#so it might just have been that he knows Helen's love language is gifts and follows it

[babayagaiscomingforya]

For some reason, I imagine going to the Bowery King and asking these questions like "Sir I NEED to know! It's for business!"

Small domestic things i wanna know about John wick:

How does he like his coffee in the morning?

On which side does he sleep?

What kind of books does he like ?

What is his favorite casual outfit ?

What art/architecture style is is favorite

What kind of music does he like ? (I bet Jazz)

What are his love languages?

Basically i need a dating profile of him

[snowgoldwaylon]

No More Second Chances Part Two - Adler X Reader X Mason

Adler has been madly in love with you since he first saw you. Now, he's sitting at your wedding to Alex Mason. Maybe, he just might ask you for one more dance.

TW: Angst, anger, strong language.

Russell watched you both with a hint of jealousy while he slammed his 7th drink of Whiskey. Whiskey made his heart hurt less from this whole ordeal. He sat back at the mini bar, alone watching as all his friends danced and did karaoke on the floor.

He looked like the father who got dragged to a concert their teenager wanted to see. He really just wanted to be home so he could drink in peace, where nobody could see his pain and bitterness.

He watched you close. You were currently dancing your heart out with Helen Park. You both became friends very quickly, she basically was your go to for everything. You both shimmied and did some playful dancing to the song that was currently playing.

Russell smiled when he saw you laugh so hard when Park started doing the credit card dance. Lawrence soon joined the circle, doing the sprinkler. Soon, everyone but Russell was in the circle doing some silly little dance. The smile on your face was easily a mile long.

Russell wished in that moment that he had a camera. Would that be creepy? He felt his heart sinking further and further when the song ended. Soon, another slow song came on. Alex was going to dance with his sister, as she requested.

Russell noticed you looking for somebody to dance with, and he sprung up. He walked over to you with speed, and tapped your shoulder. You turned and saw Russell with a big smile on his face.

"Hey, can I have a dance with you please? Just so I can say I danced with the Bride before I dance with the Groom." He joked.

You laughed, lightly punching his shoulder. You put your arms around his waist as to be friendly and nothing more. His hands came to rest on your back in a very polite way. He didn't dare make you uncomfortable, or try to start any drama.

You both went in a small circle, enjoying the song. Flashes from the camera illuminated both of you, capturing this sweet friend moment forever, to be cherished.

"Thank you again for coming, Russell. It means a lot. I know you had a long drive down here." You said.

He shrugged, and just smiled.

"It's no problem. I couldn't miss your big day." He said.

Russell had a delimma in that moment. He really wanted to tell you what he was feeling, but he didn't want it to sour your gorgeous evening. Today was about you and Alex, his feelings aside.

"Y/N, can I admit something to you? And it not ruin your evening?" Russell asked.

You took a deep breath. You knew exactly what he was about to say. You nodded.

"Y/N, remember a few years ago when you found that gag gift in your office? Yeah, that was me. Not Lazar." Russell laughed.

You felt a ray of relief, and laughed. You slapped him, but smiled.

"I knew it! You fucker. Helen even told me about that but I never believed her!!" You shouted jokingly.

Soon, the song ended, and you pulled Russell in for a hug. He felt shocked. But, he hugged you back tightly. When you broke apart, he flashed you a smile and wink, and went back to the bar where Lawrence was currently at and struck up a conversation.

Alex had by then pulled you in for another slow, and romantic dance. Alex was honestly feeling a little jealous after watching the way Russell had just danced with you. So, he made sure to cling tight.

Time unfortunately flew by all too fast. Soon, the clock struck midnight, and guests began to pile out of the venue quickly. With many thank you's, congratulations, good lucks, and safe travels, only the Safehouse Crew was left.

You all began to clean and pack up. You took Lazar's urn full of his ashes, and a canvas with a picture of him and carefully placed it in your car so you could return it to his family. You came back for more, but you quickly discovered that everything had been taken down.

"Is there anything else? Where is everything?" You asked.

Helen smiled, and pushed a suitcase your way.

"It's been handled. I do believe that you and Alex have a plane to catch in a few hours. You two should get on the road before long, we'll take care of the rest." She said with a smirk.

You gave her a big hug, and thanked her. She made a few jokes towards you about the honeymoon. You laughed, and made your rounds with everyone.

Russell saw you walk towards him. He held his arms out for a hug.

"You leaving so soon?" He joked, hugging you.

"Yeah, we have a plane taking off in three hours. We'll be in Seoul for about 2 weeks, so we'll try and keep in contact between then." You said, pulling back.

"Well, you two becareful then, you hear me? We expect to see you at work ready to go." Russell joked.

You told all your friends you loved them, and gave goodbye hugs for now. Frank opened the limo door for you and Alex, and you both piled in. He shut the door, and the team watched as the white limo pulled away, honking away.

Cheers, clapping, and waving ensued from the party as they watch the limo disappear on the freeway. Soon, with the help of everybody, everything was cleaned.

After the last goodbyes, everyone took off in their cars. But, Russell needed a moment before he even started his car.

Tears streamed down his face once the realization finally kicked in. This was it, now he could never have you. He could never hold you, love you, or kiss you.

He started his car, reversed from his spot, and got onto the freeway, taking his exit home. He took one last look at the beautiful venue behind him, and then his car radio.

The date read 5/15/87. Today was the day to him where love died. Not for you, but for him.

Russell Adler had officially given up on love.

Taglist: @smokeywhalee @wennbergbabe @kazazure @kapanovangswife @americas-monster @direwolfspostsrandomshit @justagenderfluidstuff

[faerienextdoor]

general relationship hcs with (some) pastas

Fair warning, I'm using and hinting at mine and my friends’ writing for these creeps :) enjoy  also as soon as i figure out how to open an ask box, I’ll be accepting requests

Brian:

- oh where to start with this absolute himbo

- he melts around you. like he's your bitch, and you're his.

- he's the type of boyfriend that takes you out in the snow and shoves a handful down the back of your jacket, and laughs until you shove snow in his face

- it is snow war

- it ends with you cuddling him, wrapped in a blanket and content in front of the burning fire he got started just for you <3

- but he also has some weird... habits.

- drinks pickle juice.

- gets his hand stuck in the jar.

- looks at you like 🥺 until you sigh and help him. for the fifteenth time.

- he can cook some basic breakfast foods, and happily breaks out a cookbook to prepare you something as a surprise or to learn something with you!!

- baking with him would be a mess. he forgets flour goes everywhere and now you both look like you took a bath in cocaine

- but the cupcakes are mediocre at best. they aren't absolute garbage, so... cupcake points!

- he worries about how hoodie treats you. he doesn't remember anything when he regains control, but you've reassured him hoodie is just fine.

- and he is

(hoodie)

- hoodie is like a rottweiler or a doberman.

- protective. intimidating. energetic.

- but also a giant fucking baby.

- this large ass man lumbers over and drops to his knees. places his chin on your lap and stares at you from the fabric of his mask until you stop what you're doing and stroke his head awkwardly

- you could swear he does those happy grumbled a rottie does.

- hoodie is silent but shows he loves you just as much as brian does. He strokes your hair silently, even places a kiss to the crown of your head as you sink into his beefy arms.

- he smells nice too. surprisingly.

- but that raises the question: if hoodie showers, does he shower with that damn thing on?

- you won't get an answer if you were to ask.

- brian introduces you to his grandma julia. and she dotes on you.

- the immortal old lady remarks that you’re the best s/o brian has brought to her yet.

Tim:

- a lumberjack man with biceps like a fucking tree trunk

- how'd you land him? give me your secrets (/j)

- he's such a love bug. a tired stressed love bug.

- he finds /every/ excuse to have physical contact with you. it's like a little touch from you reassures him that you're real. you're like a dream to him.

- he's the best for cuddles. He holds you to his chest

- and you get special access to his moobs

- and he gently strokes your head, traces shapes into your back, etc. it's a special intimate moment each time.

- my man's is italian-american but can't cook to save his fucken life

- he always gets your favorite microwave meals though!! he never forgets.

- not feeling good? dw baby he's making it for you <33 shitty low tier bean and cheese burrito coming up

- slowly he learns the basics and surprises you with lunch or even dinner if you're lucky!!

- he loves you so much. and wants you to feel it and know it. all the time.

(masky)

- god where to start with this bitch

- he's not jeff levels of bad ofc, but he's silent and... weird. creepy, some may say. he doesn't mean to be.

- and he's a hard ass. far more strict than tim.

- he follows you around like a giant fucken puppy and will spook you by grabbing you abruptly and holding you tightly

- you can't escape him. he really utilizes his physical strength

- he loves lifting you up and just... holding you. or carrying you off.

- protective and overbearing.

- but tim keeps him under control.

(angst)

- he wouldn't want to lose you like he lost his last wife.

- you find pictures of a woman laying around and a small girl that bears a striking resemblance to her and tim.

- tim goes quiet and questioned but eventually caves and tells you about his family

- or what he used to have

- his wife died and his daughter disappeared.

- it broke him and you're all he has left now

- constantly needs your affection in return to his own

- pls love him

jeff:

- why the fuck would you date him

- he's the absolute worst in so many aspects. But he genuinely tries for you.

- even if his gifts are shitty, it's nice to know he thoughts of you, right? even if it's a half dead flower or a rib torn from a deer caraccas.

- but you get the butt end of his shithead antics. ranch bath, specifically. he smelt like spoiled milk for a week after and you had to cuddle that fucker.

- and don't get me started on mayo bath

- but he still loves finding himself in your arms. or finding you in his. he's demanding affection wise, and will yank you into him for some cuddles. whether you like it or not.

- he isn't one for a lot of pet names, but calls you curse words or "sweetheart" in polish.

- and you get to see the side of him that only shows when he breaks down.

(bit of angst)

- he misses his family and the life he used to have. he'll reminisce what it was like in poland with his mom and family with you, and you sometimes swear you can see his brown eyes gloss over at the memory of her.

- he never talks about his dad, you've noticed.

- don't ask.

- he brushes off heavy conversations with some dumb quip ("wanna see my renegade?")

- he sucks at cooking. god awful at it. but he really tries for you. manages a bowl of oat meal that's edible.

- but he overloads it with sugar and for some reason, salt.

- he's confused. he thinks that's normal (it isn't)

- his idea of a date is napping with you. or rather, forcing you into nap time.

- I mean it when I say this man is strong in a weird fucken way. latches onto you with that iron grip and you won't be able to leave for at least a few hours.

jane:

- ethereal wlw woman.

- could break you with her heels. or a flutter of what eyelashes she has.

- you're lucky to have her, and she's just as lucky to have you!

- she's sweet and charming. very smooth and takes good care of you.

- her love language is a mix of physical touch and acts of service.

- she'll cuddle you all night, and then make you breakfast in the morning.

- she loves showering with you when she's comfy enough around you! it's super intimate and she washes your hair.

- massages the soap into your hair, suds spilling down your neck and back as her fingers scrub circles into your scalp.

- it's heaven on earth. such a domestic life.

- it'll take a while for her to settle enough in the relationship for you to see her without her mask

- you make her feel so loved and wanted

- secure, even.

- she's protective but not controlling or overbearing. shes that type of girlfriend that's just a worrywart and relaxes as soon as you're curled up in her arms. you fit there perfectly, too. like you belong there.

- which you do. at least in her mind

- she has such a gentle touch and hold on you. like she's afraid you'll combust in her arms if she holds you too tightly.

- she loves stroking your hair and having you nap

- using her tiddies as a pillow 👌

(angst)

- she needs affirmation from you when it comes to her scars.

- she thinks that jeff ruined her. permanently marking her once spotless body.

- and she thinks you'll hate her or find her disgusting.

- that's why she freezes if/when you gently slip off her mask.

- she stares at you with those teary green eyes. then leans in and kisses you

- you make all of her worries disappear.

- she's also financially comfortable, but not really rich (on that topic: eat the rich)

- she spoils you every chance she gets. gifts, a nice dinner date, you name it

- she almost spoils you as much as she does her cat Emory

- little shit has the sparkliest fucken collar and acts like he's the shit

- he's your fur baby too now

Helen:

- oh my god this disaster of an art boi

- he's convinced he's the luckiest man in the world (and he might as well be!!)

- he obviously wouldn't have been the one to confess. but it was really obvious by how he painted and drew you constantly, that some feeling for you was lodged into his beating heart.

- he treats you like the finest china. with the most care a man can manage.

- he's the definition of clingy and affectionate from the very start.

- he curls around your sleeping form perfectly when y'all cuddle.

- his hand dances in your hair, soothing you into a dreamless sleep each night without fail.

- he has a magic touch and a gentle voice.

- and he cherishes you so fucken much. (like a simp /j)

- he shies away from kisses at first, but will hold your hand and melts if you hold his face in them!!!

- he's greek, and often speaks sweet things to you in it. he's so comfortable around you that he speaks in his native language to you. that's an accomplishment.

- he loves when you baby him. helen loves being cradled and loved.

- taking a nap with his head on your chest also hits different. he's so in love with you

(angst)

- he's afraid of losing you. who wouldn't be? you're amazing and you love /him/ of all people

- he thinks very negatively of himself. please scold him for self deprecating.

- he always worries he'll wake up and you'll be gone.

- so he holds you extra close at night. and follows you around when you leave for any reason. Trails behind you like a lost puppy in need of a gentle kiss.

- which, is what he essentially is

- and also: pls steal his sweater and wear it. he'll cry over how cute you are.

[whaleofatjme1920]

howdy! i’m neah! (she/they, 19, creepypasta/mh, romantic)

this is for the special event, i hope i’m doing this right!

i’m a musician. i spend a lot of my time writing music in online programs and playing saxophone. i also write, but not nearly as well as you. i have real shitty health, so i’m a powerlifter who doesn’t run too much. i stay busy but burn out easy. my love language is baking and physical touch, even if i’m touch adverse sometimes. i am very, very emotional in all ranges as someone with bp1, but it can be good. i love deeply and am ready for that red string. i also own a cat!

i can offer up cookies i’ve baked, my old laptop, and a broken key from my sax that’s been sitting in the case. i’ll even add in my cat pin from the case for spice.

(i’m sorry if this is incorrect!)

[Disclaimer: The Red String of Fate event is a special event I'm running from August 12th, to whenever I feel it necessary to end - right now, I'm giving it to the first week of September! Check out rules HERE]

It's not often that the God receives letters from people who make him scratch his head at who he should pair you with. He's been a matchmaker for centuries. His threads have birthed kingdoms and brought nations to their knees, because what bounds does love know?

He smiles as he reads the letter you've gifted him. There are many things he doesn't understand simply because he's just the old man under the moon, but he appreciates you all the same. He munches on the cookies you've given him and mentally notes what a good baker you are. He doesn't really understand technology, but his cat seems to appreciate the warmth that spills from it as it charges. The key gives him interest too, and the pin is attached to his robes, however, he thinks the pin might serve a different purpose.

Yue Lao attaches the thread to your left pinky and looks into circles of people he knows would suit you well. He crosses over a man who seems to love threads just as much as he does. The golden colors attract his weathered eyes but his attention is stolen by a smile bathed in blood. How... Odd. The God notes, checking the match over. Helen would be a very suitable match. He knows it. The artistry he can see in the man's life even if it's less than moral, the personality of someone who can make you feel like the only person in the world, and the way his heart swells when he even lays thought to the two of you.

He gives the cat pin to his trusty feline, attaching it to her collar before asking her to retrieve one of his spools. It's a strong spool, one of threads made from Princess Zhinu, and symbolizes an eternal kind of love. Something romantic, something stable. It will never fail you. He ties it to your match's pinky, whispering to the man in his dreams that a cat with a pin attached to her collar will take him on the quest of a lifetime before severing the thread from the spool.

In the morning, Helen awakes confused from his dreams. He's never really followed any strange cats before. As he runs about his normal day, his "friends" note his odd behavior. What on earth is he really searching for? While in a bar with Laughing Jack, Toby and Jeff, Helen sees it. A cat, darting through the crowd of people. There's a pin attached to her collar.

Helen is up, barely even giving a second glance to the people he pushes awkwardly through as he follows her. On his pinky, the thread the God has gifted him begins to glow and reveal itself. He glances down to it, and realizes the cat is taking him in the direction it flows. Once the cat realizes Helen is aware, she slows down and they match pace. She takes him to a neighborhood through one of the Slender Man's many portals to your home.

She sits down on the porch, mews softly, and then rubs against his shins before darting off. Helen awkwardly stands at your door, readying himself to knock. He's unaware that you're inside, watching the tug of your string grow more taught. You can smell high end cologne, and can see his shadow shining in the afternoon sun. With a small breath, you open the door and are greeted to him right before he can knock.

He's got the most lovely blue eyes you've ever seen, and he looks at you like you're a masterpiece.

[buck-buck-boose]

I’ll Love You ‘Til I Die

Masterlist

Summary: A Brooklyn schoolgirl fell in love with James Buchanan Barnes at the tender age of nine. With this love she made a vow, promising to love him until her very last breath.

Pairing: Bucky x OFC

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 2k

Author’s Note: Back and better than ever, babes

Chapter Thirteen: The Reunion

June 6, 1941

Lottie wiggled in her seat, impatience building within her as the school’s president droned on in his closing remarks. At twenty years of age, she knew that she had more maturity than to be squirming in her seat, but she was practically buzzing with energy. She’d slaved over her work and textbooks for the past three years, had nearly gone insane while studying for the board exams, and somehow managed to place second in her class; she’d done enough waiting and working for this moment, Dr. Strasbourg needed to wrap things up. Somewhere in the crowd that surrounded them, Steve and Bucky sat. The thought of them being in such a close proximity to her, yet not knowing exactly where they were, sent a nervous thrill through her. After three years of separation, the wait to see them was nearly unbearable.

Abruptly, a cheer erupted from her classmates; the graduation was finally over. She’d been lost in her own thoughts, and thus missed the extravagant end to the president’s closing remarks. In all honesty, Lottie wasn’t too concerned about that. She had her diploma, a nursing license, and was about to see her best friends again; sentimental words from a man she barely knew mattered little to her. Clutching her diploma, she weaved through the seats and looked for her closest peers. Although she was dying to see Steve and Bucky, Lottie owed it to her closest girl friends to bid them proper farewells. She found each of them, and wished Gladys, Helen, and Ruthie good luck in their futures and asked for their addresses in order to send the occasional letter or birthday gift. As soon as they parted, Lottie rushed to the audience, searching for her boys.

Lottie scanned for the crowd for every brunet and blond; too tall, too short, not broad enough. It was difficult to keep track of a single person in the crowd, it was a sea of white nursing uniforms peppered by family and friends in more colorful clothing. Lottie caught sight of a tall, broad figure, and suddenly her gaze locked on a pair of clear blue eyes; a color so familiar that it felt like home, like chicken soup on a cold day, like a shared cigarette on her fire escape. She’d finally found him and he’d finally found her.

They stood stock-still for a moment, with other attendees of the graduation continuing to mill about. It was like she seeing Bucky for the first time all over again, only so much more overwhelming. He looked so perfect, she thought she could cry; his dark curls fell over his forehead and his lips were curling up into that charming smile of his. A secret fear that Lottie had held in her heart was that she might stop loving Bucky after being apart from him for so long, but this cast any fear out of her. Just the sight of the man brought a flush to her face and gave her a special bout of arrhythmia. It would take more than just three years’ separation to chip away at the special place in her heart that she reserved for Bucky.

“Bucky,” she breathed, breaking the silence. “Little Lottie,” he responded, his voice just as quiet; he said the nickname the same way he did three years ago, full of fondness with a sing-song lilt. They simply stared at each other for a moment, taking in the sight of each other. Lottie made the first move and closed the distance between them, hugging him tightly with a watery laugh. She inhaled discreetly, he smelled of cigarettes and balsam, exactly as she remembered.

“Bucky, you have no idea how much I’ve—“ before Lottie could finish her sentence, Bucky lifted her off the ground, hugging her even tighter. “Our best girl’s a nurse! The best damn nurse the country’s ever seen,” he crowed, ignoring annoyed faces from passersby. In any other situation, Lottie would have flushed red and felt embarrassed, but she instead felt a rush of pride. Bucky never failed to be as supportive as possible when it came to her career endeavors. She was, however, a little more than peeved at being lifted off the ground by him.

“James Buchanan Barnes, put me down!” She howled, smacking his chest. Had it gotten broader?

“Alright, alright,” Bucky grinned cheekily, looking down at her. “We gotta find Steve now. We split up to find you and it looks like I beat him to it.” His eyes roved over her, taking in the crisp white uniform, neatly curled hair, and her toothy grin. He’d definitely missed that.

Lottie hadn’t noticed his gaze, as she’d been scanning the crowd for a scrawny blond man. “Buck, I think he’s over here, c’mon!”

She grabbed his arm and tugged him along, determined to catch Steve before he could slip into the crowd again.

“Steve!” Lottie called out, trying to get his attention. After a few attempts, Steve turned to face them. She squealed in happiness— again, not proper behavior for a twenty-year-old, but she didn’t give a damn —and crushed him in a bear hug. “That’s our Lottie,” Steve murmured. Her heart ached at the fondness in his voice; she’d missed her boys terribly. Lottie pulled away, turning to look at both of them.

“Let’s get outta here, whaddya say? We can grab a bite to eat at my family’s place.”

For the first time in three years, Lottie strolled home with Bucky and Steve, resuming her usual spot between them. Her family’s home wasn’t too far from the hospital, only a few blocks, really. The whole way home, Bucky and Steve attempted to quiz her on various medical facts.

“Okay, what would you do if Steve here had an asthma attack on the spot?”

Lottie shot him a look, “Well Steve should have a pack of asthma cigarettes to help with that, but if for whatever reason, he didn’t have that, he’d need some inhalation anti-cholinergics.”

“Okay what would you do if a guy was bleeding out in front of you and you didn’t have any thread for stitches?”

She shrugged, “I’d probably cauterize the wound. That would be one of the only options.”

And so they continued in that manner until they reached her family’s home. It was a modest house with a small front porch, a few windows, and gray siding; her aunt and uncle had one child that had moved out a few years previously, so Lottie shared the extra bedroom with her parents now that she was graduated. It was fairly cramped, but it was only temporary living for her.

When they stepped inside the house, the trio was greeted by low, harsh whispers coming from the living room.

“Do you remember everything that happened in Britain last month? It’s absolute insanity!” That was her father; he’d recently become obsessed with British news. He’d seen the horrors of the Great War and feared the onset of another one.

“Ed, I understand where you’re coming from, I do. But we need to focus on our own troubles here. You haven’t even had a steady job in years. Worry about your own troubles before those overseas.”

Lottie’s stomach turned; her uncle and father were fighting again. Bucky and Steve averted their gazes, pretending not to hear.

“Let’s go to the kitchen. Quietly.” She led them down the hall and to the right. They were greeted by a small kitchen, furnished with all the necessities. “‘M afraid we’ve only got fixin’s for peanut butter sandwiches, if that’s alright.”

“You know by now that your peanut butter sandwiches are our favorite, Little Lottie,” Bucky grinned.

Lottie laughed, “You just say that so I’ll make you sandwiches while you two bum around. A peanut butter sandwich is a peanut butter sandwich.”

Her laughter stopped abruptly with Steve’s question. “Your Pa seems worried about the war overseas. Are you?” It was completely out of the blue, but he’d seen her cringe at the whispers in the living room.

He also knew the answer already; she’d talked with him in depth during their correspondences, but damn him for talking about it in front of Bucky. She knew that if she expressed her fear of it, he’d start up with his overprotective act.

However conflicted she was, Lottie decided to be honest about it around Bucky, “I am. I mean think about what happened with the Great War; Germany is regaining its strength and I just have a bad feeling about it.”

Bucky smiled easily, not as concerned about the growing tensions in Europe, “Don’t worry ‘bout it too much, Little Lottie. If that ever happened, Steve ‘n I would get out there and keep you girls at home nice ‘n safe.”

Lottie smirked at him, “How valiant of you, soldier.”

She secretly hoped that her fears were proven wrong; the thought of Steve and Bucky going off to war, walking into Hell on Earth, made her want to be sick.

Lottie brought the plate out sandwiches she’d made to the table, sitting down, and let them dig in.

“I thought now would be a good time to tell the both of you,” she began, “I was offered a position as a nurse at Brooklyn Hospital. I accepted. I was real hesitant to leave my parents, but we talked about it a lot and this is what they want for me.”

Steve let out a cheer at her announcement, “Atta girl Lottie! I knew you’d find your way back eventually.”

Bucky grinned, reaching out to ruffle her hair, only to be deflected by her carefully secured hat. With a cheeky look, he lifted the hat and completed his objective, mussing her carefully secured curls. “It’ll be real aces to have you back in Brooklyn! It’ll be just like old times!”

Lottie let out a whined, “Bucky!” at his crimes against her hair.

“When are you moving back?” Steve really had to work on his table manners; he was talking around a large bite of his sandwich.

Lottie calculated the time in her head, “In a few weeks; I just have to get in contact with the landlady of the room I’d like to rent.”

Bucky nodded, “Well when the time comes, you’ll have a couple of extra hands to help you move in, alright? You need anything, let us know. We’ll take real good care of you.”

She snorted at that, “I can take real good care of myself Bucky, but I’d appreciate the help. I was looking at a place at 12th Street and 6th Avenue, so hopefully that’s close enough to the both of you.”

“I’m at 11th and 8th, so I’m real nearby,” Steve smiled.

Bucky sighed, “I’m at 14th and 2nd, but I don’t mind a walk. I’ve gotten used to liking it.”

Lottie hummed, “The only reason you like walking is ‘cause it gives you a reason to have a smoke.”

Bucky barked out a laugh, “Right you are, Little Lottie, right you are.”

They continued late into the night, sitting around that kitchen table, catching up and doubling over with laughter. That night, Lottie felt as if a weight was lifted off her shoulders. She no longer yearned for the companionship of her closest friends or had to worry about them; they were together at last. Once she started stifling yawns, the two men took their leave, bidding her goodbye until her return to Brooklyn.

She gave Steve a tight hug, “Stevie, thank you for coming.”

“You made us real proud up there,” he replied, giving her a squeeze.

Bucky pulled her in for a hug, “Don’t take too long to get back in Brooklyn, alright? We’re gonna be waiting with bated breath, so you better a shake a leg and get on over as soon as possible.”

Lottie giggled, “There you go again, how many times do I have to lecture you about patience?”

“I think you’ll have to keep on going ‘til we both buy the farm,” Bucky joked.

After a few more quips, the boys really had to leave; her aunt came down to scold them for making so much noise late at night. She waved goodbye to the two from the porch as they walked down the block. She watched the two retreat, finally feeling whole again.

“James Buchanan Barnes, I’ll love you ‘til I die.”

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

Masterlist

Edit 03/31/21

REQUESTS: I don’t do detailed requests (i.e., where the character, plot, and tone are all set in your mind), however, please feel free to send me suggestions for people I could write for and/ or prompts, premises, or just whether you want something fluffy/ smutty, etc. I’m pretty open about who I write for, although my familiarity level varies and some people speak to me more than others. I prefer to focus on people who don’t get as much love and attention from other writers because there’s already SO MUCH GOOD FANFIC OUT THERE and I’m still pretty new to this.

Edit 01/22/21

I’ve added short descriptions to serve as a guide.

*

I figured it was time I started one of these so that my fiction posts are a little easier to find in the mess. I’ll try my best to make sure it’s up to date. These stories are intended solely for an adult audience (18+) and contain strong language, violence, explicit sexual content, and mature themes. There are specific content advisories given on the individual posts. 

WWE (Raw & Smackdown)

Mustafi Ali

In A Parallel Universe

You and Mustafa have been friends through some tough times. But was it ever something more than friendship?

Aleister Black (see AEW: Malakai Black)

Drew McIntyre

All Kinds of Love

You and Drew have loved each other for years, through good times and bad. There’s just one problem...

Kevin Owens

Better Late Than Never?

You were slow to realize your feelings for Kevin and now you don’t know if your moment has passed. 

Damian Priest

Fall and Prey

Are you traumatized by your ex or obsessed with him? Or both?

Fortune’s Rule

Even when you’re gifted the opportunity to escape from your past, fate might have other ideas. 

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Sami Zayn

A Fine Line

You're supposed to be checking up on Sami to make sure his paranoia isn't impacting his work. But you're not convinced he's as deluded as some people think.

WWE (NXT & NXT UK)

Finn Balor

The Guardian’s Oath: 

19th century. Helen was raised by the church and assigned as a governess to the home of Feargal Devitt. However, she is caught up in a dark mystery involving her employer and the mythical demon Finn Balor.

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fifteen Part Sixteen

Shotzi Blackheart

The Call of the Wild Woman

Sometimes you meet a person who makes you question everything about yourself.

Adam Cole

Life of the Party

Desperate to get you back in the dating scene, some friends bring you to a swingers’ party. 

Cameron Grimes

Animal Magnetism

You’re a city girl who feels more at home in the country, occasionally admiring the wildlife. 

Karrion Kross/ Scarlett Bordeaux

You’re Invited

You’re a simple lab rat but somehow you’ve captured the attention of NXT sensations Scarlet Bordeaux and Karrion Kross. 

Fall and Prey

Are you traumatized by your ex or obsessed with him? Or both?

Candice Le Rae

Girl Time

It’s simple: You’re a lesbian and Candice isn’t. Except when she is. 

Dexter Lumis

Unsavory Dealings

No one knows about you and Roderick Strong, or at least that’s what you thought.

Ember Moon

Babes in Toyland

Sometimes unconventional couples have the most fun. (F/F)

Samoa Joe

The Wages of Sin

Being a computer tech is pretty ordinary until you find a client with a lot of kinky secrets.

Roderick Strong

Unsavory Dealings

No one knows about you and Roderick Strong, or at least that’s what you thought.

AEW

Darby Allin

The Camera Doesn’t Lie

In the midst of a wild party, you meet someone who likes to capture intimate moments.

Trust Fall

Darby is that one friend who can persuade you to do things normal people wouldn't.

Lance Archer

One More Temptation

Being a sex worker is fine until fate connects you with the kind of man you’ve sworn to avoid.

Malakai Black

The Escape Route

18th-19th century. Ursula is running to escape from charges of witchcraft and murder, but when she seeks shelter in an apparently abandoned church, she finds more than she bargained for. 

Whisky Secrets (sequel)

You're desperately in love with Aleister but he sees you as just the friend to run to when he's broken. This is a sequel to Whisky Secrets by Ghost of Viper Writes.

Down by the River

Grace Johnson lives in the shadow of her church minister brother in a Depression-era town threatened by the presence of Malakai Black and his "family", a group of outcasts who have built a camp on the shores of the river.

Part one Part two Part three Part Four Part five Part Six

Eddie Kingston

Water Seeks Its Own Level

You and Eddie have a history and you’re not eager to think about it. 

The Green-Eyed Monster

Sequel to Water Seeks Its Own Level. You’ve somehow found yourself caught up in the ropes of your no-strings-attached relationship. 

Kenny Omega

The Sensitivity of Horses

As Hangman’s wife, it breaks your heart to see him suffering. 

F**k and Run

It didn’t feel like a fleeting thing...

Hangman Adam Page

The Sensitivity of Horses

As Hangman’s wife, it breaks your heart to see him suffering. 

Anxious Millennial Love

Your job is to make sure AEW talent isn’t doing anything reckless. But it’s possible that you are. 

NJPW

David Finlay

Place Your Bets

You were absolutely certain Jay could beat his old rival David Finlay and now you’re in a bit of a bind.

Raise the Stakes

A sequel to Place Your Bets. You know you should keep your work and personal life separate but that ship has sailed and your lifeboat is leaking.

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part fourteen Part fourteen (alternate)

El Phantasmo

Boiling Over

You didn't like him when he was dating your best friend and he didn't like you.

Waking Up Alone

Breaking up just sucks, especially when you're not sure you wanted to.

Kenta

Words Better Left Unsaid

There are some things that Kenta just doesn’t want to hear you say.

Will Ospreay

Bad Guy

Lauren is 100% sure what she wants until she changes her mind. And she always changes her mind.

Zack Sabre Jr. 

Bad Guy

Lauren is 100% sure what she wants until she changes her mind. And she always changes her mind.

Hiromu Takahashi

Takes the Cake

You’re 40, recently divorced, and working yourself to death. So is Hiromu trying to make everything better or worse?

Shingo Takagi

His Consolation

Being a gay man in New Japan is already risky, and then you feel compelled to comfort Shingo over his bad G1 start. (M/M)

Tama Tonga

Bad Bromance

You’d love to kill Tama for destroying your relationship with his brother. 

Jay White

Shelter 

Late Medieval period. Is it a family emergency or political intrigue that’s led you to the home of Jay White, the young man who first stirred romantic feelings in you?

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

Stripped

Working in a strip club exposes you to a lot of men, but Jay seems to need something more than usual. 

Place Your Bets

You were absolutely certain Jay could beat his old rival David Finlay and now you’re in a bit of a bind.

Raise the Stakes

A sequel to Place Your Bets. You know you should keep your work and personal life separate but that ship has sailed and your lifeboat is leaking.

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fourteen (alternate)

Other Promotions

Bea Priestley

Bad Guy

Lauren is 100% sure what she wants until she changes her mind. And she always changes her mind.

[scxrsgxrd]

Remedy // Gordon Merkel

Part Four

Part one here

Part two here

Part three here

Part five here

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say another big thank you to anyone reading this series! It means the world to me that people are enjoying my writing and I love reading your responses🤍

WARNINGS: 18+ mature language, sex, mentions of violence.

Five years earlier

Merkel rose to the feeling of the sun beating down against his face and bare chest, and slung his arm over onto.. nothing? His eyes opened instantaneously as he felt the bare space on the bed next to him. Without thinking about the fact that he was completely naked he flung himself towards the bedroom door and down the stairs, his heart almost skipping a beat when he saw the back door was opened slightly.

“Klara?” Merkel yelled her name multiple times while pacing around the back garden, his hands gripping and tugging on his hair while his stomach tightened with anxiety.

“Merkel?” He whipped around when he heard a soft voice, Klara. She stared at the scene in front of her, wide eyed. Her husband was stood as naked as the day as he was born in the back garden while the old lady next door was staring at him with the same expression,

She flung the watering can she was holding towards him in an attempt to cover his modesty, but it was too late. Old Mrs Fischer had already seen everything on display and shooed her cat back into the house while muttering about how back in her day sexual relations were kept inside the house.

“Merkel what the hell are you doing?” Klara set her eyes on him before gesturing for him to go back into the house before anyone else could take a good look at her husband in his birthday suit.

“I just.. I woke up and you weren’t there, I panicked.” Merkel mumbled before pulling his wife into an embrace and kissing the top of her head, once again admiring the height difference between them as she rested her forehead against his chest.

“I was watering the garden, you looked peaceful so I didn’t wake you.” She hummed, leaning up slightly to kiss his shoulder before setting her watering can down and bursting into a fit of giggles.

“Hey, it’s not funny. Mrs Fischer already had enough problems with us.” He frowned and nudged her shoulder gently, but found himself grinning at the sight of her. Her eyes were lit up and her smile was so wide that he couldn't help but mirror it.

Once Klara had managed to compose herself she grabbed a package from the kitchen counter and handed it to her husband.

“This arrived for you this morning, I figured it might be a late wedding gift.” She kissed his shoulder once again before heading back out to the garden to finish off her watering.

Merkel immediately felt a pit in his stomach when he saw the cursive writing on the front of the parcel, the cursive writing that had formed the address he had kept so secret. He tore off the paper, revealing a small Cartier box. He peered out the window, checking that Klara was still busy before opening the box and inspecting its contents; a silver bracelet. As he pulled the bracelet from the box a note fell out, a note written in cursive.

So sad you didn’t invite me to your wedding, darling. I was hoping to be able to give this to Klara in person, I do hope I got the sizing right. Much love, H.

Merkel stood frozen to the spot, reading the note over and over. How the fuck does Helene know about Klara? He had never once revealed an ounce of his personal life to his boss, despite her constant prying. 

That was the first time Merkel had underestimated Helene, and it should have been the last.

“Who was the package off?” Klara asked him when she re-entered the kitchen, not noticing Merkel hold the bracelet behind his back as she washed her hands.

“Nobody important, just uh, another pair of cufflinks.” He quickly made his way upstairs and shoved the bracelet and note in his bedside cabinet, making a mental note to properly dispose of them when Klara was out.

Once he had finally dressed himself, he sat down on the bed with his head resting in his hands. Of course ignoring Helene wasn’t going to work. Of course she knew where he lived. Of course she knew about his wife. There was only one thing for it; he had to see Helene himself.

-

“Merkel my darling, I was so delighted when I got your call.” Helene gushed, kissing him on both cheeks before sitting down and clicking her fingers towards the nearest waiter and ordering a bottle of cognac to their table.

“I didn’t come here for a drink, Helene.” Merkel mumbled, keeping his eyes fixed on the table.

“You asked me to meet you at this hotel and you don’t want a drink? Marriage isn’t as blissful as you were expecting?” Her smirk made his stomach wrench and he turned his gaze to her, watching as her eyes raked up and down him numerous times. He needed to be more confident or she was going to eat him alive.

“Marriage is exactly as blissful as I thought. I asked you to come here because it’s.. public.” 

“Well, I didn’t think you were an exhibitionist.” There was the smirk again.

“I want out.” His tone was more assertive this time, and this new found confidence seemed to stun Helene for a few seconds as she was, for the first time, lost for words.

He watched as her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed slightly, focusing on every inch of his face before she pointed her index finger at him.

“Do not play me for a fool. There is no ‘out’ of this job, not unless I say so. And you of all people should know the consequences of having a contract terminated.” Helene hissed, looking warily over her shoulder as a couple walked past them.

“I don’t want this life for my family.”

This time Helene snorted, the corners of her mouth curling into a spiteful smile at the mention of Merkel’s personal life.

“Do you remember when we first met? The life I saved you from, and this is how you repay me?” Merkel nodded and set his eyes onto the floor, shuffling his feet against the carpet as Helene had once again gained the upper hand.

When he glanced back in her direction she raised an eyebrow and tapped her fingers against the table in front of them.

“I’m waiting.” 

“I’m sorry, Helene.” Merkel knew there was no there was no other options, he had to run.

-

“I don’t understand, we only bought this house a few months ago and now you want to leave?” Klara watched as Merkel was manically hauling clothes from their closet into a bag, he had arrived home an hour ago and declared that they were leaving, but refused to answer any of their questions.

“I don’t want to leave. We have to leave.” Merkel growled as he dug out a tin from the back of the closet, and opened the lid to reveal what looked like hundreds of different bank notes in various currencies as he shoved them into the bag.

“Why?” He froze as his wife asked him this question. He hadn’t been able to think of a reasonable answer, there was no time; they had to up and leave before Helene grew even more suspicious.

“I just need you to trust me, can you do that?” 

She nodded hesitantly. Merkel was never one make demands, and by the look in his eyes Klara knew that arguing with him would be futile, he was determined for them to leave within the next hour.

“Is this because of a work thing?” She asked after a few minutes of his silent packing. Merkel’s job required him to frequently travel, but he’d never been soo adamant that she travel with him before.

“Yes, something like that.” Merkel zipped up the bag and took hold of his wife’s hands, leaning down to kiss her tenderly, breathing in the sweet scent of her perfume as he closed his eyes, Helene’s voice still echoing in his ears.

“Can you at least tell me where we’re going. Will it be hot or cold?” Klara murmured against his lips, causing Merkel to smile and shake his head before moving his lips against hers once more and snaking his head up the back of her neck.

Merkel drank in every inch of his wife while she was on top of him, rocking herself against him as her whimpers filled the room. He lay one hand on her waist to guide her as he cupped her cheek with his other hand, running his thumb along her bottom lip before slowly pushing it into her mouth. Her eyes met his as she sucked on it gently, her doe-eyes making him twitch inside her as she rocked against him slightly harder. His teeth sunk into his bottom lip as he felt her walls tighten around him, and he slid his thumb out of her mouth and trailed it down her stomach before rubbing slow, harsh circles on her clit. The pressure made her stomach twist, and she began to call out his name as her orgasm took a hold of her. Merkel carried on circling her clit, clamping his hand onto her waist as he felt himself twitch once more, and the sight of Klara falling apart on top of him while calling out his name was enough to push him over the edge. He kept his eyes on her as he released himself inside her, her satisfied hums encouraging him as he thrust his hips upwards to meet hers. She set herself down onto the bed next to him, and it didn’t take long before her eyes drooped shut as she snuggled her face into his warm chest.

He had agreed to compromise with her; they’d leave in the morning. She had still been reluctant to agree with him, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer; her safety was imperative to him. He ran his hand down her back and kissed her shoulder gently, careful not to wake her as he continued to run his fingers up and down her spine. Her skin was soft under his calloused fingers, and he sighed deeply as guilt washed over him; he was dragging her away from familiarity and into the unknown, all because of a foolish choice he had made when he first met Helene.

-

Klara was getting restless. They had been in Vienna a week but Merkel had given her strict instructions to stay inside the apartment while he went to the bank. She sat at the kitchen table, twiddling her thumbs impatiently while she envisioned the different sights she could be seeing, or the cafés they she could be visiting; but instead she was stuck inside the cramped apartment alone.

After an hour had passed she sprawled out onto the sofa while gazing at the spiral pattern on the ceiling, tracing along it with her eyes, trying her best to telepathically send a message to Merkel to hurry home, who takes longer than an hour at the bank?

After another twenty minutes Klara decided she’d had enough. She walked into their bedroom and dove under the bed, yanking out the bag she had brought with her and shoving her hand to the bottom of it, pushing a few t shirts out if the way until she reached it: her mobile phone. Merkel had, for some reason, ordered her to leave it in Berlin, but there was no way she was going to sit in an apartment by herself all day completely shut off from the outside world. She pressed the power button on the phone and settled herself down onto the bed when the screen lit up. She spent a few minutes scrolling through the endless photos of herself and Merkel, sighing deeply as she reflected on their life in Berlin, in their home. 

Then, she had an idea. She’d research the best places to eat in Vienna so she could compile a list for when Merkel eventually came home. She went onto google and began typing, fetching a notepad and paper as she trawled through numerous reviews of different restaurants across the city. She was halfway through noting down one of her findings when she heard a knock on the door. Elated at the thought of Merkel returning home she jumped up immediately and almost sprinted to the door, but when she opened it, there was no Merkel. Instead, there was a woman who looked to be in her mid forties stood in the doorway, she was dressed impeccably; flowing black trousers with a white blouse tucked in and finished off with a black jacket. Her hair was perfectly styled, not a strand out of place and she was wearing a coating of bright red lipstick; her appearance alone almost made Klara cower.

“Ah, so you must be Klara, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” The woman smiled and clicked her fingers, two burly looking men appearing behind her.

“Wh-who are you?” Klara could barely stutter as she took a few steps back, but the woman followed her into the apartment, her heels making her tower over Klara.

“I thought you might not have heard so much about me. My name is Helene.” The woman yelled a command to one of the men behind her in a language Klara didn’t understand. His fist then connected with her face, turning everything black.

Tags: @roman-cek @lucifer-reads @billofourtime @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol @ill-skillsgard @skrsgardspam @theskarsgardcult @bskarsgardlove92 @dreamtherapy

If anyone wants to be added/removed, let me know :)

[thehoneybuzz]

Chasing Baker

My Nana was my greatest adversary.

In an otherwise charmed life, Nana was an immovable force and the only legitimate challenger to my willpower. Not without the warmth one would expect from a grandmother, Nana could be sharp - like a sun-warmed pane of glass. Lesser hearts might have bent to me when I requested accommodation - but not Nana. Nana set a firm bedtime, insisted on efficient tooth brushing, and rather than negotiate with hair tangles, made short work of them in single, swift wrenches when brushing your hair. No nonsense. When you stayed with her - in one of two twin beds in a room made precisely for grandchildren - you often found yourself in bed with the lights out, with no real memory of having gotten there, swept away in the tide of your sheets. Nana was uncompromising, and no arena was more suited to our mutual stubbornness as the dinner table.

I grew up a notoriously picky eater. After a weekend at my Uncle Jerry's, my mom received a hardcover copy of "The Strong-Willed Child" from him as a gift. He had spanked me for not eating chicken nuggets. As evident by its title, the book was meant to coach my mother on parenting strategies for mitigating my innate obstinance. This would not be the only copy of the book my mother received. Though, I think she could have written one by the time I turned 4. I simply refused to eat the things I didn't like, and that was a long list.

A relative once applauded - clapped his hands together in joy- upon learning that I had graduated from having the crusts cut off my bread to full-blown sandwich eating. The peanut butter and honey sandwich was my signature dish and an absolute staple. I'd like to say I've grown out of it - and I've certainly grown having tried llama steak in Peru, lamb heart at the table of a Lebanese family, and Greenland shark in an Icelandic cafe - but it took me a long time to let go of my habits and permit myself to try, and it took some coaxing. My preferences ran deep.

My diet from ages six through eleven included Eggo waffles, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, an assortment of cereals, a handful of specific fruits and vegetables, and the occasional steak when mom thought my iron was low. My mom - on the advice of a pediatrician who told her that if she force-fed me, I'd develop an eating disorder - catered to this preference. Nana did not. They must have been seeing different pediatricians.

Nana took the clear your plate approach - The approach driven by reward and consequence. Finish your plate, cookies delivered. Fail to try, become hungry and hungrier still as dessert passes you by. I took to swallowing food whole, and my mom took to sending me with granola bars on visitations. She'd line the interior of my suitcase like we were smuggling drugs. I'll admit it was an unusual form of contraband, but the measure seemed necessary in a divorced child's duplicitous world. What my mom saw as nourishment, my Dad might see as undermined parenting strategy even under the best of circumstances - which they often weren't. I was hungry, so decided it best to keep things a secret and wrappers out of the trash.

Despite Nana's apparent best efforts, I avoided the eating disorder. Thanks to my mom, I avoided most foods until my early 20s. I don't know who was right. What I know for certain is that I was loved.

When I sat down with Nana after my trip to Mt. Baker, she clutched her heart as she said. "Ally - to think about you as this little girl - and that you would only eat peanut butter and honey sandwiches - to think of you climbing mountains…" she shakes her head, "… well I just can't believe it."

I started to laugh and asked her, "Want to know the best part?"

She nodded, smile in her eyes, full of that sunny warmth - playful and kaleidoscopic.

"I ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches up and down the side of that mountain, Nana," I told her, laughing, and then we laughed together. Growing up is fun, I thought, especially in moments like this.

Laughing with your grandmother is a gift you receive in exchange for time, and it is a beautiful gift indeed. Here is a woman who bathed you, clothed you, fed you - and by the time you're old enough to understand the magnitude of the life she held before all that, she is often gone. I'm lucky to have this time. Nana is 90 years old now, and my mother's mother passed at 74. I never got to have the conversations I wanted to have with my grandmother, who died. To ask her questions like, 'Who were you?' 'What lifetimes made up the love you gave so effortlessly away?'

There is something about mountain climbing that makes you consider those kinds of questions in real-time. There is something about mountain climbing that makes you feel as if you are in the process of 'becoming.' So when, at the parking lot of Grandy Creek Grocery, I met my fellow climbers and our guides - there was a feeling of anticipation and nervousness about who I'd be sharing that story with. Dropping me off, my mom described it like the first day of kindergarten. The first person I met was Sharon.

I had been worried about Sharon. Weeks before, on the pre-trip Zoom call, she stood out from the digital crowd as the most visibly senior person there. Sharon did not look old - she looked undoubtedly the oldest. I think this is an important distinction - particularly to Sharon. I remember thinking - "I hope she is not on my trip because I'm worried she will show me down." A very judgmental thought and the universe saw to its reckoning. Sharon surprised the hell out of me.

She paced the parking lot, and I jumped out of my rig to greet her. We quickly began commiserating. Baker would be her first mountain. I had Mount St. Helens under my belt, but it's not much in the way of experience. We talked about our training plan, recounting long drives to taller places. Sharon was from Wisconsin, and she had to drive 45 minutes to get to peaks at 3,000 - the same as me in Eastern Washington. We had a lot in common. Where I ran, she had been hiking with weight and jogging. Sharon wasn't afraid of hard work. On our drive to the trailhead, I learned that she had just lost 75 pounds last year. I learned later that when Sharon signed up for this climb, she hadn't told anyone in her family she was doing it. She was 62 years old and had never once traveled alone. What on earth possessed her to climb a mountain? I'd be afraid of that question, too.

Sharon eventually fessed up to her family and made the trip official. That's how we found ourselves on the side of a mountain together. I'm embarrassed to have been so fundamentally wrong - but my confession is not without meaning, and I learned an important lesson. Never underestimate a Sharon.

When Melissa, our guide, described Mt. Baker for the first time, she called it by its indigenous name, Komo Kulshan. She then gave us its epithet - "The Great White Watcher." Having now met Kulshan face to face, I can tell you that's precisely how he feels. The summit looms as you navigate through the trees. Stoic in the face of the wilderness that surrounds him. Ice cold, he waits. In the Lummi language, he's called 'white sentinel.' He is persistent, vigilant, and watching.

I focused my nervous energy on preparing to meet this mountain by learning what I could about him. I learned that Mt. Baker is 10,781 feet tall, an active volcano, and the second most glaciated mountain in the continental united states (Rainier's got it beat, and you don't count Alaska). It's a formidable mountain, known - as nearly all alpine environments are - for its quickly changing conditions and the perils of its geology. This all, somehow, frightened me less than the thought of meeting Melissa Arnot-Reid. Her legend loomed not in the Cascades - where only a single peak resides above the threshold of 14,000 feet by which the Rockies measure their formidable "fourteeners." Melissa's legend loomed as large as Everest, on who's summit she has been six times - the only American woman to summit without the use of supplemental oxygen and survive. 29,032 feet. Melissa was someone I wanted to learn from, and I was scared shitless of her by reputation.

Suffering a bit of social awkwardness around celebrities, I prepared to meet Melissa by seeking to learn nothing about her at all. The antithesis of my mountain strategy - I told myself our experience would be what it was when we met on the mountain. My job was to learn - to ask my questions courageously - and be vulnerable and bold in seeking truth. I spent a fair bit of time wondering if she might be an ass hole, too. The age-old adage, "don't meet your heroes," drifted in and out of my mind.

In the last 15 minutes of our drive to Grandy's, my mom started reading Melissa's Wikipedia page aloud to me as I navigated the road, undoing months of my concerted preparation. I let her continue, greedy for information. "It says she trains by depriving herself of things - that she'll go without food and water."

"Probably a good idea if you're ever going to be stuck on the side of a mountain without it," I told her. I braced myself for a response. In the past few months, my mother had a growing sensitivity around topics that might suggest I could die on the side of a mountain. Admitting, so blatantly, that mountain climbing was a dangerous sport left me vulnerable to excessive mothering accompanied by exclamations of "Don't you dare!" Instead, my mom sort of nodded and continued, "I'm surprised her baby came out healthy."

My brow furrowed. I hated my mother for saying it. I had avoided a lecture from the mother of the mountaineer but failed to account for the mother of the daughter aged-almost-thirty. My uterus is a topic of conversation around my mother's table. Apparently, so was Melissas. Not wanting to discuss either, I let my mother's comment go unchecked as she continued to list accomplishments. "This article says she's focused on business, not emotions. That she is an incredible problem-solver." Now her reports felt more like cheating - it felt like an unfair advantage to meet someone armed with publicly available information about them. When you Google "Allyson Tanzer," you won't find much about my disposition under pressure. I told my mom it was time to focus and turned up the music.

When we parked, and I went to introduce myself to Melissa, three things happened. As I introduced myself, she first quickly let me know that she would not be giving out hugs due to the pandemic. Then, taking my hand in a firm grip, Melissa detailed that she and our other guide, Adrienne, had critical guide business to discuss and would be with us in a moment. She reported being thrilled to be meeting us as she quickly dropped my hand. Within thirty seconds, I was apologizing profusely and backing my way into the grocery. What can I say - first time formally climbing mountains, and I wasn't sure of the protocol. I fiddled with a bag of Cheetohs and continued to hope that she wasn't just an ass hole.

I went to the bathroom for something to do and remembered what my mother said. Task-oriented. I figured Melissa probably didn't hate me, after all. Despite my earlier misgivings, I was grateful to know a bit about her character, regardless of how 'honestly' that information was obtained. Thanks, Mom.

Our climb began. We left Grandy's in a caravan and parked near 3000' at the winter routes trailhead. On the first day, you ascend to 6000' and establish camp. You carry about 40 pounds, walking 1 mile and about 1000 vertical feet per hour, stopping for 15-minute breaks in those intervals. Conditions are warm, which means you're doing something the mountaineers call "post-holing" - ramming deep holes (as if for a fence post) into the ground as you step through snow that's washed out underneath. It's slow-going and rigorous. An hour and a half in, Melissa reports that we're standing in the location where she usually takes the first break. Unseasonably warm weather with a heavy snow accumulation has made for an exciting start.

You walk along a canyon ridge formed by a retreating glacier. You realize that time here is not measured in the same cadence that it's known to you. Mountains measure time in millennium, not decades. The formations of rock are carved by years, not minutes. The ground holds a history you can't conceive of - an ancient history of rock and ice. You are constantly struck by feeling small both physically and in your very chronology. I spent the first day happily in awe.

At camp, you maintain - guides (and playfully designated junior guides), boil snow, establish a base, dig a toilet. You assess whether or not you need to poop in a bag and carry it down the mountain with you as you try - for the first time - a rehydrated meal claiming to be chili Mac and cheese. Melissa teaches us how to walk on rope over a glacier. I try to mimic her knots. She redefines your concept of efficiency - breathlessly describing a packing order that accounts for calorie intake, warmth requirements and weight distribution - Every contingency considered. When I win the Ice Ax Rodeo by landing my thrown ax in a particular configuration - all is right in the world. Melissa is a drill sergeant giving instruction. She outlines the next minute - next five minutes - next hour - next day.

Her matter-of-fact nature reminds me of something. When I gave my parents a ride in an airplane for the first time with me as the pilot in command, I provided them near the same briefing as we were parked on the ramp. It ended dramatically with, "And if anything should happen, you have to exit the aircraft first in the following fashion." At which point I launched myself from the plane. I wanted them to be prepared to fight their instincts to protect me. I’m the only pilot on board - and my job is to protect my passengers, no exceptions. They both described a sense of foreboding and peace at the demonstration. It’s precisely how I felt when Melissa explained how she would be rescuing herself from a crevasse. “If you fall, I get you out. If I fall, I get myself out, but I need your help as an anchor to do so.” She took the approach of coaching us in only what we needed for the next challenge. We would learn crevasse rescue on a need to know basis. At Grandy’s, she told us to expect 48 hours of endurance. At camp, we’re at hour 9. She painted a picture of the following day.

"We'll begin between 11, and 2 am. Expect switchbacks up the glacier, a series of flats, and gains over the next hour. In 3.5 miles, we'll gain an additional 2000 feet - meandering a path through the glacier's crevasses, and it will gradually become steeper over time. About 1.5 miles to the summit, we'll hit the Easton glacier culminating in the Roman Wall. Then, because God has a sense of humor, you have a long flat walk to the summit after the steepest portion. All said it will take us between 5-7 hours to the top."

Frankly, it was just about as simple as that.

My eyes opened at 11:50 pm to the sound of movement outside the tent. Melissa had coached us here, too. "You may not be sleeping," she told us as we readied for 'lights out.' Days from the summer solstice, the sun burned brightly above us at 7 pm. "Remember that you don't need sleep; you need rest. That's what you're getting here at camp. You're horizontal; your feet are out of your boots. Close your eyes, and know you're getting what you need." Felt like a lie, but sure enough, with two hours of sleep, I couldn't describe myself as tired.

I did, however, feel cold. Chilly night temperatures had crept into our tent, and dressing for the day was arduous. I knew to keep my clothes in my sleeping bag. It was a trick I learned from a friend made trekking in the Andes for dressing in the cold. I knew to shorten my trekking poles while climbing, thanks to my guide on that same trek. I'd be leaving my trekking poles behind today, though. Ice axes only. We divide into rope teams. The race begins, but there's no starting pistol - only wind.

Fifteen minutes into our climb and we're struggling to find the rhythm. I'm still shaking the bleariness of the cold. The rope between climbers takes on an interesting dynamic. While it connects you to your fellow climber, it also isolates you from them. You have to maintain a certain distance away from one another while maintaining the same pace. It's a dance with crampons on in glacial ice - a delicate dance indeed - and it's where climbing feels like a team sport. You're all in it together.

Voices rang out in sequence like a game of telephone - one of our team would need to climb down. We said short goodbyes and waited as Adrienne (guide) descended with climber to camp. We were lucky - we hadn’t been climbing long which meant Adrienne could climb down and back to rejoin her rope. Guide redundancy is a safety net when groups of climbers work together.

Darkness continued. We continued. As you persist, darkness seems to persist along with you. In the first hour, it grows heavy. Your world begins and ends at the light of your headlamp, and that's where you find it—your rhythm. Crampons crunching, breath steady, and the gentle swish of your layers create a sort of timpani, a medley of percussion sounds. Clink, brush, crunch, and clink, brush, crunch, as ax bites ice, the movement of your clothes, and the toe of your boot kicks crampon into snow propelling you forward. There isn't much to think about in this grinding meditation. You're grounded in tugs from ahead or behind you as you march, slowly up. You can count steps, miles, feet of elevation - whatever keeps you moving. Whatever keeps you going up.

Moments before sunrise, we would lose another on our team. I listened to Melissa coach her. "What we're headed to is going to be harder than what we've just done. If how you are feeling is taking away from your ability to focus on your next step - I can only tell you that it's not going to get easier from here." That's when I saw the decision on her face. Another round of goodbyes - this one a bit more somber. She had worked so hard.

The decision to descend is a difficult one, but it’s one of the most important you can make. There are steep consequences to being in over your head in a place so remote. The summit is a siren, beware. Melissa - aware of the remaining teams intention to summit - advised us to plug our ears as she told the descending climber the Sherpa belief that a mountain won't let you summit for the first time if it likes you. Mountains bring you back. Further, she coached, the decision to go down can lift an entire team's chance of success if you feel you're a liability. Recognizing yourself and your limitations truthfully is a mountain in itself. That's the summit this person made in her decision to descend.

Like a good Agatha Christie novel, our list of characters dwindled. We added layers and continued - five of the original eight. Melissa was right, again. After we lost the second climber, our ascent became a proper climb. From that point forward, if anyone decided to turn around - we would all have to. There was only one remaining guide, and she had to protect all her climbers, no exceptions - me in the cockpit all over again.

She didn't show it, but 62-year-old Sharon was genuinely frightened. She had realized the same thing I did. If she didn't make it - no one would. Sharon kept climbing. Remember when I was worried she would slow me down?

When the sun starts to rise, everything begins to feel possible again. I don't mean to say that things were hopeless, just that with the sun comes energy and a sense of renewal. Color returns to the landscape, and you can begin to be able to measure your progress concretely. The mountain casts a shadow across the earth, stretching miles. You can't believe that you are contained within that shadow, on the face of such a giant who stands so impossibly tall. Melissa stood there, and I took her picture.

She had turned out to be not an ass hole at all. Where I sought to be her student, she aspired to teach - at once brilliant and kind. Her stride - her sport - a work of art. The precise art of what she calls slow, uphill walking. Her shadow and the shadow of the mountain impressed upon me the power of legends.

As the Roman Wall came into view - I knew we had it. We short rope in and make one last push. If Mt. Baker is a joke from God, the ending of the Roman Wall is its punchline.

Atop the incline awaits a long, easy walk to a haystack peak some few hundred yards in the distance. I was bubbling with emotion as my heart rate settled and the view became clear. There wasn't much difference between where we stood and where we were going. We dropped our packs, unroped, and ran up the summit. I was in tears.

Melissa broke her no-hugs-in-the-pandemic rule and celebrated us each in turn. I snapped countless photos and spent each frozen moment smiling. I pulled Melissa and Sharon in close. I had felt something on my heart and only needed a moment's bravery to share it.

I started awkwardly.

"I'd like to say something to you and Sharon," I muttered, barely audible over the wind, as I tugged on Melissa's sleeve. I grabbed Sharon's arm and pulled her in too. I don't remember the exact thing I said or the exact way in which I said it. I remember pausing to make sure I got it right and wondering for a long time if I managed to do so.

I told them that I had come to the mountain expecting to be impressed by one person. Melissa promised an impressive education - on which she delivered. She is of that rare quality - the kind who’s presence improves you. I came to Baker with that expectation, I confessed, I expected Melissa. I paused before telling Sharon, her gloved hand in mine, “You?” I laughed nervously. “I wasn’t expecting. A 62-year-old woman….” I nodded back to Melissa, “And you, the mother of a 3-year-old…” I didn’t want to get this wrong. “You are two people who our society labels and confines. Yet, here you are - on top of a mountain. I have to tell you….” I was choked up in earnest here and struggled to continue.

"It matters.” I said. “What you do matters. It matters to have an example of what is possible. Both of you have provided that example to me and women like me. Thank you." I sobbed. "I am so grateful for it and grateful for you." Melissa smothered me in her jacket as she embraced me, once again, in a hug. Pandemic be damned. My tears froze. While I expected a "There's no crying in mountaineering" a la Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own (it was a climb of mostly women, after all) the admonishment never came.

Sharon grabbed hold of me next and we shared the alpine view. Before I knew it, we were the last two on the summit. The wind howled a steady cheer. Celebrations concluded, it was time to leave. I stayed for just a moment longer, watching Sharon as she left. They don't make anything more beautiful than a mountain, and it's a view worth savoring. I descended, joyfully, to my team.

I didn't bury Jake up there. In Ashes to Ashes, I told the story of taking my old farm dog's remains to the top of my first volcano. He's not so much a good luck charm as he is an omen of protection. I don't need luck as much as I need safety, and he serves his duty well. Jake stayed with me through our descent to camp. I needed a little protection coming down off the Roman Wall, I thought. I wanted him close until we were off the glacier. He lays now at the foot of my tent—a very good place for a very good dog.

There's a natural mindfulness to climbing. I often find myself living in the present step - not thinking about the route that lies below. You forget in moments that the trip up is accompanied by an equally long and perilous journey down. From the summit, your journey is far from over. Yet, time flies by even as you stop to admire the steam vents. The rainbow that surrounds the sun refracts joy and color the same.

You reach camp, celebrate, pack up. Miles and thousands of feet remain even from there. That's when you realize it's ending and when I realized I didn't want it to end.

We spent the next few miles getting to know each other in earnest, savoring time and mountain views, chatting in the way of long-form hikers - about the nature of things and through storytelling. Melissa regaled us with vulnerable truths and comedic parables. We laughed. I kept sipping at the wells of knowledge around me, drinking in the moments. Laughter distracted from hunger, from wet feet, and from the dull and dim realization that all good things must come to an end. We made our way to the bottom of the mountain. Just like that - we say goodbye.

Sharon drove me back to Grandy's. We chitter like school girls - adrenaline and nostalgia collide in our post-climb delirium. We talk about the future. I realize that we are good friends. I am humbled by just how wrong a person can be to believe something about someone for no good reason.

Mom picks me up, and with her embrace my adventure is over. I’ve come full circle - safe and sound, parked in the lot of Grandy Creek Grocery.

Melissa found us there and knocked on our window.

"Your daughter is really special. The MOST special,” my hero and friend told my mom. Mom beamed with a special pride reserved exclusively for mothers of strong-willed daughters. I had been misreading things - the adventure had only just begun.

There are eight years between Melissa and I. I’m not sure I’ll be chasing Everest in that time, but I know I won’t be finished. I’ve got thirty-three years to catch Sharon at 62. In the mountain blink of sixty-one years, I’ll be as old as my Nana and I hope at least half as wise. Good thing there are so many years - for there is so much left to climb.

[overheardatthecontinental]

John Wick Gift Exchange

I had: @meetmeinthematinee​

There’s something about coming home to someone. It feels warm and good and right and, totally and completely, unfamiliar.

The sun has already long since set when John pulls into his garage. A by-product of December. A time of year that has, in all honesty, never made much sense to John. Truly, it doesn’t affect him much. There’s always someone to kill, no matter what month it is.

All December means for John is the nights are longer, so it’s easier to kill. Idly, he recognizes that there are decorations fucking everywhere. Even the Continental bought in with a giant tree in the lobby that had Charon fretting over getting pine needles everywhere. But that was it. 

He’d never really celebrated any holidays before Helen.

Thanksgiving had been… terrifying. Between Helen’s mother finding out he’d never celebrated Thanksgiving and deciding that John needed a crash course and Helen’s sixteen year old niece who kept making eyes at him for an entire weekend… well, holidays are definitely not his thing. 

Thank fuck she had promised no family for Christmas. He would have gone if she had asked, wouldn’t have even put up a fight. Her mercy is the greatest gift of all.

She still wanted to celebrate, but this time, it would only be them.

She'd taken time off work, too. The days leading up to the holiday as well as the week between Christmas and New Years. It was easy enough for him to turn down any contracts during that time.

Ten days with nowhere to be, with nothing to think about except Helen.

Still weeks away and he could barely stand the thrill of just being with her.

He was excited.

Excited was new, a feeling he hadn’t fully learned to process.

Like when Helen got home from work early or when she texted him that she missed him during the day. 

John parks his car next to Helen's SUV and revels in how good it feels to come home to her.

It's barely six when he walks into the house. Her baking makes his house smell like cookies.

And John has never been one for sweets but nothing smells better than coming home to Helen establishing herself in his kitchen.

He slips his suit jacket off as well as the Kevlar, draping both over the couch, and tossing his keys to the bowl in the hall as he walks by. 

John stops in the doorway of the kitchen, taking in the sight before him.

Her dark hair was braided back and out of her face and, somehow, still dusted with flour. She wears a dark green apron, the sleeves of her sweater pushed up past her elbows as she rolls out dough on his counter.

“It smells great in here.” 

She shoots a glance over her shoulder, taking in the sight of him.

His suit is a bit rumpled and his target’s blood stain is bright against the white of his shirt. Thank fuck that the rest of it blends in with his suit. He’s certain there’s blood on his face and in his hair but he and Helen are past the point of John rushing to shower and hiding his clothes; past the point of Helen pretending not to notice.

She shakes her head, turning back to where she was rolling out “You better not be getting any blood in my kitchen, John Wick!”

He has to remember to breathe at the way she claims it as hers.

“Your kitchen, huh?” He says, ignoring her, stalking around the counter.

“Learn to bake and I’ll consider sharing.” She tells him, stepping back from the cookie dough and towards the counter behind her. “I mean it, John. No blood near my foo--”

He backs her against the stone countertop and catches her face between his hands, bending down to quiet her with a kiss.

Her lips are soft and sweet, the taste of sugar cookies lingering on tongue. She hums against him. He nibbles on her lip as he pulls away.

Opening her eyes, Helen shoots him a harmless glare, “OSHA did not certify that!”

He snorts, a hand falling from her face and trailing down her arm until he entwines their fingers together.

"I'm not going to apologize."

Her lips twitch and then she smiles, reaching up and pushing back a lock of hair out of his face.

"Not your blood?"

He shakes his head and Helen nods.

“Injuries?”

“None.”

Aside from various Continental doctors, no one had ever really assessed him before. And while Doc was phenomenal, he didn’t exactly show the love and adoration that Helen did. 

She nods again, “Good.” Her hand comes up and idly plays with the edge of his vest, “I was thinking, maybe tonight we could get a Christmas tree?”

She looks up at him, almost like she expects him to say no or put up a fight. Silly girl, he thinks. There’s not a thing he can deny her.

“Alright.”

Helen beams at him. On tiptoes, she reaches up and kisses his bearded cheek. “Go wash up. I’ll have cookies ready for you when you come downstairs. I left you something on the bed to wear.”

He steals one last kiss before leaving her in peace.

A Christmas tree. 

He’s still not entirely sure of its purpose other than a place to leave presents.

And, fuck, that was another thing.

Presents.

Not that Helen wasn’t exceedingly easy to buy for, but this was important to her. She was changing decades of tradition to spend Christmas with him, and only him. Everything had to be perfect.

He strips down and showers, quickly.

He can only imagine what she has planned for them. 

The outfit, like she had said, is laid out on the bed.

The jeans and the plain t-shirt are fine. It’s what he tends to wear when he’s not going out to kill. But the grey sweater, with white reindeer on the front, surrounded by patterns of holly branches and snowflakes was ridiculous.

Fuck.

He dresses, in everything else, but forgos the sweater, carrying it downstairs over his arm rather than putting it on.

“Hels!” He calls as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and swings into the kitchen. “What the hell is this?”

He raises the sweater up for inspection as he walks into the kitchen.

She looks up from where she is lifting the shapes she had cut into the dough and placing them on a baking tray. “That’s an ugly Christmas sweater.”

John nods once, “Okay. So you know it’s ugly?”

She shoots him a look, “It’s a thing!”

“Ugly sweaters are a thing?” He asks skeptically.

“Mhmm. I have a box of them under my bed. Which reminds me, we’re going to need to stop at my place so I can pick up my holiday decorations.”

He tries not to wince as she says my place.

John likes it better when the ownership in her language refers to what he thinks of now as their home.

Before Helen, relationships hadn’t really been a thing. He’d never considered bringing another person into his house, his space. Hell, half the people he considered friends had never seen his house. Or knew its address.

“When are we leaving?”

She slips the tray into the oven. “Twelve minutes.”

John walks over to the rack of cookies cooling and takes one. 

He’s never been one for such treats. Too sweet for his palate but he still found himself trying everything that she baked.

“Good?” she asks, wiping off the counter.

“Perfect.” John holds up the sweater, “So, do I really have to wear this?” 

“You don’t have to do anything.” Helen tells him, “But I think you’d look very sexy in a sweater.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Mhmm. Might even have to suck you off.”

John nearly chokes on the cookies, “Are you serious?”

Helen smirks at him, undoing the tie of her apron and pulling it off. “Put on the sweater and find out.”

He swallows what’s left of the cookie and wastes no time in slipping the sweater over his head. It’s ridiculous, he thinks again, noting the rows of holly and snowflakes that wrap around each of his arms. 

Helen steps over, setting her now folded apron on the counter behind him.

She inclines her head, standing on tiptoes. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips before she kisses him. Softly, gently.

She hums, “You taste sweet.”

Her hands run down his chest, the flat of his stomach, reaching for his belt.

Helen holds his eyes in hers, undoing the latch of his belt with a small smirk. She opens it before snapping the button, her fingers making quick work of the zipper as she drops to her knees.

She slips her hand into his pants, her fingers wrapping along his hardening length as she pulls him out. Helen leans forward, her tongue tracing the underside of his cock.

John takes a sharp breath as her tongue swirls around his tip.

Her wet mouth runs along him, coating him in her spit all around. Her hand, at the base of his cock, moves in tandem with her mouth.

 She circles his tip again before sucking him into her mouth.

He grips the counter behind him as she moans against him, the vibrations making him impossibly harder.

Helen angles her head and pushes her mouth up, taking him as far as she can before dragging her mouth slowly back down his length. Her tongue, all the while, teasing him. 

“Fuck!” He swears, a hand flying to her head of it’s own accord. His fingers entwine in her dark hair, pulling her closer. She whimpers on his cock, bobbing up and down under his new guidance.

Her hands wrap around his thighs, using him as leverage to take him, swallowing him down and into her throat.

The noise that leaves him isn’t entirely human and it propels her. Her throat seems to close around him as she quickens her pace, looking up at him all the while. Her large brown eyes watering as he starts to tense.

He forces his eyes to stay open as he reaches the height of pleasure, cumming down her throat as she swallows him down.

When he has released, she slowly sucks her way down his length.

She comes off his cock with a slight pop, licking her lips as she does.

John tugs her hair as she slips back to her feet and he leans down, kissing her. He can taste his own salty flavor on her tongue, mixed with the sweetness of her Christmas cookies.

His free hand slides down her body, towards her core, but Helen breaks the kiss, stepping away playfully.

“Uh-uh.” She tells him, slipping just out of his reach.

“I can’t touch you?” He asks, stepping closer.

“That depends.” She teases, “We have a lot to do tonight. If you’re good, maybe you’ll get a present later tonight.”

“Is the present your pussy?”

Helen smiles, “You’d have to be a very good boy.”

“I can be good.”

On tiptoes, Helen reaches up and kisses the corner of his mouth. “I know you can. Be a dear and go grab my purse. The cookies are almost done.”

…

They take her SUV. There’s far more space in her car than in his and, though John doesn’t say it, he didn’t want to explain to Aurelio that he got scratches on the roof of his car from a pine tree.

It doesn’t take long at Helen’s apartment to grab her Christmas decorations. Conveniently, they’re already packed in boxes from the previous years. 

She changes into a Christmas sweater. It has a kitten playing with an ornament and says “Meowy Christmas” in gold letters.

Ridiculous, John thinks, but adorable.

Miracle of miracles, she doesn't insist on cutting their own tree at the tree farm. Instead, she picks one that is already cut and conveniently packaged for travel.

It’s a bizarre tradition, John thinks, but says nothing. It’s worth it for the way she bounces excitedly as they strap it to the roof of her car. 

She plays Christmas music on the radio and her hand rests on his thigh as they drive.

When they get home, she transfers the music to his TV and giggles when John realizes that there are a trail of pine needles leading from the door to the living room.

“You do this every year?” John asks in disbelief.

Helen nods, closing the space between them. Her arms wind around his neck and she smiles softly, “If you hate the live tree, I promise next year we can get an artificial one. They don’t smell as good, but it won’t make a mess.”

John tries not to react at the implication that there will be a next year.

He is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For something to become too much for her. For someone better to come along.

She rises to give him a kiss before she releases him, opening the boxes of ornaments on his couch and removing a layer of newspaper padding.

“First thing is first,” she instructs him, taking several bound packs of lights. “You need to test each of these strands by plugging them in. If a few aren’t lit, that’s fine. But if more than a few don’t work, they can just be trashed.”

John nods and takes them over to and outlet. One by one, he tests the strands as Helen opens the other boxes of decorations. He sees the flash of tinsel being unpacked as he plugs in another strand, watching them all turn bright.

He unplugs and tests the next set and he can hear her humming along to the tune.

When all the strands are tested, he stands back up, taking the bundles to Helen.

“Next, we start stringing them on the tree.”

“All six?”

“No, I want to save at least two for the banister and another for the courtyard.” She takes the other strands over to the tree and begins fussing over the branches, fluffing them out before plugging in the first set of lights.

“Stand on that side of the tree, love.”

John follows her instructions, pushing up the sleeves on his sweater. Helen begins to weave the lights through the evergreen and hands him the string.

“And now I do what?”

“Wrap it around the tree, in the branches if you can.”

"What if it catches fire?" He asks, eyeing what she had done and trying to mirror it.

"It won't. The lights are made for this. And the wires are coated."

She takes the strand and wraps it around on her side before passing it back.

John hums, taking it and examining it anew.

"You're thinking how easy it would be to strangle someone with it, aren't you?" 

"Or hang them. You'd be shocked how many people want their relatives killed in the holiday itself."

"You already said you'd take the day off." She reprimands.

"And I will.” He promises, “I'm looking forward to having you all to myself for a little while."

A bit of pink stains her cheeks. “Good.” She tells him, connecting the next strand of lights to the first as they make their way up the tree with them. 

The song changes and John finds himself blinking at the familiarity of it. He knew Christmas songs. Even when he avoided the holiday, the music was everywhere. Each shop he entered, even if only for groceries, the train stations. Even walking down the street he often heard the carols played over a loudspeaker.

But this song he knew far more intimately.

"I know this one." He says softly.

"Know what?" Helen asks, handing John the new bundle of lights to begin stringing.

"The song. Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker Suite."

She listens for a moment to the melody and then nods, "it's a popular one."

John hesitates, his heart contracting at the idea of sharing this particular memory. It wasn't a good one but it wasn't the worst, by far.

"You asked me a few weeks ago if I had any memories of Christmas."

Helen nods, "You said you didn't."

"And I don't, in the traditional sense. But I do remember this." He gestures vaguely to the TV, where the music plays from.

Helen sets the bundle that they have been passing in between the branches and comes around to John’s side of the tree. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." She reminds him.

"It's not bad," John admits, "But it is a little embarrassing."

That makes her smile, "Oh? Do tell."

He's not getting out of it now so he begins to explain, "When I came to America, I went to the school for assassins."

She nods, having heard him reference it in passing.

"The Ruska Roma used a theater as a cover for the entire operation. So while we were all trained in killing, we also had to learn ballet.”

Her eyes widen and John can literally see her make a conscious effort not to react to that new piece of information. It’s almost amusing to watch her try to school her face but he takes pity on her, after all, it is nearly Christmas.

“Go ahead.” He says softly.

“You took ballet!” She nearly shouts at the new revelation.

John nods, “Yes. The skills between ballet and killing people are highly transferable and--”

“Nope. Sorry, stuck on the ballet thing. I need a minute.”

Helen leans against the wall, nodding to herself. She’s still trying to contain a huge smile and a small giggle slips out as she asks, “Did you have to wear a leotard?”

Yeah, he definitely is going to regret this.

“Yes.”

But he can’t bring himself to at the delight etched on her face.

“And you performed? In front of people?”

Again, John nods.

“Who did you play?” her voice breaks slightly at the question and John rolls his eyes.

“It depended on the year. When I was younger, I usually played one of the mice or Clara’s younger brother. My final year, before I ran away, I may have had to play the role of the Nutcracker Prince.”

A sound escapes her and Helen covers her mouth. 

“You’re getting a lot of joy out of this.”

“Is there video footage?”

“No.”

There’s a flash of disappointment in her eyes but it vanishes quickly enough with all the new information she has just garnered.

“This is the best moment of my life.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

“Nope. This right here.” She tells him walking back over to the tree and stringing the lights, “My sweet Nutcracker.”

John rolls his eyes, “I already regret telling you.” 

“Nah, you don’t.” 

He hates how she’s right. And he loves how she’s right as she hands him the end of the string. They pass it back and forth, tangling the tree in a faint white glow.

He still doesn’t understand the reasoning for decorating a tree with lights, only to take them off and pack them away for eleven months. But he keeps going, eventually taking over when the strand goes above her head, out of her reach.

“You’re kinda handy.” She tells him and John circles the tree, placing them along the spots which she cannot reach.

“Guess you’ll have to keep me.”

“I mean, I could replace you with a step-ladder.” She jokes, “But I suppose you have your other uses.”

“And what are those?” John asks as he tucks the end of the strand into the branches and out of sight.

“You keep the bed warm, which is nice. And you know how I like my coffee.” She takes a step backward as John begins stalking toward her, “You’re pretty handsy-- sorry, handy, in the shower, too.”

John catches her, wrapping an arm around Helen’s waist and pulling her towards him.

“Plus, there’s the fact that I’m kind of in love with you.” Her voice softens as he strokes her face.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

John leans down and kisses her gently.

“I love you, too.” He tells her, noting how she shines under the subtle glow of the Christmas lights.

“Then I guess you’ll have to keep me.”

“Forever.” John promises because if she’ll have him, that’s how long he will hold her.

She bows her head, touching her face to his chest, breathing him in for a long moment before she slips out of his arms. She takes his hand and leads him back over to the couch and the boxes of ornaments. 

“This box first.” She tells him, showing him a handful of stacks of orbs in red, and blue, and silver, and gold. “I tend to tuck these further into the tree and save the outer branches for the more personal ornaments.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smacks his ass playfully, “Go decorate the damn tree.”

John grins, taking a handful of the ornaments over with him. Helen shows him how to use the plain ornaments to make the tree look fuller.

And then they move on to the second box, filled with much more personable ornaments.

She has about six ornaments that take on some various form of coffee cup or mug and she tells him exactly where she got it or whom she got it from. She shows him a tiny book ornament that actually has the story written inside.

“What about this one?” He asks, holding up a small gingerbread man clearly decorated by a child.

“Hannah made that for me a few years ago for Christmas.” She says, referencing her niece. 

“And this one?” He holds up a glass jellyfish, decorated with ribbons and beads.

“Spring break in college. My roommate got it for me to comemorate the day I was stung by one.”

John smirks, hanging it from a high branch so that the tendrils fell down into the tree.

He goes over, snagging a few more from the box. There’s a key, engraved with her first address and the year she bought her first home. An ornament that serves as a picture frame with Helen holding her newborn nephew, claiming World’s Best Aunt. Another mug of coffee and a small grand piano with a year etched into it. He did the math. She would have been six.

“What about this one?” He holds up the piano.

She looks up and smiles at the sight, “My grandmother got that for me after my first recital.”

“I didn’t know you played.”

“I haven’t in years.” She admits, walking over and hanging a tiny wine glass on the tree next to him. “I started taking lessons in kindergarten.. My grandmother had a grand piano in her living room. I used to go there every day to practice. Played all the way through high school.”

“And then?”

She shrugs, “I left home. Went to college. Played a bit in the music practice rooms but those were mostly reserved for students actually studying music. My grandmother passed not long after I graduated. My parents offered me the piano but I didn’t have any place to keep it.” She shrugs, “Think they sold it.”

She hangs a ceramic bee that makes a branch droop. 

“Where’d that one come from?”

“Steve.” She says, referencing her brother, “He used to call me honeybee when I was little.”

It continues to blow his mind that she has an answer for nearly every single ornament.

The frosted-glass Christmas tree once belonged to her grandmother.

The golden retriever was an homage to her first dog, Lucy.

Another picture frame ornament that had a picture of Helen and her siblings, far younger and bundled up in winter clothes standing outside with rosy cheeks.

A soccer ball from her dad.

A globe from her grandfather that had an x over New Jersey and another over where Helen had studied abroad.

There’s another of just Helen, this time as a baby, engraved with Baby’s First Christmas.

Helen sees it and her eyes spark up, “Oh! I almost forgot! I’ll be right back!”

She turns on her heel and runs back up the stairs leaving a bewildered John standing at the tree. He shakes his head and resumes going through her ornament collection.

She doesn’t take long and her footsteps soon echo off the stairs as he hurries back down. There’s a bag in her hand as she reaches him and a smile on her face.

“I picked up a few new ornaments when I went shopping earlier.”

.”Oh?”

She nods, eagerly and reaches into the bag. She pulls out a small glass bottle, the bottom painted in an amber to give the illusion of liquid. It’s labeled bourbon and John laughs as he takes it.

“Where’d you find this?”

“There was a kiosk in the mall.” She reaches into the bag, “Where I also found…” She pulls out another ornament. There was a picture of John inside of it that he recognized from a few days before, when he was making her coffee, still in his pajamas.

Etched on the edge of the frame is Baby’s First Christmas: 2009.

He shoots her a look and she just giggles. 

“Really?” He asks, not offended in the slightest, more amused than anything.

“Yeah,” she flashes a wide grin, “You’re my baby and it’s your first Christmas.”

“You think you’re cute, don’t you?”

“You think I’m cute.” She corrects, stepping over to him, and resting her head against his chest. “I just want this year to be special for you.”

“It already is.” He says, and by fuck does he mean it.

…………

Usually, almost always, John wakes up first.

His internal clock tells him to wake up with the sun while Helen prefers to sleep until six-thirty on the weekdays and eight on the weekends. It works well for him. He doesn’t need as much sleep as she does and he would much rather spend his mornings watching the woman in his arms. 

Christmas morning, he finds, is the exception. Helen is up before the sun has peaked over the horizon. He feels the bed bounce, jolting him out of his restful slumber and suddenly Helen is crawling on top of him.

A welcome occurrence, he thinks, but he doubts this will go where his first thought trails…

“It’s Christmas!” Helen says, bouncing on her knees, further jostling him.

John smirks, still not opening his eyes, and says, “So it is,” his voice still rough from sleep.

“Get up!”

He hums, “Is this what the phrase kid on Christmas refers to?”

She playfully smacks his chest, “Come on!”

John opens his eyes and glances over at the clock. “It’s not even six.”

“So?”

“So all this from the woman who once threatened to castrate me if I ever woke her up before six without a coffee in hand?”

“Its Christmas!” Helen says, like it’s an answer.

John grabs her hips and flips her to her back before she can even recognize what is happening. Rolling on top of her, John slips a hand under her shirt.

"Is it time for me to unwrap my present?"

She laughs and fuck. Everything seems surreal and he can't quite believe that this is his life.

Helen lying under him, her dark curls still mussed from sleep. An excited countenance that is almost contagious as she wakes him up to celebrate a holiday.

He half expects himself to wake up and find out it was all just a wonderful dream.

Good things don’t happen to him, but there she is.

Helen reaches up and places a hand on his cheek. She strokes it lovingly, “Stockings first. Then we can talk about unwrapping your presents.”

John slips off her and takes her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Pajamas stay on?”

She snorts, “You’re not opening presents in a three-piece.”

He kisses her head, “Yes, ma’am.”

Helen grabs him by the hand and practically drags him from the room.

His heart races in his chest. He hoped he had done good enough. Marcus seemed convinced that he had when John had consulted with the other assassin. Marcus assured him that his gifts for Helen were perfect, that she’d be thrilled, but doubt gnawed at him.

He’d never done this before, never had cause to buy another presents. And Google was helpful but he still wasn’t entirely sure if he’d managed to do a stocking right. 

John almost wants to slow her down. Her biggest present waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Too complicated to wrap, he got a novelty gigantic bow from Aurelio that usually went on cars to stick atop the gift.

There would be no missing it, he thinks, as Helen drags him down the stairs and stops.

He hears the hitch in her breath and her head swings back up to look at him, her mouth open.

Better or worse, he’s stunned her into silence.

Her eyes shift back to the grand piano sitting just under the balcony, the red bow’s ribbons flowing down the sides.

“I-- John!”

Her hand goes up to cover her mouth and he’s not quite sure what that means. If he should offer to return it and just forget about the whole thing but then she’s turning, her arms thrown around him and his heart just fucking stops.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

He’s not sure what the feeling inside of him is. It’s warm and expanding. It almost hurts with the intensity that fills him at her reaction. And fuck, but what he wouldn’t give to make her feel that way again.

“How?” Helen asks, slipping her arms from around him, wiping a watery eye.

“French doors come off their hinges.” John says, “Marcus, Aurelio, and I moved it in late last night.”

“And I slept through the three of you trying to move a piano?”

John smirks, still reveling in the foreign emotions overwhelming him, “Why do you think I kept refilling your wine last night? You were out like a light before ten.”

She wacks his arm, her face aglow with a smile, and yeah, he thinks he gets it.

He thinks he understands why people run ragged each year over finding the perfect gift. He understands that there is something beyond the blind materialism, something intricate and beautiful and special about taking care in finding something for the person you love.

Something perfect about watching Helen reach down to brush her fingers along the keys, noting the way her fingers arch to familiar forms as she tests the instrument.

A soft melody fills his usually quiet house.

Lights from the tree brighten his usually dark house.

And Helen fills his usually empty home.

He never wants this to end.

He never wants her to leave.

He’ll make her so happy that she never wants to leave, he decides. He will do whatever it takes to bring her the kind of peace that she brings to him. He’ll spend the rest of his life adoring her, loving her. Making it all worth it for her.

She looks up, smiling at him and fuck.

I’m going to marry her, John thinks.

He steps forward, closing in the space around her and wraps his arms around her waist, resting his head on hers. He closes his eyes and lets the song she is playing wash over him.

“Merry Christmas.” He whispers.

[dillydedalus]

april reading

oh yeah this is a thing. anyway in april i read about uhhh.... first contact (twice), murderers on skis & victorian church politics

the yield, tara june winch a novel about indigenous australian identity and history (now and throughout the 20th century) in three narrative strands. imo the narrative strand that consists of a grandfather writing a dictionary of his language (wiradjuri) in order to prove a claim to some land is by far the strongest, but overall i liked this quite a lot. 3/5

land of big numbers, te-ping chen a solid short story collection focused on modern china and young(ish) chinese people, both in china and the diaspora. i particularly liked the stories that had some slighty surreal or speculative elements, such as one about fruit that strongly evoke emotions when eaten and a group of people stuck in a train station for months as the train is delayed, which imo use their speculative aspects in effective (if not super subtle) ways to talk about society. 3/5

the pear field, nana ekvtimishvili (tr. from georgian by elizabeth heighway) international booker prize longlist! a short, fairly depressing read about a 18-year-old girl at a post-soviet school for developmentally disabled childred (but also orphans, abandoned children & other random kids) who is trying to get a younger boy adopted by an american couple. there seem to be a lot of novels set at post-soviet orphanages etc & imo this is a well-executed example of the microgenre, with the pear field full of pears that are never picked bc they don’t taste right as a strong central image. 3/5

the warden, anthony trollope (chronicles of barsetshire #1) ah yes, a 6-part victorian series about church politics in an english town, exactly the kind of thing i’m interested in. not sure why i committed to at least the first two entries of the series but here we are. despite this lack of interest (and disagreement with most of the politics on display here) i found this quite charming; trollope has a gift for an amusing turn of phrase & making fun of his characters in benevolent ways. 3/5

the lesson, cadwell turnbull first contact scifi novel set on the virgin islands, where an alien ship arrives one day. the aliens seem benevolent & share helpful technology, but also react with extreme violence to any aggression. they claim to be on earth to study.... something, but it’s never entirely clear what. the book makes some interesting choices (like immediately skipping over the actual first contact to a few years in the future, when the aliens are already established on the islands) but i thought much of it was kinda disjointed and confusing. 2/5

the heart is a lonely hunter, carson mccullers look, i get it, it’s all about the isolation & alienation (& dare i say loneliness) of 4 miserable characters projecting their issues on the central character singer, who is kind and patient and also deaf and mute, thus making him the perfect receptacle for their issues without really having to connect with him as a person and how that isolation hinders them socially, artistically, emotionally, politically, but like... i didn’t really like it. i didn’t hate it but i just felt very meh about it all. 2.5/5

acht tage im mai: die letzte woche des dritten reiches, volker ulrich fascinating history book about the last week(ish) of the third reich, starting with the day of hitler’s suicide and ending with the total surrender (but with plenty of flashbacks and forwards), and looking at military&political leadership (german and allied) as well as prisoners of war, forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners, and everyone else. very interesting look at what kästner described as the “gap between the not-anymore and the not-yet.” 3.5/5

firekeeper’s daughter, angeline boulley) i’ve been mostly off the YA train for the last few years, but this was a really good example of contemporary YA with a focus on ~social issues. ANYWAY. this is YA crime novel about daunis, a mixed-race unenrolled ojibwe girl close to finishing high school who is struggling with family problems, university plans, and feeling caught between her white and her native familiy when her best friend is shot in front of her and she decides to become a CI for an fbi investigation into meth production in the community. i really appreciated how hard this went both with the broader social issues (racism, addiction) and daunis’ personal struggles. there are a few bits that felt a bit didactic & on the nose (and the romance... oh well), but overall the themes of community, family, and the value of living indigenous culture are really well done & i teared up several times. 4/5

the magic toyshop, angela carter i love carter’s short stories but struggle with (while still liking) her novels so far. this one, a tale of melanie, suddenly orphaned after trying on her mother’s wedding dress in the garden, coming of age and awakening to womanhood or whatever. carter’s really into that. it’s well-written, sensual as carter always is, and the family melanie and her siblings are sent to, her tyrannical puppet-maker uncle, his mute wife and the wife’s two brothers, both fascinating and offputting (& dirty) make for an interesting cast of characters, but overall i just wish i was reading the bloody chamber again. 3/5

barchester towers, anthony trollope (chronicles of barsetshire #2) (audio) lol tbh i still don’t know why i am committing to this series about, again, church politics in 19th century rural england, but it’s just so chill & warm & funny (we love gently or not so gently - but always politely - mocking our characters) that i’m enjoying it as a nice little trip where people do some #crazyschemes to gain church positions or fight over whether there should be songs in church or whatever it is people in the 19th century fought about. it’s very relaxing. there also is a lot of love quadrangleyness going on and that’s also fun. trollope has weird ideas about women but like whatever, i for one wish mrs proudie much joy of her position as defacto bishop of barchester, she really girlbossed her way to the top. 3.5/5

semiosis, sue burke (semiosis #1) i love spinning the wheel on the “first contact with X weird alien species” & i guess this time we landed on plants! plant intelligence is interesting and the idea of plant warfare is really cool. i do like the structure, with different generations of human settlers on the planet pax providing a long-term view but this allows the author to skip over a lot of the development of the relationship between the settlers and the plant and locating the plot elsewhere, which i think is ultimately a mistake. i might continue w/ the series tho, depending on library availability. 2.5/5

one by one, ruth ware a bunch of start-up people go on a corporate retreat to a ski chalet in the alps, avalanche warning goes up, one of them disappears, presumably on a black piste, the rest get snowed in & completely cut off when the avalanche hits and then they get picked off *title drop* (altho really not that many of them). nice fluff when i had a miserable cold (not covid) but fails when it tries to go for deeper themes... like an attempt to address classism and entitlement sure... was made. also like what kind of luxury skiing chalet does not have emergency communication devices in case internet/phone lines are down...  i’d have sued just for that. 2/5

fake accounts, lauren oyler the microgenre of ‘alienated intellectual(ish) probably anglophone person has some sort of crisis, goes to berlin about it’ is my ultimate literary weakness - i almost never really like them, they mostly irritate me & yet i can never resist their siren call. this one is p strong on the irritation, altho at least the narrator does not ascribe much meaning to her decision to go to berlin after she a) discovers her boyf is an online conspiracy theorist (probably not sincerely) and b) gets a call that said boyf has died, it’s really just something to do to avoid doing anything else. but other than that it’s so BerlinExpat by the numbers, like she lives in kreuzkölln! put her somewhere else at least! there is one scene that elevates the BerlinExpat-ness of it all (narrator asks expatfriend for advice on visa applications, expatfriend assures her that it’s really easy for americans to get visa, adds “especially now” while literally, as the narrator remarks, gesturing at the falafel she’s eating) other than that, the novel is.... fine. it’s smart, but not really as smart as it thinks it is, which is a problem bc it thinks it’s just sooo incisive. whatever. 2/5

the tenant of wildfell hall, anne bronte this is reductive but: jane eyre: i could fix him // wuthering heights: i could make him worse // wildfell hall: lmao i’m gonna leave his ass anyway i enjoyed the part that is actually narrated by the titular tenant of wildfell hall, helen (which thankfully, i think, is most of it) because the perspective of a woman who runs away from her abusive alcoholic of a husband is genuinely interesting and engaging, while gilbert, the frame story narrator who falls in love with helen, is.... the worst. i mean he’s not the worst bc the abusive husband arthur is there and hard to beat in terms of worseness, but he’s pretty fucking bad. imagine if helen had found out that gilbert attacked her secret brother over a misunderstanding, severely injured him & LEFT HIM TO DIE & then (when dude survived & the misunderstanding got cleared up) apologised like well i guess i didn’t treat you quite right! she’d have to run away from her second husband as well! poor girl. 3/5

[bushyhair]

❝ then he said, leaning forward: ‘you’re strange animals, you women intellectuals. tell me: what’s it like to be a woman?’ i took my rifle from behind my chair and shot him dead. ‘it’s like that,’ i said. ❞ merlin’s beard, what is ( HERMIONE GRANGER ) doing out at this hour? for a ( MUGGLEBORN ) who is ( 47 ) years old, ( SHE ) really ought to know better. you know, i hear that they’re aligned with ( THE ORDER ), but that could be just a rumor. i do know that they’re a ( CIS WOMAN ) and a ( GRYFFINDOR ) alum who works as a ( POLITICAL ACTIVIST ) though. they’re very ( DAUNTLESS ) and ( ANALYTICAL ) but also quite ( VINDICTIVE ) and ( ACERBIC ), which could be why they remind of ( DESPERATELY SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS THE ONLY WAY YOU KNOW HOW – IN A DARK, MUSTY LIBRARY FILLED WITH ANCIENT TOMES WRITTEN IN LANGUAGES LONG DEAD TO MANKIND – BUT NOT TO YOU; A CEASELESS TUG-OF-WAR BETWEEN YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR HEART, BETWEEN RATIONALE AND COMPASSION; THE CELESTIAL HEAVENS THAT YOU CARRY ON YOUR SHOULDERS NOW THAT ATLAS IS NO LONGER AROUND TO BEAR THE BURDEN FOR YOU ). some people say they’re the spitting image of ( GUGU MBATHA RAW ), but i’ve never heard of them. word on the street is that they’re ( THE ERUDITE ) and their prophecy is ( PROPHECY 54 ), but only time will tell if that’s true or not. [ SARAH, 23, SHE/HER, PST ]

parallels: spencer hastings (pretty little liars), elphaba thropp (wicked), annabeth chase (percy jackson), amy santiago (brooklyn 99), sydney sage (bloodlines), beatrice (much ado about nothing), cristina yang (grey’s anatomy), monse finnie (on my block), jal fazer (skins), peggy carter (marvel cinematic universe)

hermione was something of a miracle baby (and a complete surprise). the couple found each other later in life than most, and they’d long since given up trying to conceive as her father was in his fifties and her mother was pushing forty. nevertheless, even though she was unexpected, her parents showered her with love and affection – they had always wanted a baby girl to call their own. hermione would be their one and only.

[ HOLOCAUST TW ] her parents named her hermione after the virtuous queen of sicily in shakespeare’s the winter’s tale and the only daughter of king menelaus and queen helen in greek mythology. her middle name is jean, which is a female variant of the name john, meaning “god is gracious”. i think hermione is, albeit probably unintentionally by jkr, coded as jewish (her appearance, how she faces oppression for her blood by the death eaters/voldemort which are analogies for the nazis/hitler/the holocaust, how she isn’t shown to have a particular attachment to christmas and rarely goes home for the holidays, etc.). thus, i’ve headcanoned that she comes from an interfaith family; her mom was christian and her dad was jewish, and they raised her with both religions with the intention of letting her pick when she grew older. while she is not spiritual and ultimately considers herself to be an atheist, she’s still very proud of her interfaith heritage. anyways, her parents didn’t actually name her jean because of its religious meaning; they named her after jean valjean from les misérables. much like her parents, hermione is also a fan of victor hugo’s work, and that was why she named one of her children hugo.

her father never spoke about how he was a victim of the holocaust, how he almost didn’t survive, how he lost his entire family to the war. sometimes hermione saw the number tattoo on his arm, and her own battle scars felt like they were on fire. her father was a survivor of the second world war, and she is a survivor of the second wizarding war. now more than ever, she understands the trauma, grief, and survivor’s guilt that he tried so desperately to shield her from. it is the same pain that she now carries. [ END TW ]

[ RACISM, BULLYING, AND ANTISEMITISM TW ] there were almost no black children in the posh neighborhood she was raised in, and hermione always felt out of place among her white classmates at the expensive primary school she attended. growing up, despite being upper middle class and an incredibly well-behaved child, she of course still experienced her fair share of racism due to her black and jewish heritage – dirty looks on the street by complete strangers, mean schoolchildren declaring her ugly for not meeting westernized beauty standards (especially when it came to her hair), shopkeepers keeping a watchful eye on her when she entered their stores, adults assuming she couldn’t possibly be as intelligent as her white peers. not only was it demoralizing to little hermione, it was enraging. she developed an overwhelming need to prove herself and her capabilities – she always had to work so much harder than white children to be properly recognized, but every year, she still outperformed everyone else. of course, young hermione was seen as rather swotty, condescending, and insufferable by her classmates, so she was incredibly unpopular. her only friends were her parents, and the one place where she actually felt like she belonged was the library. books were an escape, a refuge. they offered her some comfort in an otherwise comfortless world. little did she know that this world was not truly her world – that there was something else waiting for her.

hermione developed a strict adherence to following the rules and an unwavering respect for authority partly because of the prejudice she faced from an early age. as a young black girl, she knew that if she did not present herself to be well behaved, responsible, and mature – if she ever acted out in any way – there could be a high price to pay. black children were punished (or hurt – or even killed) for very, very little. while she eventually outgrew this behavior as she found her place in the wizarding world, it took her a little time to blossom into the revolutionist that she is today.

when she first came to the wizarding world, she noticed a stark contrast in how she was treated by most people upon first glance. after all, it wasn’t as though blood purists could tell that she was muggleborn simply by looking at her (even though she didn’t realize that was what it was initially). and because of the difference that she noticed, she had hope that maybe – just maybe – this was somehow a world free of prejudice and racism, a world in which she could finally find belonging in. but of course, the wizarding world was not quite as she first thought. there was still prejudice; it was merely towards a different group of people. mudblood. when draco malfoy first spat out that venomous word in reference to her, she didn’t immediately know just what it meant, but she understood well enough. she’d been called slurs before. hermione was once again rattled with that familiar fury. she was top of her year, with an extraordinary amount of power, but still she was viewed by many as inferior. she vowed to prove her worth and become an instrument of change. she would fight for herself, her friends, her parents, the enslaved house elves, and the other muggleborns. if this world tried to tell her she did not belong there either, she would show them all that she did. she would be the best and the brightest – better than draco, pansy, and anyone else who tried to diminish her. and that was just what she did. it wasn’t enough for her though. [ END TW ]

because while hermione might have been a know-it-all who seemed rather confident in her abilities, the truth was that she was deeply insecure and terrified of failure. identified as highly gifted from a young age, this unintentionally placed an insurmountable pressure on her to overachieve in order to measure up to those high standards – to confirm to everyone, including and especially herself, that she really was as intelligent as they all thought she was. and to make matters worse, whether she was in the muggle world or the wizarding world, she always had something to prove. (in fact, she was only able to attend her expensive private school because of the scholarship that was granted to her due to her high marks and test scores. because while she was upper middle class, her family still wasn’t wealthy enough to send her there otherwise.) she somewhat grew out of her insecurities as the years went by – she’s proud of who she is and knows that she’s capable – but some of her insecurities still linger to this day. that compulsive need to be perfect will never truly go away. it’s an innate part of her now.

[ PHYSICAL ASSAULT TW ] even though she is extremely socially conscious and compassionate, she is very much a paradox and can often be abrasive, insensitive, and overly blunt. she’s also far more ruthless than she appears to be at first glance – this is the girl who destroyed marietta edgecombe’s face when she dared to betray the d.a., erased her parents’ memories, set a professor on fire, imprisoned rita skeeter in a jar and blackmailed her, and left umbridge to the centaurs to rot. while she does have a rigid sense of morals, she’s vindictive and will ultimately do what is necessary to achieve the right outcome. she honestly does not regret any of these actions – the ends justified the means in hermione’s opinion. (aka draco malfoy should consider himself lucky she only slapped his sorry arse so hard that he bruised) [ END TW ]

[ DEMENTIA/ALZHEIMER’S AND PARENTAL DEATH TW ] once the dust settled after the battle of hogwarts, after the seemingly endless funerals and memorials, she left everyone behind for a few months to search for her parents in australia and bring them back home. tracking them down took several weeks in and of itself, but once she finally found them, she quickly realized that she had her work cut out for herself. memory magic is an incredibly intricate process because it involves reconstructing the brain, and without proper training, it can easily go awry. she spent many days working on properly restoring their memories, and even after she was sure that she had done it perfectly, something was still wrong. the doctors ended up diagnosing her father with early stage alzheimer’s. although her friends reassured her that it wasn’t her fault, she still blamed herself for this – her father was well past middle aged, but perhaps his mind would not have deteriorated so much if she hadn’t cast those memory charms. she began distancing herself from her parents early on in her school career, opting to spend her holidays with ron and harry instead of trying to fit into a magicless world she no longer belonged in, and she became wracked with guilt and regret for pushing her parents away even if it was partially for their safety and peace of mind. she thought she would have more time than this, years to make up for it all. there wasn’t. a few years down the line, her father finally succumbed to his dementia and passed away, her mother following very soon after. although she died of natural causes, it was almost as though she couldn’t bear being apart from the love of her life, to go on living in a world without him. [ END TW ]

[ PTSD, DEATH, PARENTAL DEATH, GRIEF, PHYSICAL ASSAULT, AND TORTURE TW ] at some point, she returned to hogwarts to complete her seventh year, determined to graduate with all o’s on her n.e.w.t.s, and of course she succeeded because she’s hermione and she buried herself in her schoolwork, very much as a distraction from her grief, her trauma, the diminishing health of her father, and her newfound fame. being a war hero thrust hermione into the spotlight, and at first, she didn’t know how to handle it in the slightest. through time, she came to use her celebrity status to become a voice for the oppressed – house elves, werewolves, other muggleborns – because again, she’s hermione and she wouldn’t be hermione without her vehemence for social justice.

upon graduation, she landed herself a job in the department for the control and regulation of magical creatures. she stayed there for a while before transferring to the department of magical law enforcement. she never considered herself going into magical law when she was younger, but she soon realized that it was the only way she would be able to bring lasting change to a long broken system. for several years, hermione immersed herself in her work as much as she could. it was absolutely a coping mechanism, especially after her parents passed. as always, she was constantly fretting over her loved ones, asking them multiple times a week if they were alright and reassuring them that she was always here if they need a shoulder to lean on, but she hadn’t quite dealt with the fact that she wasn’t alright, not by a long shot. in fact, she was barely holding it together. rather than living, she was merely surviving, and it wasn’t for herself. her work and her friends were the only real reasons she managed to drag herself out of bed every morning. she hadn’t properly grieved the people she lost, and she suffered from petrifying night terrors, and the worst ones were of bellatrix torturing her in malfoy manor. she tried everything to remove or cover her scars from the incident, but as they were magically carved into her by curses of bellatrix’s own creation, she wasn’t able to. eventually, she gave up, deciding she would wear them as signs of her courage and resilience. but there were still those nights where she woke up from a chilling nightmare, wailing and thrashing. she cast muffling charms on her room every night as a precaution. she couldn’t even bear to visit her parents’ graves, too overcome by guilt, knowing in her heart that their deaths were her fault. she didn’t know how to carry that pain.

eventually, she settled down with ron and had two children with him, and slowly, with her two best friends by her side, she started to heal from her war wounds. there was no orderly, linear process to follow, like the five stages of grief. it was messy, and it was hard, but she pushed through it. she sought therapy at the urging of her friends, learning how to better handle her emotions, especially the ones involving grief. it took time, but she learned to live to again. she was able to move on and finally forgive herself. she healed – only for that arduous work to be undone when the third wizarding war started and the world fell into shambles again.

hermione was angry. she was so angry at the world for putting them all through this again. so many people died to prevent another war from happening, and despite her best efforts to make their sacrifices count -- to make it all mean something -- it seemed like it was all for naught in the end. after all, here they were again -- the same fight. always the same fight, with most of the same people.

and then harry died. then harry, her best friend, died for the second time, and hermione’s world shattered into pieces. it was only her love for her family and her vehemence for justice that gave her the strength to move on--but only barely so. she knew that she would never completely heal from it all. the truth was that when harry died, a part of her died along with him. he was not only her first friend but her true best friend (because ron had always been something else, something much more complicated). she considered him to be a brother, and she always did everything she could to help and protect him. she loved him so much, and she would’ve died for him without a second thought. they all would have. his death -- along with her parents’ deaths -- will always be her biggest failures, and she will forever blame herself for them. what good is it – being so smart – if she couldn’t save the ones that she loved the most? once her boggart was failing her exams, but now it is harry and her parents telling her the truth that she already knows – that their deaths were her failure and her fault. of course, this boggart is as irrational as the one she had in her childhood. harry and her parents would never say such a thing. logically, hermione knows this, but she still blames herself all the same – even if they would never, even if it’s not truly her fault.

then, miraculously, harry evaded death once more, coming back to life like the messiah himself -- but at the price of the life of one of her dearest friends. she’s even more furious now, but that anger doesn’t have anywhere to go. ultimately, she knows that even though it was the foolhardy, reckless knights who performed the ritual, the blame rests on the order’s shoulders. they failed their children. they drove them to this. in a way, she truly understands why the knights did what they did because she missed harry with all her heart and would have given (almost) anything to see him one more time, but still, it horrifies her. she wanted him back -- she is so grateful to have him back -- but not like this. not at the price of neville longbottom’s life. this is beyond anything she could have ever conceived. this is an aberration. it should have been impossible. and yet, here her best friend is, alive and (almost) well. she never expected that she would ever have him back, but now when he looks at her without any recognition in his face, she cannot help but be reminded of her father’s death all over again.

in the end, she will keep going on, and she will fight until her last dying breath to protect her loved ones and the world, but she’s so tired. how many times will they all have to fight the same war? how many more people will have to die for them to finally end this – for good this time? will this ever truly be over, or is humanity doomed to make the same mistakes and fight the same wars forever? for the girl who’s supposed to have all of the answers, even she doesn’t know.

it should be noted that hermione has never believed in prophecies or even divination at all, and even now that harry is alive, she still doesn’t. ultimately, she would argue that the reason why harry came back to life isn’t because it was destined in any way but because the knights truly believed in the prophecy and thus made it happen, much like how voldemort marked harry as his equal out of his doing after he heard trelawney’s first prophecy. in a way, it was almost a self-fulfulling prophecy. in the end, hermione doesn’t believe in predestined fate, and she never will. instead, she intends to shape her own future.

edit: also! i forgot to mention that, before the ministry was taken over, hermione was head of the department of magical law enforcement, but when she was thrust out of her position, she made the decision to dedicate herself to the order fully. hermione has never been minister of magic in this verse. although the ministry was never perfect by any means, she was a strong supporter of minister shacklebolt and worked with him personally for many years. ultimately, she was fairly content where she was at before all of this, but who knows what could happen if and when the war ends. [ END TW ]

[kkintle]

Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wisława Szymborska; Quotes

Dreams flickered on white canvas.

The future—who can guess it. The past—who’s got it right.

Trite Rhymes     A great joy: flower upon flower, the branches stretch in pristine blue, but there’s a greater: today’s Tuesday, tomorrow will bring mail from you, and still greater: the letter trembles, strange reading it in spots of sun, and still greater: just a week now, now just four days, now it’s begun, and still greater: I kneel on top and make the suitcase lid shut tight, and still greater: the train at seven, just one ticket, thanks, that’s right, and still greater: rushing windows, with view on view on view on view, and still greater: dark and darker, by nighttime I will be with you, and still greater: the door opens, and still greater: past the door, and still greater: flower on flower. —Ohhh, who are all these roses for?

Do you open each human fate like a book, seeking feelings not in fonts or formats? Are you sure you decipher people completely?

Are people really so simple as far as people go?

Lovers     In this quiet we can still hear what they were singing yesterday about the high road and the low road . . . We hear—but we don’t believe it.   Our smile doesn’t mask our sorrow, and goodness needs no sacrifice. The pity we give to nonlovers is even more than they deserve.   We’re so astonished at ourselves, what’s left to astonish us? Not a rainbow in the night. Not a butterfly in snow.   And when we sleep we dream of parting. But it’s a good dream, it’s a good dream, since we wake up from it.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.

Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow.   With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

If we haven’t had enough of despair, grief, all that stuff, lofty words will kill us off.   Then we’ll stand up, take our bows: hope that you’ve enjoyed our show. Every patron with his spouse will applaud, get up, and go.   They’ll reenter their lives’ cages, where love’s tiger sometimes rages, but the beast’s too tame to bite.

I TEACH silence in all languages

FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds— dogs barking, guitars in the street— into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

We know ourselves only as far as we’ve been tested. I tell you this from my unknown heart

An Effort     Alack and woe, oh song: you’re mocking me; try as I may, I’ll never be your red, red rose. A rose is a rose is a rose. And you know it.   I worked to sprout leaves. I tried to take root. I held my breath to speed things up, and waited for the petals to enclose me.   Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Leave me, leave, but not by land. Swim off, swim, but not by sea. Fly off, fly away, my dear, but don’t go near the air.   Let’s see each other through closed eyes. Let’s talk together through closed mouths. Let’s hold each other through a thick wall.

Since eternity was out of stock, ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.

Everything’s mine but just on loan, nothing for the memory to hold, though mine as long as I look.

One day the answer came before the question. Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression by the type of silence in the dark.   Gender fades, mysteries molder, distinctions meet in all-resemblance just as all colors coincide in white.

Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand, with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink— a view served round the clock, until you go blind.

Parable     Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: “Somebody save me! I’m here. The ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!” “There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said. “And he doesn’t say where. It’s not even clear which ocean,” the second fisherman said. “It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,” the third fisherman said. They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with universal truths

Ballad     Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.”   It’s an honest ballad, penned neither to shock nor to offend.   The thing happened fair and square, with curtains open, lamps all lit:   passersby could stop and stare.   When the door had shut behind him and the killer ran downstairs, she stood up, just like the living startled by the sudden silence.   She gets up, she moves her head, and she looks around with eyes harder than they were before.   No, she doesn’t float through air: she steps on the ordinary, wooden, slightly creaky floor.   In the oven she burns traces that the killer’s left behind: here a picture, there shoelaces, everything that she can find.   It’s obvious that she’s not strangled. It’s obvious that she’s not shot. She’s been killed invisibly.   She may still show signs of life, cry for sundry silly reasons, shriek in horror at the sight of a mouse.                      Ridiculous traits are so predictable that they aren’t hard to fake.   She got up like you and me.   She walks just as people do.   And she sings and combs her hair, which still grows.

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.

Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out. With birdlike feet and palms, they strove to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades.   The thirteenth century would have given them golden halos. The twentieth, silver screens. The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the unvoluptuous.   For even the sky bulges here with pudgy angels and a chubby god— thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed, riding straight into the seething bedchamber

He grew rozes with a “z.

(...) the rest of your life? Old age is a precipice, (...)

I am too close for him to dream of me.

Silence—this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Funny little thing How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it.

The Railroad Station     My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot.   You’d been alerted in my unmailed letter.   You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time.   The train pulled up at Platform 3. A lot of people got out.   My absence joined the throng as it made its way toward the exit.   Several women rushed to take my place in all that rush.   Somebody ran up to one of them. I didn’t know him, but she recognized him immediately.   While they kissed with not our lips, a suitcase disappeared, not mine.   The railroad station in the city of N. passed its exam in objective existence with flying colors.   The whole remained in place. Particulars scurried along the designated tracks.   Even a rendezvous took place as planned.   Beyond the reach of our presence.   In the paradise lost of probability.   Somewhere else. Somewhere else. How these little words ring. Alive     These days we just hold him

But this is ancient history. I can’t dwell on it forever or keep asking endlessly, what’s next, what’s next.   Day to day I trust in permanence, in history’s prospects. I can’t gnaw apples in a constant state of terror.

Arduous ease, watchful agility, and calculated inspiration.

Old Folks’ Home     Here comes Her Highness—well, you know who I mean, our Helen the snooty—now who made her queen! With her lipstick and wig on, as if we could care, like her three sons in heaven can see her from there!   “I wouldn’t be here if they’d lived through the war. I’d spend winter with one son, summer with another.” What makes her so sure? I’d be dead too now, with her for a mother.   And she keeps on asking (“I don’t mean to pry”) why from your sons and daughters there’s never a word even though they weren’t killed. “If my boys were alive, I’d spend all my holidays home with the third.”   Right, and in his gold carriage he’d come and get her, drawn by a swan or a lily-white dove, to show all of us that he’ll never forget her and how much he owes to her motherly love.   Even Jane herself, the nurse, can’t help but grin when our Helen starts singing this old song again— even though Jane’s job is commiseration Monday through Friday, with two weeks’ vacation.

Sell me your soul. There are no other takers.   There is no other devil anymore.

I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies. What a loss when you think how much effort was spent perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed, so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.

The abyss doesn’t divide us. The abyss surrounds us.

In Praise of Dreams     In my dreams I paint like Vermeer van Delft.   I speak fluent Greek and not just with the living.   I drive a car that does what I want it to.   I am gifted and write mighty epics.   I hear voices as clearly as any venerable saint.   My brilliance as a pianist would stun you.   I fly the way we ought to, i.e., on my own.   Falling from the roof, I tumble gently to the grass.   I’ve got no problem breathing under water.   I can’t complain: I’ve been able to locate Atlantis.   It’s gratifying that I can always wake up before dying.   As soon as war breaks out, I roll over on my other side.   I’m a child of my age, but I don’t have to be.   A few years ago I saw two suns.   And the night before last a penguin, clear as day.

True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing.   Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

And it so happened that I’m here with you. And I really see nothing usual in that. 

Under One Small Star     My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all. Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five A.M. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don’t pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.   Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man. I know I won’t be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Non omnis moriar—a premature worry.

Thank-You Note     I owe so much to those I don’t love.   The relief as I agree that someone else needs them more.   The happiness that I’m not the wolf to their sheep.   The peace I feel with them, the freedom— love can neither give nor take that.   I don’t wait for them, as in window-to-door-and-back. Almost as patient as a sundial, I understand what love can’t, and forgive as love never would.   From a rendezvous to a letter is just a few days or weeks, not an eternity.   Trips with them always go smoothly, concerts are heard, cathedrals visited, scenery is seen.   And when seven hills and rivers come between us, the hills and rivers can be found on any map.   They deserve the credit if I live in three dimensions, in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space with a genuine, shifting horizon.   They themselves don’t realize how much they hold in their empty hands.   “I don’t owe them a thing” would be love’s answer to this open question.

Dentistry turned to diplomatic skill promises us a Golden Age tomorrow. The going’s rough, and so we need the laugh of bright incisors, molars of goodwill. Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Our solitary existence exacerbates our sense of obligation, and raises the inevitable question, How are we to live et cetera? since “we can’t avoid the void.

No way out? But what about the door? No prospects? The window had other views.

You think at least the note must tell us something. But what if I say there was no note— and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

(...) to linger longer, not to go home again. Since only prisoners want to go home.

In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself     The buzzard never says it is to blame. The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean. When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame. If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.   A jackal doesn’t understand remorse. Lions and lice don’t waver in their course. Why should they, when they know they’re right?   Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton, in every other way they’re light.   On this third planet of the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is number one.

I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine, I can’t exchange it.   I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about

The star is large and distant, so distant that it’s small, even smaller than others much smaller than it.

Small wonder, then, if we were struck with wonder; as we would be if only we had the time.

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

“How should we live?” someone asked me in a letter. I had meant to ask him the same question.   Again, and as ever, as may be seen above, the most pressing questions are naïve ones.

Whatever you say reverberates, whatever you don’t say speaks for itself. So either way you’re talking politics.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned. (...) Price, not worth, and title, not what’s inside. His shoe size, not where he’s off to, that one you pass off as yourself.

Nothing’s sacred for those who think. Calling things brazenly by name, risqué analyses, salacious syntheses, frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts, the filthy fingering of touchy subjects, discussion in heat—it’s music to their ears.

During these trysts of theirs, the only thing that’s steamy is the tea.

May delivery be easy, may our child grow and be well. Let him be happy from time to time and leap over abysses. Let his heart have strength to endure and his mind be awake and reach far.   But not so far that it sees into the future. Spare him that one gift, O heavenly powers.

For the sake of the children that we still are, fairy tales have happy endings. That’s the only finale that will do here, too. The rain will stop, the waves will subside, the clouds will part in the cleared-up sky, and they’ll be once more what clouds overhead ought to be: lofty and rather lighthearted in their likeness to things drying in the sun— isles of bliss, lambs, cauliflowers, diapers.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries that can be celebrated every day.

A miracle, just take a look around: the inescapable earth.   An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: the unthinkable can be thought.

When I see such things, I’m no longer sure that what’s important is more important than what’s not.

Hatred is a master of contrast— between explosions and dead quiet, red blood and white snow.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields, those we remember and those that are forgotten: (...)

Without us dreams couldn’t exist. The one on whom the real world depends is still unknown, and the products of his insomnia are available to anyone who wakes up.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

We agreed to death, but not to every kind. Love attracted us, of course, but only love that keeps its word.

We were besieged by doubts. Does knowing everything beforehand really mean knowing everything.   Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone. They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.

The Three Oddest Words     When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past.   When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.   When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

But how to answer unasked questions, while being furthermore a being so totally a nobody to you.

Talking with you is essential and impossible. Urgent in this hurried life and postponed to never.

Understanding came only later: not all misadventures fit within the world’s laws and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t happen.

And what can you say about one day of life, a minute, a second: darkness, a lightbulb’s flash, then dark again?   KOSMOS MAKROS CHRONOS PARADOKSOS Only stony Greek has words for that.

There must be an exit somewhere, that’s more than certain. But you don’t look for it, it looks for you, it’s been stalking you from the start, and this labyrinth is none other than than your, for the duration, your, until not your, flight, flight— (...)

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost. The body has its own installment plan.   And as an extra, added feature, you spin on the planets’ carousel for free, and with it you hitch a ride on the intergalactic blizzard, with times so dizzying that nothing here on Earth can even tremble.

At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too. 

Assassins     They think for days on end, how to kill so as to kill, and how many killed will be many. Apart from this they eat their meals with gusto, pray, wash their feet, feed the birds, make phone calls while scratching their armpits, stanch blood when they cut a finger, if they’re women they buy sanitary napkins, eye shadow, flowers for vases, they make jokes on their good days, drink citrus juice from the fridge, watch the moon and stars at night, place headphones with soft music on their ears and sleep sweetly till the crack of dawn —unless what they’re thinking needs doing at night.

It’s good you came. Sit here beside me. He really was supposed to get back Thursday. But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.

Page after page at a snail’s pace. But we’re still going in fifth gear and, knock on wood, never better.

We eat another life so as to live. A corpse of pork with departed cabbage. Every menu is an obituary.   Even the kindest of souls must consume, digest something killed so that their warm hearts won’t stop beating.

In the end I stopped knowing what I’d been looking for so long.   I woke up. Looked at my watch. The dream took not quite two and a half minutes.   Such are the tricks to which time resorts ever since it started stumbling on sleeping heads.

[21stcenturyyfoxx]

This was requested by the cutie @celestiaelisia, so thanks babe for the idea.

Request summary: You and Keanu have been together for a long time, you’re getting restless waiting for him to propose finally and when it doesn’t come — yet again, you get disheartened; but the final straw is when there’s a couple next to you in the restaurant that gets engaged, fueling your anger/disappointment. Keanu has a plan, but alas, he’s forced to go overseas for a movie. Oh, and you’re pregnant!

Warnings: Angst, fluff, language.

———————————————————

“Another year, Susan. Another fucking year and no ring on my finger!” You yelled out to your manager on the other line, you were getting sick of waiting for Keanu, your boyfriend of seven years, to finally ask you to marry him.

You were getting ready for dinner, Keanu had made reservations at the local Mexican restaurant a few blocks from the house you two shared. He was coming from a press conference so he made plans to just have you meet him there.

“Maybe he’s going to pop the question at the restaurant?” It sounded more like a hopeful question rather than a statement.

You finished the last touches of your makeup, deciding to go more natural since all you would be wearing was a pair of dark blue jeans and a white button down top, paired with black wedged heels.

“It is our anniversary tonight, maybe.” You sighed loudly into the other end.

“But I doubt it. Maybe, maybe he just doesn’t want to marry me. Maybe somethings just wrong with me and he sees it.” You sighed, your voice cracking causing you to clear it and stop yourself from saying anything else aloud before you’d breakdown and ruin your makeup and dishevel your energy for the night.

“Blasphemy! If he sees something wrong with the relationship then he should try to fix it or end it!” She retorted.

Oh God, What if he was trying to end it?

The thought echoed in your mind and worry rattled your nerves.

“Don’t stress, do not worry. Have a great evening with your lovely boyfriend.” She sensed your nervousness and tried her best to calm your fears.

“You’re right, thank you.” You breathed.

“Anytime, that’s what I’m here for!” She said cheerily before saying her goodbyes and hanging the phone up.

——

Seeing Keanu standing outside with an umbrella already raised and looking handsome as ever was enough to make your heart flutter and butterflies scurry around your stomach — or maybe that was the baby; he wore identical clothing to what you had on — well, except he had the male version, and he had a blazer, oh, and he was wearing his brown hiking boots, most definitely not wearing heels.

You climbed out of the cab and under the waiting umbrella, you could smell the hint of cologne and cigarettes wafting off of his body.

“There’s my girls.” He said leaning down to give you a quick kiss to the lips, rubbing his plan against your bump.

Ok, definitely not breaking up with me.

You thought to yourself as the two of you entered the restaurant; finding your table you quickly sank into the booth.

“How was work?” You asked as you gnawed on some chips and salsa before you ordered your main dishes.

“It was alright, I managed to nearly kill myself doing a stunt though.” He said with a soft laugh, waving his hand to calm your nerves about any potential mishap.

“Did a back flip, nearly landed on some stakes in the ground, all is fine.” He smiled taking your hand in his, smoothing circles with his thumb to the back of your hand.

“You’re going to end up hospitalized one day, Reeves.” You said as you took yet another bite of chips.

He shook his head with a smile.

“Well, at least I’ll —“ his sentence cut off by a frill shriek of the woman next to your table, her tears running wild along with mascara down her face as her boyfriend was on bended knee.

You should’ve felt happy for them.

But you didn’t.

Instead you felt anger, sadness, jealousy even.

It had been seven years that night, that you had officially started dating Keanu.

— 7 years prior —

You two had met at the gas station of all places, you were scrambling to pay the charge of gas; your card declining the full amount and you only having less than half of what you needed in cash, that and you were damn near on Empty. A leather jacket clad arm had reached from behind you and gave the cashier their card.

You quickly denied the offer stating you would be okay, it wasn’t a big deal, even though it really was, in fact, a huge deal.

Keanu smiled shaking his head, telling the cashier to put both charges, for you and him, on his card.

The two of you walked out of the store, you still mesmerized at the true generosity of the man before you.

“Thank you, Reeves. I owe you.” You said with a soft smile as you filled you car up.

His head shook at the idea.

“No need.”

“No, I insist, come on, there’s a Mexican restaurant just up the road.”

And that had been that, you two had lunch and hit it off. But decided to not pursue anything more since he wouldn’t have the time nor would he want to put you through any long distance fiascos.

But fate had plans.

Within the next week you got a role to play in the upcoming third installment of John Wick, you were to play Helen Wick, the wife. Barely there but nonetheless.

You were stunned to find out that Keanu was playing John Wick.

And then... sparks flew and the rest, as they say, is history.

——

Present day, however, had you nearly in tears. It had been seven years of light and darkness, love and hate, beautiful and ugly. But you wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Sitting in the restaurant at the time of the table next to you, celebrating their engagement; Keanu knew something was wrong — the cab ride back home, was deafening.

“I have to leave early tomorrow morning..” He said as he took his shirt off, tossing it on the chair beside the bed.

“Why?” You said as you took your earrings off, laying them on the marble countertop in the bathroom.

“Matrix shoot, we’re going to Germany to film some scenes for three weeks then flying back in for a break.” He said as he kicked his shoes off, you sighed at the idea glancing over at him.

He was completely unaware that you were just so upset.

You stood there, in his large T-shirt, rubbing cocoa shea butter on your stomach to help with the stretch marks that covered your body.

Maybe he doesn’t find me attractive anymore.

Maybe he just doesn’t love me anymore.

Maybe, maybe we should just break-up and co-parent.

You sighed, feeling the baby kick in your womb; a small smile creeping to your lips.

“That sounds fun.” You finally said, after a few moments of silence, you checked the bed; Keanu was already asleep.

Your heart sunk.

Usually he’s wait for you to crawl into bed with him, talk about things and then fall asleep in each others arms, but lately that wasn’t the course of action. Lately, he would fall asleep without you, easily.

——

The letter set on-top of his clothes in his suitcase, you had already left for a doctors appointment.

He was already in the air.

You couldn’t help but feel maybe, just maybe, you had made the best call.

Keanu landed hours later, unpacking his things in the hotel room, the letter slipped onto the floor.

Picking it up he smelled your perfume, a smile on his face.

He opened it, skimming over a few lines.

His smile fell, heart shattered.

“Dear Keanu, I know when you read this you’ll be hurt. You might even hate me.

But, I feel, right now, that it’s best to do for my emotional state. I think it’s time that we start, we start to move forward with our lives — in different paths. You can always do things with Ava, our daughter, but it’s been seven years; amazing years but, I need more. I need marriage, I want to marry you and evidently, maybe you don’t want to marry me.

I’m sorry, I love you, I really do. But, I can’t keep waiting.

Love, Y/N.”

Keanu sat there on the bed, crying.

He had the ring, he had the words.

He just never had the right moment.

Truth was, he had bought the ring seven years ago. The day he met you at the gas station. He knew, he just didn’t want to accept it.

But he knew he couldn’t fight it that day on set of John Wick.

—-

Keanu picked the phone up, called the director and told her what was going on.

Her words?

“Go get your girls..”

With that Keanu left back for the states.

You had tried to pack, but found yourself staring at the picture of Keanu and you on Christmas Day; he had gifted you with a beautiful diamond necklace.

It was one of the times you thought, maybe he would ask.

You heard footsteps up the stairs, Keanu nearly breaking the door down.

“Ke-!” You tried to explain.

“Hush, let me talk, please.”

You silenced.

“I’m sorry, but also, I’m not. I’ve had the ring for seven fucking years. I’m just.. it’s just.. fuck, Y/N, I want the perfect moment..”

You listened in shock.

“And maybe there’s not a perfect moment...”

He said grabbing your hand, bending down on one knee.

“I love you, so fucking much. I love Ava already, so much.”

You smiled, tears falling.

“Y/N, baby, will you marry my dumbass?” He smiled, chuckling a bit at his words.

You nodded, sniffling as he slipped the diamond ring onto your finger.

“Yes, Yes! You’re my dumbass, always will be. But also, I’m your dumbass.” You laughed happily.

Packing your suitcase, you headed for the cab downstairs to go to the airport, but, Fate had other plans.

Seeing as your water broke as you passed the threshold of the front door....

[momo-de-avis]

Do you have any recommendations of female artists (sculptors and painters)? (I went to a museum and now im salty lmao)

Off the top of my mind, I might remember someone else some time soon:

Sonia Delaunay. My girl LIVED and BREATHED art. She was the type to literally, and I mean wholly, surround herself with art to the point of living inside art. She sewed, made costumes for the theater, she made puppets, dolls, quilts, even furniture. She was an incredible, outstanding painter. She is at the centre of Orphism more so than Robert, her husband, who was more of a cubism guy. Now, from what I gather, a lot of what people say about Sonia in other countries is coupled with her husband, as if you can't talk about her without mentioning him. To a degree, that's correct because the two had a really secure partnership. They were both creators, and they pushed each other. It was incredibly inspiring tbh. But Sonia has her own merit, and in Portugal she is actually way more relevant than Robert bc of the influence she had on our modernist circle.

Lee Krasner. If only people sort of forgot she was Pollock's wife. Her method of creating is fascinating to me cause this girl just destroyed her past work completely, but instead of throwing it in the trash, she reused it to create new works. Art historians in the post modernist era weren't too kind to her, but she's being avenged. She's methodical and clearly puts so much thought into her composition her creative process is fascinating.

Julia Margaret Cameron. This woman is one of my favourite artists in the world. Cameron began taking photographs at 42 years old after she moved to the isle of Wight in England. She was gifted a camera by her daughter who just wanted her mother to be a bit less bored, and Cameron went on to create over 3000 astonishing photographs that are at the core of the pictorialist movement. She was also INCREDIBLY well acquainted of her society. I mean, literally every famous victorian person you can think of, she met them. The majority of famous photographs you can think of? She took them. She was very honest about her work too. Its really endearing because Cameron was so concerned about her own honesty in capturing beauty she didn't give a fuck about the actual mechanics, which resulted in a lot of photographers at the time labelling her "an amateur". She also refused to photograph high society folk that weren't her friends, and mostly photographed her maids. It must be said that Alfred Lord Tennyson absolutely DESPISED every single illustration made for his Idylls of the King, so much artists knew they were in for hell if they were commissioned the book's illustrations. Cameron was the only person Tennyson personally asked to illustrated, and he absolutely adored her work.

Hannah Hoch. I love Dada so it couldn't miss. Hannah Hoch was married to uhhhhh... Huesekbeck I think? I keep forgetting. Either way, she was part of the Berlin Dada group, and they gave her hell for being a woman. Yes, it's nothing short of that: they didn't want her to belong because she was a woman. Especially her husband, who she supported throughout his life and then he died and she was like "lmao maybe you should have made good art, my bitch". Hannah Hoch mostly makes collages, and it's incredible. Its a very poignant work about being a woman in post-Weimar Germany and the societal issues Germany faced after World War I.

Claude Cahun. There's a post I made about her going around so I wont prolong myself but essentially, though she used female pronouns throughout her life, she identified herself as androgynous and created an INCREDIBLE set of photographs. She was a surrealist who became the inspiration for Davie Bowie and Andre Breton lauded this woman breathless. She was also arrested for taking part in the resistance against the Nazis and lived her whole life with another woman who was her partner. Her work focuses tremendously on issues of gender and our perception of our own bodies.

Camille Claudel. Infamously, she is known as Rodin's lover. Camille's story is a very tragic one. She was a tremendously talented sculptor who accumulated patrons throughout her life, and though she had an a rough affair with Rodin (and he was a bit of a dick), he did praise her work and tried very hard to preserve her artwork. The issue was Camille's family, who scorned her and shamed her for being an artist and her life choices, and destroyed a lot of her art after sticking her in a mental institution where she died at like, 70. But Camille's work is... Well, it's beautiful. Its the kind of work you can see that conflict between being a woman in her society while desperate to liberate herself. Though she incorporates Rodin's language, she has her own mark, her own hand, and her own language.

Janet Sobel. She is actually the first person to coin, use and employ the technique of dripping. You know, the one Pollock gets all the praise for? Essentially, Janet Sobel was a grandmother by the time she picked up a paintbrush. She was also a ukranian emigrant with little to no english, and she engaged in art at her son's insistence. When her son Sol Sobel brought his mom's artwork to the major New York circles (she lived in New Jersey), she immediately caught the eye of Peggy Guggenheim, who put together a collective exhibition about female abstract expressionist painters. That exhibition was in 1946. Pollock was there, he msde a remark wbout Sobel's work, and in 1947 you have the first Pollock dripping painting. Do with that information what you will (and also, check for photos of how Sobel painted, it's so adorable and it just explains SO MUCH MORE THE CONCEPT OF ACTION PAINTING THAN POLLOCK). Eventualyl, Sobel stopped painting and disappeared, and there are several factors as to why we forgot her: Pollock was the CIA's bad boy, so yeah; she spoke little english (she befriended Marc Chagall and Mark Rothko bc they both spoke russian and they claimed that being with Sobel felt like being back home) and she developed an allergy to oil painting.

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. We're moving to the french circle here, and yes she is portuguese but she belongs to the french post modernist circle. She's an abstract painter who draws a lot from cityscapes, and I think it's worth taking a look at her work.

Niki de Saint Phalle. Now Niki is incredible. She's mostly known for her Nanas, which are immense outdoors sculptures of women with thick bodies, defying the notion of slenderness imposed by fashion magazines that prevailed in the 50s. She also engages with her own trauma of sexual abuse and explores the notion of sexuality a lot, as well as women's bodies outside the realm of sexuality. At a given point, she collaborated with Jean Tingely a lot so she made a series of kinetic sculptures too.

Martha Rosler. I know you said painting and sculpture and I've already talked about collage lmao but Martha Rosler belongs to the first wave of feminist art and those mostly concern video art, though Rosler is very well known for her collages Bringing the War Home in which she literally brings the Vietnam war home. It's worth looking at her work.

Ana Mendieta. Another tragic story. Ana Mendieta was incredibly worried about the notion of the female body as perceived outside the realm of something sexual and nature. She works a lot with perishable material, works of art that are organic, that is, that will disappear with time. One of her most well known methods is leaving an imprint of her own body on natural surfaces, like a beach, or a field of grass, and then photographing it. Ironically, that was exactly how she died: she fell off I believe it was a 10th floor and onto the hood if a car. There is still speculation about it and everything points towards there having been a fight between her and her partner at the time, Carl Andre, who neighbours believe pushed her out the window. Carl Andre never saw justice and Ana Mendieta died at like 25 years old and at the prime of her career.

Kara Walker. She's a pretty young artist who's creating artworks as we speak and she confronts the notion of blackness with US history so blatantly it becomes monumental. She also makes large scale works to defy this message. If you ask me, she's one of the best artists living today.

Hilma af Klimt. She was a Swedish abstractionist and surrealist who was really focused on the occult, and made monumental paintings that engaged with things like the human psyche.

Lizzie Siddal. Now, Lizzie is better known as the Pre-Raphaelite muse, immortalised in Millais' famous Ophelia, but she was an artist of her own. And not just any artist. John Ruskin tutored her and praised her. In fact, he considered her biggest flaw being her love affair with Rossetti lmao she is very naive and honest about her work, and I would also recommend taking a look at her poetry.

Eleonor Fortescue-Brickdale. I know very little about her, but she was a post pre-raphaelite illustrator who, and this is just me, follows the trend of Julia Margaret Cameron. Her paintings are beautiful and seriously, look at both their work and try to see the similarities hah

Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, two abstract expressionists who developed their own mode of painting and who border the Colour Field Painting (think Rothko).

Tamara de Lempicka. She's the glamour gal. She makes paintings about the glamorous life of high society and is very interesting because she depicts female nudes in a very intimate way. If I am not mistaken, Tamara de Lempicka had relationships with women, so that tells you a lot. She's very cubist in technique, more so than style.

Faith Ringgold. Oh my God, Faith Ringgold is fantastic. She is a black american woman who paints about the experience of being a black woman, but not just paint. She's best known for her Tar Beaches series, which as quilts she stitches while telling the story of a little girl who dreams about a world while spending time on her tar beach, which is the rooftops of the buildings in Harlem. Please do check her work, she is fantastic.

I'll leave well known names out because they are easy to search like Frida Kahlo, Artemisa Gentilleschi, Josefa d'Obidos, Sofonisba Anguissola (these three are located in the late renaissance period, so there's a lot of portraits, religious themes and still life), Mary Cassat, Berthe Morisot (both impressionists who focus on private female themes), Rosa Bonheur (naturalist who makes landscapes mostly), Evelyn de Morgan (post pre-raphaelite). Also check Zinaida Serebriakova, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lavinia Fontana, Louise Bourgeois, Angelika Kauffmann, Elisabetta Sirani, Romaine Brooks, Sophie Tauber-Arp, Varvara Stepanova, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Leonora Carrington, Vigée le Brun, Yayoi Kusama, Francesca Woodman. Etc. These are like .. top of my head with a quick google search to make sure I wrote the names right haha

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

She-who-fights-and-writes Top 5 Book Recs 2019!!

Here are my top five books/book series that I think EVERYONE should read or at least try to read in their lifetime!! No matter their standing on this list, I love every single one of these books with my whole heart!!!!!

5. Pet Sematary by Stephen King (Genre: Horror)

Back cover:

When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his family to the idyllic rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Despite Ludlow’s tranquility, an undercurrent of danger exists here. Those trucks on the road outside the Creed’s beautiful old home travel by just a little too quickly, for one thing…as is evidenced by the makeshift graveyard in the nearby woods where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. Then there are the warnings to Louis both real and from the depths of his nightmares that he should not venture beyond the borders of this little graveyard where another burial ground lures with seductive promises and ungodly temptations. A blood-chilling truth is hidden there—one more terrifying than death itself, and hideously more powerful. As Louis is about to discover for himself sometimes, dead is better…

I didn’t sleep for two days after finishing this book. I had to read it in the morning, never at night, and couldn’t put it down whenever I picked it up. However, this book is really a testament to Stephen King’s reputation as the dominator of the horror/suspense genre of fiction.

Beautifully descriptive and creepy, it gives a shocking new perspective of the consequences of playing God. With a very much flawed and very much human main character, along with a gripping story that raises the hairs on the back of your neck, Pet Semetary is the perfect book to read when you’re feeling a flare for the supernatural. 

4. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (Genre: Sci-Fi)

Back cover of Cinder:

CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen - and a dangerous temptation. Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth's future. This is not the fairytale you remember. But it's one you won't forget.

These books broke me out of a serious book hangover (caused by the #1 series on this list) and made me realize “Wait, there are other books in this world that can be enjoyed besides this series.”

Funny and captivating, this book puts an interesting twist on classic fairytales. Instead of being the kind of twist where everything is unnecessarily gory and dark, this puts a futuristic spin on the classic stories that we all know and love.

The characters are amazing and very diverse, and although the stories are similar to the Grimm’s fairy tales, they’re a whole new ballpark plot-wise that keeps you on the edge of your seat!

3. In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park (Genre: Memoir)

Back cover:

“I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.”

Still in her early twenties, Yeonmi Park has lived through experiences that few people of any age will ever know--and from which most would never recover. At age thirteen, together with her mother, she made a harrowing escape from brutal conditions in North Korea. Two years later, they reached South Korea and freedom. But the devestating journey in between cost Park her childhood and nearly her life. As she writes, “I convinced myself that a lot of what I had experienced never happened. I taught myself to forget the rest.”

In In Order to Live, Park sines light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and that millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship.

Park confronts her past with a startling resilience. In spite of everything, she has never stopped being proud of where she is from, and never stopped striving for a better life. Today she is a human rights activist working determinedly to bring attention to the oppression taking place in her home country. Park’s testimony is rare, edifying, and terribly important, and the story she tells in In Order to Live is heartbreaking and unimaginable but never without hope.

This book changed my life. 

Riveting, beautiful, and at heartbreaking, it really made me appreciate what I have in life and made me more aware of things that are currently happening in the world as we speak.

I think that no one should be able to talk about North Korea and about how it’s not a big deal that we help the people there until they read this book.

Truly an amazing and unbelievable story.

2. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Genre: Fantasy)

Back cover:

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful— irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

A phenomenally written and emotional re-telling of the classic Greek epic the Iliad that delves into the romantic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus.

Madeline Miller truly has an undeniable god-given talent for writing; her descriptions and storytelling makes for a book that you CANNOT put down once you’ve picked it up.

I read this book in a day and had a serious, serious book hangover afterward; I literally could NOT stop thinking about it for days. It just sticks with you, you know?

Me and my mom both wept over this book; it is truly a triumph and a masterpiece.

1. The Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo (Genre: Fantasy)

Back cover of Shadow and Bone, first book in The Grisha Trilogy:

Soldier. Summoner. Saint. Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold―a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite―and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. He believes Alina can summon a force capable of destroying the Shadow Fold and reuniting their war-ravaged country, but only if she can master her untamed gift.

As the threat to the kingdom mounts and Alina unlocks the secrets of her past, she will make a dangerous discovery that could threaten all she loves and the very future of a nation.

Welcome to Ravka . . . a world of science and superstition where nothing is what it seems.

Back cover of Six of Crows, first book in the Six of Crows Duology:

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price―and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction―if they don't kill each other first.

The Grishaverse is a group of series that are all set within the same universe where magic runs wild and the world-building-- from the culture of each country to the unique landscapes--is so phenomenal that you almost wish you could jump right into the book like Blue’s Clues and live there forever.

Leigh Bardugo is my favorite author of all time.

Her writing is beyond any other tier that I have every had the pleasure to read, to the point where I couldn’t read any other books for a good year after finishing the Six of Crows Duology because it set my standards so high for YA fantasy.

There are many books within the Grishaverse-- including the Grisha Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology, the King of Scars series, and the Language of Thorns storybook--but you don’t have to have read one series to understand the other.

Personally, I like the Six of Crows Duology better than the Grisha Trilogy; it was written afterward and the writing and storytelling is far more evolved and sophisticated.

But even so, Leigh Bardugo really is an incredible storyteller, so if you can get your hands on any of these books, please do!

[hereticpriest]

Lost Stars Part 1

Post John Wick 3: Parabellum. 

SPOILERS

@lvngdvns

“We can’t do this by ourselves.”

“I don’t intend on it.” The Bowery King stands tall despite his injuries, looking down on John Wick, the boogeyman, somehow still alive. Maybe it’s skill, or dumb luck, or perhaps he’s just too damn stubborn to die. Either way, he’s alive, and the Bowery King intends on making use of him in this fight for revenge. Him, and his connections.

“Aurelio gave this to me. She gave it to him at her father’s funeral. He gave it to me just before you went excommunicado. She designs weapons now. She left the business ages ago, but she stays in through a third party to keep selling her designs.”

The envelope he holds is old school, wax sealed, with words written on the front in bold, red script.

When John does something stupid, open me

John tenses, taking the envelope from him and carefully opening it. Inside is a piece of cardstock with an address written on it, a key with a number on it, and a pass to enter a storage facility. There is no personalized letter, no signature. To anyone else, it might even appear emotionless. However, John knows the truth. John could see that the action itself was the emotion. This was a woman with whom he had had a toxic relationship, and since he had left her, he had killed her brother and her father. After Viggo’s funeral, he received a letter stating her intention to avoid any sort of feud. Giving him condolences, expressing she's glad he got to experience Helen's love and hopes he appreciates how much of a gift that was, and saying she hopes he finds peace after this. The letter was without return address, or any evidence of where it came from.

There had always been a space in his heart that she had lived in, and that she would never leave. She was the first woman he ever felt for, though he hadn’t realized it was love until it was far too late. He hadn’t had a chance to go looking for her since he received the letter, and he wasn’t sure how welcome he would be if he did. But now? Her reaching out with this olive branch was a good sign at very least.

With her, this might even be possible.

Mischa Tarasov, the eldest of the Tarasov children, had always been everything her father wished. She was brilliant, with a keen mind for business, strategy and tactical defense. She was charming, a brilliant liar, and able to think on her feet. She spoke multiple languages, had been tutored in tactics since she was a child, and had been taught varying forms of self-defence since she was a toddler. Ballet, gymnastics and acrobatics had rounded out her training, giving her versatility and instilling an almost unhealthy work ethic in her. She was everything her brother wasn’t; driven, focused, able to lead or follow in any given situation. Mischa could take a punch, could endure torture, and could inflict it effectively. She was everything that Viggo wanted, and she had loved her brother with all of her heart despite his rampant stupidity and short-sightedness.

When she left the Russian mob, it was not because she didn’t love her family. She left the life because she wanted to be Mischa instead of Mischa Tarasov. That began with continuing her ballet training, leading her to find an apartment of her own. She got a roommate to help keep herself afloat, despite the money she had. She wanted to save it, in case of emergency. Which is how she met Mallory, and by extension, Duncan. Mallory was everything Mischa could have wanted from a roommate, and her boyfriend Duncan was just as amazing. Of course, that was after Mischa had a serious conversation with Duncan about knowing he was the Black Kaiser and how she knew how to kill him if he hurt Mallory. Mischa struggled with relationships, primarily because she didn’t want attachments, and because she didn’t trust easily.

Mallory frequently found herself concerned with Mischa’s stress level, and that led to her badgering her constantly. Which led to Duncan intervening on Mischa’s behalf. That led to Mallory and Duncan catching each other admiring Mischa’s ass as she bent to pick up some clothes from the floor in her room while wearing a sundress that barely covered her. After a frank conversation, Mal and Duncan agreed to approach Mischa separately before going together.

One night while Duncan was out of town, Mallory approached Mischa while she was bathing after ballet practice. She started easy, rubbing Mischa’s ankles and calves, then moving up to rub her shoulders. Mischa questioned it soon enough, and Mal assured her that Duncan was okay with this. Mischa leaned into her touch after that, dragging Mal into the bath with her without much more thought to it. Mal ended up taking the lead, and after fingering Mischa in the bath for a bit, the girls ended up in Mallory’s bed. Mal tugged Mischa into a top-and-tail position, giving her little chance to breathe before she began to work her open with her fingers.

It took a couple of days before Mallory was off overnight for work, and before she left, she stole a couple of kisses from Duncan and told him to have fun. Mischa overheard that from the kitchen and furrowed her brows, cracking open a beer. Just over an hour later, Duncan had Mischa lazily slumped against him while they watched a film, playing with her hair. He was hard from anticipation, and he didn’t see much point in dancing around the point, so he gently tilted her head back so she was looking at him.

“Ya hotela tebya ves’ den’.” Duncan murmured, watching Mischa’s pupils dilate and her lips part. (Translation: I’ve wanted you all day)

“Duncan… Mallory-“

“She knows. She wants it. Just like I wanted her to play with you.” Duncan promised, skimming his hands over her hips. When Mischa nodded, he lifted her easily, setting her on the kitchen table. Once her jeans were off, he pulled her underwear to the side and slipped on a condom, then began to slowly press into her. By the time Mallory returned the following morning, Mischa was blissed out in bed with bruises covering her hips and thighs while Duncan sleepily made breakfast. It became a thing after that. Odd as it may sound, Mischa became a part of their relationship. If Mallory or Duncan were gone, the other would usually turn to Mischa for affection. When they were together, Mischa was a bit of an outlet for both of them. All the while Mischa was able to get the affection and sex that she needed while never feeling trapped by the relationship.

Duncan told Mallory about his background, so Mischa came clean as well. Duncan helped Mischa get some contact with the underground again and assisted her with transporting her designs and retrieving payment. When Mallory decided to move in with Duncan, Mischa was sad to lose her roommate, but the pair invited her to live with them not long after. Their triad was comfortable, and there wasn’t much point in separating if they didn’t have a reason.

It continued like this for some time. Mallory and Duncan comforted her when John got married, though she absolutely refused to admit she cared. Mallory insisted she had stunted emotional growth, but Duncan would just remind her how Mischa grew up and it would once again become clear why. The day after the wedding, Mischa admitted she was happy for John, as he finally would get to experience a life on the outside. To love, and be loved, as he deserved. It hurt, but Mischa was used to pain and had enough distance from John to adjust quickly.

Learning of his wife’s death was difficult, and the events that followed regarding her brother and father made her want to lash out, but she wasn’t sure if she was more upset with John or her own family. In the end, she stayed out of it and simply waited until she got the call from Uncle Abram through Duncan to assist with the funerals. She was paid out her entire inheritance, as well as Iosef’s, and she put them in the bank, then gave Aurelio a letter at the funeral and went home. She didn’t leave her room for a week after the funerals, and once she came out, it was to go to an appointment for tattoos.

She had a collection of mob related tattoos, including 8-point stars just below her collarbones and an intricate cross on her ribs. Tarasov was tattooed on her shoulder blades in big letters, and she had a lioness rampant on her lower back on the left side. After her latest appointment, she returned with a tattoo of Iosef’s birthday on her wrist, Viggo’s name on the inside of her upper right arm, and two Xs behind her right ear. MS and DV had been tattooed behind her left ear for years, one of her only non-mob related tattoos. She also carried John’s initials carved into her inner thigh from when she had been his.

After getting her tattoos, Mischa readjusted to normal life in the healthiest way she could – by getting Duncan and Mallory to hurt her. Duncan taught Mallory how to use Mischa’s stiletto knife to cut lines into her hips that would heal with minimal to no scarring. He helped Mallory tie Mischa into intricate poses that strained her muscles even with her ballet training, and left her in them until she tapped out or he decided that any more would do serious damage. Usually the latter, considering the stubborn set of Mischa’s chin. Duncan fucked her hard enough to make every movement ache, and Mal helped force her to cum over and over again until she begged them to stop. Mallory practiced asphyxiation under Duncan’s watchful eye, and the two spent a day edging Mischa until she sobbed, broken and defeated. After five days of this with only the most basic aftercare allowed by the stubborn Russian woman, Mischa clutched the two of them to her and allowed them in. They showered her in love, each in their own unique ways, and things finally went back to normal.

They stayed good for a while, until Mischa’s phone dinged one day with an alert telling her that someone had just entered her emergency storage shed. 

She lays behind Mallory, curled around her while she laid half on Duncan, watching the security cameras to catch a glimpse of John. The pang she felt when she saw him again showed on her face, clearly, because Mallory steals her phone to take a look. She sighs.

“You weren’t kidding, Misch. He’s handsome.”

Duncan chuckles, leaning over to look despite knowing full well what John Wick looks like. They watch as he searches through the storage shed, finding each hidden shelf and drawer like they were labelled for him. She supposed in a way they were, since he had shown her a lot of the techniques she had used. After finding the address she had left for him for their new home, he uses one of the bags she’d left to load up on weapons, ammo, body armour and gold coins, then grabs the bag of essentials she’d left under her desk and heads out.

“He won’t take long to get here.” Mischa informs them quietly, looking unsure of whether she was happy or sad about that, “I won’t drag you guys into this, I promise. I don’t know if I’ll see you again, but my will is under the floorboards in my room. It’s valid, but someone might try to change the contents, so I’ll leave you guys with the original copy.”

“Mischa, stop it.” Mallory insists, snuggling closer to her.

“No, Mal, I’m serious. There’s every chance I won’t come back. I’m going to try not to die, but I can’t promise I won’t.” Mischa looks up at Duncan, and he sighs softly, leaning over to kiss her passionately. It is a goodbye kiss, and Mischa loves him for giving that to her. Just in case.

Mallory notices the energy in the room, and after a moment of observing Duncan, she pins Mischa to the bed and kisses her hard. It is its own kind of goodbye kiss – the kind of kiss you give someone instead of saying ‘damn you for leaving’. Mischa presses her forehead against Mal’s once they part, just breathing her in and enjoying her last hours with them.

“Look after her, Duncan. If you guys have kids, you better name it after me.” Mischa teases, smiling at Duncan’s snort. She snuggles in between them, relishing in their affection while she still has it. Soaking it in like warmth on a cold night.

Neither of them ask if she really has to go. They know the answer.