#i just wanted a tangible record of every time he just straight up uses the word

[steinwayandhissons]

arctic monkeys and every time the word ‘love’ is mentioned

whatever people say I am that’s what I’m not

tonight there’ll be some love, tonight there’ll be a ruckus yeah regardless of what’s gone before

~ view from the afternoon

oh there ain’t no love, no montagues or capulets

~ i bet you look good on the dancefloor

all that’s left is the proof that love’s not only blind but deaf… yeah I’d love to tell you all my problem

~ fake tales of san francisco

she makes a subtle proposition, I’m sorry love I’ll have to turn you down

~ when the sun goes down

lady, where has your love gone, i was looking but can’t find it anywhere, they always offer when there’s loads of love around but when you’re short of some it’s nowhere to be found

~ no buses

well how can you wake up with someone you don’t love and not feel slightly phased by it

~ leave before the lights come on

favourite worst nightmare

it’s wrong wrong wrong but we’ll do it anyway cause we love a bit of trouble

~ balaclava

and those dreams weren’t as daft as they seem, aren’t as daft as they seem my love

~ fluorescent adolescent

there’s room for the trouble and there’s lovers to be had

~ this house is a circus

it’d be a big mistake for you to wait and let me waste your time, really love it’s fine, I said really love it’s fine

~ the bad thing

old yellow bricks, love’s a risk… houdini love you don’t know what you’re running away from

~ old yellow bricks

another roll around and another push and shove, further away from the idea of love

~ da frame 2r

the more you keep on looking the more it’s hard to take, love we’re in stalemate… you’re slacking love where have you been

~ the bakery

am I too quick to assume that the love is no longer in bloom

~ too much to ask

humbug

i had a hole in the pocket of my favourite coat and my love dropped into the lining

~ i haven’t got my strange

suck it and see

i wanna feel your love brick by brick

~ brick by brick

do you still feel love is a laserquest or do you take it all more seriously… when I’m not being honest I pretend that you were just some lover

~ love is a laserquest

your love is like a studded leather headlock

~ suck it and see

jealousy in technicolour, fear by name, love by numbers… crushing up a bundle of love

~ that’s where you’re wrong

before she showed you how to shake love’s steady hand

~ the blonde o sonic shimmer trap

your love’s not what I need, so don’t give it to me

~ evil twin

am

it’s not like I’m falling in love I just want you to do me no good… the look of love, the rush of blood

~ no.1 party anthem

love buckles under the strain of those wild nights

~ mad sounds

I heard that you fell in love, or near enough

~ snap out of it

love like locked horns, love like dominoes… love like thunder, love like falling snow

~ electricity

I know you’re nothing like mine cause she’s walking on sunshine and your love would tear us apart

~ you’re so dark

tranquility base hotel and casino

love came in a bottle with a twist off cap, let’s all have a swig and do a hot lap… but it’s alright, cause you love me

~ star treatment

when true love takes a grip it leaves you without a choice

~ golden trunks

pattern language in the mood for love

~ the world’s first ever monster truck front flip

I wanna stay with you my love, the way some science fiction does

~ science fiction

the dawn won’t stop weighing a tonne, I’ve done some things that I shouldn’t have done, but I haven’t stopped loving you once

~ the ultracheese

the car

lights out on the wonder park, your saw toothed lover boy was quick off the mark

~ jet skis on the moat

put your heavy metal to the test, there might be half a love song in it all for you

~ mr schwartz

#arctic monkeys #alex turner #listen this was purely out of curiosity #there are so many poetic and imaginative ways in which alex describes love #i just wanted a tangible record of every time he just straight up uses the word #i was surprised that humbug only had one mention and even that was a b side but when i was making this i realised that it was such a #lyrically dense and innovative album and descriptions of love were more elaborate and straightforward #*less straightforward #(might make a separate post about that) #also found that the other albums were quite consistent except the car #i found it interesting that most of the songs aren’t actually about the same kind of love like the earlier albums were #the earlier ones use love as a nickname and portray the physical embodiment of being in love #and even in tbhc it describes this feeling despite there being slightly fewer mentions #but the car seems more like a goodbye album… not even about breaking up… just goodbye which is very…. #there’s no room for love in amongst the melancholia and introspection #and makes me wonder about his relationship with love at the moment #it seems very disassociated and immaterial like he has no interest in spouting poetics about love like he did before #and i hope he can rebuild that relationship #i could probably say more but im not going to bc this is getting way too long #cheers if you actually read this whole fucking essay #i spent way too long on this if you cant tell

[theflyindutchwoman]

I'm a cop. I was standing this close to the guy. Okay? Right across from him, and I never saw him coming. But she did, though. She- Some part of her didn't feel right about this whole thing. She hesitated. And I-I pushed her right at him.

| ANATOMY OF A SCENE - CHENFORD EDITION 2.11 - Day of Death

This is such a small scene, easily overshadowed in an episode that is filled with so many great moments… But I love how it provides some insight into Tim's state of mind. He's usually so good at compartmentalising his feelings and emotions to focus on the job… unless it gets too personal, like with Isabel. Or here, when they realise that Lucy has been kidnapped… The way he's growing more desperate and agitated by the minute… He's feeling powerless and working the tip line is not helping at all. If anything, it frustrates him even more. Tim, at his core, is a man of action and this is particularly evident here, where he's itching to kick something. Anything. A sentiment that is all too reminiscent of the time he punched a wall after Isabel's overdose. He manages to rein it in a bit, but barely, thanks to Angela… She's trying so hard to be present for him, to be the voice of reason, but she's also going through her own issues. She can't hide her worry though. For Lucy, of course. And for Tim… It's hard to believe that seeing him like this wouldn't trigger some memories for her, of how he used to be after Isabel's disappearance. But most of all : she knows him. She knows he called her for more than just looking for Lucy, that something is weighing on his mind and that he needs to unburden himself.

The guilt he's feeling is so palpable, so tangible when he's remembering and retelling his last moments with Lucy. The cracks in his voice… The tears in his eyes… It's eating at him. The way he's rewriting history too, feels so real and authentic : guilt can make you reinterpret facts, question every little things you've said and done, and this is what he's doing here. He didn't necessarily push her towards Caleb : his advice to go out and have a drink or two with another human being was actually sound. And Lucy wasn't particularly hesitant either : the reason she wanted to go home was because she was exhausted after the day they had, not because she was suspicious. But that doesn't stop him from feeling responsible.

The way his voice breaks a little when he admits he never saw Caleb coming… I think that's the most unforgivable part for him. That he failed her, as a cop, as her TO, and as a friend. He drilled into her the importance of 'cop eyes', that her default mode should be suspicion… Only he didn't see anything that alarmed him (besides not liking the guy and acting a bit jealous). That's why he's beating himself up so hard : in his mind, he should have seen something… he should have prevented all of this… And what hurts him even more is that he firmly believes that he overrode her instincts. The very ones he helped her hone. He spent months testing her, teaching her to trust herself and stop second-guessing herself. To be more confident. That was the whole point of her Plain Clothes Day. That's what makes it worse for him : that she valued his own opinion over hers and that led to her kidnapping. And that's why it will be so important for Lucy to set the record straight later… why he will be so touched that despite everything, his opinion is the one that matters to her the most. That she never blamed him.

And lastly, it says absolutely everything that Tim's behaviour in this episode has been paralleled later by Wesley and Angela, a married couple. Tim went feral and threatened to pull a guy inside out if he didn't give him an information that could lead to Lucy while Wesley promised to have a guy tortured if he harmed Angela… And here, Tim wanted to kick some doors, refusing to just sit there and do nothing, which is pretty much what Angela said to the Feds when Wesley was taken hostage… It was always more than 'just' guilt driving him...

#the rookie #chenford #chenfordedit #lucy chen #tim bradford #angela lopez #2.11 #The rookie Feds : 1.08 #Anatomy of a scene - Chenford Edition

[nofoodclub]

I was careful on my wording for my manifestations bc technically i am sleeping with j right now lol not that i don't enjoy this i did very precisely say i wanted to fuck, do the sex, or really and kind of close physical intimacy… anything like that could come next we will see…aside from dragging him to the bed or straight up asking for it idk how to make it happen it took us months to get to it the first time who kiss l knows how much the both of us will shy away from initiating round 2…theoretically it should be less awkward the 2nd time but that would be true if the last month or so didn't happen the way it did… neither of us wanted it to play out like that but it did and now we are here so gotta figure out how to make the best of it….i really would like the best of it and for things to not quietly fixzle out… we could have lots of good times and funs just gotta get past step one and get it going… that'll be the hard part but i belive in us. Wow last night was the first night in almost a week i didn't fuck anyone we better get to it quick before i lose my streak 6 nights 3 partners was a whole new kind of deal for me or can go on record as my slutty week lol i don't want it to be over it was quite fun and there's still the 4th partner that I'm missing and he's the most important one…. and he's right across the room from me but unfortunately fully clothed and no cues as to things moving in that direction other than the tangible level of awkward or sexual tensions between us earlier…i just gotta keep being patient it'll play out the way it should and in my eyes it should play out in a very fun and happy way that involves sucking of his dick then letting that slide on in me and building on the feelings i has from when he sent me the text saying good girl bc wow two words one text and it got me so fucking worked up nothing has hit me at that intense of a level it was a straight 0-100 in 2 seconds i need more of that i need him to fully be my dom and fuck me the way I've been waiting for. There were nods to it the first time but we were feeling eachother out and getting lost in the intimacy of the occasion it was probably some of the most passionate sex I've had more so than with r bc wow the feels i already have for this guy, they're a lot and I'm all for it i want every part of it every day from here on please and thank you. Still loving my free pass to stare at his lovely face all i want its very nice i and l want this to last forever but i would also really like him to wake up so we can have all the funs…. leaning more to the side of he should wake up all that talk has me pretty horny atm and there's the prefect person to take care of my needs laying right in front of me how lucky

Very thankful for the sunlight coming in now… giving me a nice look at his lovely face that i haven't seen for like an hour since i shut off the lights… here's the first time I'll say this…. thanks sun for coming out at 6 am

Oh goodness lil pup is snuggling her daddy its so fucking cute i want to be a part of those cuddles so bad theyre adorable had to take a picture of the cute bc ohmygod i cant hope he never sees all the pics ive taken of him sleeping lol theres a few…

He has stirred….for a momenf, repositioned now nkt really alseep i sense waking will be a thing shortly. At least i hope it will be sleep is nkt a thing for me st the momenf. Maybe a nap this afternoon

Out of curiosity just confirmed the date and tomorrow will mark one month since we did the do…hmm would be fitting for it to happen today, that is if he ever fucking gets up uhg im bored and i wana bone there is a beautiful man only a few feet away from me and all of his clothes are securely on with no removal even hinted at how sad….but really tho i am incredibly physically attracted to him…and emotionally and any other type of attraction there is im sure im feeling it for him but ive resigned myself to know that theres next to no chance of it going anywhere past maybe a few more casual hookups due to current/permanent obstacles that wont allow for anything closer. But still i would love to feel him that close to me again. It felt right….more so than really any of my other encounters have felt. And i fucking wanted it. Thats what im missing a lot of the time, i go for easy targets because i know i wont fail but then i loose interest very quickly amd by the time we get to sex im kinda over it but still horny enough that i still want to fuck just all of the excitement is gone for me. That was not the case with him….probably what is keeping me so stuck on him is the ati wanting him, the challenge is still there, its still a conquest for me and theres still the possibility of failing meaning if it works, ive won the prize and its a pretty darn good prize too. If only my prize would wake up!!!

[dickwheelie]

3, jm? :o

#3 - writing a love letter but keeping it to themselves

cheesed the prompt a little bit but it still kinda works!

_____________

The train rattled and Jon's pen slid across the notebook page, slicing his last sentence in two. Growling in frustration, he carefully drew two straight, deliberate lines through the words, and wrote them again. As a rule he liked to keep his writing neat and even, and this letter in particular he wanted to look nice, despite the inconvenient spot he was in.

He hadn't had much of a choice. The idea to write the letter had come to him while they were all standing on the platform back in London, and he knew there'd be no time once they arrived at Great Yarmouth. Besides, though the train was loud and shaky it was a night train, and the others were fast asleep in their seats, giving Jon the privacy he needed to really think about what he wanted to say to Martin.

Because, of course, the letter was for Martin. He was trying to use it to say everything he hadn't known how to say these past few months, things that Martin deserved to hear. Things he'd intended on telling Martin once they got back--because they would be getting back, Jon wouldn't entertain the alternative--but his mind had kept turning the words over and over in his head, not letting him alone, and so he'd put pen to paper at the first opportunity. He wanted to make the words tangible, real things, that he could show to Martin and make him understand.

As he finished up the last sentence, Jon turned back to the previous page in his notebook and read the letter through.

Martin--

I'm sure I gave you this to read and then walked away, probably said I was going to wait in my office or something. As I write this I'm promising myself I'm going to do that. But knowing me, I'm probably waiting right outside the door to hear your reaction. So feel free to stay as quiet as possible to give future me a hard time. He probably deserves it.

I know this isn't the normal way of going about this sort of thing, but . . . well, why start now? Our track record with normal hasn't exactly been consistent.

I suppose this letter is a confession, of sorts. Though it hardly feels like one; I feel like most of these things I'm about to write are things you already know. But I'm not sure, and that's the point of it, because these are things you should know. They're things I probably should have told you already, to be completely honest.

First thing is that I never properly thanked you for helping me after I got back from my little month-long "vacation." To be honest a lot of that time is a blur, but I do remember you offering me a place to stay, and helping me stock back up on groceries, and just being there. You didn't need to do any of that, so, thank you.

And thank you for believing me. About Leitner, about Nikola, about all of it. I know it's a bit very hypocritical of me to say that I was afraid you wouldn't believe me, but you did. You always have. Except when what I'm saying is bullshit, which, thank you for calling me out on that, too.

Second thing is that I'm sorry. For . . . everything, pretty much. For treating you the way I did, for not trusting you, for just generally being an arse and a stubborn idiot. For getting you involved in this mess--Prentiss, the Unknowing, all of it. I know an apology doesn't fix anything, but you deserve at least that much.

I won't apologize for not bringing you with us, though. It's not safe, where we're going. I suppose it's not safe where you are, either, but it's safer, at least. If Elias wanted to kill any of us he'd have done it by now. Which, now that I'm reading that back, I'm realizing it's not actually very comforting.

It doesn't matter anyway. If you're reading this, it means you're okay, that I'm okay. That we saved the world.

As I write this I really, really hope that that's how it works out. Because I need you to be okay, Martin. I need you to be okay and I need to be back with you. I care about you, a lot, and I need you to know that.

While I was in America I was miserable. Nothing was familiar and I constantly felt like I was being followed and I had nothing to do all day but chase imaginary leads that ultimately led me right back to my own front door. But I always looked forward to your calls. Talking to you was always the best part of my day. I kept counting out the time difference trying to anticipate when you'd be awake. I planned my days around those calls. And at first I thought it was just that you were a familiar voice, a port in a storm, that it could have been anyone. But then I realized no, it was just you, I liked talking to you and I wanted to talk to you more, and I missed you when we had to hang up. Hearing your voice made me smile, every time. I kept thinking about your tea.

That was when I knew.

And when I came back, you were there. You were happy to see me. At least I think you were--I don't want to assume. But I know I was so, so happy to see you, Martin. I should have told you then, but I was scared. I didn't want to come on too strong. I didn't want to ruin any of it.

But, well, now the world is ending, or it didn't end, and I want you to know how I feel. So the third thing is that I'd like to have dinner with you sometime. And when I say that I mean somewhere nice with a wine selection, not in document storage with day-old tuna sandwiches. Though that evening wasn't half-bad, either. I'd like to go out with you, on a date, and yes, this is how I'm asking you. Remember what I said about normal.

You're wonderful, Martin, and just because it took me too long to realize that doesn't make it any less true. You're clever, and kind, and strong--I'm envious of how strong you are. I like your smile, and your jumpers, and your tea. I really like your tea. I'm withholding all opinions regarding poetry as I am not an authority on the subject. But the point is I like you, Martin, a lot. You matter very, very much to me.

I just don't want to wait any longer. I'm tired of being careful, I'm tired of biting my tongue, I'm tired of not being with you. I'm tired of everything, really, but I'm especially tired of that.

You don't have to answer right away, of course. Please, I don't want to pressure you, you can tell me no or yes or nothing at all, I won't ask. Although if I am waiting just outside the door right now, I'm probably going to give you a very persistent look when you leave, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Fondly yours,

Jon

Jon read through the letter three more times. He still wasn't entirely happy with it, but it was late, and despite the adrenaline that had gotten him through the day his eyelids were drooping now. Before he could fall asleep on his notebook, he wrote out one last line:

P.S.: Apologies for how messy this is--I wrote it on the train. Couldn't wait to get it all down.

Carefully, following the perforated lines, he tore out the pages, folded them neatly into thirds, and slipped them into his coat pocket. He'd give them to Martin as soon as he got back, he decided as he leaned back in his seat. Lulled by the steady rocking of the train, Jon thought of what Martin's excited yes might sound like, what it would feel like to hold his hand over a candlelit table, and perhaps even what it might be like to press a kiss to his cheek, and though he knew he would wake with the train arriving at its inevitable destination, these thoughts carried him off to sleep with more comfort than he'd felt in a long time.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #gwyneth writes #thank u for the prompt sahar!!

[purrincess-chat]

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s Spite Playlist: Remix CH20

The battle in this chapter has a lot of references. Can you name all of them? ;) You can see our new heroine’s design here!

Previous     First     Next    AO3

-------------------------

Chapter 20: my tears ricochet

“Is everything okay, Marinette?” Tikki poked her head out of Marinette’s shirt collar.

The subway station was quiet save for a few other waiting passengers, too absorbed in their phones to notice the girl talking to her small magical friend. Marinette took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, “I just can’t believe it’s finally over.”

“Don’t you think it’s wrong to seek revenge? What if Lila gets akumatized again because Ladybug exposed her?” Tikki asked with a worried frown.

“Normally, I’d say yes, but it’s about time someone set the record straight,” Marinette said as the subway car pulled up. “Look, I won’t talk about it ever again as Ladybug or Marinette. It’s over now. We’ll just stay on the lookout for the next few days.”

Tikki sank back into Marinette’s shirt without another word, though her frown persisted. Taking a seat on the train, Marinette leaned her head back with a sigh. It had been nearly a month since Marinette changed schools, and she’d done her best to put the past behind her. From the moment she left, she didn’t want anything to do with Lila, but it was too late to take back the interview now. The truth was finally out there, and it was unlikely that Lila would be able to lie her way out of this one. Everyone was free.

When the train arrived at her stop, Marinette followed the crowd of people and pushed the whole ordeal from her mind. What was done was done, and Lila had no power over her anymore. Marinette had often wondered what this day would feel like. Truthfully, it wasn’t as relieving as she thought it would be. Maybe removing herself from the situation lessened the impact, but Marinette felt nothing but apathy. A small part of her was glad to be done with it, but the majority of her just didn’t care about Lila anymore. She’d made new friends, and she was in the process of making one more.

Gabrielle averted her gaze when Marinette entered the café, just like she always did. Marinette had programmed Gabrielle’s work schedule into her calendar, and she’d been making it a point to stop by when she could. Although Gabrielle tried to hide it, Marinette could tell that she was happy to see her.

“Does this count as harassment?” Gabrielle asked, setting Marinette’s usual order on the table.

“Only if you want me to stop,” Marinette said.

Gabrielle rolled her eyes and smiled. “You’re such a dork. No wonder I used to pick on you.”

“That’s not a no,” Marinette said pointedly.

“You’re so annoying,” Gabrielle sighed, stalking back to the counter.

Marinette bit back a smile, retrieving her sketchbook from her bag while Gabrielle tended to other customers. The café was cozy and secluded enough that Marinette could work freely while also keeping an eye on Gabrielle. Her deadline was only a few days away, and she’d already taken time out to help Adrien.

Adrien…

He went behind her back to stop Lila. She’d been so touched in the moment, that she agreed to help without really thinking. But he’d gone against everything he believed in for her. Not Ladybug, not Chloe, not even his best friend. For Marinette. How could she resist? The moment Adrien said he needed Ladybug, she couldn’t help herself. It was selfish, but if he called, she’d always come running. And as it turned out, Adrien was quietly doing the same for her all along. It was kind of romantic in a way.

But what did that make them? Were they dating? Neither one of them had confessed their true feelings, but it was obvious they both really cared for one another. Adrien wouldn’t have teamed up with Chloe if he didn’t feel something for Marinette. Being mean wasn’t in Adrien’s nature—it was one of the many things she loved about him. He had to be in love with her now. There was no other explanation.

Marinette pressed her lips together, tracing hearts along the edges of her sketch. She would tell Adrien how she felt after her presentation with Clara. No chickening out this time. Just her honest feelings and hopefully Adrien’s soft lips and silky golden hair, the intoxicating scent of his cologne, and those strong arms wrapping around her-

“What’s that for?” Gabrielle snapped Marinette from her trance, replacing the cold cup Marinette had long forgotten about with a fresh one.

“Oh, uh, just some designs I’ve been playing with,” Marinette said. “Actually, will you tell me what you think?”

Gabrielle quirked a brow, spinning the sketchbook around to get a better look while Marinette sipped her coffee. She’d narrowed it down to three sketches, and Gabrielle studied them thoughtfully.

“I think the skirt on this one could puff out more, and I think this one would look better if you made it slouch off the shoulder,” Gabrielle said, “but that’s just my opinion.”

“No, that’s really helpful. Thank you.” Marinette smiled.  

Gabrielle shifted her weight and mumbled, “Your designs are really good.”

Marinette beamed, but before she could reply, a loud boom shook the café, knocking over cabinets and cups. Gabrielle and Marinette rushed outside to find the source as several passing people ran away from the scene.

“Lila,” Marinette murmured under her breath.

“What?” Gabrielle turned to her.

“I said it must be an akuma,” she said quickly. “We should probably evacuate.”

“As if my boss will let me leave. This place could burn down, and he’d still expect me to show up and sweep the ashes.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “You go.”

Another crash rattled the street, shattering the windows of every parked car along the block. Marinette shielded her face from the debris, Gabrielle taking a defensive stance in front of her. Locking eyes with the villain, Marinette’s blood ran cold.

Lila hadn’t been the one to get akumatized, but the girl staring back at her was all too familiar. Her suit was red and black with spots resembling Ladybug’s on the bodice. Long red hair was tied back into a ponytail, once hazel eyes now scarlet. Her ex-best friend looked at her with utter disdain.

“You…” Her eyes narrowed.

“Alya?” Marinette gasped.

“You two know each other?” Gabrielle quirked a brow.

“She and I used to be…” Marinette lowered her gaze.

“Used to be what, Marinette? Bffs?” The akuma snarled. “Or maybe you’d like to forget that!”

With a swipe of her phone, a purple beam shot toward them. Gabrielle tackled Marinette to the ground, avoiding the blast by an inch. Gabrielle’s manager came out to see what the fuss was about, and the beam engulfed him. He blinked a few times, looking around at the café in confusion.

“Where am I? Better yet, who am I?” he groaned.

Gabrielle pushed Marinette away, eyes wide. “Run!”

“What about yo-”

“Just go!” Gabrielle shouted.

“Oh, she’s not going anywhere.” The akuma swiped her phone screen again, pointing it up to the sky. Storm clouds materialized, and large chunks of hail rained down. “I’m not your bff anymore, Marinette. My name is Ladyblogger, and I can use any power I want! I’m going to expose the truth to everyone once and for all!”

Gabrielle grabbed the coffee pot from her manager and hurled it at Ladyblogger. She took Marinette’s hand, and the two raced up the street.

“This way!” Gabrielle ducked into an alley. She lead Marinette through a private courtyard, down another side street, and across to another alley before stopping. “Take this street, and you should be able to make it home from there.”

“Where will you go?” Marinette asked.

“I should get back to the café. I doubt my manager’s amnesia will last long. You should get somewhere safe.” She shoved Marinette on, heading back in the direction they came.

“Gabrielle?” Marinette called, and she turned over her shoulder. “Thanks. You saved me.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “Now go!”

Marinette bit back a smile as she raced up the alley. Her suit materialized before she made it to the other end, and she tossed her yoyo into the rooftops. Any warmth she’d felt from Gabrielle’s selflessness faded the moment Ladybug touched down on the scene. Chat Noir arrived at the same time she did.

“Looks like the ‘heroes’ decided to show up,” Ladyblogger said with air quotes. “Or should I even call you that anymore? The only people you seem to protect these days are ones with egos the size of monuments!”

“Alya, listen to me! Lila is manipulating you,” Ladybug said.

“You’re one to talk about manipulation. How’s your bff Chloe these days? Or is it actually Marinette?” Ladyblogger shot another beam from her phone, but Chat Noir and Ladybug dodged. The attack hit Gabrielle’s manager again, snapping out of his confusion only to be transformed into a Ladyblogger look alike.

“Wow, for a journalist, you seem to have a hard time swallowing the truth,” Chat Noir said.  

Ladyblogger swiped blasts from her screen, and Ladybug and Chat Noir dodged between them, charging in to strike. Chat Noir’s staff phased through Ladyblogger, and he stumbled several paces before regaining his balance. She smirked at him, lifting her finger from the screen and regaining tangibility just in time for Ladybug to land a hit.

The two grappled, dodging each other’s swipes and jabs. Ladyblogger phased in and out of tangibility, striking Ladybug with purposeful blows. When Ladybug finally landed a hit, Ladyblogger simply smiled. Her aura glowed, and she took Ladybug’s wrist, tossing her effortlessly into her partner across the street.

They rolled across the pavement, limbs tangling around each other. Chat Noir immediately helped her to her feet, dusting himself off. “Okay, is it just me, or are her powers super random?”

“I don’t think they are,” Ladybug said. “She’s using abilities we’ve fought before. I think she’s using powers from old akumas.”

“Not just akumas.” Ladyblogger corrected, tapping her screen. “Cataclysm!”

She charged at them, fist glowing with black energy. Ladybug and Chat Noir jumped out of the way, and Ladyblogger swiped the streetlamp, reducing it to a pile of ash.

“Okay, so you can copy our powers too,” Chat Noir said.

Ladybug’s eyes narrowed on Ladyblogger’s screen, an inverted version of her blog theme with icons for each power available to her. “Her blog!” she gasped. “She can use powers of anyone—hero or villain—that she’s reported about on her blog!”

“You always were a smart one,” Ladyblogger said. “So, how come you can’t see through all of the lies people keep feeding you?”

“She’s not the one that needs to open her eyes.” Chat Noir shot back.

Ladyblogger summoned another Cataclysm, punching the ground and sending a shockwave rippling up the street. Ladybug and Chat Noir jumped up to the roof to avoid it.

“Got a plan?” Chat Noir asked.

“Lucky Charm!” Ladybug summoned, and a deck of playing cards materialized.

“Up for a riveting game of poker? We can wager our Miraculouses for her akuma,” Chat smarmed.

“No…” Ladybug studied the logo on the box. “I have to go. Maybe you can annoy her to death with your jokes before I get back.”

“Purrhaps she’ll be a better sport than you.” Chat Noir winked. “Just don’t keep me waiting too long. Even this cat will run out of jokes eventually.”

Ladybug flicked his bell before racing off. Ladyblogger could mimic the power of anyone so long as she’d written about them on her blog, so Ladybug needed a power she hadn’t seen before.

“Master!” Marinette burst through the door. “Chat Noir and I are fighting an akuma, and I need to borrow a Miraculous.”

Master Fu set aside his book. “Then let’s not waste any time.”

He retrieved the Miracle Box from its hiding place and presented it to her. Marinette surveyed her options carefully. The mouse could work, but she wasn’t sure it was the one they needed. Then there was the monkey, but that could confuse things even more. She needed something stealthy. Something like…

“Do you have someone in mind?” Master Fu asked as she grabbed the tiger gauntlet.

“I think I just might.”

♪♫♪ Bad Blood ♪♫♪

Ladybug found Gabrielle sweeping broken glass outside the café. The street was quiet and long since evacuated. Chat Noir and Ladyblogger relocated to the Trocadero, but Gabrielle stayed behind, waiting for everything to go back to normal. She quirked a brow when Ladybug approached.

“I’m going to assume since I’m still here sweeping glass that you haven’t defeated the akuma?” she asked.

“Not yet.” Ladybug admitted. “I need a little help. Think you’re up for it?”

“Why do you need my help? Don’t you have a passel of super-freaks on speed dial?” Gabrielle grunted, returning to her sweeping.

“I do, but… how would you like to be one of them?” Ladybug offered, and Gabrielle froze.

“For real?” she asked, eyes glinting with intrigue that extinguished just as quickly as it lit. “Why me?”

“Didn’t you watch my interview earlier?” Ladybug cocked a hip. “I’m always looking for new partners, and I saw how you helped your friend earlier.”

“We’re not really friends,” Gabrielle said, but when Ladybug gave her a disbelieving smirk, she sighed. “Okay, fine. She’s annoying, but whatever, I guess she’s my friend. I just don’t see how that has anything to do with me becoming a superhero. You obviously don’t know me very well, but let’s just say I’m not exactly the hero type.”

“Don’t you want to be?” Ladybug asked, and when Gabrielle averted her gaze, she added, “Look, I didn’t think I was superhero material at first either, but being Ladybug helped me realize I’m more capable than I think. You have an opportunity to do something good. Isn’t that what you want?”

Gabrielle lowered her gaze, tapping her nails against the wooden handle. Pressing her lips together, she squared her shoulders and let the broom fall to the ground.

“Gabrielle Burton, this is the Miraculous of the Tiger, which grants you the power of invisibility. You will use it to fight for the greater good.” Ladybug recited, presenting her with a small box. “Once the battle is over, you will return it to me. Can I trust you?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes and took the box, barely flinching when Roarr manifested.

“Hello there! My name is Roarr, and I’m a-”

“We don’t have time for that. My job doesn’t pay me enough to fight supervillains, so let’s just get this over with.” Gabrielle cut him off. “Now, how does this thing work?”

Ladybug flashed him an apologetic grin, and he flicked his tail. “To transform, all you have to do is say ‘Roarr, transform me,’” he said without any fanfare.

“Cool.” Gabrielle slipped on the gauntlet. “Roarr, transform me!”

Gabrielle caught on quick, following behind Ladybug without need for explanation. If Marinette had learned anything about Gabrielle, it was that she was straightforward and to the point. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that she was guarded around Ladybug. Marinette was still breaking through some of those walls herself, but she truly believed that Gabrielle could be a good hero if she tried.

When they arrived at the Trocadero, Gabrielle cracked her whip before Ladyblogger could ready another attack. Seeing Ladybug with a new ally must have struck a nerve because Ladyblogger let out a frustrated growl. Chat Noir rushed in but slammed into an invisible wall. Ladyblogger tugged an invisible cell door shut with a smile, but Gabrielle didn’t leave her much time to gloat.

“Who’s the new pet?” Ladyblogger called. She and Gabrielle sparred while Ladybug checked on Chat Noir.

“Obviously, someone she trusts more than you.” Gabrielle retorted. They locked hands, glaring each other down.

“It seems that Ladybug is employing a lot of mean girls, these days. Falling on hard times?” Ladyblogger grunted, hiking a leg to knee Gabrielle in the gut. “You must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Looks like your little tigress needs some more training.”

Ladyblogger struck again, but Gabrielle caught her wrist, redirecting her down the stairs. As Ladyblogger stumbled to the bottom, Gabrielle cocked a hip.

“Tigress, I kind of like that. I think I’ll keep it,” she said.

Ladyblogger scrambled to her feet as Ladybug and Chat Noir flanked Tigress. Her attention turned to the news station helicopter hovering over the Trocadero to catch all of the action.

“Let’s see if the rookie is really up to snuff,” Ladyblogger said, tapping her screen again. “Venom!”

“No!” Ladybug shouted.

Ladyblogger jumped, clearing the distance to the helicopter easily. With a light tap, the pilot froze in place, and Ladyblogger hopped out the other side as the plane spiraled into a tailspin.

“Chat Noir, Tigress, get everyone out!” Ladybug ordered.

Her partners sprang into action while Ladybug hooked her yoyo around the streetlamps. Tigress took care of Nadja while Chat Noir carried the pilot and cameraman. They got out just as the helicopter landed in Ladybug’s net. Her feet skidded against the concrete, bearing the weight of the aircraft as she gently lowered it to the ground.

“Hey, Bugheads! Ladyblogger here, and do I have the scoop for you!” A large camera broadcast their efforts to every screen in Paris, and Ladyblogger watched in amusement. “Always playing the hero, but only for those she deems worthy of saving. Hasn’t anyone ever wondered if the girl under the mask is really as nice as we all think?”

“Thanks, Ladybug,” Nadja said as Tigress set her down.

“Get somewhere safe,” Ladybug ordered.

The pilot groaned and rubbed his head, free from Venom’s sting. Ladybug eyed him with a pensive frown as the reporting crew scrambled to safety.

“Any ideas?” Chat Noir asked.

“Forming one,” Ladybug replied. “It looks like she can only use one power at a time, so when she switches to a new one, the effects of the old one wear off—like closing an app on a phone.”

“Okay, so what does that mean for us?” Tigress crossed her arms over her chest.

“It means we have to keep her moving,” Ladybug said, palming her yoyo. “Lucky charm!”

A catcher’s mitt landed in her hands, and Chat Noir quirked a brow.

“Great, so we can invite her to play catch,” he said.

Ladybug glanced around singling in on Tigress, Chat Noir’s staff, and her glove. A smile broke over her lips. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do, but we’re going to do it my way. Chat Noir, you and I are going to keep Ladyblogger busy while Tigress sneaks in.”

Chat Noir nodded without a second thought, but Tigress shot Ladybug a skeptical look. “Are you sure this is gonna work?”

“This isn’t even her most convoluted plan.” Chat Noir shrugged.

“And now the superheroine has summoned her last resort. I think it’s time everyone learned the truth about Paris’s savior. Coming up next, we’re going to take her Miraculous and find out what kind of person is hiding behind the mask! Stay connected, Bugheads.” Ladyblogger ended her broadcast and swiped to a new power. “Let’s see which one of us has more luck, Ladybug. Lucky Charm!”

Ladyblogger caught the rocket launcher with a sinister laugh, taking aim at the band of heroes. When she pulled the trigger, they dispersed, splitting up in three different directions.

“Camouflage!” Tigress whispered.

Ladybug and Chat Noir wasted no time drawing Ladyblogger’s attention, dodging past missiles as they closed in. They took turns taking jabs and kicks, and with closer proximity, Ladyblogger abandoned her weapon in favor of a different power. Light beams shot from her screen with each swipe of her fingers, transforming streetlamps and benches into hard black lumps.

“Coal? But I’ve been so good this year!” Chat Noir taunted.

“I used to think you two were so great, but now I see you for who you really are! You’re not heroes, you’re just two little kids playing dress-up for attention,” Ladyblogger said.

“You know what? You’re right,” Ladybug said. “Just keep all of your attention on us.”

“It shouldn’t be hard. I am pretty good-looking.” Chat Noir flexed his biceps.

Ladyblogger’s eyes narrowed, but before she could make her next move, her arms pinned to her sides. An invisible force wrestled her to the ground, kicking her phone from her grasp in a direct pitch to Chat Noir.

Tigress materialized on top of her, pulling her whip tight. “Looks like Hawkmoth should have trained you a little more,” she said.

“Batter up!” Chat Noir called, swinging his baton.

Ladybug caught the phone in her mitt easily and stomped it under her foot, releasing the black butterfly from inside.

“No more evil-doing for you, little akuma. Looks like she struck out.”

Tigress stood up as Ladybug’s magic healed the city. When Alya came to, Ladybug crouched beside her, presenting her repaired phone.

“I know you’re hurt and confused, but I promise that everything I said earlier is true,” Ladybug said. “You’re a smart girl, Alya. The truth is right in front of you if you look for it.”

Alya searched her expression, lips pressing into a firm line. “Why should I believe you?”

“Seriously? After everything Ladybug has done for this city, you’re going to blow her off just like that? Some journalist you are,” Tigress grunted, flipping her braid over one shoulder.

“Tigress-”

Alya’s jaw clenched. She snatched her phone from Ladybug’s grasp and stood up. “So these are the kind of people you replace real heroes with? I thought one drama queen was a coincidence, but I’m starting to think you just have a type,” she said. “You’re right. I am smart—smart enough to see when someone isn’t who they say they are. So from now on, I’m no longer your fan, Ladybug, and I’m going to expose the truth to everyone!”

Tigress averted her gaze as Alya stormed off. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s okay,” Ladybug said. Her heart sank watching Alya walk away from her for the second time. “She already made up her mind.”

♪♫♪ Far From Heaven ♪♫♪

“You okay, Al?”

Alya peeked at her boyfriend over the pillow she was hugging to her face, tears streaking her cheeks. Nino sat on the bed beside her, pulling her into his arms. Alya nestled into his neck and allowed his warmth to thaw the cold ache in her chest.

“I saw your blog post. Are you really done with Ladybug?” Nino asked.

Alya flicked her gaze to her phone resting on the bed, her latest post on the Ladyblog displayed on the screen. She might have gone too far with it, but she didn’t care. Ladybug wasn’t who Alya thought, and the world needed to know that their beloved heroine wasn’t so loving.

“After everything I’ve done for her, all the time I spent proving to her how trustworthy I was, and she just replaced me without even saying anything. Then she’s out there being best buddies with Chloe?” Alya’s voice cracked. “How could she do that?”

Nino pursed his lips, and Alya leaned her cheek against his chest, breathing him in. She didn’t blame him for not having an answer because neither did she. In only a few weeks, her entire world had been flipped on its head. Losing Marinette had hurt enough, but now she couldn’t even believe in the people she revered most. Were all superheroes just pretending to be nice? Or did they all have a Chloe Bourgeois behind the scenes pulling the strings? And what was Marinette’s role in all of this? Was all of it really her fault? Alya didn’t know what to believe now.

“Maybe you should take some time away from your blog. I think it might be good to put some distance between you for a while.” Nino suggested, kissing her temple. “At least while you’re hurting, I don’t think it’s healthy for you to be around all that. Take some time to clear your head.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…” Alya picked up her phone, thumb lingering over the home button, but she couldn’t bring herself to press it.

Nino was right. Her obsession with heroes wasn’t healthy. How many times had she put herself in danger capturing footage for her blog, and for what? Ladybug clearly didn’t care, so why should Alya? A break wasn’t what she needed. If she came back, it would just be more of the same. What Alya truly needed was to walk away. To shut the door and never look back. Maybe then she could find something worth believing in.

“Al?”

Alya bit her lip, thoughts racing. Before she could change her mind, she hit delete, erasing months of hard work in an instant. Countless late nights, dangerous battles collecting footage, all of her hopes and dreams and theories gone at the touch of a button. Ladybug didn’t trust her anymore, and now the feeling was mutual.

#mdcspr #mdcsp #marinette dupain-cheng's spite playlist #marinette dupain-cheng's spite playlist remix #my writing

[dallonm-archive]

REVELATIONS, REVELATIONS | UPDATE #1

Hello y’all! I refuse to believe it’s been 3 and a half months since I last made an update post for this novel because time is not real :) whoops! This has actually been sat in my drafts for like a month though 

A rundown of things that happened: 

We have a new title! I already went into the meta and possible interpretations (it’s ~ambiguous~), so if you want you can read about that HERE.

I did 3 weeks of Nano and wrote 15k words! On the site I recorded 15053 but I think it was more 15.5k? I’ve edited the original doc now so idk but I’m v happy with that!

After that I took a break and a lot of Life Things happened re a certain pandemic that is taking :) all my motivation :) so I didn’t return to drafting until January. I also really struggled to progress with the story and decided the best thing was to revisit what I already had and work on that

It’s not that the original chapters weren’t working, I was just trying to understand the story for the first time and also Nano was such a hazy blur and I’m 99% sure November didn’t happen. I probably won’t revisit a section this intensely again until I’ve finished the draft but at this stage it really helped because the more I worked on it, the more I understood where it had to go next - I know the structure (for now), the basics for the middle and how the story ends :) hehe :) and I don’t think I’d had those revelations (aha) without revisiting this first part. I got to fall in love with the story all over again and I’m very happy with where it’s going!

This intro is already getting so long so I’m just going to jump straight into it because this update is LONG. I’m talking about all the chapters today even though not all of them are new, but since I’ve learnt a lot about them and this is officially update #1 post-nano, it makes sense to talk about all of them! I’m also going to do a new taglist because I see this as a new set of updates also I am awful at keeping up with taglists so! I’m just tagging friends who have already expressed interest + mutuals who I’m like 99% sure want to stay on so! please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed! 

@kowlazovdi​ @isherwoodj​ @avi-burton-writing​ @pamsdrabbles​ @ryns-ramblings​ @kitblogsthings​ @svpphicwrites​ @aetherwrites​ @radiomacbeth​ @bijouxs​ @writerlywonders​ @haldimilks​ @alicewestwater​ @piyawrites​ @coffeeandcalligraphy​ @shaelinwrites​

usual content warnings for religious trauma and cult discussion, specific CWs will come before excerpts!

So I’m currently working with four parts, and I’ve extended the timeline from one year to four years. This suits the story much better BUT pretty much everything here was written before that decision and I do not have the energy to restructure all of it right now :) Each part is split into two sections, one for each POV. So four parts, 8 sections, Felix and Dorothy get four sections each. I let the structure grow with the story but this one is working very well!

Also I started setting my pages to light green and it was LIFE CHANGING. Much kinder on the eyes and just looks so nice?? Calming?? This post is your sign to set your page colour to light green like LOOK

So we have a prologue now!! The story made a lot more sense once I added this because originally the information we learn was just shoehorned into Chapter 1 in a flashback when really we needed to know this information going into it. That being said I struggled with this for a bit just because to justify a prologue I need that information to be conveyed in a way that is completely unique to the rest of the narrative so I didn’t want to just write this as a flashback. I ended up writing it in 2nd person and it came out in a way where it’s not clear which twins POV it is? Like it’s more of a fusion of both of them where neither of them have their own individual identity beyond “the twins” yet. I can’t tell if this is my funky POV peak or a clarity nightmare but I like it! I want it to only be ~500 words so we can take the risk.

In this they’re fourteen and they do a “blood pact” as a way to symbolically cut themselves from their family (aka: their father) whilst they’re still tethered to it. I really love it because not only is it exactly what these slightly unhinged-but-havent-tapped-into-it-yet, co-dependent-and-dont-realise-it kids would do but it immediately brings up the question of family and what family actually is. I’ve also realised a huge idea in this story is the idea of the tangible and for them, the concept of family and blood isn’t tangible so they struggle to recognise its significance (not that it. has any for them in the first place.) but their relationship, seeing each other bleed and pressing the cuts together is. The writing itself is kinda wonky because of the whole funky clarity nightmare POV but here’s a little taste of the ending:

cw: blood

You’ll slink back into your family room to clean and plaster each other’s hands and you’ll ask yourselves: which bloodstains came from who? Who bled the most and who stopped first? Who will come up with the story for the cuts on your palms and who will dispose the bloodied towel? Who is Dorothy without Felix and who is Felix without Dorothy?

Shiny new first chapter! Originally this was in Dorothy’s POV but now it’s switched to Felix and instead of just showing their reunion (which turns out is....very anticlimactic and not appropriate for an opening lol??) we actually explore Felix’s thoughts an actions after he decides to escape the cult, which was a very impulsive decision and spans about a day and a half. This one is definitely gonna take a few drafts to get right because it’s such a delicate but intense event to write and I’m content with the fact that it’s not There Yet but the prose is! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and it really helped me get back into the swing of loving this story. There’s something very delicate about it but also very troubling under the surface. The opening gave me a lot of trouble, but the first line hits!

The day Felix decides to leave the sun glows the same, and the pine trees breathe the same, and the chapel cross stabs the sky the same. 

Ironically, a good chunk of the chapter happens outside the cult, as Felix decides to spend his final day taking Lola - a woman his age who is literally the only person he likes lmao - to one of the nearby towns. Whilst the main function of the chapter is to introduce the cult itself, it’s also to show how normalised leaving actually is - it’s just every time he’s left has been temporary, and every time he has left, he still feel separated from this “outside world”. They go to a candy store and a thrift store - where Felix lies about his mom (who he hasn’t seen in 20 years) being in hospital so he can use a phone :) Lola is a new character so I don’t have much to say on her, but all I can say is they are wlw and mlm solidarity but also she knows how to read him 

“I don’t know why Dotty and I loved this place so much - we always got  toothaches.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“These apple ones are nice, but I think the lime is my favourite. Do you think the apple or the lime is nicer?”

“I think you’re leaving, but I also think you’re scared, so you’re pretending that I’m going to leave with you and that’s why you wanted to go to town. You chose the candy shop because this is where you went the first time you left, but this time you’re not coming back. Does that scare you, Fel?”

And here is my favourite paragraph in the whole chapter because <3 what the fuck <3 and if pine trees are a key Felix symbol no they aren’t 👁️ yes they are

cw: falling out a window? pushing yourself out a window? description of bones breaking

The day Felix decides the leave, when the clouds bleed amber, he pushes the scratched mahogany dresser so it lines with the windowsill, lies on top and hangs his head out. It’s never comfortable, but it’s always peaceful: sometimes cars murmur on nearby backroads, sometimes a wind chime flutters, sometimes brush rabbits rustle in shrubbery and they all breathe the same oxygen as him. He closes his eyes, inhales the pine air, and plays God: pushes himself further out, an inch at a time, until his shoulders cross the line and he wonders what bones would break if he fell. Would he break both arms or one, both legs or one? Would he break his spine? Which vertebra would crack, and how many? Would he feel them all in one big strike, or all the individual bones burst like popping candy? Evening breeze whispers against his face and he could do it right now, leap out the window and if he didn’t break his legs or back he could run to the bushes, to the pine trees, to the road, the town over East or West, the county line.

If Felix hit the ground, would it be because of a freak fall, or because he pushed himself out?

We have to laugh because I’m pretty sure I said in my Nano update that this chapter was the strongest so far besides one scene but when I looked back that scene <3 took up 80% of the fucking chapter <3 So I just said fuck it I’ll rewrite the whole thing for fun!!!! And I love it!!! It’s so jarring compared to Chapter One and that’s the point!! Everything is so over saturated and originally that was just to convey the absolute shock Felix gets from the Major Impulsive Life Decision He Just Made, but now I think it’s intentional on his part and it goes back to the idea of the tangible: whilst he didn’t grow up totally isolated this is still a new life for him, and he has nothing to latch onto, so he looks to his surroundings and hyper-focuses and latches onto it because it’s something that’s now tangible and accessible to him so he sees it in this very bright, romanticised way (the romanticisation of San Francisco is very amusing to me but it’s also very relevant). But even with that he still distances himself from this environment still - the same way he did whilst living in the cult. He has no idea how he wants to exist in this world and he doesn’t even know how to exist yet.

And so it became clockwork: eyes burst open at two, three, four in morning, doesn’t bother trying to fall back to sleep. Lurk into the kitchen, make a coffee or water or whiskey. Sit under the fritzing lightbulb with no shade, think about everything and nothing and everything and nothing. Or go for a smoke, inhale the vapours until it hurts his chest, breathe in the cool air until it hurts his teeth, wander around the block until it hurts his feet. Sneak back into a room that doesn’t belong to him in an apartment that doesn’t belong to him in a city that doesn’t belong to him. Count the bumps in the popcorn ceiling until footsteps sneak down the hall – Dorothy leaving a room that doesn’t belong to her. Join his sister back at the kitchen, she complains that they need to replace the lightbulb. Over pulpy orange juice and scrambled eggs on toast, she retells her dream and lists the possible meanings and he lists his plans for that day on how to immerse in the outside world, familiarise himself with the city until it belongs to him. Travel by trolley for the first time, eat seafood at the waterfront for the first time. Bump into a cherry-headed conure parrot by chance. Climb Twin Peaks and gaze at the new view of home. Trace the outline of translucent mountains in the air and pretend you’ll ever hike them; trace the outline of high rises in the air and pretend you know the people in them. He asks Dorothy when he’ll stop feeling like a tourist – she has no answer for him.

(context: Dorothy’s roommate, Jolie, is out of town at this point, so Dorothy tells Felix to take her room whilst she takes Jolie’s and they’ll sort it out later. Dorothy has no problem sleeping in Jolie’s bed because her and Jolie are Very Good Friends)

I also realised that, in the nicest way possible to November me, that this chapter was so damn boring because it’s very dialogue heavy but in every dialogue moment they are literally just 🧍 doing nothing. So I wrote a scene as a half-joke of Just Met Like Three Hours Ago Beau and Felix going to the arcade and it saved this chapter. It is SO fun but it also comes straight after this very emotionally intense moment and it’s really interesting to see that reach its zenith and then just. fizzle out but linger in the background? I love this scene but I also can’t take it too seriously because they play Frogger and @aetherwrites​ joked that the game’s a metaphor for Felix leaving the cult and I love her and hate her because she is so right I can picture the LIT1000 seminar where that analysis would be made unironically and it’d be ME who makes it and I am so close to just running with that for real. Also these two aren’t love at first sight but the chemistry is so loud like did you two meet today or have you been married for eight years and own five dogs together what’s the truth? Anyway here’s Felix murdering Beau on sight 

“You know, you could’ve warned me that you’d be that good,” Beau says.

“It’s not that difficult, you could’ve warned me that you’d be that bad.”

Beau leans across to shuffle through cassette tapes in the glove compartment. “I’m not, you just got lucky. I let you win.”

“But it’s not even competitive. You just died seven times in a row.”

I’m a little unsure of the pacing for this chapter now because its effectiveness lies in the fact it takes place a week after the previous, and my job with this section post-draft is to stretch it out longer since it only spans three weeks. I’m hoping I can make it work where there’s little time between Chapter 1 & 2 but still cover more time in chapters 3-5 because I think that’d be jarring in the best way? Like the absolute intensity of that initial week quickly dissolving and suddenly he’s been living this life for months he didn’t notice go by. Again <3 a problem for post draft me <3

I don’t have much to say about this one because in Nano I didn’t even finish it, and now I have but it’s still <3 giving me trouble <3 - however I’ve realised this is probably the most important chapter at this stage of the novel because it’s the first full chapter with just the twins, trying to have a bonding moment and catch up but only learning that they a) love each other b) can’t stand each other whilst not realising just yet that they are c) extremely co-dependent. I like to call this novel multiple plot threads in a trench coat and that’s definitely it, the twins have their own individual plot threads separate to one another, but if there’s a central plot (and there kinda is?? its a surprise :) ) at its essence is them realising how fucked up their relationship is, but wanting to rectify that and trying to understand the difference between a tangled and toxic relationship. 

This chapter introduces that each character has a key symbol that’s attached to the world somehow and Felix has chapters like these in his arc where he tries to navigate the state of their relationship (so there’s one later on titled “Ocean (Beau)”) and his associations with them. We have to laugh here because I was really like “oh Dorothy is sapphic so I’ll make her obsessed with the moon” but then it became a major symbol in the story <3 Dorothy IS obsessed with the moon, and Felix is frustrated because he can’t see it the way she does and he feels like part of him is missing because of that, when it’s just a different perspective but nooo these two need to have unhealthy co-dependency and then get mad when they’re unhealthily co-dependent on each other :/ Anyway I’d just like to talk about how Felix’s need to be like his sister in this chapter is demonstrated through a symbol that’s attached way more to her than it is to him even though in the prose he describes the moon as this fragile, breakable thing which is the complete opposite as how Dorothy would and lets talk about the blade mirroring the prologue!!!!

He closed an eye and pointed the blade at the moon. If he could, it’d be so easy: surgeons precision, swift wrist flick, carved and plucked from the sky. Laid out on his palm like tissue paper, half translucent and as breakable as skin - a birthday present for Dorothy, if he doesn’t tear it. He’ll try not to, but it’d be so easy.

In further development of the Moon Imagery, I’ve started using a lot of Star Imagery with Felix and a lot of general space imagery in both of their POVs and I’m delighted to say I have no idea what the meta means with that but I like it!! It fits the story very well and they’re probably mirroring each other or something!

This little chapter taught me that I need to be flexible with form <3 this was originally meant to be the final scene of the last chapter, and I was so hyped because it was one of the first scenes I conceptualised, but then it ~sucked~. However I didn’t realise until recently that it sucked because I was writing it in a traditional storytelling form - which most of this book benefits from, but this moment certainly does! not! I’m really glad because I think this book is the perfect playground for experimental form - although here it’s relatively simple though, most of the setup for this happens at the end of the previous chapter and then this is just all the information condensed as much as possible. This chapter is focused on memories so it really works for it to be cut off from the previous which is in the fictive present, and Felix’s perception of memories right now are ~a little jarring~

The final scene of Moon (Dotty) depicts Felix and Dorothy breaking into a park at 4am, promptly having an argument that results in Dorothy leaving, and Felix sat next to a fountain picking pennies out of it and trying to associate a memory with the year on the back - this chapter is those memories and this introduces the fluid relationship characters have with their past. For Felix, he’s seeing the last 20+ years from a bird eyes view in a very sporadic way and it’s starting to sink in that those 20+ years actually Happened. Some of the memories are very distanced, others are as intense as flashbacks, and some are a mixture of the two. This one is very interesting to me because he completely separates himself from the memory halfway through Fel do you wanna talk about this (unfortunately I cannot drop the name because of plot <3)

cw: light/implied homophobia

IN GOD WE TRUST / 1978

The first time Felix held a boys hand was in 1978 in the back pew at morning service. It was the first time [redacted]’s father preached and they got stuck in the back because they arrived late, because they laid in the grass together, wearing each other’s identical pecan coloured blazers as sunrise peeled back the night, and they slunk into the back of service like ghosts everyone could see and maybe they knew why they were late. [Redacted]’s father had a razor voice and he made sure every word sliced into his son and his son interlocked fingers with the boy next to him. His son didn’t look at the boy he held hands with the same way he’ll pretend his blazer is his and not the boys and the same way he didn’t look at the boy the first time they kissed behind the chapel building and the same way he didn’t look at the boy during Bible study for the week after.

Whilst I’d say in Chapter 2 the chemistry between Beau and Felix is as clear as day this is the first instance where Felix’s queerness is explicitly introduced and I’m taking this chance to say this book gets more queer every fucking week. Like I think in the last updates I was like ohhh sexuality doesn’t play much into Felix’s arc and know it’s like 99% of his damn arc and we LOVE it. But at this point he doesn’t realise like when I tell you guys this man is so repressed

I am literally only putting this here because I talk about all the other chapters and it’s weird to me to leave one out. Also because the graphic and title is pretty. Not gonna lie I love making these posts and that is 10% to ramble about meta 90% making pretty graphics that is literally just cropping photos on Unsplash and putting Garamond text over them <3

Anyway this was originally Lessons in Holy and when I revisited that chapter I realised it was so fucking messy and I tried to fix it but it didn’t really work and I’ve been scared to touch it since. However the meta is top notch so here we are - it mirrors Chapter One, Everything Holy, which explores Felix’s decision to leave the cult and with that, leave God. Everything Holy / In San Francisco explores his relationship (or lack thereof) with God and how much Felix’s life has changed since he left - and how “holy” it is. It definitely goes back to the idea of the tangible because the holiness preached to him growing up was not something tangible to him, whereas with this he looks at real life experiences, so he tries to find holiness in that. It also ties with Cyan City and the romanticisation of San Francisco as something tangible and something he can find holiness in, which a) he needs to learn that things don’t have to be “holy” to be valuable and b) it would be a shame if :) he centred everything good about his life around SF and then :) something bad were to happen whilst living in SF :) the way he and Dorothy both do this

My plan for this is basically: Condense The Shit Out Of It. The hardest part about this chapter is it is very thematic and you know as a lit major (derogatory) I love that but with more theme centric chapters the line between subtle and Too Much can be verrryyy thin, but I think focusing on character exploration over theme will fix that pretty easily. I’d also like to separate the Isaias introduction into its own chapter because it’s such an important moment and November me just? Latched it on at the end? And that plus Felix’s crisis in the same chapter is just too much. This chapter is gonna get changed A Lot but for now here’s Felix’s very chill and relaxed ending to his POV section :)

cw: drowning, drug mention

Felix didn’t speak to God for three weeks and everything unholy became holy: the coffee scorching his throat, the kaleidoscopic t-shirts and high waisted jeans, the punk rock they play at the record store – loud and electric. It’s unholy, but he sleeps through the night now, he folds coloured card into butterflies at breakfast and scribbles biro eyes over the newspaper's sudoku on his lunch break. He earns money and he spends a pinch of it on himself: on new wave records and playing cards and earrings he can’t wear yet. Sometimes he buys marijuana it’s not a sin because marijuana means he only smokes tobacco twice a day now – one at breakfast, one before bed. He bar hops with Beau on Saturdays and hikes with Dorothy on Sundays and he tells strangers he studies American Literature and he smiles with his eyes more and nobody notices that somebody’s holding his head underwater. And he doesn’t know whose hand it is, but it knows how to grip tight. And he doesn’t know how to swim, but he knows how to swallow water. And he doesn’t know if this is the punishment or the sin because the water stings his eyes but he chooses to keep them open, and the water will tangle in his lungs but he chooses to keep his mouth open. And hellfire can’t touch him under here, so he’ll keep swallowing water and it’ll burn him in a different way, and he’ll like how it scorches his throat.

(Once again context I didn’t share because I don’t like the writing that talks about it: Felix has a deep fear of drowning from past trauma, but he’s also very obsessive about it and often imagines himself drowning.)

(also the way these excerpts are just showing off my love for repetition my Intro to Creative Writing Tutor that called repetition lazy is seething rn!!!!)

Overall though, I’m v happy with how this section came out now that I actually know what the story is! As I’ve finished drafting it, I have noticed where the missing plot beats are and this is what I expected because I Do Not have a lot of experience with novels (I’ve never passed 15k on a novel before so we’re in new territory now) and generally struggle to see beats before I finish a draft. I’m thinking there’s at least one chapter missing and maybe a shorter one, like MSATBOTF, but I won’t be touching this section again until I finish the draft. Most of all I learnt a lot about the story’s form and I’m excited to play with that and be a bit more flexible! 

I’m currently drafting Indigo, the first chapter in Dorothy’s POV, and I was going to talk more about it but this post is too long and the next update will be <3 all about her <3. But the chapter introduces her and Jolie’s tumultuous relationship and here’s a lil peak! 

Me, a sapphic, capable of writing happy sapphic relationships: 

Me instead: 

cw: light/implied homophobia

If she didn’t display the ticket on the bedside table - like she had something to prove - she could have easily been in Dallas, in New York, London, Cannes, Moscow, Tokyo, Cairo, Sydney. But wherever she went, Dorothy and Jolie have had four airport reunions before today - four times they’ve had to soften themselves, disguise themselves. Old high school friend flying in to be her maid of honour, college roommates who don’t see each other as a day past eighteen, pen pals reuniting for the first time since the seventies, business trip colleagues in casualwear. The fifth time, there’s nothing to hide, and as they walk to the car, Dorothy has to wonder: if they were seen by nobody, would Jolie have hugged her with both arms? Would she have kissed her? Would Dorothy kiss back?

I’m midway through this chapter, so I’ll keep the rest of it for the next update! That I promise won’t be in three months!

If you read through all of this then I am in love with you <3 

#i'd say im sorry this is so long but it was so fun to write so i'm not! #also pls be proud i cut 2k words from this bc i RAMBLED #atlastracking #writeblr #writing update #revelations revelations

[comeonpeters]

i never forgot

bobby/trevor wilson-centric; mild angst fic / a conversation he’d never thought he would get to have. 

Rose wouldn’t want him to come and accost her daughter with his presence, but he has to know. Rose was his friend, Rose saved his goddamn life, but the three of them, they were his- he knows the look of his- of the- of those boys. He knows what he saw. He knows. There’s a glowing light outside in the studio and he goes to it, knocks on the studio door, doesn’t let himself hesitate. Julie looks at him with tears in her eyes. He doesn’t know why. There’s no one else in the studio with her. He wishes there were. 

“Mister Wilson?” 

“Julie, you know you can call me- Trevor. Even if you and Carrie haven’t spoken lately, you can still call me Trevor,” he says, tripping over a name that he hasn’t been called since he was seventeen. She invites him into the studio with trepidation as if he hasn’t been there a thousand times, as if he didn’t used to own the place, as if he didn’t used to- as if it wasn’t his once. As if it wasn't theirs once. Even walking in here feels like twenty five years of grief is pressing down around him, but he walks in anyway. He doesn’t let his jaw shake, no matter how much it would like to. He does not let himself get angry, or sad, or small, no matter how much he would like to. Even thinking of- it makes him feel young. Seventeen. He misses Rose. He misses-. He can’t think. 

“I saw you at the show. Thank you for coming. It was really nice of you to be there,” Julie says, trying to break the tension that has settled now between them. He doesn’t know how to broach the topic he needs to. How does he- there’s no way to accuse your dead friend’s daughter of playing in a band made up of your dead family is there? 

“Of course I did. How could I not come and see you and the boys play?” is what he says, nonsensical and not what he meant, and he has been so collected since he picked himself up out of the gutter he threw himself into twenty five years ago, and he’s not handling this well. He needs to meditate. Or call his therapist. Or do any one of the thousand coping mechanisms that he’s learned over decades of therapy, but none of them come to mind, of course, because he’s looking his friend’s daughter in the eye as she flounders like a fish. 

“The boys? Yeah, everyone is super impressed by the hologram band thing, right?! It’s, uh, it was really nice of you to come all this way, but it’s getting late, isn’t it?” Julie tries, and he should let her, he really should. 

“Julie... are they ghosts?” he asks, again not exactly what he meant, and yet what he needs to know. She looks at him, alarmed. Then, a notebook, Luke’s fucking notebook, falls off of the piano, and the question might as well be answered for her. 

“Oh, come on, guys, you couldn’t have kept it together until I got him out of here?” Julie says to someone he can’t see, and his heart shatters, just a little bit. Why can she see them? Why can’t he? Why couldn’t he ever see them? He had always- he had tried- why couldn’t he ever- his chest hurts. He wants to be sitting down, so he moves over to Luke’s couch (he remembers helping Luke carry it into the studio, they stole it off of the curb when some guy was just gonna throw it out, what a mensch) and he slumps down. They’re here. He just can’t see them. 

“They’re here?” he asks, just to confirm. Julie nods. “I know they have things to say. They’ve never been the quietest bunch. What have they got?” He hasn’t done anything perfectly (save Carrie), and if anyone is gonna fight him tooth and nail on everything, it’s Luke Patterson. 

“Well, a lot. Reggie’s first question, when they first found out who you were, was why you didn’t share anything with their families, and Luke wanted to know why you didn’t share the credit,” Julie says, looking at specific areas of air where he can guess the boys are. He wishes he could see them. He puts away the notion to sob, and laughs instead. He laughs because he can’t fucking imagine wanting to share anything with Luke and Reggie and Alex’s fucking families, can’t imagine wanting them to be able to look at the songs Luke wrote and think- wanting them to- fuck. 

“Share with your families?” he says, speaking directly to the boys for the first time in twenty years, because he had done it a lot right after they died, and yet stopped when his therapist told him that it probably wasn’t helping. “Was I supposed to give money to Alex’s parents, who fucking kicked him out for being gay? Or Luke’s, who never believed in him, in us, in Sunset Curve, or the dream, or music? Or Reggie’s? How was I supposed to share with Reggie’s family when I knew how little he slept in that house? I was the last person left who loved every single part of all three of you, and I wasn’t going to give anything to anybody who ever made you feel- who ever- it’s been twenty five years, you’d think I would be ready for this conversation.” 

“And what about the credit?” Julie asks, looking as if she wants to linger on previous parts of what he said, but Luke is definitely getting her to get him to move on. He appreciates that, snorting. 

“I was 21 and my three best friends had been dead for four years. Rose... Rose convinced me to start making music again. She told me that I should pick out some of your unfinished songs, finish them up if I could, and see if I could make it big myself. I decided on Crooked Teeth because it was about Reggie, and My Name is Luke because it was about you, and Long Weekend because it was about Alex, I know it was, and Get Lost because it was about all of us. I figured... recording My Name is Luke, it was pretty obvious who it was by. Anybody could figure out who I was, that I used to be a member of Sunset Curve, that band that- yeah. You were dead, Lu. I didn’t. I didn’t expect to get you back.” He still doesn’t get to get him back, but this conversation, it’s more than he expected to have. 

Julie clears her throat. He has to shake his head to return himself fully to the present. He hadn’t realized he had left it. 

“Alex wants to know how you just... left them behind. It seems like after a certain point you just... moved on. You just forgot them,” Julie says, her tone reluctant. He knows her, and he knows that Alex must have insisted if she’s taking that tone; it’s the one she used to get when Carrie would convince her to do something not so straight laced and goodie two shoes. He shakes his head again. 

“My daughter. Carrie. They’ve seen her, right?” he asks, wanting to get a confirmation from Julie. Julie snorts. 

“They’re familiar, yes.” 

“I was... spiraling. Before she was born. I wasn’t meant to be famous without the three of you. Everything was too much and not enough and there were so many people and none of them were the three of you, and you were dead. My family. All three of you stayed in my garage, and I don’t think you ever questioned why nobody ever asked questions about that. No one was around to. My parents were always gone, one business trip or another, one affair or another, and after I got on the road, it just got worse. Nothing real, nothing tangible. When I found out Carrie’s mom was pregnant, I had to beg her to keep the baby, and pay her through the nose besides. Carrie and Rose, after Carrie was born and I didn’t know how to take care of a baby, saved my life. And Julie. Do you know what Carrie’s full name is?” he asks, because he knows that she knows, and he nudges her with his shoulder just a bit like he used to do when she was younger. She gives him a ghost of the smile she used to have when she was younger too. 

“Carrie Sunset Wilson,” she says, barely above a whisper. He nods. 

“It was the only way to name her after all three of them. Named my little girl after all three of my brothers. And she saved my life,” he says again, because she did. She’s the best thing that ever happened to him, his little girl. He stopped making music entirely when she was born, road the money and went to gender inclusive Mommy and Mes and bought a big house where she could make friends (she already had a built in best friend, because Julie is three months older than her, they all lost Rose together, they’ll come back together), he does everything for her, still. He’s lost in his head again. 

“What about-” 

“He’s had enough,” a new voice says, a terrifyingly familiar voice says, and there’s a hand on his shoulder that wasn’t there before and he looks up and Reggie Peters is there. He’s just standing there, like he’s allowed to just stand there, like he’s not dead, like he hasn’t been dead for longer than he was alive, and a sob breaks out of Robert Trevor Wilson’s chest before he can contain it. He stands up and he wraps himself around a seventeen year old boy that he hasn’t seen since he himself was seventeen, and he feels like he’s going to crack apart. Reggie. His brother. His best friend. His family. His family. His family. Another body wraps around his back and he knows Luke’s stupid sleeveless fucking shirts even against his back and twenty five years late and he sobs some more. Alex hugs him too and he breaks into full fledged tears. Everything is okay. Nothing is okay. 

“I never forgot. I never ever forgot. I would never forget you,” he says it like a mantra, and everyone knows it’s true. 

#bobby wilson #trevor wilson #bobby jatp #jatp #julie and the phantoms #i sobbed while writing this #julie molina #reggie peters #luke patterson #alex mercer #carrie wilson #mine

[davidcampiti]

A SCREENPLAY IS NOT A COMIC BOOK SCRIPT

I'm frustrated by writers who hire a comicbook artist then send a screenplay as their script.  My first question to them is, "Are you hiring one of our writers to adapt this into a comic book script?"  Usually they'll respond, "No that's the script to work from."

But it's not.  

Word balloons aren't broken out or numbered, SFX aren't identified, the pacing is wrong, and most panel descriptions are missing, causing the artist and the editor to do twice as much work without a corresponding increase in pay.

Here's a good article from Nick Macari about the differences --

I think you’d be hard pressed to find some work of fiction, some type of writing, that you could NOT turn into a comic. That is to say, you could create a comic from notes on bar napkins, a published novel, heck I bet you could even create a comic using nothing but a movie as the source material.

If you’re making a comic yourself, like literally by yourself, it doesn’t really matter how you do it… only the final product matters. If you have some crazy process that gets you a beautiful finished product, good on ya mate.

But for those writing spec scripts, trying to write for others, or trying to entice others to their project, it pays to create scripts that open doors instead of closing them.

In 2020, there are a million writers writing screenplays and pawning them off as comic scripts.

If you want to be one of those guys… as you were.

But if you actually want to write comics, if you want to be a comic book writer, you should learn how to write an actual comic book script, not how to sell some other script as one.

There are lot of useful technique comics can borrow from screenplays.

For the innocent novice writer, it’s understandable to see some technical execution confusion. But for working and professional writers, knowing what transfers over and what doesn’t separates the riff from the raff.

Before we get into it, let’s put to bed, once and for all, why a straight screenplay script is not a comic script. Here’s why;

Director Production Designer Art Director Costume Designer Cinematographer … Camera Assistant Director of Photography Scenic Artist Set Decorator Storyboard artist … Makeup artist Wardrobe stylist Assistant Director Production Assistant Production Coordinator Production Designer … Script Supervisor Sound Mixer Special Effects Coordinator

oh yeah, and actors.

These are a few of the people involved in a film.

Individual roles dedicated to a specific area of production. In essence, a screenplay can deliver fairly minimal information and it’s someone’s specific job to interpret that information, its context, and otherwise apply their knowledge, experience and skill, to turn that information into some tangible, successful element.

If you think it’s the artist’s job to fill all these roles, you’re crazy… and mean to artists.

Ok, you still here?

Good.

Let’s showcase some specific examples of why a screenplay doesn’t hold up for comics;

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Drug Dealer I don’t…

Doyle Ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

Drug Dealer What?

Doyle Did you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

Drug Dealer I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.

Doyle Were you ever in Poughkeepsie?

Drug Dealer No… yeah…

Doyle Did you ever sit on the edge of a bed, take off your socks and stick your fingers between your toes?

Drug Dealer Man, I’m clean.

Doyle You made three sales to your roaches back there. We had to chase you though all this shit and you tell me you’re clean?

Russo Who stuck up the laundromat?

Doyle How about that time you were picking your feet in Pougheepsie?

The drug dealers’ eyes go to Russo in panic, looking for the relief from the pressure of the inquisition.

Russo (in pain) You better give me the guy who got the old Jew or you better give me something or you’re just a memory in this town.

Drug Dealer That’s a lot o’ shit. I didn’t do nothin’.

14 dialogue exchanges, with for all intents and purposes not a single visual description (one minor one toward the end about the dealer’s eyes.). This is likely at least one page of comic with this volume of exchanges and dialogue, and there is literally, nothing cuing the artist as to how this should go down.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Mutchie

That’s right, he couldn’t fight legit. One night at the Garden about 1950, ’51—he fought either Jake LaMotta or Gus Lesnevish, I think it was—he took one o’those cream puff punches in the sixth—the laziest left you ever seen—missed him entirely. Down goes Blackjack without even workin’ up a sweat and the whole Garden gets up on its feet and I swear to Christ, everybody starts singin’ “Dance with Me Henry.”

75 words. Way too much for a single panel.

How many ways can you break the dialogue into how many panels?

Is one way to break it up more effective than the others?

Because if it is, and that’s NOT the method you write up, you’re producing a less effective script.

But ultimately, what works in film as a 30 second monologue (doesn’t work in comics), would be far more effective as caption narration over flashback action.

THE EXORCIST

EXTERIOR – IRAQ- NINEVEH- DAY

The old man arrives back at that dig site in a small jeep. As he pulls up two armed guards rush out. When they see who it is the old man gives them a wave and they slowly walk back to there quarters. The old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in volume.

Hey! this has some nice direction, this screenplay stuff is perfect for a comic.

NO.

Let’s break it down;

The old man arrives back at that dig site in a small jeep. As he pulls up two armed guards rush out. When they see who it is the old man gives them a wave and they slowly walk back to there quarters. The old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in volume.

This passage is 15 beats, give or take. One beat a panel, 3-5 panels per page, we’ve got 3-5 pages of comic in this passage alone.

Hang on we’re not done.

If you fill your page with this type of description (you shouldn’t, but let’s say you did), you could get almost double that amount of beats. So one page of screenplay delivering nearly 6-10 pages of comic content!

Tell me, when was the last time someone delivering a screenplay “comic script,” delivered a 2 page script for a complete issue?    Never says I.

BONUS on this example:

Did y’all notice the soundtrack emphasis in this excerpt from the Exorcist script? Of course you can have sound effects in a comic, but no matter how you crack it, comics DO NOT have soundtracks. Relying on film soundtracks in a comic script is a sure fire way to deliver less effective scripts.

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

JACK Alright, where’s my truck, Wang? I’m outta here. And my money, too.

WANG Forget about your truck, Jack. You don’t wanna go back there. You’ll have to go through the Wing Kong to get it. It’s insured, right?

JACK Of course it is. But that’s not the point.

WANG The smart man comes back for it later…

JACK The smart man calls the cops!

WANG Cops have better things to do than get killed.

We showed the typical lack of visual description a screenplay gives in the first example. [Screenplays tend to focus on the scene setup, then briefly hit key actions of the scene.] Here we have another example of missing visual description, but I point it out for something more specific–LACK OF EMOTIONAL context.

As I point out in the Writer’s Guide, Emotional content is one of the essential elements of each and every comic panel. So not only do we not have visual cues to support the action in the screenplay, but how are the characters delivering these lines!?

JACK Alright, where’s my truck, Wang? I’m outta here. And my money, too.

How many ways can you say this line?

I can say it pissed. Irritated. Fearful. Sarcastically. Comically.  Those are just a few that pop in my head… and I’m no actor.

Leaving emotional context open to interpretation undermines narrative control–in a big way.

A good, effective scene, could die a horrible misinterpreted death.

For the record, you can use parentheticals in a screenplay. This can give emotional context, like the one from Jack’s first line I omitted to make the example more effective

JACK (pissed off)

But where parentheticals do contain emotional context, you use them in a script sparingly. Just like you don’t tell the director how to do his job filling your screenplay with camera direction, you don’t try to tell the actors how to do theirs. (Remember, the answer to why Screenplays aren’t Comic Scripts, there’s a lot of people, hopefully professionals, bringing their expertise to the table.)

CASABLANCA

Ilsa Your secret will be safe with me. Ferrari is waiting for our answer.

At the bar Ferrari talks to a waiter.

Ferrari Not more than fifty francs though.

Ilsa and Laszlo walk up to him.

Laszlo We’ve decided, Signor Ferrari. For the president we’ll go on looking for two exit visas. Thank you very much.

Ferrari Well, good luck. But be careful. ( a flick of his eyes in the direction of the bazaar) You know you’re being shadowed.

Laszlo glances in the direction of the bazaar.

Screenplays live in movement. Unless you’ve got a static insert of a letter or photo or something, everything is in motion and there is constant change (even if subtle) from micro-second, to micro-second.

While comics work to capture movement (and  there are some tricks), it is ultimately a static medium, locked into showcasing moments frozen in time.

What I explain in the “works in movies not in comics article” is that the constant movement and motion, supported (primarily) by actors, but by the lighting people, the art direction people, director, etc. all gives depth and purpose to every single second of a film.

With all these people doing their job, a screenplay can give super general stage direction, like what we see here in this Casablanca excerpt.

At the bar Ferrari talks to a waiter.

Ilsa and Laszlo walk up to him.

Laszlo glances in the direction of the bazaar.

These trivial actions carry no narrative. They work in film because of performance and motion, which steps in to create narrative.Without performance and motion, a single frame captured from core stage direction translates to ineffective comic panels.

By the way, all the examples I’m giving here, are from solid movies. The big pink elephant in the room when writers deliver “comic screenplay scripts,” is that they assume they know how to write a good screenplay in the first place. Trust me, novice writers rarely do.

There’s a lot of technique and skill in writing a solid screenplay. And if you think a good screenplay causes problems converting to a comic, wait till you try it from a shitty screenplay.

Still thinkin’ screenplay is synonymous with comic script? Well you’re wrong sunshine, but what do I know?

I’m just a non-famous full-time mercenary writer, writing almost exclusively in comics and games for a decade or so. :p

I’ve spent a few hours writing this article, but there are plenty of other examples I haven’t touched on.

I’ll come back and add some more as I think of them in my down time. Maybe eventually when the list is so long it takes you a couple hours to read this article,  y’all get it through your noggins that comics are there own medium which demand the attention and respect of a unique format and writing approach. Something the comic book writers reading this, already know. #justsayin

About the Author — Nick Macari is a full-time freelance story consultant, developmental editor and writer, working primarily in the independent gaming and comic markets. His first published comic appeared on shelves via Diamond in the late 90’s. Today you can find his comic work on comixology, amazon and in select stores around the U.S.  Visit NickMacari.com for social media contacts and news on his latest releases.

[happymetalgirl]

Five* Outside albums of 2020

I do this little list every year of my favorite albums that fall mostly “outside” the metal sphere and weren’t so metal-adjacent that I reviewed them formally during the year. The past three times I have written this little piece, I have kept it to five, but *this year, I’ve just had a hard time narrowing it down, so I figured, why do that? Well, I could go through a few dozen albums or so that I fucked with this year outside the metal sphere, but I’m compromising with the addition of a new, quick (we’ll see) honorable mention section.

So, in the interest of keeping my verbose tendencies in check, I’ll cut this introduction off and get into the honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions:

Anna von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly

I did review Anna von Hausswolff’s previous record, Dead Magic, back in 2018 as part of my bunch of metal albums reviews that year, because it was kind of tangentially metallic. It wasn’t a lot at a technical level, only a few metallic elements here no there, but it had a lot of harrowing qualities that I thought metal listeners might appreciate. For the Swedish singer and pipe-organist, that album really was the closest she ever came to metal’s territory, and I don’t think any flirting with the genre was intentional on her part. Most of what she does is haunting, neoclassical, organ-based music that’s usually not as wild as what Dead Magic was, and this year’s album is a real scale back to her roots and an appreciation for the pipe organ. While I do miss her bewitching vocals on this entirely instrumental album, All Thoughts Fly stands well on its own merits as both a solid tribute to von Hausswolff’s organ playing and as a beautiful, incredibly immersive ambient album that does so much with its relatively small palette. I’ve talked a few times on here about really shitty ambient music that’s approached with a clearly lazy attitude because of its supposed background role. Rather than being made to be ignored, All Thoughts Fly pulls you in and around in a swirl of lush sounds that aren’t too common in ambient music, and with a relatively minimal approach, relying on the naturally serene tambre of the instrument to fill the space with a lightening, floating ambience and well-structured movements to do the gentle moving. It’s a beautiful example of what an ambient album can achieve if it’s actually made with a lot of love and care.

Shabaka & The Ancestors - We Are Sent Here by History

Okay, that first one went pretty long. I’ll try to keep the rest of these here relatively short. Sons of Kemet band leader, Shabaka Hutchings, takes his other group on slightly less chaotic Afro-jazz odessey that what Sons of Kemet have been delivering us. While more contained on the surface within the genre’s usual light grey areas, Shabaka & The Ancestors move with freedom and flexibility on this album in a way that highlights the natural appeals of the Afro-jazz sound pallet through constantly engaging arrangements from masters of the craft.

Lady Gaga - Chromatica

I know we’re all well aware of Lady Gaga, but the pop icon has been relatively quietly been making the best music of her career since taking the edge rather than the center of the spotlight, from 2013’s diverse Artpop to 2016’s more bare-bones Joanne. And now, after her mellower, more traditional Americana-influenced album in 2016, Gaga cranks the volume and the fun way back up. Chromatica is a blast of an album whose wide span of dance pop albums influences new and old keeps it varied and lively all the way through. This album feels very much like it’s Gaga unleashed, just doing her thing and having a good time with a bunch of dance music styles that she’s always loved, and it’s impossible not to feel that enthusiasm secondhand, and groove the hell out along with it.

Black Thought - Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Abel

Black Thought has had nothing to prove since the relative inactivity of The Roots this past decade, but he has sure been rapping as if he does have something to prove on his solo work. The Philadelphia rapper put out a couple of EPs back in 2018 that showcased his impressive modern lyricism and flow, and the third, LP-sized installment in the series is just another offering of further proof of the man’s lyrical chops. There’s a little bit of an understated delivery in the music overall, but Black Thought really lets his words speak for themselves more than his moderate bravado. It’s not super flashy because it doesn’t need to be.

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Indie folk has always loved to soak in the puddles of personal sadness, but Californian singer Phoebe Bridgers takes the style to whole new depths of personally gripping, bordering on the outright emo, and that is by all means a compliment for rather than a shot at. The album’s candid journaling of Bridgers’ personal struggles is so tangible and so genuine that it would probably rival Connor Oberst’s best work with Bright Eyes. It is just a beautiful, yet tear-inducing album.

Alright, now on to the five “main” “non-metal” albums of the “list proper”.

Hexvessel - Kindred

Hexvessel are a Finnish six-piece whose sixth album of psychedelic folk here manages to touch on the same haunting, gothic tones that groups like Opeth and Gazpacho do at their most forest-y. Indeed, Kindred is an enchanting album, with sprawling styles and a full-bodied sonic pallet to keep it interesting the whole way through. And it’s as strong in its more bombastic song like that which opens the album as it is in its more stripped back acoustic tracks like that which closes it. Songs like “Magical and Damned” straight-up evoke Mount Eerie, while songs like “Kindred Moon” hearken to The Beatles at their most minimal and folky, and there’s plenty of spooky, mystical energy to go around. Definitely one of the best finds of the year for me.

The Strokes - The New Abnormal

Coming at the end of a seven-year gap between it and their previous album, 2013’s somewhat fan-polarizing Comedown Machine (which I liked a lot), The Strokes’ aptly named return is a return to the spotlight, but hardly to normalcy or the musical roots in garage rock that so many of the band’s fans have been sweating for. Twisting the electronic alternative rock of their Angles era into some odd, but mesmerizing forms, The New Abnormal is a subtly wild ride of an album through lots of melancholic overtones and undertones whose impact is made all the more potent by the occasional teasing of sorts with the few more traditionally rockin’ moments on here. It doesn’t take long to pull back the seemingly preppy synth rock or 80’s rock curtains to find the melancholy beneath “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus” and “Bad Decisions”, respectively. But the band aren’t even that subtle with the immediate depression of just the straight-up guitar melodies on songs like “Selfless”, “Not the Same Anymore”, and the chill-inducing soar of “Ode to the Mets”. The album’s prize piece, though, has to be the utterly gorgeous and empathetic minimalist synth song, “At the Door”, whose simple melodies and bare delivery make for one of the most gently heart-piercing songs I know and of my favorite songs of the year and probably my favorite Strokes song ever, as hard as it is to listen to. Welcome back Julien and company.

Rina Sawayama - Sawayama

Quite possibly the best outright pop album I have heard in a long while, Sawayama sounds simultaneously fresh and vintage in the landscape it was born into, making use of a lot of early 2000’s pop rock instrumentation, even some heavy metal guitars here and there, but most importantly, a real sense of passion that seems to be flat-out absent from so much of the pop that I (usually inadvertently) hear. I don’t want to overstate the prominence of the metal elements, but the album does have a bubbling, infectious energy both vocally and instrumentally from front to back that the occasional bursts of heavy guitars between Sawayama’s charismatic, dance-inducing performances do provide a good snapshot of. Furthermore, there’s a rich diversity of song types across the album that dive into the pop sphere beyond the standard trend-hopping that dominates streaming playlists and make for a dynamic and fun, rather than disjointed, pop album. And that’s all only possible with the consistently tight compositions o the album. Indeed, this is one of the best pop albums I have ever heard, certainly in recent years.

clipping. - Visions of Bodies Being Burned

clipping. are the second artist to be on here two years in a row after last year’s spectacularly spooky There Existed an Addiction to Blood, and Denzel Curry’s one-two punch of TA13OO and Zuu in 2018 and 2019 respectively. There Existed an Addiction to Blood was a thrilling and fresh take on many tropes of horrorcore with the band’s already forward-thinking and creative noise-driven instrumental production guiding harrowing stories of femme fatales and street violence in a more modern setting that often flipped the script on victims and perpetrators, as well as settings themselves. Visions of Bodies Being Burned is quite literally a continuing sequel to that explosive album, also released in time for Halloween this year; the material was recorded in the same sessions as the previous album and in the same unique vein. Consequently, there’s not really a whole lot I can say about this album in contrast with the last without getting way too in-depth and spoiling the fun. Whereas MC Daveed Diggs’ hooks were one of the biggest strong points of last year’s album, the creatively noisy production is the big star on this album. The fans seem to be leaning a bit more toward this year’s release, but I think I’m still a little partial to There Existed an Addiction to Blood. Nevertheless, Visions of Bodies Being Burned is a blood-pumping follow-up not to be missed.

Mac Miller - Circles

The posthumous release from Pennsylvanian rapper Mac Miller captures the man at his most chill and contemplative. The album is more of a minimalist ambient singer-songwriter sort of album than hip hop and its serene atmosphere becomes kind of inadvertently tragic in the posthumous context, but it serves as a beautiful swan song for the creative rapper whose struggles with addiction sadly prevented him from being able to bask in the deserved wide appreciation of his sixth album. Circles is a soulful, bittersweet cap to Mac Miller’s legacy that I think anyone will be able to feel the love and raw humanness of.

#Black Thought #Streams of Thought #Streams of Thought Vol 3 #Anna Von Hausswolff #All Thoughts Fly #The Strokes #The New Abnormal #Hexvessel #Kindred #Rina Sawayama #Sawayama #Phoebe Bridgers #Punisher #Lady Gaga #Chromatica #Shabaka and the Ancestors #We Are Sent Here by History

[dgcatanisiri]

So... something kinda hit me abruptly and pushed me to feeling about ready to snap, so... Have a word vomit. Kinda feels like a greatest hits compilation of  my “another angry queer rant” tag, but I need to get it out, so...

I know I’ve been over plenty about how I don’t feel represented even when I have something with gay representation. How I’d give dozens of Dorians and Iron Bulls to get even one run of Inquisition that properly has my male Inquisitor romance Cullen. How when I look at Mass Effect - this franchise that I love - I can only see how much it hates me for being a gay man who dares to seek content for me. How godawful it is that Gil’s story, a story that is explicitly a story centered on a gay man and the difficulties he faces BECAUSE of being gay, was written by a straight person who ABSOLUTELY does not GET. IT. And how fandom as an entity sucks, because so often it feels like the attitude of the people in it comes across as telling me that my desire to be represented in my media somehow comes in second to celebrating the advances solely for women, that my needs as a queer MAN (the emphasis usually theirs) are less important, because I can still see myself AS A MAN in other characters throughout media.

But... That doesn’t change the fact that this is a very real, very tangible THING for me to grapple with. And sometimes it feels like no one ever, EVER talks about this.

I mean, my go-to example is that after Inquisition dropped, you could not say A WORD in criticism of Dorian without people jumping down your throat, chomping at the bit to call you a homophobe for it. No matter what reason - but ESPECIALLY if you thought he was “too stereotypical” - you got hit with that label. Even if you were gay yourself, it was just your “internalized homophobia” that made you dislike him, or even being biased against the people who genuinely do lean in to the stereotypes, don’t they deserve representation too?!

Well, yeah. It’s not like I was saying they don’t. But that it’s a stereotype means it’s often still in media, still often THERE. It’s not always good representation, but it’s something. Meanwhile for those of us who AREN’T? It just meant further exclusion from the narratives. A continuation of our invisibility.

And sure, one queer character cannot represent every queer person, one individual who embodies one letter of the alphabet soup cannot be everything to everyone under that individual label. But, again, it still means that I don’t get to see myself.

If media representation is a life preserver, then I’m getting pulled out to sea while the lifeguards are busy with people who are closer to them than I am. Which, you can call it triage, cast the widest net to hope to get the most people, but when you’re one of those who are not even able to grab on to the net and use it to pull yourself closer, it’s not helping. And, because they’re focused on those who have grabbed on to the net, your struggle continues to be ignored.

Worse, sometimes they aren’t factoring you in the net they’re throwing (yes, I’m aware my metaphor is getting increasingly strained, just work with me here) because they think you’re not in the trouble they think others are - if you can “pass” as cishet, if you can exist without actively fearing for your safety, if you are the kind of person who can walk down the street and not expect to be harassed because you “present” gay, then you’re not as in need as those people who can’t, who are going to be threatened for existing while visibly queer.

But the truth is that you’re still suffering. I’m not gonna get in to the whole oppression Olympics nature of it all, but there is an element that those of us who “pass” as being “straight-acting” (and, for the record, I think these terms are bogus and bullshit, but I’m using them for the sake of simplicity in getting my message across, because I’m stream of consciousnessing this post instead of going to bed so you’re getting babble and word vomit so that this isn’t playing on a loop as I try and sleep) suffer that... I’m not going to say that it makes it worse, but it does have this level of SOMETHING that is a unique pain that you aren’t going to find from the people who are visibly and noticeably queer at a glance - it’s not just isolation, because this is something that you end up not talking about because no one around you realizes that you are queer, but also this voice in the back of your mind that starts questioning “are you REALLY queer? Are you queer ENOUGH?”

And that’s why it hurts that little bit more, is that much more a twist of the knife, when I see these people who push the “joke” of like “why did they even HAVE male Shepard?” or “the only way to play is as Kassandra.” Because it does reinforce this idea - that there is this attitude of this thing, this character that I was seeing as representation doesn’t matter. So that I take strength in that character, well, that’s just me latching on to REPRESENTATION AS A MAN, and we’re not here to protect your fragile masculine ego.

When all I’m looking for is a queer man like I am.

And sometimes, I don’t even feel like the other queer men I can look to get it. Like, there was that time about a year ago that I looked up issues of queer men in video games, and the three videos I found all got an “...and NOPE!” reaction from me - the first argued in math about how “queer people are a small portion of the population, we can’t realistically expect to be represented equally,” even though we’re talking about FICTION, which is, by definition, NOT reality, the second was clearly a cishet who compared not being represented as a queer person to not being represented as a Swedish person, and then a third who first had a thumbnail on a video of “good and bad representation” and Kaidan was the example of bad (so a negative mark against this video to begin with, but I was desperate), only to lead with Dorian as a good example, which... *vague motion above and at the “dorian critical” tag* I staunchly disagree with this stance.

Like... I have to struggle to think of who my role models in being a queer man are. It’s not just who fits my story, but who do I look up to, who inspires me. And, admittedly, the luster for any personal hero seems to inevitable wear off at this point, I’m in my early thirties, and most of the media I consume will have characters who are my age or younger PERIOD, so my queer heroes would have to be people I’d consider either peers or even someone who I am older than...

But then, that’s kinda the thing about being queer period - we lost a generation to AIDS, and for those who followed that generation, we’ve had to live in this world where our heroes don’t exist like us, while trying to pave the way for those who come after us, and who can’t conceive of what it is like to age - as in “go from adulthood to middle age to elder,” not just the matter of growing up from childhood to adulthood - and so even as they’re the one who we want to give all of this to... It still means we suffer because no one is there to offer US that hand.

And yet, try to explain this to media creators, and you get ignored or even shut down. Like, I about a year ago, I directly replied to tweet from Patrick Weekes, explaining how Inquisition failed me, how all bi LIs actually HELP me feel more represented as a queer person than the mix of sexualities that BioWare on the whole has said that they intend to do (re: the difference of LIs in DA2 and Dragon Age Inquisition). It got no response, not even a like to indicate that it’d been read by them. I could form in my head the response I’d have inevitably gotten from David Gaider when he still had an active Tumblr of what would amount to, nicest, “we cannot please everyone, enough people were moved by Dorian’s story to make it worthwhile, sorry.” Given some of my cynicism, I can’t help but believe that it would also have come with a “sorry you feel that way.” Particularly considering some of the comments he’s made about Cullen and Kaidan as LIs, both of whom being characters I connect to more than others in their respective games...

And like... Gaider is a gay man. Weekes is nonbinary. But they are from that generation who view being able to exist openly as queer as a revolutionary statement, which... It’s a statement I want to make, sure, but it’s not a revolutionary one to me - “existence” is the bare minimum. To me, focusing on existence as a queer person is to say that the queer character must justify existing as queer in order to be a part of the narrative. But what is revolutionary to me is to give the queer person a story in the narrative that has NOTHING to do with their queerness.

Like... Fantasy world here, Inquisition drops with Cullen and Cassandra as same-sex exclusive LIs, while every other aspect of their stories are the same. Women can’t romance Cullen, Men can’t romance Cassandra. Other than that, we have Cullen with his addiction/redemption arc and Cassandra not just struggling with her faith but even getting the chance to be Divine. Yes, fandom would FLIP. THE FUCK. OUT. But here’s what it says - the things that these characters go through in the course of the game are not defined by their sexuality. Hell, with these characters specifically, you get characters with MASSIVE relevance to queer stories that AREN’T exclusive to being queer - addiction is a real issue in queer communities, given how many of our safe spaces are bars or clubs, places where alcohol (and thus alcohol abuse) is easily obtained, and, by extension, drugs as well. Meanwhile, there are SCORES of queer people who struggle with the question of faith in the wake of their queerness manifesting.

THAT is revolutionary. To take these stories that straight people get all the time, that certainly have meaning as queer stories for the queer audience... And yet, when they go to these (hypothetically) queer characters, it has that subtext without making the story ABOUT their queerness, while still making it clear that, in this version of things, they are queer - players couldn’t pretend that it’s only in some parallel universe that they are queer, they would only be attracted to the same sex PC. THAT is revolutionary.

Or, y’know, take it back beyond BioWare for a little bit here - all the characters I feel the most connection to emotionally in TV shows are straight. All these men who are my role models only ever get shown being involved with women. At most, they’ll get queerbaited as MAYBE being queer, if you just keep watching! Inevitably, of course, they are not queer by the end of the show - the closest to date is the debacle that is Supernatural.

Yeah, there’s representation for ya.

And then there are those who end up looking at what I see as thoroughly inadequate and... They’re happy. They praise it. They look at this thing that hurts me, that excludes me, that can, when I’m in the bad headspaces, even make me question myself... And they have found something they like with it.

Which, for the record, good for them, genuinely and sincerely, I really am glad that someone is getting something out of this, but... Well, see above: life preserver, isolation, “sorry you feel that way.” Everyone else is getting what they needed, but what about me? When does my representation get to appear? Why am I always being left, scrounging for the scraps of the scraps? Why does other peoples’ representation always seem to get shoved to the front of the line, leaving me languishing in the back.

That’s the real thing about all of those lines of “if you don’t like it, go make your own!” At this point, even if I did manage to get something in my to-write folder cleaned up and ready to go, in reality... How am I supposed to feel like anyone other than me WOULD proceed to read it? That the audience would exist? Because... no one seems to care about this audience. Hell, how would I get anyone to publish it if it is only going to appeal to me?

I feel on the margins of the margins, where no one really cares. Hell, even here in my own blog, I feel afraid of backlash - I’ve had the assholes show up in response to like little brief comments that are off-the-cuff rambles, not worded in a way that makes them a full, detailed accounting, and either take them as evidence that I, personally, represent all that is wrong with fandom at large, or that I am a target for their trolling. Because saying that “I find the jokes about male Shepard not mattering to be diminishing of me as a queer person, can we please stop this?” is somehow not just lesbophobic, but VIOLENTLY lesbophobic. Or that saying that I don’t care that bad things happen to a fictional species is somehow advocating for violence against actual women. Or even explicitly calling out BioWare for lovingly lingering the camera on Miranda’s ass is slutshaming her. And of course, there are the assholes who responded to me saying on the BioWare Twitter announcement post for the Legendary Edition that, if it didn’t have a full trilogy male Shepard/Kaidan romance, I wasn’t buying it, and proceeded to a) call me entitled for it (like, read a dictionary, the very fact that I have to call for this content that doesn’t exist in the game proper is the OPPOSITE of entitlement...), b) tell me that I “shouldn’t deny [myself] a great story just because it doesn’t have gay people in it” and c) just generally be homophobic. Even in rolling with it on the basis of “the trolls are gonna show up period if you make it clear that you care about something, especially if you are trying to get representation for some group that is in the minority... It gets exhausting. It can be harmful. It makes it clear that you’re not welcome, even when you’re supposedly united by the fact that you and these people supposedly love the same piece of media.

I mean, among those examples, I’ve given the statements that inspired those responses no tags other than my own organizational tags, but SOMEHOW they find me anyway, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I got accused of like being another White Gay™ with this post, that I simply want to center the conversation wholly on myself at the expense of all other intersections of queerness and other identities or something for saying all of this, even though this is, and it says so from the start, a vent post, which, by definition, is centered on myself because it’s about me and my experiences and emotions. *sigh*

Anyway...

And, y’know, when BioWare actively refuses to even ACKNOWLEDGE that the absence of a full trilogy M/M romance option is a bad thing, it just ends up saying that the trolls are actually the audience they’re willing to court. That Supernatural ending with a brothers only focus that doesn’t even allow Cas to be mentioned other than offhandedly while suppressing ANY kind of emotional fallout to his admission of love says that they don’t care about the queer people who at the very least the actor was trying to be respectful and representative of. That every piece of media that says that to have a queer person in it, their presence must be explained and justified is saying that there needs to be a REASON for queerness, a reason that is not “because people are queer, and queer people come in as many stripes as cishet people, and so media should reflect that spectrum just as much.”

Even when the numbers of queer characters in media goes up, it doesn’t really move the needle. And that’s not even getting to the difficulties when you are any mix-and-match combo under the queer umbrella, or any other identity that intersects to marginalize someone in our society. It just...

Y’know, it doesn’t feel like “it gets better.” Rather it just feels like being stuck in position, just with a changing backdrop. Sure, things look different by the end of the day, but that doesn’t change that you’re not getting anywhere.

#dg gets personal #another angry queer rant

[frankchurchillsaysrelax]

Malex week day four: free day

Missed opportunities are woven in the tight stitches of an unworn sweatshirt buried in the back of a drawer; the black unfaded, the red just as bright as the future once looked, a tangible reminder of what might have been, kept out of sight but close enough to remember because forgetting means repeating. 

“Guerin! Mail for ya.” 

Michael sets down the wrench he’d been using to fix Mrs. Valenti’s’ car and chases Sanders’ voice into the front office. The old man had let him use the auto shop’s address for the last couple of years to keep greedy foster parents’ hands off his stuff. 

The thick white envelope with the UNM emblem in the corner stares at him harshly from the counter. Rejections don’t come in thick envelopes, everyone knows this, but with his luck, he wouldn’t discount the possibility.

“It’s not gonna bite ya kid.” Sanders’ gruff words spring him into action and with one tear he’s holding the thick, cream-colored paper bearing his future in his grease streaked hands.

Dear Mr. Guerin,

I am pleased to inform you,

A large white paper bag lands on the counter startling Michael from his reading. Sanders just grunts when Michael looks to him expectantly. Wiping his hands on a spare rag he opens the bag and tips its contents out. The sweatshirt is soft. Cherry red letters matching those on the front of the envelope stare up at him. 

“How did you know I’d get in?” Michael asks in wonder. This is the first brand new piece of clothing anyone but Isobel has given him. He wishes his hands were cleaner, worthier, to be handling something so precious.

Sanders grunts again as he heads back to sit at his desk. “You’re too smart for such stupid questions.” 

Michael laughs, bright and happy, running the fabric between his fingers one more time before placing the hoodie back in the bag and heading back to work, eager to finish so he can share his news with Max and Isobel.

-:-

Hope grows and dies between each breath easily matched to his. One heartbeat, steady and sure, promises to stay while the next races with the threat of running; the back and forth more dizzying than any kiss or touch could inspire. 

Michael wakes the morning after Alex tells him he’s enlisted to find the space beside him cold and empty. He brushes the abandonment off as he does most things, rising to get ready for the day ahead of him. 

He’s distracted all day, trying to convince himself he hadn’t imagined the night before. He keeps his head down, does his job, but each car pulling onto the lot sounds like his. Every hour that passes brings him closer to a night where he doesn’t know what to expect. 

And then he’s there. 

Michael is laying in the bed of his truck parked at Foster’s Ranch where he’s taken to spending his nights watching the stars. Alex doesn’t say anything as he climbs over the tailgate and into Michael’s lap. He doesn’t say anything except in the language they’ve perfected over the past few months, lips meeting over and over again until Michael forgets why he was worried in the first place. Together they write a record that will loop for years to come. 

-:-

Regret lives in a bar tab that often exceeds the bank account meant to cover it. A loathsome feeling that stings more than the broken skin of knuckles not yet healed from the last attempt at distraction. Fighting is all there is when you can’t dig your way out of drowning.

The newly printed license hits the bar a second after his ass hits the stool.

“A beer please, Deluca.” Michael takes the hat off his head, his right hand running through his flattened curls. He keeps his gaze on anything besides the woman behind the bar, unable as usual to look anyone close to Rosa in the eye. 

“Nice try, Guerin, but we went to school together remember?” Maria slides the plastic card back toward him without even looking. “I know you’re not old enough, so get out before I call Sherriff Valenti.” 

“Not according to the state of New Mexico.” He slides it back, smirk fixed to his face as she finally picks it up. One perk of not remembering the first part of your life is they get to guess your age. “As of yesterday, I am officially twenty-one, so again, one beer please.”

Maria takes the card, scrutinizing it shrewdly. Michael would be offended if he didn’t have two fake IDs burning a hole in his glove compartment. After holding the card up to the light and bending the edges, Maria tosses it back to him and goes to grab him a beer. Michael hands over a couple of wadded up bills as soon as she sets the bottle in front of him. 

“Better get used to me Deluca,” he says, mouth pressed against the cold glass lip. “I think you’ll be seeing a lot of me around here.”

-:-

Old fears are found between every sharp word, every sarcastic comment, every spiteful barb used to build defenses around a heart laid open, the beating organ exposed to the world, abandoned halfway through being taken. Then one day the hands you’d offered it to return to finish the job, cutting through your barricades like paper.

“And you’re still so good at giving them to me.”

He watches Alex leave not for the first time but possibly the last. Like two celestial bodies orbiting each other, they always find their way back to this thing they have. It may take time but it’s inevitable. 

Something feels different this time like the world’s been knocked off its axis; like their paths have diverged irreparably and things are never going to be the same again.

“Michael? What’s wrong?” Isobel stands beside his truck, worry covering her still slightly pale face. “Are you still upset about earlier? I told you--”

“No, no Is,” he tries to reassure. He pushes off the back of his truck and steps closer. “You’re fine. I, uh, I think I get what you were saying earlier.” He glances back in the direction Alex had wandered off not too long before, his pathetic lovelorn heart shedding all attempts at self-preservation. “It’s not just a high school crush.”

Isobel looks surprised and a little confused. He can read the beginning of an interrogation in the raise of her eyebrow and moves quickly in distraction, opening the passenger door for her and offering her a ride home. 

-:-

Nostalgia rides on waves of vibrating frequencies bathing the world in their sound. Protests, screams, pleas for someone to listen, to give him a choice, to listen. It seeps into skin and bone, making dead nerves twitch to life until all goes silent. 

Max is dead. Max is dead and the last thought Michael had spared him was that he hated him for fixing his hand. Max is dead and it was his stupid god complex that made him so.

Michael wants to be angry, to say it serves him right. He wanted to play hero and apparently no one ever told him that the hero dies in the end. Or maybe they did. Maybe Max knew exactly what he was doing and just didn’t care about the rest of them. Max made his choice and left Michael to deal with the consequences.

He drops Isobel off at her house, listens when she tells him to leave even though he doesn’t want to, even though he needs her. He walks away from his best friend and her ghosts and tries to understand what comes next. He can’t go back to the Pony, back to quiet and peace and normalcy. Max took those with him when he died. 

After a quick stop at the liquor store, he winds up back at old Foster’s Ranch. He parks far enough from whatever the military is doing with his old spot and tries to draw strength from the stars. He lays in the back of his truck, the metal against his back still warm from the sun, and tries to block everything else out the way he did when he was a teenager sneaking onto this same land to get drunk and call out to whoever might be out there waiting for him. 

So much has changed. Max is dead. His mother was alive and then dead in the space of an hour. The dull ache in his hand is gone. The one constant in his life is gone, taken away as quickly as it came; Max’s hands doing the same damage as a hammer but leaving none of the pain.

Everything is changed but the anger is still there only twisted into something larger than himself, stronger and deeper like a monster that’s sunk its claws into his soul threatening to tear him to shreds. He appeases it with a long pull straight from the bottle.

His phone buzzes. He only checks it in the hope that it’s Isobel. It’s not.

Alex: I’m sorry I couldn’t wait longer this morning. Something came up.

The monster’s claws sink deeper. He can’t talk to Alex now, maybe not ever. Nothing is the same. He’s not the same person who promised to come back last night. 

Alex: I’m back at the airstream. Where are you?

Max is dead. His mother is dead. The pain in his hand is gone. Those truths are the only company he needs as he loses himself in booze and stars.

#malexweek20 #malex20 #my fic #malex fic #malex #roswell new mexico #the parts in italics i wrote over a year ago as some kind of poem/verse thing #which of course got titled 'what the fuck is this???' in my drafts #thanks to malex week for kicking me in the butt to turn it into something #no read mores sorry #malex week 2020

[theassthatquits]

The Plane of Celebrations Ch1

I started writing a fic based on the plane I created for my other fic “In the Margins”! Please read and lmk what you think! It’s a lot of fun to write. This is the first chapter or you can read it on ao3.

“There’s a whole community out there! A whole civilization! We have to go explore, it’s practically required of us. That’s what we set out to do, right?” It was the first day on a new plane, the seventh cycle. The crew of the Starblaster was having their yearly argument with Lup having the same opinion every time: leave the ship right away.

“Lup, it’s much too dangerous before we do any of our tests. Let Barry get readings on the air and the gravity at least. We don’t know what could be out there - we need to play it safe we’re -“

“ - The entirety of existence’s last hope -“ That part was said together by both Davenport and Lup, but she continues. “Yes, we know. After six years of this, we all know.” She paused, and everyone remembered the weight on their collective shoulders. “All right, the nerd can finish his tests. But afterwards, Taako and I are going into town. It’s been years since we’ve interacted with anyone not in this room. Sorry my dudes, I love you all but it’s time for this girl to get some action.” She finger gunned around the room. “Let me know when you’re done, Barold!”

Lup yelled the last part as she was walking down the hall to the twins’ room, Taako trailing behind her. Barry wordlessly watched them leave abruptly, the word “nerd” still hanging in his head. After a moment he turned and left, better get going on his research before Lup got mad at him. 

—-

“Woah, Taako, this shit looks delicious.” After Barry had deemed the plane safe to walk around on, the twins took off for the nearest town and were now wandering around. Everyone looked happy, buzzing around getting ready for something. Posters were up reminding others to sign up for the potluck and to remember to show up for the bonfire at 7p on the following day. She made a mental note to come back, maybe bring Barry. Get him out of his lab a little. 

Lup had been referring to the bakery they were walking past, giant cakes and cookies in the window. “Order your post holiday desserts today! Don’t be caught in an after-loss rut! Get some sweets!” She noticed the sign. “Hey Taako, what do you think that means, ‘after-loss rut’?” 

“Who knows, sounds like maybe an economic thing. Capitalist hell, you know?”

“Eh, maybe.”

Across town, Barry was wandering around alone. He didn’t tell the others where he was going, he didn’t really want any company. Barry was content in his own existence, walking around, taking notes on the interesting things he saw. What he was really looking for was a library. He had overheard people talking about “the Deities” and all of the “holidays” and he was hoping for an explanation. 

Ahead of him was a giant ornate building with tall columns and statues of lion-like creatures perched by the door. Yep, seems like a library to him. There weren't a lot of people there, which is just what he preferred. Barry immediately headed to the history section, eager to find out more about this plane and the different, remarkable ways people led their lives here. 

—-

The following day, Barry woke up to a blood-piercing scream. He shot up out of bed, stumbling out of his room while putting on his glasses. He ran face first into Magnus’s bare back, who had gotten to the kitchen - the source of the scream - in record time. 

“Oof! Sorry, Magnus.” Barry muttered, embarrassed. Magnus didn’t pay him any mind, instead questioning Taako relentlessly. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did you get stabbed? Where did you get stabbed? Where did the stabber run off to? I’m going to go find them -“

“Magnus, shut up!” Taako interrupted him. “I did not get stabbed. Something much, much worse happened.” 

“Taako, what the fuck happened?” Lup stepped forward, her hands coming out like she was about to set them on fire, fear in her eyes. 

“I…” He flung his arm over his eyes dramatically. “I can’t taste anything!”

The room went silent. Everyone looked around, notating a thrown iced coffee, open jars of hot sauce, pickles, anything potent they had on the ship. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? You screamed at 8 in the morning and woke everyone up because you have a cold?” Lup launched at him, tackling him. 

“Hey, this is different! Lup, get off of me. I know this is different. I feel fine every other way, my nose isn’t stuffy. My taste is just...gone.”

Lup rolled her eyes. “You’re just sick. Here,” she turned, grabbing a piece of bread and put her palm underneath it, something she did every day to toast her sandwich. Nothing happened. “What the fuck?” She tried again. Nothing. “Okay, maybe there is something wrong here.” 

“Can someone please explain to me what is going on?” Davenport whispered from behind Barry. It was unusual and kind of eerie to hear their captain, usually full of confidence, whisper a command. And it wasn’t really a command, more of a...pleading question? What the fuck was going on? 

Lup turned to Barry, panic and fear in her eyes. “Barry, do you know what’s going on?” It was a terrible, confusing time for all of them, and usually he never denied Lup anything, but Barry found himself...not really caring about finding out why this was happening. 

“I have no idea. Maybe something to do with this plane?”

“Wow, so glad Barold is here to lend his infinite wisdom,” Taako’s voice cut through the tension and right into Barry’s confidence. His face began to burn. 

“I’m going to the lab,” he replied, deadpan. 

“Oh, no don’t leave us -”

“Taako!” Lup slapped his arm. “Don’t be a dick.”

“What are you going to do, light me on fire? Oh, wait -”

“I swear to Istus, Taako, I’ll cook your favorite meal and make you eat it and you won’t be able to taste a goddamned thing -”

“Guys, can we focus? Please?” Lucrecia, unusually loud, stepped in. She had been crying. “I can’t seem to write anything. What is happening with us? Have we all lost something? Taako, you lost your sense of taste. Lup, your magic. Me, my writing. Captain...seems weird.”

“Yeah, he’s like all quiet and timid,” Magnus added.

“I’m right here,” Lucrecia heard from next to her where she didn’t realize Davenport had been standing. She turned to him. 

“Maybe your confidence? So not just like actual tangible things have been lost. Magnus, do you know what you might be missing?”

He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Hmm, I can’t think of anything. Let me go for a run and I’ll get back to you!” He bounded out of the room and off the ship, like it was a normal morning workout. 

“Well, I don’t think I’ve lost anything,” Merle declared. “I am perfectly fine, thank you.”

“It seems to be something of importance to us, maybe it’s your healing magic?”

“You said ‘something of importance’ Luce, that can’t be it.” 

“Taako, I swear if you don’t shut the fuck up.” 

Lucrecia turned to look at Lup who looked, for the first time since she had known her, anxious. Usually Lup was a bright light, confident and scathing and so sure of herself that she could intimidate armies. Today, she was sweating and clawing at her legs, eyes darting around the room as if looking for potential enemies. “Lup, are you okay?” Lucrecia stepped forward.

“I am fucking fantastic, I can’t cast anything, can’t defend myself or my brother, I’m a walking nuisance, completely useless.” She stomped off, attempting once again to light her hands up but failing and the guttural scream of agony that followed sent shivers down Lucrecia’s spine. 

“Where is she going?”

“Honestly? Probably to see Barold. Now, everyone get out of here, I gotta keep making food until I can’t see straight.”

#Barry Bluejeans #blupjeans #pre legato conservatory #this is gonna have some good good pining #lup #taako #taz balance spoilers #the stolen century

[mirrorfalls]

Lego Liveblogs ST: TOS, part 6 (of who-the-hell-knows-how-many?)

So... The Naked Time. Probably gonna be another of those episodes where Roddenberry was in full “but on this planet they have a cultural taboo against pants!” mode, but that shouldn’t disqualify it on its own merits. And... wait, is this the legendary “Sorry, neither.” episode?

Let’s find out.

* And we open up on Space Antarctica, where Redshirt #23 gets himself infected with the Thing in record time. This is gonna be fun. ** But for Christ’s sake, guys. If a mannequin was all you could afford for the “woman”, couldn’t you have at least covered the face up with a sheet of snow or something?! * Spock in civvies cuts a surprisingly... fine figure. * Okay, now I’m starting to see why so many reviewers call the Spock-Bones banter in these early eps straight-up racism. * Alright, I know I’ve said this about half the preceding episodes, but this one’s plot looks genuinely foolproof. Kirk and co. need to perform a conflict-free - but still tricky - scientific mission, and an alien pathogen’s just happened to slip onboard. No leaps in the premise, no stupid B-plots to screw up the pacing. Let’s do this. * Peak Trek Aesthetic; using a punchcard to get your lunch out of the replicator. * See, Mr. RedBlueshirt? This is why we always use hand sanitizer after being outdoors. * Gotta say, this is pretty well-written “madness” for a ‘60s pop-adventure show. Just take a guy’s lingering survivor’s guilt and dial it up to eleven. No random obsessions or nursery-rhyme chants or anything. * Guys, it’s a freaking butter knife. That thing couldn’t stab through a- ** Oops. * By the way - some people might consider it laughably cheap, but as something of an amateur germophobe I really like how the pathogen’s mostly depicted as this thing nobody can see but everyone can feel slithering over their hands. * “A valuable study. We may be seeing Earth's distant future.” This line seriously does not get enough attention in Spock retrospectives. * Somehow it never occurred to me that Sulu is the closest the bridge crew has to a jock. * “Bones, I want the impossible checked out too!” “Damn it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a Scotsman!” ** Seriously, though - I like the general lesson here, that out on the Frontier you can do every procedure and double-check right and still get fucked over, because that’s what it means to explore the Unknown. * Bones why do you have bottles of Lysol just lying around in sickbay * Oh yeah. Shirtless Sulu o’clock. ** And now, The Line. Gotta admit, I wasn’t expecting Nichols to sound quite that... schoolgirlish saying it. * ... do you guys not have security on the bridge or ** Okay, I’ll never say no to a Nerve Pinch, but you’d think there’d be at least one Phaser around... * Ooh, 20 minutes before the gravity whatchamacallit flambes the entire ship. Now that’s pacing. * This guy seems a little too conveniently (and maliciously) competent next to the other infected crewmembers... I doubt they’re going to go with a “Oh, he was faking it the whole time, did everything of his own free will!” twist at the end, so here’s hoping he won’t be the antagonist for the entire rest of the ep. ** OTOH, Scotty gets to be a hands-on MVP for a change, and who doesn’t love that? * Spock, let’s have some more of those Nerve Pinches, chop chop! ** At this point you can count every “Jesus, I’m retiring from this show the first chance I get” line on poor Rand’s face. * Oh for the love of- Were you guys seriously examining Sulu without any protection?! * And now we’re throwing the nurse at Spock. Honestly, every face Nimoy makes here should be its own reaction gif. ** Ohhh, right, this is the Spock-cries episode, too. Really should reread that anecdote sometime. * “I can't change the laws of physics!” That’s quitter talk, Scotty, and you know it. * Jesus, Bones, did you stick him with a needle or a branding iron?! ** Oh, so this is why so many recaps of this episode just talk about everyone being drunk... the pathogen is just water that’s evolved(?) to a different molecular form resembling booze? Sure, fine. ** Insert stock you’d-expect-an-Irishman-to-hold-his-drink-better line here ** (Also, I suppose the crew is lucky that nobody's the go-to-sleep kind of drunk.) * Ahh, our first taste of Spock backstory. Let’s have that good good angst. * Not that I mind a little violence between friends, Kirk, but are you sure you want Spock doing supercomputer-tier calculations while smashed out of his mind? * ... hm. On the one hand, Spock being (temporarily?) shocked back into sobriety on seeing Kirk succumbing is both emotionally touching and narratively efficient. On the other: more proof that when all else fails, all you can do is appeal to a Vulcan’s ego. * Wonder how big the Kirk/Enterprise tag on AO3 is... * Cheap religious symbolism ho! * Took ya long enough to get him an antidote, bud. * Well, that was quick. ** Uhhh, I’ll assume imploding engines are a good thing in this context. * Wait, are you serious? Time travel stuff in the last three minutes of the episode?! * Sooo... our heroes literally get a clean slate from everything that just happened. I guess they still have to live with the memories of it all, but really?

I’m really torn about this one. There’s only the slightest slip of a Lesson here (beyond “don’t take your fucking Hazmat suit off on an alien planet”, I guess), but it’s probably the series’ best-paced episode yet, with tangible stakes and unobtrusive comic relief... right up to those last three minutes, which throws all that beautiful buildup into a woodchipper. Deus ex Machina isn’t even a strong enough word to describe it - probably nothing is.

Ah, well. We’ve got solid proof that the writing team can build a solid start, if nothing else. One day they’ll stick the landing.

Next: In the main study of an exclusive private school in New York’s Westchester County, a strange, silent man sits motionless... what? Wrong Charlie X? C’mon, how different can they be?

#Lego Liveblogs Star Trek #Star Trek: The Original Series

[cake-writes]

Breathe (Lecture 1)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Story Warnings: Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mixed Delivery (Social Media & Written Parts), Eventual 18+

Summary: Bucky takes a history class at his local university in hopes of catching up on the last few decades, on everything he’s missed whilst under Hydra’s control – but he winds up learning a lot more than what’s on the syllabus. He learns how to heal.

Written for @the-omni-princess​​’s 1k writing challenge!

(Formerly Hope & Happiness; I decided that I needed a better title!)

TAG LIST: OPEN

💛 This fic is interactive. Here’s how it works! 💛

So I took the time to find an actual university course to complement this story because I’m just that invested, you guys. (I’m also a huge history nerd, lmao.) The syllabus and lectures are real, and any content relating to these in my story is straight from the source.

Lectures are recorded and available for a listen! Most written chapters will correspond to a lecture; I’ll list which one at the top of the chapter if you want to learn along with Bucky. Each one is about 40-50 minutes long and in English. Click here to access them!

This is definitely optional, though, so please don’t feel pressured to listen, but if you’re a history nerd like me then you may want to take a look!

Wednesday, August 24

Lecture 1: Introductory Lecture

Although Bucky had been on campus a couple of times before now – first to apply, and then to meet with an advisor as all new students were required to do – he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the sheer size of it. Universities these days were massive: cities within a city, buildings upon restaurants upon shops and all he wanted to do was learn.

That was all he’d ever wanted to do, really. Learn about himself. Learn what made the world tick. Learn all the things he didn’t know. He’d always excelled in school, and once upon a time he’d started to save money in order to attend university. Didn’t know what he’d study – just knew that he wanted a degree in order to support the family he thought he’d have one day.

Ambitions for the future.

Then came the draft. Because hadn’t yet been able to save enough, he’d been shipped out to the European Theater – sent to hell, not to college.

Ambitions for the past.

Two years spent in cold, wintery foxholes gave him an opportunity to think, but all he could think about was the stench of death surrounding him, surrounding his unit, surrounding every waking moment of his life at war. Not his death, of course, but it may as well have been.

Bucky learned to hone in on the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, the rush of adrenaline in his veins, the sensation of his boots in mud and snow. He learned to focus. He learned to survive.

And all the while, he lived with the very real possibility that he wouldn’t make it through – and, well, he didn’t. Not really. Some parts of him never made it back; what little remained became the property of Hydra. Mind corrupted, soul shattered, will broken into sharp, jagged shards of glass.

Fragile. Breakable. Erased, but still alive.  

Bucky may have survived, but he’d never really been right since – never really been whole. Physically and mentally, with too many pieces of himself missing or damaged, one constant stayed the same: a desire to learn. He’d gotten through the war and Hydra’s harsh training because that quality was a part of him – one of the only parts that made it through.

Battle-worn and weary from surviving – not living, not really – Bucky finally had the opportunity to take a step back from the battlefield to just… exist. To live. To breathe. In taking a leave of absence, he embarked upon another journey: to rediscover the man he used to be.

It would be difficult task, he knew. The twenty-first century was far cry from the 1940s, a far cry from home, and the sheer size of the college campus only served to remind him of that. In fact, he was only able to recognize that he was still in New York because this school happened to be the very same one he’d once planned to attend so long ago. Staten Island University. Right across the bridge from his present-day apartment in Brooklyn, not to mention his old family home.

Home.

But this unfamiliar new century was his home, now, so he sought to learn what he’d missed over all the decades he’d lost to Hydra. In the process, maybe he’d learn about himself, learn what made the world tick, learn all the things he didn’t know.

What better place could there be to do that than at a university?

Bucky soon found out that his education would be paid for by the United States government for his service in the military. Ironic that the very barrier which forced him into war was the same thing being gifted to him now. The GI Bill. A reward for his patriotism. A thank you for his sacrifice.

Flowery words for a bribe meant to keep him silent. Call him jaded.

Worse still, if Bucky thought tuition was expensive back then, he didn’t know what to call it today. He’d been rendered speechless when he found out what a single class would cost, but rest assured, Uncle Sam would pay for it so that he didn’t have to.

Physically, it only cost him an arm but mentally, it cost him so much more.

U.S. Society and Politics Since 1945. Mondays and Wednesdays at two o’clock. Three credit hours, whatever that meant. He signed up for the class after his first meeting with an advisor – thought that it might do him good to put his past behind him and learn.

Bucky arrived about twenty minutes before the class was due to start, all nerves and first day jitters – absolutely ridiculous when he really thought about it, so he tried to put it out of his mind and selected a seat in the very back row in hopes of not being noticed.

Counting seats proved to be a good distraction. Three hundred seats. Would there really be that many students? Save for a handful of his new classmates scattered about, the too-large lecture hall seemed like it would never fill. Sure enough, however, it eventually started to – not all three hundred seats, but close enough.

It wasn’t until then that Bucky realized he might have been woefully unprepared. Just about everyone else had laptops sat out front of them, and while he could use one – clunkily – he still preferred something more a little more tangible. All he’d brought along was the required textbook, a notebook, and two pens, one of which he’d been rolling in between a gloved thumb and forefinger for the last few minutes. 

That was a nervous tic of his, one he’d picked up in the army, except today it was a pen instead of a cigarette and he sure could have used a pack of Lucky Strikes right now. A cigarette would have done wonders to take the edge off, but he didn’t smoke, not anymore. Frustrated, he dropped the pen back down onto his desk and slumped down in his chair.

Had school always been this nerve-wracking? He couldn’t remember.

A snort drew his attention, and Bucky glanced to his left to find you sitting a few seats down in the same back row, watching him in amusement. 

It caught him off-guard.

“Is this your first class?”

A innocent question, unprompted – untainted.

While Bucky knew that there would be some socializing required, especially in the discussion section of the class, never in his wildest dreams did he think that anyone would be willing to strike up a conversation with him. He had half a mind to say ‘no’ and ignore you as long as possible, but for whatever reason, he didn’t. He opened up.

“How could you tell?”

You shrugged. “You’re fidgeting, for one. But mostly because you don’t have a bag.”

Why would he need a bag? He was only taking one class.

At his doubtful look, you spoke again, voice light and airy, “Don’t worry. You’ll learn.”

Well, that was foreboding. Then again, you seemed like you would know. You looked slightly older than most of the other students who were likely fresh out of high school, and you appeared to be all sorts of prepared, what with a leather laptop bag on the chair to your right and some brightly-coloured notebooks, binders, and a few thick textbooks all strewn about the desk in front of you.

A laptop bag, but no laptop. Strange.

Bucky wasn’t really sure why he wanted to know, but he nodded to your books and asked anyway, “What else are you taking?”

“Mostly upper-level psychology classes. I’m in my final year. What about you?”

“This is my only class,” he admitted, and to him, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer. He was only taking the one class with no particular goal in mind, but here you were, taking at least four other classes judging by the number of textbooks on your desk.

You had a goal. 

He didn’t.

You didn’t ask why, though; instead, you offered him your name, along with a bright smile.

“Bucky,” he found himself telling you way too easily.

“Well, Bucky, it’s nice to meet you.” You paused, then, before you made an offhanded comment of, “I think it’s really good to have a friend in class, you know? Mostly so you can steal their notes when you skip.”

A joke, perhaps, but Bucky took it literally. That may have been the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “I’m not gonna— Who pays thousands of dollars in tuition and then decides not to come?”

Your brows rose in surprise for a moment or two, but then you laughed at his stick-in-the-mud response. “Oh no, you’re one of those. What a goody two-shoes!”

Don’t worry, you’d said. You’ll learn.

But the mischievous sparkle in your eyes let him know that you were just teasing, and what’s more, he actually didn’t mind. No, he kind of liked it, having some normal human interaction for once – not whatever the hell he’d grown used to at the compound. Between blood-spattered banter in the field and too-dark humour used as a coping mechanism, his interactions there were anything but normal.

Bucky also liked that you had no idea how wrong your sentiment was; not that he’d never admit it. This was the first time in a long, long while that he’d been treated like a regular person – not enhanced, not a science experiment, not an Avenger – and he had no intention of shattering the illusion anytime soon.

“I’m not giving you my notes, either,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Super goody two-shoes. My mistake.”

When he opened his mouth to respond to your sassy one-liner, however, the professor’s voice sounded from the front of the lecture hall. You gave him a final wink before you turned to face the front, purple pen already poised and ready to go.

Good afternoon! Can you hear me in the nosebleeds? Yes? With me? Okay…

Forty-five minutes passed in a blink, and most of the students quickly started to pack up their belongings – but not you. No, you stayed in your seat and continued scribbling away at something in your notes, seemingly having zero plans to leave anytime soon. Bucky couldn’t help but be curious as to why you weren’t packing up, but it wasn’t any of his business and he didn’t ask.

Armed with a new syllabus and a daunting list of required readings for the week, he pulled himself to his feet and collected his own belongings; only managed to push the chair back in and take about two steps toward the door before he heard your voice again.

“Hey, Bucky, wait.”

He turned around to see you still reading through one of your textbooks, not even looking in his direction, but in your outstretched hand was a bright pink sticky note.

What?

“Come on,” still focused on your reading, you waved the post-it, pink paper flapping in the makeshift breeze but staying stuck to your finger anyway, “Take it. Here.”

Hesitantly, Bucky stepped closer and accepted the proffered note. Upon it, he found that you’d hastily scrawled your name and phone number, along with what he assumed was meant to be a smiley face. The drawing was god-awful, and a welcome distraction from the way his heart had immediately leapt into his throat because a woman had just given him her phone number.

Her phone number.

“Th— Thanks?” he stammered, unsure.

Now, he certainly wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, but this—

“Don’t get any weird ideas,” you interrupted his train of thought, finally pulling your eyes away from the textbook to look up at him. 

Gorgeous, glimmering, big doe eyes focused right on him, now, and seeing you up close like this, a fleeting thought crossed his mind about how attractive you were. He blamed it on the fact that you’d just given him your number, and now his brain only wanted to overthink what he’d interpreted as the first sign of potential interest from the opposite sex in – well, far too long. 

Bucky hadn’t been expecting that at all, and he wasn’t particularly interested to pursue such a thing, either. At least not right now. He still needed to get his head on straight; still needed to figure out his own problems before he took on someone else’s.

Even if you were a pretty little thing he might have taken dancing, once.

Then you added, “If you have any questions, just shoot me a text, okay? I remember how lost I was when I first started, especially because I’m a,” you did some air-quotes, then, “‘mature-aged’ student.” Another snort, one much less ladylike than before. “Mature-aged. I’m not that old!”

So it was a friendly offer. Nothing more. Not like the implications in the 40s – and Bucky thought, then, that if you were considered to be ‘mature-aged,’ he didn’t want to find out how he’d stack up.

“Thanks,” he said again, this time a little less unsurely. “I appreciate it.”

Another one of your bright smiles brought a sense of calm over him, a feeling that carried over even when you poked fun at him again, “Then I guess I’ll see you next week, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.” 

“Yeah,” he responded, feeling the corners of his lips turn up just a little at your goodnatured teasing. “See you next week.”

And when he left the lecture hall, fluorescent pink post-it stuck to the inside of his notebook, Bucky’s footsteps felt just a little lighter than before – and so did his heart.

Part Two

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes #breathe

[on-a-palehorse]

I wrote a smutty fic based on a dream.

Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia.

Read as Henry and 'I'

2863 words

This morning I walked in to work, ready to pitch an article to my editor, on a rather high profile client.

Henry Cavill was currently in town filming his new show 'The Witcher,' and since most of the show is filmed on location, I only had a few days to get this done before they headed back to Budapest. Now I've had my fair share of noteworthy clients. But Henry Cavill was my all time celebrity crush since 'The Tudor's', and it was well known around the office. So an interview with him was a major bucket list item. I'd keep it professional though. Besides, he'd never give someone like me the time of day outside of work.

"Sir, I wanted to do a piece on Henry Cavill for 'The Witcher.' They're only in town for a few days, and it's kind of now or never since they're heading back to Budapest."

My editor didnt even look up from his computer. "Trying to get that dinner date?" He joked.

"We both know that's not going to happen. I'm a lady, and a professional." I joked back.

He gave me a 'yeah right' look before saying "Sure you are. Just take a press pass and get a good piece. Bring me back a doggy bag will ya?"

I cleared my throat and nodded. "Sure thing. Thanks boss."

I grabbed my stuff and made my way across town to the studios, determined to get a good article. If I left an impression, all the better.

After arriving on set, I stood off to the side and watched as Henry shot a scene that ended with a sword fight.

His deep voice, made gravelly for his role as Geralt of Rivia, sent shivers down my spine when hearing it in person.

His moves were fluid and graceful, as if he'd stepped right out of the time period, just for this role, and I mentally commended his trainer for doing such an excellent job.

Watching him move was like watching a piece of art come to life; his steps were agile and precise, never stumbling. The linen shirt and leather pants showed every muscle and its movement. From the thick muscles in his back and arms, to the strong muscles of his thighs and ass. His gaze was focused, his concentration never wavering, even when his white hair moved around his face.

At that moment, an assistant let me know the scene would soon be wrapping, and that I could wait in Henry's trailer for the interview.

After a short walk to the other side of the lot, I opened the door on a large trailer, labeled "H. Cavill," and stepped into a small apartment on wheels. Setting my bag on the nearest chair I glanced around, wondering what it was like to live here for weeks and months at a time.

The small kitchen to the right had a bowl of fruit on the counter, next to a small blender, and a gallon of water. The "living room" had a two seater table next to a window, looking out in the direction I just came from. Small pictures hung on the opposite wall, just above a built in couch to make the space feel like home; a Kansas City Chiefs poster, Henry and his dog Kal on a beach, Henry with 4 other men, presumably his brothers, and another with a younger Henry, and people who I took to be parents.

I heard a scuffling coming from the opposite end of the trailer, toward the bedroom. As I took a step forward, his dog, Kal, trotted over to me and sniffed me before rubbing against my leg. Just after leaning down to pet him, I heard footsteps and a voice outside, as someone came up the small flight of stairs leading into the trailer. Glancing over my shoulder at the opening door, I was greeted by a tall, muscular form, backlit by the lowering sun. Standing up as the door shut, I smiled and extended my hand to a somewhat startled Henry.

"Hi, I'm from SceneIt. I was told to wait here for you if that's okay?" Golden eyes met mine for a moment and I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat- did he not know I was coming? Was he angry a stranger was in his trailer, petting his dog?

"Ah yes." He said in a voice first like Geralt's, then clearing his throat and becoming himself again, "I was told you would be here today. Please, sit." I sat on the end of the couch closest to the kitchen, as he reached in the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water.

He smiled and offered me one as he sat next to me. "Staying in character?" I asked, gesturing to the wardrobe and full makeup. He chuckled before nodding slightly, "3 more scenes to do, and this takes 2 hours to put on, and an hour to take off. So, what questions do you have for me?" he said, the smile reaching his eyes and making me catch my breath.

"Uh... so many questions." I mumbled, staring at those golden contacts. Why, brain, why?! I was normally cool as a cucumber around my clients, but not him. He was my "big fish," the one I had... those dreams about.

His light laugh at my total lack of professionalism, brought me back to reality. "Right. Questions." I pulled out my list of questions and my recorder, setting it down between us. I rambled off my questions, only half listening to his answers. I tried not to focus on the small beads of sweat on his temples, or the way the air conditioner gently moved the white hair of his wig around his face; the burning golden irises set under those dark brows. I pretended not to notice the little patch of dark hair peeking from the loosend top of his linen shirt, and I definitely wasn't focusing on the outline of his pecs and biceps under his shirt, or the way they moved when he did, begging to be touched. Thank god I was recording this, or I wouldn't have anything to turn in to my boss other than my resignation.

I brought myself back to the present to finish up the interview.

Looking down at my list of questions, I asked, "And what about horse riding? Geralt has such a strong relationship to Roach. Have you ridden a horse before?"

I glanced up to notice his golden eyes were cast downward, staring at my chest as it rose and fell with each breath. Slowly looking back up and meeting my gaze he said, "oh, I love being ridden." I felt my face flush as heat pooled in my groin.

"You mean you love horseriding. Right?" I asked quietly, barely able to get the words out, as I watched him watch me.

"That too." He said with a sly smile.

He leaned forward and I could almost tangibly feel time slow to a stop the closer he came towards me. All of my senses burst to life as my brain put together what was about to happen. I could feel the goosebumps raise over my entire body as my nipples hardened and my groin burned with heat. His soft breathing so close to me was as loud as thunder in my ears, and I could smell his sweat and deodorant. I swallowed as silently as I could before meeting his lips the rest of the way.

The moment our lips touched, my body felt like I was zapped with a bolt of lighting. One of his hands held my face while the other wrapped around my body, pulling me toward him to straddle his hips, before moving both of his hands down my back then resting them on my ass, pushing my body into his even harder.

My hands kept moving from his biceps to his chest and back again, trying to feel every inch of his body that I could.

I finally took a deep breath when he moved his lips from mine to pull my shirt over my head, before kissing his way down my neck to my chest.

I moved my hips slowly over his, feeling his erection under me. His hands made quick work of my bra as his ragged breathing filled my ears, before he slipped a hand under my waistband, his thumb rubbing my clit while his fingers swirled inside me.

I wrapped my arms around him as he stood up, moving us toward the bedroom area.

He laid me on the bed, before standing and pulling his own shirt off. He met my body with his, the weight heavy and amazing, as I wrapped my still clothed legs around his waist. He kissed me like he was trying to break a curse, while my nails dug into his back, desperate to melt our bodies into one. My hands found their way between our bodies to the ties on his leather pants, pulling them to free his sizeable erection.

He let out a low grunt as I grabbed him, using the softest parts of my fingers to wrap and slide my hand, up, down, and around. Moving his mouth away from mine again, he kissed a path down my throat, over my chest and down my stomach, stopping just above the waistline of my pants. He sat up to slide down the jeans and underwear together, tossing them on the floor. He kneeled above me momentarily, naked and panting, those golden eyes burning straight through to my soul, as I laid there looking up at him equally naked and breathless.

Just as I begin to worry the moment was fading, he gave me a grin that reignited the fire in my body, and in a move as graceful as his sword fighting, hitched one of my legs over his waist as he entered me. The sudden feeling of his body inside mine sucked the air from my lungs in an audible gasp, as my other leg wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer and deeper. My hands traveled all over his body as we both moved and moaned, dew forming on our skin. "Henry..." I whispered breathlessly, feeling that familiar knot of tension building. "Do it." He whispered, as he sat up to move harder and faster. My back arched, coming off the bed, as he grabbed my hip with one hand while supporting himself with the other. As soon as I came, he drove himself into me as far as he could and growled while rolling us over so he was under me. I bit my lip, remembering his comment about enjoying being ridden. I leaned back down to first kiss his mouth, then jaw, then his neck, before sitting up, one hand on his stomach, the other between our joined bodies, and began to roll my hips back and forth. Throwing his head back, he groaned and let out a deep breath, both hands on my hips. Digging his fingers into my flesh, I could tell he wanted me to go faster; instead, I raised myself slightly and went slower, drawing him in and almost out of my body, over and over, while he shuddered and growled at every movement. I wanted to draw out this beautiful torture- watching him want more and more of my body, while giving and taking of his for myself; but even I couldn't handle it much longer, feeling that tension building yet again. I lowered my body all the way down, taking in all of him, and rolled again, this time with more speed and force. His hands moved from my waist, one to join mine at the center of our bodies, fingers caressing my clit, while the other wrapped around my neck, pulling me close to him. I could hear his breathing growing more ragged by the second, as his body swelled inside me and his muscles tightened around me. I moved one of my hands to his jaw, running my thumb over his bottom lip. "Your turn." I sighed, feeling the knot in my own body tighten just to its breaking point. With one last growl he bit his bottom lip and slammed into me, filling my body as the tension in my own body burst with his. Sweaty and spent, I laid my body on his, both of us breathing hard. He wrapped his arms loosely around my back, smelling my hair and kissing the top of my head. I turned my head to look at him, to see those golden eyes again. "I know it's just contacts, but it's a good look." I chuckled. He laughed then feigned a frown, "what, the blue doesn't work for you?" "Oh no, I love the blue," I said, rubbing my hand on his jaw, feeling the stubble. "And the brown hair," I kissed his chin, "and the cleft chin. It's a pretty great thing you've got going here." I laughed while indicating his whole body.

I rolled over onto my back, head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around me. I did my best to hide my disappoint when I said "Well. I'll let you get cleaned up, I'm sure you have to get back out there." His arm tightened around me and I could feel him shake his head gently "I actually have another hour or so." I sat up and gave a small smile. "Then I'll be right back." I slipped out of the bed and into my underwear before tiptoeing quickly past the windows, grabbing my shirt, our waters, and my recorder, which was still on. I walked back to the bedroom to find him sitting up against the headboard, boxers on, Kal at his side. I climbed in next to him, leaning over to scratch Kal's head and handed him his water. "So this was still going..." I said holding up the recorder. "And it has a really good mic..." we looked at each other silently before he started laughing, and hit play on the recorder. Silence from the little box slowly gave way to shuffling as it was set on the couch, followed by Henry answering my questions. Now that I was much more satisfied, and far less distracted, I focused on his answers, thankful that I had enough for an article.

A few previously missed by me innuendos later, and I hear those words "oh I love being ridden." Face flushing, I glance at Henry from the corner of my eye to see him barely containing a smile. A few seconds of silence is suddenly interrupted by the sound of movement, kissing, and heavy breathing. The sounds fade as we left the living area, but that mic was... very good. Every moan, groan, and grunt was more than enough to know what was going on.

"Oh my god. I'm so glad I type my own tapes." I said, buying my face in my hands. Henry laughed and pulled me into him. "I like it. It really gives the imagination a lot to work with. That's a big thing in my line of work." I groaned in embarrassment before sitting up and slipping my shirt on. "Someone will probably be here for you soon, we should get you ready." I grabbed his shirt and climbed back in bed, and straddled him before kissing him. We both sighed as we parted, and I slipped the shirt over his head and back on his arms, while not at all subtly touching as much of him as I could. Brushing the now tussled hair from his face, I stared at him for a moment, not speaking, just taking in his face; the lines of his lips, the shape of his eyes, the dimple in his chin, all while he stared back at me.

I nodded and climbed back out of the bed, stepping into my jeans. Henry pulled on his leather pants, and walked to the living room, Kal trailing behind him. I grabbed my recorder, thinking about how a much sought after assignment became a one night stand, and that I would never see him again like this. He came to stand beside me, my bag in his hand. I slipped the strap over my shoulder and looked up at him, his face not hiding that he wanted to say something. Hesitantly I asked, " is something wrong?" He was quiet for a beat before taking a deep breath and saying, "Would you want to go to dinner tonight?" Inside, I was screaming. Outside I nodded and smiled, "yeah. That sounds great." He smiled back at me and nodded, "Good. You can stay here with Kal and work if you want to, or come to set. Stage 34." He kissed me once more before petting Kal, now at my feet "take care of my girl Kal." He winked at me before walking out, back to work.

I let a tiny scream escape my lips before plopping myself on the couch and pulling out my laptop to type up our tape- minus the best parts.

#henry cavill #geralt of rivia #the witcher #witcher #smut