#since the last person that had her sold her locally

[possessedopossum]

Antivan crows treatment [obviously spoilers]

I do NOT agree with the popular sentiment that the crows got sanitized in this game. I DO have questions about crow related writing choices but this is not the choice I have problems with.

Showing one concept, event, place or a person from multiple perspectives is one of the core features of dragon age series. We always had different and sometimes contradicting views on the same thing. For example, the Circle as Vivienne sees it and the Circle as Anders sees it are two very different Circles. It's not bad writing, it's how biases, personal experiences and opinions work. I would like to remind you that Solas says about spirits' perspectives on Ostagar – no matter how different the visions are, they are both real.

Zevran and Lucanis are different as night and day. Obviously a whore's son (no offense) and first talon's grandchild would have different experiences. So would crow Rook, who gets special princess treatment from Viago, also a talon. So would Viago, who is the antivan king's bastard. So would Teia, who considers the crows her family, since she never had one to begin with. They all either joined the crows willingly or were born into it. They weren't sold to the crows by brothel madam like Zevran was.

And at the end of the day, the crows are still assassins. Even being first talon's favorite grandchild won't save you from abuse and literal torture. You are still supposed to undergo the harsh training that will leave you without food and water for days and Maker knows what else. You still work with people who strive for power and would do anything to obtain it. House Arannai changed 6 talons throughout 20 years. Half of the talons were murdered in tevinter nights by the traitor who sold them out to qunari. Dellamorte family almost got wiped out. Some npc casually says Viago would be very sad if he had to kill crow Rook but that he would still do it anyway if necessary. The crows literally made Jacobus, a literal child, full fledged assassin in front of our eyes. What other proof of crows being shitty people need? A quest line where we personally torture children? Do you really want this to be so on the nose?

Yes, the crows are treated like the good guys by the narrative and there are pretty good reasons for that. 1) We can play as a crow and it SHOULD give us, the player, a bias 2) There are more important tasks at hand. We are fighting gods. We aren't fighting for the wellbeing of Antiva, we are fighting for the wellbeing of reality itself. With such high stakes crows shittyness is absolutely irrelevant 3) The crows are Antiva's one and only defense. No matter how shitty they are, without them, it will be worse 4) Glorification of organized crime is a thing that happens in real life and I thought we liked our games somewhat realistic.

I can go as far as sharing some personal info on the last part. I like the crows very much because I grew up in the area so riddled with crime an average person from rich white neighborhood would lose their mind. The best governor our fucked up city ever had was the local gangster. Crime was family business to him and that's why he cared for the city more than other governors – his children would have to live here after he dies. The dude killed people for money but the city was finally clean and pretty and much safer than it used to be. I don't have a problem with antivan crows being batman-ized because I've seen so happen irl. Is it sad that sometimes only mafia can keep a city from falling apart? Yes. But it is real and that's why it is beautiful. Veilguard feels very realistic to me and I don't get the bad writing claims. I guess our governor wasn't realistic enough, I'll tell him if I meet his ghost.

The problem I have with the crows is how the Ivenci/Butcher plot was handled. It felt like it was rushed and added at the last moment. I'm not against Ivenci as a villain, I am simply mourning the lost potential. The plot could have been much better if Rook started to suspect something is wrong on their own. Extra scenes with Butcher to flesh out the character more would have benefited the quest line. I'm glad that Veilguard added some positive qunari rep with Taash and Shathann but there could have been more. Bioware could have told us WHY the Butcher decided to desert. He seems to have more respect for qunari philosophy than other antaam leaders. Why couldn't he stay with his Arishok, then? There is a huge difference between bad writing and the lack of writing. Ivenci and Butcher aren't badly written, they simply lack screen time.

My overall opinion of the game is very positive. Yeah, it could have been better. But it also could have been much worse. There could always been more time to plan, more tools to use, more choices to explore. But things never work out the way you want them to. I think given the circumstances and EA's desire to make live service games, bioware gave us their best shot. Regret is nothing but pride, vanity and a waste of time. The game itself says so. And I would rather enjoy the game as it is than waste my time thinking what it could have been.

[genericpuff]

no but listen, rachel has truly embodied herself as persephone because she's constantly trying to "distance herself" from her past as a medical fetish artist but then keeps the name that's affiliated with her medical fetish art-

Like, I can't believe I never noticed it before tbh, but that was the thought that hit me while I was explaining to someone on reddit what the name "used bandaid" meant and why it was weird that Rachel is STILL using it on her print cover books, even now when she just recently set up a new Facebook account with her REAL NAME and not the used_bandaid penname (I feel like this is an attempt to "legitimize" herself in the industry but idk).

But that leads me into talking about how she keeps lying about LO being her first webcomic project and that really pisses me off. And yes, this is related to the used_bandaid thing, just bear with me here.

A lot of my contempt for this is for reasons that go beyond her, I just hate the notion that people should succeed on their "first try" and that's an idea that's often sold by people like Rachel who spin these grandiose stories of how they were just "trying it out" and suddenly wham! Fame and fortune! You can achieve all this and more if you just xyz!

Literally, in every interview I've found over the past couple years, she always heavily implies that LO was her "first attempt", that she had never used Webtoons prior to LO, and that she was just "dipping her toes" into the medium. None of this is true, she's literally been drawing webcomics since the early 2000's (possibly earlier but the earliest documentation we can find is of The Doctor Pepper Show), LO wasn't even her first webcomic on the Webtoons platform (that goes to The Doctor Foxglove Show which she ended up dumping a chapter in to work on LO almost immediately after starting it on Tumblr) and as much as she'll claim she "couldn't pay anyone to look at her work", she had landed a number of gigs that got her work out there, had been printed in anthology collections, and IIRC she had even won some small local NZ awards for her comics prior to LO. Shit, there was a local beer brand that had her art on its labelling.

But it really feels like she's trying her damn hardest to hide all that, never mentioning or implying that she did anything prior to LO, that she was just a "struggling graphic artist working in retail" until LO happened.

So why keep the penname that's directly affiliated with that past identity ??

It boggles my mind, honestly, especially considering she had gone by MULTIPLE usernames back then, some of which were actually pretty sane that she could have used instead (such as Rach Alex, which she uses in her FB groups, and Rachel Royale).

I wouldn't blame her if she was trying to hide her old medical fetish stuff, whether she didn't want it affiliated with her new LO branding or if she's just embarrassed by it, I can totally empathize with that because god knows I wouldn't be all that proud to show off the cringy shit I got up to during my early days on the Internet. But if she IS embarrassed by it, you'd think the last thing she'd want to keep is the name that's directly affiliated with the thing she's embarrassed by. Almost like a certain pink protagonist who goes by the name she earned after doing the thing she doesn't want to talk about.

But if she ISN'T embarrassed by it, then why lie?

Why paint this picture that LO was a one hit wonder, that she lived on "struggle street" until she found fame and fortune on Webtoons?

Oh right. Because it's a better story.

Because it's way more romantic to be some struggling indie darling who "came from nothing" and achieved fame through one big idea. Because it looks good for the platform who's trying to attract people to their app and website on the promise that you, too, can be a success story simply because you followed the exact same perceived steps that you saw another person follow and advertise.

If you can't tell from my tone, I really fucking hate this kind of disingenuous wish fulfillment advertising. It's manipulative, it's cruel, and it sets people up with expectations far beyond their scope of reaching, both due to the luck and "being in the right place at the right time" involved at best (which is a HUGE factor in stories like these that people never talk about), or through joy-killing comparison at worst when you don't achieve worldwide fame on your first try and wonder why everyone else did (spoiler: they didn't, they just want you to think that because it makes for better headlines and it gets you using whatever product they're affiliated with.)

If Rachel doesn't want to be tied down to her past, that's fine. But it's incredibly irresponsible and flat out cruel to lie about that past existing at all because it sets a horrible precedent to those who look up to her and want what she has.

And I say all that because I've seen what happens to the people starting out who admire these creators who painted the picture that they were just successful right off the bat. It's not a fun headspace to be in, it's robbed many creators like myself and others of their joy in creating, and it's really all just a ploy to get you to spend time and money and energy on a stupid corporate phone app that profits off your emotional investment and labor. Don't fall for it. Pretending like the Act of Wrath didn't happen doesn't remove it from history.

Anyways, I was gonna leave it at that, but then I ended up doing another rabbithole deep dive through her Wayback Machine and found album art she had illustrated for NZ band PorcelainToy. Enjoy this piece of her "dark era" art that still exists without needing to use the Wayback Machine.

[small-sinclair]

Hello :3 Imagine this, Bo Sinclair x future s/o that's having major car troubles. The reader seeks out the help of a local mechanic (Bo <3) but absolutely doesn't know how to react when the said mechanic decides to get all flirty. The reader becomes embarrassed -they don't know how to handle such advances but they have a massive crush on the stranger. I can picture Bo getting so cocky at being able to turn them into such a blushing mess with just mere words. Sadly the car "can't" be fixed anytime soon so the reader "has" to stay around much longer than expected. Now, I do suspect that you might be raising your brows at the quotation marks but there is an explanation behind them - an explanation which neither Bo nor his future SO are willing to admit. The car isn't truly in such a bad condition. A quick minor repair could have done the trick, the troublemakers both simply didn't want to part ways. The reader secretly disconnected a cable, while Bo decided to remove some spark plug leads or they did something else to make the car not run, while the other person wasn't looking. Thank you for reading, I know that this request is massive and super duper loaded. I will be grateful for anything you decide to do with it and of course, feel free to edit and change the idea as much as your heart desires. At the end of the day, this is all about us having fun and I know I'm going to love whatever you come up. -Snake, your internet fan ^u^

I love this one! I would do the same, honestly :3 . I tried my best with this one.

Soulmate AU

Bo x reader

Contains: Bo tries to kill you, stealing car parts

You weren't supposed to be in Ambrose this long, both you and Bo can agree on that, but the both of you didn't regret it.

Besides, that's how soulmates work, right? As soon as he felt that ping in his chest and the pull in his heart, he was already yours without you needing to breath his name.

At first, it was your break pads needing repaired along with the break line being cut, but you didn't know that he took the clippers and did the cut. Instead, he told you it'll take a week before the part comes in, forcing you to stay in Ambrose at his home.

Bo wanted to kill you at first, but the way you smiled and worked so easily within his life... it's like your the last piece in his heart puzzle. His mother told him that it would be a miricel before anyone would love him including his soulmate, but you made it look so easy that it made him want to cry. He actually did cry on the fourth night you were here. His heart was bursting and beating so fast that he didn't know what to do. On one hand was his mother's legancy, in the other was thoughts of you being called Y/n Sinclair. When he crept into your room, he was ready to kill you. He raised his knife high above his head and was about to bring it down, but the moon had other plans. She cast her soft glow over your skin and soft lips. You looked like an angel sleeping in one of his old shirts. Bo's heart ached and bleed. He lowered his knife and left the room.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, you fell to his knees and cried silently in his hands. You were it. You were his soulmate.

But weren't making this easy for him. His house truly felt like a home as soon as you stepped into the living room.

Your smile and laughter, how you looked at Vincent without fear, and how you loved on Jonesy and Lester as if you knew them since forever, Bo wanted you to stay, but he knew he couldn't have you. That doesn’t mean he should give up trying to have you stay, though. How he got you to stay longer was stealing the transmitter and spark plugs.

For you? You were just as sneaky as him.

The moment you laid eyes on him, you were in love. You know he was your soulmate as soon as that ping in your chest chimed. It's like something clicked in your brain when he wiped the sweat from his brow and button his work uniform, his smile painting a sunrise, and the way he looked talked and acted-- you were sold.

At first, you acted disappointed when he said you had to stay a week with him and his family until the part came in, but you felt as if you were home as soon as you helped wash the dishes after your first dinner there while staying still long enough for Vincent to draw you. When he told you about the transmitter and the spark plugs along with the unfortent news that you had to say another week, you were more than happy.

Back at the house, you made yourself useful with cleaning, cooking, gardening, and talking. Whenever you were with Bo, you two worked so well with each other that it scared Vincent and Lester. It's like you two knew a dance that was never taught, and it was beautiful.

As the ping grew, you felt like he was made for you. He would talk to you while he leaned in the doorway of your room, hands in his pockets. He felt as if it was so easy to talk to you about his dreams and hopes, and you felt like you could talk to him forever about your past and your ideas of a future home. One night, you two stayed up in until you fell asleep on his shoulder in your room. You two sat on the floor in front of Vincent's old bed as you talked about the best times and worst times until four in the morning. Around you, an empty pizza box along with empty bottles laid around you two.

“Wanna stay?” You asked sleepily. “Just until the sun comes up?”

His answer was a smile and his arms pulling you in.

You wanted to stay forever after learning about your soulmate, but you'll only stay if he wants you too. However, you didn't want to wait for an answer. While his back was turned after putting on the spark plugs, you cut two wires in your car. What were they for? You didn't know.

He slammed the hood on the car and started it up, but it didn't turn. Smiling to yourself, you knew he would have you stay another two nights, and Bo was okay with this.

So, how long did this game of tag go? You taking parts while he broke some?

Well, Lester and Vincent let this game go on for two months. Clearly, they knew what was going on as soon as Bo had Vincent hide your car keys while you had Lester hide your car battery.

"Why can't they just kiss and call it?" Lester complained after watching Bo hide the spark plugs again.

Vincent shrugged while he held out the second set of break lines you took off the car. 'This has to stop, man. I don't know if I can take anymore of this.'

Lester watched as Bo and you danced around each other, both speaking about the missing parts and dinner. You’re thinking spaghetti. “Simps, the lot of them.”

You've been in Ambrose for five months when you felt the ping in your chest tighten. It was so hard that it knocked the wind out of your lungs. You were in the middle of bringing out dinner when it happened, and you dropped the food and fell to the floor. Bo felt the pain, too, as he held he gripped his shirt tightly and coughed.

Lester helped you stand and brought you to the chair before he started cleaning the mess. Vincent brought you water and rubbed your back.

Bo? He went outside and had a cigarette on the porch. He racked his brain until he couldn't take it anymore. To make it stop, to make the pain go away, he had to tell you. He knew you felt the same based off everything, but he didn't know how to tell you about the missing car parts and how he was destroying your car.

That's when he heard you tell Lester to put the battery back into the car and return the wires once he walked through the door.

You made eye contact with him and looked down at the table.

He couldn't believe it. You... you were doing the same thing as him.

Bo let a smile leave as he knelt in front of you, taking your hands in his, and said, "I was doin' the same."

You raised a brow. "What?"

"I've been stealing parts of your car to make you stay," he said, shaking his head, laughing. "I was doin' it because of 'is whole soulmate thing--"

"So, you feel the ping, too?" You asked. "It's been tearing me apart for months!" You smiled at him as the warm feeling around your heart eased. "Here I thought I was going crazy and feeling bad about breaking my car..." you shake your head and smile. "Bo, we are meant to be."

“Sure are, darlin’,” he drawled, laughing He met your smile and kissed your knuckles. As soon as his lips touched your skin, his heart eased and the pain left. He looked up at you with hopeful eyes then asked, "Does that mean I have to fix your car still?"

"Only if you let me give you the tools."

[nahisummerhold]

The Picture

Nahi had received a package, she had left forwarding information but she hadn’t really expected anything in the post except a letter or two that always came. A  bill here invitations for her to sing, that sort of thing. Today though, there was a cardboard tube with a note. 

“Miss Nahilvi, 

I would hope you remember me, you purchased a couple painting’s of mine from the Hoverbahm Gallery a few months back, I was there so you politely asked me to have tea. I am an old man and that sweet act and your compliments on my art made me feel so much younger. I hadn’t painted anything in a time, but you found what I had done as inspired and told me that you would be hanging them in your rehearsal studio. That a beautiful young woman like you would find inspiration in this old man made me feel young again. 

I hope you enjoy the enclosed, I have a feeling I will not be living much longer and I will not leave my home as others suggest.  Dalaran has been my home for as long as I can remember and no matter what I stay with it. I have put in this container some of the art I have not sold for personal reasons, I wish you to have it, or to find a good home for it.

With these pictures, I have added a piece that I have painted since I met you. That night I had a dream and I was inspired to create this for you and that I was on a timeline for it. I do not believe I will see you again, or many people, in fact. All of these have legally been transferred to you and I hope you will find them as beautiful as the others, but mostly the the last piece that you were the inspiration for. 

Yours sincerely,

Oddital Agreilane

Nahi remembered the conversation, it felt like the old Quel’dorei was just lonely and he had told her of troubles with money and that he was selling his art to try and make ends meet. The pieces were perfect for what she was looking for, so she bought a couple more since he needed the money and they were the first she had hung in her studio. 

That poor man.

Nahi stood, suddenly she had something to do, picking up the hearth that would take her to her home’s garden and began to invoke it. The instant she tried to use it a magical blast sent her back against the wall.

She had no sense of time when she woke all she knew was that her head hurt and she was still holding the stone in her hand but when she opened it the stone was in shards some buried deep into her palm. Rising up, she felt a little dizzy, she checked her head there was no blood, that meant she needed to take care of her hand and figured out what happened. 

It took longer than she would have expected because those instruments of magic had been shoved deep into her hand. Eventually, when they were all removed and bandaged, she stepped out of her apartment but no one was around so she made her way outside, all about her were people yelling about Dalaran, none of it made sense. Running to the local guard station and they were making an announcement for people to calm, they had heard news about Dalaran but nothing was substantiated. Oh Sun, what did that mean? 

Moving around the corner she pulled out her comm unit to reach out to Pathyn, his balcony had a view of the floating city, itself. Five missed messages.

Pathyn: Are you okay? Were you in the city? 

Two minutes later.

Pathyn: Come on Nahi.

Almost simultaneously.

Kyean: Nahi, darlin’ are you alright?

Five minutes.

Pathyn:  Nahi, if you do not answer , I will come to you.

Ten minutes.

Kyean: Path is worried, we are coming to find you.

That was an hour ago, well shit.

Nahi to Pathyn: I am alright, just been looking for information on what happened. Are you okay? What is happening? 

Pathyn: Thank fuck! There is so much going on, Kye and I having to come find you was a delay we didn’t need. Dalaran is missing, what we have heard was that there were threat of attack and they were going to portal the city. Next, communications were that it was gone and people were on some new lands, fighters are on their way there. 

Kyean: It’s been hours. Are you alright? 

Hours, how long had she been knocked out for? 

As she was reading this another message came through from Commander Dal’shula. There it was, she was heading to the battle. Get her kit make sure it was in order and ready herself for tomorrow.

Nahi to Pathyn: Tell the large man hovering over your shoulder I am fine, just have been out gathering information on what happened.

Pathyn: Since you responded he has stopped saying he would track you down, Illi-daddy.

Kyean to Pathyn and Nahi:  Stop calling me that, you have no idea how often we hear that. It’s gross really.

Nahi in new group text: Then stop acting like I need protecting. I am a big girl, can tie my own sandals and everything. I have to go get ready my call came in, I will keep in touch.

Pathyn to group: Be safe, *you* keep in touch. Will miss you.

Kyean to group: If you need anything text one of us. We will be heading there shortly, if you need us we will be close.

Nahi to group: Hope to see you soon.

Kyean to group: Even me?

Pathyn to group: Even him?

Nahi to group: Okay, maybe not him. You guys be safe too. 

With that she put her device in her bag and headed for the apartments. When she go to her room the tube of portraits caught her eye. Did he know what was to come? What had she inspired? 

Opening the package, she began to unfold what was there. The very top piece stopped her. It was beautiful. It took her breath away. It was her.

(Thank you @kissfortheelves for the amazing commission and the inspiration for so much RP to come)

(@talonoa for mention) 

[kon4ka]

Challenge: Drawing D&D classes - Topic 9 - Inventor

⚙ Inventor Artilleryman - Reese ⚙

Race: Human Origin: Aristocrat (Noble)

If anyone guessed where I mentioned it before, give yourself 5+ for intuition.

📒Background: Yes, she is the same “daughter of the duke”, at whose request Kenku the Squall Priest was ransomed from the pirates. All her life she grew up in prosperity, but she was restless and poked her nose everywhere. Her father is a Duke, who rules a small port city and especially its shadow and illegal world. He doted on his daughter and spoiled her very much. When Reese was a teenager, her father was framed by his rival, who entered into an agreement with one of the devils. Reese's father was executed, and she herself was saved because Kenku, who understood much earlier, that smells like something fried, forcefully dragged her onto a pirate ship and they left the city before they were captured. For a very long time, Reese was angry with the whole world, especially with Kenka, because he did not let her stay and beat up the killer on the first day. Moreover, she was suddenly thrown out of her luxurious life and found herself in the company of illiterate pirates… For a long time, For a very long time she was withdrawn and very suspicious; she was distrustful even of Kenku, whom she had known since childhood. But after a while, she perked up and decided to work with what she had, gather strength and return to get even with her father’s killer once and for all and reclaim the city.

Her skills were very useful to both pirates and ordinary sailors, she was an excellent map drawer, and as a result, she and Kenku, who became the priest of Valkur, traveled around the world in search of unique treasures and accumulated strength for the uprising. She also sold several of her inventions, and the harbor in which they established a base began to look like a tawdry monster, where the genius of the design coexisted with the inept implementation. Kenku helped her to the best of his ability and seemed to enjoy bringing her ideas to life with the help of “stealed” skills of copying and imitation. She created a windsurf that can fold down to a very small size and does not always require wind to sail.

✒ Personality: Cheerful, a real “lighter” who is for any boiling and drinking, fearless in a sense. Literally obsessed with drawings and maps, constantly striving to optimize everything. Can draw almost anything, from a map and the structure of a distillation apparatus, to a ship and a tower. Does not like and cannot sit still, constantly forgets about that not all people are “cute and fluffy”, and still believes in people. She is a little selfish, not used to caring about others or herself (in everyday matters at least). She is artistic and loves to show off, for which she would get a punch in the nose if Kenku weren’t around. Her kindness, bordering on naivety, often wins others over, but in disputes he does not give concessions and can even get into a fight for his ideas.

🪢 Skills: Very flexible, knows how to windsurf and feel the wind. He is able to draw and draw, showing the internal structure of almost all things in the world, and even those that he does not know very well from the inside. Since she was an aristocrat, she learned manners from childhood, etiquette, playing instruments and other such things. She sews well.

Features: Wears blueprints of things that might be useful under her skirt. Almost all of her drawings, especially those that she made only when she ended up with the pirates, were burned or carved into the skin, because paper drawings were not the best material at sea and did not last long. Dressed in old clothes A dress altered twenty times, in which she once ran away. A pince-nez with a sight, in a bun in the hair there is a broken powerful artifact that looks like a hairpin (these are local references).

RU

⚙ Изобретатель Артиллерист - Риз ⚙

Раса: Человек Происхождение: Аристократ (Благородный)

Если кто-то догадался, где я раньше её упоминала - поставьте себе 5+ за интуицию.

📒 Предыстория: Да, она та самая "дочка герцога", по просьбе которой Кенку Жреца Шквала выкупили у пиратов. Всю жизнь росла в достатке но была неугомонна и везде совала свой нос. Её отец герцог, управляющий небольшим портовым городом а особенно его теневым и нелегальным миром. Души не чаял в дочери и очень баловал её. Когда Риз была подростком, её отца подставил его конкурент, заключивший соглашение с кем-то из дьяволов. Отца Риз казнили, а сама она спаслась потому, что Кенку, который гораздо раньше понял, что пахнет жаренным, силой затащил её на пиратский корабль и они покинули город раньше, чем их схватили. Очень долго Риз была зла на весь свет, особенно на Кенку, что он не дал ей остаться и накостылять убийце по первое число. К тому же её вдруг выкинули из роскошной жизни и она оказалась в обществе неграмотных пиратов… Долго, очень долго она была замкнута в себе и очень подозрительна, она относилась с недоверием даже к Кенку, которого знала с детства. Но через некоторое время она воспряла духо�� и решила работать с тем, что есть собрать силы и вернуться, чтобы раз и навсегда поквитаться с убийцей её отца и вернуть себе город. Её навыки очень пригодились и пиратам и простым морякам, она превосходно чертила карты, в итоге она и Кенку, ставший жрецом Валкура путешествовали по свету в поисках уникальных сокровищ и копили силы для восстания. Она так же продавала несколько своих изобретений, а гавань, в которой они обосновали базу стала походить на аляпистое чудовище, где гениальность конструкции соседствовала с неумелым воплощением. Кенку помогал ей в меру сил и кажется получал удовольствие, воплощая её идеи в жизнь при помощи "сворованных" навыков копирования и подражания. Создала виндсёрф, который может сложиться до совсем небольших размеров и чтобы плыть на котором не всегда нужен ветер.

✒ Характер: Весёлая, настоящая "зажигалка", которая за любой кипишь и пьянку, бесстрашная в каком-то смысле. Буквально одержима чертежами и картами, все время стремиться всё оптимизировать. Может начертить почти что угодно, от карты и устройства перегонного аппарата, до корабля и башни. Не любит и не может сидеть на месте, постоянно забывает о том, что не все люди "милые и пушистые", и всё ещё верит в людей. Немного эгоистична, не привыкла заботится ни о других, ни о себе (в бытовых вопросах по крайней мере). Артистична и любит выпендриваться, за что получала бы по носу, если бы рядом не было Кенку. Её доброта, граничащая с наивностью часто располагает к себе других, но в спорах не даёт поблажек и за свои идеи может и в драку полезть.

🪢 Навыки: Очень гибкая, умеет плавать на виндсёрфе и чувствовать ветер. В состоянии нарисовать и расчертить, показывая внутреннее устройство почти всех вещей на свете, и даже тех, которые не очень хорошо знает изнутри. Поскольку была аристократкой, с детства училась манерам, этикету, игре на инструментах и прочим подобным вещам. Недурно шьёт.

✨ Особенности: Носит под юбкой чертежи того, что может пригодиться. Почти все её чертежи особенно те, что она делала только оказавшись у пиратов были выжжены или вырезаны на коже, потому как бумажные чертежи не лучший материал в море и не жили долго. Одета в старое, двадцать раз перешитое платье, в котором когда-то сбежала. Пенсне с прицелом, в пучке в волосах сломанный сильнейший артефакт, выглядящий как заколка (это локальные отсылки).

[b-afterhours]

Avenue of Sins: Neon

A Sequel to Avenue of Sins

SUMMARY: ‘90s. It’s the aftermath. Jaded, Bill and Alma navigate their new lives as they try to drag themselves out of the dark debaucherous trenches they had once ensnared themselves in. It’s easy to forget their evils when a silver lining introduces itself into their lives but can they create a less hedonistic life that would be just as satisfying?

WARNINGS: adult content, mature readers only.

Author's note: Again, thank you all so much for reading! This is the conclusion of AOS. It's another long chapter to enjoy. I plan to have one shot posted soon that'll show some parts I was unable to fit within the main story. Thanks again. Lots of love x

Epilogue

Summer 1994

Ulyssa was back in Seattle for the summer after being away in New York for school. She was sitting on top of the cash wrap counter at Sheisty Sound Records, finger-weaving a friendship bracelet on pink dye-stained digits for Ash, who was pricing CDs next to her. 

“Who’s playing on the speakers?” A young man asked out loud. 

The women both turned towards him. He was a wiry, nerdy-looking guy, holding onto an easy-listening record. They informed him of the band playing in unison and giggled. 

“They’re playing here in two months,” Ulyssa informed with a polite smile. 

"Sold out show," Ash winked at him, pressing the trigger of the pricing gun pointed at him.

The door chimes sounded, and in came Alma, looking a bit flustered, but she put on a smile for them when they greeted her. She was in a tight cap-sleeve shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans cinched with a black designer belt. 

“Hey!” She said, approaching them after swerving around a customer. “Your hair looks so good, ‘Lys!” She complimented her pink shaggy pixie cut.

“Doesn’t it!” Ash said in agreement.

“E’ is going to be so obsessed when she sees it! Uhm,” Alma placed her hands on her hips and took on a more serious tone. “Did the light fixture guy come by with a delivery this morning?” 

Sheisty Sound had been going through various repairs and upgrades since the beginning of the year under the new ownership. Once Lewis gave Bill the keys a week before he and his family left for New York for the holidays, they began drawing up a timeline. 

~~~

It was a chilly, drizzly day in November when Bill met Lewis on a Sunday after hours. He had his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket and pulled the fabric tighter against his body while he walked to the store. He showed up alone, of course. Alma and the baby stayed home, waiting anxiously for him. It was a big day for them, but as far as they knew, Lewis still hadn’t any idea his employee was in a relationship with the gentleman purchaser from New York.

Bill knocked on the store door, but through the glass, he saw Lewis seemingly doing one last private walk-through of his beloved record shop. Once Lewis unlocked the door for Bill, they greeted each other with a handshake and began congratulating and thanking each other. Walking through the shop together, Lewis asked what his plans were for the shop now that he had full reign. Of course, Bill and Alma wanted to upgrade areas of the shop and venue and add little personal touches without losing the charm of the place the locals loved so much. 

“I’ll have to pay a visit once things are settled,” Lewis said while they stood in the office. 

“For sure,” Bill nodded. “We would love that.” Bill noticed a slight shift in Lewis when he uttered the plural, ‘we’. “Um, so after today, Cancun?” He quickly asked to cover his mistake.

“Yup. My wife Helen and I fly there in a week. The whole family will be there for the holidays this year.” He smiled. “And you?” 

“I’m going to New York, where it won’t be as warm.” Bill chuckled. 

“With your family?” 

“Mhmm. My partner and daughter.” He adjusted the brim of his black baseball cap, feeling a little awkward. 

“You know,” Lewis paused and crossed his wrists behind his back. “I have an employee here who is going to New York for the holidays too.” 

“Uh huh,” Bill licked his lips. He wanted to smirk, having realized they were caught, but he refrained. “And she has a kid about my daughter's age too?” He said for Lewis before he could disingenuously question. Lewis stood there, looking up at him for an explanation. “We should have told you.” 

“Well isn’t that something… I wasn’t too happy to learn about it, frankly. I was rather upset about being deceived.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He said just to placate him, he was hardly sorry at all. “How long have you known?” 

“Since Darby’s wedding.” 

Bill tilted his head, surprised by that. Lewis had known for months and held on to the fact until now. 

“Were we obvious?” 

“No. I’m a bit impressed by your acting.” He had to admit. 

“Could I ask how, then?” 

Lewis sighed. “As I left the wedding, I ran into Gregory in the parking lot. I think he was getting stoned in his van, but he mentioned your coupling in conversation. I guess by accident?”

He knew it would be someone from the record shop who would blow their cover, but he never suspected it would be Gregory. He kept to himself so much that Bill could hardly read him. Even Alma couldn’t pin him down at times. What Bill could sometimes sense was that Gregory didn't care for him at all. Ulyssa let it slip that he was a strip club owner, and he felt validated in his suspicions about him. Whether he told by accident or meant to sabotage was still surprising. 

“I see.” Bill leaned on the office door frame, crossing his arms. “We should have been upfront. We felt that it would have been a conflict of interest, you know. And I really wanted this to go through.” 

“It almost didn’t,” Lewis revealed. “I told you I was upset. My wife and I went home, and she had to hear me gripe about it. I was so close to calling Sam Goody and letting them have at this place, but my wife talked some sense into me.” 

Helen could tell Lewis was more upset at the thought of being officially detached from the family record store. It was hard to hand over, and the deceit began to make him second guess. She couldn't have that; she was so close to her dream retirement. Besides, business was business at the end of the day. It just so happened that the handsome buyer from New York knew when to hold and play his hand better than most. 

“It was Sam Goody that I was up against?” Bill chuckled in disbelief. 

“It was! But they wouldn’t have honored anything I’ve said. Unlike you?” He raised a skeptical brow at Bill.

“I’m not firing anyone.” He assured.

“Not even Gregory?” Lewis chuckled. 

“Nah,” he chuckled. “He’s getting a dollar raise along with everyone else. Darby is staying as the general manager and will be on salary at the start of the year.” 

When he and Darby went on their lunch meeting at a country club his family was members of, Bill laid out his plans for his role at the store. They negotiated a bit about his yearly salary, but once everything was square between them, they ended up enjoying an evening out. A late one they didn’t expect to have, which caused both their respective partners to be a bit upset because neither could get a hold of either of them. Alma wouldn’t have been upset, but it was the fact that Darby’s wife called her worried and made it a problem. It was as if they were two boys, and Darby was out with the bad kid. The men arrived at their respective dwellings, three sheets to the wind, via cab. 

“Oh! Good deal,” said Lewis. “Well, looks like you know what you're doing. I mean, I kinda figured that myself over our email correspondences. But it’s good you have Alma. You know, when she had the baby, she took off for a bit but promised to return. She kept my books in order better than Darby, and I was close to making him visit her to make sure she would come back, but luckily she turned up on her own. So—you two meet in New York?” 

Bill scratched the back of his neck. “No, we’ve known each other for a long time now.” 

“Ah, yeah. She’s definitely someone you’d want to keep by your side for sure. Smart.”

Lewis passed a large ring of labeled keys to Bill, and they shook hands, completing their deal. They promised to keep in touch, and now Bill was alone inside the record shop he now owned. He called Alma from the store telephone he now owned, and now she was on her way to meet him. He was busy matching keys to locks around the place when she walked in with Echo through the front door, which he didn’t bother to lock. Both of them came in happily, skipping towards him, together in their family business.

~~~

“Yeah, I told the guy to put them backstage,” Ash informed Alma. She had been such a good asset to her since they switched roles, always on top of things, and very organized, which Alma appreciated. 

“Oh good, thanks.” The door chimes sounded once again, which caused Alma to turn her head towards it. 

Ulyssa noticed Alma glare at Bill when he entered, and he gave it right back to her. Scowling under his brow, displeased. 

“Uhm, I’m going to go check on that,” she quickly said and began walking away even quicker. 

Bill promptly greeted the employees as politely as he could, but he still looked tense. He was dressed in a long-sleeved black tee and well-fitting jeans, but this summer he was sporting a buzz cut. It was late at night when he did it impulsively, bored and stoned in the apartment, while Alma was out with friends. 

He hadn’t established a proper barber in Seattle yet and just got rid of it. He was lying in bed in the dark when she arrived, undressing and speaking to him, completely unaware. It wasn’t until she was out of the shower she climbed into bed with him, leaning over for a kiss, that she paused. In the dark, she could sense something wasn’t right with him. 

“What happened?” 

“What?” 

She startled him slightly when she swiftly climbed over and straddled him to turn his bedside lamp on. She gasped when she saw what he had done. 

“It’s hair. It’ll grow out.” He said, feeling a little embarrassed about it now that his high was gone. Alma ran her hands through the short hair, which Bill thought felt quite nice, and smiled. 

“I don’t hate it.” She leaned down and kissed the top of his shorn head. 

Ulyssa watched Bill briskly catch up to Alma weaving between record tables, but she shrugged him off when he grabbed her arm. 

“What the fuck A’? I wasn’t done talking to you.” Bill could be overheard saying to her. He hooked his finger in one of her belt loops to keep her from straying away.

“I was fucking done. I told you. I told you I paid for the delivery already. You can’t just write checks out like it’s nothing without me knowing. Now I have to—” 

That was all that Ulyssa was able to overhear as they walked away to the stage area. 

“What’s up?” Ash asked her, noticing her worry. 

“Oh,” Ulyssa lightly shrugged. “They’ve been arguing a lot,” she grimaced. 

“Oh. Yeah,” Ash said, unbothered as she dismissively waved her hand. “But like, you know it’s not for real, right?” 

“What do you mean?” Ulyssa asked, noticing a coy look on Ash’s face. 

“It’s like foreplay for them.” Ash laughed when Ulyssa got red in the face. “You know they’re some freaks!” 

“Oh yeah, these are nice,” Bill said, crouched down backstage looking through the boxes, poking at the contents with the tip of a pocket knife to make sure nothing was broken during transit. “These are better than what we have at the club.” 

“And apparently, they don’t get as hot as the stage lights we have now,” Alma informed.

They had been following the timeline they had written and were still on schedule. Luckily, part of the deal Bill made with Lewis involved having the roof fixed on his part before everything became official. A big project they were able to avoid.

So they started with the next dire situation. The bathrooms. It was on top of their list, underlined multiple times. They were gutted first thing, as they looked and smelled like the embodiment of hell. Bill and Alma knew it wouldn’t be realistic, believing they wouldn’t be defaced at all, so once they were back open for business, the record crew had a graffiti party. Tagging the newly painted walls with magic markers and drippy paint pens. Matt happily took the opportunity to draw the first dick in the men’s stall. 

So far after that, the stage had been reinforced, the threat of possibly caving in was gone, and the old dusty, cigarette-smelling stage curtain had been replaced. Once the new light fixtures were up, they could finally transition to fixing the main shop by giving it a few tweaks here and there. First with the office until they could finally focus on the outside. Adding a large neon theater-style marquee.

Bill straightened up. “Before you slammed the fucking car door in my face,” he smirked. “I was trying to tell you that the realtor called.” 

“About the house? Is everything fine?” She said worried. 

“Yeah. He called to tell me we can pick up the keys tomorrow.” He let out a strained groan, caught off guard when she jumped into his arms excitedly, but then he smiled.

…

Closer to the beginning of the year, Bill was alone in the apartment when the realtor unexpectedly called. He was packing for a short visit to New York but had taken a break to check his email. There wasn’t anything in his inbox to note except a stupid chain email from Giancarlo. He had replied to him: Don’t send me this shit.

He got up to grab a pickle spear from a jar in the fridge and began walking back to the room to resume his packing when the phone rang. He groaned and rolled his eyes as he turned his tracks to answer. 

“Mm,” he said, still chewing. “Hello?” 

“Mr. Skarsgård?” 

“Mhmm.” He swallowed. 

“Hey, it’s Chase.” 

“Oh,” he cleared his throat. “Hey.”

“I was hoping you and Miss Lucio wouldn’t happen to be busy today. I’m at a showing, but my client rescheduled. However, if you’ve got the time, I’m happy to show you all this home. It’s a bit out of the city, though. I know Miss Lucio wanted to remain within city limits, but…”

“How far is it?” 

“About a thirty, forty-minute drive from the city.�� Without traffic, he finished in his head. “I really think you should take a look.” 

Bill quickly pulled a charcoal hoodie over the white tank he wore and left the loose-fitting pants he had on. After tying his Vans shoes, he was out the door and in the Jeep, taking another glance at the address he had written down and the directions Chase had given him. 

He decided to see the home on his own. Alma had taken Echo to the record shop that day, and with the property being out of the way, he wanted to check if it was even worth bringing them along later. It felt that they had seen so many houses at this point that the search just started to feel more like a job rather than a pleasant daydream. It was taking much too long to move out of the small, cramped apartment they were living in. After Bill found a note on the front door complaining about the noise from their unit, the itch to leave worsened.

As he left the city, the landscape became veridian and dense with tall mossy trees. He turned on a winding road, and he could see homes through the breaks the long driveways provided. They were rather large homes, but they all seemed to look newly built and felt too boring. Bill and Alma wanted something with some history, with leftover character they could build on. 

He slowed down to check the address and search for the road he was told to turn left at, and saw it just ahead. Just a bit later, he arrived, taking the long driveway and parking right underneath a breezeway connecting the four-car garage and the house. The style of it looked different from the home; it was an addition. The home stood tall and wide. He took note of the large windows and the surrounding acreage. There were neighbors on this road, but the tree cover fencing the property provided privacy that you couldn’t get in intercity Seattle. 

He put his black cap on, exited the Jeep, and looked at the foundational brick skirting of the home as he walked down the length of the driveway and continued up the top of the arching drive to meet Chase at the front door. He had on his megawatt smile when he shook Bill’s hand. 

“Hope it wasn’t too hard to find.” 

“Nah,” Bill said, looking at the home while anxiously jingling the car keys in the palm of his half-fisted hand. “This is quite big. How many rooms are there?” 

“Just come on and look for yourself.” He said, nudging his head for him to follow.

After going through the vestibule, it opened up to the living room. It had large, vaulted ceilings with tall windows, and a fireplace, and there was a mezzanine with a library at the top. Chase was grateful that his client looked genuinely surprised as his eyes scanned the room. He quickly learned he couldn’t help his clients settle on a property, in fact, they were a bit dismissive when he tried. He found Bill and his partner quite picky. Always bickering about the most inane aspects. Sometimes they even offended him because some things they hated he secretly loved. 

“And Miss Lucio?” Chase inquired. 

His eyes flicked down at him. “At work,” he sighed. “I just came to see if it was worth dragging her out here for.” He said honestly, maybe too honest for Chase. “She really does want to live in the city—but.” 

“You know what? Why don’t you have a look around yourself? I’ll be in the den if you have questions about anything.” 

“There’s a den too?” Bill asked intrigued. 

Bill took a look around and was pleased with what he was seeing. It was hitting all the needs and wants he felt Alma had, too. It had five bedrooms and the appropriate amount of bathrooms. The dining room was stereotypical, but it was nothing to complain about. The large kitchen, with an island and breakfast nook, impressed him. He was in the primary bedroom, checking out the hardwood floors and the large walk-in closet, when he noticed a narrow entryway tucked in a corner. At first, he assumed it to be a randomly placed powder room, but as he turned the rounded corner, he discovered a small sitting area. Windows were facing the backyard, and there was a small metal fireplace right out of the 70s. Bill found it a bit bizarre and out of place but fascinating at the same time. 

In the room, there was a narrow, encased staircase leading down, and he discovered the den where Chase was sitting with crossed legs reading an old issue of Vogue on a couch. 

“I see you found the private sitting area!” He stood up, smoothing his salmon-colored button-down. “You could always make it into an office too.” 

“Right. Pretty cool thing to find.” Bill glanced out the window to the backyard and noticed the large porch and the stone walkway to the garden. 

“Check this out, though.” Chase walked over to a tall, standing bookshelf and slid it back into place, acting as a secret door to the room above. 

“Oh, sick!” 

“Right! Have you checked out the basement yet? It’s been redone by the previous owners. It’s like having an apartment below you.” 

“Yeah. That’s really nice too.” Bill said, turning towards him. “Why are the owners selling this place?” He wondered. 

“The gentleman of the home is relocating for work. He works in oil and gas. And no, no one has died here either.” He said because some way or another either he or Alma would jokingly ask. While it was a valid question, Chase found their gallows humor a bit tasteless. “The house was built in ‘68. There’s a really great Montessori preschool opening in town, and there’s a grocery store ten minutes away.” 

Bill nodded. “Uhm. How long are you here for?” 

“You’re my last showing here. I have another one to go to.” 

“Could you do me a favor?” He asked, smiling at the man, knowing he’d get his way from him. 

…

Alma was surprised to see Bill suddenly enter the office, jiggling the car keys again, while she was on a call. It wasn’t time for her to get off the clock, so to speak. She didn’t have to punch her time card anymore and made her schedule, but she wasn’t expecting to see him for a couple of hours to get picked up.

Echo was asleep in her mother’s arms while she spoke on the phone while soothingly swiveling in the office chair. He gently picked their daughter up, and Alma smiled at him as she stretched her arm out. She pushed the sleeves of her oversized knit sweater up her forearms, which she wore over a long maxi dress and heeled boots.

When Alma finished her call, she found Bill sitting on the edge of the stage watching his daughter run around happily after rising in his arms. When she saw him at first, she could tell he was eager to tell her something but refrained, seeing she was busy. She worried that he had come to tell her he changed his flight and that he would be leaving earlier than expected. Bill scooped up Echo in his arms and closed the space far quicker to reach Alma. They kissed, and he took her hand, leading them out of the shop. 

“What’s going on, babe?”

“Chase called about a house.”

He could feel Alma taking several glances at him as he drove further and further away from Seattle. They had just driven over a truss bridge, and you could see a cascade of waterfalls further up the river. The area was gorgeous, almost out of a fairy tale, but Alma didn’t leave small country-suburban life in Missouri for another. Bill knew this. 

“Look. Just be open-minded. It’s not that far. You can see the city skyline from the second floor of the house.” 

“You’ve already been there?” 

“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t bullshit before bringing you out here.” 

Alma smiled, looking at him knowingly. “You like it.”

“Yeah, but,” he muttered, scratching his studded ear. “Only if you do.” 

They arrived, and Alma tilted her head back to take in the whole house. It was rather big but very pretty. It had Victorian elements, but it wasn’t so ornate but rather tastefully modernized. 

“It looks haunted.” She stated. 

Bill turned to her, with an annoyed glint in his eyes. “Well—then we fit right in.” 

Alma scoffed with amusement, and then he opened the door with the key he convinced Chase to leave with him. Only if Bill promised to leave it behind under a rock on the porch. He didn’t believe his clients to be potential squatters, but he found them unusual. The first time he met Alma, she wore a button on her jean jacket that read, EAT ME. However, with their budget, he was willing to just overlook their liberal personalities. 

When they entered, Alma bit her lip to keep her grin at bay; she was already excited by the living room.

“I’ll leave Echo with you,” he said, putting her down on her feet. “I gotta check some other stuff out, but just take a look.” 

“Well… okay.” She said, watching him stalk away, continuing to jiggle the car keys in his palm as he did. 

While the realtor was away, he was going to take advantage of taking a look at the working parts of the house that owners and realtors like to embellish to conceal how badly they were operating in reality. It would give Alma space to see the home without his opinions; he wanted her to make her own mind up. To genuinely fall in love with it and envision their family in it.

Alma and Echo walked hand in hand around the stage-furnished home, picturing what she would do to the spaces. She was already thinking of what color house paint she’d choose when going down the long driveway. She liked it the moment she saw it. However, she wasn’t going to let Bill have that satisfaction yet. 

After checking out a room, she could envision having an office. They were in the room that would more than likely be Echos’, and she was elated about all the room she’d have to herself. A Jack and Jill bathroom was adjoining a room of equal size, and she imagined this was where her siblings' nursery would belong.

Bill and Alma decided after their first year of ownership of the shop, they would try for another. When things would be less hectic, and they settled somewhere permanently. He finally asked in earnest the week between Christmas and New Year's one night snuggled warmly under a thick duvet in bed.

“Do you want another baby?” His hand drifted to her belly, resting above her womb. “Just tell me, and I’ll do it.” He said softly. 

“I want to give you another one.” She said, snuggling her body to become more flush against his. “I know… I know you’d want it to happen sooner, but we’re going to be so busy this coming year.” 

Bill sighed, but she was right. He wanted it now, but the timing couldn’t be less than ideal. “Okay,” he digressed. 

Alma put a hand on his high cheek when she turned her head to search his eyes. He looked disappointed yet understanding. 

“This time next year. We can try. I promise.” 

When she found the primary bedroom, her heart fluttered. This felt like the place. She could briefly see Bill in the backyard through the large windows that faced it. He was walking back from a small shed close to the edge of the tree line. In the distance was Seattle's skyline, and if it wasn’t for the rain clouds further out, she’d probably be able to see Mt. Rainier too. 

She was admiring the walk-in closet when she started hearing random toilet flushes throughout the house. While they walked through the house, the lights were intermittently flickering, he was checking the breaker box in the basement. Then she could hear the keys again and his footsteps falling on the hardwood herringbone-floor hallway. When the ensuite toilet was flushed, she met Bill in the bedroom. Echo was walking about it on her own. It made Bill smile. 

“It’s pretty. Do you like it because of all the windows?” She asked because he always enjoyed natural light; he felt it always made any space bigger. 

“Well, that's one reason.” 

“What were you doing in the shed out there?” She pointed.

“It’s not a shed. It’s a sauna.” 

“Really?” She said with surprise.

“Yeah. Do you like it?” 

“Hmm,” she turned to look out the window with her hands on her hips in thought. “Do you like it, Echo?” Hearing her name called, she approached her mother and hugged the side of her leg. “Do you want to live here?” 

“Just tell mommy you like it, E’.” Bill chuckled. The house was for her as well, but he didn’t want a major decision to ride on the preference of a two-year-old. 

“I like! I like it!” She squealed, making her parents laugh, but then she started running towards the walk-in closet.

“Wait, Echo,” Bill said, going after her.

“It’s just the closet.” 

“No! There are stairs in there. Hey, hey.” He caught up to her and took her hand while they stood in the private sitting area. 

“Whoa!” Alma said, surprised by the hidden discovery. 

Bill showed her how the stairs led to the den and the secret door, which hid the room. She looked rather impressed with it. It was a cool feature. A place only they knew about, and they liked sharing secrets. 

“So?” Bill asked impatiently. 

“It’s private, like you wanted. Lots of rooms. I love the laundry room in the basement,” and she really meant love. She was tired of taking trips to the laundromat. “The mezzanine library is cool. The kitchen—”

“The kitchen is fucking tight!” 

Alma giggled. “Yeah. Yeah! Let’s put in an offer. This is it!” 

“Thank fuck!” Bill said, relieved, pulling her in to kiss her. “Because I put in an offer before I left to come get you.” 

…

Bill was in New York on a three-day trip the day after they found their home. He made up some story about why he had to go, as they had only left just a few weeks ago for the holidays. It wasn’t a complete fib; he would be at Trigger Finger working, but he was there to personally pick up Alma’s engagement ring. 

While there on the holidays, he visited his jeweler, Kaan, sitting with him in his private body-guarded office looking at loose precious jewels together. 

“What about emeralds?” 

“Mm,” Kaan twisted his lip. “Emerald is pretty, yes. The stone, though. Too soft for engagement ring.” He spoke in his slightly broken English.

Bill sat stumped for a moment. He wanted something different to give her than a solitaire diamond ring. 

“Diamonds. Diamonds are what the ladies want.” Kaan said, but it didn’t seem to sway his particular client. “You want different. We can do a braided band.” He suggested. “We can do anything custom for the band. I have examples.” He said, using his stiff belly to push away from his desk and grab a portfolio book from a shelf. 

Bill flicked through for a bit as Kaan left him with a security guard to assist an apprentice. Everything he saw was gorgeous and admirable, but there wasn’t anything that spoke to him. Nothing that he could picture Alma with. Until he reached a random tab near the back of the portfolio, flicking the rest of the sheet-protected pages away just to feel like he actually looked through it all. He quickly closed it and pushed it away on the desk in frustration. However, right when he did so, a glimpse of an image caught his eye. He reached for the portfolio and searched for the photo he saw. 

“Anything?” Kaan asked, taking his jeweler's glasses off. 

“Something like this.” Bill tapped the photo.

“You and me.” 

“Hmm?” 

“Toi et moi. That’s the style. We do diamond, offset, pear shape. You like green. We do green sapphire. Emerald cut, that’s better. Tougher stone. I’ll show you what I have.” 

He had Giancarlo accompanying him when he went to pick it up, as they were going to have dinner at a rooftop restaurant for the good marks he’s been getting in school lately. They were chatting as they walked there.

“Maybe I could come to work at the record shop in the summer?” Giancarlo gathered the courage to ask. 

“Yeah. But maybe not this summer, maybe next summer. If your mom allows it. And I’m not going to ask her for you.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” He grumbled as they entered the store.

Giancarlo had never been to a jewelry store like this before. He had to give up his navy Adidas track jacket to security, same with Bill handing off his coat before they were patted down to enter the owner's office. 

“Now run me your shoes too.” A guard pointed at Gian’s new Reebok sneakers. 

Gian’s eyes widened when he froze a bit until the guard began snickering. He had caught a whiff of his nervousness and poked at it. Bill chuckled at his young friend's trepidation and patted his shoulder reassuringly. 

“Watch out, he’s got a mean uppercut.” Bill winked. 

While Giancarlo continued to work out and had grown to 6ft now—which he liked to brag about having surpassed his big brother in height—he was a self-admitted lover, not a fighter. 

“I know Miss Alma loves you, but doesn’t it make you nervous to finally ask?” The young boy asked Bill while they sat and waited on the ring.

“To marry me? Eh, well, she kind of already knows.” He said, fiddling with his wristwatch.

“You asked her already?” Gian asked, surprised.

“Mm, sorta.” 

“Isn’t it bad luck to propose without a ring?” 

“Where’d you hear that from?” Bill glanced over at Gian when he didn’t respond right away. “Your mom?” He internally rolled his eyes. Bianca and her superstitions, he thought.

“I’ve actually heard that too,” a big security guard in the room said. 

Bill looked at him over his shoulder and frowned with annoyance, but the man just shrugged. 

“Sorry, for the waiting,” Kaan said, hobbling over to his desk. 

He opened the velvet jewelry box gracefully and gently placed it in front of Bill on the desk. It was shiny, polished, and perfect. The ring. Bill sat there with his hand on his chin, admiring it, picturing Alma wearing it, and then he became pleased with himself. 

“Fuckin’ shit, Mr. Skarsgård!” Gian exclaimed. “Two rocks!” 

…

Even after acquiring the keys, it still took a full month to officially move into their new home. They moved in all the basics, filling only the rooms that would be immediately occupied. It was Echo’s room that Alma fixed up completely. With cute fluffy pastel bedding and ballerina slipper pink painted walls speckled with flower motifs. She had space for all her toys, a play kitchen set, and a reading nook. To say she was elated would be an understatement. However, for the little girl in a big new home, she was hesitant to sleep alone.

It was a speech her father had given her about being brave while her mother hung up frames in the living room that she finally decided to give her bedroom a try. Bill and Alma fully expected her to come running to their room at some point in the night, but when they woke up without her in bed, they were shocked. Shocked them enough to immediately get out of bed to make sure she was still in hers. She was cozy with her stuffed animals lined on the foot of her bed as if she put them in charge to keep guard of her. What they didn’t know was that she did try. While their rooms were fairly close, the journey down the long, soft-lit hallway to her parents' room proved too daunting, so she ran back to the safety of her bed. 

It was a Sunday evening, and Echo had slept nearly a full week in her room. The parents were upstairs on the mezzanine, arranging their little library to accommodate a stereo system. Down below, Echo watched a movie, with popcorn unavoidably littered around the living area. Still, she sat content in her big girl underwear with her little legs crossed and wearing sunglasses, which she insisted upon.

Bill paused to make sure she was still fine and then sat on a cushioned bench, looking out the window and towards the skies. There were thick, dark clouds billowing into their little cove. 

“They keep asking to open every other gig,” she said, complaining of a local band as she wired a speaker she had between her legs. “Even for that hip-hop troupe when it’s not the vibe. I just can’t.” 

“Yeah, they suck. Their drummer is good, though.” 

“He is! He needs to ditch them.” Suddenly, a bright flash of lightning flickered, causing her to pause. 

“It’s storming tonight,” Bill playfully sang in a daunting tone with raised brows. 

The downpour was pelting down on the home, sideways, front ways, and back ways. Luckily, it seemed like the thunder and lightning had passed them by. Bill and Alma made sultry love that night while the rain cascaded down the windows, and the heavy rainfall lulled them to bed quickly after. 

A loud crash of glass and a piercing, blood-curdling shriek was heard through the house. Alma was in a sleepy stupor when Bill leaped up from his sleep and jumped over her lying body. She saw him running out of the room in his boxer briefs as she tried to find her short silk nightgown to cover her naked body. 

In seconds, she ran down the oddly chilly hallway to Echo’s room in a panic, as she could hear her frightful cries over the torrential rainstorm. A faint thought was in the back of her mind. Should she have brought the gun?

“Mama!” Echo screamed in terror.

“Do not come in here!” Bill commanded, and she stopped dead in her tracks at the threshold. “There’s glass all over the floor.” 

Alma’s eyes darted around the room, assessing what had happened the best she could with her poor eyesight. There was a big, beautiful tree just outside the window, but the high, erratic winds had caused a branch to snap and burst through the bedroom window. 

“Is she okay?!” Her barefoot rose to take a step forward but stopped when a flash of lightning illuminated the jagged shards of glass scattered along the floor. 

Bill's heart strained trying to assess the bleeding cut on Echo’s cheek. He was shielding Alma’s view of it, but the branch was still banging against the house, and the wind was blowing cold mist into the room. He had to do something about it. 

“Bill?! Is she okay?” Alma cried. 

“Stay there.” He said picking Echo up, and that was when Alma saw crimson covering the side of her face. Her eyes widened in horror, her heart racing so hard, seeing her little baby in such a state. “Check her. I have to find something to cover the window.” He said, passing their terrified child into Alma’s trembling arms. 

Alma, having experienced an accident involving her daughter, suddenly retreated into herself and pulled out the more focused and level-headed version of herself. She placed her hand on Echo’s head, trying to soothe her as she swiftly took her to the ensuite bathroom. She sat her on the large double sink counter, stripped her of her bloody nightgown, and left her in her underwear.

“It’s okay, baby,” Alma said, wetting down a washcloth and putting it to the cut on her daughter's beautiful face. “That was scary, huh?” She softly said. “You’re okay, though.” She blotted the blood and tears from her face and could see that the cut wasn’t as bad as it looked. 

The banging of a hammer down the corridor accompanied the sound of thunderclaps. Bill had run to the basement for slabs of broken-down moving boxes to temporarily cover the window. He’d deal with the repair first thing in the morning. 

When he joined them in the ensuite bathroom and saw Echo standing up on the sink counter and Alma pointing at her reflection.

“See. Just an ouchie.” She said, trying to settle her as she sniffled and hiccuped. 

Bill swallowed hard, seeing the collar of the child's nightgown covered in blood. The sight of it was grimly unsettling. He approached them and held Echo’s face in one hand to examine the cut on her cheek. It looked more like a clean, precise scrape now that she was cleaned up. Anger rose in his chest, seeing how close the rogue shard of glass came to her hazel eye. Alma could sense what he thought when she saw his nostrils flare and his lips going in a hard line. It was a scary close hit. Thankfully, the graze wouldn’t scar, it would just fade away.

“I’m calling someone in the morning to cut the tree down.” He kissed the top of his daughter's head, sealing the promise. “I’ll go make her a bottle.” 

Alma nodded, but as he walked away, she saw tracks of smeared blood on the white marble tile. She followed them and saw that they came from Bill’s bloody heel.

“You’re bleeding.” She announced flatly.

“Huh?” He turned his head towards her, perplexed, until he followed her gaze down to his bare feet. He huffed in annoyance. He never even felt it happen. 

“Sit down.” She instructed, passing along Echo and a band-aid.

He sat on the edge of the tub, holding onto his daughter as tightly as she did him. It was difficult to pull her away enough to apply the bandage to her face, especially because she would flinch when he got close. 

“It’s fine. You’re brave, remember?” Echo solemnly nodded and then allowed him to patch the cut. “I’m sorry that happened.” 

When Alma returned, he noticed her trembling hands when she passed the warm bottle of milk to their daughter. There was a bit of a faraway look in her eyes while he watched her wet down a clean washcloth to help mend his foot. He knew where her fears were taking her. They had been having trouble sleeping in their new home, too. It seemed like the change of environment was conjuring new terrors upon the old ones that plagued them at night. For a good while they came seldomly, however, they only lay dormant. 

“Just do it,” Bill said, seeing her hesitate with the rubbing alcohol. He sucked air between his teeth while she apologized. “Is it bad?” 

“Mm.” She bit her lip. “You nicked it pretty good.” 

He raised his ankle to rest on his knee to examine the inner side of his heel. “It’ll be fine.” He said, taking the bandage she was holding to stick it on. “Thanks, love.” 

“Yeah.” Alma nodded as she rose from the floor to put all the supplies away. Bill caught her free hand before she walked away and grabbed the wet washcloth to help her clean the smears of blood on her neck and chest, but when he tried to apply it to her delicate skin, she flinched. 

“I can do it,” she said, holding his hand back, making him frown. 

“Hey.” He said softly. “Wherever you are… Come back. Everything is okay. She’s okay.” He nudged his head down at their child. “It’s only us, here.” 

Alma took a deep, shaky breath and then allowed him to help as she stared off. She didn’t speak for the rest of the night. They cuddled their daughter extra tight in their bed that night. 

The next day, Alma seemed back to normal spirits. She woke up and began scrubbing the blood from the bath and hallway with peroxide before carefully sweeping up the shards of glass. Bill called a window repairman and Zeph, who owned a small landscaping business when he wasn’t moonlighting as a security guard. 

Bill had nixed the illegal bar, stating he didn’t want to run into issues so early into his ownership, so instead he spoke to The Wayward Sons and asked if they’d stay on as security. Big Rod agreed as long as they were reimbursed for securing licenses. He didn’t have a problem with doing so, and they shook hands.  

Zeph came straight away, but the window repairman Bill had to bribe to start his services at his home first thing, as the storm had damaged quite a few homes in the area. So he learned. Alma gathered all the bedding, she shook off and piled in the hall to drop them in the laundry chute on the way to check on her daughter from atop the mezzanine. Alma looked out the library window and saw Bill outside, one arm across his chest and the other holding a cigarette as he watched one of Zeph’s workers rev up a long pole saw. 

The noise startled Echo, where she occupied herself with toys in a playpen. She might have been okay without being in it, but it was a big home, and after last night they didn’t need any more incidents. 

“I’m right here, baby,” Alma said, walking the long landing and descending the stairs. “Do you want to watch the men working? Daddy is outside too.” 

“Papa,” Echo said happily. 

Bill and Zeph were speaking and pointing at the overgrown shrubs in the archway garden when they approached. They had the same stature, but Zeph was double Bill’s width. 

“So sorry about what happened last night,” said Zeph after greeting Alma with a fist bump. “Glad to see little E’ is doing okay, though.”

“Thanks for coming straight away,” Alma said appreciatively. “I hope all was well in your home last night.” She knew he had children of his own as well.

“By god it was, ma’am. Thank you.” And off Zeph went to join his workers. 

The family stood watching the tree slowly being dismantled piece by piece. Alma had tried to convince Bill to just have a few precarious branches trimmed off, but he didn’t want to hear it. His only reply to her was, “Fuck that tree.”

Bill was holding Echo and gently kissed her injured cheek. “Say bye-bye tree!” He told her as he waved at it. 

“Bye-bye tree!” She giggled, flapping her little hand. 

…

After that eventful night in their home, things settled again. They were surprised that Echo only slept in their bed just one more night—mostly at their behest—and then decided on her own to sleep in her bedroom again like the brave little girl she was. Two weekends later, they arranged for her to stay the weekend with ‘Lani, the babysitter. Echo had been missing her. Yolani had been busy at her nursing residency but had finally gotten the time to spend with Echo, whom she also missed. When they dropped her off, Echo quickly kicked off her shoes and hardly said goodbye to either of her parents. She didn’t even care when they mentioned they had brought ice cream and sundae toppings for them to enjoy, but she made sure they left it behind. 

They arrived home with a bag of a few missing ingredients needed to make a romantic dinner in, but they were dismissed by the doorway along with their clothes. 

He had Alma bent over their king-sized bed while he vigorously thrust into her from behind. They had started in the living room, his head buried between her legs, but when Alma was close to orgasming, he stopped and led them to the den. While in the den, she sucked him off before he finally dipped himself inside her, mostly still while they tongue kissed. He gave her some long, slow, deep thrusts, but then he did the same, much to her frustration, and led her to the private sitting area. She rode him sensually on the loveseat, grinding down on him while he needily sucked on her tits. She was close to a climax finally when he abruptly pulled her up and held her tightly. The sudden disconnection made her gasp in surprise. 

“The fuck?” She was exasperated, her heart beating hard in her chest. 

He looked at her deviously, giving no explanation, and instead led her to their bedroom, where he had her now. Thrusting deep inside her without mercy. She was so close again. Moaning loudly with hands gripping the expensive bedsheets. As her hand went to her clit to help him usher in the orgasm she was desperately seeking, Bill grabbed her hand and pinned it behind her back instead. 

“Oh, fuck!” She said, finding the restraint so seductive, she offered her other hand. 

Bill held on to her wrists with one hand as he continued to plow into her from behind, and he grunted deeply, getting lost in it. She was dripping and so tight and warm around his cock. His eyes fluttered closed, almost succumbing to the feeling, until he miraculously came to his senses. 

“Are you gonna cum,” he asked, peering down at her from where he stood. 

“Fuck yes!” She groaned into the mattress. “Make me cum, baby. Please!” 

Bill swallowed hard as his heart pounded in his chest and his dick, but he willed himself to cease his thrusts.

“No! No, what!?” Alma turned to look at him, where he stood with a sheen of sweat covering his body as he held his hard, engorged cock flat against his muscled stomach while he breathed shallowly. “Babe, you look like you’re going to bust. What are you doing?”

“No, no.” He raggedly breathed. “Later.” 

“Later? I was so—we were so close?” She tried to reach out to him, but he rebuffed it. 

“You’re gonna cum when I want you to,” he said, holding her face with one hand, effectively puckering her lips, which he kissed. “We’re gonna start dinner.” He announced going to the closet and pulling on some silk onyx boxers. “Just wear this.” He said, passing Alma her short black silk kimono. She stayed there a moment after he left the room, dumbfounded, but so incredibly hot for his domineering attitude. 

In the kitchen, Alma was incorporating seasonings together for a dressing for the chopped salad, while Bill prepared the branzino they had bought from Pike’s Market the day before. While music played lightly, they were speaking about incoming deliveries to both the house and the shop, and other little decorative odds and ends they wanted to do with the house. However, in the back of their minds was the ache in their loins nagging at them, which they ignored. Their hunger from their empty bellies was taking over, but the signals were continually crossing.

Bill put the salad away in the fridge and foil-wrapped the herb-covered fish and asparagus when Alma brought paint swatches from the office. They were nearly in agreement with how they wanted to paint the exterior. Their room was recently painted a sun-dried tomato red, and they could finally move on from that.

“Why don’t we do this black for the trim?” He pointed at the pitch-black swatch as he stood behind her looking at samples she laid on the kitchen island. 

When Chase, the Realtor, dropped in some weeks ago to see how the family was settling in, Bill revealed the swatches of potential house paint. All dark, nearly black hues. Chase put a hand to his lips to conceal the ghastly gasp from escaping past his lips, but Bill noticed, and he lightly chuckled at him.

“Mhmm.” Alma licked her lips. They were standing so close again that the sexual tension was reverberating between them. “And uhm, this black for the rest has some green undertones to it, so it’ll contrast. Do you still like—” Her words caught in her throat when she felt his long fingers curl into her. Her eyes rolled back as he gripped her with his arm, pinning her flush against his chest. 

“I can’t get enough of you,” he moaned into her neck as he peppered it with hard-pressed kisses. “You’re still so fucking wet.” She whimpered in pleasure as his fingers felt the inside of her warmth. “You want to cum so badly, don’t you?” 

“Don’t you want to fuck your cum into me already?” She said, taking hold of his cock as blood rushed to it, the cool silk fabric did nothing to restrain it and felt hot in her palm.

Bill mockingly chuckled at her attempt to tease him enough to get her way. He abruptly removed his fingers from inside her and then smacked her hand away from his cock. He washed his hands with a smug smirk on his face. 

“You’re fucking disgusting,” Alma sneered. 

Bill just laughed at her attitude as she walked away to gather some things upstairs. 

“If you’re not back in less than ten minutes, I know what you’re doing up there!” He hollered in reference to their growing vibrator collection, and he heard her laughter drift his way. The thought did cross her mind.

Together they walked out to the back porch. Bill went to the grill, and Alma went out by the garden, laying out a blanket for later in the evening to enjoy the clear night sky. At least they hoped it’d be. 

Closing the lid on the propane grill, he glanced over at Alma, her bare round ass fully on display as she bent over to pick out the wooden weed box and a bottle of wine from a wicker basket for them to enjoy in the sauna. The glistening of the wetness slicking her thighs was not missed by him either. He pulled off his boxers and jogged to her as she made her way to the sauna. He offered to hold the items in her hand, while at the same time discreetly pulling the sash of her kimono from its loose knot. He began running to the sauna when she suddenly found herself naked. Reflexively, she tried to cover herself. Until she realized there wasn’t a need for modesty in their private haven. Alma pounded on the sauna door with the side of her fist, while Bill could be heard laughing from the inside. 

“Fine, then,” she relented. “I have the lighter. Enjoy the shitty wine.” 

The door cracked open then. “Just pass the lighter through.” 

Alma responded by pushing the door closed on him. He was surprised by the force of it, but then he finally opened the door with a mischievous grin on his face, to which Alma shook her head amused. They shared the wine, drinking it straight from the bottle, and enjoyed a fat joint. 

“We should try hotboxing this one day,” Bill said, scanning the apt size of the sauna as he passed the joint back to her.

“I’d just pass out.” 

“Whatever shit you were smoking just does that to you, love. This stuff from Darby’s uncle is a hybrid. More up, not down.” 

“Darby’s uncle? What are you talking about?” 

“Eh,” Bill scratched his sweaty neck. He misspoke. “Uh yeah. Harold. He’s got other businesses. You can’t be wealthy like they are without being a little crooked.” 

“And what does that mean?” She raised her brow, passing back the joint. 

“He just mentioned these farms in Northern California. He’s got his hands in it.” He gestured.

“Weed farms.” She deduced.

“Mhmm.” He took a deep drag, a plume of thick smoke left his lips, which he inhaled back into his lungs. “I’ll be right back.” He stood up and removed the white towel he had across his lap. 

“Where are you going?” She lightly pouted, but she was still curious about the farms. 

“I gotta check the fish.” He winked.

His return took a bit longer than expected, but Alma sat in wait with low eyes, comfortably hugging bent legs. He informed her that the food was done, and she suggested they finish off the joint. He flashed a goofy smile and happily took the joint she was holding out to him. 

Reaching over him, she grabbed the bottle of wine for a sip, her ass in the air trying to entice him, much to his amusement. After putting it back, she remained very close to him. Kissing his damp shoulder, prompting him to put his arm around her. He felt her hand slide down his relaxed abs, but he stopped her before she could remove the towel from his lap. She furrowed her brows and frowned. Tilting her chin with his hand, their low-lidded eyes met, full of desire. Both rosy-cheeked, glowing with dew, they began feverishly making out in the haze of steam and smoke in the sauna. 

When he felt Alma trying to straddle his lap, he gently pushed her back to lie on the bench. He passed the joint he was still holding and began tracing along the side of her pussy. It was tantalizing with how he took his time kissing her inner thighs. His long pointer finger gently swiped up her slit and traced the strip of hair at the top, and then went back down again, pressing lightly on her entrance. It made her heart thump hard in her chest. With the joint between her lips, she tossed her head back when he firmly put his whole mouth on her swollen pussy. His tongue pressed into her entrance, sucking and lapping like a parched man finally taking a drink of water. He rose, pressing his face against her soft thigh.

“Do you want to come?” He gave her a puppy dog gaze from under his brow, and she eagerly nodded. He took her hand to help her stand up, while he slouched a bit in his seat, spreading his legs wide, yet the white towel never left his lap. The gaze he kept on her intensified and then flicked down to his right leg. “Do it yourself.” Alma hesitated for a moment; she wanted him to make her cum. “Hurry. Before I change my fucking mind.”

Alma bit her lip, feeling the fire blaze in her core, and straddled his right thigh. Bill leaned forward to kiss her sweetly and then coaxed her to start grinding on him. She rutted against him but gently, which made Bill smirk. 

“I know you’re not shy, babe.” He chuckled. 

It caused her to giggle because, no, she wasn’t. She was trying to behave a little more submissively to match his dominant behavior. However, she was behaving just how he wanted her to be this whole time, frustrated and eager. Finally, she placed her hands at the top of his thigh for leverage and began grinding down harder. He took one last hit of the joint before laying the stub on the wooden box, then leaned back and spread his arms across the top bench to enjoy the display. Enjoying the look of her dewy body and how her arms pushed her tits out. He reached around her head to pull the scrunchy holding the low, loose bun she had and watched as her long brown hair fell and stuck against her. 

Her eyes fluttered closed as she was catching a satisfying rhythm for herself. He bit his lip when her shallow breaths quickened. Though they were covered in perspiration, he could feel her wetness and heat spreading across his skin as she rode his thigh. 

“There you go.” He encouraged pinching one of her nipples and rolling it between his fingers. 

Her movements were causing the towel he wore to slip, and she could see his pink hooded tip rising just above the edge of it. Bill noticed her intense, hungry gaze on it, and his breathing picked up as he tried to not give in to his carnal desires. She was getting off from just a glimpse of it. He wanted her on his cock just as much as she did, but he concealed himself once again. Holding his erection down with one hand, while the other hand on her hip assisted her deep rutting thrusts against him. She let out a sharp gasp and threw her head back. 

“Please don’t stop me.” She begged. 

“Squirt for me.” 

“I need your cock for that.” 

His jaw clenched and chest tightened, disappointed that he was giving in. He stopped her movements, causing her to whine loudly. She watched as he swiftly tore his towel away, finally revealing his blushing, hard cock. 

“Sit on it, right now.” His chest visibly rose as she did so. Agonizingly slow, too, because she wanted to tease him for what he had been putting her through. When he bottomed out, they both let out a strained moan from the reconnection. “Don’t fucking move.” He demanded. 

He placed his thumb on her overly sensitive clit, and she threw her head back again as he rebuilt upon her ruined orgasm. He could feel her pulsing all around him, getting tighter, hotter than a furnace, and he felt doomed. The high was adding an extra intense layer to it all. 

“Fuckin’ hell.” Bill groaned. “Are you going to come for me?” 

“Yes,” she squeaked out. “K-keep going. Please!” She cried out. All the tension she felt from the previous denial built upon itself, and then it imploded. A flood erupted out of her and onto him. The release was dizzying, making her ears ring from the intensity, while her hips involuntarily jolted. Bill sat in awe, covered in her wetness, feeling everything while buried inside her. 

“Fuck me!” He conceded. 

Alma began to thrust her hips into his eagerly with his help. “Give me your cum, baby.” She said, running her hands through his short hair. 

“I’ll give it to you.” He said through clenched teeth.

“Give it to me deep.” She moaned. 

A few short thrusts later, he let out a loud, deep moan from his whole being. “Ah, fuck me! Don’t stop.” He smacked her ass before gripping it and assisting her thrusts.

Alma was surprised, she was sure that was it. As their bodies rocked against each other, she could see a look of bewilderment in his eyes until he shut them tight. His cock was sensitive; she could sense that. Suddenly, he held on to her tightly as he stood up, unsatisfied with her work as her legs were wobbly from her climax. He laid her down on the bench and plunged back between her legs. He was still rock hard. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Bill muttered as he rocked his hips into hers. “Baby… I’m going to cum again.” 

Again? She briefly thought until the feeling of another orgasm overrode it. She pulled at him, hands gliding on wet skin, to hold him close as she hit another crescendo. Hollering in the sauna so loud it was a blessing they were secluded. Their lips met as she began falling from the peak. 

“Cum on me.” She breathily said in his ear. 

He leaned back, ready to let go, and pulled out, stroking his cock before her. A guttural scream came from deep within him when he released pearlescent ropes glazed her torso and pussy. His jaw was slack, admiring her covered in his essence and running her fingers through it to have a taste. 

“You made a mess,” she giggled. “Are you breathing?” 

Bill cracked a bashful smile and then sat, trying to catch his breath in the stuffy sauna. Bill had his head tilted back with his eyes closed while Alma kissed along his jaw and throat as he processed what happened to him. Edging for half the day, he had done alone, in the penthouse, but never once did he deny himself this long to the point his balls felt heavy, though. If he was ready, he was ready. Today was the day he actually tried to push through but failed. Even on Alma’s birthday the year prior, he was too weak to hold off. However, what he didn’t expect was to release twice. That hadn’t ever happened to him. Maybe the weed contributed to it, he wondered.

“Felt good, didn’t it?” 

“Hmm.” 

“Finally getting to cum.” She whispered against his hot skin. “I felt what you did.” She said, as if she had uncovered a secret he wasn’t ready to reveal. She could feel his cum dripping out of her, while also covered in it. 

…

They enjoyed their lukewarm dinner as they finally filled their hungry bellies appreciatively. After a quick intimate shower, they were half-dressed in the backyard again. Alma was wearing a thong and an oversized band shirt, and Bill was in his usual boxer briefs. There were two, three-wick candles lit next to them, providing a romantic glow, and the lightning bugs shone on the edge of the property. They even spotted a white bunny rabbit hop along before disappearing into the brush. While enjoying a bowl of chopped fruits and cheeses with accompanying gummy fruit candies, a piece of mango fell between Alma’s crossed legs. Bill bent over, burying his face in her lap, and ate it off the blanket they sat on, making her laugh. 

Alma was talking about her upcoming plans of decorating their home, and he happily listened. It felt nice that they could make such permanent decisions. When they lived together in New York, they never bothered with decor, knowing their stay would be temporary. They moved somewhere new every year. 

However, he could recall a night in which Alma stayed the night with him in his home in Strathburg. She had been dancing on his spring-broken bed, and he playfully tackled her down and cuddled right after. She asked him what his future home would look like. He gave a generic answer at first, and listened to her talk about having a dog and describe rooms that seemed inspired by Barbie's dream homes. That’s when he finally decided to share how he wanted a big backyard and a dog, too. A Doberman Pinscher, to be exact. He also added that he wanted a nice kitchen but, most importantly, a full pantry. 

“We need to get outdoor furniture for the office balcony,” she pointed. The office was in the opposite wing of the house. When Bill first took a look around, he assumed that was where their room would be until he found the secret sitting room in their bedroom. “But the gallery wall I want to put in there, you can help me with that. Is there something you want to do to the house?” 

“Mm. We should take one of our family portraits and get it painted to put over the fireplace in the living room. Like five feet tall.” He laughed. 

“Do you want it to come with spooky cobwebs pre-applied, too?” She laughed with him. “Be serious!”

“Maybe after I’m done with the stuff at the shop, I can really think about it.” He smiled.

“You’ve done such a good job with it so far,” she praised.

“Well, I have hel—”

“Help.” She interjected. “Take the credit for once,” she giggled, shaking her head. “You work hard, you know. All those nights.” 

Bill nodded and leaned back on his hands, admiring their home from where he sat, feeling a bit small under it for a change. “It’s a big home. Almost. Too big.” 

Alma laughed. “You chose it!” 

“You did too!” He playfully defended.

“Yeah. But you knew, I’d like it. You always seem to know.” She kissed his cheek and looked at their home before them under the star-studded night. Thinking of the humble Missouri homes they grew up in compared to now. 

Bill’s hand crept towards the edge of the blanket they sat on, and underneath, he gripped the velvet ring box he had hidden there when he had gone to check the food on the grill. He looked at her, taking in the moment of her, completely unaware. She knew this would happen, just not exactly when. He felt himself becoming nervous. He had been in possession of the ring for a few months now, trying to find a good moment to ask for her hand. He nearly asked her on her birthday, but he didn’t deem it fair for the proposal to overshadow her day.

There was also the fact that he was unsure of what to say. He figured outside the obvious; he’d just speak from whatever came to heart. He wasn’t so good at these things, but for her, he’d try. 

“What are we going to do tomorrow?” She giggled, feeling like they had done so much on their first night alone at their house. “Maybe we could check out the woods behind us.”

“Hmm. Maybe you can tell me what tomorrow will be like if you say yes.” 

“Say what?” She turned to him, perplexed. 

She thought her heart stopped for a moment until she gasped. Taking in the sight of him holding onto an opened jewelry box with the most beautiful and unique ring glittered before her, illuminated by the candlelight. Her eyes were wide when she looked at him in wait and back at the ring.

“Really!?” She gasped. “Wait, I-I should stand up!” 

“Okay,” he chuckled, and then got on one knee before her. “Okay,” he inhaled deeply, looking up at her with nerves swimming in his belly. “Alma?” 

“Yeah!” She smiled. 

“Will you marry me?” 

“Yeah! Yes!” She leaned down to kiss him deeply, and then she giggled, tickled by it all. She knew they’d be married someday when he had told her as much at the springs, but she hadn’t any idea of when he’d officially ask. He really did catch her by surprise. 

Bill laughed happily as he stood up and embraced her. “I love you.” 

“I know! I know it!” Happy tears welled up in her eyes as she giggled. “I love you!” 

“Let me—let me put it on you,” he said, taking a step back and taking the ring out of the box, which he let fall on the blanket. 

He carefully slid the jewelry on her ring finger, and it looked like it belonged there all this time. 

“It’s fucking beautiful, Billy! Two!?”

“I felt like you deserved more than one gem.” 

“And this one?” She pointed. 

“Green sapphire.” 

She smiled, looking up to gaze into his eyes. “Green. Like your eyes.” 

“Mhmm.” He flashed a dimpled smile. “It’s forever for me.” He said seriously. “Until,” he paused, feeling a swell of emotion suddenly fill him. “Until I’m no longer breathing. I promise. I don’t want to live this life without you with me all the way.”

She smiled wistfully, placing her left hand on his high cheek. “Until I’m no longer breathing. I promise.” She repeated and they sealed it with a kiss. 

“Unless…” Bill side-eyed her once they settled on the blanket again, lying down this time. 

“Unless what?” 

“Unless you divorce me one day,” he laughed.

“Don’t ruin the moment. I wouldn’t!” She laughed with him. 

“I know you wouldn’t but say you did. Could I like, booty call you sometimes?” 

She shook her head, amused. “Seriously?” She raised her brows at him. “Yeah. You can booty call me.” 

And together they laughed loudly under the clear night sky. The stars tonight seemed dim now that Alma had two shining right on her hand. 

…

Fall 1997

The family was in New York City as Echo would attend first grade at a highly competitive private school. Today was the first day of school. Bill was up before everyone, everyone except his son, whom he found lying awake contently in his crib. Luxe looked a lot like his mother, with wavy chestnut hair and a soft tan complexion, but he had his eyes. Exactly like them. Big, curious, green eyes.

He loved his boy so dearly, but there was a time when the thought of having a son terrified him. Worried that the generational curses, which his brother seemed to claim loomed over them, would continue with him. However, he had to remind himself that he was very much Alma’s child too. That he would grow to be better because of her, just like he had. 

After changing him and making a bottle, he held onto him while starting the coffee pot. Upstairs, he could hear Alma’s feet patter quickly to the bathroom, hearing her cough, making him grimace sympathetically. He reached into a tea jar and produced a mint leaf blend to make a cup for her.

“You’ll be okay by yourself, huh, Lucky?” He said, kissing the top of his head before laying him in a baby bouncer in the living room. 

“Da-da.” He giggled contently, making his father smile. 

He appeared at Echo’s doorway and lightly knocked the frame. She lay in bed with her eyes closed with a small smile on her face, quite obviously pretending to be asleep. She wasn’t all too thrilled to be going to school in New York. Not only that, but she loved Seattle and the school she attended there with her friends and favorite granola teacher. Her parents explained to her that they just wanted her to have the best education, but that fell on deaf ears for an almost six-year-old. She didn’t care; her home was in Seattle.

“Echo?” Bill said, approaching the side of her bed and taking a seat. “Echo.” He tickled her side, and she began to lightly giggle, much to her dismay. “I knew you were pretending,” he chuckled. “You gotta get up. It’s the first day of school.” 

She lifted the covers over her face and whined. “I’m tired.” 

“C’mon,” he said, pulling the covers away. “You have to get up, honey.” 

“Where’s Mama?” 

“I have to go wake her up, but I’m here with you. She’ll be down to help you once you start getting ready.” 

Echo sighed, but she accepted her father's kiss on the cheek and then begrudgingly made her way to the bathroom. Bill bit his lip, amused by her attitude, and made his way back upstairs. 

Alma was in bed, sitting against the headboard, looking a bit clammy as she drank a bottle of water when he entered. 

“Echo is up.” He said, sitting next to her and handing her the mug of tea he made. “You okay?” He asked, putting his hand on her damp forehead before running his fingers through her scalp. 

“Yeah,” she sighed, sounding a bit defeated before taking a sip. “I’ll be fine. Who’s up.” 

“Everyone except Vida. For now.” He smiled. 

How he loved his little, loud baby daughter. She gave them hell, but they loved her so much for it. Though she couldn’t talk much, her expressions let you know just what she was thinking. Half the time, it looked like she was cursing you out, which they found amusing. She looked a lot like Echo did as a baby, with light hair but with deep brown doe eyes. She could also be very sweet, but it was her brother who was the charmer of the two. However, that was just how the twins operated, he was the cute distraction for her to pick your pockets.

“Spoke too soon.” Alma giggled when they could hear her loud cries down below. 

“V’ is awake!” Echo hollered as if they didn’t know, but she liked to be helpful. 

“Lay down for a little bit,” he yawned, patting Alma’s thigh before kissing her. “It’s still early as fuck.”

She glanced at the clock, it was hardly 6 am. She lightly groaned while she settled back down into the bed. 

“I hear you, baby! Everyone heard you!” She could hear Bill playfully say below to their disgruntled daughter. Suddenly, she stopped and began giggling loudly seeing her father, which made Alma smile. 

Echo crept up the winding wrought iron staircase with her school uniform. “Mama?” 

She turned and sat up and gestured for her to climb into bed. Echo smiled brightly and jumped in. “Good morning, baby,” she said, peppering kisses on her daughter's cheek, making her snicker. “Are you excited about going to your new school today?” Echo's face fell, making Alma feel bad. “What is it?” She asked, tucking a piece of her caramel brown hair behind her ear affectionately. 

“I don’t know anyone.” 

“But you will. You’ll make friends, baby. Is that all?” 

“It’s smelly here.” 

Alma laughed. “Well—yeah. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about that.” 

“Echo?” Bill hollered down below when he was unable to find her. 

“She’s up here!” Alma replied to his relief. He wouldn’t put it past her if she left the penthouse just because she didn’t want to go to school. “You want some cuddles? And then I can help you get ready.” 

Echo nodded happily and embraced her mother, soaking in all the love and comfort she provided. Shortly, Echo began getting dressed upstairs while Alma went downstairs to check on the other children. Both of them were in their bouncer and smiled at her happily babbling. They could speak well enough for a year and a half, but they often felt comfortable in their strange twin language. 

Echo was brushing her hair in her parent's closet before her father came to get dressed. Besides looking through her mother's vanity, she loved to look through her mother's clothing in the closet. So many pieces, from designer to vintage. In all classifications of fabrics. She helped pick out some pieces while shopping with her father searching for a dress, and he’d ask her valued opinion. She liked those days because it meant she could pick something out for herself too.

“Do you want some help?” He asked her while she sat on the bed trying to put on her white stockings.

“Mm,” she scrunched her eyes in thought. “I’ll wait for mommy.”

“Hm, okay.” He said, even if it was hard to leave her to struggle. Lately, she wanted to do most things without her parent's help. 

“Look how pretty you look!” Alma said to Echo’s reflection in the bathroom mirror before them after fixing her hair into a single french braid. “You look like such a big girl.” She could feel a lump form in her throat, suddenly feeling sentimental. When she started kindergarten, she cried in the car after dropping her off. Today, it just made it more apparent that she wasn’t a baby anymore. It didn’t help that she was also an inch or two taller than most of her peers. “Do you like it?” She asked, brushing her bangs down. 

Echo nodded and appreciatively ran her hands along her neat braid. Alma led her into the closet and pulled two tops out. They were similar black long-sleeve turtleneck shirts, but one had a cutout in the chest. She would pair them with a tight over-the-knee pencil skirt, sheer black pantyhose, and comfortable pumps. Bill found them in there when he went to grab a turtleneck for himself. He was only in dress pants and a black tank. He smirked when he heard Echo suggest the top with the cutout. It was what he would pick too, but it reinforced that fact that one day she’d want to dress the same, and he had to be okay with it within reason. 

“Could I wear some of your perfume too, Mama?” He heard Echo ask.

“Mm. Just a spritz, okay? But which one?” 

He announced that breakfast was ready before leaving them upstairs. While tucking in his shirt, he saw Vida, who was supposed to be secured in her bouncer, running toward the kitchen and sighed. He waited a moment and caught her in his arms when she came running past on chubby legs, giggling mischievously. He buried his face in her neck, blowing raspberries, which made her shriek delightfully while he placed her in the high chair. 

“Stay seated, okay?” He looked at her pointedly, and she just flashed him a drooly smile as she nibbled on her fingers. “I didn’t forget about you, Lucky.” He said, getting him out of the chair swing to join his sister at the table. That’s when he noticed a cookie lying underneath him, apparently Vida had broken out to dig in the pantry to give him. 

After they ate breakfast as a family, it was time to leave. The college-aged nanny had arrived with her book bag and a big travel mug full of coffee. She would watch the twins while the parents and their eldest child left.

“We’ll be back around, uh, 1:00?” Bill told her while rocking his son in his arms. Alma asked for him, and he gently put him on his feet, where he bumbled over to his siblings. “Maybe make it two. After our appointment, we’ll be having lunch.”

Alma was helping Echo put her backpack on. A backpack her father Antonio sent the money for, to gift his granddaughter. She told Vida and Luxe to hug their big sister before they left.

“Say I love you, Echo.” She tried to encourage them, and they did the best they could with their babbling speech. Both Vida and Luxe addressed their big sister as Coco.

“Coco, Coco!” Luxe made kissy faces at his big sister, and she leaned down to let him kiss her cheek. 

“So sweet of you, Luxe!” Alma giggled, seeing Echo wipe slobber from her cheek. Luckily, Echo had learned to love him just the same as she loved her little sister and giggled when he hugged her tightly again. He was always a very affectionate little boy. 

Bill helped Alma put on her coat while she watched the babies pulling at Echo’s backpack curiously. Emotion welled up within her again, and then she felt sick. Her mouth watered, causing her to thickly swallow it back. She took in a shaky breath after saying goodbye to the other children and the nanny, and off they went. 

Echo watched her father turn the volume dial down on the radio and listened to her parents discuss where to park when they approached the school. 

“You see?” Alma pointed at the building, and when she glanced back at her, she did a double take. “Are you wearing my lip gloss?” 

“What?” Bill said, trying to peer at his daughter through the rearview mirror. She was indeed wearing a thick application of pink glittery gloss on her lips. 

“Hand it over,” Alma said with her palm out. “You have to ask first, baby. You know that.” 

Echo frowned and begrudgingly pulled the tube from her uniform skirt pocket. Bill glanced at it when Alma put it in her purse and shook his head disapprovingly. Before they approached the front door of the building, Alma dabbed off some of the gloss with her hand so that it looked like she wore a more tasteful chapstick. 

Together, they joined the other families, escorting their respective children into the building. Bill looked around and noticed some heavy-duty-looking SUVs politicians would usually be chauffeured in, and wondered who his daughter would be going to school with. 

While heading to the classroom, Echo noticed that her father was no longer next to her, and she turned her head to look for him.

“I’ll be right behind you, baby!” He lightly hollered and stayed behind to talk to the principal. 

Echo met her teacher, Ms. Hartford, who had a sweet, enthusiastic attitude as she greeted her students. Alma helped her daughter look for her cubby and assisted with taking her coat and backpack. She expected Echo to run off to join her classmates mingling on the brightly colored carpet where they were enjoying mini donuts. However, she was hesitant and stayed close.

“E’,” Alma crouched down to her level. “Go say hi to everyone. They all look nice.” 

She glanced over with trepidation in her eyes. “Where is Papa?” 

“He’ll be here. He won’t leave without saying goodbye, you know that. Okay?” 

Just a few paces away, a thin, honey-blonde, well-put-together woman was reassuring her son similarly. Echo hugged her mother tightly and mustered the courage to join the others, and soon after the little boy did too. 

The women nodded at each other, greeting each other with a friendly smile. 

“Uhm, I’m Carmen,” the woman said, putting her hand out for a friendly shake. 

“Alma,” she smiled politely, shaking her hand. “First day of school, right?” 

“Oh, yeah. Joseph is my little boy. He can be a bit nervous.” It was an understatement. It seemed like her boy was terrified of everything, which frustrated his father a lot. 

“He seems sweet. Echo is my little girl. Maybe they can be friends. She’s always been friendly. It’s just that she was going to school out of state, so it’s all new again for her.” 

Bill was speaking with the principal, whom he mutually knew through a Trigger Finger patron, a brother of his who worked for the state. How weird he felt speaking amiably with a school administrator when, while he was in school, he’d daydream of spitting in their faces. In fact, he still did sometimes. 

“Uhm, sorry,” said Principal Everton, looking rather regretful and nervous. “I have to address this. Would you excuse me?” 

Bill nodded and watched him walk towards the entrance. There were several private police, and then his stomach sank. Joey Russo stood there, greeting the principal. He was currently on bail and facing a massive RICO court case. When Bill and Alma heard the news, they were conflicted at first, wondering if anything could come back on them. They settled, knowing nothing could, and celebrated over Joey Russo’s misfortune. 

He turned on his heel, his coattails splaying with how urgently he headed towards Echo’s classroom, walking past a New York State representative he recognized. He entered the classroom and spotted his daughter talking to a little shy boy while they ate mini chocolate donuts with the other schoolchildren. The teacher cheerily greeted him, and he gave her a hard-lined smile, introducing himself. Finally, he spotted his wife when a group of parents broke apart and noticed her speaking to another mother. It wasn’t until he noticed her ice-blue eyes that he internally groaned in irritation. He recognized her, Carmen, Joey’s wife. 

This can’t be fucking happening. He thought to himself. When the little boy who Echo was speaking to ran back to her, clinging to her leg, he just didn’t know what the hell to do. He tried to think of what his brother once said—that the kids are innocent under the sins of their parents. His only move was to get Alma out of the school building without noticing what was going on, but he knew it would be for naught. 

He approached Alma and pulled her a bit away from Carmen while distracted by her son. “Uhm, we should probably start heading out, love.” He flashed his wristwatch to her for the time. 

“Oh. Yeah, we should.” She called Echo over for them to say goodbye. 

“I love you, baby. Have a good day.” She said to her and laughed a little when she affectionately nuzzled her face into her belly. 

Bill crouched down to her level. “You look so pretty today, honey.” He lightly poked her nose before pinching her cheek. “I love you. Be brave, remember?” 

Echo nodded, hugging him. “Can you make spaghetti for dinner?” 

Bill chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds good! With garlic bread, right?” 

“Mhmm!” Her eyes lit up, happily. “I love you, Papa. I love you, Mama.” And off she went and joined the class confidently. 

Bill took Alma’s hand, noticing her blinking rapidly to keep her tears at bay, and led them out of the school.

“What’s going on?” Alma asked, noticing some commotion just off to the side of the entrance, but Bill remained quiet, looking straight forward.

“But I should be able to see my boy!” Someone in the middle of the gang of people harshly demanded. 

“Yes, yes. And that’s perfectly fine, but without the security, Mr. Russo.” Principal Everton tried to reason. 

Alma’s heart sank hearing the name, but when they rounded the corner, she caught a glimpse of Joey Russo in her daughter’s school. She paused, stunned, but Bill tugged her arm. 

“Keep walking.” 

“Bill! It's. W-we can’t.” She stuttered as panic rose in her chest. 

“Not here. Keep walking.” 

“Bill, she cannot go here!” She said once they reached their car. “Fuck! I’m so—I’m so fucking stupid!” She looked up to the sky with glassy eyes. 

The idea of Echo attending a swanky private school was all hers, and now she cursed her line of optimistic thinking. However, this school wasn’t their first option. Bill was partly to blame for this situation because, at their preferred school, the dean was a woman he had a short-lived tryst with when Alma had moved away to Seattle. To say Alma was pissed when he revealed that to her would be an understatement. She asked if he could get over it, to which he replied that he was over it, but that it was just too weird. He deeply regretted that now. He could have dealt with weird because now the situation they were in was just plain fucked up.

“Do not say that! You’re not,” he said, opening the passenger door. “We couldn’t have known.”

She glanced at the opened car door and back at him, appalled that he was really trying to leave their daughter behind. “Bill, no! We need to get her out. We’ll,” she paused, feeling herself getting sick again. “No!” She shook her head. 

“Get in the car, Alma.”

“Are you fucking crazy?!” 

“We’re not doing this outside the fucking school. Get in!” 

Alma ran a hand through her hair, stressed, but did as he said. He looked back at the school as he rounded the car. When he entered, Alma was pinching the bridge of her nose, trying to will the tears falling from her cheeks away, but it was futile. Even justified to cry from the situation, she couldn’t stop the tears. She had too before she became hysterical and inconsolable, though. She could feel it building to that point. 

“They knew!” She said trying to figure out how this could happen. “They know who she is!” 

“Alma… I don’t think so.” He sighed. “You, you were speaking to his wife in there.” 

“What!? No, no! No, we have to get her out right now!” 

“We’re not doing that.” 

“What are you talking about?!” She sobbed, feeling helpless. 

“She is going to this fucking school, Alma!” He huffed, and then he did his best to settle himself. He shouldn’t be making Alma upset in her state. “Look at me.” He said, unsuccessfully trying to take the edge off his voice, but she refused to look at him. 

“I can’t believe you, right now!” 

“Listen to me, then. We are not taking her out of this school.” He stressed. “We are not fucking scared of them. Do you hear me?” 

Alma bit her quivering lip as tears ran down her face. “BUT I AM!” She cried, turning to him and clutching onto her chest. “I’m so fucking scared. I just want to go home!” Home, a thousand miles away from there.

Bill had to look away for a moment. “I know.” He turned to her. “I know, baby, but you can’t show them that. Taking Echo out today and going back to Seattle will just prove—” he sneered, disgusted at the thought of tucking tail. “The school year will come and go. It’s nothing.”

“I don’t know, Bill.” She sniffled, wiping at her cheeks. “I want to believe that-that,” she sighed, feeling defeated. 

“If we take Echo out today, what will she think? We tell her all the time to be brave and,” he quickly cleared his throat when he felt it tighten. “And if she sees us backing out like this—if those motherfuckers see us. I can’t. I won’t do it. I fucking refuse.” 

Alma remained silent, trying to compose herself. “Oh, god, this is such bullshit!” She groaned, agitated as tears slipped from her eyes.

“Do you trust me?” He asked, tilting his head to peer out for her gaze.

Alma closed her eyes and then finally looked at him. “I do. I trust you.” 

“Remember, Joey is going to federal fucking prison. I know this is upsetting, and this is—this is fucking crazy. But Echo will be okay. He can’t move an inch without the police being right on his ass. She’ll be okay.” He willed. “I promise.” 

“Okay... Fuck him, though.” She sniffled.

“Yeah. Fuck him.” He leaned over to put an arm around her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn’t be doing that.” He kissed her.

“It’s fine. We were just surprised—caught off guard.” 

“No. You’re pregnant, Alma. That was ugly of me.” He said, affectionately rubbing her small, round belly. She was four months pregnant. “I’m sorry,” he said again, leaning over and kissing the top of her belly. “Are you okay?”

Alma lightly frowned. “No, but… I trust you.” 

“Okay,” he nodded, he would accept that. “Now. I’m going to start the car, and we’re going straight to the OB appointment, okay?” 

She let him start the car but placed her hand on top of his while trying to turn the gear in drive. He took a deep, shaky breath, his anxiousness and stress wanting to spill over, but he felt he needed to be strong at the moment and composed himself. “Baby… I don’t want to leave her, either. But we have to. Trust me, please.” He pleaded. 

“Okay, okay.” She nodded and then allowed him to proceed. 

While driving past the school building, they kept their eyes on it until they no longer could. They were silent for a moment and then accepted that this was just what it was going to be. Bill reached for her hand to hold tightly and kissed the back of it several times. 

“What do you think the baby will be?” He asked, trying to bring back some levity. 

Alma cracked a small smile. “Hmm. I don’t know. I’m okay with whatever.” 

“I just need them to double-check there’s only one in there again.” He said, making them both laugh. Their first ultrasound proved as much, but still, a second confirmation would be nice. 

Soon the school year would be over without incident. Echo had learned so much and thrived in the city and learned to love living there. Joey Russo and some other unfortunates were implicated and sentenced to prison. The court proceedings were televised, and they watched it every day like a telenovela. However, the conclusion was a bit disappointing, they felt the sentence was a mere slap on the wrist for what he really deserved. 

Ultimately, they returned to Seattle with one extra newborn in tow. Back in their home, where the rain fell on their children, giggling and running around the back garden. Grass stuck to their legs and mud covered their bare feet while chasing their Doberman, Reaper. Alma introduced their small baby to the rain, welcoming them home, and then joined the others. Bill put an arm around her with a content, dimpled smile on his face, and they stood together, letting the soft rain wash their sins away.

FIN

[sun-and-moon-mushroom]

Day 27: Left For Dead

AO3 link

(Continuation of day 22, BingQiu/QiJiu swap)

The last time Luo Binghe had seen Shen Yuan, his shizun, the man who had found him on the streets after his mothers death and had chosen to teach him cultivation, was when he’d smiled down at him and promised to be back soon, before leaving on a night hunt that he’d never returned from.

Luo Binghe had waited at the inn they’d been staying in until the money started to run out, and after that he’d tried to find his missing master. He’d gone around the local towns and villages asking after him, only to learn that the beast he’d been after had been taken down by a group of Cang Qiong cultivators which meant… Shen Yuan had probably died while fighting it. That was one of the better ideas Luo Binghe had anyway, after he’d spent a month searching to see if his master had simply been injured in the fight. The only other thing he could think of was that the promise he made might have been a lie, something to let him abandon Luo Binghe — but no, his shizun would never do something like that.

Luo Binghe would later claim that it was his exhaustion over searching for Shen Yuan that had caused him to slip up and be captured by demonic cultivators, but the truth was, he had only been cultivating for a year, and with the help of a master who was mostly self taught, out on the roads instead of on a qi-heavy mountain peak. Luo Binghe was just a human, so he went down easily to a demonic poison slipped into his drinking water. When he next woke up, he was in chains, with his cultivation bound.

At first he expected to be cut into pieces for his parts, or have his cultivation stolen — even such a young cultivator could prove valuable to those willing to hurt them — but it seemed the demonic cultivators who caught him had a different plan. They unbound his cultivation, but only slightly — just enough for a few small tricks — and sold him to a noble family looking for a pet cultivator to show off their wealth.

The young mistress, Qiu Haitang took a liking to him immediately — something he tolerated, if only because it kept him away from her older brother, Qiu Jianluo. He was delighted by the idea of having a cultivator at his beck and call, and was constantly ordering Luo Binghe to show him things, punishing him harshly for anything he hadn’t learnt how to do. He even called back the demonic cultivators that had sold him in the first place, forcing him to learn their techniques, no matter how much he hated it. Sometimes he still thought back to Shen Yuan — was he still alive? Had his body been found, was he buried properly? Without being able to leave, he’d never have the chance to find out.

Luo Binghe isn’t sure what the final straw was for him. It could have been Qiu Jianluo announcing his engagement to Qiu Haitang — something he wanted no part in, since his heart had only ever belonged to one person — or it could have been the sight of a group of Huan Hua disciples in the marketplace on one of the few days he was allowed outside, standing there with their gold-rimmed robes and easy cultivation. Whichever one it was, Luo Binghe finally found a way to snap the restraint holding back his powers, using the small amount he’d been allowed to force the way open.

Free at last, his cultivation rapidly spiralled into a qi deviation, and when he came back to himself, he was holding a sword slick with blood and the building around him was burning. He fled — right into the arms of one of the demonic cultivators who’d sold him in the first place. Apparently, they’d sent him to the Qiu as what they called a ‘test’ — to make him one of them. He didn’t have much of a choice but to go along with them — to anyone else, he’d simply look like a murderer, a young disciple who’d left the righteous path in search of power.

This was how he’d found himself in the middle of an Immortal Alliance Conference, attacked by demons on all sides, trying to protect anyone he could — surely his current master wouldn’t mind if the goods he’d stolen had come from already dead bodies? — and then face to face with Shen Yuan once more. No, not Shen Yuan, but Shen Qingqiu, in the elaborate green robes he’d seen on the distant peak lord of Qing Jing, and wearing the face of his first master like Luo Binghe had ever actually mattered to him.

Luo Binghe… had never really been his beloved disciple, had he? Just a brat off the street he could trick into carrying his things and cooking his food. How foolish of his former master— when given the chance to become part of a proper sect, to achieve the power and wealth he deserved, he’d had to come up with an excuse to get rid of him. He’d have rather been left for dead.

[quixoticall]

This Could Get Ugly 3. The Rise and Subsequent Fall of Eddie Munson

Summary: It's 1983 and The Downsides need another lead singer and you just happen to need a band--it's a perfect match. The only issue? You have to pretend to be in a relationship with your bandmate, Steve Harrington, but you can't help but be drawn to the band's broody guitar player.

pairing: s.h. x fem!reader, e.m. x fem!reader, j.b. x n.w., r.b x n.w.

warnings: Heavy drug use, misogyny, angst, past!Eddie x Chrissy

MASTERLIST🎸

Previous Chapter 🎹

WC: 2.7K

A/N: Halloween came early this year I guess! Take this early chapter as a thank you all for your follows, reblogs and likes! The idea of my fic being so well-received warms my heart! Enjoy!

***

EDDIE: Okay, here we go.

 I’m Eddie Munson, lead guitar for The Downsides.

 I  grew up trailer trash in some town that no one’s ever heard of. My mom died when I was eight and my dad was in and out of jail pretty much my entire life--well, until those royalty checks started rolling in, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

  People always use the dead mom/jailbird dad thing to either turn me into a sob story or villainize me, so I generally tend to avoid talking about it but since it's you, I'll say this: the thing I remember most about my mother is her absence and there is not a single redeeming thing about ole' Munson Sr. but I don't think they're responsible for any of the ways I've fucked up over the years. Nah, kid, that was all me.

Let’s get to the good stuff, shall we?

At the tender age of ten, I was gifted an old beat-up guitar by my uncle. Clearly, something he had picked up at the local Goodwill to try and keep me occupied and out of trouble. The neighbors hated us after. They hated us, even more, when it turned out that I could actually play.

When I was 18, Uncle Wayne got the idea that I was ready to commit to a life of indentured servitude over at the factory and that did not sit well with me, at all. I wanted to be a musician. But, instead of talking to him about it, you know, like a rational person? I just ran.

I sold my van and got a one-way ticket to LA. The metal scene was starting to pop up on the strip and music—metal—was the only thing I was good at, so I thought, ‘what the hell!’ and booked it. I slummed it for a few months and then, through some stroke of luck, I heard about a band that was auditioning for a new guitar player since their last one got hitched and quit. The Metal Gods smiled down on me the day of the audition because that same afternoon they called me back and told me they wanted me on as lead guitar.

1982

“It Was You”, your duet with The Letterman’s peaked at number 6 on Billboard’s Top 100 in October of 1982.

Suddenly, everyone wanted you to be featured in their songs. Your EP did well enough, but it didn’t even crack the top 30. That didn’t keep you from being the hot new thing on the scene and a

huge part of that was your reputation.

Of course, people knew who you were because of your groupie days, and you unintentionally built a reputation for being romantically involved with different musicians. So, when you broke out on the scene with a romantic duet, people started talking, and the tabloids began to spin stories about you and Jason being romantically linked which only caused a buzz for the song. You, of course, hated this and vehemently denied being involved with Jason to anyone who would listen. Jason, meanwhile, played it coy with the press, only fueling the rumors and your rage.

“Listen, I hate the guy as much as you do, sweetheart, but you got to respect the strategy,” Murray had said after hearing you gripe about one particularly salacious headline.

Before the year was through, you had been featured in five other duets. All with male artists. All resulting in more and more outlandish dating rumors. And all enjoying a lengthy stay on the top of the charts.

Starcourt had begun to push you to take it a step further and Brenner had asked for Murray to arrange outings between you and whatever male artist you were collaborating with. The meetings—you refused to call them dates—were always somewhere that was strategically public, somewhere where there was always at least one paparazzi with their cameras locked and ready. The pictures they would take would always make it to at least one gossip magazine, which resulted in even more publicity for the song.

Your partners—you refused to call them dates—were, at their best, cordial and business-like, one or two of them even asked for your permission before holding your hand. At their worst, though, they were handsy, entitled, and rude. None of them ever tried to ask you out on a real date and you weren't sure what that said about you.

Soon you were racking up duets and notoriety in equal measures. Radio DJs would make jokes about you every time they would play one of your songs—and they played your songs a lot. Once, while you were walking around Rodeo, a woman stopped you in the middle of the street and told you, very brazenly, that you needed to stop sleeping around so much. Before you could even tell her off, though, she proceeded to gush about how much she loved your duet with The Letterman's.

It seemed like everyone seemed to see you in a similar light though: they thought you were some sort of despicable maneater but all they wanted was more of a reason to talk about how you were a despicable maneater.

Murray had his work cut out for him, “We just need to find a way for you to have this same buzz all the time.”

***

EDDIE: Things started to pick up with Corroded Coffin. We were playing shows pretty much every night.  As I said, metal was on the rise and we were at the forefront. Eventually, record label bigwigs had no choice but to acknowledge that.

Some of them got smart and started poaching bands early on, like Starcourt. Corroded Coffin signed with them in ‘82. We thought we were hot shit after that.

There’s a certain lifestyle that goes along with that, though, you know? A reputation that you have to uphold.

I'm not trying to make excuses for myself here, trust me. I'm just...trying to explain myself.

People always love to talk shit. They'll call you all sorts of names before they see you as an actual person. Trust me, I would know. But, these interviews are an opportunity to set the record straight, to finally be seen as an actual person.

So, there I was, a nineteen-year-old kid from Bumfuck nowhere, finally making it big, finally feeling like I belonged somewhere--like for the first time I wasn't a freak whose mom died or some trailer trash high school dropout--of course, I was gonna get swept up in it all. Of course, I was going to start picking up the bad habits and doing drugs. There was no one there to tell me otherwise.

It started out as something to get us through the madness that was our schedule: between the live shows and the studio time, we needed uppers just to keep us on our feet. Then, obviously, you needed the downers so you could fucking relax because the uppers made you so tense. 

I stopped enjoying the drugs pretty early on, but at that point quitting wasn't something that I was willing to put that much effort into. 

1983

The first time someone asked for your autograph, you were at a show at Whiskey a Go Go. Murray, acting as a sort of manager, had set up a photo opp with Charles Riva, your latest duet partner. He hadn’t shown that night but you never walked away from a live show.

Two girls, not much younger than you, appeared behind you as you were ordering at the bar and tapped you on the shoulder.

“See, I told you it was her,” the shorter one, a strawberry blonde with severe bangs whispered excitedly to her friend, a taller brunette.

Before you could ask either of them exactly what they wanted, the strawberry blonde spoke again, “Can we have your autograph?”

You could only nod dumbly as they handed you a cocktail napkin and a pen. You tried to think of something meaningful to write, but in your shock, could only come up with “Best wishes, xoxo”. You didn’t even ask them their names. The best you could do was offer to buy them a drink, which they happily accepted.

You regretted the offer as soon as you registered how young they looked underneath all that makeup, an observation that made you unsettlingly sad. You were reminded of your first days on the Strip: lonely and young and wanting someone to notice you for the right reasons.

Your thoughts became too heavy to deal with at that particular moment and you abruptly excused yourself, leaving the two confused girls behind. A shame, you thought to yourself, in another life you might’ve all been friends, but no one really wants to be your friend these days. They just want to tell people they’re your friends. Walking away saves everyone the disappointment.

You needed a drink.

By the time the main act had taken the stage, your vision had started to haze at the edges as a result of the multiple drinks you had procured for yourself. You watched, half-interested as a band you’d never heard of, Corroded Coffin took the stage, your eyes tracing after each member, eyeing the things only a fellow musician would: the models of equipment they had, the way the band queued each other up.

You didn't know enough about metal yet to know whether you'd consider yourself a fan or not but even with the little familiarity you have, you can tell this band is good. Their playing is unpolished but overflowing with energy and the crowd is feeding into it, screaming the lyrics along with the lead singer.

All of it reminds you of your first show at the Strip—what seemed ages ago—and that memory summons a whole other thought entirely: the reason that you had gotten into music was to actually make music you liked, not to be a topic of discussion in a gossip magazine, getting no say in the music you created.

You don't even remember the last time you had even written a lyric.

You think to yourself that maybe you should wander backstage after the show, like you once did and talk to the band. Maybe you could pick their brains about songwriting. They clearly didn’t care about mass appeal if they were making metal music which means they were probably doing it for the art.

At the very least they probably had a decent stash of pills.

Either way, it would be worth it.

***

EDDIE: It was pretty much love, at first sight, the moment I saw her in the crowd that night at Whiskey a Go Go. I remember seeing her for the first time halfway through our set and it was like I went blind for a moment. I had completely forgotten what I was doing, I think I even missed a cue. After the show, I made a beeline for the bar where she was standing, trying to act as cool as I could but I was shitting it.

***

Once that band had wrapped up, you made your way to the dressing rooms. You maneuvered to the dressing rooms like you had dozens of times before, but the band wasn’t there.

You milled about for a bit, before growing bored and leaving wondering if maybe they had seen you coming and left.

***

EDDIE: I ordered a drink just as an excuse to get closer and it worked. She was even more beautiful up close and so, so kind. Told me she loved our show and even pointed out specific guitar solos of mine that she liked. She always had a way of making you feel special like that. Chrissy Fucking Cunningham. Even her name was perfect, not a syllable too few or too many.

I asked her for her number that night and we went on a date two days later, I could hardly keep it.

together having to wait two days to see her again. Then, after a few weeks, we were going steady, as the kids say. It was perfect. I never really had anyone to myself, you know? She was the first person that ever made me feel seen and cared about.

I remember one time; she was hanging out at my place while the band was in the studio. When I came back, she had done all my laundry. When I asked her why she had done that, she just said “I dunno, just because” then, all of a sudden there were tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something like that for me “just because".

My life had never been better--so of course, I fucked it up.

***

While you did not manage to meet Corroded Coffin, you couldn’t stop thinking about them, even days later. It was like seeing them play had awoken you from a daze you didn’t even know you had been in.

You spend a few days getting incredibly drunk by the pool after that. But no matter how much you drank or how many pretty dresses you bought yourself or how many pill you took, you could not shake the feeling.

A few mornings later, you had called Murray, “This stops now, Murray. No more duets or features or whatever else. I want to meet with Brenner. I want to do this my way.”

Murray, not used to being awake so early, gave a weak attempt at talking you down.

“No,” you urged on, “you said once I started making money, I could have a say. Well, now I’m making money and I’m tired of Starcourt just using me for that. So, I want something permanent and I want to write my own music, got it?”

“You have a contract,” Murray parroted back, half-heartedly.

“Yes, I do, and I plan to honor that contract but so help me God I will make life a living hell for you and for Brenner and any other exec that tries to get me to do another duet with Jason fucking Carver. In fact, I will find a way to lose Starcourt money if you don’t get me out of this. Am I clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Great, I’ll see you at lunch Murray.”

He signed, “See you then.”

***

EDDIE: My drug use was getting more out of hand. Chrissy hated it, but I couldn't bring myself to quit. Especially the things that I thought I needed to make it through the day.

Chrissy was a saint throughout the whole thing, until one night when she caught me in the dressing room of Whiskey with a girl who was not her. She walked away and I don’t really blame her. Out of all the regrets of my life—and trust me, kid—that was one of the biggest.

She moved out that day and refused to take my calls, moved in with one of her friends and I spent days just calling her, sending her flowers, the works.

She told me she wouldn’t budge unless I got clean. So, I checked myself into rehab. She was a good enough reason to quit. 45 days later, I checked out, clean as a motherfucking whistle.

Chrissy was gone though, I had no clue where she had disappeared to, but wherever she went, she didn’t want me to find her.

On top of that, my band was fucking pissed. I left the band for 45 days without telling anyone, right as we were finishing recording our debut album. Yeah, they weren’t happy. I was in something called “breach of contract” with the suits over at record label and they wanted to take me to court, and not the Star kind.

I definitely didn’t have lawsuit type of money back then, so it was in my best interest to work something out with Starcourt and jump back on fulfilling my contract. Problem was, Corroded Coffin didn’t want me back anymore, even though the guy they replaced me with wasn’t half as good as I was.

I thought that because my old band didn’t want me, that meant that I would be free of my contract. I was wrong. What actually happened was that my fate was then put into Starcourt’s hands and they could place me in whatever podunk production or band they wanted. They owned my ass.

And that’s how I ended up with The Downsides.

NEXT CHAPTER 🎺🎹

Taglist: @rexorangecouny

[capsarcastica]

Alien: Romulus Review

The longer the movie goes on, the worse it gets. It has promise, and the trailers certainly sold it. But it reminds me of the two worst Alien movies. Like Alien Resurrection, it's technically well done and has all the elements that should work but don't. Like Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, it's a collection of remade scenes from better Alien movies that comes across like a well-made fan film.

There is stuff to like. The visuals are amazing. The shots of space are the best in the series. There's a lot of extra attention paid to the ship drifting through space, the station, and the planetary rings. The sets are gorgeous, perfectly capturing the classic look and feel of the original film using old school tech. The practical alien effects mostly look good. It balances that fine line between audiences already knowing what they look like and keeping them mysterious and creepy.

Between this and 2022's Prey, it's disappointing that Disney's 20th Century Studios is just rehashing the original stories rather than give something new. Almost everything has a sense of been there, done that. The story is basically the same as the original. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But this feels more like rehashing rather than homage. It's like a Greatest Hits collection by a cover band. It works, but why bother when the original stuff is so readily available and done so much better. They even threw in the "Get away from her…" line from Aliens. Throwbacks worked in the cheesy AvP movies but not in something trying to be serious.

There's really only two truly original moments worth noting. The first is when the characters try to get through a room full of facehuggers without being noticed. The reasoning behind this is dubious at best, but it is suspenseful. Except for the fact that the facehuggers look like the kind of animatronics that would appear in a Disneyland line queue. The other is the Zero-G sequence. I wish this had more than just the act one set up and third act pay off, since it's really an inventive idea. It throws the aliens off giving the characters an advantage, and getting through a tunnel filled with floating acid would be suspenseful. Except that the CGI in this one scene looks really fake.

I do like how they connected the events of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant to the original Alien. Given the lackluster reception to the last two, it would've been easy to just ignore them and move on. This at least provides some closure on Ridley Scott's last two for those who did like them. And it connects to why the company wants the alien beyond just a bioweapon.

There's only one character that's interesting, Andy the defective android. He starts off mentally handicapped who is nice but is upgraded with the local science officer's chip making him effective yet part of the corporate machine. It's an interesting dynamic having the characters decide between the good but broken and the evil but effective versions. Rain is the main character, but the blandest heroine this series has produced. She's literally only there cause the others need Andy. The rest are basically characters straight out of an 80s slasher film. The dull heroic type, the jerk who just makes things worse, the pregnant girl who has no personality, and the Asian cannon fodder girl. The first three did a good job developing the cast so it was shocking when one died. But here it's pretty obvious who isn't making it.

The biggest problem with the cast is that none of them are really believable. The series, aside from AVP:R, has always featured more mature characters who generally made smart decisions. It's hard to buy this cast as a bunch of grizzled miners who have worked 1400+ hours. And they make really dumb Friday the 13th level decisions. Like in the finale when Rain goes back into the alien nest just to save someone who should be dead when she was in the clear. It's trying to have its Aliens finale without understanding what went into it. The actors are serviceable, but never portray the sheer terror that's needed for this series.

The legacy character cameo is, like the movie, technically well done but a terrible bit of story. Resurrecting Ian Holm seems like an interesting idea, and would have if it had been just a cameo. But he becomes central to the plot and is featured far too much. Beyond nostalgia bait, there's no reason not to just use another actor to be an entirely new android. The animatronics used for the puppet looks really good, and Daniel Betts does a near perfect job recreating the voice. It's like the Dr. Loomis cameo in Halloween Kills.

Then there's the other legacy cameo, the original alien. This has the unfortunate side effect of rendering everything Ripley did pointless. It then raises a bunch of questions the movie doesn't bother to address. Why is the Nostromo still so intact? How did the alien go from being vaporized in the shuttle's engines to being cocooned? How did the station get eggs from a single drone? Why is there now a pupae stage? How long is the development cycle? Stuff like this makes it seem like the script was a collection of moments that where later tied together.

And finally there's the horrible ending. It's the ending that really makes or breaks a film. For all the grief fans give Alien 3, it's hard not to find the last scene poignant with Ripley giving her life to end the alien threat once and for all. Instead of doing anything interesting, this film goes for a nearly beat-for-beat remake of the finale to Alien Resurrection. The absolute worst of the series. The one that fans remember more for Sigourney Weaver making a basketball shot than anything else in the film. They could have stole an ending from literally anything. But they chose to give us another alien-human hybrid that is just as dumb and somehow looks even worse.

I was really looking forward to this. Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead is an amazing reboot and I was hoping this would follow suit. But like James Mangold's Indiana Jones, there's just something lost when a great director tries to make lightning strike twice under Disney's leadership.

[the-blind-assassin-12]

It’s Always the Same

1200 words for 1200 followers #4 

A/N: Hi friends! Welcome to the 12-A-Palooza! This event is my way of saying thank you for sticking with me. Your support and kindness toward me and my writing is out of this world and I’m grateful for every last one of you! This is one of two requests that I got for Jack, and they will be related... and I already have plans to continue it after all the 12-A-Palooza requests are done. So in addition to the Spectrum Soulmate Marcus Pike AU, the Jack Daniels Time Travel AU is now a thing. (And I’m not mad about it at all.) 💚

Warnings: mention of character death, mention of violence, this one is angsty and I am SORRY. 

Requested by: @azure-waves Song: Back in Town Character Choice: Jack Daniels - Thank you for sending this in! I hope you enjoy this, darling! I know it’s a little angsty, but I have a plan so don’t worry too much!!

Jack Daniels was the best Agent within the Statesman organization. 

Skilled, suave, brave, reliable, dedicated. Jack was everything the agency stood for, everything they valued. Because of that, he’d risen quickly in the ranks, becoming a Senior Agent after only eight years of service. 

But there was one thing that set him apart from the rest of the Agents even more than those attributes - his willingness to partake in tests of new, experimental technology that could help the agency gain advantages. He had been the first to step forward when researchers brought Alpha-Gel to trial, fully aware and accepting of the risks involved. 

Nothin’ much to lose if it goes sideways. 

So when Champ and Ginger came to him with the proposition of a new trial, Jack had all but signed on before knowing a single detail. 

“It’s not as dangerous as the Alpha-Gel testing was,” Ginger explained. “But it’s … delicate.” 

“Well, darlin’, I can be as delicate as a daisy when the occasion calls for it. What’s the mission?” 

He didn’t expect time travel.

They called it The Rewind, since for now Statesman only had the ability to move in one direction along the continuum - backwards, and only up to three years - and Ginger had been right to deem it delicate. Time was a fragile thing, and handling it too harshly left fingerprints where they didn’t belong. Those fingerprints could cause the present to cave in on itself and the future cease to exist. 

Jack silently hoped that they never gained the ability to travel beyond the three year mark. He knew that if it became possible to go back to the moment that his wife was killed, no amount of moral obligation would keep him from trying to save her. 

Future be fuckin’ damned. 

The Rewind hadn’t been engineered so Agents could change things that had already happened, though. It was created strictly so the agency could gather intelligence. It allowed a person to go back to a specific time and place, to witness that moment again and again from different perspectives, drop eaves on a conversation until it had been memorized, hunt for clues in the near past that might give them an edge in the present so they could put a stop to things before they happened. 

But it was still in the early stages. There was still a battery of experiments to run. That was where Jack came in. 

“We’ll be sending you back three years, to the night of July 19th. There’s a place on the outskirts of town called the Junction. Or -” Ginger arched one eyebrow. “There was. It closed down six months ago. But before it did? A lot of shady characters used to meet there. We think it’s where Dark Shadow did most of its recruiting.” 

Jack’s top lip curled at the mention of the crime organization. Dark Shadow had been a weapon smuggling ring that operated by overwhelming local law enforcement with a slew of small crimes so that they could pull off their larger ones while the authorities were distracted. They sold guns to drug dealers, who in turn put pistols in the hands of every sales soldier on the streets. They were the reason that countless hearts had been broken by the words “wrong place, wrong time” just as Jack’s had. 

Taking them down had undoubtedly been his proudest moment as a Statesman. 

Ginger explained that since they already knew how things shook out for Dark Shadow, testing the Rewind on their hideout meant that the stakes were low. “For now we just want you to go, spend a few hours there, act as though you’re just a patron getting a drink. You can talk to people as long as you don’t tell them anything that hasn’t happened for them yet. We’ll pull you back remotely when it's time, and then you’ll report on anything you can remember.” 

Jack nodded. “Seems simple enough.” 

“We’ll repeat this process until we’re confident that you’ve absorbed every detail of that night - what people were wearing, the texture of the bar top, all of it. That gives us an idea of how big a window we’ll have when we send Agents in for live missions. How long they’ll need in a space that size with the same number of variables and-” 

“Ginger.” Champ cleared his throat as a gentle interruption. “Think he gets the idea. Don’t ya, Whiskey?” 

“Sure. Like any old night on the town. ‘Cept it’s the same night every night until I can paint it pretty as a picture for you. That about it?” 

Ginger gave a sheepish nod, aware that she was prone to over explanation at times. “Yup. That’s about it. For now.” 

– – – 

Jack stopped outside the Junction, staring at the flickering neon letters on the sign that hung in the window. Like always, the C was dead. This time, though, he noticed that it was due to a crack in the lightbox that looked distinctly like a bullet hole. 

Well look at that. A new piece of the picture already. 

With that he went inside. He wasted no time lingering near the dart boards or sauntering through the billiards tables as he’d done his first few July 19ths. He’d already gained what he could from the people gathered around them on previous trips. This time his focus was directly on the bar. Or more directly on the woman behind it. 

You.

It was his twelfth time pulling up a stool and ordering a drink from you. Nine of those times he’d asked you your name and he’d given you his. You’d spent nearly half your shift ignoring other customers to talk with him on at least seven occasions. Five times he’d caught you looking at him in the bar mirror, a guilty - but not ashamed - grin curving your cheeks. There were four times when you had asked him if he wanted to get coffee at the diner on ninth street, three when he had said yes, and two when you’d invited him back to your place after that. The last time he walked into the Junction he ended up in your bed, with you panting his name into his ear. 

He remembered every detail of every interaction with you.

But for you it was the first time you’d seen him. You didn’t know his name or his drink. Didn’t know that he made you laugh or that his hands had already mapped your body. “What’ll you have, Cowboy?” 

He gave you the same smile he had the last few times - which meant that you couldn’t tell it was just a little sad. “Whiskey’n water, darlin’.” 

Always the same. 

He couldn’t help the twinge in his chest as you turned to make his drink. Jack wasn’t expecting the mission to be time travel. And he sure as shit wasn’t expecting to fall for a woman from a different timeline. But here he was. And there you were. 

The Alpha-Gel trials had been painful. Knowing that you would forget him every time was torture.

Still, when you asked him out for coffee, he grinned, standing from his stool. “You ever been to the 9th Street Diner, darlin’?” 

.

.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to be added to or removed from the tag list, please feel free to let me know. You can also fill out the form on my Masterlist! :)

tags:  @something-tofightfor​ @paracosmenthusiast​ @cannedsoupsucks​ @dihra-vesa​ @disgruntledspacedad​ @littlemisspascal​ @hellovanessax​ @mishasminion360​ @nyctophiliiiiaaa​ @practicalghost​ @tanzthompson​ @harriedandharassed​ @woodlandmouth​ @swtaura @trickstersp8​ @princessxkenobi​ @imtryingmybeskar​ @wildmoonflower​ @mswarriorbabe80​ @theredwritingwitch​ @silverstarsandsuns​ @competentpotato​ @pedro-pedrito-pascalito​ @jedi-in-crocs​ @hannahkatharine​ @novemberrain221 @chiyo13​ @myloveistoolittle​ @spishsstuff @writeforfandoms

[justforbooks]

César Aira

He has published more than 100 novels, gives his work away, and his surrealist books have a massive cult following. Now Argentina’s favourite rule-breaker is tipped for the Nobel prize

Afew years ago when Patti Smith played at a cultural festival in Denmark, she told the crowd that she was happy to be playing in the presence of one of her favourite authors. It was said she had only agreed to play the festival because the author, César Aira, would be in the audience. Aira, although celebrated in his home country, Argentina, was little known outside Latin America until he was discovered in 2002 by the Berlin-based literary agent Michael Gaeb, who was enchanted by his unconventional, surrealist books, which shift atmosphere, and even genre, from one page to another.

At first it proved difficult to sell Aira’s novels to a wider audience. “The fundamental problem when promoting César’s work is that the editor always asks: ‘What is the novel about?’” Gaeb told me. “And in the case of César, it’s not easy to answer that question.”

Gaeb has since sold Aira’s books in 37 languages. At the start of October last year, the English betting site Nicer Odds named Aira as a favourite for the Nobel prize in literature, slightly ahead of candidates such as Haruki Murakami and Salman Rushdie, who have appeared more regularly on such lists.

“I already know that every October, until my death, I’m going to have to put up with that.” Said by any other writer, this would come across as a humble brag. But Aira doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who appreciates disrupting events. “Sometimes the candidacy is useful to me,” he said, laughing. “For instance, now we live in a more luxurious apartment, one a little beyond my circumstances. And they rent to me because they see that I am a candidate for the Nobel.”

His apartment is located just five blocks from his office, which in its turn was the house where he lived for more than 40 years with his two children and his wife, Liliana Ponce, a poet and a scholar of Japanese literature. The recent move took place because Ponce has an illness that affects her mobility, and the new building has an elevator.

Aira, who does not speak to the local press and whose interviews with foreign media are usually short and conducted via email, rarely leaves Flores, a lower-middle-class neighbourhood that’s best known today as a textile hub for the clothing stores in wealthier areas of the city. Early in his career, Aira developed a method called the fuga hacia adelante (something like “forward flight”), which consists of writing a few hours a day and never looking back to edit until he reaches the end of a tale. “I revise much more than I did before,” casually demystifying what is perhaps the fact most repeated about his work. “I think that I’ve become more demanding. Or else I’m writing worse than before.”

The novels were – and sometimes still are – written in neighbourhood bars, cafes and even fast-food joints, such as McDonald’s or Pumper Nic, a now-extinct Buenos Aires chain. “It began when my children were small,” he said. “If I had a bit of time, I escaped, and I went to write. But after the pandemic, the bars and cafes started to fill up a lot. And there’s the issue of the telephones. If at a neighbouring table two people are conversing, it’s possible to ignore them. But if there’s just one person talking on the phone, it’s as if they’re speaking with you. It’s horrible!”

Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, in a small town in the south of the province, 300 miles from the capital. “I was thinking just now of my first memories of childhood because they are of the revolution of 1955,” he said – the year Juan Perón was removed from power by a coup for the first time. There was only one cinema, and television had not yet caught on. But the town had two well-stocked public libraries. “When I was still a teenager, I was already reading Joyce, Proust and Kafka,” Aira said. His precocity was also stimulated by an amateur public education in which classes were taught not by specialised professors but by volunteers with gigantic private collections of books. There were doctors who taught philosophy classes (“in those days, doctors were humanists”) and lawyers who taught history. “I didn’t have that kind of bureaucratic education where the teacher knows more,” he said. “It was something a lot freer.”

When he was about 14 years old, Aira met Arturo Carrera, a friend who, like him, would become a nationally recognised writer. Aira dedicated himself to prose; Carrera, poetry. The friends tried to stay up to date with the literary world by getting hold of magazines that were based in the capital. One of those publications, Testigo (Witness), held a contest. Carrera sent a few poems, and Aira sent a story. They both came out winners.

At the time, the majority of promising secondary school students in Coronel Pringles continued their university studies in Bahía Blanca, a city 75 miles away. “Law was the only graduate course they didn’t have,” Aira said. He told his parents he was interested in a law degree and moved to the capital. “I wanted to come for the art galleries, the cinemas,” he said. For two years, he studied law at the University of Buenos Aires, and then he transferred to the department of literature.

Testigo folded before it could publish Aira’s winning story. But one of the judges of the award, the novelist Abelardo Arias, wrote to congratulate him. Aira and Arias began a correspondence, and soon Aira showed Arias a manuscript. Arias loved it and passed it on to the publisher Galerna, which agreed to print it.

“It was a big thing, even more so for a young person of that age,” Aira said.

One day, walking aimlessly through the streets of the city with a friend, he came across a building he knew. “Here, in this building, an editor wants to publish a novel of mine,” he told her. “Let’s go up.” When he arrived, he asked to speak with the person responsible for his book. Then he asked for the manuscript back: “I don’t want to publish it any more.” The editor was astonished.

I asked Aira why he’d acted like that. “Just because,” he said. He shrugged and laughed. “I wanted to impress her.”

To write all day long without revising until you reach the end of a story produces an obscene quantity of books. Nobody I met in Buenos Aires ventured to pin down exactly how many volumes Aira has published. César Aira, un catálogo (César Aira: A Catalogue), organised by the writer and lawyer Ricardo Strafacce, is the most notable effort to itemise his work. Launched in 2018 with the aim of helping the uninitiated, the catalogue reprints one page from each of Aira’s books. The catalogue was commissioned by his publisher in part to commemorate his 100th book (Aira likes round numbers), but in the time the catalogue took to reach the printer, Aira had already written two more.

When I sat with Strafacce in the Varela-Varelita bar in Buenos Aires at the end of a November afternoon, he was still indignant with the catalogue’s publisher, who he said had made changes without telling him. For instance, the publisher had edited the date of publication for the Aira story El hornero (The Ovenbird). “I’m furious,” he said. “You can talk to [the editor]. I don’t give a shit.” He complained about another small modification: in the biographical information for one of the titles, to his mention of Madrid, the editor had added “Spain”. In Strafacce’s eyes, the detail made him seem like an idiot, a “boludo”.

“Don’t writers get worked up about the most incredible minutiae?” said Francisco Garamona, the editor in question. With a cigarette in one hand and a glass of soda in the other, he explained that he’d merely used the version of El hornero that Aira himself had authorised, rather than the one in circulation, which was pirated. He was sitting on a sofa in La Internacional Argentina, his bookshop, where he also operates his publishing house, Mansalva. Today, Mansalva probably publishes the most titles by Aira. “There he is, and here are more, here’s another, and here,” Garamona said as he counted the shelves in the bookshop. “One, two, three … seven. Seven niches of just Aira.”

In a way, the decor reflected Garamona’s multifaceted career; in addition to being an editor and a bookshop owner, he is a musician, a film-maker, a poet and the former owner of an art gallery. Today he is also one of two editors whom Aira defined for me as “official”. The other is Damián Ríos, from the publisher Blatt & Ríos.

The honour of “official” editors must inspire some pride in Ríos and Garamona, because Aira has worked with more than a few. His extensive body of work is decentralised in dozens of editorial houses, the vast majority of them tiny, which makes him an author at once ubiquitous and elusive. In this context, it’s not difficult to understand how a controversy like the one with El hornero came about. Aira must be one of the few writers in the world, maybe the only one, to sell 25,000 copies of one title and at the same time launch other titles in much smaller print runs. He has never charged royalties or advances for the small publishing houses in Argentina. “That was the agreement I made with Michael [Gaeb],” Aira said. “I don’t meddle with the world. And he doesn’t meddle with Argentina. In Argentina, everything is free.”

Aira’s strong cultural presence today conceals the stuttering start of his career. “For many years, this was the only proof I was a writer,” he said, showing a handful of yellowing pages, the nucleus of a book without a cover. His voice shook, this time, emotion had truly moved him. In his hands was a copy of Moreira, considered by some to be his first published novel. In the background, an atmospheric combination of dissonant chords and piano notes faded away. “I only listen to Morton Feldman these days,” Aira said. He added that he’d recently made an exception to listen to Now and Then, a “new” song by the Beatles completed thanks to help from artificial intelligence.

After going up to the office of the publishing house Galerna in 1969, in that half-impulsive gesture to ask for his manuscript back, some years went by before Aira had a chance to publish again. Moreira was supposed to come out in 1975, but was delayed. The editor of the book was Aira’s friend Horacio Achával, owner of the publishing house Achával Solo. In 1976, there was another military coup in Argentina. “Horacio was a political militant and had to go away,” Aira said. “He took off. He went to Uruguay.” The copies of Moreira, still without a cover, were left stranded in a warehouse. Years later, Achával returned to the country and finalised the cover. The book was officially launched in December 1981, just weeks after Ema, la cautiva (Ema, the Captive), which came out from another publishing house in November 1981 and today disputes with Moreira the title of Aira’s official debut.

Strafacce told a different story. “Moreira was printed in June 1975,” he said. “The money ran out, and there wasn’t enough to print the cover because in the same month, there was a financial crisis and a bank run here in Argentina.”

Aira published a few books in the 80s, but according to Sandra Contreras, who founded a small publishing house that published him throughout the 90s and 2000s, it was not until 1990’s Los fantasmas (Ghosts) that he accelerated his production. At the time, she said, he also spoke more explicitly of a new phase, “the beginning of the regular publication of his novelas and novelitas”. Aira was the first author to be published not only by Contreras’s publishing house but also by Mansalva and Blatt & Ríos in the early 00s.

In the 90s, small publishers like these were rare. Garamona said that this began to change in 2001, when after almost a decade of one-to-one parity between the Argentine peso and the US dollar, the local economy went through one of the worst recessions in Latin American history. Importing books became expensive. And so, after spending years favouring authors from Spain, local bookshop owners finally had eyes for Argentine literature.

When Gaeb first encountered Aira’s work in Guadalajara, in 2002, Aira had already begun to occupy his paradoxical central position at the margins of the culture. “He is a writer who exists in different fields, at different levels,” the fiction writer and critic Alan Pauls says, from his Berlin study, in a conversation over Zoom. “On the one hand, he has quite a lot of popularity. And on the other, he remains a niche writer, a cult writer. We still think of him as a writer of the avant garde, a manufacturer of very sophisticated objects. He’s someone who occupies the centre to his regret, not because he looked for it.”

To get hold of Moreira today isn’t easy – on the site Mercado Libre Argentina, in mid-December, there was a copy going for about $1,200 (£950). On the cover that for years remained unfinished, there is a monstrous, saturnine figure riding a yellow horse. Beneath the image, the first sentence of the novel prominently appears: Un día, de madrugada, por las lomas inmóviles del Pensamiento bajaba montado en potro amarillo un horrible gaucho (“One day at dawn, through the unmoving hills of Thought, mounted upon a yellow colt, there descended a horrible gaucho”).

In Spanish, El Pensamiento can refer to both the abstract noun, and the village close to where Aira was born and spent his childhood. The phrase gives a taste of the kind of mixture harboured within the novel. Evoking Juan Moreira, a folkloric knife-fighting hero of the Argentine Pampas, the book narrates a gaucho-esque pantomime, shot through with philosophical allusions and images from dreams. In Moreira, one can already recognise the multifaceted and frenetically imaginative style for which Aira would later be known. But the Airean machine still seems to just be getting started: there is a heavy self-consciousness that is absent from the books that follow. In these later works, his prose is limpid and inviting. Here is the start of El mago (The Magician), published almost exactly 20 years after Moreira:

In March this year, the Argentine magician Hans Chans (his real name was Pedro María Gregorini) participated in a convention of illusionists in Panamá; the event, just as the invitation and promotional leaflet described, was a regional meeting of prestigious professionals, a preparation for the great world congress the following year, which was celebrated every 10 years and this time would take place in Hong Kong. The previous one had been in Chicago, and he had not gone. Now he planned not only to participate, but also to establish himself as Best Magician in the World. The idea was not crazy or megalomaniacal. It had a foundation as reasonable as it was curious: Hans Chans was a genuine magician.

Aira takes this magical premise seriously, drawing from the dilemma a tale both comic and – in its exploration of the complex relations between being and seeming – densely philosophical. Hans Chans has the gift to be an illusionist, but not the vocation. He is too self-indulgent to dedicate himself to the profession. The narrator writes: “Maybe, paradoxically, the advantage he had played against him and condemned him to mediocrity.” Without patience for the theatre of magic, Chans limits himself to drawing handkerchiefs from wine glasses, and things of that sort.

It would not be unfair to read El mago as an allegory for the career of Aira himself: of someone who has the gift of writing but for whom the most deeply rooted conventions of the profession seem meaningless. Just like Hans Chans, the author is aware of his gift. Aira is affable and courteous, but he is far from being modest. (Modesty, faked or not, is another convention of the profession.) About the manuscript he asked to take back from Galerna in 1969, he said: “It was better than anything else that was published at the time.”

He has never been afraid to throw darts at other writers. When we spoke, he was disdainful of Roberto Bolaño, saying he had read only one novel by the Chilean author, which he found “terrible”. Aira also said that the great Argentine novelist Juan José Saer had once warmed to him, when he was young and starting out, but then became envious when Aira started getting more attention. In 1981, shortly before Moreira was finally published, Aira wrote an essay titled Novela argentina: nada más que una idea (The Argentine Novel: Nothing But an Idea), which mounts a general attack on literature of the period. The essay begins:

The current Argentine novel, beyond a doubt, is a stunted, ill-fated species. In general terms, what defines a poor novelistic product is the poor use, crude and opportunistic, of the available mythical-social material. In other words, the meanings that dictate how a society lives at a given historical moment. But the literary transposition of a reality demands the existence of a very exact passion: that of literature. And a rapid, provisional survey, not at all exhaustive, of Argentine novelists reveals that they have not read deeply, and show a complete absence of that passion along with its epiphenomenon, talent.

Aira, who had not even published a novel at that time, sticks his scalpel swiftly and mercilessly into a series of authors, most of whom have been more or less forgotten. The essay, though, is remembered these days for Aira’s attack on Ricardo Piglia, who, until his death in 2017, was a kind of public rival to Aira, at least in terms of the very different literary forms they espoused.

Pauls linked Aira’s attacks at the start of his career to his ambition to reconfigure the Argentine novel. “When he emerges in the literary environment, he knows perfectly well the writers he has to tussle with,” he said. For Pauls, Aira disturbed the paradigm of a certain progressive Argentinian literature, a literature of the left, very masculine and politically committed. “Something that literary school could not stand, for example, was a certain kind of work with frivolity, with the banal, with the superficial,” Pauls said.

Aira’s style crystallised very early on. Even if Moreira is not at the level of his next books, there is no clear sense of progression in Aira’s trajectory. Maybe for that reason, none of the readers could point to a favourite work.

Aira said he will have two new novelitas ready soon. He said he plans to give one to Ríos and the other to Garamona. “And now I’ve been thinking, because one of them came out better than the other, more imaginative – who will I give that one to?” he said, laughing.

Aira rejects great theorising about his decision to give away books free or publish the majority with small publishing houses. “His form of publishing is part of his poetics, his resistance to editorial capitalism, his punk attitude,” Gaeb said.

Contreras classified the hyperproduction of little books for small publishers as an aesthetic decision. “Something like: it’s enough for a tale to be imagined to make it necessary to publish,” she said. “There is also a fascination for the book as a unique object.”

Pauls said he interprets this decision as an avant garde way of thinking: “If the kind of literature I make is never going to have hundreds of thousands of readers, what happens if I inundate the market with books?”

When Aira was asked if he was edited nowadays, first he said that “nobody revises anything”. Then he conceded that Ríos sometimes makes one comment or another. Ríos corroborated this, but found it hard to define the exact nature of his comments, and he made it clear that they weren’t about anything structural. Contreras said that in her day, she at most corrected the odd typo.

Garamona laughed at the notion of editing or revising a text by Aira. “He has written since he was a teenager without stopping, and has such a mastery of form and content that in the end there isn’t much left to do,” he said. “You just have to pick it up, make a good cover with a pretty design, correct two or three errata.”

Los hombrecitos con sobretodo (The Little Men in Overcoats) is the title of the novel Aira defined as the most imaginative of the two he recently finished. “What happens is that here in the neighbourhood, two blocks away, where the fire station is located, men pop out at night,” he said. “At midnight they come popping out of the ceiling. Little men suddenly appear like that, really tiny men, they all wear overcoats. And at night, I go and watch them.”

He spoke as if he were beginning a fairytale. The low, tremulous voice transiting between fine irony and rapture; the sense of humour; the erudition; the sedentary life in a dark house in the neighbourhood where he’d lived for decades, from which he generates cosmopolitan, compact stories full of metafictional layers – all of it reminds us a bit of Jorge Luis Borges.

For an Argentinian, to say a great local writer seems like or is influenced by Borges must sound absurdly lazy. But both authors start their brief, densely packed books with literary anecdotes or memories written in crisp prose. In the works of both, there are frequent essayistic digressions. Both persistently turn to the literary technique of ekphrasis. There are metafictional and metaliterary games, references to other works.

The main difference is perhaps in the intensity and direction of the narrative swerves, and Aira’s greater comfort with pop culture and genre literature. Whereas a story by Borges might take up a lost 19th-century Persian manuscript, a novel by Aira might locate it behind the balcony of a McDonald’s in Flores, pored over by an adolescent with an acne problem.

Borges was almost infantile in his complete dedication as a reader, distant from the mundane hustle and bustle of the world. Nobody had anything substantial to say about Aira’s private life either. “He likes to drink coffee and talk about literature,” Ríos said. Gaeb said that Aira sometimes seems to get along better with children. (In fact, the person about whom Aira spoke with the greatest passion, albeit briefly, was Arturito, his only grandson.)

Strafacce, his friend for more than 20 years, said he found it easier to explain what Aira doesn’t talk about. “We’re used to not speaking about politics because I’m Trotskyist,” he said. “And César is not.”

It was the week of the second round of the presidential election. A few days later, the Peronist Sergio Massa, a member of the centre-left governing coalition at the time, would be defeated by the far-right Javier Milei. “Milei is worse than Bolsonaro,” said Aira, in his only comment about politics.

That day, before going to the cafe, Aira passed through the Museo Barrio de Flores. Earlier, he had been irritated at a package from one of his foreign publishers: a box containing copies of one of his novels in Dutch translation. “They keep sending me those here,” he complained, as if sending books to the author himself were a kind of gaffe. Aira handles books with the avidity of a collector. He was mesmerised for a good while that afternoon by an edition of the French author Raymond Roussel, one of his surrealist idols, and he showed us a little purple box the size of a pack of cigarettes: a tiny special edition the Biblioteca Nacional had made of El ilustre mago (The Famous Magician), another novel of his. But for some reason, he wanted to rid himself of the box with the Dutch edition.

The Museo Barrio de Flores does exactly what its name suggests, displaying all kinds of memorabilia – old calculators and radios, paintings, newspaper clippings, political propaganda – related in some way to famous inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The definition of “famous” is broad, ranging from Perón – who lived there with his first wife – to the two preteen nieces of the museum’s director, who created a children’s library during the pandemic and appeared on the front page of the newspaper Clarín. Aira seemed at ease there. His name occupies one of the steps on the staircase by the front door. On the step above is the name of the great writer Roberto Arlt; on the one below, an advertisement for a real-estate broker.

Aira left the box of books with an employee and continued through the museum. At one point he dwelt on a framed letter written by Pope Francis, another former inhabitant of the neighbourhood. “Did you see how pretty the pope’s handwriting is? They don’t teach that in school any more, no.” He went to another room, where there was a showcase with some of Aira’s books.

When he opened the door, there was a group of ladies sitting around a big table. A class was in session. They all smiled pleasantly, focusing their attention on the author. Only the instructor of the course seemed to be younger than 65.

“What is the name of the little plane that flies near the ground?” one of the ladies asked.

“The what?” said Aira.

“The little plane,” the lady repeated, with a certain impatience, lowering her open palm toward the floor. “The one that flies near the ground.”

For a while, everyone stared at Aira, waiting for an answer. “An unexpected question,” joked the instructor awkwardly.

Aira shrugged, and we went to the corner to look at his showcase.

✔ This is an edited version of César Aira’s Magic, published in the Dial. The article originally appeared in the Brazilian magazine Piauí

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[melodyalanaroster]

Update for The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster as of 11/30/24.

Holy crap... It's been nearly 9 months since I last posted a chapter. I am so sorry about that, guys. A lot has happened in the past few months. If you're in the Otome Haven Discord Server, I've been more in depth with it there. I won't go into full detail here... But here's a quick recap.

I bought a new car and dealt with it having a little bit of trouble. I'm currently paying my fiancé's grandmother back for my car. It's a 2014 Kia and it's nice. I've named it Binky after Death's horse from Discworld.

I bought and modified a Barbie Dreamhouse. I've wanted one since I was a kid and honestly it has been an absolute dream to have it. I've done everything from making custom curtains, to painting and adding fabric to the furniture, to spray painting several elements, to adding shelves to 2 rooms, to even custom building at least 2 pieces of furniture myself. At this point, the only things I haven't done are take the house itself apart and spray paint several of the core elements... I should have done that before I did anything else...

July was crazy. We had my birthday, my fiancé's birthday, our housewarming party and a bunch of other stuff.

I confronted my monster-in-law. My man's mother is a helicopter parent from Hell and doesn't treat her nearly 30-year-old son like the adult he is. It did not end well. Turns out that I am part of the long line of daughters-in-law who are hated by their in-laws and blamed for everything.

My fiancé's dog, Sly, passed away on what would have been my mom's 48th birthday... The dog was around 15 years old. He fought junkyard dogs, coyotes, and even killed a chicken hawk. That dog even walked off eating an entire bag of M&M's! He was a Chihuahua through and through.

We adopted a new kitten and took my fiancé's other dog back from his dad. I found the kitten at work while I was putting flowers out. She's black with orange eyes. Her name is Wednesday. As for the dog, his dad was not the best person to take care of her. The second we were able to force his dad to let us take her, we did. Chel (the dog) is a lot better now.

My job had been crazy. My old (shitty) manager left and now I have a new manager that is significantly better. But, with the holidays upon us, it's crazy.

I've been on a MASSIVE Devil May Cry kick since September. I'm sorry Nathaniel, I'm currently enamored with Nero. More specifically, Nero from DMC5. I love him in DMC4, but I love him more in 5. So, yeah... When I'm hyper fixated with a 1/4 demon boy, I can't think about my Nathaniel... Since then, I've amassed a small DMC collection (for Nero). 5 different acrylic stands, 2 keychains, 2 can badges, a fan and a copy of the Japanese book, DMC 5: Before the Nightmare.

Thanksgiving went better than expected. Both my family and my in-laws were on their best behavior. A win is a win.

My laptop has finally decided to die. This has been the biggest roadblock for my writing. Honestly, if it wasn't for this, I probably would have used Alana's story as a bit of escapism, just like I have all these years. I bought my laptop with my tax refund in 2017, and it's been messing up for a while. The last time I booted it up, it took 2 hours and 5 reboots just to get it to work properly. By the time I got it working, I no longer had the motivation to write or make edits.

It's because of this that I decided that my Christmas present for myself this year would be a proper gaming computer... And that was a whole Black Friday fiasco. It didn't help that I was one of the many Swifties that went out and stood in line at my local Target at 5 am. I got the book and the CD that Taylor Swift released. Then Best Buy sold me a brand-new gaming PC that was dead on arrival. So, I had to go do an exchange and I still ended up shelling out $108.25 more from my savings account. My Christmas present from my fiancé was my monitor for my computer. Bright side? My new desk set up looks amazing!

In all honesty, I don't know when I'll get back to writing. The holidays are always hectic for me. But now that I have my computer, and it only takes maybe a minute to boot up, I'll be trying to spend more time on it, editing, re-reading what I've already got in my drafts, and eventually writing. Trust me, when I start actively wedding planning next year, I will need the distraction...

[ultraviolet-ink]

What do you think about asoryuu?

Oh boy, this one's going to be a bit loaded, so here's a bit of a preemptive apology for a ramble/word vomit/rant on my end. Suffice to say ASRY is a NoTP for me. When I was first getting into DGS all the way back in 2019/20, I was a bit ambivalent towards the ship. I had only watched a playthrough of the first game, and I had the feeling that Kazuma was going to come back, but the ship didn't really scream to me at that point, and it kind of befuddled me to see how it was so popular (and a bit of a tangent, I think people only really ship the 1-1 dynamic, but that's a convo for another day). If you even look at the header of my blog, it is no secret that I ship Ryuususa, and it is my OTP. When I had watched the fifth case on the playthrough, I was sold on that ship, and the last moments really sealed the deal for me-- there's something really compelling about the goodbye scene between Susato and Ryuunosuke at the docks, and the localization legitimately made me cry (happy tears of course!) Being a little naive, I started to post about it and I got... a LOT of harassment calling me a lot of names/accusing me of being okay with a lot of really horrible things (intrusive thoughts WHOOOOOOP). The harassment was so bad that I only recently opened up to my therapist about what had happened, and I was pulling away from servers/people I thought I was friends with/wouldn't treat me horribly. I found a lot of solace with people who were also violently harassed pre-localization (shout out to the Baroryuu community, you all were really kind to me, and I am proud to also be a Baroryuu lover <3), when I say it was drama filled pre localization, I mean it. I can even point out when my harassment started to March of 2021 when someone on twitter said not to read my dgs fics since I was a proshipper (I hadn't even called myself that at this point, and honestly I don't really use that title [idk how else to describe it lol], but I do follow that philosophy and call myself anti-harassment), and since I hadn't had a twt at that time, they linked to my ao3, and since I put my tumblr on my fics, I got a LOT of disturbing anons. Even when I made my server, I used to have a link that anyone could click on (word of the day is naive lmaooo), and I got a lot of creeps coming in trying to surveil the server and make sure their friends weren't in it (one person was even trying to get access to the nsfw section which was FUN). After reading this, you're probably thinking "what does this have to do with ASRY?". A lot of the major bullies in fandom HEAVILY shipped ASRY, and would harass people who shipped other ships (Baroryuu and Asobaro shippers were racist, Homuryuu shippers were okay with incest because of that stupid "greatest family in the world" line, etc.). All in all, it came with a lot of entitlement and anger that other peopled DARED not to ship that ship. Those sorts of people really tainted the ship for me. As for the ship itself, I can definitely see why people love it a lot (especially 1-1), but I really didn't like Kazuma in 2-4/5. I found him to be really particularly awful and obtuse (which, makes perfect sense in the story! Who wouldn't be in his position?). I was also mad that he only said ONE (1!!!) thing to Susato when he got his memories back (despite HER recognizing him and getting the ball rolling), and it was basically "Thanks for helping out my friend, bye!" (#justiceforsusato lol). Even at the end of the game, I still was mad at Kazuma and didn't really like him. It's only due to my friends (namely @leafyemeralds and her VERY GOOD TAKES in our convos) that I eventually started to warm up to him. Now he's my personal punching bag to Atone(tm) XD I suppose TL;DR I'm not a big Kazuma fan, harassment made me really dislike the ship, so I don't ship it (also, can ASRY shippers tag their stuff? this is more of a problem on twitter, but it happens on tumblr. Filters can only work if they're there =3=)

[ornii]

In case your requests r open, could I ask for a Robin & platonic male reader insert? Like Robin maybe acting as a big sister figure to reader who is coming to terms with being gay and its all comfy and cute . No pressure though!!

Robin being my second favorite character (#1 goes to Steve “The Hair” Harrington of course) I’d love to do this one. Sorry if it’s too short!

Like They Do in Movies

Robin Buckley X Platonic Male Reader

Summary: Robin offers some, questionable, advice to the reader after discovering their sexual orientation.

I guess I have to put this warning:

Stranger things takes place in the 80s, a time where being Gay or Lesbian was something to be hidden and kept secret due to the underlying consequences of said lifestyle, so there will be acts of said prejudice in this story, so if you find that uncomfortable I recommend not reading, thank you.

Robin Buckely, she was the last person you’d think would give you relationship advice. You’ve seen her talk to boys in the past, especially working at Scoops Ahoy last year but she always seems so disinterested in conversations with them. Until a man by the name Steve Harrington came into her life. After that, she seemed to really blossom as a person, instead of being so sarcastic and dismissive, she bloomed into this inquisitive and adorable band nerd. After Star Court came to a burning conclusion, she and Steve found a job at the local movie rental, and thus lead to how you came across her.

One day you were returning a VHS of “Sixteen candles” you rented because a girl wanted to see it so badly for a “Date.” It was morso just her complaining and you feeling this awkward disconnect from her. Regardless, the date was a disaster and you returned the movie, you two began small banter about movies and nerd stuff, being fellow band members had its perks. After the topic switched to school, you went to a small Spiel about this certain someone at school, Robin seemed less intrigued about other peoples love lives, until you let it slip that they were on the Boys swim team. That small tidbit of information lead Robin to the same conclusion. It was dead awkward silence for a few moments. Well, it seems you two have more in common than you think. You both were in Band, total nerds, and Did not find much attraction to the opposite gender.

Your mind begins to wonder with the possible consequences about your slip up, but Robin just smiled. The first thing that she did was immediately critique your choice of guy for being “Too Much of a Water head, you know like a meat head but more aquatic and wet.” A Joke to ease the tension, wonder where she learned that from. She was so reassuring, so caring and understanding. She accepted you for you, since she knows how it feels. Robin offered to help you understand just how; off you felt. so you made stops to the movie rental even when you didn’t even feel like watching anything. One day you enter the Rental spot and see her typing up some name. Scooting over you lean on the counter.

“So.. how’s it going?” You say, smirking.

“Boring, mostly..” she says and her eyes trail over to meet your smile. “Tell me Yours has had at least sold entertainment.” She stops typing and turns to face you and you tap on the counter.

“Okay, so…about the Guy.” You begin, building up the courage to blurt it out.

“I wanna ask him out, but… I think he might be—“ you begin and Robin leans in, gleaming.

“That’s great, I mean he might not be, into you but that’s okay! There’s like statistically 8 billion people in the world, you’ll find someone who loves cheesy movies and an absurd amount of cheese on your burger like you do.” Robin says.

“.. I meant that he might not see it as a date, he’s a little, Dense.” You admit, Robin shakes her head and puts her hands on yours.

“Trust me, Ive Met some, pretty dense guys, but deep down they’re good at heart.” She says, “As cheesy as that sounds it’s true.” She adds, he nods but can’t really form a smile.

“I know.. personality not looks but, what if I, what if I tell him and he.. calls me a Homo or a—“his worry shows and Robin just looks so sorry for him. The confusion and fear all swirled up and bottled into one person. She gripped his hands harder and she spoke a bit more softly.

“Hey. Don’t think Like that.” She says, his eyes lock up with hers and she keeps a soft glare. “If they treat you like that, they weren’t all the heartbreak you’re going through right now, okay?” Robin says, she pulls him in for a hug and he felt the genuine comfort and love he deserves. And for a moment he felt, wanted.

Until suddenly someone bursts in from the back, Steve.

“Hey Robin do We have a VHS of The Goonies—“ he says before stopping dead in his tracks seeing Them. The two separate and try to play it off.

“Yeah It’s in the back room, third shelf.” She says, Steve awkwardly nods and heads off. (Y/n) turns to Robin.

“Shit. Sorry..” He said, Robin shrugs it off.

“It’s okay, he knows.”

“He knows? Steve Harrington knows?” He says taken aback.

“Remember what I said? Dense.” She says, (Y/n) realizes and nods.

“Ooooooh… Yeah… Dense.” He says, Robin gives a soft pat on the back, and nods, ready to take the chance, maybe they’d fall it in love… Just like they do in movies.”

Apologies if it’s a bit short, I hope I did Robin some Justice as a fantastic representative for those struggling with being who they are. Thanks.

[rambling-madwoman]

Midnight Cinderella Character Notes

My character notes for the midcin suitors. I haven't played all their routes and these will probably change and update as I'm writing & as I acquire more info. Some creative liberties/interpretations inevitable. I've also added some notes for the Princess I'm writing, Lettie.

Updating :) Worked out my notes more in the editing process. So far I have Louis & Lettie done (for now). I've expanded on the other suitors a bit but they're not done & I need to go through the routes more to pin down specifics. I left the notes I had and I'll update as they're done :)

The 'relationship' section for the suitors is how I think they are around love, in relationships in general. I have further notes about how they are with Lettie but that's just plot isn't it? Secrets secrets.

Loretta “Lettie” or “Etta” Vachon – Local medicine woman? Witch?

Personality/Background - Born in the Wysterian countryside, raised with her brother by a single mother who worked as a ladies maid. Lettie spent most of her time looking after the children of the family her mother worked for. After the death of her mother, Lettie was left alone to raise Theo. The master of the household sent them away with a sum of money, which Lettie spent almost entirely on small house in the capital. Finding work enough to survive was difficult but Lettie made herself useful to neighbors who began coming to her for the skills she had learned from her mother. (I have to nail this down more specifically, think masking gallic polytheistic practices with catholic saints/practices to go under the radar during the crusades.) As Lettie became more involved with their lives and making more money, it created rumors of witchcraft. Lettie fed into it, creating a reputation that kept people away while keeping a network of trustworthy clients.

Her personality lends itself well to the witch rumors. Ornery, blunt, more often than not rude or sarcastic. Beneath that, she’s been a caretaker since a young age and it runs deep in her. The loss of her mother and the family she had grown up caring for made her acutely aware of how much it can hurt to love people, but she can’t help herself. She can’t turn her back on people, even if she’s swearing at you and scolding the entire time. Voice - Her family was very involved with the family they served, Lettie and Theo both had access to their library. Lettie’s accent is prominent, either softly pronouncing h’s or not at all, putting emphasis on the last syllables of words, and having a rising intonation at the end of statements. Doesn’t use qualifiers, is always sure before she speaks. Appearance - Overall narrow & lithe build. Despite her nature her features are delicate, if you can notice it under her glare. Almond shaped brown eyes, so dark they’re almost black, usually narrowed in scrutiny. Short, straight brows & covered in freckles head to toe. Long ashy brown hair she’s been cutting herself, so it’s not even.

Louis Howard - Duke

Personality/Background - Cold, distant, bored, & apathetic front. Really he’s entirely cynical, disillusioned, and broken down. He’s not self hating, beyond thinking himself a coward. He’s more motivated by the fear of letting anything true or genuine slip about him. He does have a sense of humor somewhere in there, it’s just buried and it takes knowing him a long while before he’ll let that slip. Rude, sarcastic bitch. Even defrosted there are some things that don’t change.

He doesn’t do anything half assed. Even things he doesn’t want to do. His entire wounded heart is in everything he does from the moment he decides it.

Background isn’t super clear. He says he was kidnapped maybe. He probably at least feels that way as he just went to bed an orphan and literally woke up in the Duke’s manor. Sid says Louis was “paid for” and the orphanage “sold him off.” But a couple paying money to an orphanage and getting a kid is just kind of adoption it’s not really kidnapping. Either way Louis is high key traumatized so I think there is more to it. The world of nobility is cruel sure but my man is having full body responses & projecting his trauma onto a chick he literally just met. What happened to you baby. Voice - Light and elegant, but tendency to be flat to the point of monotone. Tendency to mutter that has never been entirely trained out of him. Not very deep but his emotion can become very apparent in it, particularly anger. Appearance - He’s so gorgeous he looks like he was carved from smooth marble, too bad he’s about as stiff as it too. High cheek bones, heart shaped face. Heavy lidded bright blue eyes & pretty lashes, but they lend themselves well to glaring. I’m looking at a picture of him and what is his hairstyle? Straight, golden blonde hair that he chronically puts off cutting, so it always ends up hanging in his eyes. There’s a statuesque quality to his body as well, that soft marble sort of look that makes him both chiseled and delicate. The plane of his chest is smooth and firm but his waist has a bit of a curve to it, slight wrists, lean legs.

He doesn’t mind being told his face is pretty, but he actually hates to have his body called pretty, smooth, anything that implies it’s feminine or boyish. Makes him self conscious. (He also never grows facial hair, Sid does and he won’t let him forget it)

Updating...

Albert Burckhardt - knight, advisor

Strong moral, chivalric code. Impeccably skilled & serious but can be flustered. He can be playful but it comes out more in competitiveness, teasing, bickering. Can't really show he cares directly.

“You come across like you're cool and collected but you're a big ball of crazy under there aren't you?” Repressed emotions, he's intense and its not that far below the surface. Even when he's sweet he's intense.

Giles Christophe - Chamberlain

He seems strict but he's hardworking. Playful & flirtatious, no that's not just with the Princess it's how he is. Subtle flair for dramatics but also he’s a wine mom. Kind of a worrier. There’s a Tamaki Suoh vibe in there somewhere.

Lettie wants to be more like him, the way he can see a path forward and maneuver it. More graceful. I gotta re read his route I didn't like it at the time lol

Alyn Crawford - Captain

Grumpy Jock refuses to admit his own feelings to himself, often. Until they reach a fever pitch. Tsundere, would really rather blame you for whatever he feels.

Not possessive, more so easily jealous and very needy. Don’t look at anyone else. You know when a dog doesn’t look like they like being pet but then they growl if you stop?

There goes the captain. And his charge who doesn't have to listen to him.

Sid Arnault - "information dealer"

His title sounds like something he made up. We know what he does, he's supposed to manage the Grandier estate. Is "information dealing" (read: extortion, espionage) a family business or does Sid do this to have his own $, not the Grandiers?

Arrogant and doesn't really give a shit about about anyone but himself. But at the same time he doesn't actually think all that highly of himself. Smarter and thinking more long term than he would let on. It just so happens that long term includes primarily get money, get bitches.

Lettie challenges him, they insult each other back and forth as greetings. He never cares what anyone thinks, why is he obsessing over what Lettie thinks or how she reacts to him? Internal panic.

Nico Meier - Advisor?

Given how Byron came to rule Stein, it wouldn't be surprising if Albert & Nico's positions are a given. They don't have official titles outside of whatever is most advantageous for them to move politically. "Advisor" sort of suits Albert but Nico feels more like a shadowy left hand.

Cheeky bastard, more of a flirt the more he knows someone. Knows he's adorable, manipulative little shit. Loves hard, he will die to prove himself to you.

At first he’s a cute distraction, but she feels more seriously for him when he shows more competence & skill.

Robert Branche - Court Painter

Seems even keeled but actually has a quiet, dark intensity. More pessimistic & cynical than he lets on. I gotta get his route because I need to know more about his deal.

She doesn't need him. She sees all sides of him, not just the warm front. She is patient when he is bitter and dark. Doesnt try to change him, lets him deal with things how he does.

Rayvis Harneit - Archduke

Cool and composed, “does everything perfectly.” Ok so he’s probably a freak under that, right? Controlling. He can keep his emotions under control but when they get more intense he has no idea what to do with them.

Lettie is stubborn, calls bullshit on his persona constantly. He’s not used to being challenged. He falls for her hard and it is completely out of his control and he is not being normal about it.

Leo Crawford - Bureaucrat

hyperintelligent nerd. Very well read, knows something about everything, and will charge for his knowledge in kisses. Playful flirt but he’s got a mean streak when he gets angry.

Leo doesn't work well with a lady, he needs an equal he can be unhinged and playful with. He gets bored easy.

Byron Wagner - 👑

Entirely left brained, to a fault. Thinks for efficiency not emotionally. Has a sense of humor though.

Hot/cool. He's shocking ice or refreshing water, she's fireworks or the burn of alcohol in your chest

Notes on their relationships -

Byron, Al, & Nico - Bastard, Bitch, & Baby. They can turn it on and be the indomitable trio of Stein, but really they’re always 3 brothers competing and messing with each other. Albert can pretend he’s above it but he is not.

Yes Nico & Al fight over who loves Byron more. Yes they will try to prove it.

Giles, Alyn, Sid, Leo, Louis - Why do I kind of feel like they’re friends. They have to deal with each other for work, they have little work/life distinction, turns into drinks after work… turns into god damn dude i been around you too long.

Giles is the wine mom friend, he knows exactly how the rest will fuck up before they do it, and he will say I told you so afterwards. Alyn is supposed to be his rock, but his temper will get the better of him. Alyn feels the same way about Giles, but Giles lets his stress get the better of him.

Alyn and Sid get along, and I can see it but I don't quite know why. In game Alyn can read that Sid is actually panicking when the MC is kidnapped even though in text he seems calm.

Leo & Giles are prone to the same vices of women & alcohol, so Leo loves to be the devil on his shoulder. Leo & Sid are a deadly combination when together, especially if left alone.

Fight on sight with Leo & Alyn. Leo will be a snarky dick and Alyn will start swinging. But they still know each other better than anyone else & can read each other a mile away.

Sid & Louis are the eternal bickering married couple. Louis says he hates him and he does, but he loves him too.

For some reason I feel like Louis & Leo would get along. Leo is 20% more chill with Louis & he appreciates that. Louis is no bullshit, hates the stupid games nobles play, and Leo appreciates that. Fuck everybody else, I respect you.

[carriagelamp]

This June I decided to explore some of the different queer picture books that my local library has available to lend! I read so many of them I decided they deserve to take up two slots; I'll provide the actual list of them below the cut for anyone who's interested. Oh and my Very Big Please For Real Go Read This Rec is The Empress of Salt and Fortune which is the first book of a novella series that is seriously consuming me body and soul.

assorted queer picture books

I wanted to see what sort of queer/Pride related pictures books my local library had so I checked a bunch out. I was really pleased by both the number and variety! I didn't come across any I actively disliked, though I would say they broadly fit into one of three categories:

Books that happened to show queer families that dealt with other topics: < Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle, We’re Happy You’re Here, My Mommies Built a Tree House > These were my favourites. They explored diverse families but came at it from a very normalising angle that made enjoyable read alouds. The message was clear but not attempting to pontificate to a child who likely doesn't have political context for it to make sense.

Books that touched a little more directly on queer identities: < Phoenix Gets Greater, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, Who You Will Be > All enjoyable! The former is based on the true story of a two-spirit child, which I really enjoyed, it had lovely art and a good look at how indigenous identities and queer identities can overlap. The second is about a girl coming to terms with her favourite uncle getting married and really could fit into the first category as well since it's more about her coming to terms with sharing her uncle rather than the same-sex marriage itself -- very cute either way. The last one explores gender expression with a baby through the types of clothes and toys the child engages with.

Books specifically about Pride: < Twas the Night Before Pride, It’s Pride Baby, Grandad’s Pride, This Day in June, Pride Puppy > These were… fine (with the exception of Pride Puppy which is adorable and made me laugh and is one of my favourites that I read from all these). They do give some more details about what a Pride Event might actually look like, and some attempt to give some historical context but they tend to be a little... clunky. These are the sort of book that strike me as very “feel good-y” for an adult, or which work well specifically as a teaching aid for slightly older students that have some pre-existing context, but are less appealing as just a plain read aloud for the target demographic. I’m happy they exist, if you want to specifically teach about Pride then they're nice options! And they are all bright, pretty, and diverse! But I was not very interested in these as I was in some of the above books.

(*Canadian books)

Apothecary Diaries v1

I’m so glad I read this! I’d read the manga and thought it seemed okay but was intrigued enough to give the novel a try when it was released and wow! There’s just so much more depth and personality to the actual novel!

The story follows Maomao, who was kidnapped and sold as a servant to the imperial “Rear Palace” where the consorts live. Despite being raised as a profoundly capable and very scientifically-minded apothecary, Maomao is determined to keep her head down and do what she has to do until her period of indentured servitude is over. However when certain consorts and their children begin to sicken and die, Maomao, who has a mad scientist level fascination for poisons, finds herself compelled to give warning. This ends up thrusting her into the public eye and getting her involved in a variety of bizarre mysteries that plague the Rear Palace. 

All in all it was a fun, quirky historical mystery series. Maomao is blunt, single-minded, and bordering on caustic which makes her a complete delight to read, especially when she’s forced to work with the incredibly charming and manipulative eunuch official who’s taken an interest in her.

Bambi

I’ve never actually read Bambi before and spring felt like the right time to finally give it a try. Man, I thought the way they murdered Bambi’s mom in the Disney movie was pretty brutal but it doesn’t hold a candle to the book. The descriptions of the deaths and violence and terror in the novel are staggering and seriously just fucked. Very well written, and portrays nature in all its beauty and horror. You should read it and just appreciate how different it is from the Disney film...

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

My number one rec from this month! The Singing Hills Cycle is an absolutely AMAZING series. I was iffy about it at first, since the first book really thrusts you into the world without much guidance and it sets up a bit of an usual framing device, but once I got my feet under me I ended up falling in love with it. The series follows the cleric Chih who is from the Singing Hills monastery, which believes in taking meticulous record of historical events and stories. When the palace of the exiled Empress becomes magically unsealed for the first time since she ascended the throne, Chih hurries there to take any record she can before the place is looted. There she finds an old woman known as Bunny who remembers when the Empress had lived there and begins to tell the story of the years that passed in that place of exile. The story goes back and forth between the current day with Chih, her companion Almost Brilliant, and Rabbit, and the stories that explain the political intrigue of the past.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

The second book in the Singing Hills Cycle and the one that really nailed home the fact that I was going to be addicted to this series. Once again the story tells of the cleric Chih who is travelling to collect stories and memories for the monastery. While visiting the mammoth corps of the north, she and a young mammoth rider find themselves trapped in the mountains by a pack of tigresses. Trying to find a way to buy them time until they might be rescued, Chih begins to discuss a famous tale about a scholar and a tigress who fell in love -- which the tigresses think is being told completely wrong. This book goes between the current predicament, Chih’s version of the story, and the tigresses’ version of the story, the two of which often conflict wildly in their perspectives. These books are seriously so clever and enticing, some of the best framing devices I’ve seen used in years.

Mr and Mrs Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire!

Grabbed this one on a whim thinking it looks rather charming but ended up being disappointed in it. It has a fun concept, but the author is trying so hard to be quirky that it just breaks any possible flow and immersion the story might have. The story isn’t engaging enough for an adult, and a lot of the attempted humour feels like it wouldn’t land well with children, so it ends up being a bit of a clunky muddle. I didn’t bother finishing it.

Pale Colors in a Tall Field: Poems

I have tragically little to say about this… oops. I don’t usually read poetry, and I made the mistake of doing this as an audiobook just because it jumped out at me while I was browsing Libby. It ended up being quite pretty and I enjoyed listened to it quite a lot, but I wasn’t able to sit and digest it enough to get much more than that out of it;;; I would recommend it if you want some nice queer poetry that will make you think.

Queer Little Nightmares

A fun little “horror” anthology. Like most anthologies there were highs and lows, but there was really only one story that I skipped entirely because I disliked it. They range from serious and rather tragic tales, to warm romantic ones, to viscerally disgusting, to just plain hilarious. Not the best anthology I’ve ever read, but definitely worth a read if you want some fun monster stories and romances.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Another childhood classic I had never read before so I decided to change that. And it was fine. I’m glad I’ve finally read it. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it if I had read it around grade one or two, and it was well written, but by god not a lot is happening here. A very domestic little story about a woman who moves to the prairies to become a wife and mother, and how she connects with the children.

My Man Jeeves // Carry On, Jeeves

Fortunately I received the recommendation to read The Inimitable Jeeves first, which saved me! My Man Jeeves was… fine, but it is very clearly a collection of “proto” stories, some of them not even featuring Jeeves and Wooster. While I didn’t dislike any of them, this collection of Jeeves stories didn’t grab me in the same way some of the others have. Carry On, Jeeves also baffled me a bit because there was quite a bit of crossover between the two! It feels like a very strange way to collect these story into anthologies... Still, I ultimately enjoyed both, and I skipped over the stories I had already heard in the previous collection and carried on from there.

For anyone not familiar with the Jeeves stories, they tell about the misadventures of Bertie Wooster, and young man of independent wealth who spends most of his time loafing around London and mucking about with his various friends and acquaintances. He is a complete idiot, but cheerfully acknowledges this about himself and is honestly impossible not to like, he’s just too friendly and too determined to help his friends! Fortunately he has his man Jeeves to do the thinking and to solve the various problems he comes across, in the most elaborate and impeccably mannered ways possible.