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thousand-winters · 1 year ago

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Children of dust and ashes

Trying to do this like I've seen done in this fandom, cof.

Oh, also @ibrushmyteeth-donttellanyone

Read on AO3!

Relationships: Cordelia Carstairs & Alastair Carstairs, implied Thomastair (in this one, at least)

Chapter 1: We were angels once

Cordelia doesn’t think feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders is a normal reaction to moving places. In fact, she knows it’s not, as the feeling of detachment and exhaustion that accompanies it is one she has come to associate with the strange dreams she’s been having since she was 14.

The dreams are insistent, haunting her days as much as they do her nights. It’s strange. She has never thought of herself as someone who chases riches, and yet one of the only things she can recall after waking up, no matter how tightly she holds on to the dreams, is the shimmering color of gold.

The glimmer of a blade. The twinkle of an eye. The brush of golden strands.

Gold, gold, gold.

On the intimacy of her room, on the loneliest nights where she’s only accompanied by the stars outside her window, she thinks she must be destined for something bigger than herself, although the elation she feels at the idea sits within her chest in an uncomfortable way, as if it didn’t fit, as if it were more of a burden than the gift her young mind conceives.

Still. Destiny is destiny, she thinks, and so every time they travel to a new country, she declares it an opportunity to seek adventure, hoping that one day the golden glimpses of reverie become something tangible and real, something she can look at and say ‘there you are, I caught you’.

So she grabs onto her brother’s arm, claiming that he can’t stay holed up in his room, not this time –in spite of the fact that she drags him with her every single time, and he’s big on the habit of taking walks, no matter if they’re in a city new with promise or old with unwanted familiarity

Alastair always rolls his eyes and makes a show of dragging his feet, but he would always comply with her wishes in the end.

Sometimes she has the weird sensation that she already recognizes the places they visit.

Dejá vù, Alastair says simply when she confesses, and she frowns with the petulance only little sisters can reach, or so he claims anyway. Because each time, she can almost swear that there is recognition sparkling in his dark eyes as well, but where she stubbornly chases her dreams, her brother seems to use that determination to put another brick in the wall that separates them.

She can hold his hand through it, but there’s a fear deep inside of her that one day the wall will be so tall that she won’t be able to see him.

The bubbling nerves in her chest as they arrive in Idris do nothing for her hidden worries to subside.

On top of her unusual weariness, she feels certain anticipation; her mind is telling her something important is going to happen soon, and by this point she knows better than to dismiss the feeling as nothing. Which perhaps should be odd, maybe because her gut feeling has never led her to anything big.

That statement feels wrong in her head.

As they sit at the table of their new house to take breakfast, Cordelia wonders what kind of surprises will come in this new place they’re living in. She truly hopes they can stay for longer than a few months this time, although she isn’t sure of why; Idris is beautiful, but hadn’t Bombay been too? Morocco? What makes this so different? She doesn’t have answers, she just knows that it is.

Her dad isn’t there, probably oversleeping due to the exhaustion of the travel; she knows he was still awake when she went to bed, after all her mâmân always leaves the light in her bedroom on to wait for him. Speaking of her, she looks pensive this morning, drinking slowly from her tea without saying her usual drill about making the best of what they have while it lasts. Alastair isn’t even pretending to have breakfast, and she surmises that he must have similar thoughts to her in mind as he gently caresses the compass tattoo on his forearm, no matter how much he may deny it.

She has noticed that every time he gets in this melancholic sort of daze, he’s always touching his tattoo. She has asked him a million times why did he choose a compass and a rose of all things, when she knows him to be particularly fond of collection daggers instead, but frustratingly, he always shrugs and says it seemed like the right thing to do.

“Right to whom?” She grumbles under her breath, earning herself a glare without any real heat in it.

“What are you mumbling to yourself all of a sudden, Katāyoun?” He asks in exasperation, pointing a spoon at her.

Ready to fall into the familiarity of sibling bickering, Cordelia finds herself almost smiling, but as she opens her mouth to reply, there’s a bang on the front door followed by the sound of glass breaking and she startles so much she almost spills her own tea all over the table’s mantle. Alastair doesn’t fare much better, his spoon clattering against his cup so harshly that Sona flinches.

But when the woman turns to look at her son, she doesn’t look scolding, just sad.

“Alastair Joon,” Sona says softly, and Cordelia’s confused at the sorrow in her voice. The tension in her chest bubbles, and she knows somehow that her anticipation is about to have a payoff.

She’s suddenly scared about what that means.

“Stay,” Alastair says seriously, and naturally, as soon as he’s out of the door, she’s getting up from her chair to follow him.

“Cordelia, dear, why don’t we give him a minute?” Her mother asks without any conviction. She’s not hoping she can truly stop her, she realizes.

“You know I can’t do that,” She says. It’s too heavy of a statement for innocent curiosity, but she means it. She doesn’t know why she does and she’s tired of not knowing. Following will let her know, she’s certain of this.

“I know,” Sona’s smile is sad, her fingers cupping her mug so tight that her skin is looking fraught. “You’ll be alright, Layla.”

Parental approval acquired, Cordelia barely stops to wonder about the strange nickname –it feels right somehow–, choosing to hurry to the hallway and the entrance of the house, almost tripping over her own boots on her hastiness.

She almost wishes she hadn’t when she takes in the view in front of her.

Elias Carstairs is lying on the floor, seemingly having passed out immediately after slamming the door of their new house open. This normally would have her frantically going to his side and measuring his pulse, but there’s a trail of drool coming out of his mouth and a broken bottle at his side.

She’s not naïve enough to not recognize alcohol when she sees it.

Alastair is doubled over him. As Cordelia watches, her brother grabs onto the man’s arm and propping it up against his shoulder to get him to stand up a little. Her father groans slightly, but doesn’t wake up, too drowned in what he must have drunk of the discarded bottle to care.

Drunk, he’s drunk, she realizes, and while the thought sends a painful pang to her heart, she almost feels resigned.

“Esfāndiyar?” Her voice is thin and frail, the right name on the wrong lips. Or the wrong name? No. It is her brother. But she never calls him that. Except because that’s not right, she has called him that with affection since they were children.

Not before though

The thought is fleeting, but it leaves her unsure of what to do, unable to even fidget with the bracelets on her wrist as her brother manages to look at the same time as if he hadn’t expected her to disobey his petition and as if there had never been another choice.

“Just… let me get him upstairs,” Alastair asks, sounding so exhausted that one would think it’s midnight instead of 8 a.m.

She nods numbly.

As both disappear upstairs, presumably to go into her parents’ bedroom and leave Elias there, Cordelia’s head is spinning with unwanted images.

Her father causing a ruckus at a ceremony. A nude hand that should have been shielded by black ink. A specter seeking forgiveness from beyond death.

She feels sick.

By the time Alastair comes downstairs, she’s high-strung and irritated, ready to lash out in the only manner a wounded animal could.

It’s a good thing that Cordelia Carstairs has been cornered many times in her life.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” She demands, feeling anger and sadness bubbling inside of her. Alastair hesitates, looking surprised at her outburst and Cordelia wants to shake him. Didn’t he think she would care?

“Because I never wanted you to know,” He sounds defeated, perhaps because he can tell that to continue lying to her is a pointless endeavor. The thought should make her pleased, knowing that he recognizes that there’s no force on Earth that can keep her from finding out the truth, not when her family is involved, but instead she feels like she’s underwater, a flash of spectral hands appearing before her eyes while a strange thought takes over her mind. It wasn’t supposed to be like this this time. “Because I wanted you to have a childhood, a thing I never had.”

As soon as the last word leaves Alastair’s tongue, they both freeze. Her brother’s breath hitches in his throat, but he doesn’t move, not even to look at her. Cordelia finds that she can’t move either. There’s something about this moment that feels as if they were puppets whose strings had been loose until this very moment and have been now grabbed tightly, or perhaps actors over a stage, dancing, dancing, dancing with the glimmer of gold in front of her under a captivated audience.

She shakes her head, just as Alastair opens his mouth again, his words sounding pained, but hurried in a way that almost feels practiced.

“I wanted you to be able to love and respect your father as I never could. Every… every time he made a mess who do you think had to clean it up? Who told you Father… Father was ill or sleeping when he was drunk?” He sounds confused as he speaks, but it’s not the kind of sentiment born out of a lack of veracity. Somehow she knows these words ring as true as they always have. Somehow she knows all of this. “Who went out and…? Who…? Layla…”

Cordelia looks at the brother she has lived and grown up with all her life and for a moment she doesn’t recognize him; she sees dyed blond strands pulled back, a black tattoo flashing on his neck, and she’s oddly certain that there’s a spear hidden inside of his jacket. She looks at her own hands, somehow expecting to see a golden blade there. Her heart lurches painfully when she sees nothing but empty palms.

When she looks up, her brother’s hair is black again.

“Lay- Cordelia?” His voice is steady, but he’s avoiding her eyes, looking instead to the side at the wall. No, not the wall, the door.

“Dâdâsh…”

Alastair recovers miraculously fast, clearing his throat and straightening his back, his face returning to a neutral look as if what just happened

“Did you need anything else?” He turns as if he’s already planning to leave. He seems ready to play this off as if nothing happened and Cordelia gapes at him, feeling furious all over again.

No, you don’t get to shut me out, not this time.

“Alastair.”

He stops, but he’s still not looking at her.

“Cordelia.”

“Don’t ‘Cordelia’ me. What was that?”

“I have no idea what are you talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” She accuses him.

“Well, then why don’t you illuminate me, Layla?” He turns with such ferocity that for a moment she’s tempted to take a step back. But this is Alastair, her Alastair, her big brother that had been looking after her before she was even born into this world, the same Alastair that always protects her.

Into this world.

And that’s the crux of the matter in the end, isn’t it?

“Why didn’t you tell me this time?” She asks softly, and her brother’s shoulders deflate.

“I told you, I-“

“No, you knew I never wanted this for you. Why torture yourself a second time?”

He hesitates.

“This time you actually had the chance to be free,” He croaks out.

“No, not like this,” She steps carefully over the broken glass and the puddle of alcohol over wooden floors before grabbing Alastair’s face with both of her hands. “Never at the cost of your happiness.”

He takes a shuddering breath.

“Mâmân helped.”

“I could have helped too.”

“You were just a child.”

“So were you.”

“I didn’t… keep this from you on purpose,” Alastair takes a deep breath and raises his hands to cover hers gently, looking at her with a mixture of affection and sadness so strong that it makes her want to cry. “I only know remembered that we…”

“… Have gone through this before?”

There are no better words to explain, and so he simply nods, closing his eyes and letting himself fall back onto the comfort of a sister that became a protector, that shouldn’t have been but that’s always willing to become one for him, for all of her loved ones.

Speaking of…

“We should find them,” She says.

“Who?”

“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, Alastair.”

“And playing coy doesn’t suit you.”

They’re smiling at each other.

She takes a step back, but instead of releasing him completely, she extends a hand that he grabs easily. The wall has fallen back down again and her heart sings. She didn’t want a tragedy to bring it down to pieces this time, and that much has at least been avoided.

“Do you think they remember?” He asks, his tone uncharacteristically shy, and she notices with little surprise that he’s staring at the tattoo on his forearm.

“Well,” She starts slowly. Her blood is once again calling for adventure, and this time, she knows, they’re ready to take the call. “we should find out, shouldn’t we?”

#cordelia carstairs #alastair carstairs #sona carstairs #elias carstairs #some implied thomastair #the last hours #tlh #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc #reincarnation au #my writing

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darklingichor · 2 years ago

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Mrs. Polifax and the Whirling Dervish by Dorothy Gilman

I read this one at the same time that I read The Heartic’s Apprentice. They are oddly similar. Both seem to be written with a spiritual quest in mind, and while that’s cool, it was at the cost of the plot, in my view.

Emily’s assignment in this one is weird. She is suppose to accompany a fellow agent around Morocco, matching pictures of operatives to the operatives themselves, there was some chatter that someone was impersonating one of the agents and causing trouble.

Emily meets her contact in Morocco, and he is an asshole. This makes the first half of the book really irritating. The asshole falls by the wayside after a while, and it becomes more tolerable, but it is very slow.

The Whirling Dervish in the title doesn’t show up until the very end, and I have to say, he is the most interesting thing about the book, and not even the character, but the google search he inspired.

I thought that the “Whirling Dervishes” were performers, that it was folk dancing, I had only ever seen quick clips. I had no idea at all that it was the meditation and prayer of a mystic sect of Islam! I am woefully under informed on the Sufi sect of Islam. I don’t remember any class that really covered it, and I didn’t know enough to even look up what I didn't know.

When the holy man in the book explains the “dance” I was fascinated and took to google. It was amazing to see and to read about. That was the best takeaway from the book, I learned something new about something beautiful.

#books #book #book blogging 2023 #dorothy gilman #cozy mystery

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allthedamnlove · 5 days ago

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i agree that drew and fiona had way more chemistry than madison and rudy😭😭

jj and kie were just like there…. if that makes sense?? like nothing about them gave couple. meanwhile rafe was on his knees with a ring for sofia🙂‍↕️

also the whole riara thing is like not it lmfao, like madison said kiara would not be kiara if she was with rafe so if they really make a romantic connection happen between them not only would it ruin her character but it would not make sense imo

i’m all for the partners in crime duo and going after revenge but for them to all of a sudden want each other in 1 season would throw the whole show off

rofia endgame or the writers will not know peace for the rest of their lives idk🙂‍↕️

See that's the thing it's like the end of mockingiay where katniss says that she doesn't need the fire from Gale but needs peace that peeta gives. Rafe needs love from a normal woman who's been in love with them for nearly 2 years...not a heartbroken girl looking for revenge

Oh Jiaras are 👌close to killing rudy Elaine and the pates so if they put rafe and kiara you will probably see the pates dead or something. I think what they meant by rafe and kies relationship being explored more is that they will find each other in violence and revenge. I'm so happy that kie gets to explore herself in the final season. I'm so fucking sick of rudys unprofessional ass ruining the entire show. So I want madison to get the attention full front and center. No men around her.

Also rafe might have hastily broke up with sofia but his ass is soo going to regret it. He has INSANE attachment issues and so he would want closure WHICH MEANS ANGST FOR US.

And also if anyone comes for sofia I won't hesitate to deck them cuz I'm sick and tired of everyone victim blaming sofia. Like sHe BeTrAyEd HeR BRO HE KILLED PEOPLE. And again a number one hypocrite cuz HE KNOWS that he has done bad shit yet broke up with her OVER THE PHONE. LIKE BE FUCKING RIGHT

I feel like one of the pates really really like rofia and also the confirmation by the directors further confirmation that their story is not over.

Oh I will take a pitchfork and go rafe s2 on all of their asses if they come for my ship. So they better watch their asses.

Also the body doubles for the beach scene in MOROCCO CTFU. Meanwhile drew carrying fiona across the beach for the enduro scene YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP. Yea so clearly we can see a difference in chemistry.

If the obxanon is true (I don't trust them) then the dire nearly dry ass chemistry in ep 6 to ep 9 must be because ep10 was filmed first after it. So naturally mads was pissed at rudy but at the same time....they both should have been professional and atleast showed some chemistry even if jjs dying. Its the fan favourite ship, both the writers and mads and rudy atleast should have taken it to a higher level in the scenes if jj was going to die. But nope, they were acting like they didn't even know each other LMAO. Its just very very sad like jj is an amazing character and I'll say that rafe and jj are kinda cut from the same cloth so I would have loved to see how their relationship evolved. But that's the thing with these fuckass 10eps we see no emotional development between the characters. The main reason why rafe and sofia seems "weird" (by the way they are wrong and don't enjoy life enuff) is that the editors cut so many scenes that it feels disconnected.

But yea again I wish and wish I see rafe crying his ass off at the wedding with sofia wearing an insane wedding gown with Valerie as the flower girl and mads as one of the bridesmaids

#ask 💓💓💓

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ecsundance · 10 months ago

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Stefanie's Experience at Sundance 2024

Being able to finally attend Sundance in person, I have to say it was a much better experience than attending it all online. Don’t get me wrong, having it online was extremely convenient, but seeing all the films in person is much much cooler. You get to connect with other people face to face and even see actors and directors from different parts of the world. Going into this, I already had a good understanding of what independent films were and are. I have to say, hearing all the directors speak about their films either before or after, has made me understand independent filmmaking a lot better. Being in person, you get to interact with more people and see why each person is at Sundance. Independent film is defined much more than economic, stylistic or thematic terms, but it also brings up questions and ideas that might otherwise be controversial. These films also bring up lots of topics that are not discussed as much as they should be. One example comes from The Mother of All Lies. This film mainly focuses on one grandma who won’t allow pictures inside the house and will not let anyone know why. This film takes place in Morocco where it is considered taboo to talk about the past as people do not want to relieve the pain, but the only way to escape the pain is to talk about it. These films also help a wider audience understand a culture that is different from our own. A good example is the film DiDi. DiDi is a coming of age film about a young Taiwanese-American boy growing up in the US. For many, this is a very different perspective of life in America and it helps us understand people's backgrounds better. Film festivals are also a place for anyone with any sort of interest in film. Some people are aspiring directors, producers, critics, and other people are just film lovers looking for entertainment. I didn’t realize how much of a big deal film festivals are and how many big name sponsors or celebrities show up. With these sponsors at film festivals, there is a greater chance that a film can be picked up by one. Which is all a part of the business. You make a film to tell a story and to get that story to wider audiences, you have to get it bought. Being a filmmaker and getting your films into festivals is a lot harder than I thought, but since going to Sundance, I am very inspired to try on my own. Especially from hearing other directors stories on how they got into film and how long it took them to get into Sundance.

Now I saw a LOT of films at Sundance and it is very hard to choose a favorite, but my favorite has to be It’s What’s Inside directed by Greg Jardin. It was a great, suspenseful and twisting film. It’s like Freaky Friday meets Guess Who. It has also been acquired by Netflix and I strongly recommend checking it out once it is streaming. I promise you will be hanging onto the edge of your seat, wondering what is going to happen next. My least favorite film has to be Being (the digital griot). It was an animated AI who spoke a poem for close to an hour while dancing. Not only was it very weird, but it also had ambient music playing behind it with calming images to go with it. It almost made me fall asleep. At the end of it’s speech, it asked us to consider how we are oppressed due to the patriarchy and things. I wasn’t really in the mood to be in another one of my Imagine Justice classes, but I went along anyway. At the end, it asked us to come up and share our answers with it. Many people stood up and spilled their feelings. The AI responded with what seemed like a cut and paste response and didn’t actually acknowledge the peoples feelings or concerns. The showing I also went to sparked a walkout, which you can read here. Overall, it was not what I was expecting and I thought the audience was going to be able to ask it questions, so I was a bit thrown off. All in all, I saw a BUNCH of amazing films and the full list is below. I only went to one talk and it was Pushing the Boundaries of Storytelling for a Future that Demands Impact.

Here is a complete list of films I saw at Sundance in order from first watched to last:

How to Have Sex

Love Machina

The Greatest Night in Pop

10 Lives

Stress Positions

Presence

A Different Man

Malu

Episodic Pilot Showcase

Penelope

Me/We

Las Mesias

A Violent Nature

Being (the digital griot)

DiDi

The Mother Of All Lies

It’s What’s Inside

Sasquatch Sunset

A New Kind of Wilderness

Eternal You

Ibelin

Handling the Undead

Layla

Porcelain War

Desire Lines

Animated Shorts

Drago

Matta and Matto

Martyr’s Guidebook

Dona Beatriz Nsimba Vita

Baigal Nuur - Lake Baikal

Larry

Documentary Shorts

To Be Invisible

WInding Path

Object 817

The Smallest Power

14 Paintings

Award Winner Shorts

Pisko the Crab Child is in Love

Bug Diner

The Looming

Bob’s Funeral

The Stag

Say Hi After You Die

The Masterpiece

#sundance #sundancefilmfestival #sundance 2024 #indiefilm #indepedentfilm

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trainsinanime · 1 year ago

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This is a really fascinating topic! Yeah, this seems to be a weird overlap of different factors.

On the one hand, it's a simplification for a show that is deliberately trying to be simple. There is just one school in Paris (that matters), it has just one class (that matters), there are like ten locations within in Paris, and as an extension, there is just one city that really matters.

But then the show does spread its wings, and it goes to what it considers to be cool places: New York, Shanghai, hints of London. Marseille, Toulouse, even just good old Versaille? Not cool enough for the kids, not worthy of being part of this world. Having the mayor of Paris be the top authority who controls their garbage space program is the end result of that.

(Weirdly, we do have one kid from a different part of France, and it's Alya, who is implied and stated by background information to be from Martinique, of all places. Great for representation, but also odd in a broader sense. The show makes it clear that modern France includes kids from Vietnam, Morocco, Martinique, I think Ivan's supposed to be Russian, and the main character, the quintessential French heroine, is half-chinese, which is incredibly meaningful! …but their modern version of France does not include anybody from Calais.)

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a huge problem, but it is an interesting thing. Sadly, it means we're very unlikely to ever see an episode where the class goes to, say, Mulhouse, to visit the railway museum.

Watching the last two animed Asterix films and reading (well, listening to) Edouard Louis has left me with thoughts about how Paris so often feels like an entirely separate entity from the country of France. And it's one thing for that to be the case with fiction and in the stereotypes projected from knowing a place from books and news reports only, but Louis' description goes a long way to back up this impression, that if you aspire to be Something then its Paris or bust

it's exaggarated, of course, and I'm speaking with the expertise of having been to France a whole three times and the only time I set a foot outside Paris was during a pit stop on some godforsaken petrol station. (and an afternoon in Strassbourg but I was living in Germany which means it doesn't count)

But when Miraculous Ladybug re-plays the French Revolution over the office of the mayor of Paris, the separation is complete. In the MLB universe, Paris is France and the country does not exist outside the city borders. Other countries exist, both as real setting and as destinations for transport, but the country of France is never seen. Even in the NYC special, we cut straight from a bus to the interior of the plane taking the class to New York. There are no buses leaving the city of Paris, the only railway route is the Startrain to London. We have no kids from other parts of the country but we do have several children from other countries moving in.

I'm not even going to try to say something smart about this illustration of centralisation taken to the extreme, but it's... something. If I cared enough I'd do some probably useless comparisons to how Tokyo is the epicentre of everything in anime, but even here it tends to be either centred on some specific part of Tokyo, and other countries are so irrelevant that the geographic myopia doesn't look as weird as this one does. Because arguably it's not only France that has disappeared, but the entire continent of Europe, now reduced to "Italiy exists".

#miraculous ladybug #ml revolution spoilers #ml revolution #revolution spoilers #ml season 5 spoilers #ml season 5 #ml s5 spoilers #ml s5

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thetravelerwrites · 4 years ago

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Bashir (Troll) Lemon

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Female Human/Male Troll (World of Warcraft Design) Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Troll, Fake Dating, Hired Boyfriend, Fake Boyfriend Content Warnings: Stalker Ex-Boyfriend, Stalking, Mention of Guns, Brief Violence Series: OkCryptid Words: 6365

A commission for @floral-and-fine! A woman getting out of a bad relationship has moved across her home state to get away from her controlling ex-boyfriend, only for him to show up at her job. Scared, she goes on OkCryptid to recruit a "boyfriend" in hopes of frightening him off. Please reblog and leave feedback!

The Traveler's Masterlist

>Hi. I know we don’t know each other and this is pretty sudden, but I have a proposition for you, and it isn’t what you think.

Vague, yes, but it would catch his attention quickly enough, you thought. You were desperate and didn’t know what else to do.

>Oh, He messaged not long after. >What would that be?

>I want to pay you to go out with me for a while.

>I’m not a prostitute. Lol

>That’s not what I mean, You replied, rolling your eyes. >I know this sounds weird, and if I had more money I’d probably just hire a bodyguard, but I don’t.

>Why would you need a bodyguard?

You sighed. >I have a stalker ex-boyfriend. I dated him for about five months, but he was really possessive and crazy so I broke it off, and now he won’t leave me alone. I moved here last month from across the state and he followed me. He showed up at my work today.

>Ah, I see. So you want me to rip his arms off?

>No, I just want him to see me with someone who is big enough to rip his arms off. Maybe it’ll scare him away. You’re the biggest guy I could find on here. Well, I did find a cyclops that was pretty big, but she wasn’t interested.

>Have you gone to the police about this?

>Yeah, but they said unless I get proof he has intent to do harm, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t even get a restraining order unless he hurts me or causes property damage. It’s like he has to beat me up before they’ll do anything, and I’d rather not let it get that far.

>Gotcha. Why don’t we don’t meet for coffee tomorrow and talk it over?

>That sounds great. I’m free at lunch.

>Me too. I’ll meet you at Leo’s Diner, you know that one?

>No, but I can Google it. See you tomorrow at 11.

Bashir arrived right on time at eleven the next morning. He was a large troll, dark blue in color, with large, off-white tusks jutting out from the sides of his mouth and his long red hair braided in several placed and pulled back at the nape of his neck. He was muscular, thick in the waist, and around nine feet tall. He wore a suit, which was finely tailored to his body. You raised your eyebrows: his profile was sparse, so you didn’t know what kind of job he did; you’d only chosen him because of his picture. But dressed like that, you were surprised he even agreed to take this “job.”

“Hi, you’re the one I’m supposed to meet today, right?” He said, extending his hand.

“Yes,” You replied, standing and shaking his hand. Your hand was dwarfed in his. “Thanks for agreeing.”

“It’s no trouble,” He said, gesturing for you to sit back down as he took a seat opposite you. “So tell me about this boyfriend of yours.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” You said. “His name is Jake. I met him at work; we worked in the same department. He seemed nice, so when he asked me out, I didn’t think anything of saying yes. The first two months was fine, and were got along really well. As soon as we decided to be exclusive, he got really clingy really quickly. Every time I’d try to pull away, he’d clutch at me tighter. He started pressuring me to put distance between me and my friends, he wanted to know where I was all the time, he was constantly texting and calling and got mad when I didn’t respond right away. I got sick of it and broke up with him.”

“When did the stalking start?”

“Almost immediately. It didn’t help that we still worked in the same department, so I had to see him every day. He’d show up at my house after work and on the weekend. He’d either be super angry and demand that I let him in, or he’d be there with flowers and candy and cry and tell me that I was the best thing that ever happened to him, that he was sorry and he’d do better. He kicked my door in a couple of times and I had to call the police. I finally managed to get a restraining order against him, but it didn’t really help. He couldn’t come within five hundred feet, so he would stand on the curb exactly five hundred feet from my house and just watch the house. I was scared for my life. So I quit my job and moved across the state with just my savings. I found a job and I started last week. And yesterday, they said I had a new client, and it was him.”

“What did you do?”

“I freaked out and called security, telling them I had a restraining order against him. He mistakenly thinks the restraining order is void because I moved, but I called and that’s not the case at all.” You sighed in aggravation. “I really hope this asshole doesn’t get me fired.”

“Hmm,” He said. “So what’s your offer?”

“Hmm?” You asked.

“You said you’d pay. What’s your offer?”

“Oh,” You said, surprised. “Uh, fifty bucks per date, plus the date expenses. I can’t really afford more than that.”

“That sounds fair. Okay,” He said. “I’ll do it. You just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”

“Really?” You replied. “You’ll take the job?”

“Sure,” He said. “I’ve got some free time, and the extra money will be nice. I could buy a new suit in a month.” He grinned and plucked at his own, no doubt worth several months of dates.

“That’s great, thank you,” You said, sighing in relief. “So, Friday night? Around six o’clock? Would that work?”

“Absolutely,” He said, pulling out his phone. “Give me your phone number. I’ll add it to my contacts. That way, if you see him, you can call or text and I can head over and do the arm ripping thing.”

You laughed and took out your phone.

After exchanging information, the two of you had lunch and discussed the finer points of the job. PDAs were acceptable, but you’d prefer if he didn’t kiss you. He had a nine-to-five job, just like you, but his position was flexible and let him leave the office for errands, as long as he didn’t abuse the privilege. You left the lunch feeling a little safer.

Friday night, you met him at a nice Greek restaurant, and he wore another nice bespoke suit. He offered to pick you up at your home, but you didn’t really want him to know where you lived. You were still pretty paranoid about Jake finding out.

“I’m surprised you chose this place, considering you’re footing the bill and everything,” Bashir said, looking around. “It’s pretty fancy.”

“It has to look believable,” You reasoned. “And I do like Greek food. If you like, you can pick the place next time.”

He chuckled. “Have you ever had Mediterranean troll food?”

“No, I haven’t,” You said, interested. “What’s it like?”

“It’s very similar, except there’s no bread of any kind.”

“So what do you eat the hummus on?”

“You drink it like sauce.”

“You’re not supposed to drink sauce!” You protested.

He snickered.

“I feel like you’re making this up.”

“Maybe, but you’ve never met any Mediterranean trolls, so you don’t know.”

“Are you a Mediterranean troll?”

“I am, actually,” He said. “My parents came over from Morocco when I was a tot. I don’t remember much about Morocco, but I’ve always dreamed of going on a trip there, I’ve just never had the chance.” He gave a cursory look over the menu. “Maybe that’s what I’ll use this money for.”

“Sounds nice to me,” You said. “If we both get something good out of this, then that’s a plus.”

“What do you get out of this, other than getting rid of a bothersome ex?”

“Security and peace of mind,” You said, picking up your own menu. “That’s worth the price.”

He looked at you seriously. “This guy really shook you up, didn’t he?”

You set the menu back down and sighed. “He’s never hit me or threatened me verbally. The most he’s ever done is break my door, but…” You looked out of the window. “I feel like… it wouldn’t be hard, you know? It wouldn’t be that much of a leap from breaking my door in to doing something worse. If he gets mad enough, if he gets obsessed enough, who knows what he could do. All I know is that I don’t want to find out.”

“I understand,” He said. “I’ve never had to deal with something like that, because… well, look at me…” He gestured at his massive body. “But I do know people who have, and it sounds terrifying. I’m glad I can help, even if I am getting paid to do it.”

You smiled. “Well, it helps that you’re good company.”

“You don’t have to flirt with me, you know,” He teased. “That’s not part of the deal.”

“I will throat-punch you,” You said with a grin, and he laughed.

The next date was the following Saturday, and he chose to go to a concert. He wore a black v-neck shirt and a pair of black slacks, which was as dressed down as you’d seen him, but still very business-casual. It was a showcase of up-and-coming local bands, and they were all pretty good. You didn’t know that he liked Djent and progressive metal, too, but you were happy to have a common interest.

In truth, Bashir was pleasant to be around, and you were relieved that this entire thing wasn’t as awkward as it could have been. It definitely helped make this “dating” business look real from an outsider perspective. He held up his end of the bargain really well over the next dozen dates, holding your hand and putting an arm around you as if it was perfectly normal to do so. Thankfully, it didn’t make you feel uncomfortable when he did it, as he was very warm and the height difference meant he couldn’t be too cuddly naturally. You hoped that if Jake was watching, he believed you’d moved on and had no thoughts for him.

Unfortunately, if he was watching, he didn’t take the hint.

One night, as you were turning off lights and getting ready for bed, you looked out of your bedroom window and there he was, standing on the curb across the street, Jake stood in the shadow of a tree, vaping, and looking toward your house.

Panicked, you didn’t your best to stay calm while you were at the window, not wanting him to know you had seen him, but as soon as you walked away, you turned off the bedroom lights, snatched up your phone, dashed downstairs, and frantically checked the windows and doors, making sure they were all locked.

You meant to call the police, but instead, you dialed Bashir’s number. He answered immediately.

“What’s up?” He asked, sounding caught off guard. You weren’t surprised, you never called or texted him unless it was about the next “date.”

“Jake’s outside,” You whispered. “He’s across the street, I’m looking at him right now from my living room window.”

“Are you sure it’s him?”

“I’d recognize that stupid snakeskin vape box anywhere,” You said.

“Okay,” He said. “I’m heading over. Stay on the phone with me until I get there. Do you have a landline?”

“Yeah,” You replied.

“Get it and call the police. Don’t tell them he’s stalking you because, well frankly, they won’t care. Say you’re a concerned member of the neighborhood and there’s a suspicious man hanging around outside and you’re worried about a break in.”

It wouldn’t have been a lie. “Okay,” You said, picking up your cordless phone.

After calling the police, you waited with your heart in your throat, listening to Bashir get into his car and drive. He’d heard you tell the operator your address. He arrived before the police did, his vehicle a nondescript SUV, and he got out wearing sweat pants and a tank top and pulled a duffel bag from his passenger seat. He didn’t acknowledge Jake at all, simply walked up to your door and knocked. You went to open the door for him.

“Hug me and kiss my cheek,” He said in a low undertone. Gulping, you did as he said with him turning so that your display of affection was clearly visible to anyone watching from the street. You let him in and closed the door behind him, locking it.

“What now?”

“Let’s turn on the lights and make some coffee while we wait for the police,” He said.

“Okay,” You said, your voice shaking. You went to go into the kitchen but he stopped you by taking your hand.

“Hey,” He said gently. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here, and the police are coming. You’re safe.”

Tears came to your eyes and you nodded, wiping them. He released you and you went to the kitchen, putting a pot of coffee on.

The police arrived. You and Bashir watched covertly from the breakfast nook. Eventually, Jake walked to a car and got in it, driving away. The police followed him.

“They let him go?” You asked, worried.

“Well, they may not have know he has a restraining order, and even if they did, he looked plenty far away enough to not have violated it. He wasn’t breaking any laws other than loitering, so they couldn’t arrest him. At least they made sure he left.”

You held your head in your hands. “God, I don’t want to have to do all this over again.”

“It’s okay,” He said. “I’ll stay the night to make sure he doesn’t come back tonight.”

“What about tomorrow? Or the next day? You can’t be here all the time,” You said, your voice shaking.

He sighed heavily. “Do you know how to use a gun?”

You scoffed in disgust. “I don’t want a fucking gun.”

“Okay,” He said. “Then, I’ll put up a security system. I brought one with me; it’s in my bag. I’ll set it up tonight while he’s not here.”

“It’s late,” You said weakly.

“Do you want to sleep or do you want peace of mind?” He asked you levelly.

You scrubbed your face, took a deep breath, drained your coffee cup, and stood up. “Okay. Let’s do it, then.”

It took a few hours, but he managed to get several security cameras fixed to the building, focused on entryways and the front and back yards. You helped him by holding the equipment and tools for him as he worked, handing up what he needed as he needed it. By the time the two of you were done, it was three a.m. and you both had to be at work in mere hours.

The two of you fell into an exhausted sleep on your bed. You didn’t even have the energy to be affronted by the fact that you were sharing a bed with him. The next morning, before he left to go home and get ready for work, he downloaded the security camera app onto your phone and showed you how to use it.

You went to work, checking your phone surreptitiously to see if Jake was outside of your house. So far, he hadn’t reappeared.

>Today’s Friday, You texted him. >I know you’re probably tired after last night, but do you want to have a date today?

>What about a home date at my house? He replied. >I’ll cook dinner and everything. I don’t want you to be at your house at the moment.

>I can’t argue with that, You said in return. >Sounds good to me. What are you cooking?

>I was thinking a kefta meatball tagine with couscous on the side, and a snake pastry for dessert.

>That sounds amazing. Thanks for putting me up. I know this all is a huge inconvenience, and I really appreciate it.

>It’s no problem,” He said. >It’s what I’m getting paid for, right?

You sighed. Well, this wasn’t exactly what he was getting paid for. How much would an overnight stay cost you?

He sent you a message with his address and you went home after work to shower and pack a small overnight bag. You snickered, pulling out your pretty underwear and a sexy negligee, wondering if you should pack this, too, before putting it away and just throwing some pajamas in your bag.

Checking the cameras before stepping outside, you left the house and hurried to your car, heading to Bashir’s house. His place was a two-story, bungalow style house with a dark brown cliffstone brick pattern and a detached garage. It was charming, and a lot cuter than your tiny yellow ranch-style house. The yard was well kept and three were full flowerbeds next to the wide porch. You wouldn’t have imagined he lived in a place like this.

You knocked on the door and he answered it quickly, wearing a comfortable t-shirt and pair of tight jeans. You tried not to stare, but it was difficult. His clothes left very little to the imagination. His hair was also down and cascaded down his back and shoulders.

“Come in, come in,” He said, taking your bag for you.

“Thanks,” You said. “Your house is really pretty.”

“Oh, thanks!” He said. “It was actually condemned when I bought it. I basically had to rebuild it from the ground up. I’m not quite finished with it yet, but I’m happy with the progress.”

“You should be, it’s amazing,” You said. “I’d never have guessed it was a fixer-upper.”

He grinned at you, showing off his sharp teeth. “Come on, dinner will be ready soon.”

“It smells great,” You said, inhaling the savory smell of lamb and vegetables.

“All my mom’s recipes,” He replied, heading into the kitchen. “She owns a restaurant three towns over.”

“I’ll have to go and visit it sometime,” You said.

“Maybe I’ll take you myself one day,” He said, smiling as he stirred the couscous. Your heart fluttered a little.

How long were you going to have to keep this up? “Dating” Bashir was fun, but it wasn’t going to last forever. Either Jake would give up or get arrested, so either way, it would be over. Maybe you could stay friends. He was nice enough, and you enjoyed hanging out with him. But still… why was he talking about things that might happen in the future if there was no future for the two of you?

Dinner was delicious, and so was dessert, and afterward the two of you went to the living room to watch a movie. He even put his arm around you, since the window was uncovered and anyone could look in, he said, and you felt comfortable enough to relax into his side. It almost did feel like a real home date.

After the movie, though, you both decided to sleep, since you were still tired from the night before. You decided that you were both adults and could share a bed without it being awkward, and besides, his bed was huge and could fit five of you easily. You both fell asleep almost immediately.

Sometime during the night, you got a ping from the motion detector on your phone, but when you checked the security system, it was just a raccoon in your trashcan. You sighed and put your phone down, rolling over.

Bashir was on his back, asleep, with his face turned toward you. He was breathing deeply and relaxed with one hand on his chest and the other on his stomach.

You couldn’t help but stare. He really was an attractive guy, and if circumstances had been different, you might have dated him for real. But… until Jake left you alone, you didn’t want to drag anyone else into it. Bashir didn’t have any emotional connection to you, so Jake couldn’t affect whatever “relationship” you had.

But maybe things could be different after? You weren’t sure. He hadn’t expressed any interest in you other than what he had to to make the job believable. He hadn’t been flirty or more affectionate than he needed to be. You couldn’t afford to develop feelings for Bashir, not right now.

Even still, you brushed your fingers gently against the skin of his arm, feeling the hairs that covered it, and followed the curve up to his hand, allowing yours to rest on top of his for a moment or two before retracting it and trying to fall asleep again, sighing heavily.

The next morning, Bashir recommended that the two of you spend the day together, to keep up the weekend stay appearance.

“How much is this ‘weekend getaway’ going to cost me?” You asked dubiously.

He laughed. “Don’t worry, today’s a freebie, since I suggested it. You still have to pay for last night, though. The normal fifty bucks is fine.”

“Mm-hmm,” You hummed flatly, fishing the money out of your wallet and handing it to him. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“Ah, it’s a freebie day, right? You get to choose this time.”

You smiled. “Well, let’s start with breakfast. I’ll cook it. I can cook breakfast blindfolded.”

“If you like,” He said, sitting at the bar in the kitchen and watching you putter around, looking for cooking tools.

After breakfast, you decided you wanted to go to the local botanical garden, which you hadn’t been to in some time.

“Your flowerbeds outside reminded me of this place,” You told him, walking slowly through the rows of Japanese maples. There was a beautiful and an extremely rare Chinese Red Maple behind a gate at the end of the row, the centerpiece of the garden. “Did you plant them yourself?”

“Yep,” He said with a smile. “I helped my dad do a lot of gardening when he was still alive. He had a landscaping business, but he was really passionate about it. I actually inherited the business. Gardening helps me keep his memory alive.”

“That’s really sweet,” You said, smiling softly. “Is that what you do for a living, the landscaping job? I’ve never actually asked what you do for work.”

“No, actually. I mean, I own the company, but I don’t work for it. My actual job is something else entirely.”

“What is it?”

He laughed. “Honestly, I don’t think you’d believe me.” Before you could ask, he took you by the hand and said, “Let’s take a break and get a coffee. I have to use the bathroom.”

“Okay,” You said, letting the subject drop. For now.

You got to the food court outside of the botanical gardens and sat down at the outdoor cafe.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” He said, putting some money down on the table. “Can you order me a large black coffee?”

“Yeah, sure,” You said. He smiled and headed off. You got up and put in your order, then sat back down at the table and opened the security app, looking through the cameras and checked to see if anything was out of place.

The chair opposite to you was pulled out and he sat back down while you were still looking at your phone.

“The coffee should be out soon,” You said.

“I didn’t order coffee,” A voice said. It wasn’t Bashir.

You jerked your head up and saw Jake sitting across from you. You stood up so fast that you knocked the chair over.

“Get away from me, Jake,” You said.

“Look, just talk to me,” He said, standing up and advancing on you. “Why won’t you just talk to me?”

“Get away from me!” You shouted. “Bashir!”

“Are you calling for that monster?” He sneered. “You could do so much better than him. Besides, you’re not even really dating him, you’re just paying him to keep you company, you slut. You think I wouldn’t figure that out?”

“Fuck you!” You back up. “Bashir!”

Jake was snatched back and slammed down onto the cafe table. Bashir had him pinned down with a single hand. It wasn’t hard to do: Bashir was almost twice the size of Jake in height and weight.

“Let me go!” Jake said, struggling against Bashir’s iron grip. “I’ll have you arrested! My brother’s a cop!”

“Ah, that explains how you got her address so quick,” Bashir said. “I don’t really care if your brother’s a cop. Actually, I think I do, I think an internal affairs investigation is warranted. Regardless, you’ve just violated a restraining order.”

“What does it matter to you?”

Bashir snorted. “I’m FBI, dickless.”

You gaped at him.

“Bullshit!” Jake said. “I’ll fucking sue you! I’ll ruin your fucking life!”

“Whatever you want, you’re still under arrest,” Bashir said, pulling out a set of handcuffs from an inside pocket of his jacket.

“You’re kidding,” You said slowly, staring at Bashir.

“I told you you probably wouldn’t believe me,” He said, grinning at you sheepishly. He jerked his head at his jacket. “My ID is in my pocket.”

You reached in and fished it out, opening the leather fold to reveal a… rather official looking ID and badge.

You laughed in disbelief. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have.”

The police arrived to detain Jake and took him to the station. Bashir drove you to the station, as well, so that you could make a statement.

Later, Bashir drove you back to your house.

“I’ll bring your bag over later,” He said. “He’ll probably get ninety days in jail for violating the restraining order, and hopefully you won’t have to deal with him anymore. Although, if you hear from him again once he gets out, let me know, and I’ll be here.”

“Thanks,” You said. “Really, thank you for everything.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Here,” He said, handing it to you. Inside was all the money you had given him for the dates, plus some. There had to have been almost two thousand dollars in there.

“But this is…”

He laughed. “I’m a federal official, you know. I can’t take bribes. I’d get fired.”

“This wasn’t…” You started, but stopped yourself. This could absolutely be seen as a bribe. “What do I do with all this?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you like. Go on a trip. Buy something nice. It’s your money, after all.”

You sighed a little sadly. “I guess this is it, then.”

He sighed, too. “Yeah, I guess so.” He leaned forward, bent down, and kissed you on the cheek. “Take care of yourself.”

Jake did end up getting three months in jail, which made you feel a lot better. You were worried that he would come after you, but the three months passed and when he was released, he moved clear across the country and you never heard from him again.

Finally free of him, you thought you might try actually dating again, but you could only think of Bashir. You and he had only spoken a few times, mostly him checking on you, but you hadn’t seen each other since Jake’s arrest. You missed him, but you couldn’t tell him that. He didn’t have any feelings for you, anyway. If he did, wouldn’t he have asked you out after Jake was out of the picture?

Even still, you wanted to see him again. So once Jake was gone, you texted Bashir.

>I have something for you, You told him.

>Oh? What’s that?

>I want to give it to you in person. Would it be okay to come over this weekend?

>I’m free now. Why don’t you stop by?

>Okay. I’ll be there soon.

Before leaving, you hesitated and decided to throw on your best, sexiest underwear. Just in case.

You arrived at his house to find him out in the front yard. He was digging a hole in the yard with a sapling sitting in a bucket, ready for planting. There were also stones and gravel he was going to use for a decorative barrier. He stood up and waved as you drove up into the driveway.

“Hey!” He said, pulling you into a hug. Well, as well as he could, being so tall. “It’s good to see you!”

“You too!” You said. “What kind of tree is that?”

“A Chinese Maple,” He said. “I got inspired when we went to the botanical gardens that time. It cost a pretty penny and I had to wait for the cutting to grow, but it’s finally ready to plant.”

“That’s so cool,” You said. “Can I help?”

“Really?” He said, grinning. “Yeah, sure! There’s a pair of gloves over there on the porch. They might be a little big, but it’s better than blisters.”

You ran to retrieve them, and picked up a trowel. “Why did you decide on the maple?”

“Cause it reminds me of you,” He said, digging. “When I look out my window every day and see it, I’ll think of you.”

Your heart beat faster, but you couldn’t look at him.

It only took about an hour to dig out the hole, plant the sapling, fill the hole with soil, lay the stones, and spread the gravel. Thankfully it was a cool day and you didn’t sweat too much. The two of you caught up on what had happened in the three months since you’d seen each other. You wanted to ask if he had started dating, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

“It looks great,” He said, standing back and grinning. “Thanks for your help! We got it done in record time. Let’s get cleaned up and have a drink.”

“Okay,” You said. “Let me grab my purse from the car.”

“Oh, right, you had something to give me, right?”

“Yep,” You told him, grabbing your bag.

He laughed. “Sorry I side-tracked you.”

“It’s fine, I had a good time,” You said. He opened the door for you and let you go into the house before him.

You went to the bathroom to freshen up and when you looked down, you realized your toothbrush was in the holder, the one you had forgotten when you’d stayed over. You had bought a new one and figured he’d just throw it away when he found it. Why had he kept it? Why was it in the holder with his?

You went back out into the kitchen and found him shirtless, water beading down the muscles of his back, and you stopped in the doorway, staring.

“Oh, sorry,” He said, laughing and throwing on a clean shirt. “Needed a quick wash. I felt a little grimy after the yardwork.”

“It’s okay,” You said, your heart still hammering in your chest.

“Iced tea?”

“Yeah, sure,” You replied, sitting at the bar. He poured you a drink and sat at the bar opposite you.

“So, what was the thing you had for me.”

You swallowed your tea a bit too hard and reached into your purse, handing him an envelope.

“This isn’t the money, is it?” He asked, smiling.

“No, it’s not money,” You said. “Open it.”

He grinned playfully at you, but it slipped from his face when he looked inside the envelope, pulling out two plane tickets.

“Morocco?” He asked, looking up at you in surprise.

You nodded. “Those are good for a year, so make sure you get some vacation time soon,” You said, anxious.

He stared at them. “There are two.”

“Yes,” You replied. “In case you wanted to take your mom. Or maybe a girlfriend or boyfriend or something.”

You kept your face as neutral as possible, but he was staring at you.

“The extra ticket is for you, isn’t it?” He asked softly.

You looked down and away. “If you don’t want me to go, that’s okay. You can take whoever you like. I just wanted you to have the trip you always dreamed of.”

He got up out of his chair, came around, and got down on his knees, so that he was face to face with you. He leaned forward and kissed you. It was firm and testing, and you responded, throwing your arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around you as well.

“I missed you,” He murmured against your lips.

“Why didn’t you ask me out?” You asked him, pulling back to look at his face.

“I thought you weren’t interested in a real relationship,” He said, pulling you against him. “If I had any inclination you did, I would have asked you out on the spot.”

“I thought the same thing,” You said. “I never expected you’d actually like me.”

“I do,” He said, kissing you again and standing up. “I like you very, very much.”

He walked you into his room and lay you down on his bed, stripping your clothes off your body.

“Pretty,” He said with a grin as he came across your lacy black underwear. “Did you wear this for me?”

You bit your lip and nodded.

“Well, it would be a shame to take it off so soon, then, wouldn’t it?” He said, palming your breasts over the fabric of your bra. He touched your slit over your underwear, and you gasped. You lifted your leg and rubbed him through his pants, and he grunted. You felt him harden under your touch. He was… uh… large.

You pulled off his shirt and ran your nails down his chest. He moved his hand away and pressed himself against you, still clothed, grinding himself into your clit, and you moaned. You reached for his belt and unbuckled it, unbuttoning it, and pushed his pants down with your toes. Because of his long tusks, he couldn’t bend down to kiss you in this position, so he picked you up as if you were a doll, kissing your body. You were always a little self conscious about your weight, being a big girl, but he seemed not to notice.

He lifted you all the way up to his face, kneeling down so that you weren’t so high up, and licked the cloth covering your slit, putting your legs over his shoulders and his tusks under your body. Using just his tongue, he moved your underwear out of the way and teased your clit. His tongue was long and thick. You whimpered and rocked your hips against his tongue. He pushed it in side of you and thrust it back and forth, and you writhed in his grip.

Carefully, he pulled you down and eased you into his lap, pressing himself against your entrance. You pressed your hands against his stomach and watched him disappear slowly inside you. He couldn’t go all the way in, but once he reached the back and knew where the limit was, he pulled back out slowly and thrust in again slowly, easing you into it. He must have had a similar size problem in the past and had learned how to overcome it in these situations. You were glad for it.

He lay you on the edge of the bed and pressed your knees back, thrusting a little faster, and you reached down and touched yourself, rubbing quickly as he sped up. He pulled the cups of your bra down so that he could grasp your breasts, squeezing gently, and grunted. You held his hand there with your own, pulling up your head and sucking on his pointer finger, looking up at him through your lashes. His breathing was erratic and he watched you hungrily, his sharp teeth biting into his lower lip and pricking the skin.

“I’m so close,” You moaned. “I’m going to cum.”

He nodded as if in agreement, squeezing his eyes shut. He grimaced as if in pain, but then shouted, roaring, and released inside of you. It was a torrent, spraying out of you. Another few hip thrusts and circles around your clit, you came too, your head thrown back against the bed, crying out.

He pulled out and turned his head, resting it against your stomach as his arms gripped your sides, breathing hard. After a moment, you both sat up, and you realized that his legs were covered with his own release.

“Wanna get cleaned up?” You asked him.

“Yeah,” He said dreamily, standing up and leading you into the bathroom. You took a shower together, helping him clean himself. He did the same for you, kneeling down and washing your body. The way he knelt in front of you combine with the way he looked at you, it almost felt like he was worshiping you. Honestly, you didn’t mind that at all.

Your underwear would have to be washed, but he said you could borrow one of his shirts, if you wanted to. Honestly, you were happy to lounge in his bed naked. He seemed happy with that, too.

“When would you like to go?” You asked him, laying on his chest and playing with his chest hair. “To Morocco, I mean?”

“Soon,” He said, entwining his fingers in your hair. “I’ll put in for vacation time as soon as I get back to the office. I don’t really take vacations, so I’m sure my colleagues will be surprised.”

You smiled and kissed his skin. “I’ll have to put in for time off, too,” You said. “Although, I only just started working there six months ago, so they may not approve it.”

“Let me know when they do and I’ll schedule for the same time,” He said.

“Sounds good to me,” He said, sitting up and crossing his legs, looking down at you. You posed a little for him and he grinned, running his hands up and down the soft skin of your torso and belly. “You know what I’d like to do right now, though?”

“What’s that?” You asked.

“I want to take you on a date,” He said, smiling softly. “A real one. I'll pay and everything. And I want to be able to kiss you.”

You smiled back at him. “Deal.”

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider becoming a Patron or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

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#Exophilia #Monster Boyfriend #Troll #WoW Troll #World of Warcraft Troll

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wizkiddx · 4 years ago

Text

work with me

this is for @worldoftom 'lolbrosgetsicktoo' challenge event thing - go check it out bcos lots of much better writers have got involved too✨! I'm v new to these things but I tried :) the prompt was: 'would you quit whining and just get in the bath' . (also look at me acc posting sort of regularly, who'd of thought?!?!)

warnings: sickness / fever (more dramatic than it needs to be) / LOTS of medical inaccuracies

summary: when tom doesn't take advice and ends up very ill, very far from home, there's one person whose stuck dealing with it

“Please Tom… I need you to work with me!”

It wasn’t his fault he was being a complete nightmare, though your patience was wearing off somewhat.

For context, you were in Morocco, where he had been filming part of his next film, which only made trying to take care of him that bit harder.

Everyone got ill sometimes. It wasn’t his fault.

That was the mantra ringing through your head, even if you had a more challenging time believing it. Tom wasn’t stupid, as much as he liked to joke about it. HOWEVER, what he was less good at was heeding warnings. He was a white boy in Morrocco; the health and safety briefing had literally been aimed at him. Had he taken the advice not to eat any dodgy looking meats at the market?

Of course not; that’d be boring.

Everyone else was fine. You’d all sampled Morroccos culture without giving yourselves the worst case of food poisoning you’d ever witnessed. But not Tom - possibly one of the only ‘indispensable’ people on the set. If you, or one of the minor characters, or even the director, had got ill - the show could continue.

When you’d been rudely awoken by your phone going off, you’d known instantly. It was as if you’d told him not to take a bite out of the weird burger once you were away from the eager view of the street vendor. Sure enough, with bleary eyes, you hissed at the brightness of the phone screen before seeing ‘Tom H’ on the screen.

“Y/n?” His voice was croaky, but just from the single call of your name, it was clear he was feeling sorry for himself.

“Are you okay? It’s late T.”

“Um I… can you come over? You…you might need the key I’m - um- in the bathroom.”

As his stylist, it technically wasn’t part of your job description to also be mother when he was sick, but (unfortunately for you) after the 3 years working side by side with him - you were also friends.

Which you were almost regretting by the second time rinsing the toilet bowl clean after he’d evacuated what seemed to be the majority of his vital organs into it. Honestly, it was impressive how he managed to keep going.

That had been at around 4 in the morning- the doctor had been called at 8, coinciding beautifully with his 5th toilet extravaganza. Once the doctor had confirmed your original, if completely unqualified, diagnosis of food poisoning - you hadn’t been able to bite your tongue. Perhaps an ‘i told you so’ might’ve slipped past your lips, but Tom was a bit too out of it to argue back.

You’d been given firm advice from the doctor - he said little sips of water, rest and control his temperature. It all had seen pretty simple - though the action? Not so much.

It wasn’t his fault, yet Tom was not super compliant. You and Harry had both been taking turns in practically forcing him to take sips of water, having to turn off ‘modern family’ till he did. The blackmail had put you both in his bad book.

Honestly, thank the lord Harry was here too. You’d woken him up at seven, begging for help and since then, you’d tagged teamed. While one was looking after Tom, the other was phoning the director, the doctor, and the crew to inform them of the current situation.

Again, of all people. Why’d it have to be Tom?

Mainly because you knew how mortifying he found this. He didn’t like people fussing over him, never had. He liked to work hard, liked to make people happy - definitely didn’t like to feel a burden. Perhaps what made him feel ten times worse was that he knew he was inconveniencing the whole production team massively.

And yes, as you’d unhelpfully reminded him, it was ‘his fault’.

The lavish hotel room, big bathroom and pretty efficient AC still didn’t manage to mask the pungent in-the-back-of-your-throat smell from the bathroom. At the doctor’s advice, who had been a little concerned at Toms fever, Harry had cranked the AC on high. It had forced you to steal one of Tom’s big hoodies and a pair of joggers- you hadn’t left his room since he first called you, still wearing your tiny pyjama shorts and an old tee.

“Please turn the air con off.” His little voice whined from where he was lying, huddled up under the covers. Perched on the other side of the double bed, but over the covers with your laptop on his lap, you could actually feel him shivering with the chills. It felt like you were torturing the poor boy.

“T you know I can’t. It’ll make your fever worse.” The way he looked up at you, like a little Labrador that you were refusing to pet, actually pained your heart.

Okay, so yes it was his fault, but you weren’t mad, you just felt so awful for him.

“Please I’ll- I’ll pay you more.” His voice was hoarse; though he denied a sore throat, it sounded like the constant sickness was burning his windpipe.

“Tommm” you pouted, sticking your bottom lip out “I don’t want your money, want you to get better.”

Apparently giving up, brown eyes shot you the filthiest look in disappointment, rolling to face away from you. You thought he was giving you the silent treatment in a huff, but instead, he was praying on the weaker one.

“Harry, I’ll buy you that set of golf clubs-“

“NO!” You had to interrupt before Harry would say yes - because from the way his younger brother shot up from the arm chair, he was about to. Scowling eyes slowly focused back on you in annoyance, making you huff - shutting the laptop and kneeling on the bed to face him. After pressing the back of your palm to his forehead, which was scorching hot, you sighed. “I know you feel shitty and I’m so so sorry but I’m trying to make you better. So shut up, drink this and go to sleep!”

Like a child scorned, you received another death glare however, then he complied, taking a sip of the water you offered before lying back - huddling even tighter.

And it had been relatively peaceful for a few hours; Tom seemed to be getting some sleep - even if he was tossing and turning. Eventually, a prescription that the doctor had requested worked its way through the system, Harry getting a text to say he could go pick it up. The nearest pharmacy was probably a 30 minute drive from the hotel, so he left as soon as.

This left you alone with Tom, where the situation only descended into more chaos.

Almost as soon as Harry had left, Tom had stirred with a grunt. All it took was one look at his face for you to know. Both of you leapt up and flew into the toilet, Tom once again getting very familiar with the Moroccan toilet bowl.

This time though, when he had leant backwards, he’d sort of lost control and flopped most the way - you catching him before he could hit his head on the tiled floor.

“Woah, easy there!” It wasn’t like he’d passed out, but the look in his eye as he slumped into your lap… he wasn’t all there either. “Hey Tom… you with me? Tom?”

Lazily he blinked up at you, not really replying except for groans of half-formed words.

Deciding this had all got a bit direr, you almost sprinted back into the room, grabbing your phone and returning. He was still on the floor, his thumb and first finger pressing into each eye - groaning again.

“Hey Tom? I’m gonna call the doctor you need anything?” He whined in response, stopping only when you stroked his sweaty hair back, most of your attention on dialling the correct number.

The solution he’d given wasn’t pretty: Tom’s fever was too high hence why he was all woozy and groany. Until the doctor could get over with the stronger medications, you needed to lower his temperature in other ways or take him to hospital. He’d absolutely hate hospital, but the other choice? Boy, was he not going to like it either.

Ignoring Tom’s croaked question of what you were doing, you busied yourself switching on the bath taps. You let the water run until it was the right (very mild) temperate, then turned back to Tom, who’d managed to work himself up to sit against the sink unit.

“The doctor says you need it.” His brain was foggy, his mind was slow but your tone told him enough to know something was wrong with the bath. “Just take your clothes off and then I’ll help you-“

“Absolutely fucking not.” Good. He was still with it enough to argue.

“I am just as uncomfortable as you are Tom, but we both know you can’t stand up without fainting, so you are going to need my help.”

“Y/n!”

“Keep your boxers on and it’s just like a fitting! I’ve seen you have those before!”

It was clear as day just how emasculated he felt, especially because he knew you were right. Sitting up at this current moment was a push; there was no way he was getting in the bath without some help. Defeatedly he nodded, but gave you a piercing look to turn around before he started wiggling himself out of the flannel pyjama trousers and light cotton t-shirt. Most confusingly, he still felt freezing cold, yet he had long since learned not to argue with you - especially when your justification came from the advice of a doctor.

Your cue to turn around came in the form of an extra angry-sounding grunt- the look you got when you did wasn’t much better either. It was a weird contrast, though, having someone who physically appeared so indestructible (a superhero for crying out loud); to have been absolutely beaten to a pulp by a few mouth fulls of weird meat. You had seen his bare torso before, although it still wasn’t something easy to get used to - making you clench your teeth together just slightly. A very welcome view.

Perhaps you looked just a little too long at the man who was technically your boss, hunched angrily on the floor in nothing but his calvins - another grunt shaking you out of it. By now, the bath was almost full and you hurried to shut off the water, feeling your cheeks heat up as you cursed silently to yourself.

“Okay come on, gimme your arm.” Begrudgingly Tom followed your request, slinging his arm heavily over your shoulder as you crouched beside him. As strong as he looked, you knew right now he felt powerlessly weak - all that muscle was just going to be almost dead weight.

Now it was your turn to grunt and groan as you pulled Tom up to stand, him focusing on blinking away the headrush he got.

“Come on T work with me here.” Getting him to the side of the bath wasn’t too difficult, the issue came when he stepped with one foot into the bath and yelped, instantly withdrawing as if it was a literal ice bath.

The sudden movement had you both losing balance, ending with Tom sitting on the edge of the bath and you leaning over him, in between his legs, and slapping your hand on the wall opposite purely so you both didn’t end up in the bath.

“Tom!”

“It’s like ice water!”

“Its lukewarm like the doctor said!”

“It is not its from the fucking arctic!”

“Oh for god sake!” Exasperated, you paced up and down the bathroom shaking your head at his ridiculousness. This was ALL. HIS. FAULT.

You came back to him with an ultimatum.

“It’s this or the doctor said I had to drag your ass to hospital.”

“Nooooooo.” The 25 year old seemed to convert into a whiny three year old again.

“Those are the two options. So will you PLEASE quit complaining and get in the bath.”

Keeping up the toddler persona, Tom huffed but reluctantly nodded in agreement - you had come up trumps. It didn’t stop him yelping when you helped to lower him in. His breath was shaky, as a response to the ‘cold’, but he was firming it. At least when you felt his forehead after a couple of minutes, it certainly seemed as though the fever was starting to ease off .

“You can go if you want.” His voice was murmured and as you looked up at him, he did his very best to avoid your gaze.

“Not a chance, if you drown on my watch, Nikki will never forgive me.” At the very least he seemed to appreciate your joke, scoffing a little with a small nod. “If you don’t want me here I get it. As soon as Harry’s back, I’ll swap with him.”

“No! It’s not that its… I’m just an ass when I’m ill.”

“A self aware ass, though.” Again he chuckled a little, as you folded your arms on the edge of the porcelain tub, resting your head lying to one side. “You had me pretty scared there for a moment, you know?”

He nodded a little, creating a wave of ripples in the water which you watched to avoid his gaze - which you knew was tracing all your features inquisitively.

“Hey it’s in the job description, always a bit dramatic... I’m sorry though I should never of called you- don’t know why I didn’t just get Harry.” In response you tutted, taking a moment to lean up and push his sweaty curls back a bit.

Just because you could, it was allowed in this moment.

“’m glad you did.”

“Yeh me too” He sighed, eyes fluttering shut in the easy silence of the bathroom. You kept a vigilant eye on him for the next 20 minutes, checking the temperature of his forehead using the back of your hand, whilst he seemed to finally get a bit of proper restbite, appearing like the worst had passed. You had no idea what was taking Harry so long; in fact it was the doctor that arrived first- who you ran to let in (not wanting to leave Tom asleep in the bath one bit).

Whilst the doctor did all his checks, taking his temperature properly this time, satisfied that it was much more manageable. He still wanted to set him up with some oral rehydration rescue packs to get his hydration status a bit better and give some anti-sickness tablets and antipyretics.

Having actually been getting some rest before all the prodding and poking, Tom was back to being a grumbling dick - now not wanting to leave the bath (the irony was real - making you roll your eyes). Once again, he appeared embarrassed to have you see him like this, so you left the doctor to help him get out and changed- instead going down to reception to get a fresh set of sheets, as he’d done a pretty impressive job of sweating through the old ones.

Even if tired and grumpy, when Tom exited the bathroom, he looked much better - he was walking himself without the doctor’s help. Which honestly was such a relief because when he had passed out on you, you genuinely were terrified. Thankfully the doctor stayed for the next 20 or so minutes, which was just when Harry returned with a bag of medications - which were now wholly redundant, given the doctor had already supplied everything.

“What happened?” Harry asked you in a hushed voice, whilst Tom was distracted with getting his medications. Recounting the story of Tom pretty much passing out, Harry grimaced for you, then launching over to give you a tight hug.

“Are you okay?” That was a novel idea, you hadn’t really thought about yourself at all - but honestly, you were a bit shaken, having been running on adrenalin for most of the night.

“I-uhm… yeh I think so… just-just was a bit scared, I guess? Felt bad too because he didn’t want me there but-“

“I can promise you Y/n, he did want you there. Just probably embarrassed he wasn’t all manly and that…” With a nod, you smiled softly at the frizzy-haired boy.

Whilst working with Tom, it also meant getting pretty close to his younger brother. The two Hollands were almost attached at the hip, which you were very much okay with.

It was weird though... your relationships were completely different. Harry was just your brother, through and through. He wound you up like a sibling but also knew you as if he had your whole life. With Tom… it wasn’t that. Arguably, you were closer to Tom, but on a different level. It was more exciting, more nerve-wracking and heartwarming all at the same time. Honestly, you couldn’t get your head around it properly.

“Hey, you’re probably shattered. Why don’t you go back to your room and get some sleep? I got it in here.” You knew Hary was trying to offer something nice, and now all the excitement had worn off, you were unbelievably shattered. But you didn’t like the idea of not being there, as a just in case.

“Uhm, I think I might just stay, you know?” And he did, with a deliberate, knowing smile, he nodded.

He knew you were worried. He knew Tom had really really scared you. He also knew how much you cared about his brother.

Just like how Harry knew Tom wanted you there, even if he felt embarrassed. Well, anyone would- when you are passing out half-naked in front of the one person that really matters.

It was just at this point that the doctor was done, giving Harry instructions about the rest of the day, when you made a beeline for the bed. Tom was propped up against the headboard, still with a pale sullen look and tired eyes, but a bit less clammy and more human. He cracked a smile as you crawled up onto the other side of the bed, kneeling next to him.

“How’re you doin’?”

“All drugged up, just feel fucking exhausted.” Instinctively you reached up to feel his forehead, really appreciating the fact it felt almost normal.

“Join the club mate, I had a 5am wake up call too.” You almost whispered, intending to make Tom laugh, but instead only getting a pout.

“I am sorry, a-are you going to go back to your room?”

“Nah” Tom’s eyes didn’t light up, except the fact that they very much did. “Can’t trust you not to get into trouble while I’m gone Holland.”

“Thanks.” He laughed weakly before shimmying down on the bed, so he was much more comfortable. “And thankyou, I-I’m sorry I’m a dickhead and made your life-“

“Shut up Tom!” Laughing, you lightly slapped his arm, also leaning down on the bed, so you were lying facing him. “You’re all feverish; go to sleep before you say something stupid.”

There was a long pause, Tom just gazing deep into your eyes, because he was pretty sure what he was thinking was nothing to do with the dodgy unidentified meat he’d had the evening before.

“What... like asking you out?”

…..

“Maybe that wouldn’t be so stupid.”

~~~~im really not sure how I feel about this one, let me know what you thought ;) ~~~~

tagging: @lovehollandy12 @hallecarey1 @crossyourpeter@hollandfanficlove

#tomholland #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #tom holland x y/n #hurt comfort #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #harry holland

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safflowerseason · 3 years ago

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Inventing Anna

This weekend I had pretty serious jet-lag after some international travel, so in between taking very deep naps at weird hours I binged all of Inventing Anna and rage-munched a lot of chocolate while doing so. spoilers below, obviously.

I suspect the creators of Inventing Anna believe the audience insert is Vivian Kent, but the characters the audience will ultimately identify with most are the long-suffering spouses of Vivian and Todd Spodek, who watch helplessly as Vivian and Todd become more entangled with Anna Delvey to the point they’ve lost all sense of objectivity and boundaries.

Now, I get this is one of the many dimensions of Anna Delvey’s scam the story purposefully explores—that she was (like all scammers) very good at drawing people into her orbit as she needed. I also understand that one of the major points of the series is that every character saw Anna Delvey in a different light and particularly that they saw her as a means to their own ends, whether those ends were a good story, professional acclaim, or a free trip to Morocco. I understand the fundamental assumption of the show that capitalism itself is a scam, and that ultimately under capitalism maybe we’re all just scamming each other to get through the day, in different ways. If we’re going to tell stories about the economic landscape of the 2000’s, I think that’s a necessary place to start.

BUT I was also ready to throw my iPad out the window by the umpteenth monologue about how Anna was alone and she was just a girl trying to do something and she had courage. Jesus Christ. The show owes us damages for making brilliant actors like Arian Moayed and Anna Chlumsky say such absurd things far beyond the point of believability. The first and final episodes seem to argue that *ultimate* crime is actually pretending your intentions are pure when we’re all just looking out here in the world for our own interests in some way (except the show totally contradicts this in other moments, by holding up Neff as some kind of moral paragon for sticking by Anna at all costs). The idea that grifting is relatable because we’re all forced to scam our way under capitalism and that most of us aren’t born in the elite classes?! Pardon me, but there was only ONE character on that show who didn’t pay her absurd hotel bills and who compulsively lied about being a German heiress. The moral equivalencies made by the show’s writers were completely off-balance. Yes, everyone is on Wall Street is lying to each other, and that’s why they believed Anna Delvey. It’s bad that the Wall Street fat cats didn’t go to jail after 2008. Rachel Williams seems like a pretty shallow person. Yes, of course, women face more professional obstacles than men in the world. So…Anna Delvey shouldn’t face any legal consequences for her actions? What?! Make it make sense!

In some ways I feel like the show’s ultimate flaw was that the writers didn’t seem interested in the true heart of the Anna Delvey story, which is a) just a super weird story on its front, the type of weird that can't necessarily be explained and b) that some people grow into become sociopathic liars who live in their own delusions for mysterious brain-chemistry reasons. It’s a fundamental human truth, which is why Vivian Kent couldn’t find an answer to the “why” of Anna Delvey. Not everything can be explained by psychological or historical context. And putting aside the question of Anna Delvey's personal cognitive health, humans have been scamming each other since the dawn of time; people looking out for their own interests is not a human behavior that is exclusive to capitalism, just one that capitalism weaponizes to a particularly dangerous degree. I laughed out loud when Stewey-as-Todd-Spodek told Anna she was “below average at crime” because it was true! She didn’t know shit about high finance, it was just her chosen playground in which to manipulate others, and she wanted to be rich and famous.

What’s interesting too is that the original Pressler article didn't claim to be some profoundly introspective piece about capitalism and identity and whatnot. It’s just a very entertaining, very well-reported story about the bonkers antics of Anna Sorokin, presented with very little commentary other than the basic truism that most people won’t ask questions about your money if you can tip with $100 bills. The show wanted to go deeper, though, to find something more interesting and compelling about Anna the person, but…there really wasn’t.

Yes, this is just a television show, and one that is purposefully playing with perspective and narrative, blah blah, why am I all riled up over nine episodes of television. Because! If we’re going to interrogate how grift is baked into neoliberal capitalism, if we’re going to interrogate people like Anna Delvey, we need to be more thoughtful about it than “idk everyone is a scammer I guess.” That’s a copout. The economic plunder of the 2010’s and its consequences is clearly an emerging theme in American culture—we’re looking back on the 2010’s wondering how the hell we ended up here. There are four shows coming out in the first half of 2022 about various financial schemes that were built on questionable financial practices that eventually caught up to them. Of course, there’s a difference between Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Theranos in terms of the scale of their cons, there's a difference between one girl lying to a few bankers and Silicon Valley tech bros running apps built on exploitation. BUT there is also a difference between Anna Delvey and most people. The show absolutely overplayed her relatability.

Anyway, in spite of my rage at the show’s wishy washy attitude to narcissistic grifters, it was super entertaining in a visual sense--impeccable design, clever cinematography, especially in how they portrayed social media. The cast was stacked—the talent was not the problem. Hell, this ensemble included Anna Deavere Smith, Jeff Perry, and Terry Kinney, and their primary function was to just show up for ten minutes each episode and make snarky comments. Obviously Julia Garner chewed the scenery off the walls...the whole thing would have fallen apart without her performance, too.

Anna Chlumsky was great in a poorly conceived part, so great she almost made up for the mushy writing—she is, undoubtedly, very good at playing passionate, hyper-focused women who have blurry emotional boundaries where their work is concerned and see themselves as lone figures of sanity and righteousness. Her scenes with Arian Moayed really popped, I thought--maybe because they both have theater training? And I appreciated a portrayal of pregnancy and motherhood where a woman aggressively prioritized her job and was allowed to experience a range of emotions about her impending motherhood and the narrative didn’t punish her for it. (I’ll just take all the scenes of Anna Chlumsky performing pregnancy-related comedy and apply them to the Veep alternate universe in my own head where Amy Brookheimer got to have her baby. Dan would have been a much more entertaining baby daddy than Vivian’s bland husband.).

#inventing anna #anna chlumsky #arian moayed #julia garner

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redbeardace · 3 years ago

Text

I was asleep.

Everyone remembers where they were. I was sleeping.

I was in college then. Summer quarter had ended a few weeks ago, and Fall quarter was a few weeks away, so I had nothing to do that Tuesday. I was sleeping.

My mother would get up to help get my father ready for work. He'd leave a little after 6 AM. Then she'd stay up and turn on the KTLA Morning News. We weren't in Southern California, but we'd lived there and had family connections there, so it felt like a "local" newscast, even though it was a thousand miles away. So most weekdays, I'd fade into consciousness, hearing the rhythm of the broadcast.

Carlos to Mark, Mark to Jennifer, Jennifer to Sam, Commercial, Repeat.

That morning, none of that.

I couldn't really hear what was going on, but it wasn't normal. There were no jokes, no music, no commercials, no changes. Just a steady drone.

I started to listen, to try to hear what was happening.

I heard something about the Pentagon and a bomb at the State Department.

Well. That's not good.

I roll out of bed and into the living room. It was a little after 7:30.

There's a helicopter shot of giant cloud of dust on the TV. Dust. A few buildings. here and there. But dust. Everywhere. It looked like Mt. St. Helens had moved to the city and erupted.

It wasn't the Pentagon. It wasn't the State Department. Was that New York?

"Planes hit the World Trade Center towers." My mother's voice is shaky.

Okay, then, somewhere in that dust are the towers. They build those things to survive plane strikes. It survived the bomb in '93. The Empire State Building got hit by a plane and it's still standing. She told me that they'd fallen, but I didn't believe her. I couldn't believe her. They're just hidden by the dust and the dust will clear.

The dust will clear. The towers can't just fall. You'll see.

The dust will clear.

There was nothing there.

---

We watched what was unfolding on the other side of the continent all day long. I think my father got sent home early and joined us.

Watching a day like that unfold live is an experience that's hard to describe. You look back now, and there's a clear timeline, there are clear events. But on that day, nothing was clear. The news was an unbroken stream of numbing repetition and confusion. The anchors narrating what's going on have a worse view of it than you do, because they're squinting at small monitors halfway across the studio. You can flip between CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and pick up little tidbits here and there, but they can't. They only have what comes through their earpiece, what ends up on their TelePrompTer, what's handed to them on paper. No one knows what's going on, not even the people telling you what's going on.

That day was full of rumors and confusion. There were attacks at the State Department and the FBI, there was a plane that had crashed in rural Pennsylvania, there was a plane that had been hijacked in Alaska. We didn't know what was real, and what was a phantom of fear. But mostly, it was just the numbing repetition. There was nothing new to add. Nothing more to say at 1 PM that hadn't been said at noon. What got repeated is what had happened, what didn't get repeated hadn't. The plane crash in Pennsylvania got repeated. The attack at the State Department didn't.

All day long, it was the same video from earlier in the day. Maybe a new angle as reporters and survivors got their footage to a TV station. But we watched it again and again. Maybe there'd be a new detail to see, something to fill in another piece of the What The Fuck Just Happened puzzle we were now living in.

In a weird way, that day didn't seem as bad as it went on and the rumors subsided and the scope became clear. My morning started with a dust cloud that covered all of Lower Manhattan and obscured what had happened. Had the towers toppled sideways and crushed dozens of buildings for blocks around? It was 9 AM on a Tuesday, a work day, those buildings were full, and the area was a major commuter hub. 10000 people in each building, maybe tens of thousands passing through, hundreds of thousands in that cloud of dust. There's no one alive down there. The initial estimates they gave were 20-30 thousand in the collapsed towers alone, to say nothing of the people suffocated by that cloud of dust and smoke. And then Washington DC is under attack and they're even hijacking planes in Alaska. What are they going to do to us next? But the death toll steadily dropped, other rumored attacks were found to be false alarms, they didn't come back for a second round. But that "good" news didn't make us feel any better. What would've made us feel better would've been word that they had been rescuing dozens of people from the rubble, stories of survivors being found days later, but that news never came.

---

Where's the President? Why haven't we seen the President? Why hasn't he said anything?

"He's safe and in an undisclosed location."

On September 10th, George W. Bush was just a bumbling dumbass who'd stolen the election from Gore. He wasn't yet a warmonger, although he'd surrounded himself with them.

On September 11th, Bush was still a bumbling dumbass, but he was our President. I was actually glad that he was invisible and hidden most of that day. We didn't know what in the hell was going on. If I knew where the President was, then the assholes who did this to us would know where he was, and no matter how much I didn't like the guy, I certainly didn't want to see a terrorist attack on Air Force One or the White House.

But I was worried that he'd send in the missiles and bombers and turn everything from Morocco to Pakistan to ash, which is what some people were calling for before we even knew who was responsible. And that's not what happened. All that happened that day was... nothing. I respected that, and I still respect that. Rushing headlong into revenge isn't what we needed that day.

---

We ended that day, not with Dan Rather or Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw, but with Hal Fishman, legendary anchor on the KTLA News at Ten. He was a plane guy. He'd know what happened. He was comfortable to us, familiar, and we needed to know there was still something out there comfortable and familiar.

---

The next day, my mother wanted a break from it all, so we went shopping. I don't think we needed to, and Wednesday wasn't the normal shopping day, but we just had to get out, so we went to Wal-Mart.

Throughout the store, there were TVs hanging from the ceiling. Normally, they'd show ads and music videos and things. Not that day. They were all tuned to CNN. People stopped in the middle of the aisle, watching Condoleezza Rice or Donald Rumsfeld or Colin Powell or whoever giving a press conference.

There was no break from it.

---

Does everyone else know it was a Tuesday? I mean, just know. Like somehow that is an important, integral part of what happened that day. Because I know it was a Tuesday with that same fierceness as I know that the towers fell. I don't remember all the flight numbers or which tower was hit first or which one fell first or even a single word of what the President said that night, but I know it was a Tuesday. And I don't understand why.

---

I've cried over it. I just did while writing all this. It's one of the few things I have cried about. But it's never sustained weeping. One tear. Maybe two. It feels like it should be more, but then it's like the scale becomes incomprehensible and unreal and it stops. What good will my tears do? They won't fix it. They won't change it.

---

"Never Forget", they say, but twenty years on, many of you have no memory of that day, maybe even weren't born yet. You've only seen the packaged videos from the perfect camera angles. You know what happened, the full story told from beginning to end across three acts in a two hour movie. You know the death toll, you know about the box cutters, you know how Osama Bin Laden ends, you know where the undisclosed location is, you know about the plane that said "Let's Roll". We didn't know any of that, sometimes for days or weeks or years. We only knew shock and confusion and sadness and anger and numbness and a giant cloud of dust that has not cleared and will never clear and still coats everything in our lives, even if we were thousands of miles away.

For those of us who saw that day...

Never forget?

How could we?

#9/11 #september 11th

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awed-frog · 4 years ago

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Gorilla = guerilla

Well I decided to look into this because I always hear them as the same word so whenever they pop up in some audiobook or podcast or the news or whatever I’m always confused for a split second? And obviously ‘guerilla’ means ‘small war’, but look at this stuff:

The word "gorilla" comes from the history of Hanno the Navigator (c. 500 BC), a Carthaginian explorer on an expedition to the west African coast to the area that later became Sierra Leone.[4][5] Members of the expedition encountered "savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillae".[6][7] It is unknown whether what the explorers encountered were what we now call gorillas, another species of ape or monkeys, or humans.[8] Skins of gorillai women, brought back by Hanno, are reputed to have been kept at Carthage until Rome destroyed the city 350 years later at the end of the Punic Wars, 146 BC.

The American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage and naturalist Jeffries Wyman first described the western gorilla (they called it Troglodytes gorilla) in 1847 from specimens obtained in Liberia.[9] The name was derived from Ancient Greek Γόριλλαι (gorillai) 'tribe of hairy women',[10] described by Hanno.

[x]

I mean dafuq.

What makes it even more fucked up is that this guy’s account of his travels may very well be the only meaningful Carthaginian text that ever survived, and not only is it full of fuckery like the stuff above, but it was probably altered after Hanno’s death so that foreigners couldn’t follow his navigation tips and steal Carthaginian trade routes, so the whole thing is basically as useful as a Soviet map and researchers spent a fun few decades trying to decide where this guy actually went (hypotheses seems be either ‘The Moon!’ or ‘Fucking Morocco and no farther’ btw, so thanks).

Anyway the only way I can turn this into a fun learning experience is by mentioning that we often forget the Romans were not just murdering psychopaths, they were also murdering psychopaths who liked to collect things. You never see this in movies, but many of the richest Romans had obsessively curated private museums full of really weird stuff (think ‘centaur preserved in honey’ and ‘bones of the giant Theseus’ weird) and that there was a whole industry revolving around these curiosities, complete with tour guides to haunted houses, people selling cheap ‘I’ve been to the haunted house’ trinkets, antiquities specialists, monster hunters, and obviously forgers of any kind. Like I truly despise all those movies showing ancient Rome as this city of pure white marbles and intellectually gifted & supremely rational politicians? Tbh the only portrayals that came close to getting it were The Cursed Movie I Had To Watch In Uni But Won’t Name and HBO’s Rome, and that’s a depressing thought.

#ask #etymology #langblr #ancient rome

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fuckyeahisawthat · 4 years ago

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Have you been asked yet to rank Trust eps? Cos I'm asking! But your the criteria for ranking I leave to you to decide.

Ahahahaha I’ll have you know I put way too much thought into this. :-D

Ok so first of all, there is no such thing as a bad episode of Trust. The whole thing is really tightly written, every character and plot thread has a purpose, and even the episodes that I haven’t watched over and over again are important to the overall story. And a lot of the impact of the show comes from things that are cumulative over multiple episodes.

That being said, I do have favorites. Since the definitive ranking of Primo’s outfits has already been taken care of, here is my ranking from least to most favorite based on some nebulous criteria of artistic/narrative effectiveness and emotional impact, my judgement of which is obviously highly subjective and also correct.

Under the cut because this got ummm unbelievably, ridiculously long.

10. The House of Getty (episode 1)

Sorry Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, the pilot is my least favorite episode. Still think it was the wrong choice to open with a flashy (and, I can tell, expensive) sequence showcasing the death of a character we literally never see again. And, look, I’m an impatient viewer. If I don’t get someone to root for/emotionally identify with/otherwise catch my interest early on in a narrative, I’ll tune out. And Old Paul is not only unlikeable--far from a mortal sin in dramatic storytelling--he’s boring. I don’t care about any of his rich people problems, and I’m not the kind of viewer who can be kept engaged just by hating someone and watching them be terrible.

Some of the secondary characters in the Getty household do have interesting plotlines, but we don’t get to learn very much about them in the first episode. And I do think things get interesting once Little Paul shows up (although I maintain that the whole episode is more interesting if we understand what the stakes are for Paul getting the money), but if I had started watching this show with no context I wouldn’t have made it past Old Paul’s pre-coital erotica listening routine.

If this had been anything other than the first episode I might not have ranked it last, but extra penalty points for leading with your least interesting characters.

9. Lone Star (episode 2)

This episode is, I think, saddled by the fact that it has to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of exposition and setup. It mostly works because Chace is an entertaining narrator, and once we get to Italy with Gail I think things zip along at a pretty good pace. Opens with an attempted rape to show how Bad the Bad Guys are, which is...not my favorite trope.

Once again, I think a lot of the information in this episode would have worked better if episode 3 had been episode 1. (We’d already know who Berto was when Chace meets him; we’d already know about the box of guns in the apartment; we’d know when certain characters are lying.) This whole show runs on the suspense of the audience being the only party who knows what’s going on with all the characters at once; I think trading mystery for suspense here was the wrong move. I also can’t help thinking there was pressure to front-load the well-known American actors in the beginning of the show at the expense of the strongest narrative choices.

Imo the best thing about this episode is the sort of...multiple competing images of Paul that emerge. His mom sees him as an innocent victim who couldn’t possibly have planned any of this. Chace sees him as a spoiled rich kid trying to swindle his granddad. Neither one of them has the complete truth.

Next we get into some episodes that are certainly not bad, but their greatness is more on the level of some bangin’ individual scenes than a whole package.

8. John, Chapter 11 (episode 6)

Again, this isn’t a bad episode. The main reason I put it near the end of the list is that the first time through I got sort of impatient during the first half. We, the audience, by virtue of our extra-textual knowledge, know that Paul can’t be dead, and we spend about half the episode before we know what really happened to him, which felt a bit too long to me.

This episode does have some fantastic individual scenes including: Leo talking Primo down in the farmhouse, Leo and Paul’s conversation about Angelo’s death, Gail being an absolute badass, and the meeting between Salvatore and Old Paul. A lot of these scenes are essential on a thematic level, but I don’t think the episode as a whole is the most streamlined.

7. Consequences (episode 10)

I debated for a while where to put this episode because the overall feeling of 57 Chekov’s guns going off in the space of one episode is SO satisfying, and the resolutions of some of the individual plotlines are delicious. Ultimately I would have liked more space for Paul and Gail and less Old Paul being grumpy about his substitute child museum’s mediocrity (although the scene with the bad reviews is hilarious). Once again I feel like the show creators felt they had to pull the focus back to Old Paul to wrap things up and I just. don’t care.

That being said. The resolution of Primo’s storyline? SO SATISFYING. And tbh I don’t dislike the scenes that exist with Paul and Gail; even the happy scenes have this poignant tone to them. I think they were trying to deal with the fact that his irl story is just...incredibly fucking tragic, and you can see a bit of the strain showing.

6. Kodachrome (episode 7)

I know episode 7 is not one of your personal favorites, but it’s the one where I think jumping between multiple plotlines/sets of characters is used to the most satisfying dramatic effect. It has this sense of dramatic irony that feels like some Shakespearean family tragedy. The whole episode, we are hoping that Paul Jr. will finally do the thing we want him to do, which is stand up to his father. And he does it--but at the absolute worst, most selfish and destructive moment possible.

Paul Jr. may be the literal worst, but I do have compassion for him in the flashbacks, mostly because it seems painfully apparent that no matter what he does, he will never be able to please his father. But he doesn’t seem to realize this, and he keeps trying, even as it’s destroying him and his relationship with his family. Credit to Michael Esper for his performance for making me feel a smidgen of compassion for this bastard.

I think the other thing this episode shows is how both of Paul’s parents keep putting him, a child, into roles and circumstances that he shouldn’t really be in. He’s wandering around through what seem like very much adult environments with his dad and Talitha in Morocco. In the Trust version of events he’s there when Talitha ODs and is the one trying to revive her while his dad is having a breakdown in the corner. Gail seems like the more responsible parent but there’s something about her bringing Paul as her “date” on a night out, and the understanding that this is a thing that happens regularly...to me the disturbing part is not so much bringing a young kid to a party with adults but the unspoken expectation that Little Paul will fill the void of companionship that his father has left empty. (Gettys expecting Little Paul to step in to cover for the failings of his father is a repeated theme, and it even plays into the ear thing. His family has failed to pay the ransom, so this is now a problem he has to solve himself.) Combine this all with Leonardo going, um, excuse me but what the actual fuck is wrong with your family? and I think it makes a very effective episode. And the last couple minutes had me yelling NOOOOOOOO GODDAMMIT because you can see what’s going to happen and you’re just watching it unfolding like a car wreck. Also has one of my hands-down favorite scenes, of Paul and Primo in the car waiting for the ransom.

5. White Car in a Snowstorm (episode 9)

The ~ D R A M A !!! ~ This episode is an opera. I mean this whole show is dramatique but episode 9 really leans into the vivid imagery--that snowy highway in the mountains above the sea, the all-white ransom exchange, Paul clinging to the pole at the shuttered Getty gas station, some Very Serious Mobsters throwing the ransom money around like idiots in a moment where you’re encouraged to be happy along with them.

This is also one of my favorite episodes for Primo and for Primo and Paul’s weird sometimes-alliance. Primo walking away from Salvatore to go tell Paul “they always pay in the end”? Primo and Paul teaming up to argue with Salvatore about why Paul shouldn’t die? Primo being all threateny to the doctor treating Paul because somewhere deep down he is worried (that’s my take and you’ll never convince me otherwise)? Primo dressing up to fake-scab on a postal strike in order to find a misplaced severed ear? All gold.

Fun fact: the letter Gail writes to President Nixon did happen in real life, but as far as I can tell the phone call did not. The real details of who convinced Old Paul to finally pay (some) of the ransom are considerably less cinematic. They’re the same amount of sexist though!

Ok now we are getting to the top tier...

4. That’s All Folks! (episode 4)

This is definitely the episode that took me from “ok this is fun” to “oh holy shit I’m invested now.” It’s the episode where we get introduced to most of the Calabrian characters and their world. It’s also the episode where we start to realize that Primo is not just a fun antagonist but is really a parallel protagonist to Little Paul, with his own set of relationships and motivations that we start to see from his POV. (I’d argue that, with the exception of his very first scene, we’ve mostly seen Primo through other characters’ gaze up until episode 4, and this is the point where we start watching him as like, the character whose pursuit of a goal we’re following over the course of the scene.)

This episode ranks high for capturing so much of the weird mix of tones that makes Trust work. It can be very funny. (I never fail to fuckin lose it when Fifty is on the phone with Gail the first time and when he’s talking to the thoroughly unimpressed newspaper switchboard operator.) It has this weird unexpected intimacy between characters you wouldn’t think would connect with each other. (Primo and Paul, Paul and Angelo; in retrospect the arc of the relationship between Primo and Leo gets started in that scene in Salvatore’s kitchen.) And it has one of the show’s absolute best record-scratch tone shifts when Primo gets the ransom offer. I remember saying “oh FUCK” out loud the first time I watched the end of that episode, when Primo comes back to the house, visibly drunk and clearly furious. We’ve seen him be violent plenty before now in the show, but always in a controlled, calculated way. This is the first time we see his potential for out-of-control rage-fueled violence and he’s terrifying!

3. La Dolce Vita (episode 3)

I stand by my claim that this episode (with a few minor continuity adjustments) should have been the pilot. Can you imagine a title card that’s like “Rome 1973” and then away we go with Paul snorting coke and taking racy photos and jumping on cops and fucking his girlfriend in what is definitely not proper museum etiquette, and then the smash cut to Primo intimidating and robbing and murdering people? And that’s the opening of the whole show? And you’re like how are these characters connected and then they meet each other and it’s the fucking sunflower field scene??

Anyway aside from the fact that I think knowing the information in this episode would have made episodes 1 and 2 more interesting...it’s just a great fucking episode. It’s kinetic and propulsive and funny and tense and violent and features Primo’s sniper skills and his ass in those cornflower blue trousers. I rest my case.

2. Silenzio (episode 5)

I’ll be honest, I went back and forth on the top two a bunch. Silenzio is definitely my personal favorite episode, and I’d argue that it’s the best written, in terms of what it accomplishes narratively, which is to keep you emotionally invested in both Paul and Angelo trying to escape with their lives, and Primo and Leonardo hunting them down. That’s so fucking hard!! And yes some of it is great acting but it starts from the foundation of the writing. It’s just such a perfect little self-contained horror movie, and it has this profound sense of fatalism to it, because you know from the beginning (if only by virtue of only being halfway through the series) that Paul is not going to escape, and you sort of know that there is only one way this will end for Angelo. And yet they escape by the skin of their teeth so! many! times!

It’s also the episode where you see how much power the ‘Ndrangheta has over people’s lives in this community: Salvatore is like God, calling his servants to him with the church bells. Combine that with the visuals of two characters running for their lives mostly on foot through this unforgiving landscape, and you really get the sense of this environment as a harsh place where most people have a very constrained set of choices, and the claustrophobia of that. You get the sense in this episode that everyone is trapped in these expectations of violence and duty and honor. Angelo did what anyone with compassion would do, and saved Paul from what seemed like certain death, and he’s doomed for it. At the same time Primo is doing exactly what anyone would expect him to do in response to a subordinate who disobeyed him. In some ways the end of the episode feels inevitable, unsurprising, and yet they do SUCH a good job of winding up the tension until the literal last seconds of the episode, and then releasing it with a big dramatic bang. It’s so good!!

1. In the Name of the Father (episode 8)

Ok I’ll be honest the ONLY reason In the Name of the Father edged out Silenzio for the top spot is that it is really clear they pulled out all the stops in terms of making this episode feel extra heightened in a show where everything is already heightened. Like, the cinematography is different? They still use handheld a lot but I swear there are more still shots and more extreme, editorial camera angles like that shot of Francesco looking upward in church where the camera is looking down from above him. I can’t tell if they actually tweaked the color grading or if the bright white and blood red just stand out against the Calabrian color palette which is mostly earth tones, browns and greens and blues.

There are just. So many layers to this episode. The imagery! The literal sacrificial lamb at the beginning, Francesco being guided by Leonardo through an act of violence against an animal, something that I’m sure they don’t even see as violence but just part of farm life, part of survival and in this case part of a celebration, but something that fathers teach their sons how to do as part of becoming a man in this world. Paul as the metaphorical sacrificial lamb later, drawing parallels to Jesus (the lamb of God), Isaac (a father sacrificing his son), any number of martyred saints, pick your Catholic imagery. The blood of the lamb on the tree stump and Paul’s blood on the stone. The communion wafer (the body and blood of Christ) and Francesco at the end with Paul’s blood and a literal piece of his body held in his hands the same way.

And then there is like, the suspense of watching everyone marking time through the steps of this community ritual that’s supposed to be a joyful, communal celebration, while we know that there is a secret ticking away under the surface. The slow unfolding of the lie told to one person spreading to everyone in the village, and then the knowledge that Salvatore knows spreading to all the people who’ll be in trouble for that. The relationship arcs between the main Calabrian characters...not resolving, but sliding into place for the final act. Primo finally being done with Salvatore. Primo and Leo’s alliance being cemented and Leo physically stepping between Primo and Salvatore, to protect Primo. (No one ever protects Primo!! Still not over it!!!!) The confirmation celebration as a mirror of the Getty party in episode 1, the parallels drawn between the 3 Pauls and Salvatore-Primo-Francesco and how Primo reacts to being passed over as heir vs. how Paul Jr. reacts. Little Paul having two whole minutes of screen time and managing to break your heart with them. Regina! Just...Regina’s whole everything. The music going all-instrumental for an episode and having this haunting, dreamlike but still tense quality to it. And the fact that we never cut away from Calabria to another plotline gives the whole episode this hypnotic, all-encompassing quality. It’s just. SO GOOD!!!!

#fadagaski #asks answered #trust fx #long post #so so long omg #i can't believe how long i spent writing this but HERE IT IS #trust alternate watch order

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swiftgronmasterpost · 4 years ago

Text

Spring/Summer/Fall 2013 - The End(?)

Click here for an appropriately sad Swiftgron breakup playlist.

I don’t know if it’s important or not but Dianna wishes several friends a late happy birthday on twitter, apologizing for missing the actual day through this spring and summer. It seems like maybe she’s going through something (like a bad break up?) because it’s not like her to miss friends’ birthdays.

March 26, 2013 - Maybe a relevant tweet?

April 7, 2013 - Dianna tweets a photo of James Dean in a day dream like setting:

April 16, 2013 - The article that outed them:

Someone made a fake article that said Swiftgron was dating:

Dianna tweets seven times that day which is a bit much for her.

The hashtag here stands out to me:

The fake article goes viral and all week people are tweeting about the possibility that Dianna and Taylor are dating.

April 23, 2012

It seems to culminate on this day. Many people are buzzing about Swiftgron and this actress tweets:

That’s right at midnight.

About 12 hours later Dianna deletes her public Tumblr:

On that same day Dianna reblogs several things on her private Tumblr. These two stand out to me:

She reblogged both of these posts and the only hashtag they had in common was “#lost love” - she was searching that hashtag.

I think it’s very clear that today is the day Swiftgron 2.0 broke up. I believe they were forced to by their management teams due to being outed.

April 24, 2013 - Taylor seems regretful/stressed out she screenshots her text to Austin and posts:

I think Dianna’s obviously upset about this and as an act of defiance she tweets at Taylor a few days later (Taylor does not respond.)

April 29, 2013

Instead Taylor posts on Dianna’s Birthday (April 30) a silly google search (very DIanna in nature tbh) with a play on the lyrics from 22:

Taylor had the week of Dianna’s 27th birthday off of the Red tour (it was scheduled like that) but as far as we know they did not hang out.

May 4, 2013 - Ours

At her first show since their supposed break-up, Taylor performs Ours as a surprise song. She introduces it by saying: “This is a song about how, when you fall in love everybody starts to give you their opinion. I imagine it could be really hard to make a relationship last, I wouldn’t know. But, given that everyone is giving you their own opinion about it, I think that the only opinion you should really listen to is yours and if you love that person, that should be all that matters.”

youtube

Dianna dyes her hair brown and goes to Morocco a week later with Ashley (”You searched the world for something else, To make you feel like what we had”) from about May 11 - May 14 or 15. While there she attends the A Small World relaunch. ASW could be viewed as a bit “sketchy” if you will. I think this is where she befriends Olivia Wilde.

This is Dianna’s first (known) trip to Morocco (Derek Blasberg is there too) but she seems to be drawn there over and over again after this, even marrying Winston Marshall there (and possibly meeting another boyfriend, Gus Wenner there.)

May 19, 2013 - Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas

Taylor wins 8 awards and says this during her acceptance speech:

This and the performance of Ours makes me think Taylor is bitter about a break up right now, even though publicly she broke up with Harry back in January.

This is also the event where Taylor is famously grossed out by Justin and Selena’s hetero nonsense and does this:

It seems like as always, Taylor has a lot going on right now...some kind of drama with Justin is boiling but it’s possible she’s also referencing her breakup with Dianna in her acceptance speech.

Dianna pops back up in NYC.

May 20, 2013 - WLW icon Kristen Stewart apparently spends the night at Taylors?

May 28, 2013 - Taylor plays Haunted on the Red Tour and gives a speech:

"This is a song that I haven't played on this tour so far. It came up when one of my friends tweeted the lyrics to it today and it reminded me that I haven't played this song in about two years. It has to do with the fact that, you know people talk about ghosts all the time. You just kind of imagine it being this supernatural thing, but there's another kind of ghost and it's just a person who is out there walking in the world or just doesn't love you anymore and that's a whole different kind of being haunted." Seems like she’s really going through it.

July 2, 2013 - Anniversary of Hyannis Port trip and interesting private Tumblr post from Dianna:

Bad things happen this summer. Cory Monteith passes away and Taylor is assaulted at a meet and greet by a DJ.

July 2013 - Dianna buys a house in LA (I Wish You Would)

August 2013 - Dianna’s whosirmesir moniker gets outed and she stops blogging under that tumblr account.

August 14, 2013 - Taylor is in a weird place according to the Lover diaries:

1. she seems to have basically written The Lakes here

2. she’s really harping on themes she ends up addressing in I Know Places, Out of the Woods, and Wonderland

August 29, 2013 - Dianna steps out with restaurateur Nick Mathers.

Not sure what to make of this one. Dianna seems to date two types of men: 1. teeny bopper actors for bearding and pr purposes (it generally seems) and 2. rich businessmen. Nick is type 2, but their relationship is reported on as if it’s PR. “Sources” call up gossip sites to fill them in on the relationship and both their projects get plugged along with announcements on them as a couple:

I don’t know if they were more or less legit but she goes out with Taylor five days later...

September 4, 2013 - The Fun! Concert:

Swiftgron’s last pre-Kaylor public sighting - they go to a Fun! concert in LA

It’s just a split instant of video footage but Sarah Hyland uploads this to Vine and it does not look like Dianna is enjoying herself:

Note: It kind of looks like DIanna has her arm around Taylor’s waist and also the person to the right of Taylor is Selby Drummond who is still friends with DIanna as of writing of this masterpost (December 2020) and who still appears to be a fan of Taylor’s.

Dianna does look miserable but I do think it’s interesting they seem to be making an effort to hang out on the two year anniversary of their public (perhaps private as well) first meeting.

Dianna tweets about the concert the next day:

September 6, 2013 - Taylor plays Speak Now as the surprise song on the Red tour. Interesting given the timing of Dianna and her new boyfriend being public just one week before this.

September 8, 2013 - Taylor plays Sad, Beautiful Tragic for the first time ever live and gives this speech:

"I kind of feel like playing a song I've never ever played live before. This is um a song that I wrote about how you know just because something's over doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly beautiful. Cause another lesson I've learned is not all stories have a happy ending and you have to learn how to deal with that. So this is a song about a story that didn't end so happily but was still supposed to happen. This is called Sad, Beautiful, Tragic."

I don’t think this song was originally written about Dianna but I do think at this time while they stumble through the last phase of their relationship Taylor was inspired to sing it.

October 2013 - Taylor writes I Wish You Would, a song inspired by an ex who had recently bought a house near her driving past her house. It’s thought to be about Harry but Harry didn’t buy a house in LA until March 2014. But of course we know Dianna did buy a house near Taylor’s in LA earlier this fall.

November 11, 2013 - The music video for “She’s Just Another Girl” premiers starring Dianna looking stunning in high fashion drag, dressed up as the lead singer, and lip syncing the words to the song:

Some lyrics to the song include:

All of my friends say I should move on She's just another girl, don't let her stick it to your heart so hard And all of my friends say it wasn't meant to be And it's a great big world, she's just another girl

I could be reeling them in left and right Something's got a hold on me, tonight Well maybe all of my friends should confront The fact that I don't want another girl

I think it’s at least possible that Dianna was drawn to this project because the lyrics resonated to her given what she was going through with Taylor at the time.

November 12, 2013 - Day of Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show rehearsals and Dianna posts this (now deleted) picture:

November 13, 2013 - Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show where Taylor performs and Karlie Kloss walks the runway.

Dianna posts this picture (now deleted) of her at Emma Stone’s birthday party from 11 months previous:

It’s likely she’s looking at Taylor in this photo who was seated across from her.

It’s a very random picture to post. It wasn’t titled as a throwback and it wasn’t an exact year after the picture was taken (prompting some kind of happy birthday shout out to Emma Stone or anything) - just a random picture of Dianna smiling, likely at Taylor.

November 17, 2013 - Dianna posts a (now deleted) photo about missing someone:

November 21, 2013 - Taylor posts lyrics from a hopeful love song about a troubled relationship:

Lyrics:

December 9, 2013 - Dianna listens to Pale Blue Eyes

Lyrics are about being emo over a lost love with Blue Eyes:

Sometimes I feel so happy Sometimes I feel so sad Sometimes I feel so happy But mostly you just make me mad Baby, you just make me madLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

Thought of you as my mountaintop Thought of you as my peak Thought of you as everything I've had, but couldn't keep I've had, but couldn't keep

Linger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

If I could make the world as pure And strange as what I see I'd put you in the mirror I put in front of me I put in front of meLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

Skip a life completely Stuff it in a cup She said, "Money is like us in time It lies, but can't stand up" Down for you is upLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyesIt was good what we did yesterday And I'd do it once again The fact that you are married Only proves you're my best friend But it's truly, truly a sinLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

December 11, 2013 - You know the drill...Dianna posts a now deleted photo to Instagram:

December 13, 2013 - Dianna posts an attention grabbing photo on Taylor’s Birthday

Conclusions - Swiftgron very clearly goes through a rough breakup due to being outed.

Then they attempt some sort of reconciliation - even hanging out (date night?) on the second anniversary of their Fairfax Flea Market meetcute, but it goes wrong.

Taylor is on tour for much of this time and Dianna is posting angst ridden and peculiar Instagram posts exactly at the time Taylor meets Karlie.

Click here to keep reading!

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