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miekasa · 4 years ago

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more boyfriend headcanons: love languages

↯ pairing: eren jaeger x (fem) reader

↯ genres and warnings: modern au, college au to some extent, fluff

↯ notes: i cannot stop thinking about him, so have 50 more head canons about this absolute menace. despite the title, he can and will turn anything into a love language, so beware.

annoying the hell out of you (quality time)

You’ve heard of girls sitting on their boyfriend’s laps and hugging them/falling asleep while they play games, now get ready for: boyfriends hugging you from the back while you attempt to do any mundane activity bc they miss you.

Because that’s Eren. About almost anything, because his physical affection, when not in the presence of other people, is absolutely on ten thousand and one.

The only public place he doesn’t mind cuddling up to you is the library. He doesn’t mind putting his arm around you or leaning his head on your shoulder, or even doing the sitting hugging thing in the library. Mostly because few people are there anyway.

Mind you, you’re the one who even showed him where the library was, and now he doesn’t know how to act. “Eren it’s not a ‘cuddling spot.’ It’s the library where I—and lots of other people, including yourself—go to do homework.” “If not cuddling spot, then why library chairs and study rooms cuddly?”

Particularly when it’s getting late and you’ve been crammed in the library for hours, and Eren just wants you to pack it up so he can drive you home. He’ll squeeze himself between your body and the back of your chair, wrap his arms around your stomach, and lay his cheek on your back.

Most times he falls asleep waiting for you to be finished. Sometimes he gets impatient and tickles you until you agree to leave. Either works for him.

He doesn’t not like holding hands in public, but it’s not his go to either. If you’re walking together, sometimes he’ll wrap his arm around your shoulder—usually after some cocky comment—or even walk behind you with his hands on your shoulders like it’s a two person conga line.

He doesn’t kiss you in public a lot, and never around his friends. They can see the literal hearts in his eyes when he’s around you though, so it’s not like he has to. On occasion, he will kiss your cheek. It’s kind of random, but you don’t question it.

In all honestly, whenever he gets affectionate or cuddly in public is all pretty random, even to him. Sometimes he’ll just be standing around you and he’s hit with the urge to engulf you in a hug and kiss your cheeks and he has to stop himself like, “....Why did I just think about doing that?”

Partially because he wasn’t outwardly hugged or shown affection a lot as a child, so sometimes he gets to urges children do to just want a hug. But he’s also pretty bad and/or new at processing his emotions like that so he mostly stands there like 🧍 looking at you with lovey dovey eyes instead.

Touchy when he’s drunk. But that’s not exclusive to you; anyone in a five foot radius of him will be subject to his arm slung around their shoulders, or him being slumped over their back, or random head ruffles.

Most commonly Armin, but I think we all knew that. Sometimes it’s Jean, and Jean is an even messier drunk, which results in the both of them actually being overly affectionate with each other in a strange, but endearing way. They both deny it to their graves when they’re sober, though.

Hovers around you. Constantly. Like a shadow.

Does not leave you the hell alone when you’re in the kitchen. Will make it 100x more difficult for you to cook or just maneuver, which is ironic seeing as the most gourmet thing he can cook up is bagel with cream cheese.

Sometimes Eren seems unaware of his size in comparison to you and your friends. It’s very sweet that he laughs with his whole body, but he’s got to realize that if bumps into you because of his sporadic laughter, that he might accidentally knock you into next Tuesday.

Likes when you touch his hair, doesn’t matter where or when, or who’s around. He loves it, all of it.

Will press his face against yours if he has stubble, just to be annoying. Like always.

If you hadn’t gotten it from everything else, he just likes to annoy you in general. But, like, affectionately. I keep saying it’s his love language and I mean it. Really—what it is is that he likes spending time with you, but he also likes annoying the hell out of you, too.

Bites. Not in a sexy way—well, unless you want him too—but, just because. Bites your shoulder when you’re not expecting it, bites your cheek while you’re in the middle of watching a show. Sometimes he takes your hand in his and your think it’s going to be sweet and he’s going to kiss it, but really he just brings it to his mouth to bite it.

Bites your ass, too. Again, just for fun. Because he thinks he can get away with it. Biting is a love language I’m telling y’all.

Likes to give you piggy back rides, even if you don’t ask for them or need one. You could be going from your room to the living room and Eren insists on carrying you there.

And for some reason, he thinks that because he likes to hold/lift you, that that should apply to you as well?? Like he’s not 6′1 and big bodied, hello?? Eren you cannot just jump on top of people, you’re grown.

He lets you dress him a lot. His fashion sense isn’t bad, and to be honest with you, I think he’d be a little bit of a hypebeast LOL. I don’t mean decked out head to toe in Supreme (god forbid...) but definitely has a bit of a sneaker obsession.

Not that he keeps them clean or is obsessive about creasing them he couldn’t care less. He just thinks they’re cool. Maybe even some accessories too, like those KAWS toys. Not a lot because they’re hard to get, but is really proud of his little growing collection.

But if you want to dress him up, he’s down for it. Would even let you buy him a pea coat so he can pretend to be a scholar. (He’s not BYE). He’ll tell you if something really isn’t his style, but he’ll wear it if you tell him he looks hot 🙄

Kinda forces his way into your life in little ways. Like, he’ll start adding his favorite snacks to your grocery lists. Moves a pair of your shoes from the door to make room for his own when he’s over. Basically claims two drawers for himself in your dresser. Annoying. Endearing.

Lowkey has his own intricate skincare routine, but he likes doing it with you more. He’ll make it a whole thing, and buy wine, and stupid drinking card games, and sit with you on your bed for 2 hours playing while your face masks dry.

Texts you if you’re in the same room as him, but not paying attention to him. Especially if you’re doing schoolwork.

Throws pillows at you while you’re sitting at your desk to get your attention. He could just say your name, but it’s so much more fun this way (according to him anyway). It’s all fun and games until you smother him with one.

Thinks arguing with you is cute, and sometimes says or does—or doesn’t do, for that matter—things just to incite an argument. Not a big one, or something serious, just petty things to rile you up so he can kiss and make up for it. For example, he’ll purposely putting the dishes in the wrong place, or hiding the remote from you, or putting his clothes in the wrong hamper.

“Eren, I swear to god, if you don’t stop putting the water bottles on the top shelf—” “What are you gonna do it about, pretty girl? Hit me with it? You can’t even reach—ow!”

being your loudest hype man (words of affirmation)

The amount of pictures he has of you... criminal. From off-guards, to posed photos, to selfies, to screenshots, he has them all tucked away in a little folder with your name and a string of very inappropriate emojis after it.

Screenshots 90% of your snaps to him, even if his just of your eyebrows up. Sometimes because he thinks it’s funny, sometimes to save the picture because he likes it, but mostly because he knows you don’t understand WHY and that’s gives him the most satisfaction 😌

Loud and annoying in your comments on social media too. Hype man almost to a cringe fail level. He doesn’t care though, he has to let it be known.

You could post a simple picture of you and Mikasa at lunch and Eren is in the comments screaming as per usual. @jaegerbomb: do i see TWO pretty best friends??? fuck it up besties 😫🥵🥵😜

GOD. HE WOULD RESPOND WITH “SO TRUE, BESTIE” TO ANYTHING ONCE HE LEARNS WHAT IT MEANS.

Oh, but he doesn’t take to it lightly when you call him bestie, or refer to him as your friend in any capacity. He’s your boyfriend, and would like to be labeled as such.

If you did that prank where you pick up the phone while you’re around him and say “Oh, I’m not too busy, I’m hanging with a friend right now,” he would pout about it for days. Days. Doesn’t get over it, and reminds you of your transgressions every two to three business weeks.

Tells you you look hot all the time, regardless of what you’re doing or wearing. He means it, too, genuinely, he thinks you’re hot. But he does get a kick out of how potentially embarrassed it makes you.

Tells you you’re smart and beautiful and his favorite person on the planet. He means it, always, even if the delivery isn’t romantic. Although, he would argue that telling you he would “tap that” is very romantic.

for him: receiving gifts & words of affirmation

Eren would be really humbled and honored to receive a gift from you. He needs to receive physical affection, too—but something about you thinking about him enough to buy or make him a gift that he’ll love and cherish really hits home for him. He doesn’t have many people who would do that for him.

If you buy him anything, he’s using it the second it’s out of the wrapping paper. You buy him shoes? He’s wearing them the next day. A new case for his phone? Rips the old one off in an instant. A little trinket for his keychain? He can barely remember to carry his keys in the first place, but suddenly he can’t ever forget them now.

He just can’t get over the fact that you think about him and know him well enough to tailor your purchases to his liking. It’s almost an impossible concept to him, and really reassuring that you love him as much as he loves you.

On a similar note, he actually doesn’t mind couple items, as long as they’re not obvious and/or corny. Down to have a pair of matching hats or phone cases or even sneakers. You don’t even have to always/only wear them at the same time, just knowing you have the same thing at home kinda makes him feel fuzzy inside.

He also thinks it’s hot. He can’t explain why knowing his girl has the same kicks at him is hot, he just knows it is.

As much as he likes telling you how hot you are, Eren also likes to hear that you find him attractive—and that you like him, in general. For the most part, he gets that from your physical reciprocity and quite literally letting him hover around you like a fly, but it’s nice to be told with words every once in a while.

For as much as he knows it, he gets a little caught of guard whenever you tell him you love him. He knows you love him, but hearing it sometimes is a little surreal to him. Very reassuring, too, and everyone needs a little reassurance from time to time.

#aot x reader #snk x reader #eren x reader #eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #aot imagines #snk imagines #eren smut #eren fluff #levi x reader

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adapted-batteries · 4 years ago

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Making Art

Fandom: The Librarians

Rating: General/sfw

Relationship: Flynnstone

Word count: 7274

Summary: Instead of never leaving his hometown, Jacob goes off to college under the guise of getting the only degree his dad values, petroleum engineering, but of course also majoring in art history. In “Survey of Native American Art,” he meets someone who he only knew before as “guy who basically lives in the library stacks.” Of course, Fate decides he needs to suffer through a group project with him.

Alternative summary: What would happen if Jacob Stone went to my alma mater and met Flynn there?

Also posted on my Ao3.

-----

Jacob thought well and hard about how he was going to convince Issac to let him go to the University of Tulsa. There were several hurdles he had to overcome: Pa was a University of Oklahoma man, and here he was wanting to go to the nerdiest school in the state; he already knew more than enough to run the oil business, why would he need to waste his father’s money on a useless degree; if Jacob went to Tulsa for four years, he couldn’t keep cleaning up his father’s messes, and there was a real risk of Isaac running the company into the very ground it drilled.

He had solutions to all of these things. The University of Tulsa had the best petroleum engineering degree in the Plains, and he’d always be a boomer sooner fan. And, while his high school grades weren’t too spectacular, his test scores and essay application for the Presidential Scholar program at TU got him a full ride. All he needed was Isaac to let him go and then not kill his company, and he’d be set.

Isaac didn’t need to know about Jacob’s ulterior motives. Tulsa was over 100 miles further from home than Norman was, for one, and Tulsa had a budding humanities program that Jacob really wanted to get invested in. He’d suffer through the engineering degree, but what was going to get him through it were the other courses he had in mind to take out of the humanities, languages, and arts departments. If he was lucky, he’d weasel himself a position of some sort at Gilcrease Museum just so he could learn even more from their displays and get into their archives.

When his acceptance letter came in the mail, Isaac read it with disdain. “When’d ya apply to that place? OU not good enough for you hm?”

Jacob kept the kitchen counter between himself and his father. “No I, well, I wanna do good for the business, and TU’s got the best oil program in the state, you know.”

“I didn’t need no fancy engineerin’ degree to make money,” Isaac countered, eyeing Jacob.

He kept himself from flinching from his father’s glare. “No, but now days you gotta have one to get started. Besides, couldn’t hurt to have one to spread our reach.”

Isaac tossed the nice letterhead on the counter. “Hmph. Well, how’re you gonna pay for that? I can’t just shill out that money.”

“I’ll, I’ll figure it out,” Jacob supplied. He’d already sent off his extra application for a full ride scholarship, which he hoped his more than qualifying exam scores and a 15 page, single-spaced analysis on Choctaw artwork and mythology would be convincing enough to award him.

“Fine, but I’m not co-signin’ any loans.” Isaac fished around in their refrigerator for a beer. “John’s off takin’ care of Sylvia, I need you on the rig Saturday.”

“Alright,” Jacob said. He had planned to spend the evening reading some books he had picked up from the town library, but that’d have to wait. After his dad wandered over to his worn recliner and he heard the click and buzz of the TV, Jacob sighed and set about making them dinner.

---

That August couldn’t get there quick enough. There were many, many times he thought about not going. He’d miss all his friends, his home town, and his pa. But, by the time he loaded up his truck and drove two hours northeast, there wasn’t any backing out now.

When he arrived on campus, he felt very out of place, but that feeling quickly faded once orientation week started. By the time classes started, he didn’t ever want to leave. His experience from oil rigging he already had carried him through his engineering classes, so he could devote himself to his other pursuits. Language courses, literature, history, art, those were the subjects he spent near all his time on. This also meant he spent a fair time in the library.

During his second year, a new student seemed to be competing with how many hours they could clock in the library. He was a nerdy sort, Jacob thought, which meant he was going above and beyond the above-average level of studiousness the student body already had. They quickly established a routine around each other. Jacob would go to his study carol he’d staked the previous year, the leftmost one in a set of three in a forgotten corner of the stacks no one except this new person seemed to want to go to. The newcomer took the study carol two down from him, rarely acknowledging Jacob’s presence.

Their schedule he figured out within the first two weeks of class. Mondays and Wednesdays Jacob would get there first, the new guy coming about an hour later and staying while Jacob left for class. Tuesdays and Thursdays the newcomer was there before him, and would leave around two hours into Jacob’s studying. Fridays the guy wasn’t there at all, at least not when Jacob was, but he practically lived there Saturday, no doubt not going to the football home games.

The beauty of studying in the stacks was that no one talked like they did in the study areas. The hum of the air vents, the scratch of his and the other guy’s pencils, the flip of books, and occasional footsteps of a seeker of knowledge comprised his sound track. He and the guy even alternated who stood and waved their arm to reactivate the lights when they timed out.

Without realizing, he had learned a fair amount about the guy from just studying near him. He was either dressed like a stereotypical professor, or a bedraggled grad student, which predicted how late he had stayed up the night before (confirmed by how prominent the circles under his eyes were). He had notebooks for every subject, and he studied near every subject, though a good amount of the books he hoarded were Native American ones. When he was frustrated, he might mumble under his breath, but most certainly made his hair even more wild by running his fingers through it. When he was hyperfocused, he'd sit on one foot, scratching furiously in a notebook.

Jacob never learned the guy’s name until the next semester when he had a class with him. Jacob had gotten himself into an upper-level Native American history course, filled mostly with history majors finishing their degrees and grad students. Not wanting to seem too eager, he chose a desk one row back from the front row. People he knew from previous history courses meandered in as it neared time to start the class, and some he chatted with, asking how their breaks were and such. The professor walked in right on time, a stack of syllabi on top of a binder in one arm, an insulated travel mug in her other hand.

Dr. Mashunkashey had begun going over the syllabus when the door to the classroom opened, revealing the guy from the stacks. He looked a bit disheveled, running late from somewhere it seemed. “That’s a two for two for not showing up on time to the first day of my class, Flynn,” the professor said, but she didn’t seem that annoyed by it.

“Sorry, I stayed up too late reading,” Flynn replied. “I got a bit carried away following sources referenced in Reclaiming Diné History.”

“Of course you did,” Dr. Mashunkashey said with a laugh, handing him the last syllabus. “Go on and have a seat.”

It turned out the easiest seat for him to take was the one right in front of Jacob. Jacob gave him a nod, which Flynn returned quickly, and then sat down. Jacob focused himself back on the syllabus on his desk, but his mind kept drifting to the man in front of him. He’d caught glimpses of the books Flynn read in the study carrel, and they were quite all over the place in subject matter; any given day he might have had a botany book, or a German biography, or something on Egypt. And now here he was, sitting right in front of him, apparently having spent the previous night doing the same thing Jacob did, though at least Jacob’s morning gym sessions meant he was never late to class like Flynn was.

The sound of a bunch of pages flipping snapped Jacob back into reality. The professor was explaining the main project of the class. “You’ll each focus on a particular tribe’s art, and an era within that. The paper requirements are in the syllabus, standard format. Images are welcome, but don’t shirk on your words because of them. Then, for the second part of this grade, you’ll work with a partner to make some form of art, combining the styles of both of your papers.”

Flynn raised his hand, but Dr. Mashunkashey shook her head. “Yes, Flynn, you’ll have to work with a partner.” Jacob stifled a laugh when Flynn’s shoulders slumped, but apparently not enough as she glanced at him before looking back at the syllabus. “The art component can be anything. Music, painting, writing, whatever, so long as you both incorporate themes from what you highlight in your paper. Since art can take time, and you might want to coordinate what art styles you’ll be using, go ahead and pick your partner.”

Jacob started thinking through the people he already knew in the class, but Flynn startled him out of his thoughts by turning around. “Do you want to be partners?”

“I, uh, sure,” Jacob stuttered. The professor had apparently been watching Flynn to see who he’d pick, and Jacob saying yes surprised her, based on her raised eyebrows. "Do you know what you're gonna do your paper on?"

Flynn didn't hesitate to respond. "Hohokam culture."

"I'd been thinking of doing Pueblo myself, so that should work well," Jacob said.

Dr. Mashunkashey cleared her throat, getting the class to quiet down. “Okay, now that you all have partners picked, we’re gonna get started.” She moved behind the computer and proceeded to give her introductory lecture on Native American art.

---

When the class came to an end, Jacob packed up his notebook and walked around the side of Flynn’s desk. “Hey, since we’re doing a project, we should exchange numbers.”

Flynn had been still scribbling something down, so it took a beat before he looked up at Jacob. “Phone number, yes, that’s a good idea.” He fished out his phone from a worn messenger bag stuffed with books and notebooks, handed it to Jacob, and then went back to writing.

Jacob waited for him to say more, but he didn’t speak, so he opened the phone and texted this is flynn’s number from Flynn’s phone to himself. Flynn was still writing, so he cleared his throat to get his attention. “Uh, here’s your phone.”

Flynn looked up a bit faster this time and took the phone. “Great.” He looked as if whatever was in the notebook was reaching out and trying to drag his head back to it, but he was now trying to fight it, looking at Jacob like he was trying to memorize Jacob. “Um, I’ll...see you around, in the stacks.”

He hadn’t imagined Flynn would be so awkward. “Sure, probably will.” Taking it as a cue, Flynn gave in to the pull of his notebook. Jacob wandered up to the professor; he had a habit of chatting up his professors after the first class, and today was no exception. Dr. Mashunkashey had just finished talking to another student when he walked up.

“I’ve heard good things about you, Mr. Stone.”

“And I’ve heard good things about you, too,” Jacob replied. “I wanted to take your class on Osage history last semester, but it conflicted with a class I needed to take.”

“I’ll be teaching it again in two years, so you’ve got some time,” she replied. Mumbling came from where Flynn was, making them both glance at him. “So you’ve got Flynn as your partner...that should be interesting. Do you know him from somewhere?”

“Yeah, I met ‘em in the library,” Jacob replied.

Dr. Mashunkashey laughed a little. “That sounds like the place to find him. Well, I look forward to your paper. Daniel, Dr. Griffith, liked your final paper so much he couldn’t quit talking about it.”

Jacob’s ears reddened a little. “Oh, well, I’m glad he enjoyed it.”

“Are you considering grad school?”

“Well, I’d uh, been thinkin’ about it, yeah.” He wasn’t about to tell her that he was also doing an engineering degree to take back home.

“If you want to talk about it, stop by my office anytime. There’s definitely fellowships out there for students like you, if finances are a concern.”

Jacob couldn’t help but perk up at that. “I’ll take you up on that. See you during office hours.”

---

Flynn, it turned out, was kind of the worst. Jacob wasn’t in a rush to get the project going, considering it wasn’t due until April anyway, but Flynn wanted to get started right away...at 3am apparently. Jacob hadn’t seen the string of texts until the next morning.

Flynn 3:04 AM: Can you do pottery? There’s a ceramics studio in Phillips Hall, I think I can get access to it.

Flynn 3:05 AM: There’s a few designs that would work for my time, depending on what works with your era.

Flynn 3:07 AM: You could decorate half and I’ll do the other.

Flynn 3:15 AM: Are there specific techniques your people used in their pottery making? We should use a traditional method.

Jacob didn’t reply right away. He went about his morning routine, and was on his way to the gym when his phone buzzed again.

Flynn 8:07 AM: What do you think about woodworking for our project?

Jacob groaned out loud, no one close enough to hear him. No wonder the professor was shocked he said yes to Flynn.

Jacob 8:08 AM: We have months to do this project. There’s no need to start so early.

Jacob shoved his phone in his pocket on do-not-disturb, intending to ignore any messages for the duration of his workout, but now that Flynn got him thinking about it, he sent off one more text.

Jacob 8:09 AM: I think pottery would probably work best. I’m sure we can manage it between the two of us.

Flynn responded almost instantaneously.

Flynn 8:10 AM: That’s what I was thinking. Though if we really wanted to incorporate both, we could also include the woodworking.

“Lord,” Jacob hissed, earning a confused look from the bleary-eyed student working the desk at the gym. He took his student ID and apologized. “Sorry, thanks.” It wouldn’t be that bad, so long as he didn’t let Flynn get under his skin.

Despite his efforts, Jacob’s workout was overshadowed by his loud thoughts. It wasn’t that he hoped Flynn would be cool, but, well, from months studying silently next to each other, Jacob had wondered what he would be like as a friend. He wanted to know what went on in Flynn's brain, what made him tick, what he did outside of class and studying. But now, he realized, Flynn was a brilliant mess of an academic who breathed school 24/7.

---

Flynn hadn’t been in the library Monday afternoon, and Jacob hadn’t gone to the library Tuesday. He hadn’t gotten any texts from him either, so by their second class on Wednesday, Jacob was curious what Flynn had been up to. That curiosity grew when Flynn showed up with a new notebook he hadn't had on Monday, already a quarter of the way filled with notes. "Jacob! So I talked to Kelly, er, Dr. Mashunkashey, and she talked to the art department, who then talked to the main ceramics professor, and he emailed me back saying we could do our project in his studio."

Jacob was kind of shocked at how fast he’d contacted people. “Well, that’s good.”

“I think we could start working on it, hm, next week?” Flynn looked down at Jacob expectantly, as he’d yet to take his seat.

For whatever reason, Jacob got an odd feeling in his stomach, but he ignored it. “I wasn’t plannin’ on gettin’ goin’ so soon, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt. I’ve only read about their pottery techniques, not done them, so extra time might be a good idea.” Flynn was practically vibrating with excitement at his response, which made Jacob laugh before he could stop himself.

Flynn thankfully didn’t think he was mocking him. “Great! The studio is open for us Friday afternoons.”

“I can do that,” Jacob replied. Flynn somehow smiled at him even more than he was, and well, Jacob couldn’t deny it felt nice to have that joy aimed at him. It didn’t last long though, as Flynn sat down when Dr. Mashunkashey walked into class. Flynn turned around in his seat and started going through his notes on the techniques he wanted to try until the professor had her powerpoint up and running.

Flynn wasn’t as insufferable as he thought, his excitement contagious, but Jacob realized this project was gonna be tough for another reason: he was falling for Flynn.

---

Jacob hadn't done any ceramics since art in high school. Flynn said he could, as apparently he minored in art to add to his many degrees, Jacob found out. It unnerved him a bit, to know that Flynn already had 2 Ph.D.'s and 3 masters in Egyptology, two ancient languages, Chinese history and physics, and that Flynn had no plans on stopping from acquiring more. All Jacob had was a high school diploma, though he had a lot in his head from the books he devoured and the time he spent out on the oil rigs.

The ceramics studio was thankfully empty when they arrived. The room was open, old windows hinting at a time when the space used to be an engineering workshop when the art building used to be the engineering building, which the engraved stone above one entrance still said. Shelving with a variety of in-progress and complete works lined most of the walls, with tables in the center of one half of the room, and space for throwing wheels in the other. It smelled like wet earth, and for a moment, Jacob imagined he was out on a new rig after a rain.

The professor who taught ceramics classes gave a basic rundown of the room, clearly with the dual purpose of informing them of where things were and sussing out just how skilled they were. Flynn's rambling at various points about technique and clay types seemed to satisfy the professor, who left them to their devices.

Flynn took a hunk of clay out of the plastic bag and started rolling out coils on top of a drywall square. "Okay, were there specific techniques you need to incorporate from your time period?"

"Well, it was coil-based, like yours, though the clay they used had a different composition ‘cause of where they sourced it," Jacob replied. Flynn had set him on making the base, so he was rolling out a slab to index finger thickness with a rolling pin.

It was clear Flynn had worked with clay before. He already had several coils made and covered to prevent drying out while Jacob hadn't even gotten to the right thickness yet. "Dr. Kanhg couldn't get clay with the mineral composition we needed, but he does have matte glazes we can use to make the clay look the right color, give it the more reddish hue," Flynn said. His eyes then flicked to Jacob's work, brow furrowing. "You're rolling it too thin."

Jacob had been paying attention to his clay, but then he had gotten distracted by Flynn working, how delicate yet firm he rolled out the coils under his palms, the way his hair flopped a bit with his head bent down. Jacob had rolled his clay out all right, to about an ⅛ inch thick divot in the middle with over an inch thick edges from not flipping his slab. If he was making a mini half-pipe, he would've done a fine job. "Uh, sorry, I'll start over." He went to smush it together when Flynn yanked the clay out from under his hands.

"If you do that you'll dry it out with the oil from your hands," Flynn snapped like Jacob was supposed to know that. Flynn folded it twice and then started slamming it on the drywall slab to combine it.

"I've only done ceramics once in high school, man," Jacob retorted, puffing himself up a bit on the stool he was sitting on.

"Clearly it shows," Flynn replied, salt in Jacob's wounded ego. Flynn, not very gently, shoved the drywall square with the now condensed clay over to Jacob. "Pay attention this time."

Jacob grunted at him, not trusting himself to say anything good, and rolled out his slab again. This time he kept his eyes glued to his work, ignoring the pinprick sensation of Flynn's judgemental gaze on him. He rolled it out well enough, and used a large yogurt container to trace out a circle and cut it out.

No sooner than he finished sliding the knife around the trace he made and started to pull the excess clay away, Flynn snatched the circle and started working it to attach the coils. "I was gonna do that," Jacob growled, watching Flynn flip the edges up with more speed and evenness than Jacob would have.

Flynn didn't look up at him. "And I'm sure you'd have to do it twice too."

"You don't know that," Jacob muttered, watching Flynn. He looked around the studio, feeling useless, so he said, "Is there something I can do? It's half my project too."

Flynn stopped working, glaring at him for a moment before softening his expression. "Have you made a coil pot before?"

"No...but I think I can do it from watching you," Jacob said.

Flynn narrowed his eyes a bit, but gently slid the partially done pot across the table to him. "Pinch and smooth down on the inside to connect the clay, but don't push too hard or you'll warp the coil below."

Jacob got halfway done with the coil before he punched through accidentally with his finger, making a hole. "Well fuck," he said as Flynn let out a frustrated sigh. It was going to take forever if he kept working, so he passed it back to Flynn. "Sorry."

"Since you're just going to mess it up, let me make it," Flynn said with exasperation. "You can decorate, if you won't mess that up too."

"Just ‘cause I'm not some genius like you and I mess up sometimes doesn't mean I can't do it," Jacob barked. For an instant he reminded himself of his father, and he cringed a little. He’d startled Flynn too; where Flynn had been repairing the hole Jacob made, there was now a rip again. “Sorry, I, uh, look. It took a lot for me to get here, and I wanna learn just as much as you do, but if you’re gonna treat me like I’m an idiot, I’m just gonna leave.”

Flynn didn’t respond at first, so Jacob started packing up his things and leaving. “No, wait!” Flynn grabbed his forearm; thankfully Jacob hadn’t rolled down his shirt sleeve yet. “I’m not good with people.”

Jacob huffed. “You don’t say.” He glanced at Flynn’s clay-dusted hand, still holding him, which made Flynn release him.

“I mean, school, learning, it’s everything to me. I don’t want to mess this project up. It has to be perfect, everything does, because that means I understand it.” Flynn went to rake a hand through his hair, but at the last second realized his hands were not clean, and stopped himself. “I just want one group project to go right. I hate group projects, but I need you to prove to Dr. Mashunkashey that I can work with people. She says I need to be able to do that if I want to be a professor.”

Jacob was not expecting Flynn to open up to him like that. Nor was he expecting the warmth in his chest when Flynn said he needed him, but he pushed that aside before he did anything reckless. “I’m willing to put in the effort if you are, but you have to let me do some of the work. I’m not gonna flake out.” Jacob hadn’t realized just how spooked Flynn was until he relaxed, tension released from his shoulders.

“Okay.” Flynn looked at the in-progress pot for a moment, then said, “I’m going to finish fixing the hole, then you can try again. You have to be gentle with it.”

“I know.” Jacob sat patiently, waiting for Flynn finish the repair. Once he did, he pushed the pot to Jacob. He started adding a new coil, but after a couple pinches, Flynn stopped him.

“You’ve got to be gentler than that,” Flynn said. “Can’t you feel when the clay is giving too much?” Without warning, Flynn took Jacob’s hand, looking at his fingers. “Oh, of course you can’t, you’ve got calloused fingertips.” He glanced up at Jacob. “Guitar, I assume?”

Jacob was doing all he could to contain himself. “Uh, yeah, and probably from years of working on an oil rig too.”

Flynn nodded thoughtfully at the addition, clearly filing it away wherever he was storing facts about Jacob. He hadn’t let go of Jacob’s hand, and this time Jacob wasn’t going to do anything to make him. “You’re pushing too hard, and thus thinning the clay too much at the join, that’s why you punched through,” Flynn explained. He then moved Jacob’s hand back into position, but this time, keeping his hand on top of Jacob’s. Their hands together almost didn’t fit into the pot, but Flynn made it work. “I’m going to press down so you can feel how hard you can go without breaking it, okay?”

Jacob nodded, not trusting words at the moment. Flynn proceeded to work the clay through Jacob’s hand, somehow just as good as he was before. Part of Jacob’s brain noticed that he didn’t push near as hard as Jacob had been when trying to be gentle, and filed it away, but most of his brain was focused on how intently Flynn was watching their hands work, and then how intently he was looking back at Jacob when he stopped. “Did you feel the difference?”

“Uh,” Jacob cleared his throat when it came out husky, “yeah, I did. Thanks. You really know your stuff.”

He noticed Flynn blush a little at the compliment. “Good. Uh,” Flynn realized he was still holding Jacob’s hand and released him, “now you try on your own.” After Jacob satisfactorily did a whole coil, they alternated until they reached a stopping point a third of the way through. “We need to let it dry to leather-hard before we add any more, otherwise it will collapse.”

Jacob vaguely remembered that leather-hard was a term to describe the texture of somewhat dried clay. “Alright. How long is that gonna take?”

Flynn considered the room a bit, thinking. “Today’s a humid day, so it would probably be best to wrap it with a paper towel and leave it in a plastic bag, then check it tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Jacob went and gathered the plastic and paper towels while Flynn fiddled with a coil. “I guess we can come back Monday afternoon?”

“That should be good, yes,” Flynn replied, swaddling the base of the pot with paper towels. He took a strip of plastic and wrapped the rim, and apparently noticed Jacob watching him. “This will keep the top fresh so when we come back, we can continue working it.”

Jacob nodded. He helped Flynn clean their area, replacing tools and wiping down the table. Done with their tasks, they awkwardly stared at each other across the table for a few moments before Jacob said, “Well, guess I’ll see ya Monday then?”

“Yes...see you then,” Flynn said, and then without warning, he rather hastily left the studio.

Jacob watched him go, then sat back down on the stool he’d been sitting on. “Oh Lord.”

---

He felt kind of guilty when he pulled up Clayton’s contact on his phone. He’d not been great about calling like he’d promised when he left Lawton, but Clayton always told him he knew college was hectic and to not worry about it. Still, as the phone rang, Jacob felt bad about calling just to talk about his personal life.

“Hey, long time no call, eh?” Clayton said as he answered.

“Yeah, sorry man. Some of these engineerin’ classes I should’ve tested out of, but they don’t really do that here,” Jacob replied. He was in his apartment, laying on his bed.

“I bet you could test out of half of that degree,” Clayton said with a laugh. “So what’s new with you?”

“I was gonna ask you that first,” Jacob said, feeling his face heat up already.

“You know I’d tell you the same as a few weeks ago, ‘cuz nothing new’s happened,” Clayton replied. “Plus,” Jacob could hear the smile in his voice, “I got a feelin’ you’re gonna ask for advice about somethin’.”

“How’d you, ugh, never mind,” Jacob scoffed, really blushing when Clayton laughed at him again. “Yeah, I got a...situation.”

Clayton sighed. “And who is he?”

Jacob sighed. “He’s in my Native American art history class, we’re partners on the group project, but I actually knew him before it.”

“...Wait, is this the same guy who you studied with in the library?”

Jacob shook his head, yet again surprised by how well Clayton could read him, even over the phone. “Studied near, but yeah. Turns out he’s doin’ a Ph.D. in Native history.”

"So he’s closer to your age?”

“I think so, though he might honestly be younger than me. The man’s got like five degrees already,” Jacob said, not bothering to keep the contempt out of his voice.

“So you went and fell for a genius, huh?”

“He’s a smartass,” Jacob said, but after a moment he added, “yeah, I have.” He was super fortunate to have such a good guy as Clayton he could call his best friend. He’d fallen for him too, briefly, but Clayton didn’t feel the same, and then Clayton decided it was his job to be Jacob’s wingman.

“And does he feel the same?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think so at first, but now…”

Clayton chuckled. “Then tell me what happened.” Jacob explained the happenings in the ceramics studio. “Well, he sounds awkward, but I think it’d be best to ask him directly.”

Jacob knew Clayton was going to say that, but he still felt shocked. “I can’t just ask him!”

“Why not?” was all Clayton said.

“‘Cause, well, if he doesn’t, this whole project is gonna be awkward.”

“Isn’t it already though?”

Jacob thought a moment. “Well, I guess, yeah. But I also don’t wanna get distracted before we finish this project. It’s worth half our grade.”

“So you’re just gonna pine away in silence for three months?”

“It might not be three months...Flynn’s too focused on doing this project as quick as we can.” Jacob hadn’t really considered that until now. “If we get the project done quick, then there’s nothin’ stoppin’ me from askin’ him after.”

“That’s the spirit. Let me know how it goes, you know I wouldn’t mind drivin’ up if you needed it.”

“Thanks, Clayton.”

"Anytime, Jacob."

---

Jacob decided that getting the project mostly done was the priority. This meant he had to suffer through two more equally awkward handbuilding sessions before their pot was ready for the first firing. At least in class, Flynn’s back was to him, except when they had class discussions. By the time they started glazing their pot, Jacob swore Flynn knew exactly how he was making him feel.

Glazing was just as messy as he remembered in high school. Flynn didn’t care about the state of the table, or himself, so long as his strips on the pot were perfect replicas of various designs he picked. Compared to the pot making, Jacob turned out to be the better painter. The hardest part for him was picking the designs he wanted to use.

Jacob was halfway through a strip when Flynn asked, “Where did you learn how to paint?”

Jacob snickered a little. “Same as most everything else, self-taught.” He glanced at Flynn, who currently had smears of blue underglaze where he’d wiped his forehead. “Are ya goin’ for war paint too?”

Flynn narrowed his eyes, confused. “What?”

“You got underglaze on your face,” Jacob said, pointing at Flynn’s forehead with the brush.

Flynn swiped at his forehead, making the smear worse, which just made Jacob laugh harder. “Oh yeah? Well-” Flynn decided to go for direct retaliation and swiped at Jacob’s face with his orange-covered brush across the table “-Now we match!”

Jacob tried to dodge, about fell off his stool, and Flynn’s brush ended up tapping the end of his nose. He knew better, he really did, but Flynn had worn him down the past week, so Jacob got off his stool, holding his brush out like a rapier. “You’ll regret that,” he growled.

Taking the challenge, Flynn got into a much more trained en-garde stance. “I rather think you will!” Then, without warning, Flynn jumped around the edge of the table at him.

Jacob realized that he was outclassed, but gave a valiant effort anyway. Quickly, Flynn had him giving up ground, forcing him to the sink that sat in the middle of the room between the tables and throwing wheels. “You’ve taken a class on fencing, haven’t you?”

“Lessons, when I was a kid, but yes, I’ve been trained,” Flynn replied, spying for an opening to tag Jacob. Just as Flynn lunged, Jacob dodged left, letting Flynn catch himself on the sink. Flynn shook his head, a mischievous grin on his face. “You, you’ve got some fight experience too.” He took a swipe, forcing Jacob closer to the finished projects shelf. “But not formal, no...brawls, that’s what you get into.”

Jacob took a jab at Flynn, gaining a foot of ground, but Flynn quickly forced him back two. “Not been in a scrap in a while,” Jacob said, trying again to swipe himself some room.

Seeing Jacob essentially pinned, his left blocked by the stoneware clay reclaim bin and a table, Flynn went for the killing blow. Jacob knew how to read people in fights, and Flynn had gotten to the “confident of a win” stage, so Jacob ducked at the last possible second. This meant he was out of range of the brush, but Flynn was now barreling straight for the shelving. Without thinking, Jacob jumped back up, wrapping his arms around Flynn’s waist as he did and pushing him back away from the shelf.

“I was going to stop myself,” Flynn quipped as Jacob released him.

“I know overshooting when I see it,” Jacob retorted. He hadn’t stepped away from Flynn, nor had Flynn stepped away from him. They were less than a foot apart. Flynn’s eyes were dark, no doubt from the adrenaline of the fight; Jacob assumed he looked a similar state of riled up. He caught himself glancing at Flynn’s mouth without thinking, and was about to step away, until Flynn mimicked him, glancing at his lips.

Jacob closed the distance between them before he could think of reasons why he shouldn’t.

Flynn kissing him back made him forget any of those reasons.

An odd wetness on his forearm made him pull away. Flynn’s paintbrush had made an orange stripe on his arm. He looked back to Flynn, eyes even darker than they had been. “Guess we should finish the pot.”

“Uh, y...yeah,” Flynn said eloquently. “I didn’t know you…”

Jacob laughed under his breath. “You’ve been driving me crazy the past three weeks.”

Flynn’s eyes went wide. “I thought you were angry at me.”

Jacob closed his eyes, a smile on his face. “You really weren’t kiddin’ when you said you’re bad with people.” He opened his eyes when he felt Flynn shaking his head, nose brushing against Jacob’s. “Well, maybe I can teach you a thing or two,” he murmured, giving Flynn a tease of a kiss before pulling away again. “But we really should finish the pot.”

Flynn took a moment to adjust his focus. “Right, yes.” He stepped away, smoothing out his shirt in an effort to make himself look less flustered. He walked over to the pot, but turned back to Jacob following him. “So, we’re doing this?”

The fact that Jacob was now finding Flynn’s awkwardness really endearing was a testament to just how hard he’d fallen for the genius. “I am if you want to.”

Flynn nodded...and nodded some more before he responded, “Okay, good, yes, I very much want to do that again.”

Jacob laughed. “Well, we can make out as much as we want after we finish this pot, ‘cause the next firing is two days from now and it needs to dry before then.”

The motivation of more set a fire in Flynn’s belly; he attacked the pot with his brush, clearly caring less about perfect replication and more about finishing in the same general design so he could go do better things. Jacob put a little more effort into his, and thus was still painting when Flynn finished his underglaze design and cleaned his materials up. Flynn managed to sit there for 30 seconds before he interrupted Jacob. “How much longer will you take?”

Jacob glanced over at him, an eyebrow raised. “Why, you got somewhere you gotta be?” Flynn squirmed on his stool, making Jacob feel the heat of satisfaction in his chest. “I’ll be done when I’m done. I might just reward ya for your patience,” Jacob said with a smirk.

Flynn practically melted under his gaze, ears going red. “Okay...fine.”

It was just too fun seeing the effect of his words on Flynn. “Can you wait a little more for me?” Jacob rumbled, letting his voice get low and gravelly. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Flynn shuddered, making Jacob smile.

After Jacob slightly more hastily finished his strips, Flynn practically threw himself at him. Jacob had to make himself shove Flynn off him. “Hey, I didn’t say you could do that,” Jacob growled more than he had meant to; Flynn shuddered a bit. “We need to clean up, and not make out in a public classroom.” Flynn looked like he was enjoying getting told what to do too much, red flush on his face and neck, but eyes definitely staring Jacob down. “Look, once we clean up, we can go to my apartment, alright?”

Flynn, also very aware of how he was affecting Jacob, moved back into Jacob’s space. “You took entirely too long to say that,” he said, voice low and a bit breathy. Flynn leaned–not to kiss Jacob again, but to grab the dirty paint brushes on the workbench, making Jacob lean into empty air. Flynn looked at him expectantly. “Well? We better clean up then.”

“You little…” Jacob shook his head, smiling deviously. Flynn preened as he dramatically walked to the sink, knowing full well Jacob’s eyes were on him.

They could’ve been perhaps more thorough in their cleaning, if they weren’t both busy imagining what they were going to do to each other once they got to Jacob’s apartment.

---

The next class, Jacob had intended to play it cool, meaning acting like nothing unusual happened between him and Flynn. That fell flat when Flynn, arriving just barely on time as usual, strode over to Jacob with a dopey grin on his face. For a moment Jacob was terrified Flynn was going to kiss him in front of the whole class. Thankfully, Flynn just patted Jacob’s hand, purposely drawing his fingers away sensually, and then sat in his seat.

Once his brain restarted, Jacob looked around as discreetly as he could manage. No one seemed to have noticed, expect Dr. Mashunkashey, who was watching him with curiosity. Thankfully, she started class, and Jacob did his best to take notes and not reach out and pet the back of Flynn’s head.

On the way out of class, Dr. Mashunkashey stopped Jacob. “Jacob, can you talk for a moment?”

Jacob looked to Flynn, who was all but dragging him out of class to “work on the paper” which Jacob knew wasn’t what he was planning. Flynn didn’t seem to think anything amiss, so he said, “I’ll meet you outside,” and left the classroom.

“Everything okay with your project?” she asked, glancing at the door. “I know Flynn can be a bit...much, so if you need me to talk to him, I can.”

Jacob went a bit red, but tried to power through. “Oh, uh, nah, everything’s good. We’ve even started making our art piece.”

Dr. Mashunkashey seemed a bit surprised with his response. “Well, that’s certainly a change. I look forward to seeing what you two make together.”

Jacob’s brain of course heard “seeing you two together” and had to blink a few times to refocus himself. “I, uh, think it’ll be pretty good. It’s been a long while since I worked with clay, though that’s apparently one of Flynn’s many damn talents.” Jacob kicked himself internally, cursing in front of a professor like that.

Dr. Mashunkashey, to Jacob’s surprise, gave a hearty laugh. “I wouldn’t say it’s often I teach students who have more degrees than I do children. Though I think you could put Flynn in his paces from your papers so far.”

“Oh, I don’t think I could be as good as him,” Jacob retorted, pausing as he briefly considered what that would entail, “I’d have to quadruple major or something.”

“Well, I don’t want to keep you. Flynn seemed pretty eager to get to work.”

“Yeah...he really likes to work on things when he’s focused on them,” Jacob replied, pointedly making his way towards the door so he didn’t have to directly look at the professor. “Have a good day, Professor.”

“You too, Jacob,” she said with a wave.

Flynn was apparently waiting to pounce on him in the hallway, which Jacob had briefly pondered if he would, so he braced his arm to keep Flynn off him. While it did keep Flynn from macking on him, Flynn also took his arm and entwined his own, and started walking down the hall. “What did she have to talk about?”

“Oh, uh, she asked if we were doing okay–I mean, our project,” Jacob stammered, glancing down at their arms.

Flynn didn’t seem to care and just kept walking towards the stairs. “Oh, well I bet she was surprised to hear I’m not procrastinating on a project for once. Speaking of projects,” Flynn leaned to speak lowly into Jacob’s ear, “I was thinking we could move our research to your place, or mine.”

“Uh huh,” Jacob chuckled. “Well, I suppose we could do that.”

They did not, in fact, work on their project that morning.

---

In the end, they got an A on their papers, project, and presentation of said project. And Dr. Mashunkashey won her bet against her colleagues that Jacob and Flynn would get together by the end of her class.

-----

Post Notes: Sorry for the quick ending, I’ve been sitting on this fic since February and never finished it, so I figured making an ending and getting it out was better than it sitting in my google drive forever. Also, when it comes to ages, I saw them both as a bit older than your usual 18-22 college students; for both they’re at least 23 or so, Jacob from working with his father, and Flynn from doing other degrees.

The University of Tulsa doesn’t have a Native American studies program (they really should though given location and history of the school), but they do have a well-known petroleum engineering program, which is what gave me the idea of how to get Stone to school. Considering Flynn’s all about ancient history studies, surely the ancient American people he knows about too. And I’m assuming Jacob grew up somewhere out near Lawton, OK, based on the mileage he gave in “And What Lies Beneath the Stones” since the actual town Wagoner (Wagner was what they used in the episode) is about 45 minutes southeast from Tulsa.

#the librarians #the librarians fic #flynnstone #flynn carsen #jacob stone #librarians fanfic #fanfic #a. l. writes

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voodoochili · 4 years ago

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My 75 Favorite Albums of 2020

Every year produces excellent music and 2020 was no exception. The exceptional thing about this year, though, is the loss of livelihood so many musicians suffered as a result of the pandemic. To better celebrate all I’ve listened to and loved this year, I’ve expanded my albums list from 50 to 75 albums and included a highlight track from each in the Spotify playlist below. If you like what you hear, why not throw the artist a few dollars on Bandcamp?

Check the Spotify playlist HERE.

Without further ado, my favorite albums of 2020. Happy New Year, and happy listening!

10. Playboi Carti - Whole Lotta Red: Carti’s long-awaited opus has only been out for a week, which is probably not a long enough time to give an album as sprawling and surprising as this one a full critical evaluation. But I do know when I’m hearing something that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard: this album rearranges hip-hop at the molecular level.

Whole Lotta Red is overstuffed with invention, the glitchy, expansive production giving Carti ample opportunity to glom onto the contours of the beat and experiment with his voice. That voice is the album’s main attraction: it squeaks, it squeals, it roars, it spits, it shudders, and organizes itself into irresistibly ignorant mantras (my current favorite is “Lamborghini parked outside, it’s purple like lean”).

Across its 24 tracks (which feels like too many, sure, but only the 5-minute long Kid Cudi-infected droner “Metamorphosis” overstays its welcome), Carti plays with listener expectations, annihilating rap songwriting conventions (why do you need verse-chorus structure if every line is a hook) as he defiantly proclaims his desire to be unlike anybody else. Though it bears some resemblance in sound and subject matter to Future’s Monster (and much of the production owes a debt to the work of Lil Uzi Vert’s favored Working Of Dying collective), Whole Lotta Red firmly establishes Carti as a totemic figure connecting mainstream and underground sounds.

9. BbyMutha - Muthaland: BbyMutha is a natural born spitter, armed with a drawly stutter-stepping flow that routinely annihilates unconventional instrumentals. She glows with supreme confidence and comfort in her own skin, especially when she’s dripping with disdain with those who’d dare refuse her the respect she deserves. A 25-track opus that earns every minute of its runtime, Muthaland is an engrossing immersion into Mutha’s world, balancing a fascination with the occult (“Sorry I don’t fuck with n****s who don’t fuck with Satan”) with grounding interjections from close friends and her four children. Boasting rockstar fantasies like “Heavy Metal,” bad girl anthems like “Nice Guy,” and dancefloor-ready jams like “Cocaine Catwalk,” Muthaland is a tour-de-force by one of rap’s singular voices, and if she’s really finished with music as she’s claimed (rappers never really retire, but Mutha has indicated she wants to focus full time on her Apothecary), the game will greatly miss her incisive punchlines and crudely empowering perspective.

8. Westerman - Your Hero Is Not Dead: In 2020, Mid-’80s sophistipop grew into one of my favorite comfort foods. Westerman’s Your Hero Is Not Dead struck me directly in the sophistipop sweet spot, evoking the attention-to-detail and synth-heavy craftsmanship of that era and pairing it with harmonic complexity and a piercing emotionalism that recalls his idol Neil Young. On songs like “Blue Comanche” and “The Line,” Westerman constructs tales as twisty as his melodies, economically exploring how people relate to each other at the beginning and end of romantic relationships. Westerman complements his tasteful palette of synth sounds with intricate and lyrical guitar playing, most notably on the sighing, gorgeous instrumental “Float Over,” which softly segues into the title track to end the album on a gently-rising high note.

7. WizKid - Made In Lagos: The focal point of the sub-Saharan Afrobeats renaissance, Lagos is having one of the most exciting musical moments of any city since Kingston in the early ‘70s. WizKid is one of the scene’s biggest stars, with an ability to combine the sonic tapestry of his hometown with Caribbean-influenced beats and vocal styles. Made In Lagos is a masterwork of sound design, bringing creamy bass, chicken-scratch speckles of guitar, tasteful interjections of saxophone and brass, and an intoxicating mix of acoustic and electronic percussion, all offered in service to an immaculate vibe that matches the album cover’s shiny, monochromatic color scheme. Made with lockdown in mind, the album eschews uptempo dancefloor workouts in favor of stress-relief and romance. WizKid plays the perfect host, tamping down his melodic flights of fancy and embracing a song-serving smoothness. He’s a warm and inviting presence throughout, laying out the red carpet for a cross-continental cast of collaborators like H.E.R., Skepta, Burna Boy, and Damian Marley. The result is a truly global pop masterpiece, capable of brightening even the dourest day of a miserable year.

6. Ka - Descendants of Cain: Firefighter by day and rapper/producer by night, Ka is a master of allusion. He organizes his thoughts into themed collections of metaphor, illustrating the bleak realities of street life with gnomic symbolism. On Descendants Of Cain, Ka’s strongest work to date, the enigmatic rapper expresses himself through a litany of biblical references, drawing parallels between ancient parables (he goes far deeper than the Cain/’caine double entendre that rappers have been using for decades) and the stark code of morality with which he lives his life. The 48-year-old hermit produced the project himself, creating an immersive sonic realm, crafting expansive, noir-ish backing tracks populated by late-night saxophones, sparkling pianos, and the occasional shot of sweeping strings. Once again, Ka’s music comes almost entirely without drums (certainly without “beats” in the traditional hip-hop sense–every once in a while, he adds an open hi-hat or a subdued shaker), the artist preferring to let his music swirl around his half-whispered words of wisdom. The album ends on a tearful, sentimental note with “I Love (Mimi, Moms, Kev),” in which the artist ditches the biblical lyrical conceit and expresses his love for his wife, his mom, and his best friend atop light percussion and a warm soul sample.

5. SAULT - Untitled (Rise): Rise is the second part of a diptych that SAULT recorded in response to the movement that exploded in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Black Is, the first part, is a great album (you’ll find it in the lower reaches of my 2020 list), but the mysterious UK collective fulfilled their immense potential with Rise, a propulsive, powerful, and danceable album that doubles as a thought-provoking examination of the nature of freedom and liberation. The album tackles weighty topics–police violence, fake-woke “allies,” protest, cultural appropriation–but handles them with an inspiring effervescence and a propulsion meant to usher right-thinking people into the streets. The music itself is an intoxicating marvel, combining elements from every trendy musical movement from the early ‘80s (post-disco, post-punk, house, hip-hop, whatever the hell ESG was) into a percussive and surprisingly cohesive cocktail. The album immediately makes its greatness known with its first four songs, one of the strongest opening runs of any album in recent memory: the swaggering, funky, keep-your-head-up anthem “Strong,” which features a drum solo from SAULT architect Inflo, the soaring, club-ready vamp “Fearless,” concept-establishing, string-heavy interlude “Rise,” and especially “I Just Want to Dance,” the best song ESG never wrote.

4. Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters: Fetch The Bolt Cutters arrived with the kind of universal acclaim that can make some people suspicious. The Pitchfork review got a lot of attention, not just for its perfect score but for its bold statement that “no music has ever sounded quite like it.”

That statement might’ve been slightly hyperbolic. Fetch The Bolt Cutters has the kind of propulsive left-hand piano figures, chest-thumping percussion, and impassioned vocal performances that we haven’t heard since...the last Fiona Apple album. But the album deserves its experimental reputation. These songs mess around with song structure and melody in ways that resemble avant-garde singers like Meredith Monk, use overlapping vocals that occasionally evoke the works of post-modern composers like Luciano Berio, and echoing modernist composers like Edgard Varese in the way she wrings pathos out of rhythmic elements.

Though Fetch might be a slight step down from The Idler Wheel, it’s an invigorating listen, packed with the soul-baring confessionals that only Fiona is capable of executing. Combining literary wordplay with plainspoken directness, Fiona forces the listener to confront her trauma and contemplate her diagnoses of patriarchal ills. The songs are uniformly excellent–especially opener “I Want You To Love Me,” the most “traditional” song on the record, and “Shameika,” a burrowing childhood rumination with a happy ending–but Fetch The Bolt Cutters stands out to me as a collection of amazing moments: when the jig-like “For Her” fades into an unforgettably painful cadence (“Good mornin’, good mornin’/You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in”), Fiona’s ground-shaking vocal intensity at the end of “Newspaper,” her dogs howling over the outro of “Fetch The Bolt Cutters,” the winking repetition of the title phrase on “Ladies.” Her albums display more than enough ambition to forgive the long gestation periods, but hopefully we won’t have to wait another 8 years for Fiona to bare her soul once again.

3. Drakeo The Ruler - Thank You For Using GTL: Embroiled in a Kafkaesque legal saga that shines a light on the worst aspects of our horrendous justice system, Drakeo The Ruler spent more than three years wrongly incarcerated for a crime he not only did not commit, but for which he was acquitted (for more info on Drakeo’s ordeal, read Jeff Weiss). He’s now mercifully a free man, mostly due to the work of his lawyer, but at least partially because of publicity generated by Thank You For Using GTL. Recorded over the phone from prison during the height of the pandemic, it’s a miracle that an album created under such sub-optimal conditions sounds as excellent as it does, but credit producer JoogSzn–who not only supplied the creeping, head-nodding backing tracks but recorded Drakeo’s phoned-in vocals–and engineer MixedByNavin for the project’s astonishing fidelity. Drakeo and Joog spent hours on the phone to record the album, in the process paying thousands of dollars to GTL, the predatory telecom company of choice for the L.A. corrections system, whose mechanical interjections serve as a constant reminder of the injustice that made the album necessary. Of course, a good story is a good story, but that alone doesn’t get an album on 2020’s most prestigious Best Albums list (mine). It’s a classic rap album, perhaps the best ever released by an incarcerated rapper, and a thumb directly in the nose of the D.A. and the LAPD. The album is a lyrical marvel, packed with winding wordplay and outlandish flexes, as Mr. Mosley takes aim at 6ix9ine, cackles at sorry-ass Instagram haters, and sneers at American-made cars (“To be honest, a Hellcat isn’t a foreign”). Each song has a carefully considered concept, the rapper’s punchlines building upon one another to make an airtight case for his status as L.A.’s top dog. He contrasts his own whip-crashing lifestyle with flashy wannabes on “GTA VI” and “Backflip or Sumn,” mourns a favorite department store on “RIP Barneys,” and proves he still doesn’t rap beef on “Maestro’s Tension.” The album’s masterstroke comes with “Fictional,” the final track, in which Drakeo exposes the prosecution’s use of his lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings as the farce it is: “It might sound real, but it’s fictional/I love that my imagination gets to you.” Drakeo’s story was a rare bright spot in 2020, and a rare one with a happy ending. Just last week, the rapper released Because Y’All Asked, a studio-recorded version of Thank You For Using GTL, giving the album’s songs the clarity they deserve. But I think I’ll mostly return to the original, which will live on as an excellent album and a vital document of post-George Floyd America.

2. Pa Salieu - Send Them to Coventry: Hailing from the middle of nowhere–or, more accurately city in the English Midlands only known in the states for its middling Premier League team–Gambian-British artist Pa Salieu served up the most distinctive, visceral, and daring rap debut of the year. His style fuses elements of grime, drill, afro-trap, dancehall, and the darker edges of U.S. hip-hop into a percussive slurry, injected with the urgency of his struggle to survive. The magic of the album comes from the way Pa’s fluid flows interact with the shimmering and foreboding production (Felix Joseph and Aod lead the cast of the project’s sound architects), which is perfectly suited for cold city nights. He slips effortlessly into the pocket, toe-tagging the beats with a combination of aggression and trance-like meditation and uttering casually powerful pronouncements (“I'd make a killa riddim offa any riddim/The grind can never stop 'til I'm wrapped in linen”) that make you believe he’s Britain’s next great rapper. Pa keeps the vibe consistent throughout, but the moments that stand out are the moments when he locks into an unbreakable groove over no-frills production, like on singles “Block Boy,” “Betty,” and “B***K.” The artist’s wry sense of humor and brash confidence keeps the album from feeling bleak, but Send Them To Coventry wisely ends on “Energy,” a warm and bright ode to keeping your creative spark safe from the prying forces of fame and fortune.

1. Kassa Overall - I Think I’m Good: “I think I’m good”–a phrase that’s ran through my head throughout this shitstorm of a year. Sure, I postponed a wedding, cancelled trips, and saw my friends and family much less often than I would like, but I count myself among the lucky ones. Still breathing, still sane. Though it was recorded and released before the pandemic started, Kassa Overall’s I Think I’m Good became a lodestar of sorts for me. It’s a brilliantly introspective and deeply personal album about existing in enclosed spaces–whether a jail cell, an NYC subway car, or the inescapable prison of your own body.

Kassa Overall made his name as a jazz drummer, touring with icons like Geri Allen, but his solo music incorporates elements of hip-hop, classical, and trap to create a wholly original milieu. The album features contributions from over 30 accomplished voices, ranging from luminary Vijay Iyer, to Kassa’s saxophonist brother Carlos Overall, to virtuosic pianist Sullivan Fortner, to venerated activist Angela Davis. But all the disparate elements come together in service of Kassa’s deeply personal and engrossing vision.

Taking partial inspiration from Kassa’s struggle with manic depression, the music fluctuates between meditative calm and unbearable tension, mimicking the patter of an unquiet mind. Album opener “Visible Walls,” is a mesmerizing prayer for salvation soundtracked by fluttering harps, piercing woodwinds, and heartbeat percussion. “Find Me” buries a plea for help within a cacophony of sampled voices and rattling piano notes. Fortner’s piano guides us through the hauntingly devastating “Halfway House” and the Chopin-indebted “Darkness In Mind,” each highlighting a different stage of grief (despair and acceptance, respectively). The arc of I Think I’m Good concludes with the hopeful “Got Me A Plan” and “Was She Happy (For Geri Allen),” a Vijay Iyer-assisted tribute to his late friend and mentor.

It’s ironic that an album that so deeply explores the feeling of isolation vibrates with such a collaborative spirit. I Think I’m Good feels like an answered prayer–a community coming together to check on a beloved friend who’s gone through a tough time: “You good, man?” “I think so.”

Here’s the rest of my list.

11. Yves Tumor - Heaven To A Tortured Mind 12. Shackleton & Waclaw Zimpel - Primal Forms 13. Bob Dylan - Rough & Rowdy Ways 14. Duval Timothy - Help 15. Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake 16. Moodymann - Taken Away 17. Secret Drum Band - Chuva 18. J Hus - Big Conspiracy 19. Headie One & Fred Again - GANG 20. Tiwa Savage - Celia 21. Andras - Joyful 22. Bill Callahan - Gold Record 23. King Von - Welcome To O’Block 24. Flo Milli - Ho, Why Is You Here? 25. Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills 26. Madeline Kenney - Sucker’s Lunch 27. Empty Country - Empty Country 28. Smino - She Already Decided 29. Destroyer - Have We Met 30. Yves Jarvis - Sundry Rock Song Stock 31. Ela Minus - Acts Of Rebellion 32. Creeper - Sex, Death & The Infinite Void 33. Alabaster DePlume - To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals, Vol. 1 34. Good Sad Happy Bad - Shades 35. The 1975 - Notes On a Conditional Form 36. Kate NV - Room For The Moon 37. $ilkmoney - Attack of the Future Shocked, Flesh Covered, Meatbags of the 85 38. Eddie Chacon - Pleasure, Joy and Happiness 39. Kenny Segal & Serengeti - Ajai 40. Bad Bunny - YHLQMDLG 41. Kahlil Blu - DOG 42. Califone - Echo Mine 43. Boldy James - The Price of Tea in China/Manger On McNichols/The Versace Tape 44. Bufiman - Albumsi 45. Moses Boyd - Dark Matter 46. Thanya Iyer - KIND 47. Jyoti - Mama You Can Bet! 48. Obongjayar - Which Way Is Forward? 49. Rio Da Yung OG - City On My Back 50. Young Jesus - Welcome To Conceptual Beach 51. Owen Pallett - Island 52. Oceanator - Things I Never Said 53. Shootergang Kony - Red Paint Reverend 54. Shabason, Krgovich & Harris - Philadelphia 55. Six Organs of Admittance - Companion Rises 56. Lido Pimienta - Miss Colombia 57. Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song 58. Polo G - The GOAT 59. Actress - Karma & Desire 60. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher 61. Porridge Radio - Every Bad 62. Yg Teck - Eyes Won’t Close 63. Mozzy - Beyond Bulletproof 64. Ratboys - Printer’s Devil 65. R.A.P. Ferreira - Purple Moonlight Pages 66. Ulver - Flowers of Evil 67. Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA 68. SAULT - Untitled (Black Is) 69. Ezra Feinberg - Recumbent Speech 70. Davido - A Better Time 71. Hailu Mergia - Yene Mircha 72. HAIM - Women In Music Pt. III 73. Half Waif - The Caretaker 74. Key Glock - Yellow Tape 75. KeiyAa - Forever Your Girl

#kassa overall #pa salieu #drakeo the ruler #fiona apple #sault #ka #wizkid #westerman #playboi carti #bbymutha

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 5 years ago

Text

Really, Marcia?

PART THRTY-FIVE OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of parent death, mentions of anxiety, plentiful pop culture references, lack of dialogue because this is exposition and foreshadowing for the next chapter just hang in there with me friends

Word Count: 4.6K

Summary: Jess and Ella return to Stars Hollow once again during graduation season.

Dropping the bags again in the apartment above Luke’s almost made Ella want to laugh out loud. Maybe she shouldn’t have made such a big deal of leaving the diner to move to Philadelphia; she felt like she almost couldn’t escape Connecticut. The trip, this time, was planned in advance, however. Both Adam and Rory were graduating, and Jess’s new sister had been born only a week earlier. Much was to be done, many people to visit. It made Ella feel slightly overwhelmed, the prescribed familial nonsense. Going back to Stars Hollow was easier when she could just casually pop into Luke’s or her home, and then drive away in the Station Wagon with Jess in the passenger seat and Liz Phair on the radio whenever she felt compelled. But the graduation had a scheduled time, Rory’s graduation party had a scheduled time. There was no getting out of it.

For a moment, she had thought about staying back in her old room in the little blue house. She felt as though they were taking advantage of Luke staying over at his place as often as they did. But then it occurred to her that she had no real idea what her room looked like anymore. The few times she’d been over in recent years, she hadn’t even ventured past the threshold of the small hallway, her door the second on the right. She felt maybe it was better to leave the room the way it had been in her memory. She was not in the business of reopening old wounds for no reason other than curiosity.

There was also the issue of her father. Fiona had been cagey at best about Jake on the phone. Would he even show up to the graduation? Surely he would. Even Noah had traveled back home, for the first time in years, though without his fiancé. She was a nurse, and hadn’t been able to get away from the midnight shifts. He was a paralegal, though, and had been able to swing a Saturday afternoon graduation. But, still, there was a gnawing feeling in her stomach. A fear he would simply not show. He had been at her high school graduation, with his robotic hugs and teary eyes and the usual detached way about him. It hadn’t been warm and fuzzy, but he had been there for her. He had clapped as she crossed the stage. And, as far as Ella was concerned, Adam deserved more than she ever got from Jake. Adam called often, and seemed to get along rather well with Fiona, but remained flighty about their father. She could count on him changing the subject every time Jake was brought up.

“Hey! Eleanor,” Jess said, breaking her from her reverie.

She blinked harshly and jumped at the sound of his voice. Slowly, she turned her gaze away from the view of the window above Luke’s kitchen sink. Town square was decorated with florals, and the troubadour stood playing an upbeat, folksy tune on one of the corners. And, as she thought about her family, it had all struck her as a bit plastic. It seemed impossible for so much heartache to happen to her while living in a place like Stars Hollow, but it had. In spite of the sunshiney smiles and the constant offerings for help. Probably why she got along with Jess so well, who understood more than anyone she had ever met what it was to feel a pain she could truly recognize. Luke, too. She wondered at how many people milling down on the sidewalk were concealing all of their hurt for the sake of maintaining a positive, cheerful facade. The farther away the years took her from her upbringing, the more reasons she felt she was better off somewhere other than her hometown. She had never quite been able to polish her outward mold, could never keep it all under wraps. Instead, she ended up cursing out kids who tried to steal random shit from the diner or punishing herself through constant schoolwork and lack of sleep, all to keep her problems from making it from her mind to her mouth. And, most of the time, she had slipped up eventually. Once more, her father came to her mind. He hadn’t been able to wear a convincing mask, either.

“...yeah?” she asked, then looked down to realize the glass she had been filling with cold water from the tap was overflowing onto her hand.

Quickly, she shut off the sink and sipped carefully at the drink, until it was back down to a manageable level. She switched it to the other hand and shook off the wetness, though it hadn’t felt unwelcome after having just come in from the May heat. Jess smirked quizzically at her, from where he stood at the fridge. They were meant to have a late lunch and then go over to Liz’s house and meet the baby, Doula. Despite how much Luke was making fun of it, Ella couldn’t say she hated the name.

“Jeez, Stevens. Where’d you go?” Jess’s voice was lilted and smug as he pulled some leftover sandwiches from the fridge. Luke had instructed them to finish off whatever diner cast-offs they could find. It reminded Jess of his teen years, tense dinners with Luke at the small kitchen table, eating stale food which had been prepped but never actually ordered. And he felt an odd, surprising jolt of nostalgia. But his face didn’t show it.

She shook her head at herself, placing her glass down on the table and grabbing the cutlery as Jess put the leftovers out on the table buffet-style. It reminded her of the way he arranged a meal on her kitchen table the night they’d watched the prom scene of Carrie together, when he’d brought her a care package because she had a migraine and then refused to admit to it later. And, for the most fleeting of moments, she was in the past and they were the people they had once been. A fond smirk tugged at her lips as she sat down, plates and forks in hand.

“Nowhere,” she replied finally, her voice a sigh. Before Jess could ask anything further, she gave him a pointed glance as she piled some cold mashed potatoes onto her plate and continued. “You sure you’re okay going to Liz’s house today? We could always wait until tomorrow morning, then we could have an excuse to leave and go get ready for the graduation.”

He seemed to consider the idea of a moment as he took his first bite of meatloaf, then shook his head. “No. Let’s just rip the bandaid off.”

“That’s the spirit when you’re going to see a new baby,” she quipped.

“I can guarantee the baby will be easier to handle than Liz and TJ, no matter how much she cries,” Jess grumbled, looking down at his food.

Ella bit the inside of her cheek and leveled him with her eyes. Each time they returned to Stars Hollow, he seemed to get more anxious about it. At first, it was because the entire town had hated him as a teen. But it got much worse when Liz moved there. She thought it strange how much everyone seemed to discount how Jess felt about this, how much Luke complained about her. How much they expected Jess to get over what he was feeling and play dutiful son. It reminded her of the way she felt she needed to treat her own father after her mother died. Though the sexist bullshit about her being the ‘woman of the house’ had also played a part. She knew how Luke felt about family, how he would always show up for family regardless of circumstance. Maybe Jess was the same way, loyal to a fault. But maybe it was only for his chosen family. Maybe the rest of it was more because of all the outward pressure he faced.

She reached over and ran a hand through his hand, smoothing it out. For a moment, she thought of saying something, but decided it wasn’t the right time to start a conversation about Jess’s childhood, or the lingering effects he still wouldn’t acknowledge. Not right before seeing his mother. She was trying hard lately to be patient, despite the way his eyes became guarded at the mention of his new sister or his mother, or the increased frequency of his nightmares. It was getting worse before her eyes and she didn’t know why. But Jess was Jess. And he wasn’t going to see it until he was ready to. It almost physically pained her, the effort of swallowing down the words, but she bit her tongue nonetheless.

He offered her a lazy, lopsided smile in return.

. . .

His grip on her hand was tight as they made their way into Liz and TJ’s house, just as gaudy and eclectic as Ella remembered from the baby shower. She might’ve even found it charming if it weren’t for the screaming color of the decor. The place smelled of burnt toast and sour milk, and Ella was instantly glad she and Jess had chosen to eat beforehand, just in case Liz asked them to stay for dinner. The scent was overpowered only by the strong perfume Liz was wearing, which Ella couldn’t ignore as Liz pulled her in for a big hug of greeting.

“Come in, come in,” Liz said in her high, sing-song voice as she led them down the front hall and into the living room. “She’s just waking up from nap!”

The room was littered with toys, empty bottles, blankets, story books Doula wouldn’t be able to read for years. But it was sweet. Ella could see how much they’d been preparing, planning. For a second, she was relieved about it, but then the feeling mixed with a distasteful sadness. Jess had never specifically addressed his bedtime routine as a child, but Ella was fairly positive Liz had never read him Goodnight Moon. She gave his hand a final squeeze before disentangling their fingers and sitting down on the paisley patterned couch. Liz lifted Doula up from the bassinet in the corner by the rocking chair. Ella could barely see the baby beneath the patchwork quilt she was swaddled in. Doula fussed for a moment, and Liz smiled at the two of them apologetically.

“She needs a change. I’ll be right back!” she said, retreating back into the bedroom. “Make yourselves comfortable!”

“Okay. Thanks,” Ella replied cordially. She looked back at Jess as his mother exited the room. “You okay?”

He shrugged, his eyes surveying the clutter. “I guess so. It’s just weird still. All of this.”

Ella hummed, nodding.

“And I’m not really used to the whole baby thing yet. I’ve never even held one before,” Jess said, slightly sheepish and slightly curious. He crossed his arms over the Metallica logo on his worn t-shirt. He’d taken a half day working at Truncheon before they left for Connecticut, and was always happy to change into less professional attire after his shifts.

“I know, but it’ll be easy. Unless TJ pops out and sings that song the frog does in Looney Tunes. Then is the only instance when you’d be even slightly at risk of dropping her,” Ella assured him, leaning back into the overstuffed couch.

She’d gleaned from their conversation the night before that his inexperience with children was also not helping his nerves. The only time she’d ever recalled Jess interacting with kids for any real length of time was the one Thanksgiving she’d brought him to meet her family. But even then, she’d been surprised how easily he’d wowed Erin with his card tricks, and played along with her jokes. Not something she’d exactly expected from the boy who wore a battered leather jacket and a constant scowl and a scarred heart on his sleeve.

“Why do you always worry he’s gonna do that?” Jess asked, cracking a smile for the first time since they’d walked in.

“I told you! He sang it to me one time when I was working and he was hanging out at the diner. He was trying to figure out what song to serenade your mom with,” she explained, eyes wide and utterly serious. “I was just wiping down the counter, minding my own business, and he just appeared, like, right over my shoulder.”

Jess rolled his eyes at the story, remembering when Ella had first told him about it over one of their phone calls, back when they were hundreds of miles apart. “Well, it doesn’t seem like he’s here right now.”

“I didn’t think he was in the diner when it happened,” Ella countered, her voice jokingly grave.

Jess chuckled but didn’t have a chance to respond as Liz reentered the room. A large smile stood out on her face, the baby dressed in a soft punk onesie in her arms. Doula squirmed around a little and cooed, but didn’t seem altogether unhappy.

“Ready to meet your little sister, Jess?” Liz asked, coming over and preparing to put Doula in Jess’s arms before he even had a chance to answer.

“Guess so,” he muttered hastily, eyes widening.

“Just be careful with her head,” Ella offered, watching as Liz hovered over her son, placing her daughter’s head in the crook of his arm.

Jess was surprised at how naturally his other arm moved to cradle her. She felt so light, it was as though he was holding nothing at all. Her skin was slightly flushed from the warmth of the quilt she’d been napping in, and he could feel the heat against his arms and his chest, through his t-shirt. His heart fluttered around anxiously in his chest, and he couldn’t help the slight trembling in his hands, but he was pretty sure he had a good grip on her. Liz straightened up again, looking down at the two of them. Jess almost couldn’t take his eyes off the baby, embarrassed at how awestruck he was. Ella’s nieces were the youngest kids he had ever been in contact with. He had never met someone when they were only a week old before.

“Isn’t she something?” Liz said, hands on her hips. “She looked a lot like Danny Devito when she first came out, but I think she’s finally getting past that early ugly baby phase.”

Jess hummed in absent acknowledgement, but said nothing. Doula had thin wisps of blonde hair, and pudgy, rosy cheeks. Her fingers were curled into small fists, her legs scrunched up. He wondered vaguely if she was going to fall back asleep, since it seemed she couldn’t keep her eyes open for very long. She smelled like rash cream, but he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed at it.

“Yeah, she’s beautiful, Liz,” Ella answered, though her gaze went back and forth between the baby and Jess. She couldn’t think of a time when she’d seen his eyes so clear and full of wonder before. She’d been too young to hold a newborn when Adam arrived, but she remembered the feeling of holding Erin as a baby, in the hospital just hours after Julie had given birth to her. It was certainly a unique feeling, and she felt her heart swell at the thought of Jess getting to experience it.

Glancing back at the kitchen for a moment, Liz once again gained a frantic tone in her voice. But, after having known her for so long, Ella knew it wasn’t unusual. Liz was the kind of person who put her coffee cup on the top of her car while unlocking the door, and then drove away without remembering it, the mug shattering and coffee splattering on the road behind her.

“Damn, I was just makin’ a bottle when you guys got here. TJ usually does that stuff, but dinner got a little burned. He had to go get some Plan B takeout. Let me finish with the formula,” Liz said, making her way back towards the opening into the kitchen. “You guys okay with her for a second?”

“Yeah. Fine,” Jess answered, surprising Ella.

Just as Liz left again, Doula opened her eyes once more. But instead of letting them shut, she kept them open. She stared up at Jess, her large brown eyes meeting his and doing their best to focus on his face.

“She’s got a withering stare,” he murmured.

“Isn’t so hard, is it?” Ella shifted a little closer to him, leaning over his shoulder to see Doula. “You didn’t have to be nervous.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Jess said quietly, a small smile on his face as he glanced over at Ella.

. . .

Back when she graduated high school, there had been rain. The day before, they’d had to move the ceremony preparation into the small auditorium. People were squished inside, standing up in the aisles once the seats ran out. Ella’s valedictorian speech had been a bit more than daunting with a bunch of irritated family and friends facing her, those who had traveled miles to Stars Hollow only to be packed into the smelly room like sardines. She supposed having graduation outside in the gazebo was better. The class size was small at Stars Hollow High, but it was best when everyone still had personal space. The one downside was the heat. Connecticut was not usually up near ninety degrees in late May, but a pocket of dry air was currently sitting atop the state, moving at a glacial pace.

Ella and Jess had sat sweating on some lawn chairs. While Julie and her husband Michael, who still lived in the same small house in New Britain, were on Ella’s other side, trying to get their girls to sit through the ceremony to moderate success. Annie’s wild curls were blowing in the scorching wind as she sat on her father’s lap, reading the small storybook she’d brought with her. Erin, on the other hand, just about to cross over into adolescence and middle school, had folded her arms sullenly over her chest and rolled her eyes at nearly every name called up to receive a diploma. Ella didn’t imagine she would’ve reacted much better at that age, being forced to sit out in the heat for hours only to watch Adam be handed a piece of paper. Noah had been on the far side of their row of seats, in his plain clothes, looking stoic as usual. He would be leaving just after the fanfare ended. He’d stayed at a motel the night before, with perhaps even less desire to stay in the little blue house than Ella had.

The valedictorian speeches were actually pretty good, but long. Adam would’ve been giving one if he hadn’t stopped trying in every one of his classes except for those involving science during his senior year. Ella respected the decision though. She had never found any application for calculus in adult life, no matter how hard she had worked at it in high school.

Fiona and Jake had shown up, together for some reason, ten minutes late. No seats were left near Ella, or anyone else in the family. Instead, they were relegated to the far back row. Her brows furrowed at their entrance, but they didn’t get close enough to Ella for her to say anything. Jess had brought her arm around her shoulder as she watched them pass her without so much as a look, and took to whispering jokes about their old principal in her ear. It didn’t work as well to distract her as he had hoped, but it had still earned him a laugh or two, which was far from nothing.

As they all stood around afterwards, under the shade of some trees behind the old gazebo, congratulating Adam, Ella couldn’t shake the thoughts of her parents from her mind. She wondered how different the day would be if her mother had lived. Would her parents still be together? Probably. Despite the problems they hid, the ones Ella had become more aware of the older she got, they did love each other. No matter how much her mother laid down and took Jake’s outbursts and his alcoholism, and no matter how much her father ignored Sophia’s distracted nature and inability to decide on anything in life, they loved each other. And, the thought struck her suddenly, that maybe everything would have been easier to swallow if they hadn’t loved each other so much. It would have been easier to accept how quickly everything fell apart, and how quickly her father had found someone new to fill the hole in his heart.

“You okay?” Jess asked, close to her ear as they lingered amongst the group, pictures having been taken and pleasantries having been exchanged.

“Just peachy,” she replied, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said, pressing a kiss to the crown on her head and giving her hand another squeeze. It hadn’t taken him long to gather how angry seeing her father again had made Ella. He wondered when the last time had been.

“I could do without the Brady Bunch performance,” she whispered back to him, gesturing to the members of her family as they continued with fabricated niceties.

“Really, Marcia? But you’re the oldest sister! That means you would’ve been prom queen!” Jess teased.

She rolled her eyes and snorted a laugh. “Whatever, Wally Logan.”

Approaching the two of them with narrowed eyes, Erin still had her arms crossed over her frilly dress. She had more than one bandaid on each knee, and she had already pulled the french braid out of her red hair. Speaking mostly to Ella, she sized Jess up.

“I remember him,” Erin said suspiciously.

A confused, bemused grin crossed Ella’s face. “Yeah. At Thanksgiving. You were like five. You remember that?”

“I have a really good memory,” Erin said, shrugging, confident and casual.

Ella chuckled at the flippant ten-year-old.

“Photographic, huh?” Jess asked, eyebrows raised.

“Pretty close,” Erin replied, then focused her eyes back on Ella. “Did you ever figure out his middle name?”

“Sure did,” Ella answered, smirk growing. “You wanna hear it?”

“Of course,” Erin said. “I know for a fact it’s not Santa Claus.”

Jess rolled his eyes.

Ella leaned down and whispered in Erin’s ear. Straightening up again, Ella watched Erin’s gaze roam over to Jess doubtfully.

“What kind of a name is Cosmo?” Erin asked.

“Listen, my mom’s into crystals and-” Jess began, but Michael called Erin over for something.

“Gotta go,” Erin said, and skipped off towards her father without another word.

“C’mon, Elle,” Jess groaned, a blush creeping up his neck and warming the tips of his ears.

She chuckled, nudging him with her shoulder. “Sorry, Cosmo.”

Before Jess was able to retort, Fiona and Jake approached them. Considering they were split up, the peculiarity of the two of them arriving together wasn’t lost on anyone, not that it would ever be mentioned. At a closer proximity, Ella was surprised to see how different Jake looked. His hair was greyer, he was skinnier, there were dark circles under his eyes. Whatever has been going on in Maryland didn’t seem to be conducive to health. She had to bite back her sigh at the sight of him. Fiona was more or less the same, though Ella had visited her more or less recently. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laid eyes on her father. The shadow of the man he had been when she was a child was almost completely gone. Her heart twisted painfully in her chest.

“Hey, kids,” Fiona said, giving Ella a quick hug.

“Oh, hi,” Ella chirped, surprised at her instant warmth.

She also hugged Jess, shocking everyone involved.

“So good to see you guys! How are things in Philly? Adam tells me you just got a new apartment?” Fiona asked, buzzing and bubbly. Her black hair was cropped close to her head. Ella remembered how she used to let apprentices at the beauty salon experiment on her locks during breaks.

“Yeah, we’ve been there about a month,” Ella said. “It’s only a few blocks over from school. I can walk there.”

“How nice,” Fiona smiled.

“It is,” Jess agreed.

Shifting uncomfortably from foot-to-foot, Jake finally interjected. “Hi, Ellie.”

“Hey, dad,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek.

“Young man,” Jake greeted Jess coldly, nodding.

Jess gave a curt nod and a thin-lipped smile in response.

There was a long pause before anyone spoke again, filled with distant, amiable chatter of other families and shrieks of congratulations. Out of the corner of her eye, Ella could see Adam was already off with his friends. Soon, they would be headed to dinner and Project Graduation. Part of Ella was glad Adam didn’t want a big day of family celebration. No one would’ve survived any extended period of false positivity.

“I see you’ve got tattoos now, Ellie,” Jake said, looking down at the tulip on her arm, exposed in her spaghetti strap dress. “Your mother would’ve called that sinful, you know.”

The corners of Ella’s lips tugged up into a resentful smile, the words dripping with venom as they left her mouth before she could stop them. “Well, it’s a good thing she’s dead then, isn’t it?”

Both Fiona and Jake’s jaws dropped and it seemed all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air around them. Ella’s stomach dropped and she brought her hand over her mouth just after she said it. Her hazel eyes grew to the size of saucers. Immediately, Jess took her by the shoulders and began leading her in the direction of the diner, blurting out excuses.

“Hey, nice to see you folks, but we have to get to Rory’s graduation party tonight and it’d be pretty rude if we were late so…” he trailed off, stopping once they were far enough away, leaving Fiona and Jake flabbergasted and speechless.

“Oh my god,” Ella muttered, chewing at her thumbnail for the first time in what felt like forever. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I was gonna try to be nice if he came, because...at least he showed up, right? Fuck. Oh my god. Jess. Oh my god.”

“It’s okay, Daria. Just try to relax,” Jess breathed, steering her towards the diner as she instantly began melting down.

“I can’t relax, Jess! Don’t fucking tell me to relax! Did you hear that?! Did you hear what I just said?!” she muttered hastily. “Fuck me! Fuck! Every time I see him, my fucking mouth-”

“Hey, language!” Luke scolded her as they entered the diner, the bell jingling jovially above the door. There were only a few customers scattered around, the mid-afternoon lull.

“God, Luke, I thought age was supposed to negatively affect your hearing!” Ella snapped as Jess directed her to a stool and sat her down, hopping up on the seat next to her.

“Joe Pesci here is having a bad day,” Jess explained shortly as Luke shot Ella a bewildered stare.

“What happened?” Luke asked, arching a brow.

Ella heaved a great sigh and placed her head in her hands, elbows on the counter. “Bigmouth has struck again. And apparently she has even less of a filter now than she did in high school!”

“Right,” Luke said, increasingly confused.

Running a hand up and down over Ella’s back as she continued fuming, Jess gave Luke a dejected glance. “Green tea?”

A shadow of realization passed over Luke’s face. “Comin’ right up.”

#jess mariano #jess mariano fanfiction #jess x oc fanfiction #jess mariano x oc fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #oc fanfiction #jess mariano imagines #jess mariano au #gilmore girls fanfiction #gilmore girls fanfic #gilmore girls au #gilmore girls imagines #luke danes #jess #mariano

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fanficparker · 5 years ago

Text

Forelsket | Tom x Haz one-shot

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x Tom Holland

Word count: 4.25k words

Warnings: Swearing, angst, anxiety, mentions of sexual abuse

Summary: Tom is a troubled teen. He can’t write his papers, he’s on the verge of failing his exam until a stranger slid his paper for him to copy.

_____________________

(Written in Tom's POV)

I looked into the microscope. The patch on the display was blotchy and green with some pink dots. I don't remember seeing anything like this in previous lab sessions ever. Or maybe I missed the class when we prepared this particular slide. But my page was still empty except for my name, roll number and date. I couldn't recognize the previous four slides too. Just three more are left. There was no doubt I ruined my theory exam and now I will ruin the practical too. There was no hope for me to pass this exam.

If I fail... Maybe... Maybe they'll send me back to Chris. And it's the last thing I ever want on Earth to happen.

I gulped slowly. It was painful. My throat felt dry. I wanted to drink water but I only have limited time to finish this paper and the page in front of me is completely blank. My stomach crumbled painfully. Now I could even taste the bile in my mouth. The next I could feel were my eyes getting wet.

God, I can't cry right in front of my whole fucking class. I let my eyes wander around the students. My gaze fell on the paper next to me.

Beautiful diagrams and a detailed description of the slides.

If he's not seeing then maybe I can copy. I held my breath and scribbled on my paper as fast as I can. Half of his paper was covered by his hand while he was looking into his microscope. I tried my best to copy the visible portion. His head bent at the paper to write the answer for the next question. His blue eyes met mine. My heart dropped.

I haven't copied enough to pass yet. I looked at him hopefully and sorry. He looked at my paper. I felt so ashamed, weak, dumb and guilty— not the best combination of obscure feelings all at the same time.

He slid his paper towards me and smiled.

I blinked in disbelief.

"Return it to me in ten minutes at microscope number seven," he whispered and shifted to the next specimen, carefully observing and writing the conclusion in the extra sheet.

I took in a sharp breath, remembered God and ran my pen on my paper. I changed the text structure and numbering a little bit. Five questions were enough for me to pass in aggregate.

When I got to the sixth specimen I had written enough to pass and slid his paper back to him, mumbling a thank you. He simply nodded like it was nothing. He again smiled at me. The kind of smile that made his clear blue eyes shiny and corners crinkle.

I wished I knew how to smile like that. I returned him a smile, surely not even one percent of the brightness of his. He stapled the pages together and moved to deposit the papers like most of the other students and walked out of the lab.

I had read his name on the paper— Harrison John Osterfield.

***

From that day on, I observed that he was pretty famous in our boarding school, always in the good books of the teachers. He studied in the other section and lived in hostel number five.

I didn't stalk him, he was just one of those people who were way too visible on the school campus. I have seen him setting up posters, sitting in the cafeteria, library, park and almost everywhere on the campus. Sometimes he would be walking around the gardens, headphones tucked in his ears, sometimes he would be sitting on the bench reading a book or sometimes doing his homework in the library.

I don't know if he noticed me. I am surely not that visible.

But one other thing that I noticed was that every time I saw him, he was mostly alone.

There was a difference between us.

He was alone but not lonely. I was alone and lonely.

He seemed to enjoy his company. And I was asking myself why I was even alive.

I studied till four in the morning almost every day but couldn't even remember a bloody terminology. It was like the words hated me. I surely hated them too but had no choice. I was stuck with them and they refused to stay with me.

Most of my nights were also spent silently weeping under my covers while everyone in my room was asleep. I used to wake up and see the tear stains on my white pillow covers. The only thing consistent in my life.

But today I washed the covers too.

***

I got to know that he was also a member of the club- The Inkers. Basically the group of smart students. They represented the school in debates, quizzes and other stuff.

And here I was reading the exact same page of my physics textbook for the third time. My mind keeps dozing off.

If...

What if...

What if I ask him to help me?

I shook off the desire and wiped my eyes. The tears were blurring my vision as they always do.

Electromagnetic induction... I began reading. I can't understand the equation, no matter how much I try.

I pushed the book aside, switched off my table lamp and got inside the covers. My eyes were too dry to continue with my daily night routine. I hope I won't see tear marks on the fresh pillow covers this time.

***

I found myself standing outside the room assigned for 'The Inkers'. The club name was written in bold on the door which was half-opened.

I could see students sitting, walking, talking, interacting. This place was definitely not meant for me. I then saw him. He was talking to a group of students. Seemed like he was instructing them.

His smile was still so bright and he talked with his hands while tucking at the end of his jacket ever so often. Everything he does added to his style and charm.

He looked so approachable. Yet I failed to approach him.

I clenched my books tighter and walked away.

This became more like a routine. As the exams came nearer, I found myself walking across 'The Inkers' more often but never dared to knock at the door.

Weirdly, I had stopped crying myself to sleep, hoping the next day I'll ask him for help in studies and he'll help me.

My interactions with him were all in my sleep, in my dreams. I'd smile remembering my time with him even if it was in my imagination. I imagine him sitting across me, explaining me the weird exceptions in inorganic chemistry or explaining the key features of bryophytes or telling me a trick to learn the concept of electromagnetic induction.

***

I remember his smile. I remember his blue eyes. I remember how clear and shiny they were. I remember how his cheeks pushed up and made those eyes crinkle.

I remember how his lips curved when he was giving the speech on Renaissance literature. I remember how his expressions hardened, how he tried to contain his sadness and anger when talking about things like climate change, animal cruelty and so on.

I attended all the debates and speech competitions in which he participated this month, sitting at the back seat seeing him, hoping he doesn't see me.

He was an amazing orator. The way his voice carried his emotions was extremely heart-touching. He could make everybody feel what he felt.

I got a 'B+' in my E-waste management essay. I still can't believe. I heard his debate on the topic and... Wow. The teacher was impressed by me. I didn't feel vulnerable for the first time. I loved that feeling.

***

He even interacts with the audience and told about himself. He told us that he wasn't good at learning facts, so quizzes weren't his thing. He liked subjective things, movies, novels and wanted to become an actor.

An actor?

Can you believe?

I thought he'll tell me something like a doctor or scientist. But he wants to become an actor.

How amazing is that.

***

Next month, he stared in our school play.

I attended the recitation of the Twelfth Night. He was actually the main lead.

God! When he said, "If music be the food of love, play on," I declared myself to be his number one fan!

The way he said it. God! It was so... so... so... amazing!!!

I don't think he saw me but I was the first one who stood up as the curtains fell and clapped and cheered. For him.

I cheered?

Can you believe?

***

I was again standing outside 'The Inkers.' I peeked my head a little to find him but I couldn't find him today. I sighed and turned at my feet, only to collide with someone. My books fell on the floor. Before I could even utter an apology, the person crouched down to collect my books. My eyes met with those same pair of blue eyes. So clear. So shiny.

His smile reached his eyes seeing me while I suspected my heart-beat was non-existent right now. He quickly picked up my books and stood straight, pushing his curls out of his face.

"Hi! How are you doing?" He asked. His voice was so friendly and cheerful that it was almost like he was booming.

But 'how am I doing?' Isn't it something a person asks an acquaintance. Does he still remember me? Remember me as the dumb kid who copied his paper?

"Alexi said she saw you here often. I was actually going to ask you. Glad I met you here," He smiled even more.

"I... uh... yea-yeah." I stuttered the response.

Our confidence level was on the opposite ends of an irregularly weighted beam balance.

"Do you want to join the club?" He asked looking at the signboard and then back at me. The smile was still sticking to his lips.

Me? The club?

If it was the thirteen century then the club belonged to the nobility and I was a poor commoner.

"No." I chuckled trying to hide my embarrassment.

He looked confused. I tightened my fists and swallowed slowly before speaking— "I-I wanted some help in class. Thought if anyone could---"

He didn't let me finish and spoke instead.

"You should have told me early! Just three weeks to finals." He said as his expressions changed from cheerful to panicky in seconds.

How does he know I needed that sort of big help? Can't I ask just him a single question, why will three weeks' time be less?

But he let me copy his paper. The paper my peers claimed was too easy. Maybe he remembers how dumb I was.

His bottom lip quivered for a second then he spoke again, "Don't worry we'll manage. What subject you want help in?"

I gulped again and bit my lower lip.

He looked at me, curiously waiting for the answer.

"All," I said. I could hear my own voice sounding screechy. My gaze fell on my shoes.

I was so embarrassed. Maybe even ashamed. He didn't speak for a minute and then he sighed.

"No problem, we will get it done!" He stated confidently and patted my shoulder. My head shot up to look at his determined yet soft emotions. My heart felt like it was over-filling with warmth. I couldn't stop my lips to curl into a small smile.

"Thank you so much," I thanked him genuinely, he shrugged it off. I stretched my right hand for a handshake, "I am--"

"Tom. I know," He answered cutting me mid-sentence, "And I'm---"

"Harrison. I know," I said almost imitating his style.

He laughed shaking my hand. I laughed seeing him laughing. Maybe it was the heartiest laugh I have ever produced in years. I couldn't even stop smiling when the laughter subsided.

"When should we start?" He asked.

"As per your convenience."

"Let's first go for lunch. It's already lunchtime."

He wanted me to accompany him to the eating area. I nodded following him.

We sat on the bench and started eating our meals. He was eating as if he was hungry for a long time. And I was just somehow managing to push my food down my oesophagus with water.

"So, I'll collect all my notes today and we can meet tomorrow morning here for breakfast and then we'll plan your studies." He said, biting the carrot.

"Ah... Okay," I replied looking down at my plate. I still can't believe that he's talking to me and even going to help me with exams.

If it was a dream, I don't want it to end ever.

***

"Where's your breakfast tray?" He asked when we settled on the bench.

"I-I don't eat breakfast."

"What do you mean you don't eat breakfast? Why will you not eat breakfast?" He was surprised.

"I don't feel hungry in the morning," I said the truth.

"What?! We ate dinner at eight last night. It's already nine in the morning. You have to eat it. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" He preached.

"I can't develop a habit of eating breakfast just like that," I defended, pressing my lips together.

"You should start with fruits. I have an apple in my backpack." He said taking out the said apple and handling me to eat.

I did eat it (half). And by the lunchtime I was hungry.

How weird is this human body? I never felt hungry when I used to skip breakfast and when I finally ate, I am already hungry.

After breakfast, attending our classes and having lunch, he took me to 'The Inkers.' He introduced me to the other club members as his 'friend'.

We sat on the corner and he took out his notes.

"So, for what purpose, are you going to study?" He asked. I was confused at first but then answered—

"To pass the exams," I said and surprisingly I didn't feel ashamed this time.

He divided the chapters in our books. He collected important terms and asked me to focus on only them rather than the complete syllabus. He made me flow charts and venn diagram. He explained me everything like a story. He never judged me when I couldn't answer or understand.

We continued to eat and study together daily. After the first week, we even started to hang out together. He made me hear his favourite songs. I loved his music choice. He taught me to maintain a balance on the skateboard. He told me about him, his family, his dog, his ambitions. He asked me to do the same, I shrugged it off saying, "Not much" or "Nothing exciting."

***

Harrison praised my answers. He said my writing style was very organic. I don't even know what it meant but he surely loved reading whatever I wrote. I showed him my middle-school poetry book and he made me read everything on it multiple times. I hope his interest was genuine.

He even asked me to call him 'Haz' instead of 'Harrison'.

He kept telling me things. I loved listening to him. I loved when he snaked his arm around my shoulder. I loved the way he said my name. I loved his face, his eyes, his voice, his confidence, his generosity, his patience, his intelligence, everything about him.

I may even be in love with him.

***

On Sundays, I used to go to the forgotten pet centre near our school. It was the only thing I liked about my life (except for Harrison, but it's just the latest addition). I love playing with those cute puppies. I never told anyone about it but I literally asked him if he wants to accompany me there.

You should have looked at his face! He was so excited, he hugged me so tight and couldn't stop giggling.

"You should have told me earlier, Holland! You have no idea how much I love dogs. I even have a super sweet dog back at home." He told me.

We played with the dogs and ate ice-cream. We laughed and talked so much. I don't even know why he's sticking with me, but he said he liked the way I talk and I should talk more often. He didn't stop there, he took me to a nearby fare. We enjoyed some rides and even got in for a fun photoshoot.

I cried that night. But those were tears of joy. I had a friend and he was fricking amazing.

***

Exams were over.

And I am sure I have done better than just passing. But I am sad. It's the end of the year, the Christmas break. He'll be gone to his home and I'll be all alone, again. Or worse— I will have to go to Chris's place for the holidays.

I sighed looking up at the blank night sky.

"Hey yo, mate. How were your exams?" Harrison asked, plopping down beside me, looking up at the sky.

"Your courtesy. Can't thank you enough." I said, looking at his face. He nodded still looking at the sky, giving me an opportunity to stare at his wonderful features. He did have some bad teen breakouts on his face. I do too. Yes, they weren't pretty. Acne isn't pretty but I don't think everything about a person needs to be pretty. People can be beautiful regardless of not being perfectly pretty.

And Harrison is beautiful.

My eyes landed on his slightly parted lips. I wondered how it would feel to kiss them. I licked my suddenly drying lips.

"You up for Christmas holidays?" He asked, turning his face to look at me. I averted my gaze to the ground beneath.

"I... I dunno," I replied, pulling my legs near to my chest.

There was a pause. It felt like he would say something but he didn't. I spoke instead.

"I don't want to go to uncle's," I told him the secret I never tell anyone. He looked at me confused.

"He... He is not a good man," I said as my throat felt choking and tears started to well up and suddenly I started feeling so dirty.

Harrison's expressions turned serious, he shifted a bit closer to me. He snaked his arm around my shoulders and dragged me closer to his body. He let me rest my head on his shoulder. That's when I realised that I was crying.

"Talk to me, Tom," Harrison insisted softly as his fingers combed through my hairs.

I started weeping harder, he pushed me closer and engulfed me into a real tight hug.

"You are safe here, Tom. You shouldn't be afraid. Tell me." He kept repeating while his hands caressed my back. I had grabbed his sweater in my fist and was badly sobbing into the material. I will surely ruin the delicate fabric.

He let me sob silently for a while. And when he realised that I had stopped crying, he pulled himself away, then he rested his fingers below my chin and lifted it to meet his gaze.

His eyes seemed glossier.

"Do you trust me?"

I nodded. He waited for me to tell the whole thing.

"He used to t-touch me in wrong ways when I was younger," I confessed, embarrassed. I wanted to look down, away from his gaze but my chin was still fixed on the spot by his fingers.

I first thought that he's also going to cry. But then I saw his pained, empathetic expressions changing into hard angry ones. And suddenly his face radiated so much anger that I had to move back. His hand fell on the grass as he clenched them into a fist. He stood up.

"You'll come with me. Start packing your bags. I'll tell my parents. You will never ever have to see that asshole's face again. That bloody bastard. Eww. Fucking disgusting! He'll regret what I'll do to him. How dare he?!!!!" Harrison growled angrily. "Pack your bags. Mum will take us to our home on Saturday." He ordered almost rushing away but I stood up and grabbed his arm.

"You can't tell your parents," I said, terrified.

"I fucking will! That bastard will be in jail!" He almost yelled.

"No. No. You can't." I begged him, tugging him towards me.

"Are you an idiot Tom? He raped you. Multiple times! You're not even an adult, yet!" He jerked his hand away from my grip.

"He hasn't done that for years---"

"That doesn't forgive or change anything!"

"It's-it's my life. You don't have to make decisions for me!" I yelled this time. He froze and blinked at me.

"What?" He said coming closer, his expressions suddenly softening.

I didn't reply.

"He is the reason why you are broken, Tom. I can see the damage. I don't understand why you don't see---"

"I know that I am damaged. But it won't fix anything," I said, tears spilling down my face.

He came closer and cupped my face in his hands. He softly wiped off my tears with his thumbs. He bent down a little to see directly into my eyes.

"Would you have let him go if I was at your place?" He asked, his voice soft yet demanding. My breath was stuck in my throat but he didn't let the question slip away.

"You are my best friend in the world Haz," I answered honestly.

"And you are more than that to me."

My heart crumbled like a piece of paper. None of us spoke for minutes, just stood there on the same spot, motionless. I swallowed slowly, taking in a breath.

"It's... It's just... High school crush."

I couldn't believe my own words but he rolled his head back and laughed.

I waited for him to stop laughing. He did, and his expressions again turned serious.

"Time will tell that. But the main thing is... No one deserves what you suffered. And he needs to be punished. That's justice. And to be honest, if you were even a complete stranger to me, I would have said the same thing."

Well... He has too many reasons to be my high school crush.

I nodded in understanding. I should stop saving that evil Chris. Harrison is right.

"So you are coming with us? You can forget that more than friends thing, we'll talk about it later or maybe never, as per your wish. And definitely sexual orientation." He said rubbing his neck.

I thought for a minute.

"But... I... I am a boy. It's very shameful to admit that I was raped---"

"If anyone should be ashamed, it's your ugly uncle. Being a boy or a girl won't change the crime. You shouldn't be ashamed." He stated and again pulled me into a hug.

"You should never be ashamed. Never." His voice cracked and I knew that he was the one crying now. I placed my hands on his torso and pulled myself off his chest.

I looked at his tear-stained face. I wanted to grab his face and plant kisses all across it. But all I felt were his hands again holding my face. He brought his face down and planted a kiss on my forehead, his lips lingered on the spot for a few seconds, whispering the word 'Never'. When he parted, I didn't even waste a single minute and grabbed his face.

I crashed my lips into his. His lips were sandwiched between mine. I slowly and gently sucked on them as his hands travelled to hold my waist. He let out a small moan and my heart fluttered like a butterfly. When I broke the kiss, his eyes were still closed and mouth half-open. His chest was rising and falling with every breath he inhaled and exhaled. It felt as if the kiss wasn't yet over for him.

I don't know why but I was also breathing heavily. His lips slowly curved into a small smile and his eyelids half-opened.

"You know you are my first kiss, Tom?" He said slowly as if he was satisfied.

"I wish I could say the same for you," I said but with a sad smile. His hand moved from my waist to my face. He slowly pushed away the fallen curls on my forehead.

"It doesn't matter." He leaned towards me, his breath lingering on my lips.

"It's the first time I am going to kiss someone. Please don't mind if it's not that good." He whispered. His words only made my heart go even more crazy.

He softly attached his lips to mine. I felt his throbbing heartbeat in his chest and his firm stature. I pulled his face closer to mine, he moaned again, his mouth slightly parted. I swiped my tongue over his bottom lip. He took in a sharp breath.

I loved how his body reacted to everything I did. I never felt this crazy in my life. So... so... so... crazy. Kissing Harrison Osterfield was crazy and him kissing me back was even crazier. Who knew he could get this nervous and cute?

When he finally broke the kiss, I couldn't stop but kiss his pink, flushed cheeks.

"I feel crazy." He said giggling.

"Same."

"You'll come with us?"

"No doubt on that."

I smiled and looked at the sky. It was still empty but my heart was full of warmth.

Was it how it feels to fall in love?

Crazy... Crazy... Crazy...

I love crazy...

*THE END*

______________________

A/N: Everyone- your likes, comments & reblogs mean a lot to me. Love you guys. I know this pairing isn't getting me much notes but still I wanted to write this and I genuinely enjoyed writing this. Thanks for everyone who supported me. It gave me strength to write what I desire. Thank you so much guys.

Add yourself to the Tom x Haz fic column of my regular taglist (link on my bio/profile description) or send me an ask if you wanna see more content like this.

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tillidontneedfantasy · 5 years ago

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‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’ - Billie Eilish REVIEW: Making ‘Em Bow One By One

WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

An interesting question you pose there, Billie. When I fall asleep, I usually dream about being a part of the Harry Potter universe and trying to defeat Voldemort with the golden trio. But unfortunately, I don’t go there every night. I mean, believe me, fighting off The Dark Lord can be scary sometimes. But sometimes I go to even darker places, and it always takes a few moments when waking up to believe I’m really in my bed. Much of Billie Eilish’s debut album invites you into the dark parts of her subconscious, and sometimes her extreme consciousness, to which she goes. Of course, “asleep” could also be interpreted as, well, dead. Which is a nice way to phrase it. Ideal, really. How wonderful would it be if death was just an eternal nap? No one would ever be afraid to die.

Maybe that’s what Billie believes it is, and why she seems so desperate to go there on WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? (WWAFA,WDWG?) For a then-16-year-old girl, I wish she wasn’t so tired. “ilomilo,” “bury a friend” and most concerning, “listen before I go,” explore her friends who have been taken from her, and her desire to join them. I’m glad she hasn’t.

So is she. In a now traditional Vanity Fair video, Billie answers the same interview questions three years in a row, exactly a year apart. Expect The Fourth Year one October 18th, 2020. It is one of the most fascinating videos I have ever watched. Though the same at the core, there is a different version of Billie in each year. Which is to be expected, as she is a teenager in the limelight. But the video of year 2, which was around 5 months prior to WWAFA,WDWG?’s release, Billie openly admits to being in a very dark place, discussing how her friend had died. Her posture and affect are noticeably different in years 1 and 3. In the third and latest installment, Billie is an upgraded, happier and more comfortable version of the previous two. You can hear the change in her voice, see it in her face. In response to the question, “What’s most important to you right now?” her answer is, “Maintaining my happiness, which I have been experiencing for the first time in many years….I wanna stay happy. That’s a big goal for me.”

Billie Eilish is one of the biggest breakout stars of the past few years. Her following is enormous, and though fans vary in age, many of them fall in her cohort. Generation Z is special in many ways: morbidly funny, proudly outspoken, self-aware, and unafraid to be different. Billie Eilish is all of these things incarnate, the perfect spearhead for this generation and what they represent. She dresses how she wants to dress and makes the kind of music that she wants to make, refusing to follow the molded expectations of young up and coming female stars before her. In that music, she also does what very few artists, young or old, have ever done: candidly explores mental illness and suicidal ideation.

These issues have become more and more prevalent in today’s society, yet they are still extremely stigmatized. Like many teenagers, I experienced the sadness and darkness Billie is singing about. I’m almost 25 now, but I can imagine how 15-year-old Cass would feel hearing this album and seeing Billie as she is in the third year of that Vanity Fair interview. Understood. Not alone. And hopeful, hopeful that things get better. At that age you feel like everything is the end of the world, because it is developmentally and socially some of the most difficult years in the human experience. And to hear someone you look up to say, “I feel this way, too,” and then see them continue fighting, and happy that they did...that can change someone’s life.

Thankfully, Billie still injects some levity into the album. The musical hook in “bad guy” feels like a defining moment for Gen Z the way the musical hook in “Toxic” was for us Millennials. “all the good girls go to hell” unflinchingly decrees that God Is A Woman™, and “my strange addiction” has cuts from The Office, Eilish’s favorite show, interspersed throughout the song. Gen Z is taking over, and Billie’s one hell of a ringleader.

STRONGEST TRACK(S): “i love you,” “xanny”

The phrase “I love you” has never felt so intimate as it does coming from Billie’s mouth in the penultimate track on WWAFA,WDWG? Sandwiched between two tracks where all together they form a sentence (listen before I go, I love you, goodbye) "i love you" is the most mesmerizing and most vulnerable, not just of the three but of the whole album. As a listener, you are dying to know what's hidden between the lines. Why doesn't she want to love this person even though she clearly does? What did she do to make him cry? Why are you, the listener, crying right now? With the smallest breath, the quietest whisper, the emotion Eilish emits is enormous. Every once in a while you hear a song that you feel will never leave you, and “i love you” has all the makings to be everlasting.

As does the message in “xanny,” a dynamic song that mostly sounds like an old-time jazz track, although infuses a blaring noise over the chorus, as if you are standing right next to the booming stereo at the party setting in which she speaks. The layering of hums in the background and at the end of the song provides a necessary subtle softness, making it all the more beautiful. The track is a statement from Eilish that she has no interest in the lifestyle that so many kids her age- famous or not- lead, partly because she does not understand the appeal of its effects, and partly because she does not want to invest herself in someone willingly bringing harm upon themself, as she previously has. “I can’t afford to love someone who isn’t dying by mistake,” she asserts. Of course, most things in moderation are good and fine, but there is an ever-persistent pressure for young people to use substances, for easier social interactions or easier claim to desirable social status. There is a plethora of music out there promoting the party lifestyle, but very few saying, “hey, it’s okay if you’re not about this, you’re still cool,” and so a celebrity as big as Billie abstaining from it, and providing a reasonable explanation, gives a figure of understanding and solidarity to all the outliers.

WEAKEST TRACK: “8”

Not a bad song by any means, “8” is just the least memorable on an album filled with extremely intriguing and standout tracks. There is an interesting choice of vocal styles that alternate throughout, one of which it sounds as if Eilish is emulating the voice of a little girl. She is asking the subject to just give her some common courtesy and hear her out. "Who am I to be in love / when your love never is for me?" she asks, in the most compelling moment of the song. It is a difficult line to walk, knowing someone doesn't owe you anything but wanting them to anyway. Although the song is effective, its replay value doesn't quite match with the other contenders.

THE IN-BETWEENS

Although Eilish is authentic in her own right, you can see the draw of inspiration from unique artists before her. Lorde's imprint is all over "you should see me in a crown," a catchy song about ruling the world and making everyone bow down to her with the sound of a knife sharpening at the top, and “listen before i go” is reminiscent of Lana Del Rey’s morose romances. “when the party’s over,” written solely by Billie’s brother, collaborator, and best friend, Finneas O’Connell, is a beautifully quiet moment in the middle of the album, with absolutely gorgeous high notes from Billie. The song is succinct and poignant, noting the inner conflict between wanting a friend to be more than just that and yet feeling the need to keep up boundaries to protect your heart; but when has that done anyone any good?

BEST PROSPECTIVE SINGLE: “my strange addiction”

In the age of Netflix, The Office continues to grow in popularity with younger viewers who missed it on air. Who better to bolster the movement than Verified The Office super fan, Billie Eilish? In “my strange addiction,” Eilish and O’Connell draw inspiration from the classic episode, “Threat Level Midnight,” where Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) has finally finished his movie and is ready to premiere it to the office. In his movie, Scott’s character, Michael Scarn, teaches the entire bar how to do his signature dance, “The Scarn.” “No, Billie, I haven’t done that dance since my wife died!” the song begins, which is a real line from the episode. “my strange addiction” borrows from the track for “The Scarn,” which is simply genius. Everyone is doing “The Scarn,” fictional or nonfictional, even NFL player Trey Quinn, who did the famed routine for his touchdown dance. Not only will “my strange addiction” convert The Office fans to Billie Eilish fans, but just imagine the amount of TikToks there could be of people doing “The Scarn” to this song…think about the meme potential, Billie! *Ed Helms voice* There’s a whole crowd of people out there who need to learn how to do the “my strange addiction.”

*****

Billie Eilish, and her debut album, WWAFA,WDWG? is impressive in a multitude of ways: she is raw, candid, silly, wildly intelligent, and most importantly, full of a lot of love, no matter how much she claims she does not want to be. Perhaps most impressive is that the only writers and producers credited on this album are Eilish and O’Connell, ages 18 and 22, respectively, at the time of this review, yet 17 and 21 at the time of its release, which means they were 16 and 20 at the time of writing and production. For two young people to create such an impactful album on such a massive scale on their own is a rarity, and has not been seen since the beginning of Taylor Swift’s career, and look at where she is now. Billie’s music might be different, but her trajectory seems quite similar. At Billboard’s Women in Music ceremony in December of 2019, Swift was honored with Woman of the Decade while Eilish was honored with Woman of the Year. Both artists paid homage to the other in their speeches, harkening back to Swift’s 2014 Woman of the Year speech where she alludes to a future Woman of the Year recipient learning piano and singing in choir; Swift had said back then that we need to take care of her, and Eilish tearfully thanked the room for doing just that. As Swift continues to fight against the system to pave the way for female artists, the clearing is all Billie’s. If Billie continues to maintain ownership of her voice, as I’m sure she will, it looks like the woman of the next decade is a lock. The crown looks great on Billie, and I cannot wait to see where she takes us while we’re all awake. Grade: 4.5/5

DISCLAIMER – REVIEWER’S BIAS: The first time I listened to WWAFA,WDWG? the only tracks that really captured my attention were “bad guy” and “my strange addiction.” I wanted to like it so bad, but I felt like I was missing something. Maybe that’s because I listened to the album at work and did not take it in properly. But I also felt like she was whispering too much, which made it difficult for me to stay interested. So I did not revisit it. However, over this past year, despite not listening to her music, I started to form a big-sister-type love for Billie, feeling as if I must protect her at all costs (any man over the age of like, 20, reading this: stay the fuck away from her you sickos!!!). I loved how she embraced her individuality and did whatever she wanted. I watched many interviews of her on YouTube (one being the Vanity Fair one, where she talks about how the criticism that she whispers a lot is hurtful yet true- Billie, I’m sorry!!) and found her to be so intelligent. To me, her and Taylor Swift (my number one love) are two sides of the same coin, or two paths to the same destination. What I mean by that is that as a lover of music and as a girl going through a difficult time, sometimes you need positivity to counteract the negative feelings, other times you need to lean into the sadness to release it all; though they both possess a bit of both, Taylor is more of the positive route, Billie more of the sad route. The thing is, you need both options. Billie reminds me of Taylor so much; she writes all of her own music (with her brother as her only co-writer), she has blown up at such a young and vulnerable age (if WWAFA,WDWG? wins AOTY at the Grammys, Billie will be the youngest ever recipient since Taylor won for Fearless at the age of 20), and she is committed to saying and doing what she wants to do the way she wants to do it. After listening to the album a few more times leading up to the Grammys to write this review, I get it. I truly get it. I’m sorry it took so long. And although her super soft vocals are definitely effective, I still want her to project more. The girl has a gorgeous voice; she should use it! But also she doesn’t need my advice, she’s doing fine. Keep whispering, baby girl. I feel very nervous for Billie, because when a woman reaches the top this quickly, everyone gets ready to push her off just as fast, and the fall can be fatal. But I believe in her ability to stand her ground. Please protect Billie at all costs!!!!

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latenightcinephile · 5 years ago

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#681: ‘Daisies’, dir. Věra Chytilová, 1966.

A pleasingly innovative piece that doesn’t wear out its welcome, this film on its surface is still a hard one to propose to an audience that doesn’t like the avant-garde. I was fortunate to catch a screening of this at the City Gallery, where I was one of only two people that made it through the 75-minute runtime. What makes Daisies harder to endure is that it’s lacking in a narrative, and many of its scenes are given over to either repetitive excess or to confusing non-sequiturs.

In other words, I loved it.

One of the main reasons is that for a film over fifty years old, it feels fresh and modern. Many of the visual effects, like the one seen above after a playfight involving scissors, are joyfully kitschy and don’t even take themselves seriously, but there are also moments like a Kodachrome time-lapse seen from the front of a train which lasts for several minutes and wouldn’t be out of place in a mainstream film made this year. Věra Chytilová splits scenes using montages of close-up shots, collages of butterflies and newspapers, that make everything feel energetic and frenzied. Given the film’s subject matter, it’s a good parallel between text and style.

There isn’t much development in this film, at least on a traditional level. It’s all theme, as we watch Marie (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie (Ivana Karbanová) go about their usual routines. These routines include: going out to dinner with old men, and then abandoning them on the late train; sunbathing; trying to list all the men they know by looking at the phone numbers scrawled on the walls; dressing up; drinking. They slice up pickles and sausages while listening to a man declare his love over the phone, oblivious to their running commentary on him and almost any other topic. It’s not even clear which of the two Maries he’s in love with - the girl he is serenading, he calls ‘Julie’.

So this film is harsh on the men who are blind to the nuances of the women they’re pursuing, and rightly so. Chytilová’s characters operate so far outside the expected roles of women in 1960s Czechoslovakia that they should alienate anyone who gets close to them, but all the men in this film are filled with adoration for the surface of these women. It’s the ‘sexy lamp’ test made into ironic text - Marie and Marie have life and philosophy, but those are meaningless to these men, bred on cliches of romance and poetry.

Daisies is also clear-headed about the fact that these women are living a fantasy, though, and the pair of Maries are shown as being parodies of naivete. Chytilová has to finish the film by leaving them to drown at sea. Having searched for ‘sustenance’, they let themselves into a ballroom where a feast for sixteen is laid out. In a long unbroken take, Marie and Marie serve themselves portions on every plate, moving from chair to chair and scraping platefuls of steak tartare onto platefuls of quiche. Their dinner escalates into dancing and destruction, until the chandelier collapses onto the table. A smash cut drops them into the water, where they are punished for their excess by being left to drown.

Except... Chytilová admits to the audience that there is only one other option for the girls. Dressed in newspaper, they re-enter the ballroom, sweeping up the demolished cakes and laying out the broken china. “We’re good,” they whisper to each other; “We’ll work very hard.” Finally the room is returned to as close to its original order as possible. “I’m happy,” Marie says, as much to the other Marie as to herself. “Say we’re happy.”

In other words, the Maries have a choice: they can be their decadent selves and be rejected violently by society, or they can lie to themselves about being hardworking and happy. One is unsustainable; the other is incomprehensible. The girls are angry, at themselves and at the state of the world, and with everything else being spoiled, they decide they might as well be too. It’s a tempting response to the world, and while it doesn’t accomplish much in the long run, it’s good for making a lot of noise and a lot of fun in the short-term. If you can handle yet another film about men behaving badly as a reflection of society, you can handle Daisies, with all its bombast, rage, and hunger.

#1001 movies #vera chytilova #daisies #feminist film criticism

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alixofagnia · 6 years ago

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OpheThorn II: A Slightly Less Rambling Analysis

The Missing of Clairdelune is a superb second installment in The Mirror Visitor quartet. We get more of what we loved about the first book, more pieces to the larger existential puzzle, yet it smartly stops short of resolving too much so that we stay invested for the third episode. Christelle Dabos allows herself slightly more exposition. But the novel really succeeds by continuing to follow the less-is-more mantra and the showing vs. telling style.

As you may or may not recall, after I finished A Winter’s Promise, I spent an embarrassing amount of time copy/pasting excerpts from this book into Google Translate with the result that I really did spoil a lot of the OpheThorn parts for myself—which I don’t exactly regret. But, essentially, it left me with a bit less to say. I had a good response to my first OpheThorn analysis (it’s here and thank you for all the kind words), so I did think that I’d like to put something out about Clairdelune as well, I just wasn’t sure what. After some consideration (and a re-read), I do have some more thoughts about OpheThorn.

So, here we go.

[Spoilers included this time]

[All fanart images credited to @patricialyfoung]

Intro

Since Clairdelune begins right where Promise concluded, Ophelia is still pissed at Thorn, while Thorn is still pining for Ophelia albeit in his uniquely aloof way. The only real thing that’s made me scratch my head with them is the severity of Ophelia’s anger/resentment over Thorn having withheld his true ambitions from her and her finding out about them from someone else. I just think it’s a little bit of a weak conflict for them given how pragmatic they are. I get that it’s the culmination of a frustrating situation. But I still think it’s weak.

So, once again the two begin on shaky ground, a space they occupy for the bulk of the novel. They are, at least, together a bit more than before and there’s all sorts of lovely tension, mostly caused by Thorn’s inelegant method of wooing compounded by Ophelia’s stubborn refusal to give him an inch. Thorn’s growing feelings for Ophelia were subtly hinted at in Promise and they become more apparent here, particularly when juxtaposed against Ophelia’s stubborn denial of hers for him.

And I just adore the cover art! Don’t you?

Thorn and Autism Spectrum Disorder

This is what I want to discuss. I may be alone in this, but it seems like Thorn could be coded as having autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It occurred to me while I was reading Promise and this time around, I feel comfortable in taking that perspective on Thorn. I like the notion of applying an ASD reading to his character because it explains a few descriptive quirks and makes him more than a “weirdo” or “freak”, which is reductive labeling. When considering his interactions with other characters and their reactions to him, this reading lends an added layer to his actions and overall development.

But let me make something clear.

This book isn’t about ASD, so I’m not suggesting that Dabos intended to write Thorn as having ASD or is trying to make a statement in any way on the disorder, and I’m cautious about how I use this idea to understand the character. This is purely my own speculation/take on the character.

I also want to be clear that I don’t have any personal experience with the disorder. I’ve met people with autism and ASD and they were all very different from each other and had very different needs. So, I’m largely making connections with textbook examples of ASD and they’re maybe a little bit broad because as I said it isn’t explicitly made clear that Thorn has ASD. I may very likely err in my understanding of this disorder. If that’s the case, I apologize in advance and please do correct me or give me your own opinion on this idea.

Here’s an overview from the webpage of the national institute of mental health:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior. Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is said to be a “developmental disorder” because symptoms generally appear in the first two years of life. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a guide created by the American Psychiatric Association used to diagnose mental disorders, people with ASD have:

Difficulty with communication and interaction with other people

Restricted interests and repetitive behaviors

Symptoms that hurt the person’s ability to function properly in school, work, and other areas of life

Autism is known as a “spectrum” disorder because there is wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people experience. Although ASD can be a lifelong disorder, treatments and services can improve a person’s symptoms and ability to function.

It’s been shown repeatedly that it’s very difficult for Thorn to be an inviting and easy-going person, even with people he cares about. Thorn struggles with communication, is emotionally suppressed, is both uncaring and at times completely unaware of how he presents himself socially, and obsessively consults his pocket watch, particularly when he’s at a loss for words or bored, or otherwise ready to get the hell out of any situation that causes him anxiety. He’s highly intelligent, fixated on order and organization, and has a history (as we know from Promise and learn more about in Clairdelune) of meeting intense emotion with impulsive violence.

Here’s a list (also from the NIMH website) of common symptoms:

Making little or inconsistent eye contact

Tending not to look at or listen to people

Rarely sharing enjoyment of objects or activities by pointing or showing things to others

Failing to, or being slow to, respond to someone calling their name or to other verbal attempts to gain attention

Having difficulties with the back and forth of conversation

Often talking at length about a favorite subject without noticing that others are not interested or without giving others a chance to respond

Having facial expressions, movements, and gestures that do not match what is being said

Having an unusual tone of voice that may sound sing-song or flat and robot-like

Having trouble understanding another person’s point of view or being unable to predict or understand other people’s actions

Repeating certain behaviors or having unusual behaviors. For example, repeating words or phrases, a behavior called echolalia

Having a lasting intense interest in certain topics, such as numbers, details, or facts

Having overly focused interests, such as with moving objects or parts of objects

Getting upset by slight changes in a routine

Being more or less sensitive than other people to sensory input, such as light, noise, clothing, or temperature

People with ASD may also experience sleep problems and irritability. Although people with ASD experience many challenges, they may also have many strengths including:

Being able to learn things in detail and remember information for long periods of time

Being strong visual and auditory learners

Excelling in math, science, music, or art

One can’t help but notice that we can check several of these points off for Thorn. Not all, certainly, but I’m sure you can call to mind some of your own examples of him exhibiting many of these behaviors repeatedly.

Where Does Ophelia Fit In?

Thorn has always treated his relationship with Ophelia in a very business-like manner, almost like a negotiation, which makes sense within the context of an arranged marriage. At the novel’s start, Thorn wishes to make amends, but Ophelia makes it very clear that she will not forgive him for his lies and neglect. His response to her is rather clinical.

“We simply can’t allow ourselves to be enemies,” cut in Thorn. “You’re making my life difficult with your resentment; it’s imperative that we become reconciled. […] Meet me at the Treasury, insult me, slap me, smash a plate over my head if you feel like it, and then let’s never speak of it again. Name your day. This Thursday would suit me.” [65]

I suppose this is a rather annoying response, especially if one is really just looking for a simple and genuine apology. But if we read Thorn as having ASD, then this feels a little different. He’s simplifying a conflict that he maybe doesn’t quite understand; he’s been given a different perspective on his actions and it’s perhaps beyond his capability to comprehend. To compensate, he turns this into a matter of business, which is something he can understand quite well, even going so far as to try and pencil Ophelia into his calendar. But he’s woefully unaware of the frustrating effect his language and tone have on her. Of course, what’s key here is what he isn’t saying: that she’s making his life difficult because he loves her; he wants to be on good terms, but doesn’t know how to fix this. Note that he again suggests violence as a means to deal with her emotion.

When they do meet up, Thorn says,

“I have many enemies. I no longer want to count you among them, so tell me what I must do. That is why you came here, isn’t it? You have a deal to offer me, I’m listening to you.” [152]

He’s desperate. It’s also worth noting that he’s fairly vulnerable in this chapter; he exhibits jealousy and some hurt—Ophelia missed their original appointment because she was with Archibald and forgot about him.

Modest as always, Ophelia asks only for a job, money to pay Fox, her new assistant, and to see the real outdoors again. She lastly requests that he always be honest with her, especially in matters that directly concern her. In exchange, she will teach him how to Read objects after the ceremony of the Gift and he will teach her how to use the claws that he’ll pass to her. She also reiterates, for good measure, that this will be their only conjugal duty. He grants the first three readily enough, but the fourth one trips him up. He does agree to it, but it’s obvious that it will cost him in more ways than one.

While I imagine that he’s receptive on some level to sexual intimacy with Ophelia, I think he’s more afraid of intimacy in general. Sharing things and being honest with a partner means opening oneself up to vulnerability, to weakness. The undertaking he’s set for himself—a mission he’s already devoted 15 years of his life to—doesn’t allow for that kind of intimacy; rather, it requires utmost resiliency, secrecy, and focus. Furthermore, if he were to be seen forming loving attachments (with Berenilde, Ophelia, or anyone else), then that could be turned against him over the course of fulfilling his risky endeavor. It’s that very fear, in fact, which has made him exclude his aunt (and attempt to exclude Ophelia) entirely from his investigation. His pursuit of a noble title and legitimacy is a front, an easy excuse he thought up to satisfy Berenilde’s and the court’s curiosity about why he suddenly wanted to get married and Read Farouk’s Book.

Like Thorn, it scares Ophelia to feel herself falling in love. Perhaps the womanly pride she carries with her makes it difficult for her to open up. After all, love and marriage were never apparently high on her list of things to accomplish either. Ophelia and Thorn are separately dealing with the same conundrum, which is that to love means to fear, and that’s messy. It could get in the way of a life that is humble (Ophelia) and a life that is ambitious (Thorn). Simply put, neither one had accounted for even the possibility of love in their marriage.

Perhaps because Ophelia is a Reader, I think that deep down she likes the enigma and challenge that is Thorn. Yes, he’s frustrating, but she never truly loses interest in him. Indeed, if anything, she becomes increasingly intrigued and is entirely won over when she at last learns all about what he’s doing. Ophelia is very likely the first person to make Thorn both confront and attempt to correct his inadequacy in areas of intimacy. As I touched on in my previous analysis, Ophelia calling Thorn out on his behavior and habits is surely a novelty for him.

“I believe neither in luck nor in destiny,” he declared. “I trust only the science of probabilities. I have studied mathematical statistics, combinatorial analysis, mass function, and random variables, and they have never held any surprises for me. You don’t seem fully to grasp the destabilizing effect that someone like you can have on someone like me.” [377]

Ohhhhkay.

It turns out, she’s a bit of an enigma and definitely a challenge to him in kind. This is Thorn’s way of trying to tell Ophelia that he loves her.

Thorn and Ophelia seek control and wield it differently. Thorn can be arrogant and overconfident with it, and he wants to be its sole retainer. Ophelia also wants to retain it but as it pertains to her decisions for herself, and she rebels against it when she feels like that’s being taken away from her. It’s important to them that they are in control of their own actions and destinies. But what neither one of them understands is that those we end up loving is often (or maybe always) outside of our control. Love has no explanation, and doesn’t require one. You can’t predict it. You can’t dictate it. You can’t calculate it or quantify it.

Ophelia seriously turns Thorn’s life, and everything he thought he could predict or control about it, upside down. Initially unwittingly, then actively, she encourages him to develop.

ASD Made Sexy

As inelegant as he is, Thorn does have his own way of being shocking:

“You wanted me to be honest with you. You will thus learn that you are not just a pair of hands for me. And I don’t give a damn whether people find me suspect, as long as I am not so in your eyes. You will return this to me when I have kept all my promises,” he grumbled, holding his watch out to Ophelia without noticing her stunned expression. “And if you still doubt me in the future, just read it.” [156].

You guys, this is kind of romantic, right? He’s so direct and it really flusters Ophelia, who is steadfastly resisting the decidedly non-business-like turn their relationship has taken. Skip to novel’s end, however, and she has totally changed her tune about Thorn. Right before they believe they will be parted forever, Thorn finally gives a straightforward confirmation of his feelings.

“Don’t go falling down any more stairs, avoid sharp objects, and above all, above all, keep away from disreputable people, alright? […] Oh, and by the way, I love you.” [486]

Swoon.

The fact of the matter is this: despite his unconventional looks and mannerisms, Thorn hits a certain level of sexy. Which begs the question: Can ASD be sexy? Sure, one could say that his sex appeal comes naturally with his role as the male lead, which is directly connected to his chemistry with the female lead. But I think there’s actually an important distinction to be made; it’s not whether ASD itself is sexy, it’s whether a character with ASD is sexy and I think that’s important because you don’t want ASD to be treated as a gimmick in fiction. It matters how that kind of character is presented.

Thorn’s ASD traits make him eccentric at best and a “freak” at worst, by Ophelia’s own description. Some of Thorn’s less offensive eccentricities are portrayed in an endearing light: his brusqueness with silly persons (i.e. Archibald, Baron Melchior) and their silly behavior; wearing his heavy uniform in a tropical illusion when there’s no evident dress policy for officials; preoccupied with tending to the order of his office over the tending of his wounds; launching a dangerous existential investigation all because of an illegal and unjust disruption in odds and probabilities, an utter crime in Thorn’s eyes.

But it’s also important to look at how other characters view him. Those at the Pole may look down on him, but there is no doubt that he commands a considerable level of their respect. He’s at the center of Citaceleste’s political and economical arenas, and has some judicial power as well. In short, he’s the one that everyone seemingly runs to in a crisis. Ophelia begrudgingly admires his self-control, coolness under pressure, and appreciates that he is not corrupt, like the other officials and aristocrats. Naturally, Berenilde regards him the highest. She, more than any other, gives us a glimpse of the true Thorn, putting forward the image of a protector, provider, and all-around genius.

So, the answer is yes. Thorn is sexy.

Ophelia and Asexuality

OK, I realize I’m going off on a tangent here, but since asexuality is a common reading of Ophelia that I see in reviews, I wanted to address that as well.

There are many instances of Ophelia fulfilling, for lack of a better way to put it, the butterfly trope:

Perhaps it was due to the nervousness Thorn brought out in her, or the lace veil obscuring her vision, or the scarf coiled around her foot, or her pathological clumsiness, but the fact is, Ophelia tripped on the final step of the stairs. [28]

Hearing Thorn reawakened such nervousness in Ophelia that she seriously considered hanging up on him. [63]

She did, however, have to admit that Berenilde had got it right: it was indeed out of cowardice, more even than anger, that she’d spent recent weeks avoiding him. [100]

Somewhat embarrassed, Ophelia wondered whether he felt as nervous in her company as she felt in his. [160]

Ophelia felt her blood throbbing against her eardrums, but couldn’t have said whether it was due to sudden relief or, on the contrary, heightened tension. [323]

Ophelia gets butterflies whenever her love interest is near. It’s important to note that she’s not afraid for her safety when she’s with him, although there is one incident, where she thinks he’s going to strike her, which is quickly dispelled by his sincere assurance that he’d never harm her. He gives her butterflies often by doing totally mundane things such as standing in front of her or looking at her, and that bothers her. But why?

Like Thorn, she’s convinced herself that intimacy and love aren’t for her. Some reviewers have praised Ophelia for being a representation of asexuality and, while I think there’s a strong case for her being somewhere on the asexual spectrum, I stop short at positing that she’s totally uninterested in sex or doesn’t experience sexual attraction. She’s noted, on several occasions, both in Clairdelune and Promise, Archibald’s handsomeness. In this novel, she also notes Fox’s.

With his gold braiding and red mane, he was as dazzling as Thorn was dark. Ophelia sensed herself coloring just looking at him. [165]

So, she does experience sexual attraction and, furthermore, she physically reacts to Fox’s appearance (though never to Archibald’s), which suggests that she’s not wholly disinterested in sex. In Promise, she commented that “no man had ever quickened her pulse” and lamented about whether she’d ever feel that way about someone, and I think this is probably the point at which most readers took away that she might be asexual.

But, like...

Thorn is the only man who produces intense and consistent physical reactions in her.

Also, if you look at the [323] quote above, he did in fact get her pulse up. Just saying.

Rather than label her as purely asexual or even being on the spectrum, we could instead speculate that, as a Reader, she’s experienced to some degree love in all its forms through countless objects and perhaps she can’t help having this reaction to love and intimacy. I’m not trying to be cynical or pessimistic, but love can be treacherous and people are driven to do all kinds of terrible things for it or because of it. As wonderful as love is despite that, it seems likely that Ophelia has simply decided it’s not something she wants to navigate. Or she just hadn’t met someone yet who was worth all that trouble.

I’ll Close With This:

“You’re free,” whispered Ophelia. “Free to go, free to stay. I won’t make you leave one cage for another one, although, as you’ve seen, I really don’t live in great security. I decided your fate without taking time to think, or to speak to you. I was selfish…and I still am. […] I still am because, deep down, I would like you to choose to remain by my side. I know that apologizing can no longer change anything, but anyway: forgive me.” [135]

Ophelia says this to Fox after rescuing him from the dungeons of Clairdelune and taking him on as an assistant. Now, when I read this, I couldn’t help but think that it’s precisely the apology Ophelia wants to hear from Thorn. Yet, here she is, guilty of doing to someone the very thing she holds against him. Isn’t it funny how hypocrisy and love are such good friends? As we know, articulation and eloquence are not Thorn’s strengths and some of Ophelia’s aversion to him is based around her inability to accept this part of him.

Eventually, Thorn does make, more or less, the same apology.

“I should never have involved you in my affairs. I knew it would be dangerous. I convinced myself that I had the situation under control, and that mistake almost cost you your life. […] There is one thing that I have tried to tell you several times. I’m no good at these formalities, so let’s get on with it and speak no more of it. […] Please forgive me.” [444-45]

Strangely, she barely acknowledges this; she’s too busy having an epiphany.

At that second, she finally knew with absolute certainty where her place was. It wasn’t in the Pole, it wasn’t on Anima. It was precisely where she was now. At Thorn’s side. [445]

Well, perhaps this isn’t so strange since the novel starts off posing the question to this answer.

Deep down, Ophelia wondered where exactly her first home might be. Since she’d arrived at the Pole, she’d already visited Berenilde’s manor, the Clairdelune embassy, and her fiancés Treasury, and she hadn’t felt at home in any of them. [24]

The theme of home and belonging permeates this novel in a more central way than its predecessor. Ophelia is repeatedly confronted by it, but it’s also echoed in Farouk’s obsession with the Reading of his Book and finding out where he comes from and what happened in his past. When her family arrives from Anima, she sees the Pole and Thorn through their eyes. She ends up defending both from their disapproving remarks and in doing so, she realizes that she has ceased thinking of Anima as her home.

Life in the Pole was like that: wherever one went, whatever one did, danger was part of daily life. And yet, Ophelia reflected, she didn’t hate it that much, that life. [280]

Thorn’s apology seals the deal: she understands now that she was mistaken. Home is not a place. People, those who love you and who you love in return, give a home meaning. Belonging, likewise, is only made possible by the people who accept you and give you a place among them. It’s been hard-won, but she’s found both in the Pole, in Thorn and Berenilde. Her lack of a direct response to Thorn’s words suggests that she’s already forgiven him, that it matters less to her that he struggles with communication, that she’s finally accepted him for who he is and, better still, found him lovable despite that.

If we read Thorn as having ASD, then this intense dynamic between them is a positive treatment of mental/social disorders in fiction, which is really the only point I had to make with this entire thing.

Where Does Ophelia End?

I asked this question in my last analysis. Based off of the fact that, when we left her in Promise, she was experiencing some serious discomfort in body and soul directly connected to Thorn, I predicted/semi-already-knew that she would evolve toward him.

At one point, Ophelia loses the ability to pass through mirrors. We understand that it’s because she’s been lying to herself; after all, her great-uncle made it very clear that mirror-traveling is impossible under such a circumstance. It’s ironic because, by her own admission, she’s a “bad actress” [161] and, according to her mother, “was never any good at lying” [157].

She’s just so stubborn, isn’t she? It’s gratifying then to read when Ophelia overcomes it. Thorn makes a public announcement, cancelling his marriage, refusing to Read Farouk’s Book, and handing in his resignation as Treasurer. He does this to protect Ophelia and her family from imminent danger but at risk to his own welfare and position. He’s basically committing suicide, which very nearly turns literal at novel’s end. Ophelia can only think to go to him by the quickest means possible.

She looked straight at her determined face, beyond its scratches and bruises, finally ready to face that truth that she hadn’t wanted to see. It wasn’t Thorn who needed her. It was she who needed Thorn. Ophelia plunged, body and soul, into the mirror. [416]

I don’t think I need to spell that out.

Thorn and His Watch

To go on a little bit of a tangent, I also wanted to touch on the watch.

I believe it was mentioned in Promise that the watch had been a gift from Berenilde, which is so precious. Berenilde is the only true parental figure Thorn has known. She used her status and wealth to protect and care for him, and seems to understand him as only a mother--one with a child the rest of the world refuses to accept--can. I thought her reaction to Thorn’s suicidal announcement was especially devastating.

She had begun to shake so hard that Agatha rushed to take the baby from her arms. Bent double in her chair, as though punched in the stomach, Berenilde looked imploringly at Ophelia. “I beg you. Don’t abandon my boy.” [412]

Keep in mind that Berenilde has outlived her three biological children, none of whom survived past childhood. Thorn is such a lonely figure that it’s easy to forget he comes from somewhere. But Berenilde’s reminder to us is clear: he’s not the child of his Dragon father nor of his Chronicler mother. Thorn is her child, and she’s terrified of losing him like the others.

While there can be no doubt of her sentiment toward Thorn, it’s entirely likely that Berenilde foisted much of her maternal grief, trauma, and longing onto him without his express permission; he never seems to regard her with any particular filial warmth. Then again, he once attacked Archibald in defense of Berenilde’s honor, after he seduced her away from Farouk, and Ophelia later notes that he “suspended an investigation and jumped into an airship” to be near to Berenilde when she went into labor with her daughter [373]. Thorn is clearly defined rather more by his actions than his words. But the point is Berenilde is the one who gave Thorn his sense of belonging, and I just adore that.

Metaphorically speaking, the watch represents Thorn’s heart, which was given to him by his mother figure and which he gives to Ophelia as a token of his love and trustworthiness. Indeed, it’s even called a “mechanical heart” [156]. Ophelia has Read one of Thorn’s possessions before (dice) and was overwhelmed by the fury and breadth of his emotions. If she were to Read his watch, she’d probably die. Every time he digs it out of his pocket to look at it, to hold it, to fiddle with it, he’s engraving some emotional signature or trace onto it. Ophelia ultimately decides not to Read it.

“Before you go, I would like to return this to you. You need it more than me, and, in any case, I won’t read it. I’ve chosen to trust you—you, not your watch.” [285]

Her words have a profound effect on Thorn, rendering him totally speechless and maybe more confused than ever. At any rate, he misreads the situation and catches Ophelia off guard with an awkward kiss. It’s kind of a heartbreaking scene, because Ophelia simply reacts (by slapping him) and is genuinely baffled that he took her words for encouragement. I don’t necessarily take this to be evidence of her asexuality. I don’t discredit it by any means, but it just feels more like she was taken by surprise.

The thing is, for perhaps the first time ever in his life, he actively desired for someone to know his true heart and to trust in his sincerity, which is why he gave the watch to her in the first place. In his defense, this was quite a pretty and irresistible thing for Ophelia to tell him and I don’t think she’s as put off as she wants to be.

With ears burning and glasses crimson, Ophelia stared at the faded letters on the old wooden panel—“STAFF ONLY”—as if Thorn might, at any moment, retrace his steps, take back his kiss, and leave his fob watch with her, as she’d suggested in the first place. [286]

It’s funny. She wants to erase the uncomfortable physical side of the incident, but she also wants to retain his metaphorical heart. I mean, yes, it’s broken because of some careless action on her part and she asked for it back so her great-uncle could try to fix it. But still. It’s hard to ignore the metaphor there as well: if the heart watch has changed from beating to broken and she wants to hold onto the broken heart watch to try to mend it…

Well, good Lord, it’s just so obvious, isn’t it?

End

Well, that’s about it. As I said, I really only had the one main thought and then a bunch of smaller ones.

I just learned—and am seriously devastated—that The Memory of Babel won’t be released in the U.S. until May 2020. I’m hoping this is a tentative date and that it will be available sooner.

In the meantime, if someone could upload a PDF that I could then spend days plugging in to Google Translate (again), that’d be super greeeeaaaat…

For part III, head here.

#ophethorn #La Passe-Miroir #les disparus de clairdelune #the mirror visitor #the missing of clairdelune #christelle dabos #long book report

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theangrypokemaniac · 5 years ago

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Your whole Contest rant read almost like a parody. The Contests were the most popular goal for female companions in the anime, and the vast majority of fans of Contests were female fans. Likewise Misty had already gotten stale and dull in Johto, and Contests brought in better battles, storylines and character development. Saying they're all about being girly makes me think you have no idea what they're about, since most are abut battles and combinations. I doubt most will agree with you.

Oh, but Nonny, you don't believe in what you're saying since you won't put your name to it, so why should I listen?

It's a 'rant' because you disagree, not for actual content.

The nature of a rant is crazed disorder, but this comes in numbered sections clearly laid out.

More aptly, the first three words of that post were 'I hate Contests'.

If this view is such an anathema, why did you keep on reading?

Who's the fool here?

Whether anyone agrees with me or not is immaterial. Truth isn't a popularity contest.

It's still my opinion whatever anyone else thinks, no lesser or greater.

If you want to be liked, then lie.

I tried this method, keeping my feelings to myself, never daring to speak my mind, and where did it get me?

• Unfollowed

• Ghosted

• Insulted

• Blocked

• Shunned

Where is the incentive to hold back if that's the reward?

Might as well say what I want. I think I've a right to on my blog.

It is you who misunderstand. I complain Contests are vacuous and girly, and your defence is that they are for girls and most fans were girls.

Well, yeah. That's what I said. A show once having universal appeal downgraded itself to be toddler fantasy pap:

The anime began aimed at everyone, especially children and teenagers, but now, when its concern with fluff and sparkles takes precedent, it's a fantasy for toddler girls.

You tell me I'm wrong by concurring it's for girls, then you insist considering it to be girly means I know nothing about it.

Eh?

Girls got along fine watching Pokémon for years without being pandered to and infantilised by shallow spectacles like this.

Pokémon used to be for everyone, although because game-players were, and still are, mostly boys, what one saw of the fandom was largely their input.

• Letters to magazines were mainly from boys.

• If you knew of any fans at school, they were boys.

• Attendants to downloading Mew were nearly all boys.

The exception were fan sites, shipping and art, which were dominated by girls.

Then along came Contests, and that balance tipped, until we get to the point now that I doubt many viewers of the anime are male, because it no longer holds any appeal.

Why should they put up with a monotonous fashion parade when they watched it entirely for fierce showdowns?

We started with tough girls like Jessie and Misty, then along came the Contest blender, and we ended up with feeble vessels like Mallow and Lillie.

Ultra girliness is all very well on the periphery, or as part of an ensemble, but when it's the only stock feminine character available, it's boring to the point of paralysis.

Why should I be pleased a series with edge devolved into a mess of pink and cuddly cushions?

With whom were Contests the favourite female occupation? Fans?

What were the options?

• Tagged along because she was going that way (Misty/Iris).

• Contests/Showcases (May/Dawn/Serena).

• Lives nearby (Lillie/Mallow/Lana/Chloë).

I'm not really surprised at the result. I still don't see why this invalidates my take.

Amid your ravings, I am told that 'most are about battles and combinations'.

Most? Some aren't then?

What are these few about then? Vietnam?

By your own admission, a few are nothing but vacuous posturing.

Again, you agree with me. What's the complaint if I'm right?

What storylines? New Ribbon or no Ribbon?

And what character development? May and Dawn began wanting to be champion, and finished wanting to be champion.

Since that was the close of their story, any 'lessons' they learn are redundant as we'll never see them put into application.

Better battles? Better than what?

Have have you the nerve to lie that Contests are about combat?

The entire premise is showing off how pretty attacks are, not the strength.

Were it a display of power, as a normal fight is, people would be entering with teams of enormous hulking beasts, leaving the likes of Piplup bloody lost.

Some ugly Pokémon, like Gabite and Ambipom, are included, but because they've got some shiny move up their metaphorical sleeve.

Come on, man! The first round is decided on who's bustin' out the sparkles!

Every subsequent round may pose as battling, but you don't succeed by beating the opponent unconscious as usual.

You win if your 'energy bar' is highly than theirs, bought about by pulling off attention-seeking stunts.

Knocking 'em out is a blessing as it assures a win, but it's not the goal.

How is that battle in any legitimate sense when the very markers of victory and loss are removed?

Since beauty is subjective, the winner doesn't succeed because they are measurably superior to their opponent, or at least capable of thinking on their feet.

They win just on the whim of this set of judges liking their performance more. Another day, another panel, and it'd be different.

A real fight in a proper competition doesn't depend on arbitrary standards like that. You take 'em down here, you'd take 'em down in any stadium, any country. It is thus a quantifiable achievement.

In real life, we don't class a sash from a beauty pageant as of equal value to a black belt.

It's okay, but we know it was a matter of luck, whereas any sporting trophy comes from clearly out matching the rest, with hours of strain, sacrifice and suffering paving the path to that moment.

Contests involve no such effort. You pick what glitters and the rest is rehearsal. No need to enter a single fight to hone your skills.

Why isn't Ash eager to get in on the action then, if it's 'truly' such a test of combatants?

The answer is because it's nothing to do with his career as a Trainer. If it were, we wouldn't need the separate term of 'Co-Ordinator' to describe entrants.

Trainers train Pokémon, Gym Leaders lead Gyms, Co-Ordinators co-ordinate routines to be spectacular.

Why have different descriptions if it's exactly the same?

Martial arts, both in fantasy and reality, have a spiritual element. Those who dedicate their lives to it are regarded as having reached a higher level of being.

Battles share that quality. It's not about brute force, focus is place more on inner strength, in heart, courage, determination and loyalty.

A Pokémon which, on paper, is weaker than its foe, can still come out on top if it's prepared to go the distance and want it at all costs, compared to an apathetic opponent.

Simultaneously, the Trainers have their own battle of minds, picking up on style and mistakes, always ready to pounce.

Contests have no such deeper consequence. They are wholly fixated on what's flashy and external. Ice shards are no more glassy just because you really mean 'em.

Combinations are a couple of attacks put together to look nice. How is this refuting my assertion they are but ephemeral bits off fluff?

Why should I be interested in a career so hollow, and ultimately futile, since neither girl won, and now never existed?

Your also claim the ejection of Misty is warranted since she became 'stale and dull', as if refuting my words.

If you'd bothered to read it properly rather than twisting yer knickers, you might notice I wrote exactly the same thing.

Perhaps it makes no difference. By Hoenn they'd rendered her a leaden blandness sucked dry of all that made her special.

I am not saying a Hoenn Misty would've been a more interesting companion. Her personality had to be erased before being allowed back at all.

I was mocking the excuse given for her exit, that she had no longterm goal, when there was no reason she couldn't participate in Contests.

A. If featuring them is intended as promotion, the audience is more likely to invest in the activity of a familiar face.

B. Just ruin her character if it's an obstacle, as they did everyone else.

C. Contests are a rip off of a competition Misty entered!

The truth still stands that had Misty stayed, we'd have no May, and in turn, no Max, and that's a bad thing?

In conclusion, you disagree with me by agreeing with me, so what exactly is the issue?

Since you fail to object elsewhere, I take it that the remainder is to your taste, and you also think Jessie was shafted, resembles a backwards country cliché and that May and Dawn should have won.

Not a bad dissection then.

#pokémon #contests #misty #hoenn #inbox

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utanoprincesamascenarios · 6 years ago

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I really liked your scenario with syo + qn with a short s/o, could you do the rest of starish with a short s/o?

Otoya

Otoya thinks that it’s really nice having a short s/o. He likes feeling tall, and he likes when his s/o asks him for help with things that are out of reach. He also loves how his s/o has to stand on their tip-toes to kiss him.

When his s/o is working on something at their desk, he’ll walk up behind them and rest his chin on their head.

He’ll always worry that they can’t see him at concerts, and he offers to give them an accurate reenactment if they miss anything during the show.

Otoya always gets a little flustered when his s/o wears heels on dates. They really accentuate their legs, and they always tease him when he ends up staring.

Natsuki

It wasn’t exactly hard to be shorter than Natsuki. Most people were short to him.

Natsuki is constantly picking up his s/o, hugging them, carrying them around, and just handles them a lot in general.

When Natsuki does laundry, he always takes a long time folding clothes because he’s always taken aback by how cute and small his s/o’s shirts are.

Natsuki likes to curl up when he sleeps, and having a short s/o makes it easier to cuddle. It doesn’t matter what position he falls asleep in; there will always be room for his s/o right by his side.

Masato

Masato never really focused on how tall his s/o was. He was pretty indifferent to the subject, but as he spent more time with them, he grew more enamored with their short stature.

When his s/o was feeling particularly needy, they’d sit in his lap when he worked on composing lyrics or calligraphy. Even though it was a bit of an awkward pose, he was able to see over their head easily so it never caused too many problems.

Masato enjoys mending their clothes any time they need patching up. The smaller clothes remind him of his sister’s, and he resists the urge to put cute embroidery on them like he used to do for her.

If anyone teases his s/o, which doesn’t happen that often thankfully, Masato doens’t hesitate to come to his s/o’s defense. No one can help how they look, so it’s uncalled for to make comments about it.

Tokiya

Tokiya thinks that his s/o being on the short side is cute, but height doesn’t matter at all to him.

He loves how easily his s/o fits into his lap when he’s on the couch reading, and how they can both fit in the tub together.

When his s/o wants to take pictures together, Tokiya will tease them lightly and bend down to their level. Or, if he’s feeling a little more mischievous, he’ll pick them up and lift them to the perfect height to give them a kiss.

Since Tokiya has a bit of a lengthy morning routine, they can both use the bathroom at the same time if his s/o just stands in front of him. He can peek over their head and finish his hair while they brush their teeth.

Ren

Ren adores the fact he has such a cute and small s/o.

His teasing goes up tenfold. He constantly asks his s/o if they need help reaching things. Sometimes, he’ll just randomly pick them up and claim that it’s just to give them a helping hand.

Ren is a fan of carrying his s/o on his shoulders. Usually, it’s a welcome activity, when Ren asks before he picks them up.

When his s/o wants a kiss, he’ll play dumb and stand still as they struggle on their toes to reach his lips. Once they start to pout, he’ll pick them up bridal style and kiss them properly.

Cecil

Cecil thinks that his s/o is perfect just the way they are.

He really enjoys slow dancing with them. The height difference makes it very easy for Cecil to lead with them, and the way they fit together is just perfect to him.

He never really acknowledges that they’re short, in fact, sometimes he forgets. He’ll end up using the highest shelves in the house without realizing that his s/o might have trouble getting up there later.

Cecil always leans down to his s/o for kisses. He doesn’t think it’s fair to make them stretch all the way to his height.

Syo and Quartet Night can be found here.

#utapri #uta no prince sama #otoya ittoki #masato hijirikawa #natsuki shinomiya #tokiya ichinose #ren jinguji #cecil aijima #headcanons

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terriblelifechoices · 6 years ago

Text

Does anyone else do the thing, where you write something and put it aside because a newer, shinier idea came along and then totally forget that you wrote it? And then you find it and go, oh, hey, this is neat. I wonder where the writer is going with this.

And then: Fuck. I’m the writer. The writer is me.

Please tell me you do this, or I’m going to feel really embarrassed. Because apparently that’s a thing I did.

Cleaning out the gdocs and came across this. My notes say I was writing it for @thesilverqueenlady which is probably why I was going for Graves in the style of Hannibal Lecter. I have no memory of writing it, or any idea where I was going with it.

IDK if anyone else is interested in reading it, but. Here’s an untitled, unfinished and abandoned ficbit. If you want to take this and finish it, please do.

In which Grindelwald demonstrates his wizard nazi tendencies with human experimentation. Graves is not exactly human anymore, but he refuses to let anyone make him Frankenstein’s Creature.

Graves had a list of things he wanted to do once he’d broken out of Grindelwald’s prison. He’d written it down on a scrap of fabric from a shirt that had long since been reduced to rags. He’d used his own blood as ink, for lack of any other available writing instrument.

Kill Grindelwald was the only thing on it, and once Graves realized that the concerned presence of MACUSA’s healers meant that he was free, that was exactly what he tried to do.

He honestly wasn’t sure how long he’d been Grindelwald’s captive – equal parts prisoner and lab rat. He’d tried counting the days at first, but he couldn’t account for how much time he’d spent unconscious in the aftermath of torture or Grindelwald’s experiments. All he knew was that he was different now: stronger, better, faster, and still not good enough to get out of Grindelwald’s prison. He’d taught himself to pick locks, to break curses, to escape – to survive – by whatever means necessary. He fed his rage and frustration into the thing he’d become – a test subject, the first of Grindelwald’s shock troops, useful for experimenting on but useless in every other regard because his rage helped him shake off the mental conditioning Grindelwald kept trying to implement.

Graves was fairly certain that whatever he was now wasn’t human anymore. Not entirely, at any rate.

MACUSA’s wards were nothing compared to Grindelwald’s. Graves ripped through them, dodging counter curses and hexes thrown at him by MACUSA’s best and brightest. He slammed into Grindelwald, too-sharp teeth bared in a triumphant smile.

“Miss me?” he purred, his too-sharp fingernails drawing blood.

It took four Senior Aurors, a house elf and Madam fucking President to pry Graves off of Grindelwald. Graves took some satisfaction in the fact that he managed to half-kill the bastard in the process. If Picquery hadn’t arrived when she did, he probably could have managed to finish the job.

“Director Graves!” she thundered.

Graves gave the silver chains around his wrists a contemptuous look. There was a reason suspects were supposed to be bound with their wrists behind their backs. Was this deference, to the man he’d been, or mere stupidity?

No matter. Graves flexed his wrists, straining against the chains for just a second, and then he broke them.

“Attacking a suspect in MACUSA’s custody is an actionable offense,” Picquery said, keeping her voice level and her wand trained on him. Her eyes were round with – what, surprise? Or was it terror? MACUSA’s cuffs were supposed to be impossible to break. “I should fire you.”

Graves looked at her. He’d been her man, once. He’d voted for her, bled for her, for MACUSA, for his people and not a one of the silly mewling sheep had noticed that he was gone.

Grindelwald’s blood was still on his fingers. Graves wanted to lick them clean.

Whatever he was now, it wasn’t an Auror. Graves wanted blood, not justice, and if he stayed here, he’d try to take it.

“You can’t fire me,” he said, making his voice sharp and cruel. He had to cut ties with MACUSA completely; had to slam that door shut so violently that the impact crumbled the walls around it to dust. “What right have you to my service? You let a genocidal fanatic walk among you, wearing my face, and not one of you noticed.” He dropped the badge he’d lifted from Grindelwald’s pocket during the scuffle on the table between them. “I quit.”

“You what,” Picquery said.

“I said I fucking quit,” said Graves, and Apparated out of the holding cells, straight to the front gate of the manor house.

The Graves family’s ancestral home was located in upstate New York, deep enough into the woods to shelter them from scandal, No-Maj’s and the occasional high society invading army. It was warded against all manner of dark creatures and spells.

Graves watched with irritated resignation as the wards lit up in warning, red sparks against the night sky like fireworks in July.

He licked the last of Grindelwald’s blood from his fingers and considered the wards. They were old, almost as old as MACUSA itself, and old magic couldn’t be bullied or intimidated into doing anything it didn’t want to.

It could be reasoned with, though. If you were powerful enough, or if your need was so desperate that it called and the old magics answered.

He drew one too-sharp fingernail – one claw, he might as well call it what it was – against the underside of his wrist and let his blood drip freely against the stones.

“I am Percival Richard Graves, master of the House and Head of the Graves family,” he said crisply. “I was born within the House’s walls. I am the only son and heir of Edward Gondulphus Graves and Helena Louise McAllister-Graves. I have walked the House and the grounds and the woods and offered blood and power to strengthen House and Home.

“Graves Manor is mine by birthright and blood, and by my blood I demand that you let me in.”

Making demands of magic old enough to have a degree of sentience was dangerous. Graves didn’t care. This was his home goddamnit. He would not cringe and play the supplicant when it was his by right.

The wards and the front gates swung open beneath his touch.

“Thank you,” Graves said, and went in.

The problem with the manor house, Graves discovered, was that it was located in upstate New York, deep enough in the woods to discourage visitors of any kind. He spent a pleasantly isolated week removing the dust covers and walking the halls, returning the house to its former glory before realizing that there was no one to share its glory with.

Graves didn’t particularly want to share its glory with anyone, much less have visitors. He wasn’t entirely certain that he wasn’t going to try and eat them.

He spent the next two weeks testing the limits of his humanity, checking his reflection for signs of change and seeing the same face he’d always seen: heavy brows, dark eyes, aquiline nose, more than a touch of silver at his temples.

He could have settled into a comfortably isolated routine, but on the full moon he felt an old familiar thrum in his blood. It was the one that said run.

Hunt.

Kill.

In Grindelwald’s prison, he hadn’t known that it was the full moon when he felt that thrum in his blood. All he’d known was that the urge to hunt and kill was calling, a siren song of destruction. He’d clawed his way out of his cell but couldn’t escape the prison. He’d scratched scars into the walls, his back, his arms. He’d screamed curses and rage and none of it had been enough. It hadn’t even taken the edge off.

Graves killed a deer in the woods with only the moon to bear witness, the forest lit up like it was daylight to his new and improved vision. He ripped out the entrails and left them in the woods, a bloody offering. The heart he ate raw; fear and adrenaline made the meat taste sweet. He brought the rest of it back to the house and stored it in the cold room under stasis spells. He ate it pan-seared and crusted with pepper, pink and rare and gamey.

“Definitely not human,” he told himself, and went to go fetch his spare potions kit from the lab in the old greenhouse.

Grindelwald had improved his sense of smell along with his hearing and his eyesight. The potions lab reeked to Graves’ nose, medicinal and chemical and wrong in the same way Grindelwald’s own lab had been. At least the lab in the old greenhouse didn’t reek of piss and shit and fear, the way Grindelwald’s did.

Graves gritted his teeth and brewed the potion to test for lycanthropy.

Properly brewed, Graves knew, the potion would turn silver if exposed to the werewolf pathogen. That was how the myth about werewolves and silver had gotten started; for anything else, the potion would stay the same muddy brown color. He pricked his finger and let three drops into the bowl, glowering at it when the potion turned a warm, burnished gold.

“What the fuck,” Graves said, and went off to the woods to sulk.

Boredom and a need for answers drove Graves back to the city less than a week after that. Whatever he was now, he wasn’t going to find any answers living like a hermit in the country. Too much isolationism and self-experimentation seemed like a guaranteed recipe for madness.

Graves still wasn’t sure of his control. He didn’t feel any particular need to hunt down and eat his neighbors, no matter how annoying some of them were, but he had to admit that some days they sounded more appetizing than anything he brought home from a restaurant – or worse, his pitiful bachelor attempts at cooking for himself. Food had simply been fuel, before. He hadn’t cared what it tasted like, so long as it had enough calories and nutrition to keep him going.

Food tasted wrong now: the ingredients slightly off, the meat not fresh enough, the vegetables not seasoned well enough to bring out their full potential. He found that he preferred steak tartare to steak cooked rare, which wouldn’t have been a problem, had he been able to eat anything else he ordered when he went out to eat.

He’d learned to live on half-rations while he was Grindelwald’s prisoner. Graves resigned himself to learning to live off of them again and probably would have, if not for Sarah Rogers.

Sarah Rogers lived in one of the tenement buildings near where Graves’ own lodgings where – he’d decided against anything ostentatious; it hadn’t helped when Grindelwald took him prisoner. Maybe here, where people actually seemed to know their neighbors, someone would notice if he went missing again. Sarah had a small, sickly son, and a husband who hadn’t entirely come home from the war. The whole neighborhood knew better than to try and intervene between Sarah and Joseph Rogers’ temper, but the shouting and the crying grated on Graves’ nerves, until he had no choice but to intervene.

“If you ever touch your wife and son again, I will know,” Graves said pleasantly, dangling Joseph out the window with every intention of dropping him.

“Don’t,” Sarah begged, clutching at his arms, trying to keep him from dropping the man who’d blacked both her eyes and broken at least one rib, if Graves was any judge. “Please, don’t hurt him. He’s all we’ve got.”

Part of Graves approved of the fact that Sarah was so protective of her mate, despite how Joseph treated her. But that was the part of him that Grindelwald had changed, and he knew it was the part he shouldn’t listen to.

“He’s going to kill you,” Graves told Sarah. “He’ll kill your boy, once you’re gone. It’s what men like him do.”

He might not have been human anymore, but he wouldn’t do that. Whatever he was, Graves wouldn’t kill children simply to secure his right to a breeding female. He definitely wouldn’t have harmed his own offspring.

“Please,” Sarah said again.

Graves sighed and hauled Joseph back into the apartment. “Fine,” he said.

If he left Joseph’s memories intact, Sarah would suffer for it. Joseph would assume they were having an affair, because he couldn’t imagine why anyone would intervene on her behalf otherwise. “Obliviate,” he said.

Joseph blinked in stunned incomprehension, the last fifteen or so minutes totally erased.

“Stupefy,” Graves said, and Joseph collapsed onto the floor.

Sarah rushed over to him, pressing shaking fingers against his neck. “I thought you weren’t going to hurt him!”

“I didn’t!” Graves protested, indignant. He was a creature of his word. “I just knocked him out. He’ll have a bit of a hangover in the morning, but he won’t remember any of this.”

“Oh,” said Sarah. “Thank you. Can you help me put him in bed?”

Graves made a face. This was what came of getting to know your neighbors. They expected you to be neighborly.

Still. He’d started this; it was only right that he play it all the way through.

He hauled Joseph into bed, catching sight of bright blue eyes peeking at him from the smaller bedroom. He winked. There was a squeaking noise, and then the eyes vanished and the door shut itself firmly behind them.

“Thank you,” Sarah said again. “I wish there was some way I could repay you.”

“Please,” Graves said. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just be heading home, then.”

The part of him that had been an Auror wanted to do more. Graves told himself it didn’t matter. No good could come of interfering with the No-Maj’s. If the fool woman wanted to stay with the man who would eventually kill her, that was her business.

He’d dropped his groceries in the entryway when he’d burst into the Rogers’ apartment. Graves thought about picking them up, but he suspected Sarah and her son would make better use of them than he could. The boy was sickly, everyone knew that. Fresh vegetables would do him some good. And Sarah could use some feeding up, too. How often did she go without, so her boy could eat?

“Your groceries,” Sarah began.

“Keep them,” he told her. “You and your boy need them more than I do.” They could probably make better use of them, too. He was a terrible cook.

He felt her eyes on him as he walked out of her building and next door into the one where his lodgings were. Pressed together close as they were, he could have heard Joseph’s voice and Sarah’s half-aborted screams even without the improvements Grindelwald had made to his hearing. He and Sarah knew one another in passing, and that was how Graves expected it to stay.

Sarah felt otherwise. She brought him dinner the next night – steak, a little too well done for his liking, but seasoned with a deft hand. Carrots and potatoes seasoned with fresh rosemary and cooked in the same pan as the steak, made savory with its leftover juices. Apples drizzled with honey, which he gleefully shared with her small son Steven, delighted by food that tasted good for the first time since he’d been changed.

“Steve,” Sarah protested weakly.

“He’s a growing boy, Mrs. Rogers,” Graves said, handing Steve another apple slice. “Apples are good for him.” He’d wolfed down the steak and the vegetables. Only good manners kept him from devouring the apple slices as well. “You didn’t need to do this,” he added.

Sarah set her jaw stubbornly. “I don’t take charity, Mr…?”

“Graves.”

“Mr. Graves,” she finished.

Graves considered the meal he’d just eaten. Sarah had kept just enough of his groceries for one portion of a meal. Joseph’s, or Steven’s, maybe. Not enough for herself, surely. Not unless the Rogers’ were used to surviving on considerably less than what Graves considered a half ration.

“Can I make a bargain with you, Mrs. Rogers?” he asked.

Sarah gave him a wary look. “What sort of bargain?” she asked.

Graves gestured to his bachelor lodgings. “I’m a bachelor, as I’m sure you can tell. I find my own cooking skills somewhat lacking, of late. I’d appreciate it if you could teach me how to cook properly. I can’t pay you, but anything you make you’re more than welcome to take home.” That was a lie, but he suspected it was the only way he could convince Sarah Rogers to take any food home with her.

Sarah hesitated.

“Please,” said Graves, giving her his best boyish grin. He nudged Steven, who echoed him with cherubic innocence: “Please?”

“Very well,” Sarah sighed. “How much do you know about cooking?”

“Assume the bare minimum to keep myself alive,” Graves told her, with perfect honesty.

“Right,” said Sarah. She considered his offer for long enough that Graves thought she would say no. “I can teach you how to cook, if you like. But I don’t take charity, Mr. Graves. Not from anyone.”

She should have been born a witch, Graves thought. She’d have been magnificent.

“Yes, Mrs. Rogers,” Graves said.

Sarah was a nurse, Graves learned, which explained her no nonsense demeanor and the faint smell of hospital-grade antiseptic that clung to her skin like perfume. She taught him how to select good meat - the way it was supposed to look, how fresh meat smelled versus meat that had been spoiled - and how to pick the best fruits and vegetables. She gave him cuttings from her own herb garden, maintained carefully in pots on the windowsill. She showed him the best way to season his meals to their full potential, and sighed, wistfully, when he produced ingredients she mentioned would be nice to cook with, if the cost of them weren’t so dear. (Graves tried to get her to take them home, once, and Sarah gave him a flat look. “How would I explain them?” she asked, pressing them back into his hands. Which, fine. Graves didn’t want to cause trouble between Sarah and her ass of a husband. Thank god Joseph’s sense of smell was nowhere near as good as his own, and Joseph couldn’t smell another man’s presence on her the way Graves could. Graves didn’t try to get Sarah to take anything home after that.)

“I think I’ve taught you everything I can,” Sarah said. She grimaced. “It’s not right, me spending so much time with an unmarried man.”

Someone had noticed, Graves translated. He sighed. “I wish you’d let me kill him,” he said.

Sarah swatted him. “You shouldn’t say things like that!” she scolded. “That’s not right, either.”

Graves shrugged, not especially bothered by her censure. “If you change your mind…”

“I won’t.”

“Fine.” Graves ruffled young Steven’s hair. He put a protection charm on the boy as an afterthought. A strong one; the one Aurors used to avoid near misses. He liked Steven’s tenacity. For a kid as puny and weak as he was, Steven got into enough fights for a boy twice his size. The charm for near misses seemed appropriate.

He let Sarah and Steven go back to their own lives, and went back to rebuilding his own.

Graves discovered that he liked cooking. He liked finding fresh ingredients, and working with them to bring out their full potential. He took to buying things at random, just to see what he could make with them. Then he bought a No-Maj cookbook, because the No-Maj’s had some pretty good ideas about food.

He experimented with cooking with magic and cooking the No-Maj way, which was slower and a lot more work. Graves drew the line at cleaning the No-Maj way, though. He wasn’t entirely human anymore, but he wasn’t crazy.

#my fic #unfinished ficbit #abandoned wip free to good home #percival graves #fbawtft

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markalina748 · 3 years ago

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strmyweather · 6 years ago

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one foot in front of the other, babe / one breath leads to another, yeah / just keep moving

I’m in the homestretch of my training for the New York City Marathon; the race is a little over five weeks away. Honestly, I sort of can’t believe I’m saying that -- because it seems like just a minute ago there were multiple months stretching out before me like the Great Dismal Swamp (which is an actual place) -- but now I’m realizing that there’s actually a faint light emanating from the end of this endurance tunnel. Somehow, I’ve only got four more ‘long runs’ left before the taper.

This is marathon number six for me, which might give the impression that the process is old hat by this point, but that would be thoroughly untrue. There have been a ton of ‘moving parts’ this time around, physically, mentally, and nutritionally -- maybe more so than ever before -- and I’m definitely due to set some of it down on paper. I had intended to do regular updates every couple of weeks as the training progressed, but (surprise, surprise) never actually managed to do so -- meaning this will probably be another of my infamous ten-page missives. So… pour another cup of coffee and strap in.

Back Story

I have a rather long and karmically-entangled history with the NYC Marathon. I was never a runner in adolescence -- swimming was my sport -- but took it up gradually during my senior year of college, mostly because my roommate nudged me into accompanying her on a couple of races of various distances. When we graduated and I no longer had easy access to a pool, I started doing road races and triathlons regularly, almost by default -- at that point in my life, I needed something concrete to train for in order to ensure that I remained consistently physically active. I gradually built up to marathon distance, starting with the Marine Corps Marathon in 2008, and although I entered the NYC lottery more than once, I was never selected.

In 2012, I finally just bit the bullet and bought a charity slot for NYC. Thanks largely to my PA classmates, I successfully raised 100% of the money (!) -- but those of you playing the home game may recall that 2012 was the year of Superstorm Sandy, and that the NYCM was therefore canceled that year for the first and only time since its inception. (I was literally ON THE BUS from Philadelphia to New York when the verdict came down.) Along with most of the field, I deferred my entry to 2013 -- and ended up with a stress fracture in my foot. Thoroughly annoyed, I deferred again, to 2014 -- and, a month into training, promptly sustained a stress fracture in the OTHER foot. (Pretty sure that’s what the kids call #facepalm.) However, by then I was out of deferrals, and I sure hadn’t raised that $2500 for nothing, so I adapted a CrossFit Endurance-style training plan to keep my fitness at a reasonable level while avoiding anything involving repetitive impact. Three weeks before the race, I was cleared to run.

So I did. My longest training run was five miles. It was by far my slowest marathon. It wasn’t the race I’d envisioned, to say the least. But I finished it.

That was supposed to be it. The end. The closing of a chapter. Yet somehow, every year, I have consistently managed to end up in New York City on marathon weekend. Typically, I’m just there visiting friends or seeing shows -- but this past year, it was because a dear friend of mine from the Netherlands was running the race herself. And, reliving that experience from the fringes last November -- walking around the expo with thousands of excited runners, dashing around Manhattan with my friend’s husband to try to catch a glimpse of her at various mile markers, standing on the sidelines cheering with my camera at the ready -- well, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me wish I were running myself.

So, on the spur of the moment, I threw my name in the hat, for the fifth time in ten years. And then promptly forgot about it.

...Until the evening of February 28, 2018 -- when my mind was entirely occupied by Week 2 of the CrossFit Open -- and my phone suddenly beeped with an alert for ‘Unfamiliar Credit Card Charge’.

Over the coming minutes, my initial alarm changed to confusion -- then, as the realization dawned, to equal parts shock, excitement, and dread.

Oh, shit. What had I done?

Fast-forward another seven months or so, and here we are.

Physically

The metaphor I keep using is that I feel like I’ve been driving a 4-cylinder automatic transmission for the past decade and am suddenly being asked to master a stick-shift Maserati. That’s not to say that I’m any kind of speed demon in the grand scheme of things, just that I have a much larger number of ‘gears’ than I used to. I spent a solid decade doing ‘long slow distance’ in various forms prior to discovering CrossFit in 2012, but back then, I was basically either running or walking (or crawling!) -- there wasn’t much of an in-between option. Nowadays, I’m much stronger, faster, and lighter than I used to be -- all good things! -- but this kind of training also utilizes an energy system that we just don’t routinely tax to the same degree in CrossFit, and it takes time (and mileage) to get comfortable with that. Therefore, much to my dismay, I’m having to become intimately familiar with the feel of a ‘threshold’ pace -- a.k.a. the place where I’d LIKE to slow down, but don’t objectively NEED to slow down in order to complete a given work requirement. This is occasionally validating on the back end when I review my split times -- never could’ve imagined a day where I ‘accidentally’ hit an 8:15 mile IN THE MIDDLE of a long run! -- but also inevitably involves some ‘overshooting’, a.k.a. those sessions where I come out of the gate too hot, hit a wall after two miles, and spend the remainder of the time feeling like death. Yet, slowly but surely, I’m starting to internalize how it feels to run at an 8-minute pace, vs an 8:30 or 9:00 or 9:30 pace. There are two processes happening simultaneously -- physically training my body to run faster, and mentally training my ‘sixth sense’ to learn how to calibrate a pace that can be held for MANY miles, not just two or three.

I’ve learned a couple of interesting things about myself so far, including that, on a physical level, I am inherently a more aerobic athlete (read: not a power athlete). This had already become apparent in recent months via barbell performance -- I can use a pretty high percentage of my max with decent form for a lot of reps, but tend to struggle in terms of getting my actual one-rep maxes to move upward. It turns out I’m similar with regard to running -- I can hold a ‘moderate’ pace for a relatively long time (on one of my earliest long runs, I averaged 8:54 across seven miles and felt pretty great the whole way), but, as above, I’m learning that ramping that pace up even just a little bit past the sweet spot will quickly lead to a major crash and burn. However, I suppose I’d prefer to be built this way, as opposed to the alternative -- and one silver lining is that, since my 10-rep maxes are a lot closer to my 1RMs than they have any right to be, my working weights on the current (muscular-endurance-focused) weightlifting cycle haven’t had to drop down SO far as to make me sad. :)

In terms of programming, at my request, we are continuing to prioritize my CrossFit fitness, just with a necessarily heavy slant toward endurance and bodyweight strength. Running isn’t my primary sport and isn’t going to be; my goal is simply to ‘complete’ this marathon in relatively good shape -- to stay healthy as possible throughout the training, to feel strong for the majority of the event, to soak in and thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere of such a special race, to crush several very large piles of food afterward (first stop: milk bar!) -- and then immediately jump back into ‘normal’ CrossFit training. A new PR would be a bonus -- and I do think it’s well within my abilities -- but I also won’t be too upset if it doesn’t happen; I’m playing the long game here, and I’m much more concerned with retaining muscle mass and overall fitness than with earning the fastest possible marathon time.

This all means that my actual ‘mileage’ is relatively minimal -- which is good for me, both in terms of personal preference and due to the fact that my feet are typically the part of me that ‘breaks’ first when subjected to high volume. (Other CrossFitters have wonky shoulders or knees; my own personal Achilles’ heel -- pun intended -- has always been my feet.) I started out having weekly long runs programmed on Sunday mornings and two-a-day sessions on Wednesdays (light CrossFit in the morning + running speedwork at the track in the evening). However, I promptly sustained a (mild) foot injury in the third week of increasing speed mileage (#typical). This led to us changing the sprints over to the rower and assault bike -- so now, with five weeks to go, my only true running is the long Sunday-morning piece. However, almost everything else I’m doing supports those sessions by having taken a sharp turn towards aerobic capacity and bodyweight strength. My ‘metcon’-style work these days is usually ridiculously long and pretty boring -- think anything that taxes the legs: biking and rowing mixed with long light high-rep sets of wallballs, thrusters, air squats, deadlifts -- but I’ve just had to accept that. (I halfheartedly complained at one point early on, and Coach shrugged and said matter-of-factly, “Well, it’s either this or more running,” so I immediately buttoned my lip!) :)

This brings me to...

Mentally

Going in, I tried to keep a semi-open mind -- after all, I did this for a solid decade prior to CrossFit; this could turn out to feel like a refreshing break for me. It might even be exciting to do something a little different for a while. No such luck, though; I’m actually finding this type of training to be tremendously more mentally fatiguing than regular CrossFit, for two main reasons.

First (and most obviously) -- compared to barbells and handstand push-ups and ‘three-two-one-go’, endurance training is just LONG and BORING. There have certainly been a few gratifying moments -- ‘accidentally’ running a sub-27-minute 5k during training, crushing 3000 calories in a day, realizing I’ve somehow become that girl who truly is most comfortable running in just a sports bra (who even AM I?!?). But it simply isn’t where my heart is. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure the only way I was able to convince myself that I ‘liked’ this for so many years is because back then I wasn’t physically ‘training’ so much as giving myself a forced MENTAL break -- shoving in my headphones, zoning out, letting my mind wander. Fast paces were things that occasionally ‘happened’ on days when I felt good, not things that I could deliberately strive for. As I mentioned above -- turns out it’s a whole different ball game (and a lot more mentally taxing) when you’re actually TRAINING at a prescribed intensity level and staying attuned to keeping yourself there.

And secondly, this type of training is a lot more isolating than I had bargained for -- both physically and mentally. Gym-wise, I knew it wouldn’t be fun to watch other people crushing their CrossFit goals while I sat on the assault bike plugging away at another hour-long conditioning piece… but I was at least somewhat mentally prepared for that part. What’s been harder has been the (many, many) hours when I’m NOT in the gym. Getting up at 4:00am to cover a dozen miles in the dark before work is not much fun, nor is forcing myself to drive to the track at 7pm after I’ve worked a full clinic day and just want to go home to bed. It’s also tough to feel as though nobody in my life can relate to both this odd set of obligations AND the (even odder) accompanying headspace -- after all, most endurance athletes choose this method of training because they genuinely enjoy it. And -- to add insult to injury -- because the repetitive pounding beats my body up in a whole new way, it means I have to be hyper-focused on recovery (I’m getting to that!)... which then FURTHER detracts from time that I could be spending training in a way that I DO actually enjoy.

Training is generally my favorite part of any given day, because I usually find it validating and motivating just by its own nature. So, lately, it’s been frustrating and demoralizing -- and, frankly, a little frightening -- to feel such a major piece of my life evolving into a chore. I’ve certainly completed marathons on far less training than this (albeit a lot more slowly and painfully), so there have been many moments when it’s been hard to stare down the gun barrel of WHAT DO YOU MEAN TEN MORE WEEKS (or however long). However, I’m trying to remain cognizant of the fact that this is temporary -- and that, the better-prepared I am for the marathon, the less of a toll it will take on my body -- and therefore, the faster I can jump back into the stuff I really love.

This brings me to…

Recovery

I'm being extraordinarily careful about prioritizing my recovery, in part because, with endurance training, problems tend to show up LATER rather than declaring themselves in the moment. Aches and pains tend to be related to overuse, rather than to any kind of obviously-pinpointable injury, which makes them more slippery and insidious -- and therefore more difficult to prevent (until the horse is already out of the barn, that is). This is not my first rodeo with regard to distance running -- I've completed five marathons, over a dozen half marathons, and quite a few triathlons -- so I’m well aware of this dynamic by now. I had a bone deformity in one of my feet as a teenager, and although it’s been corrected, I've still had the pleasure over the years of dealing with shin splints, Achilles tendinitis, severe plantar fasciitis, and two metatarsal stress fractures. The latter is the worst-case scenario for any runner -- because by the time you 'feel' a stress fracture, it's already too late. That’s exactly where I’ve ended up during two of my previous marathon training attempts -- and is a place that I’ve been valiantly trying NOT to revisit.

Knock on wood, this training program has kept me considerably healthier overall than any of my previous attempts (not coincidentally, it’s also been the plan with the smallest weekly run mileage!). As I mentioned, I did end up with a mild foot injury a couple of weeks ago (nothing ‘specific’ enough for a true diagnosis; my left foot/ankle just got ‘angry’ through the retinaculum and the lower segment of the tibialis anterior) -- but it was definitely a soft-tissue problem this time, nothing bony, and responded well to a couple of weeks off running, some RockTape, a better-fitting pair of shoes, and a couple sessions with the PT and the bodywork guru at my gym (both of whom I’m seeing about twice a month for dry-needling, cupping, taping, and various other ‘hurts so good’ interventions!). My coach and I are perfectly in line with our opinions on this, which is that -- if we have to choose -- it’s vastly preferable for me to reach the start line healthy and perhaps slightly underprepared, versus crush every mile of the training and then be in pain from the first five minutes on the day when it actually matters.

Honestly, I am feeling incredibly well-supported in terms of the team I have around me -- more so than I have been maybe EVER, athletically speaking -- and so (general saltiness aside) I’m actually managing to stay pretty calm, even during the acute injury phase. First, because it always feels like a small miracle to be able to lie down on the therapy table with legitimate pain, and then stand up a little while later with it having essentially vanished (!) -- but second, because of the sheer emotional comfort that lies in the knowledge that (for once in my life) I actually don’t have to worry about EVERY little thing, that ‘other people are taking care of’ some pieces of this puzzle. The three of them are all aware of ‘where I’m at’ physically, and are in communication as far as what they think is best for me, which is such a gift. Just the awareness of that support network provides me with a huge amount of reassurance -- AND additional motivation to ‘do my best for them’, after all the time and energy they’re investing in me. (The first time she dry-needled the injured area, the PT bade me farewell after the session with the admonishment, “Don’t f*ck up my good work.”)

Unrelated: one other thing I’ve found useful for recovery purposes has been my new Garmin watch (Fenix 5S). It’s definitely not a hundred percent accurate -- it’s very much an endurance watch and thus has absolutely no idea how to interpret regular CrossFit most of the time, so it occasionally tells me my weekly training load is ‘light’ or that my performance condition is ‘peaking’ when that is BLATANTLY FALSE -- but in terms of things like heart rate, daily stress level, and sleep quality, it’s fascinating to see numerical data that backs up my own internal gauges, and it’s admittedly also been pretty helpful nutritionally in terms of calorie burn estimates (I’m getting to that!). And although it’s apt to underestimate my effort output at times, there are other times when it keeps me honest; on one memorable occasion, my coach sent me a new month’s worth of programming, and I saw that my long Saturday metcons had been dropped in favor of more movements that were labeled as ‘for quality’ or ‘not for time’. This is the sort of stuff I tend to find ‘boring’, and I groaned internally as I made a note to ask her why she’d done that. However, before we even had a chance to discuss it, I completed my first Friday session on the new plan (over 60 straight minutes of biking, rowing, wallballs, lunges, running, and air squats, if you’re curious!) -- and as soon as I clicked my stopwatch off, Garmin popped up with a cheery little note: “Recovery Time 45 Hours / Easy Effort Recommended.”

Well then. As usual -- it seems Coach knows what she’s doing!

Awesome support crew and techie gadgets aside, a few other essential recovery things: -- compression socks or calf sleeves for the 24 hours following a long run -- supplements: vitamin D, krill oil, zinc/magnesium/B6, probiotics, vitamin C -- a consistent 9-9:30pm bedtime -- Epsom salt baths after the heaviest leg days -- tart cherry juice in my workout shake (helps reduce inflammation) -- and doing my best to NEVER be in a calorie deficit (more on this below).

Which brings me to...

Nutritionally / Fueling

One enormous and unexpected side benefit of this whole process is that I’ve had to become much more flexible and forgiving with regard to food. (This is something that definitely needed to happen, but I just couldn’t really foresee exactly how I was going to get there!) I’ve been following Renaissance Periodization for 18 months now (cut #1, short maintenance, cut #2, long maintenance, third/SHORT cut, now currently on maintenance again), and it has done phenomenal things for me (which is why I’ve stuck to it so rigidly until now); however, the origins of the program lie in weightlifting and strength training. To their credit, RP has put forth a lot of effort recently to try to tailor their approach to make it work for endurance training, and I definitely found their tools to be a pretty useful starting point in terms of calculating carb recommendations for long run days -- but I also learned that the math could really only carry me so far. A standalone long run is one thing, but it gets trickier when I’ve got (for example) a day with two training sessions, or a workout that’s maybe only an hour long but is almost entirely composed of sprints, or one of those super long Fridays where my ‘metcon’ is 60-100 minutes of work at “70% effort”. The bottom line is, at some point, you just have to take the toolbox you’ve got, start experimenting, and figure out what works for your body.

I’ve said before that I think one of the official RP hashtags should be #alwayslearning, and this training cycle has been no exception! While I obviously knew I would need more carbs/calories on long run days, I did NOT expect for the caloric demand to increase ACROSS THE BOARD as much as it did. It didn’t present as traditional ‘hunger’, so I didn’t recognize the ‘deficit dynamic’ at first -- but after a couple of great weeks initially, my performance and general well-being started to fall off around the 4-week mark. I wasn’t sleeping well, was feeling generally moody and anxious, and my long run paces were significantly slower than they had been up until that point. I also knew the scale had been running rather low, in the 138s-139s. However, none of this by itself was THAT far out of the range of ‘normal’, so it took me a week or two to put it all together. The larger picture didn’t fully click until, independently of one another, two separate CrossFit coaches (both of whom I’d only known for a month!) asked me if I had lost weight. That finally prompted me to look back at my daily scale trends, and I realized that my ‘maintenance’ was not actually maintenance; I’d slowly lost about two pounds over the course of the first month of endurance training.

Now, while two pounds is obviously not a tremendous amount of weight, this was still a super important phenomenon to identify and address, because in my case, it would NOT be beneficial for me to get any smaller right now. From a general health and performance standpoint, I’m already right where I need to be (my DEXA scan in July measured me at 17% body fat), which means that losing weight would fly directly in the face of ALL my goals: not just day-to-day performance and recovery, but also muscle retention. Muscle is a heavy and metabolically demanding tissue, so the body doesn’t want to hang onto more of it than it truly NEEDS -- so it’s one of the first things to go during heavy endurance training (ever checked out the physique of a Kenyan marathoner?). Since my primary goal is to preserve CrossFit fitness and performance, the last thing I want to do is sacrifice my hard-earned muscle on the altar of marathon training.

Another SUPER important facet to all of this is hormonal health -- which, unfortunately, seems to be one of those things to which I’m more sensitive than some other women. During the past 18 months of intermittent cutting, my body has shown me repeatedly that it haaaaaates being in an energy deficit (and that it will respond to this by promptly grinding my reproductive cycle to a halt for MONTHS). And while I don’t necessarily love everything about the monthly cycle, it’s an inescapable fact that estrogen is one of the best defenses I have against all this repetitive pounding on my feet. As I mentioned, I already have a history of two prior metatarsal stress fractures, both sustained during marathon training -- therefore, I absolutely need my biochemistry to hang in there this time around!

At any rate, in hindsight, I’ve been playing this RP game long enough now that I felt pretty stupid for not recognizing the ‘deficit phenomenon’ sooner. Once the light bulb came on, I started increasing calories, mostly carbs (amid a lot of jokes about my need for ‘supplemental frozen yogurt’); this immediately made performance feel much better and got my run paces back to the range where they needed to be. I’ve learned that 200g carbs seems to be the absolute minimum on a training day (and on most days it’s significantly more!), and that even on rest days I need a few more carbs (for recovery purposes) than my templates officially prescribe. However, it eventually turned out that in order to truly stabilize my weight (and to stop waking up hungry at two o’clock in the morning!), I ultimately had to slightly increase my training day fats as well. As we got deeper into the training plan and my sessions got longer, I also had to tweak my pre- and intra-workout strategies to figure out how best to fuel for a longer time duration (it’s not unusual nowadays for my Friday gym workouts to take over three hours -- meaning my regular fruit juice and whey shake alone simply isn’t sufficient) and/or what types of things I prefer to carry and consume while I’m out running. (On the plus side, my iron gut serves me well here; many runners suffer GI distress related to intra-workout nutrition, but it turns out there’s not a whole lot that I can’t tolerate!)

I’m definitely still tweaking and refining -- it (unfortunately!) isn’t as easy as just stuffing my face round the clock, because GAINING weight right now obviously wouldn’t be ideal either -- but I’m learning a ton, and, equally important, am also learning how to relax a little. My modus operandi for just about everything in life is that I tend to dive in at 120% enthusiasm, then have to slowly work my way back to a place of more moderation, and RP has been no exception. But this endurance training cycle has really forced me to try some different things as well as be a bit less rigid in general -- i.e. more willing to eat ‘combination’ foods (that don’t fall squarely into one macro category), and even to dine out in restaurants once a week or so. (Exhibit A: the best free meal I’ve had recently was a fried green tomato biscuit from Rise, when I did my long ten-mile run on a Sunday morning and then met up with two other runner friends for breakfast. LOOK AT THAT HEALTHY BALANCED RP MAINTENANCE LIFE. :)) Additionally, the necessity of (on many Sundays) fitting a homemade high-carb meal in between an early-AM long run and a full day of work means I’ve also learned how to make certain things in such a way that I actually enjoy them just as much as (or even more than!) the restaurant versions. For example, Aldi’s frozen sushi is surprisingly awesome, a home-assembled burrito bowl is totally on par with Chipotle, and (for me) a flatbread pizza in the toaster oven really does satisfy a pizza craving. I’m reaching the point where (MOST) food just isn’t really that exciting anymore -- which is actually a pretty great (mentally healthy) place to be.

Unintentional weight loss is one of those things that sounds like a #firstworldproblem to a lot of people -- and in another scenario, I can see how it could be! -- but honestly, I’m grateful to have experienced this ‘problem’, because the necessity of tackling it has been a pretty big eye-opener. This whole process has required a new level of intuition -- less straightforward following of a numerical macro chart, and more paying attention to my body’s physical, mental, and emotional cues. If I’m feeling ridiculously tired and depleted after a long workout (even if I don’t feel obviously ‘hungry’), or if I’m noticing that my hand ‘wants’ to flash out and grab the frozen yogurt when I open the freezer, then I probably need more carbs. If I wake up hungry at 2:00am, I probably didn’t eat enough fat that day. And, when eating foods I didn’t ‘plan’ for, it’s been validating to see that what often feels to me like a ‘crackout’ is usually just my body trying to maintain homeostasis. During the first few weeks of trying to sort through all this ‘data’, there were several occasions where I ate a larger-than-normal amount of something (usually the better part of a pint of frozen yogurt...) that I didn’t necessarily ‘plan’ to have. Each time, I fretted guiltily for a few minutes -- then did the actual macro/calorie math in the context of that morning’s workout and realized that my body had done EXACTLY what it was supposed to do, almost to the point of being eerie (as in, I worked for X minutes longer than last week, and today’s calories worked out to be X amount higher than last week -- without any intentional effort on my part to make it so. Biology is pretty neat). On some level, I do still ‘expect’ myself to self-sabotage -- and maybe always will expect that to some degree -- but these past couple months have reinforced to me yet again that my body truly does ‘know what it needs’ most of the time, and that I can actually ‘trust myself’ on a gut level a lot more than I tend to believe I can on a cerebral level.

What’s Next

We’re not quite tapering yet, but getting close. Tomorrow is my peak-length metcon -- by my reckoning, that portion alone is going to take about 95-100 minutes (!). But after tomorrow, Fridays will get somewhat shorter; the metcon portion will probably only take 20-30 minutes or so for the remainder of this cycle (and I’m laughing out loud at the fact that that genuinely sounds like a SHORT metcon to me now!). My long runs on Sundays will continue to build for another 3-4 weeks; the programming is written in ‘minutes’, not miles, and we lost some time because of the foot injury, but my rough calculations would suggest that I’ll make it to about 14-15 miles (on October 21st) before the two-week taper. (Which, yeah, is a bit shorter than ideal, but as I said above -- better 15 and healthy than 20 and broken.)

November 4th is the big day. I’m so, so ready to be done with this training, yet (I’ll admit) am also getting something of a ‘second wind’ mentally now that the end is finally in sight. And while I have no plans to ever (EVER) do another marathon after this one, I’m also not so jaded that I can’t recognize how very grateful I’ll be, come race morning, for all the blood, tears, and sweat (SO MUCH SWEAT) that I’m putting in right now.

In 38 days (38 days!), this will all be worth it.

#marathon #training #running #goals #fitness #crossfit #progress #RP #RPstrength #renaissanceperiodization

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