#and he still wrote me two letters of recommendation for various things
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FUN FACT IF YOU EMAIL ENOUGH PEOPLE SOMETIME (SOMETIMES) GOOD THINGS HAPPEN
#So email the people you need to email#I like emailing because its like setting free a carrier pigeon#it may or may not get my message there alive#but hey I tried#and don't ask don't get as my aunt says#also#don't be afraid to follow up#you're not bothering them I promise#I one emailed my thesis advisor six times in one week#because he wasn't getting back to me and im frightened of phone calls#and he still wrote me two letters of recommendation for various things#so people will still like you#even after a lot of emails
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omg I want to know, how were the Napoleon Queer Wars of 2014 like?? 😬
oh lord lol
It's been almost ten years and I still get weird YIKES reaction in my skin when I think about it, or when people in the current Napoleonic corner act a bit like the people from back then. Which is a me issue, and not anyone else's problem. But it is why I don't really engage with anyone from the Napoleonic side of tumblr anymore - too many bad memories and bad taste in my mouth.
Essentially, someone posted the (in)famous Cronin quote re: Napoleon telling Coulaincourt about the Feelings He Gets When Looking At Someone Handsome Friend Shaped. They speculated about queer* implications of this.
--
*necessary disclaimer about modern concepts of sexuality not being applicable to the past yadda yadda yadda. I'm using short hand here, folks. No one needs to jump down my throat.
--
A bunch of the Very Serious History Blogs(tm) came down hard on them being like "you're a fool, absolutely not, Napoleon was Straight(tm)". Someone else replied being like "Well what about That Letter from N to Josie concerning a Certain Tsar of Russia?"
I forget how That Letter was explained away, but it was.
Some name calling nonsense and really aggresive replies where bandied back and forth. People were passive aggresive and mean. People ignored each other then wrote vagueing posts about it. The usual damned foolishness you would expect.
Then someone else referenced that one book whose whole thesis is basically Napoleon was Probably Bi. The book, I will say, isn't great. I'd never recommend it. But it was floating around in the 2014/15 world of Napoleonic Tumblr.
And oh man was the person who suggested it torn to shreds. Eviscerated. It was like watching a train wreck and the by standers decided to lock the doors of the train and not let the passengers off while everything burned.
There were weird spin-off dramas from this nonsense where people got into whether or not being interested in Napoleon made you a war crime sympathizer. (Some things never change on this webbed site.) Messy, messy. Also, utterly dumb.
Anyway - it ended up weirdly boiling down to two sides: Are You A Serious Historian/Take History Seriously(tm) Therefore Anti-Napoleon Possibly Being Something Like Queer Even If Never Acted On versus People Having Fun(tm) on the Internet Who Now Have Their Backs Up and Are Responding Perhaps Unwisely.
There was a third party, which I was part of at that time** (no longer, since I left academia), which was the "We Do Real History As A Day Job, Because We Are In Academia, but Lol Like Hell Would I Think to do Serious History on the Blue Hell Site. I'm Present for Shits and Giggles and Idle Speculation and Chats. Nothing Here is Serious. Everyone Needs To Calm Down and Take Themselves Way Less Seriously." We were a small contingent, to say the least.
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**this is not to say I didn't walk away with egg on my face. Because I did. My comportment wasn't great and it's something I've been trying to be better about ever since.
It's not a time I think anyone save like four Napoleonic-interested blogs can look back on without blame.
--
But yeah - it was a real bad time on here. People were called names and cruel, cruel messages were sent to various and sundry by various and sundry. People deactivated over it. Friendships were literally torched because of it. There was a lot of issues with: "What Is Tone When Jumping On Someone's Post?? We don't know how to gauge it! Are you being mean? Are you being helpful? Who knows!! But you sounded aggresive in your add on and so I had better respond aggressively as well."
All because some people took themselves too seriously and because other people were stupidly mean about something dumb.
If I sometimes come in really strong with five million disclaimers in my napoleon asks/responses, even just the silly, purely speculative ones that no one sensible expects Real Serious History to result from - questions that clearly fall into the camp of shit a friend would ask you at the bar after four pints - things like: "was he queer? do you think he had add/adhd? what do you speculate were mental health issues he may have had?" etc. it's because of this year/year-and-a-half shit show. (And my disclaimers don't always serve their purpose because this is, after all, the Piss on the Poor website and people lack attention to detail when reading. [That said, I'm just as guilty of it as well, so can't point too many fingers.])
anyway, the long and short is that MAN people were very anti-any idea that there might have been an iota of what we would term queerness in Napoleon. And MAN no one can be normal on this site about anything so of course there was unnecessary drama and hurt feelings and bitterness.
May we never repeat this stupid time.
#it's why blocking liberally is your friend!!#No one did that back then and it would have saved a lot of heart ache#napoleon#napoleon bonaparte#napoleonic#ask#reply#anon#the Great Napoleon Queer War of 2014
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My brain has been whirling with vague self-reflective stuff for the past like three days - partially because it's the end of the year, partially brought on by reading a bunch of Danganronpa and The Sexy Brutale fanfic for some reason (that is, it making me think for some reason, not me reading it for some reason; I'm not ashamed of that). Don't really have anywhere to put the thoughts, but they won't shut up, so I'm putting them here.
It's been a weird year. It's been one year that's felt like three. Partially that's because it was my last year of uni, which was a bit of a shitshow at various points. Spent a good deal of this academic year recovering from nearly burning out just to survive third year, after top surgery stitching came partially out on one side of my chest but I still had to do all my uni work. I don't recommend doing four university modules and a part-time teaching assistant job at once while you have a literal hole in your chest, folks. And then my honours project was full force from the get-go, brought on by me being a perfectionist and feeling an obligation to prove to the uni and to myself that I wasn't burnt out. By the end of uni, I was basically just a pile of ashes atop an 18k-word dissertation.
Then I dealt with the wildest shit of trying to get an industry job. Recruiters tried their best, but they all just kind of tugged their collars and averted their eyes when I said I'd prefer to stay local or work remote. But one of my friends already got a job at a game company and had been there part-time, going full-time once uni was over, and he knew I was looking, so he referred me. Long-story-short, I got the job - getting the call about it on my birthday, no less - and moved out of my parents' place and into a flat with said friend.
If my impostor syndrome was strong before I had a job, it's only gotten worse since I started working. I've described it as feeling like I'm just learning the alphabet while my coworkers discover new areas of calculus. "Gotten really into the letter X lately, you should try it sometime." It's just not even felt real, like I'm gonna wake up and be collapsed on my computer desk with my dissertation filled with spaces from where my head found itself falling on the keyboard.
I have not figured out how to balance work and life yet. Not by a long shot. I want to take up both physical and creative hobbies, but I'm also someone who needs a lot of down time or his brain holds itself at gunpoint, ready to explode. As I once wrote in a rambling note to myself, "I want to scream and cry and paint and write and fight and punch and create art from the bones of my own that I break let the blood be the ink so you know that I feel." I have so much love in my heart for the things I do, but fuck if I ever have the energy to do them. Maybe I'll get better at figuring it out next year, but I'm sure not there yet.
There isn't any real satisfying conclusion to this rant. I've not written songs or stories in who knows how long, I want to pick up a pencil or a paintbrush again, I want to create and feel the release of pressure from my skull before it implodes. But I'm not really willing to talk to many people in real life about this endless irritation, like an itch which has proven impossible to scratch. Asking for advice requires asking, and there's still a lot of my teenage instinct to hide any sign of suffering - no matter how little or how mundane - until I physically can't anymore. Which I guess goes to show how it's going when I'm writing this, huh?
I guess I'll just finish the rant with yet another clip of writing from a ramble in my phone's notes, which I wrote over two years ago but has kept ringing in my ears every day since.
Inertia is my nemesis. If I could get started, I could keep started, I could get going, I could keep going.
Here I lie.
To myself? Or did I just stop moving?
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The Great Red Dragon
3x08
Hannibal Lecter x reader x Will Graham
Hannibal Re-Write Series Masterlist
Word Count: 2.9k
Warnings: spoilers for hannibal, murder, dead bodies, blood, surgery, canniblism
Author’s Note: I LOVE will graham and you can tell in this chapter i kinda went ham with my absolute adoration for him. Usually i try and hold back but im to sad to tonight so here is this love letter to will graham
I used some direct quotes from the script so some things may seem familiar
Official Episode Summary: As events jump forward three years, Jack seeks help as he pursues Francis Dolarhyde, AKA `The Tooth Fairy Killer'.
I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director
Tag List (is always open!) : @llperfectsymmetryll @ericacactus @vlightning95 @sweetgoodangel
(not my gif) (can you tell i love will graham. i feel like its excessive now but he is so handsome in this episode and every epsiode but this episode too)
Alana Bloom sat on an uncomfortable chair. The divider between her and Hannibal Lecter was a thick, clear plastic. To Hannibal they were sitting together at his desk. To her, to the reality of her, he sat in his jail cell. The two of them seemed comfortable with each other once again, now that there was no way Hannibal could lay his fingers on her again.
It was the only reason Alana agreed to stay.
“Congratulations, Hannibal. You’re officially insane.”
In front of Hannibal were different and various papers. A newspaper sat there, detailing a family slaughtered in Buffalo.
“There’s no consensus in the psychiatric community what I should be termed,” he said.
“You’ve long been regarded by your peers in psychiatry as something entirely Other. For convenience, they term you a monster.” Hannibal’s eyes flickered up, away from his papers and on to her. She had cleaned herself up since they were last close. The suit she wore made her look distinguished. Her hair up in curls. Sophisticated.
“What do you term me?” he questioned.
“I don’t. You defy categorization.”
“Do you still prefer beer to wine?” he questioned. She pursed her lips, remembering bad memories.
“Stopped drinking beer when I found out what you were putting in mine.”
“Who,” he corrected. She gave the slightest of nods.
“Who.” She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “This means you’ll be spared the federal death sentence. They had enough to convict you dozen times over.”
“A baker’s dozen. Lest we forget Mason Verger. You’re welcome.”
“You’re welcome Hannibal. The needle was guaranteed. But you beat it all on an insanity plea.”
“I’m not insane.” Alana nodded. She understood that.
“You know that and I know that. A dozen or a baker’s dozen, enough people have died.”
“You haven’t,” he pointed out simply.
“A promise in waiting, isn’t it? A promise you intend to keep.”
“I always keep my promises.” His lips flew into a small smile. Alana simply adjusted her spot in the seat.
-
“Get out of my chair, Frederick.”
Chilton stood up from Alana’s chair. Since she had become the director of the asylum things had been changed. For the better. Chilton was crooked, despite his frequent placing in her chair. She walked over and sat down at her desk and reorganized the documents that Chilton had been messing with.
“Shall we join hands in prayer of gratitude? ‘Thank you, Father, for allowing us to remove this monster, monster of monsters, from your flock. Thank you on behalf of the souls We will spare of pain.’” Chilton stood at the other side of her desk now.
“Thank you on behalf of the monster.” She leaned back in her chair. “Was that the magisterial We?”
“It’s our cabal, yours and mine. Hannibal Lecter will spend the rest of his life in a state institution, watching the diaper cart go by.”
“We lied. You wrote a book of lies,” she pointed out.
“Not difficult to see lies flying above my head, but it is almost impossible to shoot them down,” he pointed out.
“You should be lucky that Y/N is a respectable woman. She should have sued you for what you insinuated between her and Hannibal,” she pointed out.
“You say that only because you couldn’t sue me for speaking the truth about you and Hannibal.” He dragged a finger along the desk. “I wasn’t invited to the wedding though.”
“You held the groom at this asylum when you ran it,” she pointed out.
“Still. I put the actual murderer in jail.”
“I’m pretty sure they did that.” She picked up her pen. “Either way, Hannibal will shoot down your lies. He’s written a brilliant piece for The American Journal of Psychiatry.”
“Everything he writes is always about problems he doesn’t have,” Chilton said.
“What he’s written is going to be your problem. It’s not so much an article as it is a rebuttal.” She smiled to herself. “He has an acid pen.”
-
Will stood out by the shed. The dogs were balancing around him, running around and barking happily. Will was bundled against the cold although you had been the person who threw all of the layers at him. The dogs kicked up the snow. He was repairing the fence out there, something to keep busy.
He looked up the gravel driveway and a black SVU came down the track.
He let out a sigh, caught by the cold.
Jack Crawford came out of the car.
-
“Don’t want to talk inside?” Jack asked as Will handed him a mug of hot cider. Several stray dogs lay and mill at their feet as Will leaned against the porch railing. “Don’t want to let me inside. Come too far to let the cold stop me, Will.”
Will pursed his lips.
“Bold of you to show up.”
“Where’s Y/N?” he questioned.
“Making dinner. She didn’t hear you coming up and was, lucky for you, unaware I was making two cups of cider.” Will was relaxed but his tone was uneven.
“You don't want to talk about it here,” Jack said.
“I don't want to talk about it anywhere. You’ve got to talk about it, so let’s have it. Just don’t get out any pictures. There’s no point in doing that.”
“How much do you know?” Jack questioned.
“Two families killed, in their homes, a month apart. Similar circumstances,” Will said. You and him and passed the newspaper to each other at breakfast. Looked into it.
“Not ‘similar’. The same. You ever think about giving me a call?”
“If I ever thought about it Y/N would divorce me on the spot. But I didn’t think about it,” he admitted.
“You know what it is,” Jack said.
“I didn’t think about calling you because I didn’t want to. I don’t think I’d be all that useful to you, Jack. I never think about it anymore. I don’t believe I could do it now.” Will looked down at the lakeshore and Jack pulled out two pictures from his jacket pocket. He flipped them out on the table. Will looked down at them.
“All dead. This freak seems to be in phase with the moon.” Jack tapped the photos. “Killed the Jacobis in Chicago almost four weeks ago. Full moon. Killed the Leeds family in Buffalo night before last. One day short of a lunar month. If we’re lucky we have a little over three weeks before he does it again.”
“Will!” Your voice carried in from the home. Both men looked over.
“Looks like your luck has run out Jack.” You opened the door to alert Will that dinner was done. Upon seeing Jack you stopped. For a moment you were wordless. You looked down at the two pictures on the table, at Will, and then back at Jack. You recognized those people from the newspapers. You took in a deep breath and held your composure.
“If you want to by any chance keep your head I would recommend picking up those pictures, putting them back in your pocket, getting off my goddamn porch and driving your car back to where you came from,” you said evenly. “And give me that cup of cider.” Jack handed it to you and you snatched it, allowing it to spill on your hand without a reaction.
“We need Will’s help. More of these families are going to die,” Jack said.
“I’m not going to let this happen again. I let it happen once.”
“You would sacrifice families lives for the miniscule chance one person gets a little hurt?” You stepped forward to him but Will lifted his hand. You stopped but you were still pretty close.
“If that one person is Will then yes. He’s saved enough lives.”
“He isn’t going anywhere,” Will said. You looked up at him and stepped back.
“Dinner is done,” you said and turned back into the house. Jack and Will shared a look.
“So,” Will started, pushing himself off of the balcony railing. “Joining us for dinner?”
-
You sat beside Will who was at the head of the table. Jack observed the house. It looked simplistic, comforting. On the small shelf by the table were picture frames. Each one of both of you. One when you were fishing, a small fish in front of your face as you laughed. One of Will by the fireplace in the Baltimore house. A couple from the wedding of the two of you looking happier than Jack had ever seen.
Jack had been at the wedding. Will invited him discreetly and because you were so distracted by your own happiness you couldn’t fight. You looked amazing. It had been a long time coming that day and when it did come everyone celebrated. There were even pictures of you, Margot and Alana on that day, cheering to a new beginning.
“People dump small dogs here all the time. I can give away the cute ones, rest, stay around and get to be big ones,” you muttered, petting the dog at your feet.
“You’ve always been a sucker for strays,” Will said.
“You’re not fooling anyone Will.” You stabbed at the plate and took a bite. Will placed a hand on your thigh and kept it there. You put your hand on top of his destreetly.
“Got a nice life here,” Jack said.
“I’m lucky here. I know that,” Will said.
“Surprised there aren’t any kids yet. Bella and I wanted them but with my job we could never fit it in.” The mention of Bella would make you sympathize with him and he knew that. Despite having calmed down a bit you still held up a good face.
“We have a lot of dogs although I can’t say we haven't been trying,” Will said. His face flushed a bit but you were so mad still you couldn’t even be flustered. Will knew there were some things you needed to say to Jack that you couldn't’ say in front of him. “I’m going to take the dogs out to pee.” He tapped your thigh once more before letting his hand leave as he stood up from the dinner table. You nodded numbly as he left, watching him go.
Your gaze went back to Jack.
“When you came into his classroom that day I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt but you failed me Jack. Countless times, you failed me.”
“You left me there to die In Florence.” You smiled.
“A fond memory.” You placed your fork down carefully. “You’re going to take him no matter how much I want to kill you for it.”
“I have to. I’ll make it as easy on him as I can. He’s changed. It’s great you got married.” You nodded.
“He’s better and better. He doesn’t have nightmares anymore.” You paused and collected yourself. “He was really obsessed with the dogs for a while. Now he just takes care of them. He doesn’t talk about them all the time. Doesn’t worry about them.”
“I know what it is I’m asking Y/N. And I wished to God I didn’t have to.”
You smiled slightly at what you were about to say.
“If he decides to go, and that’s a big if, he will not be going alone.” Jack nodded slowly. He figured this would happen. There was nowhere he went you would not follow.
“I know.”
“And you’re willing to deal with me for as long as it takes to get rid of this killer?”
“If I have to.”
-
You sat on your bed. The world was quiet out here. You loved it. Will loved it. It was why you got it together, your first joint home purchase. Will was taking off his shoes and you put your arms around him from behind.
He cuddled his head against yours. He could feel your breath against his skin when you spoke.
“I don’t want you to go, you know that.”
“I don’t imagine you’ll let me go alone,” he whispered. “But you know if I go, I’ll be different when I get back.” You nodded.
“I loved you at your worst and I’ll love you for the rest of the time you’ll let me,” you promised. You kissed him tenderly and his hands rested on your cheek, moving your body with his other hand so that he didn’t have to crane his neck.
-
Darkness moved around the bedroom peacefully. You slept beside Will but he was awake. He looked over at you and then slid out of bed. He pulled open a drawer quietly and took out a letter. The envelope is addressed to Will and Y/N, through the FBI. He hadn’t shown you this yet. He wasn’t sure if he should.
But you had felt him get up. Years of feeling when he was having a nightmare trained you for that kind of moment. You sat up and slid out of bed. Will looked over to you.
“What’s that?”
“I wasn’t going to show it to you.”
You walked over to him and put your arms around him from behind. You looked at the letter and the second you saw the handwriting you froze.
“Is it directed to you?”
“Both of us.”
You took it from his hands and stood up straight.
‘Dear Will and Y/N, we have all found a new life, but our old lives hover in the shadows, like incipient madness. Soon enough, I fear Jack Crawford will come knocking. I encourage Will, as a friend, not to step back through the door he holds open. I don’t doubt Y/N will protest against this ever happening but in case her will is not strong enough I must promise that there is darkness on the other side of the door and madness is waiting.’
You handed him the paper.
“I’m calling the girls from down the street. Their teenagers will watch the dogs.”
-
Will and you looked through the Leeds house. The two of you looked at the bloody remnants of what had happened there. You weren’t there to observe though. You were there for moral support.
His eyes were shut for a while. You watched him stand there. You were silent.
Until he opened his eyes and a deep breath left his lips. You quickly approached him and hugged him tightly. He hugged you back, catching his breath in your arms.
-
“Jimmy you’re the light of my life,” Jack said.
“I know. The print’s smudged. Came off Mrs. Leeds eye. Never did that before. Never would’ve seen it, but it stood out against an eight-ball hemorrhage,” Jimmy explained. You, Will, Jack, Jimmy and Brian all stood in the morgue together. He kept stealing glances at you and Will whose thoughts were elsewhere. “I just...I can’t believe you’re back. I’m surprised you're back.”
“I’m surprised Y/N didn’t drag Jack's dead body in here,” Brian said. He hit Will’s back. “Welcome back.”
-
Jack looked up from his desk to see Will and you standing before him. You were both looking at the information sheet.
“You were asking about the dog. Last night, a vet called the police. Leeds and his oldest boy brought it into the bet the afternoon before they were killed,” Jack explained.
“What’s going to happen to it?” Will asked.
“Please don't worry about the dog.” Will smiled a bit.
“What do you expect me to do?” he whispered. You smiled at him. Ever the sweetie.
“Best you can, that’s all. Busyworks been a narcotic for me sometimes, especially after I quit the booze. For you too, I think,” Jack said.
“There’s something else we can do,” you started. You paused for a moment. You and Will had talked this over just briefly but you understood it was what you needed. “We can wait until Will is driven to it by desperation in the last days before the full moon. Or we could do it now, while it might be of some use,” you finished.
“Is there an opinion you want?” Will nodded slowly.
“We have to see Hannibal.”
3x09
#hannibal lecter x reader#will graham x reader#will graham imagines#hannibal lecter imagines#hannibal imagines#will graham x reader x hannibal lecter#hannibal lecter x reader x will graham
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Katherine of Aragon and Erasmus of Rotterdam
The famous Dutch humanist Desiderus Erasmus held an important place in ensuring humanism became a driving force in England. He visited England at the end of the 1400s where he forged important relationships with English scholars such as Thomas More, John Colet and his former pupil, William Blount, Lord Mountjoy. It was then that he met an eight-year old Prince Henry. He went on to live in England between 1511 and 1514 and lectured at Cambridge University. He advised Henry that to be a great king it was important not just to win wars but also to be educated and show the world that the English court was a court of intellectuals.
Erasmus was so well respected by the king and queen that Katherine wanted him to be her Latin tutor; however, he could not be lured back to England. “The Queen has tried to get me to be her preceptor; and everyone knows that if I cared to live even a few months at Court, I might heap as many benefices as I likes. But I allow nothing to interfere with my leisure and studious labours.” However, Erasmus was fascinated by Henry’s studious wife: “As for the Queen, not only is she prodigiously learned for one of her sex, but no less respected for her piety than for her knowledge … The Queen loves literature, which she has studied with good result since her childhood.”
For Erasmus and others, indeed, the fact that Katherine and women like Sir Thomas More’s clever daughters joined in debates ‘afore the king’s grace’ was truly remarkable. This they put down, in part, to Katherine’s own education under her mother Isabel. ‘Who would not wish,’ asked Erasmus, ‘to live in such a court as hers?. Erasmus called Queen Katherine ‘a unique example in our age … who, with a distaste for the things of no account that women love, devotes a good part of her day to holy reading’. Serious, pious Katherine was a contrast to those women who ‘waste the greatest part of their time in painting their faces or in games of chance and similar amusements’, Erasmus said approvingly.
Although he chose not to return to England, he still held the English court in high regard as a place of intellectuals. He described Henry as “the wisest of contemporary princes and a great lover of literature.” Erasmus believed that the English court had become a place of high learning, writing that “your court is a model of Christian instruction, frequented by persons of the very highest erudition, so that there is no university that could not be jealous of it.” Of course this may be mere flattery of a scholar to his potential patron. But Erasmus also extolled the virtues of the English court in correspondence to other people in Europe. He wrote to Bombasius: “You know how adverse I have always been from the courts of princes; it is a life which I can only regard as gilded in misery under a mask of splendour; but I would gladly give move to a court like that, if only I could grow young again … The men who have the most influence [with Henry and Katherine] are those who excel in the humanities and in integrity as wisdom”.
Both Henry and Katherine continued to be active supporters of the humanist scholars and often both commented on books presented to them. One example is a book written by Erasmus, which Vives presented to the king and queen in 1524. In a letter to Erasmus, Vives explained how the book was received: “[Your] book De Libero Arbitrio was yesterday given to the King, who read a few pages, seemed pleased, and said he should read it through. He pointed out to [me] a passage … which he said delighted him much. The Queen also is much pleased. She desired [me] to salute [you] for her, and says that she thanks him for having treated the subject with so much moderation.” This is a fascinating example which shows that both the king and the queen took a personal interest in the works of the great Erasmus as well as other humanist scholars.
In 1526, Erasmus wrote a lengthy book on marriage entitiled Christiani Matrimonii Institutio (The Institution of Christian Matrimony). Queen Katherine, through her chamberlain Lord William Mountjoy, had commissioned Eramus to write this book. With unforeseeable irony Erasmus refers to her ʹmost sacred and fortunate marriageʹ as exemplary. The book itself explained the essential importance of chastity in women within a Christian marriage and less about female education before marriage. It shows that Katherine was asking various humanist scholars in her acquaintance to write books that may have helped with the moral education of her daughter. The book took Erasmus two years to write and was a bulky 300 pages long. A year later William, Lord Mountjoy wrote to Erasmus explaining that the queen was pleased with the book. “But be well assured that our glorious queen is favourably impressed with your Institution of Christian Marriage. She is most grateful to you for this devoted act of yours, and you will learn amply of her good will towards you from the servant to whom I myself have made it known in some detail.”
However, Erasmus, still bitterly regretting his involvement in the Lutheran controversy, had no intention of becoming entangled in Henry’s matrimonial problems. At the same time, Erasmus refused to be drawn in on the queen’s side. Vives asked him at least twice for an opinion on the marriage, but in a letter of September 1528 Erasmus merely reiterated his suggestion that it would be better for Jove to take two Junos than to put one away. Allen, the editor of Erasmus’s letters, conjectured that a mysterious letter enclosed in one addressed to More was an apology to Katherine for his indiscreet references to divorce in Christiani Matrimonii Institutio. Certainly, Erasmus had previously told More of his fear that she had taken offence, though a letter from Mountjoy had reassured him about her attitude. Is however, his only services to the queen were a letter of cautious consolation sent in March 1528 and a recommendation to Mountjoy that she should read his Vidua Christiana: scarcely a tactful suggestion, in view of Katherine’s defence of her status as Henry’s wife rather than Arthur’s widow.
Moreover, Erasmus emphasized his neutrality by accepting comissions from Thomas Boleyn, fully aware, as he told Sadoleto, that this was precisely the Boleyns’ object, since his book on marriage for Katherine had given arguments for the indissolubility of the marriage bond. It is a telling comment on the characters of the king and queen that while Henry ignored Erasmus after his refusal to come to England, Katherine continued to read his works and sent him two gifts of money in 1528 and 1529. In 1529 in his treatise De Vidua Christiana (On the Christian Widow), dedicated to Mary of Hungary (niece of Katherine of Aragon) Erasmus mentions the English queen’s masculine gendering of herself: “Catherine, the queen of England -a woman of such learning, piety, prudence, and constancy that you would find nothing in her that is like a woman, nothing indeed that is not masculine, except her gender and her body”
Sources:
María Dowling, Humanist Support for Katherine of Aragon
Leanne Croon Hickman, Katherine of Aragon : a "pioneer of women's education"? : humanism and women's education in early sixteenth century England
Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen
Allyna E. Ward, Women and Tudor Tragedy: Feminizing Counsel and Representing Gender
#Desiderius Erasmus#Erasmus of Rotterdam#Katherine of Aragon#Catherine of Aragon#Catalina de Aragon#British history#Men in history#Women in history
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Nothing in Particular Update #2
It’s the Nothing and Particular and Everything update part two: the electric booglaloo. This one is long, so strap in.
It’s been a while since I wrote an update for this story. To be honest, this one gave me a lot of stress, but here I am! Writing this story feels like it is going very slow. I keep telling myself I’ve made a lot of progress (which is true, I have) but for some reason it doesn’t feel like I have? This is likely just my own insecurity. To be frank, I can’t believe I’m still writing this story. If you had told me in February that I’d still be writing this when the weather got warm, I would have laughed.
I am SO excited that I will finally be able to focus on writing now that I’m out of school. I’m afraid to speak the rough deadline that I’ve given myself for this story (the end of August-early September) but now that I’ve spoken it into existence, I hope I can finish! (I hope I can stop watching dumb videogame playthroughs and listening to The Magnus Archives and get something done)
Here is a link to the story introduction and previous update!
TAGLIST (ask to be +/-); @wannabeauthorzofija @a-completely-normal-writer @baguettethebooklover @corkytheguar @writeherewaiting
STORY CHANGES/THOUGHTS/IDEAS:
Here is a big one: I’ve been trying to write this story for myself. I started writing Ray’s story from a place that was personal to me, but I feel like, as that part of myself has begun to heal, I’ve started to think about what a reader would want out of the story. I’m realizing that this is my story so it has to be what I want. Drafts are drafts for a reason, so I’m going to try to get better at letting myself explore what is fun to me.
I always thought I was a discovery writer (I still sort of think I am) but as I’ve finished small sections of the story, I am finding that it’s very helpful to do a rough outline of scenes in upcoming chapters. (I also recommend turning to this if something doesn’t work and you need to retrace your steps!) Just helps me feel more organized!
Jude’s character has got to be one of the most difficult personalities I’ve ever written. Putting her beside Ray just makes it harder. Where Ray is secretive and keeps to herself, Jude is ready to unpack her entire life’s story to anyone. I find that I really have to slow down when writing their interactions. I know this is going to be nowhere near perfect in the first draft, but I think it is a main contributor to my slow writing.
I really like this little narrative I’ve created in the background of the main plot with Ray and Lonan. I love writing these scenes because it’s a way for me to use Lonan when he’s not actively with Ray and to show why Ray is predetermined about things at certain points. Also I love their friendship so much <3
CONGRATULATIONS TO ME on starting to read again because I forgot how much of a help reading other people’s stories can be when you’re struggling with your own oml
I now have a set timeline for the story! Takes place ~4-5 months.
I did that thing where you write a letter from the characters’ perspectives and that was kind of fun
Also just for fun I thought I’d add in that I spent an hour and a half last week filling up a page in my sketchbook with diagrams of the plot. It feels good to be a mad scientist
EXCERPTS UNDER THE CUT!
*At this point, I’m only sharing writing that I am really proud of in order not to spoil the story! This is because I am unsure whether I want to publish this story someday. With that said, that does NOT give you permission to steal my ideas!
CHAPTER: NIGHT CRIES
#1
In the last week of summer, I did everything I could to avoid post-vacation blues. I rode my bike along the gravel roads with no destination, wore my dark sunglasses to people-watch, and fed salami to the minnows that floated on the cusps of boulders. Usually, I sat still for so long that my elbows turned a deep shade of red and the blood in my toes buzzed.
New pockets seemed to open up in Point Blink every day. And with them, came new people. Most of them were older – a middle aged woman who caked her lipstick on, an uncle estranged from his brother, a couple who had miscarried. I hadn’t forgotten about the kids at Mothouse. It was impossible not to think about them. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen them before.
#2
The girl’s limp cigarette bled a trail of smoke that seeped into my Vans. My shirt folded like skin over my bed post. Haunted the room – foiled my mauve sheets and teased my locks. Swept the curtains apart and heated the oak floor. Beams of moonlight leapt to my bookcases; highlighted the posters from various podcasts and bands that I listened to. Wind whistled when I was too still. She forced me to look outside, onto the dark cul-de-sac lit by the reflections of forming rain puddles. No matter whether I sat at my desk or burrowed under my sheets, I felt out of place. She made my bedroom louder. She made my bedroom quieter.
I decided it would probably be best if I never saw her again.
To be honest, I don’t remember much about writing this chapter because it was over a month ago (sorry) but I’m still quite happy with the prose! This comes in after Ray sees Jude for the first time at Mothouse. Based on a first impression, decides that she might want be friends with Jude.
CHAPTER: SORRY
#1
If you spend any long amount of time with someone, you’ll become a thief to their behaviors. If I stared long enough, trees began to replace all of the people we’d ever seen. Oaks had roots that serpentined the ground like children splashing in the bay, pines with needles like spindly old hands, maples with hollows like watchful eyes – all things Lonan had taught me to observe.
CHAPTER: GHOSTS
Then there was the sea – violent and knowing as it romped within bays and alcoves. She had eaten me many times before, both my father and Lonan too. Gulped them as if they were shining plastic wrappings left behind after a meal. I spited her for inviting me once again. I reached up again to grapple with the next rung. It twisted and offered a low whistle.
In these two chapters, Ray is on a photography trip with her class. This is the first time she’s been on this annual trip without Lonan. She left that morning with a goal of being independent and learning to get on with one of the only people she has felt close to. I realize now that the Ghost excerpt sort of sounds like her dad and Lonan have drowned?? Which was not my intention??
CHAPTER: A DIVINE INTERVENTION
#1
“Do you believe in ghosts?” A raspy voice teased from behind me. Cigarette smoke tickled the words, like they were stuck together with jelly inside of her. The question wasn’t particularly calming, but it strengthened my grip on reality. As if the foiled leaves, bark, and dandelions had sprung from the ground and begun to float, they came crashing back down.
I was made of stone.
“I’m not a ghost,” Jude said. “If I was, a ladder would be a pretty counteractive way to outrun me. I could just float up there and haunt you.”
“Maybe you’re a ghost,” she asked, her voice distant.
I shifted my grasp up and down the sides of the ladder. “What?”
“Don’t you believe in ghosts?”
I was reading back some of Ray and Jude’s conversation and there are so many snippets of dialogue that make me laugh because I totally forgot I wrote them... but UGhhH I don’t know if I want to share them because I don’t know whether or not I want to try and publish the story someday. Speaking of that, it’s sort of because it’s so personal to me? I don’t know (this is for future me to pursue) Honestly though, reading these back has made me really happy :)
#2
I wanted to shake her by the shoulders. She acted as though Point Blink could breathe – as though corpses in the cemetery might pull the grass away like dead skin, neighbors would draw blades, and blood-salt would stain her clothes rather than that from the sea. “Trust me, they’ll forgive you. But, I’m just saying, most people around here don’t care nearly as much as you think so. Most of them are way older anyways, so they’re tired of us.”
“Is that you complimenting yourself?” Jude asked.
“Not intentionally,” I said, “but I will take it.”
She laughed. “You shouldn’t be so nice to strangers.”
I wasn’t trying to be. I just didn’t think I wanted her to dislike me.
#3
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing or a good thing,” Jude said. “Being good gets you tucked into a thousand different memories. Being good makes you live a lifetime.”
I almost laughed, but then I wondered what I was to her now. “I don’t talk to lots of people.”
“Sometimes there aren’t many people to talk to. But I thought you would have loads of friends.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I thought you would too.”
Alarm like grief lit her eyes, but she laughed. I did too.
“You hardly know me,” she said quietly.
Then the girls explore some old newspapers and letters in a fire tower! Spooky fun!
CHAPTER: YOU LET THIS HAPPEN
This isn’t a major spoiler as it’s literally in the blurb I wrote, but Ray and Jude are caught (targeted..??) in a fire. Ray is brought back to a field where she is questioned.
CHAPTER: NOTHING HAPPENS
He was quiet for several moments while he painted a picture with what little details I had given him, then said, “It’s unfair. I think that’s why it hurts.”
“Because we almost got hurt?”
“No. Because it came true.”
His gentle, ragged voice made me think I could tell him anything. Sometimes, I think that, even then, he knew I left something out.
Ray talks to Lonan after the fire... She’s being a bit dishonest about what actually happened.
CHAPTER: WHY NOT
I remember how the barest amount of red light glared across Lonan’s entire scalp and washed his boyish curls magenta from the roots out. When Jude leaned back on the counter, she melded into the darkness.
This chapter is just part of the narrative that I created with Ray and Lonan’s friendship. There isn’t much I want to spoil from it, but I liked this paragraph!
CHAPTER: INEVITABLE
“We didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Someone did. Why won’t you believe me?”
“I think I would remember whether or not someone was there with us,” I said, “even if we didn’t have the picture.”
This was untrue. I hung lots of photos in my room. A long time would pass before I went to a restaurant again, or a specific coven on one of the beaches, or an outfit that I wore, and I would look into one of my pictures and remember it, and then I would be quite angry with myself that I had almost forgotten that thing forever.
“I don’t think you understand what I mean,” Jude said. I didn’t like the way she’d lowered her voice. She sounded different every time I saw her. She reached out her arm so our photos were side by side and our fingers were almost touching. “I don’t think you want to.”
Ray finds herself alone in the school’s dark room with Jude. Based on the contents of one of her photos, she tries to convince Ray that there is more to the fire than what meets the eye.
CHAPTER: (this one is untitled)
I didn’t mind that he followed me everywhere. Even when he was quiet, I didn’t find it strange to be around him. We sat silently through films and went on walks. Once, he had fallen asleep while watching The Iron Giant in my bed. I didn’t know if I should wake him up once it ended. I tried not to stare at him. He’d rolled onto his side and bundled himself in one of my blankets covered in stars up to his shoulders so only his small face poked out like a baby owl’s. His soft breath messed his dirty gold coils. They were at their longest. Except for the ebbing light from a candle on my desk, my house was asleep – Lonan needed to go home.
For the first time, I wondered if anyone cared where he was.
Another small part of the little friendship narrative! (This really is the part of the story where I get nostalgic for my childhood, isn’t it) Ray starts to discover more about Lonan’s home life in this part of the story, but there’s not much that I think I want to reveal about that for now.
CHAPTER: THE CRUX OF IT
Why did I feel so paranoid? I found myself staring out the window, into the film of blue that the late sun shown onto the grass and trying to remember what summer felt like.
My main problem was that I didn’t know how to talk to Jude unless it was about Sugarfell. I ran from the hush of cigarette smoke behind closing doors and heard her loud voice in conversations. Even though there might have still been a part of me that wanted to be friends with her, I didn’t have much to base that feeling off of. I could have spent hours clicking the little pieces of her that I had together, but the crux of it was that I would never know Jude unless I forced myself to.
For some reason, that really scared me.
I spent all week trying to think of what to say to her. By Friday afternoon, I still had nothing.
I left off writing with Ray actively avoiding Jude’s little investigation into the arsonist. Ray doesn’t want to be involved in this because she feels that it will throw her sense of normalcy off course. She really just wants to learn how to adapt to a life without her best friend. (It doesn’t help that she’s got fresh trauma)
What will Ray decide? I don’t know. We shall see. (just kidding I know)
Sorry this update was longer! I think I would like to start updating more often than once a month just because they would be shorter and those of you reading this won’t forget what happened in the last update. There are thousands and thousands of words that didn’t show up in this update because - like I said - I don’t know whether I want to publish this story ever?? I’ll probably talk more about this in a separate update.
Thank you so much to those of you who read about my story! I hope you enjoy it!
:)
p.s. btw I now have a myWriteClub account! You can check it out here and stalk me as I tragically fail my writing goals!
#ffs writing this update was like throwing a boulder into a lake#there was so much I wanted to share#it's really difficult to decide what to share as sometimes a paragraph that I'm really proud of will be really spoilery#I can only imagine this will be more and more difficult as I get further into the story#ANYWAYS#I feel like I'm really beginning to see who my characters are <3#I feel like a proud mother#To be honest#I kind of hated Jude in the beginning#but now I feel like Ray hates her too so that makes me like her#haha im so mean#tune in next time for a Sapphic spy date
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Hii! I see you've read RWRB (which means you obviously have impeccable taste) and was wondering if you could recommend any more LGBTQ+ books? Thank you!!
OH MY GOD I HAVE SO MANY!! It really depends on what genre you’re interested in and what you like; I’ll sort of try to break it down that way (and not just rec every gay book I’ve ever read lmao)
General fiction:
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz is about two Mexican boys growing up in El Paso in the late 1980s and the writing style is absolutely incredible. It was the first Gay Book(tm) I remember and I spent months of 2012-2013 trying to find a copy and it was 100% worth it.
Simon Vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli. We know it, we love it, I wanted to include it anyway.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee is a historical fiction (leaning on fantasy) romp about a boy in the 18th century going on his grand tour with the best friend he’s in love with; the sequel stars his aro/ace sister. Bi lead, Black gay love interest, and a sequel about the importance of girl friendships.
I’m on page four of Gail Wilhelm’s Torchlight to Valhalla but I love the writing style and the fact that it’s a lesbian book from 1938 that apparently ends happily almost made me cry so there’s that.
anything by Virginia Woolf, but especially Orlando, which is a love letter to her girlfriend.
Soft Place to Fall by Ba Tortuga is a fun gay cowboy romance; it’s dumb and sappy and predictable and fantastic.
Sci-Fi / Fantasy
THIS IS WHERE I THRIVE this is my wheelhouse so sorry if I get carried away lol
anything by Sarah Gailey. Their Upright Women Wanted is about queer librarian spies in a futuristic wild west. The American Hippo series (River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow) is about queer hippo wranglers in an alternate 19th century. Magic for Liars is a murder mystery set in a magic school, perfect if you’re trying to ditch She Who Must Not Be Named but still want your fun magic school itch scratched.
Nottingham by Anna Burke is a lesbian retelling of Robin Hood; I’m still working through it but I’m pretty sure all the merry men are queer women and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas is absolutely fantastic; it’s got an entirely Latinx cast with a trans lead and a ghost love interest; 15/10 almost made me cry.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo has that casual queer rep that I absolutely adore. Like yeah sometimes you need a book about Being Queer but sometimes you also need a heist where the badass gunslinger casually goes “oh yeah not just girls” and steals a tank, you know?
This is very I’m A Child Of The Late 90s/ Early 2000s but Tamora Pierce was huge for me growing up. She clearly stuffed as many queer characters into her world as publishers would let her, and recently she’s confirmed fan theories about even more queerness (ace/aro characters, trans readings, etc) in her work.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness was published in 1969 and treats gender as a fluid thing; I haven’t read it yet but it’s on my bedside table and I’m very excited to get to it.
Poetry
all of it straight people don’t get poems
Badger Clark was a gay cowboy poet; I love his stuff so much. “The Westerner” made me absolutely feral and “Others” gutted me.
Wilfred Owen is best known for his work about WWI, but “Maundy Thursday” and “How Do I Love Thee” are absolutely incredible.
Whitman wrote poems about being gay and was one of the more iconic queer voices of the 19th century, at least in literary circles.
Byron was an icon and also incredibly queer.
Sappho is the iconic one; Anne Carson’s translation of her work (If Not, Winter) is fantastic and the one I’d personally recommend.
Classics
If you’re down to read between the lines do I have some books for you
Stoker was gay (and wrote thirsty letters to Whitman), and no one can convince me that Dracula is a straight book. Arthur and Quincey were dating thank you for coming to my TEDx talk.
The Iliad is long and complex but also Achilles and Patroclus wanted their ashes mixed when they died (fellas...)
anything by Wilde but especially A Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Les Miserables has a character who “admired, loved, and venerated” another man, and who “took great care not to believe in anything” but said other man (fellas...). There’s also an entire page about how the lead has never felt any form of love other than familial (fellas... is it aro to spend a whole page talking about how you’ve never loved anyone).
I haven’t read Moby Dick but I know there’s like three pages about how much the narrator loves his crewmate (fellas...)
Nonfiction
A lot of people are scared of nonfic but I’m gonna let you in on a secret: you don’t have to read the whole book. Pick and choose chapters that interest you, put it down for a year, whatever. Nonfic’ll be there for you.
Portrait of a Marriage by Nigel Nicolson is a look into his parents’ open relationship and his mother’s relationship with Virginia Woolf; it’s a gorgeous exploration of the various ways that love and marriage can be flexible and it changed how I look at relationships.
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski is a good intro to queer history.
We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown is a great look at the Stonewall Era and the time after especially, and it’s full of incredible pictures. They also run @/lgbt_history on insta and 10/10 for that.
Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet and Into the Stonewall Era by Jason Baumann is fantastic too; it’s got pictures and short descriptions of what’s happening in them. Maybe not a first place, but if you know the general scope of the queer rights movement it’s a fantastic thing (or if you don’t and you’re ready to google lmao).
My Dear Boy or anything else by Rictor Norton is incredible. My Dear Boy is a collection of gay love letters; he’s also got books on queer culture in 18th century London and queering the Gothic. You can find a lot of his stuff online here and My Dear Boy specifically here.
If you want more/ something more specific, don’t hesitate!! I work in a library and I’m always finding new gay stuff and I love it.
#i wrote this in two sittings because i had a lot of ideas lmao#and i'm sure i'll come up with more soon#but i love talking about gay lit and i have so many recs#so if you want something more specific let me know#not fic#ask and answer#hannah's recs
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Writer’s Spotlight | myoxisbroken
Happy hump day, peeps! This week’s spotlight is the queen of a historical fic, AU or canon. The maven of food porn in a fic. And the reigning champ of teasing me with smut @myoxisbroken ! Let’s dive in!!
The Basics
MASTERLIST HERE
Any other names you want people to call you?
Miss Ox, myox, whatever you feel like!
How long have you been writing fic?
2 years.
What fandoms and/ships do you write?
MCU (Loki, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes), other Tom Hiddleston characters (Pine, Conrad, Sharpe, Buxton, Nicholls, Plumptre, and ever-growing), and just branching out into Pedro Pascal with The Mandalorian; I also have a few Doctor Who fics in my Masterlist (Ten/Donna Noble)
How did you get started writing fic?
I was reading a ton of Doctor Who fic and enjoying the Doctor/River Song stories. Then I rewatched DW season 4 and was so depressed about Donna's ending that I immediately watched the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version of Much Ado About Nothing. And then I started to ship the Tenth Doctor and Donna.
So I read a bunch of their fic and thought, "You know what would be awesome? If someone wrote a WW2 AU where Donna's a single mother and the Doctor is an injured fighter pilot that she takes in as a boarder." And then I started to get snippets of dialogue in my head, and ideas for scenes, and I wondered if I might be able to write a story myself. I hadn't written anything in years, but I decided to give it a try. And a few months later, I had my first story completed, a 14-chapter Doctor Who AU.
After that, I had the writing bug and I haven't been able to stop coming up with ideas and working to put them into words!
Story Recommendations
Which of your stories are your favorite?
It is honestly so hard to choose. I'm only going to choose completed works, because I always love the WIPs I'm working on. So, let's see: You Bring Me Home is one of them, because it was so fun to just jump into a sexy vacation romp with some playful kink exploration for James Conrad (Kong: Skull Island). With Brooding Wings was my first attempt at a vampire story using multiple Tom Hiddleston characters, and I really enjoyed playing with the dynamics of different personalities and settings in that world.
In A Restless World Like This Is is another, because I had such a great time writing a fluffy love story for Steve Rogers and an older OFC. It started as a spite project because of someone's objections to older characters and turned into such a lovely experience. It was one of the easiest I've ever written in terms of how quickly it flowed from my brain through my fingers. I'd loved writing for Loki (An Excellent Suggestion was my first Loki story, and my first time writing smut) and for Bucky (We Are All Victims of Physics Sometimes was my first dip into capturing Bucky's quiet reserve and depth of emotion).
I honestly could go on and on about stories but would only sound more conceited.
Which story are you most proud of?
I think A Pursuit of the Heart. It was my first time writing in the Regency/Georgian era, and I did a TON of research for it. It was also my first novel-length story, and I didn't even know if I could take on something that big or write a historical romance convincingly, in a way that felt era-appropriate and true. I was so proud of the finished product.
Which of your stories do you think is the most underrated?
Let Your Heart Be Light, a Bucky/OFC story with a Christmas theme - its companion piece, Kissing The New Year In, also didn't get much traction. But I loved writing them!
Someone is new to reading your stories, which story/stories should they read first?
It depends on what actors and characters they like, really, as well as if they like smut or fluff or both. For a smutty one-shot, I'd recommend An Excellent Suggestion (which has a one-shot sequel). For a swoonier longer fic with smut, I'd recommend either You Bring Me Home or my fake relationship Steve Rogers fic The One Thing You Can't See.
For fluff, An Unforeseen Outcome is a Loki one-shot with both fluff and a little emotional hurt/comfort. Interestingly, I've written more not-smut fluff for Loki than for any other character. I think I just want him to find connection and love and acceptance so much.
And if you are a fan of historical romance, I'd recommend either my Thomas Sharpe AU A Compromising Situation, or if you like your fics with a healthy dose of angst, Beside Us When Beauty Brightens, my William Buxton (Return to Cranford) story about what happens after he loses Peggy.
Which Story did you do the most research for?
A Pursuit of the Heart, since it was my first one set in the Georgian era and I had a lot of catching up to do! I research for most of my stories, and definitely for my multi-chapter stories. Even if they're contemporary, I still look up resorts, locations, restaurants and local foods, things to do, etc. I can't help it. It's like I'm addicted to research.
Which Story was the easiest to write?
For a multi-chapter fic, In A Restless World Like This Is. For a one-shot, probably my Loki Christmas fluff All I Want For Christmas Is You.
The Writing Process
What is your favorite part of writing?
When a scene I've had in my head just flies out of my fingers and onto the page, and I can read it back and think, "YES! That's just how I wanted it!"
What is your least favorite part?
When my brain is too scattered and unfocused to actually allow me to do any writing.
Describe your style in 1 to 2 sentences.
Well-researched stories that use the information to make you feel like you're there and that incorporate sweetness into even the smuttiest scenario. Also, food porn, and porn porn.
Who are some of your writing idols and/or influences?
For published novels, Mary Balogh and Sabrina Jeffries are two of my favorite historical romance writers, and I think that reading them has helped to make my writing better. In terms of fic authors (some of whom are also published), @nildespirandum and @caffiend-queen were two of the first I read in the Tom/Loki fandom and their excellent quality and intriguing plots are an inspiration, even if I will never be able to write plots as twisty as theirs. Also, reading @yespolkadotkitty's stories helped me push myself to get better at setting scenes and at incorporating the various senses into stories, because she is so good at both of those things and so much else.
What programs do you use to write and/or edit?
I use Google Docs. I have also been dancing around buying Scrivener for an original novel I plan to write and shop around, so I'll be doing that soon.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Plotter, for sure. My brain would implode if I tried to pants my stories.
Do you write RPF or not?
I have a few chapters of a Tom Hiddleston RPF in draft form but haven't proceeded with it. I'd kind of like to write a Pedro Pascal RPF one-shot. I love reading RPF but feel odd about writing it for some reason.
Who is your favorite character to write and why?
Again with the tough questions! It might be Loki, because he is such a chameleon and there are so many hidden depths to him. I really want to write some multi-chapter Loki stories, because so far I have done one-shots and one 3-chapter short fic. I'd like to explore a longer character arc for him.
What do you think are your writing strengths?
Authenticity because of my research, realistically depicting emotions, and writing in a style that feels genuine to the setting and era.
What do you struggle with?
PLOT. I do think that there is plenty of room for all kinds of stories, and I like to tell stories about relationships. But I would like to get better at adding outside conflict and other types of plot to my stories.
Favorite Trope?
It's so hard to choose between There Was Only One Bed and Fake Relationship. I think those are my top two.
What is the best piece of writing advice you have heard?
Write something. Anything. Even if you think it's crap, get your first draft done, because you can always go back and rewrite something that's bad and make it better. Also, if you're stuck on your WIP, write something else - a piece of another story or one-shot, a description of something you saw, a character profile, a bit of personal journaling. Keep writing and don't let a temporary roadblock turn into a long-term one.
What would you say to a new fanfic writer starting out?
It's hard when something you wrote doesn't get a lot of attention, especially when you love it. We share stories in the hopes that other people will discover and enjoy them, but you have to at least partly do it for your own satisfaction, or it will get pretty discouraging if the likes/kudos, comments, and reblogs just don't happen.
What is a random bit of research you have not managed to work into a fic yet?
Ladies' drawers (underwear) were not commonly worn until the mid-1800s. They were thought to be gentlemen's garments and it was thus vulgar for a lady to wear them. Yes, ladies of the Georgian (incl. Regency) era were generally commando beneath their skirts, petticoats, and shifts. But that was still a lot of layers.
Any goals or WIPs you want to share?
My goal is to write an original novel (series) set during the Napoleonic Wars. My hope is to get it researched, written, and put in final draft form so that I can send query letters out before the end of 2021.
This or That
Fluff or Angst
Fluff AND Smut
Reader Insert or OC
Canon Divergent or AU
Pepsi or Coke (Neither: Cherry Coke Zero)
Coffee or Tea (Neither: Cocoa)
Sweet AND Savory
And that is it, until next week, remember to check out the masterlist here. And your new fav fic is just around the corner! Until next time, toodles!
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Back to Work (Winteriron)
Here, have a little piece I wrote when I got my second job and was nervous to the point of throwing up about going to work in a Real Place after years of running my bakery from my house!
THERE’S MORE WINTERIRON ON MY MASTERLIST!
****************
"What do you mean, I should get a job?" It had been a while since Bucky had used his patented Murder Scowl on anyone, but right now the full force of that glare was directed towards Sam, and the glower didn't let up even when Tony reached for his hand and pressed at his palm. "Why th'hell would I do that?"
"You don't have to do anything." Tony was quick to jump in and interrupt whatever Sam was going to say. He knew there was a fine line between terrified- Bucky and furious-Bucky, and even though the two emotions tended to overlap, right now there was only fear in those pale eyes. "Bucky baby? You don't have to do anything if you don't want to."
"Tony's right." Sam shifted back on his seat and surreptitiously raised his notebook a little higher as if the flimsy paper would be any sort of shield if Bucky just hauled off and clocked him. The counselor was aware of the fine line between terrified Bucky and furious Bucky too, but he also knew that being scared hadn't ever stopped the former Winter Soldier from punching the shit outta whatever got in his way. "You don't have to do it if you don't want."
"Then why'd you bring it up?" Bucky relaxed only the tiniest bit. "Why'd ya even say it?"
"Cos an important part of healing is taking steps to be part of society again." Sam had his 'Therapist' voice on, direct but calm, soothing but also brooking no argument. "You said you wanted to get better so I'm helping you get better. You've done great with life here in the Tower, Bucky. The nightmares are almost non existent and you don't even snap at Clint any more when he gets in your space. The next step is re-integrating into life outside the Tower, and finding a job would be a good start."
"We all do it." Tony squeezed at Bucky's hand comfortingly. "Even Cap and Natasha. I go and do real, Pepper-approved work at Stark Industries two days a week. Steve teaches art classes at the college, Natasha works as a ballet instructor at that girls school down the road. Clint bags groceries for some reason--"
"--it gives him plenty of people to flirt with and requires very little concentration." Sam supplied and Tony grinned.
"--Thor works at the animal shelter on their weekly adoption days because no one could say no to an animal from him, and even though Bruce isn't comfortable working outside the Tower, a few times a week he does lectures via video conferencing."
"That's volunteer work." Bucky pointed out. "Don't matter if they go or not, that's not the same as a job."
"Oh no, they all get paychecks." Sam countered. "Just like I still pull a paycheck for my counseling work. I'm not saying you have to have a job and earn money to be worth anything, I'm saying it would go a long way towards making you feel human. Normal. Like Bucky Barnes instead of just 'Sergeant Barnes, the Winter Soldier."
"No ones gonna hire me." Bucky said bluntly. "Even if Tony put in a good word or Stevie All American charmed some one into interviewin' me, no one's gonna hire me. I gotta metal arm and seventy years worth’a PTSD and no manners."
"There are jobs that don't require much customer service." Sam tried to sound hopeful. "And I really think interaction with non avenger type people would be good for you."
"It definitely keeps me focused." Tony chimed in. "Pepper makes me work on reports and payroll so I’m forced to see how much work people are doing for how much money, and how our profits look compared to how many of my employees are living below the poverty line--"
Sam raised his eyebrows and Tony finished, “Which is none, thank you. But if I didn't do that work I'd have no idea and honestly, I can't promise I'd care. Steve's job keeps him connected to the generation of kids that will be writing laws here in a few years. Natasha's keeps her grounded and reminded that people at least start out good. Clint-- I dunno what Clint learns at his job, but he knows the name of every single person who comes in, which means he's really plugged into the community. It's good for them, good for the people of the city, good for everyone."
"Well, what would I do?" Bucky made a fist, silver fingers gleaming. "Who wants to look at this every day?"
"I can put some feelers out and see who's hiring." Sam answered. "Except for Bruce and obviously Tony, we all keep jobs outside of Stark-or-Avenger influence so it feels more real. I'll make a list, make a few calls and we'll figure it out, okay?"
"...okay." Bucky sounded entirely unsure of the whole thing, and Tony leaned close to whisper, "Bucky bear, say the word and I'll tell Sam to fuck off. You don't have to do this, alright? It's okay."
"You think I should do it though." Bucky whispered back. "Don't you?"
"I think it would be good for you to realize that most people aren't going to treat you like you have the plague." Tony dropped a quick kiss on Bucky's cheek. "I know reporters look at you funny and the Department of Defense thinks you're gonna crash their doors in at any minute but I'm telling you, the average person in New York won't even look twice. Sam's right, having that sorta response will make you feel normal."
"You said I don't hafta be normal."
"And you said that some days all you want is to be human again." Tony countered. "A job would help with that. But if you don't want to? No harm done babe. We'll move on and try something different."
Bucky thought he might actually be sick to his stomach, thought he could lean over right there and vomit on the floor because the thought of stepping outside the safety and acceptance of the Tower to be around strangers who just stare--
--well that was just fucking terrifying.
But Tony was blinking up at him with those big puppy dog eyes, hopeful and non judgmental and adoring and hell Bucky would do just about anything to make sure Tony was proud of him.
"I'll do it." he finally agreed, and Tony's blinding smile was almost worth the anxiety clawing at the back of his throat and making it hard to breathe. "Find me a job, Sam."
**************
**************
One week later Bucky was dressed in dark blue jeans and a lighter blue button up, shoulder length hair combed and pulled back into a neat bun, silver hand covered with a skin-tone glove and holding a letter of recommendation from Sam so he could maybe get hired at an auto body shop.
Mechanical work had seemed like a good choice-- he was more than strong enough to haul around the heavy things, his left hand fine tuned to nearly impossible measurements thanks to Tony's constant tinkering, and back before the war and Hydra Bucky had been real interested in mechanics and building things and the science of how it all went together.
Auto body shops didn't see a whole lot of customers either, and no one expected a mechanic to be overly charming, so there was that working in Bucky's favor too.
Still, his heart was in his throat and stomach in knots as he sat in the rudimentary waiting area of the shop and waited for the owner to come and give him an interview.
The cars inside were all classics, all in various states of restoration. One truck looked like it had been put through a crusher, another car was gleaming and gorgeous and obviously just there for an oil change or maybe new tires. The walls were lined with pictures of cars at different shows, pretty women and even shiny looking men draped over the hoods in various, ridiculously provocative poses.
The music felt a little bit familiar, some old jazz mixed with the sorta music Tony sometimes played and for whatever reason, that relaxed Bucky just the littlest bit. He could handle tinkering around on old cars and listening to semi familiar music. That -- that could be okay. Maybe this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Maybe for once Sam was fucking right about something and getting a job would be alright.
"Mr. Barnes?" the girl at the front desk snapped her fingers at him and motioned him towards the office door. "Go on in."
Fuck fuck fuck. Just like that, any sense of being okay disappeared and Bucky was once again a nervous, knotted mess. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He kept Tony's gorgeous smile firmly in his mind across the over long walk to the office, kept thinking how proud his favorite genius would be when Bucky came home with a job, thought about how he could take his fella out for a dinner date with that first paycheck and that would be really really good, so with one last deep breath--
--Bucky opened the door.
"Hey. My name's Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson told me to come by and see if you were hiring?"
"Is that so?" the chair behind the desk swiveled round and Bucky blinked in surprise when Tony grinned up at him. "Oh yeah, my first impression was right. You are definitely gonna have to sleep with the boss to get this job. We call those couch auditions, and I think you're going to do just swell."
"Couch auditions..." Bucky looked back out into the garage, then over again at Tony in confusion. "What is going on?”
"Did you really think I was going to put you through getting a job with people who don't know you, a boss that wouldn't have any idea where to start talking to you, and in a situation I couldn't at least somewhat monitor?"
Bucky made a helpless gesture, and Tony raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "Call me nosy or weirdly controlling or what have you, but Bucky bear, there's no way I was gonna tell you to just jump right into working. That's insane."
"But-- but you said it'd be a good idea."
"And it is a good idea." Tony came out from behind the desk and reached for Bucky's left hand, pushing away the glove so he could wind his fingers through the silver digits. "So you can work here. I own the place, this is where I do most of my remodels on my cars now that Bruce has taken over the lab. I take in custom jobs from a few friends, I keep a small staff and wouldn't you know it? There's room for a hunky ex soldier with the hottest scowl ever, too."
"You said we should get jobs outside the influence of Stark or Avengers." Bucky said quietly, still not quite believing what was happening.
"No, Sam said that and sometimes Sam sucks." Tony answered mildly. "Fact is, everyone wants Captain America to teach an art class, and Clint makes a great grocery guy. Bruce is the smartest guy in the world, so he should be doing lectures. Tasha is terrifying but she's trained in ballet so that job makes sense. Thor is literally a puppy, so the animal shelter works out. I should do the Stark Industries work because that's my last name on the board, and you?"
He tugged Bucky in for a careful kiss. "You should do something you enjoy and I know you enjoy working on my cars and listening to classic rock."
"This counts as a real job?" Bucky mumbled into another kiss and Tony teased, "I'll even cut you a super real paycheck. Minimum wage to start, but you got lots of potential, I can see you getting a raise no problem."
"Will I get a raise faster if I blow the boss?" Bucky finally managed a smile, and was rewarded with one of Tony's ear to ear grins in return. "Or ya know, bend him over th' hood of one of those fancy cars?"
"Both of those activities will earn you a hell of a raise." Tony promised with a laugh, but he sobered up to ask, "Is this okay? I don't want you to think I don't think you're capable of a real job or doing this on your own."
"I don't think that, sugar."
"Because really this is just me being over protective of you and maybe even a little selfish because now I get to watch you get all greasy and sweaty underneath a gorgeous car." Tony continued with a smile bordering on wicked. "And since getting to protect your big butt and watching you work on cars is, two of my favorite turn ons, obviously you can see why I set you up here."
"Obviously." Bucky gave in and gave Tony the real kiss the smaller brunette was obviously angling for, backing him up into the desk and shoving his hands into all that hair before kissing Tony absolutely stupid.
And once his favorite person was giggling and breathless and making a joke about giving Bucky a raise right then and there, Bucky leaned close and whispered, "Thank you, babydoll. Sure do love you."
"Love you too." Tony whispered back. "Now get out there in a tank top and do something sexy like lift an engine block with one hand."
"Oh sure thing, sweet thing."
******************
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12) "It's on pretty lady/born to be angry/grip of the vice/click on the trigger, girl/sip wine on ice" It's About Time with Pepper? It just feels like some badass pepper lyrics
trying something a little bit different!
SHIELD should never have made Pepper Potts an enemy. She is not someone that you particularly want as an enemy, even though most don’t know this.
People know you don’t want Tony as an enemy. He’ll annoy you until you get an ulcer, or he’ll make you look like the biggest idiot on TV since ever.
What people don’t know is that Tony is actually very lenient on what happens. He doesn’t have as many enemies as one would think, including SHIELD.
Pepper, however, has other plans.
She doesn’t trust them. Not since they sent Black Widow, and not since they sent Coulson to placate her.
(Although they do have standing outings as friends, where no business is mentioned and she recommends various places to get a nice suit.)
They keep trying to win her over.
In a genius move, Tony has decided to cede any control over his inventions to her as CEO.
“I invent for Stark Industries or for personal use, both of which Pepper has control of,” Tony says. “So anything you want, you have to get from her.”
They think this is going to be easy. They think Tony will tell Pepper what to do.
Tony hasn’t been able to do that ever since she was hired on, so she’s not sure why they think they can do it.
They first send Coulson.
“No,” she says sweetly. “Although it is quite nice to see you, Phil. Everything okay in Portland?”
“Perfectly acceptable,” Phil says in that nice, easy smile of his. “But let’s get to the matter at hand, the technology. I’m sure we could come to an agreement.”
“Mm, I’m sure we can’t,” Pepper says. “Not unless you’re willing to have us take your employees and send them on a two-week training session for the technology usage and also making sure that it’s used in ways that are Stark Industries approved at every level.”
“Miss Potts, you have to understand that some of our work takes a...delicate balance.”
“And you have to understand, Mr. Coulson, that our reputation takes a...delicate balance as well,” Pepper says smiling. “We can’t have you using invisibility technology without some transparency to it, if you’ll forgive the irony.”
Phil Coulson is turned away with a cappuccino in his hand and disappointment resting on the file that he wrote up in the car.
“She doesn’t want to play ball?” Fury asks.
“She won’t,” Coulson says. “You have to admire her for her tenacity.”
“Then we send in Natasha.”
“Are you sure that’s the wisest move? She didn’t forget the Rushman Incident.”
“Natasha’s good with her words, Agent. She’ll be fine.”
-
Pepper is excited.
“It’s dangerous when you’re excited,” Rhodey says from his position on the couch. “Are you sure she’s going to be intimidated?”
“Don’t doubt her,” Tony scolds. “You don’t think Pepper can do it?”
“No you can,” Rhodey reiterates. “You can do it. But it might not work out according to the PowerPoint you presented.”
“Aw James,” Pepper coos, patting his cheek. “I’m a great planner.”
-
Natasha has to go to a gala to get at Pepper. This is fine with her, because she’s in a nearly-too-demure pink dress that shouldn’t look as good as it does, and she has her sights set.
The problem is that this is Pepper’s arena.
Black Widow’s whole job was to be only knowable by a legacy, a name that wasn’t ever really hers in the first place.
There’s only one Pepper Potts, and she’s intent on blasting this night to smithereens.
It first involves making the biggest scene possible.
This is clear with Tony’s influence.
Her dress is gold. And light up. All eyes are on her.
She’s known for being rather reserved with her choices: usually it’s grays and blacks and blues and the occasional white or pattern.
Not gold.
Never gold.
-
All eyes are on Natasha, and it ends up being too much of a security risk for her to approach her at the event. And Pepper, at this particular event, likes to stay as late as possible. Hell, she’ll even help clean-up.
It’s three a.m. when Natasha manages to make it into the town-car that picks her up.
“You’re a hard woman to get a hold of,” Natasha states.
“I try to be when it comes to Fury,” Pepper responds. “How is he doing, by the way?”
“He’s fine. Would be a bit better if you would consider our offer.”
Pepper looks at her too sweetly.
“I have considered and reconsidered. I also have said ‘no’ multiple times. If you’d like to give me your supervisor’s email, I can send them a strongly worded letter.”
“I don’t believe that would be necessary,” Natasha says, looking out the window. “Stark technology could help more people. It would certainly have helped find people who were made like me.”
It’s a guilt-trip, Pepper knows that.
“It would have, wouldn’t it?” Pepper asks. “It also would have helped if you had given Tony that little super-shot to deal with palladium poisoning sooner, wouldn’t it?”
Natasha eyes her carefully.
“You don’t miss a beat.”
"I try my best,” Pepper admits. “Just as you do. Tell Fury that my answer is still no, and will be no until the end of time until he lets us personally investigate its uses.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then we pull a Natalie Rushman,” Pepper reminds her. “Didn’t you have so much fun infiltrating the company the last time?”
Natasha doesn’t doubt it. At all.
But she leans back on the leather of the seats anyways, appearing cool and confident.
“You think we wouldn’t notice?”
Pepper’s eyes gleam.
“Of course I think you wouldn’t notice, why else would I have suggested it? You haven’t found half of Tony’s little pranks around the office yet, have you?”
“And what pranks would those be?” Natasha asks, posture straightening.
“Nothing much,” Pepper says as the car rolls to a stop. One heel is already delicately settling on the concrete. “Just a few things that he and Rhodey like to do when they’re bored. You’ll know what they are when they appear.”
Natasha is left in the car dumbfounded.
At least, until she gets a very frustrated text from Maria about their printers refusing to print anything without the signature of Tony authorizing or denying it at the bottom.
“This is going to take a week to fix,” she growls out as Nat answers the phone. “I told you guys not to pursue...”
“You know as well as I do that Fury is my boss and he doesn’t listen to you until it’s too late,” Natasha responds. “But I’ll let him know.”
-
There are two options left for Fury, who is growing a little bit angry and also desperate, and remembering how Tony had told him “you can’t afford me” with a very consoling handshake.
There is him, of course. The pro is that he can be very intimidating yet personable when he’d like to be, and he’s not gonna come for any small, tea-time talk.
The con is that he’s the head of SHIELD, and Pepper has been having great fun sending everyone away with more and more elaborate tactics.
(She straight up took Barton with her on her spa day, and Clint came back absolutely refusing to use any sort of Stark Tech, as it would be Wrong.
He’s a damn fool.)
And then, there is the second option: Maria.
Maria doesn’t even want to do it. She doesn’t like dealing with people, and especially not any bigwigs. She stated expressly that when she got the job of being Deputy Director that she would not be playing nice with anyone that she didn’t have to play nice to.
Pepper included.
-
That being said, here she is. Sitting in an uncomfortable office chair while Pepper stares at her.
It’s a power move, and one that Maria is far too used to.
So she sits back and stares.
“What are you hoping to get from me?” she asks. “Fear? Admiration? Dissent of a goal?”
“All three if I’m lucky,” Pepper says, smiling. “I’ve been waiting for Fury to get his head out of his ass and send you.”
Maria should not find that as blush-inducing as it is.
“And why would that be?”
“Because you’re the one I like,” Pepper says. “And you have sense. So. Let’s talk business.”
-
It takes two whole days.
(It didn’t have to, but Pepper wanted to show Maria a very nice bistro.)
In the end, they don’t get Stark technology. But they do get guaranteed assistance from SI on how to effectively lie to the public without it seeming like a lie, so long as they approve what they help with with complete transparency.
Fury is impressed.
“What made her listen to you?”
Maria stills for a moment at her office desk, tapping a pen.
“Negotiation skills.”
“Keep up the good work, Hill.”
(The negotiation skills were not there, if you were wondering. Now there was a thing with her tongue-)
#lovelyirony writes#peppermaria#mariapepper#idk what their ship is called#pepper potts#maria hill#anyways maria is a badass bitch#pepper is also a badass bitch.#natasha romanoff#clint barton#phil coulson#director fury
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the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark
theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]
The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!
[ masterpost for all chapters ]
CHAPTER 22 OF 22 [ END ]
But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so.
-"The Starless Sea", Erin Morgenstern
--
Like a reversal of fate, everything else goes according to plan afterwards: much to Theo’s delight.
After the expectedly but also overwhelmingly successful two-week long exhibit at the gallery, Vincent—after years of indecision—finalizes his documents and portfolio, submits a stack of photos and a long, written document detailing the exhibit to the graduation approval panel. The following month is the longest of the brothers’ lives, but the committee approves Vincent’s submission, and a few weeks later he’s finally marching down the aisle to claim his diploma. (It was a beautiful affair, Theo would always say about it, but in truth he was unable to see anything more than a few smudges of color, due to how hard he was crying. Thank god for photographs.)
Freshly-graduated Vincent takes on various jobs while submitting to various institutions both locally and abroad, and finally persuades Theo to finish his bachelor’s degree, promising that he’ll always be facing forward into the future. The following semester, Theo enrolls for a final time at the university, taking his last units to write up his thesis.
Theo doesn’t quit his job at the bookshop, but eventually as things get busier he can only take so many hours until he’s barely there at all. They get a new employee named William—Theo doesn’t really like him. Arthur gives a little show of crying when Theo reveals he can only work weekends now, treats him to dinner and some alcohol at the end of it, so maybe it isn’t that bad. Theo, of course, still forwards all his book requests to the bookstore, and, much to his disgust, continues to spend Saturdays or Sundays (or both, if he’s unlucky) as “quality time” with Arthur, as the latter has called it. It’s not much, but more than enough for his “begrudging” best friend.
As Theo is working on his thesis, Vincent finally receives an offer for apprenticeship at a rather renowned fine arts gallery a few hours away, and Theo feels all his dreams are coming true.
And it’s time to get a new one.
He’s finishing a degree, bracing himself to enter a field he’s always long wanted to be in, to help support his brother but also to begin the long journey of a little hope he’d long kept in his heart, the one he hadn’t ever dared to say, fearing he wasn’t good enough for it—of being the director of a museum.
He might even be able to take a master’s on the side, if he finds a company that’s willing to get him trained both on the company floor and in an institution—and his grades and a few recommendation letters will get him there, he’s damn sure.
And next to him, or well, miles away, his brother is getting steadier and steadier on his feet, near-sprint towards a future with art he’s always dreamt of as well, this time with no one putting him down. Theo’s going to make sure that stays the same for all the years to come, too.
It feels like the beginning of everything good, and Theo walks around the town with a smile on his face.
All that’s left to do is wait.
He has faith that everything will settle into their proper places, like they always have.
And they do, because just as she always does, it’s 2:00pm on a Sunday, and she comes, in a long, plain cream coat over a sweater, a short plaid skirt over dark leggings, high black boots, because it’s fall now, starting to become cold. She’s looking around her with stars in her eyes, like she hasn’t been here in a long time. And she hasn’t.
Theo spots her first, and then, like she feels the touch of his eyes on her skin, she turns to him. Her face brightens with a grin that makes Theo’s heart stop.
And then she runs with a speed unexpected for the shoes she’s wearing. Theo braces himself as she jumps into his arms, but they still topple towards the ground.
THUNK!
“Oh my god, I could have killed you!” she says, but every word is stuck in between fits of laughter. Curls of hair hang over the sides of her face as she pulls herself up on the palms of her hands and her knees. Guiltless, as she always is.
Theo crinkles his nose, raises a hand to brush off the curtain of hair. “You have an accent,” he says. It’s not derisive, not an insult, just an observation, the same way he’d say something about a work of art.
And, just because she doesn’t run out of ways to take his breath away, she laughs and presses a kiss on his lips, her mouth warm, his face suddenly hot. She smells like strawberries and sour things and home.
She pulls away and breathes against his trembling lips, “I missed you so much.”
“Talk’s for later,” he half-growls, pulling himself up into a seated position before taking her lips in his once more—his fingers in her hair, her hand on his shoulder, seated on his lap. The kiss doesn’t deepen like she expects it to: instead it’s just a series of small kisses exchanged between the two of them, passed back and forth to each other like a shared breath. His hand squeezes her waist and—
“GET A ROOM!” someone shouts from across the street, followed by a burst of laughter, random onlookers to a long-awaited reunion.
“God, I sure miss being home,” she chuckles, making light of the call-out, chewing on her lower lip in embarrassment, turning her eyes away from him.
The word home hangs heavy between the both; but a good kind of heavy.
But for now, he’s not having that, not when they’ve been waiting for this for the longest time; he reaches out to cup her cheek in his hand, only to feel the damp trail of a tear slipping down.
It’s his turn to snort, rubbing a thumb up underneath her eye. “Don’t cry, liefje.”
She pouts. “…‘I missed you too, baby,’” she says mockingly, but wipes the tears that fall out with the back of her hand anyway. The two of them stare at each other for a long moment, like confirming each other’s existence, like making sure the other is really there.
Then, she breaks the silence with a laugh, like she always does.
His heart feels more than just full. It’s always more than with her around.
“I kept all your letters,” she says softly.
“And I kept all your postcards.”
That makes her laugh. A sound he wishes he could listen to forever. “Ah, we sound like some kind of rom-com protagonists. So silly.”
“That’s not so bad though,” Theo says, taking her hand in his the way he’s always wanted to but has always been afraid to do.
“No,” she says, leaning against his warmth. Pressing their foreheads together. “Not at all.”
--
And because her friend’s been bugging her throughout her entire first year at the university while she was gone, said friend decides to get back at her by holding a little surprise party to match the little surprise arrival she had made for Theo. She, Theo, her friend, Dazai, Arthur, and a shifty-feeling Isaac—she will have to figure out the details for that later—end up having dinner together at a place that opened while she was gone, talking about all that she’d missed, stories that may as well have already been told but feel different when they’re told face-to-face.
They all go home flushed, half with drunk and half with joy. She hasn’t really checked into her apartment complex quite yet, but Theo shoots down her friend’s offer for her to be driven back to the city in exchange for getting her to sleep at his place. The van Gogh residence has been home to one for quite a bit now and Theo… well, he’d like some company.
The two of them are walking home side by side, swaying a little as they pass through flickering streetlights. There is so much to talk about, to catch up on, so many things hidden in between the lines of letters and messages that are better sorted out in person, and Theo feels each question rising up his throat clawing their way out.
Was coming back worth it?
Won’t you regret it?
Did you find what you were looking for out there?
But they have time—they have so much time now, so instead, he settles for the gentle quiet they’ve always known each other for. Instead, he bumps the back of her hand with his, and because everything is more than with her, she takes it as an opportunity to intertwine their fingers together.
There’s mischief in her voice.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“Say ‘I love you.’”
Theo stops in his tracks. “What?”
The shock makes her laugh. Pulling at his hand to get him to start walking again, she explains, “You’ve never told me you loved me, you know.”
“I have.”
“Not in person!” she argues. “Not even in call. You wrote it, but that’s different.”
Theo can feel the words on his tongue already anyway, but he continues to prolong the inevitable. “What’s all this all of a sudden?”
“Nothing! I just haven’t heard it, and well, I wanted to hear it? Please?”
“No.”
“C’mon, you’re not fair. Tell me.”
“No,” he says, pulling her by her hand and pressing a kiss on the back of it. Chaste, and yet so deep with hunger it makes her knees wobble just a bit. “I’ll tell you later.”
She flushes a deep red.
--
After all this, their friends will not stop joking about how they’ve had one of the most intense courtships in the history of their friend group—and likely their university—but the two of them both rigorously deny that, saying that there are likely to be more complicated ones they just don’t know. Besides, at this point, it doesn’t really matter how long it had taken them to get here—
Just that they had gotten here.
And what a good story that journey was.
Just fit for a literature major.
But stories are stories because they flow into each other, and so even if that chapter has ended, that just means another one has begun and—there is so much plot to be done. She and Theo have a talk about their relationship—this time in person, and this time for real—somewhere in between their last semesters in university. Their friends are, well, still their friends, ever so patient even now that they’re together, especially after all that happened before they got to this. And the future is wide and the world is out there waiting and—
They can’t wait to see it together.
Like flower facing upward to the sun daring itself to see what the world has for it out there before deciding it wants to stay, deciding to grow its roots, deciding…
Right here is okay.
Like blossoming in reverse.
When she and Theo move in together to their own little apartment, away from the university, long after shared books at the rooftop of the physics department and Dragon’s Hoard and Little Owl, Vincent sends to them a moving-in gift: a series of three canvases, a triptych depicting the two of them at that most vulnerable part of their romance. The start of the most beautiful part of it. On the opposite panels, she and Theo; sitting in front of their respective windows, looking out at different cities, different times of the day. And in the middle, a humble little paper airplane made of envelopes, with their blue and red marking, the stamps, the smudged ink, crossing the landscape without care for distance.
They hang the paintings in their living room, above the sofa, the first thing they see when they enter their little shared home.
Just another one of many shared things that will continue to grow.
And today, they’re not yet done unpacking and they’ve only gotten out two sets of dinnerware just enough to be able to eat—but there is so much time. So it’s two in the afternoon on a Sunday, music playing lowly from cheap Bluetooth speakers, and their next-door neighbors are hammering something in the wall but it is still beautiful. Standing in the middle of the living room on the carpet, the TV and the books still in their neatly labeled boxes stacked against the wall—they hold each other close to the slow beat of the music.
Sure, they may have been idiots about this but—they have the rest of their lives to make up for lost time
And so Theo presses his forehead against hers, smiling when the gesture makes her laugh. Nothing makes him feel as warm as she does, and no metaphor, no literary reference will be able to truly put into words how he feels about having found her at just the right moment.
How they crossed that near-miss.
And how lucky he is to get to keep her.
Arm wrapped reverently around the small of her back, one hand on her waist, the other with its fingers interlocked with hers—he presses a small kiss on her knuckles, eyes sliding shut. Everything goes dark: the music shushes into silence, the room collapses, the only thing is him, and her, and the long eternity.
“…And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart,” he whispers, quoting a poem from a poet from a book from a bookstore from what seems like a million years ago, sighing when she squeezes his shoulder, “I carry your heart—”
Tilts his head upward with her finger, oh, she has him wrapped around her finger, always has.
He looks back at her and her heart dips into the deep blue of his eyes.
She kisses the words onto his lips, “I carry it in my heart.”
---------
thank you for reading this! longer A/N on ao3!!
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The Last VLive - Chan [nsfw]
wc: 2566
warnings: masturbation, smut, lil bit of exhibitionism & attempted stripping
an: Had this idea a few days ago. Liked it. Wrote it. Enjoy~
The show started off as usual.
Chan sat in his room. Channie's room. The lights turned on, it was late at night, the two chairs beside him empty.
There was only Chris, sitting in his chair, in front of Wally, wearing a suit – or what had been left in place after they finished shooting.
Truth be told, he looked a mess.
His hair, previously dyed blonde, was tussled. The foams, sprays and various other things didn't hold it in place any longer; strands of it were sticking out into different directions.
His eyes were tired, but alert. Chan was sleepy, his body exhausted, but he craved spending time with stays, had been anticipating it all day.
The suit's jacket had carelessly been tossed to the chair on his left before he went live.
The button up shirt below was white, with its first button opened.
Though the vest on top was still in tact, the tie wasn't. The tie was still around his neck, but loosened largely, he just hadn't taken it off completely yet.
Can had already opened Insomnia on his computer, but was yet to hit play on it. He wanted to time it perfectly with the moment he went live – which would happen in 3...2...1...
The music started, Chan focused on the screen to watch fans join.
As the first words of the song were sung, the first hundreds of fans had come in, too. Chris began speaking, then, greeting them.
Y/N, too, received a notification for Channie's room ep 69; however, felt quite taken aback when Y/N opened VLIVE to a pop up that read, in Korean letters:
"to watch this surprise VLIVE, you must be 19 or older. Continue?" Strange, Y/N thought, since when was Vlive age restricted?
The chorus was playing for the second time when Chan asked fans how they were doing. He read out a few answers. Someone had an exam the next day and was studying late into the night – Chan wished them luck. Someone else commented, saying how stressed they were.
"Don't worry, Chan said, after a short monologue to cheer them up, "I'm here today to relieve all your stress. This is healing time, for you and for me."
He smiled at the foreshadowing words he had picked out. He had prepared something very special for today's episode. He felt excited already – felt himself growing more excited when the song ended. Though it was painful, he needed to be patient – Chris didn't want to rush things for his own pleasure. He always made sure to take his time for stays.
"Is there any song you want to listen to?" He asked. As he waited for suggestions to trickle in, he answered another comment.
" 'How's Berry?' I miss Berry a lot. I've talked about it with Felix recently, he really wants to get a dog as well. Maybe one day we can adopt a puppy together, but at the moment, I think we're just too busy, you know." Chan's glance shifted to the comments once more; the corners of his mouth twitched upwards, breath coming out staggered as he read one song suggestion. Momentarily, he was taken captive by his own thoughts; silence filled the room. The tension within him grew.
"Stays... really have the perfect songs for the right moments." Chan bit his lip, hard. He then licked over it, soothing the area, wetting it. "One of you recommended a very fitting song for this episode."
Typing.
A shy smile spread across his lips – he felt nervous. But stays loved him, needed him – and right now, he really needed them. He looked down at his desk, a little embarrassed, but convincing himself, when he clicked play.
A girl's voice set in first, then a second later music.
"Early in the morning's when I think about you, yeah
I hit you like what you sayin'"
Time to get started. In the blink of an eye, Chan was filled with lust and confidence. Chan looked up, a seductive expression on his face.
"This is for you." He spoke softly. "Enjoy." He stood up.
Chan's right hand stroked over the back of his neck, into his hair. he tugged on it, pulling his own head back. He let out a shaky breath at the slight pain.
"Yeah, I hit you like what you sayin',
I could fuck you all the time~"
His left hand reached for the first of the three buttons of the vest. He opened it. His right hand joined in, unbuttoned the other two. On one side, he dropped the clothing down to his arm; his hips moved along to the sensual beats. Soon after he dropped the other side of the vest, he let go of the clothing completely. He threw it onto the chair to his right. Chan caught a glimpse at the comments.
"What is he doing?"
"Is he taking off all his clothes right now? What's going on?!"
"Yes Daddy so sexy ♥" Chan smiled at his audience.
"Are you enjoying the show so far, baby-stays? There's a lot more to come." Chan's hands roamed over his body; his right hand moved across the somewhat unbuttoned shirt. When he reached its hem, he slid his palm past it and underneath. As he felt his hot skin, his abs, he gave stays a preview of the glorious sight he would bless them with soon. His other hand, too, went below his shirt, but further up, he grazed his nipple, hissed as he squeezed it.
"I've been so needy today..." he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. Reluctantly, he pulled his hands away and went to open more of the milky-white-coloured buttons. He unbuttoned the first one, released it from the grasp of the shirt's other half. His lips moved along with the naughty words of the song, body feeling its beat.
So agonisingly slow, he went on. Was he teasing his viewers? Or himself? Chan questioned. His was aroused. His cock was card already, though having just started.
He reached the middle now, when he pulled apart the top of the shirt to reveal his pecks. He couldn't resist, his own arousal was fogging up his mind – a powerful, demanding mistress. Again, he fondled with his own nipples. Chan whined. He was so, so sensitive today. So desperate for release. The thought of thousands of people watching him only made him hornier.
"I think about it so often, if one of you touched me like this. I love to imagine it – helps me get off so easy." He admitted, his cheeks rosy, he bit his lip. Chan ruffled through the blonde strands of his hair. He couldn't lose his mind so early into the stream.
As he pulled away from his hair, he looked into to camera, then at the screen. He looked a mess.
Chan continued unbuttoning his shirt, he had managed to cool down a little, mentally. His voice was more stable, too.
"I want to touch you, too. You need a lot of love and I want to give just that to you. Want to make love to you." He growled, "really want to fuck you." With that, he ripped open the remaining two buttons of his shirt.
He slipped off the sleeves, threw the shirt to where the vest already lay. The tie, he decided, he'd leave on.
Another look at the comments encouraged Chan to go on.
"Please fuck me, Daddy! ♥"
"Why not let me fuck you, pretty boy?" Chan's head spun. All their eyes were on his body. He grew even harder within his jeans.
He took a step back, allowed his viewers to admire not just his white-chocolate abs, but also the bulge at his crotch.
"You see this?" He asked; Chan ran his hand over his clothed member. He palmed himself. "This is what you do to me, every day." He slid his hand into his pants, slowly stroked his cock.
"You made me so hard. Fuck." He pulled his hand out, opened the button and unzipped his pants. As he slid off his jeans, he turned around to give them a look at his round, peachy butt. He pulled his jeans just below it, then turned his head to be able to look at the screen. Over the material of his boxers, he groped his ass, took a handful to squeeze it; he slapped it. The noise went through the room. It sounded loud, he was sure they'd love it – it turned on Chan even further when this was confirmed.
"Take it off!" Some people demanded.
"So thicc. So pretty." Someone else wrote.
The song ended; another random sensual song started playing.
A moment later, his pants were off and Chan turned around. Through his black boxers, they all could see the clearly defined outline of his thick, erect cock. Chris palmed himself again.
"Hmm, I wonder how many of you guys get off to the thought of sucking my dick." He gripped his cock roughly. "So many of you would love to have this in your mouth, your pussy – I bet I could claim all your holes and you'd let me, too, wouldn't you?" With those words, he pulled out his cock. Spitting into his palm, Chan used it as lube as he stroked his cock. He started off slow, using merely his right hand.
"You guys touch yourselves too, yeah? I want to know I'm making you feel good. I'm gonna help make you cum- want to make you cum to me." Chan saw many people in the comments say they were already getting off along with him – he moaned out, imagining the scene. Others wrote encouraging words, told him how hot he looked, how big they thought his dick was. Yet other people requested him to do various things – touch his abs, fuck his fist, finger himself.
"Hmm, all your ideas sound so good," Chan purred, "Instead of my hand, I wish it was you guys I could fuck." He stepped closer to the phone, grabbed it to get a better angle on his cock. He held it in front of the camera, showed it off from the side. People could see his thick member in all its glory; his long shaft, the vein that ran along it, and the tip. He moved the phone once more, held is dick in place with the other hand as he showed off the pretty pink colour of his tip, the pre cum that was oozing out already. He removed his hand from his cock and, using the tip of his pointer finger, he smeared around he precum, then pulled off slightly, watching how a string of the clear substance still connected his digit and his dick.
"You guys see how worked up I am? I wish you were here to lick it off. I'd fuck all your pretty mouths." He chuckled darkly, then put the phone back in its original place.
"I've brought a toy with me today, so I can at least pretend I'm fucking one of you." He reached to an area the camera couldn't capture, pulled out a fleshlight, as well as a small bottle of pineapple flavoured lube – his favourite.
He squirted a small amount on the opening, spread it around, then took some more for his shaft.
To best spread that around, he gave himself another few, slow strokes. He hadn't been this erect, this out-of-his-mind horny in so long, even just jerking himself off gave him enough pleasure to moan out. Chan wanted release.
"I wonder how many of you pretty sluts get off with your own toys and think of me. This is what you want, isn't it?" He asked, referring to his cock. "How cute of you to think a flimsy toy could compare. It's such a shame you'll never know just how fucking well I could fuck you." Chan's hand sped up his movements, were focused on stimulating the tip of his dick. "I could make you feel so fucking good." He slurred.
Finally, he paid attention to the fleshlight again. He lined up the fake pussy's entrance with the head of his cock.
Slowly, he pushed the toy all the way onto his dick. The toy swallowed all he had to give, tightly embraced it. It felt so good, Chan's eyes fluttered shut and his head fell back as he released another deep, guttural moan.
He was to impatient to hold it off any longer; he couldn't go slow, take his time. Lost in this euphoric feeling of pleasure, the tight stimulation on his cock, mixed with the pineapple scent in his nose, Chan had gone back to mere primal instincts. Vulgar, obscene noises filled the room – gushing noises, as Chan both yanked the toy back and forth with his muscular, veiny hands, and moved his hips against it, too.
“Shit, baby, you feel so fucking good.” He moaned.
Both hands were wrapped around the middle part of the toy; he held onto it as if his life depended on it. Chan licked over his bottom lip as he read more comments.
“You look so hot, wish I was there”
“Plz fuck me!”
“I'm close already, daddy." Chan read the last one out loud.
“Hold on a little longer, baby. I'm almost there. Let's cum together, yeah?” He kept fucking into the toy, had long since found his rhythm as his cock disappeared into the fleshlight over and over again. The squelching noises intensified. “You'll be a good little baby and let me cum inside you, right? Fill you with all I can give.” He bit his red, swollen lower lip. “Ah, shit-- Fuck!” He swore in Korean. “You feel so good, baby, love it so much.” He rambled on.
The closer Chan came to orgasming, the less coherent his words got – the more he mixed up Korean and English. A rambled mess of Konglish left his mouth as he asked fans to cum together with him.
“So close. Fuck. AH-” he switched languages. “I'm gonna cum- Gonna cum..” He moved the toy faster, then all of a sudden he lost his rhythm as he screamed “I'm coming!” His hips stopped, yet his hands kept moving, milked his cock as he spilled his load into the fleshlight. He moved it once, twice more over himself, before pulling it off completely.
“I've made a mess.” He admitted; a shy chuckle left his mouth. Chan looked back at the screen, at himself. His lips were red from biting them so much, his hair messier than it had been before, his eyes glassy.
Many stays said they came with him – others still nearing or experiencing their highs.
A lot of fans praised him, too.
“Thank you for spending time with me today.” Chan said after a brief pause to catch his breath, and to regain his ability to think straight. “I have to get dressed and clean up now.. But I just want to thank you all for helping me. I hope I could relieve some of your stress, too.” Chan giggled.
“Thank you stays – Thank you baby-stays.” With his usual words, his significant wink, and of course, the hug, he ended the Vlive.
#stray kids smut#kpop smut#stray kids#stray kids reactions#stray kids scenarios#kpop#kpop scenarios#kpop reactions#bang chan#cb97#kim woojin#leeknow#lee minho#changbin#seo changbin#spear b#hwang hyunjin#j.one#han jisung#han#felix#felix lee#yang jeongin#jeongin#i.n#seungmin#kim seungmin
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I wrote a GO Christmas fic!
or am still writing, to be honest, but here’s the first chapter. It’s a human AU, inspired by too many Christmas romance movies that I’ve watched over the years.
You can read it here or on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28245411
Many thanks to the lovely people at the GO-Events discord server who helped me with beta-reading and brainstorming!
Chapter One: December 19th
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”
Crowley threw his phone onto the passenger seat. Dead battery. And he was in the middle of nowhere and it was close to midnight. He cursed Lucifer and that stupid job and the stupid snow (and ice storms, road works, poorly signposted roads, and zero internet reception). He was completely lost without his phone. What was he supposed to do? Just keep driving, without a clue where Ashville was? Everything just looked the same: heaps and heaps of snow. Why would anyone want to build a factory here of all places? (Probably low property taxes.)
Crowley got out of the car and kicked the bloody snow at the side of the road only to hurt his foot because it was more ice than snow. He cursed some more. His words formed wisps of tiny clouds in the dark and the cold. A gigantic factory would definitely be an improvement for this area. It would mean a bit of variety in this desolate place. Maybe even a signpost here and there. Or internet reception!
Finally, the glint of headlights in the distance. Crowley waved wildly to make the car stop.
The driver rolled down the window. “Do you need help?”
“Yes. I seem to have gotten slightly lost. Can you point me towards Ashville?”
“Ashville? Never heard of that.”
Neither had Crowley before Lucifer had sent him there. “Do you maybe have a phone I could use?”
“No internet reception here.”
“What about phone calls?” Not that it would be much help. Crowley did not even know Lucifer’s number by heart. But maybe he could call directory assistance to ask for the number of that Bed and Breakfast, what was it called again? Something with ‘Book’. Shit. Of course, he had all the necessary information on his phone and only his phone.
“Afraid not.” The driver got out of his car and opened the trunk to pull out an old roadmap.
“Mm, didn’t know these still existed,” Crowley said but was all the more grateful for such old-fashioned things in this situation. Back in Chicago, the first thing he was going to buy himself was a new phone, at least two power banks, and a roadmap.
Crowley and his rescuer – with a bulky flashlight – poured over the old roadmap until they finally located the small town called Ashville. Without ever having been there, Crowley already hated it. He tried to memorise the map (taking a picture with his phone would have been so helpful…) and thanked the man for his assistance.
After half an hour of driving through more snow and trees, Crowley finally arrived at Ashville. Now he just needed to find his B&B. Well, he would simply do it the old-fashioned way: go to the tourist information or, in the worst case, book another place to stay for the night.
There was no tourist information.
There was nothing that looked like a hotel.
The streetlights had already been turned off as well as all the lights in all the houses. It was not that late, just half past midnight. Did people even live here? It felt like a ghost town.
Crowley drove down road after empty road until he finally passed a house with the lights still on. He brought the Bentley to a halt and promptly slipped on the icy sidewalk when he got out of the car. “Damn it!” Clinging to the wing mirror, he picked himself up and shuffled to the front door. He was tired and cold and hungry, his bottom hurt from the fall and he badly needed to go to the loo. The lights in this house were his only hope.
A friendly-looking man in reading glasses and a beige cardigan opened the door.
Crowley quickly started talking before the man could shut the door right in his face, “Sorry to disturb you so late at night but your house was the only place with the lights still on, so I thought I’d try my luck. Anyway, I’m looking for a B&B in Ashville – I am in Ashville, right? – called something like Books and Bed and Breakfast. It’s meant to be here somewhere.”
“Did you mean The Book Nook?”
“Yes!” Crowley almost shouted in relief. Finally, something that went right today.
“You’ve come to the right place. This is The Book Nook. Are you Anthony Crowley then?”
“Oh, thank God! Yes, I’m Crowley.” Crowley smiled apologetically at the man. He must have kept him up for longer than usual because, apparently, in Ashville, everyone went to sleep before midnight. “Sorry for being so late but there was an ice storm around Little Falls and the road was closed in Randall and then I had to go back to Little Falls and crawl along those bloody slippery roads again and try to find another way and I got lost about five times because I didn’t get reception for my phone and then the battery was dead. Anyway, sorry. Didn’t mean to keep you up.”
“It’s fine, no need to worry. The most important thing is that you arrived here safely. I am Aziraphale, by the way. Welcome to The Book Nook.” The man opened the door wider. Inside looked warm and cosy. “Please, come in. Can I help you with your luggage?”
“No need, don’t have much with me.” Crowley quickly got his suitcase from the Bentley and followed Aziraphale inside. He found himself inside a crammed little bookshop. Not what he had expected.
His confusion must have shown on his face because Aziraphale said, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to sleep between the books. Your room is upstairs and you have a perfectly nice and comfy bed.”
“Great.” Crowley followed him up a winding staircase, which was decorated with a festive garland. Aziraphale led him to one of the rooms and fiddled with the large key (Crowley could not remember when he had last stayed at a place that still used such keys. Key cards were the standard). Finally, he managed to open the door with a resolute yank.
“There it is. I hope everything is to your liking.”
Crowley could only stare. It looked like a Christmas explosion had happened here. There were Christmas lights on strings wound around the wardrobe and the mirror. Every available surface was covered with Christmassy knick-knacks: Santa figurines, Christmas baubles, candles in the shape of snowmen, even a nutcracker (What on earth was he supposed to do with a nutcracker???). The windows were decorated with glittery stars and the letters forming ‘Merry Christmas’, missing the dot on the i.
Aziraphale looked expectantly at Crowley. Oh, yes, he had asked if Crowley liked the room.
“Yeah, great, thanks,” Crowley answered, staring in horror at the flowery bedspread and the assortment of plush cushions in various sizes, some of them with ruffles and lace. How old was that guy? Or did he rent his Grandma’s old rooms?
“So, what brings you here to Ashville? Visiting relatives?”
Crowley supposed that must be the only reason why anyone came here. Who would voluntarily go to this place? “Nah, I’m just a tourist on vacation.” He was not in the mood for small talk (and he really needed to go to the loo!) but it would not do to be rude to Aziraphale after Crowley had made him wait for so long for him to arrive, so he tried his best to be friendly.
“Vacation, how lovely,” Aziraphale commented.
Was that too obvious a lie? “Thought I’d do some hiking in the woods,” Crowley elaborated. “Just…find some peace and quiet, you know? Work’s been busy lately.” At least that part wasn’t a lie. He probably could convincingly play the exhausted businessman from the city who needed some time away from the hustle and bustle to find his inner self or some such bullshit.
“Ah, I see. You would need snowshoes if you want to go hiking in the woods, though. The snow is very deep if you leave the road, you won’t get very far without snowshoes. I think I heard Sara say that they had sold out the last ones but I could ask Arthur if he could lend you his, he is about-”
“No, no, it’s fine, I brought my own.” Crowley did not own snowshoes, of course, but as he would never willingly go hiking in the snow, that was no problem.
Aziraphale dubiously eyed Crowley’s little suitcase.
“I left them in the car,” Crowley explained. “I hardly need them here, right?”
“Ah, no.” Aziraphale chuckled. “Anyway, I’ll leave you alone now so you can make yourself at home. Would you like a cup of tea? Or something to eat? I suppose you haven’t had dinner yet if the journey took you so long?”
Just on cue, Crowley’s stomach rumbled. “Starving.” The only roadside restaurant he had seen during his trip here had already been closed – at 9 pm! Ridiculous, really. “Any recommendations for a good restaurant?”
“I’m afraid the diner is already closed.”
Of course it was. But another thing worried Crowley much more: “Diner? As in singular?”
“Well, Ashville isn’t that big. There is a pub in Elm Street but they only serve light lunches. And there used to be a lovely restaurant next to the town hall but the owner – sorry, you’re probably not interested in all of this. I have some leek and potato soup left that I could reheat or if you’d prefer sandwiches, I could prepare some quickly-”
“No, soup is fine.” Jesus Christ, Crowley just wanted to go to the loo and he needed to recharge the phone’s battery so he could shout at Lucifer for sending him to this ridiculous place – he did not need leek and potato soup. But asking the guy to prepare him sandwiches in the middle of the night seemed somewhat ungrateful. “Soup is great.”
“Lovely. The kitchen is just over there.” The guy pointed to the end of the hall. “Come whenever you’re ready.” He handed Crowley the rusty key. It had a little wooden guardian angel as a key chain. Then he finally left Crowley alone.
Crowley rushed to the tiny bathroom and groaned when he saw the crimson red and very plushy cover on the toilet lid. He was going to kill Lucifer!
After he had finally relieved himself, he unplugged the Christmas lights (because apparently there was only one socket in the whole room) so he could recharge the phone’s battery. Then he went into the kitchen, which was as crammed and full of Christmas decoration as his own room.
Aziraphale put a bowl of steaming soup in front of him. Leek and potato soup was not exactly Crowley’s thing but he was hungry and cold, so it would do.
“When would you like to have breakfast tomorrow?” asked Aziraphale while rummaging through the kitchen drawers. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you a late breakfast because I have to open the shop tomorrow at half-past nine. You see, the last Saturday before Christmas is always the busiest day of the year. Many people turn to books as a last-minute Christmas present. But if you wanted to sleep longer, I could prepare something for you. Pancakes are easy to reheat, for example, and-”
“Don’t bother, I just have coffee for breakfast anyway.”
“But if you plan to go hiking, you need to have a proper breakfast! Seriously, the cold will wear you out in no time at all!”
It took Crowley a bit of time to calm Aziraphale down but he eventually convinced him that he would not go for a long hike tomorrow but would just walk around the town for a bit. Then finally Crowley could go into his room. He removed the horrible bedspread (and two woollen blankets underneath it) as well as five cushions. Five! Who on earth needed that many cushions? Most of them not even big enough to rest your head on.
Unfortunately, his charging cable wasn’t long enough – or rather: there was no socket close enough to the bed. So Crowley sat down on the floor next to the socket and texted Lucifer: Just arrived in Ashville. Are you fucking kidding me???? Well, he meant to text him but the message could not be sent because he had no reception. Damn it, this was a town, people lived here! How could there be no reception?
Groaning, Crowley stood up again and left his room. The lights in the kitchen were still on and he could hear plates clatter and water running. No dishwasher, naturally.
“Sorry, could you give me the wifi password?” Crowley asked. “I mean, if there is wifi…”
“Yes, of course there is. But it can be a bit finicky, especially if there are snowstorms. Which is practically all the time in winter. You usually have the best reception at the top of the staircase. The password is,” Aziraphale waggled his eyebrows, “Pri-fiAndPrejudice.” He looked immensely proud of that horrible pun. Crowley could not entirely suppress a snort of laughter. What a nerd.
“If there’s anything else you need, my room is the one next to yours. Don’t hesitate to knock.”
“Isn’t that annoying, always having strangers in your house?”
“Not at all. The house would be too big for just me. And anyway, I don’t have many guests and most of them are just lovely people, so I don’t really mind it.”
Crowley shrugged. He could not imagine living like that. But he also couldn’t imagine sleeping between dozens of tiny fluffy cushions and doing your dishes by hand. Suddenly his conscience got the better of him. It was way past midnight, this guy had offered him soup in his own kitchen – which was not usually included in a B&B – and was now doing the dishes. “Can I help you? I could dry the plates.”
“Absolutely not! You’re my guest and you deserve your vacation. Besides, I’m almost finished here.”
“Ah, well. I’ll leave you a five-star google review then.”
“Oh, really?”
Aziraphale smiled at him and – Crowley was momentarily taken aback. There was no reason to smile like that just because of the promise of a simple google review. Aziraphale’s smile was just like his Christmas decorations: blinding and completely over the top.
“Yeah, no problem,” Crowley said. “Well. Night then.”
Back in his room, Crowley typed in the password and waited for his phone to connect to the ridiculously slow wifi. Finally, it sent the text messages to Lucifer. While waiting for an answer, Crowley checked The Book Nook’s reviews on google. There were only two: one anonymous who had given it two stars and one who had given it three stars and an added comment “breakfast was good.” Crowley frowned. So did that mean the rest of the place was not good, just the breakfast? It felt oddly unfair. Obviously, this place did not meet Crowley’s taste but he could tell that the owner went out of his way to accommodate him. Crowley frowned again. What on earth was he doing here, pondering over google reviews while sitting on the floor because there was no socket next to the bed? It was cold and uncomfortable in spite of the room’s fluffy carpet. This was really absurd. On the spur of the moment, he decided to rearrange the furniture a bit. He pushed the bed closer to the wall with the socket – and almost tripped over the numerous boxes under the bed. Probably where the Easter decorations were stored…
There was a soft knock on the door. “Er, just wondering, is everything alright?”
“Yeah, just perfect,” Crowley grunted and then sneezed heartily because his activity had raised quite a bit of dust from under the bed. (He would have to rethink that five-star review.) He pushed the bed further towards the wall until he could sit comfortably on the bed with his charger cable still plugged in. Only to get a notification that his phone was not connected to the internet. Well, he was tired anyway. He removed a Santa figurine and eight wooden reindeers from the bedside table so he could place his glasses and a cup of water there. Then he sank back into the bed. It squeaked loudly.
“Fuck.”
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Error: Program Not Found - Three
Summary: You are in charge of programming the droids that work most closely with both General Hux and Kylo Ren. Unbeknownst to you, each of these two men have it in their heads that your relationship extends beyond the workplace. This causes things to escalate quickly when your two apparently secret boyfriends compare notes on their respective partner who is far too similar for their liking.
Read on AO3
“What greater gift than the love of a cat.” -Charles Dickens
Three: Suspicion
Handwritten notes were not common anymore, which meant that those who wrote them with such fluid legibility earned your immediate respect. There was a precision to the individual letters on the note that you had in your possession that, no matter its age, stood out on the yellowing paper. It was a note that had been from one of your instructors in grade school to your parents, and within the text was a recommendation that your interest in droids and coding be nurtured. At that young age, you had wanted to know more about those subjects, however how you had envisioned your future had been on a farm or mortuary. The latter had been discouraged by those around you, although you to this day did not know why. Not that you weren’t grateful seeing as how you did love your job. This past interest in mortuary work allowed you to better appreciate grim humor such as what Kylo Ren possessed. The note, meanwhile, was one that you kept whenever you asked yourself why you were there. Bad days happened to everyone. Mistakes occurred. It did not mean you had to quit.
One of the maintenance leads had done an exemplary job of chewing you a new one upon discovering the extra work that was required to fix TeeArr. He placed the blame on you that the droid had been damaged to begin with. Your droid’s programming was flawed according to him. His opinion was similar with General Hux’s in that a freethinking droid had limited use. The point was to have assistance, not some friend.
A slave, you thought with a sigh. It was not that you disagreed that some of the more robotic droids were not to be considered sentient. The training droids, for one, did not spark any emotional attachment in you. As for others, like TeeArr, it was different. Artificial Intelligence was intelligence all the same. Allowing for personalities to develop was not a means of you replacing the human race or any alien species. They were companions. Happy to complete tasks for their Makers and those that owned them. You were able to tell a lot about a person based on how they treated droids. That idea was paraphrased in the handwritten note that you had kept all these years. Being referred to as intellectual and kind together, that had touched you.
The note was tucked away in the quarters that you had been given. Still, you conjured it up in your mind’s eye and reread the words that you had long since memorized. While doing so, you lifted the bland ration bar to your mouth, took a bite, and then washed it down with some extra strong caf.
One of the maintenance crew was seated to your right. This young man’s company was much preferable to that of his superior. He spoke to you with the same respect he showed his peers. Very professional. This was the third time that you had worked with him, and you hoped to do so again in the near future. It was a request that you could put in with several First Order officers aside from General Hux. Captain Phasma and Kylo Ren were equally in a position where they could approve such a request. In terms of who was more apt to quickly approve or deny the request, that was the redhead. His sleeping schedule was, to your knowledge, horrid. The man drank extra tarine tea and caf to keep up a workload that would have long ago mentally broken others.
Whether the request was approved or denied would influence your own schedule, as you had to work around your teams’s strengths and weaknesses on the various projects that you were assigned to. As a way of remaining professional while also being courteous, you asked the man if working with you on other projects was something that he considered desirable. He admitted to enjoying working alongside you, however would want to know more about the projects first. You chewed this over. Ran through what you could and could not tell him before speaking.
“One of the projects I still need to officially propose for acceptance. I think you would excel on this project, so if I do get the greenlight on it, I’ll give you the details at that time.” He nodded. You could see a spark of intrigue in his eyes that reaffirmed your desire to have him work with you more. The project in question was the one you had unofficially proposed to Kylo Ren. Familiarity with maintenance on the training droids would translate well for him to work in such a role on the physical therapy droids. “Another project that I think you would do well with is one that I will be working on later today. For Millicent.”
His lips quirked towards the sides as he contained a laugh. The noise that escaped him instead was something akin to clearing one’s throat. Most in the First Order that knew of Millicent’s existence marveled over how someone so work-oriented and normally cold like General Hux could be swayed by a tiny creature. He did not allow his care of her to interfere with his job. That was one of the reasons that you had been assigned to design and program droids that could ensure she was kept in the best health. There were plenty of droids on the market that tended to a feline’s basic needs of food and water. As for playing, those were hit or miss. There was no ‘one design fits all’ droid to serve as a companion for a cat. Cats had personalities of their own. The man beside you, Eddard, commented on this.
“Precisely,” you said, flashing a tooth-filled grin. “She has to be kept in his quarters to prevent her from harm…” You snorted directly before adding, “Or harming others by distracting them from work. Plus we know how cats enjoy climbing into engines.”
“Tucking themselves into ships. She’d hide in a TIE, I imagine,” Eddard said. He quirked a single eyebrow then bobbed his head from side to side. “I don’t suppose you have incorporated TIEs into your project for her?”
“In what way?” you asked, growing intrigued. Eddard gave a wave of his hand as he replied. A small TIE that functioned similar to a training droid. The cat would be able to chase it for exercise. If its cockpit opened, depending on the size of the droid, it could double as a cat bed. “I hadn’t considered the cat bed.” It was a great addition to a design that you had started earlier in the week. You pulled up part of the blueprints on your datapad to show to the man. He leaned in for a better view. “The training droids are going to take a few cycles to complete between maintenance and programming. I’ll also do test runs at some of the strages. If you have nothing else of priority level on your schedule, I would love to bring you aboard.”
“If you can get the approval, count me in.”
You finished eating the ration bar and drank the remainder of your caf as you opened up a blank request form and started to fill it in. Eddard offered his badge number as well as other projects that were assigned to him, none of which would have conflicts. You included the specific project with Millicent on the form while noting your interest to have him regularly assigned to your team. Some technicians and maintenance workers his age dissuaded themselves from offering input to their superiors as this man had done. He had the right attitude and tone when speaking to you, which prevented him from sounding arrogant. You imagined his temperament would benefit him should he work with Millicent due to the cat’s territory being in General Hux’s quarters. Others clammed up when in the presence of the redhead. You liked to think that Eddard would not be too starstruck or intimidated where it interfered with his work.
Returning to work on the training droids offered you a distraction while you waited for the General’s response to your request. The maintenance lead’s attitude had not improved with a meal. If anything, he was grumpier and shot you looks of displeasure when he outlined more flaws in the droids’s design. As though you had designed them. He might have been blaming you for allowing them to pass initial inspection. Either he ignored the notations in your report regarding their shortcomings, or he hadn’t bothered to read the report at all. Whichever was the case, it spoke more to his character than it did yours. If your work had truly been so poor, General Hux or Kylo Ren would have let you know it. It would be no professional courtesy for them to not. On the contrary, it would be a disservice.
The ability to tune out unwanted commotion was a skill you had obtained rather early in your career. This stemmed from the noises droids made alongside the light hum of functioning consoles. Not to mention fingers flying over virtual and physical keyboards during the programming phases of a project. Smaller bases had a tendency to cramp multiple programmers together regardless of whether or not they were working on the same project. Since beginning work for General Hux, you had not been forced to endure that unpleasantness.
Just the occasional blisters on my foot.
To say that you were looking forward to the lotion that he had ordered you was an understatement. On top of that, you had received a message from the man not too long before meal break stating that he had slippers provided for you in his quarters while you worked with Millicent. That, along with no longer being near the grumpy maintenance lead, had you counting down the minutes until you moved on to that project.
As predicted, the response to your request arrived before long. You had heard the chime on your datapad signifying a message, however ignored it for a good twenty minutes so as to not disturb your rhythm while fully recoding one of the programs in the droids. The previous version had been more flawed than you had initially believed; a recording from the training area showed that the delay in the droids’s response time was erroneously logged as being quicker. It was no wonder these things were scrap. Cutting corners should not have resulted in these issues, or so you liked to believe. Granted, what remained was no less positive. That a programmer was poor at their job, or that they didn’t care if lives were lost. You thought back to the morbid joke that Kylo Ren had made in regards to the physical therapy droids praising a patient as they bled out. It was a realistic possibility with the wrong programming.
The reply to the request had been favorable to you. Eddard would be given a probationary position with you for the project with Millicent. Any work he did would have to be approved by a senior member of maintenance. Just as with humans, a cat could easily be injured or even killed by a droid mishap. General Hux cared too much for Millicent to allow that to happen, and his terms were ones that you yourself would have made had the roles been reversed.
Eddard walked along beside you from the training area to General Hux’s quarters. There was not much chance for proper dialogue, this mostly due to the two of you wishing to bring up visuals for the project. He did release a thoughtful hmm when you were immediately permitted entry. The clearance cylinder required would not have been given out to many. Thus Eddard was taking a second to appreciate the level of trust that was placed in you by those running the First Order. General Hux in particular was distrustful of others. He normally had a guard at his door no matter the ship or base he was located on.
You kicked off your shoes after you were inside the door and before it had slid closed behind Eddard. The slippers that General Hux had mentioned were to the right of the doorway, and they were just as comfortable as you had imagined they would be. Their presence earned another noise of interest from Eddard. You snorted in response to him, shaking your head and smiling. You pointed down at one of the blisters that had started to form from your heels. The man gave an expression of sympathy then verbally pushed that it was still surprising. You shrugged off his words despite a voice nagging at you that the impression others had was important. An outsider could see more in a relationship sometimes than those involved, things the parties were blinded to. They also, you argued, read too much into things at times and spoiled what had once been good. The good working relationship that you had with General Hux was not something to be ruined.
“Millicent, pssp, pssp, pssp,” you said, squatting down and snapping your fingers to coax the small tabby feline out from wherever she might be hiding. If she did not come immediately, there was a list of three locations that she frequented. Two of them she utilized for sleep. The third was a hiding spot when she could smell strangers. You repeated her name, this time a little more loudly. A tiny mew issued from her preferred hiding place.
The tabby slipped out from underneath the couch. She stopped when she saw Eddard. Sat down with her tail curled around her body, ducked her shoulders as she readied herself to flee if he made a sudden move. You inched forward at a slow pace to prevent any movement that would put her more on edge. Millicent ducked her head, but she remained where she was and allowed you to scoop her up into your hands. You stood, turned around, and walked over to Eddard.
The maintenance worker peered down at the cat that you were cradling. “He places a lot of trust in you, allowing you to come into his quarters unsupervised.” Eddard gave a nod towards the cat. “Letting you see what makes him, well, more human.”
You drew Millicent closer to your body. Swiped a thumb back and forth, scratching her in a way that had her purring. “I’ve proven myself with the work that I do. Many of the projects place me in close proximity to General Hux, so he knows that I would never harm little Millicent here. Besides,” you started with an amused smirk, “he has surveillance.” Eddard startled at those words. The man twisted to look around the room for cameras. “Come on. General Hux’s orders stand: the blueprints must be completed before the cycle ends. He wants to review them before construction begins.”
#kylo ren x reader#general hux x reader#kylo ren imagine#general hux imagine#kylo ren smut#general hux smut#errorpnf
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1826 Sunday 28 May
7 20/60
12 40/60
No kiss last night or this morning
Got out of bed soon after awaking for fear of being bilious again, but sat by M-’s [Mariana’s] bedside talking till about 9 when the letter came 3 pages the ends, and under the seal, and 1/2 the 2nd page crossed (written small and pretty close as formerly) from Mrs Barlow, Paris - She is better has begged off going to Guernsey for change of air, and is going for this purpose to Anteil close to Paris for a little while (for a week) - Dr Tupper hopes this illness will have been a favourable crisis to her, and that she will be better now than she has been for years -
She writes as if she loved me as well as ever read her letter aloud to Pi [Mariana] all but a line or two where she regrets her want of pride in letting me see the state of her mind so plainly and altered some of the rest as I went along - she is expecting Mr Bell and adds ‘oh Anne pity me’ - she takes no notice of seeing me or not but evidently will not be out of Paris and I must go to her ‘I think my letters had better be burnt and destroyed there are some only fit for your eyes of other day’......’comfort welfare and happiness are words no more to be applied to me lavish them on those they suit much better but I complain not and want no reason for the decision which you have pronounced the influence which has swayed you can easily be traced to the Buxton visit where you were so lost in high admiration that I rave when I tread on this ground I wish I could blot out as I write may you be happy however I feel much obliged for the share you can still spare me of interest and friendship nothing can be kinder than all you express but what is the end of it all what is our acquaintance reduced to a limited paper effusion question or answer but excuse me forgive me a poor creature whose best affections have been sacrificed whose best feelings have been wasted I thought I had too much pride to pen so much but I either write too much or too little and that you have once pronounced I would not even wish to reverse’....she concludes with dated Tuesday twenty third ‘the strife within me is great I have much to struggle with and no doubt indifference and forgetfulness would be my best portion could it be attained you have said it would be your ‘bon heur’ to make your dearly beloved favorite may all your intentions be fulfilled and it will be some consolation to me to know that your happiness is thus really effected and will assist my own resignation tho I shall forever hat and detest myself for my weakness and credulity I am in a wretched mood and will leave off writing.......I reckon the days for answers to my letters I pace up and down the stairs for the arrival of the postman and I spend many hours and days lost in idle expectation I am vexed that I have exposed any of my feelings but I hope when my nerves are stronger I shall have acquired better ones I was ver very far from wishing to pen so much but this letter must go I have not strength to write another Doctor Tupper finds me much better get your mind amuse and you will be quite well he adds how can this be I am ever your very sincere friend CMB [Maria Barlow]’
This letter goes to my heart it made Pi [Mariana] very low she would do anything in the world for poor Mrs Barlow anything give me up if I wished tho it would soon break her heart it is indeed a bad business oh that the tyranny could pass by but I turned to Pi [Mariana] and said I would not give her up for all the world nothing should induce me to do this
Madame Droz has never been near Mrs Barlow during her ‘ill state of health’, but once she left her card at her door at 11 night ‘only for you would I have called, when I did, the beginning of much, to ask her the questions I did, and which I put to her separately - therefore you owe her no obligation for she could not avoid answering them - when I did call she offered me a little wine to enable me to get home, which I refused - she said I looked very ill - wrote the same to Mrs [Mid?] and yet never came near me - I am told she continued to speak with great regard for me, but the real fact is, they are a selfish couple, and I could do nothing for them, and was a whole bridge and 5 pair of stairs out of their way - Vide this good comment on French amitié - Mrs [Mid?] has taken an apartment on the Boulevard des Italiens ‘she recommended Pau as a delightful residence....would be happy to give you a letter of introduction to a charming English family’ - Mrs Barlow has formed (at Madame Galvanis) an acquaintance with a Colonel St Aubaire aetatis 77, who goes to drink tea with them twice a week -....’he is a great traveller, speaks several languages, and is remarkably well informed’ thinks ‘the air of Montpelier and Nice, from being too near the sea, ‘trop vif’ - he said he had lived a year at Tarbe, which town and the country around, he thought delightful - it is very near Bagnères, and 126 miles to the South of Bordeaux about - He remembers, Buonaparte admiring it much - Colonel St Aubaire also recommended Nismes - he said there was but one objection, the bigotry of the catholics - there are a great many protestants....but being a 2nd Rome almost in regard to its remaining ruins, I thought their mind might be ammused with these as well as the resource of a good library and establishments which a town like that must have - Her servant is lame at present and a thoroughly nouseless sort of woman - Jane quite well -
Letter also (3 pages and 2 or 3 lines) from Miss Pickford (11 Gloucester row Clifton near Bristol) - an indifferent account of herself - has heard we are, and supposes us in Bath, but not knowing where to find us, directs here - very kindly interested about us - has made many inquiries likely to be useful to us - has some thought of going abroad herself - wishes she may be able to accomplish it - ‘I have turned to good book authority and to well travelled people for information as to good winter quarters for the rheumatic and the literary, the result is Pisa - Geneva often too cold, sometimes delightful in the winter, good society of various sorts - Nice you heard of - rather vapourish air at times and not first rate in society - Naples more uncertain in all ways than Pisa, Florence often coldish, Turin rather too near the Alps etc etc etc’ was in train for good introductions for us but heard we were in Bath -
M- [Mariana] down to breakfast at 10, I at 10 3/4 - still so bilious, had cold roast beef and cold water for breakfast, and no bread and butter or milk - M- [Mariana] and I read aloud to my aunt and Mrs Veitch the morning service - we went out at 2 1/2 - sauntered up and down the terrace across the sown holme, there sat in the walk, and came in at 5 10/60 - tired and languid - lay down on 2 chairs in the little breakfast room for 20 minutes M- [Mariana] sitting by me - then went to dress. Dinner at 6 1/4 - Miss Walker of Cliffhill called before it was quite over and staid till 7 3/4 - then returned to the dining room and had our wine - tea and coffee at 8 1/2 - M- [Mariana] and I sat up downstairs talking over this thing and that - MacDonald’s coming - my going to York etc etc. Went up to bed at 10 3/4 at which hour Barometer 1/2 degree above changeable Fahrenheit 56˚. Fine day - O.. -
[Margin note] Madame Carbonier sends kind messages to me - hopes to see me in Switzerland -
Reference: SH:7/ML/E/9/0104 - SH:7/ML/E/9/0105
#anne lister#anne lister code breaker#gentleman jack#1826#mariana lawton#maria barlow#francis pickford
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Edgar writes the Theatre & Arts Column for the Daily Prophet. His philosophy is that if someone has a voice, they have to use it to do good; this means that on the one hand one has to push art to its limits or even further, and on the other hand one has to make those voices heard which don’t have a platform yet.
Edgar’s Introduction to Theatre
Much like most families with comfortably filled wallets, the Bones would take their children to the theatre on the weekends quite often. Most of the children adored it but also took it somewhat for granted -- which made the culture shock of moving to England only worse.
There are theatres in Hastings, yes but they are small and not at all as dramatic and colourful as what the Bones had grown to know in Mexico. They lacked imagination! And since there was no theatre club at Hogwarts either, it was only on his first trip to London at the age of thirteen that Edgar rediscovered his love for this art.
After that, he began reading and loving play-scripts more than novels, eventually writing down his thoughts, comparing, analysing, interpreting with fervor and a very new, strange sensation growing within him: passion. For someone who found interest in literally anything he encountered (except Quidditch), it was a surprise to many to see Edgar so into something (though one might not forget that his new love for theatre came around the same time as he was beginning to grow apart from Amelia).
His friends from school might still remember that one of the best ways to get Edgar talking in a social situation was by expressing a badly thought-out opinion about theatre. Suddenly the shy boy who so often was accused of boot-licking would throw himself into passionate speeches about love, death and every other grand topic of life inbetween.
(One of his favourite topics, that is, urban legends he loved to ramble about for hours was Mundungus Fletcher. Each and every article covering the fiasco was bought six times and each and every time Fletcher’s photograph was cut out and glued to various surfaces; Edgar’s notebooks, the under-side of the topbunk above him, the walls in his room at home. It was the same grotesque-fascination-turned-unstopple-obsession that the Muggle play Cats had about ten years later).
It was during this time also that Edgar began reading the news. Initially he only ever snatched the arts section (despite its terribly boring focus on mainstream theatre), he’d eventually also begin reading the other articles, finding himself growing more and more educated and opinionated about political topics, too.
His passion ended where the stage began, though. He never tried to direct a play, write one himself, or -- Morgana forbid! -- tried to star in one. He was quite content to be but an observer. However, after graduating and leaving England to finally go back to Mexico, he fell in love with an actress of a small travelling troupe (and shortly after with her brother, the director), and before he knew it, he was travelling around the world with them.
When he came back to England, he wrote for the hebdomadal East Sussexian Wizarding paper, simply because the owner was a good friend of the Bones family and needed someone to fatten up the paper with some think-pieces. Edgar neither saw his calling in that nor ever made a name for himself, he was mostly just passing his time, trying to figure out what he really wanted to do with his life. It was only when he met up with Ainsley Abbott again around his 19th birthday that he began considering journalism as a proper career. She’d told him that the Daily Prophet was looking for a new arts columnist and remembered that he had always had a thing for theatre.
London’s Theatres
Contrary to movies, most other Muggle art isn’t completely disregarded by the Wizarding World. Of course one will always find some bloodpurists who think that all magicless art isn’t worth their time, but the more commonly agreed upon opinion is that when it comes to old-fashioned art, Muggles aren’t all that bad at it. The Daily Prophet has therefore always covered the Wizarding Westend as well as the Muggle Westend productions, giving the former more attention but never discriminating between them all too much. They are, after all, similar in many regards: the leads will most likely be traditionally good-looking, born and raised in this country and culture, and introduced to the director by personal connections. The themes of the plays perpetuate conservative values and ideals and have to please the broadest audience possible, therefore not contain any smut or controversial themes.
They’re usually even located in the same buildings as the Muggle theatres, either in magically hidden back halls or underground:
“Two, reserved on the Daily Prophet.”
The lady behind the counter, despite looking just like the other ticket vendors next to her, gave it a nod and handed them their keys. They were small little copper things, meant for a one time use of a door that was titled: “Staffs Only”.
Muggles had this thing to believe that theatres were haunted. The possibility of that, considering just how few people actually died in such places compared to normal apartment houses, were slim, and the idea absurd once you knew what truly caused the mysterious whispers, the unexplained floor-board creaking, and distant moaning: A second theatre down below. Wizarding. Vibrant, crowded, cheerful.
Not having even yet reached the first floor below, the music already met Edgar and Amelia. The chit chat was lively, and unlike the Muggle theatre above, time had not changed the customs of exhibitions and shows here: Roasted-nut sellers were walking around with their goods on a tray hanging down their neck, a fire-spitter was entertaining a group of kids in a corner, and on the stage stood one of the actors, cheering and shouting blurbs about the play in an attempt to motivate the audience. No seats but on the upper balconies, were ladies sat whose robes were so fluffy and wide that their companions for the night attempting to sit next to them probably needed to shout to have their words heard.
The idea to even pay attention to those independent artists who always seem angry or angsty, who always seemed so desperate to speak up about issues that no respectable Wizard would care about? It was unheard of by the general Wizarding Public who didn’t have a great variety of news outlets.
It was only when Edgar accepted his job as the new arts columnist that the ‘Off Westend’ productions -- that is, the exhibits shown in garages, the plays held on rooftops, the stories told by otherwise drowned voices -- were finally given a platform through and by the Daily Prophet.
Edgar’s Own Private Resistance
For about eight years now, Edgar’s been publishing little articles of about 300 to 500 words a day which are usually reviews and recommendations, as well as longer think-pieces on the Sunday edition. They’re all signed E.V.Bones (or at times solely E.V.B when the space is spare), much like his letters, so it all depends on the wit of a person whether they know who is writing the column or not. It’s earning him 6 to 10 galleons per piece, that is 40 to 70 galleons a week, which (at least in modern equivalent) is 210 to 350 pounds a week, so he’s not poor but also far from becoming rich with this. As of now, he never considered changing his job, though. Partly due to the fact that he gets to see all sorts of plays for free, partly because he usually does all his work at the office only once a week (usually a 12 hour work day) and has the rest of the week to deal with Order business. But most importantly he’s still at the Daily Prophet because it allows him to fight this war in his own, quiet terms.
Upon reviewing a play, Edgar always asks two questions: how does this further the progress of art, and how does this further the progress of society?
While the opinions in his writing are always expressed quite subtly (as otherwise, Edgar’s arch nemesis Kenny Mack, his editor and son of the Daily Prophet’s current owner, will simply censor out what might be too controversial for the general readership), they’re never suppressed or gentle, certainly never excuse conservative, problematic productions.
(It was because of one of those harsher reviews of his that he met the then-adored Lydia Avery, who he had equated to a piece of morning toast -- something you thoroughly enjoy in the moment itself but would never crave if hungry or a somewhat interesting person. Most of his review had been about the blatant racism of the play, though, and and yet, while up until this day Lydia might still be upset about it, Edgar never left their conversation with anything other than appreciation for her. He’s well aware that actors are a symptom of an ill society, not the illness itself.)
The idea that he could use his job for something bigger, something good, came the night after Ainsley had suggested he take the job at the Daily Prophet.
“Me?” he had asked over a cup of tea, not even 20 years old then, not yet in the Order, not yet jaded and made brave by war, not yet used to the idea that every helping hand counted, “Reviewing art for the whole of Britain? Why would anyone care about what I have to say?”
“They don’t,” Dell had replied in this earnest way of his, “but it’s not about you anyway. It’s about them. There’s people out there who have no one who listens to them, even though they have something to say, even though so many others want -- no! need! -- to hear what they have to say. It’s not about you. It’s about them. And you’re the one who’s going to make sure they’re heard.”
“But the Daily Prophet? It’s so conservative.”
“Not your column, it won’t be. Not if you write it.”
What his brother Dell was saying and what Edgar grew to understand over the years, was that there are so many Muggleborns and Halfbreeds out there who never see themselves represented in a positive, hopeful light in stories, or at least by the actors telling those stories. The mainstream theatre productions simply do not care to show such representation, to tell such diverse stories. It’s the back-alley theatres that dare to break the rules of what is acceptable, to break the norm, to help society and art evolve. And Edgar hopes that by writing about this, more people will be able to realise that they’re not alone. That there’s others like them, out there, everywhere. That despite the way the (relatively neutral) Daily Prophet reports it, Voldemort doesn’t have that many people on his side, at least not compared to just how many people are against him. By drawing attention to those smaller plays and their values, he helps to grow and foster a community where like-minded people can meet and share their opinions and realise that they’re not alone at all.
And thus, Edgar had accepted the job, his agenda of political nature, safely tucked between 8 and 11pm, and sometimes also during matinées.
#{ it’s rotten work }#{ wisdom begins in wonder }#m:mundungus#m:lydia#did i just equate mudnugnugus fletcher to andre wlws cats?#maybe so!
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