#I have read a lot of regular fiction and so my tastes are pretty high
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earlier, my mom was talking about the wacky fanfics she read before ao3 or fanfiction.net was a thing and how she read whatever the crap she found, meaning she read all kinds of things that weren't rated.
and all I could think of were all the fanfics I've read that had scarred me and I haven't even been on ao3 that long
#my mom is cool#random thoughts#I have read a lot of regular fiction and so my tastes are pretty high#truly a tragedy#i've only read one that truly scarred me but still
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25 and 13
munday questions ; accepting
if you could tell your muse something , what would it be ?
i would tell this little bastard so many things if i could. theres a lot of things he needs to hear, but would likely refuse to listen to. so i think the most important and effective thing to say to him would be just to tell him that its okay not to be in control all the time, its fine to let go a little bit and not hold on so tight, its okay to breathe and just be yourself sometimes.
which is all extremely hard for him because being something hes not is not just a matter of ego or personal taste or a malicious desire to manipulate people, its an attempt to survive. so i know it wouldnt be just that easy for him buuut. i think he would need to hear that. so that you can tell him to go get therapy and to stop being so self destructive AND regular destructive in a desperate plea for attention and help. like please please go see a psychologist fictional bug (what do i give him instead? i give him emotional issues and cock. just what he needs)
who is an author whose writing inspires your own ?
hmmm i wouldn’t say any one author has inspired me directly, theres been many different authors in my life that have played a part in developing my interest in writing. and i would actually say, much of my inspiration comes less from fiction and more from non-fiction sources, and i just let my imagination go the rest of the work. but sometimes you gotta read a good old fashioned novel in order to get new ideas on how to structure sentences, or ideas for how these authors structure plots and develop characters, thats mostly what i’m looking for in terms of ‘inspiration’ when it comes to reading for the sake of developing my own writing.
when i was younger, i read a lot of vampire fiction, so a lot of anne rice (gag i know, but i was reading anne rice’s near incomprehensible purple prose in 5th grade and somehow *mostly* understanding it, so it gave me a taste for understanding very detailed orientated, sometimes very flowery writing and being able to intergrate more details into my writing without (hopefully) falling into the same pitfalls i saw her fall into)
i read a lot of classic gothic fiction like bram stoker and edgar allen poe, you know, the basic stuff pretty much every edgy wanna be goth but too poor to actually be goth pre-teen reads. i remember reading a lot of c.s lewis work as a kid, mostly because it was ‘christian approved’ fantasy i could read in my private christian school and among my extended family without being judged for it, and that kinda opened up my mind to the world of fantasy. i enjoyed stuff like bridge to terabitha, a wrinkle in time, stuff where fantasy worlds live adjacent to the ‘real’ world. i also read quite a bit of holly black and her various fae-centered novels, i was a little too old for the spiderwick chronicles by the time i got into her work, but i was there just in time for the tithe/valiant/ironside series which i LOVED and honestly set the seed in me for later on enjoying fae media and honestly. set the seed in me for fantasizing about having a fae boyfriend, or BEING the fae boyfriend.
i read tolkien because i grew up watching the lotr movies with my mom, and getting through tolkiens material really made me appreciate movies LOL. i LOVED the last unicorn, both the animated move and the book. the specific genre of ‘cute animals killing eachother brutally in the forest’ which included redwall, warrior cats (at least the first few books i enjoyed), and watership down, i think those books instilled in me my joy of writing violence funnily enough.
the pellinor series by alison croggon was a massive influence on my love of high fantasy and sprawling adventures over vast lands, her books were exactly the escape i needed at that point in time. i highly suggest her work to anyone who likes tolkien-esque high fantasy.
books like city of brass and reading the assorted stories of 1001 nights really got me interested in middle eastern fantasy, as i had not been exposed much to it before being a westerner. i started expanding my horizons beyond the sort of fantasy media that was ‘curated’ to me (as a white american who grew up christian) and branched out to stories that came from other parts of the world, or came from parts of the world that were familiar, but took inspiration from lesser known examples. i cant think of many examples off the top of my head because they were mostly anthology series i read, but it helped me develop a better impression of fantasy beyond the ‘mainstream’. i also started getting back into horror.
nowadays im primarily inspired by the work of terry pratchett, h.p lovecraft, holly black, susanna clarke, margaret rogerson, c. s. e cooney, tolkien, stephen king, mark z. danielewski (house of leaves changed me) and toni morrison.
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HYACINTHE | Chapter 1: Jaemin x Reader
Summary:
Na Jaemin is far from being your typical 20 year old. Instead of slaving through college, he wastes away his hours cracking safes. Weekends that should be spent partying with friends consist of illegal races on good days and small scale bombings on bad ones.
Na Jaemin is far from being average, unless you consider being a member of Seoul's top organized crime family normal.
There is no such thing as a sense of normality and peace in his trainwreck of a life, so when he met a barista who was brave enough to call out his dangerous taste in coffee, he was like a moth to the flame. Everything about her is normal, which means she is forbidden to him, in all sense of the word.
So why, then, does he always find himself in the front steps of her shop, breaking all his personal rules even if he wishes he could stay away?
A/N + Disclaimer: this is a side story to Black Daisies, my main mafia fic feat. 0T23. While the plot is based on the main story, this can also be read as a standalone fic. As usual, this is purely a work of fiction and in no way am I implying any member of NCT to behave the way I write them here. tw: crimes, heists, potential death, mentions of drugs and other illegal activities.
PAIRING: Jaemin x Reader
BLACK DAISIES MASTERLIST
___________________________________________________________
I've known him for almost a year and a half when it happened.
The small bell of the cafe's back door dinged so hard, I thought it would get ripped off from the wall. I looked up, eyes wide with panic and hands still wrapped around the cold corners of a metal tray when a head of jet black hair appeared on the entrance. It took me half a second to register what I was seeing before I found myself flying to his side in a heartbeat.
"Jaemin! Oh my god, what the hell is going on!"
My first thought was that he was injured. He was doubled over and I quickly hunched to his level so that I could peer at his face. He looked paler than usual, beads of sweat stuck on his forehead, eyes glazed with a slight look of panic as he tried to keep himself from falling over. I threw out my hands to hold him by the shoulders and that's when my gaze caught it; the small black package that he quickly tried to hide inside his bomber jacket before I could even fully see what it is. I didn't give it much attention back then—I was far too focused in trying to see if he was hurt anywhere to worry about anything else. When his gaze finally focused on me, I thought I saw guilt there.
"I need your help. Sorry, I don't know where else to go."
My brows furrowed together.
"What the hell is going on—"
He reached out for one of my hands helping him up and squeezed it tight.
"Please don't ask me questions. Just—can you trust me?"
"I don't understand—" my voice started to rise. Is he hurt? Bleeding? In pain?
"Please."
My lips parted then pursed again.
"Okay."
Jaemin tugged me closer to him and threw a panicked look outside. He then pulled me farther into the now closed cafe, back into the storage room, the location of which he shouldn't even know in the first place.
"Let me hide here for a bit. Just a bit."
That encounter was my second mistake since meeting Na Jaemin.
I should have asked questions.
Lots of them.
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The first mistake happened about a year and half ago.
"Welcome to Brick and Beans, what would you like to have today?"
I plastered on my practiced smile and looked at the stranger in front of me without actually looking at him. Working in the service industry sure does things to your head once you get used to it. Despite having to deal with people all the time, you also get to develop a kind of numbness and detachment to human interaction. A face just becomes a face, a customer simply becomes just another passing responsibility. I tried to blink a few times to make myself seem more interested on the boy standing in front of my counter, patiently waiting for him to give me his order so we can go ahead and get on with both our business.
"Uh… I'll have an iced americano. No water. Eight shots of espresso."
My lips parted and curled on the sides to give him my service smile. My hand automatically reached out for the plastic cups stacked on my side while my other whipped out the marker clipped on the pocket of my apron to scribble his order.
"That's one iced americano, no water, eight—"
I stopped and blinked once. Twice. My gaze shot up at the customer in front of me again and really looked at him for the first time.
"I'm sorry, that's eight shots of espresso?"
He nodded, seemingly unbothered by my question.
"No water?"
A slight shake of the head.
"...eight shots. Of espresso."
"Eight shots, yes."
For a moment we both just stared at each other. He was looking at me patiently, probably only slightly weirded out by my question while I gave him a look that's a mix of worry and disbelief. Working as a barista has exposed me to my own fair share of weird coffee requests, but this is by far the one that takes the cake.
I softly cleared my throat and turned my attention back to the words I was scribbling on the cup. As strange as it is, I really am not in the position to judge a customer.
"That'll be 4.50 dollars. Is that for here?"
"Make it to go."
"Got it. I'll get you your order soon…"
"Jaem."
I smiled and scribbled his name on the cup.
Foot traffic was pretty slow on the cafe so I was able to quickly finish the order on autopilot. As I worked on mixing, I found myself humming softly to myself, my tune shifting into short whistles every time I would dunk an espresso shot down into that cup. I didn't even realize that the customer didn't bother taking a seat on one of the empty tables, opting to lean on the wall by the side instead, hands shoved in the pockets of his jogs as his eyes followed me.
"One iced americano for Jaem," I called out and pushed the packed drink into his hand. He handed me his card and I quickly worked on swiping it.
"You sure like your coffee explosive, huh?" I shot him a question for the sake of making small talk as I punched some buttons on my terminal.
"It's the eight shots, isn't it?"
I answered by giving him a shrug and a smile.
"It's the first time I ever did one like it. I can only imagine how it tastes like."
His lips slightly quirked into a smile. A...really cute smile if I might add.
"Is there anything wrong?"
"It's really good."
"Sure, Jaem. I'm not here to judge," I gave him a wink before handing back his card and receipt. "Well, thank you for dropping by. We hope to see you here again." He took both wordlessly and slipped them on his wallet.
I was waiting for him to walk off with his drink with the practiced polite smile plastered on my face again. He turned, coffee in hand, took about five steps, before turning to me again. I blinked in mild confusion as he placed his cup back on my counter.
"Actually… I'll have it here."
___________________________________________________________
"I'm not going to try your death coffee, Jaemin."
I didn't look up from the page I was reading but I could feel it, that deadly pout and puppy eyes combo drilling onto the side of my head. I flipped a page of my textbook over and I heard a sigh come from the boy beside me.
"I bought it for you. You said you need to finish a paper tonight."
"I do. That doesn't require me to be awake for the next week and a half," I answered back with a quirk of my lips as I finally looked up to meet his gaze. We were seated at one of the far tables of the cafe for my 15 minute break, away from the handful of customers scattered on the smattering of tables and high chairs. This has become quite a routine already… but how it started, I can't really explain.
Ever since that first order, Jaemin had made it his routine to drop by almost regularly. At first the banter started similar to how a regular customer and his favorite barista would have, but since he would always come and visit during slow hours, we would always have more time for longer conversations. Casual talk turned into light-hearted jokes, and finally into a kind of banter that comes with familiarity with each other. Slowly, I came to know the complexities of Na Jaemin, and boy, is he an enigma and a paradox rolled in one.
You never really know what to expect with him. There are days when he would be a bursting ball of energy—most of the time when he would order his drink from hell—but there are also moments when he would be quiet and reserved. I found it odd at first, but slowly accepted it since it didn't really hurt me in the first place. In fact, if I am going to be completely honest, I find this kind of personality set working for me. Imagine gaining two friends, except they're only in one body.
But that's not the only odd thing in our dynamic, too. If someone would ask me now to describe the kind of friendship I have with him, I wouldn't really know how to explain it. We joke together, laugh together, sometimes even tease the crap out of each other like we've known each other for years. We work well together, but at the same time… I know almost next to nothing about him. I don't know his address, who his other friends are, if he's going to school or not… hell, I don't even know what his number is. Outside of this cafe and his regular visits, I don't have anything to prove that he actually exists. He didn't share, and I also didn't ask.
Until today.
"Fine. I'm just going to drink this then."
I gasped before shooting him a squinted glare.
"You are going to burn a hole in your stomach, I swear to god—"
He simply shrugged and made a huge show of sipping the previously untouched tears of Lucifer.
I reached out to tug at the hood of his jacket in an attempt to call him out when I noticed it. His hair was initially masking it at first but now I could see it in full view: a purple bruise just on the side of his eye, almost to his temple.
"Oh my god, Jaemin. What happened?" I asked in a hurry as I tried to take a closer look at it. His expression changed in a heartbeat as he realized what I saw and he quickly leaned back and pulled the hoodie again over his head.
"That's—it's nothing."
"It looks so bad. How did you get that?"
He didn't answer. His eyes avoided my own and his hand gripped the plastic cup between us a little bit tighter.
"Did you get into a fight?" I pushed, gently this time.
His gaze moved to meet mine again for a few seconds. It's obvious he was contemplating what and how to answer.
"Yeah… I got into a bit of a tumble with some friends."
I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest as I leaned back on my seat. He threw me a look that silently asked what else I want from him.
"Look. You don't tell me shit but at least I know enough to be sure you are lying."
Jaemin looked away and started tapping his finger against the table.
"Why are you… why do you even want to know?"
I looked at him incredulously for a few seconds before leaning over.
"Because you're my friend and I want to make sure you are okay."
"I am okay."
"Your black eye says otherwise."
"Come on, don't push this. Can't we be friends without," he waved his hand between us. "This?"
"Jaemin, I don't even know who you are."
That made him stop. He stared at me for what felt like a full half minute and that's when I saw it for the first time. The dilemma in his eyes.
"It was because of work…"
The look of confusion I made must have been so intense that he quickly tried to jump over it.
"Work—why, what do you—"
"I'm sorry, but that's really all that I can tell you."
The sound of desperation in his tone wasn't lost on me. He looked so torn that I felt almost guilty for pressing.
"Fine… I won't ask again… As long as you are sure you're fine."
He peered at me once more as if assessing if he was finally off the hook.
"So...we're still friends?"
"Huh?"
"You and me… we're still friends?"
"Uh, yes…"
The look of relief on his face made me smile despite myself. He caught it and he made it a point to answer it with his best eye roll.
"Don't laugh at me. I don't know how to do friends."
"You're so cute~"
"Shut up."
And that was the exact day I decided—I'm never going to let Na Jaemin feel alone again.
Chapter 2
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The makings of greatness, or why, as a ride or die Treasure Planet stan, I’m glad there’s no Treasure Plant 2
You ever see somethings that makes you unreasonably angry? Yes I understand exactly what I’m saying, and how that indicates that my emotions and opinions on this are exactly that. Opinions. There’s a good chance I have some objective truths mixed in, but that does not make my opinions based on those truths truth. If you disagree or have different tastes or opinions or interpretations, cool, let me know! maybe you’ll change my mind. That being said.
The plot synopsis for the Treasure Planet sequel makes me angry. Not like, actively so, just annoyed enough to be in a bad mood. And now you guys all have to be in one as well. Why?
Reason 1, and probably least important: Disney sequel syndrome.
Ok so Disney sequels aren’t inherently bad. I’ll stan the Aladdin sequels to my grave, who knew Cinderella could world build, obligatory Rescuers Down Under (the first one was better) blah blah blah.
But there is an inherit problem with sequels in general, and that usually has to do with cast and crew. An original piece of fiction has to grab the audience yes, but there’s also freedom in that. Media touches people in different way. The worldbuilding can mean more to some than others. Some are in it for the animation, or the character developments, or relationships. What connects with one person won’t connect with another. The problem with sequels is that different people who worked out the original material might and usually do not work on the new. And those new people are already working on that new material with their own personal lenses and experiences and interpretations coloring the old. The reason sequels (and remakes, and big budget presentations of other materials like books into movies) tend to bomb hard is because you are essentially being forced to accept someone’s fanfiction into the canon material. Usually, there’s a pretty strong correlation between more successful franchises/extension material, works staying true to the core material, original crew working on the material, and the enjoyment of the audience.
And sources say very few of the original crew remained. Some yes, but mostly voice cast. Even worse, TP2 was a DisneyToon production, not even a mainline feature. Now I’m not saying the new people weren’t talented, or passionate about the project, or were lacking in experience. It doesn’t really matter if any of those things are true or not. It’s the warping of their personal lenses I don’t trust. Fanfic I can disregard, meta I can disregard. This would have been canon.
And reading the Artbook makes is abundantly clear that the parts that touched me personally would have been missing. The very core of Treasure Planet for me was the relationship between Jim and Silver (and their exquisite animation budget). However you choose to interpret that relationship, you can not deny that Treasure Planet is a powerfully emotionally romantic movie. It’s quiet moments and emotional resonance shaped my views of intimacy with a sharp and fine touch. Silver and Jim’s bond is as undeniable and powerful as it is compelling and awe inspiring to witness unfold.
And a lot of that is owed not only to the voice acting of Joseph Gorden-Levitt (Jim) and Brian Murray (Silver), But to animators Glen Keane and John Ripa, who were the head animators of Silver and Jim respectively. Not only did Gorden-Levitt and Brian Murray deliver stunning performances, but made sure to work together and jointly play off each other in ways most voice actors don’t have the opportunity to do. And the Masters Keane and Ripa took an already stellar and carefully crafted vocal rapport and took it one step further. I highly recommend the Artbook as a good read, both Keane and Ripa talk about the journey of discovering who Jim and Silver were with delight, acting out entire scenes together using their own body language to build the characters together, using the same animation reals to animate, tag teaming in and out of the program rather than do it separately, becoming so attuned with their characters attitudes and mannerisms that you can tell they poured entire pieces of themselves into Jim and Silver.
I’m not saying the Sequel would have been inherently bad because it’s a sequel, or because a new crew worked on it, but I am saying I wouldn’t trust it with a ten foot pole.
Reason 2: Thanks I hate it (I’m saying it’s inherently bad because the plot is bad and I hate it)
I’m sorry for the length, but for you to really understand just how bad this is, I actually have to pick through every single line and tell you why it fails critically at some junctures and where it would be so simple to fix. For those of you who were unaware that there was a sequel in the works at some point, I’m pulling these quotes pretty much wholesale from the AnimateVeiws article Buried Treasure: The ill-fated voyage to Treasure Planet 2, specifically the interview with Jun Falkenstein who was set to direct the now canceled sequel. Spoiler warning, I guess?
So, from the begining
“The sequel was to pick up where the first film left off, with Jim Hawkins going to the Royal Interstellar Academy. At the Academy, he is a hotshot “natural,” but he doesn’t follow the rules very well.” - Strong start but then dropped the finish. I think the interstellar academy would be a very compelling starting point. I see no fault in it at least, it’s a good opportunity to world build. Clemence and Musket like to make a point that Jim was crafted to connect with the emotionally wounded and distant youth in a age of divorce, so showing what happens when that youth hikes up their britches and gets to work can extend on that theme aaaaaaand you dropped it. Dropped that strong start. Yes, Jim was more than a bit of a bite back rebel in the film, but that was a reactionary response to the bad place he started in. Jim was abandoned, and tied his self worth into that abandonment. His kickback against society was a reaction stemming from an inability to see his personal worth and any sort of future he could craft from it. He outgrew this, his very character development was about this in the film. His character arc was about realizing his inherent worth, embracing a sense of confidence and learning what he could do. Even disregarding that, bonus material outside of the film shows that Jim has a very strong sense of respect for Captain Amelia, her military career, and the hard work she put into it, and he’s there on her recommendation. Why would he act out in this? He is a natural yes, but the film shows he’s incredibly sharp and intelligent, if unlearned, and more than ready to learn given opportunity.
“Hence, he gets off to a shaky start – especially with his classmate Kate, who is very smart and has a type A personality. Kate’s father is Admiral Blake, the Commander of the Navy. Jim and Kate vie for top of the class but have very different skills.” - So building off this to fix the problem before. I guess the dynamic they are going for is something like “the kind of a jerk hotshit hotshot who’s got it all figured out and the straight laced rule fallowing stick in the ass rival”? I’m not apposed to to a rivalry, but lets tweak this, given how “hot shot natural jerk” isn’t really where Jim settles at the end of the film. Jim is a natural talent, who excels under tutelage, but more importantly, he has practical experience. While the time period spent on the RLS Legacy is not defined, they do sail to a deep and unexplored part of the galaxy, probably well outside of regular settlements, so no small distance, though Jim is young enough that a very long period of time would be noted in physical growth. Given comparisons to classic nautical sailing of the source time, months, perhaps up to a year? That’s a long time to spend, learning the rough and tumble basics, tying knots, experiencing food and water rations, extreme temperatures, playing with the rigging and mechanical aspects of the boat. Jim knows what it’s like to actually sail. Meanwhile, this is the Royal Academy, who probably takes in upper class second born children and pumps out military accolades for well learned mathematicians and strategists. Jim doesn’t fit in because he can visualize, he can think outside of the box, he can weld a damn engine to a hunk of shrapnel and ignite it freefalling against a metal hellscape and outrace a boat in a high adrenaline situation. He adapts where the other’s frantically look through their notes for the answer. Worse yet, he’s poor and not classically educated. Make it a class issue. In this aspect I do like Kate. Being the Daughter of the Commander of the Navy, she probably has a very technical and far more expansive understanding of navel ships, particularly the running of them. In this way Jim and Kate are perfect foils. Jim representing the poor, instinctually and practically knowledgeable crew, and Kate the upper-class, technically knowledgeable command, a dichotomy representing the haves and have nots in their skills, experiences, an class.
I don’t want to post a picture and break the post, but I do love Kate’s design. I do recommend looking up the article and checking it out. that being said, being a feline species, they messed up not spelling it Cate.
“Captain Amelia is dean of the Academy, which has a brand-new vessel: the Centurion.” - I… why, why is Amelia the dean? Additional material shows that Amelia broke ties with the military because she didn’t like their rule stickling ways and red tape. Why would she want a red tape position? She helped with a war and then bailed first opportunity to become a freelance captain so she could fallow her own rules. Even if you don’t know any of that additional material, you do know that she is a freelance captain. Why is she dean? what happened to the old one? Are they dead? Did DisneyToon kill them? Did Disneytoon kill the old dean?
“Designed by Doctor Doppler, the Centurion is the fastest ship in the galaxy.” - HE’S NOT THAT KIND OF DOCTOR!
“B.E.N. is its pilot”. - NO
In all seriousness all three of those statements show a serious problem, in that none of those characters are in fact those things. Amelia I’ve already explained. But Doppler was a debatably youngish bachelor with too much money who was fascinated by astronomy specifically and who suffered from ennui. And BEN was a navigational unit, so maybe it makes sense for him to be a pilot, but why is a robot who was functioning under a galaxy feared pirate for who knows how long given any kind of agency over a brand new incredibly important ship? These decisions were probably made to incorporate as much of the old cast as possible, to not exclude fan faves. But any decision that makes BEN a prominent part of the plot and thus gets more screen time is a BAD one.
“The pirate Ironbeard desires to commandeer the Centurion. This ruthless villain is relatively all iron – almost nothing of whom he originally was, inside and out, is left.” - On the one hand, I have a weird feeling that this would somehow violate the 30-70 rule. Buuuuut on the other hand, the Artbook does describe the decision making process of what and how was mechanical on Silver (my favorite tidbit was the wheel on his head representing his constant thinking and assessing) and states that that they in a way represent the pieces of humanity he gave up looking for Flint’s Trove. Extending that to a pirate who has given up everything could be a powerful thematic tool if used right (or intentionally)
“He leads a group of pirates to hijack the Centurion while Jim and Kate are aboard.” - ok, yeah, I’ll buy that. If they are butting heads constantly, I could see them sneaking off to the new piece of hardware to one up each other on who knows their stuff, or maybe bond over wanting to learn about the said new tech and being frustrated with restrictions.
“The Navy can’t catch the Centurion, due to the vessel’s speed and armor.”- sure
“Jim and Kate escape the Centurion. Jim decides he needs a pirate to help catch pirates. They find his old buddy Long John Silver in the Lagoon Nebula, where he is running a smuggling ring. “ - So what Jim just goes “I know just the pirate to help us” and then finds him? That journey of itself deserves it’s own movie, anything less is a disappointment. Alternative. Jim and Kate escape onto a particularly lawless planet. Jim has some tricks to keep them safe and fed, maybe he even excels in ways he’s been straight up stop gapped at the academy. Maybe his knowhow is appreciated by others who society also rejects. But Kate is a frustrating fish out of water, getting offended and worked up over things that are big deals to an average citizen but not criminals and pirates. But such reactions are putting them in danger and she needs to get perspective fast. It’s plausible maybe that Silver tracks them down through interesting rumors, but more than that, let it be fate. Neither having any idea the other is there till the second they see each other. Bonus points if Jim and Kate get in a bind and Silver is the leader of the harassers. Better yet lets add some thematic mirroring not only to the scene where Silver saved Jim from Scroop, but directly contrast it to the scene where Silver doubled back and down against the notion of caring for Jim when called out before the mutiny. *kisses finger* Touching and hilarious.
“ Silver agrees to help when he hears about the Centurion. “ - Silver agrees to help when he hears about the Centurion without Jim even having to ask. Storywise, lets make some kind of deal over how Jim, an upstanding enrollee of the academy, apparently is chummy with a pirate. Tension doesn’t just have to be external, and Kate is the daughter of the Commander of the Army. Maybe she’s recognized and this gets them in trouble. Maybe Kate has issues with her identity outside of her father’s career and need to learn a lesson about being outside of a rigid social structure?
“Jim and Kate receive a tracking signal from B.E.N. – who is currently hostage aboard the Centurion – and follow via Silver’s creaky vessel. They discover the Centurion docked near the Botany Bay Prison Asteroid. “ - While being the fastest ship yet is a good excuse for wanting it to get stolen, my suspension of disbelief breaks a little at any ship, let alone a creaky little pirate vessel, catching up to the fastest ship yet, or the tracking signal being the only way to track it to a guarded prison. Seeing as how I’ve written BEN out of this scenario lets fix it. After the events of the movie, the Royal Military swoops in after to confiscate the debris of Treasure Planet. For those in the know, canon lore states that the Planet was a giant computer, and it and the map were the byproducts of an ancient and advanced civilization. Studying the debris led to the Centurion, notable not for it’s speed, but for it’s stealth. It can cloak itself. Which is why no-one can find it. Meanwhile Silver lets it slip that he snagged the map from it’s pedestal as they escaped the planet as a souvenir. (handwave why the portal was still open with a “the whole thing was exploding, the computer froze). The map is able to track the remnants of said planet, aka the Centurion, meaning Silver has the only means of tracking the cloaked ship
“Ironbeard is using the Centurion to disable Botany Bay’s security systems. Jim, Kate and Silver sneak aboard the Centurion, where Silver reveals to Jim that he wants to take the Centurion for himself. He asks Jim to join him.“ YES. YES YES YES YES YES YES! Understanding that Jim’s decision to not go with Silver in the first movie is key here. He rejected Silver’s offer the first time because Silver had shown him he had intrinsic value, and Jim finally felt that the natural gifts he had were worth cultivating, that he did have the chance to explore who he could be on his own terms. Jim was comfortable being on his own, because he felt capable. Now, Jim and Silver bring out the best in each other, and the time apart has done them harm. Jim’s strings of social rejections are starting to fell like a glass ceiling he can’t overcome, and is finding more and more comfort in being a big fish in a pirates small pond, and the emotions of of being wanted that come with Silver is a powerful drug. But it’s a one way ticket away from any opportunities he could work towards, not to mention his barely repaired relationship with his mother. Meanwhile Silver has been slowly slipping back into the colder, more selfish self he was, a necessity for his lifestyle, and doesn’t want to loose his connection to Jim and what Jim brings out in him, but is still far enough gone to make the offer and try for the boat anyways, even if he knows it’s not what’s best. It’s an emotionally compelling decision. You want them to say yes, you know they shouldn’t
“Kate overhears this and is horrified, especially since the two have, of course, started falling for each other during the adventure.” - Hate. this I hate. Leaving shipping to they way side, what’s that “of course”? why do they have to fall for each other? Why the Disneytoon sequel love interest? I have a feeling her characterization would come at the cost of it. Why can’t they be rivals? why can’t they develop a mutual respect outside of attraction? Why can’t they both learn an individualized lesson about finding their own place in the world outside of social constraints as foils without macking? I hate this concept. Kate overhears, and is horrified, because Silver is a Pirate which is actually in universe get yourself hanged offense, and Jim is considering this, and they are going to steal a VERY IMPORTANT BOAT and and leave her stranded in a dagerous prison, and are making an objectively morally bad decision.
“Ironbeard discovers the intruders, charging into a fight in which Silver is injured. Meanwhile, the other pirates throw down ladders to the prison below, allowing swarms of elated prisoners to climb up into the ship. Silver, Jim, and Kate exit the Centurion amidst all the confusion. However, Ironbeard shoots down Silver’s ship. They plummet to the prison asteroid below, crash-landing” - cool. Drama. But for my purposes, lets tweak it so Silver isn’t injured yet. But I really want to emphasize that this attack does not interrupt before Jim can react to Silver’s offer. Even something as tentative as “I’m not sure” has consequences. None of this “misunderstanding” BS.
“ Kate is angry at Jim and storms off. “- again, make it clear that Jim showed a real chance of agreeing to steal the ship. if she’s angry before he had a chance to answer that’s contrivance for drama’s sake. Give her a reason to be mad
“ Jim is about to blow her off as well when Silver tells him to give her a chance. He reveals a part of his past through a flashback, when a young (non-cyborg) Silver screwed up a relationship with the love of his life – a decision which directly led to his life of piracy. “ - nope. nope nope nope . I’m gonna put a big old * here because this is reason number 3 why I hate this potential movie, and I will get to that believe me, but here’s me, putting a pin in it. That being said, have Silver selfishly try to double down on getting Jim to join him in a three way argument instead. This is the conflict of the film. Kate, who was learning to grow outside of the strict restrictions of her life and do her own work, make her own way, is being rejected. She is as morally repulsed as she is hurt that she wasn’t included, and hates herself for that hurt as well. Jim is torn between the freedom of what he could be after the academy paired with the strict social constructs around it, and the freedom of a life “full of himself and no ties to anyone” but running from the law and the two friends they represent. Silver is the aggressor here. He likes Kate, he does, but he loves Jim and only has one place in his heart, and has spent his life being selfish. There’s already a crew on board, and Iron beard is hooked into the Centurion. With having the only other means to navigate, they take down ironbeard, the rest will surely fall in line. This is paydirt. A fantastic ship, a bloodthirsty crew, and Jim.
“Silver has a very dangerous cargo with him that he had been trying to smuggle and sell for a fortune, which has the power of a neutron bomb. Jim, Kate and Silver reconcile and work together to fix Silver’s ship and prevent the Centurion, filled with the most evil pirates in the galaxy, from going on an insane robbing-and-killing spree. At the last second, Silver reluctantly gives up his “retirement fund” in order to destroy the Centurion, with Ironbeard and all the pirates on board.” - this entire section needs rewritten. That’s a mcguffin Silver put it away. I have retconned the mcguffin to be the old map, so that is now moot. Now to not blow up the ship. Afterall, Silver and Jim have both already overcome what Treasure Planet represented with it’s destruction. Rather, B plot
If we are that desperate to have past characters in, let’s have Amelia and Delbert back home. When the Centurion is captured, Amelia immediately volunteers to fallow, feeling responsible for Jim and secretly pining for some adventure. Delbert feels the same, and he to a bit of an adrenaline junkie after the events of the first movie, but they have the children to think about and only one can leave. Delbert is the one chosen to help by the navy officials searching for the Centurion. While Amelia bickers with the Admiral Blake over his pragmatic but emotionally distant decisions over the situation of his missing daughter, Delbert is an astronomer, and is blah blah blah science meta, fallow the flashing and bending lights around the cloaked ship to find it. As in Delbert is helpful. Amelia in a reflation to Admiral Blake, is torn between her family and commandeering her own ship to help. Blake is frustratingly headstrong in his decisions, and the script makes it seem like that emotional distance is disinterests, but reveals to the audience that it incorporates a great deal of suppression of his anxieties and worries over his daughter, and trust in her abilities, though he has issues expressing this pride to Kate herself. Amelia, Delbert and fam make what is probably a poor decision in commandeering a ship and leaving on their own to track the Centurion, the navy hot on their heels.
Back to A plot, the navy is approaching. Jim has to make a decision. He is the only one who knows how to unmask the ship using the old ones tech without training, as it’s based off the map. While Kate and Silver are distracting iron beard, he has to either steal the ship and sail off, or uncloak it for the navy. Iron beard is taken down, but not without Silver getting injured. Jim decides that Silver’s life is worth more than anything, and after agreeing with Kate that she’ll commandeer a doctor and wont let Silver die, uncloaks the ship. The Centurion is retaken in a blaze of naval glory that is the action climax. The pirates fight back up are over run. Maybe Kate gets taken hostage as the Admirals daughter, as an opportunity for a resolution with her arc as Blake’s distant daughter, though obviously said resolution comes at her showing her abilities in taking care of herself and the practical skills she has learned.
“Silver again parts from Jim and Kate, telling them to take care of each other. A few years later, Jim and Kate graduate with honors, while a proud Silver secretly watches from the shadows, smiling” - Boooooo. Kate and her dad make up, and she challenges him that she’s going to one day Captain the Centurion, with him understanding that she needs less a mentor and more an emotional support while she works her way up the ranks. She invites Jim to be her first mate, to which Jim accepts as a navigator, (a thing I’ve pointed out to be his real strength in another post). But to Silver, who has been “pardoned” for his part in retaking the Centurion, the movie hinting that he to would be on the eventual crew there I fixed it fic to come I s2g.
yeah there’s a lot of good there, but it’s so easy to fix the bad it’s frustrating. which brings me to
Reason 3: that little pin
“ Jim is about to blow her off as well when Silver tells him to give her a chance. He reveals a part of his past through a flashback, when a young (non-cyborg) Silver screwed up a relationship with the love of his life – a decision which directly led to his life of piracy. “
Nope nope nope I’ll tell you why.
First of all, sources like the artbook say that Jim is so Important to Silver because he’s the first person Silver has ever let become important. he’s specifically stated to have no family, never married, no children. And that’s something he cultivated actively. His life of piracy, his metal limbs, his loneliness and moral failings were all gleefully accumulated for one reason and one reason only
Treasure Planet.
Treasure Planet was the great love of Silver’s life. It was a lifelong obsession. It destroyed his body, took his youth, his opportunities and nearly his life. He broke Jim’s heart over it.
And he let it go. For Jim.
And Jim understood this
This is the crux of treasure planet’s very themes. This is where Jim found self worth. Another person finally looked at him and said “you matter, you matter more than anything. I like being around you and I choose you first.” and it made Jim realize he’s someone worth choosing.
The treasure was EVERYTHING to Silver, and Silver let it go, for Jim.
That one line there, attributing the start of Silver’s fall to a girl? that actively retcons the entire theme of the previous movie. IT rewrite the emotional linchpin of Silver’s sacrifice of the gold. And actually fuck that. right into the ground. I do not accept. I do not pass go. I refuse. Fuck you non existent movie. That makes me mad. every single time. Hate I shall never let go.
No
#Disney#Treasure Planet#Jim Hawkins#long john silver#john silver#long post#meta#god I hate this non existent movie#This outline is the closest I've ever come to writing spitefic and its still up in the air#Treasure Planet is such a romantic movie and you come into my house and try to shred the emotional core and themes by recontextualizing?#fuck off#Fuck I love Treasure Planet#sequel synopsis can die in a fire tho
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In your opinion, which fast food place has the best fries? i love me some mcdonald’s fries.
Are there hurricanes where you live? they happen every once in a while
What do you hate the most about yourself? I'd really rather not get into this right about now. same
What song are you listening to right now? nothing but catch fire by 5sos is stuck in my head.
What was your first concert? brad paisley 🤠.
What’s your favorite Johnny Depp movie? willy wonka and the chocolate factory
Who did you last say “I love you” to? My sister. probably same
Do you like pumpkin pie? it’s about the only pie i DO like.
Do you know anyone named Austin? no one i like
Do you know anyone who is having a baby? my friend just gave birth to a baby about a week ago
What was the last thing you cried about? i cried in the car on the way home from work last night while listening to jet black heart lmaooo.
Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk? i dont drink milk.
Do you think you are an argumentative person? Definitely not. agreed, i’m conflict avoidant to a fault
How many deep dark secrets do you have? i dont think i have any
What was the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? the hot wings from bonchon were pretty f’n spicy
Who last called you sexy? i dont remember
Would you class yourself as a good role model? i think for the most part
Are you scared of the dark? sometimes i am
Do you have a motto? nah.
Who did you last see on webcam? my club committee from school
Do you need a haircut? i just got one about a month ago so not atm
How would you react if your mother told you that she was pregnant again? that would be impossible considering she’s in menopause and has her tubes tied
You log into Facebook and see the red ‘1’ notification next to the message icon. Who do you want it to be? no one i hate facebook
Would you rather exercise alone or with other people? most of the time alone but sometimes i’ll exercise with my sister or in a structured workout class
What is the most difficult or involved video game you’ve ever played? any bc i suck at video games
Ever watch the show Supernatural? nope
Ever heard of flavored honey? If so, what’s you’re favorite flavor? i’ve heard of it but never tried it
Do you remember what your favorite show was when you were little? i went thru hardcore icarly and victorious phases, also LOVED spongebob
Do you put anything besides cheese on grilled cheese sandwiches? sometimes i’ll do bacon on mine
When it comes to books, what do you think is the “perfect” amount of pages? the length of a book has never deterred me from reading it, ever.
Would you ever be interested in going scuba diving? maybe
Out of all of your friends/relatives, who would you say has the best vocabulary? not to toot my own horn but me
Are any of your fingers or toes deformed? What about the nails? no
When is the last time you cried? didnt i already answer this
Would you ever date somebody that has been divorced more than once? mm prob not
What are some stereotypically nerdy things that you like? i guess marvel and space would count
Have you ever attended a wedding that ended where the bride and groom didn’t actually get married? What happened? no but i’ve attended several weddings of people who have quickly divorced
What scares you the most about becoming a mother (hypothetically, if you don’t want to have children)? raising them to be a good well adjusted person.
Would you ever want a job in fashion? What would you enjoy about that type of job? prob not
Would you ever be a surrogate mother? nope
What do you think would be the best and worst parts about being a twin? i would love having that strong of a bond with someone and having someone to go thru life with but i would also feel like i never had anything that was truly mine esp in early childhood
Do you feel that your childhood was more rough compared to others around you? my childhood was great compared to a lot of peoples and i’m extremely thankful for that
How would you react if you found out today that you were actually adopted? i would feel betrayed that i’d lied to for 20 years
Have either of your parents ever cheated on one another before, that you know of? How would you react if you found out today that one of them cheated? not that i know of and again i would feel crushed and betrayed
Do you like cleaning and organizing? when i’m in the mood for it
How would you react if you found out you were infertile? If you don’t plan on having kids to begin with, what is a long-term goal you’d be crushed to find out was impossible to achieve? i would definitely be upset bc i want to have at least one biological kid but in the end i would find just as much joy from adopting a child and giving them a loving home.
Would you take your dream job if it were out of the country? it depends on what other factors are in my life at the time
Have you ever been robbed? no
Is anyone close to you an alcoholic? my friend at college and that’s not even a joke that’s genuine. i think he’s getting the help he needs tho which is good
Have you ever dumped anyone? no
What kind of tea do you drink? I hate tea. same it tastes like dish water
Do you know anyone in a gang? No, and I hope I never do. same
What’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for you? omg i still remember this bc i was blown away by how sweet it was. so in 9th grade i had one friend in my pe class and idek how we started talking but we just stuck by each other bc we didn’t have anyone else and we sat at our own table right by the teacher’s desk in health class and we actually became pretty close friends throughout the year well anyway i mentioned my birthday was coming up and she asked me what i wanted and i was like no you don’t have to and she was like do you want flowers and i was like sure why not and i didn’t think she was gonna actually do it but then on my birthday she shows up to health class with these beautiful purple flowers and i was so shocked that she actually got them for me so yeah i’ve never forgotten that ever. she moved away after that year and i never saw her again but i hope she’s doing well
What is your orientation? Gay? Straight? Metrosexual? straight but i have questioned before.
Have you ever done anything really dangerous or illegal with friends? nothing too wild
Name three feelings you’re feeling right now: bored, content, excited
And the reasons for these feelings? bored bc i’m at work, content bc i like the way my life is going rn, excited bc i get to go back to school and see all my college friends soon.
How do you feel about your life right now? pretty pleased at the moment
Is it easy for you to like yourself? Why or why not? no. it’s a conscious choice to like yourself that you have to make everyday and some days that choice is easier to make than others
What subjects come naturally to you? English, some aspects of science. agree with this, i’m very good at english and i understand some science
What subjects do not? MATH
Do you read more fiction or more non-fiction books? fiction but sometimes i like a good non fiction book.
How has today been for you? pretty good nothing too exciting
What did you do? watched tv and went to work
Are there any candles lit in the room you’re in? no
Are there any lava lamps near you? nope.
Do you like cats or dogs better? Cats. agree i have 4
Are any of your friends a pothead? yes, several
What’s a goal you’re trying to accomplish soon? start working out consistently again and get into therapy.
Are you a high maintenance person? nope
The last time you yelled as loud as you could, what was the reason? i was at a karaoke night
Have you ever been heartbroken? yep
Who did that to you? my ex crush
Did you go through an ugly stage as a kid? ohhhh yeah
The last type of sandwich you made or ate: a ham and cheese sandwich with pepperoni and mayo
The last time you spent most of the day in bed: when i was at school and i had stayed up until 6am the night before.
The last friend or acquaintance you made: my coworker
The last thing you took pictures of: a rainbow
The last time you were scared: when i thought a car was following me the other night
The last thing you looked up online: manic panic hair dye.
The last thing you disagreed with: i don’t remember.
Does your house have a separate laundry room? yep
Do your parents still help you financially? yes, a lot
Does your car have a backup camera? nope.
Have either of your parents ever been in trouble with the law? not to where they’ve been arrested
Have you ever had a pet that lived to be really old for its breed/species? my childhood cat lived to be 18 which was pretty impressive.
What was the last strong scent you smelled? my cat’s fart
Have you ever told someone to their face that they were ugly? no way
Is your bed against more than one of your walls? nope
Have you ever been attracted to someone’s parent? um yes some people i know have dilfs i’m sorry
Have you ever pole danced before? no
Have you ever broken into someone’s house? no.
Have you ever seen a live bat? yup at a beach house in the obx
What is the most amount of money you’ve spent on a meal before? i bought bonchon for my friends and i one time which was just about $100
Have you ever taken a woodshop class? no
How much time do you spend on Facebook, if you have one? as little time as possible.
Has a teacher ever made you hate yourself/your work? i had one math teacher in high school that consistently made me feel dumb bc i needed extra help to understand the concepts and couldn’t do mental math that fast so didnt like her
Have you ever been on the barrier or front row at a concert? closest i’ve been was second row
Are your parents supportive of you? yep
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8 Reasons “Insta-Love” Doesn’t Work
A reader’s perspective.
I’ve taken up doing a review booktube for indie SFF books, and have decided only to do 4 or 5 star reviews due to some social pressures being an indie author and also being a reviewer. This means I’ve been SLUSH reading. (You can get lots of indie books free if you trawl twitter and start an amazon wishlist and wait.)
I’m coming up against some trends. A major one is what I call “Insta-Love.” You know, girl/boy meets girl/boy and they are attracted to them for some reason they can’t explain and the next page or chapter they are in love.
Except, the story isn’t about this romance at all. And in the end, the romance doesn’t work for me as a reader, so here are 8 reasons why in author terms b/c I also happen to be an author.
1) It’s Creepy.
Speaking from personal experience and having been on the receiving side of someone who met me and then claimed they loved me less than 24 hours later, this is seriously creepy. You don’t really know this person. They don’t know you. Yet, they’re claiming after to have knowing you for 12 hours, you are the one for them. If asked, they probably can’t tell you why. And if pressed, it’s probably because they have an idealized fantasy of you in your head and aren’t in love with the “real” you at all. They can’t be. They don’t know you. Instead, they are crossing lots of reasonable boundaries and trying to plan a rosy future, or giving you love poetry, or making hyperbolic claims to your mutual friend group.
It becomes downright disconcerting very quickly. So, if all your characters know about each other is that the other is attractive and then they are claiming they are in love. I’m going to be highly disturbed and not believe it for a moment.
2) There is something else important going on and honestly, there’s no time for a romance.
Unless your book is specifically in the romance genre, usually, there is something else going on in the book taking more words and the character’s urgent time and attention. Therefore, regulating your romance to the designation of a subplot. The thing about subplots is they need to be as structured and given attention to as much as your main plot.
And usually in a science fiction or fantasy setting, the main plot is something with pretty high stakes, so much, your main character isn’t going to have time or emotional energy to do more than go “oh pretty person” and move on. If your character is under stress, not getting enough sleep, is preoccupied with saving the world, they are simply not going to have a sex or romantic drive. Stress/Lack of Sleep/Big Projects put the brakes on the hormones causing sexual/romantic attraction.
So, really, your “insta-love” romance subplot becomes little more than a distraction from the main plot when your character isn’t even going to have the energy to do more than go “oh cute person.”
3) It feels contrived or shoe horned into the plot.
Carrying on from above, making the entire romance feel contrived or even forced into your main plot usually for no reason.
If you can take out your romance subplot and it doesn’t actually change the overall story of your book, then I have to question why you feel the need to have a romance subplot in the first place!
Writing in a romance for the sake of having a romance, and your authorial belief that these two people should be together are not great reasons for having a romance. Because…
4) There’s no valid reason for them to be together.
With an insta-love romance plotline, we are given no good reason why these two people even like each other, would be friends, much less fall in love. “Oh, they’re hot,” is a nice valid reason for casual sex, not for an involved and committed relationship. Usually, the reasons given for them being in love are superficial and shallow and the characters’ basic personality sheet.
“She’s smart.” “He’s warm.”
When it comes to a romance, there needs to be more than that. Why should this character trust this new character they just met with their emotions?
99.99% of the time they shouldn’t because…
5) In fact, there’s usually a valid reason for them to be apart.
The biggest question a romance plotline needs to answer is “why can’t they be together now?” And the most common answer I’ve found to it in a science fiction/fantasy setting tends to be ‘power imbalances.’ Power imbalances are things like age differences, and commander/boss and subordinate relationships. Sometimes power imbalances include class, education, and money.
If the power such as age, authority, education or class, is weighed too far in the direction of one character over the other, we are back to point number one. It is creepy. In fact, it is downright toxic. The worst is when they combine age and authority. It is enough to make my skin crawl. Relationships when one character has power over the other are unhealthy. They can lead to abuse and assault.
Only a relationship where the characters are on equal footing with each other and trust and respect each other are going to be healthy.
6) It’s not earned.
With insta-love plotlines, I, the reader, are told over and over and over again that these two characters are in love. I’m not shown this due to the fact it’s a subplot most of the time and the author doesn’t take the words to have the characters interact with each other on a regular basis as real people do and if they are shown together it’s probably in the capacity of ‘this is why they can’t be together.’ So, if they are getting together at the end of the book it doesn’t feel satisfying because I’ve been told they’re good for each other instead of having them interacting together and showing they work well together and they have chemistry.
This, also, by the way goes for friendships.
In order for a romance plot to feel satisfying and to feel like it actually matters and can’t just be ripped out of the book, you have to take the words and take the time to throw these characters together consistently so the reader can see, instead of being told, they are good together. If your book has to fall within a certain word count and you don’t think you have those words. Take out the romance subplot and see how much it changes the book.
It probably won’t. Your book, in fact, might be better off without it.
I challenge you to go through your book and take out anything that says “they are the best friend, lover,” followed by any summary, give it to a beta reader and ask them questions about the relationships in the book. If your beta reader can go “oh, and the best friend is awesome as a best friend” without much prompting, then your relationships have come across without having to actually say they’re the best friend.
Show. Show. Show. Any time you’re tempted to tell us a relationship and summarize, show it instead. Then the relationship will feel earned by the end of the book.
7) It usually makes smart, competent characters look anything but smart and competent.
There are two versions of this really. One version is the main character really is smart and competent, so having her be distracted from their job or the mission at hand by a hot guy just makes her come off as a ditz whose brain has fallen out her ear at a time when she really can’t afford to have her brains fall out her ears. You’re telling me one thing, this character is smart and competent, and showing me another, this character is easily distracted by ‘oh shiny.’
Version two is the main character doesn’t think they are smart and competent, but a hot guy shows up to ‘save the day’ and she’s going to refuse him at first due to ‘oh my independence’ until she really can’t save the day herself or learn anything and ends up relying on the hot guy anyways. And they fall in love despite his boundary crossing and stalking and insistence he has her best interests at heart when he’s a stranger. See point one of creepy!
I am not really sure which leaves more of a bad taste in my mouth to be honest.
It doesn’t help that sometimes the character in the book seems little more than a list of traits off a personality sheet being told to us than a well-rounded fleshy character with wants, needs, fears, likes, conflicts, and personal stakes in the matter at hand. Whether or not flat character is remotely likeable is debatable.
Dumping a romance onto a character who is paper thin doesn’t actually make the character more rounded. It just adds more pressure to that paper thin character to try to uphold any semblance of character consistency and the plot without tearing in half. And many, many times, the hot character shows up to solve the problems in the first chapter of the book before we even have a chance to know the main character at all!
When you tell the reader one thing, and show them another, it creates dissonance. The character isn’t being consistent. Inconsistent characters leave the reader frustrated. And they won’t want to read more of your books.
8) Psychopaths are warm and charming too. AKA If your character is opening up to a stranger after less than a real time day of knowing them, that is a cry for help and they need therapy not a romantic relationship.
“There’s just something about them,” the character says. “I can tell them anything even things I won’t tell my best friends/parents.”
And I go, “he’s going to kill you, run!”
In order for people to really connect to each other, they have to show or experience vulnerability together. It establishes this thing we call trust. Having the ‘deep conversation’ about past trauma is a short cut authors use to try and establish trust between two strangers to try and show that this person isn’t like other people and is worthy of said trust.
-makes grand gestures at Frozen’s Hans-
It doesn’t work. Why? Because honestly, if you’re opening up about your trauma to a sympathetic stranger, you need help. Like, therapy style help. Being vulnerable, and pouring out your trauma to a sympathetic stranger who is now going to cheerfully take advantage of you because yes, psychopaths can be warm and charming, aren’t the same things. For a balanced healthy person, having a complete stranger tell them about their traumatic past is really downright terrifying and intimidating. You’re just trying to have coffee and find out if you like the same weather patterns and they’re talking about their dead parents.
Check please!
Relationships are fragile and they take hard work. You need to build them up over time to create a strong foundation before dumping past trauma on them. Or, you know, go to therapy and learn coping mechanisms, how to move on, before you toss a bunch of emotional weight/stress onto your romantic partner. The same is true for a character in a book. See six. Make them earn it!
This has gotten a little long because I have opinions. Obviously. In conclusion, in my opinion as a reader, if you aren’t willing to spend as many words on your romance plot as you are your main plot, then you don’t have the words or the tools or a good reason to be including a romance into your story. And here are 8 reasons, I don’t think insta-romances work out for the reader. Take your time and use your words wisely!
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Survey #331
my head hurts way too badly to think up some intro lyrics, so just g’night.
Have you ever become good friends with someone you never met in person? Oh yeah, I've had best friends over the Internet. Hell, I'm closer to many online friends than I am most irl ones. They know "the real me" more.
What do you consider your default mood to be? Stressed, probably. Discontent.
What’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever kept a goldfish alive for? Not long. Proper goldfish husbandry is a very neglected topic, and I sure as hell never knew how to set up its tank adequately.
Have you ever been paintballing? No, don't plan to. It looks like it hurts like a bitch.
Do you want a large wedding? No.
Did you ever collect any sort of cards? I had a very small collection of Pokemon cards. I didn't collect them avidly.
What’re the best and worst books you ever had to read for a class? The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was the best. The worst was some book we had to read in the 6th grade about a kid during some war that moved around a lot... I don't remember the name or who wrote it, but it sucked.
What’s the best meal you had at an amusement park, or If you haven’t been to one, how about a good meal at another place like a zoo, aquarium or museum? I don't know. I haven't been to many.
Who, whether a person or company, emails you the most? My PHP therapist emails me a check-in sheet and Zoom link every day there's a therapy session.
What kind of sound or noise freaks you out the most and why do you think it scares you? Let's seeeee... I don't know if there's a sound that actually freaks me out. There are some I don't like, but none that like, frighten me. At least that I can think of.
What’s the strangest art piece you’ve come across? Biiiitch there's a painting in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs I'm not gonna go into, but shit fuckin wild.
What’s the most clever or unique name you’ve come across for a business? I've definitely heard some cool ones, but I don't know about one that really stands out to answer this.
If you had to name one of your hypothetical future children after a song, which song would you pick? Maybe like... okay, I'm blanking. Good thing I'm not having kids to name then, right?
What’s the last song you heard? "Down in the Park" by Marilyn Manson is on atm.
What is your favorite line from a TV show? *shrug*
Any current family issues? No.
How many hours do you spend online a day? How do you feel about that? I'm doing something on the computer pretty much... always. I hate it, and I hate it a lot. I don't want my life to be tied solely to the digital plane. I want to do more than bounce back and forth from website to website.
Do you think that people have the power to make their own lives better? Absolutely, but there are some things they simply cannot change. It's about perspective and how you play the deck you're dealt.
What is the biggest problem in your life right now? Right now, the most limiting thing is my physical health, probably. Just walking being torture affects my ability to exercise, and my body is a major reason - if not the biggest, at this current time - for my depression. This also plays a massive role in jobs I can handle. Not to sound like my emo self writing middle school poetry, but my body feels like a prison.
Do you feel that you are loved? I know I am by some people, though I have a hard time understanding why a lot.
What is the one thing you want most from life? Life satisfaction. Pride in what I've accomplished. A regular state of being content.
Birthplace? I'm just gonna say in eastern NC.
Do you believe in love at first sight? No, merely infatuation. Love is much too deep for that.
Do you think dreams eventually come true? Some can, but usually only if you put effort into making that so.
Favorite fictional character? like ummmmmmmm have you heard of this sassy bastard called Darkiplier-
Go to the movies or rent? Before Covid, I loved going to the theater. It was something to do, plus a giant screen is nice.
McDonalds or Burger King? McD's. I'm not a big BK fan. I only really went there during my vegetarian phase for the veggie burger.
Current annoyance? This motherfucking headache.
Last thing you ate? I have a meal replacement shake with me right now, if you consider that "eating." I didn't have a proper dinner. The last solid food I had though was some cookies and cream Greek yogurt.
Last thing you bought? With my own money, I think I bought Mom and I some cheap McDonald's order semi-recently? Or maybe paying my $100 deposit for my tattoo was most recent, idk.
Soonest thing you are looking forward to? For Mom to get her CT scan and find out what's going on in there.
What did you do today? It was a pretty average day. I woke up way too early, though. The only thing even semi-unique about today was I played World of Warcraft for a few hours again; I've been quite unattached to it lately, but I went through an episode today of actually having fun playing. Oh, and I've been battling a migraine. It's more of a severe headache now, at least, but it still sucks big time.
Do you like to see it snowing outside? Oh yes, absolutely!
When you were in high school did you ever have bomb threats? I believe once we did from a very volatile student that honestly caused quite a lot of trouble. He's dead now.
Who knows ALL of your secrets? Nobody.
Did you have a job before you were in college? No.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have a baby right now? That's a terrifying thought, no.
Are you on birth control? Yeah, but just because it tames my menstrual cramps. Without it, they could be debilitating some days.
Who is your last sent text to? My best fren.
Have you ever eaten at Chipotle before? Possibly? Idr.
Do you swear often? Excessively. I had a dirty mouth prior, but my swearing got really bad when I started staying at Jason's house a lot. He and especially his mother swear like mad.
Do you own any shirts with a peace symbol on it? No.
Do you have your national flag hanging up anywhere outside your house? Not at this house, no.
Would you ever go to Japan? Oh, yes. I would love to. It's... very morbid, but I would really like to walk the (public) paths of Aokigahara Forest, nicknamed "Suicide Forest" for the horrible amount of, well, suicides that happen there via hanging. Like, you might just casually run into a dead body. I want to just... feel it there, walk in silence and empathize with people who didn't know what else to do and hope so deeply that those departed know they were never alone in their pain. I know with absolute certainty I'd probably be teary-eyed the whole time and cry a whoooole lot, but it's just an experience I want to have.
What was the last thing you went to Walmart for? Some basic groceries.
What should you be doing right now? Sleeping, given this headache... I just don't want to yet.
Are you afraid of getting your heart broken? I'm fucking terrified of that ever happening again, far more than words can properly express.
Have you ever been in a choir? Yes, actually; when I was a Catholic kid, my sisters and I were in the church choir for a year or so, idr.
Do you have a Twitter? Yes, but only to like Mark's tweets, haha. Oh, and very rarely enter giveaways I'm interested in.
Describe your retainers to me, if you have them, that is. I have a permanent metal one behind my front row of bottom teeth to keep those straight. My upper teeth had one of those normal retainers you take in and out, but I didn't wear it enough, so now it doesn't even fit.
Would you like for someone to call you right now? No. I'm tired, my head hurts, and I'm enjoying the song I'm bingeing. It's so weird, I rarely ever go on music hunting trips (no real reason, I just... don't), but I've found great shit lately.
Do you like to brush your teeth? No; it's a chore. I only do it because I don't want my teeth decaying, falling out, or getting too yellow, and the taste in your mouth and gritty texture on your teeth isn't exactly great when you don't brush.
Have you ever had a surgery? Two.
Give out your phone number over the internet? I have over private messages.
Do you look older or younger than you actually are? Given my wardrobe (like graphic tees and band shirts), I probably look younger in the eyes of especially older people. I personally say I look my age, though.
When is the next time you’ll be up on stage? I never plan to be again.
What is the last show that you watched a full episode of? Some cooking show with Mom. Nailed It!, I think?
Do you know anyone who lives in Utah? No. I love Utah, though; it's actually a place I'd be willing to live in with just how pretty it is and not super populated.
Do you get your feelings hurt easily? VERY. I'm probably one of the most sensitive people you can meet.
Do you still talk to the person you last made out with? Yeah.
Have you ever seen your best friend cry? Ugh, yes.
What kind of vitamins did you take as a kid? First we took those nasty, chalky Flintstones kinds, but as time passed, Mom moved onto giving us gummy bear vitamins that were perfectly fine.
Did you get any compliments today? No.
Are you friends with your neighbors? Not "friends," no.
What towns have you lived in? Three different ones. That's all you're getting.
Have you ever thrown up from drinking? No.
Done any illegal drugs? No. I mean I've had some alcohol underage, but I've never done anything remotely hardcore.
What’s the longest amount of time you’ve been on an airplane without changing flights? Idk.
Who have you texted today? My mom and best friend.
What time did you wake up this morning? Ugh, like five in the fucking morning. I couldn't go back to sleep.
What is your favorite condiment to go with french fries? Ketchup.
What do you have a habit of doing when engaging in a conversation with someone? Making shitty eye contact, and I'm one of those people who "talks with [their] hands." I also lose my train of thought a whoooole lot.
Have you ever layed in a hammock? Yeah; we had one growing up.
Have you ever lost a pet in a tragic way? How did you cope? Well yeah, I've had lots of pets, so thus lost some in particularly painful ways. The most scarring loss of a pet though is as follows: Teddy, my dog, picked up one of our cat's very young, wandering kittens in his jaws in a manner that looked as if he was trying to carry it like Aphrodite (the mother cat) does when she would bring them back behind the couch, where she gave birth/had her little "nest." I absolutely freaked and had to pry the kitten from his mouth, and it slowly died in my hands. I think Teddy accidentally crushed its ribs. I. Was. A. Mess.
Then, there was Aphrodite herself. I've told the story before of our former neighbors calling animal control because our cats would wander through their yard, and all of our cats were taken away while I was unaware at school. Came home, and they were all gone. Aphrodite was my baby, so I was devastated. Screaming, sobbing, cursing on the porch for like 20 minutes... It was awful.
What type of curtains do you like? I don't... know? I don't know the actual names of any types...
What type of quality is a must-have in a friend? I absolutely cannot be friends with someone who thinks they're above everyone else.
Are you any good at reading someone's body language? I think I am.
What goes good with a nice cold glass of milk? Cookies! Especially Oreos. Dip it in there for around five seconds, and it's perfection.
What fruit is too sweet to you? Grapefruit came to mind first.
How did you feel after your first kiss? I had butterflies galore and was so giddy and smiley. After the first, I just wanted to kiss him a billion more times.
What’s your favorite constellation and why? I don't have one.
Shower curtain or door? Curtain. The glass doors are too revealing.
Have you ever thought to yourself that you’re the luckiest person in the world? Most deeeeefinitely not.
What time of day do you most enjoy looking at the sky? Sunset if there are clouds present, but sunrise if the sky is pretty clear.
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Could you talk in depth about your pitch wars experience? I’m trying to decide whether to apply and I’ve seen numerous threads where it seems like the experience was unkind
So my short answer is to apply. If you have a completed fiction manuscript, take your shot and go for it. The pluses of getting into Pitch Wars are very real.
You get a sort of one-way critique partner, in that they will read and make editorial notes on your manuscript and you don’t have to do the same for them. They will not be a professional editor, but by the time you get to the stage of debut writer, you have almost certainly developed an editorial eye. I adored (and continue to adore) my mentor. She is a lovely person and had continued to make herself available when I have random questions about publishing. Go buy her book.
You will improve as a writer.
You will meet a bunch of other writers who are at the same stage of their career as you are. This can be a ready-made community of peers. (It was not for me, and I’m only still in regular contact with one person from my PW class, and that's because almost a year out from the program she joined a critique group I’m in that had an opening, but I also didn’t need a community of writers to talk craft and querying woes with because I already had that thanks to fandom. Also, I’m socially awkward and throw me into an online community and tell me I have three months to make a bunch of BFFs, and I will lose the ability to have even a normal conversation.)
The showcase. Agents who are not usually open to queries comb through that showcase, and the year I did it I got SEVENTEEN full requests for the MS from that alone. That was an average number for the showcase.
The bad things to be aware of going in:
It’s a lot of stress. Even in a normal year, it’s a lot of stress, and this is 2020. None of us are staring for a stress level of ‘zero.’ You have a short period of time to revise a MS and, for a lot of participants, it’s the first time they’ve gotten anything like a real edit letter. People in my group had massive anxiety attacks, froze, and were unable to work for weeks at a time. I’m pretty sure the emotional toll played a part in causing my uterus to freak out and fill itself with fibroids which resulted in one surgery the week after PW and another three months later. I was not the only person to suspect physical problems were the result of the stress level. And it’s not so much the workload. It’s the feeling that this is it. this is your one chance to break in.
If you do not get picked up after the showcase, it feels terrible. I describe it as that sinking feeling when teams are picked in middle school PE and one by one other kids get picked and you’re standing there, unwanted. Seeing that I had been picked for Pitch Wars remains the best high I’ve had in publishing. Not getting any offers for rep afterward was the worst. For a full year after the showcase, I couldn’t think about the experience without starting to cry.
The program does not offer any support after the editorial phase is over other than a recommendation to do research on anyone who offers representation. If you’ve just come off a high-intensity editorial mentorship where ‘winning’ is defined as ‘getting representation’ and you don’t have any experience in querying or close friends who have experience querying, it’s hard to even know where to start doing that research. You’re at risk of riding the high of an offer right into a contract with a bad agent and then not being able to sell the book. I have seen this happen to multiple people.
And despite all that, I would still tell you to apply. The benefits outweigh the negatives and if you go in less naive than I did, you’ll fare better emotionally. BUT when you do apply, keep in mind that getting in is a bit of a crapshoot. Once you eliminate all of the MS that are (bluntly) not good enough to get into queryable shape in three months, you’ve still got a lot left and who gets chosen will depend on the taste of the mentors. And it’s impossible to predict what a person will like. Which is to say, don’t take it too personally if you apply and don’t get in.
But apply.
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still got scars on my back (from your knife)
A Bellarke Knives Out Au in which Kane is probably Benoit Blanc, Clarke might be Ransom Drysdale, Bellamy is definitely Marta Cabrara, Dante was Harlan Thrombey, and like Detective Elliot, Miller is just along for the ride.
Written for @bellarkejanuaryjoy Day 29 and dedicated to @marauders-groupie and @woodswit who were the best sounding boards and cheerleaders and are the reasons this fic exists in any way, shape, or form.
When Bellamy walks into the Mt. Weather police station again, where he has been far too many times in far too few days, he is tired. The kind of tired that starts in your bones and slowly leeches into your soul. He has a migraine that feels like it originated in his prefrontal cortex, and he genuinely can’t remember the last time he felt like he could breathe normally or wasn’t on the verge of puking.
He’s led into an interview room in the back and when he enters he stops short. Marcus Kane, the self-proclaimed “last of the gentleman sleuths,” is perched on the corner of the table, posing dramatically as always. And sitting in a chair next to him is Clarke. Despite being arrested over 48 hours ago, she isn’t wearing handcuffs or an orange jumpsuit. Damn it must be nice to be a rich white girl. She’s just wearing a regular button-down shirt and jeans, and that small smirk that always made him want to kiss her. There’s something softer about it now though, and he hates how much that just makes him want to kiss it off her even more. Detective Miller motions for Bellamy to sit down in the chair across from Clarke. He does so without looking at Clarke or saying anything, just glaring down at the table so he doesn’t do something stupid like cry.
“You’re probably wondering why we’ve called you back here…” Miller starts.
“Oh, I’m wondering about a lot of things.” Bellamy shoots back at him.
Miller just snorts and looks over at Kane, “I’ll let you take it from here.”
Kane pulls out the pipe he carries around with him and starts to pack it. Bellamy can feel his scowl deepening, who the fuck even carries a pipe anymore?
Continue reading below or on Ao3...
“First of all, Mr. Blake,” he starts without looking up, “we must begin by giving you our most profuse and sincere apologies.” Kane lights the pipe and brings it to his mouth, then he looks at Bellamy and grins. That dramatic asshole actually smiles, far wider than Clarkes’ smirk, but equally as infuriating. “But you are just far too honest and decent a man to have been let in on all our plans.” He turns to Clarke and nods.
Clarke takes a deep breath and starts talking, but Bellamy can’t bring himself to look at her. He knows if he does all he’ll see is her grabbing his hands when he started having a panic attack, all he’ll feel is her fingers running through his hair, all he’ll hear is her soft but strong voice telling him to look at her, to focus on his breathing, reassuring him “It’ll be okay I promise… We’ll figure this out… Together.”
“You know, I used to be one of the only people that could ever beat my Grandpa Dante at Go. I used to pride myself on that,” she chuckles. “And then you came along and he told me you beat him twice as often as I did.” Bellamy looks up at that and finds Clarke looking right at him, her eyes focused on his. “He said you beat him almost every time. That you had never even played before you met him, but that somehow you would always win. And god that used to drive me fucking crazy,” she laughs again. “I couldn’t figure out how the hell you were beating him. I knew he wasn’t letting you win, he wasn’t that nice. And I knew he wouldn’t lie about it, he was far too arrogant. It was one of the mysteries he could never solve” she shakes her head ruefully at the memory. “How you beat him at that goddamn game night after night.”
“He never figured out that answer to that mystery,” she continues. “But I did. I finally solved it… You win because you don’t just play from the head, you play from the heart.”
“And you won again Bellamy… You won this game not by playing my way or my grandpa’s way, but by playing your way. You won because you are a genuine and honorable and fundamentally good person. You played it honest, you didn’t lie or mislead anyone or try to throw them off your trail. That’s why all the pieces fell perfectly into place: because you made all the right moves. You won by figuring out your strategy and making your decisions the same way you always have: from the heart.”
Bellamy just stares at her for another minute and then looks at Kane. “Look I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s been a really long couple of days and I’m pretty worn out so I’m just going to be really straight with you here and ask: what the actual fuck is going on?”
Miller snorts again, “I asked the same damn question.” He turns to Kane and Clarke and pulls out his little yellow notepad. “Actually, would you mind starting from the top again? Because I’m still not sure I really understand what in the damn hell happened.”
Kane and Clarke look at each other again doing that annoying nonverbal communication thing they seem to be so good at. Bellamy thinks he probably can’t complain about that too much though, since he and Clarke had gotten pretty damn good at it themselves after years of knowing each other, pretending to hate each other, and refusing to admit that they secretly adored each other.… Or so he thought… How the hell did he get her so wrong?
Before this week, Bellamy would have told anyone who asked, with a higher degree of confidence than he possesses about most things, that he could tell you almost everything there is to know about Clarke Griffin…
Namesake: Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who her father had been a massive fanboy of and managed to convince her mother to let him name their newborn daughter after while Abby was still high as a kite on epidural anesthesia. Evidently, he had persuaded her by arguing that it was probably better than Arthurette or Arthurina; when Abby tells the story she always magnanimously says that at the time it seemed to be “the least of the evils.”
Middle Name: Matilda, after Empress Matilda, a member of the British monarchy who was some distant relative of the Wallaces, but that she pretended was after Matilda Wormwood because that Matilda was “infinitely cooler in all ways.”
Notable Likes: Inclusive, intersectional feminism. All forms of alcohol; with the notable exception of tequila which she will not look at, smell, touch, or tolerate in her presence in any way, shape, or form (he’d tried to ask her why once but she’d promptly turned green and puked into the nearest potted plant so he decided not to push the issue). Shark Week. Jane Austen novels. True crime documentaries. The Jonas Brothers (“They’re making a comeback Bell, whether you like it or not! Just save yourself the trouble later and lean into it now!”) Any and all things Harry Potter related (he’s pretty sure she’s on multiple bar trivia teams, including his own, just to answer the Harry Potter questions… And get the free booze.) Netflix. Adult coloring books. Anytime someone climbs a building to tear down a Confederate flag. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Antique tea sets. Movies that have women wearing armor and/or holding swords. Wearing high heels because they make her feel tall (her diminutive frame is something she endlessly despairs over, but Bellamy maintains she makes up for through presence, spitefulness, and sheer force of will.) Her cousin Roan.
Notable Dislikes: Donald Trump. Tinder, which she has an active profile on (a fact that definitely did not bother him. Much.) Twitter, which she hates even more, and has an even more active profile on. Blavy (“I don’t care what Tom Ford or Marc Jacobs said Bell, it’s a disgrace!”) Humidity. The NRA. The Twilight series (because it was “pushing the suspension of disbelief” that anyone would pick Edward over Jacob, and “downright offensively unrealistic” that Bella wouldn’t just dump them both and run off with “the hot Cullen sister… Either one of them.”) Most forms of organized sports. All forms of organized religion. Camping. When people talk during movies. Having to wear “real pants” for more than a couple of hours on a given day. The American Healthcare System. Toxic masculinity, men yelling, manbuns, manspreading, mansplaining and men having to put the word "man" before everything because their egos were so fragile. Wearing high heels because they are “torture devices of the patriarchy” (Clarke speak for “they make her feet hurt and she’s a wimp.”) Her cousin Ontari.
Favorite Foods: Sushi. Guacamole Doritos (which she had cried genuine tears over being discontinued). Her grandfather’s disgustingly greasy fried egg sandwiches that taste like heartburn. Her mother’s blueberry cheesecake. Avocados (Bellamy never understood what the deal was with white people and avocado; like yeah avocados are great and all, but damn do white people really love avocado.) Movie theater popcorn. Bellamy’s adobo. Octavia’s empanadas. All kinds of Indian food, the spicier the better. Watermelon, especially when it’s filled with vodka. Almost anything that has chocolate in or on it. Potatoes in all their forms, especially the ones that have cheese on them. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Cheese Blintzes. Cheese fondue. Cheese in general, honestly. “That one thing we got at that one place that one time, Bell!” which he always knew exactly what she was referring to (Dante had always said that Bellamy, like him, was “fluent in Clarke: a skill coveted by the many, but possessed by the few.”)
Hobbies: Smashing the patriarchy. Art; painting, drawing, sculpting, anything that struck her fancy really (she even went through a sand art phase at one point, which ended up being short lived because while she loves art, she hates sand.) Making fun of Bellamy. Conspiring with Octavia to make fun of Bellamy. Making fun of her grandpa Dante. Conspiring with Bellamy to make fun of her grandpa Dante. Equestrian activities, the only kind of formal, organized “sport” she was actually good at (“All I have to do is sit there and tell the horse what to do, Bell. I’m so good at sitting around and telling people what to do!”). Fighting Twitter trolls. Reading, especially her grandfather’s mystery novels. Krav Maga, which Bellamy will admit surprised him a little (and then surprised him more than a little when he’d asked where she’d learned it and she shrugged and said “Israel” like it was as obvious as the inevitability of death and taxes.) Online shopping. Pretending to hate it when Bellamy calls her Princess. Buying and playing video games she doesn’t really understand with her little sister, Madi (“ I can’t trick her into thinking I’m cool anymore so it’s the only way I can get her to hangout with me. I’m just embracing bribery as a form of bonding!”) Over, and incorrectly, using the word “literally.” Telling Bellamy he is literally a pedantic killjoy.
He knew that she was deathly afraid of heights and irrationally paranoid about catching scurvy and getting cat-fished. He knew that she liked real bananas and blueberries but hated banana and blueberry artificial flavoring. He knew that her first kiss was with her best friend Wells in a closet during a game of 7 minutes in heaven at a classmate’s birthday party in 6th grade, and that her first kiss with a girl was in the exact same closet playing the exact same game at the exact same classmate’s birthday party two years later with a girl named Glass. He knew she lasted exactly one and a half years in med school before telling her mother that she needed to choose between Clarke being a doctor and Clarke being alive, because it was it was killing her slowly and driving her insane. He knew that she always ordered some kind of strange, obscure plant or flower to place on her father’s grave every year on the anniversary of his death because “he was weirdo who liked weird shit” (this past year it was a Venus Fly Trap, the year before that it was a Ghost Orchid because she was “feeling ironic.”)
He knew that she once met the Clinton’s at a charity fundraiser when she was little where she told then President Bill Clinton that he looked better with brown hair and threw up on Hillary Clinton’s shoes. He knew that she’d actually thrown up on several member of the rich and powerful elite; notable examples including Condoleezza Rice’s Hermès Birkin bag, Paul Ryan’s Armani sports coat, and Eric Trmups whole entire arm (which she admitted was definitely not an accident.) He knew that she loved school and learning and once got her English Lit teacher fired for failing her on a paper where she argued that Humbert Humbert was an obsessive, delusional, predatory pedophile who deserved to be medically castrated and the teacher had tried to tell her that Lolita was a “tragic love story” and that she was “simply too narrow minded to appreciate Nabokov’s true message.” He knew that she had unsuccessfully tried to pierce her own belly button in high school and managed to successfully pierce her own nose in college. He knew that she has four tattoos: a small crown on the back of her neck (which only made Bellamy double down on the Princess nickname after he found out about it), a lion on her left foot for her father, a lotus flower on her on her right wrist for her ex-girlfriend Lexa, and the Latin translation of “do no harm, take no shit” running down the left side of her rib cage.
He knew that she pretended to hate Valentine's Day when really, every single year, she handmade super elaborate and incredibly awesome cards for all her friends and family members (well, the ones she liked anyway). He knew that she was planning on naming her first daughter Gertrude after her grandmother, Dante’s deceased wife, even though the kid would probably hate her for it because her grandma was a badass and “metal as fuck.” He knew that otters were her favorite animal and that he favorite type of otters were those terrifying Amazonian river otters that could fight crocodiles (which was typical Clarke, honestly.) He knew that she loved her adopted little sister Madi more than anything or anyone in this world and was as fiercely protective of her as he was of his own little sister. He knew that she loved horror movies and hated Claymation because it freaked her out that that she has seen every single episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. at least three times and could sing all the lines of every single song Lana del Ray has ever recorded from memory.
He knew that she started drawing when she was really young and would sit on the floor in her dad’s office and draw on his grid paper while he worked on his designs; he knew that art had helped her through some really hard times like when she started questioning her sexuality and when her father had died and when he girlfriend had been killed and that she hoping to go back to school to become an art therapist. He knew she was stubborn and loyal and empathetic and unafraid to speak her mind. He knew she could be cunning and calculating and ambitious and ruthless and even downright vicious when it came to things going her way or getting what she wanted. Bellamy had just never thought there would come a day where he would be on the receiving end of all that Clarke Griffin Intensity. At least, not like this.
In all the years he’d known her, Clarke had never treated him like one her family’s employees or made him feel like “the help.” She got along (scarily, in Bellamy’s personal opinion) well with his little sister, and took (or sometimes dragged) him out places with her. She asked his opinion on things, and incorporated him into her friend group (while gleefully teasing him about how hot they all thought he was). She went to him for advice, and liked all his friends. She actually read the books and watched the movies and listened to the music he would recommend to her, and made him feel included at Wallace family events and dinners. She always laughed at his dumb jokes (sometimes so hard she would snort, which was his favorite), and would go to his apartment to feed the cat and water the plants when he was out of town. She would text him while she was on a bad date or at a boring event, and listened to all his rants about mythology and colonialism and the Star Wars universe and representation in media and all the historical inaccuracies in every single period drama they ever watched together. She would show him the art pieces she was working on, and remembered shit like his birthday and that he was allergic to tomatoes and the anniversary of his mom’s death and that Nerds were his favorite candy. She treated him like he was someone important to her, someone she cared about even. She made him feel valued and respected. She’d never treated him or made him feel like anything but her equal.
But now, finally looking up at the girl across from him, knowing just how much time and planning and work and effort she’d put into trying to fuck him over and ruin his life, it feels like being in the room with a complete stranger. And it might be one of the worst feelings in the world. Bellamy thought he knew her. Thought he could trust her, that he understood her, that they understood and trusted each other. He had considered her a good friend and, after so many years of knowing her, possibly even a best friend.
He had introduced her to his friends and his sister, and texted her links to stuff she would find funny and when someone said something absurdly ignorant or hilariously dumb on TV. He started keeping those alcoholic ciders she liked better than beer in his fridge, and thought way too hard about what to buy her every year for her birthday. He told her stories about his mom, and his childhood, and his first kiss, and his first girlfriend, and the first time he got punched and the first time he punched someone which were, to Clarke’s endless amusement, two completely different situations.
He told her about how terrified he’d been that he would never see his sister again when they were separated after their mom died, and how for years the only time he felt truly happy was during their weekly visit with their social worker when he got to see her, and how it took the longest time after he was officially able to get custody of her for him to finally relax and not worry that she wasn’t coming back every time she left the apartment, and how fucking proud he was of her for getting into a good college, and all kinds of personal shit he would never just tell to just anyone.
She’d become a fixture in his daily life, a staple in his routine, the first person after O that he wanted to share good news with, and the last person he wanted to say goodbye to before he left the Wallace estate to head home for the day. He let her in.
After years of his mom’s revolving door of terrible boyfriends, and moving around different towns to where ever Aurora could find a job, and constantly having to switch schools, and never really having time to hang out with kids his age because he had a little sister to take care of, and being passed around from foster home to foster home once he was put in the system, Bellamy didn’t just let people in and make friends with them. He has a screening process, a thorough one, what he had thought was an effective one; but somehow, Clarke Griffin had managed to make it through with flying colors in record time.
Bellamy is well aware that, in all likelihood, he should be more concerned about the fact that finding out he didn’t really know Clarke as well as he thought he did feels like his whole world has turned on its head and he doesn’t know which way is up. But between Dante dying and being framed for his murder and having paparazzi actually camped out on his front lawn and being put in charge of an entire estate he has no idea what to do with and bequeathed an amount of money so high he wouldn’t have believed it existed, there’s a lot to be concerned about. He can prioritize. Or at least multitask. Probably.
“Well why don’t we start with who it was that hired me,” Kane begins as he puffs on his pipe.
“We know who hired you,” Bellamy interrupts. “Clarke did. As part of her plan to frame me for Dante’s murder… I really don’t need to hear about it again.” If he has to listen to the whole story in terribly thorough detail again he is definitely going to do something stupid like cry. His voice breaks a little on the last words and out of the corner of his eye her sees Clarke bite her lip and look down at the table. Good, he thinks, she should feel like shit.
“Yes, Clarke did secure my employ,” Kane confirms.
Bellamy almost rolls his eyes. ‘Secure my employ?’ who the actual fuck even talks like that anymore?? While smoking a pipe??? Jesus tap dancing Christ.
“But she did so by proxy,” Kane continues, “under the instruction of her grandfather.”
That stops Bellamy and his internal running commentary on Kane’s outfit (Who the hell wears actual suspenders? And a goddamn deerstalker hat?? Where the hell do you even buy a deerstalker hat anymore?!?) right in their tracks. “Wait… What?”
“Dante Wallace hired me not only to solve his own murder, but to help his granddaughter frame herself while she also pretended to frame you at the same time.”
Bellamy blinks at him.
“You see Dante Wallace knew he was going to be murdered before he committed suicide,” Kane begins what Bellamy suspects is going to be one of the most confusing and ridiculous stories he has ever heard in his life. “And yes, Dante Wallace most definitely did commit suicide.”
This time Bellamy turns to blink at Miller. “Yeah,” he says dryly, “this is about where I started screaming internally too.”
Instead of continuing, Kane uses the pause to pull out that stupid coin he’s always tossing around and flips it in the air, catching it again without even looking but with uncanny precision. Bellamy is sorely tempted to tell him exactly how far he should shove the damn thing up his ass, but he physically restrains himself and waits for Kane to go on.
“Mr. Wallace knew not only that he was dying, but that he was being murdered. Slowly and painfully at that. He knew he was going to die and how, but he didn’t know when it was going to happen or who was doing it. He had a murder and a murder weapon, but no body and no actual death.”
Kane pauses and runs his fingers over his beard. Bellamy is like 99.9% sure this dude grew a beard just so he could stroke it dramatically. “He did have one other thing though,” Kane goes on, “and that was an obvious suspect.” He nods in Bellamy’s direction, “you.”
All three of the room’s other occupants are looking at him in silence. Bellamy’s breath catches and he starts to panic, “But you already cleared me. You said you know it wasn’t me. It wasn’t… I didn’t… I couldn’t… That’s…”
Clarke reaches out and grabs one of his hands. Bellamy can’t help but think that her tiny hand on his huge one shouldn’t be as reassuring as it is. “We know you didn’t do it Bell,” she tells him softly but firmly. She squeezes his hand, “we know you could never.”
He wants to smack her hand away and tell her not to call him that. He wants to tell all three of them to fuck off, he wants to get the hell out of here, he wants to get some weed from Monty the groundskeepers’ stash in the garage, or go down to Polis Pub and have O mix him up of those “kitchen sink” drink thingies she makes that he is pretty sure have what must be an illegal, non FDA approved amount of alcohol in them. He wants to go home and sleep forever, he wants to wake up tomorrow and have this all just be a terrible dream, he wants to travel back in time and never take this fucking job in the first place. He wants to do a lot of things, but he doesn’t. He just stays quiet and waits.
Clarke withdraws her hand and he sees her clench it into a fist on the table in front of her. “Grandpa Dante was being poisoned,” she says matter-of-factly. To anyone else it would seem like she was emotionless; but Bellamy sees the tension in her shoulders, the clench in her jaw, the rapid blinking of her eyes. He has been around the Wallace family long enough to know that they know how to put on masks. The can tamp down their anger, and swallow their sadness, and choke back their tears, and fake out their fear, and affect apathy along with the best of them. But Clarke has her tells, and he knows them. Dante always told him he was observant for his own good; that he was a good judge of character, that he pays attention to detail, that he notices the little things others wouldn’t even know to be looking for. And that one of these days it was going to get him into trouble.
He saw Abby disguise her sorrow and depression and grief after the tragic death of her husband Jake. And a few short years later, saw Clarke as the ice-cold, emotionless mirror image of her mother after her girlfriend Lexa was shot in a drive by. He saw Maya mask her terror the day she got her diagnoses, when she’d found out that she had developed a rare, life threatening blood disorder before she was even able to drive a car, that she would have to go through painful blood transfusions for the foreseeable future just to stay alive, and sees her to the same every time she leaves to go get her treatment. He saw Roan force back his fury every time he sees his mother treat people like dirt and watches his little sister show up to yet another family event high out of her mind. And he constantly saw Dante hide his sense of regret, his feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, when he reflected on what his family had become.
None of them managed to mask their feelings the day Dante’s will was read though, their emotions were written all over their faces: Nia’s fury at being passed over for “the help.” Abby’s shock and confusion at her father’s decision and clear feeling of betrayal and heartbreak that her father trusted Bellamy with his legacy more than he trusted her. Emerson’s horror over not being able to continue to maintain his lifestyle or pay for the treatment his sick stepdaughter needs to survive. Ontari’s hysterics at the easy funding for her pill and powder fixes being cut off. Roan’s indignation when he finally snapped ad yelled at his family members to “chill the fuck out and back the hell off! Bellamy clearly doesn’t know what the fuck is happening even more than we do!” And finally, Cage’s rage over Bellamy daring to take what Cage saw as rightfully his.
Not Clarke though. Clarke remained seated in the arm chair she had unceremoniously plopped down on when she arrived, throwing her legs over one of the arms and pulling up Candy Crush on her phone. Her attention wasn’t focused on her phone anymore though. Unlike the rest of her family, she stayed silent. Also, unlike the rest of her family, her ice blue, all seeing eyes were focused not on him, but on the people gathered around him, yelling and screaming, all hellfire and fury, threats and accusations flying. At first glance she appeared stone faced and detached. But while she studied her family Bellamy looked closer at her and for a brief moment, no more than a second, he saw it: the slight smirk curving at the side of her mouth.
Bellamy couldn’t tell exactly what was running through her mind that day, but he knows what she’s feeling now: grief over Dante’s death, sorrow over losing a family member (one of the only family members) she was close to, anger over her grandpa being murdered, and primarily: pissed as fuck that someone would do this to him. Bellamy still isn’t sure what’s happening or been able to process all the information he’s been given, but he’s starting to strongly suspect that hell hath no fury like Clarke Griffin scorned.
Kane rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder, wordlessly encouraging her to continue. Clarke takes another deep breath seemingly trying to calm herself, like it’s been ages since she felt like she was able to catch it. He knows the feeling. “I figured out he was being poisoned a while back,” she says. “He was just… He was getting sick way too fast.”
“I might not have been in med school for long but I was there long enough to know that his condition shouldn’t have been deteriorating so quickly,” her voice is getting steadier now. “He shouldn’t have been in so much pain, he shouldn’t have been so tired all the time. And nothing was working; some of the treatment should have been working, something should have been working.”
“You must have noticed it,” she half states, half asks. “I mean… He was just so… And nothing was… You had to have noticed it too?”
Yeah, she’s right; he had noticed it. Dante shouldn’t have been so sick so quickly. No matter how much he slept, he always felt tired. He started to lose drastic amounts of weight and his skin started to yellow at a disturbingly rapid pace. His heart rate and blood pressure were all over the place. His bones appeared to have become brittle overnight and he seemed to be in almost perpetual pain, his body shrugging in on itself while he sat, or contorting itself while he slept, just trying to get comfortable. He started getting spells where he was confused, he would have no idea where he was or not remember why he walked into a room or forget something Bellamy had told time only minutes prior. The spells wouldn’t have normally been too alarming in an elderly patient except that this wasn’t any other elderly patient, this was Dante Wallace. He had never been anything but sharp as a tact, quick on his feet, alert and awake and of perfectly sound mind.
She was also right about the treatment. Lung cancer is obviously nothing to scoff about, but the kind Dante was diagnosed with should have at least been manageable, if not treatable or even curable, with the right medication. Medication Bellamy knew he was on because he was the one that administered the drug to Dante every day, which subsequently brought him to the shit storm he was currently caught in without rain boots or an umbrella. Not only did the medication not seem to be doing anything to improve Dante’s condition in any way, they seemed to be making him worse. It was almost like they were causing new symptoms in addition to exacerbating the ones that were already there.
So yeah, he had noticed. Bellamy was no medical professional or trained expert; he was just a caregiver, a companion, he was just “the help,” but even he could tell that something was wrong. Whenever he had tried to express his concerns to members of Dante’s family as well. But whenever he tried to speak with Dante’s children about his health, he was either told off-handedly that it would be checked into, or told in no uncertain terms to mind his own goddamn business or his ass was fired.
“I mean, I’m well aware that me making the illogically, dramatically huge jump straight from ‘my grandpa is super sick’ to ‘MY GRANDPA IS BEING POISONED!’ is a little odd,” Clarke shrugs. “But it turns out that when you’re majoring in pre-med and spend your summers researching insane, off the wall ways to kill someone for your grandfather who writes murder mystery novels, you pick up some things,” she says grimly.
God, he thinks, her whole entire life must just be so weird.
“I remember taking a random medicinal chem class in undergrad,” Clarke starts rambling. “That’s how I think I first figured out what was happening. It took me a while to figure out the specifics, but once the details starting becoming clear it was obvious: Grandpa had anthracycline induced cardiac and pulmonary toxicity that was incorrectly diagnosed as potentially malignant, early stage lung cancer.” She’s talking even more animatedly now and gesturing wildly with her hands like she’s really getting into what she’s saying. Bellamy hates how cute he finds it.
“He was then treated with unnecessary, prolonged, and continuous exposure to radon which not only served to exacerbate his current vascular symptoms, but also caused additional idiopathic neurological, respiratory, skeletal, cardiovascular, and immunological afflictions that caused his condition to deteriorate to the point of inviability,” Clarke explains. Kane is nodding along like this all makes perfect sense to him and that she was explaining something as simple as how two and two makes four.
Bellamy and Miller just stare at her with blank expression of incomprehension on their faces. Miller previously had his pen poised over his notepad like he would have written down every word she said if he knew how to spell half of them. Now he just sighs and tucks his pen behind his ear and shoves the notepad back into his back pocket.
“Uh huh, right, exactly,” he says dryly. “How about you repeat that one more time in Normal Person.”
“He was poisoned with something that made it look like he had lung cancer,” she states matter-of-factly.
Miller shots Bellamy a look that he knows is asking “the fuck couldn’t she have just said that the first time?!” There’s a similar expression on his own face right now, he’s sure.
“Then he started getting chemo and radiation for the Not Lung Cancer which probably ended up giving him the Actual Lung Cancer and definitely gave him a whole bunch of other bad shit. He was slowly but surely dying,” she swallows and looks down at her hands, picking at one of her fingernails. “And the stuff that was supposed to be helping him was really just causing radon poisoning and killing him more quickly and painfully,” the crack in her voice makes him want to fold her up in his arms and tell her everything is going to be okay, the way she had for him so many times over the past week. Until he reminds himself that we don’t comfort people who try to frame us for murder. People who try to frame us for murder are assholes, no matter how pretty they are.
“My first guess was obviously Cage,” she goes on, “mostly because he sucks and I hate him. But still, it's not like I was wrong. It took a while for me to convince grandpa though, he was actually really pissed at me for even suggesting it in the first place.”
Bellamy remembers those few weeks severalmonths back when Clarke had stopped coming around and Dante had gone from his usual “exasperating old man shouts at cloud” to “insufferably cranky asshole.” When Bellamy suggested that maybe they invite Clarke over to cheer him up since she hadn’t been around in a while, Dante had just glared even harder and huffed that he and Clarke had “parted ways” due to “irrevocable creative differences” before flouncing from the room like an egregiously offended prima donna and locking himself in his study for the remainder of the day.
“I finally managed to convince him by figuring out where Cage would have been getting whatever he was poisoning grandpa with: his wife.”
Bellamy didn’t really know Cage’s wife, Dr. Lorelai Tsing Wallace, very well. Nor had he made any effort too. Primarily because she gave him the fucking creeps. She wasn’t the same brand of downright terrifying like Nia, or intimidatingly poised like Abby. She was scary in her very own, unique “don’t stand so close to me,” “makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up,” Stranger Danger kind of way. He would catch her eyeing him with interest sometimes, and he could never quite tell if it was in an “I want to jump you” kind of way or an “I want to kidnap you and harvest your organs” kind of way.
“It seems that the pharmaceutical development company Dr. Tsing works for had been doing a great deal of experimentation with alternative forms of radiation and chemotherapy treatment.” Kane says from where he’s returned to his perch on the table. “Namely, orally administrated, pill forms of radon.”
“We haven’t been able to establish any conclusive evidence that Lorelai Tsing-Wallace was knowingly or willfully involved in her husband’s plot to kill his father,” Miller interrupts, all procedure and formality. All three of them look at him with thoroughly unimpressed faces. “But yeah,” he concedes. “I honestly have no idea how the hell Cage would have gotten his hands on so much radon for so long without her help.”
“So yeah,” Clarke continues. “Once I was able to sit grandpa down and calmly and rationally explain to him what was happening to him and how, he was persuaded to see reason.
It’s another part of the story that Bellamy can’t help but snort at, because looking back, he’s pretty sure he remembers the exact incident she’s talking about. After going weeks without seeing her, Clarke had stormed into the house like a category 5 hurricane (as opposed to her typical level 2 tornado) and stomped up the stairs to Dante’s study. She’d pounded incessantly on the door, demanding he let her in and talk to her. And when he’d continuously and steadfastly refused she’d threatened to “kick in his antique, handcrafted, mahogany door with her heavy-duty riding boots that he knew would fuck that door right up because he bought them for her and knew exactly how expensive they were and exactly how much she was not screwing around.”
Eventually Dante had relented and after that there was a lot of muffled yelling and what definitely sounded like things being thrown and furniture being knocked over, all of which was typical for a Wallace family argument. “You can never say we lack passion,” Dante had always told him. But it was the eerie silence that came after that was concerning. After they were quiet for so long that Bellamy genuinely began to worry that they had somehow managed to kill each other, he relented and made his way up the stairs.
His soft knock was met with an even softer “come in.”
Bellamy had popped his head in and teased “just wanted to make sure everyone was still alive up here.”
God in hindsight that was such a terrible joke, pun absolutely not intended he swears.
“Yes, yes, everything is just fine Bellamy, fine.” Dante had said quietly. Both he and Clarke had been sitting at his desk, red eyed, red faced, and looking horribly sad and defeated.
“Uh ok,” Bellamy had cleared his throat. “Well can I get either of you anything?”
Dante didn’t answer, still staring at his desk, so Clarke said “No I think we’re fine… Everything is… Fine.”
Dante had looked up at that point. “Yes,” he’d said, still sounding odd. “Just fine… You may go for the day.”
Bellamy should have known at that moment that something was up; it was only 11 am and Dante rarely ever even dismissed him an hour early, much less before noon. But he’d just shrugged it off as “family stuff” he didn’t want or need to get involved in, and made his way home, honestly happy to have a day off.
“All that evidence combined with the fact that, starting several months earlier, Cage had apparently started coming around more often wanting to do “guys night” with grandpa and bringing over whatever absurdly exotic, stupidly expensive liquor he could find that week for them to try, was what finally did it.” Clarke continues her story.
Bellamy remembers that, too. Cage had started coming around in the evenings to visit with Dante and they would drink and smoke cigars out on the screened in porch or in the den. Bellamy had been wary of why Cage started coming over so often when he had basically never made an effort to spend any time “getting to know” his father since Bellamy could remember. Dante had, of course, decided to humor him saying “perhaps there’s still time.” Bellamy had never really figured out what there was possibly still “time” for, given that there was no amount of time in the world that could reform Cage into a halfway decent excuse for a human being. But he guessed that was really none of his business.
When he’d asked about it off-handedly, Cage had thrown him some kind of excuse about “who even knew how much longer the old quack was going to survive, so he needed to get in quality time while he could.” Bellamy had just glared and scoffed quietly when Cage turned his back, chalking it up to Cage being an insensitive asshole and generally awful person who was just trying to make sure he would get his cut after his father died. Bellamy just hadn’t realized exactly how far Cage was willing to go to make that happen.
At that moment, Bellamy also remembers that after the Hurricane Clarke situation was apparently resolved, that Dante stopped seeing Cage as often. He would make up well and truly absurd excuses like “he volunteered to referee a charity tennis game… at 7 at night… in the middle of January” for Bellamy to give Cage about why he couldn’t come over in the evenings or why Dante wouldn’t be making it to Cage’s house for their usual Thursday night dinners. Eventually Cage got the message and just gave up; not that Bellamy had minded getting to blow Cage off. It had become one of the highlights of his day.
“It was also me who figured out that the person he was probably trying to pin the poisoning on was you,” Clarke says.
“Okay this is one of the parts I’m still a little fuzzy on,” Miller interjects.
“Same,” Bellamy agrees, with feeling.
“I mean it was basically just simple process of elimination,” Clarke says, like figuring this out had been nothing more than a leisurely stroll in the park. And for her it might have been honestly. She’s terrifying.
“Cage was going to have to pin it on someone, he might be a slimy little shit weasel but he’s not completely stupid. And the fact that you gave grandpa his meds, including his radon shots, every day and night, made you the most obvious and ideal candidate.” She’s right of course. “They were going to need some way to explain the inexplicably high levels of radon in Dante’s system. So the most straight forward strategy would be to make it look like you were either knowingly, willfully, and purposefully trying to kill him, or at least make a solid case for elder abuse and negligent homicide.”
“That’s also why we felt we couldn’t go to the police at that point,” she says sadly. “We had no real idea how long Cage had been at this, except that it had been awhile. And we also had no idea just how much evidence he could have fabricated against you, how well he had covered his tracks. He wasn’t just a step ahead of us, he could have hiked the whole Appalachian trail for all we knew.”
“That’s probably also how he came up with the insulin and morphine ol’ switcheroo scheme,” Kane says.
Switcheroo? Bellamy can’t with this guy, he really just can’t.
“And this is where you lose me,” Miller interjects. “How do we jump from Long-term Radiation Poisoning to Lethal Morphine Overdoes to Slit Throat. Not that I don’t think it’s not possible,” he reassures them, "mostly because you are all insane,” he tacks on to the end. “It’s just that I’m gonna have to explain all this to a jury, and with those three potential causes of death, I can barely draw a Venn diagram… And juries love diagrams, so I’m gonna have to come up with something to show them.”
“Have you considered a histogram?” Kane asks, completely unhelpfully. “I know they have developed a somewhat questionable reputation in the chart and graph community, but there is really something to be said for…”
Miller just levels him with a glare that Bellamy is pretty sure could cut through bullet proof glass and Kane raises his hands in apparent surrender. “Just something to consider.”
“Anyway,” Clarke says, bringing them all back to the task at hand. “Like most heartless psychopaths, Cage is nothing if not a determined little creep. It’s why he has several restraining orders again him. I don’t even know how many it is at this point to be honest.” She glances over at Miller, “Could you look that up for me actually? I’ve always wondered and whenever I try to ask him about it he gets all testy.” Miller just looks at her disapprovingly, but when she turns away Bellamy sees Miller write a quick note on his pad and yeah, he’s totally looking that up. They’re all curious about how many it could possibly even be now.
“Since his quality poisoning time with grandpa had been severely limited once we figured out what he was doing, we knew he was going to come up with another plan. He once called 73 ‘Kate Johnstons’ trying to find a girl who had already changed her phone number once because he wouldn’t stop harassing her. His brand of Relentless Creeper Bravado knows no bounds,” she says with a disgusted, despairing look on her face.
“We could never tell exactly when it was going to happen or how it was going to go down,” Clarke said. “But we knew it would be coming eventually. Grandpa knew he would have to help you when the time came, and he also knew that I would need to be there to have your back and cover anything that might look like your tracks in the aftermath. I mean, I had to make it look like I was throwing you under the bus and then hanging you out to dry. But I really was trying to cover your ass. It’s a great ass, I would have hated for anything to happen to it,” Clarke grins a little like the cat that ate the canary and Bellamy can’t catch himself before he starts to grin back. It’s been a long day alright, there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep track of everything that’s happening and control his facial expressions at the same time, sue him.
God he would be a terrible murderer. There is just way too much going on, he would never have been able to keep all this straight.
“We knew we needed to make the plan, including the final cause of death, airtight so that no average cop would ever even consider you as a suspect. No offense,” she says, glancing over at Miller who just shrugs like he wouldn’t have even considered taking offense in the first place.
“So that’s when it was decided that Clarke would be the Moriarty to our Holmes and Watson,” Kane says with a flourish of his pipe.
“I want you to be the Watson to my Holmes on this Mr. Blake,” Kane had said a few days into the investigation. “As one of the last people to see Dante Wallace alive, you have a unique insight into his state of mind and what happened that frightful night… Whaddya say?”
“Sounds like a dream come true, sir.” Bellamy had deadpanned, biting his cheeks to keep from smiling when he heard Clarke inelegantly, and completely ineffectively, attempt to cover her snort of laughter from somewhere in the background.
Kane had just grinned at him. “The game is afoot, eh Watson?” he’d joked in his comically slow, exaggerated southern drawl. That time he was pretty sure Clarke didn’t even try to choke back her snickering.
“Wait…” Clarke says glancing up at Kane. “Would I technically be Moriarty or Irene?”
“Well,” Kane ponders, stroking that goddamn beard again. “You were technically good even thought you were pretending to be bad, so wouldn’t that make you Irene?”
“Yeah… But I was still pretending to be something I wasn’t, so wouldn’t that just make me Moriarty either way?”
“Guys,” Miller interrupts their exchange.
“Right. Sorry,” Clarke says, like she’s just remembering where she is and what’s happening. Kane, on the other hand, looks like he’s still deeply considering the question and will continue to do so for the time being.
“It was actually the slit throat that tipped me off in the first place,” Clarke says with a little shake of her head and a half smile, half grimace. “If grandpa was really going to commit suicide he would never do it by slitting his throat,” she explains.
“He refused to use it as the cause of death in any of his novels because he considered them ‘offensively unimaginative’ and ‘inelegantly pedestrian’,” Clarke says, doing her best Dante impression which, Bellamy must admit, is pretty good. “But it was an effective way to blatantly show that his death was definitely self-induced. So that’s how I knew that something had gone wrong,” Clarke explains. “And when you told me about the accidental morphine overdose I knew it had to be the King of Try Hard’s plan put in motion and that it was Go Time…. No pun intended,” she adds quickly.
Bellamy runs his hand over his face thinking about the Go board, which is probably locked up in evidence right now, covered in Dante’s blood.
“Apparently,” she continues with a look in her eyes that could only be described as ‘murder mode’, “grandpa Dante was taking too long to die for Cage, so he decided to expedite the process. He knew that grandpa would never be able to say no to his birthday cake at the party.”
It was his favorite, German chocolate. Cage special ordered a huge one from Dante’s favorite bakery just for his birthday Bellamy remembers sourly. “I can’t believe you lived through World War II just to keel over and die from a German induced sugar high,” Bellamy had teased him while Dante dug into his second piece.
“Maybe so,” Dante had grinned at him. “But what a way to go eh?” Bellamy had just chuckled and walked away. He remembers reminding himself to make sure Dante got his insulin that night, and to make sure he got the higher dosage.
He can’t smile or laugh about that memory now though. All he can do is remember the horror and heartbreak that came just a few short hours later. He can feel himself starting to panic as he remembered looking down at the tiny glass bottles that held Dante’s insulin and morphine prescriptions. The terror that almost made his heart stop when he realized he’d given Dante more than 200 milligrams of morphine instead of insulin — more than enough to be a fatal dose.
“Hey, hey, Bellamy you gotta breathe,” he hadn’t even registered her moving, but somehow Clarke was kneeling right in front of him. Bellamy sucks in a deep breath through his mouth, but somehow the oxygen still doesn’t reach his lungs and he starts gasping for air.
He remembers the horror that washed over him as he realized: he’d switched the medication vials; the way it grew and started squeezing his lungs and clawing at his throat as he discovered that the emergency Naloxone was missing from his med kit. He remembers the feeling of urgency washing over him while he quickly told Dante what he did and picked up the phone to dial 911. The confusion when Dante pulled the phone cord out of the wall telling Bellamy they needed to “not be too hasty” and “to think this through” all the while Bellamy desperately trying to tell him that he only had ten minutes.
“Ten minutes until what?” he’d asked blandly.
“Ten minutes until you’re dead Dante! Like, stone cold dead. No do overs, no take backs.” Bellamy remembers trying to yell, but what came out was high pitched, hysterical panic. “We need to get you an ambulance NOW!” He’d lunged for the phone again, but Dante stopped him.
“Bellamy, son, listen to me right now,” Dante had said in his most serious I Am Dante Wallace and I Am Not Fucking Around voice. “If it’s only ten minutes, I’m already as good as gone. There is no way an ambulance could ever get here in ten minutes. We are too far from a main road, too far back on the property.”
“Dante, listen… There is no time, you have to listen! We have to get you help!” Bellamy had begged him, not even trying to maintain any of his composure at that point.
“Stop it! Stop this, Bellamy!” Dante had said, his voice even more serious and harsh. “Don’t you understand? If what you said is true, there is no saving me. If you call for help, the authorities will find you and a dead body and you will be in serious trouble for this. Trouble that you may never recover from.”
“I don’t care!” Bellamy had yelled. “I’ll deserve it!” I killed you, he’d wanted to scream. You’ll be dead and it will be all my fault.
“Think Bellamy, think about this. What about your sister? If you are tied up in, or even bankrupted by, lawsuits and legal proceedings and very possibly end up having to serve jail time, who will take care of Octavia? Who will be there for her? Who will protect her?”
Bellamy had glared over at Dante, he knew O is Bellamy’s kryptonite. He’s right though, Bellamy can’t just leave his baby sister alone in the world, not when he’s the only family she has left. Not when she’s relying on him, when he’s putting a roof over her head and making sure she eats and sleeps and does all those things young adults seem to constantly forget to do. Not when he’s paying for her health insurance and car insurance and putting her through college and planning on helping her with grad school. All with the money he made from this job. Fuck. He can’t just abandon her, can’t bring her whole life crashing down around her. He can’t do to her what was done to him when their mother died.
Dante must have noticed the change in Bellamy’s demeanor because he’d placed his hands on Bellamy’s shoulders and said, “We have to get you out of this. If you go down for this, your family will be broken again, but we aren’t going to let that happen are we? You need to listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I tell you… Will you do this Bellamy? This last thing. For me. For your family.”
He remembers trying to calm himself down and snap himself out of the overwhelming, panic-stricken haze that had overtaken his brain as he tried to pay attention to all of Dante’s instructions. He remembers the frenzied anxiety that he felt trying to remember what Dante had told him to do. Was it the drain pipe on the left or the right side of the house? Was he supposed to turn off the road before or after the tiered fountain?? What was the back-gate lock combination again??? Bellamy had known every single lock combination on the estate for years, but in that moment it had taken him at least six guesses. He remembers the frantic need to get as far away from the estate as quickly as he possibly could as he was driving home.
He remembers walking into his apartment and all the adrenaline that must have been keeping him upright completely disappearing. He remembers dragging himself into his room and lying in his bed all night, not sleeping a wink, just staring at his god awful beige colored bedroom ceiling, sobbing silent tears, a nifty little life hack he had picked up during childhood so as not to wake O who was usually sleeping in the room right next to his, if not in the actual bed right next to him. He remembers the freight train of emotions steamrolling over him as he realized that one of his best friends was dead. That he had killed one of the only true friends he’d ever had in this world.
The thing that he remembers most vividly of all though, was turning around to open the door to Dante’s study right after he’d stepped out to say “Fuck it. I’m calling you a goddamn ambulance, I don’t give a shit,” just in time to see Dante slitting his own throat.
“No, no, in through your nose and out through your mouth Bell,” Clarke says a little more urgently, jerking him back into the present moment. She grabs his hands and pushes her thumbs hard into the middle of his palms, trying to ground him. “Close your mouth and breathe through your nose and think about something else, like Kane’s stupid pipe. I know how much you hate that thing.”
Kane’s expression momentarily turns from concerned to offended. When he opens his mouth Bellamy just knows he’s about to launch into a diatribe about how pipes are traditional and sophisticated and all that shit. The thought makes Bellamy snort out a laugh which interrupts his breathing efforts and he starts gasping again.
Then Kane comes to kneel next to Clarke and looks at Bellamy with the first serious, sincere expression he thinks he’s seen from the man since he met him. “Bellamy, son,” he starts in that ridiculous drawl that Bellamy is sure must be greatly exaggerated, if not totally fake, but doesn’t really know enough about Southern dialect to call him out on it.
“Bellamy listen to me,” Kane goes on, making Bellamy meet his eyes and squeezing his shoulder. “You didn’t kill him, son. You did not kill Dante or do anything that led to or resulted in his death. You are an innocent man, Bellamy Blake.”
Bellamy tries to listen to what they are saying to him, but it sounds like they are talking under water and he feels like he’s drowning.
Miller rushes back into the room with a styrofoam cup that he gives to Clarke who then thrusts it into one of his hands while keeping hold of the other. “Here,” she says decisively, like somehow this cup is going to single handedly subdue the sheer panic tsunami that’s still building up inside him. Maybe they just think he needs something to throw up in. When Bellamy looks down at the cup though, he sees that it's full of ice cubes. “Now start crunching and breathe through your goddamn nose.” He does what he’s told and can’t believe she remembers such a small, insignificant detail like that this is his mental breakdown self-medication of choice.
They had been at the Dropship Diner for about an hour or two, and it was during one of the lulls in their anxiety inducing and more than a little depressing conversation about What the Actual Fuck Happened to Dante that he'd noticed her staring at him.
“What?” he’d asked. “Do I have something on my face?”
Clarke had blinked like someone just woken her up from a coma and then shaken her head a little ruefully. “No,” then she’d smiled slyly at him. “Well… At least not anything you can fix.”
He’d snorted. “So just thinking about who you’re going to hire to slowly and painfully kill me to avenge your grandfather’s death then?” He’d only been about half teasing, give or take. Clarke was very much her grandfather’s granddaughter in that she could be downright terrifyingly intimidating when she wanted to be.
She’d cackled at that. “Definitely not,” she’d laughed. “I mean, why outsource a job I could easily do myself?” Bellamy wouldn’t put it past her to be honest, but her grin while she said it had made the would be threat completely ineffective, and he could feel some of his nerves finally begin to settle a bit.
“I’m honestly just wondering how in the world you still have any teeth,” she'd said, shaking her head. “Did you make some kind of dental deal with the devil? Can he do something about my molars? I mean, I know I clench my jaw all the time, but them chipping so often feels a little dramatic.”
He’d barked out a laugh. “What?”
“Well I’ve watched you chew your way through cup after cup of ice water with the hyper focus of some kind of robot beaver on meth, but I don’t think you’ve actually drank a single drop of actual water.”
Bellamy looks around him and sees that yep, there are about eleven half empty water glasses in front of him that he had sucked the ice out of with the tenacity of a Roomba.
He runs a shaky hand through his hair. “Just a weird coping mechanism,” he’d told her. “I started doing it as a kid. We were too poor to get me on any actual anxiety medication or pay for me to do something constructive with all my nervous energy, like ice dance kickboxing or therapeutic underwater basket weaving or whatever it is you rich kids do.” She’d snorted at that but still nodded her head as if to say fair enough. “But between all my mom’s shitty, drug addict boyfriends and being my little sister’s primary caregiver while still trying to get good enough grades to not get kicked out of the charter school I was in, I had a lot of nervous energy. So yeah, ice chomping it was.”
“Wow,” she’d said. “That took a real hard left from cute childhood anecdote to tragic backstory really quickly. Never even saw the plot twist coming.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a few of those,” he'd told her, trying for a joking tone but completely missing it, if the way her expression had softened was any indication.
"I know you do.” She'd said quietly.
“You know you’d make a perfect broody detective with a tragic childhood in one of my grandpa’s books,” she’d said lightly, obviously trying to bring the levity back to the conversation. “You know, the dramatic ho, asshole with a heart of gold type who says shit like ‘they work outside of the law, but on the side of justice’ .”
He’d just shaken his head and smiled ruefully at her before putting his head in his heads, thinking about how much he was going to fucking miss Dante and willing himself not to start crying again. He’d cried more in those past few days than he had in a long time.
“SO!” she’d said loudly all perk and pep, clapping her hands like an annoyingly upbeat cheerleader and jolting him out of his reverie. “What are we gonna do about the whole ‘you potentially being caught propelling down a drain pipe with the stealth of a cat thrown into a swimming pool a few minutes after grandpa’s overdose’ thing? Because even I gotta say… That one is gonna be a toughie.”
Of course she remembers, he muses, she’s Clarke. And even though he’d never admit it, he’s pretty sure he remembers every single small, insignificant detail he’d ever learned about her too. She’s Clarke after all, his Clarke. The thought comes with such startling clarity and certainty that it’s what finally manages to snap him all the way out of the deep, dark panic hole he had been digging.
He opens his eyes and sees that Kane has moved away giving him some space. But Clarke is still there, holding his hand tightly in hers and stroking her thumb gently over his knuckles. She’s looking up at him from her place on the floor; all soft, concerned blue eyes and earnest, encouraging heartbreaker smile and yeah, he thinks, definitely His Clarke.
“Did you hear what Kane said, Bell?” she asks gently. “You’re innocent, you didn’t do it.”
Bellamy opens his mouth to contradict her, but Miller interrupts him before he can say anything, “It’s true Mr. Blake. Dante Wallace’s official cause of death is in fact blood loss from a self-inflicted stab wound.”
Bellamy opens his mouth again to point out that Dante never would have cut his own throat if Bellamy hadn’t fucked up and given him a huge overdose of morphine, but Miller also interrupts him again. “The toxicology screens and blood tests conducted as part of Mr. Wallace's autopsy also showed that there was no morphine in his system at all, just his normal dosage of insulin. In fact, the only abnormality found on Mr. Wallace's tox screens was an irregularly high level of radon in his system. Inexplicably high, even for someone who had been undergoing regular treatments of radiation or chemotherapy for some time. You didn’t give Dante Wallace an overdose of morphine or any other drug.”
Bellamy just sits there, totally speechless and completely dumbfounded.
“Now that Wallace’s deathly has been unequivocally ruled a suicide, neither you, nor anybody else, is under investigation for his murder,” Miller says firmly.
“But,” he goes on and Bellamy feels his gut clench again. There’s always a but. “In anticipation of the potential event that Dante Wallace’s death was not a suicide, we started considering potential motives. With a man like Dante and his considerable fortune and assets, as I’m sure you could imagine, money was obviously the first thing we came up with.”
“Dante’s oldest child, Abigail Caroline Griffin had no financial motive to want him dead that we could find.” Miller said nodding at Clarke. “Nor could we find any financial motive for his other daughter Antonia Elizabeth Kingcade. Like, none. Absolutely. Whatsoever.” And damn, Bellamy knew that was the god’s honest truth.
Not only was Nia still getting alimony and child support for Ontari from her ex-husband, who somehow managed to make more money than she did, he knew that Nia regularly made a killing in her own career. Figuratively that is; although it’s totally possible Nia actually kills people as part of her job, he wouldn’t be that surprised. Bellamy never knew what exactly it was that Nia did honestly; every time he’d try to ask someone, including her own son, they would open their mouths and start to answer him only to say something like “huh” and scratch their heads trying to figure out if they just couldn’t remember or ever even knew in the first place. Eventually they would start to look like they were thinking so hard they might hurt themselves, so Bellamy would just say “never mind” and eventually gave up trying to find out. All he really knew about what Nia did for a living was that she did a lot of it and that she did it very well. Well enough to land herself a spot on the high ends of all those “Fortune 500,” “50 Most Influential Under 50,” “Lifestyles of the Super Rich and Powerful,” "Have Never Paid Their Federal Income Taxes," "We Could Probably End First World Poverty But Just Choose Not To," lists that magazines like Forbes and Time made year after year.
“His oldest son Cage Bradford Wallace however,” Miller says with a pained look on his face like the name is so douchey it offends him to have to say it. Bellamy will hand it to him that it is an offensively douchey name. It's almost like his parents knew he was going to be an offensive douche bag and named him accordingly, “had more motivation than a Richard Simmons workout video. Turns out that Wallace Jr. has been running his ‘investment firm’ less as a business and more as a personal piggy bank. We think he figured out a long time ago that it was going to catch up with him and that he was going to have to somehow magically replace all the money he’d stolen from his investors. But apparently the scheme he came up with the get that money was less magical and more... attempted homicidal.”
“We have a forensics team sweeping his home, his car, and his office right now as well as digging through all his trash,” Miller says. “And I’m not a betting man… At least not during the week anyway… But I am more than willing to bet we are going to find radon residue all over Cage’s entire life from the past year or so.”
The door swings open, interrupting Miller’s monologue, which he looks vaguely put out by. “Not probably, definitely.” It’s Detective Reyes, Miller’s partner and head of the forensics team on the case, and who is the same brand of disconcertingly intelligent and unnervingly observant that Clarke is.
The first time he’d met her, she’d been taking his fingerprints and DNA sample and collecting fingernail scrapings and whatever else it is forensic people collect. He was having a hard time focusing at that point, the panic fog still hanging thick over his brain.
“Okay, you’re all set!” She’d declared when she was finished with whatever it was she was doing. “I’ll let you get back to your cat.”
“My…?” he’d started, staring dumbly at her.
“Your… cat…,” she’d said slowly, like she was trying to explain the rules of Candy Land to a four year-old. “Orange Calico, I’m pretty sure… Might be a Tabby though.”
“How did you…?”
She’d reached over to pluck off a tiny orange hair Sphinx must have left on his jacket that his heavy-duty lint roller didn’t catch. Then she’d just grinned like a wolf and left him with a cheery “have a nice day!” and blown out of the room in a whirlwind as quickly as she came in.
“We also strongly suspect that Carl Emerson Wallace is a co-conspirator in his father’s death,” Kane adds flipping his little coin thingy again. Bellamy decides that he really doesn’t need to work both the pipe and the coin at the same time. One would be enough for him to maintain whatever vibe he’s going for. Bellamy still isn’t completely sure what that vibe is exactly, but at this point he’s a little too afraid, and mostly too tired, to ask.
“Not only did he also have a financial motive,” Reyes says letting a stack of file folders drop loudly onto the table and making everyone in the room jump, “being that he too was broke. But a search of his car turned up a small vial of Naloxone, which he has no business or reasonable explanation for having in the first place. And it will likely prove to be the emergency Naloxone missing from your kit.”
The emergency Naloxone Bellamy needed that night. The Naloxone that would have saved Emerson’s own father’s life. Bellamy can’t help but clench his jaw and tighten his hold on Clarke’s hand. Fucking Emerson, this would be the one time he manages to do something vaguely useful or slightly right.
“Okay. Ow. Bell,” Clarke interrupts his mental tirade by poking his leg. “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but maybe we can negotiate about which of my appendages you get to rip off? Because I like my fingers, and I just got this manicure.”
Bellamy looks down to see that Clarkes fingers are literally turning white in his grip. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly letting go of her hand. He can’t help but chuckle, both at himself and over the fact that Clarke doesn’t know she’s basically his favorite person in any given room at any given time. Even, evidently, when she’s fake framing him for murder.
She just smiles ruefully at him and gives his hand one more warm, reassuring squeeze before making her way back to where she had been sitting on the other side of the table. He wants to drag her back over to him; to take her hand back in his and fold her under his arm and know she’s on his side again. But he doesn’t, he can maintain some level of chill. He can.
“We knew Cage would fuck up at some point,” Clarke says once she’s settled. “He might be a clever little douche canoe, but he’s not that smart. And his first major fuck up was thinking you would fuck up.”
"He switched are the vials in your med kit," Miller says when Bellamy looks at him questioningly, "or had someone switch them around for him, as the case may be."
Fucking Emerson.
"It was as simple as using the syringes in your kit to switch the liquids in the insulin and morphine medication vials, and then taking the emergency Naloxone as a precaution," Reyes explains. "So simple even an idiot like Emerson could apparently do it."
Bellamy might just end up in jail for murder after all before this is over, because he is going to fucking kill Emerson.
“Apparently, the one thing Cage didn’t count on was that, unlike him, you are actually competent at your job,” Kane says pulling several small vials out of his bag on the floor next to him and setting them on the table in front of Bellamy. "Not just competent; dedicated, skilled, exceptional, unerringly so it turns out. And for that reason, you did not give Dante an overdose, you did not use the incorrect medication. You switcherooed the switcheroo."
Bellamy can't even be annoyed at Kane's word choice, because he is genuinely to stunned to think straight.
“That’s impossible,” he manages to choke out. “I was there… I know what I… I know I gave him an overdose.”
“No, you didn’t,” Kane counters. “Here, I’ll show you… Hand me that vial of morphine.”
Without thinking Bellamy grabs the bottle of morphine from the table and hands it to Kane, who takes it from him grinning. “If you look Mr. Blake, you’ll see that I have taped over the labels of all these medication vials, and the vials themselves are identical… So how did you know this was the morphine?”
“I just knew,” Bellamy says shocked as hell and honestly surprised he can talk.
“Yes, you just knew. You knew because there are the slightest, almost imperceptible difference of tincture and viscosity between all these liquids. You knew because you had administered these exact same medications to Dante Wallace steadfastly and without fail every night for years. You knew because you'd done it hundreds, if not thousands, of times. You gave him the correct medication because you are a good care giver.”
“Then Dante was…?”
“I’m sorry Mr. Blake, but yes,” Kane says sadly. “Mr. Wallace was perfectly fine. His blood was normal. The cause of death was truly, solely suicide, and you are guilty of nothing but some slight property damage in the form of a broken drainpipe and a few amateur, albeit impressive, theatrics. In fact, if he had listened to you and called the ambulance, he would be alive today.”
Bellamy swears his heart actually breaks in that moment. He can feel the sharp, relentless pain starting in his chest and radiating through his entire body as he puts a hand over his mouth and chokes out a strangled sob.
“Yeah,” Clarke says sounding and looking absolutely miserable. “You would think he would have learned at some point to just listen to you,” she tries to tease, but it doesn’t quite land.
“Anyway,” she says curtly, quickly wiping a tear off her cheek like it’s personally offending her. “Once we found out that grandpa had left you literally everything, Cage was even more likely to start getting sloppy and desperate. But what we couldn’t have happen was for us to wait for Cage to dig his own grave and have you go down in the meantime. And I just so happened to be the perfect scapegoat,” a little bit of her grin coming back. “The greedy, self-obsessed granddaughter whose more than willing to hang ‘the help’ out to dry so she can get her perfectly moisturized hands on her share of granddaddy dead and dearest’s dough.”
It’s in that moment that Bellamy actually understands just how immeasurably huge of a gamble Clarke took in risking her ass for this. Sure, it was a calculated risk, with several elaborate fail safes and back up plans, but still. As he begins to truly appreciate what Clarke had done, what she had been willing to do, all for him, to keep him out of trouble. The guilt settles over him like a dark, heavy cloud. He’s spent days hating her. He has said some truly heinous things about her in anger. He had no second thoughts about believing the absolute worst of her. She’s supposed to be his friend. He should have known she would never truly do something like try to frame him for murder she committed. Hell, he should have known that she wasn’t even capable of committing any type of murder at all, much less the one of a person she loved. Clarke could never in any time, dimension, or universe do anything like that. Not his Clarke.
She must notice the heaviness settle over him because when he opens his mouth to start apologizing to her, he’s not above begging really, she puts her hand up and says “I know what you’re gonna say, and don’t… I also know exactly what you’re thinking, and stop.” Honestly he’s sure she really does know, she always knows somehow.
“Yeah sure it was risky,” she says with a shrug, like possibly going down for first degree murder is about as potentially risky as buying a lottery ticket. “But, given the fact that I didn’t actually kill grandpa Dante, they never would have been able to come up with much more than a pretty weak, completely circumstantial case against me… Again, no offense,” she says to Miller who just nods as if to say ‘well, it’s not untrue.’
“And besides, it’s not like I couldn’t afford adequate legal representation who could have totally gotten me out of it. I mean, we might have had to sell one of the summer homes, but it’s like they always say: victory stands on the back of sacrifice,” she says with a completely straight face.
That does startle a bark of a laugh out of him, but the guilt is still there. It’s pinched between his eyebrows and clenched in his fists and sitting heavy in his gut. He knows he won’t be free of it until he really gets to talk to her. Just the two of them. Together. But this clearly isn’t the time or the place to do it. There’s already way too much going on.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Miller interrupts, startling Bellamy. He had genuinely forgotten Miller was there, or that they were in a police station, and pretty much everything else that was happening. Clarke tends to have that effect on people. Well, mostly him, that he knows of; but he’s sure there are others somewhere. “Why not just tell Bellamy all of this?”
“Kane wasn’t just being figurative or facetious when he said Bellamy was ‘too honest’ to be in on it,” Clarke says. “He is literally incapable of being a convincing enough liar for us to have told him anything about it. He has an unfortunately obvious tell when he tries to lie.”
Ah, so Dante told her about the stutter. Bellamy knows he shouldn’t be surprised really, especially now that he knows Clarke was Dante’s ghost writer. And Clarke was observant as hell, it was totally possible that she just picked up on it herself. He tried not to make it a habit to lie to his employers, but when you are working for the impossibly rich and impossible to please, sometimes it’s necessary. He could usually make it through a quick fib without his voice shaking too much, but he knew it was still noticeable if you were paying attention or looking for it.
“Yeah,” he says with a grimace. “It’s a little nervous habit I picked up during childhood.” He knows that’s putting it very, very lightly. He’s not sure exactly how much Dante would have told Clarke about how Bellamy developed the “stammers when he tries to lie” thing. Probably not much, considering the fact that it’s not a particularly fun or entertaining story to tell.
It had started with one of his mom’s shitty boyfriends, who happened to be O’s dad, which came with the unfortunate side effects of him not just being around for a while, but actually living with them for an extended period of time. While all of Aurora Blake’s boyfriends had been shitty humans in general, this one’s particular brand of shiftiness was a drug induced one. The guy, whose name Bellamy refuses to remember on principle, was a crazy, paranoid tweaker who had decided that 10 year-old Bellamy was somehow the root cause of all his problems and the bane of his entire existence.
When Aurora was at work he would yell and scream and threaten Bellamy for hours on end, sometimes keeping him up until the early hours of the morning when his mom had to work the night shift. He would sit Bellamy down at the kitchen table and pace around the kitchen, using the “bad cop” style of interrogation that Bellamy recognized from those crime shows he definitely didn’t secretly watch while his mom was at work or he was at a friend’s house. He would accuse Bellamy of lying to him, of stealing from him, of spying on him, having him followed, trying to take over his mind, trying to body snatch him. Of being everything from a Ded to a demon haunting the apartment to a rare alien species trying to take over the world and make humans their slaves.
Eventually he started throwing in threats about hurting his Mom and O, who was still just an infant at the time, and Bellamy got so terrified of the dude’s escalating behavior that he just started making things up and telling him what he wanted to hear. Typically, this would appease him and he would calm down for a while until he shot up again and the process started all over. Bellamy would admit to anything, confess anything, say literally anything just to make it stop.
He got so used making things up that he almost couldn’t tell what was the truth and what was lies anymore, except for one thing that kept them apart for him. Bellamy would try to come up with stories so quickly and talk faster than he could think and get so terrified and nervous that whenever he came up with a lie, he would stutter, desperately making things up as he went, just trying to get it out before the yelling and screaming started all over again. It started happening with other people and in normal, everyday conversations too. And before he knew it, he couldn’t even tell a simple fib without breaking out into cold sweats and stammering uncontrollably.
That had gone on for what was probably way too long, until it eventually escalated into the shitty boyfriend demanding Aurora kick Bellamy out because he was actually some kind of government drone sent to spy on them. For what reason the government would give enough of a fuck about this deadbeat, drug head to send a drone to spy on him, Bellamy could never figure out. And it was honestly kind of a moot point anyway because Aurora had ultimately refused, obviously. While she had horrible taste in men and difficulties holding down a job, she made for damn sure that no one fucked with her kids.
It was after that incident that Aurora sat Bellamy down and explained to him that while she counted on him to look after his sister, he also needed to look out for himself. That she wanted to look out for the both of them, so she needed to know when someone treated either of them badly, or he thought someone was treating her badly. That if anyone ever hurt or scared him or his sister, or gave him a bad feeling, he could tell her and they would be gone, no questions asked. And to Bellamy’s surprise she actually kept that promise for the remainder of her life. But unfortunately, “the rest of her life” would only be a few more short years. He lost a lot of things when his mom passed: he lost her, he lost his sister for a while, he lost his home, and he lost any small sense of stability and security he’d had in his life. But the stammer stubbornly refused to take a hike. Now it’s just a part of his everyday life, a quirky personality trait. At best, it’s a fun, if not kind of bizarre, party trick. And at worst, it’s some stubbornly residual PTSD resulting from a depressingly tragic back story that Bellamy probably should have gotten years of therapy for. And hey, now that he’s loaded, he can actually afford it.
Dante had found it absolutely fascinating. He even used an adaptation of it in one of his books. One of the main characters in the novel was a young woman who had a “regurgitative reaction to mistruthing” or, in other words, she blew chunks every time she even thought about telling a lie. Bellamy hadn’t particularly cared for that rather unflattering iteration of his condition. But apparently Dante’s publisher’s thought it was inspired and his readers went absolutely nuts for it, so he just got over himself.
“But grandpa Dante didn’t need to know any of that to be sure that you were the right person to trust to leave in charge of his estate,” Clarke says. “I still can’t believe how genuinely shocked some of them were that he would leave you something… Leave you everything even… I saw it coming honestly.”
“See my grandpa knew you Bellamy Blake. Even when he found out he couldn’t trust his own family, his own children, even we he thought he could no longer trust his own judgment, he knew he could trust you. He knew you wouldn’t sell his stories or his company off to whoever was the highest bidder like Nia wanted to, that you would make sure it went into the hands of someone who would respect his vision. He knew you would never do something as cruel as leave Maya in the lurch with her blood transfusions, but would be able to keep Emerson from seeing ‘one red dime’.”
Bellamy can’t help but smile at Clarke’s use of one of her grandfather’s favorite dramatic epitaphs; but at the same time, he feels his gut clench at the memory of the phone call he got from Maya the other day while he and Clarke were sitting in the Dropship Diner, staring at what had to have been at least their fourth pot of coffee.
“Hey Bellamy,” she had sounded nervous, her voice strained.
“Maya? Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“No… I was just wondering if you had decided what you were going to do yet? With grandpa’s estate? Are going to keep it or…?” she trailed off at the end.
“I don’t know yet Maya,” he’d told her. “I’m still in shock my head is spinning, I can’t even…”
“I think you need to give it back,” she interrupted him in a harsh tone she’d never used with him before. “I mean, it’s the right thing to do Bellamy. This family… We were always good to you. We’ve always been really good to you and your sister… It wouldn’t be right just taking everything from us like that… It was shitty of grandpa to put you in this position and I think you really just need to…”
She’s rambling, her voice is getting even more high pitched, it sounds like she’s panicking. Somethings not right, he can tell. “Maya, slow down okay. Just… Tell me what’s going on.”
He hears her choke back something like a hysterical sob.
“Shitgoddamnitfuck,” she sounds even worse. “I can’t do this. God, I’m sorry Bell! I’m so fucking sorry I’m…”
“It’s fine,” he tries to keep his voice level, nonchalant, reassuring. “Just tell me what’s up.”
“My dad can’t afford my treatment on his own.” Bellamy swears he can feel his balls drop and a cold dread settles over him. “My dad is… He’s broke Bell… He can’t pay for them, grandpa was paying for everything and now he’s not and I don’t know what will happen if I stop being able to get my treatment Bellamy, I don’t even know if I’ll…”
Bellamy knows: she’ll die. Maybe not right away, but eventually, her condition will turn from manageablely life threatening to undoubtedly fatal. Without the ridiculously expensive medication she has to take and her bi-weekly dialysis and transfusions, her blood will start clotting, her immune system will stop being able to fight off infection, her bone marrow will break down, and her body will collapse in on itself. He’s not a doctor or nurse, but he’s been around enough sick people to know what all the big words and scary jargon add up to.
He was there a few years back when the Wallaces called one of their rare Official Family Meetings and were told that Maya’s aplastic anemia had progressed to full blown paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. He was there when Dante called in doctor after doctor and flew in experts and specialists from around the world to get 2nd and 3rd and eventually 12th and 13th opinions. He was there when Maya would stay over at the estate for days at a time, not wanting to be home alone while her step-dad went off on one of his “business trips,” (aka his week-long benders in Vegas or Miami or where ever there wasn't currently a warrant out for his arrest for some kind of misdemeanor). He was there when Maya would break down and crack under the depression and the fear of dying. And he was there when Dante would cry on his shoulder over the helplessness he felt that, even with all his fame and fortune and infinite resources, he couldn’t fix this for her.
God, it was just like Emerson to blow through all their money without giving a second thought to his 16 year-old step daughter and her life threatening condition for which she needed continuous care for the foreseeable future. Bellamy never got the chance to know Ada Vie, Maya’s mom, very well; but at least he knew she loved and took care of her daughter. He could never figure out why the fuck Emerson got married in the first place, especially to a woman who already had a kid. He had no interest in being a husband and even less interest in being a dad. Bellamy had always slightly suspected he married Ada for her own family money, and now that he knows Emerson has blown through it all, it’s not even a suspicion anymore. Ada had died suddenly a few years after they got married, and after the dust settled Emerson was left with a step-daughter and dependent whose share of her mother’s estate he controlled and had apparently plowed over like a goddamn 18-wheeler on the interstate.
“Hey listen to me Maya,” she’d been crying in earnest at that point, still apologizing for trying to guilt and manipulate him. “No matter what I decide, nothing bad is going to happen to you. I won’t let it, I would never do that,” he’d promised her. And he’d meant it. Dante was always more of a father figure to Maya than Emerson ever was, and Bellamy knew beyond all shadow of any possible doubt that Dante would have wanted Maya to be taken care of.
He hadn’t been able to figure out why Dante hadn’t left anything to Maya or any instructions about her care in his Will, but now it was clear. Maya was underage and would be for the next two years. Until she turned 18 her legal guardian would have control over the funds left to her as well as if and how they were used. And that legal guardian would have been Emerson. After finding out that Emerson had not only been scamming him, but also using Maya’s inheritance from her mother as his own personal piggy bank, there was no way Dante would have ever trusted his son with this.
“The only one of his kids Dante really worried about cutting out of the will was my mom. But in the end, he knew she would respect his decision like she always did, even when she didn’t understand it. Besides,” Clarke grins, “it’s not like she was left high and dry or anything. My dad left her with a pretty cushy set up when he died.”
Jacob Griffin, also known as Mr. Go-Green; the environmental engineer responsible for most of the prototypes used for the U.S.’s eco-friendly technology. The man who helped spearhead sustainable energy as the world knew it. Yeah, Bellamy could imagine his wife wouldn’t have much to worry about after he died, and his daughter too.
As if Clarke could tell what he’s thinking she adds, “I mean obviously he set me and Madi up nicely too. But honestly, I do pretty well for myself… Who knew that working as a research assistant and ghost writer for one of the most famous crime novelists in history would be so lucrative?!” There’s that smirk of hers again. This time he doesn’t even try to stop himself from smiling back as he feels the last bit of the knot that’s been in his stomach since Dante died finally begin to fade.
“We figured Roan wouldn’t be too much of a problem either since he hates this family’s money on principle and probably wouldn’t have even taken his part of Nia’s inheritance in the first place. Plus,” she goes on, “he would be on the opposite side of his mother and sister purely out of spite. Apparently he’s not hurting for cash either,” she adds. “Did you know that he owns the largest and most lucrative chain of non-medicinal marijuana dispensaries in the North Eastern U.S? Roan, an entrepreneur… Who knew right?!?”
Bellamy actually did know that; Roan told him once while they were commiserating over some of Dante’s good whiskey. What he didn’t know was that Roan was keeping it under wraps or not telling his family though, apparently the combination of top shelf liquor and good weed makes Roan chatty. Or maybe it was just Bellamy that made Roan chatty. Bellamy has that effect on people, as it turns out. Yet another one of his sparkling personality traits that seems to get him in predicaments like the one he is in now.
“I’m kinda jealous of how much he’s winning at life honestly,” Clarke groans. “God… How did the cousin who thought he could practice Santaria and unironically wore dreads and spent multiple summers following Black Sabbath around on their world tours end up being the one with a successful career and functional relationship?”
“According to E!News he’s dating that insanely hot, Icelandic supermodel with no last name. God what is her name?” Clarke starts tapping her head like she’s trying to poke her brain into submission. “Gecko…? Ghetto…? Techno…?”
“Echo.” Miller says in a patronizing tone implying that not only Clarke, but everyone on this planet, in this world should be aware of the information.
“Yes!” Clarke cries out, snapping her fingers at him and making Bellamy jump, “ECHO! Oh my god thank you, that was going to drive me nuts!”
Miller nods at her like he’s willing to let it go this time, but he won’t tolerate such an infraction again.
“Pft you would know that,” Reyes chimes in with a scoff. “I swear, for a dude who is strictly dickly, you are more knowledgeable about supermodels than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re like a walking Hot Chick Encyclopedia.”
“Don’t you have something to be analyzing with some super overpriced high techy-tech thing that we paid way too many hard working, taxpayer dollars for somewhere?” Miller asks her wryly.
“Roger that, chief.” She says with a mock salute.
“So nice to meet you by the way!” she says to Kane on her way out the door. “I’m a huge fan… You’re so much taller in person than I thought you’d be.”
Kane beams radiantly at her and places his hand over his heart like that was the most touchingly gratifying compliment he had ever received. And with that, Reyes breezes out of the room, flicking her perfect pony tail behind her.
“Anyway,” Clarke says, presumably finished with her lamenting and ready to get back to business. “Grandpa knew that those of us he actually wanted to leave money to didn’t actually need it or honestly didn’t give enough of a fuck to try to get our hands on it. My mom and I are set. We both have plenty of savings, we both work, and we’ll have no problem making sure Madi goes to good schools and can take up all the ridiculously expensive and completely useless hobbies she wants.” Bellamy snorts at that and Clarke grins again.
“Roan and his inhumanly hot girlfriend are off conquering the weed market, one pot lollipop at a time, and Maya’s medical care would be taken care of. You were the perfect choice.
“But unfortunately,” Kane says gravely, “that also made you even more of a target for Cage.”
“Idiot kept his cool for about a day and a half after you were released before he tried to hire a hitman,” Miller scoffs.
Bellamy startles at that, “He what?”
“Oh don’t worry,” Miller says waving him off, a scooch too nonchalant about Bellamy's life hanging in the balance for his liking. “We had his phone tapped and got a warrant for his arrest as soon as he made the call.”
“He also just so happened to call an undercover federal agency posing as some kind of hitman concierge service. It’s like he Googled ‘hitmen in my area’ and then just called the first number that showed up. Pleeb,” Miller scoffs again, like the murder for hire business should be easier to figure out than a single serve Kuerig.
“He was brought in about an hour after you were,” Miller says, looking down as gets a message on his phone. “And apparently Emerson is being brought in right now, so I need to go deal with that and you two,” he says pointing at Bellamy and Clarke, “are free to go.”
As Miller is walking out of the room he says over his shoulder, “if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to call Detective Reyes... Or Lieutenant Pike… Or Sargeant Byrne… Or even Petty Officer Jordan if you’re feeling desperate... Basically anyone but me to be honest. After this amount of white people nonsense, I’m going on sabbatical.” And with that he’s gone, letting the door slam behind him.
Kane says something about needing to greet his “adoring public” and fixes his bowtie as he starts to strut, all pomp, circumstance, and perfectly coiffed hair, towards the doors at the front of the station, while Bellamy follows Clarke as she heads to more discreet back exit.
Standing in the back parking-lot, she puts on her big floppy hat and hilariously huge sunglasses and Bellamy can’t help but remember the first time he ever encountered Clarke Griffin. It was right after he’d started working for Dante; Clarke had pulled up to the house in her latest model Mercedes Benz looking like she’d traipsed straight out of a Lily Pulitzer catalog, all impeccably dressed, and flawlessly made up, and perfectly curled blonde beautifulness. She’d skipped up the front steps announcing that her spring break trip to Cabo was canceled so she was here to visit her grandfather.
“You’re new,” she’d said, looking at him over the lenses of her ridiculously, unnecessarily large sunglasses that she was still wearing inside.
“I usually go by Bellamy,” he’d responded flatly.
Clarke had grinned at him like she approved, even though he didn’t give a single shit about getting her approval. He swears, he did not.
Then she’d stuck out her hand and said “I’m Clarke Griffin, the prodigal, heathen granddaughter.”
“Heathen?” he’d asked her raising an inquisitive eyebrow and shaking her hand.
“Feminist, agnostic, bisexual, liberal Democrat takes way longer to say,” she’d said, still smiling widely. “Nice to meet you.”
He’d had to put an embarrassing amount of effort into keeping a straight face and not give into her grin. “Uh huh,” he’d said “your grandpa is in his study.”
After that he’d though she was just another dumb, ditzy, blonde, rich princess who had no idea how privileged she was and did things like blow wild amounts of money on fancy cars and trips to Cabo and whatever else it was that princesses spent their money on because she could.
While he’d figured out very quickly that he couldn’t have been more wrong about the dumb, ditzy, and ignorant parts (and about the spoiled princess thing too, admittedly. But he refused to give up the nickname on principle because it got such a rise out of her and riling her up was one of his favorite pastimes. He might have never gotten past the whole “pony tail pulling” stage of flirtation, but he’s working on it. Mostly), he was right about Clarke doing things just because she could.
She definitely did things like blow money on exorbitantly expensive shoes and even more expensive booze; and take last minute trips on jets and yachts to the Hamptons or the Virgin Islands or wherever it is rich people go when they need to “unwind” from their completely stress free lives; and eat caviar on crackers as an “afternoon snack;” and get the same kind diamond infused nail polish manicures that Beyoncé does; and always have the latest models of cars and computers and even a moped that one time. All because she could.
But she also did things like give thousands of dollars and hours of her time to countless charities; and maintain multiple scholarships for low income students interested in STEM and sustainable energy in her dad’s name; and spend her winter vacations working at places like a Sri Lankan elephant orphanage or a battered women’s shelter in El Salvador; and buy staggeringly over the top generous birthday and Christmas gifts for Bellamy and Octavia like all new stainless steel kitchen appliances for their apartment because the ones they had were “tragic,” and those stupidly expensive running shoes O had had her eye on along with a new iPod because “She can’t run without an iPod, Bell. She’s not an animal”, and the annotated first editions of The Iliad and The Odyssey that her book dealer managed to find (because of course she had a book dealer), all of which she apparently got “great deals on” and refused to return because they were all conveniently “final sale;” and pay for everyone’s meals and bar tabs and cover charges and Uber rides and movie tickets and concert seats and amusement park passes and, a few notable times, their hospital bills without even thinking twice or accepting a word of thanks or asking for a penny in return. Just because she could.
He’d asked her once, about the gifts. “Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he’d said quickly. “Obviously I do. A lot. Like, so much. I’m just kind of wondering… ya know… why?“
“Because you deserve them,” she’d answered immediately without looking up from whatever she was viciously typing on her phone in her latest Twitter fight with whichever woefully misguided, conservative, alt right, incel, neck-beard, dude bro had dared to take her on that week.
Then she’d tilted her head up at him with her little smirk he was a completely normal amount of obsessed with. “And because I can.”
Once he’d gotten to know the real Clarke, he still couldn’t help but laugh and heckle her about her over dramatic eye and head wear that made her look like a widow visiting her convict pen pal turned clandestine lover in prison where he was serving time for tax fraud. She is absolutely one of those ridiculously over the top rich people and she absolutely knows it. But her ridiculousness is far surpassed by her kind-hearted, earnest generosity. That was just Clarke.
His Clarke.
“Oh! Before I forget!” Clarke exclaims, reaching into her absurdly large purse, which he must say goes perfectly with her attire. She pulls out a thick manila envelope and hands it to him. “Grandpa Dante wanted me to make sure this got to you. I mean, it’s technically yours anyway since he quite literally left you everything,” she smirks at him again. “But he especially wanted to make sure this made it directly into your hands.”
Their fingers brush as she hands him the envelope and instead of pulling away she twists his fingers into his. “Look Bell,” she starts awkwardly. “I know this was all really fucked up, like beyond fucked up, Kardashian levels of fucked up even… But I just want you to know I am so sorry.”
“More sorry than words can say. For every thing... And I totally get it if you can’t trust me anymore or don’t want to be friends with me,” she starts rambling. “I mean I probably wouldn’t want to be friends with me either after this. Honestly if I could ghost myself right now…”
Bellamy just chuckles and tugs on her hand until she’s close enough for him to press his lips to hers. It’s a totally chaste, 8th grade style kiss. But still, she lets out this little sigh against his lips; and if they weren’t literally standing in the parking lot of a police station right at this moment, the situation definitely would have escalated from tolerable PDA to public indecency.
Instead he just pulls his lips away but keeps his forehead pressing against hers. He opens his eyes and finally feels relaxed for the first time in what feels like an eternity. He’d been wondering where his ability to breath normally had run off to. Figures it had been with her the whole time.
“I’m trying to come up with something really smooth to say right now,” he says, “but I’ve been dealing with a little stress lately so I’m kind of off my game.”
“It’s ok,” Clarke says, eyes still closed, more than a little breathless he thinks proudly. “You’ve never been smooth, I don’t know why you would start now.”
He starts to object that he is the smoothest, but she just pulls his mouth back down to hers and he figures there are much better things his lips can be doing at this current juncture. And when she throws both her arms around his neck to get him closer he finds himself yet again wishing the nearest building weren’t literally full of cops so that he could press her up against the side of it.
When they pull away for air he can’t help but think about how damn smug as shit Dante would be about being instrumental in pushing Bellamy and Clarke together. This probably wasn’t quite how he imagined it going down, but still.
Dante had never outright pressured them, or come out and said they should go on a date, or anything of the sort. No, Dante knew his granddaughter needed to go at her own pace, knew she need time and space to grieve and move on after girlfriends’ death, and, most importantly, knew she would vehemently resist being ordered or pushed into anything. Instead he would find small, yet absurdly unsubtle ways, to nudge them towards each other, to suggested how they would be good together.
Sometimes it was Dante all of the sudden “feeling a tired spell” or “losing his appetite” when he had arranged for his personal chef to make a nice lunch for the three of them, leaving Bellamy and Clarke alone out on the patio, rolling their eyes and chuckling awkwardly into their salmon club sandwiches and sweet iced teas. Other times he would request Bellamy go pick up Clarke when she would work for him during the summer do he wouldn’t have to “wait around for Lincoln or bother him with such a short trip when Bellamy could easily do it,” all while Lincoln, Dante’s own personal chauffeur, sat approximately 20 feet away on the patio where he had been all morning, snorting behind his newspaper. And then there were the times when Dante would have an oddly specific, and usually vaguely ridiculous and completely unnecessary, errand he needed Clarke to run at the exact same time Bellamy would be running his own errands for Dante, and “oh well wasn’t that convenient that they could just go together?!”
Typically, Dante’s antics were met with raised eyebrows, unimpressed expressions, and the occasional snort or sigh from both of them. They had only ever acknowledged it between them once while they were on their way to Saks one summer a few years ago. Dante had decided he needed Clarke to pick out some new swim trunks for him for the pool he literally never used because “she had the best taste in seasonal attire” and needed Bellamy to go with her to make sure the material of whatever she picked out “wasn’t too scratchy.”
“I can’t decide,” she’d said flatly, “if I’m more offended by him thinking he’s actually fooling us with this, or by his clear belief in my total and complete lack of game.”
Bellamy had snorted while desperately trying to come up with something to say about how he thought she had great game, the best game ever, like Shaq level game, without sounding like a total moron when Clarke’s phone had pinged with another text notification.
“He said he also needs flip flops,” she’d said raising an eyebrow. “But the ones without ‘the thingies that go between your toes’.”
“God, what does it say about me that I actually know exactly what he’s talking about?” Bellamy had groaned in response.
She’d looked over at him and they had both burst out laughing. The moment may have been ruined, but he had always been of the opinion that laughing with Clarke Griffin was a moment in and of itself. She didn’t really, truly, genuinely laugh all that often. She would usually cackle or snort, and there was the occasional chuckle, but the only person who seemed to have the innate talent for well and truly cracking Clarke up was her grandfather. Bellamy would hear them both losing it over something or other behind the closed doors of Dante’s study when she would come visit him or do whatever work it was she did for him over the summer. It seemed like someone had taught Clarke at some point in her life that she was only allowed a finite amount of happy and carefree moments, so he always felt a weird sense of accomplishment when he got to witness one; and being the cause of one was even better.
He opens his eyes and sees that right now she’s wearing the biggest, brightest, most beautiful, bonafide Clarke Griffin smile he’s ever witnessed, and he’s more than a little smug that he put it there. They stand there for a minute, just breathing each other in, until she pulls away slightly and beams up at him.
“Well,” she says giving him one last peck on the lips. “You’re about to have to answer an entire metric shit ton of questions from the media who will probably be here in about 3 minutes and 47 seconds, give or take. And while I usually love a good press conference, I haven’t showered in about 3 days and there is no amount of dry shampoo in the world that could tame the epic tragedy that is currently my hair.”
She steps out of his arms and starts digging around in her Mary Poppins bag for her keys. “Wait...” he says incredulously, “you’re leaving me? To face them all alone?! Clarke, how am I supposed to give a press conference?!? You know I can barely even talk on the phone!”
“Oh Bell,” she says patting his shoulder affectionately. “You’re rich now… Rich people can do anything!”
“You’re a dick!” Bellamy calls as she starts walking towards her car.
“You know you love me!” she yells back and yeah, he definitely does. He’s not gonna tell her right this second or anything, but he does.
She blows him an exaggeratedly loud kiss as she hops into the driver’s seat and revs her engine obnoxiously as she speeds away and God he’s totally gonna marry her, he thinks grinning like an idiot, he has no doubt. He’s going to be the shameless, boy toy, arm candy, trophy husband of one of the coolest chicks in the entire world and it’s going to be awesome.
It’s not until hours later when Bellamy gets home that night (gets to his new home holy fucking shit), after Cage and Emerson’s very public arrests, after the press conference clearing Bellamy and Clarke of all wrong doing, after posing with Kane for an endless number of photographs. and after answering what had to be a floppily trillion questions for the media, that Bellamy remembers the envelope. He pulls it out of his bag and slowly opens the seal. Inside is a thick stack of papers with a letter on top in Dante’s messy scrawl.
Dear Bellamy,
Thank you for being a kindred spirit, a loyal friend, a kind heart, and an excellent listener these past few years. And thank you, most recently, for being most inspiring muse yet.
It felt only fair and just for you to be the first to read the completed debut novel of my newest series. I think it has some real potential, but it’s up to you whether or not it will continue.
I trust that you will find someone with the perfect head for it and leave it in the right hands.
Best,
Dante H. Wallace
Bellamy sets down the letter and looks at what he now realizes is the title page of a manuscript...
The Casefiles of Odysseus Private Investigations & Detective Augustus B. Blake
Book 1: The Gold That Killed King Midas.
On the next page he finds a dedication: for C and B, the head and the heart.
Bellamy settles back into his new arm chair in front of his new fireplace in his new study and gets comfortable.
Prologue: Augustus had a sister, her name was Octavia…
#bellarke#bellarke fanfiction#bellarke january joy#the 100#the 100 fanfiction#i genuinely cannot believe i finished this on time#it's probably FULL of mistakes but i'll fix them later bc my head is about to explode#bellamy blake#clarke griffin#nathan miller#marcus kane#modern au#the 100 au#knives out au#character death tw#panic attack tw#suicide mention tw#cancer mention tw
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Some stuff that made me happy in 2020, in no particular order
God send you no greater loss. It’s something my grandmother said a lot — a bit of highly Irish Catholic wisdom intended to remind you, warmly but sharply, that whatever you’re currently suffering through isn’t all that bad compared to what lots of other people are dealing with. That it probably isn’t too much to complain about, in the grand scheme of things. That you should, instead, be grateful for what you’ve got, big and small and everything in between.
God sent a great many people a great many unfathomable losses this year, and as hard as it felt at times, our family wasn’t among them; we’re lucky, in the big picture. In the past, people have recommended I try writing those reasons down, to give myself a list of stuff to be thankful for, for the times it’s tough to summon up the gratitude. I figured the end of the year was as good a time as any to make that list, to highlight the stuff that helped me get through this year — the reasons big, small, and in between.
So: here goes.
Peanut butter and jelly
I haven’t counted how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’ve eaten since March 11, which is good, because that would be an absurd thing to do, and a sure sign that I have succumbed to a very specific kind of madness. It’s also good, though, because I would undoubtedly be ashamed by the number; the figure would be titanic, like the unsinkable ship of same name, or the iceberg that sunk it.
Or, at least, I would be ashamed under normal circumstances. This fuckin’ year required whatever flotation device you could find, and you know what I found in the fridge and cupboard? A couple of slices of bread, some strawberry jam, and some goddamn Skippy.
Need a weird mid-morning “brunch” after not having breakfast because you went right from waking up to remote school with the 6-year-old? Crank up a PB&J with that third cup of coffee. Need to pack something in the diaper bag to feed everyone while you’re out at the playground for the afternoon? Stack ‘em up, son. Need a late snack after working the overnight shift filing weird bubble playoff columns? Three letters, one ampersand, one love.
I need to eat better in 2021. But I kind of needed to eat sort of like shit to get through 2020, and time and again, when your man needed it most, PB&J was there.
Sunday night Zoom sessions with college friends
I know that most of us started something like this back in March; I’m not sure how many have stuck with it. I hope the answer is “a lot,” because honestly, knowing that I’m going to end the week by seeing a few friends — some here in Brooklyn but mostly beyond our reach for safety’s sake, some who’ve moved away — has felt like a stabilizing agent on more than a few occasions. It’s important, and no small blessing, to have people in your life who really know you, weird messy ugly bits and all, and in front of whom you can let everything go.
That gallery view’s provided a place to vent, to seethe, to laugh, to cry, and to try to find some semblance of center before heading back into another week. I’m grateful for it, and for the people in those little boxes. Except for the time they reminded me that, when I was 18, I was pretty sure I was a Pacey, and they were all extremely confident I was a Dawson. They were right, but still: a bitter pill to swallow, then and now.
Olivia calling herself “Dr. Bloody”
She took out her little toy doctor kit and just turned into a cackling villain.
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Deeply disconcerting, yes, but also adorable.
All Fantasy Everything
What got me in the door was the conceit: three very funny stand-up comedians (Ian Karmel, David Gborie, Sean Jordan), often with a very funny guest but sometimes without, pick some topic or another and engage in a fantasy draft of their favorite aspects or representations of that topic. (It is, crucially, a serpentine draft. Now what is that? That’s a great question.) Some favorite examples: Mikes; Words That You Think Make You Sound Smart, vols. 1 and 2; Things You Yell After You Dunk on Someone; Fictional Athletes; Crimes We’d Like to Commit. Yeah. It’s that kind of podcast.
What kept me around was the friendship. Listen to an episode and it becomes really clear really quickly just how much the three hosts love each other, how much fun they have being around each other and making one another laugh. The warmth radiates, just pours out of the speakers; in a year where I sorely needed some good vibes, I appreciated my regular check-ins with the Good Vibes Gang to just ... unclench for an hour and a half or so.
Drinking beer
OK, I’ll admit: This doesn’t sound great for me. It’s true, though. I really like beer. (We brewed one in our kitchen, which I realize is something of a “bearded guy in Brooklyn” cliche, but here we are. It was exciting to complete a project, and it tasted OK-ish.) At some points this year, it didn’t feel like there wasn’t much to look forward to, and sometimes drinking some High Lifes or Narragansett tall boys — with my wife in our living room, with friends on the computer, whatever — helped take the edge off a shitty day/week/month/year. I look forward to being able to do that outside with people again.
The Good Place
I am sure some very smart cultural critics and political thinkers and social revolutionaries have forwarded compelling arguments for why this show is Bad, Actually, because that seems to be more or less true about most things, whether because said thing is Actually Bad or because the economics of the attention economy on the internet functionally necessitate the composition and publication of pretty much every position on pretty much every issue, and especially ones that present a counterargument for why you shouldn’t like the thing you like, and might be kind of a piece of shit for liking it. But I liked this half-hour comedy about the way the universe might be put together, why we should try to take better care of each other, and how doing so might be a pretty great way to take better care of ourselves.
Andrew let me write about it a little bit for a big project we did before the series finale aired, which was really nice of him. I found myself thinking about this part a lot this year:
I also thought a lot about Peeps Chili, but that happens every year.
Taking pictures of my dog
Check out this flumpy goddamn champion:
“Lugar is a good boy” is the main takeaway here. They don’t all have to be complicated.
Schitt’s Creek
I know we’re not alone in this, but we inhaled this show this year. A half-hour comedy about people being laid low, learning how to deal with who they actually are, and finding some grace and community and opportunities for growth kind of hit the spot, I guess.
One of the most wholesale enjoyable ensemble comedy casts I can remember; Catherine O’Hara was already in Cooperstown, but what she made with Moira Rose only polishes her plaque. I’ll never be able to describe with any specificity the thing Chris Elliott does, but I know it has made me laugh since I was a child too young to understand the Letterman bits or see Cabin Boy in the theater, and it’s probably going to make me laugh until I am dead.
I love that people who, for years, never got to see themselves or people like them on screen got to see David Rose on screen and maybe recognize themselves a little bit. The idea that seeing the David/Patrick relationship might make them maybe feel a little more at home, a little safer and more whole, makes me happy. Sad, about the before, but happy, about the now and the what comes next.
Past that, I just love how what was ostensibly a family-and-friends production for a Canadian channel just got absolutely everything right—the tone, the look, the sound, the theme song, the cast, the jokes, my goodness, the jokes—and before long, the rest of the world just got it. Like catching a fastball square on the barrel. Something the show clearly knew a little bit about.
Finding new outdoor places it was safe to go
Necessity is the mother of invention, and the need to give the kids a place to be that wasn’t unnecessarily dangerous but also wasn’t inside our two-bedroom apartment led us to do more exploring than we had before. Shirley Chisholm State Park is great. Canarsie Pier was a fun place to spend a Sunday morning; so’s Canarsie Playground. If we got there early enough or made our peace with some rain, the beaches at Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden were pretty rad this summer. I lived in Staten Island from ages 8 through 18, and during breaks throughout college, and don’t think I ever hiked in High Rock Park — that’s dumb, because it was nice!
Even if all those little excursions did was kill a little time and reduce the overall stress level of the four humans stuck in our four walls, that’s not nothing. Some days this year, it was everything.
Cobra Kai
I know I’m late here; I didn’t rush to seek it out because I don’t consider myself a huge fan of The Karate Kid, or at least not a big enough fan to sign up for YouTube’s premium service. I checked it out when it came to Netflix, though, and I honestly can’t believe how much I enjoyed this show. Give me “dumb, but with heart” every day of the week.
I believe in Miguel Diaz; I believe in Johnny Lawrence; I believe I will be firing up Season 3 next month, and perhaps drinking some Coors Banquets in its honor. (I cannot, however, believe how the “get him a body bag” thing came back around, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Closing unread tabs
I’m a serial hoarder of links, and I am bad at finishing all of them. I’ve tried to get into Pocket and Instapaper, but I’ve never been able to turn that sort of workflow — open link, save to third-party service, go back to third-party service later to read, then delete from there — into something that felt instinctual, natural, or habitual. So: lots of tabs. Like, lots of tabs.
This was a dicier proposition than usual in 2020, because cutting my work week in half to be able to more effectively coparent two kids who didn’t have school or day care for most of the year meant less time to read things.
I tried to do my best to keep up with the important stuff for work, and to read at least some stuff about how other parents were dealing with their anxiety/anger/depression/frustration at having to be on 24/7 and work, and to stay abreast of (at least some of) what was happening in the world. Sometimes, though, I would wake up and realize I’d been holding onto blog posts about Really Interesting Rotation Decisions on the 11th-Seeded Team in the East or whatever for literally nine months, and I would go against my nature and just hit the eject button on a 25-deep window, and something amazing would happen: I wouldn’t get fired for being shitty at my job. I would move on with my day, and I would feel about 10 pounds lighter.
I still keep too much stuff open. (As we speak, I’ve got three different Chrome windows open on two different laptops. I choose not to count the total tabs.) But I do so knowing that, if it gets too heavy, I can experience the momentary joy of surrendering to the inevitability that I can’t catch everything. In that moment, I feel OK with my decay.
Reading writers I wasn’t familiar with before
Two in particular stand out in my mind: Nekias Duncan, now of BasketballNews.com, who does excellent film breakdowns and statistical analysis, and Katie Heindl, who writes basketball stuff of all types all over the place, and strings sentences together in a way that scratches an itch inside my brain. I’m grateful I got more chances to read them this year, I look forward to bigger and better things for both of them, and I’m hopeful that, if things calm down and our schedules go back to something approximating normalcy, I’ll have more bandwidth to hunt out more new voices in the year ahead.
The time I ambushed my wife as she was trying to break down and put away the girls’ space tent
Pretty good.
Siobhan learning to ride a bicycle (with training wheels, but still)
The moment passed pretty quickly; Not Exactly A Mechanic over here can’t get the training wheels to reliably work right without either loosening them too much or tightening them so much that she can’t pedal it. In that first moment, though, and for as long as it lasted, it was really great to see her get excited about doing something new, big kid shit, for the first time.
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She was proud. I was proud of her. And then we went to a playground for a few hours. Pretty good day.
Tyler Tynes roasting me
Tyler did some incredible work this year — The Cam Chronicles is getting deserved praise as one of 2020′s best podcasts, and his reporting on the Movement for Black Lives was exemplary. It’s hard to top this, though:
You know what the messed up part is? I was excited to tell him what I was doing, just because I knew the reaction would be so violent. Like a body rejecting a transplant. So lucky to have such a dear, dear friend.
PUP
I’m late on everything, so I didn’t start listening to PUP until the spring of 2019, but I haven’t really stopped since. This year has been too sedentary too often; this band is too kinetic to allow me to stay there.
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“Bloody Mary Kate and Ashley Kate” is never more than about 20 minutes away from returning to the front of my mind. I would fucking love for it to be safe enough to watch these guys live at some point, and I am absolutely going to take Steve up on his offer.
Someone sending me a shirt based on a joke I tweeted
First:
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Then:
Then:
I’m not sure you should be rewarding my behavior, SnoCoPrintShop, but I appreciate it all the same.
Which reminds me:
Family dinner/family movie night
My wife works in Manhattan and commutes back on the train, and we've tried to prioritize getting the girls to bed early since they were little, so that doesn’t leave much of a window between when she gets home and they go in the tub for us all to connect; before everything shut down, we almost never really ate together. We’re still not great about it, but for a while now we’ve carved out Saturday as family dinner night, where we sit down to eat and talk about our “up” from the day — something that happened that made us feel good or happy, or something we’re looking forward to. (We used to talk about our “down,” too, but that kind of seemed like overkill. Why try to focus on more bad shit right now, you know?)
Then we settle in for a movie, with who gets to pick rotating each week. It’s mostly been Pixar, which has been great but also has its drawbacks; after she caught me crying during one of them (maybe the Bing-Bong scene in Inside Out? or Miguel singing to Grandma Coco?), Siobhan straight up told me, “You need to get yourself together, man.” We just watched My Neighbor Totoro, too, which they loved, so we’re probably going to try some more Miyazaki soon. It’s a really simple thing, but it’s one we rarely made time for before, and it’s been really nice to manufacture something positive that we can share and look forward to together.
Sometimes looking like a shiftless drifter
No shade to anyone who felt strongly about getting a lineup or whatever, but I haven’t really felt like going to the barbershop was worth the risk, and I continue to refuse to believe that my wife can actually pull off the fade she’s long wanted to give me. (It is also possible that she just means she’s intending to run my fade, and that I will before long wind up cold-cocked and slumped by my bride of nine years.) So I’ve just kind of been growing out my hair like it was when I was single, and sometimes been letting my beard get kind of out of control too, and, well, I sort of like looking a little bit like a Wildling, it turns out.
I have since trimmed things up a little. It didn’t go over well with my youngest. Oh, well. I’ll try to do better next time.
My wife and daughter singing the Pixies
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We don’t know all the words to too many lullabies, so we sing the ones we do know the words to. This will probably come back to bite us in the years ahead. For now, though: Pretty good.
Doughboys’ Tournament of Chompions: Munch Madness: Mac Attack
I can’t believe how invested I became in Nick Wiger and Mike Mitchell’s quest to determine the best menu item at McDonald’s in a 64-seed tournament that spawned hours and hours of delightfully funny audio featuring all-time home-run guests like Jon Gabrus and Nicole Byer, who gleefully feed into the often warm, sometimes antagonistic, always entertaining chemistry between the two hosts. I have also never found myself wanting to go to McDonald’s more in my entire life. I have hit the drive-thru a couple of times since, and the boys are right: The McDonald’s fountain Coke does just hit different.
Sound Only
I’ve lost track of whether or not a 38-year-old is considered a millennial, but I’m quite confident that I’m not exactly plugged into “the millennial lifestyle” as my teammates Justin Charity and Micah Peters discuss it on their podcast, which relaunched this summer. Doesn’t matter, though, because I love hearing Charity and Micah talk to each other even if I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Their conversation about Dave Chappelle was great. After listening to their Travis Scott episode, I felt like I kind of understood who he is and why he occupies the space he does in pop culture now. I had no idea how they were going to get me to give a shit about set photos from The Batman, but this they not only got me there, but wended their way toward blaming 50 Cent for needing to know who Groot is to have a conversation on the internet, which is something for which Abraham Lincoln did not die. The show is good, it's getting better, it’s fun to hear them talk their shit, and Charity’s regular bellowing of “I, TOO, AM AMERICA” has made me smile for four straight months.
Siobhan’s letters and notes
She’s in first grade now, and she’s taken to communicating her feelings through the written word. A lot.
I won’t pretend that I loved all of these in the moment. I can only get so upset, though, when she’s already writing with such a clear voice. (And trying to use proper punctuation. (And drawing little cartoons to drive the point home.)
Palm Springs
I’m having a hard time remembering too many specifics about it right now, which probably means it’d be a good thing to rewatch over the holidays. But, as I’m sure many people noted many months before we got around to watching it, a comedy about living the same day over and over again, and about trying to figure out how to make your life mean something when everything seems meaningless, scratched a pretty particular, and particularly important, itch this year. It could’ve been twice as long, and I would’ve eaten up every second of Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti together.
I’m pretty sure I cried, although this year, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Also, put Conner O’Malley in more things.
Joining our union’s bargaining committee
I won’t say too much about this, but I will say that becoming an active participant in the process of a labor union negotiating its first contract with management has been an extremely educational experience. It’s pushed me to have conversations, sometimes difficult ones, about our priorities as a staff and a company. It's helped me get closer with the other past and present members of the BC, and has led me to start developing relationships with members of our staff that I otherwise might not have had much of an opportunity to get to know.
The organizing work takes time, effort, and energy, but trying to do what I can to help take better care of my colleagues has been well worth all of that. Here’s hoping that in 2021 we can reach a deal that helps make our workplace even better, stronger, and more equitable for all of us.
Publishing a story about Stevie Nicks’ Fajita Roundup
I swear this is true: After I accepted my offer to work at The Ringer, but before I started, I told a friend that one thing I was excited about was that you had the chance to work on offbeat stuff here, in both the “kind of weird” and “not about the NBA” senses. That, I thought, might maybe open the door to me getting to write a story about a Saturday Night Live sketch I saw when I was a teenager about Stevie Nicks from Fleetwod Mac running a cheap Tex-Mex restaurant in Sedona, Arizona — a sketch that I wasn’t sure anyone else remembered, but that was stuck in my head forever.
That story ran on May 26.
A lot of people seemed to like it.
Accomplishing this goal was, as dumb as this might sound, a highlight of my year, and, honestly, a highlight of my career. I’d like to do some more stuff like this next year, time permitting; we’ll see. Whether or not I do, I got to do this. I’ll always have that.
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And That’s Enough.
Wanna hear a secret?
Every writer I've ever known has, at some point, faced a soul-crushing anxiety over whether or not they're really a writer.
"But Topher," you might say, "That's not a secret!"
If I were being clever, I might give you a wink and the slight twitch of my nose that all the wise old men do. But I'm not very clever, I'm not necessarily wise, and I'm not old. So instead, I figured I might tell you about how I learned to solve that crisis for myself. But in order to get there, we have to start at the beginning.
I was a fairly lonely kid, never really had a steady friends' group, and when I was in second grade I started deliberately getting lunch detention so that I could spend my lunch period reading without being harassed by my classmates. I thought it was a genius plan. Well, that, and my second grade teacher (who was also my third grade teacher, yay for small towns!) and I had a personality clash. I would finish my work too fast and start reading from my pocket dictionary (yeah, I was THAT nerd), and would correct him in class. He, in return, would try to find any way possible to punish or humiliate me. It was fun! I loved reading no matter what trouble it got me in, and getting in trouble just gave me more time to read.
Ask any writer you know and they'll tell you that in order to write, you have to enjoy reading. And I was always excited to read (which hasn't changed much as I've grown, I just find less time to be able to read these days. #Adulting, right?) at any chance I got. When I was in 5th grade, I stayed in the truck with no AC and just the window rolled down for 3 hours while my mom went grocery shopping to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (which took me a whopping 5 hours to finish!). When sixth grade rolled around, I started wanting to try my hand at creating something instead of just consuming it. For a lonely, depressed kid, the world of fiction was the best friend I had.
The first thing I remember writing was House MD fanfiction. It was my favorite show and I started out as any respectable fanfiction writer does: with a Mary Sue self-insert! Eventually, I had a small cult following on the school bus, and found my way to the big leagues of fanfiction.net about a year later. I moved onto another overdone trope: songfics. From there, I kept writing fanfic, even after my mom found it and banned me from it. I just enjoyed writing so much. House MD turned into Harry Potter which turned into Glee. I should also mention the other kind of writing I found as an eleven year old, right after I started writing fanfic: role playing. I stumbled upon a Harry Potter RP one day while trying to find video games for my favorite franchise and, with the help of a kindly more experienced role player, was taught how to RP. I was hooked. Soon, all my free time turned to writing. I was neglecting my video games in favor of blasting my favorite album at any point and writing more and more. And when I wasn't writing, I was reading. Harry Potter, The Princess Diaries, Percy Jackson, whatever I could get my hands on. Middle school was consumed by writing and reading, whether it was the actual series I was into or fanfiction for it.
Then came high school, and my RP site shut down, and my book pile ran out, and I fell into a deeper depression than I had before. I had always loved music, but I got more into it as I couldn't find much to read that I was interested in. But on the bright side, I was making real friends! I wasn't spending my lunch times alone anymore, and I had people to talk to about the fandoms I loved. Writing and reading fell to the wayside as I explored more music and l got back into video games. I was also a theatre kid, and was getting ready to audition for my first high school play.
Everything changed when my mom passed away on December 5th, 2011, 4 days after her 52nd birthday. My dad made me stay home for a week, and when I came back, all my "friends" refused to talk to me or spend time with me. My depression hit heavier than ever, and I was even lonelier after having had a taste of regular friendship. I spent all my time playing video games and listening to dark, angry music, until June 2012, when I watched a movie called It's Kind of a Funny Story, based on the book by Ned Vizzini while I was sick. It instantly felt like I needed the book in my life, and my dad, thrilled to see me wanting to read again, let me order the book. I fell in love, and to this day, over 8 years later, it's still my favorite book. Soon after, my love of writing came back and hit me and I got back into role playing. I had a role model to look up to who wrote something so relatable to me that it hurt so good, and the video games took a back burner. I was inventing people left and right to see what kind of trouble I could get them into.
My world came screeching to another halt when my newfound role model took his own life on December 19th, 2013. This time, though, instead of backing off from the role playing, I dove deeper into it. I found new friends on the internet and kept making new people. Not long after that, I came out as transgender, and used writing to cope with my dysphoria and strained relationship with my family. Every waking minute I was either role playing or thinking about role playing. I snuck on my phone in class to write replies when the teacher wasn't looking. I wrote replies in my notebook to type up when I got home. I went from short, 3-sentence replies to hundreds of words at a time.
Then, in May 2015, I graduated high school, and I was off to college as a psych major! In the time between, I had graduated to running RP sites as well, and I was constantly writing. My summer was filled with writing, and once I made it to college, I got back into fanfiction, this time on Archive of Our Own. AO3 seemed far more professionally laid out, and it had more freedom of what could be posted. I started writing band fanfiction. I made friends through my fanfiction, now, in addition to RP. It was where I would retreat when homework was too boring or my classes were too much. In November 2015, I participated in my first National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I instantly found the community I was meant to be in and made many friends that I would come to consider family. Ny first NaNo I came in just shy of 13,000 words on a band fic. I couldn't believe I had managed all that in one month with being a college freshman, starting a new job, and continuing to work on my role playing! Things were great! For the next year, my life was nothing short of amazing. I got a summer job on campus, went to my first Pride, and made more friends.
Once again, my life came to a screeching halt on November 2, 2016. Remember how I mentioned I'd always struggled with mental health issues? Well, I ended up in the hospital for just over 21 hours for suicidal intent. This was pretty much the darkest moment and a turning point in my life. It was also kind of ironic, because my favorite book had to do with much the same thing. After getting out, I dove back into NaNoWriMo for the second time, still working on band fic, and this time, ended up just short of 20,000 words. I was doing more, and using it to take away the anxiety I was feeling in my classes. I was hating my major, and the RPs I was in were falling through, but I had a project to work on. For the first time, I kept working on the project after NaNo was over. Things were good again, and over the summer, I made the decision to change my major from Psychology to Creative Writing, but ultimately had to wait one more term because I was already signed up for classes.
I completed my third NaNoWriMo in 2017 with fewer words than the previous year. But I was committed. I had helped start a Discord for my home region for NaNo and was now spending almost full-time hours volunteering for my region. I finished my last semester as a Psych major and then I made my way home for the holidays, where I continued to write, diving back into fanfic for TV shows and now adding Youtubers to the mix. When I returned to school at the beginning of 2018, I started my new life in all my English classes, including my first writers' workshop, and I fell in love. I was still writing fanfiction, though, while others were writing original fiction, and all that I could think was that I HAD to be a fraud. How could I be a real writer if I was just writing fanfiction for my classes? It was frustrating to think that I was stuck writing something that most people saw as mindless drivel, or even ripoffs of the works and lives of others. After my first term of creative writing, I took some time off from my fiction class, and used that to take a break from anything that wasn't RP.
Fall 2018 brought with it many challenges. For one, my college converted to the semester system, and having to confront a new length of term was difficult. It also brought around an intermediate fiction course for me, as well as a creative nonfiction course. Here, I found something I enjoyed: I was able to write about my own life, instead of the lives of band members. After a while, I got to know the band members, which completely killed my desire to write band fic. Life seemed a lot easier without that urge, and I started writing original fiction. In November 2018, for the first time, I wrote original fiction for my 4th NaNoWriMo, and my word count grew, once more, to just under 22,500 words. It was progress, and I felt great. I finally knew how to work on something original on my own.
Spring 2019 was even harder than I had faced before: I had received the news that I was not getting financial aid, and would not be able to return to school the next year. I was devastated, and determined not to have to return to my dad's house for the following year, back to the small town where I had no prospects. I scrambled to find a job, but nothing worked out, and for the next seven months, I jumped from living situation to living situation, relying on my friends to keep me alive and ending up in a tightly packed studio apartment with 2 friends and their 3 cats.
One of these 7 months was my 5th NaNoWriMo and my second attempt at original fiction, this time trying to use a character I had been RPing with for some 6 years at the time. I started using new writing tools, like 4TheWords, and threw myself into NaNo, using it to deal with the frustrations of everyday life. This was the first time I came so far: 28,611 words! And still... My project stalled out. As a major pantser, I had gone into the project with one developed character, one who only had a name and profession, and the plotline "They fall in love". It was freeing, to have something new to work on that I had no idea where I was headed and that I had someone brand new to create. All this was helping me adjust to the new job I found in September, a job I found myself absolutely loving. It was the best time in the world, all I could ask for. I found a new RP site and made more friends. Come December 31st, I found a new place to live, and was finally living on my own.
Then, my writing on that novel stalled out. I couldn't figure out where to go, or what to do with my characters, and so I dove back into role playing. It was all I could do, really, to keep myself occupied when I wasn't working. Things were looking up: I found out I was returning to school in fall; I loved my job; my roommate and I got along well. And then, things fell apart again, to the point where I had to stay somewhere else for over a month while there were construction issues on my apartment. I was depressed, but RP and writing kept me going. Finally, things settled down, and life seemed well again.
That is, until halfway through March, when COVID-19 ended up basically destroying the world I lived in. I lost my job (live performances during a pandemic are a no-no) and had to move back in with my dad, and, well, here we are. 4 months post job loss, I'm trying to get ready for all online classes, and trying to cope with moving back to the town that I couch surfed to avoid. It's been hard, and writing hasn't come easily. I haven't been able to really focus on anything other than role playing until now, and I still find myself questioning whether I'm REALLY a writer every time I realize that this essay or my RP is the only writing I've done in months. After all, how can I claim to be really dedicated to NaNoWriMo or even my writing in general if I can never finish a project? It's been almost impossible for me to do so in the past. All I've been able to do is come up with yet another idea that I've yet to attempt to actually write, and that has no real plot, and that I'll (probably) never finish, either?
Then I think of why I started to write this. I needed to have some writing to show some people I want to impress, and I started angsting over whether or not I'm actually a writer, and if I'm really cut out for this. And the fact that there are over 2500 words more on the page than there were when I started means that, in spite of all my anxieties, I am a writer. All these words I've put out into the world the last several years would never have come into the world the way I've decided to use them if I wasn't a writer. Even now, as I sit here writing this post, for something that I truly love, I'm reminded that I'm not a writer because I follow XYZ formula, or because I plan things meticulously, or because I have some famous novel out there. I'm a writer because I write. And that's enough.
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Podcast Room | Jeff Wittek
Description: Y/n takes Erin's place in the 'eat my pussy' bit and Jeff really wants to.
Requested?: Yes by anonymous : maybe you could do one like the erin bit in the new vlog but with y/n instead of erin.
A/N: ive typed and read the word pussy way too many times now lmao but i loved this ugh thank you for requesting it ily
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"Can you come to the car with me for a minute?" David asked her. She was instantly nervous.
"I don't know what you're doing but I don't like it." She said as she stood up off of the couch and followed him outside.
"Don't worry I'm not giving you another car." He joked with her as they climbed into his Tesla.
"I would actually like another car, it's the fact that I'm not getting a car that's making me nervous." She watched as he adjusted the camera to fit both of them in the frame.
"Stop worrying, I just wanna ask you a question." David's smile filled his face and she could tell he was about to say something stupid.
"Okay?" She responded, waiting for him to ask her the question.
"Can I have your pussy?" David sounded serious. Y/n was just confused about what the 22 year old was asking her.
"What do you mean have it? Like, am I supposed to just take it off and give it to you?" She giggled, David laughed as well.
"Like, can I taste your pussy?" David was laughing through his words, and so was y/n.
"You're more like a little brother to me. Sorry, David." She was still trying to figure out what was up. David reached down between her legs and under her seat. She freaked out for a second as she wondered what he was reaching for.
"No, I meant this pussy." David's laugh echoed through the car as he showed her an energy drink with the word 'pussy' on it.
"What, are you twelve or something?" She took the can from him and he did his stupid little muppet dive. "Where did you get this?" She attempted to read the rest of the label, but none of it was in English.
"Natalie ordered it for me." He kept laughing and she just smiled at her idiotic friend. "I wanna try it on Erin now, can you get in the back?" He asked and put the can back under her seat.
"Yeah." She opened the door and exited the car. David brought Erin into the car and asked her the same question. Erin laughed and reminded him that she was engaged and the three of them laughed even harder. They went through the same thing with Carly and the four of them continued to make jokes for a few minutes.
"Everybody's gonna go nuts when they hear David asking to eat our pussies." Y/n joked and everyone laughed.
"The amount of fan-fiction that people will write about this bit is gonna be insane." Carly added.
"Which one of you wants to do this to the boys?" David asked the car.
"I'm not doing it, I can't act for shit." Carly placed a hand on her chest as she eliminated herself.
"Well, y/n is the only single one here, so the boys are more likely to say yes." Erin pointed out.
"Oh, yeah, thats funnier. Y/n, can you do it?" David turned around in his seat and looked at her.
"Uh, yeah, I'll try not to laugh too hard." She was already giggling just thinking about it.
"Okay, we're gonna be filming in here and I'm gonna leave, what are you gonna say?" He looked her in the eye with a childish grin on his face as she said it.
"Do you wanna taste my pussy?" Her acting sounded convincing, and she held it in as long as possible before laughing.
"That's great! Okay, I'm gonna put the drink in the side of this door, and you're gonna sit here." David explained how everything would work and they switched seats. Carly and Erin went inside and sent Josh out to the car.
"Why are you in the driver's seat?" Josh asked as he climbed into the passengers seat. David poked his head between the seats and answered.
"I wanted to be in between you two so I'm in the middle of the frame." David started more conversation as if this was a regular car bit and then he made an excuse to leave. He muttered something about boxes and then it was just y/n and Josh Peck. It was silent for a few minutes, y/n was nervous but excited. Josh just looked at his phone until she had the courage to ask him.
"Hey, Josh, can I ask you something?" She looked at him and watched him lock his phone.
"Yeah, sure." He turned to her, studying her face for a moment.
"Do you wanna taste my pussy?" She did everything she could not to laugh. "I mean, I know you're married and all, but still." The air was thick and awkward between them.
"I also have a kid, but yes." Josh replied, confusing her greatly. They were both instantly judging eachother very quickly.
"Really?" She asked.
"Yeah, its cool." He waited for a moment before adding "You know that camera is recording, right? David's gonna love this for the vlog."
"Shit." Her acting kept getting better. "I didn't think it was recording. Tomorrow is Valentine's and. . ." She reached down into the door as she spoke and grabbed the drink. ". . . I would love for you to taste my pussy." She turned the can to show Josh. He started laughing and David ran out of the house and hopped in the car again.
"That was really uncomfortable." Josh went over his thoughts with David and then they reset the prank and did it again with Casey. He also said yes, but he knew she was kidding and played along. Y/n was most nervous for the next person.
Y/n and Jeff were pretty close. They mildly flirted a lot and spent a lot of time together hanging out. The fans shipped them and they both knew they liked eachother, but they refused to acknowledge it. Jeff got in the car with David and they all made conversation until David used his stupid excuse to leave.
"You look really good today." Jeff said to her. She blushed as looked at him.
"Thank you." She smiled and looked down at her legs, quiet for a moment. "Hey, can I ask you something?" She turned to face him completely.
"Yeah, of course." Jeff furrowed his brow for a split second and wondered what she was about to say.
"Do you wanna eat my pussy?" She asked. She realized she said eat instead of taste and was kind of embarrassed. She really did want him to eat her out. Jeff's face went through a few different expressions before it landed on a soft smile.
"What? When?" His voice sounded amused as he asked for clarity. He made a cute high pitched giggle while she responded.
"I don't know, whenever you want? Valentine's day is tomorrow and we're both single so. . ." She left her response open-ended, only slightly acting now.
"Could I try the lips on your face first?" He asked her, catching her completely off-guard.
"I mean, yeah, but. . ." She reached for the drink in the door, but before she could show it to him he grabbed her face with his hands. He pulled her head towards his and connected their lips. They molded together nicely and her nerves lit up as he lightly bit her bottom lip. They pulled away and she held the drink towards him.
"What is that?" He asked. She turned the label towards him so he could read it.
"My pussy." She started to laugh, but she was still astounded by what had just happened. David, Carly, and Erin had watched from the door, and all of their jaws were still dropped from what they'd seen.
"Oh, shit." Jeff looked at the camera as he realized what had just happened. "I forgot it was on." He pointed at the camera as he looked at her.
"Yeah, it was just a bit for the vlog." She smiled as David walked up to the car.
"I don't think I can use that in the vlog." David chuckled as he sat in the back seat.
"My bad." Jeff was awkwardly silent, making y/n's heart sink a little bit.
They reset the bit and did it one more time with Dom. It went as expected even though y/n was still thinking about Jeff and the feeling of his lips on hers. Once she finally got to go inside she noticed Jeff staring at her very intently. The whole group hung out for a little while longer but nobody mentioned the kiss. Nobody paid attention to Jeff as he walked up to y/n.
"I still do wanna eat your pussy." He whispered into her ear. She instantly felt tingles and butterflies when she heard the word pussy in his accent. Later in the afternoon the two of them slipped away into the podcast room, away from everybody else.
"Where did Y/n and Jeff go?" Carly asked the rest of the group.
"I think they went in the podcast room, I heard something in there when I went to get my charger from my room." David explained. Carly and Erin nodded, but Jason hadn't heard about their kiss yet and was very confused.
"Why did they go in there?" Jason asked.
"Jeff probably went in there to eat her pussy." Erin joked. David did a muppet dive into the couch as he laughed.
#jeff wittek#vlog squad#davids vlogs#jeff wittek imagine#jeff wittek x reader#jeff#jeff imagine#jeff x reader#david#david x reader#david dobrik imagine#david dobrik imagines#david dobrik#carly and erin#carly incontro#erin gilfoy#david dobrik x reader#vloge squad imagines#vlog squad imagine#vlog#josh peck#durte dom#casey neistat
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914
Do you prefer bar or liquid soap?
Liquid. I don’t like how a bar soap tends to slip out of my hands.
What's the speed limit on your street?
I live in a gated village with tiny streets and kids that can run out of their gates any time, so the maximum on our widest roads is 40 kph. In more cramped streets, it’s recommended to drive 15-20.
When was the last time you wore your favourite article of clothing?
With my favorite pair of jeans, it was at the start of the month. I don’t have a favorite top; I find them all nice.
Do any of your family members have an upcoming birthday?
I don’t know anyone in my family who celebrates their birthday in August. If there’s someone, I can’t place them at the moment.
On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best, rate your last kiss.
5.
What is your favourite flavour of Jolly Ranchers?
I don’t eat those.
Where was your Facebook profile picture taken?
It was taken in the basement of my college, which had been converted into a makeshift photo studio for a few days so that we could take our senior photos there. The basement has several rooms so most of them got used for different purposes like a hair and makeup room, a changing room, the actual photo studio, etc.
Do your parents smoke?
No. I think my mom mentioned experimenting with cigarettes when she was in college, but she didn’t like it, quit as soon as she started, and hasn’t had one since. My dad never smoked, period.
Would you rather bake cookies or a potato?
Cookies. It’s more nostalgic to me, which makes the experience more fun.
Who was the last person to stay the night at your house?
Gabie, probs. She’s the only one who sleeps over anyway.
Do you live close to a park?
We have our own tiny parks in our village; but no, this country is generally not public spaces-friendly.
Is your favourite animal endangered?
One of them is.
Have you eaten pizza in the last week?
Nah man, I haven’t had pizza in a WHILE. Not since February, I’m pretty sure.
Who was the last person you added to your contacts list?
I don’t remember. I think it was my hair and makeup artist for a test photoshoot that I did last December.
How long does it take you to shower?
7-10 minutes.
Do you prefer a brand of bottled water over others, or is it all the same?
Sure. There are brands that have a slightest taste, and I try to avoid those.
Have you used Wikipedia today?
Yes. I read at least one article a day, whether on purpose or coincidental. Idk I think that despite the fact that it’s not a credible source to include on essays and papers, I still think it’s super informative and helpful and it’s at least fun to read through and spend hours in if I’m doing leisure reading.
Are you better at writing fiction or non-fiction?
Non-fiction BY A MILE. The idea of writing fiction terrifies me...I’ve never been able to reach that level of creativity.
Do you know anyone who has moved to a different state?
I’ve known people who have moved from one province to another (we don’t have states). But in terms of the US, I also do know someone who moved from one state to another. I went to school with this girl who migrated to Hawaii a few years back, then she moved to California last year.
How many pens can you see from where you’re sitting?
Zero.
Have you ever dated someone one grade/year above or below you?
Nopes, but I’d assume that’s pretty common.
What language do you think you’d be good at?
Spanish for obvious reasons.
What language do you think you’d fail at?
Russian. And the African languages that have click sounds in them; I’ve always found this SO fascinating, but I know I'd never be able to perfect those.
Do you still have a landline phone at your house?
Yes. I have older relatives who still prefer talking on landline, so we keep it around for them.
What is your current desktop background?
One of the default wallpapers on my laptop. I changed it recently though. My old one was a mountain shot that mostly had a pinkish hue; and my new one is still a shot of a mountain range, but now it’s orange-purplish-pinkish.
How big is the television you last watched?
Haven’t watched TV in a while.
Have you ever been stung by a bee or a wasp?
NOPE, one of my biggest fears.
How many schools have you been to in your lifetime?
Two. I went to my first school from kindergarten to high school and the only time I transferred was when I went to college.
Are you of legal age in your country?
Yes. I have been in the last four years.
Why did you last visit a doctor?
I had been sick for days and I was convinced it was no longer just a fever because no medicine and amount of sleep were helping, so I got myself checked.
Would you prefer an ice cream cake or a regular cake?
Regular cakes. Omg I hate ice cream cakes...I was never sold on the idea of cake not only being painfully cold to bite, but also capable of melting and getting all liquidy. I’m not gonna hate on other people who are into those, but I honestly never saw the hype.
How old is your best friend?
Gabie’s 22. Angela’s turning 22 in September.
What is/was your high school’s mascot?
My old school doesn’t have a mascot. We have school colors but that’s it.
Do you carry pain relievers with you at all times?
No. I didn’t want to be too dependent on them (still don’t) when I was still in school, so I just left the pills at home. My headaches sometimes go away on their own, anyway.
Where is your mother right now?
She just went upstairs to settle in their room for the night.
What was the last thing to make you smile?
A meme Angela sent a couple of minutes ago.
Are you currently saving up for anything?
Not currently since I don’t have money coming in. I imagine I’d be saving up for Airpods and a new set of braces once I start having a salary, though. Priorities, hahaha.
What’s the view like from your bedroom window?
Not too impressive. I just see the houses behind ours.
Generally speaking, do you prefer sweet or savoury?
Savory. My cravings for sweet only come once I’ve had savory.
What would you do if you got home and you saw your house had been destroyed?
Check the scene and see if my dogs made it. I’d try asking neighbors and the guards if they saw what happened; and I’d be devastated and anxious as fuck, of course.
When did you last go outside, and what for?
I walked Kimi outside an hour ago so he can do his business. We’ve closed off the balcony for now (his usual spot) since it’s been raining all day and evening, so I walked him in the area of our house that’s under a shed.
Who is your favourite Sesame Street character?
Didn’t really grow on Sesame Street. I suppose I liked Big Bird most, but I was never too attached to the character.
How often do you check your emails?
Everyday at this point.
Do you have any plans for this Thanksgiving?
No.
What colour is your backpack?
Baby pink.
Would you slap the last person you talked to for twenty dollars?
It’s not completely off the table, but you’re gonna have to pay me a lot more for me to slap my girlfriend lol
What search engine do you usually use?
Google.
How much did the shirt you’re wearing cost?
Couple thousand bucks. It’s official WWE merch.
Patrick Stump or Pete Wentz?
I never compare members within the same band. I like them both.
Do you know anyone who gives way too many hugs?
Laurice. Not that that’s a bad thing. She hugs eveeeeeeryone, and she’s the sweetest for doing so.
What time do you usually wake up on Sundays?
7-8 AM these days, like for all days.
Have you whispered today?
I don’t think so.
What grade did you get on the last test you took?
I never got to find out my grade in my Rizal exam since the lockdown happened shortly after. That’s the only test I got to take in the second semester.
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i promised last week that i would do a candy review of every candy i had consumed over the final finals week and here it is, in order of consumption over the terrible, no good, very bad week
1) weird chocolate candy cigarettes my dad bought me when we were in osaka last may - 3/10
this candy is a chocolate stick facsimile of a cigarette. it tastes like chocolate flavored chalk. i am allowed to say this because i have eaten chalk before. one point was added because it is enjoyable but only after the candy is gone, and i feel like anything that needs to not be there anymore to be enjoyed is something that doesnt deserve a high score. the other two points were added for the gifting value. im not ungrateful, i just have high standards
2) chupa chups sour bites fruity flavor - 8.5/10
this candy is like a few sourtapes stacked on each other for width but cut into smaller sizes. i very much enjoyed this one. the gummy looks like a rainbow and that definitely adds points. this candy is gay. it tastes like a tame sour patch kid and is rather addicting. i deducted points because the name implies there to be an aspect of sourness to it, which the candy lacked. i would say it was more of a fun little tang. also, the pack totally couldve fit more pieces of candy, but instead was filled with air. i finished this candy much earlier than expected and that made me sad.
3) weird candy from the clipper in uptc - 5/10
see, this candy isnt exactly like, enjoyable. but it isn’t not enjoyable. they were advertised in the pack they were in (a pack i had to dispose of because it wasnt resealable and i might be a goblin, but i wasnt going to eat like, several handfuls of candy in one go. thats…..well it’s not ridiculous, ive done that before, a lot of times, but the whole point of eating this much candy in this time period was to make it last so that i had some incentive not to die in the middle of the week. i had to transfer the candy into a small ziplock bag which made the candy look like, really fucking shady, and thats why the picture has a bunch of them on a piece of tissue) as “apple mint hard candies” and a lot of the points were deducted because i did not taste an ounce of apple. they were just mints. not bad mints, but not good either. this was mint purgatory. i often munched them while writing to keep myself awake, and it gets points for keeping my eyes open, i guess. the thought of falling asleep while i had those mint voids in my mouth seemed horrific.
4) gummy angry dudes (???) that my mom got from bangkok - 6/10
in the taste department, these gummies were standard. tasted like a regular gummy worm. most of the points are awarded simply because i cannot for the life of me figure what the hell this gummy is supposed to be. it has horns, a very angry face, and pretty swole thighs. it’s a very powerful looking gummy and this had to be taken into account. however, my mom ate a lot of these while in bangkok and blames them for giving her the flu for 4 days. points docked for (allegedly) giving my mom a hard time. gummies should not give my mom a hard time. thats what my existence is for. just kidding.
5) fruit-tella - 8/10
a classic. never fails. i got this to munch on during an utterly terrible finals session where my philosophy class had to watch all of the final movie projects we made, and these candies prevented me from disconnecting from this plane of existence because i hated everything, prevented me from astral projecting into a universe where i was happy or at least wanted to be. tangy but not overwhelming. chewy but not overly so. when i was in 4th grade, this candy helped me dislodge a loose tooth, so i didnt have to go to the dentist to get it removed. fruit-tella has never failed me. 2 points docked because fruit-tella does have a tell tale smell that lets everybody within a 50 mile radius Know you have fruit-tella, thus prompting them to ask “hey, can i have some fruit-tella?” i dislike this interaction very much, but i assume in the universe where im happy, this interaction is fine because that alternate!me is probably more well adjusted and cooler and better. anyway.
6) cola sour tape - 9/10
cola sour tape is one of the sexiest candies out there. i love sour tape. i love soda. this candy brings me both in one flat bitch perfect for me to just slowly eat like a noodle while tears stream down my face and i wonder why i chose this course, why am i majoring in writing, what if im not good at the only thing i thought i could do right. cola sour tape brings me the perfect amount of tang and perfect amount of sweetness and it genuinely reminds me that no matter how bad things get, there will be a moment where i will be eating cola sour tape, and things will be marginally less shitty. cola sour tape kept me company as i submitted my final requirement of this sem, the world’s shittiest final fiction manuscript, and cola sour tape’s wonderful mix of fun flavors kept me awake enough to face the fact that nearly two decades into my life, im still not sure about anything, really. one point docked for the fact that all sour tape has the monumental flaw of the sour sugar just getting fucking everywhere. please dont show me evidence of my actions. please. please.
overall, this past week has been a sugar fueled frenzy of existential dread and stress. i never want to do it again, but i would gladly eat all the candies rated 6 and above like 800 more times. thanks for reading!!!
#dootdootdoot#i wrote these reviews at different points in the week so it uh. slowly unravels into despair#food#long post
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Villainous Heroics - Chapter 2
Look, let me give you the short of it. I fell in absolute love with this AU and now I have the full story plotted out to be around eighteen chapters when fully written. I have not written this much in months. It's worth it.
Note - In the original AU designed by @corndog-patrol, Hizashi worked at a McDonald's type place, but I changed that to be a coffee shop for multiple reasons - mostly because Shota is more likely to go for coffee over actual food and because I am a writer of cliches.
Click here to read the work on Archive Of Our Own.
Click here to read the work on Fan Fiction Net.
If you found yourself enjoying this, then check out my writing commissions.
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Summary: Eraserhead is an underground hero who is constantly busy and doesn’t have time to be dealing with new villains - even if they aren’t all that villainous and make the night interesting.
Present Mic is the latest up-and-coming villain in the world and he has a point to prove to everyone out there - as long as he doesn’t keep getting distracted by Eraserhead.
Aizawa Shota is someone who soon learns that there is more to someone than the mask they show to the world - especially when it comes to playing heroes and villains.
Yamada Hizashi learns that there is more to heroics and villainy than he could have ever thought - especially in a world where some heroes still care about those lost in the shadows.
(Inspired and dedicated to corndog-patrol’s Villain!Mic AU on Tumblr.)
<<First/Last Chapter>> <<Next Chapter>>
Chapter Two
Yamada Hizashi knew well what this feeling was. He had never felt it as strong as he did now, but what else could it be? Whenever he was around him, Hizashi found his palms becoming drenched in nervous sweat, his heart tripping into overtime like the beats of an EDM song, and his words stumbling over each other in their rush to get out as quickly as possible. He had known the stirrings of this feeling when he was younger and didn’t know the world as well, but now at a comfortable thirty, he knew this was real.
Hizashi was head-over-heels in love with the hero known as Eraserhead and no one could tell him otherwise! Every waking thought seemed to be filled with that suave, mysterious, and sexy man that was always quick to put an end to the fun of ‘Present Mic.’ It was like Hizashi could think of nothing else these days.
“Oi, Yamada! Get your head out of the clouds and go be cashier!” Startling at the rough voice of his boss, Hizashi hid a pout as he shuffled over to the cash register with a long-suffering sigh. Genius was never appreciated in its own time, he supposed.
“Welcome to Lovely Coffee, how may I help you on this lovely day?” If the customer noticed how unenthusiastic he was, she didn’t comment, only ordering with a monotone voice as she stared down at her phone.
Hizashi sighed and tried to focus his thoughts on work even as they kept straying back to Eraserhead. While he had heard of the hero before his villainous debut, he had never known just how funny the man was. Eraser could kick his ass into next week, had a sharp, dry wit that most people seemed to miss, and didn’t even really seem angry whenever he ran into Present Mic - although there were a lot of insults and mocking, when Hizashi reflected on it.
Well, that just meant it was a challenge to get something else out of him! Hizashi may be a villain, but he was a realistic villain with realistic goals. That meant he wasn’t going to stop until he managed to capture Eraserhead and charm him into a date that, with a good deal of luck, would end in a kiss - maybe two!
The only real problem to his master plan, though, seemed to be the fact that none of his traps ever wanted to work. If Hizashi wasn’t stumbling into them himself, then Eraserhead was disabling them with ruthless efficiency or turning them back around on Hizashi himself. He was pretty sure the police were getting a laugh out of Present Mic being brought in with his own handcuffs stuck on him.
“Welcome to Lovely Coffee.” Maybe the problem was that Eraserhead seemed to take him too seriously as a villain. “How may I-” Hizashi’s words tangled around a startled squeak as he finally noticed who his next customer was.
“Oi, I don’t look that bad.” The words were light and amused more than anything, but Hizashi couldn’t even respond because Eraserhead was standing right in front of him. What was the statistical probability of Eraserhead coming to the coffee shop he worked at? Low. Those odds had to be very, very low. Right, okay, Hizashi was being stared at. He just needed to act natural.
“N- No! I didn’t mean- It was just- Sorry!” Well, at least he wouldn’t be mistaken for his villain persona since his hair was down and he was wearing his regular prescription glasses with the hideous, bulky frame. He also couldn’t seem to get two words out. “How may I help you?”
The man’s eyes trailed to the board behind him and Hizashi couldn’t stop a wince at how sleep deprived he looked. He knew Eraserhead worked nights primarily, but did he ever sleep? His eyes were bloodshot and worryingly red and the bags under his eyes were the size of the sun. Maybe it had something to do with the man’s quirk? Hizashi didn’t know much about Erasure, but he had certainly heard stories considering the prefecture he lived in.
“I’ll just have a black coffee in whatever size is the largest.” Oh, jeez, Eraserhead really didn’t sleep any, huh? He also didn’t seem to have any sense of taste whatsoever if he was asking for black coffee.
“Of course. No problem.” Grabbing a cup, Hizashi glanced behind the man. While there was no one behind him waiting to make him do this, this was still a great opportunity. “What’s the name for the order?”
“Aizawa.” Scribbling the name out with a marker, Hizashi tried to hide his success. While he didn’t know the man’s first name, now he knew that Eraserhead’s name was Aizawa. It… was a good name. Giving his name also proved that he didn’t know who Hizashi really was. “Can I add espresso shots?”
“Oh- Yeah! Definitely.” Really, Hizashi supposed that was unsurprising. The man looked like the walking dead. Hizashi hoped that the other would be able to take a nap, soon. “How many-”
“Six.” Eraserhead - Aizawa - looked him dead in the eyes and didn’t even blink at Hizashi’s expression - which was pure and utter terror.
“S… Six? You, um, you do know-”
“I know.” Right. Okay. Sure.
“Of course, sir. I’ll get right on that.”
While Hizashi would have been delighted to use this opportunity to get more information out of the man, he’d wait until next time they met as hero and villain. Right now, he was a poor barista who was behind on his rent, and Aizawa was a sleep deprived man who had ordered six shots of espresso in his black coffee. Hizashi was only mortal.
::
A few nights later proved to be his next fated run in with what would one day be his star-crossed lover. Hizashi had done his research this time, though, and had been ready for every possibility - except for the manufacturer of his latest trap to be a pile of shit.
Caught up in Eraserhead’s scarf and thoroughly unable to move, Hizashi tried not to thank the man for punching him – he at least took some solace in the fact that his brain-to-mouth filter wasn’t completely broken. He also had some solace in the fact that before Eraserhead had shown up, he had dealt with a couple of gang members that were known for beating up teenagers who wouldn’t join them.
“You’re a horrible villain.” The two were face to face and Eraser looked honestly flustered, trying to catch his breath as he pushed his goggles up to rest on his forehead. Hizashi supposed he had put up a bit of a fight, this time, where he was still high off adrenaline from his first fight and the fact Eraserhead had joined him when the gang had started getting a little too pissed.
“Does that make me a good hero?” The question slipped out before he could stop it, and he almost wished he could take it back as soon as it was out - almost. He was too curious as to how the man would respond to really want to take it back.
“No. It makes you a nuisance.” Ah, well. Hizashi could at least say he was expecting something like that - of course he was. Him? A hero? It was the funniest joke he had ever heard. A part of him that had never quite let go of that dream, though, felt utterly crushed. He quickly hid it with a wide smile.
“Ouch! You wound me, Eraserhead!” It hurt - reminders like that always hurt - but, well, the show must go on.
“I wish,” Eraser muttered, kicking at Hizashi’s heels to get him moving. Hizashi dodged the kick as he started walking, frowning at the man as he did so.
“Hey, hey, these are some high-class leather boots, you know. Do you know much time and money boots like this cost?” Dodging another kick, Hizashi decided that for as in love as he was, Eraserhead was still a little shit. “C’mon, I helped beat up some known thugs, can’t you take it easy on me?”
“You also started a bar fight earlier and threw three people out a window.” Staring for a long moment, Hizashi finally shook his head with a frown.
“I thought it was four?” He could have sworn it was four… Oh, right. “Ah, right, the fourth one was me.”
“Mm. You also robbed a thrift shop.” The look Eraserhead gave him was full of judgement. “There was a jewelry shop right next door, you know.”
“Yeah, but good people work there. The owner of the thrift shop isn’t. He’s a dick who says he’ll sell you back something at the price he gave to you for it, and instead he jacks up the price by almost ten thousand yen.”
“Is that why all his papers and receipts were on fire when I got there.” Was that amusement? Hizashi swore that was some amusement in Eraser’s tone. “That’s illegal, you know.”
“Well, I am a villain.”
Not even an hour later and Hizashi was being handed over to the police in the area, waving at Eraserhead as he was cornered with some paperwork. “Good night, Eraser. I’ll see you next time!”
“Please don’t.” There was what could have almost been a smile on the man’s face as Hizashi let himself be pushed and pulled towards his usual holding cell, the officer guiding him shaking her head.
“You know, if you need help, there are places you can get it - programs and opportunities that you could take part of.”
“Mm, no, I’m good.”
While a few of the cops, like Shelly, were sweet and genuinely concerned about those who deserved it, some of them were utter assholes who were villains in their own right. Hizashi made sure to remember who those were and let them know just how ‘annoying’ he could be when they were on duty.
The ‘regulars’ in the holding cell were much the same way. Some of them were nastier than any villain could be, but a good deal of them were just people down on their luck or in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“How’s your love affair with that hero of yours, Mic?” Swooning into the cell as soon as he was uncuffed, Hizashi clutched his heart and collapsed onto an uncomfortable metal bench.
“I’ll never recover, Lydia, I swear it. Eraserhead is my true love and soulmate and I’ll never be able to do without him again.” The woman snorted and laughed, tired expression leaving in favor of an honest smile.
“You’ll get him. Soulmates always find a way to make it work, after all, yeah?” As Lydia talked, she shifted to hide a younger girl behind her better, Hizashi frowning at the action. “Hm? Oh, Lucy. It’s her first night. Not a good one, either.”
The girl, Lucy, looked to just barely be in her twenties with a shirt a size too small and shoulders and midriff uncovered and bare to the world. Hizashi could easily see why the two were pressed into a corner of the cell, Lydia’s gaze sharp and angry on any man that got too close or let his gaze linger for too long.
“Let me tell you about bad nights,” Hizashi groaned, pitching his voice higher and aiming for dramatic as he stood up with a stretch, fighting with his jacket before getting it off. “I almost thanked him for punching me.”
“You are a wreck, aren’t you?” Lydia stared at the jacket as Hizashi held it out, only taking it when Hizashi gave a smile. “A sweet one, though.”
“Oi, oi, there’s no such thing as a sweet villain!” As soon as the jacket was around Lucy’s shoulders, the girl lost some of her tension, looking at him with a slow smile. “You’ll vouch for me, right, Lucy? I’m the meanest villain on these streets!”
“The absolute worst,” Lucy nodded, voice quiet and small as she slid her arms through the jacket and tucked it around her.
“See, Lydia? You worry so much and yet Lucy here is going to be stronger than me.” The two girls looked at him and Lydia finally gave a sad smile, shaking her head.
“Baby, what are you doing playing villain?”
Before he could answer, there was a tapping against the side of the bars, drawing their attention. “Alright, Present Mic, get over here and make your phone call.”
“Finally! Here I thought you guys were ignoring me, too!” Hizashi pouted and hid his unease at Lydia’s question as he bounced over to accept the burner flip phone, dialing up the number of his boss. “How long am I here for, this time?”
“Two days, at least.” Shelly crossed her arms, looking like a disapproving mother. “More if the owner of the bar and thrift shop press charges.”
“They won’t.” Probably. Shaking his head, Hizashi chatted an excuse as a message that his boss would hear tomorrow morning. Hopefully the man didn’t fire him, but a suddenly out-of-town trip to see his dying grandmother was probably a good enough reason to miss – besides, Jamie could use the extra hours he would be giving up.
Two days would at least give him enough time to think over his latest run-in with Eraserhead and the words that were now stuck running through his head.
You’re a horrible villain.
Baby, what are you doing playing villain?
Such a villainous quirk… Who would ever make you a hero?
Ah, well… He was doing this for more reasons than just ‘playing villain.’ Besides, if he had to be a villain, the least he could do was have a little fun with it.
#bnha#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#erasermic#mha#villain!mic#corndog-patrol#villainous heroics
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@skyholdherbalist
replied to your post
“1 AM Thoughts
So I mentioned my newest OC is “my most blatant self...”
The notion that self-insert characters are the product of “uncreative minds” really isn’t taking into account a) the lack of diversity in representation, as you noted with WOC characters, and b) that A LOT of readers want to know and love a character who is realistic. The Mary Sueness of certain characters comes more from trying to make them “super original” and less like a regular person, like the author might be :) I have a lot of thoughts :D
I think you have a very good point about the "price of admission," because... tastes vary. A character that is extremely appealing to someone else may be off-putting to me. And how would I really know whether said character is a self-insert or not? As a reader, unless I know the author intimately—and that is sometimes a factor in fanfic—I would never know whether they are based on the author.
yay thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I have quite a few too, and a lot I didn’t even put in that blurb, especially in regards to Mary Sues. when I was in middle school and high school from like 2006 to 2011 (I started to phase out by the time I graduated HS) YA novels were beginning to emerge in popularity, and I read many, many of them through my years. They were often criticized (I should mention by randos on the internet) for having characters that were “Mary Sues.” this is me speculating, but I think there came a point in writing where people were so afraid of having a character be perceived a self insert that maybe the mary sueness thing sprung about, but I’m just speculating
I think there’s also difference between “self-inserts,” “Mary Sues,” and “author avatars.” Self inserts seem to be a product of fanfic and fandoms, Mary sues and marty stus are “the seemingly perfect fictional character,” where author avatars are stand ins for the author in the novel. I noted this in tags but I’m just going to note it here too: Women writers are often critized for having self inserts while male authors get away with having author avatars.
I think it’s pretty natural for elements of you to be woven into your writing, subconsciously or unconsciously. But again, unless you know the author very well, that’s not something one may know. I find it interesting that the little elements of me I peppered with Lydia are things that people seem to remember. For example, there’s this running theme that she loves nightgowns and is very particular about her nighties....and that came straight from me :P but people remember it about her because that’s very idiosyncratic.
so yes, a lot of jumbled thoughts, lol.
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