying to be horrible to scare me!”

Rumplestiltskin opened his mouth to argue, but Belle plunged on.

“But I know the real you now, Rumplestiltskin. The sorcerer in that book is nothing like you. He’s pure evil, without any feeling or compassion for anyone or anything else.” She stepped a half step closer towards him. “I know that’s not you.”

His mouth felt dry. He should really snatch his hands away from hers. Her palms were warm where they held his between them and her skin was softer than he could have imagined.

“I’ve done many evil things in my life,” he said, trying to stop her from looking at him the way she was now, her eyes shining with something much brighter than friendship.

“I know,” Belle said, still holding his gaze. “I can’t say I approve of all of the decisions you’ve made, but doing bad things doesn’t mean there’s not good in you too.”

“So you didn’t want me to read the book because I reminded you of the evil sorcerer?” Rumplestiltskin asked stupidly.

Belle smiled up at him shyly. “It’s actually the opposite in fact.”

Now it was his turn to frown. “The opposite? Who else in the book could I remind you of?”

A blush began to spread across Belle’s cheeks. She looked on the verge of saying something, but then changed her mind.

“Tea!” she exclaimed, dropping his hands and turning back to the table. “It’s going to get cold if we don’t drink it.”

“Belle, I have magic. I can always just - ”

But Belle had already walked back to the table and was raising the cup to her lips.

He sighed and walked over to join her, picking up his chipped cup and cradling it in his hand.

Perhaps one day he’d uncover the mystery that was Belle of Avonlea. Until then, the only thing he’d be getting to the bottom of was his tea cup.

------------

Despite all his complaints, Rumplestiltskin was actually a little sad when Belle turned to the last page of the book a few evenings later. Not that he was going to admit that to her, of course. The Dark One had his pride, after all.

It was the last night of Yuletide and they had just finished a delicious feast that the Dark Castle had prepared for them. With their stomachs full of roast hen, pork sausages, and bread pudding, they had settled in their now customary spot on the settee in front of the fireplace to read the last chapter of the book.

Rumplestiltskin had opened some of his most prized red wine from his cellars, which Belle had barely touched because she was so caught up in reading the ending.

“With the evil sorcerer defeated at last, Gideon returned home to his village, grateful to be reunited with his family. Confident that his homeland was no longer in danger, he hung up his sword and shield, content to live a simple life with those he loved for the rest of his days.”

“Let me guess,” Rumplestiltskin interrupted. “He lived happily ever after?”

Belle looked up from the book, quelling him with one look. “If you don’t let me finish, you won’t find out, will you?”

He pretended to pout, but did as she said. Despite being fairly certain about the ending, he did want to hear her read it.

Not that he cared about the fate of the brave Gideon. But since he had already put in so much time reading the book, it only made sense to finish it.

Obviously.

“Gideon’s countrymen welcomed him home, throwing a giant feast in his honor. Whenever anyone asked about the qualities that made a hero, Gideon would simply smile and say, with all modesty, ‘Anyone can be a hero. You must only do the brave thing and bravery will follow.’”

Rumplestiltskin pretended to yawn. “Boring.”

Belle ignored him and continued reading.

“With his family by his side and his memories to guide him, our hero Gideon…” She paused, her lips quirking upwards. “...lived happily ever after.”

“I knew it!”

Belle tried to look annoyed at him, but ended up bursting into laughter a moment later. “Yes, you’re very clever, Rumple.”

He tapped his nose knowingly. “It’s the second sight.”

She looked unimpressed. “Or the fact that most stories have a happy ending.”

Rumplestiltskin gave her a wolf-like grin. “Clearly you’ve been reading the unimaginative stories.”

Belle smacked him playfully on the shoulder. “Admit it, you liked the book.”

“I didn’t not like it.”

She giggled, pulling her feet up onto the settee. Drawn in by her laugh as if it was a siren’s call, he leaned closer.

“I suppose that’ll do,” she said. “For now.”

They were close. Closer than they had been since he had held her in his arms that day she’d fallen from the ladder. It hadn’t been that long ago, and yet, so much had changed since then.

Even himself.

“Thank you, Belle,” he said finally.

She looked at him curiously. “For what?”

For being herself. For accepting him. For everything.

“For...bringing a bit of Yuletide spirit into the castle.” He wasn’t willing to admit to her just how much it had meant to have her there, especially during the holiday. It was the first time since Bae had left that he’d had someone to celebrate with. “It’s been many years since I last enjoyed Yuletide this much.”

Belle blushed. “Well, I’m glad I could help. It would be a pity if you couldn’t enjoy yourself a little.” She nodded towards the book. “You’ve been so good to humor me by reading my favorite book with me.”

Now it was Rumplestiltskin’s turn to blush. “It’s no matter. I actually haven’t minded…” Seeing the smirk that began to form on Belle’s lips, he hurriedly added, “...that much.”

His addition didn’t seem to deter Belle’s happiness in the least. Perhaps she had spent enough time around him by now that she could tell his heart wasn’t in the teasing.

“I’m so glad! I was thinking, maybe it could become a new tradition for us?”

Rumplestiltskin fought the urge to roll his eyes. Yuletide wasn’t even over and Belle was already planning for next year!

Then again, he supposed it was nice to think that she was already looking forward to spending another Yuletide with him. He could count the people who had looked forward to spending time with him on one hand. It made him happy that Belle was one of them.

However, that didn’t mean he would miss the opportunity to tease her about it.

“You? Want to make reading at Yuletide a tradition?” He put his hand to his heart and twisted his face into a look of surprise. “I’m shocked.”

“Oh hush.” Belle gave him a playful nudge with her shoulder, trying to suppress a smile and failing miserably. “I actually meant that we should make reading “Her Handsome Hero” at Yuletide our tradition.” Her eyes danced with merriment. “I fully intend to continue making you read most nights with me as well.”

Rumplestiltskin let out a deep sigh, throwing his hand over his face. “My life is only struggle.”

Giggling, she leaned forward and pried his hand away. Suddenly, they were face to face, Belle holding his hand between her two smaller ones. He became aware of the soft skin of her hands pressed against his, and a tingling sensation that was spreading through his fingers.

“I, uh…” Rumplestiltskin seemed at a loss for words. Belle was not magical, yet she had the power to reduce him to a babbling fool. “Your hands are very soft.”

“Are they?” Belle licked her lips, leaning even closer. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well...they are.” He gulped. “Maybe you should hold them sometime.”

Belle stopped an inch in front of his face, her face wrinkling adorably in confusion.

“Rumple?”

If he leaned even the littlest bit forward, he could capture those delectable lips between his.

“Yes, Belle?”

“Stop talking.”

Before he could argue, Belle closed the space between them herself, pressing her lips against his own.

His eyes fluttered closed automatically, all thought fading away as Belle filled his senses. Everything was heightened: he could smell the rose-scented bath oils she used on her skin, taste the sweet berries she had eaten earlier that evening, hear the soft sounds she made as she sighed against his lips, and feel her skin vibrating against his own body as she leaned into him.

So caught up in the moment, he didn’t notice the new sensation until it was almost too powerful to ignore. The warm, happy feelings that had been building in his chest were almost completely smothered by an overwhelming need to run. Only when he pulled away slightly did he realize what was happening.

Rumplestiltskin wrenched himself away from Belle, knocking himself off the settee in the process and falling to the floor in a jumbled heap.

Belle’s eyes fluttered open. “Wha-what’s wrong?” An embarrassed blush was quickly spreading across her face. Considering his violent reaction, she no doubt believed he was rejecting her. She was right, but not for the reasons she probably thought.

Ignoring her question for the moment, he checked his hands. They were back to their usual green and gold flecked hue, his long fingernails ending once again in black talons. He could feel the magic coursing under his skin, filling him with power and purpose. The Dark One’s curse was intact.

“It’s still here,” he said at last, relief flowing through him. He looked up and saw Belle eyeing him warily, clutching her knees to her chest protectively.

He barely kept back a groan. How in the world was he going to explain this?

Picking himself up off the floor, he cautiously perched on the end of the settee again, not wanting to spook Belle further.

Avoiding her eyes, he began to tell her his story. His sentences were clumsy at first, full of halting, half-finished thoughts, but soon he felt the truth pouring out of him, as he explained to her the nature of his curse, his mission to find Bae, and why - despite the proof that they were True Love - he couldn’t be with her until he was reunited with his son.

Risking a glance at her face, he was relieved to see nothing but compassion there.

“Oh, Rumple,” Belle cried, taking his hand in hers and pulling it into her lap. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart.” Once again, Rumplestiltskin marveled at Belle’s loving nature. He didn’t know what he had done to deserve her love, but he would spend every day from now on proving himself worthy of it to her.

“If there’s anything I can do...to help you find your son…”

It took every ounce of restraint for him not to gather her up in his arms and kiss her again.

Since he couldn’t do that, he settled for leaning his forehead against hers.

“Belle, there’s something else I need to tell you. I have a plan to find Bae, but it involves another curse - ”

As if on cue, the doors to the Great Hall flew open and his long-time rival and apprentice, the Evil Queen, strode briskly into the room, stopping abruptly as her eyes fell upon them.

Her expression grew into a malicious grin as she watched them leap apart from each other.

“Excuse me, dearie,” Rumplestiltskin drawled, trying to get the situation back under his control, “but we’re in the middle of - ”

Regina chuckled darkly. “Oh, I can see that.”

“...a feast,” Rumplestiltskin finished.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Regina looked down at her nails. “I must be behind on the current slang.”

Before he could come up with a suitable denial, Regina waved a dismissive hand. “But no matter. I’ve come for the Dark Curse.”

Rumplestiltskin blanched. He had thought he had more time, but he supposed he had gotten sidetracked with everything happening with Belle recently. He should have known Regina would move swiftly in his absence.

Unfortunately, this left him in a bit of a quandary. He had arranged for his own comfort during the curse, but no provision had been made for Belle. Regina would no doubt create a nasty cursed fate for his True Love, for no reason other than to spite him, if he did not intervene.

“About our deal, Regina,” he began slowly. “I’m going to need to make sure that Belle is included in our little arrangement. You see, I’ve grown quite used to having a housekeeper and…”

Regina wasn’t fooled in the least. “No deal, Rumple dear. I can ensure that you’re both fairly comfortable, but not together. Take it or leave it.”

Rumplestiltskin's eyes narrowed as he weighed his options. Regina wasn’t likely to budge on this. He’d taught her too well for his own good.

“I don’t have all day,” she said, tapping the toe of her high-heeled boot in feigned annoyance. “Do we have a deal or not?”

He bared his teeth at her. “I suppose you’ll be wanting this in writing?”

Regina’s face broke into a wide grin. “Of course. The pen is mightier than the sword after all.”

Her words broke through Rumplestiltskin’s frustration and he nearly rocked back on his heels. He barely stopped himself from reacting, as his brain raced wildly with an idea.

It could work. It had to.

“Fine,” he growled at her, summoning a parchment and quill. He began to write hurriedly, ignoring Regina as she stalked over to him to peer over his shoulder.

“Don’t forget the - ”

“I think I can handle it,” Rumplestiltskin snapped. “I do this for a living you know.”

Regina looked rather pleased with herself and he took the opportunity to enact his plan.

He made a point of looking over his shoulder at Belle, who was sitting on the settee with her chin held high in spite of the gravity of the situation. If anyone embodied the virtues of Gideon, it was her.

Heaving a deliberately weary sigh, he looked back at Regina, gesturing helplessly at Belle. “Can’t you do anything for her?” he asked, letting himself sound just the tiniest bit desperate. If Regina thought him a lovesick old fool, then he might as well use that to his advantage.

“I already said she’d be comfortable. What more do you want?”

“I don’t know. I just...well, she loves her books.”

Regina blinked at him. “Books?”

“Yes, they’re these reams of paper bound together -”

“I know what a book is, Rumplestiltskin!” She let out a growl of frustration. “Are you actually asking me to let her take her little book collection along?”

“She really does love them,” he said, knowing how pathetic he sounded.

He exchanged a look with Belle, who seemed to understand, at least on some level, what he was trying to accomplish.

“Books are my true passion,” Belle said suddenly, watching his face for confirmation. “I’d be miserable without them.”

Regina looked to be reaching the limits of her patience. “I’m not wasting magic to transport a castle full of books to the Land Without Magic.”

“More like a library, really.” At Regina’s glare, he backpedaled. “Fine, fine. Can she just keep that one?” He waved a hand at “Her Handsome Hero”, which Belle was clutching tightly. “It’s her favorite. She never shuts up about it. At least give her that much.”

Regina mulled it over for a moment or two before slowly nodding. “Fine, she can keep the book. If only so you’ll shut up about it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now, can we get this curse on the road?”

Rumplestiltskin fought back a smile as he finished scribbling out their deal on the parchment. It would be enough.

------------ Storybrooke, Present Day

Gold didn’t often admit to being wrong - not that he was often wrong in the first place - but the book club had ended up being one of the best things to ever happen to him.

More specifically, it was Belle rather than the book club itself that was wonderful, but as the book club was an excuse to spend several hours a week with Belle’s undivided attention, it also was quite nice.

The book had grown on him as well over the past month. Though the characters lived in a fantastical world of magic and dragons, they also felt familiar to him somehow. He’d become invested in their triumphs and failures almost as if they were his own.

Perhaps Belle’s kindness was finally rubbing off on him. Or perhaps this was merely more proof that he needed to get out of the pawnshop more.

Even stranger were the moments when he’d felt certain he’d read the book before. It was a fairly standard fantasy with a heroic protagonist that triumphed over impossible odds, so it was hardly breaking new territory in the literary market. Yet something about it seemed like an old friend to him, bringing him comfort and nostalgia all at the same time.

He wasn’t the only one who experienced these odd moments of déjà vu. Belle swore on the book itself that she had never read it, yet she too admitted that she felt a sense of familiarity with the story that she couldn’t explain.

“Perhaps it’s the company,” she said one day, when they both experienced one of these moments.

He snorted, twirling his cane between his fingers. “I’m sure my company is intellectually stimulating, but I doubt it’s given you magical insight into the book.”

She shook her head in amusement. “No, silly. I meant the sense of familiarity and comfort it brings us. Maybe we’re so content together during our reading sessions that we’re projecting those feelings onto the book.”

No one had every described their interactions with him as bringing them comfort. Normally, it was the exact opposite.

But hearing Belle describe his company in that way sent a shiver of pleasure from his toes to his brain, causing the latter to short circuit temporarily.

“That’s...a possibility,” he said finally.

Thankfully, Belle hadn’t pressed the issue and they had gone back to discussing the latest chapters.

That had been several weeks ago however and they were now nearly finished with the book. They had decided to do something special for the last chapter and had decided to mark the occasion by cracking open a bottle of one of his best vintage wines.

There was an anticipation in the air that Gold was unsure of, but that he felt all the way down to his bones. Belle seemed to feel it too, her eyes flicking back and forth between his face and the pages before her.

“Do you, uh, want to read first?” she asked, her tongue darting out to lick her lips in a way that prevented Gold from responding right away.

“Uh, yes. I can...do that,” he said, still hypnotized by the moisture on her lips. “Read, I mean. This book.”

Belle tried to hide her smile. “Well, I’m glad we’ve established you can read. Especially since it’s the final chapter.”

“Aye,” Gold replied, wishing he had just kept his damn mouth shut. He cleared his throat, taking the book from Belle and opening it to the last chapter.

Time flew by as they were swept up into the action of the story. The epic conclusion of the hero Gideon’s final battle with the evil sorcerer - who in many ways was more familiar to Gold than the protagonist - kept them both enthralled, neither relaxing until Gideon finally defeated his enemy with one final swing of his enchanted sword.

As Gold continued to read of the hero’s warm homecoming, a strange sense of anticipation began welling up inside him. He ignored it, trying to focus on the resolution of the story. There was no reason for him to feel any excitement at this point; all the action had finished and the story was winding down, most likely ending in some trite moral lesson.

“Gideon’s countrymen welcomed him home, throwing a giant feast in his honor,” Gold read, his eyes glancing up to see Belle as captivated as himself, sitting on the edge of her seat.

“Whenever anyone asked about the qualities that made a hero, Gideon would simply smile and say, with all modesty, ‘Anyone can be a hero. You must only do the brave thing and’…” Gold’s vision began to blur, but he fought through it, determined to finish the last page, “...‘bravery will follow.’”

The moment he finished speaking a hot flash of pain ripped through his brain, making him clutch at his forehead in shock. Something was squeezing its way inside his head, worming into his mind. His other hand gripped the book like a lifeline; the sturdy binding the only solid thing he could feel at that moment.

He heard a sharp cry from Belle and he longed to reach out to her, but his vision had not returned. He grasped blindingly towards her, his hand finally finding her shoulder. Her hand came up to cover his, squeezing tightly.

He saw flashes of images: a caste high up in the snow-covered mountains, a spinning wheel near a fireplace, a young woman humming as she bent over a table pouring tea. The glimpses kept coming and going too fast for him to process, yet they somehow felt familiar to him.

Eventually the flashes began to slow, settling on one image in particular. It was the young woman again, but this time she was bent over a book. His heart leapt as he recognized it as the same one he held clutched in his hand. The woman looked up, a beautiful smile spreading across a face he knew all too well.

“Belle?” he whispered.

And just as quickly as they had come, the memories began to recede, quietly settling into the background of his mind as his sight began to return.

He blinked, glancing up at Belle to see her looking at him with the same awe and bewilderment that he felt.

“Rumple?” she asked softly, squeezing his hand even tighter.

“Belle!” He leapt forward, already forgetting about his unhealed leg, and ended up sprawled at her feet. “It worked! The words woke us from the curse!”

A giggle of pure joy escaped Belle’s lips. Instead of helping him up, she plopped down onto the floor beside him, cupping his cheek gently with her palm.

“I knew you could do it, Rumple.”

Feeling lighter than he had in 330 years, he sat up and pulled Belle into his lap, kissing her soundly. They didn’t have to worry about breaking the Dark One’s curse here, which meant he could kiss her to his heart’s delight. In which case, they might not be getting off this floor anytime soon.

Eventually they had to surface for air, but they stayed wrapped in each other’s embrace, neither ready to let go.

Belle let out another giggle from where her head lay on his shoulder. “Aren’t you glad I asked you to join another book club?”

He snorted. “It’s not so much ‘ask’ as ‘force’, my dear.”

She pretended to pout, her lower lip sticking out adorably. Rumplestiltskin decided he had no choice but to kiss the expression right off of her.

Several minutes later and out of breath again, they finally settled down enough to talk through their next moves. They couldn’t let Regina know they were awake so they would have to be careful.

Now that his plans were finally coming together, his old anxiety began to well up within him. He’d come so far to find Bae - but what if, after everything, it still wasn’t enough?

Before his thoughts could go too far down that old road, Belle - her smile soft and gentle - met his gaze firmly with her own.

“Everything is going to be fine. You’re going to find Bae and we’re going to be a family.” She gave him a quick peck on the lips, as if punctuating her point. When he still looked unconvinced, she gave him a hard stare. “We will find your son, Rumplestiltskin,” she repeated emphatically. “And then you’re going to start making up for what you’ve done to the town.”

Rumplestiltskin’s brain took a second to catch up. “Wh-what do you mean ‘make up’?” he sputtered indignantly.

Belle’s smile was warm, but he could see the steel-like determination in her eyes. Whatever she wanted from him, he wasn’t going to like it, but neither was he going to get out of it.

“Well, since you essentially evicted everyone from their homeland, you’ll start by giving people free rent on their homes - ”

“Free rent?” Rumplestiltskin almost choked. “Are you mad?”

“Don’t interrupt,” she scolded. “Yes, I think it’s only fair that you give them free rent - at least until you can find a way to reverse the Dark Curse and take everyone back home. I also think - ”

Rumplestiltskin wanted to laugh. Or cry. He wasn’t sure which. Too much had happened in the last twenty minutes to process.

“Do you think defeating Regina is going to be that simple?” he asked, exasperated. “This is real life - not some fairy tale with a handsome hero who swoops in and saves the day!” He picked the book off the floor where it had fallen and waved it at her. “I’m not Gideon, Belle.”

Belle laid a hand on his, gripping it tightly. “I know you’re not, Rumple. But do you know what you are?”

“In big trouble?” he asked, hazarding a guess.

A startled laugh erupted from Belle. Sensing that perhaps things weren’t so bad as he had thought, Rumplestiltskin let out a small chuckle as well.

The laughter broke a little of the tension between them and allowed him a moment to think objectively. After almost thirty years, he had regained his memory, found Belle, and was on the cusp of locating Bae after 300 years of waiting. If the worst thing he had to do was make reparations to the people of the Storybrooke for what he’d done, was that so bad? As far as karma went, it seemed like a pretty fair deal for being reunited with the two people he loved most in the world.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Belle said, letting out another chuckle. “And I know you’re not Gideon.”

“Then what makes you think I can fix things?” he asked, drawn in by the way Belle’s eyes held his. Perhaps if she - and Baelfire - believed in him, he could eventually become all the things they always wanted him to be.

“Because,” Belle whispered softly, gently stroking his cheek with her hand, a beautiful smile forming on her lips, “you’re my handsome hero.”

#Rumbelle Christmas in July #Jenitosam #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #prissy writes #A Tradition to Remember

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