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nimedhel09 · 3 years ago

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Other Fairy Tail headcanons noone asked for

Yes, I have more. Again, be prepared for the longest post, but also for probably some Frenchisms and inaccurate English.

- Human-hating-and-eating dragons existed long before the war, but they were few, as human meat wasn't that good for most draconic tastebuds... Most of the dragons preferred to just ignore humans, as they were seen as lesser beings by a big part of the dragon population.

- Dragonof and Montes Secreta are a rare show of dragon-human symbiosis. The dragons protect the territory from invading forces, be they human, dragon or otherwise, and the humans take care of the dragons and feed them.

- Dragons and dragon slayers hoard. What exactly depends on each individual's interests.

-> Natsu likes to hoard stuff that makes him think of his friends... or that belonged to his friends before he hoarded them.

-> Gajeel hoards metal (because food), comfy stuff (mostly cushions, pillows and sheets) and he began hoarding books when he began to form a friendship with Levy.

-> Erza, of course, hoards her armor and weapons. She has a very difficult time parting from any of her belongings, which is why she always over-prepares for quests. The slayers and herself realize the origin of her "problem" when her parentage is discovered.

-> Rogue collects frog stuff. He had a passion for frogs as a child (seems like a headcanon I share with @pencilofawesomeness hehe) that never really went away. So each time he goes on a quest and sees anything ressembling a frog? He buys it. Frosch has many maaaaany frog onesies, in all the colours imaginable, as they also share Rogue's love for frogs, but her favourite is the pink one (yes, in my head, Frosch is a girl).

-> Sting hoards jewellry and gems. He loves the colours and the sparkliness.

-> Laxus collects music. He does not realize he hoards it until he hears the other slayers talking about their hoards and realizes he has a lot of vinyls in his house.

-> Erik/Cobra hoards miscellaneous stuff that catches his eye for longer than 5 seconds. Usually, it's small and he got in the habit of hiding everything in places he marks to find later, since he never had the stability of having a nest/cave/territory that belongs to him until after he was pardonned with the rest of Crime Sorcière.

-> Wendy hoards tea sets. She loves them, she loves to look at them, and each time she can find one that calls to her, she'll buy it and add it to her hoard. She also has a special tea set for visitors. It is the only tea set that people other than her and Charle/Carla can use or touch. Noone outside of the slayers, exceeds and Levy know that.

- The god and demon slayers also have biological modifications to get closer to the creatures they have the ability to "slay". Gray has little horns that his hair hides, he has night vision, which makes his eyes reflective in the dark (something that has freaked out a few guild members and people he had to fight against) and his teeth are very SHARP, although they're smaller than dragon slayer fangs and narrower.

- Juvia has had a very stern talking to by Cana, Mira and Erza about her harassing of Gray. Gajeel was not happy to see her so despondent afterwards, but when she explained what happened, he gently told her that it was something she needed to hear, because her behaviour was not OK. She still struggles with obsessive behaviour, low self-esteem and anxiety, but she gets help from Mest.

- Gray and Juvia have a talk when Juvia realizes that she does not want to be that person, and they finally get to have a healthy friendship. No romance, though, as Juvia finally grows out of her unhealthy obsession with Gray and realizes that's not what love is supposed to be.

- As a coping mechanism for... everything, Juvia bakes. A LOT. And she offers her confections to everyone in the guild. You know she is having a bad time if she brings a lot of pastries, and if it lasts for more than a day, it's very bad. Mira and Gajeel have developed a system without meaning to when that happens. Mira works on getting Juvia to cheer up and Gajeel gets her to open up to him.

- Mest never turned Brandish against August. Nuh-uh. No sir, he definitely did NOT. Also no pedophilic thoughts about Wendy. He finds her warm and adorable and he loves her as a little sister, thank you very much. He was also head over heels about Lahar and it took years to get over his death. He is understandably very weary of falling in love. He also develops a crush for Macbeth/Midnight after Crime Sorcière was legalized and the members came to mingle with Fairy Tail more often.

- Most of the members of the younger generation, at least, are not heterosexual (because sexuality is a freaking continuum, people). I might expand on this at a later date if anyone is interested.

- Jellal and Erza have a very serious talk and both work on their Tower induced trauma for years before they decide they might want to try a romantic relationship. Jellal is the one that has the most difficulty healing from the past and seeing Erza as a person instead of his saviour/deliverance/light and stops putting her on a pedestal.

- Erik talks to Kinana about Cubellios and how he thinks she might be his lifelong friend. Since Kinana has bad amnesia, she asks Mest to help her retrieve her memories, and, although everything is still quite hazy, she remembers her attachment to Erik. They slowly work through her memories, but Erik is very respectful and does not push Kinana into anything, he just wants to know her, and, maybe, if that could happen, his friend back. They end up slowly falling in love.

- Juvia is like a little sister to Gajeel. He is very protective of her, and she is the only reason he joined Fairy Tail. They stay close through the years, and Juvia ends up being the godmother of Gajeel's and Levy's children. Juvia is understably over the moon and spoils the heck out of her nephew and niece.

- The original appearance of most of the Celestial spirits is quite different than what it is nowadays. Leo/Loke's original appearance is closer to his Eclipse Celestial Spirits ark than his current one. He is a fighting spirit, after all.

- As there are 88 (accepted) constellations in the sky, there are 88 keys. The silver and gold ones are the most known, but there is another set: the platinum keys. Those keys are as powerful as the gold keys, but not much is known about them.

- Since opening a key gate demands so much magic power, celestial wizards have slowly decreased in numbers. Celestial magic is coming closer to becoming a lost magic every year. It does not help that Celestial wizards are so often used by dark guilds as sacrifices for dark intents.

- Many civilians think that, because there are "light" guilds and "dark" guilds, some magic powers are considered dark and light too. Which, in turn, makes them afraid of any kinds of magic that is not in the accepted definitions of "light". That's one of the reasons why Freed, Mirajane and Bickslow hated their born magic for so long. It took them years or even decades to stop the self-hate, with the help of their friends and family.

- Since the awakening of his etherious nature, Natsu has been terrified of losing control. Which made him train harder and subtly distance himself from the guild. Of course, the other slayers, Erza, Gray and Lisanna saw right through him and Lisanna confronted him about it and he spilled the beans.

- NaLi is a thing. They're very cute together. Natsu is not interested by sex (yep, he's asexual), but he loves the proximity with Lisanna so sometimes they do have sexy time, but not often at all.

- Mira is a big gossip, and she does the shipping thing, and she does try to imagine ship-kids, but when someone tells her they're uncomfortable/they don't want kids or she sees that she makes them so, she stops and apologizes and never does it again. Because Mirajane is a respectful friend that does not push her friends and family to follow patriarcal societal rules, thank you very much.

- Gray inherited his devil slayer magic genetically. So he was born with it. But it was dormant or sealed until Silver awakened it (it makes more sense that way, in my mind).

- Fairies did exist, but they are extinct in Earthland. They do still survive in another dimension with other elf-like beings (because I said so and because I like the idea of a Sidh in-universe, because travelling to parallel universes is a thing, so there!)

- Talking about that, there's a difference between parallel universes (Edolas) and dimensions (the place where Angel's "angels" dwell). A parallel universe is a different kind of world on the same "wavelength" as the one Fairy Tail exists, and a different dimension is in the same universe, BUT on a different level (you know, the 2D, 3D and so on, and so forth). But because I do not want to go full-on-nerd-mode-that-will-never-stop-talking-about-the-thing, I'll stop here.

- Minerva and Rogue are a couple and you cannot tell me otherwise.

- Talking about the saberkitties, that guild desperately needed to heal after Jiemma. It took them a lot of work to get to a level where everyone began to trust in their guildmates and the guild itself. Minerva is the one that had the hardest time, as she was the daughter of the abusive jerk and his favoured and longest victim.

- She also had the hardest time after Tartaros, because it took months for her to have a human body again. Sting, Rogue, Orga and Rufus were there every step of the way for her. She loves them with all her shriveled little dark heart.

- She stays a badass with some violent and cruel tendencies, but she's mostly awkward, nowadays. She feels most comfortable with Rufus and Rogue because they're calm and quiet. She also adore Frosch.

- It took Yukino months to decide that she might possibly want to rejoin a guild. She goes to Sabertooth to confront her bad treatment and the trauma from her excommunication and has the longest talk with Sting, although she sees that he's far from his cocky, rambunctious, confident self (because Tartaros + losing his dad + Minvera stuff going on). They have a heart to heart and Sting apologizes profusely about how he acted until the Eclipse gate thing. She accepts his apology, but still hesitates to rejoing the guild. Noone pushes her, but Sting asks her to at least stay around for a few days so that the other guild members can see her. She does, and gets apologies from everyone. However, she does not see Minerva, and since she was one of the biggest offenders when it came to bullying in the guild, she really wanted to confront her, but the situation is explained to her. Yukino rejoins the guild after a few weeks of hard thinking, and patiently waits for her very needed conversation with Minerva, although she does not push for it when she knows that things must definitely not be easy for the spatial mage.

- Orga is half Fioran and half Encan. That's why he weats the clothes he does, and has the tatoos. The facial paint he has during the GMG is because of a warrior tradition from Enca. He goes to visit his maternal family at least once a year. Although noone outside of his friend circle (which was noone during Jiemma's tenure) knows of that tidbit about his background.

- Freed, Rufus and Lucy are all from high society, but they never mingled or even talked. Freed's father was very strict and rarely allowed him to go to parties because he was never good enough, and then when his magic realized itself, he was too ashamed of the creature that was his son to even consider it. Rufus, on the other hand, was too young, but he saw Lucy from afar. He just never talked to her. Freed only knew of Lucy's name, but Lucy wasn't aware of him at all, because she would do anything to not do a good impression.

- Talking about Lucy, she is very sensitive to any kinds of comments about her physical appearance due to a childhood with the pressure of having to look like a perfect breedable doll, due to her father's expectations and just high society. Because she was seen more as an asset than a human being. And even though she rebelled about all the expectations, she internalized them still. She still struggles about it.

- Another thing she struggles with is: independance and freedom. Two things she never really had until she decided to flee her home. That's one of the reasons she kind of lets Natsu drag her on adventures too, because making decisions for her life and having the responsibility of her own destiny freaks her out and gives her major anxiety. She even had panick attacks about those.

- Lisanna had a very hard time getting used to Edolas, but also getting used to being back to Earthland. Her siblings and close friends (aka Natsu and Happy)? Even more so. Lots of angst and not believing it to be true and stuff. Also, she had quite a bit of difficulty reconnecting her Earthland friendships. She tended to see the guild as their Edolas versions for a while. But now everything's fine.

- The Raijinshuu bonded over their eye magic and their respect for Laxus, because he was the one to help them and make them join the guild.

- Laxus, under his not-approachable, cocky veneer, is just a very awkward sweetheart that has no idea how to interact with humans outside his three friends. He exudes big introvert energy and you cannot tell me otherwise.

- After the war, Laxus is lost. He does not know what to do without his grandpa. But the guild has to go on, so he tries to hide his grief and buries himself in work, because there is a lot to do. Of course his team sees it and with a lot of coaxing, he does properly mourn Makarov. He also goes to Porlyusica to talk about him and get help with his lungs (because there's scar tissue caused by the bane particles still there).

- For weeks on end, Erza and Laxus talk about who should be the next master, even though Laxus does not even want to take on the role anymore. And because no consensus is reached with just them, they decide to have a guild poll and let everyone choose their favoured candidates (could even be someone else, they do not care). In the end, poor Laxus still ends with the responsibility, and when he discovers all the paperwork his grandfather left, he nearly has a breakdown. Fortunately, Freed comes to the rescue, and when she hears about it, Lucy also helps. Lucy gets closer to the Raijinshuu and the new master that way and Freed, Laxus and her talk at length about their childhood, expectations and the verbal abuse they had to live through.

- When he discovers the amount of money that team Natsu makes the guild lose every single mission, and the destructiveness of most of the guild members, he decides to change that with the help of other guilds. The new Council, hearing this, jumps on the opportunity to try and get the guilds more involved because they do not want to keep on dealing with Fairy Tail nonesense. They have better things to do.

- Hisui gets more involved in the politics of the country and tries her best to make relations better with their neighbours Bosco and Seven. Since Bosco was hit the worst by the forces of Alvarez, she also organizes humanitarian missions that she sends to all the guilds in Fiore. Getting missions from the crown is a never seen before occurrence, but she thinks that it's a cause important enough to get involved. Her project pays, as relations with Bosco thrive after that.

- This also makes the population more curious about the other countries of Ishgar, as Fiore has always been mostly self-sufficent and autocratic.

- The Raijinshuu + Laxus (also, I hate that Laxus isn't officially part of the team and they're just his followers, come ooooon!) is actually the strongest team of the guild, but since they're not official, well... it's not official. Even without Laxus, the team is very efficient and rarely destructive. They have the advantage of all the members being quick thinkers and all of them are quite strategic, and if Freed tells them to do something, they do it without question. And even though Laxus is very powerful, he is also very analytic when he goes on missions, and even in fights. (Yes, I have a bone to pick with team Natsu when it comes with how they operate. Also, that particular way they work? Well, makes Lucy and Wendy not blend with them very well)

Ok, I think that's it for today. I might add to my list of headcanons, because I have MANY (too many to count).

Here's a little list of things I'd like to tackle at one point or another:

- where all the (time travelling) dragonslayers originated from and how they came into the care of their dragons

- Fairy Tail ships, sexualities and the why (aka, why I think nearly none of the characters are straight)

- Acnologia's backstory, but done in a way that does not make him one-dimensional, because the King of dragons deserves it, thank you very much

- Why I dislike the characterization of the cast, and what would have worked better from a narrative point of view (from my point of view as a reader, writer, someone who LOVES character development, but also maybe a bit someone who's actually studied literature in Uni)

- Maybe also ways for the magic system to actually have consequences? Because in the canon material, we've got nearly nothing for the main cast and I am annoyed.

- And probably some more worldbuilding, because you know I LOVE me some worldbuilding. I also think way too much about stuff, so yay?

#Yes I did another headcanon post #i'm on a roll #fairy tail headcanons #patriarchy can burn in hell #wholesome and accepting friends #we are respectful in this house #another very long post #sorry not sorry #fairy tail headcanon #fairy tail #I love angst ok?#But gimme the fluff too #I ought to sleep but my brain does not want to let me

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themannequins · 3 years ago

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i wish i were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them.

MIROSLAVA VAN DER BELLEN ESSEN, a twenty four year old grisha in the little palace. she is a tidemaker and are known in the little palace as the mannequin. they are known to be methodical and repressed and vaguely resemble milena tscharntke.

character inspiration: emma woodhouse ( emma ), sansa stark ( got ), daphne bridgerton ( bridgerton ), anastasia ( anastasia )

ABOUT AND LIFE

if you want to die here is my baby’s full bio but i couldn’t shut the fuck up while writing it so here’s the summary but i can’t shut up ever so i added new things here ANYWAYS

here’s my baby miroslava (ex van der bellen) now essen. she’s a control freak, people pleaser, the nicest girl you’ve ever met and she’s always just fine. she’s made sure to build her personality around what others might like and she has been pretending for so long she doesn’t even know she’s pretending anymore and she has no fucking clue who she is, but she doesn’t even know that :)

tw: death, misogyny, gaslighting and sleepwalking ( just in case )

born in fjerdan to the noble family van der bellen, miroslava was the youngest and only daughter of freyja and kuznetsov. her mother, died during child birth and her father resented miro for that and he always made sure she knew just how much he blamed her for it.

for the moment miro was born she was promised to the son of another noble. she grew up with the idea that her purpose in life was to marry. she was molded by different tutors and governesses to be the “perfect wife” whose only purpose would be to please and obey her husband because according to her father those should be a woman’s priorities. the idea that she as incomplete unless she marries was rooted into her and is still with her till this day.

she was never allowed to join in whatever activity her father and brother were doing because it wasn’t “lady like” but that wasn’t just it, her father simply couldn’t stare the sight of the child who had taken his wife away from him. had it not been for anastas, her older brother, miro’s life would’ve been incredibly dull. her whole world. had it not being for him miro wouldn’t have known what love truly was. anastas used to sneak miro out of the house so that she could hang out with him and his friends, who in time became her friends as well.

fjerdan testers, non grisha who made sure there were no grisha hidden in their country, were scheduled to come to the van der bellen manor to test miro. to try and protect his sister and out of fear she might be grisha, anastas gave her a small cut on her forearm, just like her mother had given him when he was younger. accidentally, he slowered his sister’s heart in that moment so that she wouldn’t be afraid, and they both discovered anastas was grisha. miro was terrefied, not because her brother was one of the monsters she had heard so much about, but because she knew the real monster, their father, would should him no mercy if he ever found out.

their father began to suspect and one night he asked miro about anastas. she denied everything but he convinced her he wanted to “help” miro believed him, and told him. that same night drüskelle came in and took anastas and miro understood she had been deceived by her father. she kicked and scream but her father held her in place as he patted her head, the same way one would pet a loyal dog. she never saw anastas again, her father fobbid her from ever speaking his name. miro believes her brother to be dead, and she knows she was responsible for yet another death.

only five months after anastas was gone, miro’s powers first appeared, she was a tidemaker. her father found out at the same time she did and she was driven to the house drüskelle officer. she was locked and left to wait, for what? she will never know because when she thought all hope was lost a servant kid her age appeared in the room and helped her out of the house and into a carriage that was meant to go near the border of ravka. it was a long shot, but it was all she had.

she ran and made it to ravka. three nuns from a near by convent found her and she spend a few months there were she grew quiet until she barely spoke a word to anyone but in time she realized she needed to go back to her old sweet and polite ways because that seemed the way to get people to like you. after a few monts she was adopted by edmund essen.

at first, it was hard for her to adapt to life in the essen manor because she felt that if she allowed herself to love her new siblings she was betraying anastas (all over again) but in time they found a way into her heart, as dysfunctional as they are, she loves them.

she adores her father, edmund essen, yes she’s a daddy’s girl AND WHAT ABOUT IT THE MAN IS COOL AS SHIT and her old father was the absolute worst. when edmund fell ill a few months ago she left the little palace to look after him.

miro sleepwalks. anastas always looked after her whenever she did, and even though she has her siblings who look after her now, everytime she awakes as well as feeling disoriented she feels incredibly sad because she’s reminded her brother anastas isn’t there. she has dark circles under her eyes always because she sometimes avoids sleep altogether in fear that she will sleepwalk but she always asks her sister lucrezia to tailor her so that she can look as if nothing happened every day.

bosses around every single person but she does it in a way that it doesn’t feel like she’s bossing you around but that she’s helping you, but it’s different when it comes to her siblings. miro bosses every single one of them in without being sublte about it, she’s not afraid to raise their voice at them when things aren’t done the way she likes them. this earned her the nickname of general among the essen siblings.

very popular around the little palace, not queen bitch popular vibes but nice girl popular vibes.

#once upon a december plays in the background #ravkahq:intro

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whythinktoomuch · 5 years ago

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iii. half-dead & buried

(pt. i) (pt. ii)

tw: gore & death

Turns out that Lena’s a pretty private person, which Kara thinks is why no one else is too keen on trusting her. But Lena also happens to be a pretty pretty person, which Alex thinks is why Kara is so very keen on overlooking that compulsive need for such privacy.

“She won’t let us search her pack,” Alex complains to Kara, as she so often does. “I get that she needs her space and all, but what if she has a weapon? We need to know.”

“She doesn’t have a gun,” Kara says. “She had one, but ran out of ammo several months ago. She does have a swiss army knife though, and a hunting knife on her at all times, but that’s it.”

Alex stares at Kara in disbelief for a long moment, then snorts. “You two do a lot of chatting then? Is that why you’re always holed up in your room together?”

“Shut up. It’s not like that.”

“Mm-hm. So... whose bed are you gettin’ busy on anyway?” Alex asks without missing a beat. “Because if you’re doing that on my bed, I fully expect y’all to disinfect every—” A swift pillow to the face cuts her off before Kara’s blush can get too widespread.

But honestly, Kara gets it. She fully understands the need to keep certain things to yourself. It’s a manner of exercising control in a world that regularly abuses the very lack thereof.

It’s the reason why Kara starts off every day with 25 push-ups and caps off every night with an hour long run.

And why Alex cleans her gun 12 times a day.

And why every other resident there has their own personal idiosyncrasies to be tended to on the regular.

And it’s why Lena wants to keep the contents of her beat-up rucksack to herself. And why Lena seems to be singlehandedly reading her way through their tiny makeshift library. And why Lena insists on wearing her tattered red flannel over every single outfit, even on the hottest of days, even with her long dark hair matted and dripping in sweat.

“She’ll show us when she’s ready,” Kara says whenever the topic comes up, and eventually, she’s proven right.

“Can I share something with you?” Lena asks one day, and Kara’s stomach does little flips in response.

“Of course,” she says as a more verbal response.

Lena studies Kara with narrowed eyes, then reaches inside her bag, the contents a-clanking like they always do, and pulls out a large yellow can to drop into Kara’s hands.

“Oh. Okay.”

“They’re peaches,” Lena says. “Canned peaches.”

“Yeah, I mean, I can read, yeah.”

“That’s all I had to eat before you found me.”

“Really? Jeez...” Kara hands back the can, scratches at the back of her neck. “Well, at least it tastes good, right?”

“Are you kidding? I almost shit my pants every other day.”

“Oh. Well, that sucks, man.”

Lena rolls her eyes, shoving the peaches—and apparent bane of her existence—back into her rucksack. “I can’t even stand the sight of them anymore.”

“So, you’re just lugging all those heavy cans around all day?” Kara asks, incredulous.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do with them?”

“You could always give them away,” Kara says, and the very suggestion has Lena tightening her grip on her bag, knuckles paling noticeably. “I mean, you don’t have to, obviously. But if you weren’t gonna eat ‘em anyway...” Kara shrugs.

And Lena does. At the end of the day, she hands over four 15oz cans of Del Monte sliced peaches and a small tin of kidney beans to the kitchens, and Alex actually thanks her.

The following morning, Kara almost spills both of their breakfasts onto the library floor as she bursts through the doorway, unaccustomed to carrying two trays instead of just the one.

When the time comes for the next scavenging mission, Lena wants to tag along, and Alex okays it, but refuses to give her a gun.

“Are you serious?” Kara demands. “We always arm everyone when we go. Even Mike, and he’s a terrible shot!”

“Resources are already low as it is,” Alex says, talking over Mike’s heated protests. “Just can’t risk it.”

“I don’t care,” Lena chimes in. “I have my knife.”

“She doesn’t care. She has her knife,” Alex promptly repeats, throwing a hand toward Lena, but Kara still leaves the compound all glowering and huffy.

They travel for nearly a day before they discover an abandoned warehouse full of goods. One that they can surely mine from for the next five months, at the very least. Maybe even seven if they’re frugal about it, which Alex always has them be.

So, Kara marks it on her ever-expanding hand-drawn map, tongue poking out between her teeth as she tries to get all the proportions just right. Later, she’ll wonder why she even wasted so much of her time and attention on such trivial matters.

Its movements are clumsy, but oh so terribly quick as it claws its way out of the wall. The first slash catches Franklin around the chest, tearing through shirt and skin, and a burst of red hits the open air. His scream is what ends up grabbing everyone’s attention and sends most of the team sprinting in the opposite direction.

Kara snatches her gun off the ground—stupid, stupid, stupid, it never should have been down there in the first place—and fires off a single round that puts a neat hole through the zombie’s forehead. It crumples instantly, but it’s too late. It was too late the moment it had appeared.

Franklin is bleeding from too many places. There’s gashes all over his arms, the wound on his chest is flowing freely, and he has a hand pressed to his neck, where half-rotted teeth had torn through flesh and sinew.

Kara’s hand is trembling as she raises her gun. “Franklin...”

“It’s fine,” Franklin says, nodding furiously. “Just do it.”

“Kara, there’s more!” Lena shouts in warning, and Kara whips her gun around, swiftly sending three more zombies dropping to the ground with bleeding foreheads and the backs of their heads blown out. “Okay, we gotta go. Now.”

Kara stares helplessly back at Franklin, her gun hand raising half-heartedly once more, but this time, he’s shaking his head.

“Look, they’re just gonna keep coming,” Franklin says, breath already stuttering and shallow. “But I can slow them down for you.”

“We can’t let you do that,” Kara grits out, throat already welling up with regret.

“I’m dead anyway. Go. I can do this.”

Eventually, it’s Lena tugging insistently at her hand that drags Kara away from the scene. And it’s Lena’s hand squeezing at hers that keeps Kara from collapsing to her knees when they hear Franklin’s screams echoing after them.

They run full-speed down a long, darkened hallway, chasing after the intermittent gunshots sounding somewhere ahead, hoping against hope that all the snarling noises are farther away than they sound.

When they get to a dead end, Kara picks a door at random and shoulders her way through, hauling Lena after her, and they both end up face to face with a shotgun.

“Jesus, Mike,” Kara hisses, swatting the gun aside. “Are you serious? You could’ve shot us!”

“I thought you were a zombie! How the hell was I supposed to know?” Mike says, hands raised in defense.

Kara just sighs and pushes past him. “All right, tell me the truth. How fucked are we right now?”

“Not at all, actually.” Brainy tears his gaze away from the window. “We’ve managed to dispatch all the creatures at this end of the warehouse, and aside from a few stragglers outside and by the main entrance, I think we’re in the clear. It appears as if it was just a small horde wandering on its own.”

“Just,” Kara echoes, jaw clenching tight. “Just a small horde, huh.”

Brainy stares, bewildered. “Yes?”

Kara shrugs her backpack off, dropping it at Mike’s feet. “Fill that for me. I’m gonna go pick off those stragglers.”

“By yourself?” Lena asks incredulously.

“Let her go,” Mike says, eyes rolling. “She’s always like this.”

Just as Brainy’s predicted, there’s only a few zombies left for Kara to take out, which doesn’t take too long. But almost an hour later, Kara’s still hovering by the main entrance when Lena comes looking for her.

And Kara is just sitting there, hugging her knees, with her gun lying uselessly next to her. She’s watching Franklin, or at least, what used to be Franklin.

He was only recognizable through his attire, half of his face having been chewed off. His limbs—all broken and bloodied, with the bone exposed—are already twitching, every open wound darkening in rapid decay. The light hazel of his one remaining eye disappears behind his pupil, and the body comes back to life.

It’s frothing at the mouth as it tries and fails to sit up, lashing out with arms bent at odd angles.

“There weren’t even that many,” Kara says finally, voice so quiet that it’s barely heard over the violent rasps. “He didn’t have to go like that.”

“You can still help,” Lena says just as quietly.

“I’m supposed to—” Kara covers her face with a frustrated groan. “I’m supposed to use something else. It’s protocol. We have to stab him in the, you know, even though he’s already so... We have to save bullets. Alex says that we have to save our bullets.”

“Well, Alex doesn’t have to know.”

Slowly and cautiously, Lena reaches over and picks up Kara’s gun, and makes the decision for her.

When they rejoin the group, no one asks about the stray gunshot fired, or why Kara is crying, or how come she and Lena are now holding hands. Everyone reacts to loss in different ways, after all.

(next part here)

#this is 1655 words.#WHY!?#there's going to be a part iv and i hate myself i'm sorry y'all #my words.

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years ago

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TIME: A CLOWN WITH GLAMOUR

May 26, 1952

TIME: The Weekly News Magazine ~ Lucille Ball: Prescription for TV; a clown with glamour. May 26, 1952.

On Monday evenings, more than 30 million Americans do the same thing at the same time: they tune in ‘I Love Lucy’ (9 p.m. E.D.T., CBS-TV), to get a look at a round-eyed, pink-haired comedienne named Lucille Ball.

An ex-model and longtime movie star (54 films in the past 20 years), Lucille Ball is currently the biggest success in television. In six months her low-comedy antics, ranging from mild mugging to baggy-pants clowning, have dethroned such veteran TV headliners as Milton Berle and Arthur Godfrey. One of the first to see the handwriting on the TV screen was funnyman Red Skelton, himself risen to TV's top ten. Last February, when he got the award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as the top comic of the year, Skelton walked to the microphone and said flatly: "I don't deserve this. It should go to Lucille Ball."

By this week, the four national TV rating services (Nielsen, Trendex, American Research Bureau and Videodex) were in unaccustomed agreement: each of them rated ‘I Love Lucy’ as the nation's No. 1 TV show.

Lumps & Pratfalls. The television industry is not quite sure how it happened. When Lucy went on the air last October, it seemed to be just another series devoted to family comedy, not much better or much worse than ‘Burns and Allen’, ‘The Goldbergs’, ‘The Aldrich Family’ or ‘Mama’. Like its competitors, Lucy holds a somewhat grotesque mirror up to middle-class life, and finds its humor in exaggerating the commonplace incidents of marriage, business and the home. Lucille's Cuba-born husband, Desi Arnaz, is cast as the vain, easily flattered leader of an obscure rumba band. Lucille plays his ambitious wife, bubbling with elaborate and mostly ineffectual schemes to advance his career.

But what televiewers see on their screens is the sort of cheerful rowdiness that has been rare in the U.S. since the days of the silent movies' Keystone Comedies. Lucille submits enthusiastically to being hit with pies; she falls over furniture, gets locked in home freezers, is chased by knife-wielding fanatics. Tricked out as a ballerina or a Hindu maharanee or a toothless hillbilly, she takes her assorted lumps and pratfalls with unflagging zest and good humor. Her mobile, rubbery face reflects a limitless variety of emotions, from maniacal pleasure to sepulchral gloom. Even on a flickering, pallid TV screen, her wide-set saucer eyes beam with the massed candlepower of a lighthouse on a dark night.

What is her special talent? TV men credit Lucille with an unfailing instinct for timing. Producer-Writer Jess Oppenheimer says: "For every word you write in this business, you figure you're lucky to get back 70-80% from a performer. With Lucille, you get back 140%." Broadway's Oscar (’South Pacific’) Hammerstein II, hailing Lucille's control, calls her a "broad comedienne, but one who never goes over the line." To her manager, Don Sharpe, Lucille is "close to the Chaplin school of comedy—she's got warmth and sympathy, and people believe in her, even while they're laughing at her."

Western Mirage. Lucille explains that the TV show is important because "I'm a real ham and so is Desi. We like to have an audience. We like being up on our toes." But the show also allows her some time with her ten-month-old daughter, Lucie Desirée, and for the first time in eleven years of trouping, gives her a home life with husband Desi. Says she: "I look like everybody's idea of an actress, but I feel like a housewife. I think that's what my trouble was in movies."

Actress Ball was a long time arriving at the calm waters of motherhood and housewifery. The daughter of Henry and Desirée Hunt Ball, she was born in Jamestown, N.Y. (near Buffalo) at what she calls "an early age." Pressed, she will concede that it was quite a while ago: she admits to being 40. Her father was an electrician whose job of stringing telephone wires carried him around the country. When Lucille was four, he died of typhoid in Wyandotte, Mich.

Lucille spent her childhood in Jamestown (1920 pop. 38,917), but managed to see very little of it. Mostly, she inhabited a dream world peopled by glamorous alter egos. Sometimes she imagined herself to be a young lady of great poise named Sassafrassa, who combined the best features of Pearl White, Mabel Normand and Pola Negri. Another make-believe identity was Madeline, a beauteous cowgirl who emerged from the pages of Zane Grey's melodramatic novel, ‘The Light of Western Stars’. To get authentic background for Madeline, young Lucille corresponded with the chambers of commerce of Butte and Anaconda, Mont. She read and reread their publicity handouts until she felt she knew more about Montana than the people who lived there. It was the powerful spirit of Madeline that caused her for many years to claim Butte, Mont., as her birthplace. Only in the most recent edition of Who's Who did she finally, grudgingly admit to being born in Jamestown, N.Y.

Horrses to Warter. While she lived there, Lucille did her best to rid Jamestown of dullness. Sometimes she gilded reality by imagining that the family chicken coop was her palace ("The chickens would become my armies"). She remembers that she was always unmanageable in the spring. "I'd leave the classroom for a drink of water and never come back. I'd start walking toward what I thought was New York City and keep going until someone brought me home."

By the time she left high school at 14, she had staged virtually a one-man performance of ‘Charley's Aunt’ ("I played the lead, directed it, cast it, sold the tickets, printed the posters, and hauled furniture to the school for scenery and props"). In a Masonic musical revue, she put so much passion into an Apache dance that she threw one arm out of its socket. Jamestown citizens still remember her explosive personality with wonder: it took quite a while for the dust to settle in Jamestown when Lucille finally left for Manhattan at the age of 15.

Probably because of the dreamy mental state induced by Sassafrassa and Madeline, Lucille is not too clear about dates, events and people. In New York,

she headed straight for John Murray Anderson's dramatic school. At the sound of her voice ("I used to say 'horrses' and 'warter' "), her teacher clapped hands to his forehead. Anderson tactfully told Lucille's mother that her daughter should try another line of work. Lucille made a stab at being a secretary and a drugstore soda jerk, but found both occupations dull. She answered chorus calls for Broadway musicals with a marked lack of success. When she even lost a job in the chorus of the third road company of ‘Rio Rita’, a Ziegfeld aide told her: "It's no use, Montana. You're not meant for show business. Go home."

Periodically, Lucille did go home to Jamestown. But she returned again and again to the assault on New York. She managed to get into the chorus of ‘Stepping Stones’, and held on until the choreographer announced that she wanted only girls who could do toe work ("I couldn't even do heel work"). Lucille turned to modeling, progressed from the wholesale garment houses through department stores to the comparative eminence of Hattie Carnegie. She still has a warm feeling for people in the garment trade, because "they're the nearest thing to show business in the outside world. They're temperamental and jealous. I like them." She had a great many admirers. One of them, Britain's actor Hugh Sinclair, says: "She disarmed you. You saw this wonderful, glamorous creature, and in five minutes she had you roaring with laughter. She was gay, warmhearted and absolutely genuine."

As a model, Lucille called herself Diane Belmont, choosing her name in honor of Belmont Park Race Track, where fashion shows are sometimes staged. But it was another few years before Lucille finally got her break. She was walking up Broadway past the Palace Theater when she met agent Sylvia Hahlo coming down from the Goldwyn office. Sylvia grabbed her and cried breathlessly: "How would you like to go to California? They're sending a bunch of poster girls there for six weeks for a picture. One of the girls' mothers has refused to let her go."

$50 to $ 1,500. The movie was ‘Roman Scandals’, starring Eddie Cantor, and it was six months instead of six weeks in the making. Lucille was grimly determined to keep her foot in the Hollywood door. She got a succession of bit parts in such movies as ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘The Affairs of Cellini’, worked for three months with the roughhouse comics known as The Three Stooges ("It was one continuous bath of Vichy water and lemon meringue pie").

When RKO picked up her contract, she gradually emerged as a queen of B pictures, then began making program movies with comics Jack Oakie, Joe Penner and the Marx Brothers (’Room Service’). Her salary rose from $50 a week to $1,500 and her hair, already turned blonde from its original brown, now became a brilliant but indescribable shade that has been variously called ‘shocking pink' and 'strawberry orange.' While she was in ‘Dance, Girl, Dance’, and being hailed by Director Erich Pommer as a new 'find' (by then,

she had been playing in movies for six years), she met a brash, boyish young Cuban named Desi Arnaz.

Gold Initials. Desi had come to Hollywood to make the movie version of the Broadway hit, Too Many Girls. Taking one look at luscious (5 ft. 7 in., 130 Ibs.) Lucille, who was wearing a sweater and skirt, he cried: "Thass a honk o' woman!" and asked: "How would you like to learn the rumba, baby?" He took her for a ride in his blue convertible, with the gold initials on the door, and she shudderingly recalls that the only time the speedometer dipped below 100 m.p.h. was when he rounded a curve. On the way home, Desi hit a bump and, as Lucille tells it, a fender flew off. He simply flicked the ash from his Cuban cigarillo and sped on.

Lucille was as dazzled by his full name (Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y De Acha III) as by his history. The only child of a prosperous Cuban politician who had been mayor of Santiago and a member of the Cuban Senate, Desi had fled to Miami with his mother during the revolution of 1933. His father, a supporter of President Machado, was put in jail, and the Arnaz possessions disappeared in the revolution.

After six months, Desi's father was released from jail and rejoined his family in Miami, where he went into the export-import business. Desi, who was 16, enrolled in St. Patrick's High School (his closest friend was Al Capone's son Albert), and got a part-time job cleaning canary cages for a firm which sold birds to local drugstores. He soon found steadier work as a guitarist in a four-piece band incongruously called the Siboney Sextette. The critics agreed on Desi's meager musical gifts. "He was always off-beat," says theater owner Carlos Montalban. "But he's an awfully nice guy—a clean-cut Latin."

Conga Line. Whatever Desi had, it was something the public liked. He began beating a conga drum in Miami and soon nightclub audiences, from Florida to New York, were forming conga lines behind him. His good looks and unquenchable good humor interested producer George Abbott, who was searching for a Latin type to play a leading role in ‘Too Many Girls’. "Can you act?" asked Abbott. "Act?" answered Desi, expansively. "All my life, I act."

The courtship of Desi and Lucille was predictably stormy. Says a friend: "He's very jealous. She's very jealous—they're both very jealous." They were married in 1940, while Desi was leading his orchestra at the Roxy in New York and Lucille was between pictures in Hollywood. She flew in from the coast; they got up at 5 a.m. and drove to Connecticut, where they were married by a justice of the peace. Since they had no apartment, Desi compromised by carrying his bride across the threshold of his dressing room at the Roxy. Hollywood offered odds that the marriage would not last six weeks.

The marriage lasted better than six weeks, but after four years trouble blew. Desi kept moving about the country with his band, and Lucille, when not making pictures, mostly sat home alone. Their marriage was drifting on the rocks, and only World War II averted immediate shipwreck. Desi refused a commission in the Cuban army and was drafted into the U.S. infantry. He was moved on to Special Services, and spent much of the war shepherding USO troupes from one base to another.

In 1944, Lucille filed suit for divorce. She won an interlocutory decree but never got around to filing for her final papers. The reason: she and Desi were in the midst of a new reconciliation. But all the old difficulties remained. Lucille would sit night after night at the clubs where Desi's band was playing, but that resulted in rings under her eyes rather than a new intimacy. She tried cutting down on her movie work by starring in a CBS radio show called ‘My Favorite Husband’, and Desi also took a flyer at radio. They worked out a vaudeville act and toured U.S. theaters with their new routines.

Lucille credits Desi with being the one who was willing to take a chance on TV. "He's a Cuban," she says, "and all Cubans gamble. They'll bet you which way the tide is going and give you first pick." But it was a real gamble. Movie exhibitors do not look kindly upon movie stars who desert to the enemy. If the show flopped, Lucille would have no place to crawl back to. They told CBS that they would give television a try only if both of them could be on the same show. At first, they wanted to play themselves. They compromised by turning Desi into Ricky Ricardo, a struggling young bandleader, and letting Lucille fulfill her lifelong ambition of playing a housewife.

The decision to film the show also made CBS bigwigs uneasy. It would cost four times as much as a live show, and the only interested sponsor, Philip Morris, wasn't prepared to go that high. Again there was a compromise. Desi and Lucille agreed to take a smaller salary in return for producing the show and keeping title to the films.

Real Plumbing. Long years in the practical business of orchestra leading had given Desi considerable organizing ability and business sense. He set up Desilu Productions (Desi president, Lucille vice president), and leased a sound stage from an independent Los Angeles studio. Because Lucille was ‘dead' without an audience, a side wall of the studio was knocked out to make a street entrance, and seats installed for an audience of 300. When a show is ready for the cameras, the audience laughter is picked up on overhead microphones and used in the final print.

Though ‘I Love Lucy’ is filmed, it is more like a play than a movie. All of the lines and action are memorized and, whenever possible, the show is played straight through from beginning to end, and not shot in a number of unrelated scenes. The action takes place on four sets; two of them represent the Ricardos' Manhattan apartment, a third shows the nightclub where Ricky's band plays and the fourth is used for any other scenes called for by the script. Says Desi proudly: "We have real furniture, real plumbing, and a real kitchen where we serve real food. Even the plants are really growing; they're not phony."

Desilu Productions hired a pair of veteran troupers, William Frawley and Vivian Vance, to play the family next door and serve as foils and friends for Desi and Lucille. Academy Award-winning Karl (’The Good Earth’) Freund supervises the three cameras, and Director Marc Daniels (soon to be replaced by Bill Asher) gives Lucy its rattling pace. The writers—Jess Oppenheimer, Bill Carroll and Madalyn Pugh—turn out scripts that do not impose too much on the audience's credulity and are reasonably free of clichés. The writers are held in an esteem not common in TV. Lucille bombards Jess Oppenheimer with photographs flatteringly inscribed to "the Boss Man," and Desi has presented him with a statuette of a baseball player and a punning tribute, "To the man behind the ball."

"Wanta Play Cards?" Desi and Lucille live an unpretentious life on a five-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley. The only Hollywood note is a kidney-shaped swimming pool, and the most recent addition to the house (a wing devoted to daughter Lucie and her nurse) cost $22,000—more than the house and land cost originally. Neither Desi nor Lucille has ever been socially ambitious, and their friends are the same ones they have known for years. Both Desi's mother (now divorced from Arnaz Sr., who still lives in Miami) and Lucille's Mom live nearby.

At home, Lucille, who collects stray cats and dogs, is an amateur painter ("I use oils because it's easier to correct mistakes than with water colors"), and generally considers herself a lazy, lounging homebody. She is fascinated by Desi's boundless energy.' He spends weekends fishing on his 34-foot cabin cruiser, Desilu; plays violent tennis; likes to cook elaborate dishes. Says Lucille: "Everything is fine with him all the time. Wanta play cards? Fine. Play games? Fine. go for a swim? Great." There's only one problem: "Desi is a great thermostat sneaker-upper and I'm a thermostat sneaker-downer. Cold is the one thing that isn't great with him."

Sex & Chic. Though life has grown noticeably more placid for Desi and Lucille, it promises more money than they ever made before. Desilu Productions has already branched out beyond ‘I Love Lucy’. It is filming TV commercials for Red Skelton, and is at work on a new TV series, ‘Our Miss Brooks’, starring Eve Arden. Three of the best 30-minute Lucy shows are being put together in a package and will be experimentally released to movie theaters in the U.S. and Latin America. This year, ‘I Love Lucy’ has grossed about $1,000,000, and sponsor Philip Morris has signed a contract for 39 more shows beginning this fall. All of the old Lucy films can be sold again as new TV stations go on the air (eventually there will be 2,053 TV transmitters in the U.S., compared to today's 108).

In reaching the TV top, Lucille's telegenic good looks may be almost as important as her talent for comedy. She is sultry-voiced, sexy, and wears chic clothes with all the aplomb of a trained model and showgirl. Letters from her feminine fans show as much interest in Lucille's fashions as in her slapstick. Most successful comediennes (e.g., Imogene Coca, Fanny Brice, Beatrice Lillie) have made comic capital out of their physical appearance. Lucille belongs to a rare comic aristocracy: the clown with glamour.

#Time Magazine #Lucille Ball #Time #Lucy #1952 #Desilu #Desi Arnaz #I Love Lucy #TV

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t-o-m-hollands · 4 years ago

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Can you post a little blurb abt the Paris couple and how they’re doing a few years later? Like, did they have kiddos, did they ever choose to get married, did they ever move back to Paris together in a lovelier apartment, how’s timothée’s art (can he still produce masterpieces without being sad?), what do they usually do on their free days, did they ever full on talk about that gut wrenching letter he wrote years ago, did she keep that letter, did they ever quit smoking, did they furnish the house the way they wanted to, did they paint their walls and get bigger beds, do they have designated sides of beds?

Hi! 💗💗💗☺

God I love these questions so much, but I’m sort of done with the Paris universe you know? Like, I don’t think I can write just a blurb for them because I feel like their story is told now.

BUT! I reeeeally love these questions so I will answer them below the read more!

Concerning if or not they have children... Look, I don’t know what it is about these two but I can’t imagine them as parents? So I’d have to say no, and if they did they had them later in life. They are not cut out to be young parents. Like, god, can you imagine? They’d definitely be those obnoxious parents that never set any boundaries or rules what so ever to their children so they just roam free causing havoc. Like especially since they’d be parents in the 1950’s-60’s. If they had a kid born in that time it would be a boy and he’d have been absolutely unable to handle any sort of rules and become a rock ‘n roll star in a band in the 70’s.

I do think they would get married. Not immediately, y/n having been married already once, but they would in the end. Something small and very bohemic but chic. Definitely a small courthouse wedding, were Y/n wears something chic but minimalistic - like a satin dress or the suit Bianca Jagger had on her wedding day (hat included), and then they’d have a big riot of a party at the villa with most of the village, and the entire wedding budget spent on champagne to go around to everyone. They don’t wish for any wedding gifts but everyone brings something homecooked to eat so there’s food for everyone. The milanese jazz band makes a glorious return and plays the entire party.

I think they’d live in Paris a few months of the year, like december to may. They’d buy a new, more expensive apartment, probably in montmartre or maybe even the 16th arrondissement , since they have plenty of money partly because of Y/n divorce but also after the inheritance. I think they’d also go to italy and travel there a lot and maybe even stay a summer there by lake Garda or something. And once they’d go on a skiing holiday to the alps but Timothée is so not a skier so they don’t do that again. They also go to Monte Carlo sometimes.

Timothée would probably still keep the artist studio to paint in, but only have it as his work studio.

Timothée’s would go through like 10 different stages throughout his career (his blue period, just like Picasso’s, being widely admired). Then there’s his landscape phase (a phase he later in life will completely ignore and flat out deny happened, going so far as lying about not having painted certain pictures when art dealers ask him if they are genuine or not. He’ll flat out lie and say it’s a fraud made by a lesser artist). Then there’s his sketches phase, a brief phase but after his death some of the most sought after of his entire work (probably because there’s so few of them). The thing I think he’d most be admired for in the art world would be his use of colours (and most critiqued for his anatomy, he’s all sharp angles). But his longest phase would probably be sort of like Brassaï photos but as paintings (does that make sense? I don't know, I was Obsessed with Brassaï photos when I was in art school). Like dramatic but realistic paintings of Paris and Nice’s nightlife.

And i’d say he was a better painter when he stopped moping around. He’d use his flair for the dramatics in his paintings instead of in real life.

On their free days the live pretty much like they live in the last two part of Paris, except they are more openingly loving towards the other; and also they talk more. Like, they’d spend breakfast together and then they go off doing different things like read or lunch with friends or paint. Then they have dinner together and talk and spend the evening together or with friends. Since neither of them really have a set schedule their free days are more when they just decide to take off and go to Monte Carlo for a few days and gamble some money away and eat like kings and queens. Also, they’d discover a love for cinema, and often go there in the evening to see the newest Bergman movie or Godard. They’d go to the theatre a lot as well and without fail lovingly argue everytime about their vastly different opinions about how each shakespear play should be handled (their most divided opinions are on Othello and Macbeth)

Also, omg, Waiting For Godot actually came out 1953, I could have written that into the story!! GOD they’d argue for HOURS about the meaning of that play.

I think talking about The Letter is like poking at a bruise for the both of them. But yes, they’d talk about that. They’d also talk more about her marriage, and about William’s book. But the letter, absolutely, but it would take a while into the settled relationship before it was brought up. She’d definitely keep the letter, because she has conflicted emotions about it I’d probably have to spend a good 1,5k words on trying to explain, but she doesn’t want to throw it away. She hides it in a book (probably in a book of anatomy, which Timmy never understands why they own, and she keeps in the section showing the anatomy of the heart. That feels like something over dramatic enough (also fits with timmy writing in the letter that he has a Frankenstein's monster kind of heart)).

And hahahaha yes I hope they quit smoking in the end. In the early 50’s smoking was still considered to be actually healthy (!!!!) but as they get older and more information about the dangers of it get out to the wider public I’d say they’d try to stop. Probably somewhere mid 1980’s they’d quit for good.

Y/N has FULL control of the decorating of wherever they live because timothée is just too bohemian in attitude and can literally sleep in any dump. Y/n on the other hand is a very aesthetic creature and finds a love for decorating. In fact, she might even start up a small interior design business in her 50’s and do very well at it. She definitely puts up colourful and patterned wallpaper in every room, they are not a household that does white walls. The only place she doesn’t have control of the design is probably timmy’s studio, there he decides and it shows. And oh god yes, they most certainly got a big and comfortable bed together. The mattress is new but the bed frame is an antique from… rococo period maybe? Or maybe just a neoclassical one? Not sure on that actually. But its big and comfy.

For some reason I see them both as people who trash around alot in their sleep? Like, they start out with designated sides in bed (timothée sleeping closest to the door) but during sleep they’ll end up all over the place? Arm and legs just tangled together everywhere? Like absolute toddlers??

Oh god that got longer than I thought…. But that was so much fun answering, thank you a million times for sending it in!!!💗💗💗💗

#angel tag #these were so fun answering!!!

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notfeelingthyaster · 4 years ago

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Imagine (Son of Hades! Percy; Godswapped! Big Three's kids (6/7) or (11/12)

House of Hades Pt.2 - In the Argo II

Hello darlings! Before reading this, there's at least other 11 parts - and I almost had to divide this into two - check on the masterpost - but don't be sad is ending :(

First - I have no idea if I'll divide Blood of Olympus in two because I hate the climax Rick wrote - so probably? Also not sure if I'll need an epilogue - we're not delving into TOA, though.

Second - I'll keep writing! I have a handful of ideas that I want to do next - and the next AU will have Female! Percy - so keep logging in!

Check on the warnings before proceeding, and good reading :))

To say that things are tense in the Argo II is downplaying the major depression the ship seemed to be sunk in since Perseus fell.

Leo and, surprisingly, Nico are the only ones who are able to get anything done in the first couple of days, but they aren't fooling anyone - the white eyes of the son of Zeus seem to be every day a little more bloodshot, and more than one fire happens without no explanation.

Annabeth didn't stop crying for a second - even throughout Will's examination of her and her brother - for at least 12 hours. Then she crashed for another 12 hours - and when Annabeth woke up, she was enraged.

She is going to bring the damned statue back to Camp - and then she will kick her mother's ass. That's her best friend, not collateral damage.

And when her dumbass of a best friend comes back, Annabeth is going to kick his ass too. How dare he fall - for her, not even his closest friend - into freaking Tartarus?

Frank is devastated - he and Piper are coping by planning the future - how they can spend the summer at Camp and live in Nova Roma, how they'll visit Perseus if he decides to go to college in the mortal world. It feels a little like denial.

Hazel and Jason are coping in the totally opposite way. Where Leo and Nico are fueling themselves with determination, Annabeth is anger personified and the other two went in the road of negation - they're both in a deep state of panic.

The sea became too dangerous to travel - the tides answering to Jason's turbulent emotions - and any metal on board keeps exploding or becoming so fueled with energy that no one but Nico and Hazel can touch it.

They pray together - for Neptune, Jupiter, Pluto, Letum, any god that Perseus ever helped (a lot of them) - for his protection. Jason holds evening prayers - just like in Nova Roma - and they offer anything, everything, for Percy to be alive. Everyone goes.

Except for Will, who is in a whole other league. The moment that he arrived at Camp, Percy was the one to settle him, and calm him, and take care of him. It was a side of him no other person in this ship had ever seen - Nico got in Camp in the worst timing possible, and all the others were pretty independent when they met Perseus.

But Will remembers - the nights with hot chocolate, Percy's warm sweaters, a pair of blue gloves messing his hair, the anxiety when the boy left for school, just for him to keep IMing Will every evening - and he misses Percy.

After the Labyrinth, the war, the losses, they reconnected - the prejudices against Percy's parentage long gone - and it felt like nothing ever changed.

It was Percy who helped him coming out for his mother. It was Percy that held Will after he lost Sibele - a daughter of Momus - to her injuries. It was Percy, always Percy.

Percy is much more of a father then Apollo - and much better as a brother then some of Will's siblings. So Will just locks himself up in his infirmary - and grieves. It's weird in such a hard mission to remember that Will is just fifteen and that he is a veteran of war.

The mood lingers, even when they start fighting regularly against the Apennines - and isn't this a whole other mess.

The mountain spirits are pissed - because Hades/Pluto and his wife are really pissed. It's Malcolm - the only one with a phone and a good connection to the internet - that tells them that the world started having earthquakes every few days.

The mortals are confused because most of these are not even close to the tectonic plates - and none of those cause turmoil at the sea. It's just Hades - mightly pissed his only son is beyond even his reach.

Three days in fighting the Ourae - who don't like having their mountains shaken over and over again - the sky also starts thundering. Coincidentally, it's July 30th - they've been traveling for twenty-two days - which also marks Thesmophoria - the greek festival of harvest.

But, alas, nothing is blooming. Persephone is as dangerous as her husband - and Demeter seems to follow her daughter's lead. With the Earth corrupted - the crops aren't growing.

Jason doesn't blame his matron - he is not really happy himself. Besides praying for Perseus' safety, he spends most of his days in patrol against boulders and rocks of all things.

Leo barely sleeps - too busy keeping the ship from falling apart - and Nico is, most of the time, right behind him keeping the ship steady. They try using canons and fail miserably. There's no way to fight against mountains - it's like Dom Quixote fighting against the windmills.

The others, even Will, rotate between fighting rocks and sleeping. Four days after Thesmophoria, Leo decides it's enough, turns the ship around, and solves to not cross the Apennines.

He just hopes Perseus can last another seven days.

Hazel - the only one awake, because this is supposed to be her patrol and Leo finds her the most reasonable out of all their friends, who would probably insist on keep fighting the freaking mountains - is praying. Like always.

Leo doesn't know how he feels about praying. His extended family was very catholic - they prayed for a god that they couldn't see or touch. But Leo met the gods - or, if Annabeth is to be believed, one set of them - and he doesn't like them.

They're petty children who have no care for the fate of their children - the ones who fight for them, go on their errands, keep them alive, y'know. Leo doesn't want to praise them. He doesn't think they deserve it.

But Hazel's prayers are answered when her venti, Tempest, appears aboard. Hazel tells Leo to go on without her - she'll be back soon.

He is concerned for her - like always. Of all new people, Leo seems to be the closest to her - his overall cheeriness and electric behavior are endearing to her, a light in these dark times. Sometimes, his smile makes her flush - just like Frank's did and still does.

Hazel mounts Tempest and the venti takes her, through mountains and hills, to a door. There's mist curling at her ankles and a chill in her spine.

She isn't very thrilled by meeting Trivia - Hazel heard stories of her greek son by Perseus, who seemed to hold the guy in high standard, but she knows gods. The goddess of magic wants something.

Trivia is an imposing woman - taller than Hazel, she has the same midnight skin as Perseus, though hers looks purple-ish, and her eyes are entire universes - stars bloom in her irises and twin moons rise in her pupils.

The goddess is fickle - she seems to be there and not, at the same time. Ghostly. There's three of them, then one, then five.

Trivia beacons to the daughter of Jupiter and she follows, the cursed little girl she is. The goddess offers her three options: Perseus, prone in the ground as she, Leo, and Annabeth battle an invisible foe, the two demigod installments at war, or the Argo II.

Hazel chooses the Argo II, but she promises herself, and the goddess, that she will save Perseus, and that no demigod blood will be spilled by other demigod's hand. Not again.

She will learn how to control the Mist. But Trivia is very mistaken if she thinks Hazel is going to become her acolyte. She remembers well what happened last time - she died.

The Argo II is traveling without much hassle - when they're crossing Monte Falterona, in the Campigna National Park, they are attacked by a new mountain spirit - and this one talks.

"Get Pluto his brat back, you useless halflings!"

Like the boulders the immortal is throwing at them will help. Leo screams this back at the mountain, who is not impressed at all.

Their next foe is in San Marino - a chimera. Most popular knowledge is wrong about those monsters: chimeras are not just goat-lion-snake mixes. They are an amalgamation of any three or more animals.

This one, in particular, is a very... candid mix of a Pyrenean chamois, a monk-seal, a mouflon, and a goose. Not very lethal or hazardous - just very angry. It's the first time they hear Annabeth laugh since Perseus fell.

While Malcolm is chasing and being chased around by an evil goat-goose-seal-weirdass deer chimera that he is fending off with an encyclopedia, the others can't even bring themselves to help. It's ridiculous - the thing is not even big. It's just ugly and it sounds like a honking clown.

Eventually, they get around to killing the clown chimera - it honks as it vanishes - and following route to Bologna. Frank tries to mutate to the chimera during the travel - to different levels of failure - which makes everyone laugh.

Thanks to their two encounters, the crew gets to Bologna at two in the afternoon.

Frank can't help counting the days as they pass him by. He is not the only one - he can see Annabeth muttering the time every now and then - but it feels like a countdown. Can Perseus survive one more week in Tartarus?

Even with the pressing worry for his lost friend, he can't stop thinking about Hazel and Leo. The two of them are thick as thieves - and Frank wants in.

But he knows it's wrong - Leo is a boy. Hazel is younger. Leo bares a power that could kill him. Hazel is his best friend. They're two people. - but he sees them flirting and can't keep his eyes to himself.

It's wrong. Soldiers aren't supposed to date men. Men who dated men are prostitutes, entertainers. Less. And two people at the same time? Outside of a bedroom? Preposterous.

Frank wishes he was more like Perseus. Perseus is all about duty: he would eventually marry Reyna. Or Annabeth, or other pretty and intelligent warrior, and have two point five kids with a picket fence.

But no. Here he is - midday, they are stopping for lunch, and he can't keep his eyes off Leo and Hazel - who are quietly chatting in the other end of the long table.

Frank ponders what would they think. Would the two be repulsed? Would they laugh at him? He can deal with laughter. Their disgust, however, would cut his heart in half.

Nico is in a very similar, and yet completely different, situation. He has been in love - or as close as love could be when you never dated the person - with Perseus Jackson.

He knows it's okay to be gay - he is friends with Will and Jake. He lives on CHB since he was a pre-teen. Perseus himself was - is - queer.

But the thing is, he'll never have a chance with him. Not the chance he is longing for gods know how long. He failed Perseus yet again - he let the demigod fall.

Perseus can have anyone. Perfect Annabeth Chase, Shrewd Reyna Arellano, Magic Alabaster Torrington, anyone. And he wouldn't have a problem with that - no. The problem is that he can't make a choice. Because he is in Tartarus.

Because Nico. Let. Him. Fall.

He isn't even sure if he let Perseus fall on purpose. A part of his mind knew someone would have to go. It was always meant to be Perseus. Did he purposefully let him go?

The rational part of his mind knew that if he tried to fly them off, all he would accomplish is falling into Tartarus with Perseus, probably dragging Annabeth with them.

But the guilt creeps into his heart - again, yet again, Perseus suffers for something he did or failed to do. He can't sleep. He doesn't know how anyone can eat.

A rock for him in these difficult times has been Jason. The son of Neptune seems to be as affected as Hazel or Annabeth - but Nico would never be able to rely on them.

Hazel has her own problems - a lot of them since Trivia appeared - and Annabeth is a painful reminder of everything Nico is unable to have.

Jason, however, is different. They had dreams of each other - something about their conquests, Nico didn't pay attention - and that apparently brought them close. Jason, differently from Annabeth, isn't a competition. He isn't vying for Percy's attention and love.

He is just a close friend - like Nico pretends to be most of the time - incredibly worried about the son of Hades. Nico would tell Jason about how he feels - but the militar roman's sensibilities might not be adjusted to the greeks' freedom yet.

Nico, however, is also not the only one with heart problems. Piper finds himself entranced by Annabeth Chase - even when she knows, she knows because of her powers, that Annabeth is painfully straight.

And Piper knows it's not love - it's the heat of the upcoming war and the hormones of being cooped up with just other teenagers for twenty days. She sees the blossoms of young lovers everywhere.

The yearning between Leo, Hazel, and Frank; Nico and Jason unconsciously sharing long-term crushes on Perseus; Will missing Jake and his parental figure;

She wishes she was more like Malcolm. Malcolm is asexual - besides being the only other transexual person on board.

Before this war spiked from nothing, the boy was just back from his mission for Hermaphroditus - a two-month search for a missing choker. He is still adapting to his body - it's bigger and broader and he doesn't have to wear a binder. Piper thinks it's amazing - he tells her it isn't that easy.

It's not a slow transition. One second your body is something - and then it isn't. One morning, the demigod caught him holding a red binder in his hands. Sometimes, she sees a shot of testosterone tucked in his pocket.

One day, he was a boy stuck in a girl's body. Then, he wasn't anymore. He has the body he dreamed of for forever - and it's difficult accepting it. Malcolm tells her is not exactly body dysphoria - is just difficult to conciliate.

Piper thinks after this, she'll get her body. After all of this, she deserves it - her body, all hers, with boobs and a killer jawline. Maybe then, it'll be easier to like girls as well. Maybe then, she'll shave half of her head and get a piercing. And maybe, a couple of tattoos.

But while this doesn't happen, she is whining to her asexual friend about her crush in his sister. Malcolm crushes her with logic - "Annabeth has only shown interest in men. She might be bi or pan or even a lesbian, but the odds aren't on your favor" - and she tries to put the blonde out of her mind.

Lunch, however, is a little ridiculous for her. As a daughter of love herself, that table is such a mess of yearning and pining and infatuations.

Malcolm seems to be the only rational - but even he is a little flushed. Piper totally saw that picture of Mitchell in his drawer last week.

She couldn't blame him really - her brother is hot. All demigods are - in very different ways of course, but their godly blood made them more or less otherworldly compared to mortals. Didn't matter their ethnicity, their gender, if they're disabled or not - they are all hot.

Piper, however, doesn't spend all her time freaking over hot people. She is a teenager with a friend who has a good connection to the internet, so she does that a lot - but most of her time these days is looking at Katoptris.

She's waiting for a vision of Perseus. Anything - just proof that he is alive, that he hasn't curled in a ball on whatever is the ground down there and went mad.

It doesn't come. She is looking at this ridiculous lunch table, eating vegetarian burgers, and waiting. Just as it seems like her dagger starts glowing gold - two monkey twins sweep down and steal it. And Leo's tool belt and Archimedes' Sphere.

Piper is really pissed. She wants this mission to end - she wants to find Perseus and stop Gaea, and that's her magical item. It's important. So she and Leo go after the twin monkeys.

Using one of the armory's javelin - for lack of a better option - they sprint over roofs and marketplaces. Bologna is a beautiful city - but they have no time.

They corner the twin monkeys, get their things back - and some things pertaining to a god of harvest - Triptolemus. Perhaps if they make an offer to him, Demeter and Persephone will be more cooperative. Maybe Persephone will be able to calm her husband.

Piper really doubts it. If she learned anything in the nineteen days she traveled with Perseus, is that he calls Persephone "Kore" or "Mater". The only other person he refers to with such open childish joy is his own mother, Sally.

The guy IMed both of them twice a week - enough that Piper knows their voices. While Hades isn't high in the demigod's list of people, his wife seemed to be at least number #2.

But they go back to the ship and relay their plan anyway. They set route to Venice. In the hour that it takes them to get there, they're delayed twice: once by the personification of River Ádige - which enabled them to pass until Jason helped with a small problem - and then by a couple of ventis - which Hazel sent off.

Frank, Annabeth, Hazel and Nico venture into the drowned city - Piper declines to go, saying that she is waiting for Katoptris to cooperate - being Nico the only one who actually speaks Italian in the ship.

The city is infested with anteater-like herbivorous monsters called katoplebones, which are pointedly not from the Greek pantheon. It's pretty rare for monsters to cross pantheons - and the Egyptians are pretty good in keeping them under lock and key - but sometimes, this happens.

They aren't capacitated to deal with those. Annabeth has half a mind to call the Kanes and demand an explanation. Pretty sure they were possessed by the gods to avoid this kind of situation.

She doesn't have much time to think - Hazel is quickly overwhelmed by the poisonous breath of the cows. Of course - is there anything in Egypt that isn't connected to snakes?

They find Triptolemus - who is not thrilled with their presence. Demeter - his mistress - and her daughter are distraught by Perseus' missing status - and he blames Annabeth and Nico for it.

Annabeth tries to persuade him - after all, they have Jason on board, and he is blessed by Ceres. Triptolemus - a very greek god - is not swayed.

"Your trickster words shall not fool me, daughter of Athena."

That's how Annabeth became a rosemary bush - good for memory and brainpower. Nico, when he tried to fight back, became a corn crop.

Mars is whispering in Frank's mind - he is not really fond of his father but uses his help to kill the evil Egyptian cows and get a python for the god's chariot.

He can't let Hazel die. He can't see the light go off her eyes - to see the same pain reflected in Leo's eyes. But Frank is so using Nico's stunt as a corn plant as blackmail material later. Not with Annabeth thought - she would stab him.

Triptolemus, pleased, turns Nico and Annabeth back to human and heals Hazel. Then, he tells them they have to eat barley cakes - so they can survive the poison needed to enter the house of the dead.

Proceeding south down the Adriatic toward Greece, a journey that should take about half a day, the crew of the Argo II is first accosted in Koper - a city on the coast of Slovenia - by four monocerus in the middle of the night.

Monocerus, in Leo's very succinct explanation, are "evil unicorns with big feet that can't fly and shouldn't be in a flying ship".

Whoever, the monsters apparently don't care where they should or not be - and Annabeth - still reeling for her time as rosemary - takes two of them out, keeping the horns as a prize. Nico takes one, who is so beat that leaves nothing, and Malcolm kills one with a handgun.

It's not the most practical weapon, because celestial bronze is not that easy to fabricate/find/obtain - so to use it in bullets that will explode and render it unusable it's kind of a desperate - but it's the first thing he could get - Malcolm's double tessen was being repaired by Leo.

Because yes - not only was the twenty years old able to fight with normal blades, he also fights with freaking fans made of iron.

After the run-in with the evil unicorns - Annabeth looks really cool covered in gold blood and curved silver horns in her hands - they proceed across Croatia.

It goes well for about thirty minutes - in Zadar, they cross paths with Sciron. Sciron is a bandit and outlaw, who - for some reason, is assisted by a giant predatory sea turtle.

While Hazel tricks him into throwing himself off the cliff using her new-discovered Mist, Jason talks to the turtle. It says its name is Chelone - that it's the turtle who took Aphrodite Ourania from the depths of the sea to the shores of Cythera - when she was still young, with remains of other goddesses in her anima - Innana and Ishtar.

He convinces the turtle to stop killing people - mainly by saying that he should hunt elsewhere, deeper onto the sea. It may become a problem for his father, but Jason has bigger issues right now.

They go to sleep, and Hazel dreams. She expects any god to come - but who comes to her is none other than Pluto and his wife, Proserpina.

Proserpina is shrouded in black, and her eyes are not green - but yellowish, like dead leaves. She talks - and tells Hazel that the Doors of Death are in the bottom of the Necromanteion - her powers over metal energy would guide her - and will be guarded by Pasiphae, vengeful of Pluto - and, by default, Perseus - for the lack of punishment for Minos.

Her husband is a silent presence by her side. He is not in mourning... probably. It's difficult to tell, as he is always in black. But his eyes hold a weight easy for Hazel to understand - he just lost a son to the abyss. No matter that Perseus might be alive - he wouldn't get back whole and safe.

Proserpina ends her dream by telling her to wake up Piper - the goddess is putting all her strength to send a vision of Perseus to Katoptris - they need one much more than her, seeing that they are able to interfere.

What Piper sees don't tell them a lot - Perseus seems mostly okay, with some sort of companion that Nico says it might be Iapetus, a brand new scar over his face and a bad limp.

It's the last they'll see of him until their eventual meeting face to face, but it gives them hope.

Annabeth herself has a dream - a dream that the Romans give the statue to the greeks. She sends an iris message to Rachel - so she can meet personally with Reyna.

Reyna, on the other side of the world, mounts her pegasus, Scipio, and leaves. Not only her co-praetor is in freaking Tartarus, but they are on the verge of two simultaneous wars. They need peace.

As soon as she is out of the roman range, however, she sends an iris message to Jason - telling him to go to their hero's place of rest - she had a vision from Mars. That she will meet them in Greece. Jason tells Leo to set course for Split, in Croatia. There's a roman scepter there.

Of all of them, the most capacitated for this mission are Frank and Jason, who are both educated Romans, and Nico, who can fly - a very good power to have in unstable ruins.

They're confronted by Favonious, who takes them to his master, Cupid, in Dalmatia. Nothing good can come of talking to the personification of love - such an old concept that the god has been reborn twice.

"Well, well, well"

"What do we have here?"

Jason falls onto the ground - "You think you found true love, haven't you? But alas, I was where you last expected me" - and he hates love, for that single moment.

"I shall give you what you want, Romans, if each of you is able to tell me - who do you love the most?"

Nico trembles - guilt is a difficult pill to swallow - and Frank visibly wants to bolt out of there.

"Oh, are you afraid? But there's no hiding in the face of true love"

Jason - always the brave one - gives a look at Frank. His friend never met the greeks. He might hate Jason after this.

But they need this scepter.

"Perseus Jackson"

Two heads whips in his direction - one unbelievingly, and the other distressed.

"Ah, love crafted in dreams - the perfect mix between me and my wife. Tell me, Jason Grace, was it bad when he looked upon you and saw naught but a myth?"

A laugh creeps upon Jason's spine, and he turns around. His blade hits something hard, and he is on the floor again.

"Such luck, to be able to even graze love. Perhaps yours is the purest of all - not yet tainted by failures and mistakes. On that note, why don't you go next, Nico di Angelo?"

Nico shivers - he... they have no time for that. That is unnecessary drama - to cause unnecessary problems.

A memory rushes to the front of Jason's mind - that quick chat with Reyna in Nova Roma. "The blond girl, Di Angelo"

Nico loves Perseus. It rushes to Jason now - the way that the younger boy stared adoringly at the son of Hades. The drunkness of his lovesick gaze. The despair when Perseus fell.

"Tell them Nico di Angelo" Cupid prompts "Tell them all about your guilt, your mistakes, the way you let him down, again and again, and again."

Nico floats a little off the ground. It's years of pain and sorrow that won't bring Perseus back.

"Will you fly off yet again, in the face of rivalry? Will you be my next servant - just like Favonious, consumed by jealousy, Nico di Angelo?"

Jason sees the memories. Nico screaming at Perseus. Grover reluctantly telling him about their adventures. The way he betrayed Percy - and a dozen more scenes he never saw from Nico's perspective, only Percy's, that made him unable to speak.

"It's okay Nico... I.... I get it."

It's painful to utter these words - it's almost like he is giving up Perseus. But they have a war to get through - and then, when the other demigod is back, they can figure this out.

"P-Perseus Jackson"

And then it's Frank's turn. But Frank is as pale as a ghost - he seems to be close to vomiting.

"It's a costly thing isn't it, looking at the true face of love. Now it's the turn of the brave son of Mars. Will you tell your friends easily, or shall you be a coward like the son of Zeus?"

Frank doesn't talk. Jason doesn't understand why - it's Hazel, isn't it? Is it because of Nico? He mentions talking to the son of Zeus, but Di Angelo doesn't look at him - the Cupid knew very well how to play his game.

"Come on. Tell them - tell them of whom you think before you sleep and who dominates your first thoughts every morning."

"You don't scare me"

"Oh, I scare you very, very much. Face me. Be honest."

"H-Hazel. Levesque."

"That's just half my question, little half-blood. If you want to lead the roman legions, you must answer it fully."

"I love H-Hazel. She is the one I think before I sleep and when I wake up."

"Still hiding. You're not strong enough, Frank Zhang."

Frank tries to charge at the wind, but it just mocks him. It's weird seeing Frank crying - it looks like the world is crumbling at his feet.

Jason, yet again, doesn't understand. Nico is also confused - he looks between the Romans as if he never saw any of them before. But then it dawns on the son of Zeus.

"Not only my sister. That's why you keep gazing at them, isn't it?"

All the fighting and denial leave Frank at once. His sword clangs in the ground.

"I love both Hazel and Leo. Together." He spits out, still trembling. "That's the truth. Are you happy now?"

"I wouldn't say Love always makes you happy. It can make you incredibly sad, sometimes. But you have faced it now. It's the only true way to conquer me."

Cupid appears - in a flash of white wings. It might be the god Jason hates the most - his eyes seem to penetrate his very soul. There's a scepter in his hand.

"Only a true child of Mars Ultor can yield it. It's your destiny, Frank Zhang."

Then he promptly disappears. The demigods look at each other - there's a flurry of emotions deep inside their chests. Frank looked at both of them, waiting for an attack, or for them to start fighting.

"No one has to know" He starts "I'm s-so-..."

He doesn't end. There are copious tears rolling through his face - his cheeks are a deep shade of red. A sob escapes his throat.

"P-please, p-pleased-don't t-te-tell anyone." Frank sobs, and it's such a jarring sight that both Nico and Jason rally to reassure him, leaving their own issues aside.

"There's nothing wrong with loving two people at once. No one will have a problem with it, Frank - fuck, this isn't Nova Roma. Most of us are greek."

"Hazel would hate me though. This is unnatural- I- I can't."

"You don't know that. Hazel loves you, Frank"

But the son of Mars just keeps crying until they both promise not to tell another soul what they saw. It's enough for the weird atmosphere to return.

Midway in the trek back to the ship - a six-hour walk - Nico is too riled up to safely fly with two people and none of them being too fond of air right now - Frank summons enough power to ask the question.

"So... uh... hm... Perseus?... like, uh, I can see the appeal-... but... both?... forget I asked, just....uh oh, sorry."

Jason and Nico pointedly avoid looking at each other. It's very bizarre - Jason knows a lot about Perseus, but now he knows Perseus also from Nico's perspective - and this is all messy.

They go back to the ship, relay to Annabeth that they got the scepter, and immediately go back to their cabins - to cry, to scream, to think.

It's been a day and a half - and they're still eleven hours off Epirus. Leo is pissed - because not only their three heavy-hitters are pissed at something and won't communicate, and they're of course.

Emerging from the infirmary for something other than to eat and mend people is finally Will - at least. He takes patrol in place of Nico - the boy quietly mumbled at his friend that they had a run-in with Cupid. Will can imagine how that went.

He doesn't have a clue about Frank - but Jason and Nico? They have the same long-lasting crush on Perseus - everyone on board knows that. Except, apparently, for each other. And Perseus - because his mentor/kind of brother/bother figure is a dumbass.

When they're passing through the coast of Albany, they're attacked by Khione - who is still very pissed her ex-lover's son doesn't want to spend eternity frozen with her. Leo ends up being sent away - for the distress of both Hazel and Frank and the anger of his best friends, Piper and Jason.

Piper ends up stabbing Khione - while Frank transforms into the giant dragon and burns her - making her unable to freeze them. Eventually, she runs away.

Leo, however, wakes up on an island. There's a sad girl at his side - she is using a modern blue dress, and there's a crown of black flowers upon her head.

"You were not the one I was expecting."

The son of Hephaestus wants to scream. Well, he didn't want to be whatever here is either! But her face is so sad - her gaze down to her bare feet. She seemed to be crying. He settles for asking who is her.

"I... I am sorry. My name is Calypso. This is Ogygia."

It startles him. Mainly because he has heard this name before around camp - wasn't she supposed to be freed?

"What happened to you?"

The immortal girl relays her tale - how she got freed for a year, and then the war started. The gods - Zeus - didn't trust her not to turn against them. So they locked her up - she was not the only one. Leto, Themis, Rhea - good titans or their offspring. Locked away.

She, after a year of freedom that Perseus got her, was back into her old shackles. Calypso is waiting for him for months now - but she thinks he forgot her.

So Leo tells her what happened - the bits he knows anyway. Juno/Hera, Nova Roma, the mission. Calypso seems calmer. They stay together for a while - friends it seems.

Calypso tells him about her year - about how she wanted to explore the world. She tells him she wanted to join Artemis' hunt - but, courtesy of Odysseys, she is no maiden.

He tells her about Hazel and Frank, Perseus, and the love hexagons he doesn't even know he is in - omitting the part that he is now in Tartarus. They talk about Festus - Calypso tells him about how his father is good to hear - how he came to visit, sometimes.

A week passes, maybe a week and a half. Leo vows to take Calypso off the island once the war ends, and she believes - once, a hero as brave as Leo made her the same promise, and stuck with it through the end.

In Cancun, Africa, Jason and Nico are having daily audiences with Auster, the Roman god of the south wind, in connection with the Seven being able to proceed on their way to Epirus - seeing that their ship is all broken and they have no Leo.

Auster is indolent and seems increasingly disinclined to cooperate with Jason and Nico: he dislikes the son of Zeus, and the wind never had a good relationship with the sea. Annabeth also tries her hand at it - but it's rebuffed at every turn. Piper is prohibited from entering the palace because of her magic voice.

Jason and Nico - even though they aren't speaking to each other - have for a long time admitted they don't fit completely at either camp. Jason is still too militar for CHB. Nico is too old for CHB. Both are too free with their personal lives for Nova Roma.

Auster agrees to meet with them and tells them to commit to one side - greek or roman. They deny it - they're both. The gods are both, they have been thrust in a war of both sides, they commune with gods on both aspects and they ask them to run errands for both pantheons. They have the right to be both.

Auster is not happy with this - mainly because he believes they should keep the sides separated. But it's the first time Nico and Jason agree on something - and they fight together for it. No god has the right to define those petty things when the demigods are fighting their war.

Auster merges with his greek counterpart Notus - an amalgamation of both his carefree and his militar side - and sends The Seven on their way when coerced by the threat of a hurricane and a typhoon.

He sends them to Valletta, Malta, where they find the Argo II fully repaired and in the harbor. In the port, on a small cafe, there's Leo - sitting and raging internally against the gods, who once again, fucked up something.

They trade stories, and Leo just rages more. He isn't sure how Perseus didn't ally himself with Kronos in the first war if that was the bullshit he had to deal with every day.

First Khione, then Zeus locking Calypso up, then this Notus guy - they are a week and a half late. Is Perseus still alive after nineteen days in the Pit? Is he sane? Did he tried to get out - and they weren't there?

It's with a shocking gasp from Annabeth that they realize that Perseus's birthday is in three days. They have been traveling together for thirty-seven days now - and they have to get Perseus out of Tartarus before the 18th, at least. Is the minimum.

It takes them a day to get to Epirus. There are enough monsters in their way to start a menagerie - Gaea is actively trying to stall them, so there must be a reason. Perseus might be alive.

Arriving at the Necromanteion, which they learn is just a very fancy name for catacombs, Hazel, Frank, Leo, Annabeth, Will, and Piper descend into the ruins, leaving Nico and Jason - who are both completely useless under the earth - behind with Malcolm - who, since Arachne, is pretty much claustrophobic.

They eat the barley cakes to protect themselves against the toxic potion they must drink in order to enter the temple. It's difficult to swallow poison - it burns as it goes down.

The mist tries to confuse them at every turn - Hazel diverts it. Her power over metal energy guides them - she can feel the basis of the building, way down where they are.

Katoptris burns in Piper's hand. It shows her Perseus' face - he looks cadaveric, shrouded in death. Sometimes he flickers, like a ghost - but he is alive, and heading to the Doors just like they are.

It's enough to spur them forward. Perseus is doing the same journey - from a much difficult side. They will meet in the middle.

Earthquakes strike the caverns, making part of the floor collapse. In a side, Piper and Will, surrounded by monsters in all sides. In the other, Frank, Leo, Hazel and Annabeth. The son of Mars doesn't think twice - the scepter.

He uses the Scepter of Diocletian to summon ghostly Roman soldiers, and as a Legatus Legionis, he does have the power to command all of them. It would be more controlled if he was Praetor, but the actual Praetor is Perseus, and so, in his absence, Frank will have to do.

The tunnel collapses. Hazel. Leo. They might be dead - but Frank can't panic right now. They are alive. They will protect each other, they have Annabeth Chase with them. Hazel controls the mist - everything will be just fine.

Anger grew in his chest. Those are his friends, his... his loved ones. This freaking ruin don't get to kill them before Frank summons enough courage to submit himself to the ridiculousness of telling them.

Hazel wants to cry - they left Frank behind. He might be dead - they might be all dead. Leo isn't much better. For all that Zhang seems to hate him, his infatuation with the Canadian never disappeared.

Annabeth however, is practical. She tells them Frank will be fine - the guy can transform into a dragon. Or a chimera. Probably a poisonous one, after the stunt in Venice. He has an army - it's okay.

Pasiphae is a bitch. Leo hates the woman - she reminds him of Aunt Rosa. Or Juno. Or Lady Muddy herself. He and Annabeth let Hazel do the majority of the talking - but both of them bristle as the Doors shake.

An unauthorized presence. Perseus actually did it - they have twelve minutes, in accord to Annabeth - who Leo knows better than to doubt - to open the Doors. Or he is dead, lost forever.

"It's a pity Gaea needs a son of the Earth and a daughter of the Sea... But none of you are children of the Underworld or the ocean, are you? Not even the acolyte of Trivia."

Everything indicates that she'll open the door herself - but Annabeth can't risk she whisking Perseus away to Gaea before they can reach him. So she sneaks past with her cap while they fight.

Pasiphae goes down to Hazel's illusions. Annabeth opens the Doors, before cutting the chains as Hazel and Leo distract Clytius. Perseus stumbles out, a giant tiger in his heels.

Leo didn't think he would ever see a harsher picture. The tall boy was still muscular - but gaunt as if he hadn't eaten since the fall. There were scars everywhere.

He couldn't look more - Clytius is threatening Perseus, but both Annabeth and the tiger stay in his way. Trivia appears - but they aren't truly winning until Piper, Will, and Frank are able to reach them through Hazel's magic.

Will goes immediately to Perseus' side - there's panic in his eyes. Leo can't see much this far - he hopes the son of Hades isn't dead. Piper and Frank fight alongside them. Annabeth is still hovering protectively over her best friend's prone body.

There's not much need for help - between Hazel and Trivia, the bulk of Clytius powers are unusable. The shared power of Piper (love is never where you expect it), Frank (and his undead soldiers), a very angry Annabeth, and Leo is just overkill.

They win. Will is feeding Perseus ambrosia - there's something really wrong because there are tear tracks in the blonde's face. Leo comes closer - their friends follow.

Perseus is destroyed. He looks like he has been through hell - there's a scar crossing his face and his eyes are sunken in. But that's not where it stops.

Leo's gaze goes down, to the ragged clothes that are barely recognizable - the sweatpants he was convinced to wear to go underground, the once-green sweater - and sees what is missing.

Where Perseus' leg once was, there's a metal one. The boy is curled in the fetal position - his metal leg sticks out like a sore thumb, and it looks like he might cry if he wasn't so dehydrated. The tiger nudges its head against the boy's leg and growls at them, but it doesn't attack.

"I... I can't touch him. I touched him and he started panicking... I... We have to take him back to the ship. He is stable, but..."

Frank picks up Perseus in a bride-carry - a month ago, he wouldn't be able to do it. But now, he is stronger - and Perseus must weight ninety pounds wet.

The tiger follows - when they cross to the daylight, they can see it's not a normal tiger. Annabeth - with a distraught look in her face - tells them it's a skeleton tiger. Probably a saber-tooth.

They go back on board - Piper goes up to call Nico, so he can fly Perseus into the ship. He does, but the expression in his face is so crushing Leo almost wishes they had delayed it by destroying property and landing the ship on the street.

The mood of the ship is yet again somber. No one wants to leave the infirmary - but Will forces them to rotate, so as to not overwhelm Perseus. Hypocrite - he is living in there.

Leo, Malcolm, and Piper - the least close to Percy, even though they are friends - let the others take the bulk of the shifts. Annabeth, Nico, and Jason almost get into blows about it - she wins on the fact that she knows Perseus longer.

It's difficult to IM both Rachel - who is a minute away from depression since he fell - and Lady Persephone. It's even harder to tell Sally - they leave the task to Annabeth.

They harbor for two days, waiting for Reyna. She appears from the sky during dinnertime - her horse has to be euthanized almost immediately after a run with the spirit mountains.

They talk - and end up deciding that she will take the statue back to Camp with Malcolm, the most resourceful out of them. Percy would be the logical solution - taking him out of Gaea's reach - but the son of Hades would probably be unable to shadow travel so soon.

While this happens, the others will set course to Athens - to stop Gaea and destroy the Giants. For now, they eat.

Midway through their meal, Will comes into the board - everyone knows what it means. Perseus is awake - on his birthday to boot. They take their food to the infirmary - to see the boy looking at the ceiling.

He gives them a faint smile, but no one misses the way he curls into himself any time there's someone a little too close. Perseus relays his tale - it's heavily edited, Annabeth can tell.

But he tells them about the leg - but not how he lost it - about the tiger - the name is Small Bob, but he doesn't talk about Bob - and about the firewater - but not how he got the injuries.

Small Bob never leaves Perseus's side. The demigod insists that he wants to go outside - he ate enough ambrosia and drank enough nectar that even some of his scars are gone. Not the one in his face though. Will let him go - but Annabeth thinks that he just asked out of courtesy.

He doesn't have green eyes anymore - they darkened to a point they can't distinguish his pupil. They observe as he sits calmly in the deck, metal leg sticking out, and strokes the head of the tiger, who is acting more or less like a giant house cat.

None of them miss the tracks of tears across his face, or the look he gives the night sky - it's bittersweet.

"Bob says hello"

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giggle-me-this · 3 years ago

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I want the K - Xi

12. Chest Kiss

Nate was admiring the smooth round face of the brand new Rolex that sat around his wrist, so polished that it was almost reflective, tracking the steady movement of the slender golden seconds hand as it tick, tick, ticked three hundred and sixty degrees.

Then he actually bothered to check what time it was, and he groaned aloud. “Xi, come on—literally every dress you’ve tried on looked great. Just pick one, I’m starving…”

“Merlin you are such a man! Just another few minutes…” Nate’s girlfriend called back from around the corner, where she’d been trying on various outfits for the past hour.

Nate sighed audibly, and leaned back in the wooden chair he was sat in. They were in an executive suite at the Casino de Monte-Carlo in Monaco—which seemed to Nate just to mean there was a desk and a chair in the room (like anyone would do actual work at a casino) and a huge circular bed.

But the views were unreal. Nate tilted the chair back on its back two legs and stretched his arms behind the chair’s back, looking out the window at the dots of light twinkling from boats sat in the harbor. Sure, maybe they were overdoing it just a little—Nate wasn’t too far gone to admit that. But after all the mountains of shit they’d been through the last couple years? The way Nate saw it, him and Xi deserved to go a little overboard on enjoying themselves.

And go overboard they certainly had. Nate had spend countless hours painstakingly training with the FTB hedges to gain some control over his probability-based discipline, while Xi, at the behest of her therapist Ruma, was working on reclaiming a sense of control over her life by going after the things she wanted.

Did anyone expect Nate and Xiomara to take these newfound skills and put them to use by robbing a bunch of unsuspecting No-Maj establishments blind?

Honestly, probably. But for now, it meant they were living large and loving it, snatching up far more than their fill on clothes, and jewels, and famous works of art, and—

“There is one piece I haven’t worn yet…” came Xiomara’s sultry, suggestive tone. And then she walked around the corner in a long, sleek fur coat that stretched down to her calves, patched with velvety chevrons of white and grey and black chinchilla fur—an exact replica of Sharon Stone’s coat from Casino.

And nothing else.

Nate choked a little on air and the two chair legs that were in the air slammed back to the floor with a loud clack, and an expression that was more delighted than it should have been spread across his face. “Holy fucking shit—where did you even find that? To be honest, I thought you fell asleep during that movie, but fuck, can I just—”

Xiomara had smirked at this predictable reaction and started to saunter toward Nate, but the moment Nate tried to reach out to run his fingers through the cloud-soft tufts that covered her body, he heard something mechanical happening with the Rolex at his wrist, and then something cool and hard and metal clamped his arms in place behind the back of the chair.

“Um…” Nate said dumbly. He tried to pull at the unexpected restraints, but they wouldn’t budge. “…Xi. Honey. Did you fuck with my watch?”

The smug expression that Xi returned to him was positively triumphant; Alexander the Great conquering an empire. “Oh baby…” she purred, pitying and coy, “…you didn’t really think you were the only one with friends to make them flashy little magic toys, did you?”

It was a wonder Nate’s heart didn’t stop ticking on the spot.

Then Xi slid herself between Nate and the desk he’d sat pointlessly behind and hoisted herself up onto it; the coat gaped open in the front and Xi crossed one smooth white thigh over the other, revealing everything and nothing. There was a magnificent yellow sapphire the size of an apricot that used to belong to a Russian czar, which they’d pilfered from a glass display in a museum last week, that now hung low in the center of Xiomara’s chest, resting against the smooth patch of skin below her breasts. Nate imagined kissing her right there, lavishing his tongue all over the polished, perfect prism of Xiomara’s body, and he made a needy, whining sound as he pulled forward against the magic restraining him again.

Xi tsked her tongue at him—naughty boy—and pressed the toe of her high-heeled shoe against Nate’s sternum to push him back in the chair, and Nate’s brain frazzled at the edges with fractals of sparkling light. Then Xi reached over and very calmly picked up the telephone that was sitting atop the desk, dialed a number, and waited. “Xi, what the fuck are you—” Nate tried, but Xi’s pressed her shoe against his chest hard enough to leave a mark, and Nate shut up.

To someone on the other end of the line, Xiomara said, “Oui, je voudrais commander le service en chambre…”

Nate gaped at her—dinner the last thing on his mind anymore—and said, “Jesus Christ, fuck the food! You made your point, okay, I just want to—”

Seeing no other option, Xi reached out the hand that wasn’t holding the phone and physically covered Nate’s mouth. He narrowed his eyes at her, and then kissed the center of her palm with exaggerated wetness, which earned Nate a smirk as Xi finished her exchange with the hotel staff.

She dropped the phone back into the receiver and reiterated, “So impatient…” To which Nate just shrugged, not contesting the point. Xi slid forward and into his lap, brushing her fingers along the stubble on his cheek to thread up into his hair. He could finally feel the fur tickling his forearms and it was so fucking soft—a stark contrast to the sharp look that gleamed in Xiomara’s eyes, the gold in them glinting like the karats around her throat. Nate wanted to be buried by the extravagant splendor of her, an Egyptian pharaoh entombed in gold; the richest man in the afterlife.

“…still hungry?” she teased, her breath soft and fine like rabbit fur centimeters from Nate’s lips.

“Mm, ravenous,” he replied with a smirk, eager for chance to be devoured by the likes of her.

#this is SO OVER THE TOP I'M SO SORRY #meme #drabble #ship #the smiths #[ bonnie & clyde ]#nate being an absolute drooling fanboy over old movie references cw

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luci-cunt · 5 years ago

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I got Izetta on the test and the more I read the more I want to fight you bc how dare you call me out like this. like call me feral one more time and I may just have to buy two books when it comes out - one for reading and one for throwing bc whyyy am i getting invested in these charcters. that doesn’t just happen willy nilly for me and now I’m mad

lkdsajf;ladskjf;lskdjf !!!!! <33333 if you’re like Izetta than I love you x100000000000000000 also lol when I do end up publishing this (I’m hoping some time in 2021) it’ll probably be thru Kindle epub which means unfortunately I can’t sell the books for $0 but I can do $0.99 XD. Idk if I’ll print them, just cuz that costs a bit, but fuck I’d love to XD.

Also I was gonna just dump a snippet here but I have no self control so here’s the first chapter. It’s Izetta’s POV because I love her.

“Lazy, slovenly girl,” Patrice muttered viciously as Izetta tore her room apart trying to find her best broach.

“Where is it!?” Izetta groaned, pulling out her dresser drawers and dumping the clothing on the floor as Patrice gritted her teeth and stood the table back up on its legs.

“Use the one I laid out for you, I don’t see what your insistence is with this copper monstrosity,” Patrice spat, repositioning candles and a bowl of fruit on the table.

“I’m going to see the queen Patrice!” Izetta said, moving on to her wardrobe.

“You’re going to be late to see the queen Izetta,” Patrice snapped.

Panic seized Izetta and she growled in frustration. “It’s going to go all wrong.”

“Stop your fretting, put these on and go,” Patrice said, shoving a pair of leather boots to Izetta’s chest. Izetta sighed, but slipped them on, when she straightened again Patrice smiled warmly. “You’ll do great, there’s no need to be nervous.” She held out her hand, with the broach on her wrinkled palm.

Izetta’s eyes widened and she grinned, taking it and throwing her arms around Patrice. “Oh thank you!” she said, before bolting away. “I’ll clean this up later!” she called behind her as she pinned the broach to her lapel.

“Sure,” Patrice said with a fond eyeroll.

Izetta sprinted through the palace, dodging servants who yelped and then laughed when they recognized her. The palace was massive, with long winding corridors made of polished marble and mother-of-pearl. It all gleamed in the sunlight that streamed through the beautiful stained-glass windows decorated with scenes of Kantoga’s history. Everything was high, elegant archways and delicate statues adorned every doorway. Izetta didn’t have much time to appreciate it, but she already knew every feature of the palace by heart--growing up in it does that to a person.

Her leather boots slid across the smooth hallways until she was skating more than running, and she had to jump over a few servants busy polishing every surface diligently. Finally she turned the last corner, arriving at the largest room in the palace--and the more elegant. The queen’s throne room.

The ceiling was so high you had to crane your neck to see the top of it, but it was adorned with a night sky filled with gleaming stars that looked like they were falling. There were huge windows made of perfectly clear glass and a throne carved out of an outrageously massive topaz.

Izetta’s breath caught as she spotted the queen, in all her regal glory, standing by one of the windows with her hands clasped behind her back. She was wearing a long, flowing white dress with diamonds and little accents of gold detailing it. She had a train trailing almost ten feet behind her that was perfectly spread. Her brown hair was in a graceful braid wrapped around the crown of her head and decorated with pearls, her olive skin looked like it was glowing, and as she turned around she beamed at Izetta, her deep brown eyes gaining stunning wrinkles around them.

Her etherealness made Izetta slightly self-conscious. She was wearing her nicest doublet--the light green one with slightly puffed sleeves and a high collar. Her nicest leather boots and white chemise tucked into a pair of black, fitted pants. Her blonde hair--cut short, above the ears--was freshly washed and Patrice had used some cream to make her usually dry pale skin “dewy.” Izetta didn’t know what that meant but Patrice had seemed pleased. She wasn’t nearly as extravagant or graceful as the queen, but she kept her chest out and shoulders back as the queen smiled at her.

“Ileta!” The image was a little shattered as the queen seemed to forget Izetta’s name, but Izetta recovered quickly.

“Izetta,” she corrected, with a low bow, “my queen.”

“Right! So sorry, scatterbrained could probably be my middle name,” the queen laughed.

“No! Not at all!” Izetta said quickly, “Easy mistake to make, they sound so similar.

“Ah thank you,” the queen said, walking over and patting Izetta’s cheek briefly. “So nice to see a humble soul.” Izetta beamed. Then the queen cleared her throat, turning away and folding her hands in front of her. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve called you here--er…” she hesitated.

“Izetta,” Izetta said happily.

“Right--Izetta. Well, I’m told you are out top agent,” the queen said.

“Assassin, my queen,” Izetta said.

The queen waved her hand dismissively, “Oh but that sounds so guttural. It matters not however, because I need you, to do something very important for me,” the queen paced for a moment.

“Anything my queen,” Izetta said without hesitating.

The queen waved her dismissive hand again, “yes, yes I know--tell me, what do you know of the Cyron siblings?” she asked, not bothering to look at Izetta, who’s brow furrowed.

“Everything my queen, they’re our only enemies children,” she said.

“Obviously, yes, but what else.”

Izetta thought for a moment, then recomposed herself. “Lazarus Ivory Cyron and Lazarus Monte Cyron are the children of Lazarus Cyron. He appointed them as co-supreme generals of his entire army, replacing Natalia Youngblood, and they are known for their domination in battle as well as aptitude for leadership. Lazarus Ivory is the elder sibling, more prone to handling Caelest’s water-based troops while Lazarus Monte operates on land. Between them they’ve won over fifty battles since becoming supreme generals and before that they both served in the Caelestian royal army as--”

“Yes, yes--but what do you know about their personal lives?” the queen interjected, still pacing.

“Uh--” Izetta hesitated, “not… a lot? They seem to be only close to one another and have a hard time trusting others.”

“Hm,” the queen said again, pausing and finally looking at Izetta again. “Listen to me very carefully Iletta--” the queen started, coming and placing her hands on the sides of Izetta’s face and looking intensely into her eyes.

“--Izetta,” Izetta corrected.

“Right--Izetta--listen to me,” the queen said, “I need you to find out everything you need to about the siblings so that you can kill them.”

“You… want me to assassinate Caelest’s co-supreme generals and heirs to the throne?” Izetta asked.

The queen’s face scrunched up, “ugh, yes but not that word, I already said it was crude.”

Izetta felt breathless, she couldn’t help the mile-wide grin that split her face. “Yes my queen,” she said, excitement fizzing in her blood and making her fingers go numb.

“You will do this, for me? For your kingdom?” the queen asked, still holding Izetta’s face and staring intensely.

Izetta nodded enthusiastically. “Yes my queen,” she said.

The queen’s hands dropped and she walked away. “Perfect, you start now, do not fail me,” she said in dismissal. Izetta bowed and hurried out of the throne room.

As soon as she knew she was out of earshot Izetta whooped loudly, causing a group of polishing servants to glare at her. She ignored them and spun down the corridors back to her room, feeling light and dreamy as she started to form a plan.

She was so lost in thought that she almost bowled right over Patrice, who was refolding the clothes Izetta had dumped out of her dresser in search of her broach. She kissed it and giggled--it was extremely simple, just a little copper circle with a wolf on the inside, but she’d had it her whole life--through everything.

“I take it the summons went well?” Patrice said, laughing a little at Izetta’s beaming face.

Izetta just smiled wider and swept the older woman up into a waltz that Patrice rolled her eyes at.

“Oh it went wonderfully Patrice, the queen herself gave me a new job--two actually,” Izetta said, and Patrice raised a brow. Her expression became a bit more pinched as she did, but Izetta didn’t notice. “You’ll never guess who,” Izetta said, eyes gleaming.

“It wouldn’t happen to be the Cyron siblings would it?” Patrice sighed.

“It’s the Cyron siblings Patrice!” Izetta said, whirling Patrice into a spin that she slipped out of, wiping her hands on her apron and pursing her lips.

“Oh,” she said quietly.

Izetta--still oblivious, threw herself down on her bed and stared at the ceiling with a dreamy expression. “Isn’t it wonderful Patrice? Her majesty finally recognizes my potential! She entrusted me with killing the heirs, the Cyron siblings.”

“Izetta--” Patrice started, wringing her hands out.

“I’ll start by contacting our spy, god knows I can’t stand Aether but he’s been on the inside for almost a decade, he’ll know everything I need and--”

“Izetta,” Patrice snapped, and Izetta stopped her planning to look at Patrice. She had a frustrated expression on her face, making her lip curl up a bit in a snarl. It wasn’t an unusual expression, in fact, it combined with Patrice’s greying hair tied in a tight braid and her wrinkled, round face was how Izetta always imagined Patrice--usually griping about something Izetta was doing wrong. Patrice had been friends with Izetta’s father, and when he died she took Izetta in. The younger girl didn’t exactly see her as a mother--Patrice insisted she didn’t--more of a very present grandmother, kind and loving but harsh and unyielding at the same time.

“Are you sure…” Patrice paused, pursing her lips and sighing, “are you sure this is a good thing?” she asked, meeting Izetta’s eyes.

Izetta frowned, “of course, this is what I’ve trained my whole life for! With the Cyron siblings out of the way Lazarus will be weakened and we can finally attack and relieve the Caelestian citizens of his cruel reign.”

“But--” Patrice started.

“I will do this Patrice, I will kill them or I will die trying, this was the entire point of my life--my meaning,” Izetta said, standing up and walking towards Patrice.

“I know child, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

Izetta felt stung. “You think I will fail?”

“I think if you do you will die, I think you will die making a stupid decision to please our useless queen,” Patrice snapped, and Izetta reeled back like she’d been struck.

“Patrice you can’t--”

“Do not tell me what to speak of child, she is manipulating you. If anyone can succeed it is you but she doesn’t know that Izetta. She is sending you in and she doesn’t care if you die.” Patrice took Izetta’s hand and cupped her cheek. “Please Izetta, please don’t die for her,” she pleaded.

Izetta blinked, stunned. After a moment she closed her mouth and pressed her forehead to Patrice’s. “I have to do this Patrice, I won’t die.” she whispered.

Patrice sucked in a breath that sounded heart-wrenchingly close to a sob and Izetta almost shattered, but then Patrice’s breathing evened again and she stepped back, completely composed and back straight. She wiped her hands on her apron and sniffed, looking at Izetta’s chin rather than her eyes.

“If anyone can do this, it’s you,” Patrice said, “I just wish it wasn’t,” she added, stepping forward to kiss Izetta on the forehead. She had to stand on her toes for it, and Izetta felt hollowed out.

Then Patrice sighed, gave Izetta a final once over, nodded, and left Izetta alone in her room.

#avoiding war #fuck it! Have the chapter!!#XDD #ok also for some reason it's glitching out and won't let me put half the answer above the lil read more buddy so #akdjf;alsdkj #XD

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elisabeth-carrion · 4 years ago

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2020 was... a year. Tbh, 2019 was worse for me. Ive read my 2019 diary and i dont know how i managed, and in the end i was still optimistic. 2020 was supposed to be my year of spoiling myself and doing new things. Of course not everything went according to the plan.... but i managed to do a few things.

Lets see

This year i did two things i thought i would never, ever do. Like even last year, i didnt even consider it. 1. i got a tattoo. The idea came to me at the beginning of the year, the plan was to do it in spring, but then quarantine happened, then renovations, and in the end i had it done in september. Its a flower and i love it.

2. i left academia. last year i got accepted into phd program. It was a mess and in the end, i had enough. Ive stayed a few months longer for the scholarship money, and resigned. I am now academia free and enjoying my very frist study free christmas break. Im vibing

among other thing, there are: 3. i cut my hair. it was waist lenght and i cut it shoulder lenght. I dont know why it was such a huge deal for me, but it was. The hair grew back real fast and i had it cut again in november. I think im gonna keep it this way. Or shorter. I’ll see.

4. had my ears pierced. I had one set of earrings, now i have two. I bought a lot of earrings. I really like it. More jewerly is better jewelry.

5. discovered the band breaking benjamin, very nice

6. discovered the book captive prince. ive read it three times already. would recommend

7. made a candle out of what was left of other candles. easier than i thought, but putting dried flowers into it wasnt a good idea

8. made a hat. and then another hat. im kinda proud of them. didnt get to wear them outside yet tho

9. made a brooch. out of an old notebook cover and christmas decor. its kinda big. i dont mind

10. made a head band. this one needs some improvements tho

11. i thought online classes and im still alive. i prefer real life classes but i managed. i learned about teaching too, i hope i can improve my knowledge next year

12. renovated my kitchen! it was old and disgusting. now its nice and clean and pretty and i love it

13. started french, german and turkish on duolingo somewhere around march. im still doing it every day. kinda like it!

14. tried embroideiry. it was fine. i want to go to embroidery class after the plague is over

15. started taking my own outfit photos. i got a cheap tripod for it and it works!

16. honesly i didnt count it, but i did some writing. I didnt finish anything, but i wrote significantly more than in the past. I want to finish something next year

17. started using reusable pens again. sadly the ink doesnt really work on some of my cheap notebooks... it leaks. But i do when i can

18. expanded and cleared my wardrobe. I love every single dress i have. I cant believe i really do have a full wardrobe of pretty dresses! its a dream that came true

19. shaved my eyebrow. they grew back darker. now i have visible eyebrows for the first time in my life

20. got a resuable shaving blade. it looks baddas and i have so many razors they will last me a lifetime

21. met the google car! cant wait to see myself on google street view.

22. i learned kanji like crazy, im over 1700 now. Thats enough for the n2 exam, i will try to take it in december next year

23. renovated my room and rearranged the furniture. It is now the cute pink room i wanted for some time. I got a cute carpet and a vanity table. I feel like a princess and for the first time i feel that all my belongings are in order

24. started studying and doing tarot. i got cards for birthday and got really into it

25. assembled a diy tiny doll room. It was fun! its like puzzles but 3d. Its not perfect but i really enjoyed it

26. seen Laura Makabresku exhibition in Sosnowiec. It was nice.

27. Seen tour de pologne race. kinda randomly, i didnt plan to, but it was nice

28. went to a watercolor class. i really enjoyed it!

29. survived the plague so far

30. started counting calories again. in the past i did it to control, to restrict, and to punish. Now i just want to know

Ive tried new things. I wrote down every single one of them, even the tiniest: 1. kurtosz in both sweet and sour verson

2. Kitkat in the following tastes: melon, peanut butter, salt caramel, gold caramel, strwaberry, salty lemon

3. okonomiyaki

4. carrot kissiel

5. smoking . yes im doings some back to the teenage years things. it tasted like ashes. i still have some left i dont know what i will do with them

6. spring rolls /sajgonki

7. chinese take out fried pasta

8. dandelion and burdock tea

9. mushroom bun - a polish street food with pieczarrki

10. pancakes with juice instead of milk. kind of accidently but it is a thing

11. boiled corn

12. lavender lemonade

13. vegan subway

14. salty licorice

15. vegan sandwich from żabka

16. oyakata soy ramen

17. halvah wafffles

18. gingerbread twix

19. shampoo in a bar... like soap but its shampoo. very nice

20. tofubar

21. bora bora black tea that tastes like roses

22. chocolate coated ginger

23. flavored coffe: five flavour mix, marzepan, raspberry meringue

24. Visited a few new coffe shops and restaurants [sowa, we coffee, mont blanc, zicherka, pod prosiakiem, kaffka, zielona krowa, proper coffee, suzette, starbucks, coffee faza, pigal] and places [zamek sielecki, this one park that has no name but has rainbow lights]. It may seem insignificat but for me its a big deal to visit a new place even if its just a coffee shop.... and its stressful. so yes im proud of that

i must say that i changed. im not the same person anymore. ive grown, ive learned my wants and needs, i started giving myself what i want and what i need, and maybe even more importantly, ive stopped punishing myself. No more of that. I deserve everything and im gonna get it :)

#i hope the list next year is going to be longer!!!!!#with bigger dreams accomplished!!!!#elisabeth no hitokoto

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Rebecca: Leaving Hitchcock Behind for Something Darker

https://ift.tt/37sEQVx

This article contains spoilers for the film and book versions of Rebecca.

Leave it to Ben Wheatley to remake Alfred Hitchcock. The younger British filmmaking iconoclast has been nothing if not provocative with his filmography so far, which includes the disturbing horror-crime hybrid Kill List (2011), the serial killer black comedy Sightseers (2012), the psychedelic, very weird A Field in England (2014), and the unsettling dystopian nightmare, High-Rise (2015). But with Rebecca he takes on not just a classic Hitchcock film, but the master’s sole Best Picture winner. Why not, right?

We’re being facetious, of course. Wheatley’s version of Rebecca (now on Netflix) is not a remake of the 1940 film but a new adaptation of the 1938 novel by Daphne du Maurier on which it is based. Both films are mostly faithful to the book (with a couple of notable exceptions), but Wheatley and his screenwriters (Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel, and Anna Waterhouse) coax a moral ambiguity and feminist twist out of du Maurier’s multi-layered Gothic romance that wasn’t permissible in the 1940 film.

“I mean, it’s the same conversation I have about every film,” Wheatley says when we ask him over Zoom what drew him to the project. “It’s like, ‘Oh it’s a comedy. The last one you did was a horror film,’ or, ‘Oh it’s a fashion movie and last thing you did was a family drama,’ or whatever. I try and choose stuff that’s at 90 degrees from the last thing I did every time, and I’ve been lucky enough to do that.”

Wheatley adds that reading the script led him to rethink his assumptions about the story and the Hitchcock film. “What attracted me to it was initially Jane Goldman’s script,” he explains. “When I read it, I was really surprised by it. I felt all the twists and laughed at all the right bits of it. And that surprised me doubly because I had seen the Hitchcock film and I’d read the book. So I thought that was really odd, that I would misremember it in that way. I talked to a few other people and they were kind of like, ‘Yeah, Rebecca. It’s just this beautiful romance, isn’t it?’ And I’m like, ‘No. That’s not the half of it.’”

It’s fair to say that Rebecca deceptively starts off as a “beautiful romance.” In the new film–as in the book and the 1940 version–the main character is an unnamed young woman (played now by Lily James), who is working as a personal assistant to a wealthy older American (Ann Dowd) on holiday. In Monte Carlo, the young woman meets Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer), also rich, who is quite dashing and recently widowed.

The two strike up a whirlwind courtship that results in de Winter whisking the young woman back to his ancestral estate, Manderley, as the new Mrs. de Winter. But once ensconced there, she discovers that the house is permeated with the lingering presence of her predecessor, Rebecca, who still commands the unhealthy loyalty of the mansion’s housekeeper, the sinister Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas). It is here that Rebecca pivots from romance to thriller, with the plot turns and psychological subtexts piling up like the waves crashing at the bottom of the treacherous cliff upon which Manderley sits.

“When I reread [the book], I just imagined du Maurier had written Rebecca as a dare or something,” says Wheatley. “That it was kind of, ‘You like romantic fiction? Well, I’ll write a book that will stop you reading romantic fiction forever. I’ll take the tropes of it, which is the widower and the holiday romance, and the rags to riches, and then I’ll really smash it and rub your nose in it.’ I loved it.”

In the book and both versions of the film, it’s revealed that Rebecca was not the perfect wife and society hostess that she was reputed to be. In fact, she was a cruel, selfish woman who claimed to Maxim on the night of her death that she was pregnant with another man’s child and would force Maxim to raise it as his own, a revelation that leads her tormented husband to shoot her dead. He disposes of her body at sea, but when the corpse washes up a year later, Maxim reveals the truth to his new wife.

Hitchcock’s film, due to the moral decrees of the Hays Production Code that was in existence at the time, had to change Rebecca’s death to a suicide since movies were not allowed to show murderers going unpunished. Under no such constraints, Wheatley takes his Rebecca a step further: The new Mrs. de Winter evolves into a protector of her husband, taking action to clear his name while at the same time fully aware that she is complicit in the cover-up of a murder.

“The moral structure of it is very different because of the things that were missing from the ’40s adaptation due to the Hays Code,” says Wheatley. “So the actual heart of the book is the idea that Maxim de Winter has murdered his wife and that you then side with de Winter and the second Mrs. de Winter as an audience member, and basically root for them to win throughout the rest of the story–which is utterly despicable. But I thought that that felt like a good reason to revisit it.”

His reasons to approach the source material aside, Wheatley knew he might touch some kind of third rail of cinema by taking on a story that the general public remembers as a Hitchcock masterpiece (it didn’t work out too well for Gus van Sant and his 1998 remake of Psycho, which like the original was also based on a novel). Getting all that noise out of his head was the first step Wheatley took.

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“Right at the beginning of the process I went, ‘Oh, right. I’m going to get a kicking for this,’” he says with a laugh. “And then I didn’t think about it anymore and I made the film. I put it right to the back of my head.” But the subject inevitably came up as the director began promoting the film. “I saw the reviews [and it was like] ‘Oh my God. It’s all about Hitchcock.’ But that’s inevitable. It’s fine. The audience that’s there for this movie is a much bigger audience than just the audience of people who’ve seen that version of it.”

Wheatley says he’s less concerned with his movie being compared to Hitchcock’s than feeling as if he did justice to the novel. “I had a lot of questions about filling the shoes of Hitchcock and all this,” he remarks. “It really isn’t about that. It’s filling the shoes of du Maurier. That’s the challenge and the fear of taking a book that is so beloved and so central within a culture in lots of ways and so influential. To take that and balls that up is the problem. The other adaptation is done and everyone loves it. There’s going to be no shifting of that from the pedestal of cinema history by anything I did.”

Of course Wheatley wasn’t the only one dealing with the ghosts of adaptations past. His trio of leads–James, Hammer, and Thomas–took on characters first embodied on the screen by Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, and Dame Judith Anderson.

“With Lily, we talked a lot about the agency of the character,” says Wheatley when asked how he approached each actor about their roles. “But there’s the aspect of the book where you don’t know if you believe what the first-person narrative is saying. She says she’s very weak, but at the same time her actions are strong. So is she slightly self-serving in how she talks about herself? And is the whole truth there?”

He continues, “That’s the craft, I think, of Lily James’ performance, trying to be nervous and terrified, but also not capsizing the movie by being irritating or being too confident or strong.”

Kerry Brown / Netflix

As for Hammer’s portrayal of the equally enigmatic Maxim de Winter, “It was more the other way around of taking someone from the position of being completely in control and being like a matinee idol and then just destroying them over the period of the movie,” Wheatley says. “But then as usual, the film is not shot in chronological order. So it’s an absolute nightmare to track all those kinds of performances. But that’s basically what we talked about a lot.”

When it came to casting Mrs. Danvers, perhaps the most iconic of the story’s three leads, Wheatley says he was “totally” enraptured with the idea of the great Kristin Scott Thomas taking on the part. “This version of it is a kind of more sympathetic Danvers,” he reveals. “I think that had come out of reading it and going, ‘I feel like she’s the moral center of it in many ways.’ There was a lot of quite complicated emotional stuff that she had to do–to go from being stern to being vulnerable, from beat to beat to beat. And I think that it took someone of her kind of pedigree to be able to do that.”

Whether viewers come to the new Rebecca with their own memories of the book or the original movie, or tune into Wheatley��s version with no preconceptions in mind, the director thinks that a new version of the story, some 82 years after the book was first published and 80 since the release of Hitchcock’s film, could have a different impact on new generations of viewers experiencing it for the first time.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“I think every film that you make is putting the film through your experience of the moment,” he explains. “So I think that there are things that are happening now which become more pertinent, and there’s also general universal truths. The idea of, what is your history of your own partner? How do you deal with the jealousy of that and the obsession? What would you do in this situation? How do you compete with ex-partners? That kind of stuff. It’s also a tale of privilege, of someone who can float through life because they’re good-looking and rich, and they do what they like and get away with murder.”

Rebecca is streaming now on Netflix.

The post Rebecca: Leaving Hitchcock Behind for Something Darker appeared first on Den of Geek.

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edo-vivendum · 5 years ago

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My Past Two Years 11/2019

I wanna tell yall the briefish version of my past two years. Two years ago, I was doing okay. I proudly identified as 99% recovered from the eating disorder which I'd done IOP treatment for twice. Yet at the same time, I was in a rigid daily routine and maintaining a "healthy" yet artificially low weight (though I didn't realize this). But I was doing way better than I had in high school or in my first two semesters of college. However, I was finding myself fairly frequently overwhelmed with emotional flashbacks, and I decided I was stable enough and ready to finally dig deeper in therapy and delve into my childhood traumas.

I was very wrong. I was far from stable enough to do outpatient trauma work. I managed to fight my eating disorder thoughts and urges through the spring semester, but the signs were there: I was slipping. I was crying most days at lunch. I was lying, arguing over food, skipping meals. Things I'd promised myself I'd never do again. Finals week I told myself I had to follow an old meal plan: I needed energy to perform well in my tests, tests which would replace lower grades from days and weeks during the semester when I just couldn't gather the energy to study. And I did it, I finished the semester with all A's, a feat that was quickly overshadowed by my rapidly disintegrating mental and physical health.

During this period of time, my thoughts were obsessively suicidal, but only when I was eating (adequately). And so I stopped. It seemed safer, a temporary delve into my eating disorder in order to stay alive. Seems fair? I was terrified I'd accidently kill myself. I was so overcome with shame and guilt. I thought I'd be able to just turn my eating disorder off again the moment I was ready. But it didn't work like that.

My mental health was overpowering my sheer will power, and I quickly found myself deeper in my eating disorder than I had been in years. And unlike in high school, my body couldn't take it for months and months on end. I found myself in the ER and was told that I couldn't do IOP anymore, that the lowest level of care that was ethically appropriate when I was a medical risk was PHP, and so I did PHP (a day program). I couldn't think straight, ever. My thoughts were hazy. I couldn't concentrate. It was like being dissociated constantly, except it was there even when I wasn't. And as an all A student, a girl who (at that time) found my confidence only in my intellect, I was terrified. But I was also terrified I'd accidently kill myself if I stopped restricting. But, regardless, I ate my meals in program, arguing and debating over every bite. Then curling up and crying. I stayed alive for the swim team I coach during the summer. I coached in the morning then headed to PHP for the rest of the day. And those kids brought me so much joy. They kept me alive. Them and my guilt. The thought of damaging the lives of everyone around me by ending my own made me so guilty.

Eventually, somehow, I graduated, stepped down to IOP again, and only had groups for a three hours 3 days a week (rather than 6 hrs 6x/week). But then one day they challenged my rigidity. They told me I couldn't bring plain rice with 1 tsp of butter + chik'N (vegan) nuggets + steamed broccoli + a cheese stick. It met my meal plan. Precisely. And they said it was disordered. (it was). They asked me to add ketchup to my nuggets. Something overcame me, and I couldn't do it. I cried so much that night that they pulled me out of the room and had me sit individually with someone. "This is not an IOP response." It wasn't. And suddenly I realized that I had never been recovered, that my rigidity was part of my eating disorder, that I had MILES of work to do, and it was too much. I couldn't do it (at that point in time). I felt so defeated. And I didn't know what to do. And in my defeat, my urges became harder to fight, and my intake once again decreased dangerously.

PHP was suggested again, but I was skeptical. If it didn't work before, why would it work now? My outpatient therapist mentioned to me that residential treatment was only a slightly higher level of care than php. I started looking into options. I felt like a fraud. I wasn't underweight. I wasn't physically at risk to myself (my team and my current self disagree with that). But I didn't think I needed it. But part of me found hope in the idea. What if I could go somewhere and receive ED treatment and trauma treatment at the same time? Somewhere where I'd be safe from myself? In my head, the options seemed to be : (1) die (2) starve myself until I die (3) go to residential treatment, give it my all, and try to recover.

And so I picked option 3. I felt like a fraud, but my insurance covered it. I did my research, and I picked Monte Nido River Towns in New York City suburbs. Within two weeks, I was flying up there. I was terrified, but I was ready to work.

It was harder than I ever imagined. I was so scared. Never before had I lost so much control over my food. I got no say in what was in front of me other than my choice of three food items i could exclude. I picked Brussel sprouts and red meat (and later added raw onions as a third bc the chef overdid it on the onions every time). Monte Nido was stricter than my local program in so many ways, but they were also more supportive. For the first time, I was able to begin to explore my past. I was able to start healing. While there, I realized I was sicker than I could have previously admitted. Most of the clients there were at healthy weights (many of whom has anorexia or atypical Anorexia diagnoses). My bloodwork was a mess. I was having heart palpitations nearly daily. My sodium was low, and my water intake was restricted in order to level my sodium. I realized I'd been overhydrating previously, and it felt like I was withdrawing from a drug. I was always thirsty, overheating, dry throat. It was terrible, but after a few days, I adjusted to drinking only 64 ounces of water a day (I know that's such a normal amount lolll I have no clue how much it was before!!).

My insurance only covered 30 days, and I wasn't ready. I discharged to a PHP in Boston also owned by Monte Nido. I stayed in their supportive housing and did a month and a half of php. It helped. I slowly improved some. I became more stable with meal plan compliance. I started to realize how bad my family was for me. It was only in their absence that I began to flourish. I was preparing my own food outside of program. I did another month and half of IOP in Boston, and then in November, about one year ago, I came home to continue IOP at my local program.

And things became stagnant. I would have a good week and then two bad weeks. Things were stable enough to not need PHP again, but not stable enough to discharge. But I couldn't stay in IOP forever, and after 5 months, they discharged me.

I knew I wasn't ready, but I was determined to try to make it work. I knew I couldn't stay in IOP forever. But I wanted so badly to recover, and I was so scared I'd fall backwards.

So I did pretty well for about a month, then slowly things started slipping. I'm not sure what happened per say. I think I was probably brute forcing it, and I couldn't keep it up. I decided to go back to IOP, not in the full program, just twice a week, sort of a tune up. That was the plan anyways.

I did an assessment on a Monday, started that evening. I was to come back on Thursday. Tuesday, I went to my parents, and for whatever reason, my brother told me that it was my fault that I was bullied.

I spiraled. It triggered shame and guilt. It triggered my own belief that it was my fault. As though all my work had come undone, I was suicidal again.

I tried to hold it together. My therapist talked to me on the phone countless times over that week, but on Saturday afternoon, I asked my boyfriend to take me to the hospital. I didn't feel safe with myself. I was scared to be in the bathroom alone.

The hospital was a horrible experience. It was my second time in a psych hospital, and this time was by far the worst. There were 38 women in a small unit. We spent all our time in a day room that definitely was not designed for 38 people. Most of the people there were detoxing and were sporatic and loud and... Terrifying to me with PTSD from being bullied and verbally abused by peers and teachers. Staff were verbally abusive. Finally, after what felt like a year but was only six days, I left the hospital. My suicidality had been quite literally scared out of me, but my anxiety was 10/10 constantly. I felt unsafe. I was shaking consistently for an entire week. Even now, I start shaking thinking about it.

My therapist suggested residential trauma treatment at a place in Florida called the Refuge. They had an eating disorder program as well, so they would be able to take me (as most places just straight up won't take you if you have an ED but most ED places don't do real trauma work either). Anyways, this place was amazing. I was there for two months, and I grew so much. I was surrounded by support. The ED part of the program was pretty relaxed, which in some ways was good but in other ways let me act out through my eating while doing trauma work. But they kept me contained enough that I was very safe physically. I was so emotionally supported; I don't even have the words for it. My program therapist gave me new understanding of myself. She tested and diagnosed me with Asbergers and taught me that some aspects of my rigidity were likely because of asbergers and not because of my ED —that it was OK if my recovery looked a little different than other people's recovery. I was able to share in groups about my childhood, and I received a ton of validation and support for traumas that I perceived as not worthy of being traumatized by. I was supported and respected and made a ton of progress in respecting and supporting myself.

I discharged back into the shitty ass local iop program. I needed to refocus on the food aspect just a little and get back on track with food. I had a little weight I needed to gain in order to be at my own set point. Blah blah. Etc.

This program has been such a mess. My case manager told me everyone walked on eggshells around me. When I advocated for myself, I was told I was being needy. Then they told me I had to discharge because I was refusing to learn to cope with emotions despite the fact that my outpatient team and I both agree that I'd made huge progress. Before going to the refuge, the experience would have been triggering, but instead it became an opportunity for me to prove to myself just how resilient I have become. I finally discharged IOP last week, and this time, I actually feel ready.

I've been meal plan compliant for months. I've been actively using coping skills and managing situations more effectively than I ever have before. I have made so so so much progress; and I can say, today, I am happy to be alive. I haven't had a suicidal thought since being home from the Refuge. I haven't self-harmed since September. I still have work to do, but I can also accept where I'm at while I'm doing that work. Life is good. I am confident I can keep this up for months, even years.

#ed recovery #mental health #Tw treatment #Tw food mention #Personal #11.19.19 #Recovery #anorexia recovery #eating disorder recovery #recovery #Edulting #Actuallyed

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k-racer · 5 years ago

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A Formula 1 Fantasy Universe using GPM2 2019 Mod: Intro, entry list, and race calendar

Hello there, after a long break from posting stuff on here.

This is going to be a randomized let’s play of Grand Prix Manager 2, using the recently released 2019 mod as a foundation, but with three expansion teams joining in so that we have a full 26 car entry list. I will be taking control as one of the expansion teams, so enjoy the ride!

The 2019 Entry List

Here’s what the lineups look like for all 13 teams after conducting a Draft Lottery and a snake format Fantasy Draft based off the lottery results complete with a preview of what I think the team’s fortunes are. Remember, in F1 each team can only have two race drivers at a time, and a backup reserve driver is highly recommended and actually required by the game itself. That’s the main reason why each team must have three drivers signed before the start of the season!

Mercedes

14 Fernando Alonso

63 George Russell

T 24 Lucas di Grassi

Will Fernando Alonso finally gets his elusive third Driver’s title? With the best overall car on paper, this is his best and probably final chance that he gets to do just that! On the other side of the garage is George Russell, who will make his F1 debut under massive pressures to perform straight away. George already has proven everything in the junior categories, winning titles in every single category of the ladder, F4, F3 and F2. This has the potential to be awesome like their recent successes over the last five years or maybe it would turn into a nightmare like when Alonso had to partner Hamilton in 2007?

Ferrari

27 Nico Hulkenberg

99 Antonio Giovanizzi

R 28 Brendon Hartley

The Number 27 is officially back on a Ferrari! With Ferrari signing Nico Hulkenberg, they have just gotten a driver that was looking for a top tier ride all of this time, and he finally got his wish. He will perform with a chip on his shoulder and maybe take the Tifosi by the neck and push them to work harder than ever to get that elusive team’s title back to Italy. The biggest question mark regarding the Scuderia is the #2 slot with Antonio Giovanizzi, who only has two f1 starts to his name with Sauber as an injury replacement, but he had to struggle with an inferior car, maybe being in an elite team will help him?

Red Bull-Aston Martin

33 Max Verstappen

25 Jean Eric Vergne

T 37 Nick Cassidy

Max Verstappen was going to stay put as soon as it was announced that Red Bull Racing would get the first pick in the lottery. Now, the bigger question, can Max become the second Red Bull driver to win the Driver’s title? His chances are decent but the biggest question mark is the new in-house built Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR1 engine. If it’s reliable, expect them to be contenders for the team’s title, especially if Jean Eric Vergne relishes his second chance in Formula 1, fresh after winning the Formula E Championship. If not, Nick Cassidy, the team’s new tester will have a stab at things sooner than later.

Renault

3 Daniel Riccardo

77 Valtteri Bottas

T 6 Artem Markelov

Mr. Smiley has a new home! After being treated harshly at red bull racing last year, he decided to exit the program altogether and joined a factory team in desperate need of a savior. In addition, Valtteri Bottas, a perfect #2 driver during his time at Mercedes AMG before being let go over the lack of one-lap qualifying pace relative to Hamilton joins the Enstone-based team looking to crack into the big three conversation once again. What does this mean for Artem Markelov, who was looking to crack into F1 after finishing 2nd in F2 during the 2017 season? He will be a hot prospect going forward, that’s for sure.

Haas-Ferrari

11 Sergio Perez

88 Robert Kubica

T 50 Josef Newgarden

Money is starting to be a problem over at Haas especially if the rumors that Rich Energy is a faker happens to be true. In the meantime, they have Sergio Perez’s Carlos Slim backing of companies providing a more stable back-up package if the Rich Energy deal happens to be blocked by a court. On the other side, is an amazing comeback story, Robert Kubica, who almost lost his life before the 2011 F1 season, is officially back in a F1 race seat. There’s no question that his qualifying pace is still great, but how can his race pace be especially considering his physical limitations post-rally crash?

Racing Point-BWT

31 Esteban Ocon

94 Pascal Wehrlein

T 34 Nyck de Vries

Racing Point is now officially a full-fledged constructor now. They still have a customer Mercedes Benz Engine but it’s rebadged as BWT. As for their drivers, they kept Esteban Ocon, a promising talent that is looking for a promotion to Mercedes AMG, when and if Fernando Alonso calls it quits. Pascal Wehrlein, who is back into a F1 race seat after a year’s worth of testing work with Ferrari is the other driver. Nyck de Vries is the team’s reserve driver, after getting his F1 super license thanks in part of his stellar F2 finish last year.

McLaren-Cosworth

44 Lewis Hamilton

20 Kevin Magnussen

T 40 Paul Di Resta

Just as Lewis Hamilton was looking like he could potentially get his 6th drivers title, the FIA has decided to conduct a sport-wide fantasy draft in an effort to stop his domination. Despite this, Lewis Hamilton has returned back to McLaren, after Zak Brown selected him 3rd overall in the draft. With McLaren rebuilding after years of devastating management calls since Lewis left before the 2013 season, the hope is that he turns them back into title winners. His teammate would be Kevin Magnussen, who is also returning to the team for a second stint. Hopefully, the in-house built Cosworth engine is up for the task.

Alfa Romeo

5 Sebastian Vettel

13 Pastor Maldonado

T 36 Luca Ghiotto

The newly renamed Alfa Romeo F1 team, who is now building their own engines, has managed to steal an elite level qualifying talent to spearhead their rebirth since flopping big time during the ground effect era of the early 80’s. Sebastian Vettel who failed Ferrari thanks to the massive pressures of driving for the Tifosi, has returned back to the team that gave him his F1 debut in 2007. However, in a highly debatable move, the Alfa Romeo Management decided to give the second seat to an interesting driver, Pastor Maldonado, who was out of F1 since the end of 2015 has somehow got more money to spare!

Toro Rosso-Honda

10 Pierre Gasly

23 Alexander Albon

T 53 Alexander Rossi

Entering year two of the Honda engine partnership, Toro Rosso are hoping to build on a modest start by improving driver talent across the board. Pierre Gasly stays put which is a good thing for research and development work. Alexander Albon, a relatively late addition to the draft, was selected as the team’s second driver after initially was hoping to crack into Formula E instead. As for the test driver, that role falls on a resurgent Alexander Rossi, after spending the last three years back in the United States honing on his race craft in the IndyCar championship.

Williams-Mercedes

7 Kimi Raikkonen

4 Lando Norris

T 21 Esteban Guiterrez

Things couldn’t get much worse for Claire Williams, right? After going for the extra money in 2018, which backfired them in the worst possible way. They are now going in the opposite direction, going for experience and proven quantities that can help set up and develop a car that desperately needs it. Kimi Raikkonen, an elite racing talent still at this point of his career despite losing some outright one-lap pace over the last few seasons, signs on a one-year prove it deal. For the other seat, they are going with Rookie Lando Norris the 2nd place finisher in F2 last year, who has star level qualities already.

Panthera-Honda (User Controlled by Myself)

16 Charles Leclerc

18 Lance Stroll

T 70 Naoki Yamamoto

Now for the brand-new teams that will enter Formula 1 in 2019. First up, Panthera Team Asia, who will use Customer Honda Engines. It also helps that this expansion team got the 2nd overall pick in the draft and snatched Charles Leclerc away from Alfa Romeo. He can lead this team far if given a solid baseline to begin with. The bigger issue is at the #2 seat, with Lance Stroll, now being separated from his rich dad for the first time in his racing career, after Lawrence decided to run the Racing Point team. How well can he respond to this separation? At worst, Naoki Yamamoto is a quality driver that should get some looks.

SMP-Renault

26 Daniil Kvyat

2 Stoffel Vandoorne

T 35 Sergey Sirotkin

The second of the three Brand-new teams, SMP Racing has decided to go with two drivers looking for fresh starts to their F1 careers after fizzing out with their previous teams. Daniil Kyvat, who bombed out with Red Bull and refined his career with a simulator job at Ferrari the previous year, has a new lease at life with SMP racing. The other seat will be taken by Stoffel Vandoorne, who failed to produce alongside Fernando Alonso at McLaren over the last couple years, but he should be better in a lower-pressure environment. Sergey Sirotkin, the team’s reserve, pays the bills for the Renault engines if anything.

Campos-Porsche

55 Carlos Sainz Jr.

8 Romain Grosjean

T 9 Marcus Ericsson

The last of the three Brand-New teams, Campos Racing has managed to convince Porsche to return to Formula 1 as an engine supplier only. As for their drivers entering 2019, they managed to draft Carlos Sainz Jr. with the 4th pick in the draft, and he will spearhead the charge for this young team that is looking for a role model to rally around. As for the other race driver, they are counting on Romain Grosjean to be less of a crasher in the races and more helpful with feedback during the practice sessions. If that doesn’t happen, Marcus Ericsson, a useful veteran is always welcome to try.

The 2019 Race Calendar

1 Albert Park: Melbourne, Australia

2 Bahrain International Circuit: Sakhir, Bahrain

3 Circuit de Catalunya: Barcelona, Spain

4 Monte Carlo Street Circuit: Monte Carlo, Monaco

5 Circuit Gilles Villeneuve: Montreal, Canada

6 Silverstone Circuit: Silverstone, Great Britain

7 Nurburgring: Nurburg, Germany

8 Hungaroring: Budapest, Hungary

9 Spa-Franchorchamps: Spa, Belgium

10 Monza Circuit: Monza, Italy

11 Marina Bay Street Circuit: Singapore

12 Suzuka Circuit: Suzuka, Japan

13 Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez: Mexico City, Mexico

14 Circuit of the Americas: Austin, United States

15 Interlagos Circuit: Sao Paulo, Brazil

16 Yas Marina Circuit: Abu Dhabi, UAE

The First round will be posted shortly, stay tuned!

#formula 1 #f1 #onlyinagame #alternate universe #grand prix manager 2 #letsplay

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inmy-blueperiod · 6 years ago

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Grandparents Day, Pt. 3

Part 1, Part 2

based on this post:

1617 words

Peter stops to tie his shoe on the way to the office, and motions for the soldiers to continue, the office is in sight. Walking there, they pass a few empty classrooms, but some have students in them. Like the room that gets used for Academic Decathlon. And guess who sees Peter walking in the hallway?

None other than Eugene "Flash" Thompson.

"Hey, Parker!" he yells. Shit, Peter thinks. "Why aren't you in here? With the rest of your team? Hm?"

"I was coming back, but I just had to show some people to the office and well--they're waiting for me. I'll be back in 15 minutes tops!" he tells his team.

Before he can escape, MJ speaks up; "you better, Peter! You have people depending on you, and if you miss another practice, we have to bench you next competition. You're the smartest here, and we can't afford to bench you, so, please, show up!"

"Yes, MJ! Definitely! I will be here, promise! Give me 15 minutes?" Peter asks hopefully.

She sighs and looks at her watch; "15 minutes, Parker, go." He smiles with relief and sprints to the office to see Steve and Bucky waiting for him.

"Sorry," he apologizes. "I had to talk to my Academic Decathlon team real quick, but I'm here."

"No reason to be sorry. Pete, did you know that your principal--Mr. Morita's--grandfather was Buck and my friend back in our glory days?" Steve smiles.

"Really? No, I didn't know that. Awesome!"

"Yeah, Jimmy, I think, is what we called him. He was a good man," Buck nods at the teen's principal, "We were in the same unit, the 107th. He got captured with me, I think. My memory is still foggy, but I remember that he was my friend."

"Alright, I know you came here to talk to me other than my Grandad. What can I do for you gentlemen?" Morita asks.

"Well, Peter, here, invited us to come to Grandparent's Day on Monday--" Steve begins.

"Ah, yes, I saw that slip. It was given to me when our top student was accused of lying--not to his face, naturally--so I had to check it out. I didn't think it was all that necessary though. I mean, this kid brought in Tony Stark for Parents Day," Morita chuckles.

"Yes, well, we were wondering if everyone could treat us like every other grandparent. I don't want to make a big deal out of it," Bucky replies.

"Yes, of course. I understand perfectly and wouldn't dream of it. My Grandad used to say that he always just wanted to be treated like everyone else and that everything he did, he wanted to and didn't expect any praise."

"Jimmy was a good man. I'm glad you got that gene," Steve smiles. Morita smiles back.

"Thank you, Mr. Morita. I'll try to stop bringing in superheroes so that you don't get any more slips that say I'm a liar," Peter says with a small smile.

Morita chuckles. "I'll ask Mrs. Thatcher to stop sending the complaints to me and instead rip them up." Once out of his office, Morita shakes Steve and Bucky's hands, tells Peter to stay out of trouble and goes back into his office to do some more paperwork.

The three walk down the hallway silently, until Peter breaks it; "hey, I, uh, I have to get back to Decathlon, so I'll see you both at the Tower? It's Thursday and May's working again, so I'm staying there until Monday after dinner."

"Yeah, sure. But, uh, is it okay if we stop by your practice? I mean, we don't have to check it out, it's just that I don't know what Academic Decathlon is and you're involved so I would like to be involved," Steve says sincerely.

"Yeah, no, it's okay Mr. Rog- Steve. Academic Decathlon is an afterschool activity where you go competition and compete against other schools and whichever school figures out the correct answer the fastest wins. Last year, we went to Washington D.C. and won! Well, I mean, I didn't win. I was previously occupied with stopping the Vulture, which was when you both were Rouge. Long story short, I couldn't be there for the competition because Spider-Man was tracking a bad guy. And you both can totally sit-in during practice. It's no big deal." It's a shock to the old heroes that Peter didn't pass out from lack of breath.

”Uh, great! Where’s the restroom?” Steve asks.

”Oh, it’s down this hall, take a left and it’s on the right. We’ll be in the big room over here; just take a right, walk back down the hall, go around the corner and it’s on the left. The floors might be wet though, so I think you should probably take another left walk through the hall, turn past the cafeteria, and take another left. But, then again, they might not be mopping the floors today, so just take a right, walk back down the hall, go around the corner and into the classroom on the left.”

Steve just stared blankly; Bucky chuckled. “I’ll help him out, kiddo. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Mr. Barn-- I mean Bucky! I’ll be in there when you get back,” Peter says quickly and marches into Decathlon.

MJ checks her watch; “17 minutes, Parker. It’s not looking good for you.” He sucks in a breath. MJ was always punctual and got upset when others weren’t. At his worried expression, she laughs. "I'm just fucking with you, loser. You were gone for, like, less than 13, so chill out." Even though it sounds like a jab at him, Peter knows better. She's worried about him. He’s not showing up to Decathlon, which isn't new, but he's been.. different since whatever it was that the Avengers are keeping from everyone. No one knows what it is; there are many conspiracies, but the Avengers have confirmed nothing other than yes people disappeared but they’re back and okay now. Which doesn’t make any sense, but most people have gotten over it by now.

“Thanks, MJ,” Peter replies; the two exchange smiles.

“If you guys are done staring into each other's eyes, can we get back to practice?” Flash groans loudly.

“Oh, shut up Eugene. Some people can actually have friends; did you know that? That people can actually enjoy other people’s company?” When Flash doesn’t comment, MJ continues, “I know right! Mind-blowing!”

After a huff, Flash backs off; "whatever. Let's just get back to practice."

"Awesome. First question! What is the atomic number for chlorine?"

With a ding of the bell, Peter answers, "17." He's just relieved that everyone is done arguing.

"Correct. What is the capital of Monaco?"

Another ding. "Monte Carlo," Abe answers.

"Nice. How old was Queen Elizabeth the First when she became queen and what year was it?"

Ding. "It was 1558 and she was 26 years old," Flash answered cockily.

"Nope, close though; she was 25. Maybe next time Eu-" she was abruptly cut off by a loud gasp from Ned. Peter turned to see what had happened and winced (of course, they had to make a dramatic entrance).

"Holy shit," Ned whispered under his breath.

"It's them," Abe exclaimed, just as star struck.

"Uh, hello everyone," Bucky said awkwardly. Steve laughed and tried to cover it up with a cough; he received a deadly glare from the ex-assassin.

Mr. Harrington snapped out of his awe quicker than the rest of them. "Hi, Mr. America-- I--I mean Mr. Rogers! Can we help you with anything?" His voice cracked at 'anything'. Peter try as he may to control it, let a chuckle slip.

"Uh, no, Mr--?"

"Harrington."

"Mr. Harrington," Steve finished. "We just wanted to sit in and see what School Decathlon was all about."

"You dumbass," Bucky said and hit the back of Steve's head. "It's Academic Decathlon. Not School Decathlon."

MJ chuckled and almost every Decathlon member's eyes snapped to her. "What? It's funny," she told them with a roll of her eyes.

"Yeah, Michelle. It's so funny. Violence is so funny. Since you think it's so funny, you should really rethink being the captain and hand it off to someone who deserves it," Flash smiled innocently.

"Yes, you're right. Eugene. I think I'll give the Captain title to Parker," she replied, smug.

"Penis!?” Flash exploded. “Him!? Really!? But he doesn't even show up!"

Peter had his eyes trained on Bucky from the moment Flash opened his mouth. You bet he saw the way Bucky's eyes darkened and how took a menacing step forward.

Steve put a hand in front of Bucky to stop him from doing something he would regret. Like decking a 16-year-old. Steve whispered a "keep calm," and Peter's

hearing picked it up.

"What did you just call him," Bucky demanded. Flash went white a shade white but didn't answer. "What. Did you call him," he growled.

"I-I called him Peter, sir-sir," Flash stuttered out, eyes wide.

"Liar." The glare directed at Flash was deafening. "What did you call him." Silence. "Answer honestly. What did you call him."

"I called him Penis," Flash said confidently as if it would erase his nervous stutter from before, but he still shrank back and dropped Bucky's gaze the moment they met.

Bucky’s glare intensifies ten fold. Steve clears his throat as if to distract his friend from murdering a teenager. “So, uh, Mr. Harrison,” Steve says addressing the supervisor of the club.

Bucky interrupts, “if one of your students is being bullied, do something about it. We’ll be over here watching the rest of practice.” And with that, he drags Steve over to an empty table and makes himself comfortable.

Grandparents Day Tag List: @tamaranianprincess @justmyshitandmoreshit

Strikethrough means I couldn’t tag you

If you want to be added to the list or permanently tagged, just drop in an ask or message me <3

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ruthandliamgoplaces · 5 years ago

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Overcoming internal mountains

Not written the blog in a while, but I will get caught up! I’ve got loads to write, its just hard on the road on the iPhone, and when we are staying with other people and I could use the laptop, we like to make the most of the time with them. However, when I woke up this morning, all I could think about was writing. I have taken myself to sit on a rock bathed in morning sun overlooking the sun rising on the mountains. The sun is the only thing I’ve been bathed in for a while, but I am happy. Cycle touring is certainly not all idyllic mountain passes and waking up in quiet beauty spots, it’s often navigating busy roads, road works, and sleeping in laybys. However, through all of it, I am grateful and happy. This post is going to be a personal one.

When I was younger, my parents split up. The details are unnecessary, but I know as a family we all agree that the separation and subsequent aftermath were handled in a less than ideal manner. The result for my six year old self was growing up in an environment that did not fill with me trust in the world, and especially not confidence in myself. I had my brains, and I threw myself into academic work, becoming a perfectionist with little time for anything other than homework. I had no hobbies and I absolutely hated sport and exercise. So I thought.

My school reports stated that I didn’t attend P.E lessons, and I would have told you that the only sport I enjoyed was avoiding sport. The truth, as it always is, was a little more complicated. First, I had no confidence, and I couldn’t enjoy sport because the school cultivated an environment where sport was about competition and enormous praise was heaped on those getting into the teams, as well as criticism for those not performing well. Furthermore, I believed I was not very good at sport, and this caused mayhem with my perfectionism. Perfectionism is damaging as it prohibits your capacity to enjoy anything that you don’t naturally excel at. Which is, for most people, most things to be enjoyed in life. I wrote sport off as something I wasn’t good at, and honestly, I have yet to find out if I am good at team sports because I never tried to be. Over the past few years I’ve reflected a lot and realised that the version I have always narrated to people is “I’m not good at team sports”. However, the truth is, I just don’t know as I never had the confidence to make mistakes, learn and grow, and sabotaged all my encounters by not trying at all, thus protecting myself from failure by failing.

I remember being sat on the edge of Lake Ullswater on a family holiday watching my family on kayaks having fun. I had declined the opportunity to kayak because I said I hated sport. In reality, I was desperate to try and paddle on the amazing lake. However, the terror of not being able to kayak outweighed the desire to try it. Unfortunately not trying begets more self doubt as I didn’t allow myself to have any experiences to challenge the narrative of my being useless.

The third reason I didn’t enjoy sport was the clothes they made you wear; tiny shorts and skirts. Maybe OK for primary school children but for some teenage girls going through puberty, it was a nightmare. My perfectionism had already noticed my body didn’t look like the other girls, and especially not the ones people said were attractive, or so I thought. My thighs rubbed together, I had fat. I hated my curvaceous and naturally muscular legs. And above all else, I hated these tiny shorts I was expected to fit into to play sport. So I didn’t play sport.

There was a time where I would have wanted to give every detail about what happened next. But I am over it. In a nutshell, in my late teens I developed an eating disorder which lasted until my late twenties. It was a product of my lack of confidence, my perfectionism and my inability to emotionally mature or express emotions in a healthy way. I survived; it wasn’t easy. But I’m here now. And that’s all that matters.

Something happened during my twenties in that difficult time that set me off on this path that I am on now. The path of overcoming perfectionism and falling in love with all aspects of life, especially those that I’d written off because “I wasn’t good at them”. I discovered exercise. At first, it was incredibly unhealthy for me as I was unwell and used exercise primarily as a way to control my body size and shape. However, my love of the outdoors, moving the body and appreciating what my body can do rather than focusing on what it looks like, has helped me heal.

I remember the first time I went for a run, ironically the perfectionist eating disorder “lose weight” side winning over the “I can’t do it” side, I was amazed that I could run. Within a few months I was entering half marathons. Here was something I had told myself all my life that I hated, and I had been wrong! Yes, I wasn’t the fastest and that was OK.

Then, I discovered hiking, climbing and mountain biking. Climbing was a tough one was it involved learning complex rope work, and I had already written off in my mind that I was good at practical things. Climbing helped me challenge my internal narrative that I couldn’t tie knots, or learn practical tasks. It was really difficult because I had this story in my head that I was the last person in my class to tie my shoelaces and I couldn’t do things like ropework. In reality, I forgot to focus on the part of the story that mattered. I learned to tie my shoelaces. It took a bit longer than other people, and that was Ok. That was allowed.

Mountain-biking and hiking, and eventually cycle touring, made me feel like finally I had found the meaning behind life. Ruth that hated sport was now spending every weekend and most evenings being active. I felt energised in the mountains and surrounded only by nature and the company of people I loved and trusted, the voices of perfectionism and eating disorder altogether disappeared. Until I stopped the activity.

Yoga was an important milestone for me. I had always wanted to try yoga, but was terrified of attending a class and getting the poses wrong, or being too inflexible to even try. When I walked into my first yoga class, I had to fight memories of step aerobics at school where I was the only one unable to follow the teachers instructions. And yes, even now, after years of yoga, I struggle with copying poses off the teacher. However, now I have the confidence to be OK with that. And I tell myself, you will get there in the end. I am even able to laugh at myself, and my teachers learn how to show me poses in a way that works for me. After I learn the pose, I can do it just as well as anyone else.

Honestly, I will never know whether I really did have a problem with coordination and left and right as a child, or whether I just told myself I did and never tried to overcome it. I’m trying to overcome it now as an adult! You don’t have to tell yourself the same stories your whole life. Change is possible.

After overcoming the eating disorder, and continuing to work on the perfectionism, I was left with one further problem that needed to be overcome. I had damaged my stomach and oesophagus and needed surgery to repair it. This surgery left me unable to do any sport, running or cycling for 6 weeks and 6 months for any climbing or carrying a back pack. In reality it was nearly a year and lots of hic ups in recovery before I felt strong enough to engage in physical activity again. There were times in that year I felt I would never get there. I thought maybe I would never be able to carry a heavy back pack up a mountain, or cycle a loaded touring bike. Maybe I would never be able to run a half marathon or climb on rock face. It was an uncertain time, waiting to see if my surgery was strong enough for the activities I wanted to do. I made peace with my situation, and worked hard to suppress negative feelings about the chain of events that led to me having the damaged stomach in the first place.

As this blog shows you, I got there. I ran a half marathon in December. In March-April I carried my own rucksack over the worlds highest navigable pass and walked for 40 days. And I am cycle touring with the heaviest bike I have ever ridden, up the biggest mountains I have ridden!

The reason for this mini life history, and I feel a little ashamed at the self indulgence and self disclosure, was because I wanted to explain my emotions over the past few weeks cycling in the Alps. A week ago we cycled over Col de Forclaz (1517m), something I did on my own as a 23 year old. It was a huge turning point for me back then as my first moment of solo travel. I realised that despite the self critical narrative I had been beating myself with my whole life, I could read maps! I could cycle up a massive hill! It didn’t matter what I thought of my legs, they were incredible power houses to get me up hills! I was capable and strong!

Returning to Forclaz 10 years later, I was amazed by my body all over again. And, unlike 23 year old Ruth, I felt the enormous weight off myself because that critical voice is so much quieter than it used to be. I don’t live with the eating disorder to the same extent, I can manage the perfectionism, I can be happy. Happy was not always something I thought I could be.

Yesterday we cycled over Mont Cenis Pass, 2087m, and as I cameover the hill after an epic four hour struggle, greeted by amazing mountain lake scenery and people cheering and saying congratulations, I felt truly like I have survived. I’m really ready to leave behind the years of self torment and their memories. I’m opening myself to all new experiences, challenging myself to try new things, or things I’ve previously written off as ‘I can’t do that’.

I feel utterly privileged and grateful for my good mental and physical health, and all the luck in the world that has allowed me to be born into a life to have these experiences when so many other people cannot.

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