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arinlangdon · 3 years

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reactions again. i have a lot to say and there’s nowhere better to dump it all than my online blog which i treat as a stream-of-consciousness public diary/liveblog of my love affair with this fictional character.

episode 7

ah yes, the memory headaches are back, sooner than ever. i hope this means FMC will be regaining her memories sooner in this route too. i think it would be more interesting to see her navigate a route while remembering everything about her life from before, for multiple reasons. after all, every route ended with that, so far, and we didn’t explore much about what that means. the route that centers on 2/3 of the triad seems like the perfect opportunity to do so.

so Arin used to have panic attacks, confirmed? precious anxiety baby

love the Humpty Dumpty bit

i love how they reference giving her the moon again. “I gave it to you, and it’ll ground you” and it’s a secret between her and them how they did it. augh, too romantic. (also, blush count for this set: 1)

“Yikes, do you even sleep?” i ask myself this every day, Jackie. does Arin ever use that plush-looking bed? a mystery for the ages. she’s right though, Arin is far too busy for their own good. they know everything except for the meaning of the word “relaxation”

i see we’re speaking in code now. i love Ever After Academy, the series where frogs are really head librarians and rabbits are actually cat-dog-rabbit-dragon-things, and men named Wolf aren’t actually werewolves

“Arin constantly skips meals due to being too busy” headcanon regretfully confirmed. Arin nO

“FMC is always trying weird new flavors of desserts” headcanon also confirmed lol. this girl, always so adventurous. but also, “better than getting the same thing every time”? it’s true, novelty is necessary. a woman after my own heart.

oh yes, now i can check “heart scene where you help Arin relax and have fun” off my wish list. right above that is “pluck the coffee right out of their hands, march them straight to bed and tuck them in, and maybe cuddle a bit”, and right below it is “plan a special date where you block off a full 24 hours of free time for Arin so you can spend the whole day together”. (Voltage, i have great ideas, hire me now)

Arin blush count: 2. oh look at these two shy idiots who can only dance around their feelings. surely they have to have some clue that their feelings are mutual? they keep trying to stop themselves from kissing the other. it’s driving me nuts. these fools! i push them together like a child pretending to make their dolls kiss.

episode 8

i’m sure they wrote in the explanation for the terrarium as it’s a holdover from Ezra’s route, but i think it’s funny to think that the siblings kept the terrarium all these years and Arin never knew about it. Arin ur not the only one with secrets

again, i do like how Arin keeps referencing the moon. moon rabbit. moon rabbit!!

oh here comes the angst from Arin keeping secrets from FMC for good reasons but not even being able to tell her the reasons. we all saw this coming from a mile away, but it still hurts. :(

wow i cannot wait to find out all of Arin’s secrets :D including their personal ones. (does that make me sound creepy? oops)

more dragon lore, and a debate between Nora and Lucas about dragons? yes please.

as an aside: i can’t believe it’s taken me this long to mention it, but i’m peeved at how the writing in this route keeps referring to Arin as “themselves” when they’re singular. “themself” may not be a familiar word, but it feels the most correct when referring to an individual. “herselves” and “himselves” isn’t a thing.

“Arin is a terrible singer” headcanon confirmed. Arin has a lovely voice but is a rubbish singer, i love it. keep the doors coming, Charlie, i’m on a roll today.

oh god, more embarrassing Arin stories, i am living for this. Arin blush count: 3, maybe 4. what exactly did they wind up on top of, FMC? do tell.

i cannot believe Arin has early 2000s boy band music on their phone. is this the real life? lmao this is probably the most surprising fact i’ve learned about them in this entire set, if not the whole route so far. Arin’s dignity: dropping like a stone. this is hilarious, i love it. god. seriously though, which song was it—

episode 9

can’t help but try to read ulterior motives into Jackie’s every move, and failing because we don’t know enough yet. trying to book a tutoring session with Arin, peeping into FMC’s house’s window, tipping off FMC about Darla’s scheming, being overly invested in the fairytale friends’ well-being? she’s the prime suspect for being the Big Bad of this route, and possibly the Queen of Hearts from the Alice duology, yet she hasn’t done anything outright villainous yet. she’s actually been fairly friendly and helpful. Jackie, what is your deal

Arin blush count: 5. wow careful Arin, your face will get stuck like that and you’ll pass out from lack of blood flow to the rest of your body

it’s still hard getting used to the knowledge that Arin is and was FMC’s best friend. it boggles my mind.

but also i want to imagine them as kiddos hanging out in her room and having fun. adorable. teen flashbacks when :’(

“you’re special to me” wow surefire arrow to my heart oof. Arin blush count: 6.

oh no, again with the holding back, you clods. you lovestruck idiots. you silly dumdums. being a 20-something and having feelings for your best friend is hard. it’s hard and nobody understands. :( when are they going to talk about this? when are they going to come out and say something?? normally FMC is much more straightforward than this, but i guess when it comes to a friendship you’ve cultivated for years, even the bravest people hesitate to rock the boat. but it’ll be all the more satisfying when they actually reach that point.

watching Arin put up the walls again, i can just hear them thinking “conceal, don’t feel”. “remove all magic, but leave the fun” ahahaha alright that’s enough

it’s nice to see FMC seeking out the company and advice of the fairytale trio in this route, especially Nora. those girls, always so close. she really is the only female friend FMC has, until Darla becomes her friend.

so much for hiding magic from MMC! cat’s out the bag sooner than i thought, and Arin’s not going to be happy about it. now they’re going to be pulling double duty trying to keep both siblings from a-sploding their heads by accident. poor Arin

did FMC explain the plan for making things right (whatever “things” are) and restoring their memories? or did she just leave them to wait it out indefinitely? oh no

#harlowspeaks #feeling low energy today #i sleep now #reactions #Arin s1 #Arin s1 set 3

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trashstoriesforthegarbagegang · 4 years

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The Wild Things of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) Summary: Groot is overly tired. Gamora and Quill tuck him into bed with traditions from their home worlds. (some unspoken thing / family fic / right after V2 / too much sap on this sad tree to handle really and yep I just watched these movies alright but I fell in love fast and hard and haven’t posted a fic in years quarantine made me do it) Rated: K Word Count: 5,400

“Peter, bed time!”

It’s a memory that’s comfortable to slip into as a familiar melody plays on the Zune — a brief recollection that doesn’t take up too much time, a moment in time that is enough to put a smile on his face…and only slightly pulverize his heart.

“Five more minutes?”

His mother was tired, and it’s not just the end-of-day kind of tired that he grew up knowing. Somewhere in his heart, Peter knew that it’s the treatment which has her more exhausted than normal and when she held in a sigh, for his sake, he regretted asking immediately.

“I mean…” He grabbed the edge of the table where he had been fiddling with Erector Set that his uncle got him for Christmas a month ago that he hasn’t tired of for even a day. “I’ll go to bed. Yeah. Now’s fine.”

Meredith smiled despite her obvious desire to head to bed herself. She ruffled his sandy curls and asks, “What were you working on today?”

He beamed. “Just my cool Star Lord ship! Mama — mom?” Meredith tilted her chin in a manner that told him to just ask. “Do you want to maybe read a quick book before bed? I mean, I can totally read to myself, I can read,” He emphasized, though truthfully he was behind for his grade and he has been struggling with basic books, but he didn’t want to worry his mother with one more piece of awful news. He’d been tossing the notes from his teacher in the trash and covering them with something gross so she wouldn’t know. “But you’re a better storyteller than me and I thought maybe…”

“Of course there’s time for a book before bed, if that’s what you want,” She responded sweetly. Letting him leave his spacecraft construction for another time, she didn’t even ask him to clean it up, just took his hand. “Do you want to read the next chapter in the book you’re reading at school?”

Due to the notes he’d tossed, she didn’t know he’d been downgraded from How to Eat Fried Worms and had been back to simple basal readers for two weeks. “No, no. I’m thinking something more classic. Something you used to read when I was half the man I was, and had half the strength I have now!”

She lead him to his room, covered from floor to ceiling in posters of all his favorites — Star Wars the most prominent of them. Peter crawled into bed and scooted close to the wall, leaving room for Meredith as she flipped through the old books from when he was younger, the few she’d picked up at yard sales over the years, as they didn’t own a ton of children’s stories. She was more of a library-trip-per-week sort of mom since it was something free to keep Peter busy for an hour; at least she had been that sort of mom before three months ago.

“Okay,” She smirked, holding up a title. She supposed it had been some time since she was last conscious enough to get through a book for him at bedtime, so the giddiness on his features was completely justified. She tried not to let guilt tear her apart.

“Yes, I still love this book even though I’m not a little kid.”

“Well I also still love this book and I’m definitely not a little kid,” Meredith teased him, kissing his nose as she slipped onto the mattress next to her son. He let out a contented sound and curled into her side, squeezing her tightly and nuzzling her arm. Meredith dropped another kiss to the top of his head.

“The night Max wore his wolf suit he made mischief of one kind and another…” Meredith’s familiar cadence washed over Peter and it was hardly long before his eyes droop until he shouted, “Be Still!” When it was time. Meredith rubbed his back, taming him just like a wild thing.

The book ended unceremoniously and it was too short and Peter was not ready for his mother to leave the room. As she told him sweet things and stroked his hair and kissed him three times and said a prayer, he clutched onto her hand, looking up at her with longing brown eyes to plead, “Please don’t go, I’ll eat you up, I love you so.”

Meredith was so tired. But as Peter’s eyes welled with tears of something that was impossible to verbalize for a little boy who was going through too many changes and anxious and a little bit lonely all the time, she laid down beside him, humming a comforting tune for him. “Baby don’t go…pretty baby, please don’t go. I love you so….pretty baby, please don’t go.”

“Mom?” Peter wondered, when he was almost asleep. “Can you put that book in my backpack?”

“Why?” She wondered, not sure that it was an appropriate read for school for a boy his age, no matter how much he loved it.

“That way, the next time we have a long night at the hospital, you can read it to me before grandpa comes?”

Peter jammed his finger on the pause button of the Zune, silencing Sonny and Cher. Maybe it wasn’t a completely easy memory to slip in and out of. He hadn’t heard the song since his mother sang it to him that night and when it came up on shuffle, it had been like a fist to the face.

Peter searched for a new song, relaxed in the comfortable chair in the lounge of what had been the Ravager’s ship that they’d made quick work of cleaning out over the last week since it became their second, much more spacious headquarters. Before he’d had a chance to sort through Thin Lizzy and Alice Cooper to the other random, random tracks that someone had downloaded to the device, Rocket suddenly appeared. He had a practically tantruming Groot following behind him, his little branch-like arms up, eyes squinted, tears on his cheeks and an awful sound that was not his usual coming from the back of his throat. Rocket looked as exasperated as the memory made Peter feel. “You’re it, Quill. I can’t listen to him anymore! He’s been carryin’ on like this for an hour! He don’t wanna play or eat or nothin’! Won’t say what’s wrong. Just hollerin’ like a baby.” He spit the word at Groot, who would usually stubbornly respond ‘I am Groot,’ — I’m not a baby! But their distressed, infantile colleague could just carry on in response.

“Well, he is a baby,” Peter said with a grunt, leaning over as Rocket rolled his eyes — of all of them, he still tried to think of Groot like a friend still, when clearly their little tree was not quite developmentally capable of that yet. “What’s wrong, bud?” Frowning a little at the sight of the toddler tree, Peter bent a hand low to try and comfort him, but Groot just walked up and kicked it pitifully, falling back onto his backside at the force and managing to scream louder.

“Oh, man, little dude! What’s gotten into you?”

He tried again to reach out, but Groot just flipped onto his side, kicking his arms and legs.

Rocket put a paw on his face and shook his head. “I seriously can’t deal anymore tonight. I don’t wanna hurt the twig.”

The second insult still didn’t work and he tossed up in defeat. Peter could sense that Rocket must have been really through with the behavior, given he’d pretty much sacrifice anything at any time for his best friend.

“I got ‘im,” He said quickly and Rocket mumbled something incoherent about building a sound-proof greenhouse as Gamora, soaked in a layer of sweat in athletic clothes, obviously heard the fuss on her way back from working out in the Ravager gym, stopped in the doorway.

“Hey,” Peter smirked at her, despite the thrashing foliage on the floor. The skin-tight spandex pants she wore revealed her muscular calves and a good portion of her midsection as her top was cropped shorter than usual. Her hair was slicked back in a braid, small sections falling out. “Good workout?”

“Sure,” She mumbled, crouching on the floor to examine Groot. “Rocket just deposited him to you like this?”

“Said he’s been at it for almost an hour, that he tried everything to get him to stop. If Groot doesn’t even want candy?” He emphasized and the screaming didn’t cease, “Something must be up. Maybe he’s getting sick? Can trees get sick?”

“I’m not sure…” Gamora reached out her hand, but didn’t touch Groot. She kept it comfortingly beside him as he sniffed and screeched. “You know what?” She realized, finding another frown, “He didn’t take a nap this afternoon when we were on Berhert looking for our missing parts. He was being too stubborn in his attempts to help. He’s probably just overly tired.”

Peter scowled a little at their own shortsightedness and Groot quieted for just a second as he realized Gamora was in the room. “Hi,” She said sweetly, softly. “Are you ready for bed?”

“I am Groot!” He yelled at first, but it ended in a loud cry.

“I know you’re not a baby,” She replied with gentleness. “But that does not mean you do not require sleep. I know I am particularly tired today.”

“I am Groot?”

“Being strong also is not a disqualifier for needing sleep,” She gave a dramatic yawn for show. “I aught to get cleaned up and go to bed.”

“I am Groot?”

Peter chuckled. “You want to go with her? Buddy, you’ve got your own bed.”

“I am Groot!” He wailed.

Rumpling his brow, Peter wondered, “You sleep with her regularly?”

“Started when we got here…” Gamora shrugged as she tried to keep a blush down. “He says that his bed is too big and he’s scared of getting lost in it and he doesn’t like to be alone so…”

“I’ve said the same thing yet you kick me out of your bunk when I try it.”

“You’re not a baby,” Gamora leered though there was humor in her gaze.

“I am Groot!”

“Of course, of course,” She rolled her eyes. “You’re not a baby, either.” Gamora looked down at her glistening chest and shrugged. “I will let you come to my room if you let me take a shower first. Can you stay with Peter for a little bit?”

“I am Groot,” He whined, flopping over onto his back and glaring at the captain.

Peter winked. “I got ‘im. C’mon, buddy. I’m gonna show you something cool.”

“Just…” Gamora winced. “Do not get him all wound up if we want him to sleep, please?”

“I’ve got something in mind,” Peter agreed, managing to scoop Groot up, who finally stopped fighting him.

Gamora disappeared to get herself showered and Peter got the little tree on his shoulder. “So, when I was tired but didn’t wanna sleep, you know what I used to ask my mom?” Groot shook his head. “Five more minutes?” Peter said in a jumbled, silly kid voice. “I’d say, ‘mom, pretty please with a cherry on top can I have five more minutes? Then, she would take me into my room and do something like read a book or sing for me.”

“I am Groot?”

“No, Gamora is not my mother, dude,” Peter almost chuckled. “I like her a lot and she likes me a lot…we’re…well, it’s complicated. But we’re friends.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, no, I’ve never asked Gamora for ‘five more minutes,’ because she’s never told me to go to bed before.”

“I am Groot! I am Groot!”

“Well, it is fair, but no, it’s not because you’re a baby. But you know, it’s ‘cause you’re growing. And you gotta eat lots of vegetables and sleep if you want to get big and strong like me.”

“I am Groot.”

“Hey, I am too strong! Mouthy little thing.” Groot let out another distinct whine and flopped back against Peter’s chest, making him chuckle. “Dude. We are so not skipping out on nap time just because you want to be a helper in the future. Anyway,” He switched topics before Groot could argue, “I wanna show you something.”

He walked the little bugger to a storage compartment where he kept the majority of his special… stuff. It didn’t have a lock on it. Despite their general attitudes towards each other and them being a bunch of assholes, he did trust his team. They knew better than to mess with something of one another’s that was sentimental.

The drawer was fireproof, though, just in case someone else tried to mess with his family at large via the ship.

Groot tried to jump into the compartment, but Peter firmed up his grip and tugged out a thirty-some-odd-year-old backpack. “This was mine, when I was a kid. On Earth, where I’m from, you have to go to a place called school whether you like it or not.”

“I am Groot?”

“Nah,” Peter smirked and tickled his chin with his thumb, making Groot squirm. “You’re gettin’ the best schooling in the galaxy right here, pal. But…” He tugged at the zipper with one hand. “I wasn’t really using it for school the last time I had it on. I had to go places a lot, kind of like we do, only I was no hero then…that’s for sure…” He shook his head after a moment of silence. “So I had stuff in here that wasn’t really for school. And this,” He pulled out a very well-worn paperback book, with a monster like something he’d find on a planet probably just four jumps away on the cover. “Was one of my favorite bedtime stories.”

“I am Groot?”

“A bedtime story! It’s…when you don’t really want to go to bed, and you ask your mom for five more minutes, and she doesn’t really want to give them to you, but she does ‘cause she loves you so stinkin’ much, but she still has to be responsible. So she reads you a book instead. Even if you’re too old for that.”

“I am Groot.”

“Well, Gamora could read it to you,” He said, he’d trust her with his special book, however, “I’m right here, though and she’s getting all clean and smellin’ pretty just for you, so how ‘bout I read this to you while we wait.”

“I am Groot?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Yes, you can still ask Gamora for five more minutes when she gets back.”

He pouted shrugged, bringing a little hand to rub his eye. “I am Groot.”

“Great. Glad you’re ready,” Peter held back a chuckle, plopping into a chair and keeping Groot on his chest as he touched the title like his mother always did. “Where the Wild Things Are, story and pictures by Maurice Sendak.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, if you listen,” Petter squeezed his leg playfully with one hand, “You’ll find out what a Wild Thing is. Ready?”

When Peter turned the first page, he didn’t even get a chance to read before Groot gave a gasp and leaned forward, delicately touching the fluffy tail of Max’s wolf suit in the illustration. “I am Groot!”

“That’s not Rocket,” Peter laughed. “That’s Max!”

“I am Groot?”

“That’s Max!” He tried not to let himself get carried away as he pointed to the face of the boy in the picture. “He’s a little boy. Probably like…six Earth years old. Older than you, but not by much. He’s just as naughty as you.”

“I am Groot?” He pointed to the blanket on a string and Peter sighed.

“He’s making a blanket fort.”

“I am Groot?”

“It’s this, when you take a bunch of blankets and make them into like a cozy place to hide or be alone.”

“I am Groot?”

“Well, he wants to be alone because…actually, you know…” Peter touched the expression on Max’s face. “I don’t think he wants to be alone. I think he just wants his mother’s attention.” He could relate to that a lot. “I think he’s actually lonely. So he’s carrying on like this,” He looked down at Groot with a little frown. “Because he doesn’t know what else to do to get his mother’s attention.” Kicking himself for not realizing why Groot was acting the way he was with Rocket before — and even himself, he gently rubbed the top of Groot’s head with his finger. Gamora would be back before the little bundle of sticks knew it.

“I am Groot.”

“That is sad, huh? You know, maybe I should read it. Let’s find out if Max gets happy, okay?”

Groot nodded and Peter cleared his throat, making sure there was no emotion. “The night Max wore his wolf suit he made mischief of one kind…” He flipped the page, “And another,” Groot gasped, not liking the way that Max was chasing the dog around in the image before him. Peter turned to the next one, “His mother called him ‘wild thing’ and Max said, “I’ll eat you up!’” Groot shook his head as Peter had a flash of Yondu saying the same thing to him and smiled sadly, carrying on, “So Max was sent to bed without eating anything.”

“I am Groot!”

“Max is gonna be hungry, huh. He should have been kinder to his mother.”

“I am Groot,” The little one on his chest looked down.

“Of course we still feed you even when you’re…well, you’re not bad. You just don’t always make good choices, especially when you’re tired or when we’re tired. But this is just a story, remember? Besides, I think you’ll like how it ends.”

Peter managed to read as the forest grew in Max’s room and he sailed over the sea, Groot’s eyes growing wide as he touched Max’s fierce stance on his little ship as he prepared to fight a sea monster.

“And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

Groot covered his eyes and Peter quickly turned the page, practically still knowing the book by heart to know what would come next. “Till Max said, “BE STILL!” and tamed them with a magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all.”

Peeking with another started sound, Groot stood up on Peter’s chest and shouted, “I am Groot!” holding his little hands up in the same way that Max did in the book.

“Are you going to be the most wild thing of all?” Peter asked with a little chuckle.

“I certainly hope not,” Called a gentle voice from the hall. Gamora had reappeared, squeaky clean in just minutes. Her hair was still wet and all tied up on the top of her head to be dealt with later. A pair of comfortable pants for sleeping was low on her hips, revealing gorgeous green skin. Peter swallowed hard.

“‘Xpected you to take a little longer.”

She leaned forward, her oversized shirt from some awful junk market they’d been too revealing too much with nothing underneath it (probably intentionally, Peter thought), “Well I knew I had a very over-tired somebody waiting on me, so I just wanted to wash the sweat off. “Are you ready, little wild thing?”

“I am Groot!?” He asked in a panicked tone, pulling his hands together under his chin and looking between her, the book, Peter, and back at the book.

“Five more minutes?” She chuckled. “Oh, you’re in the middle of reading,” Gamora said with a amusement in her voice.

“I am Groot,” He glanced up at Peter.

“Start over?”

“I am Groot!” Groot pointed to Gamora.

“That’s okay, I have no need to start from the beginning,” She tried to start but Groot pouted hard and crossed his arms.

Peter winked at her, mouthing, “It’s short.”

At least, he assumed it would be, until he flipped back to the beginning and Gamora touched the same spot that Groot initially had saying, “It is a tail like Rocket’s!”

“It’s a wolf’s tail, a raccoon tail has stripes — like Rocket’s.” He said with an exasperated sigh the same time that Groot agreed with her, “I am Groot!”

Continuing to read, Gamora sat on her knees beside him, genuinely interested in the Earth bedtime ritual that involved reading of stories for children. There were no such works for children on Zen-Whoberi. Books anywhere in the Galaxy (outside of Earth, apparently) were honestly rare to come by, let alone with pictures meant for little kids.

“No wild rumpus,” Gamora whispered as Groot made a move like he was going to jump up and participate in his own halfway through the book (again).

“At least not before bed. Maybe tomorrow morning. You can boss Rocket around and tell him you’re his king.”

“I am Groot!” He approved of the plan.

Peter kept going, “…and Max, the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”

“I am Groot,” The littlest of the guardians sympathized, looking up at Gamora, who tried to hide her sympathy but didn’t do so well.

“Yes, that is why I let you stay beside me when you ask. It is hard to feel lonely.” She looked up at Peter with the smallest smile and shrugged. “But it is nice to have friends who can help you not to feel so alone.”

“I am Groot!”

“Hey,” Both Peter and Gamora corrected him at the same time. His best friends were the Guardians of the, “Freakin’ Galaxy.”

They read on as Max gave up his position in the forest, and the wild things told him, “Please don’t go, we’ll eat you up, we love you so!”

Gamora found that to be exceptionally cute as she looked at Groot, leaning back against Peter again, his eyelids so, so heavy as he struggled to stay awake for the end of the book.

As Max sailed in and out of weeks, Gamora observed Peter’s cadence getting a little slower as it came to an anticlimactic close. She imagined his mother must have read the book to him in much the same way when he was little.

“I am Groot!” Groot made a contented, happy sound almost like a giggle when he learned that Max had supper waiting for him in his room.

“…And it was still hot.”

“That is an excellent Earth legend, Peter,” Gamora said sincerely as he shut the book. He smirked as she used such high praise for a simple kid’s story. “Was this Maurice Sendak a philosopher of yours? Did he see the tale in a vision?”

Recalling several of the other oddly illustrated books by the guy that his mother had checked out of the library for him, Peter was quite sure, “Oh he was getting visions, though I don’t know they were celestial. More acid induced, probably. It was the sixties. Times were different.”

She didn’t know what that meant but accepted his answer seriously, as she usually did when he described anything about Earth. Groot had his eyes closed as he laid back Peter’s chest and Gamora smirked, nodding him towards the quarters she’s been sharing with Mantis since they arrived. “He could probably go in his own bed, if he’s already asleep?”

Gamora shrugged, voicing on his behalf, “I don’t want him to wake up feeling lonely.”

Nodding, Peter swiped his Zune and stuffed it in his pocket, carefully balancing Groot to stay in his sleepy position as they shuffled quietly down the hallway.

Gamora opened the door and gestured to the bed on the left, which had a little metal tool box on the nightstand beside it, with a red… “Is that my scarf?”

She shrugged. “He needed it more than you do. A regular blanket was too big,” She patted it and Peter tried to move with extreme caution, desperately hoping to keep the little guy asleep, but the movement was just enough to cause Groot to shoot up and cry, reaching up for Gamora. “Okay, okay.”

“I am Groot!”

“You have your own bedtime ‘ritual?’” Peter smirked, stuffing a hand in his pocket.

“I am Groot?”

“Sing?” He all-out smiled and took a seat on the edge of Gamora’s bed, making it obvious he wasn’t going anywhere for that. If she got to hear him read a bedtime story, he was going to hear her lullaby… “I’m just kidding, I can go,” He said when he watched her face go through a whole process.

“Um,” She was flushed as she held Groot on her shoulder and he cuddled into her. “I…it’s…”

“Seriously, I’m teasing —” He stood and was met with her other hand on his chest like a slap as she tried to let herself be vulnerable.

“You shared an important tradition from your home, so, I can share one, too.” She patted Groot’s back and took in a deep breath before sitting on the mattress with a little hum. “I, there’s…not many things I remember about home. I was so young and Thanos…he really manipulated most of my thoughts to make me forget. But, I…I never forgot the song my mother always used to sing before I went to sleep. In my cell in the Sanctuary, I could not sing it out loud. I would have been punished for that…but I would think it every night, so that no matter how much he tried to brainwash me, strip me of all the things important to me, I could never forget my mother’s song.”

Peter held his breath as Gamora hummed again, finding the tune. In a small, sweet voice she sang her people’s traditional lullaby for Groot, and him. There was such honor and privilege he felt to receive such a performance. “Foar tiid om te sliepen is it myn bern en de wyn groeit rêstich, en de loft is tsjuster, it is tiid, it is tiid. Ik sil jo hearre foar as jo rêstje, oant slûch jo forteart. Mar dan moatte jo allinich ôfdriuwe, mar noait echt allinich. Ik bin hjir, ik bin hjir, ik bin hjir.”

By the end, Groot was fully asleep again. Carefully, Gamora tucked him into Peter’s scarf in the little makeshift bed. Stroking his cheek, she smiled down at him then looked at Peter with a gaze that expressed a little bit of embarrassment, but mostly gratitude.

“That was beautiful,” He said with such genuine beam at her, it made her further blush. “What does it mean?”

“I…I’m not sure,” She responded with a longing sound from the back of her throat which meant she was suppressing a lump of emotion. “I do not remember our language. Just the song.”

“Gamora,” He frowned, opening his arm up. She let him hug her from the side. “It’s still beautiful. And I think it’s really sweet that you’re sharing it with Groot before he sleeps.”

Biting back a comment about how it would likely be the only time she ever got to share her mother’s song with a baby she was raising, Gamora added, “I really liked your story. How did you manage to keep it and your walking man and your orange-haired talisman all these years?”

Choking back a smile with how she referred to his stupid troll and broken music player, Peter explained how the book, among the other few possessions from 1988 had been in his transition bag from school to grandpa’s to hospital and that had been all he’d had on him when he was abducted.

“My mother also used to sing to me before bed.” He smirked, pulling out his Zune. “I didn’t hear this song since I left earth and it hit me like a ton of damn bricks earlier when it came up on shuffle.”

Offering her one of the earbuds, he clicked play and restarted the song. They got most of the way through it until Peter bit the inside of his cheek to keep from replicating the lyrics himself. “When I get to the city, my tears will all be dry. My eyes will look so pretty, no one's gonna know I cried.”

Gamora looked at the little album cover on the screen as the song started to fade. “Your mother, did she know Sonny and Cher?”

“She didn’t know them personally, but she admired the heck out of Cher. Sonny, well, poor guy. They’re basically like you and I, Sonny and Cher. Sonny was this guy with an annoying voice and bad haircut, and Cher was basically a goddess, but she saw something in him anyway and they were a great team.”

Gamora found a little grin at that. “I am hardly befitting of a goddess. I am physically more capable of you. But I do not believe you have a bad haircut, nor is your voice annoying. Just off-pitch.” He took his turn to let his cheeks flush through a chuckle. “Why did your mother pick their song as her lullaby if she did not know them personally? What was the meaning of it, then? Who sang the song to your mother, to pass down to you?”

“Oh,” He shrugged his shoulder. “That isn’t like, a traditional lullaby. I don’t think I know any of those. My mam—mother, she just liked to sing. Any song that came into her mind, so like, a different song every night. I can’t remember them all. But when this song came on, I remembered it very, very distinctly like a memory sucking me back in time.”

“Do you know of any traditional Earth lullabies we can sing to Groot?” She wondered with such an innocence about her, he was fairly sure she just wanted to hear him sing one for himself.

“I…” He thought back thirty years and shrugged. “I’m sure there was but they weren’t…just weren’t really important to me. I mean, there was a song they used to play on Sesame Street a lot that I’m pretty sure it was a lullaby.”

“Where is Sesame Street?”

“It’s where the air is clear,” He said in a joke that only he understood. “Sesame Street was a TV show, for children.”

“People of Earth value their children most dearly,” She said with her brow furrowed. “They make them telly-vision shows, movies, even books!” Peter shrugged, hiding another amused noise at her concept of ‘telly-vision.’ “What is the lullaby from this show?”

“Ernie, he was a muppet,” He paused, explaining, “That’s a puppet, which is like a plush animal, where a human controls it’s mouth and makes it look like it’s talking.” Gamora gave him a very confused expression but did not ask a clarifying question. “Ernie sang this song about the moon, and…good god, now that I’m thinking of it I think it might’ve been a warning for me,” He chuckled, trying to remember all of the words. “It went something like…Oh I’d like to visit the moon…but I don’t think I’d like to live there.”

“Well that is fortunate,” She said fighting her own smile. “You are well past the Earth’s moon out here.”

“Yeah,” He wound his arm around her again — he really had it in for the alien girl who was raising a talking stick with him (what a bedtime story that was). “You know, there’s another bedtime tradition on Earth that I could teach you about.”

“Hm?” She blinked up at him curiously finding a shit-eating grin stretched between his cheeks.

“A goodnight kiss.”

Gamora shoved off his chest playfully, responding, “Well, go ahead and give Groot a kiss goodnight before you leave.” She took her still-damp hair out of it’s bun and carefully reached into her nightstand drawer, taking out a brush and a tie. Peter extended a hand out and Gamora raised her brow.

“Are you going to tell me that hair brushing is also a bedtime custom on your planet?” She asked sarcastically.

“Nah,” He shrugged, taking the brush and starting to gently detangle her locks. “But we could make it a custom here.”

Flushing so her roots were pink like her ends, she let Peter brush her hair out with a surprisingly gentle hand. Gamora starved off a yawn. It was early, for the adults of the crew, but she supposed there was nothing wrong with succumbing to a very comfortable bedtime routine.

#starmora #groot #gamora #star lord #fanfic

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dumbledearme · 6 years

Text

chapter five—the wood boy

~~ read Swan Song here ~~

Good news is I wake up exactly where I passed out. The room is exactly the same, the fade light streaming from the window looks familiar enough to convince me that I haven't been under for too long. I try to sit, head still spinning.

I move to the windows to try and get out but they're bolted shut. I silently make my way around the room trying to find something that will aid me if and when Jefferson comes back, but I don't find anything. A great telescope set by the window in the east part of the room catches my attention. I approach with caution and fear chills me to the bone when I look through it.

He has been watching me. The desk Graham assigned to me in the police station. The desk I didn't get to use. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but one thing is certain—I have to get out of here.

Without making any noise, I cross the room to the door which I open very slowly, very silently. Jefferson is in the room across from me, his back turned to the door. The movement of his arm and the sound that follows tells me he's sharpening something. I decide I don't want to know what it is.

Holding my breath, I wiggle out to the corridor. The floor is carpeted so it muffles my footsteps. I have taken ten steps when I hear movement from where Jefferson is. Frightened, I turn to the nearest door. It's locked, but the key is in the keyhole. Without stopping to think how weird it is to have a locked room in the house where you live alone, I unlock it and move inside. As I am closing the door, the sound of breathing behind me makes me jump. I spin around.

My brain has no words for what I'm seeing. My shock is too great to register anything other than the obvious, which is that the sleeping girl on the bed is the girl from my dreams, Belle.

Beauty is only skin deep.

That may be so, but it doesn't change the fact that this is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. No wonder her name means beauty.

But what could she be doing here? Judging by the fact that the door was locked from the outside, she must be a prisoner here. Jefferson, the town loony, is keeping a girl, Mr. Gold's girl, locked up. I don't even want to think about the reasons behind that.

The door suddenly bursts open and Jefferson is standing there, a gun pointed toward me. Belle stirs a little in her sleep, but she doesn't wake up. "The Queen has asked me to keep her here," her captor tells me even though I never asked.

I straighten up. "What? You mean… my mother? She's asked you to do this?"

"She's not your mother."

My mind is working really fast. I think of my previous realization about Rumpelstiltskin manipulating the Evil Queen into casting the curse, but what if she's smarter than he gives her credit for? What if she took steps to guarantee she'd have something over him if the day ever came when he started throwing threats around, like he did in my house? This is the woman he loves—I know she is because he freaked out because of a chipped cup that belonged to her. Regina must be keeping Belle here in case she needs to use her against Gold.

Check mate.

"Your scope," I say, moving on to the other matters at hand, "you've been watching me."

"I need you to do something for me," Jefferson tells me and then his left hand grabs my wrist and I'm being pulled out of the room. Jefferson locks the door again, and then takes me back to the room across from the one I'd been in.

My mouth hangs open. This room isn't decorated like the rest of the house. No, this room clearly has the touch of Jefferson. The farthest wall is covered with lined shelves that display several top hats, one more beautiful than the last. Some rest on the head of plastic busts. The table in the center is covered with tools: scissors, tweezers, bands, pincushions and needles.

"What… what is all this?"

"You're gonna get it to work," Jefferson says and I have no idea what he means. "You're the only one that can. Make a hat that works."

A hat?

My eyes wander through the hats on the shelves. Knowing fully well that I can't make a hat since I've never learned to sew—much less a magical one—I look back at Jefferson, searching his face for instructions on the very least, only to find him pouring himself a cup of tea. That's when it hits me. The tea, the hats, the psychotic behavior...

"The Mad Hatter," I breathe. Jefferson looks at me. "You're the Mad Hatter. From Alice in Wonderland."

I rack my brain for any more information I can get on him. The book doesn't feature him much. I think he helped Regina once when she was looking for something 'from another land'. Yes, he had a magical hat that worked as a portal between worlds!

I realize that must be what he wants me to do for him. He'll be very much disappointed.

"I know who I am," Jefferson says. "You're the one who doesn't know what you are."

I decide to keep him talking. "So you believe the stories? You believe that I am this… this Princess Odette? The Savior? You think I can break the curse?"

"You've read the book," he says as if that is answer enough. "Yet you choose to ignore it. If you knew what I know, you wouldn't." He steps away from me, nearing the table. "I've been stuck in this house for sixteen years. Day after day. Always the same. Just waiting for you to reach the age of the prophecy."

"I haven't."

"What?"

"I haven't reach the age of the prophecy," I tell him. "My birthday's tomorrow. June 15th. I'll only be sixteen then."

Jefferson assess me for a moment. "Not a problem," he decides. "You'll have to stay here until then."

That's definitely not how I intended for this to go. "Look…" I start. "I don't have magic. I can't… I can't help you. The book is not about me—"

"Everything," he interrupts me, "here is about you." He comes to a halt right in front of me, his bright blue eyes searching mine, hungry for something I don't have. "You're special," the town loony informs me. "You have what it takes to free everyone in Storybrooke—you do have magic."

I think that maybe if I wasn't so scared—I mean, the guy kidnapped me, drugged me and threatened me with a gun—this is the moment where I might've believed him.

He takes a step away from me. He must've read something in my face because he says: "What's crazier than seeing and not believing it?" Jefferson forces me to the chair by the table and sets one of his top hats in front of me. "Now get it to work."

"Well, at least tell me how—"

"I don't know how. You have to find out for yourself."

"Oh that's just great. I'm supposed to just know how to do something I've never done before?" I snap. My hands are shaking; I don't know if it's the fear or the cold.

"You have to find it on your own," he insists. "It has to come from somewhere. The magic. You see, some worlds find it easier; some have magic, some don't. And some need magic. Like this one. But it needs to be found by someone like you."

In a burst of fury, I stand up. "I can't!" I shout, pushing some of his instruments away from me.

"You have to!"

"Look, I didn't ask for this! I don't know how to… to be this savior or—"

"Asked for this?" he mutters. "You think any of us has asked for this? To be stuck here where the thing we love the most has been ripped from us?" He pulls a small battered photograph from his front pocket and shows it to me. It's of an eleven year old girl with honey colored hair and eyes as bright and as blue as Jefferson's.

I know this girl. Her name is Page. We've been to school together when I was her age... Thinking about it now, I realize that one of the places I've seen Jefferson before is the school yard. He's always there, quiet, in the shadows, watching… well, her, I guess.

"Do you have any idea what is like to watch her happy with a new father? When I get to remember how it was like before all this? She has no idea who I am, our life together, where we come from. See, the Evil Queen was very particular when she cursed us. We are to suffer whatever can hurt us the most. So this is my curse."

"To remember?"

"Yes. It's hard enough to live in a land where you don't belong, but knowing it? Having conflicted realities in your head will drive you mad." Jefferson's eyes are shining with tears now. I can see how vulnerable he is and it gives me hope of an escape.

"That's why you want me to get the hat to work?" I say. "So you can take her home?"

"It's the only place we can be together…" he mutters. "Where she'll remember who I am."

I take a deep breath. "But she won't remember unless I break the curse. Isn't that how it works?"

He hesitates, his eyes closing for whatever he needs to say next, "If you want magic, you have to find—"

I don't wait for him to finish. With the bust of a mannequin, I hit him straight in the face and Jefferson is knocked out. Feeling like a maniac, I grab the gun he has dropped and make a dash for the corridor.

I run out of that house without a single glance back, making the silent promise of going back for Belle as soon as possible.

"It's time," August decides after I tell him and Flynn about Gold and Regina's fallout, Belle's imprisonment and my kidnap by the hands of Jefferson. "We need to break this curse pronto."

I ran straight home after my escape from Jefferson's manor (and I still haven't forgiven the wolf for abandoning me like that) where I did my best to calm down—I took a shower, I changed my clothes, I forced some food down. And then I called Flynn and told him to wait for me in his room, at Granny's. August joined us a moment later.

They are very good listeners, the pair of them, never interrupting me with questions, simply sitting there looking grave. I'm not entirely comfortable with being the bearer of such dread news, but I can't keep these things to myself either. Whatever is coming, they're gonna have to be there for me.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Flynn asks him. He speaks quietly and his mind seems to be faraway like it does every time someone mentions Gold.

August eyes are on me. He seems to be considering his options and, by the look of it, I don't think he likes any of them. "I tell you the story that's been missing from the book," he says, face determined. "Or better yet, I'll show it to you."

This time, whether because there really isn't any other choices or because he doesn't have arguments to dispute it, Flynn doesn't argue.

As for me, by this point, I'm opened to anything. So I get on the back of Flynn's bike and let him drive me past the town line. Half of me expected something bad to happen when we were leaving Storybrooke, but I guess we're not affected by that bit of the curse. They aren't from here and I… Well, I'm not quite sure how I fit into that equation.

August is leading the way. He seems to know exactly where he's going although I'm pretty sure we're right in the middle of nowhere. There's only woods and the main road here. Nothing else for miles and miles.

Actually, that's not quite true, as August so quickly proves to me. There is something out here—something I have worked hard to forget. Something, in fact, that I never would've found out about if I hadn't gone through my mother's adoption papers once when I was nine.

Chantey's Lobster House. The small, roadworthy diner of the middle of nowhere, Maine. August parks in front of it and Flynn does the same. I take off my helmet and get off the bike, not sure how to feel about being here.

I can't believe this is the place. I can't believe I'm seeing it, that I'm here, that they're here with me.

"What the hell are we doing here?" the words are sort of wretched from my throat, which is feeling a little tight. I didn't expect to feel so emotional about this. Truthfully, when I first found out about this I did consider coming here to see with my own two eyes where I left as an infant. But I never had the courage to do that. I don't think I'd ever have come here of my own volition.

"I think you know," August says, coming towards me. I yank my eyes from the diner and force myself to look at him. August has pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. He is unfolding it. He shows it to me. It's an article. "We've been here before," he says.

No. It's the article. I can't scarcely believe it. How can he have that? Where did he get it? How could he know?

7 YEAR OLD BOY FINDS BABY ON THE SIDE OF ROAD

My mouth hangs open.

"This is the diner you were brought to when you were found as a baby." I don't need him to tell me that. I know. I've lived it.

I lick my lips which have gone extremely dry. "I don't understand," I say because I really don't see where he's going with this.

"This is your story and it's my story," August says shoving the article back into his pocket. "The seven year old boy who found you… That was me."

My mind goes blank. I don't know what I've been expecting, but it isn't this. I glance at Flynn; he is looking away from this as if he doesn't want to hear it. Like he finds this story boring or distasteful. Like he's heard it many times before. I look back at August. "How is that possible?"

"Follow me and I'll show you," he says heading straight into the woods.

I don't know what's come over me, but I follow. I'm trusting that whatever else he has to say can't be any more shocking than what he's already told me.

"The answers as to who you are," August is saying as he marches through the trees, "is right where I found you." He moves fast, certain of where he's going. Like he's been here before, I can't help thinking.

"Well," I argue for the sake of argument, "that seven year old boy actually found me on the side of a highway, not deep in the forest, so—"

"Why do you think that?" he countered. "Because you read in the newspaper? Did it ever occur to you that maybe that seven year old boy lied about where he found you?"

"No," I admit just as August stops walking. He's standing in front of what I imagine must be an oak tree, large and mighty. I'm not sure though; I don't know much about trees.

He turns to look at me. "When I found you, you were wrapped in a purple blanket and the name Odette was embroidered along the bottom of it." From a small backpack I hadn't even noticed he is carrying, August pulls out said blanket as proof of what he tells me.

I take three deep breaths. Nice and slow. I'm only faintly aware of Flynn standing a few feet behind me like he's ready to catch me if I pass out. "Okay," I say.

"It's true, Hannah," August says. He gestures to the three. "We both came into this world through this tree."

"The book says baby Odette was sent alone through the wardrobe," I say in my attempt to make sense of this story.

August shakes his head. "That's because the author never knew that when Geppetto agreed to fashion the tree into a wardrobe, he demanded that the Blue Fairy allowed him to send his son through. Nobody knew that, but that was the deal. That was his condition. That was why Snow White, your mother, was told that only one could be sent through the wardrobe. The second spot had already been filled."

"By you?"

"By me."

"And you are…?"

"Pinocchio." He doesn't hesitate when he says it. He doesn't smile or make jokes—it isn't funny. Not right now at least.

I need a moment. I squat down and brace myself trying to make sense of things. But the only coherent thought in my mind right now is—it's all true! All of it.

"Are you alright?" August asks me. He moves to take a step towards me, but that's when he groans and collapses to the floor.

"August!"

Me and Flynn rush up to him, kneeling beside him. August is lying down, clutching at his left leg. He looks to be in a lot of pain.

"What's the matter with him?" I ask Flynn. "What's happening?"

Before Flynn can answer, August lets out a muffled laugh. "You ever been to Phuket?" he says, but I can't tell who he's talking to. I can't even tell if he is talking to one of us. "Amazing island. Full of pleasures. The perfect place to lose oneself. That's where I was," his eyes find mine, "when I got a painful reminder of the promise I broke."

You have to take care of the newborn in this new land. Promise me, son. That's the only way we'll see each other again.

I promise, papa.

"I was supposed to be there for you," August goes on. "I'm sorry, Hannah. I failed you."

I watch helplessly as Flynn pulls the hem of August's jeans up, revealing his left leg. Actually, revealing his wooden left leg.

I gasp. "What… What is… What is happening to you? Oh my God! Are you turning back into a… into a puppet?"

August lets out another hoarse laugh. "You see now? You see how much we need you to break the curse?"

I'm shaking all over. "I—I—I don't know how!" I stammer. It's true, I have no idea. If I am supposed to believe in it, I do. The curse is real. The fairy-tales are real. I'm real—Princess Odette of the Enchanted Forest. Still, the curse isn't broken. There isn't a button for me to press to change everyone back into who they used to be. I'm at a loss.

August takes my hand to stop me from shaking. When he speaks again, his voice is firm, hopeful. He believes in me. "We'll help you figure it out," he said.

And that's a promise I know he intents to keep.

August tells us we need to make a last stop before they take me home. It is a full quarter of an hour before his leg stops hurting and he can stand again. Another five minutes later and he is ready to ride his bike.

I rest my head against Flynn's back on the journey back. He is warm and comforting. The smell of leather and rosemary fill my lungs; it is a familiar scent by now. His presence reminds me that whatever's coming I won't have to face it alone. I guess being the savior isn't going to be as bad as I originally thought. I mean, yes, it's a lot of responsibility for a single person to take in, the happiness of many people depending solely of me, but there are some perks, too.

There is Ms. Blanchard and David Nolan to look forward to, I suppose. Getting to know them as parents. Getting to see the Snow White and the Prince Charming in them.

The trip back seems to go faster and before I know it, the bikes are slowing down in front of Marco's garage. The door is open revealing Marco's workshop. There are tables and shelves with all sort of trinkets carved out of wood. I guess old habits die hard. He's there as well, humming a merry tune while he works.

Flynn and I help August dismount from his motorcycle. "You guys wait here, yeah?" he says and then limps inside the garage. Marco's whistling now and I recognize the song from that day at the police station. He seems to be working on some kind of cuckoo clock. "Align the gear on the spindle," August suggests when he's close enough to be heard, "then press the spring."

If Marco is surprised to see this stranger coming into his garage in the middle of the night, he doesn't show. He considers August for a second before deciding that that is sound advice. He tries it. The gear rolls, the cuckoo appear, the clock works. August and Marco smile at one another.

"Who taught you that?" the old man asks, sounding pleased to find a fellow wood enthusiast.

"My father."

"He taught you well. He must be very proud." Marco grabs a piece of cloth and clean his hands with it.

"I don't know about that," says August. "I don't think I became the man he wanted me to be."

Marco thinks about that. "Have you tried to make it up to him?"

"I made him a promise a long time ago," August says entering deeper into the garage, "that I didn't keep."

"But you realized your mistake," Marco tells him, his accent getting heavier, "and you tried to fix it, no? That's important. If I had a son that would be enough for me."

Even from where I stand I can see that Marco's words mean everything to August. He needed absolution and not from me, but from his father.

"You look like you might be short handed," he points out to Marco.

The old man shrugs. "I get by."

"How would you feel about taking on an assistant?"

Marco, who's trying to organize his work table, looks up, now clearly surprised. "I can pay you," he tells August.

"That's okay," the son says kindly, "I just feel like fixing things."

"Come then," Marco beckons August toward the work table. "Help me, my boy."

My birthdays have always been nocturnal events, don't ask me why. Regina makes a delicious dinner followed by her extra special apple tarts made from scratch, then we watch TV together as we wait for the clock to strike midnight, and that's when she gives me a present or two and we open it together. I always thought she had concocted this little scheme so I wouldn't have people over. And although that might've worked out for her before, it is my birthday and I'm going to make the decisions this year.

So Flynn Rider is a pill she's gonna have to swallow.

Surprisingly, she doesn't seem all that bothered by his presence tonight. Like she sort of expected it, even. She made enough food for the three of us and she keeps the conversation light and friendly. I wonder if she has a secret agenda and, if it so, how that will affect us. Flynn is obviously way more uncomfortable than she is, but he makes an effort for me.

When the timer goes off in the kitchen and Regina has to go remove the tarts from the oven, she asks if I would be so kind to accompany her. I am. As we reach the kitchen, the smell of apples makes me salivate. This used to be my favorite part of my birthdays and I find that a little part of me is glad that something—even if it's something so small—hasn't changed in all the craziness of the last few days.

"Old recipe," Regina says as she opens the oven door.

"But delicious," I finish for her. She always says that. Every single year.

She smiles at me as she sets the fuming tray on the counter. "Do you have any wishes for this birthday, dear?"

"Only one."

"Oh? Do I get to hear it?"

I shake my head. She smiles again.

"That's hardly fair, Hannah." Regina leans back against the sink counter and crosses her arms. She's still wearing mittens and she looks at me expectantly. "That's hardly fair, Hannah." Regina leans back against the sink counter and crosses her arms. She's still wearing mittens and she looks at me expectantly. "I hope it didn't have anything to do with the boy in other room."

"It didn't." I lean back against the counter opposite hers, mimicking her stand. "And the boy in the other room has a name, mom."

"Of course," she conceded. "I only meant… I wouldn't want you to waste your wish like that. I understand he's your first boyfriend, but you've only known him for a few days. I guess I'm just worried you might be moving too fast," she finishes, a line of worry showing up on her forehead to prove the truth of her words..

"You don't have to worry about me, mom," I say looking down at my own shoes. Truth is: she's probably right. I probably am moving too fast with Flynn although not in the way she means. It's been only a couple of days, and he hasn't said anything to indicate he feels as strongly as I do, but I know that I'm in love with him.

I guess that when you find the right person for you, time ceases to matter.

Time.

I glance at the microwave watch. 23h45. In fifteen minutes, I'm going to be sixteen. Curse or not, I think I'm looking forward to it.

"You know," Regina starts again. I look back at her in expectancy of whatever she wants me to know. "I can't have children."

That's not what I expected her to say at all. "Oh," I say lamely.

"Yes." She looks away and I think she's remembering something. "I, uh… discovered that a long time ago. But when I came here, to Storybrooke, I… I realized I'd really love to have one."

I wait.

"My own mother wasn't…" Regina shakes her head. "She wasn't very nice. And when I got you, Hannah, I was certain that I would do my best to not be like her." She reaches out her mitten hand to take mine.

I feel my breath taking. I realize I haven't touched her since I found out about who she really is. It doesn't feel any different though. I don't feel an electrical wave coursing through me, warning me of danger. I don't feel disgust or hatred towards her. It feels… it still feels like family.

My conflicted feelings must show in my face because she says, "What's wrong, sweetie?" and lifts my chin so I have to look into her eyes. They are brown and full of warmth. Filled with love.

I suddenly feel like crying. This is too hard, too messed up. Curse or no curse, truth or lie, I see now that I can't just break free from my own feelings. She is my mother. She is always going to be my mother. There is no escape.

There's a new curse on the rise. Because I can't hate her and I can't forgive her either. So I'm just as stuck as I've been my entire life.

Nothing has changed.

"Mom." The word is so natural as it comes out of my mouth. It means her. "Mom, you weren't like her. You were… good."

Regina smiles brightly before she embraces me. A single tear escapes her left eye. She brushes it aside.

"Well, let's not keep our guest waiting any longer than he has to," she says, picking up the tray and heading back to the dining room. After a second, I follow her.

Flynn is exactly where we left him, on the second chair on the right side of the table. He has a strange look on his face which makes me suspect he might have heard our conversation. That is not good. I'm not sure he will understand my feelings.

Regina sets the tarts on the table and I reach out for one. She slaps my hand away. "A—a—a," she makes. "That is not for you. That one is for Mr. Rider." She picks up his plate, serves him the tart I've been eyeing and then hands it back to him.

"Thank you, Mayor Mills."

"You're most welcome, dear."

She hands me a smaller tart which I find totally unfair considering that it's my birthday. Maybe she has some stupid idea that Flynn's appetite is bigger than mine because he's a man, well, I will have her know that—

Flynn is coughing a little too violently. I think he might be choking.

"Oh, my," says Regina, sounding concern. "Did you tell him I use apples? Maybe he's allergic. Hannah? Do you know if he's allergic?"

I don't know if he's allergic, but I guess he must be because next thing he's fallen from his chair onto the ground. I drop my own tart and rush to his side. I call his name but Flynn doesn't answer—he can't. I look into his mouth thinking that maybe something's stuck in his throat, but I can't see anything. And now his eyes are closing, his limbs are going limp, he has no reaction left to give me.

I look at Regina. She is on the phone calling an ambulance, but when she glances back at me I see it.

I see her.

The Evil Queen is looking back at me.

And then it clicks.

The apples.

The tart.

She did this.

I shall destroy your happiness if it is the last thing I do.

I think she just did.

#swan #swan song #fanfic #dfcrosas #genderbend #hannah mills #ouat #emma swan #henry mills #regina mills #flynn rider #dark curse #storybrooke

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felifeltfrog · 6 years

Text

BATIM Fanfic - Old Songs And Memories - Chapter 1

A/N: The start of a pretty lengthy BATIM fanfic I’ve had in my head for a while and finally decided to post! For anyone wondering, this is taking place many years before the happenings of the actual game, and I would probably consider it a bit of an AU based on the information we have so far.

I cannot promise any regular updates, but I hope you like it anyway!

oOoOo

Blackness. Just a solid, inky blackness as far as he could see. It was unnatural, because while it surrounded him it was also part of him. Like a liquid, but he didn’t need to hold his breath. He could breathe it, like air, going in and out of his lungs. How long had he been in here? It felt like seconds, yet centuries. And these voices... Snippets of dialogue, of conversations, screaming albeit whispering at the same time. It was like an inner voice; always the same volume no matter. And it never stopped, not even for a moment. It made it hard to think, to clear his own mind. And yet...

Through the darkness and the whispers and screaming he could hear a voice. A familiar voice, although at the moment he could not put his finger on how or why. It was but a distant hum, yet it could clearly be heard over the rest of the voices of the blackness. And this one... It had a direction. The others came from everywhere. All around him, and from inside of him, just like the blackness itself. But this hum, this familiar voice... It came from above. He needed to get out of here. Needed to find a way to that voice.

It was easier said than done though; he was part of the inky blackness as much as it was part of him, and while he felt his own limbs being there, they still were not. It took him so much willpower and strength to finally locate how to use them, how to reach up towards the voice. And when he did, said voice grew fainter, as if moving away. Panic grabbed a hold of him. No! He needed to reach it! Pushing upwards he felt the rest of the blackness protest against his movement. It did not want him to leave. The voices around him got louder, yet all he could focus on was the one from above. He fought with the being that was him and still wasn’t, pushed through it and... broke surface. Air hit his arm as he pushed through. Reaching in this new space, he found ground and used his arm to push the rest of himself up and through.

As his head broke surface as well, and he drew a first breath of air he felt his lungs full of.. something. It caused him to break into a fit of coughing, and more blackness to splatter to the floor as he got his other arm free and continued to push up from the puddle he had come from. However by now that very blackness was furiously protesting. He felt it pull and tug at him, trying to pull him right back in. Yelping, he clawed at the floor with his new found hands, looking for any help to fight it. He couldn’t stay in there, he needed to find the voice! It was clearer heard now, even though still faint. The fight was vicious and painful, taking an immense toll on him as he focused his whole being on locating his legs and lower body. However after much struggle he eventually could feel himself pull free from the blackness. Collapsing on the floor beside its puddle, gasping and wheezing for air, he tried to recover as quickly as possible to go after the voice. However while laying there he took time to observe the new surroundings. Where... was he, really?

The room was dimly lit, the only sources of light being a few ceiling lamps. It was clearly some form of office, with a writing desk by one wall and many, many papers strewn across the floor, as well as a few instruments leaning on the walls. ’Music sheets’, he noted, picking a paper up and reading through it. It all flooded back to him now, as the song almost automatically played up in his head. That’s right... This was his office. This place... He had been the music director here. He paused his thoughts, observing his own hands holding the paper. They were the same dripping black liquid from which he just had gotten out of. A dark abyss, void of resemblances to anything human. Unnatural, just like the rest of this place. The voice suddenly echoed through the room again, and he perked, looking for its source. To his left was a large window, and on the other side of the glass a long, darkened corridor could be seen; it was from there the voice came. The recording room...

It was with great difficulty he got up, legs still unused to carry him. The black ink dripped fresh from his body, although it did not seem to collapse him or break him down. Instead, it seemed that it was just the nature of this new form. With one hand on the wall he guided himself out the door and down the corridor, snippets of distant memories flooding back with every step. Yes, he knew how to navigate this place, even beyond the office and the recording room. Pausing just outside in the corridor, he turned his head to read the small sign above the office door. ”Sammy Lawrence - Music Director” Yes, Sammy. That seemed right and familiar. That was his name. And this place... Joey Drew Studios. Creators of Bendy, which was the little cartoon devil on every single poster he could see in the corridor. A grinning face with notched eyes and small horns. Sammy took note of the pictures as walking past them, trying to get a grasp of just what they all had been about. Bendy the little devil, his friend Boris the wolf... And... He stopped at a certain poster, staring at it. The picture was of a pretty cartoon woman, with black hair and matching dress. She had a halo floating above her head, as well as tiny devil horns. Alice Angel... The name and picture protruded more nostalgic and familiar then any of the others. Sammy instinctively reached out to touch the picture, but ended up staining it with the ink from his own fingers. Disappointed he pulled back, regretting ruining it. Once again the sound of song echoed through the corridor, and now when nearer he could clearly tell it was female. Beautiful, and pure... It was so familiar, yet he couldn’t quite grasp why. Could it be..? He looked at the poster again. Alice Angel. ”Sent From Above”.

oOoOo

Alice had not seen any sentient life down here since being reborn. Well, that was except for the Ink Demon, who purposefully seemed to patrol the halls. As if he was looking for something. She did keep herself distanced from the puddles though; its writhing inky void disgusted and terrified her. If she were ever to become true perfection again, she could not afford to go back there. Alice remembered with a shudder her first birth; she had crawled out, a black and dripping shape of ink, as imperfect and gross as could be. And now... She had worked so hard to get to where she was now. Still there were things that would never change. While she was driven by the need to complete herself, to become the angel she once had been, there were still the memories... Memories from another past in this studio. She still found herself revisiting the music department, found herself sitting by the piano for hours on end. Not playing, just... observing it. She found herself sometimes pick up a stray sheet of music, singing along to the familiar songs and remembering. Susie still lived in her, they were one, yet different in some ways. And while remembering hurt like something terrible, it still also brought fond memories. Lovely memories from when the studio had been alive and active. Before it all went wrong, and from when she still had been just... happy and in love.

How many times hadn’t she sung these lyrics before, Alice thought. Once again she found herself in there, reading from the music sheet. They were written for her, about her, and she knew the creator had put so much time into perfecting this song. She knew... She clearly remembered it. Alice found herself trail off and fall silent for a moment, as her eyes fell over the name on top of the sheet. Written by S. Lawrence. The same man who in the end had let her be replaced. That was what she most clearly remembered. How much it had hurt. How much she had cried and how she had refused to hear any cheap excuses. How could she be replaced when she in fact was Alice?! Yet she returned here. Even after all this time she returned, for the part of her that was still Susie wanted to. That was what differed her within. That part of her was still as hurt, but yet she returned to relive the fond memories of a time when life was simple. When the only worries was of not getting caught being too obviously a couple at work.

Finding her note again, Alice resumed singing the song. However a sound from the door caused her to stop abruptly after just a few seconds. Was it the Ink Demon again? But he usually just appeared on the lower levels, she thought as getting up and turning to have a look. She should be safe here, right? ”Show yourself.” Alice spoke, voice stern as she grabbed the axe she had brought along. There was no reason to be kind, be it a Searcher or the blasted Demon himself, they had done nothing to gain her affection. It was hard seeing anything in the shadow of the doorway, but something was clearly moving over there. A Searcher? But... It was too tall to be one of those crawling slugs. Then that meant... ”Listen up, Ink Demon.” She thus hissed, gripping the axe tighter ”I don’t know why you’re hunting me but I. Don’t. Care. You wanna pull me back into the puddles? Fine. But I’ll rebuild myself again, and I-” She stopped as the figure came out into the dim light. No, it surely wasn’t the Demon. But it wasn’t a Searcher either... At least not entirely. It stood up, on its own legs instead of crawling, and were currently holding its hands up carefully in a submissive gesture. Then it spoke. ”I... I didn’t mean to intrude..” It said, and Alice froze at the familiarity of the voice ”Just... Your singing is beautiful.” How many times hadn’t she heard that same voice say those same words before? How many times hadn’t she felt that very same skip of a heart beat like she did now, at that same phrase? And while a part of her were still angry, she could not bring herself to be so now. Not when surprise and shock was taking over. ”... Sammy..?” Alice got out quietly, her grip of the axe loosening slightly. How was it possible? She had believed him to suffer the same fate as most of the staff and yet... Here he was. While being another cursed creature of ink and darkness, he was alive. And while painfully alike the creature she first had been when emitting from the puddles, he was here. "That's... Me." Sammy announced, though the tone of his voice sounded more surprised "You know my name..?" "How could I forget?" She questioned, watching him with both mild concern and wariness "You don't remember me?" "You're Alice Angel." He stated, and while that was indeed correct, Alice could not help but feel almost... Disappointed in his answer. Didn't he recognize her as Susie? After all, she had been the one to bring life to Alice. But then again, there was no difference between her and Susie anymore. They were the same. And nothing was going to change that. Especially not this man, in his so tainted form. Not after what he had done in the past. Or rather, not done. ”... I am.” She thus replied, however her expression now once again grew more stern as reminding herself that Sammy had done nothing to make up for the past ”And you’d do right in keeping your distance from me. I’ve worked hard for this, and I’m not having you ruin everything again.” While his form had no facial features nor expressions, she could still see what almost looked like a surprised eyebrow raise. ”Again..?” He asked, confused ”I... What did I do?” What did he do? Alice scowled, that pain from the past coming back now. Worse than before. What had he done?? No matter who had decided Susie to be replaced, Sammy had done nothing to stop it. Had not even made sure she got the memo about it. Instead she had walked in there one morning and seen... Her! Allison Pendle, who apparently was more talented than Susie, and whose very name even bore resemblances to hers. Allison. Alice. It was laughable, yet it infuriated her. She had trusted this man, she had loved him, and in return he had done nothing to help when she had needed it! And now he came here, asking what he had done to deserve her wrath?!

”What did you do..?!” She hissed, hands gripping the axe tighter ”Don’t play stupid with me Lawrence, you know what you did..! I don’t know what your excuse is and I don’t care! I am not looking to forget about the past... Or about our past!” She almost spat the last out, in bitter remembrance. He deserved no forgiving. ”Now... Get out of here.” She added, glaring at the inky shape by the door and slowly walked towards him with the axe still tight in her grip ”Take your tainted, filthy, sorry excuse for a being and leave. Or I’ll return you to the puddles!”

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #sammy lawrence #susie campbell #alice angel #batim sammy #batim susie #batim alice #samsie #fanfic #zombie talking about stuff

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snowyrosepetals · 6 years

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1. What is your full name? Crow Raven Cross

2. What is your nickname? Bird? xD

3. What is your zodiac sign? Aquarius

4. What is your favorite book series? idek, i havent read a book in a while

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? hELL YE

6. Who is your favorite author?J.K. Rowling?

7. What is your favorite radio station? Dont listen to radio

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? ooo, mint?

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? I say neat a lot so probs that

10. What is your current favorite song? The Moon Rises MLP bc Im a nerd

11. What is your favorite word? uh, fantabulous

12. What was the last song you listened to? Everything Black by Unlike Pluto

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? supernatural

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Beauty and the Beast

15. Do you play video games? yES

16. What is your biggest fear? Being alone

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? My eyes

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? everything else

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? kittiess

20. What is your favorite season? Winter

21. Are you in a relationship? nOPE

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? never had one xD

23. Who is your best friend? whats that

24. What is your eye color? Blue/green/gray

25. What is your hair color? Magenta/Pink

26. Who is someone you love?

27. Who is someone you trust? A smol loaf

28. Who is someone you think about often? oof

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? yeah excited for sleep

30. What is your biggest obsession? youtube lmao

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Icarly ftw

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? probs a smol loaf I know

33. Are you superstitious? Ive seen some shit so ye

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? somtimes when looking at fire i picture what its like seeing everything burning, so, nah

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? behind

36. What is your favorite hobby? eating butterscotch candy and hating myself 10/10

37. What was the last book you read? Alice in wonderland

38. What was the last movie you watched? Black Butler Book of the Antlantic

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? none but wanna play piano

40. What is your favorite animal? wolf or fox

41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? no idea, love you all the same~ <3

42. What superpower do you wish you had? shapeshift

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? alone in the woods by a lake

44. What makes you smile? cute drawing/animals/being talked to ffs

45. What sports do you play, if any? Professional sleeper

46. What is your favorite drink? Shirley Temple or Cherry coke

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? a few months ago?

48. Are you afraid of heights? depends ig, but not really

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? someone constantly tapping

50. Have you ever been to a concert? yup

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? nu

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? dead, so I succeeded

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? The world in Rwby

54. What is something you worry about? everything

55. Are you scared of the dark? nope

56. Do you like to sing? sometimes

57. Have you ever skipped school? all the time

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? my bed

59. Where would you like to live? anywhere in a forest

60. Do you have any pets? 1 doggo

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? i mean, its 1:45AM so, totally early bird

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? sunset

63. Do you know how to drive? yup

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? split between the two

65. Have you ever had braces? nope

66. What is your favorite genre of music? honestly any

67. Who is your hero? whoever invented hot pockets

68. Do you read comic books? used to

69. What makes you the most angry? people blaming you for their problems :D

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? real book

71. What is your favorite subject in school? English or art

72. Do you have any siblings? wish i didnt

73. What was the last thing you bought? a scooby doo shirt

74. How tall are you? 6′0

75. Can you cook? yuppers

76. What are three things that you love? roses, my pc, my bed

77. What are three things that you hate? shit only 3? people, flies, and uh, idek hot weather

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? honestly ive always had female friends, idk why i just get along with them better

79. What is your sexual orientation? pansexual

80. Where do you currently live? Arizona in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin in the woods

81. Who was the last person you texted? a bread loaf

82. When was the last time you cried? legit 5 minutes ago

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? Achievement Hunter

84. Do you like to take selfies? no bc i look ugly, yes bc filters make me cute

85. What is your favorite app? instagram

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? hope i never see them again :D

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? british

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? disney world

89. What is your favorite number? 24

90. Can you juggle? nope

91. Are you religious? hail satan

92. Do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting? i guess??

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? depends?

94. Are you allergic to anything? grass and coconut

95. Can you curl your tongue? yas

96. Can you wiggle your ears? yup

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? fairly often?

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? forest

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? die

100. Are you a good liar? depends ;p

101. What is your Hogwarts House? Ravenclaw

102. Do you talk to yourself? yea

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? hARD INTROVERT

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? used to

105. Do you believe in second chances? depends really, i give too many bc im stupid but, no longer

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? go buy starbucks

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? lately, nope

108. Are you ticklish? yup

109. Have you ever been on a plane? yep

110. Do you have any piercings? nu but i want some

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Ruby Rose

112. Do you have any tattoos? no but wantt

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? going back to a store 20 minutes before they close to buy a hat

114. Do you believe in karma? yep

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? glasses

116. Do you want children? kinda

117. Who is the smartest person you know? the mouse that keeps avoiding the traps in my house

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? friend walked in on me playing with my butt and just squishing it, laughed at me for 3 days straight

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? 3 days ago, when i slept finally last night

120. What color are most of you clothes? black

121. Do you like adventures? yES

122. Have you ever been on TV? nu

123. How old are you? 17

124. What is your favorite quote? “You are the cause of your own future”

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? sweet

#get to know me #questions #ask me anything #it me

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themelbournetone · 4 years

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Top 10 Albums of the 2010s [Countdown]

Written by: Ziggy Cross

The world has changed a lot in the last ten years, but luckily for us, music still exists. Without further ado, here’s the 10 best albums that were the soundtrack to our decade:

2010 - THIS IS HAPPENING, LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

This Is Happening is the third and “final” album by New York dance band LCD Soundsystem, released before their 2011 split (ending with the legendary 4-hour Madison Square Garden farewell show).

Following up their sophomore LP, Sound Of Silver, was always going to be a huge task, and This Is Happening holds up well, while also having an insanely ink-able title. It isn’t the group’s best album, it’s sure as hell a good way to start off the decade.

Highlights include the albums opener Dance Yrself Clean, I Can Change, and All I Want (which might sound strangely familiar to fans of David Bowie, who was a friend of LCD’s frontman James Murphy).

Notable mentions: Tourist History - Two Door Cinema Club, The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

2011 - THE ENGLISH RIVIERA, METRONOMY

The English Riviera is the third album from English indie pop band Metronomy. This is their most commercially successful album to date, including notable singles The Bay, and The Look. Most of this album was made solo by founder and producer Joseph Mount, with occasional assistance from the band members who have joined him along the way.

The album strongly rewards repeat listens, with tracks that might seem bizarre at first becoming certified bops after enough plays. The whole album is filled with some outrageous sounds from an extensive library of hardware synths. On the track Some Written, Mount brings out profound kazoo talent, as well as some impressive clarinet use in the following track, Love Underlined.

2011 was a huge year of development for the indie pop genre, with more bands embracing an electronic sound. It would seem that all the stars aligned for this release, and put them on the map. Metronomy is a band who have built a reputation for pushing limits, while managing to stay approachable enough for a wide appeal. They’ve got some pretty weird tracks if you’re willing to test the waters, but The English Riviera is without a doubt the best place to start.

Notable mentions: Torches - Foster The People, This Modern Glitch - The Wombats

2012 - BLOOM, BEACH HOUSE

Bloom is the fourth album from Baltimore dream pop band Beach House, and is their highest charting album to date. The album is packed with luscious synth and melancholy soaked guitar, reverberating in every direction far and wide.

The track list is impressively solid, and while a lot of tracks may appear quite “same-y” at first listen, they are nuanced enough to allow for some great repeat listening. You always know what to expect when you’re listening to Beach House, and they never fail to please.

Bloom is filled with some incredibly memorable tracks, and some highlights include: lead single Myth, with its incredibly powerful guitar build and grounding synth line, Lazuli, with its catchy vocal stacking and driving synth arpeggio, and New Years, with it’s ear worm of vocal melody that will stay in your mind for all of eternity.

Beach House have established their own brand of melancholy, and Bloom is probably their best showcase of that. Along with many of the other great releases from 2012, this one is for those whose hearts play in a minor key.

Notable mentions: Dark Eyes - Half Moon Run, Bored Nothing - Bored Nothing

2013 - TROUBLE WILL FIND ME, THE NATIONAL

After the wild success of The National’s 2010 album High Violet, I’m sure many fans wondered what the band would do next. Trouble Will Find Me features wall-to-wall lyrical and instrumentational masterpieces. This is a *seriously* solid album.

The album has a great mix of ‘great-the-first-time’rs, and plenty of ‘this-will-hit-hard-on-listen-twenty’s too. Believe me when I say, every listen of this album will leave you with a different ‘favourite song’.

Standout tracks include: I Need My Girl, a love song written by Berninger about missing his wife and daughter who stayed at home while he was on the road, and Don’t Swallow The Cap, a medium tempo alt-rock doomer anthem with the same understated power of LCD’s All My Friends.

Trouble Will Find Me also serves as a perfect warm up for the bands latest (2019) release I Am Easy To Find, if you’re that kind of fan. But I mean come on... even the titles match!

Notable mentions: The Bones Of What You Believe - CHVRCHES, Overgrown - James Blake

2014 - ABOUT FACE, #1 DADS

About Face is a special kind of album. Melbournite and all round musical genius Tom Iansek (also of Big Scary and No Mono) never fails to release pure magic into this world. His work truly is the hidden gem of Melbourne’s music scene - and those who have found it could not cherish it more.

Behind it’s quiet front, About Face holds the emotional force of a B-52 fighter jet. The production and gentle instrumentation will move you with force, there isn’t a single unremarkable track.

It should also be noted how impressive the lineup of collaborators on this album is; Tom Snowden, Ainslie Wills, Airling, AND that incredible saxophonist on Camberwell (you know what I’m talking about 😉).

It’s should come as no surprise that this album was nominated for an Australian Music Prize. While it did lose to REMI’s Raw X Infinity, at least we can have some comfort in knowing that Tom did win the prize the year before, for the wonderful Big Scary album, Not Art.

Notable mentions: There There - Washington, The Dew Lasts An Hour - Ballet School

2015 - CARRIE & LOWELL, SUFJAN STEVENS

“I don’t know where to begin...” where do you even start with an album like Carrie & Lowell!? How do you follow up an album that ended with one of the most powerful 25+ minute epics ever made? (I’m talking about Impossible Soul, if you haven’t heard it in full, drop everything and listen now - and if you have heard it, enjoy this shorter Car Seat Headrest cover)

Upon it’s release, Carrie & Lowell was hugely successful with critics, and was often cited as Sufjan’s best work yet. This album is quiet, I can’t count the number of times I've fallen asleep to this album on the train home from the city.

Despite it’s soft production, this album hits hard with it’s lyrics, something Sufjan now has now had over 20 years experience perfecting. Standouts include Should Have Known Better, Blue Bucket of Gold, and Fourth of July (see Sufjan leading a festival chant of ‘we’re all gonna die’ with the power of 10,000 suns here).

This album holds a warm place in many listeners hearts, and is well deserving of 2015′s top spot.

Notable mentions: Pretend You’re Mine - Pearls, The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us - Beach Slang

2016 - 22, A MILLION, BON IVER

Notable mentions: Not To Disappear - Daughter, Light Upon The Lake - Whitney

2017 - GO FARTHER IN LIGTHNESS, GANG OF YOUTHS

Standouts include slow burner Do Not Let Your Spirit Wane, anthemic Atlas Drowned, past punching What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out?, and once in a lifetime worship anthem to Nietzschean affirmation Say Yes to Life.

Read our review of the album here.

Notable mentions: Zone - Cloud Control, Visions Of A Life - Wolf Alice

2018 - FUTURE ME HATES ME, THE BETHS

Notable mentions: Lush - Snail Mail, Evening Machines - Gregory Alan Isakov

2019 - LOW GRADE BUZZ, HUNTLY

Notable mentions: You Deserve Love - White Reaper, First Body - Two People

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you-andthebottlemen · 7 years

Text

35 - Van’s POV

This story is part 2 to #18, link here. Also inspired by this song by Wolf Alice. Lyrics here.

Request: Part 2 of #18

and

Request: “Hi! I just wanna say that you’re pretty good at writing :) just found your blog so I’m currently reading everything haha. Can you write something inspired by heavenly creatures by wolf alice? :) Have a lovely day”

*******

“I’m still really fucking in love with you, y/n.”

The sentence tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it. My heart was racing and I could feel my body start to sweat. I was never any good at biting my tongue or thinking before I spoke. Oh fuck. What had I done? The words hung in the air like a bad smell.

Y/n sat there, her eyes widened and she couldn’t look away from me. Her whole body looked stunned, frozen solid. After minutes that felt like hours she began to open her mouth and stutter sounds that were meant to be words.

“You don’t have to say anythin’, I know I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry,” my voice sounded pained. I flicked my eyes down to her charm bracelet, to something, anything else to focus on.

“Van, I...” she trailed off, sounding panicked.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she finished finally. She looked at me but I couldn’t meet her

“Nothing. Forget I said anything,” I urged, knowing I fucked up.

She nodded and took another sip of her latte, eyebrows raised and looking at the table. I glanced around the cafe, focussing my attention on all the other people in here, existing in their own bubbles. When I looked back at y/n she had finished her coffee and had her bag in hand.

“I’m sorry Van, I have to go.”

Y/n stood up and smiled awkwardly at me before shuffling out of the cafe. I watched her disappear, again, and sat there for a while, replaying the last hour over and over in my head. My tea had gone cold; I was the total picture of ‘depressing’.

........

A week had passed and I had been noticeably moodier than usual; Larry was really starting to get sick of me. He would either tell me off for sulking or just avoid me altogether. He’d given up trying to clean up after me too. I didn’t tell him what was going on though, wanting to keep my failure to myself. I think he was mostly just mad that I was shutting him out.

I sat slumped into the fold of the couch, smoking like a chimney and watching some shitty drama that I didn’t follow or care about. I was surrounded by empty cans, plates and mugs of half-finished tea with the milk all floating to the top and going bad. The living room had become my own personal trash can, I couldn’t even bring myself to go and sleep in my bed each night. My mind was a hazy mess. I would drift in and out of memories and daydreams and back to reality again; I hadn’t slept properly since I’d last seen y/n. It was probably better that way though. I knew if I slept, if I shut my eyes, I’d just see her. It was always just her.

I thought back to the early days of the band, our first overseas tour and y/n coming along too. It was her first time to a different country and we were both giddy with love and excitement, drunk on the realisation that we were chasing our dreams. I remember stumbling out of the post office with our passport applications in hand and massive grins on our faces. Arms around each other while walking down the street we laughed like mad at the little strips of passport photos we’d just had taken. My hair had a weird yellow or gold tinge from the flash, you could really see my Irish roots and I kind of looked like a drug lord, all serious and shadows under my eyes. Y/n just looked plain shy and small, like a mouse. Dead cute, but not accurate to her personality at all. I teased her about it for the rest of the day. And every time she pulled her passport out after that.

Suddenly my phone began to buzz, bringing me out of my trip down memory lane. I lazily pulled it out of my pocket. It was an unknown number. I sighed and answered it.

“Hello?” I said in a monotone, ciggie wedged between my lips.

“Van?” Y/n’s voice rang out from the other end of the phone. Immediately I snapped upright, sitting straight and pulling the smoke out of my mouth, letting the ash fall to the floor.

“Y/n?”

“Yes, it’s me,” she almost whispered, “I’ve been thinking. And I think we need to talk.”

With that, I scribbled down her new address onto the back of an empty crisp packet and rushed for a shower, only my second one all week. I finished the ciggie under the hot water and tried to get my head right. I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of this.

.....

Clean and dressed in fresh clothes, I nervously made my way down the street y/n had given me. Eventually, I found it, an old brick building with big white stairs at the front and a red door. I rang the bell and a small girl with enormous dark curls and thick framed glasses answered; she kind of reminded me of Bob. She raised an eyebrow at me and waited for me to speak.

“Uhh hi, I’m Van, here to see y/n?” I stated, my voice a little breathy. I held up the crisp packet with their address written on it. Her expression changed from deadpan to surprised.

“Oh. You’re Van? Come in,” she replied, sounding a little judgemental but I brushed it off.

The girl led me through the skinny house and into the living room.

“She’ll be down in a minute,” she said, before disappearing without even introducing herself. Definitely not like Bob; Bob was too polite for his own good.

I sat myself down on the couch, resting my elbows on my knees and knitted my hands together anxiously under my chin. I glanced around the room, looking at all the bits and pieces belonging to each girl that lived her. You could tell even just from the way the room was decorated that they were all wildly different.

“Van?” Y/n called out softly, I turned to the direction her voice came from. She was stood halfway up the staircase that led to the upstairs rooms of the share house.

I stood and walked to the bottom of the stairs, unable to even speak a word. She gestured for me to follow her, so I did, not knowing what was about to happen. I looked at my feet and the gross, patchy carpet I was walking on, all the way into y/n’s room and she shut the door behind us. Silently, I looked around the room as I did downstairs. Against the wall, there was her bed, surrounded by photos and strings of fairy lights. It was very homey. There was also a messy closet opposite her bed, a stack of dog-eared books on the floor in one corner and a stack of records in the other, most of which I recognised to be mine. I let out a shaky breath and faced her, biting my lip.

“So...”, she started, “you know me; I run away when I get overwhelmed. It’s my fatal flaw. I shouldn’t have left you in the cafe the other day, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to do.”

“Don’t be y/n. I get it. You’ve moved on and you’re happy and I had no right to drop that shit on you,” I replied, feeling frustration I had at myself bubbling beneath the surface. She let out a small breath through her nose, something between a sigh and a laugh.

I glanced up at y/n, looking at her for the first time today, properly. Her hair was soft and messy and she had those soft bags under eyes again. Had she been struggling to sleep too? Her jumper hung loosely on her frame and looked well worn. It made me suddenly miss the days where she’d steal my clothes and let them drown her.

“I thought about what you said. Is it true? Do you love me still?” her eyes were glassy and she was scrunching the sleeves of her jumper in her fists.

“I never stopped y/n,” I sighed, looking down again. I felt pathetic.

I began to fidget with the button on my shirt cuff.

“I- I thought I didn’t love you anymore. I thought I was better off away from you, from your world. I thought time would heal things and that time would fly and I’d just find someone else...”, she stammered out chaotically, moving her hands about to express her emotions, just as I did. I stood there in dead silence, hardly even breathing. I was struggling to process the moment.

“But I do- I didn’t...I...I still love you too, Van. Is what I’m trying to say,” the worst burst out of her mouth and I felt dizzy.

She still loved me? After everything, after all this time, we still loved each other?

“I’ve been thinking too, about us and all that happened and I miss you so fucking much Van,” she revealed, unable to meet my gaze.

“What’re you saying y/n? That you want to give us another try? Because God knows I’ve missed you too.”

“I don’t know. I mean, maybe? But won’t it just be like before? You’re never home...”

“Y/n, we’ve learnt from our mistakes. If after all the shit we’ve been through, we still love each other, don’t you think we could make it work? I haven’t been the same since you left. I haven’t enjoyed anything as much, I haven’t been myself. You took part of me with you,” I admitted to her, she looked at me with sadness written all over her face.

“I’m afraid of trying again. I never thought anything was wrong before, you know, all those years together and it just ended one day. It became too much and I ran. I still don’t even know the exact reason why and that scares me, Van. Was it never enough that we should simply want to be together?” she responded, all her words coming out like a confession.

“Y/n, we’ve been through it all. There’s nothing left to be afraid of,” I assured.

She sat down on the edge of her bed, a single tear fell down her cheek. I quickly moved to sit beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders pulling her into me. Fuck, it felt good to have her close to me again. The smell of her hair, the feel of her body against mine, it all drove me crazy.

“Everything else? It means nothing y/n. It’s just going to be you and me. Don’t be scared of falling again, fuck, I’ll be like your shadow y/n. I won’t let anything get in the way or be too much. I’ll have your back this time. This time it will be enough that we want to be together. We’ll deal with the rest, together,” I convinced.

She pulled away from my grip and looked up at me, her eyes red and tears streaming down her cheeks. My heart was pounding and I felt like cement was settling in the pit of my stomach. She clasped one of my wrists in her hand, the silver of her bracelet cold on my skin.

“Do you promise Van?” She asked, sounding urgent and worried.

“I promise.”

With that, she pressed into my side, resting her head on my chest. She let out what seemed like months and months worth of tears. I sat there and held her until it stopped. I listened to her breathing steady and quicken again, before slowing down once more. I listened to the sound of the rain and the branches hitting her bedroom window. And I listened to anything else that made a damn sound because I wanted to be sure to never forget this moment, or any other's with y/n again.

I would never take her for granted again.

#catb #van mccann #Catfish and the Bottlemen #vanfic #van #VanFiction

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irrevocablygay · 7 years

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1-50?

HOLY MOTHER OF HELL. this is…i can’t decide if it’s not cool or awesome, but i’ll get back to you. anyway —- here it goes.

1: What are you wearing?

t-shirt and sweatpants (it’s like 9 pm here, don’t judge me)

2: Ever been in love?

yes

3: Ever had a terrible breakup?

ooooohhhh yeah

4: How tall are you?

5′10

5: How much do you weigh?

currently, about 210 ish (it’s been about a week since i weighed, but i’ve lost almost 40 pounds in the last two/three months so THAT’S HELLA AWESOME FOR ME)

6: Any tattoos do you want?

theres a SHIT ton of tattoos i want —- i’m actually going to get one this weekend. but i want rainbow birds along my collar bone bc im hella gay ; a tribal sea turtle on my back left shoulder ; a pieces sign on my right upper bicep (a tribute to my best friend who died in 2013 - that was her astrological sign) and an infinity on my inner left wrist (like lexa’s – i know, it’s dorky af but i LOVE the design). eventually, i want to get a phoenix spanning across my entire back, but that will probably be a long time coming. a wolf….somewhere. i haven’t decided on a design yet because wolf tattoos are HELLA cliche and i want mine to be unique, but they’re my favorite animal and i share a lot of personality traits with them.

CONT. BELOW THE CUT (there’s too much shit not to read more tbh)

7: Any piercings that you want?

i’d like to get my ears pierced two more times. i’ve fiddled with the idea of a tongue piercing a couple times but i doubt i’ll ever go through with it.

8: OTP?

clexa ; xena x gabby ; alice x claire (resident evil movies) ; supercorp

9: Favorite Show?

um…i’d have to go with ‘wynonna earp’ at the moment. i used to love the 100 but, heh, that’s long past XDD

10: Favorite bands?

oh dear god where do i start. skillet ; imagine dragons ; within temptation ; mayday parade ; linkin park (their old school stuff, tho) ; florida georgia line (do they count as a band?) ; hootie & the blowfish ; journey ; cold play ; pink floyd ; bon jovi ; cheap trick ; hollywood undead ; avenged sevenfold —– i could go on and on tbh

11: Something you miss?

my best friend ; lexa XD ; old friends ; smoking ; lots of things i probably shouldn’t

12: Favorite song?

at the moment, i’m currently obsessed with ‘wings’, by birdy. that will probably change in a week. if i HAD to pick an all-time favorite song, it’d probably be ‘hotel california’ by the eagles or ‘forever yours’ by journey

13: How old are you?

14: Zodiac sign?

sagittarius

15: Hair Color?

medium brown

16: Favorite Quote?

“Some people say the truth is overrated; that it’s easier to get what you want with lies and deception. This is not the case. Truth is defined as a fact, an actuality or a reality. Truth is not open for interpretation. If you gain something with lies then there is no doubt you will not be able to keep it. If there is no way of getting something without lying then it is not worth having. Truth is the only way forward, even if it is what leaves us vulnerable and weak; it is also what makes us strong”

17: Favorite singer?

there is literally no answer to this. i can’t pick. it’s too hard

18: Favorite color

cerulean blue

19: Loud music or soft

it honestly depends on my mood. sometimes i love to jam out to loud rock music. sometimes, it’s soft, serene songs with great lyrics. others, it’s strictly instrumentals, like movie scores or orchestra tracks, piano melodies. whichever.

20: Where do you go when you’re sad?

my mom. sometimes my best friend’s grave. others it’s the open field not far from my house — i go there and watch the stars

21: How long does it take you to shower?

10-20 minutes.

22: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

ten minutes tops, if i know what i’m wearing

23: Ever been in a physical fight?

yes. a few.

24: Turn on?

being straddled ; her wearing nothing but my shirt ; neck kisses/bites ; dirty talk ; unf.

25: Turn off?

feet ; body odor / bad personal hygiene ;

26: The reason I joined Tumblr?

a friend talked me into joining the rp scene

27: Fears?

like…physical fears or existential fears? um…roaches. i hate the little bastards ; losing my mom / nephews / niece / family in general (but especially them) ; being cheated on / never being good enough (blame my heartless ex for that one lol)

28: Last thing that made you cry?

man in the iron mask. that movie fucks me up.

29: Last time you cried?

few days ago

30: Meaning behind your url

it means unconquered in latin

31: Last book you read?

white mare’s daughter by judith tarr

32: Last song you listened to?

‘words’ by birdy. or ‘it’s only love’ by heather nova. one of those tbh --- i can’t remember which, but they’re the two songs stuck in my head, so it was definitely one of the other.

33: Last show you watched?

supernatural

34: Last person you talked to?

alex

35: The relationship between you and the person you last texted?

friends

36: Favorite food?

that is an impossible question.

37: Place you want to visit?

ROME. i’ve wanted to go there since before i can remember. i’m obsessed with roman history.

38: Last place you were?

as in, besides my own state? florida.

39: Do you have a crush?

yes

40: Last time you kissed someone?

i really prefer not to think about it tbh.

41: Last time you were insulted and what was it?

i....honestly can’t remember? i mean, like a ligit insult. i joke around with my friends and shit, but that’s all in fun. it’s been a while since i’ve been seriously insulted

42: What color underwear are you wearing?

steel grey boxer briefs

43: What color shirt are you wearing?

grey as well.

44: What color bottoms are you wearing?

black

45: Wearing any bracelets?

one

46: Last sport you played?

volleyball about a week ago with a few friends

47: Last song you sang?

because i’m now singing it out loud, ‘it’s only love’ by heather nova

48: Last prank call you remember doing?

about a week ago, actually XDD to be fair, we’d had a couple bottles of wine between us, so... XDD

49: Last time you hung out with anyone?

yesterday.

50: Favorite movie

GAH I CAN’T PICK. man in the iron mask ; gladiator ; braveheart ; dragonheart ; pitch perfect ; star wars ; the list goes on and on

#Anonymous #lux things #about #me

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