#16 books until the first academic book... sad
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books read in 2023
the ones who walk away from omelas - ursula k. le guin (5/5)
animal farm - george orwell (4/5)
the mystery of the blue train - agatha christie (4.25/5)
the memories of sherlock holmes - arthur conan doyle (3.5/5)
five survive - holly jackson (4.75/5)
liars, inc. - paula stokes (1.5/5)
blindness - josé saramago (4.5/5)
the hound of death (a short story) - agatha christie (3.5/5)
the lies we tell - katie zhao (4/5)
the magician's nephew (the chronicles of narnia #1) - cs lewis (4/5) (rr)
peril at end house - agatha christie (4/5)
rebecca - daphne du maurier (5/5)
these violent delights (tvd #1) - chloe gong (3.75/5)
the lion, the witch and the wardrobe (the chronicles of narnia #2) - cs lewis (5/5) (rr)
the screaming staircase (lockwood & co #1) - jonathan stroud (5/5)
the dagger in the desk (lockwood & co #1.5) - jonathan stroud (4.25/5)
espaços de recordação - aleida assman (academic)
murder at the vicarage - agatha christie (4.5/5)
the whispering skull (lockwood & co #2) - jonathan stroud (4/5)
the hollow boy (lockwood & co #3) - jonathan stroud (4/5)
the creeping shadow (lockwood & co #4) - (4.75/5)
the empty grave (lockwood & co #5) - jonathan stroud (5/5)
a treatise of human nature - david hume (academic)
ensaio sobre os dados imediatos da consciência - henri bergson (3/5) (academic)
lord edgware dies - agatha christie (4/5)
the communist manifesto - karl marx & frederich engels (academic)
the horse and his boy (the chronicles of narnia #3) - cs lewis (4/5) (rr)
matter and memory - henri bergson (3/5) (academic)
the hour of the star - clarice lispector (5/5)
bergsonism - gilles deleuze (3/5) (academic)
three act tragedy - agatha christie (3/5)
the hound of the baskerville - arthur conan doyle (4.5/5)
happy place - emily henry (5/5)
death in the clouds - agatha christie (2.75/5)
prince caspian (the chronicles of narnia #4) - cs lewis (4/5) (rr)
los marcos sociales de la memoria - maurice halbwachs (4/5) (academic)
how to worship Jesus Christ - joseph s. carroll (5/5)
introdução ao estudo do método de marx - josé paulo netto (4.5/5) (academic)
anxious people - fredik backman (5/5)
the collective memory - maurice halbwachs (5/5) (academic) (rr)
murder in mesopotamia - agatha christie (4/5)
cards on the table - agatha christie (4/5)
the voyage of the dawn treader - (the chronicles of narnia #5) - cs lewis (5/5) (rr)
yellowface - r.f. kuang (3.5/5)
the girl on the train - paula hawkins (4.25/5)
dumb witness - agatha christie (3/5)
the silver chair - (the chronicles of narnia #6) - cs lewis (4/5) (rr)
before your memory fades (btcgc #3) - kawaguchi toshikazu (4.75/5)
pride and prejudice - jane austen (5/5) (rr)
perfume - patrick suskind (4/5)
sociologia de la memoria - paolo montesperelli (4.5/5)
capital's unfolding systemic crisis - istvan meszaros (4/5)
the last battle - (the chronicles of narnia #7) - cs lewis (3/5) (rr)
appointment with death - agatha christie (5/5)
the great gatsby - f. scott fitzgerald (4/5)
the collective - alison gaylin (3.75/5)
para além do capital - istvan meszaros (academic)
the ballad of songbirds and snakes (the hunger games #0) - suzanne collins (4/5)
história, memória e educação - lombardi et al (4/5) (academic)
der ursprung der familie, des privateigenthums und des staats - friedrich engels (3/5) (academic)
metamorphosis - franz kafka (4/5)
murder is easy - agatha christie (4/5)
how to survive your murder - danielle valentine (4.5/5)
arsene lupin, the gentleman-thief - maurice leblanc (3.5/5)
sad cypress - agatha christie (5/5)
northanger abbey - jane austen (5/5) (rr)
the return of sherlock holmes - arthur conan doyle (4/5)
phantom of the opera - gaston leroux (5/5)
persuasion - jane austen (5/5) (rr)
one, two, buckle my shoe - agatha christie (5/5)
the suicide house - charlie donlea (5/5)
endless night - agatha christie (5/5)
life and limb - jamie andrew (3.5/5)
final offer (dreamland billionares #3) - lauren asher (3.5/5)
the valley of fear - arthur conan doyle (4/5)
capitalismo pandemico - ricardo antunes (4/5)
one of us is back (one of us #3) - karen mcmanus (4/5)
cecília vargas em incêndio na casa-grande (cecília vargas #1) - kézia garcia (5/5)
cecília vargas em um ladrão ä solta em itapainema (cecília vargas #2) - kézia garcia (5/5)
emma - jane austen (5/5) (rr)
evil under the sun - agatha christie (3.5/5)
uma oração de amor - lyta racielly (4.75/5)
minha verdade - kell carvalho (4.75/5)
il nome della rosa - umberto eco (3/5)
more adventures of sherlock holmes - arthur conan doyle (4/5)
opal (the raven cycle #4.5) - maggie stiefvader (4/5)
sense and sensibility - jane austen (4.5/5) (rr)
do deserto ao jardim (guia-me #1) - aline moretho (4.5/5)
a classe trabalhadora: de marx ao nosso tempo - marcelo badaró mattos (5/5) (academic)
o monstro dançante (baile dos corvos #1) - gabrielli casseta (5/5)
o monstro aventureiro (baile dos corvos #3) - gabrielli casseta (5/5)
um clichê de verão - lyta racielly (4/5)
hercule poirot's christmas - agatha christie (4.75/5)
o monstro rockstar (baile dos corvos #3) - gabrielli casseta (5/5)
the german ideology - friedich engels; karl marx (3.75/5)
a portland row christmas (lockwood & co #4.5) - jonathan stroud (5/5)
litte women (volume #1) - louisa may alcott (4/5)
m or n? - agatha christie (4/5)
estuda comigo? (c(o)stomizei! #1) - sâmella bridges (4/5)
conta comigo (c(o)stomizei! #2) - sâmella bridges (4/5)
#bea talks#bea talks books#let's go for another reading year!#photos not mine btw#hmmm my first 3 reads of the year were all good#8 books in january (2 short stories) so I'd say i'm doing well#4 books in february oops but at least my good reads goal of 12 books a year was achieved#in my defense i had less time#16 books until the first academic book... sad#read the entirety of the lockwood and co books in 17 days 12 if you only count the days in which i read it i need MORE#the fact i've technically dnf both academic books but its only bc i only had to read parts of it so over 100 or 300 pages in each... lovely#wow first academic book i finished this year love that for me#13 books read in march what???? so many academic ones tho#8 books in april!!!#40 books by may 27th sounds really nice#7 books in may wow#many academic ones tho#5 books in june okay for a busy month#50 books by july 22nd sounds great to me#5 books in july bc i've been stuck on 4 other academic books at the same time <3#now down to three academic books soon i'll get ot read actual fiction again hopefully#9 books in september!!!#70 books by setember feels right#7 books in october!!!!!#10 books in november dont ask me what happened (a few shrot stories tho)#10 book in december and the month isnt over yet and i have two i'm currently reading and one more to read love that#wonder if i can reach up to 100 this year too.....#16 books in december#100 books a year!!!! tho i didnt finish 3 bc they were academic but i read from all chapters just not everything from all of them tho
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jason: 2, 14 | david: 5, 16 | christine: 8, 12 | michelle: 13, 20 | sam: 14, 20 | muninn: 15, 29
🥰
JASON
describe your character's voice. do they have a voice claim?
no voice claim. i imagine him in the low-tenor range; superb diction, snappy response time, with the occasional tendency to slip into a sort of... after-action report cadence/narration (short sentences, event-focused, impartial)
he's much freer in spanish. not spellbinding by any means but he actually uses descriptive language
an embarrassing secret about your OC?
he has his mother's name tattooed in a heart on his right hip, maybe two inches square, acquired while drunk in the kind of tattoo parlor overseas that would tattoo obviously drunk soldiers. he's not embarrassed about the tattoo, per se, and more about how he implied to his fellow soldiers and the tattoo artist that 'alicia' was, y'know, a different kind of someone waiting for him at home
---
DAVID
what was your character's dream job as a kid? is it different than what their career ended up being?
astronaut. turns out you need to be able to read 😔 he likes being a welder, tho - metal doesn't care how you feel. don't know what you're feeling? weld about it! just don't be stupid
how does your OC feel about their parents?
he misses his mom. he feels more kinship with his dad but the very nature of that kinship is estrangement from people, so
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CHRISTINE
what book genre is their favorite?
historical romance. not pulp, tho - she likes historical accuracy, or at least nothing egregiously unrealistic
how well did your OC do in school?
...c's get degrees 😅 she did not do well. she doesn't have a head for math, her interest in history came later in life, it took until the very end of college to figure out the best way for her to write papers... judging her by her academic record would be judging a fish by its ability to climb trees
---
MICHELLE
where would your OC like to go on a honeymoon?
a year-long trip around the mediterranean region, with special attention to rome. if she had to pick a city, she'd pick rome
a nostalgic memory from your OC’s childhood?
she spent a week decorating her new Big Girl Bike with stickers, paint pens, glitter, etc before deciding she wanted the training wheels taken off Right Now. her dad put off mowing the lawn to teach her how to ride it without the training wheels and they ended up spending the whole morning together, ending by biking together to an ice cream stand a few blocks away
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SAM
an embarrassing secret about your OC?
he can't keep effect and affect straight. he's a grown-ass fifty-five year old man and he'll still wince as he types out an email, hoping that he got it right this time... only to sigh in disgust when the little spell check prompt comes up again, verdammt
a nostalgic memory from your OC’s childhood?
when he was nine his mom lied to her workplace and his school that they were sick and took him to the museum three days in a row bc an exhibition about space was ending and she wanted him to see it but couldn't afford weekend tickets. he'd heard about it maybe twice and the idea of getting to go hadn't even crossed his mind. he was blown away. it was so hard not to tell his friends about it
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MUNINN
who is your OC’s best friend?
i had a bit of a crisis about this one but i think it's christine. she's scary good with emotional insight, which he is sorely lacking. this has led to more than one conversation that boiled down to
him: ugh i've been angry about [x] for like three days now
her: hmm. actually you've been upset for a week. do you think it's about [x]? maybe you're sad about [h]
him: ...what. sad? about [h]? that's bs. no. *six hours later* okay fine. you're right. again. now what
they have a similar sense of humor, and while christine would feel bad about expressing it this way they're both the kind of person to jump to "i have a shovel, who are we murdering with it" when someone they care about is hurt in any way
when was their first kiss?
sixth grade. it was a dare. he barely remembers her name... joan? janet? he's pretty sure it started with a j...
#thank you#morfinwen#let's talk#ask#asked and answered#muninn#au: allwinter#not up for tagging everyone else yet. sorry everyone else#personal#abbie needs a twitter
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24/8 — collab masterlist
“time flows in the same way for all human beings; all human beings flow through time in a different way.” - yasunari kabawata, beauty and sadness
i think it’s safe to say we’ve all been awake on each hour the day has to offer.
i’m not talking about all-nighters where you’re awake for almost all 24. i mean midnights at cafes, parties reaching the early hours of the day, and the ‘oh fuck, is that the sun?’ moments after realizing you haven’t slept a wink yet…again. basically, just the concept of being physically awake both in daylight and on hours that you shouldn’t be.
this is 24/8, a stray kids drabble collab hosted by yours truly with the prompt: where are you during these hours if you aren’t asleep?
below is the compiled list of entries for the collaboration. i would like to extend my gratitude to those who have participated. once again, thank you for your interest and this whole project wouldn’t have been possible without you.
last updated: aug 16, 2022, 11AM GMT+8
THE HOURS:
[ 12AM ] 0906:01 or the night you first meet by @soulssung
summary. [akai ito] ancient belief of chinese origin, also known as the red thread of fate. legend says that the thread connects souls that are destined to meet, regardless of time, space or circumstance. it may tangle and stretch, but can never be broken. having the ability to see the red threads of fate was never seungmin care of. that is, until it was the time to actually met you.
pairings. kim seungmin x gn!reader
genre. romance, strangers to lovers, soulmate!au
word count. 0.8k
warnings. none
[ 1AM ] it’s probably because of the coffee by @starlostseungmin
pairings. college student!seungmin x gn!reader
genre. fluff, mutual pining, college!au
word count. 2.2k
warnings. mentions of academic stress, coffee and alcohol consumption, mild swearing, stealing (seungmin lowkey stole from the vending machine)
[ 2AM ] breathe by @chogiwow
pairings. clockmaker!lee minho x gn!reader
genre. fluff, angst, bittersweet ending, implied rich kid!reader x working class!minho
word count. 1.7k
warnings. heavy rain, thunder, lightening, smoking, cigarette
[ 3:34AM ] by @/lixesque
summary. being invited to chan’s studio usually means one isn’t just going there to listen to music, which is why you’ve never been invited—until tonight.
pairings. bang chan x gn!reader
genre. suggestive, fluff
word count. 1.8k
warnings. none
[ 4AM ] why’d you only call me when you’re high? by @sword6empress
pairings. seo changbin x gn!reader
genre. suggestive, angst, fwb!au
word count. 1.5k
warnings. one-sided pining, alcohol and weed consumption
[ 5:32AM ] by @straykits
pairings. lee minho x reader
genre. fluff, friendly neighbours to ‘this could probably definitely be something more
word count. 1.6k
warnings. none
06:00 - seo changbin | @/bbhlover
[ 07:15 ] by @sulfurcosmos
pairings. bang chan x gn!reader
genre. fluff, college!au
word count. 1k
warnings. mentions of food, sleepless nights
[ 8AM ] between the clouds by @petrichor-han
summary. on a rare day where you play hooky from work and felix has a day off, you wake up much too early and indulge in a habit that he hates.
pairings. lee felix x reader
genre. angst, crumbling relationship
word count. 1.5k
warnings. smoking, explicit language, arguing, mentions of suicide & suicidal tendencies, blood, broken bones, description of a corpse [no one actually dies, this is just a daydream], “toxic” relationship, allusions to a future break-up
[ 09:10 ] by @gwynsapphire
pairings. bang chan x gn!reader
genre. fluff, idol!au, established relationship!au
word count. 1.1k
warnings. none
[ 10:01am ] by @lixesque
summary. picking up a book at the library comes with some added benefits—like seeing the librarian
pairings. librarian!kim seungmin x gn!reader
genre. fluff
word count. 0.9k
warnings. kissing
[ 12PM ] sweet comfort by @kpop-stories-21
pairings. han jisung x gn!reader
genre. angst, fluff, non-idol!au, established relationship!au
word count. 1k
warnings. mentions of death, mourning, reader is slightly depressed
[ 01:37pm ] by @misosick
pairings. non celeb but people follow u bc you’re dating!reader, idol!yang jeongin
genre. fluff, slice of life, established relationship!au
word count. 1.2k
warnings. mention of work/uni stress, not proofread, established relationship
[ 02:30pm — secret kisses] by @decembermoonskz
pairings. hwang hyunjin x reader
genre. fluff, mildly suggestive, college!au, established relationship!au
word count. 0.8k
warnings. light makeout session
[ 3PM ] meet me where the flowers are by @neo-shitty
pairings. hwang hyunjin x gn!reader
genre. hurt/comfort, angst
word count. 1.7k
warnings. implied character death, mentions of death, references to the gwangju massacre of 1980
[ 16:47 ] by @straydestiny
pairings. seo changbin x female reader
genre. fluff
word count. 0.7k
warnings. mentions of food, overworking, skipping meals
[ 5:29 PM ] luckiness by @violixs
pairings. lee know x reader
genre. fluff, domestic!au
word count. 1.3k
warnings. mentions of wine, kissing
[ 6PM ] heat waves by @crispy-chan
summary. jisung’s favourite past time is kissing you.
pairing. han jisung x female reader
genre. fluff, established relationship!au
word count. 1.8k
warnings. mildly suggestive, jisung’s hands wander lol, mentions of insecurities
[ 8PM ] eleven minutes by @late-minhours
summary. yet, that’s all there is. no matter how much i prayed for a shift of fate, the universe was deaf and god was asleep, leaving my ardent wishes to reverberate into an oblivious abyss like an echo—scattered and forgotten by everyone, save for me and my counterpart in this disaster, both of us equally broken.
pairing. lee felix x female!oc
genre. drama, timetravel!au
word count. 4.5k
warnings. heavy angst, unresolved emotional tension, mutual pining, brief mention of doctors, medical investigations (for diagnosis) and a stroke, memory loss, manipulation.
[ 21:05 ] always safe by @starlighthan
pairings. hwang hyunjin x reader
genre. fluff, established relationship!au
word count. 1.4k
warnings. none
[ 10:05 ] with you by @minilinooo
pairings. han jisung x gn!reader
genre. fluff, established relationship
word count. 1k
warnings. none
[ 11PM ] that girl by @pastelsicheng
pairings. yang jeongin x gn!reader
genre. college!au, bffs!au
word count. 1k
warnings. cursing
#skz#skz fluff#skz angst#skz smut#skz x reader#stray kids#stray kids fluff#stray kids angst#stray kids smut#collab: 24/8
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💫Moreid Masterlist
GIF by @criminalmindsvibez
Hurt/Comfort or Angst with a Happy Ending
🌊Still Left With the River
Derek wakes up to find his boyfriend crying on the sofa. Cue the hurt, the comfort, and the fluff.
1.6k, hurt/comfort, fluff, caretaker!derek, autistic spencer, crying, sad spencer
🌳Trees and Seas Have Flown Away, I Call it Loving You
Derek says something hurtful, but it happens to lead to just about the best thing that’s ever happened to Spencer.
3.2k, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, fighting/making up, angst with a happy ending, autistic spencer, coming out, getting together
🍓A Chronicle of Loss
5 people Spencer Reid lost and 1 person he gained. A look at the traumas Spencer faces over the series, and giving him the happy ending he deserves.
3.6k, grief, loss, abandonment issues, insecurity, depression, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, getting together, ‘didn’t know they were dating’, protective derek, autistic spencer
🍯Honeysuckle
The BAU decide to head out for a picnic one summer afternoon, but they’re soon rudely interrupted by a bee sting and anaphylactic shock. Seeing Spencer carted off in an ambulance is not exactly how they expected the day to go.
2.3k, whump, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, hurt spencer, friendship, medical conditions, severe allergic reactions
🌙The Noiseless Crash of Crumbling Walls
After Derek and Spencer are paired up on a science project in their senior year of high school, they become the closest, most unlikely friends possible. But what happens when Derek finally finds out what Spencer's dealing with at home? Inspired by the prompt “where did you get those bruises?”
4.5k, high school au, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, hurt spencer, protective derek, abuse, friendship, pre-slash, spencer just turned 16, derek is almost 18
🔥The Insistent Burn of a Falling Heart - part two
Derek is hopelessly in love with his childhood best friend, and he can't even escape him at home, since they're living together while they study at Cal Tech. He's resigned himself to a miserable, Spencer-less fate until lasagne, bad memories, and a whole lot of crying bring the real truth out into the open.
4.2k, hurt!spencer, fluff, angst with a happy ending, mutual pining, getting together, college au, first kiss, misunderstandings
💔let him be soft (and let him be mine) part one // part two
After Derek pulls another self-sacrificing stunt at the culmination of their most recent case, Spencer runs out of their apartment as he desperately grapples with how it makes him feel. (Collab with @criminalmindsvibez! You can find her complimentary edit here.)
2.4k, hurt/comfort, crying, abandonment issues, injured!derek, hurt!spencer, miscommunication, angst with a happy ending, fluff, protective!derek
🪦how the cold numbs everything but grief
Six days after Emily dies, Spencer finds himself soaked in freezing water, catatonic on the bathroom floor. Only Derek can ease the roaring, burning, demanding agony of this grief.
1.2k, grief/mourning, emily’s ‘death’ in season six, hurt!spencer, hurt!derek, hurt/comfort, angst with a hopeful ending (serious tw for grief here)
✨storm-darkened or starry bright
Spencer contracts HIV. It all falls apart after that.
6.5k, angst, illness, hurt!spencer, hurt/comfort, worried derek, depression, mutual pining, getting together, angst w a happy ending
⛈this heavy humanness
Spencer leaves the oven on overnight, and Derek - whose pent-up emotions get the best of him - loses it, exposing secrets neither of them expected to be spilled, for two very different reasons. They get there in the end.
3.9k, est. rel., past abuse, arguing & making up, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, miscommunication hurt spencer
💤I turn and reach for you
Three months after Hankel, Spencer starts getting terrible nightmares that keep him up at night. He tries desperately to keep his secret until one day when it's all too much to bear anymore. Luckily, Derek Morgan is there to hold him together as he falls apart.
2.1k, nightmares, hurt/comfort, ptsd, angst with a happy ending, fluff, literal sleeping together, getting together, post-revelations
Pure Fluff
🌒when I fall asleep (it is your eyes that I close)
Spencer’s not been sleeping, and as much as Derek adores his sleepy clinginess and physical affection, as soon as they get home he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.
1.9k, fluff, hurt/comfort, sleep-deprivation, clingy!spencer, physical affection, anxiety, cuddling
🎄A Christmas Like This
Spencer has a very specific plan for their first Christmas in their new house, and it has to be absolutely perfect. Derek’s going to do everything in his power to make his boyfriend as happy as possible, even if that means a house covered in garlands and a tree covered in animal skeletons…
2.9k, fluff, christmas fic, est relationship, neurodivergence, romance, domesticity, day in the life
💍my heart talks about nothing but you
Derek finds Spencer staring longingly at dancing newlyweds while on a case and once he gets to the bottom of why he’s tasked with making a proposal to a man who knows it’s coming special somehow. (He pulls it off.)
2.5k, established relationship, hurt/comfort, minor angst, fluff, relationship discussions, proposal, protective derek
✨I told the stars about you - part two
Derek and Spencer have their first date. They dance to Frank Sinatra and cuddle in an ice cream parlour, before kissing the hell out of each other at Spencer's front door. That's pretty much it. (Prequel to above fic.)
2.1k, first date, first kiss, pure tooth-rotting fluff, dancing, flirting, protective derek
🎂I can’t hold enough of you in my hands - part three
Derek and Spencer are finally getting married and the rest of the BAU are there to help them through every step of the day. Including a little surprise that Derek has up his sleeve for their first dance. (Third part to the above two fics.)
3.1k, tooth-rotting fluff, marriage/wedding day, team as family, team dynamics, domesticity, paternal hotch, maternal alex, just a whole lotta love man
🔪Shovel Talk
Hotch and Emily find out about Derek's relationship with Spencer and decide it's time for a chat.
1.5k, fluff, humour, est. rel., protective!derek, emily, and hotch, relationship reveal, mentions of past hurt spencer
📚I’ll (Never) Know What It’s Like Not to Love You
Spencer finds his old journals in the attic, and he and Derek reminisce on the days they used to pine for one another. Luckily, those days are over, and they have forever ahead of them.
1.3k, tooth-rotting domestic fluff, past mutual pining, past hurt!spencer, cuddling & snuggling, late canon
Getting Together
🌨Even More Beautiful
The BAU is stuck in Michigan with no case and no way home, so naturally, Spencer and Derek confess their love for one another. (Based on the prompt ‘You look even more beautiful covered in snow.’)
3.5k, fluff, love confessions, shy spencer, insecurity, hurt/comfort
🎧Hear it in the Silence
A short, fluffy chronicle of Spencer realising in increments how in love with Derek he is, and navigating a real, beautifully sweet relationship that's not always smooth sailing, especially since he's been hurt before. (Based on Taylor Swift’s You are in Love.)
3.7k, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, dev relationship, tw past abuse, domesticity
🎅🏼Secret Santa
Penelope rigs the BAU’s Secret Santa game to finally get Derek and Spencer together with extraordinary success, and they have her to thank for their future first date. Oh, and a sprig of mistletoe nearly throws the whole thing out the window.
2.8k, fluff, getting together, insecurity/anxiety, christmas fic, first kiss, misunderstandings, friendship
🌳The One Constant
Derek wakes up after having his appendix removed with temporary amnesia from the anesthesia, and Spencer certainly isn't prepared for the man he's pined after for four years to a) not recognise him, and b) start flirting with him. It all works out in the end, with a little help from Hotch.
4k, hurt/comfort, fluff, mutual pining, insecure spencer, flirting, getting together, misunderstandings, first kiss
☕️i’ll retire my bones to make you tea and read you poetry
Derek doesn't exactly expect to invite a sleepy Spencer over for a movie night after a case, but his blinding smile in response makes him happy he did. The kiss they share the next morning makes him even happier.
3.6k, fluff, getting together, cuddling, insecure!spencer, pet names, mutual pining, light hurt/comfort, first kiss, love confessions
Embarrassed!Spencer Drabble
A misunderstanding at a BAU get together has Spencer embarrassed and a long-awaited kiss finally happening.
1.2k, fluff, angst, getting together, first kiss
AU
📚100
Spencer's an academic researcher who spends every morning at his local library. Derek just happens to drop by one Tuesday and ask the pretty boy in the classics section if he can help him find a book. Sparks fly.
2.1k, library au, fluff, meet-cute, pining, shy spencer, coming out
💣Mayhem
Imagine that scene in S4E1 when Derek is driving the ambulance loaded with a bomb about to explode, except it’s Spencer on the other end of the phone and they finally get their shit together.
4.2k, canon divergence, spencer is the tech analyst, getting together, mutual pining, insecure spencer, angst with a happy ending, fluff, declarations of love
🧑🏻🦽 dry me off and hold me close
Derek has finally relented and is bringing his boyfriend Spencer to meet the rest of the team. That means, though, he has to finally tell them about his boyfriend's disability. Terrified that they'll react badly, he puts it off until he can't anymore. Turns out he was worried for nothing
5.7k, so much fluff, protective derek, disabled spencer, caretaker derek, spencer is not in the bau, team as family, hurt/comfort, light angst, est. rel, chronic illness, slice of life: disabled edition
💐I’ll bloom for you (while my heart still cries)
(Based on the age-old tumblr prompt) "Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery and today you've caught me and insisted on coming with me to make sure the 'girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft' and I'm trying to figure out how to break it to you that we're on our way to a graveyard."
3.7k, fluff, meet-cute, au: student spencer, fbi agent derek, hacker penelope, grief & mourning, shy spencer, getting together, mutual pining
🌖This Gravitational Pull
Penelope Garcia sets her two best friends Derek & Spencer up on a blind first date. Even with the best intentions and highest expectations, no-one could've predicted it would go quite this well.
2.9k, fluff, first date, au: diff first meeting, shy spencer, insecurity, anxiety, flirting, cuddling, protective derek, silly amounts of affection
#criminal minds#criminal minds masterlist#criminal minds fic#moreid#moreid fic#derek morgan#spencer reid#derek morgan/spencer reid#derek morgan x spencer reid
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【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: Xia Yan Personal Story 4-5 Translation
Translation Masterlist | Xia Yan Masterlist | Video
Chapter 4: 4-1 / 4-2 / 4-4 / 4-5 / 4-6 / 4-7 / 4-9 / 4-10 / 4-11 / 4-12 / 4-13 / 4-14 / 4-16
Xia Yan’s Home, Second Floor
After Xia Yan and I returned home, carrying the cardboard boxes full of Ji Xiaoqing’s items, we immediately started inspecting them.
In Ji Xiaoqing’s two boxes, one was filled with work-related items, while the other was for her personal items.
I first opened the box with Ji Xiaoqing’s personal items and flipped through the journal that we hadn’t finished reading.
One record in had a symbol indicating importance drawn on it.
MC: This record is of the day of Ji Xiaoqing’s birthday.
“Xiaoyu gave me a very expensive business suit. Where did this kid get so much money? She must have cut her spending on essentials.”
“But since these are Xiaoyu’s kind intentions, she’ll be very sad if I reject her.”
“I’ll do my best at work and aim to buy that camera that Xiaoyu likes for her as soon as possible!”
Xia Yan: According to Ji Xiaoyu’s confession to the police, she first borrowed a sum of money from Bedo Loan company before Ji Xiaoqing’s birthday.
MC: She just wanted to surprise her sister…
MC: But Ji Xiaoyu deliberately hid this from us when telling us about her reasons for borrowing the money.
MC: She made it sound like she just wanted to shop around out of vanity.
Xia Yan: As expected, Ji Xiaoyu blamed herself too much about her sister, so she deliberately belittled herself, hoping for everyone to condemn her.
I sighed quietly and continued to flip through that diary.
After Ji Xiaoqing’s birthday, she gradually came to notice how down-spirited her little sister was, but Ji Xiaoyu explained it by saying that she was under a lot of recent academic pressure.
At the end, the journal suddenly stopped on the day that Bedo Loan Company arrived to seize the house.
Xia Yan: Let’s take a look at her work items.
Xia Yan opened the other box. Ji Xiaoqing had left her job in a rush – she had wrapped up a lot of things but not taken them away.
After Ji Xiaoqing died, the company sent these to the police as evidence, which was then handed to Ji Xiaoyu.
Most of what was in there were randomly scribbled handwritten papers, professional work content books, as well as a library card stuck in a book as a bookmark.
Xia Yan looked at these, his brow wrinkling slightly.
MC: Xia Yan, did you notice something?
Xia Yan spread out the papers that Ji Xiaoqing had scribbled on.
Xia Yan: Look at the handwriting.
Xia Yan: The papers that Ji Xiaoqing used as draft paper were the useless documents that she had printed wrongly.
Xia Yan: According to the time that these documents were printed, these ones were from the days after Ji Xiaoqing found out about her sister becoming scammed by the trap loan.
I looked towards the writing on those draft papers, which were unusually messy.
MC: I remember that Ji Xiaoqing took the initiative to resign due to an increase in frequency of mistakes at work.
MC: We can deduce from this writing that Ji Xiaoqing’s emotions were very chaotic then, to the point where she could not work normally.
Xia Yan nodded pensively.
Xia Yan: At the beginning, her writing was extremely messy.
Xia Yan: But on the papers after, her writing began to slowly return to normal.
MC: This means that she had already shaken off or restrained her anxiety and panic.
MC: If so, why would her work mistakes increase in frequency, and why did she actively resign?
MC: The sisters must have been penniless and desperate because of the trap loan, so she must have needed money.
Xia Yan: So, I think that she might have had something even more important to do.
MC: Something more important? What would’ve been more important to Ji Xiaoqing back then…
MC: Ah! Could she have found clues on Qian Yi or Bedo Loan Company’s illegal actions?
MC: Ji Xiaoyu was afraid to call the police because Bedo Loan Company had leverage against her.
MC: So for her sister, Ji Xiaoqing might have investigated on her own to collect evidence.
MC: She didn’t tell Ji Xiaoyu because Ji Xiaoyu had sunken into sorrow and self-blame during that period.
Xia Yan: That’s very likely.
Xia Yan: If my deduction is true, then Ji Xiaoqing has no motive to commit suicide.
Xia Yan: And she definitely wouldn’t have been driven to get dead drunk, then get into a traffic accident while drunk…
MC: So you’re suspecting… Ji Xiaoqing didn’t die by accident. Instead, she was murdered.
MC: If Ji Xiaoqing was murdered… she must have found out about something.
Xia Yan: According to Ji Xiaoyu, Ji Xiaoqing kept writing something in a black leather notebook, but this notebook wasn’t included among the things she left behind.
MC: Could it have been taken by Ji Xiaoqing’s murderer?
Xia Yan: Another possibility is that Ji Xiaoqing hid it.
Xia Yan: Look at this.
Xia Yan took out that library card placed between the professional work content book as a bookmark. “Stellis Library” was stamped on it in gold.
Due to the widespread use of electronic devices, many places no longer gave out physical membership cards.
But the Stellis Library always considered that, like bound books, physical cards had meaning to them that electronic items could not replace.
Thus, Stellis Library gave every member a physical card, and they would even have commemorative cards at irregular times that members could redeem for.
Xia Yan: This library card design is the newest anniversary version that the Stellis Library just came out with.
Xia Yan: I checked when they came out – it was after Ji Xiaoqing found out about the trap loan.
MC: Around that time, Ji Xiaoqing couldn’t have gotten a library card just because she wanted to focus on reading!
MC: Then let’s go investigate the library tomorrow morning. We’ll probably find something out!
Xia Yan: We don’t need to do it tomorrow. Now is fine.
MC: Now?
Xia Yan: There are still several hours until the library opens.
Xia Yan: And since we’re not the police, it won’t be easy for us to directly ask library staff for Ji Xiaoqing’s information.
Xia Yan: It’ll take too long to leave it to the police. I might as well just get access into the library’s internal network and check myself.
Xia Yan opened his computer, rapidly tapping lines of code.
Soon, he entered the library’s library card application records and found the day that Ji Xiaoqing applied for her card.
Right after, Xia Yan viewed the surveillance videos from that day and found that Ji Xiaoqing had used a storage locker at the library that day.
That just happened to be the day before Ji Xiaoqing’s accident.
--
Stellis Library
Early morning, Xia Yan and I rushed to the Stellis Library. Xia Yan easily cracked the storage locker’s password.
There was only one package in the locker, with a mailing destination written on – “To Stellis Public Safety Bureau”. There was cash and a note on the package.
“Hello, library staff members. Due to reasons I cannot help, I cannot take this package myself.”
“Additionally, as I have moved homes, I no longer live at my original address.”
“I am genuinely sorry for occupying the library’s public resources, but I really have no way to take this myself. Please send this to the police station.”
“The postage payment has been added. Please and thank you so much. – Ji Xiaoqing”
Xia Yan: The Stellis Library management system is very strict and has a good reputation. There has never been an incident where patrons’ valuables were stolen.
Xia Yan: If no one has come to take the things in the locker three months later, it will be delivered to the member’s home, according to the address they left.
Xia Yan: If the items are expensive, the police will handle them.
MC: The clues that Ji Xiaoqing found are probably in here…
Xia Yan: The police would have kept the source of the clues secret, so the person who sends these clues wouldn’t receive suspicion or vengeance from the criminals.
Xia Yan: She thought things through.
Xia Yan took that package.
Xia Yan: Miss Ji Xiaoqing, I am a member of the Ministry of Security, which can be considered a policing unit.
Xia Yan: Right now, I will open your package.
After Xia Yan spoke quietly, he opened the package. There were three things in it – a letter, a black leather notebook, and a recording pen.
We opened that letter first.
MC: This is a letter for Ji Xiaoyu…
The letter said why Ji Xiaoqing did not give this evidence to Ji Xiaoyu, and instead opted to report it to the police.
If something happened to her, the criminals would fix their attention of Ji Xiaoyu. Giving her the evidence would instead harm her.
After, Xia Yan pressed the recording pen’s play button.
???: You’re Qian Yi? Where’s the stuff?
Qian Yi: Of course I placed it in a safe spot – it’s as safe as your event hall, boss.
???: That is not what we agreed on.
Qian Yi: This is something very important to you – of course I’ve got to be a bit cautious.
Qian Yi: Boss, you’re a top name in society – your reputation’s worth a lot more than mine.
Qian Yi: I’m just a little guy in society – of course I know where my place is.
Qian Yi: Don’t worry, all I want is just money.
The recording ended quickly.
MC: Was Qian Yi extorting someone? It sounds like that person has to do with Bedo Loan Company.
Xia Yan: Yeah. Look at these.
Xia Yan flipped open Ji Xiaoqing’s black leather notebook, where Ji Xiaoqing had recorded all her investigations after finding out about the trap loan.
Xia Yan: The last record was on the day before Ji Xiaoqing passed away.
“Those things are still in Qian Yi’s hands. If I call the police, he might retaliate and cause us trouble, which will be bad for Xiaoyu…”
“I will… confront him, and have him never pester me or Xiaoyu again.”
Xia Yan: After Ji Xiaoqing got evidence that Qian Yi was blackmailing others, she wanted to threaten him and have him let of her and her sister.
Xia Yan: If so… her cause of death definitely couldn’t have been a traffic accident. It must have to do with Qian Yi.
MC: Qian Yi died suddenly one week after Ji Xiaoqing’s death due to “cardiac failure”… which likely wasn’t a sudden onset illness.
MC: Instead, it probably has to do with the “boss” in here.
Xia Yan: That’s right.
Xia Yan: I suspect that this “boss” is Oedipus…
Xia Yan: After Qian Yi’s death, he noticed that Sphinx was also investigating Qian Yi. Thus, he thought that Sphinx was like Ji Xiaoqing and had found out about this matter.
Xia Yan: Thinking that he would rather kill wrongly than let anyone slip past, he decided that he had to find Sphinx.
MC: How do we find this “boss”?
Xia Yan: If this “boss” that Qian Yi was talking about really is a top name in society, he’ll probably have appeared in the society news interviews.
Xia Yan: I’ll compare this recording to the online news sound sources.
Xia Yan worked on the sound comparisons, and soon found matching sound sources.
Xia Yan: There are six similar sound sources. If I limit it into Stellis… found it!
Xia Yan: Song Heng, founder and board chairman of Hengda Financial Corporation.
MC: Have there been financial transactions between the Hengda Financial Corporation he founded and Bedo Loans?
Xia Yan: Let’s investigate that after with Sphinx. We should go find Ji Xiaoyu first.
MC: … Okay.
#Tears of Themis#tears of themis translations#xia yan#luke pearce#未定事件簿#the respect that xia yan shows for everyone and everything QAQ#(everyone that deserves it that is)
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New Releases for the Week of May 3, 2021
It's great to see so many new books hitting the shelves this week. I know I've been waiting for several of these and am happy to be able to finally read them.
The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He
Roaring Brook
Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.
In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.
Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee
Quill Tree Books
Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe.
When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page.
In this charming novel by Emery Lee, Noah will have to choose between following his own rules for love or discovering that the most romantic endings are the ones that go off script. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
They Better Call Me Sugar: My Journey from the Hood to the Hardwood by Sugar Rodgers
Black Sheep
Growing up in dire poverty in Suffolk, Virginia, Sugar (born Ta’Shauna) Rodgers never imagined that she would become an all-star player in the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association). Both of her siblings were in and out of prison throughout much of her childhood and shootings in her neighborhood were commonplace. For Sugar this was just a fact of life.
While academics wasn’t a high priority for Sugar and many of her friends, athletics always played a prominent role. She mastered her three-point shot on a net her brother put up just outside their home, eventually becoming so good that she could hustle local drug dealers out of money in one-on-one contests.
With the love and support of her family and friends, Sugar’s performance on her high school basketball team led to her recruitment by the Georgetown Hoyas, and her eventual draft into the WNBA in 2013 by the Minnesota Lynx (who won the WNBA Finals in Sugar’s first year). The first of her family to attend college, Sugar speaks of her struggles both academically and as an athlete with raw honesty.
Sugar’s road to a successful career as a professional basketball player is fraught with sadness and death–including her mother’s death when she’s fourteen, which leaves Sugar essentially homeless. Throughout it all, Sugar clings to basketball as a way to keep herself focused and sane.
And now Sugar shares her story as a message of hope and inspiration for young girls and boys everywhere, but especially those growing up in economically challenging conditions. Never sugarcoating her life experiences, she delivers a powerful message of discipline, perseverance, and always believing in oneself. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney
HarperTeen
Quinn keeps lists of everything—from the days she’s ugly cried, to “Things That I Would Never Admit Out Loud,” to all the boys she’d like to kiss. Her lists keep her sane. By writing her fears on paper, she never has to face them in real life. That is, until her journal goes missing…
An anonymous account posts one of her lists on Instagram for the whole school to see and blackmails her into facing seven of her greatest fears, or else her entire journal will go public. Quinn doesn’t know who to trust. Desperate, she teams up with Carter Bennett—the last known person to have her journal—in a race against time to track down the blackmailer.
Together, they journey through everything Quinn’s been too afraid to face, and along the way, Quinn finds the courage to be honest, to live in the moment, and to fall in love. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield
Wednesday Books
Tilla has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her. But every six months, he leaves their family and returns to his true home: the island of Jamaica.
When Tilla’s mother tells her she’ll be spending the summer on the island, Tilla dreads the idea of seeing him again, but longs to discover what life in Jamaica has always held for him.
In an unexpected turn of events, Tilla is forced to face the storm that unravels in her own life as she learns about the dark secrets that lie beyond the veil of paradise—all in the midst of an impending hurricane.
Hurricane Summer is a powerful coming of age story that deals with colorism, classism, young love, the father-daughter dynamic—and what it means to discover your own voice in the center of complete destruction. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
Indivisible by Daniel Aleman
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
There is a word Mateo Garcia and his younger sister Sophie have been taught to fear for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade to the back of their minds. And why wouldn’t it, when their Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they’re hard workers and good neighbors?
When two ICE agents come asking for Pa, the Garcia family realizes that the lives they’ve built are about to come crumbling down. And when Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken, he’ll have to come to terms with the fact that his family’s worst nightmare has become a reality.
With his Ma and Pa being held in separate detention centers, Mateo must learn how to look after his sister and himself. The choices Mateo makes, and the people he turns to for help, might reunite his family… or tear them apart for good. With his parents’ fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he’s forced to question what it means to be an American teenager in a country that rejects his own mom and dad. — Cover art and summary via Goodreads
Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan
Inkyard Press
Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parents’ rules—even if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything.
Karina is my girlfriend.
Tutoring the school’s resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything right—he brings her coffee in the mornings, impresses her friends without trying, and even promises to buy her a dozen books (a week) if she goes along with his fake-dating facade. Though Karina agrees, she can’t help but start counting down the days until her parents come back.
T-minus twenty-eight days until everything returns to normal—but what if Karina no longer wants it to? — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
All Kinds of Other by James Sie
Quill Tree Books
In this tender, nuanced coming-of-age love story, two boys—one who is cis and one who is trans—have been guarding their hearts to protect themselves, until their feelings for each other give them a reason to stand up to their fears.
Two boys are starting at a new school.
Jules is just figuring out what it means to be gay and hasn’t totally decided whether he wants to be out at his new school. His parents and friends have all kinds of opinions, but for his part, Jules just wants to make the basketball team and keep his head down.
Jack is trying to start over after a best friend break-up. He followed his actor father clear across the country to LA, but he’s also totally ready to leave his past behind. Maybe this new school where no one knows him is exactly what he needs.
When the two boys meet, the sparks are undeniable. But then a video surfaces linking Jack to a pair of popular transgender vloggers, and the revelations about Jack’s past thrust both Jack and Jules into the spotlight they’ve been trying to avoid. Suddenly both boys have a choice to make—between lying low where it’s easier or following their hearts. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads
Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Southampton, 1912: Seventeen-year-old British-Chinese Valora Luck has quit her job and smuggled herself aboard the Titanic with two goals in mind: to reunite with her twin brother Jamie--her only family now that both their parents are dead--and to convince a part-owner of the Ringling Brothers Circus to take the twins on as acrobats. Quick-thinking Val talks her way into opulent firstclass accommodations and finds Jamie with a group of fellow Chinese laborers in third class. But in the rigidly stratified world of the luxury liner, Val's ruse can only last so long, and after two long years apart, it's unclear if Jamie even wants the life Val proposes. Then, one moonless night in the North Atlantic, the unthinkable happens--the supposedly unsinkable ship is dealt a fatal blow--and Val and her companions suddenly find themselves in a race to survive.
Stacey Lee, master of historical fiction, brings a fresh perspective to an infamous tragedy, loosely inspired by the recently uncovered account of six Titanic survivors of Chinese descent.
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Interview with Makoto Yukimura, the Mangaka behind Vinland Saga
REALQ: What kind of child were you?
Yukimura: I was a laid back kid, who took a very, very long time to come to a decision. I'd be late to dinner because I was thinking about something or other. Once, while I was alternately touching the right and left eyes of a snail, I became aware that night had fallen. I wondered why my group of friends were always in such a hurry. I would focus on something and lose the ability to tell if time was passing quickly or slowly.
REALQ: When did you first encounter manga?
Yukimura: I was five-years-old and the manga was Akira Toriyama's Dr. Slump. I remember thinking the cover art was cool. When I was little, I used to think that the cover art and the story inside were drawn by different people. [Laughs]
But I watched the Dr. Slump anime before I read the manga. Later, someone told me that there was a manga that the anime was based on and I found the weekly magazine where it was serialized.
In the beginning, I was dubious. I didn't see why there needed to be both a manga and an anime. Like, why do the same thing twice? How-ever, after I saw them both it made sense because each had its own idiosyncracies.
REALQ: Did your parents say anything to you about reading manga?
Yukimura: No, they never said anything. They came from a generation who said reading manga made you an idiot, but they didn't say any-thing. They didn't say anything when I told them at 16 that I wanted to draw manga, either.
REALQ: Was there anything that your parents, siblings, or people around you would say to you often?
Yukimura: There certainly must have been various things, but I don't remember because I was probably concentrating on something else at the time and didn't hear them. However, one thing I do remember is being told to watch out for cars. Like, at the very least, try not to die. [Laughs]
Nevertheless, I really did get into a traffic accident. Once, on my way to the park to play with my friends, I ran out into the street and got hit on the side by a sedan. I rolled over the top of the car—the hood, wind-shield, top, rear window, then the trunk. Strangely, I wasn't seriously injured and played in the park afterwards.
Actually, there was also another incident.
My sister and I were riding together in a car. It was just the two of us and as we were going down a hill, a car suddenly appeared and we hit its side. I was sitting in the backseat and was launched forward like a catapult. My sister was so surprised she called out, "Mako, you're flying!" Strangely, I wasn't injured that time either, and we decided not to tell our mother. [Laughs]
REALQ: Did your way of thinking change after the accident?
Yukimura: I think that if it did change, I wasn't conscious of it. Despite being a near-death experience, it was a miracle I wasn't injured. My mother getting angry at me afterward was more frightening. [Laughs]
In terms of my "way of thinking," I'm a little different. Like something in me is lacking. It's often the case that for some reason I don't fully comprehend a conversation even if I'm really trying to concentrate on what the other person is saying. What's the reason? If I'm honest about it, it's because I'll start thinking about something else, even if it's just for a moment.
REALQ: Did you also have trouble paying attention during class at school?
Yukimura: Yeah. Especially classes that didn't interest me. I continued to have this problem in high school, where I'd often be sitting in class and before I realized it, the bell would ring. However, my notebook would have stuff drawn in it...manga.
REALQ: Didn't teachers or friends say anything?
Yukimura: In high school, I didn't have much of a social life, so nobody said anything. I went to reasonably academic schools [REALQ Editor's note: Yukimura graduated from Chuo University and Suginami High School] and my peers studied quite hard. The feeling that I was so different from most of the people around me had a big effect on me. I didn't fit in. I lived in my own world.
REALQ: Did student life give you anxiety?
Yukimura: Anxiety was the only thing I really felt. In a way, isn't school a microcosm for society? Despite it being a microcosm, there's this feeling of being left behind. That made me really anxious and sad. But as a result of suffering in this way, I realized that society existed out-side of this microcosm—a kind of society that I had never experienced inside the microcosm of school.
REALQ :What lead you to have this epiphany?
Yukimura: It occurred to me out of the blue one day when I was feeling totally devastated. I was 16. One autumn day after school I thought to myself, "I'll finish high school because if I don't, it will make my parents sad. But participating in a society reflected in this kind of microcosm will be impossible." It was just like that moment when a cup is filled to the brim with water and suddenly the surface tension breaks and it overflows.
However, thinking this made me feel better. Until that point, the "ruler" for determining success since the first year of high school had been getting good grades, getting into a good college, and then finding a job with a good company. This ruler contained within it a system of values for how one should live their life. When I decided that this was not the ruler I wanted to use to measure my own life, things became a lot easier for me. I used to get burnt out worrying so much about getting decent enough grades that would allow me to get into university. Like, "please let me just graduate!" Realizing that there was another way to live was a lifesaver.
Of course, I think it made my parents nervous. In that era, there was still a deeply rooted notion that one's academic background was im-portant and working for a good company made you a good person. Back then, this was like saying, "Your child is the type of kid who won't find their way in the world."
It was like throwing away the most important ruler and replacing it with a new ruler that was a little bent and covered with indecipherable markings. [Laughs]
REALQ: Was there anyone from your high school days who had an influence on you?
Yukimura: A teacher who taught classical literature. He was apparently a teacher with quite bizarre interpretations of the material. More than anything else, what left the greatest impression on me was when he used class time to talk about how wonderful Michael Ende was [REALQ Editor's note: a German writer of children's fiction]. He introduced me to The Never Ending Story. Once I knew about Michael Ende, he became an influence on me.
It was the first book I knew of in which someone wrote a book because he had a sense of obligation and a goal in relation to society and the world. I thought that someone who wrote a book because he felt that it was something he had to do was a rather beautiful thing to wish for.
REALQ: Next up... Yukimura discusses the connection between himself and Thorfinn Karlsefni, the protagonist of his Vinland Saga. Is there anything that makes you hesitate when you draw your manuscripts?
Yukimura: For characters, it's probably the hands. Hands take time to do well. The strength of a character's grip on a sword, for example. Male and female hands are hard to differentiate, too. Hands are the most expressive part of a character, after the face.
I've heard that you can tell a person's personality from their hands, so I always look at them. [Laughs]
You can fake a facial expression, but your hands will show how hard you work or how hard you don't.
If you show the character's life in their hands, you'll get a good result.
REALQ: When did you start paying attention to how you drew hands?
Yukimura: Since I was young. But I still find it difficult now. When I look at the work of other manga artists, sometimes the faces are well drawn, but the hands are not. To put it bluntly, if I were to choose among artists, I would choose them by how they draw their hands.
REALQ: Is there anyone whose work you reference?
Yukimura: I'm especially influenced by artists with high amounts of realism. When it comes to hands, it's gotta be Katsuhiro Otomo.
It's not just his hands, though. It's everything. [Laughs]
Also, the young, up-and-coming artists are all quite good. Their hands are pretty, but you can see the structure clearly as well.
REALQ: Any thoughts on these hands? [While looking at Sigurd's hands in the manuscript]
Yukimura: Yes. These hands are drawn fairly well. In Sigurd's case, de-spite the muscularity, his hands are not rough. That's because he has his underlings do the tough work. In Thorfinn's case, he has many small cuts, and there is more cracked and peeling skin.
REALQ: Are there any scenes in Vinland Saga strongly influenced by your own experience?
Yukimura: When Thorfinn is on his knees, apologizing. [Laughs]
The part where he says, "Please. I won't ask you to forgive me, but allow me to live a bit longer." I've been drawing manga for 20 years. There's always a shadow of guilt that hangs over me. I'm sorry for being so selfish. So, I feel I have to, at the very least, draw something that readers will love... I'm nothing without that.
Thorfinn is a young viking from medieval Europe. Since his teens, he's pillaged, fought in wars, and done many other terrible things. His feelings change as he grows, and he starts to feel guilt for his past actions. The ghosts of those he killed appears in his dreams, and he is ravaged by nightmares.
I am only here today because of the care of those around me. I am truly thankful. If anything about Thorfinn comes from my experiences, it has to be this.
In his current state, the protagonist has no right to convict anyone else. No matter what kind of scoundrel he meets, Thorfinn always feels that he has done something worse in the past. I think it's good this way.
REALQ: Did you know from the beginning that Thorfinn would become the way he did?
Yukimura: Yeah. The story began with the premise that the protagonist is fated to have done many terrible things. He goes from being the oppressor to being the oppressed, and in doing so, he learns many things and becomes an adult. He then departs, saying, "I will go to a new land beyond the sea and build a peaceful country." That is an escape from the values that dominated European society. They do not feel that it is bad to wage war and plunder other countries. And, although their opponents are human beings, they believe they have the right to make the weak into slaves and kill them if they need be. In the society of that time, such things were seen as good things. Thorfinn experiences—and hates—both. But he is powerless to change the system... So he decides to leave. There will be terrible bloodshed if he decides to change the world. So he leaves it to Canute. Because Canute has the power and the shorter path. "I am different," he says. "I will live in a different way."
When I put it into words, it seems like a lot of what I think is reflected in my work. [Laughs]
REALQ: From your childhood experiences and your writing process, I get the feeling you are a perfectionist who doesn't com-promise when it comes to goals or ideals. Do the people around you feel the same way?
Yukimura: I think I am a perfectionist. In the past, my seniors and teachers would say, "If 100 points is amazing work and 0 points is nothing, it's easy to get to 80 points. However, each point beyond that is incredibly difficult. Past 90, it's so rough that you'll start spitting blood. And nobody gets to 100."
I don't know if, by absolute standards, my work is at 80 points. But, for my own standards, I care a lot about each of those 1 or 2 points beyond 80. I care so much that others see the changes I make and say, "He pushed back the deadline for this? What's changed?" [Laughs]
I've even rewritten an entire manuscript before.
REALQ: Is it really rough when you have to throw out a whole manuscript?
Yukimura: It's sad that to know the work won't produce results, but the worst possible thing for me is to feel regret afterwards. If I can choose to suffer for a brief moment as I draw, then I'll do it. The regrets afterward stay around much longer...
REALQ: Are you happy about the reactions of your overseas readers?
Yukimura: Yeah. It's encouraging to know they like my work. Especially when I heard some of them were reading Vinland Saga side-by-side with a dictionary. I forgot which language they were translating from and into, though. [Laughs]
REALQ: Let me change the subject: Advice from adults to children... Do you think it's important to emphasize the importance of having dreams? Should we tell kids to have dreams and tell them their dreams will come true?
Yukimura: I used to think dreams were just desires. However, I was a good-for-nothing back then, so I think I was being resentful. [Laughs] At the very least, I don't think doing whatever you want to do is a beautiful thing. That's just you doing what you want to do. The truly beautiful things are helping others, volunteering, things like that... Finding a home for a stray dog, or doing things that no other person wants to do—that's beautiful.
This includes me, but to do what you want to do is simply selfishness. I received my role in society, but I couldn't carry it out. I wasn't a modest enough person for that. I said such things because I thought I would do what I wanted to do no matter what other people said to me.
It's the same for everyone, I think. Those who do what they want and succeed are simply the ones who ended up with a place in society. It's a miracle. After all, what some people want is to carry out meaningless terrorism... But it's the same thing. Both are "dreams."
REALQ: If you could give an hour of advice to your younger self, what would you say?
Yukimura: I'd say, reflexively, to be 3 times as careful of oncoming traffic. [Laughs]
More seriously, I'd say, "You're worried that you're inferior to others. But don't worry." I'd tell myself that there isn't only one ruler to mea-sure yourself by. "Humans come in all sorts," I'd say. "There's not a single number line that we all stand on."
Text by Shuta Miura
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2020 / 24
There are only 2 things I can do on an airplane – dose up on sleeping meds and pass out, or order one too many cappuccinos, keep my exhausted brain awake, and will it to talk to paper. The flight from JFK was in the afternoon and in the chaos of leaving for the airport early in the morning, I forgot to pack my pills.
Two cappuccinos in, my hands were shaking and begging to be typing out the Mrs. Maisel speed monologue that constantly runs in my head. Even though there is a month left in this year, I decided to do my annual New Years Eve post. Over the last 3 days, I’ve been drilling it down to go from gibberish to slightly readable.
Here it is.
Like the rest of the world, in January, I was blissfully unaware of the shitstorm that would follow. I got into several colleges on the East Coast for a Master’s in Finance degree. Every day, I would race down the stairs with my laptop and show my parents: another admit, another scholarship! On the surface, I was making pro and con lists for each one. Deep down, my heart had already picked Fordham in New York. It was New York. Nothing else would cut it.
The day after I turned 24 in January, I also met my (now ex) boyfriend on the internet. Completely by accident, he saw my profile because a mutual friend followed my writing. Two days later, she texted me and said he would like to talk to me. Did I want to talk to some boy studying in Paris? I was single and bored and already had my year laid out for me, so why wouldn’t I?
It moved quickly. Three months later, we had been speaking every day and were exclusive. We had not hung out in person. It was stupid, but I had never come across anybody who liked me as much as he did. In every relationship I had been in before this, I always knew I was more emotionally involved. I fell in love with his devotion to me – he would stay home (who stays home in Paris!) and choose to spend virtual time with me over going to clubs with his friends. I watched myself become the epicenter of his life and thought – this is how much I’ve always wanted to mean to somebody.
In March when the pandemic hit and India shut down, my father sent a car to pick me up from my internship in Bombay, where I had moved two weeks ago. I didn’t pack so much as my toothbrush – the driver brought me home and I had no idea that it would be months before I’d get to leave again.
Morales stayed high in the beginning – we thought it would end in 21 days, then 2 months, then 5. It has taken over the whole year now, and despite us gridlocking it into “2020,” we all know the first half of 2021 will also be filled with masks and sanitizers and not hugging your friends. I wonder if I will ever settle into somebody’s arms without cringing again.
March melted into April, that melted into one long drawl until suddenly it was August and college was beginning the following week. I found myself refreshing the US consulate’s website absent mindedly one afternoon, and all appointments that had been suspended suddenly showed you a tiny little bar that read “reschedule.” I screamed and clicked.
I had thought I would be spending the year stuck at home, awake and attending classes at odd hours. While my classmates went to happy hours in dive bars in Manhattan, I would be in my bedroom, still chained to my parents’ curfews and ultimatums. But then suddenly, I was standing before a US immigration officer in Bombay, and he was telling me I had been granted my student visa.
All that was left to do was book a flight to New York, and break the news to my boyfriend, who was on his way to my abandoned apartment at this very moment for our first date, 7 months after we first began speaking. He had come home in March when France went into lockdown, and it was starting to feel like a throuple with long distance, the third and very present member in our relationship.
I packed up the belongings I had left there, and we sat across from each other on the double bed. I kissed him first. There were roadblocks, and our personalities and views clashed on so many important things, but I loved him. Two days later, I said: I have to leave for New York in 3 weeks. He didn’t take it well.
In September, I landed at JFK. When the wheels of the plane made contact with the runway, I was smiling behind a mask I’d had on for 16 hours. On the Air Train to Manhattan, I felt a sense of happiness wash over me and toyed with the possibility that maybe I wouldn’t mind if it was just me in this city. I would be okay alone.
I found an apartment, a roommate, signed a lease in a beautiful building in Hell’s Kitchen, walking distance from college. I met lots of people from my class and instantly picked out the ones I wanted to become good friends with. I dove straight into academics and extra curriculars at college – after 5 months of nothing happening, life was suddenly exciting again.
When New York lit up every night, it felt like anything was possible. I started eating better and walking a lot. My hair grew out from the bad haircut I’d gotten the year before. Coffee was no longer just coffee, it was finding a new café and walking through Central Park. Drinks were not just drinks, they were about accidentally stumbling onto a secret bar in the East Village, finding favorite spots in the neighborhood, letting a cute waiter recommend a cocktail to me even though I was perfectly capable of picking one myself.
The boyfriend and I were fighting more than usual. I was getting tired of it. We had discussed a life together, but it was slowly and surely becoming clear to me that I would resent myself for making big compromises for a person who still had a lot of growing up left to do. As New York got cold, I did too – without trying. When one particular argument got really bad, I asked for a break from the relationship. He didn’t like it.
A week later, I woke up to a girl sending me screenshots on Instagram of her conversation with him (pre me asking for a break) on a dating app, and without getting into details, I will tell you it was not a conversation anybody with a girlfriend should have been having. I should have been broken in half on the inside, but now I could finally say, without feeling guilty – this relationship was not working, nobody was happy, and you were so unhappy you thought talking to other women was okay. I spent all of one day drinking with a friend in Central Park and sobbing myself to sleep.
But mostly, what hit me after the initial shock had died down was a tsunami of relief. I felt lighter, freer. I try not to think too hard about the trauma that comes from finding out that the person you think is so devoted to you, and definitely loves you more than you love them (or so you think) is being unfaithful, because it hurts a part of me that is already very bruised from all the things that have happened to me before. So I don’t.
But it was New York. I was young and smart and there was a wine shop down the block that sold $14 bottles of Moscato. I didn’t need much else to know I would be okay. At 20, I would have jumped right back into going on dates every other night to distract myself from what had happened, then never called any of those men back. At 24, this emotional speed bump resulted in a lot of quiet introspection in my bedroom. I spent a lot of time alone, on the phone with friends, and walking around the city. I had learnt to like my own company enough to not fill a suddenly empty void with anybody else’s, even though there have been several tempting offers in this past month, and sometimes, I have succumbed to them, but mostly I am very strict with who deserves my company.
It was nice to spend that second month in New York by myself. I owed absolutely nobody a single minute of my time. No one asked me questions, or called me and expected me to share my day unless I wanted to, and once I had worked hard and cleared out the things from my to do list for the day, time stretched out before me and I had the autonomy to decide the smallest thing down to who to meet, what to eat, how much to sleep.
I didn’t let my academics and ambition suffer – no matter what happens, I never do and I never will. The grades stay up – it’s built into my system. I am back home now and just 2 days in, I find myself wishing I hadn’t left New York. I was starting to build a life I liked there, and the only price I had to pay for it was a 4 pm sunset. It would have been slightly lonely, but I like the time I spend by myself. I worked hard to become like that.
This month, I will see my friends here at home. I’ve missed them. I can’t believe I grew up in this city and I already feel so alienated from it just from 60 days of living away. Is that how badly I wanted to leave?
I might be dramatic and fly back on my 25th birthday, so that I can say, “I was on a flight,” and ignore the slowly expanding bubble of dread that comes with turning that old. I like the ambiguity of airports and I’m the sort of inherently sad person who would love to be alone and unreachable on my birthday.
I acknowledge that my problems this year have been so small in the face of those of us who have lost family members, contracted the virus, had to give up internships or had jobs taken from us, been torn away from family, or had to make it through this alone.
I feel almost guilty that good things have happened to me in a year that has predominantly been bad for almost everyone else. I feel apologetic, even though from 2017 to 2019, I was treated like life’s sick joke so I should deserve these good things that I worked hard for.
I definitely feel myself growing up, though. Emotionally I find I have a clearer idea of what I want from relationships and friendships, and I don’t second guess cutting off anybody who doesn’t serve that purpose or messes with my mental peace. I still have days when self-doubt comes over for a cup of tea, leaves me weak in the knees, but most days are free of it. I am also moving out of that chameleon phase where I mirrored what I thought a room full of new people would want from me, and I am unapologetically myself, irrespective of who’s watching.
Last year I remember wishing for something stupid, like “I wish there was somebody to kiss on New Years Eve,” because I’ve never had anybody to smack lips with when it’s midnight. This year, I don’t care. I’ll kiss myself in the mirror, for all I care. I love her. She’s my homie.
It’s been a weird year. I know who I was in 2019, and I remember wondering if I was proud of her. Things were still in purgatory then. But I steered my life and brought it back on track. This year, I am proud of myself without doubting it.
There’s no measuring scale for personal growth, but if there was, I feel at least a couple of inches taller in 2020.
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This Isn’t A Ghost Story - Chapter 3
Whouffaldi non-canon AU. 8 chapters, will be about 32,000 words when complete. Rated Mature for heavier themes starting in this chapter, please contact me privately if you’re worried about triggering topics. Clara Oswald/Twelfth Doctor. Mystery, pining and angst with a happy ending. Available on AO3 under the same username and title. Updates every Friday.
This Isn’t A Ghost Story
Chapter 3: The Journal
Clara couldn’t sleep that night. Alone in her flat, she tossed and turned in bed, the day’s events replaying on a loop in her mind. The revelation of the identity of her ghost, the family secret he had spent almost a century protecting, her uncanny resemblance to her great-grandmother, it all felt like a complicated knot she needed to untangle. Beyond everything she’d learned, there was still more her ghost refused to tell her, and the thought nagged at her, keeping her awake.
Shortly after midnight she gave up on sleep, getting up and padding down the hall to her small sitting room. Given that it was early Sunday morning, she wouldn’t have to be up for work in a scant few hours, so if she was awake anyway she might as well do something useful. She flicked on the lamp closest to the sofa and pulled over the ancient box she’d brought from her Gran’s house, positioning it at the near end of the coffee table.
Before she left, she’d managed to extract a promise from her ghost that he wouldn’t burn down the house while she was away. But she still hadn’t completely trusted him alone with the box that had caused so much upset, so she’d loaded it into her car and brought it home with her, uncertain of exactly what she intended to do with it.
It’d been obvious that he was no more comfortable with the idea of her in sole possession of the box than she was with the thought of leaving it with him. You won’t stop digging until you’ve uncovered all the gory details, he had said to her, and she knew herself well enough to admit that he was probably right. Now that she knew of the existence of this box, she could hardly just let it be.
But it was more than simply feeling entitled to her family history. There was something there, some hidden edge of the mystery that called to her, something she felt like she should know. It wasn’t just her resemblance to her great-grandmother, or her attachment to her ghost, or his unwillingness to explain the situation to her. It’s more than that, and you know it, he’d told her. Deep down, you know it. And now it’s only a matter of time until you realise...
Clara shivered a little, remembering his words, more unnerved in the silence of her flat than she’d been when he’d first said them. Whatever this was, wherever this led, she had to know.
Glancing into the box, she picked up the wedding photograph from the top of the pile of papers and leaned towards the lamplight to examine it again. It was less disconcerting than it had been earlier, now that she knew some of the context behind it, but it was still odd to see her own face in a photo taken more than ninety years ago, in the spring of 1923. Staring at it, she was struck again by the feeling of what should have been, of how fiercely she wished it was her in that photo, marrying the man she loved.
But it wasn’t her in the photo. It couldn’t possibly be her, no matter how much it looked like her and no matter how much she wished it was. Perhaps getting to know the woman depicted there, her great-grandmother and namesake, would help her shake the feeling that somewhere along the line, fate had gone horribly awry. With that thought firmly in mind, she reached into the box and began pulling items from it.
There was no sense of order to the box, but as she dug through it, Clara began to suspect that it was the contents of her great-grandmother’s writing desk, quickly and haphazardly transferred to the box, however long ago. It was a mix of correspondence and shopping lists, photographs and small pieces of memorabilia, all jumbled together, fragile with age. She took each item out one by one, sorting them into piles as she went — a stack for photos, another for letters, a third for keepsakes, and a smaller pile for the ephemera of everyday life, things she probably didn’t need to keep. She could spend tomorrow going through them in more detail, reading the letters and looking at the photos in the light of day.
At the bottom of the box she found what appeared to be a well-loved brown leather travel journal, thick with envelopes and postcards and loose leafs of paper fitted between the pages. The front was emblazoned with a globe and the words 101 Places To See. She smiled softly, running her fingertips over its dips and ridges, and thought of her own brief travels after university. When her Dad had balked at the idea of her travelling on her own, her Gran had declared it a family tradition for the women in their family to travel. Apparently it was one that went back further than Clara realised.
Curious about the sorts of travels her namesake had chosen, she leaned closer to the lamp and opened the journal to the first entry, written in the same small, looping handwriting as on the back of the wedding photo:
1 March 1921, London
I purchased this journal for my upcoming holiday, but I fear the title may be more aspirational than factual. Mother and Father have agreed to allow me a solo European tour, perhaps under the mistaken belief that giving me that much freedom will quench my thirst for more far-flung adventures. If they knew of my ambitions, they would certainly forbid me from leaving home at all. We shall see how far I can get on the stipend they have gifted me, before their disapproval catches up with me.
A family tradition indeed, Clara thought, smiling wider, and flipped ahead a few pages.
16 March 1921, Paris
Paris is lovely, if not so very different from London. It is, however, an excellent hub from which to book further travel...
The next several pages were devoted to cataloguing life in Paris in the early ‘20s, an era that had fascinated Clara during her literature studies at university. She scanned through the entries on the off-chance that her great-grandmother might have crossed paths with a famous name during her time there. Seeing none, she ran her thumb along the outer edge of the pages to jump further ahead and get an idea of where she had gone after Paris.
Of its own accord, the journal opened to a place where a small sepia photograph had been wedged between the pages, and Clara carefully prised it free to examine it closer. Though it wasn’t nearly as crisp as the wedding photo, the two figures in it were instantly identifiable as her ghost and her great-grandmother. They stood side by side, her arm slung around his back and his draped over her shoulders, smiling at the camera and squinting in bright sunlight, a desert landscape rolling away behind them. Surprised, she turned it over to find her great-grandmother’s handwriting on the back had labeled it Doctor John Smith, Thebes Egypt, 19 May 1921.
Egypt? Her curiosity piqued, Clara backtracked a few pages to try to find the context of the photo, and when exactly her ghost had first entered her great-grandmother’s life.
2 May 1921, Cairo
Egypt is enthralling, everything I had dreamed it would be. Thankfully I find I am able to stretch my budget further here than I could on the continent. I sent my last letter home from Athens, and carefully did not mention my future plans — my hope is that I can spend a few weeks here before returning to Europe via Malta and then on to Italy, and Mother and Father will never be the wiser. To that end (and to ensure I don’t run out of funds and thus be forced to resort to begging parental assistance), I have already booked passage aboard a ship departing in three weeks.
The next few days detailed her sightseeing in and around Cairo, and Clara scanned ahead until her eyes caught on an entry almost two weeks later:
14 May 1921, Cairo
I met the most fantastic and intriguing man at the museum party last night! We spoke like old friends for near an hour and a half before he was pulled away by his compatriots, and it was only after he was gone that I realised we did not so much as exchange names. At the time, names felt superfluous, secondary to my desire to know him, but this morning I find myself wishing I could put a name to the face that hasn’t left my mind these last twelve hours.
He is Scottish, an academic of some description, though his interests and expertise seem so wide ranging, I can hardly guess at what his specialty might be. His has the nose of a Roman emperor, more regal than the bust of Marcus Aurelius that lives on the shelf in my bedroom back home, but recently burnt to peeling by the hot desert sun in a way I found entirely too endearing. There is no question that he is significantly older than myself, but he carries none of the condescension I typically associate with such an age difference. He showed more than polite interest in hearing of my travels and my thoughts on all that I have seen, and in exchange told me stories of his many adventures.
He is exactly the sort of kindred spirit I have for so long dreamed of knowing, and yet I know no hard facts about him at all. I don’t suppose we will ever meet again — and isn’t that sad? To have met someone as singular as him, spent an hour and a half in one another’s company, only to be forever lost to each other in the shuffle of humanity. At least he will be a fond memory of my time in Cairo.
Gripped by this introduction to the ghost she had known all her life and the man she had never had the chance to meet, Clara turned the page and read on.
15 May 1921, Cairo
I wrote yesterday that I know no hard facts about the man I met at the museum party, but on reflection I find that isn’t entirely true. His friends called him only ‘Doctor’, though that hardly narrows down his identity, with so many educated men roaming about the country. He has lived in Egypt for several years, can read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and mentioned he was in Cairo on a brief respite from some activity in Thebes, on which he did not go into detail.
But a ‘brief respite’, by definition, should mean that he will return to Thebes, shouldn’t it? And then there is the matter of his sunburnt nose...
The on-going archaeological work at Thebes is widely known in Cairo, especially amongst those who frequent the museum. Could it be that this ‘Doctor’, this man who has not left my thoughts since Friday evening, could now be found in Thebes? I so wish to see him again, even if only to exchange our names and other such information, so that I might send him a postcard from time to time. And perhaps more, if he is agreeable.
And if he is not to be found in Thebes, at least I will have tried. I will be able to board the ship to Malta knowing that at least I tried to find him.
Despite knowing that her great-grandmother would, inevitably, cross paths again with the man who would become her husband, Clara read on without pause, enthralled by the unfolding drama.
17 May 1921, en route
I have left Cairo for Thebes, though it may well mean I will miss my ship to Malta. He has not been out of my thoughts, and I find I cannot wait any longer. I cannot talk myself out of this. And if there were anyone in a position in my life to talk me out of it, I would not let them, either. My mind is made up.
An adventure, then. To see the archaeological work at Thebes, and perhaps recognise a friendly face. I do hope his sunburn has not got any worse.
The next entry, adjacent to where the photograph had been tucked away, read simply:
19 May 1921, Thebes
His name is John, and I am besotted. I fear I may never recover.
Clara set the journal down in her lap and picked up the photo, looking again at their smiling faces. She tried to imagine it, meeting an interesting stranger and then striking out into the unknown, alone, on the hope of finding him again. Studying the picture, she could almost feel the desert sun on her face, and the giddy joy of new love. In just under two years, they would be married, but it had begun there, with a conversation in the Cairo museum and her great-grandmother’s bold decision to follow him to Thebes.
In the spring of 1921, she would have been just barely twenty-two years old, and Clara couldn’t help but wonder about the age of her ghost. He looked so unchanged in the photographs she had seen, the length of his salt and pepper hair the only thing that indicated any passage of time. He had always been ageless to her, but her namesake had commented on the age difference, and as she neared twenty-eight herself, Clara had to admit that he still looked significantly older than her. In his forties, easily, perhaps fifties. He’d told her that if she dug into the paperwork she would find him there, and she decided to look into it in the morning, see what information could be gleaned from genealogical websites and the like, since he’d always shown such unwillingness to answer any sort of personal question.
She turned back to the journal, curious where their story had gone in the two years between meeting and marrying. The next section was filled to bulging with postcards and envelopes tucked between the pages — a period of extensive correspondence, clearly. Clara hesitated. Reading her great-grandmother’s travel journal was one thing, but in the current moment, alone in the post-midnight silence of her flat, she wasn’t sure she could bear to read the letters her ghost had written to his future wife as they fell in love. Instead, she flipped through quickly until she reached the last of the postcards, and then read the first journal entry that followed it.
4 March 1923, London
He is in Glasgow! After all these months of correspondence, of knowing my true feelings but being unwilling to divulge them via the impersonal medium of paper, the Doctor is no more than a train ride away. And yet after the fiasco of my extended stay in Egypt in ‘21, I cannot imagine that Mother and Father will react well to my desire to go to Scotland to see him.
His postcard did not say how long he plans to be in Glasgow, only that letters sent to the university there might reach him faster than if sent via the normal address. I worry that he will be this close by for only a short time. With all the news out of the Valley of the Kings these last few months, I don’t expect he will stay in dreary old Scotland for long.
I’m afraid that if I don’t seize this opportunity, I will never get another chance to tell him of my feelings for him in person. I worry that if I ask to go, Mother and Father will not permit it, and that if I take the initiative and go without asking, they will never forgive me.
And I am afraid that the Doctor does not love me as I love him, that he won’t be able to see past the differences in our ages to all that we could be, the life that we could build together. I worry that in running off to see him, I will destroy not only my relationship with my parents, but also my friendship with him.
What fear should I let rule me? Which worry is the most likely to be true?
No.
Instead, better questions: How will I live with myself if I let myself be ruled by fear? If I do not live by the truth of my heart, how can I live at all?
I will follow him to Glasgow, as I followed him to Thebes. Let me be brave. Let the fates do as they will.
The next entry was written a few days later, detailing her clandestine departure from home and the long train journey from London to Glasgow, peppered with her simmering fears at how her unannounced arrival would be greeted by the Doctor. Her worry and her longing were palpable, and Clara felt an odd sort of kinship with this woman, her great-grandmother and namesake, as she abandoned everything in her life on the chance to be with the man she loved. She had never done anything like it herself — she had never felt that strongly about anyone, besides her ghost — but somehow it felt like something she would do.
She turned the page, looking for their reunion, but found that the next entry was dated weeks later.
28 March 1923, Glasgow
The days have been too full and too happy to find a scrap of time to add my thoughts here, so in short: one of my fears was unfounded, the other not.
The Doctor loves me as I love him. It is the truth that will chart the course of our lives together, from now until the stars all burn from the sky.
And Mother and Father will never forgive me.
The pages that followed were filled with hastily jotted down notes, interspersed with little keepsakes: a visitor’s guide to the Kelvingrove art museum, a program from an orchestral performance, a short love letter scrawled on university stationary in handwriting Clara had to assume belonged to her ghost. She folded that one back up without reading it, then skipped ahead to the date on the back of the wedding photo and found that her great-grandmother had written:
12 May 1923, Glasgow
Tomorrow we will make our farewells to Scotland and start the long journey south to Egypt, but today marks the beginning of a different and far greater adventure: marriage!
It will be a very small wedding, with only a few of the Doctor’s friends and cousins in attendance, but I find I do not care. I get to keep him, and any other concerns fade out of existence in the blinding light of that fact.
Tomorrow will also be two years since our first meeting in Cairo, and I am looking forward to revisiting the scene of that fateful interaction, this time as a married woman. How wonderful it is to have not lost that intriguing stranger to the shuffle of humanity, after all.
The journal shifted in tone after that, chronicling their journey from Glasgow to Cairo and the beginnings of their life together in Egypt, as the Doctor returned to his archaeological work in the field. In the summer of ‘23, her great-grandmother decided to take up drawing, and many of the pages that followed were filled with pencil sketches of the monuments of Egypt, the series of small homes they lived in, and the familiar face of her ghost, growing ever more accurate as her skill improved.
Clara thought of her own childhood habit of sketching his face on any blank corner of paper she could find, and wondered how they might compare. Her great-grandmother’s drawings were occasionally dated, and by the spring of 1925, the journal shifted back to being more of a travelogue again, though the entries were more sparse than they had been before, and sketches continued to fill the margins.
15 June 1925, London
Even in the height of summer, London feels grim and drab after two years in Egypt. When I said as much, the Doctor merely laughed and pointed out that it could be worse: it could be Glasgow. He has spent so many years now, off and on, living in Egypt, moving from dig site to dig site as the work demands, and I think he is ready for a more settled existence for a while. The position at the British Museum suits him well, and will provide us with a more stable foundation on which to build our life — and as much as I enjoyed our transient circumstances in Egypt, there is a certain allure to building something lasting together. A new sort of adventure.
I had hoped that with our return to London, and after two years of marriage, Mother and Father might have found a way to forgive me, but it seems that door is forever closed. I am determined to focus on the future instead, and on the family the Doctor and I mean to create together.
Reading that, Clara felt a pang of heartsickness for this woman she had never known. She had been close with both of her parents before their deaths, and was grateful to have had that time with them. She couldn’t imagine her parents being so angry with her that they would shut her out of their lives, but scanning ahead, she didn’t see any indication that her namesake’s parents had ever relented. Instead, the journal dealt with the process of settling back into life in London, and her great-grandmother’s dreams for the future, with small sketches peppering the edges of each page.
As she turned the pages, Clara’s eyes caught on the rare use of colour in one of her drawings, and with a surprised blink she realised she recognised it as the stained glass window over the front door of her Gran’s house. The journal entry beside the drawing read:
1 August 1925, London
The House, as I have determined it must always be called, is a ridiculous rambling Victorian thing, all gabled roofs and ornate woodwork and stained glass windows, such as the one I have drawn here. It is entirely too large for the two of us, but it was love at first sight for both the Doctor and myself, and no house we have considered since has compared. At least there will be enough room for our ever-growing legion of books. And there are several bedrooms — perhaps it is too ambitious of me to imagine them someday filled, but despite all our failed efforts, I remain hopeful.
Having dealt so closely with her Gran’s personal details the last few weeks, Clara knew that she would be born barely three years later, in late August of 1928. Her great-grandmother died only a few months after that, and it felt strange to read of her hopes for a large family, knowing it didn’t happen in the end. Through reading her journal, it had become clear to Clara that they were alike in many ways, but on that one point they couldn’t be more different. She enjoyed children, she wouldn’t have become a teacher if she didn’t, but she’d never felt drawn to motherhood. She was almost the same age as her namesake had been when her Gran was born, and she couldn’t imagine having a baby now, much less hoping for multiple children.
Of course, she wondered if she might feel differently if she’d had the sort of fairy tale romance her great-grandmother had had. Starting a family with someone she loved felt a lot less abstract than the vague idea of having a baby. Maybe that was the difference. She could certainly understand her great-grandmother wanting children with the Doctor—
At that thought, it all came back to her in a rush, everything her ghost had revealed that afternoon, the truth of her Gran’s parentage — and with it, one of the few facts about him that she’d managed to wring out of him as a child. With dread turning her stomach, Clara quickly flipped ahead to the autumn of 1927, scanning the journal entries for any indication, any clue. There was a brief note in early November about plans for Christmas, but then nothing until:
1 December 1927
He is gone. He is gone, and I will never, ever recover.
The bruises may heal, but I will not.
Tears sprung to Clara’s eyes, but she blinked them away, reading on.
8 December 1927
Is it the House that is haunted, or me?
She stared at the words, knowing that almost eighty-seven years later, the house was very much haunted. She turned the page, feeling the tears begin to roll down her face.
12 December 1927
Perhaps it is only my mind playing tricks on me, but perhaps it is something more. Perhaps there is some magic that ties us together even now. I live in hope — for what other way is there to live, now?
The following pages were full of nothing but undated sketches of the Doctor, looking exactly as Clara knew him. I made that promise to the only person I’ve spoken to since my death. The only one who could ever see me, her ghost had told her, not twelve hours earlier. Gripped with the need to know, she turned the journal pages quickly, looking for her great-grandmother’s familiar handwriting amongst all the drawings of her ghost, until finally:
3 February 1928
I have counted out the days and counted them again. My memory of last November is far from clear, but there is no mistake in this: I am with child. And this is no parting gift, no consolation prize from the universe, only one more tragedy to heap onto the pile. This baby will not have the Doctor’s eyes or his smile or his laugh. This baby—
How am I to endure this? Alone in the House we had hoped to fill, how can I possibly find the strength to face what is to come?
I continue to dream of him, to have visions, even. Some days I fear I have gone mad with the grief, but other days, those visions are my only comfort, those dreams my only reprieve from the nightmares that plague me. Something in my heart refuses to believe that the Doctor is truly gone. Something compels me to speak to him, and hope that he will, somehow, impossible though it may be, hear me and respond.
And then:
8 February 1928
They are not visions, and I am not mad.
But more importantly — I am no longer alone.
Clara set down the journal, taking a moment to swipe at the tears on her face. She had known, deep down she had known that she would find only pain at the end of this story, and yet she hadn’t been able to stop herself. I know you won’t stop digging until you’ve uncovered all the gory details, he’d said to her, and he’d been right, of course he’d been right. Her ghost had tried to protect her from this, but she had charged ahead anyway, disregarding his warnings.
And that edge of the mystery still called to her, the unanswered questions still nagged at her. However much it hurt, she had to know. Picking up the journal again, she skipped ahead, flipping pages until she reached her Gran’s birthday.
21 August 1928
It is a girl. I have named her Margaret Eleanor, as we so long discussed. Our little Margot. None of this is her fault, and I do not love her less for it. I only wish I could love her more. I wish my heart were still capable of it. I wish I could have greeted her arrival with the joy she deserves. I wish I didn’t have to welcome her into the world alone.
The more days pass, the more I am convinced the Doctor meant what he said as a final goodbye. The last six months with him have revived me in a way I didn’t think possible, and to have that ripped away, to once again be facing the prospect of a future without him—
‘You are stronger than you know,’ he told me, and I wish I could believe it.
Even more, I wish he was still here. In whatever form, I wish he was here. Perhaps in time I will see him again. I must hold to that hope, for it is the last one I have.
The journal entries stopped after that, and again the pages were filled with sketches: a round-faced newborn with wispy hair, bits of the house that Clara recognised easily, and the Doctor, always the Doctor.
Turning the pages quickly, she came across one last entry in the journal, the following pages all blank. Her great-grandmother’s familiar handwriting was no longer small, neat loops, but instead scrawled wide with anguish, and Clara felt her heart skip a beat at the date at the top of the page.
23 November 1928
Where have you gone, my love? Why have you left me?
I suppose I cannot fault the dead for not keeping their promises. You did not choose this fate for us, and I do not blame you for it. I only wish it could have been different. I wish that we had a second chance at life, a second chance to build for ourselves everything we dreamed our life together could be.
I cannot live like this. I will not.
I will follow you, my love, wherever it is that you have gone. Wherever you are now, I will find you. As I followed you to Thebes and to Glasgow, I will follow you now.
I will see you again.
Wait for me.
Clara stared in horror at the final words on the page. Seized with a sudden nauseous dread, she dropped the journal on the coffee table and bolted up from the sofa, lurching towards her laptop on the desk across the room. Her hands trembled as she pulled up a search page, pouring out every scrap of relevant family information she could think of, ending with 23 November 1928 suicide.
The internet, that modern wonder, took only moments to confirm her fears. Tears filled her eyes again, blurring the screen in front of her, but she fumbled her way through printing the eighty-six year old coroner's report. She snatched up the paper still warm, jammed her feet into her trainers and pulled on a coat, grabbed her keys and her purse, and was out the door before she could change her mind.
--
Chapter 4: The Past
#Whouffaldi#Twelve/Clara#Clara Oswald/Twelfth Doctor#Twelfth Doctor#Clara Oswald#Clara and the Doctor#Doctor Who#Doctor Who fanfic#This Isn't A Ghost Story#This Isn't A Ghost Story chapters#my writing#available on AO3 under the same title and username#please comment and reblog!
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6, 16, 27 for.... whichever detective has the best answer! - adamsdimples
aaaaaaaahhhhh i am the absolute worst at choosing. i might just give you all of them.
thank you for the ask, though! i love your choice of questions! ❤️
answering questions for Super-detailed Questions about my OCs!
6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?
Mona was a nerd in school - something akin to a teachers’ pet, maybe? that’s mostly got to do with her seeking approval from any parental figure in her life. clearly, her mother’s absence affected her more than she cares to acknowledge. her familiarity with school as a result of Rebecca’s absence made her, rather oddly, enjoy her time there. education is something she places a lot of value in and that’s why she went on to complete her graduation in college, majoring in criminology with a minor in literature. it made sense to her, given that she has always loved languages and has command of a bunch of ‘em. naturally, her favourite subjects were the language classes she took. and maybe physics, though she despised maths like it had personally wronged her (which it might’ve. kinda).
Dinah was one of those kids in school that put the least amount of effort in whatever they did but were really good at things in general. she was also fairly popular; she knew a lot of people in school, given the number of clubs she was part of. her involvement in so many school activities kept her occupied for most of the day but she had fun doing it, no complaints. her favourite subject's got to be social studies. but that's also because she was really fond of the teachers who taught her. she hated physics, though; every bit of it. she couldn't explain why but she just did. Dinah wanted to be a psychologist, so she aimed at majoring in psychology. and she gave her all to get there, though she fell short. her third year in college got particularly overwhelming, to the point that she saw no way out other than dropping out. so she did.
Nimah was an extremely studious kid, very thorough about whatever she did; y'know, the kind you see hunched on a seat in the first row, furiously taking notes. all her notes were exceptionally organised. also, unlike Mona, she never did anything to gain anyone's approval (and ironically, she finds herself stuck with that image now); she found an odd sense of comfort in her academics. so she did enjoy at least that part of her school experience. she didn't particularly like the rest of it, though. she really enjoyed studying Science – especially, chemistry and biology – and still keeps her knowledge updated. Nimah surprised everyone by choosing not to go to college, though. she volunteered, instead. that's where she developed this sense of community with the people at Wayhaven and took that spirit further by joining the force.
Arzoo wasn't exactly social. she found people (still does, to an extent) to be kinda draining, though she liked to help them whenever she could. she'd be the kind of child that you know likes to be by themself but wouldn't hesitate when someone needed help. she didn't like school a bunch and was pretty average in academics, though she loved maths, and was really good at art. she took Rook's death the hardest – though she didn't know him much – and was kind of set with the idea of getting into her father's shoes when she grew up. so she went ahead and got herself a degree in criminal justice before working her way through to join the force.
16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it?
Mona has this kinda weird habit of collecting recipes. she has a keen eye for cultural knowledge and loves to understand the culture of any new place through not just the languages (and dialects) spoken, but also from the food eaten by people there. she may not necessarily cook every recipe she has collected but she has journals filled with them that she keeps around in her kitchen.
Dinah, for a while in college, used to collect pretty flowers she spotted around and would press them by placing them in her old books. it went out of practice over the years, but she still finds a pressed flower somewhere in a few of her books once in a while. maybe she'll find the time and motivation to find them all and put them in one place, someday.
Nimah doesn't collect things anymore but she used to have a small – albeit colourful (and hidden) – collection of bugs as a child that went unnoticed for a very long time. that was until one of her nannies found it and she had to bid goodbye to all her colourful (and dead, yikes) buddies. all of them received a collective "sending off party", with her and the nanny being the only attendees, but that's okay. [that explains her love for biology, huh.]
Arzoo has always been deeply fascinated by oddly shaped rocks and pebbles; she just cannot explain why. as a child, she would bring home these rocks and pebbles, wash and dry them, and paint on them whenever she found time. this is a hobby she continues to maintain, though she doesn't get to paint on them as often as she'd like to now.
27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like when they are sad?
Mona is quite empathetic, and anything that makes someone around her sad tends to make her sad too. but she doesn't let her sadness translate to tears, not often. instead, she tends to carry the sadness in the back of her mind, buried deep somewhere. the more personal the sadness feels, the deeper it usually is situated. she tends to distract herself by cooking or planning a meal, if she has the luxury to do that. if not, she brings herself to a zen-er self by stepping back and taking a few deep breaths before continuing to go about her business. when she does cry, though, it's mostly when she finds herself alone. so she's no stranger to the practice of crying in the shower.
Dinah is not easily shaken or pulled into a state where sadness becomes a mood rather a passing feeling. but sadness of near and dear ones does affect her personally. well, that and if Adam continues to be, well, Adam about their relationship, then that too. Dinah is a crier and she'll do it pretty openly, if the situation she is in doesn't demand the contrary. she is the kind of person who would cry it out whenever they can. that, with a bucket of ice-cream, and that'll be it.
witnessing or experiencing loss of any kind make Nimah sad the most, though she may not openly express it. she feels the need to remain objective and practical in the company of people, so she feels pain and sadness very privately. she'll definitely try to put up a front when experiencing sadness in public. when she's sure she's alone, though, she lets go and cries if she feels the need to.
Arzoo is still a little hung up on the loss of her father. she somehow never seemed to fully move past that. that is something that still weighs her down a bit. it's one of the few things she allows herself to cry about. sadness of that kind causes her to withdraw almost completely. she tries to continue functioning but she usually does just the bare minimum, though she'll never neglect her duties.
#this is such a long post omg i'm sorry 🙈#i just cannot choose among the detectives#twc#ask game#twc detective#mona batra#dinah fernandes#nimah sen#arzoo shafri#mutual asks#adamsdimples#OC questions#queue
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Favorite Books of 2019
Half of this list is Terry Pratchett. That’s not hyperbole.
20. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Everyone adores this book, and while I certainly loved it, I think it may have been a bit overhyped for me. But this was the first Discworld book I read where I remember finding it heartbreaking--not just angry at injustice, but angry at the tragedy of injustice.
19. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett writing a well-developed romantic arc?? It’s more likely than you think! I am also a sucker for philosophical questions like “What is The Truth?”
18. Small Gods, TP
I think chronologically, this is the first blisteringly angry Discworld book, where you suddenly realize how much fury is pent up in the satire. There’s a lot of futility and frustration in this story, but the ending is so simple and quiet and good.
17. Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers
I find Chambers novels to be more like leisurely explorations than novels with a driving plot, and I could have happily explored this culture for days. Again, I’m a sucker for philosophical questions: What is the meaning of death? What purpose does culture serve even when it’s no longer practical? What makes a human society work?
16. In an Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire
I love this book’s style of focusing on small moments, and putting all the battles, quests, and conventional milestones of growing up off the page. This is a brutal read, but the brutality is in the terrible, everyday choices Lundy’s forced to make.
15. Monstrous Regiment, TP
Come for the cross-dressing, stay for the social commentary on war, nationalism, religion, and being an underdog of any stripe. Gender is bonus window-dressing.
14. The Wee Free Men, TP
I’ve realized that I love Pterry’s approach to kids’ books because he spends them deconstructing tropes, even the tropes of deconstructing tropes. Tiffany Aching is incisive and bookish, but also hard and selfish, and also sensible, and also strange...she’s like a real kid! A real person!
13. I Shall Wear Midnight, TP
Later-Pratchett often dispenses with the satire and goes straight for righteously angry social commentary, and this book packs a wallop. Stand your ground! “...change the present, so that when it becomes the past, it will turn out to be a past worth having!”
12. The Library Book, Susan Orlean
"Makes history come alive” is a cliche, but so true in this case. Even at its most drily factual, the book is gripping as it explore the rollicking past of American libraries and westward expansion, with some gorgeously poetic homages to stories and fire.
11. Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
If you’ve only watched the movie, which predictably focus on big, theatre-packing action sequences, I encourage you to read the books. They tell the story of ordinary people going through unimaginable horror, but also a delightful, bittersweet tale of undying friendship. [They’re also very racist. Tolkien, why.]
10. Jingo, TP
And this was the Discworld book where I felt like he really started to develop his characters as people. Almost a year later, my most vivid memory is of the hilarious friendship between Colon and Nobby.
9. Unseen Academicals, TP
Worth!! This book is brimming more of that glorious, cold, barely contained fury, and even though it’s not Pterry’s strongest writing, I adore it. Nutt and Glenda work together so well and make a perfect pair of unlikely badasses.
8. Going Postal, TP
My note for this book says “Moist is an inspiration and a riot,” and although I don’t remember why I found him inspiring, he is definitely a riot. Or maybe cleverly orchestrating one from behind the scenes.
7. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson
This is a pretentious book about ideas. It’s dense, intellectual, packed full of high-brow culture, and honestly, sometimes kind of annoying. But the writing and the story are so rich, and her interpretation of queer motherhood is so original, that it’s almost impossible to put down. I’m also in love with language that talks about the impossibility of language.
6. Thud!, TP
One of the things I love about Discworld is that it’s never easy. There’s none of this Shining White Warrior defeating the Evil Dark nonsense, just Sam Vimes, reading Where’s My Cow?, becoming more jaded and more determined to be a good man at the same time.
5. The Fifth Elephant, TP
I’ll be honest that I read this book almost a full year ago and don’t remember the nuances of why I loved it, but it was the first Discworld book that blew my mind. It made me jump around my room; it made me want to reread it immediately; it made me stay up until 1AM having passionate opinions about a man named Carrot.
4. Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe
This was probably my most anticipated book of the year, and it more than lived up to the expectation. I’ve been reading Maia’s comics for years, and they’re beautiful reflections on nonbinary experiences (and often on books, nature, and activism as well). I read eir memoir twice in two weeks, each time in one sitting, and it did make me cry.
3. Caroline’s Heart, Austin Chant
I am determined to make “Trans Western” an actual genre, and this is the jewel in the crown of the books I’ve read so far. It’s a gentle love story between a witch and a cowboy that’s also a devastating tale of grief, with excitingly original world-building. If you’ve never read Austin Chant, I encourage you to give him a try--he’s a wonderful writer.
2. Days Without End, Sebastian Barry
Days Without End is a good book to read when you’re Sad. The entire book feels like a slow, quiet elegy to some forgotten idyllic time, but who can say when that time was? The Wild West is full of cold, dirty, violent death, starvation, genocide, loneliness. There’s nothing to romanticize here, and yet somehow Barry has written an impossibly R/romantic book. Every sentence is slow, quiet, and poetic. Every moment, however horrific, feels like it’s drifting slowly through a strong spell of sunlight. I could try and describe the dreamy horror of this book for days and never come close to capturing what it does.
1. In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado
Everyone is raving about this book, and there’s a reason for that: it’s GENIUS. The structure of the book is genre-busting (or maybe genre deconstructing would be more accurate), and the writing is like poetry in that every word feels so deliberate and loaded with meaning. I took three pages of notes as I read and I’m not sure it was enough.
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Don’t Go Alone
I’ve been thinking about Ecclesiastes recently. Yes, the “Vanities of vanities, all is vanity” and “there is nothing new under the sun” Ecclesiastes. Pretty much the most nihilistic book in the entire Bible, even though it tries to redeem itself in the end by saying that obeying God and keeping His commandments is “the entire duty of man.”
There are a lot of interesting concepts presented in the book, though. I will go ahead and quote some passages here from the 4th chapter (emphasis added by me).
Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun:
There is one alone, without companion: He has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But he never asks, "For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?" This also is vanity and a grave misfortune.
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:7-12)
While it is true that you remain the person primarily responsible for your own life, that self-love is important, and that when it comes down to the quality of your life, your choices matter the most, there is a reason why human beings have a general tendency towards forming groups. Human babies who were deprived of human touch can experience poor health outcomes and even death. Even if many of us need far less interaction than others (i.e. introverts), we still need to bond and connect with other human beings on some level.
We live in a highly individualistic society that is ruled by capitalism. Profit—and by extension, individual productivity—is prized above all else. This fosters a spirit of unhealthy competition that can often drive a wedge between us and our peers. Our worth is based on our physical, academic, or corporate achievement. We are expected to sacrifice our health, time, and current desires in order to one day earn the right to lead our own lives. This right—known for many years as “retirement”— has grown further and further out of reach for most Americans. This isn’t that one bicycle-riding-electricity-generating episode of Black Mirror, but sometimes it really feels like it.
What I am starting to realize, is that without a sense of togetherness and belonging—regardless of whether it is experienced in a small community or a big one— life quickly begins to lose its luster. It’s great to keep yourself as no. 1, but in the end, we all need to depend on others for support. It doesn’t matter if that support is financial, emotional, or physical.
Also, let’s talk about the Happiness dilemma. It feels like the more your try to pursue things that make you happy, the more elusive happiness becomes. Mark Manson discusses this at length in “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”. He came to the conclusion that Happiness is not something that you “arrive” at through achievement or by acquiring a predetermined number of things or a specific assortment of relationships, but rather happiness is in the small moments. You feel happy when you are having ice cream with your kids, feel the wind on your face in autumn, or you’re allowed to leave work early. It isn’t a destination that can be reached through pure effort. It comes effortlessly. You just have to enjoy it while it is there and then be prepared to move on from it. It is temporary and fleeting, but it is tangible. You know it when you feel it.
Learning to recognize and embrace the joy in small moments helps make the long stretches of sadness and mediocrity more bearable. When I look back at my own life, I see how many of those moments were shared with other people. I remember my brothers and I making dumb jokes out of serious movie quotes, playing video games with my sisters, family movie nights, etc. My childhood was far from ideal, but, if I look back there are still joyful things to remember. There are highlights. Getting my first drivers’ license, passing the GED, and so on; these were things that would’ve been much harder without the support of my parents.
We live in an imperfect world with imperfect people. Until we can learn to accept the imperfections in others—and in ourselves—we may find ourselves feeling incredibly isolated from other people.
Even as I emphasize the importance of human relationships, I am aware that throughout history there have been those who have sought to isolate themselves for others for religious or spiritual reasons. Even many of these people, however, still interacted with other humans on some level. In fact, I would almost venture to say that the stereotypical view of hermits who stayed in caves and did not interact with anyone else for the remainder of their lives, is somewhat of a mythological concept. Even the most strictly disciplined monks and nuns of varying religions still form groups or look to the outside world for support. Their stories demonstrate to us that even when we are deprived of most of the material pleasures of life, we can still find meaning through sharing a spiritual practice with others.
As an atheist—who is also wrestling with whether or not to have a spiritual practice—I have found myself feeling incredibly othered by my peers. While around 22.8% of the U.S. is “religiously unaffiliated”, only 3% of that group call themselves atheists, with another 4% claiming agnosticism. The world as a whole is only 16% “nones” (religiously non-affiliated) with an unknown—but lower—number being full atheists (Stats from “Irreligion in the United States” and “Demographics of Atheism” on Wikipedia). I am already in a very small minority, but it is further complicated by the fact that my atheism still involves some belief in unseen forces (e.g. chi or some other inexplicable life-giving force in the universe).
My saving grace is being able to absorb some atheist content on YouTube, talking to atheist and agnostic friends and family members, and the increasing openness of [some] religious people to at least consider the concept of a world without God. Sadly, though, I haven’t been able to find a community as wide as the community I had when I was an actively practicing Evangelical Christian. I am, however, learning to compromise and practice gratitude for the equally strong—albeit smaller—community that I have now. I have people in my life who love, accept, and support me, and every single one of them matters to me.
A lot of people find their community online. There are people in fandom communities, online gaming communities, etc., who have found lifelong friends and even spouses by participating in online communities. Hell, I found some of my closest friends—two of whom I am still in touch with—on sites like Fanfiction.net, Fictionpess.com, and Gaia Online. Yes, it was years ago, and yes, those sites aren’t what they used to be, but without those friends I would not have made it through my teenage years.
Your communities can form around literally anything—games, knitting, quilting, coffee, whatever. You just need to go out there and find your tribe. You may even have an online tribe already, and while there is no substitute for face-to-face conversation, your tribe is valid.
Anything that gets you outside of yourself—as long as it isn’t hurting anyone—is good. While having people physically near you is ideal, sometimes just having them be a part of your day remotely is a big help. My best friend and I live thousands of miles apart, but something as simple as being able to text him a screenshot of something I think is funny or rolling my eyes when he sends another YouTube video to me in the middle of the day, really makes my day much easier. Same goes for going with my family’s group chat; we post some pretty cringey memes on there and it’s life.
Look into yourself and see how you feel when you’re participating with others. If you’re happy, that’s good. If there’s another emotion going on there, it may be something to look at. You may not be receiving the support you really need.
P.S. If you’re tired of living alone, but you don’t know anyone who you can move with, there are still options for you. Lots of millennials have been moving into rooms that are rented out by older homeowners, and while this sounds like a net loss, the relationships that form in these kinds of situations can be beneficial. The millennial has an affordable place to live and someone to share meals with, and the senior has someone to help with chores and keep them company.
Also, more and more cohousing communities are popping up throughout the country. They allow families to live together in a close-knit community. There are also other communal living situations in which one rather large home is rented out room by room. Each person has their own bedroom and shares bathrooms with a limited number of fellow housemates, but the living areas and kitchen are shared by everyone. These “non-college dorms” allow people to support each other socially and financially and live together affordably.
Of course, safety first! Do your due diligence and make sure that the place you are moving to is safe and that your rights are being respected.
Happy hunting!
#loneliness#building a community#fighting loneliness#the importance of human connection#individualistic society#getting to know people#finding your tribe#dealing with isolation#moving outside your comfort zone#living with other people#cohousing#communal living#capitalism#anti-capitalist#Living with Depression#online communities#AngieSpeaks
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Is Traveling Really Therapeutic?
For those of you who haven’t followed my social media this year (I really apologize for how showy I can be on Facebook), 2019 has been a really powerful year of my life.
In the first week of January, I took a weekend trip to Toronto with two of my best friends. We did everything from the driving to the hotel booking to the meal planning. It was intense and so, so much fun. Over my spring break, my dad and I took a week trip out to California, Nevada, and Arizona. We started in Vegas, worked our way the entire way through Death Valley into the Sierras, and back down to Willow Beach. In the span of four days, I fell in love with the Sierras, Joshua Tree, and flying in planes. It was right before this trip ended that I received an email, lying in bed as the sun poked through my window shades, that I had earned an internship in Edgewater, Maryland, with the Smithsonian. Directly after spring break ended, I headed back to school where I remained until May 16th. Over Memorial Day weekend, I moved down to Maryland, where I lived until August 2nd. Two weeks later, I hopped on a plane to move to Amsterdam for study abroad, where I currently sit writing this post.
If you aren’t a seasoned traveler or you don’t have excessive wanderlust, your head is probably spinning from reading that paragraph. I don’t blame you, because my head spun while I wrote it.
There have been summers of my life where I was barely home at all, usually because of a lengthy field trip in June and then vacations in July and August. Yet, this has been the first year of my life where I have truly been everywhere, up and down, side to side. Every minute of every day. Every month had a new place, a new adventure.
I’ve been in Amsterdam almost a full month now (more on this later). Yet, I’m still having the moments where I leave class or get off the tram or open my curtains in the morning and think holy shit, I live here. This city is one I’ve dreamt about visiting for my entire life. Nothing is more striking than walking down a narrow, brick street in Amsterdam West and realizing you’ve seen a picture of it in National Geographic.
I grew up watching Bindi Irwin, Malala Yousufzai, Malia Obama. These young women are all my age, women who started globetrotting before they started high school. Their shows, books, and photos have instilled in me dreams of journalism in the Middle East, making a difference in the animal kingdom, and kickstarting campaigns that work toward reducing sexual stigmas against women. If the amount of traveling and adventure I’ve had in 2019 had taught me anything, it taught me, finally, that the world is big, but I am bigger, and I can do the things I want to do.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how “The Year Quinn Goes Everywhere” ended up being the last year of this decade. In 2010, I was an annoying, awkward, anxiety-riddled fifth grader who had no idea where I stood in the world. In one single decade of the 2010’s, I battled middle school, high school, and over two years of college. I flew threw my teenage years directly into my early twenties where I am now. I changed a lot, in so many ways. Quite honestly, if I had a time machine, I might use it to return to that 2010 Quinn and show her what she’d turn into by 2020. That said, I’m not sure she’d believe me.
This rambling brings me to the purpose of this blog post: is traveling as educating and therapeutic as we are led to believe?
My first year of college, I didn’t do very much outside of academics. Multiple things were occurring in my life that I disliked strongly but didn’t have the courage to end because I didn’t think I could. This last year, a few major changes happened in my life that for once, I welcomed with open arms. Then the spring semester happened. My social life was awesome, and my grades stayed mostly decent, but I felt drained from the life changes and my mental health dipped a little. Not a lot, but enough to feel disappointed in myself. For about a month, (this is my first time admitting this), I strongly considered dropping out of college, not sure if I had what it took to keep going. I told myself to finish what I’d started, to prove to the world that average kids like me could still make something of themselves. I suppose, ultimately, I realized I needed to keep going because 2010 Quinn had kept going, and she’d made it. If I kept going, I would make it, even if it was a difficult journey.
A love of travel is something I think I love, partly, because it runs through my family’s blood. On my father’s side of the family, there are seven cousins. I am the youngest, and my oldest cousin is roughly eight years older than me. Between all of us, we’ve lived in different countries throughout Europe, South America, and North America. Between the cousins and the parents and the grandfather, the 16 of us or so have covered every continent on Earth, dozens of countries, and so, so many cultures. If I didn’t have excessive wanderlust, I’d be kicked out of my family.
I know I’ll get backlash for saying this, but I do not like the way our current governmental administration looks at the rest of the world. I don’t like “America First” or “Make America Great Again”. I dislike these phrases because they isolate us. They prohibit us from the ability to walk a mile in another’s shoes. They imply that we used to be something fantastic and then we weren’t, for a long time. Our administration tells migrants and refugees they are not welcome here or they should go home, when in fact our country is founded upon immigrants and the work, they do to keep themselves alive. It’s occurred to me several times that our administration focuses on these phrases because they have never worried about anything, or anyone, else but themselves.
This, my friend, is where traveling comes in. Just by visiting Toronto, Death Valley, and Amsterdam, I’ve seen ways of life that are entirely different from my own. There are differences in safety measures, environmental protection, and the way homeless people will react to your presence. Differences in grocery stores, the way people hold doors open, and food preparation. Mind-blowing little things you could possibly only notice if you travel to these different places.
In some ways, 2019 has been one giant therapy session for me so far. I’ve learned (thus far) how independent I can be—how well I can take care of myself when nobody else can do it for me. I’ve looked some of my greatest fears (more on these later) in the face and told them to fuck off. Traveling forces you to leave your comfort zone. It forces you to expose the raw parts of you to the literal, worldwide public audience that watches you navigate an airport or a new city.
I’ve cried a lot this year, sometimes from sadness and sometimes from being so happy I cannot contain it all. I’ve smiled so much that I think any wrinkles I started developing have dissipated. Until this year, when I started going on so many trips, I never realized how trapped I feel in my hometown. Of course, I love going home for a few weeks at a time, specifically during the holidays. Yet, whenever I return to the town I grew up in and I drive past my high school, I feel myself reverting back to who I was as a teenager. The overly introverted, shy kid who doesn’t know where she’s going. I don’t dislike this version of myself, but I’m still glad she’s gone, and I never want to return to her.
At the end of this year, I think I’m going to get to look back at my adventures and realize how much I’ve changed. Or at least, I hope so. I feel refreshed and new, and hopefully I’ll give off similar vibes when I come home in a few months. And, I’ll get to answer once and for all if this year was as therapeutic as it currently feels.
Mostly, I hope that somewhere out in space, wherever that fifth grade, 2010 Quinn is, that she can deem herself proud of me. I’m obscenely proud of her, and somehow, I think she knows that.
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Writing Masterlist
All of my writing is available on AO3, but I’ve put together a masterlist of all my work so far for everyone who gets their fic fill on tumblr and will keep it updated! Keep your eyes peeled for new fics on the regular <3
⭐️= indicates my personal faves
If you’re looking for smut, you need to head to my smut masterlist on my nsfw blog!
Current Fic Count: 30
Aaron x Spencer
⭐️turns out that I need you now (much more than you need me)
Spencer is suffering in silence and it’s only made worse when the team messes up and makes him feel even more hurt and insecure. When Hotch goes to check on him, though, things start to look up.
3.5k, angst, hurt/comfort, protective hotch, happy ending
⭐️Vivaldi on Full Volume
Spencer’s done enough pining, so he decides to write a letter for Aaron telling him exactly how he feels and gives it to him on the jet. He cannot be held responsible for what happens when they land.
5.2k, fluff, love confessions, shy spencer, insecurity
Living the Same Lie
Aaron breaks up with Spencer, but when an attempt to move on goes horribly wrong they get a second chance.
5k, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, fluff, breaking up and making up, implied/mentioned physical assault, implied/mentioned sexual assault
East Coast
Spencer and Aaron happen to sit opposite one another on a busy train, and when Spencer spots a breakthrough in the legal case Aaron is stuck on, they strike up an innocuous conversation that quickly stirs up feelings.
2.1k, fluff, meet-cute, train carriage au, lawyer!aaron, academic!spencer, shy spencer, firsts
All Roads Lead Home
Spencer’s working the Christmas Eve shift when a young boy with a hurt arm comes into the ER. Nothing out of the ordinary, except his rather flirty dad and leaving later with an extra phone number in his contacts list…
2.1k, fluff, hospital au, getting together, first date, gentleman!aaron, soft spencer
To Look on Tempests and Not Be Shaken
In the wake of a blazing row and an empty apartment, Aaron finds Spencer’s well-thumbed copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets and recalls the morning after their wedding, when Spencer sat on his lap and read Sonnet 116 to him. Suddenly, everything makes sense.
2.6k, angst with a happy ending, fighting and making up, married hotchreid, relationship dynamics, introspection, fluff
Derek x Spencer
Even More Beautiful
The BAU is stuck in Michigan with no case and no way home, so naturally, Spencer and Derek confess their love for one another. (Based on the prompt ‘You look even more beautiful covered in snow.’)
3.5k, fluff, love confessions, shy spencer, insecurity, hurt/comfort
⭐️Hear it in the Silence
A short, fluffy chronicle of Spencer realising in increments how in love with Derek he is, and navigating a real, beautifully sweet relationship that's not always smooth sailing, especially since he's been hurt before. (Based on Taylor Swift’s You are in Love.)
3.7k, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, dev relationship, tw past abuse, domesticity
⭐️Still Left With the River
Derek wakes up to find his boyfriend crying on the sofa. Cue the hurt, the comfort, and the fluff.
1.6k, hurt/comfort, fluff, caretaker!derek, autistic spencer, crying, sad spencer
100
Spencer's an academic researcher who spends every morning at his local library. Derek just happens to drop by one Tuesday and ask the pretty boy in the classics section if he can help him find a book. Sparks fly.
2.1k, library au, fluff, meet-cute, pining, shy spencer, coming out
when I fall asleep (it is your eyes that I close)
Spencer’s not been sleeping, and as much as Derek adores his sleepy clinginess and physical affection, as soon as they get home he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.
1.9k, fluff, hurt/comfort, sleep-deprivation, clingy!spencer, physical affection, anxiety, cuddling
⭐️Trees and Seas Have Flown Away, I Call it Loving You
Derek says something hurtful, but it happens to lead to just about the best thing that’s ever happened to Spencer.
3.2k, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, fighting/making up, angst with a happy ending, autistic spencer, coming out, getting together
⭐️A Christmas Like This
Spencer has a very specific plan for their first Christmas in their new house, and it has to be absolutely perfect. Derek’s going to do everything in his power to make his boyfriend as happy as possible, even if that means a house covered in garlands and a tree covered in animal skeletons…
2.9k, fluff, christmas fic, est relationship, neurodivergence, romance, domesticity, day in the life
Secret Santa
Penelope rigs the BAU’s Secret Santa game to finally get Derek and Spencer together with extraordinary success, and they have her to thank for their future first date. Oh, and a sprig of mistletoe nearly throws the whole thing out the window.
2.8k, fluff, getting together, insecurity/anxiety, christmas fic, first kiss, misunderstandings, friendship
⭐️A Chronicle of Loss
5 people Spencer Reid lost and 1 person he gained. A look at the traumas Spencer faces over the series, and giving him the happy ending he deserves.
3.6k, grief, loss, abandonment issues, insecurity, depression, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, getting together, ‘didn’t know they were dating’, protective derek, autistic spencer
Mayhem
Imagine that scene in S4E1 when Derek is driving the ambulance loaded with a bomb about to explode, except it’s Spencer on the other end of the phone and they finally get their shit together.
4.2k, canon divergence, spencer is the tech analyst, getting together, mutual pining, insecure spencer, angst with a happy ending, fluff, declarations of love
⭐️my heart talks about nothing but you
Derek finds Spencer staring longingly at dancing newlyweds while on a case and once he gets to the bottom of why he’s tasked with making a proposal to a man who knows it’s coming special somehow. (He pulls it off.)
2.5k, established relationship, hurt/comfort, minor angst, fluff, relationship discussions, proposal, protective derek
I told the stars about you
Derek and Spencer have their first date. They dance to Frank Sinatra and cuddle in an ice cream parlour, before kissing the hell out of each other at Spencer's front door. That's pretty much it. (Prequel to above fic.)
2.1k, first date, first kiss, pure tooth-rotting fluff, dancing, flirting, protective derek
⭐️I can’t hold enough of you in my hands
Derek and Spencer are finally getting married and the rest of the BAU are there to help them through every step of the day. Including a little surprise that Derek has up his sleeve for their first dance. (Third part to the above two fics.)
3.1k, tooth-rotting fluff, marriage/wedding day, team as family, team dynamics, domesticity, paternal hotch, maternal alex, just a whole lotta love man
⭐️ dry me off and hold me close
Derek has finally relented and is bringing his boyfriend Spencer to meet the rest of the team. That means, though, he has to finally tell them about his boyfriend's disability. Terrified that they'll react badly, he puts it off until he can't anymore. Turns out he was worried for nothing
5.7k, so much fluff, protective derek, disabled spencer, caretaker derek, spencer is not in the bau, team as family, hurt/comfort, light angst, est. rel, chronic illness, slice of life: disabled edition
Honeysuckle
The BAU decide to head out for a picnic one summer afternoon, but they’re soon rudely interrupted by a bee sting and anaphylactic shock. Seeing Spencer carted off in an ambulance is not exactly how they expected the day to go.
2.3k, whump, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, hurt spencer, friendship, medical conditions, severe allergic reactions
⭐️The Noiseless Crash of Crumbling Walls
After Derek and Spencer are paired up on a science project in their senior year of high school, they become the closest, most unlikely friends possible. But what happens when Derek finally finds out what Spencer's dealing with at home? Inspired by the prompt “where did you get those bruises?”
4.5k, high school au, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, hurt spencer, protective derek, abuse, friendship, pre-slash, spencer just turned 16, derek is almost 18
Luke x Spencer
Start With This
Luke accidentally hurts Spencer because they are both hopelessly stupid, but when Spencer’s faced with a dangerous situation there’s nothing he wants more than Luke. Calling him turns out to be a very good decision.
3.9k, hurt/comfort, angst w a happy ending, fluff, getting together, misunderstandings
⭐️Foolishly, Completely Falling
Spencer declines to spend the night with Luke, but there’s a reason for that, and things start to click into place when Spencer shows back up at his doorstep at 2am, hours after being dropped home.
2.5k, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, past toxic relationship, nightmares, est/dev relationship
You Said You’d Never Smile Again
“At one point, we had a conversation about how hard Spencer was finding life after prison and he told me that he didn’t think he’d ever smile again. And so, I made it my mission to prove Dr Spencer Reid wrong for the first time in his life.”
1.4k, weddings, tooth-rotting fluff, implied/referenced depression, post-prison spencer, insecure luke, found family
Emily x JJ
Don’t Be Scared, I Love You
JJ is shot and Emily's world stops spinning.
1.7k, whump, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, fluff, protective emily
⭐️my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand
Emily leaves. Her heart is breaking. JJ follows. Hers is waking up.
1.3k, angst with a happy ending, fluff, mutual pining, crying, first kiss
Emily x Reader
⭐️Night In/Night Out
Emily Prentiss is your girlfriend and she finally asks you to meet her family (the BAU): cue the fluff.
3.2k, fluff, flirting, cuddling, domesticity, protective emily, slight shy!reader
baby, you’re my new years’ eve
You and Emily are hosting a New Years' Eve party for all of your friends, but she's acting a little weird. You finally find out why when the clock strikes midnight.
3.6k, fluff, nye fic, proposal, getting engaged, domesticity, romance, flirting, day in the life
Gen
Pull Me Out of the Glowing Stream
Spencer develops bacterial meningitis and Hotch sort of forgets how to breathe.
3.8k, paternal!hotch, hurt/comfort, sickness, whump, fluff, happy ending
I found my way home
After Spencer tells Hotch about his recent autism diagnosis, he expects that to be the end of it. Somehow, though, it keeps coming up, and Hotch keeps proving himself to be the best father figure he could have asked for.
4.1k, autistic spencer, protective hotch, hurt/comfort, fluff, paternal hotch, team as family
⭐️The Colour of Waiting is Purple
Spencer's just trying to get home as quickly as possible when a bad decision to take a shortcut down a back alley leaves him broken and bleeding into the night. // Hotch thinks it's a new case when his phone rings at 3 in the morning. It isn't.
3.7k, whump, hurt/comfort, physical assault, major character injury, hospitals, dad hotch, hurt spencer, angst with a happy ending, eventual fluff
#my writing#criminal minds#criminal minds fic#spencer reid#aaron hotchner#hotchreid#derek morgan#moreid
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Writer’s Interview
thank you for the tag @negotiator-on-site :) Super fun qs, loved reading yours...had to do it :)
Q: What is your coffee order?
At Starbucks I used to get the green tea frappachino, or the chai tea frappachino. but since going keto (and I’m on very very loose keto RN...but I’ve been clean for three days in a row so I’m going to try to keep this up :) ) But now what I do is I get a passionfruit tea, unsweet with heavy whipping cream and two pumps of sugar free vanilla. Voila, a keto pink drink. All you need is the stevia sweetener.
Or I get just a plain green tea or regular coffee. also the caramel apple spice seasonal thing is good <3 i love starbucks
Q: What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
hhmmmmhmhmhm When I was 16 my dream of traveling to Italy and France came true. I loved Rome, I loved Florence, and then I got to go to Paris. (which.....you could probably tell by my name....place I adore <3) anyway I cried on the river seine and then when I thought things couldn’t get more perfect, the eiffel tower started to glitter. Also I sat on the Ponte Vecchio in florence and just breathed and lived and loved. It was perfect. Then I wrote it all down in a story called At the End of the Summer. I haven’t written any creative nonfiction since either, ha.
Objectively the coolest thing I’ve ever done is probably write/direct a ten minute play, with two actors who I wanted and were super amazing. It was such a spiritual experience, like sharing your writing with other people and then have us all share it on stage. doing that play was such an important, spiritual moment.
Q: Who has been your biggest mentor?
I’ve had a lot of teachers who have really helped me personally and scholastically....but it’s my mom. I mean...I still cry in her chest when I’m sad. My mom is a good person, a good woman who is very kind, and she deserves a lot more than what she got....if I could make enough money one day to get them a new house and a trip to Hawaii that would really make me happy.
Q: What has been your most memorable writing project?
You could say the aforementioned ten minute because I saw it and I brought it to life, but honestly I think it’s a thing called Our Immortal Longings :p
Obviously it’s a fanfic, but I write this relationship these two have and it feels realer than any other I have written...even wholly original works. I think part of this is helped that it’s similar in feel to something I would want to write that’s not a fanfic, and there’s this added sense of longing and preservation and becoming that I love to write and discuss, as my presentation on Antony and Cleopatra let me know last week. It’s honestly a lot of small things that make it very special to me. It’s sophie’s character, Connor’s character (the way I remind him partially reminds me of my favorite character from my favorite book.) the dialogue they have, the discovery, how much their story is an ode to other romances...
I didn’t think when I began writing this story it would mean that much to me. Hell, I didn’t even like AI or stories about AI getting a will of it’s own that interesting before this. But here I am, and....yeah. I love it.
Q: What does your writing path look like, from the earliest days until now?
My earliest days were just me. (only child, ha.) I told elaborate stories to myself, and then later I told elaborate stories to my cousin during long car trips.I didn’t write a traditional “story” though until the fourth grade, and it was very much inspired by the last unicorn, of which I was obsessed at the time (still am it’s f*cking amazing. and now that I think about it it sstill inspires me to this day. One of Connor’s lines was inspired by a line from the movie!) My grandma always told me I should be a writer, but as a kid it was just something I liked to do versus a calling, I guess? I also was obsessed with being an actor. That turned out so well! (sarcasm.) but it was also something I needed to do to be a functioning human.
anyway, I just always liked to write stories. then in college when I was obsessed with Dragon Age and in a creative slump, I was like...hey. maybe I could write about Cullen and my Inquisitor from Dragon Age. and here we are, two fandoms later :) These days I’m just writing fan fiction, though I would like to write my original ideas I have. Still need it to be a functioning human though. that is probably always going to be true :)
Q: What is your favorite part about writing?
D I S C O V E R Y. About me, about my characters, about what I want and deem important. Seriously, I learned something new about me writing an academic essay on Romeo and Juliet and it was such a cathartic moment. And also? living vicariously through another. going into another time.
Q: What does a typical day look like for you?
coffee. Write, read for school/write for school/school (only on certain days though)/ write or game when I get home. or watch shitty TV. Job hunt. have an existential crisis. Commissions (thank you all for commissioning me :) ) sometimes gym.
Q: What does your writing process look like?
it varies. usually I research as I go because I’m like...so excited to start. With my first fic I took a while to post, planned on writing the whole thing before posting...but I ended up craving that sweet sweet validation(tm) so posted before it was done. Oh god, so much changed too as I began posting. It’s really nuts how much time I spent on that damn story. I do love it but I also have a weird relationship with it (not including what happened today either...I always had a weird romance with it.)
but usually, I write, I marinate, I edit, I edit, I marinate, I live in the world for a bit, I edit, I post <3 all depends of course. don’t even get me started on writing an academic article.
Q: What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?
Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more. (Shakespeare)
Q: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
this is more about me, but an emotional reaction is more important to try to bring out than an intellectual one. I’d rather make someone have a real emotional reaction than anything else. sometimes the zaniest ideas are the ones that endure.
Q: What advice would you give someone who wants to start writing?
Read
Read
Write
practice writing some more
that totally ridiculous idea you have? write it!
.don’t worry about writing like someone else. write what you believe in
Love what you’re doing
read
write some more
Perservere and understanding that no one just rolls out a perfect Donna Tartt level piece on the first go.
daydream. live in your story for a bit before writing it down. ;)
oooh this took a while, and it was quite a journey! tagging @galadrieljones @thevikingwoman @bitchesofostwick @gottaboopthesnoot @ladymdc annnnnd whoever else would like to!
#tagged#that took forever omg#also I would say it's important not to think you have to stick to writing rules that you learned#in like...#high school#shakespeare was my writing teacher#as was donna tartt and sidney sheldon#yes i love sidney sheldon novels#heck vivien leigh as scarlett o'hara was my writing teacher
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Day Unlucky 13: Divorce || Charlie - AU
Charlie sat at the end of the table with his arms cross. He used the blanket to wipe his eyes again. The movie he was watching was extraordinary sad. Having experienced almost everything in the movies it hit even harder. Yet he still watched it.
The front door to the left of the living room opened. It could only be his son coming in way past curfew. Charlie turned off the T.V and stood up. This was the third time this week. His 16 year old was defiant.
“Bryson McDonnell you are well beyond your curfew again.” Charlie told him as he got up.
“I told you I was on a date. It isn’t a crime to have fun.” Bryson said with a smile
“You should’ve been back two hours ago.” Charlie sternly told him.
“We were having fun. You’re too old to understand what that means.” Bryson said starting to get annoyed as he took off his coat.
Charlie wasn’t shocked. Bryson had started becoming unnecessarily rude. Within the last year or so. Hormones at it’s finest.
“Bryson I have told you many time that is not the appropriate way to speak to your father and you are to return for curfew promptly.” Charlie said.
“Ugh!” Bryson said crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.
“You’re grounded for two weeks. Your choices have gotten you here.” Charlie said shaking his head.
“No you can’t do that. I have a date next week and both my academic and sports team has a game. It’s a important one. Ground me some other time.” Bryson demanded angrily.
“I will not. Next time consider you plans before you break house rules.”
“They are your rules and I can’t follow them.” Bryson stated.
“Why not? What is your argument now?” Charlie asked. He wouldn’t deny his son a fair chance to debate. It might produce a compromise.
“My argument is that I can’t abide by your rules because I don’t want to be you.” Bryson said and it actually angered Charlie.
“Watch your language.” Charlie said trying to shake it off.
“It’s a valid argument. All you do is work. Your romantic life continues to not exist.” Bryson pointed out.
“Bryson!” Charlie warned. This was out of line.
“Am I wrong? Do you have a current romantic partner?” He asked.
“I will not hear more of this.” Charlie said walking into the kitchen he didn’t want to have this argument.
“Then where is Sean? Why is he and Sam living in a house on the next block now? Whose idea was the divorce? After 5 years? Even after all my hard work getting you two together. And what about before then? Where is the nice lady that I thought would my mother when I was young. I didn’t forget. Who is to say that my actual mother wouldn’t have left you either. Who know how many more people from your young days. You’re all out of options.”
Charlie bit his tongue and looked down at the counter top.
“My point proven. If you can’t handle your social life then you shouldn’t be in charge of mine.” Bryson concluded. Charlie remained silent.
Bryson watched his dad then walked towards his stairs. “Good night.” He said.
Charlie stayed in the kitchen. He felt his hands shaking and his mind twisting. He went to do something he thought he wasn’t going to do.
The next morning Bryson came down the steps softly. He felt really bad about his fight with Dad and wanted to apologize. He knew how sensitive he was about his love life. Especially his mother.
When Bryson got to the bottom of the stairs he realized there was no breakfast cooking. The T.V. was off and he didn’t hear anything. He went to get a snack for breakfast from the kitchen. He looked around the first floor and he didn’t see his dad at all. He shrugged and left for school. He might have slept in. He would catch him when he got home.
School went as normal. Afterwards he got a ride with Sam and Sean straight home. He was missing practice but he suddenly wanted to see Dad. He told Sean they had a small fight last night his step dad shook his head and told him to mind.
When he got there he noticed a car in the driveway. He had a bad feeling. He jumped out of the car and ran to get in the the house. He didn’t notice Sam yelling at him to get his book bag.
He opened the door and looked around. He saw his uncle Pj instead of his Dad sitting on the couch. The house looked the same as this morning. “Hi Uncle Pj. Let me go say hi to my Dad.” Bryson said as he ran up the stairs to his Dad’s room. The bad feeling in his gut. He threw open the door and the room was empty. The bed perfectly the floor clean.. a few pictures missing. It was cold like no one lived there anymore.
He ran back downstair where Sean and Pj now stood.
“Where is he? Where my father?! Why isn’t he here?” Bryson demanded of the adults. He was keeping the tears from filling his eyes.
Pj stepped towards him. “Bry your father is away. He called me last night.”
“Wait he is gone? When is he coming back? Where is he?” Bryson asked getting worked up.
Pj shrugged. “Soon. He isn’t well.”
“I-s is it because of what I said. I didn’t mean it. I-I Have to apologize.” Bryson said tears starting to stream down his face.
Sean stepped closer to him. “Hey bud. Lets get some of of your stuff and you can stay with me an-”
“No!” Bryson screamed stepping away from him. Sean and Pj looked frozen.
“No.This is your fault. I yelled at him. I yelled at my Dad. I didn’t want to be I shouldn’t have. I told him it was all his fault. The divorce, The lady, Mom. I turned against him like you did. Like everybody did.” Bryson said fighting to keep his voice even.
“Bryson.” PJ said stepping towards him. Bryson didn’t move. His Uncle was the only other constant in his life.
“He never leaves me behind. NEVER! I’m always with him. I was always on his side. Just me and him. Now he’s gone. I shouldn’t have yelled at him” Bryson said starting to break. He couldn’t believe what he did.
Pj wrapped his arms around the crying boy. “It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s not your fault. Your Dad will be back soon. Sean I’ll take him until Charlie gets back.” Pj said comforting his nephew.
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