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hermannsthumb · 3 years

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"different young (rebound) hunk on his arm every week…newton geiszler who?" CAN YOU WRITE THIS FIC PLEASE? Hermann as the new heartthrob of the science world, cheekbones that can cut glass, baby gay scientists everywhere using appalling math-related pick-up lines in an attempt to be the booty call of the week. Newton catches a glimpse of him at a fundraiser and the Precursors have to stop him from crying with lust.

so tragically I plotted a whole fic for this and then came back and realized this prompt involves PRU but I liked my idea too much so unfortunately I won’t be filling the PRU part 😔 but I DO love heartthrob hermann sooooooooo. this can be pre-PRU if you want to make it sad actually CW for drinking and mild allusion to not sfw stuff. when will these boys talk about their feelings?

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Hermann doesn’t like going out to bars at the best of times, least of all after he’s had the sort of exceptionally long day he’s had today (fighting his way through airports and hotel lobbies, fielding interview questions, having not even a minute’s break from Newton), but even he will admit that the one Newton has dragged him along to tonight could be far worse. The sorts of bars Newton fancied throughout their stint at the Hong Kong Shatterdome tended to be far hipper, far more becoming for a man of his (and, admittedly, Hermann’s) age, and likely aimed at tourists: pounding music, dark rooms, neon lighting, overpriced drinks, an inability to navigate through throngs of dancing bodies without bumping into at least half a dozen people. For that reason Hermann’s blood practically ran cold earlier that evening when, fresh out of their latest television interview, Newton insisted that Hermann needed to unwind a little. That Newton would help him unwind a little.

Hermann was pleasantly surprised to find that though the music (a live band) is still loud, and drink prices are still inflated, at least he can see Newton, and at least the few people dancing are dancing far away from them. And, well, perhaps it’s made him more amenable to (mostly) matching Newton drink-for-drink, and to indulging him in knocking back not one, but two rounds of the most disgusting-looking pink shots of all time, and— “Look, dude,” Newton declares, tossing an arm around Hermann’s shoulder. He’s shouting and leaning in too-close to Hermann, not because he’s intoxicated, but rather to be heard over the band, which has launched into a rather enthusiastic cover of some song Hermann’s sure he’s heard blaring from Newton’s iTunes before. His stubble tickles the shell of Hermann’s ear. “Just say it with me. It’s that easy. R-e-t-i-r-e-m—”

“We are thirty-five,” Hermann says. “We can’t just—”

“We absolutely can,” Newton says. He nudges his cocktail glass into Hermann’s chest, sloshing a bit of hot pink Watermelon Crush on his neat button-up. Hermann stifles a sigh; the shirt is brand new, bought just that morning for the interview, and will already be needing a wash. And smelling like liquified hard candy for the rest of the evening. “You and me, lying on a beach somewhere, sleeping in until noon every day, learning how to—to fish, or paint, or whatever the hell we want—”

“Not a beach,” Hermann says immediately. “I’m bloody well sick of beaches. Oceans, lakes, bays—no more."

Indulging Newton’s ridiculous little fantasy, even for a moment, is a mistake: Newton’s face lights up in a grin, and he tucks his arm around Hermann’s shoulder to pull Hermann flush against him. Hermann’s barstool wobbles dangerously. “Okay, no beaches. Far away from any coastline. The mountains, then.” It’d be just their luck, Hermann thinks, if the next Breach reopened far away from the ocean, too. Like it followed them somehow. “Let’s move to Switzerland or something and buy a log cabin or a cave and become weird recluses. I’ll learn how to ski, and you can grow a beard, and we can buy all our furniture at Ikea—” He frowns. “Is Ikea from Switzerland? Sweden? I haven’t been since college.”

“I don’t recall ever agreeing to move anywhere with you in the first place,” Hermann says, “let alone retire to do so. What on earth makes you think I’d follow you to Switzerland? I’ve no interest whatsoever in Switzerland.”

“Uh, because we’re best friends?” Newton says. “Anyway, what else would you do?”

“Anything,” Hermann says. He begins to tick off all the possibilities on his fingers while Newton watches him, unimpressed. “I could stay in Hong Kong—I’m sure they’d appreciate help monitoring what remains of the Breach. Or I could move back to England and resume my old teaching post, if they’d have me.” Hermann knows they’d have him; they’ve already sent him at least a dozen emails practically begging him to accept tenure. “Or back to Germany, with my parents.”

“I could totally do all that, too,” Newton says. “Well—not the Germany thing. No offense, dude, but your parents kinda suck. I don’t think I want them as my roommates.”

Hermann decides not to mention that the odds are very high they would not want Newton as a roommate, either. He’s tempted to ask Newton if he meant what he said about them being best friends—for Hermann can’t recall the last time someone called him their best friend, if ever—but Newton’s arm is slipping from his shoulders, and Newton is pulling out his mobile phone and tapping away frantically at it. Hermann feels strangely bereft without his touch. “Okay,” Newton says, his eyes scanning the screen, “Ikea was founded in Sweden, but they moved headquarters in—”

“Excuse me?”

Hermann and Newton both startle, Newton nearly dropping his phone, and the bartender who’d interrupted them smiles apologetically. He’s holding a pint of what appears to be beer. “Sorry to bother you guys,” he says to them, “but this is from the young man over there in the pink shirt.”

At the sight of the drink Newton brightens and puffs out his chest visibly. Bloody perfect, Hermann thinks. Just want Newton needs—another boost to his ego. “No sweat,” Newton says. He tosses his mobile to the bar counter casually and reaches to accept the glass. “Please tell him I’m super flattered, but—”

“Actually, sir,” the bartender interrupts, and—to Hermann’s surprise—slides the glass away from Newton’s grasp and over to Hermann. Hermann takes it without a word, not quite daring to believe it. Down the bar, out of the corner of his eye, he can see the flash of a bright pink shirt, but he can’t quite make himself turn to acknowledge the mystery admirer. Is that rude of him? No one has ever sent him a drink before. He’s not quite sure of the etiquette. “It’s, um, not for you.”

Newton deflates like a popped balloon. A blush spreads across his cheeks, barely visible beneath his freckles, which have come out again in the spring sunlight now that they’re not spending all their time in the Shatterdome basement. Hermann likes the look of them; he thinks they’re sweet, and that if he traced his fingertip across them they’d make a pattern of some sort, like a constellation. Not that he ever would, of course. Newton would surely ridicule him. "Right, duh,” Newton says.

He waits until the bartender is gone to round on Hermann. “Dude!” he says, almost accusatory, “Fourth time this week!”

“It is not,” Hermann protests. It’s weak to his own ears: even he isn’t thick enough to miss the sudden influx of attention he’s gotten since their first television interview last month. Hermann was never exactly popular, never exactly the sort the drive people wild with lust or romantic longing, yet it seems as if he can’t go anywhere these days without turning a few heads (including mid-twentysomething heads, mortifyingly enough) and getting a few cellular numbers slipped into his hand. Yesterday, a young man on the metro asked Hermann if he might like to see a movie some time. The day before that, another man wearing a jean jacket full of enamel pins stepped up to Hermann in a Starbucks and asked him if he could call-cu-later. Last week, a starry-eyed college student stopped Hermann outside a hotel to ask him to sign his Calculus 3 textbook, excitedly telling Hermann he switched degrees to astrophysics not a few days prior after reading an interview with Hermann in a rather obscure pop science magazine, and had blushed when Hermann thanked him. Newton had laughed at that one, and advised the young man to give biology a shot instead. (Newton had gotten very cross when he was promptly ignored, and in referencing the incident later, rather bitterly called the student an annoying little punk.)

This is to say nothing, of course, of the multiple news articles (listicles, as Newton calls them) Newton has forced him to read about himself on something called Buzzfeed, which have apparently helped to cement Hermann’s fifteen minutes of fame. One was called Twelve Times Dr. Hermann Gottlieb Was A Fashion Icon and was accompanied with a rather embarrassing array of candid photos of Hermann. Newton has been particularly incensed over that one.

“It is,” Newton says. “At least third. You know, I think the worst part is that you’re not even getting laid. Dudes are throwing themselves at you left and right—”

“Am I meant to go home with any random stranger who shows me the briefest bit of attention?” Hermann snaps. “I like to think I have somewhat higher standards than that.” I’m not like you, he nearly adds, but decides that it might perhaps be too cruel, especially considering that Newton has not gotten a fraction of the attention Hermann has over the past month. He remembers what it used to be like in the Shatterdome, is all; Newton seemed to like anyone who would give him the time of day. Most of his romances didn’t fare well for that reason.

“I’m just saying you could, and you’re not,” Newton says.

Hermann taps his finger against the pint glass, watching bubbles release from the side and rise to the top. When he finally takes a sip, it makes him wrinkle his nose. He’s not usually much for drinking. “I don’t like IPAs,” he says.

“I’ll take it,” Newton says, and the corner of his mouth hitches up in a grin, “as long as your boyfriend won’t get offended.”

Considering that Newton has only just finished following up his two shots with a cocktail, Hermann questions the decision, but slides him the glass anyway. Newton starts on it at once. Hermann wonders if he’ll need to call them a rideshare back to their hotel tonight; he’s not sure he can manage guiding a intoxicated Newton through the streets of the city on foot, especially not after a day that’s been rather unkind on his hip. “Only I suppose I have trouble believing it,” Hermann admits.

“Believing what?” Newton says.

“That they’re genuinely interested,” Hermann says.

To Hermann’s surprise, Newton snorts. “Nah, dude. You’ve got—” He taps Hermann’s chest, and leaves his hand there. “—sex appeal. You’ve got the, like, soulful eyes, and the movie star eyelashes, and the cheekbones and—” He drags his fingertip along Hermann’s jaw, and Hermann masks his sharp flinch in a cough, hoping Newton can’t feel his face heating up. He doesn’t remember if Newton has ever touched his face before. It feels shockingly intimate. “People think it’s super hot.” He takes another sip of Hermann’s drink. "Plus, you’re so—like—uptight. It makes people wonder what you’re bottling up.”

Hermann arches an eyebrow. “Bottling up?”

“In a sexy way,” Newton clarifies.

He settles his hand back on Hermann’s chest. Hermann licks his lips. Has Newton wondered those sorts of things about him, too? “You’ve had—too much to drink,” he says.

“A little bit,” Newton agrees. “I’m right, though. I like this shirt, by the way, it’s a nice cut on you.” He toys with one of the shirt’s buttons, and when he speaks again it’s in a low voice that makes Hermann’s mouth feel strangely dry. Hermann has never heard it from him before. “Wanna go back to the hotel and rent a movie or something?”

He’s peering at Hermann through his eyelashes, smiling in an odd little way. How terribly close they are to each other, Hermann realizes. He can count every tiny scratch in Newton’s eyeglasses, every fleck of gold in his eyes, every freckle on his cheeks. He wonders if Newton really wants to rent a movie; he wonders what Newton would do if Hermann closed the inch between them, and... “I,” Hermann stammers, gaze fixed on Newton’s mouth (stained pinker from his drink), “er, yes, only—only I feel as if I ought to thank the gentleman who sent me—”

At once, Newton drops away from him. His face hardens. His smile hardens, too. “Oh, right. I forgot,” he says. He inclines his head down the bar. “Pink shirt, right?”

Hermann casts his eyes about, searching for the pink-shirted stranger. When he doesn’t immediately spot him, a small bubble of relief swells within him. Perhaps he left, perhaps he decided he’s not interested in Hermann after all, perhaps Hermann is free to go back to the hotel with Newton and watch a film and argue about retirement and… “Oh, there,” Newton says. A man catches Hermann’s eye and waves timidly. He’s wearing a pink button-up.

“Bugger,” Hermann mutters. His admirer is not unattractive—in fact, he’s the opposite, with curly hair and glasses even thicker than Newton’s—which Newton seems to notice, too. He claps Hermann on the shoulder, hard enough that Hermann sways with it.

“He’s totally cute,” Newton says, “and he’s totally into you. You gotta at least get his number.” He takes another large sip of Hermann’s drink. “Better yet, get yourself laid. You could use it.”

Hermann feels the oddest sense of whiplash. Just a minute prior, he was about to kiss Newton (and he was pretty sure Newton was going to kiss him back), and now Newton is practically throwing him at another man. Hermann does not want to get anyone’s phone number—he wants to fall asleep in his stiff hotel bed to some absolutely awful science-fiction movie Newton picks out. “Newton,” he says, “weren’t we going to—?”

“No biggie, we can do movie night tomorrow instead,” Newton says. He nudges Hermann’s calf with the toe of his boot, and holds out his cane to him. Hermann feels his heart begin to sink. “I won’t wait up for you. Just give me a heads up if he wants to go back to our place, and I’ll make sure to stay out longer.”

“I’m sure it’ll only take a moment,” Hermann says. He’ll make sure it only takes a moment.

“No biggie,” Newton repeats. He raises his glass to Hermann in a mock toast. “Good luck!”

When Hermann looks back over his shoulder, halfway to the man in the pink shirt, it’s to see Newton’s stool vacant, and the back of Newton’s leather jacket swishing out the bar doors.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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beholdme · 3 years

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All the Many Shades of Gerry - Chapter 3

Chapters: 3/19

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Gertrude Robinson, Elias Bouchard

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Library AU, Librarian Jon, Artist Gerry, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Canon Asexual Character, Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Ace Subtype - Sex Positive, Polyamory, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff, Falling In Love, Boys in Skirts, Kissing, Demisexual Gerard Keay, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Canon-Typical Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Flirting, Minor Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Adventures in Hair Dying, Happy Ending, Banter, Gerry has a lot of sass, Gerard Keay is Morticia Adams, Jon is a very grumpy Librarian, Martin adores them anyway.

Summary: In which Gerry is a kaleidoscope and Jon and Martin can't help falling in love with him.

He happens to love them back.

Find it on Ao3

[1] [2]

In the following weeks, as he sees Jon a few more times, Gerry's hair fades out and he looks rather more 'forest nymph' than 'American Gothic'.

So it's not much of a shock when the next time Jon catches sight of Gerry striding through the library stacks, his hair has been re-coloured. This time it's a smooth buttery yellow and Jon is struck by how young the warm, bright colour makes him look.

Gerry doesn't feel young though, he feels tired and bored and wrung out, and he wishes he had never agreed to take art commissions.

"It's only the one time!" Gertrude had insisted to a very put upon Gerry, very early in the morning. "And if he puts in a good word for you in his circles, your name will really be on the map in the art world."

Gerry wasn't particularly interested in being put on any maps, or being picked apart by rich, stuck up strangers, but he had agreed to try, mostly because Gertrude had put a lot of effort into making his passion for art an actual career and he felt like he owed her.

(He forgets, frequently, just how much of a commission she takes on the sales of his paintings).

So there he was, striding around the library at 7 am and desperately looking for exactly the right reference book. Unfortunately, it has been out of print for years, and Gerry can't seem to find a copy anywhere that won't cost him half a liver. He has the money now, but he refuses to pay half a month's rent to a second-hand retailer on principle.

Jon watches him skulk around for so long, (apparently forgetting that he is, in fact, a librarian) that Sasha comes out from her desk to ask Gerry if he's looking for something specific. She's wearing her big round glasses today and even indulged herself in her favorite waistcoat to beat the Monday blues.

"Why, yes." At this, Gerry looks directly up at Jon, where he is standing and watching him from the upper balcony level. Jon's face burns, and he ducks out of sight, but not earshot. "I do actually come here to borrow books, not boys." And he smartly feeds her the name of the reference book he has been hunting for almost an hour.

Sasha giggles at his antics, "We do have a copy of that, actually, but it's very popular. There's a waitlist; also it's checked out right now."

Gerry's whole demeanor sags and he sighs in defeat. "Guess I really will just have to order it off the internet, then." He eyes the stacks of books, old and new, looking vaguely betrayed.

"No!" Sasha's exclamation takes everyone a bit aback, being that they are in a library and all. "You know, my mate has this sweet little bookstore, and he loves hunting down rare copies of older books, he might have a copy?" She wrings her hands, eyebrows raised in question.

Gerry beams down at her, causing even stoic Sasha to blush and scurry off to get a piece of paper for the address.

They're already most of the way to the front desk by the time Jon realizes just which bookstore Sasha is busy recommending to the man he is dating , and just who owns that particular establishment.

By the time he manages to get downstairs to try to deflect the situation, Gerry is out the door, nothing left but the faint scent of oil paints and leather from his jacket.

***

Tim Stoker leaves Gerry feeling faintly dazed. By the time he stumbles out of the bookstore and into the tea room, elusive book in hand, he's forgotten everything he has ever known in the face of such intense flirting. And Gerry thought he was bad.

Throughout the whole episode at the library, the walk through Chelsea, and the exchange with Tim, Gerry had never once taken a moment to consider that Sasha's friend with a bookstore and Jon's Martin with a bookstore might be the same person.

He chooses to blame the lack of sleep and general disarray that is his life for the oversight.

Which is how, 9:30 in the morning, having been awake for almost 24 hours and completely finished, Gerry walks up to Martin in his tea room and says, "I'll have whatever is pink and in that jug, please. The biggest you've got."

Martin, of course, recognized him immediately. He would have recognized Jon's gothic childhood boyfriend from his social media stalking alone, but Jon's frantic texting was also a pretty big giveaway.

Martin: Relax, I don't bite clients this early in the morning. He's in safe hands with me.

Jon: HE KNOWS THINGS ABOUT ME. Besides, who's gonna stop him from biting you?

Martin: Whatever he has to tell me can’t possibly be worse than the office gossip I heard about you before we even meet.

Jon: W H A T

Now, here Gerry is before him, and he’s quite pleased with what he sees. Even tired and vaguely dazed, his presence in the little room carries a certain energy that Martin enjoys.

"Right away. Take a seat and I'll call you with it." Martin's voice is sweet, but gentle and firm, in a comforting sort of way. Through Gerry's sleepy haze, the instruction makes perfect sense, although he has neither paid nor offered a call name.

Gerry considers taking a seat on the plush bench that occupies one wall, before deciding that he desperately needs a cigarette, and wandering outside.

Technically he is only supposed to smoke at night when he's painting and needs just the right kind of boost, but he decides to call this one since he's on a painting-based errand when he's supposed to be sleeping.

"Gerry?" He turns toward the sound of his name, to find the barista offering him a large to-go cup of what he assumes is fruit ice tea. He frowns at having his name known (his new, much-preferred name, no less) and then frowns at a blonde, bespectacled man in a tea room attached to a bookstore.

His brain finally takes a moment to function, and he puts all the pieces together in an avalanche.

"Martin?" Far from his usual self-confident tone, the single word comes out in a squeak that would make even a toddler wince.

"Yes?" Martin returns the single word in the same solidly reassuring way, and even offers a happy smile.

"I didn't... I didn't recognize you."

"Would be pretty hard for you, considering this is the first we've ever met." Martin's voice is calming in a way that eases Gerry a bit, teasing and all.

"Thank you. For the tea, I mean." Gerry closes his eyes and desperately begs his shit to pull together for him, just this one time. "It's nice to finally meet you."

His hands are fully occupied with a book, a cup of tea, and a cigarette, but Martin doesn't seem particularly bothered by the lack of a hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you too. We're giving Jon a heart attack by doing it without him."

"That is the lawful good," Gerry says, after a long drag of his smoke. "A panicked Jon is a happy Jon, after all. Whatever would he do with himself without a situation to unnecessarily complicate?"

"Yes, the man does seem to thrive on anxiety, doesn't he?" Martin asks warmly, eyes crinkling around a fond smile. "Speaking of, you seem pretty wrecked yourself. Good party, I hope."

Gerry's answering laugh has a razor edge, "Not hardly. This fucking painting I'm working on will be the death of me." Gerry lifts the reference book as proof of trauma and stabs out his cigarette viciously.

"Hmm, sounds like a pain. I hope you typically find art a more enjoyable career?" Martin asks, tilting his head inquisitively. His curly hair moves fetchingly and Gerry catches himself tracking the movement.

"Mostly, yes. Although I keep the bartending gig for variety. You'd be amazed at the sort of inspiration someone can find in the right drunk crowd." Gerry grins, thinking of all the ridiculous things he’d seen walk in and out of the bar in his run there.

"I'd be very interested to see what kind of art you can turn that into. Maybe you'd like to show me sometime?" Martin's words are open and friendly.

Gerry eyes him for a minute, hiding behind a long taste of his drink. He's trying to suss out Martin's motivations, for his kindness and general geniality. The drink is good and it tips Gerry's mood far enough back into cheerfulness that he shrugs off his considerations for the time being.

"You know what," Gerry quips back. "I think I would like to show you sometime. How 'bout tonight."

It's not a question really, with Gerry's typical force of personality behind it, and he leaves the shop with Martin holding an address in his hand and a time to drag Jon over for dinner that evening.

***

Gerry does not make a big deal of Martin coming over. He acts as if any other friend is coming over for dinner.

He tidies, a little. Lights a few candles. Wears pants. The bare minimum really.

He isn't trying to impress anyone, he tells himself sternly.

Except he is, obviously. He doesn't know Martin very well yet, but he does want to keep Jon around, and they are a packaged deal these days. Which he was happy with, truly.

In their limited interaction, Martin had been sweet and put Gerry instantly at ease. He knows, from many years of working a bar, how to spot a dipshit, and feels confident in his assessment of Martin's character.

But, it's his own character that concerns him. People don't always like Gerry past surface interactions. He can be tempestuous and moody, and catching him tired is a pretty bad idea. The combination of artist and mommy issues can be jarring.

He desperately wants those things to not bother Martin though. He wants Martin to like him, and he's not interested in putting on a show to make it happen.

It occurs to Gerry an hour before they're due that he doesn't even remotely know what takeout to order for dinner.

(He knows what Jon will eat, and he obviously knows what he likes, but what about Martin? Why didn't he ask this morning? Why didn't he ask Jon earlier?)

Gerry is just starting to really panic about all the life choices leading up to this moment, when he gets a text from an unknown number, instantly filling him with relief.

Martin: Since you're hosting this time, I'll grab the take-out. Jon says you like Thai, I'll bring that. You got the drinks covered?

Gerry: As long as you drink either coffee, vodka, or water, yes.

Martin: I'm sorry, I subsist only on the blood of virgins.

Gerry: Oh dear. I couldn't tempt you to settle for Earl Grey?

Martin: Hmmm, yes, I'll accept your offerings this time.

***

The first knock comes right on time. Gerry, dressed in his best paint-stained jeans and cherry blossom kimono, opens the door with a flourish.

Martin allows himself to be welcomed in and hands the food off to the dramatic artist, who deposits it on the table where he has already set the tea tray.

"No Jon? Not that I mind quality ‘us’ time, of course."

Martin is busy taking in the rambling studio space and barely spares the attention to respond, although he manages a blush at the flirty tone. "He's, uh, running late. Work stuff. You know Jon."

Gerry smirks at that. "I do indeed. Is it a 'stumble in at 3am' late, or 'we could probably wait to eat' late?"

"Hmmm? Oh, let's wait a bit? If you don't mind." Martin seems equally taken with his painting wall and his book wall and keeps trading his attention between the two. The paintings, being the larger attraction, eventually win, and he meanders over to study them closer.

"Do you keep all the completed paintings around?" His voice is soft and reverent, and Gerry feels a rush of pride for his work.

"For a while. I like to make sure they're in their final forms before I release them into the wild." Martin blinks big brown eyes at him, before grinning and giggling slightly.

"You're very talented. Jon said as much, showed me the pictures, but words and photos are nothing compared to seeing the real thing." Martin really regards his paintings as if they're special, and rather than the prickly feeling of appraisal he feels during gallery nights, it fills Gerry with warmth.

He turns to examine the wall himself. It's filled with an eclectic group at the moment. Large abstracts made by pouring paint and then layering designs over, three-dimensional pieces painted and then embroidered or quilled over in select places, including a particularly wild eye design. Surreal faces and scenes that seem realistic except for the wild subject matter of planets in meadows and chimeras going to battle.

"Is this what comes from your adventures in bartending?" Martin asks Gerry, turning from the wall and towards the slightly taller man.

"That, and my traumatic childhood." Gerry makes sure to laugh at the last, taking the edge off the small confession.

"Obviously." Martin offers.

"Obviously." Gerry accepts.

***

Gerry and Martin drink tea on the floor while they wait for Jon. Gerry gently prods Martin through the story of how he came to open the bookstore. The blonde man even softly confessing that he had to lie on his CV to get the librarian gig at Magnus.

"How old are you? How did you convince them you had a Master's degree?" Gerry is incredulous. Not that he doesn't think Martin could have an advanced degree. But in paranormal research? Gerry hadn't even known that was an option.

"That's the thing! I'm only 29 now . I worked there for five years!" Martin's voice pitches up in disbelief. "I'm still in shock that anyone ever brought it. Desperate times, desperate measures, you know?"

"I do, actually." Gerry shifts slightly, adjusting his balance with the long remembered urge to flee from those desperate times. He fiddles with his teacup to distract himself. He brought this particular set from a pawn shop because the filigree and florals appealed to his love of colour theory. Soft pinks and corals warm against the cool aqua background.

"Jon says you wanted to go to art school when you two were younger."

It's not a question, but merely Martin offering the same space for openness that Gerry had given him.

"I never went. After my A-levels, I had to get away, and I never really stopped moving for long enough to go to uni when I was younger. Now I'm settled and it's not important to me anymore. Besides, no one asks for a copy of my phantom degree when I sell a painting. So I'm happy with how things turned out for the most part." He stops to consider the outline of a possible past for a moment, one where he didn't have to skip college and go ten years without seeing Jon. "Besides, can you imagine a 27-year-old in art school? The young ones would sacrifice me for more creative talent."

Their eyes meet for a moment, and then they laugh easily and move on to different topics, sliding through the easy stages of getting to know each other.

***

Jon does eventually arrive, looking panicked and harried. He de-ages 10 years when he finds them laughing and relaxed instead of tense and awkward.

So, the three of them eat cold Thai take out on the floor of Gerry's loft, leaning against the perfectly good couch. They share the odd intimacy of people who have known each other for very disjointed amounts of time but like each other just the same.

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #gerry keay #jongerrymartin #tma #fic #also on ao3

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missfay49 · 4 years

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Sanders Sides Theory 01/15/20

You want a long theory? HERE’s A LONG FREAKIN THEORY.

To build off an earlier post of mine here, I believe we can reverse engineer the function of the next Side by analyzing the roles of the current known Sides in the context of their correlating sin. I’ve included some flower meanings based on the shirt release but couldn’t identify them all from the photos available. Please reach out to me if you have identified all the flowers.

Pride!Logan

Logic / Craves Stability / Reaction to adversity is to Double down

Logan is proud, but not about just anything. He values intelligence, critical thinking, and the lofty goals of exploration: re: the astronomy class hype, and “what really is at the bottom of the ocean?” He prides himself in being right 100% of the time and utilizes information to do so.

When he missuses the word “infinitesimal” it is devastating to him. It is brought up repeatedly in subsequent episodes and culminates in him feeling like one mistake will prevent him from ever being taken seriously again. He hates being wrong, because he believes that if he’s wrong, C!Thomas will literally fail at life, becoming destitute and homeless. The stakes are real.

He needs to ensure success, which is why he first pushes C!Thomas to pursue more traditional careers. His arc is about accepting that success in life can take on different forms.

Sloth!Virgil

Anxiety (Paranoia) / Reaction to adversity is to Give up

Virgil is often seen promoting activities that would be considered lazy, i.e. going back to bed in the middle of the day, staying home when they could go out, doing less work, trying fewer new things. His makeup is a dramatized symbol for lack of sleep. There are multiple instances showing him reluctant to spend more time even just in the presence of the other Sides; “Now I’m gonna go be cool, somewhere else.” Ducking out is the pinnacle of sloth.

But sloth as a behavior is just a symptom of the actual condition: social anxiety and mild paranoia. Check out my short paranoia theory here. Virgil resorts to inaction as a defense against feeling insecure about something. Wanted to go to that party, but you’re too nervous to talk to new people? Well, actually, just stay in. It’s safer and you need your rest.

That’s why Virgil’s arc is not about finding the motivation to do things; that would only work if laziness was the true problem. Instead, his arc is about learning to think through fears and overcome them, so C!Thomas can do what he actually wants, which is to be more social.

Gluttony!Patton

Morality / Flower: Blue Forget-me-not / Craves Community / Reaction to Adversity is to Fake-it-til-you-make-it

Patton is about cravings. Food, pets, friends; he wants it all. He’s about enjoying everything life has to offer, gosh-darn the consequences. He wants friends so badly he’s consistently willing to sacrifice his own well-being to put them first. The concept of morality often focuses on giving instead of receiving. It’s a way to prove to them that he’s a good friend, and therefore worth keeping around. What seems like sacrifice is actually a careful prioritization of his favorite thing to indulge in: acceptance. Being happy all the time is not just a show for the other Sides, it’s for C!Thomas’ friends as well. People don’t want to be around someone who’s sad, right? Gotta be happy, so they stick around.

Forget-me-nots are about happy memories and we already know Patton is a sucker for nostalgia. One of his favorite things are memories, so he goes to extreme lengths to make lots of good memories with his friends. Patton’s arc will ultimately be Not about diminishing his craving for friendship but realizing that he can be his most authentic self without losing them. He can loosen the rules that he internalized. Real friendship does not require perfection.

Greed!Deceit

Self-Preservation / Flower: Yellow Sunflower / Reaction to adversity is Sowing Discord

Deceit, like Logan, is also focused on C!Thomas’ success. The difference is, he could not care less what that success looks like, only that C!Thomas gets it. Where Logan is all about careful planning and preparedness, Deceit is about taking risks and seizing opportunities. How can C!Thomas get the most out of life? No, don’t worry about other people. There is only C!Thomas.

Deceit’s objective is to eliminate the consequences of C!Thomas’ mistakes and increase the rewards for his effort. He will do whatever it takes, whether that’s coaching C!Thomas to lie to others, or to be more honest with himself. His stance is that since our society is built on lies, we should be willing to use lies to navigate it. Deceit believes that if C!Thomas is honest to himself about what he wants, he’ll pursue it even at the risk of losing people along the way. Simply put, Deceit must learn that no one makes it alone. The sunflower symbolizes false riches, and this explains why Deceit’s assumption is wrong. We all depend on others to reach our full potential, and a world where C!Thomas has gained everything by discarding or disadvantaging others is one C!Thomas wouldn’t want to live in. It’s more difficult, but it’s worth it in the end to work with other people instead of around them.

Lust!Roman

Creativity / Flower: Red Rose / Reaction to adversity is Denial

It’s easy to see that Roman is all about finding that special someone. Red roses symbolize love. He’s dashing, brave, and often combats mythical creatures, not for fun (although it is fun), but to prove his manliness to a potential mate! But this Side is actually one of the most complicated. He believes himself to be the most handsome Side, and he better be, because it is his duty to secure the end-all-be-all of C!Thomas’ life: romantic love. Someone to spend your life with, grow old with. The initial conflict between Roman and Anxiety is entirely because having Anxiety around would theoretically lower his chances of securing a relationship. Once he saw that Anxiety could do what needed to be done in “Accepting Anxiety”, he was able to let go of that worry.

But remember, Roman is also about Self-Love. The creativity that he pumps out isn’t art for art’s sake; it’s to bring himself joy and to fill that hole in his heart with some kind of excitement. If he can’t throw all his passion at a person, he’ll throw it onto the stage. That’s why each time his work is criticized, he’s confronted with the fear that it’s all just a distraction anyway. Yes, he is objectively good at acting and enjoys it, but part of C!Thomas uses all these creative projects to feel something he isn’t getting anywhere else.

The Roman angst dates aaaall the way back to the Valentine’s Day Episode, wherein C!Thomas decided that platonic love was important to acknowledge, too. Roman had already stated in the first episode that he would focus on loving himself. But maybe on that particular Valentine’s day, C!Thomas stopped trying so hard to find romance. Maybe he fell back on what he already had, the love of his friends, and thought to himself, this could be enough. And each time an opportunity to feel true passion comes up again, C!Thomas rejects it. First when trying to rekindle things with the ex-boyfriend, then with the big call-back. C!Thomas is putting his love life on hold to deal with other things right now, and it’s wearing on Roman.

The worst part is that it’s entirely possible, maybe even likely, that Roman (and therefore C!Thomas) isn’t sure what will happen once he’s found someone. RE: Episode #1 – his greatest fear is rejection.

In “Am I Original?” C!Thomas states that if he only ever listened to Roman, he would be setting himself up for heartbreak. That’s why Roman makes the final ruling in the court room. That’s why he quietly accepts it every time they make a decision away from love (with impromptu exceptions – “PICK IT UP!”). He both wants and fears love at the same time. Roman’s arc isn’t really about what he needs to do differently, but about what C!Thomas needs to let him do for himself. His stories aren’t about him getting his way and then finding out he took it too far. They’re about him not getting anything at all. Once he gets the green light from C!Thomas, he will do what he’s always done; Throw caution to the wind in the pursuit of love.

Envy!Remus

Creativity / Flower: Green Dahlia / Reaction to adversity is Acting out for Attention

All the “Dark” Sides were pushed away for one reason or another, but it seems to hit Remus particularly hard. It’s not fair that his brother should be chosen over him. He considers himself not even just as good as Roman, but in many ways better at being creative! His range is limitless, and he is confident in his abilities, unlike his brother. He should be the main Creativity, not that crybaby!

Remus tries over and over again to make C!Thomas notice him. He gives everything he’s got into each new idea, hoping that this one will be ‘the one’ to earn him C!Thomas’ recognition, but it never does. Remus embodies envy. It is his driving force; ALL he wants is consideration for his ideas.

Since Remus feels envious, C!Thomas does too. If Remus wants to reach new heights of fame, so must C!Thomas! From Remus’ standpoint, Roman isn’t getting the job done, so he’ll just have to keep throwing idea-after-horrifying-idea at C!Thomas until he gets through to the man.

Wrath!X?

Now for the hard part: figuring out what’s missing. (You can check out my earlier Anger Theory here.)

Let’s summarize how the other Sides use their traits real quick:

Logan is proud of his intelligence that he uses to gain financial security.

Virgil is slothful as a result of his desire to feel safe.

Patton is gluttonous as the result of his goal to make C!Thomas feel happiness and enjoy life in the moment.

Deceit is greedy as a result of his goal to help C!Thomas navigate this world and come out on top.

Roman is lustful as a result of his goal to secure a loving, stable relationship for C!Thomas.

Remus is envious as a result of his goal to get C!Thomas to make a lasting mark on the world like so many have before.

For most of the Sides, the sin is directly related to the Sides’ function. It’s their method of achieving their goals. But there appears to be an outlier. Logan seems different. He doesn’t need to be proud in order to be intelligent, at least on the surface. But, maybe that’s not true. Maybe if he didn’t feel proud when he learned new things, he would have no motivation to seek out information in the first place. Therefore, pride is essential to Logan’s function.

All the Sides rely on their sin to accomplish their goals. They first have a goal, a job that they are supposed to complete for C!Thomas. Then, the sin is their method of executing that job. The function of the Side comes before the sin.

So, if wrath is the means, what is the goal? What does C!Thomas need to be angry about in order to accomplish it?

What are all the instances where we see C!Thomas (not the individual Sides) get mad, even a little?

TOAwLS - C!Thomas gets frustrated with Anxiety popping up even when nothing’s wrong.

TMvTH - C!Thomas gets mad at Logan and Patton for pelting him with conflicting goals.

GU - C!Thomas acts mad at Patton for dreaming too much, but really, he’s lashing out at Patton because the others are pushing him too far in the other direction.

MOP2 - C!Thomas rudely disregards Logan for disrupting nostalgia-time.

SVS - C!Thomas gets mad at himself for considering lying to his friends.

If we’re being honest, this is a short list, and some of these don’t even really qualify as anger. He’s more just kind of experiencing frustration as he works through things. The most angry he gets is when it affects real people in his life; Lee and Mary Lee’s wedding. He feels terrible about it, but he’s angry for two reasons here. First, that the scheduling conflict even exists, because it’s denying him an important opportunity. Second, because the situation caused him to confront a truth about himself that he’s never been comfortable with.

But we have one more example to work with; the Aside. In ATHD? - C!Thomas got mad at Rico for past feelings that weren’t even specifically against C!Thomas. We don’t see it, but we see the effects. C!Thomas is so angry with himself for lashing out, and it tells us that he’s had a lot of anger before that he never released. Anger about being in the closet when he was younger. There are plenty of hints in the episode on this theme:

Roman calls C!Thomas a snowflake.

This shot from the movie: “You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy.”

And most importantly, the lines “Don’t let them in, don’t let them see”. Patton did purposely sing those lines of the Frozen song “Let it go”, which has often been correlated to coming out of the closet, because that was directly tied to the theme of the premier Aside.

C!Thomas had so conditioned himself to defend his sexuality that even the mention of past prejudice was enough to set him off, causing him to overreact in the situation with Rico. He was transported back to a time when he was still closeted, afraid to come out because of people like Rico’s younger self. Now that he’s older, he feels anger toward the people he knew back then, and he took that anger out on Rico.

Let’s take a step back for a second. What is C!Thomas’ ultimate goal for himself? Balance. And what is C!Thomas’ ultimate goal for others? Love and understanding.

C!Thomas got as angry as he did because this isn’t just about him anymore. The prejudice that he remembered and was reacting to is something that people continue to face all the time. As much as he struggled, he’s empathetic enough to know that others must be struggling, too, and his anger at Rico was actually anger at prejudice.

When the last Side is revealed, it will signal that the arc is closing and the series will eventually be coming to an end. Will the series have made its mark? Way back in IIADS!!, Anxiety unintentionally suggested, “using your platform to positively affect your audience the same way Disney did with you” It’s not just about C!Thomas anymore. It’s about you. Us.

The biggest effect C!Thomas could have on his audience is self-actualization; becoming the most he can be and doing the most good for others that he possibly can. Prejudice is an issue that has personally affected him and clearly affects his audience. Fighting prejudice is a cause worth getting angry about, WORTH showing a little wrath.

Logan and Virgil have affected how C!Thomas takes in information. Deceit and Patton affect how he moves through that world. Roman and Remus affect how he wants his work to be seen on a personal level. But Wrath will be how C!Thomas affects the world at large. Wrath will lead the charge for affecting real change. Wrath will close out the series and launch a generation of inspired viewers to go out into their own worlds and fight for their freedoms. Wrath will be our hero.

Thanks so much for reading! This has gone on long enough, so I’m adding some bonus theories in the links below tomorrow with other things I noticed during the research for this post. Hope you enjoyed it!

Bonus Theory now here!

Bonus BONUS Theory now here!

#sanders sides theory #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #deceit sanders #romans sanders #remus sanders #orange sanders #pride!logan #sloth!virgil #gluttony!patton #greed!deceit #lust!roman #envy!remus #wrath!orange #01/15/20 #i've been working on this for over a month #such relief #wow

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lord-woolsley · 4 years

Text

Strangeness And Charm

Fandom: Dragon Age II (Anders/Garrett Hawke) Chapters: 1/1 (2033 words) Rating: Teen And Up Summary: Isabela has had enough of Anders and Garrett dancing around each other for three years, yearning and pining. When a favour for Aveline brings them to the Wounded Coast, she decides to set them up. Rant: If you like it, please leave some love on ao3. ♡ Ao3: Link

Strangeness and Charm

Anders woke up in his bed – or whatever he was telling himself was a bed – in the backroom of his “clinic“. Even though it was still late summer a chill was creeping over his skin, leaving goose bumps all over it and making him shiver.

He was wrapping himself in his blanket – or whatever he was telling himself was a blanket – hugging it tight before he let out an exhausted sigh. Justice was sending him messages – orders – so many of them through his dreams lately and Anders felt like he didn’t sleep at all.

The spirit had been feasting on his mind, his insecurities, his needs and wishes when he couldn’t have been more vulnerable, searching for something he could use for his own cause. He always took advantage of the fact that Anders – like all humans – needed to sleep. A state he didn’t have any control over and Justice liked to put thoughts and ideas into Anders head at night that couldn’t be his own, could they?

They screamed loud behind his eyes, showing him pictures of destruction, of fighting, of war even, pictures that still seemed so right, so necessary.

Justified, he thought, gritting his teeth. But were they- justified? He asked himself. His eyes were burning, the blue light behind them so intense, banishing the soft hazel he called his own, forcing his question to disappear without a second thought.

I need to get up, he said to himself. Enough of whining about something he couldn’t change anyway. People needed his help and even Justice enjoyed himself when Anders was helping the sick. Keeping Justice on his good side, keeping him satisfied, was something that mostly resulted into being left alone. Anders liked to be left alone, liked to be the master of his thoughts, words and actions.

Sometimes – even though he and Justice were so entwined at this point, two beings living in one body – he remembered how it was to be the only one in there. Who would he be if he were just Anders, a shabby mage with strawberry blonde hair and freckles on his face? What decisions would he make if they were truly his own?

"Hawke, that horrible horrible man, with his sarcastic words and dumb jokes“, he thought, a sad smile on his lips. If the circumstances had been different, Hawke was a decision he would have made without a second thought.

•

When Anders finally opened the clinic, the first thing he saw was Isabela. He sighed. Maker, why do you punish me so early in the morning?

“Really, Bela, again?“, he asked. “Can’t you keep your hands to yourself for one night?“ Her lips formed into a mischievous smile. “Like you do all the time?“ Anders groaned. “You need to relax, Blondie.“, she mimicked Varric‘s words. “I could“, she stepped closer and straightened his cloak. “Oh no, no, no, no, I rather think not. I already know more about your sex life than I ever intended to. And I would like to leave it at that.“ “Your loss.“, she said.

“Still pining after Garrett? It’s time you moved on. Or make a move at least. I pity you both dancing around each other the whole time. How long has it been? 3 years? I mean I wouldn’t say no to Hawke, you know? I tried. But he‘s always busy yearning, it‘s quite depressing.“ “As if.“ Anders rolled his eyes. “Why are you here? To annoy me? To dig around and get information involving my non-existing love life.“, Anders wanted to change the topic as quick as possible, this wasn’t Isabela‘s business. At all. “Hm.“, She nodded. “You know there are actual people out there who are in need of a healer.“ “I am in need of a healer.“ Anders granted her an annoyed look. “The usual?“, he asked, rolling his eyes as far back into his head as they allowed him. “Yeah.“ “Next time you‘re on your own with it.“ “You wouldn’t!“ “Try me. Let‘s just get it over with and never speak of it again.“

•

Isabela was right though, he was avoiding being alone with Garrett as much as possible, losing control was nothing he could afford. He was only a man after all. In need of- Maker‘s Breath. What was it with the people today? That’s why he liked cats better.

“Garrett promised to help me with something...personal“, a familiar voice said. Aveline. What was Aveline doing here?

“He says he needs you for it. I don’t know why to be honest but who am I to judge Garrett‘s decisions.“ “You do that all the time.“ Anders said, eyebrows raised. “Fair enough.“ “What‘s different today?“ “It‘s private. Please don’t ask.“ Anders had a good understanding of privacy and wished way too often that people respected his. He didn’t ask, if Aveline didn’t want to tell him, he would accept that without questions. That didn’t mean he wasn’t curious.

•

“Anders, I‘m happy to see you again. You’re currently so busy, we rarely see each other these days. It’s a shame.“ Garrett clapped him on the back with his usual force and Anders instantly stumbled. That man really underestimated his strength. Like all the time.

Anders was lucky he didn’t lose his balance and landed in the dirt, not that it made any difference concerning his clothes but it was better for his ego that way.

But what if he had tripped? Would Garrett have caught him or would he have helped him up entwining their fingers?

For a moment Anders thought about throwing himself on the floor just to find out. But Isabela was with them and she already smiled one of her suggestive grins which instantly put a terrible blush on his face. Stupid ginger complexion, he cursed, making everything so bloody obvious. Maybe Aveline would sympathize.

When Anders dared to look at Garrett, nothing in his expression had changed. Thank the Maker. Maybe he wouldn’t die of embarrassment after all. At least not today, by any chance.

“What‘s wrong, what do you need me for?“, Anders asked. They just arrived at the Wounded Coast and it was already getting dark. Normally Garrett always talked to them about their missions first, this was extremely unusual but since Anders secluded himself so much recently, Garrett had probably thought he didn’t want to be disturbed or even worse, he didn’t want to see him for some reason.

Hawke – who probably thought he was whispering (but didn’t whisper at all) – was taking a step closer to Anders before blurting some words out that put a horrible blush on Aveline‘s face. Yes, she would definitely sympathize with the ginger complexion, he decided.

“Aveline here has a little crush on Guardsman Donnic and she needs some help to pursue him.“ “Oh.“, Anders said. “Not a word.“ Aveline seemed like she was about to rip Hawke in half if he only dared to continue speaking. Or Anders if he commented on it. Which he wouldn’t do, he didn’t plan on dying tonight.

“All these people with their crushes here tonight, I wish I would have brought someone myself.“, Isabela said and Anders thought about commenting on Aveline‘s romantic inclinations after all. Maybe dying wasn’t that bad.

“Huh?“, Hawke asked, pure eloquence. “You know her, she likes to tease.“ “That I do.“

While Aveline and Donnic were patrolling and flirting – if one could call it that, she was really competing with Anders own nervous rambling – Hawke, Isabela and Anders had much to do with keeping the bandits at bay, a factor that really played out in Ander‘s favour. They didn’t have much time for talking and had the great chance to listen to Aveline embarrassing herself. Anders felt terribly sorry for her while Hawke was slowly losing his patience.

“How can one be so bad at that? And how can Donnic be so oblivious?“, he asked, dramatically throwing his hands into the air like he wanted the Maker to do something about it.

“I don’t know, Garrett.“, Isabela said, amused. When she opened her mouth again Anders knew she would say something at his expensive. “Exactly. How can one be that oblivious?“, she repeated. „One must be really stupid to not notice anything after indulging oneself in three years of romantic fantasies while the real thing is right in front of them. Oblivious indeed.“ “What do you mean?“, Hawke asked, mildly confused. “Care to elaborate?“ “My dear Garrett, you might be buff but you are not that stupid.“ “I-”, Garrett started but Isabela cut in.

“Anders, please, for the sake of Andraste‘s lady parts, say something. At least one of us needs to get laid tonight. And since I‘m here with your stupid lot, wasting my night away instead of talking to handsome sailors in The Hanged Man while drinking cheap ale, I will not be that person. And Aveline will definitely not get lucky either after the disaster we just witnessed.“ She let out a sigh that made it noticeably clear she was so done with their idiocy and wouldn’t tolerate any more of it. “No excuses.“, she said and focused her gaze on Garrett. “You‘re a daft couple of... take a hint and bend him over a basin, will you?“ “Oh.“, Garret said. “Oh indeed.“

“Let‘s save Aveline from herself first, okay?“, Isabela suggested. “I can’t look at this any longer.“

“And then we let you deal with the rest, Bela, and we sneak away.“ “Thank you very much.“, Isabela sighed. “If you both didn’t annoy the hell out of me I would be offended but I‘m just so glad this thing“, she gestured between Hawke and Anders “is resolved now. Even though it means all my chances with Garrett are gone, aren’t they?“ “They most definitely are.“, Anders said while making a gesture that implied he would keep an eye on her. “If you change your mind and let me borrow him for a night, let me know.“ “No chance. He doesn’t have a say in this.“

Garrett chuckled and took Anders hand in his. “Ugh.“, Isabela said. “I prefer the Heartworm guy over looking at you being disgustingly affectionate. Let me deal with Aveline and disappear from my vision before I vomit on your shoes.“ And that they did.

•

Anders woke up in his bed – this was his bed, wasn’t it? – and tried to snuggle up to his blanket which surprisingly didn’t feel like a blanket. “Go back to sleep.“, the blanket said and didn’t sound like a blanket at all.

Anders wanted to follow the advice; he was so incredibly tired. Justice had tormented him with one nightmare after another, mostly screaming at him that he wouldn’t allow Anders to forget the cause, the greater good, because of unnecessary distractions. Distractions such as Garrett.

Not justified, Anders thought. Let me have this. He knew Justice wouldn’t force him to give up Hawke when he still went through with the plan.

Justice was right about so many things after all, he wanted the mages to be free more than anyone else and Anders would give them that freedom. But first he deserved some of it himself and his freedom might as well be Garrett.

If they only had been born in a world that was fair to mages, a world in which he didn’t have to make a pact with a spirit in the first place, a world which would let him have this – a little bit of happiness – without regrets. He had to think about the future, remember why he did this. There would be mages who could have this because Justice had succeeded with his plan. Anders had to keep this in mind.

“Ten years - a hundred years from now - someone like me will love someone like you, and there will be no templars to tear them apart.“, Anders whispered. “What did you say?“, Garrett asked, still half-asleep. “I said I need to open the clinic in a few, I bet Isabela is the first in line.“ “Why would she come to the clinic?“ “I‘m pretty sure she gave in and bedded the Heartworm guy.“ “Gross.“

“Anders.“, Garrett said but it somehow sounded like a question. “Hm?“ “My door will be open tonight.“

#dragon age #dragon age 2 #fanfiction #dragon age fanfiction #handers #anders #hawke #garrett hawke #my writing #writing #ao3 #da #da2 #mine #my stuff

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lovecanbesostrange · 3 years

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is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

That's a very loaded question. Like most writers, I just wish I had this magical, mystical machine that can read my mind and *poof* finished, semi-well written fic appears.

I am absolutey overjoyed and thankful beyond belief, that @heartsways let herself get bullied into writing a wtf-even-is-true-love story about Ruby/Dorothy coming to terms with their relationship and all their needs. hohoho, not all their needs, the bullying continues It's something I've thought about ever since Ruby Slippers aired, but concentrating like that and dragging it through so many scenes with all the people around and finding this sweetspot where it's neither too angst or pure fluff - I could never. So in some ways I consider that somebody writing something for me, that was in parts pulled from my brain.

I am also over the moon, that between coming up with a dozen scenarios with @konako, the idea of a Red Beauty bodyswap became such an intense craving, that we shouted it out into the universe and @lex-noctis heard the call. I am so excited. There's already a beginning that leaves me with a lot of questions, and some things have been teased. But it's also where the complication comes in - he asked if he was allowed to go a step further and make a Red Beauty Queen out of it. And of course I am here for that! (Poly is always an option.) It broadens the possibilities. But it also means this will stray from what I had imagined. (I will be gifted things I didn't think about, and that is delicious!!)

And this is why I don't know if I can honestly say, I wish people would finish stuff I started? Because it would never be mine-mine. It couldn't be!

I'm very anxious that somebody could read this wrong, I do not believe I am a superior writer to anybody, that I have a grasp beyond anyone's compare. Pffffffff....... I see so many writing quirks I have I don't understand and sit here so often yelling at myself for having such a hard time actually writing that goes beyond free-flow. I see myself fall back on the same couple of things over and over, and it it is so refreshing to follow other people's train of thought to see where they go. But some ideas are dear to my heart and if someone would pick that up, but it's slightly to the left of where my heart lies with it? I would feel so bad about that. Plus I'm a bit of a snob actually, there are some things I don't like when reading that a lot of people do. I won't say, because I am not here to step on anyone's toes! I don't comment on it, I don't care that much when the story is good, we all have our dos and don'ts we follow. But then I feel like I'd have to say for example "please never use the word orb instead of eyes", you know, stuff like that. Also, would I have to write down all my fav kinks and hard nos? I've just discovered that something I was indifferent about, is the best invention since sliced bread under the right circumstances. you know who you are, you know what you did, and this lonely lesbian is very confused now But see, I would limit the other writer and also my own experience...

I also have this problem, that a lot of the time I set a scene and immediately see two (sometimes more) ways it can all play out. And my brain follows both roads, because since I'm not writing, I can indulge.

I am in awe of people writing fics in chapters, releasing tens of thousands of words over months,staying with one story, making it rich, going for slow-burns, putting details under microscopes, indulging themselves in ways that are entertaining for the audience. And the thought I could gift one of my ideas to someone like that, to get a story for me out of it, is as fear-inducing as it is exhilarating. Somebody finding new depths! But also what if a detail I forgot to put enough importance on gets glossed over?

Then again, if somebody could finish there's a whole where your heart lies for me... Maybe I shouldn't have tied my one uh-I-wanna-write-more-for-Dorothy-fic to the one emotion that triggers me like nothing else. I played myself. (And no, nobody can finish that fic but me, because I know all the steps along the way. But also, try writing a funeral for a character with no canon-name, when you are allergic to picking one yourself. Oh god, all the Rogue-fic I once read, where people tried giving her a definitive name... and I even hate the canon one in ways... bäh...)

Of course promps are different. I mean, what we're dragging lex-noctis through to do is a very elaborate prompt!! Somebody could re-write the show from 2x07 onwards for me, I give some pointers about ships. Yes, find me someone who can write the ultimate Tamara&Greg arc, bringing Mulan over, having Sleeping Warrior AND Red Beauty at the same time (as the Lord intended), follow basic plotlines, but keep all those good characters around, explore them, instead of weird Disneyfying, let Regina find True Love with Emma in the last season... oh yeah, somebody could write me that epic. XD But finding a person with all the same (dis)likes for characters? Or rather, seeing the potential in all the characters... see, here is another thing. Even though there are characters that I don't really like in canon, I think even they deserve better in fic. I'm not a big fan of throwing them under the bus. I bend my faves, I can bend those guys, too, right? And who would go to such lengths for me?! (Like I said, I'm such a snob. It's why I sometimes go like a year without even looking fic up.)

Okay, this is a long post. I don't even know if it can be considered an answer. With my current extreme hyperfixation on Ruby Lucas as if this was 2012 all over again, I am so, so lucky to have this bunch of people (here we are) who are feeding me and who also listen to so many ramblings (that are just the same thing over and over).

Ask me again next year and I'll say "sure, write me that B'Elanna/Seven long fic that is rummaging in my head since the 90s, I only have vague ideas about". (Will I ever write for a show while it is really ongoing? I'm such a slut for canon-confirmation and don't want to upset the status quo; which is why I wrote Glee back then, because that show didn't care...)

Edit: oh right, if there is another being on this planet who cares enough about a Rachel/Rogue romantic combo - FIND ME! WRITE ME SOMETHING!! I have no thoughts, only vague feelings.

#anon ask #I read this and think I am the most entitled bitch ever........... also wow with the oversharing

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bagelswrites · 7 years

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Hello :) I'm curious : what are your favorite broships in BTS ?

Well this is just a MEAN question, now isn’t it? Next, you’re going to ask me which of my children* is my favorite, aren’t you?

*siiiiiiiigh*

Every pairing in Bangtan is just fucking phenomenal and has mountains of evidence to back it up. It’s one of the great things about Bangtan. So while there are some I gravitate toward more than others, I love them All, and all for very different reasons. SO! Instead of answering the question you actually asked (because I am a rebel and easily distracted) I’m just going to tell you what I love about every pairing. Buckle up! (This is going to be a long one)

Going in age order because it’s just easier this way.

Yoonjin - The old dude roommates! Yoongi completely buys into Jin’s dad jokes and Jin puts Yoongi in his place. Their dynamic is so close to equal, but with this nice push and pull of Yoongi technically being the dongsaeng but Jin respecting Yoongi’s music abilities and near-deputy-leader status in the group. I mean, they push their beds together to watch movies. They’re the quiet bros who somehow manage to annoy the maknae line and I love it.

2seok - The world needs so much more 2seok in it. The way Hobi teaches Jin dance? The way Jin watches out for Hobi? The laughter between the two of them (anyone remember beat boxing in LA?) is so much fun. They also probably have secret meetings where they plot the best ways to embarrass the rest of the group at any given moment. They’re the goofy and underestimated bros who support one another.

Namjin - Listen. Namjin are married. Whether it’s platonic or romantic or simply comedic, they are bonded for life and I love it so much. Jin is Joon’s safe place. He seeks him out in stressful situations or in interviews, gravitating toward him like a moon around a planet. And Jin is just so fucking PROUD of Namjoon and supports his leadership. Joon said in his vlive this weekend that Jin’s twitter selfie gave him joy all day! They’re the parent bros who would still spend most of their spare time together even if there were no kids to take care of.

Jinmin - THESE TWO. How they manage to be gentle and savage at the same time, I have no idea. But God it’s fun to watch. Jimin laughs at every single one of Seokjin’s dad jokes. Jin DELIGHTS in making Jimin laugh. Jin enjoys feeding Jimin during Eat Jin and Jimin is so very happy to be there. The amount of Jinmin on the Wings Tour is actually kind of amazing – seems like Jimin is backstage during Awake every single night and I love it. They’re the Sass Bros who will likely try to feed you within an inch of your life.

Taejin - This is possibly the MOST hyung/dongsaeng relationship within the Jin pairings, amazingly enough. He’s still the hyung to all the others, but I see him treating Tae as his little brother maybe the most of the others. There’s lots of hair petting and chin scritching and back hugs. Then again, it’s probably a 50/50 split on who initiates those first. And Taehyung is ALWAYS coming to Seokjin’s defense, especially over the teasing of the other members, just like a good little brother. They also have like ZERO boundaries with each other – showering together, accidental kissing onstage, wiping frosting off Jin’s face and eating it right there on camera. They’re the overly affectionate actor bros who cannot take themselves too seriously.

Jinkook - My love for Jinkook goes back to predebut, when Kookie almost quit because he was so homesick and Jin made sure he felt loved and cared for. And now Seokjin screams at him “I raised you on my BACK” which is delightful. They also seem like they would prank the members together, given the opportunity (I’m thinking of the Eat Jin where Jin was screaming and Joon came in all worried and they both played dumb without even rehearsing it). Jungkook is Jin’s baby in a different way than the hyung/dongsaeng thing Jin’s got with Tae, but Kookie kind of babies him right back (and Jin is possibly at his silliest and “youngest” around Kook). They’re the snuggle bros who probably shouldn’t be left unsupervised.

Yoonseok - Okay. You know how I said I didn’t have favorites? Well, if I DID, it would be this one. Hoseok is afraid of nearly everything and whenever he’s scared, he goes straight to Yoongi. And Yoongi is never anything but patient and kind about it – and possibly the most tactile he ever is with anyone in those moments. He LIKES being this outlet for Hobi and never fails to pump him up before he has to do something scary. Their Sope stuff is just so funny and silly and amazing. Hoseok brings out the most joyous part of Yoongi, and Yoongi allows Hoseok to be himself. They’re the rapper bros who probably spend more time in the studio giggling together than actually getting work done.

Sugamon - These two have been through some SHIT together and made it to the other side, bonded by fire. They know each other’s darkness and wounded places better than anyone else, but it’s only made them kinder and more gentle with one another. The way the interact on stage when one of them is rapping? Ooph. They support each other so well. I imagine their creative styles don’t always mesh, but they have worked so hard to find middle ground. Yoongi’s quiet caretaking and Namjoon’s propensity to get trapped in his own head are a perfect match sometimes. They’re the musical artist bros who will always have each other’s backs.

Yoonmin - “You know.” “I know.” UGH. These two are my bias and bias wrecker, so it’s only reasonable that I love this pairing. Plus, the sunshine/grump dynamic is always fun. Jimin can get away with shit that no other dongsaeng would even attempt. Yoongi is so whipped for him, I cannot believe it. They look out for one another in very specific ways. They’re the perfectionist bros who pull each other back from the brink at just the right moment.

Taegi - Taehyung seeks Yoongi’s approval more than the other hyungs. Yoongi finds Taehyung charming and infuriating in equal measure. It’s more sunshine/grump dynamic, but it’s different. I have a feeling that, in the early days, Tae kind of exhausted Yoongi. But you can also see a deep bond and a fuckton of affection between the two of them. In group things where Tae is being ridiculous, you can almost always find Yoongi in the back with a hand over his own mouth or his lips pressed tight, trying not to lose it over how adorable Tae is. They’re the Daegu bros who’ve found the same rhythm.

Sugakookie - I think Yoongi is kind of stunned by Kookie and his abilities – he’s always one to unabashedly appreciate talent. And Kook, well, sometimes when he looks at Yoongi, I get the strangest vision of a toddler wearing a toolbelt so he can build stuff just like his dad. Their adorable recurring bit about the lamb skewers is sweet and brotherly and I love it. They’re the “sleep is for the weak, sleep is for a week” bros who probably need someone else to tell them both when to quit.

Namseok - There is not enough Namseok in this world either (there’s not enough HOSEOK in this world, let alone Hoseok paired with another hyung, but that’s a different too-long post). Namjoon wants nothing more than to shove Hoseok into the spotlight where he belongs (they way he hyped Hobi’s intro and 1Verse and a million other things? My heart). And Hoseok may be a moodmaker with everyone, but he’s especially attuned to Namjoon’s mood – he can bring a gentle peace to Joon in the most turbulent times (I cannot stop thinking of them on Navy Pier in Chicago on Now 3, just a week after the threat in NYC). I think that Namjoon might be Hoseok’s quiet place, and Hoseok is a special kind of comfort to Joon. They’re the 94 liner bros who need each other like air.

Jihope - We probably have the most “candid” footage of these two, both in volume and in actual honesty. They are always playing around with cameras together. Their friendship is easy and fun and incredibly supportive. They pester each other so much and cannot keep their hands to themselves. They help each other burn off excess energy backstage. They’re probably the most likely to take a joke too far but also the fastest to forgive each other. They’re the empath bros who help one another recharge.

Vhope - The silliness between these two. Hobi indulges all of Tae’s random thoughts and Tae is more than happy to play with Hoseok when the mood strikes him. I’ve always said that in the Bangtan Family where Jin is the mom, Joon is the Dad, and Yoongi is the uncle/grandpa, that Hoseok is the noona who takes care of the kids when the actual adults are too tired. This is never more apparent than with Vhope. Jimin is the mom of the maknae line and Kook often refuses to be mothered (except by Jin and usually only on his terms), so Tae is the best and most willing outlet for Hobi’s cheek-pinching form of nurturing. They’re the skinship bros who have to be told a million times a day to calm down and shut up and they don’t actually care at all.

Junghope - There’s something so comfortable and natural about these two together. They dance hard and play hard and aren’t afraid to ask each other for what they need. I especially think of the Bomb where Hoseok asks Kookie to pet his hair to help him sleep (which Kook indulges with a soft smile) and the episode of Bon Voyage where koala’s the hell out of him and plays with HIS hair. They’re more… equal(?) than any other pairing between the hung line and the maknae line, despite the age gap. It’s almost like age doesn’t matter to them. They’re the dance bros who can calm each other with just one touch.

Minjoon - Another not-picking-favorites favorite. Jimin looks at Namjoon like he hung he moon and Namjoon looks at Jimin like he IS the moon. If Jin is Joon’s Safe Place, then Jimin is his Home Base. He just melts whenever Jimin is involved. On the flipside, Jimin needs to be needed and Joon is able to drop the leader mantle and need Jimin *outloud.* In fact, I think there are times that Joon thinks he’s taking care of Jimin and Jimin is only letting him believe that because he knows Namjoon needed someone to take care of right then. They’re the over-thinker bros who always put the other first and, in so doing, manage to heal themselves.

Vmon - I would really like to know Tae’s IQ because I think it has to be nearly as high as Joon’s. Or maybe his intelligence and pattern-finding and out-of-the-box thinking can’t be measured in the same way. But no matter, these boys are both geniuses and their artistic interests follow the same unconventional path. They probably have really interesting conversations about the most random shit. Plus, Joon finds Taehyung stinking adorable and Taehyung wants to impress him all the time. They’re the artsy fashion bros who probably believe they care about the other more than is reciprocated because they both believe they’re simultaneously too much and no enough.

Kookiemonster - Oh man, this relationship is defined by hero worship amped to eleven. But the funny thing is, it kiiiiind of flows both ways. I think Namjoon is just as impressed with Kook as Yoongi is. And, although he’d probably never admit it out loud, Joon positively thrives on the attention Kook gives him. And Jungkook wants nothing more than Namjoon’s attention. He chose BigHit out of all the other agencies scouting him BECAUSE OF Namjoon. But Nams is ceaselessly impressed by all the things that Jungkook can do and how hard he works and lets him know it. They’re the hero bros who make some of the best collabs.

Vmin - They’re two halves of the same whole, destined to be each other’s Person. They’re best friends and partners in crime and always game for whatever scheme the other has and unafraid to talk about the important and the mundane and everything in between. They’re the soulmate bros who will live next door to one another long after Bangtan and raise their kids side-by-side and turn into grumpy old men together, mark my words.

Jikook - Listen. I have many many things to say about Jikook and I’ve said most of them before. But in addition to those things, Jungkook looks startlingly similar to Jimin’s actual little brother and if you don’t think that impacts their dynamic, then you’re crazy. The push-pull between them that so many people interpret wrongly (and abusively more often than not) is mostly due to Jimin’s instinct to baby him and Jungkook’s desperate desire to prove himself. But their brotherhood bond is STRONG and irrefutable. They’re the peacock and bunny bros who laugh their way through very real and very useful competition.

Taekook - I cannot think of a better description than littermates. They are both PUPPIES with boundless energy and enthusiasm who love each other simply because they’re brothers and why WOULDN’T THEY? They’re the video-game playing, anime-watching, snack-time-turned-wrestling-match kind of friends and it’s simple and pure and occasionally violent but don’t for one second mistake that for shallow or temporary. They’re the bro-iest bros that ever bro-ed.

OH! And listen. I do not ever participate in ship wars (who the fuck even has TIME for that?), but there is one ship-related fight I’m always ready to have and it’s about SHIP NAMES. My god, people. It’s not Yoonkook. You have the opportunity (and fandom support) for the name SUGAKOOKIE and you choose Yoonkook? That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. The only ones I might be able to bend on are Sope and Sin, but even then… Boys, you were too late to that party and the names have already been decided by ARMY. Sorry. Taekook know what’s up, though.

———

*I don’t technically have kids, but that’s really only a matter of biology and not affection because I’m a spare parent to two amazing and wonderful kiddos and I’m also an auntie-ish thing to about nine more (plus an actual biological auntie to two MORE), so I think the comment still stands. And I totally don’t pick favorites. Never. Not once. Not even on the days involving poop and tantrums. Nope. Never happened. And you can’t prove that it did.

#bangtan sonyeondan #platonic bts #bropt #Characterization #opinionated bagels #all the pairings #because why the hell not #i love these boys so much

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escailyyy · 7 years

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Sweeter than fiction (SherlollyFicExchange2017 @darnedchild)

Mary would be the first one to admit that motherhood softened her embarrassment threshold, that was one explanation for it, domesticity had apparently made it mentally acceptable for Mary to indulge in the hobbies of middle aged housewives that Sherlock would roll his eyes on. (Joining the ranks of the type of women that made fifty shades of Grey a best seller) so she couldn’t exactly share her new hobby with him.

So when Molly Hooper caught Mary reading something called ‘Warstan gets Naughty’ by username: WhatzonDkink, Mary not only was way too eager to talk about her latest obsession but also had no shame in admitting it was an obsession. Sherlock probably would have expected more from Mary! She blamed this on Rosie, if as a woman she no longer had an issue with having baby vomit on her shirt when she went grocery shopping, then obviously she wouldn’t have it with sharing her smut preferences with a friend during girls night either.

“Let me get this straight, people write about you and John, just because they saw you on the telly and mentioned in John’s blog” Molly hummed over her second glass of wine “they write about you the way people write about Clara Oswald and the Doctor, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley kind of thing?”

“Like Posh Spice and David Beckham” Mary nodded “I found this site dedicated to real people fanfiction it’s quite big, there’s a section for royalty, politicians, sports players, celebrities and crime fighters, people consider us the second best pairing in that category, they write all sort of thing featuring John and me” she grinned proudly while Molly giggled

“Let me see” Molly peered at Mary’s tablet while reading out loud “ this one is called "Make me scream” by username Bby8R2D2, John Watson comes home from a day chasing a serial killer to find his wife wants to leave him, unless he can prove to her why he was nicknamed 'Three continent Watson’ ….“ Molly burst out laughing opening the link and skimming over it "Mary I’m not sure paragraph five is anatomically possible”

Mary nodded scrolling down “just wait, paragraph ten defies the laws of physics and some of chemistry’s” feeling emboldened Mary opened another file and pushed it into Molly’s eyes “this one is a particular favorite of mine”

The fan fiction was called “Duty to Love” by LaD-GG-romnuv,and Molly read out loud “ An: I wrote this while sleep deprived working through rocket science and assembling an IKEA bedroom set, John Watson is Captain America and Mary Morstan is Black Widow having a hot affair, their love will be put to test when John has to choose between his love for Mary and his duty to Rehabilitated Winter Soldier Sherlock Holmes” Molly perked up with interest opening the first chapter and reading through “wow this is…this isn’t bad, you’re..very in character, oh look I’m in here too… Molly Carter-Hooper agent 221” this brought a smile to Molly’s face, then she let out another gasp “Oh John how could you!…Mary, you know him better than this….No, Sherlock, that’s a bastard move”

“I know right, the writer hasn’t updated in ages” Mary groaned putting her hands to her face “I have half a mind to track down their IP and ask them if I John will ever see me again now that he joined the group fighting Lokiriarty in Asgard and I am single-handedly heading S.H.I.E.L.D” she also didn’t mention that special Agent 221 and the Winter Soldier were also having awkwardly adorable encounters as a ‘side pairing’ and that she wanted to know how it ended, but that was neither here nor there.

“Aaaand thanks for the spoilers” Molly glared at Mary who shamelessly raised her glass, surreptitiously closing the link

“Some people write things that you wouldn’t believe in the NSFW rating…let’s just say I’ll spare you the details of 'Watson Gang bang’ and 'Blood kink Mary’ because you’re not ready for that type of darkness”

“ what? Really?” Molly’s finger hovered over the rating button but Mary stopped her with a glare

“Yes, really, but back to my favorites, there’s an angsty one that’s very on demand recently. "Bone Marrow,” I think, apparently John met me as a patient, we had a collection of one night stands turned dates and now I only have weeks to live because the writer of that fanfiction is a sadistic ass"

“Do you end up together though?”

“I have no idea!” Mary groaned “ I swear Nick Sparks could use a tip or two from the hyperactive teenage girl that’s writing about my imaginary terminal illness”

Molly snorted patting her hand “speaking about angst, does John know about this?” She motioned to Mary’s tablet

Mary rolled her eyes and shook her head “He doesn’t want to hear about our fictional sex life, apparently it’s not fair that his fan fiction persona is better stud than he is, and a better doctor, actor, polo player, international pilot, astronaut” Mary ticked off her fingers “You don’t see me complaining about the superhuman professional skills that those fans give me” “That’s actually kinda…sweet, if a little disturbing” Molly settled in comfortably in her lounge seat while she ordered another round of margaritas when once again Mary’s tablet beeped with a notification

“Hey Mary what’s "Sherlolly finally does it” about? It’s by username Sherlicks-lollies and it looks promising….“ but Mary had already grabbed the tablet out of Molly’s hands

"Yeah no you can’t read that, nope not at all” Mary as a rule never looked nervous unless she wanted people to think she was nervous, but the face she made at the very mention of that fan fiction was…actually the same face Mary made whenever something unexpected happened to Rosie’s nappy

“Mary” Molly eyed her tablet suspiciously “what is in there?”

“Nothing, just more tawdry things about me and John….if you’ll excuse me I need to leave a proper commentary review on this work of art” her face was turning a bit red and as far as Molly was concerned, Mary’s face had just passed dirty-nappy territory straight into buying-condoms-for-Mrs Hudson level of uncomfortable.

“You do know that I also have Google on my phone don’t you?” The tiny pathologist said in a threatening tone taking out her serviceable smartphone and waving it in front of Mary’s face

“You wouldn’t dare” her friend replied as nonchalantly as someone hiding smutty fan fiction could

“Google it is”

“Molls you’re not ready for the world of RPF, trust me”

But Molly Hooper was a brave soul, a brave, intrepid and possibly drunk soul who was capable of sawing through the rib cage of a dead body without batting an eyelash and also once gone on a date with Moriarty, she hung out with Sherlock! and somewhere, one day if she ever needed to change jobs, those things were going to be stamped in her CV under 'work experience’. So she wasn’t afraid of fan fiction.

Or so she thought “You don’t intimidate me Mary Watson” Molly whispered ominously

Finally as if hit by a very mischievous idea Mary’s face did a 180 and a rather creepy smirk graced her face “Fine, Google the word Sherlolly, go ahead Hooper, I dare you, I’ll let you read this if you do” And so Molly did.

Mary who was now shamelessly enjoying herself again covertly turned on her tablet’s camera and carefully took pictures of the progression of emotions crossing Molly’s face, shock, disbelief, despair, embarrassment, flattery, embarrassment again, and finally plain mortification.“Mary I’m in the dictionary”

“I know”

“Sherlock and me…we’re in the bloody Oxford dictionary”

“Next to the definition of Shipping, yes” Mary passed Molly another margarita in mock sympathy “Oxford, but only the updated version, nobody over twenty reads the updated version anyway”

“Sherlock and Molly” More disbelief “Sherlolly…”

“I warned you” Mary nodded, then since she might as well rip off the band aid completely she added “there’s fanart too”

The horror dawned “People draw…people draw Sherlock and me together”

“And they’re quite talented at it too, all sort of situations, oh don’t look so terrified Molly, the fan-art isn’t that bad, the fandom thinks you’re both Kawai or something, not all of what they draw is porn”

Molly cursed something so colorful it made Mary feel proud “tell me Sherlock doesn’t know”

“Oh he knows it exists, he probably just hasn’t thought about it very deeply” Mary shrugged “Like Greg’s name, fan fiction is probably not relevant enough for his nibs”

“And thank God for his little mercies” Molly hissed “Someone drew us sailing with the Queen!”

“must be a new member, usually your shippers are more into drawing the insides of St Bart’s or imagining what your flat looks like” Mary was enjoying herself Furthermore she wanted Molly Hooper to enjoy herself so she tried a new approach “hey don’t be so shocked, the shippers love you, they buy any science magazine you’re mentioned in, it’s not all about Sherlock for them”

“They like an imaginary version of us” Molly was not appeased

“And we liked the airbrushed versions of Prince Charles and Princess Diana when they were a thing so I don’t see how it’s any different, cheer up Missus Pathologist” Mary encouraged in her best 'mom’ voice trying her best to make her friend see the bright side “Carpe Diem and all that”

And that’s how Molly Hooper discovered the world of Real Person Fanfiction, at first Molly was reluctant to see the website again, after all any sane person would be a bit miffed if they found out that other people played around with the details of their life like grown children with action figures. But curiosity won out, the next time she felt bored in the tube she pulled out her phone and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.Soon she came to realize that the so called shippers were not really malicious or ill intentioned. In fact, most of them had in one way or another become interested in her romantic life because they’ve been previously impressed with something during the course of her career and looked her up online.It was somewhat ridiculous, these people knew nothing about her life (or so she thought) but apparently, they decided over the course of who-knows-how-long-this-had-been-going-on that she and Sherlock Holmes were either going to make a good couple or were already a good couple behind the scenes.

Anderson’s crazy conspiracy group had probably only proved these people right when Sherlock was gone and….. Oh damn, it got worse.

There were fanfics about that too. (Username ‘Notr3a11yAnderson’ wasn’t even subtle when it earned the website’s award for reviewer of the month)

“How many variations of Sherlock snogging me after falling from the rooftop can exist?” Molly muttered to herself glaring a bit at her phone, a quick refinement in the ‘advance searching’ gave her an answer that had her cursing again.

Ten million? Really?.

But Molly couldn’t find it in herself to hate them, when her mortification died out over the weekend amusement replaced it, after all, if she was allowed to silently wish Mycroft and Anthea would snog already, then why judge the shippers for romanticizing her extremely ordinary life in their heads. Mary was probably right in taking a relaxed approach.Outrage would serve her for naught, it wasn’t as if these people were like Kitty Riley or her ilk, fan fiction was still considered a widely taboo hobby in most places and the so called 'shippers’ didn’t seem to be doing it for personal profit. To these perfect strangers imagining her and Sherlock together was just…fun, so they kept doing it.

A phone call from Mike interrupted her musings and when she went back to her phone like most Internet browsers hers allowed a pop-up ad on the fanfiction website latest updates to blink on her phone screen.“Sherlolly Saves the endangered Koalas” Molly hummed reading through one of the fanfics suggested by the pop up, apparently the Sherlolly shippers were very dedicated fans, of course there were other suggestions, an N-sync fan fiction that featured the band’s most popular members getting together and someone wrote Tiger Woods and Serena Williams having a super powerful tennis playing golfer baby. Mary and John were popular too with a multitude of different scenarios straight out of a Hospital Soap being the favored fanfic inspiration. Molly bookmarked the one marked as a ‘Letters of love in Afghanistan’ because it sounded like something she wouldn’t mind reading, even if the author’s bio made Molly think he really needed a hug.

But the fanfiction about the endangered Koalas taunted Molly again, it wouldn’t hurt to click it just once.

How bad could something tagged #fluffy-super-fluffy be? The summary promised two people in a Koala rescue, really it wasn’t as if she’d be reading anything rated NSFW. The tube wasn’t going to get any faster and she was curious.

One click became another, then another and before she knew it Molly was making BogusRPFwebsite.notcom part of her daily routine in the tube and slowly started replacing her paperback novels during her relaxing time. Sometimes she could even ‘deduce’ who the writers of certain stories were but she tried not to, things might get weird in real life if they turned out to be people close to her (She was pretty sure leg-in-a-cast Polly Turner and Nurse Roberts from upstairs were writing that collab, where Sherlock and Molly had a host of quintuplets and labor, was a sneeze for Molly’s vagina).

Also, the more she read, the more questions she had, like:

Why were her first borns always either girls or twins most of the time? Were the authors aware that little boys made cute fantasy babies too?.

What was the obsession with Sherlock’s hair? I mean yes Molly knew that his curls were unusually perfect and had fantasized about pulling them as much as the next girl but really, they all made it sound as though he used unicorn blood in his shampoo and it was starting to get to Molly in real life.

Why did every girl that liked him with the exception of Molly turn out to be a serial killer or a criminal of some kind?.

Also, why was everyone in fan fiction always extremely attractive? Had the ugly people been abducted by makeup scientists?.

Why was Sherlock’s shirt always open during his fictional interactions with her?.

How exactly did time work in fan fiction? Nobody ever seemed to own a clock in fictional London.

And with these type of questions in mind, Molly pretended that it was someone else in those pages, someone else who was pretty, witty and adorable who was in love with another Sherlock who definitely wasn’t her Sherlock because this was all fan fiction and it didn’t count as real life.

Some writers made it really easy for Molly to compartmentalize her denial, writing either Sherlock or her out of character was a sure fire way for Molly to keep her plausible deniability while enjoying a bit of escapism, it didn’t hurt that Sherlock was in France for an overnight case with John and wouldn’t be back until he solved another seemingly impossible puzzle and Molly didn’t have to SEE him.

Sure he texted her with crime scene pictures and called her every once in a while to talk about incompetent French coroners but so far so good Molly was keeping real life Sherlock out of sight and out of mind while the multiple incarnations of RPF Sherlock gave her a good source of amusement and that was fine with Molly Hooper.

It was hard for embarrassment not to turn into flattery after some days swimming through the #fluff and #morefluff tag, I mean what woman didn’t like the idea of being cool enough to inspire people to writing glorified romance novels in obscure corners of the internet, Molly didn’t think either Sherlock or her deserved half of the unspoken admiration these writers had for them, but nevertheless it was…sweet (if a little disconcerting).

Fanfiction was one of those things that were ignored when one saw another person doing it, like reading the newspaper, people never paid much attention to another’s reading materials unless the topic was broached and as such Molly’s new pastime could have gone largely unnoticed had it not been for one thing: Sherlock Holmes did not like it when Molly didn’t pay him attention and Two weeks later when he got back from France, Molly Hooper knew she had a problem.

“Molly, I need access to a good set of kidneys, before noon if you please" was the first thing Sherlock said when he got back from his case, John at his side rolled his eyes, expecting the pathologist to at least greet him with her usual bright smile, but Molly surprisingly didn’t even lift up her head from her computer.

“yes Sherlock, I’ll get it to you later”

“and a good femur, for some reason Mrs. Hudson threw away my last one"

Molly who was still clearly engrossed in whatever she was doing barely managed an “of course Sherlock”

“And some eyes, preferably without much cornea damage" Sherlock frowned at her “Molly are you even listening or is the usual game of Solitaire taking up too much of your time?”

But even then he only managed to make Molly separate herself from the computer long enough to pull a notepad from her desk drawer and slide it in his direction “write a list of the body parts you need and I’ll deliver them at Baker Street after my shift” and then she was back to what had her so busy.

Molly tried to ignore Sherlock’s presence, easily opening the tabs for a couple of vaguely interesting autopsy reports to justify herself in case he decided to snoop in her files and went back to reading more fanfiction completely tuning out the real life consulting detective of her dreams.

The fanfiction that had her giving Sherlock auto pilot responses was titled “Celebrity Romance” in it Sherlock was written as an actor in a BBC series called ‘Benedict’, the TV show he starred in followed the life of fictional Hollywood darling Benedict Cumberbatch ( Sherlock apparently had been at it for five seasons) who was married with kids and held a demanding life as a sought after celebrity, and Molly, in turn, played a secondary role in his show as one of Benedict’s equally famous friends, progressive feminist actress Louise Brealey. What had Molly intrigued was that in the fanfiction despite the fact that on screen Sherlock and Molly’s characters were only good friends, with story lines that rarely overlapped, off screen they were actually falling in love and bonding over Starbucks coffees. (privately Molly rather liked Loo’s minor suffrage-style story line just as much as she liked Ben’s love story with his wife Sophie, but that was just her)

The point was that Molly was really invested in the plot of that story, the author was making his characters jump through rings of fire to get that happy ending…..Aaaand “Excuse me Sherlock did you say something? I was a bit distracted with this autopsy report” Molly said, eyes snapping out of her reverie to catch the tail end of one of his deductions on the state of Lestrade’s NSY passwords.

Molly saw a muscle in his jaw twitch with exasperation “Yes, I can see that” Sherlock said with narrowed eyes “if you tried to get any closer to the screen you would be in danger of merging with it”

Molly nodded distractedly making the same face Sherlock usually did when he was texting behind his back “Of course Sherlock, merging, that’s great for the victim” in response Sherlock calmly walked to the power outlet in the corner and unplugged her desktop “HEY” Molly snapped glaring at her blank computer and turned her whole attention to Sherlock Furiously, now she would never know what Happened after fictional Molly tweeted about how her character Louise needed to get more screen time.

“Body parts? Assistance in the lab?” Sherlock said without flinching watching Molly’s petulant glare melt into her usual friendly smile

“I gather you brought a sample of evidence with you" She replied easily getting up as though she hadn’t been not paying him attention for the last fifteen minutes, privately she resolved to find that fan fiction again when she got home “let’s see it, if it was worth bringing here it must be something big”

Sherlock handed over the evidence bag and for all intents and purposes that should have been it, she was back to the usual, except it wasn’t.

Because that week was the week Molly ventured into the deep dark hole that was the smut rating. And Sherlock being Sherlock, noticed the change immediately.

Molly began distancing herself from him and he didn’t like it.

She was distracted almost disinterested in him every time he saw her, she answered his questions in sentences that might as well have been recorded on an answering machine and had started spending too much time on her emails. To everyone else, she looked and acted like the normal Molly but Sherlock knew that something was going on in her life.

Normally this kind of behavior would lead him to deduce some new sort of paramour in her life, but a deeper look at the details of her social life showed no variation in patterns, her flat showed no sign of new visitors staying longer than what was considered appropriate and a quick call to Mycroft reassured him that she hadn’t been anywhere else in the past month.

Browsing through her phone and computer gave up similarly uninspiring results, other than a mountain of random pages and articles on things he didn’t care about Molly hadn’t logged on to any new dating website or media equivalents.

The only detail he could see was that Molly’s strange behavior coincided with the recent scheduling of her weekly nights out with Mary and like a dog with a bone, Sherlock had to investigate further. So using his master detective skills he roped John into trying to spy on his daughter’s godmother and on his wife (John was naturally against it citing that for very obvious reasons spying on a retired secret agent like Mary was almost impossible, also according to him spying on girls during their girl time was something teenage boys did, not men) but Sherlock eventually managed to convince him .

Meanwhile, Molly felt she couldn’t be around Sherlock anymore and it was all Mary’s fault.

“I ran away Mary, I said I needed to wash my hair and ran, like a coward” Molly complained bringing her hands to her face “ I can’t look at him in the eyes, I’ve tried!”

“I hate to say it, but: I told you so” Mary chuckled patting her hand “tell me again how bad is it?”

“On a scale of one to ten, eleven, I can’t seem to stop reading them" Molly wailed not daring to take her hands off her face “maybe I’ve turned into a pervert”

“you’re not a pervert Molls, people that send pictures of their privates to unsuspecting strangers on chat rooms are perverts, you’re just you know….sexually frustrated” the chuckle turned into a full blown giggle.

“Thank you for stating the obvious Mrs. Three Continent Watson" Molly grumbled “They like Sherlock’s penis! A lot and my breasts, just look at them Mary” Molly pointed to her modest chest “They are not a big deal, but out there in the big wide internet there are strangers that…have a very artistic view of my breasts”

“And of Sherlock’s penis,“ Mary reminded her laughing

“Stop laughing this is serious, I need help” Molly then pulled up her phone “hear this one” Molly cleared her throat “Prince Sherlock wasn’t supposed to be fucking his niece’s Fairy godmother, but he couldn’t help himself, the christening was almost over and he just had to know what it was like to taste her dewy pussy, to be inside her and hammer his member so deep she cried with pleasure, his manhood was made for her, hard red and angry his shaft was painfully aware of how beautiful she was and he just wanted to rip off every single item of frothy fabric covering her and her, gloriously hard nippled small breasts, see his little fairy naked and open just for him, while he made her miss the christening of Princess Briar Rosamund”

“Oh wow, what talent”Mary was holding her sides in laughter “Remind me to invite whoever wrote that to the christening of my next baby”

“MARY” Molly almost started crying “that one had a plot I enjoyed and now I can’t stop thinking about…”

“Sherlock’s rock hard penis?”

“STOP SAYING IT” Molly hissed “this is all your fault”

“Hey my friend I told you not to do it, you didn’t listen"

“you knew I would do it anyway" Molly wailed “Now I can’t stop thinking about how it would be like to actually have sex with him, not that I didn’t before, but these people are graphic Mary, VERY, graphic, now every time I look at Sherlock I wonder which one of these people hit the mark, is he rough in bed, does he take it slow, does he like his hair pulled, or does he do the hair pulling, is his penis as big as they claim it is or is that just normal smut exaggeration” Molly began ranting while Mary kept trying not to spill her drink with her giggles “I mean I’m pretty sure some of these people have access to his medical records from his druggie days so one has to question if it’s true, I for one like to be dominant in bed and now it’s affecting my relationship with Sherlock because I can’t look at him in the eye without wondering what it’s like to spank his perfect ass with that bloody riding crop he likes so much”

“Oh Molly, you really need to have sex and soon" Mary advised wisely patting the petite woman’s head, then she turned around on her stool and looked at the pair of old men that were sitting at the table behind them “By the way, John, why don’t we head home and leave Sherlock and Molly alone, I think you’ve heard enough”

“Mary Watson that move just cost you a friendship” Molly looked genuinely betrayed but Mary didn’t look one bit regretful

“You need him out of your system and you Mr. Clark Kent…“ She said pulling Sherlock up and divesting him from the trey wig and bad prosthetics "need to stop being a tosser over the fact that Lois Lane likes Superman better” and with that Mary swanned out of the pub with an apologetic John in tow, leaving Sherlock alone with Molly

minutes ticked down.

Another minute.

Sherlock still was looking at her like he’d never seen her before. “So it was fan fiction all along”

“Yes"

“That might present a problem for us” Sherlock said awkwardly

“I’m aware”

“Molly I….”

But she cut him off deciding enough was enough “Just say whatever you need to say Sherlock” Molly glared at him “I’m tired, I’m hungry and extremely sexually frustrated so if you’re going to be a bastard about this get it over with, I need to find a stranger to shag tonight preferably”

that got his attention really fast, no, the only man Molly was going to take home was going to be him “you’re embarrassed when you shouldn’t be, I was merely thinking about the next course of action one should take when a woman one has fantasized of fucking confesses the same thing”

“I was not expecting that" Molly eyed him suspiciously before downing whatever drink she had in hand before shrugging and eyeing her phone “you know what Sherlock, any other day I would be very accommodating talking about what you want and why this isn’t a good idea, but right now, I can’t think clearly when your shirt buttons look like they want to pop out so here is what will happen” She stretched to her toes and grabbed him by the collar watching his eyes grow dark with want, taking his hand and pressing it to the waistband of her skirt “I have questions about how we would be in bed, you have answers, it ends tomorrow and it absolutely doesn’t mean anything”

“we could start with those fan fictions you were reading, you seem to want to investigate which ones are accurate and which ones are entirely poppycock" he murmured in her ear making her shiver, desire pooling in her belly

“I have a long list”

turns out that Sherlock was in fact not as disgusted with Molly’s fan fiction problem as he’d been with Mary’s, he was positively pleased by it and it was a frequent source of both amusement and role-play ideas any time he went to Molly’s flat or had her over in Baker street.

The flowery language in the smut section only made Sherlock more aware of the tiny details of Molly’s body that he could use to his advantage, it was like having a cheat code on how to sexually please Molly.

And in turn, he found himself pleasured by her in many wicked ways.

“I think we might have to extend this arrangement” Sherlock murmured into Molly’s hair for the umpteenth time, he was sated and she looked happy, he wasn’t going to ruin a good thing.

“An Extension?” Molly replied with a yawn cuddling into his chest “How big?”

“Depends, these people publish stories every day, how about until they stop writing?”

“That could take forever"

“Good thing I’m a patient man then" He replied kissing her lips.

And yes it turned out that Sherlock, was so much better at everything he tried in real life than he was in fiction, especially when it came to Molly.

#sherlolly #sherlolly fic exchange #@darnedchild #promptfill #fanfiction about fanfiction #the writer makes fun of herself here #pure crack #and satire #my Tumblr mobile sucks

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nothingbythebook · 5 years

Text

for Small medium larch

A Golden Larch

I am trying to not think of an audience. I am trying to not think of a reader—the reader. I am trying to not think that you will read this. I am trying to think—note that the “not” disappears, more accurately, relocates—that you will not read this.

This is, of course, ass-backwards. We almost always write for an audience, a reader—even in the privacy of journals that we claim we write for ourselves but of course keep to appraise posterity of our brilliance, significance, intellectual insight, and emotional depth (What? No? Your journals are truly, completely private? Do you burn them, destroy them, after you write in them? No? Then, beloved hypocrite, you are just as vain and ego-fuelled and delusional as I am). Good work, effective work posits a reader. It is created with an audience, a reader in mind. Otherwise, it’s either therapy or narcissistic indulgence, not art.

Certainly not journalism.

But that’s another story.

This story is about heartbreak. And to write a true story about heartbreak, you need to write without thinking of the reader.

I want to tell you a story about my 12 days in Heaven, and I want it to be a truly true story. You know most of my stories aren’t really true—each is a performance, an exercise, a game. But today, I want to give you a true story. To give it, I need to not think of the audience (especially not you), a reader, the reader (the specific reader).

I am thinking, writing in circles.

It’s because I am sober for the first time in 10 days; hungover from Heaven.

View from the Banff Centre Library

Heaven is partly a place, mostly people. I’ve just come back from 10 days—12, if you count the shoulder travel days, and I do—at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where I was privileged to be part of the Centre’s third annual Investigative Journalism Intensive.

Background for the uninitiated: The Banff Centre is, I believe, North America’s largest non-parchment granting arts institution. Its official messaging describes it as “a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development… the global organization leading in arts, culture, and creativity across dozens of disciplines… [which] aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus—artists, leaders, and thinkers—to unleash their creative potential.”

Words, words, words—what it is, it’s heaven on earth for artists, creators. And because it’s located in Alberta and at the mercy of the economic and political machinations of a boom-bust economy and governments that do not believe in nourishing art, culture, and artists, it’s an arts organization that’s an entrepreneurial leader. It provides a womb for artists from across Canada and the world, and it funds this womb in large part through hard-nosed business operations. Yeah, it’s an arts institution that has revenue streams independent of the government and student fees. And we’re not just talking generous donations from philanthropists (while we’re talking philanthropy, though, to the many individual and corporate donors who made the Investigative Journalism Intensive possible, thank you!).

Banff Centre Campus, God’s light

But that also is another story. This is not a hard-nosed business story, although I just completed a hard-nosed investigative journalism intensive. This is a story about Heaven.

And also, not thinking about the reader.

So. I’m in Heaven. This is, I think, not a metaphor. The Banff Centre is in the heart of the obscenely beautiful Banff National Park, nestled into the side of the sacred Sleeping Buffalo Mountain (Tunnel Mountain to the colonizers), with views of Sulphur Mountain, Cascade Mountain and others enclosing it in a fairytale-like setting. God’s country for atheists, hedonists, naturalists, artists.

Elk on campus

Elk and deer wander the 42-acre campus; the occasional bear visits too. Birds sing. Little mammals scurry. Trees rustle, the wind whispers.

Artists dream.

More importantly, they work.

I arrive exhausted and beyond depleted. Soon, I will meet my cohort and later, we will share with each other our hopes, expectations, and fears—so many fears. People are intimidated, uncertain, worried—we are, technically, the most promising-passionate-something-or-other journalists around (ha! who the hell told them that? how did we ever fool them into letting us into this programme?) and we are all suffering from Impostor Syndrome. Everyone’s worried that at check-in—or check-out—or any point in-between, someone will lean over our shoulder and say, “Um, sorry, we made a mistake, you don’t belong here.”

Elk harem on campus

What I’m most worried about, though, is not Impostor Syndrome. Over the years, I’ve come to accept Impostor Syndrome as, if not a friend, exactly, then as a constant presence, whose poisonous whispers I acknowledge, hear, but don’t listen to. “You don’t belong here,” the demon—I call her Aunt Augusta—whispers. “You’re so out-classed.” “You’re so right,” I answer back. “And yet, here I am. I’m so lucky. Now screw off and let me take advantage of this opportunity I don’t deserve.”

What I’m most worried about is that I am arriving so exhausted, so depleted, I will piss the opportunity away. I check in at 3:45 p.m.—and I’m on the gorgeous king-sized bed, linens white and fresh, and falling asleep by 4 p.m. I’m going to sleep the entire time that I’m here and what Alberta tax payers, conference attendees, and generous Banff Centre donors will have paid for by providing me with this opportunity is… dreams. Nothing but dreams.

And not metaphoric dreams, either, but literal dreams, in the pre-2013 definition of the word.

I sleep for 30 minutes, and then I do what I always do when I don’t have the energy to move or live. I go for a walk.

To a cemetery.

The Old Banff Cemetery is also nestled into the side of Sleeping Buffalo Mountain, just below the Banff Centre. I visit it often when I’m in Banff. Death affirms life. Later, as my stint in Heaven is ending, I will talk about beautiful melancholy with a positive-but-melancholy musician, and I will tell a fellow journalist that I hope he finds beauty in his sadness.

This is what I find in the cemetery.

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But this is also not part of this story in which I’m trying to not thinking about the reader. (But do you see how, because I’m trying to not think about the reader, you are only able to follow because you love me and you think I love you, and you hope that, perhaps, I’m writing for you, trying to not think of you? Good. That’s the point, at last part of it.)

That night, I sleep for 12 interrupted hours, waking to the sounds of rutting elk, and also, to the sound of deep silence. Once, my screaming, a nightmare.

The next day, I meet my people.

On top of Sleeping Buffalo (Tunnel) Mountain

I don’t know it yet, of course. When I meet them—when we meet, we are strangers. We spend that day, I think, sussing each other out. Posing, positioning? Impostor syndrome is strong. Intimidation rising.

Me, I don’t make deep connections easily and rarely do I feel that I belong, anywhere, with anyone.

(But when I teach, and I ask students the question, “What do all people want?” the answer I give them is this: “To be loved, to be understood—to belong.)

That first night, I run away from the possibility of connection. I leave as soon as it’s offered, actually. Exhausted, depleted, I sleep another 12 hours…

Later, on the last night in Heaven, I tell the santur player who turns sadness into beauty (you haven’t met him yet, nor have I, wait, it’s coming) that for people like me, intimacy is a conscious choice. Love, connection, trust—none of it just happens. It is safer to be distant—it is more comfortable to be on the periphery. It is easier to be a journalist than an artist: it is easier to walk through a room glibly, smiling and laughing, but not investing. Observing but not risking.

With love, with connection, with trust comes the possibility of loss and pain.

Tears, heartbreak.

No comment

In North American culture, we mostly talk about erotic, romantic love. And we misunderstand it, pervert it—that’s also another story.

Non-romantic love can also cause heartbreak, tear you apart. That’s part of this story.

I will tell you, the reader of whom I am trying so hard not to think, this: the day I arrive, I am so afraid I am too exhausted, too depleted to risk, learn, love. On the day I meet my people—except that I don’t know that they are my people yet—I realize that, the bone-deep exhaustion notwithstanding, I can, I must make a choice. And on the next day, on top of Sleeping Buffalo Mountain, the cold wind whipping my face at the same time as the sun warms it, I make the choice to love them. Fully, unabashedly, no constraints, no barriers, nothing held back.

In the wind

Here’s the magical thing, here is what happens in Heaven: every other person in the cohort makes the same decision.

Not at the same moment, not that day, not on that mountaintop. A few of us are a slower burn than even me—it takes them longer. (And yet others have fewer intimacy issues—they decide to roll the dice, take the risk, and love us all on day one.)

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Photographing the photographers; context deleted

I explain all this to the melancholy musician on the last night. And I cry.

He plays beautiful music to soothe my heart, and I cry some more.

I’ve jumped ahead and you can’t follow.

Rewind.

So. I am in Heaven—aka the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity—on a 10-day Investigative Journalism Intensive. My debriefing, description, depiction of it violates every “this is journalism” rule, I know. I am not a journalist right now. I am a broken, open heart.

And it’s a journalist’s fault.

Robert Cribb, the star investigative journalist from The Toronto Star (see what I did there), who is our main guide on this journey, sets the sappy tone in the first hour of the intensive.

(Patti Sonntag, former managing editor in The New York Times’ news service division and now director of the Institute for Investigative Journalism at the University of Concordia is the other; we also get some time with the brilliant Aron Pilhofer, the James B. Steele Chair in Journalism Innovation at Temple University—holy cow, loves, mind utterly blown, I drink each word from him as if it is vintage wine or the blood of Christ itself).

But it’s Cribb who is the main midwife of what happens in Heaven. And this is weird casting. Really weird. If you’ve read Cribb in the Star—if you’ve read Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide, the textbook for people like us that he co-authored with Dean Jobb, David McKie, and Fred Vallance-Jones and which forms the text for our intensive—you form a certain image. Expectation. At least, I did, and it was the kinda image often depicted in movies. You know. The seasoned, cynical, hard-boiled journalist (or, actually, homicide detective) with a bottle of whisky in the bottom drawer of his desk.

And when you see Cribb in the flesh, he rather fits that image. Maybe better dressed than the typical Silver Screen depiction. But tough, tough. And hard as nails.

Heart of gold inside? I dunno, maybe, not really, more like a heart of steel, or an uber-fast analyzing computer.

Hard-core, not soft-boiled. Clearly.

Not.

“This is love, here is love,” the hard-core Cribb tells us on day one, in hour one. I don’t believe him.

I’m wrong.

This is love.

I have no idea if he knows how he’s doing what he’s doing. How much of it is on purpose, by design. How much of it is intuition. But we fall in love, with each other, with each other’s work, passion, experience, vulnerability, frustration, fear, hope, ambition, humility… fear. Did I mention fear?

We are journalists working in the era of free content, death of newspapers, evisceration of news desks. And the rise of alternative facts and fake news.

We are all probably (not just a little) mad.

I am mad, I am in Heaven, and while here, I am working on three things:

The narrative journalism-this-is-not-really-an-investigation-but-it-has-elements-of-one-I-hope story I want to create around this thing that’s happening in Alberta that I’m not going to tell you anything more about, because it’s my story and while not really a secret, still, containment is the first rule of magic (Ok, I’m not really working on that story. Unless thinking is working. I’m thinking. A lot. Document state of mind, where is it written down, where can I find what I need to answer my questions? I make lists. Identify agencies, names. Think, think, think. A lot.)

meme by David

The novel that I was supposed to have finished in February, but, you know, sick child, life (I plot it out completely, and hit about 6-7,000 new words on it before the intensive ends; also, flesh out some other parts on its sister pieces—I am happy, productive, accomplished.)

A painfully introspective “what do I want to do with the rest of my life, or at least the next five years” journaling exercise (I do not arrive at an answer—except that I do not wish to work for an established Canadian media company in any way, shape or form, I want to be part of a revolution, except that I don’t think I’ve got quite enough fire to lead the revolution—what I want is someone else to start the revolution and tell me how to help execute it, what do you mean, I have to figure it out all myself?—and that, my love, is a taste of what my journal pages look like, minus the expletives, doodles, and digressions.)

This is not a newspaper; this is not journalism

I am not working on the story I pitched to get into the programme. Because I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to write it right now. And that’s—well, that’s also another story. Also, I’m not sure who will pay me for it (which is in some ways the most important story). But it’s ok. I don’t have to write that story, right now. Maybe someone else can do it better. And if they can’t, life is long—maybe I will get to it one day.

Maybe not.

In Heaven, for me, my story is not what matters. My people matter.

I have a people. Do you understand how intoxicating this is for me?

We are an interesting mix of people, from across Canada and around the world. The prairie provinces are well-represented, and the East Coast (hello, New Brunswick!) over-represented. Toronto and Vancouver are notable by their absence—why is that? But we’ve got Montreal (although he’s really Boston). And London, Kingston, and Hamilton. There are journalists from New York and New Orleans, a Pole working in Cambodia and an Australian based in Liberia—and the Brit was most recently working in New York. A First Nations journalist from Northwestern Ontario—what a beat she has, what a heart pounds within her—how does it not break, daily?

Perhaps it does.

Boat in the woods

Exhausted, depleted when I come, I request complete radio silence on behalf of real life while I’m in Heaven. “Unless one of the children is in the hospital and needs a blood transfusion from me, don’t text me,” I tell the family. I issue the same directive to my friends and loves. “Don’t text me, I won’t text you”—I want to be here, away, completely.

I break it twice. Once, when the high school calls me—they never call me, what’s wrong, panic—texts—it’s fine, everything is fine.

The second time, it’s after Heaven becomes interdisciplinary—we the journalists go to hear the musicians in residence perform a concert, and I don’t know exactly what happens—it’s like the secret sauce. Journalists (writers in general, except perhaps the poets) don’t usually think of ourselves as artists. A number of us in the intensive are recipients of artists’ grants, and Impostor Syndrome prompts us to laugh at the label. Artists, us? What are we doing here, really, in this arts sanctuary?

Do we belong?

The answer, I think, is this: Yes, we belong. We’re all here, musicians, photographers, painters, poets, novelists, journalists, because we make things in order to make sense of the world. Right? Isn’t that what we do, at the core? And hearing the musicians make sense of the world in a language in which we journalists, writers are rarely fluent—I certainly am not—shakes us.

Shakes me, anyway, to the core.

Dancing in the Streets, photo by Kathleen

Cello, bass, violins, viola, guitar—flute, gods, the flute, what is that? how does she do that?—voices as instrument, body as instrument, drum and paper, a hundred-stringed Persian santur, piano and bass—is that a Zappa song? And that string quartet, do they share a hive mind and what have they done to my insides, they are no longer my own—they’re cosmic dust, and I don’t exist.

(And yet, it turns out later in the night, non-existent, I can still dance…)

The night of the concert, I don’t really sleep; in the morning, unsettled, vibrating, I break radio silence with an email. I write about the santur player (I’ve met him now, and so have you—but this is all the introduction you get), and the flutist, and the folk singer, and the string quartet from Vienna, and the bass player who loves Frank Zappa, and the dancer who speaks with her body, oh-my-god, but mostly, I write this:

My work is not really moving forward in a significant way—well, I did plot out the next [Series Title Deleted] novel, and I’ve got some words down on that, I should not downplay that—but most importantly, my brain feels like it’s waking up, I am drinking art and I am surrounded by people loving and making art and music and poetry and making words sing, and I am so alive even when I am almost too exhausted to move.

Last night, after an intense day of work work work, and then the concert, and then the party, we danced in one of the hotel rooms until we literally collapsed on the floor—I have not felt such freedom and abandon in an eternity.

And I am grateful, and that’s a good feeling—I have had a very hard time feeling grateful.

Here’s a picture of my crew.

Did I mention that I am so happy? My heart threatens to break out of my ribcage.

View from my room

We work, we learn, we work, we hike, we work, we dance—we talk, argue, share, fall silent. Repeat.

I feel the hangover coming before it hits. It all ends, we are to leave Thursday morning. Tuesday, we fill out programme evaluations, have our closing reception… which morphs into a closing party and karaoke (and there is also a mechanical bull, don’t ask, it’s Alberta)… and then a long walk from Banff townsite to the Banff Centre, the longest way possible, not on the direct path, but all the way around the mountain. With lots of stops.

“No. We’re not turning there—if we turn there, we’re going to be back at the Centre, and then this night is over, no.”

Not my words, but my sentiment.

We lay down for a while at the Surprise Corner look-out point and look at the stars.

It’s two, three in the morning? Too late. Too much. Too little. It’s almost all over.

Melancholy.

“I don’t want this to be over.”

I have the conversation that begins with this sentence a dozen times, with a dozen different people, none of whom I would have met in the ordinary course of my creative or professional career; these 10 days are extraordinary.

We are hungry for each other, we fit each other, we stimulate, challenge, push each other. This is Heaven.

Bridge over troubled (they only look calm) waters

The santur player—you’ve met him now, remember?—is Persian, and in our encounters we talk poetry, of course. The Persian sufi poets excel at metaphor, at using the language of sexual desire to represent divine love, at using the prosaic and the ordinary to represent that which cannot rightly be put into words.

I wish I had the talent of Hafez of Shiraz to put my longing into words. I do my inadequate best—my people understand, because we all feel it. Many of us freelance, which means we are almost always alone, working with cyber-editors and ever-new sources. Colleagues, friends, collaborators, soulmates? What is that?

Even the people in the newsrooms—they often feel alone, isolated. Also, under stress, fire, threat.

Embattled.

Being an artist has never been easy; there has never been a worse time, in the “free” world anyway, to be a journalist at a traditional media outlet.

And yet, here we are.

“Are we stupid?” I ask this question as the level in the whisky bottle—not the first one—drops. “I mean, I know we’re brilliant, we’re all high on how brilliant we all are. But are we really stupid? Aren’t the smart ones in public relations, communications, marketing, in-house at the corporations, out-earning us, out-spinning us, killing us?”

All the industry stereotypes

Maybe.

“So why do we keep on doing this?”

The question answers itself when I talk with the melancholy-but-happy (that’s a thing) santur player, who makes the hundred-string Persian instrument weep to bring peace to tormented hearts. He can’t remember not playing the santur. He can’t remember not making music. He can’t remember at what age he made his first attempts at composition—his father first recorded him “improvising” when he was ten years old.

Music is in his bones, in his DNA.

It is who he is, as much as it is what he does.

I ask him questions, so many questions, intrusive questions, ignorant questions—I am not fluent in the language of music.

But there’s a question I don’t ask, don’t have to ask.

I’ve heard its variant often.

“What would you be doing if you weren’t writing?”

(What would you be doing if you weren’t making music? If you weren’t making art?)

And I don’t understand the question.

I stare.

I smile awkwardly.

I shuffle away.

Bow Falls

We here, this intrepid group now enjoying 10 days in Heaven, we are the people who have to tell the stories. We need to document them, chase them, share them.

Beavers build dams.

We see the “Who, what, when, where” and then ask, “Why? How?”

And keep on asking…

Then write down the answers, send them into the world, so that you know too.

This used to be a valued, precious skill and gift. Lately, not so much.

Except here.

Heaven.

See what happened? A bunch of journalists and the Banff Centre made me believe in God. Or maybe it was the Persian santur. Goddamn Sufis. Where’s my whisky and my heart of steel?

It’s time to say goodbye.

I don’t want to. I break radio silence, again.

Today my heart hurts because I will be leaving them. I am stupidly hiding from them because I don’t want to say goodbye.

As I write the email, I realize I am being stupid.

I close my eyes. And enter into the pain.

I am going to stop being stupid & go love them a little more, a little longer.

Photo by Alex

We spend that last evening outside. Around an open fire.

When I leave them, I am an open wound.

The santur player has a song called “One Last Time”:

I don’t even try not to cry when he plays it.

“This is how I feel about my crew,” I tell him. “Precisely, exactly, completely, this.”

We will never see each other again—not like this, not all of us—and the reality of this hurts, hurts, hurts. We now know each other—and we know we are not alone, and we know we are loved and valued. That is something, that is everything.

We connect—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. LinkedIn. Slack.

Sorry. That is meaningless. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t compare to this face-to-face time, any more than an email “interview” compares to a face-to-face one—any more than watching porn compares to having sex with someone you are mad about.

(You know I was going to go there.)

So. Goodbye.

Photo by kind stranger from Willow’s camera under Willow’s direction

Heartbreak.

When your heart breaks, you have, I think, two choices.

(You almost always have at least two choices, right?)

You can sow it up and harden.

Or you can leave it open. And make art.

I’m making art—I’m writing—and I am trying to not think of an audience. I am trying to not think of a reader—the reader. I am trying to not think that you will read this, even though, of course, I am writing it for you, only for you.

Document state of mind forever.

xoxo

“Jane”

Photo by Kathleen

PS All you need to know about The Banff Centre: https://www.banffcentre.ca/

PS2 All you need to know about the Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/journalism/research/investigative-journalism.html

PS3 (The Most Important One) The Banff Centre Musicians in Residence perform most Friday evenings this fall, in Rolston Hall. If you’re within driving distance (Calgary, I’m talking to you), you should go hear them. Because. Amazing. (Also, free.)

PS4 I know that part of the intoxicating intensity of our love affair comes from its brevity and its enforced, prescribed ending. Were we all to, suddenly, form a single, cohesive full-time newsroom, were we to work together five, six—in this world, seven—days a week for 52 weeks—hell, even a few months—there would be less infatuation and more frustration, the professional equivalent of seeing a lover’s dirty socks on the living room floor, repeatedly, for goddsake, what’s wrong with her, does she not know what the laundry basket is for? I know all this. Vacation romance, fairy tale love affair. I don’t care. It’s not any more real, any less precious because it’s ephemeral and must end. All things end. We are lucky, so lucky, that we drowned in it as fully as we did, among the mountains, the elk, the true evergreens and the mysterious golden larches.

Michael on deadline (he made it)

PS5 Ok, I realize, you–the reader I’m trying not to think of–you’re going to go here:

You: OMG, woman, did you actually do any journalism?

Jame: OMG, we did EVERYTHING. We drilled into the elements of investigative reporting and what separates original investigative work from derivative reporting—and also, how it’s possible to write an original, revealing investigative piece purely from data already out in the public records that nobody had bothered to connect together before. DOCUMENT STATE OF MIND. We pitched out story ideas and refined them—and refined them some more—being part of this process was probably the most useful part of the entire intensive, except that all of it was useful. We talked about focus and moral and purpose. “What’s the point of this story? What’s the moral of this story? Why are you writing this story?” (We’re writing to change the world. Short answer.) We talked about testing ideas and getting started, organizing documents, identifying (and chasing down) sources. DOCUMENT STATE OF MIND. Collaborative (like hundreds of journalists working together) investigations. Sharing data, interviews, and insights. Preparing for cooperative publications and broadcast. Public records and freedom of information requests. DOCUMENT STATE OF MIND. Pay-walls, love as business model, memberships and subscribers, the future of our industry. Doing the work, loving the work–paying attention to the reader. Piggy-backing on past FOIP requests. How data tells a story. Turning data into narrative. DOCUMENT STATE OF MIND. Sequencing interviews, preparing for adversarial interviews, dealing with spin and reluctance. Turning “off the record” sources into “on the record” ones. Libel-proofing stories. Role-playing adversarial interviews. Surviving being scooped. DOCUMENT STATE OF MIND. Solutions journalism (sort of). Data. More data. DOCUMENT STATE OF MIND.

You: I don’t understand any of this.

Jane: You had to be there. Here, have some more whisky, and then I’ll play you some modern Persian music, and we can both cry.

Heaven Hangover, or, thoroughly non-journalistic reflections on the Investigative Journalism Intensive, Banff Centre 2019 for Small medium larch A Golden Larch I am trying to not think of an audience. I am trying to not think of a reader—

#Banff Centre #investigative journalism intensive #journalism

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booksbroadwaybbc · 5 years

Text

I know I have the potential to be great, and I choose the path of the weak every time. via /r/selfimprovement

I know I have the potential to be great, and I choose the path of the weak every time.

Im so shitty. I dont even know why im writing this. Honestly I see other people post and I wonder if this actually helps. I'm at a point where If there's even a chance it could help, I should try it. Im 29, skinny black guy. I literally weigh about 130 lbs. Live with a roommate and brother. Other brother moving here in bout a week. Im older than all of them. Somehow I've got to this point in my life dropping out of every school endeavor i ever embarked on. Dropped out of High School, got my GED got into college then dropped out of that. Was too busy smoking weed, playing fighting games...just being a fool. Never been in a serious relationship at any point in my life. My love-life is non-existent. My only working background is in grocery stores and call center. I legitimately want to just stop everything. If I have to take calls for another few months that really might be it for me. I'm at the complete end of my lane. Im not here to discuss where my thoughts have gone, but I know for certain I cant keep doing this type of work for the rest of my life...I don't think I'll last to the middle of 2019 before I quit and look for another job. Speaking of that, my last 5 years of work history is just me bouncing between jobs. I got a job at software company doing customer support, but i threw that away too. They wanted to send me to Ireland, a real chance to start over and for some reason i threw it away. I just feel inadequate as hell in comparison to my brothers (one who has graduated college, the other who is going to Lincoln Tech now). I don't have problems talking to women casually, but I dont have it in me to discuss anything romantic with a woman. I wouldn't date me. If I was a woman I wouldn't even talk to me lol, let alone date me. I see my laziness, my apathy, my lack of empathy toward other people, and I know it's' shitty. I hate it, I hate myself and I absolutely must improve. I know that I can, when I actually put my mind to something I excel.

But you know what I hate more than anything? People who look for sympathy, people who want others to feel bad for them, and worst of all people who don't fucking work. So as I make this post, I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. If anything insult me, because well thats what I deserve and probably what I would do to someone else.

So since im literally at the end of my fucking rope, I've been trying to rewrite my life as hard as possible. Dedicating literally every minute of every day to improvement. Literally every --single---minute of every ---single--- day. As i write this now im at work, im doing quite a few things inbetween calls, and decided to visit this reddit because I made this account and subscribed to it a few weeks ago.

I probably sound like an idiot going into detail on this, but as embarrassing as it is I will. I made a plan for myself for the next 5 years. The plan includes my goals and ways to achieve them day by day. It also includes checkpoints every so often for me to check In and make sure im actually focusing on my goals. I need these checkpoints because in the past when I tried to do things like this I would lose focus eventually and fall into loads of weed use and alcohol abuse. My goals are listed below in no particular order:

Improve my overall Health - this multi-part goal. It includes both physical and mental health. I weigh 130 lbs pretty much on the dot. I'm not sure what my ideal weight would be (I don't know how I'd look at lets say 170 lbs for me to call that my ideal weight), but the first milestone is 150lbs. I want to hit this in 6 months, or atleast check in at that time. In terms of how I plan to do that, I've detailed a complete workout regime for me. Of course, I could go into detail on that, but the most important step, more important than working out is just eating more. The hardest part of course is always sticking to the regime, but atleast i've wrote down what I need to do. I don't know why but for some reason I just have trouble getting myself to eat. Even when i'm hungry, i'll smoke or go for a walk or go to sleep or just game - I'll do anything but eat. As of today, I'm changing that. For my mental health, I plan to read recreationally more especially when on public transit which Im on for about 2 hours a day. Why reading? I need to stay away from my phone. I spend so much time on discord, losing myself in non-stop content online through youtube or twitch or whatever. I need to get back in touch with me, and not be scared to be in my own thoughts. As a kid i use to read a lot, I was a creative kid. I think somewhere in the weed use I lost that, I want it back. After doing some research I've also started journalling. I Journal twice a day, once in the morning once at night. I try to spend 30 minutes a day total (15 minutes per night/day) writing down my thoughts from the previous day and goals for that day in the morning, and what I actually accomplished and thoughts for the day that night. After reading what I've wrote for just a few days, turns out I'm actually a very bitter person. Maybe not bitter, but definitely angry and intense. I'm also trying to meditate, but Im not really good at this. What I do is just sit down in my room, light a candle, make some tea, close my eyes and think for 10 or so minutes. Any thought that comes in I try to analyze where it came from and if it's a negative thought or stemming from a negative. Im not good at this yet honestly. Its important to know these things aren't something I want to add in only for a limited time. I think I need to do this for the rest of my life, otherwise I spiral fast. My mom has suggested therapy but, I completely refuse. If I can't fix myself I won't get fixed. I'm not scared to ask for help, but therapy is out of the question until I've done absolutely everything I can to fix myself.

Develop a Skill. Particularly I want to program. I've taught myself abit of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Honestly I'm a complete beginner, but I've dabbled abit. I've made steps to already begin teaching myself in my routine. I've been using codeacademy pro for about a month now and I'm working on deploying my own site (my first project will just be my resume on a responsive one page site, got the idea from a friend). This comes from, I have to develop some type of skill in order to move out of Customer Service. I don't know what else to even do, though IT support comes to mind but I don't want to support anymore I want to create and develop. I'm not trying to avoid work, I just want to avoid working with the general public, and I want to avoid my job being to educate others or fix mistakes they've made. Even though I think that still happens in development, I atleast want a career that pushes me mentally and forces me to improve my skillset in order to stay relevant. Most importantly, I want a job I can be proud of. A job that I myself can be proud of. Even though Customer Service/Call Centers are important for alot of companies, I cannot stand this line of work. It is so mind numbingly tedious and repetitive, and I feel like I am wasting my life and my potential handling these minor inquiries when I know I can use my mind to accomplish and work on something much greater. I don't care how arrogant or fucked up it sounds. It's not that I think i'm better than anyone, I just KNOW that i can achieve more than this. I know that im here because of how shitty of a human i've been. I'm tired of it, I have to change it.

Learn another language. The only other language I've had real interest in is Japanese. Honestly I've been at odds even with myself on this for a long time. Is it bad that I enjoy that type of culture? I'm not trying to be a "weeb" or just say it to sound cool. I've spent time learning to recognize some hiragana/katakana just on my own in the past. I don't think it's a perfect culture or anything, but its the only one that legitimate has always interested me for as long as I can remember. So i've decided to pursue it and fuck it, if I look stupid or like a weeb or whatever I guess I just have to accept that. Again I have my own routine I've detailed for myself for learning, and I have a few people I can actually practice with. I somehow got a friend of mine a job in Japan as a english teacher...but I havent done anything myself to move toward that and I know god damn well I could.

I want to become better at interacting with people. Last few months I've lost myself in just complete self indulgence. I won't go super into detail, but I think we all know what this means. Drug use, alcohol use, long nights on the internet avoiding sleep exploring the most degenerate shit man. The worst is after nights like that you can't look people in the eye, or have normal conversations. It just eats at you knowing youre not only wasting time but spending it on something so shitty and useless. Putting time off with family/friends to stay at home and waste time, I won't do shit like this anymore. When you fall into a rut like this, or whatever it is, all your relationships around you start to crumble. Then I wonder why I havent been in a relationship, lol. Well im done and hopefully by writing this It gives me strength to not fall back into that dark place and keep me on the right path. I will show I can support my family and I can receive their support as well. It will take time to repair these relationships, but If i dont start now I feel like they really will crumble forever.

This is basically my current mental state. I don't know if this even fits this subreddit but I hope it does and if not feel free to inform me. The purpose of this is to show that, I am on the path to self improvement, its all I care about right now. Being better than I've been in the past month. Better than I was yesterday, because if I dont change my life now I'm legitimately scared what I will do or where I will be 5 years from now. If you actually read all this, thanks. If you have any thoughts, please let me know. If I sound stupid, let me know. If I sound like all im doing is crying and complaining, please inform me. You have any videos I can watch on improvement, including mentalities/mindsets/meditation please let me know. Im open to anything. It took me about 2 hours to write this in between calls. As I hit post I'm going back to coding and planning on working on my first project immediately tonight. Guess i'm saying this more for myself than anyone.

Thanks for reading.

-Just

Submitted November 10, 2018 at 11:22PM by StoicJust via reddit https://ift.tt/2z213YJ

#IFTTT #reddit

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