#but the whole of the internet doesn’t need to know my business because my recs to each of you would be different | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sophiainspace · 3 years

Note

Zari Tomaz and Zari Tarazi 💫

I leave in the morning - I don’t wanna go

I said to the teller, “If this is the future I don’t wanna know”

I’m afraid of meaning nothing again, after all this is over

This is over after all…

‘Teller,’ Throwing Muses

Hanging out in the totem waiting for her counterpart to return is the worst boredom that Zari Tarazi has ever had the misfortune of experiencing. And she lived through the great Tarazi Residence Internet Outtage of 2031.

And then, one day when she’s very quietly exploring places she probably shouldn’t be - though no one’s actually told her not to - Zari finds the rec lounge. At least, that’s the vibe this room is clearly going for. There’s no TV or internet, of course. (The other totem-bearers went over long explanations of why technology doesn’t work in the totem - something something astral realm - but Zari wasn’t really listening.) Otherwise, this laid-back room is kind of nice. There’s lots of comfy seats and ottomans arranged for ease of socialising, and a few games on the tables - a chess set and jigsaw puzzles. And there’s a shisha bar, of all things, with only delightfully non-alcoholic drinks behind the bar. Most of the time, this room is empty. Zari half-wonders why no one uses it, then remembers that the totem bearers are all old, uppity types who’d never darken the doors of a friendly, social rec room. Which kind of defeats its purpose. Zari goes there to chill a lot anyway. It’s nicer than the ridiculous room with the terrible couches and weird wall hangings.

One morning, Zari wanders into the rec room and nearly falls over. There’s someone behind the bar. Someone familiar.

“Charlie?” she breathes.

It’s not Charlie. As soon as the woman looks up and smiles at her, Zari can tell that much. (Her excited heartbeat slows to something oddly… disappointed.) “No,” the woman says softly. “I’m sorry - I’m not your friend.” She taps a bottle of cordial with a smile. “Let me make it up to you. Mocktail?”

“I could have sworn…” Zari shakes her head and scoots onto a stool. “Sure. Mocktail. Why not?”

“What takes your fancy?” the bartender is asking, running a lithe hand across the bottles.

“Hmm. Not coffee, that’s for sure. You people have the worst coffee on the astral plane. Virgin daiquiri?” Zari eyes the bartender. Yellow dress, printed in southern African patterns. Hair wound up in a matching yellow scarf. She’s not Charlie, but she’s gorgeous - in her own, softer way. “I’m Zari.”

Halfway through mixing drinks, the bartender gives Zari an unexpected wink. “Oh, I know who you are,” she almost purrs. Zari blinks at her. She’d been getting a ‘wise elder’ vibe from this one, right up till that wink. Now there’s a hint of something much more fun in the woman’s eyes. And fun isn’t how Zari would describe most of the staid old totem bearers around here.

Before Zari can ask the bartender’s name, a drink is passed across the bar, and Zari accepts it with thanks. Then sips it, and feels her eyes get wide. “Oh, this is good.” It’s sweet, but not laden with sugar, and cut with enough real lime to give it a kick. Zari grins at the bartender. “You have a talent.”

“So I’m told,” the bartender says, leaning back with an unreadable look at Zari. It makes Zari feel things. Another unexpected reaction. Who is this woman?

But, once again, Zari doesn’t have time to ask. The bartender distracts her. “You look like someone stole the lime out of your drink,” she observes wryly. “Want to tell me about it?”

Zari snorts, bouncing her eyebrows at the woman. “Tell me all your troubles? Seems a bit stereotypical for you, barkeep. Since I’m guessing this is not exactly your main gig.”

The bartender’s shrug is adorable. “You got me.” She sits down across the bar from Zari. “My other job around here is seeing the currents of the past and the future. The way the patterns of the universe weave themselves slowly towards justice.”

That sounds like a good starting point for giving advice. Zari really has no reason to tell this stranger anything, but she finds herself sighing anyway, as she sips her drink. “I’m guessing that whole ‘weaving towards justice’ thing is kinda cosmic, and doesn’t work on a personal level.” The woman’s wry little head-tilt tells Zari she’s right. Fate is a tricky thing, Charlie always said. You can’t always control where your life is headed. Not that that’s ever stopped Zari from doing her best. “I’m afraid they won’t want me back.”

The bartender raises her eyes. “The Legends.” It’s not even a question.

Zari’s head snaps up. Today is just full of surprises. “You know them?”

A smile, almost nostalgic. “I know some of them very well. And… I’m not sure where you fit in the timeline, but I know that team. The more they change, the more they stay the same.” The bartender taps on the countertop. “Why wouldn’t they want you back?”

“They’ve got the other Zari back now,” she murmurs. Saying it aloud sounds self-pitying, like being the worst version of herself. She hates that. But it’s too late to stop talking. She’s jumped in with both feet, and Zari Tarazi always commits to the bit. “I know they miss her a lot. They talk about her all the time. Even Behrad - especially Behrad. He’s her number one fan. Like he never was of me…” Zari trails off, feeling like she’s gone too far. Bitterness helps no one. She knows Behrad loves her. It’s just that he remembers his other life, with the other Zari. They were close - the way he always wanted to be with his version of his sister. “Anyway. They must be happy to have her home. And they can only have one of us at a time, so…” She shrugs.

The bartender’s thoughtful eyes get sharper. “And you think that means they don’t need you anymore?”

Zari shrugs. “They’ve got the OG,” she mumbles. “Why would they want little new me?” She should know that’s nonsense. There’s no OG except her. Zari Tarazi, the one and only. But a few weeks in a totem, with no one to talk to, no CatChat, and no business to run - well, it could make the most confident girl lose her nerve.

The bartender goes a little fuzzy, like she’s watching something off in the distance. When she focuses on Zari again, her beautiful eyes have that joy in them again, with a bit of a wicked edge. “Because you give them something no one else can. Your drive. Your spirit. Your unique, powerful kind of wisdom.” She grins at Zari. “And your serious business acumen. Don’t tell me you think your brother’s filling in for you there.”

Zari snorts. “I’d like to hope he’d rise to the occasion, but - nope, he will not be.” She hums at the beautiful bartender. She must turn some girls’ heads around here. That’s quite some cosmic wisdom she’s got going on. “You really think they need me?”

She gets a smile back. “I do. But what I think doesn’t really matter, does it?” She raises a challenging eyebrow at Zari.

Zari thinks back over so many missions where the team needed her unique skills… and many more times when her friends looked at her like she mattered. For herself, not for anyone else she might resemble. “Oh, they’ve gotta be so very lost without me,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“You are not wrong,” says a voice behind her. Zari Tomaz slides onto the stool beside her. “Hey, Amaya. Can you get me something caffeinated? Triple espresso. Ooh, and something sweet. Got any donuts back there?” She tilts her head at the other Zari. “I forgot how exhausting the Legends are. I’m kinda pleased to get some time to myself, back in here.”

Amaya - of course that’s who it is, and Zari can’t believe she didn’t figure it out - passes a coffee over to Zari 1.0. “Hi, beautiful. Missed you.” She nods at Zari. “But I’ve been getting to know your lovely counterpart here, while we were waiting for you.”

Zari 1.0 makes a thoughtful face at her other self. “I hope being in here hasn’t bummed you out too much. Ready to go back and face the chaos?” She pats Zari on the back. “And I hate to break it you, but it really is peak chaos back in the time stream right now.”

“Oh, please.” Zari downs the last of her mocktail. “When is it not peak chaos on the Waverider?” She holds up a hand when Zari 1.0 starts to speak. “Don’t fill me in. I wanna walk right onto that bridge full of ridiculous disasters and experience what I’ve missed first-hand.”

Laughing, Zari 1.0 shrugs. “Enjoy yourself, hon. Or maybe that should be ‘on your own head be it.’ One of those.” She reaches out a hand for Amaya’s across the bar, and they share the cutest smile Zari has seen a couple give each other in a while. Oh, these two are adorable. As Zari takes them both in - gorgeous, wise Amaya, and the way Zari 1.0 looks at her - Zari is almost not jealous.

Time to make an exit. Zari pushes back her chair with a squeak. “Bye, OG.” She gives the beautiful bartender a little wave. “Bye, Amaya.” And she walks away with just a little bit of flair, all too aware that the other two are watching her leave. Just perfect.

At the door, Zari turns around. “Have a simply lovely time catching up, Zamaya.” She nods at Zari 1.0, who’s now looking at her girlfriend like Amaya flew to the moon and brought it back for her. “I think this one’s missed you, Amaya. I hope you get to spoil her a little.”

Zari 1.0 chuckles, turning to give Zari a smile. “Take care, hon. And there’s some people out there who’ve missed you too, you know. Go let them celebrate you. You deserve it.” Maybe it’s her imagination, but Zari thinks her counterpart’s guarded eyes get a little softer. “And Zari… thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” Zari lifts her fingers, ready to click them and disappear in a haze of totem magic. Always leave them wanting more. “Be seeing you, OG Z, next time you want to switch places. Oh, and…” Zari winks at Amaya. “Next time I visit, I want internet - fast enough to run a business with. And better coffee. And an easier way to watch the Waverider crew, that doesn’t involve being stuck in that awful room with the wall hangings. And some people to play all these games with! And—”

Rolling her eyes, the other Zari clicks her fingers.

“Rude,” Zari snarks to herself, in the middle of the empty Waverider hallway. She turns on her heel, heading for the kitchen. She can hear the sounds of a firefight on the bridge, and she needs a decent cup of coffee before she goes to anyone’s aid. The Legends will understand.

#ficlet #zari tarazi #zari tomaz #amaya jiwe #zamaya #zarlie #(hinted)#my fic #legends of tomorrow fanfic #prompt fills #none of us can queue this alone

29 notes · View notes

lilydalexf · 3 years

Photo

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Michelle Kiefer

Michelle has 55 stories at Gossamer. If you haven’t read them, what are you waiting for?! She has great takes on Mulder and Scully. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her fics here before, including Christmas in California, Making Other Plans, and Six Inch Valley. Big thanks to Michelle for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I’m not sure anyone is still reading my stories. I haven’t migrated my X-Files ones to AO3. I don’t think Gossamer provides any viewing statistics. I’d be very happy to hear that people still like my work.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

My X-Files fandom experience was amazing. I remember that sense of excitement and immediacy. It was thrilling to write stories (and read those of other authors, of course) in an active fandom for a show that was on the air. It was truly my first experience in an online world--a parallel world to my real life existence. I learned how to keep a foot in each world. As I recall, it was very hard to keep my focus in my “meat” world, when the online one was so fast moving and thrilling. But I did get some balance in my life as time went on.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Message boards and mailing lists were my experience. They were primitive compared to the pretty screens now. I forged some amazing friendships, some of them with people I discovered lived relatively near me. All I wanted to do was discuss episodes and fic. The flame wars were a little intimidating, but also amusing if you didn’t get swept up.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I was very passionate about the fandom--as I said, there were times when my online life seemed to overpower my real life experiences. I learned to manage that, and think I’m all the better for that. And I found some amazing friendships that are active and thriving today. I learned a lot about writing with XF fanfic. The level of quality was stunning. A decent percentage of fic were as good or better than traditional published fiction. But there were so many writers! I wanted to make an impact on the fanfiction world, but that meant taking my writing very seriously and learning to develop a story, pace that story, make it compelling and believable.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had a couple of coworkers that talked about the show all the time. I was curious, so I watched an episode. I believe it was the cannibal town one. I thought David Duchovny was odd looking and wasn’t terribly impressed. But I tried another episode - Wetwired, which blew me away with the morgue scene when Mulder thinks he’s going to identify Scully’s body. Ah...I thought, now, I see what everyone is talking about! And from then I was hooked.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

As I watched, I wanted more. I was fairly new to the internet (frankly, the internet was new to almost everyone) I found episode reviews, and some of them were fantastic. Some mentioned fanfiction. I was unaware of such a thing, though to be honest, since childhood, I’d been spinning stories in my head about characters on TV shows. I found some fanfic. The first couple of stories were not great (at least one was horrible) but then I found some that were very good. Probably a bit soap-operaish, but still readable. And then I became voracious as I plowed through the mass of stories looking for the good stuff. And boy was there good stuff.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I’m not estranged from it, but I don’t spend much time with it after all these years. I’ve found fanfic in some other shows that I like and only occasionally read old XF stories.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I’ve not been as involved with any other fandoms, i.e. following commentary on the show. I tend to dive into TV shows well after their heyday, so I’m always late to the party. I do read fanfic from other shows, and have actually written fanfic for other shows, but I need a really good idea to write. None of the other fandoms for my other shows are as busy and active as XF, even ones currently in production. And none of them have as much fanfic and certainly not the level of brilliance that we had in XF.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I tend to go for interesting partnerships, very much in the XF fashion. And a flawed hero is always a plus! The partnerships don’t necessarily have to be romantic---in fact I find I prefer those that are not. Really, Mulder and Scully were the only ones I felt deeply as a pairing, probably due to the chemistry between the actors. But the partnerships have to be well-balanced and realistic. I loved the characters on Sleepy Hollow. The two main characters were very much in the mold of Mulder/Scully.

My newest passion is British detective shows and I’ve completely fallen for the “Morse-verse” shows, Inspector Morse, Inspector Lewis and Endeavour. Less of an XF feel, but compelling characters with interesting backstories. Other favorite partnerships in the British detective genre are on Inspector Lynley and Broadchurch.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

A bit less now, though I’m still involved with a wonderful group of ladies who love the X-Files. When we get together for a yearly weekend, we binge episodes and eat impressive amounts of junk food. XF isn’t on network TV these days, but if it was, I’d probably watch it.

A couple of years ago, I listened to Kumail Nanjiani’s XF podcast on my long commute. I loved the commentary and interviews so much that I did watch some old episodes.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don’t read much XF fic. I’m currently reading in some other fandoms, but it’s harder to find good stories--the ones I follow aren’t very active these days and the quality just isn’t what XF was. We were so lucky. We had maybe 20 incredible top authors at any one time, then maybe another tier of 50 to 100 good to maybe great writers. And with new episodes, there was so much inspiration. We were so spoiled.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Everything from Syntax6, MaybeAmanda, Kel. A special story for me was “Strangers and the Strange Dead” by Kipler because I remember reading that very early in the morning in my unheated basement in the winter because that was the only time I could use our single computer without others in the family complaining. I remember actually gasping at the big reveal in the story. I can even remember the story’s opening line!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I was just learning how to write fiction when I was involved in XF, so I’m not sure my best work is there, though the bulk of my stories are there. I liked some of the work I did with others. I wrote Bone of Contention and Out of the Everywhere with Kel and I think that those stories got the best aspects of both of our styles. For stories I wrote myself, I think they’re not bad, but they are rather short and it’s always easier to maintain a theme and style for a short story. I liked Black Cherry Velvet. I’m writing some Inspector Lewis stories that I think are pretty good--they benefit from the years of experience that I was gaining through XF.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Never say never, but I probably won’t write more XF. I used to burn with it, but I think that got burned out a bit. Still, I have such wonderful memories of the whole period. It might be worth looking at again.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

As I mentioned, I am currently playing in the Inspector Lewis world. It’s sad--it’s a very small and not terribly active fandom. Sad that my best work is in an inactive fandom where I’m lucky if 20 or 30 people are reading them. It doesn’t help that I don’t write the most popular pairing.

But I’m really enjoying it. I occasionally write for Man From Uncle, which really shows my age, as that was a childhood obsession.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

With XF, it was always a take on an episode--did I get a tiny idea that I wanted to develop, or was I not thrilled with the way something went on the show. Now, it’s usually a “what if” kind of thing where I get inspired by a possible event and explore how that would play out, i.e. “What if this character had a one night stand resulting in an unplanned pregnancy?” What would happen? How would he handle the consequences of this? How would it change his life?

What's the story behind your pen name?

It’s literally my own name. I SOOOO wish I’d used a pen name. But I was naive and fandom was so new to me that it never occurred to me that a pen name would be better. I always told myself that my real name sounded like something made up, like a TV newscaster name, and I hoped people assumed it was a pen name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My husband and my kids were the only ones who knew about it for many years. Then I went to a fandom/fic gathering for three days and had to explain to a few other family members and my work mates why I was going to Chicago on my own. It’s still mostly a need to know thing and they don’t really need to know.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

I’m on AO3 as msk. And everything I wrote for XF is on Gossamer.

(Posted by Lilydale on February 2, 2021)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #michelle kiefer

60 notes · View notes

c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

Text

It’s New Years’ Eve, and for once, my dash isn’t full of the sorts of fun-silly-memey end-of-year posts celebrating the past 365 days. Which is fair. We all know what this year has been, and for all the hoped-for relief that it’s finally over, we all know it’s going to keep being hard for a while yet into the next one.

But there have been so many little moments this year, too. So. A list:

In the courtyard of my apartment building in the middle of Chicago, in a part of the city where trees don’t get planted on the sidewalks, there are two tall trees, taller than the three-story roof of the building, like trees should be. This spring, one of my neighbors (and I will never know who, because I have met none of my neighbors in person) left a package of sidewalk chalk on the concrete path in the middle of the courtyard, and one by one, bit by bit, people began to use it--the woman with the little girl who looked about two through my window last January and looks about three now, and the people with their dogs, and the neighbors passing by or sitting in the sunlight under the green trees in the summer, one or two at a time, never talking to each other, but sharing the chalk. Every rainfall it washed away, and a few days later there would be art again: bright flowers and shaky hopscotch courts, scrawling letters of BLACK LIVES MATTER and GO VOTE and HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, the oddly-colored fish I circled around the middle of the yard in June and the only jack-o-lantern I put out this year at the end of October. Nearly every person in this building is an adult, very nearly no children at all, but everyone played this summer, or if we didn’t play, we saw it out our windows under the green trees all year long.

The neighbor downstairs on the other side of the hall took up clarinet this year, or started practicing at home in the middle of the afternoon--not at the start of quarantine, when we were all shy and quiet, but later on, bit by bit, as the hair came down and the cabin fever set in. They are good at clarinet, and they are taking joy in it, and some days I turn off my own music just to listen for a while as they practice. Today they played the Totoro theme song, just loud enough to be quiet and smile at.

On weeks my D&D group can’t convene a quorum (we’ve tried so hard to hold zoom sessions, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and sometimes the Japanese prime minister resigns and a house none of us have ever lived in catches fire and things go wrong), our cleric screenshares the New York Times crossword, and whoever’s there works in laughing diligent cooperation to fill out puzzle after puzzle, tripping each over each other to answer clues first while our cleric tries to keep up with typing in the letters. We can solve a Sunday in about twenty minutes. Last month we worked on the Cryptic Crossword for well over an hour before we had to break up for the night, but it got shared to the group chat. Three days and well over a hundred text messages later, I unmuted the thread to discover that my players had managed to work together and solve the entire thing, and I found I was so proud of them I could burst. (Then I wrote them a five-dimensional logic grid puzzle to solve on a time limit, because they keep talking their way out of combat and if they can do THAT, then they can figure out that the Marquis of the Mews is an archfey wearing pink in the midst of a ball where they can only ask yes or no questions and must be done by midnight.)

All year long, we have held virtual knit night on Thursdays from our homes. All year long until it grew too cold, the owner of our little yarn store set up chairs on her sidewalk on Saturday afternoons, six feet apart, where we could bring our masks and our yarn and knit in the bright sunshine and see each other face to face and be seen in return. (And the owner of our little yarn store has stayed in business, and not just because she made that place a home for us over months and years before 2020 even happened, but because so many people have learned to knit this year, and so many people have found something to do with their hands and their hearts and their yarn that is soft and beautiful to look at and warm in the cold.)

I have a friend who texts me every weekday morning at 11:30 AM to check in and poke my executive function into gear if it needs an external starter. I have a friend seven time zones away who makes lists of the things they need to do that day in our discord chat at 3 AM my time, and when I wake up and check in I make lists back while they’re at work, and if they wake up the next morning again and I’m still awake they prod my executive function to put me to bed again. I have internet friends I’ve fallen out of touch with and internet friends I’ve found again and I’ve gone through seven different fandoms this year skipping from rec to rec to rec, and had people to talk and cry and flail at about every single one.

Sometimes strangers do nice things for strangers just because they can. This year I have commented on more fic than ever before in my life, essays that took half an hour to write because I could and I needed somebody to know they’d touched me, to maybe touch them back. This year, someone on my dash gave me access to a whole trove of personally-uploaded movies because I’d lost my Miyazaki library and she had one to share and, fuck, if you can do something like that for a friend of a friend of a friend, why wouldn’t you? An acquaintance gave me a free handsewn mask that fits better than anything else I’ve bought this year. I am so, so, so proud of the students I have helped survive this year of remote learning, bit by painstaking bit, as they passed AP Calculus and junior high biology and learned to write beautiful papers and run statistical analyses and make lists of ADLs and cope with getting out of bed every day when there’s nobody to notice if they don’t.

I’ve spent more time sitting on my back porch this year than I have in longer than I can remember, even when I have to put on a winter coat and extra socks to eat dinner. The people across the alley have put up their Christmas tree on their back deck for the season, and their downstairs neighbors strung lights. They’re beautiful in the dark.

#this is apparently the 2020 mood #and really #it's not all bad

42 notes · View notes

welllpthisishappening · 3 years

Text

Welllp This is...Books. Lots and Lots of Books

That gif is something of a lie. Some of these books were not great. But! Some of them were very good! And some of them were marketed weird — seriously, what does qualify as YA — and some of them I read in, like, six hours and some of them I raged about for six hours after I finished them.

Or: 2020!Laura reverted to 2004!Laura and read just a lot of books and then her husband got her a Kindle and she read even more books and has thoughts on most of those books that she is now going to share with the internet while also making absurd category names. Note that these are only books I read for the first time this year. So, the list is missing some of the stuff I used as coping devices. ALSO SOME SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

FAVORITE BOOKS THAT MADE A SHITTY YEAR SLIGHTLY BETTER AND ALSO LIKELY MADE ME SWOON A BIT

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he's not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin-and his world-forever.

— I kid you not, I had to do a lap around the apartment after reading the second book in this series. Why didn’t I read this before? Why isn’t there more fic? Why I am constantly falling for dark-haired sad dudes in love with their wives??? I cannot rec this series enough. It’s got world building and found families, and that dark-haired sad dude, and magic and lore and banter, and it’s so good and I don’t understand why it was marketed as YA. The literary world is weird, guys.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (and the Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan

Accompany the son of the sea god Poseidon and his other demigod friends as they go on a series of quests that will have them facing monsters, gods, and conniving figures from Greek mythology. Do they have what it takes to save the Olympians from an ancient enemy?

— Straight up, how did you guys cope with Percy and Annabeth when you were kids reading this? I would have been OBSESSED. Quarantine felt like the perfect time to finally read all of these books, and I know it’s sacrilegious to like Heroes of Olympus, but I might have liked parts of that series more? Just because it felt like they were older and I was super into Percabeth being properly in love. Also, now I get why everyone was so upset about the movies. Fair.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

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

— Yet another YA series that I will admit to loving this year. Started off a little slow, but once the world building really got underway —and it gets underway — I was hooked. If I had read this at an age-appropriate time I would have been super in love Captain Carswell Thorne. I was still kind of in love with Captan Carswell Thorne. So it should come as no surprise that Cress was my favorite of the series, but I enjoyed the whole thing, really.

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.As a huntsman of the Church, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible situation—marriage.Lou, unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, must make a choice. And love makes fools of us all.

— YO. Y O. THIS WAS SO GOOD. World building! Magic! Marriage of convenience! Well-written enemies to lovers! As soon as I finished this, I bought the sequel. And then got upset the third book in the series isn’t out yet! That’s a frustrating theme for me this year.

The Roommate by Rosie Danan

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She's the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara's childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too much to resist. Unfortunately, it's also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there's a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn't looked him up on the Internet...

Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton's most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they're lucky, they'll help everyone else get lucky too.

— I LOVED IT. L O V E D. As I told Justin “there was more porn than I was expecting,” in that porn and the adult film industry was a legitimate plot point and not just a part of Josh’s character, but it was incredibly well written and interesting and I cared about the plot. Sometimes I also wanted to shake Clara, but that was kind of the point.

The Marriage Game by Sara Desai

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn't know he's arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door...

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he's forced to share his space with the owner's beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

— More well-written enemies to lovers! It’s possible! Seriously, the banter was so good. The kissing was even better. Ridiculous and interfering family is one of my favorite things, and this had it in SPADES. It also made me want to eat samosas, which is kind of my base setting, but I really wanted Indian food whenever I was reading this. Also, the end scene was so goddamn cute I cannot believe it actually happened.

Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

— The one that got away is one of my favorite tropes, and this modern version of Persuasion did it so well. Everyone was annoying, but in an almost understandable way that made me ache and I just wanted them TO KISS. And then they did kiss! And it was so good! Plus, at the risk of being a little self-indulgent, it was kind of Out of the Frying Pan esque and I liked that a lot. If there is a downside: it’s how quickly the relationship starts up again, like zero to 60 in two seconds flat, and that there were a lot of POVs. Which wouldn’t have been an issue if they’d been labeled, or weren’t bouncing around the timeline randomly. Sometimes I’d have to be like—wait, who’s talking about what?

Chef Ashna Raje desperately needs a new strategy. How else can she save her beloved restaurant and prove to her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn't a complete screw up? When she's asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, it seems like just the leap of faith she needs to put her restaurant back on the map. She's a chef, what's the worst that could happen?Rico Silva, that's what.Being paired with a celebrity who was her first love, the man who ghosted her at the worst possible time in her life, only proves what Ashna has always believed: leaps of faith are a recipe for disaster.FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva isn't too happy to be paired up with Ashna either. Losing Ashna years ago almost destroyed him. The only silver lining to this bizarre situation is that he can finally prove to Ashna that he's definitely over her.But when their catastrophic first meeting goes viral, social media becomes obsessed with their chemistry. The competition on the show is fierce...and so is the simmering desire between Ashna and Rico. Every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will letting go again be another recipe for heartbreak—or a recipe for persuasion...?

The Good Luck Charm by Helena Hunting

Lilah isn't sure what hurt worse: the day Ethan left her to focus on his hockey career or the day he came back eight years later. He might think they can pick up just where they left off, but she's no longer that same girl and never wants to be again.

Just when Lilah might finally be ready to let Ethan in, though, she finds out their reunion might have nothing to do with love and everything to do with improving his game. But Ethan's already lost her once, and even if it costs him his career, he'll do anything to keep from losing her again.

— HOCKEY ROM COM. HOCKEY. ROM. COM. Apparently this lady is regarded as the queen of “hockey romance,” which I kind of take offense to, but will give a pass on because this was a very cute book and everyone was cute in it and I was only marginally frustrated by those same people being idiots. As is required by rom coms. Hockey, or otherwise.

A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

Fall in love, break the curse. It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, she's instead somehow sucked into Rhen's cursed world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom. A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. But as she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

— Beauty and the Beast AU!!! Fantasy! Magic! Romance! I loved this, even when Rhen was being a whiny idiot. But he was also cursed, so like—fair. This dives into the politics of a cursed kingdom, puts a fun spin on the original fairy tale and also has a sequel. Which I read, and possibly enjoyed more. Only to realize the third book isn’t published yet, and then got annoyed by that.

QUESTIONABLY-GOOD FREE FANTASY BOOKS ON AMAZON

The Silver and Orchids Collection by Shari L Tapscott

What happens when a feisty adventuress, a lord looking to make his own way in the world, and a handsome sea captain set out to find Kalae’s rarest and most valuable flower?

Trouble—and lots of it.

— Snarky flirting! Adventure! Sword fights! Listen, this is not prize-winning fiction, but Lucia is a fun heroine, the rest of her adventure-seeking friends are an absolute delight and you don’t have to think too much while reading it. All four books wrap up their individual storylines, but help set up the next one and while the ending felt a little forced (and way too quick) I didn’t hate it enough to throw the Kindle across the room.

Forest of Firelight by Shari L. Tapscsott

After the sudden death of her brother, Princess Amalia is charged with what feels like an impossible task—she must choose the next king. Youthful thoughts of love are pushed aside as she accepts her fate, setting upon a quest throughout the kingdom to find a man worthy of her father’s throne.

Little does Amalia know, someone has already set his sights on her.

Rhys is a man of secrets, and his mission is simple: befriend the princess of Renove. Coax her to trust him, convince her to follow him.

Betray her when it’s time.

All goes according to plan until Rhys meets the princess. Amalia is a disaster. Never has he met someone so drawn to trouble. Never has he met someone so irritatingly likable.

He’s not allowed to fall for her.

She could never entrust him with a crown.

But, unbeknownst to them, their unlikely partnership might be the key to saving their entire world from a darkness that’s slowly creeping from the wounded earth that separates one kingdom from the next.

— FORBIDDEN LOVE! It’s good! Real good! I read this whole series (or the three books in it, so far) in a questionably short amount of time. Again, not the deepest story, and Amalia is occasionally frustratingly dumb. While Rhys is also sort of all-knowing in that fantasy hero sort of way? Y’know what I mean? Still, they banter very well, and eventually kiss even better.

LESS GOOD FANTASY BOOKS THAT PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE JUST BEEN AVAILABLE FOR FREE ON AMAZON

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian

Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Fire Queen, was murdered before her eyes. On that day, the Kaiser took Theodosia's family, her land, and her name. Theo was crowned Ash Princess—a title of shame to bear in her new life as a prisoner.

For ten years Theo has been a captive in her own palace. She's endured the relentless abuse and ridicule of the Kaiser and his court. She is powerless, surviving in her new world only by burying the girl she was deep inside.

Then, one night, the Kaiser forces her to do the unthinkable. With blood on her hands and all hope of reclaiming her throne lost, she realizes that surviving is no longer enough. But she does have a weapon: her mind is sharper than any sword. And power isn't always won on the battlefield.

For ten years, the Ash Princess has seen her land pillaged and her people enslaved. That all ends here.

— I wanted to love this series. So much so that I read the whole thing. All three books. And I’m still not sure why. The world building, maybe. Which was very good, and the politics actually kept me interested, but every single character was the absolute worst and I kind of wanted them all to die. That’s not even an exaggeration. Spoiler, they didn’t all die. I was only marginally disappointed.

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

When the ruthless Pirate King learns of a legendary treasure map hidden on an enemy ship, his daughter, Alosa, knows that there's only one pirate for the job—herself. Leaving behind her beloved ship and crew, Alosa deliberately facilitates her own kidnapping to ensure her passage on the enemy ship. After all, who's going to suspect a seventeen-year-old girl locked in a cell?Then she meets the (surprisingly perceptive and unfairly attractive) first mate, Riden, who is charged with finding out all her secrets. Now it's down to a battle of wits and will... Can Alosa find the map and escape before Riden figures out her plan?

— Alosa was kind of the worst? Like, STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER who had to keep reminding you how strong she was because she would kill anyone, and had an all female pirate crew. And the whole time I was just like, ok...cool. Still, I read the sequel too and that was slightly better.

The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller

Alessandra is tired of being overlooked, but she has a plan to gain power:

1) Woo the Shadow King.

2) Marry him.

3) Kill him and take his kingdom for herself.

No one knows the extent of the freshly crowned Shadow King's power. Some say he can command the shadows that swirl around him to do his bidding. Others say they speak to him, whispering the thoughts of his enemies. Regardless, Alessandra knows what she deserves, and she's going to do everything within her power to get it.

But Alessandra's not the only one trying to kill the king. As attempts on his life are made, she finds herself trying to keep him alive long enough for him to make her his queen—all while struggling not to lose her heart. After all, who better for a Shadow King than a cunning, villainous queen?

— I cannot explain this book any way except to tell you it is so weird. Like, sometimes I remember I read this and all I can think is: why did this book happen? It felt like it started in the middle of the story, which is not a knock on the story itself, but mostly on the world building. Which was lacking to say the least. Also the resolution was super rushed and even more weird and I was like—why does he like her??? I still don’t know, honestly.

The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne

Engagement season is in the air. Eighteen-year-old Princess Leonie "Leo" Kolburg, heir to a faded European spaceship, has only one thing on her mind: which lucky bachelor can save her family from financial ruin?

But when Leo's childhood friend and first love, Elliot, returns as the captain of a successful whiskey ship, everything changes. Elliot was the one who got away, the boy Leo's family deemed to be unsuitable for marriage. Now he's the biggest catch of the season and he seems determined to make Leo's life miserable. But old habits die hard, and as Leo navigates the glittering balls of the Valg Season, she finds herself falling for her first love in a game of love, lies, and past regrets.

— Another book whose lack of world building hurt it. Stuff just happened, and we were expected to understand it and be into it and I was neither. I had no reason to care about anyone in this book, especially Elliot who seemed like an asshole.

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian's heart to the Sea Queen and or remain a human forever.The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it's his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she's more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind's greatest enemy?

— This book did not go the way I thought it was going to. Not a bad thing, but also not the best and the ending was...bleh. The middle, though? That was legit, and the action was good. I am always a fan of sword fights. Still, there was something that left me waiting for the final push towards great and it just never really came.

ROM-COMS WITH ONLY PASSABLY FRUSTRATING PLOTS AND GOOD KISSING

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory

Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe's mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. But when she meets a gorgeous man at a hotel bar and they spend the entire night flirting, she discovers too late that he is none other than hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Olivia has zero interest in dating a politician, but when a cake arrives at her office with the cutest message, she can't resist—it is chocolate cake, after all.

Olivia is surprised to find that Max is sweet, funny, and noble—not just some privileged white politician, as she assumed him to be. Because of Max's high-profile job, they start seeing each other secretly, which leads to clandestine dates and silly disguises. But when they finally go public, the intense media scrutiny means people are now digging up her rocky past and criticizing her job, even her suitability as a trophy girlfriend. Olivia knows what she has with Max is something special, but is it strong enough to survive the heat of the spotlight?

— It was cute. Max was occasionally an idiot. The kissing was legit. Most of their problems could have very easily been solved, but that’s kind of this genre’s schtick.

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn't lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina's offered an opportunity that could change her life. There's just one hitch... she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials. Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he'll be working with his brother's whip-smart, stunning—absolutely off-limits—ex-fiancée. And she loathes him.If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they'll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina's ready to dish out a little payback of her own.Soon Lina and Max discover animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them. Still, this star-crossed couple can never be more than temporary playmates because Lina isn't interested in falling in love and Max refuses to play runner-up to his brother ever again...

— Once you got past the hooking up with your ex’s brother thing, it was cute. Max was endearing in an earnest sort of way, even when Lina was STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER in a cliche sort of way. More solid kissing. Side note, why are so many rom com dudes named Max? Does it sound hip? Passably cool, but also approachable? Discuss.

Not that Kind of Guy by Andie J. Christopher

State attorney Bridget Nolan is successful in all aspects of her life—except romance. After breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, she's been slow to reenter the dating scene. To be honest, she has more important things to do like putting bad guys behind bars. But with her brother's wedding right around the corner, she suddenly needs a date and fast. Lucky for Bridget, the legal intern is almost done with his program.

Matt Kido is dumbstruck by Bridget—total love at first sight—but there's one problem. She's totally off-limits while she's his boss. But the moment he no longer reports to her, Matt asks her on a date. An impulsive decision takes them to Las Vegas where, as the saying goes, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Unless you put a ring on it.

— Having written the “wake up in Vegas married” trope before, I know it’s difficult to do right. Consent’s a thing, y’know? And stuff gets dicy with forgotten memories, and all that, but mostly what kept me from truly loving this book was the intern thing. Don’t date your interns guys, it’s weird and off-putting. Literally if he’d just been a junior partner, or a visiting partner or something else I would have been all in.

Meet Cute by Helena Hunting

Kailyn Flowers was always calm, rational, and controlled—until she ended up sprawled all over Daxton Hughes, the former actor she totally crushed on as a teenager. Then she did the unthinkable: She became a mortifying fangirl in five seconds flat, which may or may not have included professing her undying love. And oddly, he didn't run away. In fact, their meet cute led to a friendship she never saw coming. Of course, she never saw his betrayal coming, either...Now Dax needs her help. As guardian to his thirteen-year-old sister, he's in way over his head. And though Kailyn hasn't forgiven Dax, she isn't heartless enough to make him fend for himself, either. Soon their friendly meetings turn into flirty dinner dates, and Kailyn can feel their chemistry is as explosive as ever. But how can she possibly let down her guard again to a guy who has heartbreak written all over him?

— Once again here for the one that got away trope, even if this comes with dead parents and some sad storylines. It still managed to be cute. Everyone was cute in it. Occasionally Daxton was a dick. As rom com male leads are apt to be.

If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane

If faking love is this easy... how do you know when it's real?When her partner of over a decade suddenly ends things, Laurie is left reeling—not only because they work at the same law firm and she has to see him every day. Her once perfect life is in shambles and the thought of dating again in the age of Tinder is nothing short of horrifying. When news of her ex's pregnant girlfriend hits the office grapevine, taking the humiliation lying down is not an option. Then a chance encounter in a broken-down elevator with the office playboy opens up a new possibility.Jamie Carter doesn't believe in love, but he needs a respectable, steady girlfriend to impress their bosses. Laurie wants a hot new man to give the rumor mill something else to talk about. It's the perfect proposition: a fauxmance played out on social media, with strategically staged photographs and a specific end date in mind. With the plan hatched, Laurie and Jamie begin to flaunt their new couple status, to the astonishment—and jealousy—of their friends and colleagues. But there's a fine line between pretending to be in love and actually falling for your charming, handsome fake boyfriend...

— FAKE DATING THAT LEADS TO REAL FEELINGS. The ex-boyfriend was an assssss, the fake boyfriend was charming, everything was good AND THEN WE GOT TO THE END. Which felt more than a little rushed, unexpected and not really in line with the rest of the book?? Give ‘em a slightly better, in-character ending, and I would have been sold.

BOOKS THAT I WAS LIKE...EH, OK

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

— I think this book was too smart for me. The prose was gorgeous, and the whole thing was very pretty and I definitely swooned when Marco said he wished for Celia. And yet. By the end I was like...eh, ok. Maybe it was the timeline? Jumping around, or how little dialogue there was. I wanted to like it all so badly, and I’m just not sure I did.

Acting on Impulse by Mia Sosa

After a very public breakup with a media-hungry politician, fitness trainer Tori Alvarez escapes to Aruba for rest, relaxation, and copious amounts of sex on the beach—the cocktail, that is. She vows to keep her vacation a man-free zone but when a cute guy is seated next to her on the plane, Tori can't resist a little harmless flirting.Hollywood heartthrob Carter Stone underwent a dramatic physical transformation for his latest role and it's clear his stunning seat mate doesn't recognize the man beneath the shaggy beard and extra lean frame. Now Carter needs help rebuilding his buff physique and Tori is perfect for the job. It doesn't hurt that she makes his pulse pound in more ways than one.Sparks are flying, until a pesky paparazzo reveals Carter's identity. Tori is hurt and pissed. She wants nothing to do with another man in the limelight, but she's still got to whip him into shape. Can Carter convince Tori he's worth the threat to her privacy that comes with dating a famous actor, or will Tori chisel him down to nothing before he even gets the chance?

— Dudes have gotta stop lying about who they are. It’s not a great trope. Other than that, the kissing was good. The romance was like...eh. I honestly don’t remember much else.

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world's biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he's the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it's possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason... and whether "once in a lifetime" can come around twice.

— This book was...weird. The early romance was wonderful and delightful, but then shit hit the fan and Sam and Tate are adults and...weird. Like, I cannot come up with another word for it. Also, they didn’t really talk much? As adults? Working on the same movie set? W e i r d.

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

Fixie Farr has always lived by her father’s motto: “Family first.” And since her dad passed away, leaving his charming housewares store in the hands of his wife and children, Fixie spends all her time picking up the slack from her siblings instead of striking out on her own. The way Fixie sees it, if she doesn’t take care of her father’s legacy, who will?

It’s simply not in Fixie’s nature to say no to people. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, she not only agrees—she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank Fixie for her quick thinking, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, an investment manager, scribbles an IOU on a coffee sleeve and attaches his business card. Fixie laughs it off—she’d never actually claim an IOU from a stranger. Would she?

But then Fixie’s childhood crush, Ryan, comes back into her life, and his lack of a profession pushes all of Fixie’s buttons. As always, she wants nothing for herself—but she’d love Seb to give Ryan a job. No sooner has Seb agreed than the tables are turned once more and a new series of IOUs between Seb and Fixie—from small favors to life-changing moments—ensues. Soon Fixie, Ms. Fixit for everyone else, is torn between her family and the life she really wants. Does she have the courage to take a stand? Will she finally grab the life, and love, she really wants?

— Let’s be upfront, I’ve read a lot of Sophie Kinsella in my life, and more often than not I enjoy what she writes. I mostly did here. It was a book. With obvious rom com problems, that could have very easily been solved, but it wasn’t horrible. So, that was good, I guess.

The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory

Maddie and Theo have two things in common:

1. Alexa is their best friend

2. They hate each other

After an "oops, we made a mistake" night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa's wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they're comfortable with. Underneath the sharp barbs they toss at each other is a simmering attraction that won't fade. It builds until they find themselves sneaking off together to release some tension when Alexa isn't looking, agreeing they would end it once the wedding is over. When it's suddenly pushed up and they only have a few months left of secret rendezvouses, they find themselves regretting that the end is near. Two people this different can't possibly have a connection other than the purely physical, right?

But as with any engagement with a nemesis, there are unspoken rules that must be abided by. First and foremost, don't fall in love.

— Eh, this book happened. I still have no idea why they couldn’t be together from the get. Obstacles for the sake of plot, I guess. Also political side stories? I don’t know, guys.

WEIRD POST-ENDING FEELINGS WERE INDUCED

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

— Listen, I enjoyed this a lot. For the most part. It was funny, and introspective in a way that didn’t make me want to gag too much, and I wanted to defend January’s love of love with everything in me. But, then it—ended. And it was like...all tied up with this nice little ribbon and happily ever after, and I was like...oh, ok. Part of me that it was glad it ended like that, mostly because of who I am as a person, but the rest of me was also confused that after everything January and Augustus had been through and how messy their lives were it could just get all wrapped up in this HEA.

HITTING JUST A BIT TOO CLOSE TO HOME

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. The world may know him as Aeneas, star of the biggest show on television, but fanfiction readers call him something else: Book!AeneasWouldNever. Marcus gets out his frustrations with the show through anonymous stories about the internet's favorite couple, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone discovered his online persona, he'd be finished in Hollywood.April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she's long hidden her fanfic and cosplay hobbies from her "real life"—but not anymore. When she dares to post her latest costume creation on Twitter, her plus-size take goes viral. And when Marcus asks her out to spite her internet critics, truth officially becomes stranger than fanfiction. On their date, Marcus quickly realizes he wants more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. But when he discovers she's Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to keep from her.With love and Marcus's career on the line, can the two of them stop hiding once and for all, or will a match made in fandom end up prematurely cancelled?

— Here for plus-size heroines who get the guy and don’t have their (entire) storyline defined by their looks. Less here for the weird fandom culture, the ensuing second-hand embarrassment that came from that and the thankfulness that both Colin O’Donoghue and Bob Morley appear to be happily married so it seems very unlikely they’re writing fic about their characters under pseudonyms. Stop using Ao3 in actual published stories 2k4ever.

RAGE-INDUCING BOOKS OF ABSOLUTE FURY

The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

Kristen Peterson doesn't do drama, will fight to the death for her friends, and has no room in her life for guys who just don't get her. She's also keeping a big secret: facing a medically necessary procedure that will make it impossible for her to have children.Planning her best friend's wedding is bittersweet for Kristen — especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He's funny, sexy, never offended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Stuntman Mike, adores him. The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he'd be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it's harder and harder to keep him at arm's length.The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass.

— LISTEN THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE, BUT I FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THEM BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS A SECRET GUT PUNCH AND PEOPLE SHOULD BE AWARE. Not only is infertility, like, the defining theme of this book, but the BEST FRIEND DIES. Just—dies. It’s horrible. Absolutely God awful depressing. And for a second he looks like he won’t, and it’ll be fine, but then it is not and he’s just D E A D. I know, I know that sets up the sequel, but this was so goddamn heavy in an unsuspecting way that I have absolutely no intention of reading the next one.

Well Met by Jen DeLuca

Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?

The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying?

This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

— FUCK THIS BOOK. And fuck Simon, specifically. Oh, you have a sad story? Cool, you’re still a dick. He was a dick. Listen, I know enemies to lovers is a hard trope to write, but it’s even harder to accept when those enemies just announce I LIKED YOU THE WHOLE TIME and then everyone starts ripping off their clothes. No, it’s dumb. I hate it. Apparently there’s a sequel to this book. Maybe that’s better.

Kiss My Cupcake by Helena Hunting

Blaire Calloway has planned every Instagram-worthy moment of her cupcake and cocktails shop launch down to the tiniest detail. What she didn't plan on? Ronan Knight and his old-school sports bar next door opening on the very same day. He may be super swoony, but Blaire hasn't spent years obsessing over buttercream and bourbon to have him ruin her chance at success.From axe throwing (his place) to frosting contests (hers), Blaire and Ronan are constantly trying to one-up each other in a battle to win new customers. But with every clash, there's also an undeniable chemistry. When an even bigger threat to their business comes to town, they're forced to call a temporary time-out on their own war and work together. And the more time Blaire spends getting to know the real Ronan, the more she wonders if it's possible to have her cupcake and eat it too.

— Listen, I wanted to like this one. There were plenty other Helena Hunting books on this list, so like—I don’t hate her. I just hate poorly executed enemies to lovers plot lines. Give me at least one moment where they are interested in each other aside from just being attracted to each other. Also: Stop Having Dudes Be Dicks Because Of Their Sad Backstory 2k4ever.

Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

You always remember your first love... don't you?If there's anything worse than being fired from the worst restaurant in town, it's coming home early to find your boyfriend in bed with someone else. Reeling from the humiliation of a double dumping in one day, Georgina takes the next job that comes her way—bartender in a newly opened pub. There's only one problem: it's run by the guy she fell in love with years ago. And—make that two problems—he doesn't remember her. At all. But she has fabulous friends and her signature hot pink fur coat... what more could a girl really need?Lucas McCarthy has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but he's also turned into an actual grown-up, with a thriving business and a dog along the way. Crossing paths with him again throws Georgina's rocky present into sharp relief—and brings a secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows what happened twelve years ago, and why she's allowed the memories to chase her ever since. But maybe it's not too late for the truth... or a second chance with the one that got away?

— HE WAS JUST PRETENDING NOT TO REMEMBER HER THE WHOLE TIME???? WHAT?? WHY??? D U M B. Dumb boys are dumb.

Not the Girl You Marry by Andie J. Christopher

Jack Nolan is a gentleman, a journalist, and unlucky in love. His viral success has pigeon-holed him as the how-to guy for a buzzy, internet media company instead of covering hard-hitting politics. Fed up with his fluffy articles and the app-based dating scene as well, he strikes a deal with his boss to write a final piece de resistance: How to Lose a Girl. Easier said than done when the girl he meets is Hannah Mayfield, and he's not sure he wants her to dump him.

Hannah is an extremely successful event planner who's focused on climbing the career ladder. Her firm is one of the most prestigious in the city, and she's determined to secure her next promotion. But Hannah has a bit of an image problem. She needs to show her boss that she has range, including planning dreaded, romantic weddings. Enter Jack. He's the perfect man to date for a couple weeks to prove to her boss that she's not scared of feelings.

Before Jack and Hannah know it, their fake relationship starts to feel all too real—and neither of them can stand to lose each other.

— This is actually the prequel to Not That Kind of Guy and I honestly can’t believe I read that after hating this book so much. They were awful to each other! Their whole relationship was based on lies! Mean lies! Horrible lies! Don’t lie to your significant other!

#book recs #fiction recs #rom com recs #fantasy recs #or: i read solely fantasy and rom com books in 2020 #this does not include any david eddings or meg cabot rereads #which also happened #and i endorse them wholeheartedly too #if you have read any of these books PLEASE share your thoughts with me #i am desperate for them #or your own recs of what you read this year #laura reads books #welllp these are books

42 notes · View notes

mego42 · 4 years

Note

I 100% agree about wanting more fanfic lists! I honestly think it's the best way to get a variety. Everybody has personal preferences, if someone, who mostly reads long, fluffy au Brio fic, is making recs, they're not likely to mention short, angsty, canon Brio (which is understandable and fair!) so ideally someone else, who does like those, would also do recs. I'm pretty sure I've read or at least tried the vast majority of Brio fics, but the recs often make me re-read the fic and author.

YAAASSSS!!! I mean like, okay, I v much get why people have issues with rec lists, and I def do not by any stretch endorse the idea that recs/rec lists should be considered anything other than one person sharing a think they liked, but to me a lot of the issues (the same fics/authors getting recced, feeling like awesome fics/authors are going unrecognized) can be solved by more reccing, not less. everyone’s got different taste and different stuff they look/read for and I am extremely pro sharing that.

Idk, I think about it like this: in a previous internet life I was a YA book blogger and I lived and died by recs from other bloggers whose taste and preferences I knew. I mean, you know, I’d check out a book bc the premise sounded interesting but literally the first thing I would do was go to Goodreads and look for a handful of people who tended to like the same books I did and see what they were saying about it bc that was the best way to get a good idea of if I wanted to give it a shot. Or, on the flip side, there were some people whose reviews I followed bc I knew we v much did not read for the same things so if they hated a book for X, Y and Z reasons, I was probs going to like it (one thing about book blogging is if you want to keep current, you do not have a lot of time to mess around, snap judgements are key but that’s a whole other thing and idk if it’s even relevant anymore bc that landscape has changed so much).

ANYWAY, the point is, I got in the habit and now I do the same thing with fic bc, tbh, I don’t have a ton of time to read, esp not when I’m actively writing which, with the exception of the last week or two, I’ve been doing p non-stop since I got here. All of which to say is, I am desperately in favor of fic recs for purely selfish reasons, I need them! Give them to me!!! Please!!!!!

That said, I uh, am v bad at returning the favor and I recognize that (I think I’ve made what? two rec lists for this fandom?) so I will try to do better to live by my own, idek what this is, moving on and here are 10 recs not really thematically linked by anything other than I’ve read them and loved them and don’t think I’ve put any of them on one of my rec lists yet (and if I have, my blog is a trainwreck I cannot be expected to remember what’s on it LET ME LIVE):

The Goodest Boy by EnsignDisaster

There’s a key turning in the lock and Buddy rushes over to greet his Master excited for her to meet his new friends. The door opens and he dances around Master’s feet rejoicing on the fact that she’s made it home. It's been literally forever.

“Hey Buddy what’s wrong? Need to go potty? Need to pee-pee?”

“Nah he’s good we took him out.”

Master does something very unMasterlike, she drops all the food she’d brought in on the ground and screams. It’s a non traditional avant garde type of hello…Buddy loves it. Mostly because while Master taps furiously on her small light box and sits tense in the corner opposite his new friend Buddy can lick up the egg smashed on the hardwood floor.

Buddy! The! Dog! POV! no further explanation necessary. Technically WIP, but it covers the whole pilot in a way that could be read as standalone (THOUGH THAT WOULD V MUCH GIVE ME A SAD though, when did the show forget the Bolands had a dog? so maybe that’s a tragic casualty of canon, idk)

May The Moon’s Silvery Beams by @pynkhues

Emma hums in agreement, and Rio turns her around to sit her on the counter, grabbing one of the older looking boxes of muesli while she kicks her legs out, heels bumping back against the counter, watching him. He gropes around the inside of the box, finally just opting to pull the plastic cereal bag out and peering inside. He can’t quite keep the grin off his face when he sees the wad of cash lining the bottom. This woman kills him, she really does.

Then there’s a little face peering up beside him, trying to peek into the box.

“What is it?” she asks, and he tilts the box sideways so she can see inside.

The upside to not getting here until s3 is that old fic is new to me! Huzzah!! Idk how many of y’all have already read this on but if you haven’t I highkey recommend. Extremely cute take on what if Emma woke up when Rio and came by to collect his/Beth’s/whoever's money during the shutdown. Cannot believe I’m reccing kidfic. Witchcraft!!!!!!

Maybe You’re My Fantasy by ohmisterjapan

He fucking loves the involuntary. It speaks to how he likes to unlock chaos and walk away. He's been called a control freak before and it felt like such a misunderstanding of him - he's all about self control but he doesn't want to control others. It's more that he enjoys revealing to them how little they can control themselves. It's more that he likes to stand still in the eye of someone else's storm and pick coldly through the wreckage.

Another oldie but a goodie. This fic is more like an extended character study (first chapter Rio POV, second chapter Beth) and I LIVE FOR THIS KIND OF SHIT. I really really really love the take on both characters, it really digs in and pulls out some nuances that made me sit and think about my own read of them and I love it.

A Shock Of Blue by mintletters16

“You don’t look very well. Would you… like me to get you a glass of water or something?”

Her voice is low but smooth, laced with a softness that cuts straight though to his core. Strawberry blonde locks fall gently just above the pair of magnets freezing him in place.

He can still feel the chaos tearing through his veins - emanating from the gold plated gun stuffed in his waistband - and suddenly he can’t be here anymore. Can’t meet this wide-eyed gaze that’s been locked on his for the past God-knows-how-long anymore.

Can’t see blue alive and concerned when he just left it cold and void somewhere in oblivion.

She’s looking at him like he’s on the brink of madness. He thinks maybe he is.

Apparently, it’s backlist rec day over here and I’m not sorry. This one is another technical WIP but the chapter works as a standalone (BUT if the author decided to return to it I WOULD NOT BE MAD). It’s a what if Beth and Rio met pre-canon and it works so!!! well!!!! The tension and fascination and build are all *chef’s kiss* plus the writing is gorgeous and lyrical and ugh, I love it.

for a moment we were strangers by openhearts

“We got stuff,” Rio motions with a nod to the backpack Beth hadn’t noticed when they arrived hanging on the back of one of the chairs at the island.

She swallows and turns back to the dishes, realizing Rio apparently means to sleep there , assuming the place isn’t bugged. Or for some kind of cover story if it is. She turns and fixes Rio with a narrow-eyed stare, studying his face, the corner of his jaw especially prominent from the angle she’s looking up at him. He’s methodical about drying each dish and setting it back on the rack, maddeningly ignoring her hard stare, so when he goes to take the next plate from her hands she grips it tightly and gets his attention.

“Hey.”

“What you on about now?” he asks, irritated.

It gets her gut uneasy, how he’s just . . . there, settling in, in ways he never had before, no matter how nonchalantly he would let himself in through her locked doors.

“This is,” Beth tries, failing, to find words for it, “. . . it’s weird .”

This one takes place post 204 and Rio and Marcus end up spending a long weekend staying with Beth and Emma for reasons (that work, for the record, I’m just not trying to summarize rn) and it’s domestic and cute but honestly my fav part of it is how weirded out Beth is by how easily they slip into sync. The story does an excellent job balancing where they are in canon (uneasy post-sex truce) with a snapshot of what they could be if they got over themselves (HA! as if) and Beth is DEEPLY FREAKED which makes her slow slide into realizing she could maybe sort of kind of oh shit like it/him??? that much more satisfying.

Not So Careful by @bensonstablers

When he doesn’t answer, her eyes go to his but he’s too busy watching the letter opener which is still pressed against the back of his hand. Curiously, Beth runs it up his arm, careful not to press too hard, and smiles a little as he shivers. Pulling her leg up onto the bed, she shuffles closer to him before pressing the tip of the sword to his chest and slowly circling his left nipple with it, being sure not to get too close.

“You ain’t gotta be that careful.”

And when she lifts her eyes to meet his, he’s got that look. The one that always makes a lump form in her throat and for her to fall back into bed with him without a single thought of what they have to do that day. Only thing is, this time they’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the weekend and well, staying in bed the entire time had seemed like an appealing idea so she allows herself to give in a little to that look.

It makes me EXTREMELY SAD that knifeplay ranked so low on the kink survey so I’m gonna need y’all to check out this V V V EXCELLENT example of it and come back and tell me you’re sorry and you voted wrong. I am v reasonable what are you talking about.

love (where it wasn’t supposed to be) by @lilliloves

"You know what I can't stand?" Rio asks, stepping closer. It's a rhetorical question but he pauses for a second and watches Dean sniff, watches a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, watches him shift on both his feet as he contemplates making a run for it.

"A guy who don’t realize how good he's got it." Rio continues, looking Dean up and down in disgust. "A guy that will literally fuck up a good thing just to get his dick wet."

"Yeah, well I can't stand a guy who can have anyone he wants but chooses the married woman he's not entitled to.” Dean shoots back. "And I really can't stand the fact that you're always in the room with us even when you aren't there."

And who brings him into the room Dean hmmmmm????? Jk, jk (or am I). In this one Rio catches Dean out on the town with another woman (bc of course he is) and tries to call him out but whoops! gets called out himself. I really love the like, idk, undercurrent of wistful regret in this fic. I love Dean straight up calling Rio out on his feelings (spoilers but there’s an exchange right after this one that made me straight up holler), and, you know, obvs I am here for Rio making Dean feel like an ass.

Hell Is Other People by makemanybraver

Rio: We're in Hell, Elizabeth! If you don't think you belong here, then repent! Don't fuck everyone in the room in hopes that you get to go out!

Beth: Why do I have to repent?!

Rio: Because you did some fucked up shit in your life, Elizabeth! You keep doing fucked up shit here, too! And you think you don't belong here!

Beth [screaming at the top of her lungs]: Because I don't!

This fic is existentially bonkers and I love it. It’s the kind of experimental format/homage/what have you kind of thing that I L O V E. Based on No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Beth, Rio, and Fitzpatrick are stuck together in a room in hell for all eternity. What more do you need, honestly.

Working On Things by odenkirk

Unknown Hold up, Elizabeth. I'm really thinkin about you here.

Beth turned her face into the pillow, effectively suffocating herself for a moment, but thinking it was a good trade off for the way the cool silk of her pillowcase chilled her skin.

She lifted her head to glance at the still sleeping Dean before replying.

Beth I'm thinking about you too. But this can't happen.

She wanted him to know she wanted him, but she also thought that admitting she was already there would save Rio from trying to convince her. She wanted him, but morals had to win just once in a while.

YES this is technically Beth/Dean while also being Beth/Rio BUT it’s also sort of Rio/Dean and I am HERE FOR THE DIVERSITY OF SHIPPING leave me alone who asked you.

Five Times He Knew What She Was Thinking, and One Time He Didn't by JoeyLee

Aight, so tell ‘em I was hittin’ it. Said deliberately blunt, eyes locked on her face the whole time, just to see those blue eyes widen. She looked so shocked that he almost laughed, so he softened it teasingly just to keep her going. Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart, tell ‘em we were makin’ love.

Then he just watched her, just watched her face, just fucking fascinated. Her lips were parted and her eyes were big as saucers, and…there it was. Before she could look away flustered, he watched the thought go through her mind. Him and her together.

He wondered what she was picturing or where. Them in the back seat, her bed, a motel? Her on top or him from behind or his face between her legs?

Whatever it was, the blush started immediately, and he watched it bloom out from her cheeks to her hair. Then she was tearing her eyes away to gulp a little. But it didn’t knock her down for long before she was looking back. And then, wait, was she actually asking him how to go about telling a fed they were fucking?

Okay this is another technical WIP but works as a standalone. I am absolutely fucking feral for character POV takes of canon scenes and this is a supremely excellent take on Rio POV of some notable scenes from the pilot through 204. Imo it brilliantly captures Rio’s voice and I love it a lot.

HEADS UP I am absolute shite at tracking ao3 to tumblr unless people have specifically told me someone’s ao3/tumblr name SO if you recognize any of the non-tumblr authors on please lmk so I can tag them and YES I recognize that I am asking y’all to do things for me throughout this entire post and I’M SORRY OKAY I’M A WHOLE ASS MESS LOVE YOU BYE

#brio fic #brio fanfiction #good girls fanfiction #fic recs #anon #asks #gg disk horse #i feel like i had jokes i wanted to make in the tags but now that im here i've totally forgotten them #ANYWAY the important takeaway here is #tell me what you like and why i want to know okay #send me recs #ME ME ME #hahahahaha jk #sort of

46 notes · View notes

geraniumsandheliotropes · 3 years

Text

Fic Recs

Remeber to give the authors some love!

ATLA

(hope that i'm able to be) all that you need by SmileHoney

Because that was the only outcome that Zuko could see. Sokka deserved someone who could give him all that he needed and wanted, and that person just… That person wasn’t Zuko, and that wasn’t going to change.

And so Sokka kept asking, and Zuko kept putting it off.

or,

Zuko’s struggle with being gay and asexual, as examined through the lens of his various relationships through the years.

Fathers and Sons by WinterSky101

Hakoda’s not sure exactly what's going on with the Fire Lord’s son, but given the way he avoids Hakoda with a passion and jumps every time he hears him speak, Hakoda doesn’t like the picture that's being painted.

lessons in tea making by aloneintherain

AU where Zuko realises early into his banishment that Ozai is an abusive bastard who sent him on a wild goose chase. Iroh turns their decommissioned warship into a floating tea shop, and Zuko settles down as a tea server onboard the Jasmine Dragon.

And then, years later, the Avatar emerges from the iceberg.

And then Aang decides that he wants Zuko, the first good firebender he’s met this century, to be his firebending teacher - even though Zuko wants nothing to do with him.

Based on this tumblr post.

Icarus, Point to the Sun by aeoleus

Zuko tries. Agni, he tries. Uncle wants so desperately for him to do the right thing, and he wants to, he does, he does, he does- So when the Water Tribe girl looks at him with wild eyes, begging for help, and Azula raises one eyebrow with a sneer, Zuko chooses.

Azula’s scream of anger when he blasts a fireball in her direction is almost worth the twenty Dai Li agents that immediately

Witcher

'like' it or not by shortcrust

I’m a Jaskier Rivia stan first and a person second

@whitewolfpackleader

Did @bardofficial win a Grammy? No. But he DID put his husband in a leather tunic for the red carpet and in that sense, we’re all winners tonight

They say he hungry by TheMalapert

According to Fae law if a human has a single bite or a single drink while in the Fae realm, that human can never leave.

They didn't exactly cover this in Jaskier's sex ed class.

Six of Crows

this city never sleeps at night by cheschi

ROLLINS STONE MAGAZINE

In this issue

Six of Crows: From break-ins to breakout stars, the band talks overnight success, music and madness, and everything in between.

Eddie Spaghetti once said, "Rock and roll keeps you in a constant state of juvenile delinquency."

That would explain a lot, as the dynamic within the band can only be described as a decidedly more aggressive version of The Breakfast Club. Namely: a lot of banter—most of which involves a lot of stinging and acerbic one-liners that are just waiting to be immortalized by the internet, enough hijinks to send any authority figure running, and a whole lot of waffles.

(or, the band au no one asked for but which I wrote anyway)

Marvel

Mostly Void, Partially Stars by Infinite_Monkeys

The Avengers' search for Loki takes them to a small town where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and the single mother of an eight-legged horse can join the PTA.

research and disaster by blueh

There should have been nothing remarkable about two people in a busy cafeteria, but Becket takes in the familiar sight of curly hair, brown eyes, and a t-shirt with a science pun on it talking animatedly alongside Actual Anthony Edward Stark and promptly drops his lunch.

He gapes for a solid second, seeing but not believing. It definitely doesn’t look like Mr. Stark is forcing the kid to leave, or firing him, or escorting him to security given the relaxed smiles on both of their faces. If anything, Becket thinks Mr. Stark looks rather proud.

“So, uh, Mr. Stark definitely knows Roomba-Kid,” Becket says and discreetly tilts his head in the direction of the pair.

“Oh my god,” Jess says. She almost sounds gleeful. “Oh my god, he’s not just some random kid. He’s Mr. Stark’s kid.”

or: the interns at Stark Industries have some questions about Peter Parker. The answers aren’t quite what they expect.

#fic recs #marvel #loki #spiderman #six of crows #soc #witcher #atla #avatar the last airbender #fics #mine

6 notes · View notes

erinptah · 4 years

Text

The Secret Commonwealth review: It was...pretty underwhelming, mostly

Finally got the audiobook of The Secret Commonwealth checked out from my local library!

(Here’s my review of its predecessor, La Belle Sauvage, if you want to start there.)

It’s 20 hours long. Whoof.

As for the contents…look, it was well-written prose. I didn’t get bored while listening. (Rereading that last review, I realized I’d written the same thing about the previous book, too.) But in retrospect, there sure was not a lot that happened in those 20 hours. Some notable action bits, in between a lot of padding.

And my reactions mostly consist of…complaints. Not “this is hideous, time to ragequit the series, this is an unqualified anti-rec” complaints, more a low-level churn of frustration.

(There’s one scene I know has made someone else outright refuse to read it, though, and I think it’s totally reasonable. More on that later.)

So I’m gonna try to unpack a bunch of it here. Hopefully in enough detail that, if you haven’t read it yet (and don’t mind spoilers), it can help you make an informed decision about whether it’s worth spending 20 hours of your life on.

Spoilers start here!

The Story

We open with Lyra as a 20-year-old student at St. Sophia’s, a women’s college in Oxford. She’s made some kinda-friends, including former booty calls that she’s still on good terms with, but she’s badly estranged from Pantalaimon.

Their rift is exacerbated by a couple of books she’s read that are popular with young intellectuals lately. One is a philosophy book, one is a novel, both of them seem broadly Ayn Randian in the sense that “teens/college kids get really into these books and decide it’s smart and fashionable to adopt their moral framework, ignoring both the logical failures and the ways in which this turns you into a horrible person.”

She’s been staying at Jordan between semesters, but political drama forces her to move, and that’s when Oakley Street swoops in to make contact. They’re the secret Magisterum-thwarting spy organization that Hannah Relf worked for in La Belle Sauvage. Employees now include Alice Lonsdale and Malcolm Polstead, who fill Lyra in on the events of the previous book.

Lyra crashes at Malcolm’s parents’ inn for a bit, but her fighting with Pan gets so bad that he takes off, leaving a note. He’s going to confront one of the authors of the fashionable/terrible books — who lives in Germany, so this could take a while.

Since Lyra can’t just hang around and go through the motions of a normal life while her daemon is visibly missing, she takes off too. First on a detour to the Gyptians, then on a sorta meandering cross-continental journey of her own.

Along the way, both Lyra and Pan keep uncovering new details about this ongoing side plot:

It turns out there’s a place, I think somewhere in the Middle East, where daemons can’t go — same as the area in the North that witches use for separation ordeals. If a human crosses that area, they arrive at the growing-place of a type of rose that won’t grow properly anywhere else, whose oil has the same effect as the seed-pod sap used by Mary Malone in the mulefa world — you can use it to make a Dust-viewing lens.

This rose oil can also be used to make all kinds of super-cool products, like the World’s Best Perfume and the World’s Best Rosewater, so it’s valuable for lots of reasons. But a few researchers have caught on to the Dust-viewing power, and the Magisterium has caught on that some dangerous research is happening with roses, so they’ve started destroying every rosebush they can find in the general region — wreaking havoc with the global economy in the process.

(They’re also trying to convince the general population that God Says Roses Are Immoral now. If this book had come out 5 years ago, I could’ve made some great connections with “there’s widespread successful Magisterium propaganda about how nobody should like or respect the work of botanists.”)

And there’s a related plot where Lyra’s uncle (she actually has one! Mrs. Coulter had a brother!) is playing a long game to re-consolidate as much Magisterium power as possible under a single individual. It gets us some good dramatic sequences…which I feel no need to break down here, because they’re exactly the ones you would imagine, with exactly the outcome you’re already expecting.

One of Uncle Wannabe-Pope’s employees is Bonneville Junior, the son of the miniboss from La Belle Sauvage. He’s a trained alethiometrist, but is more interested in his personal vendetta against Lyra than his actual job. Takes after Dad in that he’s not very deep or complex, just a straightforward fun-to-hate villain.

Pan eventually makes his way to the Terrible Author’s home, where he discovers that things are weird and creepy, but not very specific. Doesn’t achieve anything in particular, either. Disheartened, he sets off for the Region of the Weird Roses, with the idea he’ll meet Lyra there.

Lyra, meanwhile, has a notebook they recovered from an explorer who went to the Region of the Weird Roses. It includes a list of other (non-witch) people across the world who’ve been separated, because apparently they’re more common than you’d think, and have a secret support network. So she visits a few of these people along her trip, with an endgame goal of Weird Roseville.

Malcolm also makes his own journey toward Weird Roseville. I think it was part of an Oakley Street investigation into “what does the Magisterium have against roses these days?” In the middle of it, Bonneville Junior confronts him (Junior is having trouble finding Lyra, but has a secondary vendetta against Malcolm for killing his dad, so this is almost as good). Malcolm talks him down.

At last Lyra, Pan, and Junior all hit the same “creepy deserted town in the general area of Weird Roseville.” But none of them manage to interact before the book ends.

…In my LBS review, I said it had serious middle-of-the-trilogy syndrome, a whole lot of setup for no payoff. TSC spends very little time following up on any of it. To be fair, the Original Trilogy has happened in the meantime and this book also tries to address some of the events from that, but the vast bulk of it is even more setup for no payoff.

Complaints, Broadly Organized By Theme, In Loosely Chronological Order

Lyra at St. Sophia’s:

I really like how the opening sequence involves Lyra noticing a friend is in distress and helping her out! (Friend’s dad is in the rose-using business, and his company is going under.) And then…that’s the last we see of any connections with female friends her own age. In the entire book.

One of the Terrible Rationalist Books is spreading the idea that “daemons are a collective hallucination.” This is not a “rational” idea in this world! It would be like saying that faces are a collective hallucination!

And Lyra is the least likely person in this world to buy into it, because she’s visited a world without visible daemons, and got empirical proof (via Will’s and John Parry’s separation ordeals) that even under those conditions, they still exist!

I can appreciate the idea of Lyra and Pan being traumatized and scarred and having trouble, but this, specifically, is a nonsensical thing for them to argue over.

The book also gestures (not very hard, thankfully) toward the idea that Lyra is doubting the existence of magic in general. Which, again, is the equivalent of someone from our world deciding it’s rational to doubt the existence of weather.

Also, it seems like Lyra/Pan haven’t had any contact with witch society through these years. Why not? If anyone’s going to have sympathy and understanding and support groups for their separation-related trauma, it’s the culture where every single member formally goes through the same thing! And I’m sure Serafina would be delighted to see them! But they don’t even consider the idea.

Lyra and Malcolm:

Yes, they’re being telegraphed as a future couple, and yes, it’s just as creepy and unappealing as the internet has been saying.

And, look, I’m not going to say “20-year-old Lyra is too young to date anyone she wants.” Not after we got through all of Original Flavor HDM without saying “12-year-old Lyra is too young to go on an interdimensional journey with no adult supervision and save the multiverse.”

But he was one of her teachers when she was 16, and his POV includes remembering how he had to actively shut down sexual interest in her then, and here in the present Lyra still thinks of him as kind of a distant authority figure, and that’s weird, okay?

They only have a couple days’ worth of actual interaction before being apart for the rest of the book. That’s not enough time to believably develop their dynamic into something believably-potentially-romantic. So the narrative doesn’t try.

…but it still has multiple people ask Malcolm if he’s in love with Lyra afterward.

The foreshadowing on Lyra’s side is all in how she keeps thinking about how similar he is to Will. (Cat daemon, killed someone when he was a tween, etc.) Because that’s what we all want for Lyra’s romantic future, a knockoff Will-substitute, amirite?

Separately: Malcolm and friends tell Lyra the whole backstory about the magical boat trip from La Belle Sauvage, but it doesn’t seem like she tells them anything about “that time I went on an interdimensional journey, built a group of allies from multiple worlds and species including literal angels, killed God, and permanently rewrote the nature of death.” I feel like that should’ve come up!

General daemon stuff:

There’s a moment in the early chapters when Pan, wandering alone at night, considers eating some small critter (the kind that an ordinary pine marten would eat). It’s not like he’s going through a species-identity crisis, either. It’s just written as…a thing a daemon might do. So that’s weird.

In the original series, daemon separation is a major, improbable ordeal. Under normal circumstances, a human and a daemon being dragged apart past their distance limit will just kill them. At Bolvangar they figured out a severance method that would leave you physically functional, but dead inside. Witch-style separation only happens at this special daemon-repelling place in the North (you don’t have to be a witch to use it, see John Parry, but they usually don’t tell non-witches it exists), or on the shores of the World of the Dead. So far, so good.

In this series, we find out that there’s another place on this Earth with the same daemon-repelling properties. It’s also remote and isolated and associated with Cool Weird Stuff (the cities in the Northern Lights vs. the Dust-revealing roses). Again, so far, so good.

…And then we find out that random people can just kinda do a separation ordeal anywhere. Okay, it already happened to Malcolm in La Belle Sauvage, but now it’s all over the place. Lyra keeps spotting people on the street without daemons! Pan teams up with a kid who got dragged apart from her daemon in a shipwreck, and it didn’t kill them! It’s too easy. It’s unsatisfying. It undercuts so much of the monumental feeling separation had in the original trilogy.

It also makes it even weirder that nobody was able to hook Lyra and Pan up with a support group. Oakley Street couldn’t suss it out? Her friends among the Gyptians couldn’t catch an underground rumor and pass it on?

Related: when we saw daemonless kids in The Golden Compass, they were treated like horror-movie monsters. Like zombies, ghosts, bodies walking around without heads. But when people clock Lyra as being daemonless here, they treat it like it’s something immoral. Like she’s walking around topless and needs to cover it up.

There’s just a general pattern of rewriting HDM’s established rules about daemons, and not for the better.

And speaking of rewriting established rules…general alethiometer stuff:

There is a New Method for reading the alethiometer. It involves pointing all three hands at the same symbol, which already seems like a gimmick, not a useful way to frame a question.

And somehow, that gets you the answers in the form of…magic visions. No intuition or interpretation needed! The sights and sounds just get funneled directly into your brain!

The reason this isn’t a Plot-Breaking Hack is because it makes the user super-queasy. You can only use it when you’re in a position to be sick afterward, and people would rather not use it at all.

Lyra spends most of the story with the alethiometer, and without all the symbology books that go with it. She avoids using the New Method because of the nausea, but she also avoids using the Classic Method, on the grounds that it apparently can’t get her anything without the books.

She’s been studying these books for years now! Couldn’t she at least try to read it, and make her best guess at the interpretation? Maybe sometimes she gets it right, maybe sometimes she’s wrong and things go sideways and she realizes in hindsight which of the symbols she misread, maybe sometimes she gives up and gets depressed and puts it away without drawing a conclusion at all…but nope, she just flat-out doesn’t interact with it.

Midway through the book, Lyra gets a tipoff about a kind of truth-reading cards. That’s fine; we know there are other methods of truth-reading in the multiverse, including the I Ching and Mary Malone’s computer. Makes sense as a new tidbit of worldbuilding.

But towards the end of the story, someone helpfully gifts Lyra a deck of the cards. And she spends some time trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the cards fit together. More time than she spends trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the alethiometer fit together.

The alethiometer didn’t need a New Method or a total replacement in the narrative…but apparently it’s getting them.

And what was the point of Lyra dedicating herself to studying those symbols, for years, if she can get better and more-accurate data from a set of symbols she’d never seen before until this week?

Pan’s international voyage:

This all started when Pan got the idea that Terrible Author had “put a spell on Lyra and stolen her imagination.” Which sounds like a figure of speech at first, but no, apparently Pan thinks this guy is literally magic.

And yet, somehow, not magic enough to be dangerous, even for a single lone daemon whose only plan is “confront him directly and demand that he fix it”?

Most of the trip is uneventful, since it’s a long string of Pan successfully keeping out-of-sight.

There’s one clever part where, once he’s in Terrible Author’s hometown, he finds a school for the blind to ask for information. That way he can say “my girl is totally standing right over there, don’t worry about it, now, any chance you know where Terrible Author lives?”

…of course, the first person he asks has exactly the right answer and is happy to share. Convenient, that.

As mentioned, Terrible Author’s setup is suitably creepy and off-putting, but Pan doesn’t figure out anything about why. Doesn’t investigate. Didn’t come up with any kind of plan beforehand about how to coax Terrible Author into undoing his evil spell. Pan just confronts him, demands he fix Lyra, realizes this hasn’t fixed Lyra, and leaves.

There’s a bombshell much later on when Lyra finds out that Terrible Author is separated! And, although there’s a daemon who hangs around with him, they don’t actually belong to each other! This is fascinating and disturbing and would’ve been so much more satisfying if, you know, Pan had figured this out and was actively trying to bring the information to Lyra. Or, heck, if anything had been done with it at all.

Shortly afterward, Pan runs into this girl who just happens to be separated from her daemon, and is available and happy to team up with Pan, so they can head off to Weird Roseville together. Convenient. Again.

Lyra’s Bogus Journey:

Lyra has a much harder time staying out of sight than Pan, so she gets a lot more interaction along her trip.

Most of it is a long string of the same convenient “running into people who are helpful and friendly and have exactly the information she needs to move the plot along.” (More details on that below.)

When this happened in the original trilogy, it was the alethiometer deus-ex-machining her in the right direction, which worked! But here it seems to keep happening by accident. (She brings the alethiometer, but, as mentioned, she doesn’t use it.)

The Conveniently Helpful People also keep telling her (with minimal prompting, and what seems like total honesty?) whole backstories. All of which are more interesting than the actual narrative she’s going through.

They also occasionally mention God/the Authority, and Lyra doesn’t have much of a reaction. I wish, just once, she had snapped “it doesn’t matter what the Authority thinks! Or rather, what he used to think, since my boyfriend and I killed him when we were 12!”

The convenience also could’ve worked if Oakley Street agents were being cool and clever and actively tracking her journey in order to help. She does run into a few of them, but that seems to be by accident too.

And it could’ve worked if there was other magic steering her along — she keeps dropping the phrase “the secret commonwealth,” meaning the world’s hidden population of faeries and other supernatural creatures — but as of the end of the book, none of Lyra’s friendly helpers have been revealed to be anything other than human. (Some are modified in exotic ways, but they were human to start with, at least.)

Even farther towards the end of the book, after this long string of people being Conveniently Helpful For No Reason, she ends up in a train car with…and I wish I was making this up…a bunch of soldiers who are Inconveniently Attempted Rapists For No Reason.

That record-scratch moment your brain just did? That’s how it feels in the book, too. The attack comes out of nowhere, there’s suddenly a big action sequence with Lyra fighting back, their CO shows up and makes them let her go, and then she leaves the train and heads almost directly to the next bunch of Conveniently Helpful People.

If anyone wants more detailed spoilers, either to be prepared before reaching the scene or to decide whether you’ll read it at all, let me know.

To be blunt about one thing: from the in-scene descriptions I would’ve said none of these guys actually managed to get their dicks out, but a few days later we get the book’s first and only reference to Lyra having periods. And she doesn’t think “oh, thank republic-of-heavens, I’m not pregnant,” which suggests she knew it wasn’t a risk, but the whole Narrative Reason you write that in after an assault scene is because someone is afraid it’s a risk, so, what are you even doing, Pullman??

Okay, switching tracks.

Some of the people Lyra encounters, usually with personal stories that are way more interesting, and I wish they’d been [part of] the actual main plot:

A guy who meets her at a train station, says he has a friend who needs her help, leads her out into a maze of city streets where she explicitly thinks about how risky this is because she’s totally lost…but she does the mission and it’s fine and he leads her right back to the train station afterward.

The friend is a human who’s been modified by “a magician” to be some kind of fire-elemental person, and wants Lyra to help find his daemon, who was modified into a water-elemental form — a mermaid! This is cool and fascinating and scary and raises so many questions —

— and they get killed immediately after Lyra reunites them, and we never find out anything more about it.

The killer is the magician, who had been holding the water-sprite daemon captive. (And is possibly also the guy’s father? Finally, someone who can beat Marisa and Asriel in a “Bad Parenting Juice” drinking contest.) Which, again, is fascinating and evocative — how do you become a magician? Or are they born, like the witches? How many are there? What kinds of things are they doing in the world? —

— yeah, we don’t find out anything about that either.

Murderous Magician Dad just gives Lyra some helpful plot information, then sends her and the train-station guy off on their way.

A couple of guys who intervene when Lyra is being harassed at a bar.

They steer her outside, she’s prepared for a fight, but they hold up their hands and say they’re friendly, and also, they noticed someone steal the alethiometer bag off her earlier, so here, would she like it back?

They give her some helpful rumors, too. Don’t remember which specific ones, but they lead her to the next plot point.

A rich elderly princess who’s on the Daemonless International Support Group list, because her daemon fell in love (!) with another woman (!!) and eventually ran off with her (!!!).

Lyra thinks to herself that she’s seen other situations where a daemon and their human have different feelings about a romance. Just thinks it in passing, and then it’s gone. I want to see these situations! I want on-page exploration of multiple ways they can work! How do they correspond to the feelings of people in worlds where all the daemons are internal?

As for the princess, I already knew it was going to be a big scandal — two human women in that day and age could never be a couple, at least not in public, and A Literal Princess is a very public figure —

but then, in spite of the scandal, the princess moves in with the woman! And they travel together, they work together, they share a bed, she explains to Lyra that she played the role so thoroughly she made herself fall in love with the woman!

…and then it falls apart for some reason, and the princess leaves, but her daemon insists on staying. So that’s how they get separated. Deliberately walking away from each other.

There’s a brief reference to the idea of him wishing he was the other woman’s daemon, instead of the princess’s. How does that work? How do you get so disconnected from yourself, and in such a skewed partial-match with someone else, that you end up with that kind of yearning?

In case you can’t tell, I want to read this novel. I would trade the entirety of The Secret Commonwealth for this novel. No question, hands down.

Instead: Princess says “if you run into my daemon, tell him I’d like to see him again before we die?” Lyra says “sure, can do, thanks for the brunch.” And then, you guessed it, that whole scene is over and done with and we never get any follow-up on it again.

A pair of agents from Oakley Street, who say “hey, Lyra, have you considered using some basic disguise techniques, like dyeing your hair and wearing glasses?”

And then they give her a lovely haircut and a dye job and a spare pair of fake glasses.

This isn’t anywhere near the beginning of Lyra’s journey, by the way! This is more than 80% of the way through the book. There’s no special reason she needs it more after this point.

It’s like Pullman suddenly realized a disguise might help, wrote the scene at the point he had reached, and then never went back and edited to put it in a more meaningful location.

The stranger on a train who shows Lyra the deck of “exactly the same as an alethiometer” cards, gives her a demonstration of how to use them, and then leaves the whole deck behind for her to keep.

A married couple who don’t share any languages in common with Lyra, and don’t seem to have a lot of money…but feed her and let her stay at their house overnight, for free, even daemonless as she is. They also give her a free niqab so she can move around less conspicuously (she’s still injured from the fight with the soldiers).

A priest who invites her into his church, isn’t bothered when she takes off the niqab, helps treat her injuries, and gives her a motherlode of useful details about highly-illegal dealings he’s not even supposed to know about, but will unveil to this total stranger who just wandered in, because she needs them for the next plot point.

This when Lyra finds out that someone in this region has resurrected the Bolvangar method. But this time they aren’t kidnapping random children for it. No, they’re paying for it. If you’re poor enough, and desperate enough, and can’t spare any more kidneys, these people will buy your daemon to sell on the black market.

The city has a whole secret underclass of illegally-severed people working in the sewers.

Meanwhile, rich people who’ve been deserted by their daemons can purchase a stand-in. This is what Terrible Author did. Of course, it’s not a true replacement, but the dealers boast about their ability to make an excellent match.

There are also people who buy separated daemons for other scientific/experimental purposes. Details left to our imaginations.

This is a horrifying sinister mindblowing discovery, as much of a bombshell as the original Bolvangar was. I mean, it would’ve hit harder if Lyra had uncovered it by spying, or tricking someone into revealing the information, or anything more elaborate than “asking straightforward sorta-related questions and getting this whole sordid story infodumped by the first guy she asked,” but it’s still big.

So it’s gonna shake things up something fierce, right? Maybe Lyra won’t go full-on “calling in the cavalry to tear the place down” until Book 3, but this would be her new “stepping through the doorway into the sky” moment — where the horror of what she’s learned galvanizes her into making a pivotal decision, where she starts laying the groundwork for the revolution —

— no, of course not, this is where she starts going around to the hideouts of various undercover daemon-sellers and asking if they can help her find Pan.

Come on.

And this brings us to the end of the book. One of the black-market daemon-sellers guides Lyra to the creepy abandoned town where the final scene takes place.

In these last moments, the audience (but not Lyra) finds out that this guy has ulterior motives. Which would make it the first time in the whole book when “Lyra or Pan takes a Conveniently Helpful Person at face value with total credulity” turns out to be a bad idea.

(And, I mean, he’s a black-market daemon-seller. If anyone on that list was obviously an unethical scumball who shouldn’t be counted on….!)

Finally, a few things that don’t fit into any neat lists, but annoyed me enough to mention:

1) People curse in this book. Which is notable because they didn’t in HDM, and it wasn’t just the adults watching their mouths around tween Lyra — we got plenty of scenes that only had people like Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel in them. Those two would definitely be dropping f-bombs if it was a routine part of their world’s language, and this book reveals that it is.

So every time it happens it breaks your immersion, pointedly reminding you “this isn’t a real world, it’s a fake story where the author can switch the profanity-filter on and off at will.” Does it enhance the narrative in a way that’s worth the tradeoff? I don’t think so.

2) Before I read the book, I’d heard vague spoilers about “a character with a mermaid daemon,” and figured it was someone from a cool magical species — hopefully more expansion/exploration on the fairy from La Belle Sauvage whose daemon appeared to be “a whole flock of butterflies.”

But no, it’s a magically-modified human. His situation doesn’t get explored that deeply before he dies, or connect with anything else in the story. The fairy, meanwhile, does get mentioned when Malcolm tells Lyra about meeting her, but she doesn’t reappear or get any kind of follow-up.

In spite of the title, the only explicit appearance of any members of the “secret commonwealth” is some little glowing spirits, basically wights, that Lyra watches over the side of a gyptian boat one time.

3) There’s a scene where a bunch of people gather in a meeting hall to protest the Magisterium sabotaging their various rose-related livelihoods. A couple Magisterium reps are there. Malcolm is also there, and his POV basically goes “huh, looks like all the exits have gotten the doors shut. And barred. And suddenly they each have an armed Magisterium agent standing in front of them. That’s weird. Gonna keep quietly observing to find out what happens next.”

This guy is supposed to be a cool experienced anti-Magisterium spy! This is basically a giant neon sign flashing COMING UP NEXT: MASSACRE! (It is not a misdirect, either.)

And Malcolm sees it, but doesn’t read it, or take any action to try to subvert it, or even move to defend himself — it’s just like any cheesy horror movie where the audience is shouting LOOK BEHIND YOU at the unwitting character who’s about to get murdered.

Wrap-Up Thoughts

Whatever happens in the final volume of this trilogy, it might reveal things that redeem some of the problems in this book. But I’ll be honest, I’m not holding my breath.

And when I think about reveals that would address these problems, everything I come up with is stuff that should’ve just been in this book.

For example: let’s say the Fair Folk are directly involved after all, intervening to steer Lyra and Pan down the most convenient paths. In particular, the guy on the train who only appears long enough to give Lyra a set of alethiometry cards + a tutorial on how to use them — I really want him to be Fae. It’s so contrived and random if he’s not.

But the readers should know about it! Back in HDM, we would get scenes about the plans and activities of all the other factions at work. It might take a while to discover the exact details of (for example) the witches’ ultimate goal that Lyra was part of, but we knew they had a goal, and were supporting her in service of it. If the Secret Commonwealth is actively involved in the plot, we should’ve gotten that by now.

Semi-related: I feel like, if the rest of the book was better, then I’d have no trouble explaining a lot of the Lyra-specific issues as “she’s super-depressed, not in a place to make great choices or take a lot of decisive action.”

But it’s not like she’s drifting around in a trauma fog that hampers her ability to get things done. Her journey, while not perfect or threat-free, still comes together with improbable smoothness — as if the writing hasn’t noticed that she’s not being proactive and prescient and well-coordinated and overall super-competent about it. Meanwhile, other characters are underwhelming in the same way. (Looking at you, Malcolm “I Can’t Believe It’s Now a Bloodbath” Polstead.)

So it doesn’t seem like a conscious narrative choice to write Lyra this way. It just seems consistent with the complaints I have about everything else in the writing.

…let’s be honest, I’m almost certainly gonna read the third book anyway. I’m enough of a completist that it’ll bother me not to, I don’t have a lot of hard-stop dealbreakers that would make me bow out anyway, and, well, I do a lot of work that requires time-passing listening material. The Secret Commonwealth is nowhere near the most-frustrating audio I’ve used to fill that time.

But it hasn’t left me excited or optimistic or Shivering With Anticipation, either.

Mostly I just anticipate getting some useful stuff done while I listen, and then having a final set of reactions to work through in another one of these posts.

#His Dark Materials #HDM #The Book of Dust #The Secret Commonwealth #tsc spoilers #review

18 notes · View notes

qobiin · 5 years

Text

weekly fic rec hoard

here's what i've been enjoying reading (and re-reading) this past week for different fandoms across the board! this week features: atla, bnha, good omens, harry potter, marvel, naruto and stranger things ♡ means: all-time fave, (m) means: 18+ themes

avatar: the last airbender

♡ first rule of earth kingdom fight club... series by ohmygodwhy zuko, his stubborn inability to die, and finding himself thru getting his ass kicked

The Most Ragged Edges by twinfinite In hindsight, Zuko really should have seen this conversation coming. He can almost hear Li and Lo chanting wickedly about the magic of Ember Island, about waves smoothing away rough edges…

♡ ribs by ohmygodwhy The first thing Zuko tells him during their first lesson after the whole Sun Warrior ruins ordeal, is “Fire comes from the breath.” a lesson in learning, and re-learning.

♡ see your son rising at last by aloneintherain When Zuko dashes into the sitting room, it is with the same wide-eyed panic that he ran from Azula’s smoking hands when he was a child. Iroh bites down on a smile. Zuko looks the same, even now, a decade later with a scar blossomed over one side of his face, green and brown robes replacing the solitary reds of his childhood. His hair is puffed up around his face. He looks like a very frightened, very windswept turtle-dove. Zuko dives behind Iroh just as Aang breezes to a stop in the doorway. Five times Zuko hid behind Iroh, plus one time Zuko stood proudly in front of him.

♡ the beginning of a new and brighter birth by aloneintherain “I’m so proud of you, my nephew.” Uncle cups Zuko’s face in his lined hand. The gesture is so tender, his palm so warm, that Zuko has to take a fortifying breath against the sudden swell of emotion in his chest. “I want to be a good leader, Uncle,” Zuko says. “I want to look after my people.” “You will,” Uncle says. “You are, nephew.” In a new era of peace, Zuko works to be a very different Fire Lord than his forefathers.

boku no hero academia

the stars are floating and we are flying by lunalou Aizawa starts walking towards the exit, obviously expecting Shouto to follow him, but Shouto's feet are frozen in place. His eyes flicker from the distorted reflection of himself in the ice to where All Might is giving him a long look, eyes kinder than anything Todoroki has ever been deserving of, and he feels sick. “Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says gently, squeezing his arm in what Shouto presumes is meant to be a reassuring gesture. “It’s going to be okay.” He doesn’t think Midoriya is in any place to tell him what okay is, all things considered, but he chooses to keep quiet on the matter.

♡ I’ll share this with you, so leave it behind by yabakuboi For the sake of the story, All Might is never in need of a successor, and, when Izuku saves Katsuki from the sludge monster, encourages young Midoriya down a different path. Thus, Katsuki and Izuku part ways after junior high, as Katsuki enters U.A. and the Midoriyas move overseas. It’s later that Katsuki realizes that there’s something missing, that he drove that something away. Years after, Katsuki finds him in the last place he looks, in the cereal aisle at the local grocery store of their childhood neighborhood.

Loose lips Sail ships by Yousayhun Bakugou is at war with his own fucking mouth and everyone else just seems to be having the time of their lives.

♡ flare guns go off in my head saying not to call you this late by youreanovelidea Midoriya beams at him and Tokoyami is suddenly hit with the urge to look away. “So bright,” he mutters under his breath, low enough that Midoriya can’t hear him. (or, Midoriya is a problem child who just really loves his friends)

(m) The Devil Blues by iknewaman The 78th precinct's police captain, Toshinori Yagi, has volunteerd his squad to help implement the mayor's wish of increasing the successful cooperation between the city police and active Pro-Heroes. Each detective is to be assigned a Pro-Hero who will shadow them for two weeks, and the operation has been dubbed the 'Station Cooperation Operation'. Although it is not well-received by those involved, Izuku Midoriya, current detective at the 78th precinct and loyal follower of captain Toshinori's ideals, believes that the operation will be a success. If his captain says it will succeed, there isn't a doubt in Izuku's mind that it will. That is until he meets his assigned Pro-Hero.

♡ someone is wrong on the internet by rhenna It’s been a long day. By all rights, Izuku should be falling into bed, half dead. But instead of sleeping, he’s hunched over his laptop at 2 in the morning writing a dissertation about why exactly Ground Zero’s pecs are the best pecs to ever pec, and how dare anyone insinuate that he should lose some of that muscle because don’t you even understand what kind of physique a quirk like that requires? Amateurs. (Izuku has two jobs in this world: pro-hero and anonymous president of the Ground Zero fan club. What could possibly go wrong?)

good omens

♡ Divine Intervention (aka God ships it) by TheLadyZepher There’s a battle strategy devised by humans many millennia ago that's designed to overcome an adversary who is particularly well entrenched. Some walls are too tall and thick for a frontal assault, and must instead be bested through sheer dogged stubbornness. Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t know it, but they were about to be put under siege. Fed up with an angel and a demon who are still avoiding any talk of Feelings, God starts to interfere. When it comes to the ineffable plan, sometimes things need a bit of a push.

♡ Slow by write_away It started like this: A boy with the ability to warp reality met an angel and a demon and he made assumptions. You might say it started like this: An angel and a demon found a marriage contract hung on the wall of the angel's bookshop. They didn't question it. It also could have started like this: Once upon a time, the angel told the demon he went too fast. The demon took it to heart. Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves somehow married. Crowley fears going too fast. Aziraphale forges ahead. Neither know how to ask questions of each other.

♡ Eziraphael’s Gifts: A History of Queer Faith and Longing, by Natasha Marie Johnson (Beacon Press, 2019). by actualbat "If Eziraphael has come to be known--in today's language--as the 'guardian angel of sad queers,' then it makes sense for him to have shown up more regularly in the past once that became a recognizable historical category." Natasha is really glad that she's given this talk enough times to be able to do it on autopilot, because those two funny-looking men in the back just made the most absurdly astonished faces. (Or: Not all historians ignore gay subtext, and not all immortal celestial beings have their shit together. Also, voodoo.)

harry potter

♡ Apple Slices and Cocoa by FeathersMcStrange Harry Potter is an abused kid with not an adult in the world on his side when Molly Weasley meets him. She decides right then and there that if nobody else is going to try and take care of this boy, then dammit, she's going to.

hello goodbye (’twas nice to know you) by tamerofdarkstars Draco Malfoy thinks he might know whose thoughts are scrawling themselves on his skin, but that's crazy. Impossible, even. It has to be a mistake. - Self-indulgent soulmate AU where the thoughts of your soulmate inscribe themselves on your skin in a shifting magic tattoo

♡ (m) Men Who Love Dragons Too Much by fencer_x, IDoodleForNoodles ‘Kill Albus Dumbledore’ is less a challenging task and more a suicide mission, so when Draco Malfoy is presented with the option to either dispatch his Headmaster or suffer an excruciating and most ignominious death of his own, along with his parents, he reaches deep into his black little Slytherin heart and manages to scrape together enough courage to go with option C instead: Spend Sixth Year secretly studying Animagecraft in the hopes he’ll turn into something sufficiently imposing even the Dark Lord himself won’t be able to keep Draco under his thumb. But just his luck, his Animagus form turns out to be a dragon, and a rather randy juvenile at that, intent on finding its mate: one Harry James Potter.

marvel

♡ Hard to Love by Gruoch If someone had told May that Iron Man himself would one day occasionally show up uninvited to her quiet little apartment and intrude into her quiet little life, she would have laughed them out of the room. But then her life seems chock-full of unpleasant surprises these days. Or, Tony Stark wants a bigger piece of the pie. May Parker learns to accept help. Peter just wants to keep the peace.

♡ Mr. Parker Declined to Comment by apisdn The events leading up to the embarrassing moments during the Doomed Field trip, and how Peter Parker accidentally ended up in charge of things. All the while the political machine moves on, the Avengers do not kiss and make up, and the future draws ever closer.

Another No-Good Field Trip by Muimor Peter Parker is not having a good day. AKA, Where Peter's decathlon team take a field trip to the Avengers Compound, Vision's a menace, and Peter really doesn't want to go.

naruto

(m) Resonance by flailinginlove After being hit by a missing-nin's jutsu, Kakashi's chakra is never the same again.

♡ (m) What Otter Nonsense by DarkAuroran “Is that an otter?” Iruka asks as large, sable eyes blink at him and a little whiskered nose twitches curiously. “That’s an otter. Why do you have an otter?” “I can’t tell you,” Kakashi says with a great amount of dignity for a man cradling a baby otter in armoured gloves. “Classified Jounin mission business.”

♡ Learning Curve by ishiryoku This is the life she chose: the path of the shinobi. It's either roll with the punches or be left behind by her team—and Sakura's not about to let them go off on their own.

♡ Roots and Wings by ideaoforder When Naruto is kidnapped from his orphanage at age three, Kakashi is so done with this shit. He gets Naruto back, tells the Hokage where to go (politely, because he isn't suicidal), and raises the boy himself. Or, you know, tries and is proud when there aren't too many explosions. Then everybody starts to copy him and it's a whole thing.

stranger things

In Which Starcourt Is a Pun by asexual-fandom-queen (writeordietrying) “Welcome to Scoops Ahoy. Do you know what you want?” Nancy and Jonathan visit the Starcourt Mall and corner Steve at his place of work with their feelings, but in an awkward, this-is-still-the-1980s-so-we-can't-be-too-direct kind of way.

♡ my father comes and he goes by mjolnirbreaker So, for Max, he doesn’t punch Billy Fucking Hargrove. He just sits there in sweltering heat and listens to the C’s being announced, and when parents cheer for their kids he tries not to think about how his parents are currently in Colorado.

♡ it’s a risk, it’s a gamble by nondz (pinkjook) “I think we should pretend to date,” Robin says. "What?" Steve answers.

one of those new wave boys by glorious_spoon It probably should feel more awkward than it does. (Or: Steve and Robin go on a road-trip, drink, listen to music, and look after each other. And yeah, maybe there's some cuddling involved too.)

wanna rec me something? head over to my ask or submission boxes! message me even, i don't really mind (:

and to all my fellow authors who may feel a little down about not getting onto rec lists, this is for you:

#fic rec hoard #bookshelf #fic recs #atla #bnha #good omens #hp #marvel #naruto #stranger things #the gaang #bakudeku #ineffable husbands #drarry #irondad #kakairu #stoncy #mostly gen stuff honestly

10 notes · View notes

armadil-lo · 5 years

Text

if when he sees me (3/6)

PREVIOUS // FIRST

Chapter Summary: He thinks about Shitty Hair a lot. Stupid things remind him of the other boy all the time - the colour red suddenly seems to be everywhere, and fine, it does fucking make him smile.

Being scared, however? That doesn’t sit right with Katsuki. Bakugou Katsuki isn’t scared of anything, least of all facing some stupid crush.

My Notes: thank you all so so much for your patience while waiting for this chapter guys. i'm incredibly sorry for the almost four-month-long wait, but i must yet again make no promises on when the next update will be. motivation is fickle and i've always been terrible at juggling my responsibilities with my creative projects. i hope that the length and content of this chapter made up for the wait though <3

oh yeah. and happy birthday bakugou ;)

Words: 6420

AO3

Deku is practically hanging all over Katsuki as soon as he walks in the door.

Him and his half-and-half boyfriend are sitting on the couch in the living room when Katsuki gets home that night, watching something together. Deku looks up from where his head had been leaning on Todoroki’s shoulder. His eyes flicker from Katsuki, to the clock on the wall, and back again.

��You’re home pretty late, Kacchan,” he comments with a small smile. “Did they need you at the diner for a bit longer?”

“I went for a walk,” Katsuki replies flatly, heading over to the kitchen with his groceries.

“And bought food, I see,” Deku continues and Katsuki rolls his eyes. Todoroki also looks up from the television now, fixing him with a neutral expression but eyes glinting in curiosity. Because, of course, his flatmate knows better than anyone what his eating habits have been like recently - or rather, how he hasn’t been taking care of himself that well.

“I felt like fucking cooking, is that a crime?” Katsuki dumps his bags on the counter and glares at the couple.

“No,” Deku says. “Do you have enough for the three of us, by any chance? Shouto and I hadn’t made plans for dinner yet.”

Katsuki scoffs. “You’re a fucking leech, Deku.” He busies himself with unpacking the food he bought, filling up his shelves in the fridge and cupboard for the first time since the start of the summer. Neither of them say anything else, but he can feel their eyes on him.

After a moment, Katsuki sighs.

“Only if you help me chop the fucking vegetables,” he finally growls.

Deku hops up from the couch immediately, rushing over into the kitchen with a stupid fucking grin on his face.

“How is it that you’re always fucking here when I don’t even live with you anymore?” Katsuki grouches, begrudgingly handing the green-haired boy a bag of carrots.

“It’s your fault for introducing me to Shouto, Kacchan,” Deku states mildly. And the IcyHot bastard blows him a kiss from across the apartment, making Katsuki want to gag.

The two of them get to work making dinner together with minimal trouble. They’ve always been able to work well together when it came down to things, though their relationship is a lot less volatile now than it had been in middle school, or even early high school. Cooking together is easy - and, though Katsuki would loathe to admit it, something he’s actually missed since he and Deku lived together in their first year at Yuuei University.

Deku is adding the last ingredients to the stir-fry when Katsuki’s phone buzzes on the kitchen bench. He ignores it at first, but then it goes off again, and again in even intervals. A phone call.

He frowns, because there’s only one person that regularly calls him nowadays. Katsuki picks up his phone.

Ma, the contact on the screen reads.

He hits decline and places the cell face down.

“You’re still dodging her calls?” Deku asks quietly. Because of course he read the name on the phone over the blonde’s shoulder. Katsuki grunts in the affirmative. “She probably just wants to know how you’re doing, Kacchan.”

“I couldn’t fucking care less what she wants,” he snaps, jaw clenched.

“Okay.” Deku holds his hands up in defense. There’s a pause as Deku watches him mixing the vegetables and rice with maybe a little too much vigor. He holds his hand out for the wooden spoon. “Here, Kacchan, let me,” he offers gently.

Katsuki imagines for a moment how he would’ve reacted to this treatment five years ago. He probably would’ve blown up in Deku’s face, yelling and screaming. He might have even punched him back then, completely and utterly offended at the thought of his enemy looking down on him.

Now though, he makes eye contact with his friend, keeping his face guarded even if he knows Deku can read him like a book. Katsuki likes to think he’s still stubborn, but he relents after only a second at the expression on Deku’s face, handing the spoon over and stepping aside to let him finish off the cooking.

“So,” Deku starts after a minute, changing the subject. He glances up, a certain cheek in his smile now that Katsuki definitely doesn’t like.

“What?” he demands from where he’s grabbing plates and cutlery for the three of them.

“How’s Kirishima doing today?”

Katsuki nudges him sharply with his elbow, making the other boy merely chuckle. “None of your fucking business, nerd.”

“So then you have talked to him today?” he persists, smile growing by the second.

“Fucking hell. Yes, I have talked to that goddamn idiot,” Katsuki admits, stomping the few steps over to the table to set it up.

“Interesting,” Todoroki hums, moving from the sofa to the dining table, the tiniest of quirk to his lips.

“You shut the fuck up, IcyHot,” Katsuki seethes, feeling his cheeks get warm. “We literally just talked about what fucking gym he should go to.”

It’s not the whole truth though, because he’d been messaging Kirishima for pretty much the entire hour on his way home, and the conversation had taken many ridiculous turns in that time. He’s not going to let the two of them know that, however.

“Did you tell him about the Riot Rec Center?” Deku asks.

“Of course I fucking did.”

“But you know you could bump into him there, Kacchan, if you suggested he go to your regular gym?” Deku points out.

Katsuki thinks about it for a second. Admittedly, that hadn’t crossed his mind earlier, but he can’t really see it being a problem. “Unlikely,” he snorts, unphased. “Shitty Hair seemed pretty fucking interested in the rock climbing wall, and he’s probably more into weightlifting anyway. The RRC is huge, there’s no way we’d cross paths even if we are there at the same damn time. I don’t think he’s much of a swimmer, so he’d be nowhere near the fucking pool.”

“I can just imagine it. Bakugou would fall off the treadmill if he saw his mystery man there, Izuku,” the half-and-half asshole says, properly smirking now.

“Mystery man? Where do you get off, fucker?” Katsuki scowls at his flatmate. The couple both ignore him.

“I actually think Kacchan is the mystery man in this situation, Shouto. He is the one refusing to meet Kirishima after all.” The other asshole actually nods in agreement at that.

“I’ve already told you why I’m not meeting him, Deku!” he cries. “It’s a stupid idea to meet strangers from the internet - he doesn’t even fucking know me!”

“It seems like you’re starting to know him though,” Todoroki chimes in, “if you think you can peg him as being a weightlifter over a swimmer. Spend a lot of time admiring his muscles, hm, Bakugou?”

“What the fuck, Todoroki? He only has one blurry fucking photo on his profile!” he splutters.

Katsuki knows he must be bright red by now. Because he can’t deny that he has spent some time looking at the one picture he has of Kirishima. It seems like a group photo that’s been cropped and zoomed in so much it’s lost all definition, nothing much more discernible than a toothy smile and his offensive hair. His muscles aren’t really visible in it anyway - that was more an observation of his character and the things he’d been saying about the gym earlier.

“I bet you wish there were more pictures,” Deku sing-songs, finally coming over to serve up the food.

“Oh my god, fuck off! Both of you!”

The grilling about Kirishima doesn’t stop through dinner. The couple doesn’t get any more information out of him, but their teasing successfully grates on his nerves enough that he storms straight to his room as soon as he’s done eating.

And of course, because there’s nobody else to tell, the first thing he does is text Kirishima about it.

Bakugou (7:23): He’s just so fucking annoying about it. Acting as if me talking to you is the most exciting thing in his life right now.

Kirishima (7:23): and this is your best friend? >.>

Bakugou (7:24): Well. Yeah. But don’t fucking tell Deku that. He’d probably cry, knowing him, the nerd.

Kirishima (7:24): aw, he sounds sweet! ^.^ you said you’ve known him since you were kids?

Katsuki worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He’s been trying this whole time not to give too much information about himself to Kirishima, yet here he is venting about something that happened in his personal life. Telling him about Deku is fine though, Katsuki reasons. It’s a friendship Katsuki no longer shies away from, is comfortable discussing.

(And anyway, Deku isn’t even the nerd’s real name, so it’s not like Kirishima could track him down and hurt him to get to Katsuki if he did turn out to be some sort of psycho murderer.)

He deems it a safe subject for the time being, and replies again.

Bakugou (7:25): Toddlers actually. We grew up in the same neighbourhood.

Kirishima (7:26): he’s probably just happy for you, katsuki! if you’ve only had the one best friend for your whole life, then i reckon he’s pretty proud of you for finally branching out a bit! and i gotta say that i’m pretty happy that it’s me :D

Katsuki bites down on his lip, frowning. That feels wrong somehow. Sure, the green-haired idiot might be proud of him or whatever. But it feels like a lie to have Kirishima believe things between him and Deku have always been like this. Their explosive relationship in school was a large part of his reputation, and played a huge role in many people’s first impressions of him. It’s kind of always been something people just knew about, and suddenly it’s weird that Kirishima doesn’t.

Bakugou (7:28): That’s... not entirely correct.

Kirishima (7:28): ?? what do you mean? O.o

And so he types. Tells Kirishima the truth. All of it.

Katsuki used to be a piece of shit to Deku. He knows it, Deku knows it. Uraraka witnessed the tail end of things in high school, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Todoroki had been told about it by now too.

He mentions their rocky childhood - a feeling of superiority as a youngster, only accentuated by the praise he’d receive from teachers, lead to him seeing Deku as weak, as lesser. The bullying was almost arbitrary; a shove here, a mock there. Mostly though, he tells Kirishima about middle and high school. Because no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get rid of the nerd. And it grated on him. How scared Deku was of him sometimes and yet how determined he’d be at others. How the insults and threats grew worse, more serious, punctuated now with physical altercations here and there too. Eventually everything boiled over though. The stresses of school, adolescence and home life piled up for the both of them, until a brutal physical and verbal fight in the middle of the night brought things to some sort of resolution. They had a mutual understanding after that somehow, that turned into civility over time, and friendship a couple years later. Deku may have forgiven Katsuki for the things he did and said all that time ago, but Katsuki himself has not forgotten.

He presses send without re-reading the message, then flops down on his bed and tosses his phone off to the side to wait for Shitty Hair’s reaction. Katsuki throws an arm over his eyes with a heavy sigh. He’s not really sure why he told Kirishima that. He certainly wasn’t planning on it when he first brought up Deku. Maybe he just wants to destroy the perfect image the idiot seems to have of him in his head; Katsuki doesn’t deserve that. And if they’re going to keep talking, even if Katsuki never tells Kirishima another thing about himself ever again, he thinks the other boy at least needed to know about that.

Eventually, the phone vibrates.

Kirishima (7:44): wow.

No emoji. That’s bad. Shitty Hair’s messages always have emojis in them.

Bakugou (7:44): Still happy you’re talking to me now?

Katsuki is positive he’s about to receive a notification saying that Kirishima has unmatched, or even straight up blocked, him.

Kirishima (7:44): of course i am! :’)

Wait.

What.

Kirishima (7:45): it was really manly of you to tell me that. clearly you’re putting the effort into befriending him to make up for the stuff you did to him when you were younger. i can admire that. :)

Kirishima is too nice. Too fucking nice and naive for his own good. Fuck. Katsuki doesn’t deserve that, he knows he doesn’t.

Bakugou (7:46): You are such a fucking idiot, Shitty Hair. Like, the biggest fucking idiot.

Kirishima (7:47): why? for still wanting to be your friend? everybody makes mistakes, katsuki - you’re only human! you might call my hair shitty and tell me to fuck off a lot, but you also ask me questions and make suggestions like buying a fan or telling me what gym to go to. i get the impression you’re the kind of guy who wouldn’t still be talking to me if you didn’t want to. so, i’m not just happy, i’m honoured! :’D

“Fucking hell,” Katsuki mutters aloud.

Katsuki starts to feel like a broken record. Between Deku and Round Face, Dunce Face and occasionally even the IcyHot bastard, he’s constantly having to repeat why he doesn’t want to meet Kirishima in person. It’s tiresome - sometimes all they need to do is make a face or raise an eyebrow while Katsuki is on his phone and it sets him off. It all seems perfectly logical to him, but none of his so-called friends seem to understand it.

And so it becomes almost a game, for Uraraka at least, that every day when he comes in to work he has a new reason as to why he won’t meet with Shitty Hair in the hopes that one of them will eventually get through her thick skull.

“He could be a criminal. Some sort of deranged psychopath, or an escaped convict. I’m not fucking going out with someone who has a record.”

But she always seems to have a counter argument of some kind.

“That’s why you meet him in public,” Uraraka shrugs. “Easy solution. Plus, you do know people used to call you a deranged psychopath in high school, right?”

(That earns her a flick on the forehead so powerful it leaves a mark.)

“He could be colourblind,” Katsuki points out another time. “In fact, I’m ninety nine percent sure that he is.”

“Why is that?” Uraraka asks as she rearranges the baked goods inside the cabinet.

“Because of his hair!” Katsuki punctuates this with an aggressive wipe on the glass right in front of her face. She blinks up at him from behind it. “He’s clearly fucking colourblind and if he can’t tell how obnoxiously offensive his hair colour is, then he must be an untrustworthy fucking snake,” he all but growls.

Round Face only shakes her head at him and places a tray of fresh muffins on the shelf. “Dyeing your hair bright colours doesn’t make someone colourblind, Bakugou. And being colourblind isn’t a part of someone’s personality, so it doesn’t automatically make him shady or two-faced, or whatever it is you’re trying to imply.”

(He doesn’t like the glint in her eyes whenever she looks at him for the rest of that day.)

One morning Katsuki storms into the diner in a fury and simply declares, “He eats the cookie before the cream! What the actual fuck is wrong with him?”

“Huh?” Uraraka looks up from counting the money in the register.

“Oreos, Angelface,” Katsuki clarifies. “He eats the fucking cookie first.”

“Unacceptable,” she deadpans in response.

“I know!” he cries, throwing his hands in the air. “He’s a fucking maniac!”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Is the world really going to end just because he does that?”

“No, but there’s no way in hell I want to fucking witness it.” Katsuki walks past her now to get changed, satisfied with his point being made.

“So you’re not meeting him because you don’t like the way he eats oreos?” she asks his retreating figure.

“Exactly,” he calls over his shoulder as he rounds the corner.

“You’re overreacting!” Katsuki hears her yell after him when he walks through the kitchen. He decides to pretend he didn’t hear that.

(He also decides to pretend not to hear every time she calls him ridiculous and dramatic during that particular shift, too.)

Katsuki scrunches his nose up at a message from Kirishima while Angelface is serving customers across the restaurant. After she’s put their order in, he puts his phone away and tells her, “Shitty Hair is too friendly, he’s probably really fucking embarrassing to be around in real life. I bet he’s the kind of guy who calls waiters by their first name. Doesn’t it weird you out when people do that?”

Uraraka squints suspiciously at him. “You know he probably only calls you by your first name because he’s trying to flirt with you, right?”

He huffs and crosses his arms. She must have gotten that tidbit from Deku. “Well, what kind of guy even uses a fucking dating app seriously, anyway?” Katsuki grumbles.

“Hm, I don’t know. Maybe someone who’s bored and lonely.”

(She says it flippantly enough, but her gaze is pointed.)

Eventually, his comments stop having any kind of effect on her at all. He’s been talking to Kirishima every single day for over two weeks, and he knows she watches him sometimes when he’s texting at work. He’s running out of good reasons to give her, because he honestly wasn’t expecting his and Kirishima’s messaging to continue for this long anyway. The more Katsuki gets to know Shitty Hair, the more it feels like he’s grasping for straws. But he’s not giving up that easily - he’s still determined not to fucking meet him, no matter what Round Face says.

“What if he decides that he’s suddenly allowed to ask me really gross personal questions? He thinks there’s no fucking boundaries in person because I give in to meeting him, but he’s really just one of those fucking assholes that makes people super uncomfortable?”

Even as he’s saying it, it feels wrong. He can’t picture Kirishima being anything but kind, if maybe a bit boisterous. His reasons are all but lies now, and Katsuki thinks he’s not the only one who picks up on it today.

Uraraka sighs heavily from across the restaurant and puts down what she’s doing to come over to him. She meets his gaze, jaw set and a serious expression on her face. But there’s a softness Katsuki sees in her eyes - a concern that has him instinctually bristling.

“Has Kirishima ever done anything like that to you yet?” she asks plainly.

Katsuki purses his lips. “No,” he tells her begrudgingly.

“No, because if he pushed you like that, you probably wouldn’t still be talking to him.”

It’s not a question, so Katsuki doesn’t answer her. They both know she’s right anyway.

“I’m going to level with you, Bakugou,” she drops her volume enough that the concern leaks through into her tone now too. “Deku-kun and I have been talking a lot about this. He doesn’t want to interfere too much, but do you want to know what I think?”

He doesn’t. Yet he doesn’t open his mouth to say so.

“I think you’re scared.”

“What the fuck?” he chokes out, hating the way his voice cracks.

“I think,” she continues solemnly, “that you’re scared of him getting close to you, because you actually really like him.”

Katsuki is reeling. “Don’t be ridiculous, Round Face,” he manages. “That’s fucking stupid.”

She’s quiet as she lets him gather himself. He doesn’t know why her words have affected him so much but suddenly he can’t even hear, let alone think, over the ringing in his ears. A customer walks in at that moment and he turns away from her, fiddling uselessly with the coffee machine.

The man orders something to take with him from the cabinet and is gone within a minute, but it’s enough time for Katsuki to take some deep breaths and get his bearings again. When he feels a comforting hand on his shoulder, familiar anger bubbles up in his throat.

“He makes you smile, Bakugou,” Uraraka says softly. “Not a lot of things do nowadays.” He turns his head and fixes her with a glare. The corners of her lips quirk upwards. “See?”

Katsuki shrugs her hand off and faces her head on once more, making a show of rolling his eyes. “You’re just being stupid, Round Face. Like I keep fucking telling you all, I don’t even know the guy.”

Katsuki grits his teeth as he watches her lift her chin stubbornly and square her shoulders.

“That’s the thing though - I think you do,” she protests. “I think you just don’t want him to know you. You’re an acquired taste, Bakugou, and you know it. If Kirishima decides he doesn’t like that when he meets you in person, well. There goes your ‘summer past time’ as you’re so adamant to call him. I know he means more to you than that.”

Katsuki swallows roughly. They stare each other down in silence for a moment. He can’t even say anything. Because saying something would be admitting she’s right about that too. He knows she’d hear the lie in his voice if he tried to deny it.

Fuck, and he’d been doing such a good job of denying it to himself too.

In truth, he does really like talking to Kirishima. At first, messaging him was genuinely just something to do with his time. But he quickly found himself enamoured by the other boy, God fucking knows why. And look, he won’t say it’s all connected, but he’s started actually doing things again these past couple weeks. He went back to the pool at the Riot Rec Center for the first time in months the other night after work. He’s been cooking more, taking longer routes home just for the sake of it, actually coming out of his room to talk to Todoroki and Deku sometimes. He’s been feeling a lot more like himself again. And on top of all of that, talking to Kirishima gives him something to look forward to. He anticipates the buzz in his pocket at work, pulling his cell out at the first chance he gets to see what inane thing Kirishima has said this time. They talk for hours every night; mostly Kirishima rambling about nothing and Katsuki content to message some jab or ask a question every now and then too.

He thinks about Shitty Hair a lot. Stupid things remind him of the other boy all the time - the colour red suddenly seems to be everywhere, and fine, it does fucking make him smile.

Being scared, however? That doesn’t sit right with Katsuki. Bakugou Katsuki isn’t scared of anything, least of all facing some stupid crush.

So he shoulders past Uraraka. He’d tell her she’s wrong, but he can’t have this conversation anymore.

The two of them don’t talk for the rest of the afternoon. When Dunce Face arrives a few hours later, Katsuki stalks into the changing room and grabs his bag without a word. Uraraka’s father, prepping for tonight’s dinner rush, raises an eyebrow as he hastily scurries through the kitchen without even getting out of his uniform.

Uraraka offers Katsuki a small smile as he leaves. He averts his gaze.

Katsuki goes straight home, directly into his room, and locks the door behind him. He takes his phone out of his pocket for the first time since the conversation, but he purposely doesn’t look at the screen as he plugs it in to charge and places it face down on his desk.

Then he crawls into bed.

The sun gets lower, the evening light gets dimmer, and then it’s dark outside and Katsuki is lucky the aircon still works in his and IcyHot’s apartment because he knows it wasn’t forecasted to cool down very much overnight.

Katsuki ignores the way his stomach growls, ignores Deku’s voice outside his door, ignores the thoughts that just won’t shut up. His phone vibrates periodically on his desk for the first few hours, but he ignores that too and eventually it stops.

The road outside his window quiets. He hears Todoroki’s bedroom door shut down the hall. His bones feel heavy and his mind still won’t fucking shut up.

Katsuki tosses and turns for what could have been minutes or months. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, eyes wide open. He doesn’t know what time it is.

The world around him has been still and quiet for so long that he jumps when something penetrates through his inner turmoil.

A buzz from the desk. The first in what could have been hours or years.

Katsuki’s feet are swinging out of bed and padding across the room before he even knows it. The first thing he sees when he looks at his phone is the time. Katsuki grimaces at the early morning hour.

The second thing he sees is the message from Kirishima that he just received.

Kirishima (3:17): do you ever get homesick?

Katsuki frowns. Where did that fucking come from? Taking the phone back with him to bed, he opens up their message thread to see if he missed anything leading up to the question. But nothing seems out of the ordinary - just a couple updates on what Kirishima was doing that afternoon, one asking if Katsuki was held up at work, a few more saying he assumed Katsuki is just busy tonight and they’ll catch up tomorrow. He feels bad now, admittedly, for not replying all day, but Shitty Hair’s messages don’t actually sound too hurt by that at least.

He rereads the newest text so many times he starts to see the words behind his eyelids when he blinks.

Kirishima (3:17): do you ever get homesick?

He has no idea what possessed Shitty Hair to send him a message like this. Was it meant to be another one of his dumb conversation starters? Just some random thought that popped into his mind?

Another message comes in as he’s staring at the screen.

Kirishima (3:21): nevermind. please ignore that.

It clicks, and Katsuki suddenly gets the feeling that Kirishima needs him right now. There’s no fucking way he’s going to ignore that - what kind of person would he be if he did?

Bakugou (3:22): No, I don’t, but I’m from around here. Why?

He breathes a sigh of relief at the quick reply. Kirishima doesn’t even ask about the lack of responses earlier, or why Katsuki is still awake now.

Kirishima (3:22): you still live at home? you’re so lucky man omg

Bakugou (3:23): Fuck no. I got the fuck out of the old hag’s house as soon as I could.

Kirishima (3:24): oh shit, sorry. not a good relationship with your parents then?

Katsuki tells himself he’s simply tired, tired, tired as he types out the words and presses send before he can regret it.

Bakugou (3:24): We’re too similar. She wanted me to go into real estate like my dad, but she knew I never would.

It’s not something he would’ve told Shitty Hair twelve hours ago maybe. But he’s been trying and failing to sleep literally all night, he’s just tired and not thinking straight, that’s all.

Kirishima (3:25): oh, what are you doing instead of real estate? you mentioned you’re at ua too, but i don’t think you said what for

Bakugou (3:26): I’m studying chemistry. Fuck selling houses.

Kirishima (3:26): you’re a chem major? damn, you must be really smart :o

The sight of the little emoji makes Katsuki let out a rush of air he didn’t know he was holding. But he bites his lip immediately after, because he still doesn’t know why this conversation started or why Kirishima was clearly so upset he couldn’t bring himself to use emojis in the first place.

Bakugou (3:27): I am, now shut up and stop changing the subject. You said you were homesick before?

Kirishima (3:29): oh. it’s not a big deal, katsuki, don’t worry.

Kirishima (3:29): :)

But the fact that the smiley is added on, almost like an afterthought, only makes him worry more.

Bakugou (3:30): It’s a big enough deal that you’re awake and messaging me about it at 3 in the goddamn morning. So spill it.

Kirishima (3:31): really, i’m fine. i just miss my parents a little bit i guess.

Humming, Katsuki wishes he could relate to the issue enough to give Kirishima some solid advice. Instead, he writes the only solution he can think of.

Bakugou (3:32): Call them?

Kirishima (3:32): i do, i do! it’s just not the same as being able to hug them in person though, y’know?

Katsuki doesn’t know. But he replies in the affirmative anyway.

Kirishima (3:35): i guess i’m used to missing my sisters, because they moved out way before i did. but they both stayed in the same city at least? i literally moved four hours away from them all just to follow mina.

Bakugou (3:36): And for Yuuei.

Kirishima (3:38): sure. i know, ua is a great university. but i could’ve done geology somewhere closer to home if i’d actually looked. i just decided ua was where i was going to study after my gap year, i didn’t even really think about the distance from home until i got here

Kirishima (3:38): sometimes i wonder if i made the right choice coming all the way out here.

Katsuki feels like he’s been slapped in the face. Everything stills for a moment as he reads over Kirishima’s words. Regret isn’t an emotion Katsuki is overly familiar with, but it’s definitely not something he ever thought Kirishima would express. Shitty Hair is usually so upbeat, so positive about everything. To hear him in this much distress makes something in Katsuki’s chest tug painfully.

Before he knows it, he’s typing furiously.

Bakugou (3:42): Bullshit. What happened to all that manly ‘a life led without regret’ crap? Everyone has to move out of home eventually, Shitty Hair. You’ve only been in the city for like a month. You haven’t even started studying yet. Of course it’s going to be a big fucking change from living at home with your parents, you’re twenty years old and this is the first time you’ve been away from them for this long. You need to give yourself more fucking time to adjust and stop being so hard on yourself about it. Your family isn’t going to stop loving you or anything because you’ve moved a few hours away from them. From what you’ve told me, they actually sound really fucking supportive. So be grateful, and just make the most of it when you go home to visit. You’ve got Ashido, and you’ll meet heaps of people when the semester starts, and you’ve fucking got me too, so everything will just work itself out, alright?

The time it takes Shitty Hair to read and reply to his wall of text has Katsuki anxiously checking his phone every ten seconds to see if there’s been a response yet, wondering if maybe he said too much. One comes several minutes later after he’s all but chewed through his bottom lip.

Kirishima (3:48): you’re actually so right, katsuki. i’m sorry.

Bakugou (3:48): Don’t be.

Kirishima (3:49): okay :’) thank you for talking to me, i seriously feel heaps better now after reading that. i’m really glad i know you dude. ^.^

Katsuki feels his cheeks warm and tries his best to stifle the smile rising on his face, despite nobody else being around.

Bakugou (3:50): It’s fine. Get some sleep now, Kirishima.

Kirishima (3:53): you too! goodnight katsuki xx

Katsuki locks his phone without responding and this time tosses it onto the ground somewhere near his bed. He squeezes his eyes shut, puts his hand over his face, and curls into a ball. Try as he might, he’s unable to dampen the overwhelming feelings that rise in his throat.

If Katsuki thought he’d be able to get any sleep after talking with Kirishima when he picked up his phone half an hour ago, he was dead fucking wrong. Because now he spends the rest of the night tossing and turning anyway, going over all of the possible meanings and implications behind what was at the end of Kirishima’s last message to him.

Katsuki would swear to the moon and back that it’s because of the lack of sleep he finds himself letting his guard down far too easily the following day.

In total, he maybe only gets about an hour or two of sleep. He trudges into the empty diner five minutes late for his shift and meets Uraraka’s stern expression with a defeated sigh.

“You got in my head,” he admits yet again. Her gaze turns sympathetic, the scolding he was about to receive falling from her lips. “I definitely have a crush on Kirishima.”

He lets Angelface give him a hug.

And when he’s talking to Shitty Hair in the changing room after work later that day, all it takes is one mention of Mina texting him something funny for Katsuki to realise that he’s lost the other boy’s number from when he messaged it that one time. So with no hesitation, he finds himself typing out his own number and pressing send.

Bakugou (4:05): Do not make me regret this.

The text is instantaneous.

UNKNOWN NUMBER [16:05]: uwu what’s this? >.>

Katsuki [16:07]: Never fucking say that to me again, or I will block you.

UNKNOWN NUMBER [16:07]: haha dw xD at least i can delete that app now though! thank god haha

What? Why is he so keen to delete the app? Katsuki’s never heard Shitty Hair complain about it? He’s always assumed Kirishima was talking to other people on the app as well. Unless he wasn’t…?

Katsuki desperately wants to ask, but doesn’t.

Katsuki [16:08]: Already put that garbage app in the fucking trash can where it belongs.

Katsuki slings his bag over his shoulder and makes his way through the kitchen, fingers hovering over the new contact options for a bit too long as he debates what name to give Shitty Hair in his phone.

Just as he hits the save contact button, he receives another text.

Kiri [16:09]: oh! you need a new picture of me for my photo in your phone! :’D

Katsuki [16:09]: What? I literally don’t even fucking use contact photos, idiot.

Kiri [16:09]: <IMAGE ATTACHED>

Katsuki stops dead in his tracks right as he rounds the corner.

The photo is a selfie of Kirishima, complete with a big grin and peace sign. It’s clearer than the one from the dating app, and closer up. His hair is falling down around his face rather than gelled up in spikes. The natural lighting makes the red a softer colour; less harsh on the eyes, more like a warm glow framing his face. It matches Kirishima’s eyes.

A low whistle over Katsuki’s shoulder breaks him out of his trance. “Damn, he’s attractive, Kacchan.”

“Yeah,” he breathes without even thinking. He feels the other person lean out of his space and whips his head up to meet the amused look on Kaminari’s face. Katsuki’s face warms. “I- Fuck off, Dunce Face! I told you to stop fucking calling me that!”

“Hey man, I’m just stating the facts here.” Kaminari raises his hands in surrender, but there’s a shit-eating smirk on his awful face.

“Whatever,” Katsuki growls and shoulders past him.

But he isn’t wrong, Katsuki concedes later, when it’s past midnight and he’s lying in his room with all of the lights off, just holding his phone and staring at the photo Kirishima sent him. He’s tired, his eyelids are heavy, and yet he keeps on staring.

Kirishima has a defined jaw, but it’s cancelled out by round cheeks and overall quite boyish features. Small nose and tiny eyebrows above his big, round eyes framed by dark eyelashes. The smile on his face is enthusiastic, all sharp teeth, but there’s something quite charming about it. His skin looks soft to the touch, looks sunkissed, like it might be slightly darker than Katsuki’s. There are callouses on the hand making the peace sign that are just begging to be traced by his own. A black and white patterned bandana on Kirishima’s forehead keeps the loose locks from falling into his face. It looks like he’s shirtless because Katsuki can see the top of his broad shoulders, the dip of his collarbone disappearing at the edge of the screen.

Katsuki’s phone buzzes and his eyes shift to the notification at the top of the screen.

Kiri [00:44]: no i promise, it was this angry little ball of fluff and it hissed at me but then it let me pat it and it was adorable!! ^.^

Katuski rolls his eyes and opens the text to reply.

Katsuki [00:45]: I have no idea why people are surprised you’re a cat person when you never fucking shut up about them after you see one.

Ignoring the upturn of his lips, Katsuki goes back into his photos and opens the selfie of Kirishima again. This time, he notices a small pointed scar above Kirishima’s right eye and is suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to press his lips to it and ask how it happened.

Katsuki sighs.

He makes you smile, Bakugou, Uraraka’s words from yesterday echo in his mind. Not a lot of things do nowadays.

Without giving himself time to think it through anymore, he sets the photo as Kirishima’s contact picture and tosses his cellphone to one side of the bed.

Then hesitates.

Shakes his head.

Mutters, “I’m so fucked.”

Katsuki scrambles to pick up his phone again and sets the damn photo as his home screen too.

#kiribaku #bakushima #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #kirishima eijirou #eijirou kirishima #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #armadillos can write #my fanfic #me: *turns up four months late with starbucks in one hand and doubles the word count of the whole fic* sup

11 notes · View notes

tjkiahgb · 6 years

Text

Episode Recap: 2.19, “Andi’s Choice”

The episode begins with a cold open that’s a solid instructional video for good oral hygiene. Which is important. Take care of your teeth, folks. Always remember to floss.

It really has nothing to do with the plot of the episode, though, other than to inform us that Andi’s breath probably doesn’t stink in any of the scenes that follow.

Bowie and Jonah hang out at the music store talking about how Jonah didn’t go to the high pressure music audition. Jonah talks about how something came up and worries Andi doesn’t like him anymore. Bowie says last he heard, Andi thought he didn’t like her. But now Jonah really likes her. And Bowie wants to know if she knows that. And the answer to that, Bowie, is nobody knows. Maybe? Probably? Maybe.

Jonah says he bought her a gnome, and Bowie says “A gnome is nice...”

Counterpoint:

No.

Bowie knows something Andi would like, though: writing her a song. It’s also easy, he says. Just sing your feelings. Jonah says feelings? He says he doesn’t talk about his feelings, coming oh so close to really nailing the problem but still coming up empty.

If it makes Jonah feel better though, that doesn’t disqualify him from a successful career in music. There’s more than enough room on the market for another singer doing meaningless, catchy songs about nothing. Whoa. You didn’t come here for jokes about the state of the music industry, but you got ‘em anyway!

Bowie presses on. Talking about liking someone and them liking you back? That’s feelings! Bowie asks Jonah for a word that rhymes with back. Jonah says quack. Bowie asks for a non-duck word. Jonah says plaque. In fairness, Bowie didn’t stipulate that these words be any good.

Andi heads into The Spoon when Walker facetimes her. Andi explains how Buffy’s moving in a few days. Walker says if she can, get a bubble machine, it makes you happy.

But listen, I want to warn anyone considering this: rent, don’t buy a bubble machine. First, no one ever factors in the cost of maintenance for your bubble machine. But, second, the happiness bubbles give you reaches a level of diminishing returns very quickly. Sooner rather than later, you’re making excuses to use it just because you have it and you feel you need to. You take it out to the yard and turn it on, but the happiness is never the same. The bubbles float down to the earth and pop like so many unrealized dreams. Eventually you stop using it all together. It gathers dust in the closet. Things pile up on top of it. One day, you accidentally come across it and sigh. Where did the spark go? That old adage is an adage for a reason: the two best days of a bubble machine owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

Andi says she’s already got a bubble machine, and I think the fact we’ve seen how little use it gets throughout the course of this show proves my point.

Over at The Fringe, Bex is covering the store with sticky notes for free makeup appointments she’s got coming up.

Brittany tells her that they can’t do free makeup appointments anymore, things have been too slow around the store. Bex says she can’t just start charging for them, but, Bex, yes you can. Obviously you can. That was the point of getting your certificate of completion from the beauty school: to get paiiiiiiid. Frankly, it’s sort of nuts that you were going to do all of those for free. That’s so much makeup and time to just give away.

Hey, listen, I know I got in some trouble last week for talking about people’s choice of expression, but I have to say something again.

I hope those are earrings meant to look like screws and not real screws. The thought of Brittany jamming a real screw through her ear hole is making me wince. Do you twist it in? Could you use a screwdriver to do it? (Phillips head, clearly.) Also, she has to realize if she bumps the side of her head into something, she’s going to stab herself in the base of her skull. The risk of it all! I’m just going to assume they’re earrings. I need to to move on.

Brittany was close to laying Bex off, but she won’t now that Bex is the top rated cosmetologist on Whelp. Whelp: it’s the “Property” of internet review sites.

Property: Now With 40% Less Lead™

Brittany thinks Bex has left all those fake positive reviews for herself to increase her status among the local cosmetology ranks, but Bex hasn’t. Bex realizes Celia must’ve done it.

Buffy joins Andi and Cyrus at The Spoon with a box full of stuff they’ve left at her house.

She presents Andi with Noodle, which is clearly a stand-in for Tamagotchi, which made me wonder, do you kids still know what Tamagotchis are? I had one when I was a kid but only because we didn’t have smartphones back then that had whole worlds of much more interesting stuff than a stupid pixel-y digi-pet that would whine all the time and die constantly. I wouldn’t guess there’s any way a child of Andi’s age would’ve had one.

Andi realizes Noodle’s dead because she hasn’t fed him for seven years. A moment of silence for Noodle please.

♪ ♪ In the arms of the Angel ♪ ♪

Buffy then takes out a letter of recommendation Cyrus’s mom wrote on behalf of Cyrus when they were in the second grade, which is embarrassing, sure, but it’s also a strong letter. After reading that, I’d definitely consider adding him to my friend group. I’d need to see his résumé, first, of course, but a good letter of rec goes a long way.

Walker then shows up and for some reason Andi acts like a horse wearing a hat just walked into The Spoon: surprised and mildly upset?

It’s a weird reaction that gets carried over into the scene after the commercial.

Listen, Walker seems like a perfectly fine young man to me. Charming, if quirky, as artists can tend to be. But I feel like the show’s done him wrong by making some of his interactions play out stranger than they needed to be.

Like, I think the facetime convo from a few episodes ago was not meant to come off as stilted as it did. I think it’s the product of editing together two people who aren’t really having a conversation, especially because his interactions with her in real life were much more natural. (The facetime scene from earlier in this episode was better, but still not totally fluid. They probably should stop doing scenes like that as a general rule.)

And the reaction in this scene? I still have no idea what effect they were going for here.

Even after Walker has introduced himself to Cyrus and Buffy and they’re cool with him and happy to have him sketch them, Andi continues throughout this scene with this body language.

On Mack Chat, they suggested that while Walker is comfortable with Andi, she’s not as confident with him. Is she still trying to get a feel for his personality? I suppose it could be that. My best guess was it being guilt for going on a date with him while still being in limbo with Jonah? But again, I’m really not sure about the whole mood of the scene, at least from Andi’s perspective.

About the actual scene though, Walker introduces himself to Cyrus and Buffy as the caricature artist from the Bash Mitzvah, which, by the way, did we ever get an answer as to why the party planner or whoever hired a child to work a large Bar Mitzvah party? Then again, they also hired what, given what we know now, appears to be a fortune teller with legitimate psychic abilities.

She’s 3 for 3 on nailing Andi’s, Buffy’s, and TJ’s fortunes, and we won’t know about Cyrus’s fortune until he goes to college, so, her track record is perfect as far as I’m concerned.

All that considered, maybe hiring a child isn’t the weirdest thing.

Walker wanted to meet Buffy before she left and wanted to sketch the whole group as a going away present for her and so Cyrus leans in to what’s bound to be a long, uncomfortable pose for that.

At The Fringe, Zoe, a rival cosmetologist comes in looking for a fight. She thinks that Bex is using fake Whelp profiles to attack her business. She reads the fake name on the review and Brittany gasps and Zoe has determined that’s enough to take Bex to court and sue her. I disagree. Seems like flimsy evidence at best but what do I know, I’m only the assistant professor of law at Yale.

At the music store, Jonah rehearses his song for Andi. Jonah isn’t confident but Bowie tells him performing is all about confidence. He says the audience will know if you’re doubting yourself and then they’ll rip you to shreds like a pack of hyenas. Oh, by the way, you’re performing in front of an audience tomorrow.

Again, I’m but a humble professor of law at Yale, not a trained psychologist, but is treating panic attacks by trying to force the person experiencing them into constant high pressure situations a thing? I’m starting to feel like Bowie is not a trained psychologist, either.

Jonah reminds him he has panic attacks and Bowie says he won’t have them because he’ll be playing guitar. Jonah thinks maybe he should just go to Andi’s house late at night and throw a rock at her window and perform it for her like that. Bowie thinks that’s too cliché. I mean, in movies maybe. In real life, it wouldn’t be. It’s actually pretty rare in real life because it more often than not leads to too much broken glass and the police being called.

Plus, Bowie suggests, everything is so much cooler on a stage.

This somehow assuages Jonah of his fears.

The GHC gather to discuss Andi’s two-guy dilemma. Cyrus says Andi’s been keeping stuff from them, but it’s probably more that they haven’t really hung out together since “Perfect Day 2.0″ which was like a week ago in show-time?

Andi says Walker was just one date, but Buffy and Cyrus still think it’s a big deal. Cyrus says Andi’s life is a romcom now and he’s her “sassy friend Cyrus.”

Really feels like there’s an adjective missing there. “Sassy __ friend Cyrus.” Sassy something friend Cyrus. I can’t put my finger on what that word would be.

Buffy argues she’s Andi’s sassy friend. It’s kind of equal parts funny and sad that they both realize they’re the supporting characters of the Andi show. Things are getting real meta up in here.

Andi’s having a tough time figuring out how she feels about both Jonah and Walker. Cyrus says it’s a real job being her sassy friend. Almost like it’s a thing he has to do. Almost like he’s paid every week to be around Andi and get involved with what’s going on in her life. Like it’s a role he has to play. Like everything’s scripted. We’re all just pawns, moving where others tell us, saying words others write for us. This isn’t a house! It’s a set! Are we even real?! I’m freaking out here, man!

Anyway, Bex goes to talk to Celia about her reviews. Celia doesn’t want to take them down even though Bex is worried about being sued. Celia says no one’s going to sue Bex because all they would get is a used motorcycle and a punch card for a free taco, which is just a devastating slam.

The best slams on this show always seem to come off-handed.

Bex wants to succeed on her own. Celia will take down the reviews if Bex lets her help in other ways. Bex doesn’t want it, but Celia tells her she won’t get anywhere if she doesn’t think big and take action. She wants to know what’s next for Bex but Bex leaves.

Hey, I have a question. Why is The Spoon populated almost entirely by loose children?

Do none of these kids have parents who eat? Is The Spoon a daycare center?

Cyrus and Buffy continue to razz Andi about picking between Walker and Jonah when Jonah shows up to invite people to the show that night.

He tells the GHC about the open mic and invites them. He says he’s performing a song and everyone seems surprised. Andi didn’t know he sang or played guitar, but Jonah says he didn’t know either. As of a week ago he hadn’t ever picked up a guitar and now he’s performing original music on stage. Oh what a week it’s been!

At The Fringe, Bex has run out of sticky notes to make appointments on when Celia shows up in time with a day planner. Bex thanks her for the gift, but Celia says she has another gift: The Fringe. Bex is rightfully confused, but Celia says the business wasn’t doing well and it wasn’t even that much. This store is mostly full of the cheap stuff you win at a carnival and the walls are made of papier-mâché! I bought it with the loose cash I had rolling around in my purse!

Hey, where is Ham? Is he ok? I wonder how Ham feels about this. Buying a small, failing business. In this economy. Looks like they’re delaying traveling the world for another year.

Also, Bex couldn’t figure out to buy a planner for herself. She kept filling up the store with sticky notes until she ran out of them. That was her long term plan for that system. Anyway, here’s a small business to run.

Celia wants Bex to take action and this is action. Bex asks if Celia remembers promising to let Bex succeed on her own, and the way Celia says “No.” is perfect.

Also, she didn’t.

At the music store (Red Rooster Records, I’m going to try to commit this to memory eventually), there’s an accordion girl on stage and she is, no lie, killing it.

They say accordions are only for old mustached men to play at romantic Italian restaurants and Weird Al Yankovics, but don’t listen to them. I love what you’re doing. You go, Accordion Girl.

Jonah, intimidated by the other acts, heads backstage to talk to Bowie. He’s nervous, but Bowie says he was nervous before performing, too. He got over it by finding Bex in the audience and singing to her.

Jonah asks if he should look at Bex while he sings.

“Explain this to me as if I was a Golden Retriever in a boy suit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. No reason.”

Bowie tells him to look at Andi and that he’s got this.

Meanwhile, on stage, Accordion Girl finishes with a heck of a flourish and not a single philistine in the audience throws her a damn rose. Shame on them all.

Bowie comes out and introduces Jonah. Jonah gets out there with his guitar and sort of sits around awkwardly. Things are looking bad.

Then he starts playing. It’s going alright, but then he looks at Andi and does start getting into it.

The GHC start realizing this might be about Andi.

(The song is actually pretty sweet. And Asher performs it well.)

The performance goes well and Jonah gets applause as the open mic ends. People start filing out. Buffy touches Andi’s shoulder and I’m thinking DON’T DO THAT!

You’re going to rip the pearls off!

Jonah asks Bowie how it went, but Bowie directs him towards Andi for his answer.

Andi walks up to Jonah, grabs his hand, and gives him a kiss and the episode ends with them smiling at one another.

So... I guess this is going to be the worst thing I ever say on this blog, but... I didn’t hate that.

If you aren’t a Jandi fan, I wouldn’t panic too much. I very much doubt this is the final iteration of that relationship.

The show is about change and growth. First season Jandi obviously wasn’t going to work because both Andi and Jonah weren’t in an honest place. Andi was trying to change herself too much to make Jonah happy. Jonah was everybody’s friend, carefree Jonah Beck who doesn’t have labels.

This version is better, but still not quite there. Jonah still has trouble confronting his feelings and is definitely leaning too hard on a relationship to fix things. Andi, at least, is more comfortable being herself with him.

But for things to advance anywhere plot-wise, this needs to happen. They have to figure out what works and doesn’t work: with relationships, with themselves. Maybe this will be the beginning of the last version of Jandi, or maybe it’ll eventually return and be endgame. Who can say? But the only way to know is to try.

As much as I joked about Bowie pushing Jonah too much, too fast with the music, there’s a certain wisdom to the idea of just getting on stage and going for it. There are certain things you don’t learn until you test the idea yourself.

#Andi Mack #Jonah Beck #Cyrus Goodman #Buffy Driscoll #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Celia Mack #Walker Brodsky #Brittany #Accordion Girl #Andi #episode recaps

109 notes · View notes

imyourliquor-youremypoison · 6 years

Text

Marvel fic rec - Loki x OC, Bucky x OC (1)

You guys I have such good ones for this rec.

After Class, by Team Damon (68k)

She's a clumsy but intelligent student who's a little late getting her degree, and he's a young but grumpy professor with a past he's doing his best to move on from. Neither of them expected college to be quite this interesting, but nothing ever goes exactly according to plan.

We’re starting with the good stuff, people, the real good stuff. You know how many shitty Student x Teacher fanfictions there are out there in the vasteness of the internet? A lot. I have seen things I wish I could unsee. But this one is not one of those. This one is the best, the single most beautifully written piece of fanfiction with this trope. I cannot stress this enough, I am in LOVE with this story. It’s just long enough to be in-depth and have flesh, but it’s short enough to read in one sitting. It’s my go-to sotry that I read whenever I feel down, when I’m sick and bed-ridden, when I’m stressed out because of my exams and can’t sleep. It heals my soul to read such work of art.

Team Damon is an absolute sweetheart too, a true wordsmith, and there are more of her stories that will make it into this fic rec.

Blasphemy, by SheWritesThings (76k)

For Sam and Steve, finding Bucky was the easy part. But now two distinct personalities reside within him: Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier. Sam decides to call in an old friend: Sgt. Fox, a young war veteran and amputee, having suffered PTSD herself. Dodging SHIELD and Hydra agents alike, the trio struggles to bring Bucky back and eliminate the Soldier before time runs out.

Another masterpiece, not the last one of this list. It’s the first installment of a series (ongoing sequel is here) but I honestly don’t think it needs a sequel, it can be read on its own. It has a prologue-y feel to it, but I love it. It’s the first fanfiction I read that deals so seriously and thoroughly with Bucky’s PTSD, and it doesn’t shove a romantic relationship in our face. The author must have sent HOURS researching about PTSD to write this, I cannot fathom how much work it represents.

It’s so good, so raw, it really stirs something in you. Also if ableism is an issue you take to heart, this story is a goode example on how to write disabled characters, it’s just perfect.

Fate's Children, by theatrewraith (109k)

The Norns, fates of the Nine Realms, long ago chose a protector for each realm bound to keep order in their universe. Roska is the latest guardian of Asgard. When Odin asks her to bring Loki back from Midgard at any cost, she is set on a path of even greater importance. To assure Asgard's stable future, she must set the Jotun Prince on its throne.

One of those stories where you wonder how the hell this isn’t a published work. I can barely imagine the amount of research that went into the writing of this fanfiction, the world-building and attention to details is amazing. I have no idea just how much of what I read is inspired by true mythology and folklore, but it’s impressive still. More plot-driven than character driven. To my absolute sadness, it’s not very centred on the pairing HOWEVER it is one of the best Loki characterization I’ve even seen with my own two eyeballs (honestly Taika Waititi should take example).

Friends to Lovers to Complete and Utter Idiots, by Team Damon (39k)

They're just friends. The best of friends, really. But when she's secretly head over heels in love with him and he gets the bright idea to take their friendship to an entirely new and unexpected level, she knows she's playing with fire. She's already burning, though, so why not make it count?. Modern AU

Listen, I’ve rarely come so close to ripping out all of my hair, and I love my hair. The pairng drove me crazy. Team Damon just knows how to play with my feelings like nobody’s business. The title really says it all, but if you think it’s just another of the usual fwb story, you, my friend, are gravely mistaken. Because it’s more than that, it’s a jewel among jewels. It’s a diamond, alright? Read it, I swear to god, read it.

Stray, by MissMorwen (32k)

“Why did you come here?” “I needed to hide, needed to think.” There was a slight furrow in his brow again. “Think about what?” She tilted her head, trying to catch his eyes. He looked in her direction, but with an unfocused gaze. “The man, he – he knew me. And I knew him.” The knuckles on his right hand were turning white.

******** You know how the story goes: Fucked-up former assassin meets girl. Girl is a cliché vet with a tendency to help birds with broken wings.

I think the author says it all in the synopsis honestly. It’s just a fun, light-hearted Bucky fanfic. It’s a nice change from the more serious stuff, and it’s not too long so it’s a quick read, and it’s worth your time.

Illusion, by likeatumbleweed (155k)

Sigyn has an overprotective brother, an overbearing mother, and an overarching duty to Queen Frigga as her handmaiden. She begins a relationship with Loki, Prince of Asgard and second in line to the throne. It seems easy, but fate has so much more in store for them than they planned. AU. Pre-Thor through Post-Avengers.

Listen, this is the one of the best fanfictions I’ve even had the pleasure to read. All fandoms mixed together, it’s a fav. I will defend this fanfiction to the death, I’ve scarcely seen anything so beautiful. The prose is amazing, the pace is perfect, there is a balance between plot relevant scenes and self-indulgent fluff, the characterization is on point (Tony Stark, however short his appearance in the story is, has one of the best characterization ever).

It’s 155k long but I find it too short still. There is nothing I disliked about this story, I could write a eulogy about how much I adore it, I could write poems and songs about it, I- well you get my drift. AND because the author knows how much her readership loved the story, we got a bunch of additional oneshots to quench our insatiable thirst. I’m not going to review each of them individually but they are all great, and you will cry actual salty tears, trust me.

Interlude:

Chapter "10.5" of Illusion - Loki spends the night with Sigyn at her apartment, and things get a bit uncomfortable for her brother Edmund.

Unburdened:

Sigyn has had a stressful day; when she threatens to never return to the palace library again, Loki uses his considerable skills to change her mind.

Celebration:

Loki arranges for a private celebration of Sigyn's birthday.

The Better Part of Valor:

One morning not long after beginning her relationship with Loki, Sigyn is late reporting for her duties with the queen. When Loki (who has everything to do with her tardiness) shows up to take advantage of her embarrassment, Sigyn is less than cooperative.

Best Laid Plans:

Loki and Sigyn attempt to celebrate their anniversary, only to be hindered at every turn by extenuating circumstances (especially their precocious six-year-old daughter, Unna, who has a terrible grasp of the appropriate time to show off newly acquired magic skills).

Threnody for a Sparrow:

It's a lesson Loki has never wanted to learn...there are some broken things that cannot be fixed, no matter how badly you wish otherwise.

Monster, by IndigoUmbrella (70k)

“Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?” -Laini Taylor

Probably the vaguest, least helpful synopsis in the history of synopsis, but hey, I’m here to tell you that it’s fucking fabulous, and you won’t regret reading this fanfiction. It’s not you usual girl meets boy story at all - this time the meeting is not accidental at all, all of their interractions have one sole purpose: help Bucky become himself again. And it gives a lot of weight to their interractions, the story is very serious, but not so much as to give you a headache either. I love it because it’s different, and it takes things slowly, there’s a lot of attention to details too.

Hell Bound (Sequel to Monster) (82k)

Start by pulling him out of the fire and hoping that he will forget the smell. He was supposed to be an angel but they took him from that light and turned him into something hungry, something that forgets what his hands are for when they aren't shaking. When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it.

Second vaguest synopsis of all time, but trust me when I say that the sequel is even better than the first installement of this trilogy. I can’t really say anything about the sequel without revealing what happens in the first part, so just read it for heaven’s sake. I’m telling you, it’s good.

From Darkness (Third and last part of Monster) - Ongoing

When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows Swallowed whole by the darkness Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name?

And last but not least, the third part. Equally vague synopsis. We officially have a top three guys. Haven’t read this one yet, but I wanted to post all three parts together.

Light & Sweet, by LooneyLockhart (182k)

Bucky didn't understand the concept of a coffee house giving away free coffee. From what he remembered, hardly anything in Brooklyn was given away for free when he lived there. And why wasn't the coffee house girl frightened by him when he struck fear in some of the most competent SHIELD agents? Learning to be Bucky Barnes again, he wasn't prepared for the curious coffee girl.

How the hell am I going to sell you this story?

It’s... a coffee shop AU. Except it’s not really an AU. It’s entirely set in the MCU as we know it, superheroes are totally a thing, everything is like the canon, but Bucky and the OC still meet in a coffee shop. It’s serious, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously either. It’s well written, like really. The OC is endearing, the pace is perfect for the story, the characters have a lot of depth, even the secondary ones get a bit of characterization. It’s a beautiful work all in all.

Honesty, by thearrowsoflegolas (91k)

The Winter Soldier has a new mission. Erin Jefferson is a young SHIELD biochemist who has just synthesised a serum that can make anyone tell the truth, and HYDRA wants it. The Winter Soldier is expecting it to be an easy job, and Erin is expecting to die there. What she's not expecting is to meet a man with light eyes and a dark past who needs her help.

This is the funniest Bucky fanfic I’ve read, and it’s awesome. I’ve never seen such balance between light-hearted moments and serious, down-to-business ones. It doesn’t take anything away from Bucky’s gravitas, but it rather offers a stark contrast with the OC’s bubbly personality, it’s refreshing and beautiful. And it’s fucking funny, you guys, it’s hilarious. Additionally it’s one of the only fanfictions I’ve read as the chapters got published, instead of waiting until it was completed.

#fic rec #marvel #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #loki #loki of asgard #loki of jotunheim #loki laufeyson #loki fanfic #bucky fanfic #loki fanfiction #bucky fanfiction #fic recommendation #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic rec #fanfic reviews

73 notes · View notes

all-the-love-harold · 6 years

Text

The Daily Anna - Chapter 1

So the link broke and I don’t know how to fix it so I’m just posting this again. I hope you enjoy it, please let me know what you thought, feedback really helps xxx

Master Post

The Daily Anna.

11th April 2018.

Hiya!

In the last few days a lot of new faces have joined us on here and I thought I’d take the time to introduce myself to them, so if you’ve been here for a while, come back tomorrow for some new content (or stay and read this anyway, up to you) and if you’re new here, welcome!

Incase you haven’t already guessed, my name is Anna and I post on this blog daily, I don’t know what it is that’s drawn you to this little corner of the internet, but I hope you find it a warm, welcoming place for you to escape the harsh realities of the outside world. There isn’t really any theme to this blog, It’s just a record of my life, which I assure you is nothing special.

I’m a 24 year old, originally from Manchester, but loving every minute of living in London. This blog is my not-so-secret diary, where I share all of my thoughts and feelings about whatever is going on in my life, and some days the posts can be incredibly deep and self reflexive, others they’re about stupid things like that cat I saw on the the walk from my flat to my best friends, one day I might even post my super secret brownie recipe (although I doubt I’ll ever do that because brownies are the only way I know how to make friends and if I share that recipe on the internet then I’ll be friendless again, so if that ever happens call 999 because there is definitely and emergency). You’ll also get a lot of content that relates to music, I have always been a music fan, so expect song recs and playlists as well as concert reviews and minor (Major) fangirl moments.

I’m not going to pretend that I have a lot of advice to offer you, but I hope that by sharing my experiences and the little hacks that I’ve learnt along the way that we can all learn a little from each other.

Before I sign off, I’d just like to add that this blog is a Safe Space, for me and for everyone that reads it, so if you have any nasty comments, please keep them to yourselves, that kind of negativity is not welcome here.

That’s about all I have to say for now, you’ll learn more about me along the way and I hope to get to know you a little bit about you too. I always read the comments on my posts, so please feel free to introduce yourself under this one, and I’ll get around to replying to as many as possible as soon as I can.

Yours sincerely, Anna. xx

***

Anna’s life was a mess. An absolute mess. Sure, her blog made it like look like she had everything together, but in reality, she felt like everything was falling apart.

It had all started a couple of weeks ago when her friend, Charlotte, who truly was one of her best friends, asked her how she felt about giving up her job and her degree to start blogging full time. It was a big decision that she couldn’t take lightly, she hated her job, but the money was good and what kind of loser didn’t have a degree these days? She was 24, she should have graduated years ago, but she’d taken time off and changed university’s and what should have taken her 3 years had so far taken her 6 and she still had one one to go. But what charli was offering was a light at the end of the tunnel, with a job that would be on her own terms, and money that she could live on comfortably. The only thing that was stopping her was what her family and friends would think of her if she dropped out but right now as she sat at her desk, fingertips pressed to her temples trying to write this goddamn essay about infant attachment she couldn’t think of a reason not to drop out. Why waste another year of her life? Why spend time on things she doesn’t care about?

The buzzing of her phone brought her out of her trance and Anna glanced over at her screen to see a message from Ronnie.

Gig at the O2, you’re coming. You’ll thank me later x

Ronnie was Anna’s best friend, he had been since they were 2, and he was also a well known photographer on the music scene in London and always managed to get tickets to sold out gigs.

Are you working? Who are we seeing?

Anna put her pen down and closed her laptop. She was done. For tonight at least, she would think about her future tomorrow, for now she needed to find something to wear.

Now that would ruin the surprise wouldn’t it? Working for the O2 not the artist.

You’re so Cryptic. What should I wear?

You’re best clothes ;)

You’re the worst

I know. I’ll pick you up at 5, we’re going backstage xx

It wasn’t often that Ronnie got to take someone backstage with him, most of the time he was too busy to have a tag-along, but he did always manage to at least get Anna tickets to most shows he worked.

***

It was five to five and Anna was putting the final touches on her make up, making sure her eyeliner wings were even and her brows were looking as good as they could when they hadn’t been waxed in a few weeks. As she stepped back from the mirror she heard a knock on her door, followed by the sound of Ronnie’s footsteps walking toward her bathroom.

“Hurry it up” he called “I can’t be late today An, this is a big show”

“Who are we seeing Ron?” she asked quizzically, putting her earrings in and having one last check of herself in the mirror. Ronnie rounded the corner and handed her an O2 pass and an old camera of his.

“This doesn’t answer my question” she looked at the camera that now in her hand

“Tonight” he smirked “You are my intern”

You put the camera strap around your neck and and smiled at him “Do I look like a photographer?”

“Prettiest photographer I’ve ever seen” he winked and smiled at her placing a playful kiss on her hand “but we do need to go, get your things I’ll tell you everything in the car”

Anna rolled her eyes and pushed passed Ronnie so that she cold grab her bag from her room.

Ronnie remained silent the whole way to the car, and Anna was growing more and more anxious to know who they were going to see. The evening air hit their faces as they walked out of the building and towards his car, still without a word escaping his lips.

Anna slammed the car door closed and she couldn't hold it in any longer. “Alright knob head, who are we seeing and why are you being so secretive?”

He turned on the ignition, clipped his seat belt in and turned to look at Anna “You remember that time last year when you called me crying hysterically because you couldn’t get concert tickets?”

Anna’s eyes widened as she realised who Ronnie was taking her to see “No, Ron” she sighed “you didn’t?

He reached down into the side pocket in the drivers door and pulled out an envelope and he handed it to Anna. “You know I did”

She grabbed the envelope from him and frantically opened it, revealing two tickets and two shimmering backstage passes, each with the words “Treat People with Kindness” overlaying an image of Harry Styles.

“Holy fuck Ronnie” Anna yelled “how did you manage this?”

“I know a guy” he winked and looked at the road ahead of him as he turned the stereo on to Harry’s album.

“Oh you know a guy” Anna laughed and started singing along to the music.

“But you have to pretend you’re my intern because I could only get us tickets if we were both working”

“Are you going to pay me?”

“Absolutely not” he laughed “You can’t take photos to save your life”

“I could if you taught me how” she pouted

“I’m going to have to pretend to for tonight, so you might just learn something”

***

It was just past 5pm and the traffic around the O2 was getting busier by the second. Ronnie was getting stressed that he’d be late, but he pulled the car up in the staff car park just as it passed 5:10. Anna was still struggling to believe that this was happening but she put the pass around her neck and stepped out of the car, still holding onto ronnie’s old camera.

“What do you expect me to do with an old camera that doesn’t work Ron?”

“Pretend to take photos” he shrugged as he pulled his kit out of the boot and handed Anna a tripod that kept falling from the bag. “Just don’t freak when you see Harry”

She cleared her throat and tossed her hair her back “I am a professional photographer, I would never freak out in the presence of a client”

He laughed and started walking towards the back entrance to the building “Keep repeating that in your head and you might start to believe it”

Anna followed closely behind Ronnie as they made their way into the building. They walked into chaos. There were crew members everywhere, running about trying to get things organised for the show. Ronnie was used to this, he’d worked for the O2 on and off for about 3 years now and he’d seen his fair share of high profile shows, but this was the first time Anna had been to this venue with him and she was a little shocked to see how frantic everything was.

“This way An” Ronnie said directing her down a hallway towards a door that said ‘STAFF ONLY’

The room was tiny. Not nearly big enough to fit more than five people, and it was crammed with bags and jackets.

“Does everyone out there count as staff?” Anna asked

“No, they’re crew, they have their own room” he dumped his kit in the free space on the table “This is the backstage staffroom for O2 staff, there’s another one for front stage staff that’s much bigger”

“But you’re not cool enough for that are you?” she giggled as another girl walked into the room.

“Hey Bridge” Ronnie smiled “This is Anna, my new intern”

Anna held her hand out and shook the girls hand “It’s lovely to meet you”

“You too love” she smiled “It’s Bridgett by the way, I’m the creative director for The O2, I tell Ronnie what to do”

“Someone’s got to” she laughed, suddenly feeling nervous about this whole thing. Bridgett smiled back and then turned to Ronnie

“Harry will be arriving soon, and when he gets here I need you to introduce yourselves and tell him what you’ll be doing tonight.”

“And what exactly are we doing tonight?” Ronnie said, so he knew exactly what shots he needed

“Right” Bridgett pulled out her notes from her back pocket “We need the standard Hall of Fame shot once he’s all dressed, he has his own photographer who I will introduce you to in a minute, that will take care of most of the backstage shots, but get a few if you can. Your main focus tonight though is the fans, get outside once doors have opened at get some photos of them all coming in.”

Ronnie was writing everything down frantically so that he didn’t miss anything “and when he’s on stage, focus on him or the crowd?”

“Both, get some shots of him that will look nice on the website, and get some of the crowd that can be used for marketing the venue to potential artists”

“Great “ Ronnie putting his pen away “and when do you need the final product by?”

“You’ve got until monday to get me the photos from tonight and tomorrow” Bridgett was called out of the room by another member of staff and she turned and walked away.

Anna looked at Ronnie quizzically, “Tomorrow night?”

“Oh yeah” Ronnie laughed “did I forget to tell you that we get to do this all again tomorrow?”

“You did.” Anna said bluntly

“Surprise!” Ronnie held up his hands and waved them “But seriously, we need to go outside and get photos of the queue.” He walked out of the room, holding the door open for Anna. The backstage area was still in chaos and Anna began to feel nervous again. She felt strange pretending to be Ronnie’s intern, as greatful as she was to be there, she felt a bit like a fraud. She shook it off and followed Ronnie, weaving in and out of crew members watching as he got a few shots of them getting things ready for the show.

After getting a few images of fans waiting to get into the venue, Anna and Ronnie returned backstage, where she helped him to find a free wall space for the hall of fame image to be set up and then left him to it for a few minutes while she went and got some more equiptment for him. She walked out of the staff room again and the room that had five minutes ago been filled with chaos was suddenly calm and she saw Harry standing off to the side, talking to who she assumed was his manager. Nerves filled her body again as she made her way towards Ronnie who was standing almost right next to Harry. She handed ronnie the tripod that he has asked her to get but she couldn’t take her eyes off the tall smiley boy in front of her and dropped it before Ronnie had a hold of it. His head turned towards them in that moment when he heard the tripod drop and his smile grew wider as he tried to hold back a laugh

“Careful love” he said his voice deeper than Anna had expected

She blushed and smiled at him.

“I don’t believe we’ve met before” held his hand out to shake Anna’s “I’m Harry” he said as if he thought she didn’t know who he was

“Anna” she said shaking his hand “Ronnie’s intern”

“Well he’s a lucky man to get to work with you every day”

She blushed “I think I’m the lucky one if I’m honest”

Harry shrugged “I’ll be the judge of that” he winked

Ronnie stepped in between the two of them “I don’t mean to interrupt, but Harry I need to get a few shots”

“Lead the way” Harry said ushering Ronnie in front of him and hanging back so that he was walking beside Anna

“You know” he said quietly “I’m pretty sure Ronnie Dalton doesn’t have an intern”

“He doesn’t” Anna’s whispered “this camera’s fake, he’s my best friend has been since we were little”

“And he got you backstage” Harry nodded a smile spread across his face.

“Sorry”

“Don’t be” he held his hands up in surrender “I’m glad you’re here”

They came to the space that Ronnie and Anna had set up earlier and Ronnie asked Harry to pose for the camera. The shots only took a few minutes but by the time they were done Harry’s manager was calling for him to do the soundcheck. He thanked ronnie and Anna before he ran off but just before he reached the stage doors, he turned on his heels and Looked at Anna.

“Do you want to watch?” he started jogging back towards her

“Uhhh” Anna looked nervously at Ronnie and back to Harry “The soundcheck?”

“Yeah” He ran his fingers through his hair “I hate doing them, it’s weird looking out to an empty room”

“I don’t think one person is going to make a difference” Ronnie said rolling his eyes

Harry turned his head to look at Ronnie “You can come too, I’m sure Helene wouldn’t mind if you got a few photos”

“My focus is the fans”

“Okayyy” Harry turned back to Anna “coming or not?”

She looked to Ronnie who shrugged and nodded “You’re not really my intern, do what you want”

His sudden change in attitude worried Anna, but she knew it was probably nothing, he often got stressed in high pressure situations where he had a set number of specific images that he needed.

Anna nodded at Harry “I guess I am”

Harry held out his hand and she took hold of it, “We better be quick, Jeffery will kill me if I take much longer.” He started running back down the narrow hallway and Anna was forced to follow suit, breaking into a light jog so that she wouldn’t have to let go of his hand. They came to the stage and Harry burst through the door and was met by a very stern looking Jeffery.

He quickly dropped Anna’s hand “Hello Jeffery” he said excitedly, a tone of sarcasm evident in his voice “what’s the plan here?”

“Same as always H, nice of you to keep everyone waiting”

Harry laughed and pet jeffery on the back “It’s only a few minutes Jeffy, I think we’ll be fine”

Jeffery peered around Harry so that he could see Anna and drew his lips into a sharp line, looking back at Harry with an expression that said a thousand words.

“Go stand at the mic, we’ll start by checking the screens”

Harry nodded and turned around looking at Anna “Where do you want to watch from love? Front and centre?” he pointed towards the gap between the two mosh pits.

“Where else?” she laughed and walked down the steps leaning on the barrier as she watched the screens lower around the stage. Harry waved to her as he disappeared behind them and Anna giggled at his attempts to be in sight as long as possible, ducking his head and pulling faces until the screens covered the stage. The opening notes of Only Angel echoed through the empty arena and Anna smiled back at Harry as he reappeared in front of her.

The soundcheck was quicker than Anna had expected, Harry and the band ran through a few songs on the main stage to check that everything was working as it should be. Then, once they knew everything on the B-Stage was working as it should be, Harry ran off stage back to Anna.

“Good show?” he asked raising his eyebrows at her

“My own private screening, might as well go home now”

“Oh no” Harry said “You’ll miss all the best bits”

***

The arena was full of screaming fans now and the show was halfway over. Standing by the B-Stage as Harry sang the final notes of ‘If I could Fly’, Anna was helping Ronnie find some fans that he could get a photo of and all she could think about was not the beautiful boy standing just a few metres away from her, who only an hour ago had been flirting with her, or her best friend who was truly the most important person in her life, but her blog. This was the moment of clarity that she’d been waiting for for years, the moment where she realised that her own happiness is more important than any degree in the world and her blog was her happy place, so why not make it her job too. She watched as Harry carefully rested his guitar on the stand and waved to the fans at the back of the arena before he made his way back to the main stage at a steady jog.

He brushed past Anna and grabbed onto her hand “You’re going to want to be at the front for this next song love” he dropped her hand continued on his way.

Ronnie rolled his eyes at the interaction “you’re not falling for this are you An?” he put his camera down and looked at her sternly.

“Mind your business Ronald” she wrapped her fake camera around her neck and followed Harry down the aisle, stopping just to the side of the pit.

“This is another new one” Harry said into the mic as the drum beat of an unfamiliar song echoed in Anna’s ears “It’s called Anna” he winked at Anna, a wide smirk emerging on his face.

“Don’t know where you’re laying Just know it’s not with me Don’t know what I’d tell you if I passed you on the street

I don’t want your sympathy, but you don’t know what you do to me,

Oh Anna!”

Anna Blushed. She knew the song wasn't about her, how could it be? She’d only met Harry four hours ago. It was simply coincidental, but she couldn’t help but feel like he was singing directly to her. Maybe it was because he couldn’t take his eyes off her, maybe it was because everytime he said her name he winked or maybe it was just because the song was about a girl called Anna.

“Well I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body

If I could touch your body

If I could touch your body”

Harry couldn’t take his eyes off Anna and he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face as he watched her blush at the lyrics. It had been a long time since he’d met someone he connected with so instantly, he actually wasn't sure he ever had.

***

Happiness.

In the perfect world, with the perfect life, there’s a formula for happiness, it’s a simple one, good grades in school, a university degree, a good, high paying job, a partner that loves you and some kids that are happy and healthy. But real life doesn’t have a formula and happiness is different for everyone.

I’m finding myself stuck on the second point of the so- called formula. University. A degree is supposed to qualify you for a job, right? But with just a few subjects to complete before I graduate, I don’t feel like there’s a job out there that I’m qualified to do. So why finish? That sounds crazy I know, but I’m, at a crossroads here, I have a choice.

I could spend the next year and a bit finishing my degree, getting myself into more debt only to end up in the same place I would if I take option two now.

I could turn this blog into my career. This requires a big leap of faith, a lot of patience and hard work, but that’s not what I’m afraid of. It’s the judgement that scares me. From family and friends to some of you guys, I know a lot of people would disapprove of me leaving university.

Now, before I tell you about my final decision, I’d like to tell you about last night because it was the happiest I’ve ever felt and it’s that experience that has led me to this cross roads.

Mr Harry Styles, has always been one of my favourite celebrities, he’s kind and he radiates joy and last night I got to experience that live and up close. Most of you know that a very close friend of mine is Ronnie Dalton, a well known photographer around London and he was lucky enough to be asked by the O2 to help out with photography last night, which meant that I got to tag along (as Ronnie’s “Intern”)

My interactions with Harry were only brief, a quick introduction, a hug, a few photos taken by Ronnie of Harry posing against a wall and then he was dragged away for sound check, but spending those few minutes with him, and watching him perform live, made me realise that there is no formula for happiness, something that makes one person happy won’t have the same effect on the next.

I was standing at the edge of Harry’s B-Stage, helping Ronnie set up a shot, when it dawned on me that my life doesn’t need to fit into a formula, I can be who I want without the world’s approval. So I write this blog post as I delete the essay I began writing yesterday and withdraw from my current subjects. I don’t need that degree to be happy, this blog has always been one of my great passions, I’ve been posting on it daily for years without fail and now is the perfect time to turn this passion I have for writing into something I can be proud of. This may seem like a rash decision, but I’ve been stewing on it for a while now and I guess I have Harry Styles to thank for giving me that final push, to take the leap of faith.

So, expect to see a few changes around here over the next few months, and a whole lot of new content.

Yours Sincerely, Anna. xx

177 notes · View notes

technicolorfamiliar · 6 years

Text

Global Spirit Tour: 2017 - 2018

Prologue:

Something weird happened early in 2017.

I was looking for a song to lip synch to. In drag.

This was for a one-off performance with the improv group I was part of at the time. We had a string of a few LGBTQ events, and drag lip synchs were becoming a regular part of our season. I needed a song, and I needed to pick something I knew no one else in the group would choose. As someone who is secretly very competitive (and someone who knows I perform on stage better as a man anyway), finding the perfect song and perfect character to fit the song was stressing me out. So I turned to my beloved 80's New Wave station on Pandora for inspiration.

Eventually, the inspiration I desperately needed presented itself (this is the Weird Thing). It was, of all things, Depeche Mode's "Stories of Old" from Some Great Reward, a song I knew and loved deeply as a teenager but hadn't actually heard or really listened to in years. And with the inspiration from the song came the core inspiration for my character. Suddenly, everything locked into place - the look, the hair, the clothes, the physicality (read: how provocative I could get away with being at what was technically a family friendly event). And with that perfect vision for my character, all thing things I loved about Depeche Mode when I was in high school came flooding back to me. Wave after wave of nostalgia, the kind that makes you realize, "this is why I am the way I am."

And so I was forcibly dragged back into all things Depeche Mode by one song, one incredibly underrated song stuck somewhere in the middle of what isn't even my favorite DM album.

(I ended up using a different song by a different band for the drag improv thing, at the directors' request, they thought something more well-known would be more appropriate, and at the time I agreed. But my character mood board was still very much focused on DM in the mid-80s.)

Funnily enough, at that same time, DM were about to release a new album and announce dates for their Global Spirit Tour. So the timing on my part worked out perfectly. I have a habit of rediscovering the music I loved in high school just as a bunch of new content is about to hit the internet (one day I'll write about how Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo saved my life more than once).

For a little background, when I say I loved DM in high school, I mean that's when I first heard of them. I didn't grow up on Depeche Mode, as my parents - who were my major source of music recs until I was 15 - absolutely hated anything that had to do with 1980s synthpop, post-punk, or any other new wave music. But someone much older and much cooler than me gave me a mix tape with "In Your Room" on it and I was intrigued. That wasn't the DM song that sealed my fate as a fan. That was 100% "Never Let Me Down Again", but a nudge in the right direction was all I needed, and for that honest to god actual mix tape cassette, I am eternally grateful.

I was a teenager during the era of Playing The Angel, and I was lucky enough to see them on that tour with my best friend at the time. The tickets were my high school graduation present. Our seats were at the very back of what used to be the Nissan Pavilion in VA. I hardly remember anything about the show itself, and any pictures I must have taken on my old pocket digital camera are sadly lost.

Washington, DC:

It was 2017 before I managed to see another DM tour. For whatever reason, whether it was my busy work schedule, being broke, or waiting until shows were already sold out to look for tickets, I missed both the Sounds of the Universe and Delta Machine tours. So when the Spirit tour was announced, I was poised and ready to make what some people might consider irrational financial choices in order to see three separate shows between September 2017 and June 2018.

The lead-up to the September 7th show in DC was a lot of fun. I was going with my two close friends, so we enjoyed some additional bonding as we eagerly anticipated the show together. This was the only gig on the tour I saw with people I knew, and I have nothing against going to concerts by myself -- and sometimes traveling great distances to do so. But getting to share the excitement leading up to the actual day and at the event itself with two of my very good friends was really special. I'm really glad I got to share that experience with them, and have their positive, enthusiastic energy to draw on.

This is the part of the post where I go on a brief tangent about superfan elitism, bear with me: The hardcore DM fans would say, "Three shows? That's nothing." And I would say they're right, but that doesn’t make me any less of a fan. I could have gone to more shows, probably, but my bank account, my job security, and my sanity required that three be the maximum amount of shows I got to see on this specific tour. There are numerous ways a person can express their love of a band, a tv show, a piece of immersive theatre, or whatever. The level of insane superfan I am or am not does not mean that their music is any less important to me as an artist and as person. HOWEVER, the people who I encountered at these three DM shows who were on their phones the entire concert, people who had better seats than me who sat down completely unengaged the whole time, and the people making disrespectful and unrelated comments about the audience and the band themselves can go fuck themselves. That negative, attention seeking, distracting bullshit has no place down in the floor seats in front of the stage, they can go be terrible up in the mezzanine levels.

Which is exactly where my first show was spent.

Second or third tier seats for big arena shows are 1000% not worth whatever money you spend on them. They're too far away, and you're surrounded by people who act like they've never heard of the band they paid actual money to see. The only reason my friends and I were up there in the first place was because of how absurd the US ticket queueing system was for the first North American leg of the GST. I, like many others, have a lot of issues with how that was handled and am glad they scrapped it for the second round of US shows.

I'm glad I had my two friends with me at the DC show, though. The three of us were maybe the only people having a genuinely fun time in our section. This first show for me was the only one where I cried. I wasn't expecting to, but hearing and seeing Martin sing "Home" struck something in me. And then "Heroes". I knew it was coming, but it still managed to really resonate on a deep emotional level. I love David Bowie as much as they do, but knowing that "Heroes" was how Dave was initially asked to be in the band, and my own personal feelings and connections to Bowie, hearing Dave sing it as well as he did was everything in that moment.

I have a number of issues with that show in DC, but none of them have anything to do with DM or the show itself. They played more songs from Spirit at this show than at any of the others I attended, but there was also "Corrupt" and "Wrong", "A Question of Lust" and "Somebody". It was also the longest set list of out of the three shows, with 22 songs total, which is rare for them, from what I understand, because of how intense their live shows are, especially for Dave (which I got to experience more closely at the other two shows). His presence on stage radiates to the rafters of huge venues like the Capital One Arena -- but more about Dave in a minute. I can talk about how good they sounded in DC, and how much hearing those songs live meant to me on that night during that time in my life, how I felt the synths and bass and percussion in my bone marrow and in my soul, but I can't really talk about the all-consuming, sweaty frenzy of experiencing a show like theirs from the floor. For that, I need to talk about Berlin and Philadelphia.

Berlin:

So DM announced more dates in Europe. And, because I'm insane I guess, was online at some ungodly hour when tickets went on sale for the two shows in Berlin, Germany in January. I was able to get an early entry ticket for the January 19th show in BERLIN where I would be surrounded by other people who were actually genuinely excited to be there, which would be a huge improvement after the lackluster crowds in DC.

Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I do it exactly the same way ever again? Probably not. Because queueing overnight outside the arena was worth it for the concert experience itself, but it's not necessarily something I need to do again any time soon. I'm a weak, American fan, and I own that. The German DM fans go so fucking hard and I am absolutely terrified of them.

Somehow, I managed to get a spot on the barrier without any pushing or shoving. I wound up in the pocket where the main stage becomes turns into the catwalk, right in front of where Andy Fletcher has his set-up. On either side of me were two other women who also were there by themselves. They were nice enough to talk to me and keep me company while we waited.

The show, though.

My consciousness went… somewhere else. I can’t really compare the feeling to anything else I've experienced. I've been to some other really singularly wonderful concerts, to see bands and musicians that I have deep emotional ties to, but none of them have been like this. It's the combination of being part of the masses down on the floor, on the barrier, exhausted and sweating and euphoric, with the power and intensity of hearing and seeing Depeche Mode perform live. I was hyper-aware of everything happening in front of me. Time did something strange, it crawled by so slowly and yet it was over before I could register what happened. I was an outsider there, but I felt like I was part of this massive collective, all connected by our desire to be there, our love of the music, united for a few hours, and I was so aware that everything that was happening on stage and around us was happening to eary one of the people in that arena at once.

The sound of the ignition at the beginning of "Stripped" reverberating in your rib cage, the driving, head-banging riffs in "I Feel You," the cosmic outro of "Cover Me," the field of wheat arm-waving during "Never Let Me Down Again" -- having it all happen to you, at that volume, at that frequency and intensity, is like having your soul yanked from your body and cast into decadent oblivion.

Honestly, it was a blur. But as far as I can remember, highlights included:

The additional songs from Ultra! Unexpected, but very much appreciated.

Experiencing Andy Fletcher's ridiculous awkward dad dancing up close and in person. There's a lot of hype about Fletch's moves, but let me tell you, they exceed any expectation.

Martin. Martin sang "Sister of Night" AND "Judas". I was overcome. People talk about singers sounding like an angel, but Martin L. Gore is the only person in the history of music that saying actually applies to in full.

And Dave. If he was anything like he was at this show when they were at the DC show, I missed the fuck out. Because yes, he performs to the whole arena, even to the people in the very back, but it's altogether something else to watch someone that animated up close. He's tapping into some energy and fire to fuel his work that I've only rarely seen in other artists. Dave Gahan never phones it in, he always performs like he's got jet fuel for blood and like every show really means something. He is outrageous on stage, in every sense of the word. He is endlessly inspiring, and deserves so much recognition and respect.

Philadelphia:

That said… to me, it seemed like the band as a whole was having way more fun at the Philly show than they did in Berlin. I can't put my finger on the specific differences, but they seemed lighter, more pleased with their work, and maybe genuinely surprised at the warmth of their audience in Philly. Martin smiled a lot more at the Philadelphia show, and Dave seemed looser, maybe less tired after a double in Germany.

The Philly gig on June 3rd was the best, by far, out of the three. The second US leg of the GST was announced and I, of course, being the way that I am, thought, "FUCK IT WHY NOT" and magically got a floor seat ticket right in front of Martin's side of the stage after the general tickets went on sale. And it was worth every penny and a short train ride from Baltimore.

I met a few more very nice people, a couple from Florida (whose first show had been cancelled due to the major hurricane last year) and a solo lady sitting behind me who let me join their conversation. And the man sitting to my left was British? European? So he also knew all the things the audience is supposed to do during specific songs that I learned when I was in Berlin. There were definitely some bastard people in the crowd, even down on the floor, terrible people who clearly weren't enjoying themselves, but the high energy of everyone else made it easy to shift focus to the band.

The set list was very similar to the one I heard in Germany, with the exception of two of Martin's songs from Music For The Masses and "A Question of Time" right before their closer -- "Personal Jesus." But again, the performances and mood behind most of the songs at the Philly show seemed lighter, more playful and mischievous (on Dave's part). And the time really flew by. I missed "I Feel You" in the set list, but that's a very minor criticism of what was, over all, a miraculous third show out of three very powerful concerts.

Epilogue:

The general consensus among fans is that this may have been the last big tour Depeche Mode have. They may keep recording together and separately, but another tour on this massive scale is unlikely. If that's the case, I'm so glad I found a way to see three very different shows on the Global Spirit Tour. I can’t imagine experiencing the same exact feeling these shows gave me; I certainly didn't feel the same at David Byrne's awesome American Utopia tour show this summer, and I don't expect the feel the same when I see Nick Cave in October.

Depeche Mode, especially now, at this stage in their careers, during this time in American and world history, and for me personally at this specific point in my life as I age out of my 20s, have been a source of sanity and compassion, of deep feeling and social commentary. Their music touches maybe the parts of myself I'm too scared to look at head on. After going through some of the things that have happened to me as an adult, and as I figure out the kind of person I want to be in the coming decade, obviously there are certain themes resonate with me more than they did when I first discovered DM as a teen. I am grateful to have had circumstances happen the way they did to lead me back to Depeche Mode, to delve deep into their music and history.

Those three shows changed the my standards for seeing live music. After being front row for the Berlin concert, how could I ever go back to being content sitting up in the second or third tier for any arena show? I've been spoiled.

And after a few months have passed, when I think about my experiences over the course of the Global Spirit Tour, it doesn't quite feel real. There are a few other concerts I've been to where when I think about it, I think, "Did that actually happen??" (Namely seeing Danny Elfman in Los Angeles on Halloween, 2014. Absolutely bonkers.) Seeing DM in Berlin is definitely one of those moments already, not even a year later.

I look forward to the future of their music. If Depeche Mode tour again, and that's a big if, the furthest I would travel to see them is maybe the UK, but hopefully that won’t be necessary! However, I absolutely would go see a solo show, if Martin or Dave ever had shows anywhere even remotely close by. I would absolutely travel to New York or LA to see a solo Martin show or Dave with Soulsavers. From what I can tell those venues are usually smaller, so it would be easier to have a more enjoyable, intimate experience.

But that's all there is. Nothing more than you can feel now, that's all there is.

Until next time.

Photo by me, Jan 19, 2018

#depeche mode #global spirit tour #live music #long post

2 notes · View notes

allwaswell16 · 7 years

Photo

>>>My Favorite Fics<<<

In honor of Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day, this is a fic rec of my personal favorite fan fics in no particular order. Happy reading and thanks to all the writers!

Just Tell Me the Song and I’ll Sing It by @myownsparknow

Louis is an architecture student who can only think about the future. Harry is a baseball player who can only think about right now. Both are lonely for different reasons. Boybands bring them together.

Why Can’t It Be Like That by @taggiecb

A fashion AU with a royal twist, where Louis doesn't need a stylist, Harry's thrilled to have a real life Barbie doll, and they're both very wrong about each other.

Feels Like Coming Home by @phd-mama

This is a story about love and the power of forgiveness, and how the hard choices we make define us, and change our lives.

I Had Rather (series) by @magicalrocketships (Tomlinshaw)

The first time Louis Tomlinson kisses him, Nick is three sheets to the wind, wearing a pirate hat, and so fucking tired of Louis being a complete and utter knobhead that he's spent the last ten minutes snapping at him. The kiss takes him rather by surprise, all things considered. Or: Nick and Louis don't like each other, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Take My Breath Away by @realitybetterthanfiction

Lt. Harry Styles, call sign Sparrow, is a prodigy when it comes to flying. The owner of an unrivaled Naval pedigree, being a pilot was always written in the stars for Harry. With his trusty RIO, Lt. Niall Horan, Harry has made an unprecedented ascension in the ranks of the Naval aerial combat elite, and has been recruited to the esteemed Premier Delta flight school, carrying on his family’s legacy. What he finds there are unexpected friendships, perilous challenges, and something beyond what he ever thought possible. Because as his father had always told him, before the great Captain Styles went tragically missing in combat, you don’t fall in love with the sky, you fall in love with what keeps you on the ground.

I Walk the Line by @a-writerwrites

Professor Louis Tomlinson is the leading researcher in his field. Harry Styles is Louis’ recently hired grad assistant. Sparks fly between them but something doesn’t add up when it comes to Harry, and Louis is determined to find out what.

Ain’t My Fault by @afirethatcannotdie

Liam posts an ad on the wrong section of Craigslist, Louis is pretty sure they’re gonna get murdered as a result, and Harry’s missing an avocado.

This Ain’t Just a Thing That You Give Up by @lululawrence

The one where Harry is a baker in addition to being a college student who just happens to meet the crazy famous Louis Tomlinson while on spring break. Featuring personal assistant!niall, roommate and best friend!liam, and costar/model!zayn.

Midnight Dancers by @alveronian (Larry/Tomlinshaw)

Nearly a year after One Direction ends, Louis finds himself with a choice to make: go back and fix the mistakes of the past, or take a risk on something new? A tale of three men, two love stories...and two endings.

Fall At My Door by @fullonlarrie

A-list actor Harry Styles and award-winning musician Louis Tomlinson have an acquaintances-with-benefits relationship, so whenever their busy professional lives happen to land them in the same city, they meet up. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. And that’s all it is. Until it isn’t.

Yet in Thy Dark Streets Shineth by @juliusschmidt

Louis’ life has become the very thing he’s always dreaded: routine. His job is steady, his bills are paid, his friends are preoccupied, his siblings are mostly old enough not to need him, and his mom keeps pestering him about attending church. Apparently, the new minister pulls rainbows and unicorns out of his robes. Advent arrives three months into Harry’s first call as associate pastor at St. Andrews. Life is… not perfect. He’s still figuring out how do his job and the holidays bring a whole bundle of extra stress. On top of which, he has no friends or family nearby with whom he can decompress. Louis Tomlinson shows up to worship in the nick of time.

Love Is A Rebellious Bird by @100percentsassy & @gloriaandrews

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too. Don't hum Bolero.

blend into my favourite colour by @rainbowninja

Harry is a barista with a secret Werewolf High fan blog, a desperate crush on a customer named Louis, and a best friend on Tumblr who always makes him laugh. Louis can't figure out why the barista at his favorite coffee shop keeps creepily staring at him, and to make matters worse, he may be slightly in love with a friend he met online. A love square involving two boys, one TV fandom, and one food fight.

Far Away. by @dimpled-halo

Harry returns to London after five years. Stuck in the past with "what ifs" and "what might have beens", he sees that his friends and ex (and possible love of his life) Louis have all moved on with their lives while he finds himself questioning his own life choices, past and present.

And Then a Bit by @infinitelymint

Harry and Louis fake a relationship for publicity. Eventually it becomes a lot less fake and a lot more real.

Twelfth Night by @becomeawendybird

Queen Anne holds a masquerade ball to try and find matches for both her children on Twelfth Night. While anonymity reigns, Prince Harry spends the ball getting to know a handsome stranger.

Naked & Proud by @icanhazzalou

In which Harry runs an organic store, not a nudist colony, and Louis doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Coming Home Through the Dark to You by @londonfoginacup

Harry Styles works at the Fox in the Snow, the most hipster coffee joint around. He's got too many roommates and a best friend he met his first day of university who he might very well be head-over-heels for.

Then We Talk Slow by @letsjustsee

A famous/non-famous AU in which Louis banters back and forth with his new record company on Twitter, only to find out that Harry is the man behind the tweets.

kiss me on the mouth and set me free by @suspendrs

Louis is a gamer and Harry is a beauty guru, and VidCon is a good place to fall in love.

You’re Writing Verses About Me by @all-these-larrythings

Everybody knows that Louis has never been one for serious boyfriends. His reputation around campus precedes him, which is why he doesn't think twice before proudly telling his mother about his new and completely fabricated relationship with his oddly quiet and completely gorgeous new roommate Harry to shut her up about his lack of commitment. It's the perfect lie; a flawless plan, or at least it was until Louis' ordered to bring his fabulous new boyfriend home.

A Match Made in Aisle Three (Everybody Cut Footloose) by @flamboyantommo

The one where Louis is a drama student/cashier who assists Harry in buying a bottle of lube, and is also the only guy that frat boy Harry has trouble talking to. Also featuring Sophia as stubborn matchmaker and Liam as accidental wingman.

If Tomorrow Never Comes (We Had Last Night) by @suddenclarityharry & @all-these-larrythings

Based on this Tumblr prompt: "Accidentally called your number while drunk asking for a ride and you actually came au"

driving me crazy, but i’m into it (series) by @jaerie

Harry is a camboy trying out something new and Louis ends up on the other end of the line.

You You You by @isthatyoularry

The one where Harry and Louis meet at a club and Louis takes Harry home, only for him to realize that the boy who just made him breakfast half naked is Harry Styles from One Direction.

Unbelievers by @isthatyoularry

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Fall Into Your Gravity by @zarah5undercover

AU. In which Harry is an overnight pop sensation and Louis steals plants, Zayn pulls Liam's proverbial pigtails and Niall's really just pleased there are more girls for him.

burn to ash by @bethaboolou

The fic where Harry spirals out of control, the band breaks up, and then he shows back up, five years later.

Have You Coming Back Again by @crazyupsetter

It’s five o’clock in the morning. Louis has a lecture at half eight. He could be using this time to study or to do his readings or to go to the gym, but - well. He doesn’t have any exams coming up, he’s not going to his seminar today anyway and he hates the gym. Instead he’s using this time to fuck with Harry Styles’ poor little brain.

The One Where Harry Really Doesn’t Have Ten Cats by @loaded-gunn

The AU where Harry is a pet-sitter for the rich and famous, and Louis is rich and famous.

After Hours by @mizzwilde

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are the bane of each other's existences. Unfortunately, they're already in love--even if they aren't completely aware of this minor detail. [A "You've Got Mail" AU]

Want You More Than A by @donotdialnine

Falling in love with your step-brother’s best friend is a disaster enough. When he happens to be the boy everyone loves and you’re a nerd who wears sweater vests and cries during rom-coms, it takes it to a whole new level.

Rise up like the sun by @tommosgun

“I wasn't taking a sneaky pic.” Louis blurted out, the guy stood at one of the urinals taking a piss. “You were.” The guy answered coolly. “I would've taken a pic with you if you'd just asked.” “No I didn't want a pic with you.” The guy turned his head, quirking his eyebrow sardonically. “No you're far too cool for that, you just wanted to violate my privacy.” Louis squeezed his eyes shut.

let me make a thing of cream and stars by @missandrogyny

It doesn't explain why he's lying on the floor, with Harry Styles, of all people, planking on top of him.As in, seventeenth most influential person in London, pop-star-turned-rock-star Harry Styles. The same Harry Styles who has had countless model girlfriends, left, right and centre. Also the same Harry Styles who has been the subject of Louis' wet dreams since he was about eighteen.(Or: Louis is a Radio 1 DJ and Harry is a pop-star he interviews.)

no pressure, no diamonds by @karamelised

Louis is a thief, Harry a grifter. They are thrown together for a huge diamond heist in Paris, where their past soon catches up to them.

#my favorite fics #fic rec #larry fan fiction

481 notes · View notes