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wallacejwriting · 2 years ago

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Hello! Welcome to the blog. This is an updated intro. I've been here for a minute, just wanted to tidy things up.

I am Wallace, but I also like Wally and Lace just as much (and I generally refer to myself as Lace), so feel free to pick your preference! They/Them or He/Him pronouns, in that order.

This is my writing sideblog. My main blog is over at @lacependragon! I will follow, like, comment on posts, and send asks from there, but I post my writing here and I reblog writing stuff to this blog.

I'm a queer, autistic author with chronic illness/pain and a whole lot of wips. I'm Canadian. I've been writing over half my life (and when you're a couple years shy of 30, that's not bad!) and I was reasonably popular as a fanfic author (RWBY fics mostly), something I've largely stopped doing as of September, 2021.

I'm very passionate. Which is to say I have a Lot(TM) of opinions. And I refuse to take personality tests even if I love them for characters.

Also I really love writing programs. I don't think you need them to be a good author, whatsoever, but god I love them so much.

My Writing

I write basically two things: big ass, character driven, SFF series with tightly woven plots & relationships, plus ridiculous amounts of lore and worldbuilding; and romance novels. That's it. I'm pretty sure I'm better at the latter, which I think is cool.

Also: I have a lots of wips. I cycle between them regularly but I always come back around to the others eventually.

I can sum up my writing as such:

Mostly SFF with a focus on fantasy and scifantasy

Character focused and driven

Often relationship driven - family, friendship, romance, etc.

Almost all of my protagonists are they/them NBs or some other flavour of trans

Mainly queer, disabled, neurodivergent characters

Queer and trans focused romances, also polycules

Found family, slow burn romance, platonic bonds, redemption arcs, overcoming adversity & trauma

Gray morality and tough decisions

Intricate world-building, in-depth magic systems, lots of fantasy creatures, and details on how these things interact with everyday and overarching life

Puns. A lot of puns.

A lot of silly combo words I use as a shortcut to avoid conlanging unnecessarily (though I do LOVE a good conlang)

Listen there's a lot of apocalypses in my WIPs. And overcoming them. It's a theme. It's because of the state of the world. Roll with it.

The Blog

What can you expect on this blog?

Character intros, WIP intros, worldbuilding posts, magic building posts, lore posts, and more

Lots of rambling posts about my WIPs, in general, and progress updates as I draft them

Screenshots and discussions of writing programs, including Scrivener, Word, Excel, Plottr, Aeon Timeline, Scapple, Powerpoint, Illustrator (for maps), Clip Studio Paint (for maps), Photoshop (for nonsense), and Notepad++

Snippets and chapters from various drafts of various WIPs

Inspiration posts for various WIPs

Reblogs of other writeblrs I think are great

Tips, tricks, and advice I picked up from my own experiences as a writer

Rambles about writing, the universe, and my process

Non-Writing Tag: #wall talk

The WIPs

[Under the cut because oh my goodness this is getting long]

Main Projects

THE METAHUMAN INITIATIVE Book One: Descent

Series Overview Urban fantasy, mystery/thriller, suspense, adult. Long as fuck.

Nat Carter is drawn to Veda City, a place built to uncover the secrets of superpowers in Metahumans, after the violent and mysterious death of their family. Once there, they set out to uncover who killed their family, why, and how it boosted Nat's own powers, only to realize that the conspiracy is far deeper than they ever imagined. And, somehow, Nat might be at the centre of it all.

BEURKRATTI: THE PLACE OF STONES

Series Overview High fantasy, urban/constructed fantasy, adventure, mystery, adult. Multiple connecting series.

The changing world brings forgotten history forward. The Wardens, the protectors of the world, struggle to find the source of the faltering ancient magic that is causing widespread destruction. Old gods and new are risen in the Free Cities, and nothing is as it seems. For a young Warden, Katya, an opportunity arises to seek the answers for her people's inevitable spiral into nothingness, only to find far more than she ever bargained for.

Currently Undergoing Major Revisions

Links: WIP Post [Being Updated] | Series Tag | Book One Tag [TBA] | Spotify Playlist [None]

BOOK OF FARSIDE Book One: City of Fractured Dreams

Series Overview Scifantasy, apocalypse, adventure, mystery/suspense, adult. Series.

A floating, island city suffocated by civil unrest is thrown into deeper and more violent turmoil after the return of the apocalypse kills its elite fighting force in one fell swoop. Everyone seeking power leaps at the chance to seize it, all while ignoring the dark fate that made it possible. Amidst it all, two siblings, separated by eight years and an entire city, struggle to find one another and not lose themselves in the process.

Links: WIP Post | Series Tag | Ramble Tag | Book One Tag | Spotify Playlist

PATHS MADE OF STARDUST

Series Overview Fantasy, magic school, mystery/suspense, young adult. Series.

Every year, new witches flock to one of the many witch colleges across Mokeno. This year, three students arriving at Starmont College will cross paths for more than just classes. Two first-year students discover a third is held captive by her father's illegal curses and fight to free her from his grasp. If they succeed, they can bring down one of the most corrupt men in the country. If they fail, getting caught will be the least of their problems.

Links: WIP Post [Being Updated] | Series Tag | Book One Tag [TBA] | Spotify Playlist [None]

RESTORING MOONBLOOM HOLLOW

Series Overview Romance, fantasy romance, polyamory, adult. Companion series.

A dying trading post on an abandoned road receives new life when a poorly worded ad tricks an alchemist into moving to the town. Unfortunately, Arlo is not the saviour Moonbloom Hollow was looking for. Two townspeople, Samir and Winnie, don't let Arlo's grumpy exterior stop them, however. They are determined to save their town, and Arlo is determined to save themself. Maybe, working together, everyone can get what they need, and maybe fall in love along the way.

Links: WIP Post [Being Made] | Series Tag | Book One Tag | Spotify Playlist [None]

Side Projects/Minor Projects

Supernova | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, contemporary, young adult. Standalone 15-year-old Andie has never belonged. Bounced from foster home to foster home, they figure they’ll leave the system when they age out. An encounter after school one day awakens powers Andie never knew they had and quickly turns their life upside down. A foster home that cares, foster parents who know their struggles, a new school, and even new friends. But where did Andie come from? And how did they get here? They need to know, or they’ll never be able to rest.

Ghostpossible | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, new adult. Standalone When Y2K hit, it tore open a portal through the ether, letting ghosts, spooks, and all sorts of monsters through. Sixty years later, the best people to tackle the dead and ghastly are the young, and Kai Yeung, part time college student and full-time big sibling, is trying to make it big in the ghost hunting live streaming business. Money is tight, and this is their best option. Until a guy named Archie shows up and reveals that he’s been possessed by an ancient magical artifact and the very grumpy warrior trapped inside it. If Kai can get the artifact off, they can sell it and provide for their sister for years to come, but that’s only if they can get it off Archie before those chasing him can catch up.

Demon Fuckers Anonymous | wip post | tag Fantasy, dark academia, new adult, erotica. Standalone. A disabled student in their upper years at a prestigious, elitist, bullshit academy for magical grad school struggles to keep up due to exhaustion and ableism. To get back on track, they summon a demon in hopes of getting him to help. But the summon uncovers a deep conspiracy beneath the bowels of the school, and a long pent up desire to connect with someone, mind and body.

Queer Witch Cozies | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, cozy mystery, romance, adult. Series Ciar Gallagher can find things no one else can, that’s their talent as a witch. So when a frantic man comes to the door one night begging for Ciar’s help, they’re pretty sure they can do it. But there’s two problems. One, the man is a regular human, one with no knowledge of magic, and two, he’s asking Ciar to find his kidnapped daughter, and Ciar’s never tracked a person before.

Care Home for Chosen Ones | wip post | tag Urban fantasy, contemporary, adult. Standalone 25-year-old Marlowe takes great pride in their career as a care worker at Sunrise Elder Care, especially in their chats with the remaining chosen ones of a long finished prophecy. But when strange shadows begin to haunt the care home, Marlowe must summon all their knowledge and their most trusty weapon – the push broom – in order to stop the returning Dark One and save the elder chosen ones and their home before it’s too late.

Persephone Project | wip post | tag Science fiction, mystery/thriller, adult. Standalone Five years ago, Axl Thorn was arrested aboard the U.S.S. Faraday for techno-terrorism and multiple counts of first degree murder. Now, the cybernetic attacks have made a resurgence, but this time someone else is behind the keyboard. Pulled out of holding to help, Axl is kept on a short leash by their pissed off personal guard, whose job is both to keep Axl out of trouble – hah! – and to keep others from attacking them. Yet as the attacks grow stronger, the unlikely allies must cast aside their differences if they have any hope of saving the station and all those it connects to.

#writeblr #my wips #my writing #writing intro #writeblr intro #updated intro

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dangermousie · 4 years ago

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Mousie’s absolutely subjective, very biased Top 10 web novels list

Please note that this is hardly aiming to be objective, if one can even be properly objective about a work of fiction. It is 110% based on my preferences, which means this list is heavy on the angst and has nothing set in the modern day. It is also heavily danmei-centric, even though I read way more het romance than danmei, because for whatever reason, most of the danmei I’ve read has been insanely good.

10. Return of the Swallow - one of the two non-danmeis on this list. Smart and nuanced and with a large cast of characters. Our heroine is a long-lost daughter of the family that is brought back in and has to cope with familial struggles, crazy royals, court intrigue, invasion et al. It’s SO GOOD! There is romance with the sexy smart enemy general but honestly, it’s the heroine that is the main selling point for me.

9. Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - the only other non-danmei novel on this list, this was my very first web novel and what drew me into this insanity. This is just a ton of fun, probably the lightest novel on this list, not an ounce of angst to be found. But it’s hilarious and features competent heroine and tsundere hero and I will always love it for opening a new world to me. Anyway, our heroine transmigrates into the novel as the female lead. Unlike the original lead though she doesn’t want to seek adventures and angst - she just wants to comfortably live with the wealthy, nice husband heroine has. Alas, said husband is no longer nice since he has previously lived this story where he was betrayed by FL and then transmigrated/reincarnated into the past. Oh well, the heroine opens up businesses and makes friends. And eventually, her husband realizes his wife is way different this time around. This actually doesn’t have much romance, not until close to the end, but this is so fun I don’t care.

8. Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

7. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) - oh come on, how are you even on this tumblr if you don’t know MDZS/The Untamed? This was my very first danmei and it’s so much fun! I love everything about it - the unreliable narrator, the looping structure, the main OTP, Wei Wuxian’s laidback, traumatized insouciance, everything. Anyway, the plot in the event you somehow transported here from 2005 is that the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Wei Wuxian, was defeated by the righteous sects over a decade ago and fell of a cliff to his death. Only now that same Wei Wuxian opens his eyes in another body and everything that was supposed to stay in the past starts again.

6. Heaven Official’s Blessing (TGCF) - people either love its meandering narrative, picaresque structure and cast of thousands, or find it a detriment compared to much more compact MDZS. I love it even more than MDZS for those very qualities. It does have a rock-solid, darling OTP, but what really elevates it to me are the MXTX trademark combo of snarky/light tone hiding a ton of trauma underneath, the insanely intricate world-building, and what it has to say about the nature of grace and goodness. Xie Lian is one of my top 5 web novel characters and probably in top 10 from anywhere. Oh, and while MXTX’s stuff is not as angsty for me as Meatbun’s or even Priest’s, there are always exceptions, and there is one chapter in this novel that pretty much broke me and sometimes I still flashback to it and feel unwell.

Anyway, what is it about? There is a commotion in the heavenly realm - Xie Lian, the Crown Prince of a long-destroyed kingdom, has ascended to Godhood. That in itself is not so exciting. However for Xie Lian this is the third time (!!!!) as he’s ascended and lost his godhood twice prior. And now, the biggest joke of the divine realm is back, throwing the heavenly realm into chaos. And elsewhere, Hua Cheng, one of the four most powerful demons of that Universe, sits up and takes notice.

5. Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is also finding the middle path between their two very different philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

4. Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

3. To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two take up farming, get involved in the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

1. The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

#cnovel #2ha #yuwu #to rule in a turbulent world #lsww #sha po lang #golden stage #return of the swallow #transmigrator meets reincarnator #lord seventh #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #heaven official's blessing #the dumb husky and his white cat shizun

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yurimother · 4 years ago

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LGBTQ Light Novel Review – I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2

A Defining and Relentlessly Queer Work in the Next Era of Yuri

I have backed myself into a corner and see no way out of it. For I have already awarded Inori's I'm in Love with the Villainess a perfect 10/10 score for its stellar first outing. And then, upon seeing what Inori did in the second book, I regret my choice because I have no way to raise the bar on perfection as Inori did in her light novel. Indeed, it has taken me far too long to write this review. My mind is thoroughly exhausted after pondering what I read and accepting the honest truth: that that may very well become a defining work in the next generation of Yuri. For as much time as I spend diving into the Sapphic news of the day, I devote even more to looking to the next big movement of Yuri. If I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2 is a signal of what Yuri's future holds, then we are entering an extraordinary queer era.

The story takes off shortly after the first book. At least for the moment, the commoner revolt is quelled, and Rae continues schooling alongside her beloved Claire. Storylines include a new transfer student rivaling Rae for Claire's affection and the girls going on vacation to visit their families. However, the story takes a pretty dramatic and welcome turn halfway through the book. Through a combination of luck and her expect negotiation tactics, a fruit of her intimate knowledge of Revolution's world and inhabitants, Rae is tasked with investigating corrupt nobles. This change allows Inori to take the world and characters further than in the previous book. While the first volume did an excellent job establishing the world inside the school, this entry ventures beyond the academy's borders into international relationships, the church's role and goals, and the dealings of various factions and political parties. It is appropriate progression and one that lends to the story's main arc well.

While all of these events occur, Rae continues her mission of protecting Claire from the inevitable new order. By the time the finale rolls around, it is so immensely satisfying to see all of her plans and strategies pay off. It carefully balances rewarding the reader's attention and keeping them engaged with new twists and revelations. As the story develops, Claire is exposed to more of the reality of common life through Rae and comes to appreciate her privilege and understand the realities of socioeconomic inequality, evolving from the arrogant young woman we initially met. This path has two effects on the story; first, it allows Inori to explore real-world economic disparity issues while still worldbuilding. Second, it ultimately continues the story of Rae's plan, as she wants Claire to be in the commoner's good graces.

These elements make for a fantastic story in a rich, developed fantasy world. However, I adore I'm in Love with the VIllainess not for its intricate magic system but because of the phenomenal LGBTQ+ representation. I was floored by a frank, open, and wonderfully thoughtful discussion of queer representation in the first volume. Few, if any, Yuri works have done anything similar, and it was honestly an inspiration for me, so much so that I awarded it a perfect score almost solely for that passage. However, Inori once again usurps her own throne, taking this forthright and deliberate queer content and turning it up to eleven!

It is almost easier to count the number of main characters not confirmed as members of the LGBTQ community. Figures big and small have their identities explored and revealed during this novel. Some began believing themselves to be straight and exploring their sexuality further. In contrast, others are comforted by Rae's fierce, outspoken, and brazen support and pride in her identity to come forward. One particular scene that comes to mind is when she scolds a pair of nuns for using religion to justify their homophobia. This moment was particularly satisfying to return to after the Catholic Church's recent disavowing of same-sex marriage.

The series even has a character struggling with gender dysphoria who is liberated from society's expectations thanks to a rather ingenious plan of Rae's and her friends, new and old. While not exactly an example of authentic transgender representation as we consider it, as the character's struggles with gender result from a magical curse, but the parallel is clear. Speaking of reality though, the volume grants some glimpses into Ohashi Rei's life, the woman that would one day wake up as Rae.

Rae's experiences with LGBTQ+ identity, set in the real world, are powerful and pull few punches. It is perhaps here that Inori gets most honest and tragic, as Rae painfully describing the ostracization and suffering faced by queer people, culminating in a trans man's suicide (the author thankfully does not describe the actual death). However, Inori balances this pain with the thrill and joy of discovery and accepting oneself, and finding kinship. It is writing that could only come from an author who had experienced these feelings herself, and they will be immediately understood and have a visceral effect on queer readers. I love these moments so much for their vulnerability and relatability. But my favorite part has to be the ending (skip to the final paragraph if you want to avoid spoilers and somehow have not seen the cover of Volume 3).

We finally come to the big queer happy homosexual ending, which is also gay, and my great Yuri goddess, it is perfect! After wading through a revolution and enough surprise revelation to last a lifetime, Claire and Rae settle down into their new life together. Although they cannot legally get married, despite their best efforts, they are absolutely wives. Their families support them, they love each other, and they even have kids! Yes, this unexpected and blissful development, the final gift of this volume, comes in the form of adopted children May and Aleah.

As I exclaimed upon the reveal of Vol. 3's cover, which features the mothers and children, "WE DID IT!! YURI FAMILY!! In Yuri, there are virtually NO stories about queer women raising a family with children together. It is a long dream of mine, the YuriMother, to promote such stories. To have one of the most profound and explicitly queer Yuri stories end in such a happy and new way brought me to happy tears. Except, this is not the end! There are two more volumes beyond this one that continue the story of Claire, Rae, and their children! There is even a very sweet and wonderfully sappy, tear-jerking, bonus chapter of the mother's bonding with the children and helping them recover from their traumatic past. And even become TEACHERS; I could just die happy in this Yuri paradise!

'We need to show we are prepared to live happily ever after, as a family of four. So, I swear to God: I will always love May, Aleah, and Rae.' When Claire said this, she broke out into a tremendous smile and I found myself once more overflowing with love for her. I held her close without saying anything.

Inori's I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2 is precisely what an excellent sequel should be and everything I have ever wanted from a Yuri story. It appropriately raised the stakes in every way, expanding the world, flushing out its many factions and conflicts, and setting a new bar for queer representation and discussion in Yuri. Everything Inori writes feels so perfectly slotted together. Each set piece adds to the character development; each queer issue and identity showcased helps build towards the satisfying and exceptionally gay finale. It is a superlative weaving and integration of the priceless artifacts into an absolute masterclass of LGBTQ+ storytelling. I suspect that this is one of the opening works in Yuri's next era, and I cannot wait to see what follows.

Ratings: Story – 10 Characters – 10 Art – 4 LGBTQ – 10 Sexual Content – 2 Final – 10

Check out I'm in Love with the Villainess Vol. 2 digitally and in paperback today: https://amzn.to/39gE664

Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

My sincere thanks to Jenn Yamazaki, Nibedita Sen, E.M. Candon, and the rest of the team at Seven Seas Entertainment for translating and adapting this light novel.

#Reviews #yuri #anime #manga #books #literature #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#queer #gay #lesbian #lesbians #girls love #gl #wlw #trans

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fortunescaling · 2 years ago

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1, 3 and 12 :)

What made you pick the character?

I’ve always had an interest in the Quincy since their introduction with Uryuu. I felt very intrigued by their implied grim backstory, the stark contrast in their rather straightforward power to the more intricate Shinigami’s, Uryuu’s strong pride in his heritage, the clashing stances in his family...

When TYBW got out, I originally had a bit of a hard time connecting with the Quincy as individuals as they did not get a lot of focus, in terms of backstory or build up. But Jugram’s backstory absolutely won me over. I never expected him to turn into such a compelling character.

I generally lean towards writing characters who have a very different mindset to mine, who offers compelling, relatable flaws and nuanced to work with. All the better if they come from a complex world/ in-story culture or sub group that gives me a variety of theme to explore; characters’ environment actually plays a pretty big role in whom I pick to write. Jugram fit the bill in all of my criteria. The more I explore his character the more I find interesting elements.

What’s the best thing about the show/series/books/comics/etc.?

The world building. I think Kubo did a remarkable job at building such a rich, complex and nuance world, where even the characters are little words of their own and every detail, up to the characters’ names (which are usually the bane of a lot of writers’ existence lol), is carefully thought out. On top of the many reflections its nuance offers to the audience, where nothing is at it seems and twists in surprising way.

I believe that’s what makes Bleach so immersive for us fans and readers; at the same time an aspect of Bleach Kubo really doesn’t get enough credit for as an author, in my opinion. He’s obviously done a lot of research on a variety of topics and references, is very knowlegeable, and must have spent an equally tremendous amount of energy to turn it into a story and make all fit together. Many fans even gladly forgive him for the rather frustrating learning curve and other story flaws. I think it says something.

It’s pretty rare to find authors who are both proficient at world building as well as writing compelling characters and stories, even though Bleach has a great many flaws, gotta give credit where it’s due.

What would you say is the most unique trait about your character?

This one is a tad difficult to answer, because I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a unique trait? But one element I found pretty unique about him is how Kubo managed to write a passive character in a way that felt both interesting and intriguing, twisting & playing around the theme of the wheel fortune.

Jugram, through the arc, never really make active or impactful decisions or choices that stems from an strong individual will. At the beginning, he doesn’t do much but follow Yhwach and wherever the plot drives him.

When he gets more focused, when his backstory is revealed, most of his meaningful choices look more of the result of circumstances, the odds playing against or in his favors, than active choices of his own; I doubt a kid could have said no to a Quincy god when told he’ll be his right-hand man, then when Bazz confronts him it’s clear he doesn’t want to fight him, in fact, never had any intent in it. And so on.

Characters who are not active in a given story, never make choices or decisions that impact their characters or the plot in meaningful ways, rather get carried by the plot than carry it themselves, can quickly fall as boring and irritating. Which is how I actually felt with him at the beginning. Prior to his back story, that’s exactly how I felt about him.

Yet I found Kubo managed to twist it in a pretty clever way. In spite of very much disliking the As I Lay On My Deathbed Grand Tirade trope, I absolute love the irony of Jugram’s death monologue about making meaningful choices and considering the significant impact said choices can have on your life.

#bisakel #ty for sending my friend !#didn't expect i'd dwell in such details but here i go

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koigoldfish · 4 years ago

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「 HAIKYUU!! SETTERS AS THINGS THAT REMIND ME OF HISTORICAL EPICS 」

: ̗̀➛ AUTHOR’S NOTE. what can i say? i have no other explanation other than to say that i am a history buff. i spend most of my time either watching historical movies or stuff on youtube and just be awed at what ancient or medieval rulers did at the time. so, what if the haikyuu!! setters were like them too? consider my history-nerd side going off in this post. everyone here is inspired by many historical figures and i just mash them up together.

: ̗̀➛ WARNING(S). mentions of blood and violence, i.e, impaling (what did you expect? history is rarely ever pretty), though the description is not very explicit.

OIKAWA TOORU: ��the great’, gold crowns made from intricately detailed sculptures of leaves, acorns, and flowers, mounting a stallion with a furious demeanour as its rider, vexilla glistening beneath the sunlight on their way to a battlefield, battle horns tearing through the sky as a sign of their arrival, putting two plumes on their battle helmet with the purpose of attracting their enemies to fight them, eyes burning with the flames of a thousand ambitions, clashing of the swords with kings doomed to fall before him, military campaigns to discover and raid other lands, the people erecting a massive statue during their reign as a sign of gratitude and worship, battle of gaugamela, “there is nothing impossible to him who will try.”

KOGANEGAWA KANJI: ‘the bruce’, raising a rebellion against an overlord to gain independence, an outlaw king, every lord in the region pledging their loyalty to the king crowned by the people, regardless of birthright, a gold diadem upon their heads as they rode out to battle, only armed with fabric cuirass and chainmail, the call to stand together against an overwhelming number of enemy troops, muddy battlefield where it had rain the night before, telling one of his soldiers to not announce his fatal injury as to not discourage his men, instead, beat the war drums louder, battle of loudoun hill, “if you at first don’t succeed, try, try, and try again.”

AKAASHI KEIJI: ‘the determined’, planning battle strategies in their dreams, shooting balls of fire from trebuchets to pound another kingdom’s brick walls, building walls surrounding the enemy’s kingdom to trap them inside and intentionally letting them starve to death, battles taking place in a forest, the trojan horse, defeating another ruler who has a considerable age gap, a siege that goes on for fifty three days, intended to make chángshēngbùlǎo yào (elixir of life) but ended up inventing gunpowder, both a benevolent ruler and a master of war, battle of hastings, “in my end is my beginning.”

ATSUMU MIYA: ‘the lionheart’, raising a rebellion against one’s own father with a brother, strong arms suited to wield a longsword, a gruesome scar across the face that will haunt the rest of their days, executing traitors and enemies either by the gallows or beheading, insulting their enemies and got captured for it, crusades to recapture the holy land, accidentally invading a neighbouring kingdom (conquest of cyprus), proposing a one-on-one fight to spare the lives of their men, able to fight with a non-dominant hand in case the dominant one gets injured, battle of arsuf, “brave men should either conquer nobly or gloriously die.”

KAGEYAMA TOBIO: ‘the magnificent’, laurel wreaths made from real leaves, not gold, tunic adorned in rich, gold embroideries under the tyrian purple toga, their subjects required to prostrate before him when he’s present in a room, meetings with the senates held in curia julia, abolishing a corrupted system that has burdened the empire for decades, trusted advisors eventually turned traitors mingling in their political court, constructing a colosseum, watching the gladiatorial contest or the naumachia (mock sea battles) every week, owning a majestic golden chariot pulled by the strongest and fastest of white stallions, battle of alesia, “experience is the teacher of all things.”

KENMA KOZUME: ‘the young king’, ascending the throne before coming of age, bloodstains on fallen sakura petals and broken tree branches, torn karuta after an exhausting battle with a stubborn and strong enemy, broken katana blade gleaming under the moonlight and sadly, beyond repair, bloody wounds that never really heal but every single one holds a memory, battles fought near shallow waters of a river, sengoku jidai, hundreds of warships among the coastlines to anticipate any attack from the waters, endless bloody feud between prominent clans, battle of sekigahara, “a clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.”

SEMI EITA: ‘the bold’, magnificent red robe draped behind the shoulders, attaching a talisman representing the goddess of battle and wisdom before he goes out to battle for good luck, ambushing the enemy’s camp at midnight, the sound of horses’ stampede running down a hill accompanied by the screams of their men, face stained in mud and blood, breaching the enemy’s gate with battering-rams as thousands of arrows rain upon them at the same time, the sun shining through the clouds as they celebrate their victory, lavish banquets full of music, food and wine for his soldiers, inviting their enemy to their tent and deciding whether to give them a glass of water or not, first arab siege of constantinople, “death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back.”

SUGAWARA KOUSHI: ‘the good’, age of enlightenment, offering protection to his distant family members who have been betrayed or usurped, fortifying the walls from unexpected sieges by barbarians from the sea, attacking the enemy fleet with greek fire, singing along with their soldiers as they march towards the battlefield to lift their spirits, the marching sounds of their army from behind a hill, heavy rainfall during a battle, soldiers grouping together to form a shield-wall to protect their leader, continuing to stand and fight even after falling from their horse, siege of paris, “fate and history conspired to make me what i am today.”

SHIRABU KENJIROU: ‘the impaler’, swearing revenge against a comrade who betrayed and killed one of their family members, not often engaged in battles but still leading their army from the safety of the capital, using the environment to their advantage to overtake their enemy, impaling traitors and an enemy’s entire army’s head on a pike and put them on display along the castle’s walls, demoralizing their enemies by showing symbols, singing, and beating drums, walking through piles of dead enemies’ bodies, disguising a lavish dinner feast with a goal to capture all of his traitorous boyars, sacking their enemy’s kingdom if they refuse to surrender, trapping the enemy’s troops by forming a shield-wall while pushing their spears towards them, night attack at târgoviște, “a man’s greatest joy is crushing his enemies.”

MONIWA KANAME: ‘the kind’, forming a decision to never execute people during their reign, developing plans to improve the empire’s agriculture, inventing new weapons to easily overwhelm enemies, marching through a desert with all of his troops just to make a peace treaty, would rather form a diplomatic alliance than waste his men to meaningless bloody wars, establishing sīchóu zhīlù (silk road), the tang dynasty (also known as the ‘golden age’), wanting to build the greatest wall the world has ever seen, a humble ruler the empire has ever had but still holds justice in the highest regard, battle of huoyi, “endure what is difficult to endure and to suffer what is difficult to suffer.”

reblogs are appreciated! ✦

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faelapis · 4 years ago

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so. while this was confirmed a year ago, new tweets by ian jq have reawakened the discourse about humans being the first intelligent life gems encountered. note intelligent life, not organic life. alien animals still died from previous invasions, but humans are the first intelligent creatures gems encountered.

apparently, the party line on twitter (where nuance goes to die) is that it’s too “convenient” that humans are the first other intelligent species gems met.

i take a few issues with that assessment:

a) “it was pink’s first colony, isn’t it convenient the diamond concerned with organic life owns the first planet populated by intelligent organics? wouldn’t they have died if any other diamond got them? isn’t that super lucky?”

no. we know rose/pink was very interested in organic life from before earth. she always thought aliens were cool, interesting, fun, and liked learning about them and keeping some as pets - such as the rainbow worms. we know she visited the others’ colonies, even if she doesn’t own them. she’s the only diamond who is simultaneously “selfish” enough to visit colonies up-close on a whim because it’s fun AND doesn’t see herself as too good to play with local organics.

so, then, why on earth (hah) wouldn’t she care if there had been intelligent life on any of the other planets? she didn’t fight for earth just because she “owned” it. she cared because she was able to form connections to humans... which she would have done regardless of which diamond’s colony it was. if anything, ownership is a hindrance to her usual romps, because blue & yellow expected her to stay put in her moon base. smile and wave. be a “leader”.

b) “how is it realistic that humans are the first intelligent life gems have met?”

the SU universe as a whole is not a universe filled with life. it has been framed as cold, animalistic, overall lifeless, purposeless, and one in which you gaze at an empty sky and beg for an authority figure to give your life meaning. this works much, much better if life, especially intelligent life, is incredibly sparse. they are small flickers in a cold void. it adds to the feeling that both humans and gems feel of loneliness and pointlessness, where you create these intricate structures of organized almost-religion to feel devoted to a purpose. this existentialism, which we will explore further below, is a huge part of SU’s themes.

c) another theme - and this one is important - is that gems and humans have been treated as this mirror parallel of life, people, and society (tm) for the entire runtime of the show. hence, steven as the bridge. a bridge, usually, connects two sides, not five. they are more similar than they are different - to the point where you can use gemkind to comment on how humans are like, and see some of the horrors and tragedy of what humanity looks like “from the outside”. not once has there ever been implied to be any other intelligent species to disrupt this elegant, thematic dichotomy. ever.

d) unlike fanon speculation, the show has always been very careful about never implying there were any previous rebellions. SU is not a star wars-esque universe populated with a million different intelligent species and cyclical rebellions + alliances between them. it is a big, cold, empty void, with tiny pockets of fragile life. which is part of why the connection between two alien species is so remarkable. it is the exception, not the rule.

e) many of us who looked at homeworld in a not-badfaith light already came to the conclusion that humans are probably the only intelligent life they’ve met. (based on what we know about the universe, its logic, the themes, the implications of other colonies, pink diamond’s personality, no other species ever bonded with enough to fight for, etc etc,)... and those of us who did, including myself, have (lovingly!!) compared the crystal gems to hippies or eco-terrorists. this 100% holds up to how homeworld gems generally, and the diamonds specifically, see them.

this is why blue thinks a “solution” to pink being sad about the invasion is to create the zoo. it’s a petty conflict, from her perspective, of environmentalism vs conservationism. like how, if a capitalist is kinda sad about a rainforest being bulldozed, you might as well just take some pretty toucans and panthers and stick them in a zoo. they’re preserved for humans to enjoy. problem “solved”. it worked with the kyanite colony & rainbow worms, why not here?

this is part of why lapis accuses the CGs of not caring about gemkind. they put this silly little dirtball above gemkind, starting a war that hurt (”real”) people?

this is also why pink, mocking the other diamonds, says “you wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? ha! don't be absurd!”. gemkind needs resources to create more gems. so, to the diamonds, of course that’s more important than Making The Bees and Monkeys Sad. they’re not even directly killing them, they’re just taking resources. it’s not “””their fault””” they need ‘em too, gems are more important. the same way, to us, humans are always the most important. many of us don’t give a damn about how we hurt animals.

f) it galls me that anything but the darkest possible interpretation, even when it makes perfect sense with what we know, is always seen as “convenient” by people who watched nostalgia critic once and think they’re now great media critics. i saw similar comments to jasper being brought back to life, even though it made perfect sense with what’s implied about the powers of the diamonds. most of that, too, was woven together by paying close attention to implication, not outright stated in a lore dump - but that doesn’t make it “convenient” in the bad way. it makes it the logical outcome of this world, if you paid attention.

like jasper coming back to life, it also told us something thematic about the diamonds’ absolute power over life & death. steven is kinda horrified, even if it’s a good thing, that things can ever be fixed. he still feels like he needs to be “punished”. he holds this toxic mindset that punishment is more important than healing, because of the pit of self-harm he’s fallen into... which is kind of how some people see the diamonds, and the world as a whole.

even if things can get better, it doesn’t matter. at least not as much as punishing and distancing ourselves from the “bad people”. even though, actually, things CAN get better, and that’s more dependent on systemic change than it is on punishing “bad” individuals... that doesn’t fascinate them. it’s a fucked-up idea of “consequences” that is sadly prevalent in fandoms: they’d rather the world be doomed if they get to kill the bad people for it, than the world being slowly healed in this bittersweet way that includes everyone.

and i’m tired of that. on the whole, fiction is a reflection of this very dour, justice-oriented view of the world where we can only gain satisfaction from punishing the bad guys responsible. SU’s response to that is, that actually, just this once... no! the world gets better, and the “how” doesn’t revolve around individual punishment. it’s trying to heal everyone.

g) it seems to me that for a substantial amount of people, “convenience” has less to do with the themes and logic of the world than it does with wanting canon to live up to their fanon image of homeworld and the diamonds. even if that means a ton of offscreen intelligent life dying Just for the sake of a 1-v-1 earth-vs-gems conflict, with no agency in the story. i don’t understand how that would make it better. all other life we’ve seen have been animals. pink was around for other colonies - even if she didn’t personally “own” them - yet didn’t care deeply enough to fight for them. because she couldn’t bond with worms the same way as humans. (yknow, unfortunately, for the worms :’<)

also, you don’t NEED other species of intelligent life to have been made extinct to still have a somewhat cynical interpretation of the diamonds’ intentions here. even if it makes the world less grimdark in praxis. it’s not enough to be aware of humans in the abstract, blue and yellow still won’t listen. you need to actually interact with humans in order to learn about / care for organics that don’t serve a purpose in your system. this was just the first chance gemkind had to do so. it makes sense that some would be curious, while others more jaded and dismissive, after encountering a universe mostly made of the lifeless & animals.

to give the other diamonds some credit, they’ve probably encountered plenty organic life, and thus have built up a bias that everyone but gemkind are aimless, animalistic life forms, and its up to them to give themselves purpose. why should humans be any different? oh wow, they live in groups? big whoop. so do ants. they build nests? so do birds. they babble? so do parrots and rainbow worms. they still serve no purpose. they still die if you breathe on them.

it’s only when blue meets greg - thousands of years later - that we see even the tiniest of cracks, in which blue is made aware of some level of emotional intelligence, but is still firmly entrenched in the view that he’s just a Slightly more advanced organic than others. like... puppies comforting you. she was surprised he could even do that much. this was a slow process for rose as well!

but anyway, at the point of the war, to many gems, they are concerned first and foremost with gemkind. life matters because of your singular, gem-oriented “purpose”... but some gems, like pink, who never saw herself as a justified goddess, take the opposite approach. they don’t see themselves as “above” other life out of either lack of awareness of the capabilities of intelligent life forms or a self-appointed Higher Purpose. they’re curious, and then, willing to fight for life they can bond with, once they learn to love.

which brings me to...

h) how a big theme of the show as a whole is selflessness vs selfishness.

here, the crystal gems as a whole have actually been on the side of selfishness, from homeworld’s perspective. the end of gathering resources would mean they would no longer create more gems. which, to HW, is selfish. which... of course it is, if you think you’re the only intelligent life out there.

the way homeworld gems express themselves is through an elaborate system of self-perpetuation and creation, in which the emergence of more gems is a higher purpose for the collective. the individual doesn’t matter. to them, the random creatures they find on other planets do not matter. they’re just organics.

humans matter to pink because she’s, like i said, curious about alien life, and less convinced about her own purpose... but also more personal, relationship-driven, and cares about what happens the specific individuals she subjectively bonds with, rather than prioritizing the overall “needs” of her species, like a good queen bee is “supposed” to do.

homeworld thinks that no individual feelings - even a diamond’s - is more important than perpetuating of the system that gives their species meaning. most gems are happy to be shattered for that cause, because they’ve never formed those “selfish” relationships that makes life worth living without purpose. so actually, yes, this works with pink’s motivation, and blue and yellow not being as easily swayed works with theirs.

(all of this is extremely relevant to the arc steven has in “future”, btw. he needs a reason to be needed, purpose. and pearl’s arc, white diamond’s arc, jasper’s arc, etc etc - living for purpose vs living for relationships and selfish exploration of the self is a massive theme of the whole show!! at leaast if you pay attention to anything more subtle than merely “here’s a lore dump!”, which the show has always avoided. it’s more sublime than that. you, too, are supposed to only have a small, subjective understanding of the world, like steven does, which teaches you to value subjective perspectives. your purpose is not higher than the agency of others, and you shouldn’t control the world.)

i) it makes dramatic sense, actually, to center the conflict around the first time gems have met another species that stand a chance of understanding them! hence steven is a bridge. that’s a good basis for mirroring two species, a conflict that raises interesting questions about how we, too, see non-human life, the premium we place on emotional connection vs “purpose”, and how even when we learn to value humans that are different from us, we might still fuck around and bulldoze a rainforest, if it’s convenient and we can justify it internally.

and again, it’s more logical. as we know it, the story went “long ago, gems took resources all over the universe, until pink found a species intelligent enough some of them learned to bond with on a deeper level than Cool Pet Worm”, NOT “long ago, gems zapped a bunch of intelligent species - which we will not mention ever, or give any agency in the story - and pink just ignored that, until she randomly decided humans were more important than all those, for no reason, even though she’d met countless intelligent species before”.

the former makes more sense in ~every reading of canon, be it thematic, logical, personal, character-driven, etc~... except the one most favored by SU’s most badfaith of critics, which is that the only “logical” way for the story to go is one in which we can safely label the diamonds as inhumanly, unchangably bad, rather than having base assumptions, motivations and logics that aren’t so different from many non-dictator humans.

i think for some, they protest not because that makes more sense on a thematic, logical or character level, but simply because they want to. they’re USED to being fed that narrative satisfaction has to do with seeing the bad guys face comeuppance, in place of inclusive, welfare-oriented healing. faced with storytelling that rejects their view of justice while also openly being subjective, sublime, and loving of all of its characters, not just the “nice” ones, they see it as a “failure” to be what they’re used to.

if the world CAN systemically heal in a way that includes people you personally don’t forgive, that must be a “flaw”. if those “bad guys” haven’t actually killed hundreds of intelligent species offscreen who have no chance to heal, that doesn’t fuel your justification for the most cynical interpretation of justice possible, so that, too, “must” be a “flaw”. if it’s framed as possible for them to work towards undoing their harm, that deprives you of the satisfaction of edgy punishment for unhealable hurt, so that, too, is of course a “flaw”. any world where healing is possible for everyone, and the perpetrators can contribute, must be a “flaw”, to a mind only concerned with the validity of vengeance.

even when the story is perfectly candid that you’re personally allowed to be hurt and traumatized (like steven - and most characters, really), you’re still allowed to feel... you just can’t expect society as a whole to abandon its “inclusive healing” model and function on your logic; that your pain is solved by vengeance. it isn’t.

in short, cry about it.

#steven universe #homeworld #the diamonds #rose quartz #pink diamond #rose diamond #jasper #su theory #su future #su analysis #and by 'a few issues' i mean 'let me write you a novel about why this was always canon'#i know it must be a big blow if you've decided you're morally superior for hating SU based on fanon assumptions #but that's kinda on you fam. stop listening to bad youtubers. and do indeed cry about it - it's healthy

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sheepfulsheepyardinspace · 4 years ago

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Do you have any Star Wars fanfic recommendations, or have a link to someone else's list? I really wanna veg out.

oh my god, DO I. this may have been the best ask in the world. i’m not really sure what u want a feel for, so i threw together some of my favorite longfics for maximum veg time from the ot/pt and links for swr and swtcw recs. they’re pretty much all luke-anakin/vader centric, since that’s kinda my bread and butter.

let’s start with frodogenic, who wrote the first longfic i ever read in sw and might be one of the funniest authors ever. they once reviewed my fanfic & i nearly cried from joy. anyway.

The Father, 284k+, complete. “Ten years after ROTS, tormenting nightmares of his unborn child drive Darth Vader to extraordinary measures with unexpectedly drastic consequences. Clearly, experience has taught Darth Vader nothing...”

this is my og star wars fic and boy oh boy is it amazing. i will never get over this. i don’t want to spoil anything but when i say the final chapters are great? i mean they’re legendary. sometimes i still think about them & wish upon a star that i could be such a great writer. vader’s amazing, han is spectacular, and the ocs are fantastic.

Far More Than Rubies, 70k+, complete. “Nine years after AOTC, tragedy revisits the Lars Homestead. Little Luke Skywalker is suddenly plunged into chaos as the rebel movements discover a secret military project that may make a crucial difference in the war with the Empire.”

the spiritual twin of The Father, FMTR takes a look at padmé’s character and relationship with both luke and anakin/vader that’s hard to beat. it’s darker and heavier than The Father, but it hits those same sweet, sweet emotional beats while raising the age-old question: if padmé had lived, what would she have done?

The Family Tree, 12k, complete. “In which Luke Skywalker is stranded in a tree waiting for a flash flood to recede. Too bad he's got company...”

okay, i admit, this isn’t a longfic, but it is a longshot, and it’s amazing. the imagery and description always blow me away, and the interaction (canon-compliant) between luke and vader just [chef’s kiss] get me. vader’s in full, glorious form, and it makes it all the harder when luke wrestles with the knowledge that vader is his father.

Sibling Revelry, 25k, complete. “After Bespin and before Endor, Darth Vader is shocked to discover that Luke and Leia are twins. He's even more shocked when Imperial Intelligence reports that Organa and Skywalker are, erm, a tad closer than previously suspected.”

this is complete crack and humor in the best way possible. it’s crack treated entirely seriously, and you will be in stitches, i promise. no matter how many times i’ve read this i break down.

KittandChips (@kittandchips) writes what i can only describe as food for the soul. the luke-vader interaction is insanely amazing, the world building of daily imperial life and imperial governance is amazing, and vader just has a special je ne sais quoi that u must read to understand––tragic, funny, and so, so fatherly. they’re currently rewriting the Force Bond Series to fit in with newer canon, so i will joyously binge reread the entire again (including the new Force Bond: Mustafar Weekend).

Force Bond 1: Orphan, 47k, complete. “After Owen and Beru are killed by a mysterious stranger, young Luke ends up as an orphan on Coruscant. It's a race against time as Obi-Wan struggles to find Luke before Vader realizes the boy is his son.”

Orphan kicks off the series, which tracks vader and luke’s relationship through the perils of luke’s teenagerhood while growing up under the eye of the emperor and imperial court. it’s filled with slow growth, struggle and misunderstandings as darth vader tries to single parent, and pay off in every installment. the entire series clocks in around 777k+ and is the most joyful, fulfilling reading you’ll ever have. promise.

darth-nickels (@darth--nickels) writes darker, twistier, and terribly, terribly heartwrenching aus. they’ve got a whole host, but let me introduce to my two favorites. also, check out their faux-academia on vader. it’s amazing and i love it, but i admit i am an academia hoe.

Dooku Captured, Pt 2, 16k, complete. “Dooku is taken alive onboard the Invisible Hand, and Sidious' web is torn. The Sith Lord wonders if death might have been preferable to clumsy interrogation by Anakin Skywalker.”

Dooku Captured is a longshot au told from Dooku’s pov which takes the beginning of ROTS and throws it on its head. it’s a fascinating outside perspective of anakin and obi-wan’s relationship and such and interesting examination of dooku’s psyche and especially his complex relationship with the jedi order, qui-gon, yoda, and palpatine. i cannot rec this one enough.

Black Mirror, 90k, incomplete. “The Ghost crew returns to the Lothal when they hear the Empire is investigating the Jedi Temple there. They learn Vader is alone and decide to take him out-- but what they find could change the course of Galactic history.”

Black Mirror diverges into swr territory, but make no mistake: this is entirely an examination of vader and, later, obi-wan as well as ahsoka. luke makes his appearance later in the game, and boy oh boy will you love luke’s portrayal is a microcosm of luke and vader’s relationship within canon. heed the tags, though.

jerseydevious ( @jerseydevious ) is, first and foremost, one of my favorite people on earth. secondly, though, she’s an amazing writer with a deep understanding of vader’s character and psyche, a flair for beautiful depictions, and the true ability to wring every emotion out of your body.

Two and a Half Men (with a baby), 13k, incomplete. “After a long day of bargaining with Hutts and attempting to ignore his past, Darth Vader is nearing the end of his rope. When he discovers his two-year-old son, it's the straw that breaks the semi-rational Sith Lord's back; in a rash act worthy of the Skywalker name, he scoops his son into his arms, steals a shuttle from his own fleet, and punches in random hyperspace coordinates to a destination on the other side of the galaxy. Unfortunately, father and son are not the only ones on the ship.”

Two and a Half Men will stick with you, dude. like no other. i promise. it’s a whirlwind ride with obi-wan, vader, and piett and as funny as it is heartbreaking. it touches on some heavy issues and doesn’t shy away from looking at the damage done to vader––again, heed the tags.

Helioseismology, 4k, complete. “Luke gets shot down on a supply run and caught in an ice storm. It's extremely lucky that his father followed him there.“

i’ll admit. im completely biased about this one because it was a birthday gift to me and i am sucker for litcherally anything when jd puts pen to paper, but believe me when i say you will be awed by the depth and tangled relationships between these luke and vader that jersey can illustrate in a stroke of the paintbrush. im love. always.

izzythehutt ( @izzythehutt ) i am blown away by the intricate dialogue and characterization, always. and the latin puns? im sold. im also a sucker for latin puns, but that’s a story for a different time.

In Loco Pirates, 34k, complete. “A down-on-his-luck Hondo Ohnaka manages to capture the unicorn of all bounties--Luke Skywalker, which sends Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, on a painfully familiar trip to the planet Florrum to collect his prize. The failed negotiations leave Vader in the awkward position of being stuck in a besieged pirate bunker, trying to balance keeping his wayward child safe (and in his custody) with controlling the tongue of a loose-lipped pirate who--to the surprise of no one--has a bad habit of telling 'amusing' anecdotes from the Clone Wars.”

hondo, aka the best character of swtcw, is brought to life just as vividly on paper as on screen. his entire personality brings luke and vader’s difficulties in a sort of incredulous light, which makes it as funny as it is vulnerable and tragic. the sequel, Palpatine Ad Portas, brings piett into the spotlight, and oh man do his interactions with palpatine and vader bring u all the uncomfortable vibes. relish in it.

sparklight ( @littlesparklight ) man. lemme introduce u to an amazing prolific and detailed writer. i will never get over the series they’ve written & neither will u.

Where Our Intrepid Hero Doesn’t Get Away, 122k, incomplete. “One-shots surrounding either AU situations of canon/legends works where Luke would normally have gotten away (or Vader is simply inserted into the action to come pick his child up) but in these instances doesn't, or completely new scenarios of the same. There are no deep ruminations on consequences of the situations here, just our awful Sith dad picking his son up when he'd rather not be.”

exactly what it says on the tin. u know those glorious moments of fanfic where luke’s gotten captured and ur on pins and needles, waiting for vader to show up in a moment of dark glory? here’s the moment. here’s all the moments.

Space Race, 122k, incomplete. “Owen gives in to Luke's wish to attend the Imperial Academy and Obi-Wan is too late to avert it, though he's not too late to make sure Luke leaves Arkanis before Vader can gets his hands on him. Luke spends over a month running around the galaxy before his father gets him, and from there...”

this story relishes in chase and boy is it fun. it will keep you on the edge of your seat and it’s an amazing ride.

The Suns of Tatooine, 85k, complete. “Luke ends up on a moon swamped in dark side energy after a mission goes wrong, then his father appears... and then they go on a bit of a learning experience. This could've been the only thing that would come of getting through a Sith complex with his father, but thanks to going to free Han earlier than the gang did otherwise, more revelations are had. Will that change anything?”

this series is a thoughtful, contemplative piece examining the nature of the force and the relationship the skywalkers have with tatooine. the descriptions are beautiful, the inventiveness is amazing, and you’ll be thinking about it for long afterwards.

an additional few…

Between Flight and Longing; 34k, complete. “Luke Skywalker and Han Solo journey to the planet Balen'ar on a desperate mission and find more than they'd bargained for.”

a classic and it is for a reason. the interaction between han, luke, and vader is so spectacular and the slow trudge of going through the forest with your greatest enemy and best friend is something hilarious. the end is bittersweet and fantastic.

The Sith Who Brought Life Day, 13k, complete. “An Imperial officer loses a bet and has to get Darth Vader a present for Life Day.”

somewhere between terrifying and dull, this fic presents a canon-compliant look at the hunt for luke and the grinding wheels of the empire. the oc is amazing and it echoes in true star wars spirit: sometimes it’s just some dude who can change the galaxy.

Quintessence, 5k, complete. ‘“Well, Master, I think I’ve found the one positive aspect of this situation.” “Which is?” “The Temple won’t have to pay the costs for our funeral pyres.”’

pure hilarity and shenanigans abound in pre-aotc obi-wan and anakin hijink goodness. lemme tell u––u will deeply sympathize with mace windu afterwards. additionally, check out the rest of the author’s oneshots! they’re deeply thoughtful and the interactions the author writes between obi-wan and anakin are always gold.

some extras & shameless self-promotion

here’s a full list of recommendations for star wars rebels fanfic in case this is what you’re looking for (remember when this used to be a swr blog, lmao)

i’ve also written sw fanfic, both swr and luke-vader centric. drop by and tell me if it’s any good!

#also if anybody knows these authors' tumblr accounts pls lmk so i can link them #guys remember piett?#i miss piett #firmus piett #star wars #star wars fanfic #sw fanfic #sw fic #three two one boom #jerseydevious #luke skywalker #darth vader #anakin skywalker #star wars rebels #late-in-the-day #idk if any of these r new at all to anyone #but they r my faves :)

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100hearteyes · 4 years ago

Text

First chapter of a fic I will likely never continue. Canon divergent. Unedited and riddled with typos. ~5k words.

Lexa straightens her posture as her horse halts just after the forest and at the first sign of civilization ahead. It huffs and hits the soil with one of its hoofs, expressing its disquiet. She shares the sentiment; Skaikru are very much an odd and unpredictable body in the grand scheme of things still.

The Sky clan had been at war with Trikru for over a decade since falling to earth, seeing as they had occupied Lexa's people's land,whrnh the Ice Nation offered them an alliance. Trikru yielded, aware that fighting both clans at once would be foolish. At the time, the Commander was from the Blue Cliff clan and no more than a religious figure, indifferent to the quells between clans. Lexa has changed that over the past few years — and is intent on continuing to do so.

"Heda." She turns her head only slightly to her right, just enough to be able to look at Gustus from the corner of her eye. "I do not have a good feeling about this."

"We both know that if it were up to you I would be locked up in the tower and never come out." She softens, regards her bodyguard fully. "You worry too much, Gustus. The Sky People will be a valuable asset for the Coalition."

"They think themselves superior just because they have guns and tech," he counters with distrust. "They are dishonourable in combat and gloat about it."

"The Coalition needs them," Lexa snaps, and that is the end of it. "And, hopefully, they need the Coalition, too."

Arkadia, capital of the Sky clan, is by all means an impressive sight, very different to anything Lexa has ever seen. Everything is metal and a heavy grey; from the wall protecting it to the pair of guard lookout towers, to the massive gates with the 'Arkadia' lettering on top. From her elevated position, Lexa can see a main building that rises slightly above the wall and takes up about a quarter of the whole area, and other smaller buildings sprinkled about the space left vacant by it. It is evident that while the Arkadians had no say on the positioning of the main building, they planned the city around it, since everything else is so geometrically placed, including the grey dirt roads that trace an intricate cobweb that winds through the empty spaces and gives the city an air of concrete orderliness. However, everything pales in comparison to the giant wheel propped just to the side of the main building, presumably what was once meant to surround the ship that Sky People lived in up in space before they fell to earth. It is clearly one of the few things that have resisted the decades unadulterated, even if it has been repurposed, as Lexa assumes from the sillhouettes of people climbing up and down its inner arms. It is a formidable sight, even for those more averse to the marvels of the world that Skaikru left back in space and have ever since tried to recreate on Earth. Nonetheless, Arkadia as a whole is an obtrusive presence in the midst of the greenery and unwavering power of nature. It makes Lexa almost squirm on her saddle, uncomfortable with such a demonstration of stubborn inadaptation — no village, town, or city should be so violently at odds with its surroundings.

They approach the city slowly and with only half the warriors she brought along, so as to indicate that they mean no harm — and make sure no one will frame it otherwise. Lexa's retinue is mostly made up of warriors, amongst them her personal guards, but she was also careful to include two of her most trusted diplomats; people who will negotiate in her stead when need be and will work to make sure that those on her side remain there. They are people who work the complicated web of politics and favor better even than her.

As they come closer to Arkadia, its inhabitants crowd close to the walls, looking at Lexa and her crew as though they are wild, fascinating animals. Such is the consequence of isolation. Lexa watches as a small group gathers just outside the walls and recognises Marcus Kane, chancellor of the Sky People, at the head of the greeting party.

Finally her group come to a stop just a few feet from the Arkadians and Markus of the Sky People steps up to greet Lexa with a genuine, welcoming smile. "Commander," he says in greeting and extends his hand. "It's such a great honor to have your visit."

She nods and grips his forearm. Marcus of the Sky People is a pleasant man, both in appearance and personality. His luscious hair and thick beard frame kind eyes and a jovial smile that make him extremely likable. Soft-spoken and invested in every conversation he takes part in regardless of its actual importance, Marcus of the Sky People is a dependable fatherly figure. He is also fierce and wise, however, and Lexa likes him even more for that.

"Chancellor Marcus Kane," she greets back, careful to use his full name, as Sky People do. "Thank you for receiving us on such short notice."

She lets go of his arm and lets her hand rest on the pommel of her sword. "We're just lucky you're here at all," he replies honestly, then turns to the rest of his group. "Please give your warmest welcome to the Commander, Lexa kom Trikru." She appreciates the effort to use her mother tongue — details like that can make the difference between a successful deal and a failed one, for it builds bridges where there are none. Marcus is a proficient builder of diplomatic bridges.

The first person to step forward is a woman in her forties like Marcus, though the lines of her face are more tired and severe. She looks like a woman who looks death in the face every day and when she extends her calloused hand for a greeting, Lexa realises that is exactly the case. "I'm Abby Griffin." Lexa clasps Abby's forearm and she spies a special brand of kindness in brown eyes that tells her that this woman is not only a caretaker, but also a mother. "I'm a council member and Chief Doctor of Arkadia and Skaikru in general."

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Lexa says as Abby takes a step back and a new member of the greeting party comes forward. "Raven, I assume," Lexa nods, clued in by the girl's oil-splattered cheek. "Your fame precedes you, tech master."

The girl beams, dark eyes shining brightly, and salutes. Her ponytail swings with the movement. "At your service, Commander. I hope your visit proves fruitful."

"That makes two of us, Raven of the Sky People."

"I'm Bellamy Blake." Lexa turns to the man that has stepped forward and clasps his outstretched hand instead of his forearm. She can tell that this is a man who likes things done his way; insecure enough to need to underline his status. "I'm in charge of all things military and security."

"A general, then," Lexa recognises. "Are you Octavia Blake's fabled brother?" She is careful to use her Sky People surname and not her Trikru suffix lest he become even less friendly.

His nose crinkles and his freckles dance angrily beneath dark eyes and unruly, short curls of hair. "Haven't seen her in almost a year since she got it in her head that she wants to be a barbarian."

Lexa lets the comment slide. "She is a fine warrior. My people are very lucky to have her."

He grunts and gives way to the next council member, a middle-aged woman with a gentle smile but a fear of the unknown in the way she clasps Lexa's forearm. "Hannah Green. Farming, hunting, and other resources," the woman greets. "Council member, too."

Lexa nods her acknowledgement and watches as Hannah kom Skaikru steps backward. Her replacements are two tall, robust men, their dark skin, eyes, and mannerisms nearly identical, though the younger one is more genuine while the older one has an air of arrogance about him.

"I'm Wells Jaha and this is my father, Thelonious," the young man says pleasantly, and Lexa likes him right away. She clasps Wells's forearm, then Thelonious's, and even their grips are different. How can two men look so alike and yet behave so differently?

Just from the introductions, Lexa is slightly worried. Bellamy, Abby, Hannah, and Thelonious will vote against entering the Coalition; a number that exceeds that of Marcus, Raven, and Wells. The chancellor has the deciding vote, but it will be for naught if the numbers do not even out.

The final person steps forward at last. A girl around Lexa's age, with blonde hair and determined blue eyes. "My name is Clarke," the girl greets, her voice husky and only moderately welcoming. Lexa studies the girl, looks for twitches and tells, but cannot read her at all. It is worrying; the last thing she needs at this point is a wildcard. She can tell, however, that her own first impression is lacking. "I'm in charge of urban and regional planning, and foreign affairs." Lexa extends her arm for greeting, but Clarke leaves her hanging. A golden, sceptical eyebrow is quirked and Clarke's eyes are narrowed, and it is all Lexa can do not to growl at such insolence. "Let me decide first if you're worth shaking hands with."

Lexa takes a deep breath and tells herself that punishing Clarke kom Skaikru's impertinence is not worth wasting the chance to draw the Sky People into her Coalition. So she purses her lips and clasps her hands behind her back, letting her posture straighten and her chin rise with defiant authority. Her eyes burn into Clarke's. "Very well." She turns to Marcus, who seems to have blanched considerably. "Please lead me to my quarters, Marcus of the Sky People. The day has been long and we have much to discuss tomorrow. I would like to rest."

~~~~

Arkadia isn't home. But it also is, because she has never known another place. Nevertheless, she has never felt at home inside its dull grays, angry lights, and obstinate refusal to fully mesh with its surroundings.

Clarke isn't one to fantasise about what could be; she locks her dreams inside drawings of another life and lives what is instead. There is no space, no time to wonder on the ground.

Still she can't help musing about a world where she would be able to travel between clans freely and adopt another as her own. She can't help musing about a world where they wouldn't have to fend off attacks from the other clans, even if the Ice Nation has helped them through the more difficult times. That is exactly why she finds the idea of a coalition so appealing — it's eating away at her, however, to entertain the idea of it being led by a tyrant like Commander Lexa.

She's heard all the stories and she knows which ones are true. She knows of the Commander's thirst for glory and power. She knows of her ruthlessness and disregard for human life. She knows of the Commander's penchant for spilling blood and autocratic style. She knows and she saw it all in the Commander's conceited bearing, in the cold press of full lips, in the raised chin of a despot; she saw it in the way the Commander's eyes flashed with anger, the only display of emotion during an otherwise frigid interaction.

Yet the cry for change reverberates through the halls of Arkadia, which thrums with the need to be more. And Clarke... Clarke wants the best for her people. Always. So if she deems joining the Coalition the right step to take, she will vote for it no matter how tough a pillow it will be to swallow.

Another tough pill to swallow? Kane's reproach for the way she talked to the Commander.

"It was unacceptable, Clarke. You embarrassed the Commander and risked being beheaded on the spot." It means something when Zen Kane gives you such a talking-to. "You shamed us all."

"Stop right there, Marcus." Oh, yes. Your mother defending you does make the situation a hundred times better. It's not at all ignored for being biased. "I think you're being unfair. Yes, Clarke should've minced her words, but she didn't same us."

Kane's eye roll is exactly the reaction Clarke's expected. "Look, Abby. I know you're her mother—"

Abby's affronted look is even more predictable. "This has nothing to do with—"

"Enough!" Kane and Abby as well as the rest of the council look at her. Clarke looks at each of the six other faces sitting around the semicircle-shaped table and then at Kane, who stands alone at the straight side of it. She sighs. "I made a mistake. I put us in a difficult position. I'm sorry."

Kane nods his approval. The small, dark room lends him a more solemn, even poetic appearance, and the way he cups his bearded chin while he thinks makes him look like a philosopher. "Thank you for acknowledging your mistake, Clarke," he says kindly as he lays a companionable hand on her shoulder. "There will have to be consequences, however."

She expected nothing less. Despite the little show she put on before the Commander, Clarke knows her place. "I understand, Chancellor," she nods, and feels more insecure the moment his fatherly hand leaves her shoulder. Her dad died years ago and no one will ever replace him, but the way Kane behaves towards her reminds her a little bit of what it was like to have a father. She's grateful for it; she misses the comfort of her dad's hugs and the pride in his smile.

The moments before he finally doles out her punishment remind her why she doesn't like this room — it's cold and dark and has an ominous feeling to it that makes her feel trapped. Like everything discussed in her is always too serious. It often is. She much prefers the strategy meeting room with its rectangular, waist-high table that causes them to stay standing and its glass-like boards with maps and notes written into them with colorful pens. It's also larger — so much larger. It's better illuminated, too.

Finally Kane stops thinking and meets her eyes. "You will be the Commander's shadow. An ambassador. You will show Arkadia and whatever else necessary to her and you will be her guide around here. You will make sure she has everything she needs and you will handle everything relating to her presence here."

Clarke can't help but scoff. "You mean I'll be her damn babysitter," she challenges.

"Yes," Kane acquiesces, not giving in an inch. "That's exactly what you will be."

"You can't be serious," she presses, because this is too heavy a punishment for her offence.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then scratches at the side of his beard. "Look at it this way: you will be able to get to know her and her culture better and it might help shape your vote. I know you're the only one of us who hasn't made up her mind yet," he notes with a meaningful look. And yes, he's right. Actually, her vote is pretty damn important because with the way things are it will decide the Sky People's fate altogether. "It might help you decide that being a part of the Coalition is nothing but trouble for us, or it might actually change your mind and show you that the Commander's intentions are not so bad after all. Whatever the outcome, it will have been a good experience."

Clarke knows he's right, but she can't imagine spending two weeks with the Commander and not confirming that she is indeed a bloodthirsty savage. Alas, she owes it to her people to at least try.

"Fine."

~~~~

Lexa is not unused to the bustle of early morning, the sounds of the city rousing to life outside, the doors that open and close and the voices that speak in hushed tones so as not to wake those sleeping. They often wake her anyway. What she is unused to are the boots that clank on metal, that fans that whir along the halls, and the flickering, buzzing light provided not by candles but by a hollow opening in the ceiling.

She left Anya outside of Arkadia to set up camp with the rest of her retinue. Gustus came with her, along with a handful of warriors and diplomats. Despite reason, she does not think they will be at risk inside the walls of the ally of their enemy. Besides, having Gustus by her side — or in this case, in the next room — is like having an army of twenty. Lexa trusts him with her life and that of those she loves most. There was only one time when she trusted him and he could not keep someone she loved safe. It wasn't his fault, despite the tears of guilt and regret that ran down his face when he came back, battered and bloody and without Lexa's lover. It took weeks for his wounds to heal enough for him to leave his bed. Months later, he would finally admit that it had not been ten warriors he had had to fight off, but thirty. Lexa never blamed him, never even imagined blaming him for what happened. There are only two people she has ever blamed for it — one of them is herself.

Lexa gets ready for the day in motions automated by the years. She resents Skaikru for not having proper bathtubs; she doesn't dare touch what the server girl from last night called a shower, so she foregoes washing altogether. There is a river nearby she can bathe in anyway. Once her pauldron is resting on her shoulder, its weight and looping red sash a permanent reminder of her station, Lexa leaves her bedroom, only to register with disapproval that the Sky Council did not assign anyone to guard her door. Instead she finds Gustus waiting for her, no doubt already having sent whoever he assigned to her door away. "Heda," he greets with a bow. "How was your night?"

"As would be expected," she replies, keeping her face neutral as she notices Marcus's approach. He sends her a warm smile.

"Commander." They clasp forearms with comfortable formality. "I hope you had a good night's sleep."

"The mattress was stiff. But I have spent much worse nights in foreign clans." It is both criticism and a compliment, and she knows it leaves Marcus slightly disconcerted albeit resolute to make sure her next night is better. It keeps him on his toes without outright insulting his hospitality.

"We'll look into the matter." A pause, then another smile. "In the meantime, I'm sure you would like to eat, Commander?" He waits for Lexa to nod before leading her and Gustus through numerous halls, walking by doors left and right. Lexa peers curiously as they pass by a by room lined with tables and people eating. "That's the mess hall, where almost everyone eats, but I'm sure you'd like to have a more... discreet meal, if you will. I've arranged for breakfast in my office."

"I wouldn't mind eating with your people, Marcus," she says truly as they come to a stop at a door, two staircases later. He fishes a key from his pocket and inserts it in the hole.

"Of course, Commander. But just for today, for your very first meal here, I thought you would appreciate something not as overwhelming."

"I do," she nods.

He opens the door for her and she stops into a room with a wooden desk and a mismatched chair next to the far wall. A battered couch sits against one of the walls to one side and on the other are several maps and eerily realistic paintings nailed to it. A lamp hanging from the ceiling provides light to the entire office and an open door near the couch leads them to a more open, free space. Marcus motions for Lexa to enter it and she is pleased to find a small, semicircular room with large, tall windows on the round wall that oversee Arkadia from two stories above. There is a round table in the middle with three chairs around it and several dishes waiting for Lexa's hungry stomach. Looking out the windows again, she wonders if this is a room they had up in space before the Sky People fell to the ground and if they could see the stars and the Earth from there.

"Did you live there? In space?"

Kane is now standing next to her and looking out the windows with his arms being his back, a pose that very much mirrors her own. It takes him almost a minute to reply; when he does, it is not without a sigh she cannot decipher. It sounds like nostalgia laced with relief.

"The Ark fell down about thirty years ago. I was just a kid then, twenty years old and sure that I would become someone important one day. Which I did," he acquiesces with a rueful smile, "but not for the reasons I wanted it then. The ground shaped me. I've spent more years on the ground than I did in space already. I have... changed a lot since then. I was eager, too ambitious, and too overzealous in following the rules. The ground taught me that rules need to be interpreted. I'm still eager," he chuckles, and Lexa almost lets a small smile escape her lips, "but what drives me now is love for my people. I want what's best for them, not for myself. And that," he turns his torso to her with a raised eyebrow and a kind smile, "is why I want the Sky clan to be a part of the Coalition."

"What do I have to do to make sure our common goal is achieved?" Lexa asks with caution as he turns back to the windows. She needs to tread carefully.

"Convince Clarke," Marcus says easily. It is as she thought. "Everyone else has their mind set. I have the deciding vote, but right now we are at a disadvantage. We need her yes to tie with the no's and activate the deciding quality of my vote. Otherwise, it's just a vote. Anyway." He turns to her again and extends an arm towards the table. "Shall we eat? Food's getting cold."

Lexa eats mostly in silence while Marcus tells her stories of the Ark, the stars, and their planet seen from space. She keeps her expression neutral, but is secretly fascinated and hangs on to his every word. She barely notices when she has finished eating and Marcus leads her out of the room. She is shocked out of her awe when he opens the door to his office to reveal none other than Clarke kom Skaikru.

"Commander, I'm sure you remember Clarke Griffin," Marcus says pleasantly. Lexa's eyes do not leave their new company's.

"Yes, our first meeting was... quite memorable."

Clarke has the decency to lower her gaze to the floor in a clear sign of shame. When her eyes return to Lexa's, she sees honesty in them.

"I wanted to apologize for that, Commander. I was unnecessarily rude," Clarke admits, and Lexa has to fight off a triumphant smirk. Instead, she dips her head in wordless assent. An uncomfortable silence spans for several long seconds, before Marcus clears his throat.

"So. Clarke will be your guide here, Commander. She will be at your disposal for anything you need and will help you acclimate to Arkadia. I genuinely hope that all your future interactions will be better than the first." He finishes with a warning glare at Clarke, who once again ducks her head in embarrassment. His attention shifts back to Lexa. "Commander," he nods. She nods back wordlessly and then he's off to somewhere else, leaving her alone with Clarke.

Lexa is not a fan of employing clichés, but the silence is deafening. Neither she nor Clarke know what to say or do now that Marcus is not there to act as a buffer. Eventually, Clarke clears her throat, thus ending their torture.

"I hope you enjoy your stay in Arkadia, Commander. Today, I would like to show you what each sector does around here."

~~~~

First, Clarke takes her to see the farms. Lexa is impressed with the technology they employ, some of it simple enough that the other clans can replicate. They lack the knowledge earned through years of experience, however, and Lexa can visualize how the other clans can help the Sky People complement their scientific expertise with conventional wisdom. The same would be true for hunting if her people were keen on using fire guns. Instead, it is a foregone conclusion that the Sky People have much to learn before they can hunt in an effective way that will truly allow them to live fairly comfortably through the harsher seasons.

During the day, Lexa realises that Clarke is bright and ingenious, though judgemental and opinionated. Lexa can see that the Sky Council member is making an effort, however, so she does not make her job too hard. Clarke talks her through her clan's decision-making process, some general laws and traditions, the way religion evolved on the Ark, and how the ground contributed to diminish the gap between classes.

"We all need to work to survive," Clarke explains. "Some people will always be lazy, some will work more than others, but opportunities are never amiss. If you work hard enough, life will be merciful. Or as merciful as it can be on the ground," she adds as an afterthought. Lexa takes the chance to point out that life can be easier for the Sky People if they ally with her. Clarke counters with a smirking 'maybe' and moves on.

Lexa feels a quiet sense of wonder, muted also byba slight prickle of fear and discomfort, when she first enters the medical aisle. Everything is white and pristine, and there are machines as big as Lexa that both sit the patients down in comfortable seats and lloom over them with big, mechanical arms. There are beds everywhere, an organised chaos of machines, healers, and patients. Lexa feels miserably out of place, but she can't help but marvel at how advanced the Sky People seem to be in terms of medicine. This her people can learn from.

"Raven has managed to build more equipment and make our medical aisle as effective as it can be." Clarke's husky voice provides pleasant commentary on all the technological wonders around them. "A lot of the doctors are still in training, but soon we'll have a hospital ready to answer everyone's needs."

Lexa turns to Clarke, dips her chin in a slight nod. "Our methods are more traditional. We answer many needs, but often find ourselves lacking the means to further our expertise. Our healers could learn a lot from yours," she says. Clarke turns to her with a pensive crease between her eyebrows. "And maybe they could teach your healers how to draw from nature to cure many ailments."

"That's... not such a bad idea," Clarke concedes, and a smile ghosts over pink lips, making the beauty mark above them tip upwards. "But we would have to think things through very thoroughly. That is, if we joined the Coalition."

"Of course."

Their day draws to an end when the sun has already hidden behind the walls of Arkadia and the sky is the same purple that colours its flags. Clarke explains to her that each of their cities is represented by a colour and together they form a rainbow. "I may have had a hand in that," Clarke confides, although the meaning of her sly smirk is lost on Lexa.

Clarke takes her to the door of her quarters and it is not until Lexa is about to nod her goodbye that the Sky leader clears her throat and extends her arm. Lexa's eyes take in the proffered arm, then find Clarke's gaze with a raised eyebrow. Clarke purses her lips and takes a deep breath.

"Look, I am— genuinely sorry for... for what happened yesterday. My behaviour was unacceptable."

Lexa is tempted to punish Clarke a bit further, but decides to offer an olive branch instead. She clasps Clarke's forearm and feels soft fingers wrap around her own. "You are unwaveringly protective of your people, Clarke. I can appreciate that."

Clarke's small, grateful smile is worth the concession.

~~~~

The next morning, Lexa leaves her quarters to find Marcus and Clarke waiting for her. Once all pleasantries are exchanged, the Chancellor invites her, with an eager tilt to his voice, to have the first meal in the mess hall.

Lexa accepts the invitation with polite words and Marcus takes the front of their little group of four, Gustus included. Lexa and Clarke walk side by side just a few steps behind.

"I hope you are liking your stay here, Commander," Clarke says after several seconds of silence.

Lexa gathers her thoughts before she answers carefully: "It is in many ways an experience unlike what I am used to. The sounds are different, the clothes too. There is no shortage of metal."

Clarke hums in agreement. "Technology has its pros and cons. Against it is the fact that you find yourself turning your back on your surroundings." Lexa's eyes must hold a question in them, for Clarke answers it immediately: "When everything you need is inside a wall, you end up exploring the world outside less and less."

"Maybe I can help your people find their balance."

Clarke shrugs noncommittally, but Lexa spies indecision in her eyes. It is not until some seconds later that Clarke decides to voice her thoughts.

"The problem with alliances is that they only last for so long. Eventually one clan's needs trumps the alliance's and everyone falls back into their old, warring ways."

Lexa understands Clarke's doubt; it has plagued her sleepless one too many nights. However, it is not just a matter of conviction. Lexa knows that if she manages to find a balance between codependency and independency, she can keep the Coalition alive for many ages. She wants her legacy to be enjoyed by many commanders after her.

"Clarke, I am trying to build something that will last for many generations. An alliance that will stand the test of time, a brand of peace that will outlive all of us," she says, unable to keep a thread of passion from her voice. "Something much stronger than the Pauna's fist and far greater than a hero's glory. War breeds legends, peace feeds civilisations."

Clarke's smile is teasing, but Lexa recognises it for the deflection that it is. "Nice speech, Commander."

She shrugs and lets her eyes glint with mirth. "I am not above making rousing speeches to sway your vote, Clarke."

~~~~

(there was more but it was incomplete so I figured this would be the best place to cut)

#clexa #clexa au #mine #my fics

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copper-dust · 3 years ago

Text

yet another writing meme

20 Questions: Writer's Edition!

Tagged by @pebblysand , who probably already knows the answers to these questions about me!

How many works do you have on AO3?

What’s your total AO3 word count?

235,661—but keep in mind that those words have been written over the course of seven years, so I’m really not all that prolific. I write slowly.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Just 2 (Harry Potter and Rent.) I used to write for a few more fandoms, all in musical theatre, but that was before Ao3 existed, and those works are very immature. I started writing fan fiction in middle school, so I’m not exactly itching to post that stuff on my current account.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Seam Between, Snow Globe, In Search of Mythical Kings, March Hare and All Your Seasick Sailors.

What’s interesting is that with the exception of ISOMK, all of those are stories I began writing no earlier than May of 2020. It may be that the pandemic allowed me more time to practice writing and build my audience, or simply that I’ve improved as a writer in that period. I’m inclined to believe that my audience has grown mainly because I’ve been more active in the writing community since the pandemic started and so people are more likely to check out my work. Honestly, I believe my work started growing in popularity mainly because @floreatcastellumposts liked The Seam Between and mentioned it on her Tumblr, and that had more of an effect that any change in the quality of my work.

I still dearly love my completely neglected fic The Atoners.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

It depends. I used to never respond to comments because I felt that any engagement with readers outside of the writing would kind of disrupt the world of the story and remove them from the text. For that reason, I also didn’t post author’s notes. I was very strict with myself.

I no longer believe that, and I now see that great friendships and connections are forged in the comments section. There are a few comments I won’t respond to—mainly, people that ask a question about the resolution of the plot when I’m posting a middle chapter. Obviously, I’m not going to give away the ending just because you asked for it! I also don’t tend to respond to comments on FFnet, though they’re rarely valuable comments anyways.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t know, all of them? I will say that the story that most moved me while I was writing the ending would be The Seam Between. I really had tears in my eyes during the last 2 paragraphs.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Hmmm...not sure. Maybe it would be A Network of Spittle, one of my earliest-ever Harry Potter fics, about the night that Harry was born and how the message of his birth travelled through the secret networks of the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters. That piece was written back when I was more interested in the children’s lit aspect of the series, and trying more seriously to imitate JKR’s tone and style, rather than developing my own.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of potentially doing it if I found two fandoms with just the right kind of synchronicity.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes and no. I have received comments that were rude or worded in a way that didn’t show respect, but I don’t think the people who wrote those comments necessarily intended to be hateful. For example, I received some pretty out-there comments on The Atoners from an intense Snape fan who would lash out as if addressing James Potter or Dumbledore (rather than me.) I also received some pretty rude comments on March Hare, but they turned out to be from a minor on the autism spectrum who has difficulties with communication. I don’t think she understood how her behaviour came across, and I almost immediately recognized that she might be on the spectrum (I have special ed training.)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have never written smut, but I have written sex scenes when I felt they were necessary to the plot. They were pretty abstract and lacking in explicit detail, though. I’m not saying I would never write smut, but I haven’t yet and if I did, I probably wouldn’t share it online.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, but it would be the highest compliment.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I would love to, so if anyone’s willing...

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven’t—but it’s something I would consider, if I really liked the other person’s style.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Okay, here me out: I love the relationship between adolescence and trauma. I love pairing the interior growth you experience as you transition from childhood to adulthood with some kind of exterior drama that reshapes your psychic landscape just as your body as undergoing so much change. That’s my favourite ship.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

It really hurts to admit this, but I think I’ll sporadically update but never actually complete In Search of Mythical Kings.

What are your writing strengths?

Oh, god. This question. It feels impolite to even answer. I suppose I do a lot of research to get my settings right, and to make my stories feel authentic to a time and place. I’ve put lots of work into learning the British dialect too.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have a generally narrow range of interests with regard to themes and emotional valence. I could write the same story over and over, with minor variations, because I get emotionally fixated on one topic. I also struggle with transitioning from one scene to another, and indicating the passage of time in a way that feels authentic and organic. Oh, and I also write Really. Damn. Slowly.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I wouldn’t attempt it unless I had a person who fluently spoke the appropriate dialect to help me. But you also have to consider your audience—are you writing loads of dialect that your readers won’t understand?

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter, but that was back when I was 11ish and none of the documents were ever posted online, nor did they survive various computer crashes.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’m not sure. They’re each so intricately connected to some personal emotional phenomenon I was going through at the time. It’s also affected me to see how popular or unpopular some fics have become. I really didn’t think The Seam Between would get much of an audience, and then it sort of broke away and became my most popular story. I really appreciated the audience engagement I got on that one. Like I said before, I’m still quite attached to the work I did on The Atoners, which is sort of a missed-connection story about teenage Snape meeting middle-aged Lyall Lupin on the night of the Prank.

Tagging @sybill-the-seer @floreatcastellumposts and anyone else who’d like to participate, but hasn’t been tagged!

#writing meme #meme #about me #fanfiction #harry potter #fic: the seam between #fic: the atoners #fic: march hare #fic: snow globe #fic: in search of mythical kings

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thetypedwriter · 4 years ago

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The Captive Prince Trilogy

The Captive Prince Trilogy Book Review by C.S. Pacat

Now, one of my absolute favorite things to do is to re-read.

Many people find this strange.

How do you enjoy a book you’ve already read? They say. You already know what happens, isn’t it boring?

In short, the very simple, very concise answer is: no.

I adore re-reading my favorite books for several reasons.

One, it’s comfortable. I love slipping back into a world flush full of characters I cherish. It’s like slipping back into a warm bed on a cold morning. Re-reading the Harry Potter series for me, for example, is the same sort of reasoning people watch Friends over and over again or whatever amenable show of their choice.

It’s easy, it's familiar, and it’s beloved.

Second, often with re-reads you are able to pick up on things that you missed the first time you read through, or even the second. There is symbolism, foreshadowing, and minute details that become glaringly obvious in retrospect and whenever I discover one of these tidbits I become overwhelmingly jubilant.

Third, sometimes nothing else sounds good. If I’m having a book lull and nothing seems to catch my attention, I know I can return to a treasured novel or series and that it’ll satiate whatever reading needs I have at the time.

This happened to me very recently. As my to-read pile dwindled down to books given to me by others that I held trivial interest in, I resorted to re-reading a book series that I love to death: All for the Game trilogy. You can find my review of this series here.

More commonly known as the first book in the series, The Foxhole Court, these books have continually given me merriment and joy every time I’ve read them, including this time. I read all three novels in about four days and I enjoyed every single second of it, even though this is the third time I’ve read the series start to finish.

After finishing The King’s Men, I was once again bereft of reading material and woefully bored. Hence, as any normal person does, I resorted to fanfiction and to looking up books that people found were similar to The Foxhole Court.

To my surprise, on every list was a trilogy I had never heard of called The Captive Prince. Scoffing in skepticism-how could something even compare to my beloved foxes? I decided with circumspect that I would “try” out this series.

I was very much right. The Captive Prince trilogy almost had nothing in common with Nora Sakavics’s The Foxhole Court other than the hate-to-love trope (but it’s not like Nora invented that by any means) and slow-burn romance.

That being said, I very much enjoyed the series.

The trilogy was first self-published by author C.S. Pacat in 2013, the same year that Nora Sakavic self-published The Foxhole Court. What a good year for literature. In all candor, the authors and their backgrounds seem to have more in common then their series do.

The Captive Prince revolves around Damen, the true and rightful heir to the throne of Akielos, being sold as a slave to the prince of Vere, Laurent, by his own brother who has usurped the throne after the untimely death of their father.

Thus unfolds a truly complex and intriguing series involving intricate world-building, political machinations, Damen’s lofty goal of trying to go back home and take his rightful place on the throne, Laurent’s ongoing war with his uncle, the current Regent of Vere until Laurent comes of age, and some truly surprising twists and turns.

This trilogy took me blissfully by surprise.

Is this trilogy a romance? Yes, it is. Very slow burn and with the aforementioned enemies-to friends-to lovers trope that we’re all enamored with (don’t even pretend otherwise). I saw the synopsis, caught wind of the word “slave” and almost gave in and tossed this book away permanently.

I don’t like relationships with unbalanced hierarchies of power. In truth, it makes me uncomfortable because I truly think the relationship can’t be mutual, equal, or consensual when one person in the relationship inherently has more influence and control over the other.

I thought Captive Prince was going to be another smutty, cheesy, poorly written rendition of a “slave” being given to a prince and low and behold, they fall in love anyway despite the numerous and lengthy immoral implications within that framework.

Much to my surprise, the Captive Prince took its own turn.

Number one, while Damen is sold as a slave to Laurent, there is nothing explicitly sexual in nature that occurs between them (much) until further later on in the series. This is mostly because of Laurent himself, who loathes Damen for reasons that I won’t get into.

The society they live in, however, does not have the same chaste control that the Prince of Vere does, but instead of coming across as lascivious and self-serving, the gratuitous display of sex and sex slaves in the novel actually serves more of a commentary of being toxic and something that Laurent wants to change once he is properly king. I appreciated this commentary.

Secondly, Damen and Laurent’s relationship was genuinely good to me. Often with books of this romantic and superfluous nature, the relationship seems fake, forced, or like I said before, inherently unbalanced and therefore coerced.

However, Pacat does a very good job of insisting that while Damen is technically Laurent’s slave in status, he is never actually Laurent’s slave in action, belief, or treatment. It was very refreshing to see how much power Damen amassed, even with his slave status, and the control he was able to wield and hone.

Laurent and Damen also authentically compliment each other. Where Laurent is cold and calculating, Damen is warm and trusting. Where one is manipulative with mind games another is strategic on the battlefield. They meshed well together. A fact that Pacat showed time and time again. They made each other better. And in the end, they both realized this as well.

Thirdly, this series was truly well written and didn’t focus solely on the romance. For a trilogy found under the romance section at Barnes & Noble, I was chagrined to find that for the most part, politics, war, scheming, and an overall plot heavy series dominated most of the pages.

While Laurent and Damen’s relationship does have focus, it wasn’t the only focus, and if anything, their relationship played well and clearly into the events that were going on around them.

That being said, similar to The Foxhole Court, please be warned that there are triggering aspects of this book. Namely rape, slavery, prostitution, drugs, violence, torture, etc. If this is something that is concerning to you, please research the warnings and risks attributed to this novel before diving head first.

Lastly, people, the sheer vocabulary of this series was astonishing. I had to look up so many words that I didn’t know. Instead of being annoying, I loved this. I love learning new words.

However, reading YA most of the time does not stretch my vocabulary limits. This book certainly did and I wholeheartedly appreciated it. Some words included: chamois, dishabille, chicanery, sobriquet, nascent and damascened. I will be very impressed if you know all these words without having to google them like I did.

I know I should have probably written separate reviews for all three books in the trilogy, but because I read them one after another and in such a short amount of time, the whole series kind of blended together for me in one gargantuan novel.

I can’t say that I hated that. Lengthy books are an absolute prize when you’re enjoying them. In addition, Pacat released short stories with differing material, one is an epilogue type of deal and most of the others show insights into side characters from throughout the series. They’re all very fun to read if you needed something more like I did once I was finished.

Recommendation: The trilogy as a whole was really fun and surprisingly well-written. Damen, Laurent and other characters were continuously fleshed out and the writing itself was nuanced, symbolic, and just fun to read. The world-building, while not the most incredibly original thing that’s ever surfaced, was still gripping and entertaining.

It was almost like a fantasy take on Ancient Rome or Greece, which is very much up my alley anyway. The romance wasn’t cheesy, but was instead fluid, dynamic, and situated well within the plot as a whole. It wasn’t the Foxhole Court, but that’s okay, because what can be? Better off to be something new and distinct than trying to copy something or someone else.

As Oscar Wilde once said, “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.”

Indeed, Mr. Wilde.

Score: 8/10

#the captive prince #princes gambit #kings rising #cs pacat #laurent and damen #the foxhole court #all for the game #nora sakavic #book blog #books #book review #book rec #Book Recommendations #booknerd #book reccs #YA Book Review #romance fiction #mm romance #LGBTQ fiction

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weclassygirl · 4 years ago

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𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐮𝐢𝐬

Word count: +4.1k

Pairing: santino d’antonio x f!reader

Summary: “I wasn’t lying.”

Warnings: slowburn, mentions of kidnapping, angst, i guess that’s it, i’ve never written warnings before so… I might have missed something or add something wrong

Author’s note: hello! i’m back with the second part! it’s a bit different from the atmosphere of the first part but i decided to slowly work the story, i know that this part may seem boring to some people but please bear with me, baby steps. As always give me your most brutal honest opinion so I can improve. English is not my first language so beware.

dulce periculum series: 01 / ... / 03

Penthouse reference (x)

Gif credits (x)

The ride to the penthouse is rather slow, the New York traffic not helping.

During your negotiations with John and the other two men you forgot about bruises blossoming all over your body. Now after leaving the hotel the pain started to show up even more. You could feel it in your lungs with every breath that you took, whenever you turned your head to the window you could feel the piercing pain going up your spine.

Santino of course noticed it and already planned to have a doctor look over you and question more about the events that caused them. Right now he was sitting across from you in the leather seat of a car, just staring at your bruised face and the light that was reflecting in your eyes as you looked out of the window.

You were marvelling at the city that you've only seen in movies and read in books. Somehow it feels surreal for you to actually be here.

You always wanted to travel, school trips are nothing compared to this. Whenever you went with your school to a large, foreign city there was never enough time to see it in its full glory. Now you have chance, hopefully.

You can feel a pair of eyes on you. You turn in your seat to look at Santino. He studies your face, body language. His navy suit looking a bit disheveled but still sharp. The lights of the city bounce back on the pin settled on his tie.

"What?" you ask slowly.

"You've never been to New York, have you?" he phrases it like it's the most obvious thing.

"Not all of us can afford travelling to some places." you turn your head to the window. Your breath leaves a faint fog on the glass. "I've visited some foreign cities, but it was always with a school trip so we didn't see much and didn't have the time to explore the whole beauty of them."

The lights from the buildings illuminate your face with various of colors. You see small droplets falling on the glass before it starts heavily raining.

"What happens now?” you ask straight away. “I meant it when I said that I could go to the Bowery King. You didn't have to do this."

"You'd rather spend your time out there,” he points his hand to the window “seeking shelter from the rain in the company of the bowery, on those dirty streets? You're better than that, cara mia. Your set of skills proves it." he takes a pause, staring out the window himself. His hand rises up to his cufflinks, playing with them. "That is of course if you weren't lying about them."

He looks up in your direction with an expression that some would fear. You try to not show that fear.

"You doubt me? Why I'm hurt." you comment with a slight smile.

He says nothing, his lips form a shape of that smirk that is so familiar to you.

"We can test your abilities later." he waves his hand. "For now you still owe me some explanation."

His voice has suddenly became more serious. But you wonder on the word he used, we. You don’t think much about it, instead you reply.

"I've already told you why I saved you."

"I don't mean that situation. I mean those." he points at your bruises.

You try to quickly cover them but his gaze is faster.

"I've been-" "-attacked in the alley while pursuing the thieves of your bag, yes. " he cuts you off with a bored tone. "You've mentioned. But there's more to it, isn't it?" he leans in closer. Hands clasped in front of him, his elbows on his knees. The suit creases at his shoulders.

"Those bruises are not from any theft, those marks on your neck look like you've been choked, almost to death I would say." he points with his head towards your neck and you immediately try to cover it with your hoodie. "Furthermore your wrists. Redness around them suggest that you've been tied up, more likely with a rope or handcuffs. I'd assume that you have a pretty adventurous sex life, but that yellow patch forming on your jaw says something else."

You cast your eyes at him, slightly widened. You take a quick look at your wrists and he was right. There are still red lines circling them. Your hand comes up to your jaw and you flinch at the contact.

You turn to him with a stone expression.

"You're suddenly Sherlock?" you scoff.

"Nothing more than a good observer, bella."

His gaze is unrelenting.

Demanding.

Before you can answer the car comes to a stop. You look out of the window to see a fancy complex building. Two doorman standing in front of it. One of them comes up to the car with an umbrella, opening the doors.

"Welcome back Mr. D'Antonio."

You feel the droplets of rain falling on your arm. You still stare at the Italian in front of you.

"Come on now, don't let the young man wait in the rain."

You turn away from Santino and step out of the car straight into the rain. You don't hide under the umbrella, instead you walk towards the building.

Santino watches you with an amusement showing on his face as he exits the car. You're sure you can hear him say to the doorman.

"Ah, women, you never know what's going on inside their heads."

The second doorman up front opens the door for you and you're immediately embraced with a warm air of the place your in. You climb up the stairs before you’re placed in the lobby of the hotel.

It’s relatively quiet, only few people still around, minding their own business.

You examine the place around, you’re standing on a gorgeous brown marble floor that is filled with white lines, creating an intricate design. The walls of the lobby are light beige, which gives it an elegant look. There is a big opening in the ceiling, which is the sort of that golden light and to your sides are another sets of stairs which lead to a restaurant and a chilling area. Up ahead is the reception, behind it stands a man dressed in a dark suit. For a moment you wonder how much one night might cost here and you know that you wouldn't be able to afford it.

You don't hear steps creeping up behind you, but you feel a warm hand being placed on your shoulder. You flinch at the touch.

"Not your everyday sight, I presume." Santino says glancing around. "Come on." he directs his head to the reception and points to it with his chin.

You follow with slow steps still checking out the beautiful space. You place your hands on the reception desk as Santino says his name to the man in order to receive the keys.

"Should I send the doctor to your room, Mr. D'Antonio?" The concierge asks. He reminds you a bit of Charon.

"Yes." he answers shortly.

The man handles him the keys and the Italian takes them in his hands, he starts moving towards the elevators. You follow him once again, like a clinging shadow.

As you enter the elevator he presses the button for the top floor. You say nothing, you expected that he would own the most expensive suite. The ride up top is rather quick but it feels like it goes on forever. Neither of you utter a word, the only sound that can be heard is your breathing. It gets heavier every time you take a deep breath. Santino notices that barely visible movement.

The elevator stops, followed by the soft sound of the bell and opening of the doors. You step out of it first with wary steps. This part of the hotel looks just like the lobby only more luxurious. If that's even possible.

Santino moves to the big door at the end of the hallway. They hold some of the most beautiful designs you've ever seen. He turns the knob and gestures his hand to the apartment.

"Ladies first." he says glancing at you with those emerald eyes.

You hold his gaze before entering the room.

Instantly you're met with a dark room before the Italian turns on the lights. You take in the white foyer that leads to the living room filled with windows. The first thing you can see while entering is the view of the New York. It's already evening, the sun has gone down, but looking at the city below you can see that the New York life has just began for the people.

Santino moves his gaze in your direction. His eyes are filled with a curiosity as you gaze at the skyline of the city. Your eyes move to the dining room which has a door that lead to the kitchen. The kitchen itself is adorned with light brown cabinets and marble counters. In the middle of it is a white island with the same marble.

You don't notice the Italian behind you. Instead you wonder what have you gotten yourself into. This isn't your world, you have no place here. The only reason you're still alive is because you could be of use to the Italian. As far as you know.

You know what happened after he was shot in the movie, but now with you saving him from that fate everything is possible.

The more you think about it the more you realize that you being in this world is not going to end well.

"You sure have a lot of money to spend." you admit, trying to ease up the tension filling the room.

"This is nothing, no more than 25 million." he says it as if everyone spends that large amount of money on such things. You're turned away from him and you're thankful for that cause your eyes go wide. He probably knows that, smug bastard.

Your short exchange is replaced by a soft bell heard throughout the penthouse and you feel the tension drop from your shoulders.

Santino heads to the door to let in the man behind it, you follow him. That person being the doctor. Though you didn't realize that it would be the same one from John Wick movies. The doctor is silent, only greets the Italian with a small "good evening".

The three of you move to the dining room where the doctor starts to unpack his equipment. You take off your lightly wet hoodie, left only in a tank top. You sit in the chair waiting for the doctor to begin, he turns to you first. He moves his hand to your face to inspect your formed bruises and you immediately reach with your own hand and grab his wrist. He stops his movements and focuses on your eyes, the dark bags under them have already started to become more visible.

“Sorry.” you whisper and slowly put your hand down. Santino watches this small interaction with a familiarity. Just a few minutes ago you’ve reacted in the same manner to his touch when you first entered the hotel. He, of course, didn’t made it seem that he acknowledged it. “Please, continue.” you mutter after a second.

The doctor glances at your hands and sees the red circles around them. “What happened?”

You look up at him. “Nothing, just an unfortunate event.” The man looks towards Santino, wondering if he had anything to do with it. The Italian stares at him with a warning in his eyes that seems to say Don’t ask any unnecessary questions, it’s not what you’re here for. The doctor continues taking care over your injuries.

“What’s your name?” he asks after a moment. You consider giving him a name, but keep on with the one you gave at the Continental. “Jade.”

The doctor says nothing, just hums, taking in the information. Santino gives the man an ice pack, you didn’t notice his short disappearance. You put the bag on your jaw, while the old man inspects bruises on your arms, chest, stomach and some cuts on your arms.

The whole process is quick, only a few looks at the state of the bruises, occasionally stitching up the opened cuts or fixing the poor work you’ve made stitching yourself up.

When he finishes up he moves to Santino, but before he does that he gives you a bottle of painkillers. The old man starts taking care of the Italian’s face. The little cuts he earned at the museum started to dry, leaving scabs. His face doesn’t need that much attention like in your case, but still need to be taken care of so that it doesn’t get infected. He doesn’t give Santino any painkillers, not that he would even accept them.

The doctor packs his stuff into a briefcase and leaves the dining room. His disappearance is followed by the soft click of the shut the door.

The both of you are left alone, still sitting beside the table. None of you say anything. You still apply the ice pack to your bruises and Santino once again follows your movements.

"I wasn't lying." you break the silence. Santino locks his eyes with yours. “I wasn’t lying when I said that some guys took my bag.”

“So what’s the cause of the bruises then?” he asks.

You sigh, you can't tell him, you don't trust him, that's for sure. You just settle for a brief explanation.

"I was kidnapped before those guy took my bag." you tell him. "When they did that I was actually getting out of the pharmacy, my apartment didn't have any painkillers." you start playing with the bottle in your hand. Twirling it around, your eyes set on it. "I was sleeping for a few days and my body hurt all over so I decided to take some pills. But of course I didn't have any, so I went to the store." you finish, he doesn't need to know more, you don't know for what he might use it.

"Your kidnappers gave you those bruises?" he asks delicately. "Yes." is all you say. You don't want to think of that time again, especially since it's still so vivid in your mind. You can feel the pain coursing in your body as it was flowing back in that basement. You feel tired, exhausted. The ice bag that Santino gave you has already started to melt.

The Italian stands up from his seat and reaches out to you. You study his face. It’s covered in faint bruises and cuts, now tended to by the doctor. The soft light of the chandelier highlights the side of his face.

You don’t take his hand this time, instead you move to the freezer and put the halfly melted ice back in. When you turn around he isn’t there. You move to the hallway and towards the living room and find him seating on one of the couches, spreaded out on it, one foot resting on his knee, his head turned in the direction of the New York skyline.

You don’t sit beside him, just stand in the entrance looking at him. You wonder why he didn’t ask further or said something. Most people would have already pestered you with questions, but not him apparently, he respects your decision not to talk about it further. Maybe besides his father giving up his seat to Gianna, he was treating him even worse than you suspected.

What if he went through something similar?

What if him being the possible heir of the Camorra and the High Table seat made him a target?

You’re about to walk back in search for a bedroom, before his voice reaches you.

“Why didn’t you use your real name?” he asks suddenly, throwing you off your train of thoughts. You turn in his direction, his suit has creased a little, the light is faintly reflecting in his eyes.

You think over his question and sigh. “Names hold power,” he fixes his gaze on you, listening closely. “they can either get you out in the world or… destroy you.”

“You think, giving your second name will change that?” you tilt your head at him and smile.

“You’re D’Antonio, your whole family is know all over this world, respected, feared. In mine no one knew it and sometimes I felt safe because of it.” you confess. “No one could point to me for something I’ve done, cause no one would know it was me. Giving your real name can be dangerous. As I said before, in this world even more so.”

The end of your speech is followed by quietness. You direct your eyes to the tiny bottle of painkillers in your hand. Santino understands, somehow whenever you say something he understands.

“And do you wish to be seen as someone in this world?”

You sigh. Do you? You start walking into the living room. Slowly you move towards the window.

“I don’t know. I have no idea how long I’m gonna stay here or even if I’ll be able to go back to my world. But for now I’ll take any other world than mine.” you say coming closer to the window. The New York looks stunning this time of day. You see Santino standing up from his seat in the reflection of the window. He stands beside you, both of you overlooking the city ahead.

It’s a comfortable silence. It seems as it tells more than any words could. You’re both broken in your own ways, you know that. You accept that.

“You saved me, don’t you think there may be some consequences to your actions, cara mia?” he side eyes you, his green eyes gleaming in the low light.

There it is again. That name. How many girls had he called that? Did he ever or are you a special case? You scoff under your breath.

“You said a similar thing to John, when you visited him in his home with a marker.” he gazes down at you with furrowed eyebrows. “Repercussions.” you mock his statement from that night.

He… chuckles, it’s not a full laugh but it’s always something. It’s a pleasant sound to ears. It’s soft, alive... warm even.

“I have a feeling that you will always amaze us with your knowledge of our lives, no matter how small.” he admits with a slight smile still playing on his lips. Slowly you begin to smile too, your jaw hurts but right now it doesn’t matter. It’s good to feel a bit of happiness, even if just for a moment. You can see both of your reflections in the window. You in your tank top, covered in bruises, he in his dark suit, small cuts on the face and few unruly strands of curly hair.

“Why did you save me? Truly.” he wonders.

In their world people don’t save each other, their lives always comes first. Yet here you are, throwing yourself in front of the gun that was directed at him. In front of him of all people.

“I meant what I said there, that I somehow understand you.” you point out. “I was working my ass off my whole life, before I got here I was living alone, had a job at a cheap coffee place, barely managed to make ends meet. My family didn’t really appreciate my hard work, always told me that I wouldn’t make it in the world, and sometimes I agreed with them.”

Santino listens to your speech, he wants to know how could your story be connected to his life. Both of you are complete opposite. The prince of Camorra, who has everything and raised to one day rule as the head of the family, and you, a girl that struggled in her life just trying to make a living, no one knowing her name.

“When John came to you at the museum you had that look in your eyes when you said that your father willed his seat to your sister.” you think of that scene, it was weird watching those emotions being portrayed on the screen, but you felt them in your bones. “I saw that look before, because I see it in the mirror everyday. It made me think that maybe there’s more to your story, more to discover since the only thing the audience knew was that you helped John with his Impossible Task.” you glance towards him, but his eyes are already boring into your own. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to, you know you’re right.

He did live in the best conditions imaginable, but were they truly enough? He tried so hard to please his father, only for him to give the seat to his sister. You want to say something more, but the exhaustion is getting to you. Santino senses your tiredness and decides to speak up.

“You should rest. Those bruises need to heal.” he points to you and slowly starts to leave the living room. You follow him and say “You should do that too. You avoided death, that’s gotta leave some kind of… mark, on the soul," he turns his head to you as he keeps walking towards the door. "and I think that running from a literal death’s emissary can be tiring.”

As you finish your sentence, both of you stand in front of the white door, Santino turns the knob and you enter the white space. To your left is a big king sized bed, the front wall is made entirely of windows that overlook the city. To the both sides of the room are entrances to the balcony. The room is simple yet beautiful and elegant.

You furrow your eyebrows and turn to Santino, who’s standing in the doorway.

“What about you? Where will you sleep?” you question.

“There’s another spare bedroom here, you take this one, you’re more injured than me.” he says. Of course there is. “There’s a hallway that leads to the bathroom through those doors.” he points to the door to your right. He begins to leave the room, but you quickly go after him. “Wait!”

He turns to you, the hallway is dim but you can still see the green reflecting in his eyes.

“Thank you.” you simply say. He stares at you for a few seconds and just nods his head as if to say no problem.

“Buona notte, Jade.” he says in his mother language, putting an emphasis on the name you gave at the Continental. You smile faintly.

“Goodnight, Santino.” you reply softly.

He begins to turn away, heading for his own room, you still stand in the hallway looking at his back as he walks away. You decide to go back to your own room.

Closing the door you take the pills that you were holding in your hands and put the bottle on the nightstand. You strip yourself of your clothes and walk towards the bathroom. The room itself is also striking white with a bathtub to your right and a vanity with a large mirror to your left. There’s a shower further into the small bathroom and a fresh towel and a robe hanging next to it.

You quickly jump into the shower and turn it on. The warm water instantly slides down your body, easing the tensed muscles. You take about 20 minutes to wash your body, being careful with bruises and cuts. When you exit you put on the white cotton robe, drying your hair and brushing your hands through them

You stand in front of the mirror. Your face is bruised, you knew that, but you haven’t really looked at it properly since leaving the Continental.

The bruises have already started to turn yellow. Your neck is still adorned by faint hand prints, but not as heavily as at the beginning. The bags under your eyes are darker than usual. You decide to leave the bathroom, not wanting to look or even remember the cause of those bruises in the first place.

You push back the bed covers and get under them, the only light turned on is the one coming from the lamp on the nightstand beside your bed. You look towards the door, as if expecting Santino to walk through them. He doesn’t.

You reach the light switch and pull on it before the white room is engulfed in darkness. You fall asleep with the faint hue coming from the lights of the city and a green eyes dancing in your mind.

#santino d'antonio x reader #santino d'antonio #riccardo scamarcio #john wick #john wick 2 #john wick chapter 2 #john wick 3 #john wick parabellum #keanu reeves #it's more of an explanation chapter #i know that there's a lot of exposition #i am still working on this writer thing #fic; dulce periculum #feedback much appreciated #this is a slow chapter #not much happening #sorry...

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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Yi Yi (2000, Taiwan)

At the beginning of Edward Yang’s Yi Yi (translated as “A one and a two…”), the film samples a piece adapted from the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. That movement, containing the “Ode to Joy” (its lyrics from a poem of the same name), was the composer’s refutation of a belief he held when he was younger – the necessity for heroic revolutionary leaders to deliver freedom to the masses. Napoleon’s declaration of himself as Emperor and the decisions made by the Congress of Vienna in 1804 and 1814-1815, respectively, obliterated political freedoms across Europe in favor of repressive police states. Beethoven was disillusioned by these developments. By the time of the Ninth Symphony’s debut, he was completely deaf and had endured decades of intense suffering. Within the lyrics in the “Ode to Joy” was Beethoven’s statement celebrating Enlightenment ideals – universal brotherhood in diversity, liberty, and an individual’s right to the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness, of course, guarantees neither happiness nor self-fulfillment, as Beethoven himself must have known. In that spirit, Edward Yang’s final film follows a middle-class Taiwanese family as each family member grasps for meaning and purpose. Films as keenly observant of the daily joys and disappointments of life such as Yi Yi are rare. It is a masterpiece of filmmaking and human drama.

Just before the turn of the twentieth to the twentieth-first century in Taipei lives the Jian family. Father NJ (Wu Nien-jen), mother Min-Min (Elaine Jin), teenage daughter Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), and eight-year-old son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang) are attending the wedding reception of Min-Min’s brother A-Di (Chen His-Sheng). Shortly after the reception, Min-Min’s mother (Tang Ru-yun) falls ill and has a stroke. After emergency intervention and treatment in the hospital, she remains comatose following her discharge. But even before this development, Edward Yang has been laying the groundwork for his film’s intricate, but comprehensible, structure.

The film divides its time between the Jians, maintaining a delicate balance throughout (even if Min-Min is largely absent in the film’s second half). Downstairs from the wedding reception, NJ has a chance encounter with his ex-girlfriend Sherry (Ko Su-yun). Sherry wants to reconnect, answer lingering questions. Years removed from their relationship, NJ is busy with an unfulfilling job and an incoming visitor in Japanese businessman Mr. Ota (Issey Ogata). Min-Min – who falls into a depression upon seeing her mother’s comatose state – leaves for a Buddhist monastery well after Yi Yi settles into its rhythm. She only resurfaces just before the conclusion. At fourteen years old, Ting-Ting is witnessing others pursue romance as she develops romantic feelings of her own. As many former teenagers know, those are awkward years, guided by nothing resembling one’s present wisdom. The target of his classmates’ bullying and frequent condescending remarks from his teacher, Yang-Yang goes about his life mostly alone. Yet in his loneliness and quiet, he observes others astutely. “Daddy,” he asks, “I can’t see what you see and you can’t see what I see. How can I know what you see?… can we only know half of the truth?”

Yi Yi’s characters grapple with the unknowable, the misunderstood, and the unspoken truths that are just in front of them. Their stories interweave with each other’s, forming a current rippling gently through each of their lives. Characters are occasionally seen through windows with the camera positioned outside – at times obscured by a glare, at times seen clearly. In the former, the glare suggests the barriers of communication and temperament people develop for their own survival and sanity, or perhaps to delay something unpleasant and inevitable. When no glares are present, there is less conversational or behavioral pretense. But in those moments, the characters’ feelings of isolation – from family, friends, or society – envelop the frame. In each instance, Yang (who also wrote the film’s screenplay) and cinematographer Yang Wei-han (1985’s Taipei Story, 2008’s 1895) capture each character’s disorientation in navigating the course of their lives amid a bustling metropolis. These shots through the window also encapsulate how difficult it is for us to understand the perspectives of others. Yang-Yang could be onto something; maybe the best we can hope for is to know half of any human truth.

Those who have seen their share of Japanese cinema may already know what a pillow shot is (or at least the concept of one without knowing the term), and Yang uses something like this technique Yasujirô Ozu perfected in order to have the audience reflect on the scene that has just occurred. Instead of a silent moment intercut with shots of sides of buildings, power lines, neon signs, or tea kettles, Yang elects to have additional dialogue or music. Perhaps it comes in the form of Mr. Ota singing “Sukiyaki” (a song wracked with bitter disappointment in its lyrics) and following up by playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata while tipsy (Beethoven yet again!), Ting-Ting being annoyed by vocal patrons in a bagel joint, or Yang-Yang escaping his furious teacher by walking into a darkened auditorium where a different class is watching a science documentary. These moments, like Ozu’s pillow shots, have little to do with the film’s overarching storylines. They might serve as moments of characterization but they are, generally, instances of cinematic punctuation. Oftentimes, that punctuation is an ellipses, as many – not all – of the film’s most pivotal moments occur off-screen.

What does Yang unearth in these moments of reflection? The clash of Taiwanese and Western life elements is an aspect of Yi Yi – one could conceivably interpret the film of how the latter has disrupted the former to the detriment of the characters – but Yang does not seem interested in crafting a polemic. Some viewers who might not be as well-versed in modern Asian culture might be surprised by how simultaneously cosmopolitan and traditional Yi Yi may feel. A comedic trip to McDonalds, the Western cultural products, and the use of English in all conversations between NJ and Mr. Ota aside, the issues and conflicted feelings that arise are universal. Yi Yi does not challenge Confucian mores of family and traditional relationships, even if it occasionally pokes fun at tradition. Even though both of the Jian kids are largely left to their own devices (a combination of their father’s long work hours and their mother’s leave of absence to the monastery), they do not defy authority figures for the sake of defiance.

There are a handful of supporting figures in the film that are having sordid affairs. But these affairs, according to the film, are pathetic and self-debasing – no additional commentary required. Through the prisms of love or friendship, each character is lonely in some fashion. Each family member, with Yang-Yang the exception, acts upon their longing for connection, romantic or platonic, in search of their evolving (and, arguably, never fully-formed) idealizations of how their lives should be. Family life is not the sole defining foundation of modern human existence, as Yang is acutely aware of. And yet, even amid emotional strife and the flurry of activity across the film’s 173 minutes, it is the most stable, predictable, and life-affirming part of each character’s life.

At first glance, it might seem that Yang-Yang is a passive young boy, who only allows things to happen to him. It is difficult to describe this in a reasonable amount of time, but Yang-Yang goes about his life silently, undemandingly, without pursuing childhood notions of friendship or first crushes. It seems Yang-Yang is always observing with his eyes and the lens of his camera. The photos he takes capture things and facets of others that never appear in photographs – the other side of the half of the truth humans can understand. Upon the first presentation of these photos and the ideas behind them to his classmates and teacher, derision follows. But Yang-Yang’s wisdom appears in the film’s final minutes in solemn voice and an acceptance beyond his years. Maybe Yang-Yang’s motivations disappear with age and the pressing concerns of modernity, but his burden is now the viewer’s to bear.

Yi Yi cannot be as effective as it is without its ensemble cast. Though most of the cast are understated, each of their characters occupy their individual stillness and silences in their respective ways. As NJ, Wu Nien-jen portrays a middle-aged man better at internalizing a conflict of personalities than intervening in one. His presence always seems deep in thought, even if he cannot find the words to say immediately how he feels. For Kelly Lee as Ting-Ting, the character is soon to enter her early adult years to a world already so different from when she was younger. Lee’s elegant screen persona reminds me of the many silent film waifs – reticent, shy, earnest – that the likes of Mary Pickford might have played once. Jonathan Chang, the film’s anchor in Yang-Yang, portrays his character without any noticeable exaggerations in voice or physical movement. In silence, Chang makes his presence felt in translating a character exactly as written. And though just a supporting character with little screentime, Issey Ogata as Mr. Ota assumes a bilingual charm – and perhaps the closest the film ever comes to blurring the distinction between screenwriter and character.

This, Edward Yang’s final film before his untimely death in 2007, is the motion picture that cemented his reputation outside Taiwan. Premiering at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, Yi Yi garnered widespread acclaim, a nomination for the Palme d’Or, and a Best Director win for Yang. His reputation across the world has only increased in recent years, thanks to home media releases of this film, Taipei Story (1985), and the dramatic epic A Brighter Summer Day (1991).

Viewers could mourn Yang’s passing as an auteur who never lived to become an international living legend of a director, or the sheer democratization and globalization of cinema that has taken place in the early twenty-first century that would have made such a distinction possible. Instead, in just considering Yi Yi by itself, we have a complete movie – one where every frame has purpose, and the viewer can accept the person that they have become and may still be. Yi Yi affirms a message that Yang and composer Peng Kai-li quote, musically, in the film’s opening minutes. The individual freedom to find one’s own happiness and fulfillment will result in suffering. Such is to exist. Such is to be human. In that suffering, one experiences the possibilities of empathy and the fullness of their humanity.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Yi Yi is the one hundred and sixty-third feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#Yi Yi #Edward Yang #Wu Nien jen #Elaine Jin #Issey Ogata #Kelly Lee #Jonathan Chang #Chen Hsi sheng #Ko Su yun #Yang Wei han #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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lynnkn · 4 years ago

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Get It In Writing

Here’s my Pynch Secret Santa for @betterwithoutsense. One of the prompts was non-magic au. Hope you enjoy!

@pynchpromptweek

Read it on ao3!

Ronan was always an outdoorsy type. His mind moved faster when the world around him moved slower. He liked New York, but it was never meant to be his home.

He had come up with the idea to move back home, drunk out of his mind on a Tuesday, after weeks of trying and failing to churn out so much as a short story, let alone a novel. He hadn’t had an original idea since he was fifteen. It made perfect sense if he didn’t think about it too much. At fifteen, he’d created some of his most original ideas, he crafted plots so intricate they made his adult self weep with jealousy. Characters had come to him like dreams. Nothing he’d written since Declan swept him and Matthew off to Alexandria had come close to the stuff he’d scribbled in frayed notebooks between lessons.

If he did let himself think about it, he’d wonder if it had less to do with the change in locale and more to do with his parents’ deaths.

He’d called Blue the next morning. She offered him the couch at her mother’s house while he looked for a place. He calls her again just as the plane lands.

“Don’t hate me,” are the first words out of her mouth.

“Oh, I love when you start conversations like that.”

“I’m stuck at work.” There’s a shuffling and a crash from the other end of the line, followed by voices. At least three of them are yelling out for Blue. “We’re understaffed. Three people quit last week and I’m the only manager left.”

He makes plans to call an Uber as soon as they land. He hates to do it, but he’s left without much of a choice. He’d avoided taxis and the like for most of his time in the city, but every time he did it, it felt wrong. His skin prickled and pulled like even it knew he did not belong in the backseat of someone else’s car.

“But I sent my cousin to pick you up at baggage claim,” Blue says.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll see you at the house?”

“Yes, definitely! I’ll see you tonight.”

“And thanks for all this.”

“No problem, Ronan.” She huffs a breathy sigh and the phone crackles as she leans in closer to whisper. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too shithead.”

Ronan had met plenty of Blue’s cousins. While the girls come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, they have names like Orla or Chrysanthemum. They wear mismatched clothing and make art out of recycled materials. They’re all indiscriminately weird. He feels confident in his ability to pick a Sargent out of a line-up.

The baggage claim is a confusing swirl of business suits and combat uniforms. He walks past a family carrying a giant banner. But he recognizes none of them. There are no floor-length skirts, no dyed hair. He pulls out his phone to call Blue back when a voice calls out his name. He turns, but he can’t make out who it is. Then he sees him.

He’s leaning against a half-wall, hands tucked into his pockets and a denim jacket tossed over his shoulder. He pushes off with his foot and approaches cautiously. He’s waiting for an answer.

“Yeah,” Ronan coughs out. He’s proud of his own tact and grace for the briefest flash before he opens his mouth again. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Blue said she’d call you.” He shuffles for a moment, grabbing desperately at his phone. “I’m Adam. I’m gonna take you back to the house if that’s cool.”

“It’s fine, man. You’re just not who I expected.”

“Well,” he says, starting a sentence he clearly never plans to finish. “You got bags?”

“Yeah. Wait here. I’ll get them.”

Adam takes the large suitcase and reaches for the duffel, but Ronan shakes his head. Adam shrugs and leads the way to the car. Ronan pulls the bag onto his shoulder and flinches as the bag bangs angrily against his stiff muscles. He moves through the pain, desperately hoping Adam can’t tell he’s struggling.

“So how are you related to Blue again?” he asks, desperate for a distraction.

“Uh, I’m Persephone’s kid.”

He remembers Persephone, long white hair, and a soft-spoken voice. She baked pies and could speak with some level of authority on any topic a person brought up. But she hadn’t had any children that he knew of. And he’s sure he’d remember Adam.

“Oh. Sure.”

“It’s an adoption thing,” he says like he’s not outrageously uncomfortable.

“That’s cool,” Ronan says like he wasn’t wondering. He doesn’t want to push so he lets the conversation float away. He’s a big fan of comfortable silence. The issue is that nothing about this situation is comfortable and he’s drowning in his own goddamn bullshit. He follows Adam to a monstrosity of parts but resists the urge to comment. This clearly isn’t the kind of car a person chooses for themselves. They exchange nervous smiles over the trunk and settle into their seats.

Adam clearly knows where he’s going so Ronan settles back in his seat, watching D.C.fade away. When the world turns green, he lets himself feel at home.

“Blue talks about you a lot,” Adam says.

And that’s the funny thing because he’s talked to Blue a lot in the years since he left, but she’s never mentioned Adam. He searches his memory for any mention or comment on the addition of a new cousin, but there’s nothing. He’d told her about every gruesome, gory detail of his move to Alexandria, of school, and Declan, and Matthew. And then when he’d moved to New York, he’d told her about his building and the shitty people he talked to and he’d laid all this on the line without considering that she was still in Henrietta and her family was changing and he didn’t even know. Why hadn’t she told him? He only lets it sting for a moment. Then he numbs it with a promise to talk to her later.

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s my best friend.”

They don’t talk much more on the drive, but Ronan watches Adam out of the corner of his eye. He’s the kind of guy a teenaged version of himself would’ve fantasized over. His hands grip the wheel and his tongue sticks out the side of his mouth as he focuses on the road. His eyebrows hang heavily over weary eyes. He’s a strange guy, a unique blend of old and young, of new and refurbished. He’s a lot like the car he drives and Ronan wonders if this body is also the kind no one chooses for themselves. But he can't stop staring nonetheless.

The house looks like itself when they pull up and a strange warmth pools through his gut. He breaths in the air as he steps out of the car. It’s lighter here. The air hits the bottom of his lungs and he pulls another breath in just to hold it there. To breathe. If he forgets, he can pretend he’s fourteen and coming over to borrow a cd. Or that he’s ten and coming to watch a movie his parents wouldn’t let him watch. Or that he’s seven and going over to play at a friend’s house for the first time in his life. He could stand out there all day, but he wants to see Maura so he hauls the stupidly heavy duffel over his shoulder and goes inside.

“Ronan? Is that you? Get your ass in here.” Maura’s voice blends with the hum of the laundry machine and children screaming somewhere down the hall and it’s a sound so wrapped in nostalgia, Ronan can’t remember what year it is. He follows the sound to the kitchen where she waits with open arms. He leans down to let her pull him into a hug. Behind him, the screen door slams as Adam comes in behind him, but he doesn’t pull away. “How’ve you been?” she asks, finally pushing him back to take in the sight of him.

“I’m alright.”

“You’re staying with us for a while?”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not.” She turns back to the counter in front of her. She has a sheet of pepperoni rolls half wrapped and lined up on a strip of parchment paper. She grabs the dough and goes back to work as Ronan leans against the counter, watching her fingers delicately shaping the rolls. “We’re a lot nicer to the boys than we used to be, right Adam?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says brushing past both of them on his way out the back.

“Oh I’m convinced,” Ronan says.

Adam stops and quirks a quiet smile, the kind Ronan wasn’t supposed to see. He turns back to them. “I promised Calla I’d fix the porch rail.”

“It can wait if you want some lunch," Maura says.

“I’d rather finish it up before class.” He looks like an animal caught in a trap, leaning towards the back door and letting his eyes wander out the window. “But I’ll take a pepperoni roll when I’m finished if you’re offering.”

She nods at him and this seems to be a dismissal because he’s out the door before Ronan can blink. As soon as he’s gone, though, Ronan is thinking about him again. About how strange he is and how much stranger he seems in a house like this. He shouldn’t fit in and yet, everything about him makes sense.

Ronan washes his hands and picks up a strip of dough, following Maura’s gentle instructions. She reaches over and fixes each roll he makes, but he doesn’t mind. He lets her fix his mistakes with no more than an overdramatic eye roll. And she doesn’t comment on his lack of manners. Maura never expected him to be polite, so long as he was kind.

Blue doesn’t make it home for another two hours. By that time, Ronan is full of pepperoni rolls and Adam has gone to class. He waits for her on the porch and she runs and jumps into his arms the moment she sees him. He picks her up, sweeping her feet out from under her. He’d hit a growth spurt a month after leaving town and hadn’t stopped until he was ducking in doorways.

She startles, but he’s strong and he’d chop his own arms off before he hurt her.

Blue and Ronan had been the weird kids of their homeschool co-op. She yelled about the patriarchy during history and he knew more about Irish folklore than algebra. She hissed at the other kids and he hit anyone who made fun of her.

“I knew you’d come home eventually,” she says.

“Then you must be psychic cause I didn’t know until last month.” He hugs her and she still smells like the tree in the backyard and pixie sticks. All is right with the world. She doesn’t look all that different either. She grew maybe another inch or two, but all-in-all, she’s still what he remembers. He wonders if she’s disappointed cause he sure as hell isn’t the Ronan she knew.

The passenger side door shuts and a man climbs out. His hair is neatly combed and his shirt is ironed. He sweeps a hand over his tie and waves at the two of them.

Blue waves back. She glances over her shoulder at Ronan, hesitant and curious. She waits for a reaction, but Ronan has nothing to say. He watches, slack-jawed and stupid as the man approaches. He kisses Blue on the cheek and offers Ronan his hand.

“You must be Ronan,” he says. They shake hands, a sweaty affair that Ronan pulls away from as soon as he gets the chance. “I’m Gansey.”

“Can you give us a minute?” Blue says. He grins back at her and then at Ronan, slipping into the house, leaving silence in his wake.

“Anything else you wanna tell me?”

“Well John Boy, things have changed here on Walton’s mountain.” She laughs at her own joke, watching for Ronan to join her. When he doesn’t she sighs. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were miserable, Ronan,” she says. “And don’t say you weren’t I could tell. I just didn’t want to rub it in your face.”

“You still should’ve told me.” It burns, like every other little hurt. These days, Ronan can’t seem to feel anything a normal amount. Every prick is a white-hot scorch. Every ache is a broken bone. One day the floor fell beneath him and the pain gets worse every time he hits another level of concrete and earth.

Blue nods and she turns, just enough to the side so Ronan can’t parse out her face. He can’t read her anymore. And so he falls again.

“And what about Adam?” he asks.

“What about him?”

Ronan’s not even sure himself. But he shows up in the same shitty town he’s always lived in and he comes back to a place that had once been his second home and this guy is here, just waiting and he’s everything Ronan thought he’d wanted back then. His perspective is tilting. He thinks about the guys back in New York: Proko, Skov, Swan, and Jiang. He thinks of Kavinsky and how much sense they made. He thinks Adam seems like the kind of guy who’s going to get him hurt. He thinks of how much he’d love to let someone like Adam hurt him.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“I didn’t know how to,” she says. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“Then why send him to pick me up?” Ronan leans into her, watching for a flicker of something recognizable. The Blue he’d known never lied to him. She was honest, sometimes brutally so and she never hid anything from him. They’d talked constantly over the years. And while he’d unloaded all of his bullshit on her, she’s remained mysterious in regards to her own life.

“I think you’ll like him,” she says. “He needs someone like you.”

“I’m not trying to fuck your cousin, Blue.”

“I’m not suggesting you fuck him. I just thought you could be friends.” She rubs her hand over her eyes, pulling her features in a sharp downturn. “I was gonna say the same about Gansey.”

He lets the breath out of his cheeks and watches the wind blow through the grass. It's grown long, just the way Blue likes it. He lets the wind move him like the grass, swaying gently until he feels grounded. He’s not mad at Blue. Not really. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I just want to make sure you have a support system here.”

“I do,” he says.

“Besides me and my mom.” She wipes at her eye again and Ronan graciously ignores the single tear.

He gestures to the door and the family waiting inside. “Well then let’s go.”

Blue smiles and Ronan remembers why he’s here in the first place. Blue is something stronger, more prominent than anything in New York. She makes him stronger, louder. It’s not just about Henrietta or the mountains. It’s in Blue’s smiles and Maura’s eyes and the strangeness of them all. This is where his story is waiting for him. It’s always been here. Ronan is the one who left.

Soon they’re all sat around the table for dinner. The conversation is light and easy. No one pushes Ronan to talk about what he’s been doing in New York and he’s eternally grateful for that. They talk about Blue’s job at Nino’s and Gansey’s parents’ real estate business. He promises to help Ronan check out some of the properties in the area. Adam excuses himself early, claiming he has to get up early for work in the morning.

“What do you do?” Ronan asks, helping Maura clear the table.

“I work at the Greenmantles’ farm up in Singer Falls,” he says. And Ronan feels his heart drop all the way to his ass. “It’s this really old shitty family farm that this guy bought a few years ago. And he has no idea how to run a farm so it’s a disaster.”

“Oh,’ Ronan says. “That’s my house.”

Adam’s eyes widen to twice their regular size. “I…”

“It was always kind of shitty,” he says.

“Yeah.” Adam stands awkwardly behind his chair, perhaps waiting for an appropriate time to bolt. Ronan breaks eye contact, hoping to put him at ease.

But the idea of his home, fallen into disrepair bothers him more than he expected. He remembers the Greenmantles. He doesn’t remember them fondly. He turns to go outside for another breath of fresh air. As he heads for the door, Ronan hears the exchange between Adam and his mother.

“You couldn’t have told me he lived there before I opened my mouth?”

“I could’ve,” she says, placing a palm on the top of his head. She plants a kiss on it and walks to the sink to wash out her mug. Adam, for what it’s worth, smacks his head against the doorframe.

He spends the next night, sitting on the blanket with Blue and Adam and their friends. Gansey’s there, as is his friend Henry. Noah, one of Blue’s coworkers turns up with beer. And they sit in the grass watching the stars. It’s not until they’ve been laying there for a couple of hours, laughing and teasing like they’ve always been this way, that Ronan realizes how much he needs this.

As the others trickle inside for air conditioning or food or sleep, Ronan and Adam are left alone for the first time since the car ride.

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t like me very much,” Adam says.

“It’s not that,” Ronan says, hands folded behind his head. The stars are duller here in Henrietta proper, but it’s the closest to home he’s gotten in years. “I just realized Blue hasn’t been telling me shit. I didn’t know about you. It’s not personal.”

“That’s probably my fault. I told her not to tell people.” He bunches a corner of the blanket in a tight fist, before releasing it and smoothing it back out. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I just…” He stops, just long enough that Ronan doesn’t think he ever plans to finish the sentence. Then he groans like he’s forcing the truth from someplace buried within him. “Things weren’t good at home so when Persephone offered…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“Still,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good.”

The beer is warm and settling in Ronan’s stomach in that way that makes him a little worried sometimes, so he sets it aside. He closes his eyes and reminds himself why he stops. Because it would be so easy to keep going. But he actually likes talking to Adam, and he thinks he might even want to remember this conversation in the morning.

“Blue said you’re a writer?” he asks.

This is a tightrope. Ronan calls himself a writer. His father had called him a writer. Even Declan, for all his infuriating nagging, calls Ronan a writer. But he has nothing to show for it. Nothing’s proud of. People use to ask him this and he’d pull out notebooks full of stories. Sometimes he’d just recite stories from memory like Niall once had. But now, he has nothing to show for the title. He’d trusted the story was here, buried in the hills of Henrietta, sleeping, waiting.

“I guess I am,” he says.

“What do you write?”

“Fantasy.” It’s one of the oldest truths he has to give.

“Only fantasy?” Adam asks. “Never anything else?”

Ronan shakes his head. He’d never had much use for anything else. He’d grown up with his father's stories, grandiose and ridiculous. He’d never conformed to the rules of the mortal world and Rona’s narrative imagination took the hint and ran with it. He silently begs Adam not to ask about his work anymore. Hopes to God he won’t ask to read anything. And he doesn’t. Instead, he tips his head up toward the sky, eyes tracing patterns of stars overhead.

“Tell me something about you,” Ronan says when the silence lingers too long.

“Like what?” He doesn’t move, chin tipped up the heavens and Ronan studies the curve of his jaw.

“Anything true,” he says.

“I’m deaf in my right ear.”

“Really?”

“No,” he says. He’s got a gentle smirk that charms Ronan more than he’s willing to admit. “It’s my left.”

“Can you hear me okay now?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s quiet.”

The summer passes in hazy waves, washing over him every few weeks as he watches time slip away. He’s done nothing. He’s written nothing. But he tours properties with Gansey and makes art with Blue. He buys a skateboard and lets Noah teach him a few tricks and he let Henry take him to Henrietta’s newest and only gay bar. It’s not the best summer of his life, but it comes pretty damn close.

And then there’s Adam who listens better than anyone he knows. They sit together, nearly every day, either on the porch or in the kitchen. Sometimes they drive miles away from the house in Adam's car, away from Henrietta and they park and they talk.

He tells Adam about the farm and Adam tells him about the trailer. He talks about Declan’s nagging texts about college and Adam talks about using the money from the Greenmantles to pay for classes and textbooks at the local community college.

In September, Adam’s car falls to shit in the driveway and several hours under the hood aren’t enough to fix it so Ronan drives him to work in Maura's car, promising to bring it back immediately so no one got stranded at the house.

He follows the gravel driveway, following the curves and dips just as he had once upon a time. He doesn’t watch Adam, but he can feel himself being watched. “This is where I’m gonna live,” he says, pulling in behind a car too shiny and new to fit in with its surroundings. “I don’t want to buy another place.”

“You mean this is it?” He looks over his shoulder out the window and Ronan watches the line of his shoulder crease. If he could, he’d trace a finger over, push in where the skin dips beneath bone. He turns back before Ronan can pull his gaze away. “This is your perfect house?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“No. I guess I just assumed this place would be…”

“Traumatic?”

“Honestly? Yeah.” Adam's gaze floats back to the open field. Ronan can't tell if the expression is jealousy or pity. Maybe it's both. “You don’t see my buying my childhood home.”

“I loved that house. I loved the farm. I could get cattle.”

“You’re gonna buy cows?”

“No, but I could if I had this place.”

“You could always ask if they’d be willing to sell?”

“You work for the guy. Do you think he’d sell it to me?”

He doesn’t answer, just watches the house, eyes full of hope or envy or something dangerous like that. When he turns back, the light of the sunset hits his face and everything seems right. Ronan can picture them sitting on the porch, sipping tea or bourbon on the front porch. He wants this. He wants him. He wants, wants, wants so much it hurts. He reaches, but the whole world lays on a shelf above him, just out of reach.

His mother used to hide cookies on the top shelf, saving them for after dinner. When he closes his eyes, Ronan can see his father’s arm stretched upward pulling the cookie jar down to Ronan. “Just one,” he’d whisper and they’d never speak of it again. Until the next time.

Adam leans forward, pressing warm lips into his and it’s that hand reaching out to him, pulling things down to him that once seemed so impossible he could cry.

He nearly does when Adam pulls away, slowly with a single breath. It was a period, not a comma. It was a thought, not an answer. They let themselves freeze, both leaning over the center console to breathe against one another’s collarbones. This was impossible.

“Do you wanna come look around?” Adam asks.

“Isn’t that a little risky?”

“Mr. And Mrs. Greenmantle aren’t home,” he says. He leans over to unlock Ronan’s seatbelt and the feel of Adam’s arm brushing against his stomach could convince him of almost anything.

“Okay,” he says.

Adam takes him by the hand and leads him around the house, past the empty cow pastures and the shiny new silo. He introduces him to Mr. Gray and the other farmhands and they regale Ronan with stories about Adam at work that make his cheeks flush bright pink.

They climb up the hill and past the old storage shed, just the two of them.

“That thing’s still around?”

“Yeah. It’s old as shit. I can tell.” Adam kicks up some gravel and a small cloud forms around his ankles. “A lot of the old equipment up there’s never been used. Greenmantle just leaves it lying around and sends me up there twice a week to look for something.”

“Yeah. That roof leaks every spring.”

“I know. I keep bugging him to have someone look at it.” He shrugs, the noncommittal gesture of someone who is used to being ignored. Ronan takes care to grip his shoulder with a weighted strength. And he looks at this guy, so fucking beautiful and so capable, and wonders how anyone could see him in any other light.

“Show me the house,” he says, wrapping his other arm around Adam’s waist.

“We’re gonna get caught.”

“Then we’ll have to be fast,” Ronan says. “Lucky for you, fast is my specialty.”

“Stop,” he says. He pushes away, without a second glance and bolts for the barn as soon as he’s out of Ronan’s grip.

“Hey,” Ronan calls after him. He watches as Adam turns, pulling anxiously at his bangs as they flop into his face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just miss this place.”

He thinks of the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen and the dent Declan’s head made in the hardwood and the green slime stain on the carpet in Matthew’s room. He wants it back even for a moment. He wants it more than anything. Anything except Adam.

But Adam pulls another breath into his lungs and says. “Okay, but we have to be quick.”

He takes Ronan’s hand in his, leading him toward the house, pulling at his finger and the heat trapped between their palms travels all the way up Ronan’s arm. He lets himself be dragged until they reach the porch. He pulls a key from the sconce and opens the front door. The same one Ronan remembered. He could picture his mother, standing in the foyer if he focused.

The craziness of it all strikes him as he stands there. He thought he’d never see this place again, but he’s standing there and he’s so close to what he wants and yet so far. So he pulls Adam in for another kiss, this one messier, hungrier. He buries his hands in the hair on the back of Adam’s neck.

“What are you doing here?”

Ronan turns back to the open door and there is Greenmantle in all his smarmy glory. Ronan previously thought his teenage memories had exaggerated, but he was clearly right all along. This guy simply looks like a bastard.

“Sir,” Adam says. It’s a plea, a desperate Hail Mary from someone Ronan once thought was too proud for such things.

“Get out,” he says. He holds his hand out and Adam slowly drops the keys. He doesn’t look at Greenmantle or Ronan. He watches his feet. Ronan can’t help but watch him. “And don’t come back. You’re done.”

They don’t talk on the way back to the car. There is nothing to say. Adam slams the door as he sits. He makes a sound, so low, so guttural, Ronan would’ve thought it came from one of the animals.

“You took it too far. I lost my job, Ronan!”

“I know that.” He puts his keys in the ignition and lets the engine roar to life under them. He feels better, but Adam clearly doesn’t. “I’m sorry.”

“If I don’t have a job, I can’t keep paying for school.”

“Listen, I know. I’ll help you. It’s not like I’m gonna let your freeze out there.”

“Oh yeah, cause your dream comes before everything else, huh? What about my dream?” He takes a harsh breath and hunches over the dash, refusing to meet Ronan’s eyes. It’s possible there are tears, but Ronan feels too guilty to look more closely.

“What fucking dream, Parrish? Your big dream is to spend the rest of your life slaving away so some dipshit in suit and tie gets to summer in Guam. That’s not a dream. That’s a nightmare.”

“It’s better than this.” He drops his head to his knees, burying his face. He has nothing to worry about. Ronan couldn’t look at his face if wanted to. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Then let help you find something better.”

“This is why you don’t know anything about Blue. You’re too caught up in your own bullshit to realize the rest of us have stuff going on too.”

He drives Adam back to the house without another word. He doesn’t go inside. He doesn’t want to see anyone else. He wants to drive. He takes the backroads too fast and the curves too sharp. He lets the road lead him to the convenience store just up the road. At least he saves the whiskey until he gets back to the house.

When he wakes in the morning, he doesn’t remember much after he got back. But he’s on the porch, back aching and head throbbing instead of tucked away on the couch, so he’s willing to bet it didn’t go well. Maura is sipping tea at the kitchen table. “Wanna tell me what you were doing out there? With my car?”

He shakes his head. He tests his voice, but it’s rough and gravely. He clears it into his fist before trying again. “Is Adam here?”

“He went to talk to Greenmantle.” She sips her tea again, placing it beside her. She looks up, trying to look him in the eyes, but Ronan stares at the table, the floor, anything but her face. She gives up, crossing the room to fill a glass with water from the sink “Blue and the boys went with him,” she says, handing it to him. "they said they were going to get his job back."

He sips at it cautiously. It lands in his stomach with a splash, so he stops, letting it settle before sipping again. “I need to go see him.”

“Is that a good idea?”

He drains the rest of the glass in one gulp and sets the glass back on the table. “I don’t know,” he says. With a clearer head and a couple of Ibuprofen, he hops in his car and prays for one more miracle.

Mr. Gray is there when the BMW crawls up the drive. He directs Ronan to the old shed, before reminding him to not get caught.

Adam’s got the door to the shed propped open so he sees Ronan coming from a mile away. “Go,” he says once they’re close enough to talk without yelling.

“Parrish, I just wanted to apologize.”

“Don’t pull a muscle.”

“I’m trying to act like a grown-up here. Would you come talk to me?”

“Talking to you got me stuck up here cataloging inventory in the first place. I had to beg for my job back.” He drops an ax beside him with a resounding crack that catches them both off guard. They stare at each other for a moment, caught up in their confusion before Adam turns back to his work. Ronan can’t look away. “Just leave me alone. We can talk tonight.”

The crack returns followed by a crash and Adam’s head dips beneath the stacked crates without time to so much as scream.

“Parrish!”

He rushes forward, forgetting to consider the already fragile flooring. It bends and moans in front of him. He pulls back, leaning over the boxes to get a view of the hole, slowly spreading as bits of wood flake off. “Parrish?” he yells begging his friend or God for an answer.

Both God and Adam seem to have other plans as Greenmantle rounds the corner. “What the hell was that sound? What are you doing here?”

“Parrish, can you hear me?” He waits for an answer. A beat. Nothing. He’s not a patient guy, but he waits for a second longer, prays for so much as a grunt or groan, but nothing. “He fell through.”

“What do you mean he feel through?”

“I’m not a fucking contractor. He fell through the fucking floor. What else do you need to know?”

Mr. Gray is there in an instant. He stays back graciously and doesn’t seem interested outside the basics. “Is he responding?”

“No,” Ronan says. He thanks God that someone else is taking over the situation because he's beginning to feel horribly unqualified. “I think he’s unconscious.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

“No. I left it in my car.”

Mr. Gray turns to Greenmantle wordlessly. The two exchange looks that seem to cycle through an entire exasperated conversation before Greenmantle spits out “I don’t have service out here.”

“Ronan?” Blue yells, rushing forward. Henry, Noah, and Gansey follow her. He holds out a hand to keep them back. He watches the hole, waiting for it to spread, and feels it bobble beneath him. He’s not safe either and he knows it, but if someone else comes inside, they’re definitely fucked. He looks at her though and the unshed tears in her eyes undo him.

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he can say anything. He’s trapped leaning over a hole and Parrish is trapped and the whole world is pulling in toward him and he doesn’t have the strength to fight it off. Still, he says “I’m okay. But if I move the rest of this place is gonna cave in on him.”

Gansey runs up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. He tucks her into his chest and they both stare back, discomfort clear in their eyes. They flash him matching encouraging smiles through the fear.

“I’m gonna call 911,” Henry yells, sprinting back across the field from where he came. No one stops to thank him.

“Is this really necessary?” Greenmantle asks.

“It may be a while before anyone makes it out here,” Mr. Gray says. “Ronan, if we can get you out, they’ll be able to get to Adam quicker. Can you sit down where you are?”

Ronan pushes a box of small garden tools off to the side, clearing enough of a path for him to sit down. He lowers himself gently, holding his breath the whole way down. He doesn’t release until his ass hits the floor.

“Good,” Mr. Gray says. He leans forward, peering over the mess to meet his eyes. Ronan sees his own fear and panic reflected in the man’s eyes. “Now roll onto your stomach, okay? You’re gonna crawl.”

He pushed himself over, turning as slow as he could. The floor groaned again beneath him. “This isn’t working. This is all gonna end up on top of him.”

“No. It’s not. You’re going to crawl toward me. You ever play army guy when you were a kid? It’s just like that. Keep your stomach on the ground and crawl.”

Ronan crawls. He can't see the other from the ground, but he can hear them talking around him.

“We can’t get to Adam until we’ve got him safe," Mr. Gray says. His voice is calm, but in the overly-controlled way that indicates a person is not actually calm at all. “If we tear down that back wall, we may be able to dig through to him.”

“We might just end up staking more debris on top of him,” Greenmantle says.

“I don’t know how else to access him.”

“There’s a crawlspace,” Ronan says. He pulls himself past an old ladder, taking care to avoid rusty nails and a suspicious stain. He thinks about his last tetanus shot and decides a booster couldn't hurt.

“What?” Greenmantle leans down to stare at Ronan through a gap. Ronan ignores his furrowed brow and exasperated tone.

“There’s a crawlspace underneath.” He pulls himself another inch and Gansey is there offering a hand. He takes it graciously and Gansey pulls him the last few inches off the foundation and through the doorway. Mr. Gray leans over and tugs on his other hand pulling him up. He’s still coughing from the dust and panic as he throws himself around the corner of the building to the small wooden door.

The deadbolt gives way with little fuss despite the copious amounts of rust around it. “Adam?” he yells into the entrance, but there’s still no response.

“I’m little,” Blue says. “I can fit more easily.”

“You’re not dressed for it. There’s ticks and shit down there.” He hurriedly tucks his jeans into his boots and slides through the door before anyone can stop him.

He can see the damage as soon as his eyes adjust to the dark. And then he’s army crawling again. He pulls himself forward, pushing past bugs and dirt and what he thinks was once a raccoon. He crawls until he reaches and a chunk of wood too big to move. He has no leverage in the slim space around him. He can barely push himself up. His shoulders are squished in too tight to move anything heavy. He kicks himself for not thinking of a better plan. He crawls around the wood, blinking dust from his eyes and searching for any sign of Adam.

He peeks past the beam to see a clear space on the other side. He sees the ax to his left. He’s here. He’s somewhere in this place. He’s so close Ronan could touch him except he’s hidden and not responding. “Adam?” he yells one last time.

There’s a groan, soft and pained, but a groan nonetheless.

“Ronan? Can you hear us?” Mr. Gray yells.

“Yeah,” he calls back. “Kinda busy here.”

“You need to get out of there, Ronan.”

“Let me just get to him.”

“Ronan, now!” Gansey yells.

There’s another crack and a plank falls on top of the stack. But it stops as soon as it starts. The dust settles into his eyes and he can’t see in front of him, but he can hear the gasps and murmurs from above him. “I’m okay.”

“Ronan get out now.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Adam coughs. It’s harsh and pained, but it’s the best sound he’s heard because he can tell where it came from. He pulls the ax toward him. There isn’t room to swing, but he doesn’t want to anyway, not with Adam so close. He smashes it into the block of wood. It doesn’t split, but he’s got enough force to crack and splinter it. With a few more strikes, it breaks away just enough to wiggle. He pulls it back, throws it over his shoulder and there is Adam.

He’s pale, coated in a layer of dust and grime and his temple’s a mess of blood, but he’s the best thing Ronan’s ever seen. He collapses by his side, sweeping a hand over the blood clumping in his bangs. He weighs the danger of spinal injuries against the threat of another collapse. The voices screaming above him win out. He ends up pulling Adam behind him, trying to keep his head and neck as steady as possible.

Mr. Gray waits at the door and Ronan is more than happy to hand Adam over to him. He pulls Adam into his arms and immediately heads for the driveway where an ambulance is pulling up. Ronan falters back a step at the ominous task of pulling himself back out.

When he turns back to the opening, his friends are there. Noah and Gansey reach down, grabbing Ronan by the biceps and hauling him out with minimal assistance from himself. Henry hands him a bottle of water and a towel as soon as he touches the ground again. And Blue says nothing, simply throws herself at him, face into his chest, and hugs tighter than she ever had before. And he lets her.

And when he starts coughing, they help him sip from the water. When he coughs so hard he throws up, they pull him to his feet, dragging him toward the ambulance as well.

In the end, Ronan’s lungs are okay. He’s advised not to inhale large quantities of dust again. He tells the ER nurse where she can go. It’s all quite civil as far as Ronan’s concerned.

Persephone hugs Ronan as soon as she arrives at the hospital. She doesn’t say anything, just wraps her arms around him in a gesture he understands as a thank you. He doesn’t tell her it was no big deal, but he squeezes her back and hopes the message is clear.

Adam’s broken arm, three broken ribs, and moderate concussion are fairly underwhelming as far as structural collapse injuries go. “What did I tell you?” he says that evening when he’s staying awake for more than 30 seconds at a time. “I’m hard to kill.”

No one finds this quite as funny as Adam, but he’s awake and healthy enough to be laughing.

When Greenmantle arrives at the hospital, not twenty minutes before the end of visiting hours, Ronan is fully prepared to drag the man from the room, but Adam stops him. “Actually I’ve been wanting to talk. Please, Mr. Greenmantle. Come sit.” He takes the only seat in the room, facing across from Adam like a business meeting. Adam drops a folder on the stand over his bed. He pulls the papers out and spreads them out. “Here I have copies of my timesheets, dating back to last June with reminders from me to call a contractor about the shed. And you signed off on all these, didn’t you?” Greenmentle nods, Adam's apple bobbing anxiously. “What do you think a lawyer would think of these, Mr. Greenmantle?”

“Well, I — uh.”

“But I don’t really want to sue you.” He sweeps the page back up into a file and slips them back into the folder. “This isn’t some sort of moral high ground thing either. I should sue you. I just think we can solve this without any lawyers, don’t you?”

“I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”

“So what do you say, you sell my friend Ronan your farm and we can all go about our lives.”

“Well I’m sure we can talk about prices, but this particular property is quite valuable. I’ll have to get a fair price for it of course.”

Gansey steps forward, clutching his own folder. This one is red and labeled “Greenmantle can suck my Dick III.”

“Actually we have some numbers here for you, sir.” He shuffles through the papers contained and pulled one from the bottom of the pile. He folds it over and presents it to Greenmantle with a flourish, that is unusually snarky for Gansey. Ronan finds himself charmed by it.

“This is considerably less than I paid, Mr. Gansey.”

Adam clears his throat. “Yes, but let’s pretend I did take you to court. If you look here, this is an estimation of what you’d be paying based on some employer negligence data I found. So all in all, I think you’ll find that to be a very fair price given what you could end up paying.”

“I see…”

“And of course, this way your wife never has to find out about any of this. She didn’t want you spending too much on the property if my memory serves me well.” It’s bold talk from someone who slurred and mumbled his way through the alphabet just a few hours ago, but he’s bouncing back fast. “Sleep on it. Come talk to me again tomorrow.”

Greenmantle shuffles out of the room, clutching the paperwork to his chest. Ronan likes his odds.

The nurse knocks softly on the door. “Visiting hours are ending soon,” she says. “One of you can stay with him overnight if you want, but everyone else needs to head out.” Persephone scoots closer to the bed, wrapping her fingers lightly around Adam’s wrist and Ronan wouldn’t dream of trying to fight her over this.

Ronan pats Adam twice on the leg, a friendly gesture and nothing more, but fingers grip at the hem of his jacket.

“Can I talk to Ronan alone for a minute?” he asks Persephone, who nods quietly and shuffles out with the rest of the crowd. And when it’s quiet and everyone else has become a memory, Ronan pushes himself up onto the side of the bed, leaving little room for Adam to wiggle himself up into a seated position.

“Stop,” he says. “Don’t hurt yourself. Jesus, Parrish. They’re gonna kick me out for good if I knee you in the ribcage.”

“I’m real sorry, Ronan.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t apologize just cause I saved you. I would’ve done it anyway.”

He leans back, petulant as a child. “I’m not. But I went too far and I am sorry.” He grips the blanket like that night under the stars before releasing it again. "What I said about Blue..."

“You weren’t wrong. But I'm gonna do better Parrish. I want to be better.” He watches the way Adam's brow creases and for the first time in a long time, he understands why people keep going when shit sucks. If he’d known that face, scrunched and focused as he chewed on the edge of his swollen lip, was waiting on the other side, he never would’ve considered any other option. This was what people live for, this feeling here. This is what people write poems and songs and fucking dystopian YA trilogies about. There's an entire story in the shit-eating grin. And he found it. The goddamn holy grail. “I just want to see you happy.”

“And that dream thing? You were right," he says. "It turns out I’ve been paddling upstream for nineteen years without ever knowing where the creek drops off.”

“Then you draw your own map and you figure out how to make the water do what you tell it.”

“And what are your big plans, Lynch?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m buying a farm.”

#the raven cycle #trc #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #alcohol tw #abuse tw

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epiphany-of-a-madwoman · 5 years ago

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The Unexpected Perks of War | Daenerys Targaryen x Fem!OC

Part 1

Summary: Allys Baratheon is the only trueborn daughter of Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister. After the explosion of The Sept of Balor and the death of Tommen, Allys grew tired of the ghosts that hung in Kings Landing and set off to Dragonstone, hoping to find a semblance of safety.

Note: Masterlist for this series here🤍

Gif credit: karenpage

‘I shouldn’t be here. I should not be here,’ repeats in Allys’ head. Two large men carrying curved blades and donning various furs lead her deeper into the old keep. The ancient castle thrums with magic long forgotten, the dragon’s roar from outside echoing in the hall. The ferocity of their roar causes the building to tremor ever so slightly, but the two Dothraki don’t pay it any mind. And with all the anxieties and fears bubbling to the surface, not having to worry about a castle collapsing on her is soothing; a victory Allys will not argue against.

It was a rash decision, the specifics of the plan not methodically thought out. Her mother would berate her. Venomously telling her naivety is how people die in Westeros. It’s what got most of the Starks dead and it’s what’ll eventually get her dead. But she couldn’t stay in that empty keep any longer. The ghosts of all the lives lost haunt the halls, their presence lingering in the corner of Allys’ eyes. It was near suffocating before, but when Cersei Lannister blew up the Sept of Balor, it became impossible to stand. She’d wake up some mornings feeling like a pound of ash has been lodged in her throat, keeping air from reaching her lungs. And in a panic, she’d fling out of bed desperately clawing at her neck praying for release, whether in life or with death.

Some mornings Allys would sit in the large library, finding comfort in the towering shelves stocked with books. It was always quiet here and usually empty. A place hidden from the terrors of the world and the cruel games of politics. But that safe haven was ruined too. Sometimes she’d swear she could hear Tommen; his boyish laughter echoing in the grand library as she nestled up with a book. Sometimes she’d follow the sound, clinging to the hope that her sweet little brother didn’t suffer a tragedy. But she’d never find the source of laughter, instead, the noise would dissipate into a soft breeze. Leaving behind despair and longing to fix past mistakes.

And so Allys left. Left the death and despair behind, hopeful for a new beginning in this desolate war. Her mother had grown mad with power and was no longer the woman she’d known. The woman who bore and raised her, shielding her from the drunken mess her father became as time passed.

But now she was in the castle of Daenerys Targaryen, whose father was undoubtedly worse than her mother. The only thing keeping her from high tailing out of the castle and off this island is her uncle’s presence. As the Hand of the Queen, he wouldn’t let anything happen to his niece, would he? But then again, these are strange times.

The two men stop in front of massive double doors. The stone doors carved with intricate designs of dragons soaring through skies. It was old but held a beauty to it akin to the rest of the castle. Two soldiers donning full plate armor and a spear stand at attention by the door. Behind the helmets, she could only see two sets of eyes staring straight ahead, not even acknowledging the presence of her or the Dothraki. And if it weren’t for the subtle movement of their chest from breathing, they could’ve been made of stone. In perfect sync with the other, they reach over and grasp the metal handles on the door. With no effort, they push it open and the stone moans as it moves, still unfamiliar with use. It seemed Stannis Baratheon abandoned the old castle when he went to war.

A pity.

The two Dothraki begin stepping into the large throne room, not bothering to check if Allys was still coming. Tentatively she follows behind them, the anxious feeling returning tenfold. The room was long and tall, the ceilings vaulted. Braziers lined the wall on both sides, causing the room to be well lit. Their footsteps echo in the otherwise quiet room. She stares at the ground watching one-foot step in front of the other, willing herself to not fall. A soft voice resonating in the room causes her attention to snap up.

“You stand in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen. Rightful heir to the Iron Throne; Rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men; Protector of the 7 Kingdoms; The Mother of Dragons; The Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea; The Unburnt; The Breaker of Chain.” a woman standing to the right beside the steps leading up to the throne said. She wears a dark dress, with accents of fur and leather. Her skin is dark, clearly, she hails from the East. Allys; gaze moves from her to the left side of the stairs, seeing her Uncle Tyrion standing by them. He wears a similar garb, but styled for a man and with a silver pin on his check signifying his status as Hand of the Queen. He looks anxious, but the soft smile in his eyes express his happiness for his niece’s safety. She smiles at him, small and tight, but enough to convey she’s alright, even if she was exploding from nerves on the inside. And finally, Allys’ gaze moves to the woman herself. Daenerys Targaryen. And boy is she a sight to behold.

Her gold-silver hair is pulled back into an intricate braided hairstyle, small piece framing her face. Her pale skin nearly glows in the room, the natural light from the window behind the throne illuminating her to appear almost celestial. Her bright purple eyes watch Allys carefully, daring her to make a move. The Queen wears a dark dress with a blood-red cloak, a silver chain with a three-headed dragon keeping it in place. The air of authority she exudes from the throne causes Allys’ brain to stutter. And she finds herself lost in the beauty of the Dragon Queen when her stern voice breaks Allys from her reverie.

“And you are?” she questions, raising a single eyebrow at her. Daenerys’ tone is smooth and like ice, causing a shiver to run up Allys’ back.

“Apologies my l - Your Grace -” Allys says, giving a swift bow as she stumbles over her words. “ - Allys of House Baratheon.” she finishes, feeling a flush forming on her cheeks.

“And why are you here? If I remember correctly, your mother and I are at war, are we not?” she asks. Allys’ eyes widen a fraction as her brain kicks into overdrive.

“I - uh yes, uh Your Grace,” she answered pathetically, the embarrassment increasing. For a second, Allys unreasonably thinks she might be thrown in a dungeon or something, but an amused expression lights up Daenerys’ purple eyes. And suddenly the small smile tugging at her lips soothes Allys’ anxieties, if only for a moment.

“I see. Though I am honored by your presence, might I inquire why you are here?” she asks, her tone slightly warmer than before. It appears, in Allys’ case, making a fool of herself has its perks.

“I uh - like dragons…?” she answered, immediately regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth. “And - and I didn’t know where else to…go,” she quickly saves, attempting to not seem like a simple fool. Her thoughts wander back to King’s Landing. To a time when her brothers and sister were still alive, and before her family fell into madness. The safety King’s Landing used to bring is long gone.

Noticing the somber shift in her expression and tone, a sympathetic expression crosses the Dragon Queens face, but before she can say anything further, Tyrion steps forward and faces the Queen.

“Your Grace, if I might make a suggestion. My niece is vastly different from my sister and can be trusted. Please, I beg that you allow her to reside in Dragonstone for safe-keeping,” Tyrion pleads. A warmth fills Allys as she takes a few steps towards him. She reaches out and grasps his hand in her own. He moves his gaze from the Queen to Allys. A large grin paints itself on her face before returning her gaze back to the Queen, who seems to be pondering his request. Her gaze flickers to the woman who’d spoken earlier and then back to them. After a moment, she reaches a decision and breaks her silence, allowing her voice to resonate loudly throughout the room.

“Lady Allys, please feel free to stay in Dragonstone for as long as you’d like as my honored guest.”

________________

After Queen Daenerys declared Allys would be permitted to stay at Dragonstone, Allys was swiftly moved from the room by the same two Dothraki men that escorted her in. Tyrion followed after them, keeping pace with Allys as he caught her up to speed on everything. She asked him about anything and everything - from the Dragon Queen to her dragons. Tyrion took her pestering curiosity with stride and answered each and every one of her questions - no matter how bizarre. It brought her back to simpler times, but she tried to not think about that too much. Often times the past is viewed through rose-colored lenses, and Allys didn’t want to fall into a state of melancholy - not again. So she distracted herself with anything her mind grabbed onto.

When they reached the room she’d be staying in, Tyrion dismissed himself with a promise of returning as soon as his work was done. So she flopped onto her bed in a very unladylike manner and allowed herself a moment to just breathe. She traced the ceiling a million times, imaging different images in the cracks and crevices on the material. She traced the walls with her fingers and flung open the empty wardrobe. She ran to her window, staring in wonder as the dragons flew by, imagining herself on one. She imaged the feeling of the wind soaring through her hair as she went so high up, she could touch the stars. But then her thoughts shifted slightly and instead of Allys flying on a dragon, Daenerys Targaryen was with her, taking the metaphorical reigns has they soared through the Seven Kingdoms.

However, her fantasies were broken by a knock on the door. Softly calling for them to enter, Allys turned to face the door. The door clicks open, not as loud as the main entrance had been, and in steps the Dragon Queen herself. She graces Allys with a warm smile as she steps into the room. Allys’ inside flare with a warm bubbly feeling at the sight, unable to keep the loopy grin off her face. But she quickly remembers her manners and clumsily bows towards Daenerys.

“Your Grace,” she mutters, feeling the familiar flushed feeling arising on her face. A light laugh as melodic as a tinkling bell escapes Daenerys’ mouth as she moves further into the room. Allys’ eyes follow her movements as she fumbles with her hands behind her back.

“Please My Lady, there is no need for our titles in private; you may call me Daenerys,” she said, standing in front of the four-poster bed, turning to face Allys.

“As long as you call me Allys,” Allys replies, feeling pieces of her confidence slowly returning. The tips of her mouth turn upwards, a beaming smile blooming on her face.

“Agreed,” Daenerys replies, turning and taking a seat at the foot of the bed. She pats the space beside her. “Please, if you wouldn’t mind joining me, Allys,” Daenerys said. Allys takes slow and small steps towards Daenerys, feeling more comfortable around the woman as each second passes. After what feels like an hour, Allys reached the bed and took her seat by Daenerys.

“I would like to begin by apologizing, I feel we might’ve started with the wrong impressions of each other. I fear I wasn’t as welcoming as I should’ve been,” Daenerys said, taking Allys’ hands in her own. The Dragon Queen’s hand was soft and warm to the touch, a stark contrast to the chill that seemed permanent on Allys’ own. Allys squeezes Daenerys’ hand in reassurance. Her heart pounds in her chest once more, but not for the same reason it had been in the Throne Room.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You are at war with my mother, I can’t blame you for being suspicious. Though, I will reassure you by saying you weren’t unwelcoming by any means.” Allys said, meeting Daenery’s gaze. Icy blue locks with amethyst and Allys finds herself unable to look away.

“And for that I am glad,” Daenerys said, her smile mirroring Allys’ expression. “If I’m not being too forward, might I inquire about your marital status. I assume you aren’t married and your uncle has mentioned any possible suitors, but I would like to hear directly from you?” Daenerys asks. Allys’ breathe hitches momentarily at the question Daenerys posed.

‘Could she possibly…?’

“I - I uh - no, no husband or suitors,” Allys answers, memorized by Daenerys’ face. In the throne room, she’d appeared almost celestial, but now up close, Allys is sure that Daenerys Stormborn is otherworldly.

“Not interested?” Daenerys asks.

“Not until recently,” Allys answers, her lips tilting into a sly smirk, a glint mischief in her eyes.

“Would it cause offense if I confess I would like to get to know you?” Daenerys asks, leaning towards Allys.

“I’d be offended if you didn’t,” Allys teases.

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