#stay tuned for more of whatever this metaphor is and also. the pictures
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stand and deliverrrrrrr
#em draws stuff#rls kidnapped#alan breck stewart#something something dandy highwayman. 'alan breck stewart in adam ant's outfits' has been in the to-do list for a WHILE#also hey look! headlines everywhere report that estranged partners em cupola and The Concept of Lineart have reunited#stay tuned for more of whatever this metaphor is and also. the pictures#I intended to research era-appropriate rude gestures and then I got sidetracked staring at adam ant and coveting his gender :/
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what was supposed to be a teeny tiny drabble (it’s not)
Ok so I was writing Karma’s confrontation with his mother and then THIS scene popped into my head. It doesn’t fit at all in the chapter (it’s supposed to be about Karma and his mom duh) but I really really wanted to write it anyway so I figured I would write the little scene and post it here but THEN it turned into this 2k word monstrosity that was SUPPOSED to be a SMALL SCENE but it decided it was going to make me stay up until 2 AM WRITING IT and it just wouldn’t LEAVE ME ALONE. So yeah I’m kinda sleep deprived and this has only been very lightly proofread and hasn’t gone through nearly as much fine-tuning as I normally put my writing through but it is currently 2:37 AM and I am satisfied with it for now so HERE HAVE THIS SCRAP I HOPE YOU LIKE IT
(also this is set the night Korosensei died. If I’m remembering canon right they killed Korosensei then, like, hid up in their classroom until leaving for graduation? Which is so messed up on so many levels like why did they go straight from a very traumatic event to their graduation without even seeing their families or SLEEPING???? So I hereby declare that, with the whole crisis thing, Kunugigaoka postponed the graduation ceremony and after they killed Korosensei Class E was taken to that government station place I vaguely remember they were taken to in canon and their parents were called to pick them up.)
Karma is curled up in a stiff plastic chair, knees pulled up to his chest, a shock blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and his cellphone clutched between his fingers, when his father finds him. Gakuhou doesn’t say anything. He sits beside Karma in his own stiff plastic chair and watches him, not saying a word.
Karma swallows around the lump that’s been lodged in his throat since Korosensei died. “You don’t have to stay with me,” he says, his voice hoarse from the aforementioned lump. He hasn’t spoken since the mountaintop. That’s why the police wrapped him in the shock blanket. “Mom is on her way.”
“Okay,” his father says, but he doesn’t move.
Karma is too tired to dredge up the familiar anger. He’s too tired for anything. He thinks he’ll be this tired forever - the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that reaches to the soul and weighs his whole body down. He traces a finger across the edge of his phone.
“They’re going to get rid of you,” he says. He doesn’t sound happy, or vindictive, or smug - just very matter-of-fact. “The parents will be out for blood, and they can’t go after the government. You make a very nice scapegoat.”
His father gives a soft exhale that could, charitably, be called a laugh. “Yes,” he agrees. “My days at Kunugigaoka are over. Does that make you happy?” he asks, only mildly curious.
Karma taps a finger against his phone, considering. “If I was a nice person,” he says, slowly, “I would say no.”
Gakuhou does laugh at that. “You’re my son,” he says. “You were never going to be a nice person.”
Karma glares from the corner of his eye, but doesn’t contest it. “It serves you right,” he decides. “After all the crap you pulled in this school, you deserve to be kicked out on your ass.”
Gakuhou nods. “A fair assessment.”
They sit in silence, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. Karma’s phone buzzes with a text from his mother, telling him they’re fifteen minutes away but traffic might delay them. Karma wonders what kind of traffic could possibly exist at this hour, then realizes the traffic that occurs after major, life-altering events. He sends back a thumbs up emoji. His hands, unoccupied once more, begin to tap a staccato beat against the back of his cell.
His father remains absolutely still in his chair, no signs of nervous movement or absentminded tics. Clearly, Karma’s restless nature was not inherited from him. He seems content to sit with Karma in silence, but Karma, suddenly, is not.
“Why are you here?” he blurts out, with zero forethought.
Gakuhou tilts his head. “Do you want me to leave?”
“That’s not an answer.”
His father huffs a quiet laugh, nodding his acknowledgement. “I saw the news,” he says after a long stretch of silence. “The reporter was talking about some monster in Kunugigaoka, and the government wasn’t saying anything. Nobody knew what was going on, just that something was happening and it was bad.” He pauses, and Karma waits, wondering when his father would get to the point that led him to sitting in an uncomfortable chair, keeping his estranged son company in the small hours of the morning.
“And then your mother called me.”
Karma visibly startles in his chair as a bolt of surprise rips through him. He’d been staring at his shoes during his father’s story, but now he turns to openly gape at Gakuhou. Never in a million years would he guess his mother would ever willingly, of her own volition, speak to his father again.
“Was she mad?” He realizes how stupid the question is as soon as it leaves his mouth.
A wry sort of smile twists Gakuhou’s lips. “I think furious is putting it lightly. I couldn’t understand some of what she said through the screaming, but I got the gist. You had run off to Kunugigaoka on some suicide mission for your class, and if anything happened to you she would string me up herself.”
“She didn’t really say that,” Karma denies, then hesitates. “Did she?”
“No,” Gakuhou says drily, rubbing a tired palm against his eyes. “She was much more graphic.”
Karma’s jaw drops again. He can picture it suddenly, playing clear in his mind like a movie: his mother red-faced and rumpled in her pajamas as she screams at his father through her cell phone, crying and issuing threats in the same breath; his father, sitting at his desk or on his couch, watching the news in blank shock and listening to his ex-wife’s promises to kill him if anything happened to Karma.
Karma swallows roughly. “You deserve that too.”
“Yes,” Gakuhou agrees. “I do.”
Karma nods once, sharply, waiting for Gakuhou to resume his explanation.
“Your mother ran out of steam eventually and hung up. I called Karasuma and asked him what was going on, and he told me what he could. I woke Gakushuu up, told him what was happening and not to answer the door or phone unless it was me, and then I drove here.”
Karma nods again, thoughtfully this time. “That’s still not an answer,” he points out. “Why are you here,” he stresses, “with me, sitting in this stupid chair when you could be literally anywhere else?”
Gakuhou frowns, slumping back in his chair in a casual show of exhaustion Karma has never seen on him. “You’re my son,” he says, a raw edge in his voice, as if that is all the explanation required. “My youngest child.”
“I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“No,” his father agrees, almost sadly. “You’re not. You don’t need me to protect you anymore. This is probably more for me than you, anyway. I needed to know you were safe.”
He scoffs. “I didn’t know you cared.”
The wry smile makes a reappearance. “Neither did I. I had convinced myself I didn’t care what happened to you or your mother. At least, until you popped up in the last place I expected to find you.” He sighs softly, head tilting back to watch the ceiling. “I have many things to apologize for, Karma. I messed up with you in so many ways. But I don’t think you want to hear them right now, so I thought I could sit with you until your mother got here and…” he pauses, searching for the right words. He must give up on finding them, though, because he sighs gustily and sinks lower into his chair. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he admits. “I doubt I offer much in the way of comfort. Do you want me to leave?”
Karma considers. “Any other night, I would probably say yes. But tonight…”
Tonight, they killed Korosensei. Tonight, he scraped his nerves raw during his confrontation with his mother. Tonight, he’d been sitting by himself in a stiff chair, wrapped in a shock blanket, replaying the night in his head and feeling more and more adrift until his father sat down beside him and made him feel less alone.
“Tonight, you can stay,” he says. It’s still not forgiveness. His father hasn’t apologized yet, and Karma still hasn’t decided whether he’ll grant it. If anything, it’s a white flag - a temporary cease-fire. For now, it’s enough.
Gakuhou nods, and they settle back into silence.
A while later, his phone buzzes again. It’s another text from his mother. They’re five minutes away now. His time with his father is ticking away. He wonders how he should spend it. Silence is probably safest. Karma is too numb right now to work up enough anger for a fight, but if he opens his mouth and says the wrong thing he might mess up the fragile truce they’ve landed on. He realizes, to his slight consternation, he doesn’t want to mess it up.
What he does want, he realizes, is the answer to one simple question. If he’s lucky, Gakuhou will answer. If he’s really lucky, he’ll be too numb with shock for the answer to hurt too badly.
He fiddles with his phone some more, twisting it in his fingers as he considers whether to ask his next question. “If I ask you something,” he says, haltingly, “will you give me an honest answer?”
“Yes,” is the immediate reply.
“You’ll tell me the truth?” he presses. “Even if it hurts me? Even if it makes me hate you?”
“I thought you already hated me,” Gakuhou says, amused. Then, more serious, “I won’t lie to you, Karma. Even if it hurts. Ask your question.”
Karma nods, still considering. He checks his phone and sees he only has a few minutes before his parents arrive. Whatever, he thinks, metaphorically tossing up his hands. I’ve been torturing myself with this for years. At least now I’ll know.
“Were you sad when mom took me?”
He’d like to say the room grew quiet after he spoke, but that would be a lie. People are still bustling around them, fielding phone calls and doing whatever government people do after a major crisis. The world moves on, even when you’re falling apart.
Still, in their corner of the room, Karma feels like a bubble has separated him and Gakuhou from the rest of the world. The noise of other people doesn’t exist anymore. For him, there is only silence and the sound of his heartbeat as he waits for Gakuhou to answer.
It takes a long time. Or maybe it just feels long because he’s holding his breath.
“When I watched her drive away,” his father says, measuring the words out bit by bit, “and realized that was it - when I realized she was taking you and you weren’t coming back…” He sighs, a heavy sound. “Yes. It didn’t feel real until that moment. I watched the car disappear and thought I was having a heart attack. I locked myself in my office and drank an entire bottle of sake until it stopped hurting. I didn’t cry,” he muses aloud. “I think I was too sad to cry. Too sad, and I didn’t think I deserved to. It was my fault, after all. I drove you both away. I didn’t have the right to cry about it.”
Karma rests his chin on top of his knees as he processes. If he was in his right mind, he would probably be angry. That’s his typical response to anything his father says or does. The anger still feels far away right now, but he knows he’ll feel it eventually. Maybe not tomorrow (today?) or even the next day - not with grief for Korosensei still so fresh in his heart. Eventually, though, he’ll replay his father’s confession and feel a blood boiling rage he won’t know what to do with. It’s what he’s been waiting for all these years: his father admitting he loved him, maybe even that he still loves him. It’s every wish he’s ever made since he was a little kid. He’ll feel angry and heartbroken all over again, and he won’t even have Korosensei to help him deal with it (and oh, that thought sends a fresh wave of grief over him, so powerful he almost drowns in it. He latches onto the numbness and sinks further into it. It’s safer there).
He isn’t angry now, though, just numb and a little sad. He lifts his chin from his knees and presses his face against them, wrapping the blanket even tighter around himself. He’s hiding - either from his father or the world in general. He doesn’t know for sure, and he doesn’t feel like analyzing it.
“If you had told me that six years ago,” he says into his knees, muffled but still audible, “I would’ve forgiven you for anything.”
It’s the truth. Eight year old Karma would have done anything to hear that his father was sad he left, that he loved him enough to be sad. He would have let go of every bitter feeling in his heart and forgiven Gakuhou wholeheartedly for every misdeed. Eight year old Karma, he thinks, was an idiot.
Not an idiot, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Nagisa chides. Just a child. Just a kid who wanted to hear that his father loved him. That’s not stupid. That’s just how kids are.
His father doesn’t say anything, but Karma didn’t really want him to anyway. They’ve both said their piece. It’s too late to change the past, and neither are even sure if they have a future. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.
His phone buzzes, but this time it keeps buzzing. Twisting his head to the side so his cheek is pressed against his legs, he checks it. It’s his mother. She’s here, presumably, and looking for him. Time to go. He sighs, letting his feet fall to the floor as he stands, the blanket sliding from his shoulders and landing in a heap on his empty chair. He answers the call.
“Hi, mom,” he murmurs as he walks away. “I’m on my way out now.”
He doesn’t say goodbye.
#fanfiction#my writing#families shatter like glass series#Akabane Karma#assassination classroom#au#Karma and Gakushuu are brothers
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domestic misukazu hcs
1. their kitchen cabinets are full of mismatched mugs and bowls and plates, in a rainbow of colors and sizes. there is exactly one matching pair of cups and plates, hidden at the back of the cabinet, that they'll use if one of them is specifically trying to be romantic.
2. the two of them probably have a lot of unsynchronised late nights but they always leave each other dinner wrapped on the counter and sleepily wake up when the other finally crawls into bed to say "welcome home" before falling back to sleep next to them
3. misumi is Super Ultra determined to not lose his keys and to use the front door when they first move into their place but he can only keep track of them for so long and when he confesses to kazu that he had to climb in through the window kazu just laughs bc he loves this man, dw i made a copy of our keys, as long as you shut the window after you come in i dont mind
4. consider: kazunari, glasses on and book in hand, sitting in the middle of the couch with misumi sprawled across his lap, fast asleep
5. they probably share a closet in a literal sense but also a metaphorical sense bc all their shirts and jackets are around the same size so unless it is Tailored Formal Wear there is no distinction other than the fuzzy feeling they get when the other wears one of their things
6. they never officially adopt any animals but cats constantly pass through to say hi to misumi and update him on the latest kitty gossip and occassionally drop off triangular objects. kazunari never is sure what's happening, but he's learned to keep cat food at the ready.
more under the cut!!!
7. their place is the one you show up uninvited to looking for cuddles and an impromptu movie night and onigiri with your favorite filling and leave the next morning with coffee and even more onigiri and maybe a sticker on your hand
8. they raise three succulents named san, ka, and ku
9. going off from that the reason they have succulents is because both of them travel a lot for work (hc sumi as an actor and kazu having his own art/graphics based independent business) and they know san, ka, and ku can fend for themselves if need be
10. pls consider kazu with a "kiss the cook" apron except misumi may or may not usually do the cooking so kazu will put it on and then go up and kiss misumi on his own at random times of the day
11. they have a giant bookshelf along one of their walls filled with kazunari's plethora of hyper-specific reference books, random volumes of manga, and a whole shelf dedicated to scrapbooks, photo albums, and triangle knick-knacks
12. every mirror in their house has a picture or two tucked in the corner. kazunari's favorite is one from one of those arcade/mall photobooths, where misumi may or may not have kissed him for the first time. misumi's favorite is one with kazu on his shoulders at the park.
13. NOT NECESSARILY DOMESTIC HC SO MUCH AS A FUTURE ONE BUT KAZUNARI LETTING HIS HAIR GROW OUT WITHOUT DYEING IT... pudding hair long haired kazu. misumi puts it into a bun for him while he makes coffee in the mornings and may or may not buy him too many triangle hair accessories
14. ONCE MORE A FUTURE HC MORE THAN A DOMESTIC HC BUT i think. misumi should get more ear piercings. and kazunari peppers kisses on all of them when they're fully healed. and finds a lot of joy in pushing misumi's hair back behind his ears.
15. they are dummies that wash each other's hair in their too-small bathtub and give themselves soap bubble beards and trace hair conditioner triangles on each others' cheeks.
16. they don't "slow dance in the kitchen" so much as "misumi picks up kazunari and spins them around and sings a random tune while they wait for the rice cooker to beep"
17. misumi nurses kazu back to health whenever kazu gets sick but he always kisses kazu while he does so so without fail he catches whatever kazu had as soon as kazu is healed up and kazu takes care of him in turn (misumi is as much less willing patient tho)
18. if they live an apt building... just. the aesthetic of them sitting on the fire escape in their pajamas while pressed together from thigh to shoulder and watching the stars... good
19. kazunari prefers to work in silence but he very quickly comes to love hearing misumi humming and lightly singing whenever he's at home
20. whenever someone comes to visit they give the guest their bed and sleep tangled together on the floor or the couch
21. thinking about them grocery shopping together and kazu has their list organized by what order would be most optimal to grab things except kazu's calculations are Wrong and when he offhandedly says he's a bit tired misumi lifts him and drops him into the shopping cart
22. kazu holding misumi after a nightmare. he walks them to the window so they can see the stars. misumi's eyes lock onto vega, shining brightly in the sky.
23. misumi still takes non-acting part time jobs and will sometimes get called in early in the morning and on those days kazunari will wake up to a warm mug of coffee and a couple onigiri on the nightstand, and an extra blanket thrown over him
24. on that note misumi leaving little "anonymous" gifts in general around their place for kazu to find as if kazu won't immediately know who they're from
25. their fridge is covered in doodles, from kazu and misumi alike. kazu usually leaves drawings/old thumbnails and misumi will add sankaku-kuns in when he isn't looking
26. "Kazu?"
"..."
"I really, really love you."
"..."
"Let's stay together for a long, long time, okay?"
27. birthdays are for breakfast in bed and homemade gifts and dinner with their precious friends
28. consider: misumi gently coaxing kazu into bed while kazu insists "on more chapter" while he practically falls asleep on the couch
29. (since it is softly raining here) one of them walking the other to the train station in order to share their single umbrella after their second one broke and sending them off with a quick kiss on the cheek
30. even years later, misumi still marvels at all the little things about sharing a living space - having both their toothbrushes in the holder, the extra plate in the sink, the scribbled half-doodles kazu sometimes leaves lying around - they're all very, very precious to him
31. when kazunari stays at his parents for a weekend early on in their domestic, living-together life, he calls up tsuzuru (+others, possibly) to go visit misumi on the nights he's gone
32. they always greet each other with forehead kisses, especially since they both usually have their hands full (with either art supplies or triangles)
#act! addict! actors!#a3!#misukazu#kazumisu#ikaruga misumi#miyoshi kazunari#a3#headcanons#ernb its me
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yayyy questions time !! 8, 9 for pretty venom fic my beloved, 10 for you're the one to help me get to sleep etc, 17 (post another!!), 29, 44 yes this is a lot thank you for your service i love youuuu xoxo bella
i love YOU!!! and oh boy so many! lemme go get my tea before i start brb
alright i’m back (okay this got long so we’re gonna throw it under a read more lol
8. Where do you take your inspiration from?
this was actually somewhat difficult to nail down i gotta say. but i think it kinda comes down to about three things: good tunes, moments in life that made me feel things, and other people’s writing. like so much of what i write is basically songfic like it’s what speaks to my mostly. esp w all the taylor stuff like she songwrites in such a storytelling kinda way i can’t resist. there’s a few different fics i have (or have since deleted) that are drawn like. pretty damn directly from stuff that’s happened kinda in my own life (the 1 lashton, austin jalex, etc) and i think it’s actually been kinda good to sorta take those moments and look at them from an outside perspective like that idk. and i think i pull Vibes(TM) from other people’s writing quite a bit. stuff like emo lashton taught me a lot about how writing intimacy in a variety of ways works and like meghna’s stuff like starlight fic rlly showed me the power of playing w time in your writing and also just making every moment so big and loud even when it’s quiet. this was a long answer lol
9. In your xxx fic, what’s your favourite scene that you wrote? (for but it’s clear when it hits me)
this fic is really only like two scenes but like this chunk from that fic is my favorite bit and was also the first part of it that i wrote, fun fact:
Alex moves to stand but Jack drops a hand to his knee and their eyes meet, Alex’s holding a question. He parts his lips to ask it but Jack beats him to it again. “Can I stay with you tonight? This tune’s kinda put me in a weird mood now and I just,” he pauses and his eyes drift from Alex’s. “Just want to stay with you.”
He picks up Jack’s hand and lets their fingers tangle together before lifting them up to press his lips to Jack’s knuckles. “Always.”
They head in the direction of the stairs, leaving the guitar and journal resting out since the living room was already in a state of musical chaos. Jack’s exhaustion is obvious from his shuffled motions as they move up the steps and Alex laughs softly, these hours not unfamiliar to his racing thoughts, though he knows that obviously can’t be the norm for everyone. He lets a hand move to press against the bottom of Jack’s back and guides them in the direction of his room once they hit the top step.
fairly certain that i also kinda reused part of the last paragraph in a different fic (the one where jack is sitting around waiting for alex’s fight to get in) but it was pretty so i just kept it in both lkfjdsl
10. In your xxx fic, why did you decide to end it like that? Did you have an alternative ending in mind? (for you're the one to help me get to sleep // maybe i fell in love when you woke me up)
okay so this one is fun! my favorite things to write (and what i kinda think i write best tbh) is either going to sleep scenes or waking up scenes and so i had the wild idea of throwing both of those into one piece and having each one be from a different POV. really liked the idea, i remember i wrote the first half and got a little burnt out by it, had you read it, and then you confirmed it didn’t suck so i was able to keep going. but i hadn’t played around with like pulling a metaphor across a piece in awhile (like i do it in little ways but the last time i had really gone for it w that was 1973 fic) so i had the idea of starting and ending each scene with corresponding lines.
the first line in each one was easy to work with:
The sun is just beginning to set over LA and Alex is in love.
and
It’s pouring down rain in Maryland and Jack is in love.
but i really struggled with getting the last lines to coordinate in a similar way and have it not sound too clunky. like i’m telling you i spent way too fucking long figuring out how tf to phrase the one i ended up using for alex’s section.
And maybe that’s what love is, falling asleep already in a dream.
and
And maybe that’s what love is, waking up to the beginning of another dream.
but i’m genuinely so fucking proud of how it ended up working out like of all of my fics this one felt like it really covered all my favorite things about my writing.
17. Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.
lmao okay lemme see what we got here
He laughs along with Alex while he tells him about the elaborate excuses he gets for late homework and tries to ignore the electricity he feels run up the entire length of his body when their feet knock together below the bar.
yeah that’s a good one there we go
29. Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?
lol so total honesty, even if like, a couple of you in the club read my stuff and found even a glimmer of joy in it that would be enough for me (and i know the audience we’re working with here is already pretty limited) but probably either and we'd both stay out 'til the morning light (just bc it’s just fucking pretty imo and definitely one of the most well written pieces i have) or i can picture it after all these days aka all too well fic that i wrote w @reveriesofawriter. like i know it’s sad but fucking hell it’s a damn good fic
44. What is the last line you wrote?
the last actual line i wrote was whatever the last line was in the paper rings merrikat from the other day. HOWEVER, last line that i have no shared w the internet yet is:
It’s a sight he feels like he could look at for days despite the tiny voice in his head telling him to consider pumping the brakes a little. “Looking forward to it.”
boy that was a lot! thanks for the questions my love x
#we really out here trying to think critically about our writing at 4.30am huh#this rlly was a good time though thank u miss bella#Anonymous
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Top 6 Episodes of One Piece
If there's a series that attempts to test the diminishing return hypothesis, it's One Piece. The monstrous epic of Eiichiro Oda is the highest selling manga of all time, but its ridiculous duration still prohibits many people from checking it out, and that hill will only get steeper as we barrel towards its end (eventually).
The One Piece anime, which is a much greater commitment to time and does not boast the brilliant artwork of Oda as a selling point, is even more of a conundrum. Yet, for the first time, so many fans perceive the story this way and fall in love regardless... Over the course of many long binges, there is something special about cuddling up in front of a screen and getting lost in a world, and the powerful spirit that burns just below the surface, even during the not-so-hot days of the anime, still keeps us building up to a new "best" chapter. Everyone has their favorite shows, the ones they feel emotionally attached to, and we would love to share yours in the forums with you. Here are my own 6 best One Piece episodes, in chronological order (but not superlative):
Episode 19 - The Three-Sword Style's Past! Zoro and Kuina's Vow!
In the modern age, where the manga is so informative and comprehensive, it's hard to believe that there was once a period when the anime really successfully expanded on the plot. The anime version of Zoro's flashback is so amazing that it is the "true" version of the story in my heart, which comes a little later than it did in the manga. What once was a fast and blunt page is turned into a wonderful piece of sound, letting us live for an episode in the Japanese countryside as we hear the story of a young Roronoa Zoro and his original opponent, Kuina.
In its obsession with gender, this episode also ends up being easily the most empathic the show has ever gotten. It portrays Kuina, the prodigal swordsman, dissatisfied with the awareness that the gap in intensity between her and Zoro will increase drastically as they become adults. This is a moment for a young Zoro to take seriously his female rival, and in the present day, Tashigi finally takes up whatever thematic baggage is left behind by her death. This is One Piece's tender side at its finest.
Episode 119 - Secret of Powerful Swordplay! Ability to Cut Steel and the Rhythm Things Have!
This is another fantastic episode of Zoro that places us in the middle of the Straw Hats and Baroque Works' climate war. The adversary of Zoro is Mr. 1, who really isn't a swordsman, but a man who can turn his entire body into a weapon. Not only does Dice-Dice Fruit from Mr. 1 allow for some of the anime's imagination, but this episode manages to offer one of the coolest battles in the entire series. It's bloody, it's raw, and Zoro throws a guy into a building.
Towards the end, the episode is at its best, when everything gets quiet and builds up to the final blow. It sells the show with so much conviction that I believe it's cool. I believe this is one of the series's most driven episodes, and a great example of the show's cinematic narrative eye.
Episode 278 - Say You Want to Live! We Are Your Friends!
If 151 was the episode that made me a fan, the episode that made me a lifetime fan is 278. This episode and the one before it are older examples of "one-hour specials" from the series, which are gradually split into two episodes until released on home video and streaming sites. This episode is jam-packed even as just the second half of a special, as we conclude the tragic backstory of Robin and transition into the present where the Straw Hats make their greatest gesture yet to save their friend from the greedy World Government.
One Piece can become astonishingly sad for being such a vibrant and enjoyable series, to the point that it almost competes with itself to see how unhappy it can get. If the highs were not so gosh darn consistent, these lows would become tiresome, and Straw Hats' assault on the government flag, followed by Robin's major "I want to live!" One of the most cathartic moments you'll ever find in literature is the scene. At this point in the plot, the Straw Hats are still underdogs, so their bold "never give up" attitude in the face of their greatest enemy hits particularly hard. This episode illustrates the chasms that One Piece can jump to be the saddest and happiest tale it can be, from baby Robin surviving the genocide of everyone she's ever loved to adult Robin pleading for another chance at life.
Episode 396 - The Fist Explodes! Destroy the Auction!
In One Piece, Luffy punches a Celestial Dragon so hard that he knocks the color off the screen, still one of the most frequently referenced and applauded moments. If there is one thing that One Piece is unbelievably good at, it's payoffs. It sets the pins up so that in the most bombastic way possible it can knock them down. To this day, the Celestial Dragons are the most heinous villains we've seen in One Piece, and the repercussions of (again) defying the World Government are obvious, but Luffy still has to do his thing with Luffy.
The emphasis that the show places on Luffy's pledge to Hatchan not to intervene, no matter what, is what really captures me about this moment. You get the feeling that Luffy is the kind to keep an earnest promise, but watching a hero get pushed beyond that stage is always fascinating.
Episode 574 - Back to the Present! Hordy Makes a Move!
The general opinion, as far as I can tell, is that Fishman Island is the series' worst arc. With this sentiment, I don't agree. I think it's one of the heaviest, most three-dimensional instances I've ever seen of fantasy-world-racism-as-metaphor-for-real-world-racism. Basically, the mid-arc flashback covering the plights of Fisher Tiger and Queen Otohime is a film-length drama, and it's one of the series' best flashbacks, for which there's fierce competition. It's very underestimated.
Aside from being an exceptionally pretty episode, both halves of it are extremely strong, one at the tail end of the flashback and one coming out of it. Neptune mourning the death of his wife, distraught that the difficulty of race relations implies that he can not convey his frustration, is a great scene, as is the forgiveness of Jimbei by Nami for his connection to the pirates of Arlong. The push and pull between hope, cynicism, remorse, rage, and love is what makes this arc perfect. You just ever feel like you're halfway through everything life's going to bring you through, even at its worst. As for its place in the big picture plot, this episode is a significant step in the relationship of Jimbei with the pirates of the Straw Hat, and it establishes the purpose of the Ryugu Kingdom to join the World Government and attend the Reverie, a heavily built-up political event that is due in the manga any day now.
Episode 616 - A Surprising Outcome! White Chase vs. Vergo!
This is a particular stand-out episode in the series for fighting animation, since it's so much more physical than normal. Even with the powers of Smoker and Vergo flying every way, the effect goes down to their good ole fists. The personal investment between two marines duking it out is already very intense, but it's put over the edge by the great choreography and style, and that alone would put such an episode on my radar.
That said, once Smoker vs. Vergo turns over to Vergo vs. Rule, there is a cherry on top, with the real villain of the arc, Doflamingo, listening in from a distance. The rest of the series gives too much consequence to the law defeating Vergo in such an over-the-top manner.
So those are the episodes I feel are worth revisiting the most! Obviously, I'm expected to have skipped a few or omitted incredibly significant episodes in this top six list, with a series that long. If you enjoyed this top list of mine don’t forget to leave a like and share it with your friends. If you have any suggestions for my next top list just mail it to me at [email protected] and i will feature you for my next article. Stay tuned and stay safe everyone!
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Pick-a-Card: June 2020 Predictions!
Hello my loves! I’m Kiera, and this is a pick-a-card style tarot reading for the coming month! If you’ve never done this type of reading before, have a look at the image below with three piles of cards. Take a few deep breaths, focus on the picture, and see which pile you feel most drawn to - The Helmet, The Candle, or The Skull. You’re allowed to choose more that one if you’re feeling pulled to multiple places. When you’ve made your choice, the reading for each pile will be below the cut.
For this reading I’m using the Modern Witch tarot, the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit oracle deck, and the Dark Mirror oracle deck, as well as a runestone draw. Since this is a general public reading, it’s possible not all details will apply to you, and the message may be more literal or metaphorical for you than I’ve written it out. If the reading resonates with you I’d appreciate a reblog, and if you’d be interested in private readings in the near future give me a follow and stay tuned!
Pile #1 - The Helmet
There's definitely an end here - if it hasn't happened yet it's coming, but it feels like most of you already know what this is. It feels like a break up, or the end of a friendship or maybe a job. Maybe for some of you it's an aspect of yourself you previously held up as a positive trait that you've since grown out of. A lost connection to someone or something - for some of you it might even be your choice, but it's still gonna weigh on you a bit. Whatever it is, it is definitely in your best interest! It might be tough, but everything points to this being absolutely a positive step! Take some time to mourn and work through any mixed feelings you have, but also to let yourself have some mindless fun! It's important to feel the negatives, but it's also important not to dwell on them, so give yourself permission to goof off if that helps you cope. I'm getting that there may be someone in your life telling you you're dealing with this all wrong, and that you need to focus and move forward and get on with life, but they need to understand that you need to do this in your own time. There might also be a point where you feeling like you're rushing yourself, telling yourself to pick up and move on. This'll be especially true for those of you who cut this tie willingly, but remember you're allowed to feel what you feel. Do your best to center yourself and really decide what's right for you. Trust that you'll let go of the hurt exactly when you need to, and you should already be feeling more balanced by the end of the month.
Pile #2 - The Candle
Honey, take care of yourself! June has GOT to be your month of self care! You've been telling yourself "it doesn't matter, I can handle it" because you think you need to be strong, but if you don't take care of your needs you're gonna start to break down! There is so much water in your spread, and water is the element of emotions - remember you're not a machine! There also may be a need to forgive a past mistake - the you of the past deserves some kindness too! It's a lie that you aren't worthy of showing yourself some love and care. I'm also seeing that maybe you've been feeling a bit alone. For some of you, there was maybe a break up or a parting of ways that you never fully got closure on, and you've been hoping fate would offer a second chance. There a new connection coming your way, and this might be a reunion you were hoping for, or a new bond that fills the hole you've been dwelling on. Lastly I'm seeing some hustling - there might be a project you've been working on or a promotion you've been after or maybe a financial goal, and there's gonna be some serious progress on that. I'm not seeing that you'll definitely meet that goal within the month, but you'll should be able to see the finish line, and the different paths that will be open to you as a result!
Pile #3 - The Skull
Alright, so I'm definitely feeling some issues with energy here, especially later in the month. If there's something you're working towards, be wary of overdoing it and burning out. You might just be having a lot of trouble staying upbeat in general right now - friends and family that have your back aren't necessarily as close by as you'd like. There are some positive sides to your alone time, some of you might be enjoying some independence and getting some stuff done without the usual distractions of work or friends - but there's also a some confusion and inner turmoil. Not gonna lie, June might kick your ass a bit, Pile 3. In spite of that, there is also so, so much opportunity to harness some of that raw, turbulent emotion! Rage on and get some shit done! Fight for what needs fighting for! You're gonna come out of this with so much new strength and power! This may include some physical strength for some of you - if you've been getting less exercise lately now is a great time to get back on top of it, because getting you body moving will go a long way toward keeping you from sinking into apathy.
Once again, I hope these messages hold some truth for you! Follow for more pick-a-cards, as well as announcements about private readings and witchy products for sale!
#witchblr#witchcraft#tarot spread#tarot#tarot witch#pick a card#pick a card readings#pick a card tarot reading#june 2020 predictions#june 2020 tarot reading#divination
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With all I have
A/N: So, BLACK WIDOW TRAILER made me go write this, yayy. 7500 words. I called the blonde woman from the trailer Yelena, because I believe there was a Yelena in the Black Widow comics working for the Red Room. This is my imaginative idea of how Clint recruited Natasha. So enjoy reading and if you want let me know what you think. :)
“Who is he?” Yelena asked, her russian accent making Natasha twitch unvoluntarily. This accent had the tendency to make the Black Widow feel threatened. Also she might have reacted to Yelena mentioning him. The man on the video footage they were watching just now. He was wearing a mask, but Natasha had already seen him without it. On their first encounter, when he had been bleeding...
“Er,” She shook her head slightly to wash away the picture of his reddened teeth, “This. Is Clint Barton, Hawkeye. SHIELD agent since six years. He ran away from some circus. Lost his brother. The usual. Oh, and he’s absolutely perfect with the bow, as you can see.”
He hit his mark. He had hit his mark. Natasha still felt somewhat stiff in her shoulder where he had gotten her about a year ago.
“Perfect is subjective,” yawned Yelena, not at all impressed by Hawkeye’s athletic shooting from rooftops. She didn’t yet know what it was like to meet him personally. The hardness, the force, the ... dumb jokes. He could fool you, confuse you. Natasha had already understood that he acted dumb to strike even harder. He wasn’t dumb at all. Not the slightest bit.
“You shouldn’t underestimate him. He’s been chasing me for months.”
Yelena snorted. “How’s that anything triumphal? He hasn’t caught you yet.”
“No.” Natasha mumbled, staring at the frozen frame of Clint Barton’s masked face. “But he’s only ever one step behind me.”
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“Phil... yeah... uh huh... can we- ... no, I know. ... Would you please- ... okay, okay. OKAY. ... I’m not! ... Yeah, sure. I’ll call you then. ... No, I do not find this amusing. ... She’s good, what did you expect? ... Other villains, other agents. I have my villain to take care of. ... I told you she’s good. This is why I won’t stop. ... When will you eventually resist the urge to make circus references? ... It’s not. ... Fine. ... Yep. ... I’ll hear you tomorrow then.”
Hawkeye made a face as if he were screaming, but no sound exited his lungs. He merely huffed frustrated at his phone and tried not to crunch it. Phil didn’t understand this mission he was on. Fury didn’t necessarily care. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to him.
He couldn’t resist throwing the phone rather forcefully on the table he had his equipment laid out on, ripped the sweat stained shirt from his body and walked to the tiny balcony he had on this floor. It was a military hostel. For people with equipment and fake passports like him.
Cold air washed against his chest. He looked at his scarred body and smirked when his fingertips grazed the new grown skin on his hip. Where Natasha Romanoff’s bullets had hit him twice.
For a moment he let himself go, relishing the memory of stripping off his mask and congratulating her on her good aim, while he had been sure he would bleed out. What a meeting that had been. Her standing in the shadow of the room, not moving, not talking. Him in the other shadow, opposite to her, trying to hold himself up against a wall, talking nonstop.
“You know, it almost feels peaceful. Almost. I’m also a little turned on. Not necessarily by the blood. Though that is some people’s thing or so I heard. Are you turned on by blood? Is that why you shot me? Come on, admit it, I’m fanciful am I not? Oh well. Are you okay? I mean, aside from sadistically watching me die. That is really not okay, you know. You should talk to someone about this. Even though I gotta say, if you left me now, I would feel way WAY worse.”
“Do you ever shut up?” She had stepped into the light and for the first time he had seen the softness in her eyes. It had actually made him shut up for about five seconds. Then he had almost winced at the pain in his hip and so he had continued talking, just to distract himself.
In all those years of working for SHIELD Clint had rarely felt fear. He had seen too much in his life to experience that feeling anymore. But in this situation, bleeding in front of Natasha Romanoff, he had been the furthest away from fear he had ever been. Dying there in front of her feet had seemed ... good.
What he had not expected was her saving him.
What he had not expected was her kneeling before him, kicking his bow out of reach and searching him for other weapons.
“Careful, I’m ticklish.”
What he had not expected was her holding his sweaty face in her hands and whispering to him. “Shut the fuck up already.”
What he had not expected was falling unconscious and waking up patched up on a hotel bed late the next morning.
Why had she done that? They had been chasing each other for months. Shooting, firing, kicking, biting, laughing, okay yeah lauging at each other. Sure, you could grow fond of an enemy. But more in the “Awe, how sad, he’s dead now” sense. She could have felt that the night before. But she had saved him.
Sure, she had broken into the hotel and sure, the next guests had been sent to this specific room, finding him and alarming the security. But, what is a little bit of swinging out of windows and hiding behind chimneys against being saved from bleeding out?
Clint stared into the starless night, running his fingers across the scars on his hip and realized he was smiling. Widely.
----------------------
“How do you know he’s in Russia? Did you see him?”
Natasha tilted her head in a way that allowed less sunshine into her blinded eyes. She squinted at Yelena. “I just ... know.” They were sitting on the balcony of their old hide out which was now only Yelena’s hide out anymore. They had shared many bottles of liquor up here, many smokes and many bandages.
The blonde woman narrowed her eyes at her. “You know.”
Natasha sipped at her pitch black coffee, avoiding eye contact with her “sister”. Back in the Red Room, they had all been sisters. A ridiculous idea that was supposed to make them less traitorous. Many sisters had been killed by their own kin. No family word could change that.
The silence of the beautiful November morning stretched out and Natasha dwelled in it, the warm mug between her palms and the hot steam in her face. Then Yelena was done with waiting for an explanation.
“Why is he not dead yet, Natalia?” The sharpness of Yelena’s words rang in Natasha’s ears. Not Natalia, not anymore, never again. Her jaws wanted to clench, her heart wanted to race, her stomach wanted to tremble. Unimportant. She had all that under control. She had trained her body to this state of absolute stillness over years. Yet her voice sounded cold when she spoke.
“What do you mean?”
Yelena’s suspicion annoyed her. They had nothing to share apart from a hide out and the circumstances. Why did Yelena keep pushing her business around as if it were a dead animal and her suspicion a stick of wood? Wow. Had she really just thought that? Bad metaphor. Clint Barton’s dirty laughter rang at the back of her mind. He was rubbing off on her.
“I mean, Natalia, that people who hunt you down don’t tend to live that long. What did you say how long you have been playing cat and dog? Ten months?”
“It’s cat and mouse!”
Angrily Natasha pushed away from the table and marched over to the old, out-of-tune piano that had stood in this moldy room for as long as they had known it. Years. She started playing and it sounded horrible which is just what she had intended.
Yelena groaned and fell back in her chair, staring up at the clear blue sky with eyes of fury. Natasha knew what she was thinking. That they had been trained not to show mercy, not to anyone or anything. That they had been trained to kill. Efficiently, effortlessly, neither cheerfully nor angrily. There was no rest for them. Not along their path.
But they had gotten off of it. The Red Room was no longer paying for their weapons, their kills, their deals. Yelena was a fear-inducing jewelry thief. And Natasha was hunting down the big bosses she’d suffered under. Whatever that made her, whatever attention it had gained her from SHIELD, from her old enemies, from new enemies, she didn’t care. She was on the run and as long as she could say that about herself, she was not a lost soul with nowhere to go and nowhere to stay.
So yes, Clint Barton had been chasing her for ten months.
In her life, he was the only reliable person. He would follow her wherever. He had to be in Russia as surely as she had to get this piano tuned. Whatever Mozart had composed on the yellow sheets that were crumbling under Natasha’s fingers as she turned them, he hadn’t composed it for dead pianos. Or for dead people.
And that is what she was.
Because Clint Barton, the only reliable person in her life, was on his mission to kill her.
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Clint waited patiently.
Ten months of chasing could bring a certain ease with them. He splashed around in his coffee with a tiny metal spoon and tried to move a sugar cube with the force of his mind only. He had never quite given up the hope of possessing certain supernatural powers. He was seconds away from a nosebleed when the little bell at the door rang.
In the mirror opposite to the entrance Clint recognized her immediately. His heart took a short flight through his left ribcage before settling again. Huh, if those weren’t supernatural powers he didn’t know what was.
She walked to the cashier with her hood over he red hair and her hands in the bag that was attached to her black sweater. She looked just as plain as he did that day. They were both trying, but the mere fact that he had recognized her with one glance made him hunch over his coffee more and try to disappear more into the shadows of the café.
Natasha bought some bread, coffee to go and two little bagels filled with cream. Then she headed his way.
He kicked out in surprise, pushed over his cup of coffee and actually fucking blushed. Well, hell to that. The people at the other tables looked at him shortly, figuring he had fallen asleep and then startled awake or something like that, before ignoring him again, the way everyone always ignored everyone.
Everyone except Natasha Romanoff who had walked over to his table with her food and coffee and now pulled out a few napkins to throw on the big black stain Clint’s coffee had produced on the tablecloth.
“Whoopsie, I guess.” She actually grinned at him from under her hood and held one of the two to go cups she was somehow juggling in her hands in his direction. “I figured you’d need a new one.”
“How did you know I would push over-”
“You’re very predictable.”
They stared at each other for a second, before Clint took the cup out of her hand and grumbled about his choices self-pityingly.
Natasha poked him in the shoulder, making him feel her fingernail, his nose scrunching up reproachfully.
“Hey!”
“Come on. We go for a walk.”
There was another moment of trust-questioning, but it was even shorter than the first one. Clint put on his leather jacket and followed her easy steps. The hairs on his neck were up, alarmingly. He wanted to nod to them and tell them he’d be careful, but he didn’t want to say that out loud in front of Natasha.
Out on the street she handed him a bagel. Clint burned his tongue on the steaming hot coffee and hissed.
“It says “Careful, contents hot” on the lid.” Natasha said nonchalanty and sipped on her own coffee without showing any signs of discomfort.
“You playing tough now?” Clint asked disgruntled, pushing his poor tongue against the cold whipped cream.
“Don’t need to.” Natasha was quick to answer, pulling his awful Adidas cap off. “This is actually an insult to me.” She threw it in the mudd and stepped on it. “We go this way.”
Clint looked at her as she gracefully walked away on the pavement and waited for her to notice that he so wasn’t following. He couldn’t help but giggle when she said something to the total stranger hurrying to walk past her, mistaking him for Clint. He looked at her in shock and she stopped walking immediately, leaving the poor confused man whom she had probably just threatened right where he was to threaten the perfectly right target that was actually quick to get away.
Clint sneaked into the next alley, making sure Natasha was following him this time. Her face was less soft and less mocking than it had still been at the café. Two could play a game of prediction and surprise. And Clint wasn’t walking into her trap, that was for sure.
He turned around and nodded to the tiny, dark court at the end of the alley. She didn’t react much, merely glared at him. But she followed, when he started walking anew.
In the middle of the court Clint turned around again and took a quick step back when he realized how close she had gotten during that short time. She was in punching range so that’s what she did.
Her fist hit him right in the stomach and he dropped and spilled the second coffee that day, as he bent over in pain. “DAMN it.” He wheezed and then started laughing. “You don’t got much of a sense for waste, do you?”
Natasha grabbed his chin and pushed him up against the red brick wall. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh, here? In this specific spot? I don’t know. I can’t even read the street signs, russian letters, ya know, I just wanted to get on your n-”
“Stop the act. I know that you can read the street signs perfectly well.”
Clint’s shoulders sagged a little. His chin felt heavier in her palm now. His stubble felt nice against her fingers. Not that it mattered...
“Does this mean you know I’m not dumb?” Clint shook his head slightly, his voice getting a teasing tone. “And I thought I had you fooled.”
“Stop it.” Natasha wasn’t in the mood for his jokes. Yelena had succeeded in making her feel wary about herself, her own intentions in this game of cat and mouse. What were they doing? This endless road trip, this constant making and following of hints, it was leading nowhere but on. They could keep dancing around each other for another ten months. Maybe hurt each other again, so SHIELD wouldn’t suspect too much. Suspect what they both already knew: they couldn’t kill each other. They were way too curious about the other, way too pulled in by the other.
Natasha didn’t know how it had happened, how it had come to this. But she was a hundred percent certain that she was fond of Clint Barton and that she was protecting him by leading him on. She always knew where he was, because he always knew where she was. She kept an eye on him, he kept an eye on her. A part of her was still careful, still suspected betrayal, even death. Still, she knew what they said about him, about Hawkeye: he never missed. And he had missed. Big time.
Her grip on his chin loosened a little and she noticed she was stroking over his cheek. The humor hadn’t left his eyes, but it had transformed. He wasn’t teasing her anymore. There was affection in his gaze.
“Natasha.”
She felt his fingers on her elbow and jerked slightly. A soft sound of surprise exited her mouth. She hadn’t noticed him reaching for her. She was letting down her guard, his stupid blue eyes were bewitching her.
“Stop!” She pulled back suddenly, pushing her hand against his chest and grabbing for her gun which was hidden in her waistband. The weapon she had suspected to be in his free hand was invisible. Meaning there was no weapon in his free hand. He was holding up his arms gently, showing them to convince her he wouldn’t hurt her. She swallowed.
“Natasha Romanoff, I was sent as an agent of SHIELD to exterminate you, as they put it. You know that. We have been putting up quite a show, the two of us. I got into a lot of trouble for that. Barton, you’re wasting our time. Shit like that. I wasted their time, because...” Clint took a deep breath and chuckled insecurely. He scratched the back of his head and one could have almost forgotten that he was as cute as he was deadly. Natasha quit hunching, hadn’t even noticed that she was doing it. Her face felt frozen. Her eyes were fixed on Clint’s face. The face she’d been looking at again and again for the past months. Hidden by a mask or uncovered, at daylight, at nighttime. She felt like she knew him.
“I wanted to ask you, you know, under my protection and all, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, that has to be clear. If there are any doubts from you or or ... from my side I won’t even sleep, make sure nobody even thinks about-”
“You know, you annoyed me enough with letting me walk down the street alone and talk to some complete weirdo, so... get to the point.” She tried to keep up their banter, she had grown fond of it over the time they had been following one another from country to country, but at that specific moment her eyes were too dry and her throat was too cold for herself to be easy about the situation.
What was he proposing? She could feel hope flare up inside her chest like a magic trick. She couldn’t quite believe it, but she also couldn’t understand how it worked.
Clint chuckled, but choked on it like he was shivering on the inside. She knew that he was 26 years old, just like her. They were so young. Wasn’t it good and human to still hope?
Something hit Clint so quietly that only his stung reaction proved the collision. He grabbed his neck with wide eyes and Natasha could see blood between his fingers. His cheeks turned pale. With a piously untroubled expression Clint pulled a tiny bolt out of his delicate flesh. It was red. Darker than his own blood. Natasha knew that signature. The Red Room.
A poisoned arrow.
Her head whipped around and she saw Yelena’s blonde locks disappear inside a window up on the fifth floor.
Forget about hope, she thought. We need an antidote.
--------------------------
“The good news is I can still feel my legs. The bad news: I’m sweating on your pretty sweater.”
Natasha stumbled down the street, her right arm wrapped around Clint’s shoulders to support him. He was muscley and heavy and Natasha was strong, but her resources were being strained. She had to get back to the hide out. The antidote was inside the piano. It had always been stashed away there. Multiple flasks of it.
Yes, she was running into a trap. And yes, Yelena might have already destroyed all reserves. But a part of her demanded her to keep going. She couldn’t give up on this man. This god damn nuisance.
“Seriously ‘Tasha, where’d’you get it, that sweater?” Clint wasn’t aware of the fact that his poison-induced slurry slang sparked something inside Natasha’s emotions. She had been Natalia in the Red Room, Natalia in the hide out, Natalia in the last curses of her enemies. She had chosen to be Natasha for herself. And Clint gave her Tasha.
She looked at his sweaty, grief-marked face and saw nothing but affection. It seemed so easy for him to...
Quickly she shook her head and shortly butted their foreheads together. It was supposed to be gentle and reassuring, but it whipped his head back rather harshly.
“Ow.”
“You will be okay.”
“This’ll grow blue.”
“I will ... protect you.”
Clint smiled and stumbled, almost falling to the hard ground, but she kept him up, wheezing from the effort. She groaned, her muscles were protesting, burning. She had to keep going. Just five more turns. They could make it. They had to make it.
“You hesitated.” He chuckled and Natasha couldn’t help but huff at that. Feisty, gentle, good-humored archer.
“You have to help me move, Clint. How about those useless legs of yours?”
“They feel less alive by the second.” He gritted his teeth visibly and marched on despite the lifelessness. She would have winced, but she couldn’t. She had to keep going. Stay focused. Don’t think about all the ways this could turn out. He’d make it. He’d make it.
“I got the stupid sweater at Primark.” Natasha spat out and pulled him on forward. They did get some suspicious looks from the pedestrians around them. Since they weren’t calling for help though, or breaking down in a pile of death, nobody seemed to care enough to ask or even offer help. Good.
“Primark.” Clint’s voice sounded hoarse. He was hobbling slightly. Natasha knew that his incessant talking distracted him from pain and unconsciousness. Therefore she kept it up.
“Got it for five dollars. I’m a horrible person.”
“Yes. You- you should be ashamed of yourself. I’ll get you a better sweater. It’ll say: “Don’t buy five dollar sweaters at Primark.”” Clint’s face turned even paler than it had been before. Natasha noticed her lip was bleeding. She had bitten it too harshly.
“Good. Yes. Where will you get that sweater?” Natasha asked, carrying him across the street and futher down the darker part of the district. There was a lot of garbage on the pavement. She could see the broken window in the first floor of the building across the street. The broken window that raised some feeling of home inside her. A home she despised. But at least a place she could go.
“Primark, of course.” Clint was powerless. He fainted.
--------------------------
Natasha could hear herself. Her breathing was hysterical. Her body was at its limit. She pulled Hawkeye up the stairs, cursing his name, his weight, the shards on the steps that threatened to hurt the man even further. She gathered him in her arms and activated her last energy to pull him through the door to the hide out, to the tiny, moldy apartment with the piano in the middle. The door broke, she stumbled over it and the next thing she felt was a numb pain on the back of her head.
The next thing she realized was that she was on her hands and tried to blink herself back into her body, because it felt like she had exited it. Yelena walked into view, a blurry view, but a view. In her right hand she was swinging a baseball bat. I mean really? A baseball bat? How original. Natasha almost laughed at that. Clint Barton’s voice had really found a way into her head.
“I’m sorry, Natalia. I couldn’t risk you trying anything.”
Yeah, sure, like this was totally going to stop her. Her hand was fumbling across the floor that felt less real under her callous fingers. Damn baseball bats. She found Clint’s hand, pulled at it. His head met her thigh. She searched his pulse, fingers fumbling around at his collar. She found it, found something else as her fingers brushed against metal. A spark of relief washed through Natasha’s chest. Wonderful genius nuisance archer.
“I don’t understand you, Natalia.” Yelena sat down on a wooden stool. Natasha wished it to break apart. It would have been a fun story to tell Clint when he’d be awake again. She felt tears fill her eyes. God damn heads and their fragility. She had to get that antidote, she couldn’t suffer a concussion. Not now. “What is it about this man that could possibly be more intriguing than your old career? You were glorious, back in the day.”
Natasha held on tightly to Clint’s little gift, her hand hidden inside his horrible sweater. His heartbeat was weak against her knuckles.
“I suppose you have already guessed it.” Yelena sat back and put the baseball bat over her lap.
“What? That you never stopped working for the Red Room? Yeah... I figured.” Natasha blinked, tried to get her brain into a normal position in her head. Where was it swimming?
“Hmm. Sorry about that. They kind of want you delivered. This is why I can’t, you know, let you go with him.” Yelena got on her feet again. “It’s tragic. I’ve never seen you like this before. It could have been a happy end for you. He’s pretty.”
Natasha wasn’t even mad at Yelena. For any of it. She knew what the Red Room could be like. They had probably tortured the blonde mercenary. Unfortunately, in their line of work, nobody was trustworthy. Unfortunately for Yelena. She was getting closer.
“Maybe they won’t kill you. You were one of their best killers. It is possible that they take you back. After a certain... ordeal of course.” Yelena kneeled down before her, her foot kicking against Clint’s shoulder. Natasha bit on her bloody lip again. Her hand tightened around Clint’s necklace.
“What did they do to you, Yelena?” Natasha looked up, trying to focus on the slightly widening eyes of the poor lost soul and then, when she was certain the other woman was distracted, she hit her mark.
---------------------------
The arrow stuck out of Yelena’s eye like a candle out of a birthday cupcake. It wasn’t a nice death, but a fast one. As long as you hit the brain.
Natasha puked on the blonde strands of hair. Then she scrambled to her feet, fell down again, hit Clint’s head with her elbow. The man weakly awoke. A huff of air coming from his lips. They were turning blue.
“Don’t you” Natasha got on her knees.
“fucking” She hobbled over to the black instrument in the middle of the damn room.
“die” Her hand slipped between the backside and inside of the thing.
“on me!” She hauled herself up by the side of it, looked inside and saw nothing but broken vials.
A wail was about to break out of her. Long, loud and desperate. Instead, she dipped her head down until her lips met the wet bottom of the wood. Her brain was not happy about this change of positions. She ignored the nausea that started to build up. Tiny evil shards grazed her lips and tongue. And they would graze Clint’s iips and tongue as well. But that’s the way life goes sometimes.
When Natasha’s mouth had gathered up as much of the life-saving liquid as it could have from the godless puddle at the bottom of a really old piano she fell on her butt and moved herself back to the pretty lifeless Hawkeye on the floor. Her calm hands grabbed his jaw and opened his mouth. Then she bent down. The idea of her basically spitting into his mouth wasn’t a nice one. It certainly didn’t help her nausea. But he was a courageous little dying man and swallowed all of it, the antidote, the shards and her spit.
Natasha put her palm on his cold forehead and looked at his very still face. She started laughing like a crazy person. Then she cried a little, but shh, that’s between us. She concluded her hysterical session with a loud intake of breath and slumped in on herself.
-----------------------------
Later on, she wondered how long she had remained in her hunched sitting position. While doing it, it didn’t seem like much of an effort. Clint was either asleep or dead. And she wasn’t willing to find out which option applied.
As long as she could just sit here, all was possible. All was undecided.
The night was cold, but short. The morning was cruel with its ever growing light. More and more did Clint’s face reveal itself to her. And she couldn’t make out entirely what it indicated.
She must have waited about thirteen hours. Maybe a little less, maybe a ittle more. But it took many hours for Clint to wake.
He stirred on the floor and Natasha’s dry, dry eyes enjoyed a nice little shower.
“’Tasha?”
“I’m here.”
“Crazy.”
“Yeah.”
That was all he could muster. Then his head rolled back to the floor and he fell unconscious again.
It was more than enough for Natasha. She wiped away her tears, laughed about herself, got to her numb feet and rolled Yelena under the out-of-tune piano. Her head was better. Way better. She realized there was dried blood sticking to her hair. But she didn’t worry much about it.
She took up the baseball bat, walked to the fucked up instrument and destroyed it.
---------------------------------
Two hours later Clint woke to the steam of coffee being basically held in his face. He instinctively pushed the white, hot object in front of his nose away and shrieked when hot driplets of coffee splashed on his cheeks.
“Hellfire and endless agony!” He yelled as he sat up and wiped at his wet skin.
Natasha was sitting next to him, with a smirk on her face. Playfully she shook the cup in her hand around and leaned in as if to tell him a secret. “Just coffee actually.”
Clint looked at her as if he had never seen her before and for a moment the Black Widow felt uneasy. What if the poison had deleted Clint’s memory?
But then Clint cocked his head and asked “Gary?” with so much conviction that Natasha couldn’t decide which wish to give in to first: laughing or punching him. Which is why she did both.
“Ooooww.” Clint chuckled and dramatically leaned to the side of his hurt arm.
“That’s what you get for... for... “ Natasha was lost for words as she remembered the agony and hellfire she had spent the night with. Her face turned serious.
Clint sat up straight again and looked at her with his tilted head. His eyes were so soft. They always had been. Every damn time they had met along the way.
“What you did yesterday must have been incredible.” Hawkeye bent over and obviously wanted to grab something hidden inside his sweater. He was surprised not to find it.
Natasha watched him. “It probably was.” After a while, she added: “I had to use that necklace of yours.”
Clint slumped down a little. “Oh.” He only took a second to recover from that loss, but the fact that he had needed it showed Natasha how meaningful the jewelry must have been to Clint. He was back to his grinning self in no time. “What, did you put it in somebody’s eye or...?”
It was supposed to be a joke, but Natasha’s expression must have given the truth away. Clint’s eyebrows rose an inch. He saw the remaints of the piano and pieced the puzzle together. “You have been efficient.”
“I tend to be.”
With a nonchalance Natasha immediately liked about him Clint looked at his watch. “Oh well. We gotta go. Let’s burn this place down.”
He was about to get up, but fell on his backside again rather elegantless. He furrowed his brows and looked at his slightly trembling hands. “Huh.”
“Take it slow maybe.” Natasha advised, her hand extended to him to offer help.
“I’ve never been poisoned before. I can’t say it’s for me.” Clint took her hand with an adorably crooked smile and additionally grabbed for her shoulder when he was standing on his feet. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he did his best to breathe it away. His stomach grumbled. “Oh, would you look at that. Being hungry is a good sign, right?”
Natasha patted his hand and blinked ironically. “I’m sure it is.”
The archer took another few breaths to steady himself, holding on to Natasha all throughout it. What a weird pair they were. Natasha watched him calm down his shivers, watched his knuckles grow less and less white on her shoulder and on her hand. He wasn’t acting tough - well, he definitely was to a certain degree, but not in that specific moment - and he allowed her to see that he was weak. She pushed the backside of her left hand to his nice and stubly cheek, the way she had done it the day before. The stuble had grown over night.
Clint’s blue eyes focused on Natasha’s green ones. His breathing was getting more steady and his shivers disappeared. He smiled ever so lightly.
“Please don’t hit me now. I don’t think I could ever get over that.”
Natasha smiled back at him, the skin on her almost healed bottom lip breaking again and leaking some blood. She didn’t mind it.
“Do you ever shut up?”
“Nope.” He grabbed her hand from his cheek, kissed her fingers too quickly for her to pull back and turned around to bend down and search through the jacket she had taken off of him.
Unimpressed Natasha raised her eyebrows and looked at her fingers. She couldn’t hold back the tiniest smile. She cleared her throat. “Bet you’re so nice to all your missions.”
Clint made a noise that could have meant so much as “I beg to differ” or “God, I really need to pee”. Probably a bit of both. The archer slid inside his jacket and extracted a hand to her. “Not a mission anymore. Partners.”
Natasha blinked at him. What did he mean by partners?
“Well, before you ask any rude questions. Let’s really burn this place down!” Clint concluded and pulled a lighter out of his jacket pocket. He grinned so dumbly, Natasha had to cross her arms to keep from mirroring him.
“You don’t got any gasoline nearby, do you?”
------------------------------
They sat in the cafe again, when the firefighters rushed past them with sirens whailing.The coffee-stained tabelcloth had been badly washed. There was a big brown spot on it where Clint had been so graceful to cover it with the hot liquid a day before.Natasha poked her smashed potatoes around like someone had hidden a fly in them and she had yet to find it. She didn’t like flies. Clint’s stomach continued to rumble, but he didn’t touch his food. It was unusual for him to be this serious. But the situation called for it.
“Like I said I would protect you. At all costs. Nobody will be able to hurt you.”
“I don’t need your protection.” Natasha hissed reflexively and felt bad for it immediately. Felt.. bad for it? Seriously? Gosh, this man was annoying. Natasha dropped her spoon and rested her head in her palms.
To her surprise Clint looked down quickly, badly hiding his sudden smirk.
She kicked him under the table. He hid his wince with a chuckle. “You are responsible for so many bruises on this shin, you got no idea.” Natasha ignored that. “What are you grinning about?”
Clint shook his head and smiled openly now. “You... you pout.”
The reaction from the Black Widow must have been an even more indignant pout, because Clint’s grin widened. She kicked him again, but this time he pushed his leg out of reach fast enough. His left eye-brow raised triumphantly. Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. So many thoughts and doubts and hopes were flaring through her slightly concussed head, she could barely focus on one at a time. Still. This smirk. This softness. This almost playful side of him - or well, definitely playful side - she was pulled in by it.
“I... “ She started, then looked away, bit her scabby lip and started again. “I don’t want to say yes because of you. But I would have to say yes because of you.”
Clint’s smirk vanished, making room for a very sympathetic expression. Worry. He was just as worried as she was. This is why he kept on promising her protection. To calm his own mind.
“If it helps you,” Clint stated with a self-ironic chuckle, “I am offering it because of you. And you alone.”
Natasha tilted her head questioningly.
“Well,” Cint started to explain, “I have been working for SHIELD for six years now. They pay well. And I’m good at the whole bow and arrow thing-”
“The best, I heard.” Natasha interrupted, looking not the least impressed.
Clint grinned and pointed at her face teasingly. “Pouting again!” He sing-songed. She blushed - actually blushed for God’s sake - and slapped his hand away. He chuckled and continued his monologue.
“It’s just... I don’t recruit people. Obviously. That’s Phil’s job and Nick Fury’s. I get my missions and I finish them. And now there’s you. Natasha, you are the first mission I didn’t finish. I won’t finish. Because you are impressive. And there’s good in you, intelligence, so much will. You saved me so many times. It’s kind of twisted, isn’t it? My mission was to kill you, so you would stop killing. Now we are here, you saved my life more times than I can count and I want you to-”
He looked at her almost desperately and Natasha felt that she was looking at him the same way. What he was proposing there was a future. It was a job, it was redemption, it was forgiveness, it was friendship and more than that. In front of all, it was a risk. He was taking a huge risk. For her.
Clint took a deep breath and closed his cold fingers around her hand on the table. “I want you to be my partner. I want you to work with me.”
You could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall above them. You could hear more sirens blaring outside, more firefighter, maybe the police. You could hear Clint holding his breath and Natasha’s voice stuck inside her throat.
Then Clint’s phone started to ring. He squeezed his eyes shut in discomfort and grabbed it out of his pocket, not letting go of Natasha’s hand on the table. She believed, it was an unconscious thing from him and it endeared her. With his eyes he conveyed her the message that he had to take this call. She nodded with a patient smile.
“Eyyyyyy Phillie, Phil’oh’boy, how’s it gooooing?... Yeah, I didn’t, that’s right. ... Oh why, you ask? Why I didn’t call? I was poisoned, almost dying. ... Busy night, yeah. ... I know. ... Yep, I know that’s what was our deal. ... Sure. ...”
Clint furrowed his brows when he saw Natasha taking out a pen and writing something on a napkin. He realized he was still holding her hand. A slight blush colored his cheeks. But he didn’t let go. Partly because he didn’t want to, partly because she was smiling while writing.
“The meetup is in an hour already? ... Huh. ... Yep, I think we can make it. ... Yes, we. ... Well, I’m a hopeful person. ... Love you too, Phillie. ... That’s just rude.” Clint ended the call and slid his phone back inside his pocket.
Natasha watched him with attentive eyes.
Clint smiled crookedly again and scratched the back of his head. “We uhm... we gotta be at the airport in an hour. If that’s where you want to be.”
The Black Widow had banned all emotions from her face and merely looked at him. Then she raised the napkin from the table top and held it in front of her sweater. It said “Don’t buy 5$ sweaters at Primark.”
Clint closed his eyes and hummed with a smile that was banning all worries and pains he had ever suffered from. When he looked at her again, his blue eyes were shimmering.
“Is that a yes?”
--------------------------
Phil stood in the opening of the helicopter, sunglasses on, in a suit as usual, and shook his head so obviously dismissive that Natasha’s stomach rebelled worriedly.
Clint held her hand and he didn’t let go, even when she made an effort to slip out of his grip.
“With all I have.” Hawkeye reminded her loud enough to hear over the noise of the helicopter and squeezed her hand reassuringly. She stared into his soft blue eyes and couldn’t help but smile.
Phil Coulson helped them into the helicopter, closed the door and gave the SHIELD pilot the sign to take off. He looked pissed. Even with his sunglasses on. Even with this face of a passionless fish. So the first thing that Natasha could think off was smile.
“You must be Bill.”
The poor archer next to her had to turn around and act like he was searching for something to cover up his shaking shoulders. She grinned. Making Hawkeye laugh would be one of her favorite new hobbies.
“Natalia Alianovna Romanova.” Phil Coulson answered coldly, hitting a sore spot, just as he had probably wanted to.
Natasha bit on the inside of her cheek and gave a quick response. “Or just Tasha... though I haven’t yet decided who is allowed to call me that.” Her newly gained partner settled in more comfortably and pushed her thigh with his knuckles to remind her of putting on her seatbelt. She nodded and did so.
“This is adorable.” Phil said, looking not at all charmed by their silent conversation. “Hawkeye brings in a new recruit. A deadly new recruit who has been filed as one of the Top 20 most wanted assassins by SHIELD. The organization you work for, Clint.”
“Top 20?” Natasha asked, a little disappointed. “That could mean anything. It could mean that I am the eleventh most wanted or the nineteenth. That’s a huge difference. Could you be a little more precise?”
Clint had to bite his quivering lip and stepped on her foot gently but firmly.
“Ahh.” Coulson made. “I see. She amuses you. Wonderful. Just perfect. Can’t wait to see what Fury has to say to this.”
That was all Phil Coulson said for the remaining long journey back to America. It didn’t matter much. Natasha got used to him staring at her rather quickly and managed to ignore it.
Why? Because Clint was shielding her. Not with his body. But with his presence. Sure, she didn’t need his protection. She had had her own for years, Ever since she could remember actually. Yet, it was the nicest, most comfortable feeling Natasha had ever experienced. Sitting here, in a helicopter of an organization that had her on a list of most wanted assassins, next to a mercenary who had spent months hunting her down, opposite a man whose hidden stare alone made her see his wish she’d drop down dead immediately.
It was in the touch of his elbow against her arm, in his foot stepping on hers repeatedly to annoy her, in his head leaning in close to hers to whisper mean things about Coulson in her ear. It was in his soft blue eyes and in his little smiles. It was in the echo in her head, the echo of his words.
With all I have.
That is where her hope sat. Her safety. Her trust and ... affection.
Because, and she had thought it before and she would think it again, with every touch he gave so freely to her, with every laugh he spilled due to her, with every word he directed at her and every hug he embraced her in, it seemed so easy for him to love her.
#clintasha#clint x natasha#avengers#preavengers#fanfiction#black widow#hawkeye#phil coulson#shield#budapest#yelena#oc#with all i have
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WYRD SISTERS (1988) [DISC. #6; WITCHES #2]
“‘No one would come up here this time of night.’ Magrat peered around timidly. Here and there on the moor were huge standing stones, their origins lost in time, which were said to lead mobile and private lives of their own. She shivered. ‘What’s to be afraid of?’ she managed. ‘Us,’ said Granny Weatherwax, smugly.”
Rating: 6/10
Standalone Okay: Yes
Read First: Yeah!
Discworld Books Masterpost: [x]
* * * * * * * * * *
I’m just going to jump right in with this one: the best part about the Witches sub-series of the Discworld is that they are all, in their own way, stories about stories. They’re stories that follow other stories, the tropes and archetypes and established narrative structure, but they’re also stories that subvert that structure at just the right moment to make something that feels much more truthful, and often, much more real.
Stories about stories.
This is sometimes very literal: Wyrd Sisters, for example, has very obvious Shakespearean roots, notably from Hamlet and Macbeth, and seems to gleefully delight in throwing around references—three witches meeting to cast spells, blood on the murderer’s hands that won’t wash away, the ghost of a murdered father begging his son to seek revenge, a theater called The Dysk that mimics Shakespeare’s Globe, etc., etc., etc.—that then get turned over on their heads. We’ll see it done again with the fairy tale elements of Witches Abroad, and the Phantom of the Opera parody that is Maskerade. These books are, in a very real sense, skipping the setup and instead using cultural touchstones as framework. The books starring the witches are literally new stories being told about stories we, the audience, already know and recognize.
But sometimes it isn’t literal at all: witches, after all, work magic most often through psychology and metaphor. “Headology,” as the witches call it, is the basis of witchcraft, and it’s all about the stories being told. It’s in the things the witches do for respect, like their hats and black outfits and their out-of-the-way cottages they pass down from one witch to the next, or the way they bow instead of curtsey. It’s in the things they call magic even when it isn’t, like using real herbs and medicines to cure illnesses, or waving their hands over a pot of tea and chanting nonsense before ‘reading the future’ in the leaves, all of it only for the look of the thing from the outside.
And it’s also in the things they tell themselves. For example, when Magrat’s broomstick stops working in Wyrd Sisters, she does what she calls a Change spell—which simply means that the rest of the world remains the same, but she changes the way she sees herself. Before, she was a young woman on a broom rapidly falling out of the sky, and now she’s a confident young witch who can deal with any disaster that comes her way, so she’s therefore a lot less worried about it.
And it works. That’s the thing: Magrat is just fine. Witches do magic in and on themselves, it’s all nothing more than a thought, and yet it works.
None of the Witches books are particularly subtle about the point they’re trying to make with the whole deal, either. In Wyrd Sisters, it seems like everyone is talking about the power of words and stories, the way that the things we tell ourselves and each other can shape the reality of the world we inhabit. There are some negatives you can pull out of that message—history is malleable and written by the victors, propaganda triumphs over the truth, etc., etc. But there are a lot of more interesting, thought-provoking ideas to consider, instead. For example: just because narrative structure has already delivered us the broad strokes of the plot (anyone who’s studied any Shakespeare, which can reasonably be assumed to be any native English speaker older than about sixteen, can probably guess the general course of Wyrd Sisters by about page twenty), it doesn’t mean there can’t be originality and meaning in the specifics.
And that originality and meaning is what makes all the Discworld books work so well. Pratchett is parodying, sure, but he’s also creating something very new and earnest and sincere, and that just doesn’t work if the story is an exact beat-for-beat retelling of an already-told tale.
Wyrd Sisters agrees with that idea. Destiny is all well and good—it’s nice to think that what’s to come is pre-planned, easy to predict, and impossible to subvert—but the world just doesn’t work like that. The story isn’t plotted out in advance.
As Pratchett says later in the book: “Destiny was funny stuff…You couldn’t trust it. Often you couldn’t even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer.”
The witches certainly don’t truck with destiny. Or, well, it may be a tool in their storytelling arsenal, but they don’t see it as a concrete thing. Destiny is what you make of it, and Granny and Nanny are movers and shakers. That makes it especially ironic that the book is called Wyrd Sisters—the word “wyrd” is an old Anglo-Saxon concept referring to fate or personal destiny, so the “wyrd sisters” themselves typically would be the three Fates, a la Greek mythology, rather than three women who tend to grab Fate and Destiny by the ears and twist until they decide to agree that the witches have the right of it.
Honestly, though, if Granny Weatherwax looked at me like that, I’d do whatever she wanted, too.
I just want to bring up something I really like about Pratchett’s writing style: despite the fantastical setting, despite how far from reality he can get, he’s not afraid to switch to Roundworld concepts or just flat-out break the fourth wall in exchange for better, more impactful descriptions. I like to call this cinematic writing, and sometimes that’s actually very literal. There are quite a few passages in various Discworld books where he starts to write in an almost movie-script style. After Moving Pictures, which is still a good four books away at this point, I think that becomes less notable. Here, and in the previous few Discworld books (Mort, Sourcery, Equal Rites), when Discworld does not have any parallel equivalent to Roundworld’s Hollywood, it’s pretty damn unusual for an author to just outright throw aside their own fantasy setting to make a description in real-world terms.
My favorite example of this from Wyrd Sisters:
“It is almost impossible to convey the sudden passage of fifteen years and two months in words. It’s a lot easier in pictures, when you just use a calendar with lots of pages blowing off, or a clock with hands moving faster and faster until they blur, or trees bursting into blossom and fruiting in a matter of seconds… Well, you know. Or the sun becomes a fiery streak across the sky, and days and nights flicker past jerkily like a bad zoetrope, and the fashions visible in the clothes shop across the road whip on and off faster than a lunchtime stripper with five pubs to do. There are any amount of ways, but they won’t be required because, in fact, none of this happened.”
You can practically imagine the way that scene would look in a blockbuster movie, and it’s wonderful that Pratchett describes it crystal clear just to let us know that it is not, in fact, how it looked at all.
There’s a lot more to like about Wyrd Sisters, too, for all that it isn’t one of my favorite Discworld books. It’s a far better introduction to the witches—specifically Granny Weatherwax—than Equal Rites is, even though Equal Rites is technically the first book in the Witches sub-series. It introduces some characters we’ll see a lot more of later, like King Verence and the greater Ogg family, but also characters that will go on to become staples of the Discworld, like Nanny Ogg and Magrat. We also have some lovely cameos from already established characters: notably Death and his interactions during the play at the castle, but there are some good Ankh-Morpork moments, like the Librarian’s appearance at a barfight.
And we get to see the good old Discworld humor really click—it’s all about that balance between absurdism and realism, or between established tropes and self-awareness. One of my favorite examples of this comes right at the beginning of the book:
“As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we three meet again?’ There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: ‘Well, I can do next Tuesday.’”
Pratchett’s really got a sense for it by this point, and he can deliver zinger after unexpectedly delightful zinger. Discworld books are always beautifully funny, of course, even though after a while you really get a feel for when a good joke is coming. Some people might think that knowing the punchline is coming might make it less funny: it absolutely does not. All it does is make the unexpected, sneaky moments—when the humor Pratchett has been secretly setting up for ages finally creeps up to smack you in the face—hit harder. Maybe others disagree, but I can read Discworld novels again and again, and they always get me just as much as they did the first time through. In my opinion, that’s real comedic talent.
Up next in the series we have Pyramids, our first unconnected one-off story, which is wonderfully weird even for a Discworld book! Stay tuned!
* * * * * * * * * *
Side Notes:
Every time that oh-so popular Ankh-Morporkian dive bar, the Drum, pops up, it’s fun to note where it’s at these days: Mended Drum, Broken Drum, etc. In Wyrd Sisters, Tomjon and Hwel go drinking in the Mended Drum.
There are several adaptations of Wyrd Sisters, including a 4-part BBC radio show, an animated film, and a stageplay.
As I go over my highlighted quotes and annotations from each book, putting these posts together, I learn more and more about myself. What I like, what I find funny, what I care to notice. For example, Vetinari shows up exactly ONCE in this book, and just in a footnote, and yet I still highlighted it and wrote a note next to it that contained mostly exclamation points. There’s no real point to this; I just want everyone to know how much I love Vetinari.
Favorite Quotes:
“As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we three meet again?’ There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: ‘Well, I can do next Tuesday.’”
“Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly don’t have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have.”
“Now, just when a body would have been useful, it had let him down. Or out.”
“‘No one would come up here this time of night.’ Magrat peered around timidly. Here and there on the moor were huge standing stones, their origins lost in time, which were said to lead mobile and private lives of their own. She shivered. ‘What’s to be afraid of?’ she managed. ‘Us,’ said Granny Weatherwax, smugly.”
“‘How many times have you thrown a magic ring into the deepest depths of the ocean and then, when you get home and have a nice bit of turbot for your tea, there it is?’ They considered this in silence. ‘Never,’ said Granny irritably. ‘And nor have you.’”
“His body was standing to attention. Despite all his efforts his stomach stood at ease.”
“Back down on the plains, when you kicked people they kicked back. Up here, when you kicked people they moved away and just waited patiently for your leg to fall off.”
“The Ogg grandchildren were encouraged to believe that monsters from the dawn of time dwelt in its depths, since Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood.”
“She gave the guards a nod as she went through. It didn’t occur to either of them to stop her because witches, like beekeepers and big gorillas, went where they liked. In any case, an elderly lady banging a bowl with a spoon was probably not the spearhead of an invasion force.”
“‘You’re wondering whether I really would cut your throat,’ panted Magrat. ‘I don’t know either. Think of the fun we could have together, finding out.’”
“Wizards assassinated each other in drafty corridors, witches just cut one another dead in the street. And they were all as self-centered as a spinning top. Even when they help other people, she thought, they’re secretly doing it for themselves. Honestly, they’re just like big children. Except for me, she thought smugly.”
“‘Man just went past with a cat on his head,’ one of them remarked, after a minute or two’s reflection. ‘See who it was?’ ‘The Fool, I think.’ There was a thoughtful pause. The second guard shifted his grip on his halberd. ‘It’s a rotten job,’ he said. ‘But I suppose someone’s got to do it.’”
“Granny’s implicit belief that everything should get out of her way extended to other witches, very tall trees and, on occasion, mountains.”
“Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.”
“Words were indeed insubstantial. They were as soft as water, but they were also as powerful as water and now they were rushing over the audience, eroding the levees of veracity, and carrying away the past.”
“‘Witches just aren’t like that,’ said Magrat. ‘We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.’”
“‘I shall haunt their corridors,’ he said, ‘and whisper under the doors on still nights.’ His voice grew fainter, almost lost in the ceaseless roar of the river. ‘I shall make basket chairs creak most alarmingly, just you wait and see.’ Death grinned at him. NOW YOU’RE TALKING.”
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Best South Indian Movies You Must Watch
Nonetheless, there is a significant utility in distinguishing and posting motion pictures that have pushed the limits of the medium over the range of the previous decade. While this rundown can't be all around authoritative, it actually permits us to have a brief look at the different true to life and socio-social mediations that films from a specific geology have been making. It likewise offers us a chance to reflect and see how every one of these local films have been affecting one another, just as their aggregate spot in Indian and world film. For more visit- best South Indian movies
Thanga Meenkal ('Gold Fish', 2013, Tamil)
In Tamil film, the dad girl relationship is frequently investigated distinctly with regards to another man entering the condition as the young lady's sweetheart or spouse. Thus, basically, the story gets decreased to a contention between two men competing for a similar lady's consideration. As opposed to this cliché design, Ram brazenly unloads the magnificence and untidiness of a dad little girl relationship in Thanga Meenkal (and furthermore later in Peranbu, 2018). By depicting a ridiculously optimistic however vulnerable dad in Thanga Meenkal, Ram compassionately pushes the crowd to consider on what genuinely makes for a decent dad.
Maheshinte Prathikaaram ('Mahesh's Revenge', 2016, Malayalam)
Dileesh Pothan's presentation film opens with a peaceful waterway stream, and the story also continues to stream like one. The magnificence of Pothan's portrayal lies by they way he meshes the topography of the area into the film as an inborn character (this remains constant for his subsequent film, 2017's Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, or 'The Mainour and the Witness', too). In Maheshinte Prathikaaram, Pothan gets a short story-esque quality to the film that follows a couple of sensational occasions in the life of exceptionally standard individuals. Investigating the misfortune and addition of affection and honor through its helpless and artistically atypical male characters, the film depicts men with unordinary affectability. The characters and the conditions appear to be genuine to the point that before the finish of the film, you can nearly smell the natural fragrance that develops when downpour falls on dry soil.
Madras (2014, Tamil)
Before Pa Ranjith caught the consideration of the country with his Rajinikanth starrers Kabali (2016) and Kaala (2018), he made this energetic, nuanced and layered film on the lives and governmental issues of middle class Dalit-Bahujans in Chennai. While most pop-social references to Chennai by and large incorporate any semblance of Carnatic music sabhas, channel espresso or the Mylapore sanctuary—which are altogether inseparable from the lives of Brahmin Savarnas—Ranjith's film permits the common laborers to recover the city that was worked with their blood and sweat. Madras is especially huge for how it injects Ambedkarite governmental issues into standard Tamil film. The film strangely depicts a scary divider as both a living character and an image of political capital and shows it as the purpose of contention.
Adaminte Makan ('Abu, Son of Adam', 2011, Malayalam)
Probably the most humanistic stories on the lives of Muslims have originated from Malayalam film. In this film, Salim Ahamed follows the yearnings and battles of an older Muslim couple who seek to go on a journey to Mecca. Catching the subtleties of Kerala's Malabar area, the film is a composition on trust, expectation, tirelessness and sympathy. Entertainer Salim Kumar who won the National Award for his job, conveys perhaps the best execution of his vocation. The film's peak explanation on the start and finishing of human interests is certainly one of the most lovely terminations.
Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum ('The Wolf and the Lamb', 2013, Tamil)
Mysskin's metaphorical wilderness story is both basic and philosophical simultaneously. In this colossally holding film, where the functions of the tracker and the pursued are tradable, Mysskin pushes us to mull over on the outrageous brutality and the exceptional sympathy that people are able to do. The movie producer himself stars as the 'wolf' and conveys one of the decade's best speech minutes. Mysskin is a self-proclaimed understudy and devotee of Akira Kurosawa, and in Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum he gets as near the Japanese producer as could reasonably be expected. The tune less film is additionally raised by Ilayaraaja's stunning foundation score.
C/o Kancharapalem (2018, Telugu)
Set in the thin paths of Kancharapalem, a territory in Visakhapatnam, this outside the box film by Maha Venkatesh is all heart. The film compassionately catches the bizarre romantic tales of characters who are infrequently found in the true to life universe. Populated basically by non-proficient entertainers, the appeal of the film lies by they way it can non-critically take a gander at all its characters. Aside from the idiosyncrasy and the flawlessness of the individual stories, the film additionally figures out how to easily mesh each strand into a more extensive socio-political setting. The film's capricious soundtrack makes the account significantly more vital. C/o Kancharapalem is strong evidence of the way that works of art can be made even on a tight spending plan with the correct producers in charge. Also, if the words 'exquisite' and 'beguiling' are abused in this note on the film, it is simply because the film is such.
Kuttram Kadithal ('The Punishment', 2015, Tamil)
Bramma's National Award-winning film is an extraordinary reflection on transgression, blame, discipline and absolution. While the film offers a significant investigate of the pervasive arrangement of training, the most fascinating part of Kuttram Kadithal is its depiction of its lady hero. While a lot of Indian film can't think past sexual or different types of brutality at whatever point a focal female character is included, Bramma's film powerfully follows the character of Merlin, a faithful Christian and a teacher (played by the fantastic Radhika Prasidhha) as she wrestles with an intense feeling of blame.
Aedan: Garden of Desire (2018, Malayalam)
In this film that uncovers itself as a story inside a story, Sanju Surendran plays with the genuine and the strange. Albeit set in a town in Kottayam, its characters could possibly be from a Gabriel Garcia Marquez tale. Investigating the complexities of human feelings—desire, energy and envy—Surendran takes us through a story that is unhurried however holding simultaneously. The three befuddling stories are described with an expressive visual quality that permits Surendran to differentiate magnificence and agony through want and demise.
Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum ('Love Too Shall Pass', 2016, Tamil)
To sidestep Nalan Kumarasamy's Soodhu Kavvum ('Gambling will Befall', 2013) and make space for his subsequent film may seem like an unexpected decision. However, in the event that you intently take a gander at how Kadhalum Kadandhu Pogum flawlessly investigates and depicts the sensitive space among fellowship and sentiment, it may be anything but difficult to perceive any reason why. In this moderate blending story that feels like a prequel to the sentimental story that may follow, Vijay Sethupathi and Madonna Sebastian convey one of their most beguiling yet practical exhibitions. The scene where the two characters embrace each other just because may be one of the subtlest yet most powerful minutes in the Tamil sentimental type. While the film is a change of the Korean film My Dear Desperado, Kumarasamy easily limits it to the Tamil milieu and makes it his own.
Thithi ('Funeral', 2015, Kannada)
Catching the account of four ages of men in a Gowda family, the key to the viability of Ram Reddy's film lies in how precisely screenwriter Ere Gowda comprehends the town Node Koppalu (Mandya locale, Karnataka) and its kin. The film catches the arrangement of occasions that follow the passing of the oldest 'Century' Gowda and the occasions are both sensible and absurdist simultaneously. It includes the clashing quest for the men from three ensuing ages in the family and the energetic locals who are seeking after an excessive dining experience at the burial service. While the clamorous and philosophical nature of the film helps one to remember Italian movie producer Federico Fellini's Amarcord (1973), Thithi is solidly established in its provincial socio-political setting. The persuading exhibitions regarding the non-proficient entertainers helps hugely in keeping the account exceptionally valid.
Lucia (2013, Kannada)
Alright, it may seem like cheating to push for an eleventh film in a rundown of ten movies. However, of course, for a film like Lucia that twists all current artistic standards, one ought to be permitted to twist the principles of a rundown too. Pawan Kumar's film about the equal existences of its hero as an attendant and a film star plays precarious psyche games with the watcher and continually moves between the genuine and envisioned universes. Also, the film offers a significant critique on the territory of Kannada film and the demise of single-screen theaters. Lucia will without a doubt keep on staying a significant film for pushing the limits of realistic accounts.
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Helicobacter 17
Previously on Helicobacter, everything was right ridiculous. Regardless of whether the long and undisciplined unwinding of twists here has been entertaining, I’ve enjoyed the practice of putting it together. Free-associating was great; getting from that initial hellscape—poor JK!—to the koans to the raccoons. Et cetera. In sixteen prior installments! No actual pies were injured in the making of this story, which I think shows laudable restraint on my part. Oh, I did finally figure out how to get that one troublesome shoutout in, though you may find it a bit of a shoehorn. And there’s that one additional little backgroundy twisty twist near the end, one that calls back, in a whisper, to an earlier thing... anyway, it won’t be too long before I put some more words up; I’m working on a part of an older unfinished piece and may also float a couple trial balloons for new things. Stay tuned.
Helicobacter 17
“Are you sure you want me to put my shirt on?” Helena heard Myka ask. She had turned her back to allow Myka to change out of the hospital gown and back into her clothes—to enable Myka to do it, really, because Helena was in the end only human, and their physical relationship had not reached a point at which any sort of unclothing could be casually received—and now Helena was reminded of being in her kitchen, of listening to Myka’s disembodied voice explaining the plan, of having no effective way to respond to what was being said. “Trousers are next,” Myka went on, “but feel free to stop me anytime.”
“I am terrible at being good,” Helena said, resolutely not turning her head, “and so the universe gave me you. To test me, over and over again.”
Myka laughed. “Just so you fail every now and then. You can turn back around; all that’s left are my shoes.” Helena did then turn around, on some level expecting Myka to be naked, as one of those perpetual tests. Instead, she was in fact fully dressed, pulling a boot onto her right foot. Helena couldn’t hold back a little sigh of disappointment, and Myka laughed again. “What should I say in the note I leave my mom tonight?”
“What is so appealing to you about sneaking out? Is it the thrill of the forbidden? Should I worry that you’ll lose interest when both your mother and the overall prohibition are gone?”
“My honest answer about whether you should worry is, ‘how should I know?’ My hopeful answer is, ‘of course not.’ As for the sneaking out, it’s mostly for my mom’s benefit at this point. She doesn’t want to have to show how pleased she is to have the place—a place—to herself. Once in a while.”
Puzzling. “I thought your father took many fishing trips.”
“It’s only when Mom’s gone, really. He doesn’t say much about it, but he’s happiest when they’re together.” She finished with her boots, stood up, and began to tidy the bed. She looked over her shoulder at Helena. “Maybe you’ll want to go fishing only when I’m out of town.”
“I don’t know how to fish,” Helena said. She added a silent And now I don’t want to learn. But why keep silent? Why was her first instinct to censor such words? So she said, “And now I don’t want to learn.”
Myka turned back to the bed. She said a warm “Good.”
“Your father did invite me, however.”
A chuckle. “You should go, and Skype and Facetime and text and DM me every chance you get, on lots of different devices. Send me emails too. He’ll lose his mind.”
“What if I tell him about the aquatic abilities of raccoons?”
Myka spun around again, her mouth open in comic protestation. “I’ll never forgive you! I want to annoy him, not give him a heart attack. Besides, you should bear in mind that he’s the one who bought a very significant textbook lot.”
“My gratitude is stipulated.”
“Plus, and I realize this matters to me more than to us, he got me Georgeliot.”
“Under duress,” Helena noted.
Myka nodded. “Sometimes it takes a little duress for people to do the exactly-right thing.”
“So if I happen to come home some evening and am greeted not by you but by a large gaze of raccoons, I should assume there’s some right course of action I’ve failed to take?”
Myka pulled her into a half-embrace and bestowed a swift kiss, recalling the tactility of the rehearsal dinner. “I really like that you just said ‘come home.’”
Helena resolved to say “come home” far more often. “And not even under duress,” she said.
Another swift kiss. “I also really like that you know the collective noun for raccoons.”
“I like that you like that I know it.”
“I like that too.” Myka’s expression changed from affectionate to sly. “Want to sneak out of the hospital?”
“No.”
Myka pouted. “You are no fun at all.”
Rolling her eyes at the pout—which managed to be annoying and attractive at the same time—Helena said, “To test me, over and over again. And I’d like to add that that’s a ‘no’ in perpetuity, because—”
“No fun.”
“Will you let me finish? In perpetuity, because I don’t want to be in any hospital so as to have occasion to sneak out of it.”
The pout dissolved. “Oh. That’s reasonable.”
“Now call your mother back in here,” Helena said, “so we can get on with leaving, so we can get on with working—”
“And back to no fun,” Myka interrupted, herself back to the pout.
“And back to, will you let me finish? So we can get on with working, so the day can get on with ending, so you can then get on with sneaking out.”
Now the pout became a familiarly brilliant smile. “Oh. That’s even better than reasonable.”
The half-embrace became full.
****
When Helena opened her door to Myka after the promised, and much-anticipated, sneaking out, it was the hospital room again: no one lunged. Instead they looked.
One beat, two. Unhurried because there was at last no hurry? Or were they waiting for something?
Then Myka said, “This is different than before. Both times. Me standing here.”
“This is different than before,” Helena agreed. She glanced down at the ring on her finger, as if it might itself be the explanation.... it glittered back, wise and clear. A symbol, but not the cause, of everything that stood differently around them, how they stood differently before each other.
Myka spoke again. “Belief is a good look on you.” She took a slow breath. “Then again, I think just about everything’s a good look on you.”
On that, Helena’s memory barked a shin. “Wait. How do you know what I look like in a hardhat?”
“I have a vivid imagination,” Myka said. She stepped inside and kicked the door closed.
The kick was strong and deliberate, but not overpowering; Helena was able to respond, somewhat calmly, “While I know that’s true, I don’t believe it represents a truthful answer to my question.”
Myka’s mouth shaped into a languid smile. It was even more deliberate than the kick. “You really want to know? Fine. One morning Abigail was giving me grief about how she was going to be meeting you at the neighborhood site. This was right after the committee was formed, and I thought that maybe Steve would come with you, and that that would mean the whole committee was there, and I could pinpoint, and you’d be there too, so... you see how I thought the plan was going to come together. But as it turned out, no Steve.”
“So no pinpoint.”
“No pinpoint, and so I felt really silly, lurking around a corner like I was part of some pathetic, busted sting operation, ready with my camera and telephoto lens, but then there wasn’t a drug deal after all. Then again, I did get to hyperventilate about how irresistible you were in that hardhat.”
“But not irresistible.”
“No, seriously.”
“Perhaps seriously, but not literally. You resisted, did you not? Remained out of sight, around the corner?”
Myka paused. “Fine. You win.” She paused again. “But only in the short term.”
“I win only in the short term?”
“I resisted only in the short term. I mean, look at me.”
Helena obliged, and Myka wrapped her arm around Helena in her now-familiar loop, this time as a clear prelude to what would come next. “You do not appear to be the picture of resistance,” Helena acknowledged.
“Good. But obviously resistance was never really on the table. Case in point: that disaster with Ben, the guy in Accounting, happened right after my attempted ring bust.”
“The PTA-meeting fellow. The dressing-down.”
“Which was supposed to put the fear of god, or just shame and unemployment, squarely into all of us.”
“Instead you called me,” Helena said.
“See? I couldn’t resist. I remember you practically ripped my head off.”
“Abigail had made very clear to me that the situation was no longer abstract or humorous. given how you would react to such a public mortification... will you be all right with the consequences of the ‘truth’ about us becoming known now? Whatever those consequences may be?” Helena asked, out of genuine curiosity.
To her surprise, Myka laughed at that. “Given that a lot of the people I work with have both seen you and heard you, I might just get high fives rather than any metaphorical pies to the face.” She turned serious. “But regardless, even if I have to cringe my way through some of it, I’m going to remember that the real consequence is that our situation, yours and mine, doesn’t have to be abstract anymore.”
“Humorous, surely,” Helena said, pressing herself close into that bodily loop.
Myka smiled. “I hope so. But Abigail did try to make the gravity clear to me too. She shoved the ring at me, told me to take it and return it. I almost agreed to.”
“But?”
“But I realized that if it was in my possession again, I was going to track you down. Partially because you were so on fire to keep me out of trouble, and that was... well, irresistible.” She placed her lips softly against Helena’s temple: a gesture of proof. “I have to believe there’s a way out of any box, if you’re willing to work hard enough to find it. Even though that box, then, seemed to be collapsing on us.”
“Like a poorly constructed architectural model,” Helena said, but she thought of that sturdy little community center, flanked by those valiant trees. “You are persistent.”
“Maybe it was because I’d heard the word ‘cancer,’ but I knew what I wanted. Who I wanted. Really, at long last. It was such a relief.”
And Helena considered that Myka wasn’t wrong, not at all. She herself had received no such mortality shock, yet it was still a relief to know with such seeming clarity: this. It was also a relief, now, to be able to act on that knowledge unencumbered. “And at last we can—”
“Wait,” Myka said. “Grapefruit.”
“All right. Turnabout. I see. Interestingly, or not, it also involves a grief-giving from Abigail. It was when she and Steve koaned me. I don’t believe they were yet a committee...” The half-embrace was turning full again; Myka’s ‘wait’ was clearly not intended as any sort of prohibition, but Helena continued, “Abigail was having fun, asked what I liked for breakfast, rubbing in the fact that you and I did not, and would not, share it. ‘There is no grapefruit’ was said, to make me feel terrible.”
Helena realized she’d drawn her expression into severity only when Myka began kissing it gentle. “My poor baby,” she murmured.
The addition of “my.” Entirely right, yet entirely a surprise in its rightness. How could anything so apparently destined be composed of so many pieces that Helena did not expect? “I was wearing a hardhat at the time,” she told Myka. Then she pushed. “Can you imagine? Perhaps you can...”
“Now you’re just showboating,” Myka said, but her hands moved in a way that suggested “just showboating” meant “issuing clear instructions.”
Whatever instructions Helena had inadvertently given, they were exactly the right ones. “Mm,” she said. “Trying to hold your interest.”
Myka said, her words another decisive door-kick, “Irresistible. In the long term.”
****
Early in the morning, a bit baffled by the morning (“It’s only Tuesday? We can do this again tonight and it will then be only Wednesday?”), they went to Myka’s apartment for breakfast.
“I thought your mother liked having the place—a place—to herself,” Helena objected.
“This morning I think she’ll like making maternal noises,” Myka said. She insisted they stop and buy grapefruit and Pop-Tarts, “because symbolism is important.” Helena considered objecting but then reckoned that this stood as one of many lessons, and that her life going forward would be easier if she absorbed those lessons as they presented themselves.
“Three,” Jeannie greeted them.
Helena winced: “Please don’t keep count.” Still so small, that number. What would change as the tally increased?
“I read up on that third Emperor Napoleon,” Jeannie informed her, with a Myka-esque innocent blink. “He instituted several much-needed reforms. So on a scale...”
“Oh. Then please carry on.”
“Actually I’d find that a little weird,” Myka said, with a wince of her own.
“That. That’s what you’d find weird. In addition to my family, of course.”
“A little.”
“You could name my first grandchild Napoleon,” Jeannie suggested.
“Really?” Helena said. Not the worst of names. But also: children. Charles and Jane had been talking of having a child, and Helena had thought that when they succeeded in doing so, that would be that, childwise, for the Wells family. And yet... Napoleon?
“Not really,” Myka said. She frowned at her mother.
A thought struck Helena. “Donovan.”
“What?” Now Myka swung her frown toward Helena.
“First there is a mountain.”
Jeannie said, “I remember that song.”
Myka’s face softened. “I don’t hate it.”
“The song, or the name?” Helena asked.
“I’ve never heard the song. I think. But the name is nice.”
“I can’t wait to tell your father,” Jeannie said. “He’s been terrified you’d name your first after the dog.”
“The author, you mean,” Myka said, and the frown was back.
“No, the dog. The one-word version.”
“Why wouldn’t he like that?”
“For a little girl’s dog, it was charming. An actual human?”
“We’ll name her Emilywilson,” Myka declared. “How about that?”
“Sweetheart, your father’s the one you have to reassure about the name. I just want a grandchild. Name it Child One if you want to.”
Helena, hoping to inject a bit of levity, asked, “But then how will little Two feel?”
Myka raised her eyebrows. “More than one? Really?”
Helena had meant it in jest, but... more than one? “We’ll need to talk about it,” she said.
“We will. The things we get to talk about now!” Myka seemed to glow at the very idea.
Helena had a strange and wonderful presentiment of their doing exactly that: talking about things. Coming to real agreement when an issue was essential, reaching détente when it was not. All while the tally grew: Four. Five. Six. Seven. In some universe, surely there were uncountably many Emperors Napoleon, each bettering the previous.
Aloud, Helena instructed herself. Take this lesson from Myka: speak it all aloud. “Uncountably many Emperors Napoleon,” she said.
“Forget Maine,” Myka countered. “We’ll move to Florida and buy a grapefruit orchard.”
“Most likely more profitable than refusing to fish for lobsters,” Helena said. “One and Two will need college funds.”
“Three?” Jeannie suggested.
“I don’t know how much money there really is in citrus, particularly if this cheapskate raids the grove every morning for breakfast. Three might have to be one of those pretty never-children,” Myka told her. Then she turned to Helena. “But we’ll need to talk about it.”
“We will,” Helena agreed. The things we get to talk about now... Helena was reasonably certain she was glowing too.
****
Once Myka’s mother and the overall prohibition were gone, Myka did not seem to lose interest. And she and Helena did talk about things. Helena was becoming accustomed to the idea that she would never become accustomed to what Myka would say... happiness pushed up against surprise, always, to make a double bed.
“Here’s a funny thing,” Myka said one morning, standing in Helena’s kitchen, holding a cup of coffee, just as Helena had hoped she might but despaired that she would never.
“Oh god,” Helena responded, because while she was of course thankful for the circumstance under which Myka was speaking, she was still not quite fully thankful for never knowing what she would speak about.
Myka laughed, as she always did. “No, no. It’s just a question; what’s funny is that I never thought to ask you. Why’d you come to the U.S.?”
It was true, though not very surprising, that the topic had not yet come up. Many practical, reality-related issues hadn’t yet come up, perhaps in part due to temperament but mainly due to time. Helena could still easily count their nights... then again she might always keep that count, reflexively. Joyfully? Myka was looking at her, so Helena said, “Sorry. Preoccupied by a number—”
“Thirty-six?”
“That’s the one.”
“We should give each other cards for significant ones. Maybe the primes?”
“Tomorrow, then. I’ll bring you flowers as well... no, I’ll have them sent to you at City Hall.”
At work, Myka had in fact been high-fived more than she had received pies to the face. Apparently most people’s hearts weren’t made of stone, and it was true that Myka was porous when it came to the extent of her happiness. Not to mention, her illness had banked her some goodwill... but it was most likely Myka herself, being herself, that led to the indulgent responses.
“You’re trying to distract me,” Myka accused, but not seriously. “You, to the U.S., why?”
“It isn’t a very interesting story,” Helena said. “Not nearly as interesting as your gratifyingly enthusiastic response to receiving flowers. But since you ask: my mother was fascinated with America, and Americans, when she was young. She instilled it in me, I suppose, and so when I was deciding where to study...”
“I thought that kind of fascination usually went the other way—Americans love the British. The accent, the royal family. Scones. I know my mom did, and I guess she instilled that in me, if we take you as evidence. But so why did your mother—”
“She had an American penfriend.”
“A pen pal?”
“Yes, that. I heard about her my entire childhood, not least because I was nearly named after her.”
“I can’t imagine you not being ‘Helena.’ What was it you were nearly named? And why weren’t you?”
“Jeannette,” Helena said promptly. “Or, as my mother always called her, ‘American Jeannette,’ and in fact that might have been my name, but my father prevailed, because my mother had been the one to name Charles. Although now that I think about it, I don’t know why she wanted his name to be Charles. It isn’t a family name, not that I’m aware, and his ears were of perfectly average size, thus no connection to the prince, so I—”
“I’m going to take a wild stab here,” Myka said. She had set her cup down and crossed her arms, and she was regarding Helena with what was, even for her, an enigmatic expression.
“Are you? At what?”
“Your mom’s name is Sarah.”
Nonplussed, Helena said, “That stab wasn’t wild at all. It was in fact... wait.” No.
“Okay,” Myka said.
“No. Oh no. No.”
“Always with the same bad argument.” Myka’s smile. As if she had always known... but she couldn’t have. So: her smile, as if she had always been—would always be—willing to believe.
“I don’t understand,” Helena said. She didn’t. At no turn had she understood.
Myka said, “Well, me neither.” But she moved across the wide space of the kitchen; she put her arms around Helena, and that was something Helena did understand.
A kiss, a long one, and she understood that too. “Words about destiny,” she said, when she could.
Myka said, familiarly, against Helena’s neck, “Does it really even matter why?”
“I don’t enjoy being set up.”
“You were set up with me.” Still familiar, still against her neck.
“That improves the situation,” Helena conceded. “Marginally.”
“I’m going to make you regret that addition.”
“Are you?” Now it was Helena’s turn to put lips where they would be familiar. And persuasive.
Myka chuckled. “Depends on how you thought you’d be spending the next several decades.”
Helena determined to take this literally. She leaned back and moved her left hand in front of Myka’s face. “I have a ring, my acceptance of which indicates that ‘married to you’ is my thinking in the matter. More-detailed projections are your job.” This was true: speculating about the gamut of possibilities, from fantastical citrus groves to children, real or never-, delighted Myka.
“Speaking of projections,” Myka said, “I don’t think it’s too crazy to predict, based on this new information, that the wedding—which was already going to be fantastic!—just got that much better. My mom always wondered what happened to her pen pal from England.”
“Is there any prediction that you would consider ‘too crazy’? But my mother wondered too.”
“Both busy raising daughters destined for each other.” This Myka emphasized with a kiss, but...
...so chancy, all of it. “What if it hadn’t happened?” Helena demanded, as if Myka would be able to say. “What if something in this Rube-Goldberg destiny had gone wrong?”
“What if it had? Well, what if it already did? For all you know, this is destiny’s backup plan. She tried a ton of other ways, but then finally threw her hands in the air and said ‘Go forth and matchmake, Helicobacter pylori!’”
Speaking of throwing one’s hands in the air: Helena didn’t perform the action, but, “I give up,” she said. “You win: it’s H. pylori’s fault.”
“Bank on it,” Myka said, her words accompanied by a bright-eyed smile that spoke equally to their past, their present, their future. She followed that with a kiss that was soft and sure, a word about the short term, a promise of the long. “But better yet, bank on me.”
END
#bering and wells#Warehouse 13#fanfic#Helicobacter#part 17#AU week#I see that bering-and-wells-land is a bit of a ghost town these days#but I am a ghost#so I suppose it's now my spiritual home#(did you see the terrible thing I did there)#anyway I had to talk myself into posting this final part#because writing this silly story has been my security blanket#through a lot of strange days (and an insane workload)#to replace it I'll need#as Freud wrote in a letter in 1898#'a lot of patience#cheerfulness#and some good ideas'#an excellent friend of mine quoted that once#and I've never forgotten it#particularly the 'and some good ideas' part
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A Guided Meditation to Embrace Summertime
With summer quickly approaching, you may be preparing for the enjoyable, exhilaration, and also spontaneity that are simply around the bend. Out comes the camping gear, hotdogs, swimwear, as well as beach towels as you get ready for family holidays, warm climate, and also enjoyable get-togethers.
Whether summer season amounts to downtime or a packed listing of outdoor tasks, you can concur there is a different energy airborne. Summer season is noted by the light as well as heat of the sunlight. The days are longer and also the temperature levels are warmer, which suggests you might often tend to be more active and invest even more time outdoors. During this fiery and active period, you can trade in your previous everyday regimens for spontaneity, social tasks, and fun.
Sync Up with Summer
As springtime changes to summertime, the seeds you grew-- essentially and metaphorically-- throughout the winter months have begun to bloom. As well as with the arrival of summer season, whatever comes completely awake as well as active. In several methods, the power of summer season welcomes you to get up and also come to life as well.
In ancient societies, people were closely attached to the seasonal cycles and rhythms, and also they had particular methods of integrating themselves with the different rhythms of nature. Comprehending as well as getting ready for the various energies as you transition from one period right into the following, allows you to flow with nature as well as preserve a consistency-- emotionally, psychologically, mentally, and physically.
With the altering of periods comes a shift in your own daily regimens. Throughout the busy summertime months, your night and day will undoubtedly obtain tossed off with unanticipated strategies so this is a great time to think about exactly how you will certainly stay gotten in touch with your everyday methods while still enabling spontaneity. Spend some time to create a brand-new summer season schedule as well as make sure to leave some time for variables.
Shine Your Light
Summertime has a special way of waking you up again and sparking a fire inside to stand up, venture out, as well as have a good time! The summer period is flavored by the element of fire, which affects interest, inspiration, as well as makeover. While you're out as well as about having lots of fun during summer months, you can additionally think of this period as a time to take advantage of your creativity and also things that inspire you. Stepping right into your own summer season light and also taking advantage of the warm of the sunlight, exactly how can you go out there and radiate? What makes you come to life? What stimulates your imagination-- and also exactly how do you influence others? What are you needing to change and also what are you intending to create this summer?
Life is meant to be lived with objective as well as passion-- filling your days with things that both support as well as stimulate you while discovering a harmony in exactly how you are living. Certainly, you have obligations that require your time and attention. You might easily lose sight of staying attached to the things that you like most ( e.g., family, good friends, pastimes, fun, downtime) as well as examining off those points on your bucket list.
Guided Reflection for Welcoming Summertime
As you prepare to accept the power of the summertime period, think about the things you love to do as well as exactly how you such as to radiate. Perhaps you have an one-of-a-kind talent or special gift you currently enjoy showing to those around you-- like playing your acoustic guitar around the campfire or being the family members grill master-- or, possibly you're feeling influenced to explore something brand-new this summer season.
Try this assisted reflection to tune in as well as get in touch with the elements of summertime that are conscious and also active within you.
Find a comfortable seat on your sofa, chair, or in your preferred place in nature.
Settle into your body by linking with your breath-- slowly breathing in through your nose, gradually breathing out through your mouth. Notice just how your mind and body start to soften as well as relax.
Visualize on your own someplace in nature throughout the early summer season. You may be walking along a river financial institution, resting in the color under your favored tree, or standing barefoot in the grass.
Allow the light as well as warmth of the sun to penetrate you. Possibly you feel a light breeze throughout your face as well as the audio of trickling water or birds tweeting from the trees in the distance. You might pick up the fragrance of jasmine originating from your yard, or wildflowers along the river's side. Take a breath in the balmy heat of the summer air and also settle even more deeply right into a loosened up state.
Begin now to open your heart and also mind to what is feasible this summer. Envision the light of the sun brightening the corners in your mind where you have not ventured in a while. Welcome on your own to dream of:
What lights you up, or makes you come active?
What ignites your creativity?
What environment do you flourish in the majority of and also what do you love doing?
What would certainly you like to produce or change this summer?
Imagine doing something so hugely spontaneous that it damages you without your existing regular as well as catapults you towards something brand-new, interesting, as well as enjoyable. If you could create anything in your life, what would certainly that be? Would certainly you risk to do?
Travel someplace new (also if it's simply a day trip or a weekend escape)?
Take up a brand-new hobby like browsing, gardening, paint, or horseback riding?
Make new connections with social groups as well as activities?
Try new things by stating "Yes" to every welcome you get this summer?
Bring it all together in an image or motion picture clip and watch yourself accepting the enjoyable of summer. See on your own engaging with others, having new journeys, and also allowing your spirited, childlike nature to find to life. Currently, ask on your own what you require to do to make it all a reality. What activity do you need to take that is various from how you are living now?
Now, as you embrace summer and also feel into the enjoyment of what you can create on your own, make a commitment to doing one new thing every day or weekly that lights you up and also makes you happy.
When you feel all set, take a couple of slow-moving, deep breaths and also slowly open your eyes. Get your journal and a pen and also create down things you are committed to doing this summertime that will certainly ignite your enthusiasm, gas your creative thinking, and also lead to loads of spontaneity as well as fun.
Summer is greater than the enjoyable things you do-- it's how you set about the important things you do as well as the purpose behind them. Are you doing things that fulfill you, bring you extra delight, as well as link you more deeply to others? Are you stating yes to adventure and also absorbing every minute of every experience and also savoring life every day?
Summer is about development-- going out there-- and truly going for it. It's around living life with fervor, enabling on your own to be wild as well as cost-free and to do those things that, until currently, you've submitted away in your 'sooner or later' listing. Accept your summer season in such a way that sustains you in having a harmony between soothing downtime and also having purposeful, amazing experiences.
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Finding Eleven Pt. 8
Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Reader
Content/Warnings: angst; violence; language
Words: 2362
A/N: Okay, so I PROMISE Billy will be in the next chapter. The next part should also finish up S2. Anyways, I’m sorry for the long wait, so I hope you guys enjoy! Most of the dialogue was taken from Stranger Things and does not belong to me.
Series Masterlist
Part 8: Sister
You were pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, trying to tune out Jonathan’s trembling words to Will and Hopper’s angry voice speaking into the telephone. Steve’s hand gently grabbed your arm. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” You murmured, pausing in your step. “Just… on edge.”
He gave a sigh and dropped his hand. “We all are.”
Hopper hung up the phone, turning back towards the rest of you. Dustin was the first to speak. “They didn’t believe you, did they?”
The chief of police stared back, face one of grim determination. “We’ll see.”
“We’ll see?! We can’t just sit here while those things are loose!” Mike exclaimed.
Hopper wasn’t going to budge. “We stay here, and we wait for help.”
You started pacing again. After several minutes Mike stood, walking over to a small stack of games and picking up a blue cube. “Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?”
“Really?” Lucas asked, sitting up slightly.
“He petitioned the school to start it and everything. And then he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?” Dustin and Lucas murmured their agreement. Mike set the cube down on the table. “We can’t let him die in vain.”
“Well what do you want to do, Mike?” asked Dustin sharply. The chief’s right on this. We can’t stop those demodogs on our own.”
Max stared at him, brows furrowed. “Demodogs?”
“Demogorgon dogs. Demodogs. It’s like a compound. It’s like a play on words, you know-” Dustin started to ramble until Max cut him off.
“Okay.”
“I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe,” Dustin continued, returning to the original topic.
Lucas finished for him. “But there’s an army now.”
“Precisely.”
“His army,” Mike said, sounding as if he was in the midst of having a revelation.
Steve glanced over. “What do you mean?”
“His army. Maybe if we can stop him, we can stop his army too!” Mike ran off, grabbing the picture of the shadow creature that Will had drawn. The rest of you followed after him.
“The shadow monster,” Dustin said.
“It got Will that day on the field,” said Mike. “The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him.”
“And so this virus, it’s connecting him to the tunnels?” Max asked.
“No,” You said. “It’s not just connecting Will to the tunnels. It’s connecting him to the demodogs, the Upside Down, everything this shadow monster has control over.”
“Exactly,” Mike said.
“Whoa, slow down, slow down,” Steve said.
Mike backtracked. “Okay, so the shadow monster’s inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will.”
“And so does Dart,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, it’s like what Mr. Clarke taught us,” Mike agreed. “The hive mind.”
“Hive mind?” You and Steve echoed together.
“A collective consciousness. It’s a super-organism,” Dustin explained.
“And this is the thing that controls everything,” Mike continued. “It’s the brain.”
Dustin stared at the picture with wide eyes. “Like the Mind Flayer.”
The three boys seemed to get it, but you were just as lost as Max and Steve. “The… what?”
“Hold on,” Dustin said, the three scattering around to look for something. Everyone else seemed to catch that something was happening, gathering around the table as Dustin opened a book. “The Mind Flayer.”
Hopper sounded skeptical. “What the hell is that?”
Dustin was speaking in a rush. “It’s a monster from an unknown dimension. It’s so ancient that it doesn’t even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers.”
“None of this is real, this is a kids’ game!” Hopper exclaimed, sounding frustrated.
“It’s a manual, and it’s not for kids. So unless you know something that we don’t, this is the best metaphor-”
Lucas cut Dustin off. “Analogy.”
“Analogy. That’s what you’re worried about? Fine. Analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is,” Dustin finished.
“Okay, so this Mind Flamer thing-” Nancy started.
“Flayer. Mind Flayer,” Dustin said.
She gave an irritated sigh. “What does it want?”
“It wants to conquer us, basically,” Dustin said. “It believes it’s the master race.”
“Like the Germans,” Steve said.
“Uh, the Nazis?” Dustin scoffed.
“I mean…” You shrugged. “It’s not a completely wrong comparison.”
“Like Nazis if they were from another dimension,” Dustin said. “It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself.”
“It wants to spread, take over other dimensions,” Mike inputted.
“We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it,” Lucas said.
You were concerned that Steve might be in shock. “That’s great! That’s great, that’s really great!”
“Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything, then if we kill it…” Nancy said.
“We kill everything it controls,” Mike finished.
Dustin nodded. “We win.”
Lucas was a bit more skeptical. “Theoretically.”
“Okay, so how do we kill this thing?” Hopper asked, snatching the book from Nancy. “Y/N, could you do it? I mean, your powers are similar to this thing’s, right?”
“Similar, yes. But it’s much stronger than I am. I couldn’t kill it, not on my own,” You said. “It would probably infect me too - it has tried more than once already - and if it did then the fight would be over, done, because it would be basically unstoppable after that.”
“Alright, then what do we do?” Hopper asked. “Because this thing has to die.”
“You’re right,” Joyce said, her voice trembling. “We have to kill it. I want to kill it.”
“Me too,” Hopper said. “Me too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don’t exactly know what we’re dealing with here.”
“No,” Mike said. “But he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it’s Will. He’s connected to it. He’ll know its weakness.”
“I thought we couldn’t trust him anymore,” Max said. “That he’s a spy for the Mind Flayer now.”
“Yeah, but he can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is,” Mike said slowly.
“Okay, so where could we go?” You asked. “What place could we disguise well enough that Will wouldn’t know where he is?”
Hopper was the one who spoke. “The shed.”
The next half-hour was spent emptying the shed, which you assisted with greatly by moving out the heavier items via telekinesis. It seemed as if all you were doing was using your powers, pushing yourself until blood started dripping out of your nose and the already-present tiredness evolved into full-fledged exhaustion.
“Stop,” Joyce said, placing a gently hand on your arm. The cinder blocks you were lifting dropped to the ground, and you wiped away blood from your nose. “You need to get some rest. We need everyone to be strong, and that includes you. You can sleep in my room, or Will’s.”
“Okay,” You relented, allowing her to lead you to the room. “If anything happens-”
“We’ll let you know, don’t worry. For now, get some rest. You’re dead on your feet,” She said, shutting the door behind her with a soft click.
Joyce was right, of course. You were asleep the moment your head hit the pillow. You didn’t wake up until Max and Lucas forcefully shook you, panic clear on their faces. Lucas spoke first. “They know where we are.”
“The phone rang,” Max said in a rush. “The demodogs are coming, we need you!”
“Okay,” You said, the adrenaline shocking you awake as you followed them quickly out of the room.
“Good, you’re up,” Hopper said grimly, a gun in each hand. “They’re coming. Hey! Get away from the windows.”
You nodded shortly as the kids scrabbled backwards. “I know.”
“You good?” Steve asked, nail bat in hand.
“I’m used to running on little sleep. I’ll be fine,” You said, cracking your neck. “Let them come.”
“Do you know how to use this?” Hopper asked, addressing Jonathan.
“What?” He stammered.
“Can you use this?” Hopper repeated, holding out the gun.
“I can,” Nancy said calmly, catching the gun that Hopper tossed to her.
You tensed, standing next to Steve and straining your ears for the noises that signified the monsters had arrived.
“Where are they?” Max said, sounding scared as they screeched in the distance.
“Close,” You murmured as there was a loud thud from outside.
“What are they doing?” Nancy asked, voice trembling. The bushes rustled, and you could hear your heartbeat pounding loudly in your ears.
A snarling came from the front, and there were gasps from everyone. “Steady,” You said, wishing you could see where it was. Without knowing the exact location, it was hard for you to do any sort of attack.
The monster screeched from outside, but this time it was different. There was a crack, and it abruptly stopped. For a long moment, you heard nothing but silence. Then glass window shattered, everyone screaming as your hand shot up and your telekinesis stopping the demodog before it could even hit the floor. But it was unmoving - dead. There was silence for a moment as you let it drop to the floor with a thud.
“Holy shit,” Dustin said softly.
“It’s dead,” You said softly. “What killed it?”
Hopper nudged it with a foot, making sure your assessment was correct. The door creaked, and you spun towards it with the others. What had killed it? The question spun in your head. Certainly not another demodog. The lock flicked open from the inside.
“Y/N, close it,” Hopper murmured.
“Wait,” You said, feeling as if you were standing on the edge of a very high precipice. The chain lock slid out, dropping open.
Hopper edged closer. “Y/N…”
“It’s not a monster,” You whispered. The doorknob twisted as the door swung open. A girl walked in.
Time seemed frozen, as her eyes went from person to person, finally landing on you. “Sister.”
You stepped closer. “Eleven.”
And then, Eleven, your sister in everything but blood and the girl you would have died to protect was in your arms, squeezing you in a hug so tightly you almost struggled to breath. Your grip was equally tight, tears leaving salty trails on your cheeks as you were reunited with one of the only people in the world that you had ever cared about.
“You remember,” You said, hands squeezing her arms as you stepped back to see the person that she had become.
“You’re alive,” She said. “Papa said that he caught you, that you had died of hypothermia after he found you.”
“No, no,” You said, giving out a watery laugh as you shook your head. “Papa could never catch me.”
You could see El’s eyes, damp with tears, flick back towards the rest. “You know my friends.”
“They’re my friends now too,” You said softly. “Go say hello. I’m not going anywhere.”
She wrapped you in one more tight hug before allowing you to step away, and she was pulled into a hug by Mike almost immediately. You wiped your eyes, smiling at the ground.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were there? That you were okay?” Mike was saying.
“Because I wouldn’t let her,” Hopper said. You froze, smile fading as both you and Mike stared at him. “The hell is this? Where you been?”
“Where have you been?” El bit back, allowing Hopper to pull her into a hug.
You could feel your blood boiling, only barely keeping hold of your temper about the fact that he knew. Hopper knew El was alive. Hopper knew where she was. Yet he hadn’t seen the decency in telling you, El’s own sister, where she was, or even that she was safe.
“You’ve been hiding her,” Mike said, shoving Hopper back. “You’ve been hiding her this whole time!”
“Hey, hey!” Hopper said, holding Mike back. “Let’s talk. Alone.”
He didn’t even seem to notice you, trembling in barely controlled anger, as he took Mike into another room. You could hear their shouts echoing through the house. “Hey. Hey,” Steve said, placing an arm on your shoulder. “You alright?”
You took a deep breath, and then another, reigning in your temper. You could talk with Hopper later, away from El. “Yes. Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You need to talk?” He asked softly. “You’re pissed, I can tell.”
“I will, just… not now.” Your eyes flickered towards Eleven. “Not while she’s here.”
“Alright. Just keep your head in the game, okay? And remember that he was just trying to keep her safe. It was nothing against you,” Steve said, voice quiet yet firm.
You swallowed, nodding. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Steve.”
“Didn’t want the house to explode,” He joked with a smile. “It was either this or tell you to go outside, and this seemed like the safer route. What with the demodogs around.”
“I’m pretty sure El took care of that quite nicely,” You said. “She’s gotten a lot stronger.”
“Which is good,” Steve said.
“Yes. As long as she can control it,” You said, watching her leave the room. “Our powers are directly connected to our emotions. I could have easily shattered every window in the house if I had lost control, and it’s only through years of discipline that I didn’t.”
“You’re saying she might need training?”
“I’m saying, after all this is over, she will,” You said. “And who better than her former teacher?”
“You taught El?” Dustin asked.
Your lips twitched upwards. “I did. My powers and El’s are actually pretty similar, for the most part. They both require concentration and discipline, and telekinesis requires a level of focus that’s hard to achieve at first. Brenner found that she learned better from me than from some of his other methods.”
“Huh,” Lucas said, looking surprised. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“Guys,” Max said, nodding towards where Joyce and El were by the table. You walked over, seeing the words ‘close gate’ written on cardboard.
“Do you think if we got you back there, that you could close it?” Joyce asked.
Eleven looked at Joyce, her face filled with resolve. She didn’t speak, but you knew what it meant. Yes.
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#billy hargrove x reader#billy hargrove imagine#billy hargrove x you#billy x reader#billy imagine#billy hargrove#stranger things#finding eleven#reader#reader insert#x reader
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Favorite Albums 2018: THE TOP 5
#5- Victory Lap by Nipsey Hussle
Congratulations to the 2018 Stay Trippy Award winner. I’ve never really listened to Nipsey Hussle. I mean this was his first studio album release after all so I guess I can’t really be blamed for that. But the raw intensity that he raps with on this debut effort is something to acknowledge. Nipsey is blunt, track 2 “Rap Niggas” kind of exemplifies that with the chorus “I ain’t nothin like you fuckin rap niggas”. A simple statement but it’s the entire theme of the song and the message he’s trying to get across. Like I’ve said before, there seemed to be a theme this year with rappers calling out the up and coming new generation.
Victory Lap is a rap album through and through. His raspy unique voice delivers every verse with a confident brutal ferociousness. That statement may seem a bit much but it fits the way Nipsey raps in my opinion.
As I continued to listen to him rap, the image above is something I could picture him doing very easily. I definitely feel like Nipsey isn’t someone you want to mess with or double cross. I mean after all he does state in “Last Time That I Checc’d” that “I’m the street’s voice out west” and that is certainly is a bold and high remark to make about one’s self. But I can see it, I really can. I really liked every song on this album and yet I had never ever listened to Nipsey Hussle as I stated before so it was pretty obvious that this would be this years Stay Trippy Award winner. I should have more to say but after all I did just start listening to Nipsey this year, so we’ll see if he comes out with another within the next couple years, I’ll be keeping an eye out.
Favorite Song
Succa Proof
#4- Bobby Tarantino II by Logic
I don’t watch Rick and Morty and I was still laughing and loving the entire 2 min long introduction they have about listening to Logic music and listen to that Bobby Tarantino shit. Logic has taken on many alter egos but the Bobby Tarantino one started back in 2016 when he released the first Bobby Tarantino mix-tape. This is technically a mix-tape but I’m kind of considering it an LP since mix-tapes are something I’ve always considered something that you can obtain for free. Just like the first one, this second installment in the series continues the I don’t give a fuck, I’m having fun attitude. This album has the hit singles that Logic has started to become well known for but it also resurrected lots of fans favorite alter ego of his “Young Sinatra” on the song “Warm It Up”. A lot of people lost their shit when they heard him donning that name again in a song (and I was definitely one of those people).
Logic is the perfect blend of hip-hop and rap. This album/mix-tape whatever exemplifies that. The intro jumps right into “Overnight” and the energy never stops from there. Bobby is fun, he’s electric and he’s talented above all else.
And his music videos are just as entertaining as he is (Example above from “Everyday” music video). “Everyday” was probably my least favorite song but after watching the music video I sort of had more of an appreciation for it but that’s the thing, even the songs I don’t really like at first I seem to end up liking them at the end of the day because Logic is just that guy. He’s goes from a very poppy song like that and on the reverse has songs like “44 More” where he absolutely demolishes the beat he raps over ending with the line “now here’s 44 more” as in he 44 more bars. I mean that’s just as fun as fun gets. Logic’s the man and he absolutely knows it now. He dropped this just to drop it and give the fans more of what they want. He didn’t need to tease some album for years and years, he just gave the people what they want; more music. And it works in my opinion. This was one of the funnest albums of the year for me. That’s why it landed so high at #4.
Favorite Song
Wizard of Oz
#3- Astroworld by Travis Scott
I’m going to start by saying one thing, this is not Travis Scott’s best album. In fact, this may be my least favorite of his three studio albums that he’s released. And yet here it sits at number 3. That’s because I still throughly enjoyed this album. There’s the smash hit “Sicko Mode”, which Travis had to know would strike gold like it did. There was also the hit single “Butterfly Effect” but that song is mainstream Travis, it’s just not that good in my opinion. This leads me to my main point about this album. There are a good three to four songs I could care less about on this album, which usually means it won’t land this high on my list but every other song I pretty much loved. “Yosemite”, “Astrothunder” (mainly because of the track it followed), “Skeletons” and “Butterfly Effect” really are nothing special in my opinion. “Astrothunder” follows a track called “NC-17″ on the album where 21 Savage is featured and it’s just a great song. “Astrothunder” transitions the mood a bit too much for me following that song and it just didn’t work, I don’t know ya like what ya like and that was something I didn’t like.
But Travis did give us this song. I guess the powerful entries outweighed the less powerful because again this album landed the #3 spot. And at the end of the day this album was one that I listened more than most this year. I mean the first track “Stargazing” had me extremely pumped the first time I listened to it. Travis sings with that hallucinating auto tune of his and then out of the nowhere the beat drops and reemerges as something raw and intense and Travis just starts dropping bars and now we’re in a Travis rap song and not so much a Travis hip hop song. The production and delivery is brilliant and would you expect anything less because he is one of the best at those two things. I honestly thought that with his blown up fame and having already made two great albums that this album would honestly be a disappointment. Often now we find the albums with the biggest don’t always deliver and this was easily everyone’s most anticipated of the year. It didn’t deliver the expectations for me as much as it did for everyone else but there’s no denying that this album is a continued example of why Travis is one of the best hip-hop artists out there right now.
Favorite Song
NC-17
#2- Kids See Ghosts by Kanye West & Kid Cudi
The most definitive spots are always #2 and #1 for me. I always usually know right then and there when I listen to the eventual nominees which ones will take the top spots and be tough to beat. This album was one of them. This album combines two brilliant artists and musical minds. Kanye is nuts but this album is that example I was talking about in the first four out when I said he’s still got it though and still has a hand in some of the best albums being made. Kanye and Cudi are a great combo and this album displays that on every one of the seven tracks. Whether it’s Cudi’s echoing ballad in “Feel the Love” to start off the album (along with the lovely guest feature by Pusha T) or “4th Dimension” a song that when Cudi dives in with his rough vocals you get chills. It’s beautiful. There really just is something about that Kid Cudi when he starts singing and humming on a track.
There’s only 7 songs on this album but I love them all. That’s the kind of thing that will land an album with only 7 songs this high. For their first duo effort I’d say it was a huge success. Kanye’s passion and Cudi’s passion mix together very well and then on songs like “Extasy” we get an awesome feature from Ty Dolla $ign and it just works so well and fits in with the electric feel to the song. Sometimes I see how corny some of the stuff is that I say but it makes sense in my own head and hopefully somewhat to you the reader. Anyway, the album ends with Cudi sort of giving us an exit from an album that just really suits the name from start to finish. It’s a trip and a dream like kind of one at that. There’s the sounds you’d expect from a Cudi album and the production that you’d expect from a Kanye one.
I can’t ever deny how much of a role these two have played in my love for music growing up. Cudi has reemerged as one of my favorites as he’s been a part of two of my favorite albums within the past several years; this one and his solo album “Pain, Passion & Demon Slaying” back in 2016. Kanye is Kanye as I’ve said but this album left me with the feeling that I still need to be excited when he announces that music from him and GOOD music is coming our way. I just love the passion of this album most. Well done.
Favorite Song
4th Dimension
#1- Daytona by Pusha T
As the chorus to the first album on this song states “If you know you know”, I certainly knew I had probably listened to what would be my #1 for 2018 after listening to this album once. Why? Because I knew I needed to listen to it again right away after listening to it the first time. Look I was skeptical. This album had been teased as King Push for a long time, years to be exact and then at the last second the album’s title changed to Daytona. It brought back memories of Kanye constantly changing his name for The Life of Pablo. I didn’t want that to happen here. I had been waiting for Pusha to drop this album and I did not want it to disappoint. I think it’s safe to say that it didn't.
So let’s jump in then. My favorite song “Come Back Baby” where the lyrics:
“Bitch, I been had, bitches been bad We buy big boats, bitch, I’m Sinbad” And“They don’t miss you till you gone with the wind And they tired of dancing like a Ying Yang Twin You can’t have the Yin without the Yang my friend”
are said. I mean...ya just gotta love King Push. I mean he kind uses the Ying Yang Twins to shape a metaphor and to me that’s just great. Pusha doesn’t change what he does when it comes to his style of rap. He raps about being a cocaine cowboy basically. He raps about the lifestyle. He raps only as we’ve ever known him to and surprise IT WAS AWESOME. It resulted in a great album. Now I get all these rappers wanting to experiment and try something new to create all elements of their own music but what made you great, the type of music, the flow, the sound, it’s what MADE YOU GREAT. Pusha doesn’t try to be different he tries to be Pusha. It’s just seven songs of raw emotion and power coming from the likes of someone I would never want to fuck with, THE Pusha T.
Does that look like someone you want to mess with? NO. And let’s not forget that Pusha started the infamous beef with Drake this year off the track “Infrared”. I mean I didn’t expect Pusha to come out shots firing but then again I shouldn’t be surprised. You know he’ll challenge anyone and you certainly don’t question it. But back to why this album is great and why it deserves the #1 spot. Because all 7 songs are fucking awesome. Call it a weak argument but from start to finish Push doesn’t stop dropping bar after bar over beautifully produced beats and you just get lost in this album. You want to keep hearing more and more and when Pusha is being Pusha to the max that’s really all you can ask for when listening to one of his albums.
Pusha starts off rapping over a high octane beat to start the album and ends it letting everyone know that he’s still here and that he’s been around and he’s going nowhere. I mean he clearly calls out Drake specifically but he’s also calling out everyone else too. Like I said, a lot of these rappers who have been around and established themselves have finally had it with the new generation and rightfully so...they’re all mostly trash (I’m looking at you Lil Pump, 6ix9ine, Playboi Carti...god there’s just too many to name). This album is refreshing and honestly it’s what a rap album should be. It’s dark, it’s gritty and at the end of the day it’s King Push reestablishing himself to everyone, although I don’t think he really needed to.
Favorite Song
Come Back Baby
So there you have it, my 2018 list. I really wanted to make something amazing this year with my list and make it more flashy (apparently I thought GIFs could achieve that) but I got lazy and didn’t prep enough. We’ll see if I can better prepare for 2019′s list and think of something to make it more enjoyable of a read. Last year I ended with my most anticipated albums of 2018. They were SremmLife 3 (SR3MM), Untitled A$AP Rocky album (Testing), King Push (Lol, Daytona), AstroWorld & Untitled Schoolboy Q album. Schoolboy’s didn’t happen and one of them ended up probably being my most disappointing album of 2018, A$AP Rocky’s Testing. Now if you know me you know he’s my favorite artist. He’s experimenting these days hardcore. Testing was a trip and a half but not one that I loved that much. Rocky isn’t as lyrical as he used to be and for me that’s disappointing. Anyways here’s my most anticipated albums for this year I guess:
Run The Jewels IV (I guess this is a thing? And if it is I’m gonna lost my shit)
Schoolboy Q - TBA
Childish Gambino - TBA (Again don’t really know if this is a thing)
Joey Bada$$ - TBA
Thanks to the very few who read this/maybe not very few. Here’s to 2019 and another great year of music!
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Ask Compile!
Topics covered:
Tips for indexing notes.
Thoughts on second person pov.
Tips for writing smut.
Writing non-binary protagonists perceived as villains.
Knowing when to use or ignore feedback.
I also received two questions (writing elementals and character growth) which are already going to be covered by longer articles in my queue.
Indexing Notes
@kantuck: Good day: Do you have any advice on how to index previously taken notes? I have gigs of notes on paper, and electronic over the years and now I'd like to be able to index them someway so that I can write within this storyworld?
Set aside a huge chunk of time, plan to do it for 15 or 20 minutes every even, whatever works best for your schedule, just make it a plan and then follow through.
Use an organization tool with a folder system made for note taking (like scrivener or evernote), not a system like google docs where you have to load each document on it’s own.
Decide how you’re organizing them ahead of time. I usually have my outline itself split into the major points I already know I need to hit, along with individual character files and a few dozen worldbuilding related files.
Put things in every folder or file they relate to. If you have something important to a certain character and a certain setting and the character’s species, put that information in all the relevant files.
(I hope this was what you were looking for?)
Second Person
Okay, so I absolutely despise 2nd person point of view. But it seems like it's popular, especially with fanfics. I'm just wondering why? And do you like 2nd person point of view?
I’m not a fan of second person either, so I feel you. I think the general draw of it (especially in fanfiction, even more so in erotic fanfiction) is the fact that you’re supposed to be the person doing the things, existing in this world with the characters you love. It gives every reader their own self-insert.
In my opinion, it’s kind of ridiculous outside of choose your own adventure type stories, but some readers really enjoy it, so all the power to them, I guess?
Writing smut
Sorry if this is an odd question. But, how do you write smut? For a friends birthday I want to write a smut fic of her favorite pair, but I just cant write smut. You don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable. Thanks!
Fun fact: I wrote a lot of smut during my university years. (That was pretty much the only thing I wrote, actually.) It had a negative effect on my mental health though, so I’ve backed out of that whole scene pretty thoroughly.
Honestly, smut for the sake of smut is pretty much just imagining a steamy scene you get off on, and then writing it out. The most prominent things to watch for are what you’re calling everyone’s junk (there’s a nice line between too technical and too outrageous, and you can probably find long lists of people’s opinions if you search around enough), and whether you’re describing the positions the characters are in well enough for the reader to picture them. Throw in some simple and common metaphors for sensual sensations, and remember to focus on the emotional, romantic aspects too (especially during repetitive motions or anything that makes you slightly uncomfortable to write/read.)
If you’re writing a sex scene as a scene in a non-erotic novel, things get a lot more complicated really quickly, because you have to take into account things like prior emotion states, character growth, relationship development, and plot.
Non-binary protagonists perceived as villains
Hi, I read a post of yours regarding binary people writing non-binary characters and I figured asking a non-binary person was the best way to go about this. The protagonist in one of my wip's is non-binary, however, this character is generally seen as a 'villain' by others despite not necessarily being one due to context and lore implications. Can I ask for advice on how to write such a character without enforcing any negative stereotypes surrounding non-binary people? Thanks for your time.
The nonbinary collab team has finally started work on a post which will cover these kinds of topics in more detail, so keep a look out for that, but I’ll mention a few things here anyways:
1. One of the most prominent negative stereotypes surrounding non-binary people being villains involves using the non-binary identity to show how “corrupt” or “insane” or “inhuman” the villain is. (This happens both in fiction and through specifically pointing out the non-gender-conformity of historical immoral people while denying that the heroes of those cultures held the same level of non-gender-conformity.) There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing a villain who just happens to be nonbinary, but a villain should never be a villain because they’re nonbinary.
2. In any situation where you have an oppressed people group represented as a villain, it’s always a good rule of thumb to also have at least one character of that group represented in the heroes “team” (or, in cases where there’s no heroes, by a team with differing beliefs or goals, preferably by decently moral characters.)
That being said, it seems like your protagonist isn’t actually evil themselves, so unless the reason other people in the world see them as a villain is because they see nonbinary people as villainous, I can’t imagine you’ll have any major issues :)
Bending the Elements
Hey! Do you have tips on how to write bending of the elements? I got an idea for a book, but I can't seem to describe what people do when bending without making it sound like an Avatar The Last Airbender fanfiction. The only thing I have similar to the show is the bending of elements, the story in itself is hopefully original enough to hold its own, but still I make the bending sound like fanfiction... my story has nothing to do with Avatar. Any tips?
Hey there nonny! I’m planning to write a full post on describing the use of magic, so I can add in a section on elemental magic when I start that :)
When feedback doesn’t fit the picture.
@aerodragneel: In my current WIP, the MC has to find the powerful superhero Vulcan from 15 years ago, who quit after losing to the main antagonist who’s resurfaced. I was told not to make him a vital part of the story, but Vulcan’s entire character arc is vital to his and the MC’s story. When I envision Vulcan, I see someone who wants to help, but after all he’s gone through, he just can’t anymore and when he meet’s the MC, that spark of being a hero is reignited. Thanks for the help and get better soon! 😉
No one knows your story and characters better than you. Write the story however it makes the most sense and feels strongest! If you think Vulcan needs to be present throughout the story to influence the MC’s arc, then by all means, include him. There will always be an opportunity to take him out later, and you’ll get much more accurate feedback from people once they’ve read the entire story, edited until you approve of it.
(And remember that not everyone will give you advice that���s beneficial to the story you want to write. Here’s some other good reasons not to change your story in order to accommodate a piece of feedback.)
Character growth
How do I go about writing about somebody who over time has a change of heart? My story is going to be about a woman who was originally set out to kill a man but ends up falling in love with him.
I have plans to write a post on redemption arcs, and a more thorough post on character development, so stay tuned for both of those!
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Beginnings (Part 3)
Finally! Now we get to the last part of this, where I talk about what kind of writer you are, and how that affects the way you start. So, are you a linear or non-linear writer? Do you have to start at point A, or are you the type of writer who starts at point M, dashes on down to point Z, and then back up to point B? Or are you somewhere in between?
Knowing this can help you with your writing. Below, see more.
Let me explain what I mean by a “linear” writer. And what I mean when I say “non-linear” writer.
A linear writer is a writer who starts at the beginning. They don’t necessarily have to have everything planned out when they start, but they start on page one and move on to page two, then to page three, and so on. Most of the time (in my experience) these writers have a plan or outline that they’re following. It might not be very detailed - but it’s there. Of course, there are linear writers who do not have plans (NaNoWriMo comes to mind...). In which case, they just start writing and make it up as they go along. In short, linear writers write the book in the order that someone is going to read it.
A non-linear writer...doesn’t. They might start at the middle of the story, and then jump over to the end, and then write something in between those, and so on. Often non-linear writers don’t have a plan when they write. They might write one scene and then a completely different scene, and then write a scene to connect it later on. They might discover the plot as they write. There are, however, non-linear writers who do have a plan when they write - they’re just not going to write any of it in order. Non-linear writers do not write the book in the order that someone is going to read it.
A good way to picture the difference between these two types is a film. When a viewer watches the film, they watch it in a linear order - point A to point B and so on. That’s how a linear writer would write. But when a film is made, it is not made in a linear order. The order it’s made in depends upon the sets, actors, and parts of the script that are available at the time, as well as a whole host of other circumstances. So if the old woman who appears for ten minutes at the end of the film is available in May when they start filming, but the star actress who appears in the first two minutes isn’t available until June, they’re going to film the old woman first. A non-linear writer works like that. Whatever idea or scene they have in their head at the moment is the one they’re going to write, even if it doesn’t come next in the story.
The reason I make the time to explain this difference is that I am an extremely non-linear writer, and people who are not sometimes have a hard time understanding how that works. Personally, I like this quote from Diana Gabaldon, as I feel it explains a lot about linear vs. non-linear writers:
“Hearing about this process does, btw, infuriate people who write linearly. I once had a woman sitting on a panel on writing processes with me inform me that I couldn’t possibly do this, because "you have to have a logical foundation! You can’t put the roof on your building unless you’ve built solid walls to hold it up, can you?"
"Of course I can," I replied. "There’s no gravity in the mind, after all. I can make the roof and just leave it hanging there until I have time to build walls under it. You don’t have to write a book from beginning to end, just because that’s how people will read it." She Wasn’t Pleased, but the point here is that people’s minds are wired up differently, and a good deal of writing successfully lies in figuring out how your own mind works best, and using it that way. There is no "right" way to write a book. Anything that lets you get words on the page is the right thing to do.” (I found this on her website, but Tumblr won’t let me source this, so).
The point is, neither type is better than the other. It’s really just about which one works better for you. If you need those walls before you can build the roof, great! If you can build the roof before the walls, also great! (To extend Diana Gabaldon’s metaphor.) My intent is to give each type a variety of ideas and ways to help them start their stories.
Of course, there are varying levels of any writer’s linear/non-linear style. Don’t feel limited to one type or the other. Sometimes, trying the opposite style can actually help with things like writer’s block. For instance, I said that I’m a non-linear writer. When I get stuck writing, sometimes I try to outline a little bit ahead to give myself a way out of where I’m stuck. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn’t, but it gets me to keep writing and work on my story more. A linear writer who is stuck on one part of the story, and can’t figure out how to write a certain scene, might skip ahead to a different scene, or try writing something completely on the go.
This is important for beginnings, because it might determine how you begin your story. If you’re a linear writer, you begin at the beginning. If you’re a non-linear writer, you might not. This list is meant for both types of writers, and for those who have no plan and for those who have a plan. Hopefully it helps!
Anyway, here’s the list, for both linear and non-linear writers:
1. If you haven’t written the beginning of your story yet, try to. Don’t worry about whether it’s good or not, or if it fits into your plot, just make a placeholder. You can always go back and edit it later.
2. Have you been working on your beginning for what feels like forever? Have you changed it a zillion times? Drop it. Skip ahead (if you have an outline, pick a random scene to write instead). If you don’t have an outline, drop your characters into a random situation (room full of bugs? a haunted house? an awkward social situation?) and write about their reactions. This scene might not end up being part of your story, but you could always have your character/s think about s/he/they got there. That might spark an idea for your beginning.
3. Skip the beginning entirely! Write an ending. It doesn’t have to be THE ending, just some sort of ending to your story. Feel free to use it or not use it. Writing an ending could help with your beginning. The end of your story should have your characters in a completely different place than they were at the beginning (not always physically, but definitely within their character arc). By writing the ending and seeing where your characters are headed, it might help you figure out where they should be at the beginning of your story.
4. Maybe you’ve got half of the story figured out, but you have no idea how your character got to point M from point A. For example, you know that your female character from the 90s ends up on top of a mouth to Hell and fights vampires (this would be the plot of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer), but you don’t know how she got there. Have her write an autobiography. “I was born in...and when I was seven this happened...in high school, weird stuff started to happen...” Not only will you get a better sense of your character, they might help you figure out the rest of your plot.
5. Start in the middle! Plop your character right in the middle of some action. Is your character a vampire slayer (Buffy)? Start out by having them fight vampires. Is your character a competitive ice skater? Start out with an intense scene where they are in the middle of a competition. Are they regularly bullied? Start off with them in the middle of being bullied. Not only does this establish character, but it also will draw the reader in. Who knows, it might even become your beginning.
This ends my series of posts on beginnings. Hopefully, you all found this helpful, and be sure to check out my blog for more stuff - I’m planning some posts on character development and some prompts for characters and stories, so stay tuned!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
(Tumblr won’t let me source things, so you can find the rest of this series on my blog.)
#plotting#writing help#writing tips#writing advice#writeblr#tips for writing#story help#how to write#riona-is-writing
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50 States of McMansion Hell: Rankin County, Mississippi
Hello Friends! Sorry for the delayed post, I spent all day at the vet yesterday because my cat needed to have surgery. Thankfully, he’s recovering safely and will soon resume his schedule of doing whatever cats do all day.
Today’s lovely house is the epitome of “build lots of house on cheap land in the middle of nowhere.”
This wonderful 2004 estate, complete with treeless yard, comes in at around 6,000 square feet, featuring 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. It can be yours for the low price of almost $700,000!
Sadly, there were no foyer pictures so we’ll have to start with the ubiquitous great room.
Gr8 R00m
Anyone want to take bets as to whether or not the “freedom fries” controversy will resurface in 2017? It seems unusually plausible.
Dining Room
Real talk: thick rugs beneath dining room chairs make getting up from the table a hellish nightmare. Whom among us has not accidentally gotten the rug caught in the feet of the chair, scandalously exposing the runner beneath? Devastating, just devastating.
Kitchen
Sorry, friends - I’m from North Carolina. There aren’t many states with worse schools than North Carolina, so I have to get my salty digs in where I can.
Living Room
Re: that ceiling, I’m just gonna leave this here:
Master Bedroom
I’m not even kidding about the bed. When I look at McMansions, I swear I see it at least once, in every single state I’ve been in. Also that ceiling is art.
Master Bath
THERE IS A TV IN THE SHOWER. This is peak 2004, y’all.
Bedroom #2
FYI interrupted rants are my favorite genre of twitter joke at the current moment. Also the single recessed light is a poignant metaphor for (something tongue and cheek with slightly political undertones.)
Bedroom #3
Let this be a lesson in how not to fill a small, oddly-shaped bedroom. It’s worth noting that this house has a peculiar habit of replacing what would normally be windows with French Freedom doors.
Attic/Rec Room
You know, most of us don’t have the luxury of having remote parts of our house where we can stow away the things we thought would enrich our lives. Most of us have to look those objects in the face everyday, reminded that we’ll never have the patience to learn how to play more than a C major scale and Chopsticks on the piano - that’s just the kind of person we are.
Anyways, that does it for the interior. Now for our favorite part:
Rear Exterior
I wonder what @goodporchesgreatporches has to say about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Outdoor Leisure Space?
That does it for Mississippi’s McMansion! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s “Looking Around” and next Thursday’s Missouri McMansion!
If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Also JUST A HEADS UP - I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content on Patreon!
Not into small donations and sick bonus content? Check out the McMansion Hell Store- 100% goes to charity.
Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs in this post are publicly available and are used in this post for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2017 McMansion Hell. Please email [email protected] before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)
#architecture#building#design#mcmansion#mcmansion hell#2000s#2000s interiors#interior design#interior decor#ugly houses#bad architecture#mississippi
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