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#and romeo and juliet is by FAR the most BORING of a shakespeare plays i have ever had the displeasure of learning about
jandjsalmon · 1 year
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2023 FFRC - February ❤️
HELLO everyone! I hope you had a wonderful February! It was a short month so there were slightly fewer stories to read and there was this ghost show that came out (you might have seen it flood your dash) that needed to be binged over and over again so we get a season two - but I still found moments to curl up with some favourite fics and I hope you did too! I was pretty focused on crossing off fic challenge tasks so I felt less enjoyment in my reading as usual. I hope this next month will be better.
Throughout February, I had a surprisingly large number of new followers (a substantial number of whom are not bots - shocking, right?!) and though I'm not sure how you all found me, I'm thrilled to have you here (and happy to see that you're real people and not bots).
As most of you know, I'm a regular participant (and low-key assistant) at the @fanfic-reading-challenge - additionally, for the last couple of years, I've been tracking all the fic I read and I've reported back here once a month with some stats and some recs, and a little bit of boring stuff about my life. (Or not boring - like traipsing after my daughter and her basketball team as they work their way to Provincials - their record is 22-4 so it's a possibility! Go Spartans!)
ANYWAY - I'm always looking for new fic recommendations, so if you have any stories you think I'll love, please drop me a line or send me a dm. Almost any pairing and any fandom. Shoot me a link!🖤
February 2023
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As I said above, I've been plugging along on the @fanfic-reading-challenge. This month I've cracked 3million words and completed 143/309 tasks which means I've completed the "Regular" mode of the challenge. I'm working on the "Hard" mode so I need to do some searching for fics with minorities. Do you have favourite stories with minorities in them? Most of my fandoms appear to be a little lacking in that department - or at least I never think about it (like Inej is a woc - but I forgot about that until right this second). Anyway - I need to branch out - so any suggestions would be great!
As for my recs for you! Let's look at what I did read this month that you might enjoy. Try these:
--*--
Violent Delights by @ozmathegreatand (Wenvier - M 4/4)
Summary: Romeo and Juliet is far from her favorite Shakespeare play. (That honor goes to Titus Andronicus, of course.) But the crypt scene is achingly romantic, particularly the part where Juliet stabs herself. Few of the Bard’s heroines subject themselves to such violence in the name of passion. She wonders what practical effects the drama department has access to and imagines the torrent of blood she could rig.
Why you should read: Valentine's Day. Romeo and Juliet is being performed by the drama department and Romeo Xavier's costars keep meeting untimely ends. SUPER jealous (and hilarious) Wednesday. Mutual Pining. Shenanigans. This is Super Hilarious.
--*--
What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Want You More by sciencefantasy93 (Lucy/Lockwood - E 8/8)
Summary: It was all her fault. All her fault. He was losing his damn mind, and it was all because of her. One move, one second, one heartbeat, and his world crumbled apart like a warm cookie.
Or: Lockwood realizes he's attracted to Lucy, which sets in motion a chain reaction of events as he and Lucy try to take the next step without actually talking about their feelings.
Why you should read: The first steamy Locklyle fic that I've ever read and it did NOT disappoint. Very VERY in character - but also hot? Super good.
--*--
Chrissy and Eddie’s Infinite Mixtape by @little-scribblers-heart (Hellcheer - E 26/26)
Summary: Eddie was right when he told the Hellfire kids that there's no shame in running, which is why he takes a running leap to grab for the floating cheerleader in his living room.
OR: Chrissy lives and fixes what the Duffers broke.
Come for the canon-close Season 4 rewrite, stay for the explanatory chapter notes and the healing.
Why you should read: Epic in scale. Well researched and emotional without being sappy and trite. I should have known it would be amazing because it was a rec from my girl @feelavalanche - who has NEVER steered me wrong in over 10 years of fandom friendship. There is even a chapter named after David Bowie. See - you need to read this.
--*--
Hope is a Waking Dream by @writeradamanteve (Lucy/Lockwood - M 1/1)
Summary: Nightmares, dreams, it was all part of the agent package. Oh, and tea. Always tea.
Why you should read: FIRSTLY (and I shouldn't have to say this to long time followers) - It's adamanteve. You should read it because she wrote it - that should be good enough. Everything she writes is amazing. But then. SOFTNESS. The characterizations are THEM. Their mannerisms are real and their voices are beyond perfection. Comfort and lovely and wonderful. Read it!
ALSO - as I said last month, you should read and then subscribe to the_retro_witch's entire Sweet Nightmare series. It's a post-canon universe where after Crackstone's defeat, Wednesday and Xavier get together before they leave school and now it's grown into this amazing saga with mystery-solving soulmates and psychic and witchy amazingness. The other characters are developed and the plots are rich and fun. It updates pretty darn regularly and every word is a delight. Honestly. Read the series, you won't regret it. Let it be your first foray into Wenvier if you are on the fence. Don't be on the fence. Come ship with me! 🖤🖤
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(lastly- I'm a little bit in love with this gif of Xavier waving - and I've been purposely flooding my dashboard with Percy for reasons - so the wave might become a theme for my year).
Anyway -👋🏼 Hiya -I'm happy you're here! I hope you have a wonderful March and I'll see you back here in a few weeks! Happy reading! 🖤
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millllenniawrites · 3 years
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sparks fly (Poe Dameron x Reader)
part three of dear love of mine
words: 1.6k
warnings: very very slight dom!reader vibes; tension; second hand embarrassment; reader has a last name; regency au for the aesthetic but it’s historically inaccurate for the *vibes*; afab!reader; slow burn; sexual themes throughout; eventual smut; pining; warnings will be added as the series progresses
a/n: this chapter was supposed to be longer but I decided to split up some scenes so I could get it to you sooner!! I hope you guys like it!
__
Poe did not attend breakfast the next morning.
You weren’t sure what you were expecting. It’s not like you could very well ask him why he decided sneaking into your room in the dead of night was appropriate in front of your mother and your staff, even if he had come.
But your questions nagged at you. Had he known that you were out in another part of the house? Had he expected to find you in bed? What would he have done? He couldn’t very well have come into your room. That wouldn’t be proper.
Not that you were worrying about your prospects. It wouldn’t matter if you were untouched if you were never going to marry.
Not that he’d ever—
As you jolted yourself out of your thoughts, you kicked up, sending Ana’s cup careening off the table. Finn managed to catch it before it hit the ground, which your mother applauded. As if that was some trick of magic and not pure luck.
Ana batting her eyes at him and the way he softly smiled was enough for you to keep your mouth shut, if only barely. The men in your home were here to ensure Ana and Finn were married. And quickly.
You’d returned to your room after breakfast, claiming an entirely false headache before shutting yourself in for the day. Retrieving the note from under your pillow, you read over his words again.
Your humble servant.
Humble, indeed. So humble he dared to insult your mother and your household by not showing up to his first breakfast in your home.
You traced over the curl of his name. Poe. It was strange, how fitting it was. Gentle. Like the slope of his neck…
Crumpling the letter in your hand, you stuffed it back beneath your pillow and lay atop it. It seemed the General did not need to be in your presence to be needling away at your patience.
You retrieved an old copy of one of your father’s favourite novels, intending to distract yourself from the handsome stranger and dive into a well-loved tale. Running your fingertips along the edge of the cover, you squinted your eyes in an attempt to focus.
You read the same sentence over and over. It was as if your mind had refused to cooperate.
A change of scenery. That should do the trick.
With your book tucked under your arm, you snuck out of your room and made for the drawing room on the first floor. The couch in the corner had a beautiful view of the mountains…
A view that had been thoroughly obstructed by one General’s large, curly, unkept head.
Ana sat across from him, and Finn beside them both at one of the smaller card tables in the centre of the room. Lord Barnes spread out a group of playing cards in one hand and leaned over to fan Ana with them, making her giggle.
Slowly, you began to back out of the room, but your sister caught your eye before you could escape.
“Sister! Come sit!” Ana patted the stool beside her. “We can play as teams! That would be much more fun.”
Lord Barnes stood and gestured across the table to the empty seat. “Miss Dean. If you would be so kind as to join us.”
You approached the table as you would a rabid animal. The General stood slowly, as if in pain, though he straighten the moment his eyes found you.
“Miss Dean,” He sounded surprised. Did he find it odd that you would frequent your own drawing room?
Perhaps he was not as educated as he claimed.
At least he was now dressed. His dark coat was fully buttoned, his teasing sliver of chest from the night before thoroughly covered.
“General Dameron,” You bowed your head slightly, only enough to be polite. “I trust you slept well?”
He had the decency to look embarrassed, though he recovered much too quickly for your liking. “I must apologize for my absence this morning. It was a late night.”
Something glittered in his eyes that had you casting your gaze to the ground. There was a darkness to him that you refused to allow yourself to examine, no matter how much it may intrigue you.
You allowed him to push in your chair, though you did not take the hand offered to help you sit, however tempting the warmth of his skin may be.
“Well, what are we playing?”
Finn quickly dealt out playing cards. The game was a simple race to 23 points. Ana and the General played on one team, with you and Finn on the other. You angled yourself as to not brush elbows with the General, though it seemed you could not avoid his gaze, which brushed it’s way over your form as one would brush away fallen leaves. A nuisance, but somehow necessary.
“Where is your other sister? Siena, is it?” The General asked in a lull of conversation.
“With her governess, mostly likely.” Ana answered simply.
The General’s eyebrows shot up his face and you muffled a snort.
“I had not realized she was so young.”
You had more than a handful of things to say if the General had the intention of courting your sister, but Ana beat you to it.
“She is a sweet girl.”
“As most children are.” You followed up, not needing to meet your sister’s gaze to know her intentions.
As much as you differed on your expectations for your futures and the way you saw the world, you and Ana had never once disagreed about Siena. She insisted on growing up too quickly and your mother, in her age and grief, did not have the keen eye she once kept on her two eldest daughters. Even for her clear favourite.
So it was up to you and Ana to look after her, down to ensuring her hems were taken down and her governess reported to you both in secret.
You paid her handsomely to do so and her bore concerns of her own. It wasn’t as if she was going to refuse.
You caught on to the game quickly. Finn was a good partner, keeping up with your quick changes in strategy with such a keen eye that you could have sworn he was reading your mind.
He made you laugh a few times, breaking you out of the overcast mood that the General’s presence put you in.
He’d be a good match for Ana. You were certain of that.
Eventually, his good-naturedness and Ana’s swooning over him relaxed you enough to engage the General in polite conversation.
He asked after your favourite novels and you listed a few obscure titles that he certainly could not have studied. When he admitted as much, you gave him some grace and engaged him on his knowledge of Shakespeare.
“Well, Romeo and Juliet is of course the greatest love story ever told, so I have studied it at length.”
Finn clapped him on the back and leaned across the table as if to tell you a secret. “This one is quite the romantic.”
You rolled your eyes and Finn guffawed, leaning back so far in his chair that you were afraid it might break. He laughed with his whole body, oozing a confidence and joy into the room that you hoped he might bring to his relationship with your sister.
The General cleared his throat. Embarrassment looked good on him. He was a much smaller man without his bravado lifting his chin so high. There was something… sweet, almost, about him.
As he ducked his head, you noticed what appeared to be a bit of a feather stuck in his hair.
You set your cards on the table and started to reach out, but hesitated at the last moment. Hands clutched to your chest, you giggled, “General, you have a bit of…”
The small bit of fluff bounced as he shook his head in an attempt to free it. His curls flew out like wings, but it didn’t release itself.
“Let me.” You reached forward, tipping Poe’s face up with two gentle fingers beneath his chin. At your touch, his lips parted in a small breath that had heat rising to your face faster than you could combat it. You plucked the white fibre from his curls and carefully swept them back into place before leaning away and letting him go.
The way his throat bobbed with shallow breaths did not evade you.
“There,” you whispered, returning to your cards. Your face burned, but you did not meet his eyes. “Fixed.”
Ana loudly cleared her throat. “Lord Barnes, I believe it is your turn.”
You glanced up at Finn. He had hidden his mouth behind his cards, though it did little to hide the amusement shining in his eyes.
This was a plan, a scheme of theirs. Boys. Children.
A plan to embarrass you.
Surely.
It had to be.
Ana gripped your thigh, as if anticipating you would stand and excuse yourself. “Lord Barnes—” she paused and corrected herself, “Finn, if you would be so kind as to make your next move.”
The game continued on for some time, but the tension didn’t lessen. Ana and Finn flirted in your peripheral vision but you couldn’t concentrate on anything but Poe. Ana had to remind you to take your turns and Finn groaned about some of your choices, but you weren’t really paying enough attention to even try to defend yourself. Every slight movement of Poe’s, a swallow or slight widening of his knees, had you flushed and near-panting.
The game couldn’t end quick enough. You did not meet Poe’s gaze again, even as he helped you out of your chair.
You made the mistake of taking his hand. His palm was soft, his fingers rough against yours. Though the touch was brief, it made you shiver when he let you go and took a respectful step back.
“Thank you,” you breathed before sweeping from the room.
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lowkeyorloki · 4 years
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A Mortal Occurance
You and Loki ponder one of the Midgardian greats in a scene of entirely domestic bliss
wow, i really liked how this turned out. let me know if you feel the same!
~
After what felt like a lifetime of battles and betrayal, silence was always welcome in the small cottage you and Loki shared. It was encouraged, even, as you and Loki had agreed upon moving in that there would never be any guests. No brother visiting from other realms, no S.H.I.E.L.D agents or Avengers showing up for whatever latest mission they had planned. Just you and Loki, living as lovers did in peace.
That is, until your curses cut through silence.
On the opposite side of the couch, Loki cocks an eyebrow, his attention drawn away from his book. You resist the urge to throw yours across the room.
“What is it?” he asks, always calm and collected. You huff, but not at him.
“I’m just... Do you think when Shakespeare was writing his plays, he knew that people would be memorizing them for purposes other than theatre?” Loki looks at you expectantly. You continue. “I had learn scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream in grade school. Romeo And Juliet in high school, and then Hamlet. And don’t even get me started on Titus Andronicus in college. Reclaimed feminist literature, my ass.” you grumble. An amused smirk tugs at Loki’s lips. 
“I wasn’t going to argue.” he says in a playful tone. “You’re well aware I find all mortals to be... less than satisfactory, regardless of gender. Except for you, of course.” Loki leans forward, resting his chin on your shoulder. You scrunch your nose at him.
“That’s a lot of pressure on me.” you say. Loki nips at your neck, and you can’t help but squeal.
“You’ve handled it so far.” he sits back up, taking your hand in his and beginning to trace the lines of your palm. “Darling, did you have a point you were trying to make?” you blink, distracted by Loki’s calloused fingertips. You gather your thoughts once more.
“It’s just... I love Shakespeare. We love Shakespeare. Our house is full of it.” this was true: the famed author was one of few humans whose work Loki had taken a liking to. There wasn’t a bookcase in your house that didn’t have something related to the genius: The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare, The Abridged Works Of William Shakespeare. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. You and Loki even had live performances on tape (you didn’t have a tv to watch them on, but that wasn’t really the point). You take a breath. “But I’m sick of having to memorize all these lines and speeches. I work remotely now, and yet, for some inconceivable reason, I still have to learn a passage back to back. It’s insane. I’ll never escape this man.” you throw your hands up in defeat.
“You only have to work a little while longer. We’ve almost paid off the house.” Loki says quietly. For a moment, you’re broken out of your annoyance. 
“Loki.” you cup his cheek in your hand. “I’m not upset at having to work. I’d work for the rest of my life if it meant I got to stay here with you.”
Loki closes his eyes, leaning into your embrace. He’s cool to the touch, but his skin is so soft. You’ll never be used to this; being with him. Your heart fills to brim with emotion.
Loki settles back, leaving his hand on your thigh.
“I promise I’m not mad.” you say. “At you, at least. I am mad that the passage I have to memorize is from Richard II, the most boring play to ever be written.” Loki looks at you, the playful glint back in his eyes.
“Richard II isn’t boring.” he tells you. 
“Oh my god, it totally is.” you counter. “Modern criticisms aren’t even enough for that play. You know how all the latest reviews of old media say only white men can relate to it? Richard II takes that to a whole other level. Regular white men can’t even relate to it. You have to be a land owner, or prince, or- Oh, I guess you would like it.” you fall silent, waiting for Loki to take the bait. He gives you an amused look.
“Careful with the games, love, you rarely win them.” he says, but he’s grinning. It’s true: you never win your little back-and-forths with Loki, but you don’t mind. The... punishment is well worth the wait. “Besides, schools and companies could do worse than Shakespeare. We’re both all too aware some of his works still ring true. /Something is rotten in the state of Denmark/.” he recites. You cringe.
“We wouldn’t be in a rotten state if Stark had let us live where we wanted to.” you say. “I still think it’s unfair he made us stay in America.”
“That’s understandable.” Loki admits. “Surely he knows that you’ll... what were his words? ‘Keep me in check’ no matter where we are.”
A guilty feeling washes over you. You had loved Loki, and been loved by him, for years now. Long enough had the god held no resentment for his past, as he was entirely focused on you. But that didn’t mean the crimes committed against Loki didn’t still make your heart heavy.
He deserved so much more than this world, or any others, had given him.
“You don’t need to be kept in check.” you whisper. Loki’s gaze meets yours. You lay your palm against his chest, suddenly needing to feel his heartbeat. You find it, steady and slow and calm. “You don’t.” you repeat.
Loki lays his hand over yours, and grants you a small smile.
“Come.” he says, standing up. “You need a distraction, and I am more than willing to give you one.”
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soap-lady · 4 years
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“This is boring.”
“You haven’t even tried it.”
“What can I say? I can see the future and it contains boredom. For me.”
“You’ve always liked Shakespeare.”
“Professionally performed Shakespeare, not amateur dreck.”
“Everyone had to start somewhere.” Adrien forcefully grabbed his cousin’s arm. “Come on!”
                                                    *******
The theatre teacher who was best friends with the art teacher decided that  having his students mangle The Bard was a perfect way to spend an afternoon. There was an open call for “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream” and Adrien (in an impressive display of backbone) decided to strong arm his cousin into auditioning.
Felix decided to read for Oberon. It was a small but important part and Oberon was cold, calculating, and a monarch. Really, it was practically typecasting.
The only problem was none of the people auditioning as Titania could measure up to his acting.
He knew the play and the characters and most of all, his lines. He was grateful they weren’t being forced to perform the tedious and overrated “Romeo and Juliet”. Really, no one had any vision. Why not “As You Like It” or “Twelfth Night”?
Mlle. Bustier’s plus M. Harpele’s classes were all there. Only six people had auditioned so far but none of them were “quite right”. The short curvy girl with the multicolored hair would have been better as Hermia. The tall Goth girl mumbled all her lines. The tiny blonde in pink squeaked like a guinea pig. Some blonde with long pigtails had stage presence but was too stiff and...Chloe. Just...Chloe.
Marinette stood on the outskirts of the crowd and gossiped with her reporter friend. She glared at him occasionally and he overheard her calling him “mean”. Whatever.
He thought the girl from the other class...Mirielle or Miriam...could have been acceptable with a bit of coaching and decided to give her a bit of constructive criticism.
Neither she nor the crowd appreciated what he was trying to tell her. The girl’s posture was too hunched. She spoke to her feet instead of him, never meeting his gaze. He heard his cousin sigh as he tried to demonstrate what he meant and the girl rushed off stage in tears.
Felix sighed and massaged his temples. This was all Adrien’s fault but everyone would blame him anyway, especially if anyone got akumatized.
He had his back to the crowd and thus didn’t see, only heard M. Harpele react with surprise and say, “Ah! We have a volunteer to audition! Thanks...uh...can you read from when Oberon and Titania first see each other?”
Act 2, Scene 1, why not just say it? As predicted, he was becoming bored but took his mark anyway, even if he didn’t bother to turn around and look at his scene partner.
“Ill-met by moonlight, proud Titania.”
“What, jealous Oberon?” He turned around when he heard the familiar voice and had to stop himself from gaping.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng strode towards him. Her hair was down and the tips swayed in the slight breeze. She carried a script and was reading from it but her voice sounded natural, even commanding.
Her bearing was perfect; upright, regal, even slightly haughty. There was confidence in every step. She looked him in the eye and it elated him to see the blaze in hers. For a moment he was reminded of when that spotted do-gooder glared at him before punching him in the face. This was no cowering damsel who feared upsetting the status quo nor was she his cousin’s castoff. Oh, no...this was a queen who bowed to no one.
I am Queen Titania and I have the right to be treated like an equal, dammit!
Felix felt his pulse quicken and stopped himself from smiling. Yes, this was exactly what he was talking about and was surprised to think the pigtailed girl had been listening to him. 
She glanced down at the script and then gestured to invisible attendants. “Fairies, skip hence. I have forsworn his bed and company.”
He felt the class look at him. They no longer seemed angry but genuinely interested in what he would say next, as if watching a couple have a fight in public.
Felix smirked at the would-be Titania and held up a hand imperiously. “Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?”
Marinette turned so he could only see her in profile and crossed her arms over her chest. “Then I must be thy lady. But I know when thou hast stolen away from Fairyland, and in the shape of Corin sat all day, playing on pipes of corn and versing love to amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, come from the farthest step of India?”
She turned her upper body towards him and gave him a sardonic smile. “But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon.” 
Her brows furrowed together as she seethed her lines. “Your buskined mistress and your warrior love, to Theseus must be wedded, and you come to give their bed joy and prosperity.”
Every word the raven haired girl spoke was biting and sarcastic. She raised her chin and looked down  her nose at him. She seemed so secure in her righteous rage and moral superiority it was as if she had pointed a sword at him and prepared to attack.
En garde!
Oh, yes!
His smile at her was easily as caustic. “How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,knowing I know thy love to Theseus? Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night from Perigouna, whom he ravishèd?
And make him with fair Ægles break his faith, with Ariadne and Antiopa?”
She scoffed and turned away again. “These are the forgeries of jealousy.”
The class held its collective breath as the verbal skirmish continued. They might not have understood the context of the original work but they could tell there were two very powerful people angry with each other.
Marinette continued with her lines about how Oberon and Titania’s argument over a child had caused the weather to go crazy and the seasons to change places. He marveled to himself how natural she seemed for someone who didn’t normally seek the spotlight. 
She finished her lines and he was so occupied listening to her entreat him he nearly missed his cue. “Do you amend it then. It lies in you. Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy, to be my henchman.”
The pigtailed girl’s expression softened and she began to speak in gentle tones about the Indian woman who had been her worshipper and friend. The woman had died giving birth to the boy they were fighting over.
She glared at him as if she were holding a child in her arms and he threatened to snatch it from her. He appreciated her ferocity and imagined if she’d had a rapier instead of her words he’d be dead by now.
It was his turn again and he mirrored her posture and haughty gaze. “How long within this wood intend you stay?”
Her reply was completely nonchalant. “Perchance till after Theseus' wedding day. If you will patiently dance in our round and see our moonlight revels, go with us. If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.”
Felix took two steps towards her and to her credit she didn’t move, nor did she seem afraid of him. If anything she looked even angrier, seething under her queenly mask. He felt excited despite himself. Of course he knew they were just reciting lines from a play but in his mind they dueled. They attacked and parried each other and neither gave up ground. 
And Marinette used nothing but her body language, voice and expression. He didn’t think she had any acting training whatsoever.
He shifted his gaze from her eyes to her mouth and asked seductively, “Give me that boy and I will go with thee.”
She lifted her chin and glowered up at him. “Not for thy fairy kingdom.” She walked away from him, effectively ignoring him to address her attendants. “Fairies, away! We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.”
Marinette looked at him one more time over her shoulder. This conversation isn’t over. Her gaze told him.
Not by a longshot, sweetheart. His replied.
The baker girl walked off stage and class stood frozen until Reporter Girl yelled out, “Oh my God, girl! Why didn’t you tell me you could act?!”
The pigtailed girl paused and tugged on her hair nervously. “Because I...can’t?” She looked at Felix. “I was just listening to what you were telling Mirielle and...no one else seemed to want to try after you upset her so...I thought I could show the class what you meant?”
The class oohed and ahhed until the redhead burst out laughing. “In other words watching him strut around the stage acting like he owned the place made you so mad you wanted to kick his butt via Shakespeare?”
“Kind of?” Marinette gave M. Harpele an apologetic smile and said, “I’m not interested in auditioning but...if you need any help in the costume department, I’d love to help!”
The raven haired girl hustled off stage and back to her friend before Felix could comment and someone in the crowd said, “Hey, I bet Lila would like to audition.”
Adrien seconded the motion. “I agree. I think Lila has...natural acting ability.”
“Oh, come on, everyone. I couldn’t possibly…” The auburn haired girl put up a token protest before allowing herself to be “persuaded” to audition. 
Lila’s remaining admirers all but pushed her onstage and she nearly stumbled into Felix’s arms. She smiled at him and seemed eager to perform but he was gratified to see the fear in her eyes.
He gave her cold, toothy grin and began the scene again. “Ill-met by moonlight, proud Titania.”
                                                         *****
The play was performed in the last week he was at Francois Dupont. The costumes were well-done for a school production and Lila was...adequate as Titania. No one but him seemed to notice she was just copying Marinette’s superior Faerie Queen.
Still...he couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Marinette had an aura about her, one that made her trusted and believed. It came out naturally in her acting, even if she only auditioned to get back at him.
A natural leader. She’s wasted among you simpletons.
A girl like her deserves better. She deserves someone who could appreciate her potential.
In other words, no one here.
Thanks to all my new followers. Fair warning: I don’t really know what I’m doing.
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letbenfuck2021 · 4 years
Note
Its the support ab*sive, r*pe, racism,pedophile in fanfiction for me 😶
First of all, pls don't tag me on posts if I don't know you. We've never spoken before, you don't know me. We are strangers. I haven’t read the post you tagged me in because again, I don’t know you. And because of that I don't know how old you are but it seems like maybe you have an immature understanding of boundaries.
But since you’ve gone through the trouble of dragging me into things, I’ll respond. You've referenced two artists in your username. You may want to take them out since you feel so strongly about fictional depictions of the things you mentioned above. Shakespeare wrote a play called Titus Andronicus which features the r*pe and mutilation and eventual murder of a woman in it as well as multiple other graphically violent acts. The woman's murder is framed as an act of love on the part of her father. Romeo and Juliet frames the decision of two children to commit suicide as tragic but ultimately romantic. The Merchant of Venice is extremeeeeely anti-Semitic. Othello is racist as hell.
Picasso also depicted horrific events in his paintings. One of the most famous is a graphic depiction of war, Guernica. Though you may argue that because it was made with the intention to show the horrors of war that this is the "right" way to make art about terrible things. In which case, we can look to the blatant misogyny of his work instead.
Now I have to assume that you are either ignorant of these aspects or have largely decided to ignore them since you idolize these men and their work enough to identify yourself by them. It’s either that or you are a hypocrite. Why do I bring this up? Because I think you need to ask yourself why you gladly consume and identify with these white men and their works which are so very guilty of these things which you so revile, men whose works have had a far greater influence and effect on pop culture and the general zeitgeist of the Western world than any fanfiction writer has ever had but you feel the need to call out only the fanfiction writers.
Listen. Literature and art and any creative work are always problematic. Some are more problematic than others I’ll grant you but there is nothing that will ever fit some perfectly pure standard that you have set. I imagine that you are concerned with the effect that written works of these have on people and honestly, I don’t have a straightforward answer for you because its a very nuanced relationship, the one between fictive works and reality. I could go on for hours about why fictional depictions of traumatic events are important and helpful to survivors. I could tell you how reading and writing these works helped me greatly through the process of recovery from my own experiences with CSA, domestic ab*se, and r*pe. There is a pretty well defined relationship there if you want to talk about that.
But all this to say, perhaps you need to ask yourself as to why it is fanfic writers that you are going after. Is it because we are accessible? Because you can hurt us and shame us more directly than you could others? Do you feel you have more ownership over our lives and actions? Why?
I’ve written far more than I intended to and I hope that I havent bored you or hurt your feelings with my response. Like I said, I don’t know you. I have nothing against you other than the fact that you tried to call me out like you knew anything about me. Best wishes and safety to you in these trying and tumultuous times.
edit: sorry I don't think I answered your question? concern? I don't really know why you contacted me tbh but if you don't like those things in fanfic I would suggest just filtering out those tags if you use ao3 of just don't read it in general.
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harry-hook-me · 5 years
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Writer - @harry-hook-me (myself)
Request - @addictofsupernatural
Disclaimer - I do not own any of the Descendants characters or scenes from the movies, all credits goes to the creators and producers of Disneys descendants.
Summary – Harry Hook is the new VK arriving at Auradon, after meeting the reader in his English literature class and receiving help from her to catch up he begins leaving small gifts for her at her dorm room door. The reader catches him out and two are able to admit their feelings for each other.
Warnings – None
Prompts – “It was you the whole time”
AN- I forgot to proof read (couldn’t really be bothered) so please excuse any spelling or grammer mistakes - Lou x
Word count - 1802
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Being invisible isn’t all bad, I mean the lack of friends is a bit boring but it’s not completely terrible. I’m the daughter of Princess Anna, my only two friends are the daughter of princess Jasmin, Jessie, and the Son of Tiana, Travis. The three of us have been best friends for years, ever since we were very young, we’ve all always felt as though we don’t belong here, none of us are the preppy, pastel, princess or prince type, were more… well, us.
Jessie, Travis and I all walk down the long corridors of Auradon prep, “well, I’m off. See you guys at lunch” Travis says turning the corner to get to his geometry class. “see ya”, “bye” Jessie and I say in sync as we continue walking to out spate classes. “so have you heard the news?” Jessie asked me “what news?” I asked looking puzzled “y/n, as if you didn’t know. There are two new VKs joining the school today!” she says excitedly. Jessie has always had a fascination with the villains over on the isle and says she’d love to cross the barrier to see what life is like over there. “which kids?” I questioned. “nobody knows, guess we’ll see when they arrive. Anyway, I’ll see you a lunch” Jessie says before going into her history classroom. “see ya then” I say while continuing to walk down the corridor to my English literature class.
English lit has always been one of my favourite subjects, the poetry and the novels, love, tragedy, misery, it’s all just so appealing. I walked in, quite early as I was the first one in. former Queen Bell was our lecture, since her son and mal took over the crown, she takes up her spare time teaching English due to her love of books. “Good morning your majesty” I say before taking my seat at my desk and getting out my note book, pen and copy of Romeo and Juliet, the book were currently studying. “Good morning y/n” Bell replied, soon after people began to enter the classroom, nobody really paying attention to me, as usual. Yet another day in class sat alone, at the back.
Around half way through the lesson, Fairy God Mother walked in. “sorry to interrupt, but I have someone to introduce you all to.” She said to us all before guiding a tall boy into the class room. “Everybody, this is Harry Hook, he’ll be joining us here at Auradon Prep and will be attending this class. I’m sure you all will welcome him with open arms”. Harry Hook, must be the son of Captain Hook. I observed the boy stood in the doorway, tall, dark messy hair, beautiful eyes, dressed in pirate get up complete with a long red leather jacket and a silver hook in hand.
I was pulled from my thoughts by a Scottish accent “may I sit here”, I looked up to see harry stood by the empty chare next to me. “er- sure” I stuttered, the pirate sat beside me and smiled. “Harry Hook” he said, holding out a hand for me to shake, “y/n, captain hooks son I’m guessing?” I ask. “Your guess is correct, and you?” harry asked smiling and looking into my eyes “daughter of Princess Anna.” I replied, “ah, a princess, well I must say, you don’t look like the princess type” Harry chucked, I looked down at my lap, “I like it” he added with a cute grin applied on his face, I looked up to meet his gaze blushing slightly.
“Mr Hook, I’m afraid I don’t have a spare copy of the book so if you wouldn’t mind sharing with y/n” bell asked from the front of the class, Harry and I nodded. I opened up the book the page we were at and showed Harry. “I’m guessing you’ve never read Romeo and Juliet before?” I asked Harry. “Who?” Harry questioned, I chuckled, “Romeo and Juliet, it’s a play written by someone called William Shakespeare, it’s about two people from two different families that have been feuding for centuries but they fall in love, but end up dying right at the end. It’s one of my favourites” I explained to him. Throughout the lesson, Harry and I chatted and got to know each other a bit better, I could tell he wasn’t understanding hardly any if the lesson so I offered to give him some help with catching up with the play so far. I also invited Harry to join me, Jessie and Travis at lunch to give him the opportunity to make some new friends, to this he agreed.
I showed Harry to the area outside where Jessie, Travis and I would always go to a lunch and free periods, it’s under a great willow tree right at the back or the school grounds where no one ever really goes. “Hey guys, this is Harry Hook, Harry this is Jessie, daughter of Princess Jasmin, Travis, son of Tiana, and… oh who’s this?” I asked as there seemed to be a new boy sat with the two, “Gil!” Harry shouted, hugging the tall blond boy with a bandana over his long hair. “I never knew you’d been invited here as well” Harry said to him. “Well I’m here” Gil giggled back. “y/n, this is Gil, hes new here, he’s in my history class, son of Gaston” Jessie explained to me, I nodded back. “Gil and I were a part of the same crew back on the isle, we go way back” Harry explained to me, “Well its nice to meet you Gil, I’m y/n, Welcome to Auradon.”
Its been three weeks since Harry and Gil arrived at Auradon and I’ve been getting to know harry more and more, we sit together at the back of every English Literature class and I’m still giving him some extra help with catching up with the play. Through all the time I’m getting to know him better though, I’m beginning to develop feelings for him. So what that he’s from the isle, he’s sweet and funny and we get along so well, but there’s no way a great guy like him would ever be interested in  a loner like me.
Jessie and I walk back to our dorm rooms after a long day of classes. Stood before the door was a bunch of beautiful Sun flowers, my favourite, and an envelope with my name written on it. I picked up the flowers and envelope and turned to Jessie. “who’re they from?” she asked, “I have no clue” I replied looking down at the bright yellow flowers and opening the door before walking in. I place the flowers down on my desk by the window, and walk over to sit on my bed before opening the little envelope still in my hand. Inside was a little note. The note read ‘I am drowning in a sea of desire, and the only one who can save me is you.’ No name was left, just the short poem. “well, who’s it form?” Jessie asked from her bed on the other side of the room. “no name” I replied eyes locked on the hand written poem. “oooo, looks like someone’s got a secret admirer” Jess cooed while winking and shaking her shoulders at me. “Shut up” I laughed back, throwing a pillow in her direction.
As the days went on, I continued to receive more small gifts and poems. On the Wednesday I received a small teddy along with another poem reading, ‘it’s as if every atom in my body gravitates towards you’ once again without a name. Thursday, I received a small beaded red and black bracelet along with yet another poem reading, ‘You. You are my good days.’. I received about six more poems that I pinned to my cork bored in my room, all made me smile.
“I have an idea” Jessie said to me after I had finished reading my sixth poem I had been sent. “whats that” I asked, turning towards her. “let’s go on a stake out. We’ll wait in the room until we here whoever it is at the door, and then open in. simple” she explained, “I love it” I replied all excited. I’ll finally be able to discover who this person, who uses words so beautifully, really is.
We’d been stuck in the room for four hours waiting when we heard it. “No Gil, shh. Shut up.” ‘harry?’ I thought. “Why are you doing all of this anyway harry” Gils voic rang from outside the door as jess and I pressed our ears against it to get a better listen. “because I really like her, and she deserves something to make her smile everyday. I, I just hope I’m able to do that.”. “open the door” Jessie mouthed to me. I stared blankly at her, “or I will” she added. “okay, okay” I replied before grabbing  the door handle. With a deep breath I turned the nob to come face to face with Harry. His cheeks flushed red as he stepped back, looking down and rubbing the back of his neck. “Harry, it was you the whole time” I asked smiling at him. He looked me in the eyes for a split second, “uh yeah, um, how much did you hear” he asked looking nervous. “all of it” I replied.
Bending down, I picked up the note and small box that Harry had placed in front of my dorm room door. I opened the little white box to find the most beautiful silver neckless with a small wave charm on it and a ‘H’ charm next to it. “Oh Harry, it’s beautiful” I said in awe of the gorgeous accessory Harry had given me. I looked up to him, a smile lay perfectly on his face, with a sweet dimple popping put on his cheek. Next I unfolded the note, it read, ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ My favourite line from Romeo and Juliet. He remembered.
I took a step closer to him. “Could you help me?” I asked passing him the neckless, he took the piece of jewellery from my hands and I turned around, moving my hair out the way. Harry put the neckless on, I turned back to face him, my hand clutching the neckless. Looking him deeply in his ocean blue eyes. “I – I like you too Harry”, with this, Harry’s face lit up, “you do?” he asked, almost as if he was in disbelief. “I do.” I smiled at him. Slowly rising up into my tippy toes to reach harry, as he bent down, somewhere in the middle our lips touched in our first of a lifetime of kisses.
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peachblossomstudy · 4 years
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(just in case anyone hasn’t seen my other posts - because of coronavirus i didn’t get to do my actual exam, but my final grade was a nine and i got a nine in my mock)
english lit was one of my favourite subjects at gcse, which probably had something to do with how great my teacher was! as far as books go, i did pride and prejudice, a taste of honey, romeo and juliet and the love and relationships anthology. english is a bit of a tricky subject to revise for, so i thought i’d share my tips for each part of the course.
novel (pride and prejudice) and shakespeare (romeo and juliet):
my revision for the novel and shakespeare play was pretty similar, so i thought i’d just include it all in one section.
quote banks - in lessons we’d go through the text and pick out quotes to do with a certain character/theme, and i’d then transfer them into quizlet in order to learn them. i normally condensed the large set of quotes into the most important/ones with the best analysis points so that i didn’t have to learn that many.
theme mind maps - something i started doing closer to when the actual exams would have been was theme mind maps. i picked a theme and then brain dumped all my ideas, quotes and contextual information onto a page to test how much i already knew about the theme. after blurting from memory, i filled in the gaps from my exercise book.
practice essays/paragraphs - although doing proper essays is long and boring, its a really important revision technique that helps you get used to the exam timing and format, as well as exercising your analytical thinking skills. i liked to do one or two paragraphs at a time, usually about a specific theme or topic.
practice specific questions - the practice questions we were set in class were usually quite broad, but in the exam they’re almost always distressingly specific, so something that really helped me was making sure all the practice questions i was writing about or annotating for were as specific as possible.
annotate with intent - instead of always doing full on practice questions, i picked questions and texts to annotate. always annotate your texts with regard to the question, rather than just identifying techniques.
modern play (a taste of honey):
learning quotes - as with pride and prejudice i used quizlet to learn quotes, and separated my sets by character. i tried to sift through the quotes and find the most useful ones instead of learning every single quote i highlighted.
to be honest i didn’t really get that much time to revise a taste of honey because of the global situation, but my best advice for the modern play is to always comment on the playwright’s intention - everything is in the play for a reason, so as well as talking about what/how something makes the audience feel, talk about why the playwright has chosen to include that.
poetry (love and relationships anthology):
quotes - i know i’m sounding a bit like a broken record, but quizlet was absolutely my best friend when it came to learning quotes! again, i picked through the quotes to find the most useful and memorable ones.
poem summaries - one of the biggest things i did was make an a4 summary page for each of the poems. on the sheet i’d have sections for key ideas, structure and imagery, where i’d condense my notes from my annotated copy into concise bullet points. on the rest of the page i’d write out  quotes, then add analysis around them from memory, before adding in anything i’d forgotten from my annotated copy.
essay plans - doing this honestly saved my life! in my revision time before my mock i wrote myself a practice question that could relate to each poem, then planned out the essay i would have written for it. i actually ended up setting myself the question that was the one on the mock, which worked out pretty well!! 
i hope this was useful, and good luck to all the new year 10s and 11s 💕
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uncultureddirt · 4 years
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Waiting (3/3) - Mark Lee fic
~REQUESTED~
“I have to do something about this.”
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PART ONE ||| PART TWO
He thumbed through the book recklessly, quickly passing over the dog-eared pages and sighing helplessly. Mark told himself that he didn’t know why he felt so frantic to get this project done. It was Friday night; he knew he had the entire weekend. He really wasn’t worried about finishing it. No, his mind was whirling for another reason. Subconsciously, he was denying how he felt and attempted to avoid confronting his emotions again. He tried to direct his energy into something productive to distract himself, which ended up being his English project.
But as he held the book in his hands and stared at the words before him, his distraction began to fail. He was reading the words, but not understanding them. All the letters and blobs of ink seemed to collide, come together at the edges, bounce off each other, and nothing registered in his head. 
And then his plan collapsed altogether, because his mind replayed the concluding moments of class that day anyways. 
After a long class of writer’s block something finally came to him; an idea had finally danced across his brain. He began writing frantically as the fear of this thought escaping him had presented itself and there wasn’t much time left before the dismissal bell would ring. But mid-sentence he was stopped, the thought was gone. He forgot it altogether. It wasn’t because he had a poor memory; he was just easily distracted, and something more important had taken hold of his attention. 
Mark felt your eyes on the side of his face. He felt your stare. He noticed you stopped writing and out of the corner of his eye became aware of your gaze shifting to him. He fought with himself to ignore it, and act like he didn’t notice. But, truthfully, he enjoyed being the center of your thoughts for a while; he wanted to prolong that experience. The downfall of that wonderful feeling was that he couldn’t focus. He imagined you looking at him, thought about what you were thinking, and played over hypothetical situations in his head where he would turn to you and apologize, telling you what he was truly thinking. His mind was swimming far from the once relevant sentences on his page; he had drifted too far from the land and was lost completely at sea. Lost completely in the thought of you. It was funny; he appeared not to care, or not to notice, when the reality was entirely different. 
He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present, back to his room with Romeo and Juliet held tightly in his grasp. 
~
You walked into Darten’s class on Monday morning silently and wondered if Mark finished his section of the presentation. 
You were a bit of a control freak when it came to group projects, always making sure everything is beyond perfect, but this time you did not have the slightest clue what Mark prepared. Maybe he didn’t prepare anything at all. 
You saw him walk in and sit down, fumbling through a stack of index cards. You saw his mouth moving as he flipped through them. You could tell he was nervous. 
‘I guess he did prepare something.’ 
You sat back and watched as the presentation before you commenced. You couldn’t recall what Luke and Jamie had talked about. For all you knew, the whole thing could have been in French. You spent the time somewhere else. Your mind drifted to laying on the back of your car. You swore you could feel the breeze dragging over your skin, and as you stared up you were met with a clear sky, the sun bathing what felt like the whole universe. You turned to your left to see his face, Mark’s face, and he was smiling. He was happy. He placed a hand on your cheek and looked to your mouth. You felt your stomach swirl. A light feeling had consumed you and held you hostage. You wanted to stay there. Remain in your hazy daydream. You wanted it to be real. But as Mark began to bring his face to yours, you were brought back to the classroom.  
The sound of clapping filled your ears. You looked around, seeing your classmates begin to applaud as Luke and Jamie took their seats. You were confused for a moment, then utterly disappointed. You looked across at Mark, hunched over his cards.
That’s all it ever was. A daydream.
“Y/n, Mark.” Mr. Darten called out. 
You looked across the room and met eyes with Mark.  
Smiling softly, you nodded. ‘Maybe that would chill him out.’
You and Mark made your way to the front of the room. You stood in front of Mr. Darten’s computer and began typing, searching through his shared documents to find your presentation. 
‘Sorry if this is basic Darten’
‘Found it,’ you said internally. You had named the document, and you thought it was a national treasure, ‘Wow I’m funny.’
“Y/n stop laughing at yourself and start presenting please,” Mr. Darten said, teasing you from the back of the room. He had his feet on the desk in front of him and his signature mug held tightly in his hand. 
You moved next to the board, opposite of Mark. He looked flushed as he bent the index cards in his hand, trying to outlet his nerves. You noticed. 
You were first to talk, so you began, “Hello guys, today we will be talking about probably the most recognized Shakespeare work, Romeo and Juliet. Our goal was not to bore you with the plot, nor revisit ideas you’ve heard every time the names Romeo and Juliet exited your mouth,” you made eye contact with Darten and raised your eyebrows as if to say, ‘told you so’. 
You tapped the title slide to bring you the actual presentation. You weren’t the best public speaker, but you felt good this time. Confidence had washed over you and you spoke neatly, with clear inflection and perfect articulation. You began delivering your findings passionately, walking through thematic elements and symbols in a way you hoped was different and appealing to listeners. 
You reached your last slide and stumbled on your words slightly as you remembered the boy standing next to you. He would be speaking in a few short seconds. Your content was running out, and it was time for you to pass over the stage. You clicked the next slide; it turned into a photo of a girl sitting in front of a window. There were no words, just the picture. You turned your head slightly. You had no idea what he prepared. 
He glanced at the white cards in his hands, and then he tucked them into his pocket. “I chose to look at characters, and uh, how their external actions, remarks, even physical appearances correlated to what they were, uh, feeling on the inside.”
He began speaking about the photo on the screen and did so for the next seven pictures. He analyzed each photo gently, touching upon the subject’s face and aligning it with their internal thoughts and emotions. Each picture was to represent a character in the story, and it all matched elegantly. The words flowing from his mouth were colorful and potent; they filled the room in a way you’ve never experienced. Who was this boy? Since when was he so knowledgeable? Since when did he understand feelings so well?
He tapped the screen once more and two photos came up, side by side. It was a boy laying in a field, his face touched by the sun. He seemed calm and relaxed. Peace was flowing within him. Next to the first image was the same photo, but it was dark. The sky was cloudless, but absent of stars. The boy lay beneath the blank sky, and he no longer looked tranquil. Without sound or expression, a coldness was conveyed through the picture; a sadness stained the screen. 
You looked at Mark as he spoke. You no longer felt like you were a part of this project, you were an observer, a member in the crowd. 
“Romeo’s a very interesting character to me. Upon my initial reading I um, I was confused why he was so dramatic. He seemed fragile and conflicted. In Shakespeare’s time, men were never traditionally portrayed as weak, let alone their cause of weakness being inflicted by a woman. It was very different, and I couldn’t understand why he was so, uh, soft I guess?” Everyone laughed quietly at Mark’s word choice, and you did too. He started again, “Romeo was experiencing love and heartbreak, two things that can’t really be seen, but can be strongly felt. The only way to properly express this was to completely defy the norm and break the toxic male archetype. By showing a male acting this way, Shakespeare properly depicts the power love has on an individual.”
You weren’t sure if you were dreaming. You couldn’t tell if your brain had drifted helplessly back into your hazy daydream. Mark, who couldn’t say ‘hi’ to you now, was standing before a group of people and describing the depths of love? You shifted your weight, moving back and forth as you listened to him speak. His words were entering your ear softly, and then a string of words, so familiar to you, exited his lips. 
 “I mean love does make you act all strange.”
Your eyes widened and you stared at the floor in front of you. It all was coming back, the day at Sunbelt’s. Your conversation in the parking lot, the way he laughed nervously when he talked, and how the wind pushed his messy hair back. Every detail about that day came back with those words. 
“Your thoughts can switch very easily. You can move from a place that feels warm and inviting, to one that feels familiar, but changed and cold, like these photos. The boy isn’t changing his location, it’s simply the time of day; the passing of time can transform a place and transform feelings. A confident boy like Romeo, faced with love and heartbreak, acts strange. He fumbles his words, he spends his days thinking of her, he can’t seem to focus because she, uh, Juliet, is uh all he sees,” he paused for a moment and you looked over, noticing his face grow red. Slowly you realized it wasn’t the book he was talking about. After recollecting his thoughts, he concluded the presentation and smiled softly. 
 “I mean love does make you act all strange.”
His words replayed themselves once again. 
You looked back at Darten who nodded approvingly. You knew you guys killed it, but you had no clue how. Your dialogue was limited for weeks, but you guessed that Mark’s mind wasn’t as absent as it appeared. He must have been thinking about it a lot, and it showed. You were happy for him. You wanted to tell him, but you didn’t know how. 
‘Holy shit, Mark. What in the hell just happened?’ you thought to yourself as you went to sit down. You sat at your desk antsy to talk to him, to ask him questions, to say sorry for being so short with him. You wanted to say so much, but you didn’t know where to start. 
~
“Hey!” you shouted at Mark. You were walking to your car after class and you noticed him quite a bit ahead of you. You didn’t mean to yell, it just escaped you, impulsively. 
He turned around, confused at first, but once seeing you he looked slightly surprised. 
“Hey!” he called back. 
You furrowed your brows as he stood frozen, “I don’t like yelling, can you come here?” Your voice grew louder as a car passed by you, concealing your words. 
“What?” he shouted back.
“Mark come here!” you yelled. 
He mouthed an ‘oh’ before lightly jogging towards you. 
Once you two stood face to face, it became too real. All the words you had inside vanished. You felt your heartbeat quicken as you stared at his face, your ears swirling with the words from his presentation. You didn’t know why, but you were slightly out of breath, “Um, where did all that come from? Like all that you said?” 
He pulled the index cards he was flipping through before and handed them to you. 
You felt frustrated, “No like where in your head did all that come-?”
He interrupted, “Go to the one that says ‘last’.”
You flipped through the cards, confused as to whether he really understood what you were asking. Your eyes gazed over his messy, boyish handwriting until you saw the card he was talking about. Every card preceding it was packed with markings and covered in highlighter, but this one was almost empty. Your eyes scanned over the words slowly.
‘Talk about your feelings.’
You looked up at him. His face was serious, maybe even partially embarrassed. Mark kept his eyes fixed on the gravel. His heart was racing, you just had no idea. You opened your mouth to say something, but his voice beat your words. 
“It’s what I wanted to say to you. I guess it was harder to say to your face than to the class,” he stopped and looked at you, "because uh, they think I’m talking about something fictional written on a page by some old guy, something I don’t feel for them. It’s hard when you’re looking at me. I guess I was waiting for the right time, and then the right time became an excuse because I was scared. I started to forget what I was even waiting for.”
You felt your heart burning a hole through your chest. He was only confusing to you because he was confused with himself. He was wrapped up in a feeling he didn’t know how to feel, nor how to express. 
You felt words exiting your mouth; you weren’t sure who was controlling them, your brain suddenly worked separately from your body. “Your presentation was perfect. I secretly hoped it wasn’t about the book,” he laughed and looked down, “and it’s all okay. I like you Mark, even when we didn’t talk. I still liked you.” 
He bit the inside of his mouth to stop from smiling, “I like you too.” 
The air was still after he said it, but not in an awkward way. You both were basking in the words that still sat in the air. Words that you both waited for so long to hear. There existed some sort of comfort within all the silence, within the faded sounds of cars leaving the parking lot, within the cloudy voices of kids walking out of the school, within the small space between you and Mark.
The End.  
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tunafishprincess · 5 years
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Hunter Prince (Dark Medieval Fantasy AU fanfic).
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Chapter 1: Darkness before Dawn  
Two households, both alike in dignity. (Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Prologue, Shakespeare)
The remains of the human army were scattered against the grounds of the small village. A particularly gruesome image if he ever saw one. 
Not for long, he thought with a grimace, as members of their forces crept in to take whatever scraps they could find. The sound of bones crunching and tendons popping nearly made him vomit on the spot. The pungent smell of the dead did not help matters. No doubt the entire place would be cleared before daybreak, the bellies of his countrymen filled and ready for the return march ahead. 
He adjusted the sword at his hip. It was too large for someone his size, stuck between man and troll, but he could use it well enough. Years of training had prepared him for this. 
His upper lip snagged his tusks. By the Void, he wished his teacher were here. Alas, Blinkous of Galadrigalia would not step anywhere near a battlefield of this sort. Too many bad memories and old wounds, he told the boy as he aided him into his armor. Though the troll knew all the ins and outs of swordplay, he refused to pick one up, preferring the company of books and his students to the glory of war and conquest so many of their kind revered. 
Alas, unlike his dear tutor his fate left him no room to avoid this type of work. It was times like these he wished he’d been born of another destiny, one where his status and birth didn’t determine his lot in life. 
Fog clung to the earth and sky, drenching the area in miserable dampness. Even within the chainmail and furs the biting cold snuck into his veins, burrowing inside like sparrows at the advent of winter. He shivered as another frigid wind tore through the lines of soldiers, so howling and fierce he almost believed it to be alive. Perhaps they were. More than once his mother spoke of the old gods. 
He wondered if the weather was indicative of their current mood. Out of respect, he whispered a small prayer. It was the least he could do. 
Half-frozen mud squished beneath his feet. As a child he heard wondrous tales about the Grand Canals of Arcadia, yet to see it in person left him rather disillusioned. Of course, by Spring this narrow, barren valley would be a rushing river, carrying the winter snows out towards the southern seas, but now it was little more than a makeshift border between these territories. 
His gaze rested on the town before him. Though he lacked the intellect of his mentor he understood well enough their reasons for this ‘visit.’ 
Dying embers rose from the makeshift chimney as the night’s frost glistened off the roofs and doors. As the troops searched the area for food, weapons and mead, he could not help but feel a tinge of sadness.
Humanity had slowly been encroaching on their lands due to the excess of ore and salt deposits, huge commodities in a kingdom that survived largely off of cattle and farmland. Twas no wonder that within a few years several new settlements had sprung up across the boundary, despite their warnings of retaliation.
But this was only supposed to be a skirmish. A scare tactic, nothing more. Instead, his father’s forces had massacred the entire population.
Crimson mixed with dirt and early morning frost. Here and there he saw them, those who fought thrown haphazardly across the mud and those who tried to flee huddled and died together in small piles. While tradition deemed the enemy warriors to be burned, the soldiers of this regimen did not adhere to such rules, taking what they liked however they pleased instead.
He opened his eyes and then closed them; it mattered not. His stomach lurched. 
A large hand covered his mouth.
It was not his own. 
He stilled. Seconds ticked by before the wielder bent down, gruffly remarking into his ear, “Do not sully our sire’s reputation, half-blood. Purge your conscious elsewhere. Tis no place for the battlefield, especially our own.”
A battlefield was it? He wanted to laugh but found no energy to do so. Instead, he swallowed back his emotions, tilting his head upwards to face the other. 
“I’ll do no such thing, brother.” He added softly, “I am a warrior.”
Bular shot him a doubtful glance. “Is that what your nursemaid tells you?”
He regarded the other in annoyance. While others would be cowed by his elder brother’s fearsome regalia (the blood-colored armor a stark contrast against the gloomy landscape), he held his head high, refusing to back down. 
“Blinkous is not my nursemaid. He knows more about tactics and battles than you ever will.”
“Tactics mean nothing in the heat of battle. It is brute strength that decides the victor, not fancy parlor tricks and maneuvers.”
“If that were true, you would have won the Battle of Killahead and the Battle of Glastonbury Tor,” he pointed out, tongue sharp and ready to cut. Eager to best his brother through the only medium he could, he continued, “Now, is there a particular reason you have graced me with your most honored presence? After all, we all know what a comforting elder brother you are.” Without thinking he ended his counter with a barb. “I almost wish her Highness were with us today to see what loving siblings we’ve become. Perhaps then she would allow you to return to court.”
Darkness swept over his brother’s features as pallor overtook his own. 
An insult like that would not go without reparations. Though Bular was his elder, there was no love lost between the two. Losing face in court had drastically damaged the other’s reputation and rising stardom amongst the ranks of their kingdom’s military. Their sire had seen to it that Bular had a legion to command, but he would never regain the powers he once wielded so long as he and the Queen continued to be on the outs.
The same Queen who bore him.
He scowled, eyes burning like bright coals in the night. “Mind your words. The next time you act so brazen I will not hesitate to remove one of your horns, shared blood or not.”
He nodded curtly. As loathe as he was to admit it, he should have stayed quiet. Had they been common Gumm-Gumms, only one of them would still be standing at such an affront. 
Bular leaned forward, claws tightening around his head as he spoke. “The Queen and her elk may choose to coddle you but I will not. It is I who am in charge here, not you. Your bearer can keep her impure minions in her so-called court for all I care.” His eyes narrowed. “From the look on your face, I can already tell I’ve wasted too much time in bothering to try and teach you. Know this, little brother: the only reason you stand here is at father’s request. Remember that.”
Without warning Bular yanked him by the hair at his nape so that he fell backward. His brother’s followers chuckled at the display.
How humiliating. Cheeks burning, he quickly returned to his feet, storming off in the opposite direction, lest he made more of an embarrassment of himself amongst his brother’s soldiers.
It was a familial power play and one Bular would always win. While he was faster than the older male he could not hope to match his brother’s brute strength and height.
No matter how smart or cunning he could try to be, he would always be half-flesh.
James, Son of House Lake, First of his Name, Heir to Two Thrones—it was an endless list of empty titles. Here, on the “battlefield” and in front of his father’s battalion, Bular and his army saw him as nothing more than a whelp playing soldier. 
A bitter sigh escaped his lips.
He was starting to wonder if they were right. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Death nipped at their heels. Her ally’s fatal injury didn’t help matters. He limped behind, holding the wound at his chest with his dominant hand while the other scrambled for purchase up the steep hilled terrain. 
The tall beautiful trees that greeted their arrival now sent a shiver down her spine, no longer so beautiful and majestic as she’d been led to believe. Stepping into the forest had robbed them of sense and direction, the burning village behind them their only indication of navigation. Not even a full moon could penetrate the dense canopy above them, which rustled and swayed like the sea.
These were not the lands of her brethren. She’d been born on Arcadian grounds, far inside the midlands where the capital stood. The forests there were colorful, evergreens and cedars that happily shaded the berry bushes she once plucked from as a child.
She knew she’d passed the boundaries but the look of the landscape. Here, the woodlands were dark, primal and contorted in manners she had never seen. No berry bush or fruit-bearing could ever hope to grow in harsh lands such as these.
Branches snagged at her cloak, threatening to impede her every step. 
Claire bit back a sob. It was all her fault. If only they had kept moving instead of resting for the night. But she had underestimated her enemies’ desperation. The assassin struck right as the armies across the border arrived, leaving them no time to regroup or find a healer.
Not that Sir Kanjigar could recover from such a wound. They’d been lucky he’d not petrified immediately, though she wondered if that would have been a better fate than the encroaching death before her. 
She clutched her chest as he finally keeled over.
“No, you must get up!” She said, joining his side. “We can still make it.”
Inwardly, she knew it was a fruitless endeavor, but the innocent young girl she was before all this still clung to the faint hope that everything would turn out well and good. 
“I’m afraid this is where our journey ends, milady,” he said, grunting as the poison worked its way through his system. “A thousand apologies.”
She shook her head. Wetness gathered at the corners of her eyes. Sir Kanjigar had been all she had left. She had left everything behind for this. 
Her hands clutched at his chest. “No, this is not where you shall spend your final breath, Sir,” she ordered, hoping she sounded as authoritative as her birthright.  Listen to me: you are the Trollhunter. You have survived countless battles. We will find a healer, but you must get up. Think of Trollmarket. Think of Draal. They would be lost without you. I would be lost without you.”
“It is not—"
“I will not allow you to die. I forbid it!”
She could barely stand to look him in the eyes. They both knew what was to come.
Her fist smacked against his cold ground, again and again, until at last, he spoke. 
“Milady,” he wheezed. “Enough.”
He lifted her chin with his remaining hand. It pained her to see him in such a state. 
Sir Kanjigar of Trollmarket was like no other. He was a battle-scarred old warrior, face etched with the centuries of service he’d provided both kingdoms. Countless Nuñez had relied on his aid and counsel throughout the years. It broke her heart to think she would be the last.  
“I cannot take you the rest of the way,” he stated, stroking her face like her father once did. “You must part with me. The longer you stay here the faster our pursuers can find you. My son…will live on. The Amulet will find a new champion; it always has. But you must hurry. Dawn will break soon. Our liaison lies a day’s journey to the north of the sunrise, just beyond this forest. Get there. You will know him when you see him. He will take you to safety.”
Her chest shook, body numb and unwieldy. “This isn’t fair. I can’t do this without you.”
“You must. The fate of your family and the kingdoms obligates you.”
The amulet began to blink. Slowly, he removed the device from his chest, the magic dissipating from his body. Her throat seized at the sight. The poison had spread throughout his upper and lower halves. 
“May the Grace of Daya guide you through the Void to your ancestors,” she recited as she took his last gift.
His lips perked up as his vision began to fade into white. “And…may the Mother guard you…for all your days.”
She nodded. She could not look away as he gave his last breaths, determined to stay by his side. 
It was in this small moment she allowed herself to grieve. Grieve for her family’s misfortune, grief for her inability to protect her kingdom and people, and grieve for the lives lost in order to get her this far. 
Her gaze flickered to the sky. His words proved true; dawn was coming. She didn’t have much time. 
“Goodbye dear friend,” she whispered, wiping her tears before setting off on her journey.
Her feet scurried across the cold forest floor. Leaves scattered in their wake. Now, without her protector, the forest took on a more sinister nature. The hairs on her neck prickled in dread as she traveled silently through these woods. Every sound made her heart lurch. Though she knew it merely her mind playing tricks, she could not help but think of the assassin, and whether or not he brought any others.
No, she could do this. Her fingers squeezed the amulet within the folds of her robes. The cold metal reminded her of what she must do.
Though her heart bled for the lives lost, she willed herself to go forward. Once she found a safe place she would properly mourn her fallen comrade. For now, however, she needed to move.
A sound intruded, wrestling her out of deep thought.
She didn’t even have time to scream when the creator of the noise came upon her. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
She squirmed within his grasp. Jim adjusted his hold. The human was petite, but her eyes held a ferocity that promised far more than what she could likely give.
“Unhand me, fiend!” She hissed.
Had it been any other day he would have. Humans were a strange sort. Though his mother imbodied their appearance, she was of another sort of being all together, born of magicks and a world no longer accessible to their kind. It was one of the reasons his sire took her hand after all. 
Amongst others. 
But today was different. Whereas before he had placed humanity out of his mind, now, after the carnage, an unsettling sensation of responsibility weighed down upon him. She had not caused this battle. Her only fault was being the wrong species in the wrong place. If Bular or one of his soldiers found her she would be carved up and eaten like the rest.
And Jim could not allow that to happen. 
Leaves crunched beneath unforgiving feet. The marching had begun. Quickly, he pulled her behind a thicket of gathered trees, hoping his scent would cover her own. 
“Please stay silent, miss,” he whispered. “They will hear you otherwise.”
Her body tensed at his words. Around them, the procession grew louder. Armor clinked together, held in rhythm to the vibrating beat of their drums and deep barking songs. He dare not translate the words to the human, knowing what revulsion they would bring. 
He could not help but examine her. The night was dark but his eyesight blessed him the vision before him. Dark windswept hair framed her heart-shaped face, highlighting the contours of her cheeks and rose-colored lips. While he had little experience with human ages, he guessed her to be near his own more or less.
His heart thumped wildly against his chest. This was the first time he had ever been so close to a maiden. He wanted to speak, to impress her with his knowledge of her native tongue, but instead kept quiet, desperately wishing not to embarrass himself in front of her. 
As the marching began to fade, he loosened his hold on her. It was only just. She quickly pulled away; he let her. A few tense seconds fast before she broke it with her words. 
“How could they?” she spat, fingers clenched around the sides of her cloak. “Honorless barbarians. They were only miners and their families and they slaughtered them.”
He lifted an eyebrow, realizing she knew not who or what he was.
He would have found it refreshing, if he wasn’t so overcome with guilt. 
“Can’t say I disagree at this point,” he mumbled, throat tightening at her remark. 
Was this what being a warrior was about? Jim bit the inside of his cheek. More than once he had sat at the foot of his sire, listening to the tales of old, when magic ran wild and honorable knights protected their kingdoms. Every battle had a story, a purpose, and an ending. Even the Battle of Killahead had its place in his father’s halls, sung to bring about nostalgic melancholy in those there and not there.
So where was the glory in murdering these innocents? How had a border skirmish broken out into slaughter?
It set him on edge. 
By the Void.  Jim shook his head. He could scarcely believe what had happened. This was his first excursion with the company and he hoped it his last. Being put in his brother’s battalion had been a foolish error on the head advisor’s part. Not that anyone could persuade the troll outside the king himself. Sir Dictatious was the complete opposite of his brother.
It was no wonder they hated each other. 
The girl continued to rant. “How dare they attack Arcadian soil. Do they want to start another war with the kingdoms?” Her voice grew hoarse. “Does the Treaty of Avalon mean nothing now?”
“A war would be most disagreeable for everything I should think,” he answered.
She blinked, cheeks reddening as she straightened out her linens to curtsy. 
“Excuse my manners. Thank you for your assistance. I am utmost in your debt. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
With whom indeed. Jim glanced at her outfit and features. This was no peasant, he gathered, but someone more highborn, though how much so he could not determine by sight alone. While her cloak was ratty and riddled with holes the cloth beneath was well-made, shielding her from the Darkland winds. She lacked the pockmarks and blemishes other humans tended to carry too. 
His eyes widened as he realized how quiet he had been. He coughed into his hand, head bobbing. “It’s Jim, milady.”
“Thank you, Jim. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who survived.”
He winced. She believed him human. He supposed, in the darkness, night-blindness would suggest it as such. While taller than most of their kind he was significantly shorter than a majority of trolls. 
“You’re traveling alone?” He asked. Perhaps he could return her to her group before she realized who he was.
She paused, shoulders shaking. “My companion…He didn’t make it.”
“My deepest apologies,” he said and he meant it sincerely. “Is there anything I can do? A lady such as yourself shouldn’t be out here alone. Where are you heading to? Perhaps I can lead you there.”
Already he formulated a plan to get her away, far from the Gumm-Gumms that still lingered in these forests. 
It would have worked, he could have gotten her as close to her destination before disappearing at daybreak, if something else hadn’t spoken up instead, breaking the fragile peace between them.
James of House Lake.
Instantly, he drew back, back ramrod straight at the power the voice possessed. It chilled him to the bone, clinging to his eardrums in a soft echoing whisper. He knew not where it came until the girl fished it from her robes. He thought it one of Blinky’s strange time devices until he noticed the pulsating blue magic that lay beneath its metallic parts.
“Did,” he began in a breathless manner, “Did that thing just say my name?”
Her brows furrowed. She held the circular object out plainly, squinting as she looked between it and himself. 
“But it’s never chosen…who are you?” She asked, pressing forward.
Jim accidentally backed into one of the trees, horns biting into the bark. A familiar scent was picked up through the air, coupled with equally familiar footfalls.
His breath caught in his throat. Through the blackness, he could see the figure approach.
A haphazard plan based on foolishness and Gumm-Gumm tradition arose within him. His cheeks burned at what he was about to do. He had hoped—no, that kind of life was not accessible to one such as he. 
He looked back to the girl, confusion, and fear spreading across her face. She did not deserve this fate he would bring her, but he could not bear to see her die this day. 
“I am so very very very sorry for what I am about to do,” he said, inwardly praying to the Void for his actions. 
He muffled her scream with his gloved hand, the other tilting her neck for access.
The taste of copper met his tongue and suddenly he understood why so many of his countrymen developed a taste for it.
It was over in an instant, but he knew, somehow, that he had changed both their futures.
Whether for better or for worse was yet to be determined.
The bushes rustled behind them, branches snapping as his elder brother strode onto the scene.
Carefully, Jim lifted his mouth, wiping the red from his lips with the back of his hand. The girl below him held the nape of her neck tenderly, eyes shooting daggers at him. 
Bular regarded the two with an unimpressed brow. “Father will be most displeased when he hears of this.”
“Salutations to you, brother,” he replied.
The girl shuddered within his grasp, now likely putting together the pieces of his identity. “What have you done?” She whispered, face alike to a corpse. 
The other balanced his broadsword on his shoulder, clearly taking pleasure in Jim’s act. “A messenger arrived from the castle. Our arrival is expected.” He looked the girl up and down, measuring her with a growing sneer. “If you wanted a bloody fleshbag for your intended you should have just asked. I’m sure one of my men could have found you one with more meat on her bones than this twig.”
“It seems our taste in wenches diverges. I quite like twigs.” Jim sent his brother a cold smile, refusing to react to his insult.
Bular sniffed, features smoothing over into disinterest as he set off back towards the legion. “Have it your way.”
Once his presence was gone, the girl collapsed, her shivering now full-blown shakes. 
“This is disastrous,” she cried.
Jim shared the sentiment and wanted to voice it, but thought better of it. Scooping her up into his arms (and ignoring her feeble protests), he began his march towards home, knowing that his actions would not go unpunished.
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paranoidpug · 4 years
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A Book Rant
School books. Whether you love or hate them, we have to read them. Here are the ones of mine I can remember, and my opinions on each. Beware, some spoilers, but probably nothing major. This is basically a series of pointless book reviews. 
(disclaimer: this is just me venting about books I have been forced to read. I will be criticising stuff. I mean no offence to the authors, and if you like any of these books, that’s great. You must have had a better experience with them than I did. Otherwise, enjoy these short book rants.)
Rating Key: 
7/10+ Pretty good. Would recommend.
5/10 + = Would read again.
Under 5/10 = Meh.
Under 2/10 = Absolute rubbish.
0/10 = Just don’t. 
Year 6: 
The Boy In Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne 
Absolutely terrible. You do not give this book to a group of Year 6 students, no matter whether they’re the ‘advanced reading group’ or not, and then leave them to work it out themselves. Put me off school assigned books forever. Reading this as a 12-year-old ruined any enjoyment this book might hold for me in the future. 0/10, would not recommend. 
The Plunketts - Sue Hines
This teacher sucked at choosing age-appropriate books for her ‘advanced reading group’. All I remember is I got no help understanding it and something happened with a rotten chicken in a ceramics kiln. Also it had swear-words and my Mum was mad. 0/10. 
Year 7: 
Holes - Louis Sachar 
Not bad. Read it in Year 6 as well, so I knew it pretty well. An OK read, could read it again if I had to. 5/10
Year 8:
Runner - Robert Newton 
This book was so bad I can’t even remember any of it. 0/10
Year 9: 
Trash - Andy Mulligan 
This book was trash. That’s all I have to say. 0/10
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare 
I don’t mind Shakespeare too much, and it was nice to study something so iconic, but it was still pretty frustrating. The best part was when my entire class screamed at the screen while watching the movie because Romeo was being a dumb butt who didn’t think before drinking poison long enough to see Juliet was alive. Idiot. 4/10
Animal Farm - George Orwell
I actually enjoyed this one. I read it twice. Good to read, good to write about. Nice and short too. 9/10
Year 10
Macbeth - Shakespeare
I liked this one. We got to do a creative and I wrote from the perspective of Hecate and it was fun. We basically got to write fan-fiction in class. Plus it had witches and magic, which is a first for books I’ve read at school, so bonus. 8/10.
Ps. the short story I wrote can be read here: 
https://www.wattpad.com/story/169008118-something-wicked-this-way-comes
If you’re curious. 
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Not the most interesting book to read, but it was fantastic to study once you got through it. 6/10
Year 11:
Ransom - David Malouf 
I know this book wasn’t particularly popular with the class, but I am a massive fan of Greek mythology, so this was pretty OK. 6/10
The Thing Around Your Neck -  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This was kinda depressing. A collection of short stories that failed to hold my interest. Not inherently terrible, but not anything of note, either. The creative I wrote based on this was also depressing and ended in the POV character getting murdered, so.... 3/10
The Great Gatsby -  F. Scott Fitzgerald
Um... I know it’s a classic and everything, but this was boring. Not at all what I was expecting. 1/10 
Year 12 so far:
After Darkness - Christine Piper
Not the worst thing I’ve read. Every book they choose for school is depressing, but at least this one was somewhat interesting, and had a nice writing style. Lots of imagery descriptions. 4/10
Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
I love this play so much. Studied it for Literature in Yr 11 as well, so when I found out I’d be reading it again for English, I was excited. Shakespearean insults are hilarious. My favourite Shakespeare play so far. I still hate Claudio though. 9/10
Foreign Soil -  Maxine Beneba Clarke
Please save me. The happiest story featured an attempted rape, the saddest put me off my lunch. I hate it. Please don’t make me read this ever again. 0/10
The Anchoress -  Robyn Cadwallader
And now we get to my main rant. This is the whole reason I wrote this review. I despise this book. I need to vent. This is also where minor spoilers come in, so be warned.
The Anchoress is a 300-page story about a girl locked in a room going insane, and it does little in its 300 pages to justify the existence of those 300 pages. The writer’s ‘style’ is to bash you over the head with metaphors from page 1 that mean basically nothing throughout the text. Just highlight every mention of birds and you’ll be fine. Also apples, for some reason. All questions are pretty much answered in the prologue and none of significance are raised throughout the entirety of the book, meaning I have nothing to keep me turning pages other than the drive to get an A on my essay. There is not a single interesting or likeable character in the entire text except maybe that one cute kid who asks too many questions that are not-so-secretly more metaphors. We are studying this text through a feminist lens, the reason being that every chapter likes to remind us that women are the reason for all sin and that if a woman gets raped it’s totally her fault and she has to pay the price for men looking at her and I want to vomit. I could not eat lunch today and this book is why. Not to mention the fact that it’s written in past tense, but the flashbacks are in present tense, and it’s written in first person, until it isn’t and it’s in third person and as a writer it is SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING. Not to mention the thinly veiled rape metaphors, actual rape mentions, child pregnancy due to implied rape and urrrrrrggggh there goes my lunch. I hate this book so much. 
Congratulations. You have endured my rant. Better this than having to read the book. -100/10, do not ever read lest you want to throw it at a wall and then burn it. 
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hell-heron · 4 years
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Romeo and Juliet - Globe production 2009
So, as I think every Shakespeare person on this site, I've spent the past few days rewatching my favorite parts of this over and over again, but only now I've decided to talk about it a lot more in depth and watch all of it. So, did I like it? Yeah, I have to say I expected to like it more because the clips I had been able to watch a while ago were mostly featuring Ellie Kendrick's Juliet's solo scenes which are imho the highlight of the production.
The only comment on this I read from someone whose opinion I trust mentioned there is a lack of chemistry between the titular characters and thst the romance comes off as kind of too childish and silly. Now, it's probably because my opinion of the ideal chemistry is quite less sexually charged than most people, but I only partly agree with this. For example, the lark scene was definitely underwhelming (tho I liked the little preamble where Romeo stares, obviously scared, out of the window and Juliet reaches him as the chorus sings) and the courtship sonnet just average, but the balcony was exceptionally good, Zeffirelli levels even, a perfect balance of flirty humor, passion, tenderness and enthusiasm, also helped by the fact both actors decided this was the moment to be a bit more natural in their acting and drop the... Comedical conceit? I'm gonna elaborate a bit more on this later, but anyway it was very good. There is definitely some tonal issue with the romance, but imho it's more due to the overall inability of almost anyone in this cast to play in a tragedy than romantic chemistry: these kids would have played Beatrice and Benedick just fine.
It's very clear that the director's intent in this was to highlight this play's overlooked comedic influence and, while I appreciate it... Eh it's a bit of a mixed bag. I like highlighting the humor and snark that is already present, especially the two lovers', I kinda enjoy the comedic servant character, some scenes were done in a really nice and original way, but unfortunately it also means everything after the duel falls really emotionally flat. The deaths in particular were hard to watch. I also think Tybalt was underused in this sense and was way too serious (sooo sad because the actor is really pretty and seems good tho he was given fuck all to do) while Paris should have been less comedic, given that the fact this doesn't cut the sexual-harrassment-in-church-scene (THANK GOD) makes him REALLY sleazy and a legitimate threat for Juliet. Though I love the scene where the Capulet's have to basically passively aggressively kick him out of the house.
Another noteworthy point is that the script cuts almost nothing, a few scenes are shortened but all are present. Personally I find this great as I am a big fan of a lot of scenes that are often unappreciated and cut - the aforementioned conversation between Paris and Juliet, the scene were Juliet complains about the nurse being late, a few Bencutio-inclined scenes etc. However they really could have used to skip a few purely comedic scenes involving the servants, and the prologues, seriously? The prologues in the year of our lord 2009?
There's also a little added bickering between Lord and Lady C about whether to have the wedding on Thursday or Wednesday to make fun of Shakespeare fucking up the timeline, which is obviously awkward and unnecessarily but lord do I respect the principle.
The costumes are good, imho, a bit plain/stiff in some cases. In particular I'd like to know what possessed them to have gray as Juliet's main color. But for the rest they look nice, especially Lady C's, Nurse's and the young men. I also appreciate that Juliet wears blue and Romeo red for the wedding, it's really pretty and symbolic, and that there's a difference made clear between everyday clothes and the nice ones for the party or the wedding for Romeo too. I also love his ball headdress of twigs and feathers, very cute and fairylike.
Now - the characterization. As I mentioned I was extremely pleasantly surprised by Ellie Kendrick's Juliet. She's the first actress that I think captures Juliet's snark and feeling of like... Overwhelming urgency and intensity. When she says on the balcony that she's incapable of being as coy and poised and careful with her feelings as other girls, it's believable, when she complains about old people being slow and acting like they're already dead compared to her warm youthful blood and passion, it's... A bit mean as teenage girls will be, but believable. One thing I love about Juliet how Shakespeare wrote is that she has a lot of these little character touches that set her apart from a Stock Romantic Maiden and she really makes it shine more than any other actress. My issue is that her portrayal changes very little through the play: in some cases it works well even in heavier scenes (for example the conversation with Paris and then with Friar Lawrence has such fervor and bitterness to it, I love her little snarky huff when FL doubts she will have the courage to go through with her plans) in other it really doesn't. The poison speech is really, really jarring, I know her speeding up like crazy is meant to convey anxiety but she doesn't really make it come across imho, and she shows almost no emotion in her death. Points added for the Gallop apace fiery footed steeds speech tho, it's really charming and mischievous ad I loved it. She also does surprisingly well with the reaction to Romeo's banishment despite not being usually good with sad scenes
Now, Romeo... Romeo seemed really mediocre to me from the clips and then he grew on me, but he's quite strange. In most of his scenes he seems... Uhm, too dramatic? Too conscious of the fact he's acting? Which I don't know if it's meant to be reflective of Romeo's personality or simply the actor's style. I could appreciate it as a characterization choice if he started acting more naturally after meeting Juliet and dropping his Unrequited Love Angst (which he does for a while), but then for some reason he goes back to it, to the point where the duel with Paris and his death is the worst offender. So it's really unclear what he's doing. His best scenes are definitely the balcony, the conversation with Friar Lawrence (such genuine affection and complicity! This production does GREAT at establishing the kids' relationships with their surrogate parents, I wish it was more common) and his conversation with the nurse, which coincidentally are those where he acts more natural. In these scenes, he comes off as really sweet, enthusiastic and outgoing but a bit awkward. Real quality facial expressions. Again, feels believable when Mercutio says "now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo!". I have a ridiculous soft spot for the moment where he tries to make the "Young Romeo will be older when you find him than he was when you sought him out" joke and it falls completely flat and Nurse just stares at him weirdly.
Overall I appreciate the intent of the actors to give the lovers more of an individual personality than usual, but they take it too far and don't drop it at the appropriate moment
Now, for the secondary cast. Nurse is great, one of the best in the cast for ability to play both comedy and tragedy I think, I liked Lady C's characterization, more bumbling/distressed/trying and failing to parent emotionally inept mom than the usual Slutty Wine Mom which is starting to honestly bore me, Friar Lawrence is really cute and I love they gave him his speech about flowers. The prince is completely forgettable, Lord C a bit too bumbling to be intimidating imho, the Montague nonexistent. I already talked about my issues with Paris
Passing to the boys people actually care about here:
- Tybalt unfortunately doesn't offer much to like. He's very serious and poised and mhh just lacks feral energy. His scene with Lord Capulet is good but the fights are nothing special. He gets slapped by Lord C also :/
- Benvolio is cute! He gets a bit more frat-boyish characterization which is nice after all these tiring nerdy cinnamon roll too pure for this world portrayals, and he's very distinctive from Romeo. I think there's also great Bencutio chemistry here, they had some great scenes in the one after the ball where they look for Romeo together and the "more than prince of cats scenes". The first in particular, featuring the drunk boys trying and failing to make rhymes to conjure Romeo, is one of the better accomplished comedic scenes. Unfortunately there's not as much mileage to take from the "Thou art as hot in thy mood as any Jack in Italy" conversation, he doesn't get mad about it :/. For the rest I like his part in the opening fight and his anger at Romeo in the post-duel scene. Also he's green-coded which is nice
- Mercutio... Agh. So there's a similar problem here as with the lovers, acts great in more light toned, underrated scenes but the main ones are somewhat underwhelming. All the Montacrew conversations are delightful, he's very expressive in his gestures. The aforementioned Bencutio scenes are great and so is the one with the nurse, tho I wish he didn't kiss her, it's not really necessary to resort to sexual harassment to show him as an annoying dick. However there are some points where he comes off WAY more bitter than necessary at Romeo's romantic exploits and ??? People are aware you don't HAVE TO code him as in unrequited love with Romeo if you don't intend to do anything with it, are they? (tho they do have a very cute scene where they lie on the ground together and snuggle as they banter) However, the queen Mab speech and the duel, which are the most important, fall very flat. He can't make up his mind on whether the queen Mab speech is a breakdown or just a ramble to show off his wit, and the Montague boys definitely react like it's the latter. He shows some very nice anger in the "I talk of dreams" bit tho. Overall it's weird and seems boring, too long
I need to have a full paragraph to talk about the duel because it's imho one of the most botched scenes. It's overpowered by the drums, confusing and chaotic not in a good way. Tybalt doesn't seem very interested in fighting Mercutio, nor the other way around, Tybalt seems actually almost uneasy and like he accepted because he was embarrassed to refuse. However this doesn't reflect in the actual fight, which is very violent where this would make me expect a Zeffirelli-like, playful and dramatic duel that goes tragically wrong. Mercutio's death is fairly cold, save for the plague o'er both your houses line which is always awesome, and maybe i influenced by the musical but there's a strong lack of reaction and affection from the Montague boys, they don't touch or hug or even like... Cry or anything. I do like Romeo and Tybalt's duel, in particularly the fact it's mainly a fistfight, to emphasize how much rawer and realer it is than the first one - tho again, because the first one is more violent than warranted the contrast loses a little in strength. There's also no emotion or reaction whatsoever from Tybalt at any point which is a little weird given how this started.
Romeo's reaction is also not great. He's mainly angry, although understandably, doesn't seem to feel guilty or sad at all about either Tybalt or Mercutio. He also repeatedly punches Tybalt's corpse, which... This coupled with the fact they keep him killing Paris, but not the scene where he talks to Tybalt's corpse in the crypt is a little weird. I know some people like to play Romeo's arc as a descent into darkness with him losing his principles and natural gentleness as he's pushed off the deep end, and I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I don't think anyone involved in this has the capability to handle that well, so it just seems strange and out of character.
He does break down a little in the following scene with Friar Lawrence, but still he doesn't seen particularly mad about anything but his banishment. I do love how he emphasize his feeling of betrayal from his One Trusted Adult tho.
So, overall I really like this. Great cast, some wonderful ideas, very vivid and fun to see. I just wish they could have balanced tragedy and comedy better because literally all the issues come from there
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pogasm · 4 years
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1: 6 songs you listen to the most?
take me to church, love is madness, love sex feelings die, bohemian rhapsody, call her, teeth
2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Shakespeare. 
3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
my will to her consent is but a part
4: What do you think about most?
moving out
5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?
it’s probably something dumb like ‘ma’am?’ from Emma
6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
always wearing pants, not always wearing a shirt
7: What’s your strangest talent?
being able to do winged eyeliner quickly(omg same Emma)
8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)
girls have fingers and boys are ugly
9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?
no:( someone write a poem or song abt me
10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?
idk (I might be getting 1 for my bday)
11: Do you have any strange phobias?
i don't like other people’s skin
12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
a tampon. i was bored
13: What’s your religion?
idk. agnostic probably idc
14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
of my own free will? taking a walk, or just lying on the floor. vibing
15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
both. idc
16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
(Emma stfu but I don't listen to any bands anymore this is the only 1 I know) queen. 
17: What was the last lie you told?
‘i don't want anything for my birthday’
18: Do you believe in karma?
i only believe karma works on me. for others? its a coin toss
19: What does your URL mean?
i an the onceler’s side hoe. he's probably only with me for the sex
20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
weakness: i am dumb. strength: i am smart
21: Who is your celebrity crush?
there's a whole list but no. 1 is lauren jauregui
22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
no and I prob never will
23: How do you vent your anger?
read, not talk, stay away from people.
24: Do you have a collection of anything?
books, jewelry
25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
neither. both give me anxiety
26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?
lmao no
27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?
i hate snoring, breathing; love music, rain
28: What’s your biggest “what if”?
what if I cant move far away from my family
29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
(Not ghosts. but there is no way there isn’t some sort of extraterrestrial live outside of earth. that would be a waste. space is constantly expanding.)what she said. there's no way aliens don't exist
30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.
empty croissant box. water bottle
31: Smell the air. What do you smell?
lemon
32: What’s the worst place you have ever been
canada
33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?
whats the point? just stay in the middle
34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?
ugh what is the opposite of my gender? but hozier
35: To you, what is the meaning of life?
were just here to cry, have kids, have anxiety, and die
36: Define Art.
when your soul is vibing so hard and the colors are on weed and everything is dancing and u just take a picture of that moment when ur in so much bliss and put it on paper, or canvas or whatever medium (tdlr; art is pure unfiltered emotion)
37: Do you believe in luck?
probably. idk idc
38: What’s the weather like right now?
overcast, but pretty sunset
39: What time is it?
8:38 p
40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?
i drive. never crashed
41: What was the last book you read?
romeo and Juliet? the hate u give?
42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?
only when I'm not in a car. if I'm in a car it makes me feel claustrophobic and want to puke
43: Do you have any nicknames?
dare(dah-ray) div(deev) diva(eww I hate that one)
44: What was the last film you saw?
i don't watch movies. idk
45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?
what is worse? getting hit by a motorcycle or spilling boiling water on ur feet?
46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?
no. i want to
47: Do you have any obsessions right now?
what is an obsession? books. b99. art.
48: What’s your sexual orientation?
i like women. only.
49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?
idk. probably
50: Do you believe in magic?
no.
51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?
i wish I could but I always forget what they did wrong. i hate that
52: What is your astrological sign?
taurus
53: Do you save money or spend it?
save it for something specific them spend it all.
54: What’s the last thing you purchased?
bananas. ice tea
55: Love or lust?
love
56: In a relationship?
no i wish
57: How many relationships have you had?
2 that i didn’t feel anything in. 0 legit ones
58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
eww no
59: Where were you yesterday?
the same place I am today
60: is there anything pink right in front of you?
my sweatshirt
61: Are you wearing socks right now?
no. socks r nasty
62: What’s your favourite animal?
cat. (omg hahshahshhahahhsh)
63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?
be funny. get them things
64: Where is your best friend?
all my actual valid friends are too far away from me
65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.
my aesthetic blog. @slightly-unsettling-objects (even tho they never post)
66: What is your heritage?
is that like race? all of them
67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?
watching b99
68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?
morningstar(I watch too much caos)
69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?
no. i think it is appropriate that this is on question 69
70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?
no. i think I'm a shitty friend
71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?
nothing. i don't like dogs and I'm not tryna get fired
72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?
a-tell no one(it would be funny for them to find me dead I think) b-idk probably say goodbye, vibe c-no
73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.
love
74: What’s a song that always makes you
cry? take me to church
75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?
idk I forgot
76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?
communication and coordinated outfits. (and mutual affection. the romantic kind)
77: How can I win your heart?
show an interest in the things i like. be funny. like me. be cute. not get mad at me, ever.
78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?
music. scrolling on tumblr
79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?
not letting my mom pick my outfits, wearing more boots/black clothes
80: What size shoes do you wear?
8 1/2
81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?
“at least they were funny”
82: What is your favourite word?
music. book. paint
83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.
blood
84: What is a saying you say a lot?
eat my ass
85: What’s the last song you listened to?
bro idk? tiktok music?
86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?
purple nd black
87: What is your current desktop picture?
eye emoji, mouth emoji, eye emoji on purple background
88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode,who would it be?
everyone over the age of 40 except for the queen. Donald trump. the Ricardo guy that dances naked
89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?
I'm too scared to even say the question? (I kinda dodged it? did I? only I know)
90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?
dance party(wtf omg hive mind)
91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super- power of your choice! What is that power?
invisibility. shape-shifting
92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? 
homecoming. 2019
93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
when I was 9
94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it
I would not sleep with someone I don't have romantic feelings for
95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Missouri, USA. san Fran. Australia. London. random country in europe
96: Do you have any relatives in jail?
not that I know of
97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?
i almost did. my sister threw up on me in the car. i got out before I puked too
98: Ever been on a plane?
yes. i love planes
99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?
‘why are you even listening to me? the most interesting thing I would say is a sex joke’
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huesofthemorning · 5 years
Text
Shopping Time (Butch/Femme JunnaNana)
Characters: Junna, Nana, Futaba, Claudine
Words: 5500
Summary: Junna and Nana have a heart to heart. Futaba and Claudine take them shopping. It’s an adventure.
Featuring Trans!Nana and NB!Junna
Picture of Junna’s and Nana’s outfits!
“Oh my,” Kaoruko said as Junna stepped into the classroom. “Isn’t that an impressive sight?”
Junna paused, eyes flicking between the door and the grinning Kaoruko. Did she dare ask, or did she escape while she still could? Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. It was dress rehearsal for their two week play of Romeo and Juliet, and as one of the leads, she absolutely couldn’t miss it.
“...Excuse me?” Junna finally asked, bracing herself for the answer.
“I’m talking about your outfit, of course,” Kaoruko said, waving a hand at Junna’s clothing choice. In a two week play, there wasn’t time for Class B to design and sew costumes; instead, each actress was told to wear whatever she owned that fit the role. For Junna, that meant dressing as Romeo.
It hadn’t been a surprise to anyone that Junna had scored a lead role, not in a Shakespeare play. What had been a shock was Hikari snatching the role of Juliet. Most of the class had expected Nana to play opposite Junna in a love story, including Nana herself. Junna had been the one to veto the idea.
“Kagura-san knows Shakespeare better,” Junna had argued, pointedly not looking at Nana. And it was true, to the dismay of the rest of the class. They had to remind Junna and Hikari every single practice session that no one else knew the lines in English, and to please follow the Japanese script. Nana stayed quiet the whole time, standing off to the side with her script dangling from her fingers. It didn’t take long to memorize the handful of lines of a background character.
Junna still had to apologize for that. She found Nana on the other side of the room, watching her with a surprised expression. Junna sent her a small smile before turning back to Kaoruko.
“What about my outfit?” she asked. It was a fairly simple affair, she thought. Dark blue button down shirt, a pair of old jeans, and the school’s standard, white and red gym shoes.
“Well first off, it’s hideous,” Kaoruko said.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Futaba chimed in, joining the pair. The rest of the group was starting to trickle over too, like moths to a flame. Maybe one day that fire would be stoked by something other than the potential for Junna’s embarrassment.
“It’s in character,” Junna argued. “Romeo was a rich teenage boy who liked running around the streets flirting with girls. He would have owned nice clothes, and he would have worn them to impress said girls, but even he wouldn’t have wanted to wear dress pants when walking outside all day, hence he would have--”
“Romeo’s dead,” Futaba said.
“W-well…” Junna stumbled to a halt. “That’s- that’s not relevant, and also not accurate, he was never technically alive in the first place--”
“More importantly,” Kaoruko interrupted, regaining control of the conversation. “I want to know how you did that!” Kaoruko exclaimed, pointing accusingly at Junna’s chest.
“...What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? We’ve had numerous discussions about this, Junna-han! You have the biggest chest in the dorm, and you just walked in flat as a board. What gives!”
“...Oh.” Junna ran a hand down her chest. It wasn’t truly flat, not really, but the shirt was loose enough to mask the little shape there was.
“That is pretty impressive,” Claudine agreed. Maya and Hikari nodded. Nana was still hanging back, just a bit, but she seemed intrigued as well.
“I like it!” Karen announced, bouncing up and down. “You look like a boy! It’s cool!”
Junna rolled her eyes. “It’s just a binder. A compression shirt. It’s nothing special.”
“Why do you own a binder?” Mahiru asked.
“Why not?”
“Um…”
“‘Cause most 17 year old girls don’t own that stuff?” Claudine tried. “Did you buy this for the play?”
“No, of course not. I’ve owned this for years.”
“Junna-han, you’re the weirdest girl I’ve ever met.”
“Wait a sec,” Futaba said, lowering her voice so she wouldn’t be overheard by the rest of the class. “Is this a boy thing? Like, are you a weird girl, or are you, actually, you know.”
Junna stared blankly at Futaba. It took several seconds for her to realize what Futaba was trying to imply. “Oh. Oh, no. I don’t care.”
“What do you mean, you don’t care?”
Everyone was looking at her in varying states of confusion and concern. Junna sighed. Was it really such a hard concept to grasp?
“Boy or girl,” Junna stated firmly, “it doesn’t matter. I don’t see a difference. I’m Hoshimi Junna. I’m me. That’s all that’s important.”
“Oooooooh!” Karen clapped at the declaration. Mahiru and Hikari shook their heads.
“Fair enough,” Futaba shrugged.
“You’re still a weird person,” Kaoruko decided.
“No weirder than the rest of you,” Junna said. “Now come on, we should start rehearsal.”
She pushed past the group and made her way to the stage. It didn’t bother her, saying that stuff out loud. Junna had made up her mind long ago that if she decided something, she would follow that decision with confidence. She couldn’t move forward if she wavered.
Still, the support of her friends meant more than she would say. It warmed her; lifted a weight of her shoulders. Junna held on that feeling. Memorized it. Then, finally, she let herself acknowledge the thought tingling in the back of her mind:
Nana was frowning the whole time…
Nana was nervous. Nana was nervous about so many things, she didn't know where to begin. Half of them were surely nothing more than her overthinking, repeating tiny thoughts over and over until they snowballed into something too big to ignore. The other half... well, the other half was probably the same, if she was honest. Meaningless little moments that got stuck in her head. She needed to shake them out, needed this lump in her throat to melt, needed to stop being so--
"Nana?"
Nana jumped. Junna's questioning look started to turn into one of concern, and Nana felt her heart drop. She threw on a bright smile, hoping Junna wouldn't notice her trembling lips. "It's fine, it's fine! You startled me, is all. What's up?"
But of course, Junna noticed.
She took a moment to think, tapping her fingers against the desk.  Nana sat on the edge of her bed and waited, trying not to fidget. Junna liked to get her thoughts in order before she spoke, liked to arrange her words so they meant exactly what she wanted them to mean, nothing more, nothing less.
Sometimes, Nana tried to picture what the inside of Junna’s brain must be like. A library, for sure. Shelves and shelves of words, all carefully organized. She imagined Junna walking down the halls, stacks of books rising far above her head, carefully inspecting each and every one.
In contrast, Nana’s head felt like a complete and utter mess. Like a bunch of monkeys wreaking havoc on a grocery store in their search for bananas, and the janitor had quit long ago. Seventeen years of life and an extra fifty on top, and still she could never match Junna. And there the nervousness rose up again like a wave, threatening to drown her:
Was Junna getting bored of her?
Beautiful, intelligent, perfect Junna. Nana knew it was unfair, knew Junna would scold her if she could hear her thoughts, but sometimes Nana wondered if she was worthy to stand next to Junna on stage. After all, Junna hadn’t wanted Nana to play opposite her in Romeo and Juliet. And she had never once mentioned feeling like--
“I’m sorry.”
“Eh?” Nana stared up at Junna, uncomprehending.
Junna took a deep breath and continued. “I should have said this earlier, and I apologize for that too. But… you’re upset that I didn’t want you to play Juliet, right?”
“...Mm.” Nana wrapped her arms around herself, looking down at the floor. “But that’s alright. You love Shakespeare. It’s only natural that you’d want the best person to be your partner, and Hikari-chan is certainly that.”
“It has nothing to do with talent,” Junna said firmly. She sat down in Nana’s chair, reaching for Nana’s hands and holding them tightly in her own, waiting patiently for Nana to look back at her. “It’s nothing to do with talent,” she repeated again when Nana did, gentler this time. “Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. More than that, it’s a tragedy masquerading as a love story. Perhaps it’s selfish of me, but I don’t want you playing a role in something like that. I don’t want you to play any more tragedies.”
Starlight was a tragedy. Starlight hurt. Nana hadn’t even thought about the pain intrinsic to Romeo and Juliet, the pain she’d have to act out over and over and over again, but Junna… Junna was always looking out for her. Always, always, always.
“Sorry,” Junna said, running her thumbs over Nana’s knuckles as a few tears slipped down Nana’s face. “I’ll explain myself better next time, promise.”
“Thank you,” Nana whispered. If she were better with words, she’d say all the many things she was thankful for, but for now she left it at that and trusted Junna to understand.
Junna smiled. “Good now?” she asked, squeezing Nana’s hands. “Or is there something else?”
Nana felt her chest tighten. There was something else, of course there was something else, but it was still too new. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to risk ruining the balance Junna had created.
Balance. How could she maintain it? Junna had given it to her, so she must give it back.
“You first,” Nana said. “Is there anything you want to talk about first?”
“So,” Futaba said, hanging upside down off Claudine’s bed. “Junna, huh?”
Claudine snorted. “What a loser. That stage kiss with Hikari? Worst thing I’ve ever seen. The teacher should have let me demonstrate, I could absolutely do better!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re better than all of us at everything. But that’s not what I was talking about. What’d you think about Junna’s little speech?”
“That gender stuff? Seemed like pretty standard Hoshimi Junna to me. I don’t think she gives a shit about anything not stage related.” Claudine turned a page in her fashion magazine, frowning as she saw the cost of a pair of glittery heels. Not that she couldn’t afford them, of course, but what kind of statement would they make? She didn’t want someone like Tendo Maya to think she was trying too hard. “Or Banana related,” she added as afterthought. “The stage and Banana: her two passions.”
“Sounds about right. Hey, isn’t Banana trans too?”
“Probably. Not that I’ve ever asked her, of course.”
“Kaoruko keeps complaining that Banana never joins her in the bath.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. No one in their right mind would join Kaoruko in the bath.”
“Yeah…” Futaba sighed. She slid farther off the bed, hair brushing the floor. Claudine had talked her ear off about clothes earlier, and now, caught up in it, she was scrolling through pictures of high tops on her phone. “You know, I bet Junna’d look pretty good with more boyish clothes.”
“You’re just upset that your attempts at making Tendo Maya butch failed.”
“No, I’d say you’re the one upset about that.”
“Hah? Excusez moi?”
“You want to see Tendo wear a tux just as much as the rest of us, don’t deny it.”
Claudine stayed resolutely silent, flipping faster through her magazine. She didn’t need to see Futaba’s face to know she was smirking. “You realize,” she finally said, refusing to let Futaba win the conversation, “if you want Junna to be your backup butch, you’re going to have to dress her yourself. She has 0 sense of style.”
“Hey, I’ll do it. At least she won’t make me spend an hour in the lingerie section like Kaoruko does.” Futaba pulled herself onto the bed, thinking through the idea. “That could be good, actually, taking her shopping. Show that we’re supportive friends.”
“Are we though?”
“We’re supportive.”
“But are we friends?”
Futaba shrugged. “Probably?”
“Hm.” Claudine closed her magazine and looked up at Futaba. “If you’re making Junna butch, I want to make Banana femme. With those legs of hers, she could rock a miniskirt.”
“Hell yeah. Shopping trip it is then.”
“If we call this a double date, will Kaoruko hire a hitman to kill me?”
“Would you care if she did?”
“I dare her to.”
“Then sure, double date it is.”
“Is there something else?” Junna asked. It was rarely just one thing with Nana, Junna had learned. Nana had too many layers. Too many thoughts all piled up on top of each other. It took time for Junna to untangle them all.
After a moment, Nana replied: “You first. Is there anything you want to talk about first?”
That was a yes, then. A yes, Nana did have something, but she didn’t want to bring it up, and she was hoping Junna would get distracted and forget. If Junna was smart, she’d say no. She’d say that she was fine, and start coaxing the problem out of Nana. If she was smarter, she’d say yes. She’d say yes, she did have something, and they would talk it out and reach a mutual understanding. Surely it would be better for both of them. Surely it was the right decision. The smart decision.
Sometimes, Junna hated being smart.
“Actually…” she began, hesitantly, unused to opening up like this.
Nana seemed surprised too. “Actually?” she pressed, leaning forward.
Junna took a steadying breath. “I wanted to talk about what I said in class today. Or rather, I think I should, just to… to clear up any confusion. If you had any.”
Nana froze, and it clicked for Junna, then, that this was likely the second thing Nana wanted to talk about. She should have guessed it earlier. In that case, talking about it was for the best, she told herself. Two birds with one stone.
“I’m not… confused about it,” Nana said slowly. “If that’s the way you feel, then that’s the way you feel! And I’ll support you! But...”
“But?” Junna asked, holding her relief at bay until she heard the rest of the story.
“But…” Nana chewed her lip, staring off into the distance. Finally she gave a sheepish smile and said, “you never told me about it.”
Ah.
Now Junna understood.
What a fool she was.
“Not- not that you had to, of course!” Nana was quick to add. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to! I just would have thought, since I’m…”
“That’s why, actually,” Junna said, finally relaxing. Nana wasn’t upset with her. Not that Junna would have expected her to be, but it was always better to hear it said. Now all she had to do was explain her thoughts. That wasn’t a problem. “For you, the distinction between being a girl or a boy is important, right? If someone called you a boy, you’d be upset. And rightfully so! But for me, it’s meaningless. I could go my whole life being a called a boy, and I doubt I’d care. So while we’re similar in some ways, in other ways we’re completely different. I didn’t want you to think that because I felt my way, you had to feel that way too. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh.” Nana frowned, thinking it over.
“Make sense?” Junna asked. It was completely logical, in her opinion. Whether or not she was supposed to be this logical over a decision with emotional impact was a question she wasn’t going to answer.
“Yep!” Nana said, bright and shining once again. “Junna-chan is always looking out for me, huh?”
“Of course!” Junna was grinning now too, unable to help herself when faced with the sun that was Nana. “I’m the class president, after all!”
“You’re the president of my heart,” Nana said with a terrible attempt at a serious expression.
Junna snorted, reaching forward to poke Nana in the stomach. “I think that’s the worst pickup line yet.”
“Aw, Junna-chan! Well, what if I just pick you up then?”
Nana’s hands were on her waist before she could react, pulling her into the bed. Junna was laughing; Nana was, too, both of them giddy with the relief that comes after important discussions. Everything was fine now, Junna thought as Nana pulled her into a kiss. There was nothing more to worry about.
“Rise and shine, losers, we’re going shopping!” Claudine shouted as she threw the door open. “Come on, up! Up!”
“Believe me, Saijo-san, I would if I could,” Junna said, her voice muffled by Nana’s arm thrown over her face. It was Sunday morning, and instead of her usual Sunday morning breakfast routine, Nana had opted for crawling into bed with Junna and cuddling close. An hour later and she had managed to roll herself sideways across the bed, half on top of Junna and her legs halfway to the floor. Claudine bit back her laughter at the sight.
“Should I take a picture, or?”
“You can do whatever you want if you get her off me.”
“Ah, young love.” Claudine snapped a photo of Junna’s annoyed glare, then went to free her from her banana scented prison. She grabbed hold of Nana’s shoulders, rolling her off Junna and wincing as Nana rolled right onto the floor. “Oops. She’s a heavy sleeper, huh?”
“In all senses of the word.” Junna sighed in relief and sat up, rubbing her stiff neck. “What did you say about shopping?”
“Oh, right! Futaba and I are taking you two clothes shopping.”
“...Why?”
“Because we want to.”
“That’s not a very convincing argument.”
“Hey, without me you’d still be trapped in bed. You owe me now.”
“Fair enough.” Junna frowned at Nana, poking her with her foot. “Nana. Are you seriously still asleep?”
“Maybe,” came the mumbled reply. Nana blearily opened her eyes, smiling as the first thing she saw was Junna’s face. “Good morning, Junna-chan!”
“You almost smothered me again, you know.”
“That’s because Junna-chan is really comfy!”
Junna let out a heavy sigh. “We’ll be down soon, Saijo-san.”
Looking at Nana’s sleepy face, Claudine wasn’t quite sure she believed them. Well, if anyone was trustworthy in this dorm, it was Junna. “Don’t take too long, we have a lot of shopping to do! Oh, and make sure you bring your binder.”
Junna looked at her in surprise. “What? Why?”
“Are we-” Nana yawned, blinking a few a times to wake herself up. “Are we doing a play?”
“No, Futaba wants to dress Junna like a boy.”
“Oooh, good idea! Boyish Junna-chan is cute!”
“This is because of what I said a couple days ago, isn’t it?” Junna asked, already knowing the answer.
“Could be,” Claudine answered, shrugging. “Or it’s Futaba being lonely ‘cause she has no other butch in the dorm. I still haven’t figured out which it is.”
“Hm. Well, I don’t mind wearing it, so that’s fine.”
“Fantastique!”
Nana hummed the whole way to the store, holding Junna’s hand and swinging it back and forth as they walked.
“You seem happy,” Junna commented. “Do you really enjoy clothes shopping this much?”
“Mmmm, maybe? I think it will be fun! It’s like a date!”
“A date…”
“We’re splitting you two up, you know,” Futaba said. “You won’t see each other until we’re done.”
“Ehh? I wanted to see Junna-chan try on clothes…” Nana pouted, shoulders drooping.
“Careful, Banana,” Claudine said. “Keep this up and you’ll reach Kaoruko levels of clinginess.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m clingy?”
Claudine snorted; Junna covered her mouth, trying desperately not to laugh. Futaba didn’t even make the attempt. “Boy, Banana, have I got some news for you!”
“Eh?” Nana looked around blankly, not understanding. Junna patted her arm.
“We’ll talk later.”
“Okay?”
“Don’t worry, Banana,” Claudine said, hooking an arm through Nana’s and pulling her away from Junna. “I’ll take good care of you. Now come on!”
Claudine led the way into the clothing store and headed straight for the dresses, towing Nana along.
“I’m a little worried,” Junna said, following Futaba to the opposite side.
“Come on, clothes shopping isn’t that bad.”
“No, not that. Nana. She gets a little… strange sometimes. When she’s on her own.”
“Eh, I’m sure it’s fine. Kuroko’s with her.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” Junna stopped at a rack of polos, fingering the material. “So. What are we looking for, exactly?”
“I dunno. Something cool looking.”
“You don’t know? Wasn’t this your idea in the first place?”
Futaba shrugged. “Hey, I only said it would be a good idea. I never promised good execution.”
“I expected better of you.”
“That’s your problem, Junna. You expect too much of us. You forget we’re all idiots.”
“I wish I could forget.” Junna rifled through a rack of shirts, frowning at the options. With no idea of what she was looking for, she pulled out the first thing that seemed close to her size. “Something like this?”
“Nah. Too feminine.”
“We’re in the men’s section.”
“So?”
“...Okay,” Junna finally said, giving up on making sense of this whole adventure. She put the shirt back, drumming her fingers on the rack as she looked around. “Oh! I know!”
Futaba followed her across the store. After a moment it was clear what Junna was heading for; Futaba couldn’t believe she hadn’t predicted it. With how much of a nerd Junna was, she should have been preparing for it the whole way there.
Junna turned to her with a grin, holding up her find. “How about--”
“Absolutely not.”
“But it’s boyish--”
“It’s ugly.”
“I disagree--”
“Junna, if you want to wear a sweater vest, you’re going to have to beat me in a fist fight.”
Junna lowered the argyle monstrosity and sized Futaba up. “I bet I could take you.”
“Yeah? You wanna go?” Futaba took a step towards Junna, fist raised. Junna conceded immediately.
“On second thought, maybe not.”
“Kuro-chan, Kuro-chan!” Nana bounced over to Claudine, a bundle of clothes in her arms.
Claudine looked up from the rack of dresses she'd been inspecting, eager to see what Nana had come back with. "Oh, nice! What'd you find?"
"A bunch of stuff! Let's see..." Nana held up the first shirt. It was white, a big green frog pasted right in the middle. Claudine frowned. "Isn't it cute? And then there's this one," Nana continued, holding up a pair of dark green pants. A few small frogs decorated the pockets. "I think they'd look good together!"
"Banana, I said we were getting you a dress," Claudine said. "Also, this is the 7th frog item so far. Where are you finding these?"
"What do you mean? They're really easy to spot! But don't worry, I found a dress too!" Nana showed off her last find, a yellow dress with ruffled sleeves and a frog shaped pocket. It was cute, Claudine admitted, except for one major problem:
"Banana, that's a dress for a literal five year old."
"Yep! I found it in the kid's section!"
"Why were you in the kid's section? We're shopping for you!"
Nana pouted, holding the dress tight to her chest. "But the kid's section has the most frog stuff."
"And you can buy all the froggy kid stuff you want in ten years when you and Junna have a million children. But right now, we're trying to make you look hot. So put that back!"
Nana reluctantly agreed, returning the clothing to their original spots. She made a mental note to come back later.
"Much better," Claudine said when Nana returned. "Now try this on." She shoved a polka dot blue dress at Nana and pushed her towards the dressing room.
"I don't know," Nana said, "it doesn't have any frogs on it."
"Does everything you own have to have frogs?"
Nana considered the question for a moment. "No," she finally decided. "It could have bananas instead."
"Absolutely not! Too much yellow will clash with your hair. Trust me, I know from experience."
"If you say so... Why are we trying to make me hot again?"
"Because the fact that you don't dress to your potential is a crime against humanity. Now shush! Go try on that dress! And while you do, I'm going to find you some lingerie."
"Oh!" Nana said as Claudine closed the door on her. "See if they have any frogs--"
"No."
"Here, try this," Futaba said, handing Junna a pair of sweatpants. Junna sighed as she took them, heading back into the changing room for what had to be the 10th time.
"Have you figured out your criteria for good pants yet?"
"Yeah. Whatever looks the most butch."
"That's not very helpful." Junna emerged a moment later, looking hopefully at Futaba. "Good?" They felt nice, at the very least. Junna had never been one for sweatpants, but she'd wear them for the rest of her life if it meant they could move on.
"Nah," Futaba said, shaking her head and crushing Junna's hopes. "The color's all wrong."
"They're black."
"There's lots of different blacks."
"You know," Junna said, ignoring that statement and taking the next pair of black pants Futaba handed her, "if your goal is to make me butch, won't that ruin your Sailor Moon theory?"
Futaba grinned. "God, I love our Sailor Moon theory."
The two of them had spent hours hashing it out a few weeks back: between the nine of them and the nine senshi in Sailor Moon, who would match who? It was the most important conversation of their life. And a surprisingly easy one, too, aside from the infamous Uranus/Neptune dispute.
"So do I," Junna said from the changing room. "But my point still stands: your sole reasoning for you being Uranus was that you were the butchest of the group. Yet here you are, trying to make me more butch."
"What, are you saying you're gonna take my title? No offense, Junna, but I think I'm safe."
"Probably," Junna agreed, showing off the next pair of pants. Another no from Futaba. Junna sighed. "I still say butchness isn't the right metric though. Tendo-san fits the role better."
"And like I said: she doesn't have a motorcycle."
"She has everything else though! The talent, the distantness, the mild disdain for people lesser than her--"
"Doesn't matter. Not unless she starts calling Karen 'kitten'."
"You don't call her that either."
"I could start."
"I think she's more of a dog."
"Don't be a smartass, Mercury. Hey- those ones look pretty good."
"Do you think so?" Junna spun around, showing off the pants from every angle. They felt the same as all the others, but if Futaba was happy, she'd take it.
"Sure. Why not."
"What do you mean, why not? We've been at this for forever, and that's the best response you have?"
"I mean, they're just the same as all the others."
Junna stared at her in shock. "Wait, wait! If they were all the same, why did you make me try on fifteen of them!?"
"I wanted to see how long you'd keep going," Futaba said, grinning at Junna's frustrated groan.
"I hate you."
“Mercury doesn’t know how to hate.”
“Don’t worry, she’s a quick learner.”
"You're a disaster," Claudine said, watching in awe as Nana stumbled around.
"Well, I've never really worn heels before-- woah!" Nana wobbled her way into the nearest shoe rack, grabbing it for balance and nearly knocking it over in the process.
"Unbelievable. I’m talking to our teacher; we need to add this to our curriculum.” Claudine took hold of Nana’s arm, pulling her over to the chair. Nana sighed gratefully.
“Is walking in heels really that important?”
“Bien sûr! Of course! How are you going to be femme if you can’t walk in heels?”
“I don’t really care if I’m femme though… You and Kaoruko-chan do a much better job at that than me!”
“Hah! Kaoruko! You’re not a true femme until you’ve walked down the streets of Paris in five inch heels!”
“Okay?”
“All I’m saying is that I’m a better femme than Kaoruko.”
Nana hummed absentmindedly, looking around at the mass of shoes Claudine had collected. “Do any of these have shorter heels? I don’t think I could match your five inches! But I could maybe do two?”
“Two inches barely counts as a heel. But I guess it’ll do. You’re tall enough anyways.” Claudine rummaged through the pile, pulling out a pair of pink shoes. “Here, this will match the dress we found.”
“Oh, cute!” Nana slipped the shoes on and stood, smiling as she found her balance.
Claudine nodded in approval. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say something was cute that wasn’t Junna or frog related.”
“I think lots of things are cute! Junna-chan and frogs are just really really cute.”
“Yeah? What else is cute?”
“Hmm.” Nana tapped her chin, grinning slyly. “The way you were saying Maya-chan’s name in your sleep the other day, after you fell asleep on the couch?”
Claudine turned red. “Th-that! That definitely didn’t happen! You’re making that up!”
“Correct!”
“Huh?”
“What I really think is cute is Kuro-chan’s embarrassed face!”
Claudine stared up at Nana, mouth hanging open. “You…! You’re the worst of the group sometimes, you know that?”
Nana simply laughed, twirling around in her heels. She did the move so neatly that Claudine was forced to wonder if all her earlier wobbling had been an act. It had happened before: Nana liked to stay in the middle of the pack during their dance lessons, but on the rare occasions Claudine caught her practicing on her own, she flew through the steps better than Maya could. Looking at Nana’s bright grin, Claudine had the feeling she’d been tricked again.
“How do you manage to be just as frustrating as her?”
“Hm?”
Claudine sighed. “Never mind. Let’s go meet up with Futaba and Junna. It’s time to show you off!”
“Oh, good,” Junna said as Claudine and Nana walked up, “you’re both alive.”
“Junna-chan!” Nana bounded over, giving Junna a hug. Junna rolled her eyes and patted her on the back.
“Did you think we’d kill each other or something?” Claudine asked.
“I figured either she’d kill you with all the frog stuff she found, or you’d kill her to stop all frogs.”
“It came pretty close.”
“Junna and I almost got in a fight,” Futaba said. Nana looked over in surprise.
“We did not,” Junna protested.
“You challenged me!”
“That- It was a statement, that’s all!”
“It better have been,” Claudine said, “cause there’s no way you’d survive a fight with Futaba. Or anyone, for that matter.”
Junna pouted, crossing her arms. “I’d do okay against Kagura.”
“With her knife?”
“Don’t worry Junna-chan, I can protect you!”
“...Let’s go try on those clothes.”
Nana emerged from the dressing room first. She was wearing a knee length pink dress with matching pink heels. Frilly white socks and white belt completed the outfit. Nana gave a little twirl, the dress spinning around her. Futaba and Claudine clapped.
“We went with a sleeveless dress to show off her arms,” Claudine explained.
“Good choice.” Futaba high fived her.
“You look nice,” Junna said, stepping out of her dressing room and smiling up at Nana. “You should wear dresses more often. They suit you.”
Nana beamed. “Junna-chan looks super good too!” She patted her dress, frowning when she remembered its lack of pockets. “Ah- I don’t have my phone...”
“That’s fine. Our camera crew over there has it covered.” Junna nodded her head at Futaba and Claudine, who were indeed busy taking a multitude of photos.
“Come on, Jun!” Claudine called. “Strike a pose!”
Junna sighed and turned properly towards her, sticking her hands in her pockets. She was wearing the black sweatpants Futaba had tormented her with, a blue varsity jacket with white sleeves, and blue and white vans. Futaba came over and stuck a black and red snapback on her head.
“There. Look complete! Feeling butch now?”
“Sure?”
“That’s the spirit!”
Nana draped her arms over Junna’s shoulders and rested her chin on Junna’s head. “This was fun!”
“...It was,” Junna reluctantly agreed. “Thank you. Both of you.”
“Consider it a thank you for absorbing Banana’s frog obsession so the rest of you don’t have to deal with it,” Claudine said.
“Don’t worry, Kuro-chan! One day you’ll find your own frog princess, and then you’ll understand.”
“Banana, that’s terrifying.”
“Does that mean Junna’s your frog princess?” Futaba asked.
“Yes!”
“Make up your minds,” Junna said, frowning. “Am I supposed to be a princess or butch?”
Futaba crossed her arms, thinking. “You know, I don’t think you’re either. I think you’re eternally just a nerd.”
“Can I wear my sweater vest then?”
“No.”
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surveysonfleek · 5 years
Text
1377.
Of the many different American accents, which one is your favorite? can’t say i have a favourite... just the general one i guess? it’s the least annoying lol. i do like the boston accent though. What was the last thing you watched on Youtube? a video by cut, teachers guess which students are high lol. Are your kitchen windows open right now? it’s ajar. What was your favorite job you’ve ever had? idk. tbh i’ve liked all my jobs and also hated them all too. Do you know anyone who had a kid before they were financially stable? yes.
What’s your phone’s wallpaper picture? just a boring iphone one. When was the last time you saw the person you had your first kiss with? it’s been years. Have you read any of Shakespeare’s works other than Romeo and Juliet? yes i’ve studied othello and hamlet during high school. Is there anything hanging from the doorknob in your room? yes. Why did you move to where you’re living now? my parents just wanted to build a house and have a fresh start. Have you ever kissed someone 3+ years younger than you? nope. Do you clean your house all at once, or a little bit at a time? little by little unless i have a lot of time on my hands. What’s your opinion on wearing pajamas in public? Do you yourself do that? no opinion really? i’ve done it before when going out to get gas or a quick grocery run. What was the most severe punishment your parents gave you when you were growing up? grounding me i guess. Have you ever been to California? If so, when was the last time you were there? yes, i was there last april for coachella. About how many times per month do you eat dinner at a restaurant? maybe once a week. Do you think dreams actually mean anything? Why/why not? i guess they’re just thoughts from our subconscious.  What’s something you’re really bad at compared to others? clicking my fingers. Do you know anyone who treats retail/restaurant employees poorly? not personally thankfully. Are most of the books you own hardcover or paperback? mostly ebooks on my kindle lol. When was the last time someone betrayed your trust? What happened? a couple months ago. i’d rather not get into it. it’s not a big deal but a huge wakeup call on who to rely on. How much was gas the last time you filled your car up? it was $27. Do you usually fill up at the same gas station? nope lol. i have like three i rotate. What was the topic of conversation the last time you spoke to a sibling? when she was working. Are you currently looking for a new job? yes. i need to. How many times did you move when you were growing up? once. Who is the person you are the closest to? (emotionally, not physically) my boyfriend. What are some odd habits you have relating to food/eating? i always save the best parts for last. Are any of your relatives musicians? my dad can play the guitar. Have you ever been in fear for your life? not seriously. What was the last caffeinated drink you had? Do you drink this often? coffee. nope. Have you ever read any books by John Steinbeck? no. When was the last time you painted a room in your house? a couple years ago. How has your day been so far? pretty shitty but i’m glad i’m home now.
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toxicnotebook · 5 years
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This time on Toxie Yells About Books, a weird spread of books, including quite a few I had high hopes for :(
Buddha Vol 1
I mean, it’s Tezuka, it’s good. A little more humorous than I expected, but the humor was a nice breather in between the sadness. I’m not sure when I’ll get my hands on the other volumes, but rest assured: I will track them down
Newt’s Emerald
I finished this in like, a day. It’s a light, fluffy book that’s perfect when you just Want Something Nice to Read. Also, I’m now interested in Georgette Heyer’s work, so good job, Garth Nix!
Romeo And/Or Juliet
I hate Romeo and Juliet, it’s my least favorite Shakespeare play, but this was AWESOME! Plus, it’s proven to me that novel length choose-your-own-adventure books can be executed well! I won’t go into detail, because this is a book best enjoyed cold, but do pick it up if you like pure fun.
Super Graphic
A nice coffee table book for comic fans. Not sure how much enjoyment a non-comic reader would get out of it, but I liked it.
Weirdworld Vol 1
A cool-looking sword & sorcery romp that was sadly canceled after six issues. If you see the trade, pick it up- for del Mundo’s art, at the very least.
Claudine
Hey, a warning here: while I did like this book, it ends with the suicide of the trans lead. If you feel like this will bring only Bad Times for you, either skip this or read a few in-depth reviews before you buy.
As I said, I did like this. For the time it was written (1970s)- and, frankly, compared to some of today’s queer stories- it’s incredibly progressive. Despite the sad ending, Claude’s life is not an unending misery parade, a common trope in trans fiction. His father accepts him as his son, he has friends who love him, and he excels in both his studies and popularity at school. These bright moments in the tragedy helps create a lead that’s both more relatable and more sympathetic to the average reader. It’s a nice change of pace from tragic queer stories where everything is awful and the message is so heavy-handed that most of the audience quit reading before it’s finished.
Man, I don’t know if I’m explaining my feeling on this book properly. It’s good! Give it a shot despite the sad ending, Ikeda did an excellent job!
Magnus Chase: Sword of Summer
I did not get very far into this book. The never-ending goddamn Dad Quips made this unreadable.
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Garden Poems
I own & enjoy a few of the Everyman Library volumes, so I picked this up solely based on the publisher. But man, I don’t know if the picks were bad this time around or if I care way less about gardens than I realized, but this was SO. BORING. SO BORING.
Sharp Teeth
I wanted so badly to like this. A verse novel about werewolves? Awesome! Unfortunately, the novel is actually a crime thriller sprinkled with werewolf lore; after a third of the book, I finally admitted to myself that I just didn’t care. Crime thrillers aren’t my thing.
Cabinet of Curiosities
Great idea, poor execution. The sections that are just item descriptions are kind of dull, and the short shorts only occasionally feature Thackery T. Lambshead. You know. The keystone for the whole freaking anthology. Again, I wanted to like this, but halfway through I finally gave up.
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theemightypen · 6 years
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eomer and lothiriel for 13?
13) Co-stars AU
“Remind me again,” Eomer asks, breath ghosting hot and all-together-too-distracting along the shell of her ear, “why we’re doing this?”
Lothiriel, who is well aware that it is the dead of summer and they’re standing behind thick curtains of an outdoor theater, does not shiver. Not even a little bit, not even when Eomer shifts behind her as he ties the bow at the back of her dress, the heat of his hands making her skin itch with awareness.
“Because,” she says, “we made a promise.”
“A promise,” he grumbles, and she can’t help but smile at the gruffness of his tone, now that she knows him well enough to know it’s an act 97% of the time, “to four of the most devious kids I’ve ever known.”
“Don’t lump Sam and Frodo in with Merry and Pippin,” Lothiriel argues, turning to face him and hand him his mask all in one swoop, “they genuinely like the idea of a play.”
“Hmph,” Eomer snorts. “Or are at least better at looks of wide-eyed innocence.”
That, Lothiriel concedes, might be true.
Regardless, there’s no backing out of this now. Not when Sam shyly presents her with a flower-crown he’s clearly woven himself, or when Frodo emerges from the make-shift dressing room in the tiniest–and arguably most adorable–ceremonial robes she’s ever seen. Merry and Pippin are more comical than cute in their respective costumes, but their mops of curly hair and faces rounded with baby fat tip the scales back in their favor. Faramir and Eowyn, however, aren’t so lucky.
“Laugh all you want,” Eowyn grumbles, tugging at the long, scraggly grey wig that looks disturbingly like Gandalf’s beard, “but you two have the lead roles. Pressure’s on.”
Faramir, who is far too tall and broad to be the wizened old magic man he’s supposed to be, grins widely at Eomer’s long suffering groan. “It could be worse. They roped Eowyn and I into being Romeo and Juliet last year. But with zombies.”
Wait a minute, Lothiriel thinks. This is her first year at the camp as a counselor, after all, but she’s close enough to Faramir to remember him coming home the summer before on Cloud 9, muttering dreamily about the horse riding instructor, four wonderful boys from Hobbiton, and Shakespeare. The little devils are matchmaking, and it’s very apparent who this year’s targets are.
It…should bother her more. Eomer is her soon to be cousin-in-law, after all, and a good bit older than her, and is the complete opposite of any man she’s ever dated before. But he’s also incredibly gentle with the kids, as good of a brother to Eowyn as Lothiriel’s own are to her, smart, incredibly handsome, and–
Well, she’s really running out of reasons as to why she should mind that her campers have apparently noticed her not-so-pint-sized crush on him.
The first run through of the play is. Well.
It’s funny, above all else, because Pippin can’t remember his lines for the life of him–
“You fell victim to one of the most classic blunders–the most of which is ‘never get involved in a land war in…in…’
“Arda!” Merry hisses helpfully from just off-stage.
“Right!” Chirps Pippin.  “–in Arda, but the only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go in against a goblin–”
“–you’re not a goblin, Pip, you’re just a man–”
“But that’s boring, Merry!”
And the only thing funnier than watching a 10 year old bumble his way through lines from the Princess Bride would be watching Eomer (Westley), Gimli (Fezzick), and Legolas (Inigo) try to keep a straight face as he does so. But Lothiriel, as Princess Buttercup, is blindfolded, and has to content herself with making due with hearing the muffled laughter coming from stage-right. (It’s Aragorn, presumably, who has been entirely miscast as Prince Humperdink.)
The stage isn’t really made for some of the feats the boys so loved from the movie–the entire ship sequence had had to be condensed–but they do the best they can. Eomer manages to roll–rather dramatically, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the campers avidly watching from the benches–across the stage, groaning “As youuuu wissshh” as he goes.
Lothiriel flops herself down next to him, equally as dramatic, and has to bite back a smile when he leans himself over her. The kids gasp appropriately when he removes his mask. Lothiriel nearly does too, but not for the same reason. He’s even more handsome than usual, this close, and the brush of his hand over her cheek sets off a riot of butterflies in her stomach.
“I told you I would always come for you,” he says, and oh, that’s really not fair, not fair at all. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“Well,” she says, grateful that the waver in her voice is appropriate for this, “you were dead.”
“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while,” he says, still looking a touch too smug for her taste because he knows, he obviously knows how much this is affecting her right now.
Valar help her, but if Pippin can go off script, why can’t she? So she kisses him before she can think better of it–which, hm, isn’t technically out of character, especially after a line like that–
Eomer’s tongue sweeping into her mouth is a shock, and a good one, and she could no more stop herself from curling her fingers into his hair than stop breathing–come to think of it, she just might, if he keeps kissing her like that–
“And I think it’s time for intermission!” Someone cries.
Eomer lifts his head, looking as dazed as she feels. The sudden cacophony of noise filters back in around them–wolf whistles, cheers, squeals, all coming from the campers, oh Valar–
“Two for two, Merry!” Pippin is crowing. “I told you it was a good idea–”
“Shh, they’ll hear you,” Sam hisses. “And then we’ll never get the chance to put Legolas and Gimli in a play–”
Lothiriel stifles a laugh into Eomer’s shoulder.
“And you thought Sam and Frodo were innocent,” he grumbles.
“Do not,” she orders, poking him lightly in the chest, “say I told you so.”
Eomer grins. “As you wish.”
27 notes · View notes