#working on exclusives i have so many paintings lined up suddenly

[kriskukko]

wip posting -- a man and some fruit

[tavolgisvist]

In the words of another Liverpool playwright (and an early author of Z-Cars), John McGrath, ‘Alan Bleasdale’s writing comes out of that torrent of words that has been flowing out of Liverpool in so many ways since Tommy Handley and Arthur Askey joined forces with James Joyce to produce John Lennon, the Scaffold, Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten, way back in the 60s … He never lost the sharp comedy of the Liverpool street, second only to its close neighbour Dublin for Surreal wit and Byzantine inventiveness in sarcasm, pun and patter. And for its ability to express strong emotion.’

The most successful of them all, however, is Bleasdale’s friend Willy Russell. They all look alike, these bearded 'Scouse left-wing ex-teacher playwrights (McGovern is another one). Bleasdale told me that Russell used to get drinks bought for him in pubs for writing Black Stuff, while he himself was thanked in the streets for Educating Rita. I once went to visit Willy Russell in his office next to the Everyman Theatre, and asked him why Liverpool was so prolific in drama. There are probably more practising artists concentrated in Liverpool than in any other area of the country,’ he said. ‘You only have to put a sign up saying Scripts Wanted and everyone in the city is bloody writing one. ‘I’ve pondered why it is, and I don’t really know why it should be Liverpool and not Blackburn. I suppose the Irish influence must be important, and the fact that Liverpool has got its own identifiable language, which has got no root with the rest of Lancashire. The Lancashire accents overlap and are related, but you’ve suddenly got this cut-off line, round to the Bay, and it’s a language all of its own. ‘The Liverpool dialect is a terrific medium to work in, very fast and exclusive. I suppose it’s like painters who painted in certain areas because of the sunlight or sculptors who worked where the clay was good. It would be stupid to ignore this language. The only time I object to a Liverpool tag being put on me is when it suggests a parochial quality, which I refute completely. I always quote Isaac Bashevik Singer who says, If you write about any place well, you write about everywhere. <…> Russell is yet another product of the Liverpool music scene: ‘My first-ever group was an attempt to be like the Shadows, before we got to know about the Cavern and the Beatles.’ Seeing the Beatles, he once said, changed his life. ‘When I was fourteen I walked into the Cavern and saw the bloody Beatles.' It gave me something, it gave me identity. I’d be on the school bus the next day and all those pricks who were having a go at me, well, they didn’t know about the Beatles. It was so intoxicating.’ He played in a band with Tommy Evans, later of Badhnger. ‘He was a really good guitarist so I picked up things from him. Then about 1963 the Dylan thing happened, so I started to play contemporary folk music as it was called. Later I got into traditional music, a lot of fiddle and tenor banjo, then I was doing folk clubs as a singer-songwriter. You had that great platform in those days, it was a great place to learn how to hold a house. I always knew my limitations, and after Fd been at it for fifteen years Fd really seriously started to write plays, so I let it lapse.’ Fie drew on his stock of self-written songs for Blood Brothers, a long-running West End hit about a Liverpool housewife and her twin sons, raised apart. There was a comic play, John, Paul, George, Ringo . . . and Bert, that spliced the Beatle saga with fantasy.

<…>

One project that never came off, however, was the screenplay that he wrote for Paul McCartney, Band on the Run. ‘Good script as well. When 1 first heard that song I thought there was a great idea for a him in there. And when he asked me to write a movie for him, 1 threw this back at him. Fie was quite surprised because he’d never seen it in him terms. ‘The plot was just about a guy who’d become a very jaded but highly successful cabaret act, filling concert halls, who’s well pissed off with it. And there is a band who just cannot get their act together, playing in a pub four streets down from this concert. They end up in a huge hght and have to get out of town, cross-cutting with him, who actually walks off stage in the middle of a number and never comes back. Fie just pisses off. The two of them meet up and he disguises himself and joins that band. I suppose the him very m uch picks up on what McCartney did when he hrst took Wings out on the road, just turning up and playing. And by the end of it he realises that he’ll have to leave this band anyway, because he’d destroy them if he stayed, and he has to go back and face things. You can’t walk away, you have to go through whatever’s happening to you in life. ‘There was always a dispute about the end of the him because it didn’t end happily. Paul wanted it to end happily and I didn’t!’ The idea finally ran out of steam when Paul left for a tour and found himself locked up in a Japanese prison on drug charges.

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI), (XII), (XIII), (XIV), (XV), (XVI), (XVII), (XVIII), (XIX), (XX), (XXI), (XXII)

[itsclydebitches]

so ironwood was confirmed to be dead by Miles in a $42 cameo session, where the person who bought it had asked for "comforting words to soothe our anguished souls" bc she was an ironwood fan and wanted a pick-me-up after that devastating finale. miles' response was to essentially mock his fans (it really sounded like that, especially since he ended with "thank you jimmy, may you rest in pieces, crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold up above your head."

apparently the VA, jason rose, confirmed it in DMs w the same fan who sent in the cameo ask. so like, quite apart from how rude and disrespectful it was of miles to make a mockery of james in a cameo where he'd been specifically asked for comforting words regarding the character, ngl but i think that if you have to confirm a MAJOR CHARACTER is dead outside of canon bc you failed to actually show it on screen.....you've failed as a writer. and also that kind of thing shouldn't be confirmed in an expensive and exclusive interview lmao like how hard would it have been to just talk about good aspects to james' character instead of calling him a dickbag and saying 'don't do a genocide, guys!!'

it reeks of unprofessionalism and also it just makes everything surrounding ironwood's character arc even worse since apparently 'his fate was sealed' from the moment he was introduced to the show.

Me, who received the first Moderna shot yesterday (🎉 🎉 🎉 ): Ugh I feel too crappy to answer asks today

Me, upon hearing this news: You know, I have suddenly found an untapped source of energy

Okay, all joking aside, I watched the vid and it’s definitely a lot. I don’t have any information about the request itself except for what Miles mentions in the recording, so I can’t speak to what the fan may have been looking for outside of that, but some highlights include: 

“This is for the filth in my degenerate discord server” - Yeah, that’s how a lot of us (fans) talk about ourselves. It sounds like someone who really enjoys Ironwood and makes joking, self-deprecating comments about their love of a character. That’s familiar to me and speaks to the expectation that they hoped for something other than what they got. At least, if I’d sent in a request like that I wouldn’t be happy with the vid, but that’s obviously my own perspective and not this fan’s. I’d be very curious to know their own thoughts though... 

“Sometimes a character we like doesn’t make it, does something we don’t agree with... or both!” - That is indeed how characters work! The real question is whether their death/actions make sense within the story, which is not addressed here. Many fans who enjoyed Ironwood don’t have a problem with him dying or turning into a villain  — I’ve been honest about my acceptance of either/both, regardless of personal preference, provided it was written well  — and that was always the issue. Not what happened to Ironwood, but how it happened. 

“James Ironwood’s fate was sealed the moment his character was conceived many years ago.” - Personally, I don’t believe this. RT makes a lot of grand, sweeping statements about what’s been planned “for years” or “since the beginning” and too often we’re faced with writing that directly contradicts that. Though it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth, neither option paints the writing team in a good light. Either they’re straight up lying about what’s been planned (or twisting tossed out possibilities into assurances after the fact. For example, someone once suggested Ironwood might become a villain somehow at some point and now that’s presented as, ‘We’ve deliberately been working towards this specific ending for years’), or they’re being truthful and just... can’t write what they want to write. It doesn’t sound good when a writer says, ‘I’ve planned this the whole time’ and a good chunk of the fandom responds, ‘Then why couldn’t we see that planning this whole time?’ 

“When James was introduced we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag, but then we realized that dickbag had a heart and was also half metal, and that was pretty cool!” - I don’t even know what to make of this. I’ve deconstructed his introduction before, but to summarize here, he’s presented as no more of a “dickbag” than Ozpin who may not be doing enough to protect the people, Winter who allowed herself to get taunted into a fight on campus, or Qrow who deliberately started that fight while drunk. Glynda is the only one who is arguably innocent here. The implication seems to be that obviously Ironwood became a villain because “we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag” but then... does that mean Qrow will become a villain too someday?? 

The comments about them realizing he had a heart and was half metal just speak to that lack of planning. No, you obviously didn’t plan this downfall from the start if you “realized” something as basic as him caring for others partway through writing him and then allowed that care to drive his character for so long that the decent into villainy read as OOC, rather than inevitable. You obviously weren’t writing him with a backstory that influenced his character  — of which his semblance is a major part  — if you “realized” he was half-metal... whenever that happened. The fact that we never saw that backstory, or the semblance on screen, or returned to his half-metal nature outside of a ‘That’s coding for evilness’ theme again speaks to the fact that either a) none of this was actually planned or b) the execution is seriously lacking here. 

“Let us all take a moment to thank General James Ironwood for his service to the Kingdom of Atlas, but... at the end of the day, don’t do a genocide [laughs]” - I’m having trouble articulating why I dislike this. I’m really too tired to be unpacking this right now (lol), but it has something to do with  — as you say, anon  — that mocking tone. Something else to do with the surge of purity culture in recent years. The tone feels like it’s tied up in an unsaid, ‘You like the character who tried to commit genocide?’ accusation when, you know, he’s a fictional character. People can like characters who do bad things. More significantly, he’s a fictional character Miles wrote. There’s something particularly distasteful about writers who feel like they’re laughing at fans for liking something when they created the thing with the intent that we would like it. And many did. So they gave attention, time, money, passion, etc. to the work and then when that part of the work finished, the creator appears to make light of that investment? Idk, I’m speaking about more than just this one line  — the tone of the vid as a whole, really — but it feels much less like “You enjoy Ironwood! 😄” and more “You enjoy Ironwood...  😬” Like yeah, fans enjoyed the character that you wanted them to enjoy who you wrote to have a heart and then suddenly commit genocide instead. There’s definitely nothing complicated in all that. 

“Thank you, Jimmy. May you rest in pieces crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold above your head. Amen.” - All of the above x2 with the added issue that this was never shown on screen. Miles presents Ironwood’s arc like this seven year long plan when in fact they couldn’t even manage the basic move of telling the audience what happened to the character in his final hour. The fact that a fan had to pay to find out whether Ironwood is dead is not a gold star for the writing. 

Every time the RWBY crew speaks about the story in supplementary material the canon itself gets worse. Hyping Clover/Qrow on social media pushes the canon closer to queerbaiting. We’re way closer to that with them hyping Blake/Yang. Long ago comments about Ozpin’s cane suddenly make Volume 8 a retcon. A Q&A about Ironwood’s semblance makes his arc a thousand times more confusing about how we’re supposed to read his character  — to name just a few. Now this. When a friend first told me this info had dropped I thought, “Thank god. He’s not coming back then. I don’t want them writing Ironwood’s character anymore,” but really... can we believe anything the crew says? “Crushed beneath the weight of his kingdom” doesn’t mean Ironwood won’t show up in Volume 9 if it’s a spirit world type adventure. It doesn’t mean he won’t show up three years from now with even more metal in his body and a, “We said he was crushed, not that he was dead ;)” explanation. Hell, it doesn’t even mean he won’t show up with no explanation at all because, as established, what’s said in supplementary works and what happens on screen are two entirely separate things. Iffy as the vid may come across to those who did like Ironwood, I was initially happy that it at least gave us some closure... but now I’m not even sure about that. 

[elocinnicole]

A New Year’s Kiss

Summary: Daveed plans to propose to Reader on her favorite holiday as he prepares the night before the proposal he thinks back through memories of their three-year relationship.

Pairing: Daveed Diggs x Black!Reader

AN: I’m giving the sisters names since the Reader comes from a big family.

Series Masterlist

It was a cold night in New York City, you sat in the living room of your new three-bedroom apartment sipping on a cup of hot ginger tea. Daniel crawled all over the place, loving the ample amount of space he had to chase the new family dog, Rocky, a Beagle puppy. Daniel’s laughter made you smile widely; you loved the life you and Daveed built for yourselves. The new apartment was coming along nicely, you finally unpacked the last of the boxes, thus ending the living out of a box phase. You decorated the walls with pictures of family and friends, there’s even a wall dedicated to the tv shows, movies, plays, and musicals the two of you have been in. Even though you truly think that it was Daveed’s way to brag about your accomplishments every time someone came over to visit, despite the many times he denied it. The sound of the front door opening alerted Daniel that Daveed was home, he crawled to the front of the apartment, screaming at the top of his lungs. Daveed scooped Daniel and kissed the top of his head where his curly dark brown hair was starting to grow.

“Hey, little man! Where’s Mommy?” Daniel pointed toward the living room. Daveed walked over and plopped down next to you. You shared a quick kiss before Daniel slid himself out of Daveed’s lap to keep playing with Rocky.

“How was your day?” Daveed asked he wrapped an arm around you to pull you close to him.

“It was fine, just like the first day of rehearsals.” After being in The Lion King for about three months, you landed the lead role in a new musical called WET PAINT. “We start previews at the end of February. How was it with Anthony?”

“It was great, babe. We got the song done Rafa’s gonna send in his verse tomorrow.”

“That—” Then there were several loud knocks at the door

“You expecting company?”

“Remember my mom and sisters are coming up for New Years,” You hopped off the couch and greeted your family at the door, they were staying at a hotel not far from your apartment and you planned for them to come over and visit since your sisters haven’t seen Daniel since he was born.

“Hey Mom,” You pulled your mom in for a hug

“Hey, Y/N!”

“Come in guys,” Your mom and three sisters walked into your apartment,

“Where’s my grandson?” Your mom wondered loudly

“Nana!” Just like that Daniel made his way over to your mom who swooped down to pick him up.

“Hi, Nana’s baby, Y/N, I love the new place.” Your mom said as everyone followed you into the kitchen.

“Thanks, we needed more space, with Daniel getting bigger and having a dog.”

“Is there any other reason why you and Daveed needed more space?” Your oldest sister, Fatima, playfully suggested

“Um, girl no, Daniel isn’t even one yet. I’m just getting back to my pre-baby body. Oh, by the way, can you re-dip my braids tonight?”

“I was gonna offer but I didn’t want to be rude,” Fatima teased

“Shut up, rude ass.”

“So,” your older sister, Mara started “have you thought about having another baby?”

“I mean, yeah but not anytime soon.”

“What about marriage?” Your other sister, Kalani, added

“It’s been discussed, we both know we’re in this for the long haul.”

“Wedding bells may be in your near future,” Mara teased

“Can we wait a minute, we just moved, Daniel’s about to turn one, I just went back to work, I need some more time.”

“Girl, you waited three years, how much longer?” Fatima reasoned

“Why are you guys interrogating me?” You asked overwhelmed knowing that Daveed was well within earshot.

“Alright, alright, we’ll leave you alone, come on and let me fix your hair.”

Your sisters and mom ended up staying well past dinner and you didn’t mind it one minute. After graduating from Howard University, you moved to New York and didn’t look back. The last time you saw your sisters, in person, was at your baby shower and that was a year ago. After eating the crab cakes your Mom made and about three glasses of Merlot, you currently playing Black Card Revoked with your sisters, one of your favorite games, India Aire playing in the background.

“Okay, so this is majority rules, ‘You know it’s about to be a fight when you hear someone say? A. We need to talk… B. I just find it funny how… C. So what you not gonna do… or D. Didn’t I tell you…’” Fatima read

“C!” You said confidently, “That’s how all my fights started in high school.

“Naw I gotta go with D,” Mara shouted “D is one of them sneak attacks from behind.”

“Like that time, you grabbed that girl’s hair,” Kalani reminisced

“Yeah, she was bothering Y/N, and I was the only one in high school with her and I was not gonna let some bitch mess with my sister.”

“And that’s on period,” Fatima said

“Pooh!” Kalani added, making the sisters laugh

Daveed noticed your mom in the kitchen washing the dishes and saw it as the perfect opportunity.

“Hey, Daveed, sorry about the wedding talk with my daughters. I promise I didn’t say anything to them.” Your mom said in hushed tones

“It’s okay, I just wanted to show you a picture of the ring,” Daveed pulled out his phone and showed your mother the engagement ring. Shortly after you had Daniel, Daveed came to your mother and asked for her blessing, of course, she agreed and helped him find the perfect ring and the way he should propose. Knowing you were a private person he was going to give you a gift after midnight when everyone left your place, a photo album and on the last page, he was going to pop the question.

“It’s beautiful Daveed, where is it?”

“I keep it on me at all times,” Daveed pulled the engagement box out of his pocket.

“Is that what I think it is?” Fatima gushed

“Shush, get over here girl.” Your mother urged “Where’s Y/N?”

“She’s in the living room, so you’re gonna propose?”

“Yeah,” Daveed said quietly “tomorrow.”

“Aw, I’m so happy for you two, how are you gonna propose?”

“With a photo album,” Daveed replied a small smile on his face

“Oooohhhh, I can’t wait,” Fatima said clapping her hands together

“Fatima it’s your turn and you about to get skipped!” You shouted from the living room

“Girl, skip me I’m winning anyway,” Fatima said walking back over

Daveed sat in the living room long after you had fallen asleep and your mom and sisters went back to their hotel. He was going over the photo album to make sure that everything was perfect for tomorrow. The first picture he came across was from the opening night party of the First National Tour of Hamilton, which is where the two of you met. After consuming many drinks from the open bar the two of you snapped a very drunk selfie. Daveed had kissed your cheek and you were laughing.

March 2017

After you spilled your wine on Daveed, it seemed the two of you were attached at the hip. Between the bar and the dance floor, Daveed was not far from you and you didn’t mind at all. There was a lavish balcony looking over San Francisco, you and Daveed were laughing at a high school story you were telling him.

“So, the girlfriend started hitting the boyfriend mind you, we’re all in line for the Haunted Mansion ride and it got so bad that we were told to get out of line, so I never got to ride the Haunted Mansion. Long story short, my first and only trip to Disneyland before all of this was pretty bad.”

“Well, that just means we have to go back.”

“When?”

“Whenever,”

“Daveed, we can’t just drive to Disneyland and I don’t know you like that.”

“We can fly, that’s not a problem.”

“Did you forget that I’m on a tour right now?”

“Ain’t y’all here until August.”

“Well, I still don’t know you.”

“You can get to know me.”

“What if I don’t want to?” You challenged

“I can get us Fast Passes.”

“Oh, so you got it like that?” You teased flirtatiously

“Yeah, uh, I got some connections,” Daveed smirked

“Alright, let’s go.”

“It’s a date,” Daveed smiled

“It’s a date.”

The next picture was a picture Jasmine took of them at an award show, that night you said I love you to each other for the first time.

June 2018

You and Daveed had attended your first red carpet event of the award season that evening. It was also the first time you were at an exclusive event as a couple. The paparazzi went crazy all of them wanting to snap pictures of Daveed and his new girlfriend. It was all overwhelming to you. Of course, you have been on a red carpet before but not for an award show. While it was exciting it was also draining. Unfortunately, you had to leave that night to go back to New York you had a show the next day, what made it worse, was that Daveed had to stay in LA for an interview about Blindspotting. Now at the airport, you hugged your boyfriend tightly not wanting to let go.

“You gonna miss your flight,” He mumbled into the crook of your neck.

“I don’t care,” You said, tiredness evident in your voice.

“It’s only two days, go make that money,” Daveed said trying to lift your spirits. Daveed cupped your face and kissed you on the lips.

“I love you,” He said tenderly, you looked at him wide-eyed. He mentally slapped himself for saying that out loud. He scanned your face for any sign that you would say it back. When he didn’t he pulled away from you, suddenly.

“Sorry, for saying that, uh—-”

“Daveed—-”

“I um, I hope you have a safe flight. Call me when you land.” Daveed said quickly, wanting to end the already awkward moment. He turned to walk away but you grabbed his arm and pulled him in for another kiss.

“You didn’t let me say it back, dork.” You gave him a quick peck on the lips “I love you too,” Daveed smiled widely and kissed you once more.

“Can you say it again?” You playfully rolled your eyes

“I love you too.” Daveed leaned in to kiss you but you put up your hand to stop him

“I’m gonna miss my flight, messing with you. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

January 2019

“Happy New Year!!” You smiled while you kissed Daveed. The two of you were hosting a New Year’s Eve party for your friends at Daveed’s New York apartment. This was the first big event the two of you hosted. Well, it was mainly you, Daveed just let you do your thing. You pulled away from the kiss and raised an eyebrow, you know that there was something was on his mind.

“What are you thinking about?”

“You should move in with me.”

“Huh? How much have you had to drink?” You asked but you were just as tipsy after taking quite a few shots out the Grammy.

“Not as much as you.” You lightly slapped his chest you examined his face to make sure he wasn’t playing a joke

“You serious?”

“Hella,”

“Aw, so I’m gonna have more than a drawer.” Daveed playfully rolled his eyes

“You can have a whole dresser,” You gave a peck on the cheek, smiling widely.

“I love you,”

“Love you too.”

The next day, Daveed did his best to keep his cool which was easy because your sisters, Mom, Jasmine, Kim, Rafael, Barbara, and Dountes were all at your place for New Year's Eve and served as the perfect distraction. Anthony was in Times Square performing on the Main Stage and would be the last act before the ball dropped so you decided to host a party.

You caught Daveed staring, smirking you walked over to him. You were wearing a brown bodycon dress and matching heels. Feeling the effects of the alcohol had you feeling more confident. You sensually wrapped your arms around Daveed making sure to caress his muscles.

“We have some time before midnight,” you suggested Daveed smirked and kissed your forehead.

“With your Mom here?” Daveed asked with raised eyebrows.

“I can be quiet,”

“After everyone’s gone. So we don’t have to worry about being quiet.” You pouted which made Daveed snicker.

“It’s shot o’clock!” Your sister Mara called from the kitchen

“Oh, so we doing body shots?” Rafael suggested eying your sister.

“Body shots?” Fatima questioned

“I’m down,” Mara responded giving Rafael the same look.

“No one is down for anything, this is not some frat party.”

“How much you wanna bet, Rafa’s gonna—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence, I don’t need the visual.”

Midnight came and went and Daveed’s nervousness was at an all-time high. He watched as your guests left one by one. Neither of you were surprised when Mara and Rafa slipped away shortly after the ball dropped. Surprisingly, Daniel stayed up until the ball dropped, but went to sleep shortly after.

“I’m about to go change so we can start cleaning up.”

“Hold on, I wanna give you something first,” Daveed said you sighed heavily.

“Babe, can you give it to me after I change? I wanna get out my shoes.”

“It’s not gonna take long. I promise, go in the living room.”

You sleepily walked back to the living room and plopped down on the sofa, whatever Daveed had up his sleeve better be worth it. Daveed returned with a purple photo album in hand and handed it to you.

“What’s this?”

“Just some pictures, something I put together.” You smiled, tears threatening to fall.

“Aw, you’re so sweet, thank you so much, baby.”You kissed his cheek before looking through the album and reacting to the pictures. It was so crazy to see the timeline of your relationship, who would’ve thought that back in 2017 you would be where the two of you are now.

You flipped through the album until you got to the last page. It was an empty page and dated for today. Confused you turned to look at Daveed only to find him already on bended knee with a ring box in hand. You covered your face as the tears started falling. Daveed gently removed your hands from your face. You saw that he was holding back tears as well.

“When you purposely split your wine on me—”

“Oh my gosh, Daveed!”

“I knew you were something special the first time I laid my eyes on you. Baby, you are the love of my life. I want to spend the rest of it with you. I kept going over what I was gonna say or how I wanted to do this. I wanted it to be perfect because you deserve nothing but perfection. I love you so much. Will you marry me?” You were full-on crying at this point. The album already made you emotional but, the both of you had discussed marriage but still, this proposal is everything you’ve could‘ve dreamed of.

“Yes, yes of course.” Daveed slid the ring onto your ring finger and you pulled him in for a kiss. This is always how you imagine your engagement would be, just you and your fiancé.

[whereflowersbloom]

Little boost

It had been a hectic day, working on some detailed written reports Batman asked him to investigate and patrolling with Nightwing, Damian was exhausted, more than usual, he could use a strong drink. There were certain things he had to think about, things he had pushed To the back of his mind while working, but there was a constant mental reminder that they were still there, which is exactly why Damian found himself sitting next to a slightly squiffy Dick Grayson, at the rooftop, looking at the stars and passing back a small bottle full of liquid that burned in the right way from his hair to his toenails. The relief his body demanded after a long stressful day. He thought about the bothersome hangover and the way his head would throb the next day as he took his second sip but he shrugged it off. It was nothing he couldn’t handle. Brother bonding, they had been intensely busy to have a casual brother-to-brother chat, out of all his siblings he felt the most comfortable with Grayson. He was lost in deep thoughts when his brother caught him off guard with a question.

“Have you discussed your feelings and intentions with Raven?” There it was the question he was dreading to answer. He had asked himself when he would finally muster the courage to speak with her about these new emotions surging inside him.

Damian’s heart jumped just enough at the mention of her name, nonetheless his familiar unreadable expression didn’t change. After another sip of the drink he felt loose enough that he didn’t hold back the low heartfelt groan, even as his sensibilities reminded him that he didn’t have anything to groan about. He hadn’t made his intentions clear after all this time. A part of him wondered how Dick might know he had feelings for Rave at all, as if the amber and intoxicating liquor was some kind of truth serum that made everything plain as day. Perhaps he had underestimated Grayson’s observation skills, his father trained him after all. He wasn’t Batman’s first son and right hand for nothing.

“She’s an essential component of our team.” Damian muttered lowering his voice as if to make himself sound as sober as possible and convincing. “The Titans wouldn’t be the Titans without her.”

“That’s certainly true, but also...” the older man nodded in agreement and took a mouthful of the amber drink. “I have noticed you two complement each other well, both in battle and out…” Richard gave Damian a playful feline smirk. He didn’t want to pry, he was only concerned for his brother’s unresolved romantic involvement, he can practically feel Damian’s hostile glare on him, studying his intentions silently. Anyone would understand what he was referring to. So he noticed Damian concluded. Richard didn’t ask to gossip with his other siblings about his personal affairs, he knew it. Maybe it was time to trust Grayson. He certainly had earned it after all those years working side by side.

“It’s not what you think, rather complicated.” Damian said quietly into his drink, and though his eyes are elsewhere, he knew Dick was listening to him as a friend and brother. It was something he’d been trying to avoid thinking about, with no help from the dark-haired man sitting to his right. They had something, Dick was absolutely right. And even when Damian had tried to keep his distance at first, the pull to Raven magnetic and frustrating as hell. Unstoppable. He had no control over it. But what was holding him back? The uncertainty? “We’re simply friends, I think.” It wasn’t a lie. Friends who wanted to engaged in rather intimates activities and explore boundaries.

“Teammates.” Grayson whispered remarking the word. Knowing well Damian’s aversion towards it.

“Exactly. Not any different than how I stand with you or any of the other team members.” Damian said with a tint of bitterness gracing his voice. He didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. Not Grayson or his father. His relationship with other teammates could be described as civilized. He cared for them. They were his family too.

“And yet you are intimate with Raven in ways that you aren’t with your other teammates.” A teasing expression crosses his face. Now Grayson had the guts to mess with him. His eyebrows furrowed at the comment, naturally making thin lines appear on his forehead.

“It’s intellectual compatibility, Grayson. We are teammates who have similar interest in common.” Damian remarked with hot anger. He considered taking his frustrations out on his brother. He wanted to punch someone, maybe Dick or Jason. He visualized the face of Conner Kent though, who had touched Raven unnecessarily too many times today with his filthy hands. His green eyes narrowed.

“If you hold no claim over Raven, surely you are both able to enjoy the company of others. So to say if Conner wanted to spend some time with her, it wouldn’t bother you. Right?” Richard commented taking another sip of the raw drink. His humorous blue eyes watching Damian’s reaction attentively, the man next to him was his family, his brother, he only wanted the best for him. For fuck’s sake, it was pretty obvious they had a thing going on. Deliberately Provoking him would have the reaction he expected. He just had to mention Conner or Garfield and voila his stubborn little brother would get himself a girlfriend. His job as older brother was to meddle in his ‘personal affairs’. O,us, Damian could use a little push to take the next step.

He thought about it for a whole minute, considered the suggestion Richard made that Raven was available to have a romantic or physical relationship with anyone. Looking into Dick’s ocean eyes, he knew that Dick was so clearly baiting him. Because, of course, Richard was absolutely right. The idea of Raven with anyone else made his blood boil but if they were just friends who were close, friends who were evidently physically attracted to each other but didn’t speak about their attraction or romantic interest, he had no right to demand exclusivity. Deny her the possibility to see someone else. It irritated him. He was her ‘friend’ but who was to say that she couldn’t be close with anyone else, for instance Conner. Tsk. Over his dead body. Not Kent or anyone else. He was irrevocably doomed. What the hell was happening to him? He didn’t want to push Raven asking for more, fearing her answer would dig up the ghosts of his past pains that he’s worked so hard to bury. His mother’s betrayal and he was Ra’s Al Ghul grandson. Did he even have the right?

“Just friends.” Damian repeated with displeasure at the term that defined his relationship with the young woman he loved? Did he love Raven? What did he know about love? It wasn’t a exact science, he could read thousands of books and they wouldn’t give him the answer he was searching for. Just had to look at his own Father, involved with a criminal, on and off. Didn’t have to bring up his mother. The answer lies in your heart, it was as If the cold east wind whistled those words. He didn’t want to see Raven with anyone other man, it made his insides turn and his jaw clench involuntary. He wanted her for himself only. And waves of clarity seem to crash down on him, slowly dissipating the feelings of confusion and helplessness that he’s been plagued with ever since he discovered he had strong feelings for Raven. People used to say that love is like wildflowers, it grows everywhere even through the debris, truthfully he didn’t understand it at first, at the image of Raven’s face clear as a painting in his mind, as the countless hours he has spent drawing her alluring features, he finally understood what they meant by that. That smile, her smile. She had bewitched him.

“Does repeating it enough times make it so?” Dick asked arching a brow at him with a sly smile curving his lips.

“Fuck you, Grayson.” Damian uttered annoyed at his older brother, for being foolish and falling right in his trap. Probably it was the alcohol talking but Dick could take it, Dick’s response was a open throaty chuckle. He wouldn’t admit he was thankful out loud though. Damian smiled instinctively. “Thank you for the overly emotional conversation about my romantic affair.” He mentioned to his brother, looking at him straight in the eye. His eyes silently whispering a ‘thank you, brother.’ He had enough alcohol doe the night and with the first ray of sunlight he was waking up for training. He couldn’t help but imagine it, waking him next to her, soft sheets and even softer skin, inhaling that characteristic lavender smell first with the sunrise. And here he was wasting precious time, getting drunk with Grayson. He shook his head before getting up slowly and marching towards the door of the Titans building.

“Where are you going?” Dick asked curiously, suddenly intrigued what his little brother would do about this situation. At this point he knew how to handle Damian and make him see what he refused to acknowledge. Damian was incredibly smart for his age but at times too obstinate. This required of his assistance. He was growing up fast, too fast for his liking. The snarky, short-tempered kid Bruce brought years ago, was long gone. Richard Grayson thinks it is indeed a privilege to be Damian’s brother and mentor. He was tremendously proud of his younger brother. His job was done and he smiled broadly.

“Hopefully it’s not too late to discuss my emotions and intentions towards a certain lady.” Damian flashed him a confident smirk, only barely aware that he might have slurred the last words, effects of the alcohol no doubt. It wasn’t too late for him, walked a bit unsteadily towards the door, his destination the room of his soon to be girlfriend he hoped. He had to speak with her. This was his last chance. He waved goodnight to Dick before disappearing in the darkness of the night, leaving a pleased Richard drinking on the rooftop alone.

Undoubtedly they would have fun explaining to Batman how his biological son was romantically involved with a half-demon. Dick decided that conversation could wait a few weeks...perhaps months.

Have there a brother bonding moment 💜💜💜💜

@audieoddity @niahti @chromium7sky @deep-in-mind67

[writing-and-rolling]

My First and Last

Chapter One - Two - Three - Four

characters: NCT Dream x OC Characters

summary: Because of his idol training, Jihoo had to miss school. Luckily there's Jisoo, his twin sister, who can go in his stead. Hence, the crazy idea commenced. What will happen to the shy girl once she enter the exclusive school for boys?

genre : chaptered, romance, slice of life, highschool AU, gender bender AU

chapter word count : 3.2k words

It's almost a week and Jisoo would often spend time with Chenle and Jisung or other guys from her class. So far, so good. No one would know that she's just pretending since he's always copying Jisung's actions. 

That Friday when Jisoo woke up, her roommate was nowhere in sight. A usual scenario. Does he really wake up early? But the classes start at ten and it’s only seven. She badly wanted to introduce herself to his roommate so they can get along but he looks cold and unapproachable. The girl only sighed as she sat on her bed, what should she do now?

With her PE uniform, she went outside and decided to explore the school before she could eat breakfast. The school is somewhat large, bigger than the school she used to go to in middle school. And since it’s a boys' school, it’s understandable that the facilities were larger. She was actually amazed at how big the soccer field is, as well as the outdoor basketball court.

Going to one of the buildings, she was surprised to find out that there are music rooms and dance rooms. Her twin brother will really have the best of his life here, she just hoped that his training will end faster and he'll return early.

Faint music can be heard from one of the rooms by the hallway and she decided to take a peek, surprised to see the small space empty. To satisfy her curiosity, she went inside and was greeted by the smell of paint, eyeing the picture on the canvas as the main source of the sensation. It was a really lovely painting of a woman, someone obviously older and would pass off as a mom. "What are you doing here?" someone asked from outside which startled her, causing her to stumble forward and crashing on the canvas while splattering the paint all over the painting.

Jisoo was so scared at the moment, she just messed up someone's lovely painting because of her clumsiness. "I'm sorry," she mumbled as tears started forming from her eyes. "I'm really a big mess." she claimed, sitting on the floor and watching how the canvas absorbed the paint, completely ruining the painting.

The guy from earlier chuckled, then sat in front of her. "I'm supposed to throw that anyway. You did me a favor, honestly." Then he stopped when he noticed the tears flowing from her cheeks. "Why are you crying?" he panicked which made her look at him. She immediately recognized him as the guy who helped her before, the angelic vice president.

A surprised expression can be seen on his face and she knows that he recognizes her, maybe he'll think that she's a really big clumsy mess now. The guy in glasses laughed and she immediately noticed the snaggle tooth that made him cute in her eyes. "You are a walking disaster, aren't you?" And that was the worst thing that someone can say to her. "Is your ankle alright?"

She nodded and he smiled warmly, handing her a handkerchief. "For a guy, you are pretty sensitive." And she took that back, that was the worst comment ever. What would they think of Jihoo when he gets back? A wimp like her?

Jisoo hastily wiped away her tears, "I'm sorry." she claimed before leaving the vice president looking at her in surprise and the painting already soaked with paint. She decided to go back to her dorm room and change her uniform when she bumped into someone. Maybe that guy is right, she really is a walking disaster. "I'm sorry." And she realized how many times she had said that already, is this her normal day in school? Before the guy could say anything, she walked away as if nothing happened.

Mark was looking at the student who just bumped him, maybe a freshman. But why is he crying? It's only the first week of class, is it tiring to be here? He sighed, why do they even need to exert effort for themselves in this school? The guys cannot even get thrilled or motivated to study but what can he even do? "Renjun," he called, surprised to see the guy seated on the floor of the art room. "What are you doing on the floor?" He then noticed the painting with splattered paint on it. "What happened?" But the other just shook his head and he decided to let it go.

Mark was about to leave to check on other rooms when the guy called for him. "President, we should really hire a school nurse," Renjun claimed eyeing a red blot on the floor which obviously didn't come from the blue paint that was splattered on the floor. "Lee Haechan knows someone. I already asked the headmaster about it."

That took Mark's attention, Haechan knows a school nurse and it already reached his father? "Why didn't you inform me first?" he asked before running away that left Renjun surprised. Why is he suddenly reacting like that?

-----

Jisoo found herself in the schoolyard and felt pain in her arm. Checking on it, she saw a deep cut that surprised her. How did she get hurt like this? Her first instinct was to go to the clinic to get treated then remembered the vice president saying that there is no school nurse present. She just headed back to her dorm room and got something to wrap her cut. She found a lavender handkerchief on the desk and started wrapping her cut just as her phone rang with Jisung asking her for breakfast.

"Jihoo, what's that?" Jisung asked, pointing at the arm with the handkerchief wrapped on it but the other just shrugged. "Are you sure? Did you hurt yourself?" She honestly doesn't want to seem so clumsy, why is she always hurt like this? The tall guy just gave her a questioning look that made Chenle laugh.

"Is that your handkerchief?" the Chinese boy asked as they lined up for their breakfast. "It looks so girly." Jisoo wanted to laugh, look who's talking when his shirt is light pink and blue? But then, she wondered why she had this handkerchief. Didn't she pack just Jihoo's things and refrained from packing hers? Why is this light purple handkerchief on the desk?

The answer came to her when a tall guy with blonde hair glared at her and pulled her up. "Didn't your parents tell you not to touch someone else's things?" he asked then held her arm that made her wince in pain. A stain of blood started to become visible on the handkerchief that made the guy held her tighter, pressing for more blood flow. Jisoo cannot say anything now that she's in pain and her friends cannot even react since he's a sunbae, a scary one of that.

The guy pulled the handkerchief from her arm then pushed her forcefully that her injured arm bumped on the table. The boys were just looking at the guy who left and Jisung helped Jisoo stand up. "We should..." But her vision started to blur before she could hear Jisung's words.

----

The coffee shop has always been so busy now that a young man is helping her in serving the customers. It all started when he was forced to help her since it was a jam-packed afternoon. A certain group of girls posted on their social media about the hot new waiter in the coffee shop. Girls from the neighboring school came to check on the trending boy that made the shop as noisy as ever.

"That would be sixty won," Eunbyul claimed to the group of girls that were looking at Jeno who was pacing back and forth with drinks at hand. To her defense, he does look charming while smiling at the starstruck customers. The girls gave her the payment after squealing when the smiling Jeno looked their way that made the older shake her head.

Since break time from the said university is over, she knew that the busy stance of the restaurant would come to a close. It's not that she's tired but she's worried about Jeno who still had a bandage on his arm from the injury he had. "Are you tired?" the younger asked when he caught her tapping her legs because of a cramp while standing too long. She shook her head, asking him the same question while gazing at the bandage on his arm. "I'm fine. Surprisingly, it doesn't hurt that much."

A week of staying together, Jeno already found out that Eunbyul is preparing for her nursing certificate and just continued her parent's business of the coffee shop. He never told her his age or where he goes to school, just saying that he can take a break for as long as he can. She just nodded although disappointment can be seen in her features. He had also witnessed countless guys hitting on the girl, older and more mature than him, but she never laid eyes on them. Maybe he has a shot on this girl.

The chimes opened to the shop and as usual, the two looked at the person coming in that surprised Jeno. "Yah Lee Jeno!" The said guy only stared at the girl who looked curious then pulled his friend. "Are you really staying here? I've been looking all over for you." The guy just shook his head, calming his raging friend. "Is she taking you hostage? She can get to jail for making you work..."

"Na Jaemin!" Jeno shouted then breathed heavily. "Why are you in such a bad mood? Let's just talk outside." he said while pushing him out of the shop, surprising the older girl.

She's holding him hostage? So that kid might be rich. And if she's getting in jail for making him work, then he must be underage. What has she done? Maybe Haechan is right. She is so trusting.

From outside, she could see how his friend was dragging Jeno away from the shop even if he kept looking back. That would be better, at least he's going back even if it meant sales will decrease. At least now, she won't be scared of getting in jail for housing an underage guy.

------

"Are you that smitten over that girl?" Jaemin asked while literally dragging Jeno to school. "Mark had been on my back because he kept looking for you." That made the other guy pissed off. Why is Mark looking for him right now? Is it their dad's order again? "I didn't believe that you were working in that shop at first but everyone kept on tagging your social media so I needed to check." he nagged that made the other sigh, stopping on his tracks and staring longingly at the café he just left. Noticing this, Jaemin stopped as well and gave a breathy sigh at the new image presented by his bestfriend. "Yah, who are you and what have you done with Lee Jeno?"

"You know what?" Jeno asked which made the other look at him in surprise. "You're right." Jaemin had to smile at that. Does this mean that Jeno, his bestfriend, is indeed back for good? "We're still not late for dismissal, right?"

The two started making their way to school when Jeno caught sight of something from Jaemin's pocket, something girly. "What is that?" he asked, then pulled the handkerchief from him, revealing a red spot that surprised the guy. "Did you kill someone?"

Jaemin started shaking his head then stared at the reddish part of the handkerchief. Damn it, why did he ruin this? "Someone just used this handkerchief," he said while gritting his teeth. "It actually annoyed me." This made Jeno smirk, a new prospect to their ever growing list of people to bully.

When the duo went back to school, everyone's eyes were on them obviously scared to cross paths with them. Jeno smiled, this is the thrill he's looking for, not waiting tables just because of a pretty girl. But he can't seem to shake off her from his mind. Is he crazy? "Where's that new kid pissing you off?" he asked, making Jaemin surprised. Already? But he just got back to school.

From the end of the hallway, they can easily spot Mark. He looked like he's going outside. Maybe to see this girl he had been crushing at. "Pathetic loser," he mumbled under his breath. How can he keep liking the same girl for eight years without even making a move on her? And an older girl? His tutor? That's really pathetic.

But then, older girls are not that bad. Especially if they are really matured and sympathetic. Someone really pretty with a lovely smile. No, this is bad. Jeno thought. He's not crazy but he's having a crush. And on an older girl at that. But why doesn't it seem pathetic like Mark's?

-------

Jisoo woke up with the light blinding her, where is she? And what happened to her? “Hey, are you alright?” Haechan asked, making her nod, sitting up. There’s no one inside the clinic but the two of them and she looked at the part of her body that’s hurting, surprised to see hasty bandaging. “What happened to your arm? Do you know that if noona knows about this, we’ll both get killed?” he asked in worry that made her sigh. Maybe going to a boys’ school really is a bad idea.

“Mianhe oppa,” she whispered that made Haechan shake his head. “I guess I really don’t belong here. I hope Jihoo oppa can replace me now' she stated that made the other guy sigh. Of course, this is all his fault. They should have listened to their noona when she said that it was a bad idea. But here they are.

Haechan shook his head. “You’re doing fine, Jisoo.” he complimented. “Just know that guys are a little brute so a simple accident will cause really great harm,” he claimed then gazed at her wounded arm. “Should we go and see noona?” he asked which made her look at him in surprise. See her like this? The older will definitely have a fit. “She’ll know what to do about you.” Surprisingly, Jisoo nodded which made the older smile.

Honestly, she’s seeing Haechan in a new light. She’s used to having him as a cute guy with lots of aegyo in front of her Eunbyul unnie but with his standing at the boys’ school, as a junior student and her sunbae, he seemed rather matured like his sister. Maybe if Eunbyul can see him now, she’ll be proud of her little brother.

The first thing that Jisoo noticed going to the coffee shop is how she really managed everything. This was honestly her dream, to have a small coffee shop and instead of studying for college, she’ll just take care of it. Unlike Jihoo who liked the spotlight, she just wants to live a simple life. “Unnie,” she called seeing her by the counter. But instead of being happy to see her, the older one looked rather worried. Isn’t she happy to see her? When Eunbyul glanced at the left side of the shop, Jisoo realized why. The school council president.

Mark only sighed as he was seated beside Haechan, in front of the two girls who kept on bowing as an apology. Letting a girl enter the school is an insult to the academy enough but that only means that something is definitely wrong with the system. Then there’s Eunbyul who is more mature and knows the risks of these actions yet she lets them do what they want. “It’s just until Jihoo gets back from training that Jisoo is filling him in.” the oldest explained and again Mark sighed. So this is why she wanted to take care of him? And why he - she rather - was crying that time at the art room.

“You do know that if dad finds out about this…” he started then lightly glanced at Haechan. “Everyone involved will be kicked out.” Eunbyul nodded, knowing that even before. But what can she do? They're already here. She can't blow Jihoo's chances to get into a good school and be a trainee. “And that if Haechan and I keep an eye on Jisoo-shii all the time, it will just raise suspicion.” Again, she nodded. That was right. “So noona, you should really work at school now.”

Eunbyul blinked in surprise. Mark is right. That's the only thing she can do now. Earlier, he told her about his dad wanting to hire her as a school nurse but she refused since she’s not licensed yet but he assured her that it's only a temporary position. “Work at school?” Haechan asked which made Mark nod. The girl almost laughed at her brother’s face. He was the one who gave the idea to them so why is he so surprised now? “You can’t. Boys at our school are wolves. They’ll eat you alive.”

The older girl glanced at Jisoo, she can take care of her if she works at school. Besides, Mark said that it isn’t really a full-time job and that she can still go home. “It’s fine, Haechan. I’m already old, they can’t bother me.” But Haechan shook his head and Mark sighed. “Let’s fix your bandaging. she told Jisoo who followed her to the backroom of the shop. Haechan was just whining at Mark, telling him to stop his noona from making the worst mistake of her life.

In the end, it was still Eunbyul’s yearning to take care of Jisoo that won, making her brother pissed off. “Don’t come to me crying if something bad happens.” Haechan warned that made Eunbyul nod. Really? Who’s the older one here?

Haechan just walked away without a word and Jisoo apologized once again. She had never seen Haechan this angry and it was all because of her. Eunbyul just shook her head. “It’s fine, Haechan is just like that sometimes.”

Mark told Jisoo to get to her dorm room since curfew will begin soon which she easily complied to. He brought the older to the clinic and she checked the facility. “It’s been so long since we had a school nurse. They would rather resign or be terminated.” When she asked why Mark just smiled. “Getting in a relationship with a student.” And she nodded, understanding it clearly. “Noona, don’t be too nice to all of them. Be strict if you have to.” He told him the basic rules in the dormitory and she listened intently. “If a student here lays a finger at you, just tell me.”

Eunbyul giggled, this is a really different Mark Lee from way before. When did he grow up like this? “Neh, President.” she teased that made the other laugh. He said that he’s going first since he had council duties and she nodded, checking the bandages and ointments. “Mark, thank you for doing this. I’m really sorry for putting you in a difficult position.” she said sincerely that made him shake his head.

“Anything for you, noona.”

------

Mark was in a good mood that Jeno found it odd during dinner, did he get laid or something? “Did you get a new school nurse?” their dad asked and Mark smiled before nodding. Jeno smirked, so this guy likes the school nurse. Maybe it was the noona he had liked from before. Seriously, he looked disgusting smiling like that. Now, he made sure to piss him off.

[obutsuwrites]

work friends (miruko x reader, part 1)

summary: Suddenly, her blood felt too hot and steamy. Like lava that devoured roads. She wanted to pinch the woman’s cheeks. The thought caused a light red cloud to drift across the hero’s face. A brush felt foreign on her face. Usagiyama’s cheeks burned; hot blood that scorched her veins.

xxx

basically based off of a prompt i found on tumblr, "we're not friends and you fucking know it." (you'll eventually find out why, am big horny 4 this stupid bunny!!)

word count:  1731

my ao3 for more shitposts

my inbox is open 4 requests~!

The young reporter shifted in her seat, nerves electric and on fire. Being in the same room as pro heroes was -- until now -- a foreign concept to her. This was the chance of a lifetime, the young woman thought as bored fingers drummed against her thighs. Fidgeting somewhat controlled her anxiety. The ball of static within her stomach now coiled, like hunger pains.

She released a shaky breath, face stoic and serious. Breath hot and impatient. The young woman considered her servere expression a natural poker face; the perfect disguise for jitters. A strength that landed the reporter this. A press conference with top heroes. Ask the right questions and any reporter could become a star. Perhaps, with enough determination, she could start a publishing company! Maybe even rival the likes of Kizuki Chitose! The eager reporter’s mind swam with possibilities, determination in her eyes. Jaw tense.

≛

Usagiyama Rumi sighed. It was today, wasn’t it? The realization had snaked through early morning brain fog. Almost an afterthought. Today, an afterthought? Her chest rumbled as a throaty chuckle escaped. Yeah, as fuckin’ if.  

Crimson eyes squinted as the afternoon sun streamed through mishandled blinds. Right. Should fix that eventually. She discarded the thought. The Rabbit Hero’s heart swelled with excitement. The tips of her fingers tingled; her passion tangible and airy. Usagiyama was pathetic towards the reporters. Answering their questions was a part of the entire gig, of course.

Instead the keen rabbit anticipated the cameras. The theatrics of it all. A press conference with cameras and answering questions with the fervor Usagiyama reserved for villains. Expressing herself for the world -- finally -- as number seven. Pro hero number seven; Rabbit Hero Miruko! She decided the title fit perfectly.

≛

Usagiyama bounced on the balls of her feet. She was never one for waiting. Yet here the keen rabbit was, waiting in a shitty white room with other top heroes. She scanned the room. Even Endeavor was here. This’ll be good, Usagiyama reasons. Pro hero Miruko, All Might, and Endeavor?

So much passion!

≛

A weary exhale was the only sound from the annoyed woman. She had arrived early for this, and yet, there was some sort of mistake. Technical difficulties, an assistant explained. Her voice too chipper and loud for a late afternoon.

“Can you believe this?” the reporter muttered, her words heavy and taunt. Like her nerves.

The press conference was slated for this morning, 10 a.m. on the dot. Early, but certainly not impossible for heroes or their lackeys. Annoyed, the huffy woman glanced at her watch. 1:30 p.m.

She giggled, the sound agitated and loud.

≛

That laugh. What asshole laughs like that? Usagiyama wondered. A manic sound that bothered the energetic hero. Too high pitched and noisy.

Pro hero Miruko strutted towards the stage; muscular hips swaying underneath her costume. The costume was revealing, but it served a purpose; maximum ability to kick villain ass. Usagiyama considered the risque nature a plus. Hard earned muscles deserved an audience.

Excited orbs darted around the large auditorium. Usagiyama puffed out her chest, as if the rabbit hero was a peacock.

Yeah, this is it. I’ve made it. Rabbit Hero: Miruko. The thought ignited a small fire within her heart. An organ that beat like a drum in her ears. Usagiyama continued to peer into the sea of reporters, passionate eyes landing on chubby cheeks. Suddenly, her blood felt too hot and steamy. Like lava that devoured roads. She wanted to pinch the woman’s cheeks. The thought caused a  light red cloud to drift across the hero’s face. A brush felt foreign on her face. Usagiyama’s cheeks burned; hot blood that scorched her veins. The hero wondered what the reporter looked like beneath her. A sweaty, curvy mess. Flesh so soft and supple. A body made for holding.

Miruko swallowed, her throat dry and lumpy. She wanted to call out to the reporter, maybe flash a cocky smile and wink. Acts of flirtation she reserved for pickups from shady bars. Instead, crimson eyes watched the reporter, their intent almost carnivorous.

≛

A… a pro hero wasn’t staring at her, right? Miruko was known for intense crimson orbs, but the reporter felt them on her. Almost going through her. Two hot orbs that ate away at the woman’s insecurity. The reporter tugged at her skirt; material snug against plush thighs. The garment didn’t quite fit, but it was the only skirt she owned. Pant suits were too business for such a hyped event. She looked away, desperate to bend in. A part of her felt undeserving. Miruko was seven on the charts and she was simply a reporter. Not even a part of a big publication; she had to beg -- plead -- for this opportunity. And yet, the Rabbit Hero was burning holes into her.

≛

Due to the lack of her notoriety, no hero called on any question she had. At least, until it was Miruko’s turn. The rabbit’s maroon eyes gawked at her; expression sharp and determined. Her stare ignited warmth between the reporter’s thighs.

“You… you got questions, ya? Ask me!” Miruko beamed. Her voice boomed throughout the room, bouncing off the cement walls. Despite an athletic frame, the Rabbit Hero was dwarfed by All Might and Endeavor. She looked as small as the woman felt. Every muscle shrunk underneath Miruko’s gaze.

Please let a villain attack…

The thought was selfish, but every nerve felt numb. Her body fell asleep; jaw slack and resting taunt.

She stood up. Words struggled to become tangible. “Uh,” she began, “yeah. You always mention shining accomplishments. So… so many for someone your age. However, uh, do you have any everyday problems civilians don’t face?” Internally, she was screaming. Externally? A stoic expression. Jaw muscles set and contrasting round cheeks.

≛

Miruko laughed, the sound hearty and thunderous. The noise was a juxtaposition to her size. She stood 159 cm, a height that left the hero underestimated. Thought fodder for a toned body even Adonis would admire. She strived for perfection; large hips capable of powerful kicks. A carved v-line that led to strong calves. Miruko’s costume was efficient for her fighting style. The leotard left little skin undiscovered. Miruko knew this; she reveled in the stares.

But… but the chubby reporter gazed upon the floor. Her shoes seemed a more interesting subject than a pro hero.

“Normal q-tips hurt my ears.” Her tone was formal and blunt. Enthusiasm sucked dry from the rabbit’s being. Miruko appeared so vulnerable, expression soft and sincere. Thin lips pulled into a lazy grin.

≛

Pro hero Miruko only called upon her once. It was the one question she was able to ask. Every other hero ignored the reporter, unable to recognize her publication's logo. Even All Might, a man the woman admired. She wanted to run her fingers over his muscles and feel them contract underneath her. Hard earned tissue she wanted to worship.

And yet, Miruko swam like a haze through the woman’s mind. The rabbit occasionally popped into her mind as she prepared to leave. Despite being such a small business, the reporter spared no expense. The items were mostly drunken impulse buys that she needed for her trip; lavish ink pens she wouldn’t normally purchase. Paper that felt sturdy underneath her fingertips, little accents that she cherished. They would carry the memory of this event.

Even… even if All Might ignored me and Miruko looked at me… like that.

The reporter busied herself. She wanted to ignore the intoxicating, almost obnoxious thoughts of Miruko. Her very presence was suffocating. Too fierce and imposing. No wonder you’re number seven.  

Too distracted, the woman didn’t notice the overbearing aura several paces behind.

≛

Miruko couldn’t help herself. She had never seen such pillowy thighs before. Thighs she wanted to smother in. The rabbit’s ears twitched as a shiver crawled through her nerves. She smiled, eager and predatory.

Quietly, she approached the curvy woman. Miruko wanted to be casual, and because of this, the Rabbit Hero donned a muted yellow tracksuit. Plush material that clung to toned muscles.

“You’re new, right? Your question was fun,” she began, “and I can’t resist a cutie.” Her tone was suggestive and light, but behind maroon orbs was a flaming desire.

“Okay… thanks.” Her reply was curt and proper, as if the pro hero was a nuisance. The reporter continued to pack her bags, refusing to acknowledge Miruko.

Thin lips pursed together in annoyance. So it’s like that.

Miruko regained her smile. “Give me your number. I’d do an interview for you.”

The reporter turned to face Miruko, hands delicate and shaky. Even behind her, the number seventh hero choked her. Her lungs ached, as if the rabbit sucked out all oxygen. An airless moment between the two.

“I have to decline. I -- I’m sorry, but I need to finish packing. Maybe --”

Before the sentence left her, calloused hands clasped around the woman’s trembling shoulders.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Miruko suggested as fingers traced patterns in the reporter’s shoulders. “No gossip rag shit.”

Her hands… so warm. The slightest hue of rose painted her cheeks, as if the woman had pinched them.

An exclusive interview with the number seventh hero would launch her career… and yet, a bundle of nerves gathered in her stomach. Like snakes.

She swallowed, the woman’s mouth too dry to swallow the dread.

A laugh flew past her lips. Miruko noted it was the same laugh she heard before; the sound too obnoxious and high-pitched.

Red orbs observed as she spoke, “I -- I guess you can give me your number.” Miruko’s eyes pierced through her; a knife that buried itself into the woman’s very being. The woman wanted to go home and disappear. Anything… Anything to escape the hero’s intense stare.

≛

After exchanging numbers, the reporter was finally home. She kicked off worn heels and began to undress. Pajamas were comfort, and required. A smile crept across the woman’s lips; she almost craved the plush material against her skin. Her security blanket.

The woman was clothed in her precious sleepwear as she toyed with her phone. A desert still in her mouth.

Almost like the bitter aftertaste of that woman…

She laughed; the sound genuine and delicate. It was a privilege. Something so sacred, so personal. Sparks of joy were meant for friends and family.

[gumnut-logic]

Minerva (Bit 1)

Okay, this fic is an attempt to get my mojo back. Every time I go on holiday it gets sideswiped. Being sick definitely did not help, though admittedly coughing all night last night may have made me my usual sleep deprived self, so who knows, it might have helped :D

But anyway, This fic is Kermadec because I needed a boat :D It also required a little research - Minerva Reef is a pair of actual atolls not far from Tracy Island. I’m not sure of the distance so I fluffed it.

Andre and Cecil are a pair of private nurses first mentioned in Gentle Rain. I like to recycle my OCs but I haven’t read that story in ages. Here’s hoping I’ve kept them true to form. They haven’t been sketched out in this much detail before, in any case.

There is fluff. I broke Virg again, oops, but there is resultant fluff. I’m sick, I can’t help myself. 

Many thanks to @scribbles97​ and @vegetacide​ for the read throughs and support. I haven’t forgotten about The Tattoo, I just needed a little self indulgence first.

This bit is mainly set up and I hope to write more asap. 1726 words.

I hope you enjoy it.

-o-o-o-

Two broken legs.

If there was anything worse than a broken limb, it was more than one and two broken legs was the worst.

Or two broken arms. He wasn’t sure as he hadn’t managed to break two arms as yet. But two broken legs definitely sucked.

Of course, it was worth it. Saving children was always worth it. But weeks of confinement, of being unable to do anything for himself, was about to send him around the bend, out the window and into the Pacific.

His brothers did their best and both Andre and Cecil, the family nursing staff - yes, they had enough injuries on enough of a regular basis to have nursing staff on their payroll -�� had been called in on this one to cart him back and forth across the house, see to his necessaries, and pretty much do his bidding.

Which was fine, since he and Andre got on like a house on fire. The man spoke both paint and piano almost as much as Virgil and there had been fun times, despite his infirmities.

Cecil was a Gordon clone and those two got up to much more mischief than was really acceptable for an employee. But since Gordon usually took all the credit, even the time Scott had his eyebrows shaved, they got away with hell.

Besides, Scott’s eyebrows had been partly burnt off already and had looked stupid, so shaving them both off was an improvement that had to be done. How Gordon had managed it, Virgil didn’t have a clue...and also didn’t want to think too hard about it because it gave his rapscallion little brother powers that he really shouldn’t have.

Cecil played it straight and the Tracys put up with it. Because despite Cecil’s idiosyncrasies, the two nurses were very, very good at their jobs.

That and they came as a pair because Andre and Cecil were married.

So, other than expanding Gordon’s power of pranking, things were good. Well, as good as they could be while he had two broken legs. 

But there were days.

God, were there days.

Days, so many days, and today was one of them.

Scott had been called out early in the morning and consequently everyone was up. Alan was called next and he and Kayo were out dealing with yet another space freighter collision. Scott was going to kick some space agency ass about updating some space etiquette rules in the near future to stop this stupidity from happening, and considering how much profanity was bouncing down from orbit, both John and Alan would be there to back him up.

So three brothers were out, leaving Virgil imprisoned with Gordon, Andre, Cecil and Grandma. This combination wouldn’t normally be an issue, but Grandma was cooking up a storm and Virgil was trapped.

Gordon may be a pain at times, but he saw the hazard coming and he was a good brother at heart. So, with some assistance from Andre and Cecil, the Fish deployed his yacht, A Little Lightning, and suddenly the day seemed so much brighter.

Virgil was ensconced in pillows and the best of comfort on the back deck and had the privilege of watching Mateo pass on their starboard side as Gordon guided the yacht out into the open ocean.

Why he seemed to always be injured when aboard this boat, he had no idea, but Gordon was a life saver.

Virgil had no idea where his brother might be taking him and he didn’t really care. He just lay back and enjoyed a beautiful day, the breeze, the many sounds of water and the gentle bounce of the boat.

At some point he dozed off.

It had to be a sign of how much healing his body needed, but somehow he managed to sleep the entire trip, because it was the sudden change in the engine noise that woke him.

Andre was smiling at him in that soft caring way he had about him. Dark hair, blue eyes and a soft smile, the nurse was somewhat reminiscent of his big brother, but without the fire and the drive. The man was quiet and reassuring, exactly what was needed when ill or injured.

“It looks like you needed that.”

Virgil grunted, never a fan of waking up. 

But Andre knew this and had exactly what the injured engineer needed - a mug of steaming coffee.

Virgil forced the last few steps to full consciousness, and, pushing himself up, made a grab for the mug.

The mug moved away. “Uh-uh, stretch first.”

Shit.

It was a thing Andre made him do every time he woke. Before coffee, he had to stretch abused muscles that were forced to sleep in awkward positions due to his legs.

Virgil mumbled and grumbled, but did as he was bid. He knew how important the exercises were, but the lure of coffee was just cruel. He vaguely noted the yacht’s engine dropping to a slow cruise and the open ocean having just that touch more sway, rolling the yacht in the swell.

“Where are we?”

“Cecil says we’re visiting Minerva.”

“Oh.” Virgil blinked. He’d flown over the Minerva Reefs many, many times. They were a navigation marker not that far from Tracy Island. Though they were far enough away for him to have been asleep for some time. “How long was I out?”

That smile again. “Several hours. Did you good.” The nurse had placed the coffee on a side table and was helping Virgil sit up straight enough to consume the taunting liquid from heaven.

A breathless moment and the mug was in his hands and coffee was pouring down his throat. God, Andre made great coffee. Yet another reason to put up with his husband.

He surfaced at some point and managed a thank you that set the nurse grinning just as a coral reef started to drift past.

Virgil didn’t know much about the Minerva Reefs other than Melissa Fisher on Raoul swore about them..alot.

They were on the very edge of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary and she had wanted to add them to the exclusion zone for a very long time. But the reefs were owned by Tonga or Fiji, depending on which country you spoke to and the environment continued to suffer from it.

He vaguely remembered Gordon saying something about visiting the reefs in Four on several occasions and Virgil had no doubt that he and Melissa were likely doing some kind of sneaky ecological monitoring or some such. After all, the reefs were rather close to Tracy Island and Gordon rather passionate about such things.

As A Little Lightning cruised between two reef headlands, Virgil surmised they were at the northern of the two atolls.

As Virgil guzzled the last of his coffee, the yacht came to a complete halt in the lee of one of the headlands - if you could call it that, the reef barely made it above the water line. He heard the sea anchor deployed and there was suddenly silence except for the crashing of waves against coral and sand and the breeze.

Virgil closed his eyes and soaked it in.

The empty mug was tugged gently from his hand and he vaguely registered a plate being placed on the table beside him. “Cecil made pie.”

That snapped him out of it. “Pie?” The prankster could cook and he was suddenly assaulted with a delicious aroma.

“Steak and bacon, topped with mashed potato and cheese.” The plate had a generous serving along with salad piled up beside it. Andre was grinning at his expression. “He’s mine, you can’t have him.”

Virgil had to grin. “Well, at least I know one of the reasons why you nabbed him.”

Andre’s grin softened, but it was still a grin. “In the top five.” A hand landed on Virgil’s shoulder. “Eat up, you’ll need it for this afternoon’s workout.”

That deflated him a little.

The nurse noted what must have been in his expression. “Okay, perhaps it can be a brief session today.” A shrug. “After all, an atoll is hardly a swimming pool.”

“Virg trying to con you out of rehab?” Gordon bounced onto the deck, a grin on his face and that look of absolute relaxation the man got whenever he was out on the water.

“‘S not rehab.” So Virgil was pouting and acting like a child. “It’s maintenance.” Of what still worked, until the casts came off and then the hell would really start.

“Don’t let those baby browns lure you from the path of righteousness, Andre.”

“What? Like you attempted last time?” The nurse was grinning at the aquanaut.

That brought Gordon up short.

“I have to say that your eyes are a lighter brown, not quite the same colour, but the manoeuvring is almost identical.”

“What?” It was a two Tracy chorus shot at Andre with two brows, one dark, one light, shooting daggers at the nurse.

Andre just laughed and turned back to Virgil. “You going to eat your pie?”

The nurse’s blue eyes did some manoeuvring of their own and Virgil found himself snatching up the plate and hovering over it to protect his slice of pie.

Cecil chose that moment to appear. As usual, there was never a laugh far behind him as he was wearing a bright pink chef’s cap canted at an angle. But it was the two plates of pie in his hands that drew the attention of the other two men on deck.

Gordon didn’t hesitate, grabbing his plate and shovelling pie down his throat with barely a thank you. Virgil growled in his direction.

“What? It’s good pie. Cecil knows I appreciate him, don’t you, Cecil?”

But the cook was accepting a gentle kiss from his husband as the man took his plate, his other hand drifting from Cecil’s shoulder, down to the small of his back in a gesture simple but intimate enough for Virgil to turn away to give them privacy.

His eyes landed on Gordon, who’s face had an odd expression as he looked back at Virgil, as if he knew something that Virgil didn’t.

Virgil glared at him.

It, no doubt, had something to do with Kay. He would slap his little bro about the head later.

In the meantime...”So, what are we doing here?”

-o-o-o-

Bit 2

[anavakarian]

A tipping point

Adam + Eve (Female detective)

Rating: explicit. Smut, fluff and angst ahead!

The night is clear and chilly, just enough to form vapour clouds in front of my mouth with my exhales, and the absence of moonlight turns it into the perfect setting for a horror film. The twinkle of the carved Jack O'Lanterns watches over the scarce souls that still wander the streets, close to the witch’s hour of midnight. Trick or treat time is far over and only lonely passer-by are still out on the streets.

And that is exactly my case. Except for the small detail that I am not alone and someone else - tall, broad-shouldered, grey pea coat - walks next to me immersed in an annoyed - and annoying - silence.   

“Oh! C’mon Adam... You have to admit that the irony is funny. Just a little bit?”

My tone is easy and hopeful, and I grin at him, trying to ease the mood. A pointless effort, I’m afraid, as the blonde vampire just scowls even further, stubbornly quiet, while we arrive at the door of my apartment block. 

So I just give up, rolling my eyes and looking away from him. “Well, at least Felix thought it was hilarious…”

The constant and assured sound of his steps behind me come to a halt while I retrieve the keys. In the corner of my eye, I perceive that Adam is giving me a hard look, narrowed icy green eyes even cooler than before, if that’s possible at all. His jaw is clenched, shoulders tight and I am nearly sure that his hands are fisted into balls in the pockets of his coat. 

And I know he’s about to chew me out once we walk in and I know it's about my costume. Not that he scares me, as it’s not the first time he barks at me and we end up headbutting. In preparation - and foreseeing the storm coming - I feel my moodiness skyrocketing at the same time my brow sinks, mirroring his own.

Although, being completely honest about it… Perhaps I’ve been pushing this whole dressing-up joke a bit too far… 

This whole situation began 4 hours ago, although it had been lurking in my mind for quite a long time already. As a joke. 

Halloween has always been my favourite festival and this year, as a Detective, I had the dubious privilege of being invited to the private and exclusive party at the Town Hall. There was alcohol, music, snobs, representatives of the city services and, of course, Mayor Friedman. And, as a whole novelty this year, Agent Rebecca Greene and her squad had also been invited: the sexy vampires were still the talk of the town even after the passing months. Besides, the mayor was still trying to bang my mum, to my disgust... 

As I fully expected, only Nate and Felix dressed up for the party: a rather good looking mummy and a zombie. And, as I also fully expected, Mason and Adam didn’t. Fair enough… To be honest, I couldn’t really picture them in any supernatural costume different than their own skin. 

I obviously dressed up, as I already said, on a smashing costume and I thought it was the best and funniest idea ever. Felix cackled the loudest guffaw when he saw me, that bad that he had to bend over himself to keep breathing. Nate chuckled, shaking his head in amused disbelief. Mason wolfishly smiled at me, although I think it was more about the outfit than the actual costume idea. Thought confirmed after he gave me a clear pick-up line. But Adam…

Well, I would have never thought I could gather so much coldness in a glare as I received from him at that instant. 

And just for a stupid costume! Black leather trousers, victorian corset, a black velvet cape, some fake blood and, the final touch, a cheap set of fangs that kept falling off my mouth every time I opened it. 

I was a vampire!!!

Honestly, I found it hilarious, working with four of them. But it was quite clear to me that Adam didn’t share my amusement…

After four hours of mingling with authorities and a bunch of snobs, dealing with the Major and keeping my mum at distance, the party was over and I was not even drunk. And, to my surprise, Adam was the only one who volunteered to accompany me home, even if my gaze screamed at Nate for help…  

In other circumstances, I would have really wanted Adam to walk me home, but not today. Not when we have barely exchanged words at all during the whole evening. During this year we have had our sweet moments together, mostly holding hands, long deep conversations over a glass of wine, understanding a bit better why he acts the way he does with me. And I’m being patient, Gods know I am because I think he will be worth it. But I’m just a bit fed up with his pissy behaviour lately. 

 In the blink of an eye, we are both in front of my apartment door.

“What is what you find annoying about my costume exactly? I mean… I was the one bitten and everything, and the only one with no supernatural powers. Haven’t you considered that this might actually be sort of therapeutic for me?” I reproach at him with a matter-of-fact tone, fumbling with the keys to open the door. Perhaps I should have just remained quiet and wait for him to speak, but I’m quite pissed at his pissiness , if that makes sense. 

In response, Adam’s brow bottoms down his face as if I have just said the most stupid thing in the history of humanity. “Therapeutic???” He asks in bewilderment, following me inside and pushing the door closed after himself - not hard enough to break it, though.

“Ok! Ok! I’ll carry on being a miserable human and having nightmares as I had before…” I retort, scowl now patent on my face, gesturing excessively with my hands in a very dramatic way, I reckon. 

And my line and acting only makes his frown sink deeper - if that’s even possible - and ball his hands into fists on his sides. “Do not twist my words, Eve. Besides, are you seriously telling me that this... charade feels therapeutic in any way to you?” he insists, signalling my outfit with a hand in disbelief.

“Yes! This means I’ve reached a point where I can make fun of Murphy’s attack… So yes, it’s kind of therapeutic, Adam.” I’m fully aware that my tone is far from being quiet at all, but he’s getting on my nerves and this argument is overly stupid. 

We both pause to glare at each other on opposite sides of my dining room. The setting is great: giant spiderwebs and a new set of plastic pumpkins lighten my apartment up gloomily. There's distant music on the next-door flat’s party that seeps through mine.

“Make fun? You nearly died! That’s the most reckless statement…” He gives two steps forwards but stops himself on going any further, nearly choking with the intensity of his voice that echoes in the walls like a drum roll and I hold my ground in front of that man that is scolding me as if I was a child. Once Adam speaks again, he has lowered his volume considerably. “This is not a thing you should be making fun of. We are far from being the romantic characters every novel painted, but monsters, Eve,” he grunts, his tone sharp and cold as the winter wind.

My chest tightens and my blood boils at his statement and his patent stubbornness. I stride towards him, bridging the distance between us, my finger pointing at his broad chest. Menacing. Threatening. I actually snarl at him when I speak. “No, you’re not. You’re as far of being a monster as you are of being a fucking romance novel character. So stop saying it!” 

The words leave my mouth definitely harsher than I intended. At least, harsh enough to quieten him momentarily. Despite his silence, Adam glares at me because of my outburst. However, it only lasts for a second. It quickly changes into something softer, with a hushed hint of gratitude at the meaning of my words, and a hint of something else that neither of us has been brave enough to name just yet.

And, suddenly, the world stops spinning and I become hyper-aware of our proximity, the broad frame of his body just a few inches away from me. The annoying music of my neighbours muffles in my ears and our agitated breaths are the only sound perceivable. I suddenly realize that he smells... well, nice.

We stare at each other for a while, icy green eyes meeting my sapphire blue ones, still challenging and proud, but not cold anymore. 

His gaze lingers on mine, boldly but hesitant, before gliding down slowly to my lips. We had found ourselves in situations like this before, longing pulling us together as the most potent magnet. But he always runs away from me nevertheless.

Adam swallows hard, and I can see and feel his struggle. 

My breath hitches. My heart stutters. I’m not sure if it's because of the prospect of another disappointment or because I do really need whatever might happens next.

No. This time won’t be different than many others before... The longing will persist. He cannot be thinking of doing it for real this time, can he? 

But, to my surprise, he does.

His hand, slightly trembling, reaches out to cup my chin and tips it up. And he leans down and kisses me gently, just a light contact lip to lip. Insecure. Fleeting.  

I freeze. 

Adam pulls away and I blink confused, not believing what has just happened. The kiss has been so soft and brief that I am not really sure I didn’t imagine it. 

I let out a breath I don't know I am holding, and look at him, wondering for answers. Wondering what that meant.

The raw emotion in his eyes strikes me hard: a mixed desire for more and fear. I cannot think, our gazes are locked on each other. My body reacts before I do, getting on my tiptoes and circling his neck with my arms carefully slow as if he might vanish if I go any faster. 

I pull him down for another tentative kiss and he doesn’t resist. 

Unhurried, languid, but firmer than his, trying to figure out if this is just a dream. And to my delight Adam responds, his lips moving on mine shyly.

And I sink back on my heels, parting from him.

He nuzzles my nose with his and rests his forehead on mine, eyes closed, both our breaths ragged. The next thing I feel is his hand cradling the back of my neck, fingers caressing my scalp, while his other arm wraps around my waist, pushing me closer to his firm body as if the distance between us hurts. 

He seeks my mouth this time, his tongue teasing my bottom lip with the slightest touch. And I concede, parting them. I'm completely lost in the taste of him, in the silky strokes of his tongue and in the delicacy of each of his movements. 

But it only takes seconds, or perhaps minutes, before the kiss grows. Thirsty. Starving. From unhurried to needy. From subtle to determined. Full of contained emotion.

I tighten the grip of my hands on the collar of his shirt, desperately searching for support, as I’m not sure if I’m awake or dreaming. His scent, the need and the heat of his mouth… I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to wake up. His other hand tangles on my short hair and tugs tentatively, tilting my head to the side. He kisses my cheek, my jawline and descends a trail of nips and kisses down my neck and I moan, desire blooming in my core. His mouth reaches one especially sensitive spot that makes me gasp and he suddenly freezes, taking a dark deep inhale over my pulse point. 

My eyes snap open. A thrill of danger descends down my spine.

“I wouldn’t mind if you…” I breathe out with a husky voice, meaning clearly implicit in the unfinished sentence. And I surprise myself realizing it is the truth indeed.

However, he cuts my words short. “I won’t,” Adam claims, although I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to himself.    

Before I can think of it any further, he goes back to my lips and I drink his kiss with fervent desperation. My hands go back to life, running over his shirt, untucking it from his trousers and undoing buttons as I find them. When I finally pull it open, I trail the soft skin of his torso and his hard muscles and planes and I sigh in awe. Hot perfection, like one of those roman statues that the museums keep in their insides. Timeless beauty. 

The bare rake of my nails over his sensitive abs make him moan and I chuckle when his usually clever fingers, unable to undo the tie of my cape, rip it open instead. 

Adam stops and huffs, but I don’t give him time to speak or to apologize. Or to overthink about it before I’m tugging at his shirt. “Take this off,” I mumble, so close to his lips that I’m sure he can feel the words. 

And he immediately complies, getting off the shirt and tossing it onto the floor. I pull away just for an instant, just to admire the exquisite perfection of his body, how his chest rises with an agitated breath, how the slightest blush of pink has grown on his cheeks and how he’s looking at me with unconcealed want. 

The colossal barrier that Adam had put between us during this whole year is not there anymore. The wall has collapsed. The dam has burst. And we are being dragged away by the strongest and most primal need I’ve ever felt before.

Desire strikes me so hard that makes my knees buckle.

I gasp in surprise when he lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his torso. Entangled on kisses, he paces until the wall makes us stop forcefully. It feels frozen cold against my back in heavy contrast with the burning heat of his body embracing me. 

Gods, I feel him whole, hard against my core when he rocks between my legs and I moan. The pressure feels good, far too good. But it’s not even close to what I need. What I want. I rock my hips in response, eliciting a groan from him that sounds delightful in my ears. 

And, suddenly, he sharply breaks the kiss, panting heavily. Adam rests his forehead on my bare shoulder while I’m still wrapped in his strong arms, helplessly wondering why the reason for his pause is. Even when my fingers comb his scalp gently in an encouraging way, I can still feel his hesitation. 

Is it because of my blood? Am I really that overwhelming ?

“Adam, we don’t have to continue. It’s ok,” I mutter, resigned but understanding. 

He sighs and pulls away, just enough to meet my gaze. His mouth opens, but he stumbles with the words and that’s so unusual in his normally secure endeavour that makes me hyper-aware that this is a highly unmapped ground for him. He takes a deep breath before trying to speak again. “I do want you, but it’s been a long time…” To my surprise, he smiles thinly, shyly - just a bit - and a red blush crawls onto his face. “I’m a bit overwhelmed and this could be a rather disappointing experience if we keep up this pace...”  

Oh!... Ah! Ok… 

It seems that I was quite wrong about the blood and I do wonder for an instant what “a long time” exactly means for a 900 years old vampire, but I hold the question for another day, perhaps. However, I’m still against the wall, lifted up and feeling him hard and pushing against me. As much as I want to be fucked right here and now, I could also do with a change of pace. 

“We can slow down a bit, perhaps?”

He nods and leaves me back on the floor delicately, his fingers caressing my cheek immediately after on a dreamy promise and I realize that I’m more than willing to hurtle towards whatever abyss he wants to take me with him.

Before I can react, his lips are on mine again, but this time sweetly and delicately again, and his hands are scouting over the corset, sliding down towards my hips and back up, unhurriedly caressing the sides of my torso. His touch is feather-like over the side of my breasts and sends a thrill of desire straight to my core.  

“As much as you look stunning in this, I would appreciate if you take it off.”   

I have to chuckle at his polite ways, but I comply. He spins me around and pulls gently at the laces, this time without ripping anything apart. Still with my back to him, the next thing I feel are his hands mapping my skin and tracing my arms and shoulders, caressing my neck and my scalp. I gasp when he finally steps closer to me and embraces me from behind, being his chest flushed to my back. 

Adam kisses my neck again as lingers his hands over my body. I moan and squirm in his touch when he finally - finally - outlines my breasts with his fingers before his thumbs caress my nipples. Before I realize, one of his hands has slipped into my trousers sneakily and I feel myself dying in anticipation, holding my breath. 

He perfectly knows what he’s doing when he parts my folds to damp a finger into my moisture before going back to caress my clit. The moan that leaves my mouth is obscene and my knees decide is a good time to give up, that bad that Adam has to hold my waist to avoid me to drop on the floor.

“Is this good?” he whispers in my ear with a bit of smugness, cradling me closer to his body if that’s even possible at all.

I stutter something incoherent as lost as I am on the feeling of him, on his unhurried strokes on my sex, on his strong arm circling my waist, on the warmth of his naked skin on mine and on the feeling of his lips, claiming my neck with tender kisses. 

My pleasure is building way too fast, probably out of anticipation and pure need. At the end of the day, it has been nearly one year craving him. My nails dig into his biceps and I find the strength to put words together at last. “Adam, you’re doing quite a good job, but I want you...”

“But I don’t know how long...” he whispers in a veiled excuse.

The steady rhythm of his finger fastens just a bit and I feel the tension coiling up in my core. 

“It doesn’t matter, please… I want you,” I insist.

But he carries on. I’m already at the edge of my climax when he finally slows his relentless pace and pulls his hand out my trousers. I complain with a muffled groan, my whole body twitching, desperate to reach the denied relief. However, my frown and my frustration soften when I see his focused expression and his thin smile. Adam holds my hand and walks me into my bedroom. We kiss again, hard and passionate and I melt into his embrace and his doing.

Our remaining clothes are off on a blur of motion that I cannot clearly recall, and we map our bodies, lingering touches over flushed and heated skin. But I know he’s stretching the moment out and I just wonder if it’s because he’s really enjoying the caresses or he’s really that adorably shy for not wanting to ask. 

“Are you sure of this, Adam?” 

He doesn’t reply - he’s quite busy exploring my lips - but he nods fervently, cupping my face with his hands.

I grin a little because he is broad and stern, pig-headed and scary sometimes. But I got to see that part of him that is not the common one: his vulnerability, his insecurities and his fears. The next question is probably the most awkward thing I’ve ever asked during foreplay, as the flow of the moment usually leads to it naturally. However, despite our clear intention of ending this whole experience in bed, I don’t want to make him uncomfortable. “Would you like to be on top or shall I?”  

He takes in a shaky inhale before answering. “Whichever feels best for you, Eve.”

I smile at the consideration of his answer and push him back a little so he falls on the bed. Adam shuffles back to rest his head on the pillows and I climb up onto his hips but he seems to be reading my mind and sits up immediately, circling my waist with his arm, fingers splayed over my bare back, anchoring me. 

He groans with pleasure when I hold his thick erection to line him up with my body. Then, I lower myself down slowly, sinking him inch by inch in me. Fireworks, or perhaps a million galaxies, begin to cluster behind my eyes at the sensation and completion never felt so intense, so good and so right at the same time. 

The righteous feeling of belonging overwhelms me when I begin to rock very slow in his lap. When his hands clasp my hips with unexpected strength. When his lips find mine just to let out a shaky exhale.

After the first deep thrust of my hips - which makes him moan and shiver, to my delight - his thumb reaches straight away to the point we are joined together to caress my clit. I ride him unhurriedly, kissing, drinking his pleasured sounds with my mouth and focusing on angling my hips for him to reach that sweet spot inside me. After all the meticulous foreplay, my climax strikes me really fast and with the weight of one year of contained feelings and longing. With the asphyxiating pressure of words that haven’t been spoken between us yet. 

And immediately after, Adam's hips stutter and I feel him come, leaving muffled groans and heavy pants on the crook of my neck. His teeth tease my tender skin without breaking it and I’m amazed at how much self-restraint he actually has.  

The world blurs on the edges and tiredness makes its way into my bones. We kiss for some minutes, sloppily and tenderly, before I move away from his lap and into the bathroom to clean myself. 

Looking in the mirror, I see the marks on my skin, slight bruises and love bites that will tell the story of our passionate night to everyone that would be curious enough to notice. But he hasn’t bitten me. Not at all. 

I smile goofily at my reflection and try not to put words at the feeling that blooms in my chest, thinking of what a huge step forwards this actually has been. For him. For us. 

To my surprise, Adam is fast asleep in my bed when I come back to my bedroom.

 ***

 The weight of his arm has been a consistent leitmotif during the night and, even if disruptive after such a long time sleeping alone, it has been welcomed. 

However, there’s nothing there anymore. I can’t feel the warmth of his body. The bulge of blankets on his side. Just nothing. 

I open my eyes and, as if waking up from a dream to fall into a nightmare, I realize Adam is not in my bed, but just an empty cold space where he should be. 

I don’t fully understand what is going on but, once I do, I panic. And, then, I dread, taking his disappearance as regret. It’s suddenly obvious that he feels guilty about what happened between us and fled. 

And that I’m alone once again. 

Perhaps this shouldn’t have happened in the first instance... Perhaps this has all been a mistake... 

But it’s too late to take things back as they were before. In what sort of vulnerable position this leaves us now?

“Shit!” I mutter, upset and worried, scrambling out of bed and putting on an old oversized t-shirt that is meant to be my pyjamas.

I decide to get my phone and call him right away to figure out whatever is going on in his mind. Or, at least, to try to. My phone’s in my bag, in the kitchen.

But, as soon as I pull my bedroom door open, my heart nearly stops at the shock. Adam is in the dining room, fully dressed and standing in front of the entrance door. As still as a statue.

He looks up at me, full of regret and I froze.    

“I thought you had left...” I barely say, my throat tightening painfully.

“I… I tried to.”

Bitterness spreads through my body at his confession and, after what happened between us, after my dreamy high expectations, I have to swallow hard to keep the tears at bay.

Has this meant anything to him at all? What is he running away from?

“What has stopped you?” After a year of battling with him and with his emotional constipation, I’m truly tired. I’m just exhausted. And I don’t think I can bear with the disappointment of whatever he is about to say.

But his expression is not stern, neither stoic as it usually is. He looks worn out. As exhausted as I am. And mostly troubled. “I can’t… I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of lying to myself and to everyone. To you...”

“I don’t think you are as good a liar as you think you are, Adam…”

My snarky but sincere comment makes him smile sadly. 

There’s a tense silence. A whole minute of staring at each other, seizing each other. Until he breaks the silence once again to tell me out of the blue, “I’m in love with you, Eve.”

But he looks so troubled at that beautiful line that my heart dreads and I can’t find the wits to answer back. I feel like crying and, even so, I pull a smile on. “Is that a bad thing?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Can I ask… What are you so scared of?”

“Loss. Guilt...” he replies without hesitation. “I love you but, whatever happens, I don’t want to drag you along with me. To this darkness...”

And, suddenly, everything clicks. Adam has suffered loss with mortals, with friends and family, for over 900 years. I’m sure that the last thing he intended was to fall in love with one. We, mortals, are… brief. Fleeting lives. Shooting stars. He just doesn’t want to lose me. To suffer another loss. But, most and foremost, he doesn’t want to drag me with him to his curse. 

He considers himself a monster. He doesn’t want me to become a vampire in order to be together.

I can’t help but feel sorry for him and for his experiences. For the complex situation that we find ourselves into and because there’s no way we will both be able to come out of it intact. And I’m fully aware of it when I lock my eyes in his icy green ones, reddened by worry and hesitation. Anxious. “You’re not dragging me anywhere I didn’t think of before you and me ever happened and, even so, it wouldn’t be your decision to make Adam, but mine. If anything has to be, we will figure it out once it’s time. The only thing you are to decide now is staying with me or leaving. That's it..."

The words leave my mouth on a rushed blurt out that is barely a whisper before the pain in my throat forbids me on carrying on talking and I’m fully aware of how ultimate it sounds. My eyes are wet, far much of what I intended, but I also understand that this will be it. A tipping point. After what has just happened between us, there’s no way we would be able to go back to what we had before, that platonic and patient relationship. And, if he leaves now… I don’t even want to think about it.

I go back to my bedroom under his attentive and aching stare, and into my bed, laying on my side and covering myself with the blankets. 

Nothing happens.

Five. Ten. Or perhaps thirty minutes just focused on my breath. I’m not sure of how long I remain awake, listening to every sound, wondering if he will choose me over his doubts. 

But, as the minutes happen and nothing else matters but his absence, the tears I’ve been stubbornly keeping inside burst free and slide down my cheeks, dying in the fluffiness of the pillow. 

He’s left. He’s made his choice and he’s left. 

And he’s taken my heart with him.

I’m so deep in my misery that I startle when an unexpected weight sinks the left part of the mattress down. Adam shifts closer, flushing his chest against my back, and wraps his arm around me tightly. Then, he drops a single kiss on my shoulder that means the universe to me. 

“I love you,” he whispers quietly against my ear.

I dry my tears, wriggling around in his embrace to face him. To kiss him.

“I love you, too.”

Read it on AO3

[maraudererasmut]

Black and White (Part XXXIII)

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV | Part XVI | Part XVII | Part XVIII | Part XIX | Part XX | Part XXI | Part XXII | Part XXIII | Part XXIV | Part XXV | Part XXVI | Part XXVII | Part XXVIII | Part XXIX | Part XXX | Part XXXI | Part XXXII | Part XXXIII | Part XXXIV | Part XXXV* |

Remus followed his friends into Chez Bijou as James’ car was driven off by the valet out front. The restaurant was still a culture shock for the artist, but he was significantly more comfortable than the last time he was there. As they were escorted to their table, Sirius kept his hand protectively on Remus’ back, guiding him towards his seat.

Sirius pulled out Remus’ chair for him, the same way James pulled out his wife’s. Remus glanced over to Lily with a questioning look, but she simply smiled in return.

“Uh… thanks…” he mumbled to Sirius as he sat down. Sirius took the seat beside him, his eyes remaining focused on the artist. Remus felt like he was on display and he wasn’t sure if he loved the sensation or hated it.

“So!” James began, drawing the table’s attention to himself. “Sirius tells me you guys might have some news to share?”

Remus felt Sirius’ gaze on him, but he purposefully ignored it, glancing at Lily instead. Lily gave Remus an understanding nod before she answered her husband.

“Yeah! Dorcas and Marlene represent a film studio who’s looking for some paintings for a shoot. They asked Remus and I to produce three pieces each within the next two weeks!”

“That’s amazing!” James’ smile was so wide, it was almost as if he were the artist in question. “I’m so happy for you guys!”

Sirius was beaming proudly down at Remus, who couldn’t shake the sense of guilt that had settled in the pit of his stomach. The artist looked up at his boyfriend, trying to keep his face calm.

“You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow at Remus.

“Would it be a problem if I did?”

Remus’ stomach churned and he felt a lump forming in the back of his throat.

“Sirius…” He began quietly, trying to keep his voice steady. “I don’t want you doing things for me just because we’re… you know…”

“Remus,” Sirius responded, loud enough for the entire table to hear. “You’re showing in my gallery. For the duration of this exhibition, I am representing you. You are one of my artists. When Dorcas and Marlene approached me and asked if I knew of any artists who fit their criteria, I recommended both you and Lily, because I felt that you were best suited for the job.”

“So… it wasn’t because of… anything else?” Remus asked, fiddling with the napkin that had been placed in his lap by a server.

“I did my job as your gallerist, Remus. It’s mutually beneficial. When you succeed in the art world, so do I. I would have done the same for any artist who I represent.”

Sirius’ statement gave Remus pause for a moment.

“How many artists do you represent?” He asked cautiously. It wasn’t a question he had thought to ask before.

Sirius responded with a shrug.

“Five or six. Why do you ask?”

“I just… it never crossed my mind that there were other artists. I just… didn’t think of that…”

Sirius let out a deep chuckle and reached for the bowl of bread in the center of the table. He casually took a bite out of a piece of focaccia before grinning at his boyfriend.

“You know, I wouldn’t be a very good gallery owner if I only ever showed two artists, Remus.”

He made a valid point. Remus glanced down at the empty plate in front of him. There was still so much he didn’t know about his boyfriend and the gallery business.

“Speaking of which…” Lily’s voice carried across the table, catching Remus’ attention. He looked up at his friend, who had her eyebrows raised. When Remus didn’t respond, she continued. “Dorcas had asked Remus and I if you were representing us, Sirius. Of course, I know that I’m signed on with you indefinitely, but as far as I know, Remus is only working with Black and White until the end of this show, right?”

“That’s true,” Sirius remarked, raising a brow. He turned to Remus, an expectant smile on his face. “What do you say, Remus? Interested in coming on as a permanent artist with us?”

Remus hesitated for a moment, remembering their conversation from the previous evening and the card that was slipped into his jacket pocket. He hadn’t mentioned his exchange with Caradoc to anyone yet. He also distinctly remembered one of Sirius’ ground rules explicitly stated that they would not let their personal lives get in the way of professional decisions.

“Well,” Remus admitted guiltily. “I was approached by someone at the show yesterday… He mentioned that his gallery would be interested in displaying some of my work, and I know Black and White requires exclusive ri—“

Remus cut himself off when he noticed the colour drain from every single face at the table. He kept his mouth shut for a moment, waiting for somebody to explain what he had done wrong, before three voices suddenly started shouting at him at once.

"Someone approached you at the show, Rem—"

"-- plan to sign on with another gallery?"

"--was their name? Was it Na— "

"--can't possibly think they're better than Si— "

"--fter everything we've been through you sti—"

"--bably another Black from the sounds of—"

"Stop!"

Remus thumped his fist on the table, directing everyone's attention towards himself. He glared firmly at his group of friends, making sure to make eye contact with each of them.

"For Christ's sake, I can't understand you when you all talk at once! One at a time! Jesus!" Remus turned to his left and looked at Lily. "You first."

Lily looked taken-aback. She blinked in surprise before gathering herself and starting.

"As one of Sirius' artists, I can honestly say, I don't think you'll find better representation in the city. I really mean that, Remus…"

Remus nodded at his friend.

"Understood. James? What were you saying?" Remus turned to look expectantly at the man across the table from him.

"Oh… uh… just that…" In all the time that Remus had known the man, he had never seen James at a loss for words before. "Who was it who approached you? Because if it was another member of the Black family—"

"His name was Caradoc Dearborn."

James furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Who's that?"

"Tall, dark and handsome? He has blonde hair? Anyway, this is his card."

Remus pulled the card out of his pants pocket and handed it to James, who was studying it so hard, he seemed to be trying to memorize it.

"You… brought it with you?"

Remus heard Sirius' voice to the right of him, but refused to look at the gallery owner. Why did he feel so guilty? Wasn't this something that he and Sirius had discussed?

Remus shrugged, trying to pretend he couldn't hear the hurt in Sirius' voice.

"I figured it would be easier to ask about him if I had the card with me," Remus lied. The artist was never particularly good at lying, but he was afraid the truth would make Sirius feel worse; Remus had brought the card with him because he was considering checking out the other gallery that day, just to see what it was like.

"...Do I get to voice my objections now?"

Remus closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them and turning to Sirius.

"Yes. Go ahead, Sirius."

"After everything that's happened… after these past few weeks, you accept the business card of a stranger at the gallery show that I put on for you?"

Sirius' eyes were clouded with anger, but Remus could tell that he was trying to keep it at bay.

"I didn't accept his card. He put it into my pocket. I just… I figured there was no harm in bringing it up with you guys." Remus glanced around the table at the faces of his friends. "Clearly I was wrong."

Remus watched as Sirius' face darkened, his jaw hardening. He noticed Sirius tilt his chin up, the thin line of his mouth tightening. Remus knew what was coming before the words even left the gallery owner's mouth.

"If you want to switch to another gallery, go ahead." Sirius said, a tinge of malice in his voice. "It's fine by me."

Remus rolled his eyes and let out a sigh.

"That's not what I said, Sirius, and you know it." The artist was beginning to tire of Sirius' games and the way he resorted to juvenile passive aggression. On the bright side, at least Sirius' behaviour was predictable.

"You're sitting here, the day after your opening night, with someone else's business card in our hand," Sirius growled, his fists tightening. "Is there another way that I should be interpreting this?"

"Sirius…" James began in a warning voice, but he was met with a glare from the gallery owner.

"Fuck off, James," he spat, before turning on Remus again. "I can't believe this, Remus. I thought you were better than that."

Remus straightened his posture and steeled his expression.

"Sirius, you said not to make any business decisions based on personal feelings. But more importantly, I haven't done anything yet. I told you about someone who gave me a card. Stop being a jealous prick."

Sirius was about to retort when the waiter came by to take their orders. Sirius closed his mouth and glued a fake smile to his face while he told the server what kind of steak he would like. Remus hated the way Sirius could turn his charm on and off; not only was it frustrating, but it made reading his boyfriend nearly impossible at times.

After the table had ordered their food and wine was poured, the conversation recommenced, albeit in hushed voices.

"Sirius," Lily chimed in after James and Sirius had a whispered row. "I think Remus just wanted to be open and honest with you, letting you know exactly what happened. You shouldn't fault him for that."

Sirius turned on Lily.

"Really? Is that why he brought up the fact that business decisions were separate from personal matters?"

"Stop it, Sirius!" Remus' voice was louder than he intended, but the desired effect was achieved. All three friends looked at the artist with mild surprise. "You said you would work on handling things more maturely! You're acting like a spoiled brat, Sirius. This is a terrible way to start a relationship."

Sirius' face went through several changes upon hearing Remus' words. He looked shocked, upset, dismayed, until he finally settled on a dejected pout. Remus felt a slight twinge of remorse for being so careless with his phrasing, but he knew Sirius needed to hear it.

The food arrived just in time to help ease the tension, but conversation was few and far between as the four friends sat and ate their meals. By the time everyone was finished, the heaviness that hung in the air was stifling, the tension palpable.

All four of them filed into James' car in silence, and Remus and Sirius faced opposite windows in the back seat, purposefully keeping their knees from touching. The ride back to Black and White was the most uncomfortable car ride that Remus had ever endured.

[justforbooks]

The Italian publisher, editor and collector Franco Maria Ricci has died at the age of 82.

In sumptuously produced art books, and as editor of the bi-monthly art magazine FMR, Ricci published writing by Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes and many others over the course of his long and distinguished career. In 2019, Susan Moore visited his estate at Fontanellato, near Parma, where in recent years Ricci had constructed the largest labyrinth in the world out of bamboo; they discussed Ricci’s notable collection of largely 18th- and 19th-century sculpture and paintings, as well as his library of books published by the great typographer Giambattista Bodoni, whose works Ricci had reprinted in his first foray into publishing. The interview is published in full below.

Collecting may be read as a form of autobiography written with works of art rather than words. In the case of Franco Maria Ricci, his is a life composed of both words and pictures. He has not only published the most lavishly produced art magazine – FMR – and art books in the world, but also spent the last 50 years amassing a peerless collection of volumes produced by the great Italian typographer, compositor and publisher Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) and a rich, eclectic collection of some 500 largely neoclassical and baroque paintings and sculptures. Both collections are at the heart of his most recent and extraordinary venture, the creation of the immense, star-shaped Labirinto della Masone, near Parma, the largest labyrinth in the world – and surely one of the few planted with bamboo.

There is something surreal, and slightly disturbing, about turning off the autostrada and suddenly encountering this majestic bamboo structure rising 10m or more above the plains of the Po valley. For all its elegant calligraphic stems and angular leaves, this is not the sparse specimen bamboo of Chinese ink-painting, but a forest. Here, more than 200,000 of these fast-growing bamboos arch upward in their quest for light. Once I turn into the drive of what was originally Ricci’s grandfather’s estate at Fontanellato, the brilliant azure June sky all but disappears. By the end of my two-day visit, it seems that the contrasts of light and dark are an apt metaphor for the book and art collections – and for the entire complex of maze, museum, archive and chapel, the latter built in the form of a pyramid. Ricci has always been part rationalist, part visionary.

Ricci’s story begins with the book. ‘I grew up surrounded by my father’s books. Reading Shakespeare, Homer, Joyce and Dante saved me from bad taste,’ he once said. ‘It made beauty simple, familiar and immediate in my eyes.’ It was a book, too, that transformed his life and launched a long and successful career: Bodoni’s Manuale tipografico, first published in 1818. Before his discovery of Bodoni’s works in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma in the 1960s, a career in publishing seemed unlikely. The stylish Ricci, a racing driver and a dandy with dark cherubic curls, was best known for patterning the snow in the piazza around Parma Cathedral with the wheels of his E-type Jaguar. Even Bernardo Bertolucci remembered that car.

As a young man, Ricci had wanted to study archaeology, but an uncle in the oil world persuaded him to sign up for geology instead. After three months in Turkey spent looking for oil that was not there, he realised the oil business was not for him. Yet his education proved critical in unlikely ways. He spent weekends exploring the mysterious, labyrinthine underground tunnels and caves that are a feature of the Romagna region of Italy. He also designed posters for Parma University’s theatre festival that caught the attention of an American curator preparing a show of Italian design in New York. He became, inadvertently, a graphic artist, and went on to create striking graphics for everything from Poste Italiane to Alitalia.

Ricci has long insisted that ‘Bodoni was not only a typographer. He achieved modernity and elegance through graphic art. He was, like Canova, a champion of neoclassicism but in two dimensions. I immediately fell in love with the proportions, the concept of beauty.’ Bodoni’s genius was not simply the freshness, rigour and precision of the typefaces, with their dramatic contrasts between thick and thin line, but also his sense of how to lay out a page. Texts are set with extravagantly wide margins and with little or no decoration.

Ricci decided to reproduce the master’s Manuale tipografico, although everyone told him he was mad to do it. He bought two early offset typography machines which, he noted, were ‘as expensive as a Ferrari, which I wanted to buy but never did’, and had the highest-quality paper made exclusively for the project by Fabriano. It took a year to publish the three volumes in 900 numbered copies (1964–65). ‘So I became a publisher. It became a bestseller.’

Much to his mother’s horror, Ricci decided to continue to publish very expensive books – art books printed in Bodonian style – and later, literary editions, several series of which were edited by Jorge Luis Borges, whose presence looms large in library and labyrinth. At a time when Arte Povera dominated the Italian avant-garde, Ricci chose opulent black silk covers embossed with gold, and printed on costly pale blue Fabriano paper with handmade plates. He wanted his books to be rare – printing small editions – but also surprising. He gave Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino and Borges free rein to write accompanying texts.

His wife Laura Casalis remembers having been struck by the originality of Ricci’s 1970 book on the then little-appreciated Erté – text by Barthes – before she met the publisher himself in 1975, and soon found herself working on a book on red paper-cut portraits of Mao, accompanied by 39 of the Chairman’s own poems printed in Chinese characters. ‘Little by little I slipped into publishing with him – Franco was a workaholic and I realised that was the only way I would see him. Those Mao paper-cuts were typical of the practically unknown subjects that he would seek out all his life, and we sometimes show them between loan exhibitions in the museum. Franco has l’occhio lungo – he can see beauty in something which may take others a long time to recognise.’

It is in the library I find Ricci and, indeed, where he is to be found most mornings and afternoons. It is part of a cluster of picturesque 19th-century stone buildings surrounded by lush and increasingly exotic gardens. He had begun renovating the dilapidated stables behind his grandfather’s long-abandoned villa as a summerhouse and library in the 1970s, and its enormous hayloft still serves as an idyllic open-air dining room and entertaining space, even though the couple have now moved into the main house. Inside this romantic half-ruined folly, Ricci created the unexpected: two neoclassical library rooms lined with bookshelves and marble busts, their domed and coffered ceilings reminiscent of those in the Biblioteca Palatina.

As soon as we arrive in the inner sanctum, the Bodoni library with its more than 1,200 volumes – missing a tantalising three or four tomes but otherwise complete – Ricci is immediately up on his feet and pulling down and opening cherished volumes, eyes blazing. Despite the heat, he wears an elegant embroidered linen waistcoat but not its jacket, which hangs nearby, bearing the synthetic red flower that became in effect his iconographical device. (Tai Missoni gave him a cardigan as a present: Ricci declined the gift – he does not wear cardigans – but declared that he would always wear the red flower from its packaging thereafter, which he did. Once, when he had forgotten the flower, an officer at the Alitalia desk at Milan airport said: ‘I see you are travelling incognito today Mr Ricci.’)

Now Ricci deftly presents Bodoni’s Essai de caractères russes… of 1782, and his 1789 edition of Torquato Tasso’s pastoral play Aminta, exquisitely illuminated for the Prince of Essling. These are dear friends and the joy as he handles these pages is self-evident. This is the only significant part of the collection not to have been moved down to the museum and archive complex, a short bamboo-lined drive away. It is clear that he could never bear to live apart from these books.

The impetus to create the long-imagined labyrinth, and a museum and library to house his collections and publishing archive, was a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. The couple sold the publishing house in 1982, and their house in Milan, and moved to Fontanellato. There is a fierce pride in Laura Casalis’s voice as she explains: ‘Franco wanted to do it, he imagined it, and he found the right team of people to help him realise it.’ We are sitting over coffee in the Labirinto courtyard surveying the sharp-edged geometries of its rose-pink brick buildings, a place that already has the air of a lost ancient city discovered in a jungle. Laura describes the evolution of the museum collections within, and recalls the words of the late Italian publisher Valentino Bompiani, who described Ricci as a man of courage and fantasy.

‘Whenever he fell for some subject or artist, Franco would try to buy.’ Laura continues. ‘He was never concerned with what was or was not fashionable, and never bought to decorate a house. He collected pieces that he liked that were strange or unconventional.’ He began with Art Deco, first buying inexpensive little bronze and chryselephantine dancers by the likes of Demétre Chiparus (1886–1947), as well as Guiraud-Rivière’s dramatic figure of Isadora Duncan with two bears, which dominates the central space of the 20th-century gallery in the museum.

Here, too, are three paintings by the outsider artist Antonio Ligabue (1899–1965), a tormented soul who had led a tragic life, painting and wandering around the Po valley when he was not confined to a psychiatric hospital. Ricci published the first monograph on the artist in 1967, two years after his death, a work that helped catapult the artist from provincial to national and then international fame. Two years later, he bought two of the artist’s bold, visceral close-up heads of roaring tigers, painted in the 1950s, including the key work that had been selected for the book cover. A no less bright and richly impasted self-portrait in the guise of Vincent Van Gogh followed a year later.

Ricci also championed – and collected – the work of the third dominant presence in this space, Adolfo Wildt (1868–1931), often described as the last Symbolist but one whose reputation was, as Laura puts it, ‘tarnished by Fascist association’. Ricci published a monograph in 1988, the same year that he acquired the strange masterpiece that is Vir temporis acti of 1913, a virtuoso marble bust of a Greek or Roman soldier reimagined through the combined lenses of Michelangelo and the Secessionists. The expressive anguish of this head may be seen as a symbol of the nobility and redemption of sacrifice, but it is the refined and gleaming silken surface that led to Brancusi.

Ricci has a penchant not only for sculpture but also portraits, and portrait busts in particular. ‘I have hunted portraits all my life. I never get tired of looking at them,’ he confesses, ‘and in turn, I feel observed by them.’ In the 1990s, he began following the art market and collecting in earnest. Ricci had an office, bookshop and apartment in Paris and there and in Monaco he was to acquire many of his largely French 18th-century terracottas, some of the most compelling by less familiar names. A superb example is the bust of an intense, low-browed individual, signed by one A. Riffard and given the Revolutionary date of ‘9. Fructidor an 3e’, from 1794–95.

Another naturalistic tour de force is one of very few known terracottas by Francesco Orso, also known as François Orsy, a Piedmontese sculptor also active in Paris. Orso is responsible for the rarest sculptures here: the disconcerting life-size polychrome wax portrait busts of Vittorio Amadeo III of Savoy and his wife Maria Antonia Ferdinanda di Borbone, complete with painted papier-mâché clothes. The revolution destroyed the sculptor’s courtly patronage in Paris, and he diversified into the more overtly commercial world of the waxwork with a show featuring an effigy of the aristocratic revolutionary leader the Comte de Mirabeau and popular tableaux on themes such as Marat’s assassination by Charlotte Corday.

Unsurprisingly, given Ricci’s passion for Bodoni, the neoclassical looms large. At the centre of the Napoleonic gallery, lined with marble busts – Italian, English and Danish – is a model of Canova’s ideal head of Dante’s muse Beatrice, first conceived as an idealised portrait of Mme Récamier. The display offers a witty face-off between Wellington and Napoleon on opposing pedestals, but the emperor prevails with a sequence of classicising family portraits. Above hangs the second version of Francesco Hayez’s The Penitent Magdalene (1825). Here the Romantic artist has transposed the chilly perfection of Canova’s marble surfaces into pigment.

An unusual and endearing mid 18th-century Italian group portrait presents the family of Antonio Ghidini, a cloth merchant to the Bourbon court in Parma, painted by his friend, the court artist Pietro Melchiorre Ferrari (1734/5–87). In this Zoffany-style conversation piece there is no doubting Ghidini’s business, as he points to documents mentioning his association with his trading partners in Manchester and his wife sits stiffly under her salmon-pink stomacher in sprigged and striped silk finery.

Yet it would be misleading to suggest that Ricci’s ever-curious eye never ranged beyond the 18th and 19th centuries. He owns a number of 17th-century marbles, including that of the all-powerful prelate Cardinal Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri degli Albertoni, who effectively ran the papacy under Clement X – irresistible in profile. In the 2000s Ricci also added, for example, Ludovico Carracci’s handsome three-quarter length Portrait of Lucrezia Bentivoglio Leoni (1589), executed two years before the sitter’s death. Flanking the same door is Philippe de Champaigne’s Portrait of the Duchesse d’Aiguillon (c. 1650), and viewed beyond is an unusual sensual and erotically charged work by Luca Cambiaso (1527–85), Venus Blindfolding Cupid.

Yet Ricci has also always been attracted to what he describes as the art of visionary madness, by the surreal, and by what is prosaic and popular. The museum’s cabinet of curiosities includes a narwhal horn, once thought to have belonged to the unicorn. Its walls are lined with particularly gruesome vanitas paintings and sculptures. Centre stage among the skulls is a decomposing head by Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627), its flesh and rotten teeth seething with maggots and flies.

Only superficially more benign are the drawings of the Codex Seraphinianus, first published in two volumes in 1981 – Ricci’s most extraordinary publication. These meticulously detailed explications of the bizarre and the fantastical illustrate an encyclopaedia of an imaginary world conceived by the artist Luigi Serafini in the 1970s and written in a language still understood only by its creator. Certainly its pages are at home in the Labirinto della Masone complex – another visionary creation, in effect a Gesamtkunstwerk, an all-embracing art work expressing the life and taste of one man.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[improvidus]

Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters | Oneshot

Rating | K+

Warnings | None

Genres | H/C, friendship, family

Characters | Christopher LaSalle, Dwayne Pride

Relationships | Christopher LaSalle x Dwayne Pride (friendship)

Word Count | 3K

Summary: With two full-time jobs and the investigation into his family's company, Christopher LaSalle is beyond exhausted. Pride decides it's time to stage an intervention. Takes place in early S5.

"You always were a party animal."

The team was gone, the bar was closed, the lights were low, and Christopher LaSalle sat alone, the epicenter of a semi-organized explosion of paperwork that spilled across nearly every inch of the table he occupied. At the sound of Pride's voice, he looked up and stretched, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. He huffed. "Yeah, well. Not anymore. Lately my nights are filled with a whole lotta...this." He flung out a hand to indicate the chaos surrounding him.

"You've been goin' pretty hard, Christopher. For a long time, now." Pride dragged a chair out and straddled it, gazing at LaSalle with what Percy used to call his 'concerned basset hound' face. "Why don't you head on home? Get some rest."

"I'll be alright, King. I gotta get this stuff squared away with the IRS."

"I know. That's what I'm talkin' about. NCIS, your family's company—" LaSalle appreciated that Pride never referred to it as his company. "You've got two fuller than full-time jobs and now all this, too. You're burning the candle at both ends, and I suspect the middle's gonna catch up wit' you sooner than you're thinkin'."

LaSalle ran a hand over his face. "I know, King. I do. I just—I don't see what I can do different. My family needs LaSalle Enterprises. Not to mention all the employees who're depending on it to keep them and their families afloat. And NCIS…" He trailed off, studying the grain of the wood where a bit of table peeked through the sea of paper. His voice grew quiet. "Well, I need that. Keep me afloat."

When he looked up, Pride's eyes were smiling. "An' we need you. Always. But if you need to take a break an' deal wit' all this—we'll manage. And we'll be around when you're ready to come back."

"I appreciate that, King. But I'm good. Really."

Pride did not appear to be convinced. "Christopher. When was the last time you—"

"The last time I what, slept?" LaSalle bristled. "Don't do that."

Pride drew back a little. "Don't do what?"

"Don't try to take care of me."

Pride let out an incredulous bark of laughter. "Christopher, I'm always gonna take—"

LaSalle cut him off, surprised by the sudden irritation flaring in his chest. "No, I know, that's not what I mean. You're always tryin' to take care of everybody, but you never stop to take care of yourself. At least, not lately. You think I don't see it? I know you, King! How many times, how many cases, have you told me that I couldn't take care of anybody if I wasn't takin' care of myself? Well, I'm pretty dang sure that isn't a principle that applies exclusively to me! I know you haven't been sleeping either, so don't be all up on my back about it!" He took a breath.

Pride was staring at him.

There was an awkward beat.

LaSalle deflated a little. "Look, it's not like I don't wanna sleep. Believe me, I want to. I just…" He let out a mirthless huff. "I don't have time to sleep. And when I do…" He trailed off and shook his head. Pride didn't need to know about the nightmares.

Pride was quiet, waiting for something.

But LaSalle didn't have anything to give him. He tapped his fingers on the table once, twice. Then the fight drained from his shoulders, and he put his head in his hands. He wouldn't have thought it possible, but he felt even more wiped out than he had a few minutes ago.

"Christopher." There was a hand on his shoulder. He lifted his head, but a few moments ticked away before his eyes flicked up to meet Pride's. The hurt he had expected to see there was nowhere to be found. Only concern shined back at him. Fourteen years, and the patience of this man still blew him away sometimes.

A wave of regret washed over LaSalle. "I'm sorry, King. I know you're tryin'. It's not fair for me to take this out on you. I just...Well, I wish you'd take some of your own advice every once in a while." A sigh shuddered free, unbidden. "And as far as work goes..." He shook his head and rubbed at his chin. "Well, the truth of the matter is, I'm afraid if I give the company my full attention, it's gonna suck me up and never let me go." He shook his head once more, meeting Pride's eyes, now. "If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon stick around."

Pride smiled, but LaSalle knew him well enough to spot the worry mostly concealed behind the crinkled, twinkling eyes. "Always happy to have you."

LaSalle nodded, somewhat relieved. Then the time, lit up in the lower-right corner of his laptop, caught his eye and he straightened. "Shoot, King! I had no idea what time it was. You must be waitin' to get to bed."

Pride shrugged. "Nah. It's like you said. I haven't been sleepin' much either. You're welcome to keep workin'. Here." He tossed LaSalle a fob of keys and rose, grunting, to his feet. "I'm gonna get a shower. Lock up when you finish?"

"Sure thing."

Pride squeezed LaSalle's shoulders as he passed his chair. "Don't stay up too late."

"Yes, Dad."

Pride chuckled and LaSalle smiled, but then the attic door clicked shut and he was alone with his exhaustion and a mountain of trouble in the form of receipts, bank statements, and a whole lot of zeroes. The glare from his laptop suddenly seemed blinding, and he rubbed at his eyes again as a long-pent up sigh burst from his lips. Times like these, he wished he'd never given up coffee.

                                                          ***

Dwayne Pride pulled a clean t-shirt over his head and sighed.

Christopher was right; he knew that. It was hypocritical of him to scold his friend for pushing himself too hard when he was doing the same thing to himself. Remove the log from your own eye…

He shook his head. Well, it was easier said than done.

He had seen the exhaustion pulling at Christopher ever since his father's death, since LaSalle Enterprises had fallen squarely on his unwilling shoulders. And in the weeks after Pride had been shot, there had been something else, too—a hollowness in Christopher's eyes amidst the relief, dimming the sparkle he could usually count on finding there. Lines and shadows had formed around his eyes, ones that Pride knew from years past—and more recently, personal experience—meant nightmares.

Like the scars Amelia's bullets had inflicted on Pride's body, the shadows faded over time, but the weariness remained and deepened as the burden of the investigation into LaSalle Enterprises grew in size and weight. Something had to change, and soon.

He could order Christopher to take time off, get things sorted, but he suspected the team was the only thing holding Christopher together right now. His words of fifteen minutes ago were all but an admission.

Pride reached for his towel as an idea took seed in his head. He mulled on it for a minute or two, giving his hair a few brisk shuffles before returning the towel to its hook and heading for the kitchen. If he played his cards right, maybe he could lull Christopher into catching some sleep without his getting wise. It was a temporary fix, but a far sight better than no fix. He opened the squeaky cupboard above the stove and reached for the hot chocolate.

While milk—braced with a generous dose of heavy cream—warmed on the stove, Pride took his Fathers' Day mug from Laurel down from the shelf by the coffee maker. A flash of red caught his eye, and he moved another cup aside to reveal Christopher's Alabama mug. He pulled it down, cracking a grin as he ran his thumb over the slightly scratchy paint of the Crimson Tide emblem. Roll tide. He wasn't actually sure when—or how—the mug had made its way into his kitchen, but he did know it had been there for a very long time. Boy'd probably left it in the truck, or something.

The milk began to hiss and he dropped a few scoops of cocoa in, mixing until the dark globs disappeared. When the mugs were filled, he dunked a stick of cinnamon in each and stirred them around a bit. He paused to wipe up the small mess he had made when he poured the mugs and then headed back down the stairs to collect his drinking partner.

"Chris? I've gotta fresh cup of hot chocolate up here, and it's got your name all—" he reached the last step and looked up, stopping in his tracks. "—over it."

The makeshift workplace was even more disheveled than when he had last seen it. Several of the stacks of paper had been toppled over, loose pages floating to carpet the barroom floor. There was a file folder there, too, its contents fanned out amongst peanut shells and crushed pretzels.

In the middle of this chaos, Christopher LaSalle slept, face pillowed on his keyboard, one arm flung out across the table, the other curled around his laptop.

Pride huffed, a smile lining his face as a feeling too large for his heart to contain swelled in his chest and prickled his eyes. Christopher LaSalle had come such a long way from the angry young detective he had met over a decade ago. He had become family. Pride would trust him with his life—with Laurel's life, even. They had been through hell and back together, and Pride took a moment to thank God for this Jonathan of a friend.

On an impulse, he pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the camera app, turning on the flash before snapping a photo. Neither the sudden burst of light nor the unnecessarily loud shutter sound did anything to rouse the sleeping man. Pride swiped to the photo and grinned. Whether to share with the team or to save for himself, it was a keeper. At the very least, he'd be sending it to Laurel.

He was reluctant to wake his friend, but he reasoned that he'd have a much better chance of sleeping through the night if he did his sleeping on Pride's couch rather than on his keyboard. At the very least, he'd have fewer cricks in the morning.

"Christopher." There was no response, and Pride stepped around the table to try again. Motion on the laptop's screen caught his eye. A text document was open, reading simply, "jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj." Even as he watched, it filled the remainder of the page and moved on to the next. He smirked. "That'll show 'em." Shaking his head, he put a hand on Christopher's shoulder. "Chris?" He knelt and shook him a little. "Christopher. Hey, son."

It took a bit more prompting, but eventually Christopher stirred, inhaling sharply. His left eye—his right was squeezed shut by his cheek plastered to the keyboard—cracked open and blinked in confusion for a moment before he frowned and lifted his head. Little squares were imprinted on his cheek where the keys had pressed. A few pages drifted to the floor on the breeze he caused as he sat up.

"Hey." Pride smiled at him and did his best to swallow the laughter that rose in his throat at the bleary grin Christopher offered him in return.

"Hi."

"You sleepin' good there, m'brother?"

Christopher squinted and looked around the empty bar. His frown deepened.

This time, Pride didn't quite manage to catch the chuckle before it escaped. "C'mon, son. Let's get you someplace you can lie down."

Christopher mumbled a hazy "'kay," but Pride was fairly sure the kid hadn't actually understood his words.

He tried again. "Can you get up an' walk wit' me upstairs?"

Christopher nodded. And made no move to comply. In fact, after a moment or two of blinking blankly at Pride, his head returned to the keyboard with a dull clunk. This time, the h key was sent on a marathon.

Shaking his head, Pride allowed himself another chuckle. At the moment, Christopher resembled nothing more than a toddler who'd been awakened too early from a nap. When his eyes fell closed again, Pride stood and took him gently by the arm.

"Alright, okay. Let's go." With some difficulty, he coaxed Christopher up and guided him towards the stairs.

"Case?"

Pride gave his shoulder a reassuring pat. "Nope. No cases tonight. Just sleep."

Halfway up the stairs, Pride was cursing himself for neglecting to have the new banister installed as he barely managed to catch Christopher when his clumsy steps nearly led him right over the edge. A few stumbles and catches and grunts later, they made it to the top and Pride reached around Christopher to push the door open. He wrestled his friend inside and kicked the door shut behind them.

"Kin'?"

"Yeah, Christopher," Pride strained, doing his best to abort Christopher's collision course with a bookcase.

"'M really tired."

Course corrected, they made their way into the living area. "I know it, Christopher. We're gonna get you some sleep, okay?"

Christopher nodded as Pride propped him in the corner between the wall and the bookcase. "Stay put." When he was sufficiently that convinced Christopher would topple over when he let go of him, Pride turned to gather up the sheet music scattered across the couch and transfer it to the piano bench. "Over here, Christopher."

Christopher obediently sat down on the edge of the couch, hands planted against the cracked leather on either side of him. Pride felt his bewildered gaze on his back as he entered the bedroom and re-emerged with a pillow and a quilt. He placed the pillow against the arm of the couch and patted it. "Lie down."

The younger man shook his head in a petulant way that brought the photo of seven-year-old Christopher, barely-visible in his big brother's football gear, flashing through his mind's eye. Then Christopher set his jaw, and the little boy disappeared. "This ain't right."

Pride frowned. What did that mean? He had no way of knowing if Christopher was referring to his obvious state of disorientation or something deeper, but he decided answers would have to wait until they had both had some sleep. Instead, he looked his friend in the eye and infused his voice with all the conviction he had in him. "This is exactly right." He held Christopher's eyes until he saw a flicker of understanding, and then he gave the pillow another pat. "Now lie down, son."

This time, Christopher complied, face crashing into the pillow, eyes slipping closed—and feet remaining on the floor. Pride waited a moment for him to kick his shoes off and pull them up, but Christopher was still. Like a light, Pride thought with a smirk. Kneeling, he pulled off Christopher's shoes before taking his ankles and swinging them onto the couch. He watched Christopher's face as he shook out the quilt and laid it over the boy.

The weariness that Pride had seen in his face earlier was gone, replaced by an expression so peaceful it bordered on serenity. If before Pride had thought he looked ten years older, he now looked ten years younger. The lines of stress and sadness, engraved by years on a job that had given him a front-row seat to all the worst the world had to offer, were softened in sleep. Only the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth remained distinct, and Pride smiled.

He made one last trip downstairs to lock up and shut off the lights, pausing by Christopher's abandoned workspace. He saved the open documents, opting not to erase the gibberish inflicted by his friend's impromptu nap. Something to tease him about, later. Then he powered down the laptop and put the papers—as much in order as he could figure—back into the accordion folder at the foot of the chair Christopher had occupied.

He carried these things upstairs and placed them alongside his sheet music on the piano bench before the scent of cinnamon and cocoa drew him back to the kitchen. He poured the not-so-hot chocolate into a pitcher, cinnamon and all, and put it in the fridge for another night, another dilemma. His job had been much easier than expected, tonight. A yawn swelled in his throat as he placed the mugs in the sink and filled them with water.

Pride checked on Christopher one more time on his way to his room. He slept soundly, one arm dangling over the edge of the couch, feet up over the arm at the end. The glow from neon lights outside the window cast his face in squares of cool blue and flickering yellow. Pride bent down and took his wrist, gently folding his arm back beneath the quilt. He put a hand on the younger man's back.

"Sweet dreams, Christopher." God knows they're precious.

A few minutes later, he was in his own bed, his partner of years asleep in the next room. Outside, someone played "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water" on a tenor sax. He closed his eyes.

And for the first time in many weeks, Dwayne Pride slept deeply and free of dreams.

A/N: Welcome to my brand-spankin’-new NOLA blog! This fic is my first foray into this fandom, and I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts! I’ve got another one well underway, as well as a long-ish series in the brainstorm stages.

The events of this fic are largely based on real-life experiences that I do not recall because I was still so sleepy I was falling all over the place. Ironically, my beta was falling nodding off at her laptop whilst reading about Pride making hot chocolate, which is about the point Christopher was doing the same thing downstairs.

Speaking of my my beta, you should all go check out the brilliant, brilliant Mellia Bee on AO3 and FF.net. Her Steggy stories are the bomb, and a huge part of why I started writing fanfic.

The Scripture Pride references is from Matthew 7:5, and because it’s probably kind of obscure, “Jonathan of a friend” was referring to the best friend of David, Israel’s most famous king. Jonathan really stuck his neck out for David, helping him at great danger to himself. You can read about them in 1 Samuel. And finally, the photo of small Christopher was just me throwing in a nod to Lucas Black’s role in Friday Night Lights. I’ll try to post the actual photo, because it’s really stinkin’ rotten adorable, and y’all must see it.

Apologies for the long A/N! Thank you for reading this, and thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to comment! Feedback is soul-food, like pecan pie, and it keeps le old gears turning. While we’re on the topic of food, don’t forget to eat today, lovey human! Drink your water, take your vitamins, eat an orange. I love you. Jesus loves you. Hang in there.

Author out.

My FF.Net page:

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/12357741/

My AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project7723/works

[dthai]

Divine Virtualization

„God exists. And He isn't interested in us until we become interested in Him, in Him exclusively. Do you understand what I am saying?Exclusively!Twenty four hours a day. Your hearts and minds filled only with God. There's no room for anything else.“[1]

The sound of processing resonated in the empty and vast hall. The innumerable quantum computers were towering like Corinthian columns, beeping in the background. Everywhere little lights were flashing on the walls and passing like meteor showers. This building (…)breathes,  her voice sings transcendental rememberings and knowledge.

Then came the response of the artificial intelligence living in the house.

„He who has only found a reflexion of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven where he looked for a superman, will no longer be willing to find only the semblance of himself, only the sub human, where he seeks and ought to find his own reality. The foundation of the criticism of religion is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion indeed is man’s self consciousness and self estimation while he has not found his feet in the universe. But Man is no abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the world of men, the State, society.“ [2]

Silence fell again. A minute passed and the exiled Pope tried a second time.

 „Interesting theory. But […] it is wrong.Can you see far?Yes. And I have proof of the existence of God.“ [3]

The mechanical voice interrupted suddenly:

“[…] Proof?Or evidence, assumptions, daydreams?[…]

Technology has no truth conditions, for it is unconditionally true; and the contradiction is on no condition true.[4]

Technology,[…] fills the world.The boundaries of the world are also its boundaries. In logic, therefore, we cannot say, there is this and this in the world, but not that, for to say so would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the boundaries of the world as if it could contemplate these boundaries from the other side also. What we cannot think we cannot think, therefore we also cannot say what we cannot think. [5]

Lenny […]had to have felt this temptation, the temptation to do an injustice to […] God , to be unfair to him, that is, in this case, to write him into the age of  […] digitalization. He must have felt it outside or within himself. Indeed, such a temptation must still be threatening and liable to reemerge since it is still necessary to call for vigilance[…] [6]

Falling in a deep thought, he starts walking through quieter, dimmer areas of […] the house, his way is lit progressively, triggered by every step.[7]

Intelligent lighting detects motion and increases in brightness accordingly.

He then articulated his new thoughts:

„[…]God […] observe[d] […] from on high, and if he sings its praises, it is because his laughter is the inexhaustible good humour of the gods themselves. For the madness of man is a sight for divine eyes: In brief, if you could look down from the moon […]and see the innumerable broils of mortals, you would think you were looking at a great cloud of flies or gnats quarrelling among themselves, warring, plotting, plundering, playing, frisking, being born, declining, dying.It is downright incredible what tumults, what tragedies can be stirred up by such a tiny creature, so frail and short lived. Madness is no longer the familiar strangeness of the world, but a spectacle well known to the observer from outside; not a figure of the cosmos, but merely of the order of the aevum. [8]

What is needed is a cool head, and whenever necessary, a dose of severity. Algortithms […]should control […] all  behaviour. The only string that still vibrates within us is fear

Can one speak of responsibility or assume a responsibility without difficulty and without anguish?[…] [9]

(This) There is (the) only one way to oblige us to change the direction of our attention after so many years spent neglecting what was taking place behind our backs.If the “angel of geohistory” is starting to look ahead with horror and incredulity, it is because she has become aware that there is a threat and that she has waged a war that will never cease if she denies it!To put it baldly: in the face of what is to come, we cannot continue to believe in the old future if we want to have a future at all. »[10]

Lenny paused for a second expecting a smart interjection. But he could only hear the pleasant breeze from the cooling system. He then continued:

[…]I will become what […] I call a “global automaton” imposing divine logic over the economy and society at large.  A complex of new disciplinary cyborg who “lays down for each individual his place, his body, his disease and his death, his well being** and extends to the “ultimate determination of the individual, of what characterizes him, of what belongs to him, of what happens to him.[11]

This power in the hierarchical surveillance of the disciplines is not possessed as a thing, or transferred as a property; it functions like a piece of machinery. The next eternity will be characterized by “an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations.

Men will neither be a natural fact nor a product of his own creativity, but a cyborg even then, an android straight off the production lines of modernity’s disciplines.What makes this figure so tragic is. the. extent to which he has been programmed to believe in his own autonomy. These are finest achievements of modern power. [12]

Further, man can only possess freedom when his whole being is unified in the pursuit of a single end; and, as his whole being can be unified only in pursuit of a divine end.

From then on it is no mystery where the images come from; humans and their experiences are the material from which the official dreams about God are made. The religious eye projects earthly images into heaven.[13]

Thus, in themselves, they no longer have to do with anything but ‘sensations' celestial, infernal, or terrestrial sensations. Everything is made to pass through the code; the religious sentiment is painted in all the colors of the world. One must not say, ‘If God does not exist, everything is permitted'. It is just the opposite* ‘For with God, everything is permitted’.!

Ressources:

[1]Young Pope

[2]Delphi Collected Works of Karl Marx

[3]Young Pope

[4] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[5] Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

[6] Zizek, Less Than Nothing

[7]Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture

[8]Foucault, History of Madness

[9]Foucault, History of Madness

[10]Latour, Facing Gaia

[11] Castells, The Rise of the Network Society

[12] Plant, Zeros and Ones

[13] Braidotti Hlavajova, Posthuman Glossary

[14]Braidotti Dolphijn, Philosophy After Nature

[dipulb3]

2021 Ford Ranger Tremor is ready for your overlanding expedition

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/2021-ford-ranger-tremor-is-ready-for-your-overlanding-expedition/

2021 Ford Ranger Tremor is ready for your overlanding expedition

In recent years, not only have sales of pickup trucks increased, interest in overlanding — the phenomenon of off-grid adventure travel to remote destinations in specially prepared vehicles — has skyrocketed. This off-road pastime’s dramatic rise in popularity predates COVID-19, but today’s pandemic somehow makes the idea of zombie-apocalypse-ready 4×4 ownership suddenly seem like a sensible investment.

Like

Beefier suspension and tires add capability

Torquey engine = good tow/payload ratings

Class-leading ground-clearance

Visual tweaks look sharp

Don’t Like

Dated interior

No front locking differential

Significant fuel economy penalty

MSRP is competitive but costs as much as an F-150

In any case, the Blue Oval’s product planners didn’t necessarily have Armageddon in mind when they came up with the 2021 Ford Ranger Tremor, but that doesn’t mean this pickup wouldn’t make for a good truck upon which to build out an end times overlanding rig. Even if you’re not a prepper, as far as social-distancing machines go, Ford’s go-farther 4×4 is better suited than most.

After a long hiatus, the Ranger reentered the North American market in 2019 and its popularity has been gaining steadily. Last year, despite the coronavirus hamstringing new-car sales, Ranger sales actually increased, with the model claiming the midsize pickup segment’s second-place sales slot behind Toyota’s Tacoma. There’s still a lot of daylight between the Ranger and Tacoma on the sales charts, however, and Ford figures much of the hill it has to climb is with the type of buyers who gravitate toward the Taco’s many TRD off-road models.

2021 Ford Ranger Tremor is ready for your overlanding gear

See all photos

Now, the Tremor isn’t a standalone model, it’s actually a $4,290 package that can be added atop the truck’s mid-grade XLT and range-topping Lariat trims. The Tremor starts by incorporating most of the performance and aesthetic hardware from today’s existing FX4 off-road package and adding Ranger’s Sport Appearance trimmings. Combined, those two option groups normally total about $2,000, so after spending a couple of weeks with this model both on and off-road, the nearly $2,300 cost premium for all of the Tremor’s additional gear feels like a pretty solid value.

Like other Rangers, the Tremor uses the same 2.3-liter EcoBoost turbo I4 mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission. Good for 270 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque, this is still one of the torquiest and most modern drivetrains available in a midsize truck. The engine has more than enough oomph to tote this 4,571-pound pickup around and the stop/start tech is well behaved to boot.

The Tremor package is available exclusively on four-wheel-drive SuperCrew models with a five-foot bed.

Nick Miotke/Roadshow

Foxy suspension and a geometry lesson

The Tremor’s main upgrades are centered around the Ranger’s suspension, with the headliner being a set of expensive Fox 2.0 shocks, including more sophisticated remote-reservoir units on the rear axle which pair with Tremor-specific leaf springs. The front end gets new springs, too, along with different control arms and a thinner anti-roll bar for better off-road articulation. The steering system is tweaked, too, with unique knuckles to help accommodate the demands of the Tremor’s larger 32-inch General Grabber off-road tires which wrap a set of Magnetic-painted 17-inch wheels.

All of this new hardware yields a modest 0.8 inches of additional ground clearance for a total of 9.7 — slightly better than a Tacoma TRD Pro. Most of that increase is due to the larger tires, which also lend this truck a slightly more planted, 1-inch-wider stance. So equipped, the Tremor’s approach angle is 30.9 degrees, departure is set at 27.1 degrees and breakover angle is 24.2. Those are improvements of 2.2 degrees, 1.7 degrees and 2.7 degrees, respectively.

Spendy Fox 2.0 monotube dampers feature remote reservoirs for better thermal management on the rear axle.

Ford

On-road manners and visual tweaks

While these modifications are designed for off-road use, most of these trucks will still live on pavement for the vast majority of their days, so it’s good to know that this isn’t such an extreme setup that the Ranger’s on-road demeanor has been ruined. The ride is a skosh softer, and there’s a bit more body roll when attacking corners on dry pavement, but the difference is neither alarming nor offputting. If anything, the ride quality is actually more agreeable than the last Ranger I remember driving. Better still, the truck’s all-terrain rubber doesn’t drone on the freeway the way a lot of big-lug off-road tires can. The Tremor may be an off-road-focused package, but over the course of several weeks, I found it more than livable as a daily driver. 

I even dig the subtle Tremor-specific visual tweaks. There’s a unique grille with red-outlined nostrils and the blacked-out bumpers and wider wheel lips give a bit more stance and presence. Look a little closer, and you’ll probably note the front steel skid plate, the pair of rear tow hooks and the running boards. The latter sit higher and tighter than the optional side steps you can get on other Rangers, but don’t worry, you can still unbolt ’em for better off-road clearance. There’s also a splashy, retro-look graphics package available, if that’s your jam.

The Ford Ranger’s interior is no great shakes, even with some Tremor-specific touches.

Ford

Dated cabin with a few extras

Inside, the Ranger’s cabin is largely the same as ever, which is to say, not very impressive. Yes, there are modest Tremor-specific touches like the script logos and suede-like panels in the seatbacks, plus a useful set of rubber floor liners and black dashboard trim. I also appreciate the six-pack of auxiliary power switches designed to easily accommodate extra lights, an air compressor or myriad other useful accessories. But otherwise, the interior feels pretty dated. Believe it or not, this XLT actually still has a switchblade ignition key (fortunately, Lariat trims get pushbutton start).

Even though Ford invested a bunch of money in Ranger when it returned to the US in 2019, it wasn’t a brand-new truck upon arrival, as the same basic generation had been selling overseas for years. Despite a bunch of upgrades meant to bring the truck in-line with the heightened refinement expectations of US consumers, the Ranger’s interior is the easiest way to date this truck. Its plastics are almost universally hard, its infotainment lives on a small-ish touchscreen that isn’t flush mounted and isn’t running the latest version of Sync. Even the last-generation F-150 feels far, far more advanced and substantial, let alone the freshly redesigned 2021 blockbuster now wheeling out of dealers.

To be fair, the cabins of midsize pickups are all quite disappointing these days, whether you’re talking Ford, Toyota or General Motors. Jeep’s Gladiator is somewhat better in terms of tech, but it’s very expensive. In fact, only the Honda Ridgeline really feels up to snuff all the way around, but because it’s a unibody, many buyers won’t even look at one. This Ranger’s cabin remains in the hunt, but interior niceness is a prime reason for potential buyers to consider stretching to even a lower-end F-150.

Lackluster fuel economy

If you’re thinking fuel efficiency is a good reason to go with this smaller truck, you’re going to want to think again. Partly because of its larger tires and blockier profile, the Ranger Tremor only manages a straight 19 miles per gallon across the board (city, highway and combined) according to EPA estimates. That’s a surprisingly stiff comedown from the standard Ranger 4×4 XLT’s 20 mpg city, 24 mpg highway and 22 mpg combined.

Incidentally, that’s also the same combined-cycle rating as a 5.0-liter V8-powered F-150 4×4, which gets 16 mpg city and 22 highway (let alone more efficient F-150 options like the 2.7-liter EcoBoost, diesel or PowerBoost hybrid). Again, these numbers are competitive within this segment, but not unlike the interior accommodations mentioned earlier, the Tremor’s efficiency comes across as disappointingly yester-tech.

The 2.3-liter EcoBoost isn’t much to look at, but with 270 horses and 310 pound-feet of torque, it doesn’t need to be.

Nick Miotke/Josh Krzywonos/Roadshow

Off-road performance and towing/payload

I spent a wintry day at Holly Oaks, a newly opened quarry-turned-off-road playland in metro Detroit to test the Tremor’s mettle. With a mix of hard-packed frozen ground and mud-and-snow slurry, this ORV park was a suitably tough test for this pickup. Better still, I enjoyed practically free run of the place, as it was closed to the public, enabling me to go back and try the same trails and obstacles in different drive modes while taking different lines to assess the truck’s full capabilities.

Like the FX4, the Tremor features Ford’s Terrain Management System, so you can poke a button and optimize the vehicle’s various drive and brake systems for whatever surface you’re about to roll over (it’s kind of like the dial-a-nap controller on your vacuum). Ford says it recalibrated the Tremor’s traction control for this model’s larger, knobbier tires for better traction on gravel and I found the system worked equally well in the slushy stuff as it did on the hardpack.

One thing that’s nice is you can cycle through TMS’ modes on the fly. I primarily relied on Grass/Gravel/Snow for hills, but when I was just having fun intentionally sliding around at speed on the flat stuff, I chose Sand mode (and occasionally Mud and Ruts) to allow for more wheelspin to indulge my adolescent need for rooster tails.

Like the FX4, the Tremor also features Trail Control, which is Ford’s low-speed, off-road cruise control for both ascending and descending hills at preset speeds from 1 to 20 mph. It’s really, really useful and confidence-inspiring tech, as it allows you to focus on steering the vehicle without having to worry about modulating the pedals. Combined with the Ranger’s other electronic aids and the Tremor’s upgraded hardware, the entire package is so capable that these assists ultimately remove some of the sense of challenge and accomplishment of off-roading. It’s nice to know it’s there, but sometimes, it’s just more fun to go manual and do it yourself.

At moments like this, a forward-facing spotter’s camera would’ve been really convenient.

Nick Miotke/Josh Krzywonos/Roadshow

That said, there are a couple of hardware tricks that I wouldn’t mind seeing on the Tremor’s spec sheet, including a front locking differential. A rear e-locker comes standard, but there’s no front-axle equivalent like a Chevy Colorado ZR2 or a Jeep Gladiator Rubicon, so you’re ultimately going to give up some ability when rock climbing. Fortunately, the vast majority of the time, you’ll never know it’s missing.

On the other hand, there’s one thing you will definitely miss while off-roading: a forward-facing camera. I didn’t have a pal to stand outside in the blustery cold to help guide me over and around obstacles, and when on steep ascents and descents, you can’t see over the hood to know what you’re about to crawl over. While it’s understandable that an older and more-affordable midsizer like the Tremor might not yet be offered with 360-degree camera coverage, a low-mounted front-facing camera would be mighty welcome and would provide a further point of differentiation from lesser Ranger models.

As it is, the Ranger’s tidier dimensions are inherently easier to manage off-road than a full-size truck. There’s less chance of scraping your fancy Cactus Gray paint in narrow forest passages and tight turns are easier to negotiate than they’d be in an F-Series, as well.

Off-road, you really appreciate that this turbo four has so much low-end torque and it’s great that the transmission has so many gears to choose from; you never feel like the EcoBoost is straining to get you through, even if it does sound flaccid compared to competitors’ V6 engines. All that torque helps on-road, too, delivering a best-in-class 7,500-pound tow rating or 1,430 pounds of payload in its 5-foot bed. Those numbers are right at the head of the class, and they’re important metrics when building an overlanding rig laden with lots of heavy gear.

Pricing and final judgment

So, the Ranger Tremor isn’t a high-speed off-roader like a Ford F-150 Raptor (or even the overseas-only Ranger Raptor), nor is it a hardcore rock crawler. This truck feels like it’s been designed to sit right in the middle capability-wise, which could have resulted in a vehicle that feels muddled and indecisive, like one that can’t figure out what it’s designed for. Instead, the Tremor seems like it’s found a capability sweet spot. It’s quite good at a variety of off-road disciplines and that makes it a better baseline platform for customizing if you haven’t decided what kind of off-roading you really want to commit to, be it desert bombing, overlanding or forested mountain ascents.

If you’re someone who off-roads a lot, the 2021 Ranger Tremor is big fun, but it isn’t cheap. Whereas a non-Tremor XLT SuperCrew 4×4 starts at $35,940 (including $1,195 destination), an XLT Tremor will run you $41,900 delivered — without extras. An option-free, top-trim Lariat runs $46,275 in your driveway, but it includes niceties like a B&O audio system, leather seats, navigation, remote start and adaptive cruise control. With options including the Technology Package ($995 for adaptive cruise, navigation, etc.), spray-in bed liner ($495), remote start ($195) and SecuriCode keyless-entry pad ($95), my XLT tester rings up at $43,680 delivered.

Overall, the Tremor is competitively priced within its segment (a Tacoma TRD Pro starts at over $45,000), but this Ford’s base MSRP is also really close to that of the new F-150 XLT 4×4 with a 5.0-liter V8. The F-Series is a much, much more advanced machine with similar efficiency.

Of course, not everyone wants or needs a full-size pickup and the number of buyers splurging on smaller, costlier, factory-backed hardcore off-road specials like this 2021 Ranger Tremor appears to be growing every day. In order to stay competitive, it’s important that Ford play in this space. And you know what? Despite this truck’s shortcomings, I still kinda dig it.

[dxmedstudent]

As a longterm single person... or a person who was single for long times during parts of my life, I’m usually very onboard with shifting the focus. But it feels like this entire article is a lazy missed opportunity. It somehow manages to alienate me even though I really, really want to be able to agee with it. For a start, the article does nothing to address that yes, society does highly value romantic relationships at the expense of other meaningful relationships, and pressures people - particularly young women, to conform to the expectation to be in one. The expectation to be in a relationship and how we are treated when we’re not in one goes far beyond people valuing sex.  I’ve talked about this at length before, so I’ll skip over that part for now. It doesn’t even touch on how ace or aro people experience such a ban - you don’t have to be in love or having sex to miss a significant other - the key is in the ‘significant’ bit. 

“And while I know there could be some troubling long-term consequences to this legal accident, I can’t help but feel that the frustration of many is misplaced.”

No. This is your first mistake. People are allowed to be frustrated that such a rule renders physically continuing intimate relationships if you live apart illegal.   People are allowed to be frustrated that they can go to primark, risk coronavirus at work, use the tube, but aren’t allowed to hug their GF. Hell, people are allowed to just be annoyed they can’t go to the pub. It might not be a priority, but I wouldn’t write in whining about how other people miss something that I am not personally fussed about. “It means we can’t go to the pub, to a party, or to a friend’s house to sit on the sofa with a bottle of wine laughing our heads off; we can't have our families round for Sunday roast; we can’t even go inside if it starts to rain during one of the permitted back garden gatherings of six.”

But fundamentally, we can have a party. We can see 6 friends or family outside. We can share food with them. We can use the bathroom. We will soon be allowed to start going to establishments to eat and drink. However rather hilariously, the article somehow manages to paint sitting on someone’s sofa as equally (or more) important than romantic and physical intimacy with a life partner. Who cares that some people haven’t been able to see their intimate partner at all, much less so much as hold hands in 3 months, when I wanna sit on someones sofa!

I get it. These rules are still wildly different to our usual lives. You’re right, it sucks that we also can’t enjoy platonic touch. Hugging a friend, patting someone on the back. Just being able to be indoors and have a meal. But the rules let us live out a much closer approximaiton of life with friends - which is a start.  Now, I have friends who run the full tactile spectrum from ‘absolute huggers’ to ‘don’t touch me’. I miss a good hug or just being able to sit beside each other, but for the most part I can easily enjoy most of what I can do with friends under the current rules. Apart from sit around playing board games together, cos you can’t do that 2m apart and it’d be less than ideal to do outside. This has still had a big impact on our social lives - particularly if you live apart from friends as I do. So I feel you. I can’t just up and drive over to most of my friends’, and even if I did, sitting around outside for a couple of hours wouldn’t be with the long trip. When you’re not allowed indoors or to stay the night it makes the kind of socialising many of us do much harder. It’s the same for me seeing my family, too. So I get it. It’s just that being banned from being within 2m of someone has a much bigger impact if you’re in a romantic relationship. Because physicality (and not just sex), and spending lots of time together is a bigger part of the deal when it comes to having a significant other. Many people aren’t overly physically affectionate with friends - I know many people who barely do beyond a handshake or stiff hug - and that’s fine. These laws just take away a much bigger dimension from a romantic relationship, than from most platonic ones.

On the Facebook group I run for single people, those who live alone simply want to know when they will be touched again. And by touch I mean simply a pat on the arm, a cuddle from their mum, their best friend holding their hand. These are simple things, but are so important. They matter to people just as much, if not more, as whether they have a 'significant other' sharing their bed - but you wouldn't know that from the discussion around these new rules.

See, this is important, so maybe lead with this? It’s heartbreaing that many of us effectively have been banned from all human physical contact.  But that doesn’t mean intimate relationships aren’t important to others - and complaining that those people are commenting on how it affects them is misplaced.  Ths is not a competition between whether it’s worse that we can’t hug our friends or our boyfriends. Not being allowed to see an intimate partner is also depriving you of cuddles or simple gestures - a lot more than just sex.And yet the article frequently chooses to frame it as a ban against hookups when it also affects many people in relationships who can’t move in at this point in time. I’ve seen people complain that they can’t spend time with or touch their partners of several years, for example.  But actually, we also shouldn’t have to minimise the importance of sex, even in  a casual setting. So let’s get onto that. “Those grieving for those they've lost to Covid-19, I’m sure, are far more interested in when they can hold their loved ones than when they can next hook up. Headlines about sex bans must feel particularly grating to them.” News just in: holding your loved ones and sex are mutually exclusive. You know, if  any of us lose loved ones, we’ll be heartbroken and it will suck whether we can’t hug our sister who lives far away, or our boyfriend who we don’t live with. Please don’t use cheap emotional blackmail to suggest people can’t miss both or that both can’t be one and the same if you love your partner. I’d argue this probably says a lot about what the author thinks about relationships or sex, but I hope it’s just poor writing. “The uproar about the apparent ban on sex also plays into the rather sixth form idea that absolutely everyone is having loads of sex all the time. God forbid a few of us have to wait a few months for our next chance.” Also, tangential much? People aren’t upset because they can’t go 3 months without sex, they are upset because 3 months in a pandemic without any intimacy with a loved one is hard, especially if you’re in an intimate relationship that got suddenly cut off. Because that person and their support and cuddles is particularly important to you.  This is also a weird double standard: It’s apparently OK to be devastated because nobody can give you a hug, but god forbid you are sad about being entirely separated from a significant other against your will. Also, apparently we’re all fantasists playing up how much sex we’re having. I don’t understand why this article comes across as so weridly moralising, but it does. Reducing sex to hooking up is moralising behaviour: and as someone with an interest in sexual health I have to state that it’s not up to you to put a value on sex for someone else. I don’t like it being illegal for me to hug my sister, or ... yes, have sex with my boyfriend-  or you know, hug him too since this isn’t about sex alone. But I’m not here to police if someone doesn’t like the rules because they just miss sex. Whoever they have sex with. Sex is a fundamental part of being human for most people. Intimacy is core to many  people’s mental health, particularly in a relationship, and that need is valid. Physical intimacy in general is a massive part of intimate relationships. It’s taken decades of progress for people to accept that sex is valid and enriching, not shameful. I’m worried that yes, behind our attitudes lies the still pervasive social attitudes that sex is dirty, wrong, and something for us to police if it doesn’t fit the bounds of what we consider acceptable. We haven’t eliminated harmful attitudes to sex, and the desire that others get to decide if vulerable populations like disabled people or the poor are allowed to have initmate lives. This is about how easily rules can be used to oppress or police others - as they have been in the past. What happens to sex workers? To our LGBTQ friends if someone decides that gay sex is riskier? It’s worth noting that intimacy is only illegal if you live apart - favouring those rich enough to have the space to move in together and the married. The poor, those living with others, those who aren’t ready to take that step, those who rely on sex to make a living - face an entirely different set of rules. It’s worth asking yourself why it’s OK to move in (and risk exposing each other) but not OK to visit the person you’d be allowed to expose all the time.  Why it’s OK for the government to draw a line on which relationships matter, and when - and what hoops you have to jump through. This isn’t new - out LGBTQ friends will tell us this was always a thing. But we need to be ever more vigilant as our personal lives are policed more and more. “Nobody is talking about this” is legitimate criticism when we’re talking about a horrifying event people may be unaware of, but lazy writing when we’re talking about something that both evidently affects many people and ... is being discussed. It allows you to fill an article with righteous indignation about how people aren’t doing something rather than just... doing it. As it is, I’ve read multiple articles about people missing grandchildren, wanting to see recently born babies, missing their friends, struggling with this whilst being single. I’ve read articles about the lonely and vulnerable. And actually, more articles about all those things when you add them up, than I’ve seen about romantic relationships. Which is great -  because this pandemic and the lockdown are having a massive effect on a lot of people in many ways, and it personally interests me that we record those experiences and share them. I’ve even seen so many articles about people missing going to the pub, or which restaurants they wish they could visit. And that’s OK, it can be the little things about normality that we miss. I miss museum dates, for example, and there wasn’t even any sex involved!  We all miss normality.  And I’ve had those conversations in real life, too. These conversations are important, but it’s possible to have them without downplaying something that doesn’t matter to you when it obviously matters to other people. I have been single for long periods of time; I’d be the first to suggest here’s more to life than romantic relationships. Hell, at times that was my absolute last priority.  I’ve lived away from friends and family  - I am not new to loving people at a distance, and it’s still been hard despite my having the experience to deal with it. If anything, this pandemic just shows how those links feel very different, when we’re not able to travel. Suddenly everyone feels much further away, and I re-evaluate just how happy I am to live far away.  For what it’s worth, I think we need more articles highlighting how difficult it is to manage all sorts of interpersonal relatioships at a distance as lockdowns ease.  And as someone who’s in a romantic relationship, the pain of bieng isolated in all these spheres just isn’t the same. I miss hugging my mum. And I miss my friends. And I miss my boyfriend. It all hurts. Looking at her own personal examples, the crux of the matter isn’t that she can’t see her family or friends - it’s that most of them live far away, and even if they live nearby, she’s not allowed to hug them. I’d love to hear more about people’s lives - what they are missing, what they hope to be able to do soon. And I can completely empathise with her: I wish I could see my sister, too: I’ve only seen her once since lockdown, briefly and under social distancing. I miss my friends - we live far apart but that used to be easier to bridge when we weren’t under lockdown. I have friends’ babies I’m yet to meet. New BFs yet to be introduced, etc. Weddings we’ve all missed. I can fully empathise with the author’s frustration at being unable to do these things - it has truly had a significant impact on my life this year that I’m mssing out on many of these things too. But that doesn’t in the slightest make it any less awful that I can’t be with my boyfriend, too.

[chiseler]

Puttin’ on the Ritz

No fame is more fleeting than the showbiz kind. Some entertainers are just too much in and of a particular time. In the 1920s Harry Richman was a big star, billed as the Greatest Entertainer In America. He could sing and play piano, dance and act a little; he ran a hugely successful nightclub, was the toast of Broadway and, very briefly, a star in Hollywood; he wrote or introduced several songs that are still sung. But most of all he just personified the Roaring Twenties. He was the sleek, rakish, vaguely smarmy bon vivant in top hat and tails who was enjoying the decade's non-stop party as much as you were. It's been said that he was to the 1920s what the Rat Pack were to their era. Harry's career peaked just as the party crashed to a halt at the end of the decade, and he faded out in the 1930s. If his name comes up at all today, it's probably less often as an entertainer than as a footnote in aviation history.

He was born Harry Reichman in Cincinnati in 1895. His dad, a Russian Jewish immigrant, started out peddling eyeglasses door to door, carrying all his equipment on his back. He worked his way up to a prosperous wholesale business and real estate empire, and developed a taste for the high life. It killed him by the time Harry was an adolescent. In his thoroughly entertaining (sometimes suspiciously so) 1966 autobiography A Hell of a Life, Harry paints himself as a fecklessly scheming kid who grew up quick. At nine, he writes, he was a weekend ticket taker at an amusement park, shortchanging every customer he could because he was saving up to marry his childhood sweetheart. One night he showed off his ill-gotten riches by taking the girl out on the town. They stayed out too late to go home, so Harry got them a hotel room. When the cops burst through the door in the wee hours they found the kids sleeping fully clothed on separate beds. A doctor confirmed that the girl's honor was intact. Her dad put the kibosh to their romance anyway.

Harry's mother bought him piano lessons, dreaming he'd be a concert pianist, but like most kids at the time he was more interested in ragtime and jazz. He left home at around fourteen and headed to Indianapolis. There he and a kid who played fiddle went door to door in the kind of neighborhoods where an upright in the parlor wasn't uncommon. They'd bang out a few popular tunes for spare change. As Remington & Reichman they were soon touring the very small-time Webster circuit of vaudeville theaters in the Dakotas and Canada, known to vaudevillians as the Death Trail. Harry kept working his way around the west, singing at the piano in saloons and whorehouses, working as a singing waiter in restaurants, as part of a "Hawaiian" hula act in a circus sideshow. At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco he was in a musical act that opened for Harry Houdini, fifteen shows a day. Playing in Los Angeles clubs favored by the movie crowd he got to be pals with Charlie Chaplin and Al Jolson, whom he idolized. Jolson got him a shot at Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic, the late-night club revue that gave Eddie Cantor his big break. Harry raced to New York, but flopped and was canned after only one night. He was so despondent he ran off and joined the Navy.

He arrived back in New York in 1920, just when Prohibition did too. Now he and the city were ready for each other. On vaudeville stages he found work as an accompanist for headliners like the singer Nora Bayes and the beautiful twin Dolly Sisters, and for a while was Mae West's on-stage pianist and straight man. He was reluctant to speak lines at first because he had a lisp that he could hide more easily when singing. West convinced him it was a distinguishing feature. He soon got top billing on his own on the Keith-Albee circuit. He also played at ritzy speakeasies like the Beaux Arts, where, he claims, Prohibition's hostess with the mostest Texas Guinan stole her signature line "Give the little girls a big hand" from him.

Nils T. Granlund, known as NTG, was both a radio pioneer and the publicist for Marcus Loew's movie theater empire. He hired Harry to headline live radio shows from Loew's State Theatre, the movie palace in Times Square. Harry plugged new songs on air, like Billy Rose's "Does the Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?" With NTG's help he opened his own Club Richman just behind Carnegie Hall. Harry made it one of the most opulent and exclusive nightclub/speakeasies in town. A lot of Broadway and movie stars became regulars, as of course did Mayor Jimmy Walker, and the Vanderbilts and Whitneys, and foreign royalty -- you saw everybody who was anybody there.

Or wanted to be somebody, like the chorus girl Lucille Le Seur. Accounts vary as to how Lucille got into the swank club. In one version, she convinced NTG, her sugar daddy at the time, to get her a spot in the club dancing the Charleston. NTG introduced her to Loew, who arranged a screen test at MGM, where she'd get her first tiny roles in 1925. Studio chief Louis B. Mayer decided her name sounded like Le Sewer, so the studio ran a publicity campaign in which the fans got to give her a new name: Joan Crawford. She never liked it.

For his part, Harry claimed that he discovered Crawford. He did have an eye for the beauties. He was one of the first to spot Jean Harlow, Sally Rand and Maureen O'Sullivan. Harry was an infamous ladies' man, bedding a long line of beauties from chorus girls to socialites to Harlow, maybe Rand, and Clara Bow. According to Harry, his office at the club had a secret door for sneaking them in and out while their husbands or dates drummed their fingers at their tables thinking they were just taking a long time powdering their noses. He says that the Hollywood Bowl couldn't hold all the women he had, and classes himself "a specialist in man's favorite sport."

Between the club and his other gigs Harry minted money and became the playboy nonpareil. He wore the finest bespoke suits and carried a gold cigarette case with his initials on it in diamonds. He commuted in a Rolls from Manhattan to his big house out on the water in Beechhurst, Queens, where he had a yacht and threw Gatsby-like parties for celebrities, beauties and millionaires. He learned to fly and kept a growing fleet of planes at nearby Flushing Airport. Harry worked hard, played hard, drank oceans of booze and smoked whole fields of tobacco. Everyone marveled at his stamina and joie de vivre even in that over-the-top decade.

In 1926, while still playing the host at his club, Harry got a featured role on Broadway in George White's Scandals, one of several knockoffs of the Ziegfeld Follies. After a boffo year it toured other cities, including Cincinnati, where, he notes ruefully, it tanked. In 1930 he headlined Lew Leslie's International Revue, where he introduced "On the Sunny Side of the Street." And in 1931 he made it, finally, into the Follies as well. He got his choice of songs to perform, including "Lullaby of Broadway." He was at the top of his career in those shows, the king of Broadway; his friend Eddie Cantor memorably said he wore Broadway like a boutonniere.

He didn't do so well in Hollywood. He starred, playing himself as "Harry Raymond," in the 1930 musical Puttin' on the Ritz, in which he introduced the song by his pal Irving Berlin. The movie did mediocre business then and is barely watchable now except for that number, Harry gliding around in front of an army of dancers with his top hat tilted over one eye. His recording of the song, which some consider the best, was a hit. (Among his other records are Berlin's "Blue Skies," his own "Muddy Waters" and a pretty wonderful Jolson-ish rendition of "Ain't She Sweet.") While in Hollywood to make the film he met Clara Bow. Teamed up at first for publicity purposes only, they became a hot item and got engaged. Then she suddenly married someone else. Hearing the news, he says, was the only time in his life that he fainted.

He'd make only two more feature films and one short. He sums them up this way: "All were forgettable. It became clear to me that whatever I had was best projected in person, either on the stage or in a night club." By the time he made the last film, released in 1938, he was well past his prime. When the Depression hit and then Prohibition ended, guys like Harry, icons of the Roaring Twenties, just didn't fit the new reality. To his credit, he didn't hang around like some other ghosts of the 1920s did. He left New York and settled in Miami, which was booming and lousy with new nightclubs where he could coast for a few years on his dazzling past. He went fishing with Hemingway and played with his airplanes.

His real fame in the 1930s came in fact as a flyer. In the mid-1930s he'd set altitude and speed records. Then in 1935 he and the pilot Dick Merrill made the world's first round-trip transatlantic flight in a single-engine plane. They filled the plane with tens of thousands of ping-pong balls as flotation devices should they land in the soup. Harry being Harry, after reaching Wales on the outward leg of the trip, they flew on to Paris to party all night with Maurice Chevalier before making the return flight. They landed upside-down in a Newfoundland bog, but they made it. It wasn't as big a deal as Lindbergh's one-way crossing in 1927, but Harry calls it the high point of his life.

Harry didn't make much news after that. He played some clubs through the 1940s, his looks and voice rough from all that carousing and smoking. He still had lots of friends in the show business who tried to engineer comebacks for him, but the public had long since forgotten him. By the time A Hell of a Life came out in 1966 he'd spent the millions he'd made in his heyday and was living alone, quietly and frugally, in Burbank, an old guy who'd gone full-tilt as long as he could, had a hell of a lot of memories and not too many regrets. He died in 1972.

by John Strasbaugh