#this feels too florid but it's the best i could do

[twig-tea]

What I'm left with after episodes 1 & 2 of Love in the Big City is a visceral reminder of the yawning loneliness of isolation that comes from otherness, finding a kindred spirit, and then the betrayal and heartbreak at knowing you're no longer each other's most important person, and how society expects that to happen but somehow you (I) got blindsided by it anyway.

This show is beautiful, bitingly funny, and quietly devastating. And it is so, so gay. The way Young describes the relief of returning to the loud music and lights and packed dancefloor of the club is the same feeling that washed over me watching this show; even with these sad themes around the loneliness of our 20s , the familiarity is ironically a warm and comforting reminder that we're not alone.

[ell0ra-br3kk3r-writes]

The Phoenix and the Crow

part thirty

pairing: kaz brekker x fem!reader

genre: netural

el's thoughts: i really like this part :) enjoyyy

series masterlist

Kaz sped through the upper cells, sparing brief seconds for a glance through each grate. Bo Yul-Bayur would not be here. And he didn’t have much time.

Part of him felt unhinged. He had no cane. His feet were bare. He was in strange clothes, his hands pale and ungloved. He didn’t feel like himself at all. No, that wasn’t quite true. He felt like the Kaz he’d been in the weeks after Jordie died—before Y/N— like a while animal, fighting to survive.

Kaz spotted a Shu prisoner lurking at the back of one of the cells.

“Sesh-uyeh,” Kaz whispered. But if the man recognized the code word, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Yul-Bayur?” Nothing. The man started shouting at him in Shu, and Kaz hurried away, past the rest of the cells, then slipped out to the landing and charged down to the next level as fast as he could manage. He knew he was being reckless, and selfish, but wasn’t that why they called him Dirtyhands? No job too risky. No deed too low. Dirtyhands would see the rough work done.

He wasn’t sure what was driving him. It was possible Pekka Rollins wasn’t here. It was possible he was dead. But Kaz didn’t believe it. ‘I’d know. Somehow I’d know.’ “Your death belongs to me,” he whispered.

The rows of cells stretched on and on, infinite, impossible. There was no way he would find Rollins in time. But it was only impossible until it wasn’t. Until he sighted that big frame, that florid face through the grate in an iron door. It was only impossible until he was standing in front of Pekka Rollins’ cell.

He was on his side, sleeping. Someone had given him a bad beating. Kaz watched the rise and fall of his chest.

Kaz hung back now, feeling the delicate weight of his lockpicks like an insect cradled in his palm. Wasn’t this what he wanted? To see Pekka brought low, humiliated, miserable, and hopeless, unable to get a hold of his bearings. The best of his crew is already dead on pikes. Maybe this could be enough. Maybe all he needed was to finish him once and for all.

The lock on the door gave up easily to Kaz’s picks.

Pekka’s eyes opened, and he smiled. He hadn’t been sleeping at all.

“Hello, Brekker,” Rollins said. “Come to gloat?”

“Not exactly,” Kaz replied.

He let the door slam shut behind him.

~

‘Where the hell is Kaz?’ Y/N paced in frustration in front of the incinerator, the dim clang of alarm bells filling her ears, rattling her thoughts. Yellow Protocol? Red Protocol? She couldn’t remember which was which at this point and it drove her mad. Their whole plan had been built around never hearing the sound of an alarm.

Inej had secured a rope to the roof and dropped down a line for them to climb. Y/N had sent the rest up with Jesper and Matthias, along with a pair of shears she’d located in the laundry and a crude grappling hook Jesper fashioned from the metal slats of a washboard. Then she’d cleaned the splatter of rain and moisture from the floor of the refuse room and made sure there were no scraps of rope or other signs of their presence. There was nothing left to do but wait—and struggle to get a hold of herself.

She heard people shouting at each other, and a hail of stomping boots through the ceiling above. Any minute, some intuitive guard might venture down to the basement. If they found Y/N by the incinerator, the route to the roof would be obvious. She’d be damning not only herself but the others as well.

‘Come on, Kaz. I’m waiting for you.’ They all were. Nina had come charging into the room only minutes before, gasping for breath.

“Go!” she cried. “What are you waiting for?”

“You!” Jesper shot back. But when they asked her where Kaz was, Nina’s face had crumpled.

“I hoped he was with you.”

She’d vanished up the rope, grunting with effort as Jesper trailed up behind her, leaving Y/N standing below, frozen with indecision. Had the guards captured Kaz? Was he somewhere in the prison fighting for his life?

‘He’s Kaz Brekker.’ Even if they locked him up, Kaz could escape any cell, any pair of shackles. Y/N could leave the rope for him, and pray the rain and cooling incinerator were enough to keep the bottom of it from burning away. But if she kept standing there, waiting like a child, she’d give away their escape route, and they’d all be doomed. She wouldn’t have the blood of her friends on her hands. She carried enough regret on her shoulder already.

She looked back to the door with a small flicker of hope only to be let down. She groaned in vexation, “Screw you, Kaz Brekker.” She felt her heart clench in her chest at the thought of leaving him behind but shook her head quickly. There was nothing to do but climb.

Y/N grabbed the rope just as Kaz hurtled through the door. His shirt was covered in blood, his dark hair a wild mess.

“Hurry,” he said without preamble.

A thousand questions crowded into Y/N’s head, but she only stopped to ask one. “Fine?”

“Fine.”

She nodded, swung out over the coals, and started to climb. Rain was still falling in a light patter from above, and she felt the rope tremble as Kaz took hold beneath her. When Y/N looked down, she saw Kaz bracing himself to sling the incinerator doors closed behind them.

Y/N put a hand over hand, pulling himself up from knot to knot, her arms beginning to ache, the rope cutting into her palms, bracing her feet against the wall of the incinerator when she needed to. She gritted her teeth, her lips sealed shut, as she continued to pull herself up.

High above, the Elderclock’s alarm bells still clanged like a drawer full of angry pots and pans. What had gone wrong? Why had Kaz and Nna been separated? And how were they going to get out of this?

‘Breathe.’ She sucked a sharp breath in through her gritted teeth and tried to blink the rain from her eyes, muscles bunching in her back as she rose higher.

Y/N grunted when Matthias and Wylan grabbed her shoulders and hauled her up the last few feet. “Thanks.” She tumbled over the lip of the chimney and onto the roof, drenched and trembling like a half-drowned kitten. “Kaz,” she gasped. “Kaz is on the rope.”

Mathias and Wylan seized the rope to pull him up. Y/N wasn’t sure how much Wylan was actually helping, but he was certainly working hard. They dragged Kaz out of the shaft. He flopped onto his back, gulping air. “Where’s Inej?” he panted. “Where’s Nina?”

“Already on the embassy roof,” said Matthias.

Y/N heaved as she pushed herself to her feet and placed a hand on her lower abdomen, rubbing quick circles to release the pressure in her muscles.

“Leave this rope and take the rest,” Kaz said. “Let’s move.”

~*~

taglist: @katherinereid @littlecat21 @jahayla-parker @maliciousbrekker @brekkershadowsinger @brekkers-desigirl @clunaes @wonderland2425 @bookloverfilmoholic @karensirkobabes @bookworm-center @el-de-phi @so-get-this-sammy @skittleabyss @crispy-croke @cometsghost @auttumnsayshi

[leliosinking]

Hot take I guess but the fandom was way too hard on this book (and still is tbh) and for what? Because it isn’t interested in fan service? If anything Anne’s writing was at its best when she ignored what fans wanted, and I think it’s time for a reevaluation of my boy Vittorio the Vampire.

I just think this was such a promising start to New Tales (more than Pandora, even) and I sort of hate all of you for boycotting it or telling new readers to skip it. (as far as i’m concerned TVA, Merrick, B&G, BF and BC are all unofficially New Tales anyway.. TVL-MtD are the only proper vampire chronicles, everything else falls into different categories, but I digress).

With regard to Vittorio, however, we were given a true blue Ricean vampire hunter novel (the only one mind you) with an actual, functioning plot and some of the best action she’s written since TVL… and you all shunned it. And I get it, we don’t read these books for conventional, commercial plot contrivances, but for the florid language and richly crafted characters; but this is the rare Anne Rice novel that’s just.. fun for the sake of fun?

And no, I’m not blind to its problems. It absolutely needed another draft or two (as do a lot of the later VC entires) and no, Vittorio is not her strongest protagonist by leagues. But what we got was still filled to the brim with good ideas?

The Court of the Ruby Grail cult, especially, is one my favorite of Anne’s inventions. Like their dynamic with the local human villages feeding them their castoffs was legitimately disturbing and IMO better executed than most of the times she retreaded the Children of Darkness post-TVL.

And while Vittorio the character might be kind of boring, Florian and Ursula carry this novel and deserved to enter the larger narrative tapestry on their strengths alone but “waaah Lestat and co. aren’t here” so “it’s bad” or whatever.. I really can’t stand some of y’all.

Anyway, this is long enough and I really didn’t set out to write an essay in defense of what is ultimately a mid-tier entry into this series. But. I still feel that much in the way that MtD and Blackwood Farm have been recently reassessed as good novels that happen to be bad VC entires I think it’s time for some of you to similarly reevaluate Vittorio the Vampire, because this is a good vampire novel, it just isn’t a good vampire chronicle (well I think it is and yet and yet and yet). But it’s still part of the series and it does fit into the larger picture despite what some will have you believe.

If this is your first time, I personally like to read VTV between Body Thief and Memnoch. I think it is better thematically situated there than between TVA and Merrick as initially published. The archangels that enter later in the story build nicely upon David’s vision of God and Satan in TTOTBT and make for a strong intermission full of angels and demons that assist in setting up the Dantean finale of MtD. (I have more suggested reading orders btw, some other time perhaps).

I dunno.. if you like this book please let me know lol like I could use the solidarity because I feel like I’m the only one (I have it ranked #6 out of 15). But yeah, I think Vittorio is probably the most underrated and most unfairly slandered entry in Anne’s entire catalogue if I’m being completely honest.

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Some replies! We’ll skip a day tomorrow by the way, but I hope to write a longer reply soon...

Anonymous asked:

Fortunately, I also love cursed things, the more cursed the better! Glad you agree! 😊😊

Of course, I absolutely agree! This is what makes it fun~

Anonymous asked:

Idk if I asked thus already but in ur opinion, how do the tops dominate their partner? Do they top by riding their partner or by penetration?

In our case by calling a character a top we imply that this character does the penetration :) But also while the majority of our tops are dominant, it’s not completely impossible for someone to be somewhat more submissive with the bottom of the pair riding their partner.

Anonymous asked:

Saw the bunny pic! Ortho looks so excited to have three subs all to himself!

Hehe yes!! Ortho is one lucky bun!

Anonymous asked:

So, we got all tops in the Pop Music Club, the one club that just sits around doing nothing all day. So who's the favorite "lucky guest" that gets brought in to help "cure" these boys "boredom"? ;) ;) ;)

Well, two of the three members of the Pop Music Club did attack Idia with their extrovert attention in that one vignette, and I have an obvious bias, so my answer is pretty predictable lol But realistically, I don’t think they would be able to bring Idia to their club room more than once.

Silver could be good, he is not only Lilia’s precious son kohai, but also Kalim’s classmate! And he’ll definitely try his best to do whatever he’s asked to do.

I guess the Pop Music Club just sits and discusses this exact topic for the majority of time... “- What about Jamil? - No, Kalim, we can’t ask Jamil every single time...”, that type of thing...

Anonymous asked:

*kicks down the door* Have you heard?!?! Japanese server has both of the twins in their merform!!! As fucken cards!!!!! Like holy shit?!?! Am I dreaming?!?! And OMG! the poses!!!! Like hot damn!!!! I need to scream!

They are so good, Anon!!

I was so sure we would get their merform cards eventually, but finally seeing it feels so weird in a good way. I wonder what their groovies are going to be like...

Anonymous asked:

So we are getting merman Jade and Floyd in  August... I've been blessed for it being my birthday month ( shout out to all my August bday people out there)

ANYWAYS

Soo do you think those two will have merman sex in their eel form? Wouldn't it be like having sex with a merman except this one can tear you in two if they could?

I am sure Riddle will have a blast when it's Floyd ^^ and Idia too with either twin^^

I mean,,,,,, I know I would if it's with Jade ~^^

Aw, happy birthday month, Anon!

Using the Tweels’ eel form in all kinds of nasty scenarios is always fun, we actually have a couple of posts about it >:3c There are probably some more but I can’t find them right now...

The one about Floyd in heat (FloRid)

The one about Jade in heat

The one about the eel peen

But to answer your question: yes, they will! And yes, they could tear a person in two lol

Poor/lucky Riddle and/or Idia~

[b0njourbeach]

So... I am slightly curious

What are your top twst ships?

Ahem, as one might assume, the highest, the greatest, the beloved, the best, the recipus, the amazing, the best of the best in my brain:

TreyKei.

Aka Trey x Cater. I'm so incurable ill about them, it's not even a joke anymore. There's only one ship who got me as equally bad and that means something. I can't even express how much I love them, it would be inaudible ugly sobbing.

Ahem.

Aside from that, I think FloRid is pretty neat, especially in a very specific way that I once thought of as a story and it hasn't left my brain ever since: "I can make him worse" + "I can fix him", in the way that Riddle slowly but surely becomes the rebel he deserves to be and Floyd follows the rules more - Both happens unintentionally. But most ideas between them are neat.

Let's see..

Oh, AppleJuice (Deuce x Epel)! Man, these two? Whew, Book 5 was their book and I was fully here for it. Also, the Rabbit Event? I have a lot of thoughts there, specifically based on Deuce and Epel but alas, that's for another time (maybe).

There's also smth very neat about Ruggie and Jamil. Not in the classic mlm romantic relationship, I see them as a Platonic Relationship. If you ask me, they go from 'we know each other' -> buddies -> besties, in an old married couple way -> "I got asked again if we're dating, lol" "Why don't we?" "What- You love me?" "Not in the Gay way but we could be platonic bfs?" "Do I get to steal your hoodies?" "... Fine" "Aight, bet". They give me a lot of aromantic vibes - Either because they're too busy to Love, too worried to Love etc etc.

I think that's the "top" of my fav ships that could classify as shippings. You see, I like a lot of dynamics (non-sexual/non-romantic) but not necessarily as the shipping (romantic and/or sexual) that people consider a "ship". My dynamics are often build on platonic/queer platonic relationships rather than love ^^

I used to really like LeoVil but it became "Eh whatever". Still prefer it over RookVil but yk, it's just a ship like the others. Personally, there are a lot of shippings/dynamics including Rook that are really neat - Under one condition: Lithromantic Rook. (Lithromantic: Being romantically attracted to someone until the target of affection has the same feelings for you in return).

I do support almost all shippings regardless my own preferences (unless you're being weird with the ships).

[ladyhoneydee]

30 Day Song(fic) Challenge: Day 16

Good evening all! This Song(fic) Challenge prompt was "A song you love to drive to", and to be honest, I knew what I was going to choose from the moment I saw this one. Today's song is "Delicate" by Taylor Swift, which I have associated with driving since the first time I ever listened to the album. The beat in the chorus is just so reminiscent of the dashed line of a passing lane, to me; whenever I play my reputation CD in my car, I always try to see if today will be the day I'm going at just the right speed for the beats to line up with the road.

Utterly Lost and Utterly Found

Game: Twilight Princess, post-canon

Pairing: Zelink

Word Count: 1423

Keywords: hidden romance, secret feelings, sensuality

Tonight. The usual place. He never minces words, and yet the brevity and bluntness stokes within her a greater heat than a thousand florid words from the most sympathetic of suitors might. Still, it’s not an order: merely a fervent suggestion.  One she’ll follow into temptation every time, despite every logical reason her wisdom-addled mind can think up.

Read the fic on Ao3, or under the cut!

She finds the note half-sticking out of a crack between the stones that line her windowsill. It’s dawn, the sun merely a rosy blush on the eastern horizon, which means he must have left it overnight. The pathway along the rooftops is too treacherous for human feet, which means he must have made the trek as a wolf, and safely evaded the gaze of each and every guard. The note was concealed well enough that she may not have ever noticed it if she didn’t know to look; yet in a different location than the usual secret spot, which means he’d cheekily hidden it somewhere new just to teasingly test her.

The paper shudders insistently in the quickening morning breeze, and she snatches it up with a hard-won smile.

She reads it beside the hearth, which she sparks back to life with an absentminded jet of Din’s Fire. The tiny flame, feeding on the bare ashes left from the night before, is just enough to consume the letter with hungry tongues of gold. 

She doesn’t need the evidence to leave this room, and the words have already been burned even more strongly into her than in the fire itself. 

Tonight. The usual place.

He never minces words, and yet the brevity and bluntness stokes within her a greater heat than a thousand florid words from the most sympathetic of suitors might. Still, it’s not an order: merely a fervent suggestion. 

One she’ll follow into temptation every time, despite every logical reason her wisdom-addled mind can think up.

--

The council room is as chaotic as always. Zelda is no judge—her title as Queen is title only, between her disenfranchisement by Hyrule’s surviving, resentful nobility, and her willing abdication of power to the kingdom’s local civilian governments—but she wishes, at times, that she carried a gavel. 

“Order!” she calls, flint and steel in her voice. It sparks the attention of the amassed leaders, who turn back to her position at the head of the long oaken table one by one. 

“The issue on the table is the allocation of funds to the elimination of monsters in the outer provinces,” she reminds the table. “Not the allocation of funds to provide soldiers to replenish the private ranks of noble houses.” Her stare towards Lords Campho and Gerilt is hard, though shy enough of a true glare that none could accuse her of it. “I daresay you should be able to fund it yourselves more easily than the royal coffers can.”

The noblemen and women whisper among themselves. Many do not share her restraint against open aggression, and she meets their angry looks with cool disdain. 

“Similarly,” she begins, turning to the faction of village headsmen, ceremonial figures, matriarchs, and mayors, “it is not our intention to provide soldiers to create standing regional forces. If a province requests military aid, the General will do her best to provide—” she meets eyes with the newly-appointed leader of Hyrule’s military, and is heartened by the older woman’s nearly imperceptible nod, “—but a temporary presence is all we can manage at this time, with our ranks so low.” As they should be, in peacetime. “We hope the majority of these funds would instead be spent on the training and armament of local warriors to their own preferences.”

The civilian leadership mutter among themselves, a much more balanced lot. Some, who undoubtedly desired a strong military presence, send her glares just as heated as the landed gentry. Others nod quietly in satisfaction that one will not be forced upon them. Others, with whom she feels a certain kinship, show no flash of emotion across their faces at her words. 

She is an unpopular leader, to be sure. She is known as a cursed Queen, for the way the invasion of Hyrule struck the day just prior to her coronation; she is derided for her choice to hand the power to decide back to local leadership and to incorporate their rough voices into what remains of the castle’s gilded halls by the nobles; she is resented by all for the slow pace of Hyrule’s restoration, if only as a visible scapegoat for more deeply-held anxieties. 

She has not, and will never, falter beneath the granite weight of their expectations. That strength that holds her up will be enough. 

After all, it must.

--

There is an itch in her, and it spreads and deepens and heightens by the hour. 

Her fingers twitch and spasm, aching to sink into his hair, to glaze his skin with golden touch, to guide his own hands to her body. 

Her legs jitter beneath her desk as she whiles away the afternoon with endless stacks of paperwork and correspondence, threatening to carry her away, even though the cover of darkness that keeps them safe is still hours away. 

Her lips tremble with the restraint needed to keep her from spilling every word of the desire that bubbles within her. Both from him, so he doesn’t run away from feelings sprouted like a thicket of thistles that yearn to cleave to his form, and from the populace of Hyrule, so they don’t run toward with threats and blackmail.

She dare not even think of the anticipation brewing in the very core of her.

To take him as a lover is truly one of the worst choices she could make at this juncture. The people of Hyrule, so culturally modest after generations of carefully cultivated conservatism, would have nothing but scathing words for an unmarried woman caught cavorting, even if that woman were Queen. Perhaps especially if that woman were Queen. The settlements on the outskirts, or of non-hylian origin, might not spare her a second glance, but she simply cannot risk making herself vulnerable like that for at least another half-decade of selfless service and building trust.

And he…well, he would never be afforded another moment’s peace. And that, besides pleasure, is all she desires to give him. 

None of it matters, though, when she wakes to notes on windowsills; when candlelit fantasies flicker through her mind like well-thumbed novels; when they’re chest to chest and nose to nose, and she stares into those twin wishing pools he calls eyes and throws a rupee in despite against her better judgment.

In for a green, in for a silver.

--

When she materializes in the graveyard, hair floating in the spring-scented tendrils of Farore’s Wind, he’s already waiting, leaning against the solitary tree. Without torchlight and the moon above nearly obscured by the scrubbing clouds of late autumn, he’s a mere silhouette in the darkness. Still, her intimate knowledge of the very shape of him assures her of his identity.

Of course, it helps that they are the only two people in all of Hyrule who both know of the graveyard and can make it inside. She can only enter with the use of Farore’s Wind, and no other person—that she’s aware of, at least—can turn into a wolf to scent out the rich earth of a boneyard and dig their way inside. 

It’s morbid to meet here, she knows; couplings would be more appealing in a warm room over a bustling tavern, with a roaring fire in the hearth. But she cannot allow them to be seen, and, truth be told, there is a certain poeticism about their romance, which in itself is rather undead, being carried out in a graveyard. 

At the very least, he doesn’t seem to mind. 

They greet one another in the language of hands and lips. Later, as they lie dew-glistened on the mossy earth, they will talk. He will tell her of the harvest in Ordon which kept him away for so many weeks, of the conditions of the roads and rivers between his home and hers, of himself and his innermost thoughts. She will tell him of her daily struggles and victories and the rebuilding efforts being made in the regions he hasn’t been able to visit, and she will keep her innermost thoughts to herself.

For now, his leather-shucked grip on her hips sets her aflame. Her revenge, a synchronized tugging of his hair and scraping of her teeth across the hollow of his throat, tears a groan from his throat like the crash of a wave. Despite the damp chill of the cemetery and the weight of ghostlike gazes resting on both of their backs from the ones they’ve both lost, they build a warmth between them that spirals higher and higher until they are both utterly lost, and utterly found.

[wuxiaphoenix]

On Writing: Actual Exercises

Someone asked me about writing exercises. Which, er, hmm. Had to think about that. I aim for 400+ word blog posts, that’s an exercise by itself....

For writing exercises I’d give some of the same advice I would for physical exercise: start small. Yes, if you write 400 words consistently every day you’ll have a novel-length amount of words in a year or less. But that’s too much pressure. Along the lines of “must lose 20 pounds by swimsuit season” pressure.

It’s also too long a timeframe. If you want to start and stick with it, you need to reward yourself with immediate payoffs. An exercise needs to be short, doable, and have a result at the end. That way you’re more likely to get that brain chemistry hit of “task accomplished!” And therefore write more later.

So. Where to start?

You can never go wrong honing descriptive skills. Pick something small and describe it. A bend in a path. A lizard on a screened porch. A rock. One brick in a wall, if you feel like it. Get into all the details that make this something unique. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste....

(Please do not taste the lizard.)

Rambling and potentially florid descriptions dragging in other places and times are perfectly legit. One brick in a wall can connect to the entire universe. I’d say start with half a sheet of paper, see what you get. You can always write more.

Another exercise I’ve found useful may not seem much like writing. Pick a story by one of your favorite writers, turn to a page that has a bit you like, and then take a pen and paper and copy that entire page. Word for word, punctuation for punctuation. The object here is to internalize the rhythm of stories you like. And recopying it by hand tucks it into your muscle memory; something that still works when your logical brain is stressed out and scared silly.

(Side note: If you have a crippling fear of exams, recopy your notes by hand. That way, even when you’re terrified out of your wits, your fingers have a chance to ace the exam for you. Downing some sugar and caffeine ahead of time can also help. I’ve lost count of the number of exams I pushed through with recopied notes and slugging down Classic Coke pre-test start.)

A third way to get some writing without the pressure of a whole book is, take a scene and rewrite it from another point of view. Could be a scene you wrote, or someone else’s; the POV could be a character already there, or a monster, or a random interstellar ninja isekai’d in; you pick. Do your best to get into this character’s head and write how matters look through their eyes. It’s amazing how much this can change the impact of a scene even if events stay exactly the same.

Of course, if you really want long-term challenging writing exercises, starting a blog is still an option....

[frozen-fountain]

For the book recs asks: 1, 5, 18, 23, 54, 71

A book that is close to your heart

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer. I read it about three years ago now and find myself thinking of it when I'm feeling at a crossroads and weighing up consequential decisions.

5. Something in fiction that reads like poetry

Not to be a stuck record but just... anything by Angela Carter. Not only for the beauty of her language and the images it creates in your mind but because, as florid and maximalist as her writing can be, it's all constructed to support layers of symbolism and deep wells of meaningful connotation. It's economical purple prose.

18. Your least favorite book ever

The most recent contender is probably Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, which on the surface contains a lot of things I should love but completely failed in execution. Everyone knows that I love me some ornate, orchidaceous prose, so you know it's serious when even I am inwardly curling up into a ball of secondhand embarrassment at the excess on the page. Lady, you cannot drop "chiaroscuro" into your narration more than once without a damned good reason, and there's also some really cringy lampshading of cliched illogical things horror protagonists do that read less like an attempt to deconstruct these things in a meaningful way, and more like "So that just happened" humour to cover up the laziness of running the characters through these motions. Worst of all, there's no real subtext to add substance to the scares. There's some stuff in there about mental illness, about toxic and stagnant friendships, about marriage customs in feudal Japan versus contemporary America and what they do to women, but it failed to add up to anything enlightening or compelling. I loved the location, but that's about it.

A popular choice for this question, I think, but I'd throw in Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, too. Not because of the subject matter, or because of the ending, but because it's using these terrible experiences to cover itself in the trappings of a literary great while being, at least in my estimation, incredibly pulpy and borderline exploitative in its execution. I also did not at all see the beautiful, poetic prose that some people did and actually found the language really flat throughout, and found myself especially frustrated at the author's habit of over-explaining the characters' motivations and psychology instead of demonstrating them through action and dialogue - it read like a therapist's notes in many places, which doesn't work for fiction that's so centered on inner experience. But I do also see how and why this book could deeply move and become important to someone, and it frustrates me a bit that a lot of criticism of it seems to focus on anachronisms and lack of realism instead of asking why these devices were employed. But it's very Not For Me and places high on this list because my inability to DNF anything meant it took a long time to slog through.

I feel bad for saying so much more about books I hated than the ones I loved, but in the case of the latter I really am hoping anyone who reads these answers will check them out for themselves. I feel like my "Stay away!" needs a bit more qualification.

23. A book that is currently on your TBR

When I'm finished with Earthsea, I want to reread To the Lighthouse. It's been calling me and I was only twenty the first time I went through it, so I'm interested to see how it hits with all these experiences under my belt and after such dramatic changes in perspective as I've accumulated. For spoopy month I have Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller, Sisters by Daisy Johnson, and The Vegetarian by Han Kang lined up, and I'm really excited for all of those.

54. A book with the best opening line

It's pretty hard to beat "It was the day my grandmother exploded" (The Crow Road by Iain Banks).

71. Your favourite LGBTQ+ fiction

To just about everyone I would rec The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter, which is gorgeously written gender fuckery; The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, which is really effective sci-fi horror with a complicated sapphic slow burn at its centre; and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, because what more could I say? With a much bigger pinch of salt I would add Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt to that list, because not everybody wants to be in the head of a violent and possessive rapist for several hundred pages, but it's a descent into the abyss that will stay with me for as long as I live.

[felix-the-lemon-king]

SHIP BINGO UM UM UM how about azuriddle anndd um jadesilver and um um um um floriddle? and yknow what jaderiddle also bc all the other fish boys got a turn with riddle fjlsdjflj make it EQUAL give me ur THOUGHTS!!!

YEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO I was already making a FloRid bingo board the second I saw it LOL

AZURID

THEY'RE SO FUNNY AND SWEET WAAHHHH I joke that they are awful for each other but they could ALSO very very easily be the best thing to happen to each other and I love it, they're adorable little guys.. their relationship status is ALL OVER THE PLACE lol MAYBE they will get it together,, eventually 😭 (bottom right says "it was one-sided madness at first sight" do I have to say which one was the one-sided madness. Do I. Do I have to.)

JADESIL

THEY'RE SO GOOFY!!!!!!!!!!! I love this silly pairing so much omg. Floyd is the one saying they are horrible for each other because, you see, Floyd has few enough canon interactions with Silver that I can pretend, in my mind, that he has a simmering hatred for him (that Silver is 100% unaware of) just because he indulges Jade's mushroom hobby and because of the Annoying Good Boy Vibes That You Can't Even Bully In A Satisfying Way LOL!! I think they are Romeo & Juliet Part 2 Electric Boogaloo both bc Silver has FAILED the Floyd pass 🚫🚫🚫 and also bc Jade has automatically failed the Sebek pass by Being Human(? They count beast boys and fish boys as humans I DON'T GET IT BUT WHATEVER) however. I don't know how Lilia would feel about Jade dating Silver(???? Are they even dating. Or are they just homoerotically talking about mushrooms with Silver occasionally getting poisoned by Jade (also homoerotically) for fun. These are life's greatest questions) BECAUSE Jade always Finds A Way to ensure that in as many situations as he can squeeze into, he WILL indulge Lilia's awful cooking and together they WILL give all of NRC food poisoning. Would Lilia let him date(??) Silver.............. We may never know 😔 <- I should have circled the essay box LOL I'm still not even done. They are very fun and I was reading the enemies to lovers to friends ect box like 🤔 god wouldn't it be so funny if they had that dynamic JDGDJHDHSH neither of them have the ENERGY to Be A Hater, let alone Be A Hater And Then Fall In Love And Then Fall Out Of Love And Then So On And So On LOL!!

FLORID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have such a soft spot for this ship. It's a classic 😌 to Riddle they are enemies to friends to lovers to exes to friends ect. To Floyd, that is just the funny red guy he bullies (affectionately!!!!! Probably!!!!!!!!!!!!) 🥰 I didn't circle the romeo & juliet box bc while Floyd would NOT🚫🚫🚫 pass the Riddle's Mom Test, Riddle is smashing it out of the ball park w all of octavinelle and also would probably do the same for their mob boss parents GSHSJSHSGJSJA

JADERID

FUNNY BOYS I have a complicated relationship with this ship bc after all the convos we've had about Riddle's Union Birthday AU With Baby Brother Jade, I kind of prefer that ridiculousness over their ship JSHDJSGDJAJ that's his baby brother who he is Definitely Going To Fix For Sure And There Are No Problems With This Plan <- that said their ship is still so goofy on its own like how did this HAPPEN!!!! Riddle you are supposed to hate fish how have you let it come this far. Jade has FOOLED HIM!!!! Bamboozled into Dating A Fish 😔 I have it circled as a crack ship bc the only situations I come up with for this ship are SILLY ONES and that is the best 😌 also did not circle the romeo and juliet box bc Riddle is once again smashing ALL THE WAY OUTTA THE PARK AND ACROSS THE MAP OF TWISTED WONDERLAND with Jade's family and ALSO Jade would,, PROBABLY,,, pass the Riddle's Mom Test,,,,, for being a Polite And Kind Gentleman,,,,,,,,,, (she, too, has been BAMBOOZLED BY THE FISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope Jade rearranges her silverware drawer while she isn't looking hehehehhehehehe)

[projecthipster]

Pulp Fiction

You've seen this on a hundred t-shirts, but why?

“Whether or not what we experienced was an According to Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved.”

Somehow, I turned 26 without ever having seen Pulp Fiction. I guess I vaguely knew that this was some sort of violent, amoral movie that college freshmen (emphasis on the men) loved for being subversive. And committed as I was to some sort of soft-revolution folk-listening bike-riding Wes Anderson form of hipsterdom, it wasn’t that I hated the idea of Tarantino, but he was never on my radar aside from watching Inglorious Basterds on cable one night. And now that I’ve actually sat down and watched Pulp Fiction in one sitting after years of posters and memes, I have to say what I didnt fully expect to say: I get it. I think I totally get it. My persona’s not going to be uprooted by this movie, but if this was the first thing I’d seen that wasn’t, like, Michael Bay’s Transformers, I can see how it would have that impact.

A few years ago I might have filled this review with thoughts on whether violent crime in movies, perpetrated by the protagonists, was problematic. But truth be told I’m a bit tired of the vaguely neo-puritan concept that a story’s quality can be evaluated with a sort of demerit system, by going over a script with a comb of fine moralistic teeth and dropping points for every problematic aspect. I could easily do that to Pulp Fiction, and in the interest of fairness, let’s do that briefly here. Few strong female characters:  debatable, given how memorable repeat Tarantino collaborator Uma Thurman is as a nostalgic-fun-chasing gangster’s wife and washed up actress, but let’s say point off. Every time Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, and Bruce Willis gun down people in cold blood: point off. The entire ending to Bruce Willis’ segment: several points off. Tarantino writing a speech of a white guy standing in his kitchen spouting racial slurs like Pitchfork writers spout baseless comparisons to earlier albums, and then casting himself as that white guy: many, many points off. You can decide for yourself whether you want to take points off for the foot fetish. Was that fun? Are we purified? 

I couldn’t say exactly why I’m over this neopuritanism. Maybe it’s the algorithms, censoring anything with naughty bits for the sake of greater appeal and therefore greater profit, forcing a sort of childish doublespeak. I don’t think there’s a single scene in this movie that could survive unedited on Tiktok. No one in Pulp Fiction is unalived. They die. What’s more, they fucking die. Working around that even for progressive reasons all smacks too much of more classical conservative censorship. There’s a classic interview from around the release of Kill Bill that I found before I queued up the movie. A fusty-vibed pundit does her best to take down Tarantino with accusations of corrupting youth through senseless onscreen violence. He rallies back, more convincingly, that even kids can separate movies from reality better than the moral crusaders tend to assume. Why all the violence? Because it’s so much fun, Jan!

And as I watched this apparent frat bro classic, as I was swept into the sheer style of it all, with the classic music and the funky directing and the whip-quick dialogue that swings between incredibly casual and over-the top theatrical, while I didn’t feel myself turning into a frat bro, I felt my inner Jan wither away somewhat, because, yeah, it IS fun! Pulp Fiction is two and a half hours long, and it feels both longer than that for the amount of stuff in there, and shorter than that for its headlong galloping pace. No, the gangster protagonists aren’t good people. They shouldn’t be role models. They don’t need to be. They’re lurid, florid, edgy clowns, and it’s fun to laugh at them while also being a little scared for them, because if they’re shot, then the fun ends. That was the appeal of the pulp fiction of a century past, of cheap crime novellas sold on tables outside train stations that crumbled quickly into paper dust. As in that namesake fiction, Tarantino’s characters navigate a world divided into Their People and shrieking innocent bystanders, with the ratio tilted rather more to the former than you’d expect. Their stories branch and weave together, wrapping back into a thematically cohesive nugget where it all began. Each of them is a little movie in its own right, introducing us to characters in scenarios that spiral into wild climaxes.

One of the problems here is that not every branch of the tree is created equal. We start with the bits  I’ve seen in memes for decades. Vincent and Jules, buddy hitmen, talk about burgers and track down some dudes. Jules taunts one, plays linguistic games, and recites a fictional bible verse before shooting him through the head. Vincent takes his boss’s wife, Mia, out to a fifties themed diner. Until I watched Pulp Fiction for real, it should be said, I had this impression that it was a period piece. It’s not, it turns out. It’s set in the early nineties, when it came out. It just so happens that every damn thing onscreen throws back to decades previous. The screen itself feels soaked in nostalgia. Maybe that’s part of why it feels timeless. What’s timeless when it’s created will always be timeless. What’s timely fades. Going back to the diner, for example, Vince and Mia enter a dance competition that feels right out of Grease, which yes, I know, was a period piece too. That leads to this climax involving a big adrenaline syringe.

You  see why this is all hard to summarize in a linear manner?

The chemistry of Travolta, Jackson, and Thurman is a great source of the aforementioned all-important Fun through all this. It’s a drop down to suddenly turn to Bruce Willis’ corrupt prizefighter and his character-free doe-eyed French wife, even if that segment does climax the last way you’d ever possibly expect. It mostly all wraps back together at the end, though, with a truly tense final standoff. One thing I like, a closing grace, is that all this blood and swearing and needless slur-dropping ends not in the most violent shoot out yet, but in a  calm and simple act of mercy. It’s like the end of The Catcher in the Rye, where you can see a little bit of character development start to seep in, colouring everything previous as explanatory preamble to this little bit of worthwhile change. 

There’s a touch of hinting at the role of the author as God in fiction, too. The main catalyst for this all-important change, the change that structures the whole rambling multi-threaded movie, is a coincidence that saves Jules’ life. He calls it a miracle, views it as an Act of God. That’s supposed to be Against The Rules of screenwriting. Acts of God, which within worlds of fiction are obviously Acts of the Author, show the hand of the author, and so inherently call attention to the unreality of the story. But maybe, this movie is saying, that’s sometimes ok. There’s a confidence to rapping on the fourth wall a bit. By making the audience aware of the unreality of the story– something even done as early as the title in this case, it has “fiction” right there in it– the work makes them aware of the craft inherent in creating the fiction they’re watching. You only want to do that if you’re damn sure the craft is good. Thankfully, in this case, it is. 

One of the great defining factors of Hipster Fiction, I’m finding, is an appreciation for the auteur, for a story as a product of a singular mind even when, as in the case of a movie, it’s really the product of hundreds of people working together.  That stands in contrast to fiction pushed out of homogenizing studios and record labels and publishing houses, eager to erase the most dramatic and therefore potentially polarizing flourishes of the author into a marketable mainstream. That’s why I don’t mind the quirks, even the weird ones, as much as I might. Tarantino is singular, and the weird foot shots are a signature because he’s a weird dude about that. That’s the sort of thing that would be ironed out of a focus-grouped, less auteur driven, less hipster movie aiming to satisfy everyone. 

That ending, and the touching on the author’s Godly hand, cements Jackson’s melodramatic gangster Jules as the closest thing this all has to a bit of heart. A bit of heart is nice. It’s not why we’re here, though. We’re here to watch John Travolta talk about burgers, dance the twist, and shoot people.

I give this hipster movie four dorm room posters out of five.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the eleventh list, The Greatest Films For Hipsters.

Stay deck.

Next up: a book you’ve probably read.

[placegrenette]

Every Ninety One Song Reviewed: “Желсіз түнде жарық ай,” 2023

“Желсіз түнде жарық ай,” from Махаббат сөзі (EP, 2023) Music credits: once again, not entirely Ninety One. Lyrics credits: once again, salute the late, great Abay. Music video director: no, you’re not getting that information either.

If you’ve been following the guys’ YouTube channel, you know the cryptic teaser videos are coming thick and fast now. I’m hoping to find the time to devote an entire post to all the references (although I resent the reliance on Easter egg hunts, a bit). But let’s clear out our queue first: this is the last of the Abay-penned songs, and then we’ll just have “Synbaim” standing between us and whatever is actually on this long-awaited album.

As with the the other two Abay songs, this one has lots of precedents: plug “Желсіз түнде жарық ай“ into YouTube and you’ll find plenty of more florid versions. Here’s one; here’s another. Heck, even Ayree gave this one a shot a few years ago. You want to try for yourself? Here’s a karaoke version. Oh, and here’s a translation. It’s a love poem, but oblique, and steeped in nature imagery, which admittedly makes it not exactly the best fit for wandering around an abstract closed set while lip-syncing.

Ninety One’s contribution is to speed things up significantly. By comparison to the historical standard, Ace is barreling through his refrain (”Ауылдың, жаны терең сай  / тасыған өзен күрілдеп”) like he’s got a train to catch. (If, like me, you don’t actually understand Kazakh, you might not realize that he’s repeating Alem’s last two lines.) They don’t wear out their welcome: Alem and Bala do a verse each, we get the refrain twice, and then ZaQ handles the outro, all in less than two and a half minutes. You could argue it’s an Abay interpretation for a faster, more impatient world. But it’s not exactly unhurried: we do have time in the background for plucking strings. It sneaks up on you, I think. I don’t have the right (Kazakh) context; as a foreigner I feel like I’m being met halfway, introduced to Abay’s poetry without having to ingest musical traditions that don’t come easily to me. I appreciate it.

How’s the Hair/Styling? 75% fine: ZaQ’s “messing with the mainstream” jacket is a nice touch. Slashing Bala’s eyebrow doesn’t add much. Ace’s hair is even frizzier and less flattering than usual and I’m half hoping that after this latest round of bleaching he shaves it all off again. Should You Start Here? Nah; the whole Abay-covers project, while interesting, requires too much background research for brand-new Eaglez, and doesn’t give ZaQ enough to do.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

My Favourite Moments from Chapter III of When the Longing Returns

◇ It seemed telling, she now thought, that her first truly peaceful rest in months should come in an attic dormitory replete with intrusive sunlight, and after she had secretly cast off her promise to a virtuous man of exemplary character and nobility in favor of one to a half-disfigured rogue whom all the world cursed for the very Devil himself.

I'm not sure this is my favourite but it's definitely the part I'm most proud of in this chapter. I just love the wording here, and I think her observation is quite profound--only after defying the conventional idea of what is "right" for her and accepting her "utterly wrong" love for Erik can she sleep peacefully.

◇ But she regarded this ring—this warm gold and its solid, tenebrous gem, shimmering with unfathomable depths and enigmatic hues—and all she saw was him. It was a sort of mesmerizing thing, but it did not make her head feel cloudy or intoxicated; rather, she felt clear-minded when she held it and looked at it. It fortified her.

You all know I have an unhealthy obsession with Erik's ring, so of course this was gonna be in here. This is our second hint at what the stone in the ring is (revealed in Ch. 4). Also this ring description is pure, florid Lovecraftian syntax and I love it without shame.

◇ Raoul was gone, and then his ring was gone, and as the Phantom himself disappeared, she knew, deep in the pit of her stomach, that there was a very real possibility she would have followed him, if she'd had time to regain her nerve—if he'd given her the chance. Perhaps he'd seen that in her eyes; known that she'd already begun to waver. She'd realized when she saw him shaking, saw the change in his entire demeanor when he looked at her, not only the hold he had on her, but that she held sway over him as well.

I recall seeing a post a while back that talked about how the Phandom is forever fixated on the power Erik has over Christine, but we also need to talk about the power she holds over him. I think this is one of the aspects of the Eristine dynamic that Gerard Butler understood in his bones--he illustrates it so vividly and nowhere moreso than at the Masquerade.

The idea that Raoul's efforts to catch Erik only push Christine closer to him was also so delicious to me.

◇ Over the course of their attachment he was forever coming and going, giving her gifts and presents—jewelry she could not yet wear; candies, most of which ended up being eaten by Meg; and endless bouquets of luridly bright hothouse flowers for which she had no room, and which clouded her in thick perfumes that caught in her throat—but never staying long enough to exchange any thoughts but whispered expressions of love and idealized dreams of their future. Three months they'd been engaged and, though he doted on her, she could hardly think of a single subject over which they had deeply connected, other than reminiscences and fantasies.

This is actually lifted straight from an interaction I had with @MadameDestler on one of her fics. Talking is one of the best ways I find inspiration. I like the idea that Raoul has no idea how to satisfyingly woo a woman, so he's following the example of his peers and just buying her tons of gifts. Which in effect makes it just seem like he's doting on his mistress. His thought process goes no deeper than "isn't this what you do?" And in turn it feels shallow and cheap, whatever his intentions.

◇ She fought not to allow the image she'd described too much space in her mind, but she couldn't help picturing how the other girls would shriek in terror if the dreaded, cloaked Opera Ghost flew out of some dark recess, seized her with an arm around her waist, and hauled her helpless, swooning form into the shadows like one of those intentionally ghastly pulp cartoons the street vendors sold. Maybe it was callous of her to indulge such a farcical scenario at the expense of her peers, but it did fill her with a kind of satirical mirth.

This might be my favourite, but I almost considered cutting it. I wasn't sure if it quite fit tonally--like maybe it's too much, or doesn't quite match the rest of her mood here, but I like letting Christine be a little cheeky with the concept of her "villainous" lover. "They don't know that he would take me back to his lair and then we'd kiss, teehee". I think it's important to remember that, as much as this is about Christine coming of age, she's still a very young woman, and now head-over-heels for her Phantom: it's okay for her to be a little bit immature.

◇ What does he look like when he sleeps? she now wondered. Did the lines of care fade from his face? Did he often have dreams of her, as he had haunted her dreams...? She was certain that if he did, they must never interrupt his slumber as hers had. He could have no reason to start awake sweating, for he was in no denial of his feelings for her.

I think this is such a sweet moment; and also Christine, sweet, pure Christine, has not yet grasped that there could be reasons other than fear that dreaming of someone might make you suddenly wake up sweating 🤭🤭🤭

◇ She'd enjoyed holding his arms; they were not very muscular, but plenty firm. They'd been strong enough when he picked her up in a burst of youthful exuberance, spun her around the rooftop, and then held her afterward. What blushes and flutterings she had experienced, to feel the firmness of a man's arms around her! It was a sensation she'd tasted for the first time not very long before, and she had dearly wanted more.

Not these arms, though, pleasant as they were, and not this man; but she had stubbornly denied the deficiency of the substitute.

Oh sorry, I lied: THIS is my favourite part.

Let's be honest: Patrick Wilson was FOINE in this movie. Like. I am not unaffected. Far from it, I was THRILLED the first time I watched it. He's in quite good shape. Too good, for Raoul, frankly. So I decided to split the difference between Movie!Raoul and Book!Raoul. I had to acknowledge that there were little, superficially attractive things about Raoul that kept Christine going during their engagement. Still not quite good enough, though...

◇ "Was it very terrifying? At the masquerade? When he was so close to you?"

Christine trembled harder as Meg's questions brought the memory to the surface again; how absolutely overcome he'd been at the sight of her... the sensation of his leather glove brushing her cleavage as he snatched away Raoul's ring...

"Yes, it was." Christine said solemnly.

Sublime, delicious terror.

This is the... third? Time I've brought up a detailed sensory description of Christine thinking about Erik's leather gloves? I'm starting to wonder if she has a glove thing to go with Erik's stockings thing? Or, idk everyone loves to give Gerik a foot thing so I think it would be funny if Christine had a hand thing.

Anyway this is Meg as I love Meg best; of course she's saying "Was it terrifying?" but we all know what she's really asking LOL.

And Christine’s internal response... I'm very proud of that line, honestly

◇ They got their pastries; piping hot, flaky, buttery pastries filled with rich cream cheese and sweet plum compote—a treat that could make you forget anything in the moment. Afterward they had washed their sticky fingers clean by spending the afternoon gathering snowballs in the Bois and throwing them at each other, and other such wholesome winter exercises as can and should be enjoyed by anyone of any age.

So this is what you get when I'm on a Dickens kick lol. This is just a lovely little slice of life moment. I want to live in this paragraph.

[icarusbetide]

i'm currently getting jostled on the train but i wanted to try answering to the best of my ability, and i'm sure others can add on/clarify.

tldr: i wouldn't trust tiktok for accurate information. i think i know what kind of post you're referring to, the "alexander hamilton rizzler he pulled all these people" edits have gone around before. they're often made in a joking way to point out hamilton's charm, but for most of these people, i think it's fair to say that the objective evidence says close relationship or at least interesting relationship, and it's too far to suggest an affair. like so much, most of the *evidence* would be anecdotes and letters.

Meade: probably one of hamilton's closest intimates during the war as another aide. it's been speculated that he knew about ham's relationship with laurens, and he was specifically pointed out by ham in this famous letter to laurens in 1780:

"I hate Congress - I hate the army - I hate the world - I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you and Meade."

meade is also the aide who went into the chimney to read hamilton's letters privately, as said by mchenry to hamilton:

"Meade writes you all that is interesting, and conducts the most weighty matters with a great deal of cunning sagacity. He thrust himself up the chimney this morning, while we were dressing round the fire, in order to be more at liberty as I supposed to read your letter, or hide any thing it might contain, from profane eyes"

so yes, i would say an incredibly close friend, but not much to go for romantic entanglement.

Burr: oh hamburr my beloved. he and hamilton obviously shared one of the most fascinating political and personal relationships of the time. there are striking moments, like the time when hamilton might've prevented burr's suicide by helping him with his money troubles, especially compared to hamilton's combative, almost obsessive political attitude towards him. and of course, the famous "and there was the poetry" anecdote about burr after ham's death, where he stroked a bust of hamilton while sighing or something like that. i do want to note that burr often took on a cavalier, almost showy attitude towards hamilton after the duel, and much of that "there was the poetry" moment was probably him playing it up, rather than a sincere, tender moment if that makes sense.

again, in good conscience, cannot say there's much evidence for romantic feelings. don't get me wrong, they could've had hate-you-but-also-so-intrigued-by-you sex at some point during their intertwined careers but we just don't know.

Lafayette: probably the relationship most objectively reasonable to debate over. he, laurens, and hamilton were all very close to each other, but lafayette seemed especially fond of hamilton and struck an strong connection with him very early on, as "a man whom I love very much and about whom I have occasionally spoken to you [his wife]".

"Hamilton was to me, my dear Sir, more than friend, he was a brother. We were both very young, when associated with our common father; our friendship, formed in days of peril and glory, suffered no diminution from time: with Tilghman and with Laurens, I was upon terms most affectionate; but with Hamilton, my relations were brotherly."

so much love!! maybe romantic? but then he says "brotherly"!

their letters are very cute and a lot of it is lafayette whining about hamilton ghosting him.

“What is the matter with my dear Hamilton and by what chance do I live in fruitless expectation of some lines from him? Does it begin to be the play in your, or rather in our Country, to take European airs, and forget friends as soon as they have turned their heels?

there's the ambiguity of Romantic florid language vs actual romantic feelings and the very demonstrative nature of friendships at that time. but i wouldn't be surprised if lafayette did have a small crush on hamilton, or at least a huge amount of affection.

Andre: the one where hamilton had the crush! he writes about andre to laurens, bemoaning his circumstances, at length. like at length. here's a short excerpt:

There was something singularly interesting in the character and fortunes of André. To an excellent understanding well improved by education and travel, he united a peculiar elegance of mind and manners, and the advantage of a pleasing person. ’Tis said he possessed a pretty taste for the fine arts, and had himself attained some proficiency in poe⟨try,⟩ music and painting. His knowlege appeared without ostentation, and embellished by a diffidence, that rarely accompanies so many talents and accomplishments, which left you to suppose more than appeared. His sentiments were elevated and inspired esteem. they had a softness that conciliated affection. His elocution was handsome; his address easy, polite and insinuating. By his merit he had acquired the unlimited confidence of his general and was making a rapid progress in military rank and reputation. But in the height of his career, flushed with new hope from the execution of a project the most beneficial to his party, that could be devised, he was at once precipitated from the summit of prosperity and saw all the expectations of his ambition blasted and himself ruined.

he also famously protested andre's execution and manner of execution (hanging) to washington, to no avail. once again, he wrote to laurens, "Never perhaps did any man suffer death with more justice, or deserve it less", "Among the extra ordinary circumstances that attended him, in the midst of his enemies, he died universally esteemed and universally regretted". that probably did some damage to hamilton's strained relationship with washington as well.

i think he was going "i don't know if i want to be him or be with him" to some level lmao. but not sure if there's any anecdotes about how andre felt about him? probably grateful and pleased to have someone in his corner in that unfamiliar, intense situation.

Tallmadge: not sure why he was included at all, actually. i haven't seen a huge amount of letters or even personal letters between the two, although i might have missed something. there is a lot of potential for interesting scenarios in their respective positions during the war for sure, but i just don't know enough lol.

YALL PLEASE HELP ME AND TELL ME IF THIS IS WRONG.. someone on TikTok was saying Alexander had an affair/romantic thing with Meade, Burr, Lafayette, Andre and Tallmadge (separate times obvs) but like HUH WHEN WHAT WHY

[twistmusings]

Hi Mod Azul! I was wondering if I could request some parenting headcanons for Riddle x Floyd? :) (With them probably adopting lmfao).

Kinda random, but this was actually sparked by your "Riddle's Conversation with his Mother" post lol. I also just wanted to compliment you on it and how well executed it was. I appreciated the honesty that went into it. How some people will always think they're in the right; they won't listen to you, nor will they change, and sometimes you just have to move away from that. (Also Riddle wanting to cry and go to Trey, but him also knowing that doing so will make things worse??? Him seeing Trey's family, their relationship helping him learn how his own mother's treatment of him isn't right????😭😭😭) Riddle's sorrow was palpable, but so was his determination and hope. The line about Riddle wanting to break the cycle particularly struck me! Ofc, this comes with Riddle growing apart from his mother and into a healthier lifestyle, along with a lot of reflection and struggle and! Betterment!! :) It got me wondering how would Riddle be like as a parent growing out of that kind of cycle? And on a much less serious/more random note, how Floyd's spontaneity may agitate or encourage that growth. I just thought it was interesting :) but i also totally understand if this request is too random/specific🤣🤣🤣 and being able to communicate my appreciation for Riddle's Conversation is enough:)

Thank you for everything you write :) i hope moving is going well!! take care Mod Azul <333

This message is so incredibly sweet. I am so genuinely touched that you liked my Riddle post because I know that the subject of dysfunctional families isn't always something fun to read about. And on top of it all you ask me for florid, which, if I may be biased for a moment, is one of my favorite ships. 😭

Floyd and Riddle as parents.

CW: Mentions of unhealthy parent-child relationship (Riddle and his mother), fluffy as fuck and long as fuck.

Note: This is set with both characters being in their late twenties.

I feel like becoming parents was a very long process for the two of them. Not in a bad way, actually, it was just very well thought out.

Floyd was the one to prompt the discussion: I've mentioned in the past how his biology gives him bad baby fever when he feels comfortable and safe in his life, so that was what prompted it. Riddle, on the other hand, had never really thought about kids. (Nor had he really thought about being in a relationship, either, but here he was, in a committed relationship with Floyd.)

To his credit, Floyd thought out his approach very carefully. He had only heard bits and pieces about Riddle's mother and had met her a grand total of once before the both of them were kicked out of her house. (Sometimes Floyd still remembers how worried he'd been that Riddle would be devastated only to look over and see him with a very smug and self satisfied smile on his face at her reaction. It turned out that Riddle had done it intentionally to piss her off so she'd kick him out 'to think about his choices' so he didn't have to deal with her for the holidays. Its disgustingly sappy, but he's pretty sure that was the day he well and truly fell head over heels for Riddle.) He knows that there's not a good history with his mom, so Floyd had thought it would be best to test the waters before actually asking outright if he wanted kids.

He tried to be subtle about it, just pointing out children when he saw them, hoping to get a temperature read on how Riddle felt about kids in general. "There's a whole line of kids dressed up for halloween! The one with a crown on reminds me of you." or "Hee hee, they have mini-sized boots for baby feet." Riddle would always acknowledge it but was surprisingly quiet about his thoughts.

"Oh, Riddle, look! There's a school trip!"

Riddle looks up from the case of desserts he's looking at in the direction that Floyd is watching, and sure enough a line of children is waddling by behind a guide and their teacher on a field trip, he assumed.

He glanced back to Floyd, wondering why he'd been mentioning baby stuff so much recently. Floyd had already told him before that he tended to get a little baby-crazy at times, and he was about to ask if it was starting up again when a slight movement caught his eye.

His eyes dropped to where he hand that wasn't holding his own had come to rest on Floyd's shirt. It flexed a little, fabric gripped between it, and when Riddle glanced at his face, he noticed that the others eyes were glittering and crinkled at the corners as he smiles.

He follows his gaze back to the group of children who are excitedly pointing at the sweets on display, and that's what makes it click.

"Floyd..." The other perks up, fingers still tangled in his shirt and smile still gracing his lips. "You want kids, don't you?"

It's not a question-- more of an accusation, really.

Floyd's face drops and he opens his mouth and makes a couple of aborted noises. Riddle recognizes it as what he does when he back-pedals-- what he does when he thinks he's done something that actually makes Riddle mad.

"I dunno what you're talkin' 'bout, goldfishie~." He settles on, trying for his normal sing-song tone but sounding a little strained. Riddle shakes his head with a sigh-- while he was glad that Floyd had learned to be a bit more tactful with showing his affection, sometimes he wished he would just drop it and be blunt with him.

Riddle squeezes the hand that's still linked with his own, falling silent and looking back toward the desert case. He sorted his thoughts in the time it took for the waitress to take the order for what he wanted.

As she took the tarts aside to put them in a box, Riddle squeezed Floyd's hand again.

"You could have just asked me outright, you know I wouldn't have been upset with you. So why didn't you?"

Floyd huffs, clearly not wanting to answer this line of inquiry. He tries to pull his hand away from Riddle's, trying to close himself off. Riddle doesn't let him, already familiar with this little trick of his.

"Jus' thought it might be a sensitive subject." Floyd sighs brusquely, and when Riddle looks over at him in confusion he realizes that Floyd is resolutely not looking in his direction. Instead he's watching the children playing again and rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Why would it be?"

"... Cause of your Ma."

Ah. No, that tracks. Truly, sometimes Floyd was too smart for his own good. He seemed to be better at reading Riddle's feelings before he was, sometimes.

"I see." Riddle hums. His mom... he hadn't really thought about that. In fairness, he'd never thought of kids in general, though, either. He doesn't think he would be like his mother but... well, he's never really been in a parental role either. Sometimes he does catch himself saying something and hearing her voice coming out in place of his own. It makes him shudder a little every time, but surely that was a sign that he was trying to be better, right?

It's not exactly a comfortable silence between them, for the next few minutes as they take a seat at the table in the bakery and pull out their desserts. Floyd has barely picked at his tart, Riddle notes, as he chews his own slowly and considers what's on his mind. He glances back over at the field trip group as they finish getting their own treats and go trotting out the door chipperly.

"...Do you think I'm like her?"

Floyd snaps to attention, looking at Riddle like he'd grown a second head.

"What? No." Floyd frowns, gesturing with his hands and glaring at him as if he's personally offended that Riddle would compare himself to his own mother. "No."

"You think so?"

"This is a joke, right, Riddle?" Riddle can't help the slight quirk of his lips at the use of his real name, it's how he knew Floyd was being serious. "She would be too busy counting the calories in that tart to think about anything else."

"Mhm. And she would be arguing with the waitress right now and demanding the nutritional information." Riddle places the last bite of his tart into his mouth to hide his smile.

"And then she would ask if they could substitute the flour for oats or sawdust or somethin' because it would be healthier."

"She would."

"And then she'd tell the whole school group off for letting those kids have that much sugar and how it's 'bad for their growing brains'."

"Yes. And she wouldn't try to do this." Riddle says, jabbing his fork toward Floyd's own tart, which Floyd preempts and slides it far enough across the table that it's out of his reach. Drat.

"Ooh, devious goldfishie~! Too slow." Floyd laughs, mood already improved noticeably, hand propping his head up against the table. Despite not letting him steal it, Floyd cuts a chunk off his own tart and holds it up for Riddle to eat. "You know, she would be screamin' her head off even seeing you eat one of these. Like food can be 'bad' even if it tastes good. You're nothin' like her."

Riddle accepts the offered bite, carefully tucking his hair behind his ear as he leans forward to eat it off the other's fork. He also, rather insistently, threads his fingers between Floyd's, trapping the fork between their hands. Floyd laughs at that, too.

"You make it hard to eat when you do that." Riddle merely smiles back impishly, daring Floyd to figure it out. He truly brings out the playful side of him.

He hums thoughtfully, wiping his mouth with his napkin politely as Floyd unwedges the fork from between their hands so he can eat with his opposite hand. Riddle watches him finally take a large bite of his tart, thumb absentmindedly stroking along the back of Floyd's thumb.

"You know what else she wouldn't do?"

"Mm?"

"She wouldn't be considering having a discussion with Floyd Leech when we get home about if he would like to have kids together." Riddle's nerves get the best of him, as he speaks it, so he hears rather than sees the fork clatter to the table and him start coughing as he inhales the mouthful of food.

"Floyd!?" Riddle panics, reaching for the other. As if sensing the rising panic, Floyd squeezes their linked fingers and manages to clear his throat.

"For real?" Floyd manages, voice rough and croaky but not matching the way his eyes look at him so adoringly. Riddle sighs, smiling fondly at Floyd and shaking his head.

"Yes, for real. I wouldn't tease you like that."

Floyd barely manages to push his tart out of the way of his body as he leans across the table with ease and loops his arms around Riddle with an emotive, disbelieving cry of 'goldfishie!'

Flustered at the public affection, Riddle pats his arm gently.

"Floyd, eat your tart before I eat it for you."

"You can have the tart, I've got all I need right here~."

"Disgusting." Riddle rolls his eyes, but that doesn't stop him from reaching over and stealing the tart.

It takes some discussion, but they do decide that they're ready. They're not married, but close enough given how long they've been together. (Besides, marriage isn't really all that common for people from the Coral Sea and Riddle has never really had much need for there to be a wedding to know that there is a commitment.) They're both financially stable and are in stable living conditions. They are in the best place mentally that they've ever been in their lives... if there was a time, they felt like the best time would be now.

As for the child... They actually have some pretty similar ideas of what they'd be looking for. They both agree that they would like to adopt a child that's a little older (think between 4-12ish) and if possible they would like to have a girl. Floyd wants a girl because he likes girls fashion and he wants to help her find her own sense of fashion and... Riddle because teenage boys are insufferable. He should know. He went to a school literally just for teenage boys.

It takes some talking, but they decide it's for the best to adopt a human. Despite their outward appearances, they are an interspecies couple, and Floyd knowing the difficulties with coming on land as a teen he explains that he just simply can't expect that of a child. The first time shifting from a merperson to a human is deeply uncomfortable and can sometimes even be painful depending on how big of an anatomy change you have to go through. (He distinctly remembers Azul's transformation being worse than his own.) It might get a bit easier after you have time to adjust for that, but he knows it would be terrifying and traumatic for someone anyone that young. Besides, they already live on land, so it works out to be easier than moving to the sea. (Riddle would be willing, but Floyd doesn't want to do that to him either. Besides, he likes shoes, damn it, he's not giving it up to go back to the sea.)

The caveat is, of course, that Floyd's own parents would have to transform to see their grandchild, but somehow Floyd imagines that they would be more than willing. (They already love Riddle even if they accidentally scare the shit out of him sometimes, so Floyd can only imagine how much they will want to spoil their child. And that isn't counting Jade or Azul or any of their other friends.)

The adoption process is slow, but not as slow as it could be because they are considered common law married by the Queendom of Roses.

Once they do eventually get through the adoption process and get their child home, Floyd and Riddle definitely have some things that they have to teach themselves pretty fast that don't come intuitively. Things like how to deal with a child's irrational fears, how to deal with tantrums, how to talk to them about hard questions, that sort of things.

Floyd is really good at the emotional side of things-- he's had years of dealing with his own fluctuating mood so he's good at teaching his kid ways to help talk themselves down when they're getting angry and how to talk themselves up when they're feeling low. He surprises Riddle with how unconditionally supportive he is (though Riddle supposes he's always been the same for him, so he shouldn't be too surprised). He's excellent at finding the right things to say when he needs to say them.

Riddle is great at the academic side of things. With him, it's not anything like his mother was-- his teaching is based on education and helping her to find what works for her. If she has a hard time learning something, he's great at finding a different method to teach her that clicks for her. He's also really good at teaching her how to be responsible and how to think critically and for herself. He never got that as a child, and he never wants her to enter a situation that she can't think through herself. God forbid she should ever feel that kind of pressure, but he thinks about his own overblot and feels like it's necessary for her to know how to step back and and look at a situation logically. He trusts Floyd to teach her how to handle the emotional part of it.

She loves them both, but she's definitely Floyd's little princess. Floyd adores her and spoils her rotten. Riddle has no objections because it's really sweet to watch how well he handles her and matches her energy.

She also loves uncle Jade and Azul. However, uncle Azul is never allowed to babysit because the last time he did, she tried to scam her schoolmates out of money.

Uncle Trey is fun too, and brings her a bunch of sugar and then bails. Riddle threatens to never let him over again, but Floyd had a lot of fun with it and ends up convincing Riddle to stop threatening to cut Trey out of his life over a goofy prank.

Probably the most difficult conversation that they have ever had to have with her was to explain why Grandma and Grandpa Leech visit but why grandma Rosehearts doesn't. Riddle and Floyd tackle that one together, Riddle explaining how his childhood was and Floyd stepping in to take over when he noticed Riddle was getting emotional. Of course there were questions about why and what kinds of things she did, and of course they didn't give her the nitty gritty, but it was enough for her to grasp it. She and Floyd wanted to snuggle Riddle that evening, so it ended up in Floyd and her falling asleep halfway through a movie, one on either side of Riddle.

[obi-wkenobi]

I keep seeing a lot of Obi-Wan whump, so I thought I’d even the scales with some Anakin whump. Only a little bit, though! It’s mostly a lot of fluff.

--

Anakin shifted a little and immediately regretted it. His chest felt like it had been on the losing side of an altercation with a Krayt dragon, and his head wasn’t faring much better. Going back to sleep seemed like the best solution to the pain…that was until a familiar wry voice floated through the haze of his aches. “Feeling the consequences of your actions, are you, Anakin?”

He forced himself to roll over in the direction of the dry voice, blinking open sleep-lined eyes. The harsh fluorescent light of the Halls of Healing had him nearly snapping them shut again.

There was a slight tremble in the Force and then the bright light dimmed to a faint glow. “Obi-Wan?” His voice was rough, throat raw — clearly he had been unconscious for longer than he had initially thought.

He swallowed thickly, mouth parched and desperate for the cool relief of some water, when Obi-Wan walked over and lifted a glass to his lips. Anakin went to guzzle it down, but withheld when his former Master raised an unimpressed eyebrow, and so he took small sips instead.

“I’m pleased your keen observational skills aren’t also in need of recovery,” Obi-Wan quipped. “Now drink up. We can’t have you damaging that voice of yours. Force knows what sort of trouble you would get into if you couldn’t regularly voice your opinions out loud.”

Anakin rolled his eyes, but gladly finished the drink. It also gave him a moment to observe his former Master more closely: none but Obi-Wan could look so poised and uncomfortable whilst lounging in a hospital room. Anakin wasn’t sure if he admired or resented him for it — especially factoring in the certain knowledge that he himself must have looked like he had been trampled by a herd of Banthas.

When he had drained the contents of the glass and Obi-Wan had resettled himself into his seat, Anakin risked talking again. “How are you even here? I thought you and Quinlan were based on Osni?” he croaked.

“That’s not for you to concern yourself with right now,” Obi-Wan said tightly.

Anakin stared at him, suddenly unsure. Obi-Wan was still trying to sport his signatory smug smile, except it wasn’t able to hide the pallor of his face. 

Anakin’s stomach twisted in distress. What had happened? 

Ignoring the little voice in his head muttering that it was not a good idea, Anakin pushed himself upright, only to suck in a sharp intake of breath when pain pulsed florid and abrupt beneath his sternum.

“Anakin, what do you think you’re doing?” Obi-Wan stood and fluttered nervous hands over him, gently trying to get him to lie back down. “You need to rest.”

Anakin lifted his flesh hand to grab at Obi-Wan’s robes, trying to catch his eyes, and feeling his unease grow when he was unable to do so. “Master?” Anakin asked, uncharacteristically grave. “What’s wrong?”

When Obi-Wan didn’t answer, Anakin pressed on. “Were you…” Anakin swallowed hard, almost too terrified of the answer to finish asking the question, “Were you hurt?”

“What?” Confusion flitted over Obi-Wan’s features, before realisation softened them again. “No, dear one, I wasn’t hurt.” He cupped Anakin’s face within familiar calloused hands and met his gaze. “I promise I wasn’t hurt.”

Anakin exhaled a breath of relief. Ignoring the pain that throbbed heavy when he moved, he fell forward, pushing his face into the warmth of Obi-Wan’s robes. “Thank the Force.”

Obi-Wan hummed and wrapped a protective arm around Anakin’s shoulders, his other hand coming up to tenderly card through his hair. Anakin nestled closer, content to remain there for as long as fate or the Force would keep Master Che away. It took a few minutes for Anakin to press for more. “Obi-Wan,” he began, reluctantly leaning back, “tell me what happened.”

Obi-Wan considered him for a tense moment. “If I tell you, will you rest?”

Anakin nodded and almost laughed. Always the negotiator, he thought fondly. “Only if you get in the bed with me, though.”

A noise of amusement sounded, then Obi-Wan’s exasperated tone, “I should have known that you would use your predicament as a come on.”

Affection made Anakin snuggle even further into Obi-Wan, and the sudden desire to tease his Master encouraged him to cheekily grope at his arse. He laughed when Obi-Wan let out an indignant yelp and a breathless scorn of “Anakin!”

“Are you really that surprised?” he asked, smirking, and allowing Obi-Wan to manoeuvre him so that he was lying down again.

Obi-Wan sighed and slowly slid into the bed beside Anakin. “No, I suppose not.”

“Come on.” He shifted onto his side so that he could admire Obi-Wan’s profile. “Tell me what happened, you’re worrying me.”

“Relax,” Obi-Wan chided lightly. He shifted his attention away from Anakin and examined the plain white ceiling of the room. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“What?” Anakin asked, dumbfounded.

He hadn’t thought there was anything humorous about the situation. At all. However, upon observing Obi-Wan more carefully, he noticed the recent bloom on his cheeks revealed his embarrassment, rather than the fluster Anakin had believed it to be.

The tension that had coiled his gut into a knot eased, to be replaced by the jittery need to tease. Watching Obi-Wan huff and complain about something other than him was always fun to see.

“Now I really wanna know,” he grinned.

“Quinlan requested that the Council recall me from Osni,” Obi-Wan mumbled, grimacing.

“What?” Anakin laughed, as if the mere idea were ridiculous. “Why?!”

“Apparently I was distracted.” Obi-Wan huffed a frustrated sound and moved a hand to stroke through his beard. “Quinlan told the Council, and I quote, Kenobi is as useful as a youngling without any training when he knows Skywalker is injured and far away.”

Anakin bit his lip, desperately trying to hold back the grin threatening to break free. The need for comfort only just bested his need to gleefully recite all the lectures Obi-Wan had given him over the years concerning the dangers of attachment, so he gazed over at Obi-Wan appraisingly and shuffled to tangle their fingers together. “You were worried about me?”

Obi-Wan glanced over at him, expression heartbreakingly earnest. “Of course. When I found out that you had disobeyed orders again —” his eyes narrowed slightly in annoyance, “and had been hurt as a result, I wanted to be by your side immediately.”

Anakin carefully slid over to Obi-Wan and draped his arm across his waist until his hand splayed across his hip bone. His fingers absently traced small circles on Obi-Wan’s side. “I’ll admit that I probably should have listened this time,” he conceded sheepishly. “I didn’t think you would be so concerned to be recalled from a mission though.”

A strong arm gently pulled him closer, allowing Anakin’s head to rest on Obi-Wan’s chest and to listen to the reassuring thump of his heart. “I’ll always worry about you,” Obi-Wan confessed, pressing his face into Anakin’s hair and breathing deeply.

Anakin wished he knew what kind of union with the Force would allow him to bottle the feeling currently rushing like a torrent through his body. He shuddered in a shaky breath and peered up at Obi-Wan, lashes fluttering in pleasure when Obi-Wan brushed back a few loose strands of burnished hair from his face. “Please kiss me,” he begged, blushing over how incredibly needy he sounded, but unwilling to back down.

A familiar sharp smile spread over Obi-Wan’s face. “With pleasure,” he breathed, pivoting and leaning down enough to slot their lips together.

And if the Force flourished gold and scorching around them so that Master Che knew not to disturb them, then it only worked to their advantage.

[honorhearted]

"Oh, there were certainly near-cases of strangulation," Ben assured, laughing. "Sammy once stole my journal and wrote mocking commentary in the margins. I wouldn't say I was writing fannish meta, per se, but I wasn't exactly jotting down anything for school either. In short, I was mortified."

Ellie's words halted on the tip of her tongue, stiff and abrupt, and as jarring as a head-on collision. Ben's smile faded a fraction. Andy... Her own personal ghost. Although she shared little anecdotes about her brother here and there, it seemed she was only willing to keep him alive within the privacy of her own heart -- and he respected that. Ben, personally, believed he needed to breathe life into Samuel through others; that the only way to allow him to live on was to leave imprints of him in a stranger's smile, a friend's caress, a compassionate soul's words of advice.

Ellie deflected and referred to herself as "basic," and Ben was all too happy to take the bait. Whatever she needed to move forward, he would indulge.

"Not 'basic' at all," he reassured. "Heck, I said I was a fan, so it isn't as though I dislike any of those by any means. And there's a reason they're popular."

A Shakespeare quote rolled off her tongue, smooth and welcome, and Ben grinned at the familiarity. "Impressive," he lauded. "Though I'm afraid my memorization was far more self-serving, rather than pure enjoyment, because by the time I started college, I made sure to nail down 'I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return.'" He chuckled then, self-conscious. "You know...just in case my scintillating personality didn't charm the ladies first."

A hint of shyness overtook his gaze, and he darted his eyes in between Ellie's face and their interlocked hands. "Although it was my pitiful way of flirting, I really do enjoy the poetry of his work...and one day, I hope to find a love that makes me so bold and senseless and altogether consumed."

"Has anyone ever told you how wonderful you are?"

The sincerity of her question made Ben flush, the vibrant, pink color reminiscent of the carnations his mother used to plant along the walkway to his childhood home.

"Um...not so much in those words," he fumbled, sheepish. "And definitely no one beyond my immediate family." Her knee gently bumped his own beneath the table, and somehow, the florid color in his cheeks deepened. "You're not trying to play footsy with me, are you?" he quipped, his teasing intonation a touch distracted. Would it be so terrible if she was?

Chuckling at Ellie's far trendier lingo, Ben offered, "I don't know what 'rizz' is, but I'm assuming it's not short for risotto... Yet my father would disagree with you. He must still think it's the '60s, because he once told me I look like a 'dirty hippie' with this hair."

With the early morning sunlight streaming in through the diner windows, Ellie resembled a Marie-Denise Villers painting, warm and glowing, and streaming directly into his heart. Her beaming smile radiated into his own features, and then her hand was lifting, stroking, and his heart skittered like a skipping stone once she tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

"My wish for you, then, is that if and when you feel it again, and you will...you deserve to, that is brings you just as much happiness, just as much tenderness."

Ben held his breath, and for one moment, it was akin to being underwater -- of his sun-kissed, seafoam-spattered days running along the Sound with his best friends. Ellie brought about thoughts of nostalgia, of home, and her familiarity beckoned to him unlike any other. How, he wondered, could a near-stranger bring him so much safety and calm?

With a lump in his throat, he squeezed her hands between his own. You do, he wished to tell her. You make me happy. But instead of giving in to the pull of his heart, he brought her hand to his lips and nuzzled into her skin, his eyes meeting anything but her own as he murmured, "I'll certainly try... It would seem, after all, that you've raised the bar rather high for women everywhere."

"Maybe not contortionist but definitely a decade or more of yoga under my belt and some double joints." Ben likely meant it as a rhetorical question but she felt the tiniest bit of pride in herself for the structure, the discipline, and yes, being able to tease him about it. She does feel his confession is sweet but doesn't point out that for some strange reason, she is quite the opposite. Plants and animals always thrive around her. "I'll keep your secret." She time-shares between his face and his hands, the corners of her lips twitching as she fights off an appreciative smile. She recognises the movements if not the final product. Some day she might tell him about the thousands of cranes she made once upon a time. She finds his commitment to books, the enthusiasm for Dumas, endearing beyond explanation. Bites back the urge to say that most serial murderers are. "My question is how you kept yourself from smothering him in his sleep. I mean that's pretty egregious a crime. Right up there with Andy-" Beth stops herself short. She hoards memories of her brother like the greediest of dragons. "Maybe I'm basic, but my favourite was always Henry V. Macbeth of course, oh and the Tempest!" She half lowers her lids and gently clears her throat. "Not a soul but felt a fever of the mad, and played some tricks of desperation. All but mariners plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, then all afire with me. The King's son Ferdinand, with hair upstaring then like reed, not hair- was the first man that leaped; cried 'Hell is empty, and all the devils are here'...." Once quoting Ariel, she chuckles with a hint of shyness in her tone if not features. "But...I'll take your background into consideration and absolve you of blame because...your dad." The blossom smiles fully, showing him hints of teeth and crinkles at the corners of her nose. Maybe it's the story of his mother. The sweetness and kindness of a woman sharing art with her son. Maybe it's the idea that they in turn encouraged their son to bring brightness to sick children. Beth always lauds paediatrics and the work done for children, has a soft spot for people who care about kids. "Has anyone ever told you how wonderful you are?" The question holds not a single trace of sarcasm. The sound of his laughter and the way it shapes his face sinks down into the pit of her belly and warms her through the core of her being. "I don't believe you've ever had a bad hair day. And I think letting it be a little longer than average is totally a power-move. Huge part of your rizz, as the kids say." Despite every urge to lean across the space between them and help him mop up is strong, she also knows that the last thing he needs is an extra pair of hands. It doesn't stop another laugh from escaping her, more sympathetic than mocking, and has her muttering a gentle apology between the delicate wind chime sound.

It's his turn to enjoy her own mirth tinted surprise. Delicate fingers splay out to cover her lips but the subsequent snerking sound is anything but graceful. Her lips tremble and a blush leeches into her face. Half a heartbeat later she does rake him with a smouldering look from his mouth to his knees then back. "That would be such a tragedy." She can't help but twitch when he jerks. A sense of guilt rises up to cushion the not quite bruised feelings further softened by understanding. Andy used to complain about her tactile nature but never enough to break her of the habit. What she wasn't expecting though is that he then returns the touch with one of his own, or how she finds herself wanting him to do it again. A ghost of his thumb lingers. Then is given company by his other and she can't help but notice how easy it feels, how natural, to be held between them. "I don't disagree, though sometimes... It's hard to keep that in mind when it feels like you're driving in the dark without a road-map." She's only vaguely aware of the intimate portrait they create remaining so close, so intertwined ~the side of her knee now nudges the space between his, only a little more space than their hands. Within the moment, Beth finds herself wondering if it would be so bad if she simply became Ellie forever. She smiles as he answers her with a refreshing honesty not depicting himself as a silver-tongued Casanova as many would without fear of being caught out. That makes Ben much more charming and that much more human. Relatable. She harbours no ill-will toward the historical Jess for bringing Ben good memories to look back on, for helping him figure some part of himself out. There are other things though that bloom into desire; to know how or why it had ended. What did he take forward from it, what helped him survive the heartbreak even if he had been the one to instigate it all. Had she gotten on with his family? Had his brother welcomed her at the very least? But Ben isn't a novel and she isn't entitled to answers. Maybe if he brings it up some day, then she'll have more solid ground from which to ask. Her other hand lifts. Past the swan/crane, past the drying drops of coffee on the table. Her wrist brushes his cheek and brings with it the faintest hint of something sweetly floral. She tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. "My wish for you, then, is that if and when you feel it again, and you will...you deserve to, that is brings you just as much happiness, just as much tenderness."