#I know other people are unsettled because of how short there books were but compared to those topics and this topics | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamii-yume · 3 years

Note

So, in the event, Rook has shown that he just carries rope with him. You may do whatever you wish with that information 👀

This was an ask from a few...weeks ago? I don’t remember exactly how long this was sitting in my inbox because I was waiting for the perfect time to answer it (//∇//)

Rook had been a very kind and helpful senior to you this year. You’ll be lying if you say that you didn’t think he was a bit strange like the others, but he has that certain charm in him that makes it difficult for you to complete look away from his direction. Besides, it got to the point where you just got used to him and even thought his actions were somehow entertaining...If you were the spectator, rather than the target that is.

Rook is a very doting person as well, you are by no means an exception to this peculiarity of his. He’ll appear when you least expected it, often startling you out of your skin just by a mere greeting alone. He would always talk to you as if he’s reciting a poem ever so often, making you think that you may or may not have completely lost his point here, it’s almost like he’s talking in a different language. He always acts like this towards you, and to everyone else as well, you could never know what he’s thinking or what he wants in the first place. Part of you just thought that he may just have been built differently than others, but then again, Rook is an elusive individual to begin with so everything could all be an act in the first place.

Long store short; you were both fascinated and terrified of this man.

But as strange and conflicting your relationship with Rook is, you still respected the guy as your senior to some extent. Say what you want about the the Pomefiore Vice Dorm Leader but you can’t deny his wide range of capabilities. When you are at a lost for things that you think you can’t do, he was the one who provided you with the advices and help that you needed during those times. Before you knew it, you had already owe him in many ways and yet, Rook had never once asked for anything in return.

“Worry not, mon petite chérie. For I am only doing of what I must.” He would say to you as an excuse, often filling you with guilt sometimes. Especially whenever he would ever so gently pat your head, chuckling to himself as he towers down upon you. “Seeing the beauty in your smile is enough to make my own heart flutter in happiness. Oui, believe me when I say that it’s that marvelous.”

Huh...So, people who accepts things like that as payment still exists in this time and age too. Forgive yourself from being too suspicious of his behavior though, you just don’t think a single smile is worth all that trouble but you guessed this was just another “agree-to-disagree” kind of situation. Who knows? The two of you did grew up in two different upbringings. Or quite literally, two different worlds.

Anyways, although you respected his choices after all this time, you thought it was just common sense to at least provide him with a simple gift in his birthday. You saw how everyone else such as Epel, Vil, and Trey were preparing their own gifts, so you don’t think he’ll be able to reject yours this time. You made your way through the Pomefiore lounge where the party was being held, but was unable to see a single glimpse of your peculiar senior around. It was a lively party and he may be busy with the other dorm residents, so you felt a bit out of place and proceeded to ask people you personally knew about his whereabouts.

“Rook? I was talking to him earlier but now, I have no idea where he went.” Vil said with a sigh as he crossed his arms. “That guy is as elusive as always, even I wouldn’t know exactly what’s running through that mind of his. It puts me in an unsettling position actually.”

“But it’s his birthday for goodness sake, he’s the main protagonist of the day. He should be the one to at least entertain the guest out here, not hiding in plain shadows, seriously.” You laughed nervously as Vil ranted in irritation, huffing by the end. He then glanced at you and soon took notice of the gift you’re holding. “If that gift is for him then, just leave it at his room. It’s unlocked, I believe. We stacked the other gifts he got earlier there too so it wouldn’t clog up the lounge.”

“O-Oh, is that so...Thank you very much.” Thus, ended your conversation with the Dorm Leader with a bow, watching as he walked away saying how Epel had been consuming way too much sugar for the night. With no more leads to follow, you chose to go with Vil’s suggestion and headed out to his room, still at a lost for where your senior could be.

It was true, the moment you spotted the room and turned the doorknob around, it easily spun open. “...Pardon my intrusion...” You slowly said as you took a peak before entering, unsure if anyone was actually inside. There was no one, just some elagant room design as expected with the Pomefiore dorm, with neat furnitures decorated all around. You could feel your own heart cry when you compare to your own dorm which trademark lies within the ghost residents.

You felt slightly anxious, it was your first time visiting his room like this so you couldn’t help but to gawk at some things you’ve never seen before. This was your chance to explore another man’s room, albeit only for a few seconds and by the looks of it, it really hits different that of Ace or Deuce. It has the exact same smell as Rook and the sense of familiarity was somehow calming, probably because you’re so used to being in close proximity with him now. His belongings were all well-organized, the books are neatly stacked on the bookshelves, along with some...questionable collection of bows and arrows stuck on the wall. You also noticed a spare hat and a single telescope lying on his desk, you could ask what it was for, but you preferred to keep the question for yourself.

You shook your head eventually, quickly but carefully prancing inside to place your gift on his desk. Finally, your quest has been conquered, although looking around, the other presents that Vil mentioned was nowhere to be found. Maybe he has them already opened and kept at a certain storage of some sort? Anyways, that wasn’t your problem now, you did what you needed to do, it was your time to bounce out of this room, feeling as if you’re invading too much of his personal privacy. Rook did told you that he never liked that in a person.

...Until, something else caught your eye.

You stopped, eyes blinking repeatedly at the slight tear in the wallpaper near his bed. There was something hidden inside, no, it doesn’t seem like it’s trying to hide at all. It was deliberately placed in a place like that for everyone to see. So, like a cat overwhelmed by curiosity, you stepped close to inspect it, even going as far as stepping on the neatly draped bed sheets of his to get a closer look.

“Eh...?” It was a mass of pictures of almost everything and everyone you can think of upon coming to this school. It was stuck inside the wall like a collection of some sort and it took you a while to actually get what all of this meant. “There’s so many pictures...Pfft...!”

You ended up laughing at yourself for feeling so tense, you honestly felt stupid for the amount of suspense you gave yourself. Of course, this was definitely something that Rook Hunt will do, what did you think it was going to be? Sure, it is creepy to think that someone is keeping tabs at everyone and everything through photography but this is just normal in this school. At least, to those who knew Rook to some extent, it’s not really a big deal nowadays, especially at this school. Anyways, you calmed your laughter down and stared back at the pictures to actually admire them as despite it all, every one of them are all well-taken.

Humming throughout your exploration, you thought it would be interesting to see if you could spot yourself in one of these photos. You looked around and at first, it was tough since you weren’t anywhere in the photos that the wallpaper could reveal but after a while you found a glimpse of your own face at the very edge. However, the tear in the wallpaper stops there so it filled you with disappointment to not be able to see the photo he took of you. “That’s a bummer...” You pouted slightly.

However, combined with overwhelming curiosity, your mischievous side couldn’t help but to come out. You peaked through the small hole inside the wallpaper and confirmed that there is more, as you expected Rook would have, just not visible from your angle. You didn’t want to damage anything but you carefully slipped your fingers in the small opening, trying to get a better look of the picture. You were mainly trying to shine light on them, just a little bit more and you could make out of its content. It got your heart pumping somehow, eager to see what kind of photo you were in.

“Bonjour~”

Screaming almost immediately due to panic and shock, you made the mistake of instinctively gripping his wallpaper tight, dragging them down completely by accident. You turned around, face flushed and clutched your chest as your heart beats so fast that it feels like it could jump out at any moment. “R-Ro-Rook-san!?” You stammered out, your butt hitting the bed while your legs shook. “W-Wha-When...!?”

Rook only gave out a chuckle as you frantically try to calm your nerves, which was nearly impossible after the stunt that he just pulled. You knew he loved doing this and to think you’d be used to it by now, but this one felt so different than the other times you were startled by him. He was so close to you with that greeting, too close in fact. Just where the hell does he keep coming from, you didn’t even hear a single sound from your surroundings. Rook stood straight before glancing over at the mess you had realized you made when his expression turned that of worry.

You were still gripping onto the ruined wallpaper at this point so, you gasped and quickly turned around, preparing for any damage you may have caused. However, at that moment, you stopped once your eyes had finally caught what kind of picture were inside those wallpapers all along.

“Aah...To think mon chére fleur herself would be the one to unravel my collection! How embarrassing~!” Rook said, placing a hand on his slowly heating up his cheeks. He bats an eye to your direction, looking all embarrassed as you stared, unblinking at his work. He soon smirked and chuckled darkly, leaning in closer to you from behind, in which you shivered at. “...But how does it look in your perspective? Aren’t they all beautiful?”

Yes, they were harmless pictures, that’s all there is supposed to be on it. But these pictures striked a nerve in you, one such that you didn’t know could cause this much wave of alarming fear in your body.

They were harmless but they were not normal in the slightest. For almost all of what the wallpaper had revealed was all about you, and only you that it makes you sick to the stomach. Everything that you remember doing in your daily routine had been taken into consideration, from a picture of you yawning as you wake up in the morning, to a picture of you sleeping peacefully at night. Pictures of you seemingly eating, walking, talking, everything that you’ve been doing is pasted on the same wall before you, all taken in such high resolution. If that wasn’t enough, even a few photos of you in the nude was in there, bathing and changing, you unconsciously wrapped your hands around yourself as goosebumps quickly formed.

Rook had literally been watching your every movements, documenting your life with a camera and capturing everything, including things that hits way too close. Deeply disturbed, your eyes tried to glance everywhere but the pictures, only to find no escape to them. Some pictures had even been tampered with before taking the shot, like that one photo where his hands shows his hands deliberately spreading your legs for the camera as you slept. You shivered, unconsciously thinking about that other one where it was your breasts that was fully out for the world to see and oh, god...That one with your sleeping face covered with a suspicious white liquid, you almost gagged at the mental image.

“...W-What is this...” You slowly looked up at Rook with fear in your eyes, trembling like a leaf as the same guy looked down upon you with a chilling smile. It was honestly too nauseating that you instinctively brought a hand to your mouth, just in case something does come out.

“Beauty, my Love.” Rook purred closer to you, his eyes brimming with desire. “Your beauty.”

He caught your chin in a gentle yet tight grip. “I had it preserve in a memory that I would forever see. Just keeping them in my mind alone was not enough.” He said, closing in on you on his bed, preventing any possible escape routes. “...For I am a greedy man.”

And with that, you found yourself in his bind, pinning you down on the bed with your hands on each side of your head. “Now...The reason why you invaded my sanctuary was...?” Rook asked but he was not expecting you to answer at all. Instead, his eyes glanced to the side, eyeing the gift you left on his desk. “...Ah, of course. Vil must’ve given you permission to hand your gift in.”

You were as stiff as a rock, too tense to even act and move. The hands on your wrists doesn’t seem too tight but a feeling in your gut screams at you to not even try if you didn’t want to get hurt. You were left gulping down your own nervousness as Rook turned back to you with the same smile. “Merci. I’ll be sure to treasure whatever you have given me.” He whispered as he leaned closer, giving you a delicate kiss on the temple in which you squeaked at. “...But nonetheless, you trespassed on someone else’s territory, petite proie. A predator’s territory, on top of that.”

“I-I’m sor-“

“Non, an apology is not what I need. Someone as beautiful as you should not make that kind face.” Rook cuts you off, before suggestively licking his lips. He sat up, confident enough to let go of your wrist, knowing fully well that you wouldn’t have the guts to push him off. He straddled above your stomach, which left you confused and wary to wonder what he was planning to do. However, looking back at him, your eyes widened in caution as he suddenly pulled out a long and thick rope, one that would certainly burn your skin if you struggle too much. Where in the hell did he... “Lift your head up high and reap what you have sowed. That is the beauty that can justify your crimes.”

“Now...” You breathe heavily as he tightened his hold on the rope, biting his lip eagerly. You can’t even imagine how much he has planned inside his head. It made you visit the terrifying possibility that he was ready for this moment from the very beginning, curiated and planned. Your heart drops at the thought, if that is really the case, then...Just how much? How much further into the future did he plan exactly? “Allow me to indulge myself to this fine opportunity you gave me, beloved Trickster.

“...A fine opportunity, indeed. Beautifully so.”

Allow Yume to flex on her non-existing French skills along with her companion, Google Translate. i sincerely apologize to any French Darlings out there yume did not attend a single French class in her life lol

Someone teach me French so I can write more things about this sexy bitch.

#rook hunt #yandere rook hunt #twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere #Birthday Crumbs

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

Text

June Contest Submission #6: Love, imperfect

Words: ca. 5,500 Setting: mAU Lemon: lime CW: angst

–

“Do you think they’ll end up canceling people’s flights?”

With her heart still stuck in her throat, Anna opened her eyes to look at the stranger sitting next to her on the plane. He appeared calm, but then again, she was sure that so did she.

“I hope not,” she muttered before she gave him a tight-lipped smile and looked away. Another rough movement had her gripping the armrests and her stomach dropping. She kept trying to remind herself that airplanes were built to handle the worst—or so the article she’d skimmed as she waited at the gate had said. Even in the most severe turbulence, your plane isn’t moving nearly as much as you think! It sounded like a load of bullshit then and it sounded like a load of bullshit now. Plus, the exclamation mark at the end was absolutely unnecessary.

The man next to her loudly cleared his throat. He seemed like he was trying to grab something out of the pocket of his trousers. Anna glanced at him. What the hell are you doing? she wanted to ask. The whole thing set her on edge for some reason. She just wanted to land in Miami already, call a cab and get to the address Elsa had texted her days prior. Was she looking forward to it? Not really. But it was better than thinking she was about to die and hadn’t even said goodbye to Chester, her cat.

She’d told her parents this wasn’t a good idea. But her mom had insisted on some quality time because, “When was the last time the four of us spent some time together?” Anna had no idea, and she’d said so as much, which only aggravated her mother even more. But wasn’t she proud that her daughters were onto bigger and better things? Surely a few skipped holidays meant nothing compared to the pride their parents must feel on a daily basis.

The turbulence continued. There was a storm coming. It wasn’t supposed to hit until late that night, which still allowed Anna to make it to Miami on time and probably even make it to Elsa’s apartment before the rain began.

As to her parents… well, she really hoped their flight wasn’t canceled.

~~~

Anna could still remember the exact moment she became fixated with success. It happened on the summer day when she was ten years old and saw her older sister, Elsa, draped in four gold medals at the regional swimming competition. Their mom had signed them up for the swimming team at the community center after reading an article on the importance of sports in building girls’ self-esteem. Elsa had provided an aloof smile before she’d gone back to reading her book, but Anna… she was excited—she loved swimming.

When the season started, it didn’t take Anna a stopwatch to tell her that Elsa was easily the fastest swimmer on the team, often finishing races a full length ahead of everyone else. Anna would know, being that she was usually the one bringing up the gear. “You just need to practice more,” her mom would gently instruct when she complained about being last. So she spent the summer in the pool, with her dad dropping her off early on his way to work while Elsa was still at home, probably combing her pretty, perfect blond hair. Anna didn’t mind though, because she was sure all the effort would pay off in the end when she showed her parents and her sister how good she’d become in the final match of the summer. But things didn’t exactly go as her optimistic ten year-old self had expected. Elsa won four first place medals while all Anna walked away with was a cruddy participation ribbon with dry hot glue sticking out from under its cheap label.

Watching Elsa standing on the podium, nodding humbly at the rousing applause with the medals draped around her neck and that stupid, perfect blond hair darkened still by the water, Anna was filled with a burning need to be up there. Because she didn’t just want to be a hard worker. She wanted to be a winner.

But unless she wanted to grow up in Elsa’s superior gene pool shadow, she had to find another way to get noticed. In the end, she learned that if she studied hard enough and had a 4.0 GPA, she’d earn awards and scholarships. She discovered that if she steered clear of sports or sororities in college and filled her time with extracurricular activities like the debate club, she would be able to quell the worries in her head that her sister was the only winner in the family.

Of course, those who truly knew her, knew how much she loved Elsa. It was one of those things that just… was. Inevitable and innate. In her eyes, Elsa was perfect. And she hated her for it just as much as she adored her for it. Because where she was clumsy, Elsa was poised. Where she didn’t know when to shut up, Elsa would say the right thing at the right time. Where she would feel inferior, Elsa would tell her just how much there was to admire. And where she would go weeks without contact, Elsa would give her a call, reminding Anna of all the times she has ever loved her.

But that didn’t seem to matter in the end. Anna pulled away from the family in order to forge her own identity and so did Elsa. The Holmen sisters, thriving. The parents, proud. It was perfect. It should have been perfect. Except it wasn’t.

Somewhere deep inside, Anna always knew there was something missing.

~~~

The night skies were crackling by the time she got in the taxi. The driver was requesting an address. The radio was giving out unsurprising news.

There is a thunderstorm warning already being reported by the National Weather Service in areas such as Miami, Miramar, Aventura and other parts of South Florida, with potential wind gusts up to fifty-five miles per hour—

“You’re shitting me,” Anna muttered under her breath, already pulling out her phone again. The first time she’d done it was to let Elsa know she’d landed. Some drab text that was responded to with a much nicer Can’t wait to see you! It shouldn’t have warmed Anna as much as it did but that was beside the point.

Her mother picked up after the fourth ring. “Hi, honey. I was just about to call you. Did you land safely?”

“Hi. Yes, I did. Did your flight get canceled yet?”

“No,” her mother drawled. “It is delayed.”

The man on the radio went on and on about flooding and frequent lightning. The first signs of rain speckled the car’s windows. The trees were wildly ruffled by the wind.

“But you saw the news, right? It’s going to be canceled eventually.”

“Even if it is,” Iduna said calmly, “we can fly in tomorrow. This isn’t an emergency. We can wait.”

Anna pinched the bridge of her nose. “This was a bad idea,” she couldn’t help but say.

There was a pause before Iduna spoke again. “Can you fault us for wanting to spend time with you two? It’s the only time of the year you’re free, given how holidays seem to be getting more and more complicated for you.” It was a jab, fair and square; exactly what Anna got from skipping Thanksgiving and Christmas for the past two years.

“Could’ve been anywhere but Miami,” she still mumbled.

“Miami is nice,” her mother argued. “Besides, your sister’s apartment has room for all of us.” There was something hidden in her mother’s voice that made her feel dejected. The underlying praise that Elsa always seemed to get even by the most offhanded of comments. Even when she wasn’t in the room.

Anna was ready to hang up.

“Just let me know when you’ll be flying in.”

“Maybe you girls can catch up in the meantime,” Iduna suggested as if she hadn’t heard her, “I know it’s been a while for you too, but trust me, it’ll be like old times.”

Looking out the window, Anna forced a smile even though no one was watching. “Sure, mom,” she said. Truth was, she couldn’t remember what old times even felt like.

After hanging up, she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. The ride was supposed to be a short one. Ten minutes or so, Elsa had told her over the phone some days ago. She’d sounded happy—excited in that demure way of hers that was stupidly charming and which drove Anna nuts in a way she could not explain.

Was Anna also excited? It was hard for her to tell. Her knee began to bounce as soon as the car merged into traffic. Her palms were damp despite the coolness inside. Her heart was beating like it was trying to hammer its way out of her chest. No, she was nervous. Or maybe… maybe she was both.

Maybe she was just a mess and acceptance was long overdue.

When the taxi slowed down and parked outside an apartment building Anna only recognized from pictures Elsa had shared in their family group chat, she briefly considered asking to be taken back to the airport. But instead, she paid the fare and allowed the driver to pull her carry-on suitcase out of the trunk amidst strong gusts of wind and a rain that was starting to pick up. “Welcome to Miami,” the man exclaimed—sarcastic given the circumstances—while all Anna could do was give him a smile she was sure looked more like a grimace.

The wheels of her suitcase announced her entrance into the building. The lobby was empty; quiet in an almost unsettling way. She sent Elsa a quick message and ignored the sensation of her stomach churning in anticipation. A distant thunder rumbled as she made a left, slowly heading for apartment 112.

It didn’t come as a surprise that Elsa was waiting for her outside. She was leaning against the door, flashing Anna a lovely smile she did not know she had missed until that moment.

“I’m so glad you’re finally here,” were Elsa’s first words.

“I thought I wasn’t gonna make it,” were hers.

Her sister met her halfway with outstretched arms that welcomed her with such gentle affection that Anna could not help but melt in the embrace for a brief pause. Elsa smelled like gardenias, faint and familiar.

After stepping back, she stretched out a hand to grab a hold of Anna’s suitcase. “Let me take this for you.”

“I—it’s okay. It’s not heavy.”

Elsa gave her another disarming smile. “I don’t mind, Anna. You must be tired.”

She found herself blushing for no reason as she let Elsa take the suitcase and lead her down the hallway. “I’m not, actually. Just… weary. Lots of turbulence.”

“Well,” Elsa dragged out, “mom called.”

“Of course she did.”

Elsa chuckled. They entered the apartment at the same time that she announced, “Their flight’s canceled ‘til tomorrow.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Shocker.” She paused in the middle of the spacious living room, taking things in. It all looked so perfect. The immaculate furniture, the carefully arranged throw pillows, the pristine wooden floor, the tall plant in the corner that looked real. And then the absolute mess of a storm that was happening outside the window. “I told her since the beginning this was—”

“A bad idea?”

Anna turned to where Elsa still stood in the hallway, a hand resting on the handle of her suitcase.

“What—”

“Mom told me,” she provided, a sad, apologetic smile slowly appearing on her face.

Anna’s stomach churned. “I’m sorry. I just meant that—you know, Miami’s weather isn’t the best at this time of year and maybe we could have gone somewhere else like the woods or a small town or, I don’t know, New York or something.”

“Of course. Yeah.” Elsa rubbed her arm in what Anna could tell was a sign of self-consciousness. “The weather’s pretty bad, huh?”

“The worst,” she awkwardly agreed.

They stood in silence for a few seconds before Elsa pointed her thumb in the kitchen’s direction. “I have wine. Would you like some?”

Anna felt a sliver of ease. “Wine would be nice.”

She sunk into the sofa while Elsa went to grab a bottle of chardonnay and a couple of glasses. Through the window behind her, she could see that the storm had gathered force. Gusts of wind whipped the heavy rain around while the trees were roughened by it, moving sideways as if tugged by a rope. The street lights, it seemed, shone for a deserted world.

“Are you hungry?” Elsa asked once she was back from the kitchen. “I can cook something real quick if you are.”

“I had lunch before getting on the plane,” she answered as she watched Elsa pour the wine. She let out an inconspicuous huff of breath, rubbed her sweaty palms on her jean-clad thighs. Guilt gnawed at her insides. But she meant what she’d said. This was a bad idea because of the weather. Nothing else but that.

So why did she still feel so guilty?

“Thank you,” she muttered when Elsa handed her the glass of wine. She watched her join her on the sofa, prop both feet up, fix her platinum blond hair by running a hand through it. Anna wasn’t sure why such a banal action drew so much of her attention. So she decided to look everywhere that wasn’t her sister. “This place is cozy,” she commented.

“It looks like it’s been pulled straight out of a catalogue,” Elsa said.

“I mean…”

“It’s okay, you can say it.”

She chuckled. “Fine. It does. But it’s still nice, and it’s very you.”

“Very me?”

“Yeah, you know,” she shrugged, “perfect.”

Something flashed across Elsa’s eyes that was gone before Anna could discern it. The guilt grew. She tried to mollify it. “You did a good job, though, seriously.”

“I should take that as a compliment, coming from a successful real estate agent.”

Anna rolled her eyes but the smile on her lips gave her away. Being called successful by the one person who’d always seemed to be better than her at everything felt nothing short of amazing. “I should hang a sign on your door that says ‘Holmen Approved’.”

Elsa laughed, which instinctively made her smile grow. “What an honor.”

A thunder rumbled in the sky. Anna wondered if it would be a good idea to close the curtains. Watching the city being trashed by a thunderstorm didn’t exactly scream comfort.

“This is my first Miami storm, you know?” Elsa suddenly said.

“Popped your cherry then.”

Her sister’s foot bumped against hers. “Gross.”

Anna took the time to take a large swig of wine. She wanted to take the edge off herself; get rid of that nagging notion that this was bound to end up being a disastrously awkward night simply because she did not know how to act normal around Elsa. “So how’s the city treating you overall?” she decided to ask, aware that she’d probably asked this before but unable to come up with anything else at the moment.

“I can’t say it’s been bad,” Elsa said, “But I’m looking forward to starting the school year. I’ve had too much free time on my hands.”

“So there’s no one in your life?” she found herself asking.

“I…” Elsa tilted her head, giving her a curious look, “I would have told you if there were,” she said in a voice that ignited in Anna a deep feeling of shame. How many people had she been with that she had not told her sister about?

“Besides,” Elsa added, “I just moved here. You know I’m no social butterfly.”

“Right,” she said before she looked away. How could she have forgotten? Elsa had always liked spending time at home rather than being outside, meeting people and making new friends. She liked her books and her European authors whose names Anna could never pronounce. She liked her solitude, her quiet time. And yet… Yet, it had always been her the one unwilling to lose touch.

“What about you?”

“Hm?”

“What about you?” Elsa repeated. “Anyone in your life?”

Anna found it a little comical that they were carrying themselves as if they hadn’t talked in years rather than three days ago. “No,” she responded, “Not for a while.”

Elsa’s gaze carried a strange sense of intimacy. “I’m sure there’s someone out there…”

She paused. “Right now? I hope not.”

The hearty laugh that broke out of Elsa caught her by surprise. It was so uncommon in her that for a moment Anna did not know how to react. All she could process was the way she swooned despite herself, feeling warm all over and even, she dared think, happy. Happy in the company of Elsa in a way she had not been so in years.

The lights went out some time later, while she was in the bathroom and Elsa was back in the kitchen preparing something to eat. It was one of those things that was predictable yet appalling, and the only thing Anna could think of saying in the middle of the pitch black room was, “Well shit.”

Back in the living room, Elsa was moving around with her cellphone acting like a single spotlight at a club. She was lighting candles, placing them each on strategic places. “All these catalogue candles are finally going to serve a purpose,” she said, and Anna couldn’t help but smile at the offhandedness of it.

It wasn’t until they’d sat back down, bathed in the warm light of the candles while they ate and shared a lighthearted conversation, that Anna could have laughed at it all.

Because her mother was right. It was like old times.

~~~

The window had ceased to rattle from the gusts of wind outside, but the power had yet to return and the rain had yet to stop. The food was gone and so was the chocolate bar Elsa had taken out of the non-working fridge. A new bottle of wine sat on the coffee table amidst lit up candles. The girls sat on each side of the sofa, facing each other.

“There’s no way he said that,” Anna laughed. She was nursing her third glass of wine, more at ease now than she had been the whole two preceding days.

“He did,” Elsa groaned while she covered her face with the hand that wasn’t holding her own drink. “And then he slipped me a note and winked at me. He winked at me!”

“What did the note say?”

“Something about how he’d been crushing on me since I gave that Durkheim lecture in class. Can you imagine? How bold he had to be to slip a note like that to his professor?”

Anna laughed some more. “Can you blame him though?”

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” she responded, embarrassed still.

“Kinda hard to blame him at all for having a crush on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I—” Anna paused. What did she mean? “You know, you’re just,” she waved a hand in her general direction, “you.”

Elsa arched an amused eyebrow. “Me.”

“Yeah. You’re just… really crushable. No. Wait. That came out wrong. I just—I mean you’re just so pretty and smart and your hair’s always so perfect and you’re practically good at everything you do. So what's—what’s not to like?”

Elsa was biting her lip. It was very distracting. “You think too highly of me,” she murmured.

Anna frowned. “No, I don’t. Or maybe I do. But that’s because it’s true.”

“But it’s not…” She shook her head, trailing off.

Lightning suddenly illuminated the room. Anna readied herself for the thunder while across from her Elsa began to recoil. The loud bang came at last, making her sister visibly wince.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

Elsa shrugged nonchalantly. “Thunder just makes me anxious.” She took a sip of wine as if to restate the casualty of her words, but Anna wasn’t convinced. She watched her closely for a handful of seconds while in her mind she struggled to make a decision. She dwelt on it, bit the inside of her cheek in hesitation. But in the end, the need to comfort Elsa won over everything else.

“Come here,” she said.

“What?”

Anna spread her legs open and patted the empty space between them. “Come here.”

She playfully rolled her eyes. “I’m not a kid, Anna.”

“If you don’t tell anyone, I won’t either.”

Elsa bit her lip again. And again, Anna’s eyes traveled down to witness it. She set her glass of chardonnay on the coffee table. Might be best to stay clear of alcohol for the rest of the night.

Elsa moved slowly across the sofa until she finally settled between her legs, facing forward. Anna wrapped her arms around Elsa’s midriff, and was unable to ignore how the whole of her seemed to react to the touch, the proximity, the warmth of Elsa’s body. She rested her chin on her shoulder, felt the way Elsa relaxed and leaned back. A smile appeared on her face. She could not remember the last time they’d embraced like this.

“You weren’t scared of thunder before,” she pointed out in a soft voice.

“Probably one of those things that comes with age.”

She was amused by her answer. “We’re not that old.”

“But we’re not ten anymore,” came Elsa’s whispered retort. She finished the last of her wine and stretched an arm to place the empty glass next to Anna’s on the table. As she rearranged herself again, Anna paid close attention to the softened features of her face in the dimness of the room. She traced with her eyes the lines of her profile, the freckles that had always been fainter than hers, and the lips that, for some reason, kept drawing her attention tonight.

“What?” Elsa asked.

Anna blinked. “Nothing,” she said, heat prickling the back of her neck.

Her sister shifted slightly in their embrace in give her a side glance. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because.”

“Hasn’t dad told us enough times that ‘because’ is—”

“Not an answer,” Anna finished. “Yes, I’m aware.”

Elsa cast her another glance, lingering this time in a more intimate way. "Then tell me.“

She hesitated. “Were you always this stubborn?”

“No,” Elsa chuckled, “that was you. Stubborn and determined.”

“Well, I had to be.”

“Why do you say that?”

Anna’s lips parted but no words left her. They were drowned in silence for a moment, the rain incessant against the window. What could she possibly say to that? How could she possibly explain that the sole reason of her determination—of her never-ending stubbornness—was the one sitting safely in her arms?

She rested her chin on Elsa’s shoulder and looked down instead, focusing on the hand that rested atop hers; on the hand whose fingertips had been drawing loose patterns on her skin only seconds ago, drawing a comfort she did not know she deeply needed.

“Anna?”

“Yes?” she answered, lost someplace else.

“Say something…”

She slowly tensed up. There was so much vulnerability in Elsa’s voice that she knew she wasn’t just seeking random thoughts and vacant words. But where Elsa wanted the truth that hid beneath her silence, Anna wanted none of the insecurities that came along with it. She wanted none of the detachment, none of the things that could separate her from her sister. Not tonight. Not again. But no matter how hard she tried, the thoughts persisted. Like a nagging passenger in the backseat of her mind, Anna could not ignore what had been so deeply ingrained into her life.

“It’s dumb,” she murmured at last.

“I’m sure it’s not.”

Anna breathed a weary sigh through her nose. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head to the side, resting against Elsa’s. Her mouth opened again, then closed. Words felt heavy in her tongue, reluctant to come out.

“Why won’t you just drop it?” she asked.

“Because,” Elsa said, “I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me.”

“Is that what you think I feel?”

“Is it not?”

At her silence, Elsa extricated herself from Anna’s arms. She moved in the sofa until she was facing Anna, sitting still between her legs, knees digging into the cushion. The light of the candles danced in the blue of her eyes, piercing Anna’s own until the air left her in one quiet rush. There lay an ardency beneath them, captivating and impossible to look away from, so much so that Anna’s desire to stay quiet shifted into something else entirely.

But then Elsa was talking again, and again, she was asking to know what was going on in Anna’s head. And out of everything she’d ever had to learn, why could she not have learned to deny Elsa a thing?

She gathered what she could of the scattered remnants of her past, of the cumulus of memories that ruled most of her decisions and shaped their relationship into what it was today. The impotence of feeling like she’d never be as good as Elsa turned into the impotence of being unable to put it into words. The back of her eyes stung. A lump formed in her throat. She waved a hopeless hand in Elsa’s direction, and let it drop in defeat.

“I look at you,” she finally said, “and I see all the things I’ll never amount to.” Pain flashed across Elsa’s eyes, causing Anna to look down at the space between them. “I can’t see anything else but that,” she softly added, “and it gets in the way… It’s been getting in the way for so long.”

“Anna, I…” She went quiet. Anna could see the way her chest rose and fell. The brow that was marred with sadness and regret. “I wish I’d known this sooner.”

“Why?”

“So that I could show all the ways you’re a much better person than me.”

She let out a humorless chuckle. “That’s so unlikely it sounds ridiculous.”

“How?” Elsa questioned. She inched closer until her hands were cupping Anna’s cheeks. “Please tell me how so that I can prove you wrong.”

At the impossibility of looking away, Anna ended up lost in her sister’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered, deep down knowing she would never find an answer to that.

“I know you think I’m this perfect human being,” Elsa murmured, “and that I have everything I could hope for. But the truth is that all the accomplishments in my life could never compare to the mere presence of you in it. And still… I’ve always missed you, even when you were right next to me.”

Anna’s eyes fluttered closed. The walls were crumbling around her and all she wanted was for Elsa to become her solace.

A thumb caressed her cheek, and she leaned into the touch without thinking. Her heart was thumping heavily in her chest. Her voice was raw when she finally asked, “Do you miss me now?”

“… No.”

Slowly, Anna opened her eyes. A tender smile was tugging at Elsa’s lips and, like a magnet, the depth of Elsa’s gaze drew her in. She leaned closer until they were breathing the same air and the buzzing in her mind had quietened to a vacant hum. The wind howled, but all Anna could register was the blood pulsing in her ears and the barest of sighs as she softly pressed her lips against Elsa’s.

It was sudden and overwhelming. An impulse fueled by a feverish pleasure that soon drove her to press harder by capturing Elsa’s lower lip between hers. She sucked lightly, eliciting the softest moans out of Elsa as warmth shot straight through her body and settled between her legs. It wasn’t until she nibbled, hoping to elicit a greater reaction out of her sister, that Elsa’s lips parted and their tongues met in a desperate need that would not be satiated.

Submerged in candlelight, their bodies shifted until Anna was lying on top of Elsa with both forearms framing her head. There was no pause in between, only the innate desire for more. Anna could feel her sister writhing beneath her, subtle movements of her hips bucking while her hands trailed up Anna’s back. The room was growing hot. She could feel the smoldering heat in this sweater she wanted to take off as soon as possible. But it was hard to do that when Elsa would not stop kissing her in a way she’d never been kissed before. Her passion shook Anna to the core. It sent waves of ecstasy through her body.

With one last sucking motion on Elsa’s lower lip, she kissed her way down the line of her jaw and towards the warm, soft spot below her ear. The scent of gardenias reached her nostrils. A low, throaty moan reached her ears. Elsa’s hand weaved itself through her hair as she bucked her hips for the last time that night.

The power came back on and all Anna could think of for a dreadful split second was that their parents had walked in on them. She froze with Elsa’s fingers still in her hair and her lips parted in a mix of shock and fear. She was panting, her arms shaking from the propped up position she was in. Below her, Elsa was dead silent.

In the seconds that followed, Anna quickly sat up and looked at her sister with wide, frightened eyes. Elsa’s hair was disheveled, her lips here rosy and plump. The air escaped her lungs in one quick, short breath.

What had they done?

“I’m so sorry,” Anna rushed out, all but falling off the couch on her way out of the living room.

“Wait—”

She did not listen. Her feet carried her down the hallway.

“Anna—”

She ran out of the apartment, the door slamming shut behind her.

Blinded by panic, Anna sprinted towards the exit. She heard a door opening and shutting again, her name being called out. She registered the everlasting emptiness of the lobby before the front glass doors parted, leading her out into the night and a city that was still being pounded down by rain. There, covered only by the roof of the driveway, she froze again, aware of her feet clad in nothing but the mismatched socks she’d put on this morning and the flimsy sweater she’d wanted to get rid of mere minutes ago.

Elsa’s helpless voice came from behind her: “Anna.”

She heaved a sigh and, a moment later, turned around. Elsa was standing there, in socks and downbeat, watching Anna with eyes that begged her to stay.

“I’m sorry,” Anna said, loud enough that it could be heard above the downpour.

“Don’t apologize. Please.”

“But I shouldn’t have—” She looked away, withdrawing into herself. Her mind was a mess. All that talk about Elsa being perfect must have gotten to her head, messed with her feelings. They got carried away, that was all. It did not matter that she’d enjoyed kissing her. It could not matter.

But Elsa…

Anna looked at her again; at the person who’d always given her nothing but unconditional love and support. She saw the person who’d taken her out for ice cream after she flunked her calculus test in twelfth grade, the one who’d cheered the loudest when she graduated college. She saw the twelve year-old girl who’d turned six chocolate gold coins into medals and draped them around Anna’s neck that one memorable summer. She saw them all in the woman Elsa had become and was overcome by an insurmountable need to cry. Because Elsa had been the greatest constant in her life and still, Anna felt as if she were seeing her for the first time. Imperfect but beautiful all the same.

“Come back inside,” Elsa murmured at last, taking a step closer towards her.

“But what we did…”

Elsa shook her head and extended a hand for Anna to take. “What we did, we can figure it out together.”

Lightning gave way to thunder, but Elsa barely flinched: Anna was finally holding her hand.

They fell into each other’s arms the same imminent way that sunshine follows the rain. Anna let herself be held as she burrowed into the warmth of Elsa’s neck and hugged her tighter around the waist. Tears prickled her eyes before she shut them closed. They would figure it out, she reminded herself. Whatever this was—whatever this could be—they would do it together.

“You know,” Elsa said after a while, holding her still, “I don’t think either of us would have made it very far in socks.”

“I did realize pretty late that this was a bad idea.”

Elsa hummed. “Seems like the night’s been full of bad ideas, huh?”

“Maybe not all of them were bad,” she dared to say in a voice so low that the words would have been lost to the rain had her sister not been so close.

“Maybe,” Elsa whispered, holding her tighter and placing a lingering kiss on the side of her head.

#elsanna #submission #june 2021 contest #prompt: storm #lime #cw: angst

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jinruihokankeikaku · 3 years

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summary bulletpoint review of Shin Eva

[obligatory disclaimer that this is all, just, like, my opinion, man<3]

POSITIVE

Shinji's instrumentality scene with Gendo

Ryoji Kaji the Younger and Misato's development as an actual mother was great, deeply moving and deeply painful (as Eva should be.)

the entire first act of the film, honestly

more characterization for Asuka Shikinami and Ayanami/Rei 3, perhaps the best in all of the Rebuilds

it's a beautiful film, the animation in magnificent (even the CG, if you ask me), and the setpieces and action scenes all worked really well and didn't seem to have a disproportionate presence relative to other parts of the film

cannot emphasize enough how good the first act is. If the entire film had carried on that tone, atmosphere, and theming, I think my overall impression of it would have been much more favorable.

i liked the music, especially the callback to "The Passage of Emptiness" around 0:20:00 (I'm sure there are other score callbacks that I didn't catch, too)

many of my issues with / questions about 3.0/Q were resolved in a serious, focused way

the third act was nothing short of stunning visually and narratively, despite my thematic objections

I had fun with it. It was an enjoyable film, and still a cut above a lot of both recent anime and recent Western scifi blockbusters I've seen. For all my issues with the film, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it on both of my viewings so far, and I've no doubt I'll come back to it. I would unequivocally recommend Shin Eva to both fans and non-fans, despite....everything I'm about to say.

NEUTRAL / MIXED

everything about the Book of Life (whatever that is) and the non-resolution given to the question of whether or not the Rebuilds constitute a sequel or a separate continuity. It'll doubtless be a subject of debate for years to come.

by extension, everything to do with Kaworu, frankly. I thought he was great in Q, and because of that, my feelings on his presence in 3.0+1.0 amount to something along the lines of "he was great, insofar as he was there, but I wish we'd more of him."

the resolution of Gendo and Yui's relationship. I know it was pretty polarizing, and while I understand both the "perfect narrative resolution" and "misogynistic and deeply unsatisfying" takes, I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with either of them. It's well-executed for what it is, but still fundamentally unbalanced and not quite on par with the way it was handled in The End of Evangelion, imo.

the resolution of Shinji and Kaworu's relationship. I almost put this in the negative section, but to be frank, I never expected them to end up together, and as much as I love Kawoshin, I understand that that's not the direction the Rebuilds were ever going to take, nor is it a direction I think Shin Eva should've taken. Furthermore, I think the way the concept of the Time Loop was handled about as well as it could have been - an excellent balance between Nonetheless, I think the Kaworu section of the Instrumentality sequence was weak and overly dismissive towards the validity of Kaworu's feelings, his actions, and (if you'll pardon the irony) his humanity.

the balance of action / atmosphere / characterisation. It's not perfect, but it's better than any of the other Rebuilds, with (as previously stated) the first act carrying most of my favorite atmospheric/character moments, and the second act containing the best action sequences.

the general tone of the film. It started off very strong, with a feeling reminiscent to that which The End of Evangelion left me with, and maintained a suitably dark-yet-hopeful tone for most of the second act as well. However, it fell apart entirely for me in the third act, and especially in the final scene (which I'll comment on further later).

Rei 3 / Ayanami. I adored her. For exactly that reason, I think it's a damn shame she had to LCL-splode less than halfway through the film.

Ryoji Kaji the Elder. Everything we saw of him was magnificent! So I sure wish there was more of it! Given the scope of Shin Eva's content, I guess that's more of an objection to 3.0, but...I guess I just dearly hope we get more material covering the 14-year timeskip, WILLE's revolt, Kaji's sacrifice, and everything leading up to it. It feels like a missed opportunity (unique to the Rebuilds) for character development Kaji might've received. But on the whole, that's a minor quibble relative to how fond of his and Misato's relationship in the Rebuilds were handled in 3.0+1.0.

NEGATIVE

Mari / "Mary Iscariot". Enough has been said about Mari's "enigmatic" character, so I'll not harp on this too much, but....as someone who loved Mari's presence in 2.0 and was basically okay with her role in the Rebuilds as a whole, there was still a remarkable dearth of character development for her, which left me disappointed on the whole, especially considering...

...the final scene. That final scene. Oh man. I don't want to devalue the personal meaning it has for Anno, or the sense of satisfaction some of my fellow Eva fans got from it. But the more I think about it, the more it doesn't work for me. After the credits started rolling on my first viewing, I remember writing in my notes app - "How am I supposed to feel about this?". After my second viewing, I was left with.....exactly the same feeling. The scene is framed as unambiguously positive, and yet....it simply doesn't come across that way, upon further contemplation. Even setting aside my abiding love for KawoShin and AsuShin, I think even from a ship-neutral perspective the scene doesn't quite carry across the message of Hope what it seems to intend to.

The film's themes. For all its narrative and visual strengths, the film left me feeling confused, empty, and....fucking confused. And not in the same way EoTV or EoE did - my confusion was not to do with the actual events of the film, but with the emotional and psychosocial messages conveyed. I won't presume to know Anno (or his co-directors') intentions, but....it's hard for me to not feel like I'm being told to set aside the past and hope for a deus-ex-machina to fix my life. This is also something about which a lot of ink has already been spilled, so I'll keep my thoughts on this front short (especially since I can't tell if I'm giving the filmmakers too much credit, or not giving them enough), but....the plain fact that Shin Eva seems, at least superficially, to present itself as a thematic antithesis to The End of Evangelion is enough to leave me upset or at least unsettled. That's more of an emotional reaction on my part than an actual critique of the film, I know, but....I'd be remiss in not including it in my review.

Ritsuko - specifically, the fact that she was reduced to a side-character at best, with arguably less of a presence than even Fuyutsuki, and perhaps even comparable to the minor roles of the rest of the Bridge Crew. She was so very compelling in Neon Genesis Evangelion and even in her brief screentime in The End of Evangelion, and while I can hardly say I was expecting her to play a key role in Shin Eva after her diminished presence in the previous Rebuild installments, I can't say I wasn't hoping for that, either. Ritsuko deserved better, but like a few other things I've mentioned, that was more of an issue with Rebuild of Evangelion as a whole than it was an issue with Shin Eva.

Asuka Shikinami. She had her moments, but fell short of the intensity and depth of character Asuka Soryu was given. There's much more to be said here, but frankly it merits its own post, cos this one is getting long already.

And finally, I'll just say again that more than anything else this film left me confused. It left me questioning the value of the Rebuilds as a whole, the messages of NGE and EoE, and my own character as a person. Maybe that was the point. After my first viewing, I said out loud something to the effect of "So this must be what so many people felt after seeing The End of Evangelion. Now I get it!". Perhaps that speaks to the power of the film - it certainly speaks to Anno's enduring talent as a writer/director - but, for a film that was meant to be a spiritual successor to The End of Evangelion, it's impossible for me to say that it didn't fail to carry on that film's message of Hope despite everything, Hope in the face of despair, Hope against the hopelessness of the human condition, and the abiding power of the human person to persist beyond both the indignities it suffers at the hands of others and the indignities it inflicts upon others. It failed in that regard, to my view, and for all that I loved about Shin Eva, that's one failing I'm afraid I might never be able to get past.

TL;DR

I loved Shin Eva. I hated Shin Eva. I respect it for what it is, but I can't bring myself to put it on the level with Neon Genesis Evangelion or The End of Evangelion. Watch it. Definitely watch it, if you haven't already (and if you haven't, why are you reading this?!). The film leaves you with a closing sequence that demands that you draw your own conclusions, and ultimately, I think that's all you can do with a work that carries with it such personal weight (for both the creators and the viewers) and such heavy expectations.

#shin eva #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion spoilers #evangelion 3.0+1.0 #shin evangelion #3.0+1.0

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thestraggletag · 3 years

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The Game, a Rumbelle Chess AU

Summary: Inspired by The Queen’s Gambit. When Arran Gold first lost a chess game against Belle French, he thought that nothing would feel better than wining against her. But the more he lost, the less he minded, and more eager he was for their next game.

AN: Look, it’s a bad summary but a good fic, I promise. Also both games described in the fic are real games that can be played. Here, for example, is their last game.

Rating: Explicit.

He couldn’t recall exactly when the tradition had begun. Long ago, when he had only owned about half the town and had yet to adopt his more refined image. A tenant, a once-wealthy businessman who had once had “old money” and had wasted it away in reckless business ventures, had challenged him to a game of chess in lieu of the rent. He had likely thought that Mr Gold, a lowborn Scotsman with a thick brogue and brusque manners, was unlikely to even know the rules of chess. He had trounced the fool in less than twenty minutes, and only because he had toyed with him first.

Chess, after all, was something he knew well. His aunties had taught him as a child, but it hadn’t been till university that he had gotten to love the game, after finding out there was a veritable underground circuit of contests and tournaments that could pay his way through law school. He had developed an irreverent yet aggressive style, completely unpolished but completely brutal. In spite of his quickly-gained reputation he had never lacked opponents. There were always posh idiots who were sure their sophisticated gameplay could beat his street smarts. They were never correct. He had developed a nickname, over the years, given to him in honour of his savage style of play and his ruthless approach to the game: Beast. He considered quite a compliment.

He had thought about going pro, entering formal tournaments and acquiring a ranking, but the life of a chess player, and even that of a grandmaster, wasn’t particularly profitable compared to practicing law or going into business and he aimed to accumulate wealth and power as much of it and as fast as possible. He had kept up with his secret hobby, though, sometimes catching televised tournaments or reading about them later, enjoying the process of dissecting a game, sometimes thinking of how he would have won against a particular opponent. But it had never occurred to him to play against anyone in Storybrooke till the challenge came. It had attracted lots of attention at the time and people had turned up at the library that Sunday to watch them play.

Though he won, other people sought to challenge him, to the point where he had decided to establish an event of sorts. A chess day, once a year, in which anyone could challenge him. If they won he would forgive their rent for an entire year. There was no penalty for losing, at least none outright, but the shame of defeat meant most people challenged him only once. Besides it kept everyone from complaining during rent day for the rest of the year. And, he had to admit, he enjoyed it. Enjoyed playing cat and mouse with people, exerting power over them, watching as people’s confidence shrunk down and melted away.

He always looked forward to chess day, though that year perhaps less so. Storybrooke had acquired a new librarian around eight months before and, in spite of all of his efforts, she did not think ill of him. Belle French was, apparently, immune to the gossip of the town about him and his own brusque manner and dark humour. She even seemed to enjoy the later, which made him uneasy and… nervous. A strange, unsettling form of nervous.

It didn’t help that she was insultingly kind, surprisingly sarcastic and delightfully witty. The sort of person that could spar with words and make it look effortless. And smart enough to know that though he pretended to hate it, he loved it. She was also, regrettably, gorgeous. Smaller than him, with reddish brown hair and electric-blue eyes. An accent that wrapped around his name like a lover and an actual sense of fashion, which was almost unheard of in Storybrooke and the only thing most people seemed to hold against her, the town matrons disapproving of her short skirts and high heels. There was also a disarming quirkiness about her, a sense that she was somewhat otherworldly, like she belonged half to the mortal plain and half to the realm of stories and fantasies. He had seen her more than once walk around town lost in a book, dreamy-eyed and clearly miles away from the little town. He was always fascinated by how dreamlike she looked, how otherworldly.

Though he had tried to make her hate him for the first few months of their acquaintance, he had grown used to failing, and admitted to himself that it felt nice to have someone who would smile genuinely at the sight of him, who would treat him with kindness, who would be eager for his company and did not consider talking to him to be a chore. So he wasn’t looking forward to Miss French being exposed to angry tenants who called him names when he beat them, and wasn't really looking forward to her seeing him dash people’s hopes ruthlessly.

It couldn’t be helped, though. And perhaps it was for the best, to have her see what everyone else saw. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. So he washed and shaved carefully that day and had a hearty breakfast- chess day tended to take up all of his morning and most of the afternoon, and he did not like having to take a break to eat, knowing that his stamina added to the image of him as some larger-than-life monster. He dressed with care, picking his favourite purple striped shirt and matching paisley tie. He added his sleeve garters and square cufflinks, though he was not expecting those to be visible at any point during the day. It still felt nice, empowering, to be impeccably dressed.

By the time he reached the library there was already a crowd there, as well as the customary barren table, awaiting his chess set. He always played with the same set, an ebony and boxwood one from House of Staunton. It had the classical Staunton look and the hand carved pieces had a nice heft to them. He had bought it years ago, one of his first purchases after beginning to make serious money, costing him well over a thousand pounds back in the day. Not by any means among the more costly of chess sets, but the price spoke of its fine quality.

He set the board down and opened the box with his pieces, arranging the whites on the side of the board furthest from him and setting the blacks on his side, careful to properly align the knights and position the pawns at the centre of their squares. He took out his clock next, which he had cleaned and serviced the day before, and sat down on his customary, throne-like bergère, the one that usually was the focal point of the Ancient History’s reading nook. In contrast the chair opposite him was one of the plain, serviceable ones that populated the study room at the library. He hoped, for his own amusement, that whoever had set up the place had picked the wobbly one.

It wasn’t long after he settled that a crowd formed around him, but it took almost half an hour for the first challenger to present themselves. It was, surprisingly enough, Dr Whale. The good doctor was one of the few people in town that made a nice, tidy six-figure income, mostly from his private practice. Whale, whoever, did like to live above his means, and it seemed it had finally caught up with him. Though he did not rent a house from him, he did rent his private office from him. It was large and well-located, and likely to detract quite a bit from his overall profit.

The doctor looked cocky, in spite of Mr Gold’s infamous reputation around town as a chess player. And he didn’t even have to speculate as to why. Victor Whale was the prototypical Ivy-league alumnus, likely played chess for Dartmouth, his undergraduate alma mater, or Brown, where he had acquired his MD. He may perhaps once been ranked, if his smug grin was any indication. He took pains to hide his own savage smile, not willing to give his prey any hint of the carnage to come.

He drew it out, both for the audience and for the sheer pleasure of watching all of the doctor’s confidence and arrogance melt away, leaving an increasingly obfuscated and delightfully sweaty mess behind. And once he knew that he had pushed him as far as he could go he had gone in for the jugular, watching in delight as his opponent toppled his king. The crow murmured, unhappy. When he dragged a game out sometimes people got the idea that he might be struggling, that his challenger might actually have a chance. He enjoyed dashing that hope every single time.

As he rearranged the pieces back to their starting positions he caught a glimpse of a tweed flare skirt swishing about a familiar set of tight-clad legs. Miss French, as always, was impeccably dressed, the black sheer floral blouse a bit daring, perhaps, but carefully hidden by the demure cardigan she had over it. Her hair was in a French braid, the end tied together with a lovely silk ribbon in the same muted plum colour as her cardigan. He wondered at her clothes, which he recognised as high quality, likely expensive as hell. It cemented his idea that she came from money, and likely worked out of a genuine passion for books rather than necessity. Just as he studied her earrings-lovely gold studs in the shape of blooming roses, she turned her head, catching his eyes. He saw interest and curiosity, but no fear or disgust. Perhaps Whale was too unlikeable a victim to elicit sympathy from her.

Frederick Knight was next, playing not for a reprieve from his own rent- his teacher’s salary might not be impressive, but his wife pulled some major money working from home for a law firm in Boston- but for the pet shelter he volunteered out. Briefly he wondered how it all worked, how he could volunteer at the shelter run by his wife’s ex-husband, who had cheated on her with one of Knight’s own colleagues, causing the divorce that would eventually leave her free and available for them to meet and fall in love. Gold thought it was all rather unseemly.

The lad was smart, he would give him that. All that strategizing for baseball clearly carried on to chess, to a certain extent. Mr Knight clearly saw at least a few moves ahead, even if he did not have the skill to plan and anticipate more than that. In the end, because he was a decent enough bloke, Gold put him out of his misery quickly. It felt bad to drag it out unnecessarily. The man was gracious about defeat as well, something that was rare, offering his hand for a quick, firm shake, before leaving the board, no doubt to sink into the welcoming arms of Ms Midas. Though married, she had chosen to keep her last name, after the hassle it had been to change it back after the divorce. And yet there was no doubt that she loved her new husband more than she tolerated her ex, which even the strictest traditionalist in Storybrooke had to acknowledge.

More people challenged him, as was the norm. Out of all of them only Mr Prentice put much of a fight. Gold could tell he was a man of some talent, and an old hand at the game, but too by-the-book to beat him. He implemented moves and strategies well, but did not have a creative bone in his body. A pity, really. He was the only one after Mr Knight to be mature in defeat, sadly. By the time four o’clock rolled around three people had upended the board after they had lost and at least one had made a move as if to punch him in the face.

He reset the board with little expectation of playing again. It was late, the crowd was thinning, and people’s enthusiasm had died down considerably. He excused himself to go to the restroom, enjoying the brief walk after hours of sitting down. When he went back to the board, however, he froze up. Sitting on the challenger’s chair was the librarian herself, carefully unbinding her hair as she half-listened to something Miss Lucas was telling her.

He hadn’t foreseen this, the notion that the librarian might wish to challenge him. He had become resigned to having her smiles dimmed when they were directed at him, but nothing more. Certainly not this.

“Miss French, I didn’t know you played.”

His voice was, by some miracle, even. The librarian smiled, shaking her hair out and wrapping the now unused ribbon around her fingers.

“I used to, some time ago. Still do, sometimes. In my head.”

She said that last part quietly, only for his ears.

“Well, what are the stakes going to be? Rent forgiven from the library for a year?”

“Oh, not, that would be too much. And I’m not sure that would be good for the library. That much money would surely go to what the mayor considers more… lucrative pursuits. But I thought, perhaps, that you could lower the rent of the library by a certain percentage, enough to cover for my apartment. I could use the extra money to refurbish the children’s section, and replace some stock. I could do without another brawl about who gets the last copy of The Polar Express come Christmastime.”

He smiled in spite of the cold spreading across his chest, constricting his lungs. He would be quick, he decided, better to have it over as soon as possible, so that afterwards perhaps Miss Lucas could coax Miss French into a consolatory drink or a slice of apple pie, her favourite. It wouldn’t be too bad, he convinced himself, and it would endear her to the other townspeople, that she braved the beast in pursuit of better reading experiences for their children.

He started her watch, a bit surprised when she moved right away, dragging a pretty white pawn to e4. He counted with his opposing pawn, and in his next move he captured his first piece, another pawn she had likely moved unsuspectingly into the line of his attacking one. She took out her knight then, and later a bishop, but he played more conservatively, using mainly his pawns, waiting for the moment where he could unfurl some of his more devastating attacks. He was startled by her castling her king. It gave him a firm idea that she was no amateur, and he adjusted to this new insight accordingly. He advanced his pawns further, seeing little overall sense and reason to her movements. She had her queen out, as well as a bishop, but had taken her knight back in and her pawns were scattered about, presenting little challenge.

And then she moved her bishop, lightning fast, and suddenly he was in check and the game did not look as it had a second before. He studied the board more carefully, instincts telling him there was danger in there. What once had looked devoid of logic now seemed elegant and strangely coordinated.

Like a dance, he thought. And somehow familiar.

He moved his king, and noticed people suddenly paying attention. She took her bishop away, looking amused, and he pressed on with his queen’s pawn, losing his first piece one move later. Feeling his hackles rising he took one of his bishops out, losing another pawn a second later after she took one of her knights out again. He disposed of it in the next move, thinking he had finally seen her make a mistake, but her rook advanced, threatening his king and bishop. He moved the former, thinking he was sure to lose the other piece, but surprisingly she moved her queen instead. Far from putting him at ease it was that move that made him aware that he was in front of a person that could likely beat him. And, almost against his will, the thought rose the competitive beast in him.

He went savage, increasing the aggressiveness of his moves to an obscene degree. A chance look at Miss French, however, let him know that she found it amusing. She leaned over the board with interest, head tilted to a side and the fingers of her non-dominant hand tangled in her hair ribbon. Her eyes, barely visible from beneath her thick lashes from the way her face was tilted towards the board, sparkled, letting him know she was enjoying herself. Thoroughly.

He, on the other hand, felt strangely angry. Defensive. Exhilarated. He watched her as she made her bishops dance across the board, forcing him into another check and into a few defensive moves with his rooks, before her queen made her presence known once again, sliding across the board with both elegance and devastation. He took off his jacket, feeling too hot, and looked at the board again.

It was all so familiar. The style of play, he had seen it before. Like a dance, spontaneous yet choreographed, forcing him to respond in a certain way, backing him into a corner. He took one of her bishops and then a rook, when it came sliding into his side of the board, but it only made him feel more anxious, more like a creature trapped. Soon he was without his rooks and both his queen and his one remaining knight were in peril. But as he focused on them he missed the slow advance of a white pawn along the side of the board, flanked by the white queen and the remaining white rook. He sent his own queen out, trying to regain some semblance of control, but there wasn’t much the piece could do. In the end it was the queen, aided by the unassuming pawn, that forced his king into a checkmate.

“I believe the game is over, Mr Gold.”

The librarian’s accent softened the blow of those words. She looked up at him, happiness and excitement written across her face, as if she had gone through some marvelous experience. But it wasn’t the smile of a winner, but rather the smile of a conspirator.

“I believe the game was over ten moves ago, Miss French.”

He could admit that now, even as people cheered around him, rubbing salt on the newly-opened wound. He watched as Miss Lucas briefly enveloped the librarian in a side-hug before turning her attention to other people celebrating. Miss French, however, didn’t seem to want to join. She simply stared at the board and then at him as if this was their own private thing, their shared, secret joy.

It felt too intimate, and it made him even more angry, that she seemed to think that he had somehow enjoyed getting his arse thoroughly kicked by her. Brusquely he stood up, putting his jacket and coat on quickly before a well-placed snarl opened a way out from the mass of people gathered around the chessboard. He would go home and lick his wounds and figure out a way to repair the damage to his reputation after he reached the bottom of his half-drunk bottle of Balvenie Tun 1509.

It wasn’t until he was well and truly hungover that he realised, with a shock, that he had left his chess set behind. He left a message in Dove’s phone to have him call him back on Monday, so that he could instruct him to retrieve it for him. No need to go into the library for a few days. Or weeks. Might as well not step foot in it for the rest of the year, really. And no need to ever again think about the game, ever.

But after a couple of Tylenol and a lot of water, he found himself rethinking that last decision. There was something nagging at him about that game, and it would not let go of him. He knew he had seen that style of play before, but he could not recall where. He pulled up his collection of saved games, recreated from tournaments and world cups, and began analysing each of them, trying to find the same dreamlike, flowing style of play, like dancing. It wasn’t in the latest World Cup, or the one before, or in any of the recent tournaments. Not in the London Classic, or the Sinquefield Cup, or the Tata Steel. Not in any of the major American or European tournaments, so he branched out, looking at the Asian championships, the ACF Grand Prix and-

Something about the ACF gave him pause, so he went back through the tournaments he had saved, year after year. It wasn’t until he hit the 2006 Grand Prix that he saw it, a match where the blacks moved like in a ballet. He saw the name of the player, I. Avon, and did not recognise it at first. Then he searched for the recorded video of the match and realised why: I. Avon was Isabelle Avon, and she was usually known in internet circles by her nickname, Beauty. And the 2006 ACF Grand Prix had been her last major tournament. She had disappeared shortly after, and had caused a bit of a stir, specially amongst Australian chess enthusiasts, who thought she had the makings of a Grandmaster and even a top five world player.

And yet, somehow, she had ended up as a librarian in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Maine, living under a different name, for some fucking reason.

He wouldn’t let it go once he knew, trying to piece the puzzle together. He had never seen pictures of Beauty, there were no headshots to be had, likely because she had been an up-and-coming player at the time and a minor for most of her active years. He had seen videos of her playing, but her hair tended to obscure her face in most of them. She had not won her nickname on account of her looks- though how painfully fitting it was, considering how attractive she was- but because of her playing. People praised her for her beautiful moves, how she built this gorgeous ballet of a strategy that was as effective as it was enchanting.

She had been described, in the few articles that talked about her personality, as quirky. Odd. A calm player, given to the occasional smile and never able to lift her eyes off the board, a dreamy look on her face. Quite unsettling, some people had said.

She had dropped off the face of the chess world at age twenty, in 2006, and no one had heard from her again. Some people claimed to have played against her in an online tournament, but there was never a way to know for sure. He was sure now that at least some of these people were likely right. He delved more into whatever he could find about Isabelle Avon, but there wasn’t much. Though she had been at the time considered a chess prodigy she had been sheltered from press scrutiny likely by her parents, and had not given many interviews nor posed for many photographs. The few that circulated on the internet were of her as a very young teen, likely fifteen, when she had made her debut. He recognised her electric-blue eyes immediately, but the librarian’s fine bone structure was hidden behind layers of baby fat still not ready to peel off and her hair was a few shades lighter than it was now. Her mother was always with her in the pictures, as good-looking as elegant as her daughter had grown up to be, but her father was only in one of the pictures, a rather portly man that was rendered striking rather than dumpy by his height, which was considerable.

He found nothing to explain her retirement from chess, at least nothing official. He did find, however, a funeral notice in The Australian for a Colette Avon, neé French, dated December 2006. He felt sure that he had stumbled across the reason for Beauty’s fall from the chess circuit, and the origin of her new name. Why she had felt the need to create a completely new identity was, however, still unexplained.

And it bothered him, he found out soon enough. The more games of hers he saw the more he could appreciate her artistry, her craftsmanship. He could not conceive anyone having such talent, such passion for the game, and quitting, even over a personal tragedy like the loss of a beloved parent. He remembered how she had looked when she had played him, alive and excited, her pleasure obvious, and it cemented the idea that there was something he was missing. And he didn’t much care for it.

That’s how he found himself in the library weeks after his defeat, confronting the librarian. She was wearing a pretty burgundy shirtdress, prim and proper if not a wee bit short, and her hair tumbled down her back in a mess of curls, which was to be expected, since the library hours had ended twenty minutes ago. She wasn’t surprised to see him, nor did she appear hostile or otherwise on edge. Quite the contrary.

“Mr Gold, I’ve been expecting you.” She smiled up at him, and it felt a bit different from her previous smiles. Those had been lovely but this one felt more… personal. Intimate, somehow. Like they shared a secret. He supposed, in a way, they did. “You left your lovely chess set here. I’ve been holding onto it for you, keeping it safe. It’s in my office, do you want me to go get it for you?”

“Why did you change your name?”

He didn’t mean to blurt it out. He meant to build up to it. But there was something about her that utterly unsettled him, made him anxious in a way that wasn’t wholly unpleasant. Her smile turned somewhat cautious and sad, and he hated himself for provoking that reaction out of her.

“That’s a rather personal question.”

“You owe me.” He tried to stop himself, but he found he somehow couldn’t. “You played against me under false pretences. You owe me at least an explanation as to why.”

Miss French raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed at his emotional outburst or the questionable logic of his assessment. A moment later, however, she tilted her head to a side, biting her lip and narrowing her eyes, as if considering something.

“It’s a rather big secret. Would you play me for it?”

That sounded very much like a deal, and it made him feel more comfortable with the situation, more in control. Deals were his specialty, after all.

“And what would you wish for if you win, Miss French?”

She smiled, the picture of innocence.

“A secret for a secret sounds fair. Let’s say… your name.”

Nobody knew his first name. He appeared in all legal documents as “A. Gold”, which caused all manner of speculation around town. His name would be a high price, indeed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t tell others, just as I trust you would not tell others what I told you if I lost. I just want it for myself.”

Her words sent a frisson of something down his spine, leaving him tingling and on edge.

“That sounds acceptable. Do fetch my set, if you please, and I’ll get the board.”

They had the board set and ready in no time, flipping a coin to decide who would be whites. Miss French, having won, started the game, and from the beginning he read her moves differently from before, knowing they were those of a chess prodigy. He moved aggressively, trying to create too much chaos to allow her to build her beautiful moves, but soon began to second-guess himself, struggling between being too bold and playing it safe. He lasted longer, forcing her to pause and consider her next move once or twice, which she had not done during their first game. He took in those few seconds of uncertain contemplation with eager interest, watching as she bit her lip and furrowed her brow, the apple of her cheeks red with an enticing blush.

In the end, however, her rooks trapped his king too soon, forcing him to topple the piece. She smiled at him, offering her hand for him to shake. He did so, marveling at how delicate it was. And cold. The whole building was cold, he realised. Apparently the mayor demanded the heat be turned off the library the moment it closed, to save on the heating bill.

“We can do this again sometime, if you still wish to know, Mr Gold.”

He nodded, leaning on his cane in order to rise from the chair, making no move to gather his chess pieces.

“I’ll take you up on that, Miss French. And the name’s Arran.”

He returned a week later, with a tin of oolong tea to keep the cold of the library at bay. Though the librarian seemed to have been expecting him, with the board and chess set already laid out at the customary table, she did not seem to be in the mood to play right away, inviting him instead to her office so she could prepare and pour them both a cup of tea in the adjoining kitchenette. Though she did not seem to want to speak of whatever had happened to her in 2006 she did not seem reluctant to talk about her chess career in general. She told him about learning the game at six from her mother, and playing in the park against adults as a ten-year-old, shortly before entering her first tournament, for children. She would soon outgrow those, reluctantly.

“Children are more creative players, I find, and I missed that in professional adult tournaments. It’s what I like about your playing.”

He told her in turn about his own chess experience, so vastly different from hers. It was a part of his life he had not shared with anyone before, and it felt nice to do so, especially with someone who could understand chess like he did, could see the beauty and the sense of it.

By the time their tea was finished over an hour had passed, and it was getting almost too late for a game. This one lasted a bit longer, and felt more… playful. Though he lost, he enjoyed himself more than he should have. He could make more sense of her playing style now, and it made him respond in kind, to soften his moves a tad, make them less savage and more complimentary to hers. It was the first time in years he altered his playing style, but it gave him more of a fighting chance and it seemed to amuse and thrill her to no end. In the end when he lost she asked about his aunts, and he told her about how in love they were, even though the times were different and they could not express that love in the open like people could now. As he talked he realised how much he missed them and how nice it felt to share a bit of their memory with someone else.

Though he left the library defeated, it was difficult to conjure any negative feelings about the evening.

At some point, he realised he had stopped playing to win. Well, not necessarily. He still played with the intention of seeing her king toppled and extracting the secret of her retirement from her, but it was about more than that now. Perhaps it was their now customary tea break right before the game, which lasted up to an hour and now included cookies and several cups per person. It was a strangely-relaxing ritual and led them to talking about things that he would usually not discuss with anyone else, things that felt too personal. She shared in kind, with the exception of talking about her father, which he understood tacitly was a no-go subject. To be fair so was his, and she took pains to never ask him anything about him.

Playing her, he had to admit, had become exhilarating. Once the sour taste of defeat had been taken out of the equation- it didn’t feel like losing anymore, or at least not the way losing usually felt to him, cloying and humiliating- all that was left was the thrill of the game, the excitement of thinking on one’s feet and seeing long strategies come to fruition on the board. He caught her chewing on her bottom lip more and more as he learned to thwart her moves and bring a sort of organised chaos to the board that she found difficult to navigate around.

He got so used to losing, and so comfortable in it, in the notion that losing only meant he got to return to the library, have tea and spend a few pleasant hours with someone who was interesting and treated him with kindness, that he did not consider the fact that he might win at some point. And when it happened, one evening he saw it, checkmate in two moves with his remaining knight and one of his rooks, plain to see. He had been working at leaving her king adrift, too exposed and with her queen distracted enough to not be able to stop the attack. She saw it too, he realised, and there was a bittersweet smile when she toppled her king. The sound the small piece made was deafening in the sudden silence of the library and he stared at the board for the longest time, as if he had been struck dumb by his win. In reality he was trying to process how disappointed he suddenly felt, how utterly unhappy he was about having won. It made no sense.

“As you perhaps know my mother died in 2006.”

“Miss French, please, you don’t have to-”

“Belle, please. I’d like to believe we’ve transcended such formalities. Especially considering what I’m about to do.”

She paused, letting the silence stretch between them. Though she seemed determined to tell her tale, whatever it may entail, she did not seem to know where to start, or even where to look. He thought about getting up and downright refusing to listen to her, anything to take away the sudden air of vulnerability about her, but stopped himself. She was a grown woman who would not appreciate him trying to decide things for her.

“You must know my mother died in 2006. It was very sudden, a stroke, and was very hard to accept. We were very close, especially because my chess career kept me from socialising much with my peers. I was sad for a long time after her passing, kept recreating some of our favourite matches on the chessboard she had given me for my twelfth birthday. I didn’t want to eat, or go out much, and I guess… My dad grew worried. We had always struggled to communicate, never had much in common. He didn’t get chess or me, so he didn’t know how to reach me, or talk to me, or even understand what I was going through.”

She paused, picking up a white pawn and staring intently at it. He itched to reach out to her, though he was not very good at comforting people.

“He thought I needed professional help. And he was right, I did need to speak to someone. But he thought it best to-” Another pause, where Belle looked like she was trying to find the words to explain, or excuse, what came next. “He had me hospitalised.” He did not need to ask what kind of hospital she was referring to. “It was a nice place, on spacious, green grass and under the supervision of an order of nuns. I’ve read that other places can be more… unpleasant, and less safe. Still, I don’t remember much of it. I was drugged most of the time, they were pretty liberal when it came to medication, and I hated it. Took me a while to figure out how to behave in a way that was considered normal, how to grieve within the bounds of acceptable behaviour.”

He was surprised by the white-hot rage that took over him. He tightened his grip around the handle of his cane, eager to hurt someone with it. Belle’s father seemed like a prime candidate, or any of the doctors involved in her care, who could not see that what they had in front of them was a woman trying to grieve in her own way. He ached to do harm, to hurt, in a way that unsettled him, that spoke about primitive instincts he had spent years mastering, or at least trying to. He tried to calm himself, focusing instead intently on her, watching her walk the pawn across the board and exchange it for the white queen after it reached the other side.

“Once I was out I changed my name and applied for university in the US. My chess career and my mother’s care of my finances gave me financial freedom, so I went to school, then did my masters at Columbia, and took on as librarian here when the position opened. And I never participated in a tournament again. At first it was because being active in professional chess circles left me exposed, made it so my father would likely know where I was, but later on I discovered I just did not have the temperament for big tournaments anymore. Crowds of strange people looking at me make me nervous, and playing chess in public makes me feel… unsafe, I suppose.”

Her fingers closed over the white queen, as if testing the strength of the piece.

“I still love it, though. Used to play at Bryant Park when I was a college student, though never in tournaments. And I still play online, sometimes for money, because it’s safe. But it’s been nice, playing face to face against someone again. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.”

She put the white queen back with the rest of the pieces inside its box, closing the lid securely before offering the set to him. Instead of taking it he stood up, taking a few steps backward to make sure she knew he had no intention of taking his chess set home.

“I thank you for your candor. I will keep what you have told me in confidence, of course. Same time this Saturday?”

She looked up at him, confused for a second before a wide smile spread across her face.

“It’s a date.”

Though he had made the journey to the library dozens of times in the past couple of months it felt different that day. Instead of the customary tea he brought he clutched a tote bag with an unopened bottle of Highland Park 18 and two crystal tumblers. It was a particularly cold afternoon, which he told himself called for something more bracing than a strong cup of tea.

Belle did not seem against the whisky, though she did warn him that she had no affinity for it and would not know good scotch from bad.

“You’re calling it scotch, so that’s a good start.”

She seemed more intrigued about the tumblers, running the pad of her thumb across the designs on the glass.

“Thistles.”

“I’m nothing if not a walking stereotype.”

She laughed, telling him to pour while she set the board. By the time they sat down to play it was dark out, and Belle had turned off the zooming fluorescent tubes, leaving instead the soft, warm light fixtures in the reading room on. It was a cosy, relaxed setting, and yet the air felt strangely electrified, like something was going to happen, something big. His nerves felt raw, exposed, but the feeling wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

“So, what should we play for tonight?”

He startled, the tumbler halfway to his lips. She was right, there were no preconceived stakes anymore. Before he had wanted to know something about her, something valuable, so they established an arrangement whereby whoever won could ask a question of the other. That arrangement no longer applied. A sudden flare of panic travelled down his spine. What if he couldn’t think of anything? What if they both discovered that, without stakes, there was no sense in playing again at all? What if-

“I have an idea. It’s… a bit unorthodox. Always wanted to try it, but never got the chance to.”

The librarian looked intently at her glass of whisky, running a finger across the edge, but there was a sort of mischievous air about her. Playful.

Flirtatious, almost.

“Do tell.”

“Well, I’ve read about strip chess. Obviously I never actually played strip chess before because for most of my years playing chess in front of people I was a minor. But I always thought it sounded… fun.”

She chanced a look at him from beneath her eyelashes, biting her lower lip the tiniest bit. He must have looked rather stupid to her, sitting ranmrod straight and wide-eyed, with the look of a rabbit that has just spotted a wolf nearby. A man a few years shy of fifty looking stupidly terrified of a woman more than ten years his junior.

“What would be the rules?”

“A piece of clothing for every captured piece. Something small for pawns is allowed, but bigger pieces merit more important sacrifices. Things in pairs are to be removed in pairs. Jewellery and such are considered pieces of clothing. We play until either someone wins, or someone is completely naked.”

He took a gulp of scotch, hiding a grimace as the liquid burned a path down his throat. He took a quick stock of the librarian, taking in her few pieces of jewellery- earrings, a ring, and a simple necklace-, and her clothing. A skirt, no belt, a shirt tucked into it, a cardigan, stockings and a pair of booties. He imagined all of it on the floor at his feet and his blood simmered.

“That sounds… acceptable. You got the coin?”

He was glad he sounded unbothered by the new arrangement they had just entered into, nonchalant. He lost the coin toss, so it was Belle who opened, moving the queen’s pawn two places. He moved more conservatively, a pawn to c6, and a couple of moves later she took her first pawn, leaving the piece to be taken by another pawn of his.

“My earrings for your cufflinks?”

It was a fair exchange, so they paused to relieve themselves of their pieces of jewellery. Belle’s next move gave him a chance to capture another pawn and he discovered that he had to physically restrain himself from making the move, reminding himself that he was supposed to be playing for win. It added something extra to the game, the tension between what the best move was according to whatever strategy he was struggling to make, and what could get him more pieces. It made the game tense, as they both considered their moves and braced themselves for the possible occurrence of another piece taken.

When it finally happened, a white pawn taking the place of a black one, he surrendered both his shoes, but not before using one of his knights to take the place of the newly-moved white pawn. Belle bent down to unlace her booties, removing them and placing them to the side with care, letting him know that she did have a thing for shoes, as he had always suspected.

Nothing else happened for the longest time, the game unfolding without much action. They both moved their bishops and castled their king, pretending for a while that there wasn’t a likelihood that one of them would end up naked before the night was out. He kept the scotch nearby, refilling the drinks every now and then to give himself something to do other than think about all the exposed white pieces. Finally, when he thought he was going to crawl out of his skin if he didn’t do it, he took a white pawn with his knight.

“Wondered when you were going to do that.”

He watched her as she shimmied out of her cardigan, letting him see more of the blouse she was wearing. It was slightly sheer, letting him know she was wearing a black bra. He wondered if he would get to see it.

“It’s a pity about your knight, though.”

She moved one of her own knights to take his, making it the first major piece to be taken. She held it in her hand for a while, studying it.

“I’ll accept your jacket and tie, if you have no objections.”

He reached automatically towards his neck, tugging on the silken knot around his throat. He must have drunk more than he realised, because his fingers felt clumsy, uncoordinated. After a few ineffectual tugs and some choice expletives muttered under his breath Belle rose from her chair, gently pushing his hands away and untying the tie herself. She tugged on it until it was off and tossed it on the back of his chair. She then wordlessly prompted him to remove his jacket, hanging it on the back of his chair as well.

“That’s a lovely colour on you.”

She ghosted her fingers across the silk of his shirt. It was one of his favourites, a deep navy blue silk jacquard with a contrasting pattern of leaves. He had worn it because he had noticed she tended to favour blue, which had felt stupid at the time. Now it felt inspired. Emboldened by the touch and the compliment he dragged his bishop across the board, knocking her knight off its place.

“I’ll take your necklace and stockings, if you please.”

His voice was rough, with little of the cultured diction he usually employed, but between the alcohol and the simmering sexual tension there was little he could do to change that. She took her necklace off without much protest, making sure to fasten it close before she looked at him right in the eye, smiling innocently and extending a leg till her silk-stockinged foot found his knee.

“Help me?”

It was embarrassing how fast he dragged a hand across her leg, pausing only to notice the quality of the material, and reached beneath her skirt, till his fingers came across the scratchy lace of the top of the stocking. With slow, steady precision he peeled the stocking off her leg, letting the tips of his fingers slide across the soft underside of her thigh and calf, trying to memorise how soft and warm her skin felt, so he could replay it over and over again each night. He repeated the process with the other stocking, delighting in the goosebumps the dim light of the room revealed in Belle’s skin. After it was done he folded the stockings neatly and presented them to her.

She moved her bishop next in a direct challenge to his castled king, meaning he had no other choice but to take it. He did it with shaky hands, trying not to look as eager as he felt.

“Shirt or skirt, I suppose. May I choose?”

Her voice was soft, playful, undeniably coquettish. He nodded, following her movements as she stood up, unzipped her skirt and let it fall open around her legs. Her shirt was long enough to cover anything but the barest hint of her underwear, something black and lacy and the slightest bit sheer that had him reaching for his glass. A second later she sat down, dragging her queen to take his bishop.

“Quid pro quo?”

With all the grace he could muster he stood up, refusing to show even a hint of apprehension or shyness as he undid his belt and pushed his trousers down, carefully stepping out of them before sitting down and reaching for the scotch bottle, filling up their glasses again. He took a long, fortifying sip and moved his knight to take her remaining one.

“That lovely blouse is gonna have to go, dearie.”

Belle smiled, looking bold and strangely pleased, and made sure to look at him square in the eye as she plucked every little button free of its hole. It was an invitation to watch, and he accepted it greedily, leaning forward and holding tightly onto his cane to keep himself from doing something stupid like try and touch every new bit of soft, pale skin that was slowly revealed to him. When she reached the last button she shimmied out of the shirt and carelessly tossed it at him. He caught it one handed and tried to not notice how the fabric retained the warmth from her body and the scent of her skin.

“Don’t get too comfortable, we’re about to get even.”

She moved her queen to take his knight and leaned back on her seat, one hand cradling her tumbler of scotch and an expectant look on her face. He reached up and unfastened the buttons of his shirt with practiced nonchalance, trying to keep the shaking in his hands from being too obvious. When that was done he paused for a second, trying to gather up his courage, before shrugging out of the shirt. With a gallant little gesture he handed it to her.

The next few rounds were intense, but no pieces taken. Arran was having a hard time concentrating on the board and not on the way Belle’s fingers caressed the silk of his shirt, tracing the pattern of leaves absentmindedly. It was a safer bet than focusing on her balconette bra, a delicate, impractical little thing made almost entirely out of leavers lace, with dark flowers woven into the pattern to keep him from seeing the rose pink of her nipples. He wondered if she had worn the set with their game in mind, if she had selected it just so he could see it.

At some point he took his queen out, and she did the same with one of her rooks, both of them seemingly in agreement that the status quo was not to be borne. It wasn’t until her rook put pressure on his king, forcing him to set his queen in the middle, that he began to feel cornered. When her bishop got too close he had no other option but to take out her rook. Though from a strategic point of view that was a desperate last-ditch effort, he could not help but feel strangely ecstatic over it.

“Oh, dear.”

Belle moved her hands towards her back, seeming to struggle with the fastenings of her bra.

“I think one of the hooks is snagged on the lace. Will you help me?”

He narrowly avoided biting his tongue. He managed a croaked, barely-intelligible “aye” before she stood up and turned around. He tried not to look down, but it was almost impossible, taking into account the panties she was wearing were made almost entirely of sheer black lace- leavers as well, clearly she was wearing a matching set-. With hands that felt clumsier than usual he felt around the clasp of the bra, delicately pulling the offending hook from the lace before unclasping the bra altogether. Slowly he lowered the straps from her shoulders, noticing the red indents they left behind on her skin. Then she was turning around, bra safely in her hands and her glorious breasts bared. He hoped that she wasn’t expecting him not to look, because it felt impossible to avert his eyes. As he had imagined- and he had not realised how often until then- her nipples were the perfect shade of dusty pink, framed perfectly by pale skin a shade lighter than the rest of her.

“I know I’ve lost on the board, but right now I feel like a winner. Like the luckiest bastard on Earth.”

His accent was shot to hell, thick and incomprehensible, as if he had never left the dodgy part of Glasgow. But it did not seem to be a problem for Belle, who kissed his cheek, tugged on his hair a bit, called him a “sweet boy”, and thanked him for the compliment.

“Let’s finish this, Arran.”

Her Australian lilt turned his name, which he always thought rather charmless and rough, into a soft caress. He sat down, something considerably uncomfortable to do all of a sudden, taking into account his painful state of arousal, and struggled to focus in the game. He was done for, he knew it, but he owed it to her to try. To lose with as much dignity as possible. Or so he thought, till her queen took his in one simple move.

“I’m afraid your underwear must go.”

The silk boxers were doing a pisspoor job of hiding his raging erection in any case, but it still felt uncomfortable to peel them off and be naked in front of another human being for the first time in years. Well, nude, technically, since he still had his navy socks on.

“Let’s finish this, then.”

He took his rook out, forcing her queen to retreat and then getting his other rook to cover for his king. For the next few moves they danced around each other on the board, with Belle trying to close her trap and Arran fighting tooth and nail to remain standing. His moves weren’t elegant at all, more like the savage swipes of a cornered beast, but they were effective. He managed to snag a rook, which gave him the pleasure of sitting down and staring intently as Belle shimmied out of her useless little panties. She flashed her watch at him to remind her she was not completely naked as per the rules of the game and continued to press him. She had only her queen and a few pawns, but the board was laid out in her favour all the same. Still he gave her a run for her money, and it took her twelve more moves to checkmate his king. Feeling irrationally expectant he toppled the piece, watching it roll around the board for a few seconds before coming to a stop.

“That was exciting. Though I’m afraid we forgot to agree on what the winner got. Quite an oversight on our part.”

He watched her as she reclined on her chair and stared at the board, a rosy tinge on her skin that he realised travelled past her neck and to the tops of her breasts. She looked at ease, comfortable in her own skin, and surprisingly he noticed that he did not much care about his own nudity either. In the low, almost romantic light of the library his skin acquired a golden colour that he thought rather becoming. He was tanned for a man who spent most of his time indoors, a direct consequence of his propensity to laze about in the sun whenever possible in the privacy of his backyard or his cabin. And in such a light his wrinkles were less obvious, his scars less visible. He felt anxious, yes, tense, but it was not an unpleasant sort of tension.

“What is it you want, Miss French?”

He affected the persona of the devious dealmaker, noticing the spark of heat in the librarian’s eyes when he called her by her last name. She made a show of thinking about it, though he had the distinct feeling she had thought about something ages ago.

“How about a kiss?”

He took her left hand, kissing the back of it.

“Like this?”

When she shook her head he reached further, kidding the underside of her elbow.

“Higher, Arran.”

He tugged her closer, trying to disregard the rapid beating of his heart, and softly kissed her shoulder. Her skin was soft and smelt faintly of something citrusy, something that somehow managed to tug both at his heart and his groin.

“Higher, please.”

She took his head in her hands, tilting it upwards till their lips met. It was a soft, tentative press of the lips at first, unhurried and unassuming, but it grew firmer and more insistent. When he pressed her she opened her mouth to him readily, letting him curl his tongue around hers with a moan of approval. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders at some point, fingers sinking into his hair to pull him closer till he was flush against her, skin against skin. His hands roamed her back, tracing the ridges of her spine, pleased at the way it made her shiver.

Reluctantly he let go of her lips, pressing his mouth against her sharp jawline, down her long neck until he was tracing her collarbone with his tongue and dipping down further into the swell of her breasts. He felt her fingers dig into his scalp, pressing him closer, tugging on his hair to guide him towards a puckered nipple. He accepted the unspoken invitation gladly, closing his lips around her flesh and sucking with embarrassing enthusiasm. His hands roamed the rest of her, one caressing her back while the other pressed against a soft, round thigh, aching to move just a few inches and cup her sex.

When she stepped backwards, out of his arms and the reach of his mouth, he felt a flare of panic that she was having second thoughts, or he had done something wrong. It was on the tip of his tongue to apologise- for fucking whatever, he didn’t care- when she tugged on his arm, urging him a little ways across the room to a reading nook next to the folklore session. There was a faded divan in there, usually full of pillows and throw blankets meant for readers to take to their seats if they were uncomfortable or chilly. It was old and likely uncomfortable, the type of couch that looked like it had lost most, if not all, of its padding and most of its support capabilities a long time ago. At the moment, however, it looked to Arran like the most luxurious of beds. He let her push him onto it, glad when the springs beneath him groaned but held steady. A second later she was on top of him and all thoughts of structural stability fled from his mind as he kissed him thoroughly, asserting a dominance he was more than happy to submit to.

He had to struggle to concentrate between the kissing and the groping to understand her when she asked about protection, muttering that she was clean and on the pill but she had condoms just in case, from the sex-ed talks Miss Blanchard gave every now and then. Briefly he contemplated the notion of using one of those condoms, thinking of Miss Blanchard’s absolutely scandalised look if she ever found out, but the idea of being bare inside Belle was too good to pass. He told her he was clean in as clear a voice as he could muster that he was clean too- he recalled his last annual check-up, which he drove to Boston for, since he would rather die than let Dr Whale anywhere near any part of him- before she was straddling him, grabbing his stiff, aching cock with one hand and guiding it to her entrance. He could barely register the sudden wet heat on the tip of him before his entire member was engulfed in it. He sunk his blunt nails on Belle’s back, trying to call forth every last shred of self-control he possessed not to come then and there. Thankfully Belle didn’t move, looking overwhelmed and in need of a moment to adjust.

“You’re big.”

“Fuck, sweetheart, you can’t tell me something like that if you want me to last.”

It was taking everything he had not to come like a fucking schoolboy. Later, much later, he might me in the right frame of mind to replay her involuntary compliment. Over and over. He tried to recall the names of all the subs of the Celtics, in fucking alphabetical order, till he somehow felt more in control. Slowly, lovingly, he captured her lips with his own for a long, lazy kiss, feeling as her own tension melted away, leaving only a simmering sort of excitement. Tentatively she began to rock, trying to find a comfortable angle and motion in the restrictive confined of the divan. He tried to help her as much as possible, holding onto her hips and trying to thrust up as much as he could, given his precarious perch on the furniture and his lame ankle. Slowly but steadily they found something that worked, a rhythm that had him hitting a sport deep inside her that he could tell was, blessedly, the right one, given how Belle sunk her nails on his shoulders and tried to muffle her cries against the side of his neck. He tried to talk, to tell her how gorgeous she was, how wet and warm and perfect she felt around him but it all came out as unintelligible grunts and low, feral moans.

When he felt himself near the edge he gritted his teeth and gathered all of his remaining willpower, dragging his right hand down her stomach to the small nest of curls that framed her dripping cunt, delving inside till he found a spot that made her gasp when he touched it.

“Come for me, sweet girl.” He didn’t know whether she could understand him over the thick mess of his accent, but he hoped at least the cadence would convene his meaning. She keened in response before he felt her flutter around his cock, the rest of her tensing with the force of her release. When he muffled her scream against the side of his neck he let go, his own orgasm almost uncomfortable at first, too much at once. He clutched her close, hoping against hope he would not send them both toppling to the floor, feeling like he was walking a fine line between pleasure and pain. Pleasure won out in the end, sizzling on his veins before slowly fading into a pleasant simmer. Tiredly he wrapped his arms around a barely-awake Belle, feeling the cooling sweat on her back and grunting in protest. He looked around, spotting a throw on the floor in his reach. He grabbed it quickly, managing to wrap it snug around both of them. Later, much later, when he could remember his name or how to walk, he would insist on them finding some better place to sleep, for her sake. At the moment, however, that seemed beyond him, a faraway concern to be dealt with at a later time. He was loath to give up his queen too soon into the game, in any case.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #The Game #thestraggletag fanfiction

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captaincravatthecapricious · 3 years

Text

Mabel AU- The Letters

@haberdashing

Martin is an at home care giver, trying to reach the Grandson of his latest client.

This is basically a rewrite of the first episode of Mabel. There really aren't many direct quotes, only a couple very short ones, everything else is mine.

Thanks for reading! If you want more of this AU, let me know, or just let me know if you enjoyed! Another fic of some sort or other will be posted next week!

ARCHIVIST: Hello, you’ve reached Jonathan Sims. I’m not here to take your call right now. Please leave a message after the beep. Thank you.

[BEEP]

MARTIN: Hey, Jonathan, right? My name is Martin Blackwood, and I’m with Kings County Home Help? I’ve been taking care of your grandmother for the past six months. I’m her at home carer? I know I probably shouldn’t have your number, but I wanted to check in with you. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong. Gertrude Sims is fine. Good, actually, for her age. Sorry, is that insensitive? In any case, I’d like a call back, if you aren’t too busy. Right. Let me apologize for how I got your number. I know it’s probably unorthodox, probably breeching some privacy agreement or something…

[SIGH]

[ASIDE]

Don’t tell him that, Christ what is wrong with you?

[TO JON]

Right. Well I got your number from my coworker, Sasha, who’s friends with Tim, who’s friends with you. And he apparently hasn’t heard from you in a little, and would like him to call you back. He told Sash to tell me to tell you that, by the way. That was the price for your number. Sorry for that. I’m sure you have …things. A life in the real world and not in this distant and lovely house.

…Sorry, that was… Anyways, give me a call back when you can, yeah? Thanks. Bye!

[ASIDE]

Christ! What’s wrong with you… catch sight of one pretty photo… SHIT, right, hanging up.

[BEEP]

[MUFFLED THROUGH A POCKET]

[QUIETLY SINGING TO HIMSELF OVER THE SOUND OF KITCHEN]

…Onions in the paaaaaan. Why aren’t you hot enough yeeeet? The water sizzledddddd, but it isn’t sizzling noooow.

[NEGLECTED PHONE SOUND]

[REALIZING]

OH SHIT. SORRY.

[BEEP]

[CLEARS THROAT]

Hi, Mr. Sims. It’s me again. It’s Martin. I… I’m trying to reach you… again. …As you probably can tell. It’s just been three days, and I would really like a call back. I just realized I didn’t give a number or like, I know you can probably figure out that you can reach me through this number, but I didn’t say it and I didn’t tell you when I was available, and maybe that’s why you haven’t gotten back to me. At least I hope that’s why. I… I can’t imagine not calling one of my Mum’s doctors back. Anyways, my number is [CENSORED] in case you can’t just ring back or something. Maybe your phone blocks unknow numbers and you haven’t even gotten this. Maybe I was listed as private and you couldn’t call back. Maybe you’re very polite and didn’t want to bother me when you didn’t know my schedule. I’m available from 2-5pm and in the evenings after 9pm. Or maybe you’ve got phone anxiety. I know I do, heh. I’m sweating just leaving you this message.

Or maybe you’re just busy.

Or maybe you tried to call, and I just didn’t get it. The reception isn’t great out here, as …you probably know. Given you grew up here. But anyways I have made sure I can get your message even with the dead-phone zones. It’s all set up. So… just needing a call back when you can. Well, not needing. But… I’d like one. Thanks. Bye.

[BEEP]

Hi. It’s me …again. Just… trying to reach you. Whatever.

[BEEP]

Call me back and let me know you aren’t dead in a ditch somewhere, okay? Sash says Tim is really worried… And… I might be too. Not that I even know you. Not really. So if you aren’t rotting in some hole somewhere, give me a call back, please?

[BEEP]

Where did you go?

[BEEP]

Hi. It’s me. …I’ve heard a lot about you, you know? Mostly from you Grandmother, Gertrude.

[ASIDE]

Christ, Martin. He knows his grandmother’s name.

[TO JON]

Right. Anyhow. She’s told me a lot of stories, you know? She’s actually pretty sharp. Most of the time, anyhow. Mostly lucid. I’m not sure if that’s all because of her medicine or what. I’ve… I help a lot of old people, at the end of their lives. And well… when I say she’s sharp, I mean that she is sharp comparatively, and also just remarkably so. Her words are confident, and considered. She doesn’t waste words, but she doesn’t shy away from telling stories. (I’m sure it’s just because she has no one else to talk to. Not even you.) But… you’ve stopped feeling like a real person on the other end of the line. That’s part of why I wanted to call? I guess? The longer that it’s been since my first message, the more I doubt myself for calling, and why I called. Sorry, then, for wasting your time. Thinking of you more like a book character, than someone with feelings and thoughts and a life. Someone who I know too much about for us to be casual strangers, even if I am a complete stranger to you. It just feels like a weird imbalance, you know?

Also… it’s a bit lonely out here, you know? Gertrude has a lot of old photographs of you. None of them are recent. And I know it isn’t my business, but… never mind. It isn’t my business… and I get it.

But… she still has your photos up. It’s my job to dust them. So, every week or so, I get a really good look at them. There’s one of you on the tire swing out back… it’s still back there, you know? You have mud all over your dungarees. And in your hair. Then there’s one… you look about 7? Your hair is in pig tails, and you are scowling at something off to your right. I don’t know what it is, and I know I shouldn’t find that kind of adorable, but I do. And there’s one of you in uni. You’re flipping off the camera and your hair is short and you’re wearing eyeliner. You look some odd combination of pissed off and like you’re having the time of your life.

[ASIDE]

And really, really, really hot. Christ, Martin, keep it together. You are literally on the phone with him, and you haven’t even talked to him. Jesus!

[TO JON]

I.. wish I could have known you then. That’s the oldest you look in these. Most of these are pictures of you when you were little. Mostly just you. A few of your dad when he was young, and one of your parents. She’s pregnant, and it’s sunset. They look so …happy. Christ, I’m sorry about what happened to them. I… I didn’t really know my dad either.

Sorry. This isn’t about me.

I’m calling because this place is… spooky. Spooky like a dark fairy tale.

Everything here is a bit… magical and creepy.

This house is old. Like a museum. Dusty boxes in the attic, full of treasures and dust the relics of the past, like the Long past. Not just the past of one lifetime. The garden is overgrown, despite my best efforts. Sometimes, Gertrude comes out and helps me garden. Usually in her chair. Mostly I just wheel here out so she can get some sun while I work. That’s where I hear most of the stories about you.

It’s overgrown with twisting vines and the most beautiful roses I have ever seen, with scary-long thorns.

I feel like I’ve walked into the setting for a classic. Like Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, or hell, even Tolkien. Or even Grimm’s fairytales. The original, dark ones.

It’s… unsettling. Especially when it’s foggy out.

The rest of the hills disappear into the fog and the condensation clings to the flowers, desaturated with the thickness of the moisture in the air, and the everything is coated in the most delicate, perfect little water droplets.

Anyhow. The reason I’m really calling… are the letters.

I was helping Gertrude move some things up to the attic. She’s one of the practical sorts of old people. She isn’t afraid of her death. She wants everything to be easy on you, you know? Make sure you don’t have to go through too much stuff when she passes on. I’ve lived with a lot of people through their deaths. It’s nice… making sure no one dies alone. Making sure they are comfortable. Making it as painless as possible.

[ASIDE]

Lord knows my efforts were never good enough for my mother… but if I can help other people…

[TO JON]

I know it’s a little morbid. But I like it. I feel… useful. I’m good at it. I’m good at keeping up conversations, and at cooking, and cleaning, and providing medical assistance, as needed. Not that I’m an actual doctor, but I, you know, do have a lot of training.

Anyway. The letters. I was helping her move some stuff into the attic, and bringing down some older boxes so she could go through them and decide what she was ready to toss, when I found them. This box full of letters. Hundreds of them. All unopened. Sealed with a kiss. Lipstick red. Red as dying embers. Stamped returned to sender. Slightly scorched around the edges. Tied in bundles. Identical envelops. Identical loose, looping cursive. All from someone named Agnes? All addressed to Gertrude.

That would be fine, I guess?

But she screamed when she opened it. An inhuman sound.

Like the sound was ripped from her.

And, I have never cared for a more grounded person. I have never seen her anything but… well not completely calm all the time, but mostly calm, you know? I’ve seen her sharp, I’ve seen her annoyed. Heh, half the time it looks like she wants to judge me, but then doesn’t… if that makes sense? Mostly she looks… like she knows so much more than I do and that she is calm in her knowledge? I’ve seen so much as a carer. There isn’t much that rattles me. Not death, not illness, not panic, but… but this was different.

After that… she was shaken badly. Screamed for what seemed like hours, then just stared at me and said “I’m going into the ground for you.” I… I couldn’t calm her down. Not until late evening, and I didn’t even have a break because the relief carer was off sick.

I finally got her to bed, and… I had to take another look. That’s when I got a good look at the envelopes. I… I want to open them. I haven’t. I know I shouldn’t…. but…. I want to know what could have shaken her that badly? Someone that stable and grounded, you know?

Heh, maybe you could call me back and make sure I don’t do something stupid. And ya know, let me know that you aren’t’ dead in a ditch. Tim’s started texting me directly now! He’s… he’s really worried about you.

Anyhow, I just need to know-

[BEEP]

[CONTINUED BEEPING]

AUTOMATED VOICE: The voicemail inbox for [Jonathan Sims] is full. Please call again later.

[DIAL TONE]

#the magnus archives #tma #martin blackwood #mabel podcast #fic #my writing #my words #my art #listen I know this is very niche

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maddie-grove · 2 years

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Little Book Review: Run

Author: William Sleator

Publication Date: 1973.

Genre: YA suspense.

Premise: Fifteen-year-old Lillian, frustrated with her overbearing parents, is happy when they agree to leave her at their isolated vacation house while they attend to business in New York City. Then she gets scared of staying there alone and persuades Jerry and Mark, teenage boys passing through the neighborhood on a cycling trip, to spend the night. Soon, though, it becomes clear that the three of them aren't alone. Can these children survive a few days of terror and learn valuable lessons about society? Lessons such as "fuck the police" and "Mark is sad"?

(Spoilers below; it is an old book with a dubiously wide appeal, but I went in not knowing anything and had fun.)

Thoughts: Sleator's first novel, Blackbriar (1972), succeeded in establishing a spooky atmosphere, but was saddled with a disappointing and overly conventional plot. By 1974, he'd published the terrifying, indelible House of Stairs. Run, not surprisingly, shows Sleator at a halfway point. The novel's nowhere near as tight as House of Stairs, and the characters aren’t as memorable, but he's developed his voice, and the result is delightfully unsettling.

One thing that makes the novel effective is that Sleator taps into a very ordinary childhood fear. At the beginning of the story, Lillian is looking out at the beach, worrying about nightfall. She's hyper-aware of how creaky the house is and how cold it will get after dark, and she starts obsessing over the possibility that someone is coming into the house and moving things around (leaving doors open, taking the radio, etc.). The sky is gray, the sea is rough, and the winds are high; the whole world, in short, seems hostile and unpredictable.

Adding to the sense of unease is the fact that Lillian has questionable decision-making skills. She shows absolutely zero qualms about letting two complete strangers into her house with no parents at home and no neighbors nearby; she's so oblivious to any danger that she drinks wine with them until all three pass out. I kept expecting Jerry and Mark to reveal themselves as accomplices to the person taking things from the house. It turns out they're just a couple of boys who seem to be in a "Backstreets"-by-Bruce-Springsteen-style friendship, but that just makes them and Lillian seem foolish for letting their guard down when freaky stuff is clearly happening. In a sense, this is a writing flaw, and I wish Sleator had tweaked things to make their decisions seem more natural (by making them all slightly younger, or having Lillian and the friendly Jerry know each other from school a little bit, or giving Lillian a paragraph where she rationalizes to herself that the boys seem okay). In another sense, their chaotic behavior really enhanced the suspense, because they couldn't quite keep track of what was happening. The sudden genre shift at the end similarly works despite itself.

Hot Goodreads Take: There aren't many reviews, but one reviewer compares the tone to early Lois Duncan. I only ever finished Gallows Hill, which made me mad because I didn't get why the people involved in the Salem Witch Trials were reincarnated in 1990s Arkansas. Looking back, I don't know why that was the sticking point for me. The book had bigger problems, and now I'm just distracted by the thought of how a bunch of hardcore Puritans would react to finding out about reincarnation and learning that it's real.

#little book review #run #william sleator

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dreaming-in-alicante · 3 years

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New chapter is up! Way longer than I planned it to be, lol. I mention Grace training with a bow and arrow in this chapter and now I'm just thinking about how awesome it would be for her to bond with Gabriel over archery.

Chapter 2: Taking stock

Grace jolted as a loud bang echoed through the basement. She was grateful that she had set down her glass beaker a moment before, else she surely would have dropped it. She whirled swiftly around, locating Christopher, and was relieved to find him startled but unharmed. Still, she asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” he said, inspecting his shirtsleeve where a hole had burned through. “My apologies. It turns out that combining a Swiftness rune with my current modified rune does not in fact make a message travel as desired, it just causes the message to explode,” he said, unfazed. He had been working on another long-time project, a way to send messages in an instant. “Perhaps I should take a break and return to this project later when Henry is around to consult with. He should be back from Idris next week.” Christopher bent to write something in his notebook, then made his way over to Grace’s station where she had a solution refluxing over a Bunsen burner. “How are you getting on with the synthesis?” he asked.

Grace had been working her way through some of Christopher’s old notebooks. The best way to gain scientific knowledge, it turned out, was to do the experiments yourself. She was attempting to replicate his results on past projects. In the process, she was learning basic techniques and becoming comfortable with the various instruments and chemicals in the laboratory.

“It seems to be going well,” shee told him, “although the solution is a darker yellow than you have described in your notes.” This began a very informative discussion about reaction conditions and the purity of compounds. By this point, it was starting to get dark outside, and so Grace finished her experiment and tidied up somewhat. “I’ll see you – not tomorrow, with the family day– Sunday then?” she asked.

“That’s right! I had nearly forgotten,” Christopher said, smiling. “My parents have – wait a moment. I thought we were inviting you and Jesse over! Oh heavens, I hope I wasn’t in charge of telling you,” he said worriedly.

“They did remember to invite us. Jesse will be there,” Grace assured him as she located her coat.

“And you won’t?” Christopher asked, head tilting in confusion.

“I thought it should stay strictly family. Jesse will always be my brother, but Tatiana was never truly family. And I share no blood with you all,” Grace explained. “It all worked out anyway because I… actually have family of my own that I’m meeting tomorrow. Cousins, or technically second cousins, around my age who are coming to London on some business this weekend.” She had sent a letter to her father’s cousin soon after everything had happened, and quickly gotten a response.

“I didn’t realize you had contact with the remaining Cartwrights! That’s wonderful then,” Christopher said jovially. “Have you met them before?” he asked.

Grace shook her head. “Perhaps as a young child, but not that I can remember,” she told him. “They were thrilled to hear from me though. Apparently, they sent letters infrequently over the years. Tatiana,” she said, fists clenching, “never let me know about them, and evidently sent short replies to tell them that I was well, but didn’t want to see them.” It was just one more cruelty Tatiana had inflicted.

Christopher frowned and said solemnly, “I’m very sorry Grace. That’s a terrible thing. I’m sorry that you had to suffer under her for so many years.”

“The important thing is that I’m free of her now,” Grace told him. She had to leave so that she could meet Jesse on time for training, so she quickly put on her coat and started out. “Until Sunday, then,” she said, bidding Christopher good evening before she left.

_________________________________________________________

Grace felt unusually light as she made her way home. It was incredible, she reflected, how so much had changed in just over two weeks. Spending her day in the laboratory was strangely peaceful, despite the occasional explosions. For so many years she had been defined by other people: she was Tatiana’s obedient girl, Jesse’s loving and determined sister, Tatiana’s weapon. In the lab, with Christopher… she was learning how to just be Grace.

Things had also improved outside the lab. Bolstered by a new confidence, Grace had finally accepted Jesse’s offer to join him in training. She was pleased to find that she remembered much of the training they had done together before he died. Over the years she had practiced when she could, but those times were rare with Tatiana prowling the house at odd hours. She was fast becoming skilled with a bow and arrows. She was also learning quickly with a Seraph blade, an entirely new weapon, although she doubted she was yet proficient enough to effectively wield them against a demon.

It was immensely satisfying to train and think how horrified Tatiana would have been. Grace wore dark gear rather than pale silk and lace dresses, hair kept in a simple braid instead of elaborate styles. She was gaining muscles and callouses, as well as covering herself in marks to increase agility, speed, accuracy, and so on. She was no longer Tatiana’s flawless porcelain doll. Even when not training, Grace now preferred simple dresses – necessary when she spent extensive time in a lab where spills and fires were always a risk.

Grace usually joined Jesse for training either quite early or quite late in the day, when fewer people were at the Institute. Jesse would share new techniques that he had learned and spar with her, as did Lucie on the days she joined them. Lucie had warmed again to Grace somewhat, although she still was a bit awkward whenever Cordelia or James came up in conversion. Another wonderful outcome of training was a tentative friendship with Ariadne that began when she encountered Grace and Jesse while training one evening. Ariadne confessed she had been unsettled by the revelations after Grace’s trial, but she bore Grace no ill will. They had started trading book recommendations.

Three friends made in three weeks, Grace thought, quite a change after a lifetime with none. Well, perhaps she had friends before her parents died, but if so, she did not remember them. Although it was difficult to tell whether she was truly friends with Lucie and Ariadne quite yet and not just familiar acquaintances. Grace didn’t entirely know how a friendship worked, how one should interact with friends. However, she was sure that Christopher could be counted as a genuine friend. They spent lots of time together and talked about numerous topics and weren’t those basic elements of a friendship?

_________________________________________________________

Sunday came quickly and Grace arrived in the lab early, eager to start a project she had considered for several days – organizing chemicals and other supplies in the lab. There was a system, vaguely, but she felt it could be much improved. She saw Christopher do a double-take when he arrived a half hour later and realized she was there.

“Grace! Good morning. You’re early. Or am I late?,” he asked, perplexed.

Grace felt a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. Up to this point, she had always gotten to Grosvenor Square later in the morning. “I arrived early today,” she said, alleviating Christopher’s confusion. “I’ve been getting to work on organizing all the chemicals and other compounds. I am also creating a more thorough inventory.”

Christopher appeared pleasantly surprised. “Capital idea, Grace!” he said. He examined the inventory list she had started, and offered a few suggestions for the layout.

“Jesse said you all had a good time together yesterday,” she said, hoping to make conversation as she started rewriting labels that were stained or faded on various vials.

“We did! It was a fine time having the family all together and talking to Jesse,” Christopher said happily, “although there was a small mishap when I tried out another rune combination.” His smile turned sheepish as he added, “Unfortunate, but my mother said the important thing is that no one got hurt, and she believes the sofa can be salvaged.”

Grace smiled slightly at the story, comparing it to the version she had heard from her brother. Jesse’s description of the incident had included a fairly large blaze that nearly set Sophie and Gideon on fire, a good deal of shouting, and the confiscation of Christopher’s steles for the remainder of the evening. “Jesse did mention something about an accident,” she said mildly.

“How was your visit with your cousins?” Christopher asked.

“Splendid. They were both very kind, and easy to talk to. I’ll be keeping in contact with them now,” Grace replied. Truly, it had been a pleasant afternoon with her two cousins – Samuel, Grace’s age, and Sarah, three years older. They had exchanged telephone numbers, and the two had extended an invitation for Grace to spend a weekend with them in Idris at the end of the month, to meet their parents and other siblings.

_________________________________________________________

They were working in companionable silence that afternoon when a voice that Grace recognized as Thomas Lightwood’s called “Hello Kit!”

“Afternoon, Tom!” Christopher greeted him as Thomas stepped into the lab.

“Oh, and Grace. Good afternoon. Kit and Jesse mentioned you were helping out now,” Thomas said, looking a bit unsure.

“Hello, Thomas,” Grace said simply in reply. She turned back to the bench and busied herself inspecting a bottle, putting on a new label, and marking it in the growing inventory list. She had seen Thomas several times in passing, and he came up fairly frequently in conversations with her new mutual friends, but she had not spoken with him directly. She was grateful when Christopher began updating Thomas on his research, and Thomas’s scrutinizing gaze moved away from her. Evidently Thomas had stopped by early to catch up with Christopher before the Merry Thieves all went out that evening.

Grace did her best to avoid Thomas as she moved around the lab to get various chemicals or use different instruments like the microscope. She did have to interrupt their conversation at one point, calling Christopher over to inspect a vial, because did it actually contain demon poison? (It did – from a Raum demon to be precise) Several minutes later she searched for a bottle that she swore had been right in front of her. “Christopher, have you seen the hydrochloric acid?” she asked.

“Hm, I’m not sure that I have,” he said, searching around slightly, but keeping his attention largely focused on pipetting a solution.

Thomas sighed but smiled fondly as he plucked the bottle in question from among the glassware in from of Christopher. “It’s right here,” Thomas said, then walked over towards Grace. “There you are,” he said, handing her the bottle.

“Thank you,” Grace replied, taking the bottle from him somewhat clumsily. He started to turn, then halted.

“I know everything’s all still a bit awkward, but – especially after talking with Jesse yesterday– I just want you to know that I don’t hold anything against you, Grace,” Thomas told her earnestly. “Goodness knows I’ve made bad decisions myself. And when I imagine myself in your situation – if I’d had the opportunity to get my sister back,” he said, swallowing hard, “and only Aunt Tatiana for company, well… I’ll just say that I can understand your motivations. I hope that we can be on amiable terms.” He looked very sincere.

“I – er, thank you. I appreciate it,” Grace said, uncertain how to respond. That seemed enough to satisfy Thomas, however; he nodded at her and made his way back to Christopher’s work station.

The atmosphere was much less tense after that, but it did not last long. Christopher was somewhere upstairs, changing from his burned and stained lab clothing into something he was allowed out in for the evening, when she heard more than one person coming down the stairs. She looked up to see alarm rising in Thomas’s expression, and turned to see James and Matthew as they greeted Thomas.

“Ah,” James said, he and Matthew halting as they saw Grace. “Miss Blackthorn,” he greeted her coolly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” His expression indicated that he would have much preferred not to see her ever again.

“It’s Cartwright again, actually,” Grace told him, fiddling with her pen, unsure what to do with her hands.

“Good afternoon, Miss Cartwright. What are you doing in my father’s lab? Are you planning to seduce Thomas or Kit now?” Matthew asked, voice bright with false cheerfulness.

Grace struggled to restrain her temper at the insult. “I am here to study science, and work on research with Christopher. I have been doing so for the last several weeks, in fact,” she said evenly.

“Science? You’re here to learn about science? With Christopher?” James asked, as he and Matthew stared at her incredulously.

“You expect use to believe that?” Matthew asked, eyebrows raised. “That you have suddenly been overcome with a burning interest in science, have come to the Consul’s house, and you don’t have some ulterior motive?”

Grace took a deep breath. “I am interested in science. I never had the freedom to pursue it before but I find it exceedingly fascinating. I am trying to find a place for myself, and a purpose. And Christopher,” she emphasized, “has no issue with my being here.” She stared them both down. “I know I did you terrible wrongs. I have apologized, to both of you, and many others. I don’t know what else you expect me to do,” she said in an icy tone. “And even if you doubt my sincerity, you must have by this point heard that my power was removed. Ask your mother the Consul,” she said, gesturing at Matthew, “or ask Jem Carstairs and the other Silent Brothers.”

It was at this tense moment that Christopher returned, changed into clothing that had not yet been stained or burned. “James, Matthew!” he greeted them happily, then seemed to finally register the fact that everyone’s expression looked strained. “Is something the matter?” he asked confusedly.

“Yes, somewhat,” James said. “You somehow forgot to mention that Miss Bla- sorry, Miss Cartwright has been helping you in the lab?” He stared hard at Christopher, face showing his disbelief.

“Yes, Grace has been helping. It’s been quite a good time so far,” Christopher said, still looking quite baffled. “Did you want to help too?” he asked, looking between both James and Matthew.

“We’re not upset because we want to help in the lab,” Matthew burst out, “we want to know why you not only invited our – our nemesisinto my family’s house, and neglected to even mention it!”

“Grace is our nemesis?” Christopher asked, looking even more bewildered.

“Kit, do you not remember the entire ordeal over the past few months? In which we discovered that for years Grace used a bracelet and demon powers to control my mind? Under the direction of your crazy aunt and my demon grandfather?” James asked with great exasperation.

“Oh that!” Christopher said, looking pleased that he had finally figured out what they were discussing. “Yes of course I remember that. Grace apologized! She feels very badly about all of it,” he stated, apparently expecting that to settle the matter.

“Kit, we are telling you that you can’t be sure of her intentions. She could still be up to something,” Matthew said.

“I am not-” Grace began to retort, but was cut off as Matthew continued, “It’s just that you have to see how it looks, you suddenly being all friendly with someone who is a known manipulator who, for very good reasons, does not get on with your friends?”

“Thomas has Alastair around all the time, and we never used to like him either,” Christopher said stubbornly. “I don’t understand why we can’t also be friends with Grace now too.” Thomas sputtered, clearly uncomfortable having his still-new boyfriend brought into the conversation. Up to this point he had been hovering nervously, eyes darting back and forth as his friends argued. “Grace has apologized,” Christopher continued “She’s here because she wants to pursue science, and seeing as neither of you spend much time down here, you wouldn’t see her much.”

Grace was astounded to see ever-cheerful Christopher looking slightly angry. His friends looked quite surprised as well.

“Also,” Christopher added, “isn’t it rude to be arguing about Grace while she’s still in the room?”

Clearly taken aback, James said, “I didn’t mean to…I – look, Kit, just…” His mouth tightened as he glanced at Grace, then back to Christopher. “Gwyliwch eich cefn. Mae hi'n aml yn dweud celwyddau,” he said in some odd language.

Christopher answered him in the same language, his tone still uncharacteristically sharp. “Hyderaf hi.”

The cousins stared each other down for another moment until an abashed-looking Matthew cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “We’ll go wait upstairs, I think,” he said, tugging James towards the stairs.

They left, and Christopher told Thomas that he’d be cleaned up in a minute if he’d like to head upstairs too. Thomas did so as Christopher capped his open test tubes and turned off the Bunsen burners, face still pensive.

Grace broke the uneasy silence. “I’m sorry to put you in a difficult spot with your friends, Christopher.”

Christopher looked appalled as he replied, “No, I’m sorry Grace. I suppose I never thought to mention that you were helping in the lab now. I didn’t think about how they would react if they just saw you down here.” He sighed. “I’m never sure what to tell which people, or predict how they will react,” he said sadly. “I think they’ll come around though,” he added, brightening. “I’ll talk to them tonight. Maybe if I just tell them about the experiments we’ve been working on, and your organizational system…”

Grace began cleaning her station as well, but she still had a remaining question. “What was it that you and James were speaking? Was it some demon language?” she inquired. She had not yet covered any demon tongues in her training.

Christopher gave a small, surprised laugh. “Not a demon tongue actually – Welsh. Although my father does like to say it’s quite unnatural,” he said, amused.

Grace hadn’t connected the pieces. She had known that James spoke Welsh. It would make sense that his cousins would speak the language as well. “What were you two saying?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

Christopher looked somewhat uncomfortable, avoiding her gaze, instead focusing on his notebook. “James warned me to watch my back because you’ve been known to lie,” he said finally. He looked up, now meeting her eyes, and said sincerely, “But I told him that I trust you.”

Grace looked back at him, overwhelmed by his earnestness. “Thank you, Christopher. You don’t know how much that means to me,” she said softly, and her cheeks suddenly felt a bit warm.

“Of course!” Christopher said. “You’re a wonderful lab partner. As good as Henry.”

Coming from Christopher, who greatly admired Henry, Grace recognized that this was indeed high praise.

“I should be leaving now,” he said, grabbing his hat. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Have a good time tonight.”

Christopher smiled at her as he left. Grace wondered what it meant that she felt an odd fluttering in her stomach at that. And as she made her way home, she kept replaying the moment in her mind where Christopher looked earnestly at her with bright violet eyes and told her that he trusted her.

#finished writing this instead of studying oops #gracetopher #tlh #fanfic #my fic #grace blackthorn #christopher lightwood

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snarktheater · 3 years

Text

Ready Player Two — Opening Cutscene & Chapter 0

Hello again.

It’s been a while. I haven’t been active on this blog since, fittingly enough, Ready Player One. I was going to do this sooner—even had an alarm set up and everything—but then, it turns out, I’m feeling so much negativity about the world in general that a book just pales in comparison.

Seriously, I had to scrap this post’s entire intro because it’s not even 2020 anymore as I write this. And you know, maybe that’s for the best. I’m not really in the mood for doom and gloom and bitching anymore. I uninstalled Twitter from my phone a while back, I’ve been doing good at my daily writing sprints, my biggest fanfic project concluded on a positive note from people I didn’t even realize had been following it for years.

So I don’t know what this is going to be like. My commentary, I mean; I’ve heard echoes of what the book is like, so I’m not expecting a surprise there.

The book opens right after the end of Ready Player One, in a “Cutscene” where Wade recounts to us what happened after he won Halliday’s contest. It also assumes you remember exactly who the main characters of the book are, which is a bold move for a sequel that came out almost a decade after the original.

Technically, I could just look up the details I’m fuzzy about. But also, I think it’s more authentic if I don’t. I trust my memory enough that if I’m wrong, it’ll be in subtle enough ways that it’ll almost be a private jokes between all of us. An “if you know, you know” sort of error system. And I don’t think there’s anything more true to the spirit of this book than that.

Shoto had flown back home to Japan to take over operations at GSS’s Hokkaido division.

So Wade starts his tenure with nepotism. Wasn’t Shoto really young? Why is he qualified to run anything?

Aech was enjoying an extended vacation in Senegal, a country she’d dreamed of visiting her whole life, because her ancestors had come from there.

You know what, I’m not touching “send the token black character back to Africa.” This isn’t my lane.

And Samantha had flown back to Vancouver to pack up her belongings and say goodbye to her grandmother, Evelyn.

Why is she saying goodbye? Why, she’s moving to Columbus to be with Wade, of course! It’s not like there was anything else in her life. Was there? And why isn’t she referred to as Art3mis? I’m pretty sure Wade found out all of their offline names in the last book, and the inconsistency mildly bothers me.

These three sentences are back to back, by the way. Someone—I forget who—once described Ready Player One as a book that’s fun to write a wiki about, because it’s got fun concepts to summarize about until you realize that all the emotional connective tissue you need to turn a list of things into a story is missing, and that’s roughly how this first page feels.

Hell, the first line of the book is Wade telling us he remained offline for nine whole days after winning the contest, but by the end of the second paragraph we’re already to him logging back into the OASIS to "distract himself from [his and Samantha’s] reunion.

I’ll give Ernest Cline one thing: it feels like he wrote this opening nine days after the first book and did about as much maturing as a teenage boy would do between the two books.

Way more time is spent describing Wade’s OASIS rig, or the in-game planet where the climax of the last book happened, than anything else in this introduction. He is immediately greeted by a crowd of adoring fans who have been waiting over a week for him to come back in the game, because they’re all grateful that our protagonist and his friends restored their avatars after they were annihilated by the Sixers.

You’d think the adoring fans would serve some kind of purpose, or that something would happen, but no. Wade immediately goes “ew, people” and teleports away, since he essentially has ultimate powers within the game. With a caveat: the powers are actually coming from the Robes of Anorak he’s wearing, and I’m mentioning that in the hopes that it will pay off sometime in the book’s future, assuming Cline at least learned to do that. But still, let’s not skip too fast the fact that we introduced that crowd of adoring fans for no other purpose than to tell us they’re out there, because it fits right in with the last book’s attempts at saying as little as humanly possible in as many words as possible.

Anyway, Wade went back into Anorak’s study, where he arbitrarily checks out the Easter Egg he got at the end of the last book, and finds an inscription on it. I was dreading another riddle, but no, it’s just straight-up instructions to a vault in the GSS archives, so Wade logs off and goes to check it out.

Of course Halliday had put [the archives] [on the 13th floor]. In one of his favorite TV shows, Max Headroom, Network 23’s hidden research-and-development lab was located on the thirteenth floor. And The Thirteenth Floor was also the title of an old sci-fi film about virtual reality, released in 1999, right on the heels of both The Matrix and eXistenZ.

I’m equally shocked that it took two whole pages (on my ereader) to get to the first slew of references, and that one of these references is from 1999. I didn’t know we were allowed to think of anything that isn’t the 80s. Speaking of which, I’ll spare you the whole paragraph, but the book does feel the need to explain why it’s vault 42.

Inside the vault, there’s another egg containing a super-fancy and advanced OASIS headset. The egg also has a video monitor that plays a video message from James Halliday shortly before his death.

But despite his condition, he hadn’t used his OASIS avatar to record this message like he had with Anorak’s Invitation. For some reason, he’d chosen to appear in the flesh this time, under the brutal, unforgiving light of reality.

That oh-so-important message? An infodump about the headset’s working. He called it an OASIS Neural Interface, ONI for short. It basically lets you experience the OASIS through all your senses with sensory input just like the real thing, you know, that thing Wade had to get a fancy suit and massive rig to do in the first book. And yes, Wade does spend a paragraph or two comparing it to other works of science fiction. Of course he does.

More importantly, it also records all the sensory input into a separate file, which can then be replayed over to re-experience said sensations, or live someone else’s experiences. Halliday tries to frame it as a tool to generate communication and empathy, seemingly all without acknowledging the potential creepiness of that. But hey. Who knows. Maybe that’s because this is the setup stage, and it’ll pay off eventually.

I also wondered about the name Halliday had chosen for his invention. I’d seen enough anime to know that oni was also a Japanese word for a giant horned demon from the pits of hell.

Add “reducing Japan to anime” to the list of things the book has failed to improve upon. By the way, the narration insisted on spelling out ONI letter by letter earlier, so it’s weird to make that link now. It’s also just kind of inelegant to just tell us “this is the symbolism behind the name”, but that’s just the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from this book.

Anyway, the reason Halliday kept this for his successor to find is he wants Wade to test out the technology and decide if humanity is ready for it. Why Halliday thinks the most glorified pop culture trivia / video game competition qualifies you for such a decision should be a problem, but sadly, a lot of billionaires have said and done a lot of dumb and eerily similar things in the past few years since I read Ready Player One, so actually, I can’t fault the book for that one. Tragically, our fates really are in the hands of people who should rightfully be cartoon villains.

To his credit, Wade does question Halliday’s motives in keeping this under wraps at all rather than releasing it himself. So hey, maybe it really is setting something up.

Wade goes back to his office with the ONI, and we’re treated with this lovely piece of narration:

I was grateful that Samantha wasn’t there. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to talk me out of testing the ONI. Because I was worried she might try to, and if she did, she would’ve succeeded. (I’d recently discovered that when you’re madly in love with someone they can persuade you to do pretty much anything.)

There’s a lot to unpack about the implications this has for their relationship, but it’s way too early in the book for me to editorialize when one character hasn’t even been on the page yet. So I’ll just leave it here for the record. Hopefully you see the problem without me needing to point it out anyway. If not, feel free to hit my inbox.

So Wade, confident in the fact that Halliday would have warned him if there were any risks to using the ONI, decides to try it out. Even though he immediately follows up that statement with this:

According to the ONI documentation, forcibly removing the headset while it was in operation could severely damage the wearer’s brain and/or leave them in a permanent coma. So the titanium-reinforced safety bands made certain this couldn’t happen. I found this little detail comforting instead of unsettling. Riding in an automobile was risky, too, if you didn’t wear your seatbelt…

Wade. My dude. What the fuck is this simile. And why don’t you see that maybe a machine where you’re forcibly trapping yourself inside a virtual reality might be dangerous? Hell, when I said this was setting something up, I was expecting something vaguely interesting about the potential breach of privacy, or how you don’t need to literally walk in someone’s shoes to feel empathy for them, or anything substantial, but now I’m worried it’ll just end up as “man, sometimes science fiction machines will scramble your brain, isn’t that weird”?

Like, I don’t know, to me “it will put you in a coma” sounds like a good reason for Halliday not to release the ONI. Maybe we can still make it into a commentary on how corporations will sell stuff they know is directly harmful if it can make them a profit. Who knows.

The book waffles on about more risks, and the mechanics of how the ONI activates, and the warning disclaimer when it does turn on. Specifically, there’s a time limit of twelve consecutive hours, after which you’ll be automatically logged out, because yes, using the thing for too long can also cause brain damage.

Gregarious Simulation Systems will not be held responsible for any injuries caused by improper use of the OASIS Neural Interface.

See, now there’s the sort of thing that could be a source for commentary, but no, instead it’s thrown in there like it’s nothing and Wade glosses over the entire warning, and instead keep wondering why Halliday didn’t just release the ONI if even the safety disclaimers were in place.

By the way: this whole system has apparently gone through several independent human trials already, so I’m finding it hard to imagine that it’s actually a secret Halliday took to the grave as Wade says. Unless he also had everyone involved in those trials killed afterwards. Or maybe they all ended up with brain damage which rendered them incapable of talking about it.

And before you think I’m being unfair and maybe we’re supposed to understand that ourselves even if the protagonist doesn’t, I’ll remind you that the book didn’t trust its reader to know what the number 42 is a reference to, or what an oni is, even though I don’t think anyone in the target audience wouldn’t know about these two things.

There’s also the fact that, since this book came out, a video game did release with a scene intentionally designed to cause seizures, and it had countless fans flocking to defend it over that fact. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not assuming this book’s stance on whether your video game console causes brain damage and possibly coma is actually a bad thing, or just an acceptable risk.

Wade certainly seems to think so, since he agrees to the terms of service.

As the timestamp faded away, it was replaced by a short message, just three words long—the last thing I would see before I left the real world and entered the virtual one. But they weren’t the three words I was used to seeing. I—like every other ONI user to come—was greeted by a new message Halliday had created, to welcome those visitors who had adopted his new technology: READY PLAYER TWO

Well now that’s just silly.

And that’s our opening cutscene. And while this post is already long enough, I feel like I have to go on to chapter 0, because it feels like barely anything has happened so far. We didn’t even introduce any new character motivation or conflict, or a mystery to set the plot into motion, unless I’m supposed to think “why didn’t Halliday release this?” counts.

So Wade is back into the OASIS, and tells us about how much more real it all feels thanks to the ONI. I especially have to question how he can smell or taste anything—both of which he tells us he can. Like, who coded that? Did Halliday implement every single smell and taste himself, without anyone noticing? I hope you don’t need me to tell you that’s not typically how features are added to a large-scale video game.

If it feels like I’m nitpicking at the logic of the book, even though I always say I’m not very interested in that and would rather talk themes, it’s because I am, because there isn’t much else to discuss so far. Wade is happy about tasting virtual fruit. That’s the scene.

He tests out if he can feel pain, but no, the ONI reduces pain (a gunshot is translated as “a hard pinch”). On one hand, good, it would be a nightmare otherwise. On the other hand, I sort of hope there’s a setting for that in there, because otherwise, you just lost an entire clientele of kinksters.

This was it—the final, inevitable step in the evolution of videogames and virtual reality. The simulation had now become indistinguishable from real life.

Ah, now we have some juicy themes. Because if you think this is the inevitable final step in the evolution of video games, I invite you to look at literally any other art form, and what happened to them once hyperrealism became easy. Hint: they didn’t stop evolving, because it turns out realism isn’t the only goal one can achieve with art.

The realism discussion is not a new one in video games, mind you. In case you’re out of the loop: most of the big-budget blockbuster games (“AAA” as they’re known) are aiming for hyperrealism nowadays, and it results in development teams being forced to work in horrible conditions (known with the equally horrible euphemism of “crunch”). And, because it turns out that 1) humans working themselves to the bones isn’t healthy and 2) racing for realism with little to no vision besides it makes for poor creativity, a lot of these games come out as disappointments. Oh, there are hordes of Gamers™ who will defend them to the bitter end, but inevitably, in the months following release, the defense cools off while the criticism keeps on going, because the defense was a knee-jerk reaction born of a mix of people hyping themselves up for a game they hadn’t seen that much of yet, then attaching a part of their identity to liking that thing.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that this throwaway line feels like it comes from someone who is so out of touch as to accidentally support a world view that has in fact resulted in the biggest part of the industry stagnating artistically while growing more toxic for the people working in it. All the while, more and more independent games come out every year, proving that that realism is nowhere near the most important thing to making a game good, and that you can achieve much better results with a small team.

What I’m trying to say is: watch Jim Sterling’s channel, they’ve been bleeding out subscribers since they came out as nonbinary and make much better commentary on this topic than I could, and play Hades.

Back to the book, which sadly hasn’t become any more interesting since I decided to go on a tangent. Wade tests the ONI functions some more, all the while musing on how he knows Samantha would disapprove but that he doesn’t care, because what loving relationship doesn’t consist of that?

Among the functions, he tries the ONI files, the aforementioned recordings of someone else’s experiences. Specifically, a woman, which Wade tells us by telling us he suddenly has breasts, I suppose because Ernest Cline saw that subreddit about men writing women and went “I want a piece of that”. Oh, and also, those sample files were recorded from real people, in the real world. And yes, this goes exactly where you think it does.

SEX-M-F.oni, SEX-F-F.oni, and SEX-Nonbinary.oni

Look, I actually started writing a complaint about the boobs thing, and I deleted it, but now Cline is doing it on purpose. So, here goes: I saw a quote from this book on Twitter that looked like Cline attempting to make up for Wade’s casual transphobia in the first book. It wasn’t good, but it at least sounded like he was trying. So to immediately get this is…a lot? Let’s go for a lot.

I can almost excuse the use of “M” and “F”. You gotta name your files and you could excuse a non-exhaustive list. But…nonbinary? On one hand, I want to know what Cline means. On the other hand, I don’t think he can come up with an answer I’ll find satisfactory.

We are thankfully spared from finding out because Wade has just lost his virginity to Samantha a few days ago and he’s 1) not ready for this and 2) pretty sure this counts as cheating. You could make a case that this is more like porn, but I can see that this is more of a personal distinction anyway, and I can respect that one. Plus, you know. I don’t want to find out.

Wade logs off, and he can’t tell the difference between the OASIS with the ONI, and decides this will change the world. And then it’s back to the “how did he do it and keep it a secret”, even though Wade now finds out in the documentation that this had been in development for twenty-five years, basically since the OASIS launched. So it’s not really that it’s a secret, so much as there are a lot of people under very strict NDAs out there. Or, again, they’re all dead and/or otherwise incapacitated.

The ONI is the product of the Accessibility Research Lab, and Wade tells us about other stuff that the lab has produced using similar technology, mostly for medical purposes.

GSS patented each of the Accessibility Research Lab’s inventions, but Halliday never made any effort to profit from them. Instead, he set up a program to give these neuroprosthetic implants away, to any OASIS users who could benefit from them. GSS even subsidized the cost of their implant surgery.

Look, it’s nice that you want Halliday to be the good guy through and through, but it’s kind of hard to take any social commentary seriously when you think this is how a billionaire is made. Hell, even when he shut down the lab and fired its entire staff, he gave them a big enough severance package to set them for life. You know. Capitalism!

Hey, remember when Samantha said she was going to end world hunger if she won the contest, a thing billionaires right now could be doing, but aren’t, and she is now the co-owner of GSS? Yeah, I kind of hope the book remembers that too.

Speaking of the co-owners, the book just completely skips over the debate that our four main characters have over whether or not to release the ONI to the world. All we know is that they voted, and the vote goes in favor of releasing it. I mean, why have characters who could have opinions and feelings that could create a discussion? That might make us care about them! And who wants to care about characters in a story?

We put them on sale at the lowest possible price, to make sure as many people as possible could experience the OASIS Neural Interface for themselves.

What exactly is “the lowest possible price” here? Your company literally owns money. Like, OASIS money is real money. There is literally nothing stopping you from giving them away, especially because what you’re giving away is access to the platform you’re already running for a profit.

It’s almost like, even trying to make “good billionaires” out of its protagonists, the book can’t stop and actually make them significantly good.

Oh, I should mention. If you thought my Ready Player One review was angry at capitalism, wait until you see what the past couple years have done to me.

Anyway, once they his 7,777,777 simultaneous ONI users, a new riddle shows up on Halliday’s website. Because yep: our plot is apparently not about the implications of releasing the ONI, or any of the potential ideological discussions associated with that, it’s another riddle. Oh boy, do I wish I’d known that.

Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role For each fragment my heir must pay a toll To once again make the Siren whole

I cannot wait to have the book give me just not enough information to solve the riddle until it’s solved by the book itself. That was so much fun the other…what was it, five times? Six times? Something like that. Wade already tells us the Siren might be Kira Morrow, because her alias was named after one of the sirens of Greek myth, so I can’t wait for that plot point to stick around. It was so fun to hear all about this man pining for another man’s wife the first time!

So this is the “Shard Riddle”. People are apparently convinced it was made by Wade and his crew as a publicity stunt, but of course, they know that that isn’t the case, and they also don’t know what that riddle is supposed to lead to. So, that’s great. We have a puzzle, and we also don’t know what the stakes are. All we know is that Wade wants to solve the puzzle essentially because it’s a challenge.

We skip over a year, and Wade tells us about how IOI collapses and gets absorbed by GSS because of the ONI’s launch. Remember IOI? They were the bad guys, so I guess we have to cheer?

GSS absorbed IOI and all of its assets, transforming us into an unstoppable megacorporation with a global monopoly on the world’s most popular entertainment, education, and communications platform.To celebrate, we released all of IOI’s indentured servants and forgave their outstanding debts.

On one hand: good for the slave. On the other hand: not gonna cheer for a monopoly, you guys.

Another year’s skip, and now 99% of the OASIS users are using the ONI, and yes, that includes trading their experiences with one another too. And I guess we’re still hand-waving any possible problems associated with that technology, because the technology is made so that all recordings must be shared and played through the OASIS.

This allowed us to weed out unsavory or illegal recordings before they could be shared with other users.

How? Do you know any of the problems associated with content moderations on the current platforms? I don’t know if I want to point to Youtube’s extremely faulty algorithm, Twitter’s complete apathy towards its Nazis, or Facebook doing moderation by making underpaid staff watch all potentially problematic content, which resulted in serious psychological damage to said staff.

You can’t just say that as if it solved everything. The chapter later says this is handled by an AI called “CenSoft”, and as an AI engineer myself, let me tell you: this is not going to work. Again: Youtube is the way it is for a reason.

It also let us maintain our monopoly on what was rapidly becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the history of the world.

And again, monopolies are totally a good thing as long as it’s in the right hands!

When I’m implying that the book does not care for any of these potential problems, I mean it. These enormous ethical issues are sidestepped in cold narratin, and we just keep going on introducing new slang that I hate, but have to quote so help you keep up.

“Sims” were recordings made inside the OASIS, and “Recs” were ONI recordings made in reality. Except that most kids no longer referred to it as “reality.” They called it “the Earl.” (A term derived from the initialism IRL.) And “Ito” was slang for “in the OASIS.” So Recs were recorded in the Earl, and Sims were created Ito.

There. You have been infodumped.

In the midst of all this (still extremely dry) exposition about how this changed media, we also get this tidbit:

You could take any drug, eat any kind of food, and have any kind of sex, without worrying about addiction, calories, or consequences.

Now, I was going to rant about this, but then, a page later, this happens and spares me the trouble:

I’d struggled with OASIS addiction before the ONI was released. Now logging on to the simulation was like mainlining some sort of chemically engineered superheroin.

So, you are aware that addiction isn’t just possible, but extremely facilitated by this. But sure, no worries! It’s perfectly safe! Because our protagonists are good.

Also, remember how the last book ended on a weak attempt at having a moral that maybe the real world is good, actually? Yeah, Wade tells us the ONI helps poor people live enjoyable lives in the OASIS. So. Fuck that message, I guess. It only applies if you’re the literal wealthiest man on Earth.

And me? All my dreams had come true. I’d gotten stupidly rich and absurdly famous. I’d fallen in love with my dream girl and she had fallen in love with me. Surely I was happy, right? Not so much, as this account will show.

Aside from the aforementioned returning OASIS affiction, there’s the Shard riddle that Wade is now obsessed with, to the point of offering a billion-dollar reward to anyone with information about the riddle’s answer.

I announced this reward with a stylized short film that I modeled after Anorak’s Invitation. I hoped it would seem like a lighthearted play on Halliday’s contest instead of a desperate cry for help. It seemed to work.

On one hand: good, Wade finally has a character flaw that the book actually acknowledges as a character flaw. I can work with that. On the other hand: this is all told to me in such a dispassionate that I am dreading how the book will handle this character flaw. Which is to say, I’m not expecting it to be very good.

(For a brief time, some of the younger, more idealistic shard hunters referred to themselves as “shunters” to differentiate themselves from their elder counterparts. But when everyone began to call them “sharters” instead, they changed their minds and started to call themselves gunters too. The moniker still fit. The Seven Shards were Easter eggs hidden by Halliday, and we were all hunting for them.)

Especially when this is something the narration feels is more important to tell me about.

Anyway, skip another year, and a gunter finally leads Wade to the First Shard. Solved that riddle, I guess. And wait, wasn’t part of why IOI was ~evil~ in the first book that they were paying people to find the Easter Egg for them? How is this any different, Wade?

And when I picked it up, I set in motion a series of events that would drastically alter the fate of the human race. As one of the only eyewitnesses to these historic events, I feel obligated to give my own written account of what occurred. So that future generations—if there are any—will have all the facts at their disposal when they decide how to judge my actions.

And that is the end of our chapter 0. And can I just say: what a mess already. I don’t think my snark can properly convey how utterly devoid of emotion this book’s writing is, and that alone is honestly more of a turn-off than anything else in the book so far. Even, knowing that I railed about it in the first book, I still feel newly unprepared for it. And it’s not like this double-prologue is making me hopeful that the book will show an ounce more critical thinking—or decent fucking humanity towards marginalized groups—as its predecessor.

So, that’s a lot to look forward to! For the sake of my sanity and schedule, don’t expect me to do such big posts every time. I’ll probably do one chapter a week from now on, if that. We’re in for a long ride, but I hope it’s worth it, at least.

#ready player two #ernest cline #st: ready player two #book reviews

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kineticallyanywhere · 4 years

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I'd love to hear those fusion thots :eyes: the pacific rim ones were V good

If you’ve been around this house for a hot minute you might know that fusion aus are My Entire Jam Garden so you might imagine I’ve already put some thought into this and you would imagine right. The following was brainstormed in consort with @aryashi my second brain.

The basis for this au is that fusion is possible in the forgotten realms and is just a thing people there can do. This also applies to sudden interdimensional travelers.

tl;dr I wrote basically a one-shot’s worth of words down there but in short fusion is rad but also there's an unexpected amount of drama. which is basically a summary of the podcast but replace "fusion" with "fatherhood"

(preface: fusion is not a sex metaphor, just like pacific rim. Platonic fusion is normal. Familial fusion is normal. Okay, continue.)

First inter-dad fusion: “I silence his dumb ass with a kiss” except its “I silence his dumb ass by accidentally fusing our bodies and consiousnesses into a single being w h o o p s”

I like to name fusions as something other than their romantic ship name so let’s call him… o h yeah we named all of Henry’s fusions after animals. So this guy is Hare (like Darryl). Hare is pretty stable from the outside, but their internal dialogues clash really hard so they're incredibly slow to make decisions.

Internally, Henry feels like he's crossed Darryls boundaries. They have to hold it, but he lets Darryl take the wheel and all similar mistakes are made. They make it through the thing with the Lance before unfusing. Darryl has no idea what that was and already has a lot of intimacy issues, so he’s not particularly inclined to try that again for funsies. Henry is curious, but there’s a buried part of him that’s making him deeply unsettled by the whole experience. He can barely have a straight thought about it, much less articulate the feeling, so he doesn’t try. He lets it go.

First sons fusion: When the Lord of Chaos throws back his robe, yelling “Dad! !” it’s a GIANT Lark&Sparrow. They’re like trying to fuse two rubies together, you just get a bigger ruby. This changes a bit later, when the twins start to diverge from each other vis a vis Love Wolfism, but basically the Lord of Chaos is an Oak Twin the size of their dad. But still looks 12. It probably actually takes the Love Wolf speech from Henry and their divergent reactions to get them to unfuse.

Second inter-dad fusion: That other time Henry and Darryl smooched while high on drug flowers. It was very unpleasant, they don’t talk about it, they don’t try that again for a while.

They get a book on fusions from the Library that reads almost like a birds and the bees talk and there is minor culture-shock panicking about whether fusion is Like That, but something in Henry is telling him “No. It’s not Like That.” He doesn’t really know why he’s so solid in that belief. He understands that fusion is unique and powerful and a wonderful thing, but something about doing it is just… getting under his skin.

Third inter-dad fusion: Glenn and Ron. I’m not even sure the exact context or anything. Maybe they were just vibin’. All I really know is that I imagine these two occasionally fuse for the weirdest things, like

Fourth inter-dad fusion: also Glon, fishing magic items out of a giant toilet. They needed to be taller.

Glon is… gosh, what the heck is Glon. Performative out the ass, for sure. Down for basically anything. Allowed to wear bootie shorts.

Back up a hot minute though, because first dad-son fusion: almost happens on the Tower of Terry. It comes so close. They’re in that hug, and Ron thinks maybe if they fuse, the magic won’t take TJ. Or even if it takes them both, that’s better than TJ getting taken alone. They don’t have to say “I’m sorry” or “I love you, son” out loud, but before it really takes, Terry gets ripped away. Because Willy can’t have that, can he?

Fifth inter-dad fusion: is Glon again, but the circumstances are way different because Ron just saw the mummy of his wife and Glenn is trying to help him breeze past it and it works until it doesn’t and they fall apart with Ron a crying mess.

Sixth inter-dad fusion buckle up because we’ve reached Ravenloft. Before dad-fusion 6, Henry gets caught in his dad’s claws. He feels something very familiar and rejects it with everything he has, and escapes to grab Glenn. Then he gets hit by Calm Emotions, Glenn reaches up, trying not to fall, and Henry is already super chill about everything all of a sudden, so when Glenn tries to fuse out of panic, Henry goes for it.

Gila—Henry and Glenn—can do actual bard magic. They’re like Opal, in that a single moment of disconnect is enough to snap them apart and finding that disconnect is not difficult. But when the situation is saving their kids and telling their asshole dads to get lost, that’s plenty enough connection to cast an actual magic-ass thunderwave with a guitar and maybe a bit more.

(Barry didn’t like that.)

So another fun thing about adding this factor to cannon is that this lets the dads have glimpses inside each other’s heads. So certain conversations could change a little bit. For example, in the van while they’re driving away from the Ravenloft fight and Henry’s explaining a few things.

Henry: I don't have a lot of memories from that time in my life— Glenn: Not a lot? Try "not any.” Henry: Glenn— Glenn: Dude, none of my business, but your brain was weird. Henry: Glenn. Glenn: Like did the government get to you when you showed up on earth or— Henry: Glenn what the fff—rick are you even saying just shut up Darryl: …

Darryl had noticed, too, but Glenn has other fusion experience to compare with. Henry could catch glimpses and imprints and trains of thought which ground in different points of Darryl/Glenn’s entire life, and Glenn and Ron can do that equally with each other. But a bunch of things for Henry, if you try to backtrack to where the decision comes from it just. Stops. Especially with using magic, which Glenn got to do. And Henry’s thoughts on fusion end dead hard.

(filtering all of this through Freddie’s headcanon that Glenn always figured Henry was from Faerun but was just wildly wrong about all the details is so much fun)

This is the part in the fic series where there’s a one-shot about Henry having a panic attack just outside of the camp at night, and the most he can explain is just that something about seeing his dad again set him off.

And then we get to a lighter turn for first dad-son fusion but for realsies this time: Ron Stampler nat 20s to hug his son and then also is the son. And that dad. And dads are supposed to be inside to do a ritual for a demon cow.

RJ is the sweetest dude. Also if you don’t sit on him he will wander off and do the most extreme version of the first thing that comes to his mind for a problem solution or release from boredom. And he will not tell you about it in advance, so seriously. Sit on him.

So they stand there for a second like "yes... Yes. Yes... Okay. Im... I'm the dad. But I'm the kid? But im. The dad. And all the other dads are also the kid so... Dad... Trumps kid status. And I'm the dad... Cool." and they go in to help with the demon cow.

The kids are flipping out outside.

Henry spots them and drops the cage, almost like he’s Garnet and just spotted Stevonnie. While all the other dad’s are freaking out/fawning/curious, Glenn lifts their glasses and theres four eyes and he drops the glasses and never mentions this again.

Rj: hi um. I'm a dad.... Yeah. So I'm here tooooooo frickin kill a demon cow let's do this Rj: got the good dad vibes comin out of my butt

For realsies though Terry should be outside, so they unfuse for the cow thing and the bbq but then Dennis happens.

Second dad-son fusion: Dennis: are you sure you've got this? Ron: i can do it TJ: he can DO it dad GIVE ME YOUR HAND

RJ’s an arcane trickster and it’s real cool and Dennis looks so jealous ha ha ha and also they separate after the fight and suddenly Terry’s unsettled and needs to talk to Ron for a second because “Hey Dad is Dennis not real????????”

Third dad-son fusion: is way less eventful, but who the heck can say no to more reasons to cry about the Wilsons at the tail end of the Supper Bowl arc?

Fusion is not a replacement for talking, but it is a bit smoother in communicating emotions. It doesn’t happen until the end of their talk, when Darryl’s got his arm around Grant. I don’t think either of them are super attached to this whole fusion thing, (If Grant is, it certainly wasn’t his dad he’d been thinking about trying it with. Maybe one of the other kids… “maybe Terry.”) so they may not even pick a name. Henry certainly cries at least twice as hard, but when they want to just get something to eat and maybe just hang out for a while, nobody pushes.

I think the most important part of this is that it gives Grant a kind of… emotional break. Lets him feel something nice again— like he does in the show, too, but in a way that’s a bit more stable while it lasts. Like the feeling when you’re a kid on a long car ride with your parents, one that ends in getting home late and you’ve fallen asleep and they carry you out of the car.

Good things for Grant Wilson for til forever.

Somewhere in that arc, though, Glenn approaches Henry by themselves. Glenn’s not really a feelings guy, but whatever’s going on in Henry’s head is a problem. It’s a one-up the o-dads have on them, and they can’t afford that right now.

Glenn: so you like... Really don't hardly remember being a kid? Henry: Glenn, I don't want to talk about it Glenn: I bet your dad's gonna wanna talk about it Henry: well... i don't care what he wants Glenn:... You seriously don't know how you got to earth? Henry: [exasperated] the frick are you-- I got to earth like anyone else, Glenn. You know where babies come from, right? Glenn: of course i fucking know where babies come from. A mommy and a daddy love each other very much and then their kid runs away so hard he skips dimensions Henry: wh-- wait you-- do you think I'm an alien? Glenn: obviously Henry: Glenn that's-- [sighs, rubs his face] Glenn this isn't the kind of time for your conspiracies Glenn: hey as far as I'm concerned, a man who sleeps with an axe under his pillow is a fool every night but one. and you shoot poison from your hands and shape shift into bears

Which adds nicely to the slide of heading to Oakveil next

Henry: y'know what. When we leave here, we can get my kids next. Glenn: your interdimensional kids Henry: to prove to you you're being crazy. Again. Glenn: De Nial is a river man, and we left it back on earth

And one more dialogue bite, because…

Glenn: claim your powers latched onto you from this world all you want. But that language you and your dad spoke, didn't come out of the air, it came out of the door in your head

...fusion means the other dads get to learn about the metaphorical brain door.

This brings us into the most recent arc, heading into Oakveil. He and Ron sneak in, and Beary tells Henry he’s home, and pieces start to click together. Henry’s from this world, so he understands why he’s had such a particular view on fusion and that basic cultural understanding. That it’s considered normal. And that it’s even normal for a kid’s first fusion to be with their parent. Their parent who loves them and knows them wants to see them grow.

Bear Ry’Oak is not that.

First O-dad fusion: Henry’s first fusion was with his dad.

I think the worst thing is that, when fused with his dad, Hen doesn't feel like he's not himself. one of the interesting things about the Oaks is that they're kind of all slight alterations on the same traits. Like as gross as it feels to admit, Beary is just Henry but with the condescension turned up to a billion and his high horse is basically an elephant and no self-awareness or care for how others might have different perspectives from him

But Beary is still so overwhelming to Henry that it just flattens pretty much anything that makes Henry, Henry. Specifically the parts that Barry dislikes. like Henry's anger. To directly quote Aryashi: “Beary thinks using fusion for combat is barbaric. obviously fusion is for Conflict Resolution. Fuse with Beary so he can sort out your disagreement with him!”

(and then bathe in bleach)

So Beary finds them in Oakveil and Henry starts panicking and he tries to Handle Henry like he did when Henry was a kid, fusing with him to stomp down on his feelings to cut a panic attack or outburst off at the pass. If Henry's in no place to fight back it usually works, but if Ron's there--literally pressed against Henry's back--to see the fusion coming, maybe he reaches for a fusion, too, and lets Henry's instincts choose which pull to follow, and Henry's instincts choose Ron.

Seventh inter-dad fusion: Wren is suddenly there before Beary can even start his attempt to coach Henry through breathing (his half-effort to help Henry and be able to say that he tried freakin hate him) and is sitting on the ground and the disgusted look Beary gets seeing this. (Fusing with an outsider is something he considers so beneath his son.)

Beary:... Ah. Ronald. Wren, existing, suddenly, and mostly being Ron's processing power as Henry's mental wheels try to slow down to match Ron's pace (cultivated through a childhood of dealing with Willy) rather than amp them both up: uhm... It's just Ron, actually Beary: would you mind... (there's other people around so he can't say "decontaminating") liberating my son. (as if ignoring the role his son had in choosing this fusion over his) Wren: Henry is uh... (me? Not me? Yes me, not up for this, we should go somewhere else that usually works fine, we can just leave and find the others and that'll be fine) he's good. We're good, we're gonna... (looking at the other people who look like Henry and the "not amping each other up” thing is working less and less) Wren: bye

And then they just stand up and fast-walk away

Wren is either chill af and rolling with every punch or the living equivalent of a coke bottle that you popped a whole roll of mentos in and then closed immediately. At this moment, it’s very much the coke bottle side. Beary lets them go because he knows Henry will be back, and they make it just outside of town to where the others have just shown up before they fall apart.

Ron: We found the door! Darryl: what door? Ron: the one in Henry's head! And all the dads know what he's talking about Glenn: did you open it? Henry: no Ron: a little bit Henry(probably now starting that panic attack): the anchors in there Ron: his dad came out of it Darryl: his dad???????? Henry, vulnerability, Oak: I AM FEELING VERY VULNERABLE RIGHT NOW AND I HATE IT [chorus of mumbled sorrys] Ron: oh also Oakvale is Henry's home Darryl: WHAT Glenn: Uh hey anyone gonna pick up the phone cause I FUCKIN CALLED IT Henry: That's not my home! My home is with Mercedes back on Earth! Glenn: Yeah, this is just where you were born. Henry: Glenn I swear to God-- Glenn: Dude lay off, I was agreeing with you! Home's where the heart meds are and all that jazz Darryl: Wait, you have heart meds? At home? When was the last time you took your heart meds? Glenn: Uhh... not since I came here? It's fiiiiiine. Never felt better! Ron: Not to interrupt but Henry's on the ground breathing funny. Glenn, are you sure you don't have any heart meds? Henry: being hugged by both of his sons in a simultaneous way that is not their normal simultaneous way (i.e. the Lord of Chaos way): WHY ARE MY SONS TALLER THAN ME Glenn: I'm more surprised that they're hugging you Lord of Chaos: to assert dominance! Any moment now, we will turn this hug into a suplex!

And that basically brings us to now? I want a Triple Oak Fusion (the King of Chaos) but with how the fight with Beary went I’m not sure where it’ll go. OH YEAH.

Autumn stopped fusing with Hen even when he was a kid because she couldn’t stand to see how much her son craved the approval of that evil man who stole her life away. And whether or not Henry ever fuses with anyone ever again after finding out he’s got Eldritch in him has gotta be up in the air.

And at this point I could easily be convinced that the next inter-dad fusion is Darryl and Glenn, those beautiful idiots. They could be… Denn. Glarryl? We’ll workshop it.

#jakalboy #dndads #aus #fusion aus #dungeons and daddies #me talking #my writing

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

Text

Anonymous asked: As a staunch royalist I would be interested to hear your views about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle deciding to quit the British royal family. Did they do the right thing or are they just being selfish and ‘woke’? Does this ‘Megxit’ the British royal family is in crisis and its future looks bleak by this act of betrayal to the Queen?

Short answer:

I have been avoiding answering this question precisely because I became tired of hearing about it around the family dinner table or with friends when I visited England recently or now with French friends here in Paris who can’t fathom what is going on. But too many have asked about this in my blog inbox.

I don’t mean to sound so dismissive but to me it’s just a passing storm in a tea cup rather than some cataclysmic crisis of the British monarchy. Everyone should stop take a deep breath.

After the joint press statement by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex statement came out on 8 January 2020 it set in motion the usual hilarious pastiche of Cold War Kremlinology by the British press. So at any one time you had sensationalist and sanctimonious headlines such as the fury of the palace press knew no bounds. How dare they? The Queen humiliated. The palace insulted. And so on and so on.

Every newspaper editor knows there is a yawning gulf between the “public interest” and what interests the public. By any standards, Harry and Meghan have become huge celebrities. They were idolised, their charities blessed, their presence craved. Unfortunately such is human nature, the public invest something of themselves in their heroes. They see in their idols a reflection of their own fantasies and delights, hopes and fears. When they witness celebrities traumatised it can be unsettling, as the death of Princess Diana vividly showed. People cried in the street.

As Harry knew from his mother’s tragic experience, all this is par for the royal course. The British newspapers - or rather those peddling in royal tittle tattle such as the Sun, Mirror, and the Daily Mail - have a habit of erecting pedestals one minute and then the next minute they enjoy destroying the icon in the name of the public interest. Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson, was appallingly treated. So at times were Princess Anne, and Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie. Press attention should be water off the royal duck’s back. Prince Philip’s advice was reportedly: “Don’t read the bloody papers.”

While Harry was brought up surrounded by the furies of the celebrity media, Meghan’s career was the opposite. In her profession as a known actor (albeit a middling TV actor at that), image is an artifice, daily crafted and laundered by publicists.

This does not work with British royalty, which comes with its own carefully minted image attached. Its rituals are those of mind-numbing deference. It has no accountability. The only mirror it has is the press. The tabloids are the price that must be paid for adulation. They honour no discretion and have no sense of fairness. The press is a memento mori, whispering into the victor’s ear that he – or she – is only mortal. And gosh do they take that role on with sanctimonious glee.

To be daily compared to the Duchess of Cambridge, from an utterly different social background, must have been intolerable for Meghan: the dress comparisons, the stuffiness of the court, its hyper-caution and obsession with precedence and procedure, added to the impossibility of contact with ordinary people. As a self-made millionaire already perhaps she wanted to be more than a mere civil servant in a tiara. Perhaps it proved too much but who really knows? But then I don’t know what else she expected when she decided to marry into the British royal family.

Similarly one can only speculate how much it was really Prince Harry who wanted to drop out riding on the royal carousel as he has been since birth. Regardless of who he married perhaps this was always the plan. His loathing of the British press and paparazzi is well known - he still blames them for his mother’s tragic death in Paris. It’s well known the paparazzi have tried to catch him out in manufactured scandals as he grew up. He has refreshingly come clean and has talked about how he still goes to therapy over his mother’s death. It’s no wonder he would ever subject a future wife and especially a child to the level of press intrusion that he had endured.

Prince Harry is nobody’s fool. I won’t say a bad word about him because - unlike previous and present royals with the exception of his grandfather, Prince Philip, who did active naval service during the Second World War and his uncle Prince Andrew, who as a naval officer flew Sea King helicopters during the Falklands War - he didn’t play the ceremonial toy soldier. After Eton he worked his arse off to get through Sandhurst and got commissioned with the Blues and Royals regiment. Upon the outbreak of war in Iraq, he was alleged to have said around 2006, “There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.”

As it was the military chiefs got cold feet and pulled him out. But he did see active service with the British forces in Afghanistan with two tours. By all accounts he acquitted himself very well as a Forward Air Controller in Helmand Province and later as a co-pilot and gunner on Apache helicopters. He was widely respected and accepted by rank and file because he was down to earth and never asked for special treatment. He wasn’t a typical ‘Rupert’ - a squaddie’s nickname given to British army officers who typically came from privileged aristocratic backgrounds but were also ‘nice but dim witted’.

Overall I sympathise that the Sussexes’ predicament was clearly desperate, and it is perhaps to their credit that they have brought it to a head early and not let it drag on. I feel they are sincere in their reasons to ’step back’ from the royal family and frenzied media circus around it. The fact they want to pay their own way and pay back any outstanding sums back to the royal household is perhaps a sign of that sincerity.

Instead some sections of the British press rolled out the tired old trope of the parallels between the Duke of Sussex and his great-great uncle, the Duke of Windsor, are overwhelming. Once again, a dashing, sporting, ex-military prince leaves royal life for the love of an American divorcée. This is exactly the opposite of what Edward and Mrs Wallace Simpson did when they bit the hand that fed them. They took money to support their lavish lifestyle in exile from the Queen and all the while took every opportunity to snark the fledgling young Queen from their own alternative royal court in Paris. Harry no doubt loves his grandmother and his family and would try not sully the Windsor name.

Where I would be critical a little is in their handling of it which appears naive at best and inept at worst. I suspect - since verified - that having a transatlantic split of publicists, and in addition didn’t understand the full import of how this would play out, would inevitably drop the ball. But I would extend a finger of blame to the palace courtiers who were involved in their own games of intrigue with a whispering campaign to selected journalists of the press. Indeed multiple newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph in the UK, reported that the queen was “disappointed” with the surprise announcement, and had asked the Sussexes to hold off on issuing a public statement. When The gossip mongering Sun newspaper published a front-page story that the couple was contemplating a move to Canada, the Sussexes pushed the button on their statement.

I do think the Sussexes and their advisors were fooling themselves into thinking that they could have their cake and eat it - in other words keep the royal titles but cut back on the public and ceremonial duties. The blunt truth is if you want to stay on the books, you do so by the leave of the firm and its boss i.e. The Queen. The contract is for life. If not, you resign. There is no half in and half out. This seems to have been the gist of the family only summit at Sandringham in January 2020, with media attention worthy of the Treaty of Versailles.

I am frankly surprised how worked up people are about this. Cut out the white noise and the picture is more prosaic.

The first point is that when all is said and done, none of this drama really matters. Politically, constitutionally, it is an irrelevance. Harry, at number six, is not seriously in line to the throne. The British monarchy has long shown itself immune to crisis; indeed I wonder sometimes if it welcomes crises as implying continued importance. The divorce and death of Princess Diana were awfully tragic, as was the very public shaming of Prince Andrew and his questionable friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But how Harry leads his life is between himself, his wife and his father, Prince Charles. That is the point of heredity. It is immune to character, as it is to merit.

The second point is we should remember that other European royal families, of the same constitutional status as Britain, have been down sizing for many years now. These royal families balanced privacy and discretion whilst holding down ordinary professions. The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, is still an airline pilot. He occasionally flies KLM jets, safe in the knowledge that few people recognise him. In 2001 Prince Haakon, heir to the Norwegian throne, married a single mother with a drug-fuelled past. Despite some controversy, he survived incognito.

The King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, has reigned for 46 inconspicuous years as a nine-to-five job, his family merged into the Swedish bourgeoisie. The Crown Princess, Victoria, works intermittently for the UN. The King of Spain, Felipe VI, may have taken after his philandering father, Juan Carlos, but he became king without fuss on his father’s retirement in 2014. None of these “houses” has an extended state-subsidised royal family. None has grown unstable as a result.

There is no doubt that the exploitation of the British royal family celebrity by palace courtiers as PR handlers has worked. The royal family recognises that truth for itself when HRH King George VI famously quipped, “We are not a family, we are a firm”. The Queen is regularly cited as central to “UK plc” and to tourism. The British people remain overwhelmingly in favour of retaining monarchy as the focus of their patriotism, even during the wobble over Diana’s death. Republicanism is dead. The last ostentatious republican, the Fife MP Willie Hamilton, left parliament in 1987. If Scotland ever went independent it would almost certainly retain the Queen as head of state.

As for how royalty behaves, a constitutional monarchy should be beyond all controversy. As the great political and constitutional commentator (and founder of the Economist magazine) Walter Bagehot put it, “the monarch should be a dignified rather than efficient element of the constitution”. In other words, the monarchy as personified in its reigning king or queen can represent the whole nation in an emotionally satisfying way - everything else is but pure embellishment.

The Queen must be a glorious anthropomorphism of the nation as a whole. If she has opinions, she keeps them to herself - much to her credit. The contrast is clear with countries where state headship is combined with an elected executive presidency. The state risks being tainted by partisanship: witness the embarrassment many Americans feel at having their national loyalty identified with any president based on divided partisan feelings e.g. from FDR to Obama and Nixon to Trump.

A rare occasion when the monarch might overstep the mark was conjectured by Mike Bartlett in his ingenious play, King Charles III, in 2014. It was based on the present Prince of Wales as king, refusing formally to sign a bill censoring the press (good on him). In the resulting crisis, William and Kate engineer Charles’s abdication, while the tearaway Harry takes up with a republican girlfriend. It was not wholly implausible. When Belgium faced a similar crisis over King Baudouin’s refusal to sign an abortion bill in 1990, he was allowed to abdicate for a day.

How the monarchy conducts itself is not wholly irrelevant. It is part of the collective context in which the nation’s politics are enacted. It represents tradition and upholds precedent. It sets boundaries and dictates a courtesy in the conduct of public affairs - however often that courtesy is infringed. What outsiders forget (especially our American friends) is that the British political system is gloriously resilient, as the past three years of Brexit hell have shown. It can tolerate the odd eccentricity, such as the blatant purchase of parliamentary seats in the House of Lords. But the question is how far such eccentricity can extend.

The present heir to the throne, Prince Charles, is deft at stepping mildly out of line. His views on architecture, health and the environment are not overtly partisan. But it does not matter as he is no more “powerful” than a newspaper or television commentator. His influence is that of celebrity. I would rather have the heir to throne engage intelligently in public debate than arrogantly indulge in the sordid sexual antics of his younger brother, Andrew.

For all his perceived faults, Prince Charles knows his limits. To expect such controlled nuances in the constitutional mystique of royalty to apply to an ever larger family has always been an accident waiting to happen. More prescient is the fact that the current system will impose the same disciplines and direct the same public exposure on an ever widening array of royal offspring as the years go by. I feel genuine sympathy for the royal children. Most British minors have their faces blanked out on camera, but not royal ones. They are sentenced to be recognised for life.

As a nation then we are extremely fortunate that Prince Harry is no more militant than in defence of the planet, wild animals and injured military veterans - all worthy causes if we are honest to admit it. Full disclosure: as an ex-veteran, I do give charitable donations to Invictus Games Foundation, the multi-sports event put on for wounded, injured or sick armed services personnel and their associated veterans. Prince Harry was instrumental in founding the Invictus Games in 2014 on his own initiative so that we never forget the courage and sacrifice of our military veterans.

What is already clear is that the Sussexes intend forthwith to redraw the lines of engagement with the press. They are opting out of the Royal Rota, the arrangement whereby, for decades, the royals have given access to a pool reporter from the national papers; instead, they will invite coverage from personally selected media outlets and will use their own social-media accounts, especially Instagram, to communicate directly with the public. Having railed against the media’s commodification of his wife, Prince Harry now seems prepared to take its commodification into his own hands: it was reported in January 2020 that he and the Duchess have lately submitted a trademark application for hundreds of items, from clothing to printed items, that may be issued with the couple’s personal brand, Sussex Royal.

This step is unfortunate and unedifying. To my mind, Sussex is a title, not a brand name. It is no more Harry and Meghan’s to exploit than Buckingham Palace is the Queen’s to sell off. Even if they distance themselves from the monarchy by being financially independent (as well as disowning their titles) by pursuing other commercial opportunities it only takes one scandal - e.g. a goods with their brand made from sweat shop labour or some other unforeseen PR disaster - to reflect badly on the Queen and the British monarchy solely because of Harry’s proximity to the throne. Harry may not be a Prince but he is a Windsor.

We are back to Bagehot again. For it was he who argued that the constitution was divided into two branches. The monarchy represents the “dignified” branch. Its job is to symbolise the state through pomp and ceremony. The government -Parliament, the cabinet and the civil service - represents the “efficient” branch. Its job is to run the country by passing laws and providing public services. The dignified branch governs through poetry, and the efficient branch through prose. The monarchy certainly doesn’t govern through commercial exploitation of its brand as an end in itself.

Today, the dignified branch is trying to adapt to an age of populism and until recently it’s been doing a much better job than the efficient branch. But the monarchy must never lower itself to the lowest common denominator to satisfy the base instincts of populism. As Bagehot aptly said, “An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.”

A family spat of no public importance is obsessing the nation and the world. Everyone should sit down and have a nice relaxing cup of tea.

#question #megxit #monarchy #britain #prince harry #meghan markle #duke and duchess of sussex #royalty #constitution #journalism

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purplesurveys · 3 years

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1161

survey by pichu4850

What color do you think of when I say...

Anger? Red, or a really bright red-orange.

Confusion? Gray.

Inspiration? Sky blue. Both word and color give off calming vibes to me.

Shy? Something like an off-white shade, and maybe even pastel pink.

Agony? Olive green was the first color to come to mind, though I have no idea why.

Sleep? Dark blue, like the night sky.

Chipper? Yellow.

Beautiful? Red, the way roses are.

Morning? Light blue or yellow.

Would you rather be named...

Andrea or Aimee? Andrea.

Emily or Erica? Emily. I know an Erycka that I’m not too fond of, so this is an easy pass.

Kelsey or Casey? Casey, though I’d mix up my name a bit and have it be pronounced and spelled as Cassie.

Madeleine or Marina? Eh, not really a fan of either but I’d mos likely go for Madeleine.

Alec or Aaron? Alec.

Ryan or Ross? Not a fan of both names as well though I’d probably go with Ryan, but only as a feminine name.

Dylan or Daniel? Dylan.

Jack or Jordan? I guess Jack, if I have to pick.

Gabriel or Gavin? Gabriel.

How often do you...

Brush your teeth? Once or twice a day.

Eat breakfast? Twice a week, during weekends; though sometimes I’ll end up skipping it for an entire week altogether.

Check your email? I literally never check my personal email anymore after having gotten hired, but I know I should quit that habit and check it every once in a while just in case an intriguing opportunity might come my way. My work email is a different story; I have to use it everyday. I open my emails even during weekends so that when I report to my shift on Monday, my Gmail won’t look as clogged.

Go to the mall? When quarantine protocols loosened up a bit I used to go either on Saturdays or Sundays for some me time as well as some much-needed time away from the house, for the sake of my mental health and sanity. But now that we’re going through another surge in cases, no one’s allowed to go out again and malls are back to just keeping the essential stores open.

Go to the beach? A few times a year, at least before the pandemic. I haven’t been to the beach since 2019.

Play card games? Only happens once in a blue moon, when I get together with friends and someone happens to bring a deck of cards. This isn’t a usual occurrence with any of my friend groups, though.

Have at least 20 minute phone calls? Never. I have 20-minute Google Meet and Zoom calls instead.

Paint your nails? They are never painted.

Wish you were happier? Every now and then.

Did you ever want to be...

A veterinarian? Yes, when I was younger. I once stumbled upon an interview with a horse vet on one of my kid’s almanacs and thought what they did was so cool.

An astronaut? Yup, definitely became a big obsession of mine at one point in my childhood. I still think it would be cool to go to outer space and should the opportunity ever become accessible in my lifetime, I wouldn’t want to miss out on it.

An artist? Not really. I knew from the get go I wasn’t meant to be one.

A school teacher? I would guess yes, but I definitely wasn’t as interested in teaching compared to being an astronaut or like a firefighter.

A housewife? Lmfao yeah. This was the answer I would give when I was like 8 up until I was probably 10 and I knew it stressed out my Asian mother big time. My grandpa got a kick out of it, though.

A firefighter? Yes. This was up there with astronaut.

A princess? Not so much.

A lawyer? I definitely considered law for a brief period, but it was already during my latter college years. There wasn’t enough time to mull over it. But hearing all the law school horror stories from my friends kind of made me relieved I didn’t push through with it; I knew I wasn’t passionate enough about law to want to go through all the hardships that come with law school, so I was fine letting that dream go, and still am.

A doctor? This was never a dream of mine.

Would you consider yourself...

Materialistic? Yes.

Pessimistic? It comes out occasionally, but I don’t think it’s a main trait of mine that people would generally see me as.

Avoidant? Not so much. I can be shy and anxious sometimes but I get over it at some point.

Sarcastic? Only occasionally. I wouldn’t say I speak the language.

Talkative? Definitely not. I hate being in the spotlight, and whenever it’s my turn to share a story or talk in a group I usually have the tendency to rush through it or make it as short as possible so as to return the spotlight on someone else. I’ve always been more of a listener.

Strange? Maybe not strange but weird to an extent?

Intelligent? I guess in some ways.

Lucky? In some ways I am, but I also got handed the short end of the stick in other contexts.

In the next twenty-four hours, will you...

Talk to someone you care about? Probably. I talk to at least one friend a day.

Go to work? Yep, I’ll finally be going back to work since the Holy Week break is over. My workaholic self felt kinda unsettled with all the free time, so I’m actually kinda relieved.

Go to school? I’m not in school anymore.

Be in a different city? Nope, it’ll be working from home for me like usual. We were initially allowed to book visits to the office if we really needed to go there to pack some goodies and stuff, but because of re-heightened Covid protocols our admin has once again prohibited anyone to go there for the meantime.

Read a book? I highly doubt it. I haven’t read any in months.

Watch a movie? Nope. It’ll be a Monday coming from a 4-day break, so it will be incredibly busy tomorrow as there would be a lot to catch up on.

Go to a dentist/orthodontist appointment? No, I won’t.

Do your laundry? My parents probably will seeing as our hamper was nearly full the last time I checked.

True or False: Family...

I have two brothers or more. I only have one brother.

My mom lives with me. This is technically true but isn’t phrased right in my case. I’m currently living with my parents.

My grandparent(s) live with me. No, we moved out of our duplex (where I did use to live with my grandparents) well over a decade ago.

I have half-siblings. Don’t have any.

I am the oldest in my family. Eldest child, that is.

I am an only child. I have two other siblings.

I have 15 cousins I can name off the top of my head. Easily. My first cousins are less than 15 in total, but I know a good number of my second and third cousins as well so this is a cakewalk.

The nearest Aunt or Uncle lives less than an hour away from me. The aforementioned duplex we moved out of is just at the next village; we didn’t move too far so that we can continue visiting them.

True or False: Food...

I am allergic to chocolate. I’m not, fortunately. I’m not crazy about chocolate but I’d be pretty miserable if I could never have it either.

I like vegetables more than fruit. Infinitely more, hahaha. I hate fruits.

I have tried pizza dipped in ranch sauce. Ranch isn’t a very common dressing where I’m from, so it’s not usually offered in restaurants. Given the chance, though, I’d definitely try my pizza with ranch at least once.

I've never eaten kiwi fruit. True, but then again I’ve never eaten most fruits and don’t plan to.

I love junk food.

I love to try new food.

Ketchup goes best with fries (chips). I don’t like ketchup and barely put it on anything.

I like fried rice. I haven’t met an Asian who doesn’t like fried rice.

I can prepare dinner for myself (using a stove or oven).

I hate sushi.

How many...

Pairs of shoes do you have? A little over 10, maybe? I don’t feel like counting in my head rn.

Songs do you have on your music player? I don’t have a music player anymore.

Hours of sleep did you get last night? Around 4.

Times have you had alcohol? Like, ever since I started drinking when I was 18? I never kept track lmao but if I would guess, maybe around 50-60 times? I’m not a regular drinker; I drink probably once or twice a month at most.

Books have you read/started reading in the past month? None.

Windows in your house/apartment are open? I know my parents and sister have their windows open at the moment, so that’s 2. Mine are usually open as well, but I’ve turned on my aircon so I’ve closed them for the night.

Pets do you have? 2.

Kids do you have/want to have? I’d cut it off a a maximum of 3 kids, but having just 1 would already be so nice.

Minutes does it take to get from your home to school or work? I work from home, but in the two times I went to the actual office it took anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour.

Have you ever...

Spilled a cup of grape juice on the carpet? I don’t think I’ve ever even encountered grape juice in my entire life.

Played spin the bottle? I don’t think I’ve ever played this. My friends and I usually resort to truth or dare.

Played Twister? Yes, and there are many fond memories that come with it as well. So when I was 7 years old I befriended Katreen, and her mom and mine hit it off instantly so they started this arrangement where every Friday, her mom picked me and my sister up from school along with Katreen and her sisters, and we’d stay for several hours at their place until my mom would pick us up. Her mom was an amazing host and every week we’d play Twister, watch Pokemon, read books together, etc; anything to keep us comfortable and entertained.

Been caught doing something you weren't supposed to be doing? It’s bound to happen every now and then.

Walked out of a movie because it was horrible? I’ve gotten this feeling a few times but I always stayed in my seat because I paid for the damn ticket.

Given the finger to someone on the street? Oh most definitely, as well as drivers passing by. And it’s always been towards men that are being disgusting pigs.

Been so sad/angry that you started laughing? Sure.

Been in a wedding? Yes, but I only got invited as a kid since I was usually picked to be one of the flower girls. I haven’t been to a family wedding since 2007.

Been in a situation where you almost died? Probably not died but almost substantially injured, sure.

Misc...

Are you stressing out about anything right now? Just worried about the deluge of tasks that will inevitably come at me tomorrow but knowing how easygoing my bosses are, I know I’ll be able to ease up soon enough.

Do you think before acting or act before thinking? I used to be the latter but I now see the importance of first considering possible consequences of or how others would be affected by my actions.

Do you act upon your emotions and instinct, or logic and reasoning? Again, I used to be one of these, this time the former. Now that I’m at a much more stable and peaceful place in my life I try not to let my emotions get the best of me.

What are some personality traits you find appealing in a potential partner? I had a number of negative experiences in my last relationship so forgive me for scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to my expectations lmaaaao – I’d love for someone to be sensitive to my needs and feelings, and for them to be able to own up to their mistakes or hurtful habits and know how to apologize and be open to changing if it’s for their self-improvement.

How have you changed as a person in the last 5 years? I tolerate less bullshit now. I think I’ve also grown to be happier and a lot more stable, emotionally. I also have a better sense of what I want out of life and where I want to be, and I’ve also learned to be more sociable and open up to people.

If you could do anything you wanted right this moment, what would it be? Order sushi :(

Is there anyone you can totally relax and be yourself around? Yes, that’s what my friends are for. If I can’t feel comfortable around my friends, I’d view that as a problem.

Did you ever wanted to say something to someone, didn't, and regretted it? No.

Are you scared about the future? I’m scared of the idea of not meeting some of my goals, like having a family; but I’m also excited about what the future could bring me.

#survey #surveys

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terramythos · 3 years

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 1 of 26

Title: Annihilation (The Southern Reach #1) (2014) - REREAD

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Genre/Tags: Horror, Science Fiction, Ecological Horror, Cosmic Horror, Weird, First-Person, Unreliable Narrator, Female Protagonist

Rating: 10/10

Date Began: 1/01/2021

Date Finished: 1/05/2021

Along an isolated stretch of coast lies Area X, a pristine wilderness which appeared decades ago and decimated all human civilization within its borders. The only people to enter since have been official expeditions overseen by the mysterious Southern Reach. Annihilation follows the twelfth expedition, an all-female party of four including a psychologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a biologist.

The biologist has a secret; her husband was a member of the doomed eleventh expedition. He returned a shell of his former self before being quarantined and suddenly dying of systemic cancer. She seeks answers for what happened to him. But after the party discovers a strange underground staircase with a manic sermon written along the wall, she soon finds herself infected by Area X itself.

I am walking forever on the path from the border to base camp. It is taking a long time, and I know it will take even longer to get back. There is no one with me. I am all by myself. The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time...

Full review, some spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: graphic violence and gore. Lots (LOTS) of body horror. Some non graphic sexual content. Mind control/hypnotic suggestion is a plot point, but there's an implication it goes beyond that. There's a pervasive sense of unreality.

Part of me wishes I could read this book, and series, for the first time again. Annihilation is a short read with a weird, disturbing horror story at its core. Area X feels vibrant and alive in creepy ways, and the mental effect it has on the few human characters is profound. It's basically a peaceful nature preserve, but there's something deeply unsettling about the state of decay, oddly aware creatures, pervasive sense of being watched, and how it twists the minds of the characters. The biologist's asocial view of the world colors how she interacts with the setting and the conclusions she draws about Area X, The Southern Reach, the Tower, the lighthouse, and everything in between. The result is an eerie story with a scientific, almost clinical narrator experiencing something beyond human understanding.

But only parts of the overall mystery surrounding Area X are solved in Annihilation; there is an explanation, there are enough hints to figure it out, but good fucking luck. You learn there's some kind of conspiracy and shady shit going on, and the biologist gets some things right... but also some things wrong. This is either infuriating or enough of a tease to encourage one to read the rest of the series (back in 2015, I was the latter). While Annihilation is self-contained, it leaves more questions than answers.

On a reread, everything is different. One thing I admire about VanderMeer is how he integrates hints and foreshadowing without making them too obvious; something I noticed with his Ambergris series as well. In Annihilation, some of this is thematic stuff that doesn't pay off until later books ("desolation tries to colonize you"). Sometimes the biologist draws the right conclusion for the wrong reasons (everything about the psychologist and how she seems burdened). Or some things are way more horrifying with later information (why the moaning creature is Like That even though the dolphins and other animals are almost normal).

Probably my favorite example, though, is eight pages in, the biologist mentions a weird vision she had. It's a throwaway line; just one of a dozen examples on how Area X affects the mind. With later knowledge, though, it's literally foreshadowing the biologist's fate in the final book, Acceptance. You can piece together later bits within Annihilation to see how significant this moment is, but I don't think most will. And there's just tons of stuff like that that doesn't come off as important, but is a little treat for anyone rereading the story.

I guess what I'm saying here is that as much as I like the base story of Annihilation, it's better in many ways on a reread. I wish I could remember my original impressions, because now they're inextricably affected by my knowledge of what happens later in the series. I know that the mystery of it all enthralled me, but I also know lots of people drop the first book due to a lack of concrete answers. If I were to read it again for the first time, who would I be?

Besides that, something I like about this book is the gradual dissemination of information. We start in the thick of Area X and the doomed twelfth expedition, but there are several sequences where the biologist will reflect on her past and her relationship to her husband, which add context to everything else. It's just a structural choice, but one I personally like; it makes her backstory relevant without detracting from the horror or killing the pacing. I like the glimpses of her “ordinary” life and how it juxtaposes/complements the bizarre nature of Area X.

And the horror factor is just on point. VanderMeer really shines when writing horror because everything just feels... off. Something terrible is happening, but a lot of it is psychological or just out of reach. And when the creepiness is more overt (i.e meeting The Crawler), it's great, jarring cosmic horror. Lighthouses are a special interest of mine, so I love seeing a horror story with one as a focal point (so to speak). I dig how Area X feels like a character in the story; the mark of a good setting, especially in horror.

To me Annihilation is a comfort read despite being a disturbing horror story. I like seeing all the moving parts and knowing how it works, and it's a very short novel compared to Authority and Acceptance. I highly recommend this series if you're looking for a creepy, cerebral story which uses nature as the backbone for cosmic horror. For those who have seen the movie, it's a much different story with a similar tone, so if you wanted more... good news! Read the books! But they're also pretty weird and sometimes dense reads, so not for everyone.

I'll be rereading Authority next, which I remember is longer with slower pacing. Let's see how it goes!

#2021 reading challenge #taylor reads #10/10 #rereading an old fave series!

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passionbooties · 4 years

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title: i bet you taste like gold rating: t pairing: raihan/leon summary: raihan's never been afraid of the chase. because in the end, he always knew he'd be the winner. that all crashes when the reward at the end of the chase is leon: the one man raihan has always lost to.OR five times raihan has mentioned or shown that he likes leon, and the one time leon finally gets it.

can be read on: ao3!

read under cut !

“Damn, we lost again! But ya did good, Duraludon.” Raihan calls back his Pokémon. Rotom flies around to snap photos of the moment. Because even though Raihan lost, he’s still handsome. And there’s something his followers love about his pouts after defeat-a beauty found in the pain, sort of thing.

He looks upward, to Leon’s smiling face. As brilliant as the sun while he laughs with his partner, Charizard. “Another win for the great champion of Galar!” Leon is so confident , so sure of himself, but so pure. His boasts never come off cocky. Only mere facts that the entirety of Galar have written into their history books as gospel truths. “But it’s to be expected. After all, I’m unbeatable.”

“Yeah, for now.” Raihan snorts, but there’s no derision. No anger. Only this unsettling warmth that seeps into his bones the more he looks at Leon’s smile and continues comparing him to the sun. Bright, orbiting, so expansive and heat-filled that ignoring him was impossible.

Not that Raihan ever tried. He’d been captured by Leon long ago…

“I was close, though!” Raihan continues, striding over to meet Leon on the other side of the pitch. “Duraludon nearly had your Charizard begging for mercy.”

Leon barks out a burst of laughter, Charizard following suit. “Yeah sure! If that’s what you want to call it, we can work with that.” Raihan rolls his eyes while Leon keeps laughing and laughing. And Raihan’s stomach keeps tumbling and twisting into knots.

Leon’s laughter is one of his favorite sounds. Better than any music Raihan’s ever listened to.

Rotom whirrs by, bumping into Raihan’s cheek. A subtle reminder to get his life together and not drool so much over his longtime rival and friend. Right, good.

“Well,” Raihan works his jaw, adjusting his posture to come off as casual-and not monumental or anything of the sort to show how much impact he wanted his words to convey. “If you were anyone else, I’d definitely try to throw hands. So you’re lucky that I like you so much.”

So much. So much more than any harboring feelings of platonic platitudes he carried for the other people in his life. His heart rate never sped up so viciously as it did around the champion. His thoughts were never consumed by anyone else other than Leon.

It was horrific. Raihan wanted to scream.

His nerves became static, but Leon doesn’t seem to catch onto his words. Not really, not to their significance. But the smile he gives Raihan is soft, dare he say intimate, and Raihan has to hold back-for now-the urge to pull Leon by his cape and kiss him.

Instead Leon says, “I like you too.”

And it’s not the same.

Raihan feels the heat dissipate and a weight drop, deep. Then comes the sandstorm. Obscuring the flash of disappointment from breaking through to the surface on Raihan’s face.

Then they’re swarmed by fans who happened to oversee their battle. Quick as a standard, covering up their tracks, asking Raihan and Leon for photos and autographs of their league cards. Leon, the beloved Champion, falls into the steps of his role. Signs the cards and strikes his pose and sprinkles advice for budding trainers.

Raihan follows suit. Slips on his little mask and uses Rotom to take a bunch of photos with his fans.

If every so often, Raihan peeked over to catch Leon laughing with the kids or striking his pose, embracing the spotlight he made with ease, then so be it.

It was hard to ignore the sun when it shone so close, so brilliantly, anyways.

II.

Raihan can’t remember when he fell.

But he knows it was a graceful fall. A sudden snowstorm that drowned him in the feeling of attachment and yearning and longing for Leon that resonated a powerful chord one day when Raihan least expected it.

All the leaders of Galar knew about his one-sided affections, except Leon of course.

It had almost become a joke. A running bet among the leaders about how much longer Raihan would skirt around before he finally lost his patience and straight up proposed. Others wondered about the opposite: how much longer would it take until Leon finally noticed?

Both bets ended in similar fashions: whatever the outcome was, it wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

Really, Raihan was somewhat coping with the fact that he was enamored by his best friend and greatest rival who was also, simultaneously, the most powerful trainer in all of Galar.

And the biggest idiot in all of Galar.

But that’s what was so charming .

And Raihan really, honestly, should have seen it coming. Leon attracted everyone. He was lion like. Prideful in his strength while caring a sort of regality that made others want to follow him. Raihan always chased after him from the start. To become better than him, to surpass him in the race and become champion.

Then somehow, someway, the chase ended in a plunge. And Raihan was diving face down into a rainstorm of emotional attachment.

While he may not remember when the feelings took root, he remembers vividly the first time he ever let it slip to Raihan about his feelings.

They were eating dinner at Bob’s Your Uncle. Raihan was snapping photos and Leon was making funny faces. Their food was gone by this point, but conversation didn’t stop. It never stopped between them. Leon always had stories to share about challengers who came for advice, for a battle, for a moment to bask in his presence. Raihan was always dishing out strategies, new ways to utilize the elements for his team’s advantage, better ways to craft synergy between his Pokemon in their double battles.

They were always talking and talking, bouncing back and forth, cracking jokes. Then Leon got called over by the manager and Raihan waves him off, because what is a Champion if not at the beck and call of their people, and as he watches them interact he thinks to himself how Leon looks like a king-cape aside.

Broad shoulders, a strong back, his shoulders squared. Everything in Leon’s stance is that of someone fit to rule. Fit to command. Fit to oversee. Fit to love . Strong and sturdy, a foundation that Raihan found himself wanting to utterly wreck and destroy beneath him.

Then his face got all red. His cheeks burned, a hot scorching sun across the expanse of his face. His eyes wide as he looks at Leon walking back over to him with a bottle of wine and two glasses. On the house from the manager for the two of them being such loyal customers.

When Leon sat down, he immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I like-” Raihan nearly bit his tongue. Leon blinked and Raihan couldn’t believe he almost confessed. Almost said I like you. I like you. So much, so much that I'm going to be swallowed whole and I had no idea this was going to happen.

“You like…?”

“Like-that we can use your Champion status to get free drinks, yeah.” Raihan lied easily, smoothly. Ignored the burnt taste on his tongue from his lie. Leon, thankfully, didn’t ask further. They shared drinks and went back to their conversation but this time Raihan couldn’t help but think Leon was the sun, over and over again, and how much he wanted to become an Icarus-scorched by his touch.

III.

“Honestly, just kiss him.”

“I’ve thought about that multiple times, Ness.”

Nessa folds her arms and leans back against the back of the booth, “Super surprised you haven’t gone full dragon mode and slobbered him silly with kisses, at this point. You’re normally much more straightforward with your conquests.”

Raihan rolls his eyes while Rotom snickers. “I’ll bring out the screwdriver on you,” he threatened but that only made Rotom whir and snicker louder. Gremlin. Raihan meets Nessa’s pointed gave, brilliantly blue and as fearsome as the ocean.

Which he needed, because Raihan was tired of bullshitting himself. Nessa was absolutely correct that Raihan wasn’t being himself. Not really, anyways. Raihan has confidence in his looks, his reputation, and overall swagger that he carries like a crown upon his head. He’s just as notorious, if not just as famous, as Leon-the only man to come close to someone Leon considered a rival. He can get anyone-he knows he can get anyone.

Usually it only took a smile in their direction, a flash of fang, a flex of muscle, a whisper in their ear covered in husk, sprinkled with secrets they could make between the two of them under bright moonlight and starless skies-yet all those tricks and tactics fell utterly short at Leon’s feet.

All Leon had to do was exist in the same space and time as Raihan and Raihan forgot how simple it was to breathe.

“Oh wow,” Nessa exhales with a whistle, reaching for more of her shake. She takes a pointed slurp. “You’ve got it bad , mate.”

“Shut up,” Raihan growls, but it sounds pitiful even to his own ears.

Nessa smirks with her straw still in her mouth, “Listen, I love Leon. Truly do, but the man is only focused on one thing: winning. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him even utter words like dating or love-they’re just too out of his orbit.”

“You think I don’t know that? The man’s got a bad case of one track mind and he’s barreling down that track at breakneck speeds.” Raihan goes for one of her fries because he needs comfort food and Nessa pinches his hand. “Ow! Rude, Ness.”

“Rai. Call him up and ask him out on a date. Then he can buy you fries.”

“I’ve considered that.”

“And?”

“And… what?”

“Let’s not play the who’s more dense game. Be the forward Raihan I know you can be and ask him out. What are you so afraid of?”

Ah, there it is. What was Raihan afraid of? And truly, what has he to lose? Everything comes snapping at him, fangs and claws at his neck. He never hesitated before. Never, because they were calculated wins. He knew with the people in his past he could obtain them, and obtain them easily. They were games where his outcome always ended with him as the winner.

But that changed with Leon. Not once, not ever, had Raihan been even close to winning against Leon. Perhaps that spiral of losses had downward dove into Raihan believing he’d lose to Leon in this too.

Raihan swore and Nessa simply shook her head. “Do what you need to do, Rai. But… if you ask me, I don’t think your chances of success are as low as you think they are.”

Raihan looks up at that. Sees the mischievous glint in Nessa’s eyes and a snow swirl of hope spike up in his chest. “What makes you say that?”

Nessa snorts and finishes off the last of her milkshake before she stands up, “The stars,” she answers impishly before she skips off to the bathroom. Leaving Raihan to stew and mutter and contemplate and go simply mad over her cryptic language.

Later that night, he texts Leon. Asking a simple question: What would you do if I said I liked you?

He gets a response about thirty minutes later and nearly cries.

Well of course I’d tell you I like you too. Haha, why what’s going on :P?

IV.

Raihan isn’t avoiding Leon.

No, he’s simply busy.

He has a gym to run after all. And Pokemon to train. Food to eat and places to explore. The wild area’s raid dens were popping off more often recently. So of course Raihan had to go and explore. See if there were any new dragon Pokemon he could catch, or Pokemon in general to battle against.

Sure, Leon would text him and Rotom would get all up in Raihan’s face whenever he did. But suddenly, Raihan couldn’t read anymore and to force himself to learn a skill he no longer had would be madness. So he refused to do so!

He was, in fact, avoiding Leon.

But his pride would never allow him to admit that.

Raihan’s able to pull this off for about three weeks when his luck runs out.

“Raihan!” Leon’s voice carries across the pitch of Hammerlocke stadium. Raihan stops his training with Flygon and Torkoal, nearly jumping from his skin.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. Flygon and Torkoal are giving him knowing looks and Raihan’s incredibly close to asking them both to set him ablaze with a flamethrower.

“Finally!” Leon runs over, all smiles and sunlight and Raihan wants to dig himself into the ground. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all week, yeah? Where have you been? Why haven’t you answered any of my messages?”

Raihan tilts his head. Makes his stance casual, hands in his pocket and words coming out with a drawl. “Been busy, mate. Got a gym to run and all that jazz.”

Leon looks at him strangely. And his sunlight starts to turn harsh. “Right… well, my mum’s grilling up a barbecue tonight. I was wondering if you wanted to come by and hang. I texted you and didn’t get a response. So I thought it’d be easier to just come in person!”

He’s so earnest. And so pure. So straightforward and just. Raihan’s heart squeezes, and aches. Every nerve in his body is snarling at him to confess. To unleash all the truth at Leon’s feet and hope for the best. To not let the fear of losing, again, so visceral, stop him from pursuing the golden man he craves.

Tell him you like him. Say it over and over until it penetrates the thick fog of obliviousness. Let him know over and over again how you crave the taste of his mouth. Want to run your nails down his back. Want to feel his surety and strength in the palm of your hands. How much you want to-

Rotom softly whirs beside him, having popped out to scope the scene. Flygon and Torkoal are looking at him, encouraging him to say something. To speak. Even if his voice shatters.

Yet, fear is stronger.

Fear wins.

“Can’t tonight,” ashes in his mouth-and the taste makes him sick as he continues. “I’ve already made plans.” he turns on his heel, lowering his visor so it shades his eyes. Leon could pierce through him, easily, and Raihan would rather die than have Leon see how pathetic he feels written all over his face.

Before Leon can say anything Raihan calls back Torkoal and makes Rotom go into his pocket. Then he climbs onto Flygon and tells it to take him to the Wild Area. Flygon hesitates, for a second. Looks back to Leon and softly hums before taking off with Raihan.

The mighty tamer of dragons, a coward when it comes to feelings.

Laughable.

The next time Raihan and Leon meet their world is unfurling at the seams.

Falling apart in bright columns of purple light.

The Darkest Day , Chairman Rose calls it. To save us all! To protect the future of Galar!

“He’s gone utterly insane,” Raihan hisses as the clouds above them turn pitch black and turbulent. The other leaders and challengers were doing their best to calm the masses and get them to safety. Raihan’s already making plans to go to Hammerlocke so he can go down to the power plant and beat some sense into Chairman Rose himself.

“I have to stop him,” Leon says from beside him. Raihan is reminded immediately how this is the first time in about a month that they’ve existed in the same space. They had a brief crossing in the locker room before the Championship Cup but it had been tense, and Raihan had kept himself short.

Time apart did his feelings no good. They festered like bacteria, crawling under the ground he tried to firmly pack like worms. Horribly gnawing away at his heart until Leon and the guilt he felt over their last meeting was all he his thoughts consumed.

“Leon,” Raihan says, the name dropping effortlessly out of his mouth before it can be stopped. Leon glances over at him, his mouth ready to move until the ground starts to shake at their feet. Crackling, gurgling with ancient energy. “Leon, move!”

Raihan’s body works faster. He pushes Leon out of the way as the earth cracks by their feet. A giant burst of purple energy, raw and vicious, shoots up into the sky. There’s screaming, and the scattering of feet. Dust floats in the air and rubble lays around them.

Raihan swears again, coughing as the dust settles. He pushes himself upwards, when he realizes the position their in. Leon is sprawled underneath him. Raihan’s on top. And Raihan hates, hates the sort of images that-Leon’s looking at him. And Raihan can read every single emotion behind his eyes-the anger and hurt and surprise and shock and joy and-

“Raihan,” Leon says quietly. Raihan’s snapped out of his thoughts as the world continues to collapse around them. “Are you alright?”

“I,” Raihan works his jaw, tries to make the words come out. “Yeah. Yeah I am. You?”

Leon’s still looking at him, still searching. And for once, just this time, Raihan lets himself be seen. Be pierced. Be examined and looked. Let’s the lion scrape away at the ground until there’s nothing but bare bones of emotion that Raihan can’t really hide from anymore.

There’s a few seconds that passes, then Leon closes his eyes and exhale deeply. “Help me up, please.”

Raihan does so, robotically. The two stand and stare at each other, a minute more, before Leon steps into Raihan’s space.

“You can’t go without backup,” Raihan starts. “You’re the Champion and all, I get that. But not even you-”

“I can,” Leon interjects, and he’s so close. So close and so sure, unwavering, Raihan doesn’t know how he thought he could run away from Leon when his gravitational pull was so deep. “And I’ll be back. Safe, and sound, so that when I come back, we can talk.”

“We can-?” Raihan’s words are swallowed whole by Leon’s lips on his.

Leon kisses the way he battles-sure, strong, and forward. It’s clumsy as all hell though, and Raihan hates the little choking noise he makes in surprise from it all. But Leon tastes like gold, with dirt, with liquid heat.

Leon pulls back, and his eyes are hooded. But his lips are pulled into the brightest grin as their foreheads touch in the middle of the chaos.

“Yes, we need to talk. We have a lot to go over." And then, a beat later and with a goofy grin to seal the deal, Leon says, "I talked to Nessa.”

Raihan’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “What did she say-”

“That you like me." Leon says effortlessly. "And that I’m as dense as a house of bricks. And she’s right, I am dense. But she also told me that I need to tell you that yes, Raihan, I like you too.”

Raihan is rooted. Cemented to the ground and Leon just gives him his soft smile, his confident gaze, and Raihan shoots forward to kiss him again. Sharply, one more time before letting go. One more time to make sure it’s real.

“Brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant ,” he wants to laugh in hysterics but now, now is not the time. And this was not the place nor the setting he envisioned where this moment would finally come. “Yes. Okay. We will talk. After we save the world… be safe, Leon.”

“Always, Raihan.”

#my fanfic #raihan x leon #leon x raihan #raileon #truerivalshipping #pokemon raihan #pokemon leon #treasuredshipping #outcomeshipping

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