#my entire family has a mix of beliefs from both sides

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Oh, there is some discourse about Oscar Isaac playing the mk system because he is not jewish. I have no say in the matter as I am not jewish, so I thought I'd ask

Oh! Okay! I'm willing to bed you are the same anon that sent this ask? Or maybe not and just someone with similar questions.

Well, Moon Knight came out over two years ago now. So most of the discourse over it is pretty old news at this point. If it is starting up again, it's just beating a dead horse. Or maybe there are new fans that are just blazing their own trail and not checking out that neat trail that's already been blazed.

Either way, I'm not upset about it. Learning is learning and I'm here for questions.

SO! Let's get into it!

Now, this may surprise a few of you… But I'm not Oscar Isaac. I know… I know… A real let down. This means that I can't speak on his behalf and everything I say is what I have picked up, and could be wrong.

As far as I am aware, he is not a practicing Jew. Meaning, he probably doesn't go to Shul or keep the Sabbath. He might! I don't know. I also don't know if he's Catholic or Christian or how he was raised or what his current belief system is… If it is on Wiki somewhere, I still can't say I know because how do you Wiki someone's personal religious beliefs?

What I DO know… He has Jewish Ancestry!

These quotes are taken from two interviews that are easily looked up on Google:

When asked how he felt about playing an Orthodox Jewish man for "Inside Llewyn Davis" (not his first or last Jewish role), here was his responce:

“We could play that game: How Jewish are you?” he said to interviewer Alexis Soloski, who is Jewish. “It is part of my family, part of my life. I feel the responsibility to not feel like a phony. That’s the responsibility, to feel like I can say these things, do these things and feel like I’m doing it honestly and truthfully."

Isaac referenced the fact that he has some Jewish heritage on his father’s side.

Of his roots, Oscar said, “My grandfather was French in Guatemala and my father is Cuban but he grew up in the States as well. I came to the States when I was five months old and I grew up my entire life mostly in Miami, between Miami and New York.” He is the third Oscar in the family. “My father and my grandfather were both named Oscar,” he revealed. “I am the third Oscar. It’s from the Academy Awards. Isaac is Jewish from my father side. I am definitely a big mix of many things.”

Now, I COULD get into semantics. His Jewish ancestry comes from his father's side and there is discourse in the Jewish system on Patrilineal vs. Matrilineal and what makes a Jew a Jew. I'm not going to get into that because it has WAY more involved than I'm willing to get into and that is probably why Oscar asked the "How Jewish are you?" question (He's known to be cheeky and that could be taken as a very cheeky question).

In MY books, If you have Jewish ancestry and you acknowledge it and consider it a part of you, then you are worthy of playing all the Jewish people you want in movies/shows/plays. ....As long as you are respectful and do your best to do it right.

And that is what I love about Oscar. He WANTS to get it right. He wants to honor the parts he plays and he understands when he has an important part that needs to be done right and with care.

Now, Oscar doesn't have DID (as far as I am aware), but he did the research and connected with people that Do have DID to make sure he offered a fare and honest and respectful tribute to it. Is it going to fit everyone with DID's shoes? No. But it is a very multi(LOL) colored disorder that presents in many different ways and because it is a Show meant to be visual to an audience that doesn't understand how it works, of course he's going to have to play it up a bit and the editors and directors are going to have to add flourishes that don't always agree with everyone so that we, a visual and auditory audience, can see a representation of this disorder that we can understand.

You know what's fun about being Jewish? You don't have to see it or hear it to demonstrate someone is Jewish. I can watch almost any movie or show and go "That guy's Jewish." How do I know? I don't. But in my head, he's now a Jewish character and I'm connecting to him that way.

You know what they DID do in Moon Knight? Oscar wore a Star of David necklace. There was a mezuzah on Steven's door. Steven had a Shabbat table set up. Steven is a Vegan to avoid having to risk not eating Kosher.

(I see Shabbat candle, decorative Menorah, and a Kiddish cup. I really hope he moves those (should be two but we only see one, Maybe it's behind the other) candles before he lights them. His fire hazard apartment gives me anxiety. Let's just hope his Havdalah candle doesn't set the place ablaze).

They could have done more to show his casual Jewish life, but you don't need to. This is Steven Grant pretty much living a Jewish life. I'm not sure what people were expecting him to do? Dance the Horah and have Peyot? This is more than what Comics Moon Knight has done to show his Jewish side for a LONG time (minus some good runs in the OG run and Recent MacKay run).

Anyways, I'm not sure who did decide to toss in those little details, but I deeply appreciate them and love them for it. And I love that Oscar is aware of and acknowledges his heritage. Not only that, but that he strives to represent it in a truthful and honest way.

Anyways, I hope that answers your question... There's a lot I could get into, but others have honestly done it better ages ago.

Is Oscar a Jewish man? I don't know. Probably not? BUT... If he suddenly said "I'm Jewish" I'd welcome him to the tribe with open arms. I think he's earned a little Challah. He's certainly a Mensch in my book.

[ckret2]

Hey, do the Henchmaniacs actually consider Bill a friend and vice versa or just a means to an end, in Weridmaggedon it didn't seem like they were actual friends but more like he controls them through intimidation and they follow him because they have a similar goal. Does Bill just not know how to act towards friends in a healthy way but still consider them such? Love your fic btw.

It varies from member to member.

Most of them, if not all, did consider him a friend—often their best friend—when they joined.

Some still consider him a friend, some call him a friend because they desperately want him to be, some call him a friend because of the sunk cost fallacy ("if I've done this much and gone this far for him, and I CAN'T even count him a friend, then what was it all for??"), some call him a friend because they fear the consequences if they don't, some call him a friend because it's convenient and he wants them to but they solely consider him a resource, a boss, an ally, whatever.

He both does and doesn't see them as friends; he can change his mind twice a sentence without changing it at all. It depends on how he feels at any given time. Yes they're his friends because he's desperately lonely and he craves friends; no they're not his friends because he's above them and they're idiots and they're useful but he certainly doesn't like them. He loves none of them; but he loves how they love him. He tells himself they love him, except when it's useful for him to tell himself they fear him.

But: if they ONLY feared him, they wouldn't stick around. There's a mix of fear and admiration, fear and camaraderie, fear and affection. Something to balance out the arm-twisting, the feeling of always being watched, the ever-present psychological pressure.

Intimidation is a tactic of last resort. Intimidation doesn't mean he's lost his temper; it means the Henchmaniac screwed up. It's an effective punishment but it's a poor way to maintain long term control.

It's a lot easier to control people by convincing them you're the best thing that's ever happened to them and you have their best interests at heart.

You can see how he controls them in the last chapter. His power is laced through the entire scene.

A side-effect of growing up in the Henchmaniacs was that Paci-Fire regarded The Authorities as a nebulous bogeyman that was personally out to get him and all his family and friends. Do you think he picked up that belief accidentally?

"Oh, yeah, pretty much every world in my galaxy was still ground bound when Bill recruited me." Go after someone who isn't knowledgeable about the multiverse; who doesn't know Bill's reputation; and who can't call on the people he left behind to help him get home...

"But the rent's really reasonable for a place this size in this part of the Nightmare Realm." ...then minimize the resources he has to get out—finances included—and make him think you're doing him a favor.

"Bill Cipher was always a most droll prankster." Get the people around you to laugh off your cruel, controlling behavior as "just a joke." Do you think they'd call charging just one guy rent a "prank" if Bill hadn't done similar things in the past and gone "C'mooon, relax, it's just a joke!"?

"I mean—I was paying it to Bill. But I dunno who took that over, so I guess, kinda... no one?" "You were supposed to give it to me now." Keep people close by who will back up your bull. (Useful if they tear each other down; they'll be more likely to resent each other than you.)

"I don't know... Bill and I were talking about them once, and I realized they're as bad as Mom was. Bill said probably the only reason they didn't treat me as bad is because they never got the opportunity—" Make him believe you're the only one who cares about him. Cut him off from potential support networks.

"Face it: the only reason the rest of us didn't leave the Nightmare Realm millennia ago is because Bill couldn't leave." Keep them all isolated.

"Bill's not a liar!" The people who have been around him the longest have sunk so much into trusting him and following him that they can't afford to think it might have been lies.

"The only reason we've stayed so long is because everyone's too starstruck or too scared to ditch him!" 8 Ball's hit the nail on the head. To some extent, he's figured out how Bill operates and he's gotten past the stage where he tells himself it'll be all right if he just sticks it out...

8 Ball, he'd tried to split four or five times before crawling back, but Kryptos didn't care about him anyway. Bill had always been right about him: he was too selfish to care about the rest of the gang but too stupid to make it on his own. They'd taken in losers like that before. ...and, not coincidentally, Bill's been badmouthing and undermining 8 Ball to the others. "Selfish," "stupid," "loser." Also: 8 Ball, too, has been unable to make it out—do you think Bill offered any help any of those times he tried to leave?

The shapes were here because Bill had promised to make them a new home. He was the only one in all of reality who could do it. They'd held fast to Bill's promise for a trillion years. Who would they be if they lost it? Hell of a sunk cost. If you've been waiting one trillion years for somebody to fulfill a promise, any rational person would assume they'll never fulfill it; but, after waiting one trillion years, how can you possibly leave? When you've waited an eternity of eternities? Was it all just a waste? But it'll all be worth it, if—when—he keeps his promise.

Yet he was still here, and still waiting, because he didn't know what else to do. And who was it that convinced the shapes to pin their every single hope for the future on Bill?

You didn't get many chances to be the star of the show when you lived around a supernova like Bill. And what do you think being kept down like that so long does to somebody's sense of self-esteem and self-sufficiency?

Be their protector; keep them dependent on you; keep them isolated; convince them to give up everything (time, money, family, freedom) for you; ensure they have nowhere else to turn.

And that is how Bill controls the Henchmaniacs. His friends will never leave him if he's given them no other choice!

Because when he does leave them a choice, inevitably, they do leave, and it breaks his heart. They leave him quickly, and angrily, and never come back.

Gee, I wonder why.

(I've said before I headcanon Bill's backstory as a former cult leader. Honestly? I shouldn't be saying "former.")

[mxtxfanatic]

Book of the Week: The Daily Life of the Reborn Adopted Son of a Wealthy Family

Author: Brass Revolver (黄铜左轮)

Genre: rebirth, business, danmei

Rating: M for depictions of mental illness

My Synopsis: After the torturous existence of the second half of his first life, reborn Chen Wengang, miraculously, isn’t looking for revenge or to salvage his reputation. Instead, he just wants to find the love of his life who died early in his first life so that they can live the kind of bliss they were prevented from achieving due to others’ machinations. Huo Niansheng, despite remembering none of this, is completely on board, if only his little cousin/Chen Wengang’s adopted sister would stop cockblocking… What, a playboy can’t find genuine love?

My Review: I love Chen Wengang like I love Wei Wuxian, so I will say just like I say with mdzs: he should have killed (more) people. I understand this isn't a revenge plot because Chen Wengang chooses to focus on the people he actually cares about and has already emotionally divorced himself from everyone else, but too many people were on their bullshit for too long. Thank god for Huo Niansheng. I really love how their relationship develops and how steadfast and unconditional Huo Niansheng is in his support of Chen Wengang in both lives. That man deserves an award from the creator, themself, for his service in this novel. Zheng Yucheng,on the other hand, has a special place reserved for him in hell beneath the devil’s feet where the fires never cool 🤗

With that, some content warnings are also in order: this novel is heavy on discussing mental illness, particularly Chen Wengang's panic disorder, and disabilities. They are very realistic depictions (lol at me almost sending myself into a panic attack reading about his panic attack) along with society's reactions to them. Therefore, there is a lot of ableist conversations and beliefs pushed forth by side characters that the narrative and the main couple work through. But this, like mdzs, is a realistic novel in that none of those things get solved on a societal level.

The translation is mostly ok. Some paragraphs repeat, and in what particularly memorable chapter, an entire scene is copy-pasted for some reason, but it's manageable. There's also a character where the translation cycles through 5 different surnames, which is a little amusing. Much less amusing is how around the 70-chapter mark, the name fuck-ups get real egregious, so much so that you have to actively pay attention to what characters are saying/doing in order to tell who is who, since the translation mixes up names and misspells some. It does calm down after that (doesn’t stop completely, tho), so idk, maybe that was just a bad week for them.

Translation: complete

[tothepointofinsanity]

About the KyoSaya stuff. I adore character dynamics that bring out each character's ideology by juxtaposition. I adore it even more when the characters rely on each other for balance to be achieved, both thematically in the story and personally for the characters. I think the balance that can be achieved between Kyoko and Sayaka in a "best case scenario" is beautiful, and very good for both of them. Sayaka can reignite Kyoko's passion for believing in good, and force her to care about other people again, getting her out of her entirely self-oriented existence. And Kyoko can help Sayaka take care of herself and learn to be okay with doing things for herself, get her out of her entirely other people oriented existence. Together they could achieve a life of balance, keeping each other in check and being there for each other. A life where it is okay to be naive and want to help others and it is also okay to be selfish and do things for your own sake. Those ideas can exist together, i think. Sayaka in Rebellion seems to have taken Kyoko's ideas more into account. She doesn't hate herself anymore. I love Kyoko because she is able to exist without exterior validation. She lives for herself, and in that way she never has any regrets. However, Sayaka shows her she can't stay totally indifferent. Ideally, they would be able to live together with Sayaka accepting her own nature without hating herself, and Kyoko accepting her own softer side and not rejecting it. I don't know if you know anything about the game Madoka Portable (came out way before Magia Record), but there are some "routes" in that game where Kyoko and Sayaka manage to become close without Sayaka witching out. To me, Madoka Portable is some of the best extra content there is for Madoka Magica. There are tons of great character moments and KyoSaya absolutely rules in it. There's a quote Kyoko says in the game (unless i made it up, which is possible lmao). it's roughly her saying to Sayaka "Let's live the rest of our selfish lives together!". and that has got to be one of my favorite quotes from anything (even if i did make it up. i don't think i did?). God, relationships where you just want the characters to give in to each other, and figure out the rest together. I'm sorry this is SO ranty and all over the place.

The core ideal of KyoSaya being the yin and yang of each other is often highlighted, which I also enjoy.

I would like to think that these two are special to each other as a result — previously, Sayaka had never been actively (or in Kyoko's case, aggressively) opposed to before in her ideology of self-sacrifice as heroism, while Kyoko had never met a more persistent believer in goodness since her own experiences with her family and the church. Something akin to an unmovable object versus an unstoppable force, except both of them play both roles.

They enable each other and it's true that people with strong personalities often clash together as a result of their conflicted views. But it's where the angst and essence of KyoSaya comes in: they have to learn to not only compromise their values, but to also embrace each other to be at peace with the more extreme parts of said beliefs. Coexistence, yes. The scene where Oktavia makes her second appearance, there is a brief moment where red (Kyoko) mixes in with a crying figure of Sayaka to comfort her, before the mixture spills onto the ground, signifying both of their ends were made in this fusion and peace making.

Ah, I heard of the game before, since a while back I wanted to see if there was anywhere I could still play it on. I didn't look too in-depth into it, so I'm pleasantly surprised that KyoSaya would be hinted in it too. "Let's be selfish together!" is...so....one of my favourite embodiments of any couple dynamic ever o_o It makes sense since Sayaka was afraid of being seen as selfish for wanting someone to understand her and her frustrations, which Kyoko does. And Kyoko wants Sayaka, out of all people, to be with her because Sayaka made Kyoko learn to genuinely care and trust someone again. With Kyoko's trust, Sayaka could be less harsh on herself as a result!! The description that they have to give into each other and figure the rest together in a confusing and unforgiving world is quite literally the Most Thing ever.

It's devotion, ultimately. They are devoted to each other. Thank you for the ask, and no worries about it being a rant. This blog is for all Sayaka and Sayaka-related pairings enjoyers alike. ^^

[richincolor]

Title: Flower and Thorn Author: Rati Mehrotra Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Romance Pages: 338 Publisher: Wednesday Books Review Copy: Purchased Availability: Available now

Summary: Irinya has wanted to be a flower hunter ever since her mother disappeared into the mysterious mist of the Rann salt flats one night. Now seventeen, Irinya uses her knowledge of magical flowers to help her caravan survive in the harsh desert. When her handsome hunting partner and childhood friend finds a priceless silver spider lily—said to be able to tear down kingdoms and defeat an entire army—Irinya knows this is their chance for a better life.

Until Irinya is tricked by an attractive imposter.

Irinya's fight to recover the priceless flower and to fix what she's done takes her on a dangerous journey, one she's not sure she'll survive. She has no choice but to endure it if she hopes to return home and mend the broken heart of the boy she's left behind.

Review: [Flower and Thorn contains some fairly graphic descriptions of injuries and death, including a haunting supernatural body horror moment.]

Flower and Thorn is a book with some fascinating world-building elements. While it is undeniably a fantasy (with magical flowers that can utter ominous and cryptic comments to our protagonist), the background driver of the plot is actually the Gujarat Sultanate resisting Portuguese colonialism. The blending of fantastical and historical elements is where Flower and Thorn shines, and author Rati Mehrotra did great work in that arena. I also appreciated how Flower and Thorn tackled inequality and oppression within the sultanate at the same time it highlighted the horrors of colonialism, from sexism affecting the nobles’ preferences for an heir to how the flower hunters and their families are exploited and kept in poverty.

The magical flowers are key plot points throughout the story, both in their comparative rarity and their abilities. I really enjoyed the flower hunting scenes in the Rann. Mehrotra did a fantastic job of selling how difficult and dangerous the work could be—and how dangerous the flowers and their thorns could be in the wrong hands. I still can’t quite picture how using the silver spider lily would actually play out, but the concrete effects of the jasmine, hibiscus, and other flowers helped bolster my belief that it could topple enemies and that it desperately needed to be kept away from the Portuguese.

I had mixed feelings about Irinya as a protagonist. When it came to the adventuring side of the book, her stubbornness and determination to see things through were fantastic. The climax in the Rann and Irinya’s emotional journey there were perfection—I was delighted every step on the salt flats. I also enjoyed the romance despite the love interest being off-screen for the bulk of the book. But Irinya was so wildly out of her depth when it came to the palace intrigue portions of the plot that I found myself increasingly frustrated by her choices. The very first chapters of the book are about her being betrayed (it’s in the summary!), so I was certain she would be more cautious, be more suspicious of others, or try to gather more information before acting as we continued, and that just didn’t play out like I’d hoped.

Recommendation: Borrow it someday if you’re a fan of fantasy. The blending of fantasy and history made Flower and Thorn a highly interesting read, and I appreciated the unique magic system. The climax and conclusion of the book were very well done, and I appreciated the emotional journey even if some of the plot points frustrated me. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for Rati Mehrotra’s future books.

Extras: Read the first chapter of Flower and Thorn for free here and see a map for the setting.

Flower and Thorn: A brief history of early 16th century India

[arsen-the-vamp]

7, 8, and 14 for the pride asks :)

7. Are you the "token" queer person in your family?

Not really, tbh. In my father's family, there is my scene queen, pan & poly cousin, Kai (She/they). Then, on my mother's side, I have my bisexual cousin Daniel (He/him). Both are parents! My mom and dad are both closeted bisexuals. I only know this bcs they keep pictures of their exes and claim they were "no longer like that" since they married the opposite gender. (Both are divorced now!)

8. Describe your gender without using any words traditionally related to gender:

I am two sides of a reflection, the one looking in and the one looking back. Both are two halves that dance in harmony to one another, never breaking their trance when togther. There will always be a reflection, whether in darkness or in light, and it can appear as anything within the moment that it appears to one's eye. It is ever changing, but constantly there, even as two halves to each other. Each a separate being of substance, never quite touching, but coexisting as a joined pair. They each have a separate role on either side of the glass, but when they come together, they are at peace.

14. How do you think other factors like neurodivergency or upbringing have impacted your identity?

Personally, I think that my neurodivergency allows me to be able to understand myself more and feel as though I am right to be how I am. It feels natural and just fits. I can go into depth about how I feel the way I do, and it makes sense to me and other neurodivergents. As for non neurodivergents, or even non cultural people, they don't understand, because it isn't simple and in terms, that they understand that white society as a whole has given us through the centuries as a basis. I say white society because that is who took over the globe at some point, which caused our ideals to align with theirs. You didn't see the singular ideals like that in other cultures, so it did come from predominately white society. This point comes into play with my upbringing as well! I was raised by a mixed First Nations mother and a mixed race, Southern father. My father was raised to be generally Christian by a Baptist mother and a Pentecostal father. My mother was raised out of church, but with Catholic and Baptist influence, as well as influence by cultural beliefs of her tribe and kin. Both of them raised me with interlapping beliefs and cultures, but since my father inforced that he was over his household, I was made to go to church with him. All of this growing up influenced me in different ways. Half of which were conflicting or against how I felt as a person. I eventually made peace with myself and my beliefs, which neither of my parents agree with entirely, but still suport me nonetheless as their child. Honestly, all of it has made me more nonwaivering in my identity.

Apologies if I sounded a bit rambly and confusing! 💖

[miss-m-calling]

Trick or Treat 2024 letter

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me! My requests are Almost Famous, Interview with the Vampire (TV), Justified, and Starred Up. I am requesting fic, and treats are enabled. :-)

Please don’t worry about whether whatever you write for me fits Just So within the treat/trick framework! I am requesting both treats and tricks for all my canons, and anyway I see that as more broad hints of preferred general flavor of fic, rather than as strict guidelines.

General likes:

-pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories

-character-driven as well as plot-driven stories

-fics which mix humor and angst/serious business (when this fits the canon)

-characters at work and play

-group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too

-irony, snark, humor, angst – all arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in

-linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories

-hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, “everything is awful but you’re here and maybe I don’t entirely hate that” endings

-worldbuilding

-spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, tough characters with (maybe not so well) hidden vulnerabilities, characters who are their own worst enemies, characters who manage to get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other, characters who may not be exactly friends and may well irritate one another but manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise/reluctance/discomfort), characters who just cannot get along with each other or find common ground

-workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters get to be competent

Shippy and smutty likes:

-(where it fits the characters) banter

-competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved)

-”oh god why did it have to be you what did I do to deserve this“

-”come here and say it to my face/do that again/kiss me, you motherfucker”

-bickering yet loving couples

-characters who are serious about their romantic interests

-characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are

-characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed

-fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping

-characters who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, or there has been betrayal!!!), and while they love and/or want each other, they’re not willing to change sides or abandon/compromise their identity/beliefs for the other’s benefit

-I don’t know how better to phrase this than: smut which fits the characters; how does their canon dynamics spill over into hubba hubba stuff?

-sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves

-sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition or antagonism

-“this is a bad idea but we’re going for it hammer and tongs”

-not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not

-characters getting way more into the sex or being more affected by it than they thought they would

-quick and intense sex, slow and intense sex, rough yet willing sex (when it fits the characters), unexpectedly emotional and/or tender sex

-masturbation while thinking of the other half of the ship (or not wanting to think about them only oops there they are in the fantasy!)

-first time sex

-established relationship, we-know-each-other-so-well sex

-”we’ve both wanted this and now we both know it so here we go diving in headfirst” sex

-you can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

Ship/smut DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting D/s, formalized BDSM, painful sex, hard kinks (holding someone down playfully, hair pulling and such like, the odd spank are a-OK) scat, watersports knife/gun/blood play incest deaging/infantilization, mommy/daddy kink under-16yos in sexual situations humiliation body distortion/horror (feeding/weight kink, come inflation, vore, etc.) unrequested ships/pairings soulmates and soul marks pregnancy and children (can be mentioned if canon, just don’t make the whole fic about them) wedding setting/theme secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job xeno, tentacles, bestiality noncon/dubcon

Other DNWs:

torture and abuse (this and noncon/dubcon can be mentioned, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it) descriptions of vomit, shit, and piss (”He pissed up against a tree” and the like is fine), toilet humor lots of gore/blood (mention it, yes; lovingly describe it, no), cannibalism, serious illness or injury character bashing genderswap/genderbent characters, characters as kids/young teens issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons death of requested characters hopeless, unrelenting gloom/angst/horror RL holiday setting/theme, RL religions as a major theme (invented fictional holidays and rituals are fine) reference to RL current events 1st and 2nd person POV unrequested crossovers or fusions AUs which have nothing to do with canon fic written in lapslock, poetry as my main gift, AI-generated fic

FANDOMS:

Almost Famous

Russell Hammond/William Miller

I think I osmosed this entire movie over the years but only got around to watching it this past summer. And I loved it, and by the end I shipped them. Then I watched the director’s cut, and I shipped them even harder. I love that William is genuinely just a sweet, uncool, un-smooth guy from start to finish, so earnest in his love for this music and these people, so good with his family while also seeing their flaws and quirks, wanting so much to be with the band but also remain somehow objective enough to judge the quality of the work. And I love that charismatic Russell is a selfish dick, but he too has lingering decency and thoughtfulness, and eventually he does the right thing because he wants to, not just because he gets forced into it. Give me whatever period detail you want, give me any other characters if you want, but give me some of that fine ascendant rock star/budding young music journalist shippiness!

Canon-specific DNW: demonizing Penny

Exception to blanket DNW: underage is a-okay! Let them hook up at the end of the movie or a bit later or so much later than William is an adult, whatever works for you. Don’t make William any younger than 15, please.

Actual prompts? Sure:

-The evolution of their relationship: When and how does it begin? How does it progress? What problems do they have along the way, and how do they manage to keep finding their way back to each other? Russell is doing better now, but he’s still a musician touring a lot with stress/groupies/drugs/younameit (and still needs to see himself through the admiring eyes of others), and William is still “The Enemy” who’s finally internalized Lester Bangs’s dictum that you can’t write honestly and mercilessly about people you feel close to/are dazzled by. How do they make it work? Does Russell even know who he is apart from a rock musician, and would William be as interested in some guy from Troy, Michigan if that guy’s appeal wasn’t tied up with what he represents for the music lover in William?

-Does Stillwater endure (and maybe go super commercial and stratospherically famous after all, or struggle with the time and financial pressures of being a mid-range band), do they break up, does Russell leave and attempt a solo career? Does William again follow them around for work (full-time or moonlighting while in college) or just because he wants to, or does he cover a lot of bands and has to make time for Russell when he can, and Russell gets it but also he liked being special when they first met?

-Does William give up the Stillwater beat so it doesn’t spoil the relationship? What happens if William dislikes a musical direction or experiment Stillwater take? How would this type of music and this relationship fare in the late 1970s or the 1980s? What even is Russell’s musical career in the era of glam rock, 80s big-hair rock and 80s pop, punk, disco, synth-pop and dance music; what would William’s take on some of these new genres be? (By the 1980s, there’s also AIDS, and hard drugs, and I’m not asking for full-on kitchen-sink realism, but I’d love to see how these people and their relationship change with the gritty, a-changin’ times. William still needs to grow up, and arguably Russell does too.)

-Sex! Gimme it! There are no secrets on tour, so do they have to escape somewhere where no-one knows them (well, where no one recognizes Russell) to be together, or make a home they can meet up in when their schedules intersect, or just assume that what happens on tour stays on tour? It can be sweet and awkward, can be “debauching the kid (all at once or in stages) will be a real ego trip but then oops feelings,” can be “wiping drops of come from mustache just before going on stage,” can be the exquisite torture of knowing what you both want while surrounded by people at a party/gig/Doris, can be “keep it down, Elaine will hear us,” can be “There’s Only One Bed, and William’s got into the habit of getting himself off thinking about Russell before sleep, so that’s a problem,” can be a first time, a later time, an established or recurrent good time.* Whatever strikes your smutty fancy!

* First (or second or whichever) kiss, “I love you” (I can totally see Sweet William blurting it out during sex and Russell not being super gracious about it at first, just a thought), blowjob, penetrative sex, Russell deciding he wants to bottom, trip to a public bath or sex club in the Castro or the Meatpacking District but at the end of the night they really just want each other – just whatever takes your fancy.

-Fast forward a few years or many years, William is interviewing Russell again, only now they’re also banging. How does that interview go? Or adult!William writes a book about the music of the 1970s or writes again, with adult hindsight, about his time touring with Stillwater and falling for Russell? I’d actually love to read some of William’s work, if you wanted to include that in the fic. Or how about Russell’s lyrics inspired by William but with plausible deniability built in, or Russell being asked about his private life in interviews with other magazines or on radio/TV?

-The sexual and social mores of the 1970s were changing rapidly, but people in public-facing positions being out would have been tricky and kind of niche. How would any of the other characters react to this relationship? Make it funny and/or heartwarming, make it angsty, make it whatever you want. I’m especially fond of William’s mom and sister, Sapphire, and Lester, all of them wise and hilarious and earnest and weird in their own ways. The other Stillwater guys’ reactions would also be something to see. And I’d be down for William-Penny friendship after all the Sturm und Drang of the movie, and for her to be healthy and happy and to never ever go back to Russell (plus, Russell said she wanted the two guys to be ~~together!). Or what if one or both got publicly outed, or there’s this rumor going around and fans/rival musicians/the media are sniffing around, uh oh?

-Russell quote from the director’s cut: “It’s not what you put into it. It’s what you leave out. . . . That’s what you remember, man. It’s the little things, the silly things. The mistakes. . . . It’s what you leave out. Yeah, that’s rock ‘n’ roll.” Also true of life, often of love, sometimes of sex. Make of that what you will.

-I’m not so interested in ship fic set during the movie (unless we’re talking the very last scene or immediately after it), but if you want a part of their backstory to be that, at some point during the Almost Famous tour William and Russell hooked up (maybe instead of Sapphire and Polexia, Russell popped William's cherry in lieu of giving the kid an interview), and that’s a part of William’s complicated feelings for and about both Russell and the band, and about Penny, ditto Russell’s feelings about William – I’d be down with that!

Interview with the Vampire (TV)

Bricktop Williams

I love this show with the fire of a thousand suns. The darkness, the poetic dialogues, the eroticism, the black humor, the OTT melodrama, the flawed and complex characters and their dynamics, the period detail, the beautiful people and beautiful costumes and settings, the questions of memory and perception, how do we know what happened happened and in such-and-such a way, and how do you ever know that you truly know another person (even if you can read their mind). It’s like someone took everything I didn’t know I needed in one single show and mixed a magic potion to keep me in a state of perpetual bliss. All the characters are fascinating, but I picked Bricktop because she stole my heart in, what, four measly scenes and I really felt the loss of her after the Storyville riot. I loved her self-awareness, her humor, her clear lines about what she will and will not put up with even as a Black woman in her position in that time and place, her fabulousness. Let’s pretend she didn’t die in the riot, or say “fuck this noise” and decamp to another city, okay? Okay!

Canon-specific DNW: I am fine with canon levels of everything, but please no smut-and-nothing-else fic. Smut as part of the fic is cool.

Exceptions to blanket DNWs: violence, gore, character death are all fine in the context of vampirism. Implied or referenced sexual violence and/or sex work are fine so long as you keep them “off screen.” Lestat/Louis as a secondary/background pairing is a-okay!

Prompts:

-More of Bricktop’s relationship with Louis, when she was one of his “girls” and/or later at the Azalea. Even in her first scene, he’s annoyed that he has to deal with the situation but he’s not pissed off at her (much), and later at the Azalea, he trusts her completely as his right-hand woman. He must have seen her potential pretty early on, and as two Black people challenging the Jim Crow status quo, they’d need to be able to rely on each other in many ways. But Louis also keeps secrets, both before and after he becomes a vampire, and Bricktop is smart as a whip and demands a certain amount of respect. What’s her real name and where did the nickname come from?

-I wanted so badly to see Bricktop’s interactions with Lestat. He respects her competence (“Leave the Azalea to the capable hands of Miss Bricktop”) and sounds so amused when he tells Louis “I think she’s onto us” – that must have taken her all of two seconds! She’d need to be able to read people well in her life and line of work, so what’s her take on Lestat (she can tell there’s something… off about him, right? and not just in the way of most rich white men) and/or her take on Lestat/Louis (whom I ship like burning in all their ultra-dysfunctional, amour fou, can’t-live-with-you-can’t-kill-you-(I-tried-)can’t-let-go, FEMA-cleanup-area-levels-of-toxicity glory. They deserve each other, and their chemistry could power the sun).

-Bricktop running the Azalea with a velvet-gloved iron fist as the resident madam/accountant/legal advisor/Louis’s all-around right hand. Sorting out issues with the “girls” or one of the staff trying to steal from the till. How did she learn about business/constitutional law? How does she handle a situation like the one when we meet her, only now she’s in Louis’s position? When one of the rich men she used to service comes around, she has to be respectful and welcoming, but I am certain she finds ways to let them know what she really thinks of them too.

-Instead of saving Claudia from that fire, Louis finds Bricktop gravely wounded during the riot and convinces Lestat to turn her. How long would she put up with being the third wheel in that house? How would her relationship with both men evolve? I could see Lestat wanting to control her but she’s a grown-ass woman, not a kid like Claudia (at first), and her primary connection is to Louis, plus she’s a reminder of Louis’s past life. Is there a (one-sided?) sexual interest there, because she’s gorgeous and awesome, and because it would piss off Louis, and because she can see right through Lestat and he needs to have the upper hand at all times? I can imagine Louis being, how do you say, not thrilled about this, and Bricktop being like “I don’t need this (but dare I piss off my lily-white maker who also owns the goddamn house).” Once she (inevitably, I think) takes off on her own, where would she go and what would she get up to?

-For vampire!Bricktop, have her be the one interviewed by Daniel in 2022 (in this house, we love old!Daniel’s unshakable cynicism, skepticism, lack of illusions about everything including himself, commitment to snark, and stealth vulnerability), either as a follow-up to Daniel’s interviews with Louis or in lieu of those. Let them verbally spar and come to grudgingly respect each other!

-Bricktop’s undeath has been going just fine, thank you. Maybe she keeps in brain-phone touch with Louis in Dubai from time to time, maybe she and Daniel sometimes get Bloody Marys (if they can find two gals called Mary, har har), but mostly she’s living her best undeath without owing anyone anything. Till one day there’s Lestat on a screen, gyrating behind a mic, wearing eyeliner and not much else, belting out lyrics about vampirism and sex with Louis, prompting her to say softly but with great feeling: “aw shit.” She wants no part of this clusterfuck in the making, but as one of Lestat’s fledglings, she doesn’t get the luxury of choice… Basically, gimme your version of S3, now with vamp!Bricktop!

-I am cool with gen fic, or I think she and Miss Lily would be a fun ship, whether Bricktop is human or she’s a vampire (but doesn’t kill Lily either accidentally or on purpose). What would they talk about that’s not just their line of work or all the entitled, messed-up men in their lives – or hey, if you want them to talk about that, that would be great too! Or they could just have a little fun for no-one’s pleasure and benefit but their own.

-If you feel comfortable going there, I am fascinated by how the changes to Louis and Claudia’s race and/or background complicate the characters’ relationships, and especially with Bricktop being both savvy and opinionated as well as having seen some shit, by all means tell me how race and gender play into it all. I don’t need the world or these characters to be better than they are, and I don’t need anyone to give an impassioned soapbox speech about race in America – I just want more of the subtext and occasional text the show gives us. The “fledgling/slave” argument, Claudia mocking Lestat as “massa” and the Bach/Nazis thing, Daniel ribbing Louis about the “in the quiet dark” thing, Bricktop being the ignored voice of reason about Louis’s “business plan” for the Azalea, Lestat blithely sounding off about all the skin tones of the beautiful people of NoLa – I eat all that up with a spoon.

Justified

Rachel Brooks/Boyd Crowder

I adore this show (the plots! the dialogues and rich language! the local color! the insane tribal loyalties clashing with centralized authority, and the people caught in the middle!) and two characters who are so fascinating in their own right and who should have interacted more in canon! I love how Rachel is so non-nonsense, dedicated, and capable, and never passes up the opportunity to point out racial and gender nonsense when she sees it happening and affecting her in her work. And Boyd is just the poetically-spoken, ruthless, manipulative yet sincere, forever outlaw of my heart. I ship them, yes, but don’t worry too much whether your fic is “shippy enough” – I am good with innuendo, subtext, a mutual attraction which ambushes them and is so inconvenient, something implied but maybe the characters themselves aren’t ready to deal with what it would mean for them, or full-on shippiness! Feel free to include any other canon character, I love them all. As for Boyd/Ava and Rachel/her husband, you can work those relationships into the story, handwave them, break them up off-screen, whatever works for what you’re writing.

Canon-specific DNW: anything more intense, sex- and violence-wise, than an M rating; basically keep it to canon levels of violence/gore/sex.

Prompts:

-Boyd has to work with the Marshals (again, or divergence from one of the canon occasions), and this time Rachel rather than Raylan is his contact/minder. Plots and schemes and double-crosses, oh my!

-As in those too-few, too-brief scenes where Boyd tries to sweet-talk Rachel when he’s in a jam, and she blows him off or spells out exactly how she’ll fuck up his life if he doesn’t cooperate, give me more of Rachel laying down the law and Boyd cooperating… up to a point… when it also serves his agenda.

-Rachel once acknowledged Boyd’s silver tongue. Let it get them both out of a bad situation. How does it hold up against Rachel’s unimpeachable stake on the moral high ground?

-Rachel is on Boyd’s prisoner transport once he’s in federal custody. Does she help him escape (shades of Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight)? What would it take to get straight-shooting Rachel to make that choice? Or does he try to get her to break all the rules, but fails for reasons I leave up to you?

-Spoilers for Justified: City Primeval: once Boyd busts out of Tramble, the Kentucky Marshals’ office calls Rachel rather than Raylan to deal with it. She’s been promoted and moved to a different office, ten years later she might even be working at Marshals’ HQ in the DC area, so how happy is she about having to return to Kentucky to deal with goddamn Crowders? And why did Boyd bust out? And how much trouble can they cause each other, since middle age hasn’t slowed either of them down one bit?

-Boyd trying to pull the wool over Rachel’s eyes and her not having it. Having to work together or Rachel needing to use Boyd as a informant, and how that might shade into flirting, and how Rachel might feel about that, given Boyd’s past (even if, as Raylan said, Boyd’s too smart to really believe in white supremacy, there’s still his lifelong criminality). The beginnings of a good working relationship or friendship or affection, and how frustrating and difficult that would be, because they are who they are. Or the later stages of a relationship, when somehow they make it work, however tense it gets at times.

-For something more explicitly shippy, give me a strong hate/love (Rachel would be horrified to fall for a con, let alone this con!), “I know this is a terrible idea” dynamic. Give me their having to work together and/or antagonistic flirting/confessions of feelings. Give me UST, thwarted desire, angry longing. This may be a tall order, but I’d be super into non-issue-y ship fic which somehow deals with or touches on the fact that while Boyd’s white-supremacy period was almost wholly bull, he’s still the guy with a swastika tattooed on his arm, and Rachel is African-American.

-There be somethin’ spooky lurkin’ in them there hills! Maybe it’s just the usual bunch of hillbillies with more firepower than brains, maybe it’s something genuinely eldritch. Marshals and local crime lords walk right into it, and then these strange bedfellows (ha ha) need to get each other out.

Starred Up (2013)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

Exception to blanket DNW: dubcon is a-okay! If you decide to go there, my preferred flavors of dubcon for this canon are: power differential makes it a bad idea but they do it anyway; “I know you want this”; “if the answer’s no/you’re only doing this for a dare or to prove a point, then why are you enjoying this so much [as am I]?”; no no yes a.k.a. starts as dubcon (or one of them thinks they’re dubconning the other), becomes enthusiastic consent.  

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-Oliver is sentenced to prison (maybe he gets done for GBH after attacking Deputy Governor Haynes), and now Eric is the more knowledgeable and “well-adjusted” one, the one with skills Oliver desperately needs. The balance between them shifts, so how does that affect this burgeoning something between them?

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Or how about this: Eric gets out, relationship happens or is in the process of being negotiated, and while physical intimacy is a whooooole neeeeeew woooorld, you know what else would be cool? Phone sex. Yep. Or even, Eric gets himself one of those secret prison burner phones (preferably hidden somewhere that’s not someone’s arse), and… phone sex after lights-out and lock-down. Maybe nothing (much) has happened physically (yet), so phone sex can be a building block to that or one facet of that deepening intimacy.

-For smut: any top/bottom (or switching) combo is good. Hand jobs incl. mutual, masturbation, blowjobs, 69, intercrural, frottage, anal fingering, finger sucking, rimming, anal – all good.

[rmhashauthor]

At the moment I'm working on the second novel of my softcore sci-fi romance series The Dragon Prince's Consort. It's a story about wealth, privilege, family and a romance that blooms from a forced marriage. It's also about two people hiding their love from each other under a misguided belief that confessing would put a lot more than their relationship at risk - there's a blended colony charter in the works that could affect millions.

Valen comes from an incredibly dysfunctional family - his oldest brother and the heir to the Drassian Empire is a COMPLETE asshole - he's been making Valen's life hell since they were children. Their father has been so busy running the Empire that he hasn't really paid attention to his youngest child and so Valen has grown up mostly ignored. So when a human woman appears in his bedroom one evening, telling him she's all his for the night, he thinks he's finally lost his mind from loneliness.

Lienfang (Fang) grew up in extreme poverty, but her parents loved her deeply and often went hungry so she could have food. She came to Anun to try and start her life over again, but making enough money to just survive on an alien planet didn't prove to be so easy. Resorting to sex work paid some bills, but she still borrowed money from some nasty people and now she's in debt and desperate. Taking one last job might help get her off this frozen rock, but she couldn't possibly know that her client is both the wealthiest and most unwanted bachelor in the Empire.

When these two meet, it's passionate from first touch. It's a different kind of slow-burn in that they're banging from the very beginning, but as they learn to live with each other it becomes clear to both of them that there's a lot more going on than they're pretending.

Like a lot of my stories, the political stuff happens in the background while the characters live their lives and interact with their world. I like to use their interactions to show how the layers fit together and express some of my thoughts about things like celebrity culture and the idea that wealth = happiness. I like to mix elements of fantasy and sci-fi, as well as stuff from the real world like events and people - in my last book I mentioned Kalpana Chawla, who died in the Columbia disaster, and in this one I bring up Valentina Tereshkova and Nora Al-Matrooshi. I have a thing about naming women in space flight, using their names for human-made spacecraft and just generally making sure they're mentioned in relation to exploring the universe. I'm kind of a space nerd. I tend to favor women of color as opposed to the usual western names like Sally Ride and Christina McAuliffe - it's REALLY important for me as a woman in a position of privilege to use said privilege to lift others up, even if I don't do it right all the time.

So far none of my female OCs have been white, and the few white guys who have made an appearance have either been side characters or annoying minor villains. I do this because most of the sci-fi I've read since I was a kid featured mostly if not entirely white people, and I got sick of seeing my face on every book cover from Borders to Waldenbooks. I'm not interested in stories about people who look like me, I've seen that movie/read that book/watched that show/listened to that podcast and its 57,000 variations already. If that makes me a SJW or "woke" or whatever ridiculous term the conservatives have for decent people these days, fine. I don't mind being accused of wanting to promote stories about people who have been systematically excluded and abused, because that's not something to be ashamed of. Yes I DO have an agenda, and that agenda is 1) wake up, 2) be insane for 16 hours, 3) collapse into bed knowing that I used my powers of being irritating for good to the best of my knowledge and ability. I may not do it perfectly, but damn it I'm going to try.

All that aside, I write what I write because it interests me. I don't have an ADHD problem, ADHD has a me problem, and I'm out to make it everyone else's problem by screeching into the void and hoping someone listens. I know that the popular thing to do right now is to cram as many giant sex organs, freaky kinks and physics-defying sex positions into various orifices a story as possible, but after a while it just starts to look like the front page of Pornhub. Not to mention that a LOT of what I've read in recent history is just saturated with red flags, glorified abuse and toxic relationship dynamics and it makes me wonder what kind of message we're sending to younger readers when we promote stories where the guy acts like a real POS and the girl spends 45% of the story either blaming herself or trying to explain away his awful behavior. None of my characters are perfect and I don't intend them to be - in my first book the FMC punched a guy in the face (he totally deserved it) - because no real person is perfect. I try REALLY HARD to have them do what they think is right, and to treat their love interests with lots of kindness and real affection because that's what my relationship is like and everyone deserves a gentle love. Humans in general can be pretty terrible to one another, so I think that modeling good behavior towards one's love might help just one person understand what it's really all about and maybe make the world a little bit kinder.

As usual I went WAY too long into this, so apologies to anyone who started reading my ramblings and missed the bus, but also thanks for sticking it out this far! The Dragon Prince's Consort is on Wattpad, and though I'm currently on a posting hiatus for my mental health there are 48 chapters up and I'll start uploading more starting June 20, 2024. I don't have anywhere to purchase TDPC or my first book STARFISH... yet... but I currently work full-time so money isn't a factor in getting people to read my stuff. I take constructive criticism well, but like anyone else I kick my feet and giggle like a teenager when people tell me they loved this or that and that so-and-so made them cry because *fandom noises*. I recently found out my mom's friends read STARFISH and while that sent me into a brief panic spiral (ohshitIgotfoundOUT) I got over it because any eyes are better than none at all. This is me screaming into the void. Feel free to scream back.

Let's share our projects together!

What are you currently working on? Is it a novel? Short story? Novella?

What genre is it? Tell me about your characters, where did you get the idea for your book? Let's share our projects here together ✨.

My project A.N. came to me thanks to homework for my uni in the winter term. We were supposed to write a short story and that's when I came up with the idea for the Angels of Night. I wasn't planning on continuing the story. I tried so many new methods, like writing from third person perspective (until then I wrote only in first person), multiple POVs, writing about angels, and more. It was just something to school that was never supposed to continue. I was working on a whole different project at that time that I wanted to finish. There just wasn't a place for something new.

But my friends kind of wanted to know more. I had the whole story in my head, I knew what happened before and what would happen after. So I started telling them, because they were curious and I guess that's when I realised I wanted to finish it. I want to write the beginning and the end.

I have a whole post about this story prepared, so you'll have to wait a little bit to read more. But let me know what you're currently working on, I'd love to hear about all your stories💗.

[nothorses]

You weren't fuckin kidding man. Someone saw that ask I sent you about how people assume I'm culturally Christian because I'm white and live in the US and they decided that actually I'm a stupid idiot who had "an explicitly Christian upbringing" and is just too dumb to realize that I'm part of the "oppressor class." It's not that I didn't believe you when you said how bad it was, I had just never personally experienced it before because I don't talk about religion except on very rare occasions. But these people are fucking unhinged!! Apparently the bar for being culturally Christian is as low as "has interacted with or been affected by Christianity at some point." This shit is wild!

Now I feel like I have to avoid anything that might be taken and misconstrued as me being "culturally Christian." Like I feel like I can't say omg anymore because it has "god" in it.

Oh yeah, it is absolutely wild lmao.

I think there are two pretty dominant ways of looking at cultural christianity right now:

You either Are A Cultural Christian or you are not, or;

Cultural Christianity is something that impacts an entire society, and that anyone within it can express.

Under the first one, they have to actually define who is culturally Christian, and what the bar for that is; which means we get different conflicting models of how to decide who Counts as a cultural Christian. So then we get "you're culturally Christian if you..."

Are a Christian

Were at any point a Christian

Were raised by Christian family

Live in a Christian-dominated society and were not raised under any other (non-Christian) religion

Live in a Christian-dominated society but "come from a Christian background"

Live in a Christian-dominated society but are not religious

Participate in any aspect of Christianity, even in a non-religious sense.

Or some combination thereof.

Each of which kind of falls short of capturing the full picture or being much of a useful term. Obviously Christians are Christian; we don't really need another term for that. But ex-Christians can convert, can't they? So is it just ex-Christian atheists, or are, for example, Jewish converts "still culturally Christian"? So can people who were raised by Christian family; again, does this only apply to atheists? What kind of atheists does it actually apply to?

And the last groups consists of a huge variety of people: again, atheists can raise atheists or have been raised by atheists, often going back multiple generations (I'm part of the third generation of atheists in my family- on both sides).

Is the deciding factor here whiteness? I absolutely agree that white people are more likely to be hostile toward other cultures and the religions generally associated with them; but that's not because white people are Christian (Black Americans, for example, have a long, complicated history with Christianity; from forced conversion to a modern unique relationship with their own Christian beliefs and practices, all of which should be defined by them). That is, imo, an extension of racism & white supremacy- which is itself very tied into Christianity.

And as for people who participate in Christianity- what about cultural conversion/erasure? What about mixed religion families; half-Jewish and half-Christian families that celebrate both sets of holidays, for example? What about people who "celebrate" only because family does? What about people who are forced by their families, or others, to participate?

Again, is "cultural Christianity" just something that applies to atheists? And if so, why?

Either we need a perfect definition and delineation that can adequately, respectfully categorize everyone from every complex experience and background and acknowledge that people change categories entirely, often by their own choice; or our entire culture is influenced by Christianity, in which case anyone can theoretically be influenced by it regardless of background, and atheists are not "more Christian" than anyone else by default.

It needs to be a broad and fluid umbrella, or we need a different one entirely.

I've seen @cleverthylacine suggest that we should talk about it like "passing", which I can honestly get behind; people who "pass" as Christian aren't necessarily gaining privilege, but depending on how congruent that external perception is with their internal reality, it can be a much smoother experience than those who are openly antagonistic, or inherently oppositional to Christianity are.

i.e. a Jewish person who asks for their holidays off is not passing, and is challenging Christianity in a way that is going to lead to experiences of antisemitism, specifically.

An atheist who celebrates Jewish holidays and asks for them off from work will likely experience some, or all, of the same.

An atheist who happily celebrates Christian holidays isn't going to face much hardship at all- or likely even notice that they'd be subject to opposition if they didn't.

An atheist who quietly avoids celebrating Christian holidays is going to have some internal struggles and awkward, uncomfortable interactions with Christians who want them to do otherwise.

An atheist who openly, vocally resists celebrating Christian holidays- and even goes as far as to advocate against their workplace holding celebrations for them- is going to face a lot of open opposition and bigotry from Christians in their workplace.

It's based more on action, personal relationship to the religion, and individual choices/situations/experiences, and avoids treating the "passing" experience as if it's inherently a privilege- or inherent to a specific group. And it allows a lot of room for those conversations around who exactly is Presumed Christian (white people, mostly), what that means, without assuming everyone from a certain category is going to have the exact same experience forever.

[mochikeiji]

Forever Between Promises

Request: "Hi!! sorry but are your event still open??? if yes, could I request angst fics with prompt no. 26,42,95 for Geto?"

26. "I would give up everything if it means having you by my side"

42. "Don't leave me"

95. "I don't want to be alone again"

↠ Pairing: Getou Suguru x F!Reader

↠ Warning: angst, minimal mentions of suggestive themes, gojo's arc spoiler!

↬ Word Count: 1.2k

↳ from Go! Go! Gogatsu Event

Sweet smiles and light teasing. Intelligent in the fields of battle and on human emotion. The kind of gentleman anyone would fall for. Geto Suguru was a rare gem to be found by the likes of you. Unlike Satoru, he had welcome you with such kindness you hadn't felt in a while. He was the first and only person to show you around the grounds of Jujutsu Tech— even shared witty remarks and intriguing histories here and there while walking by your side.

During class, he would be the one to come up to your spot and sit comfortably by the window side. He'd greet you with a soft, "good morning." every now and then which he adapts as his every day habit. When Gojo isn't looking, he'd snatch a few of his stacked candies and goodies with reflexes. The brush of his hand against your thighs would never fail to shock your entire being when he's simply smuggling them in your pockets; winking at you claiming that you might enjoy some of them since he's the one who bought them after losing a bet to the loud male next to him.

It was in those moments of yours fresh in second year that made you fall deeper for the second most strongest shaman in the world. Suguru was one of your many firsts in both devilish and angelic times. Shoko would point out as if to mock Satoru how Suguru preferred you to be his duo than him. She wasn't wrong though, not when they had their backs turned, you and him happened to be sneakily holding onto each other's pinkies from behind. He always loved seeing your reactions when he does stuff like this out of the blue. Your escapades didn't last long hearing a gag from the little girl you three were assigned to escort.

So obvious how the two of you made googly eyes to each other and the sly excuses to be closer, Riko claimed as Satoru was bursting in tears from laughing. Suguru didn't mind as the two continued to rile you up. It was on that day from the corner of his eye he gave you your first kiss in front of them rather than in the hidden alleys or bedroom. Those butterflies that had filled your surroundings were lovely, but the sight of his smile was a temptation to capture and protect forever. Moments like these you wished would last for a life time.

Geto had this belief he shared with you from the beginning of your relationship. Though he adores how small your hands are when he held them in his, he's a sucker for the linked pinkies. He firmly believes that through that little connection there were unspoken promises beneath them. That belief rubbed onto you as you would have the tendency to reach for his longer pinky. No matter when and where, there was always a promise between you both.

"I would give up everything if it means having you by my side"

One of those was loyalty to each other, thick and thin as you stared to the once soft, light eyes glower with a void of darkness. You could've sworn there was still a pinch of emotions solely for you only. What had been such a nurtured, heart feeding start come to a withered end. The loss of Riko had shaken much more than your relationship with your friends and lover. No, it caused more that it came with the price of killing and becoming a wanted man. You've once thought he was easy to catch remembering how welcoming he was of you. Now you find yourself endlessly chasing after the man that had the remaining string of bright crimson on his pinky.

"Don't leave me." you pleaded, knees on the concrete floor and your head bowed as you got soaked in the rain the night you've caught onto his trail once more. "Please, Suguru. Just let me stay by your side."

As a man whom slaughtered a village and plans for the death of those who were not part of his vision of his own world, no one would think twice to believe how easy it was to have him still wrapped around your fingers. Suguru would never want to drag you away from being the women he's fallen for just to follow his deeds with the devil. He knows at some point in life, there will be a price to atone for his sins. Yet the first strongest women to ever come in par of him and Satoru, kneels before him as the love confessions spill from her lips. Suguru finds himself greedy as he again like all times, welcomes you in warm arms away from the rain. His own guilt of causing you this much mixes with the droplets from above.

In the midst of what people claim, "evil" You were far from it. The nights of worshipping the scars and bared feelings were much more intense; needy. From the eyes of his newly profound family, he was a man with strong, promising visions for a better future. Little did they know how he cannot be those without the woman who's sold herself to the devil just to walk in the fires of hell with him. The innocent escapades of yours turned into a game of ride or die having to change locations and stay ins to avoid being caught. Worse, killed on the spot.

You didn't mind living this second life. You've lost yourself at the first— lost the family that also loved you dearly as Suguru, but risking it all as long as you had him by your side was worth it. This life was what people feared, but you cherished. You were not about to lose the only ray of light you have left as his eyes flicker the smallest amount he has as he's slouched next to you the most loved, and the one and only best friend.

Take, take and take. That was all the world has done for you and you have done for your world. Part of the reason why he's only ever wanted to reset the world was for you to live in happily. No more hurting. Maybe now wasn't yours nor his lifetime of enjoyment. Born in misery of being robbed with every thing you've never had, you took what you can to live even if it was for nothing. Given the potential of being third of the strongest and landing a spot on a prestigious school, you strove and from there you were alive the moment he's linked his pinky with yours.

"I don't want to be alone again.." the life you've lived shortly became full of every thing, every second because of him. Who would've thought it'll end just the same faith as he did when he utters out an apology, weakly trying to grip onto your pinky when it was obvious that the used to be crimson colored string fades to a melancholic grey.

"I'll find you in a better world, my love."

He was a criminal indeed. Evil, so evil it had ruined every thing you've held onto. Geto Suguru was your plenty of firsts, but who knew he'd be the last you'd ever see the light in every thing ever again as he takes all of the promises from you to his afterlife.

© all content belongs to mochikeiji. Please do not repost or copy, ありがとうございました!! (=^･^=)

[writingwithcolor]

WLW Japanese Buddhist Who Uses Ghosts for Powers, has Ghost GF

@kanehon submitted:

Hello! I’m Latinx, planning a story set in a Urban Fantasy-equivalent of my own city. One of the main characters is Japanese-coded, as my city also has a large immigrant population, I plan to include her family as background characters too. In this setting almost everyone has some kind of magic power, or is a magical creature, so that is seen as normal and common. For this character I planned for her to be able to interact with ghosts and, only if she allows, they can possess her to do things she wouldn’t be able otherwise.

In the story she’s a Coroner and her powers would help with that, talking to them, viewing their side of the story, etc. Not only that, but there is the ghost of one woman in particular who is often with her, with them being lovers.

However, when considering the character’s religious beliefs, I could only find that in Shinto, Death is seen as impure so it seemed disrespectful to go with that. On the other hand, when I looked up at Buddhist views, the best I could find was that Buddhism views organ donating positively as a way to help the others.

Can I respectfully keep those powers/profession with her being Buddhist, being that she uses it to help people, or would it be better to not mix the two things and take a different route entirely? Is there something I’m overlooking and should be aware of?

Secondly, the ghost lover is a butch Japanese-coded woman, Are there any stereotypes I should be aware of and avoid? This is not the only queer relationship or character in the story, and I want to make sure those are shown in a positive light. Ideally, I also want to avoid it seeming like “bury your gays” by showing that, she is as much “There” as anyone else for my character thanks to her powers.

I think a key difference between Japanese versus Western views on ghosts/ spirits is that we differentiate between 幽霊 (yuurei) or specters and 精霊 (seirei) which are the spirits/ souls of the dead as a whole. Yuurei are almost always viewed negatively, while seirei are simply dead people who haven’t moved on. While seirei may have general attachments to the real world, yuurei have particularly negative attachments: desire for vengeance, memories of betrayal, histories of pain and oppression. The key point for both, however, is the cultural belief that both should move on. 

As you say, in Shinto traditions, death is unclean, and so ghosts should be purified and go to the underworld (i.e. Yomi/ Yominokuni/ Yomotsukuni). In Buddhism, attachment is viewed as a barrier to achieving enlightenment (Nirvana/ Nehan) and thus, for a ghost, attachments to a previous life delay their re-entry into Samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth necessary for their soul’s spiritual progression. Thus, even if your coroner character is only culturally Japanese-coded (and not religious in any way), I imagine they would feel some level of discomfort doing anything to allow a dead person’s spirit to linger. Thus, I question the utility of having their love interest character be a ghost. I can picture more transactional relationships where her interactions with ghosts and use of their powers are done in the interest of helping the ghosts move on such as: 

Completion of a task left undone

Resolving regrets

Pacifying malevolent specters

However all of the above are poor fits for a long-term love interest, particularly one who is Japanese-coded themselves. A short, intimate fling with a ghost would certainly be an interesting pitch, but the distinct expiration date would make it quite bittersweet.

- Marika

One thing that stood out to me was that you are Latinx writing a story set in your own culture, which I figure has its own beliefs around ghosts. Considering, as Marika said, that you’re employing ghosts in your story in a way that doesn’t jive with Japanese Buddhist-Shinto beliefs, I think it may be better to draw from your local religious lore rather than to push a round peg in a square hole. Is your character’s Buddhism important to the plot, or did you make her Buddhist because she’s Japanese? Is your character’s Japanese-ness important to the plot, or did you make her Japanese because it was one of the more populous minorities in your home city/country? 

Second: with regard to the girlfriend herself, I must stress that a deceased gay character does not inherently a “bury your gays” make. You do appear to have a sense of this as you mention her “there”-ness in the plot, but that’s exactly why you had nothing to worry about in the first place. The trope, and the issue with it, is withholding the happy ending of, AND screentime for, a queer character, because they are seen as disposable. A story can even bury-its-gays without actually killing them (comas, disappearances, abruptly written off the show, etc). Death is not the important component. 

Also, I don’t think we are able to answer to the point of the girlfriends’ butch Japanese-ness because you gave us no other information about her personality, ethnic/immigrant background, or relationship dynamic with the coroner. 

~ Mod Rina

Note: Due to Japanese pop culture, the notion of the yuurei vs. seirei divide has blurred, particularly as Westernized notions of ghosts/ apparitions have made their way into urban legends, manga and anime, however, I advise against going with these interpretations as we have more than enough of them in Japan already.  

- Marika

[crane--here]

What are your thoughts on the ending of dying light the following? Which one do you think is canon? And do you believe in the night hunter is kyle crane theory?

OHOHOHO :3

putting under read more for obvious spoilers and my LONG response

i have mixed feelings on the nature of the endings. one completely contradicts crane's morals and personality, as well as destroys his entire character arc up to the ending point - while the other nicely ties said arc to a bittersweet, but satisfying end, narratively wise. so the choice to pick my favorite isn't hard here

i hate hate HATE the nuke ending. it just feels so... wrong when it comes to kyle's character and essentially makes him out to be the biggest hypocrite of all! do you seriously believe that kyle "i hauled my ass around preventing the bombing of harran" crane would willingly NUKE THE CITY after going through so much?? when you take into account his stubbornness and his sacrificial nature, of someone who does everything to keep his friends and found family safe, to throw it all away just from the words of a freak he just met? it's too abrupt. too out of character to end things this way. as "noble" as the option is, it's just NOT what lies within crane's morals. the mother could sacrifice thousands for the sake of billions - the same could never be said for crane

now, the vial ending? GOOD LORD IT MAKES ME GO CRAZYYYY IN A GOOD WAY. the last ditch effort to fight for the "cure".... kyle's delusional belief that it can all be salvaged.... fuck!! the emotions this ending gives! it shows the crane we know and love! a stubborn bastard who's ready to sacrifice himself just for his friends - even when the future is looking grim. because crane is hopeful, always was. he'd hold onto the last strings of hope until the very end because he just doesn't give up. and that hope was his DOWNFALL. the road to hell is paved with good intentions - it's no different here

kyle is shown to be willing to do things he genuinely believes are for the better - and time and time again to be proved wrong. most side quests underline that! but did that ever stop him from extending his trust to others and risking it all? no it did not! he still was willing to go to extreme lengths for the sake of helping people, too quickly in fact, too driven by his emotions to think of the long-term consequences. and i think this post describes it all better than i ever would

dying light is a very bleak and grim story, and like liquidator said: "But sometimes, even the greatest heroes stumble... and don't get up again". as hurtful as the vial ending was to the fanbase, it was the right "end" for crane

it's very clear that the vial ending is the canon one. i think it's kind of funny, for the longest time the community was led to believe that both endings were supposedly canon to "give the player the opportunity to make their own choices", as per official tweets and other sources

but that was INSTANTLY shut down with techland ama video where the devs confirm there IS a canonical ending to dl1 and that by playing dl2 we'll get to find the answer we're looking for. and that we did!

from the very first memento we can find, we learn that even 5 years after the initial outbreak harran STILL had survivors within the walls who were denied aid. this very fact instantly throws the nuke ending out of the window - there is no way for anyone to survive a nuclear bomb. if the initial explosion wouldn't kill them, the fallout would. it still leaves the fate of the tower and crane after turning uncertain, we can only speculate where they ended up in the next years

and moving onto kyle.... hate to say it but i am a "crane is the night hunter truther" <3. i simply think it's more fitting and with the evidence present i think it's the more plausible option

believe it or not there's no concrete evidence that the serum HAS to turn anyone into a sentient volatile, and only a volatile. especially if you know HOW the harran virus works on any host. the reason why jasmine is a volatile of all strains is that prior to turning she was bitten by a regular biter. the vial was administered in its simplest form. who's to say someone like crane, who's been dealing with his infection for months and who faced all the infected strains before, wouldn't turn into a fucked up hybrid of all? i think this reddit comment sums up my thoughts perfectly:

"the subtitles say volatile scream" - dude. i can ASSURE you that techland is the least reliable when it comes to english transcripts specifically 😭 and i say this as a polish person. besides this argument falls apart when the transcripts change between languages as well (to my knowledge the german script says "night hunter schrei" lmao)

"the night hunter isn't canon" - ... yeah, about that

night hunters ARE canon to the dl universe. that is to say - the btz gamemode is most likely not. and it's important to remember the distinction between the two things

oh and also,

... yeah i think the night hunter photos on the crane memorial are the biggest hint so far. either that or techland is fucking with us even more lmao

i actually have a lot to say about the "night hunter crane" theory, and much more evidence and speculation around it. like i do believe night hunters are a special strain of volatiles specifically. i can go into more detail in a separate post if anyone wants to hear it lol

[theolsentimes]

Mary-Kate Olsen's Singular Style

She came to fame as a twin, but the actress's cultish look is entirely her own. Here, with Lauren Hutton, she pays homage to another fashion inspiration, Grey Gardens. Written by Laura Brown, with photography by Peter Lindbergh (Harper's Bazaar, 2007)

VIEW GALLERY

Mary-Kate Olsen may be the only young actress who breezes into her local Starbucks wearing towering, fashion-fierce Balenciaga boots, who arrives at her latest premiere (in Mary-Kate's case, for the new season of Showtime's Weeds, in which she plays a devout Christian with a pot fetish) sporting an oversize cross, and whose favorite band is Led Zeppelin. She may, in fact, be the only young actress who knows who Led Zeppelin is. MK, as she is known to her friends and family, is also a punctual and professional sort. She arrives for a poolside tea in Los Angeles 10 minutes early, ordering a hot chocolate while explaining her fetish for all things sweet — "I'm a candy girl, like Tootsie Rolls and Swedish Fish" — and objecting when the waiter tries to take the sugar bowl away. She is wearing a nautical striped T-shirt (her mom's, from the '70s), tucked into two black Wolford slips rolled down and turned into a tight, Robert-Palmer-video-style mini, and multicolored sparkly Christian Louboutin stilettos. She's just had her hair colored, returning to a sunnier shade after some experiments with both peroxide ("I woke up one morning and was like, I want white-trash hair today") and the dark side (an auburn-haired near-Goth moment last year). She's carrying a large black fringed leather Prada tote — she doesn't do small bags — and her fingers are covered with rings, most notably two vintage coiled gold snakes stacked on top of each other. ("They remind me of twins, sort of double headed.") Altogether, the effect is less her famed "bag-lady chic" than an edgy, body-conscious, and, yes, sexy silhouette. If she weren't 21, she could be 40. And French.

Few people need reminding that Mary-Kate — with her twin sister, Ashley — literally crawled into celebrity aged nine months (courtesy of Full House) and has not been out of the spotlight ever since. She has been a celebrity for more than two decades. Perhaps that's one reason she seems as if she came out of the womb worldly, the textbook old soul. "Yeah," she says with a small shrug. "I get that a lot." With all of that attention and all of the money (her and Ashley's company, Dualstar, has famously become a "billion-dollar business"), Mary-Kate could easily have ended up the type who wears pink terry cloth and carries a variety of small dogs. "Could you imagine?" she says with the politest version of a snort. "No way." She credits her exceptionally close-knit family (she has five siblings) and, interestingly, early stardom with helping her keep her perspective. "I think it helped that I started in front of the camera, so it didn't come as a shock. If I was a teenager and was thrown into the spotlight, I don't know how I would react, to be honest." Though the tabloids are all too keen to brand her a skinny, nervous deer in the headlights, in person Mary-Kate is easy in her skin, confident and surprisingly tactile, curling up in her seat and touching you on the arm to make a point. She laments the generic style of most actresses and cites only men as style inspirations: "Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp. Men, they just dress the way they want, and they don't think about Who Wore It Best." She doesn't much care for Who Wore It Best, noting she avoids those pages by "wearing vintage so often. I just dress the way I feel instead of looking for what's the new handbag." If Mary-Kate and Ashley have their way, more people will be wearing clothes and carrying bags the way they do. They have just shown the fifth collection of their ready-to-wear line, the Row, and recently launched a contemporary label, Elizabeth and James, named after a sister and a brother. The Row's holiday collection (in stores next month) is a slick mix of skinny leather pants, razor-cut blazers, butter-soft, slouchy tees, and a destined-to-be-cultish pullover fur. Lauren Hutton, who stars in the Row's Spring '08 look book, says, "The clothes are extraordinary. A man I was with just loved them. The pieces are just so genius, soft like a baby's skin. Simple minimalist stuff, but really spectacular." Mary-Kate, designer, faces an interesting challenge. She has to marry Dualstar — which has made its fortune selling tween-tastic DVDs and pastel Mary-Kate and Ashley T-shirts at Wal-Mart — with her increasingly edgy and subversive taste. Dualstar executives, some of whom have worked with her since she was a child, often nag her, mom-style, about pulling her hair back "or wearing a color," she says with a laugh. "I had this event recently, and I was like, They're going to be so happy that I'm wearing ... purple. I actually have to think about those things, though, you know, so I don't get trashed." Get trashed sometimes she does. Hutton says, "Once in a while, she'll wear something and I'll think, Oh, baby doll, take another look. But to have the bravery, to take the chance to do that, is pretty wonderful. She is making her own way, which is hardly ever done in Hollywood." Of Mary-Kate's penchant for gigantic Balenciaga heels, Jenji Kohan, the creator of Weeds, says, laughing, "I'd be like, 'It's Tuesday. Do you really want to be wearing those shoes?' But she pulls it off." Designer Giambattista Valli, a friend, says, "She likes to take risks, but because she has such strong personal style, she always manages to make it work. Even if she had nothing on, she'd have style." And MK chic is spreading. "Sometimes I'll look at people or at a magazine and I'll do a double take because I'm like, Oh, my God, that's my outfit, but that's not me," Mary-Kate says. Playing with her wire-rimmed aviators, she jokes wryly that she should have bought shares in Ray-Ban. (She and Chloë Sevigny pretty much brought back white '80s Wayfarers.) She tends to fall in love with a look, then wear it until she's done. "If I put together a good outfit, I'll wear it for three days and then switch it up with a blazer," she says. "I still love my vintage jeans, my tights, and my pants, though." She didn't start wearing heels, in fact, until a couple of years ago: "I kept watching Ashley walk around in them so gracefully, and I'm such a klutz. But I ended up loving heels, and I don't usually take them off." She wears precisely one pair of flat shoes: Chanel's knee-high patent-leather gladiator sandals. This season, it's Balenciaga's fall collection — all of it — that has Mary-Kate obsessed. She is close to designer Nicolas Ghesquière and says, "He is so talented, but he's the nicest, most down-to-earth guy, and that makes everything he does more brilliant. I bought everything, but I haven't got anything yet," she says like a girl impatiently waiting for Christmas. Will she wear the new pieces with her infamous clodhopper boots? "Uh-huh. Wore them the other day, actually." Mary-Kate always goes with her gut, even if some people (back to those tabloids) don't quite get it. "The tabloids say things about me? What do they say?" she asks archly. "People are going to write what they want, and everyone's going to have their own idea of who I am. But I'm not trying to be friends with the people who are reading them, really." After a rough couple of years filled with near-forensic scrutiny of her weight, she'll have you know that she does eat. "This is not going to sound good," she laughs, "but I like making crispy tofu sticks with peanut sauce. I love my sashimi and my salmon and my vegetables." She observes, "Stress plays a big role in how I look day-to-day. I've always been very active — Pilates, yoga. I grew up horseback riding every day for hours. I love dancing. I usually last longer than anyone on the dance floor." A common image of Mary-Kate has her emerging from a coffee joint with an oversize cup. "I always get creamed for having my Starbucks cup," she says, sighing. "But the only time people get photos of me is when I'm getting coffee, when I can't sneak away from the camera." She also resents the pictorial implication that she and Ashley are dilettantes. "They take photos of us going into our offices, and it's 'Mary-Kate and Ashley shopping again.' But I'm going to work for eight hours, and we're working so hard. ..." She trails off. "It just shows how people want to think of you." Mary-Kate is not above celeb watching herself, however. Newly obsessed with Victoria Beckham, she notes she avidly watched Beckham's Coming to America documentary: "She's running around in a bikini and heels, and I'm like, Oh, my God! I do that, too!" How positively Grey Gardens. "I run around my house naked with heels all the time. It's so funny. All my friends will tell you I love running around in kimonos and jewelry or naked with jewelry." More people will be watching Mary-Kate soon, thanks to her role in the Emmy-nominated Weeds. "I am a very good Christian girl," she says with a wink. "She has her moral beliefs — and she happens to smoke pot." Of her newest cast member, Kohan adds, "Mary-Kate is complicated. She's a big celebrity, a huge media icon, but you have to separate the media images from someone who has the same issues, the same desires, as anyone else." Of course, Mary-Kate's image, in all its incarnations — from high fashion to small screen — is her strongest asset. And she has yet to settle on one. "I feel like I've lived 10 different lives already and I'm only 21," she says, almost as a reminder to herself. "But I also feel like I'm entering a new chapter." One thing on which she is clear, though: She doesn't need to be looked at all the time. What would she do for a day if she were invisible? "I would probably go to a restaurant with my friends, who would be able to see me, of course," she adds pragmatically, "and I would sit outside and enjoy a nice lunch with them. Then I would walk down the street." The old soul takes a sip of her little-girl-sweet hot chocolate. "That's what I would do."

[nevermindirah]

Dorothy Freeman facts

By facts I of course mean headcanons, because Nile's mom doesn't get a first name in canon (or even confirmation that her last name is Freeman). All we know about her is the picture on Nile's phone lock screen (which is Kiki Layne's real-life mom and brother!) and a few lines that Nile tells Andy about her. I’ve been collecting my Dorothy headcanons for a while now to eventually make a post, and @mprosperossprite​‘s excellent post giving non-Americans context for what it means that Nile is from the South Side of Chicago prompted me to go ahead and share this. Disclaimer that I’m white and I will absolutely make corrections if it’s pointed out that I’ve caused harm with any of this.

So here have some fun facts about the version of Mama Freeman who lives in my head rent-free:

Her family and growing up:

she was born in the mid-'60s and named after Dorothy Dandridge

I can’t decide whether she was born in Chicago or moved there later on (maybe with Nile’s dad?) and when in the waves of the Great Migration her family left the South

she came of age in the "post"-Civil Rights movement and went to college in the mid-80s when a lot of what are now the foundational classics of Black feminism were being written

she was a young adult when Anita Hill risked so much to report that a Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her, and as a result she HATES Joe Biden

Marriage and babies:

she met Nile's father — I can’t decide how they met and I have two competing headcanons for his name, either Gideon for the hefty Biblical masculinity vibes (Giddy for short among family, that man loved to laugh) or Carl, which started out as a shitty Carl’s Jr burger chain joke that turns out to be perfect (it means free man!), and @knoepfchen​ used it in the sequel to if you do take a thief where Carl is alive!! — and Dorothy was a little skeptical of his near-religious devotion to the military but he was really hot and really devoted to her and they made it work

she's a little pissed that she was right but it's unbearable if she thinks about it too often

it's going to be a long, long time before she can look back on pictures of Baby Nile stomping around the house in her dad's combat boots (this is a Gina Prince Bythewood headcanon, whyyyyyyyy can I not find a link to where she said this)

she named their second baby Indus, Indy for short (this is nearly as established fanon in Book of Nile circles as how much Booker loves eating pussy, and Indy Freeman as a young adult is portrayed by either Aldis Hodge or John Boyega I don’t make the rules)

Work:

Dorothy did some office jobs but nothing really grabbed her, and she was probably gonna have to move for her husband's career, so she decided on teaching — high school humanities

she’s been active in CTU (one of the strongest teacher’s unions in the US) her whole career and one year she was on the bargaining committee and her babies know damn well never to trust a boss, not even one who says all the right things — if she ever finds out the way Nile said "like Quynh?" when Andy promised to protect her, she will lose her mind with pride

(Nile was 18 and freshly graduated from high school in 2012 when CTU went on strike for the first time in a generation and she brought her mom snacks on the picket line)

one of her very favorite things is getting her students to laugh despite themselves at her "oh my GOD you're so EMBARRASSING" old-people jokes

she's one of those teachers who can get 30+ teenagers to go dead silent with judicious application of body language

she's known to occasionally go easy on grading subjective things like essays when she knows students are having a particularly rough time at home, but the second she gets the feeling they're taking advantage and not trying their best that shit is over and they better mind their Ps & Qs

she's the kind of person who says old-people shit like that

she gives her students assignments like "help 5 neighbors register to vote" and "write a compare/contrast table about the candidates in this local election" and "research 5 different ways you could get grant money to do X" and other practical civic-minded shit

standardized testing is her supervillain origin story, just kidding it’s Rahm Emanuel, why the fuck did Obama trust that asshole

After her husband died:

she would have lost her goddamn mind if it weren't for her church friends after her husband died, people from the church raised money so they could make ends meet while his pension paperwork was taking forever, church friends watched Indy so Nile could go out for the soccer team, etc etc

she sold her and her late husband's house and moved to a 3-bedroom co-op unit when Nile started high school, it's more affordable and it meant she didn't have to worry about household repairs in the same way, she can use a wrench if she needs to but she doesn't have time and it just makes her grief flare up (co-op housing has a long history in Chicago and other US cities (like Washington DC where I live) as a way for Black people to access decent, affordable housing in the face of entrenched discrimination)

the move meant putting a longer commute between her and church, but she didn't even bother looking for a church closer to their new home, she loaded the kids into the car on the weekends, parking is hell in their new neighborhood but it's worth giving up a hard-won parking spot to not have to wait so long for the L on Sunday mornings

Indy lived with her through college and he was gearing up to get his own place when Nile died, Dorothy was planning to move into a one-bedroom in the co-op building because she doesn't need so much space anymore, Indy took a day off from his new job (not so new anymore, her baby's so grown!) to help her sort things to donate when those dress-uniform Marines came to their door

part of her wishes she could've been home more and not had to rely on Nile so much for help with Indy, but he's turned out such a kind young man, and he's a much better cook than his sister is (was, oh God — no wait, is! she’s alive! what do you mean you’ve been alive all this time??)

some of the girls from church are encouraging her to check out this social dancing thing, nobody's pressuring her to date but there's definitely been some ribbing, and with Indy out of the house... maybe? probably not, but maybe

Her feelings and beliefs and likes and dislikes:

she's an absolute badass and also she's a soft human woman with lots of feelings

she's very, very traditional in some ways, and part of her mixed feelings about Nile following in her dad's footsteps is gender stuff, she's proud of her daughter and would never stand in the way of what Nile wants to do with her life, and if Nile came home and told her she's a lesbian she would never reject her, but if Nile came home and told her she's bisexual maybe she can just try focusing on men? “I love you sweetheart and I want you to be happy I just know how hard it is already for us in this world” type shit

she has been on team natural hair basically her entire life and one of the worst fights she and Nile ever had was over Nile wanting to straighten her hair as a pre-teen

Indy takes more after her and Nile takes more after their dad, she's so proud of both of them, but Dorothy's activism was mostly wearing her natural hair to work and daring bosses to give her shit, Indy's out there marching in the streets like her parents had and she WORRIES

she teases Indy for going to so many protests like he's using it as an excuse to meet girls, but she WORRIES

when she turns 60, she gets box braids with streaks of dark purple, subtle enough that it's still work-appropriate but it makes her smile, she may be old now but damnit she’s still pretty!

she loves Grey's Anatomy and Star Trek and she watched Bridgerton all in one day

she has a dirty-old-lady celebrity crush on Chris Hemsworth

if she's ever masturbated thinking about Donna Summer, well, that's nobody's business but her own (do non-Americans know about the queen of disco??)

If you want to read fic featuring Dorothy:

I won't have to leave alone, 1000 words, Nile has a nightmare and decides to go tell her family she's immortal

I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore, 65k, Nile adjusts to immortality and does a lot of soul searching about what it means to "do what we think is right", Booker goes to grad school for trauma studies, the working title of this fic was Booker Reads Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and Goes Down on Nile and the final product has an annotated bibliography in the author's notes if you’re into that kind of thing, a lot of my Dorothy Freeman headcanons were born of my process writing this

Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat, 2279 words, college AU, Nile brings her Jewish boyfriend home for Christmas

a contribution I made to Shitty Old Guard Deaths: (Booker, USA, 2025, cause of death: a mother’s righteous wrath)

[4ragon]

I'm not the original anonymous but I would extremely want to see that essay about Apollo's trust issues.

Also since I just finished Spirit of Justice, do you think Lamiroir ever told Trucy/Apollo about her and if so what would be their reactions?

Let’s see if I can write this up without crying again like I did on twitter.

So a while ago a friend of mine asked me why I liked Apollo, and I really couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew he was my favorite, but unlike Simon Blackquill, I hadn’t done that deep dive into figuring out why. I’d always just sort of loved him, and was never able to pinpoint the part that made me care about him so much. It drove me crazy, too, I love rambling about characters that I love, and I love writing from Apollo’s perspective more than anything. So why did I love him? Why did I care about him?

Well. I figured it out. I figured out my answer.

I think there are two things that characterize Apollo more than anything. One: He has trust issues. He genuinely believes that the people around him don’t give a shit about him. Especially after being betrayed multiple times in that first trial, he truly and deeply believes that the people around him are only trying to hurt him and is too scared to really believe that they care about him.

And two: He cares so much about the people around him that he constantly helps them anyway.

So like. And I won’t tag her because I don’t think she’d appreciate it, but I was watching the laquilasse AA4 stream last night, and the entire opening of Turnabout Corner is so striking to me, especially right after the end of Turnabout Trump. At the end of Turnabout Trump, Apollo’s trust and belief in Phoenix is finally and thoroughly shattered, and Apollo lashes out, punching Phoenix in the face. And for good reason! That was a huge breach of trust! Apollo literally did the exact thing that got Phoenix disbarred, namely present evidence that wasn’t real. Sure, they never exactly claimed it was the real deal, but Apollo didn’t even know it was faked, he just trusted Phoenix and this new piece of evidence and it almost fucked him over. It did sort of fuck him over, he did lose his job and his Mentor.

And then, Phoenix calls him and says that they’re in trouble, and Apollo doesn’t even question it, of course he shows up to help.

Like. You can feel how much he mistrusts Trucy on their first meeting, in everything he does and says. Especially when Trucy and Phoenix are in the same room, he’s actively thinking about how he doesn’t ‘buy their act’ when Phoenix is calling Trucy daughter-ly nicknames. And then, in a way, he’s kind of right? They guilt him into essentially being their errand boy, and I feel like they’re constantly and loudly using him throughout so much of the game.

And Apollo was there anyway. Apollo doesn’t even trust them and he’s still there the first instant Phoenix says he needs his help.

Like you can loudly do and say whatever you want and crush his dreams and betray his trust, and despite everything, there’s always that part of Apollo that desperately needs to help anyone who asks him. He can’t even bring himself to trust them, and he’s still crawling back the moment someone needs him, ready to let them disappoint him over again.

Like this struck me about Apollo from the moment I played AA4, but he’s so lonely? And desperate for connection? He cares so much about a world that has always and consistently never cared about him, and he just keeps caring and keeps caring even as that starry-eyed naivete is ripped away. And I feel like he just wants someone to care about him back, but never really able to believe that they do, because they never really seem to, because every time he allows himself to trust it’s just thrown back in his face so horribly.

Here’s an interesting thing I noticed: in Turnabout Trump, there’s a really interesting line. Phoenix has accused Kristoph of being the murderer, the extra person in the room. Kristoph takes the stand and claims to have witnessed the moment Phoenix committed the murder. And this exchange happens:

Apollo: There must have been someone else there at the moment of the crime!

Kristoph: Justice... I just said I saw no one. Not a soul.

Apollo: B-But, that goes against what Mr. Wright said!

Kristoph: Ah yes, this mysterious "fourth person"... ...who would conveniently be the "real killer", I suppose.

And this is well past the point where Phoenix has accused Kristoph of being that person. There’s no possibility at this point that they’re both innocent, it’s either one or the other. And Apollo is still so desperately trying to find a way for them both to be innocent, basically saying, “Just give me a fourth person and I’ll believe you.” And then Kristoph turned out to be a monster, and then Phoenix turned out to have betrayed Apollo from the start, and as far as Apollo is ever aware, none of the care from either of these men was ever real. He trusted, and he suffered the consequences.

But again. He’s still there. Someone pointed out a while ago, but Apollo stays. Apollo shows up to the Wright Talent Agency under false pretenses, and he complains and hems and haws, and he still stays. Why?

Phoenix and Trucy loudly manipulate him into working their case. They’re perfectly happy to flaunt that they’re basically tricking him. And he stays. Why?

Because Apollo can’t trust them, but he wants to so fucking bad. He doesn’t even seem to like Phoenix that much, but he wants that connection so fucking bad. He cares about them so much and he doesn’t believe for a second that they extend that feeling back at him, and he’s compelled to stay anyway.

He knows Trucy is practically using him, and he’s a sobbing mess when he thinks she was kidnapped for a few minutes. He’s cynical and mean and it’s all just to cover up the fact that he loves all these people around him with all his heart and they never once pay it back. And he comes back anyway. He’s like a fucking loyal dog that is never given enough affection and so he’s constantly trying harder and harder to earn that love while never believing he’ll ever really get it.

(Shit nope crying again)

It’s just so sad. And this is all without adding anything from the 3D games. The 3D games do build on this theme in one way or another, but from the get go, this is who Apollo is. A caring young man who is constantly punished for caring and yet can’t stop caring anyway.

We see it again in the 3D games. And I think part of why I don’t enjoy DD as much as SoJ is that DD doesn’t capture this mistrust the same way. It’s so surface level, that sense of betrayal and mistrust and anger he gets consumed by in that final case. And the worst part is it doesn’t have to be! There’s already that foundation! Apollo has been hurt already a million times. The only person he’s ever been able to trust, the only lifeline that’s kept him above water since he was a child, was Clay Terran, and now that was taken from him because he DARED to trust someone new. That’s so fucking compelling! But we never get that! We never get to see how Apollo is feeling. We get that he’s convinced Athena did the murder, but never really get into the Why, into the What This Means for Apollo.

It’s a bit better in SoJ. We see how far he’s come in terms of trusting people when he trusts in Trucy wholly and immediately in case two. And then, conversely, we see his mistrust and hurt when they introduce Dhurke into the mix. Apollo refuses point blank to believe that Dhurke had come to visit him, that Dhurke cared about him. Apollo demands to know why Dhurke was there, what Dhurke wanted, how Dhurke was going to use him. He’s been able to slowly start building that trust with people like Trucy, but he still cannot let himself trust again when Dhurke had already betrayed that trust.

I said it before, but as much as I hate the slapdash ways in which Capcom keeps throwing backstory at this boy, I love what the backstories are, because they build on this angry, cynical, lonely young man I care about so much. He’s been hurt and abandoned and used and betrayed since he was young, and being good never truly paid off for so long, but he kept doing it, he kept being good, he kept caring about people because he couldn’t help it, and kept hoping that maybe they could care back. And eventually I think it does start paying off for him. People do start caring about him. And I feel like it takes until around SoJ for him to start really believing that the people around him might care about him too.

Also congrats on finishing SoJ! Since there’s a very good chance that they might be announcing AA7 soon, I...hope? fear? expect? that they’ll touch on this then. However, I also worry that they’re going to botch it up so hard.

I know what I want to happen. I want Trucy to be angry. I want her to be angry at Lamiroir and Phoenix. She is constantly putting on a mask to try to make the people she loves happy, and I feel like this is a reasonable breaking point. After all, this is kind of the one thing that Phoenix hasn’t been honest with her about. She had a brother right there, and knew the whole time?! She had a mother there the whole time?! And no one bothered to tell her?! I think she’d be heartbroken, and I think she deserves to be angry. She’s been through so much, and they never give her time to really grieve or be upset.

I think Apollo would be ecstatic and angry at the same time. All he’s ever wanted was family, and now he does! He already loved Trucy, and thought Lamiroir was amazing, so I think he would be so happy to have that family back in his life. On the flip side, I do think he’d be angry at Phoenix, particularly for keeping it to himself before Lamiroir came into the picture, but I think if they talked it out, Apollo would come around to it and be able to forgive Phoenix.

[beautifulletdownfics]

Terrible to Meet You - A Harry Styles One Shot - Act 4, And love blooms in hearts not fields

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Harry wants to get out of the house. Alex wants to get home.

Alex meets Harry at at crossroads. Harry meets Alex on a one way street.

A coffee shop OU fic feat. lattes, lamingtons & that Great Unfathomable Feeling.

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Story Page Here Terrible to Meet You Playlists My Masterlist Here

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7 Minutes 'It doesn't seem like long, but my whole world has changed'

Harry's insides were shaking.

He could feel it vibrating up and down his spine, circling his ribcage and then settling uncomfortably at the back of his throat. The nerves and anxiety sped around his body the closer to the Heathrow they got.

Tears threatened to pierce his eyes each time he looked over at Alex beside him. She was staring out the window saying silent goodbyes to London as they drove. 

Harry really didn't understand how this moment came so quickly. He knew that Alex's feelings were as mixed as his. Harry wanted her to go home, she'd been trying all year. Heartsick and homesick, she'd pushed through living on the other side of the world to her family as the world suffered through something horrifying.

After getting the email, her last week in London was bittersweet. It was spent packing up her room and saying goodbyes for the second, third times. Harry helped her organise herself, and then put himself in isolation with Alex for her final 48 hours. She needed to present a negative COVID test to Australian officials before she could fly. Getting tested and locking themselves away together for two days was a special kind of magic, really. They didn't have to share each other.

After Harry, Alex was saddest to say goodbye to The Daily Dose. 

She was going to miss Paul. Despite his eccentricities, he somehow managed to always keep the tone light and playful with her, and generally, the days passed quickly. Alex left Sydney for London after a gruelling university course left her feeling unmoored and unsure of herself, her time working for Paul had been an enormous time of discovery and healing for her. 

He'd been a source of comfort and support for her, especially in the last year, and he was the shoulder she'd cried on far too often. Alex loved making coffee despite how most people saw the job. There was a satisfaction in the process, even in the daily grind—the cleaning, the busyness, the dead patches—and Alex liked leaving the cafe in the afternoon with the smell of coffee seeping out of her but a clean shop locked up ready for the next day. 

She was going to miss that. But at the same time, Alex felt ready to go on and do more with her time now. The university degree hanging in her parent's study didn't feel like a straight-jacket anymore, and she was looking forward to finding work in her field. 

 London had been home for four years, though. She had many great memories here, not the least of which it was the city she flew the coup and found herself in. And the magic she thought was lost seemed to have redeemed itself in the final months of her being there.

She found herself, and then, she'd found Harry.

&&&

Saying goodbye to Harry was the hardest thing Alex had ever done. 

They'd both cried the night before, but when it was time to part at the airport Harry was steadfast in his encouragement of her leaving. (Despite himself) He'd never once said he (seriously) didn't want her to leave, or that she shouldn't. He'd never implied it would spell doom for their relationship. Harry was 100% sure that Alex going back home to Australia was just the next line in their story, and certainly not the last one. 

"You get home safely, okay?" Harry told her sternly, holding her face between his hands at the drop-off line. Both their masks were down around their chins, and Harry hated the tears he couldn't stop Alex from shedding, "This is a good thing, Al, you need to be home right now."

"I know," she nodded bravely, frowning as her chin wobbled, "But I don't want to leave—

"Shh, no," Harry shook his head and leaned closer, "You're not leaving me, you're going home.”

"When am I going to see you again though," she cried out, finally giving in to the (slightly) hysterical emotions that were bubbling just below the surface. 

Harry's heart rattled watching the wave of doubt hit her. He pressed his lips into her hairline and held her for another long moment.

"You'll see me in Dubai on your stopover," he'd said, rocking her against his chest, his words hurried against the material of her shirt, “You'll land, use the bathrooms, and then FaceTime me. That's when you'll see me next. And then, you'll see me when you get to Sydney and call me again. Okay?

"Okay," Alex parroted quietly.

"Okay … You really have to go now," Harry looked behind her to where the doors to the terminal were.

She nodded and reached up onto her tippy toes, letting Harry press his warm lips against hers once last time. Alex squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold in tears but also the feel of him. His smell, where his body began and ended, how it measured up next to hers. 

Their hearts reached out, trying to feel the other pressing through their chests from the other side. You're mine, you're mine, they said to each other.

"I love you," Harry told her, not for the first time.

Seeing the red wetness around Harry's eyes, Alex threaded her hands through his hair, "I love you, too."

He pressed a quick kiss to her lips again, "Go."

Harry's belief that they were going to be okay was unwavering. 

If 2020 taught him anything, the whole world could change in a matter of weeks, so why not the entire outlook of his life as well? Why couldn't his meeting Alex change the course of both their lives moving forward? Something about meeting her felt like a one-time event, like something worth risking everything for. And he would, Harry told her numerous times that last week.

And as she walked away from him and into Heathrow, and Alex believed him.

&&&

Alex cried as her flight landed at Sydney International Airport. 

She'd watched the harbour out her window as the plane circled the city, that perfect Sydney turquoise blue gleaming back up at her and it made her chest ache with relief. 

Home.

Sydney airport was a stark change from the Heathrow she left behind. Their flight was met by police, abundance and army officers. It wasn't frightening though, Alex found herself swallowing back tears this time because she was so soothed by the fact she was back in Australia. Everyone was friendly and helpful, getting the flight of returning citizens through the airport and onto buses to the quarantine hotels. Alex's drove straight into the city centre and as soon as they started going by familiar places and landmarks she wasn't the only one teary in their seat. 

"Well, here it is," Alex said to the phone screen not long after, tilting it around to show off the hotel room around her, "Home for the next fourteen days."

"Snazzy," Harry whistled as she pulled back the sheer curtains to reveal a staggering blue sky and then bright green treetops. He was sitting at his kitchen table with a cup of tea and a drizzly London morning just beginning, "And a view! Is that a balcony? Or a window?"

"A balcony but it's locked. I did get to smell the salty, beautiful harbour in the two-second walk from the bus into the hotel though." Alex settled on the bed in the middle of the room, the bedding crisp and clean underneath her, "I am literally inside this room for two weeks. No outside time. But I can see people outside walking around and having picnics in Hyde Park without masks on, so it'll be worth it."

"That seems unreal."

"It's like another world here," Alex agreed, yawning and finally feeling her body start to relax. "Anyway, how was your day yesterday? Wait, no, today?"

Harry laughed, "You've lost two days, I think. But it was good. I went and saw Paul, we had a cry together."

"Don't," she warned him, feeling the combination of over-tiredness and emotion simmering in her throat, "I've just travelled thirty-six hours, and I fucking miss you already, I'm not beyond completely losing it right now."

He smiled gently, "Have a shower and get into bed. I'm so glad you're there. Does it feel good to be home?"

"So good," Alex admitted, almost feeling like it was a dirty thing to be admitting to Harry, "Jess is going to come and wave at me from the park tomorrow with Noah. My mum's already sent a bunch of food to my room."

"You're exactly where you need to be," Harry told her. 

Alex couldn't hold back her tears any longer, the guilt she felt—the pain of leaving Harry—wasn't any match to finally being where she'd wanted to be all year, "Yeah, I am."

&&&

Figure 8 'Lovers hold on to everything'

Four days into her quarantine, Alex started training herself to do headstands.

"It's harder than it looks! But I'm getting there now," She laughed, propping her phone up against the leg of the bed and crawling to the wall opposite. She was now on Day 11, and Harry had been getting an update daily.

"Please don't injure yourself," Harry moaned, getting a great view of her bum as she crouched down facing the wall and then rose up, kicking her legs up with her palms flat on the floor.

"See?" The blood all rushed to her head, and Alex's hair fell down over her face at the same time her t-shirt moved, revelling her belly and bra to Harry. 

"Much better than yesterday," he told her, "Maybe tomorrow we could lose the bra?"

Alex laughed, her arms shaking as she came crashing to the ground. She was still working on the landing. 

Just as she was about to reply, she heard a knock on the door, "Oh!" 

"Dinner?" Harry guessed, watching her leap to her feet and disappear from view. A moment later, her legs walked across the screen, and Harry rolled over in bed to try to rid his phone screen of the glare coming from his windows open to the new London morning. "Oi!"

"Calm your farm," Alex tutted, retrieving her phone and grinning at Harry, "You'll never guess what I've got today."

"Hmm," Harry hummed in mock thought, "Let me guess, chicken and rice. A cookie and a ridiculous allotment of fruit?"

"Two bananas, an apple and four apricots."

"S'practically a fruit basket!"

"Tomorrow I get a glass of wine," Alex was already chewing, "Friday night drinks!"

"Friday date night?" Harry suggested, his fingers twitching with the want to be feeling her body between his sheets again, "You're fun when you're a little tipsy."

"Excuse me, I'm always fun!"

Harry laughed, "I can't believe you're so upbeat still. I'd been expecting a dip at some point. I would think a lot of people don't do so well in isolation for two weeks."

"I've got Australian daytime TV and a boyfriend who sends fun gifts,” she eyed the collection of books and puzzles Harry had organised, “I am looking forward to Sunday though."

Harry couldn't imagine how much Alex was looking forward to getting to see her family and friends when her time in quarantine ended, "Did you get tested today?"

"Yes," Alex screwed up her face, the memory of the swab up her nose still fresh, "Fucking hurt."

"Last one," he encouraged. "What's the first thing you're going to do with your brother when he picks you up?"

She halted before putting the next mouthful of warm, lacklustre dinner in her mouth, "It's supposed to be sunny and warm on Sunday, but I don't get released until the evening. So I think we'll just go to mum and dads for tea. Jess and Matt are going to be there."

"A large gathering in the home!" Harry looked scandalised, but he was smiling. 

"I know, it's all very 2019," Alex joked. 

Harry let out a long sigh from his chest, "I'm so happy you're there, but I miss you."

"You too," she said quietly.

"Hey," Harry called out, not having meant to dampen the mood, "Three sleeps until you get to meet Noah."

The mention of her nephew made Alex smile, "I'm gonna squeeze him so hard."

"Will you FaceTime me there?"

"O'course," her mouth was full, but she nodded emphatically. "My mum asked if we were going to have live music at all family events now."

Harry's laugh exploded out of him, he liked Alex's family very much already, "Happy to oblige."

"Because of you she's also back on Nathan about giving up the trombone in Year 8." Alex told him, "He was previously the musical hope for the family, but he stopped when the girl he liked at fourteen said she would only date a rugby player … Consequently, that girl is also responsible for how Nathan broke his nose."

Harry could sympathise with Alex's older brother, "We do crazy things for love."

&&&

"Could you say that again?"

"Were you not listening?"

"No I was, I just like hearing it in your accent."

"Harry," Alex complained, "I'm already shit at this."

"You're not!" He insisted, trying desperately to keep the grin at bay. 

Alex frowned at him and pulled the hotel duvet up to her chin, crossing her legs and slipping her free arm across her chest. Harry's heart was racing, hearing her talk about how his words were making her feel was incredible. Almost as good as physically having her. Almost.

"Al," Harry stilled at the defeated look on her face. His smile disappeared, "Sorry, I wasn't teasing."

"I'm no good a phone sex, it feels weird."

"I know it does at first," he tentatively reassured her, hoping not to draw attention to the fact that over the years Harry had become sort of good at phone sex. By virtue of necessity, such was his regular travel schedule. "I promise it can be great, and we can only get better at it. You're not no good. On the contrary, I'm enjoying myself very much."

She was finding it difficult. And even more so, trying to learn Harry and what he liked—how his body responded—without actually having his body physically there felt impossible. Phone sex was awkward and difficult, and Alex was more self-conscious then she'd ever been, trying to navigate intimacy with Harry through a phone screen. There was a divide there. He was right though, the undercurrent to what he said was that they'd have to get better, there was no other choice. It was all they had.

"Show me what you were doing," Harry beckoned gently, sensing Alex relaxing back into the moment. "And just imagine I'm there, don't apologise for angles or lighting. I don't care."

It was her last day in the hotel, and Alex had woken up with an ache between her thighs. Harry Facetimed her the instant he got the photo of her lying in the sheets, her torso exposed and wishing for his touch. He'd been sitting at home on his Saturday night, watching the first five minutes of half a dozen things on Netflix yet not finding his mind was able to focus on any. 

Alex he could focus on though. 

Her five seconds of bravery felt far away now, but Alex slowly pushed down the bedding again, "I was thinking about you going down on me."

Harry smiled, "Go on."

&&&

Nineteen 'I felt you in my life before I ever thought to'

Three months passed. 

The dreaded milestone ticked over which meant Harry and Alex had been separated the same amount of time they'd spent together in London.

It hadn't ever felt like this for Harry before.

He'd never known what this kind of missing someone was. Previously, he'd missed people, but not with a yearning or a longing that made his chest ache. Not with the kind of force that had him lying in bed at night unable to switch off the channel tuned to Alex.

What time was it in Sydney? Had he already sent her that link? Did she say she was spending the day with her dad? What could he say to get her back in that bikini from the day before? 

Missing Alex felt like having an itch inside his mind he couldn't scratch.

But in a sense, how much he wanted to be with her only made his consequent decisions easier. 

"You're hopeless!" His manager laughed him from LA, the whole team on the weekly check-in Zoom call. Generally there wasn't a lot to report between them, projects were on hold or cancelled. Harry had decided not to go back to the States to work on a few smaller things—a fashion shoot, a TV guest appearance and a small role in a film—giving his legal team some work in getting him out of contracts, but that was mostly sorted now. 

If he was going anywhere, it sure as hell wasn't across the Atlantic. 

"Not hopeless," Harry replied diplomatically, "It's something else … But it's not hopeless. It almost feels like having the answer and being the little kid jumping up and down on the spot, dying for the teacher to hurry up and ask the question."

A series of blank looks came back at him. Harry sighed. He'd never been bad at explaining his personal life before. It was always so rational, the relationships made sense or happened in a usual way. He just couldn’t shake the notion that all along, people had been right. 

When you know you know. 

He'd found Alex. 

That was as simple as it was to him. But it didn't settle everyone else the way it settled Harry. 

Alex. 

Did the name not tick a checkbox in their heads too? 

"So, you're going to Australia?"

"I just want to know what it could look like," Harry amended the assumption, but yes, he was going to end up wherever Alex did, and if that was Australia then that was that. 

"Who's in Australia?" 

The question wasn't to Harry, it wasn't about who he was going to Australia for., they all knew who Alex was. The question was about the industry—about Harry's career. It was who was in Australia for him to work with? Frankly, he didn’t see why the same people he worked with now couldn’t also be the people he continued working with either remotely, or with short trips abroad when travel allowed. 

"Obviously, it's not like everything can be done there," Harry offered diplomatically, "But at least for the foreseeable future, with the world how it is … Music as the primary focus, I want to write the next album there. Spend some time seeing the country too, I've always wanted to."

He got a collection of nods, and a few spoken agreements, assurances that it could work.

"This isn't a temporary thing," he said of Alex, looking at the faces who helped him run his life, "We're going to be navigating this for the rest of my career. So everyone's going to need to add Sydney time to their Clock app."

&&&

When he met Alex, Harry knew. 

When he landed in Sydney, Harry knew again. 

It was the right choice, it was the right place for him to be. All he wanted was to be moving in her direction; in the same direction as her. 

It was warm despite the late hour, the air was fragrant with it, in stark contrast to the London he left behind. 

He tried to think back to the last time he’d been in Australia, to what it felt like back then. 

If only he’d know then …

Harry opted not to apply for any special considerations or circumstances. He didn't want anything to jeopardise him being able to enter what was likely the world's most difficult country to get into now—especially seeing as Harry wasn't a resident, much less a citizen. Harry didn't want to hit the news. And despite evidence of people he knew in the industry being able to dictate where they quarantined on arrival, Harry requested nothing. He just wanted to fly in, go to whatever hotel they told him to, do his two weeks quarantine and then be with her. 

"Have you landed?" Alex's voice was urgent and tinged with excitement. 

Harry laughed, "Yes, how do you think I'm calling."

She squeaked, "You're here!"

"I'm here," he smiled under his mask, following the flow of fellow travellers walking through the empty airport, "Who ever heard of an International Airport having a curfew though? The pilot made the joke that if we were projected to land even a minute after 11pm, he'd have to turn around and go back to London. Which was like, a joke, but also not funny?"

Alex chortled, "You'll have to get used to the sense of humour here."

"Hang on," Harry saw a checkpoint of sorts ahead of him, "I have to go. I'll call you back."

"Call me from the hotel," she said, "I love you."

"I love you, too."

&&&

"Go to the window."

“Hi. What?" Harry could barely move his head off the pillow as his eyes struggled to open.

"Go to your window," Alex repeated, "Were you asleep?"

He sat up, heart thrumming quickly at the possibility of what he was going to see. A second before his mind had only barely been able to scramble together the cognitive function to swipe to answer the call. 

When he got to the window, Harry pulled back the curtains—he'd ended up at the same hotel Alex had been in too—his room looked out over Sydney's Hyde Park, the fountain and cathedral framing his window. Although his top floor room with a (locked) balcony was a little bigger than hers had been he still felt as if he was living in their FaceTime calls. He was sure he'd become more acquainted with the trees and greenery out his window as the days passed. 

"What am I looking for?" He asked, but Harry knew.

"I'm down here, can you see me? Blue jeans shorts … Yellow top? I've got a sign!"

Harry's eyes scanned the footpath opposite the hotel, there was a main road between him and the park. He'd been in the room less than 12 hours though, so he wasn't familiar with the foot traffic. 

"I can't… Wait, I see you," his mouth opened in a huge smile, "Hi!"

Harry waved and pressed his hand to the window as his heart waved down at Alex's. He felt like his insides were being swapped around inside him as he took his first look at her in the flesh in nearly thirteen weeks. She had sunglasses sitting up on top of her head and a The New Yorker tote bag over her shoulder. He bit his lip at all the exposed skin he was looking at, feeling it a cruel injustice in the fact he would be touching his girlfriend for a fortnight.

Alex was squinting up at the hotel, one hand to her forehead, blocking the sun while the other held her phone to her ear, "How high up at you?"

"Next to the yellow and red flag," he said, looking for a distinguishing feature. He'd fallen asleep to the sound of the rope flapping against the building.

Alex's voice took a teasing tone, "Oh, who's that sexy man with his shirt off in the hotel window?" 

"I can't read your sign."

"I only had a Biro," she lamented, shoving the makeshift sign under her arm, "It just says Hi."

"Hi," Harry leant his forehead into the window, "You look beautiful."

"So do you."

"You going to stand out there for the next two weeks?"

"Would you like me to?"

"Yes, please."

Harry watched her take a step back and lean against the wall to the park behind her, "I'd better get comfy then."

&&&

There was a couple in the room next door to Harry.

"I'm telling you, it's relentless," he implored Alex with his eyes, pausing for a second to listen to the sound of their bed hitting the wall, "They're at it constantly."

"Embrace it, some people are into that," Alex giggled from her parent's kitchen. She was making dinner for the whole family, with her AirPods in and Harry chatting to her as she chopped vegetables. "Let it get you in the mood, Harry. Is that voyeurism, or exhibitionism? I can never—"

"—Okay," He rolled his eyes, "Thank you, Comedian."

"You're just jealous you're not getting any."

"I really am," Harry said seriously, "If I have to wait, so should they."

Alex's laugh filled his ears, "It's alright, less than a week to go now."

"I cannot wait to be holding you," he said, longing in his voice. 

Harry had mixed feelings leaving London. He didn't know when he'd be back, but at the very least he was going to miss his first Christmas with his family. With England in lockdown, it was unlikely that even if he had stayed, he would be able to spend it with them anyway, but Harry would miss them. He already missed them. 

It wasn't like he missed Alex, though. And in all the conversations he'd had with his mum, or his sister, or anyone else, they'd all told him to go for her. They saw it in his eyes and heard it in his voice when he spoke about her. Or maybe their hearts knew as well, as though Harry meeting Alex had been locked away in them all and now the light to that room was switched on. 

So there he was, in Australia. To be with his love.

&&&

Ten Days 'Time has changed nothing at all, you're still the only one that feels like home'

Harry asked the nurse who took his last COVID swab to help him.

He hadn't requested anything up until that point, but he knew, even behind her protective gear, she was a friendly face. And he also knew that there were rumblings online that he was in Sydney. (All those spare and jet lag hours, he'd tried to stay off the internet, he really had) 

The good news was it was just rumblings, because why on earth would Harry Styles be in Sydney.

All it would take was one photo to confirm it though, which in a sense, was fine, he didn't care.

But Harry didn't want that photo to be of any of his first moments back with Alex.

Let someone snap a picture in a couple of weeks, on a random beach or coming out of a cafe somewhere. Just not his first day. Not when he hadn't seen her since the beginning of September almost three months ago.

He asked if the nurse could help him arrange Alex for access to the hotel car park because the discharge information pack he'd received directed him to organise pick up on the street. 

The next two days went slowly, those final 48 hours, waiting for a negative result and trying like anything to bat away fears that it wouldn't be the same. That somehow Harry and Alex would've lost the something that lit the spark in London. 

He hated that feeling—the doubt—and when he confessed it to his sister, she batted it away as nerves. She said life was always full of uncertainty and risks, the idea was to choose the ones you thought were worth taking. 

&&&

Alex stared at her legs as she sat, waiting for Harry in her dad's car.

It hadn't taken long to get the colour back to them, although mostly she was fixated on how she should have dressed a little nicer for the first time seeing Harry in months. She didn't even have proper shoes on, just the thongs that she'd kicked off the night before after coming back from the park with the dogs. 

Harry hadn't seen this side of her. This casual, probably more Australian sounding Alex. The one with bare feet and sunglasses holding her hair back. He'd met her family over video calls, but what would Harry think when he was in a room full of them? They were loud and could have distasteful senses of humour. There were family jokes that Alex had never thought twice about before but now worried Harry wouldn't appreciate. 

She'd slipped back into the comforting hum of life in Sydney so easily. Her friends, her family, her city. When she left Sydney hadn't felt like home, but as soon as she stepped back into it something in Alex let out a sigh of return. It was strange, leaving London just at the end of the summer months and falling straight into the beginning of a new summer here. 

In front of her, Alex sensed movement. The door she'd been instructed to park in front of opened, and a very tall man in an army uniform stepped into the underground car park, propping open the door with his foot. He pointed to Alex in the front seat and said something to Harry, who was the next person to appear, followed by a nurse in full PPE.

Alex felt an explosion in her chest, an electric shock or a bolt of lightning. Two hearts jumping up and down in excitement. 

She cracked the car door open and heard Harry thanking the two people escorting him, his hands moved as though they were itching to add a handshake to the gesture.

As soon as Alex was in his eyesight though Harry didn't think about anyone else. 

She emerged and hovered by the front of the car, waiting for Harry to approach her, as if unsure what she was allowed to do. The sight of her in an oversized hoodie and small athletic shorts warmed him instantly. She looked perfect, with a tan that evaded her in London and a brightness behind her eyes Harry was addicted to already. He liked the thought that he was an errand, that picking up her boyfriend was on a list of things for her to do that day. The word 'normal' flashed in Harry's mind, and any worry he'd had about her or him or them together being different from how he remembered it disappeared.

"Hi," he smiled wide as he tugged down the mask covering his face and stepped right into her personal space, his bag and suitcase abandoned behind him. 

Speechless, Alex breathed Harry in deeply through tears as she was tightly wrapped up in his arms. She couldn't bring any words to the surface, and so they just stood in silence, holding each other. 

After a moment Harry turned his face into her neck and pressed a slow, warm kiss below her ear, "Hello, hello, hello," he said between kisses. 

It only made Alex's crying increase, and she squeezed him tighter while leveraging herself higher up his body, not yet willing or able to step away. 

"Alex," Harry said her name gently, "Let me see you, please."

She leant back but covered her cheeks with her sleeves, peering over at Harry through blurry eyes, "Wait a sec."

He smiled and pulled her hands away by her wrists, "Give me a kiss."

&&&

"You're such a tourist," Alex laughed as she drove, watching Harry lean forward in the passenger seat and try to take a photo through the windscreen of the Sydney Harbour Bridge above them. 

"You know bridges are my passion," he said dryly. 

She smiled as he sat back and slipped his hand back into hers. 

"I quite like you driving," Harry said, eyeing her in the drivers' seat, "Look at you knowing your way around."

Alex grinned under her sunglasses, "We're in my city now, baby."

&&&

Harry's mouth hovered hotly over the skin below Alex's breasts. 

"Harry," she ran her fingers through his hair, hating the anticipation. 

His lips upturned at the impatience behind her saying his name. He pressed a kiss to the skin there, then another half an inch further down her tummy, "M'not in a hurry."

"I am," Alex urged.

"Oh?" Harry stopped and looked up at her, his elbows on either side of her hips as he held himself over her, "You are?"

"Yes."

"Going somewhere after this?"

She whined, whined, "No, Harry."

Alex hadn't taken him home to her family. Not yet. 

She drove an hour out of the city to a beach suburb with what Alex had deemed the nicest Airbnb. It was private, and without Sydney's usual cohort of international tourists, the area was deserted except for locals. They could hear the ocean from the bedroom and see if from the kitchen. She'd booked them two nights; two nights to reconnect and just live in the presence of each other without her family stepping in and inevitably stealing Harry's heart.

(Except, of course, it was Alex's heart who has his, all this time)

"Look at you, fuck," Harry said, tilting back up to take her lips in his, pressing his torso, his thighs, his stomach, his hardened crotch into her. "Fucking gorgeous."

"We can do slow later," she all but begged, her fingers digging into his exposed back, "Please. Just … Just please, Harry."

Alex felt his hand brush over her thigh, deliciously trailing over the sensitive skin just below her hip bone and down between them. His eyes dipped down between them only briefly before Alex was feeling the tip of him pressing into her exactly where she needed it. 

"Yes," her body relaxed into the feeling, remembering the London nights, the mornings and that first time in his living room. 

"Alex," Harry said her name like he could hardly believe it, and at the same time as wanting to savour the moment he was thinking of their first, hurried time as well. His hips snapped forward, remembering that time the rush came from wanting to taste, to experience something new and to have Alex's body for his own the first time. 

The urgency behind Harry's movements this time were for want of something had and sorely missed, something already claimed but given up for a time.

Alex's head was stretched back onto the pillow underneath him while she felt her body shift and squeeze around him. She wrapped her arms around his chest to feel him closer, wanting to hold onto him as he pumped in and out, sighing against her neck, trying to regulate himself.

"God, Al."

"Harry."

&&&

Four nights later, tucked into the spare room at her parent's house, Harry rolled over and took her hand. 

"I think we should get a place here."

"A what?"

"A flat, a house, we should rent something in Sydney." 

"Sydney?" Alex's tone elevated, almost touching the spinning ceiling fan above them.

"Yes, Sydney," Harry repeated, "You mentioned a job you liked the look of a few weeks ago, did you apply for it? "

"But what about London? That's where you live, God, what about your work, Harry."

"I want to be here, I'm not in any hurry to go back to what normal was. Normal didn't have you," Harry said, throwing out the script he'd built in his head the last month. His heart was doing the talking, extempore, "I've watched you this week, Alex, it's like you're a whole different person here. You're so happy and settled and joyful, which, by the way, I already thought you were but here … Do you really want to go again? Could you leave your family again?"

Alex felt her chest going into overdrive like everything was whirring around too quickly. She felt had to be honest, though, despite the way it made the fear climb further up her throat, "No. I don't want to leave."

Harry brought her knuckles up to kiss, "I don't want you to leave, either. So, what if we stayed? For as long as it's where you need to be?"

"But your family—

"—Doing this means one of us is always going to be away from someone," Harry told her, "I can handle missing my family, Al, I can't handle missing you. You're it."

"It just seems like too much to ask you to do, Harry."

"You're not asking," he insisted. "I can figure out how to work from here. London was my home base, I spent a lot of the year away anyway. And it's not that much further to LA for stuff, I … I'm saying I can make it work here, Alex. I want to make it work with you."

Alex's heart did a cartwheel, "You want to stay in Sydney?"

Harry's somersaulted, "I want to stay with you, yes."

The End.  &&&

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Thanks for reading, everyone! x Kate

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