#if I had a ton of money I’d love to have a tailor who could make custom pieces for me

[luminarai]

when I look for new clothes it’s 99% of the time because I have a very specific idea of an article of clothing that I’d like, but I find that most times my online searching inevitably lead me to shein or shein-like sites, which is so annoying. like, they’ve had to have stolen the design from *somewhere* you know? and I’d like to not contribute to absolutely horrendous worker conditions and consumption landfills etc etc, thanks.

#cecil blogs her life #currently I’m looking for a jacquard like sleeveless floral top in green/yellow/golden tones #ideally cropped + with thin straps. yes this is the level of detail I’m talking about #sometimes I do find something similar on high end fashion brands that have almost exactly the same shitty conditions for their workers #I can sew but only the basics and honestly I fibd sourcing fabrics to be a nightmare here #if I had a ton of money I’d love to have a tailor who could make custom pieces for me #honestly the dream #but I’d like to at least try not to actively make the world a worse place #no ethical consumption under capitalism etc etc #also I think this approach to shopping is why I almost never throw out/donate clothing #because I spend time carefully picking out pieces I like and wear them until they’re literally falling apart

[savage-rhi]

Mending Shadows // Chapter 13

Summary:

Y/N was a simple Scavenger of Lucis, until meeting a deadly blow at the hands of an infected creature. At the crossroads of death, they are found by Niflheim’s cryptic Chancellor with his own agenda. Now bonded to Ardyn Izunia, and tossed into the world of Niflheim, Y/N struggles to cope with their new life as an Imperial Icon all the while battling their feelings toward their fate and that of Ardyn’s.

Click here to read on AO3

The Freyr District of Gralea was quite renown. It had no bounds and was filled with skyscrapers attempting to stretch into the heavens, and tons of shops clustered off in intricate sections. From the well paved roads, and the heavy whiffs of floral smells from the markets, the area was well taken care of by the people who dwelled within. Y/N remembered feeling small in Insomnia years ago, and the District trudged up similar feelings they had long thought lost. By the time both Tuti and they arrived to the shop called Vanir, their trepidations ended swiftly. It didn't take long to find an elegant attire for the evening; something that wasn't too plain, yet would help Y/N blend in with the array of people they were to meet. A half hour later after getting their clothing tailored, and purchased, Y/N was led into the streets of Gralea with Tuti putting on her best tour guide persona. 

Y/N hadn’t seen a lot of Gralea, but they had come to learn most of the city’s spirit had faded over time due to the war. With endless money going to battles, there wasn’t much left for the material world. It was something Tuti took great care into pointing out, how much the public scenery changed within the past ten years. During their conversation, Y/N realized they had taken Insomnia for granted in the past. No city was perfect, but it did have a more welcoming character by comparison to Gralea. They clutched tightly onto the bag with their gown inside, and began to feel homesick for Lucis, and for the people they once called friends. 

“Did I talk too much about the Infernium Theater’s architecture?” Tuti softly gasped, catching herself having gone overboard. 

Y/N shook their head. “No, no. It’s actually neat how you know so much about it.”

“Oh, phew!” Tuti wiped her forehead and chuckled. “I was beginning to think I was a bore! You look upset though. Are you alright?” 

Y/N nodded. They went quiet for a bit as they crossed a street. An array of cars drove past them, and Y/N noted how different the body types were in comparison to those they had seen in Lucis. 

“I won’t lie,” Y/N began while Tuti listened. “Despite what led me here to Niflheim, I miss my home. At least what my life was like before.” 

“Come to think of it,” Tuti hummed. “What was your occupation back in Lucis?” 

“I was more or less a treasure hunter. People would pay me to travel around Lucis and find things for them, or I’d go looking for scraps and other goods people leave behind so I could turn a profit.” Y/N felt a sense of pride in themself that they hadn’t experienced in a long time. It added more mixed feelings to what they were enduring. 

“That sounds so exciting!” Tuti exclaimed. The light in her eyes seemed to grow. “I can imagine you’d get quite the coin performing jobs like that!” 

Y/N shook their head while laughing at Tuti’s naivety. “Sadly, Scavenging pays scraps in comparison to most professions. I had a small apartment in Galdin Quay, and I was saving up for my own land. I had maybe another five years left to go before I could purchase a home.” 

“If it’s any consolation,” Tuti smiled sadly, sensing sadness in Y/N’s tone toward the end of their sentence. “The gods surely smiled upon you when you arrived in Niflheim. I mean…you’re living in the palace under the Chancellor’s roof, and the fact you two even met in the first place is a miracle! I’d love to think fate is giving you a hand after the hardships you've had to deal with." 

“I guess you’re right in a way.” Y/N knew Tuti meant well. She had been nothing but kind and welcoming since the start, but there were times when her positivity rubbed Y/N off the wrong way, such as now. It wasn’t Tuti’s fault that she was in the dark about the real truths behind the blessings Y/N had received. 

“He speaks kindly of you.” 

“Ardyn--er, Chancellor Izunia?” Y/N corrected themself while mentally kicking their brain for forgetting the basics of public etiquette. There were so many rules to mere talking that Y/N felt like breaking them all despite the consequences. Social points be damned. 

“Yes!” Tuti giggled at Y/N’s fumble and smiled. “I hate to admit it, but I eavesdrop a lot! Sometimes my assignments are so mundane, that I have to latch onto whatever is near for my own sanity. I think most of us Imperial Help are wired like that. Anyhow, he sounds daresay chipper when regarding you.” 

Chipper…? That was an unusual way to describe Ardyn that it almost sounded out of character to Y/N. Tuti had no reason to lie about it. She had been truthful about everything and anything Y/N had asked of her. They couldn’t say the same for the very man they happened to be discussing. 

“He probably speaks as such because of the fact I’m using my sickness to help him find a cure for the scourge,” Y/N grimaced at lying to her, but held firm. "Why are you telling me this?"

Tuti cleared her throat. “You two fight quite often. It’s not my business, but I do worry. I’ve seen how sad you’ve gotten after the fact. I wanted to reassure you that Chancellor Izunia may be, pardon my language--an asshole--but when he’s talked to others about you it’s like poetry; nothing but joy and pride. I know you’re nervous about making your debut tonight, but I know you'll be well received with how Chancellor Izunia has hyped you up. You have nothing to fear but your own fear.” 

Y/N stifled a laugh at Tuti calling Ardyn an asshole. With how upbeat of a person Tuti was, hearing her curse felt out of left field. Y/N smiled softly while combing over the rest of Tuti’s words. They paused however and did a double take. 

“What’s the other reason?” 

“Oh that,” Tuti smiled so big it scared Y/N a little bit. If they didn’t know better, Tuti looked just about as mischievous as Ardyn when he was up to something criminal. “You know what they say about men, they tend to be jerks to the person they admire most!”

Y/N glared after rolling their eyes. “I can assure you Tuti, that is not the case at all. If Chancellor Izunia ever saw me in that light, it would bring about the next apocalypse.”

Tuti laughed so hard she snorted. “I only jest!” 

“So you’ve said numerous times now…” Y/N muttered.

Despite feeling embarrassed, Y/N joined in on the laughter. The bit of joy was soon tarnished by a wave of pain that took hold of Y/N’s chest. It hurt so much that they dropped the shopping bag with their attire in it. They stopped in their tracks, left hand grabbing at their right shoulder while twisted knots traveled down their nerves. 

“Y/N!” Tuti gasped. She rested a hand on Y/N’s left shoulder, and beckoned them to look her in the eye. “From a one to a ten, where is it at?” 

“A seven,” Y/N harshly whispered, trying to keep themself from grimacing. “I need to sit down somewhere.” 

“Of course!” Tuti nodded. She carefully glanced around, making sure they were both not attracting a commotion. “I know just the place! We can go through the rest of the Chancellor’s protocols there!” 

Several blocks, and a bus ride later, Y/N found themself sitting in the middle of a large botanical garden. From ground to ceiling, it was filled with a lineup of vegetation and flowers so vibrant that it rivaled the painted sky’s the gods created for men to behold. The earthy aromas reminded Y/N of Lucis, of being in Duscae sweating like a pig yet embracing the fun of the unknown. Most importantly, it was quiet and serene. Save for a few souls who came and went, it had been just Y/N and Tuti at the epicenter of the greenhouse. They might as well had been in another universe. 

For almost two hours, the Imperial Gardens were a sight to behold. It was a marvel to gaze upon while Tuti ensured Y/N was stabilized, and had taken the notes Ardyn needed for documentation. Everything from temperature, to pulse rate was scratched down in a pocket sized notebook to help the Chancellor and Chief Besithia’s research. 

Y/N felt a twinge of guilt seeing Tuti go through the trouble. Ardyn never so much as looked at the notes she made, and merely filed them away. When Y/N had asked why he had Tuti bother with it, Ardyn proclaimed it was to ensure Tuti’s compliance to keep quiet about Y/N’s infection by, in his words, “throwing her into the thick of it.”. Secondly, it was to give Tuti something tangible to boost her morale; to make her feel important to the alleged cause of seeking a cure for the most dangerous disease in all of Eos. Y/N hated to admit it, but Ardyn wasn’t wrong about that. Tuti took this task just as seriously as she did any other assignment the Palace Warden would throw upon her. 

“Are the pills Chancellor Izunia gave you kicking in now?” Tuti asked, looking up from her notebook. 

“I would say so,” Y/N nodded. To distract themself from their guilt, they contently looked at one of the large purple flowers in the greenhouse. “Should I flare tonight at the event, hopefully no one sees anything.” 

“Just in case, I think we should apply some make up to your hot spots to play it safe.” Tuti suggested.

“Hate to say it, but I agree with you.” The thought of having makeup caked onto their skin didn’t sound appealing, but neither did a lynch mob going after both them and Ardyn. 

Tuti wrapped up the last of her notes, and put her notebook back into her purse she had been carrying. She let out a deep breath, finally allowing herself some peace after being riddled with concern.

“I don’t think I ever asked how you got sick to begin with.” Tuti said sadly, furrowing her brows after meeting Y/N’s gaze. “If I were in your shoes, I don’t know how I’d handle it all.” 

Y/N palmed at the knee of their pants, recalling the goblin and then the faces of the people they had killed. They couldn’t look Tuti in the eye while those memories played out, and then like a shadow, leeched back into the dark to await another moment of weakness. 

“It was from a goblin,” Y/N murmured. That was all they would allow themself to give. “To be honest with you, I feel like I’m barely hanging on by a thread. Y’know, the Chancellor had a chance to put me down. Honestly, he would’ve done me a favor. ” 

“You shouldn’t speak like that,” Tuti shook her head in disbelief. The worry in her gaze grew as she glanced around the gardens, listening to the tranquil waterfall nearby. “You’re the first person I’ve heard of who has lasted longer than a month from infection. It’s unheard of. I can’t speak to the pain you endure, and I’m sure if the shoe were on the other foot, I’d feel the same as you, but this can’t be for nothing.” 

“Have you lost loved ones to the scourge?” Y/N asked.

“Many,” Tuti admitted. “As have most people in Gralea. They say that the scourge first popped up in Niflheim before it spread around to the other continents. Some people believe it’s a judgement from the gods due to the slaying of Shiva on our lands. You know, on the eve of the Chancellor’s coronation, outbreaks began to happen more frequently.” Tuti sighed. “To have something formidable like that occur when getting promoted is rotten luck. Finding you, is the break I’m sure Chancellor Izunia needs.” 

Y/N did a double take when Tuti brought up scourge infections happening more prominently when Ardyn arrived. It made sense, that such a calamity would ensure due to the fact he is Adagium. Y/N wondered if Ardyn had been purposefully spreading it around. Then again, it didn’t seem to interest him much in the grand scheme of things. They made a mental note to somehow drudge that up later to him. 

“I don’t understand,” Y/N furrowed their brows at a thought. “If infections are so bad here, why are folks acting…normal about it?” 

“Most people are in denial,” Tuti said in truth. “I myself am too most days. It’s the only way to keep one’s sanity intact. On the bright side, the outbreaks have been more concentrated to the West of Niflheim. Gralea has been spared most of the brunt.” 

“You seem to know a lot about this.”

“Only because I researched quite extensively when Chancellor Izunia told me I’d be assigned as your Keeper!” Tuti chuckled. 

Y/N was taken back. “You did all that, just to help me out?” 

“Of course! I didn’t want to go into this blind.” Tuti smiled and rubbed the back of her neck. “Anyway, please…don’t speak of wishing you were better off gone. I know we haven’t known each other long, but I’d miss your company. You’re one of the few things I have, that’s kept me going at this job.” 

Tuti’s words did little to deter Y/N from their end goal in this mess, but they wouldn’t lie that her empathy did touch their heart. Y/N furrowed their brows the longer they thought about Tuti’s last remark, but before they could proceed, a familiar voice called out to them. 

“My dear!” The deep voice of Commander Pierce echoed throughout the garden. His light steps approached as did another set. Y/N glanced over the younger man at his side. He had dark blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and a stride that suggested he carried himself with high regard. His military garments didn’t do much to give the impression he was welcoming in Y/N’s eyes. Their memories of dealing with imperial soldiers at the Cape further made them weary. That is until the young man smiled their way and gave a small head bow. His whole persona shifted, making him warm. Y/N couldn’t help but smile back in return despite his general appearance.

“Commander Pierce!” Tuti exclaimed in a whisper, standing up immediately and giving a formal bow. She gestured with her heard for Y/N to do the same. By the time both Commander Pierce and his follower approached, it was too late for formalities. 

Y/N made a face, offering a small head bow. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to fret!” Commander Pierce chuckled and held up a hand. “It can’t be easy learning a million customs. Congratulations by the way on making your debut tonight. Word of your story has spread through the empire fast. Many folk are dying to meet the Lucian who dared to chart their own course away from home. Had I known what you endured, I would’ve been more considerate on the airship.” 

Y/N swallowed. It was dawning on them more and more how big this lie had gotten out of hand, and yet the grains of truth scattered about kept them tethered to the plot. 

“No, please,” Y/N shook their head. “There’s nothing to forgive. I was too shaken up to say anything. You were nothing but kind to me.” 

“That does warm my heart a great deal,” he sighed in relief and then gestured to the man beside him. “This is my son, Loqui. We were just enjoying the gardens while I happen to be in the capitol taking a rest from the war.” 

“A pleasure,” Loqui said simply, giving a small wave with his right hand before it turned into a fist and he placed it over his heart. He glanced over Y/N, seemingly making mental notes here and there. 

The way Loqui was observing Y/N made them uncomfortable. It was as if he was staring at a bug and was unsure if he found it to be beautiful or if he wanted to squish it. Y/N could feel it was difficult for him to differentiate between the two concepts. 

“Is there something on my face or do you like staring people down like vulture?” Y/N quipped without thinking. 

Tuti let out a slight gasp and covered her mouth, half expecting a brawl to converse. 

“Do forgive me, I’m just admiring the view.” Loqui said with a playful grin. “I’ve heard of Lucian’s being fierce and formidable. It’s one of thing to hear tales, but another to see one in the flesh. You don’t strike me as dangerous.” 

“That’s because you just met me,” Y/N retorted sarcastically. From his cadence, Y/N sensed that Loqui was truly being comical and not menacing. They did their best to ignore how warm their face felt and grinned as did he. “Last I checked we’re both human beings at the end of the day. I’m not some monster out of a fairy tale coming to conquer everything you stand for.” 

“In that case,” Loqui cleared his throat. “I’d love to get acquainted with you better.” 

“Oh, I bet you would.” Y/N teased, seeing Loqui blush faintly as he nervously laughed. 

Commander Pierce's face flushed as he glanced between Loqui and Y/N. His features shifted as he gave Loqui a strong nudge to his side, causing the younger man to nearly yelp. 

“Do forgive my son’s manners,” Commander Pierce murmured, rolling his eyes at Loqui when the younger man shot him daggers. He turned his attention back to Y/N. “He has a lot to learn.” 

“As do I,” Y/N said, noting the impish grin that crossed Loqui’s lips. He went neutral before his father could catch wind. “I’ve been unwell today. I apologize for being forward.” 

“Think nothing of it!” Commander Pierce proclaimed. “I can imagine you’re feeling a lot today. I’ll be at the ceremony tonight on security duty. Should you need anything, don’t hesitate to have an Imperial Helper call on me.”

“I appreciate that,” Y/N nodded. “How has the war been paving out? I haven't heard much about it.”

Commander Pierce was taken back. It became obvious to Y/N he wasn’t allowed to divulge anything sensitive like that, considering the circumstances. Nevertheless, he chose his words carefully and proceeded. 

“It’s hard to say,” Commander Pierce spoke sincerely. “The empire is doing as well as we can. There is a great deal I wish to discuss with Chancellor Izunia. I plan to make arrangements with him, but would it trouble you to send him a quick message on my behalf?” 

“Not at all,” Y/N replied. “What do you want me to tell him?” 

The Commander gestured for Y/N to step a little closer so he could whisper, keeping both Loqui and Tuti out of earshot. Y/N complied, furrowing their brows out of concern when he began to confide in them.

“There’s a wolf wearing the pelt of a sheep. He’ll know what it means. Keep this in confidence, and be careful.” 

“I will,” Y/N murmured back. From how pressing Commander Pierce's tone was, Y/N could tell this had troubled the older man a great deal. His own insecurity regarding the message made Y/N shudder. Whatever was going on, he was scared. It said a lot coming from a man who no doubt killed many in his time. 

Y/N wanted to ask further, curiosity having bitten down hard on them, but before they could, Commander Pierce retreated back and smiled warmly. 

“You have my thanks,” He said sincerely and then gestured for Loqui to straighten up. “Please, we’ve taken up so much of your time in the gardens. My son and I will be off.” 

“It was good seeing you. Thanks, Pierce--oh crap, I forgot--”

“Nothing to fret! Consider us friends, at least in informal circles. May all of Gralea welcome you with open arms.” Commander Pierce chuckled. He gave a half bow to Y/N and Tuti before patting Loqui on the back to get a move on. As the two ventured off, Loqui suddenly halted, spun around, and took a few steps toward Y/N.

“Did you forget something?” Y/N laughed, seeing the look of determination on his face suddenly blunder. 

“Whatever is left of my pride as an Imperial, I’ll tell you that!” Loqui quipped with a laugh. His confidence waned as he stammered. “I know you’re going to have quite an audience tonight, but it would be an honor if we could dance at some point. if you’d be kind enough to indulge me that is?" 

Y/N shook their head, glancing to Tuti who suppressed a giggle while giving a modest shrug. 

“Looks like you’re going to have to wait and find out!” Y/N teased. 

“I’ll gladly wait all night!” Loqui laughed. He performed a playful bow and then marched back to meet up with his father. 

As soon as the pair were quite a distance away, Commander Pierce didn’t hesitate to slap Loqui upside the head. The impact along with Loqui’s yelp traveled around the greenhouse. Both Y/N and Tuti looked at each other flabbergasted before the pair erupted into laughter, thankful the men were long gone. 

“So much for being nervous this evening!” Tuti exclaimed in between breaths. “You got him wound up like a clock spring!” 

“That was not my intention!” Y/N breathed, wiping away stray tears that had come tumbling down from their bout. “He was acting insufferable so I returned the favor.” 

“Honey, that’s called flirting.” 

“Can it, Tuti.” Y/N forewarned playfully. 

“Well, can’t help it if a gal is calling it like it is!” Tuti said in her defense. She let out a deep breath, settling her giggles. “So, are you going to dance with him?” 

“Maybe out of courtesy for his father I will,” Y/N mused. “I met Commander Pierce on an airship when Ardyn returned home with me. He helped us out quite a bit.” 

“You did it again, speaking informally.” Tuti sighed. 

Y/N face palmed themself. “I’m never going to get this down. Why can’t people just call each other by their names, why the formality?” 

“That’s the price of tradition I’m afraid,” Tuti furrowed her brows before giving a reassuring smile. “And you will get it down eventually! You weren’t raised as an imperial, nor a formal Lucian. I wouldn’t beat yourself up. But speaking of formalities, I need to be getting you back to the palace to get ready!”

“It’s already that time?” Y/N’s eyes widened a bit. 

“Yep! I suggest we take the next bus, and then I’ll phone up a palace cabby to come fetch us! We can go over your entrance in the meantime!” 

Y/N felt themself growing overwhelmed that they merely nodded to Tuti’s plan of action. They were then pulled by Tuti’s right arm as she led them both out of the green house, and out into the streets. Skyscrapers, cars, and people flew by in a flash and all the while, Y/N’s heart pounded thunderously in their chest. Tonight was going to make or break the act both Ardyn and themself agreed to. 

Y/N wasn’t one that did much praying to the gods--and given the circumstances with Ardyn--didn’t believe such beings would see them in a positive light, but Y/N sent out a small wish hoping they wouldn’t lose their nerve. 

#mending shadows #ardyn izunia #ardyn lucis caelum #ardyn x reader #ardyn x you #gender neutral reader #gender neutral y/n #fanfic #ffxv fanfic #ffxv #final fantasy xv

[ppangjae]

made to fall in love | ten

SERIES MASTERLIST

prev | ten | next

SUMMARY. Seoul’s finest 30 under 30. The country’s youngest billionaire. 2019’s richest bachelor. But of all the women he could go after, he goes after.. her?

GENRE. fluff and angst + ceo!jaehyun (someone stop me) + nerd!reader + enemies to lovers!au + long lost friend!au

WORD COUNT. 1.8k+ words

warnings. tooth-rotting fluff, swearing, and tons of bickering!

author’s note. this update is just a little bit longer than the previous one just because there wasn’t an update last week. happy reading~

TEN. never not • from the moment i loved, i knew you were the one

“Care to explain this?”

Johnny tosses the daily newspaper onto Jaehyun’s desk. Jaehyun quirks an eyebrow at his best friend as he gently grabs the newspaper. Written in large, bold font, he reads the headline with a smirk slowly forming on his lips. Johnny’s eyebrows raise in surprise. 

“The media just loves me, huh?” Jaehyun clicks his tongue. He tosses the newspaper to the side. “Do you really think I have the time to get engaged?”

“So, you’re telling me that—”

“The headlines are fake?” Jaehyun interrupts him. “Yes. They are.”

“But that’s clearly you and Y/N in the picture. You’re clearly kneeling down in front of her with an engagement ring.” Johnny says confusedly.

“The restaurant we both ate at last night had a promotion where a newly-engaged couple’s dinner will be on the house.” He explains while shrugging his shoulders. “I decided to finesse the system. Is there anything wrong with that? Besides, the bill turned out to be bigger than I expected and what’s better than faking a marriage proposal to get the dinner for free?”

“The ring,” Johnny mumbles, “Do you carry an engagement ring everywhere you go?”

Jaehyun snorts. “The ring is for my mother. It’s her birthday today and I had picked up the ring yesterday. It was all perfect timing.”

Johnny squints his eyes at him with suspicion. “Well, you better talk to the press and clear this entire situation up. The public now assume you’re—”

“Off the market?” Jaehyun grins. “Sounds nice. It also looks nice when it’s printed out on paper. Jeong Jaehyun, CEO of Jung Architects is officially off the market—”

“Good morning.”

Jaehyun clamps his mouth shut. You enter the office before stopping in your tracks. You look at the two best friends who are staring at you. You fold your arms and raise an eyebrow. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Johnny clears his throat. “Good morning. Jaehyun, do you want me to go grab you some coffee?”

Jaehyun fixes his tie and gets back to work. “I’d like that. Thanks. Y/N, do you want some coffee too?”

You watch them with a confused look. “S-Sure, I could get a caffeine boost.”

As Johnny starts making his way to the door, the both of you meet gazes. The both of you communicate through looks until Johnny shrugs his shoulders and sticks his tongue out at you. You let out a sigh. 

“Is there anything wrong, Y/N?”

Your posture straightens. “Nothing, sir.”

As you’re taking a seat at your work table, you notice a bright yellow post-it note on your desk. You place your bag onto your chair to pick at the post-it note. Your eyebrows knit together as you read it.

Cheer up! You look lovely today. -J

You scoff, ready to crumble up the post-it note until you try to sneak a glance at Jaehyun. He’s busy typing away on his computer, looking completely unfazed and unbothered. The more you stare at him, the more you question the post-it note. You shift your gaze back to the post-it note. J? Who the fuck is J? Instead of crumbling up the post-it note, you gently stick it back onto the surface of your work table. You look at Jaehyun with suspicion.

Johnny comes back to the office with two cups of freshly-made coffee in his hands. First, he places a cup onto Jaehyun’s desk. Jaehyun mumbles a soft ‘thanks’ before his typing returns to an aggressive speed. Johnny strides over to your desk to place your coffee onto your desk.

“A cup of coffee for my favourite human being.” Johnny smiles.

You chuckle. “Am I really your favourite human being?”

“Of course!” He exclaims.

“Johnny, get back to work.” Jaehyun commands him. Johnny’s smile is immediately wiped off of his face. It makes you want to laugh.

“Yes, sir.” Johnny mutters, rolling his eyes. He nods at you. “You look lovely today, by the way! It’s nice to see you all cheered up.”

“I—wait—huh?” You stutter.

“I should get back to work. I’ll see you during lunch break!” Johnny exclaims as he starts heading towards the door without speaking to you any further.

You look lovely today, by the way! 

It’s nice to see you all cheered up.

Cheer up! You look lovely today.

-J

J for Jaehyun? J for Johnny?

You’re instantly troubled with your thoughts. Jaehyun sneaks a glance at you, specifically at the post-it note on your desk. A smile threatens to spread across his lips.

The company’s year-end party is definitely something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Every single employee seems to be doing at least something for the party. Johnny’s in charge of the decorations, Winwin from the HR department is in charge of the catering, and even Lucas, the newly-hired intern is in charge of the guest list. There are employees running everywhere, putting in all their effort to make the year-end party the best it could possibly be. 

Meanwhile, you’re in the middle of the chaos, pondering on what you should wear.

Jaehyun clearly has favourites.

You’re probably one of them.

“You should probably go for the off-shoulder dress.” You jump in your seat, letting out a loud yelp. You almost drop your phone. You hear a soft chuckle.

Jaehyun is looking at your phone over your shoulder. You immediately lock your phone, quickly shoving your phone back into your pocket. “I’ve been waiting for half an hour now. Are you done with your work?”

“Oh,” Jaehyun’s eyebrows raise. “Were you expecting me to drive you home?”

“Yes.” You frown. “You always do.”

“But you always decline my offer?” It comes out as a question. 

“Well, after much thought, I figured that I’d save more money if you drove me home.” You purse your lips into a tight line. “My bus money can be lunch money.”

“You have a point.” He hums in agreement. “Well, let’s get going. I know a place to go to.”

“A place?”

Jaehyun doesn’t reply, a grin spread across his lips. You fold your arms, waiting for him to utter a word but his stubborn self seals his lips. 

“It’s a surprise.”

“Christian Dior?”

Jaehyun opens the door for you. You slowly step out of his car. As he shuts the door behind you, you can’t help but look at the store with bright eyes. He glances at you and smiles. “Surprise.”

You snort. “I think I’ll go to the store next door. I don’t think I can afford anything from Dior.”

“Who said you were paying?”

Your head snaps in his direction and your eyes widen. You shake your head. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not joking.”

You squint your eyes at him. “It’s moments like these where I wish I took the bus instead.”

“You won’t regret this,” he says as he grabs your hand.

You look down at your interlocked hands as he leads you to the high-end store. There are tailors left and right and retailers flocking to Jaehyun the moment he enters the store. They’re all asking him questions about what he’s interested in looking at but Jaehyun doesn’t budge. Instead, he looks at you.

“I’m not shopping for me,” he says with a sheepish smile. “I’m shopping for her.”

Everyone looks at you. You look at them, just as awkward and confused as they are until one of the retailers lets out a loud gasp. “You’re her! You’re the woman on the front page of the newspaper!”

You furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “What are you talking about—”

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Jaehyun cuts you off and he fakes a smile at the retailer. “Is it possible to get all the red dresses you sell at this store location?”

“Oh, I thought you were going to look for engagement party dresses—”

“Engagement?” You frown. The retailer just doesn’t know how to clamp her mouth shut and Jaehyun gives her a warning look. You nudge Jaehyun. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“Oh! How rude of me!” The retailer gasps. “Congratulations on your engagement—”

“Red dresses!” Jaehyun snaps. “Where are your red dresses? We’re running on a time crunch right now and—”

You shake your head. “No, we’re not. We’re not in a rush—”

“Ah, I wish I was as lucky as her to be engaged with Jeong Jaehyun—”

“We are in a rush. Please get the red dresses prepared, thanks.”

“We’ll get the red dresses prepared.”

You and Jaehyun share a look.

There’s nothing wrong with having too many red dresses to try on. Well, except for two, it’s tiring and taxing. The tailors that are zipping you up in your last dress for the night can’t help but giggle at your facial expression. You look tired. You look at your reflection with a blank gaze. That is, until you finally feel the dress being zipped up perfectly. Your posture straightens and it sort of snaps you back into reality. Your eyes trail down your reflection in the mirror and your mouth gradually hangs open.

You look… 

“You look beautiful, ma’am.”

You look at the tailor through the mirror. You feel your cheeks heat up. “Thanks.”

“Shall we show Mr. Jeong how you look?”

You nod. “Let’s get going, I’m starving.”

Jaehyun fiddles with his phone as the annoying retailer continues to bug him with questions about his supposed ‘engaged’ life. He can’t help but regret faking a marriage proposal for a free dinner. He can’t help but regret using his mother’s birthday gift that so happens to be a ring, as a fake engagement ring. All for a free dinner. He guesses this was his karma.

“She’s ready, do you want to see her?” He looks up to see the tailor coming out from the dressing room. He slowly nods his head and lets out a yawn. “Sorry for letting you wait a bit longer for this dress, but I’m sure it will be worth it.”

He’s seen at least ten red dresses at this point that he’s not sure what the differences between them are. But that’s all about to change the moment you step out of the dressing room. And indeed, there is a huge difference. You step out of the dressing room in a red dress. But it’s not just any dress. 

You’re slowly turning around in the dress to give Jaehyun a full view of the dress. It’s a long mermaid, off-the-shoulder dress with a high slit down the side of your leg. It flows effortlessly all the way down to your feet. It shows all of your beautiful curves. 

Jaehyun looks at you in awe. “This is the one.”

You adjust your glasses on the bridge of your nose, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind your ear. You’re too insecure to even notice that Jaehyun even said something about the dress until the tailor is ready to take you back to the dressing room. “Wait, you don’t like this one?”

Jaehyun’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “I love this one.”

You blink. “Really?”

He smiles, nodding his head. “Really. You look lovely.”

You look lovely.

You snap out of it before turning towards the tailor. “I’m getting this dress.”

You look..

Lovely.

It echoes in your mind, over and over again, specifically in his voice.

Yeah, you’re definitely not sleeping tonight.

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[docholligay]

Shamash answers: Writing

The question for this was one that selfishly tickled me: If you could force me to write anything, what would it be? There were many goodf answers but these were my favorites: 

An original fiction haunted house novella. Seriously, “Imaginary Friends” is among my top favorite horror pieces and I’d love to see more of that vein from you--goblinjunkyard

First of all, thank you so much!! I also really love that piece and good news! I am working diligently to polish it up and file off the serial numbers to be a short novel or a long novella--in any case I’m hoping to have it ready next Halloween, with 75% more story! 

GIVE US THE COMPLETE FAMILY SAGA OF THE OXTONS. WRITE IT LIKE YOU’RE A VICTORIAN NOVELIST WHO’S JUST BEEN SERIALIZED. Show us the courtship of Bert and Mary. Tell us of Parvati and Lena’s ridiculous childhood exploits. Write 100-word descriptions of every sweater Winston has ever received from them. What two random family members have been seething with resentment at each other for petty slights until Gran told them to cut the crap? Let us know ALL. --Regalli

If you wrote this to pander to me IT WORKED, and you both made me feel good and have a draw in for Shamash day, so. I do, in fact, have like, a ton of this written but never publish it because it’s all so very self-indulgent and I did not necessarily want to throw like, Wizard and Glass at you ahahaha. BUT ANYWAY THIS MADE ME FEEL VERY GOOD AND IF IT IS A LIE IT IS A KIND ONE. 

Sailor Moon AU where the girls are licensed ghost hunters, sometimes working together, sometimes in competition. Only some of them have actual psychic powers, the others are deluded, extra hands and eyes for tasks, or flim-flam artists. The team must resolve hauntings and occasionally solve murder mysteries. -- @nerdy-flutterings

You win the award for one of the most INTERESTING concepts introduced in this question. I think I wrote...a proposal? Somewhere? About Mina being a paranormal con artist, and Rei is constantly trying to catch her out, and this would be a good place for that sort of thing. I love the idea of going all Rose Red and having them all have different “powers,” the ones that do. Would I have Rei have premonitions? Probably, and that’s the most boring one, but think of Michiru having some capacity to communicate with the dead whether she likes it or not, or...more interestingly, think of Mako being able to take emotional signature from touching objects or people. Mina is still just a con though, and haruka still has the psychic projection of a brick. 

Noted femme Michiru, in an attempt to "be nice" and "make friends" as Mina and her wife (respectively) have implored her, offers to get a nice dress tailored for wants-to-be-femme-but-feels-too-buff-and-tall-for-it Mako, who thinks this is a trap of some kind. Michiru kindly assures her that if she wanted to "trap" her, Mako would never see it coming. Mako does not like this thought at all. (It IS a really nice dress though...) -- @wouldntyoulichentoknow

THIS IS ALSO GREAT. Michiru’s awkward attempts to be kind that in many ways just come off as “Here’s some money, go see a star war” 

I can never get enough of Mystery and Shadow AU and I love your horror writing, so I’d be curious to make you throw both together and see what happens (even if it ends up outside the MaS general canon) --- @awashsquid

Oh hmmmmmmmm what an idea!! I clearly need to write more horror, this is going to sound stupid but I had no idea y’all liked it so much! 

#eights days shamash drawing

[merflk]

if your cascade, ocean wave blues come.

main pairing: ginny weasley x blaise zabini background pairings: neville longbottom x astoria greengrass, percy weasley x pansy parkinson, oliver wood x marcus flint words: 6021 link: ao3 soundtrack: peace - taylor swift

Every wedding she’s attended since the war reminds her of Bill and Fleur’s.

She can’t help it. No matter the venue, or the people getting married, or the guests attending, every single time she’s pulled back into that tent in her parents’ backyard.

It was bad the first few times. The war sparked a lot of tragedy, but the war ending made people feel like taking the leap together. In the past seven years, she’s been to thirteen weddings total. The first time, it was like she was transported back into the war in the middle of the ceremony. She had a quiet panic attack that no one noticed and, eventually, got home absolutely plastered. After that happened a second time, she realised that it was a wedding thing. So for a little bit she attended none.

That didn’t last very long. Hard to get to wedding number fourteen otherwise.

The thing that saved her was her camera. As it turned out, taking pictures was a ton of fun, and she was kind of good at it. At first, it was because she ignored every single ‘rule’ photography had. She paid next to no attention to classic perspective and lighting. She just went ahead and snapped. People said it was artistic. That made her feel a little proud, so she kept taking them.

At some point, the camera became an extension of herself. And she became a photographer.

Now, wedding photography is like a little treat. She only does it for friends and family, not as an actual career choice, choosing to stick to other subjects for that. When Neville asked if she would take the pictures for his wedding to Astoria, she agreed to it immediately. They’re having a spring wedding, full of flowers and sunshine, and now that she’s standing here, looking around, she feels free from Bill and Fleur’s wedding for the first time.

Ginny smiles and snaps a picture of Harry, Ron and Hermione, who are laughing loudly near the buffet. The wedding is outside, in the large garden of the Greengrass estate. As far as Ginny knows, it took a lot of convincing to get Astoria’s parents on board with her marrying Neville, but with the help of her sister Daphne (who was a grade A politician) they had managed to figure something out.

The gardens are huge, and the wedding is smack in the middle of them, so the house seems pretty far away from here. Even so, she can still make out its luxurious white exterior. Neville is marrying into big money. But…

Ginny glances over at Neville and Astoria, who are quietly dancing in the middle of the dance floor, their foreheads pressed together. The hem of Astoria’s dress is slightly smudged with mud, and she has three flowers in her hair. It’s like they’re their own little sun with the amount of love and happiness radiating from them. The other dancing couples orbit them, basking in their light.

She takes a picture.

Even if Astoria’s parents never accepted Neville, even if they had disowned their daughter like they’d originally threatened to do, neither of them would have wavered. They would have had a tiny wedding somewhere in a forest, and Ginny would have taken the exact same picture there.

Damn, love is kind of beautiful.

Thinking of Neville and Astoria as the sun puts the wedding in a different light, though. Ginny looks around carefully, looking at the way that groups of people move together through the space. Although this wedding is one between a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, that mixing of houses doesn’t extend to the party guests. Now that she’s looking for it, Ginny notices the way that there are clusters of isolated guests spread out. A couple of former Slytherins here, a few former Gryffindors there. There are two or three places where the houses meet, and of course there are people of all houses here. Hannah Abbott is chatting with Romilda Vane. Padma Patil is having a very playful conversation with George. Pansy Parkinson says something to Percy as she steals his glass of champagne right from his hands. But, afterwards, they move towards their own group of people – Percy to Fred and Angelina, Pansy to Daphne and Blaise Zabini.

When Ginny follows her with her gaze, her eyes land on Zabini for a moment, and she catches him looking back at her. Perhaps it would be more fair to say that he catches her looking at him. As a reflex, finding the perfect excuse, Ginny lifts up her camera and takes a picture of the three of them from a distance.

When she looks at the screen briefly to check the photo, she notices that Blaise is smiling in it, looking straight into the camera. He looks so good that she wonders if that was his reflex – put on the model face. He probably has modelled for something or other, right? She thinks she heard that rumour somewhere at some point. That his parents live in Italy and he’s done some modelling there after the war. No, wait – just his mom. She’s notoriously remarried a bunch of times. Lady Zabini is a bad bitch.

“Did it come out well?”

Ginny jumps and almost drops her camera, like she’s been caught red-handed doing something embarrassing.

When she looks up, Blaise Zabini is right in front of her, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his perfectly-tailored suit and a smile on his face that tells her he knows exactly why she just almost jumped out of her skin.

Get it together, Ginny, she scolds herself. You’re the wedding photographer, for Merlin’s sake. You’re just doing your job. He can’t prove anything.

“Yeah, I got a good one,” she says with a polite smile, “Astoria expressly asked me to take some extra pictures of the friends and family today. I think she’s making an album.”

Blaise snorts, and his smile softens for a moment. “Sounds like her.”

His response piques her curiosity a little bit. “Are you close with the family?”

“I suppose.” He smiles at her, something sly that makes her feel like they’re sharing a secret. “We’re all pretty tight-knit.”

Ah. So he’s aware of it too, hm?

“I can tell.” Ginny looks around again. “People stick together.”

Blaise sighs. “People are obsessed with the comfort zone.” He scrutinises her face for a moment, and Ginny has to think of ice water to keep from getting flustered. This man has a very intense gaze.

Shark eyes, she thinks to herself.

“Not you, though, aren’t you?”

It’s supposed to be a compliment, she thinks, but it feels undeserved. “I’m not so sure,” she tells him honestly, “If that was really the case, maybe I wouldn’t be standing behind a screen the entire time.” She holds up her camera.

Blaise hums softly, a deep, warm sound. Unexpectedly, Ginny feels something inside of her light up.  

“But you’re brave,” he presses, “With that, uh… Gryffindor spunk?”

She laughs, and he smiles like that was what he was angling for in the first place.

“I guess. At least I can be honest about it. Not sure if that’s the Gryffindor spunk, but well.”

“So maybe it’s the Weasley?”

She arches an eyebrow at him. “I’d like to think it’s the Ginny.”

He tilts his head. “Fair enough. It’s admirable, in any case.” He grins. “And kind of sexy.”

She laughs again, the flame inside of her glowing brighter. She wonders if that’s how love works – if a sun like Neville and Astoria makes all the other stars brighter too. Maybe she’s getting swept up in the atmosphere. But…

She looks over Blaise curiously. “Smooth,” she teases.

He’s still smiling at her, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. “I tend to speak my mind.”

“I like that.”

“Good. Can I get you something to drink?”

She can’t help but laugh again. She likes how obvious he’s being about it. It’s bold.

“Sure,” she says, “But no alcohol. I’m on the job.”

“Ah, yes,” he grins, “We can’t have you distracted now, can we, miss Weasley?”

“Thank Merlin I have an iron will.”

He chuckles. “We’ll see about that.”

She stares straight back at him, issuing a challenge. “Don’t tempt me.”

***

The next wedding sucks.

And, no, it’s not because things didn’t work out between Blaise and her. That has nothing to do with it. It’s fine. She’s fine.

It’s not even like it lasted very long. They dated for three months, then were together for eight. That’s less than a year. Nothing to write home about.

Of course, that had been one of the biggest issues: home. She hadn’t expected her parents to be so against her dating Blaise. He continuously made a bad impression on them. It was in the way he talked, the way he walked, the things he did, the things he said… Blaise and her family just didn’t match.

She didn’t do much better with his family. Lady Zabini is an incredible woman in her own right, but she definitely can’t stand Ginny’s attitude.

But that should have been fine. If it were real, they could have worked around it. Instead, they just fell apart.

Maybe we don’t want the same things in life, was their conclusion, maybe we’re too different.

Now, almost a full year later, she can admit that maybe they are too similar. Both too stubborn for their own good. Both too fucking scared of all of it. The real commitment, the intimacy, the vulnerability. Maybe it wasn’t that it didn’t work, it was just that they weren’t…

They weren’t ready.

But how the fuck were they supposed to know that?

It doesn’t matter. It didn’t work out. It happens. It’s fine.

Ginny lifts up her camera and takes a picture of her parents, the biggest traitors in history, who are laughing and chatting with Pansy in her gorgeous white dress. Pansy managed to do what Blaise couldn’t: she completely won over the Weasleys, despite her Slytherin heritage.

It probably had something to do with Percy’s attitude as well. Percy saw the way her parents treated Blaise, and when he started dating Pansy he wouldn’t stand for that kind of behaviour. He refused to talk to them until they gave her a fair chance. Ginny remembers a family dinner which ended in a very uncomfortable screaming match. When it came down to it, Percy had screamed that it didn’t fucking matter whether Pansy was a bitch or not. She was his. And if they could accept him for who he was, they very well could except the girl he loved as well. And that was that.

That night, Ginny kept her mouth shut. She regrets that more than anything. But maybe the fact that her parents didn’t like Blaise was just the perfect excuse not to bring him home to them. Not to let him get that close.

Frustrated, Ginny grabs one of the nearby waiters and downs a flute of champagne. These days, she kinds of hates herself.

She can forgive herself for the shitshow that was her relationship with Blaise Zabini. She can forgive herself for her mistakes. She can even be proud of what she’s learned from the whole experience. She knows more about who she is and what she wants now than ever before.

She just can’t stand that she’s still so fucking sad about it.

She locks eyes with Blaise over the rim of her empty champagne flute and for a moment the world stops turning. They look at each other. He arches one of his perfect eyebrows, and she remembers the moment she told him that she doesn’t drink on the job like it happened three minutes ago. She flushes in shame.

But fuck him, honestly.

She represses the urge to flip him off, hopes she conveys the emotion with her gaze, and walks the fuck away.

She absolutely hates that they now move in the same circles more than they did before. Since Pansy and Percy got engaged, every party she’s been to has seen a number of Slytherins that she would have never been able to predict hanging out with. Moreover, they’re great. They’re fun. People are falling in love all over the place. It’s kind of beautiful. But it would be so nice to just not see Blaise for a little while.

He knows her better than she would like, so she knows he’s aware that she hasn’t been doing great since their break-up. Sure, she’s been going to therapy, which was about fucking time, and that’s been very helpful, and she’s been learning a lot about herself, but it’s all been so exhausting and it shows. It shows on her face, it shows in her art, it shows in the state of her relationships. She’s lost a bunch of friends rather suddenly, but she’s kept the important ones close-by (Luna has been an actual saint) and she thinks that’s fine for now. Weirdly, she’s grown pretty close to Percy through it all.

He’s a little bitch, of course, and doesn’t let her get away with anything, but he sticks around anyway. And that’s just how her brother is, she supposes. She’s pretty sure he’s really annoyed with her most of the time, but he’s there anyway. He picks her up for brunch. He responds to the memes she sends him. He lets her make one harsh comment about Blaise every few weeks, and if she tries to do more he tells her to stop deflecting and take some responsibility for her life. It stings, but it’s a sting she welcomes. She needs a Percy in her life.

Just one, though. That’s enough. And sometimes, she really needs a break.

She takes a picture of him now, standing with some of his friends near the back of the room. He has a good, solid smile on his face, one that makes him look like their dad, and he’s clearly enjoying himself. She’s happy for him. The ceremony went well. Pansy looks like a fucking dream. Everyone’s behaving themselves. She might actually be the biggest problem factor at the entire event, nursing her little grudges, and she feels like she’s done a decent job of keeping that under wraps.

She glances at Blaise again. He’s talking to a woman at the bar, and she hates him. She hates it. She hates this. She hates that she cares. The woman is gorgeous. Maybe she should walk over there and hit on her. That would be a double win – hot lady and sticking one to her ex.

She doesn’t like the bitterness of her own thoughts, and represses the itch to get more alcohol in her system. It’s her brother’s wedding. She’s not going to get smashed. He deserves better, and she’s definitely not going to give Blaise the satisfaction.

She points her camera at Percy again, but he’s already looking at her with a frown on his face, annoyance flashing across his features.

Ginny looks down in surprise, wondering if she spilled something on her dress or something, but she looks fine. Still, when she looks back up, Percy is stalking towards her.

He didn’t read her mind, did he? No. No, he can’t do that. He doesn’t have the… Can he do that?

“You’re doing that thing,” he accuses her when he reaches her.

“What thing? I have several things.”

They’ve done in depth analyses of all of them. Him, accusing her of being a brat. Her, impatiently explaining to him that some coping mechanisms and behavioural patterns aren’t pretty. All over a bottle of whiskey in the middle of the night.

She’d never imagined she would one day be the closest to Percy out of all of her brothers. But here they are.

Percy shoves his hands into his pockets. “The thing where you look like you’re trying to set someone on fire by sheer force of will.”

She is trying to set someone on fire by sheer force of will.

But she’s not going to admit that to him.

“Come on, you couldn’t pick out a look like that from all the way over there, that’s ridiculous. At most you saw me glaring a little bit.”

Percy doesn’t let up on his accusatory stare, so Ginny shows him the palms of her hands in defeat.

“Look, I’m trying, okay? I’m doing alright, aren’t I? I’m not bothering anyone. You’re the only one who picks up on these things. And you can’t tell me that you’re not having the time of your life. You’re practically glowing.”

He is. He looks healthier than he has in years. Pansy makes him wear fashionable glasses, and he has leaned into all the better aspects of himself since they got together. Now, having just married her, he looks proud and satisfied, like a cat in the sun.

“As you should, by the way.” Ginny nods her head in Pansy’s direction. “She looks like a dream.”

He follows her gaze. “She does, doesn’t she?”

Percy smiles like he has a secret. Ginny wants to shake him until he shares it. Instead, she focuses on how seeing him happy kind of makes her happy too.

She nudges him with her elbow. “I’m fine. I’m not setting anyone on fire. Go dance with Mrs Parkinson-Weasley over there.”

He looks back at her, but she can tell he’s already halfway to Pansy’s side. “Don’t set anyone on fire,” he warns her.

“Promise,” Ginny grins.

She doesn’t set anyone on fire after that. If she’s still thinking about it, no one else calls her out for it. She gets through the night, her brief chat with Percy fuelling her determination to be okay for him. This is not the time and place to wallow. Maybe the time for wallowing is pretty much over in general. Maybe it’s time for her to finally take the next step towards growth by letting go of some of this bitterness over that one failed relationship.

Perhaps she could meet someone new.

***

She probably would have been alright after that if it weren’t for Blaise motherfucking Zabini.

Initially, she’s off to a great start. By the end of Percy and Pansy’s wedding, she had taken one picture of Blaise, where he was smiling into the camera with his arm around Theo, and she’d given him a brief nod to let him know it turned out the way she knew he liked. He was nearly floored by the gesture, she’s pretty sure, but he nodded back. That was progress.

After that, it was almost like they could become friends. At the very least acquaintances. She had lost contact with most of their mutual friends at that point, but she ran into him when she wanted to show up for Percy. Percy had practically disappeared into Pansy’s friend group at that point. The only person he really stayed close with outside of them and his direct family was Oliver. Of course, it helped that Oliver and Marcus finally stopped bullshitting each other and admitted that their rivalry was perhaps more of a romantic-tension thing than anything else by that point.

But for Ginny it mostly meant that she spent a night every few weeks in the presence of Blaise and maybe six to ten other people. Pansy and Percy had moved after their wedding, but their new place was only slightly bigger than their former one, so there really was no avoiding each other on nights they hung out.

It helped with some of the lingering bitterness. But it also kept him in her orbit. And that just made it very clear that Blaise Zabini? He’s impossible to forget.

Every time she wasn’t annoyed with him, she liked everything that came out of his mouth. When they bantered, she felt alive. When he looked her up and down as she entered the room, she couldn’t keep herself from grinning.

She missed him.

That wasn’t new. She knew that she missed him. It didn’t mean anything. At least, it didn’t change anything. They didn’t work. She realised why. She missed him. She wasn’t falling for anyone new. The facts weren’t great, but not a threat in any way.

Except that some nights, when she was more sober than she would have liked to admit afterwards, that feeling of missing him crossed the line into exceptionally dangerous territory.

I want him, she’d admit to herself, I want him for myself again.

During nights like that, it was especially nice to have Oliver there. She could distract herself by bringing up Quidditch with Oliver and Marcus and then the night would fly by. In the end, they grew rather close.

So, yes, of course, when Oliver asked her to do the photography for their wedding, she happily agreed.

So here she is at another wedding.  

Admittedly, she’s having a pretty great time. Oliver and Marcus decided to have their wedding on a small island off the coast of Scotland, underneath the wide open sky. There isn’t a theme, but, just like with Neville and Astoria’s wedding, Ginny manages to find something like a theme – freedom. Both men flew into the ceremony on their brooms. There are aerial artists at the reception. The air smells of salt and seaweed and a hearty wind has been blowing through the clusters of guests since the moment they stepped onto the island.

Some of the guests are complaining, running after hats or constantly brushing their hair out of their faces. But most of them are enjoying breathing a little deeper than normally, feeling the fresh ocean air fill up their lungs and making their minds expand beyond the walls they usually find themselves enclosed in.

The wind makes Ginny’s job a little harder, since it’s hard to catch people being photogenetic with hair in their faces, but she likes a challenge. Moreover, with conditions like these, the good shots she does take aren’t just good – they’re brilliant.

She’s caught Oliver and Marcus a couple of times, grinning brightly and holding hands. They fit each other so well that it perplexes her sometimes. Every time that happens, she feels her gaze wander, looking for the shark-eyed man who recalibrates her sense of gravity.

She tries not to. It’s just so hard not to indulge – Blaise looks like a Greek hero, briefly sequestered on some island or other while he is on his way back home to Athens. The ceremony was in the morning, at eleven, so the party is in the middle of the day. Although the sky isn’t as blue as it was this morning, instead turning a cloudy light-grey, the day is still warm and as wonderful as they could have hoped for. The island is rocks and weeds, mostly, so sand isn’t much of an issue, and since the island isn’t lived on, it’s like they’re out in a piece of wildness.

Blaise has taken off his jacket, like most of the men who are bothered by the heat and inspired by the free feeling on the island. Most of the women have taken their heels off and are walking around bare-foot. It’s like they’re all letting their hair down and taking a break from social conventions, even while politely asking after each other’s families and addressing people by their formal titles.

She catches someone teasingly calling Neville ‘professor’ and looks over to see him grinning at Hannah, who is holding Millicent’s hand. With a smile, Ginny brings up her camera and snaps a picture of them.

Then she returns her attention to Blaise.

He’s grinning with Draco and Adrian. Adrian and he are bare-footed already, and Draco is toeing of his shoes, leaning against Adrian to keep his balance. Marcus calls out a jab to them and Draco flips him off good-heartedly.

Blaise looks up and catches her gaze like he was expecting her to be looking at him.

“Gin!” he calls out, making her chest ache, “Please, this has to be memorialised!”

Ginny pushes through the pain and laughs, taking a photo of Draco stumbling around with one shoe and a stark white sock in his hand. Blaise lets out a cackle just as she takes it, and when she checks the picture her eyes are immediately drawn to the perfect, joyful expression on his face. No matter what he’s doing, she has never managed to take a bad picture of this stupidly photogenetic asshole.

The second she sees the picture, she knows she’s going to cherish it. Something about this feels right. She’s here with her friends and family, and everyone is happy, and the air is as fresh as the first day of the world.

She loves him, she realises. It’s all very simple suddenly. She loves him.

And, with that, everything doesn’t feel so right anymore. Because even though they’re all here, together, and Blaise is right there for her to smile at and touch, and she loves everyone, and she loves him, she isn’t with him. They’re just existing in the same space.

Tears blur her vision and she flinches. Panic shoots through her at the thought of everyone being able to see, so she whips her hair in front of her face with a nod and backs away from the scene, her fingers shaking. She needs more air.

Ginny walks briskly towards the edge of the party, where the people are more spread out and engaged in deep conversations. She finds a nice rock and sits down on it, pretending to look through the images on her camera while she tries to find her bearings.

Well fuck. This is just excessive, isn’t it? Love him? When the fuck did that happen?

Somewhere between spending a year in his arms and another year wanting him back, she guesses. Still, aren’t you supposed to notice when you start loving someone? She definitely didn’t start just now. So why hasn’t she noticed before?

Fuck. It doesn’t matter. It’s going to take a while for her to process this. The best thing she can do right now is gather herself up and get back to the party. She’s going to have to put this off.

Ah, crap, Percy is going to have a field day with this.

“Are you alright?”

Blaise is frowning down at her, his hands shoved into his pockets, looking wind-swept and perfect.

Of all the goddamn times for him to be considerate…

“Hm?” she says, frantically trying to get her erratic heartbeat under control.

He purses his lips. “You alright?” he repeats.

She forces a smile. “Yup. Lovely ceremony, didn’t you think?”

She couldn’t make it more obvious that she’s trying to change the subject, but if he’s in a considerate mood, then maybe-

“Cut the crap, Ginny.” He sits down beside her, cocking his head in her direction. “What’s wrong?”

Ah, hell.

“I don’t want to get into it.” She returns her attention to her camera.

He nudges her. “You can talk to me.”

There’s something weird about his voice, so she looks back up at him. The wind blows her hair into her face, obscuring him. But she can make out the expression on his face – it matches his tone.

Nervous. A little hopeful.

Her lips part in surprise, and suddenly she is all ears for whatever he has to say. The monster of hope roars up in her chest, threatening to swallow her whole.

“Why?” she asks, “Do you have something you wanted to talk about?”

Blaise freezes for a moment and then glances to the side, in the direction of their friends and family. He’s getting somewhere, though. She can tell.

“I’ve been thinking,” he finally says, looking back at her. Now that he’s made up his mind, he completely zones in on her. From one moment to the next, it’s like the rest of the world around them doesn’t exist anymore.

He has a look on his face that she remembers very clearly. He’s hovering right on the edge of vulnerability – of letting her in. Most of their relationship had been spent dancing on that knife’s edge.

But this time, he does something that he has never done before: he takes a shaky breath and plunges right off that edge.

“Can we try this again?” he asks, his expression open and pleading, “Us?”

Something inside of her is pulled taut. “You’ve been thinking about that?”

“Yes.”

There’s no hesitation or reluctance in his expression. She traces the lines of his face with her eyes, looking for anything even remotely unsure. Despite how he may present himself, Blaise is an overthinker. He overcompensates for his insecurities by pretending to be sure about things.

But right now…

She’s learned to read him, over the years. She’s seeing nothing of that now.

He’s serious.

The corners of her mouth turn up into a smile as hope turns into elation. “Yes,” she tells him.

His gaze flits across her face, and she knows he’s looking for the same things she was looking for just now. He won’t find any. She’s never been more sure about anything in her life.

“Yes,” she repeats, reaching out to take his hand. And because he has shown her how to do it, she lets her walls down for a second and squeezes his hand. “Please.”

A smile similar to her own unfurls on his face and he grips her hand more tightly. “Yeah?”

“Absolutely,” she states with a nod. She starts laughing.

He reaches for her like he can’t stop himself, pressing his hand into her cheek and scooting closer towards her so he can press their foreheads together, his fingers tangling in her hair.

Ginny laughs again, so overwhelmingly happy in that moment. She turns her head to press her lips to the palm of his hand, then moves back to press her forehead square against his.

She’s still holding his other hand. She never wants to let it go.

She’s not going to.

***

“Smile,” he whispers into her cheek, his hand pressing against her lower back.

“My jaws hurt,” she complains, but her lips curve up into a smile anyway.

She listens to Blaise chuckle while she poses for the camera, trying not to flinch when the flash goes off. The photographer looks at the image for a moment and then sticks up his thumb with a grin. Ginny gives him a polite nod and turns to Blaise as he walks away.

“That shot did not need a flash.”

Blaise smiles at her and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You can lecture him tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, I’m going to be lounging in a pool in Italy,” she corrects him, brightening up at the thought.

“Tomorrow, you’ll be passed out until three,” he correct her in turn, grinning at her.

She elbows him for the innuendo she knows is in there, but he’s right. Even if they do nothing but sleep tonight, she’s going to be absolutely floored tomorrow. All of the preparations have taken a bigger toll on her than she expected, and this day is very wonderful, but also very long.

Worth it, though.

She places a hand on Blaise’s cheek, looking at him while his gaze glides over their surroundings. People seem to be having fun, at least. The twins are drunk, which is rude, she supposes, but she just thinks it’s great. Plus, it’s hilarious to see their genuine interactions with all of Blaise’s stuck-up cousins. She’s pretty sure they’ve pranked at least three of them already.

She joins Blaise in his surveillance of the scene. They’re standing in the middle of their own backyard, where a dance floor has been put out, surrounded by fairy lights that her father insisted on buying for them. She kicked off her shoes before their first dance and Blaise keeps playing with her hair, which probably looks nothing like the elegant up-do that Fleur helped her with earlier that day.

She has never been happier in her life.

Everyone is there. Every single couple she’s ever photographed for, all of their family, their friends… Even Lady Zabini has a small smile on her face now, despite her company. She insisted on paying for the entire wedding, so Blaise and Ginny decided to have it in their backyard to spite her. Although Lady Zabini has come around to Ginny since she and Blaise got back together, she’s still stupidly hoity-toity about power and status when it comes down to it, and isn’t too happy about her son marrying into the Weasley family.

Well, she’ll have to get used to it. Against all odds, Blaise is a Weasley now.

And she’s a Zabini.

 She looks back at her husband – her husband – and lets that sink in for another moment. Before she’s through, one of Blaise’s cousins has come up to congratulate them personally, and she’s swept back into polite conversation. As soon as the guy leaves, she groans and scrunches up her nose.

“We should have eloped.”

Blaise fondly rolls his eyes at her. “You’re the one who didn’t want to.”

“I’m an idiot.”

I told you that you’d hate a big wedding.”

“I don’t hate it. I love it. I would just also love to sit down.”

He shakes his head at her and her gaze drifts down to the new ring on his finger. After months and months of planning, today finally came. The ceremony is over. She’s all set. For life. It’s incredible.

Blaise pulls her against himself and presses a kiss to her crown. “I told you,” he says again.

She sighs. “Fine. You were right.”

“I usually am.”

               She sticks out her tongue at him. Behind her, she hears the click of a camera. She turns her head to spot the photographer, not able to resists checking whether he’s doing an okay job. But Blaise catches her and sweeps down to kiss her. He doesn’t hold back either – he kisses her thoroughly, until some of the guests start cheering and whistling at them. Then he pulls back and kisses the tip of her nose before standing up straight again with a satisfied grin.

She can’t help but laugh at him. Ridiculous, perfect man.

“Let the man do his job,” he teases her.

“I am!”

“You’re hovering.”

She gasps. “You take that back.”

“It’s true.”

“Goddammit.”

He’s right. She needs to let this go. The next wedding she attends, she’ll be able to take her own pictures again. She’ll use all of the tools she likes best and play with the light and look for the best angles. She’ll have her settings just right and will get down into the dirt to get that perfect shot. For now, she just has to enjoy her own wedding for a change. It’s going to be the last one she’ll ever have, if it’s up to her.

She smiles at her husband. “Well, then, Zabini. How about you distract me?”

“Am I a joke to you? What have I been doing for the past hour?”

“Your best, I’m sure.”

“Ohohohoho… You did not.”

He pulls her against him, making her laugh, and drags her back onto the dance floor for another lazy waltz. She presses her cheek against his chest and closes her eyes, feeling the heat of his body against hers, the thump of his heart; her favourite sound. Around them, the party goes on, filling the evening air with drunken laughter and laid-back conversations. Blaise is humming along with the song, his chin on top of her head. Everything settles into place for a brief moment.

According to some people, time isn’t real, so this moment will last forever. Even when the night passes and she gets on a plane to Italy, holding her husband’s hand. When she spends the next few weeks lounging in his arms and making him feed her grapes and bruschetta. When they wake up on a Sunday morning twenty years from now. When she’s old and brittle and every memory she’s ever had begins to fade.

She will still be right here. With him.

#blinny #blaise x ginny #ginny x blaise #hp #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction #original #slytherdornet #hprarepairnet

[sirpoley]

On the Four Table Legs of Traveller, Leg 2: Patrons

In part 1 of this series, I described how Mongoose Traveller's spaceship mortgage rule becomes the drive for adventure and action in a spacefaring sandbox, and the 'autonomous' gameplay loop that follows.

In this part, I'll talk about the Patrons—questgivers—that are baked into Traveller's gameplay loop and provide opportunities for more 'traditional' (that is, pre-scripted) adventures.

Patrons

Patrons are, essentially, adventure hooks. The 'default' premise is that an NPC offers to hire the party for a job (the reward for which is scaled to the PC's spaceship's cargo hold, so is always competitive with trading for money making). The job rarely goes as planned, and the patron is rarely on the up-and-up, so various twists and turns are ensured as the party attempts to complete the job. These jobs usually require putting the trade 'loop' on hold and doing something else (in fact, they're virtually the only incentive to get out of your spaceship) and are basically the gateway to all gameplay that doesn't involve trading, pirates, and FTL travel.

"Patron" is literally entry in Traveller's random encounter tables, which provides a way for them to enter the campaign, but it's also the kind of thing that can easily just be included by the DM, regardless of what the table says.

Traveller comes with a handful of pre-made patrons, plus tables for generating your own, though I think, as implemented, it's actually the weakest part of the game's procedural content generation, as the ones provided aren't tailored in any way to the subsector involved. Additionally, each one could really use several pages of additional information (for example, "First Lander Thu, Miner," comes to the party to ask them to investigate attacks made on his nomadic asteroid mining clan…

…and that's really all the guidance the DM gets. Investigating an attack like that is way beyond my ability to improvise in real-time at the table. I would need maps, descriptions of supporting NPCs, clues, red herrings, space stations, and who knows what else to run that around the table.

So this is a case where, as a DM, you kind of have to roll up your sleeves and do traditional RPG-esque prep: writing adventures, mapping derelict space stations, planning mysteries, and so on. This obviously takes a lot of work, so you can't easily have dozens and dozens of these up your sleeves. This is why I like to pad out my Patrons with…

"Patrons"

Like everyone else in the world, I saw the Mandalorean this year, so had bounty hunters on the mind. I realized the need for a quick and dirty Patron-replacement (as, again, Patrons are a lot of work that I'm just not up to these days beyond very sparingly), so introduced the concept of a "bounty ticket." This is my first Traveller "house rule," though in many ways, it's more like a campaign setting quirk.

Pictured: bounty tickets. Each is the size of a playing card, and I keep them in a little folder intended for holding magic cards and stuff.

Bounty tickets are Player handouts. Nothing generates excitement like passing around a paper handout. In-game, they're essentially wanted-posters that are faxed directly to the spaceships of bounty hunters and travellers as they're issued (meaning that I literally pull out the card and give it to the players as, in-game, it prints out on their ship's bridge). These involve much less prep than patrons (most of my Bounty Tickets are literally "go here, beat this guy, bring him/her back to this location"). For most of these, I don't have any DM notes other than the card itself (they usually give enough game information, like location and spaceship classes, that I can make up the narrative stuff on the fly). A few more complex ones have a few lines of notes in my binder about twists, secrets, ambushes, etc., but I mostly keep it pretty minimal. This isn't necessarily a recommendation, it's just something that I know about myself as DM: I'm pretty good at making up NPC personalities on the fly, but not names (I once ran an urban fantasy campaign in which I had five NPCs named "Frank" or "Frankie") or stats (except in D&D 3.5 specifically, because I was very cool in high school and as such have the text of that game imprinted onto my immortal soul).

I really went paper-crafts crazy the other day and made a bunch of little handout cards (some with emails to the PC from their contacts/rivals, some with stats for various commonly-occurring spacecraft and stuff. I was about to print out a little card for each weapon in the rulebook before I made myself stop). The other relevant ones are 'encounter cards,' which are basically pre-generated random encounters/events that are a little more complex than the ones that result from the table. These are written with an audience of me in mind, so use shorthand and skim over bits that I know I'm confident improvising around the table.

None of these are technically 'patrons', but all serve the same purpose of injecting hand-made content into the game's procedural content generation to keep things fresh.

Reward-Scaling

Crucial to making Patrons (and "Patrons") work is scaling the rewards correctly. Contrary to most of my DM instincts, this means erring on the side of too much money rather than too little. In D&D, too high of a reward leads to characters that get too powerful, while too low of a reward can be easily compensated for by the DM later with more generous treasure. In Traveller, the prize for doing the task has to be higher than (or at least comparable to) what the party could make doing trading in that same amount of in-game time, or they literally won't be able to afford going on the adventure. The book recommends something like 1,000-2,000cr per ton of cargo on the PC's ship per week of work needed, which is a good starting place, but I'd add even more if the job requires space combat (as damage to spaceships can be very expensive, and worse, time-consuming, to repair). That's why the rewards for my bounty tickets are quite high; most of them involve risking the PCs' spaceship to achieve.

In my experience, there's so many ultra-expensive things in Traveller for PCs to waste/spend money on that you shouldn't overly worry about giving them too much money all in one go. Meaningful spaceship upgrades are in the millions of credits, and there's almost always something on the ship that can be improved, so that money will leave their pockets soon enough.

Patrons and the 'Loop'

Patrons (which are, by default, encountered simply through travelling) add a sub-loop to the Traveller gameplay 'loop'. They lead to adventures (which can include anything: Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…) but that ultimately deposits the party back in the core loop, ideally with their wallets padded with a huge cash reward (which will quickly be taken by the bank).

Essentially, this is how you include anything in a Traveller campaign that can't be easily generated on a random table. Unlike in most other RPGs, this is more like a spice, added sparingly, rather than parmesan cheese, which is eaten in a 1:1 ratio with the noodles underneath it. (You guys do that too, right?). The 'loop' provides enough fun around the table while running on autopilot (DMing players zooming about the subsector mostly just involves rolling on and adjudicating the results of random tables) that you can afford to be very sparing with prep-work on Patrons.

Next up we'll cover how Traveller's (in)famous character creation ties into these other systems.

#TravellerRPG #Traveller #FourLegsofTraveller

[menswearmusings]

Father’s Day Gift Guide 2020

It’s impossible to buy gifts for a guy who’s into menswear, isn’t it? If he’s like me, he has such specific taste in pattern, color, fit, and even brands that it’s usually easier just to avoid that category of gifts all together and go with a tech or grill-related item. But, it’s not entirely hopeless! While I don’t speak for every menswear dude, I do have a pulse on what’s cool as well as what kinds of things make sense for a dad.

Here are three sound gift-giving principles to go by, plus a few specific gift ideas if the dad in your life is into classic menswear like me (i.e. tailored suits and jackets, fine leather shoes, that sort of thing).

Read on for the Menswear Musings Father’s Day Gift Guide 2020.

Principle 1: Give them something you know they want but wouldn’t buy for themselves

I call this The Rule of Giving Gifts. This is my universal gift-giving principle because we all have stuff we want and buy for ourselves—and then there are the luxuries, the things we would totally buy if money were no object, and opportunity cost wasn’t a thing. Receiving one of those things is always the best.

Principle 2: Don’t be afraid to get a gift card to a specific shop you know they like with a suggestion for a product you had in mind.

If the guy has really specific taste that you feel makes it impossible to shop for him, don’t be afraid to do this. This is exactly how I am, and my wife says it makes shopping for me fraught. Thankfully in her case, my brother and I are both on similar wavelengths, so she’s able to talk to him for gift ideas when she buys me stuff, otherwise she’d have no idea! It’d be like me trying to buy her something for our home decor, like a rug or throw—I think I could choose something good, but the risk is high I’d screw it up.

Principle 3: Get something you know the father in question loves, but make it one step up in quality

It’s said that all you need to really enjoy a bottle of wine is to buy something in the next price tier above what you normally drink (so get a $20 bottle if you normally buy $10 bottles). In the same vein, if you know he gets a lot of enjoyment out of a fine dress shirt, get him a shirt that’s a step up in quality, make and fabric.

If he likes… —> consider as an upgrade…

Dress shirts

Banana Republic —> Hugo Boss or Canali

J.Crew —> Polo Ralph Lauren

Brooks Brothers —> Drake’s

If he has trouble finding shirts that fit well —> a custom shirt from Proper Cloth or Spier & Mackay

Pocket squares and ties:

The Tie Bar —> Brooks Brothers squares and ties

Brooks Brothers —> Polo Ralph Lauren

Polo —> Drake’s

Jeans he can wear with a tailored jacket

American Eagle, Abercrombie or Uniqlo —> Polo Ralph Lauren

Levi’s, Gap or J.Crew —> Sid Mashburn

Polo Ralph Lauren —> 3Sixteen

Leather dress shoes:

Aldo —> Beckett Simonon

Johnston & Murphy —> Allen Edmonds

Allen Edmonds —> Alden, Brooks Brothers’ Peal & Co., or a sleek European maker like Crockett & Jones.

Combining this advice with the principle that it’s okay to say “Here, I got you a $150 gift card to Drake’s so you can buy a sweet tie” means that you can put great thought into your purchase, even if he’s got very specific taste.

Some specific gift ideas

01/ Drake’s pocket square (any will do but this Tiger print square is amazing, and my wife bought me one for Father’s Day, actually)

02/ Drake’s tie (if he likes and wears ties, Drake’s is the best; they make slightly more fun, quirky designs, not just the staples like the one pictured; see here for a summer sale selection I recently published with more product recommendations)

03/ Sid Mashburn Masai belt (great with faded Levi’s, these are made by artisans in Kenya)

04/ La Matera woven Argentinian belt (my own dad showed me these recently; a cool-looking, fun belt that would wear well with faded denim)

05/ Corridor heavy linen overshirt (pockets are a great help for a dad, and a flowy but heavy linen overshirt would be a great layer he could add over another shirt)

06/ Dapper Woodworks custom wooden tie rack (read my review of this, with a 10% discount code here)

07/ This Guy: Portraits of Modern Men’s Style (interviews and photographs by venerable photographer Jamie Ferguson of influential menswear personalities, such as Antonio Ciongoli of Eidos and 18 East, Simon Crompton of Permanent Style, Jeremy Kirkland of Blamo! and more)

08/ Subscription to WM Brown (men’s magazine with equal parts menswear, watches, fraternal shenanigans and miscellaneous photo essays by the eminently likable Matt Hranek)

09/ Astorflex Greenflex (lined, with a bit more structure) or Driftflex desert boots (unlined and soft like traditional desert boots). Some of the most comfortable boots there are; I bought some recently and literally got half a dozen comments from strangers on Instagram saying how much they love theirs and were glad I’d gotten some.

10/ The Italian Gentleman (a compendium with beautiful photographs and histories of Italian fabric mills, tailors, shirtmakers, and others in Italy’s storied history of menswear by Hugo Jacomet of Parisian Gentleman)

11/ Subscription to The Rake (international men’s style magazine, with more attention to fine menswear and what makes it special than the GQs and Esquires of the world, plus lifestyle content often told first person, gonzo-style)

12/ Randolph Engineering sunglasses (the original aviator maker for the U.S. Air Force, a still independently owned business making high quality eyewear in the USA).

13/ Patreon subscription to Blamo! (a great podcast with men and women in the fashion world hosted by Jeremy Kirkland; a Patreon subscription gets you access to special guest interviews and first access to local events).

14/ T25 or another of Shaun T’s fitness videos (Big dork announcement: I do silly exercise moves that a ripped, shirtless dude on my iPad tells me to do in our spare room in order to stave off Dadbod for 25 minutes a day. But, you know what? It’s a one-time expense, no gym fees, no commute to the gym, and I save tons of time).

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, and I hope this guide is helpful for those looking to get the fathers in their own lives something that communicates how special he is to you! If you need help choosing between two options or want advice for the father you’re buying for, feel free to comment below and I’ll get in touch!

(Help support this site! If you buy stuff through my links, your clicks and purchases earn me a commission from many of the retailers I feature, and it helps me sustain this site—as well as my menswear habit ;-)  Thanks!)

Read more at Menswear Musings

#father’s day 2020 #Fathers day #gift guide #Menswear Musings Recommends #recommends

[black-is-no-colour]

The Story Behind Hamish Bowles’s Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano Met Gala Look

By Hamish Bowles, published by Vogue on 08 May 2019. Photography by Mehdi Lacoste.

John Galliano was always a star. When I started on my Foundation course in the early 1980s at Saint Martin’s School of Art, as it was then known, he was already a supernova of the fashion department, his exquisite drawings setting him on a sure path to becoming an illustrator. He inspired me to decide on a career in fashion rather than costume design (I had been torn), and after the Foundation course, I stayed on at Saint Martin’s to pursue just that. As John worked on his degree collection the following year, he holed up in the college library, hidden behind stacks of reference books that served a double purpose: They defined his private work space and helped to shield his jealously guarded sketches from prying eyes. As it turned out, John had taken inspiration from the Incroyables—the male and female dandies who emerged in the wake of the French Revolution with their own exaggerated versions of revolutionary style. He even burnt the edges of his drawings and dripped candle wax over them to create the illusion that they had been salvaged from an aristocrat’s ransacked mansion.

The collection was sensational—Joan Burstein, who ran Browns, London’s most fashionable boutique, bought it in its entirety. John couldn’t afford a taxi to transport it, so he wheeled it on a dress rail all the way to South Molton Street, where Mrs. B put it in her window and Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross bought pieces right out of it: They were his very first clients. John turned down a job offer to become an illustrator in New York and instead set up his eponymous brand there and then on a wing and a prayer.

I wore pieces from that first collection—waistcoats made from patches of 18th-century-style upholstery silks and sprigged cottons, jersey long johns, and vast organza shirts tying at the throat with a huge jabot. (John has re-created one of these looks to complete an ensemble built around a coat from this collection that the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s costume department has recently acquired and that is showcased in Andrew Bolton’s brilliant “Camp: Notes on Fashion” exhibition.)

The following season, John didn’t have the money to stage a fashion show, so he did a presentation instead in an old artist’s studio off the King’s Road. This collection was based on a 1920s cartoon in the satirical British weekly Punch titled Afghanistan Repudiates Western Ideals, and it explored a collision of Occidental and Afghan dress in John’s characteristically intriguing way. One of my ensembles from this collection—including a knee-length skirt that caused a sensation in Paris when I wore it to the collections that season—is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s exhibition “Gender Bending Fashion.”

As soon as I heard the theme of this year’s Costume Institute show, I thought it would be the perfect moment to work again with John, who has found expression for his unquenchable creative force once more at the Maison Margiela. John had already made me a bias-cut black satin evening suit that evoked Shalom Harlow’s look from his unforgettable Fall 1994 show in Paris socialite Sao Schlumberger’s empty Louis Seize mansion.

To my great delight, John was soon on board. I sent some inspiration images of my eclectic pantheon of camp icons, including Mrs. Slocombe, the character with the Elnett-hairspray-bottle hair in ever-changing pastel hues, from the British sitcom Are You Being Served?; Quentin Crisp; Barbara Cartland; and Jazz Age aesthete Stephen Tennant. Together with John’s partner, Alexis Roche, we looked at looks from the Martin Margiela Artisanal Men’s Spring 2019 collection and isolated some silhouettes that we thought could work for me.

Source: Maison Margiela

At Saint Martin’s, John and I shared an inspirational mutual friend in the indubitably camp form of David Harrison, who was studying in the Fine Art department, had once improbably been scouted to front a punk band to be called the Sex Pistols (Johnny Rotten got the gig), and worked a Teddy Boy look that he accessorized with white winklepicker shoes, a peroxide quiff, and a pom-pom clipped white poodle dyed shocking pink who often appeared in his artworks. John’s studio had produced a frenetic collage print that was worked not only into the clothes but the runway itself, and that incorporated an Yves Klein blue poodle in everything from jacquard to tufted embroidery. I wondered if the poodle couldn’t go pink in homage to our camp friend?

Meanwhile, John’s studio sourced a jacquard cravat in mauve from Charvet, the storied Parisian men’s outfitter, and a selection of textiles in shades of grape and wisteria. (Charvet also made the shirt, and I found some Pepto-Bismol pink cufflinks in my own closet that the sculptor Andrew Logan had made for the John Waters high-camp superstar Divine in 1987. These would be my talismans for the night.)

When I went to Paris for my first fitting, after an initial visit to take measurements, John wasn’t in town, but Raffaele Ilardo, Margiela’s inspired head fitter, and his associate Jung A. Park were there to attend to all the finer points. There was already an amazing sample of the jacquard with the electric-pink poodles, and of the ostrich trim that John had instructed be embellished with metallic lurex threads to catch the light on the red (pink) carpet. (“Invisible to the naked eye but will pop in pictures, trust me,” he said.) Ilardo apprenticed with the legendary tailor Paquito (who carved Karl Lagerfeld’s most amazing suits at Chanel Haute Couture in the ’80s and ’90s), and he had made the most beautiful toiles, with a jacket that sat perfectly on my shoulders without adjustment and had a beautifully constructed rising roll at the top of the sleeves. The cape was constructed like a Victorian visite, with openings for the arms and subtle shaping in back. It was so perfectly constructed that I could have worn the toile itself.

Raffaele Ilardo working on the toile. Photographed by Alexis Roche.

“I advise that cape is rehearsed up and down steps if you can,” said John after he reviewed the fittings videos from afar. “No angle must be left to chance but still must look spontaneous. Every swish must be ingrained in the subconscious, and always imagine that Avedon is following you. A sudden knock at the door works wonders for that frozen-eyes-to-the-left look. Never forget Avedon is your focal point.”

A little over two weeks later, with the clock ticking before the Gala, I returned to Paris for a final fitting with John in the house. To my amazement, the entire ensemble had now been made, including the wide-toed Mary Jane shoes, shown in patent but specially remade for me in violet satin. There were two options of subtly different lilac, for a sheer sock dotted with a point d’esprit effect that was faintly obfuscated by the crushed hairs on my legs and would definitely be showcased, as the short pants hovered only a little below the knee. John gave my lower calves a long, hard look. “You’ll wax them just before the gala,” he instructed firmly. (“Always better when viewed through sheer, tons of moisturizer 15 mins before socks are put on,” he advised nearer the day.)

“It’s unbelievable,” I said when I saw the cape arranged on a tailor’s dummy in John’s light-flooded Margiela atelier. “It’ll only become unbelievable when you start to wear it,” said John. And, sure enough, when I put on the cloak and began walking up and down the studio and it caught the air in its massy volumes, it lifted up like a cloud, and, despite the thick feather fronding, seemed almost as light as one. “La légèreté!” John proclaimed exultantly, “It looks like a canvas, like you’re coming out of a painting.” I used the Margiela staircase to rehearse maneuvering the cape up and down the pink carpet, and I tried to work it from every angle, thinking by turns of Dietrich and Dovima and Proust’s beloved Comtesse Greffulhe. (“I love that little coyness!” said John. “It’s a Dorian Gray moment!”)

I’d asked John’s longtime collaborator and my great friend Stephen Jones for thoughts on something for the head (he concocted the custom top knots for the “Camp” exhibition mannequins) and he designed a wonderful tiara bandeau made of Swarovski crystals that were custom-produced in the required lilac hue and, like those lurex fronds, would add some pink carpet dazzle. John pronounced it a “very cool touch” and suggested “surfer pink” hair to match.”

On the eve of the gala, I submitted to leg waxing and sundry other beautifications (“Lymphatic drainage on face the night before always refines,” John had counseled, and thank you, Tracie Martyn, skin alchemist). On the morn, I went to the Greenwich Hotel to be ministered to by the brilliant Teddy Charles and his assistant Satoshi Ikeda, alongside Amber Valletta, and then I hied up to the St. Regis in a white Maserati to meet John, Alexis, and Raffaele and practice some more swishing and strutting in the hotel’s ballroom under their watchful eyes. “The Japanese kids are going to go mental for it,” said John of my Savile Row meets School Boy meets Comtesse de Castiglione lewk. Stephen fitted the tiara, which perfectly framed those Teddy-tweaked waves.

“Command your space!” said John as I headed out, “Hamish, it will be a riot!” How right he was.

Hamish Bowles at a fitting for his first custom Margiela look in 2018, photographed by Alexis Roche.

Source: Vogue.com

#Maison Margiela #Margiela #Hamish Bowles #Maison Margiela by John Galliano #John Galliano #Galliano #fashion #Vogue #Met Gala #Met Gala 2019 #Met Ball #Met Ball 2019 #Camp: Notes on Fashion #atelier #behind the scenes

[passingthetime]

Prime numbers for the ask thing!

Thank you a real ton!! 🌻

2: Have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? If so, who?

Not really, no. But I do feel connected to the books of contemporary Hungarian author, Veres Attila.

3: List your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

I've grown to really hate this current idea of fandoms, so I don't consider myself part of any. Even when I was in fandoms, I had trouble finding characters I could say I identified with.

5: Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? Do you identify yourself by the things you do?

That's a tough question. I am not exactly sure what to identify myself by, what I do is ever to depressing for me to say "ok that is me". I would say think of myself most as a human dreaming: I identify myself by who I wanna be, what I wanna do and what I wanna achieve. It's not really the best point of view, but for the time being, it's the one with most hope.

7: Do you care about your ethnicity?

Not much. But I suppose most white people don't (unless they are white supremacists), as we often grew up in a society where we are sort of considered "the norm"... For example, there's a black girl at my old school. If I was talking about her, but people didn't know who I was talking about, I could say the black girl, cuz she's the only black girl in the school. But if I was talking about any of the white girls, saying the white girl wouldn't much help identify her. Maybe if I moved to say, China my ethnicity would be a greater part of my identity, becoming an identifying trait of mine.

11: Describe your ideal day.

It's summer, the sun is shining, me and my man are hitchhiking, just the two of us. Well, I mean, until someone picks us up. We are on our way to say, London, but we aren't in a hurry. It's an eventful day: we meet unexpected people, stumble upon unexpected places, party with unexpected groups. My man plays music, I draw, and we both collect enough money to eat, and maybe even for a hotel room. We were at peace the whole time, loving life, and loving each other.

13: Inside or outdoors?

Depends very much on the season. I hate the cold, so inside in winter, but I the outdoors, so that in summer.

17: Would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?

Not entirely. I do sometimes tailor my blog content by not reblogging something that really speaks to me or fascinates me, just cuz it might be disturbing or uncomfortable to others. You could say my Tumblr shows a brighter part of me with some shadow found in my text post ramblings here and there.

19: Which Harry Potter house would you be in? Or are you a muggle?

I'm Ravenclaw for sure.

23: How often would you want to see your family every year?

I'm not entirely sure. I'm just starting to live separate, they still have my room and all, plus I work together with my mom, so I'm not sure what it's like to not see your family for more than a month. Also I'm sure this regularity is something that changes a lot with time. But if I had to make a guess right now, I'd say I wanna see them all about 6-10 times a year, not necessarily spaced evenly, and with meeting individual members of my family sometimes inbetween.

29: Three songs that you connect with right now.

Time by Pink Floyd, The Earth Died Screaming by Tom Waits and on a brighter note and forever: Born To Be Wild by Steppenwolf

(Send me a number!)

#thank you!! #ask #ask thing #harshkali-eh

[juiciebunny-blog]

I had the opportunity

I had the opportunity to watch her cam, and I realized that she has a persona when she’s camming—in the same way that a lot of media people do. It’s not like she’s drastically different, but there’s a version of herself that she shares with people while shes at work in the same way that an actress would go on a talk show and be the sweeter, funnier, more engaged version of herself. She puts on a show, and gives her best, sexiest performance, reading what the client wants, asking questions, and taking directions. All the while, she’s sort of straddling the line between sexual partner, therapist, and moral supporter. It’s a ton of emotional labor—like any type of sex work. I think we often forget that being a sex worker is essentially working in the service industry.It is illegal in Romania for a man and woman to webcam together, but it is impossible to say how commonly the law is flouted in the way Oana describes. She went on to work as a prostitute in Germany, until she found the courage to return to Bucharest and a new life. Now she works in sex work prevention - talking to young women about her experiences, and trying to persuade them of the danger of video chat.Theres so much free porn that I feel webcamming is more of a personal one-on-one. You can go online and find any ol stuff, but webcamming is more personal; its tailored exactly to what you want and what youre looking for. Youre not sharing it with 100 thousand other people. This is your show. Most of the time you build up a relationship, I talk to you as a friend and I respect you as a person. How has your day been, what did you get from the shops, what are you cooking for dinner… its like an online relationship. I get a mixture of emotions. Mostly people react positively because of the way I speak about it. It's so different if you're really shy and timid and quiet about it. It immediately gives off this idea of ‘oh they're not completely ok with it.' But if anyone ever asks me, I'd be like ‘fuck yeah I webcam, I love it!' I get to mess around at home all day and I get to be as open and as genuine to myself as I can possibly be, and there's a lot of people who aren't ok with that because I'm into some very unusual things myself. I don't have to hide and pretend that I'm someone else; I can really be my true self.

Yes, its very much like the girlfriend experience. But that also depends on what the webcam model is like and also what the person paying is like because everyone wants something different."It's about selling your brain, not your body," she says. "I see it like a performance, like a show. But this is not a job for everybody - a lot of girls quit after a few weeks or even days, because they have this mindset that they're selling their body. Your mindset is what matters in this job. I have my limits, and I truly do not feel exploited.Today, things are different. After saving money and learning enough savvy to avoid continued exploitation, Anna is done with money-sucking studios, and so she works only about five days a month, from her own home. Five days of camming per month allow her to match the Romanian per capita income of roughly $US12,000 per year with a minuscule fraction of the labour. If she wants more money, she works more days.The important thing is to keep a paying client online for as many minutes as possible.

Female cam models get a lot more money than male cam models (duh). Unless of course you want to do shows for gay men, which she says a lot of straight male cam models find "strange," probably because those guys assumed they'd be models for women. Uh, nope. Women already have plenty of dick pics, thanks. A lot of what we see in the media doesn't help either. People have this idea [about] the type of person who does webcamming, where they're either not good enough for porn or they're too lazy to find a real job, and that's all bullshit. Unfortunately there's a lot of girls who do turn to webcamming for the wrong reasons, especially when it comes to money, and a lot of people feel guilty for doing it. But we sell our souls for money all the time, why not our body? Why wouldn't you have a bit of sexual fun at the same time?An anonymous webcam model did a Reddit AMA where users asked her every question you've ever wished you could ask a webcam girl (and others you probably wouldn't think to ask ever). Here are the most surprising answers. For the unfamiliar, camming is where clients pay to either watch a livestream of or have an individual video chat with a sex worker. It can’t be pirated and watched for free because the whole point of it is that it’s intimate and personal—you’re actually interacting with the person behind the screen. CONTINUED BELOW...

[pbjpuppy]

do every oc question but with horsepower PLEASE

DUDE I WAS SO HOPING SOMEONE WOULD ASK ABT HER IM SO EXCITED

THIS IS SO LONG SO I’M PUTTING A READMORE

1. Do they sleep with a stuffed animal? If they have multiple, who’s the favorite?

SHE does Not surprisingly!! BUT similarly to Giovanni with his kids, Serene is always sleeping next to her bc she’s Warm and Soft so it’s like, kinda the same thing 

She IS the type to love sleeping with a ton of pillows though

2. Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

Horsie doesn’t have the world’s greenest thumb but she could probably keep a houseplant alive!! She likes nature a lot she’s just not stellar at gardening

She would be REALLY GOOD with a pet though that animal would THRIVE and she’d be the type to take like 400 pictures of her pet and spam everyone with them like “Look at this Fucking Angel” 

And she’s DEFINITELY GOOD W KIDS seeing as she’s basically raising Serene!! Serene can testify that she’s the Best babysitter (even if she accidentially taught Serene like. 20 separate curse words gdgjdsk) 

3. Ask them to describe their love interest.

OOH FUN DIALOGUE

“Um, she’s.. REALLY pretty. Like, really fuckin’ pretty. I think she made me like, 17% more lesbian the first time I saw her. And like, we’ve known each other for a long time and we know each other’s secrets n’ stuff… ahahah, that came out really weird! I just mean we’re good friends, y’know? Hah. Anyway, she’s a bad bitch, I’d die for her. Love her.”

Her love interest is actually a character named Destiny who I havent drawn yet!!

4. Do they look good in red?

I think she could pull it off bc red is in her color scheme but also like.. there’s already so much warm colors!! I think she looks the best in gray or black tbh (like imagine her in a black suit or something she’d look SNAZZY)

5. Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

“HHuuh WHAT AM I S’POSED TO TALK ABOUT? Fuck. Uh. Respect lesbians.” Mic drop

6. Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

She’ll ALWAYS take advice from her friends, especially Destiny, bc she trusts them to know when she’s being too hot-headed or rash- There’s a character in her friend group who hasn’t got a name yet but he’s REALLY good at giving advice!!

She will NEVER take advice from her old rival Lockjaw, and she shouldn’t- he’s always out to sabotage her somehow and plays dirty a lot of the time, and he’s known to be a huge liar (Plus they just hate each other)

7. Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

My three words: Fiery, protective, loving!!

Her three words: “Uh.. Gay. Handsome. Wait, scratch that. Gay, HOT, optimist.”

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

She WANTS to be intrigued but she just gets frustrated and crumples up the paper after a few minutes if it’s not a super easy riddle sjhsjf she knows by now that it’s just Not Worth It

9. Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

She only usually does with like people (or I guess furry)-shaped objects like stuffed animals and dolls, and even then not to an extreme degree- it’s really Serene who has the EXTREME empathy and empathizes with everything!!

10. What age do they most want to be right now?

THIS IS SUCH AN INTERESTING QUESTION she misses being a kid like Serene is a lot, but she’s pretty happy where she is- she’s in a better place than she has been for a long time at the current point of her story! If anything, she wishes she could go back and tell her middle/high school self that things are gonna be okay

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save?

She’d SAY she’s gonna save it and REALLY try but she wouldn’t be able to resist splurging on some really cool stuff bc COME ON she won the LOTTERY!! She’d also wanna buy gifts for the Monster family because she wants to thank them for how generous they’ve been to her so it’s really very wholesome 

12. Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

She doesn’t READ that’s for NERDS

JUST KIDDIN but nah she’s not really one for “mushy stuff” and prefers action/adventure stories!! She’s also a fan of mysteries and anything that’s not Painfully Heterosexual 

13. Name one thing their parents taught them.

Her parents weren’t the best, but they did teach her very good manners- she did go through a BIG rebel phase where she definitely was Not as polite, but overall her politeness and natural charisma really help her out in social situations (especially when she has to get favors from people and stuff)

14. Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

I think she’d agree with the term in a general sense!! I’m not sure exactly what guilty pleasures she has, probably just the fact that she can be kind of a thrill-seeker and take unnecessary risks- not involving Serene though ofc

15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

The first thing that came to mind is that she considers arguing with people you KNOW aren’t gonna change their mind to be a waste of time- Especially when it comes to social justice type issues she knows not to waste her energy on people who just won’t listen (but she’s argumentative by nature and usually ends up doing it against her better judgement)

16. If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

LEATHER JACKETS AND COOL BOOTS AND SUCH!! She’d also wanna buy a bunch of cool pins to put on said jacket (And she’d probably have to get it tailored bc of her wings too which would also be money..) She would also probably get some kind of cool patterned horseshoes!!

17. Do they like children?

Yes she DOES and Serene is her favorite (Even though she calls her a booger)

19. Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews?

NOPE she usually dives into most things headfirst, which can be VERY UNWISE but she feels like it keeps her brain clear to not stress about stuff beforehand  

20. What do they like that nobody else does?

HMM… I don’t really have an answer for this one tbh!! I’ve been thinking about it for a bit, the only thing that I can think of is that she likes waking up REALLY early and the smell of smoke, but lots of people also like those things

21. What would it take for them to break up with someone? What would be the last straw?

She’s actually really bad at getting out of situations like that, like if she’s in a relationship she’s not happy in she’s bad at getting herself out of it- but probably something that really make her realize she needs to get outta there would be if the other person seriously hurt her on purpose 

22. Do they like being called pet names? Do they call other people pet names? What’s their go-to?

She LOVES pet names and calls EVERYONE pet names (unless they’re not comfortable ofc)!! Nicknames are kinda hard to make from “Horsepower” so a lot of the time she’s given weird affectionate pet names instead, it’s somthing that she’s kinda known for

DEFINITELY her go-to pet name is “babe”, she calls almost everyone that and I like to imagine that it’s very soothing bc she has a lovely deep voice.. other go-to pet names are baby, hon and love!! She has a lot of personal nicknames/pet names for individual people though 

Tbh she only really refers to someone as their full name if she doesn’t know them or if she’s mad at them shfshf

23. Stability or novelty?

Novelty!! Stability is important to her but she gets bored and anxious if she’s stuck in the same routine for too long, that’s why she likes taking care of Serene bc Serene is ALWAYS doing new things

24. Honesty or charity?

Ooh that’s difficult… Once again both are important values to her, but I’m gonna go with honesty- she’s a very (bluntly) honest person

25. Safety or possibility?

Possibility!! As established before she’s kinda a daredevil she doesn't care about SAFETY (unless it’s anyone else but her doing it then she’s gonna lecture them)

26. Talent or effort?

Effort!! She is EXTREMELY passionate and such an overachiever about everything shkfskh it’s like Hey Horsepower Can You Do This Simple Task For Me and she’s like Oh You Wanted Me To Change The World? I’ll Do That

27. Forgiveness or vengeance (or…)?

Definitely vengeance she holds grudges REALLY BAD and as kind as she tries to be if someone who hurt her or her friends gets hurt… she can’t help being satisfied

30. What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven?

OH THATS A HEAVY QUESTION since she holds grudges so bad she’s probably try to get revenge on Lockjaw for all the grief he’s caused her over the years, if she knew she’d be off the hook she’d get really nasty about it bc her anger at him has just been Boiling for years 

WOW THAT TOOK A WHILE BUT IT WAS SO EXTREMELY FUN THANK U SO MUCH FOR ASKING!!! I’ll do the other one tomorrow bc I need to go to BED 

Also I did cut out a few questions!! I either didn’t wanna answer them or I had answered them before 

#chitchat #furbrain #Horsepower

[shadowphoenixrider]

SPR rambles about Jurassic World: Evolution

So.

I really quite like Jurassic World: Evolution. I think the £45 price tag is a bit sharp (and the ‘deluxe edition’ can take a long walk off a short plank), but it’s a good game if you’re looking for a dino park management simulator. Which I was! I used to play Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, and longed for a next-gen update, and this, for the most part, is.

It’s good at getting you to juggle multiple things, then it starts throwing things at you while yelling ‘think fast!’, either laughing when you drop everything, or nodding approvingly when you manage to catch them. You’ve got to manage money, your dinos satisfaction, your visitors satisfaction, adverse weather conditions, power, and the reputation of the three divisions of Ingen; Science, Entertainment, and Security.

There’s a slight...dissonance with these three, or rather, with Security. Science and Entertainment are pretty straight forward (Science focuses more on the dinosaurs, Entertainment more on visitors), but Security...I dunno what that dude is smoking, but he seems obsessed with making the dinosaurs fight or generally create mayhem. And it’s like...I thought your role would discourage me from that...? I feel that they didn’t have many ideas for what missions he could give you, so stole from Entertainment a little.

That’s another thing; in Operation Genesis, you had three different types of visitors; those who wanna see the dinos fight, those who just liked the dinos chilling out and being happy, and those who wanted to see period specific dinos together. That’s not in Evolution, aside from a slightly unnerving obsession with dino fights, encouragement to tailor a dino’s habitat to keep it happy, and a slight push to apply ‘skins’ to your dinosaurs that suit their habitat, which is a bit of a shame. I say ‘habitats’; what I mean is the ratio of grass to trees. This isn’t Zoo Tycoon, where you’ve got to customise how much desert dirt is on the ground. Although, knowing how persnickerty that game got, maybe that’s a good thing.

Another thing that was in Operation Genesis that I miss from this game is the ability to issue commands to your rangers whilst you’re selecting a dinosaur. In OP, if you needed to cure a dinosaur of a specific disease, or tranq and move it, all you had to do was select the dino and then the appropriate command. In Evolution, however, you’ve got to click away, select the ranger or your helicopter, depending on what you need, select a specific team, and then ‘add task’, and then you’ve got to click the dino. That’s at least two unnecessary clicks, and the game feels fiddly because of this. It doesn’t help that the rangers only have AI on missions, and you have to manually tell them to refill feeders and you have to click on the damn thing to find out whether it is running out or not - can you see a pattern emerging?

You can’t click from one building to another, you’ve got to click off one building and then the one you want. If you want to look at another species of dinosaur that isn’t the one you’re currently selected, you gotta click off them and then the other. This can lead to a butt-ton of frustration when a situation crops up, like some arsehole has sabotaged your power stations and you’re scrambling to issue an emergency alert to get visitors into bunkers before a dino decides it wants to kick its fence over. (That said, despite the game insisting the dinosaurs are itching to get out, I’ve only seen one dino try to smash its way out, and that was in a programmed sequence where it had to get out to fulfil an objective. If you give a dino 100% comfort, they’re quite happy to stay locked up, even velociraptors, though granted I haven’t gotten far enough to start housing T rexes.) This is worse when you’re quietly perusing a menu as the game has no pause function, not even in menus (except the Esc menu).

The game has you progress through several ‘scenarios’, building parks on different islands with different conditions, like already being in debt, or storms striking the island every now and again, or lack of space, and what is nice is that all the parks you build exist permanently on the islands, and you can go between them as you wish. In fact, you’re encouraged to, as you unlock things on later islands that you can bring back to earlier islands to improve them and up your parks’ rating, unlocking more goodies and upgrades.

The only problem with this is that sandbox mode is locked behind this ‘campaign’ mode, and only completing all the previous islands lets you access this. I don’t mind this, but there’s no differing paths to construct your parks. They all feel very samey after a while. You can reskin your rangers and helicopters (and dinos), but you can’t reskin buildings, or customise them in any meaningful way. You need more, you build more. That’s it.

And unlike it’s predecessor Operation Genesis, Evolution ain’t getting saved by mods, because of its Denuvo DRM locking it out, and if you try to mod it regardless you can kiss your EULA goodbye (I stumbled onto it by accident whilst pouring through the menus, and spotted the clause, that’s how I know). I’m 99% sure this is Universal being a spoilsport, but it could be the game devs Frontier as well (they made Planet Coaster - does that have mods? Let me know.).

This sounds like I’m shitting on the game and I hate it - I don’t. I very much enjoy it. The game looks gorgeous, you’ve got the vocal talents of Jeff Goldblum in there being wry and sarcastic (sadly, no Chris Pratt whether Owen Brady shows up, booo), and dinosaurs are great; beautifully animated and very easy to fall in love with. Also you can make an I. Rex later on, so that’s a bonus!

There is Day One DLC for it under the handle of a ‘Deluxe Edition’ for a insulting £10. I say ‘insulting’ because it contains only extra dinosaurs. They’re not any of the main dinosaurs, thankfully, although I think some people might feel a little peeved that the Styracosaurus is in this DLC (a more spikey triceratops, basically), and perhaps the Suchomimus? Anyway, the Styracosaurus, Suchomimus, Archaeornithomimus, Crichtonsaurus, Majungasaurus dinosaurs are contained within the DLC. Whether it is worth your money depends entirely on whether you like these dinos, but for me, who’s already coughed up £45 for the main game, an extra tenner for some more dinos I’m not attached to is just a little bit rude. £5 is more acceptable.

My opinion? I would recommend waiting for a sale or price drop. Nothing severe, just something to take it below the AAA price of £45; I feel it’s just a bit too much for what they’re offering. I don’t regret purchasing it for that much, but for someone who’s bit more conscious of their spending, I’d suggest waiting. It’s good, but not that good.

#SPR rambles about video games #Jurassic World: Evolution #it's not a review just an opinion by me

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Resource Management, pt20

Word Count: 2441 Tags:  @supermoonpanda @rayleyanns @sistasarah-sallysaidso @feelmyroarrrr @anyakinamidala @dirajunara @anotherotter @little-study-bug @rampant-salamander @goodnightwife @samaxraph99 @outside-the-government @kingarthurscat @coyote-in-space @originalpottervengerlock @dolamrothianlady @curiositywillbethedeathofme @superheroesofbothuniverses @mtriestowrite @wanderingkat77

“John Garrett.” I broke my self-imposed silence with Phil after a day because I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

“Great agent. Is this supposed to be a free association game?” Phil’s response was quick.

“He’s the one who called me Dominatrix Librarian Barbie.” I pointed out. It had been bugging me since he’d left my office the previous afternoon.

“He’s not the most evolved about women. You didn’t find him charming? Most women love Garrett.”

“He seemed a little slippery.” I just wanted Phil to reassure me.

“We trained together under Fury. He’s a good guy. Specialists don’t tend to have the best people skills, but he would take a bullet for any of us.”

“If you say he’s okay, I trust you.”

“He’s okay.” Two words and I felt better. Garrett rubbed me the wrong way, and I don’t think I’d want to spend my free time with him, but if Phil trusted him, how could I not? I sat back and took a deep breath to clear the clouds of doubt that had been hanging over me. There was a knock on my doorjamb. Erin was waiting with a file folder.

“I’ve got about a third left from the pile you gave me. These new helicarrier positions have a bunch of pre-vetting coded into them, it makes assigning to successful candidate a crapshoot,” she complained as she walked in. She flopped into the chair across from me and dropped the file folder on the desk.

“I know. I’ve had to review at least half of the ones I’ve worked on as well,” I grumbled. Every time I thought I had the right employee chosen, I would key their info into the position and hold my breath to see if it would be accepted. There must have been an orientation or course that was required to qualify for the Insight positions.

“Do you have a minute?” Erin looked nervous.

“Sure,” I nodded. She went to shut the door and sat back down.

“I owe you an apology. I’ve been acting like a total ass,” she began. I quirked an eyebrow and tried to bite back my surprise.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to argue with you,” I agreed.

“I don’t expect you to. I panicked when Fury sent out that memo about the training. It set me on edge. And I,” she paused for a long while, “I just, you’re my best friend, and everything seems to be going so perfectly for you. I got jealous and angry.”

“Oh, Erin.” I didn’t know what else to say. Her face had gone splotchy and red, and she looked like she was going to cry. I shoved the box of tissue toward her, and she pulled a couple pieces out, crumpling them in her hand, and then smoothing them. She laid them on her knee, almost as though she were putting them at the ready, and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I was eating dinner with Matt last night and he asked why I was so angry at you, and I couldn’t think of a single reason. I don’t know why I am so angry. And I’m so sorry it’s been directed at you,” she blurted, picking up the tissues and blotting her eyes.

“Dinner with Matt?” I couldn’t help it, I was intrigued. And crying and confessions, and emotions had always made me uncomfortable. I wanted to smoothly change the topic before I wound up in tears as well.

“Yeah. Fucking Sunday morning rugby led to Tuesday afternoon sushi, and one thing led to another. I think we’re dating.” She blew her nose and retrieved a few more tissues.

“That’s kind of awesome, Erin,” I offered.

“Annie, please. I know you want to make a joke and make the drama go away. But I need to know if you and I are going to be okay. I’ve been an ass, and you are my best friend. I don’t know what to do to make it right.” The look on her face was all I needed to see. We’d been in new employee orientation together. She was my first friend at SHIELD, and I knew her better than I knew myself some days.

“Some best friend I would be if I didn’t forgive you,” I pointed out. Her smile was watery, and she dabbed her nose. Lucky bitch didn’t ugly cry, she looked beautiful.

“So we’re good?” She asked.

“I do have one concern,” I admitted. “Agent Garrett didn’t know that he would need to file a P440A for access to personnel files. He made it seem as though you’d always just handed info over.”

Erin let out a short bark of laughter.

“John is a great agent, but he’s old school, Annie. I doubt he even knows how to check his email. I always just fill the form in for him, and get him to put his password in. He’d never get anything done otherwise,” she rolled her eyes. I was mollified by the answer and nodded.

“You trust him?”

“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” she admitted, “except you.”

Once Erin and I had settled our differences, the routine in the office started to feel more natural. I was able to include her in some of the transition details, and we decided to play to one another’s strengths in a different arena as well: training. Erin was a significantly better marksman than I was. And she sucked at hand-to-hand. We started slipping out of the office an hour early every afternoon to work on one or the other. By the end of the week, my shooting was consistently improved. I still needed time to focus, which Barton had said I needed to eliminate, but my targeting was so much improved that I didn’t feel like a complete failure anymore. Erin’s hand-to-hand was coming along slowly. She was tentative and scared she might hurt me. No matter how often I reassured her that I would be fine, she hesitated over the simplest moves.

“What if I hurt you?” She complained after one session. It was a bad session. I was feeling edgy, and she was unwilling to engage. I’d eventually lost my temper; swearing and yelling that she needed to just fucking hit me already. Even that hadn’t helped her to find her nerve.

“So what if you do?” I shot back.

“I don’t want –“

“Erin, you can’t look at me and see me. You have to look at me and see an attacker, and forget who I am. I need to know, Fury needs to know that you’re improving and able to defend yourself for at least a little while,” I explained.

“I’d rather just pull my gun,” she wisecracked and the tension broke.

“I’d prefer you had that as your option too, but you need this in case it isn’t an option. In case someone takes you by surprise and disarms you,” I admitted. She nodded.

“Okay, let’s do this one more time. I’ll try.”

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

“Thank you, Yoda,” she rolled her eyes. I moved into attack position and came at her quickly. She hesitated for a moment and then blocked my punch. She attempted to sweep my legs from under me, and lost her balance, but as she went down, she very carefully and very firmly punched me in the kidney. I dropped like a ton of bricks.

“Good,” I groaned.

“Oh god, Annie, I swear –“

“No, it was good. I might pee blood for a few days, but it was good.” I held my hand out to her, and she leaned down to pull me to my feet. I pulled her down, and using my feet, flipped her over my shoulders onto the mat behind me. I came up onto my feet and dropped my knee into her back.

“No pity, Erin,” I reminded her before letting her up. She nodded enough that I let go, and pulled her to her feet.

“Is it five yet?” She asked as she reached for her water bottle.

“Almost. Hot date?”

“Matt wants to go out to celebrate his new position,” she nodded.

“He got one of those Insight positions, didn’t he?”

“Ugh. Yes,” she started, “some sort of computer tech position. He’s going to be gone for months at a time.”

I realized suddenly that Erin was actually really into him, and broke into a broad smile. Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head.

“Shut up, Anna.” She threw her towel at me and headed to the change room. I grabbed my things and followed, despite not being in any real hurry to get home to absolutely nothing. Phil must have been super busy because I hadn’t had so much as a text since my inquiry about Garrett earlier in the week.

I wound up at the bar down the street from my place, nursing a beer and a plate of chicken wings. It had been a long few weeks, and I just didn’t feel like going home to my TV on a Friday night. There was a hockey game on the TV behind the bar, and I was lost in my own world. The Caps were playing the Canucks, so I was keeping quiet, but I had my eye on the game with the quiet resignation of a Canucks’ fan. I could tell just from the way they were skating that the game was already over, and the Caps had it in the bag, but I still couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face when Kesler scored. Saul, the bartender, noticed.

“They’re gonna lose, Annie,” he taunted.

“Seems like they always do, Saul. Doesn’t make them any less my boys,” I laughed.

“Well, don’t say it too loud. Those guys in the back booth are pretty rowdy and have money on the Caps,” he warned me.

“I can take care of myself,” I assured him. He touched his finger to his nose and nodded.

“Just watch them. They don’t treat the ladies too good,” he reiterated. I nodded and went back to the game, and my food. Saul filled a pint glass and put it in front of me, trading it for my empty. I smiled and took a drink. I hadn’t been into McGinty’s since all the changes at work started, and I had forgotten how much I missed tuning out my week with wings, a beer and some hockey. I could feel my soul relaxing, if that was even possible. One of the big guys from the back booth bellied up to the bar to order another pitcher. He glanced at me, taking in my work clothes. I still had my blazer on, to conceal the shoulder holster, but I was in a tailored slate grey pantsuit. It was the favourite of my work clothes because it fit so perfectly. The drawback was that it fit so perfectly that it drew attention from unwanted quarters at times. This was one of them. The guy stepped over to me and smiled. He was already half-cut, and his eyes were hooded as he sized me up.

“This seat taken, honey?” He asked, gesturing at the stool beside me.

“Doesn’t appear to be.” I couldn’t see the point of getting worked up about him when I knew I could handle him if needed. He sat down with his pitcher and gestured at Saul for a glass.

“What are you drinking?”

“Keith’s.”

“Never heard of it.” He was dismissive.

“It’s an export,” Saul offered. The guy looked at me and curled his lip.

“Something against Bud?” He sneered.

“Not at all.” I looked down at my plate and at my beer and weighed the value of sticking around and finishing while stuck with the Cro-Magnon beside me, or just leaving. Thanks in no small part to sparring with Erin, the food and beer won. I was probably going to regret that. The guy fell silent beside me, likely fuming over my choice of beers. I glanced up at the TV in time to see the Canucks score on a breakaway, and didn’t quite manage to bite back my cheer of pleasure.

“The fuck is wrong with you? Drinking an import, cheering for the visiting team? You not from around here?” He raised his voice, and drew the attention of his buddies. I glanced at Saul apologetically, and he shrugged in response. My gaze flicked over to the other cavemen and to the door. I sighed heavily and took a final pull from my beer.

“Dude, I just want to finish my dinner,” I began, “without causing a scene.”

“Well, I wanted to get to know a pretty girl, but now I think maybe –“

“Hey, sorry I’m late. Pilot was late,” Stark’s arm slid around my shoulder and he kissed my cheek. It was all I could do to not shriek and shove him away.

“I,” I scrambled, “was not expecting you until much later?” I played along, but was not expecting him at all. I slipped my arm around his waist and smiled benignly up at him. He leaned across me to the Cro-Magnon.

“Hi, Tony Stark. You are?” He offered his hand.

“Jerry Samson,” he shook Tony’s hand, “and she’s yours?”

Stark’s jaw ticked, just a little, and he forced a smile.

“I find ownership an offensive construct where it relates to women,” he responded, and squeezed my shoulder, “but we are quite fond of one another.” I forced an awkward smile. Stark picked up my beer and took a swallow before brushing his lips across my forehead. I grabbed my glass and finished it, lest he try to steal another drink. He nodded at Saul and held out his credit card.

“Cover my girl’s dinner please? And a couple more rounds for the bar?” Saul nodded and took the card. “We’re running late. We should get going.”

“Right.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I felt so incredibly uncomfortable. I collected my purse and waited near the door as Stark squared the last of the bill away. He shook Jerry-the-Cro-Magnon’s hand again and made his way back to me, lacing his fingers in mine as he came up beside me.

“Just a couple seconds more, and you can hit me,” he promised. I laughed and shook my head.

“As awful as I found that whole exchange, I’m just wishing it was Phil and not you that swooped in to rescue me,” I admitted.

“Let’s go find some bad guys. Then you’ll have a reason to track Phil down.”

#avengers fanfic #avengers fanfic with OFC #Phil Coulson x OFC

[vesper-the-chaos-gremlin]

Music is the Key to my Soul ( Drarry Secret Santa Gift 2)

Music is the Key to my Soul

I’m fine, I have to be. That’s what ran through Draco’s head every morning, and every second of every day. It didn’t matter what happened, he was fine.  It was with that mentality that he went to his last class of the day. It wasn’t that Draco didn’t like his classes or his school. It was just that he hated the amount of people and boredom that filled his ‘luxurious’ private boarding school. If it were up to Draco, he would go to a normal public high school taught by normal teachers and have normal grades with normal classes, not mention have normal friends who did normal things. But nothing in Draco’s life was ever decided by him so he was used to it. Instead, he went to a very prestigious school with very sophisticated teachers, and wealthy snobs for classmates, with the weirdest, most advanced classes on the face of the earth, topping it all off with the best grades. Yes, Draco was the best student to ever grace the halls of The Mattiazzi Academy of the Elite Gifted and Talented, or so his teachers said.  Because sure Draco had perfect grades, and sure he was in almost every club offered, and sure all of his classes were advanced, and yeah he volunteered most of his time, and he became a model for everyone else, and of course, he did all of these wonderful things. But that didn’t mean he liked it, or even notice it until that fateful competition.

It was in the middle of January 28th when the school was notified of the competition and mere hours later that Draco was taking his free period to practice. It wasn’t that he wanted to exactly, it was just that he had to, knowing that his parents would find out soon. It would make them satisfied to know that he could do things on his own. For his first piece, he was going to play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15 in b-flat major obviously on the piano, for his second piece he would play the Bartók Viola Concerto on his viola, and he still had to decide on his third piece. The only reason Draco knew what he was going to do, was because he wasn’t an indecisive person, unlike his best friend Blaise Zabini. Blaise would also be performing along with their other friends Pansy, Theodore, Daphne, and Astoria. Only about 5 or 6 other classmates of theirs would be performing though.

“I am extremely sorry Blaise, but please pass on the word. I will not be able to hang out until this competition ends. I really am truly sorry. I just- my parents will be really mad if I stop practicing. Don’t roll your eyes at me, don’t you remember what happened last time I lost a competition? Exactly,” Draco started to his best friend apologetically. It wasn’t his fault that his parents had such high expectations. Draco truly did hate blowing off his friends like this. Blaise just rolled his eyes, huffed quietly and walked away, his tailored uniform sweeping behind him. Leaving Draco alone in the dull, grey hall.

Frowning heavily, Draco walked back to his dorm in silence. Draco’s dorm was different than all of the rest. It had a king sized bed against the back wall that was covered in forest green bedding that had really pretty designs in a pretty pastel purple. His walls were the same purple color with tons of different band posters covering them. Next, to his bed, he had a white wooden nightstand. In the far left corner of the room stood his white desk with his dark brown closet next to it. His desk was covered in papers, books, and makeup. While his closet was full of very expensive, custom-made, clothes and his electric guitar. And lastly in the far right corner was his bookshelf and waste basket. Setting his school bag down, Draco sat on his bed and pulled out his phone, flipping to his camera. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out four items, a lip ring, and an eyebrow ring, and two earrings.  He carefully put them in and grabbed his electric guitar. Setting it up, he softly strummed a couple chords before he had an epiphany, he suddenly knew what he was going to do for his third performance.

However, what Draco didn’t know was that a lonely public schoolboy by the name of Harry Potter would change his world upside down and help him do the things he wanted to. Little did he know that he would finally be able to free himself from the negativity and become the happy carefree person he wanted to be.

Finally, after months and months of waiting, and practicing, and getting better, as well as lying, scheming, and doing all sorts of other devious, no good things, Draco was ready for the competition. The competition was also ready for him, or so the judges thought. It was after the first round that Draco and Harry met. It started out with Harry calling 5 SOS, one of Draco’s favorite bands, trash. Then it escalated into a heated debate about the different types of music genres and bands. You see they both had very different tastes in music. Harry preferred pop, country, rap, hip=hop, R&B, and classical, whereas Draco preferred anything punk, rock, metal, indies, contemporary, jazz, and blues. The only thing they had in common was Broadway musicals. But even then they fought over which musical they thought was the best.

This debate, however, caused them both to do pretty poorly in the second round. Draco had made a whopping 3 mistakes, and Harry made 6. Blaming each other, they got into another argument. Which led to Draco’s parents being called out to ease the tension. And that did nothing but fuel it even more. In the end, Draco left, muttering about preparing for the third round. Leaving his outfit in a sports bag, Draco snuck out of the changing room and into the announcer's box. Silently, and quickly, he changed the name of his performance and left.  He then set up the different lights he needed, all without being caught. Waiting until there were only two people in front of him, Draco finally changed into his last outfit, and put his makeup on, whispering to the stage crew to dim the lights right before he went out.

He went out in a black leather leotard with silver pointe shoes, his black leather jacket, and his electric guitar. He basically looked like an emo ballerina. He started his song with a strong riff and continued on letting the music capture his emotion. He didn’t even think once about where his feet went, they just did. He looked so graceful yet so hardcore the judges were astounded. Never had they seen such kind of talent before.  But as his song ended it became more of a classical tune, soft, and sweet, before picking up again, only to end. And for that performance, and for the first time in his life, Draco received a standing ovation.

But when he exited the stage he was met with the sight of two angry faces, his mom, and dad. But before he could get a word in his dad opened his mouth, “ Young man, I am so disgusted with you! How dare you embarrass me out there in front of a crowd in a public place for that matter!?! You are a no good, useless little brat who doesn’t know when to stop! I paid all of this money for you, I give you food and a house. I gave you the clothes on your back, I treated you as my son, like I should, and this is how you repay me? By going out there, dressed like a fag, and playing that garbage? Just wait until you get home, you’ll wish you were never born!” This honestly didn’t phase Draco, not one bit as he was used to it. But it was very concerning to Harry, who had heard the yelling and had come to investigate. Just as he was about to leave, Draco spoke up.

“You don’t think I already wish I wasn’t born? You don’t think that I know that the only reason I’m here is because of you? Well, guess what? REality check, I already knew that. I also already knew how much of a screw up I am! You ingrained that into me, literally. And about when we get home, what exactly are you going to do to me old man? I’ve seen it all, so there isn’t anything new that you can do. Besides, if you kill me you’ll be doing me a favor since I’d rather be dead than here with you. Also, what exactly are you going to do, put me in the hospital again? Also, don’t you ever dare use that vile word around me again. I am gay and proud. There’s nothing you can do about it, nor is there anything wrong with it. I am a human as well, and if you can’t see that then you are blind, and don’t deserve to be my father!” By the end, Draco had tears streaming down his face, which prevented him from noticing the hand that came to strike him with a mighty blow. Thankfully, Harry got there just in time, saving Draco from a terrible slap. Growling slightly, the Malfoy patriarch demanded that the teen remove his and go run along. Harry, being the stubborn person he is obviously refused.

This led to him getting into a fight with the elder Malfoy male.  It didn’t go on long before the stage crew called for places for the awards. Thanking Harry, and quickly resolving the tension and hate between the two, Draco fixed himself up and got ready for the announcements.  Happily, Draco wound up in first place with Harry as number two. And it was only after this that the two boys became friends, and exchanging numbers.

Months later, and the boys were dating since they lived across town from each other. Both of their parents’ disliked their relationship, however, there was nothing they could do about it. The two boys were madly in love, and they had matching tattoos, as well as matching necklaces to prove it. Draco had a key that said, ‘Music is…’ while Harry had a heart that said, ‘the key to my soul.’

Again this is for @necocoxeiji

http://drarryexchange.tumblr.com/

#drarrysecretsanta #harry x draco #dracomalfoy #drarry #music #competition #angst #thiscouldhonestlybebetter

[conditionalriverofabsolutelove]

Keeping Me Steady

For the holidays, here is a sneak peek at the sequel to L'ombre de ton ombre, which is a Christmas story but isn't ready yet because I've been focussing more on Christmas knitting than Christmas writing.

I'd also like to say that none of this started out as a song!fic; Ne me quitte pas just came up on my shuffle when I was about half done with the first story, and then Amanda Palmer jumped on the bandwagon.

December was the height of summer in Australia. Sydney was unbelievably humid after the desiccating heat of the red sand desert, but the rain was wonderful. Credence removed the light summer hat he'd worn for most of the past year and tipped his head back, letting the fat drops splatter against his closed eyelids and dry lips. 

Without having to look, he knew Graves had stopped too and was standing patiently by his side, waiting for him. His own hat was no doubt still in place, but neither of them had an umbrella. Rain was such a rarity, almost unheard during the long months they'd spent in Australia's desert Outback, despite the banks of clouds that occasionally rolled by overhead.

Gentle fingers brushed at a runnel of water trickling down Credence's jawline, and his heart tightened in his chest. Graves touched him like no one else ever had. Moreover, he didn't seem to care whether any of the people hurrying through the downpour past Ollie's shop noticed a minor impropriety. 

"Percy." Credence opened his eyes and held Graves' gaze for a long moment. He had a sudden impulse to find out how the rain tasted on Graves' lips, but his own propriety held him back. 

Here in the streets of Sydney, no one knew what they were. They walked among ordinary people who knew nothing about magic and would never guess that the two well-dressed men strolling along the sidewalk like it was sunshine pouring down on them and not rain were wizards, or that their finely-cut jackets concealed wands in secret inner pockets. 

Sydney was so like New York (at least in comparison to the wild and alien desert) that Credence couldn't help but be aware of how much he'd changed. His new life had altered everything from his posture to his shoes. If people's eyes skated past him, it was because he blended into the crowd, not the snubbing aversion he'd inspired pushing hand-copied religious bills at indifferent passers-by. Even in a lavishly tailored suit, he was overshadowed by the more striking and confident Graves. Credence preferred it that way. He was more than happy to trail along unnoticed, his real, secret life unguessed at.

Because while he looked different now and the fine clothes had taken getting used to, the real changes had taken place inside of him. The most important one had happened in the instant he'd turned on Grindelwald, or Grindelwald had turned on him. It had been a long, awful moment when he'd come face to face with the horrible anger and power inside himself.   

That anger was still there. It was a weight in his heart, on bad days a churning in his belly and a tension at the base of his skull that made him want to hunch his neck and curl around it until he was so dense he exploded outwards. But most days he could stand tall. The darkness wasn't the only thing inside him anymore. He had learned kindness and a type of magic he could control. He had tasted the hot, scouring desert sandstorms from the inside. Even now, the feeling of Graves' hands shivered on his skin. He had learned that he was stronger than the ugly snarl of fear and anger that lodged in his chest, strong enough to love. Strong enough to survive.

They had come into the city today from their camp far out in the unmapped desert at the heart of the continent to pick up supplies for the next month. This was the third time Credence had come along on the trip. Usually, they visited a few shops in the morning, gathering food staples and potions ingredients for Credence's continuing lessons. Graves had used to hurry back after eating lunch with Ollie and Sanna's family; but now Credence was coming with him, they'd started spending the afternoons exploring the city, and especially Sydney's magical library. Graves sniffed a little and said it wasn't a patch on the ones in New York, but Credence thought it was more than wonderful enough for him.

Today, though, it wasn't the library Credence was looking forward to. Last time they'd visited the city, Graves had given him a wallet full of strange money as well as a purse full of even stranger coins. It had made Credence very uncomfortable, and they'd had a fight about it. Graves had said that if Credence was going to share his bed, he was going to share everything, and they weren't so short on money that he had to dole it out by the sprink. 

Credence had, eventually, faced up to the fact that money was the least of what Graves had given him. Refusing it wouldn't balance out all the other things Graves did, things Credence couldn't refuse and selfishly didn't want to.

Credence knew what Graves had sacrificed to bring him here, to keep him safe and teach him. His old life, his position, his friends, his family, as well as his own chance for revenge against the dark wizard Grindelwald who had captured, tortured, and impersonated him. Credence didn't like to think about it, because he couldn't imagine how he could deserve that kind of utter devotion from such a man, and a dreadful guilt still twisted in his stomach sometimes. He couldn't imagine what Graves could ever see in him to make it all worth it, but he had never seemed resentful. More than teach Credence magic, which was everything he wanted in the world, he had comforted Credence, and for some reason Credence would never understand, he'd taken him into his broken and battered heart. 

Credence gave back what he could, but it was always little things. All he had was himself, which didn't seem like very much. But Christmas was coming up, and Credence had thought of a use for part of the ridiculous sum of money Graves had pressed on him, if only he could get a moment on his own at one of the shops they were going to visit today. 

He was nervous and excited. The rain soaking his hair and collar was a refreshing novelty, not something to hide from. Credence could remember how storms in New York had sent him scurrying for cover, afraid of ruining his clothes and of how soaking would turn his stack of pamphlets into a dangerous, pulpy mess. But today, it was easy to set that aside.

They had only gone a block from Ollie's when a voice cut across the noise of splashing footsteps and rattle and rain-slick hiss of a passing trolley. "Percy!"

#L'ombre de ton ombre #fbawtft fic #credence barebone/original percival graves #Into The Void