#this sort of wisdom is why i make the big bucks

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

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I'm just getting too excited reading the snippets

Thank you! Damn 186 for 🦷:

---

“Dad, can I tell you something?” Chris asks, with a little sigh, like he’s having to break something very simply down to a child.

“Uh, of course, Chris.”

“I only have one day left of being smarter than you, so I should maybe give you advice.”

“Wait, what?” Eddie asks. 

“Because I still have my wisdom teeth,” Chris explains.

Right, Eddie. Keep up. 

“That’s true,” Eddie mumbles. “It’s all downhill after today. Your brain will turn to mush.”

Chris rolls his eyes. 

“I’m just saying,” Chris presses. “I’m more wise than you still. So listen to me.”

There’s something really serious in his tone, so Eddie stops joking. 

“Okay,” he says. 

“The first person you said who made you feel comforted was Buck. Twice. That means something, Dad. I think you’re used to feeling bad and you don’t know how to do things that make you feel good.”

Eddie feels like he’s been struck. Not for the first time today. 

“So, you think I should try something different, huh?” Eddie asks, voice cracking over tears just a little. 

Chris nods. “Yep. I think whatever the opposite of what Grandma and Abuelo would say is what you should do, probably.”

Well, that’s an idea. That logic carried him from El Paso to Los Angeles. Kept him here despite their pressure for him to return. That logic wrote Buck’s name in his will instead of theirs. And none of those things have been decisions that Eddie regrets. 

“That…” Eddie exhales. “That might be really good advice.”

“Because of my wisdom teeth,” Chris says.

Eddie smiles. “Yeah, buddy. Because of your wisdom teeth, for sure.”

iv.

Buck ends up coming with them to Christopher’s surgery appointment. Eddie didn’t ask. He just sort of shows up in the morning, assuming Eddie would want someone to sit with him. He’s right, of course. Eddie knows it’s just dental surgery and comes with very little risk, but Eddie absolutely wants company. Buck’s company. 

They sit side-by-side in waiting room chairs, clutching paper cups of coffee, during the surgery. They’re the only people in the room. Eddie can hear a clock ticking. There’s a television playing the news silently. Eddie’s leg is tapping.

“Hey,” Buck says gently, hand resting on Eddie’s shoulder. “He’s going to be totally fine.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie nods. “It’s a simple procedure. That’s… That’s not why I’m nervous.”

Buck frowns. “Why are you nervous, then?”

Well, great question. Not one Eddie really wants to answer. 

“Uh…” Eddie struggles. His throat feels very dry. He takes another sip of coffee before answering. “I have… Well, I had a sort of crazy conversation with Christopher yesterday while grocery shopping.”

“This is why you shouldn’t grocery shop without me,” Buck says, kissing his teeth chidingly. “Always ends in chaos.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “I can remember grocery store chaos caused by you. And uh, it was actually a good conversation.”

“Yeah?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah.”

“What was it about?” Buck asks, leading the conversation because he can see Eddie is too nervous to just do it himself. 

“Uh, a lot of things,” Eddie says. “But I ended up sort of… Well, I came out to him.”

Buck’s eyebrows shoot up. He grins. “Eddie, that’s amazing! How did he take it?”

“Good,” Eddie nods. “He… Yeah, he was great.”

“Ah, man. I’m so happy to hear that. I know that was weighing on you.”

“It was,” Eddie agrees quietly.

“So, then… Why are you nervous?”

Eddie takes a deep breath. Here it goes.

“Well, Chris is a smart kid, you know?”

“Of course,” Buck replies, still confused. 

“It didn’t take him very long to ask if this meant I’m in love with you.”

Buck’s expression goes completely still. His eyes get big. Wide. Anxious. 

“Uh, wh-what… What did you tell him?” Buck stammers. 

“That I do,” Eddie whispers. His eyes flicker to the floor. He almost doesn’t want to see Buck’s reaction. 

“Oh,” Buck exhales. “And, uh… He-he was okay with that?”

Eddie nods. “Pretty much told me not to be stupid and do something about it.”

“Is that what this is?” Buck asks. 

Eddie chuckles a little breathlessly. “Not enough for you?” 

“It doesn’t hurt to be given roses or something,” Buck smirks. “A string of pearls even.”

“Well, we’re in the waiting room of a dental surgery clinic. So I can offer you…” Eddie looks around the room. “An issue of USA Today from four months ago.”

“I’ve always wanted that,” Buck says. “I just need to know about Ben and Jennifer. Do you think they’re going to make it this time?”

“I have bad news,” Eddie tells him.

Buck smiles. His eyes crinkle a little. Eddie’s not sure if they did that, back when they met. Eddie thinks, somehow, he just keeps getting more and more beautiful with every year that he knows him. He’s sitting right beside him now, all loose curls and twinkling eyes. And Eddie realizes he’s so fucking lucky. Because as nervous as he is right now, he’s not uncertain. He knows. He knows this beautiful, kind, unbelievably generous, and not nearly as funny as he thinks man loves him back. 

“I still don’t understand why you’re nervous,” Buck says softly. “Eddie, you have to know…”

“I know,” Eddie replies quickly. 

“I love you, too,” Buck says. “Like… Obviously.”

Eddie smiles. “I thought so… I just…” 

“What?” Buck asks gently. 

Fuck. Eddie doesn’t really know how to explain. 

“My son sort of psychoanalyzed me,” Eddie blurts. “And, uh… And the conclusion was… He thinks maybe I don’t make decisions that are good for me because I’m used to feeling bad.”

Buck’s jaw drops. “Chris said that?”

“Yeah, I think my parents kind of messed him up in a different way from what I did.” Eddie admits. 

“He’s not messed up, Eddie. Just hurt. That’s all.”

“See?” Eddie says. “See, it’s that. He’s right. It’s like my brain is sort of wired for guilt, and… And I don’t want it to be. I just, I’m scared I’ll screw it up with you, too.”

Buck nods, thinking. He takes a good moment to contemplate.

“Okay,” he eventually sighs. “Okay, well then I won’t let you.”

Eddie sighs. “What?”

“Yeah, I just won’t,” Buck presses. “I’m good at that. I think Bobby and I are the only people you listen to.”

Because they’re the only people close enough to Eddie to know what he wants and have his best interest at heart. They always have. 

“Buck, it’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is,” Buck replies, turning in the seat a little so his knees are pressing into Eddie. “I-I know you, Eddie. You wouldn’t have brought this up at all if you didn’t want me to talk you into it.”

Eddie opens his mouth to object. That’s just… 

Okay, it’s completely true. He does that, doesn’t he? Waits until he’s ready for Buck to give him permission to do right by himself. He always has. 

Wow.

“We know each other better than anyone,” Buck says. “We won’t let each other be idiots.”

And that’s… Well, that’s true, too. Eddie has always been able to talk Buck down from letting things get out of hand. From spiraling. From making every problem on earth his problem. So… So maybe Buck is right. 

“Promise?” Eddie asks. 

Buck grabs his hand. “I promise.”

[etherian-affairs]

Would PrimeHope be a good ship?

It would certainly be A Ship.

Good?

I mean I don't even want to call Catrapdak, which is my current obsession, good.

But could it be deeply entertaining? Yes.

And THAT, MY FRIEND, is what matters. That it's entertaining.

[ifmywishescametrue]

Choosing which prompt to send you from list was an impossible task!! They’re just all that good🥺 but if u feel inspired, maybe 15 or 76 would be really cute for stevetony?

Also, hope you have the best and loveliest day, friend 💖💝

thank you for sending one!! for #76 - "thank you for making me smile" - here's 1.6k words of getting together and absolutely terrible jokes

also i hope you have the loveliest day too 🥺

"I'm never listening to your advice again," Steve says the second he walks in the door. He lets it slam shut behind him and stomps off to his bedroom with another rough bang.

Tony and Bucky exchange a look on the couch, and Tony pauses their video game.

"Me or you?"

"Probably you," Bucky says. "Your advice is usually shit."

Tony scoffs, "Please, I'm a genius for a reason. All of my advice is amazing. Or are you forgetting that I'm the reason that you have a boyfriend right now?"

"One time in the last three years and you won't let it go."

"It'd be you and your right hand for the rest of your life if it wasn't for me."

Bucky rolls his eyes, "I would have made it work with Sam on my own eventually. But that's besides the point. I haven't given Steve any advice lately, so it has to be you. And in case you forgot, I don't even live here. He didn't know I was here when he said it."

"You don't live here?" Tony says with mock surprise. "Wow, you eat an awful lot of our food then."

Bucky grins, "It's payback for all the times you did the same to me before I moved out. Now go fix Steve. We'll rematch tomorrow."

"I didn't break him," Tony argues, even as he sets his controller down and stands from the couch. "I am a beacon of wisdom."

"You started a fire in the microwave twice last week, beacon."

Tony flips him off on his way to Steve's bedroom. He knocks once and ignores it when Steve tells him to go away.

Steve is sitting at his desk with his back to the door and his sketchbook open in front of him. He has a pencil in his hand, but the page is untouched.

"So, uh, what's up with you?"

"Nothing."

Tony nods slowly, "Right, okay. Care to share what advice of mine went wrong exactly? Cause I gotta say I'm drawing a blank."

"I was talking to Buck."

"Oh," Tony says in relief, then he frowns. "How'd you even know he was here?"

"When isn't he here? Our fridge is always empty because of him."

Tony smiles and flops down on Steve's bed, propping himself up against the pillows with his arms folded behind his head. He pushes the back of Steve's chair with his foot, making it spin his way.

"So what did Bucky do?"

Steve looks like he's about to say, but then he bites his lip and shakes his head instead. "Really doesn't matter."

Tony looks at him for a long moment, taking in all those subtle tells of his. The slight downturn of the corners of his mouth and the crease between his brows, but they don't come with any tension in his jaw or shoulders, which means he's more disappointed than angry. His eyes never hide hurt, but there's none to be found in them. Whatever it was didn't crush him, and Tony knows just how to fix him when he's like this.

He pokes Steve's arm with his socked toes. "Hey, Steve, why did the golfer bring two pairs of pants?"

Steve sighs, but there's already a hint of a smile. Further evidence to support Tony's hypothesis.

"Why, Tony?"

"In case he got a hole in one."

Steve presses his lips together and shakes his head. "That's not very funny."

"Why do bees have sticky hair?"

The look Steve gives him is long-suffering.

"Because they use honeycombs," Tony grins, and Steve relaxes back into his chair a little. "What kind of music do planets like?"

"Neptunes," Steve says, smirking a little, and Tony pouts dramatically.

"Nooo, how did you know that?"

"Used it on me two months ago. Remember when you broke the sink and you didn't want me to be mad at you anymore?"

"I also remember fixing the sink in the same day, but fine dwell on the fact that I broke it in the first place."

Steve laughs, and Tony feels the knot in his own chest loosen. He hates it when Steve's upset. It throws him off his own axis, because his world revolves around Steve's sun.

He gets up from the desk chair, and Tony shifts over to make room for him on the bed. They reach for each other's hands at the same time, interlocking fingers in the small space between them.

It's moments like these when the longing hits him the most. When Steve is this close, but it doesn't mean nearly as much to him as it does to Tony.

Sometimes he pictures what it would be like if he leaned over a little more. If Steve's eyes would flicker down to his lips, then away quickly like he didn't want to be caught. He wonders what Steve's cheek would feel like under his hand as he pulls his attention back, silently telling him it's okay to look.

It always stops there in his mind, right before a first kiss that he just knows would change his life. Guilt creeps in, because he should be happy with what he has. Happy with all of the pieces Steve lets him have now. It's more than most people will ever get.

"Thank you," Steve says. "You're the only one who can ever get me to smile after a day like today."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Tony asks, tilting his head to the side to look at him.

Steve bites his lip again, staring up at the ceiling. It takes a long moment for him to talk.

"There's somebody that I like, but they don't like me back. Not like that, anyway."

Tony's heart sinks, but he tries not to let it show. "You told them and they rejected you?"

Steve shakes his head, "No, I don't need to tell them to know how they feel. But Bucky said that I should find someone else to get over them, so I asked out that girl in my art history class."

"The one with the nose ring?"

"That's the one, yeah. We went for coffee this morning."

"How was it?" Tony asks, and more guilt accompanies the fact that he's actively and selfishly hoping Steve is about to say that it was awful.

Steve shrugs, "It was fine, technically. But then she tried to kiss me, and I sort of freaked out and ruined it. She looked at me like I was insane, and, god, it was so embarrassing, but I just couldn't do it when I know that I don't actually want anything like that from her. I didn't want to lead her on. It's not fair to her."

"Not fair to you either," Tony says softly. "You shouldn't force yourself to like someone you don't. And whoever the other person is, the one that doesn't want you back, they're missing out on someone really amazing, and they're stupid to let you go."

Steve smiles, but it's tinged with sadness as he turns his head to look at Tony. "I don't know about that. They can do better than me."

"Hey, no, don't say that. You're incredible. You're funny and smart and gorgeous, and I've never met anyone as kind as you in my entire life. There isn't anyone better than you, okay? And if they don't see that, then fuck them. Clearly, they're dumb as hell anyway," Tony rants, getting progressively louder as he goes and his free hand gesturing wildly.

"They're kind of a genius, actually."

Tony rolls his eyes, "Yeah, sure they are. Way to miss the point."

Steve's smile turns amused. "No, but they really are."

"What is this?" Tony asks with narrow eyes. "Are you trying to make me jealous by saying you know other geniuses? Cause I'm the only know-it-all in your life. I claimed the spot. It's mine."

"Definitely yours," Steve agrees, and he shifts a little to turn on his side. With his left hand, he tentatively reaches up towards Tony's face, and Tony's breath catches at the brush of fingertips against his cheek. "I think I might have been wrong, though, about how they feel about me."

It takes a few seconds for it to click in Tony's, but even when it does he doesn't believe it just yet.

"Why's that?"

"Apparently they think I'm incredible, and they get really angry when anybody else thinks otherwise."

Tony smiles softly, "Yeah, they really don't like that."

Steve's thumb strokes across his cheekbone, then his fingers drift back to run through his hair.

"They think I'm funny, too, but they've also got a terrible sense of humor, so I don't know how accurate that is."

Tony laughs, then says, "You know what I think?"

"What's that?"

"I think you should kiss them. Just go for it and see what happens."

Steve smiles, slowly leaning down, "You really think so? It could make things weird. We might not be able to be friends anymore."

Tony puts his hand on the nape of Steve's neck, drawing him further in until he's a scant inch away. "Trust me, they don't really want to be just a friend, anyway."

He finds out that Steve's skin is smooth and warm beneath his palms, and his lips are unexpectedly soft. His hands are constantly in motion, slowly mapping out Tony's hips and sides and back like he's memorizing the feeling. As if it's his one chance to learn what Tony feels like he won't let it get away from him. But it won't be the only one. There will be second, third, and hundredth kisses, because Tony knows better than to let someone like Steve slip away.

"Hey, Tony?" Steve whispers after.

"Yeah?"

"What's the best thing about Switzerland?"

Tony smiles, "What?"

"I don't know, but the flag is a big plus."

They stare at each other, and Steve is the first to crack, but his laugh makes Tony follow right behind him.

[adurowrites]

A Percy Weasley Snippet

The lecture hall was quiet, but not perfectly silent. Percy could hear the scratching of quill on parchment, the creak of wooden chairs, and every now and again, a hard exhale as someone met a question they weren’t prepared to answer. 

There were twenty test-takers in the room, Percy included. One proctor sat at the front of the room, the other took slow laps about the room, sometimes muttering revealing charms to ensure no one was cheating. The soft footfalls paused somewhere in the back of the room. To the left, a witch coughed, hoarse and rough and momentarily distracting. Some of the test-takers had put silencing bubbles around their desks, wanting absolute quiet to focus on the exam. Percy preferred the ambient noise of the room. It made him think of Hogwarts, of taking his NEWTs in the Great Hall with the rest of his year. 

For as much as he hadn’t been particularly popular, or even well-liked, Percy had enjoyed his time at Hogwarts. He’d gotten along well-enough with his housemates, but he had found true camaraderie in the Ravenclaws of his year. He’d often wondered why the Hat hadn’t put him in Ravenclaw. He’d asked for it at his Sorting, even though he’d be breaking a family tradition and the thought of disappointing his parents terrified him. But it was the logical choice, and so he’d politely asked to be sorted into Ravenclaw. Apparently it was that request, and his bravery to buck tradition, that had the Hat put him into Gryffindor instead. 

But he was too studious for most of his house, and he’d spent most of his time studying with the Ravenclaws. There wasn’t much conversation, just quiet focus and the sense of belonging. Percy had missed that comfortable atmosphere as he’d been studying for the barrister’s exam. His flat, as cozy as it was, had the tendency to make him feel lonely. He enjoyed peace and quiet, but he also enjoyed company. Rather than sit alone, he’d done most of his studying in the Ministry library, keeping company with the various interns, undersecretaries, and paralegals.

He came to the end of the exam and glanced at the clock. There were four hours allowed for completion, and he’d hoped to save an hour and a half for review. He was behind by fifteen minutes. He grimaced and turned back to the start of the test. 

Just before the three-hour mark, a wizard got up and strode towards the proctor at the front. He handed his parchment over and left with a self-satisfied smile. A witch followed a few minutes later, looking a bit disgruntled. Percy figured she had wanted to be the first to complete the exam. He used play such games with his classmates at Hogwarts. Who was the first to finish? Who could write a paper the fastest? He used to think that finishing first was a sign of intelligence. But as he’d gotten older, he’d realized that taking his time with his work was a sign of maturity and wisdom. After all, the quality of the work was far more important than winning a silly race. 

So Percy stayed in his seat and reviewed his answers with the time remaining. There were only a few others that stayed to the end with him, although they appeared to have lingered out of necessity rather than patience. One witch looked disheveled, her hands twisting at her hair, and another wizard appeared damp with sweat. Or tears, Percy couldn’t tell. They filtered out into the hall where the other test-takers were waiting. The two who had finished first were arguing over a couple of questions, and they’d created quite a debate. 

Percy didn’t join. Instead he grabbed his portfolio from the locker and checked it for any messages. The Ministry knew he was taking his test today, but there were still a couple of work-related messages that had appeared inside - questions about the Minister’s meeting with the court, a few requests for paperwork, and a couple of messages wishing him luck, including one from Minister Fudge himself. 

Percy felt a flush of pleasure at the notice. (Yes, his name was spelled wrong, but Fudge was notoriously bad at names.) The personal note meant that Fudge was indeed considering him for position of Assistant. Now, all Percy needed, was just to have passed the bar. 

He took a seat on the benches along the wall and responded to what questions he could while he waited for the proctors to tally the scores. it only took half-an-hour, and then the door to the lecture hall opened. There was a rush and a minor traffic jam as the other test-takers raced inside. The results would be posted on the blackboard, and Percy felt a wave of nervousness. What if he hadn’t passed? What if the Minister had wished him well, only for Percy to have to re-take it? There was no harm in retaking the exam, of course. Plenty of barristers and government officials did. But Percy had never failed a test in his life.

....Divination didn’t count. 

He got up, hands clutching his portfolio to his chest and slowly walked into the room. He logically understood that he hadn’t failed. He logically knew he’d done well, very well in fact. But what if he’d somehow mixed up his answers? What if he’d forgotten to put his name on the test? What if - ?

The other wizards and witches were crowded around the parchment posted on the board. Some of them were celebrating. Some of them were swearing. All of them turned as he approached, and he saw a myriad of emotions cross their faces as they looked at him. Some were openly envious. Others looked impressed. Some gave him congratulatory smiles. 

“There he is!” the proctor said, stepping forward, his hand outstretched. “It’s not every year we have someone achieve a perfect score. Congratulations, Mr. Weasley.”

Percy automatically shook his hand, his eyes going to the parchment, and there it was. His name at the top, and beside it, a 500, a perfect score. He felt a relieved, incredulous, proud smile spread over his face. 

“With that score, you’ll have your pick of law firms,” the proctor said. “Might you consider Bolgers and Fawcett?” A card was slipped into his hand.

“He’s not going into law,” one of the test-takers said. “He’s in government. Senior Assistant to the Secretary.”

“I know,” said the proctor. He gave Percy a sly sort of smile. “Just in case you’re looking for something more lucrative.”

Bolgers and Fawcett was one of the wealthiest, most powerful law firms in the Wizarding UK. Percy knew the starting salary was easily triple what he was making now. 

He shook his head. “I’m quite satisfied with my current position, thank you.”

“Not if you’re taking the bar,” the proctor said. “You’ve got your sights set a bit higher. Well, when you tire of life as a public servant, let us know.”

“Thank you.”

The proctor left and Percy accepted more congratulations from the test-takers, some given more graciously than others. He responded with his own, and then once he was able, he slipped away, back to the Ministry. He still had work to do. 

He did divert by the Ministry’s owlry to jot down a quick message. I passed the barrister’s. A perfect score!

At another time he might have written more. He might have written about how rare a perfect score was, and that less than a hundred people had ever achieved a perfect 500 in the history of the exam. He might have written about the proctor trying to poach him for Bolgers and Fawcett, or about the test-takers recognizing him. But he knew by now that such additions would only be taken as arrogance. It seemed unfair to him, that only his boastings were considered prideful. In truth, Percy may have been boastful as a child, but he’d been forced to speak out about his achievements because no one else seemed to recognize them, or understand how significant they were. He’d grown up insisting on his own merit, celebrating his own accomplishments, and because of it, he’d been labeled prideful. He’d tried to be quieter about it lately, but it seemed even small comments on his success was enough to considered bragging. 

“Where shall I send it, sir?” the postmaster asked.

“The Bur -,” Percy cut himself off. He remembered the last time he shared such news with his parents. They ignored the message. They were unimpressed. No, worse than unimpressed. They were disapproving. 

His siblings had been happy for him though - they’d gotten him a gift for his office. And his parents had seemed apologetic over Christmas. He could try to reach out again, see if the fences had been mended. 

But if they hadn’t... Percy swallowed hard. It had hurt, when no one knew about his promotion, when his mother and father had kept it secret, like they were ashamed of him. It had felt like he’d done something wrong. It had felt like he didn’t belong. If it happened again... Percy didn’t think he could bear it. 

“Charles Weasley,” Percy said instead. “The Dragon’s Repast, Romania.”

“Very good, sir.”

Percy left, feeling slightly easier at his decision. Charlie wouldn’t ignore the missive. Charlie wouldn’t disapprove. Percy could imagine him, getting the owl and reading the message, and letting out a big whoop of joy for him. Charlie might even tell his friends about it - how his younger brother had gotten a perfect score on the bar exam. And the next time he came to visit, he’d insist on taking Percy out to celebrate. 

Percy nodded. That was enough. As long as he had Charlie, it would be enough. 

-----

(So, I have more head-canon about Percy, but it doesn’t really fit into my fic. I thought I’d plot a bit here on tumblr because I didn’t think it was hefty enough for Ao3, and it was just meant to be a little drabble, a tidbit, a snippet. But it doubled in length and then turned a little angsty at the end. So I may have to put it up on Ao3. 

For those folks confused, this is my interpretation of Percy Weasley from my fanfic series The Code, found on Ao3 and FFN. It’s not really about Percy, but Draco Malfoy and Bill Weasley.)

[daggerzine]

Sunday Runners.....the Corvair interview.

The music of Corvair fell into my hands recently thanks to Heather Larimer, who makes up one half of the band. The Portland duo, comprised of Larimer and her husband Brian Naubert (and drummer Eric Eagle for the recordings) haven’t been around for too long but being together a lot the past year or so gave them plenty of time to work on songs. I was a big fan of Larimer’s previous band, Eux Autres, and wondered if they were still around (see the first question) so was anxious to hear Corvair. I really liked what I heard. A healthy dose of all things 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s and not quite new wave, note quite indie rock but 100% deluxe. The S/T record, which was released in February, was a co-release between their own label and WIAIWYA label in the UK.  Read on and find out the history of the band, where they’ve been and where they’re headed. Oh and make sure you listen to their music.

 Heather and Brian and Brian and Heather 

Tell us about the end of Eux Autres. Why did that band end?

It actually has not officially ended. While Sun is Sunk was coming out, we left SF because it felt like that city as we knew it was dying—all the artists we knew were moving out, and I moved back to Portland and Nick to LA. Then I had a baby and then Nick had a baby and then soon we each had another baby. With 4 little kids among us, it became really hard to fly back and forth to work on new material. We tried it for a couple years and then one day we calculated that at our pace, the record we were making would take 5 years. So we just kind of gave each other permission to prioritize other projects. Nick is working on some songs I truly love right now. They’re a real gut punch.

 …and about the beginning of Corvair. How/when did the band form?

We had known each other for many years and then we got married three-ish years ago and suddenly neither of us had other musical projects going on. So we kind of shrugged and said, what if we worked together? We would sing in the car or while cooking or whatever so we knew our voices sounded great together. Then it was just a matter of figuring out what sort of project it would be. We went into the studio with a session drummer (Eric Eagle) in late 2019 and then a few months later, the pandemic suddenly gave as a LOT of time to make progress on the tracks. So the creative center of the record was defined in a weird apocalyptic bubble. But it was helpful to have that break with reality as we knew it, because we’ve both made a lot of records, and I suppose that could have somehow blunted our ambition or our edges. But we just hit the “fuck it” button and gave ourselves over to it completely. We were very nervous to mix, because no one else in the world had heard it, and we thought it was great, but we also could have been in a shared hallucination. Really, we’d be the last to know.

 The debut....

Who came up with the name? I have always loved those cars.

Brian’s mom drove a Corvair with a hole in the floor. They would drive it on the special outings to the beach, the weekend adventures. So it was a very romantic car, and the name is just very nice to say. It makes you feel good. Both of us had been in bands with names that were a nightmare to tell someone  in a crowded club, or really anywhere (Eux Autres and Ruston Mire). You’d have to repeat it 3 times, then explain it, and then they just kind of shrug with pity. We vowed to have a band name anyone could understand the first time.

 Did the WIAIWYA label approach you about releasing the record (or co-releasing it)?

John had approached Eux Autres right after our second record and so we did an EP (Strangled Days) with him and then we were on his label ever since. Late last summer, I posted a picture of Brian and I holding the CD Master on my Instagram and John said, what the hell is this? And then I emailed him the record and he wrote right back: “It’s RAD Heather!” I’m not sure if he was making fun of me by saying “rad”--probably, actually. I think I used to say it a lot. But he immediately wanted to put out the record. Nick and I had some really great times in the UK and Europe thanks to John and he has a very devoted audience, so Corvair felt it was a great fit for us.

 Is the Pink Room your own studio?

Yes, it is literally a room in our house that is pink. Brian has been making records at home for most of his life, since he was about 14. And despite having done fancier stuff like making studio demos for Columbia several times and recording with Peter Buck in a nice place, he really prefers to work at home because he likes to spend a ton of time on overdubs—they’re not even really “overdubs,” more like a second wave of writing for him. And I had found being in the studio very stressful in the past because I’m not a technically proficient musician and that makes me self-conscious. So I was grateful to be in the privacy of my own home, in my soft pants.

 Single from last year

Did the songs on the album come fairly easily or did you feel like you labored over them?

The initial writing of them came very easily and fast. Brian did a couple of 30 day writing challenges where he wrote several songs a day. But then once we laid down the basic tracks, we spent a ton of time building them and experimenting with them. We actually recorded probably twice as many parts as we ended up using. And half of what we did in the mix was kill things. In fact, we cut five totally finished songs from the record. 

 Tell us about making those videos? Were you freezing?

Consistently very very cold, yes. Ironically, the one in the snow (Green Mean Time) was the warmest because we were properly dressed. But the ocean ones were just brutal. Especially Sunday Runner. The video was Brian’s idea, he had a very specific vision and made it sound all easy: OK, just go down to the beach and dance for 90 seconds. And I was like, huh?!? And then I kept falling down and got absolutely soaked to the bone. When we finished shooting, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet and he was steering me down the beach with his coat wrapped around me and these little kids were staring horrified, like, Mom what’s wrong with that lady?

 Prior to the pandemic had you played out live much? Done any tours?

We have never ever played live as Corvair. Which is just wild. We will likely be recording this next album before we even have a line-up for performing. But we are very excited to play together. Likely this fall. Hopefully John will bring us to England soon so we will have a great excuse to get it together.

 What are your top 10 desert island discs?

 Brian:

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie - Low

Nada Surf - Let Go

Brian Eno - Another Green World

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of The Moon (yeah I know, but I don’t care)

 Heather:

GBV  - Alien Lanes

Kinks  - Village Green

Elliott Smith - Either/Or

Radiohead - Kid A

Ruston Mire - Steady Jobs and Flying Cars

  Who are some of your favorite current bands, local otherwise?

HL: I’m interested in the Dry Cleaning juggernaut. And I really dig Deep Sea Diver, Cloud Nothings, Courtney Barnett, Big Thief/Lenker. And then, I’m also very ready to embrace a new angry band whose music makes you think your stereo is broken when you play it--I’m taking suggestions.

 BN: Alt J, Elbow, Doves, Metric, Foals, Snail Mail

 What’s next for the band?

HL: We are recording this summer and trying to put some sort of live outfit together ASAP. Trying to stay out of the ocean for a while. 

 Closing comments? Words of wisdom? Final thoughts?

Thank you so much for having us! 

 www.corvair.bandcamp.com

[dwaynepride]

introduction: a comprehensive guide of anything and everything relating to sharing a bed with dwayne pride. i’ve been writing about this sort of thing for a while now, so i’m basically the closest thing to an expert of fucking our resident cajun agent that you’ll ever find. and i’m about to share that wisdom and knowledge with you. half-headcanon, half-character breakdown on how dwayne pride lays pipe.

table of contents

assumptions you should forget right now

wooing: seducing the agent

swallowing your pride

what he likes and when he likes it

doing the do

aftercare - it’s important

conclusion

assumptions you should forget right now

dwayne is a dom. i don’t know where people get off thinking dwayne is a dom but that’s just plain wrong. he’s a switch, at most. a service top. he’ll take charge, if only to ensure his partner’s pleasure. but he gets the most pleasure out of following your orders and knowing that he’s enough for you.

he’s been around the block. i’ve read some fics in the past that said dwayne slept around at least a couple times after his divorce with linda, and i staunchly disagree. dwayne loves sex, but he needs that emotional connection to even think about sleeping with somebody. there needs to be love and trust built up over time, and he’s not going to sleep with someone just because he thinks they’re attractive.

he’s shy and will need to be lead into fucking. dwayne doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t want to do. he’s confident in himself, his looks, and his abilities. he’s vanilla, but that doesn’t make him a shy little virgin who’s too afraid to rip the clothes off his lover.

wooing: seducing the agent

don’t approach him with the sole goal of getting him into bed. dwayne won’t respond well to strong flirting and immediate interest. i know he’s handsome and polite and the perfect partner, but dwayne’s needs more than just desire.

become his friend first. earn his trust. get to know him and his hobbies and how he feels about certain things, and he’ll give that kind of energy right back. dwayne would be more than happy to learn about you and what you love and are passionate about. it’ll make him fall that much more in love with you.

dwayne is very physically touchy. it won’t be hard or weird to suddenly put a hand on his shoulder or give him a hug. but don’t go too fast too soon. dwayne shows his affection through physical contact, but some touches are reserved only for his lover. refrain from giving cheek kisses or brushing your hand over his back until he’s expressed interest.

let him know that you trust him. that he means a lot to you. dwayne will be more willing to let his more intimate feelings grow if he knows you’ll feel that same. he’s not about to let himself fall for someone he can’t have.

as easy as it is to get close to him and be affectionate, dwayne would be reluctant to cross some boundaries, especially professional boundaries. his friends - his team - means a lot to him. so dwayne would be a bit scared to ruin something as good as your friendship and trust. at this stage, it’s okay to push it up a notch; kiss his cheek, get in close. grow that chemistry and let him know that this is a thing worth fighting for.

start flirting, just a little. light teasing and inside jokes are the way to go - dwayne will respond amazingly well to light-hearted moments (plus seeing his smile is always a win.) touch him just a bit more. but one of the more important things is remembering that dwayne is human, too. dote on him more. worry about him the way he worries about everything else.

at this point, it’s too terribly easy for dwayne to blur the lines between being friends and more than friends. because just friends don’t stick around the bar, talking hours after it closes. and friends don’t accidentally kiss because the moment seemed right.

swallowing your pride

this part of the guide details key parts of dwayne pride’s body. sensitive areas, discussions of cock, and reactions to certain stimuli.

sensitive areas

the nape of his neck, right where his hair touches his skin. very sensitive when touched. induces goosebumps and whimpers when kissed.

insides of his thighs outta be stroked and kissed while administering blowjobs

bites and kisses on his chest while getting fucked are important

his ears should be kissed or nipped while riding dwayne. either are acceptable, depending on the mood you’re in

squeeze his hand tight when he cums. the contact isn’t as “sexy” as the others, but it’s important for dwayne’s emotional well-being

how he packs his punch

dwayne pride’s cock is generously big. nothing that can’t be handled with some foreplay. still, it’s longer than usual, and if you happen to bring up that fact to dwayne, he’ll get very embarrassed. kinda proud, but mortified.

when hard, dwayne’s about eight inches. average girth with a deep shade of reddish-pink. as touchy as he is, dwayne’s cock can be extremely sensitive. it won’t be much of a challenge to get him into a whimpery, needy state just by stroking your fingers over the veins of his cock. following them up to the head and giving him slight, feather-light touches.

he’s the type of guy who just leaks pre-cum everywhere. that’s both a good and bad thing, because there’s nothing stopping you from a little impromptu handjob. curling your fingers around the heavy weight of his cock and seeing just how sensitive he really is.

and when dwayne pride cums, he cums a lot. but there is a difference in volume. shockingly, he’ll cum more from a handjob or blowjob than he would with regular sex. there’s no real reason why - maybe his body just knows you deserve a bigger reward for all the hard work you put into making him cum. in his older age, he’ll likely only cum once a session (maybe twice, if he isn’t tired). stretched out over a whole day, you can only expect a couple more orgasms, even if they yield little to no semen.

dwayne pride takes care of himself and what he eats. as a result, his cum would taste better than most. maybe he could stand to drink a bit more water instead of coffee, but the taste isn’t a total turn-off for those who enjoy that kinda thing.

what he likes and when he likes it

dwayne has a more vanilla taste in sexual acts, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t certain things that turn him on a bit more. there’s a list of kinks he enjoy while being a service top, and while being a more submissive partner:

service top:

cumming inside you (with a condom)

lingerie

pregnancy / breeding

light bondage (on you)

blindfolding (on you)

oral

edging / over-stimulation

dry humping

body worship (on you)

submissive:

hair-pulling

praise

pegging

thigh-riding (on him)

edging / over-stimulation

marking

face-riding (on him)

clothed sex

doing the do

with dwayne pride sufficiently wooed and comfortable crossing the line with you, it’s time to finally get down with him. after a nice dinner and good music (dwayne has this need to romance his partners), he’s ready to take things to the bedroom. what now? follow these guidelines to ensure the best possible love-making our boy can offer:

let dwayne do the undressing. let him go at his own pace, so he can enjoy the process of opening yourself to him. he takes this as a huge sign of trust from you. and dwayne will look you in the eye, just to make sure this is what you want. just smile and he’ll keep going.

you should do little things, though. unbuttoning dwayne’s shirt for him is a sure way to get him riled up. and unbuckling his belt? forget about it. and if you should feel so bold as to push his shirt off, make sure to take a moment and kiss those broad shoulders of his. the noise he makes will be worth it.

he’ll want to be in charge. he’ll want to do all the work to make sure you’re enjoying yourself. a big tip with fucking dwayne pride is to give him some pleasure when he’s least expecting it.

when he’s kissing your neck? stroking your hands down his chest. he’s busy absolutely lathering your tits with attention? snake your hand down and press your palm against the bulge in his pants. that sudden spark of pleasure that he doesn’t expect is what dwayne craves. not asking, simply having it happen.

he’ll beg, just a little. little choked back groans and whimpers of your name to let you know he needs more or he’ll lose his mind. dwayne will help himself to pushing his fingers knuckle-deep between your thighs, but all good turns deserve another. pull his cock out of his pants and start stroking it.

not quick. not hard. just enough to finally get dwayne moaning and bucking his hips. sometimes, it can be a challenge to get him to break through his walls. but when you got him like this, making him feel so good, dwayne can’t help but swear on the heels of his moans.

don’t be surprised if dwayne wants to go down on you. that’s one of his favourite parts of fucking, and if it’s something you like, he’ll happy eat you out for hours. but for the first time, he’ll want to make you cum just once on his tongue and fingers, so i suggest you let him. while he’s having his own fun, you should tug on his hair a little. cry out his name and tell him how good you feel. dwayne craves that kind of praising, knowing how much you’re losing your mind.

now it’s time for the main event. dwayne’s go-to position is missionary. he’s vanilla and that position has worked just fine for him in the past, so he’ll default to it. he’ll kiss up your body, sweet and slow, before finally penetrating. dwayne will start slow and let his body pick the rhythm, so it’s up to you whether you want him to go faster or slower.

keep in mind that he’ll do basically anything you need him to. faster, harder, slower, more more more. just communicate with dwayne, and he’ll be sure to take good care of you.

he will tell you when he’s close to cumming, and if you’re not close, he’ll get you there. dwayne is a staunch believer in that a man shouldn’t cum before his lover. make sure to touch him while he cums, because physical contact is so important during this time. hold his hand, kiss him, grip his shoulders tight, anything. just tough him and don’t stop, even after he collapses ontop of you.

aftercare - it’s important

likely the most important part. dwayne relies on that mutual affection that comes after sex. it’s an emotional time, and he’s an emotional guy. he’ll be damned if he’ll ever turn over and go to sleep without some sort of aftercare towards you. but here are ways to take care of this loveable agent:

talking: communicating after sex would be a big thing for him. dwayne doesn’t need affirmation that he was good or anything. it’s more-so that he wants to know if you liked it. or if he may have accidentally hurt you somehow. just be honest and that’ll put him at ease. in fact, some light teasing and jokes would do wonders.

cuddling: absolutely a must. even if you aren’t the most physical person ever, something as simple as laying your head on dwayne’s chest will be enough. it makes him feel like he’s protecting you, in a way.

singing / humming: ask dwayne to sing or hum for you. it’s an intimate little thing that he’ll love to indulge for you. he’ll do so with a little smile on his face, pleased that this little act makes you happy, and that he can do it for you.

listen to music: probably the easiest thing to do. prop open a window, don’t talk, and just listen to the music on the streets below. dwayne would enjoy it immensely - putting him even further at ease, like everything is just right in the world.

conclusion

this has been a quick, easy-to-digust guide on fucking dwayne pride. i’m glad you stuck with me through this analysis, and i do hope this helps you with any future fucking you may find yourself in. take this knowledge and do some good with it.

[angrylizardjacket]

you wrote ‘don’t forget’ on your arm // 2 // charlotte&lola (penny&jupiter)

Summary: The Dirt.

A/N: @misscharlottelee and @local-troubled-writer . warnings for attempted suicide, overdoses, drugs, alcohol, swearing, angst, and everything else in The Dirt movie. Very Long.

Part 2 of 2

----

Lola’s holding Nikki’s hand. Jupiter’s sitting behind them in the theatre, with Seo on one side and Penny on the other, with their siblings, and various band members’ children filling the row beside them; the band themselves, and the cast, sitting in the row in front.

And Lola’s holding Nikki’s hand in her white-knuckled grip, nervous. She doesn’t speak. The lights go dark. Jupiter doesn’t know quite why they do it, but they take Penny and Seo’s hands too.

“The 1980s. The worst fucking decade in human history...”

Jupiter’s never gone out of their way to learn much about their family history; it’s never done them any favours, and they don’t wanna read about how debauched their family was. Nikki, technically their stepdad, was a base player, and that’s all they cared to know. Love of their mom’s life. Whatever.

“That’s Tommy, our drummer. He makes a lot of bad choices.”

It’s with a huff of amused resignation that both Jupiter and Penny make a noise of agreement, trying to detach themselves from watching Colson as Tommy go down on a girl on the big screen in front of them. After hearing them, Lola casts a quick glance over her shoulder, giving an amused smile.

The first thirty seconds gives Jupiter more information than they’d ever wanted to know about their extended band-family, though they knew Mick was their favourite for a reason.

So it comes as a shock to see Nikki’s life laid bare in the first few minutes, so quickly after that. About shitty boyfriends his mom had had, how he’d framed her for abuse, how he’d been put into the system, how he’d met Lola.

“And then there was her, the only person I’d met who could top my psycho mom origin story.” The film crash-cuts through two second clips of a young Lola arguing with her mother, and her mother shoving her into a candle, followed by young Lola screaming in a hospital bed, her in court, and finally her glaring down at a young Nikki in a group home. She kicks him hard in the shin while he’s asleep on a sofa, contrasting the voice over. “The only person in the world who seemed to give half a shit about me.”

And Jupiter finds theirself with a strange, hollow feeling in their chest; five minutes and they know more about their stepdad than they’d ever bothered to learn in the before.

“Dude! Fuck yeah! Finally my turn!” Tommy’s voice rings out, and the scene shifts.

Jupiter knows Tommy’s story almost too well, but Penny’s grip on Jupiter’s hand turns suddenly painful.

“If I knew you were gonna make me late, I wouldn’t have invited you at all!” Tommy groans as he steps into the kitchen, and the camera whip-pans around to show Charlotte, all dressed up, looking as ready to go out as Tommy, contrasting the rest of the family.

“I’m never going to say no to your mom’s cooking,” Charlotte tells him with half a bread roll in her mouth, before smiling sweetly at Tommy’s mother, thanking her.

“Just keep him out of trouble,” his mother tells her with an amused smile, and Charlotte stands, taking another bread roll and heading to Tommy.

“She can try.” Tommy snorts, clapping her on the back, “come on, I don’t wanna miss them!”

Charlotte, as portrayed by Josie, is bright and cheerful, sarcastic and more earnest than the rest of the band put together, and Penny’s hand in Jupiter’s is trembling as Tommy’s voiceover explains that Charlotte’s his cousin, and the only person in the family who ‘wasn’t a square’.

Nikki and Lola meet Charlotte and Tommy that night in the diner, and Lola’s bleeding, same as Tommy, and Charlotte asks if she’s dead. 

“Charlie’s the only person I’ve known who could talk Lola out of a bad idea,” Tommy’s voice over explains, just as Lola, in the diner, grimaces and spits a mouthful of blood.

“Fuck you,” Lola glowers at Charlotte.

“And Lola’s one of the few who could lead her into one.” Tommy adds candidly in hindsight.

But then Tommy’s twirling his drumsticks, and Lola goes from looking murderous to intrigued; she and Nikki share an impressed look, and the scene cuts to the one of Mick’s introduction.

Surprisingly enough, Jupiter wasn’t shocked by any of Mick’s story, they’d spent a lot of time with him in their early 20s, he’d taught them guitar.

But then there’s Vince’s introduction, his first jam session with the band, and the naming of the band. In the background, there’s Lola, always there, always unexplained, just around, just like Charlotte, the two chatting, forming a fast friendship in the background.

And then the first gig rolls around, the scene starting with Lola kicking in the greenroom door.

“We had only three things that gave us an edge that night;” the voice over of Nikki informed the audience, “our look, our killer sound, and the best roadie on The Strip.”

“House is looking pretty full,” Lola told them, making a beeline for the bottle of JD sitting next to Nikki, who was applying his makeup. Tommy pauses his drumstick twirling to fist pump. “Nice pants,” she tells Vince, who was stretching in a pair of white leather pants, grinning.

“They cost my girlfriend like eight hundred bucks.”

At the end of the scene, she gives Vince a kiss, for luck, followed by a wink, and Jupiter, who knew this part of their mother’s story, still feels a sense of discomfort. This wasn’t just gossip anymore; their mother’s history is public knowledge, now more than it’s ever been.

The fight that ensues during the band’s first gig shows Lola get punched in the face by someone in the crowd, and later, once everyone’s been tended to, Charlotte and Lola can be seen by the bar at the back of the crowd, and Charlotte’s checking if Lola’s nose is broken, both women laughing at the situation. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but neither Jupiter nor Penny does, and later letting out a gentle, fond ‘oh’.

A montage follows, of the band getting their act together, writing music, playing at pubs, their names on the marquee, making a backdrop, always with Lola and Charlotte somewhere in the background.

But then Vince’s girlfriend catches him with Lola, and all she does is laugh, while Vince chases after his girlfriend, butt naked. Charlotte takes the photos of the band with the giant hot dog, and she and Lola help dye Tommy’s hair, and generally indulge in the band’s bastard antics.

It’s clear from their body language that the women are close by the time Zutaut is introduced and the band is playing the Troubadour. Charlotte’s given his business card while Lola pack’s up the band’s gear after a gig, while the rest of the band debauch themselves in the crowd.

A record deal comes, then the introduction of Doc McGee, though Mick pauses the film for a moment after Doc is introduced by punching out an unruly guest at a house party.

“This didn’t actually happen. Doc never came to this filthy shithole. That guy? That happened, but it wasn’t Doc.” The scene rewinds to show Lola knocking out the guy, throwing him out of the party. “When she wasn’t fucking or sucking the rest of the band, she did a pretty good job as our security detail, and now, we had the cash to pay her for her,” he cleared his throat pointedly, “services.”

The scene shifts, however, to show Doc McGee and Doug Thaler outside a door labeled ‘STAGE STAFF ONLY’.

“Doc we met at the Santa Monica Civic Center after a show...”

But when we come back, it’s to the version of the story where Doc is the hero in the apartment party, being introduced by Zutaut.

Charlotte is there for their first stadium show, giving them all a pep talk while Lola's nowhere to be found. Tommy makes a point of hugging her tight enough to lift her off the ground.

“You keep me sane, Charlie.”

“Get off me you grub; wash the vomit out of your fuckin’ mouth!” Charlotte exclaims in protest.

Which is a sharp contrast to the reveal a few moments later, after following Zutaut asking after his girlfriend, to reveal Vince and Lola tag teaming said girlfriend. When they emerge, the rest of the band admonishes the pair of them, but Lola just rolls her eyes. When she steps away, Charlotte punches her in the shoulder and Lola blows a kiss to her.

“I found out many years later, and it hurt. Really bad.” Zutaut tells the audience in an aside, “bottom line is, don’t ever leave your girlfriend alone with Motley Crue, ever! Because they will fuck her.”

Another montage, of band rising in fame, posing for magazines, of meeting a then-relatively unknown Guns ‘n’ Roses, including shots heavily implying Charlotte’s burgeoning romance with Duff McKagan, and Lola’s equal parts mocking and supportive.

“How many chicks have you fucked so far?” Nikki asks, reclining, fully clothed, by the pool, enjoying a day off during their tour with Ozzy Osbourne.

“Three,” Vince tells him, eyes still glued to the ass of the girl who had just passed them all.

“No, not today, on the tour,” Nikki enthuses, and Vince’s expression lights up.

“Oh man,” he laughed in a dazed, high sort of way, “I lost count after that gangbang in Salt Lake City.” He chuckled, and by Tommy, Charlotte makes a noise of disgust, “prude.” Vince rolls his eyes at her where she’s sitting at the back of a chair with Lola on the end.

“She’s just mad ‘cos she left her own piece of ass in LA,” Lola snorted, and Charlotte shoves her from the chair.

“Did you ever stop to think that the slobs who fuck you guys probably fuck every other band who comes through town?” Mick cuts in with his characteristic monotone.

Charlotte sticks her tongue pointedly out at Lola, still sitting on the ground.

“I’m a one-band slob!” Lola turns her nose in the air as the rest of the band laughs.

“We’re like pussy brothers with the whole scene!” Tommy exclaims.

Ozzy Osbourne imparts his words of wisdom, snorts ants, and it’s followed by a montage of the band absolutely raising hell, setting fires, smashing up hotel rooms and throwing entire hotel rooms worth of furniture out of windows. There’s cocaine and nudity in abundance, intercut with a remake of the Looks That Kill music video, which featured both Lola and Charlotte.

Then, with the song rising in intensity, it cuts from Vince meeting Sharise, to Charlotte catching Duff cheating on her, and smash-cuts to Charlotte wielding a baseball bat.

“Sucks to suck!” She yells from where she’s standing on top of his car, and smashes his window.

“Fore!” Lola yells, delighting in the mayhem, and takes out his side mirror with a golf club.

And then they’re introducing Razzle; Penny, beside Jupiter, goes still.

His introduction is tongue in cheek and fond as he receives a blowjob under a table when he first meets the Crue.

“I fucking -” the shot cuts mid sentence and his eyes follow a brunette who passes in front of the camera, “ - love America.” And the camera pans out to reveal it’s Charlotte, with freshly died hair and a bloodthirsty expression. He stands, away from his band on the sofa in Vince’s house in the middle of a party.

He follows her to the bar, which Lola’s behind, eating cocktail onions and talking with Charlotte, who’s still mad about Duff.

“Hello, Miss Lee,” he says with a hint of nervousness. Lola watches the interaction with wide, amused eyes, and Charlotte turns, about ready to kill, but she sees Razzle’s earnest smile and unique look, and lets herself relax a little; he’s not Motley Crue or Guns ‘n’ Roses coming to bug her, but she knows him, if only because of Tommy.

“You’re always this proper, Hanoi boy?”

“The rock and roll scene in the eighties has never been known for being a breeding ground for soulmates as much as it had been for various venereal diseases,” Tommy’s voice over cuts in, “but fuck if Charlotte and Razzle weren’t the exception.”

There’s tabloids upon tabloids telling the audience about the hottest new couple, about Hanoi Rocks drummer and Motley Crue’s... well, they always call her something different, never anything nice. 

“Every day blurred into the next back then,” Nikki told the audience over the visuals of a montage of various concerts, of Lola walking in on Charlotte and Razzle getting busy in a dressing room, of drinking and debauched parties in mansions, of Tommy meeting Roxie, “and yeah, maybe we started to loose ourselves, but fuck it, we’d never been happier.”

“Move in with me,” Vince tells Sharise. And the film smash cuts to -

“Marry me,” Roxie tells Tommy, and again, a smash cut -

“I’m fucking pregnant.” Charlotte whispers to herself in a dirty bathroom stall.

“Well,” Nikki’s voice over mused, before it cut to a shot of Lola and Nikki furiously tearing at each other’s clothes in the back of a tour bus, “we’d never been happier.”

After that, they’re on tour; Tommy’s parents meet Roxie, and subsequently Roxie calls Tommy’s mother a cunt since she’d said ‘Roxie’s like Lola; a groupie’. 

The next scene has a tonal shift, a moment of levity as it’s the band meeting Charlotte’s baby, and in the theatre, all grown up, that baby finds herself with tears in her eyes. The band in the film loves her, as does Hanoi Rocks, who also get to meet her, and Charlotte and Razzle look so fucking proud.

They play God Bless The Children Of The Beast over a montage of baby Penelope growing up, of Charlotte finding herself at home while her various families - blood and not - had to go away on tour. She and Razzle call on the phone but there’s a party happening at his end, and she tries to call Tommy but he doesn’t pick up.

Razzle falls asleep in the studio, looking at a photo of Charlotte and Penny from his wallet, clearly still thinking about them, but he’s in Finland, writing music, and Charlotte just can’t leave the life she’s created. He wants to go back to her but he’s under contract. 

Charlotte goes to visit Lola and Nikki, only to find their house trashed from a house party that she clearly hadn’t been invited to. Lola’s asleep on the lawn. Charlotte leaves without waking her.

When Charlotte calls Razzle again, his bandmate, Sami Yaffa picks up, and Charlotte starts crying, starts venting. Sami talks to Razzle about how he should see Charlotte more often, and Razzle, sleep deprived and missing Charlotte like a physical ache, asks why he cares so much.

Razzle flies to see Charlotte and they argue, Charlotte crying, Razzle desperate, both under pressure and acting irrational after not having seen each other for far too long. Penny, all of two years old, hovers in the doorway, watching as Charlotte pulls the engagement ring from her finger and tells Razzle she needs some space if he’s really going to accuse her of things after one phonecall with his bandmate.

“Have you heard from Charlotte?” Tommy’s speaking to Lola over the phone, and when she tells him she hasn’t, asks why, he hesitates. The audience doesn’t hear the rest of what he says, but Lola’s reaction says it all.

“In the years that have passed since this moment, I have become a much different woman, have learned to let go of my anger, have made peace with my past,” Lola’s first and only voice over segment is delivered with a soft, sad tone, “but I don’t think I’ll ever forgive the universe for taking Charlotte from us.”

“What did you do? What did you fucking do?!” Lola’s bawling as she confronts Razzle, who seems clueless, bewildered. Lola punches him in the face. “I know she left because you fought; what the fuck did you say to her to make her leave?” Lola shoves him, and he stumbles back, apologises even though he doesn’t quite know what he’s apologizing for. Lola grabs him by his collar, hollering, “she’s gone! They can’t fucking find her, and now she’s fucking gone!” 

It hits him, the expression on his face changing to devastation, and Lola dissolves into tears, the fight leaving her as she cries against his shoulder.

“Charlotte?” His voice breaks, tears tracking down his cheeks, expression blank and shocked.

“It was never his fault.” Lola’s voice over murmurs.

Lola’s high at Charlotte’s funeral, clinging to Tommy and swaying, and Razzle’s holding baby Penny, who’s asking after Charlotte.

Penny’s full-on crying in the theatre, her face against Jupiter’s shoulder, who’s shocked and shaking beside her. Seo squeezes their hand, and then extracts his hand from theirs to pet Penny’s head. 

Charlotte’s off her fucking face in the next scene, the party at Vince’s house, almost catatonic against Nikki as he snorts another line of coke. Tommy sees Heather Locklear and somehow she’s the most beautiful, most stable girl at the party, and she’s mean to him, and doesn’t say sorry for his loss, and he might be in love. 

Razzle, who’s melancholy drunk, even though it’s been months since Charlotte’s death, goes with Vince to get more booze, even though they’re both drunk, and it all happens so fast, the car crash, making Penny an orphan all within five minutes of screen time. 

“You can’t take her! You can’t fucking take her from me!” Tommy’s drunk and hollering at the older couple who’s picking up Penny; Razzle’s parents.

“Get your shit together, Thomas; if she stays with you people, what happened to- to Nicholas will happen to her, I know it will,” Razzle’s mother says with tears in her eyes, “we can’t let that happen.”

“She’s my niece! She’s Charlotte’s kid! She’s all I have left of her!”

They show Vince’s trial, and Penny’s baby photos from her time back in Finland, while Nikki narrated how he and Lola hadn’t even visited Vince in prison, as they’d discovered the wonders of heroin. Together, the drug had made their love invincible, as long as they never touched the outside world. But they bring Tommy in, and Mick’s tired of them all, and by the time Vince gets out of prison, newly sober, their lives had gone to shit. 

Doc tries to fire Lola, but she laughs hazily and tells him he doesn’t have the authority, so Vince tries to fire her because she’s on heroin, and Lola takes a swing at him, but she misses and topples to the ground.

He calls her a mess and he’s right.

Lola and Nikki get better at acting like they’re not out of it, and Tommy gets his shit together with Heather, and by the time they’re working on their stage show for the Theatre of Pain tour, they’re in some sort of haphazard order. There’s something sad in Lola’s eyes when she tells Tommy that he and Heather are cute together, but they cut away to Vince and Skylar before it can linger too long.

Tommy mentions how he misses Penny when he sees Skylar, how she should be with him, with family, how he’s finally gotten his shit together. 

But then they’re on tour, as narrated by Tommy over Girls, Girls, Girls, his debauched days away from Heather, despite their engagement. He mentions fucking Lola as:

“Two am, renew my mile high club membership by falling back into bad habits... and again at three am, and again at five in the bathroom of the strip club... I’m so fucking weak.”

Nikki sees his mother again after years, and even Lola can’t even bring him out of how hard he’s spiraling this time, self isolating, overdosing after Tommy’s wedding to Heather. Lola’s not at the wedding, but Penny is; she’s a flower girl and Tommy looks ecstatic. 

Instead, we see Nikki flatline in the back of the ambulance, we see Vince watch the news reporting on his apparent death, and cut to a shot of Lola finishing a bottle of JD and letting herself fall into the pool on her and Nikki’s property.

Cutting back, Vince tells his daughter that he loves her, and he holds her tight, before a realization comes over him, and he tells her gently to go back to sleep.

The paramedics revive Nikki with enthusiasm, and then we see Vince running barefoot across Lola and Nikki’s lawn, before seeing her illuminated and floating in the pool. He dives in after her, and pulls her out, performs CPR while crying, telling her that he can’t lose her too. Spluttering to life, Lola, soaking wet and still undeniably drunk, tells him he should have left her in there. The scene fades to black as Vince cradles her to his chest.

Nikki tells the audience that he’s hit rock bottom, that he’d start to make a change to his life... right after he goes back to heroin again.

The band, and Lola, go to rehab, and little by little things start to get better. More than anything, they’re trying, Nikki’s trying to enjoy feelings again, but Lola’s uncomfortable, and everyone’s on each other’s nerves; without the drugs and alcohol, it seems like the music isn’t sounding right. 

“I forget what happened,” Mick tells the audience in an aside, “it’s all a blur. But with Dr Feelgood we got our first number one album,” and the visuals change to that of their various concerts over The Same Ol’ Situation, “and I think we played something like a billion shows to a billion people in a billion cities all over the world, and it was our first tour without Lola, as she was off being having another kid -”

“First kid, you senile fuck,” Lola’s voice over interrupts with annoyance.

Tommy tries to call Heather, but she doesn’t pick up. Vince tries to call Sharise but she won’t let him talk to his daughter. They’re all getting burnt out, it’s clear to see.

“Guys, I really fucked up,” Tommy sits down with the band at an after party, looking conflicted, “Heather’s been all weird and distant, and...” he hesitated, “I’m pretty sure Lola’s kid’s mine.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nikki snaps, leaning forward, teeth bared, “no fucking wonder Heather’s been weird, Lola’s only -”

“Ten weeks along, I know -” and Vince looks almost physically ill.

“How the fuck do you know the kid’s yours?”

“Because,” Tommy hesitated, “it was right before Nikki OD’ed.”

“Right before your fucking wedding,” Mick spat, and Tommy at least had the decency to look guilty. Nikki looks genuinely hurt.

“Fuck you, man, you’ve already got the wife and fucking kid -” Nikki growled.

“Look, I’m not fucking proud of myself!”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Vince ends the argument by announcing bitterly that he needs a fucking drink, that he’s sick of not having any fucking fun, and the whole band deteriorates from there.

They get back to LA; Sharise has left Vince, Heather leaves Tommy, Nikki comes home to a heavily pregnant Lola, but looks at her like he can’t believe she’d betray him.

“What if we gave this a shot,” Tommy asks Lola when she comes to him in tears, and she sniffles, blinks in confusion, “us, me and you and Penny, and baby Lee, what if we gave it a real shot?”

When Jupiter is born, it’s just Lola and Tommy in the aftermath, looking happier than they have in a very long while. Looking hopeful.

They call the baby Jupiter, and in the theatre, Jupiter themselves is shocked.

“You didn’t... deadname me.” They muttered quietly over their shoulder, and Lola gives a small, sad smile, shaking her head. Of course not.

The hope they feel in the film is shortlived, as Nikki and Tommy get into a fight, over Vince, but the tension is more than just his absence. Vince leaves the band, and the world feels fractured. They get a new lead singer, but it doesn’t feel the same, and when Tommy gets home to see her making dinner with Penny helping out, and Jupiter in a bassinet on the kitchen island, his smile is a little sad, a little forlorn. Lola smiles at him, but something about it isn’t quite right. 

Vince sees the band do an interview without him, and while it’s disheartening, it’s overshadowed by his daughter in hospital. He tries to tell her it’ll be okay, but it’s not working, she’s terrified and teary and young, and it’s breaking Vince’s heart.

When the band’s not together, they’re falling apart.

Skylar is dying, Mick’s in pain, reminiscing about the band’s early years, and Nikki gets the rights back to their music as their record label drops them.

“This is what you wanted,” Zutaut tells him, “are you happy?”

Nikki doesn’t answer.

Tommy asks Lola if she loves him. She answers; of course, but there’s something sad about it.

“And Nikki?”

“I’ve always loved him,” her voice is quiet, and Tommy gives her a sad smile.

“I know, Lols.”

The scene cuts, and Nikki’s sitting alone in his backyard, drinking a beer.

“I had our music back, but Zutaut was right; we were better before. Now I just had to get the band back,” he paused in his voice over, and there was a knock on a window near where he’d been sitting. Looking up suddenly, wildly, the camera reveals Lola, looking both nervous and hopeful, “but first I needed her back. The first person I’d given half a shit about.”

“Lola.” He says in the scene, getting out of his chair, voice disbelieving. Lola nods, steps forward, smiles.

“I’ve missed you.”

Then Vince loses Skylar, his whole world falling apart as Sharise sobs, and Nikki goes to visit his father’s. Frank Ferrana is dead, died on Christmas day, and so he leaves, goes back to where Lola’s waiting. 

He needs the band back, and he goes to Tommy first.

“Hey man,” Tommy opens the door, exhaling a lung full of smoke.

“What I did at your wedding,” Nikki starts, swallowing hard, “I didn’t...” he fumbles through his words while Tommy stares him down, waits for an apology, “and... and with the whole thing with Lola, I -”

“What’s up, Nikki?” Tommy grumbles, taking another drag of his cigarette.

“I was really fucking selfish, and I shit on something that was important to you, both times, and I am really sorry.” He explains, sincerity clear in his words.

“I know you pretty well, Sixx, so I kind of get it,” Tommy sighs, before adding, “and it’s okay.” He pauses, before grinning, “but could you say that last part one more time for me?” He snickers.

“Don’t fucking push it, T-bone.” Nikki rolls his eyes with a grin as Tommy laughs, and invites him inside.

“I’m really sorry about... about Lola.” Nikki adds, a little guilty as he steps inside.

“Yeah,” Tommy puts on a show of being a little disappointed, “I’m pretty sure she’s gonna end up the one that got away.” He muses, and Nikki apologises, again, much to Tommy’s delight, “nah, man, it’s all cool, you fuckers have been in love since you were sixteen; I know she loves me, but it’s never gonna be the same.” He gives Nikki a good-natured shove.

There’s no hard feelings, and Jupiter meets Nikki - Uncle Nikki - with delight. 

Tommy and Nikki find Mick after his surgery, pick him up to go find Vince, and with gentle words they get the blonde back. Nikki’s got a speech, because he’s always got a speech, about how they’re brothers in arms, about how their friendship means more than any fucking band, and when he apologises about what happened to Skylar, Vince breaks down. No-one can blame him.

The last shot starts with Lola, a few months pregnant and holding a clipboard, knocking on a door that says Nikki Sixx, calling his name.

He opens the door, smiles at her, and gives her a kiss before she goes to get the rest of the band, one by one, as Home Sweet Home plays. They walk to the stage, the four of them, grinning, back in action, back at home. They walk onto stage, and Nikki gives a smile to the camera.

In loving memory of Charlotte Lee and Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley.

The credits rolls, and the theater bursts into applause, Jupiter and Penny clinging to each other and bawling. 

“You did good, Penny, you did so fucking good,” Jupiter tells her, before moving back, and turning to see their mother, with tear-stained cheeks, watching the pair with pride in her eyes. Without hesitation, Jupiter leans forward to hug their mother tightly, both sobbing.

“I love you, Jupiter,” Lola murmurs against her shoulder.

“I love you too, mom.”

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Hiiiii!! I’m here to humbly request my weekly sentences.

🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟

❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒

YAY! Here we go!

45 for 🧟:

---

Pressing forward, into Buck. Like Buck might crack open and envelop him. And you know what? Buck wants to. He leans back into the couch, letting Eddie chase him with his mouth, until he’s leaning right over him. Practically straddling him. Buck can feel Eddie’s bulge, hard through his pants, when he leans against Buck and his brain sort of glitches. He’s never wanted to feel that before, but now that he has? Holy shit? His own dick is straining against his jeans, equally as aroused. This is a fucking revalation. 

“God,” Buck pants as Eddie moves his lips from Buck’s mouth to Buck’s jaw. “You’re so hot.”

Eddie chuckles. Buck feels the vibration of it against his throat, along with Eddie’s stubble. He likes that. He likes stubble. 

“You figure out the answer to your question from earlier yet?” Eddie asks. 

“I’m figuring something out, alright,” Buck confirms. 

Eddie pauses. “So this is good?”

“This is so good,” Buck confirms before kissing him again. 

They make out for a little while longer. Then things start to get handsy. And, honest to god, Buck doesn’t even start it. It’s Eddie. All Eddie. Like Buck’s body language and verbal encouragement has fueled him with a sort of confidence. And Buck loves it. Loves the hand slipping under his shirt, tugging it off. Loves the way they’re grinding against each other. It’s all building towards something. Something Buck didn’t expect when he woke up to thieves ruining Eddie’s truck this morning. But something he’s anticipating a lot now that it’s on the table. 

“Wait,” Buck pants when Eddie finally gets the shirt off from over his head.

Eddie freezes. Like Buck is about to remember he’s supposed to be straight and toss Eddie off of him. 

“I was serious before,” Buck says. 

“About what?” Eddie asks. 

“You should really take the big old master bedroom with the king sized bed tonight,” Buck says. 

It takes a moment for understanding to register in Eddie’s eyes. “Well, I was serious, too. Who wants to sleep in all that by themselves?”

---

66 for ❄️:

---

“You’ve never thought about trying to resolve it?” Eddie asks. 

“Of course I have.” 

“And?” Eddie presses.

He’s not sure why. Maybe because the thought of fixing things with a sibling is lower stakes and less scary than  fixing things with a child. And they both have children to fix things with. 

“Hard to fix things with someone in the throes of addiction,” Charlie says. 

“Right,” Eddie says. “He’s still not sober?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie admits. “He wasn’t for a long time. And then, last I heard, he was. But that was years ago. If he is, well… That’s the longest he’s ever kept it up.” 

“Damn,” Eddie sighs. “That’s tough.”

Charlie nods. 

“Do you want closure?” Eddie asks. 

“It would… Yeah. It would be good.” 

“I think you should try,” Eddie says. 

“Words of wisdom, huh?” Charlie mumbles. 

“Just an idea,” Eddie shrugs. 

“Maybe I’ll fix things with my brother when you tell that best friend of yours you’re in love with him.” 

Eddie gapes. “What? I didn’t tell you that!”

Charlie smirks. “But it’s true.” 

Fuck. 

“Well, that’s not fair…” Eddie scowls. “Plus, he has a boyfriend. There are different rules than for estranged brothers.”

Charlie hums thoughtfully. “Alright. Tell you what…” 

“Uh oh,” Eddie mutters. 

“This guy, he loves you right?” Charlie asks. 

“I didn’t tell you that, either,” Eddie says. 

“You’ve described the dynamic,” Charlie says. “That’s close enough.” 

Eddie groans. “Okay, yeah. I think if he knew I was an option, he would… He would want that option.”

“Well, then alright. I give it two more months with his boyfriend, max.” 

“What?” Eddie scoffs. “Man, you can’t know that.” 

“I’d put money on it. I bet it’ll be even less.” 

Eddie huffs. 

“You talk to him. I talk to my brother. Deal?” 

“Fine,” Eddie grumbles. “Whatever. You’re wrong, so it doesn’t matter.” 

---

48 for 🚒:

---

“It’s not!” Buck insists. 

“Well, both those things are easily resolved,” Hen’s voice adds. “You know he’d never choose Tommy over you.” 

Hmm. That’s considerably harder to deny. 

“Do we know someone else dating a Tommy?” Buck asks. 

Bobby sighs. 

He lifts his radio to his mouth. “Guys, this is an open channel.”

Buck’s face starts burning. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Eddie’s gonna know he heard. About… Well, about something that might not be about him even. But the whole gay thing… Obviously he didn’t want Buck to know. Why didn’t he want Buck to know? Hen and Chim and garden shears guy can know but not Buck?

There’s a long peel of silence from the other end of the radio. 

“Gossip on an open channel,” Paulson sighs, shaking his head. He’s missing the plot a little. 

“Uh, Cap,” Chim eventually cuts in. “How much of that…” 

“Enough,” Bobby replies, wincing a little.

“And I’m guessing that…”

“Yep,” Bobby confirms. “He heard it.”

No, no, no. Don’t imply about him. Don’t do that. 

“Okay,” Hen cuts in. “Traffic’s bad tonight, Bobby. It might take us longer getting home from the hospital than usual.” 

Buck looks out the window. Traffic isn’t great. But it’s also not… Unusually bad? It’s Los Angeles standard? 

“Understood, Hen,” Bobby replies. “No rush.”

No rush? They’re firefighters. What’s going on?

Bobby lowers his radio and turns back to Buck. 

“That wasn’t about me,” Buck says again. 

[har-rison-s]

rest with me

ENDGAME SPOILERS! 

request: Hello sweets i hope you’re good :) Can you write a Bucky imagine with avenger reader? After coming back Bucky needs a place to stay and reader invites him to stay with her at her summer cabin by the lake and they fall in love? Tony’s cabin was amazing so i thought it would be really romantic with Buck <3

A/N: THIS IS HELLA LONG, I APOLOGISE!! I LIKE IT BUT I NEVER DO THIS!!! First time writing Bucky in an imagine request and apart from my story. I feel very responsible, haha. Hope I did the love of my life good. I still have not recovered from Endgame and I want to cry all day. I'm so emotional all the time. This and my story gives me some sort of peace, a bit of it. Hope you guys enjoy and that this meets your standarts, love! Happy reading!

main masterlist

mcu masterlist

warnings: talks of death, grief, nothing else really :)

“Listen, it's really no trouble. It's been getting more lonely with every year.” You say, trying to convince the former soldier that he wouldn't be a bother at your summer place. It used to be your parents', but since they passed away years ago, it was left to you. And you'd go there in times when you felt lonely, creative or a bit broken. It was your true home. Not the small flat in DC or the team's compound, that is now in pieces. 

Bucky sighs, but smiles. You even think there's a chuckle coming from him, but then again - you must have dreamt it. “Alright.” He says, nodding. “I'm just... not the easiest person to be around.”

You nod your head. “It's completely understandable to me. Trust me, I won't mind.” You say with a smile. “Taking what you've had to go through, I'm just happy to help.” You offer and Bucky nods. “So, maybe you need help with packing?”

“Oh, we're going now?” He asks with raised eyebrows. 

“You got somewhere else to be?” You tease, winking, and Bucky laughs. He looks beautiful when he does. Partly because it's so rare, his smile and laugh. Makes it quite unique, which once again makes it beautiful.

“No, I haven't.” He says. “Are you ready, though?”

You shrug. “All my stuff, all my life's there, so there's really nothing more than a small bag that I can bring.” You admit and Bucky nods.

“Yeah, I don't have that much, either. Clothes and books.” He says and you nod. 

“I'll... wait for you outside, then? The old, grey car. From around your time.” You give him a warm smile and Bucky chuckles again. 

“Sure, sure. I won't be long.” He promises and you nod. The man walks past you to his room and you shamelessly watch as he does. He's a very interesting person, and you hope living at the cabin with him will allow you to find out more. Even if he is damaged—that doesn't mean he's any less of a person. There's still a lot to find out. 

You sit in the car and it feels like hours that you do. Your mind drifts off back to Tony, to the battle. Where everyone teamed up and got revenge on the big titan who took away half of humanity. Many were lost when he did, including Peter, Bucky, Sam, Wanda and others. It hurt a lot. And there was so much anger.

Now there's even more of anger in you, but since there's so much, you only feel numb. All the pain is still there, even though you screamed and cried when you saw what condition Tony was in and what he had done. Steve, crying as well, had to hold your arms by your sides and calm you down, even though it was so much harder for him to keep calm in the moment. You knew how much Tony meant to Steve, and that was a lot. But you hurt, too. Tony was someone you looked up to, saw as an example, as an idol. He had grown into the man you knew to respect and admire. He was your motivation most of the time, motivation to keep going and working on yourself and to even do something any day, do something for yourself. Losing him—

“Where have you drifted off to?” You hear a voice that brings you out of your daydream that you see with wide eyes, the look in them lost and wandered-away. From his point of view, it looked quite eerily. Like you were scared of something, almost as if you were paralysed from fear or something else. You shake your head and look to the voice, Bucky, to your right. 

“I—I was, um...” you furrow your eyebrows and look down at your hand that starts the car in a few seconds, “just thinking.” You finish your sentence. Weakly, but you do it. Something had to be said.

He nods. You turn to him, the lost look still in your eyes, and he offers you a smile. Comfort. You hum and give him a fainter smile in response, the car engine revving under your hands and feet. You clear your throat and turn the car around so that it'd be easier for you to drive out of the parking lot. 

You don't know what to say to Bucky during the car ride, so at one point you fidget with the radio device. You're nervous because of your earlier drifting-off, and that you didn't know for how long you were like that, or for how long he saw you looking off. You've probably freaked him out now. 

You built it in with Tony's help a long time ago, and the radio does look strange in the whole 1940s car interior, and it's almost horrid. But it's not a bother, taking that the stations work perfectly. Though it takes time to find one that plays good, or at least, bearable music.

“Are you feeling lost?” Bucky asks, his voice soft, no trace of harsh or sudden. It's like his words just slid in between the engine and the radio sounds. You turn your head to look at him quickly and blink a few times, trying to prevent yourself from blanking out. 

“Yeah, um, I guess I am.” You say quietly. 

“Sorry I asked.” He immediately apologises, but you shake your head. 

“It's okay.” You say. “You're just curious about the impact, right?”

Bucky chuckles slowly and quietly and looks away from you, watching the unwinding road in front of you both. “Must be.” He says. “Don't want to touch any rough spots, though, doll.”

Doll. Goodness, he still uses that sweet name. Probably made the girls back in the day blush deeper than you right now. So he still has the same lexicon in his head that he did about 80 years ago.

You smile, praying for the slight shade of pink to disappear. No one's ever called you a sweet name like “doll” before. Everybody just says “baby” or “babe”, which was, yes, nice to hear, but didn't have the same effect as “doll” does.

“We all have those.” You say. “Some have them closer to the surface, some further. But we all learn how to deal with them eventually.” You state and look at Bucky before taking a turn to the left. You are nearing your summer house already, only ten to fifteen minutes to go. “We have to.”

Bucky nods. “Wise words.” He says and you chuckle.

“Wisdom's a thing of mine, as they say.” You reply, taking the compliment. “I may not be smart or intelligent like—” Tony was, you want to say, but you stop speaking at the thought of his name, “like most of our teammates, but I'm wise emotionally and in life, in general. Sometimes it really comes in handy,” you start to admit, “but with a job like mine... it mostly doesn't.”

“Don't say that.” Bucky exhales. “Now, I think, there's a new life ahead of you. Of me, of everyone.” He says. “So you can do whatever you want with it. Make you skills useful, maybe.” He tells you, turning to look at you. You only give him a smile and look back at the road.

“You're a wise man, as well, Bucky.” You tell him, patting his hand for only a second. His eyes show exhaustion, a bit of lost, a bit of loss, and a bit of dealing with how everything is. Denial? Acceptance? Not really any trace of them in his sea-blue eyes. “You'll find peace.” You say and his eyebrows rise higher at that. You just nod. “I know you will.”

“Thank you.” He replies and you smile wider. “For giving me a place to live, as well.”

“I'm doing it from the good of my heart, I promise. My pleasure.” You give him a playful grin and he chuckles. 

As the two of you drive closer and closer to your cabin, you start to tell him about how and where everything is in the house and the territory around it, where the closest grocey store is, what else is there besides the cabin, what about water and electricity, how the house runs during all the seasons, etc. 

Whatever Bucky had in mind the cabin looked like, what he saw when you drove up completely amazed him and took him by surprise. “Wow.” He marvels and you smile wide. Bucky immediately unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car, just to see and feel that what he sees is truly there, is real. Cause after all this time, it doesn't feel like it could be real.

You stop the car and shut it off, and get out as well, trying to catch up to the wandering soldier. He immediately walks towards the small lake, more like a pond, past the house itself and the garden. You have to jog a little to reach him, but he stops at the pond and so do you. A meter or so between you two, you look at him. His eyes are big and he seems overwhelmed by what he sees. 

“It's so beautiful here.” Bucky says, looking at you. You nod. 

“The sunrises and sunsets are the best here. And when it rains - oh, God. It's just magic.” You say and stick your hands into your back pockets. “Let's get settled and then we can walk around so you'd... know where everything is.”

Bucky nods, but doesn't move. He's still looking at the lake, beyond it and at the forest, at the skies. He’s admiring the view that could be his forever to see. He could get used to it, and maybe he should. Even though anything might happen, a war again, for example. And this would be lost or ruined, what’s in front of him. Why am I always so dramatic?

You don't want to speak, so you just stay there, waiting. You can hear birds singing, the top leaves and branches of the trees moving against each other from the small impact of wind. No other sounds, no other people or cars. Peaceful. Just what he needs, and you as well. Though peace and quiet have never felt peaceful and soothing to you. City sounds make you sleep better, but so does fresh air.

“So, this is my bedroom. Used to be my parents', hence the size of the bed.” You say, opening a mahogany door to reveal a bedroom with a king-sized bed, a desk and a wardrobe. It has a cozy windowsill, as well. Pillows and a baby-sized mattress. Bucky nods.

“You read here?” He asks, looking at the windowsill. You shrug. 

“Sometimes. I mostly paint or draw upstairs.” You reply. Bucky looks at you, surprised, and you smile. “I'll show you later.” He nods and you walk to the door that is next to your room. “And this will be your room. Used to be mine, but... I got bored of it, and my parents' room seemed more appealing to me.” You chuckle, remembering how your mom laughed at the reason for your request. “That was when they started to move out.”

Bucky can almost feel you drifting somewhere, to memories of your past, your parents. “Perfect sheets.” He says and you look at the bed that hasn’t been touched for years. There’s a picture of fish in the sea as a bed sheet and you laugh, your hands hiding your face.

“I’m sorry!” You shriek. “I always forget to take them off.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’ll give you different covers, just hold on.”

“No, there’s no rush. Fish isn't bad. I’ll probably even sleep outside since it’s nice weather outside.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re sleeping here after I change the sheets and take away any other embarrassing relics.”

“No, seriously, do you have a spare mattress or pillows, maybe blankets?”

“You’re serious.”

“I just said I am.”

“Alright, Barnes. Come with me.”

Bucky did sleep outside that night. And when you found yourself too awake because of worries about him, you took your pillows and blankets and went outside to join him.

It was a good temperature, indeed. Warm, no wind, no rain or other liquids falling from the sky, no fog. Cricket sounds an owls hooting. The moon's rays breaking through the trees and shine down on the grass. A fairy tale. Bucky lays in the green meadow between the lake and the garden, on an old mattress and pillows under him and a blanket laying over him.

He heard your footsteps and turned his head to make sure it was you. He turns back to staring at the lake when he knows it is. He smirks. “So you gave in.” Bucky says and you smile to yourself, putting the pillows and blanket down in the grass next to him. 

“No, my mind was running in circles, worried about you.” You admit and sit down, Bucky turns his head to you. “And the little snippet of what mom used to tell me about wendigos living not so far from here always gives me terrible fright.”

“Wendigos?”

“You don't know?”

Bucky shakes his head. 

“Well, a wendigo is a creature, I could say, that was once human but since it started to eat human flesh, it turned into something else. Not human, not a dog or a wolf, not a ghost, but something between all of those.” You tell him. “So, they're like tall figures with a crooked shape that lurk in the forests and look for fresh meat. When they find some, they lure you in by imitating a voice of your friend or family member. Sometimes they can even imitate the sounds your pet makes.”

Bucky shivers. “That's some grade-A horror.” He says. 

“I know.” You say. “Now I've really scared myself and want to go inside.”

Bucky laughs. “We can go, if you really want to.” He says. “Never would have thought you'd be scared of a 'scary' bed time story, considering all you've seen and fought.”

“But wendigos are real, too.” You say. “They might not be as terrifying as everything else is, but damn do I get scared. There are so many stories of people encountering them, it's terrifying.”

“Well, don't listen to them, then, if they scare you so much.” He says and you only chuckle, batting your eyelids, trying to get your mind's hallucinations out of your sight. 

“Mind if I sleep with you tonight?” You ask very shyly and quietly. Bucky gives you a warm laugh that seems to last longer than any you've heard from him. 

“If it's only for tonight.” Bucky says and looks over at you. You turn your head to him and smile lightly, realising what he means. He still needs alone time, he doesn't want to be emotionally squeezed up. He needs his space and that includes spending nights alone. 

You share a look of knowing and understanding for a while and then you look at your own hands. “For now, I can say, that you're able to keep me on the ground.” You admit quietly. “I guess it's because you know how I feel.” You say and look back at him, though you can barely see Bucky's face in the dark. “I don't want to be alone. And I know that's all you want to be, but...”

“Yeah, I know.” He says. “We work differently but also very similarly. I completely understand you, so, for now, let's keep the sleeping-in-one-bed thing only for tonight.”

“Yeah, okay.” You nod and chuckle, realising how childish you must sound by being afraid to sleep alone. “I'm sorry, I can sleep alone, it's quite... inappropriate, now that I think about it.” You cringe, pinching the bridge of your nose. You give a nervous laugh to ease the air.

“Don't worry about it.” Bucky says. “It's not childish. I don't mind. You're just... a bit disturbed, right?”

You nod, laughing. “Yeah.” You respond. “Disturbed might be the word. Or lost, as you said before.” You say and look at him shyly, a hand behind your ear as you do. Bucky gives you a small smile and nods. 

“We must all be now.” He says and focuses back on staring in front of him. He sighs deeply. “But we're not alone.” 

You nod at that, wise words for the moment. Something to hold onto. You sigh and lean back into your pillows. 

“You didn’t show me where you paint.” Bucky surprises you after a few minutes of silence and staring off. You look at him and furrow your eyebrows, realising after a moment that he's right.

“I promise it's not that cool in the dark.” You say to him and he laughs. “I'll show you tomorrow.” Bucky nods. You sit still for a moment and then stand up, feeling already a bit cold and deciding that being inside would be warmer.

“Tired?” He asks, but stands up as well.

“Not a trace.” You admit, both of you gathering your pillows and blankets. Once you start to walk back towards the house, the breeze really hit your skin and you feel a bit chilly. You rub up and down your own arms slowly before reaching the door and swinging it open. You let yourself in and keep your hand on the door so that Bucky could come in. He gives you a small smile. 

Once you're both in bed, it doesn't feel awkward or forced or full of unwanted tension. It feels natural and very mundane. Your hand is under your cheek and under your head as you lay on your left side, your other hand tucked into the midst of the left one's articulation. A sleeping position you know you used as a child. No matter where you were sleeping, it was always a favorite of yours.

Bucky's sleeping on his right side, his hands laying next to him on the covers. Your backs are facing each other and you don't really say a word. And the silence is driving you a little insane, you can't fall asleep. The noises in your head get too loud when you're in silence. That's why you're a busy city and noise kind of person.

You turn around and Bucky shifts. It must be like one in the morning right now. “What is it?” He asks.

“I can't fucking sleep.” You voice in an angry whisper that makes Bucky chuckle.

“Sorry.” He says when you turn your head to him. “Your voice just sounded like... out of a cartoon or something.”

You don't fight the smile that breaks through. “Are you sleepy?” You return the question. Bucky shrugs, as much as he can in the position of laying on his back. 

“Sort of.” He responds, unsure. You know he'd feel bad if he said 'yeah, i'm tired, i'll sleep' cause then he'd leave you to anxious thoughts and wendigo stories to deal with alone, and that'd be exactly the opposite of what you wanted. So he settled for what he said and turned to look at you.

You sigh quietly, looking at him. “I haven't slept since... since the funeral.” You admit, looking out the window to your left that show you the trees, the moon and the stars. “I know it's been two days since, and I've tried to sleep, but I can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see...” You sigh hard, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Why am I even telling you this? I don't...”

“It's okay.” He assures you. “I'm listening.”

You sigh again, tired of doing so, but having no words to replace the exhales with. “I see the battle and I-I see Tony...” You start to say, and your mind drifts away to the exact moment you, for some damn reason, remember best of all, “and I couldn't look away then, so it's hard to force my eyes to open.” You shake your head. “It's not like we were close or anything, we were probably the farthest from close in all the team's relationships, but... I don't know what to do now. I don't know how to live without him.”

Bucky releases a sigh that sounds more like a soft grunt and looks up at the ceiling. “I know how you feel.” He says. You turn your head.

“I know Steve means a lot to you. I see it.” You tell him. He shrugs.

“Yeah, well, the punk was gonna leave me someday.” Bucky says nonchalantly and you laugh. 

“You knew he was going to do it?” You ask, and Bucky nods. 

“Yeah, we talked about it.” He says. “At first, I was like, 'well, what about me?' But he explained the time-travel thing—that I still don't understand—and, well... In another timeline, there's James Barnes living a happy life with no trauma, no blood on his hands, no nothing. Marriage, kids, pie baking, petting dogs, wrinkly skin, all that.” He tells you and sighs, contently. “I'm probably dead in that universe right now.”

You laugh. “Relax, sarge.” You slap your hand on his, which makes him look at you. “You can still have it all.” You assure him now and he looks away. “You can. No mad titans coming our way soon.” You pat his hand and withdraw from him. 

“Don't think I could find someone I'd be comfortable with, in all ways.” He admits quietly and you glance at him. “I'm not just anyone.”

You want to say 'I don't think I could find something to do now', but you don't. Coming from you, that'd be quite selfish and emotionally dismissing towards his feelings. “I think you'ill find someone.” You say, then, turning to lay on your right side, facing Bucky. “Everything comes with time. Eventually, you will find someone.” 

He hums, and you hear a smile on his lips. “Are you getting tired?” He asks then. You nod.

“All that talking wore me down, I guess.” You say and Bucky chuckles. 

“Glad I could help, if I did.” He says and you hum. 

“Yeah, you did.” 

As you fall asleep, you wake up as well. The same position, the same spot. You don't know what time it is when you wake up, and you've got no clock on the wall or watch on your wrist. 

Bucky's not laying next to you, as you had wished quietly to yourself. But you do find a note. 

'Too curious to sleep, so I went for a walk. Sleep deep, princess.'

He's written the words down on a sticky note and stuck it on the pillow he slept on. His fish-printed covers are neatly tucked under the pillows he used and into the bed. You chuckle.

That morning you had a shower by which time Bucky had successfully returned to the house and you both made breakfast together. It's been like that every morning since then. After a month or so, you started to fight over who'd make breakfast this time. From then on, it was a challenge - who would wake up first would make breakfast and the one who woke up after would clean the dishes.

Multiple silly fights and arguments came from that, fights with eggs or flour or bacon or spatulas or pillows, literally anything that could be easily thrown the other person's way to prove your point or to stop the other from entering the kitchen. Most of the time you ended in facing each other closely with ingredients (a/n: i almost wrote 'ingredience' lmao sdjfnsdjh) smeared all over your faces and daring looks in both of your eyes. 

The first few times it happened, you'd just laugh it out or tickle the other, but with time, it grew stranger. Constrictions and doubts started to cloud your mind and it created tension. You thought you saw the questions in Bucky's eyes as well, but you were unsure. 

He was a complicated person. But it made him more interesting to you, attracted you to him. You couldn't deny it, and tried not to think of it or show it in a weird way. Bucky knew he was someone completely new to you, and so were you to him. But, while he was intrigued by you as much as you were with him, he was tired and wanting of peace. Nothing new. But there was something about you... He didn't know.

You showed him your painting room, and the two of you spent a lot of time there when you weren't outside. When it rains or there's no sun shining or mornings when you didn't feel like eating or doing anything. You were getting everything out then. Painting, drawing, tracing lines or circles, whatever it was that helped. Bucky would wake up, ready to beat your ass to the kitchen, but he'd find the door to the attic open and wander up there to find you drawing.

Sometimes he'd ask you what you want for breakfast, but most times he'd simply sit somewhere in the corner or next to you and watch you drawing. He wouldn't ask any questions, he'd let you talk if you wanted to. And sometimes you didn't talk. The days that started with you painting or drawing were one of the bad days. You honestly didn't want to bring Bucky down with your bad mood, but you couldn't help to sometimes feel everything at once or nothing so intensely that it was overwhelming. And you had no strength to be a person those days.

The best part about Bucky, you think, was that he was so understanding. He has probably felt every bad emotion there is for a person to feel and it allows him to see everything from your point of view. Every feeling, every doubt, every emotion. Sure, you weren't brainwashed and made a weapon for a whole century, but you had your pains, too. And Bucky understood every one of them.

That is the main reason, you think, for starting to feel something for him. You hadn't met anyone so willing to understand, so empathic and so caring towards you. In the team, it was all “don't die” or “be perfect on each mission”, the closest you were to anyone was Tony, and even that was only on an 'acquaintances' level. Bucky truly cared, and he was there, even if you two weren't originally friends.

Bucky could say the same about you, you were incredibly caring and worried, and passionate and proud. He saw you as such a beautiful person physically and emotionally that one day it was just overwhelming and he questioned his mind for what was happening. Butterflies? Out of breath? Heart doing flips? Strange behavior. 

You knew something was up when you got the idea to paint Bucky. He's got a beautiful profile, long hair, deep eyes and just an overall beautiful face. And what his soul says through his eyes made you want to put it on canvas badly. So you sat him down in a position that could be convenient and began painting him. 

One painting turned into three variations, and those turned into many smaller portraits, and those turned into many, many, many sketched portraits, drawings and even smaller paintings. You also painted and drew his eyes separately, as well as his hair. 

He thinks that's when something inside him started to pull him towards you. When you started to paint him. Less words were exchanged, cause suddenly the both of you grew nervous around each other and make-believe boundaries made you question everything you wanted to say to the other. He honestly loved watching you paint, but he couldn't just say it to you.

Your everyday life consisted of making food, spending time in the forest, gardening, grocery shopping, job hunting, painting, occasional working out and training, visiting others or others visiting you. Sam came by when he wasn't busy doing his Captain America duties. Bruce visited with pies and new experiment stories to tell. Sometimes Tony's former 'body guard' Happy forcely drove Peter Parker to visit you two, his visits were always enlightening. He had lost a lot, and been through a lot, but there was still some of that annoyingly bright enthusiasm in him that made you and Bucky laugh.

One time, about four months since you and Bucky had started to live in the house together, you drove to visit Pepper and Morgan. You wanted to see them both badly, and Bucky agreed to come with you, with Pepper's permission, of course. 

Where they lived was so beautiful. Your summer house could never compare. You brought something you cooked yourself and a harmless gift for Morgan, as well as a good appearance and best behavior. You practically spent the whole day there, talking with Pepper, cooking with her, playing outside with Morgan. Probably the best day you'd had since the battle and the funeral.

“How is everything over there? How are you guys doing?” Pepper asks softly, holding her cup of coffee in hand and looking at you. You're sitting outside, on the terrace, at a table, both of you drinking coffee, talking and watching Bucky and Morgan interact. She's very shy of him, since she doesn't know him at all, but she's warming up slowly.

You can see Bucky was good with kids back in his time, and the old 'habits' start to come back, and it makes you smile. He's trying his best and they're both laughing, so it's alright. You thought Pepper would be cautious towards Bucky playing with Morgan or him even being here, but it is the opposite. She doesn't have any bad thoughts about him, she knows what's happened and she knows what he's done, but she's not like the others. She knows he's not the man HYDRA made him to be.

“We're good.” You respond to her question. “Well, great actually. But there are bad days, of course.” You explain further. “We don't really do much except for cooking and walking and job-hunting.”

“Find anything interesting?” Pepper questions. You chuckle. 

“Certainly.” You nod and you both smile. “There are a lot of options. But I'm just... afraid to go out there. To live such a... such an ordinary, regular life. It seems unnatural of me.” 

“It might at first, but you can't spend your whole life doing nothing.” She says. “Of course, you've made a big difference and left your mark on the world already, but now's the time to think about your... I don't know, childhood dreams and what you've always wanted to do.”

You smile at her. “Thank you, Pepper.” You say. 

“Did you have a childhood dream?” She asks and you take a moment to think about it. Then you laugh, realising what your first one was.

“Yeah, I did, um,” you start to tell, “I wanted to be a surfer, actually.” You admit and you both have a warm laugh together. “Doesn't seem that attractive anymore. But um, I think I just always wanted to help people. And everyone has told me I'm wise in the emotional sense of things, so I could be a therapist, a psychiatrist. One of those.”

“I wish you the best of luck, then.” Pepper says and you nod. “What has he got in mind?” She asks, looking at Bucky and Morgan.

You shrug, genuinely not knowing the answer. “He hasn't told me. And I never asked, either.” You admit. And you sigh, realising you probably should have asked. “We haven't really talked about it.” You admit and decide that you'll do that when you drive home or when you are home.

There isn't a car other than yours driving on the road when you're heading home. Must be normal for a Sunday evening. Bucky's awfully quiet, hasn't said a thing since you got in the car. Something's wrong, you can feel it. And you're not going to spend the rest 50 (at least) minutes of the car ride home in awkward silence.

“Something the matter, Buck?” You ask. He looks at you for a moment, and then looks back out the window. The view ahead is dark, dark trees and dark skies. The sun has set already. Bucky sighs. 

“Can't say no as much as I'd like to, cause you'd know that's not true.” He says and you nod.

“I agree to that.” You say. “So what is it?”

Bucky doesn't say anything for a while. He's trying to put what he feels into a few words. “I was, uh, playing with Morgan,” he begins, “she's so lovely.” He admits. You nod, agreeing to that as well. Bucky takes a deep breath. “Thought about having kids of my own,” he says and stops for a second that gives you the chance to process his words. What is he going to say next?, “And then my thoughts went back to Tony, and I, uh...” He looks down.

You wait for him to speak, you let him take his time. Cause whatever he's feeling, it clearly looks like it's very hard on him. 

“I never got to say 'I'm sorry' about k-killing his parents.” He finally says, and his voice is shaking. You stop the car on the side of the road quickly and unbuckle your seat belt so you could move closer to him. You hear Bucky sniffling. “Never had the chance to talk to him.” He says and you reach for his hands with yours. They're wet with tears already and you squeeze his large hands between your small ones. “And Tony lost his father and now Morgan has lost hers. And I just... I wonder if it's all my fault.” 

You embrace him in a hug and let him cry, moving your hand up and down his back soothingly. “It's not all your fault. None of it is.” You offer and Bucky lifts his head to look at you. His eyes are horribly sad and tearful, and they make you feel bad for him, feel the things he does with him. 

“You think so?” His broken voice asks and you nod. Your faces are very close to each other, but it goes unnoticed by either of you. 

“I know so.” You say and close your eyes. “None of what happened to you is your fault. I know how you must feel for not getting the chance to talk to Tony. But, uh, I think he knows.” You say. “Five years is a long time to overthink a lot of things. He had definitely come to a few conclusions.” 

Bucky looks away and then down at his hands. “I'm sorry, I'm still...” his words make you furrow your eyebrows and you turn his face back to face you, holding his cheek. Only lightly, and that's when your realise how close you really are to each other.

“You don't ever have to apologise to me for talking or crying, I promise.” You say. “You don't have to hide.” 

Bucky tries to sigh without shaky breath, but it still trembles. “How can I?” He questions and you, out of habit, move a strand of his brown locks behind his ear. The gesture makes him look at you, and he blinks once or twice to get the tears out of his eyes. 

“Don't let there be barriers.” You whisper. “Don't filter the feelings that want to come out, let them.” You say and offer him a smile. Bucky doesn't respond for a moment, but then he looks straight at you, determined eyes not so far from yours. As well as lips. 

“What if I've hid so much that I'm scared to tell someone my feelings?” He asks softly, his hands finding yours in between you both. You glance down at them and stammer a bit.

“Are-Are they a good person?” You decide to ask. “To you?”

“The best.” Bucky says and chuckles airily. Well, you're glad he's smiling. But you don't have time to linger on it too much—the former soldier's lips have finally pulled towards yours and you're kissing. You're actually kissing.

You're a bit confused at first, but then you smile brighter than the sun and kiss back, your hands on Bucky's cheeks, and pull yourself on his lap, pulling him as close to you as possible. And he, of course, reciprocates, his arms around your back, holding you as though you might slip away. 

You won't. Not for a long time. This is what you want, this is what he wants. You've found each other in the right way and at the right time, and neither of you would ever voluntarily walk away from this. Not ever. 

A/N: And they lived happily ever after in their little lake castle. Or, another episode of me not being able to write normal endings. Hope you enjoyed! Happy tears :)

Permanent taglist: @v0idbella @inlovewithmiddleagedcelebs @works-of-fanfiction @destiel-stucky4ever-loki-queen @stfxlou @ur-gunna-h8-ths @one-taylor-one-vision @empressdreams @betweenloveandfire @but-legendsneverdie @deardeacy @mavieesttriste16 @fvckyeahbenhardy @thewinchesterchronicles

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FRIEND AND THE IMPERIAL EGGS : Part 3 of 7 : MLP Fan Fiction

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FRIEND AND THE IMPERIAL EGGS

A Daring Do tale

Part 3 of 7

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)  

8927 words

© 2020 by Glen Ten-Eyck Writing begun 05/13/16

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

This is a Fan Fiction based on My Little Pony.  Canterlot, Princess Luna and the name Daring Do are owned by Hasboro Inc.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story.  They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions, provided that such things are done without charge.  I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images.  

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fictions is actively encouraged.

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Moreegg entered the Baron’s study in the morning.  There were many signs of the Baron having worked on the collection.  As he began to tidy up, he found the Baron’s cold tea only half drunk.  It was sitting out on a recent newspaper, opened to the celebripony gossip.

The teacup was weighing down a note:

Moreegg:   Take good care of the Barony in my absence. I have had a brilliant idea that can expand the collection with some of the rarest eggs ever. I must do this alone, Yoksonu, Baron.

As the mystified Moreegg was straightening the side table, he noticed an item in the Celebripony Gossip.

“The Gryphon Empire takes great pride in announcing that an Imperial Clutch is soon to be expected.  In spite of the difficulties caused by the recent civil war, a trustworthy clutch-tender has been found to care for the Imperial Eggs.”

Moreegg gazed sadly at the empty Gryphon egg case and said softly, “Please, dear Celestia, not that.”

////////////

The firing range that had been set up in the Hospital Aerie’s lowest level reverberated to the rapid roar of Daring Do’s beloved Spiderly 13 mm!  The powerful buck of the gun in hoof with each round and the smell of powder added to the delightful experience!

“Three bullseyes, the other two within three mm!” exclaimed nurse Grayyk.  “It is wonderful how you can maintain such accuracy with recoil like that!”  She held the retrieved target up for Daring Do to examine.

Eyes sparkling, Daring Do pointed to another target.  The holes in it were not as tightly clustered.  “For a so called novice shooter, you are doing really well!  That little 8 mm is just perfect for your claws!”

Nurse Grayyk was writing the tallies and times into Daring Do’s chart.  She looked up, clipping the pen back to the chart.  Her crest set to show how pleased she was, she answered, “If a student does well, it is a reflection on the quality of the teacher.  I have the best!

“Now to the pool.  I was told by Friend not to let you try laps yet. It may help you to know that the Hellbore poison did a lot of damage to your connective tissues at the joints.  You need gentle, low resistance exercise for best recovery.  She is very concerned that you recover the best, rather than fastest.”

Daring Do nodded, faking glumness.  Actually, as the warm waters closed about her, she relaxed, and began the enjoyable slow exercises that Friend wanted her to do.

////////////

Baron Yoksonu leaned back in the working chair.  “You understand how I want this done?”

“Yes, Sir.  Our field may be small but we are well known for the quality of our makeups and prosthesis.  You want a quality makeup that will be durable for up to a week.  Over it, you want a second, basically a mask of your present self.  One that will be easily penetrated.”

Shaking her head, the orange mare began applying careful layers of latex like material.  “It must be an elaborate practical joke that you are pulling.”

The Baron, considerately trying not to move, agreed, “It is indeed.  It should be quite the jest when it is done.”

Hidden within his wallet lay a simple seeming card.  It had been MUCH harder to obtain and far more expensive than the make up work, and that was not cheap.  The card was an Equestrian Railroad Security Inspector’s card.  

The picture on the card was what was being applied to him now, as the quality makeup basic disguise.

////////////

Friend was happily playing with the Eaglets, preening them and cuddling.  She was feeding them dangled strips of meat now.  They were developing exactly as her Eagle nymphs should.

She was surrounded by that delicate glow of magic that guided and protected her precious eggs and the nymphs that hatched from them.  None of these, Eagle or Gryphon, would ever become a changeling, so, she reflected, they were nymphs.

She also considered, far down in a mind more clever and devious than any who knew her but perhaps Matunen, all that she had learned of Gryphon and Pony politics and schemes as she had consumed her prey.  Those evil, plotting Gryphons had their share to contribute to her thoughts.

Found in both Grata’s mind and that of Matunen, was the detestable Baron Yoksonu and his collection.  Several of the eggs in his collection had been gathered from creatures of intelligence and wisdom.  Because of that, even Doctor Do, her Matunen, detested the Baron.  Matunen did recognize the scientific value of the collection and that had to be respected.

While serenely preening and feeding the next sweet little Eaglet, she smiled to herself.  Grata had gone along with announcing the new Imperial Clutch in Celebripony News.

Just this morning, a far flying Eagle had returned her the news.  The Baron, barely home a day, had disappeared.  All was proceeding as it should.

////////////

Grata was sharing a nest with her Empress and the Right Wing of the Throne. Their chosen consort had done his part a week ago and it was time. Soon they would produce the Imperial Eggs.  

The Empress raised her crest in frankness, “Grata, I cannot help but be worried about announcing our clutch in the Celebripony News.  This should be a State Secret.  Why is it not?”

Grata replied, “Friend, who will be tending our eggs for us, asked me to do it.  She said that it might help to uncover any remaining First Creationists and other undesirable sorts.”

Hisst, the Right Wing of the Imperial Throne, raised her crest in question, “What she is doing won’t put our eggs at risk, will it?  I mean, her magic seems so, so gossamer thin.”

Grata, crest rippling with amusement, replied, “Our eggs will be perfectly safe. Remember what happened to the traitor Arrokk, who tried to fly through it?  The staff only needed broom and mop to clean him up.  There was no shred of him big enough to pick up by claw.  The other seven that Friend gathered up and dumped at the foot of the Throne at that same time? None could resist that gossamer.

“Friend can be soft, gentle and loving.  Under that gentleness is toughness like I have never seen.  She thrives best, not by taking love, but by sharing it.  And love is the wrong word for it.  There just is not any other.  It is a subtle and very complex magic.

“Using that magic to guide the development of chicks in the egg is only one example of it in action.  The destruction of the traitor Arrokk while in flight is a different aspect of it. Doctor Do’s healing is another.  Our very existence as a species is yet another.  All of those things, together with her feelings, is what she means by loving the eggs.”

The Empress finally entered the conversation, crest raised in question, “I have been most carefully reading all of the reports on Doctor Do’s condition.  There are actually more reports on what the doctors have observed about Friend.

“They have never found her to be asleep as we understand the term.  Is that true?”

Grata, crest spread in honesty, replied, “That is true.  Friend does rest but she is always ready for instant action, if needed.”

The Empress nodded, holding her breath and pushing.  “There.  I do believe that is the last of our clutch.

“Let us take the eggs down to Friend.  I want to meet her up close and see her reaction.”

////////////

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[qqueenofhades]

breath of ash, bone of dust

So. A few nights ago, an anon asked if I could be tempted to write a Kastle Hades/Persephone AU. And, well. Here we goddamn are. I don’t know if this will show up in the tags because of the link, since Tumblr is a terrible trash website, but I had to put it on AO3 because it is 25,000 FRIGGING words.

Rated soft M. I regret both everything and nothing.

I.

The wind is blowing from the north today, and that always means that shit is going to get a little weird. Karen Page doesn’t know exactly why that is, other than that it’s drawing down the fae from the rest of New England, and growing up in a tiny, rural town in Vermont, she learned early on not to mess with it. There were always strange lights or sounds at dusk, something lurking just beyond the bend, a strict folk wisdom that if you went into the woods at twilight, you didn’t know where or if you’d come out. Don’t look a stranger in the eye, if he walks toward you on an empty road. Don’t look out your window too long past dark. It wasn’t as much as some of the places in, say, the Appalachians, where you can’t breathe without taking Them in, but it was there, those pieces of small-town lore that your city-slicker friends laugh at when you tell them. When Karen first moved to New York, it took her months to be willing to be out at midnight. Just didn’t seem worth the risk.

New York, for that matter, has a very different sort of magic: loud, grimy, haphazard, unapologetic, not easily visible on the surface but there as soon as you scratch down. It’s not like Boston, which is a city absolutely ridden with ghosts. You can’t take two goddamn steps in Boston without the scent of pipe smoke drifting from some Revolution-era tavern (plenty of people swear they’ve pounded back brewskis with Sam Adams himself, only realizing it when he disappeared at the end of the night), without the distant war-whoops of men dumping tea in the harbor, without a tinge of Victorian witchlight illuminating cobblestone streets in the Back Bay, and pretty much anyone who ever went to Harvard being glimpsed strolling across the Quad. The shadows of whalers and fishermen flit along the coast, calling in thick New England accents to bait the longlines. Someone came in shaken from a stormy night in Eastham, on Cape Cod, and reported that they’d just seen a big three-masted ship break up – well, they did, but it was the famous pirate Black Sam Bellamy, and the wreck of his Whydah in 1717. You don’t even want to know what happens in Salem. Mount Washington in New Hampshire, known for its ferociously high winds, is definitely a door to somewhere (Oz?), but nobody has ever been sure.

If she’s honest, Karen was hoping to leave all that hedge magic behind when she moved to the city. She wanted somewhere where reality could generally be counted on to run as it’s supposed to, where people scoff at superstition and don’t end up hexed for it – a place that felt grown-up, away from all the children’s stories and formless boogeymen of her youth. New York could be relied upon to be brash and abrasive and thoroughly non-magical, she thought – which, at least in the first two departments, it is. But she’s not so sure that she has escaped the latter after all. It pokes up in tendrils, curling shoots. For example, you really should put a buck in the violin case of that red-haired man who occasionally busks in Times Square station, and tends to wear green. You’ll have spectacular good luck if you do, and absolutely terrible luck if you don’t.

(Perhaps, Karen thinks, it would be easier, so much easier, if she could just blame the monsters for what happened to Kevin. And yet she can’t, and it makes her wonder if, no matter how far she runs, she will ever be able to escape the monster she most wants to flee.)

Karen has managed, more or less, to live a refreshingly ordinary life in the city, though far from uneventful. There’s been the situation with Union Allied, her old employer, and plenty of other ones. She now works as an office manager at Nelson & Murdock, a local law firm in Hell’s Kitchen that. . . well, the best word for its business practices is “idiosyncratic.” Its chief, and indeed sole, attorneys, are two lifelong best friends, Franklin “Foggy” Nelson and Matthew Murdock. They were born here, went through Columbia Law together, and have a fierce and genuine commitment to doing true public-interest work, for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of their community. Unfortunately, this does not pay many, or indeed any, bills. They’re not quite run on tin cans and string, but sometimes it feels that way.

[read the rest on AO3]

[joeybelle]

Oh, how the tables have turned - Clyde Logan x Reader

Part 1

Inspired by @clyde-prompts: “Some guys are rude and use ableist slurs against Clyde. The reader is with them, and although she feels bad about what's happening, is too scared to say anything in front of her "friends". She comes back to the bar a couple nights later to try and show him she's not a bad person. They get to know each other and fall in love”. Doesn’t fully follow the prompt

Warnings: Language, ableist slurs, general stupidity, first person point of view.

Rating: Mature

Setting: Pre-heist

AN: Please keep in mind when reading this that I’m not a native speaker so my English may be questionable at time. Also, I’m a very slow writer because usually when I have the energy to write I don’t have time and vice-versa. Any type of feedback is appreciated, even incoherent keyboard smashes. The things I tag sometimes don’t show up in tag searches so check the masterlist from time to time. Thank you <3

It looked like a dive bar and I was pretty sure it was one, but I wasn’t surprised in the least. It’s what I had expected from my friends. Maybe they’d grown up in the years I hadn’t seen them, but I was certain they still enjoyed cheap drinks and questionable company, at least sometimes.  And to be honest, I wasn’t one to complain. With my dwindling budget, I would have done anything to save a buck.

“Baby!” Jake’s booming voice greeted me the moment I stepped into the bar, the heavy door closing behind me with a thud.

If there was something I really didn’t look forward to about moving back to my West Virginia hometown was being called ‘Baby’ once again. My childhood friend, Maggie, used to call me that since we were toddlers and somehow it stuck. Before I knew it, the whole high school knew me as Baby. Hell, that’s what the whole town called me. And while it was somehow acceptable (although a bit creepy for obvious reasons) in high school, in the meantime I’d grown up and felt like it was time for the nickname to die.

My friends were all gathered around a pool table, some actively playing, others watching or sitting at the nearby table. There were quite a few empty beer bottles in front of them, and I realized that the party had started way before I’d arrived there. Somehow, this made me uneasy. It’s never advisable to be the only sober person in the bunch.

Jake, Peter and his sister Lisa, stood around the pool table, and my childhood friend Maggie a little further by the bar. There was a brunette holding onto Peter’s waist, so I assumed she was his wife, but I couldn't for the love of me remember her name, although I was sure Maggie had told me about her multiple times. The others were faces I didn’t recognize. Although my group of friends in highschool has always been pretty large, the core was always made of the five of us.

Jake looked considerably more inebriated than the rest, although this didn’t surprise me either. Maggie had told me that he had become quite the heavy drinker after they had gotten married, and that scared me. He had always been tall and well built, and right now he looked even more massive than I remembered. With his volcanic personality and rather unpredictable nature, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Hopefully, with age came some wisdom too, but judging by his glazed eyes and the stupid grin he had on as he approached me, I highly doubted it.

“Fuck me, you’re still a babe,” he interjected, giving me a one armed hug, squeezing me a little too hard, making me flinch.

“And I thought I’d finally evolved into an actual woman by now,” I joked, wiggling out of his crushing embrace.

“Nah,” he said patting me on the butt, something I really didn’t appreciate, but remembering it was something we used to do as teenagers, I let it slip. “You’re still a baby. Hey Maggie,” he boomed once again, earning some glares from the other patrons. “Look who’s here!”

“Baby!” She shrieked so loud that I was sure at least half the continent knew I was back in town. Not that anyone cared, besides the handful of highschool friends currently huddled around a pool table in this rather rural bar.

Maggie almost tackled me, hugging me so tight it almost hurt. “Oh my god, you changed so much,” she said, running her hand through my hair. “I see you prefer it more natural these days. Is that the trend in New York?” she said, and I could sense a weird note in her voice. She twirled a bleach blonde curl around her finger and went to kiss her husband. She was still the same as always: bleached hair, tiny shorts and a crop top revealing a perfect abdomen that didn’t show any signs of the three children she’d given birth to in the past ten years. But she had always been the athletic one, head cheerleader and all that, and although I envied her sometimes, I was much too lazy to try and be like her.

“I don’t think anyone cares how you look like in New York. No one really looks at you,” I replied, shrugging.

“Is that why you came back?” I always knew there was a sense of bitterness that Maggie was left with after I went to university, but I had hoped it would be old news by now. Apparently not.

Maggie and I have known each other since we were in diapers. She lived a few houses down the road and we spent all our childhood together. She had always been incredibly beautiful and bubbly and fun and everyone loved her, so it was a given that she’d be very popular. She was a cheerleader all throughout high school, got herself a quarterback boyfriend (that she later married) and because I was her best friend I ended up with the popular kids too. And for the most part I really tried to blend in. I dyed my hair and wore short skirts, flirted with whomever was available, I even tried to join the cheerleader squad, but after face planting and breaking my nose, I decided it just wasn’t for me.

However, during senior year I realized that the small town we were living in wasn’t what I wanted. I dreamed of the big cities, full of opportunities and exciting jobs and interesting people and all that. I was tired of seeing the same old faces every day, the same two bars that sold cheap booze and the same bleak future for all of us. I told her this and started applying to out of state universities.

She was hurt. I know she had imagined that we’d both live here all our lives, get married and have children that would be best friends like we were before them. She used to daydream about this when we were little, we’d buy houses next to each other and we wouldn’t have a fence, just a big garden where we would both drink our coffee in the morning. So I understand why she would feel betrayed by my departure.

But this was never my dream. I always felt like this place was too boring and that I could do so much better. So I studied hard, applied to universities and was finally accepted to NYU, and since then I lived in New York for more than a decade. However, when I was just a teenager dreaming of big cities, I never imagined how hard living in one would actually be.

“Nope,” I said, shrugging. “It’s the money. Couldn't afford living in New York anymore.”

There was no reason to lie to her, or to anyone for that reason. Finding a job in my current field was hard so I had to resort to teaching jobs for the past few years, and the pay wasn’t so good. That coupled with my student loans, other random loans and rent, left me with very little for expenses, not to mention such luxuries and new clothes and internet. I felt really embarrassed having to borrow money from my parents just to live, even though they were always loving and helpful, so when I heard that the community college near my hometown had an opening for an assistant job in my field, I was happy to come back and not starve in New York. Big cities are way less glamorous when you’re homeless.  

“It’s always the money, eh?” she said, and her eyes were a little softer, like she understood. With the current economy, she must have struggled at some point too. “You live in your old house, right? Too bad we sold my family house after my dad passed away, otherwise we’d still be neighbours,” she laughed.

“We’re not that far away. A short drive and we can visit anytime.”

“I know! I’m so happy that you’re back! Can’t wait to tell you all the new gossip!” She sounded so excited that I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I just didn’t give a shit about any sort of rumours. One other thing that I really didn’t miss about small towns: the gossip.

“Hey babe,” Jake cut in. “Where are our drinks?”

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry,” she apologized with a distracted smile. “I was about to get drinks when you showed up and I completely forgot why I went to the bar in the first place. What can I get you?”

“Uhh, a beer is fine. I can’t stay long anyway. I’m waiting for someone to deliver my fridge.”

“At this hour?” asked Jake.

“They got lost somehow. I don’t know, I just want my fridge, so my food doesn’t spoil anymore and I can have cool drinks once again,” I said, thinking at how the past week had been torture. I could easily live without the luxury of an AC, but living without a fridge was too much for me.

With the corner of my eye I could see Maggie returning, precariously holding too many beer bottles. I thought I’d help her, but the bartender had already gone around the bar and was taking a couple of bottles from her hands, making sure she arrived with them all in one piece. She shot him one of her trademark winks and I couldn’t help but laugh. One marriage and three kids later and she was still cheekily flirting with everyone.

“Hey fuckface!” Jake yelled, startling me. Confused, I had to look around to see who he was referring to. Following his extended index, it seemed that he meant the bartender. “You stay away from my wife! You hear me, stay away!”

Right. He’d always had a jealousy problem that didn’t seem to have gotten any better over the years. It was another thing I was glad I didn’t have to deal with while living in New York. As it seemed, I was already starting to regret moving back. Or at least, trying to mend relationships with my old friends. I guess distance wasn’t the only reason we lost touch.

“Come on, babe, he’s just trying to help,” she said appeasingly, and somehow I didn’t think this would help de-escalate the situation, so I hurried to take the bottles from the bartender’s hand so he could go back to where he wasn’t perceived as a threat by Jake.

“Thanks!” I said, looking up at him. He was a really tall and broad man, even taller than Jake, but he didn’t have the same intimidating stance. Maybe because his eyes looked soft, or because his face held a certain gentleness. “And sorry, my friend is a bit of a hothead,” I tried apologizing, hoping it would all stop here.

“It’s ok,” he said in a low, beautiful voice, that I had to admit kinda tickled my fancy. However, before I could say anything else he turned on his heels and went back behind the bar.

In the meantime, Jake was still yelling profanities, although by the tone of his voice he was more mocking than angry. “Jake, stop it for fuck’s sake,” I said, passing the beers along, and taking a sip from my own bottle, quite certain that more alcohol wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t their mother. “He didn’t touch her, he just wanted to help her with the beers that’s all. Leave him alone.”

“You’re still such a baby,” he laughed and I snorted. “You didn’t see how he was staring at her, the fucking creep.”

That made me look over to the bar. The bartender was making himself busy with something behind the counter but when he lifted his eyes, he did have and intense gaze, one that could possibly be mistaken for staring by an inebriated hothead. “I don’t think he meant anything by it,” I said, prying my eyes from the tall man. “Anyway, how are you all doing?” I said, trying to shift the subject, because I really didn’t want to be part of a bar brawl.

“Jake’s right, he’s always been a weirdo,” said Peter finally leaving the game of pool to join the conversation. “Staring creepily at all the pretty girls he couldn’t have. Cause he’s an ugly ass nerd.”

“Oh shut up!” I hissed, getting increasingly irritated. They spoke loudly like they wanted him to hear. I just wanted to spend a pleasant night out with my old friends, not to watch them belittle someone else.

“He’s kinda right, Baby,” Maggie said, apologetically. “He was always a bit weird. Not talking to anyone, that sort of thing. He was always ogling at us in highschool.”

“Do I know him?” I asked, trying to put a name to the face.

“Maybe. Yeah, probably, he was a year or two older than us. Clyde Logan.” The name didn’t ring a bell. “Jimmy Logan’s younger brother?”

“Ohhh!” I glanced towards him again trying to see if he looked familiar. He didn’t, and definitely didn’t resemble his brother at all. “Was he really in highschool with us? I don’t remember him.”

“‘Course not, Baby only had eyes for the great Jimmy Logan,” Peter said in a mocking tone, and I could feel the old bitterness was still there. He’d asked me out multiple times during highschool, and I always turned him down, but that had nothing to do with my everlasting and very well known crush on Jimmy Logan.

“Well, Jimmy’s single now,” Maggie informed me with a wink. “Not sure you’d like him anymore, now that he isn’t a star quarterback.”

“Wasn’t he going to marry Bobbie Jo?” I asked out of pure curiosity. Jimmy Logan hadn’t been on my mind for ages now so this conversation seemed weird.

“They broke up a long time ago. She’s married to some car dealer now. They have a kid together though.”

“I see,” was my only input.

“Bobbie Jo’s smart, she wouldn’t stay with a loser like him,” Jake laughed.

“Besides, people say the Logans are cursed.”

“Why would they say that?” I said, looking from Jake to Maggie, feeling more and more like I’m gonna regret this outing.

“Cause, you know,” she started explaining, “both their parents died, Jimmy fucked up his career because of his leg…”

“And this one lost his fucking arm in Iraq.”

Only after they pointed it out did I notice the plastic prosthetic strapped to his arm. I took my time to actually look at him, since he seemed busy behind the bar and not looking up. He did everything with only one arm, with more dexterity than I would have been able to, with both arms intact. There was this air of sadness on his long face, the corners of his mouth slightly curling downwards. I felt really sorry for him, being in a warzone is tough and coming back with permanent injuries is even tougher. I didn’t really want to know the mental trauma that came with it.

He suddenly looked up, meeting my gaze so I smiled and looked away, hoping he wasn’t too weirded out that I was staring at him. Given the shit he probably heard from my so called friends, he probably was.

“They say he’s lucky, he could have died that day,” Maggie continued, and I was starting to feel exhausted by this conversation. Not because I didn’t want to find out more about Clyde Logan, quite the opposite, but I was pretty sure we were close enough for him to be able to listen in. And none of them made an effort to keep their voice down. “But living with only one arm feels more like a curse to me.”

“He’s lucky alright,” Jake laughed loudly, and I feared the worst. “He’s lucky cuz he lost his left arm and he’s still got something to jerk off with,” he said, loud enough for the whole bar to hear. Clyde only looked up for a second, then went back to what he was doing.

“For fuck’s sake, stop it already,” I pleaded with Jake, now knowing full well that this meeting was a mistake.

“Well maybe he likes jerking off with the plastic hand,” Peter added, making an obscene gesture with his hand and I snapped.

“Jesus fucking Christ what’s wrong with you guys?”

“Relax, Baby! We’re just having a little fun.”

“This is definitely not fun!”

“What is it,” Jake said, placing an arm around my shoulders that I promptly shook off, “did New York steal your sense of humour along with your accent?”

He had such a stupid sneer on his face that I wanted nothing more that to punch him in the teeth. “I didn’t lose my sense of humour,” I snarled, “but never, no matter how stupid or drunk we were during high school, would we stoop so low as to mock a disabled person. And I’m not gonna start doing it now. Not gonna be part of this.”

“Baby, please, come on, he didn’t mean anything by it. You know how Jake gets when he drinks, he’s always been a jokester,” Maggie tried to salvage the situation, but it was too late for that.

“Sorry,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket, “I think my refrigerator’s here. I have to run. I’ll see you all around, I guess.” I turned on my heels and went to the bar to pay for my beer.

Clyde Logan handed me the change with the same unfazed if a little sad look on his face and I had to wonder if he was just so used to this kind of abuse that he just didn’t give a shit anymore.

“I’m not disabled, you know,” he said, and I felt my heart sink to the depths of hell. “I’m just… I’m just missing a hand, that’s all.”

He looked me in the eye for a second and there was so much sadness in that brief glance that it almost broke my heart. It filled me with shame that I had somehow contributed to that.

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean…”

“It’s ok,” he said, but his voice was strained. He turned his back to me and I wanted to cry.

I almost ran out of the bar and climbed into my car. I let out a prolonged wail of anger and shame as I repeatedly banged my head on the steering wheel. This wasn’t how I planned on moving back to my old hometown. I really wanted to pass unnoticed and live peacefully in the countryside for as long as I’d be here. Have a garden. Maybe get a dog at some point, when I’d feel I could be responsible for a life other than my own.

I didn’t want to realize that my highschool friends were shit and that probably I had been shit for being friends with them. I didn’t want to hurt the cute bartender’s feelings especially since he was a veteran and his voice was so soft. The only thing I wanted to do was crawl under a rock with a working refrigerator and spend the rest of my life hibernating.

I mentally said goodbye to the Duck Tape before I drove away, because I sure as hell wouldn’t step in that bar ever again.

Masterlist

Next Part

[aboutcaseyaffleck]

Q&A: Casey Affleck on new film, his Oscars absence and MeToo

LOS ANGELES (AP) — With a new movie coming out this fall, “The Old Man & The Gun”, Casey Affleck is speaking publicly about bowing out of presenting the best actress Oscar and past harassment allegations against him amid the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Affleck reflects on the Oscars, the film, which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and past harassment allegations against him in light of #MeToo, apologizing for allowing an unprofessional atmosphere on set which led to two civil lawsuits from women he worked with that were later settled.

Excerpts from the conversation, Affleck’s first interview in a year, have been edited for clarity and brevity. A video of the interview can be seen here: http://apne.ws/nJjWUgU .

AP: What do you like about this film?

AFFLECK: I love David (Lowery), I love working for David and it’s my third movie with him and he always assembles a really nice group of people around him. It’s such a nice experience to watch one of his movies. They all have a very gentle quality to them... And Robert Redford, what is there to say? He’s a legend, an incredibly sweet guy and just sharp as a tack. It was lovely working with him.

AP: The last time we spoke you were promoting another David Lowery film, “A Ghost Story.” What have you been up to in the last year?

AFFLECK: I made “The Old Man & the Gun,” I made another movie called “Light of My Life,” and I’ve just been spending the rest of the time with my kids and my girlfriend and just trying to squeeze in a little bit of life. And if I’m not promoting a movie, I’m not going to do any press, so that’s why you haven’t heard from me.

AP: You also earlier this year made the decision to step away from presenting the best actress award at the Oscars. Why did you do that?

AFFLECK: I think it was the right thing to do just given everything that was going on in our culture at the moment. And having two incredible women go present the best actress award felt like the right thing.

AP: During your best actor Oscar campaign for “Manchester By the Sea,” allegations resurfaced regarding two civil lawsuits from the making of your film “I’m Still Here,” that were settled in 2010. But we haven’t heard from you since #MeToo and Time’s Up became a big talking point in the culture. Has that made you reflect on or reevaluate anything about the experience or the atmosphere on that set?

AFFLECK: First of all, that I was ever involved in a conflict that resulted in a lawsuit is something that I really regret. I wish I had found a way to resolve things in a different way. I hate that. I had never had any complaints like that made about me before in my life and it was really embarrassing and I didn’t know how to handle it and I didn’t agree with everything, the way I was being described, and the things that were said about me, but I wanted to try to make it right, so we made it right in the way that was asked at the time. And we all agreed to just try to put it behind us and move on with our lives, which I think we deserve to do, and I want to respect them as they’ve respected me and my privacy. And that’s that.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been listening a lot to this conversation, this public conversation, and learned a lot. I kind of moved from a place of being defensive to one of a more mature point of view, trying to find my own culpability. And once I did that I discovered there was a lot to learn. I was a boss. I was one of the producers on the set. This movie was (shot in 2008, 2009) and I was one of the producers. And it was a crazy mockumentary, (a) very unconventional movie. The cast was the crew and the crew was kind of the cast and it was an unprofessional environment and, you know, the buck had to stop with me being one of the producers and I have to accept responsibility for that and that was a mistake. And I contributed to that unprofessional environment and I tolerated that kind of behavior from other people and I wish that I hadn’t. And I regret a lot of that. I really did not know what I was responsible for as the boss. I don’t even know if I thought of myself as the boss. But I behaved in a way and allowed others to behave in a way that was really unprofessional. And I’m sorry.

AP: I know you talked last year about taking your kids to women’s marches and trying to educate them. Is there anything that has come up since #MeToo and Time’s Up emerged in the culture?

AFFLECK: Well I’ve taken these lessons with me that I’ve learned not just to work but to home and as dad and it informs how you parent. I have two boys so I want to be in a world where grown men model compassion and decency and also contrition when it’s called for, and I certainly tell them to own their mistakes when they make them.

AP: You’re also a boss, you have a production company, Sea Change Media, and you’ve directed your first film since “I’m Still Here” too. Can you talk about how you have evolved and changed to create a safe working environment for people who work for you?

AFFLECK: I think that, there’s been a lot of talk about new things in regards to the workplace and I have this production company and this very, very smart woman runs it with me and she’s been way ahead of the curve on all of these issues.

But I think bigger picture, in this business women have been underrepresented and underpaid and objectified and diminished and humiliated and belittled in a bazillion ways and just generally had a mountain of grief thrown at them forever. And no one was really making too much of a fuss about it, myself included, until a few women with the kind of courage and wisdom to stand up and say, “You know what? Enough is enough.” Those are the people who are kind of leading this conversation and should be leading the conversation. And I know just enough to know that in general I need to keep my mouth shut and listen and try to figure out what’s going on and be a supporter and a follower in the little, teeny tiny ways that I can. And we do that at our production company and I try to do it at home, and if I’m ever called upon by anyone to help in any way and contribute, I’d be more than happy to.

AP: Your “Manchester by the Sea” director Kenneth Lonergan had implied that you had been treated unfairly. Do you have any response to that?

AFFLECK: Whether I have or haven’t, I think that there are people in the world who deal with much greater hardship than that. And they do so without complaint. So I don’t think I need to say anything else about it.

AP: And at your production company, what sort of projects are you looking for and what sort of filmmakers are you looking to shepherd?

AFFLECK: Whitaker (Lader), who runs the company, does all the good work and then I kind of make some noise on the sidelines too. We’re trying to find people who can tell stories that we don’t usually see in mainstream pop culture, movies, media, Hollywood, with storytellers who need a hand.

[baconwaffle2016]

WIP Week, Day 2: My Favorite WIP, Baby Royals!(in Hogwarts) AU

First, this is dedicated to @geldris, whom I’ve horribly neglected when it comes to the Hogwarts/BabyRoyals!AU.

Several months ago, Brooke and I basically talked about doing a collab featuring the Baby Royals (Elizabeth, Zeldris, and Arthur) in Hogwarts, and the adventures they have there--including learning magic, engaging in duels, and having awkward af crushes. Idk how Brooke still feels about it, but I go back to it every now and again to work on stuff, because I really really just love the idea of it. (I really love Harry Potter, and Hogwarts AUs, so.)

This is one of the one shots/stories I started working on, focusing on Elizabeth (who’s a Hufflepuff with a penchant for mischief and nerve) in her Fifth Year. It isn’t really polished, and I don’t know what to do with it just yet--but I hope you like it!

(Also @thisisaverycreativeurl, hints of a Rival Seekers AU. You’ll know when you see it *wink wonk*)

When one really thought about it, this was all Alioni’s fault; if he’d just kept his blasted mouth shut, none of this would have happened.

Alioni had never taken his status as a Hufflepuff so gracefully. Even before Elizabeth entered Hogwarts as a student, and was called into Hufflepuff’s fold, he would spend most of his days ranting on The Sorting Hat’s placement. Thought it made him just another average, no-good student, he did. No one could convince him otherwise, not even Elizabeth, who tried to be kind to him even as he’d sneered down at her like she was dirt under his shoe.

It wasn’t long before Alioni grew older, became a Seventh Year; and he only grew angrier. And like some people who festered in anger, he took his problems out on other students. One of these people happened to be Ban Benwick.

A lot of rumors already surrounded Ban, with his razor sharp grin, his gangly (but also quite toned) form, those eyes, and of course, the angry scar on his neck. He had a look to him that wasn't quite Gryffindor, yet his attitude said otherwise. While he was quite picky on what and who he fought for, and he’d be quite vicious during said fights, he was never afraid to call people out on their shite--especially in defense of those he liked.

How he and Meliodas Cornwall became friends is sort of a Hogwarts mystery. Most Gryffindors didn’t even try to befriend Slytherins, and vice versa. And yet, despite any rivalry they’d had years prior, friends they became.

To this day, Elizabeth still has no idea what Alioni said to make Ban snap. She remembers her and Zeldris meeting up with Arthur after their Potions class, and then the three of them walking out into the courtyard to hear yelling. While there, she knows she caught Alioni jeering about an “animal” and in a mix of worry and anger, she ran forward to see what was happening.

When she pushed through the crowd, Elizabeth saw that Elaine had her arms wrapped around Ban’s waist from the front while Meliodas was behind him and holding his arms, both struggling to hold Ban back from destroying Alioni. She remembers how Ban’s face was contorted with a rage and a pain that only a few people in Hogwarts understood, Elizabeth included.

(She’s one of the Headmaster’s daughters; any secret a student has--including that of tooth and claw, and blood--she already knows before they enter.)

Alioni laughed, his sneer ugly. “Yeah, hide behind your little mudblood slag. Does she even know? Does she know that she’s been snogging, and Merlin knows what else, with a damned w--”

It happened so fast, the only sound being that of skin hitting skin, and maybe the cracking of bone. Alioni had been talking talking, spitting out shite that drew some gasps, glares, and some smirks, and Elizabeth could only feel a haze of anger. Before she could step forward and do something, her fists already curled and ready to break his bloody face, no matter how Arthur tried to cajole her, someone else’s fist landed there first. When Elizabeth blinked in her shock, she saw Meliodas standing over Alioni, his fist clenched and spotted with blood that started bleeding from Alioni’s broken nose.

Now, Meliodas Cornwall was many things. An absolute prick and “pain in my arse,” Zeldris would always answer whenever someone asked. A “robot with human skin”, Arthur had once argued in their third year. An arrogant jerk who’s always trying to ruin someone’s fun, Elizabeth used to think whenever he’d snitch on her and her friends after they pulled a prank, or broke one of Hogwarts’ rules, as if he was the perfect little student.

(And many people did think this of him, her mother included. Her mother always seemed to prefer taking in others’ accomplishments before Elizabeth’s.)

Meliodas was serious, studious, a stickler for rules, and seemed to prefer being alone--unless he had friends around, but those were usually few and far between--and he did not get into fights. Not the sorts with fists, anyway.

“Get up.”

Elizabeth blinked, saw Alioni swallowing through his pained tears as he stammered, “W-w-what?”

Meliodas was already throwing his robe to the side and rolling up his sleeves to his elbows. Elizabeth remembers her eyes going wide because, well--Whoa, Hello, where did those arms come from?--and her heart thumped as he loosened the green and silver tie from his neck, his eyes blazing.

“Get. Up,” he said again, almost in a growl.

“B-but y-your wand,” stammered Alioni, sounding like he wanted to bargain.

Meliodas sneered and cracked his knuckles. “I won't need it to do this.”

Long story short, Alioni got his arse kicked--brutally, surprisingly, but also hilariously--and Meliodas walked away to the Headmaster’s office with only a couple bruises on his knuckles and some blood running from the side of his mouth. He'd cost Slytherin fifteen house points, but he didn’t care. His head was high, and his walk was confident, and he drew stares for weeks afterward.

Elizabeth tried not to stare, like everyone else did. She did, truly. She tried not to even acknowledge his presence as he walked through the hall, tried not to be in tune to his voice, or his laugh (When did he learn to laugh…?). She especially tried not to think of how broad his back had become or how tall he’d gotten (still an inch shorter than her but that didn’t matter), or how green his eyes were, and how he smiled and how it just did things to her squishy Hufflepuff heart--

Oh, no, Elizabeth thought when she woke up one day. She whimpered and pressed her pillow to her bright red face, her heart still doing that stupid, rather fluttery thump-thump in her chest. Oh, no, no, no.

Now, Elizabeth has had crushes before. She was at a point in her life where boys, and sometimes girls, were awfully pleasing to look at. She’d sometimes fancy a different person every week, someone she’d stare at and fantasize about during both waking and sleeping moments. She even toyed with the idea of snogging Arthur once, because he was cute and a friend, and that was just what you did if you had friends who were cute. That was normal. That was fine.

Whatever this was towards Meliodas was not a crush. This was an existential crisis.

Why? Well, it was just...stupid. Boys in general were stupid, especially when they got into stupid and immature fights. And Elizabeth wasn’t that type of girl, the sort who fanned her neck during a duel of wands or an exchange of fists, as if she was some doe for bucks (or other does) to impress and win over. (She wasn’t Margaret, bloody hell.) So if it was just the fight, it wouldn't have been a big deal, Elizabeth would tell herself. Meliodas would just be another stupid boy to fancy for a week, then move on from.

But Meliodas wasn’t just a stupid boy; he was a stupid boy Elizabeth knew. From a distance mostly, initially, an annoyance that came to her when she never asked for such a presence. So it was hard to ignore Meliodas when he approached her during such moments.

“Oi, Liones.”

Elizabeth looked up from her untouched breakfast and saw Meliodas standing across the table. His hands were in his robes and his expression was stony, but there was something in his eyes. A look he’d never given to her before.

(Or, perhaps, she’d never looked before?)

“Your first Quidditch game is today, I hear,” he said.

Elizabeth nodded, her mouth pressed closed.

“You scared?”

“No,” she said automatically, irritated that he assumed so, even if his assumption was correct. Elizabeth sat up more, tried to summon the confidence that had thrilled through her when she’d been chosen to become Hufflepuff’s Seeker, and asked, “Why should I be?”

“Merlin is said to be the best and fastest Seeker Ravenclaw’s had in a century,” said Meliodas, his brow quirked. “It would be natural to be nervous, especially if it's your first game.”

Elizabeth found her gaze falling to a table across the Great Hall, where the Ravenclaws sit. She saw Merlin sitting with Gowther, who was a Chaser, and she watched them converse with each other. She saw Merlin pause and turn to meet her gaze. Merlin stared at Elizabeth for a moment, and then she smirked before turning back to Gowther. Elizabeth’s stomach twisted.

Still, she turned back to meet Meliodas’ gaze and said, “I'm not afraid.”

Meliodas stared at her, his expression seemingly patronizing. Then he smirked, but not with cruelty, not with that warmth in his gaze.

“You should have fought the Hat for Gryffindor,” he nearly muttered.

Elizabeth blinked, unsure if she heard correctly. Before she could ask what he meant, Meliodas sat across from her and folded his arms onto the table.

He leaned towards her and spoke quietly, almost a whisper, “Listen close, Liones. Merlin is fast and experienced, but she has a blind spot that you can easily take advantage of…”

Despite her reservations, Elizabeth listened to his advice, the wisdom of another Seeker just as skilled and experienced as Merlin, and her heart swelled again with that thrill.

“Do...do you really think I can win?” she asked eventually.

Meliodas smiled back and told her, “With your nerve, Liones, I have no doubt.”

The second time Elizabeth donned her Quidditch garb and marched onto the field with her team, broom in hand and her shoulders squared, it was Slytherin’s team they stopped short of. She met Meliodas’ eyes across the field, took in how he looked in his garb, and felt her heart flutter.

“Scared, Liones?” asked Meliodas, his smirk proud and his green eyes gleaming.

Elizabeth smirked back. “You wish.”

[theliterateape]

The Therapeutic Approach to Nationalism

by Don Hall

When it came to Chicago Thanksgivings, I could be a real cunt.

Sure, Jen and I would host Orphan's Gatherings—Thanksgiving for people stuck in Chicago and unable to travel to their family's homes over the holiday. I would drop a couple of hundred bucks and make a huge spread of food but the transaction for coming was to have to listen to me bitch about how shitty the holiday was.

"Enjoy the turkey. Afterward, I'll be providing each of you blankets covered in small pox and steal your property. I mean, I'm thankful for a lot but I'm mostly thankful I wasn't native to this country because, man, then I'd be fucked, amiright?"

This screed went all day long and became more and more incessant as I drank Scotch and beer and cooked. Depending on the year, it would spread out from the genocide of Native Americans to the American military industrial complex, the woeful state of our civil rights, and how evil the Republicans were.

"Here's some food and some vitriol as gravy. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving!"

What an asshole. It's hardly a surprise that most of those people in those early days don't bother to talk to me today.

I used to think that blunt honesty was always the best approach to all situations. It's, well, honest, and it's mildly therapeutic to simply air your truth to those around you. I used to believe that until I lived with Alice.

Alice was like me at Thanksgiving but every day of the year. Her inability to accept less than exactly how she wanted things was maddening. She was always brutally honest about her feelings (unless it was something she decided needed to be kept a secret and then it was as if she locked it away in a trunk she bought at a yard sale and hid under the stairs).

"I hate your hair." "This is a stupid Christmas gift." "I can't believe you're wearing that to dinner." "Wow. You're really getting fat." "Don't embarrass me by talking politics with my University friends, OK? You're practically right wing."

After a few years of this constant honesty, I found myself walking around like Eeyore, head down, eyes on the ground, feeling a sense of dread overcoming me with the now drilled-in idea that nothing I did could possibly be enough or correct. If Alice wasn't happy it was because I was inadequate. She now had someone to blame for her disappointments in life.

What I learned from Alice was that for blunt honesty to be effective and useful rather than merely a bludgeon of self importance leveled upon those who are willing to put up with it, it was about seeing how that honesty could be used by them.

If the criticism couldn't be utilized for the betterment of someone or something, it was just noisy, pointless bitching. Childish complaint and attempts to beat down those around into some aspect of submission. Looking for someone to blame as if the recipient's guilt and subsequent anguish could be healing in some way.

Common wisdom suggests that by thoroughly revisiting our traumatic experiences to understand why they happened and how to move past them is therapeutic. Unfortunately, like the movies in the 1980s subsidized by the Pentagon to help recruit kids with a Top Gun drumbeat of "How Cool is War, Right?," the therapy industry proliferates this constant vomiting of pain and search for who to blame for it is in contrast with new research.

"New research is showing that some people only get worse by continuing to brood and ruminate,” Stanford psychologist Mischel said. “Each time they recount the experience to themselves, their friends or their therapist, they only become more depressed."

SOURCE

It's quite possible that I have had uniquely bad therapy experiences. A few when I was younger felt pointless, the couple's therapy I went through with my first and second ex-wives felt disingenuous. While skewed for maximum satire, the talk therapy groups in Fight Club ring more true than anything else—sad, busted up people sitting in a circle complaining about how hard their life has been next to another room with another circle complaining about theirs next to another.

Talking about your problems to be heard seems fine but it also a cul de sac of constantly re-opening the wounds over and over without any sort of solution provided. Even if one discovers an abuser in their past to pin the blame upon, even if there is some sort of reckoning and accountability, neither talking about it or understanding your place in the grievance hierarchy manages to solve the inability to move past the trauma.

That's the goal, right? Move past it? It may not be an easy task but, at the end of the process, learning to get on with things, heal the pain, live with the scars is the goal, yes?

It is the same when it comes to big picture items as well.

As someone decidedly Left in political views, I can't say I've ever been in a huge Bitch Session of Truthtelling with anyone right wing. Not my monkey, not my circus. On the hand, I can't count the number of Leftist circle jerks I've been mired in, often contributing more than my fair share of discourse and blockading to the mix. It is the Choir Preaching to the Choir so that One Solidifies Membership in the Freaking Choir.

So many of these sessions amount to telling the truth and identifying who is to blame for that truth.

"There is no reason for the evil that is represented by the Billionaire Class. How much money does anyone need? And at the expense of everyone else? The System is rigged by the wealthy, for the wealthy."

"The systemic racism in the country's policing stems from its racist beginnings and that's why so many black men are indiscriminately killed by cops. How many videos do we have to endure before things change?"

"Fossil fuels are the source of climate disaster. Everyone can see that. If we don't change course, the planet is going to be destroyed in our lifetime!"

All true, I'd think. But I heard that last week and the week before and the week before that. Sort of like my Thanksgiving rants.

Who’s to blame? The rich. The police. Big Oil. Where are the solutions to the problems?

Playing the blame game never works. A deep set of research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes. Research also shows that the same applies for organizations. Groups and organizations with a rampant culture of blame have a serious disadvantage when it comes to creativity, learning, innovation, and productive risk-taking.

Harvard Business Review

Blame, beyond personal accountability, is likewise pointless without a plan and “Hold Those to Blame Accountable!” isn’t a great plan.

Truth without pragmatic action is meaningless.

And so … the birthday of the nation comes up. The therapeutic gripe sessions begin. Instead of celebrating the country’s progress, the ideals it is founded upon, any sense of national pride, we have a host of Thanksgiving Don Hall’s pissing and moaning about the missteps and outright horrors committed by those long dead.

There is a lot of blunt trauma truth tossed out just before, during, and after our national day. Things like the fact of indoctrinated worship of the Founders without some serious views upon their flaws as human beings. Like the intentional absence in our collective history of the contributions made by those not in the majority. As I would've said on a typical Thanksgiving, an absence of any genuine reflection on the near genocide of the natives.

Not so much the next step of how to fix the issues or even the simple truth that most of the problems in the past cannot be fixed rather the recurrent results modified for a more just and equitable nation. Lotsa bitching. Not lotsa solution building. Tons of blame. Ounces of creative problem solving.

A whole bunch of Thanksgiving Cunts holding court and demanding that if you want to shoot of fireworks, wave the flag, eat some grilled meat, and get a bit drunk in celebration of the enduring experiment in democracy and multi-culturalism America strives to be, you are forced to listen to them piss all over the parade.

The thing about Alice was that for all of her brutal honesty, none of it made me want to change my hair, I stopped buying her gifts altogether, I intentionally wore things and said things that would embarrass her and the only reason I lost weight was because the gym was a place I could escape her for a few hours. Her mean spirited honesty accomplished the exact opposite of what she was aiming for.

The United States ain't so united and maybe it never has been but wallowing in the painful trauma of the past only has value if the next step is to focus on what we can do together to avoid the mistakes made by our elders. That's the entire point of America in the first place.

So, Happy Birthday, America. Let's keep trying to improve.

[1000-directions]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

tagged by @imlouisaf <3

1. List of works published this year (in the order that they were posted):

o jeez, they were all really short but i published 14 stories on ao3 altogether

even if it’s a lie, say it will be all right

spinning on that dizzy edge

a praise chorus

lay your hands over me (written before everything else on this list but posted to ao3 months later as a backdated work)

baby, here we go again

i don’t care, i’m not scared

amsterdam without you

show me you can handle this

girl crush

she’s a good girl

see where this thing goes

boy, make me believe

are you that somebody?

part of your world

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

this is hard because i’m proud of different stories for different reasons. some of these i just never would have thought i was capable of writing, and that feels awesome. but i’m going to go with even if it’s a lie, say it will be all right. writing this felt like torture sometimes, and by the time i published it, i’d spent so much time up close inside it that i couldn’t tell if there was anything good or redeemable about it at all, and i was embarrassed to even show it to anyone else. but when i read it now, i’m really pleased with it. i like the different relationships in the story, i like my use of flashbacks to sketch in backstory, i like the way louis and eleanor use sex in different ways to illustrate the complexity of their relationship. i love the interplay between past and present, and i think overall it has more emotional complexity than anything else i’ve written. i poured a lot of myself into it, and it sucked, and it was hard, but i’m so happy with how it turned out. also, i got some really amazing feedback about it, especially from people who were not sold on the idea of real-life elounor but found this portrayal sympathetic. i really loved being able to change some people’s minds and get them excited about louis’ real relationship.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

lol fuckin spinning on that dizzy edge 😩😩 my most kudos-ed work currently and probably forever, rip me. it’s not even a story, it’s literally just me describing louis in two different outfits, i think it took like an hour to write, it’s just...not...anything? i know that i’m too hard on this story, but actually, i’m nOT!!!

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

i do like this little paragraph from boy, make me believe, part of the louis/bebe truckstop au.

She didn’t know it could be like this. When she’d imagined her sexual future, she always thought it would be the same sort of adequate sex she’d been having before, just with progressively older guys, until she married one of them, and then they’d get older together. She’s only ever been with boys, is the thing, and Louis is such a man that’s she giddy with it. He has a job and a family and a kid. He knows a trade, and he lives alone in his own house, and he can fix mostly anything. He’s muscular and strong, and he smells like beer and cigarettes most nights. He’s all grown up and self-sufficient, and he knows who he is and what he wants. And he wants to worship her, and he knows how to do that, too. She didn’t know there would be gentleness. She didn’t know there would be selflessness. She didn’t know that being manly could still leave so much room for being soft.

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received:

you know, it’s so funny to look at the kudos counts for the truckstop au, because they’re so much lower than i realized. and that’s because every comment i’ve gotten on that series has been so thoughtful and excited and loving and kind that it makes me forget that that series is SUPER NICHE and almost no one read it. but the people who did read it were just amazing and supportive, and even just a handful of people buying into that world and getting excited about it and talking shit out with me in the comments and helping me develop that world more and consider things differently than i had before, it was really just the best most rewarding thing.

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

every second of writing that pig dog story was torture, especially as the deadline loomed closer and i still had almost none of it written. and also especially because i was really inspired at that time to work on my louis/briana story, but i didn’t have time, and i resented having to work on this one instead. i reread it today, and i swear it’s the first time i’ve actually even liked it. writing that story was brutal.

7. A scene or character that you wrote that surprised you:

writing two stories with harry as a narrator was a weird surprise. i really love writing through or about louis. i’ll read lots of different pairings, but it’s hard for me to get excited about writing a story that doesn’t involve louis. so i really didn’t expect to enjoy writing my hamille stories so much, but that’s been such a fun relationship to explore, and i expect i will write more of them next year.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

my philosophy this year has mostly been to only write what i want to write, and i mean both in terms of pairings and in terms of actual content. i don’t like writing plot and backstory and worldbuilding and all that shit, so i just...stopped. and i really focused in on the bits that i do like, the internal monologues and little scraps of dialogue and emotions and sensations, and i think it made my writing sharper and more concentrated. i think i reduced a lot of filler this year and really focused on writing undiluted, strong emotions and metaphors. if something was boring or dragging, i skipped it. i know that’s not for everyone, but it many writing much more enjoyable for me personally.

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

i would like to try some new pairings. this is weird, but i’ve never really written a true nouis story? it feels like i should have, but i haven’t, and that’s something i wouldn’t mind tackling next year. also, when i first started out, i didn’t feel comfortable leaving canon behind because i worried that i didn’t have a strong enough grip on my characters yet, and i feared that if i started writing AUs or whatever, my characters would become unrecognizable. but i’d like to keep venturing out and trying new worlds and tropes. i want to write more trans characters. i’d like to write an ace fic. i’d like to bring my eye to things i haven’t written before and see what happens.

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

jeez, everyone? you know what, i’m gonna go ahead and single out @alligatornyc as someone who doesn’t write but is such a positive and uplifting reader. if you get on her good side, she will make you feel like the greatest person who ever wrote a single word, and that is such a rare and wonderful gift. @mildlymaddy is also really phenomenal about showering her friends with amazing comments and feedback. @queerlyalex more than anyone else i’ve ever known is just...super positive about encouraging people to be creative and do whatever makes them happy, and they are so celebratory about whatever you end up producing.

11. Anything in your real life show up in your writing this year:

louis’ depression in even if it’s a lie, say it will be all right is my depression. also, this from see where this thing goes is 100% me dropping out of school and being ashamed to tell most of the people in my life:

“Do you figure you’re going to head back home?” Jay asked when they were both finished eating, and Bebe imagined what that would be like, to give up after so much planning. She remembered the going away party they had thrown for her at the old diner, the balloons and the cake and the card they’d all signed for her and the gas station gift card they’d all chipped in for, only forty bucks but it melted her heart that they’d all believed in her and wanted her to go off and be a big star. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t face those people again until she became someone, and her eyes welled up with tears just thinking about it.

“I can’t go back there,” Bebe had said.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

there is room for you to write the kind of stories you want to write. you don’t have to follow those “avoid these writing mistakes” posts that drive me fucking crazy. show don’t tell? who cares. if you wanna tell, then tell, it’s your story. people get very focused on word count and writing every day and forming proper habits, and if that works for you, good, and if that doesn’t work for you, that’s good, too. if forcing yourself to write every day makes you feel shitty and inadequate, then don’t do it. if writing when you’re uninspired feels bad, don’t do it. you don’t have to do this the way everyone else does. you’re doing this FOR FREE. it should feel good. if you’re not enjoying it, figure out a way to do it differently.

13. Any new projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

louis/bucky barnes is a thing, and it is happening, and i am getting really excited about it. louis/briana is happening. cis girls hamille is probably happening. more truckstop au will hopefully be happening. trans louis is theoretically happening, but that one is only just starting to coalesce in my mind. and once louis’ album drops, i’m sure way more elounor will be happening.

14. Tag three writers/artists whose answers you’d like to read:

i hATE TAGGING 😩 if we are mutuals and you wanna do this, tag you’re it! please tag me in your response. if we aren’t mutuals are you wanna do this, tag you’re it! please tag me in your response. fair warning tho this thing takes F O R E V E R to do