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yellowsomethings · 6 months

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beans exchange letter 2023

hi its us thebeans you have been selected to secret us a santa !! this is going to be a bit of a tutorial letter so everyone else knows what exchange letters are like, so rest assured it will be as comprehensive as i can manage. remember that you do not need to fulfill All of the conditions the recipient lists, just at least one of them to the best of your ability. woo

want:

1. hermits

big fan of grian, scar, mumbo, ren, doc, bdubs, zed, joe hills, things of this nature. i think the slapfight goes here if it goes anywhere. we have seen seasons 6/7/8/9 and a little of season 5 so if you go before that we will probably be Confused but Willing To Roll With It. idk theres the wonderful world of hermits and crafting

2. lifes

you are probably well aware the extent to which we like the life series. things you could cover include property police kiss on the mouth secret life (or property police cold patrol new life which isn't getting its own entire bullet but it's a thing), treebark slash fairydog slash renb, toxic yaoi majorwood, the bad boys, last life grumbo, idk get silly with it !! slash p or slash r it is all good <- applies to all listed items in this letter not just here

3. empires

empires:). for season 1 there's flower husbands; you could do kathgempearl or some duo permutation; arenaduo; the whole wra tbh; smallidarizzie trio; scott and xornoth content (you could write the one billionth postcanon xornoth finds out what happened fic if you wanted). for season 2 HEAVENTRIO OBVIOUSLY; or arenaduo again or hallelujahduo or roundhousekickduo which i still need to come up with a better name for; best buds jim and joel; kathgem; pixlriffs; the crossover; fairytale trio i also like; maybe some olieddie as a treat if you're so inclined

4. eswap

free space basically. scottpearl !!!!!!! or arenaduo or kathgempearl again (or duo permutation) or pearl and pix bonding maybe idk what the state of eswap is gonna be pixwise by the end of november. or if some other part of eswap compels you then go for it. you might wanna write the watcher grian crossover idea that jay2 had that one time. up to u :D

5. pirates/rats

yeah babyyyyyy this is the writing to pander to littlesound zone. i love datastream martyn interacting with this-is-just-their-world other characters such as oli or sausage or olive or shelby or owen or scar or other people that don't start with the letters o and s. kisstrels obviously (including shep and shub); you could do property police with martyn and safety rat; farmer rat scott, baker rat lizzie, he had a pretty sweet bond with will. maybe mratyn watching as oli tries and fails to seduce the butler with cringefail affection in his eyes. maybe mratyn trying and failing to seduce one of the brown wild dogs at the edge of the grounds while scott looks on in disappointment. p!bek is canonically aroace so if you write pirate bekel you'd probably get Comments about it but like if you don't fear the fandom then fuck it. SPEAKING OF:

6. witchcraft

YURI OPPORTUNITY AGAIN BUT FOR BEK INSTEAD! beky's finally figured out her witchcraft bek au which is that el is a not-so-famous witchtuber and bek is one of her few very dedicated commenters so when el randomly stumbles across the supreme witch crown where scott dropped it then she ends up asking bek what to do and they bond from there, so you may wanna do something with that.

7. dsmp

if you are dsmp inclined and you want to go classic style then you cannot go wrong with a little bit of crimboy/clingy. bee/bench and michael could also be fun; i like niki, big q, JACK MANIFOLD, fundy, eret, hbomb, foolish, and i miss honq every day babyyyy <- not every day but often. if you'd like to add to the hit canon ao3 tag tommyinnit crashes own funeral (dream smp) then that would be very welcomed too, i canonised that shit with my bare hands

8. au ideas

well i said all of that for canon concepts but what if you want to write/draw an alternate universe? goooo fuckin crazy with it my friend. some concepts i enjoy reading are: royalty; urban/low fantasy; newly discovered/obtained superpowers; domestic roommates setting; famous & doesnt give a shit about that fame; creative type & muse; guardian angel & human. idk have fun!

9. not mcyt

i'm adding this section because i know some people will want to do this but mine will be quite short because i . do not watch anything else. uhhhh the magnus archives. moon knight 2022. i like quite a lot of musical theatre but mostly the modern post hamilton shit and i have not seen hadestown. thubs up

do not want

don't do scottpearl if it isn't eswap please! or any hermit pearl actually! uhhh nothing particularly viscerally gorey but it's ok if people die or get injured. this isn't a dnw but it is a specification, if you would like to trans some genders and neo some pronouns then you should feel absolutely free to go ahead love is love. i think i'm gonna make no nsfw a rule for the entire exchange so i don't need to clarify that. probably best to have minimal cleo inclusion if any. any fics which are specifically about the moment after a life series game where characters see each other and talk about what happened because those are weirdly common and we don't like it and it feels weird. no blinding, no throats slit, no being suffocated/choked. ummm ya if you arent sure whether something would be ok then go ahead and ask!

will write

this one is gonna be much shorter

hermits: bdubs cub doc gem scar grian joe pearl ren tango xb zed cleo

life series: scott ren martyn pearl joel grian scar bdubs lizzie skizz mumbo jimmy gem

empires 1: scott gem joey kath lizzie sausage pearl joel jimmy

empires 2: scott gem joey kath lizzie sausage pearl pix shelby joel jimmy oli

pirates: acho aimsey bek puffy eret scar guqqie martyn kyle sausage olive oli owen ros shelby scott el tubbo

rats: bek el jimmy lizzie martyn oli olive owen scott shelby tubbo

witchcraft: scott joey pris shelby el cleo

dsmp: eret callahan eryn bbh puffy phil niki karl sapnap george quackity foolish jack manifold hbomb fundy aimsey slime wilbur sam ranboo schlatt dream punz tommy tubbo techno dxd

misc: honestly i think if you asked me to write qsmp phil tubbo fit cellbit bagi bad foolish wilbur tallulah chayanne then i probably could at this point. but don't ask me to. also the afterlife/new life smp i will write for also

won't write

i'm sorry i can't write the copper people on empires i just have not seen them enough to. highly doubt my ability to write crastle/best/ties/similar groupings well. dear god please don't make me write the syndicate it won't be good for either of us. i will not write nature wives i can't do it to my girlo. pirates!scott ships also. if it's gonna get me cancelled then i may still be willing to write it but i will not post it on ao3, it's going straight into fools writing discussion channel when it goes live. i won't write . idk pregnancy? you probably weren't gonna ask for pregnancy. again feel free to ask :thumbsup:

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twsthoodstar · 3 years

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Twst x Pokémon Pt. 3

This is a part 3 of the last Pokémon post I did, this time with the vice dorm leaders. Sorry this is so late, I’ve been feeling under the weather recently 😓 But I’m starting to feel better now.

Request/idea received from this Anon

Babysitting their crush’s Pokémon while they’re away. However, that task has proven more difficult than expected.

Trey Clover ♣️

Trey was both delighted and nervous when you asked him to babysit Slurpuff. He had only hoped it wouldn’t be as troublesome as certain glutinous monster cat, although he had to admit he was curious. Slurpuff looked so soft and squishy! It couldn’t be that much of a handful could it?

Well needless to say, Slurpuff was actually very helpful in the kitchen. It’s unique sense of smell helped pick the best ingredients and it was more than happy to aid in assembling the treats for the Unbirthday Party, nudging Trey to taste the batter. It reminded Trey of his little siblings back home, how they’d always try and sneak a piece.

However, it all went downhill once the part started. One by one everyone’s cakes and cookies disappeared without a trace. Unaware of the pink Pokémon sneakily using Physic to float the wonderful pastries into its mouth. But it’s cover was blown when it tried to steal Riddle’s tart, and Trey had to step in before the poor little thing lost its head.

Ruggie Bucchi 🐾

Better hope Ruggie doesn’t eat your precious little bundle of wool, might be hard to hold himself back. Shi shi shi, he’s only kidding! He wouldn’t do that to you! Unfortunately, Wooloo seemed to take that very personally and rolled away! It hadn’t even been 5 minutes and Ruggie was already chasing it down!

Poor Wooloo; perhaps leaving it in a dorm full of hungry carnivores wasn’t the greatest idea. Because it zoomed all over the place, trying to flee from any large beastmen. Though I’m sure it looked hilarious seeing the vice dorm leader chasing after a living pillow. Ruggie eventually needed Jack’s help in catching the little guy, and it surprisingly took a liking to the first year!

Wooloo was all over Jack, hiding behind his legs and nuzzling into his bushy tail. Peering at Ruggie with big nervous eyes. He hadn’t planned for this, Ruggie wanted to show you just how responsible he was all on his own, that included caring for your pet. But it couldn’t be helped. Jack hadn’t planned to babysit, but it seemed he had no other choice.

Jade Leech 🐬

(I love Psyduck so much 🥰)

Now Psyduck here is a bit of a special case, so you were a bit hesitant to leave it with Jade. Now there was nothing to worry about, Jade makes sure your Psyduck is well taken care of, he’ll pamper it to perfection. He has claimed he enjoys serving others. Although it appears Psyduck is a rather sensitive creature. But that just makes things more interesting, plus it’s adorable to boot.

Constantly rubbing it’s head, it takes in its surroundings rather slowly. It barely realized you left the room and was just recently waddling around looking for you, poor dear. 😅 Well this shouldn’t be a problem; playtime with rubber duckies, drawing a bath, Jade makes sure Psyduck is in top shape until you get back! However, there was one mishap Jade wasn’t preparing for.

It takes special skill to escape Jade’s well trained eye, and Psyduck just happened to find that perfect moment. Before it knocked into Jade’s terrarium, spilling out all kinds of plants and muck onto the floor with a big bump on its head. It was an accident, but Psyduck couldn’t shake that sudden glare in the eel’s eye. Not even when Jade rubbed its bruised head affectionately.

Floyd Leech 🦈

Oh boy, Gible was not happy about you leaving. Especially leaving its care to a stranger like Floyd. It stomped around and grumbled like a fussy toddler, aggressive to anyone that came near it. While everyone was afraid of getting their hand chewed off, Floyd remained as careless and as brave as ever. So Shrimpy left this little sharkie to be his playmate? How fun!

Gible did not want to play with Floyd, it tried making that as clear as possible. Playing basketball? Deflated. Some squeaky toys? Shredded to pieces. Dancing? It chomped the radio to bits. A yummy platter? Scarfed it down, plate and all. Floyd was clearly losing his patience and started to shift into one of his outrageously random mood swings.

Talk about bad timing when you have an angry Gible pouting across the room. Floyd, now upset the Pokémon wasn’t accepting his friendship, made the mistake of trying to squeeze it. Gible bit him 😬. Chomped right down on his hand, but suprisingly Floyd was fine. It did take Azul and Jade awhile to pry it off, then to keep Floyd from biting back! Hopefully, you’ll return soon before the Lounge ends up in shambles.

Jamil Viper 🐍

Honestly Jamil thinks your Salandit is super cool. Sly and cunning with a streak of mystery, it reminds him of himself. (You smug snake 😑) It was almost the perfect pet for himself, a powerful on way that. Now I’m sure Jamil has some experience with animals, he is Kalim’s right hand man and a servant of the Asim family, the kid knows a thing or two about parades.

So it’s a cake walk babysitting Salandit, at least for the most part. Pokémon are unpredictable creatures and unknown to Twisted Wonderland, so Jamil’s in for a big surprise when Salandit starts dripping actual v e n o m. The red liquid oozes out of its mouth as it starts to burn small holes in the carpet. Of course panics because, that carpet is expensive! And why did you have such a creature in your possession!

He was not prepared for this. Apparently it was having a scuffle with Kalim’s magic carpet, the piece of matting simply wanted to play with Scarabia’s new guest, but the poisonous fire-type took it as a threat instead. Chasing each other around like wild dogs. Reacting quickly, Jamil put it outside using Snake Whisper before things escalated, but decided to give you a call.

Rook Hunt 🏹

You thought Jade was pampering, Rook is over the moon for this fairy type! What a wonderful creature, absolutely beautiful! Rook is completely captivated by the fairy-like creature, the pure pink essence of love in its true form!~ ✨ As he puts it anyways. 😅 Rook will smother Sylveon with attention!

He’ll groom it to perfection and flaunt it to the entire dorm, this of course draws some attention. No one has ever seen a creature quite like Sylveon, with its sweet voice and flowing ribbons. And you left Rook himself in charge to take care of it isn’t that wonderful! ~ ✨ This basically turned into one big photo shoot, with Rook at the center gushing over his new friend.

He even takes Sylveon out on a hunt stroll with him. Man cries when it wraps it’s ribbons around it’s wrist. Let’s just hope no rowdy students make fun of their little adventure, they’ll have a merciless arrow drawn back ready to face them. Rook won’t tolerate gossiping, no one is allowed to tarnish the beauty you and your partner share together.

Ortho Shroud 🤖

Ortho was more than happy to take care of Pikachu for you! He was the one that actually accepted in the first place. It was just so cute and round and soft and friendly, a perfect companion for our little Ortho! Plus, he was really excited to analyze it for his database. Although, in reality he took this opportunity to get Idia out of his shell and help him.

Humans and animals were already a well known subject Ortho knew plenty about, even a few beasts were a well known species. So a loveable Pokémon shouldn’t serve a problem. While Idia wasn’t all that excited about watching a living, breathing, messy pet (virtual pets were much easier) Ortho was not having it and saw this as a good experience.

Playtime was his favorite, Pikachu was just so fast and full of energy. Zipping back and forth with a Quick Attack to chase the bouncy ball, or using its tail to play catch. It was such a cheerful little sunshine, it even shocked Ortho a bit with its cheeks. Emitting little sparks of electricity, which felt really nice. They’re both just so cute together, Idia snuck a few pictures of them napping together.

Lilia Vanrouge 🍷

Another child for Lilia to adopt!! Oh how precious! Immediately Lilia’s fawning over your cute Noibat, however, you tell Lilia to be careful as this Pokémon is quite young. Of course Lilia heads your warning and bids you a graceful farewell, before rushing off with the cutie in his arms to flaunt to his whole dorm.

Almost immediately Lilia’s going to test his cooking skills; a growing boy like that needs to eat right? Well don’t worry, chef Lilia will whip up something nice, which of course has Noibat cheering for a hot meal. The trio of terrified fae and their drowsy human: they couldn’t have Lilia kill off something so precious, you’d be heartbroken!

However, perhaps they were a bit too slow in stopping Lilia, because thanks to his magic he had already whipped up a horrendous looking hole of soup. But what had everyone’s jaws dropping was that Noibat enjoyed it! It even cooed for seconds, nudging Lilia with the bowl. Of course Lilia was over the moon, he’ll have to ask to babysit more often.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland headcanons #twst headcanons #pokemon #pokemon headcanons #pokemon imagines #trey clover x reader #ruggie bucchi x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #jamil viper x reader #rook hunt x reader #ortho shroud #lilia vanrouge x reader

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ketchupqueenboiiii · 3 years

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Timari Jan. day 8: childhood friends

@timari-month-event

The Culpa family were Waynes of Europe. They own Culpa Consolidated, a company rivaling Wayne Enterprises in not only their income, but reputation. C.C. owns many establishments across Europe and is spreading to Asia and the Americas. It's is known for their funding of causes, well payed employees, and its 'puts-up-with-no-bullshit' CEO, Felix Culpa.

Every business person knows the rules of making business with C.C.

1. No Touching

2. No Getting Off-Topic at Meetings

And most of all,

3. No Talking About The Culpa Family

Everybody knows that Felix is a widow, raising his daughter by himself, with only the help of his in-laws and mother. The first time a potential client brought up his family, they ended up getting fired from their company for ruining a business deal. There are no pictures or information on his daughter on the internet, everyone in the building has signed an NDA.

Anyone who thinks that Felix's cold exterior would make him a bad parent is wrong. Felix would sooner stab himself in the eye with a fork than ever treat his little flower as anything less than a princess.

He used to catastrophize to Bridgette, late at night when she was pregnant with Marinette. He was terrified that he'd be a horrible father.

'Just like his.' The bastard who left his mother when he was just a child and then returned later when he was a teen to harass her.

But Bridgette always made sure he understood that he'd never be that man. That wasn't Felix's problem right now. It was taking Marinette to her first publicized gala.

"Little Flower, you remember the rules, correct?" Marinette nodded yes for the third time that night. She understood her papa wanted to keep her safe, she wanted her papa to be safe too, but she's 9! She's a big girl, she can take care of herself.

All of her martial arts teachers made sure of that.

"If someone tries drag me away I yell, if everything gets to much I come find you, don't cause trouble, don't let anyone see Tikki or Kaalki or Trixx. I got it, Papa." Marinette was wearing her favorite fancy dress. She saved it just for today, her first gala. She'd been asking her Papa to go to one since she was 6.

"Okay then, Little Flower, we're here." They step into the Wayne Ballroom.

Tim was no stranger to gala's. He had been going since he was a baby. His parents basked in the attention they got from other attendees who coddled him in 'oh look how big you are.' and 'look at you. Such a handsome young man.' And when the pampering stopped he just spent the rest of the night in the kids room, taking pictures with the camera he smuggled inside.

Tim knew almost all of the kids who regularly attended galas, they understood that he didn't want to play, so they didn't try to wrap him into their mischief or games. It's not that he didn't like having fun, ever kid did. It's was because his parents made it explicitly clear that if he caused a scene, there would be consequences.

So it confused him when he saw a girl his age he didn't recognize. His parent's made sure he could recognize and name anyone important he might ever meet, including their kids.

She wasn't trying to recruit him into a scheme, so he ignored her and it seemed like she was too.

Until she walked up to him.

Mari really didn't like how all of the people at the gala kept touching her. When her checks weren't being pinched, her hair was being petted. Thank the kwami her Papa excused her to the kids room.

She started drawing him her picture diary. She didn't finish the page, she had a feeling her night had yet to reach it's climax.

She noticed a boy her age on the other side of the room and decided to introduce her self. Her Papa's protectiveness had left her in need of friends. Her cousin Adrien was not her friend, he let Chloe bully her and told her that she had to be nicer to Chloe, if you're extra nice to her she'll be nice to you, that's what the friendship advise videos Natalie shows me say. At least her Papa let her go to school. It was maximum security and he made sure all of the faculty signed NDAs, but it was something.

"Hi, I'm Marinette!" She had a mix of English and French accent, English from living in London with her Papa and Nan, and French from her conversations with Grand-mère and Grand-père.

The boy hesitated to answer, "I'm Tim." His disinterested tone would have discouraged most other kids but Marinette was determined.

"Hi Tim! What are you doing?" She sat next to him on the couch.

"Taking pictures." He really wanted to tell her he didn't want to play but his parents would have his head if she ran off in tears because of him.

He really didn't like how she was staring at his camera, if she was the 'steal from other kids' type he was ready to throw hands, despite how small they were.

"That's a Nikon D760 DSLR, right?"

Well, that was unexpected.

"Yeah... How'd you know that?" Tim didn't mean to be stereotypical but she didn't look like a camera expert. She looked more like someone likely to be caught on the other end to be honest.

"My Uncle Claude uses the same model, he's a photographer for my Papa."

"Cool," He noticed the book under her arm and couldn't contain his curiosity, "What's that?"

She looked down at her book. Mari didn't usually let other people look in it, it was one of the only things she had from her Maman. It was a magically endless and her Maman had written a letter for her in on the first page. She rarely even let her Papa see it, but Tim was, for what reason she did not know, special. She could trust him, she didn't know why but she could.

"It's my picture diary. I on each page I make a drawing that sums up my day. Here's yesterday's." She opened the book to the page she drew on the day before.

They had spent the rest of the night talking about whatever they could. They were so deep into their conversation they didn't even notice their parents walk into the room.

"Tim." Janet's voice surprised him, he froze.

Mari didn't seem to notice his parents, she was distracted by trying to catch glimpse of her Papa in the crowd of parents. "I'll be back in a second, Tim." Great, now his parents could rip into him without worrying about someone hearing.

"What do you think your doing, talking to some random nobody girl? You should be making friends with children of important icons, it's important to make friends with people like that. It will make business better when you're running a company and you have friends in high places." Jack scolds.

"I better see you on better behavior next gala or so help me-" Janet was interrupted by Mari's introduction.

"Tim! This is my Papa!" Well Tim really didn't expect this, and from the looks of it, neither did his parents.

From first look Mari and Felix look nothing alike. But if you stare long enough you see that even though Mari inherited her eyes and hair from her mother, her posture and bone structure matched Felix's. It was clear that Felix had taught his little flower to be a lady, while keeping her personality intact.

"Mr. Culpa! What a surprise! I didn't know this little angel is your daughter?" Janet's personality change would have given an unprepared fool whiplash. Luckily Tim was neither.

"Mr. and Mrs. Drake, a pleasure as always. It seem my Marinette has made friends with Tim." He smiles a little.

"I hear you'll be staying in Gotham for some time. We should plan play dates for them! Timmy here doesn't have to many friends, it would good for him to spend time with someone his age." Jack proposes.

With a little convincing from Mari's deadly puppy-dog eyes, Felix, Jack, and Janet plan met up times for the kids.

"You're off the hook this time. Don't mess this up." She whispers to him that night at home.

Tim was genuinely happy, for the first time in to long. He actually looked forward to the days ahead. Nothing could mess that up, Mari and Tim had something special, they just don't know it yet.

#timari #maribat #timari january #childhood friends

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whump-town · 3 years

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The Bridges Between You and Me

Emily whump (even though I'm supposed to be doing other things)

no real warnings, i don't think.

On her lunch break she takes her sandwich to the roof. It’s a great escape with only one access door, one Dave showed her and warned no one could ever know about. That had been after she and Reid only barely made it out of Benjamin Cyrus’ cult of horrors and pedophilia. A peace offering, she realized, to settle the fear he hadn’t known he had of losing her. After that, she started being invited to have a drink in his office and was welcomed into the boy’s club. Something Reid had only ever told her was a thing and something Morgan turned his nose to but also secretly wanted in on. A general snobby (sensitive) shrug of dismissal - couldn’t be that cool if Hotch gets invited and they don’t.

For the last few weeks, she’s been taking her lunch up here, away from Reid’s glances and the worry lines being formed along Morgan’s brow. It’s only a matter of time, she knows, before she has to give up the spot. Only one or two more lunches before Morgan takes his concern to Garcia and they figure out the little hideout. Won’t be as much fun then, not with Morgan’s betrayed hurt and his probing questions. For now, she’s got a safe-haven.

“You’re smoking again.”

Well, she thought she did.

Leaning against the brick, one of his long legs stretched out in front of him Hotch looks up from his coffee to quirk an eyebrow at her. It’s by no means a question, he sat in silence and watched her light her cigarette and pull off it before commenting. Before drawing attention to himself and crushing their individual peace. He knows she’s smoking again, has for a while, but thought she’d kick the habit again with time. She’s only just come back from the dead, hell he’d smoke too. That or drink himself to death but the idea alone makes him shiver with distaste - the parallels between himself and his father are already too pronounced for that notion.

Where he’s expecting her to maybe smirk and dismiss him with sharp sarcasm, he’s shot down with a clenched jaw. Her eyes darken, “shut up.” As he looks away, eyes going to the cool coffee in his hand he can hear her sigh. How much has changed since she came back? She’d been angry, walked away from him without a word and that had stung more than if she’d slapped him when she found out what he spent her departure doing. Knew that he could have fought to stay and instead went like a coward. They haven’t talked since. Haven’t even looked at each other. He used to know her better than he knew himself. Now he’s not sure what he knows.

Maybe he really did kill Emily Prentiss.

She rubs her palms into her eyes, fighting back tears. She will not cry in front of Hotch but all this shit is starting to be too much. Her emotions are beyond her control. Anger and fear and anxiety and panic - each one a speeding bullet wedged in her ribcage ricocheting until she’s chipped away. Is this what he’d felt after Foyet? He had a warpath too. Morgan had pretended not to see it, dismissed it as Hotch only coming down on him but he yelled and Garcia and Reid. Two people who always get away whatever hell they’ve dug up. He’d felt bad about it, an admission that only came out after a few drinks. One he’d made to the floor.

“Got another apple crate?” She can’t say sorry. He had to her for just raising his voice a little, for getting angry when he shouldn’t have been. He always apologizes and fixes his mistakes. That’s always been one of her faults, too content to watch her burning bridge spread and takedown cities and forests. Her mother had such conflicting points of view on an apology. Sticking her nose up at the sound of the lives she took at the cost of destroying her bridges and at the same time twisting her fingers up in Emily’s hair to wrangle one from her stubborn lips. Emily had gotten so caught up in doing the very same thing that she never learned. Doesn’t know how to say those words even if she wanted to.

But Hotch… She imagines him as a boy, just as he’d described to her once. Hardly 100 pounds soaking wet at thirteen but always so much taller than the other kids. An optimist despite everything he’d been through. Coming home with the hope to find a mother who wipes his tears with the edges of her summer dress and a father who throws his hat up into the air with a praising shout when he finally manages to get somewhere on his bike without training wheels. And still opening that front door every day with so much hope and love for two people who felt him better dead.

She knows she could hit him, she could yell and scream. Burn the bridge and kill the city and he’d still hike around the mountain, he’d swim across the river and she’d find him smiling on her doorstep. Loyal as a dog. It’s why he never told anyone about his father - he just kept coming back. Reminds her painfully of that stupid quote from Einstein.

He looks up at her, surprised as he nods that he does have another apple crate and pulls it around for her. Right beside his. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. When is he going to understand that she’s never going to stop hurting him? That he can give her that stupid look - a smirk trying to work its way up but already shining brightly in his eyes - and she’s still going to end up doing it again. Dragging him below the water’s surface. Drowning him to save herself. All she does is take and take and he won’t stop giving.

She finds herself envious of Hotch’s inability to control his vulnerabilities. That little finger count he does as he pulls in a breath through his nose, a conscious movement that is both impossible to hide and incredibly telling. Though, they all pretend he’s got them fooled. He’s sort of an anxious wreck and JJ had once concluded it’d physically kill him if he was aware of just how little he actually manages to hide from them. It hurts to see him stand just outside the comfort they show one another, afraid that he’s unwelcomed or that his being there complicates their dynamics. She wants to be known the way that they know him.

To be human so uniquely.

“Are you going to tell Jack?” she asks softly. She leans her head back against the brick, rocking it to the side to look over at him. Guilty, she looks down at the cigarette in her hand. Somehow the constant thought this stupid thing could kill her does nothing but her stomach twists, her throat tight at realization that Jack would be so upset with her. He’d be crushed to see her smoking again.

It’s a habit she picks up every now and then.

She’d picked it back up, after ten years, after joining the team. For a month she was burning through over half a pack and stopped when she walked into Strauss’ office with her recognition, one-upping Hotch’s transfer. Started again after New York… Well, when she got news of the bomb she went out and bought a pack. Chain smoked until they informed her it was Kate and Hotch. Then she went and puked in an alley. There are plenty of things that had her at least reaching for the relief of one: getting taken hostage by Benjamin Cyrus, Matthew dying and dragging up her past, Reid getting Anthrax, that bastard George Foyet. If she’s perfectly honest she never really stopped after everything with Foyet.

She needed the peace, the ease of routine, and familiarity. Someone had to keep their shit together and it certainly wasn’t Hotch…

Teenage rebellions are such a pain in the ass once you turn twenty.

Jack had seen her one afternoon, she’d been finishing the one she pulled into Hotch’s driveway with. Her attention on not being found out by the man she’d assumed was inside. A safe assumption because Jack told her as much but only after he’d cried, only after he had her promise she’d be done. No more (even if she did finish the pack - but she’d felt awful with everyone after… even if she did pick up another pack).

And the guilt burns through the addiction, making her nearly sick at the thought of finishing the one in her hand.

He smiles. Sisyphus at the bottom of his hill, boulder weighing him down.

She hopes wherever his father is, it's miserable. Even with the fear of what lay ahead for her, the conviction she was headed for the same place as men like his father. So she convinced herself she didn’t even believe in that. But here she is again, watching herself become his father. Drawing her fist back, aimed for his forgiving smile. Taking advantage of Hotch’s loyalty, his stupid misplaced love.

“I won’t tell him.”

He’s smiling at her, pinching his eyes to flash her the black-eye she put there. Smiling with blood dripping down his chin.

She looks away. She mumbles “thanks” and takes to rubbing her fingers between her knuckles to soothe the sting of the bruising she imagines there. “How is he?” she deflects. She might as well have him laid out on his back, taking cheap shots at his ribs. “When did he get so big?” She’s got him where she wants him, kicking all the sensitive areas she knows will lay him out. Distracting him under the lure of Jack and it doesn’t matter that he’ll figure that out later just so long as it makes him smile that bloody smile and ramble about his son for a few minutes.

And after a few minutes of exposure to the sun, feeling the warmth of Hotch’s love for Jack settling around her, she almost feels like smiling too.

But that only lasts for so long. With a sigh and a silent look of disdain when his knees protest like rusted hinges when he stands and their joy shattered. But that does make her smile, even when he frowns at her humor at his expense. For a moment they’re the moon and sun, opposites circling their way around the world. Caught in a gravitational pull of nearly colliding and too far away.

He doesn’t bother her about that day on the roof or ask the question he already knows the answer to - if she’s smoking or not. She feels just enough satisfaction being fulfilled when Dave explains how Hotch found out about the roof that she doesn’t try to bring it up either. It’s fine, she tells herself. He looks at her again and she feels her frustration with him (with the world) dissipate to it’s normal simmer. Until she feels less fooled by Atlas, like she hasn’t had the world rolled over her shoulders to settle onto her bag. Her knees sink and she watches Atlas’ mighty back. Her body is aching - come back, she begs, come back.

It rushes back.

The wrong word piercing the veil and shattering the manufactured calm surrounding her. She knows, in a split second, that it was the wrong thing to say but it was too late. And as it occurred, as she flinched in the preparation for the pain to come, she thought about them. Derek standing only a foot away - the sound of his quickened breaths keeping pace for her. Giving her timing, finding her rhythm. He always keeps her steady.

Behind Derek, no doubt just a step behind Hotch, Reid’s looking over her shoulder.

And she’s sure Hotch knows, just as soon if not before she does, that this has gone tits up.

There’s no coming back. Her head hits the floor, lays her out for a moment where she can’t think past the pain blossomed out across the back of her head. All she knows is the fingers of pain wrapping around the back of her head and the chill in the air. Softly, as if submerged in mud, she can hear Hotch shouting. That tone he takes on when he’s scared, when he’s really scared. She wonders if this time he can save her or if history really does repeat itself.

“Hey, hey--” Morgan crouches down by her side. His hands covering the wound, that look in his eyes. He’s scared. She’s scaring them. “Stay with me, Princess. Come on, eyes open.”

And maybe history doesn’t repeat itself but she’ll be damned if it doesn’t at least rhyme.

Derek doesn’t seem to reciprocate the same humor on the matter.

“Emily.”

Mmm, she turns her head away. Morgan has this tendency to sound like a broken alarm clock. She finds herself looking up at JJ - caught in the tears in the corner of her eyes as she throws demands around at LEOs like she’s Hotch. Watching them listen like she is.

“Hang on Emily,” he begs. “Please. Just a little bit longer.”

God, she rocks her head back. Whines when Morgan shifts his weight but a hand grabs her wrists, stops her from pushing him away. “Get off me,” she grunts. She wants to kick out, to push away but Hotch moves too and under the weight of both of them she can’t move. But it hurts. It hurts so bad and she hates them. She hates Morgan pushing her away. The way that she ruined JJ and Reid’s friendship. How scared Garcia is and Dave keeps looking at her like he’s expecting her to have just disappeared. And fucking Hotch and his silent treatment.

And Jack.

Oh… Jack.

Morgan goes with her in the ambulance, the last time he’d been stopped. Hotch stands outside, his hands at his hips as she moves on and he stops there. Reid’s just behind him, always just behind him. She sees them, hazed by blood loss and everything going on but she sees them. Hotch his mountain made of man and Reid seeking his shelter from her storm.

When do they stop looking at her like that?

When do they finally realize she’s never going to stop hurting them?

She dreams about her mother.

The rain stings as it lands on her bare shoulder blades, pouring so hard it’s beating the gravel down their driveway. “Come inside, Emily!” Her mother has stepped out onto the balcony, the one that overlooks the garden they have to pay someone to maintain. “You’ll catch your death out here, darling!” Her mother steps closer, into the rain. “Emily, please. Let me make you some tea.”

And that’s how she knows it’s a dream.

Her mother would never do any of those things. Never follow her out into the rain. Would have never even realized she’d gone out. She wouldn’t call her “darling”, not when one is around to hear her do it. Her mother never once made her tea.

Garcia figured out Emily’s devotion to tea after a month of having known her. Then it wasn’t just a small bonding it was an entire affair as Emily was guided through the office to the little kitchenette and shown she wasn’t the only one. Where Garcia would show her the teas Gideon liked best and where he kept them in a little metal box. Fitting, she thought, as Garcia showed her all the usual suspects and Ginger Tulsi tea which she hadn’t expected at all. Garcia is more into the fruits, anything with the picture of a fruit on it.

There was a single, mangled box of Earl Grey sitting alone on a shelf. She didn’t even have to ask to know that it had to be Hotch’s. It was.

Reid doesn’t drink tea. He would pick up the habit a year later after Gideon leaves but only to soothe his nerves. The smell would remind him of being younger, of having Gideon.

Morgan doesn’t drink tea. Couldn’t even look at it after her death. The smell made him sick, physically ill to just pass Garcia in the hall with a mug of Chai. That stupid ratio Emily invited unique to how Garcia likes tea. She’d done it for Jason too and Hotch too. Dashes of cinnamon and the additions of almond milk to curate something unique… something to leave behind. A reason for Reid to cry in the bathroom and Hotch lose himself for a moment, cursing blindly when his shaking hands drop his mug.

She left them grief.

She left them with a gaping hole in their sides and blood gushing down over their fingers.

And they still came back.

She wakes slowly, groaning at the immediate pull she feels on the stitches down her right side. Sluggishly, she realizes that no matter what she does this is going to hurt. Breathing is agonizing. Thoughts are like axe picks trying to split her skull open.

“Emily?”

She opens her eyes and finds all of them.

Reid is curled into a cot, blanket drawn up over his shoulder and face pressed down.

Garcia is sleeping with her head on Morgan’s shoulder, the two of them nearly curled into each other. Content, peaceful. How could you be anything but? Nothing can go wrong with Penelope Garcia on your side, Morgan’s calm face reflects just that.

JJ has managed to curl herself into a chair, Hotch’s suit jacket pulled up over her like a blanket. Hotch makes his chair look tiny. His legs splayed in front of him and his head tipped back, in a way that’s going to hurt him once he wakes. They look too much like they did that night, the night she died. JJ’s hair is a mess, pulled back away from her eyes but still somehow beautiful. Light and kind in a way Emily could never imitate. Hotch has these awful rings under his eyes, sharpened by his cheek bones. He’s exhausted.

He always is.

“Rather sweet, aren’t they?”

She turns her head to the sound, smiling despite herself.

Rossi has his feet kicked up on the edge of her bed, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m surprised the snoring didn’t wake you up.” He pulls his legs down slowly, bending each with care before placing it down on the ground. With a groan he rises, one hand on each side of his chair as he forces himself to motion. “Then again,” he mumbles, stepping around to a little tray. “It’s probably best you weren’t around for the trouble those two conjured up.” He motions to Morgan and Hotch with the cup in his hands, she doesn’t have to look to know that’s who he’s talking about.

She opens her mouth but her question is cut short, killed by her sore throat and impossibly dry mouth. “What’d--” she winces, coughing that turns into more of a gag. It hurts but she sees Hotch’s leg jerk, his head moves and she pushes it down. Holds her breath.

“Don’t go hurting yourself on account of him,” Rossi fusses. “He’ll take it very personally if you die… again.” He eases the sting with a smirk and it has to be the drugs because she mirrors it back. Stepping to the edge of the bed he presses a straw to her lips, encouraging her to take a sip.

A year before Foyet started killing again they went to Georgia. The strange thing was that you could actually see the heat baking in the air, the way it came up in waves up off the road. Somewhere, the memory so hazy now with the drugs in her system and the fog of that day, JJ had managed to wander off. She was out standing by a fence, a little flower pinched between her fingers. “A honeysuckle,” she said, showing them. Like the sun herself with her flower outstretched in the palm of her hand.

Hotch had smiled, genuinely, brightly. See? Even he knows when the sun is that close.

They both took a flower in their hands, showing them how to draw out a single drop of nectar.

As Rossi encourages her to have another sip she’s drawn back to that memory. The warmth of the air and Reid’s triumphant laughter when he finally got it, turning to Morgan, to Hotch to show them he did it. Something good.

“Where’d you go?”

She blinks and he’s managed to move. The whole room shifted. Darker. She sees Reid, turned over onto his back. JJ over on the couch, resting against Garcia. Her fingers trailing up and down over JJ’s arm. In her lap a book, keeping her distracted. A bag of yarns and fabrics at her feet, she’s camped out. Not going to move.

She clears her throat, “honeysuckles.” Turning her head she looks over at the others, for where Morgan and Hotch should be. She points over to the empty chair but even that hurts.

Rossi hums, he understands what she means. He’s got coffee in his hands and nods down towards it. “Morgan is taking a walk,” he says. “Too nervous to sit still. Coffee didn’t help.”

Emily nods, swallowing despite the pain grating up her throat.

“Jack,” is his answer for Hotch. “Gone to call Jessica.” He leaves out the state in which Hotch had managed to get himself worked up into. Standing here over her bed pale as a ghost and whispering something too softly for Dave to hear. A nightmare but she doesn’t need to know that.

“Get some sleep,” he advises as he settles himself down. “You’ll need all the strength you can manage when they get up.”

She nods, that makes sense. That way she’ll be alert to keep Morgan and Reid out of her jello. The drugs… They throw her off and she stumbles, chokes. “Dave?” He’ll stay, won’t he? He won’t leave.

Dave reaches over with hands warmed from his coffee and holds her hand. “Sleep,” he whispers.

No more warmth drawn from the fires she sets. She has teas that taste like berries to look forward to. Garcia with her hair full of butterfly clips. The hours of channel flicking Morgan falls into when he’s bored. The sweet smile that will light up Reid’s face when finally gets her to agree to a round of chess. The pseudo-girls night out they'll have right here. With shirley temples and virgin pina coladas. Hotch will be there too, when thinks she doesn’t need him, but the lights have gone out and he knows what it’s like to still be scared of the dark.

She doesn’t have to set fire to another bridge to feel the warmth of something real, of something loving.

They’re right here.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #emily prentiss #david rossi #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #spencer reid #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau

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mostlymovieswithmax · 3 years

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Movies I watched in March

Thought I’d chronicle the films I’ve been watching over the March period, from the 1st to the 31st, and how I’d rate them. If you’re looking for something to watch, perhaps this will help. A lot of these movies are available on streaming services also.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - 10/10

I hadn’t watched this in a couple of years but I was blown away. Peak Scorsese.

Rushmore (1998) - 7/10

Not the best Wes Anderson movie for me but still fun.

Lion (2016) - 8/10

I discussed this at length on my podcast: The Sunday Movie Marathon. Great movie!

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10

Now this is one of the best Wes Anderson movies. I discuss this more on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Fantastic, funny and I watched it twice because it’s so much fun.

Inception (2010) - 10/10

Discussed on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Best Christopher Nolan movie for me, Inception is just breathtaking.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) - 5/10

This might be Anderson’s weakest film (at least from what I’ve seen) but it’s still not as bad as a lot of directors at their worst.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) - 10/10

I was really on an Anderson binge in March. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of the most wholesome movies I’ve seen and certainly one of his best films.

Rome, Open City (1945) - 4/10

This was filmed in Nazi-occupied Italy and from that premise, the film enticed me. Despite having some interesting qualities, I do feel that initial pull is most of what the movie has going for it.

The Prestige (2006) - 7/10

I showed this to my brother and for what it’s worth, he enjoyed it. I do think this is one of Nolan’s weaker efforts but considering how much I like it, that speaks a lot to Nolan’s filmography as a whole.

Nostalgia (1983) - 10/10

I watched Nostalgia three times in the space of a week and reviewed it on The Sunday Movie Marathon. It’s phenomenal.

Kangaroo Jack (2003) - 1/10

Another one I watched for the podcast. Kangaroo Jack is truly terrible and it upset me a great deal. Avoid this movie.

Stalker (1979) - 10/10

Another Andrei Tarkovsky movie (director of Nostalgia). I watched this again during the day before my second watch of Nostalgia and while it’s hard to compare such different movies, I enjoy Stalker more. It’s a staple of Russian cinema for a reason.

Four Lions (2010) - 5/10

Watched for the podcast. I didn’t really gel with this comedy but it would certainly appeal to someone who enjoys the humour, as my co-hosts did.

Revolutionary Road (2008) - 6/10

This Sam Mendes joint was a tad too melodramatic but still boasted some great performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Metropolis (1927) - 6/10

This silent film is a staple in cinematic history. Its themes are as painfully relevant today as they were in the 20’s, yet despite that I found a lot of it to be intensely boring. After it hit the hour mark, I started playing it at 1.5x speed.

Crimson Peak (2015) - 4/10

A lot of great set design and costumes and colours, yet the story itself was madly uninteresting.

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004) - 10/10

Who doesn’t love a good movie written by Charlie Kaufman? I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon and after a third watch, it is as fascinating as it is gut-wrenching.

Godzilla (2014) - 3/10

If you wanted to see Godzilla fight a bunch of monsters for two hours, then this is not the movie for you. There’s maybe about ten minutes total of on-screen Godzilla action and considering that’s really all anyone’s watching this for, it’s amazing the titular sea lizard occupies so little of the movie.

Prisoners (2013) - 10/10

Brilliant mystery thriller by my favourite director, Denis Villeneuve. Discussed on the podcast.

Eraserhead (1977) - 7/10

David Lynch’s debut feature film went down in my estimations this time around. You can listen to why on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Still, Eraserhead is a very good movie.

Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981) - 6/10

The first Indiana Jones movie proved to be a fun romp and Harrison Ford plays the character beautifully. I’m just not a big fan of Spielberg and his average verging on pretty good but rarely ever great movies. Perhaps on a second watch, I may enjoy this more.

The Seventh Seal (1957) - 9/10

Watching this movie again was so much fun. So far, it’s my favourite Ingmar Bergman film. It’s a celebration of life and love, with an underlying sense of dread as death looms ever-present.

Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984) - 5/10

I can tell why this generally looked on as the weakest in the trilogy. Harrison Ford is still great but the movie dragged a lot and felt more like a bunch of things happening for the sake of it rather than a fun action/adventure.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989) - 7/10

The Last Crusade was a lot of fun and maybe it was Sean Connery’s inclusion, or perhaps the bottle of wine I drank through the movie elevated my enjoyment. But alcohol aside, I still believe this to be the best in the series.

Justice League (2017) - 2/10

People really weren’t kidding when they said this was bad. I watched this in preparation for the Snyder cut and I was not happy. This took years off my life.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) - 3/10

Barely any better and double the run-time of the original. I discussed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon and I was certainly not impressed. Better luck next time, Zack!

The Truman Show (1998) - 10/10

Brilliant movie and one I would highly recommend for a stellar Jim Carrey performance. This was another recommendation for the podcast.

Eighth Grade (2018) - 7/10

I was impressed with Bo Burnham’s debut feature. This is a coming of age story centred around a young girl growing up in the modern world and how it can affect the youth of today. Burnham shows a deep understanding of youth culture and a real knack for filmmaking.

Bad Education (2019) - 8/10

A real “yikes!” movie. If you want to learn a bit about the embezzlement that took place in an American school back in the early 2000’s, you need not look further than this tight drama with fantastic performances from Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney.

Twelve Monkeys (1995) - 8/10

One of the only movies where the time travel makes sense. I recommended this for The Sunday Movie Marathon and it’s pretty great.

Ready Or Not (2019) - 7/10

Despite a premise that is not wholly original and a super goofy third act, Ready Or Not is gory, violent fun with a lot of stylish art direction.

Dead Man (1995) - 3/10

Recommended on the podcast. I really did not get a lot out of Dead Man. It’s a very slow movie about Johnny Depp going through the woods and killing some people on the way, but it’s two hours long and hugely metaphorical and sadly it just didn’t connect.

Misbehaviour (2020) - 6/10

A big draw for me in Misbehaviour is Keira Knightley; I think she’s a great actor and I’m basically on board with anything she does. I’d been wanting to see this for a while and I was shocked to see just how relevant it is (being set in 1970) to the world we find ourselves in today, where women are still fighting to be heard and to be treated equally. While the film is not spectacular, I still got a lot from its themes, so recently after the murder of Sarah Everard and how women are being treated in their protest.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (1964) - 7/10

I was surprised at just how hilarious this early Kubrick movie is. While I can’t say it floored me or took any top spots, it’s still a great examination of the military and how they respond to threats or try to solve problems and the side of war we don’t often see in films: the people in the background sitting in a room making crucial decisions.

Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10

Wow! I can’t believe I’d never seen this before but I’d never really had access to it. Taxi Driver is a beautifully made movie with so much colour and vibrancy. De Niro puts on perhaps his best performance and Paul Schrader’s timeless script works miracles.

Sleepy Hollow (1999) - 5/10

Classic Tim Burton aesthetics in a pretty by the numbers, almost Supernatural-esque story eked out over an hour and forty minutes.

Seaspiracy (2021) - 6/10

Everyone’s going crazy over this documentary and I agree it tackles important issues we’re facing today surrounding the commercialization of the fishing industry, but a lot of what’s presented here is information already available to the public. The editing feels misplaced at times and the tone is all over the place. Nonetheless, it’s still quite fascinating to see good journalism being done in a way that exposes this side of the industry.

Pirates of The Carribean: The Curse of The Black Pearl (2003) - 8/10

Super fun and a great first instalment in a franchise that sadly seems to have peaked at the first hurdle.

My Octopus Teacher (2020) - 8/10

Great cinematography and a lovely premise, this documentary has garnered an Oscar nomination and I can see why.

The Sisters Brothers (2018) - 8/10

A really solid western I was happy to watch again. It’s a shame no one really talks about this movie because it is excellent with stunning visuals and great performances.

Pirates of The Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) - 5/10

A strangely massive drop in quality from the original. If I didn’t like the whole concept of this franchise so much, I might have had a worse time.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) - 8/10

On a second watch, Tarantino’s first feature is still wildly impressive.

Life of Brian (1979) - 7/10

This is perhaps my third time watching Monty Python’s Life of Brian and it’s still incredibly funny, however it never manages to measure up to its predecessor (and one of my all time favourites), Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

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leilalupin · 3 years

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2020 recap and a big thank you to my favourite creators

Wow - 2020 really felt like so many years at once. And I can't believe that I only just discovered fanfiction and wolfstar this January while I actually was in the middle of writing an important essay. It's just - it feels like it has been years instead of months.

And never could I ever have expected how these two boys and their love just swept me off my feet so completely.

I just can't stop reading about their love! And it has already helped me through so many difficult situations. I just had to switch on my phone and had so many comforting words under my fingertips. And I realised how much I love writing myself and interacting with other readers and writers so I hope that I'll soon be able to publish some fics myself.

But now, I want to thank my favourite authors and creators who inspired me so much this year. You just deserve all the praise because you do all this work for free!

So I'm very happy to take part in the @wolfstarlibrarian 's lovely new year's challenge to send out all my love to you!

Favourite creators and fics in 2020:

Sweater Weather by @lumosinlove

I feel like I need to start this list with @lumosinlove because Hazel's fics brought me into this fandom and were the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place! I just love how she creates her characters, how she builds her worlds, and how she interacts with her readers. Her stories just feel so real! So picking one fic to recommend was very hard. But I think I'll go with Sweater Weather because it just felt like such a life-changing read for me in the way that she addresses the homophobia in the NHL and creates her OC’s.

Unknown Pleasures by @kattlupin

I love reading Katt’s fics and commenting on them so much! Not only does she write the most amazing fluff, but also she never fails to react to every comment with so much love. So picking just one fic was super hard. But I chose Unknown Pleasures because I thought it is such an interesting idea to combine a lockdown with the magical world and the domestic bliss she created is just chef’s kiss! (Also please follow her and @remus-john-lupin to check out their current wolfstar love letter series Ink & Parchment you won’t regret it!!)

Celestial Bodies by @remus-john-lupin

RJ’s fics are just always soo good! I still have many many that I want to read but, for now, I want to recommend Celestial Bodies. It is just so super wholsome and you can really feel their relationship blossom and how Remus gets more and more confident. And Remus parents are just hilarious!

You’ve Got Love by @cruisinwritealong

This fic is the reason why I am absolutely in love with New Orleans - it was described so super well and I now want to visit asap. But more than that JB just creates such a beautiful atmosphere and I cried from happiness when they finally kissed! The fic is based on the movie You’ve Got Mail but I’m not sure if I want to watch it after reading JB’s masterpiece. I think it seriously can’t hold a candle to it!

Fanfic Writer AU by @mlim8

I absolutely had to include Mel’s artwork in this list! She constantly makes me laugh, swoon or cry with her drawings of our favorite boys. Please check out her profile! My current favorite is her Fanfic Writer AU which is just hilarious, honestly! (Plus: it features the dog Padfoot and his Moony plushie!!)

The End of a Serene Quarantine (aka: Why The Hell Did Lockdown Have To End) by @blitheringmcgonagall

I just love love love Mia’s writing! And I literally can’t wait to finally find the time to read her big and complete Marauder’s Era fic We Can Be Heroes. Until then I want to recommend you this short fic of hers because Remus is just so adorable and hilarious! (And for me as an introvert, he is also totally relatable). Also thank you Mia for tagging me in funny picrews and writing me sweet messages, they never fail to warm my heart!

Heavy In Your Arms by @mollymarymarie

This fic - I just have no words. Like with all of Molly’s fics I completely binge-read it. It has got a great Slytherin Sirius, Reggie and Remus bond together to save him and it’s sweet and thrilling at the same time! Plus the descriptions of the different common rooms are just amazing.

Chocolate Cake by @theprongsletthatlived

This fic is hands-down one of the funniest ever! I just love how Sirius slowly realises that he loves Remus and that he is an angel that he can’t afford to lose! Victoria does this so lovingly and it’s just a pleasure to read (and please also read the story from Remus’ perspective: Banana Split).

Kings of the World by @simplysirius

This is the Titanic AU that completely took me by surprise! I must say that I have not watched the movie for a long time but I think that Katerina managed to make her fic feel like a completely different story and with its own captivating atmosphere. This fic was so thrilling, sad and heart-warming you just need to read it! With Sirius as Rose and Remus as Jack + Reggie and Jily.

Sirius loved Remus’s angel curls by @wolfstarlibrarian

Last but not least, I also HAD to include the librarian in this list! Not only do they comfort us with their lists and fun challenges but they also bless us with tiny, amazing bits of writing, too! Thank you for everything you do for this fandom!

This list is in no way complete and there are so many more fics that I loved! So thank you to everyone who writes, makes art and shares it with all of us! You are amazing and I definitely need to make more lists like this in the future.

Happy New Year!

#librarian's new year's challenge #wolfstar #fic recs #thank you all for so many awesome fics #you deserve only the best #fandom love

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Music for Films, Vol. II: Chick Habit

For good and for ill, Quentin Tarantino’s movies have been strongly associated with postmodern pop culture — particularly by folks whose reactions to the word “postmodern” tend toward pursed lips and school-marmishly wagged fingers. There for a while, reading David Denby on Tarantino was similar to reading Michiko Kakutani on Thomas Pynchon: almost always the same review, the same complaints about characters lacking “psychological depth,” the same handwringing over an ostensible moral insipidness. Truth be told, Tarantino’s pranksome delight with flashy surfaces and stylistic flourishes that are ends in themselves gives tentative credence to some of the caviling. Critics have raised related concerns over the superficiality of Tarantino’s tendency toward stunt casting, especially his resurrections of aging actors relegated to the film industry’s commercial margins: John Travolta, Pam Grier, Robert Forster, David Carradine, Darryl Hannah, Don Johnson and so on. There might be a measure of cynicism in the accompanying cinematic nudging and winking, but it’s also the case that a number of the performances have been terrific.

The writer-director brings a similar sensibility to his sound-tracking choices, demonstrating the cooler-than-thou, deep-catalog knowledge of an obsessive crate-digger. Tarantino thematized that knowledge in his break-through feature, Reservoir Dogs (1992). Throughout the film, the characters tune in to Steven Wright deadpanning as the deejay of “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies”; like the characters, the viewer transforms into a listener, treated to such fare as the George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag” (1970) and Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” (1971). As with the above-mentioned actors, Tarantino has sifted pop culture’s castoffs and detritus, unearthing songs and delivering experiences of renewed value — and thereby proving the keenness of his instincts and aesthetic wit. “Listen to (or look at) this!” he seems to say, with his cockeyed, faux-incredulous grin. “Can you believe you were just going to throw this out?” And mostly, it works. If the Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” (1974) has become a sort of semi-ironized accompaniment to hipsterish good times, that resonance has a lot more to do with Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel and Co. cruising L.A. in a hulking American sedan than with the Disney Co.’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

In Death Proof (2007), Tarantino’s seventh film and unaccountably his least favorite, soundtrack and screen are both full to bursting with the flotsam and jetsam of “entertainment” conceived as an industry.

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In just the opening minutes, we see outmoded moviehouse announcements, complete with cigarette-burn cue dots; big posters of Brigitte Bardot from Les Bijoutiers du claire de lune (1958) and of Ralph Nelson’s Soldier Blue (1970) bedecking the apartment of Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier); the tee shirt worn by Shanna (Jordan Ladd), which bears the image of Tura Satana; and strutting under all of it are the brassy cadences of Jack Nitzsche’s “The Last Race,” taken from his soundtrack for the teensploitation flick Village of the Giants (1965). Bibs and bobs, bits and pieces of low- and middle-brow cinema are cut up and reconstructed into a fulsome swirl of signs. And there’s an unpleasant edge to it; the cuts are echoed by the action of the camera, which has been busily cleaving the bodies of the women on screen into fragments and parts. First the feet of Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), propped up on a dashboard; then Julia, all ass and gams; then Arlene’s lower half again, chopped into slices by the stairs she dashes up (“I gotta take the world’s biggest fucking piss!”) and by the close-up that settles on her belly and pelvis, her hand shoved awkwardly into her crotch.

As often happens in Tarantino’s movies, furiously busy meta-discursive play collapses the images’ problematic content under multiple levels of reference and pastiche. The film is one half of Grindhouse (2007), Tarantino’s collaboration with his buddy Robert Rodriguez, an old-fashioned double-feature comprising the men’s love letters to the exploitation cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. In those thousands of movies — mondo, beach-cutie, nudie-cutie, women in prison, early slasher, rape-revenge, biker gang, chop-socky, Spaghetti Western and muscle-car-worship flicks (and we could add more subgenres to the list) — symbolic violence inflicted on women’s bodies was de rigueur, and frequently the principal draw. Tarantino shot Death Proof himself, so he is (more than usually) directly responsible for all the framing and focusing — and he’s far too canny a filmmaker not to know precisely what he’s doing with and to those bodies. The excessive, camera-mediated gashing and trimming is a knowing, perhaps deprecating nod to all that previous, gratuitous T&A. His sound-tracking choice of “The Last Race” metaphorically underscores the point: in Bert I. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, bikini-clad teens find and consume an experimental growth serum, which causes them to expand to massive proportions. Really big boobs, actual acres of ass. Get it?

Of course, all the implied japing and judging is deeply embedded in the film’s matrix of esoteric references and fleeting allusions. You’d have to be very well versed in the history of exploitation cinema to pick up on the indirect homage to Gordon’s goofy movie. But as in Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino doesn’t just gesture, he dramatizes, folding an authoritative geekdom into the action of Death Proof. In the set-up to Death Proof’s notorious car crash scene, Julia is on the phone, instructing one of her fellow deejays to play “Hold Tight!” (1966) by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Don’t recognize the names? “For your information,” Julia snorts, Pete Townsend briefly considered abandoning the Who, and he thought about joining the now-obscure beat band, to make it “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Tich & Pete. And if you ask me, he should have.”

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It’s among the most gruesomely violent sequences in Tarantino’s films (which do not run short on graphic bloodshed), and Julia receives its most spectacular punishment. Those legs and that rump, upon which the camera has lavished so much attention, are torn apart. Her right leg flips, flies and slaps the pavement, a hunk of suddenly flaccid meat. Again, Tarantino proves himself an adept arranger of image, sign and significance. Want to accuse him of fetishizing Julia’s legs? He’ll materialize the move, reducing the limb to a manipulable fragment, and he’ll invest the moment with all of the intrinsic violence of the fetish. He’ll even do you one better — he’ll make that violence visible. Want to watch? You better buckle up and hold tight.

Hold on a second. “Hold Tight”? The soundtrack has passed over from intertextual in-joke to cruel punchline. It doesn’t help that the song is so much fun, and that it’s fun watching the girls groove along to it, just before Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) obliterates them, again and again and again. The awful insistence of the repetition is another set-up, establishing the film’s narrative logic: the repeated pattern and libidinal charge-and-release of Stuntman Mike’s vehicular predations. It is, indeed, “a sex thing,” as Sheriff Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) informs us in his cartoonish, redneck lawman’s drawl. Soon the sexually charged repetitions pile up: see Abernathy’s (Rosario Dawson) feet hanging out of Kim’s (Tracie Thom) 1972 Mustang, in a visual echo of Arlene’s, and of Julia’s. Then listen to Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) belt out some of Smith’s cover of “Baby It’s You” (1969), which we most recently heard 44 minutes before, as Julia danced ecstatically by the Texas Chili Bar’s jukebox. Then watch Abernathy as she sees Stuntman Mike’s tricked-out ’71 Nova, a vibrating hunk of metallic machismo — just like Arlene saw it, idling menacingly back in Austin, with another snatch of “Baby It’s You” wisping through that moment’s portent.

For a certain kind of viewer, the Nova’s low-slung, growling charms are hard to resist, as is the sleazy snarl of Willy DeVille’s “It’s So Easy” (1980; and we might note that Jack Nitzsche produced a couple of Mink DeVille’s early records, connecting another couple strands in the web) on the Nova’s car stereo. Those prospective pleasures raise the question of just who the film is for. That may seem obvious: the same folks — dudes, mostly — who find pleasure in exploitation movies like Vanishing Point (1971), Satan’s Sadists (1969) or The Big Doll House (1971). But there are a few other things to account for, like how Death Proof repeatedly passes the Bechdel Test, and how long those scenes of conversation among women go on, and on. Most notable is the eight-minute diner scene, a single take featuring Abernathy, Kim, Lee and Zoë (Zoë Bell, doing a cinematic rendition of her fabulous self, an instance of stunt casting that literalizes the “stunt” part). Among other things, the women discuss their careers in film, the merits of gun ownership and Kim and Zoë’s love of (you guessed it) car chase movies like Vanishing Point. One could read that as a liberatory move, a suggestion that cinema of all kinds is open to all comers. All that’s required is a willingness to watch. But watching the diner scene becomes increasing claustrophobic. The camera circles the women’s table incessantly, and on the periphery of the shot, sitting at the diner’s counter, is Stuntman Mike. The circling becomes predatory, the threat seems pervasive.

If you’ve seen the film, you know how that plays out: Zoë and Kim play “ship’s mast” on a white 1970 Dodge Challenger (the Vanishing Point car); Stuntman Mike shows up and terrorizes them mercilessly; but then Abernathy, Zoë and Kim chase him down and beat the living shit out of him, likely fatally. In another sharply conceived cinematic maneuver, Tarantino executes a climactic sequence that inverts the diner scene: the women surround Stuntman Mike, abject and pleading, and punch and kick him as he bounces from one of them to another. The camera zips from vantage to vantage within the circle, deliriously tracking the action. All the jump cuts intensify the violence, and they provide another contrast to the diner’s scene’s silky, unbroken shot. The sounds and the impact of the blows verge on slapstick, and our identification with the women makes it a giddily gross good time.

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So, an inversion seeks to undo repetition. Certainly, Stuntman Mike’s intent to repeat the car-crash-kill-thrill is undone, and predator becomes prey. But, as is inevitable with Tarantino’s cinema, there are complications, other echoes and patterns to suss out. For instance: as the women stride toward the wrecked Nova, while Stuntman Mike pathetically wails, the camera zooms in on their asses. Bad asses? Nice asses? What’s the right nomenclature? To make sure we can put the shot together with Julia’s first appearance in the film, Abernathy has hiked up her skirt, revealing a lot of leg. Repetition reasserts itself. In an exacerbating circumstance, Harvey Weinstein’s grubby fingerprints are smeared onto the film. Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios is credited with production of Grindhouse, but Dimension Films, a Weinstein Brothers company, handled distribution.

When the film cuts to its end titles, we hear April March’s “Chick Habit” (1995), with its spot-on lyric: “Hang up the chick habit / Hang it up, daddy / Or you’ll never get another fix.” And so on. Even here, where the girl-power vibe feels strongest (cue Abernathy burying a bootheel in Stuntman Mike’s face), there are echoes, patterns. Note how the striding bassline of “Chick Habit” strongly recalls the pulse beating through Nitzsche’s “The Last Race.” Note that March’s song is a cover, of “Laisse tomber les filles,” originally recorded by yé-yé girl France Gall. The song was penned by Serge Gainsbourg, pop provocateur and notorious womanizer. The two collaborated again, releasing “Les Sucettes,” a tune about a teeny-bopper who really likes sucking on lollipops, when Gall was barely 18; the accompanying scandal nearly torpedoed her career. Gall refused to ever sing another song by Gainsbourg, and disavowed her hits.

Again, that’s all deeply embedded, somewhere in the film’s complicated play of pop irony and double-entendre and the sudden explosions of delight and disgust that intermittently reveal and conceal. Again, you’d have to know your pop history really well to catch up with the complications, and Death Proof moves so fast that there’s always another reference or allusion demanding your attention as the cars growl and the blood spurts. Too many signs to track, too many signals to decipher — that’s the postmodern. But perhaps we have become too glib, assuming that all signs are somehow equivalent. Death Proof insists otherwise. Much has been made of the film’s strange relation to digital filmmaking, of the sort that Rodriguez has made a career out of. Part of Grindhouse’s shtick is its goofball applications of CGI, all the scratches and skips and flaws that the filmmakers lovingly applied. They are digital effects, masquerading as damaged celluloid. Tarantino cut back against that grain, filming as much of the car chase’s maniacal stuntwork in meatspace as he safely could. Purposeful practical filmmaking, for a digitally enhanced cinematic experience, attempting to mimic the ways real film interacts with the physical environment and its manifold histories. Is that clever, or just more cultural clutter?

Amid all the clutter that crowds the characters onscreen, and their conversations in the film’s field of sound, it can be easy to lose track of the distinctions between appearances and the traces of the real bodies that worked to bring Death Proof to life. Which is why Tarantino’s inclusion of Bell is so crucial. She provides another inversion: Instead of masking her individual presence, doing stunts for other actresses in their clothes and hair (for Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess, or for Uma Thurman in Tarantino’s Kill Bill films), Bell is herself, doing what she does best, projecting the technical elements of filmmaking — usually meant to bleed seamlessly into illusion — right onto the surface of the screen. And instead of allowing one group of girls to slip into a repeated pattern, bodies easily exchanged for other bodies, Bell’s presence and its implicit insistence on her particularity (who else can move like she does?) breaks up the superficial logic of cinema’s market for the feminine. She disrupts its chick habit. There’s only one woman like her.

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Jonathan Shaw

#music for films #chick habit #jonathan shaw #dusted magazine #death proof #quentin tarantino #reservoir dogs #grindhouse #Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich

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tlbodine · 3 years

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A Horror History of Werewolves

As far as horror icons are concerned, werewolves are among the oldest of all monsters. References to man-to-wolf transformations show up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, making them pretty much as old as storytelling itself. And, unlike many other movie monsters, werewolves trace their folkloric roots to a time when people truly believed in and feared these creatures.

But for a creature with such a storied past, the modern werewolf has quite the crisis of identity. Thanks to an absolute deluge of romance novels featuring sometimes-furry love interests, the contemporary idea of “werewolf” is decidedly de-fanged. So how did we get here? Where did they come from, where are they going, and can werewolves ever be terrifying again?

Werewolves in Folklore and Legend

Ancient Greece was full of werewolf stories. Herodotus wrote of a nomadic tribe from Scythia (part of modern-day Russia) who changed into wolves for a portion of the year. This was most likely a response to the Proto-Indo-European societies living in that region at the time -- a group whose warrior class would sometimes don animal pelts and were said to call on the spirit of animals to aid them in battle (the concept of the berserker has the same roots -- just bears rather than wolves).

In Arcadia, there was a local legend about King Lycaon, who was turned to a wolf as punishment for serving human meat to Zeus (exact details of the event vary between accounts, but cannibalism and crimes-against-the-gods are a common theme). Pliny the Elder wrote of werewolves as well, explaining that those who make a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus would be turned to wolves but could resume human form years later if they abstained from eating human meat in that time.

By the time we reach the Medieval period in Europe, werewolf stories were widespread and frequently associated with witchcraft. Lycanthropy could be either a curse laid upon someone or a transformation undergone by someone practicing witchcraft, but either way was bad news in the eyes of the church. For several centuries, witch-hunts would aggressively seek out anyone suspected of transforming into a wolf.

One particularly well-known werewolf trial was for Peter Stumpp in 1589. Stumpp, known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg," confessed to killing and eating fourteen children and two pregnant women while in the form of a wolf after donning a belt given to him by the Devil. Granted, this confession came on the tail-end of extensive public torture, so it may not be precisely reliable. His daughter and mistress were also executed in a public and brutal way during the same trial.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

The thing you have to understand when studying folklore is that, for many centuries, wolves were the apex predator of Europe. While wolf attacks on humans have been exceedingly rare in North America, wolves in Europe have historically been much bolder -- or, at least, there are more numerous reports of man-eating wolves in those regions. Between 1362 and 1918, roughly 7,600 people were reportedly killed by wolves in France alone, which may have some bearing on the local werewolf tradition of the loup-garou.

For people living in rural areas, subsisting as farmers or hunters, wolves posed a genuine existential threat. Large, intelligent, utilizing teamwork and more than capable of outwitting the average human, wolves are a compelling villain. Which is probably why they show up so frequently in fairytales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the Wolf to The Three Little Pigs.

Early Werewolf Fiction

Vampires have Dracula and zombies have I Am Legend, but there really is no clear singular book to point to as the "First Great Werewolf Novel." Perhaps by the time the novel was really taking off as an artform, werewolves had lost some of their appeal. After all, widespread literacy and reading-for-pleasure went hand-in-hand with advancements in civilization. For city-dwellers in Victorian England, for example, the threat of a wolf eating you alive probably seemed quite remote.

Don't get me wrong -- there were some Gothic novels featuring werewolves, like Sutherland Menzies' Hugues, The Wer-Wolf, or G.W.M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, or even The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas. But these are not books that have entered the popular conscience by any means. I doubt most people have ever heard of them, much less read them.

No -- I would argue that the closest thing we have, thematically, to a Great Werewolf Novel is in fact The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, the Gothic novella tells the story of a scientist who, wanting to engage in certain unnamed vices without detection, created a serum that would allow him to transform into another person. That alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, was selfish, violent, and ultimately uncontrollable -- and after taking over the body on its own terms and committing a murder or two, the only way to stop Hyde’s re-emergence was suicide.

Although not about werewolves, per se, Jekyll & Hyde touches on many themes that we'll see come up time and again in werewolf media up through the present day: toxic masculinity, the dual nature of man, leading a double life, and the ultimate tragedy of allowing one's base instincts/animal nature to run wild. Against a backdrop of Victorian sexual repression and a rapidly shifting concept of humanity's relationship to nature, it makes sense that these themes would resonate deeply (and find a new home in werewolf media).

It is also worth mentioning Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933. Set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent military battles, the book utilizes a werewolf as a plot device for exploring political turmoil. A #1 bestseller in its day, the book was a big influence on the sci-fi and mystery pulp scene of the 1940s and 50s, and is still considered one of the best werewolf novels of its ilk.

From Silver Bullets to Silver Screens

What werewolf representation lacks in novels, it makes up for in film. Werewolves have been a surprisingly enduring feature of film from its early days, due perhaps to just how much fun transformation sequences are to film. From camera tricks to makeup crews and animatronics design, werewolf movies create a lot of unique opportunities for special effects -- and for early film audiences especially (who were not yet jaded to movie magic), these on-screen metamorphoses must have elicited true awe.

The Wolf Man (1941) really kicked off the trend. Featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular wolf-man, the film was cutting-edge for its time in the special effects department. The creature design is the most memorable thing about the film, which has an otherwise forgettable plot -- but it captured viewer attention enough to bring Chaney back many times over for sequels and Universal Monster mash-ups.

The Wolf Man and 1944's Cry of the Werewolf draw on that problematic Hollywood staple, "The Gypsy Curse(tm)" for their world-building. Fortunately, werewolf media would drift away from that trope pretty quickly; curses lost their appeal, but “bite as mode of transmission” would remain an essential part of werewolf mythos.

In 1957, I Was a Teenage Werewolf was released as a classic double-header drive-in flick that's nevertheless worth a watch for its parallels between werewolfism and male aggression (a theme we'll see come up again and again). Guy Endore's novel got the Hammer Film treatment for 1961's The Curse of the Werewolf, but it wasn't until the 1970s when werewolf media really exploded: The Beast Must Die, The Legend of the Wolf Woman, The Fury of the Wolfman, Scream of the Wolf, Werewolves on Wheels and many more besides.

Hmmm, werewolves exploding in popularity around the same time as women's liberation was dramatically redefining gender roles and threatening the cultural concept of masculinity? Nah, must be a coincidence.

The 1980s brought with it even more werewolf movies, including some of the best-known in the genre: The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and The Company of Wolves (1984). Differing widely in their tone and treatment of werewolf canon, the films would establish more of a spiderweb than a linear taxonomy.

That spilled over into the 1990s as well. The Howling franchise went deep, with at least seven films that I can think of. Wolf, a 1994 release starring Jack Nicholson is especially worth a watch for its themes of dark romantic horror.

By the 2000s, we get a proper grab-bag of werewolf options. There is of course the Underworld series, with its overwrought "vampires vs lycans" world-building. There's also Skin Walkers, which tries very hard to be Underworld (and fails miserably at even that low bar). But there's also Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, arguably two of the finest werewolf movies of all time -- albeit in extremely different ways and for very different reasons.

Dog Soldiers is a straightforward monster movie pitting soldiers against ravenous werewolves. The wolves could just as easily have been subbed out with vampires or zombies -- there is nothing uniquely wolfish about them on a thematic level -- but the creature design is unique and the film itself is mastefully made and entertaining.

Ginger Snaps is the first werewolf movie I can think of that tackles lycanthropy from a female point of view. Although The Company of Wolves has a strong feminist angle, it is still very much a film about male sexuality and aggression. Ginger Snaps, on the other hand, likens werewolfism to female puberty -- a comparison that frankly makes a lot of sense.

The Werewolf as Sex Object

There are quite literally thousands of werewolf romance novels on the market, with more coming in each day. But the origins of this trend are a bit fuzzier to make out (no pun intended).

Everyone can mostly agree that Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the turning-point for sympathetic vampires -- and paranormal romance as a whole. But where do werewolves enter the mix? Possibly with Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books, which feature the titular character in a relationship with a werewolf (and some vampires, and were-leopards, and...many other things). With the first book released in 1993, the Anita Blake series seems to pre-date similar books in its ilk.

Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause delivers a YA-focused version of the classic “I’m a werewolf in high school crushing on a mortal boy”; that same year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the small screen, and although the primary focus was vampires, there is a main werewolf character (and romancing him around the challenges of his wolfishness is a big plot point for the characters involved). And Buffy, of course, paved the way for Twilight in 2005. From there, werewolves were poised to become a staple of the ever-more-popular urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre.

“Sexy werewolf” as a trope may have its roots in other traditions like the beastly bridegroom (eg, Beauty and the Beast) and the demon lover (eg, Labyrinth), which we can talk about another time. But there’s one other ingredient in this recipe that needs to be discussed. And, oh yes, we’re going there.

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Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse

By now you might be familiar with the concept of the Omegaverse thanks to the illuminating Lindsay Ellis video on the topic (and the current ongoing lawsuit). If not, well, just watch the video. It’ll be easier than trying to explain it all. (Warning for NSFW topics).

But the tl;dr is that A/B/O or Omegaverse is a genre of (generally erotic) romance utilizing the classical understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Never mind that science has long since disproven the stratification of authority in wolf packs; the popular conscious is still intrigued by the concept of a society where some people are powerful alphas and some people are timid omegas and that’s just The Way Things Are.

What’s interesting about the Omegaverse in regards to werewolf fiction is that, as near as I’ve been able to discover, it’s actually a case of convergent evolution. A/B/O as a genre seems to trace its roots to Star Trek fanfiction in the 1960s, where Kirk/Spock couplings popularized ideas like heat cycles. From there, the trope seems to weave its way through various fandoms, exploding in popularity in the Supernatural fandom.

What seems to have happened is that the confluence of A/B/O kink dynamics merging with urban fantasy werewolf social structure set off a popular niche for werewolf romance to truly thrive.

It’s important to remember that, throughout folklore, werewolves were not viewed as being part of werewolf societies. Werewolves were humans who achieved wolf form through a curse or witchcraft, causing them to transform into murderous monsters -- but there was no “werewolf pack,” and certainly no social hierarchy involving werewolf alphas exerting their dominance over weaker pack members. That element is a purely modern one rooted as much in our misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics as in our very human desire for power hierarchies.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I don’t think sexy werewolf stories are going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no room left in horror for werewolves to resume their monstrous roots.

Thematically, werewolves have done a lot of heavy lifting over the centuries. They hold up a mirror to humanity to represent our own animal nature. They embody themes of toxic masculinity, aggression, primal sexuality, and the struggle of the id and ego. Werewolf attack as sexual violence is an obvious but powerful metaphor for trauma, leaving the victim transformed. Werewolves as predators hiding in plain sight among civilization have never been more relevant than in our #MeToo moment of history.

Can werewolves still be frightening? Absolutely.

As long as human nature remains conflicted, there will always be room at the table for man-beasts and horrifying transfigurations.

This blog topic was chosen by my Patreon supporters, who got to see it one week before it went live. If you too would enjoy early access to my blog posts, want to vote for next month’s topic, or just want to support the work I do, come be a patron at https://www.patreon.com/tlbodine

#horror history #werewolves #horror #werewolf #long post

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darling-i-read-it · 4 years

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Comfort

Will Graham x reader

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: talks of murder, mental health issues, spoliers for hannibal

Author’s Note: Writing for Will is not only fun but its therapeutic and also everything I write for him seems to be him being comforted and happy because its what he deserves

Summary: based around season 1 episode 10 mostly Wills health

Genre: angsty fluff

Song: the night we met by lord huron

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director

(not my gif)

“Can I speak with you?”

You looked up at Hannibal who was giving you a look that you didn’t like. You weren’t a fan of that face. You could tell that something was wrong and the only thing you and Hannibal really had in common was your boyfriend Will. Which made you extra worried when he asked to speak.

“Sure.”

You stood up from your seat, leaving Jack and a few others who were in a conversation. Will had gone to the bathroom which gave Hannibal an out to talk to you alone without raising suspicions. You were all having dinner at Hannibal's home, celebrating a win on a case that had been particularly hard.

You followed him into the kitchen and he leaned against the counter.

“You know that Will is sleep walking,” You nodded stiffly, mentally preparing yourself for anything that you didn’t know about Will that you were about to be told.

“Hannibal if this could break patient confidentiality I don’t-”

“It doesn’t.” You nodded and clutched the ends of the island, your knuckles white.

“I’m worried about his state. I figure you know enough about his behavior to know that what Jack Crawford wants from him is not something he is prepared to give, mentally.” You nodded.

“I’ve tried to talk him out of it-”

“I’m leaning on the edge here but I need to show you this.” He grabbed a notebook on his counter and brought it over to you, opening it to a specific page. “I asked him to draw me a clock.”

You looked down at it, number strewn, nothing in the right spot inside the circle. You put it down carefully, staring as though you couldn’t quite understand even though you understood perfectly.

“Hannibal…”

“I’m telling you this because he trusts you.” “He trusts you too,” you muttered.

“He trusts you more than anyone else. He trusts you to live with him. He trusts you to be there when he comes home. If anyone can cushion his time until I figure out how to properly deal with the problems it’s you.”

You shut the book slowly and nodded. The two of you simply stood there for a moment in secret as though you had shared a big secret and you supposed he had. The real truth on what you knew Will was going through.

You handed him the notebook back and walked back to the dining room. Will had returned and he looked fidgety, not having you or Hannibal there. Something was bothering him but the second you and his friend walked back into the room. You gave him a smile and he gave you a strained one back.

You walked over and sat down beside him, putting your hand on his knee. He placed his hand on top of yours and you squeezed.

“Wanna go?” you whispered. He nodded. He had only just told you that he was losing time and often you wondered if in the moment you were beside him he was on autopilot. The way his eyes were now, you knew he was with you. He just wanted to be gone.

“Lets,” he muttered.

You gave Hannibal a look and he nodded, smiling at Will.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He nodded.

“7:30 on the dot.”

“Of course. It was nice seeing you too Y/N,” Hannibal said, shaking your hand. You nodded and in your eyes you thanked him for the information he had shared.

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon.”

It was a long drive back to Will’s but you spent most of it in silence, the music from the radio playing softly in the car. Will watched the trees as you drove up to his house. You were both quickly greeted by the dogs whom you petted softly.

Both of you started to get ready for bed but it was itching at you. Wondering where he was.

“Will?” You peeked your head into the bathroom where he threw on a shirt.

He gestured for you to come in and you did, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind. He relaxed into your touch as you stared at each other in the mirror.

“You feeling okay?” you whispered. He scoffed.

“Sure.”

“Really.” He escaped your grap and walked in the bedroom, sitting on the bed. You followed him but stood a few feet away, against the wall.

“It’s been rough. In my head,” he told you. You nodded.

“Is there anything I can do?” He shook his head. “You wanna talk about it?” He took a deep breath and you walked over to him, putting your hand on his.

“I lose track of time, like I told you. I just don’t know how to…” He tried to find the words. “Feel stable.” You nodded. “Sometimes I see the bodies and wonder if I did it. I know I didn’t but it feels like I did.”

You turned to him and grabbed both his hands.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“It isn’t your fault,” he told you, fidgeting.

“I just want you to know that you’re my best friend and I’m sorry that you ever feel that way.” He put your head on his shoulder and you put an arm protectively around him. “And I love you and I will do anything I can to make you feel stable,” you whispered.

He buried his head in your neck and breathed heavily. You thought he might cry. You put your feet up on the bed and held him for a moment as he wrapped his arms around you tightly. Stability.

Will Graham was in desperate need of stability.

“I love you,” you whispered.

“You won’t go? Even if I’m..” he thought about his wording, “..wrong in the head.” You shook your head.

“I would never.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and loosened his grip on you.

“Let’s sleep,” he whispered. You nodded and brushed his hair out of his face before getting under the covers. Usually because of his dreams the two of you weren’t near each other when you slept but tonight was an exception. Stability.

Will outstretched his arm and you rested your head on it so that your faces were level. You smiled gently at him and he kissed you gently once.

You both closed your eyes shortly after, tangled in each other falling asleep.

#will graham x reader #will graham imagines #hannibal imagines

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dindjarindiaries · 4 years

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Thunder - Chapter 1: Warm Front

gif via @hvitserkk

summary: Frankie and Luciana escape a party for some much-needed peace and quiet spent with each other, and unspoken feelings start to stir.

warnings: mentions of death, alcohol abuse, drunkenness, partying

rating: R

word count: 3.816k

masterlist

chapter 1: warm front

“I fuckin’ hate parties.”

Frankie sips his beer to hide his smile as Luciana laughs alongside him. “Yet, you’re always at them,” Luciana reminds him, sipping whatever concoction’s in her red Solo cup as she gives his bottle a flick. “And why don’t you ever use a cup? Are you ‘too cool’ for that?”

“Shut up,” Frankie mutters, biting back a smile as he nudges her shoulder. “I just prefer it ‘authentic.’” Luciana laughs as she lets out a sigh, leaning back against the corner of the wall.

Luciana’s not wrong. Even though Frankie hates parties with every fiber of his being, he’s almost always here at Benny’s frat house, finding himself unable to reject the time spent with his best friends. Over the past few years of college, Frankie’s found a friend group that’s become more like a family, unstable at times but also reliable. Tom, Will, and Benny are all people he met within his first week at school—but Santiago and Luciana have been close to his side ever since high school. Him and his four brothers have already planned to move into their next phase of life together serving their country.

Really, Frankie just wants to fly.

He always has. Ever since he was a kid, Frankie’s dreamed of being able to touch the sky. His gaze drifted upwards no matter what time of the day it was, admiring either the clouds or the stars above. His mother used to tell him he could catch a star if he got up high enough, and it would fit right in his pocket. His father used to say he could paint with the clouds, using the edge of a wing as a brush. Frankie would tell them that he’d paint his dad a portrait of their old family dog, and he’d get two stars—one for his mom and one for himself.

That was until his mother finally gave way to her condition, and his father wasted himself away with Jack and Jim Beam not too long after.

But now, Frankie’s got a new family who cares just as much about his dreams of flying. Being the “dad” friend already promised him a spot as their calm and collected pilot, anyway. Santiago always told him that he was the person who steered the group in the right direction—so it made sense that he’d do the same in the air someday. Luciana agreed with those claims. Even though she’s not going to follow the same path as the rest of them, she’s always said that Frankie needs to be in the air. He’s the only one she’d trust, she often tells them all.

So, it’s no surprise that Frankie’s once again found himself on the fringes of another one of Benny’s wild frat parties, keeping a watchful eye over his four brothers as Luciana keeps him company at his side. She’s not big into parties, either—just one of their many similarities. It’s what’s made Frankie draw so close to her, especially over the past few years at college. They understand each other like no one else does. Her and Santiago have been there for Frankie ever since his father started fading, and they practically adopted him into their family. But Frankie would never use the label “sister” on her. He doesn’t know why he can’t do it.

He thinks he might be starting to get an idea as to why, now.

Frankie looks over to see Luciana bobbing her head to the hip-hop tunes that blare out of Benny’s speakers—a firm rule for his parties: current hits only. Her brown eyes are sparkling as she watches the crowd of drunken college kids dancing in front of them, and Frankie likens the appearance of them to that of fresh honey dripping into a warm mug of tea. She has her dark hair tied back in a loose bun behind her head, and a few pieces fall around her face as her free hand tucks them away absentmindedly. Freckles adorn her nose and cheeks, and Frankie has to try to suppress the warmth in his chest when he thinks about how fitting they are for her.

Luciana soon catches Frankie’s eye, and she raises an eyebrow at him curiously. “What?” she asks, observing his close stare. She covers her mouth with her hand self-consciously. “Is there something in my teeth?”

“No! No,” Frankie assures her, chuckling a bit as he takes a hold of her wrist and brings her hand back down. “I just—” Frankie pauses, trying to think of a way to cover his ass, “—I was making sure you’re still awake.”

Luciana furrows her brow as she laughs at him. “I’m not sure how anyone could fall asleep easily here, Frankie,” she remarks, taking another sip of her drink.

Frankie tries to laugh it off, tipping the brim of his hat on his head before taking a swig from his bottle. “If I wasn’t standing, I probably could.”

“I know,” Luciana agrees, nudging his shoulder playfully. “You’re an old man stuck inside a college kid’s body, Francisco.”

Frankie wrinkles his nose at the sound of his full name. “What did you call me, Luciana?”

Luciana gasps lightly and narrows her eyes at Frankie. “Are you trying to full-name me back?”

“And what if I am?”

Luciana doesn’t get a chance to answer before Benny suddenly stumbles over to them, throwing his arms around their shoulders. Frankie and Luciana both fall back a bit at the sudden taking of his weight. Some of the drink in his cup sloshes on Frankie’s shoulder, and he holds back a heavy sigh as the reeking scent of vodka hits his nostrils. “Franksters! Luci-Goosey!” Benny greets them, his voice slurred. “What are y’all doing in the corner?”

“Minding our own business,” Frankie answers simply, earning a snort from Luciana.

“Oh, c’mon,” Benny scoffs. “You’re always avoidin’ the fun! You should go dance!”

“I’d rather watch people make asses of themselves,” Luciana asserts, gesturing to the main part of the house where some hotshot’s just tried to do a backflip—and ended up kicking one of their buddies in the face while also landing straight on their back.

“Fuck, y’all are boring as hell,” Benny whines, taking his own weight again as he lifts his arms from Frankie’s and Luciana’s shoulders. “But thanks for comin’!”

“We always do,” Frankie reminds him, slapping his shoulder in a friendly manner before he stumbles somewhere else.

Frankie and Luciana share a glance, barely able to contain their laughter as they shake their heads. That was the typical Benny interaction they’ve been waiting for, always being urged to do something other than sit in the corner where they’re more comfortable. Frankie wouldn’t change a thing about it.

“Luce, where’s your brother?” Frankie suddenly questions, looking over at Luciana with a raised brow. He’s lost track of his Santiago, Will, and Tom, and he wonders if they’ve gone somewhere else in the house.

Luciana shrugs. “Probably fucking up a nice game of pong,” she confesses honestly, causing Frankie to chuckle to himself.

It’s true—the minute Santiago gets more than a few drinks in him, he’s an absolute shitshow. Any drinking game he touches turns to chaos. Santiago already has a high energy about him, and so it gets intensified when the alcohol starts pumping through his veins. Frankie doesn’t know how he does it, and sometimes he wonders what it’s like to be the life of a party. It’s a role he knows he’ll never fill.

“Hey,” Luciana’s voice suddenly draws Frankie out from his thoughts. He looks back over to see her looking up at him with a sparkle in her eyes, one that makes Frankie want to smile instinctively. “Are you ready to get out of here? I would kill for some pizza right now.”

Frankie laughs, nodding as he finishes off his bottle. It was his only drink over the course of the hour they’d lasted at the party, and so he doesn’t have to deny her request to go for a drive as they head out to his truck. It’s a rusty red color, worn from its years of use but still going as strong as ever. The guys and Luciana have often told him that it’s a perfect reflection of himself—but Frankie doesn’t try to think about it too hard. Going in deep isn’t something he’s mastered yet.

They get into the truck, and as soon as Frankie starts it up, the classic rock station starts to play. It’s his favorite—his parents loved to blast it when he was growing up. He has to suppress the smile that grows when he sees Luciana’s eyes light up out of the corner of his eye. “Ugh, Frankie, you have the best fuckin’ taste in music,” she tells him, closing her eyes as “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac flows out from the speakers. “I swear to God. Sing it, Stevie girl.”

Frankie chuckles, taking off for the local pizza place as Luciana hums along to the tune. He looks over every once in a while to see her gazing out of the open window, as if she’s lost in her own little world. Frankie’s always admired the way she does that so easily. Luciana often escapes into the worlds of her creation, but she somehow also stays grounded to her reality. She’s always been the person that’s able to get Frankie to escape his reality if even for a little bit—and that’s just one of the many reasons why he’s so drawn to her. It’s reaching a dangerous level, and he knows it.

It’s not a conversation he’s had with Santiago yet, but he knows exactly what would result from it. Santiago and Luciana are practically attached at the hip. They’re the kind of twins that truly share everything with each other—and should his sister’s heart be placed into Frankie’s hands, he knows Santiago would be on his case all the time. To make shit easier, Frankie knows Santiago wouldn’t let that happen in the first place. Luciana is off limits in any sense other than friendship, so Frankie doesn’t even let himself get there mentally. For now.

“Thunder only happens when it’s rainin’,” Luciana joins in with Stevie’s voice, and Frankie bites back a smile upon hearing it. “Players only love you when they’re playin’.” Luciana releases a light sigh, finally looking back over at Frankie as he navigates the dark roads. “I wish it was raining right now.”

“Yeah?” Frankie remarks, raising an eyebrow. “Why? Are you a pluviophile, now?”

Luciana giggles softly. “I always have been, Frankie. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

Frankie shrugs, turning into the parking lot of the pizza place. “When have we ever talked about rain?”

“Fair point. I guess we have to do it more often.”

Frankie nods, putting the car in park and flashing her a quick smile. “I guess so.” He starts to get out of the car—leaving it running so that Luciana can stay inside with the tunes playing—but pauses as he holds up a finger and narrows his eyes in concentration. “A pepperoni eight-cut with the Italian parmesan crust?”

“You know me so well, Morales.” She offers a bright smile, one that involuntarily makes Frankie’s chest warm up as he completely gets out of the truck and heads inside. He places their order and waits for it, trying not to drown in his thoughts as he pictures himself flying high above them. He even tries his hand at daydreaming, attempting to envision himself painting his way through the clouds. He can see the world so small beneath him, putting himself in a place where he doesn’t have to think about everything he’s left there. All that would matter is keeping his eyes on the horizon and steering ahead—and maybe even capturing a star when the sun sets.

His daydream’s soon interrupted by the finishing of his order, and he takes the box with a low thank-you before heading back inside the truck. Frankie sets it on the backseat, chuckling when Luciana dramatically inhales the scent of the freshly baked pizza.

“God damn, do they make some heavenly shit here,” Luciana comments, causing Frankie to laugh harder as he starts to head back to the house. “I can’t wait to devour that.”

“That makes two of us,” Frankie agrees, glancing over at Luciana quickly as he drives on.

“Four slices for each of us,” Luciana reminds him. “It’s perfect.”

“Four?” Frankie scoffs playfully. “Last time, you could only handle three.”

“Oh, fuck off, Flyboy,” Luciana retorts. “Last time we also got garlic knots. I can only hold so much at once.”

“Sure, Luce. Sure.” Frankie laughs as Luciana swats at his shoulder, and he sees her shaking her head with a hidden smile as she crosses her arms.

They spend the rest of the drive listening to the tunes of the radio, sitting in an otherwise peaceful silence. It’s not too long until Frankie’s pulling into the long driveway of the house. It’s a respectively large space, split between the boys and Luciana. Everyone’s able to have their own rooms—save for Will and Benny, but Benny usually splits his time up between staying there and staying at the frat house—and they never let it get too crazy. Parties are always held at Benny’s frat house, which helps to keep their own home in shape. If it’s just the six of them, they’ll keep the party to themselves, but otherwise their home is like a sacred space just for their little family. Frankie wouldn’t have it any other way.

Just as Frankie’s about to turn the engine off, Luciana stops him, keeping his hand from touching the keys as she shakes her head. “Let’s eat in here,” she suggests, already starting to reach back for the pizza. “I’m really feeling these songs right now.”

“I can turn the radio on in the house,” Frankie reminds her, gesturing with his thumb to the house behind him.

“Yeah, but there’s something about it coming through the truck speakers.” Luciana sets the pizza box down onto the center console, opening it and taking a slice for herself. “It just really hits deep.”

Frankie snorts, also taking a slice and folding it in half. “Alright, but if you get grease stains on my seats, I’ll have no choice but to fucking kill you.”

“You got it, ‘dad,’” Luciana jokes, and Frankie shakes his head as she lets out a laugh. They continue to eat and bop along to the songs that play, mostly accompanied by Luciana’s random commentary on the selections. “Have you ever thought about how fuckin’ creepy this song is?” she reflects when The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” starts playing. “Like, it’s a love song, but he’s basically like ‘I’m always watching you.’ That shit is terrifying.”

“What, you wouldn’t find it romantic if someone was watching you all the time?” Frankie teases her while he moves onto his third piece of pizza, pleased to find that he still hasn’t gotten a grease stain on his jeans yet.

“Hell no!” Luciana lets out a cut laugh, shaking her head as she also goes for her third slice.

“Okay, fair.” Frankie pauses to bite off a piece and chew it up, contemplating his next few words as he does so. “Then, what would you consider romantic?”

“Jesus, there’s like… so many things.” Luciana’s gaze drifts to the roof of the car as she thinks, chewing on her food as she does so. Frankie waits curiously for her response, continuing to eat as he watches her think. “I mean, for starters, you can never go wrong with pulling the gentleman card. You know, like opening doors and pulling out chairs.”

“That’s not cheesy?”

“No! If anything, the fact that it’s going out of style is so depressing to me.” Luciana clicks her tongue and shakes her head, and Frankie can tell by the way she’s narrowed her eyes that she’s thinking again. “Honestly, the most important thing is just knowing what she likes. You gotta make sure you’re playing her favorite songs and bringing her to her favorite places—without her having to tell you ahead of time. Picking up on those hints along the way is so important.”

“Noted.” Frankie finishes off his third piece after he speaks, watching as Luciana raises an eyebrow at him.

“Plan on being romantic anytime soon, Morales?”

Frankie scoffs, shaking his head as he reaches for his last slice. “No, not likely. But it’s good to know.” He shovels a bite into his mouth, hoping it’ll keep him from having to speak again. Frankie soon realizes he’s unsuccessful, as Luciana’s head has now tilted in a curious manner at him. He releases a sigh, waiting until he finishes chewing to go on. “Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to take someone up to the sky with me. Show them the clouds. Catch a star for them.” Frankie shrugs. “Just—y’know—that’s probably not something I’ll have soon.”

Luciana smiles a bit, but Frankie easily sees a hint of darkness in her gaze. “That’s sweet, Frankie. But why don’t you think you can have it soon?”

Frankie’s breath catches in his throat. Why does he think he can’t have it soon? Because he’s not ready to let his heart be taken? Because he’s so guarded that only five other people know his true heart, but still don’t even know all of it? Because he’s denying himself a painful truth? Frankie doesn’t have a fucking clue. But Luciana’s still waiting for an answer, her dark gaze glittering as she waits to take her last slice into her mouth. “Not enough time, I guess. And how can I show someone the sky when I don’t even have my piloting license yet?”

“Fair point,” Luciana agrees, finally digging into her pizza. Frankie holds back a sigh of relief, continuing with his slice as well. They finish off their servings in comfortable silence, letting the sounds of classic rock lull them into a rhythmic state of conscious slumber. Frankie’s thoughts solely drift to the words of the singers, and he pictures himself hearing the songs play as he returns home from piloting school—his mother singing along with them as he shows her his license. She would smile at him in that endearing way she always used to and playfully ask if they can play Journey on their way up when she finally gets to fly with him. I want some Journey on our first journey!, she always used to joke with Frankie. Now, he just tries not to listen to Journey at all.

His trance is broken when Luciana suddenly lets out a gasp, and Frankie feels alert for a moment until he realizes that a new song’s come on the radio. He tunes his ears in and hears the beginning instrumental of Foreigner’s “Waiting For a Girl Like You”—a guilty pleasure song of his that he’s not willing to reveal to anyone else. But it must be Luciana’s, too, because she’s looking at Frankie with excitement in her dark gaze. “This… this is my fuckin’ song,” Luciana tells him, clearing her throat as the lyrics soon come in.

“Of all songs, you chose one of classic rock’s cheesiest?” Frankie jokes.

Luciana places a hand on her chest, pretending to be hurt. “It’s not cheesy. It’s romantic. And it’s an absolute classic.”

Frankie raises his hands in fake surrender. “Alright, Luce, you got me there. Go ahead, freak out.”

Luciana narrows her eyes at him, laughing it off as she starts to let herself jam along. “Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if I’m comin’ on too strong?”

“This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure…” Frankie murmurs the words under his breath, hoping Luciana won’t hear it over her own singing. He would never hear the end of it.

“I’ve been waiting!... for a girl like you, to come into my life.” Luciana sings the words unashamedly, closing her eyes as she spreads her arms wide. Frankie chuckles lightly—more in admiration of her free spirit than in amusement. Luciana finishes the chorus and shakes her head, looking at Frankie with a raised brow. “I’m telling you. A fuckin’ classic.”

“Hey, I believe you,” Frankie retorts, chuckling as he releases a sigh. He looks around, seeing the dark street around them. “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome in this truck. She’s gonna be begging for mercy if we don’t go inside soon.”

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” Luciana confesses, reaching for the empty pizza box. “I’m sorry, Frankie.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Frankie assures her. “It was worth it.”

Luciana simply smiles in response, setting Frankie’s chest ablaze yet again as they walk inside the house together. They remain silent as they settle in, soon heading upstairs to their respective bedrooms. Before they part, Luciana stops Frankie for a moment, her hand reaching for his arm. Frankie faces her with his brow raised. “Thank you, Frankie,” she says softly, her dark gaze looking straight into his. “For always being there for me—and getting some damn good pizza with some hella’ good tunes.”

Frankie chuckles softly, shaking his head at her. “You don’t have to thank me, Luci. I enjoy it just as much.”

Luciana widens her smile, bidding Frankie goodnight before she disappears into her room. Frankie bites back his own, entering his room and preparing for bed. He flops down onto it with a sigh, hating the way his mind feels cloudier than usual. He’s being swept by a feeling he’s had before—but it’s starting to almost overpower him now. Frankie’s afraid he won’t be able to ignore it anymore.

The lyrics to the song are stuck in his head. It’s a torturous reminder of himself and his own heart—and that’s why he’s annoyed when the lyrics run through his mind. It feels so right, so warm and true, the words taunt him. I need to know if you feel it too. Does he, though? Because Frankie’s pretty damn certain he’s content with ignoring every feeling he has. He’s been doing it ever since his mother passed—and he’s pretty sure he can keep doing it.

But then he thinks on that chorus: I’ve been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life. And Frankie can’t help wondering if that’s exactly what’s happening. As he hides himself underneath his covers to sleep, he hears distant thunder rumble outside, and he smiles for the fact Luciana will get her pluviophile moment—even if she’s asleep.

next part: chapter 2: cold front

thunder tag list: @youhavereachedtheendofpie @charmantbarnes @theindiealto @fangirl-and-stuff @phoenixhalliwell @maybege @amarvelousmandalorian @seawhisperer @mrsparknuts @saltywintersoldat @softpedropascal @i-hide-inside-my-head @sunshinepascal

permanent tag list: @mikahid @theforceofdarkandlight @stilllivindue2spite @givemethatgold @xbrujita @mandalorianspace @blushingwueen @sevvysaurus @myakai13 @thisis-theway @beskars @rachelloveseveryone @theindiealto @hiscyarika @burningsoulbloodyheart @wickedfrsgrl @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @bookwafflefangirl @charliepeaceout @lavenderl3mons

#i know it's like 2 am so y'all won't be around for a while #i'm waiting for the mando doc lol #also i love frankie please #my BABY #i'm making up his canon #we'll go with it #frankie morales #francisco morales #catfish morales #frankie morales fic #catfish morales fic #triple frontier #triple frontier fic #thunder fic #dindjarindiaries

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spohkh · 3 years

Text

miracle on cornelia street [dean/castiel]

so BASICALLY sarah @adanceinasnowglobe and i were talking about what everyone would be up to post-series -- yknow, like, now that theyre all safe and healthy n everythings cool and destiel is officially together. yknow. as happened in canon -- and we were like so obviously destiel get a house, and thats kind of the basis of this verse so !! this is the foundational fic for what i HOPE will be a series of fun lil day-in-the-life drabbles, from both me and sarah!!

ehehehe :-) enjoy!

read on AO3

The house is a quaint thing, sitting low and snug under a pair of shady oak trees in a quiet suburb just outside of downtown Lawrence. Its brickwork face is weathered—definitely in need of a good power wash—and the roof is just as worn. The bottom step to the porch slants unevenly, and the porch itself has cracks in the concrete. There are chips in the paint on the window frames, the iron porch railing is rusting, and who knows when the gutters were last given a proper cleaning.

There’s a lot of work to be done, but standing there in the small front lawn, Dean Winchester can’t say if he’s ever seen anyplace else so perfect as the house at 3767 Cornelia Street. Dean’s house—his home. His home with Cas.

“Can you believe it?” he quietly says to Miracle, who has been sitting patiently by Dean’s leg. Miracle tilts her head and wags her tail. Dean looks back up at the house. “Yeah, me neither.”

The sound of a familiar car rumbling up the road snaps Dean out of his reverie. He rubs a knuckle at his eye and clears his throat and tries to look like he hadn’t been standing in his front yard about to cry while talking to his dog, christ.

The car rolls to a stop on the curb just in front of the house. The driver’s side door opens, and Sam slowly unfolds his ridiculous limbs as he gets out. It’s always a wonder how he can fit himself into a car at all. Sam gives a dorky little wave as he ambles over to where Dean is standing.

Dean peers behind Sam, trying to see into the car. “What, no Eileen?”

“Hello to you, too. Dick,” he replies snarkily. “She’s wrapping up a work thing. She’ll come over when she’s done.”

Dean sucks his teeth in disappointment. “Ah, well. Guess you can go home then.” Sam shoves at his shoulder. Dean just laughs and pulls Sam in for a proper hello hug.

“Why are you standing out here, anyway?” Sam asks when they part.

“Can’t a man just hang out in his own front yard? Accompanied by a dashing canine companion?” He leans down to pat Miracle on the head.

“I guess…” Sam looks down at Miracle. When she tips her head up and gazes back at him, Sam snorts.

“What?”

“Miracle on Cornelia Street,” Sam says with mirth.

Dean squints at him. “What?” he repeats, now more incredulous.

“You know—like Miracle on 34th Street. But we’re on Cornelia, so.” He nods down at the dog. “Miracle on Cornelia Street.”

“Dude.” Dean rolls his eyes at Sam’s goofy grin and starts walking up the path to the house, Miracle trotting behind him. “Shut up and come inside already.”

Sam follows after him, pausing just inside the threshold as he spots something on the doorframe. “Oh, classy,” he says, throwing a sardonic look to where D.W. and C.W. are scratched into the wood.

“Just wait,” Dean jokes with a toothy smile, “when I got the time I’m gonna draw a little heart around it.” He was joking, but now that he said it, he kind of wanted to.

Cas looks up from the stove when they walk into the dining room. He’s wearing one of Dean’s old AC/DC tees, the logo all but worn away from being washed so many times. He’s usually in some ratty tee or other when lounging around these days. But in honor of Sam’s visit today (Cas’ words) and to seem a little more dressy short of donning his usual button-downs (Dean’s private opinion), he’s also wearing the cable-knit cardigan Sam got him as a gift last Christmas. “Hi, Sam.”

Sam leans against the counter that separates the dining and kitchen areas, craning his giraffe neck to catch a glimpse at the stove. “Hey, Cas! What’cha cooking?”

“Nothing. Dean made it. I was just watching the pot so it didn’t boil over.” He locks eyes with Dean, his intent stare very clearly communicating I did not touch the chili I added nothing I did not touch the dial I was just watching it like you asked so don’t even start.

Dean just smiles as he walks past the counter and steps into Cas’ space. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he says, and busses Cas on the cheek.

“You’re welcome,” Cas replies warmly. He’s gazing up at Dean with those summer afternoon blue eyes, standing in one of Dean’s shirts and that dorky cardigan, and Dean starts to get full of that feeling from out in the front yard again. If they were alone, Dean would probably say something recklessly sappy like I am so stupid in love with you.

As it is, Dean clears his throat and turns back to Sam, slinging an arm around Cas’ shoulders, and says, “He did the salad.”

Cas sneaks him a knowing look before, thankfully, putting his attention on Sam without commenting on Dean’s hasty redirection. “I did the salad,” Cas agrees blithely, and places the salad bowl on the counter for Sam to see, seeming pleased with himself.

Sam looks between the two of them, an amused tilt to his eyebrow that Dean implicitly distrusts. He’s definitely thinking mocking thoughts about the two of them. But he just quirks a smile and says, “It looks great.” Shrewd little diplomat.

Cas shifts to the side to see past Sam’s shoulder. Sam glances behind himself before shooting Cas a confused look.

“She’s still at work,” Dean tells Cas, guessing who he’s looking for. “Sadly.”

“What, am I not good enough?”

“Of course you are,” Cas promises earnestly, just as Dean says, “Well…”

Sam’s opening his mouth to retort, probably something absolutely scathing, when his phone chimes. He pulls it out of his pocket, a smile spreading over his face. “Speak of the devil,” he says, then tips his head with a grimace, “as it were. That was Eileen. She’ll be here soon, so I’m gonna go wash up.”

“Bathroom’s down the hall—“

“Dude, I know where it is. I did help you guys move in.”

Dean spreads his hands in assent. “Fine, christ, I swear never to be a good host to you in my home ever again. Go ahead and go take your dump now.”

“I’m not gonna—ohmygodnevermind.” He turns on his heel and huffs down the hall, Miracle trotting after him, the tags on her collar clinking together jauntily.

Dean reaches past Cas to turn the burner off, then lands his hand on Cas’ hip. “Have I told you today how cute you are in that sweater?”

“Yes.” Cas brings his hands up to cradle Dean’s face. “Four times.”

“Make it five.” Dean kisses him. He pulls Cas into a hug, pressing his face against Castiel’s shoulder. They sway into each other. After a warm moment, Dean says in a low voice, “The first family dinner in our house.”

Cas hums a soft, contented sound in agreement. “The first of many,” he responds, just as quiet. Dean squeezes him tighter. He knows they’re both thinking about Jack and Claire, their bedrooms sitting empty and waiting for whenever they can find the time to visit—and Kaia and Alex and Jody with Claire, if they can, and Charlie and her girlfriend, and Bobby, and all the other wayward extensions of their sprawling family caught out in the wind. Their house isn’t big enough to host everyone, but with Sam and Eileen up the block and the bunker just a few miles out, there’s plenty of room to put up people who come out their way. Dean has the hope that 3767 Cornelia Street becomes a common pitstop for folks—a suburban Roadhouse, a tidier (much tidier) Singer Salvage.

Dean presses a kiss against Cas’ neck, and Cas breathes a sweet little sigh that pushes all thoughts about future dinners right out the window. Fuck, this dinner could go out the window, for all he cares. He kisses a little higher up, right under Cas’ jawline, before pulling back to catch Castiel’s darkened gaze. “How ‘bout we ditch the nag and go have a private party of our own?”

“Dean, no. I worked really hard on that salad.” He sounds perfectly serious, but the playful glint in his eye gives him away. Dean snorts, mumbling oh, forgive me, Chef Cas as he leans in again.

Just as they kiss, Sam walks back in. “Hey, I think something’s wrong with your sink–- oh, sorry.”

“Huh?” Dean reluctantly pulls away as Sam clears his throat, looking sheepish. “What’s wrong with what, Sammy?”

“Uh, with your bathroom.”

“The bathroom? Oh, what, you clogged the toilet?”

“Wha— N— I DID NOT SHIT IN YOUR BATHROOM.”

“Then how did the toilet get messed up?”

“It’s the SINK, the SINK—”

“You took a shit in the sink?”

Cas pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dean…”

“What? He started it.”

“Started WHAT?”

Dean snaps his fingers. “The end of the world.”

“Oh! My god!”

“I guess technically, yeah, since god is our kid...” He turns to Cas. “Weird, weird lives we lead.”

Cas just shakes his head, clearly exasperated. Sam has given up on speaking completely and has fallen back on making a gesture like he’s one second away from grabbing Dean by the throat.

“I was there for all twelve years of it,” Sam says to Cas, “and I still can’t believe you stayed with this guy.”

“Well,” Cas muses serenely, “you’ve been here a lot longer than me.”

Sam grimaces when Dean throws him his best shit-eating grin. Nothing like his two favorite people bonding over how much of a pain he is.

The sound of the front door opening distracts them, and then a voice calls, “Knock knock! The life of the party has arrived!”

“Eileen!” Sam exclaims happily. Miracle takes off down the hall, Sam hot on her heels.

Dean chuckles at Sam’s unabashed excitement, then gives Castiel another peck on the cheek before moving away from him. “Can you put everything out on the table? I’ll go check out the bathroom sitch real quick.”

Cas catches his hand as he starts to leave, softly saying his name. When Dean looks back at him, Cas smiles and says, “I love you.”

Dean wonders if maybe three time’s the charm and he should just give in to what his body wants him to do. If a man has a right to stand around and cry messily anywhere in his own home, surely the kitchen would be the place to do it. The kitchen, after all, is the heart of any house.

But Dean doesn’t. He indulges in a little sniffle, Cas’ eyes glimmering with knowing in the soft light. Dean brings Cas’ hand to his mouth and kisses the neat gold band around his finger, and he kisses each peaked knuckle, and he turns Cas’ hand over and kisses his palm and his wrist. Then he lets go and puts his own hand against Cas’ cheek, and says his recklessly sappy thing: “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

And the glowing feeling inside him doesn’t settle, only grows brighter.

Whatever’s wrong with the sink will be just one more thing to a long list of shit to deal with. Their house needs work, no denying. But Dean knows they’ve got plenty of time.

#destiel #deancastiel #dean winchester #castiel #supernatural #my writing

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jaskierswolf · 4 years

Text

You Set My Heart Ablaze Pt.10/25

The flat was filled with the melodic sounds of sitar strings, or more accurately, the screeching sounds of sitar strings.

Jaskier still hadn’t gotten the hang of his new baby.

It was a truly beautiful instrument but completely different to his usual stringed instruments. The long neck of the sitar had way more pegs than he used to and he just couldn’t get it to sing like he wanted. He was struggling to play with the microtones that the sitar music was famous for. He would probably have to see if he could find a teacher to help him. That wasn’t going to be easy.

He gently put the instrument back in its case and sat down at his piano instead. His flat wasn’t really big enough to house his baby grand piano but he just hadn’t been able to leave the beautiful instrument behind in the shop. It had called out to him like a siren and he’d been helpless to resist its call.

Of course, he’d probably be able to afford a bigger flat if he managed to stop buying instruments.

He laughed. “But where’s the fun in that?”

His fingers idly pressed the keys without him putting much effort in. He closed his eyes and let the music free from his heart.

School was starting back the next day and he’d been up almost all weekend trying to finish up his lesson plans. He hadn’t meant to leave it to the last minute but time had just gotten away from him and suddenly it was Saturday and he’d not done any work. Luckily coffee and cat naps were his bestest friends in the whole wide world and he’d finally managed to get it all done. Just in time to enjoy his last evening before the kids took over his life once more. His kids were amazing but full of energy and it took a lot out of him to be so switched on all day long. He’d already drafted his email to the parents to send out on Friday evening based on his lesson plans for the week, but he still had Geralt’s left to write.

Not that Geralt received any special treatment or anything.

It was just that he needed to be mindful of Ciri’s special circumstances.

Or at least that was the lie he’d told himself all term.

But at least he still personalised each of the emails a little before sending them out!

And so what he he wrote Geralt handwritten letters more frequently than the other parents.

It wasn’t a crime.

The only crime was Geralt’s ass.

It was to die for.

He groaned and shook his head to try and clear out the thoughts of his love, his fingers slipping on the keys of the piano, but there was really nothing he could do to stop the barrage of Geralt thoughts. Since parents’ evening he’d developed a blooming friendship with Geralt and it was making him feel all sorts of things that he really shouldn’t be feeling if he wanted to keep his job.

They had managed to meet up a few of times over the last half of the school term to discuss Ciri’s progress at school, although Jaskier could count on one hand how many times Ciri’s classwork had actually come up in conversation. Jaskier could never resist flirting with the firefighter which Geralt took in his stride. Although Jaskier wasn’t entirely certain that Geralt even realised he was flirting.

Jaskier was ninety-five percent sure that Geralt was interested in men, and in him specifically. He’d never explicitly said it and there was nothing about their meetings that really screamed anything more than friendship, but every so often Geralt would seemingly flirt back and it floored Jaskier every single time. How was he supposed to handle that? This tall muscular amber-eyed God was actually paying him attention. The small smiles that Geralt gave him made his heart sing, and to the gods when Geralt laughed, he felt his insides turn to mush. Geralt was usually happy to let Jaskier hold most of the conversation, talking about his new instrumental conquests, books he was reading, the beautiful birds he’d seen on the walk to work, but the white-hair man was beginning to open up.

Jaskier had learnt more about Roach, who he’d mistaken for a large dog in Ciri’s drawing. He had, of course teased Geralt over his choice of name but that hadn’t lasted long when Geralt had turned the table on him and asked what Jaskier would call a horse and the only name he could think of was Greg. Geralt offered up a little information about his teammates but notably avoided talking about his childhood. Jaskier couldn’t blame him for that. He had avoided that topic himself.

He knew that Geralt struggled to find time to cook but always made an effort to cook something from scratch with Ciri’s help at least once a week. Their favourite thing to make was pizza, it was also their favourite take-away. He’d learnt that Geralt tended not to watch much tv unless it was with Ciri and the man could tell you far too much about Ciri’s favourite cartoons, which explained his Apple Jack lunchbox. Geralt preferred to read in his free time instead, normally fantasy books, anything with a dragon in. Geralt’s favourite colour was blue which Jaskier adored. He could pretend that the reason was because his eyes were blue. He had filed that information away to fuel several romantic daydreams which ended in a summer wedding.

His fingers began to dance over the keys in a previously unheard melody.

It was beautiful.

“Ah fuck!” He cursed and scrambled to find manuscript paper as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

It was buried in between his lute and his computer. There was barely a spare page in the notebook but he managed to find one in the middle. Once he’d got the melody captured he would copy it over into a fresher, more organised book that held his complete compositions.

He closed his eyes again as he tried to remember precisely what he’d played before but it was missing something. The chords weren’t quite right and it left the piece sounding almost empty and dead.

“Bollocks!”

The moment had passed and his muse had left him.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his recents calls until he found the number he wanted. The phone rang twice before the sweet dulcet tones of his younger cousin sounded in his ears.

“What do you want?” Essi asked wearily.

“Lovely to speak to you too.” Jaskier shot back.

Essi sighed. “I’m working, Dandelion.”

“This late?” He double checked the clock. It was almost nine in the evening but then again she was a professional singer. If she had a gig then it was likely to be later on in the day, and now that he paid more attention he could hear the sounds of a bar in the background of the call.

“Not all of us work nine til five, Dandy.” The old nickname slipped out.

“Essi!” He groaned. “I stopped calling myself Dandelion years ago”

“Says the man that realised an album last spring under the alias of Dandelion.”

“It’s a stage name.” He pouted before he remembered she couldn’t see him.

He heard someone calling her name in the background and she yelled back. He winced as the shout hurt his ears. “I gotta go, did you need something?”

He sighed as he ran his fingers over the keys of his piano without making a sound. He could still hear the notes in his head as he desperately tried to recall the tune he had played before. “I just lost another composition to the cruel winds of time.”

“Who were you thinking about?” She asked and he could picture her easily. One hand on her hip, guitar case slung around her shoulder, long blonde hair falling in front of one of her cornflour blue eyes, eyes they had both inherited from their shared grandfather.

He frowned as he considered her question. “Who said I was thinking about anyone?”

She laughed before shouting again at whoever was trying to get her attention. Jaskier held the phone away from his ear this time. Essi really did have a set of lungs on her. “Dearest cousin. Your first album was all about your failed relationship with Pris. The second album was your failed relationship with Stella, and Valdo’s betrayal by stealing away your true love.”

“Wow. Geez. Thanks Essi. You really know how to build a man up.”

“So what failed relationship is it this time?”

“There is no relationship.” He spat back through gritted teeth, wondering why he even bothered with his cousin sometimes. In many ways she was like his little sister and she never hesitated in telling him exactly what she thought of him.

“Sure, sure. That’s why it’s failed. Look I really have to go. They need me on stage. Don’t be a stranger Dandelion!”

The phone line cut off and Jaskier stared at the phone in his hands.

“Oh cock!” He cursed as he realised she was completely right.

He’d been thinking about Geralt.

He closed the lid of the piano with more force than necessary and moved to sit back down on the sofa. He hadn’t meant to think about Geralt. He’d just been thinking about the work he needed to do for school and his thoughts had drifted to his infatuation on their own accord.

As if reading his thoughts, his phone buzzed signalling he had an email.

From Geralt.

“Oh no. No no no. Can’t do this right now.” He moaned and put his head in his hands, knocking his glasses half off his face. “Can’t I have a moment in peace?!” He asked the ceiling.

It was Sunday. He didn’t have to worry about what to say to Geralt until Friday. That was the rules… unless they had a catch up about Ciri but they hadn’t organised another meeting yet. Yes he missed Geralt desperately but he was aware that that was borderline clingy and he didn’t want to scare the man off, and yet here he was emailing Jaskier out of the blue.

It was probably about the present he’d bought Geralt. It wasn’t much, just a voucher for one of the outdoor activity shops in town and a poem he’d written about Roach.

It was terrible.

He hated it.

“Oh fuck off.” Jaskier groaned at his own thoughts and clicked on the email.

Jaskier,

Sorry for bothering you. I know you’re busy.

I wanted to say thank you for my present. I read Roach the poem. She was very impressed.

Jaskier grabbed a pillow from his sofa and hugged it tightly as he continued to read, feeling very proud of himself.

I am sorry I didn’t think to get you anything from me but hopefully you liked Ciri’s gift.

He had. Ciri had bought him a brand new travel mug. It was covered in music notes just like his mug from the staffroom at school. There had also been a little photo of Roach tucked into the card because Jaskier hadn’t stopped asking Geralt about her.

I need to ask you something. It would probably be better in person or over the phone. I’m not good at emails.

- Geralt.

Jaskier re read the last paragraph twice before hitting the reply button.

He sent Geralt his number before he could change his mind and then threw his phone onto the sofa. The phone barely managed to bounce on the cushions before it started ringing and Jaskier lunged to pick it up.

He clicked to accept the call and all at once he felt lighter than he had in weeks.

“Geralt!” He cried happily. “Hi!”

“Jaskier.” Geralt’s gruff voice answered. Jaskier felt like he’d turned to goo. The way Geralt said his name never failed to make him feel weak at the knees.

Pull yourself together Jaskier! He chided at himself.

“So, my dear, what was it that you wanted to ask me?” He kept his voice light like his fingers on his lute strings, not betraying the way his heart thundered in his chest.

Geralt grunted on the other end of the line and Jaskier rolled his eyes and smiled. How was it that he even missed Geralt’s ineloquent grunts?

“It’s not a stupid question, Geralt.” He replied. “If you don’t know something then you should ask.”

“I’m not one of your kids, Jaskier.” Geralt huffed.

He laughed at that and put the phone on speaker. His fingers were itching to move and he was getting restless not being able to play whilst holding the phone.

“Yes yes. I know that.” He hummed as he let his fingers trail across the many different instrument cases that were stacked up against the wall. They landed on his lute, an instrument long forgotten to many but one that remained so dear to him. He’d originally started to play the lute because it was different and he liked to stand out. Every musician in the folk scene played guitar or violin or piano.

He didn’t want to be like every other musician.

He wanted to be the best.

So he’d pick up the lute and never looked back. It was an expensive and delicate instrument so he tended not to bring it into school that often but he often found himself playing it at home.

It was also a reminder as to why he’d begun teaching full time. At first he’d only taught guitar and piano whilst he was at university in Oxenfurt to help finance his music career and pay for his rent after he had had a disagreement with his parents. The lute was the first instrument he’d bought for himself after the argument, to celebrate having enough students to finally make it through the month without begging his friends for cash and managing to save for the first time.

Soon after he realised how much he really enjoyed teaching and after graduating with a degree in music, he went on to study teaching. He’d worked as a teaching assistant in Oxenfurt before moving to Upper Posada where he finally had his own class, the Buttercups.

“Have you put me on speaker?” Geralt asked.

“Don’t you have sharp ears?” Jaskier teased his friend, he was sure they were friends. “It’s just me here, I just needed my hands.”

“You needed your hands.” Geralt replied and Jaskier could practically hear the smirk in his tone.

“Not like that!” He cried. “Honestly, Geralt, is that really what you think of me?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. I just wanted to grab my lute.”

Geralt laughed. “Is that what they call it these days?”

“Geralt Rivia!” Jaskier exclaimed.

Geralt just laughed in response. It was infectious and soon enough Jaskier was laughing along. Once they’d calmed down he began to strum the strings of his beloved instrument gently, fiddling with the pegs to make sure it was in tune.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject, Geralt.” Jaskier spoke softly as Geralt’s laughter faded away.

“Right.”

“Geralt!” He all but whined. “You said you needed to ask me something. Come on! The suspense is killing me.”

Geralt hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll finally get some peace.”

“Now hang on!” Jaskier gasped in offence. “You rang me!”

“Regretting it already.”

“I’ll hang up!” Jaskier warned.

“No. You won’t.”

Jaskier sighed. “No. I won’t, but honestly Geralt. Is something wrong? Not that I’m not delighted to be talking to you, but…”

“But you’re Ciri’s teacher.” Geralt finished.

“Yes.”

It was a topic that had come up a few times. They weren’t doing anything wrong exactly. The friendship that had sparked up between them came as natural as breathing. They argued as if they’d known each other their whole lives, an easy banter that was unpracticed and yet almost flawless. Jaskier was fighting his attraction to Geralt the whole time, and he was sure the other man was doing the same with him but there was still this cloud looming over them. The line between professional and appropriate behaviour between parent and teacher.

He knew teachers and parents had hooked up before. It was scandalous and often the topic of vicious rumours in the staffroom. If it was reported to the headmaster and proven those teachers got in a lot of trouble, some of them were often asked to resign. Jaskier knew his professional relationship with Stregobor was rocky at best. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

But he was falling in love with Geralt, hard and fast.

It had moved beyond infatuation the moment he’d sat in the fire engine and they’d began to talk. The more he learnt about the man, the more he fell in love. Geralt was a complex man. He struggled to express himself and he constantly worried about being a good father to Ciri, but he was kind and loyal to his family. He had a surprisingly quick tongue that never failed to make Jaskier cackle. He wasn’t a pushover either, he was strong-willed and relentless in sticking to his own morals.

His determination to be a good man made Jaskier feel all fuzzy inside.

This strong and handsome man was just a gentle giant, one that could absolutely kill him given the chance, but there was just something about Geralt that made Jaskier trust him.

It was probably those eyes.

He adored Geralt’s eyes.

They were so unusual, like swirling pools of amber brought to life by bright beams of dazzling sunlight.

And that was why it was so important that their calls and meetings had to remain professional.

Without the guise of Ciri or work then their friendship was ruined. Jaskier would fall head over heels in love with Geralt and then…

and then…

He’d have to break it off.

He couldn’t risk it.

Even if there was a chance that Geralt fancied him back.

So he constantly reminded himself that they were friends and managed to frame every meeting or conversation they had as a work based thing. It was imperative that he didn’t forget that.

Friends only, and even then he really should be careful. Tissaia was right. Stregobor was just looking for an excuse to get rid of him and if he was shown to be favouring Geralt ,and in turn Ciri, too much then he might as well start looking for a new job.

He closed his eyes and mentally chastised himself for being a fool.

“So talk to me Geralt.” Jaskier pleaded. “What did you need? Did Ciri say something?”

Geralt just grunted again.

“I told you it’s not stupid.” Jaskier sighed. “It was obviously important to you.”

“It’s for Ciri.” Geralt stated bluntly. All traces of their easy laughter was now gone from his voice.

“Good. I am her teacher, what does she need? Did she say something?” Jaskier’s mind instantly recalled every interaction he’d had with the young ashen-haired girl over the last few days, looking for moments where he might have upset her or said something wrong. He couldn’t think of anything but he could have easily misread the situation.

“We went to Lambert’s for Solstice.” Geralt added.

Jaskier frowned trying to follow Geralt’s train of thought and failing. He stayed silent, waiting for Geralt to find the right words.

“He likes this band and Ciri just started screaming.”

Jaskier felt his heart skip a beat in his chest.

A band.

It wouldn’t be.

It couldn’t be.

Barely anyone even listened to his band. They barely had a thousand views online for their most popular song.

“She swears to the gods it’s you, Jask.” Geralt finished.

Jask.

It wasn’t the first time Geralt had called him that. He hated it. It made his heart do weird things in his chest that was not appropriate when talking to a friend.

He took a page out of Geralt’s book and hummed noncommittally. “Right.”

“And then Lambert pointed out Ciri’s Ukulele teacher is called Priscilla just like Dandelion’s bandmate. I thought it was all just a coincidence, but then I realised, Jaskier, Buttercups.” Geralt added, sounding weary. “Dandelions. All flowers.”

“Ah.”

“Jaskier?”

His fingers stilled on the lute strings. He pressed down with the palm of his hand to dampen the resonating sound. “It’s, well, it’s sort of a hobby?”

“You’re Dandelion?” Geralt stammered.

“Hello?” He tried to joke. “Nice to meet you.”

“Fuck.” Geralt swore loudly. “We all told Ciri she was wrong.”

“And now you’ll have to tell her she was right. That’s embarrassing for you.”

“Shut up, Jaskier.”

Jaskier scowled. “Hey! None of that grumpy firefighter stuff. It’s not my fault you didn’t trust your daughter!”

Geralt growled and hung up the phone.

Jaskier gaped at the blank screen.

“Oh no you don’t!” He rang Geralt straight back and to his surprise, he actually picked up.

“I’m sorry!” Jaskier said before Geralt could say anything. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Hmm.”

“Well. I did mean that’s it not my fault and I don’t know why you’re cross that I have a band, but I shouldn’t have said that about Ciri.” He rambled on.

Geralt still didn’t answer. Jaskier had to check the screen to make sure he was still on the line, quickly putting it back onto speaker. “So I’m sorry. I can explain to her tomorrow at school, about the band. Although, you really should be able to admit your mistakes. I know it’s not always easy.”

“Hold on.” Geralt said and then was a thud. Jaskier assumed that was Geralt putting the phone down. He could hear footsteps and the sound of a door opening. He held his breath whilst Geralt did whatever Geralt needed to do.

He picked his lute back up again and began to play. The notes flowed easily this time, the same tune as before. He grinned and scribbled the notes down onto the coffee stained page of manuscript. He got so caught up in the music he didn’t hear Geralt enter the room on the other side of the line, and this time he wasn’t alone.

“Mr Jaskier?” Ciri sounded exhausted. Geralt had probably just woken her up given the time.

Jaskier blushed and thanked Freya that the young girl couldn’t see him.

Ciri wasn’t supposed to know they’d been talking more outside of school in case she got confused or the wrong idea. Why was Geralt involving her?

Unless the wrong idea… was the right idea?

He swallowed nervously.

“Hello Buttercup!” He put on his best teacher voice, smiling brightly even though she couldn’t see him.

“Dad said you needed to tell me something. That it couldn’t wait.” Ciri asked in a small voice. “Did I do something wrong, Mr Jaskier?”

“Of course not Ciri!” Jaskier reassured her. “Geralt just wanted to ask me about the band your Uncle Lambert likes.”

“In the middle of the night?” Ciri groaned.

“Well…” Jaskier searched for a good explanation.

“It’s not as late for adults.” Geralt suggested.

Which wasn’t entirely true. Jaskier had to be up early for work and he was exhausted from his late night the day before. Geralt would have to up early too to get Ciri to school on time. They both needed to get to bed soon but there wasn’t a better explanation.

“Hmm.” Ciri hummed starting to pick up on some of Geralt’s mannerisms.

“Your father said you thought that Dandelion sounded like me?” Jaskier asked cautiously.

Ciri gasped and squealed excitably. “It sounded exactly like you Mr Jaskier! But everyone else said it was impossible and then Dad said my guitar teacher was called Priscilla and Uncle Lambert said a naughty word and apparently you are Dandelion, which I already knew because I’d already told them it was you and then Dad said a naughty word!”

Jaskier chuckled. “I am, indeed, Dandelion.”

“Of course you are!” Ciri answered completely certain in her assessment.

“But I need you to keep that quiet. Have you told any of your friends yet?” Jaskier asked.

“You have to speak, Ciri, he can’t see you.” Geralt answered softly.

“Nope.”

Jaskier sighed in relief, his band wasn’t exactly child friendly and he didn’t want it getting out that he’d inadvertently taught his whole class how to swear like a sailor. “Can you keep it to yourself, Ciri?”

“Yes, but why?” Ciri asked.

Jaskier ran his hand through his hair as he tried to think of a good way to explain. “Umm….”

“The band is something Mr Jaskier does outside of school. It’s good to keep work and play separate, Princess.” Geralt answered for him.

“Will you still play for us?” Ciri asked.

Jaskier laughed. “Of course I will, Ciri. It wouldn’t be Buttercups without song time!”

Ciri seemed to consider that. “Good. Dara likes it. Everyone else assumes he can’t listen to music but he can. Dara said he can hear it through the vibe…vibe—”

“Vibrations?” Jaskier suggested.

“Vibrations!” Ciri agreed “and he can still understand the words. He likes that you don’t treat him differently.”

Jaskier almost sobbed. That was probably one of the sweetest things his kids had ever said to him.

“I’m tired now. I’m going back to bed. Goodnight Mr Jaskier, Goodnight Dad!” He heard Ciri’s footsteps patter away.

“Fuck me.” Jaskier sighed and Geralt chuckled. “She’s a good kid.”

“The best.” Geralt agreed. “I should go too.”

“No hanging up this time?” Jaskier teased.

Geralt hummed in response.

“Goodnight, Geralt. Sleep well.”

“Night, Jaskier.”

Jaskier hit the end call button, his hands shaking in his lap.

“Fuck me…” He repeated under his breath and rubbed his eyes, smearing his glasses.

Geralt Rivia was going to be the death of him, and he would die happy.

______

#the witcher #geraskier #geraskier fanfiction #geralt of rivia #jaskier pankratz #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #geralt z rivii #geralt/jaskier #modern au #essi daven #cirilla fiona elen riannon #ciri #dad geralt #fireman!geralt #teacher!jaskier #you set my heart ablaze #wolfie's witcher writing

41 notes · View notes

lcrdoflies · 3 years

Text

SAWYER MCLAREN ( THOMAS DOHERTY ) is an EIGHTEEN year old from CONRAD, MONTANA. HE is known around the island as THE WILD CARD because he is EASYGOING and FREE-SPIRITED but can also be STUBBORN and FOOLHARDY. HE reminds of baseball bats, dog-eared books, and single-malt whiskey.

BASIC INFORMATION

NAME: sawyer dean mclaren

NICKNAMES: the hick/texas, soy dog, blue eyes

BIRTHDAY: december 2, 2002

AGE: eighteen

HOMETOWN: conrad, montana

BIRTHPLACE: conrad, montana

RELIGION: agnostic atheist

ETHNICITY: white

NATIONALITY: american

EDUCATION: some high school, no diploma

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single and always trying to mingle

SOCIAL CLASS: lower

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

HEIGHT: 6’0

EYES: blue

HAIR: dark brown

BUILD: slim athletic

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: a scar on the left side of his nose that extends to the corner of his mouth

NOTABLE FEATURES: strong jawline, skin that freckles in the sun, tattoos of varying propriety

PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: if you pay close attention, you can see he walks with a limp in his gait; sawyer likes to tell people he got it in a brawl with a grizzly bear (he didn’t)

ALLERGIES: none

PERSONALITY & BEHAVIOR

HOBBIES: wood-carving, knife-throwing, bed-rocking

LIKES: big dogs, bad ideas, comic books, the smell of rain, open fields, fireflies, fast cars, conspiracy theories, cheap liquor, expensive liquor, stick-and-poke tattoos, falling in love, collecting patches, writing on his hands and clothes

DISLIKES: the man™, conservatives, commitment, tension, tight jeans, dark chocolate, going to church, being told what to do

QUIRKS: speaks with a lazy country twang that’s often mistaken for southern, refers to people by pet names, uses laughter as punctuation, likes to philosophize about the future of the universe, thinks jack daniels is an acceptable substitute for water, writes illegibly, can recite the entire ending passage of the great gatsby from memory but can’t tell you what he ate for breakfast yesterday morning

STRENGTHS: a natural leader, thrives on teamwork, uses the “uneducated hick” label people put upon him to his advantage when it comes to outsmarting others

WEAKNESSES: once he gets an idea in his head, it’s hard to convince him otherwise; puts a little too much trust in others, bad with directions

POSITIVE TRAITS: charismatic, sociable, open-minded

NEGATIVE TRAITS: stubborn, aimless, reckless

MENTAL DISABILITIES: adhd

SHARE 5 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER

sawyer served 14 months of an 18-month sentence in juvenile detention for auto theft and joyriding. the fun part about this fact is that the only difference between juvie and deserted islands is the food.

with two older brothers, sawyer is the youngest child in a family of four. his mama dipped when he was a kid: old enough to remember a life with her in it and young enough to brush off the hurt she left behind. his daddy, on the other hand, took a “tough love” approach to raising sawyer and his brothers. if they got hurt, he let them cry it out. when they made mistakes, they had to figure out how to right ‘em on their own. on sawyer’s twelfth birthday, his father gave him a rifle and taught him how to shoot – said he needed to learn how to defend himself. sawyer spent the better part of his adolescence chasing after a childhood he never really had in the first place.

sawyer probably would’ve made the top percentile of his class if he’d ever formally gone to school. despite his impetuous antics, he’s naturally intelligent and loves to learn. he used to spend a lot of time in the library as a child, reading whatever he could get his hands on, from comics to nonfiction. some of his favorite books are treasure island, don quixote, and the odyssey.

he picked up stick-and-poke tattooing in juvie as a creative outlet for folsom prison blues. sawyer’s not an artist by any means, and most of the tats he has look like bad children’s drawings, but he takes pride in his ability to help others make equally terrible decisions.

no, he’s not related to that mclaren. yes, he absolutely knows how to gun a car down the freeway.

WHAT WAS YOUR CHARACTER WEARING ON THE FLIGHT?

on the flight to kona, hawaii, sawyer was wearing:

a ratted, army green jacket with a hood and four pockets

a long-sleeved sweatshirt

a white undershirt

a black bandana tied around his neck

slim cargo pants, rolled at the ankle

a plain pair of socks

a plain pair of boxers

black sneakers with duct tape wrapped around the right sole

PLEASE LIST 3 PERSONAL ITEMS OF YOUR CHARACTER THAT WASHED UP ON SHORE

a rusted dog tag with the initials O.S.Y. engrained into the metal, seemingly by hand

a paperback copy of lord of the flies, most of its pages illegible or torn from water damage

a 30-day supply of adderall xr with twenty-two pills left

EXTRAS:

spotify + will update as added

#( hiii~#i'm ro and i'm excited to write this idiot with u all )#wilds.intro

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swimyghost · 3 years

Text

Hey y’all! I wrote a little ficlet for @self-insert-nonsense‘s MHA villain character, Spectre. Please go to them if you want to know more!

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Spectre thought this would be an easy battle. Toy with, or even kill, some heroes to satisfy Shigaraki's almost fetishistic need to impress his father. Spectre never wanted to get into any of the other villains dirty laundry, especially Shigaraki's. She saw what he could do to people and wasn't one to accept failure without someone getting hurt in the process. So, Spectre respectfully did what she was told like a good little ghost.

"Is everything in order?" Shigaraki's raspy voice said over his miniature army of villains.

"Of course, Shiggy, dear!" Toga responded right next to Spectre. It took everything in Spectre's power not to flinch at the loudness of her voice.

"No! Of course not! Yes, I am, big man!" A black and gray bodysuit wearer appeared in the villainess peripheral vision. Spectre couldn't help but smile as the man continued to shift in tones and dramatically wave his hands. Twice was always fun to be around, even if he was a little unpredictable.

"What about you, Lizard Man?" Shigaraki turned to his right.

The "lizard man" lowered his red scarf and his bared his teeth. He unleashed an animalistic snarl at his blue-haired companion. Shigaraki raised his hands defensively. "Relax, Spinner, I was only teasing."

Spinner snorted and turned away. Spectre couldn't control her eye roll. Spinner had to be her least favorite villain (not saying she had a favorite but who was paying attention anyway?). He was infatuated with Stain and emulated him in every single way. Through his clothing, his weapons, his fighting style, Spectre was so close to waltzing into Tartarus herself and taking over Stain just to shut the man up.

"Spectre!"

Sure, I might be caught, Spectre mused But at least he'd stop cosplaying in battle.

Shigaraki's harsh voice broke through her thoughts. Her eyes met his red ones. She could almost feel the dry skin around them peel off and float towards her. Spectre nearly gagged as he spoke.

"We need you to go out first. Cause a little distraction so the pure and honorable heroes get too tied up to notice their demise."

Spectre heard Toga let out a cackle. She dipped her head and stretched. "Alright, sir. Let me get into position."

He nodded and glanced up from his spot in the trees. "Dabi, watch her body for us."

Spectre blinked in surprise. She hadn't noticed the jet haired individual squatting above them until Shigaraki pointed him out. He lazily glanced down at Spectre and frowned. "Seriously? I'm on babysitting duty? Why not Spinner or Toga?"

"We need Spinner's blades to cut through the enemy and for Toga to copy one of them to create distrust among their ranks."

"Twice?" Dabi suggested, leaping down next to his commander.

"Twice won't do it, never!" His gruff tone turned to a more positive one. "I'd be glad to help out, Shigaraki!"

Shigaraki raised his hand, silencing Twice before he went on one of his tangents. "Twice's skills will be useful in this fight."

He leaned into the other man's face and sneered. "Are you questioning my authority, Dabi?"

The air around them grew still. Toga swiftly pulled out a knife and ran her tongue across the blade. Twice followed Toga and dropped his measuring tapes to his sides. Spectre even noticed Spinner reach for his weapons. The standoff between the two members was growing tenser by the moment. Although she wasn't a fighter by nature, more of a manipulator, Spectre knew how to throw a couple of good punches and a kick. Preparing herself for a clash between the two villains, the villainess Quirk user inched forward, her long sleeves brushing against the surrounding twigs and leaves.

Instead of blasting Shigaraki in the face with his azure flames, Dabi tsked and turned his head. His intense blue gaze bore into Spectre.

"Fine, I'll watch her," Dabi said after several agonizing seconds. "But don't expect me to make sure she remains completely scratch-free."

Shigaraki's chapped lips grew into a frightening smile. "All I ask is for your best."

He turned to Spectre. "Are you ready, my dear?"

Spectre nodded. "Yes, sir."

Without another word, she settled herself into a comfortable position against the tree. Specter doubt checked to make sure she wouldn't fall out of the tree the moment she left her body. She could tell everyone was growing antsy or annoyed or a combination of both. However, dozens of shattered rips and broken bones taught her to always be careful. With a deep breath, her ghost form exploded from her chest. The familiar chill brought nothing but a sense of euphoria. She looked down at her comrades, smiled, then dashed through the trees. Not even the leaves were rustled by her jet-like speeds. Once the treeline clear and a path came into view, she settled in between two oaks. Purple wisps fluttered off her body as she nestled deeper into the leaves. She could hear her targets drawing closer.

It was a greasy-haired teacher and his costumed students following him like ducklings.

Probably some silly training exercise she sneered. Not that it will ever match the real deal.

She counted them all; Twenty in total. Then she started to pick out her potential victims. Maybe that punk chick with the long earlobes that dangled like headphone jacks? Nah, she was too busy talking to some barely dressed ponytail girl and would probably see her if she tried to Possess her. Perhaps the buff kid with several arms? He seemed to be purposely putting himself away from the group and Spectre needed a bigger distraction. What about that purple midget that was trying to sneak a peek under Ponytail's clothes? Spectre shivered.

He's the one!

Even I have limits she thought to herself. Then she let out a wheezy laugh when a frog-like girl slapped the boy with her tongue. She went to her search when she found him. A green-haired boy shouldered between two other people. Yes, he was leading the gaggle of students along with the obviously underslept teacher, but he had an aura around him. Spectre could almost feel the power radiating off him. She licked her lips and a soft moan escaped her mouth.

Without a moment of hesitation, Spectre flew over the group. She dive-bombed downward and before anyone could utter out a warning, she Possessed the powerful child.

Spectre was right in her assumption. He was containing a powerful Quirk. She could feel it running through her. But something was wrong. Instead of the usual adrenaline pulsing through her, Spectre was feeling a numb tingling sensation. Her host let out a raspy breath and clutched his chest; both of them felt something awful.

"Midoriya?" She heard someone call out.

She would've answered but the tingling transformed into a burning sensation. Using her host's body, she began to scratch at her arms. Spectre could sense that everyone was staring at her (him? Them?). She didn't care. She couldn't care. All she could focus on was getting this burning to stop.

"Hey, dumbass! What's the matter with you? Your nerd brain finally killed itself or something?"

Spectre would've normally whipped around and charged at the person who dared insult her and she almost did. Then it hit her.

A bolt of lightning slammed into her and caused the pain to quadruple in intensity. The once fiery sensation was replaced with complete electrical torture. Even though she shouldn't have been able to feel the pain of her host in any way, Spectre felt like her skin was melting off her. Her muscles torn off her like a rapid dog tearing the meat a bone. Her host's eyes were watering for he felt the exact same pain she did. They gripped their head and screamed. Spectre didn't know if it was her screaming or her host. Whatever the case, the excoriating pain needed to stop.

"Izuku!"

They felt a pair of hands grabbed onto them. They turned their head and were met with soft, yet terrified, brown eyes. A girl with the soundest face Spectre had ever seen was staring at them, clearly concerned about their health. That concern turned to complete fear as she looked into her host's (Spectre figured his name had to be Izuku) eyes. They were a glowing violet, like all her past and future victims would have if she Possessed them.

"Uraraka! Get out of the way!"

This is my chance! I have to strike!

Despite the torture Spectre was going through, she dug through her host’s soul, his everything, his Being, to find his Quirk. Once she felt it, she took hold. The pain grew even worse as she charged up an attack. Their right arm began to glow a bright teal with sparks flying off it. Oh God, it was painful. Their arm was nothing but a pile of melted flesh if what they were feeling was correct.

They swung forward, hoping to pop that stupid girl's eyes out of her socket. Before she could even get close, a black figure stepped in front of the round-faced girl. The white scarf around their neck was hovering threatening around him. They looked up, filled with rage at this audacity of this man. The moment they looked up, they were met with a piercing red glare. Before Spectre to try and fight back, she was thrown away from her host and back into her normal body.

Spectre gasped for air. She wrapped herself up tightly with her arms. Her breaths turned into panicked wheezing. Although the pain was gone, she could still psychosomatically feel its effects under her skin. She began to scratch. And scratch. And scratch. And-

"Mimoto!"

A rough hand grasped her ghostly gray one and slammed it against the tree. It snapped her out of her spiraling emotions. She peered upwards and was face to face with Dabi's icy blue eyes. While his face remained neutral, almost uncaring, Spectre didn't miss the concern in his voice.

He used my name

No one, not even Twice or Toga, used her name: Nusuma Mimoto. She told everyone it but they, including her, preferred her villain name.

Her heart thudded against her chest. She was sure Dabi could her it.

"What happened? Tell me!" Dabi demanded.

Ah, there's the real Dabi.

"I'm not sure," Spectre confessed. "I choose this green-haired kid to Possess and... It hurt. You know as well as I that none of my Possessions have ever hurt before but for this reason this... Snot colored brat made me feel like I was being shredded."

Dabi froze. He released Spectre's hand and stood up from his crouched position. He gazed off towards the clearing, the sounds of battle growing louder and louder.

"Izuku Midoriya." he murmured.

"Izuku Midoriya?" Spectre repeated. "You know him."

"Sorta."

Toga's shrill laughter followed by several thunder-like explosions echoed across the forest. The roaring of an engine and lightning fell close behind that. Dabi cracked his neck before looking down at Spectre. "Are you going to be fine or do you need a blankie?"

Spectre waved him off, ignoring the baby voice he put on. "Go. They'll need your dumbass more than me."

Dabi was about to take off but Spectre grabbed hold of the bottom of his black coat. She looked up at him and bared her teeth.

"Go get 'em, Charcoal."

Dabi smirked and dove into the trees. His footsteps grew softer and softer the farther away he got. Alone, Spectre slumped against the tree, not bothering to focus on keeping her balance. If she fell, she fell. She was too busy pondering one single thought.

Who is Izuku Midoriya?

#mha oc #bnha oc #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha dabi #touya todoroki #dabi #tomura shiragaki #himiko toga #mha spinner #shuichi iguchi #twice mha #jin bubaigawara #ficlet #oc x canon #self insert #fanfiction

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