#sometimes they did but always with the caveat that I had to ‘prove’ I could be there and I was a fragile kid LMAO

[samuraisharkie]

I’ll just be minding my own business and then be hit by a memory reminding me that when I was in elementary school I hated screaming bc my voice wpuld go so high and get stuck there so I would scream like Marlin from Finding Nemo to train my voice to stay low. and any doubt I have that maybe I’m not trans melts away under the power of my burning lifelong gender queerness

[penkura]

last forever [1/13]

Summary: Zoro only offered to marry you to keep you out of an arranged marriage with a man much older than you. You agreed with the caveat of ending it via annulment once you received word from your parents regarding the original engagement, despite your growing feelings for your close friend.

Pairing: Zoro x Fem!reader, mentioned Sanami later (like epilogue later so chill)

Warnings: Marriage of Convenience, Fake Marriage, referenced sex (waaaaaay later on), mutual pining, Zoro is bad at feelings but what's new there, eventual romance I promise, mention of past attempted assault (I'll warn in that chapter), creepy older dude later on

Notes: Hello, this is a fanfic I've been working on for a few months now. I'm still not done, but I figured I would go ahead and start posting it here as a cross post with Quotev and AO3. Sometimes I find this, Zoro and the story, hard to write, but I'm trying. This will NOT be a one-to-one rehashing of the arcs but will have more focus on Zoro and Reader's relationship as it progresses. The first two chapters are written in past tense, everything afterward is present tense, sorry about that. I've been having more fun writing present tense instead of past tense. I have the first three chapters completed, I'm still working on chapter four, but hope to have it done for Monday, and I intend to update mostly on Mondays for this one. Zoro and Reader call each other husband and wife at times, it's in italics on purpose. Hope you enjoy this one.

[Ch. 2]

Never did you think or imagine your wedding day would be like this. In a courthouse in a backwoods town with no real witnesses, to someone you'd only known for about a year and a half now. This wasn't even out of love for him, he'd only agreed to prevent you from being legally forced into marriage with a man several years older than you who had two other wives already.

No, you and Roronoa Zoro weren't in love, but he was trying to help you out so you didn't end up in a bad situation or with bodyguards chasing you down to force you back to your home village. When you had told him the story, he was honestly disgusted hearing how your family was treating you like an object to be sold, instead of as your own person. The whole reason you'd run away from home was to avoid this, but a letter brought to you by your family's personal carrier bird a few weeks ago changed that. As soon as you turned eighteen, if you weren't married or engaged to someone else, you'd be forced into marrying the creep that agreed to this when you were just fifteen. While you broke down in tears out of fear, Zoro told you he'd marry you to keep you from being taken back home. You told him he didn't have to, but he brought up that after your family heard, if they dropped the arranged marriage, you could get an annulment and it would be like this marriage never happened. You'd be free from your family and the creep, still able to travel and live your own life.

You were so grateful you couldn't stop crying and thanked him numerous times, never once telling him you hoped you'd never have to get an annulment with him. Your feelings for him were still new, he was a year older than you, but he'd protected you well in the time you knew each other. Of course, you could hold your own as a swordswoman yourself, but Zoro always tried to leave the recon to you while he took out your bounty targets.

So, a week after you turned eighteen, once you reached a small town with a courthouse, you both immediately went there to get this sham of a marriage completed. The clerk looked you both over several times, asking your ages and you lied, claiming you were both twenty-one when she said you'd need parental approval if you were younger than twenty. She didn't ask for proof, instead mumbling something to herself about how it seemed people were getting married younger and younger every year. No more questions about witnesses, parental approval, or identification to prove your ages, the older woman just filled out the paperwork and had you two sign it for processing.

While it was being processed, she sent you to the other side of the room to sit and wait.

"Thank you."

Zoro just shrugged, wishing the old bat would hurry it up so you could find a hotel and get a room so he could go to sleep. "You don't have to keep thanking me."

Nodding, you bit your lip. It was weird to think you'd legally be husband and wife, despite not being in love with each other, but part of you hoped that maybe over time Zoro would come to love you, and you him, so you'd be a few steps ahead of the curve.

The clerk called you both back over a few minutes later, stamping the papers in her hands and pulling a few more. "You're legally married now, congratulations. I've given you an extra copy since you requested it, and here's an annulment form if you've decided you made a mistake. You have six months to fill out and submit it, at any courthouse, otherwise you'll have to get a divorce."

You nodded and thanked the old woman, who told you two to be careful as you both left. You weren't entirely sure why, but if Zoro knew, he kept his mouth shut about it. Once you left, Zoro started looking for a place to stay while you found somewhere you could have dinner. Neither of you planned to stay in this town for more than a night, so you weren't worried about cashing in any bounties that day.

After finding a place to eat, you stayed nearby while you wrote a brief letter to your family and sent it to them, with your marriage certificate, by your family carrier bird. You really just hoped and prayed that they would accept this information and not still demand you return home, whether they wanted to meet Zoro because they believed your letter, or they wanted you to annul the marriage immediately to marry the creep that agreed to it first. Either way, you had no plans to follow their demands or return home.

You and Zoro didn't meet up until it was about dinner time, not a word about your marriage being spoken but your plans to leave the next morning and head to the next town were the main subject. You split off again after dinner, Zoro giving you the second key to your hotel room while he took a walk, in case you wanted to go and shower or go on to bed. You did so, taking a long shower to keep yourself distracted before choosing one of the two beds as yours for the night, laying face down with your face in the pillow. By the time Zoro did return, you were nearly asleep until he woke you when he opened the door.

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"It's fine…I wasn't sleeping yet."

You weren't sure if it was just you, but things felt awkward with Zoro now. It probably was just you, because he went to bed like nothing was different, telling you that he wanted to leave as soon as possible in the morning. Shells Town was the next destination for the two of you, since a Marine base was there you figured new bounty posters would be available.

You spent the night half awake, unsure of what you were feeling anymore, but you knew one thing.

It was definitely not the kind of wedding day you ever expected to have.

+!+

What do I do, what do I do??

Pacing around the Marine fortress, you didn't know if you should even try to break in and free Zoro or just wait for the month he agreed on with Helmeppo to be up. All of this because he protected a little girl from the brat's dogs and punched him in the face, the spoiled boy using it as an excuse to bring Zoro in like a criminal, and you just weren't sure what you should do. He'd told you not to interfere and when Helmeppo tried to include you in it, you were surprised Zoro threatened him further and said you had no part in the matter.

Stopping, you sighed and crouched, holding your head in your hands and whining. "What do I do…?"

"Hey, you okay??"

The voice above you sounded kind, and you looked up to see a boy with a straw hat and a scarf under his left eye, with another young boy who had pink hair and glasses. Both looked concerned, wondering why you looked like you were fighting a headache outside of the Marine fortress.

"I'm fine…"

"You sure?" The boy in the hat grinned at you, wanting to really make sure you were fine, getting eye level with you while the other boy looked nervously around. "You don't look fine!"

"Luffy!"

You laughed, sighing a bit and standing up, the boy called Luffy following suit. "Yeah, I'm…I'm sure. My friend just…the Marines got him, I'm not sure what to do."

Luffy and the other boy, Koby you learned, both questioned you until you revealed it was Zoro that was your friend, causing Luffy to get excited as he climbed the wall to look into the yard, while Koby was even more nervous than before. He couldn't even believe that you were friends with the notorious pirate hunter Zoro, let alone traveling with him.

"Hey so that's him??"

Koby climbed up with Luffy and nearly fainted, almost falling off the wall when he saw Zoro. You were so focused on the two boys you didn't notice the little girl, Rika, climbing in and over the wall with rice balls in hand. You could hear her offering them to Zoro despite him telling her to scram, before Helmeppo showed up and had her thrown back over the wall, Luffy catching her and surprising you.

"Hey, I'll take her back to her mom's place!"

Luffy nodded and gave Rika to you, letting you run off with her. You got Rika back to her mother's restaurant, making sure she was alright when Luffy and Koby arrived. Luffy told Rika that Zoro actually ate the rice balls Helmeppo ruined, which didn't really surprise you. He had a soft spot for kids, you'd noticed over time, and always tried to help them if he could.

When Helmeppo came back around and started bragging that he was going to have Zoro executed in a few days, Luffy did the same thing and punched him in the face. The three of you ran off, Luffy jumping over the wall to tell Zoro that if he helped him out, he had to join his pirate crew, but Zoro didn't get a chance to fully agree or deny before Luffy ran off to the fortress to find his swords. Koby and you attempted to untie Zoro, but he was arguing against this due to the deal he made with Helmeppo.

"Come on, I only have to last a couple weeks more!"

"He's not gonna let you go! He's gonna have you executed tomorrow!"

"What?!"

Zoro looked at you, wondering if you had heard that or if Koby was lying to him, even though the younger boy had no reason to lie to him.

"I heard every word, that's exactly what he said."

The Marines, including Axe-Hand Morgan, came after the three of you and attempted to fire at you and Koby, but you knew how to use your sword well enough to block them from hitting Koby or you with their bullets.

Luffy returned finally, blocking another set of bullets about to hit the three of you, showing off his rubber powers which actually kind of freaked you out. Zoro, finally having his three swords back, was able to get free and stop the Marines from attacking all of you any further, calling Luffy Captain after agreeing to join his pirate crew. Another shock for you, one that you'd have to deal with later on.

Luffy was the one to beat Morgan, the other Marines all cheering once they realized they were free from the tyrant's reign.

The whole thing made you smile, glad things had worked out, even as Zoro nearly passed out from hunger, making you laugh and shake your head.

"You're so lame sometimes, husband."

+!+

"So why'd you call him husband earlier??"

Face turning red, you looked at Zoro who sat next to you in Luffy's small boat that just barely comfortably held the three of you. Your husband was fast asleep, arms behind his head, but you waved your hand in front of his face to make doubly sure he was asleep, before hearing a light snore come from him.

Scooting across the boat, you sat right next to Luffy who gave you a confused smile.

"Look, Luffy…you can't tell anyone else you recruit."

"Huh?"

You were trying to keep your voice down so Zoro didn't wake, but Luffy acted like he couldn't even hear you.

"Zoro and I are married."

"You're WH–"

You threw your hands over his mouth, looking over to Zoro barely moving, but still fast asleep. You'd quieted Luffy just in time so he didn't wake your swordsman.

"We're married, but it's only because he's helping me with something. We're not in love, we're not a couple. It's…a marriage of convenience okay?"

Luffy nodded, like he understood everything you just told him. He didn't really, but he at least understood you and Zoro weren't in love, just married.

Weird, but he thought he got it.

"Please, don't tell anyone. I'm waiting to hear from my family before we annul the marriage."

That part confused him, but Luffy decided to agree and promised he wouldn't tell anyone, he didn't question you further. He thought you and Zoro were close, he wouldn't have been that surprised if you said you two were in love and together, but if you said you weren't, that this was just a friend helping another friend, he'd believe you.

That, and as soon as his stomach started growling he forgot anything else he wanted to ask.

"Do you have any food, Luffy?"

"Nope!" Luffy grinned and your face paled, looking at Zoro who just snored again and you had a feeling of dread.

"Oh lord what have we done?"

[idontknowreallywhy]

a Thing…

Confession: I’ve only ever written one tiny fanfic scene/concept for another fandom and never realistically intended to even try in the Thunderbirds fandom because there is so much out there that is amazing and frankly I don’t feel worthy of adding to it. My plan was basically to try to find a proper writer to bring my ideas to life buuut… @gaviiadastra posted this lovely fic about Gordon and Virgil…

Aaaanyway Virgil’s reaction in that to people being intimidated by his talent and not sharing their own attempts poked me in the brain and I figured… what’s the worst that can happen? The Thunderfam seems friendly enough… And maybe someone can give me some feedback so I can get good enough to do justice to the little stories brewing in my head one day.

So err, with all the caveats of FIRST TIME WRITING and I’M TOO EMBARRASSED EVEN TO PROOF READ IT and OH HECK PLEASE BE KIND…

*throws ficlet out into the void and hides under Jeff’s desk*

Mysterious Paint.

There has always been inexplicable paint on the ceiling of Virgil’s studio.

It wasn’t the swirling blues and greens and yellows that mystified him… he’d painstakingly covered the tantalisingly blank canvas with those the first year after they made the permanent move out to the island. It had taken several months worth of snatched half hours balanced precariously on stacked chairs or packing crates and he was pretty sure the process had aged his spine by a couple of decades. Maybe Michaelangelo had secret bionic implants because how ON EARTH he’d managed…

His family didn’t blink an eye - after all every item of clothing Virgil owned had some kind of paint on it and so it stood to reason everything he owned and the entire space he painted within should too. They put it down to a stereotypical ‘mad artist’ kind of flailing with a paintbrush 3ft back from the canvas but that wasn’t really how Virgil worked. He was more of a carefully considered, up-close-and-personal-with-whatever-surface-he-was-pouring-his-soul-on-to kind of painter (hence the neck strain from ceiling art application). His passion wasn’t deliberately messy - all those clothing stains generally came from letting a cuff dangle too close to the pallet, or when he stopped to think about his next stroke and the waiting paint would become impatient and drip from the brush on to his jeans. And he would have to confess that he did wipe his hands on his clothes sometimes… his rags stashed by his easel for that very purpose always seemed to have gone walkies at the moment he needed one (and usually turned up later covered in engine oil).

No, it wasn’t his painting style that was to blame - and he could prove it too because there were no similar stains in the lounge at the easel he used when he wished to be closer to his family while he created.

So there, Scott, it’s not as easy to explain as you imagine.

And yet, there they were - streaks and splashes in every colour he’d ever squeezed from a tube - laid down haphazardly over his existing masterpiece. He sighed. At one point he’d started painting over them but it just didn’t look the same and he felt almost guilty - as though he was eradicating something that was supposed to exist. In a way he couldn’t rationalise it felt more honest to leave them there. As if, to do otherwise would be denying some part of himself.

It bugged him, as any conundrum did. He wasn’t a fan of mystery as a general rule - he was an engineer. He was a fixer. When he faced the unknowable he either drew it in order to pin it down or hammered it into crashing chords and mournful melodies to exorcise the questioning from his mind.

He’d initially suspected someone was pranking him. Perhaps this was uncharitable as, for all his japery, Gordon would never vandalise Virgil’s creations… would he? But having EOS keep a log of every occasion his studio door was unlocked for a month proved his brother to be trustworthy… nobody went there when Virgil was absent but a series of silver slashes had been added in the meantime. He felt a sick, dull guilt for doubting his family.

And yet, UGH it was playing on his mind. A rational man, he didn’t believe in ghosts but he was almost willing to consider anything that would give him even a ludricrous ANSWER to the infuriating puzzle.

In the end, it was Gordon who solved it.

[knowtherealme]

I create my life and its rules. I made myself a prison-break game on hard mode.

I think I did it to prove to myself I could break out on my own, to see what I was capable of. I set the challenge level on high so I could make sure I’d earned everything I thought I deserved. I think I also saw there was no other way to free others unless I’d been in a cell myself. I needed to walk their path so I could point the way for them. I sacrificed my life and bet everything on myself with sheer balls and complete trust in my abilities. 

Do I regret it? Sometimes. But now I know, and I didn’t before. I know what game this is and how to play it and what the win conditions are. I’m not lost anymore. So there is no confusion or pain from a God who abandoned me or a world that hates me. There is peace in knowing I did this for myself – so I could know myself, so I could give myself what I needed to help others the way I wished I could.

Sometimes the hurt from being in it alone floods me. But how else would I know what I was capable of? If I had help, I’d always wonder whether I could have done it myself. I’d always wonder whether I’d earned everything I had. Whether I truly deserved it. 

-

I did all this so I could be a hero. I’ve never told anyone this.

I intended to be a hero who saved others. except there was one caveat – how could I save others without knowing how to save myself?

I spent most of the first part of my life waiting for someone to save me. I thought all I needed to do was survive. If i hung on long enough, someone would know I was trapped and someone would save me. I prayed and pleaded and fervently fantasized about a savior coming to break me out and fix everything. 

Now I realize I’m all I’ve ever needed. I’m the hero I waited for. This is what the game was always about. 

I wasn’t alone in the cell but I might as well have been. There was someone else in my cell – my brother. Seven years older. 

I thought we’d be in it together. I thought we’d work together and break out together. I thought it would be us against our jailers. 

but he turned on me. he abused me. he used what little power he had over me. he coped with being jailed by becoming a jailer himself. 

(

i don’t know. did i create this too? as part of my hard mode?

)

i loved him. i thought it would be us against them. I took care of him. I thought the way he abused me was love. I kept quiet. He was all I had. The only person in the whole world who was on my side even a little. 

why did he go? why did he leave me? why did he abandon me after everything I let him do to me?

-

it’s difficult to get through this but I must. I have to look it right in the eye unblinkingly so I know the truth and I can never un-know it. 

-

so there I was. biding my time till I was older knowing it would give me a better chance of escape. meanwhile, I read everything I could. I didn’t let my jailers know anything about me. I hoarded knowledge for when I would need it. I made myself as small as possible so there was less of me for them to hurt. 

I bode my time till I became of age. I did what I was supposed to and i secretly built strength while I could. It was difficult. they made sure I was occupied and overwhelmed and distracted. and I did it to myself too because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get strong enough. I doubted my ability. 

I came of age. I worked on getting stronger. 

It took a lot longer than I ever expected. I didn’t realize how deeply they’d wounded me. There was no one else. I had to learn how to heal myself, how to care for myself. 

no, that’s not true. god started talking to me in my mid-teens. he found me. he forced himself into my sight after he saw I couldn’t see. that is what shepherds do – they come after their flock. and I didn’t know it then, but I belonged to him. 

-

I don’t know how much more of this I can talk about today. The more I talk about it the more pain I release. I didn’t realize. I didn’t know this was the shape of my life. 

I feel all the pain of that time. It is in stark relief against the backdrop of this prison vision. I see the shape of my life now and I feel such immense love for myself. I can feel her pain, I want to reach out and hold her tight to my chest. 

I’m sorry. I thought I’d be able to tell you this all at once. It’s too much, but I do want you to know. I intend to be known, I intend to share what it’s like to live my life with you. it’s too painful being alone, I wish someone would live in my world with me.

I’ll continue this tale when I feel well enough. 

Thank you for listening to me, making space for my words in you. It comforts me to know I exist somewhere other than myself. To know there is a piece of me out in the world roaming free even if I am still chained in this prison of my own making. 

[illfoandillfie]

Good Boy

it’s a little late but this is the final blurb from my Platonically event for Aggressively Arospec Week! Usual caveat that I didn’t really edit it. Sort of follows on from the last smut blurb i posted but can be read as stand alone.

Words: 2,071

Warnings: smut (obv), cockwarming, dom reader, sub ben, orgasm delay

The evening where Ben bent you over the arm of the couch really opened the door for you to play with some other kinky ideas. Nothing too heavy or painful was suggested – spanking with a hand was about as far as you wanted to push it, at least so early on. But both of you had some experience with a couple of kinks from previous relationships and could suggest things that might be fun to try. Neither of you claimed to be experts and google was consulted more than once to answer questions for you, but through the process you found out that Ben was quite good at being dominant when he wanted to be.  

Mostly you played around with elements of degradation since, while talking about the couch incident, you admitted it was a key part of why it was so hot – feeling as if Ben was putting his pleasure above yours – though you also tested out some light bondage and incorporating toys into your sex more often. There was one night where Ben put his fleshlight between your thighs, making you hold it as he fucked it (though of course he’d also made sure you came eventually with a mixture of a vibrator and his tongue), and another time he told you how to masturbate, directing your fingers so you got what pleasure he wanted you to have but only when he decided you should have it, and all without lifting a finger himself. Even when he’d got so hard and horny from watching that he just wanted to be in you, even then he made you do all the work, telling you how to rub your clit and when to clench down on his motionless dick until you both came. He even managed to call you a slut once or twice, though it never rolled off his tongue as easily as Kitten did.  

Then one day you made what was meant to be a harmless joke.   “Maybe you don’t like calling me a slut because you’d prefer it if I called you that,” Ben’s reaction was interesting. He laughed but it was a higher pitch than normal, his cheeks flushing lightly.   You suspected he might not hate the idea and proved as much when you cooed at him, “Do you want to be my pretty slut Benny?” He nodded slowly, the pink on his cheeks getting more pronounced. It made sense really. Ben liked pleasing people, especially pleasing you sexually. He liked going down on you just because, sometimes not even letting you return the favour afterwards, and liked to make sure you felt good while you were having sex, even if you couldn’t actually get off. So when you made a gentle suggestion for him to take off his clothes, he did exactly what you asked. There was no questioning, no talking back, no snarky comment, no brattiness at all. Just service. When you talked about it later you both agreed that you’d liked the dynamic. He obviously enjoyed following instructions and making you happy and, aside from the physical sensations and the orgasm that made you feel good, you also really enjoyed the gentle domination. It was caring in a way. Knowing you were making Ben happy by letting him make you happy. And trying to show it through your words and your touch so he’d know he was appreciated. It was clear that you should experiment with that dynamic more, as well as the other things you’d been trying. And you were already looking forward to the next time you’d get to instruct him, ideas for what to do and how already forming in your mind.

So when Ben had a particularly busy day a few weeks later, you decided it was your chance to try the gentle domme roll again. He left the house by eight in the morning and you didn’t see him again until after six that night. A combination of errands and meetings with his agent and just general business kept him occupied and when he finally did get home he seemed quite tired, flopping onto the couch with a grateful sigh, stretching his legs out down the length of the seat.   You sat on the edge of the couch, in front of his knee.   “Sorry, Y/N, did you want to sit here too?” “No, it’s fine, you stay there. I was just thinking that maybe I could...” you lay your palm over the front of his pants, softly rubbing until he took the hint. “Oh, really?” “If you’re up for it. I could look after you.” “Go ahead,” he voice sounded huskier than it had before and he cleared his throat as if that would help.   You adjusted the angle of your body as you brought your second hand to his crotch, popping the button and tugging down the zip on his jeans, “Lift your hips for me,” He complied easily, letting you tug his jeans and underwear down to his thighs so you had better access to his cock. You got a little more comfortable, laying down beside him on your front, your legs in the air behind you, as you began to tease his cock, tracing your fingers along his length.   It was enough to make his breath hitch. “Just relax,” you cooed, laying your head down on his hip so you could watch him get harder under your attentions, “that’s right. Doesn’t take much to get you hard, does it? Such a greedy slut, aren’t you? You kept your voice soft and sweet as you spoke, though you sped up your hand a little “Always so ready for me.” “Thank you,” he said breathily as he nodded. “You’re welcome. I know you just want to feel good right now, don’t you? Yeah, and this feels so good. My hand on your cock, stroking you over and over. Probably my breath too, when I talk, yeah?” “Mmhmm, yeah.” “Yeah. Must feel so nice. So good.” “Yeah,” it was nearly a whine.   “I don’t blame you sweetie, I want to help you. I want you to feel good. That’s why I’m doing this. So my pretty needy little slut can feel so good. But y’know what would feel even better?” “What?” “My pussy. Right? Being deep inside me, so warm and tight. That’d feel so good, wouldn’t it?” “Oh f-fuck, yeah, yeah it would.” “Maybe I could give you that instead. My pussy instead of my hand.” It seemed to take a moment for the words to reach Ben’s brain. There was a pause where all you could hear was him panting as you brushed the head of his cock with your thumb, and then, “Really?” “Do you like the sound of that?” “Yes please,” “Okay. Why don’t you keep touching yourself while I get ready.” Ben nodded, his hand replacing yours on his cock as you stood up and began to shimmmy out of your pants. Immediately he began stroking himself faster, touching himself the way he usually liked.   “Careful,” you warned, “I know you’re a greedy slut. I know you want it, you need it,” you stretched the word out sweetly, “but if you cum now that’s it, sweetie. No pussy.” Ben whimpered and, with great effort, slowed the pace of his hand to better match the one you’d been using.   “Good boy,” you leaned in to kiss Ben, feeling him whimper against your lips. You were a little wet already but not enough so you let Ben dangle, let him wait a little longer, reminding him to cum yet, as you spat on your fingers and rubbed them along your slit.   Ben groaned as he watched you press two fingers into yourself, his hips bucking a little as he released his cock.   “In a second, sweetie.” You laughed, “You’re so good for being so patient. I know you’re a desperate fucking slut but you’re being so good.”

Ben breathed out another, “thank you,” as you finally sank down onto him.   You went slowly, partly because that was the game you were playing and partly because your fingers hadn’t quite been enough to get you ready for his cock. But rubbing more of your saliva over his length helped make it easier and there was only a small sting that accompanied the stretch as you took him fully. When you properly situated on his lap, you felt Ben release a breath he’d been holding. Gently you placed your palm against his chest, rubbing it in a soothing circle.   “Is that better? Is that what my slut wanted?” “Yeah,” he whimpered as you quickly clenched on him.   “You like being inside me, don’t you Benny?” “Yes, of course. Feels incredible.” It was a bit of a boost to your ego and you couldn’t help but smile, “Well that’s good, sweetie, cause I’m going to stay here for a bit. I like feeling you inside me too and I want to keep feeling it. So why don’t you just watch TV and don’t worry about how tight my pussy feels or how badly you want to cum or anything like that.” Ben nodded and turned his head towards the TV. You settled against him, leaning your head on his chest and slowly running your fingers along his side. It was strangely intimate even though neither of you was looking at the other. A type of intimacy that didn’t feel too close to any of your romance limits. Every now and then you’d reward Ben by pressing kisses to his chest or neck or lips, letting your arms slip around to his back so you could squeeze him tightly. He’d whimper whenever your movements changed, feeling his cock shift inside you or feeling you tighten around him for a moment. But he didn’t complain. His arms were as tight around you as yours were around him. There was no way for you to be any physically closer than you were already and yet it felt like he was trying as he embraced you. You could feel his breaths through the rise and fall of his chest, the way he trembled slightly whenever you clenched or moved.   You kept reminding him that he was being so good for waiting, that you loved him, loved how obedient he was and how well he listened to your instructions. That it was okay if he was a slut who liked to feel good because you liked making him feel good and wouldn’t waiting for it just make everything so much better anyway.   The praise made him bashful. He focused his gaze on the TV, eyes seeming almost out of focus as he made sure he didn’t look at you, but his cheeks flushed and he squirmed in his seat. But he also seemed a little proud oh himself, proud that he was pleasing you.  

You made him wait through six advertisement breaks before you began to rock against him properly, your own breath feeling less even. He moaned as soon as you moved, though he kept his head directed towards the TV until you guided it with your fingers, gently turning him to face you. Seeing you, seeing the way you intentionally grinded your hips against his, made him moan again. “Such a pretty sound from my pretty slut,” you whispered, “Keep sounding pretty for me. I like knowing how good I’m making you feel.” It didn’t take too much longer for him to actually cum, worked up and teased as he was.   You didn’t mind either, even though there was no way for you to reach your own high in such a short time. But that had never been the point.   He panted into your shoulder, mumbling out more thanks and words you only half heard which just made you chuckle as you carded your fingers through his hair.

You stayed like that for a while, just cuddling as he collected himself, listening to his breathing even out and an odd whimper or two leave his lips.   “That was nice,” he eventually said, laughing a little, still seeming a bit coy about how into he’d gotten.   “If you don’t mind, we could stay here for a while. I could keep warming you until you got hard again.” “You’re filthy,” “Thats not a no,” you laughed back, “I promise you can cum in me again. If you’re good.” “If that’s what’ll make you happy.”

[neonponders]

Surprise! Here’s a part 2 for my fic, Deeper Than Skin ~ read on ao3 •

Thank you SO MUCH @edith-moonshadow for donating to Harringrove for Palestine, AND letting me indulge in my fic some more. 

👠 👠 👠 👠 👠 👠

Billy’s thumb pressed along Steve’s arch, holding the pressure for a few seconds as he went along . . .

He peeked up at the sound of ocean-swaying breaths at the head of the bed. As if he could hear the exact moment Steve fell into REM sleep, clutching Billy’s latest gift to his chest.

An elephant ear leaf plushie. It was half the size of Steve, and it’s heart-shape tucked under his chin to pillow his cheek perfectly. The soft micro-fleece behaved like crushed velvet, the light absorbing inside the dark, unsettled fibers where Steve touched it.

Billy had gotten very good at choosing gifts for him.

Steve’s apartment was slowly filling up with Billy’s tokens of affection. The window seat had become a shelf for Steve’s shoe boxes; only three so far, but Billy intended to get him a proper shoe rack, or renovate his closet

Or have Steve move into his place. Billy wanted nothing more in the world. To get home to Steve slumped on the couch, immediately complaining of incongruent television plots as if Billy had never left the room. To see Steve’s shirts and clutter in their closet despite Steve being gone for work. To put his shoe collection on display in any room Steve wanted, so he could live in the open with his interests, instead of walking laps in their closet.

Not all of his gifts were expensive. That proved the trick. The key to Steve’s locked tight heart. Most were certainly pricey, but once Billy knew what he liked, what he constituted as worth it, then he couldn’t help himself.

A coffee table book of The New Yorker’s covers, spreads, and topmost articles throughout the 20th century. Steve stared at that thing for hours.

The elephant ear pillow clutched to Steve’s chest now, among other plant cushions. Steve claimed he couldn’t keep anything alive, so Billy gave him a pink and blue sedum succulent, a purple and green echeveria, and a monstera leaf. He now lay in his garden, sound asleep despite Billy’s rolling a cold tennis ball around his heel.

It was dangerous, this bruised ache in his chest.

Even with Steve right here, Billy felt sore with affection. The desire to wrap an arm around Steve’s waist was ever present, to pull their bodies flush together, or to tuck himself into Steve’s chest and never leave.

This ravenous greed dulled with Steve nearby, soothed with Steve happy and content, but Billy knew he had to be patient. Steve sometimes retreated inside himself, behaving as if Billy were already one step out the door. He had no idea what power he wielded over Billy.

He eased Steve’s slippers onto his feet and returned the tennis ball to the freezer. He put some of the dishes and pans from the drying rack back in the cabinets. He straightened the rug underneath the coffee table. Tidying. As self-sufficient as Steve lived, Billy had picked up quickly enough that his outward affections were done through actions.

He liked making dinner with Billy at home. He even coerced Billy into the first grocery store he’d stepped into in years.

Steve enjoyed pulling Billy onto his chest to watch a movie. Billy liked that too, even though he wished Steve didn’t stuff his utility invoices into the kitchen utensil drawer before Billy arrived.

They were both strong personalities who valued control, but Billy had learned such a thing came in different mediums. Steve didn’t like the leash of money. “Don’t collar me in diamonds. I’m not a poodle,” he’d once said.

Billy did not take kindly to commands. To exist like a bull guided by the ring in his nose.

Yet here they both were, Steve slowly allowing Billy to furnish his interests, and kissing Billy’s cheek when he reluctantly accepted the task of chopping onions.

Billy sat on the bed and rubbed his arm. If anything, Steve only fell deeper inside his slumber. Slowly, Billy lifted him out by planting kisses along his hairline. All at once, Steve emerged with a shake of his head, as if to swat Billy off before the chuckle in his chest made Steve moan, “Bhh…lly?”

He slanted his arm across Steve’s body, pressing his hand into the bed. “Hi, baby. I’m heading out. I should be back next Friday.”

Steve’s full, parted lips twitched with a puzzled grimace. “Huh?”

“I’m going out of town.”

One of Steve’s eyelids hung lower over his groggy eyes. Billy thought it looked cute. “You wait till I’m half-asleep to tell me?”

Billy huffed a laugh, but it faded quickly. “I told you during dinner. I asked you to come, but you said you couldn’t get the vacation days.”

Steve’s eyes sagged closed in a long blink. He sniffed loudly and rubbed a palm over his nose while he shifted for better attentiveness. “I can’t get vacation days with only a twenty-four hour notice.”

“There was something about sick days from two jobs not aligning for an extended vacation,” Billy recalled stiffly.

Steve did not respond well to the bitterness. “I’m not my own boss. If I’d had more time, I could’ve done a long weekend—”

“I’ll be gone for two weeks.”

That left Steve’s mouth open while he shifted to sit up more on the pillows. “You didn’t say that during dinner.”

It should’ve been some consolation, Steve’s being upset at such a time frame. Two weeks apart was hardly unbearable. For regular people. For Billy, it only confirmed his distaste for Steve’s unrelenting schedule.

“Now you want to go?”

Steve’s eyes hardened as much as they could for being freshly disturbed from sleep. “It was never about not wanting to go. I literally can’t without being thrown off the payroll.”

“You work two jobs.”

Steve’s eyes wandered, as if searching for his meaning. “Yeah?”

Billy didn’t want to talk about this the night before he left but his frustration won out. “You don’t have to work two jobs. You know that, don’t you?”

He could see something wilt behind Steve’s face. “What are you saying?”

“You know what I’m saying.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Steve,” he sighed, lifting off his hand to sit on his own. “You know I don’t mind paying for things.”

“You’ve made that clear,” Steve returned stiffly.

Billy pointed turquoise eyes at him. “Money is meant to be spent. Why won’t you let me spend it on you?”

Those eyes locked on the muscles in Steve’s jaw clenching. Steve could feel those irises on him, dissecting him. He wondered if Billy saw his mother’s closet. More like a bank vault. Full of insurances for the day she finally saw fit to drop her husband and all of his betrayals, all of his business blunders that she was tired of dishing a sapphire out for to cover the losses.

An ironic thing, Mr. Harrington’s greatest business scheme: apologizing with luxurious things. Marrying a woman smarter than himself. Maybe that’s why Steve had sought out Nancy all those years ago. Why he loved Robin’s company and conversation. He did feel safe in strong women’s company. But their safety was hard earned and shrewdly won.

Respect how a woman spends her money, Stevie. Even if you don’t know where it comes from.

Sweetheart, you’ll never understand what it is to be a woman in a man’s world.

I love your daddy as much as he infuriates me beyond belief. But where I come from, nobody is handsome enough. Nobody is wealthy enough. A Rolex is a man’s prideful status symbol. A woman’s bags are her divorce lawyer’s payments. A man’s car is the steed to a shining knight. A woman’s diamond necklace is her first apartment out of an unsafe home.

Am I really just a trust fund kid? Steve had been brazen enough to ask. Another diamond in his mother’s closet.

She had stroked his cheek, raked her fingers through his hair and around his ear before pinching his earlobe in that way she did. Like she wanted him to keep looking right at her. Don’t turn your head.

Anyone who treats you like a trust fund for money or a good time is plastic, baby.

She hadn’t taught him how to navigate this, though. Maybe if he’d been a daughter, he’d have gotten that lesson. How to not be ensnared by money. How to keep wealth as a key to a cage.

But Steve only knew the cage. Had grown up in it. Had to face heartbreak and loneliness to break out of his gilded bars.

He did not judge his mother for relying on his father. As she’d said, she came from a different world with a different mentality. But Steve couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t meet all of his father’s caveats. Had too much fun being broke with Robin to desire gilded masks and grey grey grey grey grey suits.

A warm hand touched his arm. “I don’t like it when you do that,” Billy said. “Go somewhere I can’t reach.”

Steve’s hand overlapped his. He hoped it came across as encouraging instead of farewell. “Get your work done. There’s no point in me taking a vacation if you’re working the whole time.”

It didn’t work. Billy’s features stiffened, far from pleased.

And when he left the apartment, Steve felt his path like a negative space dug out of his home. Billy Hargrove had always dominated a room, but Steve was afraid of being wrung out before he left with permanence. Steve didn’t think Billy was a cage at all.

But he didn’t think he was strong enough to be a diamond in Billy’s closet.

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (4/10)

Summary:  

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 5

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

Mid spring shifted to the peak of summer in just three hours.

Or maybe it was less than three hours. Levi wasn’t staring at a clock though, instead enjoying the novel amenities that came with taking a private jet to their destination.

It was a far flung contrast to whatever he had gotten accustomed to in economy class. Three hours on a plane went by much faster when the plane seat could recline a whole one eighty degrees, when the food wasn’t served clumped together in aluminum packs, and when beverages in a hundred different varieties were free flowing.

By the time the plane had landed, Levi was almost disappointed that it didn’t last any longer.

“Is this your first time on anything better than the economy?”

Levi wondered what kind of ridiculous face he had made for Zeke to have taken the time out of his business mogul schedule to give out a backhand insult. Still, that had been more than enough of a reminder that maybe Levi had been overenjoying the free flowing amenities of a private jet.

Erwin had only drank one glass of wine if Levi recalled correctly. Recalling Zeke and Hange who sat a few feet away, he was sure they had drunk nothing more than two glasses of wine each over a simple cheese platter.

Levi on the other hand, had sampled at least ten of the twenty varieties of tea offered. When will you have the opportunity to try it again? He reminded himself. Still, when he was being stared down by the richest man in the country, his partner and his direct boss who were probably all used to the luxuries afforded to the top one percent, Levi became a little self conscious.

The view as Levi disembarked from the plane had only made that slight inferiority complex worse and he was wondering why he had even entertained it. He snuck a glare at Zeke, narrowing his eyes just a little more as Zeke put one arm over Hange, walking ahead just a few feet away.

“Levi, are you going down?”

Levi felt one hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Erwin, brushing past him, taking the stairs one at a time.

“Of course I am,” Levi answered. He kept his voice, casual and professional, an attempt to disguise whatever emotion was forcing his mouth agape then.

He shouldn't be gaping. It wasn't anything magnificent. It was just a country club after all.

***

It wasn’t just a country club as Levi soon found out.

The reception building was just a reception building and near the front of the desk was a map. A map of an island. Levi was starting to wonder what idiocy had overtaken him just hours ago when he had failed to even google the country club.

The airport lounge they had overnighted in. The experience of riding a private jet. Those all paled in comparison to what awaited Levi.

Although he had already willed himself to act as nonchalant as possible, his eyes had widened and he had frozen a little too quickly at the large map in front of him and he had asked too many questions. “Where do we leave our bags?” he asked.

“Not here. This is the reception building. We’re taking a car to our summer house,” Hange answered.

When they got into the car, Levi asked another question. “So we leave our bags in the summer house and then we go back here to the country club...” he trailed off as Hange frowned in confusion. Was that a stupid question?

“The summer house is part of the country club.” Hange was still answering patiently.

“I’ve heard of places like this but I have to admit, it’s my first time staying in one,” Erwin commented as if he had researched the place himself.

If he did, that meant Levi was the only clueless one left.

Rubbing salt into the wound, Zeke spoke up. “The island is the private country club, Levi.” He raised one eyebrow at Levi, studying him. His face spoke for him ‘you’ve never been to one of these before?’

Sorry, I’m poor. Levi thought to himself, giving Zeke the most mockingly apologetic yet professional face he could muster. He soon realized, it might never be possible to pull off such an expression. Abandoning all attempts, he instead bent down to do a quick google search of the island.

Levi liked to believe he was solidly middle class. After a quick search on the membership prices of staying in some country club island hybrid only to find out annual dues were a good few times above his annual income, he started to come to terms with the fact that maybe he was poor. He kept his head down. Maybe the next time he looked back up at Zeke, his face might look more apologetic than actually mocking and he couldn’t have that.

The ride took five minutes, an excruciatingly long five minutes in the same enclosed piece of metal as Zeke who had only been rubbing him off just a little wrongly since even yesterday. He had to take a few deep breaths, a few subtle ones at least.

He had to bite his lip and force his mouth up into at least a glimmer of a poker face instead of the default grimace that came with having to keep close quarters with Zeke. There were still things about the country club he didn’t understand. Maybe Erwin didn't understand them too.

Although he would have had no problem talking to Hange about it, there was one caveat to approaching her.

She was always with Zeke.

Powerless and with little to no interest in dealing with Zeke personally, Levi decided to just go with the flow, following Erwin where applicable, loitering awkwardly like a lost reed when he had no choice but to be alone. Such an approach to life had turned out to be enough at least to get Levi changed into board shorts and a white shirt, enough to get him passively settled on one of the sun chairs next to the infinity pool, reader in hand.

He wasn’t reading though. He was attempting to read and had been for the past few minutes. Everything just found a way to be distracting.

The silence, the peaceful solitude that came with staying in a country club which he didn’t pay for--- and would probably never be able to pay for anyway---had him looking up again and again for anyone who could sympathize. Erwin still hadn’t gone out to the pool area. It was expected anyway, even on weekends, Erwin liked to work.

By the time Levi had self meditated enough to not be as self conscious and by the time he had mustered enough energy to start to make sense of some of the words on the reader, he heard footsteps---a new distraction. He looked up to find Hange standing in front of him, in a one piece that accentuated her form, in light purple, a color that just made her tan skin a little brighter under the late morning sun.

And she wasn’t with Zeke. So Levi stared for a little longer, or at least he snuck enough glances. Maybe Hange noticed. Levi caught her playful grin, the way she had turned towards him, her figure getting closer and closer until Levi had to force himself to look up and pretend he hadn’t actually been staring since a while ago.

“We don’t get this weather everyday back home. You should swim,” Hange said.

“No, it’s fine. I’m in a good part of the book,” Levi said. And I wanna finish it soon. That was what he wanted to stay before he stopped himself. He was halfway to showing Hange just a little bit of what he was reading until he realized he hadn’t even moved past the title page yet. He pulled back before she could see any more.

Hange shrugged, still the hint of disappointment on her face was perceptible. “But you’ll be joining us this afternoon right?”

“What is our plan anyway?” Levi asked.

“Well, go out for a tour of the island in the afternoon, maybe go to the beach. Then after that, swimming tonight…” Hange trailed off before snapping her fingers. “Right, Zeke reserved for tea time at sunrise tomorrow!”

Tea time? Levi could feel the blood rush through his head. The tea they had served in the airport lounge, the private plane had been the most delectable ones, the most exotic ones he had tasted in his life. A new burst of energy rushed through him as he surveyed his overly luxurious surroundings.

If the lounge and the plane paled in comparison to the resort, would the tea and the variety of tea prove to be anything more?

“Hange, so about that tea time…” Levi started. Before he could even look up from his book again to answer the question, Hange screamed.

At first, it sounded shrill, like a shriek. A shriek of terror?

No, she was laughing. “Zeke! What are you doing?”

Levi had a good view of it from his place on the sun chair, a good upward view.

A very disgusting view. If Levi hadn’t been at the mercy of Zeke’s country club membership, maybe he would have told them to get a room. Maybe he would have walked away. Still, that had seemed too rude of a reaction as well. Levi put his reader in front of him, just staring at the title page for a second longer.

He couldn’t completely avoid his peripherals though and the view they were giving him were tempting. He couldn’t comprehend everything but he did capture the way Zeke had nuzzled his beard on Hange’s neck. Hange’s playful laughs weren’t so easily ignored either. He contemplated putting his fingers into his ears. Would it be rude to plug his ears with his fingers then? If he did he would have to put down his reader and he would have to see it or close his eyes.

Just imagining how he would look had him shuddering and he chose instead to freeze on the spot and stare once again at the title page of his book.

Maybe he could look away. But if he looked away, that might seem rude too. He had taken too long to ponder and just that small and very fruitless problem solving exercise had turned out useless.

Zeke eventually stopped nuzzling her. And maybe for a second he had gone for a kiss. With his peripherals, Levi’s view was limited and Zeke was moving just a little too fast.

By the time Levi had allowed himself to look up, Zeke was running barefoot towards the pool, Hange in his arms bridal style. With Zeke’s back turned on him, Levi saw that as an opportunity to stare a little longer than necessary.

He witnessed it all, the overly flamboyant movements, Hange’s laughs, her playful struggle to get out of his grip and the huge splash that came with them diving feet first into the pool.

The only solace Levi found in the whole ordeal was that the sun chair had been a good distance from the pool. That at least spared him from getting caught in the splash or from having to see anymore than he wanted to.

But even from his position a few feet away, he caught glimpses of their bodies pressed against each other. Were they kissing?

Even when he put his ebook reader just on a perfect spot to conceal their shapes in the pool, he couldn't completely avoid it. After all, Hange was still laughing. She was still talking, her voice something faint yet something still jovial from a few feet away.

Levi turned to the first page of his book, scanning over the first line, reading it once then twice. Words had a way of sucking people into worlds unknown, beyond the dreary dimension called reality.

Or they were supposed to. He needed to get past the first sentence before it could suck him in deep enough to forget Hange's laughter or the drumming baritone of Zeke’s voice.

When the first sentence included phrases like ‘truth universally acknowledged” and when the ending clause read “a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” Levi started to find it a little harder to get lost in the book.

There was a man in front of him, loud and proud, who was in possession of a good fortune. And that man had a beautiful, smart partner. There was no need to fabricate his own phantom man when there was one he could be jealous of, right in front of him.

The reader almost forgotten, Levi found himself again watching the blonde, the man in possession of a good fortune and Hange. Hange had settled by the edge of the infinity pool, her damp brown hair falling onto her shoulders, brushing her arms, as she propped her arms on the edge, leaning her upper body forward. She rested her chin on her arms and just watched the sea.

Levi was a good distance away but the angle was good. When he squinted his eyes, he saw admiration, he saw awe in Hange’s eyes. While he was barely unable to get past the first line of the book, Hange had managed to get lost in the beautiful view of the ocean in front of her.

Fast enough that Levi was almost tempted to take his shirt off, dive into the pool and join her.

If it hadn’t been for Zeke. It was the blond bearded man who had obscured his view of Hange. Hange moved a little quickly, pushing herself up from the edge to look back at Zeke.

They were talking a little more quietly. Still, Levi had become familiar enough with the baritone of Zeke’s voice, the melody in Hange’s voice, to know that they were having a dynamic yet balanced conversation, an intimate conversation. Something just for both of them.

He was getting lost in murmurs, in tones, in chuckles. He didn’t even notice his surroundings start to dim, until it had turned everything shades of blue grey and greyed green. Until Hange and Zeke had both looked up at the sky.

He looked down to find light drops had turned the parts of the first line into mush. Soon, the light drops were on his bare arms, then parts of his shirt started to stick to his back. His bangs fell heavier on his face.

“Levi, let’s go back inside, it looks like it’s gonna rain for a while,” Hange said, gesturing for him to follow her.

Why did it take him so long to realize? Levi scolded himself, slipping his ebook reader just under his shirt. It didn’t do much to help though. His shirt was already soaked.

“Well, we were only planning an hour-long swim anyway,” Zeke said from a good distance away, seeming comfortable under the cabana.

“What time is it?” Levi asked as soon as they caught up to Zeke. .

Hange checked her phone. “We’ll be having lunch in a while,”

Levi only needed to do some quick calculations to realize they had been out for an hour. And somehow, he never got past the first line of that damn book.

***

Weather could be very predictable or so that was what Levi liked to believe.

Even when the sky remained a gloomy grey and the rain continued to pour, Levi expected the rain would let up with time. The rain was hard though, forcing itself as a presence in whatever conversation they were trying to have over lunch.

It was Zeke who had enough of it first. He led everyone back to what looked to be a game room towards the other wing of the summerhouse, closing the windows, the doors, quashing the whoosh of the winds and the loud patter of the rain to some distant sound.

Having dealt with it for more than an hour over lunch, Levi had quickly gotten used to the annoying rain, that when the aircon was switched on, overpowering the faint patter of rain, he had almost been surprised.

And fucking cold. Levi only realized then, he was right under the air conditioner with nothing but a semi-wet T-shirt to protect him.

“Would you rather we didn’t turn the aircon on Levi?” Zeke asked. Those words that could have held concern but really, Levi only had to look to Zeke’s face to see nonchalance.

Zeke was paying. Levi was a mere visitor under the mercy of the paying customer so the first thing he could will out of his mouth then were the only appropriate things lowly free loading visitors would usually say. “It’s fine,” Levi stood up. “I’ll just get changed first.”

“No need, I’ll have someone get you a shirt, just change there.” Zeke pointed to the powder room at the corner.

Right, that had been the reason why Hange and Zeke weren’t at all freezing after having spent the last two hours swimming. They had changed already. Among the three of them, he had been the only one too lazy--- or maybe too embarrassed---to have requested for a towel from one of the maids.

Or even a spare shirt. He had half the mind to just lock himself in the bedroom, take a quick shower and maybe actually start on that damn romance novel he had downloaded into his reader only yesterday.

Zeke had an uncanny grin on his face. Hange and Erwin were also staring at him expectantly. “I can just get the shirt myself,” Levi said. And maybe not come back.

“I said, I’ll have one of the maids bring it over,” Zeke said. “Anything in particular you want from your room?” He reached for his cellphone on the table, unlocking it.

“Just a sweater.” And that sweater came quickly, even before it started to feel like a few minutes. Levi pulled the hoodie over himself and that had been more than enough to make the air conditioning bearable. He wasn't desperate enough to complain about the air conditioning again.

"I really hope the weather gets better. I'd hate to reschedule tea time," Zeke muttered. He made himself comfortable on the sofa next to Hange.

"As long as it doesn’t rain tomorrow, we’ll be fine. The grass dries up fast anyway so even if it stops raining tonight, it won't be muddy," Hange said.

"Still, I prefer my course without the post rain atmosphere… if you know what I mean."

You get your tea in courses? Tea usually came in course anyway. Levi imagined shortbread, scones and the right mix of tea to accompany it every time. From his seat a few feet away, with his blood seething just watching that exchange, he felt no need to ask. One thing was for sure though, Hange and Zeke lived in a world far flung from his and there was no use trying to make sense of it.

He did love tea though and just imagining how weather and the state of grass could affect the quality of tea had Levi thinking a little more creatively. Some variants of tea definitely tasted better when it was raining. But tea that particularly tasted better after the rain, when the sun was up? Levi couldn't pick them out with just one thought.

But it would be nice to know which tea.... Before he could draw any more context though, Hange and Zeke had moved on from their conversation on tea time, instead approaching Erwin and Levi by the square table where the two had settled. “The rain doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon. It’d be a waste though to spend our time doing nothing. We have a few games here if you’re interested in a friendly game?” Zeke suggested.

“What do you have in mind?” Erwin asked, looking up from the book he had been reading. He closed it and Levi knew Erwin enough to figure out, whatever it was, the blond was very much interested.

“Mahjong?” Zeke looked pointedly down at the square table. “I got this table back in a trip to China… It would be a waste of money if I don’t spend more time using it.”

“I haven’t played in a while,” Erwin admitted. "But I think I know enough to manage." He turned to Levi.

The expectant look was directed right on him and Levi almost jumped on his seat. "Mahjong?" He had heard of that game before. He was sure he had tried messing around with a mobile game before. He lived a good distance from China though and he never did make sense of those tiles with those random marks on them.

"That sounds like a good way to pass the time," Hänge commented. "The last time we played was with your other client…Reeves right?"

"That man almost gave me a run for my money. I'm pretty sure I only won because I collected enough flower tiles." Zeke suddenly slammed his hand on the table, his voice stocked full of ideas, there could have been a light bulb on his head. "What about we bet some money on this? Games aren’t fun unless we have some money on the line"

"Actually, I still owe you for that last game of poker we had," Hange said, a wide grin on her face.

"Erwin? What do you think? I think this a great way to build company camaraderie. Just some casual gambling… nothing more than a few hundred dollars…"

Something caught at Levi's throat. Nervousness? Tension? He had a few hundred dollars on hand, he was sure. To put them at risk over a 'casual' rainy afternoon over board games?

Everyone in the room seemed unfazed about spending a few hundred dollars though.

Erwin was the good balance between conservative and vocal in the conversation. "Let's keep it at a thousand dollar limit I'd rather we didn't play anything more over a few casual games," Erwin said. He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, counting out a few hundred dollar bills and dropping it on the table in front of him.

It was just like Erwin to be prepared.

“What about you Levi? How much will you be betting?”

“Let me just get my wallet first.”

“No, I wouldn’t want you to have to make the journey all the way back to the other wing. I’ll have someone get your bag.”

A few minutes later, Levi’s bag was resting on the sofa just a few feet away and Levi was counting out bills on the table. He was the limiting factor to how much money the rest would be playing. Levi gave in to the silent pressure. The money on hand was disposable income anyway, allowance just in case he had to spend anything in the country club. Although it had been painful, Levi mustered up the courage to empty his wallet in front of them.

“Seven hundred and sixty dollars,” Levi said, counting out twenty dollar bills, fifty dollar bills and hundred dollar bills. He prepared himself for the loss. Still, a few hundred dollars was still too much.

Levi was still in the process of convincing himself that maybe spending a good hundred dollars on a good few games wasn't a bad idea. In some sort of a gamble, nobody was guaranteed a hundred percent loss. In fact he might just gain more.

Maybe it had been Levi's own tendency to play safe, his aversion to loss that had him going through the motions of sliding the money towards Zeke just a little slower than he would have wanted. Still, with a good internal scolding, he managed to raise his eyebrows and clear his throat, a loud and abrupt enough movement to get him at least somewhat focused on the tiles in front of him.

The tiles formed a wall in front of him and as Levi glanced a little further, he saw Hange had pushed her own wall in front of her. Erwin did the same. Then Zeke. A few seconds of coordination later and there was a square of tiled walls.

“Let’s keep betting simple, no flowers, no extra money for certain tiles. Just ‘if you win,’ you get the money on the table,” Zeke suggested. He counted four hundred dollars in varying bills and dropped it on the table in the middle. “You’ve played before Levi?”

Levi shook his head. “No, never.”

Zeke shrugged. “Well, you can learn as we play. Luck plays a part in mahjong anyway. Who knows you might just get the winning tile.” He rolled the dice. “Okay, you pick where we cut.”

“Pick where to cut…”

“The tiles,” Zeke said, his tone just slightly more abrasive. “Pick a tile and count.”

The hair at the back of his neck stood and instinctively, Levi looked up to meet Zeke’s stare. He placed one hand on the corner nearest to him and started counting.

Zeke narrowed his eyes at Levi, leaning on one hand, looking particularly bored. “Away from you. Not towards you.” He was talking to him like he was a kid.

Or maybe, Levi was just being an idiot at the moment. With all eyes watching his every movement thought, when he himself had little to no idea what the hell he was doing, he just wanted to freeze on the spot.

“Levi, it's like this,” Hange’s voice was a stark contrast to Zeke’s. Her sing-songy voice had been enough to get him moving again. He didn’t even notice his hand had frozen halfway through counting until Hange had clutched the back of his hand and started to guide it over the tiles. “You count away from yourself.”

Dealing the tiles was another issue altogether. He probably wouldn’t have been able to run it as smoothly as Hange. It looked more like a ritual and Hange had taken over, her hands moving deftly over the well fitted tiles. She handed him eight stacked in two rows then nine stacked similarly. She distributed them in the same manner over the table before giving him one more. “You start.”

Levi still didn’t know how to play though. But he had counted seventeen tiles and he had remembered playing it over a mobile game so he was sure it had something to do with dropping one of his tiles. He dropped the first one to the left.

“Pong!” Zeke’s voice echoed across the salon as he grabbed the tile in the center and inserted it between two of his tiles.

Levi still didn’t know what was happening but the seemingly concerned stare Hange had given him was evidence enough, he probably wasn’t playing properly.

***

An hour later, Levi was three hundred dollars poorer but on the bright side, he understood the objective of the game. He had organized his wall by ascending numbers and similar pairs and had created for himself a system on how to get five triples and one pair.

He just wasn’t fast enough at creating sets for himself.

Erwin dropped the wall in front of them. “Looks like the next hundred dollars is mine,” he said, grabbing the wad of bills from the center of the table.

Levi allowed himself the comfort of looking away, focusing instead on building the wall again. Losing money hurt. The most painful part of buying had always been putting in the credit card number and watching as the screen loaded to ‘payment received.’ A dull pain that weighed on his chest, pulling his lips down into a curled grimace. Levi was feeling the same way then as he heard the rustle of a good hundred dollars fall back into someone’s wallet.

He was in no mood to continue. But I can’t lose all the games right? Levi willed himself to look up again, quickly building the wall in front of him.

The room was filled with the echoes of ‘pong,’’chow,’ and the clatter of tiles on the wooden table, the clack of plastic against plastic as they hit one another. He was still unbearably slow.

And Hange was staring. He was slow but he wasn’t oblivious. “What do you want?”

Hange looked away. “Nothing.”

Levi looked back down at his tiles. He had been lucky enough to have gotten a conveniently matched set of tiles. Within a few moves, all he needed were a ‘two balls’ tile and an ‘seven sticks tile.’

All he had to do was win that, and that would put his net loss at four hundred dollars. That amount was stomacheable at least. Erwin had his tiles close to him, his blue eyes darting quickly from one end of his wall to the other.

Zeke looked deep in thought but as Levi looked closer, he saw a sliver of a grimace. Hange on the other hand liked to stare at him and he had noticed enough times that she had snuck glances at his tiles while reshuffling her own, more than enough times for Levi to at least allow himself a second of wishful thinking.

Was she thinking of him?

The response came loud and clear. “Chow,” Hange said. Her mind was still in the game.

She dropped one tile. Still not the one Levi wanted. He grabbed one from the wall next to him. Still not the one he wanted either.

He looked around him once again, using the square table as a guide to recalling how many rounds had passed. He still needed those two tiles. Since a while ago, he had been stuck in a cycle of just grabbing a new tile and discarding it.

Zeke dropped a ‘two balls’ tile. Levi reached out to grab it even before Zeke pulled away then he dropped another tile.

All Levi needed then was the ‘seven sticks.’ His eyes scanned his surroundings before sliding the Zeke’s discarded tile between two of his own.

A cycle passed. Erwin played. Zeke played. Then Hange. She looked at Levi’s wall once again then looked up at him. Levi met her stare for a second longer before she looked back at his tiles then at her own.

Whatever she saw was probably more interesting than he was. Still, he wondered what she saw on the blank backs of the tiles clumped together.

Maybe she did see something. Before the next cycle even ended, Hange had dropped her tiles on the table, so clumsily and messily that if Levi had been the arbiter, he would have disqualified her. “I thought I lost this one," she said giving a everyone a wry laugh.

Her tiles were a mess. It had taken a few seconds longer, craning his neck scanning over her mixed up tiles to be certain that she had completed it. Among those tiles wedged carelessly towards the middle was the ‘seven sticks’ tile he had needed to win.

Hange grinned. Maybe it could have been genuine, to Levi it was mocking.. After all, she had one every single one of the games save for one Erwin had won and two, Zeke had won. The evidence of that sat right next to the wall of tiles---a thick wad of cash.

That had him a little ticked. He could still get the money back he was sure. He had three more hundred dollar bills, three more chances to earn back the money. He pulled one out, slamming it on the table in front of him. “Next game.”

***

“The strategy of the game isn’t just to reorganize the tiles. You have to put yourself in a situation where you can win with two different tiles.” Erwin was a very eloquent man.

Still, the explanation went in one ear and out the other. “What?” You need sixteen tiles in the game right?

“For example, I set myself up for a position where if I got a ‘two balls’ tile or a ‘one sticks tile..' That would higher my chances of winning,” Erwin explained. But he didn't win.

The one who had won all the games had been Hange who had chosen that moment to count the bills, a wide cat-like smile on her face. Levi couldn’t choose whether to stare at her or the wad of bills in her hand.

They had proven already through six miserable games that although luck played a part in mahjong, it was a strategy game. Somehow, Hange had been the most privy to strategy among the three of them. How exactly? Levi was still too bitter to ask.

The rain was still pouring and if Levi focused on it, he could use it to drown out conversations. It was as if Zeke knew it though, he let his voice echo across the room as he spoke. “You wanna play another game?”

Erwin shook his head. “I think I’ll go back to the room first. There are just some paperwork I need to sort out.”

A wave of disappointment washed through Levi then, or it could have been something a little more heavy. After all, his wallet was completely empty and thus, notably light. Without any cash, under the mercy of one of the richest men in the country, Levi felt naked.

After taking a quick glance at his wallet, Levi snapped it close. He couldn’t do anything about it. He had turned his heel to follow Erwin out of the game room, towel and wet shirt on hand when Zeke mentioned something about getting back twice what he had lost.

It was the word ‘pay you’ that had his ears perked up. It was the word ‘double’ that had him looking back, almost pathetically.

He wasn’t that pathetic. He reminded myself. But money is money. “How?”

“A game of chess?” Zeke suggested, pulling a board out from the shelf.

“Oh, chess?” Hange asked excitedly as she started to clean out the tiles a little quicker.

Zeke put one finger to Hange’s lips. “Not now hun, this is between me and Levi here.” He focused his eyes on Levi. “You need the money don’t you?”

Levi bit his lip. With the way Zeke was talking, it didn’t look like Levi had the chance to win. Still, he could at least try to get back that seven hundred dollars. More importantly, Hange had settled for the seat in between them. She rested her chin on her hands and she was watching both of them intently.

Hange wasn’t staring at tiles that time, she was staring at him.

“How many games?” Levi asked.

“One would be enough. There’s no timer so take the time you need to move,” Zeke said as he lay the board down.

Levi had played chess before. He stared at the pieces in front of them doing a quick review in his head of how each piece moved as he placed them on the board. He still knew how to play at least.

Zeke seemed to know more though. “The Italian game,” he said around the third move. He was moving quickly and reasonably, solid proof that he was far from a beginner.

Levi didn’t have much of a chance but he wasn’t considering quitting yet. It was a chance at money though and Hange was still watching, her eyes on the board. When his king was under attack, Hange had followed with her eyes, her expression unchanging.

As he moved, Levi continued to look at Hange, watching how her eyes focused clearly on the black king in front of her. Before he knew it, he wasn’t even solving whatever puzzle had appeared on the board, his focus was on those brown eyes, and how the hell they had looked so good even half closed, under the dim light of the room.

“You never played chess growing up?” Zeke asked.

Levi looked back at the board to find his king at the corner. “I did a few times.”

“Well, not enough to spot a mate in two.” With some flourish, Zeke lay the king down at the edge of the table. The piece toppled over and rolled down to the side of the table.

Hange picked it up and twirled it in her hand. "There were a lot of moves you didn't spot either," she told Zeke.

"You think you can do a better job?"

Hange gave Zeke a toothy smile. "You know I can."

If they didn't have a table in between them, Levi was sure they would have gone closer. He cleaned out the pieces and was about to fold the board close when Hange sat directly in front of him.

"Don't clean up the pieces yet. Let's play," she said.

He couldn't say no.

***

Somehow within a few moves, the game had evolved into another gamble.

Maybe it helped that Zeke left the room, mumbling something about a meeting and an IPO of a well known company.The moment he left, Hänge started moving a little faster. Levi was halfway through deciding whether or not to repeat the same mistakes of a while ago when he heard the rustle of bills.

He looked beyond the board to find Hange distracted with something under the table. He had half the mind to look under the table then. He had cocked his head just a little lower, ready to peek from under the table when she spoke up again.

"It's the money I won," she said. "If you win this game, you can win it back. I'll pay you double."

"Something tells me you're better than Zeke"

Hange responded with a wide smirk. "Who said?"

"You were winning most of the mahjong games. And when Zeke played with me… you seemed pretty concentrated. Besides, you said so yourself, you could do a better job "

"Maybe I can." She shrugged. "Zeke just made some pretty glaring mistakes."

"Like…"

Hänge didn't respond instantly. The pieces were doing the work for her. He only had to stare down, to notice patterns crested to conclude for himself Hange had played the exact same moves. "A lot of the games are about thinking ahead," She explained. "Zeke is good at that but having worked with him for so long, I noticed… he doesn't really look too much at details. His plans are always grand and he gets the job done. But personally, I think cleaner and faster wins come from less conventional methods, methods that dig towards the nitty gritty details. A lot of grand plans are built on detail after all, not the other way around."

The next few moments passed in silence, save for the sound of the clacking of pieces, in a way Levi was very much familiar with.

"Like here, Zeke had a good move here," Hange said. "Don't play that, play this instead. If you play the pawn first, you block your bishop in."

"Okay." There wasn't much else to say in between.

Hange moved another piece. "What's your next move?"

Levi found himself attempting to mimic that same attention to detail. There was a dam in his mind, stopping him from thinking beyond what was already on the board.

Hange didn't have that same issue. She looked up at him expectantly.

"You like thinking ahead too." Levi asked.

"I like approaching games with a little more attention to detail," Hange said. “For example, if he left his knight right here, he would have paralyzed your position. He went for a quick and more careless attack.” Hange replayed the game again. “What’s your next move?”

Levi was only a split second from playing his next move, Hange took the reins. “That move is just gonna make your position worse. Move your pieces out first.”

Before Levi even knew it, Hange was playing for him. A few times, he had tried to move the pieces before him of his own volition, only to realize he didn’t have any input.

Hange had placed them both in a position incomprehensible to him. “Sometimes, it’s the small details, which have you reading ahead,” she said. “Like a while ago, Erwin and Zeke liked to focus on the bigger picture. If they place themselves in a lucky enough position to get a perfect set, they win. They didn’t consider one thing…” She wagged her finger at him. “You got a pretty good set right?” she said.

“A while ago?”

Hange nodded. “A few rounds you did. You like to organize your tiles, you clump the similar tiles together so you can more easily see patterns maybe?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, that's a bad idea when playing with actual players. I picked up that you needed a ‘seven sticks’ piece. Or around that range. You were letting go of everything a little too quickly but at the start, you picked up an ‘eight sticks’ then you let go of the rest right? You placed your eight sticks towards the end of the wall, next to one tile which was probably a ‘nine sticks.’

At that moment, as Hange recalled it, Levi saw the tiles clearly once again. They were supposed to be hidden, he was sure. Under Hange’s observant eye, he was exposed.

“The point is, your turn is right after mine. I had the tile you needed and I didn’t let go of it. And if you gave up on completing it, maybe you would have had a better chance of winning.You were just too conservative with your own ways. You didn’t wanna let go of that pattern you were trying to make. And that was your downfall,” Hange said. She started to move the chess pieces a little quicker. “Levi, play the rook out here.”

Levi quietly complied.

“Games teach things and sometimes they expose parts of ourselves… Maybe you’re just a little careful, a little set in your ways. At the same time, you lack the attention to detail. But you know, the attention to detail can make people more confident in taking risks. I couldn’t be too sure that was the piece you needed but I thought it a good risk to play with. Sometimes to make that risk, all you need is that bright new perspective. And where do you get that bright new perspective? Small details. They’re just a bunch of cyclical concepts all interconnected,” Hange said.

Levi was pulling away, leaning back on his seat. Hange was leaning forward. In that split second before Levi had leaned away, they were close enough to kiss. But still far enough for it not to happen.

Hange fell back on the chair, adjusting the pieces. “Or if you can’t see all the small details, then accept what you have for what’s right there. What do you feel? What do you want? What are you planning?”

“No plans, nothing.”

“Then start with accepting. Then observing,” Hange said. “Move your rook to the seventh rank. It’s open.”

Levi had to stare for a split second longer to understand. “Done.”

“What do you see?” Hange asked, waving her hand quickly over the board.

He had a good position. One rook at the seventh rank, the pieces were perfectly placed for an attack. “A winning position,” Levi answered.

“Details, Levi.”

Hange was patient with him. Her eyes were still boring holes into him and if he could blame anything---or anyone---for slowing down his thinking process, it would be her. “It’s a winning position.”

“Zeke’s right. You can’t see a mate in two,” Hange said. She grabbed the pieces and moved them quickly over the board. The game ended with his queen, right over Hange’s king. “A lot of games end like this. With a kiss from the enemy queen to the king…. And it looks like you won this one Levi. I promised you double right? So that’s one thousand four hundred dollars.” She pulled the bills out of her wallet and counted it out, sliding it to the side of the chess board.

“Wait, you might need---”

“Levi, I don’t mind giving it.”

“It’s your money.”

Hange shook her head. “Well, if it makes you feel better. Zeke spoils me enough.”

Levi pushed the money back. “That’s Zeke’s money not yours.”

“You don’t think I’ve accumulated my fair share of assets? I do investment too you know.”

He had put himself in a tight spot, assuming the most vulnerable position from Hange. Giving her a onceover though, he was sure he had been wrong. Hange sat straight, confidently. She had dropped the money so easily in front of him yet her eyes were observing. She wasn’t reckless with money for sure. She wasn’t lying.

Maybe refusing the money could seem insulting. So he let her push it nearer towards him. That was the same wad of cash as a while ago and Levi felt no need to count it.

“I don’t have cash on me but I’ll send you the rest of the money through phone credit,” Hange said. She turned the board over, inserting all the pieces on the hollow shapes underneath. Levi did his part pushing the pieces towards her.

Locking the board closed, Hange stood up. “Let’s go?”

“Where?”

“I’ll take you back to the room. We have to prepare for dinner.”

“Dinner?” Levi only became aware of the time then. The clock on the wall read a little past five. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and he only appreciated it then when they had turned off the air conditioner and filed out of the room.

“Looks like tomorrow might just be a good day,” Hange commented. “We could go to the beach tomorrow afternoon. If you’re fine with that.”

Levi hated swimming in the ocean. It was the world’s bathroom. It was a confluence of waste. When Hange was mentioning something about risks and bright new perspectives, he saw little reason to reject the invite. “I’m fine with that.” Might as well enjoy it while we’re here. As they walked silently, Levi took that moment to look at the setting sun, a very similar view to sunrise.

Hange had mentioned something about ‘sunrise’ and about ‘tea time.’

“You have tea time in the morning right?” Levi asked.

“Yeah, at sunrise why? You don’t have to wake up for it if you don’t wanna. Zeke and Erwin just thought it would be a good way to bond. And I’m going because… Well, Zeke’s my husband…”

“Yeah, I understand but I’m excited for it too.”

Hange’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, you wanna join too? Great! I’ll reserve a slot for you. It’s better if we have more people. The course will probably be pretty wet though but it doesn’t get muddy?”

Levi almost tensed up at the word. “Muddy?” When did tea times get muddy?

“Well, we are playing in a grassy course,” Hange said, too matter-of-factly.

Playing? "You said tea time right?” Levi made a subtle gesture, putting his hand up as if holding a tea cup.

Hange didn’t notice it. “Yeah, tee time as in the time when we start playing golf. We’re playing golf tomorrow morning. You’ve played before right?”

“Yeah, I did. A few times.” Levi said. He kept his voice casual, an utter betrayal of how he actually felt. He had never actually played golf but he wondered how ridiculous he could have looked being excited for courses of tea while watching a sunrise, an idea which turned out to have never existed in the first place. He could stick with a white lie and just google the rest later.

“Okay great! I’ll contact the coordinator then,” Hange said. She pulled out her phone and texted. “You have shoes right? Pants? We can rent the clubs… So just make sure to meet by the common room at five alright?”

Once again, Levi couldn’t say no to her.

***

It was around ten in the evening when Levi received the notification.

700 dollars was credited to your account.

He paused the video on the rules of golf and allowed himself a few minutes to just stare at the notification. Before his phone screen turned completely black, another message came.

Just sent you the money! Please check your account.

Levi had already tried to give her back the money during dinner time to no avail. Hange had just been to good at digression.

Still, she didn’t have to have it her way all the time. Levi wanted to protest in his own way. He opened his wallet, ready to send back the money only to be met with another message.

This transaction is subject to 2.9% of the total money transacted. Will you proceed?

He decided then, he could probably wait a little longer to give back the money.

[insert-cleverurl]

solaine copies her dsmp meta twitter part one

preface: i wrote this on february 13th and am now archiving it over here on tumblr before i get around posting it to the actual archive (of our own). i'd like to clean it up before i go there, becuase i wrote this at like one am lying in bed and typing on my laptop that was sitting on my stomach. it's a lot of rambling. i go on a lot of tangents. it is not the cleanest nor likely most accurate meta you will ever read.

how characters (children) on the smp learn from history rather than repeat it: a thread

aka: stop liking the other one you fucks i opened the wikia so i actually know what happened now /lh

context here is that i had earlier made a much less coherent thread (not that this one is very coherent) with the caveat that i was going entirely off memory

this thread is mainly going over how tommy + tubbo both emulate and turned away from wilbur + schlatt respectively, and how i think that's going to reflect in ranboo's arc

"as long as i can't be the next jschlatt, you can't be the next wilbur." okay we all know this. it's obvious from this point on that both tubbo and tommy saw or had fears of how they were each developing into scarily familiar people - schlatt, a dictator, and wilbur, a madman.

starting with tommy, the parallels between his exile arc and wilbur's pogtopia arc are immediately, and glaringly, obvious. paranoia, trust issues, "maybe i'm actually the bad guy here", and most notably, intense loneliness. wilbur made it obvious he believed pogtopis's allies would all abandon them in the end (them being he and tommy, though how much he trusted tommy by the end is also up in the air), and he was completely prepared to kill anyone he had to in order to secure pogtopia's victory, despite also preparing himself to be the one to end it. wilbur gave up on l'manberg, at the very end. he believed tyranny was all that would ever reign, so he blew it up.

tommy, in his exile arc, was also despairingly lonely. he hallucinated tubbo, grew attached to dream, etc etc. tommy was very very close to "becoming" wilbur here (god i'm sorry this is so long already and just me summing things up we already know it's to keep my thoughts in order + satisfy my inability to shut up and use too many words)

where wilbur and tommy go their separate ways is when they were given an out. dream gave wilbur tnt + for tommy, he was. you know. gestures vaguely at logstedshire. wilbur took the out - he gave up. he gave in. we know he had moments of clarity (when niki was in danger) and Maybe this was one he could've had too, but he didn't. he took the tnt.

tommy decided enough was enough. so at a crucial moment in time, tommy turned away from being wilbur. he did not repeat history.

onto tubbo; admittedly i know much less about his arc as president so this will be less outlined. tubbo,,,, acted very similarly to schlatt. probably moreso than tommy and wilbur! strange new laws, ignoring his cabinet, execution, generally appearing to lose his care for the world and the opinions of others. i'd argue the thing that separates him from schlatt is the most important part of this thread, because it proves my point: he remembered.

i just want to clarify here: by "proves my point" i mean this is the clsoest we get to an agreement of the ideas i'm putting out here in canon?? ig?? as in like. this is the most on the nose way to say it. similarly in recent days to quackity consistently referring to his treatment of dream as torture, which seems to be a very "I Am Not In Character" move but is definitely meant for us, the viewers, rather than character dream or character quackity themselves. tubbo's is a little less like that but still it's kind of like pointing at the X on a map for us the viewers. ok tangent over

tubbo lived under schlatt's rule as one of those people he treated extremely shittily. he lived under schlatt's rule as that person he executed. and tubbo remembers all that! tubbo remembers how schlatt's rule played out, and he looks at his own uh, less than stellar time in office, and he admits this out loud (to ranboo, according to the wikia. i am getting all of this off the wikia. i did not watch any streams during this arc.) that he can See himself becoming schlatt.

and when quackity tries to execute ranboo for being a traitor, tubbo stops him.

onto dream and ranboo! dream is a special case in that we never get to see his perspective of things and are rather left to play fill in the blank, and this whole arc is special (in terms of this thread) in that it isn't over. so i will be doing a lot of extrapolating here.

dream starts out as a generally ambivalent character who has very few rules that he pretty much never bothers to enforce anyways (i think? i don't remember).

by this i mean, this is all stuff i heard secondhand in recent months and can no longer remember what it actually was because i never went back to check. i'm pretty sure, but just a disclaimer. i don't wanna get hit with an "um, actually

his villain arc starts very very early - two whole seasons before he really became one. in the war, he is the antagonist and he plays up to it! most of the war is from l'manberg's pov (or that's how we look at it now, at least) so obviously he is the Bad Guy here.

ranboo griefed a house like two days into the server. 'nuff said /lh

ranboo + dream are both heavily vilified characters from the get-go - dream's part should be fairly obvious (uh, the everything leading up the exile arc where he actually did villainous things), whereas ranboo's is most notably during the second festival's aftermath. taking the blame for blowing up the community house, wanting to "pick people not sides" (he wants all his friends to be happy - sounds familiar, right?), etc etc, and now he's with techno and phil, the former of which is Definitely considered a villain for working with dream

now many many parallels are being drawn between he and dream, especially with the whole enderwalking thing. in the aftermath of everything happening, he chooses to stay out of all conflict, until Something Happens and forces his hand. (the egg!) he wants peace for everyone, which again, sounds very familiar, right?

(slight tangent: yes, the griefing was forcing dream's hand. it's nigh impossible to construe it as anything other than a political attack - the vice president of l'manberg griefing the home of the greater dream smp's king? dream looks weak + open to attack if he lets it slide)

this was a bad way to put it but the spirit of it gets across i think. fuck character limit on twitter

that catches us up on all current lore. where do i think dream and ranboo are going to split? dream has been alone in his decision-making basically since the very first war. not once has he (successfully, we don't know if he tried) gone to fall back on his friends' support and ask for their help in making these hard decisions (of which there are many). he severs his final connections ("i don't care about anything on this server") and cements his place in history as a monster.

i think it is very likely that we are getting a ranboo "friendship and relying on other people" arc here. there are other ways they could go with it, obviously, but given his current arctic anarchist ties and what appears to be other friendships developing. hmm! i'm interested. this part is entirely speculation/extrapolation. point being. the kids on the smp do, in fact, learn from history. they still make mistakes sometimes, but past a certain point, they're always different mistakes. they learn, and they almost always get happier endings for it

i don't know if it's a coincidence that it's the three lore-relevant kids who are the ones doing this. i don't think it is, because this is a very well-written and clever story. the younger generation is the one learning and fixing past mistakes and leaving the world better off for it. that's very neat! i like it a lot. also now that purpled's becoming lore-relevant, goddamnit if i don't want to see next season being his "learning from history" arc. punz vs purpled, maybe? that'd be neat. who knows. ok i think im finally done lol ty for reading :)

caveat I forgot to add last night: obviously ranboo and dream start out in very different positions, moreso than both tommy and tubbo. but at the end of the day, all three of them are their own people who just happen to take after other people in some ways :)

again, ty for reading! here's the original thread. i'd like to add that this is probably out of date and i may come back to it some day but who knows. maybe this will just be a relic of before Now (may 25)

[anistarrose]

Summary: Winters running the Mystery Shack are difficult, but two unexpected guests improve Stan’s day.

Characters: Stan Pines, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Ford Pines

Relationships: Mabel Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines

Happy Holidays, @halogalopaghost! I'm your Secret Santa, here to mash together a couple different prompts through the power of time travel (and Mabel)!

***

It doesn’t take Stan many years to learn that winter’s no good for the rural Oregon tourist business.

Granted, he can hardly blame the tourists — he has to drive on Gravity Falls roads himself, much to his disgust. Between the paved, plowed streets that always turn slick with ice where you least expect them, and the winding gravel roads that you might as well ignore when road and wilderness alike are under identical four-inch blankets of snow, he knows no gallery of fake haunted paintings or taxidermied coyote’s ass is worth the trip in these conditions.

He’s on his third winter in town, now — not counting the first, worst one he arrived at the tail end of — and if there’s a right way to run a business this time of year, he hasn’t found it yet. He always scrapes together just enough to pay his bills, thanks the occasional local who wanders over to purchase a seasonally appropriate if overpriced snow globe — but he’s lucky if he breaks even in December, and knows January through March are a lost cause before they begin. He’ll make it back within the next year, sometimes even before summer ends, but it stings to know he’s about to fail at his one goal for the next three to four months straight, and there’s nothing he can do to change it.

It might sting less if he had another way to spend these winters — if he had a good reason to formally close the Shack for a few months, like an experienced business owner making a grounded and responsible decision. But he can’t even search for Ford’s journals in this weather — he’s learned from his mistakes, his countless brushes with frostbite, throughout those cold, desperate months in the wake of the portal shutting down.

He’s useless right now, and worse, this season’s shaping up to be the bleakest yet. His usually-scammable neighbors have already lined their shelves with winter knicknacks from Mystery Shack visits past, and the bulk of Stan’s meager sales have come from shivering out-of-towners who’ve never tried to take a Pacific Northwest road trip in December before, and probably won’t be keen to try again.

What seasonal merchandise hasn’t he sold yet? Bumper stickers for miscellaneous holidays, maybe — but neither timely bumper stickers nor the usual selection of tchotchkes will convince people to visit the Shack in the first place, under these road conditions. He can’t even walk around selling merch door to door, for the same reason he can’t look for the other journals — he’d freeze to death, presuming he could make it through the snowdrifts to somewhere worth visiting in the first place. Even with snow chains on the Stanmobile’s tires and a bucket of salt in her trunk, grocery runs alone are perilous enough.

Damn it, Ford, he thinks, why couldn’t you have gone missing in Florida?

He could always do what he does best and lie, maybe — send out word that there’s free hot chocolate or something with every purchase at the Mystery Shack, and hope that people hand over their hard-earned cash before they pick up on the false advertising. He might draw in some local customers that way, and even if he loses their trust for the next few months, they always seem to forget about his cons eventually — as if he never scammed them, and they’ve never so much as heard the words caveat emptor.

He’s just about to dial the local paper’s number on the phone, hoping to flatter Toby into letting him run another ad for free, when he hears a telltale knock at the gift shop door. The bell atop that door doesn’t ring, which means that despite the hostile winds and snow they braved to get here, his visitors are still out loitering on the porch — or so Stan thinks for a moment, before it dawns on him that he doesn’t even remember unlocking the door this morning. He’d just been that pessimistic about even seeing a customer.

“Hello?” someone calls — a fairly young voice, probably approaching the tail end of puberty. “Are you there, uh…Mr. Mystery?”

“On my way!” Stan shouts, throwing on his fez and bolting for the door. His neighbors in Gravity Falls might forget and forgive a lot, but he doesn’t want to risk the wrath of a parent whose teenage kid froze to death on the local grifter’s doorstep, so he unlocks and flings open the door as fast as he can. “Welcome, travelers! Prepare to be baffled and bemused by our mind-boggling boreal mysteries, here at this last refuge at the edge of the Arctic we like to call the Cryptid Cabin!”

His visitor — no, his two visitors — both blink slowly, proving to at least be baffled, if nothing else. Both are bundled up in what Stan assumes to be several sheep worth of wool garments, lovingly knitted into sweaters, hats, and scarves.

“But you call this place the Mystery Shack,” the girl speaks up, and the boy nods.

“Yeah, and we’re nowhere near the Arctic! This is Oregon, not Alaska!”

Stan groans — the only customers he might see all week, and of course they’re teenagers. “Look, punks, business is slow these days! I’ve had a lot of time to think about a seasonal rebranding, and not a lot of chances to workshop it, alright?”

The teens’ expressions instantly soften, and the girl exclaims: “Well, you can workshop it with us!” She grabs the other kid — her brother? — by the hand, and pulls him into the gift shop.

Maybe Stan’s judged them too quickly — he’s still not thrilled to have strangers pitying him, of course, but he’ll take it over strangers mocking him any day of the week.

“Dang, you’re right,” the boy comments once inside, and face-to-face with shelves of untouched merchandise. “It really is empty in here in the winter.”

With little light coming in from the windows, and a flickering bulb overhead that will soon need replacing, the often-bustling room is now dim and eerie — aside from the junk food wrappers on the floor, which Stan hastily kicks under his desk.

“Look at all the lonely snowglobes in need of homes!” the girl pipes up, swiping a glass-encased antelabbit off the shelf and giving it a hearty shake. “Good thing I’m here to adopt this lucky little guy — how much is he?”

Stan takes a second to run the numbers — the maximum amount of money a teen would have on hand, versus what Stan needs to charge to make a profit — and replies: “Twenty-nine ninety-nine and nothing more. We don’t do sales tax here, ‘less you’re a cop.”

“Bet there’s a lot of other taxes you don’t do, either,” the boy snorts, rummaging through a shelf of hats until he unearths one with the old Murder Hut logo on it. “Aha! Now here’s a collector’s item!”

“Oh, did you come here before the rebrand and forget to grab a souvenir?” Stan asks. He doesn’t remember these two, but it’s been a couple years since he painted over the last Murder Hut sign — and they do seem pretty familiar with the building, not to mention Stan’s whole… business model.

“Oh, uh, that’s a funny story, actually! Real funny!” the boy stammers with a whole lot more trepidation than the topic should’ve warranted, and looks to his sister for help.

Sure enough, she steps in. “We lived here for a while — in Gravity Falls, I mean! Not here in the Shack, obviously — wouldn’t that be ridiculous, if we lived in your house for months without you knowing? Could you imagine —”

“That is to say, we still visit sometimes!” the boy supplies. His eyes are a whole lot more fixated on the snowglobes than with anything in Stan’s general direction. “You probably don’t remember us — we weren’t in town for very long, or anything…”

Stan sighs. They’re lying, obviously — but hey, there’s no cops in the Mystery Shack, and he doesn’t have a dog in whatever fight compelled the duo to spew this bullshit. He’ll keep an eye on the cash register, of course, but these kids are tolerable company when they’re not being suspicious as hell — so if they want to invent a bad cover story for a low-stakes tourist trap visit, more power to them.

“Well, the hat’s vintage, so that’ll be double price. Twenty bucks,” he announces matter-of-factly, and the boy groans — but there’s a smile behind it, like he’d expected this and now he’s just playing along. If there’s one thing Stan’s willing to believe, it’s that these kids have been to the Mystery Shack before.

“You’re a highway robber, old man, and I’m the coward who’s gonna let you get away with it,” the boy declares, and Stan can’t help but laugh. The kid reaches under several layers of sweaters to pull out a wallet, with a blue pine tree embroidered on, and miscellaneous charms of fantasy characters hanging off a chain on the side. Stan doesn’t recognize any of them, but they still tug at his heartstrings, because he can tell they’re the exact kind of nerdy references Ford would love.

He does take note of the pine tree design, though — it’s generic enough that slapping it on some shirts and hats wouldn’t quite be plagiarism, and in Stan’s eyes, those are always the best souvenir designs.

The kids put their money forward, hovering awkwardly as Stan rings up their items — the girl busies herself attacking a loose string on her brother’s scarf, nimble fingers tying it back in its approximate place, while the boy twiddles his thumbs and stares at the snowy, gray scene out the window. At the moment, only light flurries fill the air, but tomorrow night promises a blizzard… and Stan, grump with a soft side that he is, can’t help but hope that if these kids are really on vacation, then they aren’t planning to drive anywhere tonight.

With it being winter, and him running the business that he does, he doesn’t have much charity to give — but, if he’s going to play along with his customers’ little lie, then he should probably at least bring up the topic.

“You’re not hittin’ the road any time soon, are you?” He makes eye contact only with the green illustrated presidents in his hands, so not to come across as overly invested. “Weather forecast says tonight’s gonna be a doozy.”

“Aww, you’re worried about us?” the girl coos, because apparently both parties here are damn good at picking up on each other’s lies. “That’s so sweet — but you don’t have to be! Our great uncle’s waiting for us in town, and he’ll… well, let’s just say he’s planning to bring us back home before the blizzard hits.”

“He’s, uh — he lived here back in the seventies, so he knows what he’s doing,” the boy adds. “On the roads, that is. Mostly.”

“Well, you two take care,” Stan tells them, hastily adding on: “So you can come back when the weather isn’t terrible and buy more keychains, that is.”

“Oh, we will.” The boy grins, sharing a conspiratorial glance with his sister. “Maybe don’t count on it being next year — or the year after that, even — but you can count on it.”

“Well, uh…” Stan stops himself, resisting the impulse to divulge things he really shouldn’t. “You just shouldn’t count on me running this place forever. Be sure to get your novelty cryptid pins while they’re hot, y’know.”

He’s never really wondered what he’ll do with the Shack when he gets Ford back — and yes, he has to believe that statement deserves a when, not an if — but he figures the Shack’s fate will depend more on Ford’s own whims. If reality lands somewhere between the nightmares of Ford wanting him gone and the fantasies of finally sailing around the world, if Ford doesn’t hate him but still wants to spend more time with Important Science Experiments than with his brother, then Stan could see himself returning to a mediocre life in his moderately successful tourist trap… but with the search for the journals still coming up empty, Stan can only try not to think about the future, and accept that he’ll just cross — or burn — that bridge when he comes to it.

“Okay, Mr. Mystery,” the girl suddenly declares with a tone that frankly reminds Stan of his mother, “you look like you could use a pick-me-up!”

“What?” It’s starting to freak Stan out how well she can read him, and there’s no telling whether it’s just a sharp intuition, or something significantly more Gravity Falls-y. “If I look tired, kid, it’s because it’s December in Oregon, I haven’t seen the sun in a week, and I am tired. Only pick-me-up I need is for you to get out of my hair, and let me go back into hibernation like nature intended.”

“Okay, but counterpoint: you hear us out,” the boy insists. “We’ve got a little something up our sleeve to really light up your winter —” He winks at his sister. “Don’t we?”

“You bet we do!” She pulls a bag of marshmallows out of not her sleeve, but her backpack, and grins. “Prepare to be amazed and astounded by the natural wonders of this town, and also the miracle that is processed sugar and gelatin!”

“Are you imitating my sales pitches?” Stan asks, dumbfounded. “And do you carry those on you at all times?”

“In winter in Gravity Falls, I do!” the girl replies, already heading for the exit with her brother. “C’mon! If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will!”

“We all know you’ve got time to spare, Stan,” the boy adds, cracking open the door. “Get a move on!”

“Spare time doesn’t mean I’ve got spare limbs to lose to frostbite,” Stan grumbles, but follows them anyway. There’s something captivating about these little punks — not so much this mysterious phenomenon they’re trying to sell him on, as if they could really out-charlatan Mr. Mystery himself, but rather the way they’re not put off by his frigid facade. They see right through him, showering him in alternating kindness and acerbic wit.

Stan can’t help but wonder if their uncle’s kind of like him — tired, bitter, and pretending to be indifferent, but secretly soft on the inside, like a marshmallow that’s burnt on the surface but melted within. It would explain why they’re so good at calling him on his shit — but then again, Stan and this mystery guy can’t be too alike, because if Stan had a niece and nephew like these two, he’s sure he’d be living his life a whole lot differently.

He exits the Shack, and all his questions are immediately replaced with new ones when he sees the teens just hurling marshmallows towards the edge of the woods. The wind’s in their favor, so some of those sugary little fuckers fly far.

“Okay, so I’ve already got a couple concerns,” Stan tells them, shivering. “First off, what the hell?”

“It might take a couple minutes before one shows up,” the girl admits, as if it’s a totally reasonable stand-alone explanation for whatever the hell’s going on here. With about a third of the marshmallows now blending into the snow on Stan’s lawn, she and her brother stop with the throwing, though they still hold onto the bag. “Our grunkle theorized that they move slower in winter, to save energy — oh wait, never mind! Here comes one now!”

“Sorry, what? And where?” Stan squints out into the woods, terrified to lay his eyes upon a woodland monster these kids just lured to his doorstep — but all he sees, at first, are a few wisps of smoke dispersing in the wind above the trees. He’s not even convinced it’s smoke, really, because these aren’t the right conditions for a fire — but to his surprise, he glimpses an orange light within the woods, glowing steadily brighter until the trees and bushes around it are all casting faint shadows.

When it steps into the clearing, Stan realizes he has seen something like it before, albeit only from the overcautious distance he tries to keep from all anomalies. It’s an otherwise normal campfire perched on wooden, spiderlike legs, and it melts a path in the snow as it trots forwards, then lowers itself to the ground to absorb the first of a dozen marshmallows.

It lets out a satisfied little sound — a low, steady crackle that sounds almost like a purr — then scampers up to the next morsel of food to repeat the process.

“It’s called a Scampfire!” the girl explains, beaming. “There’s a bunch of them out in the woods, and they’ll always wander over if you leave out enough campfire food — especially sugary stuff! Isn’t that cute?”

“Our great uncle figured out this amazing trick when he used to live here, and he passed it down to us!” the boy adds, practically bouncing up and down in place. “If you leave them a trail of food, they’ll follow you around until you run out — which means they can clear your driveway, warm your hands, even save your car if you drive into a snowbank! Or help you make s’mores, of course.”

“Our grunkle says he even skipped paying his heating bill a couple winters,” the girl adds with a grin, “but I dunno if we can recommend that in good conscience.”

As the scampfire draws a closer, continuing to purr as it consumes more of the sugary trail, the boy slaps a handful of marshmallows into Stan’s palm. “Give it a try!”

Stan’s not thrilled about bringing a fire onto the wooden porch attached to his wooden house, even as cute as said fire is, so instead he tosses his ammunition at something much more disposable — the golf cart, since if this one croaks, he can always just steal another from the insufferable rich family up on the hill. His aim isn’t great — he blames his cold fingers — but exactly one marshmallow lands right in the cart’s driver seat.

The scampfire breaks course from its path towards the Shack, clearing a path through the snow before it crawls into the cart, absorbing the final morsel and curling up atop crossed legs. Nothing explodes, and in fact, a few of the icicles on the awning start to melt, dripping water into the patch of bare muddy ground surrounding the cart.

“Huh,” Stan mutters. Dozens of harebrained schemes flash before his eyes — if he could find a slingshot, or even better, some kind of cannon to mount on the cart’s front hood, then he’s sure that with practice, he could entice some scampfires to clear a path through any snowdrift…

But no matter his exact solution, it’s a way to get into town consistently. He can finally go door-to-door selling knickknacks, instead of sitting in the gift shop every day and hoping some poor soul would get bored enough to brave the roads and visit. He can actually work out a way to line his pockets even in the winter, instead of constantly waking up from nightmares about getting foreclosed on —

“See? They get food, and we don’t freeze — classic mutualistic symbiotic relationship!” the boy declares, and his sister gently socks him in the arm.

“Nerd!”

“Hey, you knew that too! We’re in the same biology class!”

It’s familiar, but the kind of familiarity that Stan doesn’t treasure anymore. It’s more like the kind that he hides in the basement or in boarded-up rooms whenever he can, and grins and bears with a heavy heart when he can’t, like every time he looks in the mirror or hears someone call him Stanford. He comes so close to asking these teens if they’re twins, because he figures the answer can’t be worse than wondering — but the question dies in his throat, and he tells himself it’s for the best.

“Is your uncle who invented this trick the same one who’s waiting in town for you?” he asks instead.

“Yep!” replies the girl. “He probably won’t get worried about us for like, ten or fifteen more minutes, though — I’m sure he’s got his nose buried deep in a book right now.”

“Do me a favor and let him know he’s a lifesaver,” Stan says. “Also tell him I’m glad he moved out, because he sounds a little too smart to fall for the fake monster wares that I peddle.”

The kids exchange a look that Stan can’t even hope to comprehend, though he’s damn sure it’s worth a thousand words to the two of them. Twins or not, he’s getting an “inseparable” kind of vibe from these two, that’s for sure.

“I’m not sure he’d like the Shack at first,” the brother muses, “but I’ve got a hunch it would grow on him.”

“He does like cryptids — sometimes even fake ones!” the sister chimes in. “Oh, shoot — we still need to grab a souvenir for him! I knew we were forgetting something!”

“Huh.” Stan throws a few more marshmallows in the direction of the woods, and the scampfire stumbles off the cart before trotting along on its merry way back to the forest. “I can get you something, no problem — I don’t call this place a gift shop for nothing, y’know. But for the love of Paul Bunyan, let’s talk about it inside.”

He’s not great at mental math, but he doesn’t have to be to know he owes a lot to these teens and the mysterious uncle he might never meet. Hell, even forgetting the business perspective — he can actually look for the journals in winter without risking frostbite, if he gets one of his fiery neighbors to tag along. Even if he finds nothing, even if he only winds up with more failures to contend with, he’d rather rule out locations than be useless to Ford for months at a time.

None of this weird family that he might never see again, these three benevolent strangers that he can only put two faces to, could possibly know how much they’ve just changed for him — and he can’t tell them, as much as his oversized heart promises he can trust these snarky kids who remind him so much of himself. But he does owe them, so when he reenters the gift shop, he goes straight for a seldom-opened and never-advertised box of knickknacks that he has no intention of charging them for. It’s got the dimensions of only about two side-by-side shoeboxes, so he lifts it onto the counter with hardly a grunt, and opens it up.

“Got lots of goodies in here — mostly stuff that I made or, ahem, acquired in bulk, so they never quite sold out by the time everyone and their mother in town had already bought their own. Take a gander.”

He knows that gander will reveal some Murder Hut-branded shirts with the words written on in marker, plastic six-sided dice with a different cryptids pictured on each side, cheap whistles purported to attract Bigfoot, cheap flashlights once advertised for attracting Mothman, exactly three cool rocks that Stan found in the woods… and the pièce de résistance, a little wooden Mystery Shack-shaped music box, which chirps out a pleasant tune when Stan flips up the roof. That last one’s a rare knickknack that Stan really put effort into personally crafting, back at the height of last winter’s monotony, through cannibalizing parts of premade music boxes and sticking them into brand-new shapes — but he couldn’t sell them for enough to be worth the cost of making more, and could never sell this last one at all.

“Oh, wow!” the girl gasps, clearly delighted. “How can I even choose between —”

“No, take it all. It’s on the house — but don’t you dare tell anyone about this, you hear me? I’ll know if you blab, ‘cause people will start asking me if they can get free crap, too, and I don’t wanna hear a word of that nonsense.”

“Free stuff at the Mystery Shack?” The boy narrows his eyes. “Are you feeling okay, old man?”

“Kid, stuff only goes in the Free Bullshit Box when I can’t sell it anyway.” Stan crosses his arms with a huff, even though he’s technically telling the truth. “The only catch is take it before I change my mind.”

A sudden spark of recognition in the brother’s eyes morphs into a grin on his face, and he nods. “Oh, we will. Don’t worry.”

“I think our grunkle will love this! Especially the dice,” the sister adds. “Hey, maybe we could give all this to him piece by piece for Hanukkah! There’s enough here for a new surprise every night!”

“Whoa, there is! Man, the look on his face the first time we bring out a Bigfoot whistle is gonna be great —” The boys eyes dart to the watch on his wrist, and he coughs into his hand. “But we should probably get a move on, huh? Don’t want to get caught in, y’know, the blizzard tonight.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Stan returns the lid and hands the box over. “You, uh, need a ride back to town? ‘Cause being a man of mystery and all, I know this neat trick to clear a whole road with just a bag full of marshmallows —”

The kids both start cackling, so hard that the box almost escapes the girl’s hands, and Stan laughs with them — not because he thought his joke was that funny, but because the kids’ laughter is absolutely priceless. The isolation’s definitely getting to his head and his heart, but he’ll take whatever reprieve he can get.

“I think we’ll manage on our own,” the boy finally wheezes out, “but thanks for the offer, Mr. Mystery. Thanks for everything, really.”

“See you later!” his sister adds as they leave. “Don’t let the feral gnomes bite!”

“You take care, too,” Stan replies, not nearly as loud — but he figures that the kids can read his lips. They can read so much about him, and know so much about the town, that he’s honestly a hair’s breadth away from assuming they’re two more anomalies from the woods themselves, just in more recognizable shapes than most…

Though if Stan’s honestly considering that theory, then more of Ford must’ve rubbed off on him than he likes to think about — which is to say, it’s a good a reason as any to stop thinking about it. What or whoever they were, the duo were actually pretty tolerable for teenagers, and Stan’s pretty sure they didn’t put a curse or whatever magic mumbo jumbo on him — because if they could manage that, they could definitely tell some less conspicuous lies, right?

He kinda likes the idea of one goddamn supernatural force in this town that’s actually benevolent, actually watching his back when his mood’s at its bleakest, and coming to his rescue with — no, he’s dropping that train of thought. No baseless hoping, just letting himself down easy before he gets up.

It does occur to him, several minutes after the gift shop door swings closed, that Hanukkah has already come and gone this year. Which probably just means the kids are prepared to hide that box for another twelve months… but maybe, when Stan finds the other journals, he’ll double-check for entries on helpful teenage cryptids who can’t lie. Just to be sure.

***

Mabel, Dipper, and Ford barrel into the living room so suddenly that Stan almost drops his mug of hot chocolate. They’re all covered in a ridiculous amount of snow, considering how briefly they were just outside, and Ford looks awfully delighted for someone whose glasses are someone whose glasses have just turned opaque with fog.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel shouts. The cardboard box in her arms has seen better days, but she’s cradling it like an infant. “You’ll never guess when we just were!”

Dipper points a gloved finger in the air. “You mean, when we just — oh wait, did you already —”

“Yeah, I beat you to it this time!” Mabel pumps her fist. “Anyways, Grunkle Stan — you’ll never guess who we just visited!”

[tcm]

Paul Henreid: Actor, Director, Father By Susan King

Who was the most romantic actor during the Golden Age of Hollywood? For me, it was Paul Henreid. He was tall-6’3”-handsome, with a gorgeous Austrian accent and a nobility and intelligence that could sweep women off their feet. Like that iconic scene in NOW, VOYAGER (‘42) where he lights two cigarettes at once giving one to Bette Davis; or when he utters the words “if I were free, there would be only one thing I’d want to do – prove you’re not immune to happiness. Would you want me to prove it, Charlotte? Tell me you would. Then I’ll go. Why, darling, you are crying.”

And this exchange with Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in his most famous role as the noble resistance leader Victor Laszlo in the Oscar-winning classic CASABLANCA (‘42):

Rick: “Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for.”

Victor: “You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.”

But Henreid was so much more than those two roles. He was dashing and sexy as a pirate in the 1945 Technicolor swashbuckling adventure THE SPANISH MAIN, he gave a complex and haunting performance as the mentally troubled composer Robert Schumann in SONG OF LOVE (‘47) and proved he could be a wonderfully vile film noir bad guy in HOLLOW TRIUMPH (‘48).

He also survived the blacklist, directed numerous episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as the delicious thriller DEAD RINGER (‘64) with Davis. Even before he came to Hollywood, Henreid made his U.S film debut in the terrific romantic war drama JOAN OF PARIS (‘42); he had been a star on the Vienna stage as a member of the legendary Max Reinhardt’s theater company and also appeared in films. He was offered a movie contract with UFA in Berlin with the caveat that he join the National Socialist Actors Guild of Germany. Henreid turned down the offer.

Henreid went to England where he earned good reviews on the London stage as Prince Albert in 1937 in Victoria Regina. Though he played a sympathetic German in GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (‘39), he was typecast generally in Nazi roles such as in Carol Reed’s classic NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (‘40). He even played an odious German consul in his first Broadway show Elmer Rice’s Flight to the West in 1940. Then came Hollywood. And a name change from Von Hernreid to Henreid.

He was 84 when he died in 1992.

I recently chatted via e-mail with his daughter Monika Henreid, an actress/writer/director who is currently working on a documentary about her father.

You always talk so lovingly about your father on social media. What was he like as a husband, father and friend?

My parents were in love…really in love. They were best friends, confidants, colleagues for almost 60 years. So, my guess is, he was a wonderful husband!

He was a hands-on father. He invested time and money to make sure I had all the arts, sports and education a growing girl needs. He always asked how the day went, what I did, what did I enjoy, what did I learn. He was willing to help with or review homework. When my mother didn’t want to attend events, meaning premieres or films, ballets, operas, concerts, etc., I was fortunate enough to be his date.

As a friend to others, he was devoted. Friendship meant a lot to him. It wasn’t always easy to separate real friends from the ‘Hollywood’ type friends. But once he knew, through trial and error and behavior, he was a great person to have as a friend.

Was it difficult, albeit, dangerous for your parents to leave Austria for England?

My father had a successful stage career in Vienna and, because of his reputation, had the opportunity to do a play in London. After that play, he returned to the Viennese stage and some film. When it was time to really leave because of the political situation, he had another offer in London. That allowed for a good structure, but they were scared for the families on both sides. Eventually, most of my mother’s family moved from Austria, but my father’s stayed. My mother did have numerous interactions with the Gestapo, but she was smart and charming and always released without incident.

How was your father discovered by Hollywood? When NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH was released in New York City, my father was appearing in the Elmer Rice play Flight to the West on Broadway. Simultaneous double whammy. He was very visible and got a lot of press. Good press! He said a lot of scouts and agents came around, but Lew Wasserman made the move to Hollywood possible. Lew became my father’s agent and later, my godfather. 

He made so many classic films in 1942, what was that like for him to become a Hollywood star so quickly? He had already achieved ‘stardom’ in Austria and England, so I don’t think it was that difficult. He never talked about it at home. I think it was more the Hollywood lifestyle and the American way culturally that was jolting. Did he enjoy being under contract to Warner Bros.? He was happy to be working and felt secure with the studio system contract, but he wanted some control over his projects. He was always interested in more challenging character parts, so was quickly tired of being pigeonholed as the handsome, romantic leading man. He took SPANISH MAIN to Jack Warner who turned it down. So, he went back to his first Hollywood studio RKO, where it was made. He was suspended a number of times [at Warner Bros.] because he refused to do ‘crap’ scripts and soon learned he really preferred his independence. Your father was one of many actors and directors including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and John Huston, who went to Washington, D.C. in 1947 to oppose the HUAC investigation into communism in Hollywood. Did his support lead to him being blacklisted? Absolutely. He was immediately blacklisted by all the Hollywood studios. Offers stopped right away. He talked to his agent and was told what the studio reaction was. He couldn’t believe it! And there were no longer invitations to lunch or dinner from the ‘Hollywood friends.’ Luckily, he could work for independent producers and in England and Europe. 

Your dad was removed from the blacklist when he became a director in the 1950s on the classic TV anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Had he been good friends with Hitch? His friendship was with [producer] Joan Harrison, Hitch’s ‘right hand man.’ Had your father wanted to direct before he joined the series? He was a very ‘educated’ artist. He went through all the rigors of the drama school in Vienna and graduated qualified as a professional. Directing was just an extension of his training and experience. He was a man who loved to be in charge in any way. It was his nature-so a rather organic move when the first opportunities as a director or a producer presented themselves. Would you talk about his bond with Bette Davis? They were so wonderful in NOW, VOYAGER and DECEPTION (‘46), and he directed her in a Hitchcock episode as well as the fun thriller DEAD RINGER. He and Bette were friends, colleagues, flirts and best of adversaries. They respected each other and were capable of pushing each other’s buttons. There was a tremendous trust and so, we get these wonderful performances from both of them. He was a wonderful director because he understood the actor. I should say that my mother was included in the friendship. She was also creative, smart and talented and often contributed to make that duo a trio. He directed you in DEAD RINGER. What was that experience like? Great. I was fortunate enough to have that experience a number of times. We were really good about keeping the job and the home life separated. Work was work. Home was home. There was an expectation of excellence, but that was an everyday experience. He was a bit of a perfectionist but then, so am I. He didn’t push or shove but rather guided. Ask anyone he worked with how calm and gentle he was. You may not be able to answer this question! But what is the favorite film of your dad’s? That’s difficult to answer! My favorite film is THE SPANISH MAIN because it’s most like HIM – smart, athletic, funny, thoughtful, charming, daring, gorgeous. As far as acting talents go, a toss-up or mixture of SONG OF LOVE, DECEPTION and HOLLOW TRIUMPH.

[wokeuptired]

every perfect summer

Finn is steady on her own two feet but Niall is a hurricane, determined to bring to the surface what she’s long buried. If only he weren’t so beautiful at sunset, she might be able to resist. 

written for​ @majorharry ‘s 20k fic celebration 

prompt #29: “stop looking at me like that.”

niall/ofc, 6.2k

Summer in California is hot and sticky, the kind of sticky that makes you feel silly showering, because as soon as you walk outside, you’ll be sweaty all over again. Even with the fan on full blast, Finn’s thighs are sticking to the leather of the couch she took from her mom’s house when she moved out. She’s read the same page a hundred times, over and over again. The heat makes it hard to think. 

The heat makes it hard to breathe.

And mostly, the heat makes it hard to write.

Finn’s about to put the book down when she hears footsteps on the stairs outside. Her apartment complex is a series of buildings each containing a dozen apartments. Finn shares the landing of her staircase with the apartment next door, but it’s the wrong time of day for Cindy and Ralph to be returning home, which means—

“Your new downstairs neighbor is hot,” Jocelyn announces as the apartment door slams shut behind her, the gust of warm air ruffling the pages of Finn’s book. She looks up to roll her eyes.

“You think every guy is hot.”

Jocelyn dumps her shopping on the kitchen table and scoffs. “I do not. Just the hot ones.”

“Aren’t you engaged?” Finn glances down at the big shiny ring on Jocelyn’s finger to emphasize her point. Even though Jocelyn moved out six months ago, when her boyfriend popped the question, sometimes it feels like she never left. Right now is one of those times. “What’s Marcus think about all this looking you do?” 

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him.” Jocelyn punctuates her statement with a saucy flip of her hair and begins unloading her bags onto the small kitchen counter. She holds up a carton of ice cream. “Should I bother putting this away, or do you want to dive in right now?” 

Finn holds her hand out for the rocky road. “You know me so well.” 

“You’re welcome.” As Finn digs into the tub of ice cream, Jocelyn begins putting things away in the fridge. “You know,” she says into the veggie drawer, “I’m not kidding about your new neighbor. He’s got this angelic frat boy look to him. Have you met him yet?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Last week. He offered to carry a package upstairs for me. Very polite, and totally not my type.” 

“Exactly.” Jocelyn sits on the couch with another spoon and slides the ice cream out of Finn’s grasp. “As your older sister, it’s my job to advise you on everything. Starting with your interest in men, which is, to be frank, utter shit.” 

Finn opens her mouth to object, but she can’t find fault with Jocelyn’s statement. Her last boyfriend wouldn’t come to any work events with her but insisted she attend all of his art shows. He had an ego the size of the Milky Way to make up for his abysmal lack of talent.

“You need to stop dating those neurotic, artsy types,” Jocelyn continues, “and date a man who can, like, actually kill a spider.”

“I’m perfectly capable of killing my own spiders.” As long as they’re small and not moving, but Finn doesn’t feel the need to share that caveat. 

“So am I,” Jocelyn says. “Do you want wine?” She doesn’t wait for Finn to answer before she gets up and goes straight for the cupboard that holds the long-stem glasses. “Anyway, that’s not my point. You need to stop dating boys who look good on paper and start dating men who are good. In real life.” 

Finn closes her book so that it doesn’t have to listen to this conversation. She accepts the wine glass from Jocelyn’s outstretched hand and swirls around the liquid within. It doesn’t go with the ice cream, but she’s 25 years old, so that doesn’t matter.

Jocelyn scowls at the closed book. “Virginia Woolf again, Finn? Are you ever going to read anything written in this century?”

Finn rolls her eyes. If there’s one thing her sister excels at, it’s being unsatisfied with all aspects of Finn’s life. “Are you here just to criticize me? Or are we watching ‘The Bachelor’?”

Jocelyn grins, spoon still in her mouth. “Oh, we’re watching ‘The Bachelor.’” 

-----

The thing about “The Bachelor,” Finn decides that night as she’s brushing her teeth, is that, for the women involved, the ones competing for the bachelor’s heart, there are no consequences. 

Oh, small consequences, sure. Your decision might make somebody else cry, or your heart might be slightly bruised, but at the end of it all, you’ve got thousands of new Instagram followers and you’re famous in your small town and everybody wants to date you, even though you chose, of your own free will, to engage in the skeptical that is a dating game show. 

But there are no big consequences, no bad consequences. A few months later and the next season’s airing, and everything you did, every dumb thing you said, every kiss you exchanged—it’s all forgotten. 

Maybe that’s the way to go, Finn thinks. 

Maybe next year, she ought to audition. She develops the pitch in her head: 25 year old ghostwriter of bestselling romance novels; lives alone in Los Angeles; has been considering, for an entire year, the adoption of a cat; has never been in love. 

It’s that last part that would sway them, she thinks. The producers would imagine her doe-eyed and innocent, maybe a bit naive. She’d be pitted against the season’s villain, the girl with dark hair (a visual contrast to Finn’s blond bob) who would stop at nothing to win her man. 

“How can she write romance novels when she has never known love?” audiences across America would wonder. 

Perhaps the bachelor himself would even inquire. Finn would smile shyly, bat her impossibly long eyelashes up at him, and say something coy like, “You could tutor me.” 

Jocelyn would love that. She lives for the drama, for what the editors create in post-production. She doesn’t care that it’s fake.

And every week Finn watches and wonders how she can keep selling love in her books when this show proves, without a doubt, that it doesn’t exist.

-----

The new downstairs neighbor works out in the mornings on his patio. Finn hears his music the next morning, drifting in through her open sliding door, around 8:30 AM. It’s not early enough for her to be justifiably annoyed at him, but she’s annoyed nonetheless, because she’s just sat down at her laptop with the intention of writing something today.

Something. Anything. Words on the page, that’s all she needs. 

Instead, she sighs, closing her laptop and crossing the room to the balcony. She slides the door open further, pushes the screen out of the way, and goes outside. When she and Jocelyn first moved in, the balcony was a huge appeal. “Outdoor space!” they’d squealed when they first saw the apartment listed online. But now Finn’s been here for two and a half years, and the balcony is just another space for dust to collect. 

It’s directly over Downstairs Neighbor’s patio. Finn looks down through the wooden slats and tries to catch a glimpse at him. She can hear Jocelyn’s voice in her head: He’s hot, right? I told you he was hot! 

In truth, though, Finn can’t see much through the small gaps between the planks. She can’t tell if he’s lifting weights or doing jumping jacks or playing a very enthusiastic game of cat’s cradle. He’s definitely grunting, though. 

Finn shakes her head, trying not to focus on the noises he’s making, and crosses the balcony. She leans her arms on the railing and looks out over the beauty of Los Angeles. Beauty referring, of course, to the parking lot. Finn can see her car, about thirty feet away, parked beneath an evil tree that drops red berries. It really needs to be washed. 

Maybe she should take it today. Maybe today will be the first day in a month that she’s gotten dressed in pants that have a zipper and a button, and she’ll go to the carwash and—

Feeling something crawling on her arm, Finn looks down, and oh, shit, it’s a spider. Not a little spider, not a daddy long legs, but one of those ones that’s big enough where you can see its body. It looks like one of those spiders a little kid draws around Halloween. 

Oh, shit. Finn lifts her arm, waving it wildly, trying to shake the spider loose before it bites her and turns her into Spider Woman, and that’s when she throws her mug of coffee into the air. 

“Oh, shit,” she says out loud. Time seems to slow as she watches her mug descend, coffee flying everywhere as the cup turns a full 360 degrees before landing with a crack on the concrete below. 

“What the fuck?” It’s Downstairs Neighbor. 

“Oh, shit,” Finn says again. Which, no doubt, Downstairs Neighbor heard. Oh, shit. That one’s in her head, at least.

She hears a grunt as he, she imagines, lowers his weight to the ground, then the snick of his sliding glass door, then the sound of his front door opening, and then, oh, shit, there he is, standing on the ground, looking at her broken coffee cup. 

Oh, shit, Finn thinks again as she drops to her knees, hiding herself from view. 

Apparently unsuccessfully, as not thirty seconds later, she hears, “I can see you, ya know.” 

Finn rises slowly to her feet and looks down. It’s hard not to admit that Jocelyn was right as she looks down at him, messy hair and blue eyes and muscles visible through his sweaty t-shirt. 

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.” His eyes twinkle, and she knows he’s trying not to laugh at her. “This yours?” 

“Yeah. Sorry I interrupted you.” 

He laughs then, a light, musical sound that she can feel in her toes. Oh, shit. That’s not good. Finn’s characters feel laughter in their toes, but she certainly doesn’t. Feeling someone’s laughter in her toes is not a real thing, she’s always thought, except, apparently, it is.

“What happened?” he asks. 

“There was a spider.”

“A spider.” 

Finn nods, cheeks burning. “It was a big spider.” 

“You gonna come clean it up?” 

Finn nods again. “In a minute.” 

“Okay.” He grins up at her and she blushes back. 

Finn turns around and goes inside, sliding the door shut behind her, and waits, listening for the sounds of Downstairs neighbor reentering his own apartment, shutting the door, locking it. When a minute has passed without any of that, Finn realizes that he must be waiting for her. 

Oh, shit. Finn doesn’t have to be Jocelyn to know that this is not the ideal situation in which one wants to interact with Hot Downstairs Neighbor. But it seems like she doesn’t have a choice, so she slips on the flip flops she keeps by the door and goes downstairs. 

He’s still there, standing in the sunshine, squinting when he smiles. “There you are,” he says. 

“Here I am.” Finn looks down, surveying the damage. The mug has split into several large chunks, and maybe if Finn were better at diy-ing she’d be able to fix it, but as things stand now, it’s destined for the garbage. “Damn, I really liked that mug.” 

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Downstairs Neighbor says, which is such a strange thing to say that Finn startles, turning to stare at him. 

“Thanks?” she says. 

“You’re welcome.” He smiles, holding out his hand. “I’m Niall.” 

Finn accepts the handshake. “I’m Finn.” 

His hand is warm and a bit clammy, a bit like California in the summer, and her stomach goes topsy-turvy. She yanks her hand back. 

“Nice to meet you,” Niall says. “I guess you’re the neighbor who watches ‘The Bachelor’?” 

Jesus Christ, Finn thinks, dropping to a squat. She gathers up the pieces of her destroyed mug and doesn’t answer him. How nosy of him, asking her that. But then, she was the one listening to him work out this morning. 

“My sister likes it,” she says. “I’m just along for the ride.” 

“Hey, there’s no shame in liking ‘The Bachelor,’” Niall says, dropping down beside her. They reach for the last piece at the same time, hands brushing. Finn draws hers back, trying to ignore the tingling in her fingertips. “Here.” 

Finn accepts the final shard. “Thanks,” she says. “And I don’t like ‘The Bachelor.’ I think it’s silly.” 

Niall smiles at her again, all teeth and sunshine. “What’s silly about love?”

Finn blinks at him, trying to decide if he’s an idiot or just bad at small talk. Maybe both. “That show is not about love,” she says. “Have you ever seen it?” 

“No.” He shakes his head. “But I’ve heard it through the ceiling.” 

Jesus Christ, Finn thinks again. What a neighbor. She can’t wait to tell Jocelyn about this, to prove to her that Downstairs Neighbor may be hot, but his positive qualities end there. He’s intrusive and nosy and way, way too good looking.

“You can get back to your workout,” she says, standing up straight. He follows, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. “Sorry for bothering you.” 

“Not a bother,” he says. “It was nice to meet you, Finn.” 

“Yep,” she says, offering him a half smile before she turns tail and dashes up the stairs, back to her safe, quiet, Downstairs Neighbor-free apartment. Back to her laptop, and the manuscript due in three months that she hasn’t managed to crack yet. Back to being hot and sweaty inside her apartment, instead of outside. 

“Have a good day!” he calls after her. She doesn’t return the greeting. 

-----

The next morning, a knock on the door wakes Finn up from a dream, the kind of dream that you know as soon as you wake was a good one, but it’s too late, you’ve forgotten it, and you won’t be able to get it back. 

“No,” she mutters, turning over in bed, burrowing into the pillow. “I’m sleeping.” But then the knock sounds again. “Damnit.” 

Finn climbs out of bed and reaches for her phone on the nightstand. 8:27 AM on a Wednesday. An acceptable hour for someone to be knocking on the door, she supposes. Except she was up till 1 o’clock trying to make her messy notes into something resembling an outline that could someday (someday soon, she hopes) be a book. 

The morning person disturbing her sleep knocks again, eliminating the possibility that it’s just UPS dropping off a package. Finn drops her phone on the bed and makes her way down the hall to the living room, where sunlight blares in so sharply it makes her squint. 

“Gah,” she says to herself as she pulls open the door. And then, “Oh, it’s you.”

“It’s me,” Hot Downstairs Neighbor—Niall, Finn corrects herself—says. “UPS dropped off this package at my door, but I think it’s yours.” 

Finn looks down at the envelope he’s holding out, but the label is blurry. Oh, shit, her glasses. “If you say so,” she says. “I’d have to grab my glasses to know for sure.” 

Niall smiles at her, she thinks, but the details of his face are a bit blurry. “I can wait,” he says. “We should make sure it’s yours.” 

Finn frowns at him for a second—He can read, can’t he? Shouldn’t he know if it’s her name on the label?—before deciding that it’s too early for an argument. “Fine, whatever,” she says, turning around and leaving him in the doorway. 

That’s where she expects him to stay, but when she returns to the door a minute later with her glasses perched on her nose, he’s inside her apartment, poking around the bookshelves on either side of her television. The package he brought over has been discarded on the coffee table. 

Finn ignores him for a second as she picks it up. Yep, it’s definitely hers. It’s a proof of her latest Isobel novel, if she had to guess. But she’s not going to open it now, not with Niall here. 

Niall, who is currently nosing around her living room, looking much too closely at things she’d rather he not see. 

“What are these?” Niall steps closer to the bookshelf, his eyes scanning the spines. “You read romance novels?”

“Not exactly,” Finn says. Which lie should she tell this time? She has a few prepared: “they’re my sister’s” or “my roommate forgot them when she moved out.” Said roommate is said sister, but for the sake of the lie, that wouldn’t matter. But then the truth slips out. “I write them.”

“You write them?” Niall repeats. He pulls one of the books out, Summer’s Dalliance, about two yoga instructors who find love during a training retreat in the Maldives. “You’re Isobel Soleil?”

Finn can tell from the way Niall says Isobel Soleil that he’s heard of her. Who hasn’t heard of her, these days? Her books are in grocery stores and airport shops and on bestseller lists and there’s a series in development with HBO. 

As a ghostwriter, Finn isn’t involved, but she knows the show will help move sales, which means bigger checks, which means maybe, eventually, she can write something she actually cares about.

“Not exactly.” Finn takes the book out of his hand and returns it to its place on the shelf. It’s not as if she’s proud of it. That’s not why she has it out. It’s just a placeholder until she publishes a book she’s actually proud of. “Isobel Soleil isn’t a person. She’s a brand. Her books are written by half a dozen different people. How do you think she can pump them out so quickly?”

“How quickly?” 

“Three or four a year.”

“And you wrote all of these?” Niall’s finger runs along the spines. “How many are there? Ten?”

“Eight,” Finn corrects. Eight cheesy, embarrassing, don’t-let-your-mother-see-you-reading-that novels. “But they’re formulaic and simplistic. They’re not… they’re not good.”

Niall shrugs. “They’re not high literature, you mean. Someone reads them, though, right? And the people who read them enjoy them. So who cares if they’re not high literature, Finn?” 

Finn swallows the sudden lump in her throat. How has Niall managed to get to the quick of things so, well, quick? “I care, I guess. This isn’t what I imagined I’d be doing when I was little, telling people I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.”

“So write something else,” Niall says. 

Finn sighs. She wishes it were that easy. If only she could break out of the mold she’s put herself in and write something else, something that’s not about two people falling in love. If only she could write something she actually believed in.

But she has a contract and a deadline and an agent and an editor on her back, and no choice but to finish this Isobel Soleil novel. 

“Maybe next summer,” she says. 

Niall considers her, nods. “Speaking of this summer,” he says slowly, like he’s thinking about what he’s going to say as he’s saying it, “I have free tickets to LACMA, and I just moved to town so I don’t know a ton of people. Want to go with me?” 

Say yes or no more ice cream, Jocelyn’s voice says in the back of Finn’s mind. 

“Sure,” she says. “But you know my secret”—she gestures to the bookshelves—“so now you have to tell me one of yours. So I know you’re not a serial killer or something.” 

He smiles at her and, damn, he’s good looking. “I’m a lawyer,” he says. “My new job doesn’t start till August, so I’m working remotely with my old firm until then.” 

“That’s not a secret.” Not a secret at all, but a great career for a hero in a romance novel. Finn makes a mental note. 

“Okay,” Niall says. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back, lifting one hand to his chin, a classic thinking pose. “How about this? I’m not from here.” 

Finn shakes her head. She’d already guessed that from his accent, a soft, lilting Irish one that makes everything he says sound like a poem. “Not a secret either. You get one more try.” 

“One more try!” he says with mock shock. “I’ll make this good, then.”

He thinks and Finn waits, and in the thirty seconds it takes him to come up with a good secret, she wonders what the hell she’s doing, flirting with Hot Downstairs Neighbor in her living room while dressed in her pajamas. Oh, shit, she’s not wearing a bra, is she?

Finn crosses her arms over her chest and considers backing out of this conversation entirely by making something up that will put Niall off and convince him that she’s the worst possible LACMA companion. 

But then he says, “I can’t swim,” and that is distracting enough to make her forget everything else. 

“You can’t swim?” she asks. “What the hell are you doing in southern California?” 

Niall shrugs. His smile makes her insides go wonky. “Maybe you can teach me.” Then he holds out his phone. “Here, give me your number. I’ll text you and we can make plans.” 

She obliges, all the while wondering what exactly she’s gotten herself into. 

-----

LACMA day comes much quicker than Finn anticipates. When she and Niall first made the plans a week ago, Saturday seemed like ages away. There was so much she was going to do between now and then: repot all of her plants, make bread from scratch, work on her manuscript. But instead, she putters around her apartment, typing words here and there, ignoring how bad they are, and not baking bread. 

It’s a waste of a week, and not just because Niall is there, in the back of her mind, the whole time. 

Jocelyn’s excited, of course, for LACMA day, and insists on coming over the night before to help Finn select her outfit. Finn keeps reminding her that it’s summer in Los Angeles, so it’s a thousand degrees out and she will melt no matter what she wears, but Jocelyn doesn’t care.

Which is how Finn ends up knocking on Niall’s door on LACMA day dressed in a romper that’s giving her a wedgie, a purse she never carries slung over her shoulder. Jocelyn even forced her to wear lip gloss. 

“Lip gloss makes you a different person,” Jocelyn said last night on her way out. “I left you three options. Please wear one.” 

“I don’t take advice from the Sweet Valley Twins anymore,” Finn had retorted as she shut the door in Jocelyn’s face. 

But she’s wearing the lip gloss anyway. Her hair has already gotten stuck in it three times, and all she’s done is climb down the stairs. 

She knocks again, half hoping Niall hasn’t changed his mind and half hoping that he has. If he has, she can go back upstairs, put her pajamas on again, and continue to stare at her blank Word document. But then he opens the door.

“Good morning!” His smile is so bright it makes her squint. “Coffee?” 

He holds out a travel mug to her, waiting for her to take it. 

“Good morning,” she says after she takes a sip. The coffee is exactly the right temperature and perfectly sweet, which is almost enough to make her smile. “This is good coffee.” 

“It’s from Ecuador,” Niall says. He steps out onto the welcome mat and closes the apartment door behind him. “Hold this for me?” 

Finn holds his travel mug as he locks the door and turns the knob a couple of times to make sure it’s secure. Then he turns around, his smile lighting up his face. 

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready,” she says, though she’s pretty sure she isn’t.

She learns, over the next few hours, that Niall’s energy is nonstop. He talks constantly during their drive to the museum, talks as they park the car, talks as they ride the elevator to the top floor and begin making their way through the galleries. He tells her where he’s from and where he went to school and what his favorite sports teams are. 

And she finds herself talking too. She tells him about her sister and where she went to school and how she got started writing Isobel Soleil novels, and the entire time, she’s taking mental notes about him, about the way he holds doors for her and grins down at her and laughs even when her jokes are barely funny. 

This is how the heroes in her novels behave. They are handsome and well-meaning and have substantial life goals. They are polite and conscientious and make the heroines feel brave and important and valued. And that’s how Finn finds herself feeling: like if she had something to say, Niall would listen to it. 

After the museum, they stop for lunch at a restaurant Finn found on Yelp as they were leaving the parking structure. It’s small and bright inside, but as Niall pulls out Finn’s chair for her, it occurs to her, for the first time, that this might actually be a date. 

Jocelyn had said as much last night, but Finn had ignored her, as she does with most things Jocelyn says. But now, seated across from Niall, with nowhere to look but at him, reality dawns, and it’s blinding. 

But, she decides, she won’t address it, and she carries on with the meal as if they are recent acquaintances and neighbors, which is, she reminds herself, exactly what they are. 

-----

After LACMA day, Niall texts Finn about the movie he’s watching, and she imagines she can hear it through the floor. Later that evening, he texts her good night, and then, the next day, he texts her good morning. The next weekend, they go to Venice Beach together, and they see a movie in a classic theater downtown the following Tuesday. That night, he comes over for dinner, and they cook together, finding their way around each other in Finn’s small kitchen. 

And all of a sudden, this summer is different, hot and sticky like all the others, but different because this summer has Niall. 

Niall on the couch, bare feet up on the coffee table, listing all the reasons that golf is superior to all other sports. 

Niall in the passenger’s seat of her car, singing along to the radio even when he doesn’t know the words, the sun setting behind him, lighting him up as if it’s saying, “Look, he’s beautiful.”

And he is beautiful. Niall in her thoughts, Niall on the back of her eyelids when she blinks, Niall in her dreams. Niall, beautiful. 

And Niall in her manuscript, try as she might to keep him out. In sticking with the proposal she made to her editor back in the spring, she’s writing about a doctor and an artist who meet when they’re sharing a wall in a duplex summer rental on the coast of Oregon. By midsummer, she’s written thirty thousand words, enough to reassure her editor that she’s still writing, that things are fine, and, upon rereading, she realizes that the doctor has become Niall.

The doctor, so sure of himself, driven and determined and sexier than any other hero she’s ever written. He is confident and has beautiful eyes and magic fingers, and the heroine, the artist, is head over heels in love with him before she’s even thought to like him. 

And the artist. Finn is the artist, the confused, prideful creative soul who doesn’t want love, is afraid of it, just wants to be left alone. But now she has the lawyer, the beautiful, handsome, intelligent, lovely lawyer who makes her want to stop hiding. He makes her want to feel things. He makes her want to reach out for him, to push her fears aside and let her have what she wants. 

July brings that realization and an unseasonal thunderstorm that forces Finn to bring out a bucket and email her landlord about that leak in the roof from December that still hasn’t been fixed. That’s a momentary distraction, at least, from thoughts of Niall, thoughts of Niall that are plaguing her every moment. Awake, asleep, Niall. Always Niall. 

It’s thundering overhead when there’s a knock at her door. She opens it, and there he is, like she’s conjured him.

“I brought wine,” he says, holding out the bottle.

“Come in,” she says. She thinks of how much has changed since she sat on her couch a month ago, drinking wine with Jocelyn. She wishes, for a moment, that she could go back. But then she looks at Niall again. 

And she doesn’t want to look away, like the artist doesn’t want to look away from the doctor. When you find something this perfect, why would you ever look away? Why would you let it go? 

Finn knows from experience, though, that sometimes you don’t get to choose when people leave. Sometimes they leave you, aching and cold and alone. Sometimes it’s not up to you. 

“Come in,” she says again. She grabs two wine glasses from the kitchen and joins Niall in the living room, where they sit on the couch, thighs pressed together, and he picks a movie for them to watch. 

She isn’t paying attention, though, as she downs two glasses of wine and wonders if Niall will kiss her tonight. She’d like him to, she decides, just as much as she doesn’t want him to. It’s like the Schroedinger’s cat of kisses—if they never kiss, she will never know the kiss, but she will also never know what happens after it. She will never know if they go further, if they stop abruptly, if he breaks her heart and leaves her in pieces, smashed on the concrete like her broken coffee mug. 

But she will also never know if it will be beautiful, like the loves of the characters in her novels, characters who risk their hearts when they don’t know what the outcome will be. The difference between Finn and Niall and the artist and the doctor, though, is that Finn can control the artist and the doctor. She can decide their ending, she can choose the words for the last page. 

And maybe, with Niall, she doesn’t want a last page. 

Two hours later, Finn is wine-drunk and sitting on the floor, her back pressed against the couch. Niall is next to her, the table pushed away from them to accommodate his long legs. She leans her head on his shoulder, thinking, in the way only a wine-addled mind will allow, that she’d like to keep this night forever, seal it into a locket and wear it around her neck. 

“Tell me again why you don’t like your books,” Niall says. He has her newest proof in front of him on the table. It’s littered with post-it notes, changes Finn would’ve made to it had she had more time. But it’s too late now, and it will print as is. 

“They’re not good,” Finn says, her go-to explanation. “I can do better.” 

Niall shakes his head. “But they are good. I read Sunshine in Your Mouth, and it’s good. You’re a good writer, Finn.” 

“Oh, no.” Finn ducks, covering her face with her arms. “You read it? I can’t believe you read it.” 

“Yeah, I did.” Niall tugs her arm away from her face. “Stop hiding from me.” 

Oh, if only he knew how apt that statement was, then maybe he wouldn’t say it. Finn puts her arms down and refills her wine glass. She knows she shouldn’t drink any more, but maybe if she does, she’ll stop thinking about how blue Niall’s eyes are and how soft his fingers feel against her arm. 

“Tell me the truth,” Niall says, thumbing the post-its in her proof copy. “Why don’t you like being Isobel Soleil?” 

“Because I’m not her. I’m not like her. I just don’t believe in love,” Finn tries to explain. “It’s like—”

Niall laughs. “Love’s not like the tooth fairy, Finn. You don’t have to have felt it to know it’s real.” 

Finn looks at him, at his soft cheeks and his pink lips and his messy hair. In another life, in another version of this world, maybe she and Niall have known each other forever, since they were kids. And maybe Finn loves Niall. Maybe she always has. Maybe they fit. Maybe it’s the easiest thing this other Finn’s ever felt. 

But the Finn that lives in this world, the one sitting on the floor of her apartment with her knees pulled to her chest and a half-empty wine glass in her hand—this Finn doesn’t feel things easily. Feelings are heavy and feelings hold you back and feelings stick around long after the people who brought them on are gone.

“My parents,” Finn says, “they got divorced when I was five.” 

“Finn, you don’t have to—” 

“It’s fine,” Finn says. The wine is talking now. The wine and the smell of Niall’s shampoo and the plunk plunk plunk of rain hitting the bucket on the kitchen floor. “My dad was sleeping with his secretary. Such a cliche, right? And it took my mom years to leave him. Years. He was sleeping with his secretary while my mom was pregnant with me. She kept thinking he’d stop, that he’d finally realize that he loved her, that he loved his family. She kept waiting, until she couldn’t anymore.” 

Finn feels Niall’s fingers brush against hers where they rest on the rug. “That’s why you don’t believe in love?”

“No.” Finn closes her eyes, her head tilting back against the sofa cushion. “That’s why I don’t let myself feel it.”

“Finn.” 

She doesn’t answer as Niall moves closer. Eyes closed, she can feel him entering her personal space, can feel the heat of his hand as he takes her wine glass, hears the clink of glass on wood as he puts it on the table. Feels his fingers on her cheek as he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Finn. Look at me.” 

So she does, opens her eyes and meets his, and it’s too much, it’s all too much, the way he’s looking at her like he can see her feelings, can read them as if they were written across her forehead.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

He smiles. “Like what?” 

“Like you like me.” The words are out before she can stop them, slipping from her lips like a sigh. 

“Finn.” He’s closer now, impossibly close, his hand on her cheek. “Finn, I more than like you.” 

“I—” Finn starts, but she doesn’t know what to say. 

She doesn’t know what this feeling is, the one taking over her chest and spreading to her stomach and traveling up her throat all the way to her eyeballs. It’s a headache and nausea at the same time, plus a sense of doom in her stomach, maybe the unconscious realization that this can’t last forever. 

Because feelings never do. Niall likes her now, likes her a lot, likes her enough to maybe kiss her against her dirty car in the parking lot fifty feet from their building. But that won’t last. He’ll like her for a bit and then he’ll like her less and less until nothing remains but the memory of the fire that used to burn, a bit of leftover smoke drifting skyward. 

And that’s when it will hurt. 

This will hurt, Finn thinks, but she jumps anyway. 

“Then kiss me,” she says. 

So he does, and in his kiss, for as long as it lasts, she lets herself feel everything: lets herself feel the sticky heat of summer and the sticky heat of a love so big it sucks you under, leaves you breathless, makes you hold on tight. 

She slides her hand into his hair and thinks, I will hold on tight. 

When it’s over, Niall pulls back, leans his forehead on hers. He’s breathing heavy when he says, “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.” 

“I want to do it again,” Finn says. She slides her fingers under the collar of his shirt. 

Niall’s hand tightens on her waist. “Is that the wine talking?” 

Finn shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It’s me. And I more than like you, too.” 

Niall grins, bright and beautiful. “Good,” he says. “You’re my perfect summer.” 

He leans in to kiss her again, and Finn decides, in that split second before their lips meet, that even if all she gets with Niall is a summer, it will be beautiful and it will be perfect, the stuff of novels. The stuff of her novels. 

But, something in her gut tells her, Niall will be around for more than a summer.

He does live right downstairs, after all.

[morwensteelsheen]

If Faramir went to Rivendell, how would the whole ttt/rohan plot be different?

A good question that I have spent an unreasonable time thinking about! My first LOTR fic was going to be an attempt to answer this, but then I got so wrapped up in not having the answers that I sidelined it and wrote WC instead. So I think instead of giving you one definitive answer I’ll give you a couple scenarios I think are plausible? If that’s not too much of a cop out lmao? Apologies in advance for the inevitable spelling errors, I did this on my phone and my dyslexia is off the charts today.

I think it’s basically unavoidable that he goes via Rohan first, geographically he’s sort of left without an option there. When he’s there, we get into this issue of whether and how he and Éowyn interact. Worth noting, I think, that the Unfinished Tales has Éomer living in Aldburg by the War, but Éomer does seem to imply he’s around for Boromir passing through. Is this because he knows and already is a fan of Boromir? Maybe! Or maybe Éomer goes to Aldburg after.

But I digress. We have to ask the question of whether Faramir falls in love with Éowyn because he was always going to fall in love with Éowyn, or if it’s because the things he’s gone through immediately preceding it primed him for it. I — perhaps quite cheaply — come down on the side of Faramir always having it bad for her on first sight. And contextually I think that comes from his, rather sweet, enunciation of the way his regard/love changes for her. He says that at first he pities her, and then he gets to know her and he doesn’t pity her anymore, he respects and admires her. That’s an interesting dynamic to bring into play in basically every AU, because you get this double barrel characterisation of his attitude to her changing, and his own character maturing/sharp edges softening.

I think he off the bat he sees that she’s beautiful, and immediately is drawn to her for that. Shallow? Maybe! But, to badly paraphrase my ol fav Victor Hugo quote — love always begins with a glance.

I imagine he stays for a short while, maybe a week, two at most. At this point I think that Éowyn’s basically viewing him as an official guest that she has to entertain, and I think Faramir is, in his own, slightly stilted, slightly wanky way, putting the moves on her. This can go, imo, one of two ways. She can either be receptive to it (which is a nice thought!) or she can be aware of it but mostly ignore it because, really, she’s got lots of shit on her plate.

Either way, he leaves Edoras at some point. The big question is where does his go from there?

One thing I toy around with is that, given his pre-existing relationship to Gandalf, maybe he’s willing to trust the Istari a bit more and goes straight for Isengard? Which, and I think I did the math on this once a few months ago, would have him arriving at Isengard around the time Gandalf’s getting his shit kicked in by Saruman lol. I think this could be a really compelling plot point, but I’ll be very honest with you, I 100% don’t have the imagination or writing skills to figure out how it proceeds from there, so I’m not going to try to.

If he goes the normal Boromir route, he still loses his horse at Tharbad and walks (lmao jesus???) to Rivendell. When he gets there, I think he’s immediately going to have everything he knows put to the test in quite jarring ways. First off, he’s going to be infinitely more deferential to Elrond, Aragorn &c when they’re trashing Gondor. He’ll push back a bit, no doubt on that, but he’s going to be starstruck by Aragorn in a way that Boromir just wasn’t.

No real difference I imagine between Rivendell and Lothlórien, except that he’d definitely be laser focused on palling about with Aragorn, and he’d probably spend more of his time being friendly with Frodo than with Merry and Pippin tbh (not in a douchey way, I just think he and Frodo vibe a little better. Though I bet he and Merry had some interesting chats about pipe weed history).

The underlying question here is what sort of relationship does he have to the ring? I don’t buy this idea that he’s not tempted by it, I just think that what the ring offers him is a bit shit. We don’t know what the ring tempts him with, he’s not clear on that in TTT. I can’t really see the ring being like ‘oh I’ll give you a king to follow’ because that is some intensely nerdy shit, but is somehow the one thing I could see Faramir actually being tempted by. Regardless of what it offers him in this AU, he resists it on the basis that he’s got this mythical king he’s been desperate for, and he’s not gonna risk that for anything.

Lothlórien comes next, and oh my god when I tell you this is the part I genuinely have no answer for. I stopped writing my first fic at Lothlórien because I couldn’t cope. Tbh it probably lowkey fries Faramir’s brain, and for so many reasons. The whole godmoding Númenórean stuff he’s got going on probably interests Galadriel a bit, and so that whole conversation is going to be wildly different than it was for Boromir. But what does she say to Faramir? I have no idea. I really don’t. There’s also probably a million and one things also going on psychologically for him at that point, which makes dealing with this bit difficult. Really difficult. So I’m gonna, uh, conveniently smash cut away.

Parth Galen! Again, another two potential splits here. The first, (from here on out I’ll refer to as Plot A) which I find rather endearing, is that he goes off with Frodo and Sam when Frodo makes the decision to split. I don’t know that I believe he’d do it, but it proves for a very delightful interpretation of his character.

Plot B is that when the Orcs show up, Faramir survives not by virtue of his being a ~ better warrior ~ or whatever than Boromir, but by the terrain surrounding Parth Galen being something he’s far more in the habit of dealing with, and by virtue of his having a bow at his disposal. I know there’s room for an interpretation of Faramir as not primarily an archer, but narratively I think that’s less interesting. So he’s an archer. He’s an archer and also his priority is on Aragorn first and foremost, so Merry and Pip still get taken, and Frodo and Sam use the hubbub to GTFO, which is actually slightly more in line with the movie’s chronology, funnily enough. The three hunters become four, and then go on Merry & Pippin’s trails.

In Plot A, they’re hauling ass across the Emyn Muil, bolstered in some ways by Faramir’s experience as a Ranger. The problem is the issue of getting into Mordor and whether or not they pick up Gollum. I think, in a way that frustrates me immensely, they do end up taking Gollum, not because they need a guide, but because Gollum fulfils this deep psychological need for Frodo, and I think he would have argued for keeping Gollum regardless. Faramir is going to be fucked off about this, but will ultimately, I think, be deferential to the ringbearer.

So they go across the Dead Marshes, but they do NOT attempt the Black Gate first because Faramir’s not a fool. Do they go to Henneth Annûn? I say yes, but with the caveat that in all likelihood Boromir is gonna be there, which is gonna complicate stuff tremendously.

Over to Plot B!

The four hunters go to the Mark! They meet Éomer! Hey! Éomer recognises Faramir! (And he’s probably a little fucked off that he lost his horse lol). But whatever, he knows this guy, so he’s probably gonna be like, uhhh, everything you saw before in Edoras is much worse now. Also my cousin's dead and everything is bad. Here’s some horses, sorry for maybe accidentally killing your pals, see ya! And at this point I think Faramir’s probably having a, hmmm, g e n t l e  p s y c h i c  c r i s i s, because if he’s still very 👅 for Éowyn (which he is, sorry, he has to be) then he’s going to want to go there ASAP. Obviously though that’s not gonna happen, so: Merry and Pip chasing, Gandalf finding, Edoras arriving.

Which means Éowyn. If, at this point, she and Faramir already have something of an arrangement going on (nudge nudge) then she’s really not gonna give a shit about Aragorn. You know how in TTT it’s not even clear that she actually sees Legolas and Gimli? 100% that vibe with Aragorn too. Théoden’s gonna get his house in order, they’re going to head to Helm’s Deep, and Éowyn’s gonna get named head of house. (Faramir, if he starts off just thinking she’s beautiful, is going to have quite the paradigm shift here, because he’s going to have to start reckoning with her as not just a beautiful woman, but as a very, very intense person. This is how his love for her starts to mature.)

Sometimes I dream about him being like, ‘hey! I have some first hand experience of ruling a kingdom, how about I stay and…….. lend you a hand……..’ to Éowyn while she’s keeping watch on Edoras. This is wildly unlikely, but a delightful thought nonetheless. In the more likely case, which is that he goes to the Hornburg, she’s going to start feeling some strain about this whole war shebang, and it’s going to lead to some difficult conversations. Chief among them is that Faramir, as second son, actually has basically nothing to give her, which is not exactly a great position to be in when you’re in love with the niece of a king. I’m of the opinion that Éowyn’s not fussed by that stuff (she agrees to marry him when he’s prepping to give up a shit ton of power anyways), so she’s probably like, 'no, fuck you, we’re getting married.' And then he leaves, and it starts to emotionally unsettle her more and more.

If they don’t already have a thing, then it either begins at this point OR he gets overshadowed by Aragorn. In either case, off to Helm’s Deep he goes.

Helm’s Deep happens, I think Faramir ends up extraordinarily impressed by how the Rohirrim handle the Dunlenders afterwards, which also begins to soften his harsh opinion of them more generally.

They go to Isengard, Pippin looks in the Palantír, and away Pippin and Gandalf go. Both Gandalf and Faramir here would recognise that it would be batshit insane for Faramir to go back to MT now, because Denethor would read him like a picture book and he’d have to admit to the entire mission of the Fellowship.

Over in Plot A, I think we’re going to have some real emotional complexity vis a vis Faramir showing up at Henneth Annûn with two hobbits, a ring, and Boromir in control there. God, it would just be a disaster. My incredibly generous interpretation of this is that Faramir keeps the plan vague enough that Boromir lets them pass unhindered. My less generous interpretation is… yeah I don’t wanna do it tbh. It’s not pretty. It's also, to be clear: not an indictment of Boromir as a character. His response is entirely rational for someone expected to lead a kingdom and for someone put up against the unbelievable power of the One Ring. The reason Faramir continuously gets to pass largely untempted by the ring is because he's a guy with no actual responsibilities once you take the Rangers away. His understanding of his duty to Gondor is almost entirely conceptual in nature. He can think and talk about defending Gondor as it once was because there are several people above him in the hierarchy defending Gondor for what it is. This is also not an indictment of Faramir. He and Boromir just have wildly different realities to contend with.

They are going to go through Cirith Ungol even though Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass both speak Sindarin and don’t cotton on to what its name implies lol. This whole scene is much shorter because Faramir’s significantly more cautious, so there is no Orc capture and Sam doesn't take the Ring. This is where things get a bit complex, and where I don’t think I have the imagination to say much more. Sorry!

Back in Plot B, the lads catch up with Éowyn as they prep to go down the Paths of the Dead. If she and Faramir are a thing, this is where the real emotional distress kicks in for her. All of the men in her life have, at one point or another, functionally abandoned her, and here’s Faramir, love of her life, about to do the exact same thing. Faramir inevitably goes with the Grey Company even though she begs him not to. When she tries to convince them not to go down the Paths at all, he is in the fortunate enough position to throw up his hands and say 'not my call, actually. King’s in charge,' which lessens the emotional conflict there somewhat.

No part of me doubts that Éowyn wouldn’t then immediately go over his head to Aragorn. She would, she absolutely does not give a fuck. And she’s going to get knocked back re: joining them in exactly the same way as in the book, because Aragorn’s take here isn’t actually dependent on her personally, it’s dependent on the duty she’s been charged with, which is taking care of her people. (Also going to be an interesting narrative parallel to a later conversation between Faramir and Aragorn after the Pelennor, which I’ll explain in more detail later.)

Faramir will, perhaps somewhat less dismissively, say this to her. He learns much more obviously the way to talk to her on her own terms, and he’s not gonna fall into the trap of letting her be like ‘you just want me to wait and die after all the men are dead.’ He’s going to probably give her some line about her being the last organised line of defence, and he might even invoke Haleth! It’s not going to work, because Éowyn’s very aware of the apocalyptic nature of all of this, but it’s not going to cause such abject hatred and fury as it otherwise would.

If she and Faramir are not a thing, her emotional distress is as it is in the book, except now Faramir’s trying not to pout in the background. He might even step in to try and soften the blow.

Regardless, she ends up as Dernhelm, she rides to the Pelennor.

Boromir is the one responsible for the Osgiliath retreat, and because it’s heavily implied that Faramir only keeps his seat because he’s got this dumbass Númenor garbage going on ('master of man and beast' — king Beregond), Boromir’s going to get killed by the Witch king here.

This is going to send shockwaves through not just Denethor, but Minas Tirith more generally, because Boromir is fucking adored. Denethor’s going to go high holy crackers much quicker, mostly because Gandalf is a shit stirrer and is going to waste no time at all in announcing that Aragorn, The Rightful King, is on his way, and Denethor will — correctly — surmise that Faramir has chosen Aragorn over returning with whatever Isildur’s Bane is to Gondor. This is the end for Denethor.

Éowyn rides from Dunharrow, slays the Witch king. Faramir and Aragorn show up with the Army of Dead, Faramir does not end up injured, but does end up as the Steward (obviously) and (obviously) aware that Éowyn is in the HOH. And also that everybody else he loves is dead. Yeehaw.

Here’s where I think things get really interesting. I think, counter to the way this is portrayed a lot of the time, Faramir doesn’t go to the Black Gate at all. I think he stays in Minas Tirith, not just to organise the wider range defences (esp the Rohirrim dealing w the Druadan) but in this very grim preparation to lead the retreat from Minas Tirith if/when Frodo & Sam fail. I think he's kind of fine with this for two reasons. The first is that him being conscious to process the death of his father, and it coming hours after the death of his brother means that he's going to have a personal-political crisis, and he's going to have to take the defence of Gondor more seriously than he did before. Second, Aragorn's going to tell him to fucking stay put, and he's going to be fine with it because it means he's going to get to spend the last few days of his life with Éowyn.

He and Éowyn reunite in the HOH, there’s still a lot of deeply emotional stuff going on, but, at least now Faramir’s conscience is clear re: marrying her because, well, he’s the Steward now. Also their reunion is going to take on greater significance because she’ll have killed the thing that killed his brother. So, that’s a lot.

If they are not a thing before the Pelennor, she's still going to drag his ass over to the HOH so she can bitch about being stuck there. But this time he's not a fellow hospital-prisoner, he's having to actually do things, and he's going to use that to his advantage in terms of keeping her from doing stupid shit. I think he's going to try to involve her in some of the strategic questions re: the retreat if the Morannon feint fails. I think he's going to make a point of talking to her to get her help on dealing with the Rohir forces that are in and around the City. I think that's going to go a huge way to helping to ease her misery, and it's going to be such a significant vote of trust in her (even after she's done the unthinkable and deserted her people) that she's going to fall in love with him here, as per. And the contrast between him and Aragorn is going to be all the stronger for it.

So yes. Those are just some of the possibilities I think! Sorry for the word dump!!

[qqueenofhades]

How was yellow journalism at the turn of the 19th century different then the fake news and media insanity we see today? Do you know? It seems like this has been going on for a really long time.

And you would be correct, because this has in fact been going on for a very long time (indeed, much further back than the 19th century) and is essentially the basic practice of history: figuring out how to understand, vet, classify, believe, and treat the stories that humans tell about themselves. Or as that musical that came out the other day put it: “you have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” We’re all just telling stories about things constantly, and we all want people to believe our story and treat it as the best version. Some of these stories are more fictional (and more harmful) than others, but it’s been going on for as long as there have been people.

(Or: “A Brief History of Fake News” follows below. If it doesn’t make sense, blame the fact that I had to rewrite half of it after Tumblr ate it.)

Globalization and the 24-hour news media has made it possible for “fake news” narratives to become transnational: in other words, no matter where you are in the world or what country you’re originally from, you can use some of the same content, techniques, arguments, or beliefs. For example, coronavirus deniers, no matter where they are in the world, can use the same stable of arguments: it’s fake, it’s a Chinese lab conspiracy, it’s a political stunt, it’s not that bad, you shouldn’t wear a mask, etc. They are drawing from the same essential pool of content and replicating the same themes in their particular contexts. Obviously, everyone has instant access to these narratives now and we are seeing the large-scale and damaging effects, because they can be amplified to a degree unheard-of in human history thanks to social media, TV, phones, etc, but also: it’s what humans have been doing since, well, forever.

A caveat I often have to give undergraduate students, when introducing them to medieval chronicle sources, is that they’re subjective -- that is, they’re more interested in promoting one individual, kingdom, religious viewpoint, version of events, etc, rather than aiming for an inclusive and “real” version of how things went by taking into account the experiences and arguments of all sides. This is obviously disingenuous, because it suggests that modern historians don’t do this, that they just objectively report “real facts” and there is no human bias or agenda at work in producing the result. This reflects the influence of Leopold von Ranke, a 19th-century German historian who is often viewed as the founder of the modern critical source-based historiographical method. He was a proponent of the idea that historians had to “describe the past as it actually happened,” i.e. they had to select the correct facts and build an objective narrative so that people could discover the One True Version of reality. Of course, you may realize that you.... can’t actually do that.

Historians still have to select which facts they report, how a “fact” is constructed to start with, what methodology they use, what conclusions they draw, what they focus on, what moral lessons or overall takeaways they present for their audience, etc. This reflects the 19th century’s effort to make history similar to hard science: they liked the idea that there was one single methodology that would reveal an empirically provable single ideal, that there was no human agency or bias that would influence this narrative, and the facts would magically assemble themselves into one central version that everyone would agree upon. Except this still isn’t and has never been the way it works. Historians, as human agents, mediate and manage and influence the facts they use and the conclusions they draw from sources, and it’s our job to figure out which ones are more valid and which ones are not. It’s a system of collective memory, and as I’ve said before, that collective memory is always particularly susceptible to what people (especially the rich and powerful people, who install the version of history that the rest of us learn) want to remember. This rarely includes their flaws, or things that show them to be wrong, or any challenge to their status.

Prior to the invention of film/TV/audiovisual methods in the 19th century (and since they didn’t become commercial or widespread until the 20th), everything we know about human history before that, we know because someone wrote it down. In the Western tradition, the ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides are often viewed as the “fathers” of history, because they deliberately assembled a curation of (allegedly) empirical facts in a constructed narrative with a self-stated historiographical purpose. They also make use of what, in fancy academic-speak, we might call the “topos of authority.” Every single historian has been aware that they have to provide some way for their reader to independently verify their content, or decide to believe what they’re saying against a competing version. In the olden days, they often did this by self-certifying: “I swear that everything I write here is true/I heard only from wise and trustworthy people/I spoke to an eyewitness of these events/I read a book by such-and-such authority.” But just because they SAY these things doesn’t mean they’re true, and no modern historian can take this at face value: they can’t just say, “well, my source said they were telling the truth, so that’s good enough for me.” They have to supplant with other accounts, they have to perform textual criticism and close reading, they have to find other pieces of evidence to compare. Because in a sense, all of history might be fake news. We just have to figure out which parts those are, and sometimes that’s not even the point, because it’s impossible.

For example: take the sixth-century Byzantine court historian Procopius, who wrote about the reigns of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian (r. 527-65) and Empress Theodora (r. 527-48). All of his official accounts of them are largely positive and flattering. But Procopius is probably best known for a work called the Secret History, where he rips into them as horrible awful people, relates lurid sexual scandals (especially about Theodora), dishes on all the bad things they did behind the scenes, so on and etc. This means that historians have been arguing ever since about which versions of Justinian and Theodora -- indeed, Procopius’s own versions of them -- we’re supposed to believe. If you want to read the Secret History, which you can do at the link above and which you should because it has amusing chapter titles like “Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form” and “How Justinian Killed a Trillion People,” you’ll come across this unrelentingly negative depiction of them, and... what? Is this a (somewhat) accurate account of the darker side of Justinian and Theodora’s bad behavior, written by an embittered Procopius after he fell out of royal favor? Is it just a total hatchet job? Was it written purely in case there was a palace coup, so Procopius could hand it to the new emperor and be like “see, I totally didn’t like those losers either, you can rely on me” and didn’t represent his actual views on the imperial couple at all? You can  already see the problem if the idea is, a la von Ranke, to prove “what really happened.” Almost nobody treats the Secret History as a straightforward factual document, but they also disagree about how truthful it is, why, for what reasons, and whether it is, in fact, even a History per se.

To return (belatedly) to the idea of newspapers and yellow journalism particularly. I would say that there was no more significant event in all of human history (well, maybe a few, but not many) than the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century. It instantly and permanently transformed the way humans acquired, stored, recalled, and learned knowledge, and it lasted (and is still lasting) even in the face of smartphones and internet. Once books were no longer rare, labor-intensive, and expensive, their use exploded, it became standard practice to publish your research (by the sixteenth century, this was already happening), to learn from a book, to use other books in constructing your knowledge, and thus to encounter these narratives. The other architecture of a culture of public and general literacy developed along with it, until it was the primary medium in which all people, not just the rich and educated, learned about things. Newspapers and books and pamphlets and other printed material intensely drove the revolutions of the eighteenth century, both in America and in Europe. And obviously, these weren’t trying to tell “both sides of the story.” It became standard practice to publish your manifestos, your papers, your essays and arguments, all your supporting documents, and you were trying to convince people to your side for concrete political reasons.

So by the time you get to the 19th century, you’ve had literal CENTURIES of people deciding what they want to believe, what’s beneficial for them to believe, their viewpoint on the world, etc. Except as we discussed above re: our friend Leopold von Ranke, the 19th century develops the idea of “scientific objectivity.” Of course, in the social sciences, this often gets applied (pause for sighing) to support the idea that there is a real racial hierarchy, that western European white men are the best not because they said so, but because it’s science, it’s provable, it’s not just an opinion, It Is Trufax. Newspapers, books, and other printed material are widely available to everyone, and the 19th century is making claims to universal truth that can be discovered and applied in all disciplines, but which is just a continuation of the same subjective storytelling as before, now elevated to the status of Unimpeachable Truth. Yellow journalism isn’t really that different from what humans have always done in crafting a narrative that supports their purposes and the story they want to tell (or that they think will sell papers, because people have an endless appetite for secrets, scandals, and drama, especially if they think there is a conspiracy, real or fake, to hide it from them). They just have different tools for doing it. Of course in the 21st century, we now have journalistic ethics and a set of standards and codes of conduct for how you’re supposed to write these things, and we have respected publications that do all that, but we also still have tabloid media, when the relationship with the facts is... tenuous, at best. These institutions and tendencies never go away. They just evolve.

I realize that this was a long and rather dull ramble about the origins of historiography, but the point is this: “fake news” is literally as old as humanity and history itself, and humans have always been predisposed to select and believe the narrative that personally benefits them, fits with their ideology, makes sense of events in the way they feel is most compelling, and so on. It’s just now in the hyperconnected 21st century, “fake news” can go instantly around the globe and be exposed to anyone with an internet connection. This is not helped, as I talked about in my “death of expertise” ask, by a public forum where everybody’s contributions supposedly have to be treated “equally,” in the name of “fairness,” no matter whether someone knows anything about the topic or not. So the impact of this tendency to believe whatever the hell anyone wants has been magnified far past what has ever been the case in history before, because no matter what someone wrote or believed in the pre-internet era, they didn’t have the multi-million-exponential ability to reach absolutely everybody at once. Even print books have to be printed, circulated, purchased, read, etc, and that takes time and money, rather than just instantly having it appear on your smartphone. And we are obviously seeing the real-world consequences of that as a result.

[mathematicianadda]

Mathematical play with young children

I was recently asked for my advice for encouraging maths play with a young child. I should start by saying I’m not qualified to talk about this with authority – I teach mathematics, but to undergraduates. The closest thing I have to relevant experience is playing with my son who is nearly 5, so I can share a little about that.

So how do we encourage mathematical play with my son? I don’t mean to get all philosophical, but what is maths really? Many people think maths is numbers and counting, which is true of course. Maths is built on arithmetic like literature is built on spelling and handwriting, so it’s important but not the whole picture. Maths is also patterns and shapes, structure and order, classifying objects and their properties, … and it can be very playful.

Through nursery and his start at school, I’ve never been concerned with teaching my son things he will later learn at school, because he’s a bright boy and already knowing what the teachers are covering is a recipe for switching off his love of learning and making him misbehave in class. But I think there is a lot that can be done to strengthen his deep understanding in ways that won’t interfere when he comes to learn times tables, or whatever. (There are some caveats here: I’m not totally sure what is on the National Curriculum, and he sometimes plays his own way into curricular topics, as we’ll see with multiplication later.)

I have never done anything very structured. Mostly we played, often following his lead, somewhat inspired by things I’d seen on the #tmwyk hashtag on Twitter. Here I’ll waffle through a few suggestions.

First and foremost: watch Numberblocks on CBeebies. We weren’t big on TV or screens when he was young, and still aren’t really, but Numberblocks is amazing. You must start with episode 1, which introduces number 1, and go from there. Episodes are only 5 minutes long. It quickly introduces numbers 2-5 and then has adventures with them, then 6-10, and so on. It taught him loads about numbers and also gave him a context to understand arithmetic operations. Later episodes gave him a serious interest in big numbers. I suggest you don’t rush through, rewatch earlier episodes if needed before moving on, and definitely watch together and try to talk about the ideas. Look for the numbers around the house. When an episode introduces 3, ask how many groups of 3 things you can find around the house, etc.

I think the best thing we did for him was buy a set of 100 Mathlink Cubes. These are coloured cubes which join together. He used to spend a lot of time playing with these on his own and with us, making the Numberblocks characters and taking them on adventures, counting them, making colour patterns with them, making shapes with them. Then Katie Steckles kindly bought us Kyle D. Evans’ book Here Come The Numbers, which goes into how to arrange numbers in squares and rectangles, and raises the issue of numbers that can’t be arranged like this, even naming these primes. This gave him a really effective way to understand how numbers work. I think it’s good he has developed his own understanding of how blocks can be arranged into squares and rectangles, even if he doesn’t know he’s multiplying. It also gave him marvellous insight into spacial awareness and symmetry by building shapes, copying shapes I’d built, etc. He still uses the blocks, mostly to build space ships for his other toys to have adventures in – always with a lovely pattern of colours and a symmetric shape. He also plays with magnetic tiles, pattern blocks and Cuisenaire rods, but the Mathlink cubes came first.

There’s a concept called number sense, which is an understanding of how numbers work, their order, magnitude, etc. which can be helped by counting objects, asking which pile of objects has more in it, counting things in groups, etc. Sometimes we’d count number blocks, or match other objects to number blocks, or just count objects directly. How many socks does he have? How many teddies are coming to the tea party? etc.

It’s good to practice counting by chanting numbers in order, using books (although books always stop at 10 and I’d always count to 12 because time uses 12 and I don’t want him to have an uncertainty about 11 and 12) or counting objects, and trying to learn that you tap the objects as you count them in 1-to-1 correspondence. He could tell the time to the nearest hour from an analogue clock when he was 2 by recognising which numbers the little hand was between. He went through a period where he loved doing dot-to-dot puzzles, which are about joining the numbered dots in the right numerical order. At one point nursery were keen that he learns he can count abstract things that aren’t physical objects as well, so we used to count processes. How many parts are there to the morning routine (brush teeth, wash face, put clothes on, …)? How many stages are there to cross the road (hold hands, stand at the edge, look one way, …)?

But while you’re counting, you can also talk about the properties of objects and the patterns they form. We have made ‘object graphs‘, which is where you classify things according to some attribute you decide on together and group the objects accordingly. For example, I grabbed a couple of handfuls of Lego and we arranged it by colour (so x axis colour, y axis frequency, though I didn’t use that language). This is exploring the properties of objects and classifying things. Then we counted each group to see which colour we had the most of. We’ve also done the same with different kinds of toys – Star Wars, dinosaurs, cars, etc. You can arrange the same objects using different classifications, which gets into how the same object can have multiple characteristics – this green dinosaur has two legs, but the other green dinosaur has four legs, etc. All this thinking about properties of objects is very mathematical. We used to play I-spy long before he could read by e.g. “I spy with my little eye something that’s red/round/tall/etc.” Again, classifying properties of objects. Just recently, we’ve played with #vehiclechat, which proved to be good fun thinking about definitions and classifications.

There’s a good pair of books called How Many? and Which One Doesn’t Belong? The latter in particular is amazing. The idea is that there are four objects and each has a plausible reason why it could be the odd one out, so there is no wrong answer but it’s just about talking properties and justifying your answer. My son really enjoys coming up with a reason for each of the four objects in a Which One Doesn’t Belong? Recently he has started making his own Which One Doesn’t Belong? puzzles from pattern blocks.

My son made these and asks “which one doesn’t belong? And how many times can you turn them?” He has some pretty strong ideas about what you’re likely to say! #wodb #patternblocks pic.twitter.com/37mQ4wbwG7

— Peter Rowlett (@peterrowlett) May 3, 2020

Apart from this, I am quite serious about maths being interlinked with other areas, especially at this age. We explored patterns by reading poems or story books and talking about words that rhyme, and making up nonsense words that rhyme with real words, etc. He asked what it is called when two words rhyme at the start, so he became a little boy with a good sense of alliteration. We’d play games on the walk to nursery where we’d take turns to say a word and the other would have to say a word that rhymed or alliterated with it. One day I told him about palindromes and he became obsessed, spotting them, inventing nonsense palindrome words, etc. This playing with language is good for his language, of course, but also it’s about patterns and properties, so it’s building that good foundation on which maths can grow.

This is just some rambly thoughts, but I hope it was interesting and helpful.

from The Aperiodical https://ift.tt/3bfFT9O from Blogger https://ift.tt/2zjv7Sx

[nerdygaymormon]

Homophobias warning: I had a friend who was confused when I told her that a lot of gay people usually felt the spirit telling them they can date or like the same gender. She just said that it was contradictory to the church and was probably just Satan. I didnt really know what to say so I just left it at that. Do you or anyone have any suggestion on how to respond to this type of comment?

To understand where she’s coming from, the Church teaches that members can receive revelation, but with these 3 caveats:

You have to be living worthily

Inspiration is restricted to your personal life & family matters, or to your calling in Church, or to confirm Church teachings & leaders.

No one will receive inspiration that contradicts Church teachings & policies

If someone is getting answers that conflict with the Church, then they must be unworthy. That unworthiness means either they’re being inspired by the Devil or they’re just confusing their own feelings to want to sin.

————————————————————— 

I disagree with this teaching that there’s no variance. This implies that the Church and its leaders are never wrong. And yet we have a recent example.

In November 2015 a new policy was inserted into the handbook of instructions used by local leaders. This policy came to be known as the Policy of Exclusion (POX) because it required same-sex couples to be disciplined and cut off their children from the Church.

It was interesting to see many members say that this didn’t feel right to them. Then Elder Christofferson came forward to say that it is a new policy approved by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Most members immediately fell in line.

Except it wasn’t accepted by most LGBTQ+ members, nor many of their family & friends. They felt certain this was wrong.

After President Monson died, President Nelson became head of the Church and declared the POX to be a revelation.  

In less than 5 years, this policy/revelation was completely reversed.

Could it be that those who voiced their opposition to the policy had been correct? I don’t think the Church leaders will ever officially say they were wrong and the dissenters to this policy were correct. However, that’s how it looks to me.

————————————————————— 

And here’s the thing, the Church has been wrong on LGBTQ+ topics time and time again.

When I was growing up, the Church was teaching that people experienced gay feelings because they were molested or they didn’t have enough faith or even because of masturbation. A person could be excommunicated for saying they are gay. 

Science proved that homosexuality is part of a person’s biology. It has nothing to do with masturbation, being molested and a person can’t change their sexual orientation by desire or faith. Now the Church says it has no position on the cause of same-sex attraction, and it’s okay for people to use the labels lesbian, bi or gay to identify themselves.

________   

This reminds me of African-Americans who had a very strong belief & confirmation that the Church’s racist policies were wrong. They should not be excluded from holding the priesthood and getting temple blessings.

The Church now has an essay that says it was wrong. Church leaders of the past were blinded by the racism of the time.

—————————————————————

The General Authorities teach general principles in General Conference, but when it comes to my individual life, not always do general principles work. God can clarify those teachings for me, or even modify them or give me other answers. Even if the Church isn’t ready for the answer, God can give me specific answers because they directly impact my life.

In answering a question about divorce in Matthew 19, Jesus declared the general doctrine is that a man get a wife and be one, never to be torn apart.

But then Jesus gave an exception. a man can divorce his wife if she commits adultery.

Then Jesus gave another exception, said it was going to be hard for people to accept this answer, but there are certain men who are exempt from having to marry a woman. 

The general principle and doctrine applies to most people. But when it comes to application, there are some adjustments that had to be made.

________   

I have had a very powerful experience that God loves me and my orientation. In the temple I’ve received revelation that it’s okay for me to seek a relationship with a man.

Your friend would say I’m inspired by the Devil or I’m just wanting to sin.

However, these experiences, thoughts and inspiration have all been accompanied by feelings of the Spirit.  

“Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” (D&C 6:23.)

A feeling of peace & calm is the most common ways the Spirit confirms things. Sometimes it just seems that things become very clear in my mind. Other times it’s a strong feeling of love.

Only later when wondering if I’m sure about this, am I just fooling myself into getting an answer I was hoping for, that’s when I will I feel unsure. This is a spiritual sign that I’m wrong about these doubts

When I again receive the same inspiration, there is no doubt at those times, and the feelings of the Spirit are clear.

————————————————————— 

Derek Knox on the Beyond the Block podcast had a useful analogy about revelation. (episode 43):

So you’’ve got sort of three approaches to a window.

You’ve got the fundamentalist. You’ve got the skepticist, or the skeptic. And then the realist. Okay. And all, there are three approaches to how revelation works.

Now, fundamentalists think of it very naively. They think of it, of revelation as looking out a window and the window is perfectly clear and as long as it’s sunny and as long as you’re looking out the window, you can see exactly the way things are. And that’s how our prophets and apostles work. They can just look out and seek clearly into the mind of God. Whatever’s there is there, there’s no filter. There’s no processing. It’s a beautiful, clear, clean window that they can look out. That’s the sort of naive approach.

Then the skeptic’s approach is that the window is actually a mirror and all you see is a reflection of yourself, your own biases, your own prejudices. There’s no actual revelation. Skeptics don’t think that revelation is real. They think it’s all just a repackaging of your own ideas in your own self, and, and that’s what it is. There’s no window. There's no truth out there. There’s just a mirror.

And then the third approach is the realist approach to say, yes, there’s a window. And there is something real on the other side, revelation, is real. But that window can be a little bit warped. It can be a little bit dirty, it can be a little bit obscure in some places. And you can see your reflection in the window. Not only can you see through the window. But you can also see your reflection in the window and you have to be careful to separate those and keep them apart.

I think that is the most realistic approach to revelation in our church. If you look at every revelation in the history of our scriptures, it’s going to be light from God filtered through a human with limitations and liabilities and a particular language at a particular time and place, and you’re going to get some of their human fingerprints, even if it’s just the style of the vocabulary.

Derek goes on to explain this is why we need a variety of people with different experiences looking out the window  together. We each will have our biases and weaknesses, but the parts we can all view is the part that’s most likely the actual view through the window free from our self reflection.

[rhosyn-du]

Title: A Wonderful Institution Artist: @bidnezz​​ Pairings: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, various background pairings Word Count: ~53k Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, discrimination against Downworlders, reference to rape, Clave-typical homophobia, implied character death, minor character death Summary: Magnus doesn’t have time for this bullshit. Warlocks are disappearing in New York City—five people in less than three months—and Magnus is determined to find them and protect the rest of his people from whatever took them. He doesn’t have time for politics, and he certainly doesn’t have time for whatever nonsense the Clave is proposing about marrying a Shadowhunter to a Downworlder as part of the new Accords. He doesn’t really have time for a pretty Shadowhunter who’s surprisingly kind to warlock children, either, but, well, he’s always been good at multitasking.

Alec always knew he couldn’t have what he wanted, but he’s spent the nearly four years since the newly-appointed Consul recalled his parents to Idris without explanation making the best of what he can have. When life suddenly offers up almost everything Alec actually wants on a silver platter, he can’t quite bring himself to trust it, especially when it comes with a million caveats and a side of impending disaster. But he knows how to handle disasters, even if the return of the Circle on top of Clave secrets that could destroy the Accords is way beyond the disasters he’s used to fielding. Hope, on the other hand? He doesn’t know what to do with that.

This fic was created for the @malecdiscordserver​​ Mini Bang 2020.

Chapter Two

There were too many Shadowhunters in Magnus’s loft. It had probably been a mistake to invite Alec in the first place, but Magnus had let his judgment be swayed by a pretty face and a frightened child, and now he was stuck with the man’s sister and parabatai, too.

Magnus thought that perhaps, had they met under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed Isabelle’s company. Jace, on the other hand, managed to perfectly embody the condescending arrogance that so annoyed Magnus about Shadowhunters.

“Help him up into a sitting position,” Magnus instructed. “It will help the potion go down easier.” He spared a reassuring smile for Madzie, who sat curled up in a chair with Mr. Flopsy, watching the proceedings with worried eyes that nonetheless kept blinking toward sleep.

Isabelle and Jace did as instructed, maneuvering an unconscious Alec from his sprawl across Magnus’s couch into something that resembled an upright position.

Magnus leaned over Alec’s head, where it lolled against the back of the couch, hand resting against Alec’s cheek to hold him steady.

“Alexander,” he said softly. “if you can hear me, I need you to swallow the potion I’m going to give you.”

There was no response. Magnus hadn’t really expected one, but thought it was worth saying in case some part of Alec’s unconscious mind heard him.

Slowly, Magnus poured the potion into Alec’s open mouth, stroking a hand down Alec’s neck to encourage swallowing. He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the movement of Alec’s throat beneath his fingers.

“He should be awake in a few minutes,” Magnus said.

“Thank you,” Isabelle said with an air of genuine gratitude that Magnus had rarely heard from a Shadowhunter.

“It was no problem, my dear,” Magnus said, and was surprised to realize he meant it.

As soon as Alec woke, the Shadowhunters would be out of his hair, and he could deal with every other disaster the evening had presented him with. Like the mundane woman and infant warlock currently asleep in his guest room, under Catarina’s watchful eye.

As if his thoughts had summoned her, Catarina stepped out of the guest room, closing the door softly behind her. She motioned to Magnus, who joined her in the corner of the room. As he’d suspected would happen, Madzie had fallen asleep in her chair.

“The mundane is under a whole tangle of memory spells,” Catarina said quietly. “Too many for me to untangle in one evening, and honestly, after hearing the little she did remember, I don’t know if it would be good for her to remember the rest of it.”

“That bad?” Magnus asked, frowning.

“I can’t be entirely sure, but I think…” Catarina let out a tired breath. “I think Iris has been luring or kidnapping mundane women and forcing them to bear warlock children.”

Magnus took a deep breath to rein in the fury that suddenly flared through him. Deal with the practicalities first.

“Does she remember if there were other mundane women living at the house?”

Catarina shook her head. “One of the few things Leigh is very clear on is that she and Iris were the only ones caring for the children. And she remembers that she’s Noah’s mother, although thankfully for her sanity, she doesn’t remember anything about how she came to be pregnant.”

“Lucky for her, certainly,” Magnus said, “but that leaves us not knowing where Iris was getting the demons.”

“Actually,” Catarina said, “she also mentioned something about the basement of the house being dangerous. It could be nothing, but…”

“But it could be that Iris was keeping a captive demon in the basement for her disgusting breeding program,” Magnus finished for her.

“We can go check it out after your guests leave and we get Madzie into an actual bed,” Catarina offered.

“I have a better idea,” Magnus said, glancing over his shoulder to where Jace and Isabelle were conferring quietly on the couch beside a still-unconscious Alec. “Shadowhunter!”

“Warlock,” Jace responded, sounding bored, but he and Isabelle rose to join Magnus and Catarina.

Magnus rolled his eyes. “I have reason to believe a missing warlock might have been keeping one or more demons captive in her basement. I thought perhaps you might want to look into it, since dealing with demons is kind of your whole,” he waved a hand, “Shadowhunter thing.”

Jace and Isabelle exchanged a quick look, then Isabelle said, “We will look into it. If you give me the address, I’ll make sure someone checks it out.”

“While you’re at it,” Alec muttered from the couch, eyes blinking open, “could you look into being a little less loud?”

Isabelle was the first to reach his side, with Jace close behind. Magnus took his time joining them.

“You had us worried for a minute there, big brother,” Isabelle said.

“How are you feeling?” Jace asked, and the concern was so evident in his tone that Magnus could almost forgive him for being such a complete pain in his ass. Almost.

“Headache,” Alec answered. “No serious damage except maybe my pride. Did I really get taken down by a Ravener demon?”

“You did,” Magnus answered, “but given that there were at least two dozen of them, I think your pride will recover.”

Alec looked up at him then, and Magnus was caught once again in those startling hazel eyes. He wondered how it was possible for a man he’d only just met to have such an effect on him.

“Thank you,” Alec said. “For healing me. You didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense,” Magnus said. “If I’d been faster, you might not have been hurt in the first place. Although,” he added with a flirtatious smile, “if you really wanted to thank me, you could buy me a drink sometime.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Magnus saw Isabelle cover a smile with her hand and decided that, yes, she could also have an exemption to his one Shadowhunter in the loft is too many rule.

“Uh,” Alec said, looking bemused, “you can bill the Institute for your time. How long was I out?”

“About fifteen minutes,” Jace told him.

“And the demons?”

“All of the trails converged on the alley where we found you,” Isabelle said. “We got there just in time for your dramatic collapse,” she added, grinning.

Alec winced. “Ouch. Wounded pride, remember?”

“I suspect the demons were tracking Madzie,” Magnus said. “I followed their trail from the house where she was staying with several other warlocks. It’s not the first attack of this kind I’ve seen in recent months, although it is the largest.”

“This got something to do with the missing warlock you mentioned?” Alec wanted to know.

Magnus nodded. “One of several, I’m afraid.” Although he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel too bad that Iris had been taken, not if Catarina’s suspicions proved true.

“And this has been going on for months.” It wasn’t a question. Alec looked at Jace. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it too,” Jace answered, shaking his head.

“We haven’t exactly been advertising the disappearances,” Magnus said. “And to be honest, I don’t think anyone expected Shadowhunters to care about a few missing warlocks.”

“Well, I do,” Alec said, annoyance clear in his voice. “We do.” He sighed, running a hand over his face. “We should get back to the Institute,” he said, standing. “Thank you, again. For healing me, and for having my back.”

“It was my pleasure, Alexander,” Magnus answered. “It is, tragically, not every day I have handsome men swooning in my arms.”

Magnus thought he caught the tiniest hint of a smile as Alec rose from the couch.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything about those missing warlocks,” Alec promised.

“Please contact me if you do,” Magnus told him. “Or if there’s anything else you think we might be able to help each other out with.”

Magnus saw the Shadowhunters out, then returned to the living room, where Catarina was watching him with amusement.

“Oh, he’s too pretty not to flirt with and you know it,” Magnus told her.

“I said nothing,” she said, shaking her head but still smiling.

Magnus flopped theatrically onto his finally empty couch and closed his eyes. He thought perhaps one was the right number of Shadowhunters to have in his loft, so long as it was the right one.

Alec managed to get a full five hours of sleep before a pounding on his door woke him. He’d meant to go straight to bed when they’d returned to the Institute, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him, and instead he’d spent nearly an hour reading everything in the Clave database about Magnus Bane, and then another two lying awake in the dark, trying to reconcile any of it with the man who’d fought at his side and saved him from demon venom. Who’d caught him when he fell.

Before Alec could shake the cobwebs of dream and the vague impression of kohl-rimmed eyes from his mind and answer, his sister was opening the door and barging right in.

“Come right in, Iz,” Alec muttered into his pillow.

“Sorry, hermano,” Izzy said, perching on the side of his bed, “but I thought you’d want to know that Mom’s here.”

That woke him right up.

“Did she say why she’s here?”

Izzy shook her head. “Just that she wanted to see you when you were up. She said she’d be in her office.”

Her office. Of course. Never mind that his parents had been in Idris for most of the past four years, or that neither of them had even set foot in the New York Institute in over six months, they were still technically Heads of the Institute. Alec just hoped she didn’t move anything important on his desk. Her desk. Fuck.

Alec tried not to be bitter about it, he really did, but some days it was harder than others, and today was apparently one of those days.

“Thanks for letting me know. Can you tell her I’ll be there in twenty minutes?”

“Can do, big brother.” She leaned in to give him a hug. “I’ll be training if you need a sparring partner to blow off some steam with after.”

It took exactly ten seconds in his mother’s presence for Alec to know he would most definitely want to hit things after this meeting. There was a brittle edge to her perfunctory smile that managed to convey all of the same disappointment evident in her recent letters while not quite hiding a bone-deep exhaustion. Not for the first time, Alec wondered what exactly his parents were doing in Idris.

“Mother,” Alec said, stepping into the office and falling instinctively into parade rest. “This is unexpected. If I’d known you were coming, I would have been awake to welcome you.”

“It was a last-minute decision,” Maryse answered. “I finished what I was working on earlier than expected, and Consul Penhallow suggested I come and ensure everything is set for next week’s negotiations.”

It made sense that the Clave would send someone to oversee preparations for the final round of negotiations over the revised Accords, since those negotiations were to be held at the New York Institute. It even made sense that the Clave would send Maryse, as one of the official Heads of Institute. But Alec couldn’t quite shake the suspicion that his mother was here for more personal reasons.

“I’m sure you’ll find everything in order,” Alec said. “Will Father be joining you?”

Maryse’s answering smile was tight. “Your father will be here in time for the negotiations. He still has some things to take care of in Idris.”

Her smile sharpened, and Alec knew he’d been right about why she was here.

“Besides,” she continued, “I thought you and I could take this opportunity to discuss your future, just the two of us.”

Alec shook his head, suddenly feeling as though he’d gotten no sleep at all. “There’s nothing to discuss. I volunteered, the Council chose me, end of discussion.”

“There’s still time to change your mind,” Maryse said with a carefully controlled calm. “The negotiations aren’t until next week. The Council will choose someone else, and the Downworlders will never know the difference. If you’d bothered to consult me about this in the first place, or even your father—”

“I consulted with Consul Penhallow,” Alec interrupted.

“Jia Penhallow doesn’t give a damn about what your decision means for this family,” Maryse snapped. “Or what it means for you.”

Alec looked away, choosing his words carefully. “What it means for this family is that the revised Accords—the ones that you support— will be signed, and they won’t be put in jeopardy by someone who resents marrying a Downworlder for political reasons. When the Clave first announced this marriage was going to be a part of the revised Accords, you and Dad are the ones who convinced me it was necessary. I’m doing what I can to make sure it goes smoothly.

“Besides,” he continued, finally meeting his mother’s eyes again, “you’re the one who suggested I start looking for a wife.”

“I meant you should find a Shadowhunter wife, Alec!” Maryse said, throwing up her hands. “Yes, the revised Accords are important, and yes, someone needs to do this, but that person doesn’t have to be you.”

Alec regarded his mother for a long moment. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked finally. “The Council thinks I’m the right person to do this, and so do I. If you have a reason for disagreeing that goes beyond distaste over the idea of your son marrying a Downworlder, then tell me what it is.”

For just an instant, Maryse seemed to hang on the precipice of speaking, but then her shoulders slumped, and she sighed. “I’m doing what’s best for our family, Alec.”

Alec knew his mother well enough to know that there was no point in asking again.

“So am I,” he said instead. “Is there anything else? I told Izzy I’d train with her this morning.”

Maryse shook her head. “We can discuss preparations for the negotiations when you’re feeling less recalcitrant.”

He found Izzy in the training room, practicing forms with a staff, right where she’d promised to be.

“That bad?” she asked, grabbing a second staff from the rack on the wall and tossing it to him. “Want to talk about it?”

“Nope,” he told her, feinting high, then moving to sweep her left leg.

Izzy danced out of the way, laughing. “Come on, Alec. If you’re not going to keep me up to date on family gossip, at least give me a decent fight.”

She moved toward him, throwing out three jabs in quick succession, all of which he blocked.

“Now who’s not giving a decent fight?” he taunted. “I was getting a better workout arguing with Mom.”

“You’re still recovering from last night,” she said, rolling the staff lazily across her shoulders as they circled each other. “I wouldn’t want to further damage your ego.”

“Cute,” Alec said before launching another attack, this time at Izzy’s midsection, which she blocked and rolled into her own attack.

They kept on like that for several minutes, attack and parry, back and forth, neither managing to land a blow. It was exactly what Alec needed to ease the frustration of his earlier meeting.

“Speaking of last night,” Izzy said just as Alec felt the last of the frustrated tension loose from his shoulders, “have you heard from Magnus?”

Alec felt a tiny frisson of…something deep in his belly at mention of the warlock. It distracted him enough that he didn’t quite block Izzy’s next attack, and his shoulder caught a glancing blow. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as Izzy’s smug grin.

“Why would I hear from Magnus?” Alec asked, rolling out his shoulder with an intentional casualness.

Izzy gave him a pointed look. “About the missing warlocks? You did promise to share information, remember?” Her grin widened as she bounced from foot to foot, looking for a hole in his defenses. “Or maybe he thinks you’d have a different answer for him if he asked you out without so many people around.”

“He didn’t— That’s not what that was,” Alec insisted. He could admit, at least to himself, that he’d been just a tiny bit flattered at Magnus’s flirting, but he wasn’t foolish enough to take it seriously.

And even if Magnus had been serious, it wouldn’t matter. Alec was getting married.

Izzy gave him her most disbelieving smirk, then added insult to injury by blocking his next attack seemingly without effort.

“Then maybe you should ask him out,” Izzy suggested. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to.”

“Izzy,” Alec said warningly, “drop it.”

“For now,” she agreed, once again darting out of range of his staff. “But don’t think this conversation is over, big brother.”

Alec was saved from answering by the arrival of a fire message. It was entirely Izzy’s fault that he let himself wonder, for those few seconds before he read it, if it might be from Magnus.

“Everything okay?” Izzy asked, lowering her staff.

“Yeah,” Alec said, frowning faintly. The message was from a warlock, just not the one he’d been hoping to hear from. “Yeah, I just gotta take care of something real quick.”

“Guess I’ll just have to kick your ass later then,” Izzy said with a shrug.

Alec decided that one wasn’t worth answering.

“Thank you again for coming,” Catarina said, leaning back against the park bench. A few feet away, Madzie was pushing Mr. Flopsy on the swing set. “She just wouldn’t believe you were really okay until she could see it for herself. And with Iris gone, she doesn’t have a whole lot of stability in her world right now.”

“I get it,” Alec said. Shadowhunters didn’t exactly tend to live long and full lives, and this wasn’t the first time he’d seen a kid who’d lost a parent figure panic over other people getting hurt. “And I don’t mind. If seeing me alive and well is what it takes to make Madzie feel safe again, that’s something I’m happy to do.”

“You’re her hero, you know,” Catarina told him. “You and Magnus. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does? It’s about how the two of you saved her. I think I’ve heard the story five times already this morning.”

“I don’t feel like much of a hero,” Alec said. “I was just doing my job.”

“Maybe,” Catarina said, watching him carefully, “but you do it a lot better than most Shadowhunters. At least where warlocks are concerned.”

Alec shrugged uncomfortably. This was not a conversation he wanted to have on a sunny morning in the park with a near-stranger.

“How are the others you rescued, the mother and baby?” he asked instead. Izzy had filled him in on the details he’d missed while he was unconscious.

“As well as they can be under the circumstances, Catarina answered. “Safe. It’s not as common that a warlock child and his mother need shelter as it is for a warlock child alone, but it’s common enough that we have safe places for them.”

“That’s—” Alec didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never really had reason to think about what life was like for warlock children, but it made sense they wouldn’t exactly have a stable home life with one mundane parent and one demon. “I’m glad they have somewhere to go.”

Alec’s phone beeped, the tone he used for alerts from the Institute, and he sighed. “Duty calls.”

Catarina gave him a tired smile. “It always does.”

At Madzie’s insistence, Alec gave Mr. Flopsy a hug before heading back to the Institute, and whatever his mother needed from him now.

For the second evening in a row, Magnus found himself with a splitting headache and in desperate need of a stiff drink. He’d spent the day speaking to Iris Rouse’s few friends in the hopes of finding something that might lead him to her or the missing children. Instead, he’d merely found that Iris’s friends were no more pleasant than the woman herself.

He was just about to open a portal back to his loft—and his plethora of whiskey—when he sensed the demonic energy. He was being followed. Very sloppily.

Instead of opening the portal, he crossed the street and headed east. If someone was stupid enough to send demons to follow him, he was damn well going to find out who and why.

The demons kept themselves well back as Magnus wove his way through crowded streets, and he began to think they were merely tracking his movements. Which was good, because he didn’t think there were more than three following him, and if these demons were sent to track him by the same person who sent the horde of Raveners after Madzie, Magnus would be very insulted that they’d sent fewer demons for him than for a six-year-old.

But if it was the same person, Magnus didn’t want these demons reporting back to the person who summoned them. Even though his investigation into the disappearance of Iris Rouse and the warlock children living with her had yielded basically nothing, he didn’t want to give the person who took them even that much information about what he did and did not know.

Decision made, he turned another corner, leading his pursuers toward an area likely to be a bit less crowded. Glamour could hide what he was doing from passersby but fighting demons in the middle of a crowded street in Midtown wasn’t exactly safe for innocent bystanders, even if it was going to be a very short fight.

It was another ten minutes before he found a short side street deserted enough Magnus wasn’t worried about some mundane accidentally stumbling into his fight. With an air of nonchalance, he stopped and pretended to examine a particularly large crack in the sidewalk.

As Magnus had hoped, the demons followed him onto the street, although they kept to the shadows. He’d been right: there were three of them. Shax demons, and almost certainly sent to spy on him. It took less than ten seconds to take them down, a blast of magic in the thorax of each.

“Well done,” came a voice from over his right shoulder.

“More like medium-rare,” Magnus said with a smirk as he spun around to face Alec. “You know, if I’d realized you were going to come dashing to my rescue, I would have left one of them for you.”

Alec raised his eyebrows in skepticism, but Magnus could see the hint of a smile underneath, and it was breathtaking. “You don’t really strike me as the type to need rescuing.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Magnus agreed. “But I wouldn’t want you to feel like I don’t appreciate the attempt.”

“That’s not— I mean, I wasn’t—” Alec blew out a long breath. “I was following up on a possible demon sighting, not trying to rescue you.”

“I suppose that’s a relief,” Magnus said, ignoring the slight twinge of disappointment that Alec was looking for demons and not for him. “It wouldn’t do for Shadowhunters to think the High Warlock of Brooklyn can’t take care of himself.”

Alec snorted. “I don’t think there’s any danger of that. ” Magnus quirked an intrigued eyebrow, and Alec hurried to add, “I just mean, the Clave’s file on you is pretty clear on your ability to take care of yourself.”

“I would question the accuracy of anything the Clave has to say about me,” Magnus said, “but I’m glad to hear they got one part right, at least.” And he was more than a little pleased that Alec had been reading up on him, even if his choice of source material was questionable.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alec said. “Do you know what those demons were after?”

“Following me,” Magnus told him. “I spent my day investigating the latest warlock disappearances, and I suspect the person responsible sent those Shax demons to follow me and report back on my activities. Not that I’ve had much luck in finding anything.”

“Are you sure you’re safe?” Alec asked with a frown. “If the person kidnapping warlocks is tracking you, you could be their next target.”

“I appreciate your concern, Alexander,” Magnus answered sincerely, “but I assure you I’ve taken plenty of precautions. As we just covered, I’m more than capable of handling myself in a fight, and my loft is quite well warded.”

Alec’s frown lessened, but didn’t disappear entirely, and Magnus couldn’t help but be touched by his concern. “And is that where you’re headed now? Back to your loft?”

Magnus nodded. “I was thinking I could use a drink after the day I’ve had.” He paused, debating internally, then added, “Would you care to join me?”

Emotions flickered across Alec’s face like frames in an old-time film: surprise followed by delight, which was quickly doused by regret.

“Magnus, I wish— I just—”

Magnus held up a finger to silence him. “I understand.”

And he did, much as he wished he didn’t. Shadowhunters weren’t exactly accepting of same-sex relationships, nor relationships between Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Whatever attraction there might be between the two of them, Alec was obviously unwilling to pursue it. Maybe even unwilling to acknowledge it. Really, it was what Magnus should have expected, and he hated that he’d let some small part of himself hope.

Alec huffed out a frustrated breath. “You don’t,” he said, but offered no further explanation.

“Well,” Magnus said, letting his own regret show through a tiny smile, “it was a nice thought. Goodnight, Alexander.”

He couldn’t be certain, but he thought he heard a faint “goodnight,” follow him through the portal back to his loft.