#but ive been wanting to flex some new creative muscles so

[strideofpride]

i swam for a while, til i drowned: a rufus/lily pre-series playlist

the beginning: 1. get it right the first time - billy joel "got to meet that girl somehow" 2. brass in pocket - the pretenders "cause i gonna make you see, there's nobody else here, no one like me" 3. good old fashioned lover boy - queen "i can serenade and gently play on your heart strings” 4. dance with me - orleans "night is calling, and i am falling” 5. moondance - van morrison "and i know how much you want me, that you can't hide" 6. feel like making love - roberta flack "that's the time i feel like making dreams come true” 7. wonderful tonight - eric clapton "i feel wonderful because i see the love light in your eyes” falling hard: 8. northern sky - nick drake "i never felt magic crazy as this" 9. baby i love your way - peter frampton "i wanna be with you night and day” 10. more today than yesterday - spiral staircase "every day's a new day in love with you" 11. peg - steely dan "and when you smile for the camera i know i'll love you better” 12. can’t take my eyes off of you - frankie valli "but if you feel like i feel, please let me know that it's real" 13. your song - elton john "my gift is my song and this one's for you” desperation: 14. here, there, and everywhere - the beatles "watching her eyes, and hoping i’m always there" 15. diamond girl - seals & croft "how could i shine without you, when it's about you that i am?" 16. i'd have you anytime - george harrison "let me into your heart” 17. make it with you - bread “i really think that we could make it, girl" disappearing act: 18. sweet talkin woman - elo "it's so sad if that's the way it's over" 19. and she was - talking heads "no time to think about what she's done and she was” 20. she’s not there - the zombies "please don't bother tryin' to find her" 21. if you leave me now - chicago "how could we end it all this way?” the end: 22. fast car - tracy chapman "i had a feeling i could be someone" 23. rosanna - toto "i didn't know you were looking for more than i could ever be" 24. until you come back to me - aretha franklin "why did you have to decide you had to set me free?" 25. silver springs - fleetwood mac “i know i could have loved you but you would not let me”

#ive stayed away from playlists because i feel like music taste is so subjective and personal #but ive been wanting to flex some new creative muscles so #rufly #gossip girl #rufus x lily #rufus humphrey #lily van der woodsen #gg songs #gg playlists #image source: embolden on pintrest

[jessgartner]

2020 Life Olympics

The real Olympics may have been canceled in 2020 but the Life Olympics persevered like the postal service of Olympics. 

First, I’d like to apologize for my role in the chaos of 2020 because I think I had a slight miscommunication with the powers that be and I feel partly responsible. Here was my plan for 2020: 

My theme for 2020 is Intention because I want to take the energy I feel right now and deploy it with more intentionality next year - bringing increased mindfulness to how I spend my time, money, physical and mental energy. And because I love wordplay, I also literally want to spend more time camping “in-tent” to enjoy more peace and quiet and beauty in nature.

The universe was like, “Oh, she wants to spend less money and more time outside? Well, shut it down. Shut the whole planet down.”

I mean, mission accomplished, I guess? I did spend less money and more time outside and had to be VERY intentional with my mental energy to survive the day-to-day morass of 2020. Next time, I will be more specific with my annual manifestations. Sorry to all. 

2020 was brutal for pretty much everything and everyone. I don’t know anyone who isn’t in some state of grief right now, including myself. I debated doing a Life Olympics at all this year, feeling like-- what is the point? Hundreds of thousands of people died, our democracy is hanging on by a thread, and millions of people lost jobs, businesses, and homes. 

Like many people, I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression this year which intensified as it got darker and colder outside. At a low point, I talked with my therapist about the struggle of just not wanting to do any of the things that usually bring me joy-- and how periods of relief were so fleeting. “But you have to keep doing those things,” she said, “even if they’re not working right now, you have to keep doing those things and trust the process; the joy will return.” 

So even though I don’t really feel like it and kind of feel like it’s dumb, I’m writing the 2020 Life Olympics. I’m trusting the process.

2020 Life Olympics Recap

Work - Participation Trophy

Starting a company is hard, operating a company is harder, but running a company during a global pandemic and economic crisis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. 2020 was not a fun year to lead a business; it was hell. On March 15, the plan for the year pretty much went out the window and everything went into survival mode. I never take the company or my team for granted, but I’m particularly grateful to be able to usher this work into 2021.

Despite the craziness, we still had some big wins this year. We launched new product partnerships with PowerSchool and Amazon Business. We rebuilt our tool for equitably calculating district funding formulas. And I got to flex my creative muscles with EdFinToks! Throughout it all, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a team of people who are as compassionate as they are talented. 

I’m worried about public education more than ever after this year, but I’m going to keep fighting every day to make it work better for kids. 

This is Work-Lite but I also spent a good chunk of time this year leading the modernization workgroup for Bill Henry’s transition committee after his spring primary election to become the new Baltimore City Comptroller, ousting a 25-year incumbent, Joan Pratt. This was an enlightening (and infuriating) experience for me that gave me a glimpse into the operations of a segment of the City government. This process also really helped crystallize how much I enjoy making public agencies function more efficiently; I’m excited to see what Bill does with the recommendations (some are already being put in action!)

Health - Gold 

This is the second year in a row (and ever) that I’m giving myself a Gold medal for Health. This was easily a year that I could have regressed on all of my healthy habits and no one would have blamed me. Instead, I leaned into protecting and improving my physical and mental health in 2020. It’s not an exaggeration to say that walking probably saved my life this year. I spent a lot of time walking around my neighborhood and various state and city parks-- walking is maybe not the best word; I stomp and charge around like I have a score to settle with the ground beneath me. My walking increased 370% in 2020. This is a habit of 2020 that I’d like to keep. My brain and body are happier if I can spend a little time walking-- stomping-- around outside each day. 

I also did a lot of biking this summer. My cycling increased 200% this year-- with much more time spent cycling outdoors. My crowning achievement this year was biking to and from Annapolis:

I spent a LOT more time outside this year which was critical for my mental health. On the downside, I only did 90% as much yoga and 60% as much strength training, so I want to try to be a little more balanced next year. 

I also invested a lot in my mental health this year. I kept up with therapy every 2-4 weeks and in October I decided to pursue a formal diagnosis for ADHD which I definitely have! Needless to say, staying in one place this year has been a special kind of hell for me. 

Home - Silver

Well, I definitely spent less money this year. And the way I did spend money made me (mostly) sad: 

Travel down 70% 

Auto & Transportation up 200% (boo cars)

Shopping down 60%

Personal Care down 35% 

Gifts and donations up 200% 

Food and Dining down 40%

Entertainment down 35% (I kept up my singing lessons virtually which accounts for a lot of this category) 

2020 was quite the palate cleanser from my 2019 year of hedonism but maybe we can go for a happy medium in 2021? Just kidding-- I will resume my hedonist ways the minute the world opens. 

I also redid my home office like every other work-from-homer on the planet and replaced my crumbling kitchen floor so the house got some TLC. 

But nobody enjoyed having me home all year as much as Darwin:

Relationships - Bronze

What a weird year for relationships of all kinds. I’m giving this a Bronze because while I invested a lot into a few relationships this year, there are also a lot of people in my life to whom I haven’t been able to give my time and love. 

One of the most important relationships in my life this year was with one of my former students. After bouncing around in the foster system for many years, we reconnected around the holidays in 2019 and he started crashing with me while we tried to figure out stable housing and employment. He was arrested in January and was incarcerated for the next several months awaiting trial. Finally, we were able to negotiate a plea agreement with the State’s Attorney and he came home around Independence Day. We spent the next several months getting him set up with a phone and various identification documents-- a nightmare in normal times and a total abyss during the pandemic. I got him registered to vote when we got his ID card and I took him to vote for the first time (a supreme treat for this former social studies teacher):

He’s now got a full-time job and stable living situation. Calling this THE success of 2020. Thank you to everyone who helped me with resources all year for housing, legal processes, and documents. It takes a village. 

It was a bizarre year for family. We lost my grandmother in September, so not being able to spend the holidays together felt like an especially cruel loss. Other big losses this year include a trip to France to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mother and my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding (Mosby seemed pretty ok with the alternative plan, though):

But in many ways, my family has been more together than ever this year thanks to prolific group chats and photo-sharing. Mostly, I’m just glad everyone else is safe and healthy. As my father often reminds me, “Our problems are small.” 

And dating? What to do with this weird Jane-Austen-esque dating scene-- as if modern dating weren’t fraught enough. Is this the universe punishing me for ending my 2019 dating hiatus early? I, for one, have given up. You win this one, pandemic. I’m just going to have my little Twitter crush and call it a year. Next year, though...

Horizons - Silver Gold 

You know what? It’s hard to expand your horizons without people or places. 

I did the best I could. I finally got back on track with my Goodreads challenge and actually had a really good year of reading, including finally embracing audiobooks through my Libro.fm subscriptions. I especially enjoyed Michelle Obama’s book Becoming and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One on audio-- both narrated by their authors. 

I camped in Pocomoke (MD), Western MD, Lake Michigan, and Ohiopyle (PA):

I explored over 30 new hiking/biking trails-- some favorites including the Youghiegheny River trail in PA, the NCR trail, Catoctin Mountain, the C&O Canal Towpath, Annapolis Rock, and of course, Stoney Run in my backyard. 

I left Facebook and started the Life Olympics newsletter. I’ll be honest, I don’t miss Facebook but I also don’t understand where that energy, time, and brain space went. I was spending cumulatively hours a day mindlessly scrolling Facebook and I quit cold turkey and barely noticed-- what black hole of our brains does social media occupy? I kind of thought that with all that extra time I would write the next great American novel or something. I’m probably spending a little more time on Twitter, which I could stand to cut back on. Other than that, I think I was just trying to process the shitstorm of this year. Maybe I’ll write the next great American novel post-pandemic. 

For the first time in my life, I feel somewhat ‘caught up’ on pop-culture. I finally watched Parks and Recreation (twice); I watched The Mandalorian and finally actually watched Star Wars (episodes IV-IX); I watched the final seasons of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek; I’m caught up on Insecure; I watched The Prom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jingle Jangle; I even started Bridgerton. I know what everyone is talking about and I’m catching so many more pop-culture references these days. (I guess instead of writing the next great American novel I watched Netflix?)

2020 Lessons

I’ve spent plenty of time mourning the missed opportunities of 2020 and will probably always wonder what this year could have been in an alternate universe with a functioning government. But we only have this reality for now, and we made the best of it. 

I wanted to slow down in 2020, try to be more intentional, more mindful, and...

No thank you! I liked the pace of my life; it makes my brain and heart happy. I’m happiest when I wake up in a different city three days in a row. I like darting around every borough of Manhattan for nine meetings and three cocktails and then taking a red-eye to Europe. I want to run around to eight conferences for 18-hours a day for three weeks and then sleep for 22 hours. I miss overloading my brain so much that I need a deprivation chamber to sleep. This is who I am. This is how I like to live. And when I was locked down alone in the house for a year, slowing down, being mindful, I never once thought, “I should have... when I had the chance.” Because I always did. And I always will. 

2021

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver

We’ve had enough grief. 2021 is going to be all about joy.

Universe, let me be clear: this is not a euphemism or code or secret signal.

I want pure, unadulterated, abundant, joy. I want multi-course dinners in restaurants with lots of close friends and good wine. I want the virus so far gone that I can make-out with handsome strangers. I want a rollicking good time in France and/or Brazil and/or Prague and/or New Zealand and/or Bali. I want to spend the day after Christmas in NYC with my father. I want to be a glutton for theatre and art and music. I want celebrations and parties and sequins. 

I want to shake with joy. 

If you’d like to receive the (shorter) monthly Life Olympics, subscribe here. 

#lifeolympics

[dentalrecordsmusic]

Feature: Passive, Vancouver’s Favorite Dose of Atmospheric Rock Sound

"We're just a fucking rock band, it's not like we're doing anything new, so it would be stupid to say that we're not influenced by anyone, but at the same time, we don't consciously draw from anything. We absorb so much information, music, art, content, etc that it's all gonna seep into the music in some way anyhow. I suppose I did listen to Prurient all day today at work, though, so there's that." This is the response I get from Ian Schram when I ask him what the artistic or personal influences on his and partner April-Lee Johnson's Vancouver based two-piece rock band Passive. Schram, artistically spartan, isn't know for being indulgently vocal about his own craft, a trait which is easily paired by Johnson's, also a tattoo artist, confident ongoing steady creativity. The pair never intended for their two-piece show to become an exercise in minimalism although Schram concedes that it may have shifted towards being a two-person laboratory since.

In August 2015, after a year of writing songs, Schram and Johnson recorded their first LP N∅ 1 in the attic of an East Vancouver house, the space adding the ambient details that make this first release, even years later, as potent as it has ever been. Johnson's dependable drumming cradles the robust, static and often washed out guitars of this first album which is a face sweating deliverance from ego. The aggressive undercurrent that flows throughout the entire album is never enough to drag the listeners into the undertow but it sure as hell takes them down a frothing white water passage through a canal of angst, painful awareness, and shadow love. Throughout the record, Schram's haunting disconnected lyrics speak in raw stark emotion about the honest intentions and motivations behind youthful subversion, betrayal, and disdain. It is exceptional that these thoughts are conveyed with music that has a refined depth of maturity not typically associated with such rebellious musical tendencies. Highlight tracks from N∅ 1 include the introductory track "There is a Rot", which is so satisfying at a primitive it feels like a knowing wink from Johnson and Schram. The band achieves a seance with the punk rock pastoral "Dining with the Languid", Johnson applying pace to Schram's black pulpit hammering lyrics. The pair close it out with the raw pulse rocking "The Innocent Hand is Listening", a flex track that explores a range of tempo and muscle before unleashing one last stanza of ravenous lyrics, the whole thing settling in a pile of charred frequency. The structure of Passive's N∅ 1 is songwriting that operates like a well-oiled Glock: economic, dependable, and deadly.

After a year of playing gigs, building a performative repertoire and creative cache, in the scenes of Vancouver Passive released an expressive three track chandelier dropper entitled N∅ 2. Recorded by their friend out of Toronto, Alex Kurth, the production quality of this second recording is markedly different from the first. The expansive space the sound was given by the attic recording space is replaced by something more reasonably resembling a studio as the field of sound is refined, the whole operation being given a definition previously not accentuated. If Passive's N∅ 1 is a painting that is perfectly viewed from about eight feet back their N∅ 2 is a piece that despite its concise size could be considered exemplary if a person's face were mere inches away from the canvas. In "The Mind is not a Temple" Passive picks up where they left off on the stage of your ears, their humble confidence rising as the strong hands of Johnson's drumming looks you in the eye and drags you forward through the crowd to be cut to pieces by a swath of sharp textured riffage. "You Always Wanted a Family"  builds heat and vibrates through musical friction and escalating tensions that lead to a retching of "You always wanted a fucking family" from Schram. "Not Pray" begins with a sludgy funeral dirge that mires around your ears like marshland overgrowth before the heat comes out and the bog starts to evaporate, the mud shrinking and cracking, the dirge reconstituting as a beautiful dark hymnal, a black mass blessing us with some heavy atonements.

The structural quality and musical range of Passive makes them a band you can experience live over and over again. When I've seen them play in the past few years Ian is usually caught up in a pre-gig fugue state, chain-smoking between arranging his guitar and pedals, haphazardly setting himself up for what is often a set full of convulsions and erratic dives into the sonic surf of the tracks; while April arranges herself without spectacle or fanfare, usually slipping into the crowd to have a few beers before the set and enjoy the diverse artistic social climate or to just jackass with friends. The spectacle of Passive is in these live performances where the pair has been intermingling with the scene ephemera only to take the stage to be consumed, at least for a short while, with their performance. When Ian's playing guitar it's like he's been reunited with an aspect of his personality that's typically absent and the core focus and drive of April is apparent through her always improving drumming.  Passive's innate skill and durability paired with a lack of strutting ego makes them good no matter they are on the bill. Succeeding in what they do isn't contingent upon the initial tastes or moods of the crowd because Passive is good enough to at first lure their audience in with their breathy mysterious lyrics and then convert them by altering their heart rates and hypnotizing them with a sound that ripples in your pulse like it's been poured into you through an IV. When the set's done there's an understanding of experience in most crowds. A reverence or awe for the cutting musical mural that now melts off the walls.

If you're not familiar with Passive and their infectiously intelligent rock, get into it. As of writing this, they've just finished laying down the first tracking sessions for what will be a new album, and despite their name and unpretentious attitudes I get the feeling the new album is going to be anything but laid back.

Follow Passive on Facebook and Bandcamp.

Axel Matfin is eating ice cream sandwiches and thinking about how much shorter summer felt when he was in high school. You visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

#passive #no. 1 #no. 2 #vancouver #vancouver bc #Vancouver music #vancouver punk #Vancouver punk rock #punk #punk rock #feature #axel matfin

[poetrybird]

life update: vacation, final grades, planning for next year

🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨

vacation

i finished my semester on december 11th and then i immediately hopped on a plane and went to visit toronto for a week with my gf and some friends and family! it was sooo much fun, we stayed in an air bnb and went sledding, played in the snow, went to the christmas market, niagara falls, the science center, board game cafes, ate amazing food and just had a nice time overall. it was a great way to start off my winter break and im very thankful for having good people to spend it with. i won’t be posting pictures here but if you follow me on my mainblog @remonts or on my instagram @shumaita then you can see some of my photography.

grades/ end of fall 2017 semester

after i got back, my final grades for the semester were finally uploaded online! out of my four classes i got 3 A’s and one A- which im pretty proud of considering i tried super hard! my GPA only went up from a 3.87 to a 3.88 but it’s better than nothing, esp since any kind of gain is amazing for me at this point (the hardest part is maintaining it/ making it not drop).

i also got an email from my professor about my 17 page paper: she said she loved it and thinks I have a good chance of getting it published to a major journal!!! i am beyond elated that all that hard work resulted in something she thinks is actually insightful and useful to others. ive never written an academic article this long before so im pretty proud of myself, honestly could have cried tears of joy after hearing such kind and supportive feedback. i love what i do as a student. moments like these are what make me truly appreciate my major.

classes in the spring

after winter break im going to be starting my final year of undergrad, since i just have spring and another fall semester before i can graduate. for spring semester ill be taking:

• creative writing advanced workshop

• visual poetry

• 200 lvl lit elective on female protagonists

• editing essentials

as you can see im going to be doing a lot more creative writing and practical work rather than a lot of the research and theory ive been studying the past few semesters. which is good. i need a change, and im excited to start flexing my creative writing muscles again and finally learning how to properly edit stuff. lmao. i feel like this schedule will give me more time to also focus on graduation plans and such since writing based courses are a much different pace than lit analysis courses in regards to the time i usually spend on it and the stress level. not the say that i won’t be anxious and stressed- i definitely will- but atleast i will be doing things that bring me great joy.

plans and goals for next year

• now that i have some time before school starts and the new year begins I want to use this free time to start setting up some healthier habits and things ive been meaning to get around to.

• for one, im going to start eating healthier again. i really let myself go as school got more and more stressful, and ive been not really paying attention to things like sugar and carbs that make me thirsty and gross feeling from over indulging. i just got some new groceries though, to restock the fridge with healthier and yummy options and im feeling very optimistic about it! maybe i can even sort out some kind of meal plan before my new semester starts. i meant to do it earlier but never found the time. something ill also have more time for with my new spring schedule is going to the gymmmmm because i don’t have early ass classes anymore!!!

• i also need to update my bujo and built a better habit of writing in it, as well as organize my photo album. the past year went by so fast and i took a good amount of photos, but not enough and not nearly enough journal entries to go along with it!

• im also going to try to start up a better recreational reading habit before the new year kicks in so i can follow it thru to 2018 and beyond. i want to read atleast 18 books this coming year, not counting my assigned readings for school, which i get a lot of. hopefully this works out bc i feel like ive set the bar at a pretty reachable place! i just miss cozying up with a good book for fun, and not because it has a due date for homework.

• i also reallllly want to find another job in addition to my work study position. i just need more money. tuition is getting harder and harder to pay and i feel like a burden on my family whenever i want to buy something for myself. i think getting a better paying job will make me happier.

that’s all i have to say for the moment (which was a lot, sorry haha). i hope you all do good on your finals and have a wonderful holiday!! please remember to take care of yourself, you’re doing amazing 💕

#my post #studyblr

[bewyldblog]

B E - INDOORS with Honey Harper

Portrait of Honey Harper drawn by Gin. 

B E W Y L D first came across Honey Harper, through his earlier project of Promise Keeper. Having had put on a  successful show at ‘Young Falcon Bar’ in Floriana, Malta back in 2016, contact with the multi-talented musician kept going, and recently a few questions were also sent to him. 

B E - You had just released your album ' Starmaker' just before the outbreak. Can you tell us more on the process of writing this album, and the effect the outbreak had on it after it came out?

Like most celestial events, ‘Starmaker’ was a long time coming. We spent about a year and a half recording and 6 months mixing the record. The songs came together as they were recorded, slowly and bit by bit, with my writing partner and wife, Alana Pagnutti. We recorded in London, Toronto, Paris, and Budapest. Like so many other artists the pandemic turned everything upside down. Im not sure the extent that it will have on.

B E - Despite your upcoming tour being postponed, you still kept busy by doing livestreams. Could you tell us more about this experience?

Yeah, so far we have released 14 tracks in the world, so I played one everyday for 14 days along with a cover and just general messing around. I think was important to do this, it kept me a bit sane gave me some purpose. It encouraged me to keep writing and working on new things.

B E -What’s your experience with isolation - to be indoors - so far?

We are lucky we are in Toronto and there is a lot more space here, we are staying with Alana’s parents and they have a backyard which has been really nice. I had a small injury on my foot and was doubly isolated not being to walk around at all for a while, but its healed and things are looking better.

BE - How do you stay creative indoors?

I’ve made a pretty typical routine, I wake up and read and study a bit. ( I am taking online music production classes at the moment.) Then I usually work out for an hour or so before going into my little make shift studio room and start writing some music for a few hours. I also have been writing 20 lines everyday trying to work on lyrics and short stories. As well, Ive been cooking a lot and flexing my muscles in the kitchen.

B E - Do you have any message you want to pass on to creatives/musicians out there finding it hard to cope during this strange time?

It’s hard to stay positive and stay productive but i’ve found its not the most important thing. I would hope everyone stays healthy, mentally and physically. Also, STAY INSIDE, so we can all get back to having lives outside the house again sooner! <3<3

Thanks Honey Harper we hope to see you live outside the house soon again also!

#bewyld #music blog #honey harper #country music #indoors

[essayofthoughts]

Hum, if you want could you do the Amis of your verse in New York (via untrained magic, HYDRA, etc) and everyone Confused?

Send me fic prompts!

AO3 Mirror.

i.They hadn’t meant, really, to have a teleportation device on hand, but after the third time one of the Avengers had come to make sure they were all doing well, and the third time Feuilly and Courf had got their hands on Starktech it… kind of happened.

“We know they can get  here if they need to,” ‘ferre opined one meeting. “But how in heaven are we supposed to get to them?”

Feuilly, sitting in the corner, tinkering with a radio, wires splayed out around his hands like some kind of bizarre electrical spider, lifted a finger. “Um,” he said. “I may have figured out a way to make a teleportation device?”

ii.Feuilly was, in a way, a technopath like Courfeyrac. He could touch tech and understand it. But, where Courf could claw through the code, reverse it, make it bow to his will, or simply sit and explore, Feuilly understood how to recreate it.

“It’s called psychometry,” Courf said. “I think. Maybe technopathic psychometry? Creative psychometry?”

“Whatever,” Bahorel said, folding his arms, muscles flexing. “It works, right?”

So, Feuilly and Courf had linked their brains together, courtesy of Cosette, and the rest of the Amis had been assigned into tracking down all of things Feuilly would need.

It turned out, he needed a lot.

iii.They were grateful for this, when their tablet started screaming one evening. 

iv.It was an uprising. Robots, some eerily similar to Stark’s, rushed through the streets, people, webs of icy control over their minds, followed suit.

“You see what we’re up against,” the Captain said. “You know we would not have called you if we had any other choice.”

Lorna, so small between the twins, smiled. “You need someone who can control metal,” she said, simply. “I can do that.”

And she lifted off, balancing herself as well as Tony in his suit, and started to twist robots out of the crowds with nothing but her will.

v.Bahorel was at the Captain’s side, and the Hulk’s. R floated along beneath Thor’s flightpath, absorbing stray lightning strikes and using the static to hover just as Eponine could. When robots got in range the lightning stored under his skin flared out bright and pale and deadly, and Enjolras did not think he had seen something as beautiful except, possibly, the sight of his own fire lighting R’s skin.

Cosette was on a rooftop, protected by Andrej’s snow and Andrei’s stone and Gavroche’s more-terrifying-than-it-should-be ability to disintegrate tiny, integral parts of mechanisms, working to corral any minds within range towards where Wanda waited. At her side Musichetta shared the mental load, her empathy allowing Cosette to see deeper into the minds around them, helping her link what she could see and sense down to where he stood, back to back with Wanda, and ensure he hurt no civilians with his flame.

There were so very many.

vi.Wanda’s magic was darting out of her hands as she tore the webs of control from the minds around her. Cosette, working on a larger scale, was corralling them and Marius, Courf and Pietro were with the Stark, trying to get to the thing which was causing this. With their gifts - Marius’ total immunity to mental powers, Courf’s mind like code, Pietro’s unbreakable link to Wanda’s mind - whatever was controlling the people couldn’t get to them.

The scarlet spun from her hands as, at her back, fire spun from Enjolras’ trying desperately to target only the robots in amongst the crowd of people.

Purpose, she thought to Enjolras, and again, echoing firmly down the ever-present bond to her brother’s mind. Focus. We are here to help, not to harm.

And then Jehan rounded the corner, all the plants of the city following his path.

vii.With Cosette - “Nette, like Net but also for the -ette, get it?” Montparnasse had said - linking their minds at ranges Wanda would strain to, Pietro could see Jehan’s hand come swatting down, and, echoing the movement, the bough of a tree smash three robots into shards. 

From above Jehan, Lorna floated down, settled on a tree branch. “There’s more that way,” she said, pointing. “If I pull them towards you, can you destroy them? My arms are getting tired.”

Lorna, small, strange, unknown to them all until she had become one of them was almost as close to the twins as they were to each other, and Jehan had accepted what that meant as readily as he’d accepted Pietro. Down the bonds Cosette has strung between all the Amis’ minds, he could feel how easy it was for Jehan to smile and march the tree forward with him.

viii.At her side Andrei ever-shaking hands directed quaking stone to block the blasts of robots. All the Amis had tried to wean him off his drug habit - even Joly who could see what it was doing to his biology - but Andrei didn’t want to listen. At her other side Andrej sent shards of ice from snow-pale hands, spearing robots that got to close and making slippery stairs and handholds that controlled humans might try to climb. Hand on her shoulder, forehead pressed to her cheek, Musichetta’s breath was warm against her neck as their minds intertwined as only their minds and Wanda’s could.

It took this, this external understanding of the internal workings of human nature for them to work together like this and neither of them had ever understood how Wanda had found a way to do this with her brother.

But right now, that didn’t matter, and, together, they herded civilians to safety and the mind-controlled to where Wanda’s scarlet could tear loose the clinging cages around their minds.

ix.“They’re good,” Nat said down the comms. Clint, on a roof opposite the blonde girl, shot an arrow at a robot.

“I know they’re good,” he said. “But every time Lorna lets a robot get too close my heart jumps like the time Lila almost broke her neck falling out of the tree.”

Nat laughed. “She was only trying to be like her dad.”

Maybe, Clint thought. Doesn’t make it any less terrifying to see small children in danger.

x.They managed to get through with no injuries, the force of Pietro’s punches, Courf and Stark’s code, Marius’ nimble fingers, all together disabling the device that was controlling people and managing the robots.

It was as they were walking back to the tower that Feuilly said, “Shoulda made the teleporter two-way.”

Stark stopped dead.

“That’s how you got here so fast?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you had tech!”

It took them three hours to extricate Courf and Feuilly from Stark’s lab after that, and even Gavroche and Lorna were trying to sneak in and help with the new toys they were working on.

“You know,” Maria said, prim and precise and somehow terrifying from where she’s sat at the bar. “We’re going to have to introduce the Amis now. We can’t just bring in new supers like that.”

#viperofsand #ask #The Amis Do Sokovia AU #my fic