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phoenix1966sbottom · 5 years ago

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Big Bang 2020

It’s that time of year again!

I’ll be updating and reblogging this at the end of each day, give or take. No postings on weekends. I will also be updating the Honorable Mentions post, which will have switching, ambiguous sex and no penetrative sex stories with Sam/Jared. Please consider leaving a comment if you read any of these stories, as it is the only payment the author ever receives. And, as always, head the warnings where the story is posted.

June 15th - Seeking Arrangement by NaughtyPastryChef on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU. Nineteen year old Jared is brilliant but can't afford to go to his top college pick, MIT. In despair one night, he creates a profile on a sugar daddy/sugar baby matching app. Enter Jensen, sugar daddy who is snarky and hot and only 11 years older than Jared and who also happens to be JR Ackles, owner and ceo of Richardson Hotels and one of the richest men in the great state of Texas. Jared and Jensen sign a contract for four years; Jensen will pay for school and housing and anything else Jared could want, Jared pays him back by playing intelligent younger boyfriend who is insatiable in bed.

June 16th - Nothing posted.

June 17th - Nothing that fits the criteria.

June 18th - Nothing that fits the criteria.

June 19th - Light from a Burning Bridge by kelleigh on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU. Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge.Jensen Ackles is no stranger to loss. Both of his parents are gone, and today he’s burying his only brother after a dangerous rescue gone wrong. Jensen knows the tradition—that the fire department would send someone to help him as a way of honoring their late captain—but the last thing he needs is another firefighter hanging around, reminding him of what he lost. He especially doesn’t want to see this particular firefighter.The Jared Padalecki that Jensen knew was wild, cocky, and always chasing the next rush. After parting ways three years ago, Jensen thought he’d never have to see him again. Little did he know that Jared was transferred to his brother’s station just months before his death, catapulting them back into each other’s lives. Now, if Jensen has any chance of climbing out of this darkness, he’s going to have to accept a lifeline from the man he swore he’d never forgive. (there is one line mentioning past switching, but I’m still going to leave this one here)

No posting on weekends. See you on Monday!

June 22nd - Superposition by nyxocity on Ao3. Wincest. Sam/Dean (minor Sam/OFC). In their final hunt, the Winchesters fought God, and they won. Years later, Sam Winchester is a man on the run from a different threat, and he's a man who is beginning to tire of running. Filled with memories, he returns to Shell Beach, Florida, a place he'd visited on a hunt when he was 16 years old...His father and brother busy working the hunt, he meets a girl who's smart and beautiful and seems to like him a lot. But Dean is only busy with Dad half the time, and he and Sam have been spending a lot of time together. Something strange is happening, and scary, inexplicable feelings are beginning to grow inside Sam. Wanting a normal life, he gravitates toward the girl, but his heart keeps pulling him in another, confusing direction that he doesn't understand. Meanwhile, Dean's teaching Sam new and interesting things, taking him around town, spending time alone together, and convincing Sam they should go to the beach carnival--a night that culminates in events that will change Sam's life forever. And back in present day, something is still coming for Sam: something that might lead him to what he's always wanted, or end with his final, irrevocable death. (there is slight Sam/OFC).

June 23rd - Nothing that fits the criteria.

June 24th - Mating Fight by junkerin on Ao3. Jared/Jensen, (background Jared/Gen). J2 AU. Jensen and Jared grow up together.Jensen realized early he is in love with this young and independent omega. If only Jared would be a little bit more like omegas are supposed to be. Through the years Jared and Jensen’s friendship grows but in the end Jensen wants Jared as his mate. Even when he has to fight for him in a mating fight. (although not onscreen, Jared and Gen switch).

June 25th - Nothing that fits the criteria.

June 26th - Nothing that fits the criteria.

No posting on weekends. See you on Monday!

June 29th - Master, Be My Slave by hunter_king on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU. In a world that's been taken over by vampires, Jared feels like he is the only human left. Once he's captured by the vampires, he gets picked by Jensen. At first, they hate each other, but eventually they begin to form a close bond that turns to much more than just friendship.

June 30th - The Rose Hidden Among the Thorns by blackrose_17 on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU. Mob Boss Jensen Ackles is done with the thorn in his side FBI Agent Stephen Amell and he goes after Stephen's one true weakness, his loyal boyfriend Jared Padalecki. Jared has always known that Stephen's life is a dangerous one but he never expected to be drawn into a web of seduction and danger or learn secrets that Stephen has been keeping from him. In the end, it might not be Stephen who is his knight in shining armor but Jensen in his world of shadows.

No posting through the holiday weekend.

July 6th - Nothing that fits the criteria.

July 7th The Passenger by roxymissrose on Ao3. Sam/Dean. WIncest AU. This is a post-plague curtain fic.Dean Winchester, an MoL errand boy and a bit of a rogue, meets Sam, a hot-tempered and mouthy skinwalker—and illegal slave. Of course, Dean can't let that stand, so cue the rescue, over the mountains and away. They find themselves trapped in a cabin over the long, long season of climate-changed winter. One handsome hunter, one angry 'walker.However will they survive? (for bottom!Sam purists, it is mentioned, but not seen, that he rims Dean once).

July 8th - Love Never Dies by annie46 on Ao3. Sam/Dean. WIncest. Count Dracula - star of literature and screen is a work of fiction, isn't he? A spate of dead girls in Highgate and Whitby make Sam think differently, and he persuades Dean to come to England with him to investigate these 'new' vampire-like killings. Turn's out Stoker's work of fiction wasn't fiction after all, and maybe the Count is looking for some 'fresh' blood!

July 9th - The Prophecy by TammyRenH on Ao3. Jared/Jensen. J2 AU. There is an old prophecy that involves an omega with magic ability far greater than has ever been seen before. Jared, a royal omega about to be given away to a very not-nice prince, decides to choose one thing for himself - who to give his virginity to. This act results in major consequences for both Jared and Jensen - including a pregnancy that shouldn’t be possible, magic that saves them and places them in danger, a voyage across the sea, sword fights, an evil prince, and, above all, the fierce love that binds Jared, Jensen and their unborn child together.

July 10th - Nothing that fits the criteria.

And that’s a wrap for this year! Here’s hoping for another year of BBs to look forward to!

Please leave comments, support the authors/artists and give Wendy a pat on the back for running this challenge so that we might still have years to come of it!

#fanfic rec #big bang #big bang 2020 #bottom!jared #j2 au #angst #minor character death #top!jensen #wincest #bottom!sam #omega!jared #a/b/o dynamics #alpha!jensen #vampire!jensen #mpreg

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rennybu · 4 years ago

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how did Kai meet his husband? also you said he was abused shortly after his fall, was that by a human he met or by the other angels he left behind? i love him so much i missed your art of him jdmfmsndkdkdj

omg myken 🥺 im weepy i missed him TOO... we are in the Kai revival era just u wait!!!! brieeef discussions of abuse in a purely fictional story context under the cut

his abuser was a human! When he fell, he landed near a wealthy estate property, and the father and eldest son of the family found him while they were out hunting. They take it as a divine sign that their family is blessed. I don’t name any of the family in the comic script, because Kai doesn’t remember their names or their faces, only how their treatment affected him. The eldest son basically grooms him to be a story-book angel to play the harp and sing in their salon, and cuts his hair/clips his wings and gaslights him. The rest of the family are bystanders. Kai ends up killing the eldest son and setting fire to a wing of the estate before escaping. The rest of the family never come looking for him, seeing his retribution as another divine sign. He hops a train for a few days, does a lot of scenic hiking, and ends up in a small farming/fishing village in some coastal mountains! Wild haired and bright eyed!

The townspeople are happy to receive him but give him a respectful berth, and he boards in one of the small rooms in what used to be an abbey. Angel lore is. strange in this world because like, fallen angels DO have some divine essence to them, and people either react with awe or revulsion or fear or hatred.. thankfully the village is a peaceful one and sees his arrival as meaning plain good luck, and they let him come and go as he pleases, and he slowly opens up to them as he recovers.

I don’t focus much on the outside lore of the world, but its sort of like. Late 1800s early 1900s historical-fantasy?? PURELY for aesthetics and technology, I’m not trying to make any real-world parallels. Anyhoot he meets his FUTURE HUSBAND by complete accident and it’s very Princess Mononoke UM

Lucien is on military leave due to a broken arm, and he ends up boarding in the same town Kai now lives in. Luc decides to take a walk in the orchards by the abbey to clear his head, and Kai sees Man In Uniform and pulls a knife on him from a few feet away, just. Standing between the trees, hair grown out slightly, knife winking the sunlight at Luc. He says if he ever wants to set foot in the orchard again he can’t come dressed for violence, and Luc leaves pretty shaken (and very flustered). Lucien puts in the effort to get civilian clothes before going back to the orchard, but they don’t always meet because Kai is wary of him. Sometimes they talk for hours, sometimes they bring books and read in silence, sometimes they bump into each other in the town market, etc etc, this goes on for literally years as Luc comes and goes and eventually gets discharged from the army (for questioning orders or picking fights with nasty dudes in his ranks probably). SLOW FUCKING BURN!!! They both guard their love fiercely and need to be absolutely certain the other 1) WANTS it and 2) will reciprocate it before they can even come close to expressing it. Mess. They end up inheriting the abbey and orchards and tending to it as old gays together. Married!!!

I feel nuts this got so long im HOEILKSJKDGFSDGNSLDKGS,N WAHOOO

#grooming mention #abuse mention #kailiriel #i feel like charlie day pepe sylvia #i promise the comic will be linear #oh my g #THANK YOU #firebenderlesbian

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jessejostark · 5 years ago

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Jesse Jo Stark: ‘Some things are meant to be held onto, and some things are meant to be said and then just burned’

Singer-songwriter Jesse Jo Stark talks to Vivienne Hopley-Jones after her show at Cambridge Junction about authenticity, genre and growing into her body.

A grungy room in the back of the Cambridge Junction lined with bright, harsh ‘Hollywood’ bulbs reflects the juxtaposition of the woman who enters, shakes my hand and greets me with a sweet and grainy L.A. accent. While down-to-earth and grounded, the spectre of Hollywood lingers around her – she oozes a Californian glamour, all the more alluring in its muted form. “I’m classy as hell sometimes but I do it in my own way.”

In washed-out denim, a tie-dye zip up and UGG boots, Jesse Jo Stark exudes a raw authenticity – something she sees as equally important in the music she creates: “we're starving for something that's really authentic and not just like the mainstream that you'd hear on the radio.”

“We had no plan. I just called her and was like: I need to be held by a monster, in front of, like, a painted mural.”

Stark offers satisfaction to that starvation. She has a unique sound, which makes her hard to place in the industry: a position that she enjoys. “I get nervous when people ask me what my genre is because it's just so hard to pinpoint.”

In answer, or in order to avoid answering the generic genre question, Stark coined a term she feels is more representative of her music: “horrific hillbilly,” she chuckles – only half-joking. The term seems to epitomise the unusual blend of influences in Stark’s sound which comprises an aurally stimulating cocktail of rock-and-roll and country, overlaid with the singer’s gravelly melodic voice.

Her music is at once soft and electrifying, dichotomous qualities that seem to coexist in Stark herself: she is sweet and softly-spoken, generous with her attention. After her show she spends a half hour talking to a young girl and her mother who travelled overseas to see her perform – a story she recounts to her own mum over the phone later in the evening with pleasure. She compares her ‘ideal’ fanbase to that of artist Mazzy Star, “she’s got like this cult following, and it's not like it's massive but it’s important”. She’s interested to find a “weird little group” in the cities she visits and from the people she meets.

But there is also something electric about Stark’s person. She is loud and boisterous – boldly throwing her body about on stage, or clambering across the back of the sofa to order for everybody at dinner later in the evening.

“I've always loved, like, neon, leopard and punk-rock. Like all that stuff.” In the bus before the show she picks out an outfit for the evening. In a leopard print, low-cut jumpsuit, knee high white boots that she designed herself and a silver silk overcoat, Stark transforms into the stage version of herself. After the show, she switches into ‘boyfriend’ jeans and a white shirt for dinner. Her makeup is a slightly smudged reminder of her stage persona – a Bowie-esque transformation.

Stark rejects the idea that the character she becomes on stage and in her music videos is a mere fiction: “There’s definitely fantasy behind anything that I create; a world that I wish I was a part of. Like this un-dead afterlife. You know, specifically Fire of Love – like I wish that that could be my every day, but it's not.” But, “that’s truly how I feel on the inside.”

How much of herself does she hold back? “I try to not write too much of myself as I know I can be cryptic and I want my thoughts to belong to others as well”. She divides herself into the poet and the individual: writing for others or “purge” writing for herself. “Some things are meant to be held onto and some things are meant to be said and then just burned.”

Stark’s visuals and consistent aesthetic are centrifugal to her music. From a curated Instagram feed to the old-school Hollywood style of her album artwork, listening to Stark’s music involves enmeshing oneself in a rich, visual world.

Her music videos are particularly striking – often shot and filtered through a vintage-looking filter, they have a reminiscent quality that is reflective of Stark’s own nostalgia for decades gone by. Her most recent video to accompany the gravelly tune ‘Fire of Love’ was shot by Chuck Grant, L.A. photographer and sister of Lana Del Rey. “We had no plan. I just called her and was like: I need to be held by a monster, in front of, like, a painted mural.”

“There’s definitely fantasy behind anything that I create; a world that I wish I was a part of.”

This strong visual direction that Stark has seems as important to her as the music she creates. “You know some of my friends that are musicians – they have an idea and then they just want the director to take it and do it. But for me it's really a collaborative piece and I want to be involved with everything.”

Stark’s own creative direction is strong. “It’s like having a really sick dream – that’s so beautiful to have like a really cool dream, but to actually make it a movie or a three minute long video – it's even cooler, you know?” Perhaps this is in-part influenced by her other long-standing career – that of a designer, I suggest. “I don't know – I’ve never thought of it like that.”

Stark exudes confidence on and off stage. She describes herself as a “late bloomer” when it comes to self confidence, particularly body confidence. And now? “I’m comfortable naked.” Her voice finds a clarity and gravity. “I think that women's bodies are beautiful. I want to shine. It's not to get attention. It's not for a man. It's because I own my body, I work for my body, I'm in control of my body and it's really a beautiful thing.”

There’s something infectious about Stark’s confidence and her attitude to her body and physical appearance. Hearing a woman talk about growing into herself — growing to like herself – in such a humbling way is inspiring. The feeling manifests within me when I see her on stage, where she’s as fierce and bold and is entirely herself. “I feel more confident than I've ever felt – I never knew that day would come for me.”

“I feel more confident than I've ever felt – I never knew that day would come for me.”

Of her clothing in music videos such as Fire of Love stark explains, “The reason I’m in lingerie for the most part is because I feel like clothes do accentuate us, but we don't need much.” Yet Stark recognises “sadly the game is that people have more to say if you have less clothes on.” This seems a prescient comment about the position of female artists in the industry, who seem more open to judgement based upon their appearance than many male counterparts. Not just in the music industry, but outside of it: this image of women playing ‘the game’ is an important one.

The role of women in the music industry is something we continue to speak on extensively – the ramifications of which extend beyond the music world: “we feed off of the youth,” Stark notes emphatically. “Growing old for women is scary for some reason and I'm sure like it’ll freak me out at some point – my body's already changing.” But Stark has a distinctly positive outlook: “I'm really happy that I’m growing into my skin and I'm looking forward to being a really bad-ass older woman.” Again, there’s something infectious about her boisterous confidence and attitude.

Another thing that the singer-songwriter describes as “bad-ass” is being busy. Having supported the Vaccines earlier this year in the US before supporting Sunflower Bean for their current UK tour, Stark also balances her music career alongside her work for her parents’ brand Chrome Hearts. “I'm old school and I work for what I want”.

In the context of Cambridge, with the temptation to do everything, Stark’s advice resonates: “Don't do a million things and be bad at all of them.” Stark leaves you with the feeling not that you should do everything, but the belief you can do anything. Beyond that, she brims with life and vitality that exudes into the space surrounding her. “Our souls – I always wanted to be forever young, inside.”

Jesse Jo Stark's final UK show will be on December 3rd at the Shacklewell Arms in London.

#jesse jo stark #music #interview #news #2018

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thatboomerkid · 6 years ago

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Wishing Day

Pathfinder Fiction by Clinton J. Boomer

Brought to you absolutely free to enjoy, to test & to share – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Old Wishtwister Shadibriri was having himself a truly lovely day.

The barren sky hung still, sullen and gray like a pool of seething lead, low and dark upon the horizon without a ghost of sunlight behind it. Stinging snow, much of it now clumped into hard, cruel shards of ice, sifted and spattered through the black and leafless trees, filling the forest path with a drifting, bony whiteness, which crunched delightfully underfoot.

A cry of killing wind cut, crackling, through the ice-coated branches, and a smile crept unto the lips of the Wishtwister.

Such good sport, he thought with a quiet laugh. And what a day!

It was a day that promised to be delightful, and productive, and most of all simply a well-fulfilling damned enterprise. After all, he thought: it’s Wishing Day!

Thirty miles south by south-east of Gralton, soiled jewel of the River Kingdoms, the whistling Wishtwister cut through the nameless woods to his destination: a blackened little circle of seven stumps ringing ’round a jut of bloodstained and rune-carved rock dating back to the time of the old Sarkoris Binding-Witches. The creeping grin which began, split the Wishgiver’s face at the thought of those old hags and what had become of them was colder than even the ice-choked wind.

His smile brightened, and his pace quickened. He was, of course, wearing a potent glamour, painted pleasant, bright and ruddy-cheeked as he always did when amongst humans, but the spring in his step was all real. It had simply been too long, by his delighted accounting, since Wishing Day had last come to Gralton.

Has it really been only a year?

Gralton had been a lucky find, all things considered during that winter of 4668 – the year all the wishing started. Once the old aristocracy of Galt had fled from the Red Revolution and settled into their rotting river estates just long enough to hate themselves for cowardice, it had been all too easy to put the right words in the right ears; on the 11th of Kuthona, when all the faithful of Cayden Cailean were gathered by a roaring hearth, spinning tall-tales and raising a tongue-tied toast to their hero’s bold ascension, the bitter and the vengeance-minded were to be found upon a very cold and lonely holiday indeed.

A dozen souls attended that first, inaugural Wishing Day.

This year, for his 42nd anniversary, Shadibriri expected a crowd of near fifty.

In truth, it should be said, there were more profitable opportunities than Gralton scattered around the great, wide world with all its mysteries: the early weeks of Gozran were always exciting, coming as they did in the very shadow of Taxfest. And the endless, aching middle of Calistril invariably saw the burning agony of some youth’s heart in the desperate need of an immediate fulfillment. Strangest of all, perhaps, the last gasps of Lamashan always seemed to writhe around an artist who had lost his muse or a soldier staggering home, sick to their stomach of war. Yes, all twelve months had very special and wonderful reasons to be in the right place at the right time, with sharp ears tuned to the right desires. And when there were no temptations to sow or bargains to make, no words to massage or dull-tongued desires to bring forth into hideous life, there was always killing to be done.

Yes, always killing, and blood and fear and the bursting of hot flesh in one’s sharp, slick hands. And the cries of accusations and sorcerer-burning. And the souls caught up in the shuffle, of course, and carried out into the Abyss. Delightful, all.

But for old Wishtwister Shadibriri, nothing was quite as sweet as today, perhaps because it was his – and his alone. No one else yet had a Wishing Day: ripe with those looks of pure, panicked, docile, tragic, terrified, wasted hope wreathed in angry, spiteful, blood-thrumming need. A crowd, squirming, willing to wrestle and claw and kill for the right to sell their soul short.

No wonder he loved Wishing Day.

A wandering, tuneless hum began to bounce right along with Shadibriri’s mirth, and the old demon turned his thoughts, quite idly, to how he might go about conducting this day’s most unique symphony of wants and promises and weeping betrayals. Would he make his supplicants fight for his favor? Fornicate, perhaps, in ugly couplings? Strip naked and race through the cold woods on frozen feet? Perhaps a wine-drinking competition, full to bursting and puking, or a teeth-pulling challenge, yanking gaping gums bare and bloody, or some other contest of trembling self-mutilation.

Each of those had always been joyous in the past.

And then the wish, of course, was the best part of all.

The old Wishtwister had never been one for plans. Ever the artist, never the engineer. An improviser: for him, a single second’s spark of spontaneity was worth well more than a dull decade’s dusty design; a moment of madness would always out-pace a century of contemplation.

But he did like to wonder.

And then, with a twinkle in his eye and a slick, savage parting of the strings of conjuration which bind the Astral spaces, the Wishtwister arrived at his destination.

There were four dozen there, all told, huddled against the cloying chill that strikes the River Kingdoms with a vengeful howl each winter and refuses to let go. Ice in their beards, hands fisted into numbs clumps at their sides, wet, crimson misery in their eyes; these abandoned and shifting souls were wrapped in finery and peasant’s rags alike. Some had surely rode six days out of Daggermark for this occasion, in sumptuous carriages crafted of darkwood and cold iron; others had no doubt begun the bleak march out of South Gralton’s gray farmland at nightfall wrapped in all they owned. And all were here, balancing dread against obsession.

With a ringing laugh, the Wishtwister leapt up upon the tallest stump of the clearing, and his warm voice carried against the wind: “Welcome, welcome, welcome all! And let our Wishing Day … commence!”

His sparkling smile washed over the crowd, and his gaze picked at their worried faces shining with unknown needs. He made a thousand, thousand guesses, and discarded all of them just as quickly.

Who, today, would leave with their heart’s desire?

He did not know, and the joy was in the learning of it. There was, for a moment, a heat within him so fierce that it was almost overwhelming; a wild mania, a rage to pick each and every one of the gathered throng apart with his bare hands and drink their piping blood down in gasping gulps.

“Hello, hello and hello! I am the old Shadibriri, friends, who hearkens close to those in greatest need, and by the ancient pacts of these old woods I come in this hour to hear your wants and whispers. I am no god, and I seek no prayers; I am no man, and I seek no gold; I am only a spirit of hoping and of wishing and of having, and I come expecting … gifts! Who, then, has brought me a treat, a taste, a tickle or a tithe?”

One woman, all-too-young, barefooted, dressed in rag and pushing forward through the crowd: “I … I bring you fresh milk.”

A grin: “Oh, and indeed I do treasure a drink of sweet milk! Is it warm, may I inquire?”

A look of terrified uncertainty: “I’m afraid … well, the … the cold … ”

“Huh. You did not think to clutch it next to your body, and to keep it warm?”

“I … I tucked it close as I could, against the wind, but … ”

“Oh, no. Then, perhaps next year you will remember to hide it beneath your cloak, against your bare and secret skin.”

The woman blushed, and stammered.

“… I …”

“No matter, young lady! ‘Tis but a bit of teasing from an old man, is all. You are bold, to speak first, and I do admire boldness. You may stay, for your milk is a fine gift. Pour it, now, on the ground, and abide awhile. If I may ask, then, little one, what will you wish for if the wishing be made yours this day?”

A soft gasp against the wind: “The … love of … ”

“Eh? What’s that, my little lamb, my little lark?”

“The love of a certain … certain person.”

“Hm. Oh, but I am afraid that I cannot give you the love of another.”

Red eyes startled, staring, disappointed.

A grin, as the ruined and muddy milk began to freeze upon the ground: “But I can give you this person, rest you assured. This person, their life, their body, their mind, their very heart, still hot, if you wish. All the things which make them, which is better than love. To thee, young lady, I wish the best of luck!”

Her eyes turned downward, humiliated and on the verge of tears.

“Now, who is next with gifts?”

A man stepped forward: “I bring you, master, a brick of solid silver.”

“Hm. And what need has a spirit for silver, lad?”

“… taken from my grandfather’s store without his knowledge.”

“Ah! Then you guess at my nature, boy!”

“I remember you of years past, my master.”

“Quite well, son! Well indeed, and I see your gift and am pleased, and beg of you to stay. If I may ask, my shivering and cunning friend, what shall you wish for today if the wish is made yours?”

“Revenge.”

“Oh, delightful! Come close, and drop your gift at my feet! Now, of these gathered lords and ladies, who else has a thing to offer me?”

A black-cloaked figure pushed forward: “I offer you only death, monster.”

The crowd drew back in time with the unsheathing of a blade.

A delighted gasp: “You offer me … death? So few have ever done so, and in truth I have never had it. And, then, what would your wish be, friend?”

With a scarred and battle-worn voice: “That you face me.”

“Indeed!”

Screams roiled through the crowd, as some few saw, for the briefest moment, the Old Wishtwister for what he truly was. A great and gnarled limb, like the claw of some misshapen crab vomited out of the Lake of Mists and Veils, snapped forward and severed the swordsman in twain. With a gush of steaming blood, his corpse twitched upon the scarlet snows and then lay still.

“There. A wish is granted.”

A mummer of panic roiled through the audience.

“Oh, fear not, friends! His request was a trifling thing, no great difficulty in granting. In truth, he deserved much more than that for which he asked; I could have given him strength beyond the mortal, or a blade more swift than blackness itself, or the insight to know his enemy’s heart and the vision to see foes all around him. A pity, then, that he chose so foolishly. Now, then … who else has brought me a gift?”

And there, as the supplication went on, and trophies piled before him, and the crowd began to turn spiteful and desperate, the Old Wishtwister decided upon the final task which would decide the victor of Wishing Day: the supplicant willing to devour, in gasps, the greatest portion of the fallen swordsman would be granted their dearest wish.

Oh yes, that would be fun. And then, and then, and THEN the very wish itself, and the new horrors dawned from it.

Ah, the joys of Wishing Day!

—

NOTE:

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#pathfinder #glabrezu #wishtwister #fiction #river kingdoms

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femalebookworm · 6 years ago

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Honestly, at this point, I’m following my to-do list on my phone, which I have placed a few titles to read but I’m always clicking in a hurry on my kindle and I never end up picking the ones on my phone’s to-do list. This changed, obviously. I don’t have much to say for this intro, so, the usual should follow: thank you for your time reading this review and keep coming back for the next one. I’m sure gonna try to keep everything organized for 2019, or for the most part. Catch the summary below and my thoughts right after. If you are feeling risky - the screenshots.

A world of frost and snow. A prince with a heart of ice. A darkness lurking in the shadows, so evil it may destroy them all.

Eighteen-year-old Sloane has spent years training to be lethal. She can cut a man down as easily with her bare hands as she can with a sword. But when her brother goes missing on the green planet, Aeris, she will need more than her skills with a blade to save him.

Sneaking aboard the rescue mission may be easy for her, but the woods of Aeris aren’t as empty as her people first assumed. Sloane is about to meet her match, and he’s not exactly human…

Sloane thought she could solve any problem with a blade--that is until she is kidnapped and taken through a shimmering rift to a strange world covered in snow. The frozen land she finds herself in is protected by a mysterious race of warriors and haunted by evil, ancient creatures that lurk in the shadows.

Kidnapped and dragged to a mysterious frozen world, Sloane must gain her captor’s trust if she wants to escape. The only problem is: she didn’t plan to care for the strange people who live there. She didn’t expect the smoldering attraction she feels for the man who keeps her prisoner in the snow. And she never imagined the dark creatures that haunt the foreign world could hold the answers she is looking for.

Her first instinct is to fight for her freedom, but her skills with a sword are useless in helping her escape from the cold and distant prince who holds her prisoner. Her only hope is to gain his trust. The problem is, he's just as stubborn as she is and refuses to let her go.

Will she succeed in escaping or will she find a reason to stay? (less)

To add something else to my honesty, I sincerely thought this book would be a complete mess of werewolves, vampires, or such — and I was super happy when it wasn’t. This science fiction-fantasy style was quite pleasant and super fast I almost cried when I finished because I’m so not ready to spend recklessly on books for the next 25 days. Honestly, for someone who’s broke, I do end up paying for things like food and housing… and forced to hold off where books are concerned. Which is sad because I’ve had a terrible couple of years with books, and it seems to me that I am back at grooving?? But anyway, after checking in on Goodreads and finding that if I choose to continue I have 3 more books ahead… Well, next month I will burn my limit past six feet under. So, thank you, Alexandra Moody.

Her brother was on a mission, his whole party is missing and Sloane fiercely believes that she’s the gal to find her brother on another planet. The big catch? Leaving her sister behind. It’s somewhat unclear at the beginning on WHY are they in space looking for a viable planet to settle… but the answer or partial answer will come eventually, and you might shed a tear. But Sloane is set, and in order to get in for the “retrieval�� and recon, she kinda steals her place into it… and voilà, something bad happens and her suit is enough of a disguise to lead people into hating her when the ship comes crashing down. This inhabited planet has her brother somewhere, but she has a bigger fish to deal with before she goes on a search. And on search she will go, and ends up finding a pair of startling blue eyes with a high set of fighting skills that will put her to the test, and eventually land her on a different place — farther then where she believes her bother is, and now her team.

Blah, this sounded much like a summary (ps: I am still writing this without any sense of what the summary is actually saying!), and for that I am sorry. At any rate, she’ll have to adapt in order to return. But before that happens, she might develop some serious feelings towards that blue-eyed guy from earlier, and even start to like the people around his world, even though she’s an outsider through-and-through. But the chance to return and warn her people grows stronger, she’s in for the biggest task of them all: convince everyone to leave because this planet isn’t what it seems, and the dangers lurking in the shadows are too great for a mere human. Yikes, I don’t need to say there’s romance blooming, do I? Well, there’s tons to happen in between and tons more that needs to be read still.

At the end of the book there was a warning about an extra book with Rhyn’s POV, and BOOM, that’s how this review is still going, and that’s how I am attached to yet another newsletter and author. So, the description for this BONUS chapter is exactly what it is. Rhyn’s first encounter with Sloane, or at least voyeur style. We learn that from that very moment Rhyn is not so far detached as he seems to be for a couple of chapters prior to his own POV. Of course, I’d have been happier if this bonus chapter was already included in-the-story, but I will take it. The remaining of this series is on my To-Read list for sure… but I have far too many freebies to read before I can even contemplate on Book 2. We will get there, eventually. Prepare yourself for all those screenshots.

#The Liftsal Guardians #Alexandra Moody #Review #Book #Booo Review #Bookworm #femalebookworm #The Liftsal Guardians Series #Romance #Science Fiction #Fiction #YA Book #Young Adult #Fantasy #Ice We Burn

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celticbarb · 4 years ago

Text

📚HAPPY⚔️RELEASE⚔️DAY📚

🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾🎉🍾

⚔️BOOK🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿RELEASE🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿REVIEW⚔️

Book: The Highland Laird

by Amy Jarecki

Series: Lords of the Highlands, Book #8

Publisher: Forever (Grant

Central Publishing)

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Reviewed by: Barb Massabrook (of)

1)Tartan Book Reviews

2)Purple Tulip Book Reviews

3)Celtic World of Historical Book Reviews

4)Celtic Barb’s Kilted Book Review Blog on Tumblr

Book Rating: 5/5 Stars/Kilts

The Scottish Highlands

29 July 1714

“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye, that was the trouble.” I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.” - Ernest Hemingway

The Scottish Highlands

29 July 1714

Emma Grant is the blind sister of Laird Robert Grant who is married to Janet Cameron. Laird Robert and her clan has always been very overprotective of Emma who has led a very cloistered life because of her blindness. Yet Robert worries and loves his sister very much. She is able to sew, dress herself, count all the steps, plus memorize where all the furniture is in her home at Moristown Hall. Her brother teaches her other hobbies, to challenge her and to pick locks, due to her impeccable hearing and brilliant mind. Yet he also worries about her safety, as some of these superstitious, fanatical, bigots fear blind people are witches and worship the devil. These fanatics also lie blaming these innocent, sightless beings for bad crops, animal deaths, a wife losing a bairn in childbirth, or any bad occurrence in their life! Some of the innocents have been committed to insane asylums, beaten, and even executed for their sightless handicap by burning them at the stake! In addition Emma is an extremely talented musician, a harpist, her family keeps this hidden too. As she can only reveal her talent in small recitals to people who know her. Fearing people who might harm her due to their cruel bigotry and hatred, her clan will do anything to keep her safe!

Emma is away from home for the first time in her cloistered life. She is attending the wedding of her sister-in-law’s younger brother, (THE HIGHLAND ROGUE, #7), Sir Kennan Cameron to his bride Divana.This is terrifying as everything is unfamiliar and Emily has to totally depend on others for absolutely everything! As Emma’s independent nature hates this, plus feeling like a burden to others. Here she so unfamiliar with the surroundings which makes her panic as she gets lost from her brother and his wife. Yet she is rescued by the one braw, swoon worthy, Scot who makes her heart go pitter-patter and makes her pulse race! It is non other than Laird Ciar MacDougall, Chieftain of Dunollie.

The one person who doesn’t make her feel inadequate, he is also her brothers best friend. The only man who actually sees Emma for the person she truly is. Not just as the blind girl. He always makes her feel special and desirable-her secret knight in shining armour and is always there when she needs him most. He makes her feel special like a fierce cable woman. He is very protective of Emma, but never allows her to put herself down or think she is not good enough due to her blindness.She doesn’t realize Ciar cares and desires her as a woman too. Seeing she is all grown up and the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. He tries to fight it, as he knows her brother Robert would kill him, but innocently the share a couple passionate kisses by accident at this wedding party. Emma is thrilled by this unexpected turn of events and Ciar is confused thinking he better fight it.

On top of this the country is in turmoil! The Queen has died and now a foreign useless King who is not even from Britain is to be crowned as King. They know it will not make things better. So all Lairds decide to split up and find support hoping to prevent this foreign King from getting crowned. Yet on his way Ciar witnesses a murder by three redcoats where they frame him for the murder. He is going to be executed at Fort William as the crooked Governor Wilcox won’t even give Ciar a fair trial! When Emma hears this she knows it is not true but when she realized no one will help her as everyone is away trying to find support to oppose George of Hanover. She decides with the help of a sixteen year old stable boy, and her dog, she will rescue her beloved from Fort William. She is unsuspecting being a blind woman who can pick locks to rescue Ciar. He is absolutely shocked but her rescue! As it is the absolute last thing he expected, now they are both fugitives wanted by the law! Yet they have a place to hide out in until Ciar can figure out his next move. This is where they fall in love except Ciar has to make a difficult decision to protect the woman he loves or his country? Which will he choose and will Emma’s knight in shining armor break her tender heart? I am also hoping Emma gets her happily ever after too. Does she? To find out the conclusion for both Ciar and Emma get a copy of The Highland Laird today!

Last book of the series definitely going out with a bang with pipers playing playing “Flowers of the Forrest.” https://youtu.be/rfsasAlICo8

**Only posting piper music on my promo spots and my blog. This is a new touch that I will be doing only on Scottish historical series of over 5 books.

This book centers on the heroine, Emma Grant, who readers met in the fifth book in the Lords of the Highlands series in (THE HIGHLAND RENEGADE). Even though this is the last book in the “Lords of the Highlands” series. If you are a fan and have read each book then you are in for a big treat! As this novel is like a family reunion, as you will see the other heroes and heroines from previous books in this book too. I have absolutely loved each and every book in this captivating series. Of course not to worry you can read “The Highland Laird” as a stand alone book too.

Amy Jarecki is an extremely talented storyteller that weaves true Scottish history into a beautiful, breathtaking, fictional, romance that readers will get swept away in. So if you are not a history nerd like me I won’t spoil and tell you who is crowned as their sovereign.

Ms. Jarecki fills the pages in this riveting, page turning, romantic adventure with all the elements that Scottish romance readers love. The multidimensional main and secondary characters both human and canine are brilliant. Though I think Albert was a bit of a stealer myself! Well I am a big dog lover so I love when dogs are in my stories. The setting was absolutely awe-inspiring, the dialogue was fantastic and the plotting was phenomenal. All in all I just loved this story so much!

I definitely recommend this exquisite book that I absolutely loved!

Buy Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Highland-Laird-Lords-Highlands/dp/153875097X

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amy-jarecki/the-highland-laird/9781538750971/

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?pcampaignid=books_read_action&id=Nl_ODwAAQBAJ

https://m.barnesandnoble.com/s/the+highland+laird

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-highland-laird

https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-highland-laird/id1497485443

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-highlander-s-unexpected-proposal

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aslightstep · 8 years ago

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14 - Steve/Tony, post-CW or CW-compliant would be preferable, but an AU is fine.

(For clarity’s sake, Tony and Pepper were never together in this. Actually, just assume Iron Man 3 doesn’t happen for my peace of mind, or move it down the timeline after TWS. OK, and a little bit of a warning, even though it might be overzealous. This fic deals a bit with my personal headcanon that both Steve Rogers and Tony Stark have issues with obsession/fixation, and this isn’t exactly a positive spin on that. SO. Some of the ways they think might be a little eh?!?! if you weren’t prepared, but now you are!)

I Was A Fool

1. (Do you remember I searched you out? How I climbed your city walls.)

Tony watches him at the railing for a long time, one hand wrapped around the tumbler of whiskey and one hand half reaching for the panel that would open the sliding doors leading outside. “How long has he been out there, J?” he asks softly.

There’s something about the angle of Steve’s body as he leans over the railing. Something about the curve of his neck as he stares down at the street. Something about the arch of his feet, neither planted on the ground. Unsteady, the engineer in him thinks. Ready to fall-

“Two hours, sir,” JARVIS answers, and Tony thinks of the two hours he’s just spent in his bed, waking up from nightmare after nightmare, waking up and drifting off until they all became one big long terror.

He had given up and headed for the nearest source of alcohol when he saw Steve standing at the ledge of the balcony, leaning. The light of the moon and the city have washed him out, the gold of his hair gone silver and his pale skin gone white. He looks like a statue. Screw it, he thinks, and heads outside.

Steve must hear the door hiss, throwing a cursory glance over his shoulder and tensing when he sees Tony. They still haven’t quite managed to get along, even after the epic bonding experience that was an alien invasion. “Late night or early morning for you?” he asks gruffly.

“I like that you think I went to bed at all,” Tony quips, wondering at the strangely coaxing tone to his voice. “What about you, Cap? This isn’t cramping into your five AM wake up call?”

Steve shrugs. “Thought I might skip it.”

There’s another joke on the edge of his tongue, but instead Tony just wanders over until he’s right beside Cap. He sees blue eyes flicker down to his glass and then back up, but Steve says nothing, which leaves him oddly disappointed. Not like he had wanted someone to be here in the communal floor when there was a bottle of Jack in the workshop, not like he wanted someone to look at him and say oh, Tony, you don’t need that. It might have been nice though, just to hear.

Leaving the talking to Tony, then. That’s okay. Tony can do talking.

“Lot has changed, I bet,” he says, gesturing out to the city.

“Well,” Steve says, clearing his throat when the one word comes out choked. “I never much had the chance to see it from this view.”

“Still, doesn’t mean you don’t-” Tony says, because he is good at talking, but he is not good at knowing where and what not to talk about. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

“Like you said. A lot has changed.” It doesn’t sound agreeable, or even kind. It’s miserable, Steve’s voice, and angry.

“I figure building’s are the least of your worries there, Cap,” Tony says.

Steve is quiet for a long moment. “You’re probably right. I just - remember things a lot differently. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it isn’t…like that anymore.”

“How well do you remember it?”

“Perfectly,” Steve whispers. Then, to Tony: “I always had a good memory, but after the serum-”

“Photographic,” Tony finishes. He takes a swallow of his drink and lets it burn all the way down, finds his lips curling up against his will. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“What?” Steve says, looking at him for the first time.

Tony tries to smooth out his sneer into something normal, something not so bitter. Tries not to show Yinsen’s body going slack or the dark of space or the ripples of water as he drowned over and over in his face. “I mean. Useful, right? It’s useful. Plans, schematics, there at the back of your mind forever, but sometimes. Not so good.”

He thinks Steve sees it all in his face anyway, because his eyes go a little soft and more than a little pained. “Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes.” And Steve’s seen friends slip between his fingers, too. Steve’s seen death, too.

“Sometimes I have nightmares,” Tony says out to the sky. “But. They’re just memories.”

Steve shifts a little closer. “Yeah,” the soldier agrees again. Then, seemingly apropos of nothing: “I hate the cold.”

“I wish you had a glass so I could toast to that. Deserts are fucking freezing at night.” Not as cold as, oh, being frozen alive, but still. “Water. On my face.”

“The window broke first thing on the plane,” Steve agrees, and this conversation of half-filled fears is less gruesome than it has any right to be. Tony almost finds himself smiling in the brief seconds he isn’t wondering what the hell Fury was thinking, putting this team together. The Island of Misfit Toys was a part of fiction for a reason.

“You know,” he says. “It’s not all gone.” When Steve raises an eyebrow, he gestures out at the city. “New Yorkers are nostalgia-ridden fools, near as I can tell. Never tear anything down. They just built around it. Or on top, more likely, I guess, there’s not just excessive amounts of space here. But they make something new of out it. The old, I mean.”

Steve looks at him for a long time, then back out at the city. “You figure?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony says. “I mean, c’mon, you know better than me. The Chrysler Building. And that one over there-”

“It was there, back then-”

“Yeah, so, and it’s still there, but look at that line there, they added on, brand spanking new. Hey, come here, sit down with me, I’m getting creaky in my old age-”

“So dramatic,” Steve huffs, but he releases his death grip on the railing and they sit, legs through the slots as they look out at the city, still looking at building. “It was an insurance company in my day.”

“Cell phones now,” Tony corrects, and Steve looks at him dubiously, and they’re off, cataloging the differences, the similarities, and he never thought of using buildings as metaphors - left that up to architects who waxed philosophic about arches and singers who sang uncomfortably intimate songs about their hometowns - but it seems to be working now so he sticks with it.

Tony puts his drink down. When he and Steve are finally through talking, barely getting words through their yawns, he stands, leaving it out there, completely forgotten.

2. (Do you remember me as devout? How I prayed for your calls.)

Steve sometimes has this picture of Fury. The director is sitting at his desk, looming over a puzzle, working on fitting the pieces together. He does so, but the puzzle has no color. No picture. The pieces fit, shoved together, interlocking like they were made to, but the it’s still just a group of pieces. There’s no story. No whole.

Sometimes, that’s what the Avengers feel like to him. This group that he’s supposed to wrangle together and make into Earth’s mightiest heroes, that fights together like a well-oiled machine, like Fury’s perfect puzzle, and then goes home and separates. Broken, he thinks. Clarifies no, broken apart.

There’s something growing here, in Natasha’s miniscule smiles and the easy line of Clint’s shoulders and Thor’s embraces, just a smidgen hesitant; in Bruce’s shy offers of dinner. There’s something in the way Tony looks at him over the glow of his holographic work stations, something in the easy way that Tony fights at his back.

(Something in the way that Steve looks back. That Captain America is always at Iron Man’s side.)

It grows, slowly, over time. The picture forms of them, together, a team and a family, together. He wants them to stay, he realizes fiercely. He doesn’t want to be alone. He dreams about loses them, about waking up in a world without the ones he loves all over again. He’d do anything to stop that. Anything not to live through it again.

And he supposes, if he’s honest with himself, it’s why he takes it so hard when someone tries to take Tony away. Even if that someone is occasionally Tony himself.

“Oh, stop with the sad eyes,” Tony is telling him as Steve stares down at him from where he has slumped over Tony, boxing him in on the lab table Steve had laid him out on when he had to exchange the arc reactors. “You saved me. All better now.” He taps the new arc for good measure, and hands the old one - the one that he sacrificed to jumpstart the machine that would fry all the mechanical beasts that attacked New York City today - off to DUM-E to be incinerated.

“You nearly died,” Steve gasps. He can’t catch a breath, he can’t stop looking at Tony’s lips, the color coming back to them, such a relief after the way he had watched them turn gray as Tony died, Tony was dying, he nearly lost him-

“I did what I had to,” Tony says softly, because they have had this conversation more than once. Steve is not one to cast stones at Tony’s maverick tendencies in battle but there had been an adjustment period in the beginning, Tony not used to a team and Steve not used to hyper strong flying battle suits armed with missiles fighting with him.

“In my arms,” Steve mumbles. “Through my fingers…”

And Tony has always been so good at picking up Steve’s dropped cues, filling in the blanks he leaves all over his life. “But you saved me. Just like I knew you would.”

“Tony, you can’t just-” Leave me, he doesn’t say. “If I wasn’t fast enough, or if your heart had given out sooner-”

“But it didn’t,” Tony insists. “It happened, we fixed it, it’s over. Steve,” and he sits up inside the circle of Steve’s arms and he’s so close and all Steve can think of is to drag him closer, so he does. Tony is so warm against, so soft. So breakable. “We all came home today.”

They did. The team is safe, the city is saved. Even Bucky, wherever he is, is most likely safe. It’s been a good day, he should be relieved. But all he can think about is how unfocused Tony’s eyes went, how Tony never looks like that. He wants to stay, he thinks to himself. And he wants Tony there with him.

“You with me?” Tony murmurs from where Steve has let him tuck his head into his shoulder.

“Warning,” Steve finally manages. His fingers are on Tony’s neck, feeling his pulse and pulling him closer, never close enough. “Next time you pull a stunt like that, I want a warning.”

“Can do, boss man,” Tony says on a laugh. “Poor planning on my part, I’ll admit it.” He pulls away, looks up at Steve. “Sorry,” he murmurs, and at first Steve thinks he means for today, but then Tony’s lips are on his, pressing gently, and everything flies away.

He likes looking at Tony. He likes listening to Tony. He likes watching him work and scheme and laugh and he’s even fond of his irritating lack of filter and the fact that he is allergic to sleep. But he doesn’t love Tony, not like Peggy.

But God, does this feel right, Tony alive under his hands, the faintest hint of a pulse in Tony’s lips where they meet Steve. It feels right when he kisses back. Together, he thinks, or not at all. “Don’t be,” he whispers back, and Tony’s lips curve against his.

Much later, the kissing grows more fervent, and they wind up on a couch, Tony in his lap making all kinds of delightful noises, and Steve is so happy and so scared.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispers into Tony’s hair as the man trails kisses down his neck, lips trailing over the pulse beating double time in his neck over and over, a point of fascination for Tony.

“I won’t, I won’t,” Tony promises against his skin. “I’m right here, champ. We’ll both - yes please that again - we’ll both agree to turn down the theatrics, alright? We’ll both come home every day. To - oh - to each other. And do this all over again.”

Tony’s hand are so tight around his arms. He tries to focus on that, on the feel of them, on Tony’s back muscles moving under his fingers. But he’s floating somewhere, or sinking down, to wherever Bucky hides now, wherever Peggy’s mind goes, wherever Dum Dum and Morita and Phillips went after they passed. Steve never keeps anything good. “Don’t leave me,” he repeats. “Don’t.”

He doesn’t love Tony, but here, underneath his hands, breathing and alive, is where Tony belongs. He’ll do anything to keep it that way, even something as terrifying as falling in love all over again. Tony promises again, and Steve believes him, dragging Tony back up again to lay kisses against the words spilling out of that mouth.

(And he would tell him. He would show Tony what Zola showed him. But he doesn’t know, not for sure. It’s just a suspicion. And if he tells Tony, he could lose him, and Tony could take Bucky with him.

And maybe that makes him selfish, maybe he’s a coward, but this way nobody hurts. This way nobody’s left alone.)

3. (But stand still is all I ever did.)

Tony doesn’t love Steve when he finds him in the hospital after the destruction of the helicarriers, carrying his shield, recently rescued from the Potomac.

He admires that Steve’s hair is still golden even in the sickly hospital light, he treasures the steady beep of his heartbeat on the monitor, and he smiles when Steve wakes up and those big blue eyes find his.

“Enjoy your Cap nap?” he asks, and Steve groans theatrically at the terrible joke.

“Changed my mind. Throw me back into the river. Put me out of my misery.”

“Uh, no. I don’t think even your immune system can take another dip in there.” Steve does that funny little crooked grin he does that Tony used to run his fingers along just to straighten and now just wants to run his fingers along. He coughs, looks down. He doesn’t love Steve, but he loves him enough, if that will ever make sense. Enough to take his own dip in the Potomac. “I got you something.”

“You didn’t have to,” Steve says automatically, but his mouth clicks shut as Tony brings up the shield and places it over his lap.

Tony watches Steve, watching the emotions flit across his face. Shock and happiness and unmistakable fear. “Just a present, Steve. No pressure,” he murmurs, and Steve frowns at them both, him and the shield. “I heard what happened. With Barnes.”

There’s a question hanging at the end of that sentence, but Tony will never voice it, and Steve doesn’t hear it.

“If you need help looking-”

“Thank you,” Steve whispers. He reaches out, wraps a hand around the edge of the shield. “You didn’t have to.”

“Only if I didn’t want Howard to rise from his grave and strangle me,” Tony jokes, startled a bit when Steve suddenly goes tense, his grip white-knuckled around the shield.

“I didn’t feel right without it,” Steve says, and though the subject is the same the change in tone still seems abrupt. “Like part of me was missing, too. I - thank you for saving it, Tony, really.”

Tony inexplicably finds himself blushing. “It was nothing,” he mutters, then moves to stand. “Well. To your speedy recovery, then, Cap-”

“You’re leaving?”

“My presence is not usually conducive to speedy recoveries.”

“Bull,” Steve declares, settling back. “I feel better already.” And yeah, Steve could probably use some mindless chatter right now. A distraction, a past time, until the world starts moving again. Tony stays. He’s has got a million things to do back home, but he stays.

“So, I hear thanks are in order for saving my life, by the way…”

He doesn’t love Steve when he comes back, fresh and uninjured and taking up space on the floor below Tony’s in the Tower. He loves his companionship, loves his humor, loves the pranks he’s brave enough to play on Natasha, but he doesn’t love him.

He doesn’t love Steve while he’s away, on a mission or after Barnes. He misses him, designs fretfully on the offchance that whatever he’s sent Steve out there with fails, and even admits to himself the streak of jealousy that arises for Steve’s single-minded focus on Barnes.

He doesn’t even love him when they kiss for the first time. Part of that might be the fact that his chest is still on fire and Steve’s cheeks are still a little wet. Part of it might be the fact that he knows he and Steve are broken, that this might be the worst thing that will happen to either of them.

Why did you let yourself fall? he didn’t ask at the hospital, because he already knew the answer. Same reason he gave his address to a terrorist, probably, or the reason why he sometimes sees himself steering towards the ground when he’s flying the suit. You want it to stop, and it’s going to stop, and those two things aren’t always the same, so might as well end it on your own terms, right?

He doesn’t love him, but he could, God, he could. He could break him to smithereens, or he could love him, or he could do both and destroy everything, but Tony Stark is not afraid, or at least that’s what he tells the mirror every morning.

Steve kisses him back, and he thinks maybe he could tell Steve instead. Steve is more than enough to help him believe it. Because Steve is good, and brave, and so much better than Tony.

Still, he doesn’t love Steve right up until the moment that Steve finds him hiding in his Tower workshop a month after he left him at the new compound with the recruits. They’ve been chatting by phone, keeping each other updated while Tony tries to handle the fact that he built the very thing he was trying to prevent and Steve tries to deal with the fact that Tony didn’t tell him about it.

Tony barely gets out a hello when Steve hefts something up onto the lab table and almost reverently puts it down, stepping back and looking at Tony expectantly. It’s one of his old suitcase armors, the only armor left now. It must have gotten lost in Steve’s stuff ages ago, and it’s caked with dust and grease.

“What is this?” Tony asks suspiciously as Steve rounds the table to slide in behind him, arms wrapping around his waist.

“To your speedy recovery,” Steve says into his ear before dropping a kiss right above it, and Tony stares at the armor and does not cry.

Like part of me was missing, Steve had said a year ago. Tony knows the feeling.

“I don’t know if I can-” Tony cuts himself off, and Steve’s arms move until big hands are cupping, wrapping around his own.

“No pressure,” is the reply. “But. I think you can. For what it’s worth.”

It’s worth everything, because Tony loves Steve, and Tony is a moron, and has loved him this entire time. He wants to tell him, but all that comes out when he turns and throws his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders is “Captain America, always saving the day.”

He will. Someday. Soon. They have time now; he figures they’ve beaten the odds, two broken souls fitting together just right. All those dreaded maybes slink off to the back of his mind to die a quiet death. Steve is the best thing that has ever happened to him.

[0. (I was a fool for love.)

The shield crunches through the fiberglass of the arc reactor as Steve twists it hard. Tony hands are above his face, still bracing for a blow, and Steve keeps catching glimpses of wide, terrified, furious brown eyes through the fingers of the gauntlet.

(‘Don’t leave me,’ he had asked, and Tony had promised, and Tony had kept it in the end.)

The reactor goes out. Tony drops his hands. Everything is red and dark and cold and Steve is so tired. He waits for Tony to speak, because this is his half-dropped cue, the one that Tony always picks up. But Tony stares up at him, so indescribably hurt.

He wants to fill the silence for him; Tony and Steve, that’s what they do, they pick up the slack for the other. He’s going to open his mouth and say Tony, I love you, I’m sorry, Tony, I was wrong I never meant for it to get this far and I wanted to save you, I wanted to keep you safe, I wanted to keep you-

Bucky groans, somewhere to his left. Steve stays silent and Tony, who had tried to murder Bucky, now seems completely unconcerned with him. His eyes are fixed on Steve, big and bright. Last chance. Open your mouth, Rogers. Say it, for once in your life, say it before it’s too late.

But what would that do, he wonders, staring back at Tony, but hurt him even more?

Steve has always lost things when he was a kid, always scrounged and scraped by for his next paycheck, next meal, next breath. He’d never gotten to keep much, even after the serum. He saves what he can, where he can, and he holds it close, because everything else slips away.

So Steve stands and walks to Bucky. Pulls him up and shoulders the burden, begins the long walk out, when he hears scraping behind him, a sharp inhale. Tony, picking up the cue. He pauses.

“That shield doesn’t belong to you,” Tony growls, and Steve’s heart breaks. “You don’t deserve it.” A part of me, he had once called that shield, and he had known Tony had understood him completely.

Later he sends a letter that goes unanswered and a phone that’s twin never rings and Steve wonders if Tony might hate him less if he hadn’t dropped it. Later, Bucky puts himself into stasis and all three of them are alone. He remembers how this used to be his worst nightmare.

He’s glad he never told Tony he loved him and he’s glad he never heard Tony say it back. And that’s so cheap, that’s all surface, because Steve knows the truth and it is damn near time he stopped lying to himself. He loved Tony, and Tony loved him, and that’s how they broke each other.

Months later, almost a year, he’ll be caught with Sam and Clint in Western Europe and they’ll be brought before the United Nations to be tried for violations against the new Avengers’ Accords and several sovereign states. Tony arrives at some point before the trial, Rhodey at one shoulder and Vision at the other, and watches him with the same wide dark eyes Steve dreams about on the nights he can sleep. Steve hopes for one wild moment that Tony is here to help them like he once swore to do in a Berlin conference room.

(’I will,’ Tony had responded to Steve’s pleas, on an even earlier occasion. Tony had promised.)

Tony turns away.]

4. (If you’re worried that I might have changed, left behind all of my foolish ways…)

The trial is an open and shut case because it turns out it’s really hard to prosecute people for breaking laws that never actually went into effect anyway, and Steve and his buddies walk within the week. Someone delivers the new Accords to them; he doesn’t know who, maybe Natasha. Tony genuinely doesn’t give a fuck. To say that he has survived without Steve is true, to say he has lived is pushing it, to say he has thrived is a bald faced lie, but what no one can argue, is that Tony has persevered.

He always has, through the death of his parents, Obie’s betrayal, his own many brushes with death and his lingering issues over the nightmares those produced. He looks in the mirror every day and tells himself that he has lived through so much worse than Steve before.

(The best lies are always half-truths, and Tony Stark has always been the best liar.)

He finds three signed copies of the Accords on his desk, as well as a transfer request for S. Wilson, C. Barton, and S. Rogers. He grants before he can think, and watches through the security cams three days later as the men move back into the compound.

He stays ensconced in his lab, working on SI projects or updates to the armor or building up his secret armory in the basement for a threat that looms large in his mind and nowhere else. He sees Steve looking up at the cameras sometimes, mouthing words that Tony doesn’t puzzle out. He knows the man asks about him sometimes and FRIDAY has full permission to give him updates, because he remembers what killed him most during the fighting was the uncertainty, the not knowing if Steve was okay. He may be angry, but Tony Stark is capable of empathy sometimes.

He lives through this, too.

It doesn’t last, of course. Thor comes back with Bruce in tow, shouting ‘the aliens are coming!’ like Sci-Fi Paul Revere and in between sick vindication and abject panic Tony finds himself suddenly thrown at Steve, being expected to lead a team with a man he barely trusts.

Steve tries to talk to him, more than once, but sometimes his conversations start with “Bucky needed me-” or “Bucky had no one-” And all Tony can think, the thing that he eventually screams at Steve is: “Jesus Christ, do you think you’re the only one who’s ever loved somebody?”

Because it wasn’t about Bucky then, and it isn’t about Bucky now, and Tony understands how he might have given that impression what with trying to kill the man, and that’s on him, but he hates that after all this time, Bucky is still the only thing Steve can see. He hates that Bucky was the only thing Steve chose to hang onto. He hates that he was sacrificed on the altar of Bucky Barnes, but he gets it. If it was Rhodey he would have done the same thing, which is why psychiatric help for Barnes was the first thing he offered Steve when he could. Bucky isn’t the problem here.

They fight, more often than not, Steve vacillating wildly between apologetic and defensive. He stands his ground, always, and it used to impress the hell out of Tony but now all he can see is curled fists and a jutting, clenched jaw and sparking eyes and he’s scared, of course he is, the bruises Steve left didn’t fade for months, but more than that: this is the little guy coming out in Steve, the one who stood up to bullies, the one who Steve himself had written a letter to Tony telling him that he had no one.

That’s the problem.

Because yes, he’s incredibly angry Steve lied to him about his dead parents, a fact that explains thoroughly to Steve-

(”Those were my parents,” Tony said, deadly quiet. “That was my family. My history. It had nothing to do with you but you took it anyway. Do you get that, do you understand? They were my parents. Mine. They belonged to me like I did them and you took them away from me!”

It had sounded like everything the newspapers ever accused him of, narcissism and ego and vanity, but how else could Tony properly express how violated he felt sometimes, thinking of all those night he laid in Steve’s arms while all the while Steve knew?)

-but he knows that if he tried, he could get through that with Steve. Steve could even help him carry that burden, throw back a drink with him for Howard and listen to him talk about Maria for hours.

Tony already has the what. It’s the why that has slowly eaten everything away.

One day a fight is too much, or goes on too long, and they’re both exhausted and inches away from each other and Steve’s chin goes up and Tony slips. “Why were you so scared of me?” he asks, like he’s been dying to for months. Steve’s eyes widen.

“What?”

Tony panics, but there’s no way to take something like that back. “It’s not just my parents. You didn’t tell me about Zemo, either, until it was too late. You were scared of my reaction, weren’t you?” Steve says nothing, eyes still like saucers and Tony closes his eyes. “I just want to know why. What did I do to make you-”

There are arms around him the next moment, the first time they’ve touched in nearly two years, and Tony sags inside them. He just wants to know, honestly. Then maybe he can let this go.

“Please stop talking,” Steve says, and Tony laughs because they’re both so shit at this. “It wasn’t - you didn’t do anything. It was all me.”

“You were afraid I would go after Bucky,” Tony says. “That’s why you stayed quiet.”

“I wanted.” Steve takes a shuddering breath that shivers down Tony’s own spine. “You. I can’t explain what that really means. I lost everything from before. But I suddenly had you. And I would have done anything to keep you. I was - I was the one that was scared, Tony.”

And Tony has always known that Steve was - is - not stitched up quite right. Botched jobs, half-finished ones still bleeding all over the place. Tony isn’t quite healed up either. And he remembers, painfully acute, not telling Steve about Ultron because he couldn’t even bear the thought of pushing him away.

Neither one of them had ever trusted the other to stay.

Now he knows the truth. And as he sees it, there are two options. He can keep being angry, and they can stay like this forever until Tony’s prophecy comes true and they destroy each other. Or he can let it go. Forgive Steve and forgive himself, and fight for the relationship he always wanted with the man he loves.

He knows what he’d choose, every time. He also knows he can’t do this without Steve.

“We can’t be like this anymore,” he breathes into Steve’s shoulder. “We’re gonna get each other killed.”

“’M sorry,” Steve murmurs into his hair. Tony echoes him, finally wrapping his arms around Steve.

“You know we can’t go back,” Tony whispers. Steve stiffens in his arms, and then relaxes all at once like a great weight has been lifted off of him.

“I don’t think I want to,” he answers. “But I - I have to say it, okay? I did love you. I do, still. I always will.”

The words sink in, and they’re not the surprise Tony expected them to be. It was never love that was the problem between them, and love is not what needs fixing. “I love you, too.”

Love isn’t enough for people like them. Trust, openness, comfort, that’s what they need and never had. But love - love is more than enough to build on.

There is the beginning of a hesitant, cautious smile on Steve’s face that Tony feels himself returning. Like the old man said: Together.

5. (…you best be looking for somebody else without a foolish heart.)

It takes time, effort, and more than a few skirmishes with Thanos’ forward scouts, but he and Tony stop fighting each other and begin fighting side by side.

“Oh, I’ll always be right here,” Tony says, sarcastically cheerful when Steve turns to find him mowing down a line of Chitauri. “Right by your side. Even if it kills me.” The last bit is delivered in a grumble, because everything is still not fixed and some days are hard for both of them. But they are getting better. Steve stands at Tony’s back on the battlefield and knows he is right where he belongs. He’s determined to never forget it again.

There comes a fight where Tony lands in front of him, repulsors up, and Steve doesn’t think for a moment, just puts the shield up and redirects the blasts to the enemies around him like they did their very first battle. When the area is clear and he lowers the shield, Tony’s faceplate is up and the man inside the armor is staring at him with something akin to wonder.

It doesn’t snap everything magically back into place, but then again they don’t want to go back. They don’t kiss; they are explicitly not a couple, although lately the word ‘yet’ has been thrown around an awful lot whenever they repeat the denials to their friends. The kind of forgiveness, love, and trust that they are cultivating takes time.

Sam snorts a laugh at that. “And of course you choose to take this time in the middle of an alien invasion.”

“Gives us something to look forward to when we win,” Steve shoots back.

They’re not a couple, but they exchange ‘I love you’s often. And every time, Steve feels something strengthen within him. Figuring out how to love Tony without the oppressive need to keep him safe and keep him at his side, trimming back his emotions when they teeter on the edge of obsession is one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, but one of the most rewarding. Tony, too, no longer looks at him the way he always used to, that shining awe edged with self-loathing and trepidation. It’s replaced with something much softer, more real.

(”I used to think I was going to destroy you,” Tony had whispered to him one night. “I’d tell myself that I couldn’t possibly.”

“You could now,” Steve confessed. “But I trust you not to.”

“Now that’s true love,” Tony joked, but they both knew how right he was.)

He used to be so scared of loving Tony, because loving meant leaving. It had always felt a little like a poison, slowly eating away at him. He’s still scared; he wakes up some days and can’t get out of bed for hours at just the idea that Tony won’t smile at him if they see each other at breakfast, just like there are times when Tony won’t see him because that day he’s angry all over again at Steve and he doesn’t want it spilling out, doesn’t think it’s fair when he’s given Steve his forgiveness.

But they’re getting better at pushing through. On those mornings, Steve will call Tony to come to him, and he always does. On those days, Tony will ask Steve to wait for him, and he always does.

Tony may leave him, but he always comes back to him, too.

They move back into the Tower, where it’s easier to be on call for any major attacks. He finds Tony out on the balcony late one night, sitting against the railing, his legs poking through the slats. Steve joins him and they smile at each other, silently reminiscing.

Until Tony looks over, huffs, and says “fucking metaphors.” Steve frowns, puzzled until he follows Tony’s gaze to an old building - the insurance-cum-cellphone company. It was obviously damaged in the last attack; it’s covered in scaffolding and a large sign that says ‘UNDER CONSTRUCTION; REOPENING SOON.’

The image, combined with the old memory of Tony using the building as an example of the past being brought into the future, not being destroyed by it, makes Steve laugh at his words.

“Rebuilding,” he guesses, and Tony rolls fond eyes at him.

“On top of the old,” Tony grouses, and Steve slings an arm around him to drag him close, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Making it better,” Steve says, and the next time he leans in Tony turns his head, catching him in their new first kiss.

5 times Steve and Tony saved each other and 1 time they didn’t.

#stevetony #mcu #cacw fic #tony stark #steve rogers #5+1 fic #drabblethon 600 #song is #i was a fool #by tegan and sara #angst with a happy ending #anon #alanna talks #slightly overwrought

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justastormie · 8 years ago

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I’m doing two, because I can.

Ancient Historical meme from my drafts;

First things first: What’s their name and when and where did they live? If there are any/ you have one, add your favourite picture of them.

Erwin Johannes Eugene Rommel (1891-1944), Germany, lived around Württemberg for most of his life, the occasional world war aside. Of historical note for being a masterful tactician, writing an important book of military theory about wwi and commanding the german forces in the north african campaign of wwii.

Napoleon (1769-1821), France technically but had a great deal of fun on camping trips all over Europe. Of historical note for one-uping Alexander the Great. Created landmark legal, military and social organizations. List of fuckups is longer than most people’s list of accomplishments. One of the most enduring military and political legends of the modern era. Bees.

1. How and when did you first hear about them?

Rommel- I honestly can’t remember. My father is a wwii nut so i was raised on the stuff. I got serious in my interest of him about 12/13 when I first read the collection of his papers translated into English.

Napoleon- fourth grade (about ten years old). We had a section of world history, dismal though it was. In one of the little “fun facts” thing they had a tiny little box describing Nap’s return from Elba with an itty-bitty reproduction of Steben’s Returned From Elba. I thought that sounded like the most badass thing I had ever heard, and was also a little in disbelief because surely someone can’t just walk back and reclaim their kingdom. Like, that shit didn’t happen in real life. So I bought my first biography to find out the real story.

2. What do you like most about them?

Rommel

he tempered his ambition and leadership with compassion and a fierce sense of honor

genuinely seems to have been a nice dude

he and his wife are cute as fuck

was later cute as fuck about his son Manfred

was incredibly clever

was a peach eating lunatic adventurer masquerading as a srs prussian soldier

he was a romantic both in the age of chivalry sense and the modern sense

Napoleon

SUCH A BADASS, oh my god

was an over-invested mono-maniac at all times, which I can related to

incredibly capable in many fields

i have been napoleon and josephine trash since day one

crowning himself. i just love that moment.

was really smart. on a ‘holy shit’ level. (even if he did some massively stupid shit sometimes)

meritocratic promotion structures

hamilton WISHES he were this non-stop.

never gave up, never gave in. even on st. helena he started dedicated his energies to preserving his legend and legacy, to great effect.

3. Is there anything about them that makes you angry or that you don’t like at all?

Rommel

literally worked for nazis

pretty sexist

there’s a lot i disagree with him about, but very few things that make me truly pissed off. ie he was of the period opinion that military men shouldn’t be involved in politics, as he thought that would mean the military as an organization would start defining germany’s political future which would turn into military rule and he was catagorically against that. which i think is both wrong and allowed him, and others in the german army, to disclaim responsibility for political shit they didn’t agree with that was being done by their government. but i can absolutely see where he was coming from, and i think his concerns were reasonable and legitimate.

so yeah. a lot of disagreements, but very few things that just piss me off.

Napoleon

w h e r e d o I b e g i n

allowed his obsession with legend and conquest overwhelm his moral values

sold his honor and his moral principles in order to maintain power

frequently only took into account the human cost of warfare way too fucking late

rampant misogyny

really fucked over Junot

really fucked over tons and tons of people who were loyal to him, from close friends to the soldiers who followed him

got a truly staggering number of people killed on account of his own short-sighted obsessions

to paraphrase the old tv show Wiseguy, You don’t get to shove people around just because your fire burns brighter, no matter how brilliant that fire is.

never gave up, never gave in. even when he fucking should have, looking at you reasonable peace terms of 1813.

4. If you had one day with them in our present time - what would you do together?

Rommel - Aviation museum, he’d absolutely love it. I’d get him to pick some German place to eat and interrogate him ruthlessly about what inter-war rural Germany was like.

Napoleon- Smack him repeatedly in the face for invading Spain Walk and talk. Have him show me around Paris and have a debate over legal systems. Nerd out over Ossain. Show him a modern bookstore. Let him see how much of his work has survived into the present day. Shove him into at least one shrubbery.

5. What would you like to talk about with them?

Rommel - Engineering, aviation, dogs and funny army stories

Napoleon- All of the things. I can only imagine the conversation would be a pinball game of madness as to topics covered. And okay. I’d have to ask about Waterloo. I’d be that person. I don’t think he’d do it, but I’d love to hear him talk about Corsica.

6. In which way do you identify most with them or a figure they created?

Rommel - He was an intensely practical man who tried very hard to do the right thing and frequently failed. I hope that one day I’ll have the strength of character to try to rectify my mistakes as he did his.

Napoleon - I too am an over-invested, bossy weirdo.

7. Thoughts about their death? E.g.:Was it too early, was it deserved, woud you have tried to prevent it and how?

Rommel- oh god TOO EARLY, UNDESERVED, that poor brave bastard. I mean the fact that he was murdered because of his role in a plot to overthrow hitler and make peace with the allies is reason enough. would have definitely tried to prevent it, but would need like. the a-team to stop it. because you’d have to rescue not only rommel but his family that was being used as leverage against him. unless you’re allowed to go really far back and then i’d just start slapping the shit out of everyone at the versailles peace conference.

Napoleon - hoooo boy. uuuuuuuh. i mean. do i like it how he died? no. does that dislike come from a rational place? ...nooo. best case scenario for me would be he gets shot before the last charge of waterloo. hell if i had my way i’d go back and convince him what REALLY needed done was him personally leading the imperial guard up the hill. heroic, dramatic death and historians get to fight over wellsley actually beat napoleon for the rest of forever. europe also gets a break from napoleonic insanity. which doesn’t happen if napoleon gets to live. once more if you’re allowed further back, i slap the shit out of him before he invades Spain and point out that Ireland is lovely this time of year (it’d still be a clusterfuck, but less of one).

8. Is there a book or movie etc. you would recommend to someone who’s new to the person and would like to learn more about them?

Rommel - The Rommel Papers is a good place to start, there are frequent letters to his wife but the content is primarily military.

Napoleon - Shannon Selin’s website and book. The book is fiction but she is the lord our god in this fandom for her mad research skills. She provides sources for everything, which makes her the perfect jumping off point. (Now if I can just convince her that what she REALLY needs to do is write another book starring josephine)

9. What can we learn from them?

Rommel - when in doubt, bluff like a motherfucker right action is not a mystical, obvious thing at all times, we must do what we believe is right to the best of our abilities while being willing to let compassion guide us onto different paths.

Napoleon -

human beings are capable of astonishing intellectual and physical feats, and the best of our stories can still be written, they are not confined to antiquity.

find friends who will support your goals and then listen to their good advice even when it challenges your ego.

if loud, bossy weirdos can find devoted friends and romantic partners than we’ve got a pretty good shot too.

don’t invade spain

propaganda is half the battle

love, in all its forms, is a resilient motherfucker

don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake

strive to be so badass that hundreds of years later, the historical fiction that is all about fighting you has their characters become complete fanboys any time you actually show up (ft. Richard Sharpe in Down With The Tyrant But OMG Harper Look It’s Napoleon *SWOON*, hon. mention also goes to William “Why Aren’t I French” Laurence).

a willingness to take charge is half the battle for power

bees are a cute fashion accessory and go with anything

10. Would you want to be friends with them if they were still alive?

Rommel - I think he’d be a good Dad Friend to have. Someone to ask for advice and go to reenactments with. A good person for moral/personal advice even if their political/social views are outdated. Definite bonding over dogs.

Napoleon - Would entirely depend on how we met. I feel like we’re similar enough on a personal level that it’d be very easy for our personalities to clash, and we’d have to declare ourselves mortal enemies and neither of us would back down from that because what is admitting you might have been hasty. Or, if fate were kind, we’d get on splendidly with constant low levels of dry sarcasm and prank wars. There would also be lots of emotions everywhere, at all times. People would hide. I have to admit I’d still stab somebody if it meant I got to be a Marshal.

11. The most powerful quote by or about them?

Rommel - have short one and a long one

"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general."

- Winston Churchill during 1942. During the fucking war. I mean damn, it doesn’t get better. Though since this is easily the most famous quote about him, have a personal favorite;

“Living legends, they project, each in his way, the classic image of a the warrior: brave, vigorous, sharp of eye and mind, rapid in decision, alert in danger, faster and bolder in the fight than his enemies. of this extraordinary brotherhood is Rommel-the brotherhood of Hector, of Rupert of the Rhine, of those who can only be described as heroes; and it is curious that so determinedly practical a modernist as Rommel-the least fanciful of men- should have joined a company so bonded by myth.”

-David Fraser from Knight’s Cross: A Live of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Napoleon -

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

i mean;

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

- Napoleon at some point, i’m not sure. But i’ve always loved it and found it apt.

#stormie cares about dead people #and blathers on #i'm cleaning out my drafts

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cover2covermom · 5 years ago

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Hello bookworms!

I know we are only mid-way through October, but it’s time to start thinking about what I’ll be reading in November. I decided to prioritize my physical TBR in November, but need YOUR help to decide which books off my shelves to pick up…

I decided that the best way to do this would be to have 4 categories with a few different options in each category. You can pick ONE book from each category. The book with the most votes in each category will be added to my November TBR!

Science Fiction Selections:

#1 The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process.

Elma York’s experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon, as a calculator. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too.

Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

#2 The Sparrow (The Sparrow #1) by Mary Doria Russell

In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be “human”.

#3 Ender’s Game (Ender’s Saga #1) by Orson Scott Card

Andrew “Ender” Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military’s purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine’s abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

Nonfiction Selections:

#1 Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes and the will to change it.

#2 Creating Room to Read by John Wood

The inspirational story of a former Microsoft executive’s quest to build libraries around the world and share the love of books

What’s happened since John Wood left Microsoft to change the world? Just ask six million kids in the poorest regions of Asia and Africa. In 1999, at the age of thirty-five, Wood quit a lucrative career to found the nonprofit Room to Read. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world,” he strived to bring the lessons of the corporate world to the nonprofit sector—and succeeded spectacularly.

In his acclaimed first book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, Wood explained his vision and the story of his start-up. Now, he tackles the organization’s next steps and its latest challenges—from managing expansion to raising money in a collapsing economy to publishing books for children who literally have no books in their native language. At its heart, Creating Room to Read shares moving stories of the people Room to Read works to help: impoverished children whose schools and villages have been swept away by war or natural disaster and girls whose educations would otherwise be ignored.

People at the highest levels of finance, government, and philanthropy will embrace the opportunity to learn Wood’s inspiring business model and blueprint for doing good. And general readers will love Creating Room to Read for its spellbinding story of one man’s mission to put books within every child’s reach.

#3 Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime New York Times bestseller about one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

The eighteen personal essays collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Fantasy Selections:

#1 The Last Magician (The Last Magician #1) by Lisa Maxwell

Stop the Magician. Steal the book. Save the future.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she’s been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

#2 A Curse so Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers #1) by Brigid Kemmerer

Fall in love, break the curse.

Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s pulled into a magical world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what’s at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

#3 An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts—even as she falls in love with a faerie prince—in this gorgeous debut novel.

Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that could cost him his life.

Furious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime. Waylaid by the Wild Hunt’s ghostly hounds, the tainted influence of the Alder King, and hideous monsters risen from barrow mounds, Isobel and Rook depend on one another for survival. Their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.

Middle Grade Selections:

#1 Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster has a secret. She’s a Telepath—someone who hears the thoughts of everyone around her. It’s a talent she’s never known how to explain.

Everything changes the day she meets Fitz, a mysterious boy who appears out of nowhere and also reads minds. She discovers there’s a place she does belong, and that staying with her family will place her in grave danger. In the blink of an eye, Sophie is forced to leave behind everything and start a new life in a place that is vastly different from anything she has ever known.

Sophie has new rules to learn and new skills to master, and not everyone is thrilled that she has come “home.” There are secrets buried deep in Sophie’s memory—secrets about who she really is and why she was hidden among humans—that other people desperately want. Would even kill for.

In this page-turning debut, Shannon Messenger creates a riveting story where one girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world, before the wrong person finds the answer first.

#2 The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall

The Penderwick sisters busily discover the summertime magic of Arundel estate’s sprawling gardens, treasure-filled attic, tame rabbits, and the cook who makes the best gingerbread in Massachusetts. Best of all is Jeffrey Tifton, son of Arundel’s owner, the perfect companion for their adventures. Icy-hearted Mrs. Tifton is less pleased with the Penderwicks than Jeffrey, and warns the new friends to stay out of trouble. Is that any fun? For sure the summer will be unforgettable.

#3 The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. Why is she there? Where did she come from? And, most important, how will she survive in her harsh surroundings? Roz’s only hope is to learn from the island’s hostile animal inhabitants. When she tries to care for an orphaned gosling, the other animals finally decide to help, and the island starts to feel like home. Until one day, the robot’s mysterious past comes back to haunt her….

Please vote for one book in each category in the comment section below. Even if you haven’t read all or any of the books in each category, feel free to vote for whichever book sounds the most interesting to you!

Voting will be open until October 31, 2019.

Have you read any of the books above? If so, which ones?

Are any of the books above on your TBR?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

YOU Pick My November 2019 TBR! #BookBlog #BookBlogger #Books #Reading #Bookworm #Bibliophile Hello bookworms! I know we are only mid-way through October, but it's time to start thinking about what I'll be reading in November.

#Bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #Book Talk #Book Worm #Bookish #Books #Bookworm #Reading #TBR

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celestialmazer · 6 years ago

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FAIRY TALES ARE REALLY JUST HARD-BOILED CRIME STORIESExploring the Dark, Twisted World of Classic Fairy Tales - Steph Post

Source https://crimereads.com/fairy-tales-are-really-just-hard-boiled-crime-stories/?

Bad things happen in fairy tales. To good people. To bad people. To dragons and witches and princesses and bastard children. Usually they end with a happily ever after—the guy gets the girl or the girl gets revenge, the kingdom awakens, the peasants aren’t eaten but can go on with their miserable peasant lives—but to get that happy ending, a crime must be committed first. Epic betrayals, such as adultery and infanticide, but minor crimes too. Trespassing and petty theft and disorderly conduct. And then there are the exotic ones, the cases of bestiality and necrophilia and the like.

Modern crime fiction has nothing on the ingenuity, brutality and sheer bizarreness of the offenses committed in classic fairy tales. Moreover, fairy tales are ruthless. Our contemporary crime novels have the monopoly on moral ambiguity, true, but fairy tales take no prisoners and often offer no redemption. Mercy is not a hallmark of the genre and even the kindest, most benevolent maid-turned-princess isn’t afraid to take out her wicked stepmother.

Strip away the fairy godmothers and the helpful goblins, the magic trees and the singing bones, and you’re left with an array of hardboiled crimes straight out of Chandler or Highsmith, Christie or Connelly, and everyone in-between. Here are a few of my favorites, from fairy tales across the globe.

“Daughter Kills Family with Flaming Skull, Gets No Jail Time”

I’ve recently discovered Slavic folk and fairy tales and have become obsessed with the stories of Baba Yaga. One of the most popular is the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful. In true fairy tale fashion, Vasilisa is gorgeous, industrious, and the bane of her stepmother’s and sister’s existence. They try to snuff her out by sending her to Baba Yaga, the witch in the woods, for a light. Vasilisa is so perfect, however, that Baba Yaga can’t stand her and instead of gobbling her up, sends her back home with a skull full of fire. When Vasilisa hands over the light her stepmother requested, it burns her alive. And her stepsisters. And destroys the house as well. Vasilisa, though, like Daenerys Targaryen emerging with her dragons, comes through unscathed and eventually snags a king for a husband.

“Lost Children Murder Old Woman by Baking Her Alive”

This would be, of course, the tale of Hansel and Gretel from the Brothers Grimm collection. This story has everything—an evil stepmother, forced marching, greedy kids lost in the woods, an edible house, and a not-so-bright witch who meets her demise in the end. Women often get a bad rap when it comes to fairy tales; they’re thought of as passive, prizes to be won, and sometimes they are. But unmarried girls, however, have a surprising amount of agency. They survive by their wits, and Hansel and Gretel is a perfect example of the cunning of girls in fairy tales. While Hansel is kept in a pen, fattening up for the witch’s supper, Gretel manages to trick the witch into getting inside her own oven, where she is promptly burnt to a crisp. Gretel saves the day and gets a candy house to boot.

“Princess Cheated of Husband Uses Dead Horse to Get Revenge on Rivals

It would be tough to pick a favorite Grimm’s fairy tale, considering there are over two hundred to choose from, but if you held my feet to the fire, I’d have to choose The Goose Girl. It’s both morbid and terrifyingly strange, and definitely not suited for children. Self-mutilation, prophesizing drops of blood, decapitated horses and medieval forms of torture are rife from start to finish. It’s a meandering tale, but in essence it follows the trials of a princess who is forced by her chambermaid to switch places with her on the way to her wedding. The king is deceived and the true princess winds up herding geese and talking to the mounted head of her dead horse who, incidentally, talks back and eventually spills the beans on the chambermaid’s gold-digging scheme. The king then tricks his false bride into choosing her own punishment—being stripped naked, shoved in a barrel studded with nails and rolled down a hill—as the real princess takes her rightful place and becomes queen of all the realm. If that’s not a tabloid story fit for a crime novel, I don’t what is

“GAMBLING ADDICT PARTICIPATES IN CHILD-KIDNAPPING RING WITH TERRIFYING GIANT”

In Nepalese legend, Gurumapa is a hideous, fanged giant who collects children who have disobeyed their parents. In the story of Kesh Chandra, we have an old man who is cast out of his sister’s house after he can’t stop gambling, going so far as to steal her flatware to sell and feed his habit. He wanders Kathmandu for a while until some pigeons take pity on him and turn their own shit into gold. Being messy birds, there is a lot of gold and Kesh, being a greedy man, had to have it all. He persuades Gurumapa, a fierce, man-eating giant who just happens to be wandering around nearby, to carry all the gold for him by promising to throw him a feast. Kesh Chandra also tells the giant that he has permission to kidnap any disobedient children in the area. Our gambling addict is taken in by Gurumapa and allowed to live in the giant’s attic, so long as he placates the village parents when the children stop coming home from school. It’s a match made in heaven and the two get on splendidly—Kesh enjoying his gold and gambling and Gurumapa enjoying his children.

“MOTHER COMMITS SUICIDE AFTER STEPDAUGHTER IS BLESSED BY TALKING HEADS, DISAPPOINTED IN OFFSPRING”

Death by suicide is the only real crime in the bizarre tale of The Three Heads of the Well, but in our current area of overly-ambitious stage parents, I think it’s both apt and deliciously strange. As expected, you’ve got a king, a stepmother, a stepdaughter and, of course, a mother-less daughter who goes out into the world to seek her fortune away from her bratty new family. An old man she is kind to repays the favor by telling her to visit a well where three heads—yep—are hanging out, waiting for someone to wash them and comb their hair. Upon doing so, they grant her the gifts of being beautiful, having a wonderful voice and becoming a queen. When she leaves the well she just so happens to run into a king who is charmed by her beauty and her voice and immediately marries her. Now, the stepmother, upon hearing this, sends out her own daughter, determined that she should make an even better match. This girl, however, is rude to the old man and the three heads and they blight her with leprosy, a terrible voice and a marriage to a mere cobbler. The jealous stepmother, however, is so mortified by her daughter’s humble marriage that she goes insane and eventually hangs herself. The story ends with the king celebrating the death of his wife and the ugliness of his stepdaughter. Yikes.

“MAN STEALS DUCK, SPROUTS FEATHER, TURNS MASOCHIST”

This strange tale hails from China and, while short, hinges on a simple crime. In Theft of a Duck, a man does just that—steals a duck from a farmer. The following morning, he wakes to discover that he has grown feathers all over his body in the night. They itch terribly but the next night the thief dreams that he will be granted relief if he returns to the farmer and the farmer calls him what he is, “a dirty thief.” The next day the thief goes to the farmer and tries to trick him into calling a neighbor a dirty thief, so the words will be spoken. The trick fails, as the farmer refuses to be so mean. Finally, desperate, the thief rips open his shirt to display his feathers and begs the farmer to call him a dirty thief. The farmer, being a good man, takes pity on the thief and berates him until his feathers disappear.

“PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BETRAYS FATHER, BECOMES VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND IS FALSELY PRESUMED DEAD”

Pinocchio. I’m not sure which Disney film was more disturbing to me as child—Pinocchio or Dumbo. I think I’ve blocked much of the Disney version out, but in reading the original serialized novel as an adult, I’ve realized just how disturbing this Italian fairy tale actually is. We all know the basics from the cartoon: the wooden puppet, his kind father, the blue fairy and Jiminy Cricket, wishing upon a star. But then you’ve got Pinocchio compulsively telling lies, killing his helpful cricket-sprit-guide, running away from home, being tricked and trapped into a grotesque puppet show on a ‘pleasure island,’ being swallowed by a whale, discovering his whale-swallowed father, dying and then being brought back to life as a human boy. And that’s the Disney version! In the original, Pinocchio is even more of a jackass (reference intended) than he is in the film. Our cruel puppet not only lies, cheats and swindles, but mutilates animals, physically abuses Geppeto, and is an all-around jerk, even as everyone continues to give him second chances. Pinocchio is the ultimate conman—faking his death, playing up his ‘puppet angle’ to gain sympathy and indulging in every possible vice from drinking to gambling to ogling other puppets. In short, Pinocchio is a hotbed of crimes and sin. Especially as, in the end, Pinocchio gets away with it all.

***

And then you’ve got Snow White (rape), Rapunzel (false imprisonment), Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty(breaking and entering), Fitcher’s Bird/Bluebeard(serial killing), Little Red Cap/Red Riding Hood(animal abuse), The Robber Bridegroom, (cannibalism) and The Juniper Tree (child abuse)—and that’s just circling back around to the Grimm Brothers. Crime writers, if you ever need inspiration for a plot, you need look no further than the fairy tales we all grew up on. All the crimes you could ever want are there—right up to the happily ever after.

#fairy tales #fairy tale #grimm brothers #brothers grimm #pinocchio #hansel and gretel #the three heads of the well #theft of the duck #kesh chandra #the goose girl #baba yaga #crime fiction #snow white #rapunzel #sleeping beauty

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beastgamerkuma · 6 years ago

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Steel Rats makes me revisit my old thoughts about a robot outbreak in the future. It makes me wonder what kind of vehicle I would want to use. Do I go classic muscle car, tank-like truck or do I go with the infamous two-wheeler? In this new retro-future, there is a robot invasion and it is up to this ragtag of motorheads to deal with it. Time to rev those engines grease monkey’s and strike hard and fast against this threat.

Steel Rats only need two Wheels!

It all begins with man creating tech, tech becomes efficient and then things go horribly wrong. It is a tale as old as any science fiction story. Robots wreck the world because humanity relied on them too much. What does one do in this future/retro world? You modify your hog and take to the streets to liberate the people. The sad part is the Junkbots overran everyone, but the Steel Rats came at the right time to throw down.

Heroes 4 Take the Streets:

This is your 2.5 D experience where you have terrain going from A and B. But you can go vertical in which you will have to solve puzzles and find secrets in each level. It is not that tasking and can be fun. There are 4 unique characters each having their own special abilities with their bikes.

James Jones The Fearless Leader – Rocks an armored motorbike

Lisa Carvalio The fastest of the Group – Known for her Flames

Randall the Biker Prince – Chains of Fury

Toshi Takahiro the Teenage Genius – High Tech weaponry

I am currently playing on the PlayStation 4 so all information will be used from that controller. You will start off with Toshi giving you the ins and outs in a nice tutorial. Using the left Analog to steer up and down through obstacles. If you want to turn around in a quick 180 just hit Circle. However, when having to turn a corner you will need to combine up and circle to do a full U-turn. Then your main weapon is what I call “The Razor Wheel”. By holding the X-Button you can whip out a front wheel heated razor wheel. This can work on an offense and help with your terrain.

There will be pipes on each level. if you hold the X button while going towards these pipes something magical happens! You will stick to that terrain like glue, but check the area because you could find a secret. Other things to note is if you lean back on the left analog you can do a wheelie at any time. The bikes are quite nimble and hitting the Triangle can perform a jump. It becomes tricky when you have got to hard to reach areas. If you double tap the X Button you can perform a vicious thrust forward. If you want you can be stylish by performing front or back flips while in the air.

Now, there are specials for each character and to switch between them just click in the R3 button. If one dies you will just have to pick the remaining characters. A skill street is involved and it is pretty intense with Perks, Primary, Charge, and Ultimate. perks have two rows. Each will cost a certain amount of points, but you will earn a lot easy at each level. There are 28 levels that you will need to go through as you open up each district. The best part about this is that each character works well.

Randall has a Harpoon special and if you do the double tap Circle. This causes a shield spin combined with L2 he will shoot our multiple harpoons. Lisa can use flames especially if you get an air can burn them with her exhaust. James has an energy blast from the front of his hog which looks like a Rhino punch. Toshi has a mini-bot that follows him around shooting lasers. Utilize each character to your will, but also keep in mind that all the characters also have a gun feature. Once you obtain ammo from any ammo crate laying around you use your gun with the Square button. This has an auto-aim feature so don’t spray and pray. Just aim near an enemy and it will make its mark.

Bike Vs. Mech Junk

There are some huge bosses and sub-bosses at times. You can be a bit intimidated by this but remember you have everything you need to survive. As simple as this game may look it can be complicated in your timing and using your abilities for the right fight. Teamwork makes the dream work and knows your perks, ultimates, and charges. The good news is that there will be ammo boxes to give you an advantage in some fights that respawn. The bosses are not the only challenge keep in mind. Each level will have specifics in time trials to earn extra bonuses, how many secrets you find and even stunts. Try getting through without losing a character as well.

Griddy Visuals:

In this world it is alive and full of fear with the junk bots around, however, I am having fun riding around. Being that it is kind of a side-scrolling game it does looks amazing. You have NPC humans running around from danger. There are background scenes that may show you your next boss fight waiting for you soon. As you go through the levels certain cosmetic unlocks will be available for you. It will cost you scraps and you can change not only the characters but match them with their bikes. It is simple but a fun feature either way.

I have to admit there are many different junk bots that give you a fierce challenge. You will have your standard bots with spinning razors. You have the armadillo bots that home in on you, but you can use them against other bots. Think of it as magnetic mines but leading them towards enemies. As a strategy, I use them against the bigger bots. With four seconds and 28 levels, you will have a lot to do.

The Bad

Not every game can be perfect and Steel Rats has its moments in the, “oh what the hell man?”. My only gripe is the controls at times where it can be a bit too sensitive. I try to go up to make a turn but instead perform a wheelie. Reverse wants to work when it wants to work which is weird. I can’t control reverse unless I was already moving and even with Jump combined with the double tap X dash you don’t get much height for certain obstacles. What is up with the fall damage? I get when you fall from a huge height, but some are not that high and I explode.

What is good though is the fact if you find a secret and die, you will still have said secret. They look like Steel Rat logo symbols so keep an eye out.

Ride or Die!

Steel Rats is a pretty decent game which only will cost you 20 bucks. There is replay value to be had especially online leaderboards to give you a decent challenge. I love the commentary of the characters which gives it more life and shows how an indie title gives a lot of effort. The only thing I would suggest if possible to have Biker Mice from Mars DLC pack. I know Moto would not appreciate being called a rat, but it has the right type of attitude just for those Chicago heroes.

At the end of the road, Steel Rats gets 4 paws out of 5. Check it out right now which is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam Marketplace. Give it a go and I will see you on the streets. – Beast Out –

Final Verdict:

Beast Reviews Steel Rats Steel Rats makes me revisit my old thoughts about a robot outbreak in the future. It makes me wonder what kind of vehicle I would want to use.

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celticbarb · 4 years ago

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📚⚔️📚⚔️BOOK🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿REVIEW⚔️📚⚔️📚

Book: The Highland Laird

by Amy Jarecki

Series: Lords of the Highlands, Book #8

Publisher: Forever (Grant Central Publishing)

Release Date: October 13, 2020

Reviewed by: Barb Massabrook (of)

1)Tartan Book Reviews

2)Purple Tulip Book Reviews

3)Celtic World of Historical Book Reviews

4)Celtic Barb’s Kilted Book Review Blog

Heat Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Book Rating: 5/5 Stars/Kilts

The Scottish Highlands

29 July 1714

“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye, that was the trouble.” I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.” - Ernest Hemingway

The Scottish Highlands

29 July 1714

Last book of the series definitely going out with a bang with pipers playing playing “Flowers of the Forrest.” https://youtu.be/rfsasAlICo8

**Only posting piper music on my promo spots and my blog. This is a new touch that I will be doing only on Scottish historical series of over 5 books.

I definitely recommend this exquisite book that I absolutely loved!

Buy Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Highland-Laird-Lords-Highlands/dp/153875097X

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amy-jarecki/the-highland-laird/9781538750971/

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?pcampaignid=books_read_action&id=Nl_ODwAAQBAJ

https://m.barnesandnoble.com/s/the+highland+laird

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-highland-laird

https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-highland-laird/id1497485443

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-highlander-s-unexpected-proposal

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