#when they did the tbc thing i made it until like 14...

[quenthel]

I have so much bg3 to play... Try out honor mode too at some point. AND I need to continue my Elden ring pt too (that I interrupted bc of the new epilogue)... And even then I'm just like HM what if... What if I played season of discovery... Hmm hmm

[gumnut-logic]

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Ooooh, one hell of a language warning on this one. Not a happy Tracy at all.

For @soniabigcheese​ for Gordon and Bedlam.

-o-o-o-

“Gordon!” Scott’s yell was echoed by John

Virgil didn’t think, he just moved.

Two was banking before he was even fully in his pilot’s seat, her massive thrusters firing to accelerate her down and around the listing platform.

“For Christ’s sake, hold still, you idiot.”

It was said under his breath, but Gordon’s voice carried over comms like a wave of reassurance. As Two darted under the platform, Virgil was both relieved and horrified to find the rescuee dangling from a hastily deployed grapple line.

Gordon was clinging to mangled superstructure not far below the hole he had leapt through. “Uh, hey, Virg. Need a little hand.”

Further up, Scott was peering through the hole in the tarmac.

An exhalation. “FAB, Gordon.”

Mental calculations and Virgil managed to squeeze Two up and under the victim. The collapsed runway was far too close for comfort, but he managed it with an inch or so to spare.

Rising out of Two’s top hatch, he was greeted with a wriggling wreck of a man. “About time.”

Virgil bit back his response. “Please hold still, sir.”

“Finally, I can get off this boat.”

Virgil felt no guilt at his urge to want to slap the man. Gordon’s grapple, as always, had been right on target, snagging the victim’s belt in its claw. The guy obviously had no idea how close he had come to dying…or the danger to Gordon.

If he cared at all.

The fact that there were at least three holocams buzzing around filming them was, oddly, a little reassuring. Perhaps Jack could press charges.

As Virgil took the man’s weight and released the grapple, the groan of pain from Gordon over comms only emphasized what the man had done.

Virgil bit his lip until it hurt.

Definitely pressing charges.

He held the man until his feet touched the hatch plates and made sure he could take his own weight before lowering them into the cockpit.

He fingered his comms. “Scott, are you able to reach Gordon? I can try, but its tight up there. Two will not be able to get close enough without further structural damage.” Not that he would let that stop him, but the platform was unstable and a thousand lives were still dependent on it.

“FAB, Thunderbird Two. I have him secured with a grapple line. Gordon, status?”

Their aquanaut brother grunted, but Virgil lost the rest of his answer as the rescuee started protesting that he was fine and no, he didn’t need to lie down and could he sit in the co-pilot’s seat?

Virgil’s abrupt ‘No!’ apparently wasn’t enough to shut him up.

Virgil did not have time for this.

Deploying the seat furthest from the dash, he strapped the man into it.

“Hey, I want to sit up front.”

“You will sit here.” And shut up.

“Do you know who I am?”

An idiot? “I don’t care.”

Virgil turned his back on him and did his best to ignore the man’s protests as he realised that, no, he couldn’t undo his seatbelt.

There was no way Virgil was going to have this moron free to wander around his ship.

“Thunderbird Four? Status?”

Instead of Gordon, Scott answered. “Pulling him up now, Thunderbird Two. Gordon is secure.”

Oh, thank god.

Virgil couldn’t help peering up out of the windows and checking for himself. Far above, Scott could be seen hauling Gordon up with his own grapple gun.

Virgil needed to be topside now.

Two responded to his touch as she always did, smoothly and immediately, the great ship banking away from the structure in a controlled fall. He fired her thrusters launching her up and around the massive platform just in time to see Gordon emerge from the hole in the tarmac.

“Medical report, Gordon.” He had to know.

Again, Scott cut in before Gordon could answer. “Possible sprained wrist, definitely some issue with his right arm. Some bleeding. For goodness sake, Gordon stand still!”

“I��m fine, Scott, we have more important things to do.”

“I’m aware of the situation, Gordon. I want you evacuated to Two.”

Hissed over comms. “Forget it, Scott, I’m not leaving you down here with this mob of idiots by yourself.”

“Gordon!”

Virgil sighed and switched Two into a secure hover. “Thunderbird Five, you have Two, monitor and secure, please.”

“FAB, Thunderbird Two.”

“Have Eos keep an eye on the two patients in the medbay and advise immediately of any change.”

“Monitoring already. Internal cockpit cams active. Eyes active.”

Virgil’s lips twitched as he stood up from his seat. John knew exactly what he was talking about. Leaving Idiot alone on his ‘bird was not ideal, but he couldn’t actually throw the man back into the danger zone.

Grabbing a medkit, Virgil strode back to the hatch and lowered himself down enough to catch a descent line and secure it to his harness.

“What? Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back shortly, sir. No need to worry, you are in safe hands.”

“Hands? Whose hands?”

Virgil didn’t answer before he leapt off the hatch and began his descent down to the platform.

Gordon and Scott were sharing a few stubborn words as Virgil strode across the tarmac. There were still people milling about. He caught sight of Penelope’s father desperately trying to talk several suited individuals into returning to the pods.

It was enough to frustrate even Virgil’s patience.

He was almost to his brothers when the first words were thrown his way.

“That’s the one who killed all those people in New York!” That same woman’s voice from earlier. Virgil forced himself not to look, focussing instead on his brothers. The crowd began muttering. His name was mentioned several times.

The moment he reached Gordon, Scott handed him over and returned to attempting to handle the crowd.

That didn’t want to be handled.

“Hey, Gords. What have you done to yourself?” A visual inspection revealed a limp arm being held by a tight hand indicating pain. Several tears in his uniform and a glare with enough energy to ignite the air around it.

Worst of all, Gordon was strangely quiet, eyeing the crowd.

Scott again urged everyone to return to the pods. As if to emphasize his request, the wind suddenly picked up and the whole platform shuddered.

John, ever the eagle eye, immediately tagged them on comms. “You might want to hurry up that evac, guys. The weather is stable for the moment, but the forecast for the evening is the arrival of a front. There will be turbulence ahead of the change.”

Virgil was aware of that and had factored it into his calculations when deploying the airjacks.

Didn’t make them impervious to the jostling. “FAB, Thunderbird Five.” He turned to Gordon. “I want you up on Two. Now.”

Gordon’s eyes were still on the crowd and their muttered complaints. Scott was deploying full commander mode and several had backed away, heading towards the stadium, but a core group were either begging to be taken aboard a Thunderbird, glaring at Virgil…or yelling accusations at him.

Gordon pushed past his brother and strode towards the crowd.

“Gordon!”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?!” Gordon’s comms were on loudspeaker and his voice hushed the crowd immediately.

Almost.

One angry man in a GDF uniform stepped forward. “I’m your superior, lieutenant, and I demand-“

“You demand? You have no right to demand anything!”

Virgil reached for his brother, but his hand was shaken off. Scott spun and narrowed in on the both of them, worry the foremost in his expression.

But Gordon ignored it.

“My brothers have done nothing but try to help you, to save you, THAT is what we do. But you assholes won’t listen!” Gordon took a step forward, the hand on his arm white knuckled.

“If you don’t return to your pods now, you are going to die! Is that simplistic enough for you? My brothers will, no doubt, try their best, risk their lives, trying to save yours, but they are not fucking miracle workers. You will DIE, if YOU DON’T MOVE YOUR ASSES!!”

That got several people moving.

But not all.

“Gordon!” Scott’s voice was more worried elder brother than commander.

That earned him a scathing look. “No, Scott, I’ve had it! Did you hear what they are saying about Virgil? They called him a murderer!” His anger turned back to the crowd. “You have no fucking idea who you are talking about. Virgil is the kindest of us, the gentlest, he can’t hurt a damned fly and you accuse him of purposefully killing all those people. He tried to save them.” His brother’s shoulders wilted. “He tried so hard.”

“They still died.” It came from that same world councillor who wanted his own private Thunderbird ride.

Gordon staggered up to the man and Virgil hurried to follow. The tarmac shook again. “Gordon, we need to get these people off the platform.”

His brother ignored him and instead pushed into the councillor’s personal space. “Yes, they did. But you don’t care do you? You have your own fucking agenda. It’s not about lives, is it? It’s about money. It’s about power.” A rough indrawn breath as the man took a step back. “Well, newsflash, asshole, we don’t care! We have the power, we have the money, and we don’t care. My brothers only want to help. Every life is important, even your mediocre and pathetic one. Now, move your ass AND RETURN TO YOUR POD SO WE CAN SAVE YOUR FUCKING LIFE!!”

Gordon staggered with the force of his yell and Virgil was moving. He grabbed at his little brother just as the aquanaut’s body suddenly folded. Virgil caught him before he could hit the tarmac.

What the hell?! “Gordon!”

Voice whisper weak. “Virg.”

He held his brother in his arms while fumbling for the med scanner. “Gords, what the hell are you doing?”

Beneath plexiglass reflecting the sky above, carnelian flickered up at him. Gordon blinked slowly. “They hurt you…” His eyes closed and didn’t open again.

-o-o-o-

TBC

[ebaeschnbliah]

THE  NEW  RUSSIAN  HOLMES

EPISODE SIX:   HALIFAX  PART TWO   (back to PART ONE)      

Outtake: CREATOR OF A LEGEND

________________________________________________________________

Directed by Andrey Kavun - Igor Petrenko as Sherlock Holmes - Andrey Panin as Dr. Watson

Episodes:   1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8

While John gets a proper scolding by his furious landlady, the detective inspector and the consulting detective plan to leave the police station as unobtrusively as possible. 

TBC below the cut  (with a lot of pics and all the spoilers)  …

Three is company ...

Lestrade and Holmes aren’t alone for long though. They have hardly left the station when Dr Watson turns up ... armed and in disguise ... ready to free his friend.

The most less thought-off hiding place ... 

Sherlock recommends Baker Street 221b because no one would suspect them at home. Mrs Hudson has a good meal ready when the three men turn up, to take a short breather before they continue their dangerous  undercover mission. 

Sherlock uses the time to tell his companions about his deductions and conclusions.  (The doctor’s attentive silence)

There was a secret meeting of four police officers, ensnared by a genius master criminal.

When they finally toast to their bold plan, three of the guys don’t know that they are already dying.

From hiding place to hiding place ...

A prolonged stay at Baker Street is, of course, no advisable strategy. And so Sherlock, John and Lestrade set out for the secret tunnel, built by the now dead burglars. There’s still a lot to be investigated.  

Sherlock needs some special equipment for further examinations and a change of location is necessary as well. 

Lestrade recommends a safe house, known only to a few reliable people. 

Sherlock sends Tom, one of his trusted acquaintances, to Baker Street for the equipment he needs. When the young man returns with the stuff, he warns them to stay at the place for long. ‘It’s a police hideout ... and the whole street knows this.’  

Now it’s John’s turn to suggest another hideout for the trio. He chooses a place ‘not exactly welcoming to the police but with an army to protect us, so to speak’, he tells his companions. The place is an inn, frequented primarily by soldiers. All of them seem to know Dr Watson. It turns out that Inspector Lestrade is also no stranger to the guests. 

They enjoy a good mug of beer and Sherlock explains to his friends how all the puzzle pieces fit together. (When Sherlock Holmes explains a case)

It was not the National Bank .... it will be the Royal Mint ...

The tunnel into the National Bank had just been a deflection. Moriarty never intended to rob the bank, his plan is a much bigger one. The master criminal wants to rob the whole country ... with forged bank notes, printed by the original printing machine. And to achieve this, he first of all needs that machine. Moriarty managed for Halifax to get a job in the Mint, so that the man was able to copy the printing machine. A perfect plan ... almost. 

Halifax did an excellent job. He knew this and was proud of it. A genius, in his own way, just like Holmes and Moriarty in theirs. And so, when Halifax had finished his work, he tricked Moriarty’s men and - using a magical illusion - broke free from his prison. 

He took all his artfully crafted bank notes with him and transformed himself into a charming and obviously very rich gentleman, to whom money is no object. Then Halifax went to the national bank at Saxe-Coburg Square in order to change the notes into bars of gleaming gold. And it wasn’t even just the profit which motivated the man. Most of all it was the thrill of the game, the temptation of a bold and fascinating risk. Spectacular but fatal. Halifax payed for this audacity with his life ....

Sherlock clearly likes that man. ‘Let’s drink to Halifax'

The tunnel beneath the tunnel ...

By now Sherlock is convinced that somewhere in the tunnel to the National Bank there must branch off another tunnel, which will lead to the Royal Mint. Sherlock, John and Lestrade set out again in search for that secret tunnel. They nearly miss it but .... thankfully Lestrade had drunk too much beer at the inn and needed to pee .....

Indeed, the first tunnel leads deeper down to a second tunnel. Scarcely hidden behind the wooden panels, the corpse of the poor engeneer had been desposed. And just as Sherlock had anticipated ... Halifax’s copy of the printing machine has been placed right under the secret entry to the Royal Mint.

Inside the Royal Mint ...

Finally the three companions reach their aspired destination inside the Royal Mint. They position themselves as best as possible and prepare for a long wait.

Slowly time goes by ...

Finally there is some movement underground. Slowly the hatch to the secret tunnel opens and one after the other, a group of policemen enters the room. Immediately some of them start preparations to pull the replicated printing machine out of the tunnel, while others investigate the room. 

The very moment when Moriarty himself is about to enter the Royal Mint, one of the policemen discovers John and Sherlock at their hiding place. Sherlock’s quick reaction saves John’s life but it also warns Moriarty, who promptly ducks down into the tunnel again and disapears without any further ado. (When the first shot gives away the trap)

Escaped ....

All hell breaks loose now but Sherlock is hardly able to function at all. He is devastated. Never had he been nearer to lay hands on the criminal mastermind and again it was all for nothing. 

Another group of policemen enter the room through a door. Shots are fired from all sides. The situation becomes more and more hopless for the three companions. It’s only a matter of time now ... 

Desperate, Inspector Lestrade calls his full name, orders his men to cease fire and drop the weapons. At first his efforts seem to be entirely in vain. Only when he starts reciting the oath they all had sworn the day they had become police officers, some of the men stop the fight and listen to him.  

‘I’m Inspector Lestrade!  ... I, Fitzpatrick Lestrade, do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law.’

Slowly more and more of the men follow suit, until finally Inspector Lestrade is in full command of his officers. 

This night the Lestrade decides things by himself again and takes the law into his own hands ....

The day after ...

When a new morning rises over London, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson excange words with Inspector Lestrade in front of Scotland Yard. Lestrade thanks them for everything they did. But there is also a severe warning ...

‘... bear in mind: if anything leaks to the newspapers ... your corpses won’t ever be found.’

John will have to decide very carefully what parts from that case he can use for one of his stories.

°

Back to PART ONE       Outtake: CREATOR OF A LEGEND

Links to watch the series can be found HERE

________________________________________________________________

ALL THE EPISODES:

1 & 2  221B Baker Street

3 & 4  Rock, Scissors, Paper

5 & 6  Clowns

7 & 8  The Mistresses of Lord Maulbrey

9 & 10  The Musgrave Ritual    Outtake: Advice at The Strand

11 & 12  Halifax    part two    part one  

13 & 14  Holmes’s Last Case

15 & 16  The Hound named Baskerville

________________________________________________________________

Again, a big thank you to @spiritcc   and all the people who made it possible to watch and understand this wonderful Sherlock Holmes adaptation.  :)))) 

January, 2021

[a-day-in-the-life-of-a-brotha]

5-1-21 Bills and retro thoughts.

4:00 a.m.- I hit the snooze button up until 4:45...then I straight up turned it off and went back to sleep.

5:18 a.m.- “Shit, I’m late”...well at this point I might as well take my time. On this morning I don’t have to stop to get cigarettes, nor do I HAVE to stop to get two egg and cheese biscuits...but I will. My Dani love sent me a message to get up at 4:10, but it’s her day off and I expect her to be sleep...to no avail.

5:30 a.m.-out of the shower taking my sweet ass time. Dani calls “Hey babe” she says “Yo” is what I say. She can sense a sense of urgency with me so she asked “Are you still in the house?” “Yep I reply.” Short quick answers and a YO is not how I normally engage her. She was going to give me space to get ready, but I denied that.

5:45 a.m.- At McDonald’s, on the phone with Dani, and a car in front me in line (it’s never usually a car there because I’m usually in line before 5:30 a.m.. “Two biscuits, with round eggs and cheese...a larger sleight iced sweet tea, and a Big Breakfast.” Now that Big Breakfast is for Mr.D, my 87 year old shop supervisor. He’s a good man, and he literally built the place that drains the lifeblood out of us, makes millions via government contracts, and probably doesn’t pay Mr.D the wealth that he is due. I called Mr.D, with my Dani still in my ear, to let him know that I was going to be late. I pushed like shit to work...I have the strong ethic, moral, work code and I don’t like to be late. Although it’s a straight plantation I’m rushing to, and it’s a slave mind that drives me not to be late that I’m coherent to...I still don’t like to be late.

6:05 a.m. I’m 5 mins late. “Aww right now” says Mr. D (His signature greeting in the Morning, Afternoon, Night, when ya walk by him, when ya need something, when ya don’t need nothing etc). I hand him his food, complain about the night crew not doing anything, then I scurry off to smoke a jack and eat. That get me to thinking about a narcissistic experience I had last Thursday...

Frustration #1 -Level 1000. This is just one example of how my co-parenting has been with my children’s mother for almost 15 years. Bbbbrrriinnngg (phone ringing) “Hello” I said “Hello what’s up” she said. “Look, when are you being the children back, they have a dentist appointment tomorrow at 5” she spews. “Uhh tomorrow, I can bring them back tomorrow” says I. “Well, that will be pushing it”, she’s referring to how long it will take me to get to her home and the dentist office because I work Friday-Tuesday and I get off at 2:30p.m.. Now, it takes about 45-1 hr to get to her place...I could act make it up there and get them to the dentist on time, shit, before 5...bringing them back on Friday is viable for me. “Well bring them back Monday, I can schedule the appointment for 3p.m.” “I’m not going to make by 3pm”...Now if SHE truly thinks that making it up to her by 5pm is “pushing it” why in the fuck would think i could make it by 3?? Ahhh...here it comes, the narcissism...I see it plain as day now. Just to fuck with me she’s starting something. I also know now that this behavior is rooted in a perverted insecurity to control EVERYTHING!! “Why can’t you make it on Monday? You know I don’t have a car!! Uggh...I’ll just do it myself like I always do, bring them back Sunday!” “Umm ok”. Her not having a car is not my responsibility, why blame me for that? She doesn’t always do things on her own, hell I’ve been there since before day one helping raise our children!! I’m not a deadbeat, she’s not a single mother with no help, she’s a mother whose single!! I have ALWAYS went all out for my children, financially, emotionally, physically, spiritually...you know...the things o deserve no accolade for...just regular Dad duties. This used to get me upset. Now I know where this behavior comes from. She’s a narcissist with me in particular. Men come and go, and I assume she wonders why. She needs healing, so do/did I. The latter part of this conversation was unnecessary...

10:44 a.m.- I’m at work...it’s the moment of now...tbc...

2:30 p.m.-I leave the plantation, full of energy and angst to get to this bbq spot that my online Call of Duty playing, homies own. I’ve known them for about 14 years now. We’ve hung out several times, we know each other’s families, they respect me...even though...well...even though. I’m just not from their hood is all.

2:50 p.m.- I’m on the phone with my Dani, per normal...I miss her being physically next to me, but for now our myriad of conversations will do. She’s different, I felt it when I virtually met her...she’ll be here for the rest of my life and I to hers...I know it. Nonetheless I’m about to purchase a plate of food I don’t eat, I’m a vegetarian. “Babe, why are you about to buy something you don’t eat?” “Because I want do some a review on them” I say. “ I know, but you should go somewhere, where you can eat” she says. It does make perfect sense to me...but I’m stubborn and my big headedness is dead set on patronizing this black owned business, plus, I’m an official food reviewer. I go in and order, o already scoped out the menu and I knew what I wanted...to pretty much give away. A crab cake, seafood Mac, lamb chops, and collards is what I order...$55 bucks. “Damn” I say in my head...shit I might have said it aloud. Dani is ever so quite in the background, still attached to my ear (I got a dated Bluetooth in my ear, but it serves its purpose...those Bluetooth’s that only niggas that wear pink or lime colored gators have...Them Uncle Father ass niggas). As I’m ordering...I see the youngin that was a baby at one point in life, whose the child of a brother I use to game with. “Young Kage!!” I exclaimed. “Is that Stryker?” “Yep, it’s me, what’s good...is anybody else back there?” Now when I said anybody else, I meant the brothers that I gamed with for 14 years...but he said “Nah, ain’t nobody here, and B just left.” It still was good to see the establishment and how these cats made some from nothing. I get my expensive ass meal that I’m not going to eat and head home...I made a stop a Chipotle for me and then excitedly proceeded to my sisters spot, who lives in the same complex as I. Dani, my love, went to dinner herself with Ari her daughter...she already was hip to send me a review on whatever they got...she pays me attention...one aspect of why I love her so. Tam, Somaia, and Jahi...LOVE the meal. I look at them eating it and I truly wanted to indulge. But nah...let me stay disciplined with my vegetarian regiment.

8:00 p.m.-I’m home...chillin...waiting for Dani to call. I fall asleep with her on the phone. This day was less frustrating via my interaction with less people. I still am always aware of my surroundings, who I am, and how I’m looked at. The worlds course outlook on is, never fades or goes away.

[apprenticenerd]

"Anyone can send me an ask with one of the titles and I’ll post a snippet or talk about that WIP!" The Acropolis, Tacet, Checklist, A Tiny Galaxy, Hearsay, Going Back, Ella Disenchanted, Making Peace, The Slashed Circle, Wake Up, Tenno, Midnight, Heliotropism, Arrhythmia, the one about Among Us, the one about Library of Ruina, the one that’s a D&D world concept. Yes, all of them. I know you wanna talk about all of them. So go, go forth and do it!

Hoooo boy, this is gonna be a long post. Lots and lots of writing snippets under the cut to avoid dash stretch!

The Acropolis - original - length uncertain - 1.4k and counting

im not ready for this im not i thought it would be yrs i thought id at least get an english degree first

omg sal whats goin on

fuckin hell whyd it have to be now i have a chem lab tomorrow

sally-tate macpherson. u never swear. ever. wtf is goin on.

ok. jess. i need u to listen really really carefully. understand?

answer the goddamn question ur scarin me

shut up and listen and this will go a lot better

fine but u need to tell me wtf is happnenig

ok. im going to tell you a bunch of stuff. not giving u advice, thats not allowed, but im gonna tell u stuff it seems like itd be impossible for me to know.

?????????????

i said shut up this is really important dont question how i know it. just go with it and figure out what to do. and dont die. bc no matter how crazy stuff seems, if u die, ur dead. here and everywhere. ok?

This is an original story coming straight from a @/writing-prompt-s prompt about a crack in a kid’s hardwood floor that they fantasized was a portal actually being one. I originally intended to write the entire thing like this, as a conversation over text, but that may not be feasible given a certain world-building detail at the other end of the portal (and the limits of my creativity lmao).

---

Tacet - The Blackout Club - one-shot - 3.2k and counting

She closed her eyes again, and there it was. Hallucination? Some new science trick with electromagnetic radiation off the visible spectrum? Evidence that she was actually going insane? Whatever it was, it burned behind her eyelids in bright, incontrovertible red - and was completely invisible when she opened her eyes again. There was just the usual mess of club posters and one big one about someone’s exceedingly dumb-looking lost cat.

Eyes open, there was only Sargent Snuggles. Eyes closed, there was the normal darkness and then three lines of text where the poster had been, wavering like scarlet fire:

JOIN TBC JOIN TBC JOIN TBC

TBC? What the fuck was that? She’d never heard of any group with that acronym before. Hardly aware of the flurry of weird looks from half the other people in the hallway, she crossed the hall to examine the lost cat poster more closely. It felt like perfectly normal paper when she touched it, and there wasn’t even a hint of red with her eyes open, unless you counted the cat’s tacky pink sweater. How the hell was this even possible?

“You’re finally cracking, Bri,” she groaned under her breath, then headed for her locker. She did have to get home. Add another big fat entry to the weird shit list.

A backstory one-shot for my Blackout Club OC Briar, telling the story of how she got into the club in the first place. I’ve been stuck in the same spot for a while now, after Briar’s friend Dani explains the club to her, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the scene’s over as is. Of course, writing the next one is the tough part.

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Checklist - The Blackout Club - one-shot - 1.7k and counting

8. You still have a headache. Shouldn’t you go back to sleep and try to do this in the morning?

9. (wake up)

10. Nah, you’ve always been a night owl, and school starts criminally early, too early to get much done beforehand. It’s quiet, except for Dad snoring. Your parents are asleep already. You can stay up until this is done, and they’ll be none the wiser.

11. Your head hurts worse. It’s getting harder to think. At only 9 pm? 9:30? Whatever. You should sleep.

12. (wake UP)

13. What are you thinking? You have to read at least a little of this chapter, or there’s no way you’ll be able to bullshit your way through class tomorrow. Besides, all of a sudden, the silence feels...strange. Heavier? You can’t describe it.

14. You need to sleep. You need a drink of water or something. You need to finish this damn homework. You need to sleep. You need to sleep.

15. Stare at The Great Gatsby. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

16. Realize what’s up with the silence. Dad’s not snoring anymore. You aren’t feeling like yourself. You need to sleep.

17. Something’s weird.

18. (WAKE UP) 

19. ...No. Something’s wrong.

Another Blackout Club story and another Interface Screw, as it were, this time in the form of a (very long) checklist. None of the characters have names (yet). It describes another way a kid could find themself running around at night with the Blackout Club, this time by fighting off the Song just enough to run into a club member who could wake them up the rest of the way. As with Tacet, I still need to write the suspenseful part.

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A Tiny Galaxy - Warframe - 4 chapters planned, 1 complete, 1 in progress - 7.8k and counting

Try it if you don’t believe me, the kid in the vent had said.

It was impossible. It was physically impossible. All of this was impossible. Had the Void...? Could the Void...?

The ship was at a standstill. Her mother had tried to kill her, and something had happened. She’d made something happen. There had been no holoprojector in that kid’s hand. Nothing was impossible anymore.

Jhia took a deep breath. How the heck was she supposed to do this? Was she supposed to feel something, some internal guide? Blue Hair hadn’t said. Feeling incredibly stupid, she did a quick mental checkup on herself. Nothing felt wrong, or different - but now that she thought about it…

Afterward, she would try many times to explain it, and fail every time. The best she could come up with was that once she found the Void, calling on it was as easy and as natural as breathing. She opened her hands in front of her, concentrated on that force like an extension of herself, reopened her eyes, and there it was: a riotous little ball of energy, wisps and motes of light and not-quite-light like a tiny galaxy, the Tau system in the palm of her hand, raging.

More OC backstory time! This one’s for my Tenno, a nerdy fourteen-year-old (at the time of this story, anyway) by the name of Jhia, going through the hell that is the Zariman Ten-Zero and what happened on it. This is possibly the first part of the story I actually wrote: the roll-credits moment when Jhia realizes the Void’s changed her more already than she thought.

---

Hearsay - Lobotomy Corporation/Library of Ruina - one-shot - 1k and counting

"Oh? Did they investigate further?"

"They tried. Found a few fingerprints, but they didn't match anyone in the database."

"What's the update, then?"

"Reports from elsewhere in the district of someone not in uniform carrying a Zwei sword. They're slippery, good at avoiding us, which would suggest Syndicate operative to me and HQ. Except that in every one of the descriptions we managed to get, our sword thief is a child."

"What? How?!"

"You tell me, Iona. You're the one who went to the crime scene."

"Right... Jeez, if it's a kid, I guess that'd explain why Petrov thought they weren't a threat..."

"My thoughts exactly. HQ has a fair amount of hearsay to go on, but nobody can quite agree on how old the child is, or whether or not she's with a Syndicate. Most agree that she appears to be a girl, tall for a child, auburn hair, clothes and demeanor typical of a Backstreets native."

"We got a name?"

"They've heard Yeri, Kali, Redbird, Suma, Aelfin... No one knows which is her real one, or if it's even any of them at all."

"Damn. ...Say, are you going to drink that entire pot of coffee?"

"Help yourself."

This is one of those stories that turned into an accidental AU when more of canon came out. The idea behind it is that it’s Kali’s backstory told entirely in conversations in which she did not participate, showcasing the fact that a Fixer’s fame is their livelihood and Kali was about as famous as they come, before the whole L Corp thing happened. Of course, the vast majority of the headcanons here got invalidated with a certain Ruina update, so my motivation’s kinda down on this one.

---

Going Back has already been talked about here!

---

Ella Disenchanted - The Blackout Club - one-shot (maybe two-shot??) - 1.4k and counting

She woke. Her stomach went through a series of panicked flip-flops as she thought something strange had done it, Dad or a little-kid-nightmares shadow beast had made noise, but no - why had she fallen asleep in the first place? Her butt and shoulder were sore where they’d been leaning on the bottom and side of the windowsill, presumably all night, since the sun was full up over the trees on Old Growth Hill. 

All night. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t fall asleep, but she did anyway. God dammit.

As she unfolded herself from her cramped ball, though, she froze. Under the comforter she’d pulled around her shoulders for warmth, she was wearing her gray jacket, a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers getting dried mud all over the carpet. 

Last she remembered, she’d been in her pajamas.

In which a Blackout Club kid’s little sister wonders where he’s gone when he runs away to the boxcar, and tries to get to the bottom of the mystery herself. Usually she’d be too young for the club to recruit, but her investigations and an incident involving SAO are more than enough extenuating circumstance. Unlike most of my other WIPs, there’s a whole outline at the end of my doc for this one.

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Making Peace - Warframe - multi-chapter - 1.5k and counting

“I…” Iksoh finally said. “Sorna, I hope you realize. I’m not into this. I never - I’m not doing this. Whatever you’re doing, I can’t.”

“I know,” Sorna said softly. The decision tore at her heart again and she almost backed out of the vent, but no. She had to go. She wouldn’t see another innocent crumple in her rifle sights. “I hope you realize. I’m not coming back.”

Behind her, Iksoh let out a long, shaky breath. “It’s taking all I’ve got not to report you right now. Sorna… the Queens’ll have my head for this. Please, please, let it be worth it. Go. Don’t let them take yours.”

“I won’t,” Sorna promised, and meant it.

Later, after her last fight for her freedom was done, on the Steel Meridian ship headed for Kronia Relay, Sorna looked out at the planet retreating behind her and thought of Iksoh. She’d just learned a new word from a Meridian soldier: vaykor tal, the defector’s spirit. Iksoh had let her go, at risk of their own life. They’d had a bit of the vaykor tal themself, even if they hadn’t known it, even if they’d thought it was just some weakness that was bound to get them killed.

“Ranre treri, duf krun,” she whispered into space, a Grineer well-wishing passed down from sergeant to tube-fresh lancer since time immemorial. May your hands be steady, and may life be kind.

This is an AU born of me and some friends wondering why in the heck Perrin and the Meridian hate each other so much in game. It’s about a group of Kavor - Grineer defectors distinguished from other Meridian members by their pacifism - who get to a Relay and start wondering the same thing. Besides Sorna (and, later in the story, Iksoh as well), there would have been Chakh, Beket, and Sydon, plus at least four of the syndicate leaders and a bunch of side-character OCs, all caught up somehow in what turns out to be a surprisingly far-reaching web of intrigue.

--

The Slashed Circle - Warframe - one-shot, probably - 429 and counting

In addition to their written and spoken language, the Grineer have a full language of hand signs. It has its quirks, as all languages do - be careful of confusing it with the Corpus sign language, in which the sign for “to pay” roughly approximates the Grineer sign for...a certain portion of the male anatomy. Among these is the common Grineer sentiment against those who defect from their ranks, baked into the sign just as much as their spoken words. 

The sign of the slashed circle, the sedashkur - a finger drawn in a circle on the chest, followed by a diagonal line - is the highest of taboos to any loyal Grineer. It shows support for such scum as the Kavor and Steel Meridian, enough so that it forms the basis for the Meridian’s battle standard. To sign the sedashkur is to betray your siblings, commit a grave insult to your superiors, paint a near-indelible target on your back. It is an object of hatred and fear throughout the ranks.

She fears it, yes, but she does not hate it, for all her life and into her death as well. It shouldn’t trouble her now, though. It is easy to hide a language, and she burned her journals before she was called to the fortress.

This is a fic about Jhia and her one (1) converted Kuva Lich, namely about the process of said Lich’s defeat and defection, that kinda never got off the ground. Contrary to this snippet, I think most of it would have been written in what are essentially space emails back and forth between Lich and Tenno? I definitely got as far as Jhia sending an audio recording of a bass-boosted dog fart, anyhow.

---

Wake Up, Tenno - Warframe - one-shot - 950 and counting

“Wake up, Tenno.”

She wakes. She is - she is Tenno, right? She is a Tenno? Her mind is confused, so full of fog and dead ends - how long was she asleep?

The voice that woke her seems familiar. She might have loved the speaker, in her scrambled past life, the woman in the purple helmet, the one called Lotus in her HUD vision. Her surroundings are a ruin of some sort. Her body is—

...what?

She can move just fine. Her fingers and arms and legs respond with suspicious ease, given how long she must have slept to be this scattered upon waking up, and yet there’s some fundamental disconnect. This is her Warframe, her body, but it’s not her body somehow.

...wait, where did the term “Warframe” come from?

A Tenno, unnamed but intended to be Jhia on my end, wakes up on Earth at the very beginning of the in-game storyline. Since the tutorial has gotten an overhaul in recent months, I may have to modify even what little I have on this a lot.

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Midnight - Iconoclasts - poem - 280 and counting

been anything smaller than been anything

never been anything smaller than

“good morning, how’s miss grump doing today? i heard about that last mission...if you didn’t sleep well i can call you in sick, it’s alright-” “oh, shut up, grey”

there has never been anything

“oh, shut up, grey” “love you too”

smaller

“love you too”

than

me

A very fragmented, stream-of-consciousness-y poem meant to represent Agent Black’s failing sanity near the end of the game. The words of her famous one-liner (“there has never been anything smaller than me”) are interspersed, out of order until the end, with poetic descriptions of other characters and bits and pieces of a flashback involving Agent Grey.

---

Heliotropism - Iconoclasts - one-shot - 1.1k and counting

Lily, though she’s superstitious, will have none of these self-important truths, none of these semblances of certainty when really all it is is wishing on Ivory and hoping for the best. She calls for Miss Andress instead. 

A stout but severe woman with ten grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way, Miss Andress is perhaps the quintessential matriarch: nurturing, selfless, brutally honest. She is the one the people of 17 trust when they feel they can trust no one else. Lily needs the kind of reassurance only she can give, with the authority of ninety-one years and the wisdom of two sons, one daughter, and some five dogs raised under her care.

When Miss Andress visits House 4, she asks Polro and Lily to each bring an object they cherish the most. For Polro it’s his largest wrench, pitted with use but still polished to a brassy shine; Lily surprises everyone by pulling out a tiny, unloaded stun-gun, and surprises them more by not explaining it at all. Miss Andress doesn’t question it. She just turns the two tools over and over in her hands, head bowed, squinting at them as if trying to read the secrets of the universe in the scratches carved into them by time.

Finally she straightens up and sighs, pushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear. Her forehead is slick with sweat, though the night is cool outside. “I don’t know what she’ll do,” the wise woman says, heavily, as if delivering bad news. “I just know she’ll change the world.”

Can you tell I like backstory fic? This one is for Robin, with one short anecdote for each year of her life, up to age 17 and the events of the game. It’s also an excuse to world-build a bunch, lol.

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Arrhythmia - Crypt of the NecroDancer - one-shot(?) - 4k and counting

The creature didn’t say anything, just beckoned to the shadows. Before I could move, two other creatures came for me, sending the other humans - former humans? - scrambling away in panic. One landed a hard blow on the back of my head that sent me to my hands and knees, seeing sparks; the other said “Freeze!” and I could only watch as ice sprouted from the leaf litter, cementing me to the ground.

The one who’d hit me produced a dagger from the inside of its cloak. I tried to pull myself up, to do anything at all to keep myself from getting shanked, but it was no good. There must have been a secondary effect on that spell; my limbs wouldn’t respond. I felt the dagger tear cloth in the region of my back, and prepared for the pain.

It didn’t come. The creature cut a slit in the back of my tunic, then another. Neither one touched the skin at all. I can’t really describe what happened next - my brain was having trouble computing how my arms were in front of me, visible, unable to move, but it felt like the creature was pulling them through the gashes in my tunic, but that was wrong, they didn’t feel like arms at all.

“Holy fuck,” I heard someone say.

The ice holding me down melted into nothing as the spell wore off. I jumped back up, head spinning a little, ready for another fight, only to spot two flicks of scarlet in my peripheral vision. I spun around, but they moved with me.

I think I already knew what they were. I just couldn’t admit it to myself.

You’ve already seen this one, Nick, though I’m pretty sure it was well over two years ago. It’s a pile of old headcanons, some of them now outdated I’m pretty sure, about how Nocturna ended up a vampire in the first place and a little bit about how vampire society works. According to Google Docs, I’ve been stuck on this one since March 2018. Whoops.

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untitled (working title “adult citra meets an impostor bc what is self-control”) - Among Us - one-shot - 572 and counting

“I know. You’re stuck, aren’t you?” Having well and truly gotten their full attention, Citra continues, “God, I can barely imagine. Having to take a weird-ass host whose biology might even be toxic to you, I don’t know. Needing to get to a whole other galaxy, feeling like the only way to do that is by deception and death.” “How…?”

She sighs. “I told you, this isn’t my first rodeo. One of your kind saved my life when I was a kid. Since he’d killed Mom and Dad had been out of the picture long before, he stayed here and helped raise me afterward. It’s how I learned to pronounce...a few of your words, at least.”

“You missed the ‘H’ sound.”

“Isn’t that the one that’s literally impossible to do right with Terran anatomy?”

“Maybe. You think I know Terran anatomy all that well?”

Citra chuckles. “Fair point. You let us find your buddy and fix the ship, I’ll raise Xai when we get comms back and he can try and help you get home. Deal?”

I found an Among Us comic on Tumblr, absolutely ran into left field with it to make a couple of OCs, and then made AUs of those OCs because of course I did. This one is from a future scenario in which Citra (typically orange) meets someone rather familiar on a mission with the crew of the Skeld.

---

untitled (working title “library of ruina but they adopt half the guests”) - Library of Ruina - length uncertain - 1k and counting

“And what happened to not caring about others because it’s a waste of time and heartache?”

Now it’s Roland’s turn to sigh. “I don’t care about him. I just don’t want the guilt of killing - look at him, he can’t be older than eighteen or nineteen!”

Raised eyebrow. “Finn will be twenty years old in fifteen days’ time. He is a legal adult. I fail to see why this should matter to either of us.”

“He’s fresh off his first Fixer license! I have years of experience! He had no idea what he was getting into when he signed that invitation and you know it!”

Angela fixes him with a glare that turns his stomach, his freshly remade body reacting to the memory of its sudden, and extremely painful, dismemberment. “I could quite literally hold your soul in my hands if I wanted,” she reminds him in an undertone of steel. “I must do the same for him, following the invitation’s guidance, or my entire plan will be lost, my coworkers’ sacrifices all for naught. Do not disappoint me or ask any more impertinent questions. You know what to do, and what will happen if you do not.” 

Look, some of the people you fight in this game deserved so much better, okay? I came up with an AU concept where if a guest willingly concedes the fight and agrees to stick around, you can get their book without killing them. Finn doesn’t die; neither do Tomerry or Shi Association; all the former employees realize exactly what’s going on with Philip after the Wedge Office fight and manage to calm him down, avoiding the whole Crying Children situation. (And then Gebura makes him collect his jaw off the floor by revealing herself as the Red Mist.)

---

The one that’s a D&D world concept doesn’t have anything concrete written for it yet. (Don’t read this bit if you might want to play in my campaign at some point!) Instead of your typical Forgotten Realms planar setup, the world at large would be called the Seven Spheres, each of them different in terms of climate, geography, native species and magic, etc. The First Sphere would be the most “generic” one (to our way of thinking) and the main setting of the campaign; it would also be the smallest of the Seven, its primary continent home to a former empire of dragons that spanned most of the Sphere until its mysterious fall a thousand years ago.

Now, since the empire fell, the dragons and their children have slowly been dying out. Best estimates are that there’s only a thousand or two left in the entire First Sphere, with fewer eggs hatched every decade. The player characters enter a world with pretty typical low-level quests to start with, but every so often, especially if they engage with optional story stuff (this would be a more roleplay-focused than combat-focused campaign), they get wind of changes in the air - a failed harvest here, an unusually hot and stormy summer there, a trade war once they start hitting mid-levels.

It mimics real-world climate change in all but cause. As coastal cities struggle to contend with rising seas and, more alarmingly, wizards all over the Sphere start to notice their magic falter and wane, the PCs’ goal becomes getting to the bottom of this. And what’s at the bottom is...your typical Nerd fusion of science with fantasy settings.

The Seven Spheres are not planes of existence in the normal D&D sense, but seven planets in the same solar system, each with its own ancient god far more powerful than any god in any mortal pantheon; the First Sphere is so named because it’s closest to the sun. These planetary gods are incredibly large and incredibly alien, thinking in geologic time and concepts far too broad and slow for most sapient beings to comprehend. A thousand years ago, the fall of the dragon empire was caused by an ill-advised ritual meddling with the god of the First Sphere’s natural process of rebirth, causing said god to die without a replacement.

It’s taken this long for the First Sphere to feel the effects because, again, geologic time - a thousand years is a blink of an eye in this kind of time scale. But now the ancient earth-magic that had kept the Sphere’s climate temperate and its magicians in business is failing. The dragons, as beings of magic intrinsically, have been failing all along. And now it’s up to the PCs, up at level 17-20 if not higher by that point, to figure out how to fix the situation and find a new planetary god for the First Sphere before the whole Sphere burns to death.

[fanficparker]

My Home (Part 13)

Peter Parker x Reader

Part 13… Y/n Y/ln 

Word count: 1.27 k words

A/n: Tell me if you want to get added to the TAGLIST of My Home! For more parts see ‘MASTERLIST’ in my profile description! Taglist in the reblogged post. Tell me if you wanna get added :)

"Don't you ever do that again... without a lot of good practice first!"

With that, I started my training with Peter Parker a.k.a. the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Our training would include one hour of meditation daily so that I enhance my control of the ring, two-hour combat practice per day, in which I ranked number one...............from the bottom.

"Come on Y/N, punch this wooden statue as hard as you can, become the Hulk and smash it..." Peter groaned in his super cute voice. Groaning isn't his call. "You wooden piece, you're gonna yell in pain!" I screamed as confidence rushed in my veins in the form of adrenaline. "HULK SMASH !!" I shouted, punching the wood piece.

"Aa... aa... Ouch......oau... "

Oh, that sound wasn't made by the wooden statue. I wished it really yelled in pain, but unfortunately, the one yelling in pain was me, jumping on my tiptoes, rubbing my red knuckles. "Hey, Hey are you okay?" Peter jumped in, soothing my hand. "I guess Hulk wasn't that angry today." I laughed at his super cute, protective nature.

Peter helped me with my flying skills, by making me support cables using his web, so that I don't die falling down. Flying was a lot better than punching skills.

Skills always get better with time and practice. And a good partner always makes the process easier and interesting... A partner likes Pete.

After 14 days of practice, I could say that I'm not that bad after all. We were sitting on the edge of the same building we sat the first time we met. He had his mask off and a small notebook in his hand with a pencil.

"Flight skills: check  Ring control: double check  Dodge skills: decent  Fighting skills: gross, sorry to say, but no scope for improvement.", he narrated while ticking or crossing off the check-boxes, like he was a professional trainer. What a dramatic boy... Shutting his notebook and keeping the pencil down, he faced me giving a weak smile. But I grabbed - more like snatched, both the notebook and the pencil turning it to the same 'result' page.

"Intelligence and observation level to expose the 'secret identity' of a 'dumbo' nerd in just the first week of encounter......Triple check." I concluded, scribbling in his notebook.

"Oh come on, we were already done with 'me being dumb and bad at keeping secrets' a long time ago." He said, sounding frustrated as he shook his head.

"Are we?" I said with narrowing eyes as I stood up and grabbed the pack of churros from the lunch he brought...

"Hey, that's mine." He hesitated, trying to snatch it from me, but you know what? he looks so cute when he's annoyed, so...

As I learned how to fly, I took a flight... "You can't catch me Spid-urr-Man!" I announced, giggling.

Thwip.

He tried to wet my feet, but I dodged it. "You said I was just doing 'decent' in dodge skills" I announced in a challenging tone, accompanied by chuckling as he was getting annoyed. He started shooting more webs, and I dodged them again. "I told you so... " I teased him.

Thwip...

And my feet got webbed.

Over-confidence..........sucks!

The sudden jerk provided by his web, made me lose my balance in the air making me fall......Fall on him.

He was lying on the floor with me on top of him, my hand still holding that brown paper bag of churros.

"You think this is funny...?!" he sniggered, facing me. "I think it was......Just look at your face!" I burst out, laughing at seeing him on the ground with his curls all messed up, fighting for churros like a little kid. "Oooh...! If that's what you find funny, then this is probably even funnier!" He said, grabbing both of my wrists, flipping me over, so he was lying on top of me. He instantly started tickling me.

Oh god! Why am I so ticklish?! I was laughing uncontrollably, and he was giggling at the sight, continuously tickling me. At one point he finally stopped tickling me, rather pinned my hands down.

"What do you think now? Was it funnier?", he tittered. But in the next moment, his face wasn't funny anymore, he had a serious, 'lost somewhere' kind of look as he stared into my eyes.

I noticed our position as I felt a knot forming in my stomach as his eyes were darting from my eyes to my lips. He was so close, I felt his breath hit my lips. It felt like the floor on which I was laying was burning, I could sense my palms getting sweaty.

I know he once said, Spider-Man liked me, but I didn't know he meant it this way. I thought he was just an innocent flirt. Was I imagining things? Or was he really leaning in? 4 years on Earth, the most crucial time of my teenage years were spent here, me busy in reading at least a thousand books just to understand this planet, me studying hard at school just to get the free scholarship, me tolerating my evil foster family, me trying my best to adjust myself to this planet. And now, I am here, with the person I never thought could become so important to me in my life, leaning in until our lips touched.

I won't say that it felt like firecrackers blasting inside my mouth, ... it rather felt like everything was paused, like time stopped. I dropped the bag of churros on the ground, my body appeared to be paralyzed.

His lips felt like drugs as I felt euphoric the very next moment, unable to resist my own lips to move in sync with his as soon as the feeling of being frozen got away. My hands automatically roamed to his neck, wrapping around his neck as his hands left my wrist and travelled to my back grabbing my waist, pulling me closer. The kiss made me feel like I was craving it for so long, not even realizing it.

Was I in love with him, but just didn't realize it up until now?

But it's wrong! I haven't told him the whole truth about me yet! I can't cheat the person who cares for me more than anyone else, who loves me! It's absolutely wrong! I can't cheat him, by just telling him half the truth about myself or rather half a lie!

I pulled away, unwrapping my hands from his neck, signalling him to get up which he did. An awkward silence, more of a 'tension', surrounded the environment.

"I-I-I.... got some work..." I stammered at my words, trying to escape the awkwardness.

I was blessed I knew how to fly now, and I left without even waiting for him to say anything. Because I know that what just happened, shouldn't be happening! I am keeping him in shadows. I wished I could tell him the complete truth, but I don't wanna lose him. And I am sure he would hate me from the exact moment the truth gets revealed to him. And I could sense that the day is near.

(TBC) (Sub-plot on it’s way...) (Feedback is most welcome..)

Taglist in the reblogged post. Tell me if you wanna get added :)

[spiderswithtits]

Let Us Be Bold

14 year old Archer Folley has discovered a terrible secret in his town. After committing himself to rebelling against CHORUS, he spends his time in the clubhouse with his friend Sophie and tries to plot out a way to do - well, anything.

Unfortunately, there's only so much they can do and desperation has them looking for help in unlikely places. Words: 5100 Chapter: 1/1 Language: English

Fandom: The Blackout Club

Rating: Teen and Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Characters: Archer Folley (Original TBC Character), Sophie (Original TBC Character), eh there's mentions of the gods but no one else actually shows up so, the-measure-cuts, Because why not - Character

[Please see my reblog/the notes of this post for the link to the AO3 link if you’d like to review it or kudos it there! Also, Sophie doesn’t belong to me but rather a friend.]

Sometimes, the boxcar didn't seem too bad to live in.

It's daytime right now and surprisingly warm out, so Archer had to take advantage of it. The boxcar doors were pulled open as wide as they could to shake out the dust and musty air. Who knew a gaggle of teenagers could track in that much dust? The rest of the kids never stayed during the day though, so he was the one who spent most of the mornings cleaning up. There was a lot of trash - like, a lot. Soda cans, chip bags, forgotten bits of pencil shavings and mysterious strings from bandages littered the floor. It was like, pretty gross, especially since Archer was pretty sure one of them was all crusty from blood.

Now, all the trash was all collected in a pile outside and he was sweeping away at the wooden floors. Cleaning a box car was easier than any other chores he had and sweeping? Sweeping was nice. It was nice and repetitive and he could just stand there and enjoy the feeling of the sun on his face and the trees in the wind.

Sometimes, when the mornings were as calm as this, Archer could almost forget that this wasn't his real home. He… didn’t exactly like to remember his old house. It was painful to think about - too depressing! It's been what? Almost a month now since he's ran away? Yeah, if he sat down and thought about it, it was probably close to a month. It was scary back then when he lived with his real family. They were so sweet during the day, but during the night… It wasn’t his family anymore. Once he realized that, he spent all of his time lying awake at night. Fear kept him awake with the sound of - of the Song playing in the background and the padding of his family's feet around the house. His dad - so upbeat during the day - walked around and whispered about death and voices and old men in hospices. His own mom was thankfully awake, but not human anymore, he guessed. The first night he cracked his eyes open to watch her check on him, her face moved and crawled across her head like leaves on water.

Archer couldn't take it, not after that. Not after he joined the club and delved deeper under the town than he’s ever gone before and he learned that at night, he didn’t have parents anymore. What he had were two vessels that  looked like his parents but would toss him off a cliff without hesitation. Oh, Archer lost so much sleep when he realized that and his parents acted like they couldn't remember anything; his nerves were cut shorter and shorter until -

"Hey, nerd, are you okay?"

Archer jolted out of his thoughts and looked up, the broom in his hands clutched against his chest.

it was just Sophie, thank god. They stood there outside the boxcar, jacket thrown over one shoulder and their long hair pulled dripping wet over a shoulder. Their hair was redder than before they left for their makeshift shower and he's sure if he went out to the back, he'd smell the acidic tang of hair dye in the water buckets. They stared at him a bit suspiciously, but he just nodded and dropped his head. "I'm fine," Archer said, giving the floor one last good brooming towards the door. "Just... thinking."

Sophie huffed at his words and they pulled themselves up into the boxcar. "You're always thinking. What's it about this time? The coyote spies? Or like, do you have something new about the government and satellites? Like CHORUS has people in NASA?"

"Hey, it was a good theory oka - wait. Do you think Chorus actually has people in NASA?" That actually gets a laugh out of Sophie as Archer's eyes bugged out of his head and they flopped down onto the beanbag across from him.

"No, of course not! I mean, the song can't reach out that far, right? They have to stay like, here! In the RQZ."

Right. Right right. Sophie's right and Archer hung his head as he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He does a few more good sweeps to get the last of the dust outside and he watches as it billows out into the air. With the cleaning done, he set the broom up against the wall and stepped over to the bench next to Sophie and sat down. "No, it's not theories," he says as he rubs at the back of his neck. "Just..."

Sophie doesn't say anything. Not yet, anyway, but he can feel them watching him as he tried to find the words. It’s hard to say it! They’re not like him after all. They were a lot tougher than he was - braver too - and they weren’t afraid of losing family. Hell, how many times have the two of them sat down in their sleeping bags next to each other and argued over whether or not to just leave Redacre? Sophes wanted to go, but Archer wanted to stay. Where could they even go? Their family was here.

They wouldn’t understand, but the emotions were swelling up inside of him. It was like a cold rock in his stomach and not even the sun on his face could warm it up. Archer rubbed at his face and he sighed before he just let it spill out. "Just.. my family. I miss them, Soph. I keep thinking about my room, and my mom, and my dad, and how much I miss microwaves, and it sucks. It's nice here and I'm glad we're somewhere safe and I have you as my buddy but it's not the same, you know? I just..." He tapers off and then the boxcar goes quiet again. There’s nothing for a second, and Archer’s half afraid he needed to say something else. He opened his mouth, his throat worked, yet no sound came out. But, he didn’t need to say anything else. Sophie’s hand was already on his arm by the time his mouth fell closed again. Archer turned to look at them as they leaned on him, their arm wrapping around his. "I know," they say, quiet. "I'm sorry. I don't know - I can't help, and I know we can't go back. I'm sorry Archer."

The touch is comforting. It’s not the usual sort of comfort Sophie gives, but it didn’t matter. Right here, right now, it’s what he needed, and he couldn’t help but melt up against them. It's nice for him to feel them actually comforting him like this. It made him feel a little less… alone.

They're both quiet for a long moment. It's nice, just the two of them sitting there in the back of the boxcar with the sun shining in.

For a moment, Archer could sit and pretend that everything was normal. No Chorus, no voices, no dead children found in mazes, no families that tossed the bodies off cliffs after eating dinner together that night. Just... normal.

All he needed was normal.

------LATER THAT NIGHT------

"I talked to one!"

"What?"

"I talked to one of the voices, Archer!"

Sophie was a mess. Whatever cleaning he did during the day was completely ruined now as they clambered into the boxcar with dripping wet clothes and dirty boots smearing mud across the floor. They tossed their crossbow onto the equipment table and immediately slammed a boot against it to start untying their shoes.

Archer, on the other hand, was still sitting there on the floor in shock. His laptop sat next to him, glowing with the soft white of the downloaded wikipedia articles and pages and pages of his notes scattered around him with diagrams of music, maps of the town, and scribblings. "Hold on," He spluttered, staring at them.. "Hold on. Did you just say you talked to one of the voices? The ones that's trying to - to control us? Kill us?!"

"This one doesn't want to hurt us! He wants to help!" A dirty boot dropped on the floor and Sophie hopped to untie the other.

Archer scrambled up from where he sat, papers forgotten as he hurried over and grabbed at the edge of the table to look them directly in the face. "Are you possessed?" He whispered, horrified. Then he rethought and the blood drained out of his face. "Did you lead them here? You were out alone, you didn't have a buddy - oh god, I'm your buddy and I let you go out alone." Panic licked down his spine like ice water down a drain and he reached forward to grab at their jacket and pulled them close. The last thing they expected was for him to do that, and they froze as he inspected their eyes. "Did they see where the club is?! Sophie! Did they?!"

"Calm down!" They squawked and batted his hands off of their jacket. Bright red hair was falling out of the bun they kept it in and as he stepped back, it was only then he realized how dirty and beat up they looked. Sophie looked like they were dragged halfway across town and dunked into a lake and then dusted dry with dirt - if this was a ploy and they were a spy now, they wouldn't look like they just got done doing a military obstacle course, right? The voices weren't that smart, right? Or what if they were -

A hand came up to his face and he started as he realized how much closer Sophie came. Their hand was gentle at first - then they pulled it back to give him a smart smack across the cheek. "Calm down! I'm fine! I'm not possessed, if you'd give me a second to actually talk before you manhandled me, I could tell you everything that happened!"

Right. Yeah. Debriefing, that was... probably important. His cheek stung, but it was what he needed to knock the panic right out of his head. They needed to debrief without any of the panic, and Archer nodded at Sophie before pulling away. "Right," He echoed, sitting heavily on the boxcar bench. The door was still cracked open and the noise of crickets and the light of the moon lit up the forest almost like it was day and he closed his eyes to listen to the night. It was quiet, blissful silence while he tried to calm himself and Sophie sighed as they continued to take their shoes off.

"Are you feeling better now?" They asked as they thunked something heavy next to him. Cracking his eyes open, Archer could see that they were putting the dirt covered shoes away and dragging out a new pair from the closet. They dug through the boxes too, searching for a new pair of pants in their size. His hands and his lips still shook from his panic, but he thought he was calm enough to listen so he nodded.

Sophie eyed him up, not quite believing him as well as he wanted but that's fine. They'll still tell them and that's all that he cared about.

"Well," They started as they dug out another shirt and jacket. "While I was out there, I found something - something new! Or, well, I found it like, weeks ago.” Clothes in hand, they started stomping their way to the sleeping bag car, voice rising so he could hear as they shut the door. It was simple privacy while they changed. “Remember when I told you about those like, impressions of people pressed up against the walls? The ones you couldn't see when I dragged you out on the missions? I kept telling you to look for the blue mist but you could never see it."

He remembered that. He remembered how he stood there at the edge of the bed and flailed about trying to find this person they told him about. He saw nothing but the backs of his eyelids and after a few minutes - the tell tale sign of the shape walking into the house. Definitely not the figure Sophie was talking about, but he yelled back a loud “Uh-huh!”

"Okay, well, I found out what they were!" There's the sound of jacket zipping up now and the door slid back open. Sophie was in new clothes now - a neat little hoodie zipped up to the neck and track pants. They're cleaner than the other clothes they had on and they crouched as they started digging up some new shoes out of the closet. Sophie didn’t waste any time to start pulling them on and suddenly it dawned on him what they were doing. Were... were they planning on going back out there?! Archer can't help but gape at them as they laced up their shoes.

"They're name fragments!"

...What?

His mouth took a minute to catch up with his thoughts, but once it did and he vocalized it, Sophie beamed. "Name fragments!" She repeated! "There's like - there's all those voices we've been hearing, right? In our dreams and that the sleepers and lucids talk about? There's one they haven't been talking about! There's a secret voice, because he's supposed to be dead! Or, like, imprisoned. I don't know! Either way, the other voices don't like him!" They gave the laces one last tug to tighten them up and they scrambled across the floor to him, bouncing eagerly on their feet.

"Archer," they gushed. "Archer, I think he can help us get out of here."

Out... of there? Out of Redacre?

Sophie's talked about it a lot. Archer can't even say they haven’t, but that seemed as much of a pipe dream as his dreams were about following the trails of coyotes to where they were clearly gathering as spies for CHORUS. But this? There was a spark in their eyes, a fire that burned in their pupils and a determination in their shoulders that actually made him hesitate.

"S-Sophie," He stammered out. "I don't know. It's a voice, can we even - are we even able to trust it?"

There's a pause, and their eyebrows creased together as they studied him. "Yes," They said softly. "I think we can."

Archer didn’t buy it, but he didn’t say it. He's sure Sophie could read the hesitation on his face, but they didn’t say a word before they stood up and tugged him up with them.

"Hey, just come with me, okay? For one mission, before the sun comes up. I think he'll still be around to talk if you want to speak to him yourself." He stood as they talked and Sophie pulled him on over to the shoes. "Grab something you can run with and just - just try it with me okay? You like proof, let's go get you some proof."

Archer nudged one of the shoes out of the closet and he paused as he slipped his toes in. "And you promise this isn't a possession thing, right?" He asked. His voice is so much quieter than he'd ever like to admit but he's nervous! How could he not be!

Sophie just beamed again and nodded. "Trust me. I'm your buddy, we have each other's backs. Now let's go and kick some CHORUS ass."

---

The mission was a bust. Like, an absolute bust.

By the time they limped back on over to the boxcar, they were exhausted and scraped up and Archer was sure there was a splinter shoved an inch deep into his hand. God damn lucids, he thought as he pushed the door to the boxcar open. The two of you had spent your time wandering the neighbourhood and collecting evidence before the club reached out to the two of you, pleading for help to rescue a kid that was kidnapped. It went pretty well - until they got to the maze where it looks like Archer stepped right into the middle of a lucid meeting. They cornered him up in the rafters in the observation room and he cowered in the corner for five whole minutes as he waited for Sophie to save him.

Honestly? Thank god for his Blackout Buddy. If it wasn't for them, he's sure he'd be wandering the maze with the song vibrating in his head and the shape at his back and whispers in his head of where to go, who to talk to and what to do. They already did it once with the girl they went down there to save and he nearly got dragged away trying to save her from the song.

"That was too tough," Sophie groaned as they turned and hopped up onto the boxcar. Their legs dangled as they flopped backwards and stretched their arms out above their head. "I almost thought we were done for!"

"Yeah," Archer murmured as he clambered up next to them. "Me too. That was uh, pretty bad. Do you think the kid we saved is gonna make it back to us? I know they said to go ahead and they'll catch up but there were so many lucids and the shape was there and all..."

Sophie's quiet for a minute. Then, they cursed and pulled themselves back up. "Dumb kid, I know Rosalyn. She's probably the kind of person who'd get caught again so we should probably go get her." They slid off the boxcar and straightened up to eye up Archer.

He... didn't look so good. If he was honest, he was sort of hoping that they wouldn't ask him to come with because he's had enough of all this sneaking and this fighting tonight. Brawling wasn’t what he was built for - not like how Sophie was.

Luckily for him, it looks like they could see it. "... You should stay,” They said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind an ear.  “You look beat up and you know what? I know the maze better. I'll go look for her and you clean up and get the club ready if we need to patch up, okay?" Archer breathed a sigh of relief and he couldn't help but nod enthusiastically.

"Course! I'll keep things nailed down here. You go get her and come right back, okay?" He lifted up his fist to Sophie and they grinned and bumped knuckles.

"See you in a bit, nerdface!"

And with that, Sophie whirled around and darted off and Archer was alone in the boxcar. Again.

He took a moment to just sit there, legs swinging. Crickets chirped around him and if he listened, oh so faintly there was the soft hoots of owls. No coyote howls, but that he's been trying to catch for awhile. It was just... silence. Blissful silence and if Archer closed his eyes, he could almost believe he was safe and sound in his bed at home with his family.

His... family. The ones he's already ditched to live in a grimy little box car out in the woods, pouring over his notes and the reports kids brought back to him and only spotting on occasion when he wandered the neighbourhood. He's seen his dad a few times wandering around in his pajamas and it just made the ache in his heart hurt more. Today was just a day to think on them, wasn’t it? Maybe all the camping out was getting to him.

Archer wasn't Sophie. He wasn't some badass who could ditch their family at the drop of his hat. He loved his mother! He loved his father! You're not supposed to just - just ditch them!

But how was he going to save his family? Everything he's had so far has been useless to try to break the song. He's tried playing music (that was an awful evening bolting from sleepers), he's tried breaking into the shape doors (Sophie nearly smacked his head off when she found him dazed on the ground, blood coming from his nose from trying to pry one open), he's tried - well, he's tried everything!

There was something Archer was missing. There was information that he couldn't just - just steal or figure out.

He needed answers.

A lot of the other Blackout Club kids told him about their weird dreams. Voices, they said, in their heads that answered questions they had. If they focused, they could try to aim it towards one of them and sometimes - the voices talked back. The most successful responses were always done in front of a source of flame though, like a candle or... a lighter.

Archer sighed as he cracked his eyes back open and he pushed his way up. There was a weight in his pocket, one he barely noticed since he swiped it from a bed stand on his way back to the boxcar, but now... Now he reached into his jacket to touch it. It’s cold against his touch, but he gripped it hard enough to hurt as his mind whirled with his thoughts.

Archer spent a lot of time studying these voices. He recorded the questions the other kids told him they answered and kept a tally of their names and their words. There were seven, so far. All of them seemed to be some flavor of frightening or manipulative and he avoided ever trying to think out a question to one of them. He wasn’t interested in hearing what a bunch of lying and cheating ‘gods’ had to say after all. Or, well, usually. Most of them weren’t exactly the question answering type.

Shoving open the boxcar door to the sleeping bags, Archer stopped to stare at the altar mirror across the cab. No one could remember when that was put up there. Even the oldest members of the club said it's always been there and no one has yet tried to move it. He's been tempted to, but in the end, well, he never did.

But that... was where the kids went if they wanted to ask questions of the voices. It was dangerous, you're pretty sure, but they hadn't found the hideout yet so maybe it wasn't as bad as feared. It was just... a mirror, right? This couldn't have any sort of significance, it was just - Apophenia. Yeah, that's the term.

"Apophenia," Archer whispered as he approached the mirror, the lighter in his pocket getting heavier with every step he took. "The phenomena where people mistakenly perceive connections and meanings between unrelated things. That's... that's what's happening." Hell, maybe he didn't need a lighter here to make this prayer! Maybe all of these 'voices' that the other kids heard was just a mass hallucination where they all wanted to hear the answers they wanted to hear, all packaged up in the common enemy of Speaks-As-One.

Yeah, that had to be it, he thought as he stopped in front of the mirror. What other explanation could there be? That’s what he told himself, but there was still the slightest sliver of doubt planted deep in his mind, whispering that CHORUS didn’t just make itself out of nowhere. If he really believed that it was a hallucination, then what was he doing now in front of the mirror? Was it wistful thinking or desperation that had him staring at himself through the altar mirror. Archer hadn’t looked at himself in awhile now. He was thin - thinner than when he left home - and twiggy, all hidden under baggy sweaters and pants. His hair was getting a bit too long than his own mom would have liked, with the strands curling up lazily near his chin and hooking around his big, thick glasses. They weren’t big enough to hide the tiredness on his face though, or the bags under his eyes, or the hesitation and fear that drew his face long.

Archer pulled the lighter out of his pocket and he turned it over in his hand. It was plain polished metal and nearly gone if the slosh of liquid inside was any indicator. He'd have just enough fuel for a prayer or two if he was lucky. He just had to.. he just had to get the spine to do it now.

Inhaling, he flipped the lid open. The lighter was the same as any other lighter he's seen and he pressed his thumb up against the wheel to click it on. The flame was small and it flickered in the gust of his breath as he stared at it and Archer briefly wondered if there was a correlation between the flames of these prayers and the fact that the symbol Sophie described for Thee-I-Dare was flame shaped. Maybe? Maybe there was a correlation with the rebellious attitude the voice had and how quickly it was snuffed out? Or how he could ignite rebellion? Or, no - didn't he just berate himself for falling down the apophenia trap? It's not important, so he doesn't try to mull on it for long. If it turns out this is one big farce, there’s no need to get himself swept up in his theories again.

...But he wonders how he's supposed to keep this lit while he prays. It's such an incredibly simple problem that it snapped Archer out of his melancholy as he took his thumb off the switch and the flame flickered out. What the hell? The other kids said you needed an active flame to pray properly but he couldn't even get the lighter to stay on! Archer placed the lighter down onto the altar for a second and he turned as he tried to scan his sleeping back for something - anything - he could use to wedge the switch down. Maybe, if he just took a paperclip from his binder and snipped it to a point -

Click.

If Archer wasn't scared before, he certainly was now. The sound was so soft, so delicate from behind him and when he turned to face the altar -

The lighter was on. The flame flickered in the mirror and he stared at it. There was nothing pressing the lighter button down now and yet it sat there, burning away and jumping and dancing like he was the one who ignited it, who just casually left it there to burn and burn and burn.

Suddenly, the boxcar didn't feel as empty as it did before. His heart beat deep and fast in his throat and the blood rushing in his ears was loud enough to drown out the crickets outside. Right now, it was just him and that lighter and whatever it was that kept it lit. Archer's skin prickled as he realized that he was alone against the big wide world out there. There's no Sophie to save his ass if something happened now - he'd have to save himself and hope for the best. If someone happened on the boxcar now...

Well. Archer would be dead. Probably. Or shaped permanently or dragged off like Bells was.

But he was brave! He had to be. His hands shook but he wiped them against his jeans to smear off the sweat and he inhaled, nice and deep as he considered his next move. Archer swallowed to try to ease the dryness in his mouth and he slowly knelt in front of the altar, eyes fixed on the flame before him. This was some true supernatural shit he never expected to actually work - but at the very least, he came prepared? Thank god for his overplanning.

Archer knew the names of all the voices that have cropped up so far. Laughs-Last, In-Her-Teeth, Dance-For-Us, Thee-I-Dare, Speaks-As-One, Die-For-You and The-Measure-Cuts. He spent a while thinking about the seven voices and which he would talk to because only a few of them would be any help to him. Laughs-Last and Dance-For-Us were too much crazy for them to be any help. They seemed more keen to mock and demand entertainment than answer any questions so they were off the list. Speaks-As-One was definitely off the list. He wasn't that brave to try to get his attention. Die-For-You almost seemed like a good voice to try, but after scrutinizing dream after dream that was told to him, Archer felt like they'd be more eager to further their own agenda of cultish fanaticism than help him.

Which left... The-Measure-Cuts.

Archer didn't have much on him yet, except that he was precise, skeptical, and had an appreciation for mathematics. He seemed new, but eager to talk if you could bring something worthy of his attention to the table - but if you didn't show you could bring him something to scrutinize, he'd toss you aside like a spent pen. There was something with him with butterflies and slicing and cutting though and that’s a concern, but he had a theory that he did that only when he knew he squeezed every bit of information out of someone he could. If someone was careful, maybe Archer could lead him on and squeeze something out of him.

The-Measure-Cuts was the only one that Archer felt like would answer a question - or at least give them hints. Men of knowledge were always eager to share and debate, weren't they?

Archer inhaled, slow and shaky, as he dipped his head to his chest. The flame flickered in front of his face as he sat there and tried to go over the words he prepared just the other night. There was just... there was so much fear clogging up his insides and for a moment, he was tempted to simply stand up and slap the light off the table and forget about it all.

But then he thought of his family. He thought of his parents wandering under the lull of a song that wanted to kill him and his friends. He thought of Sophie and how they wanted to run rather than save their families. He thought of the only home he's ever known and how he's abandoned it now just to hide like a coward. He's always been a coward when it came to fighting. Archer was a thinker - a planner! - and he had to do something with this big brain of his, right?

So Archer exhaled and calmed his mind. Something almost seemed to charge in the air while he collected himself, almost like something was turning its head to listen - like there’s something that’s noticing him for the first time.

And then…. he spoke.

"Hi um, This is Archer. I'm 14 years old and like, my friend Sophie said that they've been talking to some of you quote unquote 'gods' or whatever you're called, so I guess I'm trying this out because I want answers."

[daisyamaryllis]

My story- The Start:

⚠⚠TRIGGER WARNING...⚠⚠

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.

.

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They say a woman leaves an average of 7 times before finally never going back to an abusive relationship. It took me 8. I'm Averille Marren and I'm a survivor. I wasn't always Averille Marren though. I was born Averille Louise Barry. Blasted ugly name but that's neither here nor there. When I was 3 my parents were killed in a plane crash. I was staying with a family friend and they had no desire to keep me so before I knew what was really happening I was in the system.

My first home kept me until I was 12. They were nice enough but very patriarchal. Men (father and 2 sons) ruled, women kept the home and obeyed. If not then there were punishments. I remember being 4 and Ma'am didn't have dinner on the table on time. Mister made her redo everything! He scolded her, then scolded me for not helping Ma'am. She remade dinner for him and their 2 sons. I had to stand in the corner while they ate then had to do the dishes, by hand. I then had to write Bible verses about obeying men until bed.

A few weeks later the parents caught us and that's when I went to my second home. They would not allow a nobody teasing their son. Because as we all know, a 12 year old is a brilliant sexual tease (insert eye roll). My second home was unpleasant to put it mildly.

One bright spot was Chris. She was their bio daughter but knew things weren't right. She was just biding time til she could move out. We became true sisters and are to this day. When I was 14 they had me get a job to support them because they weren't getting enough from the state and I should show my appreciation. So, I worked at various jobs often missing school to do so. The people didn't care if I was educated, just that I gave them money. They burned through it gambling, drinking, buying crap. When I was 15 I started at the arcade. I enjoyed that and Chris worked there too. When I was 16, she was 18 and moved out. She promised she'd be there for me but had to escape. Didn't blame her, I'd have done the same.

When I was 18 I met a man named Simon while at the arcade. He was gorgeous and funny and made me feel important. I fell hard and fast. He moved me into his apartment 3 weeks after we met. I thought it was true love, that I'd finally found a home. Boy was I way off. Six months into our relationship he had me quit my job. He just felt I needed a rest, that focusing on the home was more important then being treated like shit at a dead end job. It made sense and, he loved me. He only wanted the best for me. Time slowly revealed the truth.

By the end of that first year it was clear that he was in charge and I was not the love of his life, as previously thought. Started small, always does I learned. I didn't have dinner right on time so I was a bitch. The house wasn't clean enough so I deserved the hour long rant about my worthlessness. I deserved to be smacked and berated. I'd disappointed him. I never wanted that, I loved him. I was wrong, just needed to try harder and he'd be happy and keep loving me.

Fifteen months into the relationship I really fucked up. He'd asked me to run him a bath. I felt he needed to relax so I added some lavender bath salts. By the time he was done teaching me how to run a man's bath properly I had 3 broken ribs, a black eye, a split lip, a cracked skull, and a 3 week hospital stay. Doctors were told I'd been in a car accident. I'm sure they knew better but did nothing, neither did I. The day I got home from the hospital he had me on my knees scrubbing the floor of the entire apartment. I had to earn his forgiveness. I had been gone for three weeks and let our home go to shit after all. This began the routine...I messed up, he berated and beat me.

The second year, I tried leaving twice. The first time I came back after sweet words. The second time was after another hospital stay. He didn't come to pick me up so I took a chance and ran. But I had no money, no way to get or stay anywhere. I slept on the streets for a week before going back.

<<<TBC>>>

[jeremystrele]

TDF Collect Presents ‘Devotions’ By Lucy Roleff

TDF Collect Presents ‘Devotions’ By Lucy Roleff

Art

by Lucy Feagins, Editor

Artist Lucy Roleff painting in her studio. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘Big Harvest’ by Lucy Roleff, 60x70cm.

Artist Lucy Roleff. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

A studio scene, featuring ‘Ornament’ by Lucy Roleff. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘Tin Cup and Vessel’ by Lucy Roleff, 30x40cm.

Left: ‘Breakfast Table’ by Lucy Roleff, 20x25cm. Right: ‘Deep Afternoon’ by Lucy Roleff, 60x70cm.

Sketching the beginnings of an idea for a painting. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Top: ‘Shell, Chain and Sleepers’ by Lucy Roleff, 20x25cm. Bottom: ‘Green Ribbon and Sprig’ by Lucy Roleff, 20x25cm.

Left: ‘Black Hill Dandelions’ by Lucy Roleff, 30x40cm. Right: ‘Little Cup and Carnations’ by Lucy Roleff, 40x50cm.

Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Left: ‘Athena’s Morning’ by Lucy Roleff, 50x60cm. Right: ‘Morning Pause’ by Lucy Roleff, 20x25cm. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Left: ‘Ariadne in the Evening’ by Lucy Roleff, 20x25cm. Right: ‘Milk Jug and Butter’ by Lucy Roleff, 30x40cm.

Every so often, an artist comes along who we just know is destined for really big things. Lucy Roleff is one of those artists. Ever since our art director Annie Portelli stumbled across her work around two years ago, we’ve been dying to have a show with her. And today we could not be more thrilled to be announcing Devotions, Lucy’s debut solo show, at TDF Collect.

Although Lucy studied Fine Arts at university, her major was in photography. And while she dabbled a little in realism painting, it wasn’t until several years later that she started to take this innate desire to paint more seriously. If you can believe it, Lucy’s painting practice is largely self-taught!

The works in Devotions are painted ‘alla prima’ style (also called ‘wet-on-wet’), which means the works are painted quite intuitively, without allowing the paint to dry between layers. Mind-boggling in their realism, Lucy’s works evoke a sense of history and tradition, whilst also offering subtle hints of their contemporary origins : a half-finished tube of hand cream here, a pair of glimmering golden hoop earrings there. I’m sure you’ll agree that they’re really something special!

Pre-sales for Devotions are now open (and if you have your eye on something… we seriously advise you to get in quickly…!), and the show will open on July 18th – most likely in a limited capacity – stay tuned on that.

And now, to learn a little more about Lucy!

Can you tell us a little more about your creative journey? How and when did you come to painting?

I loved to draw from an early age, and spent a lot of my late teens and early 20s at my desk drawing faces and objects (often while others were out at parties!). I studied Fine Arts, majoring in photography, and in my second or third year decided to take up painting as an elective. I desperately wanted to learn how to paint realism, and learned some really good fundamental things, but was never really happy with how my paintings turned out. I decided painting was just something you had to be born to do, and left it alone.

After uni, I moved more into the illustration world, and became a freelance illustrator for several years. It was excellent practical learning, but the curiosity around painting kept coming up. I would spend a lot of time wandering around galleries here in Melbourne and when travelling in Europe, often moved and mesmerised by the huge realist oil paintings – still so eager to know how they were made. I’m not sure how I came to start teaching myself but over a period of a few years, I would pick up books, watch videos online, ask a million questions of a couple of local painters in my area – until one day after a fair few goes implementing what I’d learned, painting started to make more sense… it just clicked for me.

Where do you typically create your work from, and what materials, techniques and processes you use?

I work at my studio in Thornbury, which is in an old football making factory, shared with some seriously talented people. We all work in different fields so it’s really interesting and inspiring. I paint in the alla prima style – which is also called ‘wet on wet.’ So you’re not building up layers and waiting for them to dry in between etc, but painting everything in one go, more or less. My medium is very slow drying, so I can work on a painting over a few days to a week without it drying out.

I love smooth surfaces, such as very fine linens and board. I have about a million brushes in my studio, but really only end up using 2-3 brushes per painting. I also use a very limited palette, as I feel this greatly helps you to learn to see and mix colour. So now I can mix pretty much any colour just from the five paints on my palette – it’s’ something that comes with a fair bit of practice but is very satisfying!

What has inspired the artworks in your debut solo show, ‘Devotions’?

The sketches for these paintings came about over a few months as I was thinking a lot about the use and presentation of small domestic spaces, in contemporary life and also in traditional paintings.

I’m always trying to find a certain balance between an arrangement that is directly relatable, and an arrangement that seems to point to something a bit grander, maybe otherworldly. A balance between grandeur and the every day. The setting up of these scenes can be quite meticulous, it can feel like setting up a shrine or an altar – which made me think a lot about actions of devotion, these ways we can express such deep feeling for others, but also for objects.

Many of the arrangements were set up in collaboration with my friend, photographer Annika Kafcaloudis. I would bring my props around to her place on a weekend morning and we’d sit outside, chatting, drinking coffee and playing around with arrangements to shoot.

What other creative references do you draw on?

I would say I am indirectly or directly very influenced by music, and art of the baroque era. I’ve been playing music since I was very small so it definitely feeds into the painting, and vice versa. I also listen to a lot of different music when I paint, so certain songs or pieces will manage to weave their way in. I think I also snatch bits of ideas from films, photography, sculpture, fiction writing, poetry… it’s not so conscious but I’ll notice motifs turning up over and over in my mind til I put them down into a painting. Some of the objects in my paintings will have connections to people I know as well – I like how objects can be like codes, or symbols for something else.

Pre-sales for ‘Devotions’ by Lucy Roleff are now open! See the full catalogue here. For all sales and enquiries email art@thedesignfiles.net

‘Devotions’ by Lucy Roleff Opening celebrations TBC Saturday July 18th, 11am-5pm Sunday July 19th, 11am-3pm Monday July 20th – Thursday July 23rd, 10am-4pm

TDF Collect 14 Little Oxford Street Collingwood, Melbourne

[followmylead07]

Tag thingy

tagged by @wonder-womans-lasso and @elizataylors-lapdancer thxs guys (= you both realize this is a shit load of questions so I expect to be paid well. lol 

The last 

1. Drink: tea 

2.Phone call: friend 

3.Text message: oh do I get those, lol (= same friend 

4. Song you listened to: Wonderwall Oasis 

5. Time you cried: oh geez like days ago over a show  

6. Have you ever dated someone twice: nope can’t say that I have 

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: no 

8. Been cheated on: no 

9. Lost someone special: oh yes 

10. Been depressed: not so much depressed as sad/angry :/ 

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: too many times 

12. 3 favorite colors: black, silver, and red 

13. Made new friends: yes  

14. Fallen out of love: nope  

15. Laughed until you cried: sure have 

16. Found out someone was talking about you: hasn’t everyone 

17. Met someone who changed you: yes (:

18. Found out who your friends are: (= of course

19. Kissed someone in your Facebook list: oh geez I would have to look to see lol 

20. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: too many to count 

21. Do you have any pets? not yet 

22. Do you want to change your name? no I dig my name 

23. What did you do for your last birthday: I went out with friends played pool than well...tbc (; 

24. What time did you wake up: 6am 

25. What were you doing at midnight last night: playing a game 

26. Name something you can’t wait for: a certain trip 

27. What are you listening to right now: Stephen Colbert Show he is hilarious 

28. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I use to date a tom  

29. Something that is annoying to you: people that pop their gum really loud ugh 

30. most visited website: Steam 

31. Hair color: brown 

32. Long or short hair: medium 

33. Piercings: no 

34. Blood type: a positive I think lol 

35. Nickname: butthead, bitch etc lol 

36. Relationship status: sadly single  

37. Zodiac: Pisces 

38. Pronouns: her/she 

39. Favorite TV show: Grey’s Anatomy 

40. Tattoos: no

41. Right or left handed: right

42. Surgery: tonsils does that count lol

43.Piercings: no

44. Sport: football

45. Vacation: someplace warm preferably tropical

46. Pair of trainers: shoes I am gathering, Nike’s black

47. Eating: anything good

48. Drinking: now your talking, captain morgan and Smirnoff

49. I'm about to loose: my patience

50. Waiting for: a download to finish 

51. Want: a hot girl and a lot of money 

52. Get married: a possibility but I need a girl first lo 

53. Career: now why do you got to ruin the mood 

54. Hugs or kisses: I want both 

55. Lips or eyes: If I look into her eyes then get that feeling then I will look at her lips with lust 

56. Shorter or taller: as long as she is hot don't care 

57. Older or younger: again if she is hot not too worried about a number unless it’s her credit score 

58. Nice arms or nice stomach: how about a nice body

59. Hook up or relationship: I have no problem with either lol

60. Troublemaker or hesitant: depends on my mood

61. Kissed a stranger: oh God no wouldn't that be awkward lol 

62. Drank hard liquor: hello yes 

63. Lost glasses/contact lenses: no since I don't wear any

64. Turned someone down: yes and regretted it later lol

65. Sex on the first date: well, if she is hot and I am horny than things could go that route and I wouldn't complain 

66. Broken someone's heart: yes so I've been told 

67. Had your heart broken: yes again 

68. Been arrested: I hope not 

69. Cried when someone died: well yes 

70. Fallen for a friend: no that would be shall we say AWKWARD lol 

Do you believe in,

71. Yourself: well duh yes 

72. Miracles: I have been known to 

73. Love at first sight: not anymore lol 

74. Santa Clause: you mean he isn't real lol 

75. Kiss on the first date: I hope so, I kind of want to get to at least 3rd base 

76. Angels: yes 

77. Current best friends name: skittle aka Erin  

78. Eye color: kind of green if I tilt my head just right 

79. Favorite movie: Impossible to say just one 

I am not going to tag anyone as anyone who would like to do this please enjoy; just make sure to have a stiff drink waiting for you when done as this was a bitch to finish...

[idreamofdraco]

Part 15 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

Yes! A new update for my Pansy story! A short one this time because I really should be finishing my exchange fic (I actually need to be asleep) and because I’ve been meaning to get something added to this for the last year. I finally settled on a title as well! SOS (Save Our Slytherins). Each of these posts will be tagged as such.

No idea who all would be interested in these updates, so let me know if you’d like to be tagged when I post a new part. Or not tagged. Or whatever. Let me know things.

@noeycat07 @weasleymama @tinyyellowdragon

Title: chameleons Author: idreamofdraco Rating: K/PG/Not Naughty Compliant With: All But Epilogue Era: Post-Hogwarts, Post-War Length/Status: 861/TBC (maybe??) Warnings: None Summary: Pansy and Draco convince Harry to let them help in the search for Astoria.

Draco stood with Potter, Granger, and Weasley in the foyer, clearly in the midst of a disagreement.

“I’ll disguise myself!” Draco said. He tugged on Potter’s scarf, preventing Potter from donning it and demanding his attention at the same time. “Glamour me, give me some of your clothes. I’ll pretend to be a Muggle!”

Potter’s jaw clenched. “It’s dangerous for you to go out alone. If you get picked up, everything we’ve worked for will be ruined.”

Pansy stepped forward, too aware of Daphne’s sobs echoing up the kitchen stairs and Theo’s soft attempts to comfort her. Ginny, Luna, and Millicent crowded behind her, all grim.

“Let him go, Potter,” Pansy said. “Let both of us go.”

The censure of his green eyes landed on her, frustrated, frightened, a little furious. “You don’t understand. We need—”

“I do understand, actually. I understand that Astoria is fifteen. She’s spoiled and traumatized and she misses her home. I understand that we are her family, and she will be more likely to trust Draco or me if we confront her than she would any of you. We understand what’s at risk, but we need to find her as soon as possible.”

Potter stared at Pansy, silent and considering. She didn’t flinch under his gaze, even though a part of her wished to. In the last year, he had changed. He was a man grown, burdened with responsibility and honor, sick with them. His round glasses did little to obscure the purple bags tattooed under his eyes, and even at such a young age, Pansy thought she could see the shine of premature silver in his hair.

If Pansy had aged a decade in appearance due to the ordeal she’d been through, how old must Potter be, then?

Granger put a hand on his arm, drawing his attention toward her so they could have a silent conversation through raised eyebrows and scowls. It was annoying to watch, so Pansy was grateful when Ron spoke up.

“They aren’t prisoners here. Let them help.”

Before Potter could agree, Granger raced up the stairs, her feet pattering up each step for a comical length of time until a door opened at the very top and then, a few moments later, slammed closed. She raced back down again, arms laden with clothes, which she divided between Pansy and Draco.

Ginny, Luna, and Millicent shoved Pansy into the unused dining room and helped her change out of her pajamas and into the jeans and sweater Granger had given her. As material flew through the air and onto the floor, Ginny went to work on the hair she’d just cut, charming it into flowing locks several shades of brown lighter than Pansy’s own. The weight of her new hair was foreign, the ends tickling her shoulders strange. She didn’t have time to find a mirror or accustom herself to the feel of her new self because she was unceremoniously shoved into a pair of trainers and just as suddenly discarded back into the foyer.

“Oh, they fit perfectly!” Granger said, clearly focusing on the clothes she’d let Pansy borrow.

Potter, on the other hand, was staring at her face, his expression pinched.

“What?” Pansy snapped.

He glanced away. “It’s nothing.”

If Potter hadn’t been a virtual stranger, a rival, a master, if he’d been a friend, Pansy would have demanded a better explanation for his staring. She would have touched her hair in a self-conscious gesture and said with a self-deprecating sort of smile, “It looks stupid, doesn’t it?” And Potter, as noble as he was, would have refuted such a claim; he would have complimented her on her new hair. Maybe he would have fumbled in his attempt, but he would have made the effort.

For some reason, the thought that he would have tried to reassure her, even if she’d fabricated the whole scenario, was reassuring in itself. Pansy wasn’t that girl, though. Not anymore, and definitely not around Potter, Granger, and the Weasleys, so she stayed quiet as she waited for Draco, her arms crossed over her chest, her chin tilted imperiously.

When Draco reappeared, Pansy had to smother the laughter that immediately bubbled up her throat. He’d been made a brunet, too, his hair quite a bit darker than Pansy’s. His eyes were a flat, uninteresting brown that made fifteen-year-old Pansy cry at the loss of his natural gorgeous eye color. In jeans, trainers, and a Muggle coat he looked completely unremarkable, except for the way he held himself. He looked like a pauper who thought himself a prince.

Ron followed Draco out of the room in which he’d changed clothes and scrutinized both of their disguises. “Perfect,” he said with an air of both sarcasm and approval, “you’ll fit right in.”

Potter opened the door, inviting in a blast of frigid air that had Pansy shivering in her own coat and wishing for a warming charm.

“Remember what I taught you,” Ginny said, her attention intent on Draco, her gaze blazing.

Pansy didn’t know what that meant, but he nodded, his fists clenching at his sides.

And then they were stepping outside, rejoining the ruined world.

Part 16

[jenmedsbookreviews]

  Man. Where to even begin this week. Well. I will start by saying my reading achievements were next to none. Not quite none. But near enough. Work has been very demanding, I have been very tired and my heart just was not in it. No reflection on the books, more a reflection on my weary and rapidly ageing bones and brain telling me to take a break. In fact I am writing this post in stages as I know where my head is currently at so it if makes no sense come the end … well nowt new there really but this time there is an excuse at least 🙂

So, anyway. Aside from being generally ancient (turned 42 this past week don’t you know) I was preoccupied with something else. Lordy 42. Do you remember being a kid and thinking that people in their forties were ancient? Well I’ll let you into a secret – when you finally reach your forties you bloody feel it too. Just kidding. Age is just a number. Like my chest, mine is just larger than some, that’s all. But back to my point (wandering mind comes with age too…) I was away from home from Thursday until Sunday this week because I took the plunge, packed my backbone in a small holdall and made my way to Harrogate for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Festival.

It’s an interesting festival, very different in tone to Crimefest, geared very much to a social atmosphere but encouraging and enticing readers with a healthy and steady supply of books. I say healthy with my tongue in my cheek (not easy to do without biting said tongue – don’t believe me try it), as carrying around the dang things all day has knackered my shoulder but hey ho. 

As book hauls go, this week was mega. It was also rather big in terms of meeting people. I met a whole host of bloggers this weekend who I’m not going to try and name for fear of missing someone and causing great upset, but it was a pleasure to meet you all either finally or again (and you super lovely ones already know who you are 😉 ). I also met quite a few authors that I admire, including Robert Byrndza and the lovely Jan, Caroline Mitchell and Mel Sherratt, Graham Smith, Sarah Wray, Claire Seeber and also got to meet Keshini Naidoo (yes – a small Bookouture bias in this post I think).

It was also lovely to catch up with Kim Nash, Karen Sullivan, Steph Broadribb, Amanda Jennings, Lucy V Hay, Amer Anwar, Felicia Yap, Patricia Gibney, Bernie Steadman and Fiona Cummins again, and to get to say hi to Paul Burston as I absolutely loved his book The Black Path. I even remembered to take pictures of some of them (but not many as I suck at that). Oh yes, and it was nice to see Rod Reynolds again even if he did show Jo and Emma the terrible selfie he took at Crimefest (terrible because I was in it). And lovely to finally meet Graeme Cumming and have a catch up chat with Gabriela Harding in the quiet times. I’m just hoping I haven’t missed anyone and if I have I’m sorry and I do love you too. (Well at least like and admire – love is such a strong word 😉 ).

Have to give credit to Abbie Osborne for the selfies as I would totally not take those 😀

As well as generally milling about I did attend a couple of panels, though not as many as I perhaps would have liked so I’ll try better next time. The Friday night panel chaired by Sarah Millican and featuring Lee Child, Mark Billingham and Val McDermid was hilarious as you would expect. And I totally agree with Sarah Hilary’s shout out for Chris Whitaker as a totally brilliant writing talent. I also went to a blogger/author event organised by Orion where we met Mari Hannah, Emma Kavanagh, Stephanie Marland (aka Steph Broadribb, aka Crime Thriller Girl) and Lara Dearman, a forensics talk in which I learned many important things to include in ‘Killer’, and a quick start talk on writing crime fiction with Isabel Ashdown and Sam Eades.

And I had two lovely evenings out, firstly with Abigail Osborne, Leah and Jill of Jills Book Cafe, and then with Tracy Fenton and the guy and gals from TBC. Thanks for the company all.

And then there were the books… So. Many. Books.

I got the following:

The Devils Claw by Lara Dearman (Kindle pre order 7/9/17);

My Little Eye by Stephanie Marland (Kindle pre order 2/11/17) Happy dance moment :D;

The Wrong Child by Barry Gornell (Kindle pre order 2/11/17);

The Lost by Mari Hannah (Kindle preorder 2/3/18);

Murder at the Mill by M.B. Shaw (Kindle pre order 30/11/17);

Shadow Man by Margaret Kirk (Kindle pre order 2/11/17);

Beautiful Liars by Isabel Ashdown (Kindle pre order 19/4/18);

I Found You by Lisa Jewell;

The Seagull by Ann Cleeves (Kindle pre order 7/9/17) – The only book I actually purchased all weekend.

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo;

If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch (Kindle pre order 11/1/18);

Give Me The Child by Mel McGrath;

Eyes Like Mine by Sheena Kamal;

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell (Kindle pre order 5/10/17);

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent (Kindle pre order 29/8/17);

The Mountain by Luca D’Andrea;

The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes (Kindle pre order 14/9/17);

The Collector by Fiona Cummins; (soooooooooooo excited about this one and so new there are no Amazon links yet!!! :D) If you don’t know why I’m excited and haven’t yet read Rattle (and if not why not?) then you can order it here and get yourself ready for next year. Did I mention I love that book? I do. I was so excited I may have actually started reading this in bed instead of the books I should have been reading. Oops. (Sorry – not sorry). All the eeeeeeeeeks and squeeeeeeeeals.

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (pre order January 2018);

Consent by Leo Benedictus (pre order 1/2/18);

Perfect Remains by Helen Fields;

Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughn (Kindle pre order 11/1/18);

Strange Magic by Syd Moore

So all in all a great book haul of a weekend. And I visited Betty’s and treated myself to a belated birthday cake. Go me.

Now the weekend wasn’t without it’s down moments too but least said, soonest mended so lets move on.

Now as if all that wasn’t brilliant enough, before I left for Harrogate I received some absolutely stonkingly fantabulous book post from the wonderful Louise Ross (LJ Ross). Now I knew I’d be getting the signed book as I won it in a charity auction, as well as the chance to be a named character. But I wasn’t expecting to receive a DCI Ryan series mug as well. I actually collect mugs as well as books so this couldn’t have been a better gift for me and will take pride of place in the collection.

And, totally not book related but my new cushions and mugs turned up. How fab are these?

The McMoos by Jennifer Hogwood – You totally need to check out the website.

Just the one book order this week (just as well) which was Bad Sister by Sam Carrington. It’s due out on 5th October and I can’t wait to get my mitts on a copy.

Just the one Netgalley this week too (just as well) which was The Good Sister by Jess Ryder. It’s due for release on 16th August.

I see a theme here. Kind of reminiscent of my life. I have one of each. I’ll let them fight over which is which 😉

I also received an ARC of I Know A Secret by Tess Gerritsen, the brand new Rizzoli and Isles novel which is due out on 10th August.

Now I am hoping that all of these exciting things I’ve been rambling about above will distract you from my reading tally which stands at the grand total of 2. Lorraine at The Book Review Cafe will be laughing at me this week given her mammoth reading achievements and rightly so. If only I’d saved the bloody Mr Men books… When I say reading tally it was one read, one listen as I only completed one book and then listened to an audio on the way too and from Harrogate. Failed blogger I am then (this is not news but now we have evidence).

Books I have read

Red Is The Colour by Mark L. Fowler

A GRIPPING NEW POLICE THRILLER Bullying. Corruption. Murder.

It is the summer of 2002. The corpse of a 15 year old boy, who has been missing for thirty years, is discovered in Stoke-on-Trent. The city is on the cusp of change and Chief Superintendent Berkins wants the case solved quickly. 

DCI Jim Tyler has arrived from London under a cloud, moving to Staffordshire to escape his past. He is teamed up with DS Danny Mills to investigate the case, but there is tension between the detectives.

When the dead boy’s sister comes forward, describing a bright, solitary child, she points a finger at the school bullies, which puts important careers at stake.

Then one of the bullies is found brutally murdered and when Tyler and Mills dig deeper they start to suspect a cover-up.

What is the connection between the death of a schoolboy in 1972 and this latest killing? 

With the pressure building, and the past catching up with DCI Tyler, will he and DS Mills be able to put aside their differences in order to catch a cold-blooded killer?

I’m reviewing this for the blog tour next Monday but I have to be honest and say that this was a really well observed look at childhood bullying an the people who were involved, both directly and indirectly. With a thirty year old victim it is a tough ask for newly transferred DCI Jim Tyler to bring the killer to justice in this new police procedural from Mark L. Fowler and Bloodhound Books. It is released tomorrow, 25th July, and you can buy a copy here.

…

  You Don’t Know Me by Imran Mahmood

It’s easy to judge between right and wrong – isn’t it?

Not until you hear a convincing truth.

Now it’s up to you to decide…

An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder. Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech.

He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out. Sometimes, the truth can be too difficult to explain, or believe. But he thinks that if he’s going to go down for life, he might as well go down telling the truth.

There are eight pieces of evidence against him. As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in our hands. We, the reader – member of the jury – must keep an open mind till we hear the end of his story. His defence raises many questions… but at the end of the speeches, only one matters:

Did he do it?

Oh my life. What an intriguing novel. Taking courtroom drama to brand new heights this is a story which will not only challenge your idea of right and wrong but also the whole idea of how courtroom dramas should be. Set as a series of court transcripts and told in the defendants voice the author takes you on a journey and you as reader are set to act as jury. I listened to the Audio book of this and I have to say it was absolutely perfect in this format. My review will follow but you can order a copy of the book here.

…

That is all. Thankfully I was fully prepared on the blogging front so I had posts everyday.

#BlogTour Guest Post: Dying Art by Malcolm Hollingdrake

#Booklove: Katherine Sunderland

#BlogTour Review: The Other Twin by Lucy V Hay

Review: Blind Justice by M.A. Comley

#BlogTour Review: Her Deadly Secret by Chris Curran

#BookLove: Jane Cable

#GuestReview: Another You by Jane Cable

…

The week ahead is a bit of a mixture. I start with a review, then some #Booklove with Helena Fairfax, followed by blog tours for The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond, and then The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan with a very special Author Q&A in between, rounding out the week with more #Booklove with Jack Steele and another blog tour, this time The Lost Wife by Anna Mansell.

Hope you have a brilliant week all. I’m reading all day today before going back to work and some more training tomorrow. Boo hiss to that one but someone has to do it. Going to Chester Zoo on Saturday so think of all the animal/nature pics I can share with you next week. You can’t wait can you? Hope they still have the Pudu’s and the Kimodo Dragon. I love them!!!

See you next Monday.

JL

P.S. since penning this post Sunday evening I have been online and preordered three books from Goldsboro (it’s now Sunday bedtime). We’ll just ignore those, pretend I ordered them after midnight and I’ll fill you all in next week 😂

Rewind, recap: weekly update w/e 23/07/17 Man. Where to even begin this week. Well. I will start by saying my reading achievements were next to none.