#writing energy has really been unreliable lately | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

scandalsavagefanfic · 3 years ago

Note

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is.

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative.

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency.

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him.

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine.

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

#Batman #red hood #batman: urban legends #nice art #shit story #or at least shit characterization #jason todd deserves better #this response got long and I didn't edit it #please forgive any errors #and/or unclear spots #spoilers

324 notes · View notes

philliamwrites · 4 years ago

Text

The Dawn Will Come [Chpt.2]

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dimitri x Reader, Claude x Reader, Edelgard x Reader, Yuri x Reader, Edelgard x Byleth, lots of minor pairings

Tags: #gn reader, # platonic love byleth & reader, #reader is a tactical unit, #angst, #slow burn, #subplots, #unreliable narrator, #pining, #remporary amnesia, #reluctant herp, #canon divergence, #lost twin au, #many chapters, #original content

Words: 6.7k

Summary: Waking up in a forest without any knowledge of your past and who you are, you join the house leaders of the Officers Academy to search for a way to return your memories. Unfortunately, the church has different plans for you, and Fate places you in the centre of a cruel game with deadly stakes. It certainly doesn’t help to fall in love with a house leader who is doomed to be your demise.

Notes: Chapter 1 | Chapter 3

Chapter 02: The Herald of Dawn

Hold me, O Night, with motherly affection, While the wan earth wakes with a misty yawn. By my blood will be born the Dawn and from my fleeting dream—the undying sun!

[Gabriele D’Annunzio]

Hushed whispers wake you from the dark. The crackling of fire sweeps away the last remains of weary unconsciousness, and you blink at a tent's ceiling. Someone draped heavy blankets over you, and with every breath you exhale, puffy white clouds rise up. The shadows of a fire dance across the walls, their blurry movements flush another wave of dizziness over you, and as you sit up, you notice a tight feeling around your head. When you raise a hand to your forehead, there is a bandage sitting tightly wrapped around your head, covering your right eye. The pain has finally stopped, but it still feels dully raw, like an injury that hasn’t healed properly and serves now as a reminder of anguish.

The memories from the battle rush back to you, the sound of metal hitting metal and heavy bodies dropping to the ground echo in your mind. Death was nothing new to the soldiers and mercenaries, so how come you don’t feel particularly sorry for the fallen? You’re no soldier, at least that’s what every fibre of your body tells you, so normalising killing isn’t right. You rebuild your surety of that, one shaky brick at a time.

Once on your feet, you make your way outside, drawn in by the smell of cooked meat and quiet chatter. The sight of a small camp greets you: more tents build a row on this side of the camp, and in the centre, solders sit around a small fire, their voices barely audible. They lean over a steaming kettle, their weapons at their feet or beside tree trunks—laid down for the night but still within reach.

“Heey, you’re finally back with us!” Claude’s voice rings through the camp, and several heads turn in your direction. As he waves for you to join him, you duck your head and move quickly to his side, wishing you could just merge with the ground and disappear from everyone’s attention. “Little one, you got us worried there,” he says. On his knees, he’s balancing a steaming wooden bowl, and the sight and smell reminds you how hungry you are. Your stomach agrees by providing a low growl.

“How long have I been out?” You barely recognise your own voice, the sound rough from exhaustion. Claude hums in thought and gestures with one hand to a soldier to bring you food, while his other pats the ground beside him for you to sit down. “We managed to march a couple of hours after cleaning up the mess from the battle. Right now we’re near the edge of the forest. There should be only one more day of marching until we reach the monastery.”

“And you guys are sure they can help me up there?” you wonder, watching the first group of soldiers get ready for the night watch. They’re frighteningly young, jostling and bumping into each other, laughing and stamping their feet against the cold snap that still lingers, the last gasp of winter before spring begins in earnest.

“If not there, I’m not sure there’s anyone out there who can help you.”

You glare at Claude. “Surely you must be the voice of confidence in this merry bunch, right?”

He laughs. “I’m the closest you’ll get to an optimist around here.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Reassuring is my second name.”

“No, you said it’s von,” you mumble. Claude stares at you for a long minute, then bursts out laughing, the sound dark and rich. “No, that’s a noble prefix. You don’t even remember that?”

You open your mouth, and close it like a fish, feeling your cheeks raise in temperature. He shouldn’t make you feel guilty for forgetting something like that, and yet the shame settles in your bones and you want to smack your head against something to help your brain remember.

“Ah, but pardon my rudeness,” Claude purrs and gives you a mock bow. “I can tell you everything you want to know about nobility and how overrated it is. In fact, I might as well convince you to join the Alliance before Their Highnesses steal you to their side.”

“I’m not going to be on anyone’s side,” you mumble, and steal Claude’s blanket as payback, relishing in his offended expression. “It has nothing to do with me.”

Claude raises an eyebrow. “Ehh, I’m not so sure it’s that easy.”

“It is,” you insist, unable to hide the sulk from your voice. “Because I say so.”

Claude raises both eyebrows. “That’s not how it works.”

“Watch me.”

Something like a shadow flashes across his emerald eyes, but it disappears quickly enough for you to think it’s only the light from the campfire playing a trick on you. “We’ll see about that.” He scrapes the remaining contents from his bowl and lets out a satisfying yawn when he’s finished, stretching his long limbs like a cat getting comfortable. “Sooo,” he starts, unnecessarily dragging out the vowel and the sound of it locks up your shoulders into one tense muscle in preparation of what he’s going to say next. “Care to explain what happened back there?”

You take a deep breath. “You mean when it felt like my eye was going to fall out of its socket?”

“Actually I meant when you tripped over that one root after we found you.” He gives you a crooked grin. “But that’s interesting too, please go on.”

“I thought no one saw that,” you mumble, and avoid his gaze as you remember that stupid root that nearly broke your neck. Well, Claude surely knows a thing or two about tricking someone into talking about exactly what he wants to hear.

You thank the mercenary that brings you food, and notice it’s the one from the battle with the crooked nose. He gives you a just as crooked grin and limps back to his comrades. The stew warms your chilled bones, the rich flavour of meat and vegetables lifting your spirits and filling you with energy. As you eat, you drag out the minutes but Claude doesn’t even squirm as you let him wait, and starts whistling an off-key tune until you start to feel uncomfortable.

“Well, if I knew, I wouldn’t be afraid that it might happen again,” you admit begrudgingly. “Because that was scary.”

“Yeah, it didn’t really look like fun,” Claude agrees. “But what was it in the first place?”

“I don’t know.” You start to become weary of those words. “But it hurt.”

Claude gives you a sympathetic look, and goes silent, allowing you to eat, but you can’t shake off the feeling his mind is still trying to figure out what’s the deal with you. He can, for all you care. And once he’s done, he can write a report and hand it right to you so you’ll understand as well.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice someone moving towards you. Dimitri approaches you with caution like you’re a small animal he might scare off with hasty movements. But the look he gives Claude is that of a disappointed father, and he shakes his head once he’s standing in front of him. “Claude, we were supposed to not disturb our guest,” Dimitri says sternly, then bows his head in your direction. “Apologies. We should let you rest.”

“No, it’s okay,” you admit, and shuffle a little to the side to make room. “Please stay.”

Both boys exchange a quick look, but then Dimitri sits down, minding a polite distance unlike Claude who only needs to stretch his legs for his feet touch your knee.

“We were worried,” Dimitri starts. Just like Claude, he’s taken off most of his armour, and nothing about him stands out as a member of the royalty. He looks just like any other boy, and you’d never admit it out loud, but you already miss the blue tones on his uniform, the colour making his remarkably ice-blue eye stand out even more. “Luckily we could dispose of all bandits and return to a safe area. Byleth carried you here all by herself.”

“Yeah, remind me not get on her bad side, okay?” Claude laughs, but you think you hear a slight nervous tremble in his voice. “She looks like she can decapitate me with a butter knife.”

“She doesn’t look like it. She very certainly will behead you with a butter knife,” Dimitri provides with a pleasant smile as if he’s talking about the weather.

“See, and that’s why she fits best in the Alliance,” Claude says, winking at you. “We’re always full of surprises.”

Dimitri rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in front of his broad chest. “You might try it. I personally plan to convince her to join the Kingdom.”

“I think you’re both too late for that,” you say as you look to the other side of the camp where Byleth and Edelgard are currently engaged in a deep conversation, their heads leaning close to each other. Claude groans miserably, but quickly recovers as he turns to you, his eyes brightening up with excitement. “It’s okay, because once my disarming charm has wrapped you around my little finger, I’ll have an impressive tactician on my side.”

You almost choke on your next spoon of stew. “Tactician? I wouldn’t go that far.”

Beside you, Dimitri clears his throat. “Though I have to question Claude’s way of persuasion, I must admit he isn’t wrong about the latter. What you did back there was impressive.”

“I really didn’t do anything special,” you mumble at the same time Claude raises both hands leisurely and says, “Hey, it’s not my problem you think you’re immune to it, Your Princeliness.”

Dimitri grumbles something in a foreign language under his breath. Grinning smugly, Claude turns to you, and nudges your side. “Have confidence, little one. They’ll teach you everything you need to know up there.” He points up towards a mountain where you’ll apparently be heading tomorrow. If you squint, you think you can make out lights in the horizon brightening the night sky.

“That monastery,” you say, trying to ignore how Claude’s body radiates heat. “What exactly is that place? I’ve never heard of a monastery that holds a school. I think,” you quickly add, unsure what thoughts provided by your hazy mind are facts.

“The Officers Academy is a facility where students learn the arts of warfare, magic, and leadership,” Dimitri explains. He’s very obviously trying not to look at Claude, which in return has Claude’s grin widening even more. “The lessons provide us with everything we need as upcoming heads of our families. Swordsmanship, sorcery, authority, the history of our continent. There is much to learn for everyone attending the classes.”

“So it’s a death factory,” you translate, the sudden bitter taste in your mouth overshadowing the taste of the stew. “How can they just teach that stuff like it’s normal?”

“You saw it yourself, didn’t you.” Claude stretches his long limbs and leans back until he props his body up on his elbows. “Bandits and thieves everywhere.”

“And most students come from a noble house,” Dimitri adds. “They need to be taught how to take command, and about the responsibilities coming with leadership.”

You blow a strand of hair away from your face, mood dropped now that you know where you’ll be from tomorrow on. “This doesn’t sound right.” Though you can’t really say how a school is supposed to be instead. This is a world with different rules, and you aren’t sure if it’ll be easy to accommodate to them.

While the boys bicker how good the plot of the tale mentioned earlier really is, you see Byleth approaching. A bruise is forming on her left cheek, and she holds her arm as if bearing the pain from a wound. But nothing of that is portrayed on her face, as if her brain hasn’t registered she’s wounded yet and hence doesn’t need to express it.

“How are you?” she asks, sending the boys a quick look. Dimitri and Claude climb to their feet and wish their good nights with a quick bow. They hurry to Edelgard and gang up on heir, probably interrogating her about the conversation she's had with Byleth.

“I’m better,” you say, a little surprised you actually mean it. You feel refreshed and nourished, ready for another day of walking. Byleth sits down and watches the camp for a moment in silence. The chaos from before has settled into a quiet hum. Men and women sit together in little circles and tell their glorious battle stories with boisterous laughter, selling the illusion of a victorious life. But that might easily end the next day because of a hasty recklessness. No one thinks of that. Everyone is just celebrating, reaching for flasks and living in the moment. It’s a beautiful sight.

As the buzzing sound of people chatting subsides and the first turn in for the night, Byleth turns towards you, her voice lowered. “What you did back there,” she starts, and for whatever reason remains silent as if she decided talking about it isn’t a good idea. Shadows from the weakened fire dance across her face, and again you’re flooded with the unfathomable feeling of familiarity. It’s in the sharp lines of her face, the way her eyes move and settle on something as she observes her surroundings. It’s almost a painful sense of nostalgia. Something about this woman just brings you an unusual amount of ease, like it doesn’t really matter who you are, and rather that you’re here that makes the difference.

Before you can stop your brain, you’re already asking, “Do we know each other by chance?”

Byleth looks at you for a long minute, then slowly shakes her head, and you try not to show your disappointment too much. “I’ve travelled a lot with my father,” she says. “We’ve come through many lands and villages. You may have seen me at some point, but we’ve never exchanged a word until yesterday.”

You nod at the plausible explanation, but the feeling that this isn’t the right answer curls like a hook into your heart. “And your father hasn’t said anything about me as well?”

“No.” Byleth’s eyes follow your hands as they set down the empty bowl. Seeing that you’ve finished everything, she nods in approval. “And he doesn’t forget a face.”

“How do you all just … trust me,” you wonder, looking to where Jeralt is miserably leaning against a tree trunk as Alois keeps talking and talking. He looks like he wishes someone would take him down with an arrow.

“He doesn’t,” Byleth says. “And he calls me a little whippersnapper for that. He hasn’t called me that in the five years.” At the sound of the smile in her voice you snap your head in Byleth’s direction, but when you look, she wears the same bland expression like before.

“But you do,” you start carefully, not trusting your ears again, so you settle on staring at her until she gives another emotion. “Care to explain why?”

“For now, you haven’t given me any reason not to,” she states as if it really were that simple. It couldn’t be. Up until now Byleth has been your only anchor that your meeting wasn’t purely coincidental—that the reason shrouding your memories would dissipate like the night once dawn breaks if you just stick to her side, and everything will be revealed in time. But now without anything to hold on to, you feel like you’re slipping deeper and deeper into an abyss from which you can’t ascend. This feeling is terror fizzing in your blood like poison, and you shudder at the thought that you’ll forever remain adrift.

“Your powers,” Byleth continues, unaware of your mental breakdown right next to her. “They’re unusual, and if you learn to use them right, very dangerous.” Spoken by everyone else, this might sound like a threat, but Byleth says it like a simple statement, a fact, unaware how much she tilts your world with it. “What do you plan to do with them?”

You don’t have to think long about it. “I won’t do anything. Whatever it was, it’s over,” you say and gesture at your bandaged eye. It’s true. Since you woke up, your eye has remained calm, no red veil or eery proclamation someone might step into the campfire and burn alive. The pounding has stopped, and the normalcy of it is like a soothing balm.

Byleth studies you. You really wish she could give you more than her vacant expression. “You don’t know yet … your eye.” She takes your spoon and with the end of it, she draws a symbol on the ground. “Do you know what that is?”

You look at it, but nothing comes to your mind. It’s just a four pointed star with two lines crossing the right and left tips. “No, I’ve never seen it.”

Byleth holds your gaze as if she hopes to find a lie written between your eyes, and this time you don’t look away until she relents with a barely audible sigh.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because before you passed out, it appeared here.” She taps a finger against her closed, right eye, then points at you. Your body goes rigid. Immediately, your hands fly up to tear off the bandage, but Byleth catches your wrists and holds them down. “Not yet.”

“I want to see it.” Your breath catches in your lungs. It sounds like you need air because you’re drowning. “I want it off. Take it off!”

“I can’t show you, there are no mirrors,” Byleth says quietly, and throws a quick glance around the camp to see if your panic has alarmed anyone. You want to point out that you could use the reflection of her sword, but maybe Byleth has considered the same and thought it a bad idea, because she doesn’t know what else you might do with a weapon in your current state. Seeing that fighting against the vice grip she has on your hands is futile, you slump down, your arms falling slack back to your side. “Just what… what is happening. What is that?”

“Edelgard said it might be a Crest, but none she or the others have seen before,” Byleth explains. “They told me there is a teacher at the monastery who studies Crests.” She gives your arms a barely noticeable squeeze before she lets go. “So it’s going to be okay.”

“How can you say that?” you nearly sob, and wish you could hold onto her longer as she stands up and brushes dirt off her uniform. “How can you be so sure?”

“I’m not,” Byleth says, giving you one last look. You want to tell yourself it’s something like worry you see in her eyes, but her expression remains blank, like a board that’s been wiped clean. “I can only hope.”

The next morning, Jeralt and Alois set an unforgiving pace, determined to reach the monastery shortly after dawn broke. While everyone else couldn’t wait to reach their home as fast as possible, you feel worry grow with every step up the hill towards the walls and towers. The monastery looms like a stronghold, a building so tall and intimidating, built to make people feel small.

You were allowed to take off the bandage, and there was nothing worse than knowing something was on your eye but you couldn’t see it. Unlike everyone else. They kept staring at you, mumbling to each other in quiet whispers, and more than once you considered telling them that just because your eye was different it didn’t mean you were blind. It was reason enough for you to put the bandage back on and stay away from the soldiers and mercenaries, leaving them to their superstitious rumours. Who could have thought that you’d grab someone else’s attention entirely with that revelation.

Even before the first sunbeams broke through the budding branches, the wind carrying the smell of spring and new life, Edelgard stuck to you like a tick. It wasn’t hard to find out she was more interested in your Crest than you as a person, and every question you couldn’t answer fuelled her irritation. Still she was nothing but determined to squeeze the tiniest information out of you, and even though you tried to avoid her by either marching way too fast or way too slow, Edelgard didn’t relent and remained by your side. Fear is a little exaggerated to describe what you feel towards her, but it's close. Whenever her sharp eyes focus on you, unease takes hold of your brain and the words leave your mouth as nervous stammers. It certainly doesn’t help that you know she can easily hack off a grown man’s arm without so much as blinking. Or that the corners of her mouth curl up into the sweetest, rare smile.

Once you’re on the trade road up to the monastery, pebble makes way to smooth cobblestone. Giant iron doors stand wide open, and as your group enters, a merchant’s cart rolls past you and greets the returning knights. After the first entrance point, the second waits in the form of a portcullis and more knights standing on guard. Past the second ring of walls, you enter a small forecourt. On both sides are stalls and booths with merchants screaming their prices and the sound of metal hammered into the right shape at the blacksmith’s. At the foot of wide stairs leading up into the first building, a man dressed in dark blue robes awaits you, his strong arms crossed behind his back.

“Welcome back,” he greets Alois and the students. “Your messenger bird has reached us yesterday late into the evening, and preparations have been made.” To Jeralt, he says, “My name is Seteth. I am an adviser to the archbishop. Lady Rhea awaits you.” Jeralt nods but he looks a lot more cautious since you’ve entered the monastery grounds. At the mention of that name, his posture visibly tenses, but he gestures to Byleth and you to follow him nonetheless.

“We shall return to our respectable classes for now and make known we are unscathed,” Dimitri says. “Please, Byleth, and you too, if things have calmed down, meet the other students as well, won’t you?”

“Ohh, good idea. You have to go around and introduce yourself as our great saviours.” Claude winks at you with both thumbs up. Edelgard slaps his hands back down.

“We’ll be standing here until evening if we don’t get going," she says. "Please give Lady Rhea our regards. We’ll report to her once everything is sorted out about you.” She eyes you sideways, then ushers the boys down another hall like a mother hen. You exchange a quick look with Byleth who already looks very exasperated with the student’s antics.

Seteth leads you into the Audience Chamber, a rectangular room with statues decorating the walls, and asks for you to wait. The moment he leaves the room, you turn towards Jeralt and Byleth and ask, “Who is this Lady Rhea?”

“I’m aware Byleth doesn’t know much about her, I haven’t taught her he teachings of Seiros, but you—” He stops mid sentence seeing the way you look at him, and clears his throat. “Lady Rhea is the archbishop of the Church of Seiros. She’s commanding the knights and sees that the people don’t do anything stupid in the name of Seiros.”

“Seiros?” you ask, turning the name in your head. Nope, nothing.

“You know, the one who defeated the King of Liberation and founded the Church of Seiros?” When you just shrug, Jeralt scratches his beard and hums in thought. “Well, I sure won’t be the one preaching what you should know or not. But maybe don’t make it all too obvious you aren’t a follower.”

Or what, you want to ask, but Seteth returns and he isn’t alone. The woman walking ahead of him looks like she belongs on the portrait of a saint. It isn’t much that she walks towards you, but rather strides in grateful steps to the middle of the room, her chin raised high and shoulders squared. And yet when she looks at your little assembly, her eyes are soft and kind, her expression open and friendly.

“I welcome you into these sacred halls,” she says, her voice like soothing velvet on your skin. “Alois informed me of what happened, and I thank every one of you for saving the students.” Lady Rhea smiles at you all separately. Her eyes linger on you, and she titles her head slightly. “I've also heard about the wondrous things that happened to you. Please, be so kind and remove the bandage. Let me take a look at this Crest.”

You hesitate, your fingers playing with the hem of your shirt. But Rhea waits patiently and raises a delicate hand when her advisor Seteth flinches to repeat her request. Slowly, you take the bandage off, barely able to imagine how the symbol or Crest as they call it looks upon your eye. When you meet Rhea's gaze again, her smile freezes, and her eyes widen in surprise. Her lips part slightly, then stretch into an ecstatic smile. Beside her, Seteth inhales sharply. “This is impossible,” he breathes, growing pale. You start to panic.

“Why, what's wrong with me? What is impossible?”

“Nothing, nothing is wrong,” Rhea quickly reassures you, but it's hard to believe when Seteth looks like he's seen a ghost. “A fortunate day indeed. Not only does one of the strongest knights to have ever walked these halls return, but it also seems that a new chapter of history dawns upon us.”

All eyes land on her, one more puzzled than the other. Even Seteth doesn’t look like he fully comprehends what’s happening. “Lady Rhea?” he asks cautiously at the same time as Jeralt demands, “What are you talking about?”

The archbishop ignores them both, and the longer she gives you that pleasant smile, the more unsettled you feel. “When Alois wrote about a Crest appearing on your body, I was not sure what to think of it. But now, I cannot hide my joy at the return of a Crest that we thought was lost to history.”

“I—I don’t know why I have it,” you quickly say, feeling you have to defend yourself before they accuse you of stealing it. Can Crests be stolen in the first place? “I don’t remember why I have it.”

Lady Rhea nods, her solemn expression making way to worry. “Of that Alois informed me as well. You may stay here until your memories return. Allow me for now to tell you about the Crest. Maybe that will dissipate some of the darkness shrouding your mind.”

You nod, and brace yourself for whatever she’ll reveal. It certainly helps that Byleth stands close to you, her mere presence a standing stone you can hold onto for now without drifting away.

“It is a Crest most uncommon,” Lady Rhea explains, her hands gracefully crossed in front of her. “For there was only one person who bore it. This Crest belonged to the very one who served our Lady Seiros against the evil powers that threatened Fódlan thousands of years ago. He was known as Seiros’ Champion. The Herald of Dawn.”

She allows those words to sink into you, and how deep they sink. Now that they’re out here, you feel like they pull you down, deeper down into a dark sea from which you can’t surface. The only result is drowning.

“Herald of … you don’t think. You can’t think—” Your thoughts move way too fast, you can’t grasp any to sort them.

“What I think means nothing in light of what has transpired and therefore is reality. You are chosen by the Goddess herself to bring hope to the people of Fódlan. You are the Herald of Dawn.”

You feel sick. It may be phantom pain, but you could swear your right eye starts hurting again, as if the Crest is reacting to the revelation, the call of its true nature. You dig your trembling fingers into the fabric of your jacket, considering for the tiniest second to gouge your eye out. Can’t be anyone’s champion or Herald without the Crest, right? “So, you’re saying … am I the one from back then? This Champion?” If you were really the same person, how were you still alive after a thousands of years? The prospect of finally having an identity is great, but you aren’t sure you’re ready to pay the price that comes with it. And this one seems to carry a very heavy price.

“That seems quite impossible.” This time Seteth speaks up. He looks just as unnerved by this revelation as you feel. “The Herald appeared when Saint Seiros was in dire need, and once his duty was fulfilled, he vanished. ”

“But now, another Herald has come, and with you the promise of suffering and hardships,” Rhea explains, her expression now strict and foreboding. “The task of giving hope is the most difficult to ask of a person. But that is the path the Goddess has chosen for you.”

“No, no, you’re wrong. I’m no Herald … and certainly no Champion of anyone. I can’t give people hope, I don’t even know what to give them hope for!” Your voice borders on hysteric, but you’ve never been more determined to plead your case. “I’m not the right person. I’m really not.”

“Then how come you bear the Crest of Seiros’ Champion, my child?” Lady Rhea asks, and you notice the tiny shift in her voice. The kindness grows thiner and thiner, and in its place austerity and even coldness settle—the voice of authority and undeniable command. “It is Our Goddess’ will. The Church of Seiros needs you. The people of Fódlan need you. You cannot turn away from your Fate.”

You want to argue that yes, you can; you’ll turn around and leave this place filled with crazy people and their fanatic beliefs. One look from Byleth stops your thoughts. Lady Rhea interprets this silence as compliance, and nods, visibly pleased. “We have waited for this opportunity for so long,” she continues, now smiling again. “There shall be festivities today. As a welcome to our Herald, and the return of Blade Breaker Jeralt. For you, his daughter, we have also thought of a task that will greatly help Garreg Mach.”

Jeralt grunts, clearly unhappy, but Byleth only cocks her head to one side. You’re astonished that after everything, she’s still awfully calm and collected.

“A teaching position has become free as of yesterday,” Lady Rhea explains to Byleth. “By Alois' recommendation, you are to take that position and teach one of the Houses here at the Officers Academy. Your colleagues will provide you with further information. As for you,” and you flinch when she turns to you, afraid what else she has in store, “you too shall teach the students the course of leadership and command. Seiros’ Champion was a great tactician. He honed Saint Macuil’s abilities. I would not be surprised if you too show an unparallelled gift for strategy.”

“Well,” you start, but the hesitation is clear, and Lady Rhea smiles like she knows what you can do once the Crest is activated. “Whereas you are to choose one house,” she tells Byleth, “the Herald will hold seminars. As a servant of the Church, you cannot call in favourites.”

“I don’t even know what to teach,” you mumble weakly. “How to teach.”

“Me neither,” Byleth says, the first time she’s spoken since entering the Audience Chamber. The amusement glinting in Lady Rhea’s eyes is like the sun reflected on a purling river. “Do not worry,” she says. “You will learn in time. And we are here to help you as well.”

On your lips lie the words that they certainly didn’t help you. You came here so they could help to search for a way to return your memory.

Instead, they made everything worse.

The ceremonial robes hang heavy over your shoulders. The feast hasn’t started yet, but you’re already sweating and panting with the weight of the golden embroidery and the head piece decorating your forehead. When Seteth brought everything in a couple of hours ago, he was grumbling something unintelligible under his breath, at his side a little girl who, unlike him, was happy to meet you and to see that you’d take on the role as the Herald. You wanted to tell Flayn there was a difference between want and have to, but she was already focused on helping you dress and prepare for the festivities. Servants handled the remaining tasks of making you presentable, and now you’re standing in front of a giant mirror, observing yourself.

It was scary how things changed so fast. Not even 24 hours ago, you were a nobody, a nameless figure roaming the woods, and now there is a name that isn’t your own—no, not a name. A title. A title that will all but replace your name. History won’t remember you as a person, they will remember the deeds that you’ve done, the mistakes that you’ll commit. Lady Rhea spoke of honour like it’s a crown on your head, but you see the noose that it really is around your throat. The head piece feels too heavy, and the golden necklace sitting on your neck reminds you more of a dog collar.

There’s a knock on your door. Seteth said that someone would get you before everything starts, and you don’t even try to hide the relieved sob when Byleth enters the room. She examines you from head to toes, and leans her head to the side, one finger on her chin. “You look … different,” she says.

“You mean ridiculous.” You move your arms, demonstrating how the wide sleeves flap uselessly at your side. “I wish we could do this all without me looking like a sack of potatoes.”

“I had to think of cabbages, but you aren’t wrong either.” She crosses the room and looks outside the window. You can already hear the masses as they enter the Cathedral, and it does nothing to calm your haywire nerves. Byleth seems to notice as much. She turns to you, and asks, “How are you holding up?”

“Do you want the real answer or the one I prepared for Lady Rhea?”

Byleth raises a brow.

“Not good. I’m just … how could this happen?” You throw up your hands in frustration, and the robes give a dangerous tearing sound. Your arms fall immediately down, the thought of damaging a hundreds of years old ceremonial robe the last thing you need today. “Of all the things, how could I suddenly become some figure of the Church.”

“Is it so hard to believe that the Goddess of Fódlan has lead you to this path?” Byleth crosses her ams and leans against the wall next to the window, eyeing you curiously.

“I don’t even believe in this Goddess,” you groan, flopping on your bed. The chambers chosen for you overlook the bridge leading to the Cathedral where people swarm inside like little ants returning to their anthill. It was a small room equipped with all necessities for comfort but no additional expenses on luxury. A bed, a dresser, a simple table and chair, a mirror, and a shelf take up all the space. Not that you could have brought anything with you.

You look up at Byleth and dread the next question. “Do you believe in it?” you ask. “That I’m someone chosen?”

“Hmm.” Byleth casts one last glance outside, then pushes off the wall, gesturing you to follow her. You sigh, and mentally prepare yourself for what will happen in the Cathedral. Before you leave the room, Byleth rests her hand on the door handle and looks back at you over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Where I’m from, belief doesn’t save you from the sword of a thief. Only deeds and actions. It’s the reason my father and I are still alive.” She considers you for a moment, and when you blink you imagine you see the tiniest smile on her face. “What you did yesterday was very much real to me. Maybe a Goddess guided you, maybe it was just lucky instinct. But you saved my life, and that certainly is something I can rely on.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, and swings the door open. You quickly follow, your steps feeling a lot lighter than before. “I guess I’m just frustrated,” you admit, carefully paying attention your voice isn’t too loud. “That they think there’s someone who can just decide how my life is going to be. Like this herald business suddenly defies who I am.”

“As long as you don’t forget who you are, does it matter?” Byleth wonders aloud, turning down another corridor that ends in stairs leading down. “As long as there is just one person who doesn’t forget, does it really matter?”

Maybe not to her, but for some inexplicable reason, it means a great deal to you. So you answer with a grumble, and Byleth hums like she knows she’s right. To change the subject, you ask, “What about you? How can you just follow along with being a teacher here?”

“Truth be told, I’m not happy,” Byleth says, nodding to the knights standing on guard in the first floor that leads outside. “But at the same time I can see Lady Rhea’s reasoning. Those students need someone who teaches them not to be stupid on the real battlefield. Especially when they are to be future rulers of Fódlan. If I’m the one shaping those little whippersnappers, I can rest at ease.”

You follow her down the hallways, staying silent until, “Whippersnapper is such a weird word,” you say.

Byleth gives a huff of air that barely passes as a chuckle. “It is.”

Together you leave the living quarters and enter the Cathedral at the backside where everything is closed off for the rest of the people. Lady Rhea and Seteth are already waiting for you, both dressed in equally complicated robes as you.

“Thank you, Professor.” Lady Rhea nods towards Byleth, who nods back and joins the other teachers. “And now, Herald, it is time to meet the sheep you shall shepherd from today on. Please, follow me.”

She doesn’t give you time to prepare for the crowd waiting for you, and glancing at Seteth for help doesn’t do anything either as he just crudely nods towards Lady Rhea, telling you to go along. You square your shoulders and hope for the best.

The Cathedral has been decorated with candles and tapestry showing the banner of the Church of Seiros and above it the Crest of the Herald. A platform has been built for your entrance, and stepping on it, your gaze roams over all the assembled students, clergy, and knights. Seeing them, you feel terror seize your body, locking up all muscles. The masses look at you with hunger in their eyes, ready to devour you like you’re the last piece of bread on the table. “Herald, Herald! ” they cry, and each time they open their mouths, the noose tightens around your neck. Saint and Martyr vaguely dance at the edges of your mind, beyond your grasp, mocking how you know them but don’t understand their very being. This is bigger than you. This is far bigger than you can manage, and you want to run away and hide from their greedy eyes.

Scanning the crowd, you notice the house leaders in the far back. Edelgard looks unpleased, her mouth set into a grim line, while Dimitri claps politely with the rest, and Claude raises a golden cup in mocking salute. You really want to break down and cry. The only solid point is Byleth, has always been Byleth up until now, at the other end of the room, holding your gaze steadfast like a pillow of strength in troubled waters.

69 notes · View notes

alexsfictionaddiction · 3 years ago

Text

Review: Roxy by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman

Neal Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe series is very popular within the book blogging/BookTube world and it’s a series that I’ve been interested in for a while. Despite owning the first two books, I’ve not had a chance to pick them up yet (story of my life!) but I was very excited to read his newest release, co-authored with his son Jarrod.

When the sensual yet fatal Roxy places a bet with her overachieving friend Addison to see who can bring someone to ‘The Party’ first, siblings Isaac and Ivy Ramey are in their dangerous and deadly firing line. Of course, the bright lights and the sweet relief of the drugs are incredibly attractive to unassuming minds and the Rameys are both on a fast track to the trouble that lies beyond the grip of their new best friends.

I can honestly say that I have never read from the point of view of drugs themselves before. Roxy is Oxycontin, a powerful opiod prescribed as a painkiller to Isaac after a football injury. Watching her slow takeover of his mind as he develops a dependency on her (through her ‘eyes’) was so disturbing but an incredibly unique perspective. I imagined Roxy to be a beautiful, dark seductress, who completely bewitched the helpless, mere mortal, teenage Isaac. I can imagine that developing an addiction is exactly like getting into an intense, toxic relationship that you don’t realise is bad for you until it’s way too late.

Watching the drugs interact with each other at ‘The Party’, which I can only assume is some kind of invisible venue that is not on our plain, where they all congregate. Al (alcohol) is always there because he gets everywhere. Molly (MDMA), Mary Jane (marijuana), the Coke brothers Charlie and Dusty (cocaine) and Crys (crystal meth) are all regular fixtures at The Party. I was blown away by the detail of this strange yet somehow plausible world that the Shustermans built for these drugs to inhabit.

Ivy has unmedicated ADHD, which causes her to run into trouble at school. To get through her final year, she takes Addison (Adderall) to up her focus and energy levels in order to get her work done. She is terrible at picking friends and boyfriends and I think this is due to a plethora of emotional issues that she hasn’t ever dealt with. When Addison starts making her life a whole lot better, I think she started to see him as the lifeline that she had been waiting for and it’s easy to see why. Her relationship with Isaac is a really lovely, realistic one and it’s very obvious that there is so much love between the siblings.

There are little interludes throughout the book where we hear from other drugs. I loved getting to know them all as ethereal, unreliable characters and I definitely learned a lot about how they behave. I can only imagine the fun that the Shustermans must have had while writing these. They’re so well researched and the amount of imagination that they must have taken is mind-blowing.

I think Phineas (morphine) was the drug that haunted me the most. Hearing him talk about his different uses and how he feels about them gave me such an overwhelming feeling of dread. Of course, Phineas is often administered when people are on the brink of death or in extreme pain. He never sees the bright side of human life and as a result, I couldn’t picture him as anything other than an empty, dark void, floating around these people’s systems.

Roxy is a very thought-provoking, unforgettable book. I was completely torn apart by the ending and I finished it knowing that I would probably never read another book like it. With themes such as addiction, mental health and suicide, it’s definitely best to proceed with trepidation if you are likely to be triggered by any of these topics. It is haunting, cautionary and truly fascinating with voices that literally burrow into your system and refuse to leave.

#roxy #neal shusterman #jarrod shusterman #ya #contemporary fiction #book review #review #books #bookworm

11 notes · View notes

bamfdaddio · 4 years ago

Text

X-Men Abridged: 1976

The X-Men, those fiery mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 97 - 102) - by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

If I ever participate in Drag Race, this will be my entrance look. (“Hear me, bitches! No longer am I the woman you knew! I am fierce! I am fashion incarnate! Now and forever, the winner of season 27!” *mugs at camera* ) (X-Men 101)

It really amazes me how quickly Claremont shifts things into high gear. One year in and he absolutely does not calm down, giving us both the Shi’ar, more Sentinels and the (motherfucking) Phoenix. SO LET'S GOOOO

You’d think that, as a telepath, Charles would be used to dreaming absolutely twisted shit, surfing everybody else´s freaky dream waves, but apparently, vividly dreaming of space is so exhausting that he needs a vacation.

To be fair, I’d be exhausted too if I dreamt of schizo space bugs on detailed splash pages. Get into it, Mr. Cockrum. (X-Men 97)

Meanwhile, Alex and Lorna have absconded to the sizzling Rio Diablo to work on their doctorates. It’s unclear what they’re studying (archaeology?) and where this Rio Diablo is (Panama, Chili, Ecuador?), but considering that Rio means River, I’m unsure whether drawing a dry dry desert is the appropriate setting. But hey, this was the pre-Google era and you’re not here for topographical nitpicking, so.

Lorna is shot by an unknown assailant and continues the long, long history of Polaris being mentally overtaken by other entities. Together with the equally not-himself Havoc, they travel back to NYC and attack the plane Xavier is boarding. The X-Men battle them, until it is revealed that these former not-quite-X-Men are in league with… Eric the Red?

Scott is all: But I was Eric the Red! Also, Eric the Red does not exist!

Xavier escapes, apparently not giving a fuck that all kinds of X-Men are demolishing the JFK airport, but the still-evil Havok and Polaris also get away. The X-Men are shook!

Some time later, The X-Men celebrate X-Mas at Rockefeller Square, where Claremont skips some steps in favour of narrative expediency. Moira and Sean are apparently in a relationship, Jean and Storm are the best of friends. It’s some pretty rough telling, not showing, but we’ll allow it, but only because the Storm/Jean-friendship is one of my favourite things.

What, you think only the movies indulged in Lee/Kirby-cameos? (X-Men 98)

Anyway, Jean and Scott are attacked by the Sentinels, who continue their trend of being way too sneaky for supersized racist robots! Xavier is kidnapped on his boat trip with super-duper scientist Peter Corbeau (seriously, he has two Nobel Prizes), while they steal away Jean, Sean and Logan in NYC. When they come to, there’s some gloating from Stephen Lang.

Jean Grey being a literal pin-up while delivering nazi-burns is such a big middle finger to everything she was in the sixties and I am here for it. (X-Men 98)

When the three kidnapped X-Men make a break for it and escape the Sentinel’s clutches, they burst through a wall, only to be greeted by the cold vacuum of space! They’re not on Earth at all: they’re on a formerly SHIELD space station! GASP! (literally)

In secret, Peter Corbeau, inventor of sliced bread, helps the X-Men back on Earth board a space shuttle, where Colossus remembers his brother Mikhail (objectively the worst Rasputin), a kosmonaut who died at the launch of another spacecraft. It’s another Future Plotline Seed©.

The X-Men dodge solar storms which sounds like a made-up contrivance but aren’t, while the Sentinels try to destroy the shuttle. In what the kids these days call a pro-gamer move, the X-Men instead ram the space station and go through to these apparently sub-par Sentinels like Magma through butter. Kurt’s showmanship and Colossus’ loyalty are highlighted, while Cyclops becomes more robotic and repressed the more Jean is in danger.

Colossus’ secondary mutation is apparently BEING THE BIGGEST DORK. (X-Men 99)

Scott almost kills Stephen Lang, but then Stephen throws his ace in the hole at them: THE OLD X-MEN? This reveal throws us right in the hallmark one hundredth issue!

And, look. Stephen, this is just a terrible plan. Instead of using most of your budget on making more impressive Sentinels, you blow half of it on making janky X-Men clones to… what? Confuse the real X-Men?

It works for a hot minute, but Kurt and Ororo quickly figure out something is wrong. This Beast, for example, isn’t hairy and this Jean doesn’t remember being in Storm’s confidence. Wolverine is the first to snap: acting on instinct, he kills ‘Jean’, proving she’s an android.

Stephen Lang, foiled by the X-Men’s logical thinking skills (which, to be fair, are notoriously unreliable), spews some hatred and accidentally blows himself up. Nothing of value is lost.

Too bad the X-Men can’t return to Earth: their space shuttle is too damaged. I actually love this: going to space is kind of a big deal for most people and the fact that the X-Men have trouble because they’re stranded in space lends them a kind of vulnerability that has been lost over the recent years. Jean steps up to the plate, herds the other X-Men into the protected life cell and assumes the pilot seat of the shuttle. This is after zapping Cyclops into unconsciousness and telling the other X-Men to kindly fuck off when they try to stop her.

As the X-Men descend onto the Earth, Jean’s telekinesis isn’t enough to protect her as she’s engulfed by solar flares. OR IS SHE?

Nothing funny. All of these panels are just beautiful. Forget those robot copy X-Men, this is why this issue is worthy of being the hundredth one. (X-Men 100)

The space shuttle crashes, rolls over JFK airport before dunking in the water. The X-Men emerge, safe, sound and very lucky and then, defying all odds, Jean emerges as the Phoenix. Fire, life incarnate, etc.

After a brief but melodramatic burst of energy, Jean collapses into unconsciousness and is hospitalized. Wolverine intends to bring her flowers (aw!), before throwing them out when he realizes the gal’s taken, establishing the X-Men’s most famous love triangle. (You can fuck right off with your Scott/Jean/Warren-bullshit.)

I’m not sure what my favorite thing is here: the absolutely bonkers everybody’s-elated-panel (special mention to Kurt’s boots and his bounce) or the subtle character beat where Kurt goes all heart-of-the-team and checks on Scott, who turns out to be not so stoic. (X-Men 101)

Charles orders all the X-Men (except Scott) to go on vacation, so he can take care of Jean. Like, Charles, you’d think they could just go hang out at the X-Mansion. Instead, they go to Ireland because Sean has conveniently inherited the ancestral Cassidy Keep.

All the X-Men dress up fancy for a welcoming feast, and it seems Kurt and Ororo are flirting? But sometimes, it also seems like Ororo and Piotr are flirting? Listen, I’m not judging: I love these polycule vibes from the early X-Men. Especially because neither Kurt nor Ororo have had particularly satisfying romantic plotlines for the past 20 years.

I’m not here to insinuate nothing, but last time I said “I enjoy being with both of you”, it ended up in a spitroast. (X-Men 101)

The soiree is interrupted by… THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH, and Black Tom, Sean Cassidy’s evil cousin. They are hired by an unknown someone to kill the X-Men! Since nobody subtle is involved, they quickly wreck the castle and everybody tumbles into the dungeons. (Local news paper reports: gay power couple harasses ill-dressed American tourists.)

This story is mostly a vehicle to tells Ororo’s backstory: Storm, one of the few who could conceivably put up a fight to Cain Marko, feels caged by the cold rocks of Cassidy Keep and is incapacitated by her claustrophobia.

Back in the USA, Charles, who’s heard Storm’s mental anguish, is furious with Scott because he doesn’t hop in a plane to save the other X-Men, even though Scott correctly points out that he’ll never get there in time if he leaves now. Meanwhile, Jean awakens, convinced she somehow brought herself back to life. Yeah, you go girl.

While the rest of the X-Men fight the evil duo in Ireland, Claremont tells Storm’s backstory in a few gorgeous spreads.

“I could write a novel about Storm’s backstory.” “You get two pages.” “Deal.” (X-Men 102)

Another classic comics trope appears here, where family members are immune to one another’s powers. I have no idea how Black Tom is immune to Banshee’s sonic scream - he has ears.

Does Black Tom just have a voice in his ears going NEENER NEENER NEENER when Sean screams? (X-Men 102)

When Storm finally pulls herself back together, it’s too late: the Juggernaut has pummeled the other X-Men into a paste and she also falls to his onslaught. IS THIS THE END OF THE X-MEN?!

Other things introduced this year:

Kurt’s image inducer, which he abuses to look like Errol Flynn. (I would abuse it to look like an amalgam of Milo Ventimiglia (ca. Gilmore Girls) and Timothée Chardonnay. OR like Emmy Raver-Lampman.)

The fastball special!

All kinds of name confusion: Lorna is Polaris, Havok is sometimes Havoc and Piotr becomes Peter.

Best new character: Phoenix. Hit me with that iconic shit.

What to read: The Stephen Lang arc is not fully necessary, just read issue 100 and 101. Don’t skip issue 102 if you want to know all about Storm’s past.

25 notes · View notes

anistarrose · 4 years ago

Link

Summary: Stan finds a recording from a fateful puppet show, a few disjointed memories fall into place, and the Pines family has some tense conversations.

Relationships: Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Ford Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines

Characters: Stan Pines, Ford Pines, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Bill Cipher (posthumously)

Set in early September, probably a little less than a week after Dipper and Mabel went home.

(It felt good to write some Stangst again! Title is from Monster Town by Go! Child because when I can't think of titles on my own, I go to my GF playlist for inspo, and that song jumped out at me today)

***

“We should probably bring a backup camera on the boat,” Ford mused, in a tone that made it impossible to tell whether he was talking to Stan or just to himself. “Maybe even multiple backup cameras. There’s no telling what the Arctic climate could do to their circuitry, and people hardly take cryptid reports seriously even with photographic evidence, never mind with just an eyewitness account and an excuse about a broken camera —”

“Easy, Sixer.” Stan set down his fully-packed suitcase at Ford’s feet, satisfied with its contents. “I’ve got a camcorder up in my room, or maybe in — actually, I can’t remember where I decided to keep it, but it’s probably still in the house somewhere. If I can find it, you can add it to your camera horde.”

Ford zipped open Stan’s suitcase, revealing hand-knitted sweaters and Hawaiian shirts in approximately equal numbers, and sighed. “Some brave wardrobe choices you’re making here. Or have you forgotten that the first beach we’re stopping at is in Alaska?”

“Well, someone’s gotta lead the fashion revolution in the Arctic Circle, and it sure ain’t gonna be you,” Stan called as he headed upstairs, provoking a resigned “hrmph” from Ford.

Stan decided to look for the camcorder in his bedroom first — because while his memory still had some scattered gaps, his gut instincts rarely lead him astray, and checking his room had been his first impulse. Sure enough, he found it sitting on a shelf and covered in slightly less dust than the adjacent stack of magazines, just as he ever-so-vaguely remembered it.

“Better make sure this thing works, before Ford declares it too unreliable for yeti hunts or whatever,” he muttered to himself, leaning back onto his bed and fumbling for the power button. The camcorder blinked to life, presenting an interface that was probably hopelessly outdated — but Stan didn’t care, while Ford would have no way of knowing what modern Earth technology looked like.

What’d I even record on this thing anyway? He selected a random video from June, was greeted with his own voice singing the first line of the Stan Wrong Song, and immediately deleted the recording. With a sigh and silent vow to never let Ford learn of the song’s existence, he moved on to a video from July.

Once again, it was Mabel’s handiwork — heh, no wonder I couldn’t remember what I used this thing for, since the kids were always borrowing it from me — but this time, Stan himself wasn’t in frame, though the craft supplies strewn about the living room were enough to stir dormant memories.

“Dipper! Puppet Dipper! Smile for the camera!”

Dipper yawned, then somewhat half-heartedly mimicked the motion using the sock puppet on his hand. “Puppet Dipper’s not really feeling up to it this morning.”

“Did Puppet Dipper stay up too late trying to solve a mystery? Bwap!” The footage blurred as Mabel nudged Dipper with a sock puppet of her own. “Do I need to make him a little puppet-sized pillow?”

“How about… some puppet-sized sunglasses, for a puppet detective?” Dipper suggested.

“Good idea!” Mabel agreed. “Then no one will notice when Puppet Dipper falls asleep standing up!”

Stan shook his head and smiled.

Man, I wish I’d found this back when my memories were still a mess — Mabel kinda skimmed over the whole puppet saga in her scrapbook. Wonder what else got recorded from that week…

He selected the next video chronologically, noticing that it was also the final recording on the device, and the smile vanished from his face.

“You can’t stop me!” It was Dipper’s voice, yet not Dipper’s voice — all fury and arrogance, and the camcorder’s cheap speaker crackled with static, like the voice was too much, too wrong, too alien to properly record and then replicate. “I’m a being of pure energy with NO weaknesses!”

Without a doubt, Dipper’s body was onscreen, but he was staggering towards Mabel with arms twisted at impossible angles. He lunged for the journal in her hands, eyes glinting the same gold color as the emblem of the six-fingered hand —

Stan hit the power button, rolled over on the bed, and buried his face in his pillow as the wave of memories crashed into him.

Brushing off Dipper’s sorry state as sleep deprivation, until the kid collapsed on the way out of the theater. Seeing the cuts and bruises all over Dipper’s hands as Stan helped him to his feet, and grilling the kids on what happened the whole drive to the hospital. Not getting an answer beyond “sleep deprivation.”

Not being able to give the doctor an answer beyond “sleep deprivation.”

Telling the twins’ parents it was just “sleep deprivation.”

A tense phone call, assuring Mr. and Mrs. Pines that Dipper’s recovery would be swift and tha Gravity Falls was still safe for their children. Stan’s hands shaking as he holds the phone, having no idea if that’s the truth, if he’s doing the right thing.

Mabel crying over a crumpled-up scrap of paper — a note? — she’d found in the car, and refusing to show it to Stan. Half-overheard secrets, whispered between the younger twins when they think Stan isn’t paying attention — apologies, worries, and murmurs too soft to be in any way decipherable.

Dipper, still with bags under his eyes, spending the next few days doing almost nothing but looking over his shoulder and burying his head in the journal. Stan pretending not to notice, but secretly finding it far too familiar for comfort.

Later memories, too — memories of demons, and handshakes, and feeling his body go numb. Memories of a voice, a furiously shrieking voice — both terrified and terrifying, but more than anything, alien.

Now, far too late, Stan recognized it.

***

“We’re calling the kids,” Stan barked, barging back downstairs, and Ford jumped.

“What’s wrong? Are your memories —”

“Better than they’ve ever been, actually.” Stan stormed directly to the living room table, flipping open the laptop on loan from Soos and clicking the video chat app. “Good enough to figure out something that apparently no one thought it might be important to tell me!”

“Are you sure?” Ford put a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “We can still call them, but let’s talk this through first, make sure you’re not missing any gaps —”

Stan paused, cursor an inch away from the call button beneath Dipper and Mabel’s profile picture. “Did Dipper tell you about the time Bill possessed him?”

Ford started to say something, stopped, and tried again. “I… I assumed you knew. I’m sorry.”

“Did you know I ended up taking him to the goddamn hospital afterwards?”

“No,” Ford whispered, and Stan felt Ford’s fingers dig into his shoulder. “Call the kids, Stan.”

Mabel must’ve been online, because she picked up almost immediately. The video opened with her sitting in her kitchen in Piedmont, Waddles in her lap. “Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford! Guess what I —”

The joy drained out of her smile when she noticed her grunkles’ grave expressions. “What’s going on?”

“Mabel, pumpkin,” Stan murmured, trying to tune out the sound of his heart thumping in his chest, “could you go get your brother?”

“I’m here, I’m here!” Dipper slid into view, almost falling off his chair, and Mabel scooted out of the way so they could both comfortably face the laptop. “Is something wrong?”

“Not anymore,” Ford explained, “but Stan and I wanted to talk about… communication, among other things — Stan? Are you sure you’re alright?”

Stan wiped the sweat from his forehead and shuddered, forcing himself to take a deep breath as he stared at the computer.

Dipper’s back home. Dipper’s safe. They’re both safe, and they’ll never have to worry about Bill again.

“Stanley?” Ford echoed, increasingly distressed. “Please, if —”

“I’ll be alright,” Stan managed, because even he wasn’t a good enough liar to convince anyone he was alright at this exact moment. “Promise. But kids, why didn’t you tell me when Bill hijacked your puppet show?”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a guilty look.

“Was it because you thought I’d take away the journal?” Stan regretted his ‘only self-defense’ stipulation for the third journal more than almost anything else he’d said that summer, because he’d always known deep down that it wouldn’t stop the kids — and in hindsight, he would’ve much rather known what trouble the kids were getting into, not have them hide it from him with their late nights out in the woods and nonspecific excuses.

“At first,” Dipper replied. “But we ended up worrying a whole lot more about you sending us home early —”

“Your parents almost made that decision for me,” Stan admitted. “They were ready to drive up here and come get you when they heard what happened. I dunno how I convinced them to let you stay —”

He sighed. “And maybe knowing the truth wouldn’t have actually helped me that time — but it would’ve been nice to know how big a lie I was telling when I told them this town was safe for you kids, y’know?”

He regretted voicing that thought immediately, but regretted it even moreso when Dipper looked away from the camera, mumbling: “I’m sorry, Grunkle Stan.”

“Stan’s not trying to guilt you,” Ford spoke up, “but we want you to know you can talk about these things honestly with us — and that goes for both of you, Dipper and Mabel. We’d never want to punish you for something that was obviously… someone else’s fault.”

Thank god one of us has finally learned to think through what we say before we say it, Stan figured.

“I’m sorry too, kids,” he added out loud. “For getting angry at you a minute ago — ‘cause I’m not angry at you, I’m angry at Bill for what he got away with right behind my back, and I… I just…”

He brushed a finger across their digital faces, a gesture that no doubt failed to translate to the video feed Dipper and Mabel were viewing, and smiled. “Thanks for picking up so fast, ‘cause I really needed a reminder that the two of you are safe and sound and all.”

The kids smiled back, visible for just a second before Mabel leaned forward to hug her laptop and the screen went dark.

“Anytime, Grunkle Stan.”

***

“Coffee?” asked Ford, ever the early riser, as Stan trudged into the kitchen the next morning. “You look like you need it.”

“Gee, thanks, Sixer,” Stan groaned, slumping into the seat across from Ford at the kitchen table. “I’ve heard of backhand compliments, but now I’ve gotta live with your backhanded coffee offers too?”

“Sorry. I’m sympathizing, not mocking — I promise, when I woke up today, my eyes were just as bloodshot as yours are now,” Ford replied, sliding Stan a mug of steaming coffee. “How are your memories?”

It was a routine question as of late, but Stan still managed to botch it completely.

“Too good,” he muttered under his breath, and earned a quizzical look from Ford.

“Pardon?”

“…Good enough that I can remember all kinda things to feel shitty about,” Stan reluctantly admitted. “Like not even noticing when Dipper was possessed, for one thing. I spent the whole summer worrying about him, except for when he was actually in danger —”

“Oh, Stanley,” Ford sighed, “that’s not your fault. You know Bill was an expert liar; he scammed too many people to count —”

“Yeah, but I shoulda seen through it!” Stan brought his fist down on the table, and the contents of his mug sloshed precariously close to the top. “Of all people, I should’ve known better —”

“Right.” Ford grimaced. “Right. Because no one else who should’ve known better was ever tricked by a dream demon for a whole lot longer than a few hours —”

“Shit. Ford, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it like —”

With a controlled glowering expression and deliberate motions, Ford stood, marching across the kitchen with all the fury and hesitation of a slow-moving thunderstorm.

“I didn’t mean it was your fault! I’d never — ”

“…I know.” Ford came to a halt at the door, bracing one hand against the frame. “But if you can say as much about me, then… then why can’t you just say that about yourself?”

“What?!”

“You would’ve caught on soon enough, if Mabel hadn’t defeated Bill when she did — I wasn’t there, but I’m sure of that because I know you, and I know how well you know Dipper.” Ford shook his head. “I didn’t catch on to Bill’s lies for years. I gave him free reign to hurt people for so much longer than one evening —”

He crossed his arms, and his imposing silhouette in the doorway seemed to shrink.

“So if you’re not blaming me for anything to happen this summer, then you’d better not blame yourself, you — you knucklehead.”

“Are you kidding me?” Stan leapt out of his seat. “It’s no wonder you didn’t see through Bill’s lies, when your whole life, you had me watching your back — and then I wasn’t there for you, when you needed me more than ever —”

“Because I pushed you away!” Ford shouted, whirling back around to face him. “Do you know what I realized while I was trying to fall asleep last night? That if I’d just stood up to Dad when he kicked you out, if I’d just done the right thing for once in my formative years, then the end of the world as we knew it would’ve been averted altogether! No falling for Bill’s flattery, no arguing over the zodiac, no Weirdmageddon! We could’ve had it all, but we just couldn’t live in that better world, all because I convinced myself you were suffocating me —”

“But it sounds like maybe I still am, huh?” Stan growled. “If all I do is just make you furious like this —”

“No,” Ford gasped, all the hostility in his voice and his glare immediately melting away. “No, no, absolutely not! I’m not furious at you, Stan, I’m…”

“Furious at yourself,” Stan accused, “for being even worse than me?!”

“No! Don’t even say that!”

Before Stan could process what was happening, much less protest it, Ford was hugging him, burying his face in Stan’s shoulder.

“Maybe — maybe I am angry at you, after all,” Ford admitted, “but you’re my hero, Stanley. My inspiration. If am angry with you, it’s — it’s just because you’re too damn stubborn to forgive yourself…”

Stan gingerly placed a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “…Yeah, and you’re one to talk.”

“I won’t deny that,” Ford mumbled. He went quiet for a few seconds, and when he spoke up again, his voice was quieter, yet slightly more composed. “Maybe we need to just… call a truce. Find something positive to agree on. We’re both too stubborn for this argument to end with either of us admitting we were wrong —”

“At least for give-or-take the next forty years,” Stan interrupted, punctuating his words with a bitter laugh.

Ford barked out a laugh of his own, loud and cathartic, and withdrew from the hug, removing his glasses to rub his eyes. “If Dipper and Mabel were here, they would have told us to stop being stubborn old men a while ago. I wish they were here.”

“They’d probably also tell us it’s more Bill’s fault than either of ours,” Stan added. “And… I guess they’d have a point.”

“I can see the logic in that.” Ford smiled faintly. “I’m sorry for making this about me, by the way. You opened up to talk about your own issues, and I —”

“Hey, I made it about you just as much as you did, Brainiac,” Stan reminded him. “…But damn. You think we’ll ever be able to talk about our feelings without shouting our lungs out at each other?”

“We’re still no good at thinking through anything before we say it,” Ford replied, “though I guess we must be getting a little better, since we didn’t even stop speaking to each other this time.”

“Thank god. I’m tired of not talking to you.”

The two of them settled back into their seats at the table, and Stan reached for the morning paper, but Ford spoke up once more.

“I know forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness, can be… complicated,” he told Stan in a low voice, “so maybe I’m biased, speaking as someone who’d rather not grapple with my own personal guilt — but even more important than whether you forgive or blame yourself, I think, is acknowledging that you made mistakes, yet still deserve good things from the universe. And that goes for you and me both.”

Stan took a sip from his mug, pleased to find its contents were still warm. “Good things like coffee, and adventures sailing around the world?”

Ford chuckled. “My priorities exactly.”

#gravity falls #stanley pines #stanford pines #dipper pines #mabel pines #gravity falls fanfiction #rosalia writes fic

106 notes · View notes

aclosetfan · 3 years ago

Note

Part 1: Hi! It's me again! :) (reviewing a little late) First things first, I absolutely love this chapter. I love everything that comes from you, and this is no different. I had a few minutes to read before heading off to my usual daily routine, and I've had like no time to actually digest it, you know? But today, I had some time to re-read the chapter and OMG!! I'm pumped up! The energy I got from the new chapter was unreal; this chapter was so beautiful!

Part 12: “He blew the candle out before Butch could flick the flashlight back on, but in that millisecond before the darkness overtook them, he could have sworn he had made eye contact with his smiling reflection. But Brick hadn’t been smiling.” I have been singing your praises with these last two chapters. Just magnificent. I just cannot wait for your next works and chapter! (This is the end lol.)

((Omg 🙃 I hit the stupid photo limit so I had to transcribe part 12. Sorry about that @cannevasingabarbiesong))

So, right off the bat, 🥺🥺🥺 thank you!! 🥰🙏🥳💚 literally my poor little heart. I’ve really got to post this on ao3 I think—my reservations about that website aside—because at the very least it would make these reviews/responses easier!! I think after the next chapter I’ll start uploading the story elsewhere, but keep updating here on tumblr first b/c I love my followers like the most lmao.

I really love this review so much because you really picked up on all the certain elements that I was trying to stress. Seriously, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts because, as the writer, I’m glad I’m making certain themes obvious enough that you’re picking up important details that will absolutely come back into the story later on!! The distortion, the initial innocent mundaneness, and the slow “hey, but wait a second…” were all intentional choices important to the story!!! Your thought process is exactly where it needs to be rn! :))

Also, one, you’re observations about HIM and what his pictures represent are absolutely correct!! I stole that theme from the show actually. As the audience we’re always aware that HIM is evil, but the characters never seem to realize that until it’s too late, do they? That’s what makes every HIM episode so good!! Even if HIM isn’t physically in this story (yet), he’s always watching, which is true in the original run of the show. I don’t want Him as a gag in this story, I really want him as that creepy evil entity that gave kids nightmares when the show first ran!

In regards to Boom :))) yay! Yea! He’s the insightful one! I try to make sure that the boys’ pigs are written in a way that reflects their personality. Hopefully that starts to come across in my writing more and more!! Because Boomer’s the more “sensitive” and reflective brother, I use him to my advantage and give him the most exposition and dialogue. He’s got a lot to say, “stupid” questions to ask, and really allows me to give readers those specific details other characters wouldn’t bother to look at! Boomer also speaks for Butch, which Brick does too, but not as often and not as extensively. ((But Boom still has things he’s tunneled-visioned about—he’s a bit lovesick rn 😉))

I chose Brick to be my stubborn unreliable narrator. The tunnel vision he struggles with is a way for me to make those bad choices you want to be pissed off at. Once Brick has an idea, it’s hard to persuade him otherwise, and that’s good for me, because his character naturally takes control and creates a bunch of story conflict. So, yeah, lmao I think he’s just going to be one of those “seriously dude?” characters, but tbh can you blame him? Who really believes in these dumb playground stories irl?? We all just know who HIM is, Brick doesn’t yet 😂😂

Also yessss!! Love that the last scene was creepy!!! I feel like I should clarify though that the fourth reflection in the mirror was HIM’s graffiti portrait. I chose to include it as a call back to Boomer’s earlier grip. Brick wasn’t ignoring a fourth body in the room/or a seemingly new reflection, he was simply ignoring the reflections already present in the mirror (him, his brothers, and HIM). I should have made that clearer in the story 😭😭 thanks for pointing it out. I’ll fix that when I post it to ao3 or whatever idk. I hope that doesn’t make it less creepy 😞 HOWEVER 👀👀👀 I should also clarify that you aren’t totally wrong. The things staring back at the boys weren’t reflections and Brick probably shouldn’t have chosen to ignore them.

((also obsessed that you awed cause Butch said three words about bloody fingerprints 😂😂😂 like ugh ur going to love BC fr kindred-spirits you and her))

#parasomnia ppg fic #parasomnia horror fic #parasomnia reviews #THANK YOU FOR REAL!!!!!!#ahhhh I’m so happy you like it 😭😭#it’s me you and like four of my mutuals on this ride together #long post #not edited lol #let me know if I need to clarify anything

5 notes · View notes

hold-my-hand-kuroo · 5 years ago

Text

soulmates

i can’t believe i woke up two hours earlier to write for some 2d boy’s birthday-

this isn’t a soulmate au i’m sorry

pairing: shirabu x reader

Shirabu Kenjirou doesn’t believe in soulmates, because by extension, that’d mean that things such as luck and miracles and even Santa would also exist. He likes to think that his hours of studying and sheer grit are the reasons that he was accepted into Shiratorizawa. What he lacks in talent, he’ll make up with his efforts and his efforts only; he doesn’t need something silly like magic, especially when said magic couldn’t come through when he needed it the most.

He replays the memory of Karasuno’s 10 over and over again in his mind, even after the third years have said their goodbyes. He remembers it all, the fatigue in his body, the lead of his legs, and the noise of the ball thudding up and down on their side of the court. He wonders what would happen if magic had really existed. Would he have been able to react faster then and save the ball?

Shirabu doesn’t like mulling over the past since it’s a waste of his time, but sometimes when he’s studying by himself, too tired to think straight, he finds himself zoning out. It’s not good for him, and he knows it, focusing too keenly on all his weaknesses and trying to find a way to fix them, but he can’t help it. Because he doesn’t believe in miracles, he only has himself.

If he’s feeling a little generous, though, maybe he’d consider you a little magical.

You’ve seen him around on campus, always studying alone by a corner and wearing a terrible scowl when someone got too loud or tried to pester him. Between majoring in sciences and the volleyball club, you realize two things: he’s an incredibly hard worker, and you’ve definitely been looking at him too much to know these things without ever having a proper conversation with him. There was just something admirable about the way he carried himself and how he’d always be working hard without complaining about being tired.

He’s quite the frequent customer at the cafe where you part-time at, and you’re not surprised. Someone with his lifestyle would need gallons of coffee to keep going, but you don’t think he’s there for the coffee. Perhaps it’s the quiet atmosphere where he can study. Maybe he’s escaping from a particularly loud roommate, or maybe the library seats are all taken. You don’t know for sure, but what you do realize is that he definitely at least knows of your existence with his short and curt nods for greeting. If you got lucky, he’d give you a quiet “Hey.”

He gets you worried. Sometimes, he’d be hunched over at his seat but without the usually concentrated furrow of his brow or his moving pen and graceful, yet quick flip of textbook pages. He’d just be staring blankly at the table, an expression unreadable, and he’d stay like that for moments at a time before shaking his head in frustration, pushing himself to his limit to go back to work. It’s hard to watch, and you almost wish you could do something, but you don’t. Not when he knew you just as the barista that went to the same university. You’d hate to pry.

It’s not until on one particularly dreary day that he walks in without so much as a nod that you realize the problem is larger than you feared it was. By now, he’s used to just handing over his cash, knowing well that you memorized his regular order, and as you turn around to grab a mug, you hear him clatter into a seat in the corner, sighing. The burst of freak courage that rushes through you almost makes you walk right up to him and ask what’s wrong, but you steel yourself. He hated being disturbed out of nowhere.

You place his coffee gently on a tray, sliding a piece of tiramisu on it as well before walking quietly over to his table. He doesn’t seem to take notice of you, hand running through his hair and staring a little bit too hard at the formulas taunting him on the paper. Silently, you leave his order on the table and leave without a word.

By the time Shirabu realizes that his coffee has long gone cold and that there’s an extra plate that he doesn’t remember paying for, you’re already gone, leaving your shift to someone else. He sits there, confused. Then, he spots a little slip of paper and reaches for it.

“You’re always working so hard, so I’m sure it’ll pay off. Don’t worry too much about setbacks, and remember to breathe! Also, I’m not sure if you like sweets or not, but don’t worry about the tiramisu. It’s on the house!”

Shirabu isn’t the kind of person to enjoy desserts; the sugar makes him crash sooner than he’d like, and it isn’t exactly good for his health. He’d much prefer something salty over something sweet, but after thinking a bite, he reconsiders. He doesn’t like it that much, but for some reason, he finds himself eating all of it. It’s good, but not because of the taste. He wants to know exactly why, but he’s reminded once more that he has a math examen tomorrow along with a paper due.

The following afternoon, Shirabu walks into the cafe and spares you not one word, but four.

“Hey,” he murmurs, looking away. His cheeks are slightly tinted, and he hopes you don’t notice. “Thanks for yesterday.”

ii.

Shirabu doesn’t believe in magic, because it’s unexplainable and unreliable. You’re close to half-magic because while you’re not entirely unreliable, your effect on him is absolutely unexplainable. It throws him in for a loop.

The first instance of your unpredictability is when the two of you are paired as lab partners. That gets things going between you two, exchanging numbers and talking more frequently than usual. Now instead of, “Hey,” he says, “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” or, “Are you still up?” to you. It’s exciting, and you hope that he considers you a friend at the very least.

On Shirabu’s part, he finds that your energy is a good counter to the tired mornings he so often faces, and when you give him your signature smile, he feels his heart buzzing. He reasons that it’s because you’re such a breath of fresh air; it’s not often that he lets someone loud but not annoying into his life considering that his past experiences with energetic people were subpar. He likes being lab partners with you because you do your fair share, and he knows he can count on you during the rare times he needs help, and vice versa. You’re like the perfect fit for him, covering for his weaknesses, while he covered for yours.

He used to hate late nights of doing work since his eyes always got tired from staring endlessly at a screen of words and nothing more, but now they’re not so bad. He’ll find himself calling you if he knows you’re up, enjoying the sound of your whispers, as you’re afraid to wake your neighbors up at the dead of night. Sometimes the two of you exchange playful banter, and he’ll feel the weight being lifted off his shoulders, even if temporarily.

He enjoys a lot of things about you, and he almost finds it strange how even the smallest things you do get him a little bit happy. Just a little. Whenever you’re proofreading his essays, he finds that your comments, while still very helpful, are filled with energy. He used to think that exclamation marks were just a way to convey false energy in work and formal emails, but when he sees his paper littered with just hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, he can’t help but crack into a small smile over how silly it is. If you leave small doodles on the margin of his papers from when the two of you study together during lunch breaks or in between classes, he’ll always look at them fondly for a while before filing them neatly away.

He knows you’re busy as well, but after the first time he sees you wait for him outside of the gym for practice to end with coffee in hand, he begins to anticipate your appearance more and more. He likes how you don’t mind that he walks out disheveled, sweaty, and maybe cranky depending on how practice went, and his heart will always flutter if you comment on how good his sets were. You don’t know a thing about volleyball, and he’s probably aware of the fact, but when words like, “Cool,” or “Graceful,” flow out of your mouth, he thinks he must be going crazy. He feels like Goshiki getting all happy over just small praises and desperately wishes that he could stop being so lame.

“You don’t have to come by so often, you know,” he says one day even though he wants to ask you to stop by the gym every day. “You must be busy too, right?”

“I just study outside the benches while I’m waiting for you, so it’s not like I’m wasting my time,” you respond back, walking with an extra spring in your step. Whenever Shirabu walked you back to your apartment, you were always on Cloud 9.

He doesn’t say anything after and opts to revel in the comfortable silence that sits between you too. He wonders if you like being with a guy like him, someone so serious, so boring, and so critical of others. He’s blunt about almost everything, and he’s the driest texter alive according to Tendou. A part of him worries that you’ll get bored with such a bland and severe personality, and he’s not sure if you’re hurt by his directness. He thinks about other people that could probably serve as a better companion, and when he starts realizing how long the list is, he feels a bit of fear in his stomach.

“Is something wrong?” you ask, quick to pick up whether or not Shirabu’s silence meant content or discomfort. He appreciates it a lot.

“No,” he says quickly. You take it as a sign to drop the topic. He’d tell you later if he felt like it, and if he didn’t, it wasn’t a big deal. You’d help him cheer up without knowing what was wrong anyways.

“Today, there was this customer that walked in,” you start again, moving your arms slightly for emphasis in your story. Shirabu finds it endearing, but then he catches himself thinking it and comes to a frightful realization in the middle of your story.

Magic doesn’t exist, but love does. Shirabu doesn’t understand either of them.

iii.

In another world, if Shirabu did believe in magic and wished for his other half, he thinks they’d be exactly like you.

Still, he’s not entirely convinced that magic in this world exists, no matter how many times you make him watch all the Harry Potter movies with you. He needs a miracle to help him put into words how much he loves you because he thinks that by now, he should’ve said the L-word a long time ago, or at least enough to match how often you say it to him. It never loses its effect, though, and it always makes him flustered.

“Love you,” you’ll say to him randomly when the two of you are alone, and his face will go beet red.

“Me too,” is all he’ll be able to manage, but he wishes so desperately that he can return those same words one day.

You don’t really need him to verbalize it, though. He’s the type of person who shows his affection physically whether it’s running his fingers through your hair when you’re feeling down or gently squeezing your hand in public. His hugs are warm, and while it was a little awkward and stiff at first, they’re more relaxed and frequent now. You like how he’ll let you rest on his chest after a hard day and how he’d never let you go until he’s more than convinced that you’re fine. Whenever he brushes away your tears with a stray thumb, you feel all your worries and anxieties disappear.

In return, you’ll practically pull his figure into you whenever he comes home feeling frustrated or upset, resting his head at the crook of your neck while rubbing circles on his back. You let him vent, and after hours of him explaining to you how pathetic he finds himself, you’ll kiss him until he’s all better. In truth, he doesn’t think he deserves the love you give him, especially when he feels as if he can’t return it back tenfold despite trying his hardest.

It’s late at night like it usually is when he’s studying. You had gone to bed hours before, so it surprises him when he hears the bedroom door creak open and the shuffling of your feet against the floor. He turns his head around from his laptop, taking off his glasses and rubbing his dry eyes before giving you a proper look with the tilt of his head.

“You should be asleep,” he murmurs rather guiltily. “I’ll be in bed soon.”

“That’s what you always say,” you chuckle, voice tired. You rub your eyes too before taking a seat right next to him on the couch. “Still studying?”

“Sorry,” he sighs, moving an arm so that you can wrap your arms around his side and rest your head against his body. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise-“

“No, it’s all good.” Your eyes scan across the website he’s looking at, and you almost gag at the wall of words. “We can take a long nap together this weekend. After you ace your exam.”

He smiles softly, lowering his head to press a chaste kiss on your cheek before returning his attention back to the screen. He’d prefer it if you fell asleep back in bed, not because you’re distracting, but because he knows how the screen light distracts you from dozing off comfortably. You don’t seem to be willing to let go, though, and he isn’t going to tell you to leave him when he desperately wants you by his side at all times.

“Why don’t I read some of it to you?” you offer, stifling a yawn. You hear him laugh quietly and frown. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he says quietly, caressing the side of your face. You lean into his touch. “It’s just that…you know that I’ll get distracted if you start reading to me, right? I’d probably fall asleep.”

“That’s the point.” He rolls his eyes playfully, pressing another kiss, this time on your nose because he can’t help himself. “I think you’re already pretty distracted right now, aren’t you?”

“Can you blame me?” His voice is low and tired, but content, and you enjoy how it vibrates from his chest. You see him eyeing your lips more and more at each word you speak, and you have to hold in your smirk. “I need to recharge for a bit.”

Setting aside his laptop, he bends down to press his lips against yours, pulling your body close to his. He feels your fingers run through his hair and against his scalp, tempting him to further the kiss. You’re the one to pull away first much to his dismay, and he lets out a quiet whine as you look and admire the red mess that you’ve turned Shirabu into.

“I’ll let you recharge more after you’re done working,” you tease, grinning. He breaks into a smile and reaches back for his computer, making a sound of agreement.

“I’ll be done soon, love.”

Shirabu doesn’t trust magic. Miracles and wishes and made up spells are silly figments of childhood imagination. Soulmates, though, he thinks, may be closer to reality than he had initially thought. He can’t say he minds it.

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #shirabu kenjirou #kenjirou shirabu #shirabu #shirabu x reader #shirabu kenjirou x reader #kenjirou shirabu x reader #hbd shirabu #salty setter #and by two hours earlier i mean a regular wake-up time

152 notes · View notes

she-who-fights-and-writes · 5 years ago

Text

She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List

I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!

(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)

Books/Series I am currently reading

1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)

Genre: High Fantasy

Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day

Main cast :

Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)

Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)

Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)

Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.

I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!

The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!

The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.

Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)

Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)

Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia

I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.

These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.

I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting!

Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST

1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)

Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):

Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)

Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)

Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!

This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet.

Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!

The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!

Goodreads summary:

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day

Main cast:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)

Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)

Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)

Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)

This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!

Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.

The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.

The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!

Goodreads summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon

Main cast :

Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)

Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)

Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)

Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)

Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)

Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)

Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????)

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Do you like fairy tales?

Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST?

Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot?

These are the books for you!

I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!

Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Genre: Fantasy

Setting: Ancient Greece

Main cast:

Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining)

Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)

Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)

Rating: 100000/5 stars

This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.

This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)

If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.

Goodreads Summary:

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!

#books #book recs #book rec #book reccomendation #book reccomendations #coronacation #corona #coronavirus #covid-19 #book rec list

140 notes · View notes

razzle-zazzle · 5 years ago

Text

Parent & Backstory Headcanons

Reine & Laek (& Rhys’ *keysmashes numberpad* sisters)

Reine is a pretty girl from a rural fishing town by the Deep Ocean, where the Leviathans roam. Laek is a former scholar from a slightly more urban town who just wants to live with his wife.

Reine has a secondary ice affinity, Laek only has his primary water affinity. Laek teaches his wife and daughters how to read and write.

Rhys gets his horns from his father, but he gets most of his looks from his mother. He did get his father’s eyes though.

They have five daughters, two of which die, before they finally have a son. Then they have six more daughters, one of which dies of sickness very early on.

Rhys, like most of his sisters, is very intelligent. So much so that his family actually gets a letter from the former queen of Daemos herself offering to take Rhys in as a student. Even though it’s not for sure yet, they still have a larger dinner than usual to celebrate and let Rhys know that even if he doesn’t get accepted, they’re still proud of him and will support him.

Rhys gets accepted. He’s moved to the capital, but he does get to visit his family every so often. When he’s visiting due to his yttrehbuph, and tells Reine he’s going to induce his ice yttrehbuph while he can, she smiles and tells him that she’ll show him the best spot for it.

Lullabies! Reine sings lullabies to all of her children; the older siblings will join in too.

Reine will mother anyone who needs it. For example:

She wanted to adopt Pierce when the group came to their town to hunt Leviathans.

She comforted Noi when he had a panic attack over almost being eaten again.

Reine is just made of motherly love and energy; she will mess you up if you hurt the children.

Any children.

Laek is awkward and goofy but he’s got a big heart. He’s blonde because reasons.

Basically, while they’re not wealthy, Rhys’ family is full of love and support and it’s why he’s the only member of the team to practice consistent self-care.

Marsch & Sohrah

Marsch is a warrior in the service of the royal family; he’s the general of the army. His primary affinity is earth & his secondary affinity is metal. Sohrah is an anxiety-ridden girl from a noble family of merchants who was engaged to Marsch for political reasons; they found love anyway. Sohrah’s primary affinity is water, her secondary affinity is plants.

A daemos with two primary affinities, while not unheard of, isn’t common, but Pierce has water and earth as primary affinities anyway. For his yttrehbuph, which was water and earth at the same time, Pierce just flooded the hole and slept through it.

Marsch is often away at war, and Sohrah would get sick really often when Pierce was young, so Pierce grew up pretty lonely. Sohrah’s anxieties over whether she was raising Pierce right often caused her to get so caught up in the details that she’d fail to notice her son sometimes. She tries.

Marsch calls Pierce “Pearl” because Pierce got Sohrah’s water affinity; Sohrah calls Pierce “Beetle” because Pierce got Marsch’s earth affinity.

I have no idea what Marsch and Sohrah look like beyond Marsch having the same tattoo as his son and Sohrah putting her hair up in a flower crown bun, so go wild with designs. Both have dark hair I guess? Eh just go wild.

Pierce met Asch when he was 14 and Asch was 12. They didn’t get along at first, but Pierce takes his job as Asch’s bodyguard very seriously. He still does. Asch spends almost as much time looking after Pierce as Pierce does protecting him.

Roase & Oek (& Pyne, but he’s not important)

Warning for mentions of abuse

Oek is a young apothecary with an otherworldly talent for poisons and pharmaceuticals. He’s got a lot of potential, but he’s slowly dying from a disease without a cure. So he wants a child he can pass his knowledge onto. To do that, he stalks this young girl trapped in an abusive family, and manages to get her secluded away somewhere private.

Two/three weeks later he’s asking her father for her hand in marriage, in order to take responsibility for the unborn child.

So now they’re married.

Their first son, Pyne, resembles Roase more than Oek. He’s got her hunter green hair, he’s tied it up into braids like her, he’s got her blue eyes and curled black horns. He’s very much like Roase, but he’s not very good at pharmaceuticals. He’s also very much a doormat. Pyne is about seven when Leif is born. He’s nine when he runs off, never to be seen again. Does he come up later as an important character? Probably not.

Roase playing with little bby Leif, who just cannot stop moving. She reads him fairy tales about knights and princesses and a lot of the games they play revolve around that. She just likes seeing her little boy smile.

Leif, besides the eyes, is practically the spitting image of his father. Although Oek has his hair tied back and tends to wear cloaks and capes.

Leif has a really unreliable memory when it comes to his parents (and he doesn’t remember his brother at all); Roase isn’t the perfect paragon that he views her as, and Oek isn’t the completely soulless asshole that Leif remembers. In fact, a lot of the terrible things Roase has done (she’s gotten and is getting better since Oek’s death) have, in Leif’s memory, become terrible things Oek has done. One might almost say that Leif views his mother through rose-tinted glasses as a coping mechanism…

The King, the late Queen Umbre, and the current Queen Moorhen (& Rhal)

I don’t have a name for the king yet.

The King very much loved his first wife, but she fell ill and died shortly after Asch was born, making Asch very dear to the king.

Asch was born an ylkys, which means his fire was too strong for his body. Ylkys have a much shorter life expectancy, and tradition holds that they should be killed in infancy so they don’t have to suffer. The king decides to screw tradition and asks his mother, Lady Grandma, if anything can be done. She does what she can to help Asch’s body grow in strength.

And that’s why Asch is alive today. Because his mother died and his father didn’t want to lose the last thing she gave the world. It’s also why he’s spoiled.

Eventually, the king realizes his sons need a mother and that his kingdom needs a queen. So he remarries. Queen Moorhen is… serviceable. She does her job, and she does it well, even if she doesn’t have the same warmth that Umbre had. Sure, Lady Grandma distrusts her, and has reason to given that Moorhen is from another kingdom, but Moorhen is genuinely trying to do what’s best for Daemos.

Asch also had a pretty lonely childhood; while Noi was a servant in the castle Asch would seek him out as a playmate. They both got in trouble for this, but nobody really saw the need to push the issue.

Asch likes playing with dolls. It was his coping mechanism for when he was little; his way of pretending to be healthy enough to train with Rhal, and now it’s his way of pretending to be a good leader (he is but he’s too hard on himself to see that). That’s why Noi knows how to make little stone figures; he made some for Asch when he noticed Asch likes them.

Asch was the one who petitioned Noi be trained to fight to act as a knight instead; it’s because of this that Noi is even alive.

Noi’s Parents

Oh who am I kidding they don’t matter. They don’t come up again after selling Noi off, and they don’t really influence him all that much.

Noi was the oldest of four (soon to be five) when he was sold; he was the only one at a viable age for that kind of thing.

Noi’s been through a few masters, not as many as others due to being sent to work as a servant in the castle when he was seven or so.

Noi usually got dragged away from his duties by Asch, who needed a playmate.

62 notes · View notes

the-bounce-back · 5 years ago

Text

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES PART V - CONFIDENCE IN YOUR CONFIDENCE

This is post 5/5 of my “Confidence Chronicles” series, in which I discuss the mindsets, actions and thought processes I’ve applied to build/rebuild my confidence in different aspects of my life. The goal of these 5 posts is for you readers to be able to apply relevant points to your own insecurities in order to combat them, and hopefully build your own confidence over time.

—————————————————————

So… we’re finally at the last post of the Confidence Chronicles. It’s taken its sweet (long-ass) time, but we finally got there in the end. Furthermore, it’s almost exactly a year ago since the idea for this series popped into my head, so this really has ended up coming full circle… albeit unintentionally. Not going to lie, it’s kind of a bittersweet feeling - it’s going to feel strange to not focus so heavily on confidence anymore, but on the other hand… I don’t have to focus so heavily on confidence anymore. Finally, I can bring my other post ideas that have been collecting dust in my drafts to life!

The funny thing is that although I started this series with a plan for what I was going to write about in each post, I never actually settled on what aspect of my confidence I wanted to end this series with. I figured that when the time came to write this, I would have a clear idea of what would be an appropriate note to wrap up the series on.

Of course, at that point in time I didn’t know that the latter half of 2019 was going to turn my life upside down. I didn’t know that I was going to find myself in a massive slump due to stress, confusion and anxiety over my career, my direction and purpose in life and my role in the grand scheme of the world. I know it all sounds very melodramatic and like an excuse to not apply myself to complete my projects - which might be partially true - but the truth is that these questions have been weighing on me for a long time. Long before I started working on my mental health, long before I started this blog, long before moving back to the UK. I’ve been able to ignore these feelings for a long time, but lately they’ve been making themselves extremely hard to avoid. I think that the reason lies in that I’m soon going to be on what society likes to call the “wrong” side of 25, and that I still feel like I’m figuring out where my life is going… i.e. running around like a headless chicken.

However, this blog has really forced me to confront my fears in a way that counselling or confiding in someone I trust ever could - simply because it makes me work through my innermost thoughts and feelings alone. Attempting to address deeply buried issues in order to make my peace with them so I can move past it has been a very triggering process, and also extremely reliant on trial and error.

When you make an error in your healing process, it can be devastating and a major setback in your daily life. But when you get it right… the pain and hard work all becomes worth it. Trust me. There is nothing more satisfying than thinking of a past situation that used to make you feel like you had the weight of the world of the shoulders, and realising that although it felt like it at the time, it didn’t kill you. Hell, you’d even be able to go through it again and be confident you can make it through again, if you had to. One day you’ll even be able to laugh at the situations that once tore you down, and with your newfound confidence be able to realise that at the end of the day… it wasn’t that deep (or, at least, not deep enough to kill you).

For this reason, I want to tie the messages from the previous posts of this Confidence Chronicles series together to make this post - confidence in your newfound confidence. Once you build a solid foundation of confidence in all aspects of your life, the next step is learning to adjust to the newfound energy, positivity and motivation that this confidence manifests itself as. I personally learned (and - in certain cases - am still learning) how to harness this “power” in the following ways:

1. Slowly but surely trusting myself to believe in my own capabilities.

Do you want to know something that’s funny but at the same time not funny? If not, tough sh*t because here it comes: despite writing so extensively about confidence, my own levels of confidence are somewhat unreliable at best.

As I’ve mentioned countless times before, I never write blog posts when I’m in a bad place mentally. In fact, every single post (except one) on here is written when I’m in a great mood, my mind is clear, my confidence levels are unbeatable and I can write about my bad times in an objective manner that doesn’t end up making me sad. A quick scroll through my past posts prove that it’s so easy to assume that I’m 100% over the hard things that I’ve written about on here, simply because I’ve become so good at realising my own past mistakes and how I should move forward. However, in reality, there’s usually not a day that goes by without the topics crossing my mind.

I’ve been told many a time by friends that while I’m excellent at giving advice and knowing exactly what measures to take to get over a situation, I’m not very good at applying said advice to myself. It’s very true, and very frustrating - reading my own posts back makes me realise that I already have the tools and capabilities required to be able to heal, but so far I only seem to be able to use these tools when I’m in a good place. For this reason, I struggle a fair amount with self-doubt in my authenticity as a mental health blogger, because what’s the point of preaching about self-love, self-care and bettering your mental health if your own mental health is in a complete shambles from time to time?

However, it’s not all bad, because the more I apply myself to think of solutions, apply said solutions to my own life and start seeing the benefits of constantly working on myself, the more confident I become that one day I’ll get to a stage where I can confidently write about my issues without this nagging feeling that I’m a fraud. Additionally, g-checking myself from time to time and making sure that I am actually following my own advice makes me increasingly more secure in the knowledge that I am extremely emotionally intelligent and do have enough experience to change my own life, as well as others’.

I think the main thing here is to keep on doing whatever it is you’re trying to improve upon, and allow yourself to appreciate how far you’ve come on your journey as opposed to solely focusing how long you have to go. Regardless of if you’re doubting your capabilities in the workplace, your body goals, your ability to adapt to new situations or your creative ventures - or a combination of all four - it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate your progress.

Giving yourself a well-deserved pat on the back and focusing on how far you have come since the beginning gives you the chance to fully appreciate the hard work you’ve put in towards bettering yourself - which leads to you gradually feeling confident in trusting the power in your own capabilities over time.

2. Stopping the negative self-talk.

As it so happens, I have quite a dark and self-deprecating sense of humour - and so do many of my friends and my sister. Calling myself and others every offensive name under the sun as a joke is something that used to occur on a near daily basis, under the guise that it was all harmless banter. I’ve literally been doing this for as long as I can remember, but the past few months or so, I’ve really been trying to stop for a few reasons.

The main reason is that regardless of how harmless belittling your intelligence and capabilities as a joke may seem, doing it on a regular basis can lead to you internalising these notions and gradually starting to believe them. Although I genuinely thought that I was mentally resilient enough to be able to separate jokes from reality, whenever I’d fall into a bit of slump the first things that would come into my head were the things I’d said about myself as a joke. They would sting a lot, because in those moments I would genuinely believe them.

“God, I’m such a dumb b*tch”.

“Ugh, when did I become such a d*ckhead?”

“I swear to God.... I f*cking hate myself”

“Oh, great, so on top of being a dumb b*tch - I’m also a fat b*tch. Excellent”.

The mad thing is that I’m actually laughing while writing this, simply because I’m in a positive state of mind and know that it’s all a joke. I know I’m neither dumb, a d*ckhead, or fat. Nor do I hate myself anymore. But as soon as that Sunday night sadness hits (I know you all know what I’m talking about!), there I am - trying to choke back tears because I’ve managed to delude myself into thinking that the above is, in fact, true. For this reason, I’ve also tried to stop doing it to my friends, because I’d hate to think that they may be internalising something mean that I’ve said to them as a jOkE.

It’s also interesting to think why self-deprecating humour comes so easily to a lot of us. I can only speak for myself and certain friends that are similar to me in this aspect, but I genuinely think it’s because we’ve - very sadly - grown accustomed to being verbally abused and/or having our weaknesses constantly being picked at during our formative years - either in our home environments, school environments, or both. Instead of devising healthier methods of coping with and eliminating these internalisations, we’ve become reliant on using humour as a source of escapism from our nagging insecurities cast upon us by people around us.

When I started seeing self-deprecating humour in this light, it actually made me quite sad. There I was, thinking that I should get into comedy for being so hilarious, when really it turned out to be just me being too scared to deal with my own insecurities. That’s when I knew things needed to change, and I’ve been working on this ever since.

Personally, the easiest way for me to reduce my negative self-talk has been to try to visualise how I would feel if a stranger (it used to be friends, but then I remembered that most of my friends are as tapped as I am) was saying it to me. I soon realised that if it had come from anyone else but myself or my friends, I’d be ready to throw hands over this literal verbal abuse. I am now trying my best to speak to and treat myself in the same way that a stranger or acquaintance would - with dignity, respect, honesty and with a regard for my own feelings (because, lo and behold, it is possible to be brutally honest and kind at the same time).

Of course, this is so much easier said than done - especially if you, like me, love a cheeky self-drag and dragging others (out of love, of course). However, this doesn’t have to mean that you can stop having fun - I’ve found that an eloquently worded drag meant to act as a wake-up call for me/someone else to improve my/their situation without having to resort to insults and name-calling is infinitely more creative, satisfying and efficient. Furthermore, I’ve found that g-checks that are based on constructive criticism as opposed to cruel insults give you a clearer image of how to improve yourself moving forward - which can only be a good thing.

Basically, just be patient and kind to yourself and others. Take on the constructive criticism received from yourself and your friends/family to work towards bettering yourself, and your confidence will follow.

3. Learning to trust the feelings of positivity and self-love.

This is by far the hardest one for me - and for good reason. When you’ve spent a large part of your teenage years and early adulthood believing that your capabilities and strengths are inadequate, that you’re ugly, that you’re not worthy of love and happiness, that your life has no purpose and that your family and friends would be better off without you, it’s nearly impossible to break free from this toxic downward spiral and to unlearn all of the behaviours and thought processes that have manifested as a result of these feelings.

The keyword here is nearly.

Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but I would like to think that this could be applied to others as well. When I started this jOuRnEy, I honestly thought I’d never get to a place where I genuinely love every aspect of myself. Despite this, I kept pushing myself through the extremely triggering task of unpacking my toxic feelings - until one day I suddenly didn’t have them anymore. Or, at the very least, they suddenly no longer hurt me. Seemingly out of nowhere... I felt okay.

The sad but still understandable thing about suddenly coming to terms with who you are, what you’ve been through and feeling confident enough to move forward is that you don’t trust the feeling at first. At all. You tell yourself that it’s just one of the little upswings before everything comes crashing down around you again, dragging you back to step one, and you try to mentally prepare yourself for said downfall to happen.

But it doesn’t.

Sure, you might have little dips every now and again. You know that healing isn’t a linear process, so you assume that these little dips will lead to you spiralling again. But, to your surprise, they don’t - and you find yourself picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and moving forward with your life relatively unscathed and with more experience and wisdom than before. You start to get suspicious and a little scared because things are actually going alright for once. You’ve become so used to your life being so riddled with anxiety, insecurity, sadness and chaos and the good times being fleeting, that this new reality is extremely alien to you.

This is where things can go one out of two ways.

Either your anxiety kicks in and you start self-sabotaging in different ways because you’re afraid that the longer things are going well, the harder the fall is going to be - so you might as well save yourself the pain by not pursuing things that could allow you to be happy. Or, you are able to tentatively start trusting and accepting the waves of love and positivity as your new reality - making you find the strength and confidence to move forward despite the past pain and hurt.

Personally, it took several rounds of self-sabotaging before getting to the point of learning to trust the positive feelings and my confidence in all aspects of myself. I try not to beat myself up over all the opportunities I’ve turned down simply due to genuinely believing that I’m not good/smart/pretty/talented enough, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make me sad from time to time. However, the more time that passes I get more and more confident that new, even better opportunities will come up for me - and I’ll be confident enough to embrace them without any hesitation when the time comes.

To wrap up this whole Confidence Chronicles series, I want to leave you all with this simple but true statement:

It gets better - if you’re willing to put in the work.

Regardless of which of the posts resonated with you the most, I need you to understand that building confidence takes time. I would even go as far as saying that it’s a never-ending journey, and that the learning to fully love and trust yourself and your capabilities is a never-ending process as life progresses. However, the more you work hard on your own betterment, the easier and smaller the challenges that arise from time to time become.

My ultimate wish is that we all one day can get to a place where we can trust ourselves enough to be happy and confident, regardless of what life throws at us. That whenever things that would usually send us down that spiral again pop up, we can just take a deep breath, count to ten, and be confident in the knowledge that the situation no longer has power over us, and that we will easily be able to work through it.

Until that day comes - never stop fighting.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #goals #selflove #opinions #Empowerment

6 notes · View notes

schraubd · 6 years ago

Text

Who's Afraid of Fighting Antisemitism?

I started writing this post yesterday, before the Squirrel Hill massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. I got distracted, and it feels somehow limp to post it today in the face of such an obvious, brutal reminder of the persistence of violent antisemitism in our society (not the least because the Pittsburgh shooting emphasizes what has always been obvious to anyone who cared to look -- that in America, right-wing antisemitism is far, far more dangerous than its left-wing counterpart). Nonetheless, the points I wanted to make here still have importance, even if comparatively overshadowed -- certainly, insofar as Jews look to see what sort of systemic allyship we can expect from the left not just in this hour but in the days and weeks and months going forward. There was some controversy over the past few days about the role of Jewdas -- a left-wing non-Zionist British Jewish collective -- taking on a role in doing antisemitism training for Labour. For many years Jewdas as positioned itself as the irreverent, rebellious youth of the Jewish community -- gleefully pricking sensitive areas and popping communal orthodoxies -- a stance which perhaps has some value but whose virtues are maybe exhausted in the current moment. I don't really want to talk about that specific controversy (coverage here, the activist's response here, if you're interested). But I do think it's worth exploring the standpoint Jewdas is articulating right now on antisemitism, because they are reflective of the current moment on the Jewish left. It is moment that Raphael Magarik captured well in a recent Forward article: a mixture of renewed interest in and deep ambivalence towards actually fighting antisemitism in a robust and systemic way. That's a step forward from even a few years ago, where antisemitism was almost exclusively viewed as a ginned-up distraction by the right to silence the left. But it's still a difference of degree, not kind: the Jewish left's interest in the fight against antisemitism, it seems, is fundamentally managerial in nature -- they want to make sure we don't fight too hard, or too aggressively, lest we "center" ourselves or sap energy from other more important struggles, or (God forbid) actually demand tangible alterations in how Israel and Palestine are talked about in left communities. A few weeks ago, for example, Jewdas posted an unsigned statement on antisemitism that really demonstrated why it shouldn't be within 40 miles of antisemitism training. I have several problems with it, starting with the way it articulates the "buffer theory" of antisemitism (ask me about how I view Aurora Levin Morales' "antisemitism is what happens when Jews sell out oppressed people to save their own skin and get their comeuppance for it" conception some time). But what I want to focus on is how Jewdas, even in the course of nominally tackling antisemitism, is at least as (if not more) worried about the possibility that ... people will tackle antisemitism. The vast majority of the essay is spent speaking of all the higher priorities the left should privilege about antisemitism and which antisemitism -- or more aptly, fighting antisemitism -- is distracting energy from. This culminates in the vomit-inducing passage "whereas before antisemitism was encouraged in order to direct the public’s attention away from its exploitation, today antisemitism is vilified in order to divert public support away from the best chance for better living than we’ve had in decades." It's hard to know which aspect of this is more appalling: the blithe acceptance that antisemitism has been successfully "vilified", or the explicit declaration that this is a bad thing. Indeed, the author doubles down on this point: going on to say that Britain's "moral victory in WW2 is part of what defines us as a nation. Whereas before, antisemitism was part of a nationalist ideology and identity, today it is philosemitism." This is flatly bonkers as an articulation of the national identity of Britain or anywhere else, and is the sort of self-congratulatory vindicatory claptrap that any half-way decent leftist shouldn't be able to write without retching. It should go without saying that neither the UK, nor the US, nor anywhere else in the Gentile world constructs its national identity around its great love for the Jews (or any of its other minority groups); the only people who claim otherwise are those seeking to put down the Jews for being too uppity and demanding (we haven't massacred you lately and yet still it's demand demand demand!). In other words, Jewdas' program on antisemitism centers around the claim that the danger of antisemitism pales in comparison to the danger of opposing it. To the extent the left should fight antisemitism, it's really to pump the brakes, because when Jews (or at least other Jews, Jews-not-them) fight antisemitism, it's a dangerous and scary thing. If we've progressed beyond Bruce Robbins' "The real issue here is anti-Semitism; that is, accusing people of it" (this came in the defense of a Christian clergyman who was outrageously accused of antisemitism for nothing more than his suggestion that if Jews didn't want to beaten up in the streets of Europe, they should try being more vocally anti-Israel), it's not by a lot. Antisemitism may be bad, but people actively contesting antisemitism is a lot worse. And this isn't just about Jewdas. Magarik, for example, expresses his worry that it is "too convenient" for Jews "to rediscover our own oppression" when we should be reckoning with our own power and privilege. The obsession on the Jewish left with Jewish "centering" -- making it all about us, hoarding resources and energy to ourselves that are more urgently needed elsewhere -- should be read in this register as well (particularly given just how little it takes before the "centering" charge starts to manifest). Contra Magarik, not all of us have been in the process of "rediscovering our own oppression" because not all of us had the luxury of forgetting about it to begin with. But there's something extra-grating about a cadre of Jews who -- almost (if not quite) by admission -- have been historically terrible at addressing antisemitism, who had been slumbering through its dangers, who have even now great ambivalence about robustly fighting antisemitism, and who are openly distrustful of pretty much all other Jews-not-them, emerging from dormancy and immediately assuming that it should be the acknowledged leaders of the fight against antisemitism as against those of us who hadn't been napping on the subject. That'd be terrible even if half their motivation didn't seem to be to make sure that we didn't fight against antisemitism too hard. I continue to think that the most important overlooked attribute of antisemitism on the left (though not just there) is its epistemic dimension -- the persistent mistrust, suspicion, skepticism, discrediting, and gaslighting directed at Jews, particularly when Jews talk about our own lives and vulnerabilities. The Jewish left has been deeply implicated in this wrong, and has not come close to extricating itself from its grip -- which accounts for its ambivalence towards any actual fight against antisemitism because such a fight almost by definition requires crediting and empowering Jewish voices writ large. There has been a genuine shift in the Jewish left over the past few years from almost total dismissal of antisemitism as a extant social phenomenon towards a willingness to kinda-sorta tackle it. But they're not all (or most, or half) of the way there and, more importantly, they haven't done sufficient work to unlearn the practices that made them so unreliable on the subject in the first place. Most notably, they still associate fighting antisemitism with reactionary elements -- with racism rather than anti-racism, with breaking coalitions rather than forging them, with restraining people rather than emancipating them, with the ruination of a chance at a better world rather than a prerequisite for it. So I welcome the shift. But antisemitism cannot be effectively fought by people who are terrified of antisemitism actually being fought -- who think that vilifying antisemitism is more dangerous than practicing antisemitism. On that basis alone (though there are others), the Jewish left is not, have not been, and is not prepared to be leaders on the subject of antisemitism right now. The best move for them for the time being is to step back and learn from those of us for whom antisemitism hasn't necessitated any "rediscovery" at all. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2qe10Ef

#anti-semitism #Jews #leftists

41 notes · View notes

amykingpoet · 6 years ago

Photo

“There comes a point in everyone’s lives where we start to recognize that we are making choices, that we are determining who we are by the actions that we make,” poet, educator and activist Amy King stated in a 2015 speech at SUNY Nassau Community College, where she is a professor of English and creative writing. “What we do says a lot about who we are, not just what we say.”

As a young child growing up in the Bible Belt, King remembers going to the grocery store with her grandfather—her one source of stability, love and unconditional support at that time who, “everyday,” made comments that she was learning to understand were racist. She recalls watching her grandfather flirt with a Black woman who was checking out their groceries. “I was very young,” she told students about that day. “I didn’t even have the vocabulary at that point to recognize this feeling or to articulate what this feeling was, but it was the feeling that something hypocritical was going on.”

That was when King, who identifies as queer, began trying to figure out how to address those moments in her family. “A story begins when a protagonist recognizes a conflict and begins to address how to correct that conflict,” she shared, “and some of us choose not to address that conflict—and that is a story too.”

After growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, King lived with her father in Baltimore, Maryland. As a teenager, she worked for the National Security Agency after testing high for analytical skills, but says she felt “uncomfortable” there, even just at 17, and “didn’t like the way the institution was run.”

Two consistent themes throughout King’s life are “social justice and story.” Her latest book, The Missing Museum, is described as “a kind of directory of the world as it rushes into extinction, in order to preserve and transform it at once.” Publishing it won her the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize and vaulted her to the ranks of legends like Ann Patchett, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rachel Carson and Pearl Buck when she received the 2015 Women’s National Book Association Award. (Named one of “40 Under 40: The Future of Feminism” awardees by the Feminist Press, King also received the 2012 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.)

King is co-editor of the anthology Big Energy Poets: Ecopoetry Thinks Climate Change and the anthology series Bettering American Poetry; her other books include I Want to Make You Safe, one of Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2011. Much of her prose, activism and other projects focus on exploring and supporting the work of other women writers, especially writers of color. King is a founding member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and former Editor-in-Chief of VIDA Review.

During a 2014 interview King gave for Houston’s Public Poetry Reading Series, she spoke on the subject of trying to understand poetry by asking a pivotal question: “What is ‘understanding’ and what is an ‘experience’ with a piece of art?” She went on to say poetry should “jostle” us out of our regular ways of thinking—it should “undo” us in ways that are both good and uncomfortable.

For this installment of Ms. Muse, King opens up about learning to speak up and step up—and shares three new poems with Ms. readers. Here’s to hoping that they “undo” you.

THE POEMS

Selling Short

I cannot afford to live in the city I teach in, & the number of people sleeping in cars has grown, indivisibly. This is not a dream of guarantees but the pursuit of handwritten freedoms that night the sting away. Demons of clinics devise distribution mechanics based on who you were born to & who you might know. The 2 a.m. quiet promises no solace or silence when days are hobbled & taken. Soon, light will be privately owned.

I’m Building a Body to Burn My Effigy In

I will not mention stars Today. They have been used for purposes not their own. Listen to them. Give them space. Observe but leave them distant. If you think you know everything about them now, you have outgrown yourself. In the south we say bigger than your britches burns, but I do not wish to confuse. I want to learn.

Joy Even

The denim and calico patchwork of my childhood. Mothballs in a little black box, felt lining each crevice. Michael Jackson on a hobbled turntable someone left at the apartment complex curb. Costwald Village. Regal. British. Anything but.

The dislocation of Backwoods, Georgia. The first time a man touched me, his semen glistening my inner thighs.

“Thriller” and the plywood coffee table. The hoarder grocery bag maze and Childcraft Encyclopedias flayed across the shag. My 12-year-old amazement. My 12-year-old embryo. The fact of a body electric, searing for days. Turning that birthed another world with a song and dance.

So many ways to joy. Some to death. My anything. Me, anything. Joy even.

THE INTERVIEW

Can you tell me about your process of writing “I’m Building a Body to Burn My Effigy In,” “Joy Even” and “Selling Short”?

I don’t have one process. Sometimes compiled notes take shape. Or a poem just falls out of me as if, gored, the liver drops from my body. The heart seeping sounds more fitting, but a liver plop fits better.

“I’m Building a Body…” comes from an interest in physics and mortality.

“Joy Even” is part of the slow-burn of outlining a memoir.

“Selling Short” emerges as predictive dream, touching on issues that have recently led me to Rosi Braidotti’s “The Posthuman.”

What childhood experiences with language informed your relationship with poetry?

When I first moved to live with my father in Baltimore at 15, I spoke slowly and heard the same. I often said “What?” in a deep southern drawl, uncertain of my own ears, which was probably also testament to a deeper uncertainty too. My father was my only safety line in a house full of strangers and with a stepmother who, quite quickly, began to play her own uncertainties out on me.

One day, as usual, I asked “What?” and my dad, no longer riding the romance of his daughter’s betrayal of her mother to be with him, the winner, suddenly shouted at me, “DO YOU REALLY NOT KNOW WHAT WE’RE SAYING?” It shocked the shit out of me. I made adjustments over time to alter the way I spoke, how I heard, to absorb unknown word usages and infer what I could. And to recover from what that moment meant.

You might prefer the story of how I used to read Gertrude Stein to friends over the phone to annoy them until I realized I had tricked myself as I was enjoying sounding her poetry aloud. Or how I grew up reading Nancy Drew and science fiction late into the wee hours and then woke up and watched Saturday morning cartoons in black and white. But this moment with my father shattered something. Luckily, the cracks are often where we make things and the broken pieces what we make things with.

I’m stunned by that moment with your father and your struggle to understand what people around you were saying. I’m also struck by the notion of the poet as a young girl not trusting her own ears, as you say. How did you learn to make out the words all around you–and to trust yourself?

I don’t think I ever have really. I just embrace the temporality of life a bit more than usual and go with what comes across. It’s why I am not embarrassed to ask someone to pass the “lotion” for the salad or to verb nouns for decades now. I think subconsciously I suppressed my accent as a response to my father, but that shock taught me that not only is my mother unreliable, but so is the alternative, my father. I had already been disabused of the notion of unconditional love; I was holding out hope in him for at least a lasting, warm embrace. I’ve grown since that bottoming out: DNA is not all, and one can find family—and become family—elsewhere.

This is all linked to the notion that people speak to signal group intimacy; language is shaped by mutual alliances and allegiances. When family rejects your language needs, believe the message it sends and seek anew.

Do you seek out poetry by women and non-binary writers? If so, since when and why? More specifically, how has the work of feminist poets mattered in your childhood and/or your life as an adult?

I won a city-wide fiction contest for Baltimore ArtScape during my senior year of high school. It was judged by Lucille Clifton, which made a lasting impression on me. I was not a writer, but my high school English teacher, Carolyn Benfer, encouraged me tremendously. I was attending a vocational school in the city and, up to that point, was destined to become a CPA.

From there, I attended the University of Maryland at Towson State and had the good fortune to enroll as a double major in English and Women’s Studies. The latter program is especially noteworthy as the program served as the model for many other Women’s Studies programs across the country, as envisioned and spearheaded by Elaine Hedges, who was also an active feminist, affiliated with the Feminist Press. This program led me to numerous marginalized writers back in the early nineties that I likely would not have encountered so early on independently or simply from core English classes.

I cannot speak highly enough about the work that Women’s Studies program did. The short answer is that the program taught me to seek work by marginalized writers as I would be missing out on so much otherwise. I do not seek literature simply to reflect my own experiences—I seek to learn beyond them.

What groundbreaking (or ancient) works, forms, ideas and issues in poetry today interest and concern you?

There is no one work, and as such, I continue to read widely. There are so many books I have not read yet, which is thrilling. Some of my touchstones range from Cesar Vallejo to Leonora Carrington to Audre Lorde to James Baldwin to Lucille Clifton to Gertrude Stein to John Ashbery. There are numerous younger poets I look to for energy, shifts in consciousness and awareness of current cultural concerns and who also signal structural and formal changes. A handful include Billy-Rae Belcourt, Chen Chen, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Vievee Francis, Airea D. Matthews, Raquel Salas Rivera, TC Tolbert, Ocean Vuong and Phillip B. Williams—but this by no means is an exhaustive list. Check out the poets anthologized in the Bettering American Poetry series I am lucky enough to be a part of.

As a woman, and as a woman who writes, what do you need to support your work? What opportunities, support, policies and actions can/could make a direct difference for you—and for other women writers you know?

Besides the room, money and time Virginia Woolf called for, I’m beginning to find that a support network is vital. I don’t think this needs to be formal or a writing collaboration. I simply mean that it is encouraging to have regular check-ins with a small group of writers, as few as two even, where you discuss what you’re each working on, maybe share a small piece/excerpt, get feedback and discuss ideas.

It is often the idea exchange, even with just a friend on the phone, that I find generative. I find myself articulating ideas and vision in a way that is as revealing to myself as to my friend. I leave those conversations with ideas of where to head next with a poem or on what to research to build foundational ideas for a concept.

What’s next? What upcoming plans and projects excite you?

I’m outlining a memoir—fingers crossed—and writing poems. I may birth an essay down the road, but that is gestating for now. And volunteering time and support to a program called La Maison Baldwin Manuscript Mentors, a nonprofit arts and culture association that remembers and celebrates James Baldwin in Saint-Paul de Vence, to save James Baldwin’s house and turn it into a vital residency in France.

How has the current political climate in the U.S. affected you as a woman writer?

I am not so much shocked as often startled. I think we all knew white supremacy, colonialism and toxic masculinity were at the helm, but the built-in invisibilities kept them shrouded in respectability politics and notions of civility, and of course, that begs the question: Whose civility? I also don’t think we are in some unique moment of history where shocking things have taken hold and the end is nigh, but that is how it feels at times. Power and paradigm shifts are often premised on tectonic shifts, and folks have to finally step up, choose sides.

That seems key at the moment: one can no longer pretend to be above the fray. And that may be most painful for those of us with privilege. No one is outside anything after all.

TAGGED:

INTERVIEW

MS. MUSE

POETRY

MS. MAGAZINE FEATURE - CLICK HERE - HTTPS://MSMAGAZINE.COM/2019/02/28/MS-MUSE-AMY-KING-POWER-STORIES-WEIGHT-CURRENT-POLITICAL-MOMENT/

#poetry #ms. magazine #interivew

2 notes · View notes