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elsanna-shenanigans · 4 years ago

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December Contest Submission #12: Candles and Blankets

words: ca. 4,500 setting: mAU, candle shop AU lemon: not really cw: (SPOILER) fire, depression

Have you ever fallen in love with the gorgeous fiber artist across the street but she’s a really kind person and you aren’t sure if she’s into you or just being courteous, so you invite her to a romantic candlelit dinner for your own birthday in the back of your own candle shop?

Hey there.

My name is Anna, and …my life? Is pretty crazy.

I guess you could say the stars aligned for Elsa and I to meet.

It was a Tuesday.

New moon, new beginnings.

The sky was brightening with the dawn as I twisted my key around in the tricky lock. I really needed to call a locksmith soon, but I wasn’t sure if my business insurance covered new locks. Fires and floods, come at me; but an inconvenient lock… I probably wasn’t so lucky.

After a minute I finally heard the heavy click as my ears also noticed the sound of a car pulling up behind me. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, but instead of turning right around, I cautiously used the glass store windows to take a peek.

My shoulders relaxed. A blonde woman my age was behind the wheel.

I pretended to struggle even more with my key until I heard her get out of her vehicle. Then, I spun around with a smile on my face too bright for the hour.

“Good morning!” I greeted her. As she stepped into view to pay the meter, I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows. You would’ve done the same if the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen just parked in front of your candle shop at 6:30 AM in the middle of October.

“Hi,” she smiled gently. I’d never seen eyes such an icy blue give off so much warmth on a chilly fall morning. She glanced up at my sign, ‘Anna’s Awesome Aromas,’ and her smile brightened. “Oh! Do you sell candles here?”

A little confused how she parked right in front of a shop she didn’t know sold candles, but not one to judge, I answered, “Yes! I make them and sell them. In fact, I’m Anna herself.” I offered my hand out to shake.

She leaned forward to shake with a cold hand and then gestured across the street at the vacant shop building. “I’m here to look at the building for lease. Nice to meet you! My name is Elsa.”

“Elsa! Wow!” This woman was flawless right down to the name. “Wait, you’re looking into Kristoff’s old place? Sweet, what’s your business?”

“Oh,” she nervously reached a hand behind her neck. “I just make blankets.”

“Just? That’s amazing! Do you knit?” I wasn’t about to let this stranger downplay her talents.

“I, um, knit, crochet, quilt, design fleece patterns, and mess with a few other styles every once in a while.”

“Wow, so you can do everything! That is so cool, Elsa. Seriously.”

Her cheeks were turning magenta. “I still have a lot to learn. I’d love to see your candle shop!” She said, deflecting the attention from herself. “Maybe after the realtor and I do our walkthrough I could take a look inside?”

“Absolutely!” I nodded. “In fact, if you’re done around lunch time, come on in and I’ll share my lasagna with you in the back. I brought enough for a small army.”

The way she smiled at me, crinkling her eyes, before she turned and walked across the street had my insides feeling… cozy. Comfortable.

Safe.

——————————

That Christmas was the best I’d had in a long time. Elsa had set up her blanket shop in early November, and we became fast friends. I never ate another lunch alone - we alternated between her office and mine, always able to keep an eye on whichever shop was unattended across the street.

December was a busy sales month for us both, with lots of customers needing candles and blankets to warm themselves and their loved ones in the cold holiday season. For that reason, I cherished our lunches as the only time we had to get to know each other as new friends. We both worked long days keeping our shops running smoothly and churning out new products in our evenings, often late into the night.

Neither of us had any employees, even a business partner, let alone a life partner; so sharing lunch with a like-minded and equally hardworking woman was honestly life changing.

The week leading up to Christmas was so busy with last-minute-gift shoppers, we called off our lunches to keep our shops open every precious minute. In a stroke of luck, Christmas fell on a Sunday, so we both closed up shop for the whole weekend, giving ourselves a true holiday.

Naturally, we spent it together. After convincing her she wouldn’t be intruding, Elsa came over to my apartment on Christmas Eve and we relaxed all day with no talk of businesses. She spent the night on my couch and our Christmas Day was filled with lazy cooking and laughter.

She gifted me a beautiful tree skirt that she knit especially for me with stripes featuring all my favorite blankets she’d made. For Elsa, I made a candle with ten different layers, because she was always saying her favorite scent was my whole shop, with all my aromas melding together.

“I can’t believe we gave each other the same thing!” She had laughed.

“It’s perfect,” I was grinning wider than I had in years. “We’re perfect,” I wanted to add.

—————————————

It’s amazing how something as simple as having a friend can make time fly by. As winter melted into spring, both Elsa and I were entering our “off season,” as people no longer craved the warmth our products provided. Even so, the days didn’t drag on.

I still lunched with Elsa every day and we never ran out of things to talk about, from crazy customer stories, to new products we’ve tried to create, to old childhood memories. There was always more to learn about each other, even after I thought Elsa might know me better than I knew myself.

But then there was the concern: did she know me well enough to figure out I had an enormous, ever-growing crush on her? And did I know her well enough to figure out if she might feel the same?

That was my main source of anguish as the weather turned as warm as my three wick candles.

Every day I sat with Elsa as she ate her chicken caesar salads or Taco Bell (there was no in between), and I ate my peanut butter sandwiches, or Campbell’s soup. And every day I’d stare at her light shining hair and blushed cheeks, as she smiled sweetly and laughed at all my jokes with a sound more gorgeous than fucking wind chimes. And every day I could feel myself falling further.

I used to live and breathe for my candle shop; I woke up with a purpose to create new scents and gorgeous colors, experimenting with different types of wax. It was usually what I dreamed about.

Now… I was dreaming about Elsa. I was waking up excited, not about how many candles I might sell that day, but how many times I might make Elsa laugh during lunch. Will she flash me that look, the one where her eyes sparkle and the corner of her mouth smiles, making it look just for a second that she had glimpsed my soul - and liked what she saw?

I just didn’t know what to make of it, because Elsa was too nice. She seemed to interact with everyone the way she interacted with me. Granted, nobody else got to spend lunch with her everyday, or talk about our small businesses together, or drop by to visit on our rare days off. But how was I supposed to find out if she was romantically into me without risking everything good that had come into both of our lives?

It was June when I had the idea. My birthday was coming up the following month, so why not plan something special? Something …romantic? Then if there was anything to blossom between us, it would have the perfect environment to happen without forcing anything or asking potentially devastating questions.

Perfect!

It wasn’t hard to plan out once I had the idea. I chose the restaurant I’d be ordering out from, and easily convinced Elsa to come over to my shop after we both closed.

I was wearing my favorite green summer dress - the flowy one with pockets - and kept my hair down for a change. At the stroke of 7 I closed up and headed out to pick up the dinner and suddenly it hit me. Was it weird to plan and host my own birthday dinner? A birthday dinner for only me and the girl I was in love with?

Well, it was too fucking late, if so. I came back with the food and spent the next half hour setting up a table with nice place settings and lighting my sexiest scented candles all around my office and store. As the sun set, eight o’clock rolled around and Elsa closed up her shop, too.

As I watched her delicately make her way to my side of the street, I chewed my lip. Here goes… everything.

I came to my shop door to let her in as she approached my dimly lit building, and was stunned by how beautiful she looked. She was wearing a shiny blue sleeveless top and tight white capris, with heels to match her blouse and the kicker - a white bow tie hanging untied around her neck. Her wavy hair was gently bouncing around her shoulders with each step. I opened the door for her and the bell above jingled loudly.

She beamed when she saw me, stepping inside to set down her leather backpack purse and white gift bag to give me a big hug. “Happy birthday, Anna,” she said softly into my shoulder.

“Thanks, Els,” I squeezed back, breathing in her perfume. It was my favorite scent, one I’d never quite been able to replicate at home - something between the ocean breeze and a floral woodland meadow.

As we pulled apart I glanced down her outfit one more time, “You look incredible.”

“So do you! And well, you said to dress nice, so… that’s what I’ve got,” Elsa laughed nervously.

“It’s perfect. So!” I clapped my hands together, “Shall we head to the back?”

“After you, lovely,” Elsa grinned and picked up her two bags again. As we walked she began to notice the candlelit atmosphere. “This is really something, Anna. You went through all this trouble just for the two of us?”

I winced. This was a weird thing to do… Play it cool. “Oh, it wasn’t much trouble at all! I thought we deserved something nice. Something special.”

“We do! Especially you, Anna. You work so hard.”

“Not as hard as you,” I countered, as we stepped into my cozy office. My desk was in the corner by the window-wall facing out to the street, and in the front area by the couch we usually ate our lunches on, I had set up our small dining experience.

The only light was from all the candles I had placed around the room; a few were on the little table itself, which also held our take out dinner that I already plated up.

“Wow!” Elsa was standing wide-eyed behind me, a huge smile creeping onto her face. “This is — it’s incredible. Did you get Romeo’s?” She recognized the food from the local fancy Italian restaurant.

“Bone apple teeth!” I grinned. “Shall we eat, before it gets any colder?” I said, gesturing to a chair.

As we settled in to eat, my racing heart calmed a little. This felt right, it felt like us, sharing a meal like we did every day. Just… fancy.

“I’m thankful you got me Alfredo,” Elsa said a few minutes into our meal. “Or my white pants may never be the same.”

“Oh man!” I said with spaghetti hanging out my mouth, “That was a lucky guess. Imagine if I made you get tomato sauce on your pants!”

Elsa laughed. “I imagine I’ll be taking them off.”

“What?”

“Um, I said I imagine I would be taking them off. If I stained them.” A blush was forming on Elsa’s cheeks.

I felt my face warming too, wondering if Elsa had meant what she had first implied. Then, Elsa set her fork down and took a deep breath.

“No, you know what,” she said, looking me intensely in the eye. “You went out on a limb here with this dinner, and so will I. Anna, I really like you.”

Was I supposed to hear the blood rushing past my eardrums?

“Everything has been better since you came into my life - or since I came into yours, whichever way you want to think of it.” Elsa smiled sincerely, “I didn’t realize what was happening right away, but I’ve known for a while now that I’m just - just helplessly in love with you.” Her gaze shifted down to the table as she kept talking, “It’s hard to pretend that I can keep my cool around you when all I feel is the warmth of friendship, of …love. Of something deeper. Something I’ve never felt before, and I’d never want to feel with anyone who isn’t you.”

She cleared her throat and looked me in the eye once more, “So, if this dinner was your way of saying you might share some of those feelings for me too… first of all, at this point I fuckin hope it was; and secondly… that was it, I can’t remember…”

By the time Elsa had trailed off her words, I was next to her chair, cupping her face with my hands. “Can I kiss you?”

She touched one of my hands, holding it to her cheek as she stood up. Taking a step away from the table, Elsa slid her other hand behind my waist. There was a moment we just looked into each other’s eyes as the pull between us became stronger. “Please,” was all she whispered before our lips came together like the pages of a closing book.

I had never kissed anyone - I had… no idea it could be like this. Her lips were so soft as they moved with mine, and it felt like they were asking permission with each caress. A small tear escaped one of my closed eyes.

I felt so emotional as she ran her fingers through my hair, stroking my scalp. She - Elsa, she wanted me, too. She loved me, too. And I realized I hadn’t actually said that yet — I pulled away suddenly and watched her open her eyes in surprise.

“I love you, Elsa.”

She smiled in relief.

I rested my forehead against hers, standing on my tiptoes to reach. “I just wanted to make that clear.”

***

We did not finish our meal.

The folding chairs sat forgotten as I laid Elsa down on the nearby couch and straddled her hips as we both reached for clothes we no longer wished to wear. I took a second to be grateful for the partial wall that blocked the couch from the view of anyone passing by the shop’s windows.

Elsa tugged on one end of her bow tie and it slipped out from behind her neck in one fluid motion - probably the sexiest move I’ve ever seen.

As I lifted my dress above my head, Elsa was gazing up at me, hypnotized. I let the dress fall to the floor beside us. “You’re falling a bit behind, love.” All she had taken off was her tie, and I already sat in my under garments.

She reached for the bottom of her blouse. “One advantage to dresses I suppose,” Elsa said. “If you’re into that.” She sat up a little to whip the shirt off, exposing a black sports bra.

“God, how are you so hot?” I didn’t let Elsa answer before leaning down to kiss her again. I reverently felt her soft skin as I ran my palms over her sides and found the small of her back. “I’ve, er, never done this before.”

Elsa gave a slight squeeze to my hips. “Me neither. It’s ok. We can figure it out together, but I’m probably gonna need to take my pants off first.”

I laughed, “Alright, I’ll get up.” When I planted a foot on the floor and stood up, I paused. I took another breath through my nose. “What’s that smell…?”

Elsa looked at me. She sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”

I turned to the doorway leading into the hallway to the store. An orange glow far too bright made my heart drop and my stomach fill with dread.

“On second thought, keep your pants on.” I grabbed Elsa’s top, threw it at her, and grabbed my dress, pulling it on haphazardly. I ran to the doorway and stopped when I saw how big the fire was in my shop. It looked like everything was engulfed in flames. Nothing could be saved from there. Oh my god.

Pop!

Pop pop!

Candles on my shelves were exploding. Oh god oh god oh god.

“We gotta get outta here!” I slammed the office door shut to hold off the blazing heat of the main store’s fire, trapping us in my office. I ran to the wall of windows by my desk, grateful there was no second floor.

Elsa met me at the wall with her bags. “Can we send this through the windows?” She pointed at my filing cabinet.

Together we pushed the metal cabinet to the window wall and then heaved our combined body weight into it, sending it crashing through the panes. Shards of glass rained down on us, but only a few pieces were sharp enough to cut. The cabinet toppled over onto the pavement outside.

I pushed out a few extra pieces of glass to make way for us to squeeze through. After I got out I helped Elsa climb in her heels, over the filing cabinet out onto the sidewalk. Together we pulled it farther away from the building.

“You call 911 and stay back from here,” I yelled as I ran back to the broken glass. “I have to get a few more things.”

Elsa looked terrified as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and took more steps backward into the deserted street. Turning toward my shop, my hand shook as I reached forward, crouching through my broken window, back into my smoldering office.

The room was starting to fill with smoke and almost constant candle explosions could be heard through the wall. I decided the most important things to get out first were my computers. I grabbed my laptop and quickly unplugged everything from the desktop computer tower. I didn’t need the keyboard or monitor.

Stifling a cough, I crouched through the glass and carried the computers to the curb. As soon as they were down safely, I turned and ran back in.

I couldn’t help but cough this time. Soon the door holding back the inferno would bust - or maybe the shared wall would be engulfed first. Either way, I was running out of time. The air was so, so hot.

One of the candles across the room burst. A searing hot glass shard lodged itself in my arm, near my elbow. I screamed, brushing it away, and the scream turned quickly to more coughing and sputtering.

Through the attack on my lungs, I grabbed everything I could hold off my desk - my purse included, and made my way out as fast as I could.

As I climbed out onto the sidewalk, I felt the office door behind me blow out. In the split second I had, I hurled everything I was carrying as far out as I could and then threw myself to the side in an attempted barrel roll just as the fireball rolled out and licked at my heels.

I sputtered and coughed on the ground as Elsa sprinted over to me. She grabbed a flat piece of debris and swatted at the edge of my dress that had caught fire. Once it was out, she lifted me over her shoulder and took me over to her building where she had been taking the items I rescued from my office.

Setting me down gently, she kept my hand in hers. “They’re on their way.”

My coughing still wouldn’t let up but I couldn’t actually feel my aching lungs anymore, or even the searing gash in my arm, as I sat on the concrete, numbly watching my store go down in flames.

Watching everything I worked for burn away.

———————————————

I didn’t notice August.

They held me at the hospital for two days for the smoke inhalation, my burn wound, and other minor cuts. Then I was released and I sat in my apartment.

I didn’t have a job to go to. My work was gone.

The insurance claim was going to take 90-120 days to go through but they assured me I would be covered for the total loss. So I wouldn’t go into massive debt, but I still mourned. I had no business, no product, no motivation.

So I sat.

I threw out all the candles in my home.

Maybe it was anger, maybe it was guilt, but it most definitely was fear. I never wanted to see another candle again in my life. The destruction they caused - my own creations did this to me. My own negligence. My own lust.

I had also shut Elsa out.

I knew it wasn’t fair to her but I couldn’t even think about her without reliving the terror of the fire. I just couldn’t handle seeing her… so I said I needed space, I needed time to recover alone.

It’s been over a month though, and while the pain still hasn’t gone away, now loneliness has joined it in my torment.

I missed Elsa so much it hurt. And not even in the we-didn’t-even-get-to-have-sex way; I missed my friend.

A week into September, Elsa begged me to come to her apartment. She said she just needed to see I was ok, just needed to talk.

It wasn’t a hard decision with the way I felt like I was dying without her in my life. But I needed her to initiate it or my guilt never would’ve allowed me the opportunity. So I went.

I couldn’t bring myself to change out of the sweats I’d been wearing for at least a week, but I managed to put on deodorant. My hair was pulled into the cleanest messy bun I could muster. It would probably be the bags under my eyes that she would comment on first. The two main subjects of my dreams were now either nightmare fuel or guilt trips, so I had barely been sleeping.

The biggest surprise to me when I met her outside were the matching bags under Elsa’s eyes.

As I walked to her she met me halfway with a warm hug. I saw the look of mixed relief and concern on her face as she took in my appearance.

“Anna,” she whispered as she held me close.

I drew in a shaky breath. “Els,” my reply was like a reflex and I melted into her embrace. With a little sadness I noticed she wasn’t wearing her perfume, but everything else about the hug was all that I had been craving.

“Come on,” she led me into her apartment.

It wasn’t hard to tell I wasn’t doing ok, and neither was she for that matter, so the question was never brought up. Instead she made me tea and held me on the couch, murmuring soft things like, “I’ll keep you warm.”

When I was calm from the tea, Elsa went to get something from another room. She returned with the white gift bag from my birthday, though it might have been replaced with a new gift bag, given how pristine it still looked.

“I still want you to have this, Anna,” she said softly. “But first let me tell you about an idea I’ve had. I just want you to listen to it, no need to respond right away.”

I nodded.

She sat back down with me. Her voice never raised above a light trickling of a fountain as she spoke, “I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been going through. But I do know what trauma feels like. So I have a clue about what you may be feeling toward what you used to do; what you used to love doing now feels painful. Maybe even terrifying…”

Elsa took my hand in hers. “I got this idea a couple weeks ago when I accidentally dropped my bottle of perfume into your gift bag.” She chuckled grimly. “It all spilled out and your present soaked it up.”

She reached down into the bag and turned her head to me, “Would you mind closing your eyes?”

I closed them.

With a soft whoosh, a thin, but nicely heavy blanket settled onto me. As I breathed through my nose, suddenly a wave of familiar comfort washed over me. Her perfume was scenting the whole blanket. I wanted to cry. “Elsa,” I whispered, my hands shaking.

She rubbed my leg through the fabric. “I know, sweetheart,” Elsa sat back into the couch, cuddled close to me and I kept my eyes closed as she continued to talk. “After that happened, I thought… nobody really does this. Creating scented oils just for the purpose of dripping onto fabric like blankets for an extra comforting experience. Like I know essential oils exist, but that’s just the beginning of the potential you would have if you, say… wanted to become my business partner, to create scent drops for my blankets…”

She trailed off and let that sit there with me to think about. I felt the same revelation she probably experienced coming up with the plan. “Elsa,” I said with my eyes still closed. “That’s brilliant. When I’m ready… I would love that.”

I felt her sigh with relief. “Can I see the blanket now?” I asked.

She sat upright, “Here let me hold it up for you to see. It might bring up some emotion. I swear I had no idea what was going to happen when I was making it…”

The blanket was lifted off of me. I slowly opened my eyes to see… a perfect image of my shop in all her glory, hand stitched and glowing softly yellow through the windows. Around the edges of the blanket were the words, “Anna’s Awesome Aromas,” repeated in a pattern. I sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” Elsa said, gathering up the blanket. “It’s too soon, I shouldn’t hav—“

“Stop,” I said while tears dripped down my face. “It’s perfect,” I stood up and flung myself into her arms, making the blanket fall to the floor at our feet.

“You’re not upset?” she asked.

“I’m only upset that I shut you out for so long. I’m sorry,” I held her tight. “You are everything I need, how could I not see that?”

“It’s ok,” Elsa kissed my forehead. “Some things aren’t meant to be seen; they have to be felt, or smelled, maybe tasted.”

With a gentle kiss, she began my healing.

#elsanna #submission #december 2020 contest #prompt: warmth #cw: fire #cw: depression

8 notes · View notes

darknessisafriend · 5 years ago

Note

I loved the request you wrote ! I have another😂. You and Arthur had just had a baby boy Benjamin,Arthur was getting ready for work (facepaint)and he could here you singing that’s life and dancing with your baby and he was stood by the door watching you and as you finished he started clapping and you as he entered you started singing send in the clowns and Arthur started dancing and your baby was giggling and you all danced while Arthur watched you in awe , and he was being cute to you

And here it is, y’all want to kill with such fluffw requests I’m melting while writing them, it’s so cute I’m in heaven <3

@sosearchingromeo also for you as you’d like a fic with a baby I hope you’ll like it ;)

Tag list: @help-i-am-obssessed

@the-ineffable-dreamer

@skaravile

This is my family

Your life was complete. Barely two months ago, you had given birth to a beautiful baby boy, Benjamin. It had been a very important decision you had taken with Arthur. To have a child meant a greater financial responsibility was needed. But you and Arthur couldn’t stop thinking about it, when you saw other couples playing with their kids, talking about them all the time, and you loved the interaction Arthur had with children. He was going to be such a good father, you always ended up imagining him, feeding your baby, telling them a story.

And now it was a reality, and it was exactly how you imagined it. He was such a dedicated father, taking care of Benjamin when he would cry during the night, so that you could rest; insisting to take care of him so that you could take time to take care of yourself. Arthur also worked extra hard to provide everything you and Benjamin needed and even more, he was often bringing home an extra like a plush or clothe for the baby or a gift for you. You had to admit that you were worried for Arthur some days, even if when he was coming home, the second he lays his eyes on you and Benjamin, a big smile would form on his lips, his eyes would be full of happiness as if he couldn´t believe he had you and a baby waiting for him.

Today he was only working in the afternoon, which was good, you had more time together, and even with the baby you had had a lazy morning in bed, cuddling with Arthur, watching him peacefully sleep as you caressed his soft curls. Of course at some point Benjamin started crying waking him up, you went to pick up your baby, cradling him to soothe him. You sat next to your lover, who was trying to wake up, his hair disheveled; his eyelids barely open.

“Is he okay?” he asked, his voice muffled by his face half buried in the pillow.

“Yeah that little pumpkin is just hungry…” you answered softly as you started to breastfeed your baby, who instantly went quiet, satisfied. Arthur chuckled at this, watching him tenderly.

Then he sat up “I´m going to make breakfast.” He announced, kissing your temple and heading to the kitchen.

After breakfast which was more of a lunch considering the time at which you ate it; Arthur went back to the bedroom to get ready for work. It’s something he had been doing for the past months. He would get dressed and put his makeup on at home, it was in a way to stay longer by your side. He was also trying to make Benjamin used to his look, after all some kids could be afraid by clowns, and if he were to make his own child cry, he would never forgive himself for it. For the moment Benjamin wasn´t really reacting to his clown face, he would look at Arthur like he was fascinated, following it´s movements; but he could recognize his voice, probably used to it from the womb when Arthur would kiss your belly, and whisper sweet words to your baby. He couldn’t way for Benjamin to grow a bit older and before his gig for his son only…

That’s life that’s what people say

You’re riding high in April

Shot down in May

Arthur stopped in his tracks, did he just hear singing?

But I know I’m gonna change that tune

When I’m on top, back on top in June

He heard it again but this time he quickly recognized your voice, he didn’t get to listen to you as much as he wanted to because of his work time, and god how it was good to hear your voice. He closed his eyes to enjoy it even more.

I said, that’s life and as funny as it may seem

Some people get their kicks

Stompin’ on a dream

But I don’t let it, let it get me down

Cause this fine old world it keeps spinnin’ around

The thoughts about his work vanished, a small content smile formed on his lips. He quietly got up and tiptoed to the door to watch you. You were slowing dancing, holding your baby in your arms, you only had eyes for him. Benjamin was smiling back at you, it was so rare to see him do this, because it was something new, Arthur had learned about it in a book, babies start to smile back after 2 months old; and it was such a beautiful sight. His baby was well awake right now, his eyes sparkling with life. Arthur was hypnotized by this scene.

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate

A poet, a pawn and a king

I’ve been up and down and over and out

You continued to sing, making funny faces to resemble a puppet or a pirate, making Benjamin babble with joy. You were so focused on Benjamin, looking at him in the eyes, enjoying his little movement and burbles that you didn´t notice Arthur; he was leaning against the doorframe, moved by the interaction you had with Benjamin.

But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it

And if I didn’t think it was worth one single try

I’d jump right on a big bird and then I’d fly!

You finish, slightly lifting your baby in the air. Then, you’re surprised by the sound of clapping, you turn your head towards the source of the sound and realize that Arthur had been watching you the whole time. He had a tender smile and was looking at the both of you fondly. He was shirtless, all his makeup was done except for on eye, his air were neatly slicked back, ‘a beautiful clown’ you thought. Then, another song came to your mind, and you decided to sing it for the two most important men of your life.

Isn’t it rich?

Are we pair?

Me here at last on the ground,

You in mid-air

Where are the clowns?

When Arthur recognized the song, his smile grew wider, you had sung it to him several time, it had a whole new meaning to him, it no longer reminded him of the guys who had beaten him; it simply made him think about you, your sweet voice and your undying love for him. He took a few steps towards you, closing his eyes, he slowly bended to his left side, arching his arms above his head, one foot behind the other, graciously moving his hands, he was dancing…

Isn’t it bliss?

Don’t you approve?

One who keeps tearing around,

Still eyes closed, he moved to the other side, slowly spinning, lifting one arm, the other moving downwards. You hold Benjamin so he could watch his father too, he was captivated, his eyes following the movement of his father, he started giggling and moving his little feet, excited; seems like he inherited his father’s talent for dance.

One who can’t love,

Where are the clowns?

There ought to be clowns?

As Arthur heard the sounds of his baby, he reopened his eyes, landing them on the both of you, he watches your lips as you continued the song.

Just when I’d stopped opening doors,

Finally knowing the that I wanted was yours

Making my entrance again with my usual flair

Sure of my lines

Arthur closed the gap between the both of you, he encircled you and your child, his hands resting on your hips. You started to dance together, the baby between the both of you, he looks at you with admiration. Then his eyes looked at your baby, affectionate, Arthur softly joined your singing, matching your gentle tone.

My fault, I fear

I thought that you’ want what I want

Sorry my dear

He leans his forehead against yours, keeping eye contact with you, they radiate love, his happiness in this moment, you smile tenderly, wanting to caress his cheek.

But where are the clowns?

There ought to be clowns

Well, maybe next year

You finished in unison, a peaceful silence replacing your voices. More burbles coming from Benjamin makes you break eye contact with Arthur, you chuckle.

“Looks like someone is demanding your attention” you whispered to Arthur. He laughed and he bend to softly kiss your baby’s forehead, one hand cradling his head while the other was still holding your waist. His eyes goes back to you, he leans in, titling his head so that his lips meet yours in a loving embrace.

“Thank you…” murmured Arthur against your lips. He didn’t want to go to work but at least he will be going happy, re-watching this moment again and again in his mind, until he can come back home to the both of you.

#joker2019 #joaquin phoenix #arthur fleck #arthur fleck x reader #joker #Arthur fleck x you

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bookandcranny · 4 years ago

Text

Stone Heart Gambit

Part 1 - Chapter 5

It starts with clothes. Wearing rags might have worked for Adami when he was made of stone, but not so much now that he’s walking around. Finding something that would fit his broad, inhuman frame was a challenge, but eventually Soso pins down an online seller who stocks a full range of extra-large sizes and provides fast delivery. Adamantius had looked so confused at the offering, and it occurred to Soso suddenly that he probably wasn’t someone who was used to getting gifts. Thus, since then she’d begun bringing new things with her every visit, to get him accustomed.

It’s little things. Today Nessa, awake and active before nightfall for the first time that Soso has ever seen, indulgently leads her through a beginner’s lesson in baking. It had seemed like a good practical gift, since Surehouser only cooked when he fancied the diversion. There was always plenty of food in his home, but only when he bothered to remember that there should be. Something to do with the passively magical nature of the place, he said, though as always the simple answer was wrapped in a layer of riddles and vaguery.

The result is a batch of cookies so hard and dry that one bite has Nessa diving for the milk. Still, she thinks, not terrible for her first try, and Adami will probably be happy with literally anything she brings him.

The outside of the library is looking well restored from Halloween’s havoc, with the exception of the conspicuously missing statue, although the interior is more chaotic than ever before. After a brief investigation, the events of that night have been officially written off as a large-scale prank. It eases Soso’s nerves a little, knowing that she isn’t about to be interrogated at any given moment, but doesn’t solve the main problem. No amount of new clothes or socialization is going to make Adami able to walk the streets freely looking like he does, and harboring him at the library will only work for so long. Not long at all, if he can’t learn to play nice with his host. The fact that they haven’t been caught yet feels like a miracle.

“Nothing so dramatic,” Surehouser says. “Humans are remarkably good at looking the other way when the truth is inconvenient to them. The unseen bleeds into your world more than you realize. This spot, Ensfield- although it didn’t have a name much less a town at the time- rests on what’s essentially a faultline of wild magic, magic that’s not attached to or being used by anyone. It’s a powerful point of contact between the two worlds. One of a handful scattered all over the globe.”

He had explained some of it to her, though of course not as much as she’d like. You could only keep the human world so distant from its shadow without having some bleed-through. Underhill and Overhill were in many ways mirror images of another, hanging in a precarious balance. In order to keep that balance in check, there were a lot of rules about the way faefolk were to conduct themselves while in Overhill, and breaking them could be met with consequences ranging from a slap on the wrist to being banished from Underhill altogether. The general consensus, it seemed, was that the human’s domain was a fun place to visit but not one anyone wished to stay in.

Soso, who has no basis for comparison, wonders if she should be offended.

“So, out of curiosity,” she says. “Just how much trouble would you be in if your bosses found out about big boy over here?”

He snorts. She likes the man but he has the uncanny ability to make her feel like an idiot whenever she opens her mouth about anything fae-wise. “You assume you’d be exempt.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Uncertainty creeps into her tone. “I mean, this is sort of my turf. Because human?”

“It does muddy things,” he admits. “I can’t say I know what they’d do.”

“Give me a best and worst case scenario.”

“Best case, I lose my position and standing and become the laughing stock of my court for failing a task that was essentially ‘make sure this rock doesn’t move’. Worst case, the library gets a few new lawn ornaments.”

She grimaces. Yeah, that’s pretty bad.

Adamantius comes in from the other room and makes a face that she recognizes as his version of a smile. The mouthful of teeth and tusks don’t lend themselves well to the expression, but the nuances between happy monster and angry monster and bored monster are ones she’s coming to appreciate.

“Lady Willoughby, I was not aware it was you. I’ve been instructed to stay hidden at the sound of the door,” he says. “Then I remembered that I’m not bound to the commands of faeries.”

Surehouser rolls his eyes theatrically and takes a bite of a proffered cookie, wincing at the crunch. “Have some, abomination. Your jaws are probably much more suited.”

Soso’s face heats. They aren’t that bad, are they? Adamantius takes two before she can stop him, rumbling with contentment as he chews, and she wonders if it’s for her sake. He can be remarkably astute when he wants to be.

“You could maybe be a teensy bit more careful about being spotted.” She gestures around her. The quirky but overall neat hideaway in the woods Soso knew has been growing more disorganized by the day. Apparently Adami has been trying to catch up his limited knowledge of modern-day Overhill by tearing through the library’s main collection. She can surmise by the look of the place that his attention span is even more erratic than her own. She can nearly pinpoint the exact moment Surehouser must have given up. “Like, just in case anybody else ever stops by.”

“Let them come. I don’t fear any man.”

“Well, I personally fear lots of men.”

Adami clenches one oversized fist. “I would not let them harm you.”

And that instant leap to violence in my defense is a big part of why. Soso’s trying to think of a gentle way to explain this, when there’s the sound of knock on the door. Surehouser leaps up and ushers him out of the room, much to his annoyance, just as the door cracks open.

“Oh hey, I wasn’t sure you guys were open,” says the visitor. It’s a man, still young but old enough that, upon sighting Soso, his face slips into that condescending smile that every man over twenty-five seems to default to around her. Her height and the softness of her features often paints her as younger than she is. She’ll be getting carded for another ten years at least.

“Yep, the librarian’s just, uh, taking a break.”

“I see. And you’re…?”

“Ah, Soso. I’m… an intern?” She resists the urge to slap herself and appends, “I’m new, sorry.”

She’s relieved that the visitor doesn’t call her bluff. She can feign confidence with the best of them but it doesn’t help matters that this guy is uncannily good looking. He’s dressed like he’s just come from an office job, the crisp white sleeves of his button=up rolled to the elbows and his sandy brown hair ruffled in a way that seems somehow calculated and effortless all at once.

“Nice to meet you, miss intern,” he grins. “Can you help me out with something? See, I’m a reporter doing a story on an incident that was reported in the area a few nights ago. You know what I’m talking about?”

Soso stiffens. “Oh yeah, those crazy kids and their pranks. I hate to ruin your scoop but there really isn’t anything to tell about it.”

The man stalks towards her, his smile never wavering. “Really? Because what I heard was that the culprit still hasn’t been caught.” He gives her a casual once-over. “Culprit, or culprits.”

The insinuation irks her. “What makes you think you’re going to find anything about it here?”

He shrugs. “Sources tell me this library is a common target for ‘pranks’ like these. Maybe you saw something?”

“We were closed that night,” she bites out. Something about this reporter’s cocky attitude sets her on edge.

“Maybe I should talk to your boss. He lives out of this same building, right? Anthony Surehouser?”

Her frown deepens. A lucky guess? An attempt to bluff his way in? That itself seems odd though. Who puts this much effort into sleuthing out a story about a supposed prank on a night notorious for stupid pranks? Something isn’t adding up.

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but neither did you.”

“I told you, my name is Soso.”

That actually throws him for a second. “Oh that’s your name. I thought you just had a stutter. My fault.” He puts out his hand. “Jamison D’Leon. Sorry, as a kid my grandma always told me never to give my name to someone who wouldn’t give me theirs first.”

“It’s okay. It’s an unusual name, I know.”

“I’d say unique.” He has the audacity to wink at her as she shakes his hand.

“Mr D’Leon-“

“Call me Jamie, please. I’m not ready to be a Mr D’Leon just yet.”

This guy is too much. “Okay, Jamie, I can tell my boss you came by, but like I said neither of us saw anything, so unless you’re looking for a book or directions to the highway, I can’t help you.”

For the first time, Jamie’s grin falters. “You are a tough one.” He takes a phone out of his pocket and selects the first contact on the list. “Bancroft, my darling, are you still sure this is the place?” A beat. “In that case, I’m gonna need some backup. Mhm, mhm.”

He ends the call and reclines into a lazy lean against the circulation desk. Feeling at a loss, Soso is contemplating calling for some backup of her own when the doors open again. This time the newcomer is a serious looking woman with long dark hair, dark skin, and a dark suit to match.

“Excuse me, who are you?”

The woman adjusts her glasses. She’s looking around at the room, hardly taking notice of Soso, like she’s just a part of the scenery and an uninteresting one at that.

“Agent Dana Bancroft,” she answers.

“Agent?”

“What’s the verdict?” asks Jamie.

“No doubt, this is the place.” She looks at Soso as if her presence has only just registered. “Oh, you need to leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This building is a powderkeg of ma-“

Jamie clears his throat loudly. Soso narrows her eyes. She thinks of what Surehouser had said, about faefolk walking unnoticed among common men. These two don’t look like magical creatures in disguise, but then, neither had he. That’s the point.

There must be some sort of tell, she thinks, otherwise how would those in the know recognize one another? She feigns obedience under their intimidating stares and moves to gather her things. She might not know just who or what these two are, but she can still recognize bad news when she sees it.

Rifling through her bag for a way out of this, her hands find her camera. She still carries it around with her as a habit even though she hasn’t used it much lately. Surehouser is averse to having his picture taken, and she finds herself too unsure to ask Adami even if he would most likely agree. That line of thought causes her to consider, would a glamour- the illusory magic the fae use to disguise themselves among humans- show up on camera?

“Hey ‘agents��, say cheese.”

No sooner has the shutter clicked than something like a purple bolt of lightning shoots it from her hands. When she scrambles to pick it back up, the smoldering plastic sparks and she yelps in pain and shock.

“Bancroft, was that necessary?”

“She knows,” the agent says with cool certainty. Her hands are sparkling with that same iridescent energy.

At this point several things happen at once. Bancroft raises her hands, gathering more power to her. Jamie is saying something to her, trying to talk her down or maybe just throwing around ideas about where to hide the body- Soso can’t focus on that either way because she hears heavy footfalls swiftly approaching and seconds later Adamantius bursts into the room, nearly upending several shelves and roaring like a zoo lion past feeding time. He picks up the agent closest to him, Jamie, and tosses him. His partner whirls towards him and sends a blast of that built up energy directly into his chest. The area glows for a moment like iron in a forge, and then fades, the raging man unaffected.

Surehouser comes in hot on his heels, red in the face. She imagines it was a struggle for him to keep him subdued for as long as he had. The woman readies another attack, shaken but not stalled, and Adamantius seizes and encircles her hands with his own, bearing down like he intends to tear them off before giving her the chance.

“Wait!” Soso yells, but he’s too far gone now. He doesn’t seem to even hear her.

The woman cries out in pain and Soso, panicked, lobs a cookie at his head. It crumbles on impact, but it at least gets his attention. While she has an opening, she rushes him head-first. He doesn’t so much as budge as she rails into him with the full force of her weight. He shoves the agent away just long enough to keep her from braining herself, for all the good it does. She swears she can feel her brain bouncing around the inside of her skull.

“Tha’s enough,” she slurs, shaking her head clear.

“I heard you scream,” Adami protests, eyes wide.

She holds up her hands. The one that touched the camera is burned slightly, the skin at the base of fingers turned paler than that surrounding it, but it’s nothing severe. He must come to the same conclusion, although he still doesn’t look happy about it.

“I’m fine,” she insists. “Things got a little crazy there, but we’re gonna sit down and talk it out like adults.”

“No more talking!” he roars. “All you ever want to do is talk! Why will you not allow me to defend you!”

Agent Bancroft, holding herself up by means of shaking legs and sheer will, opens her suit jacket to reveal an ornate patch stitched into the lining. At a glance it looks like a family crest, split into quarters with each section containing a discreet, delicately embroidered symbol.

“Oh fuck,” sighs Mr Surehouser, so abruptly that Soso almost laughs. “It’s the goddamn feds.”

“Federation of Magical Affairs,” she corrects in between labored breaths. “May I sit down?”

He pulls out a chair. Several rows down, the other agent picks himself up off the floor and limps over.

“Knew I shouldn’t’ve left my sword in the car,” he grumbles.

“Lady Willoughby,” Adami is all but pleading with her now. “Please let me remove the intruders. They are a threat to your safety.”

“Oh we’re a threat!” Jamie scoffs. “You-! You are getting such a citation, mister.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” says Soso.

“Can we agree on a temporary truce?” Bancroft asks. “I think there’s been some confusion. Jamison and I are agents of the FMA assigned to investigate reports of an incident that signaled a potential rogue element. You,” She looks to the librarian. “You’re the watcher assigned to this area, going by the name Anthony Surehouser? We’ve been trying to contact you. You’re running late on your annual report.”

He looks caught. “The date must’ve gotten away from me.”

Jamie says, “We were told to look for a lone building past the woods with a big gargoyle out front. Well we found the building, and now I guess we’ve found the gargoyle too.” He glares at Adamantius, cradling his injured arm. “What is this? Some kind of botched animation spell?”

He growls warningly.

“Adami,” Soso says, trying for a calming tone but landing somewhere closer to tired. “Will you get me some ice for my hand? And for our, er, guest’s arm?”

“Leave you alone with them? The woman reeks of magic.”

Said woman is looking more intrigued by the second. “What did you just call it?” she asks Soso.

A protective impulse flares in her chest despite it all. “His name is Adamantius.”

“The son of man,” she finishes, her eyes alight with wonder. “A feat of magic and science combined, leagues beyond anything created before or since. I thought he was a myth.”

A tense quiet falls over the room.

“For pity’s sake,” Surehouser pipes up at last. “I’ll get the ice.”

An involuntary hiss escapes her as Soso nurses her burnt hand.

“I could heal that for you,” offers Bancroft. She’s currently checking her partner’s arm for breaks, a soft light emanating from her fingertips, smoothing out the lines of tension on his brow by degrees.

Soso would like to accept, but Adami looks like he’s about a wayward glance away from snapping again and she’d rather not push her luck. His eyes are locked on the sorceress’ hands, even as the violet glow dims to nothing.

“Is it always so… sparkly?” Soso asks, and immediately feels foolish for it.

Either she doesn’t mind the question or she is very good at faking it. “Not always. Spellcasting doesn’t necessarily need a visual aspect, but healing isn’t my foremost specialty so it’s good to be able to see what I’m doing. Wouldn’t want to accidentally fuse any joints together.”

“Again,” Jamie mutters.

“Hush.”

When they aren’t being all secretive and posturing, or throwing balls of lightning around, these so-called agents aren’t bad company, Soso thinks. Though she would wager she’s alone in that sentiment. Adami is still... Adami, and Surehouser seems to be waiting for the other shoe to drop and someone to announce that he’s headed straight for fae jail, if there is such a thing.

The Federation of Magical Affairs, she learns, is an organization whose purpose is keeping the balance between the two worlds. Underhill has its own governing bodies, its countries and courts and what seems to be an awful lot of political drama, but compared to most human government structures their control over the citizens is fairly lax, which means that those who live on the Overhill side of things, human and otherwise, often have to pick up the slack to make sure the majority of humans don’t find out about the faefolk and wind up setting off another war.

It’s the TMA that conducts the regular check-ins with Surehouser to make sure that the contents of the library-beneath-the-library remain preserved and undisturbed, as they have been for the past several centuries. When word came in that there had been a disturbance in the area, possibly of an inhuman nature, Agents D’Leon and Bancroft were sent to investigate.

“The best in the business!” Jamie boasts. He cuts himself off with a whine as his partner pokes his still tender arm.

“I believe we rank seventy-sixth on the leaderboard right now, actually.”

“That’s not so bad,” says Soso. She figures with a job as important sounding as theirs, there must be hundreds, maybe even thousands of agents.

“Out of ninety-nine.”

Or not. “I feel like I should be offended that some mysterious magical agency thought our town was under attack and only sent out a C-rank team to handle it.”

She shrugs. “It was an isolated incident, no real casualties, plenty of signs pointing to a possible hoax. We’ve investigated a lot of hoaxes recently.”

“But it only takes one real one flying under the radar for this whole thing to fall apart,” argues Jamie. “Isn’t it worth following a few false leads if just once we manage to stop something big?”

Dana levels Soso a conspiratorial look. “Jamison fancies himself a knight in shining armor. In reality, the job’s mostly de-escalating minor incidents and filing a whole lot of paperwork. It’s nothing fancy, but there aren’t many good job opportunities for mages these days so…”

“Well it sounds exciting to me,” Soso says, and means it. She can’t imagine getting so used to a job involving real magic and monsters and mystery that it would become mundane. If only this sort of career track had been offered to her in high school. How does a person even get into this business, she wonders.

There’s a none-too-subtle exasperated sound to her right and she’s brought back to the situation at hand.

“Is there any chance this could be written up as one of those false alarms?”

The agents look at one another. Jamie barks a laugh.

“We can’t just not report something like this. We’d lose our jobs, or worse. Plus, a mythical monster warrior living on the outskirts of a human town does seem like kind of a safety concern.”

“You should be very concerned about your safety shortly,” threatens Adamantius.

Surehouser glances worriedly between them. “Isn’t there any way we could keep this under wraps a bit longer? I’m not ready to return home as a disgrace.” Soso clears her throat. He sighs. “And, while I had my doubts, I must admit the beast has been fairly well-behaved since he was released. Technically speaking, no real harm has been done, and he’s served a long enough sentence. In the days of old it’s said the warrior Adamantius served humanity, now it seems he’s chosen a new master, and one less given to warlike tendencies. That can only be an improvement.”

“I don’t want to be Adami’s master,” Soso argues. “He isn’t my servant or my soldier, he’s- he’s my friend. And I think after a thousand years the least he deserves is a chance.”

She looks up at him, and he at her. There’s a look on his face Soso has yet to identify, but behind all the hardness and fire in his eyes, she sees the face of a good man, a man who is more than the monstrosity assigned to him.

“That’s sweet,” says Jamie. “But I don’t know how well the power of friendship defense is going to hold up before the federation. And I gotta say, after being thrown into a wall, my vote is not with you.”

“He was trying to defend me,” Soso insists. “After you guys blasted my camera to bits.”

“Your camera?”

She shrinks back a bit. “I was trying to see if they were, you know, glamoured to look human by using the camera.”

Surehouser claps his hands together. “Soso. That was smart. That might have actually worked.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

“I’m trying to pay you a compliment.”

“Well, keep trying, I’m sure you’ll get there eventually.” She rubs her thumb over the burnt skin of her hand, no longer hot to the touch but still tender. She doesn’t even want to look at her poor camera.

Bancroft at least has the decency to look guilty about it. “There is a lot of magical energy in this place, a lot of wild magic. It makes me jumpy.”

Surehouser coughs pointedly. There’s a glimmer in his eyes that even Soso doesn’t all the way trust. “Perhaps I can suggest a compromise?”

Adamantius sneers. “Faeries and their gambits.”

“We’re listening,” says Dana.

Under his breath, Jamie adds, “We are?”

“First let me ask you, how soon does the FMA expect you to be back from your present investigation?”

“Investigations can last anywhere from a few days to a few months depending on the nature of the case. As long as we keep HQ updated, we can be here indefinitely.”

His smile broadens. “Then what I propose is this: collect some more data before you make your final decision. If you close the case now, what do you have? You have a legendary war criminal, a potentially dangerous creature of humanity’s own creation holed up in an unaware human town. That doesn’t sound so good. Doesn’t reflect well on me, on you, on the entire federation. Going back with this story would mean telling the FMA to its face that you’ve all failed your core mission statement.

“They can throw our dear Adamantius in some jail somewhere, call it a day, but when this story gets out, no amount of damage control, no amount of PR is going to cover up the fact that they let this happen, and didn’t so much as send out a response team for days. Anything could have happened in that time! And when they finally do file the paperwork and get a team out here, who arrives? Two agents ranked a hair’s width from the bottom of the barrel. No offense.”

“Harsh, but accurate,” she allows.

“It’s not a good look, I think we can all agree,” he continues. “But if you were to stay, gather more intel, and say, came to the conclusion that a human and a faerie had successfully reformed the biggest bad in Underhill history, why that would be a tremendous success! Proof of the balance- the peace- that the FMA has been working towards since its conception. Don’t you think you owe it to the federation, to yourselves, to give this grand experiment more time. If he fails to live up to expectations, well, at least you tried. And you still get to be the heroes who brought in Adamantius the unbreakable. It’s a wager you can’t lose.”

Unless we’re wrong, Soso adds internally, hoping her worries don’t show. Unless Adami really is violence and rage all the way down. She shakes herself. No, it helps nothing thinking like that.

The agents step away to confer amongst themselves, while Surehouser dabs away a drop of sweat with the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Adamantius is as stoic as Soso’s seen him since he was a statue. On impulse, she reaches out and touches his arm in a way she hopes comes off as reassuring. She’s never been the best at this sort of thing, and she can only guess at what’s going through his mind right now, but she wants him to know he’s not alone.

At length, the pair return to the group to give their verdict.

“We will take you up on your offer,” says Jamie, holding himself so rigid you’d think he was pleading guilty to murder. She almost prefers him smirking and swaggering. “Agent Bancroft and I will stay and survey you until we feel we’ve collected enough information.”

Relief washes over her. It’s not a solution, but it’s the next best thing: time. Still, something nags at her. “You mean you’ll be surveying Adami, right?”

“We’ll be watching all of you,” Bancroft corrects. “As far as we’re concerned, you are all under suspicion for the time being.”

“Suspicion of what?”

“Just under suspicion,” she says. “We’ll be taking notes on everything that goes on here and reporting anything suspect.”

The librarian tenses but keeps his expression carefully neutral. “That’s… fair, I suppose.”

He puts out his hand, and she takes it. A small spark of magic flickers between them upon contact.

“I am bound to my word,” says the sorceress.

“And I mine,” the faerie man replies.

Soso isn’t entirely sure what’s just happened, but the tension in the room is thick as pudding and it’s making her want for an exit.

“Adami,” she says. “Let’s go, uh, over there.”

“Mind if I join?” Jamie chirps gleefully. “Of course you don’t! We’re all going to become real good friends, aren’t we?”

Soso’s stomach drops and Adamantius bites down on a low growl. What have they gotten themselves into?

#original writing #fantasy #writeblr #project: stone heart gambit #apologies for the length #this is the final chapter for part 1! if youve read this far big thanks!

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battlestar-royco · 5 years ago

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updated faq

Round 2! I tried to shorten the answers so as not to be repetitive, and I also added new FAQs for your convenience. My past self who wrote my first FAQ annoys me, and this one is more thorough anyway, so here you go. I still can’t believe you all actually interact with me enough that I have to make one of these.

Questions up here, answers under the cut.

anti sjm basics

1. why are you an anti?

2. why are you specifically anti SJM?

3. do you like anything about SJM’s books?

4. terminology and practices

5. why do you hold SJM to a higher standard than other authors?/why do you focus on criticizing this one woman more harshly than you do men?

6. did you see what xyz stan did?

7. are you an anti for non-SJM stuff?

best of (in my humble opinion)

diversity and sensitivity

8. I have a question about writing and/or how to portray xyz identity...

9. can you please tag...?

10. is it okay if I like [x author]/[y series] even if I know they’re problematic?

11. what are your suggestions for aspiring authors who want to write diversely?

personal

12. is it okay if I message you?

13. why don’t you post about books/shows/movies you actually like?

14. favorites?

15. book suggestions?

16. are you a writer/what are you writing/do you plan on publishing?

17. is it okay if I follow you on other social media?

18. fandom research

19. when did you start your blog?

20. how did you decide your url?

anti SJM basics

1. why are you an anti?

I love thinking critically about the media I consume. Though I wouldn’t say I’m particularly “anti” any text or author, some people classify any criticism as “anti.” To respect people in the main tags, I post in anti tags so they don’t have to see critical posts. Otherwise, I love talking about positive, neutral, and negative aspects of books.

2. why are you specifically anti SJM?

The Anti SJM Manifesto

What made you turn into an anti? x x

Rowan/Rowaelin: x x x

The fandom: x x x x x x

3. do you like anything about SJM’s books?

Yes. I like a lot of SJM’s ideas, but I don’t like how they’re executed at all. I highly enjoyed TAB, TOG-HOF, and the witch storyline of QOS. My favorite TOG characters are Manon, Chaol, Nehemia, and Sorscha. Honorable mention for Lysandra, Kaltain, and Asterin. My favorite ACOTAR characters are Nesta, Lucien, and Tarquin. Additional links: x x x x

If you want my positive thoughts on certain SJM characters, look up: “anti sjm: [character name]” and you’ll find them.

4. terminology and practices:

Anti SJM Glossary. Seeing as many of us have had bad experiences with stans and in one case, authors, we censor names so our posts stay in our own tags.

What is soap dick? From August 2018 x x.

Manongate? when KOA came out, Charlie Bowater’s promotional art (x) depicted Manon as Asian. Here’s more on why that’s a problematic and lazy decision on SJM and Bloomsbury’s part: x x.

5. why do you hold SJM to a higher standard than other authors?/why do you focus on criticizing this one woman more harshly than you do men?

SJM alone out of all the biggest YA authors has yet to make craft improvements or display a social awareness similar to what I’ve seen from her colleagues. I give all authors an equal chance, but SJM’s writing and behavior has significantly decreased in quality compared to other fantasy authors despite her books being lauded as complex and feminist works. However, I’m not perfect, so do feel welcome to send me an ask if you think I’m being unfair.

The anti SJM community is focused on women because we all mainly read women. Critiquing women doesn’t mean we are unaware, dismissive of, or silent about the issues in men’s work. The “anti” movements for the likes of GRRM do exist, but under a different name than “anti”–there are thousands of critical meta blogs, book/TV critics and reviewers, Youtubers, etc out there who discuss his flaws in depth. I also have lengthy anti GRRM, anti GOT, and anti ASOIAF tags. Finally, I personally find critiquing and discussing women’s work a lot more interesting, productive, and empowering than doing the same for men, especially because my blog’s focus is on the YA author/transformative fan community at large.

About Leigh Bardugo: x x x x x x x

About GRRM (and GOT): x x x x x x x

About Tolkien: I've only read The Hobbit and a third of Fellowship of the Ring, and I’ve only watched FotR, so I don’t say much about him at all.

6. did you see what xyz stan did?

Probably not, especially if what they did was off Tumblr. I don’t look at stan accounts unless someone informs me that my posts or I have come up in conversation on their blog. Any specific stan urls in asks will be redacted both for their privacy and my own well-being. Stans have doxxed, harassed, and discriminated against antis, including myself, so I’d rather save us all the trouble.

7. are you an anti for non-SJM stuff?

I most often talk about SJM’s books, but I’ve also been very critical of GOT/ASOIAF. Following GRRM, several other YA authors have appeared in positive, neutral, and critical lights. On the more critical side we have Cassandra Clare and JK Rowling, and a very little bit about Victoria Aveyard, John Green, Maggie Stiefvater, Stephenie Meyer, and Veronica Roth. Otherwise, I’ve talked about Susan Dennard, Rick Riordan, Leigh Bardugo, and Marie Rutkoski. Check out my YA critical tag for more. I’m also down to discuss franchises like Star Wars, Fantastic Beasts, MCU, etc, as well as TV shows. Basically anything big in genre fiction media, there’s a good chance I’ve read/watched it and I have opinions!

best of

anti SJM

Are the Illyrians MOC?

Moral Ambiguity Series

Anti Nessian

Lucien or Rhysand?

Chaol or Rowan?

misc.

why are period dramas like... that

White Feminism

a beginner’s guide to fandom racism

diversity and sensitivity

8. I have a question about writing and/or how to portray xyz identity...

First and foremost, check my “writing advice” and “writing advice: poc” tags to see if the question has already been answered.

I am black cis girl with a dual degree in women’s/gender studies and creative writing. I will best be able to answer questions regarding black characters, women, racial oppression and identity as a whole, and most questions about queer characters. There’s a chance I can provide a basic answer to questions about demographics outside of these, but I’ll most likely advise you to ask another blogger or seek out sensitivity readers.

9. can you please tag...?

Yes. Just send an ask and I’ll tag anything. I’ve turned off all Tumblr notifications for this account so I probably won’t see tag requests in comments unless you comment within a day or so of the post.

10. is it okay if I like [x author]/[y series] even if I know they’re problematic?

Absolutely. I’m not the liking-things police and I can’t control whether you like something or not. There’s no such thing as an unproblematic author or unproblematic series, so you just have to like what you like at your own discretion and with a critical eye. As long as you’re aware of the issues and not denying or ignoring them, maybe even seeking out other people whose opinions add to the conversation, you’re good. It’s exhausting to be 100% critical but harmful to be 100% uncritical, so you have to seek out critics you like and figure out how to maintain a dialogue with the text and/or the author. The balance is different for everyone but once you find it, it gets easier to keep up!

11. what are your suggestions for aspiring authors who want to write diversely?

Concepts to be aware of and tropes to avoid: male gaze, the Bechdel test, the Mako Mori test, the sexy lamp test, fridging, Orientalism, xenoface (called “the Gamora Phenomenon” on my blog), black best friend, Spicy Latina, Dragon Lady, bury your gays, disability narratives, queerbaiting.

What not to do when creating a culture.

My advice about writing POC.

Check out these blogs if you like: x x x.

Follow as diversely as possible. Follow multiple blogs, especially writing- or fandom-themed blogs, run by POC (especially women and LGBTQ+), bloggers from religiously marginalized groups, bloggers with disabilities, older bloggers, younger bloggers, international bloggers, plus size bloggers, etc. Everyone has different perspectives and opinions, so it’s best to read from multiple sources.

Magnify marginalized voices in conversations about diversity, and LISTEN to what they are telling you.

Read diversely! Read genre fiction written by marginalized people. Maybe even read some gender, queer, race, or disability theory if you like. I’m personally a fan of Audre Lorde, Anne McClintock, and Sara Ahmed, but I like a lot more.

Seek out multiple sensitivity readers for the specific identity you are trying to represent (ie if you are trying to write a Muslim woman, ask a Muslim woman to sensitivity read for you. Experiences are not interchangeable so don’t treat them as such).

Don’t let the research stop here. This is just the beginning. There are plenty of awesome and accessible resources out there if you want to know more. I started learning about this stuff on sites like Tumblr, Goodreads, and Youtube. The Goodreads review sections, especially for YA books, are so entertaining and full of commentators coming at texts with feminist, queer, and POC lenses if you look in the right spots. There are also podcasts and Youtube videos about feminism, history of queerbaiting, and such. Happy reading/listening/writing!

personal

12. is it okay if I message you?

If we’ve been mutuals and/or we’ve interacted for a while (at least a few weeks or so), absolutely. When it comes to questions about writing or diversity advice in WIPs, I prefer asks (off or on anon is fine; if you’d like to be off anon but answered privately, you can indicate that in the ask). That way, other people with similar questions can join the discussion and I’m less likely to repeat myself. That said, I’m not opposed to messages; I just get shy around people I don’t know :). Regardless of ask or message, please try to ask the full question as clearly as possible so I can answer it to my best ability. Generally, you can expect an answer to your message or ask within a few days to a week of sending.

If you’re looking for a fight and/or if you start using condescending, rude, or discriminatory language, you will be ignored.

13. why don’t you post about books/shows/movies you actually like?

I do! :)

14. favorites?

books: Harry Potter; The Hunger Games; Six of Crows; Percy Jackson; The Winner’s Trilogy; Angelfall; The Secret History; Othello; Jane Eyre; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe/The Magician’s Nephew; A Storm of Swords.

movies: Alien, Blade Runner 2049, Harry Potter, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Annihilation, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Terminator 2, The Breakfast Club, The Lion King, Moonlight dir. Barry Jenkins, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Tangled.

tv series: Sense8, Battlestar Galactica (2004-2008), Black Mirror, The X Files, The 100, Westworld (season 1 only), Watchmen, Homeland (seasons 1-4 only), Orphan Black, Breaking Bad, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, Fleabag.

15. book suggestions?

Book recs!

Maxine, did you read/watch...?

16. are you a writer/what are you writing/do you plan on publishing?

I hope to publish, yes! I write mostly YA fantasy, but I also love sci fi, crime drama, and certain elements of horror so I have works in or influenced by all of those genres. I want to get my foot in the YA fantasy door first and foremost :). Check out “polysorscha writes things” if you want to know more specifics.

17. is it okay if I follow you on other social media?

As of now I keep my blog disconnected from my personal life, so I don’t share my other socials but feel free to follow me over on my main blog @ripley-stark if you like! It’s just pretty gifs and photos of my favorite movies and shows, social justice, meta reblogs here and there, and rambling in the tags. Don’t feel like you have to follow if you don’t want to; I say a lot more on here.

That being said, I have given my Goodreads to a handful of people who ask, so if you want to track what I’m reading, private message me and I’ll send you the link. In the case that I share the link with you, please respect my privacy and do not repost or share the link anywhere else unless you see me share it on my blog publicly.

18. fandom research:

In March to May 2019, I conducted a survey on my blog in an attempt to gather information about fandom through a social justice–specifically, intersectional feminist–lens. Here are the results and my analysis of the survey x. The purpose for this data collection was to write my final undergraduate research paper in one of my two majors, women’s and gender studies (the other is creative writing!), which focused on diversity and inclusion in genre fiction media and fandom. The final paper is about 11k words. I haven’t publicly published it, but message me if you’re interested in reading it! I also plan on doing more similar surveys to gather information about what audiences want to see in future media, so if anyone is interested, please send messages, asks, comments etc about what YOU want to see and/or ideas about how we can spread the info to creators. This is much bigger than just me and I can’t do it without your help. I love hearing from diverse voices and amplifying them as much as I can. Everyone’s perspective is meaningful!

19. when did you start your blog?

No earlier than the end of April or beginning of May 2018.

20. how did you decide your url?

I wish the Celaena/Dorian/Chaol love triangle resolved in a polyamorous relationship, and that Nehemia and Sorscha were thriving. Seeing as I am black, Sorscha is one of two characters in T0G who represents me. Thus, polyamorous + Sorscha. :)

#faq

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theunreliablewriter · 6 years ago

Text

Can I?

Pairing: Rey x Reader

Prompt: “Why are you looking at me like that?” “Can I kiss you?”

Warnings: 18+ Heavy Smut, Fluff, Very mild cussing

Author’s Note: This is my first time writing female x female smut, and I don’t think I’m that good at writing smut in general, but hopefully this is okay. :) Also, I call Rey a Jedi in this, and I don’t care if some people say she isn’t because my girl is strong af and needs to be one.

A day like this was rare. With all of the rebuilding and searching for allies of the Resistance, down time was nearly non-existent. When you had it, you were sure to not take a second for granted, which meant you practically had a rule that ensured days off were spent relaxing and not even thinking about work or the stress of it. But, one person had the power to cause you to break that rule.

And that was her. That was Rey.

You knew it was hard for her to relax. She probably had never truly done such a thing since she was born because she simply never had a chance to, due to having to survive and provide for herself. And now that she had discovered her strength with the Force, something the Resistance needed now more than ever, all she could think about was making herself stronger, so a day off wasn’t a thing to her.

Often, she’d ask you to join her in her training, which she always tricked you into by saying she only wanted your company, and you could just watch. You fell for it every time. At one point or another, she’d drag you, sometimes literally, into whatever she was doing.

You knew her trick by now, but that didn’t change anything. When she approached you earlier that day to ask you to come be her audience while she practiced with her new lightsaber, you didn’t even think before agreeing. The only thing you loved more than lazy days was spending time with her.

The two of you had a very close friendship, one that began the moment you two met. Overtime, your bond with her only grew stronger and stronger. At one point, you even told yourself that eventually it’d reach the max, and there’d be no possible way for it grow any further. But, you couldn’t have been more wrong.

Maybe you did reach the highest level of friendship, but you soon learned that that didn’t mean your feelings could no longer strengthen. You probably felt it all along, but simply didn’t realize until one day, out of nowhere, it hit you. You realized what you felt for her was more than platonic. So much more. The term “romantic” didn’t even seem to scratch the surface.

Who could blame you? She was the most beautiful creature you had ever seen. She was highly intelligent. She was funny. She was strong in every sense of the word. You had never met a person who cared as much as she did. With her, you always felt not only wanted, but needed.

You never shared any of this though, not with anyone, let alone her. You valued your friendship way too much to ever put it at risk. So, all the times you thought she was being flirty or extra clingy or looking at you a little too long for it not mean something more, you forced yourself to ignore it and say you were just imagining it. But, this was impossible today. Not during a moment like this.

Rey stood close behind you. Some would say it was too close.

Who would’ve thought the simple question of how to hold and stand with a lightsaber could lead to you feeling as though your heart was going to beat out of your chest?

“Move this hand a bit down,” Rey instructed, moving your hand to the correct position with her own. “And shift your body to the right only slightly.”

Your breathing hitched in your throat, as she gently gripped your hips and put you in the correct stance.

Before any of this started, she told you the most important thing was focus. If she only knew it was impossible for you to ever focus around her, let alone during something like this.

You couldn’t help but turn your head back to see her, and your heart felt like it leaped, when she saw the look on her face. A smile tugged at her lips, but there was something in her eyes. You caught yourself wanting to call it desire, but you quickly forced the thought away.

Thankfully, only a few minutes later, Rey decided she was finished for the day. You had to get away from her and that tension...even if it was only one sided. You returned to your quarters a quickly as your sore legs allowed, and the cool water of the shower hitting your face helped clear your mind for awhile. But no sooner did you finish drying your hair was there a knock at your door.

You couldn’t help but smile when you opened it to find the gorgeous face of none other than her.

“You doing alright?” Rey asked as she followed you inside.

“Why you ask? It’s not like I felt like I was about to kill over, if you made me lift one more weight, or anything,” you joked.

She laughed a little, and said, “You did great.”

“Thanks,” you responded sarcastically.

“I’m serious, (Y/N). You’re much better than the first time I asked you to join me.”

“If I remember right, the first time, all I did was sit against the wall and watch, which is what I’d still do, if it wasn’t for someone’s begging,” you said with a laugh.

“I do not beg,” Rey argued.

All you did was laugh once again at her lie.

“I asked because something seemed wrong when you left,” she said.

You instantly shook your head. “No, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m just happy the Force picked you instead of me. I wouldn’t last a day,” you responded to try to make the moment into a joke.

As you smiled at her, it appeared another appearance. That look.

This time, it was even more intense. Words fail to describe it. Somehow, it was innocent, thanks to that little smile, yet sexy, curious, and enticing all at once.

As if you were put in trance, you didn’t even realize you had spoken until after all of the words left your mouth. Somewhere between smiling at her and knowing what you had done, you asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Rey seemed taken back by your question because the expression instantly disappeared.

Your mind searched for something to say, but all you could do was ramble out random monosyllable words and many “ums” and “uhs.”

But many seconds, which felt like hours, later, it wasn’t your voice filling the room. It was hers...saying something you never thought you’d hear.

“Can I kiss you?”

It felt like butterflies exploded in your stomach, as those four words echoed in head. Nervousness had joined that cocktail of emotions in her mesmerizing eyes.

Your mind was screaming at you to answer, but it was as if your lips had forgotten how to speak. But, speaking was not needed. No. Your lips only needed to know how to do one thing.

Not even a second later, you felt the heat of her mouth, as yours pressed against it. Those strong arms of hers snaked around your waist, just before her head tilted, allowing the long awaited kiss to deepen.

Her lips were soft and warm and tasted of the galaxy’s sweetest honey. She kissed you slowly and gently. You didn’t think you could feel any higher...until you wanted more. Much more.

Your fingers tangled in her silky hair, after they worked quickly to free it from her signature buns. Rey’s hands roamed your back, her grip tightening every so often, as if she was trying to find a way to bring you closer.

Kissing Rey showed you a light brighter and more beautiful than any moon or star in the universe. It was one you wanted to bask in for all of eternity. So, when she pulled away, it felt like someone had unplugged the main power source, and everything bright went dark.

But the longing caused by disconnection was quickly overshadowed by her gentle command of, “Tell me what you want.”

Your answered followed so quickly some might’ve thought it was a reflex.

“You.”

That much too innocent smile of hers showed itself again, before those lips immediately found yours as if they were magnets.

Shortly after, you found yourself being walked backwards. Your mind was too much in a fog to even realize how it happened. Somehow, you found yourself laying on the softness of your bed with the weight of the Jedi on top of you pressed you further into the mattress.

Her hand was firmly gripping your hip, but it loosened just as she broke the kiss again.

All nervousness was gone in those beloved eyes. Instead, it was fully replaced by what you never allowed yourself to believe - desire.

The smile beginning to form on your face was enough to tell her she could continue.

The slow, yet more intense movements her lips with yours was enough to put you back in that fog. No differently than before though, you didn’t need to think. Your hands began removing all of the fabric from the gorgeous woman’s body as if they had how to memorized.

When you felt the bare skin of her chest pressed against your own, every cell, every hair, every nerve of your body stood on edge.

Although the feeling was what you craved most, you also had to see her, leading to you being the one to pull away this time.

As if she knew, she rose to her knees and kneeled between your legs.

Flawless. It was the only way to describe her. You’d argue with anyone that the word was solely created for the purpose of describing her.

Your gaze, which was memorizing every inch of her exposed skin, shot up to meet hers, when she said, “You’re so beautiful.”

Other than your ridiculous smile, your only response was sitting up and pressing your lips to hers for the countless time.

Small laughs escaped both Rey’s and your throats, when she gently pushed you onto your back.

Soon enough, the last remaining pieces of fabric around your waists were removed, leaving you both fully exposed to each other.

The beating in your chest quickened, when her lips left yours only to connect with the sensitive skin of your neck.

You didn’t care if marks were left. You’d make up a lie for them later.

Your breathing hitched in your throat, when she was not even an inch away from your ear, as she asked, “Can I taste you?”

How innocently she asked such a sinful question drove you wild to the point it was enough to make you squirm beneath her.

A breathy “Yes” was all you could manage to utter.

Kisses trailed down to your chest, until she paused to give each of your breasts her undivided attention. Your back began to arch off the bed from her lips wrapping around the sensitive skin of your nipple alone. Her long, callused fingers worked to service your other, until she decided it was time to switch.

Her journey south continued, her scattered kisses made your skin feel as though it was electrified.

A soft moan sounded when you first felt her mouth against the inside of your thigh. You loved how she entirely ignored your middle to ensure each of your thighs, things many women were very insecure about, got the amount of kisses she thought was needed, but it was also torture at the same time.

“Rey, please,” you softly said from the killing anticipation.

After witnessing her smirk, your eyes nearly rolled into the back of your head when you finally felt the overwhelming sensation of her mouth on your most sensitive area.

Her arms wrapped around your thighs, pulling your core closer. Her tongue slowly ran down your wet slit, making you crave more and more. A yelp escaped your throat when that bundle of nerves was taken between her lips.

“Oh my God, Rey,” you moaned as she began to suck.

She alternated what that mouth of hers did without warning. Sometimes, it was no more than a delicate kiss. Others, she had you pulling on the blanket so hard, most would’ve thought it was going to rip.

Despite all she was giving you, you wanted, you needed more of her.

“Please. Let me feel your fingers.”

Yet another pleased smirk showed on her flushed face.

She crawled back up, until her face was even with yours. This time she wasn’t fully on top of you. Now, she seemed to straddling one of your thighs. You could feel the dampness and heat between her legs, and it only made your mind go even more wild.

Her hand rested on the side of your face as her mouth overtook yours. Her tongue glided across one of your bottom lips, asking for an entrance, which you immediately granted.

Purposefully, you shifted your leg, causing it to rub against her center.

The sound of her soft moan would’ve been enough to instantly make you wet, if you hadn’t been already.

She quickly moved her hand to where you needed it most. Without even the smallest warning, one of those fingers slipped inside you and didn’t hesitate to start moving. As if she was a master at your body, it didn’t take her any time at all to find your spot.

“Fuck, Rey,” you said as she added as second finger.

You didn’t think it was possible for you to make her feel the way she was causing you to feel. Even if it was just a fraction of what she was doing, you had to try to repay her. So, once again, you managed to move your leg to rub against her. It was enough to make her want more. With each pump of her fingers, she began to grind against your thigh.

You didn’t know which brought you the most pleasure - her mouth, her fingers, or simply the sounds of her own pleasure.

Moans and heaving breaths filled the room, as she listened to your desperate request of “Faster.”

“God, (Y/N),” she spoke, her hips moving quicker to match the thrust of her fingers.

The volume of the sounds continued to grow, until it all came to an end with arched, quivering bodies and the crying out in pleasure of each other’s names.

Rey’s firm, muscular body fully collapsed on yours, as you both struggled to catch your breath. Many minutes passed, and when she did lay beside you, you instantly missed the feeling of her skin against yours. The longing was short lived because her arms found their way around your waist again and pulled you against her, causing your back to be fully pressed against her chest.

“Can I tell you something?” Rey softly asked in your ear.

“Of course.”

“I...I don’t want to only be friends. I would like to be so much more.”

After everything that had just happened, nothing made your heart beat as fast as those words did.

“So would I,” you finally confessed.

An enormous smile formed on your face, as she left a lingering kiss on the side of your head.

That smile quickly turned into laughing, when she said the sarcasm filled statement of, “I think we can also both agree that I’m not who should be given the title of ‘beggar.’”

| Masterlist |

#rey x reader #star wars x reader #star wars imagine #rey imagine #star wars fanfic #rey fanfic #star wars #rey #imagine #x reader

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zacfaq · 8 years ago

Text

PLEASE DON’T SEND ME “PASS IT ON” MESSAGES !! as sweet as some of they are they can be really annoying. i don’t check my PMs here! if you need to get ahold of me either send me an ask, or email me.

apparently necessary reminder: google exists! i’m not a know-it-all source, honestly i shouldn’t even be your second plan after google unless it’s a question specifically based on me or something relating to me

i try to avoid fandom drama as much as possible and keep a generally positive space, so please don’t come and ask me about stuff like that. thanks.

if you want to commission me please send an email to [email protected]. do not email me through this address if your intentions are purely social and not work related

-what do you use to record and edit your speedpaints?

i use OBS to record, and edit in sony vegas

-what do you use to draw?

huion gt-191 and clip studio paint

-what are your pen settings?

just the default settings. all my custom stuff/things i’ve downloaded from CSP assets are just things i think look neat but probably never end up using.

-a blog called papersans is claiming to be you! are they a thief?

that’s literally me, i use it to archive my art so i can find stuff easier without having to hunt through my tag. also available for people who just want to see my art n not my other posts

-when is your birthday?

february 6th!

-what is your sexuality?

gay. i like men.

-how long does it take you to draw?

idk like. awhile? sometimes 45 minutes sometimes four hours sometimes a week.

-can i draw you/your ocs?

of course! pls show me after it would make me very happy !!!!!

-favourite band/singer/musician?

i don’t know a damn thing about myself here’s a spotify playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Zk5o5g7nMnGt0vrJVEcDq?si=7cd248a0b64046ee

-will you do art for cheap/free?

nah. art is currently the only job/income i have, if ur interested in commissioning me you can either find my prices on like, any of my pages, but if not ur more than welcome to email me @ [email protected] and i can give you prices there !! -(venting or something involving abuse, suicidal thoughts, self harm, bullying, eating disorders, or other similar things in real life situations. even in fiction i’m iffy.)

i hate to sound rude or not be of help, but please don’t send these messages to me. they send me into horrible anxiety for several personal reasons. if you’re having such negative thoughts i implore you to speak to someone you trust without an anonymous mask, or do your best to seek help from a professional. i have my own things to worry about and as much as i’d like to help, i simply can’t.

-(asking for advice that isn’t related to art)

i would love to help but i’m not an ~all knowing source~. i can’t give you tips for school. i can’t give you tips for life. not only will i probably not know a solution for you but there’s likely a chance i’m in just as bad a situation as you/going through the same problem, as silent as i am about my personal life. also don’t use ‘asking for advice’ as an excuse to vent about things or to send me a paragraph describing in depth something listed above/that’s potentially triggering. thank you.

even if you’re looking fr art tips i’m not a great source i’m still learning, ur best bet is looking for already existing sources and reading through those bc i don’t preach the word of Art God. i’m also awful at explaining things

-why didn’t you answer my ask?

Main reason is i’m just really really bad at socializing, so it’s not anything on u. i’m almost always low on energy and when i do talk to people it wears me out really quick. i’m also just. not gr8 at talking in general so if i can’t think of a reply i tend to just leave things n then end up forgetting about them

-how do you draw [blank]?

honestly my art style is such a fucked up thing that’s so personalized to my own use i can’t do or make tutorials. the best i can do is direct you to my youtube.

-can we do an art trade?

sorry, i’ll have to say no. i’m not necessarily busy but i get stressed very easily, so i try to keep my art to either personal stuff or work ! if you would like art from me, please considering commissioning me! mutuals and friends may be the exceptions here if they catch me at a good time or we make plans well ahead to do smth when we’re both free to work on stuff

-can we be friends?

please don’t ask this. i’m awful enough at socialization as is and i just don’t fit well with most personality types. not to mention this is just overall a bad question. it backs the person being asked into a corner where they either have to say “yes” and end up in a friendship that actually isn’t working out and is maybe only good for one side bc they’re getting any and all of the benefits, and if they say “no” they look like a total dick bag and come across as an ass. don’t ask this question. it’s not how socializing works. it’s not how friendships work. thanks. -can you tag [blank]? unfortunately i’ve been a real bad place in terms of memory so i can’t tag tons and tons of things. i try and tag more general/basic things but i’m sorry i’ll have to pass on specifics. if i post or reblog things that trigger u or harm you it might be best to unfollow for ur own safety!! very sorry

if it’s specific words you’d like tagged please consider blacklisting the word itself.

-how tall are you?

i’m 5'11".

-can you promo me?

i’d rather not, doesn’t sit well with me. if you have a commission post you want me to reblog i’m happy to! but i won’t just do text based handouts, y’know? not a fan of being used for visibility for no reason, and chances are if i do it for one person it’ll happen with hundreds of others and i don’t want my blog to turn into a free advertisement zone that just floods peoples’ feeds with promotions.

-you reblogged something from someone extremely problematic/unsafe

thank you for letting me know! tell me what it is they did, even better offer proof on it. i’ll likely delete the post and blacklist their url to hopefully prevent their name popping up on my blog in the future. i won’t publish these asks mostly to avoid discourse or in the event false information is provided. sorta just safety precaution i guess

-you’ve done something bad

again, thank you for letting me know! if i post or say something questionable please feel free to message me and i’ll try my best to address the issue and adjust accordingly. i’m aiming to grow as a person so critique is welcome, both on me and my artwork. don’t just come up and call me an asshole or a prick or something, actually point out the errors and explain why they’re wrong so i can better understand and it doesn’t just turn into a defensive round of who’s worse, because i tend to be a very defensive person.

-i think someone is stealing/reposting your art!

thank you very much for telling me! don’t message them right off the bat, come to me first and i will deal with it. i’ve dealt with this shit tons of times and it’s tiring as fuck but i’d rather repeat the same stupid civil message over and over again than start a giant calamity over something and end up with someone getting hurt. if you do get involved please stay polite about it don’t throw insults just a simple “hey this art was done by princeofmints/tv-headache/zachary jack/dirtypip/(etc my other account names) and he doesn’t want his art reposted, please take this down or add proper credit.”

-can i use your art as an icon?

sure man. only on places like instagram, tumblr, or twitter though, and proper credit in an easy to see place must be given. if a piece of art is of my ocs or especially vent art though never use it for icons. thank you.

-can i repost your art?

the answer is “no” but i know you’re going to do it anyways. easy to see credit is mandatory. if you see somebody reposting my art please let me know and i’ll talk to them. if you want to use my art in things like image edits, i don’t allow that. want to use my art in a video? if it’s something like an AMV sure fine just credit me and inform me beforehand, if it’s something like a cringe/comparison video. no. i don’t want any association with work like that whatsoever. you may not use my artwork for fanfic covers.

-can i colour/finish one of your sketches?

no. even if you don’t intend on posting it.

-what is [insert some form of media/fandom]

https://www.google.ca/

-why do you have an entirely separate blog for your FAQ? you know you can make blog pages, right?

i’m well aware of that and originally my faq WAS set up on a blog page, but unfortunately many folks proved to be either lazy or just couldn’t figure out how to get to a blog page on mobile so i had to set it up this way for accessibility purposes.

-tons of your videos are gone, what happened to them? will they come back? can you repost them?

i set old videos on private for my own sake, i don’t like having my old content available bc it just looks old and stale and i don’t like it. there’s nothing deep about it, i just don’t want people interacting with my old stuff. as deep is it gets is i just deleted videos related to fandoms i’m sick of bc the association is fuckin annoying. these videos will not come back into public. i do keep them posted for my own reflection sake, but that’s it. don’t ask me to bring them back. don’t whine about me not putting shit back out just bc ur a little sad n gonna cry. guilting people is gross, reevaluate yourself.

if you want a song from an old video, just ask me! I’ll happily let you know what the music is in case u liked ‘em and can’t remember the titles or artists. i’ve also got a playlist full of the music i listen to so u can comb through there n see if the songs u want are there

#prince peeps

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onlinereputationupdates · 7 years ago

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Why mistakes makes you a perfect link builder

Whenever I’ve trained link builders, I’ve been consistent about one major process over the last decade: throw them in and let them learn by doing it, screwing up and finding their own way. I always tell them to expect to make mistakes, and they always do — some worse than others. But making mistakes is, in my opinion, the best learning experience. I still make stupid mistakes myself, and I expect I’ll make many more.

In this article, I’m going to cover the most egregious mistakes that I can remember any of us making. Enjoy the opportunity to learn from our missteps!

Mistake #1: Contacting someone who specifically says they don’t do whatever it is you want

Whether you’re trying to get a guest post up or just get a link, look and see if that’s even a possibility. Many sites specifically say they do not want to be contacted for guest posts, they do not offer text links, they do not use outside authors and so on. You can find this information in various places, but if you don’t see it in an obvious place (like the About Us page, for example), then do a quick site: search and slap in whatever it is you want, just to see if you’re wasting their time and yours.

Mistake #2: Getting a link on a hacked site

Oh, this one makes me furious! I’m happy to say I’ve never done it (yet), but some of my link builders have.

Hacking isn’t always immediately obvious. You’ll run across some sites that look fine but have hacked pages, so you don’t notice them unless you’re doing a site: search. That’s why I always do that search.

By the way, it’s a nice thing to contact the webmaster and tell them about the hack…

Mistake #3: Getting a link on a site that isn’t indexed in Google

If you use Google for your discovery, then this likely won’t be an issue for you (though you still want to ensure that the page you’re getting a link on is indeed in their index). However, we’ve had link builders that use other methods for discover, and they’ve secured links on sites that are deindexed.

It might seem like it would be glaringly obvious if a site was poor enough to be deindexed, but I’ve seen a few that look pretty good at first glance, with decent metrics. Google isn’t the only search engine, of course, but it’s not a good sign when they deindex a site.

Mistake #4: Contacting a site for a local client… using the city in the wrong country

Yep, this one was me. I rank it as the most ridiculous mistake I have made in quite some time. The best thing about this was that I didn’t notice, the person writing the content didn’t notice, and the link builder working with me on outreach didn’t notice! We were all perplexed when the webmaster asked why in the world we would think she would publish our content there. It was totally relevant to the industry, after all! But yeah, wrong country.

Mistake #5: Letting someone jerk you around for ages

This one is tricky, as it can be hard to tell when someone is just having fun with you. We have always had issues with people toying with us, and I’m sure many link builders can relate.

Recently, we had a webmaster go back and forth with us for two solid weeks — asking lots of questions, agreeing that our link would be a good fit for him and so on. After not hearing from him for a couple of days, he emailed to say he’d never be stupid enough to link to us. No reason, really — just him being a jerk.

Mistake #6: Asking for links in the comments section

I’m happy to say that none of my team have done this in years, but they used to! I still see people doing this, and it’s just lazy and stupid. If you find someone asking for links like that, you can usually find their footprint in dozens of other comments sections, too. Nice footprint, right?

Mistake #7: Contacting the client’s related sites

We record every site we contact so I can easily see what my team are working on. There have been instances where I’ve looked at the list of sites, thinking we were doing well — and lo and behold, there are contacts for several of the client’s sister sites. Embarrassing!

I’ve started to record all sister sites for a client in our Do Not Contact database to prevent this issue from happening again. And that brings me to the next one…

Mistake #8: Contacting the actual client

Yep, it’s happened. It’s happened more than once. I truly don’t even know what to say here, as it’s unforgivably stupid, but please make sure you aren’t emailing the client when you’re looking for good linking partners. I think one link builder’s excuse was that she got confused and meant to send the outreach to the webmaster of the site she’d found and not the client’s email address but still, pretty unforgivable.

Mistake #9: Getting a link on a page where the client already has a link

I can definitely see why you’d want to link more than once to the same site in one article. But if a client is paying you for your time, I doubt they want you to spend it getting a link where they’re already present.

Again, I find this to be lazy, but it happens to this day with my team. I think/hope they’re just getting caught up in making sure everything else is OK, and maybe they just miss it, but I’ll bet you anything the client won’t just miss it.

Mistake #10: Getting a link in someone else’s quote, guest post, sponsored post or interview

This is probably the problem that I face the most with my team. I’d be incredibly upset if someone inserted a link into a quote I’d given to a site. If I wanted the quote to contain a link, I’d insert it myself. I do feel like the webmaster has the right to insert a link if they want to provide a reference, even if it’s to their own site. But after the fact — say, four months down the road? Absolutely not OK.

If someone has paid for a post or contributed it as a guest post, the same thing applies. It’s not your content to mess with, so leave it alone, even if the webmaster would agree to do what you want. It’s tacky.

This brings me to the worst one I’ve seen by someone on my team (long ago, I promise!)…

Mistake #11: Getting a sponsored link REMOVED and our client’s link put up in its place

I was unlucky enough to find out about this one after the fact — and the reason I did was not because the link builder told me, but because our link closing process means that each link builder has to record the email thread for the link. So, I happened to see the conversation. I doubt you will be surprised to learn that I was floored. We’re not talking broken link building here. Maybe that was the idea, but this was ugly stuff.

I’ve recently been contacted by someone asking if I’d remove a link in an old article on this very site and add their newer, better one. Clever idea in some ways, but really quite a poor one overall.

Learn from our mistakes — and your own!

Hopefully, you are learning from your mistakes. Hopefully, they’re minor and not at anyone’s great expense. If not, make sure you talk about these mistakes to others on your team. The mistakes above have been made multiple times by multiple people, so it’s definitely worth taking the time to talk about them and make sure no one else screws up.

Source -: SearchEngineLand

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just4programmers · 7 years ago

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Porting a 15 year old .NET 1.1 Virtual CPU Tiny Operating System school project to .NET Core 2.0

I've had a number of great guests on the podcast lately. One topic that has come up a number of times is the "toy project." I've usually kept mine private - never putting them on GitHub - Somewhat concerned that people would judge me and my code. However, hypocrite that am (aren't we all?) I have advocated that others put their "Garage Sale Code" online. So here's some crappy code. ;)

The Preamble

While I've been working as an engineer for 25 years this year, I didn't graduate from school with a 4 year degree until 2003 - I just needed to get it done, for myself. I was poking around recently and found my project from OIT's CST352 "Operating Systems" class. One of the projects was to create a "Virtual CPU and OS." This is kind of a thought exercise. It's not really a parser/lexer - although there is both - and it's not a real OS. But it needs to be able to take in a made-up quasi-Assembly Language instruction set and execute them on a virtual CPU while managing virtual memory of arbitrary size. Again, a thought exercise made real to confirm that the student understands the responsibilities of a CPU.

Here's an example "application." Confused yet? Here's the original spec I was given in 2002 that includes the 36 instructions the "CPU" should understand. It has 10 general-purpose 32bit registers address as 1 through 10. Register 10 is the stack pointer. There are two bit flag registers - sign flag and zero flag.

Instructions are "opcode arg1 arg2" with constants prefixed with "$."

11 r8 ;Print r8 6 r1 $10 ;Move 10 into r1 6 r2 $6 ;Move 6 into r2 6 r3 $25 ;Move 25 into r3 23 r1 ;Acquire lock in r1 (currently 10) 11 r3 ;Print r3 (currently 25) 24 r1 ;Release r4 (currently 10) 25 r3 ;Sleep r3 (currently 25) 11 r3 ;Print r3 (currently 25) 27 ;Exit

I write my homework assignment in 2002 in the idiomatic C# of the time on .NET 1.1. That means no Generics<T> - I had to make my own strongly typed collections. That means C# has dozens of (if not a hundred) language and syntax improvements. I didn't use a Unit Testing Framework as TDD was just starting around 1999 during the XP (eXtreme Programming) days and NUnit was just getting start. It also uses "unsafe" to pin down memory in a few places. I'm sure there are WAY WAY WAY better and more sophisticated ways to do this today in idiomatic C# of 2017. Those are excuses, the real reasons are my own ignorance, ability, combined with some night-school laziness.

One of the more fun parts of this exercise was moving from physical memory (a byte array as I recall) to a full-on Memory Manager where each Process thought it could address a whole bunch of Virtual Memory while actual Physical Memory was arbitrarily sized. Then - as a joke - I would swap out memory pages as XML! ;) Yes, to be clear, it was a joke and I still love it.

You can run an "app" by passing in the total physical memory along with the text file containing the program, but you can also run an arbitrary number of programs by passing in an arbitrary number of text files! The "TinyOS" will handle each process thinking it has its own memory and will time

If you are more of a visual learner, perhaps you'd prefer this 20-slide PowerPoint on this Tiny CPU that I presented in Malaysia later that year. You dig those early 2000-era slides? I KNOW YOU DO.

Updating a .NET 1.1 app to cross-platform .NET Core 2.0

Step 1 was to download the original code from my own blog. ;) This is also Reason #4134 why you should have a blog.

I decided to use Visual Studio 2017 to upgrade it, and even worse I decided to use .NET Core 2.0 which is currently in Preview. I wanted to use .NET Core 2.0 not just because it's cross-platform but also because it promises to have a pretty large API surface area and I want this to "just work." The part about getting my old application running on Linux is going to be awesome, though.

Visual Studio then pops a scary dialog about upgrading files. NOTE that another totally valid way to do this (that I will end up doing later in this blog post) is to just make a new project and move the source files into it. Natch.

Visual Studio says it's targeting .NET 2.0 Full Framework, but I ratchet it up to 4.6 to see what happens. It builds but with a bunch of errors about Obsolete methods, the most interesting one being this one:

Warning CS0618 'ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings' is obsolete: 'This method is obsolete, it has been replaced by System.Configuration!System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings' C:\Users\scott\Downloads\TinyOSOLDOLD\OS Project\CPU.cs 72

That's telling me that my .NET 1/2 API will work but has been replaced in .NET 4.x, but I'm more interested in .NET Core 2.0. I could make my EXE a LIB and target .NET Standard 2.0 or I could make a .NET Core 2.0 app and perhaps get a few more APIs. I didn't do a formal analysis with the .NET Portability Analyzer but I will add that to the list of Things To Do. I may be able to make a library that works on an iPhone - a product that didn't exist when I started this assignment. That would be Just Cool(tm).

I decided to just make a new empty .NET Core 2.0 app and copy the source .cs files into it. A few interesting things.

My app also used "unsafe" code (it pins memory down and accesses it directly).

It has extensive inline documentation in comments that I used to use NDoc to make a CHM Help file. I'd like that doc to turn into HTML at some point.

It also has an appsettings.json file that needs to get copied to the output folder when it compiles.

While I could publish it to a self-contained .NET Core exe, for now I'm running it like this in my test batch files - example:

dotnet netcoreapp2.0/TinyOSCore.dll 512 scott13.txt

Here's the resulting csproj file.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk"> <PropertyGroup> <OutputType>Exe</OutputType> <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework> <GenerateDocumentationFile>true</GenerateDocumentationFile> </PropertyGroup> <PropertyGroup> <AllowUnsafeBlocks>true</AllowUnsafeBlocks> </PropertyGroup> <ItemGroup> <None Remove="appsettings.json" /> </ItemGroup> <ItemGroup> <Content Include="appsettings.json"> <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory> </Content> </ItemGroup> <ItemGroup> <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration" Version="2.0.0-preview2-final" /> <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json" Version="2.0.0-preview2-final" /> <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection" Version="2.0.0-preview2-final" /> <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions" Version="2.0.0-preview2-final" /> </ItemGroup> </Project>

Configuration is even more different on .NET Core 2.0. This little TinyOS has a bunch of config options that come in from a .exe.config file in XML like this (truncated):

<configuration> <appSettings>  <add key="PhysicalMemory" value="128" />  <add key="ProcessMemory" value="384" /> <add key="DumpPhysicalMemory" value="true" /> <add key="DumpInstruction" value="true" /> <add key="DumpRegisters" value="true" /> <add key="DumpProgram" value="true" /> <add key="DumpContextSwitch" value="true" /> <add key="PauseOnExit" value="false" />

I have a few choices. I could make a Configuration Provider and reach .NET Core to read this format (there's an XML adapter, in fact) or make the code porting easier by moving these "name/value" pairs to a JSON file like this:

{ "PhysicalMemory": "128", "ProcessMemory": "384", "DumpPhysicalMemory": "true", "DumpInstruction": "true", "DumpRegisters": "true", "DumpProgram": "true", "DumpContextSwitch": "true", "PauseOnExit": "false", "SharedMemoryRegionSize": "16", "NumOfSharedMemoryRegions": "4", "MemoryPageSize": "16", "StackSize": "16", "DataSize": "16" }

This was just a few minutes of search and replace to change the XML to JSON. I could have also written a little app or shell script. By changing the config (rather than writing an adapter) I could then keep the code 99% the same.

My code was doing things like this (all over...there was no DI container yet):

bytesOfPhysicalMemory = uint.Parse(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["PhysicalMemory"]);

And I'd like to avoid major refactoring - yet. I added this bit of .NET Core configuration at the top of the EntryPoint and saved away an IConfigurationHost:

var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder() .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json"); Configuration = builder.Build();

I've got a Dictionary in the format of the IConfiguration host called "Configuration." So now I just do this in a dozen places and the app compiles again:

bytesOfPhysicalMemory = uint.Parse(Configuration["PhysicalMemory"]);

This brings up that feeling we all have when we look at old code - especially our own old code. I should have abstracted that away! Why didn't I use an interface? Why so many statics? What was I thinking?

We can beat ourselves up or we can feel good about ourselves and remember this. The app worked. It still works. There is value in it. I learned a lot. I'm a better programmer now. I don't know how far I'll take this old code but I had a lovely afternoon porting it to .NET Core 2.0 and I may refactor the heck out if it or I may not.

For now I did update the smoke tests to run on both Windows and Linux and I'm happy with the experiment.