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ireadyabooks · 4 years ago

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Books to Read in 2021

It’s a NEW YEAR, everyone!

We made it through 2020, and whether or not you hit your reading goal this past year, don’t worry! 2021 is a new year for your TBR, and we have an AMAZING line-up of books you should add to your reading list ASAP.

THE LIFE I’M IN

This story of the power of forgiveness and second chances presents the unflinching story of a young woman trapped in the underworld of human trafficking. In Sharon G. Flake's latest and unflinching novel, we follow Charlese Jones, who, with her raw, blistering voice speaks the truths many girls face, offering insight to some of the causes and conditions that make a bully. Turned out of the only home she has known, Char boards a bus to nowhere where she is lured into the dangerous web of human trafficking.

HOLD BACK THE TIDE

A darkly seductive story of murder, betrayal, love, and family secrets in a small town in the Scottish Highlands. Alva knows that her father killed her mother, but she can’t prove it. The more she investigates though, the more she realizes that the truth can be more monstrous than lies/ And while you might be able to outrun anything that emerges from the dark water, you can never escape your past . . .

MUTED

Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights -- plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it. Until they're not. Denver begins to realize that she's trapped in Merc's world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.

THE POETRY OF SECRETS

A lyrical portrait of hidden identities and forbidden love set against the harrowing backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition. Isabel’s dreams to pursue poetry and a partner of her own choosing are thrown into jeopardy when the Spanish Inquisition reaches her small town.

SHURI #2: THE VANISHED

Shuri, the Princess of Wakanda (and sister to the Black Panther), sets out to save a group of kidnapped girls in this all-new, original novel by New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone!

BRIDGE OF SOULS

Where there are ghosts, Cassidy Blake follows . . .unless it's the other way around? Cass thinks she might have this ghost-hunting thing down. But nothing can prepare Cass for New Orleans, which wears all of its hauntings on its sleeve. And the city's biggest surprise is a foe Cass never expected to face: a servant of Death itself.

FOLLOW YOUR ARROW

When bisexual influencer CeCe breaks up with her girlfriend, Silvie, she’s devastated. But then she starts falling for a new guy who has no idea she’s internet famous...and CeCe wants to keep it that way. But as her secrets catch up to her, she finds herself in the middle of an online storm, where she'll have to confront the blurriness of public vs. private life, and figure out what it really means to speak her truth.

MIRROR’S EDGE

The danger rises and the deception grows in the heart-stopping third book in the New York Times bestselling Impostors series! Are twins Frey and Rafi on the same side . . . or are they playing to their own agendas? If their father is deposed from Shreve, who will take control? And what other forces may be waiting in the wings?

ZARA HOSSAIN IS HERE

Zara's family has waited years for their visa process to be finalized so that they can officially become US citizens. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low. But when her tormentor vandalizes her house with racist graffiti, a violent crime puts Zara’s entire future at risk. Now she must pay the ultimate price and choose between fighting to stay in the only place she's ever called home or losing the life she loves and everyone in it.

REMEDY

It's a mystery - why is Cara so sick? It feels like she's been sick all her life . . . but she and her mom have never stayed in one place long enough for doctors to really understand what's happening to her. Now, at fourteen, Cara is tired of being tired, and sick of being sick. Unable to afford the care she needs, Cara's mom starts a Caring for Cara campaign online. The money starts pouring in. But something's not right to Cara. And the harder she looks, the less she understands.

HEARTSTOPPER VOLUME 3

The third volume in the poignant and sweet Heartstopper series, featuring beautiful two-color artwork! Charlie didn't think Nick could ever like him back, but now they're officially boyfriends. Nick has even found the courage to come out to his mom. But coming out isn't something that happens just once, and Nick and Charlie try to figure out when to tell their friends that they're dating. Not being out to their classmates gets even harder during a school trip to Paris. As Nick and Charlie's feelings get more serious, they'll need each other more than ever.

THE BLOCK

In the second book of The Loop trilogy, Luka is trapped in a fate worse than death. But now that he knows the truth about what he and his fellow inmates are being used for, it's more important than ever that he not only escapes, but that he builds an army.

ON THE HOOK

Hector has always minded his own business while he works towards a better life. Until Joey, whose older brother, Chavo, is head of the Discípulos gang, tells Hector that he's going to kill him: maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday. And Hector, frozen with fear, does nothing. From that day forward, Hector's death is hanging over his head every time he leaves the house. But when a fight between Chavo and Hector's brother escalates, Hector is left with no choice but to take a stand. It's up to Hector to choose whether he's going to lose himself to revenge or get back to the hard work of living.

MISTER IMPOSSIBLE

Do the dreamers need the ley lines to save the world . . . or will their actions end up dooming the world? As Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde try to make dreamers more powerful, the Moderators are closing in, sure that this power will bring about disaster. In the remarkable second book of The Dreamer Trilogy, Maggie Stiefvater pushes her characters to their limits – and shows what happens to them and others when they start to break.

THE GHOSTS WE KEEP

Everything happens for a reason.At least that's what everyone keeps telling Liam Cooper after his older brother Ethan is killed suddenly in a hit-and-run. Feeling more alone and isolated than ever, Liam has to not only learn to face the world without one of the people he loved the most, but also face the fading relationships of his two best friends in the process. Soon, Liam finds themself spending time with Ethan's best friend, Marcus, who might just be the only person that seems to know exactly what they're going through - for better and for worse.

SIMONE BREAKS ALL THE RULES

Simone is shaking things up by making a bucket list of everything she hasn’t been able to do thanks to her strict Haitian immigrant parents. But as the list takes on a life of its own, things get much more complicated than Simone expected. She'll have to discover which rules are worth breaking, and which might save her from heartbreak.

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF

Skylar is ready to show everyone that her latest app is brilliant by winning an academic competition. To do that, she's going to use it to win State at the Scholastic Exposition, the nerdiest academic competition around. But when she falls for one of her team members and things get complicated, is her path to greatness over before it begins?

THE GIRL FROM THE SEA

A graphic novel about family, romance, and first love! Morgan's biggest secret is that she has a lot of secrets, including the one about wanting to kiss another girl. Then one night, Morgan is saved from drowning by a mysterious girl named Keltie. The two become friends and suddenly life on the island doesn't seem so stifling anymore. But Keltie has some secrets of her own. And as the girls start to fall in love, everything they're each trying to hide will find its way to the surface...whether Morgan is ready or not.

RISE TO THE SUN

Three days. Two girls. One life-changing music festival. Toni is reeling in the wake of the loss of her roadie father and desperate to figure out where her life will go from here. Olivia is a hopeless romantic whose heart has just taken a beating (again). When the two collide at the Farmland Music and Arts Festival, it feels like kismet. But when something goes wrong and the festival is sent into a panic, Toni and Olivia find that they need each other, and the music, more than they ever imagined.

YOU & ME AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Hannah Ashton wakes up to silence. The entire city around her is empty, except for one other person: Leo Sterling. Leo might be the hottest boy ever (and not just because he's the only one left), but he's also too charming, too selfish, and too devastating for his own good, let alone Hannah's. Together, they search for answers amid crushing isolation. But while their empty world may appear harmless . . . it's not. Because nothing is quite as it seems, and if Hannah and Leo don't figure out what's going on, they might just be torn apart forever.

IN THE SAME BOAT

Sadie is ready for the race of a lifetime: The Texas River Odyssey. But then her brother ditches her and she has to pair up with her former best friend, Cully. It's irritating enough that he grew up to be so attractive, but once they're on the river it turns out he's ill-prepared for such a dangerous race. But as the miles pass, the pain of the race builds, they uncover the truth about their feuding families, and Sadie's feelings for Cully begin to shift. Could this race change her life more than she ever could have imagined?

THE GREAT DESTROYERS

In this alternate-history novel, Jo joins the Pax Games: an Olympics-style competition that pits pilots of mechas against each other. But when fighters start dying in the arena, Jo is drawn into a deadly political plot. In a global arms race between superpowers, playing out in violent games that only humanity could create, comes a chilling story of clashing titans, ruthless competition, freedom, and the girl caught in the middle of it all.

#I read YA #books to read #booklr #2021 books #tbr #2021 tbr

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whoslaurapalmer · 4 years ago

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finished rereading the raven cycle and you know how last year i said i could be pickier about the raven king but didn’t want to? this year i did want to!

-i mean, i love the raven cycle. interesting magic, very comfy, would sell my soul for the gangsey. -but most of this post is gonna be me complaining about the raven king -the tl;dr of it all is ‘the pacing of the raven king is too fast and too slow at the same time. it’s not that i think it was terrible, but i don’t think it was written as successfully as the previous books. i think, because the pacing of the book is so uneven, that the balance between events, and perhaps the balance between the magic and the characters own inherent internal coming of age power, is off. oh btw i am considering reading call down the hawk but Have Concerns’

-noticed the ‘blue is calling gansey from the phone/sewing/cat room and gansey is calling blue from the bathroom-kitchen-laundry’ parallel which i thought was very, very cute. that has my whole heart -also noticed a lot more of gansey’s whole person just constantly thinking about (or not-thinking about) his death -BUT THEN THE PROLOGUE TO THE RAVEN KING SMACKED ME IN THE FACE AGAIN HOW COULD I FORGET THAT GANSEY LIKE. LITERALLY KNOWS HE’S GONNA DIE AND THE RAVEN KING IS HIM TRYING MAKE SURE EVERYONE WILL BE OKAY AFTER HE’S DEAD -I CANNOT HANDLE RICHARD CAMPBELL GANSEY THE THIRD MY GOD THIS BOY

-canNOT overstate how much i really do love gwenllian. -i love her so much. i love her so much -same with malory. still love him.

-okay i guess i appreciated artemus a little more -i think my thing is like. do i have a problem with blue being part tree? no not necessarily. but the pacing in the raven king is so uneven that i think what i dislike is how the reveal happened -no i don’t know what i’d do differently!! -every time i disagree with a writing choice in a book i try and think ‘now lulu, as someone with a Literal Degree In Putting Words Together, what would you do differently?’ which is a REALLY good writing exercise but mostly just ends up with me going ‘uhhhh. idk. probably have to backtrack a couple plot points and restart from there. no i will not elaborate.’

-last time i thought the raven king moved too fast and this time i agree but also thought it moved too slow?? -i devoured the first three books every time and then both times i read the raven king i kept putting it down because i thought the pacing was so off, so i was simultaneously interested and not interested in what was going on -too fast re: there were A LOT of characters going on, laumonier and piper and henry and neeve and plot points were just piling up and more like slamming together than converging (piper being laumonier’s daughter and henry’s mother being seondeok especially feel less like pieces falling into place than, oh look! ~a thing!!~), ALSO GOD NOAH NEEDED TO SHOW UP MORE (just like. a smidge more noah. would’ve put a lot together), and the speed of finding glendower/driving back/gansey dying/the epilogue -too slow re: somehow so many things are happening but nothing is happening in some parts, some parts dragged, people are just moving around with no real direct sense of working towards the end, blue and gansey were at lunch while adam and ronan were in cabeswater that one time????????????? (-not that they can’t get lunch. but they had time to get lunch???????) -oh i think the four of them maybe felt the most disjointed as a group in this book, which is again not necessarily terrible, but a thing -and these things are just so disappointing because i thought the pacing of the first three books was so GOOD!! things take their time to happen but HAPPEN and i love that so much!!!! -i do feel bad criticizing the raven king bc i know maggiestief was going through health problems at the time and it took longer than she wanted to finish. but i am still criticizing it because it’s still a very unsatisfying ending

-reading this time i felt EVEN MORE FIRMLY that gansey should’ve been glendower, and even went so far as to consider, is the text saying he’s glendower, it’s just not explicitly stated?? because of all the parallels??? of gansey being old and young at the same time, gansey + his own magicians, the parallel between glendower shoving that guy in a tree and gansey wanting to do the same to ronan over the pig, the timelessness of the things gansey loves, the Power of command in his voice, a resurrection in the first place -and i was going to just say, yeah, it’s there, until i got to noah’s chapter again. -i think noah deserved at least one chapter per book (and maybe more during the raven king) and that would’ve made an already tight plot even tighter, especially in the raven king. (-i was also thinking that if gansey was glendower then something else would’ve happened when they found him, no i still do not know what)

-big respect though to maggiestief saying glendower had to either be dead or evil and by that page number there wasn’t enough room for him to be evil -and big respect to the fact that, of course it’s not about teens finding a hero, it’s about teens becoming heroes (these thoughts also pulled from her twitter reread), finding glendower (alive) would never have been narratively good or satisfying (-especially because it makes sense that glendower was dead all along -- if gwenllian was put to sleep wrong, who’s to say that glendower wasn’t, too?) -BUT, IT ALSO MAKES SENSE IF IT’S GANSEY -but then you have like. the whole time it wasn’t even glendower. it was noah -which is why i wanted more noah!!! to better lead to that!!!!!!! cause i feel like that kinda comes out of nowhere!!!!! -the balance of the magical and the real is just off in the reveal i think -man i don’t know. this is a lot of words.

-i also appreciated adam’s character arc better this time, which was really nice. -but i still feel no great attachment to ronan and adam’s relationship

-you know what. i want more mr. gray and maura -idk if i agree with him leaving henrietta. much like the previous paragraphs and my whole gripe with the raven king, it’s not terrible but i don’t think it’s done well, as well as it could’ve been, as well as the previous books -also! more adam and persephone would’ve been good

-i was rereading maggiestief’s tweets where she reread the books and i forget which thread this was in but she picked out one of the ‘character x says something that makes character y reevaluate every single interaction previously’ lines and she was like ‘that’s all these books are’ and i was like ‘YEAH MAGGIE. I FEEL LIKE I SEE THIS LINE EVERY SINGLE SECOND.’ and not necessarily in a good way -sometimes you can reuse a line and it is a parallel or a connection. sometimes you are just reusing a line over and over.

-she also mentions writing arguments from a point of, both characters are right, or think they’re right, or as right as they can be or something to that effect -which i really like, and i absolutely 100% see in her writing -and so i don’t know if this is just a me thing, because i have this obsessive need to backtrack through even the tiniest disagreements after the fact to calmly figure out where i’m coming from and acknowledge where the other person’s coming from, so while i like that every character comes from a place of ‘i’m right’ i feel like it leads to a lot of arguments left unresolved -but i think that’s just me feeling like everybody should always talk everything out as much as possible so -and like resolution doesn’t have to be a big dialogue acknowledgement -but i still didn’t feel like it left a lot of room for these characters to really work towards change -they do change! but i wanted to see it more

-oh hey so. did gansey successfully sell of monmouth? did ronan get a diploma anyway?

-me: ‘thing’ is ultimately a vague, unspecific word and should be used sparingly in a narration, much like ‘interesting’ maggiestief: /flinging out ‘thing’ all the time me: you know what, though???? sure, good for her

-i like henry. but he’s written terribly, the poor guy comes OUT OF NOWHERE too and should’ve shown up earlier more than his two times in blue lily lily blue, and adam and ronan’s super casual racism towards him is like..................................................................mostly unchallenged and really unnecessary -if a racist comment is going to remain unchecked and unchallenged by the narrative and the characters, what does it accomplish? -especially because it never ever shows up again or showed up before -and gansey just kind of scoffs it aside and blue doesn’t even really truly call it out which is like, the amount of other things gansey will call out???? the amount of stuff blue will call out??????? AND THEY JUST LET THAT GO?????? -so, again! it’s not necessary!! it does nothing!!! it just adds unchallenged racism that has no place!!!!!!!!!!!!

-also reading this time i felt like maggiestief went out of her way to just not say what race blue was -that shouldn’t be a thing you just repeatedly dance around and never confirm for your main character

-so my library still does not have the ebook for call down the hawk but i am vaguely considering buying it to read it but also....................i don’t know -i did read the first eight chapters because they were online and i’m like. Intrigued but also?????? Concerned. idk. idk

-looking at it from a distance i have the same concern with it that i do with king of scars. -do i think dreamer trilogy is necessary in the way that it explores things that are set up in the raven cycle and have big potential consequences? yes. the hunt for the ‘greywaren’, kavinsky proving that there are other dreamers, trying to make sure a dreamed thing can still exist if something happens to the dreamer, the possibilities and limits of dreamers, ronan trying to dream another cabeswater, ronan’s fear about what’s real and what isn’t/what he dreamed and what he didn’t dream, and maggiestief clearly loving writing ronan and wanting to write more of him -do i think those things are executed well in the dreamer trilogy? from what i’ve read about it, maybe not???? -especially re: ronan and adam’s character arcs????? -which i feel like, stupid and bitchy being picky about. -change and recovery do not happen in straight lines. but i think this kind of cycles back to the way she writes arguments with like, is it too unresolved to the point that no change, either positive or negative, is happening? -ugggg also makes me worry that i just wasn’t Reading it enough or thinking about it enough -my additional concern is that maggiestief should’ve maybe had firmer rules for what can and can’t be taken out of a dream (-yes i suppose that limiting the very nature of a dream goes against the power of ‘the dream’ so it makes sense for it to be limitless BUT i feel like especially the dreaming of people is gonna paint you into a corner if you’re not careful) -but i am also BIG worried re: the character arcs. -also where ronan’s character arc is after the raven king, do i think he would do the reveal in mr. impossible?? i...........do not know -well i didn’t think so AND THEN I READ OPAL which i kind of enjoyed, with reservations, which is mostly back to ‘is no change happening’ (-i love that opal is like, ‘ronan’s inner child’ or whatever it was and i liked her more this time around but last year when i read the raven cycle i was like ‘but what’s the point of taking opal out cause they just kind of shuffle her around?’ now, what was the point of taking opal out if they’re gonna put her back??? and actually almost COMPLETELY IGNORE HER in the short story????? there was so much potential there for her and ronan and it didn’t happen...........) -nightwash kinda just happened too, huh. (-in general ronan bringing his nightmares back with him is like. God Perfect) -but this all really takes me back to maybe there should’ve been limits on dreaming -also after reading the first eight chapters, i’m like -i 100% respect maggiestief for not wanting to rewrite the raven cycle and not wanting to just write about henrietta, i absolutely do -but it feels so strange to read about ronan and adam and not read about gansey and blue as well? -which isn’t TERRIBLE, but. -but when i see like, single lines from or little sections i’m like ‘oh that looks like a good time’ because i do like the way maggiestief writes because a great deal of it is so rhythmically poetic and beautiful, but so is a great deal of the raven king while still being disappointing. -i feel like i’m just gonna feel about it like how i feel about the raven king honestly -and well king of scars.......

-ANYWAY -might read it. might not. still going back and forth on this a lot. i was leaning towards, i’m gonna do it, but now i’m leaning more towards, i don’t want to, i want to keep the image of these characters where i like them, and right now i am aggressively combing through fanfic because i care a great deal about post-raven king trauma discussion and that’s mostly what i want at the current time

#lulu talks about the raven cycle #a tag now!!

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jackietaylorsghost · 6 years ago

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very Important adam/ronan things to take away from the cdth sampler:

“like the other lynch brothers, he was a regular churchgoer, but most people assumed he played for the other team.” i am SCREAMING. top tier gay joke. well timed.

everyone: ronan’s eyes aren’t pretty. adam: mhmm e y e l a s h e s

much to say about the revelation that ronan is partly at the barns to keep his dreams hidden and in check, and how much he relates an inability to change and be like everyone else to having to stay there. almost like he’s stuck huh! i’ve been saying!!

of note that words used to describe ronan’s existence are BORED and MALINGERED.

fingers crossed he finds some balance between his dreams and his wants/needs that allows him to leave the barns and grow but after the Great Crab Disaster I’M WORRIED.

fire imagery EVERYWHERE. i’m WORRIED again.

“there are stains that spread faster than you drive. if you drive, it’ll take fourteen years to get there. seventeen. forty. one hundred. we’ll be driving to your funeral by the end.” good to know ronan is still the most DRAMATIC boy in the whole of virginia. absolutely no chill.

dont like the possible foreshadowing of that driving to your funeral by the end, though. must leave lynches alone!

“it’s very safe” asjkajjka DECLAN PLEASE

“ronan kicked one of the volvo’s tires” asjkajjka RONAN PLEASE.

ronan trying to act nonchalant by cramming chocolate covered peanuts into his mouth and choking a little is Peak Disaster Gay.

matthew’s music must be awful if ronan and declan are in agreement over it, must have playlist.

ronan who lives to pretend he doesn’t care wondering if his brothers didn’t say anything about his moving because it didn’t make a difference to them is huhhh. don’t like it, take it away pls.

i’m sorry, ENTIRELY WRAPPED UP IN! ENTIRELY!

entirely

wrapped

shut up!!!! shut upppppp!

“is there any version of you that could come with me to cambridge?” tbh nothing would have readied me for this. adam i-can-do-everything-alone asking ronan if he could go with him. so much growth, too much pride, nowhere to put it, send help.

the fact that ronan doesn’t stay in cambridge when he visits adam because of plausible deniability, that if he doesn’t try there’s no evidence he can’t make it there. rip.

ronan! missed! him! like! a! lung!

dramatic again, but entirely relatable bc damn, same ronan, same.

a) ronan thinking about how his heartbeat is the same as everyone else’s so he wasn’t that different and b) JUST LIKE ADAM’S HEART WHEN HIS HEAD WAS RESTING ON HIS HEAD = much too much to think about. need to lie down for a bit.

he could move to follow the guy he loved!! we all knew it was love, we’ve always known it was love, but! the words. the words!!!!! brb sobbing.

i have only had jordan for a day and a half but if anything happened to her i would kill everyone in this room and then myself. 11/10 would marry.

art forgery plot confirmed!

THIS WAS HOW IT HAD BEGUN

bitch fkajdkajksja GIVE ME A WARNING.

still can’t compose myself RE the info that ronan saw adam and immediately sent a desperate prayer up to god

will the word please ever be the same again? definitely not!

adam’s arms adam’s hands his lovely! boyish! hands!

the description of his expressions with all its contradictions and multitudes is just my favourite thing ever. it encapsulates everything i love about adam fucking parrish.

and the fact that ronan instantly recognised all those multitudes in him. there was always a level of understanding ronan had for adam throughout trc that no one else did and this tells us he had that before he even met him, he just... recognised something in him i just... ;______;

please

ronan knowing all the harvard stats because he was the person adam could crow to, how he takes on that adam that is still full of contradictions and multitudes, how he finds it hard but he absorbs all the facts and all of adam’s anxieties, even in the face of his own anxieties about adam leaving and falling in love with the shining, educated people that ronan thinks are better than him. that absolute, unwavering support 😭😭😭

tbh there’s a whole ass lot to unpack in this section so imma try and do it briefly (she says!)

ronan lynch is a romantic cdth confirmed:

he could have texted adam but he liked the soft surprise of it

over the past few days ronan had played his reunion with adam over in his head MANY TIMES

adam i love you but that outfit sounds awful. you are a student, it’s a friday night, put some sweats on and stuff some cheetos in your mouth.

the sweet nervousness of their reunion, how they walk past each other and both seem so uncertain. they’re a year into dating and the still get nervous and unsure after a few weeks apart and it’s CUTE and definitely speaks to their excitement/anticipation levels.

THE WATCH. big time softness.

they hugged hard ;_____;

im just so relieved that they’re allowed to touch each other and be intimate and aren’t consigned to the ‘boys in love aren’t like that boring boring’ corner.

the way ronan thinks about how adam fits as he remembered. huh. you’re really gonna do this to me.

his hand still pressed against the back of ronan’s skull the way it ALWAYS did when they hugged.

you smell like home. you smell like home!!!!!! brb ive gone absolutely fucking feral.

i both want to play repo because it sounds fun and don’t want to because it sounds complicated and i fucking hate instructions. much confusion.

adam pressing his shoe hard against ronan’s and then his leg and then breathing in ronan’s ear I AM HOWLING. ronan’s nerve endings being made a marvel of I AM SOBBING. it’s very important that m/m ships are afforded the same level of explicit attraction as m/f (and i don’t mean explicit as in nsfw, i mean as in obvious)

no offence because i love them but all of adam’s friends sound Extra™

“to the outside eye, ronan lynch was a loser” pls ronan, you are giving me an ulcer.

scary spice i asjkjdkjskdjak

queer crying club! i stan!!

also adam saying in the epilogue of trk that he wanted to save all the adam’s hidden in plain view and then going to college and scooping up all the criers and giving them something to do is far too much to handle.

don’t think about that and the time he thought about how he used to spend his nights crying on the trailer steps and wondering why he bothered until gansey came along and offered him friendship. dont think about how he’s essentially paying that forward DON’T THINK ABOUT IT.

hand holding, arms around each other, hip to hip walking, can’t wait anymore kissing, I MISSED YOU. love that for me!

but also the fact that adam reaches down for ronan’s hand and its so natural. ronan’s hand is there so he just. takes it.

hearing ronan’s thoughts on what happened with robert at last is A Lot. the way it’s still happening, always happening, kept fresh and savage shows how affected ronan was by it all and still is and i think its so important that he’s not just. angry and hot headed. there’s more to it than that. its painful, it makes him feel sick, its unending and it really speaks to how much adam means to him.

adam thinks he has no one BITCH YOU’VE GOT ALL OF US.

and ronan.

but. how he feels like he has nothing still. the way his voice hitches on ‘because’ because it’s all still so painful. i wanna wrap him up. i wanna take everything that hurts away. i wanna tell him he’s so loved. guess i’ll just have to sit back and watch him work his way through it all I GUESS. no but i am looking forward to his growth in this trilogy, especially considering how much he’s grown already. adam parrish invented character growth lets 👏 be 👏 real 👏

it had never been a fight between them/it was a fight between adam and himself, between adam and the world/for ronan it was a fight between truth and compromise, between the black and white he saw and the reality everyone else experienced. i LOVE this. it so well encapsulates them. and it’s so important that they can realise their differing world views and their complexities and meet in the middle somewhere.

“ronan put his lips on adam’s deaf ear, and he hated adam’s father” FUCK ME UP. my absolute favourite bit 103930%. absolute incoherent mess over here. not! okay! see other post for more coherency because i only had it for 5.7 minutes.

frowning, guarded, crumpled adam who i’ll literally. never be over in all of my life. 38983/10 will love him until the end of time.

i want it too much. !!!!!! going feral again over here. WHAT DO YOU WANT ADAM? I WANT IT TOO MUCH. definitely will never shut up about this.

scared adam is going to be a visionary so pretending chapter 6 doesn’t exist.

LINDENMERE ;________;

i love it already

i CANNOT believe that ronan is being dream invaded and challenged and he’s over here like hmm nice bike ELEGANT and ROUGH and READY like ADAM asjkasj please ronan you are so embarrassing!!

also. ronan thinks adam is elegant and rough and ready so! there’s that!

i literally. cannot. cope with the HILARITY of chapter 8. the whole thing is a complete and utter DISASTER. it’s absolutely gone off in adam’s room after all his work at constructing a well put together boy. ronan comes for a night and everything goes BONKERS. amazing.

(really worried about what this means RE ronan being able to exit the barns and grow and change and not be bored and not feel like a loser so we’re focusing on the hilarious disaster of it all.)

p.s. adam sleeping slotted between ronan and the wall OKAY. THIS IS FINE!

p.p.s. adam’s bed hair is WILD.

p.p.p.s i have missed adam and ronan so so so so so much and im an emotional fucking wreck

#call down the hawk #ronan lynch #adam parrish #pynch #dreamer trilogy #cdth spoilers #long post #sorry so much to say we were so well fed so many thoughts #;_____;#lou.txt

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nonbinaryparrish · 5 years ago

Text

‘plant care for absolute dummies’ - a youtube pynch au 🌿

gansey + blue are going away on one of their hippie holidays to the middle of nowhere again and they’ve asked ronan if he’ll look after their copious collection of plants. now, ronan can take care of animals - pets, farm animals, strays on the side of the road that he carefully scoops up and nurses back to health in his front room? easy. but plants - who make no sign to indicate that ronan is accidentally killing them before it’s too late? a fucking nightmare.

and yet, a few days later, ronan finds himself unlocking the door to blue + gansey’s apartment and finds a page long list of detailed instructions for each plant they own. and gansey, the pretentious asshole that he is, has listed them all by their latin names and provided no photos. naturally, ronan panics. then he turns to google (he’s too proud to text or, god forbid, call blue + gansey just yet). the google search ‘how not to kill plant’ yields a youtube video: “plant care for absolute dummies - part one: the basics” by ‘parrishsplants’. ronan smirks at the title - ‘absolute dummy’ is the exact box ronan would put himself into in this situation - and clicks play.

(this totally got away from me, so read more under the cut!)

the man that appears on ronan’s screen is the most beautiful man he’s ever seen. there’s something about his face - the wide, deep set eyes, the clever, quirking mouth and the soft waves of his dusty coloured hair - it makes ronan feel like he’s looking at a face reflected in a pool of water. there’s something liquid and unusual about him, and it makes ronan’s mouth go dry.

the man that appears on ronan’s screen is also an asshole. not maliciously so, but he’s dry and sarcastic in a way that ronan instantly takes a liking to - he speaks like he’s perpetually a second away from rolling his eyes, and his thick southern accent drawls in the best fucking way. but. there’s also something gentle to him - the way his long fingers gently brush the leaves of his plants, and the small sweet smile on his face when he finally says, at the end of the video, “as an old friend once told me: it’s not that hard if you just believe in yourself.”

the video ends, and ronan instantly goes onto the man’s channel - there are hundreds of videos. ronan feels gluttonous as he scrolls the choices; videos on specific plants, videos on the does-and-don’ts of terrariums, and rarely (incredibly rarely) there are personal videos. videos about training to be a paediatrician, videos he made with other youtubers, and a couple hippier, stranger videos about tarot cards and psychic stuff that ronan isn’t sure he believes, but even those reveal very little about him. ronan learns his name is adam, he’s from virginia, and he went to harvard medical school. there’s even a degree hung up on his wall behind him in his earlier videos - when it was just adam with his crappy phone camera - to prove it.

adam, it turns out, has a video pertaining to every one of gansey and blue’s stupid plants, which takes a lot of googling of latin names and perusing adam’s videos to figure out. he watches each one - they go into much further detail than gansey’s notes, and fill in vital gaps (why didn’t gansey note that the big bowl of moss could strictly never be put in direct sunlight?? it was like he wanted ronan to accidentally butcher his and blue’s plant-babies).

with the help of adam’s videos (and not at all thanks to gansey’s crappy notes), blue and gansey return to find all of their plants not only alive, but thriving. ronan smiles smugly as blue exclaims that her cactus’ flowers have budded again, and he simply shrugs innocently when gansey asks how he managed it.

that evening, ronan goes home and wipes the proverbial dust off his twitter account. he’s used it exactly once to tweet ‘got twitter so gansey will shut the fuck up’, and so it takes him about three minutes to find adam’s twitter and to figure out how to direct message him (”you mean ‘DM’, you old man” matthew would kindly tell him).

‘hey’, ronan types, and instantly cringes. he deletes it, then retypes it. ‘i had to look after my friend’s plants and i’m shit with them, but your videos were really helpful. thanks’ his thumbs hover over the keys, debating if he should add ‘also you look like all my most peaceful dreams were turned into a single person and i want to rub lotion into your dry ass hands and feed you fruit’.

he decidedly does not type all of that, and quickly hits ‘send’ before he can weasel out of it. he then stuffs his phone at the bottom of his underwear drawer and hides his head under his pillow.

an hour later, his phone buzzes. ronan ignores it. it buzzes again, and then again. ronan reluctantly peeks at it - it’s from adam.

ronan snatches the phone out of his underwear drawer and flops onto the bed. not caring if he looks desperate, he opens adam’s messages immediately:

‘I’m glad they were helpful :-)). Hopefully this has convinced you that you can just about manage to keep a cactus alive? (That’s the first thing I managed not to kill, haha.)’

ronan smiles at the ridiculous formality of adam’s texting style.

‘somehow,’ he texts back. ‘i struggle to imagine uve ever killed a plant’

‘Haha, nooo.’ the response is surprisingly quick. ‘A friend of mine got me to start because she said it would be good for me to have ‘company’. She told me that plants are good listeners as long as you listen to them too. I realise how weird that sounds, but I stopped accidentally killing all the succulents she gave me once I just took the time to sit down with the plants. Now I’m kind of obsessed, hah. I guess she was right - I needed company. Sorry, that was way too much information.’

ronan’s grinning from ear to ear like a loon. he texts back, and adam responds, and then ronan texts him again - and suddenly it’s 1am.

‘shit i shouldnt keep u up’ ronan texts. he’s sure adam probably has to be up at some ungodly hour for his training.

‘Oh, I didn’t even realise the time. If I’m super tired tomorrow I’m blaming you, asshole. (I’m kidding.) I really liked talking with you, Ronan. If this isn’t overstepping, I’d love to talk again? I really do have to go to sleep now, though :-(.’

ronan bites his lip, his heart racing. ‘id like that too, plant boy.’

‘Ok, Ronan :-). And I’m totally going to find a demeaning and overly simplistic nickname to give you in return... Just you wait. Goodnight :-))).’

ronan sends adam a goodnight text, grins, and rolls over to go to sleep.

#the raven cycle #trc #call down the hawk #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #my headcanons #mine #might do a part two?? i'm suddenly iNCREDIBLY invested

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emmerrr · 6 years ago

Note

heyyyy if you wanna write a pynch vday fic, how about one where they're like... both trying to be sneaky about planning sth for valentines day and so both think the other has forgotten about it and they're both like ://// but it all uhh works out in the end?? x

what a top notch suggestion, absoLUTELY i can write that 💕💕 (uhh heads up this got kinda long, i’ll put it on ao3 too and reblog with a link later)

Adam sat alone in a corner booth of Nino’s, History notes open on the table before him. He’d written VALENTINE’S DAY?? in the margin, underlined three times. He frowned at the words, wondering why he was fixating on them, and turned his head to stare listlessly out of the window instead.

Blue was there working, but she’d been too busy to come and say hello so far, simply offering him a harried wave when she spotted him walk in, pointing him towards the table he was now seated at. The other staff at Nino’s never bothered them anymore, knowing Blue would cover their table. Adam had heard them being referred to as “Blue’s Boys” on more than one occasion.

He was currently the only one there, having beaten Henry and Gansey out of the school gates. He assumed they’d got held up by a traffic light or two, and Ronan had further to drive than the rest of them so would likely arrive last anyway.

Thinking of Ronan immediately returned Adam’s thoughts to the words written in his notes and he scowled at the parking lot. On the surface, Valentine’s Day didn’t seem like it would be Ronan’s thing. Adam wasn’t even particularly sure it was his thing. But the fact remained that Valentine’s Day was a week away, and Adam didn’t know what, if anything, he was expected to do for it.

He tried to think back to previous years and remembered receiving an anonymous card from someone back in the seventh grade; a generic heart-shaped thing that simply said ‘Will you be my Valentine? x’ inside. He was fairly certain the sender was a girl in his English class who had never said a word to him but blushed every time she caught his eye. Adam didn’t see how he was supposed to answer whether or not he’d be her Valentine if she never told him she had sent it. And of course, she never owned up, and he didn’t want to suggest it was her in case he was wrong, and he didn’t actually want to be her Valentine anyway. So it was never mentioned again.

The difference here was that Ronan was his actual boyfriend. Didn’t that mean that they were each other’s Valentines by default, then?

Adam didn’t know. He’d never navigated Valentine’s Day before. Not like this.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear Henry and Gansey approach until they were right there.

“Oh, History notes,” Henry exclaimed. “Can I borrow them?”

Adam turned his head to see Henry already sliding the notebook towards him. “Your notes are always make more sense than mi—” Henry cut himself off, eyes widening at something on the page. Too late Adam remembered the VALENTINE’S DAY?? in the margin and slapped his hand over it, snatching back his notebook.

Henry was grinning at him. “Big plans?”

“No,” Adam muttered. “No plans at all.” He stuffed the notebook into his messenger bag.

Gansey had slid into the booth opposite Adam and watched the exchange with raised eyebrows. “What have I missed?”

“Nothing, apparently,” Henry said easily. Adam was grateful that Henry clearly wasn’t going to push it (at least not with an audience), but reasoned he could perhaps use some advice.

“So,” he started. “Valentine’s Day. Thoughts?”

“I’m glad you asked, Parrish,” Gansey said. “It was originally a Western Christian feast day honouring a couple of early saints called Valentinius—”

“Yes, thank you, Captain Wikipedia,” Henry cut in. “I’m not entirely sure that’s what he meant.”

A jug of Iced Tea was plonked onto the table without ceremony and they all looked up to Blue Sargent as she handed out glasses.

“It’s a dumb holiday invented by Hallmark to sell more cards,” she said, obviously having heard the tail-end of the conversation.

“Well, obviously there’s that too,” Gansey said, beaming at her.

Adam sighed. They were all monumentally unhelpful.

“Why the interest, Adam?” Blue asked, a knowing glint in her eye.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just…okay, with Ronan, do I just treat it like any other day? Do I get him a card? Will he think it’s stupid? Do I think it’s stupid?”

There was a short silence as the three of them blinked back at him, and then Blue carefully said, “Do you think it’s stupid?”

Adam wasn’t sure how to answer that. The truth was that he sort of did think it was stupid, but he also thought he wanted to acknowledge it anyway. He thought doing nothing at all kind of made him look like an asshole.

In the end, it all circled back to Ronan, and whether he would care. Did he have anything planned? Was he having an internal crisis over it as well?

In lieu of an answer, Adam shrugged again.

“Speak of the devil,” Henry said, and nodded towards the entrance.

Ronan, dressed all in black (of course), had just stepped inside. He scanned the restaurant without turning his head but when he spotted Adam, his shoulders relaxed, and he smiled just a little.

Adam didn’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing that.

“Oh god, you two are the worst,” Blue scoffed as Ronan started to make his way over.

“What?” Adam said without looking at her.

“You know exactly what, Adam Parrish. You and Ronan with the googly eyes. Jesus Christ, you’re in public. Tone it down.”

“You tone it down,” Ronan said jovially, hip-checking Blue as he drew level. “What are we talking about?”

“The origins of Valentine’s Day,” Gansey said delicately.

Ronan snorted derisively. “Valentine’s Day,” he said with as much scorn as he could muster, “is capitalistic bullshit invented to sell cards and flowers and chocolate.”

“Hey man, that’s exactly what I said,” Blue said, sounding pleased, and she and Ronan fist-bumped. Adam rolled his eyes. They really were two sides of the same coin.

“You’re in my seat, Cheng,” Ronan said.

“Sit by Gansey, I was here first.”

Ronan shrugged. “Fair’s fair.” He stepped up onto the seat and over Henry and squeezed into the spot between him and Adam.

“Ronan Lynch,” Gansey hissed. “You’ll get us kicked out!”

“Calm down, Dick, no one noticed,” Ronan said. He had both arms stretched out across the back of the booth, and Adam and Henry were both leaning into him a little thanks to the lack of space.

“This is cozy,” Henry said cheerfully.

It was Blue’s turn to roll her eyes and she pulled her little notepad out of her apron pocket. “Alright, I have to actually do my job now, what do you want? Gansey, I’m assuming you want your usual half-avocado monstrosity?”

“You’re a millennial, Blue, you’re supposed to like avocados.”

Her disgusted expression was answer enough. The rest of them rattled off their food order and then Blue went off to put it through.

“Doesn’t anyone want to come and sit by me?” Gansey asked. “It’s lonely over here.”

“Oh, don’t pull that face, Gansey, you’re making me sad,” Henry said, swapping sides. He scooched right the way over to Gansey and draped an arm around his shoulder before sighing loftily. “It’s hard being this popular.”

“But someone has to do it,” Adam said drily, earning him a quicksilver smile.

“And I do it so well.”

Ronan was stopping at Adam’s for the night, but they had each come to Nino’s in their own cars so separated in the parking lot to drive over to St Agnes in a convoy.

Ronan was already peeling out of the lot by the time Adam reached his shitbox, and he was held up further by Henry calling his name. He turned and Henry jogged over, Gansey nowhere to be seen and most likely still inside saying goodbye to Blue.

“Oh, sorry,” Adam said. “You wanted my History notes, right?”

“No, that’s not — well, yeah, actually, thank you,” he said, taking them when Adam handed them over. “I actually came over here to give you some unsolicited advice.”

“About the Valentine’s Day thing?”

“That’s the one.”

Adam shrugged. “It’s not entirely unsolicited. But anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. You heard him.”

“Yeah, I heard him. Sounds like posturing to me.”

Adam tilted his head to the side. “You think?” Ronan certainly was prone to posturing.

“Sure. I mean, I have no doubt that he really does think Valentine’s Day is what he said in there, but I wouldn’t let that put you off doing something, if you wanted to.” Henry waited for a response, and when Adam didn’t offer one, he prompted, “You do want to, don’t you?”

Adam smiled wryly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only if you know what to look for,” Henry said, but before Adam could think on that too much, he continued. “Look, I don’t know Ronan as well as you do, but even from the outside, it’s clear how he feels about you.”

Feeling himself blush, Adam immediately looked down at the ground. He did know how Ronan felt about him. It was often whispered to him in the middle of the night when it felt like they were the only two people in the world. It just took him off guard to hear it so plainly from someone else.

“Think about it, Adam. Regardless of how Ronan personally feels about what Valentine’s Day stands for, do you really think he’s going to let a day when he’s practically green-lit to be as obnoxious as possible about you just pass him by?” Henry shook his head. “Not the Ronan Lynch I know.”

Well, when it was put that way. “Did he say something to you? Do you know something?”

“Not a thing,” Henry said, and Adam believed him. “It’s just an observation and an educated guess.”

“Huh,” Adam said thoughtfully. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them in the air, catching them again, ideas already forming in his head. If Ronan was going to be obnoxious, Adam could be obnoxious too. “Thanks, Henry. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t lose my notes.”

“I will try my level best.”

Adam gave himself three rules for Ronan’s Valentine’s gift:

1) It had to be heartfelt.

2) It also had to be in good humour and not take itself too seriously.

3) It had to be cheap.

He was too sensible to spend money he didn’t have on some arbitrary gift Ronan wouldn’t appreciate. Not to mention that Ronan was impossible enough to buy for as it was; firstly he was rich enough to buy himself pretty much anything he might want, and secondly he could literally manifest his dreams. It was going to make future birthdays and Christmas’s an absolute nightmare.

(But what a wonderful problem to have.)

What it all basically meant was that Adam had to go homemade, and given that he had school and work (and Ronan) to work around, he didn’t have a whole lot of time to do it.

He borrowed Gansey’s laptop during lunch-break on Monday at Aglionby and made Ronan a mix-CD of the cheesiest love songs he could think of. It featured such classics as You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates, Heaven by Bryan Adams, True by Spandau Ballet, and many, many more. It wasn’t even remotely Ronan’s kind of music which made it funny, but as embarrassing as some of the songs might have been, they did actually somewhat echo Adam’s own feelings. He got to be a sap in the guise of it being a joke, and Ronan would get a kick out of it.

Obviously, he also added the Murder Squash Song for good measure.

Next up was a card. He could have bought one — his budget would have allowed it — but all the store ones were godawful and Adam couldn’t even imagine giving one of them to Ronan ironically.

Luckily he had an ace up his sleeve.

The first time that Ronan had stayed over at Adam’s after they were together in the very early days of their relationship, Adam had woken up to a frozen Ronan with a handful of strangely lovely flowers, the exact shade of blue as Adam’s eyes.

Adam had kept them in a cheap vase on the windowsill until they died, but unbeknownst to Ronan, he’d also taken one and pressed it to make a little print; his own private memento.

He was obviously keeping the original for himself, but he took it into the school library a couple of days before Valentine’s Day and scanned it, printing it out on some high quality photo card he’d ‘acquired’ from one of the Art rooms.

Once the ink was dry, he folded it down the middle as carefully as possible and put it inside his heaviest textbook to keep it folded and flat until he got it home.

He spent longer than probably necessary trying to decide what to write, but in the end, he went with:

Ronan,

I think maybe it was always you. I think it always will be. Happy Valentine’s Day (gross).

Love, Adam x

He didn’t have a nice envelope to put it in, so it had to go in a bigger manila one that Adam still had lying around. He slipped both the card and the CD inside, and wrote Ronan’s name in capitals on the outside.

He looked at his offering. It somehow didn’t seem enough.

Valentine’s Day was on Thursday, so on Wednesday— after school but before a shift at Boyd’s— Adam found himself in the kitchen of 300 Fox Way. He’d bought everything he needed to make chocolate brownies before he’d realised he didn’t have a tin in which to cook them in. He was also severely lacking in several other kitchen utensils, to be honest. One panicked phone-call to Blue later, and he had everything he needed and a helping hand.

Well, ‘helping’ was a strong word.

“Why brownies?” Blue asked from where she sat perched on the kitchen table.

“Because brownies are the best,” Adam said, frowning at the recipe he had printed out.

“Alright, can’t argue with that,” Blue said reasonably.

Adam was aware of her watching him while he slowly got out everything he needed and started weighing out ingredients. He felt unreasonably nervous about it, even though he knew that provided he followed the recipe, everything would be fine. Baking was a science, after all, and Adam was good at science.

But looking at it all now with Blue scrutinising his every move, he felt flustered and unmoored.

“I thought you were going to help,” he said pointedly.

“I am helping. I’m supervising,” Blue said.

Adam smiled at that. “I see. Are you the kind of supervisor who can grease this tin for me?”

“I suppose so,” Blue said loftily as she launched herself off the table.

Blue started chattering away after that which helped Adam calm down and focus on what he was doing, and it didn’t take long to make the mixture after that. Adam tilted the pan while Blue used a wooden spoon to scrape the mixture out and into the brownie tin.

After that, they just had to put it in the oven and wait.

Blue brewed up some of Maura’s least offensive tea as they sat and waited, and Adam finally asked what he’d been dying to all week.

“Do you know if Ronan has anything planned?”

Blue smiled and shook her head. “Honestly, Adam, I have absolutely no idea. He hasn’t said a word. I’ve barely seen him though, and never really without you there.” She shrugged. “If he’s got a plan he’s keeping it close to his chest.”

Adam nodded; he’d assumed as much. “I just want to know if I’m doing too much, or not doing enough? I dunno, it’s stupid. It’s only Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah, but it’s your first Valentine’s Day together,” Blue said, not unkindly. “I get it.”

“What are you and Gansey doing?”

“I made him a card and found him a couple of ‘slovenly’ t-shirts at the thrift store. I’m gonna hazard a guess that he’s getting me flowers, and he told me to keep the evening free so he’s probably taking me somewhere. Wherever it is, it better not be expensive.”

Adam grinned. “Maybe it’s Nino’s.”

“God, don’t even joke, I’d murder him. Again.”

He started to laugh, and after a couple of seconds Blue joined in. When it died down, Blue put her hand on his arm.

“Don’t overthink it, Adam. Ronan will love whatever you give him, because you’re the one it’s coming from. It’s not about the gifts you get or the meal you have or how much money you spend. I think it’s more about the gesture. That’s what’ll mean the most to Ronan.”

Adam managed a small smile. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Blue opened a drawer and gasped, then pulled out a heart-shaped cookie cutter. “Oh my God, Adam, you have to.”

She held out the cookie-cutter towards him and he took it, sighing. “Really?”

“Yes! This way, they’ll all be exactly the same size and I get to eat all the cut-offs. Y’know, as my fee for helping.”

And that’s how Adam ended up with nine perfect little heart-shaped brownies.

Adam didn’t see Ronan that night, thanks to finishing late at Boyd’s and then having homework after.

When he woke up in the morning, he was hit by the realisation that he and Ronan hadn’t even arranged to see each other that day at all.

He half expected Ronan to show up at St Agnes unannounced with a bouquet of dream flowers and some donuts or something. But that didn’t happen, and Adam slowly packed his messenger bag for school, remembering to include the Tupperware of Valentine’s brownies and the envelope with its enclosed card and CD.

He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to give them to Ronan, but it was better to be prepared.

Adam walked down to his car, scanning the parking lot and the street to see if there was any sign of a shark-nosed BMW. But there was nothing, and there was nothing on the way to school, and Adam made it all the way through to lunch without seeing or hearing from Ronan.

Obviously, he had no phone, and Ronan hated his own phone. But Gansey had a phone, and Ronan could have got in touch that way if he had felt so inclined.

Adam didn’t know what he’d been expecting; that Ronan would show up at the Aglionby gates with a boombox over his head blasting out Lionel Richie songs? That he’d get back to his car after school and find out his favourite hooligan had broken in and left him a giant teddy bear and a box of chocolates?

It all seemed stupid now, and Valentine’s Day was stupid, and Adam was irritated that he’d let the pressures of the day get to him. It didn’t matter. It was a meaningless day.

So why did he feel so deflated?

At the end of the day, he caved and asked to borrow Gansey’s phone.

First, he sent a text that said: it’s adam, i’m about to call you so answer the phone

He gave it a minute until he’d seen that Ronan had read the message, and then pressed the call button.

“Parrish,” Ronan said in lieu of a hello.

All at once, like always, Adam was happy to hear Ronan’s voice. And yet he still couldn’t quite shake his irritation, even though the one who’d got his hopes up was himself.

“Hey,” he replied. “Listen, were you planning on coming over tonight?”

“Nope.” It was a little difficult to tell, but Adam thought Ronan’s tone was just a little off. “You come here.”

Adam sighed. “Ronan, I have school tomorrow so I wouldn’t even be able to stay that late. Can’t you just come here?”

There was a long pause. “Opal wants to see you.”

“So bring her with you.”

“Are you kidding, Parrish, she’s filthy. She’ll mess up the interior.”

The BMW wasn’t exactly spotless inside so this seemed a flimsy excuse. Adam started to wonder whether Ronan even wanted to see him at all.

“If you don’t want to see me today that’s fine,” he said, tone clipped.

“I didn’t say that,” Ronan said, tone just as clipped.

It felt like they were heading for a fight. Adam didn’t want to fight. He wanted to give Ronan the stupid sentimental CD he’d made. He wanted Ronan to make fun of him for the brownies. He wanted a hug.

Adam was abruptly exhausted, and it didn’t matter that he’d gone to the effort and Ronan hadn’t. He just wanted to see him.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna go home and shower but then I’ll head over to you.”

“Okay, good. See you in a bit,” Ronan said, and hung up.

The sun was down by the time Adam pulled up at the Barns. The heating in Adam’s car was dodgy enough on a good today, and today wasn’t a good day. It had barely come on, so his hands were like ice as he got out of the car.

He walked straight in when he got there and made his way to the kitchen. He hovered in the doorway; Ronan’s back was to him, a tea towel strewn over one shoulder, straining pasta over the sink.

Adam rapped his knuckles against the door-frame and Ronan turned around.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Adam replied. “You cooked?”

Ronan shrugged. “It’s just spaghetti.” He gestured to Adam’s messenger bag. “You brought homework with you?”

All that was in the bag was the Valentine’s gifts for Ronan, and he shook his head. “Nope.”

“Okay,” Ronan said with another shrug. “Sit. Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

Adam pulled himself a chair out, and it scraped against the floor noisily in the otherwise quiet. He waited for Ronan to finish serving up and then asked, “Where’s Opal?”

“No idea. Haven’t seen her since this afternoon.”

Adam took a bite of his food. It was good. “I thought you said she wanted to see me.”

“She always wants to see you,” Ronan said smoothly. “I’m sure she’ll turn up when she spots your car.”

They finished eating in near silence, Adam waiting for Ronan to say something— anything— to acknowledge the day. But he didn’t, and the longer the silence dragged, the harder it seemed to break it.

Adam started towards the sink to do the washing up afterwards, but Ronan stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Just leave it, Parrish.”

“But—”

“Leave them. I’ll do them in the morning.”

Adam sighed, uncomfortable in the tension. He didn’t know what to do now. Did Ronan just want him to leave? And if so, why had he told him to come in the first place?

“Look, do you know what day it is?” Adam asked, unable to take it any longer.

“It’s Thursday,” Ronan said, chin jutted out, arms crossed. Adam glared; Ronan clearly knew exactly what day it was.

“Okay, great,” Adam said tiredly. He opened his bag and pulled out the Tupperware and the envelope. “Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess.”

He put them on the table and stepped away, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He watched Ronan’s face, the expression on which had softened immediately. He looked to Adam, stricken.

“Parrish, I—”

“It’s fine, Ronan, just open them.”

Ronan snapped his mouth shut, and pulled the envelope over to him. Adam immediately felt self-conscious about his meagre homemade gifts.

“It’s not much,” he said quickly.

Ronan’s only response to this was a slight furrow in his brow. Then he took the CD out, quirking a smile at Adam’s inscription: LYNCH’S CHEESY LOVE SONG SINGALONG. It was surrounded by lots of hand drawn love-hearts that Adam now thought seemed excessive.

Ronan looked up and raised an eyebrow at Adam, a half-smirk on his face. “No track-list, Parrish?”

“It’s a surprise,” Adam said, smiling weakly, but relieved. “You’ll have to play it to find out.”

“I’ll do that,” he said with a sage nod. He put the CD down and reached for the Tupperware, pulling the lid off and tossing it aside. He looked inside and snorted. “You’ve really stuck with a theme here, huh, Parrish?”

“Hey, Valentine’s Day is all about the hearts, apparently. And to be fair, the heart-shaped brownies are Blue’s fault. She found a cookie-cutter and insisted.”

“She knew about this?” Ronan said.

“Yeah, she helped me make them.”

“That little sneak...” Ronan trailed off and let out a sharp laugh. “I asked her if she knew whether or not you were doing something, and she swore blind she had no idea.”

Adam thought about asking why Ronan had even wanted to know, but instead he pointed at the envelope. “There’s a card in there, as well.”

“In here?” Ronan turned the envelope upside down and the card slipped out into his hand. Adam watched as he took in the flower on the front, smiled a little, then did a double-take, glancing at Adam. “Hold on. Is this what I think it is?”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I, uh, I pressed one, before they all died. I wanted to keep it, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said, something akin to awe in his voice. “I dream about them all the time.” He opened the card and read what Adam had written there, then dropped his face into his hands.

“Parrish...” he mumbled. “I feel like a fucking asshole.”

Adam went over and gently pulled the card out of Ronan’s hand, sitting down on Ronan’s lap. Ronan’s arms circled his waist automatically and he tucked his face into Adam’s neck.

“You are a fucking asshole, Lynch. I love you anyway.”

Ronan grumbled something incoherently against Adam’s skin, and Adam smiled. “What was that?”

Ronan lifted his head so he could be heard. “I said I love you right back.”

“Good,” Adam said.

“I thought you’d forgotten. And I didn’t...I didn’t want a big deal, and this day is a fucking joke or whatever, but you didn’t mention anything. And I even thought you might borrow Gansey’s phone and like, text me or something this morning? But then you didn’t and when you finally called me you sounded annoyed and I didn’t know why, and I didn’t even think you wanted to come over. So then you finally got here and you seemed mad, and so I was mad and...I’m sorry. I was here thinking you didn’t give a shit and you made stuff for me?” He hung his head, penitent. “I love my gifts. These lame brownies smell great. I’m fucking sorry, Parrish.”

“Hey.” Adam cupped Ronan’s head in his hands. “It’s fine that you didn’t get me anything. Honestly I think I just let this whole day get into my head as having to mean something when it doesn’t. I don’t need a special day to let you know how I feel. And I’m sorry if I seemed mad. I just didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”

He leaned in and kissed Ronan briefly. “And Lynch, you cooked for me. You made me a whole meal. I’m pretty sure we’re even.” He kissed him again, until Ronan pulled back and covered Adam’s hands with his own.

“Um...you should come with me,” Ronan said, and he almost sounded sheepish.

They stood up and Ronan swiped the mix CD off the table and shoved it in the pocket of his hoodie, before taking Adam’s hand and leading him out the back door.

Confused but intrigued, Adam followed closely behind, clutching tight to Ronan’s fingers. It was cold outside and neither of them had their coats on, which Adam was about to point out when they walked around the corner of the nearest barn and he was rendered speechless by the sight before him.

In the middle of the grass was a small gazebo tent, the base of which was covered in luxurious looking blankets. There was a laptop in the middle of the floor, hooked up to a projector which was pointing at the outer-wall of the barn. A precarious tower of DVDs was piled up next to the laptop; Adam couldn’t see the titles from here but imagined Ronan had assembled a variety of choices. There was a big thermos, contents unknown (coffee? Hot chocolate?), and various other treats; big bags of marshmallows and Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Mini Peanut-Butter Cups.

And everywhere, there was light. Ronan’s twinkling little dream lights, some in jars under the gazebo, others hanging in the air, changing colour, like little fireflies.

“Ronan,” Adam finally managed hoarsely. “What the fuck?”

Ronan smirked. “You thought I hadn’t done anything.”

“Uh, yeah, because you let me think that!” Adam said. He was struggling to process how cosy and romantic it all looked. Let it never be said that Ronan Lynch wasn’t an absolute sap.

“I didn’t let you think anything, you jumped to that conclusion all on your own.”

Adam scowled. “Now I feel like a fucking asshole.”

“Don’t,” Ronan said, pressing a kiss to Adam’s temple. “Anyway, this is nothing.”

“It is so far from nothing,” Adam said. He stepped forward and took a turn around, taking everything in as he walked in a slow circle, stopping when he was facing Ronan again. “I thought Valentine’s Day was capitalistic bullshit?”

“Oh, it is,” Ronan said happily. “But for one, I didn’t spend a penny. And two, a whole day where I can spoil you as much as I want to and you don’t get to complain about it? Sign me the fuck up for that.”

Adam burst out laughing. “You’ve just reminded me of something Henry said.”

“What did he say?”

“I told him that I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d do anything because we hadn’t talked about it, and he said, and I quote: ‘do you really think he’s going to let a day when he’s practically green-lit to be as obnoxious as possible about you just pass him by?’”

Ronan was grinning now. “Cheng’s pretty smart.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. He caught one of the floating lights in his hand and then let it go again. “Just for the record, I think your dreaming abilities give you an unfair advantage when it comes to stuff like this.”

“Excuse you, Parrish, the only thing I dreamt up was the blankets because they’re heated. Oh, and the projector. And the gazebo. But that’s it.”

“‘That’s it’, he says.” Adam rolled his eyes, then accusingly added, “You dreamt up the lights.”

“Well, yeah, but not for this. I already had those. And the food was stuff I already had in the house, and the DVDs are ones I already own. I didn’t want to go overboard.”

Adam stared. “You are ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “Come here.”

Ronan went, without question or hesitation, and Adam wrapped his arms around his neck.

“This is the sweetest thing anybody’s ever done for me,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Ronan whispered, kissing a line up Adam’s neck and across his face, the tip of his nose, his forehead, “for the brownies, for what you wrote in the card...Jesus, Adam. It’s the same for me. You know that, right? It’s always you.”

Adam squeezed tighter, feeling dangerously overcome. He breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of Ronan, and then released his grip. “And for the CD, obviously,” he said.

“Of course,” Ronan said, and smiled sharply. “Speaking of...” He pulled it out of his pocket and walked over to his laptop. “I’ll let you pick a movie in a bit, but first, I wanna listen to my present.”

He popped the CD into the drive and pressed a couple of buttons on the mouse, and a moment later the opening track started to play: I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston.

Ronan laughed, once, soundlessly, then came back over to Adam and held his hand out.

“Well?” he said when Adam didn’t move. “Are you dancing?”

Adam grinned. “Are you asking?”

“I’m asking.”

“Then I’m dancing.” He took Ronan’s hand and together they swayed, far too slowly for a song this upbeat, but Ronan didn’t seem to mind, and Adam certainly didn’t.

They didn’t speak while they were dancing, both perhaps a little shaken at the near-miss of an argument, both relieved they hadn’t let it get that far. Both content to be in each other’s company, away from prying eyes and expectations.

It was still early days. They were still learning how to do this, navigating firsts and futures and each other, but they were both quick studies, and Adam couldn’t think of anything more worthwhile than building a foundation— and a life— with Ronan.

There were trickier days to come, but for now, they’d survived their first Valentine’s Day as a couple. As they lay curled together in a blanket watching The Princess Bride projected onto the side of a barn, Adam thought he’d have to mark this one down as a win.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Parrish,” Ronan whispered into Adam’s hair.

“Ugh,” Adam said, and kissed him. “Happy Thursday.”

#the raven cycle #pynch #tumblr prompts #lesbianparrish #adamparrishes #trc

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toast-the-unknowing · 6 years ago

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hi! I just wanted to say that I really, really love your writing, and I was wondering if you ever outline? And if so, how do you go about doing that? And I'm curious about your writing process in general (if that's a good way of putting it?). in any case, thanks so much for sharing what you write. It's really an absolute joy to read! :)

Hi and thank you! The short answer to this question is no, I don't outline. I've tried three-act structure and flashcards and Scrivener and whiteboards and a dozen other things and it just doesn't work for me. It forces me into making decisions I'm not ready to make yet, while delaying me from working on the parts that I am excited about, which 1. kills my desire to actually do any work and 2. delays my learning the things that I really do need to know about the story. But I also don't just write beginning to middle to end (honestly I can't believe anyone on earth does that besides, like, Spiders Georg). To the extent that I have a process it can be summed up as "I write the parts of the story that I know at the time that I know them, and they teach me what the next part of the story is."

The extremely long answer to this question is behind the cut, because like any good self-centered world-destroying Millennial I love talking about myself, and I love hearing people talk about writing, so maybe someone else does, too.

The beginning of a story tends to be like a cartoon character running off the edge of a cliff and building a bridge under them as they go. I open up a document and just start typing thoughts out as fast as I can. Some of the words that come out at this point make it all the way through the process to the final draft, but a lot of them don't, and I never commit myself at this point to typing usable words. I mostly end up with stuff like this:

flashforward: comes across opal somehow -- hunting or otherwise in the woods/wilds -- and she's this half-feral child, slowly builds up trust with her -- convinces her to come live in his house -- she's clearly cautious, but over the day settles in, and crawls into bed at night and falls right asleep, like she's not afraid of anything -- the next morning, dawn, wakes up and knows there's someone in the house, moving about, goes for opal's room and she's not there, runs out to the main rooms and there's a strange man standing there -- you won't find the girl -- what the fuck did you do to her -- I've taken her. as we agreed I would -- ronan finally recognizes him as the strange witch boy from so many years ago -- give her back -- I'm afraid that isn't possible. goodbye -- leaves and when Ronan follows him out the door he's nowhere in sight

Sometimes at this stage I'm jumping around in the document -- I'll have a thought about something I want to happen later in the story, so I'll put that in and then jump back to the earlier part -- but sometimes it's coming at me more or less in order, or there's so much I'm trying to get down at once I might as well just go in order. Also, a lot of the stuff I know about a story at this stage is related to the set up/concept/inciting incident/premise. So, in Careful the Tale You Tell, I jotted out about 800 words of Ronan making the deal with Adam, and meeting Opal, and Adam taking Opal, and Ronan trying to take Opal back, and then literally the only thing I had after that for the entire rest of the story was:

the two of them start living together, taking care of opal together, etc.

During/after/immediately before the "get down initial thoughts as fast as possible" stage, I write either the first scene or one near the beginning (if the opening moment is eluding me, which it sometimes does). The very early stuff, being a lot clearer in my head, tends to be a lot easier to write in full actual real paragraphs with real sentences and punctuation and dialogue tags and a minimum of placeholders. I find it helpful going forward to have that springboard -- a scene, or even just part of a scene, that looks like what I want the story to look like.

And then the process is "the same but more". Read back over what I have already. Admire how clever I am. Despair of what a hack I am. Realize an additional detail about a scene I only have two sentences for. Realize that that scene needs to happen in an entirely different part of the story. Move it. Think of one thing that's going to happen in one scene I didn't know existed yet. Come up with a funny bit of dialogue for the end of the fic.

With a lot of stories I hit a point, about a quarter to a third of the way through, where I realize what the story is actually about. That's tremendously helpful in knowing what to put in those nebulous holes in between "X happens and then Y happens." So with Careful, the key was realizing the story was about two things: it was about three sad loners who all choose each other, but also specifically it was about the way that two of those loners were profoundly misunderstanding each other, and how they had to stop telling themselves fake stories about each other and see what was really happening. That cleared up a lot of things about the story for me. For one thing, that's what told me I needed a four-part story from two POVs. And it let me fill in a bunch of scenes in answer to that dreaded question of "ugh what do I PUT on this BLANK WHITE PAGE with its CRUEL MOCKING CURSOR." I needed scenes of Adam thinking Ronan was a bad father, and I needed scenes that could be taken as justification of that opinion, and I needed scenes of him realizing Ronan isn't like his own parents. And I needed scenes of Ronan thinking of Adam as this uncaring vengeful other, and then I needed scenes that totally destroyed that image. And then because Adam is just the saddest sad loner ever I needed scenes where he's telling himself this new fake story where he denies the extent to which Ronan and Opal have already chosen him, and then I needed scenes that would make it impossible for him to continue in that denial.

This is maybe an example of why all the traditional outlining I was shamed into doing in film school fails me. None of this points to the shit with Ronan's mom being cursed and his dad being killed by an evil witch (except that I had notes to myself about a scene where Ronan finds out Niall tried to sell Declan to the witch -- but that was a product of one of those "I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS EXACTLY BUT IT'S AWESOME AND I WANT TO WRITE IT SO I'M GOING TO JOT IT DOWN IN AN EMPTY SPACE IN THE DOCUMENT" moments). In as much as those are "plot" elements they might be the sort of thing you're supposed to decide while you're still at the "write one sentence on one flashcard" stage. For me that entire aspect of the plot only came to me when I had something like 50% of the story written, and the specific details and beats of it I figured out and incorporated gradually along the way, because that wasn't the important or interesting part of the story to me. It sure wasn't the thing I wanted to shape my entire story around. I don't think I could have shaped the story around that.

At this stage of a story I sometimes write in nice beautiful paragraphs, particularly if it's a scene that develops really quickly from "hm maybe something like X happens" to "oh FUCK YEAH I'm going to make X happen." The storm scene in Careful came on like that -- I left the occasional placeholder and it needed edits and I rewrote some stuff, but if I had live-streamed my screen while I was writing it, you would have gone "yeah, that looks like a story."

More often, though, my writing looks like that flash-forward paragraph above. A mix of dialogue, and action that I'm sure of, and action that I only have a vague idea of, and shit that I don't know yet but I know that stopping to figure it out is only going to keep me from writing the parts that I do know. This is because 1. I can get stuff out faster writing these pseudo-paragraphs, and I really just want to get as much stuff on the page as possible in any given writing session; 2. weird messy half-written paragraphs are easier to edit, move, change, rewrite, or make my peace with deleting entirely, than big beautiful paragraphs with clever turns of phrase that I spent hours on.

Often those moments that I skip, I either know enough about them to be getting on with, or they're trivial in the scheme of things. Sometimes I skip a detail and find out later that I was wrong about what it was going to be or how important it was going to be, and now I have to change parts of the story that I thought I knew. But that's often a gift, because the new version is more detailed, or more interesting, or more relevant to what the story is actually about.

I also leave myself notes like this:

[ronan starting to notice his feelings and be really stupid about it??? or leave that more for part 4]

These can function as "I know I need a scene here that does X but that's all I know" or it can literally be "I need a scene here and I don't know what it has to do but there needs to be SOMETHING". Sometimes these comments are just character/tone/theme notes to remind me of how a scene is supposed to function within the larger story, so I don’t write a really cute wonderful scene and then realize it makes no sense for the characters at this point in their arc to be behaving that way.

At this point writing a story is a mix of four things:

come up with things to fill the gaps in the story, even if it's just [A SHORT SCENE OF THEM ALL DOING SOMETHING TOGETHER -- AT ONE POINT RONAN TOUCHES ADAM WHEN HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE TO

take those one sentence scene descriptors and turn them into those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs with no capitalization and too many em-dashes

take those big blocky ugly nonsense paragraphs and turn them into readable paragraphs -- this is a really great thing to do on days when I feel tired/sick/stuck/depressed/like a fraud/hungover/uncreative, because I can tell myself "all you have to do is turn half-sentences into complete sentences, this is basically seventh-grade English homework, you can do that." Sometimes doing that gets gears turning in my brain and I can do a LOT of this kind of writing, or I can move up to doing writing that involves more decision-making and connection-building and character-understanding. Sometimes it doesn't, and all I achieve for the entire day is turning one fake paragraph into one real paragraph. Which still means I have a real paragraph where I didn't before.

reread and refine and tweak the readable paragraphs to get to a place where I'm happy with them

Then there comes another milestone moment -- about 90% of the way through a story, I become thoroughly convinced that it's disgusting irredeemable garbage. This step sucks, and the only real cure for it is to go "yup, but I'm writing it anyway, so let's at least make it finished, complete garbage." The alternative isn't "realize the story ISN'T garbage and then keep writing with a renewed sense of self-worth!" The alternative is that the story dies, and that's how I end up with a hundred unfinished WIPs that quietly pass into obscurity. I think this might be the real reason that Raven Cycle is the fandom I've posted the most complete fics in, despite having been in other fandoms longer -- sure, these characters spark a lot of ideas for me, and I'm a better writer than I used to be, and I understand my process better (instead of trying to write the way I think I SHOULD write), but honestly the most important thing is that I figured out how to go "maybe this does suck, but I'm still going to finish it."

The thing that I've found the most helpful with making that push is to find the one thing in the story that I really, really like, and remind myself that if I don't finish the story then no one gets to see that one scene, that one moment, that one PHRASE that's actually good, and wouldn't that be sad? With Careful that was the storm scene -- I would tell myself, "okay you keep saying that the pacing is awful and the first chapter is boring and this story is a waste of everyone's time, buuuuuut if you don't finish it, then no one will ever read the storm scene." Sometimes the story's existence is sufficient motivation. The Pokemon AU gave me the worst case of writerly-self-loathing I've had in years, but I just kept telling myself "yeah but don't you want to make people laugh in disbelief about the fact that you wrote a Pokemon AU?" And that makes my insecurities go pout in the corner like a sulky child where they shut up long enough for me to sneak the last 10% of the story in there.

(Once a story is done and posted, I'm able to look at it with more compassion, perspective, and nuance.)

"The last 10% of the story" doesn't necessarily mean "the last ten pages of the story". The last bit that gets finished is usually somewhere in the middle, although occasionally I do just write until I don't know what else to write and then slap some kind of closing line on it. (Usually that happens with stories I write very quickly; the florist!Henry fic was like that.) There's generally a lot of places spread throughout the fic where I left things unfinished -- sometimes as little as one detail, sometimes as much as an entire scene. I think with Careful the last scene I finished was the one where Adam tells the guy how to find his lost money. When I'd first drafted that bit it felt like homework -- I knew the story needed examples of people doing business with the witch, but, ugh, I couldn't make myself care about them. But I had managed to eke out some of those weird blocky [bracketed] paragraphs, so I kept building on those bit by bit. It also helped to keep in mind the real purpose of the scene. It's not about someone doing business with the witch, or even about Adam's habit of casually tossing out details he has no way of knowing (though I was happy to add that in to presage the conversation about how he knows Opal's name and age). The scene is about Ronan seeing Adam as otherworldly. So I got to add in those little details about Adam smashing the glass, and Opal and the visitor being surprised, and Ronan not being surprised -- which is really the most interesting part of that scene.

Then I do a word search for brackets, "Shine" and/or "Toast", and any other placeholder characters I use, to make sure every detail is filled in and none of my notes to myself like [nb shine check this is true] make it to publishing. I upload to AO3, save as draft, replace all my single asterisks with italics html, realize I've used too much italics, take half my italics out, proofread, publish, catch three-or-thirty typos I didn't catch before I published, fix those, catch another three-or-thirty typos, and decide to leave them in for authenticity/because perfect is the enemy of good/because I'm too damn lazy.

That's essentially the longest version of my process. Sometimes I write a story very quickly and so it skips some of these stages.

"A story I write very quickly" is not the same thing as "a short story." see you somewhere, some place, some time was gestating, in one form or another, for about sixteen months, and it put me through aaaaaaall the same heartache as its longer brethren.

#writing #Anonymous

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glenngaylord · 7 years ago

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MY MOMENTS OUT OF TIME IN FILM 2017

Instead of a Top 10 List, every year I like to honor a long-discontinued but influential annual column from Film Comment magazine. I couldn’t wait for my father to come home from work with the “Moments Out Of Time” issue. The writers would cite their favorite scenes, images, or lines of dialogue, even from films they may not have liked, because let’s face it, even bad films may have a great moment or two, unless you were a film called RINGS, CATFIGHT, THE SNOWMAN, or THE DINNER. In that case, you suck in the most forgettable of ways. Despite some obvious stinkers, this was a great year for film. Some resonated with me, such as I, TONYA and THE FLORIA PROJECT as they tackled the issue of class in America. Despite being period pieces, films such as DARKEST HOUR and THE POST pinged on topics such as war-mongering and the need for a free press, both of which we seem to talk about daily right now. I have a few I need to catch up on, such as MUDBOUND and THE SQUARE, and one I recently saw, A GHOST STORY, wowed me, but I haven’t written a review of it yet.

Even I can’t see them all, so here, in no particular order, are my Moments Out Of Time in film for 2017:

“America. They want someone to love, but they want someone to hate, and the haters always say, 'Tonya, tell the truth!' There’s no such thing as truth. I mean it’s bullshit! Everyone has their own truth.” - I, TONYA

A little girl (the great Brooklyn Prince) stands in front of a motel room door, telling her little friends they’re not allowed to enter. She pauses, and then mischievously says, “But let’s go anyways!” in a moment of pure rebellious, but dangerous joy. - THE FLORIDA PROJECT

A young man (Lucas Hedges) begs his girlfriend (Saoirse Ronan) not to out him in one of the most touching moments of the year. - LADY BIRD

A woman (Cynthia Nixon’s blazing portrayal of Emily Dickinson) desperate to connect with someone, anyone, lights up whenever she’s around her soon-to-depart friend. It’s a joy you wish she could have at all times. It’s that ache to spar with another human that cuts to the core of this lonely tragedy. - A QUIET PASSION.

Try watching the “I did not hit her” rooftop filmmaking sequence without bursting with glee. One of the best-sustained comedy sequences of the year. - THE DISASTER ARTIST

A beautiful, long final shot of a young man (Timothée Chalamet) swimming in his tearful thoughts as the end credits role will break your heart. - CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

So will his father’s (Michael Stulbarg) 11th hour speech to him. - CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

A ghost in a white sheet with two eye holes, who has traveled across time for centuries, finally finds something important, which jogs his memory, making him feel less alone in the world, and then in a startling swish, is gone. - A GHOST STORY

Meryl Streep, in the most delicious long pause of 2017, struggles with the tough decision whether to publish the Pentagon Papers or not. She conveys every pro and con with a series of reactions, leaving the audience breathless until she finally, and thrillingly, becomes a feminist heroine for the ages. - THE POST

Sure, it’s ostensibly Daniel Day-Lewis’ last film, but it’s the women, one with a deadening stare (Leslie Manville) and the other with the best eye flutter I’ve ever seen (Vicky Krieps), who take charge of this fascinatingly perverse story of control. - PHANTOM THREAD

A cleaning woman (Octavia Spencer) dusts a giant steampunk contraption as her mute co-worker looks on, sending the increasingly magical fable into a visually stunning dreamscape. - THE SHAPE OF WATER

“You know I can’t give you the keys, right babe?” A chilling line in a scene in which a sympathetic, engaging character transforms into a monster, making Allison Williams, so often hated and too easily dismissed on GIRLS, as someone to REALLY watch as her career rises and rises. - GET OUT

A beloved, iconic character from the original film makes a stunning, surprise appearance. Despite it being CGI, this was the movie-movie moment of 2017. - BLADE RUNNER 2049

A bellicose, raging Prime Minister, known for his speeches, sits quietly with the square-ish frame filled with dark, negative space and seemingly lit by a single, too-bright light bulb. He’s alone and yet belongs to us all, the push-pull of this theme resonating throughout the entire film. - DARKEST HOUR

“This didn't put an end to shit, you fucking retard; this is just the fucking start. Why don't you put that on your Good Morning Missouri fucking wake up broadcast, bitch?” - THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Bill Skarsgård’s reading of the line, “Take it!” will haunt me for years. His Pennywise proved to be surprisingly haunting and indelible. - IT

The film’s not great, but Christopher Plummer and Ridley Scott deserve all the “We’re Not Worthy’s” for pulling off the Great Kevin Spacey Replacement of 2017 in 9 days, and actually delivering a full-bodied, memorable character in the process. - ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD

A desperate thief uses his smarts to wheel his badly-injured brother out of the hospital in an impressive feat. It shows a whip-smart mind in the body of person with lost potential, and in a moment which proves this well-meaning guy just can’t get a break, it turns out he took the wrong person. - GOOD TIME

Michael Cera, even more villainous and sociopathic than he was in THIS IS THE END, and apparently channeling Tobey Maguire, freaked me out as a hateful, poker-playing celeb. - MOLLY’S GAME

Ok, people will be talking about the biplane scene forever, but nothing made me laugh more than Tiffany Haddish’s reading of this line: “Girl, you can't get no infection in your booty hole! It's a booty hole!” - GIRLS TRIP

Bridget Everett, in a blazingly intense performance, sings the shit out of Lita Ford’s KISS ME DEADLY in a dive bar and transforms herself from comedienne to serious dramatic actor. - PATTI CAKE$

A crazed woman (Aubrey Plaza) barges in on the wedding of a social media friend and maces her for not getting on the invite list, giving the Facebook effect its full and insane due. - INGRID GOES WEST

A young woman, unable to take one more second of her overbearing, judgmental mother (Laurie Metcalf), surprisingly jumps out of a moving car. - LADY BIRD

Charlize Theron kicks one ass after another in a seemingly single shot (but not really), making this one of the greatest fight sequences ever filmed. - ATOMIC BLONDE

Algee Smith finds the heart of the story as a musician who struggles with his ambitions after a harrowing all-night encounter with racists cops. - DETROIT

Say what you will about the insanity that unspools, but Michelle Pfeiffer as the houseguest from hell was fun to watch and sorely missed when not onscreen. - MOTHER!

As Elton John’s ROCKET MAN plays on the radio, Bille Jean King (Emma Stone) and her new girlfriend Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough) drive in sun-dappled glory, their hair blowing around with each surprising gust of wind. It’s a perfect evocation of the 70s. - BATTLE OF THE SEXES

After following around an imaginative, enterprising man (Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc) as he develops the most successful fast food chain in the world, and seeing his as a hero, he transforms into a terrible villain about halfway through, making us question the value of the American Dream. - THE FOUNDER

A suicidal Spud, his head covered in suffocating plastic, leans back in his chair and falls backwards off the top of a building, but a flash cut send him to the floor of his apartment where Renton (Ewan McGregor) slides under him to catch him. One of the most imaginative, emotional cuts in a film I’ve seen this year. - T2 TRAINSPOTTING

Don’t heckle Kumail Nanjiani! Holly Hunter WILL read you to filth by interjecting, “That is like saying that all frat boys wearing country club hats and Hawaiian shirts have shriveled up tiny little dicks!” - THE BIG SICK

A young man throws himself down in the sand as bombs explode closer and closer to him. A spectacular feat of cinematography and muffled sound, and one of the greatest shots in cinema history. - DUNKIRK

A mother kicks the chair her little daughter sits in, sending her flying. A sudden, impactful depiction of abuse. - I, TONYA

Tom Cruise emerges from a crashed plane, his face hilariously covered in cocaine. - AMERICAN MADE

A seemingly sweet young man (Barry Keoghan, my favorite new actor of the year) changes his entire demeanor and quickly, chillingly tells a doctor (Colin Farrell), in no uncertain terms, what is going to happen to him and his family. - THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER

The best opening sequence award of the year easily goes to a film which mixed musical filmmaking with kinetic car chases and an endearing sense of rhythm. - BABY DRIVER

Eels creepily slither around a woman in a tub in an otherwise completely forgettable, indulgent film - A CURE FOR WELLNESS

Adam Sandler winningly loses his shit as he searches for a parking space. - THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES - NEW AND SELECTED

“See! I took you on a safari!” exclaims Brooklyn Prince to her friend as they stand in front of a herd of cattle. - THE FLORIDA PROJECT

An ape, bigger than ever portrayed before, emerges out of nowhere and swats down helicopters like flies as the camera gloriously swirls around him. It’s APOCALYPSE NOW’s famous attack scene, but this time the invaded kick the invaders’ asses. - KONG: SKULL ISLAND

A messy trainwreck of a person (Anne Hathaway) lugs a mattress around town and literally confronts her inner demons. - COLOSSAL

A major character unexpectedly spits up blood on another, in a shocking moment (and there are a few in this film) I’ll remember for a long time. - THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

French ACT-UP AIDS activists throw blood all over the offices of a pharmaceutical company, and heroically help change the speed at which drugs were approved for a population in desperate need of good news. - BPM

Despite being a thrilling adventure film, the quiet moments, such as the wonderful final shot of a woman walking out of a room and into the jungle, made this stirring yarn into something more internal and thoughtful. - THE LOST CITY OF Z

By this time, we’ve seen too many cars racing around, so instead we focus on the pleasure of seeing a dreadlocked Charlize Theron deliciously chewing the scenery from the evil lair of her jet, sending her into Faye Dunaway territory. - THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS

The unexpected death of a major star, as a gelatinous, alien creature slides down his throat, destroying him from the inside out in zero gravity, may feel straight out of the ALIEN textbook, but it’s memorable nonetheless. - LIFE

I’m usually not a sucker for Disney movie songs, but I have not been able to get EVERMORE out of my head ever since I saw the film, and I mean that in a really good way. - BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Same goes for Elvis Costello’s fantastic contribution with YOU SHOULDN’T LOOK AT ME THAT WAY, from a beautiful but not-great movie. - FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL

Instead of the chestburster, we get the backbreaker, and instead of John Hurt, we get a character we don’t care about…but it STILL manages to be freaky and cool in an otherwise execrable film. - ALIEN: COVENANT

Can we please distribute LICK MY ASS, DIANE t-shirts to every person on earth, or at least make it THE trending hashtag of the year?!! - I, TONYA

Gal Godot donning the titular, classic costume for the first time in the film, charges through the emotional No Man’s Land sequence and into our hearts. - WONDER WOMAN

A seemingly liberal father over-explains his love for Obama to his daughter’s new black boyfriend (Daniel Kaluuya), who makes the Dad feel ok about his issues with race. It keenly pinpoints the struggle people of color have trying to make white people more comfortable about their discomfort. - GET OUT

Willem Dafoe’s Manager expertly takes charge of a potential child molester, demonstrating his heartwarming, soulful protection of the lovable but annoying little brats who live in his motel. - THE FLORIDA PROJECT

The camera whooshes from ground level to an overhead shot as a determined skater prepares for an important routine. - I, TONYA

Yes, the movie is an unholy mess, but Hong Chau’s “I go to Norway” speech is just a little masterpiece. - DOWNSIZING

Feet moving on red splotches of sand as they battle with their light sabers. - STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

A return to the iPhone footage he used in TANGERINE pays off perfectly in the final sequence, a rush of imagination, and a surprising and unforgettable place to take your little survivor of a main character, even if it’s potentially just a fantasy. It doesn’t change the fact that a neglected but loved little girl wants a little escape. - THE FLORIDA PROJECT

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soullessminyard · 8 years ago

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Falling For You (read on ao3)

It was a chilly Friday afternoon when Gansey announced that they would be going on a quest this weekend.

Ronan, Adam and Noah were squished together on the old battered sofa at Monmouth while Gansey blabbered on about the magical artifacts he expected to find in a forest, just south of Henrietta. Gansey looked like a crazy professor with his leather bound journal, glasses and elaborate hand gestures. His eyes were shining with excitement but it wasn’t reflected back at him from his three students.

Ronan had long stopped listening to Gansey’s rambling, instead he focused on Parrish who was sitting next to him, so close that Ronan could feel his body pressing against his from head to toe.

Adam wasn’t clad in his usual coca cola shirt, instead he was wearing a washed-out light green one. It complimented his tanned skin and made the freckles on the bride of his nose and his cheeks stand out even more.

He looked nice. Friends can say that about each other, right? No big deal. Ronan can admit that Parrish has nice eyes or beautiful hands with long elegant fingers without it having to mean anything.

In fact he even told Noah he liked his shirt once. That’s totally a thing friends do. Even if Ronan isn’t someone who usually compliments people.

When Gansey was finally done with his speech, Ronan almost expected him to bow and honestly he wouldn’t put it past him, but instead Gansey proceeded to take notes in his journal and he made the occasional humming noise when he was particularly satisfied with his discoveries. He also drew a detailed map of the region they would be exploring tomorrow.

Ronan could think of a thousand things he would rather do than hike through the forest all day, listening to Gansey wax poetry about magic and ley lines. He was convinced they wouldn’t find anything remotely interesting. They never did.

Ronan wasn’t even sure if Gansey knew exactly what he was looking for but that didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. If anything, the opposite was the case. The more hopeless their search became the more determined Gansey got to prove everyone wrong.

And because Gansey could be quite convincing and Noah and Parrish had already agreed to join him on his latest adventure, Ronan didn’t have much of a choice but to go along with the whole ordeal.

That’s how Ronan ended up spending his Saturday morning in the passenger seat of the pig, trying to annoy all of them with, what they call, his terrible music choices.

They had left at around eight in the morning which gave Ronan even less time than usual to clean up the mess his dreams made.

Tonight a creature similar to a dragon, but with butterfly wings, had chased him around in his dream forest. When Ronan had finally woken up the whole floor of his room had been covered in ashes and even now, hours later, he could still feel the fiery breath of the beast on his skin.

The drive to their destination took about two and a half hours. They had to stop twice because Gansey thought he heard a weird rattling sound and suspected there could be something wrong with his car, which didn’t do anything to improve Ronan’s already sour mood.

It wasn’t unusual that the pig broke down and there had been a few of these trips that had ended with them waiting for the towing service in the middle of nowhere.

When they arrived at the edge of the designated forest, it was half past ten and Ronan was already done with this day. It was still far too early to be awake on a Saturday and he didn’t look forward to the hiking he would have to endure, until Gansey decided they reached the right place for his investigations.

“Here, that one is for you.” Gansey hauled a big backpack out of the trunk of the pig and handed it to Ronan, before taking out a similar but slightly smaller one for himself. Knowing Gansey, Ronan was sure they were filled to the brim with measuring instruments and other knick-knacks.

At first Ronan tried to protest even though he knew he would end up carrying the bag anyway but when Adam offered to take the bag instead, Ronan just shrugged said “It’s alright Parrish. Not the first time I have to play packhorse for our Dick here.”

When they were all set, Gansey pulled a map out of the right pocket of his khaki pants and lead them into the forest without hesitation.

Noah easily followed his fast pace, filled with anticipation of what was to come. He was the only one who loved their little adventures nearly as much as Gansey did.

Ronan and Adam didn’t quite share his enthusiasm. They stayed a few steps behind due to the heavy weight of the backpack Ronan had to carry.

Apart from the reason why he had to be here, Ronan quite liked the place. The forest with it’s endless green and buzzing animals was beautiful. The nervous energy that accompanied him the whole morning had disappeared when he entered the peaceful atmosphere of the forest.

Because there wasn’t a path they had to find the way through the bushes themselves. And it only took a little while for Ronan’s breathing to become faster and sweat to break out on his forehead. He wiped it away with his hand.

“Do you want me to take it? I don’t mind.” Adam had slowed down next to him and looked at Ronan with furrowed eyebrows. He seemed concerned as if he thought Ronan couldn’t handle a bit of a walk. He wasn’t weak and he didn’t need help, especially not from Parrish.

“No. I can deal with it.” It came out harsher than intended and Ronan immediately noticed the way Adam slightly flinched at the tone of his voice.

Of course he hadn’t been able to overlook the blue and green bruises that adorned Adams face on a regular basis but he also didn’t know what to do apart from beating the living daylights out of the piece of shit that dared to call himself Adam’s father.

He would do it if Adam wouldn’t stop talking to him after that. Then even after the things Parrish’s father did to him Adam wasn’t ready to let go and run away from his family.

So Ronan had no other choice than to keep looking away and to ignore what is directly in front of him, even now.

They continued walking side by side, without exchanging another word until Gansey stopped and told them that they finally made it to the right place.

It was a small clearing that was surrounded by trees. On the far end Ronan spotted something that could be a stream or a small pond.

Gansey emptied the contents of his backpack in the grass before beckoning Ronan over.

“I need the metal detector from your bag,” said Gansey while he helped Ronan put it down onto the grass.

“Perfect!” he shouted when he found the device.

“Do you want to come with us?” Gansey pointed into the direction where Ronan presumed the water was.

“No.“ Ronan demonstratively crossed the arms over his chest. Gansey wasn’t fazed by this display of discontent and took off with an excited Noah by his side.

Adam looked at Ronan for a few seconds before he hurried after the two other boys.

Ronan stayed behind, not interested in crawling around on the forest floor and finding nothing but empty soda cans.

He sat down in the shade of one of the taller trees and waited for the others to come back. With his back leaned against the trunk of the tree and his eyes closed, Ronan allowed his thoughts to wander.

They went back to the monster that had visited him on his dreams tonight and then they drifted off to the hands that pulled him out of the self induced hell that are his dreams.

He would recognise these hands anywhere. Strong but elegant, calloused but still soft. Adam Parrish’s hands were not from this world.

For a moment Ronan allowed himself to imagine holding these hands in his own. Caressing the soft skin around the knuckles with his thumb and never letting go.

He knew that these weren’t things you imagined doing to a friend. Especially not when he thought about kissing said friend’s hands next.

Ronan had known for a while that something about Parrish was different from the rest of his friends but it was easier to ignore these feelings than face the cold, harsh truth that they would never be returned.

So he just kept these things to himself like he did with his dreams, in the hope that eventually it would all go away.

Ronan was so lost in thought that he almost didn’t hear the footsteps coming his way. When he opened his eyes he saw Parrish walking towards him. There were a few leaves stuck in his hair and Ronan’s heart skipped a beat him before he got himself back under control.

"I told you you won’t find anything here.” Ronan looked up at Parrish who stopped a few steps before him. Gansey and Noah still bustled around in the clearing that was supposed to be the answer to all of Gansey’s theories and questions.

“Gansey swore we would find something here.” Adam said and frowned in the direction where Gansey just vanished between two bushes.

“This is so fucking stupid.” Ronan couldn’t help but snarl.

“Just let him be. He will be even more unbearable when he realises that he’s been chasing after a fairytale for years.“

Hearing this from Parrish surprised Ronan but he was quickly sidetracked when he noticed that Adam seemed nervous.

Ronan could tell, despite Adam making a serious effort to seem calm and relaxed but Parrish couldn’t hide the way he was looking down to his wrist to check the time every few seconds.

“Got a date?” Ronan knew his voice sounded sharp enough to cut through glass, but he couldn’t bring himself to put on a friendly mask. The idea of Adam taking a pretty girl out to dinner and a movie made Ronan’s stomach clench.

Adam’s eyes widened and a flush spread over his cheeks and neck.

“N-no, I just picked up an extra shift at the workshop,” he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, probably to stop himself from checking the time again.

“But there’s still plenty of time until I have to be there.“

Ronan nodded and relief washed over him. He didn’t like that Adam was constantly overworking himself but that was still a thousand times better than him dating some girl.

"When do you have to be there?”

“I told you not to stress about it.”

“Just tell me, Parrish.” Ronan lifted one of his eyebrows and gave Adam a piercing look. It didn’t take long for him to break.

“My shift starts at five.” Adam admitted quietly.

“That’s in a bit more than three hours. Let’s go.” Ronan quickly got up from his spot in the grass and went to find Gansey and Noah. Parrish’s protests followed him the whole way.

It took them about twenty minutes to pack all their stuff and walk back to the car. The ride back to Henrietta was silent. Gansey lacked his usual enthusiasm after his search ended up being fruitless yet again.

They arrived in Henrietta with enough time to spare for Adam to ride his bike from Monmouth to the workshop but Ronan still offered to drive him in his BMW.

Ronan had to coax him into accepting his offer and by the time Adam finally agreed they were almost late.

“Let’s go Parrish.” Ronan said when he turned the key in the ignition to start his car.

Adam just glared at him while they drove through the streets of Henrietta. He was still sour about losing the argument and having to accept Ronan’s help. Ronan thought Parrish was being ridiculous again but there was no way he would tell him that this wasn’t pity, that Ronan simply wanted to do something nice for him.

And maybe he also wanted a few minutes alone with Adam. Even if it was just the short ride to his workplace.

“How long are they going to exploit you today?” asked Ronan after a few moments of silence.

“I’m off at nine. Nico is sick so I’m taking over his shift.” Adam sounded defensive, and when Ronan turned his head towards him to give him a look, Adam stubbornly stared out of the car window.

“I was just asking so I know when I have to pick up your sorry ass.” Adam opened his mouth to respond but Ronan stopped him with a wave of his hand.

“Forget about it. I’ll wait for you outside at nine,“ is all Ronan said before they took the last turn and entered the driveway of the workshop.

When Ronan stopped the car in front of the little shop Adam turned towards him.

"You really don’t need to do that. I can walk home, it’s not that far.” Adam fiddled with his fingers in his lap. Ronan shook his head.

“Stop it Parrish! Just let people do nice things for you sometimes. I-We care about you.“ Ronan wished he could cut his tongue out. It would probably be the best if he never talked to Parrish again. Otherwise he would forget himself and tell him things that he couldn’t take back, but then he saw the way Adam’s cheeks started to turn pink and the mere sight took his breath away.

"Thank you,” Adam couldn’t look at Ronan but Ronan was glad for it since he couldn’t stop looking.

“It’s okay.“ Ronan attempted a smile but he was sure it looked more like a grimace. Adam gave him a short nod before he opened the car door and got out. He walked through the door of the workshop without looking back.

Ronan leaned back against the car seat and closed his eyes. He had to wait a few seconds before his heart rate went back to normal. Breathing slowly, he asked himself how he managed to fall for this impossible boy but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t come up with an answer.

Then he looked through the big window of the workshop one last time, hoping he could catch a glimpse of Adam but when he couldn’t spot him he was finally able to tear his gaze away. Ronan started the engine and drove off.

#pynch #ronan lynch #adam parrish #trc #pynch fic #richard gansey #noah czerny #fic rec #pynch fic rec #pynch fanfic #mine #adam parrish x ronan lynch #adam x ronan #the raven boys #maggie stiefvater #the raven cycle #fanfic #writing

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bubblesthemonsterartist · 8 years ago

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Mystery /ˈmist(ə)rē/: the secret rites of Greek and Roman pagan religion, or of any ancient or tribal religion, to which only initiates are admitted.

the practices, skills, or lore peculiar to a particular trade or activity and regarded as baffling to those without specialized knowledge.

[storytime beneath the cut]

“I’m telling you, that Kino woman cast the evil eye at me!”

Shirayuki sighs, pressing the dry cloth to the gash just atop the man’s thinning hairline. “I’ve never heard of a curse that makes you run into shelves,” she replies, lifting the cloth and twisting her lips as the cut wells with blood again. Head wounds were so tricky.

Ronan huffs, weathered hands curled around the walking stick propped between his legs. “Can’t you at least give me a talisman or something to protect myself? Just in case?”

“It’s just as dangerous to cast magic against nothing as it is to take medicine when you’re not sick,” she counters, using her free hand to reach for the alcohol on the table behind her. “You know this.”

He hisses when she reapplies the cloth. “You two are in cahoots,” he grumbles.

Shirayuki gives him a weary look. Cantankerous old man. Maybe she should bring him to the ocean with her next time she needed to collect seagrass. That always seemed to brighten his spirits.

“Hold this,” she murmurs, grabbing one of his hands and pressing it atop his head. “I’m going to get you a salve to help slow the bleeding.”

He shifts, grumbling more to himself as she grabs a stepladder and climbs it, reaching for the very top shelf for his special blend. Bells tinkle at the edge of her hearing, the sounds of small feet padding rapidly across earth drawing her vision to the open door. Steadying herself against the shelves, she turns her head just as she reaches the last rung. It’s Yuzuri’s boy. He doesn’t cross the threshold.

“Keiran, what’s the matter?”

The boy is breathless.

“A wolf.”

~ ~ ~

Her mare pulls up short at the edge of the property, it’s head swaying back and forth as she tries to urge her forward. Nerves fire under her skin when she whinnies anxiously.

“Okay, I guess this is as far as we go,” she says, dismounting before reaching up to gather the boy. Keiran slides into her arms, but his eyes are wide and transfixed on the barn standing solitary in the middle of the late afternoon field. She sets him on the ground, bending at the hip to look him in the eye. “Can you stay with Apple?”

He turns his gaze towards her, flickering his questioning eyes between her and the field.

“She gets lonely,” Shirayuki smiles. “I’m sure she would like your company.”

Slowly, the boy nods and Shirayuki’s grin broadens, reaching for the reigns and placing them in his hands.

“You’ll be alright?” he whispers.

“Of course,” she replies a little too brightly, standing up straight. The air feels charged. “It’s just an injured wolf. If it’s as bad as you say, there’s not much it can do, right?”

~ ~ ~

The grass tickles her calves as she lifts her skirts, crossing through the fields. Each step becomes heavier, dampness soaking into her stockings and her breath fogging, the temperature dropping towards night even though the sun still has several hours left in the sky.

She hears Yuzuri before she sees her.

“Suzu, you’re gonna bring a curse down on us all. That ain’t no wolf!”

“I only clipped it! I swear I only clipped it.”

She rounds the corner, finding the couple sitting on a bale of hay, a pitchfork abandoned in the dust to their side. Suzu doesn’t see her, his head buried in his hands as Yuzuri frets over a nasty bruise on his arm. The woman looks up.

“Shirayuki! Where’s Keiran?”

“At the edge of the property with Apple,” she replies, hiding her hands in her skirts. She looks towards the darkest corner of the barn where the air feels the densest. “Is it there?”

Yuzuri nods, coming to her side as she approaches the inky darkness. “Suzu says the sheep were refusing to come inside,” she says lowly. “When he went to check, it appeared out of nowhere. It’s not moving anymore, though. Suzu thinks he whacked it on the head; said it didn’t even growl when it came upon him.”

Shirayuki swallows, nodding, and reaches into her bag to wrap a ward around her hand. Just in case.

Leaving Yuzuri in the light, she slowly approaches the great black shadow in the corner of the barn, her breath becoming shallow as the air presses in. The stink of blood and rotting flesh hits her like a wave and she gags.

Covering her mouth with a cough, she turns her head towards the couple. “Raise the light.”

They look between themselves, Suzu’s eyes large and Yuzuri huffs, grabbing the Shepard’s hook from the wall and picking up the lantern. Hoisting it upwards, Shirayuki turns back towards the corner, her eyes widening.

It’s almost too hard to make it out, even with the light. Black fur, matted with leaves and sticks, shines dully in the lantern light. The beast is underfed, breathing short shallow puffs of air, and she wonders how long it had been licking its wounds in the back of this barn. It was midsummer and Suzu wasn’t the most attentive at animal husbandry, leaving his sheep afield more nights than not.

She takes a tentative step forward, her eyes adjusting to take in long glistening gashes against it’s fur. “You didn’t do this, Suzu,” she says softly, looking it over. “He’s been hurt for some time.”

Yuzuri stands on her tippy toes, arching her neck to see better. “Do you think it’s our village protector?”

Shirayuki frowns, lowering herself to her haunches and hovering her hand over the fur for a moment before drawing back. “Grandmother never said anything about us being under the protection of a faoladh.”

“But it is one?” Suzu presses.

She nods, certain. She doesn’t have the same sight as her grandmother—not yet—but no wolf puts off this type power.

“Then we must be under some sort of protection,” he murmurs.

Shirayuki glances back at her friend and shakes her head in the negative. “It’s unbound, I think.”

Yuzuri and Suzu look at her, worried, and Shirayuki reaches down into her bag, looking for the salve. She needed something that would help staunch the bleeding at the very least. When she finds it missing, she mentally berates herself, remembering that she left it back at the clinic with Ronan. Pressing her lips together, she glances back up, trying to figure out how to move such a big thing without causing more harm and—

Her blood turns to ice in her veins. One eye is upon her, golden flecks catching in the bare light. She hadn’t even felt it watching her.

It stares at her for a long while, neither of them moving. Slowly, it’s eyes fall shut again, a large huff of air escaping it and stirring the dust at her feet.

Her hands tremble.

“Yuzuri,” she murmurs, keeping her gaze on the beast. “Go fetch your cart. I’m going to need it.”

#obiyukibingo #mystery au #obiyuki #bubbleswrites #just a bite for now #:3

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anthonianrhapsody-blog · 8 years ago

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And the Best MCU Film is...

by Captain

Admit it. When the leaked footage of the Avengers: Infinity War trailer came out, you did one of four things:

1. Weep like a baby when Peter said “I’m sorry” to Tony; 2. Scream your lungs out when Steve (beard and all) came out; 3. Let out a big “oooohhhh” when Thanos hurled down that planet; 4. All of the above

As a crossover of 10 years’ worth of cinematic storylines, this mega-event of a movie is unprecedented. Before Infinity War drops next May (which is just 7 months away, but it SURE feels like an eternity away), let’s tackle a question that will trigger debates, challenge friendships, and even put marriages (!) to the test.

What is the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Before you blast this blog away with a Jericho missile (hats off to you if you got that reference), the writer would like to set a few parameters.

First, I’ll make it a top 5 list for better chances of acknowledging your favorite. Okay? Y’all happy?

Second, this article will cover only the first 16 MCU films—that is, the ones that have already been released at the time that this article has been published. Unfortunately, I have no Ancient One-like powers to look into the future. My list might very well be obliterated by upcoming flicks like Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther (watch out for the reviews! ☺). Also, I won’t be factoring in TV and Netflix content like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Defenders series. Different medium, different criteria.

Lastly, and speaking of criteria, allow me to declare my standards for film quality. (Feel free to argue with my rubrics in the comments section, but this is my list, so tough luck.) My biggest considerations are plot and characterization. As in, how good is the story that unfolds in the film? How developed are the character arcs and motivations, and why should I care about them? I also care about effectiveness of acting, visual spectacle, quality of shots and editing, and impact of auditory effects.

With that out of the way...

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Captain America: Civil War (epic airport scene vs. wildly impossible coincidences); Avengers: Age of Ultron (messy in places, but it’s just a special thing when Avengers assemble); the first Thor film (an underrated movie...shout-out to Tom and Kenneth)

Raise your right hand if you knew who Star-Lord and Gamora were three years ago. Raise your left hand if you were also aware that they were not in the original Guardians line-up in the comics. No hands raised? Then you’re just like the thousands of moviegoers who were pleasantly surprised by this franchise in 2014. With the careful handling of director James Gunn, this movie featuring C-list Marvel heroes captured the hearts of comic book die-hards and casual MCU fans alike. Guardians’ strongest suit is its comedy—Rocket Racoon’s unstoppable mouth, Drax the Destroyer’s dry humor (made special by wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista), and Peter Quill’s dancing-out-of-nowhere in the movie’s climax. And of course...I am Groot, ‘nuff said.

Throw in the brilliance of the film’s color palette and the soundtrack known as “Awesome Mix Vol. 1,” and you could say that it’s hard to find fault with this flick. But I do have (gasp!) a minor gripe. The film’s third act is all about the Guardians protecting the planet of Xandar from Ronan the Accuser, who wields the might of the destructive Power Stone. Problem is, the Xandarians weren’t given quite enough screen time. Every time I watch the film, I think to myself, “Who are these guys?” Sure, there are images of Xandarian families and children scurrying for their lives, but I just wish the development of these ‘sympathetic’ figures had been better.

That, frankly, is my only problem with an otherwise colorful, highly lovable film. As you’ll see, the next film did not commit the Xandar mistake.

#4: ANT-MAN (2015)

“So I’m at this art museum with my cousin Ignacio, right? And there was this, like, abstract impressionism exhibit. But you know me, I’m more like a Neo-Cubist kind of guy...”

Impossible as it sounds, these lines managed to make people laugh. Thanks, Michael Peña! Just like Guardians, the 2015 flick Ant-Man proved that Marvel Studios can do comedy effectively. Beyond its penchant for humor—as well as its dazzling array of museum-worthy visual effects—Ant-Man also got story-telling right. Any human being can relate to Scott Lang’s quest for redemption after his three-year prison sentence. The film tugs at your heartstrings every time Scott interacts with his daughter Cassie. And the film makes you hold your breath during the climax, when Scott sacrifices himself to save Cassie from the villain Yellowjacket. (Spoiler: Scott survived.)

Yellowjacket, however, is a testament to the widely discussed “MCU villain problem.” For all the wonderful heroes that Marvel Studios has brought to life, there is also a legion of antagonists that the MCU films have failed to maximize. In Ant-Man, Darren Cross is a rather menacing jerk (thanks to a great performance by actor Corey Stoll). But his screen time as Ant-Man’s evil counterpart could have been fleshed out and extended. As it was, Yellowjacket became just another dispensable villain to join the likes of Ultron, Ronan the Accuser, and Malekith.

But Ant-Man still succeeds because it makes you care greatly about Scott and Cassie. And it is precisely because of this that this film is ranked above Guardians. When you compare the two films, it’s easier to care for a human father and his innocent little daughter than an entire planet of unknown, unfamiliar beings.

#3: SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017)

I have to be honest: the subtitle did not work out for me at first. When Marvel and Sony announced that they would be sharing Spidey’s film rights (hallelujah), I was hoping for a comic book-inspired title. Like Sensational Spider-Man or Peter Parker: Spider-Man. I know that the term “Homecoming” has several connotations (such as the Spider-Man character being welcomed back to the fold of Marvel Studios), but it just isn’t fierce enough for a superhero film.

Trust me, that’s about as much I’ll complain about this movie. Because everything else was...amazing.

To begin with, Tom Holland is the perfect actor for the title role. He brought a more youthful vibe to the Peter Parker persona than Tobey Maguire. And he embodied a more light-hearted, wittier Spider-Man than Andrew Garfield. As remarkable as young Mr. Holland’s performance was, the film’s showstopper was veteran actor Michael Keaton. Finally, a well-rounded villain! Keaton brought emotional depth to the role of Adrian Toomes/Vulture, who is effectively portrayed as a blue-collar worker wronged by society’s elite. The rest of the crew is just as outstanding. Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) is used in just enough doses as the hero’s mentor. Jacob Batalon is hilarious as Ned, the techie best friend; while Zendaya is quirky as the mysterious Michelle persona (eventually revealed to be...wait for it...MJ).

Distinguishing itself as a teen movie, Homecoming is a refreshing selection among the grittier grown-ups of the MCU. Take your pick of adolescent drama: Peter’s fixations on his crush, the thrills and frills of weekend parties, the suspense of inter-school competitions. Indeed, this film offers a new flavor among the political thrillers and world-ending catastrophes of Captain America and Thor. The plot keeps you on the edge of your seats from beginning to end (though the climactic battle could have been more, um, climactic). Even the mid-credits scene keeps you fascinated in what happens next (hello, Sinister Six).

This is how good Homecoming is: up until earlier this year, I had a different top 5 list. Captain America: Civil War was on it. When Homecoming came out, Spider-Man swung all the way into my top 3. Tom Holland and co. were so good that there are only two films that they did not displace in my nerdy Marvel heart.

#2: AVENGERS (2012)

Assemble.

This might be more of a sentimental pick—I know that several critics would have Guardians at this spot—but I’m listening to my nerdy heart. In Avengers, several effective elements come together. The best part, of course, is the unprecedented, seamless merging of characters and plot lines. Marvel heroes from a 3-year period of films come together to protect humanity from intergalactic threats. If you faithfully watched the solo Marvel films before viewing Avengers, you were duly rewarded with a satisfying conclusion to Phase 1. If you watched Avengers in isolation, you would still be captivated with the colorful adventure of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

And oh boy, how the sparks fly! Even before a single fist landed on a Chitauri cheekbone, the in-fighting among the heroes was fun to watch. The verbal showdown between Cap and Iron Man was fascinating—enough to get everyone excited for a possible Civil War (which happened). Thor vs. Hulk and Thor vs. Tony were exciting heavyweight fights, and the mind-controlled exploits of Hawkeye (who eventually turned into a protagonist) added an extra layer of conflict.

Speaking of conflict, the plot’s intensity keeps the audience hooked from start to finish. The film opens with a car-blowing, Tesseract-grabbing heist perpetuated by Loki, the best MCU villain to date. The action sequences that follow—which include the forest duel and the Helicarrier fiasco—are visual stunners. The climactic Battle of New York is made even more hearstopping when the Avengers have to deal with the alien invasion and the nuclear missile out of nowhere. By the time Mr. Stark wakes up after his heroic sacrifice (with Hulk’s thunderous voice as the alarm clock), the viewer smiles ear-to-ear, satisfied that the good guys prevailed.

We haven’t even touched on the excellent cast—from Downey to Evans, Hiddleston to Ruffalo—as well as the fantastic effects and brilliant musical score. My only nitpick would be the slowing down of the film’s pace during certain expository parts. Perhaps Natasha’s conversation with Dr. Banner could have been just a tad shorter. Other than this, though, I am satisfied with Joss Whedon’s work to the point of considering Avengers a top-of-the-mountain film.

But not the top film.

#1: CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014)

I will argue all day, any day with anyone who disagrees.

The second Captain America installment is second to none in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, The Winter Soldier is the MCU’s standard-bearer for film quality.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of this film is its realistic approach. All the elements of The Winter Soldier make you believe that a “super soldier”—the stuff of comic book lore—can actually trade fists and save lives in a true-to-life episode of political espionage. Chris Evans gives justice to a highly conflicted Cap, who finds his classic American ideals challenged by 21st century US military “values.”

The action sequences are exquisite. The moment you see Cap deliver a spinning heel kick to a pirate (hello, Georges St-Pierre!), you know it’s going to be special. My favorite scene in the entire film was the elevator scene, in which Steve fights about a dozen Hydra henchmen by himself...and wins. The final act of the film is packed with suspense as Cap attempts to deactivate Hydra’s three Helicarriers designed for mass eliminations. But standing in his way—literally, they stood face-to-face on a very narrow passage—is the Winter Soldier, who is revealed to be Steve’s best friend Bucky. Cheesy as it may have been, the line “I’m with you till the end of the line” was a nice touch to the Cap/Steve vs. Winter Soldier/Bucky plotline.

Comrade Barnes may have been the cybernetically-enhanced villain, but Alexander Pierce was a great antagonist as well in the role of the slimy, intelligent bureaucrat. Robert Redford (God bless his kindred soul) proved in this film that he can out-act any performer that Hollywood has to offer. Memorable performances also came from Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow, and Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson.

As garnish, the Russo brothers added touches of humor and cleverness. Like the running joke of Steve telling Sam “I’m on your left,” or the subtle graveyard reference to Samuel L. Jackson’s role in the cult classic Pulp Fiction, or Steve’s list of pop culture items (Star Wars and Star Trek, anyone?). Indeed, Messieurs Joe and Anthony deserved the call to direct Civil War and the Infinity films.

I can only hope that Infinity War and its sequel (Gauntlet, perhaps?) will live up to their gargantuan hype. But don’t get me wrong: I am highly confident because the directors proved how excellent an MCU film can be when they made Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Dear readers, what’s your top 5 list? Do you agree or disagree with the list presented above? Let us know in the comments below!

#essay #ssaseniorhigh

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punkscowardschampions · 6 years ago

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Ali & Carly

Ali: Heyo boo Ali: thanks for Rocky wrangling with me today, you're now also his fave so, add that to your tally Carly: its k i had fun Carly: hes a cutie & cool kid Ali: me too Ali: yeah, he's alright, but cocky enough so I ain't telling him Ali: dunno where he gets that from 😏 Carly: ha Carly: yea idk Carly: no clue Ali: i'm sorry Ro was being off btw, I'm working out why but trust it wasn't you, babe Ali: been neglecting her lately, everyone wants a piece of me Ali: hard life Carly: idc its me too Carly: nobody wants a piece but you Ali: I just told you that ain't true, and Rocky is ruthless, he called one of my customers a 'big bum witch' the other day Ali: no tip for me, thanks dickhead Ali: but I want all of you regardless Ali: willing to throw hands Carly: aw Carly: this town is full of big bum witches tho Carly: my ma back for one Carly: but are you willing to use those hands for good too or Ali: awks if that was your Ma, like hey gurl, I think you rock it Ali: your daughter ain't bad either Ali: you know it, IOU 'cos we couldn't make like we were in the backrow of the cinema Carly: unless she been lying about where she at i think youve avoided meeting the in laws again Carly: k cuz you kno i need to collect soon Carly: bored Carly: just back and zoned out so fast Ali: ain't even got exciting stories from their galavanting? fucking rude Ali: at least when we go AWOL we also go wild Ali: make things happen, lads Carly: my ma's good for nothing but hairspray and peroxide Carly: only use if i get beat up again Carly: my da's good for cash tho if you wanna get wild w me Ali: or you wanna single white female me Ali: which would be a disappointing outcome to say the least Ali: can't tonight babe, I've gotta have some sister time Ali: go hard for both of us Carly: k Carly: try not to miss me bad when shes talking about me Ali: oh babe, she will not, and if she does I'll set her straight Ali: gonna let the world know you're my 😇 Carly: whatever her issue shes gotta air it and youre her sister so you gotta hear it Carly: idc shes not gonna hurt me w it Carly: and setting peeps straight is the opposite of how you do, babe Ali: true Ali: idk what issue she could have though, you're a literal ray of sunshine Ali: true again 😏 Ali: ugh, imma miss you Ali: maybe i can sneak out when she's gone to bed, the 'rents too Carly: i miss you now Carly: cant hear my parents say shit Carly: i just wanna talk to you Carly: dont tell me maybe & keep me waiting tho Ali: i will Ali: promise Carly: i dont wanna make trouble for you Carly: w anyone Carly: you can stay w her if you need to stay Ali: You won't Ali: I can do both Ali: be back before first light Ali: even if I'll miss watching the sun rise on your face 😔 Ali: we've got the night, baby Carly: but you kno if ive got you for the whole night youre gonna fall asleep Carly: thats what im good at Carly: feel free to tell your sister thats why you like me ha Carly: fun & tiring its magic Ali: hmm, we'll see who wears who out first, babe Ali: and if I am that husband, then you'll just have to wake me up with morning sex like the good little wifey you are 😘😂 Carly: always bringing that confidence i like it Carly: k but if my parents wake up too you can explain its a duty thing yea i had to like Ali: i like you Ali: for so many reasons and imma show you all of 'em tonight Ali: fuck that Ali: stay out with me, its warm enough Ali: i'll trace all the constellations out with my tongue so you won't ever forget Ali: educational Carly: my ma is asking me what im blushing about Carly: i told her what you said but she's not a believer Carly: support my education bitch Carly: ha Ali: i mean, i'd offer to let her see the benefits for herself but Ali: not gonna win me any brownie points 'cos she won't take me up on it Carly: she dont kno what she's missing but i do Carly: wish you were here Ali: me too Ali: start the party without me babe, i don't mind Carly: too late if you do Carly: gotta get through this reunion some way Ali: they aren't making you watch a slideshow, are they? Ali: fate worse than death Ali: Maybe you could go to Ronan's? Lmao, he's been up in my pussy way too much since he found out about us...didn't think we were THAT loud but ok boy Carly: yea Carly: might do cuz same Carly: but what if i miss you he can really make a night of it when he wants Ali: Nah, I won't let you face that disappointment, babe Ali: my spidey senses will tingle like not on my watch, fuckboy Carly: aw Carly: you gonna come get me? Carly: thats no way to get him out your pussy babe fyi Ali: yeah Ali: I know but I like the idea of showing you off as mine Ali: but no sharing, he only gets to watch and be mad he fucked it up Carly: i like it too Carly: youre hot when youre oneupping fuckboys Carly: i thought i knew how to do it best but k youre flipping the script Ali: as long as i'm besting them i'm doing my job right Ali: gotta keep you on-board Carly: speak of the devil Carly: how he know i was alone & horny Carly: my parents have only gone to the shops its uncanny Ali: know your neighbours but bit stalkerish, pal Ali: i'll text him to fuck off, freak him out Ali: how does she know, ha, two can play this game fucko and I'm more committed Carly: ha Carly: you gotta Carly: hes smoking im gonna bum one see what line he tries to lay on before the text sends Ali: On it Ali: gotta let him know there's a queue to court the princess now and he's at the back, soz Carly: he likes hitting it from the back he wont be put off Carly: im gonna show him some of the hot pics i took of you tho Ali: when is he ever tbf? 🐶👅💦 Carly: true Carly: that fucking cute tho aren't i Ali: you know it babe Carly: hes talking to my da now Carly: kill me Ali: how fucking dare he Ali: knowing he has the upper hand with the man bants Ali: i know how to change a tire too! love me! Carly: if my ma invites him in for tea im out of here Carly: she will think hes hot under the collar for her & bitch thats my groundwork Ali: Run baby run Ali: what kinda moron is he tho Ali: coulda had a private show if you just waited, now its all saturday night telly and flat lager Carly: you kno i have nowhere to go if you dont want me babe Carly: facts Carly: he likes me now he cant have me what a fucking Carly: like i wouldve fucked you but im not getting w you Ali: i do, is this full sos crisis mode though? 'cos i need to be good for a lil while longer yet Ali: such a typical bloke move that Ali: bet he ain't the only boy in ur inbox, not a pun Ali: 'cos he ain't in mine like 🙄 Carly: its k your sister needs you Carly: i can keep walking Carly: loads of other lads on site as well as in my inbox Carly: & they arent trying to say hi to me before we get down to it nevermind my parents Ali: 😾 Carly: why so sad blue eyed boo Ali: i don't like how lads treat you Ali: i'm not jealous, like swear to god, even though i obviously want you all to myself, i get it Ali: but i'm not about how shit they are to you, even if you don't care, they should care to be decent humans Carly: thats not lads its everyone Carly: youre the only one treating me different Carly: they dont know how else to be Carly: made my bed babe Ali: nah Ali: you don't deserve half the shit you get, that's bullshit Ali: and even the rest, people just don't wanna try to understand or be good, heaven forfend they inconvineince themselves for one second, like Carly: if im a slag im a slag i dont get to put conditions on it Carly: if it was a film maybe Carly: but theres no romance coming my way from theres and i dont want it Ali: why can't you just be you? someone who likes fucking, among other things Ali: not romance just like...not being a cunt Ali: idk Ali: pisses me off Carly: cuz you don't run the world even tho you strut it like you do and i love it Ali: not yet, babe Ali: one day, and you can be my right hand woman Carly: yea? Carly: take me w you & ill take you to all your fave places k Ali: k Ali: we'll be fun forever, I promise you Carly: gotta be Ali: you know i like you even when you ain't tho Ali: don't tell Carly: who would i Carly: ronans got enough for his wank bank & nobody else is chatting to me rn Ali: exactly, ruins the illusion and fantasy when they realise i care about you Ali: so unsexy of me Carly: youre sexy to me Carly: idc what they think Ali: good Ali: me either Carly: i like you too you kno Ali: yeah Ali: i had my suspicions Carly: i dont have any subtlety sorry about it Ali: Don't be Ali: I love it Ali: not enough people say what they mean or want, ever Carly: waste Carly: k i wasnt shouting how bad i wanted to kiss you before i did but not cuz i was bothered about me Ali: agreed Ali: sometimes you can't know you want something until you've got it Ali: i get it Carly: you get me Carly: its weird Ali: 🔮 Carly: ha Carly: k what am i thinking now Ali: wouldn't be proper to say Ali: tut tut bad girl Ali: like how you think though Carly: fuck Carly: youre good Ali: 🤷 don't mean to brag but remember that phrase you'll be screaming it later Ali: such a Ronan line, I can't 😂 Carly: but true Carly: not like when he says it Ali: 😍 Carly: what you doing w your sister Carly: gotta live through that cuz bored Ali: Fixing my weave Ali: getting into a white girl dread territory over here Ali: then gonna do some 🔮 forreal Ali: get ready for me to be even more of a know it all baby Carly: cute Carly: tell me my future i got some shit from another neighbor & im waiting for it to kick Carly: hows it gonna treat me Carly: needing a good trip Ali: we'll see who gets the answer first Ali: you got anything for me? Carly: yea Carly: they mystery but i kno you arent scared Carly: & you got me doing a test run rn lying on here on the grass Ali: 🌌 be there before it fades away my space explorer Carly: if you find me at a bad end prob dont take it Ali: is one of the lads trip sitting you Carly: so he reckons but hes drinking so theres no trust Carly: & he gave me it Carly: his game could be me lights out idk Ali: keep texting me, okay babe? Ali: if shit gets too real, tell me and I'll come early Ali: my sis is cool now, she gets what we're doing, she was just confused Carly: aw Carly: youre sweet Carly: you told her you like me Ali: 'course I did Ali: I ain't ashamed Ali: I'm proud Carly: youre gonna make me cry Ali: You're special, Carly Ali: You're gonna see Carly: I just wanna see you tho Ali: Me too Ali: I'm gonna make her some chamomile tea and then I'm coming, yeah? Carly: but thats not fair to her Carly: she's not gonna be a fan of me Ali: I've promised her more time tomorrow Ali: You need me rn Carly: but what if i want you to stay Carly: what are we gonna do then Ali: i'll stay until you're ready for me to go Carly: you mean that? Ali: yes Ali: promise, imma take care of you Carly: but theres nothing in it for you Carly: youve already got me you dont have to Ali: i wanna keep you Ali: and not just selfishly Ali: you gotta stick around, you're too cool to go anywhere, okay Carly: k Carly: im here & if you wanna be im not stopping you Ali: good Ali: i wanna be wherever you are Carly: i kept you pills back the lads didnt want me to but idc about them & you can follow me in now Ali: fuck them Ali: just me and you Carly: yea Carly: ill look after you too Ali: 😇 Ali: i know, i trust you Carly: idk if you should Carly: but i like it Ali: willing to take my chances Ali: you're worth it Carly: thats you Ali: i'm so glad i met you Carly: me too Carly: not that i met me thats weird Carly: you know what i mean Ali: i got you Ali: not high yet 😉 Carly: id seen you around before you guardian angel'd me that night Carly: thats weird too Carly: that i didnt see you how i do now Ali: it is Ali: you were always cute but Ali: idk, i can't claim to have seen this in my crystal ball Carly: thats cuz i wasnt cute i was a state Carly: & youd have more likely seen me sucking ronans dick Carly: look away babe you dont need to have that image in your mind Ali: don't need him reckoning he plays part in any of my fantasies, nah Ali: you can't not be cute, no matter how you try, soz babe Carly: you can't not be so sweet to me can you Ali: dunno Ali: not tried Carly: idk what id do if you did Carly: i got used to it Ali: got no plans to stop Ali: unless you ask me to, like Carly: thats not gonna be what i ask you to do Carly: trust me Ali: you can tell me all about it Ali: 5 minutes, tops Carly: okay

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frayedpatches · 8 years ago

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Raven Cycle Fic Recs!

The Pynch section yo

- Wonderterror Weekend by nimmieamee - E - 49k

Adam Parrish gets Saturday off and spends the day falling in love with Ronan Lynch.

He also spends it fighting monsters, visiting Europe, and traumatizing people. But falling in love with Ronan Lynch is the part he chooses.

- With Quiet Words I'll Lead You In by @jesper-fahey - T - 20k

In that moment, Ronan looks like some kind of ferocious monument to a new found god; young, but infinite in power and a furious kind of sharp-edged beauty. Adam’s lungs feel a little short of air, but it’s probably just due the cold.

“I was freezing my fucking balls off out there.” Ronan complains and, just like like that, the illusion is shattered. He is a boy once more.

Cabeswater is trying to get Adam to realise something, but he's struggling to understand what. When he and Ronan break down in the middle of nowhere, Adam finally finds himself with enough time on his hands to figure out some things about himself and his feelings.

- Keeps Me From Unravelling by @jesper-fahey - N/A - 11k

Whatever response Ronan gives, it’ll be the truth, not just spilled platitudes; it makes Adam desperately want to win his approval. Ronan, this enigma of a boy with the ability to create anything from nothing, who has dreamed some of the most amazing, ridiculous creations. Adam chews on his bottom lip briefly, before forcing himself to stop. To be casual.

Ronan stops, stares at the gift sitting on his lap and then barks out the loudest laugh in delight. “Fuck, Parrish that is hideous!” His eyes are alight with a wild kind of joy.

(Or the one where a prompt generator gave me "Adam Parrish knits Ronan Lynch a hideous sweater" and I ran with it.)

- Heart of Stone, Heart of Flesh by @charmingpplincardigans - T - 28k

The elk appeared out of the shadow of the forest canopy as if materializing in mid-air. He was as tall as the moa, but also had massive antlers that reached up and tangled with the branches on the trees. His coat was a dusty chestnut color with a white starburst over his chest and smattering of white across his cheeks and nose. The elk leaned over the fence and bent his massive head, as if showing Adam deference. To Adam’s right, Destroyer knelt down on her front knees and dipped her nose into the grass.

To Adam’s left, Ronan bent his head too, like he was about to say grace. When he spoke his voice was soft and low. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

(Or, the one where Adam is a veterinarian and Ronan has dreamt up a whole menagerie of extinct/magical creatures.)

- Amor gignit amorem by @amethystinawrites - G - 3k

Considering everything that had happened and just how desperately Adam wanted to get away, he hadn't expected to find anything like peace in Henrietta.

Trust Ronan to prove him wrong.

- Roses on Parade by Jamesina - M - 8k

Adam accidentally ends up in Ronan's dream and Ronan is very Ronan about it and Adam is very Adam about it. Gansey is also briefly very Gansey about things.

Alternate summary: Adam has feelings and hyperventilates about it for 9,000 words.

- Heavenly Wine and Roses by Jamesina - M - 4k

Gansey has everything under control.

- Roses in Between My Thighs by Jamesina - E - 6k

Four things that could have ruined them but didn't.

- the hang of being alive again by @ronibravo - M - 12k

Falling for Ronan had felt like going to speak at the same time as someone else after a long silence, two people bumbling over their words to say, no, sorry, go ahead about three times before one of them says what they were going to say.

- mapping territories by @cheselle T - 3k

“I’m not going to offer you a briefcase of money and demand you stay away from him,” Declan said. “This isn’t a fucking telenovela.”

“I can’t believe,” Adam said, “you just said the word telenovela out loud.”

-- or, Declan has a talk with Ronan's boyfriend.

- adam parrish is in love (or, you can take the boy out of the south) by heyfightme - M - 4k

“Alright Parrish, I yield. What is it, then? You miss the Daisy Dukes and shitkicker boots on those cowgirls back home?” “I’m from Virginia, not Texas. Not a lot of cow-anybodies.” “I refuse to believe you don’t know anyone who lives on a farm.” Parrish rolls his eyes hard enough to shake the earth. “Stewart, of course I know somebody who lives on a farm. Just no cow-people. There’s a difference.”

---

Adam is in college. He has a roommate. Adam's Virginian accent has gotten him curious. Also, Ronan comes to visit.

-Somnium Meum Vestrum by shoulderbone - T - 8k

Ronan smells like smoke and spice, like the memory of a home he's never had; like a feeling he dares not name.

- Without Having To Say by @charmingpplincardigans - T - 24k

“Yeah? Which was the big guy downstairs? Because my good Catholic upbringing didn’t make the distinction.”

Out of nervous habit, Ronan brings his wrist up to his mouth and chews on the leather bands there. He’s been wearing them and chewing on them since he was sixteen. It’s a wonder there’s anything left to them at all. He feels the same way about his good Catholic upbringing.

“I think,” Adam says, quiet now. “That he wasn’t very nice, but that he wasn’t ever given a reason to be. I think it was self-defense.” It’s an explanation that sounds both close to home and far away. He looks up and out the window. His gaze gets caught there, distracted for the first time since they started.

Ronan looks as well, but it’s dark out now and all he can see is the shadow box reflection of the room against the black behind. Set against the rest of it, Adam’s hunched over reflection looks small and dark. Ronan is little more than a few swaths of stark negative space cut against the white glow. Neither of them has a halo.

(Or, that one where Adam is an art major and Ronan agrees to model for a sculpture of Satan.)

- maybe i dreamt you by @memordes - T - 17k

Adam seldom dreamt of other people. His dreams were nebulous, winding, leaving him with abstract impressions. But there was Ronan, solid as flesh—and from there, the dream left Adam with the echo of a feeling.

It was one hell of a feeling, though.

The not really/necessarily pynch fics

- Things That Go Bump In The Night by mochroimanam - T - 9k

Subtitle: The real ghosts are the friends we made along the way! The gang goes to a Halloween haunted house attraction, only to find that things are a bit more....realistic...than expected.

Ronan reminded himself, viciously, that he interacted with a real ghost every day of his life. But Noah’s moments of otherworldly strangeness had nothing on this specter’s air of sheer sinister deadness.

Adam took a step forward next to him, and Ronan’s hand shot out, fingers gripping Adam’s sleeve. Being cornered like this made Ronan feel the same way he’d felt trying to get out of the dank cellar – claustrophobic and scared and angry. “Parrish,” he hissed, trying to pull Adam back. The girl was a good 20 feet away, but it still felt too close, and being any closer seemed like a decidedly bad idea.

- Out for Re-henge by @charmingpplincardigans - G - 7k

Blue has a favor to ask of Ronan while Gansey and Adam are away. She ends up receiving much more than she expected. (Or, that one where Ronan teaches Blue to drive stick and they have adventures.) Post-BLLB.

- we built this city by @fahye - T - 13k

"As you keep pointing out, I've died twice," said Gansey. He was so bright that Henry almost wanted to look away from him, and so compelling that he couldn't. "I don't care what I'm supposed to be doing."

#ficrecdays #the raven cycle fic recs #pynch #sarchengsey #the raven cycle #fic rec days

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ultralifehackerguru-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/13-must-read-september-romances-youll-devour-faster-than-you-can-down-a-psl/

13 Must-Read September Romances You'll Devour Faster Than You Can Down a PSL

Happy September, bookworms! I have the latest round-up of must-read romances to keep your brains and e-readers full and well-read this month. This month’s list is filled with highly anticipated reads, emotionally heart-melting novels, sexy-as-sin alphas, thought-provoking mysteries, and so much more! Let’s dive into what’s here to devour this month.

1 Dirty Headlines, Out Sept. 4

Dirty Headlines is an all-new enemies-to-lovers standalone office romance from LJ Shen. Jude Humphry is having the worst day. A one-night stand with a handsome, dark stranger is the last thing on her mind, but when it happens, she is thankful that it’s with a tourist from France. Or so she thinks. A month after the one-night stand, in which she stole his wallet (hey, no judgment, right?), she finds out that Celian Laurent is: 1. Not a tourist, 2. The heir of a media empire and — 3. Her new boss. This starts a steamy, chemistry-filled war between Jude, the new intern in the newsroom, and Celian, the director of news. But they both have secrets keeping them from truly getting closer.

2 More of You, Out Sept. 10

In More of You by A.L. Jackson, the second Faith Linbrock met Jace Jacobs, she fell hard and fast. She knew better than to fall for a boy like him, but some things are unstoppable. One touch of his hand, and her skin sizzled. She shouldn’t have been surprised when the boy who was surrounded by rumor broke her heart. She swore to herself she’d never allow it to happen again. Ten years later, she’s in trouble, and she’s shocked when Jace shows up at her doorstep saying he’s there to protect her. What he didn’t anticipate was their chemistry had never faded. He’s never wanted a woman the way he wants her, and he’ll do anything to get her back. But Jace is back with secrets of his own, and now he must prove whether his intentions were good or only there to break her all over again . . .

3 Shot on Goal, Out Sept. 12

When a former champion figure skater’s ambitions collide with a struggling young hockey player’s desires, sparks ignite and forbidden passion threatens to destroy their careers and their future. In Shot on Goal by Jami Davenport, Marina Sanders strives to overcome the scandal that cost her a gold medal. Drew Delacorte battles with the demons of his past and a waning disinterest in hockey. When forced to work together, the lines between business and pleasure become blurred. Unable to keep their hands off each other, they realize that their secret relationship could spell the end of their once-brilliant careers. Will love be enough if everything else they’ve worked for is gone?

4 Big Stick, Out Sept. 17

Myles Sanders has a big stick. That is a big, long hockey stick. For Myles, life is perfect like a smooth rink before a game, until his best friend Oli announces his twin sister Flynn is moving to Chicago. Myles and Flynn were next-door neighbors and childhood best friends. Sure, the lines of friendship may have been blurred once or twice over the years. They were meant to be together until one night changed everything . . . Myles knows that just the sight of him dredges up bad memories for Flynn. So why can’t he stay away from her? Find out in Big Stick by R.C. Stephens.

5 Rebel Hard, Out Sept. 18

Rebel Hard by Nalini Singh features a modern arranged marriage mart, family shenanigans, and a swoonfully sexy romance. In an attempt to hold together her family, Nayna has lived her entire life by the rules, and all she wants now is freedom, adventure, and a wild fling with a hot hunk. Raj is the eldest son, the brother his siblings turn to, and a man at home with tradition. He wants to build a home, have a small family, put down roots. Nayna wants to fly. They’re moving in opposite directions . . . until they collide in the middle. Sexy, brilliantly colorful, and defiantly joyous, Rebel Hard is a love story that’ll make you believe in forever.

6 Restless Ink, Out Sept. 18

Thea Montgomery has worked endless hours to make sure her bakery is one of the best in the city. And as she finds herself ready to take the next step, she realizes she might need to work on her personal life as well. Only the one person she wants is her friend’s ex-husband. Dimitri Carr knows he shouldn’t have feelings for Thea, but he can’t help it. She was his friend before he was in his ex’s life, so dealing with his connection to Thea isn’t easy. In Restless Ink by Carrie Ann Ryan, when the two finally take a chance, it’ll take more than attraction for them to make it work. But thankfully, neither one wants to give up . . . yet.

7 Got It Bad, Out Sept. 18

Bad boys are always fun, especially when they’re trying to figure out how to be good! USA Today bestseller Christi Barth’s Bad Boys Gone Good series is a lighthearted, goofy fish-out-of-water series about three big-city ex-mobster brothers in Witness Protection who have to figure out how to live crime-free, quiet lives in a small Oregon town. It’s full of quirky characters, small-town charm, lots of humor, and a little bit of suspense. In Got It Bad, when the brother who has always followed the rules starts to fall for the federal marshal in charge of their case, it’s his turn to be a little bad.

8 Why Not Tonight, Out Sept. 18

There’s something unusual about Why Not Tonight: heroine Natalie Kaleta is wearing her trademark red glasses on the cover, the better to see brooding glass artist Ronan Mitchell. (Imagine muscles gleaming in light from the kiln.) When Natalie and Ronan get trapped together by a mudslide in his mountain lodge, romance builds with passion and genuine humor. Lighthearted but not lightweight, Why Not Tonight explores whether happiness is a choice. Ronan must learn that forgiving his family will clear the way for love. If you’ve never read Susan Mallery before, start with this one. The No. 1 New York Times bestselling author is at the top of her game.

9 Vampires Like It Hot, Out Sept. 18

Raffaele, Zanipolo, and Santo are on an enforced vacation during the wet season in the Dominican Republic. While Raffaele is happy to help out his cousin Santo, he’d rather do it where it wasn’t so hot and humid you could hardly breathe. At least that’s how he felt until he met his life mate, Jess. Jess was in the Dominican Republic to attend a family wedding. After she follows her cousin onto a tour ship, she finds herself on a pirate ship full of hungry vampire pirates, and her only option to escape is to jump ship. From vampires to shark-infested water, and then the arms of Raffaele Notte. . . . What started out as a boring family obligation has suddenly become something much more in Vampires Like It Hot by Lynsay Sands.

10 Hidden, Out Sept. 25

In Hidden by Rebecca Zanetti, Malcolm West is more than ready to give up undercover work as a cop, and he finds the perfect cottage in the middle of nowhere to do just that. A day later, he meets his neighbor, sweet Pippa Smith, an introvert with frightened eyes and an odd thirst for adventure, so long as it takes place in his bedroom. Three days later, he finds himself part of a Homeland Defense unit complete with an alcoholic dog, insane cat, and a wounded group of ex-cops who all have something to hide. The situation is one that he can manage, until he discovers he’s been set up and put in place to protect the world from the woman he’s starting to care about. When danger comes at him from every direction, he has to choose a side . . . and hopefully protect Pippa in the process. That is, if she lets him.

11 Cross Breed, Out Sept. 25

In the highly anticipated novel Cross Breed by Lora Leigh, Cassie Sinclair has played a very dangerous game with the enigmatic, lethal Coyote Breed known only as Dog, a Breed suspected to be the enemy, at the very least, a mercenary for the hated genetics council. When she’s caught in a web of her own making, forced to trade a single night with the Coyote to save someone dear to her, she finds the mate she swore she’d never have. Secrets, premonitions, and ghostly figures have shadowed Cassie’s life and drawn her to the one Breed that can complete her. If his betrayal doesn’t destroy her.

12 Hot Winter Nights, Out Sept. 25

Hot Winter Nights (a stand-alone Heartbreaker Bay romance) by Jill Shalvis is a sexy romance in which hero Lucas Knight wakes up with a woman in his bed with no memory of how that happened. What the heck? Did he miss the good stuff? And who is she? This one is an ice-melting romance with light suspense involving a scrappy, feisty heroine who was well used to making her own way in the world. Molly Malone needed a man who could go toe to toe with her and yet let her fight her own battles. Enter Lucas Knight. He’s been attracted to Molly since the day he met her. Two problems. One, she’s his partner’s sister, and two, he’s just been told by his boss he needs to watch over her without letting her know about it. Tricky enough, as Molly is smart as they come. Oh, and there’s one more thing — he’s not to sleep with her.

13 Dirty Rich Betrayal, Out Sept. 26

Dirty Rich Betrayal is Grayson Bennett’s story: He’s a billionaire, the king of the world to some. He has everything, but what he really wants: her. That woman is Mia Cavanaugh, criminal attorney, ex-lover, a woman who believes he betrayed her, a woman who could burn him to the ground, but she won’t. Because she loves him. Because he loves her, and it’s time that she sees the truth of the past. Now, he’s handing her the key to his future. He’s giving her the chance to burn him to the ground. He’s letting her see the real man beneath the surface that not even she’s seen in the past. She has to decide what to do with that man: love him or destroy him.

(C)

#books #Lifestyle #Must-Read #romance

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fireandgloryrpg · 7 years ago

Photo

Congratulations Tilly and welcome! We’re so happy to accept your application to play Celia Doherty with the faceclaim of Natalia Dyer in Fire & Glory RPG! We can’t wait to begin roleplaying with you so please remember to look over our checklist!

!! tw: depression, gore, blood, suicidal urges !!

Name: tilly

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 19 - birthday is feb 19

Timezone: gmt +1

Triggers: none that aren’t on the list yet

Activity: i’m a full-time uni student and i’m going to apply for a job next year; so most of my activity will take place in the evenings. i’ll be online a few times each week, but i’m basically always lurking (re: my discord activity you know me lol) so i’d say a solid 7/10

Anything Else?: i blame rosie and dana for dragging me back in pjo hell i didn’t plan it

also i have a pin board for my girl here

Original Character Information

Name: Celia Edith Doherty

Age and Birthday: 18, born on June 27th, 1999

Faceclaim: Natalia Dyer (alternatively; Sabrina Carpenter)

Heritage: Daughter of Asteria

Abilities: Prophetic dreams, smoke screen summoning, excellent night vision (former), photokinesis (former)

Affiliation: Former legionnaire of the third cohort; now part-time legionnaire of the fifth cohort.

Headcanons:

Celia got her guide puppy, a samoyed, who was kicked out of the guide dog program. She took pity on the thing (and the fact that he had perfectly soft fur helped a lot) and devoted her life to training him, together with Puck. She named him Mozart, because Tchaikovsky is her favorite composer but his name is too complicated for her to pronounce.

Her life motto is the dog Latin phrase ‘illegitimi non carborundum’, or ‘don’t let the bastards get you down’. Celia was depressed for a long time after losing her sight and her third cohort family, and lots of Romans are surprisingly cruel to blind girls alone in the city, which didn’t exactly help. After shedding many tears for her deplorable situation, she picked up the pieces of who she used to be and glued them together into a new version of herself, with a little help from her friends.

Due to her dyslexia, Celia was never a big fan of reading, but when she discovered audiobooks and braille, her whole life changed. Words didn’t swim off the page and she found another way to fill her head with stories - even though she still has to take breaks after ‘reading’ giant chunks of text in one go.

Biography:

!! tw: depression, gore, blood, suicidal urges !!

Asteria, the goddess of nocturnal oracles and falling stars, was also known as the personification of the island of Delos, otherwise known as the birthplace of the archer twins, Apollo and Artemis. However, anyone who truly knew the titaness, also knew that this was complete bullshit: she wasn’t an island. Sure, she blessed Delos and became its patron goddess. No one ever saw Poseidon as literally being the sea, so why would they see her as an actual island? The fact that she loved Delos was true, though, which was one of the reasons why her child was born there, even though she was conceived all the way in Phoenix, Arizona. Quickly after her sister Leto made her realize that raising a little demigod wasn’t something a goddess was supposed to do, she dropped the baby off with her father, Ronan Doherty, who still lived in Phoenix. After he got over the initial shock of being a father without asking or any form of preparation, he raised the child, whom he named Celia, with as much love as any parent would.

Ronan always knew his daughter was a little different, but Asteria had not revealed her identity to him. The reasons why his daughter stood out, therefore, remained a mystery to both of them. Celia, now a talented ballerina, was put in a special program at both her primary school and high school, because she was such a slow learner. In addition, she saw a psychologist twice a week for additional support. Around her thirteenth birthday, she had enough of people prodding at her and feeling like the odd one out, so she ran away from home with her father’s permission, who received a dream vision from Asteria, telling him to let their daughter go. She would soon find the wolf house and train there with Lupa until she was ready to make her way down to Camp Jupiter.

Unsurprisingly, Celia flourished at Camp. She joined the ballet school in New Rome, and quickly became one of its top students. After saving a centurion from poison, which she foresaw in her prophetic dreams, she was taken off probatio and placed in the third cohort, which appreciated her myriad of valuable skills as a demigod. Her smokescreens protected the legion during the war games and, in combination with her photokinesis, could cause temporary blindness to the opposing teams. She was also an excellent tracker because of her night vision.

Of course, this would all prove to be terribly ironic. When she was sixteen, in her third year of service, while on guard duty outside the Caldecott tunnel, a drakon made its way to the Roman entrance. The alarm was sounded, but before the first javelin could hit the massive drakon that had pinned Celia to the ground, the acidic venom from its open mouth had dripped into her eyes. The healers tried to save her first, then the specialized medics, then the surgeons of New Rome, but to no avail; she was permanently blinded, her retina damaged beyond repair. The third cohort had too much pride to be concerned with the burden of a blind legionnaire, so she was kicked out and forced to move to the city and learn how to live her life differently.

It was hard, as was to be expected. Her ballet teacher took her in when she had nowhere else to go, because Celia was practically homeless after the legion rejected her. After staying with her teacher for about half a year, she realized that her situation was never going to change, and she might as well give up her ballet dreams, which all seemed so childish in hindsight; who would care if she danced the part of Giselle, when her life was being threatened every day, as a soldier? Inevitably, she would just disappoint her teacher or give her false hopes, so she asked her best friend Puck for help; he persuaded his cousin to take Celia in, which is where she lived for the next year and a half.

Now that she’s eighteen, Celia deemed herself worthy of joining the legion once again. She trained with her best friend, who taught her everything he learned in the fifth cohort; her four remaining senses are heightened to what she believes is their maximum; and her smokescreens are even stronger than they used to be. Still, only the fifth cohort would take her, but this wasn’t a big deal. Even though it’s only part-time, and she still lives in New Rome with Puck’s cousin the majority of the time, she’s still a legionnaire again, and she found new purpose and room for her dreams. Even her feet are itching to stand onpointe again.

Para Sample:

“Celia, do you see that?”

She squinted against the light of the sun. In the distance, vaguely, she detected a whirlwind of fire - was that hair? - chasing a boy. He couldn’t be much older than sixteen, judging by his height and the way he was built, but he was running at lightning speed. Rapidly, Celia flipped through her mental index of monsters, searching for the species she would face in about three minutes.

Empousai. Vampire ladies that like to suck boys dry (but let’s be real, they probably hated girls too). Danger level: probably a seven out of ten. Weakness: mismatched legs, imperial gold, celestial bronze.

Your basic average monster, really. Readjusting her helmet, tightening her grip on her sword and focusing her gaze on the demigod running towards them, Celia stepped forward, before being stopped by her fellow guard. “He’s a graecus,” Marcus said, and she could see his frown deepening as he pointed towards the orange stripe that was faintly visible beneath the sweater. “What? Who cares, he’s gonna die if we don’t help him! Octavian is dead, so get your segregation bullshit away from me,” she hissed, after which she ran towards the Greek demigod, sensing that Marcus was following from the constant thud on the ground.

Every few steps, the demigod turned to slash at the empousa, but to no avail. She could see cuts on his arms, his sweater torn in multiple places, now that she was closer. “Edward Cullen would be very disappointed, lady!” she shouted in an attempt to distract the monster. Monsters. There were three of them. Marcus fought alongside her, yes, but very halfheartedly, and all while throwing insults at the Greek. Things about where he could stick his celestial bronze, how he should go back where he came from because he was the reason those monsters attacked now, and more stuff like that, but the new demigod had some very witty comebacks Celia was impressed by. “Can you boys maybe get over yourselves and… I don’t know,” she grunted, blocking a kick from a bronze hoof with her shield, “Help out a little?”

The rest of the battle was a blur, because her ADHD and instincts took over. When the monsters had crumbled to dust, finally, she cleaned some of their weirdly-colored blood from her sword with her shirt, staining it. Badass. Still panting, she ignored both of the boys and walked back towards the tunnel entrance, expecting them to follow. “I’m not letting him in,” Marcus grumbled. “Don’t be an asshole. Please, just let me in? I’m hungry and tired and I was almost vampire dinner.” After more protests from Marcus, Celia interrupted. “We’re taking him in, and that’s final. He’s not dying on my watch. What’s your name, Speedy?”

“Puck.”

“Cool. I’m Celia.”

“Celia, do you see that?”

Another day on guard duty, but this time, there was no demigod running towards her. Jake had joined her instead of Marcus, who’d been placed back on probatio after his little incident in the winter. The beast in the distance was bigger than they’d ever seen near camp, and the summer sun glinted off its scales, blinding Celia. “We can’t take it alone. Sound the alarm,” she said, already bolting towards the horn. Immediately, the battle cries of the Romans could be heard in the distance, but the drakon was accelerating. It would get to them before the campers did. She gulped. Jake, the bloody coward, had run inside the tunnel, screaming about the lizard to the coming troops, leaving Celia alone to deal with it. She had half a minute before it could get there.

Drakon. Do not confuse with dragon: much larger, much more deadly. Has its own sub-species, some of which can only be killed by children of Mars. Spews acidic venom. Danger level: solid 10/10. Weaknesses: none.

Just her luck. It was closer now. Her hand, the one holding her sword, was trembling. She’d never let her fear take over before, but she was paralyzed. Later, she’d learn that it wasn’t her fear, but the monster’s eyes that had caused her paralysis. She had no way of escape as the monster leaped at her, digging its claws into her shoulders and -

She screamed. All she could do was scream, even as the pressure left her chest after ten seconds, the drakon dropping dead after thirty, with approximately seventeen golden spears sticking out of its sides. At least, that was what Puck told her. Because she couldn’t see it.The pain wouldn’t leave her eyes for a solid month, the venom eating away at her retina, and eventually turning her eyes entirely white.

“Celia, do you see that? Oh, shit. Sorry.”

No. No, she doesn’t. And she never will.

#accepted #celia doherty

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