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rigmarolling · 4 years

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Historical Holiday Traditions We Really Need To Bring Back

Here comes Santa Claus, and also a bunch of annual holiday Things we do to ensure he commits a truly boggling act of breaking and entering and leaves goods underneath the large plant in the living room.

Because I’ve always got a hankerin’ for the days of yore, here are some historical holiday traditions we really need to bring back:

1. Everything that happened on Saturnalia

Saturnalia was the ancient Roman winter festival held on December 25th--which is why we celebrate Christmas on that day and not on the day historians speculate Jesus was actually born, which was probably in the spring.

Saturnalia was bonkers. As the name suggests, it celebrated the god Saturn, who represented wealth and liberty and generally having a great time.

Above: Their party is way cooler than yours could ever hope to be.

During Saturnalia, masters would serve their slaves, because it was the one day during the year when everybody agreed that freedom for all is great, actually, let’s just do that. Everyone wore a coned hat called the pilleus to denote that they were all bros and equal, and also to disguise the fact that they hadn’t brushed their hair after partying hard all week, probably.

Gambling was allowed on Saturnalia, so all of Rome basically turned into ancient Vegas, complete with Caesar’s Palace, except with the actual Caesar and his palace because he was, you know. Alive.

The most famous part (besides getting drunk off your rocker) was gift-giving--usually gag gifts. Historians have records of people giving each other some truly impressive white elephant gifts for Saturnalia, including: a parrot, balls, toothpicks, a pig, one single sausage, spoons, and deliberately awful books of poetry.

Above: Me, except all the time.

Partygoers also crowned a King of Saturnalia, which was a predecessor to the King of Fools popular in medieval festivals. The king was basically the head idiot who delivered absurd commands to everyone there, like, “Sing naked!” or “run around screaming for an hour,” or “slap your butt cheeks real hard in front of your crush; DO IT, Brutus.”

Oh, wait. Everyone was already doing all that. Hell yes.

(Quick clarification: early celebrations of Saturnalia did feature human sacrifice, so let’s just leave that bit out and instead wear the pointy hats and sing naked, okay? Io Saturnalia, everybody.)

2. Leaving out treats for Sleipnir in the hopes of avoiding Odin’s complete disregard for your property

The whole “leave out cookies and milk for Santa” thing comes from a much older tradition of trying to appease old guys with white beards. In Norse mythology, Odin, who was sort of the head god but preferred to be on a perpetual road trip instead, took an annual nighttime ride through the winter sky called the Wild Hunt.

Above: The holidays, now with 300% more heavy metal.

Variations of the Wild Hunt story exist in a bunch of European folklore--in Odin’s case, he usually brought along a bunch of supernatural buddies, like spirits and other gods and Valkyries and ghost dogs, who, the Vikings said, you could hear howling and barking as the group approached (GOOD DOGGOS).

That was the thing, though; you never actually saw Odin’s hunt--you only heard it. And hearing it did not spark the same sense of childish glee you felt when you thought you heard Santa’s sleigh bells approaching as a kid--instead, the Vikings said, you should be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Because Odin could be kind of a dick.

Odin was also known as the Allfather, and like any father, he hated asking for directions. GPS who? I’m the Allfather, I’m riding the same way I always ride.

And that was pretty much it: “I took this road last year and I’m taking it again this year.”

“But,” someone would pipe up from the back, “there are houses on the road now--we’re gonna run right into them. We could just take a different path; there’s actually a detour off the--”

“Nope,” Odin would say. “They know the rules. My road, my hunt, my rules. We’re going this way.”

So if you were unlucky enough to have built your house along one of Odin’s favorite road trip sky-ways, he wouldn’t just plow right past you.

He would burn your entire house down--and your family along with it.

Kids playing in the yard? Torch ‘em; they should have known better. Grandma knitting while she waits for her gingerbread Einherjar to finish baking? Sucks to be her; my road, my rules, my beard, I’m the Allfather, bitch.

Above: Santa, but so much worse.

To be fair to Odin, he could be a cool guy sometimes. He just turned into any dad when he was on a road trip and wanted to MAKE GOOD TIME, DAMN IT, I AM NOT STOPPING; YOU SHOULD HAVE PEED BEFORE WE LEFT.

To ensure they didn’t incur Odin’s road trip wrath, the Vikings had a few ways of smoothing things over with Dad.

They would leave Odin offerings on the road, like pieces of steel (??? okay ???) or bread for his dogs, or food for his giant, eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, because the only true way to a man’s heart is through his pet.

People would generally leave veggies and oats and other horse-y things out for Sleipnir, whose eight legs made him the fastest flying horse in the world and also made him the only horse to ever win Asgard’s coveted tap dancing championship.

(Side note: EIGHT legs...EIGHT tiny reindeer...eh? Eh? See how we got here? Thanks, nightmare horse!)

Above: An excellent prancer AND dancer.

And if Odin was feeling particularly charitable and not in the mood for horrific acts of arson, children would also leave their shoes out for him--it was said that he’d put gifts in your boots to ring in a happy new year.

If all that didn’t work and the Vikings heard the hunt approaching, they would resort to throwing themselves on the ground and covering their heads while the massive party sped above them like a giant Halloween rager.

So this holiday season, leave your boots out for Odin and some carrots out for his giant spider horse or you and your entire family will die in a fiery inferno, the end.

3. Yule Logs

Speaking of Scandinavia, another Northern European winter solstice tradition was the yule log. Today, if you google “yule log,” something like this will pop up:

...which isn’t an actual log, but is instead log-shaped food that you shove into your mouth along with 500 other cakes at the same time because it’s CHRISTMAS, and I’m having ME TIME; so WHAT if I ate the whole jar of Nutella by myself, alone, in the dark at 3 am?

But that log cake is actually inspired by actual logs of yore that Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian peoples decorated with fragrant plants like holly, ivy, pinecones, and other Stuff That Smells Nice before tossing the log into the fire.

This served a few purposes:

It smelled nice, and Bath and Body Works scented candles hadn’t been invented yet.

It had religious and/or spiritual significance as a way to mark the winter solstice.

It was a symbolic way of ringing in the new year and kicking out the old.

Common belief held that the ashes of a yule log could ward off lightning strikes and bad energy.

Winter cold. Fire warm.

Everybody loves to watch things burn. (See: Odin.)

The yule log cakes we eat today got their start in 19th century Paris, when bakers thought it was a cute idea to resurrect an ancient pagan tradition in the form of a delicious dessert, and boy, howdy, were they right.

In any case, I’m 100% down with eating a chocolate yule log while burning an actual yule log in my backyard because everybody loves to watch things burn; winter cold, fire warm; and hnnnngggg pine tree smell hnnnnggg.

(Quick note: The word “yule” is the name of a traditional pagan winter festival, still celebrated culturally or religiously in modern pagan practice. It’s also another name for Odin. He had a bunch of other names, one of the most well-known being jólfaðr, which is Old Norse for “Yule father.” If you would like to royally piss him off, or if you are Loki, feel free to call him “Yule Daddy.”)

4. Upside down Christmas trees

I just found out that apparently, upside down Christmas trees are a hot new trend with HGTV types this year, so I guess this is one historical trend we did bring back, meaning it doesn’t really belong on this list, but I’m gonna talk about it, anyway.

Side note: Oh, my god, that BANNISTER. I NEED.

Historians aren’t actually sure where the inverted Christmas tree thing came from, but we know people were bringing home trees and then hanging them upside down in the living room as early as the 7th century. We have a couple theories as to why people turned trees on their heads:

Logistically, it’s way easier to hang a giant pine tree from your rafters upside down by its trunk and roots. You just hoist that baby up there, wind some rope around the rafter and the trunk, and boom. Start decorating.

A Christian tradition says that one day in the 7th century, a Benedictine monk named Saint Boniface stumbled across a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree. So, instead of minding his own damn business, he cut the tree down and replaced it with a fir tree. While the pagans were like, “Dude, what the hell?” Boniface used the triangular shape of the fir tree to explain the concept of the holy trinity to the pagans. Some versions have him planting it right-side up, others having him displaying a fir tree upside down. Either way, it’s still a triangle that’s a solid but ultimately very rude way of explaining God. Word’s still out on whether anyone was converted or just rightly pissed off that this random guy strolled into their place of worship, chopped down their sacred tree, and plopped HIS tree down instead. Please do not do that this holiday season.

Eastern Europeans lay claim to the upside-down tree phenomenon with a tradition called podłazniczek in Poland--people hung the tree from the ceiling and decorated it with fruits and nuts and seeds and ribbons and other festive doodads.

(God, who lives in these houses? Look at that. That’s like a swanky version of Gaston’s hunting lodge. Where do I get one? Which enchanted castle do I have to stumble into to chill out in a Christmas living room like that?)

Today, at least in the West, upside-down trees are making a comeback because...I don’t know. Chip and Joanna Gaines said so.

Some folks say it’s a surefire way to keep your cats from clawing their way through the tree and then puking up fir needles for weeks afterward, which checks out for me.

5. Incredibly weird Victorian Christmas cards

So back in the 19th century, the Christmas card industry was really getting fired up. Victorians loved their mail, let me tell you. They loved sending it. They loved getting it. They loved writing it. They loved opening it. They loved those sexy wax seals you use to keep all that sweet, sweet mail inside that sizzling envelope. (Those things are incredibly sexy. Have you ever made a wax seal? Oh, man, it’s hot.)

The problem, though, was that while the Victorians arguably helped standardize many of the holiday traditions we know and love today (Christmas trees, caroling, Dickens everything, spending too much money, etc.) back in 1800-whenever, a lot of that Christmas symbolism was, um...still under construction. No one had really agreed on which visual holiday cues worked and which...didn’t.

Meaning everyone just kind of made up their own holiday symbols. Which resulted in monstrous aberrations like this card:

What the hell is that? A beet? Is that a beet? Or a turnip? Why is it...oh, God, why does it have a man’s head? Why does the man beet have insect claws?

What is it that he’s holding? A cookie? Cardboard? A terra cotta planter?

And then there’s this one:

“A Merry Christmas to you,” it says, while depicting a brutal frog murder/mugging.

What are you trying to tell me? Are you threatening me with this card? Is that it? Is this a threat? How the hell am I supposed to interpret this? “Merry Christmas, hide your money or you’re dead, you stupid bitch.”

Also, why is the dead frog naked? Did the other frog steal his clothes after the murder? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?

Victorian holiday cards also doubled as early absurdist Internet memes, apparently, because how else do I explain this?

Is this some sort of tiny animal Santa? A mouse riding a lobster? Like, the mouse, I get. Mice are fine. Disney built an empire on a mouse. And look, he’s got a little list of things he’s presumably going to bring you: Peace, joy, health, happiness. (In French. Oh, wait, is that that Patton Oswalt rat?)

But a LOBSTER? What’s with the lobster? It’s basically a sea scorpion. Why in the name of all that is good and holy would you saddle up a LOBSTER? I hate it. I hate it so, so much. Just scurrying around the floor with more legs than are strictly necessary, smelling like the seafood section of Smith’s, snapping its giant claws.

This whole card is a health inspector’s worst nightmare. It really is.

I gotta say, though, I am a fan of this one:

Presumably, that polar bear is going in for a hug because nothing stamps out a polar bear’s innate desire to rip your face from your skull than candy canes and Coke and Christmas spirit.

This next one is actually fantastic, but for all the wrong reasons:

I know everyone overuses “same” these days but geez, LOOK at that kid. I can HEAR it. SAME.

If you’ve ever been in a shopping mall stuffed with kids, nothing sums it up better than this card. This is like the perverse version of those Anne Geddes portraits that were everywhere in the late 90s. “Make wee Jacob sit in the tea pot; everyone will--Jacob, STOP, look at Mommy; I said LOOK. AT. MOMMY--everyone will love it.”

Actually, you know what? Every other Christmas card is cancelled. This is the only card we will be using from now on. This is it.

Wait, no. We can also use this one:

Merry Christmas. Here’s a fuckin’...just a dead fuckin’ bird.

#victorian #listory #christmas #holidays #mythtory #norse mythology #odin

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vs-redemption · 4 years

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Can I request a Levi x reader modern AU where they are high schoolers second year and someone and the reader both have a crush on Levi and Levi acts kinda harsh on the reader when she gets hurt but only because he really likes her but his action makes her think he hates her so she gives up on her crush you can pick the ending

From Cindy: Thanks for participating in my 500 follower event anon! I’m so biased for Levi. This request ended up being longer than most (almost 1500 words). I also had fun trying to adapt Levi to a high school setting. I hope everyone likes how this turned out!

High School AU - (Levi Ackerman x Fem!Reader)

The end of September was a busy time for the teenagers at your high school. After a few weeks into the school year, students were getting back into their routine and hopefully becoming comfortable with the new teachers and classes in their schedule. While the carefree memories of summer faded away, the excitement for homecoming season began to build. As a member of the student council, you were even more aware of the importance of this event. Things had been a little chaotic for you last year since you were just a freshman, but now you were a second year and planned to use the experience you’d gained to make your class stand out above the rest.

A small group of your classmates were already waiting for you when you arrived at school an hour early on the Monday that marked the first day of Spirit Week. It was hard to keep your motivation when you had to wake up and get to school earlier than normal, but you knew it would be worth it when the upperclassmen arrived to find you’d already started without them.

“Good! Everyone’s here!” The next person to show up was the student council president himself. Your groggy brain kick started when you saw that Levi Ackerman was with him. You hadn’t been sure he’d participate in the week of festivities leading up to the homecoming dance this year. He wasn’t even really a member of the student council, and he never seemed all that interested in getting hyped up on school spirit. Last year, he hadn’t even gone to the homecoming parade or the dance even though he’d assisted with all the preparations. It seemed all his efforts were done merely out of a sense of loyalty to his best friend who was the student council president.

“Levi is looking gorgeous as usual,” you hear one of the girls in your group lean in and whisper to another classmate standing next to her.

“I guess,” The classmate shrugs, “if you’re into the whole ‘small, dark and mysterious’ thing.” The first girl slaps her on the arm playfully even though it wasn’t an uncommon opinion of Levi. He mostly kept to himself and didn’t seem to have a whole lot of friends.

“He’s not that short!” she defends Levi. “Anyway, it’s his eyes that get me. They’re so intense. It gives me the shivers!”

“Thanks for oversharing,” the classmate lets out a laugh. “If you’re really that into him though, why don’t you ask him to homecoming?”

“Oh! Good idea!” The first girl claps her hands together. “Maybe I will!”

You try to tune out their conversation after that and listen to the student council president explain the tasks that needed to be done before the bell rang for the first class. In a way, it was nice to know someone else had seen through Levi’s tough exterior, but at the same time you’d also been crushing on him for longer than you cared to admit and the thought of having competition for someone who already felt unobtainable was disheartening.

“Be careful on that ladder!” Somehow, you’d ended up having to hang up a banner above the entrance to the cafeteria with both Levi and the girl you’d heard talking about him outside. It was difficult to enjoy the chance to be around Levi with her obvious flirting and him bossing you around.

“How does this look, Levi?” the girl asks from the side of the door opposite from you where she was holding the other end of the banner. “It is even?” Levi’s sharp eyes flick away from where you’re perched for just a moment as he replies.

“It’s fine,” he tells her flatly and then turns his focus back on you. “Hurry up and tie up your end and get down before you end up falling and breaking your neck.”

You do what he says even though you were starting to get your feelings hurt. It didn’t make sense for him to only nag you about safety when the other girl was doing the exact same thing you were. Did something about you come off as especially clumsy?

“Hey, Levi!” the other girl climbs down from her ladder and skips over to him. “I was wondering if you had a date to homecoming yet?” The boldness of her question throws you off, causing you to miss the last step of the ladder and slide the rest of the way down awkwardly. Thankfully, it hadn’t been that far of a fall so it was more of just a startle than anything.

“Idiot!” Levi was suddenly in front of you, looking intimidating and angry. “I told you to be careful!” He reaches down and snatches up your wrist to look at your hand. You’re surprised to see a small cut on one of your fingers. It must’ve been caused by a sharp piece of the ladder when you slipped. But it was hardly even bleeding, so you had to assume Levi’s extreme reaction was born from his apparent dislike for you. You weren’t sure what you’d ever done to him, but it seemed clear that he would never like you the way you liked him. As you made your way to the bathroom to take care of your finger, you vowed to get over your feelings for him since they were obviously one sided.

The satisfaction of seeing the upperclassmen react to the decorations your class had put up around the school lifted your spirits a bit during the day, but you were still feeling a little mopey when the final bell chimed to dismiss you from your last class. You make your way through the crowded hallway and get a bit of a shock when you find Levi waiting for you by your locker. You hoped he wasn’t there to yell at you for anything else

“How’s your finger?” the question comes out sounding impatient.

“It’s fine,” you reply a little awkwardly. “It was just a scratch.”

“That’s good,” Levi sounded just as uncomfortable as you felt, and you wondered why he’d be bothered to ask over such a small thing anyway. Maybe he thought you were so accident prone that you’d found a way to injure yourself even more over the course of the day.

“Okay,” the weird silence made you want to run away. “I’d better get going now.” You get the stuff you need from your locker and turn to make your escape.

“Wait,” Levi calls you back, but after a few moments of more quiet you lose your patience.

“What is your deal?” you throw up your hands in exasperation. “I’m sorry if hurting myself annoyed you or something, but it was an accident.” Levi raises his eyebrows, realizing he was being misunderstood.

“I wasn’t annoyed,” he explains before averting his eyes. “I was just worried that it might be worse than it looked.”

“What?” Your confusion draws his fierce gaze back to your face.

“I’d rather not see you get hurt at all,” he continues. “That’s why I wanted you to be careful.”

“Oh.” He was still dancing around his true meaning, but you were starting to think you understood.

“So, what did you tell that girl,” You hoped it wasn’t too random to change the subject, “that asked you to the dance?”

“I told her no,” Levi says it as if that should be obvious.

“Okay,” you still weren’t sure about asking him to go with you. He was a tough guy to read, and you didn’t want to scare him away. It was possible that he’d rejected that girl simply because he didn’t want to go to the dance. “Are you going to stay after and help the student council make the float for the homecoming parade today?”

“Are you going to be there?” he asks and you nod your head. “Then yes.” You’re thrown off by the possibility of him attending just to spend time with you, and it seemed he caught even himself off guard with what he’d said because suddenly there’s a slight flush of embarrassment on his cheeks.

“Do you want to walk together?” you say and he quickly accepts the offer. You smile and relax a bit knowing that your first assumption that he hated you was wrong. Maybe Levi was a little awkward about expressing his emotions, but you could deal with that as long as you still got the chance to spend more time with him and see where this new friendship might lead.

#Levi Ackerman x reader #aot x reader #snk x reader #Levi Ackerman #High School au #Cindy's 500 follower event #Cindy's Writing

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caxsthetic · 4 years

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Saudade

Akaashi Keiji x F!Reader

(n.) a nostalgic longing to be near again to someone or something that is distant, or that has been loved and then lost; “the love that remains”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *. 500 MASTERLIST .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The early morning sunlight, soft and diffuse, gave a way to the first strong rays of the day, the ones that bring true warmth. Spring came to bring a new chapter of life, the epitome of rebirth after the freezing cold of snow buried all of the warmth that the world had offered.

Outside the window, the white blanket of snow started to melted away. The evergreens and cherry blossoms scented the air with their new growth. In rain or shine, there was a new warmth, inviting the lips to smile.

He stood there in front of the mirror in his hotel room, wearing a magnificent gray suit with a white flower adorning his breast pocket. Spring came to bring a new hope in life, the start of something new after weeks full of wintry days.

The man in the mirror was a man with a face that was sculpted by the god. His gunmetal blue eyes beautify his perfect facade, completed by a pair of black eyebrows on top of it.

He smiled all of a sudden, trying to make everyone believe that it was a genuine smile. And after practising the same smile for years, he knew that it was enough, his acting was already perfect.

The chirping of the birds could be heard from where he stood. He opened up the window pane before, making sure the new air from the first day of spring could flow inside the room.

It was an adequate decision, choosing this time of year to hold such a powerful event. He took a deep breath, soaking as much energy from the air that he could gather. He needed it, he needed the hope to overcome today.

His phone vibrated continuously, resounding around the serene room. With a little sigh, he opened up his phone. A gentle smile graced his facade, immediately replacing the once emotionless one. It was genuine, not the one that he practised in front of the mirror before.

“Hey,” His voice was so delicate, like he talked to someone that could break if his intonation was higher, “Are you alright?”

“Argh, the truth?” The voice on the other line penetrated his hearing, “I am scared, I don’t want to mess everything up, Kaashi.” His name rolled from your tongue oh so smoothly.

“Hey, calm down. Take a deep breath, follow me.” You were silent, synchronized your breath with the said man, “That’s it, you’ve done so well.” The gentle smile never left his lips, overjoyed with the fact that you called him, “Better now?”

“Yes, so much better.” Somehow, the man could see how your face calmed down in a matter of seconds, “Thank you, Kaashi. I love you so much!”

His heart felt so lightweight when he heard the words. It made him feel at peace every time you said those words to him, like he was seated on the beach with ocean breeze, with you by his side.

“You are welcome, you know I am always there for you,” He gulped as a daring thought wandering inside his mind for a split second, “And I love you too.” Always.

He looked at his phone, your name still adorning the screen until you hung up. There was something in his eyes if someone took a closer look. It was a plea, pleading the world to make you the happiest person alive in this world.

But there was something else too, coating his gunmetal blue eyes as he mindlessly scrolled through his phone gallery. He stopped his motion when he finally found the picture that he was longing for.

It was a picture of him and you, someday on the high school days. There was a culture festival going on, and you were there spending time together with him, running away a little after working hard preparing the show for your class.

His love for you was something that no one could understand. It was rare, a highest form of love, the form where he didn’t even think about his own feelings. What mattered was your love, and you found it in someone else.

You found it inside someone named Bokuto Koutarou, his upperclassmen, his best friend that he adored so much. Someone that somehow caught your heart in a matter of a second.

And he couldn’t forget it, that one time after a practice match. The first time you laid your eyes on the dual coloured hair man like he was the sun that shone your life, never once dimmed.

“Akaashi!” He flinched, hearing his name being called by the ace. Today, the upperclassmen seemed to be more hampered than any other day.

“Yes, Bokuto-san?” The black haired setter was just done gulping away some water into his mouth, “Do you need help?”

“What do you think about love?” He blinked, never once expected the heavy question to come out from the ace, “Damn it, Akaashi! I think I am in love!”

Right now, Akaashi just wanted to chuckle. Love was something that you couldn’t possibly realise in a split second. It was something that grew somewhere along the way as you started to become acquainted with someone.

At least, that was love in his eyes,

“Oh?” He put the bottled waters down on the bench, focusing himself on the pouting upperclassmen, “Who is it?” He knew better if he didn’t pay attention to Bokuto, the rest of the practise would be a nightmare.

“I don’t know her name yet!” For someone who had a short circuit inside his head, the dual-coloured hair somehow looked so excited for the chance of love, “But I will tell you who it was if I ever saw her again!”

The setter nodded, right now, he was wondering about the girl, or boy, that could possibly have caught the attention of Bokuto Koutarou. For two whole years befriending the adolescent owl, he never thought he could see him being interested with anything other than meat or volleyball.

“Bokuto-san!” The black haired setter called out to the ace, notifying him that he was going to toss the ball towards him. With a wide smile plastered on his face, the ace jumped so high, a sight that the setter was always proud to see.

Of course, with how powerful Bokuto was, the ball hit the opponent’s court with ease. A wide smile plastered on his face, golden eyes lit up immediately when he realised he made a score.

“HEY HEY HEY!!!” The ace screamed out, “You see that, Akaashi?! I could-” But he stopped, his golden eyes that were once looked at the setter, were now focused on something behind his underclassmen.

Or rather, it was someone, someone that caught his eyes when he first laid eyes on them. Akaashi could see the adoration and awe in the golden orbs, and he smiled, knowing for sure that the one Bokuto was talking about before, must have stood on the gymnasium.

So he turned his head, ready to tell the upperclassmen the name of the person since he knew a lot of names in this school. But the sight in front of him right now was something that he never expected to.

You were standing there with your bag in your shoulder and his book on your hand. Akaashi expected you to look at him by now, but instead, your eyes were focused on someone else.

Your beautiful eyes fixated on someone that shone the brightest in the room. The ace of the team, Bokuto Koutarou. As your heart fluttered with awe, Akaashi’s heart crumbled when he realised what was happening right now.

His best friend that he loves since the first year of high school, setting her heart for someone none other than the upperclassmen that he really cared for too. Someone that apparently, also had his eyes on you.

There’s a sudden knock on the door, and it was enough to take him back to the presence. His eyes gazing towards the clock that was hanging on the wall, telling him that it was time.

He walked again in front of the mirror, checking his whole appearance once again, wanting to be perfect on this perfect day. When he was sure, he strode towards the door, opening it up to see none other than the happiest man alive today.

Bokuto stood with nervousness radiated from his whole body. Both of his hands were pocketed on his grey suit. He used to feel moody, down, happy, sad, but nervous was something that rarely occurs in his life.

But of course, behind all of his antics, he was just a normal human being after all,

“Are you alright, Bokuto-san?” Akaashi’s voice rang through the empty hallway, making the poor man jolted, “Wedding jitters?”

“No!” The dual-coloured hair man half-shouted, “I am just a little bit nervous, Akaashi.” He pouted, but it quickly changed as his mind was set on something, “When else you could have your first love as your wife, right?”

Huge grin plastered on his best friend’s face, making the black haired man smile with how happy the volleyball player looked right now. Truthfully, the rhetorical questions hit the sore spot in his heart, knowing for sure that he would never do the same.

Because the first woman that he loves, would bear his best friend’s last name at the end of the day.

The two men walked side by side, exiting the main building of the five-star hotel they were in. As they walked, the breezy wind greeted them with a gentle motion, making the volleyball player giggled as he tried to save his styled hair.

It was always your dream, to have a wedding on the first day of spring. You always said that it was the best time of the year. Since it felt like you have been through all the obstacles together as the winter passed, and spring turns out to be the new chapter where hope and love filled the air.

They finally arrived at the venue, and he widened his eyes a little to see how beautiful the theme that you choose with your fiance. It was a Lord of the Rings sort of a wedding in a natural woodland setting. Where you wanted your love to honour what the deity has given rather than the world of money and bling.

“Do I look good?” Once again, the groom was nervous and afraid that he would mess up everything, “Ah, I wish (Y/n) could calm me down. She must be acting so cool like she always did!”

Akaashi chuckled a little, remembered how you called him around half an hour ago. You were rambling about how nervous you are, afraid that you would mess up, even later his phone still vibrates with all of your worry.

“Trust me, Bokuto-san.” His calloused hand fell to the shoulder of the groom, the man who would have you in his life, “She was nervous too.”

No matter how calmed you look outside, you were someone that was always worried about what other people think about you. And Akaashi was always there to reassure you that everything would turn out alright.

But no matter how long he stayed for you, no matter how many times he held you in his embrace to calm you down, no matter how much love that he poured just for you,

He would never be the last destination in your life.

Since he saw how you looked at the volleyball’s team captain, he knew he would do anything to never make you lose the spark. The fact that the captain himself was interested in you, made his plan so much easier.

Akaashi was the one who introduced you with the captain. It was painful to see how the two of you met for the first time officially. Both of you were speechless, gawking at each other as no words could explain the fiery feelings inside your heart.

Akaashi was the one who planned your first date, telling his upperclassmen about what you love and what you hate. It was easy since now the ace has successfully erased all of his awkwardness around you.

Akaashi was the one who pushed Bokuto to ask you to be his girlfriend, telling him that what Bokuto’s feeling was a lot more than just a mere crush. Because somehow, Akaashi could find a glimpse of him inside the ace.

Everything, Akaashi Keiji was the one who made sure that you would live happily ever after with the man that you love so much.

No matter how many times he had to endure the pain in his heart, he would always ended up prioritising your own happiness, all above his.

He was the one who loves you, knowing you like the back of his hand, caring for you for god knows how long.

But he was just the best friend. Nothing less, and nothing more.

“Akaashi!” It was the day, the day when his best friend proposed to you, “Thank you so much for all of the help that you gave to me.” The voice of his ex-captain was calm at the moment, “I am sure I would never call her mine if you were not in my life.”

Trust me, Bokuto-san. If it’s not because of the fact that he loves you, I will be the one who called her as mine.

“It’s nothing, Bokuto-san.” He let out a long sigh, trying to compose himself, “So, she said yes?”

“Yeah,” And when he realised he didn’t even shed a tear, he knew for sure that his heart was already frozen at the moment, “I wouldn’t get this far without you, you know.”

“It’s nothing, Bokuto-san.” It was everything, “I am glad I could be a good help,” Just please, treat her right.

Right now, he wanted to scream out. His mind was filled with the memories that you made with him. He remembered everything that you ever said, every single syllable that came out from your lips, imprinted at the back of his mind.

You said you always wanted his company, saying that he always made you calm. You said you were long for his blunt but yet entertaining thought, saying that it was his best trait. You said you missed him every time he was away for too long, saying that you couldn’t be too far without your best friend.

You even said that you loved him,

But it’s not the same love that he harbors towards you.

“Then, I promise I wouldn’t ask for more, but…” Somewhere inside his heart, he knew he couldn’t cope with the feelings anymore, “I can’t do this without you, Akaashi,” But no matter how hard he tried to be away from you, it’s just not possible, “Would you be my best man on our wedding day?”

He knew he had to say no, or the possibilities for him to break down in front of everyone would become a reality. Akaashi knew well when his heart should take a rest. But even after all this time, maybe, just maybe, he could endure it one last time,

“That would be my pleasure, Bokuto-san.”

And here he was right now, standing near his best friend who was now giddy with the fact you would stride down to the altar in a matter of seconds. He questioned himself at the moment, feeling like a masochist with how much hurt he had to endure just to see you perfectly happy with the man that you loved so much.

It was silent all of a sudden, everyone stood up, turning their heads a little to the bride who finally appeared at the venue. To say that his heart wouldn’t stop for a second there would be a lie.

You looked so majestic with the wedding dress wrapped perfectly to compliment your figure. He remembered how you said you didn’t like your body type sometimes, but he would say it to you numerous times, that you were just perfect.

The pianist started to play the classic wedding songs, accompanying you as you walked down the aisle. His gunmetal blue eyes were focused on your figure who was now teared up as you looked towards his direction.

But it’s not him where you laid your gaze to.

The smile that was now radiated from your face, the tears that started to brimmed at the corner of your eyes, it was not delivered for him. All of them were for the man that stood proudly with cheeks already filled with tears, the Bokuto Koutarou, the sun in your life.

As your father gave your hand to your soon to be husband, he almost extended his hand, mind clouded with delusion as he wanted to be the one who held your hand on the aisle.

Everything’s unfolded in front of him like a blur. He tried to distract himself, focused on something else, anything but not at the couple who was now sharing their wedding vows.

As his eyes scanned the scene in front of him, somehow his heart ache a little bit more. He fell once again towards the idea of him to be the groom, the one person who would love you forever.

Spring has always become your favourite season out of all four. And as he heard your reasons every year, he started to feel the same, loving the seasons who screamed hope and prosperity. The start of the new journey, together.

His eyes looking at the two people that he always had a soft spot for. One was his best friend, the one person that he cared and adored since junior high. One other, was his first love, the one person that he knew would always love.

“If you were given the chance to change your past, would you take it?” Your voice rang as the two of you waited for the second set of Bokuto’s match. He was perplexed, didn’t know the answer to the question. You eyed him, wondering what was inside your best friend’s mind at the moment, “You don’t have to answer that today.”

“I wouldn’t take it.” You were now the one who was confused, making you pull yourself from his embrace. When the ceremony was done, you immediately tackled him, happy to see the man who gave so much impact in your life.

“What?” He chuckled at how comical your face looked right now, “Kaashi, I am serious, what do you mean?”

His eyes bore into yours, longingly looked at the only woman who owned his heart. The woman that was now taken, to be loved and cherished by someone else, a man that he hoped would love you forever.

“I answered your question from that one time,” You raised one of your eyebrows, still couldn’t grasp what he meant, “If I was given the chance to change my past…” He almost chuckled once again when your eyes lit up like a kid, “I wouldn’t take it.”

“And why is that?” Your eyes were now filled with curiosity, “You really have no regret? There’s nothing, absolutely nothing that you want to change?”

No,

“Yes,” He gulped, scanning your whole figure until his gaze fell on your left hand, “I am glad to have you in my life,” Even if it’s meant that I would forever be your best friend, “And yeah, that one reason was enough for me not to take that chances.”

You put your hand on in front of your mouth, trying to suppress as many tears that started to brimmed at the corner of your eyes. And Akaashi Keiji once again slapped by the reality that you would never be his once he saw the rose gold wedding ring, fitted perfectly on your finger.

He hoped the first day of spring didn’t just become the start of your journey together with your husband. As today, he woke up with hope that maybe, the universe would spare his heart, erasing the love that he had towards you, just to live a life without the immense pain that he must go through every single day.

But apparently, that’s not how this life works. Even after all these years,

“Hey hey hey! What is this?” Your husband suddenly appeared, circling his arms around your waist, hugging you from behind, “Why are you crying?!” He was frantic, afraid that you were in pain or something.

“I-I am okay, Kou.” You pecked his lips, trying to calm him down, “Kaashi’s here just being a softie to me~!”

“Ah! I see you crying too, Akaashi!” Bokuto stated, making the black haired man blushed when his best friend exposed him, “You were crying when we shared our wedding kiss~! Such a softie indeed!”

“What?!” You laughed, couldn’t believe that you didn’t see him when he shed his tears, “Really?! Oh my god, aww.” You were touched, feeling loved by a lot of people at once, “What is it that made you cry, Kaashi?”

The fact that I would never feel your love.

“Uhm, it was nothing, really.”

I could only pray for you to be happy with him.

“I am just happy to see how perfect you are for each other.”

So, please. Don’t make me go through another lie anymore.

Not anymore.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Tagged Lovelies:

@letmeshouyou @nitricflame @vventure @heccingdead @muffins-puffins @miyulovestowrite @nanashinanashi @vlovers-world @proplayer-kenma @kashika @cuddlyasahi @blacckdiamondposts @muffngw @baby-boy-taichi @of-heroes-and-dreams @for-ests @giyuwu-san @oli-imagines @lordeofthunder @miyatsunami @pleasantly-hq @benewol @allywritesimagines @tendoustan @iwaixiumi @hihiq @gulfwanq

#akaashi keiji #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi fluff #akaashi angst #akaashi keiji angst #akaashi keiji imagine #akaashi keiji scenario #akaashi keiji drabble #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu drabble

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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The Bunad: roots of a nationalist symbol

The bunad is a Norwegian folk costume which exists in many regional varieties. A symbol of rootedness and belonging both local and national, the bunad is ubiquituous on Constitution Day, 17 May, but it is also used at other festive occasions. Although it is far more widespread among women than men, male bunads have become common in some social circles.

Can anyone wear a bunad? Is it a real bunad if it is made in China? Is it a symbol of origin and roots or a nationalistic symbol?

It is estimated that Norwegians own altogether 2.5 million bunads, worth more than 40 billion kroner (€500 million). In other words, one in two citizens owns a bunad, and they are expensive garments with embroideries and filigree silver ornaments, consisting of several components often including aprons, headdresses, scarves or shawls. You could easily buy a few prestigious and beautiful dresses from famous designers for the cost of a single bunad. Moreover, bunad ownership and use has grown fast in the last few decades.

The increased popularity of bunads could be put down to the growing prosperity of the population of oil-rich Norway in general. But this is hardly the whole story. A symbol of Norwegianness, rootedness and regional origins, wearing a bunad is a statement about identity. Non-Norwegians are often puzzled by its widespread use, since folk dresses are associated with minorities in other parts of Europe. Perhaps the Norwegian identity is essentially a minority identity, even though independence was achieved through a bloodless secession from the Swedish–Norwegian union in 1905.

The ongoing story of the bunad is complex and involves claims and counter-claims about authenticity, the feared and respected ‘bunad police’ and a vivid popular discourse about who has the moral right to wear which bunad. The right not to wear a bunad is generally tolerated, but there is no strong and visible cosmopolitan discourse dismissing the widespread love of folk costumes as antediluvian, reactionary, nationalist and possibly racist. Yet there is no consensus concerning which dresses should be classified as sufficiently authentic and what the criteria are and it has led to controversies.

The bunad is a particular kind of festive dress. The term is a neologism based on an archaic dialect word, introduced in urban circles by the author and nationalist activist Hulda Garborg in her pamphlet Norsk klædebunad in 1903. Writing during a feverish phase of Norwegian nationalism just ahead of independence, Garborg argued the need for a truly Norwegian and regional form of formal dress. She collected and systematised what she saw as intact and useful regional bunad traditions, and even designed some bunads herself. Interestingly, Garborg never denied the syncretic and partly invented character of the new, traditionalist folk costume. She nevertheless emphasised its role as a marker of rural, Norwegian identity.

A relevant distinction can be drawn between a bunad and a folk costume. Folk costumes are everyday and festive clothes which were traditionally worn by peasants in southern Norway, and – like certain kinds of peasant food – have been recontextualised and upgraded more recently as formal dress. Bunads, on the contrary, are reconstructed and re-designed – sometimes very nearly purely invented – costumes designed from the early 20th century onwards, and are used at occasions such as Christmas Eve, Constitution Day, weddings and other major social events, although not at funerals: bunads are bright and joyful garments. Some bunads represent minor adjustments (‘upgradings’ and modernisations) of the original folk costume, while the link is less obvious or absent in other cases.

The bunad is an important traditionalist symbol of modern Norwegianness. Most of these costumes are related to regional and minority folk costumes from Central and Eastern Europe, and the German influence has often been commented upon. More importantly, the bunad confirms Norwegian identity as an essentially rural one, where personal integrity is linked to roots and regional origins. However, 18th and 19th century peasants would often wear European-style dress at formal occasions such as weddings, or they might wear a folk costume, which gradually went out of use. In other words, there is a clear element of modern invention, which nobody denies, not only in the currently widespread use of bunads, but also in their design.

What exactly, then, is a bunad? One possible answer widely accepted is: a festive dress associated with a regional Norwegian tradition, accepted by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council as such, and widely recognised as a bunad by the public. Its popularity as a symbol of tradition has increased proportionally with the modernisation and urbanisation of Norway in the last hundred years, thereby saying something essential about the politics and poetics of identity in modern societies, where the quest for rootedness in the past increases with de facto uprootedness.

In contemporary society, many if not most individuals have two, three or four options: they can legitimately wear a bunad designed in the place where they live, in the place where they grew up, or in one of their parents’ places of origin. They cannot, however, legitimately wear a bunad from wherever they fancy. Of course, they could buy it, but their friends and relatives might frown.

Norwegians who live in the heart of urban cities and have no real rural roots are sometimes unaware of people in the heart of Bunad Norway who are deeply offended. These rural Norwegians as they see it have no time for West End ladies who claim Telemark ancestry when they buy the perhaps greatest status symbol of all bunads, namely the expensive and exclusive East Telemark bunad. They also disapprove of people wearing gold chains and earrings with their bunads.

There are frequent conflicts over authenticity framed within the bunad discourse itself. In the valley of Numedal, competition between two alternative bunads actually led to the creation of two distinct factions in the 17 May parade of 2002. Family members fell out with each other; local politicians groped for compromises. One of the alternatives, a simple folk costume, is woven in dark fabrics; the complex, reconstructed bunad sanctioned by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council is much more elaborate and colourful. The defenders of the simple costume argue that the new one, ‘overloaded with silver and embroideries’, is inappropriate and clearly inauthentic for a traditionally poor mountain valley; while the other faction see the simple bunad as sordid and joyless. Both factions claimed that their bunad was the most ancient one. The colourful and expensive alternative won in the end.

The bunad stirs up strong emotions. After the 17 May celebrations in 2001, Queen Sonja was criticised in public for wearing sunglasses with her bunad; in the same year, Crown Princess Mette-Marit was severely reprimanded in the press for wearing a purely invented ‘fantasy costume’ rather than an authentic bunad from her home region. She has since made amends, and now has several bunads to choose between (legitimate in her case, being princess of the whole realm), including an elaborate bunad from her home county of Vest-Agder in the far south of the country. Women are generally advised by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council not to wear makeup and earrings with their bunad.

Because of the wealth of detail, a proper bunad cannot be made industrially in its entirety. This partly accounts for its high market price. Moreover, the knowledge and skill required to make a bunad is considered a cultural, local form of knowledge – a kind of inalienable possession. In the spring of 2002, a conflict erupted between the traditionalists and a young entrepreneur who wanted a slice of the market. This conflict inadvertently brought the implicit ideology underlying the bunad to the public eye. The controversy is still alive today, with cultural arguments overlapping with the economic ones.

What happened was this. A young Norwegian of Chinese origin, who originally worked as a cook, began to take an interest in bunads. He took a bunad course, learning the basics of the craft. Before going into business, he changed his name from Aching to John Helge Dahl, realising that he would have little credibility as a bunad salesman with a Chinese name. (The current owner of the company founded by Dahl is nevertheless called You Hong Bei.)

Dahl founded a company called ‘Norske Bunader’ (Norwegian bunads), and then he did the outrageous thing, namely to contract dozens of Chinese seamstresses in Shanghai to do the stitching and embroidery. The fabrics were sent from Norway, and the completed garments were returned – at a much lower price than that of the Norwegian competition. He built the bunads himself. ‘To most people, it is the quality that counts,’ he says, ‘not who has done the embroidery’. Of course, he can offer bunads at a competitive price.

The Bunad and Folk Costume Council reacted strongly against Mr. Dahl, as did Husfliden. At one point the latter threatened to sue him for plagiarism, but since bunad designs are not copyrighted, they were likely to lose a court case. Their argument was that the craft amounted to a locally embedded kind of knowledge which did not travel well, comparing it to dialects. Talking about mass production and industrialisation of bunad production, they argued that the use of foreign labour leads to cultural flattening. The resulting products were said to have no hau, to use the anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s term for the ‘soul’ of an object.

Opinions bitterly divided people. Many who defended the traditionalists said that this concerns ‘personal knowledge’. Bunad embroidery was a kind of handwriting. They argued that when anyone can take a pattern, send it abroad, and make a good profit from the product, people will ask: ‘What is it that I am spending one or two months’ salary on?’ Many argued that this kind of garment would feel alienating, and that it would not satisfy people’s emotional need to build their own history into the garment.

Another argument concerns the low salaries in China, claiming that it was immoral to hire ‘underpaid women’ to do this kind of work. Dahl’s Shanghai seamstresses were paid what he described as a good salary in China, but which is a fraction of a comparable Norwegian salary. Yet others have said that it may be acceptable to employ immigrant women living in Norway, who may have assimilated some local skills, but not to employ foreign women living abroad.

Although the Dahl case was spectacular in that it simultaneously brought out both accusations of racism and controversy concerning criteria for authenticity, his business innovation was less original than it might seem. Several producers admit that they outsource parts of their production to the Baltic countries and elsewhere where wages are low, and even Husfliden has admitted that parts of their bunads are made industrially because of the high cost of labour in Norway.

The anxieties voiced by the critics of the outsourcing of bunad production are threefold: In a thoroughly neo-liberal society (anyone can wear what she wants; anyone can design and make bunads anywhere in the world), national identity suffers because regional roots are severed; economic interests suffer because prices go down; and the personal or emotional pole of the user suffers since the garments lose their special quality.

In what exactly does this ‘special quality’ consist? What is the nature of the considerable personal capital invested into clothes?

What is reaped from this investment is a handsome profit, an enhanced sense of community and visible boundaries to the outside world. Cultural property of this kind is intangible, it is legally oblique, and it is poised to lose against both the brisk efficiency of contemporary capitalism and against the individualism of free choice.

So the main question as I see it: is what price your heritage?

Put your secret/sacred knowledge online, and the spell is immediately broken.

This kind of knowledge has to be scarce, localised and difficult to obtain, or it loses its magic qualities. Beyond pricing policies and profits, this is what stirs the souls of the people who care about the national and regional provenance of their bunad. Had they chosen a Dior dress instead, or a pair of blue jeans and a nice T-shirt, the problem would not have arisen.

Still critics argue why all the fuss? The Bunad is no different from what a kilt is to a Scotsman or a lederhosen is to the Bavarian or a sari is to an Indian. Yes and no. Each of these have differing degrees of exclusivity and symbology.

The kilt arguably was an English invention to control the Highland clans. But it became something else - a national symbol of being loyal to clan, crown and country. It used to be people only wore kilts if they had a hereditary claim to that tartan but nowadays no one really cares what tartan you wear (much to the chagrin of older generations). The lederhosen has always been a regional symbol not a national one but has been ‘McDonalised’ to an Oktoberfest fancy dress costume party. The sari is an interesting example that remains a distinctly Indian national symbol but can also now be readily worn by anyone around the world - just as well as I love wearing saris at Indian weddings and when I lived in India. But the Bunad is different because of its own distinct roots that has never left its national borders. The Bunad is a living tapestry and its threads can’t be simply out sourced to other countries.

One’s heritage should never be outsourced. To the anti-traditionalist naysayers I would say that the bunad is a special kind of garment saturated with symbolism and existential significance; it is from somewhere, not from anywhere. It’s Norwegian, born and bred.

#bunad #norway #custom #heritage #tradition #dress #folk #norge #norsk #culture #society #history

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whywishesarehorses · 3 years

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Survival and Healing for a Survivor of the Las Vegas Shooting Thanks to a Mustang Mare

A Mustang gives the motivation needed to overcome emotional wounds from the Las Vegas shooting in 2017.

By Susan Friedland - July 7, 2020

This one goes under a read-more because it’s long and because of the shooting details

“On October 1, 2017, Amélie Bellefille was standing in front of the stage at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nev., when the largest mass shooting in American history occurred. Fifty-nine people were killed and more than 500 wounded. Luckily, she is a survivor of the Las Vegas shooting.

“I was under fire the whole time of the shooting, witnessing what I call a door opened to hell,” says Bellefille. “Unlike my friends, I froze the whole time.”

She thought she would die that night. Scores of people around her—just a few inches away—were seriously wounded, some fatally. Bellefille escaped the horror physically, except for bruises from panicked concertgoers trampling over her as they fled. Although her body was relatively unscathed, Bellefille was mentally devastated.

Volunteer therapists who work with military veterans offered counseling to the survivors of the Las Vegas shooting, and Bellefille began intense, full-time therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. She is still in therapy today but is now navigating a healing path with the help of a gentle Mustang who selected her from across an adoption facility corral fence.

Horses and Healing

“During the therapy, I was not inclined to talk to anyone,” says Bellefille. “My trust in humans was ruined. How could someone do this to innocents?”

However, one of the therapists, Johnny Urrutia, a cowboy from Idaho who is an Eagala-certified equine therapist (a therapist trained to use horses for psychotherapy), guided Bellefille to share her feelings with a special mare.

“We had to go away with the horse and talk to it,” says Bellefille. “Say whatever was on our heart. I had this big gray mare, Eva. She was kind and sweet, like a tall angel. I started shaking, and tears poured out of my eyes. I told her everything that happened and how I felt: guilt, anger, fear, pain, disappointment in people. Johnny immediately saw that I opened up at this moment.”

Confiding in a horse came naturally to Bellefille, as horses figure prominently in her culture and personal history. She grew up in the Loire Valley of France, home to castles, vineyards, Renaissance gardens and Cadre Noir de Saumur, the traditional riding school of France.

As a child, Bellefille started riding ponies and grew as an equestrian under the instruction of a four-star endurance trainer as well as classical instruction from a Saumur Cadre Noir trainer who has remained a close friend.

She bought her first horse—an “opinionated” black off-track mare—followed by an Arabian/Boulonnais cross, a breeding combination favored by the French cavalry. When Bellefille left France to study at the University of California, Los Angeles, her black mare was retired to green pastures at her mother’s home, and Bellefille’s second horse was sold to a dressage riding school. Saying goodbye to her horses broke her heart, but she didn’t have the necessary funds to ship a horse (or two) to Los Angeles.

Mustang Motivation

During her second therapy session, Johnny suggested that owning a horse again could be a good thing—a reason to keep moving and build trust. Bellefille took his words to heart. An intriguing horse from the therapy program had captured her interest.

“In the barn, there was a chestnut mare with a weird freeze brand on her neck,” she says. “She was a Mustang. I had no idea we could adopt these horses. In Europe, Mustangs are wild animals. Legends. The unreachable horses. The ones that cannot be gentled.”

So she began researching Mustangs. In April 2018, a special Mustang became Bellefille’s “guardian angel and savior.” She would eventually name the mare Kara after one of the Valkyries, a female creature from Norse mythology who would walk over battlefields and determine who would live and who would die.

“I figured this name fits her well,” says Bellefille. “After my traumatic experience, I was given the gift to have a second chance in life.”

She says that she didn’t pick Kara, Kara picked her.

“She was untouched in a pipe corral at a Mustang TIP [Trainer Incentive Program] training center, waiting for her turn to be gentled.”

According to Kara’s records, the mare was born in a facility after the Calico roundup in Fallon, Nev., and moved around from facility to facility until she was 7 years old.

Approach and Retreat

When Bellefille arrived at Wild Horse Ranch Los Angeles, run by Mustang TIP trainer Kate LaCroix, a little bay mare quietly stared at her as soon as she got out of her car. The horse had never had human contact except from the tight chute where she received medical care and hoof trims.

“That’s the one I was thinking about for you; I named her Noël,” LaCroix told Bellefille.

LaCroix showed Bellefille how to approach a wild Mustang with the approach-and-retreat method.

“I went in the corral and the mare was in a corner,” says Bellefille. “I made her move a bit and started to get closer and closer. Kate told me to try to give her hay from my hand, avoiding eye contact and turning my body slightly so I didn’t threaten her. Little by little, the mare came and grabbed a few pieces of hay from my hand. It was magical.”

Next, LaCroix moved Noël to the round pen to see how she would react in a larger environment. She asked her to trot and canter so Bellefille could see her move.

“She then asked me if I wanted to give her the carrots I brought,” says Bellefille. “After a few tries, the mare settled and stopped running away from me. Without looking at her, I placed a carrot in my hand and waited. A couple seconds later, she took a step toward me, elongated her neck from far away, grabbed a piece of the carrot and ran away. It was magical.

She trusted me a bit. I tried again minutes later. This time, the mare took two steps toward me, grabbed the carrot and stayed while eating it, looking at me. I broke into tears.”

LaCroix cried, too.

“Little by little, I touched her nose,” Bellefille says. “The mare stayed close for a while, and I went away, taking a break from all these emotions. While I was walking away, she watched me the whole time. I think she knew. We both knew. I was a broken mess at the time. I didn’t trust anyone. I went through a difficult traumatic event. That’s what led me to get a horse. In this case, that’s what led me to get this Mustang. I knew at that moment she was the one. She picked me.”

This survivor of the Las Vegas shooting credits her horse as the reason she is alive today.

“She didn’t have much trust in people and neither did I,” says Bellefille. “So we both bonded as a team immediately and worked together in trusting each other. It was hard. It was not as easy as a domestic horse. Any mistake from me, and she was throwing it in my face right away. A small tension. A small insecurity. A fear. Nervousness. Depression. She would let me know in a fraction of a second. She reads right through me and sees people for what we are. [Horses] feel the energies more than us. They are aware of every little thing around them. That is how they survive in the wild.”

Bellefille is looking to the future and believes Kara is going to love trail riding and be wonderful at dressage. However, she remains open to learning more and doing what her mare likes. Another future plan Bellefille possesses, which Kara will undoubtedly approve of: adopting a second Mustang.

“My Mustang really changed my life,” she says. “Kara has taught me so much about myself. She knows exactly what is going on inside me that I am not even aware of. She has forced me to be real and heal myself.”

#gun violence tw #shooting tw #ask to tag #mustang horse #horse news #blm mustang #equine therapy #mine

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allmyspideys · 4 years

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Festival (h.o)

Summary: Harrison spotted a beautiful girl that he just needed to talk to. it's you. You're the beautiful girl

Warnings: light drinking, fluff, kissing, i guess a hint of a deep conversation

Words: 2k+

A/N: I felt really weird posting this bc I thought that my energies should be focused on the blm movement, but then I remembered that it’s okay to do both. You can be active and do other things, so to anyone worried that I don’t care or I’m not doing anything, don’t be. I am doing lots and if you want to talk about more ways to be active or educate yourself, come chat!! Anyway, I really wanna go to a festival or like any social interaction... my extroverted ass is sad

It was supposed to be an easy weekend with Tom and Harry. He wasn't supposed to see a girl that would end up occupying his mind. It wasn't a boy's weekend per se, but they all needed a good fun weekend. But Harrison saw a beautiful, ethereal woman; her head was thrown back in laughter with her friends and the sun seemed to shine directly on her. He longed to hear that sound of her laughter. For a moment Harrison found himself thinking of every possibility of this woman: what are her eyes like?, her hair must be so soft, what does she enjoy?. Quickly though, he shook the thoughts out of his head and returned to Tom's story, but the image of the beautiful goddess was still in his head.

When your best friend invited you to a festival, you immediately said yes. It was exactly what you needed: a fun weekend away from work and full of music and new people. You loved the idea of meeting new people and bonding over your good artists. You were excited to say the least.

You and your friends were standing around, drinking, telling jokes, laughing, when you spotted a group of really cute guys. One of them was looking at you too, making you blush and turn away. He was with other guys of equal cuteness, but there was something about the sheer blueness of his eyes that pulled you in to him. It was as if you couldn't look away.

"Y/N let's go! Rex Orange County is starting soon!" your friend called to you and pulled you out of your trance. Still, as you walked away, you couldn't help but want to run into the blue eyed man again.

As you and your friends walked towards the stage, you looked around to admire all the people that were surrounding you. Part of you was looking for that guy who’s blue eyes were still ingrained in your memory. To call them blue would be an understatement. No, they were more like an electric cyan, but had the softness of a baby blue and a twinge turquoise. They were the color of young love; the nervous kind that went to the fair at night to look at the neon lights and buy raspberry cotton candy, but grew old to be warm and loving, if not a bit cheeky too. You began to wonder about him, all because of his stupid blue eyes.

Though you and your friends had planned to get to the stage early, there were still many people that got there before you, making your spot to see one of your favorite bands farther back than you would have liked. Still, you were happy to be there and enjoying the buzz of everyone else around you. There was something special about festivals: the excited energy that combined with the chill attitudes and all summed up in the collective jump dancing. It was unlike anything else, that’s for sure. It really opened you up to opportunities that you’d normally question. For instance, hoping that the boy with the blue eyes would be legitimately interested and you’d actually meet him again.

Just as you began to imagine the eyes once again, you bumped into something. Immediately turning to apologize, you were stopped by those blue eyes staring at you once again.

“Hi,” you said with a breathless smile, “it’s you”. Quickly you realized how strange the statement was and began to stutter with an apology mixed with some comment about the concert, but thankfully, he understood.

“I’m Harrison,” he said, shaking your hand. It’s a total cliche, but it was true, there were sparks in that touch and there was no denying it.

“I’m Y/N”, again, a huge smile broke out on your face as you looked into those eyes that just kept popping up in your mind.

The show began just as you both called your friends over. It was a bit of a strange meeting; this guy you had just met that was meeting all your friends, and you all his, but somehow it just made so much sense. Maybe it was the festival feeling, but something was just right about it. The lights were shining all around you and you let the music take you a place of pure feeling and happiness. You were dancing with your closest friends and about 500 other complete strangers, and yet, you felt the most connected with everyone than ever. Harrison found himself drifting to look at you; the pure contentment on your face and the freeness of your body in your dancing was absolutely amazing. He motioned to you, but you couldn’t hear him very well, so he took the opportunity to touch you, gently. Harrison pulled your face in close as he leaned to whisper in your ear. His breath was hot against your ear, but it caused shivers to run down your spine.

“Do you want to get on my shoulders?” he asked.

“Are you crazy?” you laughed with wide eyes, “I can’t get up there!”

“Trust me. I won’t let you fall,” Harrison looked at you and wiggled his eyebrows. You let out a laugh and a gleeful scream as you took his hand. Harrison squatted down and gave you his knee, his eyes never leaving yours. After you got situated Harrison slowly stood back up, one hand’s fingers pressed into your thighs and the other interlaced with yours. You had to admit, the show was infinitely better from up there and Harrison made sure you were okay the whole time with an occasional squeeze of your hand. It was too soon to say you were falling, but there was a feeling running through your whole body that you were not ready to let go of.

Harrison helped you off his shoulders as the show ended. Part of you was kind of sad that you wouldn’t have the feeling of his fingers pressing into your thighs and the occasional looks up to make sure that you were okay. The feeling was mutual for Harrison; he didn’t want to admit it, but he enjoyed having your legs over his shoulders and even if his mind went elsewhere with that idea, he enjoyed the simplicity of having that moment with you. Your friend turned to you, beaming with happiness, “Girl!! You wanna go get some drinks?? I’ll get the spot set up for fireworks”. You immediately knew that she had already invited Harrison’s friends to join you and was thinking of all the questions she was going to ask you on the ride back to the hotel.

“I’ll come with,” Harrison perked up and looked to you for permission.

Not needing to answer, you winked at your friend and grabbed Harrison’s hand as you turned away to go find some drinks. You thought about holding it the whole way there, but decided against it. You had only just met and barely talked, but Harrison disagreed and as you let go, he tightened up, again looking to you for permission. You simply smiled and laced your fingers together. You had to admit, the fit of his fingers between yours was nearly perfect. It was a little tight, but only because you hadn’t held someone’s hand in a while, but the way his fingers wrapped around the back of your hand was the most amazing feeling that made you break out into a shit eating grin and caused flutters throughout your body.

Once you got close Harrison ran ahead to begin collecting the drinks.

“You go order the booze and I’ll grab everything else,” he said with a wink. Together you walked back to your friends, both arms full of goodies.

The fireworks started to go off, but neither you nor Haz could take your eyes off each other. You muttered to yourself again, those stupid eyes, as you watched the way the firework colors light up in his eyes. Honestly, it was magical; the way the firework color took over the almost translucent blue to become a wonderful purple or red in the glow of his eyes.

Harrison wanted to know everything about you. He wanted to know your passions and your loves, your past, things that you hated, especially the little things. He sat there looking at you with all this wonder and admiration in his eyes as you talked about your job and your future plans. He could see how passionate you were; he loved that you had dreams and were willing to go after them. Harrison was so enthralled by you and the light in your eyes that he didn’t realize you had finished until you said, “Harrison?”

“Oh! Uh,” he chuckled nervously, “sorry. I think it’s amazing that you know what you want to do and you’re going after it. It’s truly amazing… you’re amazing,” he said with a smile.

As you began to mention all the things he’s doing and the admiration you held for him, a young actor just trying his best and giving it his all, he stumbled over his thank you and turned the questions back to you.

“So,” you noted the curiosity in his eyes, “what don’t you like?”

Harrison marveled in the big laugh that you let out, again, finding himself thoroughly captivated in your stories. He couldn’t help but note the things that you loved and hated, just in case he needed them for future use. Meanwhile, you were taking as many mental pictures as possible to remember the look of someone who was truly interested in the things you were saying. It gave you hope; it gave you butterflies, no Harrison gave you butterflies.

You talked about everything. Occasionally the conversation turned a little deep, but it was still so open. You felt free to be wholly you, the version of you that you wanted to be. Harrison helped bring that out of you.

“You’re so great,” he said, looking down and biting his lip a little, “Why are you single? Wait, you are single right?”

You could see the panic on his face, but you just chuckled, “yes, I am single”. Harrison looked at you expectantly. Had it been someone else or maybe somewhere else, you wouldn’t have answered truthfully. You would have said something like, “I enjoy it!” or “I’ve just been too busy to date anyone lately”, but you felt accepted enough to tell him the truth.

“I’ve been so scared to date anyone because I don’t date just to date. I want to actually like the person, right, and I thought if I got into a serious relationship while I was in university or just after that a few years down the road, after we’d become dependent on each other, that it would just crumble and I’d lose a friend. So I decided that not dating anyone would be better than losing someone I loved,” you looked away, unable to look at Harrison.

“You can’t live in fear like that,” he said while turning your face back to him, “but I understand”, and you knew he truly did. Once again, your body filled with those flutters as you looked into his eyes.

The fireworks ended sooner than you would have liked and your friends began to pack up. Harrison routinely stole glances at you as he helped you pack away the day. Your friends began saying their goodbyes to the people they had grown close with over the day and your spirit started to fall. You tried to remind yourself to be happy that you got to experience everything, but you couldn’t help feeling a bit sad. Unwillingly you turned to Harrison to say goodbye and saw the same look in his blue eyes. Those stupid eyes, you thought.

“Thank you,” you said. Harrison was rubbing your arms and looking deeply into your eyes. He was trying his best to remember the way that they looked.

“It was so amazing meeting you,” he said back. There was so much unsaid, but so much understood.

As you were turning away from Harrison, the boy you had grown to have a huge, raging crush on, a smile broke out on your face. You were thinking of all the memories you’d think back on later that night and wish that you had asked for his number, email, something, but also be content in knowing that you had a moment. Harrison, however, was not content. He had just met this amazing woman that shook everything he thought he knew about girls. He was not done with you; he could not let you walk away. Quickly, Haz grabbed your arm and pulled you into him, placing another hand on the side of your face, steadying your body, and planting his lips on yours. At first you didn’t know what was happening, but very quickly, your body melted into his, and your lips began moving with his.

It was everything you thought it would be. It was the fireworks you just saw. It was the spark that you felt when your hands touched for the first time. It was the flutters that took over your whole body and mind every time you looked into his eyes. It was the first time that Harrison saw you. It was the feeling of his fingers against your thighs. It was the pictures of you running through his head. It was the melody of your voice that filled his ears every time you spoke. It was everything you hoped and so so much more.

You broke for a minute and rested your head against Harrison’s, foreheads still touching and fingers still intertwined. You had a great day with a great guy and your friends. You met someone great. Harrison was feeling the exact same way. He never planned on meeting someone, much less meeting someone as amazing as you. It was meant to be an easy weekend and it turned out to be so much more.

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esonetwork · 3 years

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No One Wants to Read Your Crappy Book

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/no-one-wants-to-read-your-crappy-book/

No One Wants to Read Your Crappy Book

Hey, M. D. Jackson here. I’ll be back next month with more art related content. This month I’m giving over my post to my good friend Jack Mackenzie. Jack’s an author and he’s going to talk to you about writing.

Hey. Get in. We’re going for a ride.

No, don’t worry. We’re not going far. I’ll have you back before dinner.

So, I hear you’re writing a book? What’s it about? No, wait… don’t tell me… No. Really. Don’t tell me. Don’t care. I got my own books to write.

What I want to do is give you some straight talk about writing a book in this day and age. You’re probably not going to like it but you need to know it.

The first thing that you have to know is that no one wants to read your crappy book.

Mean? You think I’m being mean? I’m trying to help you. Sit back and listen for a minute, will you?

First off, here are the cold hard facts. It’s estimated that fewer than 1000 fiction writers in North America make a living from their writing. And I’m being generous at 1000. I’ve read some estimates that put that number at only 300. That’s out of around 45,000 writers and authors working in the United States alone. That’s .6 percent… not six percent but POINT six percent… less than 1 percent… of all writers.

Ahh, what the heck! I’m feeling generous. If the number actually is 1000 writers making a living at writing, that’s 2%.

Well, Okay, you have a better chance of making a living as a writer than winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning, true, but, those are still some slim odds.

Yes, I know, there was a time when writers who churned out short novels on a regular basis could make a living Not a great living, to be sure, and, yes, they would occasionally have to churn out some cheap porn novels under a pseudonym to make ends meet.

You think I’m joking? Have you ever heard of Loren Beauchamp? She was the author of such sleazy paperbacks as Campus Sex Club, Unwilling Sinner, and Strange Delights. She was also the pseudonym of science fiction author Robert Silverberg. I kid you not! Look it up.

My point is that it has never been easy making a living as a writer. Few authors could do it, even in the so called “Golden Age” of the paperbacks after the death of the pulp magazines. They needed day jobs or, like Mr. Silverberg, they needed to wear a mask and turn to the dark side.

How did this situation come about? Let me digress for a bit.

Back in the 1960’s the typical science fiction novel ran to about 60,000 words. These were slim volumes of about 130 to 150 pages. Mass market paperbacks in the US were sold mostly at grocery stores or neighbourhood pharmacies. They were displayed in wire racks that rotated. That’s where the thinner books were more desirable. The thinner the book, the more you could stack. You used to be able to fit about six paperbacks in a three inch rack.

So what happened? Why did these compact volumes grow to such monstrous size?

There are a few reasons, but chiefly it comes down to inflation. In the 70’s and 80’s the price of just about everything rose. That included paper and printing costs. Publishers found that they needed to increase the prices of their books to compensate.

But according to grocery store logic if you want to charge more for a product then it has to weigh more. You can’t just start using bigger typeface or thicker paper to do that so you start looking for longer novels.

And there was also this massively big book that came out in paperback, a little story about elves and stuff, called The Lord of the Rings. At 473,000 words it was a massive book that had to be broken down into three parts. But, oddly enough, that little book sold an amazing number of copies.

So, given that consumers would buy longer books and pay more for them if they were thicker, well, the writing was on the wall and there was a whole lot of it.

At the same time distribution channels dried up. The wire racks were gone. Publishers were charging more and more for thicker books, but the places that were left to sell these books couldn’t sell massive hardbacks unless they were bestsellers. Those pesky midlist volumes weren’t moving off the shelves fast enough. Stop sending us midlist books, the big bookstores told the publishers. Only send us bestsellers.

What’s that? Oh… you plan to self publish? Ahh, well, that’s different, then.

You see, according to a survey by Guardian in 2015, the average self-published author makes less than $1,000 per year. In fact, a third of them make less than $500 per year. And there’s over a million self published authors with more joining the ranks all the time.

I know, I know, I read those stories all the time too, about how a self published author sold a million copies of his book and got rich. I also see lots of stories on the news about the guys who won big on the lottery, or got struck by lightning. The fact is that most people, the vast majority of the population… don’t.

Think of it like this: You’re at a concert… an open-air, rock festival-type concert… You’re on the ground several meters distant from the stage. The stage is 100 feet high and the approach to it slopes up. 1000 people are standing on the slope. The headliners… say, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, James Patterson and Neil Gaiman… are 100 feet in the air.

You’re on the flat ground. You’re trying to get closer to the stage. But you just can’t seem to push past all the others surrounding you… and there are a lot! They’re all waving their books in the air. Occasionally some author with a toothy grin and the right connections blows past you. Or one of the concert promoters escorts a cute red-head to the front simply because she’s a cute red-head.

You’ve been on the ground, pounding away at the ground for years on end and these fortunate few keep slipping by you and the grounds just keep getting more and more crowded.

That’s what the publishing industry is today for most authors.

So what does that mean for you and your book? Well, like I said, no one wants to read your crappy book. But… you can change that. Or at least make it more likely that someone will want to read it.

Here’s the thing: don’t focus on the stage 100 feet in the air. Focus on those around you. Be interested in their work. Talk to them. Make friends. Don’t moan and whine that you haven’t sold any of your books. Talk about your books if others are interested. If they’re not (and believe me, most people aren’t) talk about something else. What do you like? Comic books? Movies? Stamp collecting? Cookie recipes. Talk about that. Be genuine. Be present.

Have a website. Have a Twitter feed. Have a Facebook page. Talk about things you are interested in. People will find you. If this seems like a waste of time, just remember that those 1000 writers up there near the stage? They’re doing it too. So is Steve, J.K, James and Neil. They’re always out there, always talking. People like them. They like them and they read their books.

No one cares about your book. But if you are out there online or (post Covid, of course) in person at conventions or other gatherings… heck, even house parties… just be yourself. Be the best version of yourself. Be friendly. Be interested in others. If people like you they might read your book.

Look… maybe your book will resonate with a lot of people. Maybe some weird confluence of events will thrust you into the spotlight. Strange things happen. But you can’t control that. The only thing you can control is yourself. Be yourself. Be the best version of yourself. Don’t brood. Don’t moan. Don’t whine.

That’s all I got for you. I’m sorry it’s not more encouraging, but that’s life, right? And, hey! Look. This is where we started. I told you I’d have you back in time for dinner.

Take care now. Good luck with your book. Honestly. You seem like a nice person. I’m rooting for you.

jackmackenziewriter.wordpress.com

#ESO Network #J.K. Rowling #J.R.R. Tolkein #Jack Mackenzie #Loren Beauchamp #Neil Gaiman #Publishing #Robert Silverberg #Self Publishing #Stephen King #The Lord of the Rings

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deliriumsetin · 4 years

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So here’s the thing...

I’m really freaking hard to scare. Unlike my cat that just booked it into another room when our UPS guy dropped a package off at the door. Perfect timing, Percy. Perfect timing...

Anyways! I have NOT had a good scare in probably two decades. No matter what fiction I pick up that promises to chill and thrill me, neither happens.

Now keep this in mind.

As of right now I am launching a business and yes, this will tie into the weird opener. Be patient, please.

I am launching Vox et Liber, a publishing house for ALL kinds of stories and ALL kinds of voices. I started working on this in November 2019, what do you mean that was only 8 months ago?! I originally thought the publishing house up after learning a bunch of facts about the publishing world over the summer.

VeL publishing will be a new kind of publishing and I can say that with 100% confidence because I am building this beast from the ground up, with the help of @hazandlouwho, my fiance, and a few other amazing people!

Because this business is getting started independently, which means no investors, we are working with a VERY small amount of cash reserved for start up. Initially all works will be published digitally. We do plan on launching a Kickstarter in September/October to get enough funds to keep this going and to do it right which means getting stories published physically and sold to both indie bookstores and Barnes and Noble. Please be on the look out for that.

If any awesome people want to donate to help us not break my own personal bank, which will be easy to do since Covid-19 forced me to quit my job working with the public because I’m high risk and unemployment has kept me in limbo for going on 3 weeks, you can tip us on Ko-Fi by clicking here. ALL donations and funds raised go towards launching VeL and all projects under the VeL umbrella.

Bringing it around to the scares. VeL is launching our first project and we need all you awesome writers’ help. As of today we are opening submissions for our first ever anthology, Graveyard Visits. It’s horror with the theme of marginalized voices written as Own Voice fiction. Meaning stories written by marginalized groups with their marginalized groups as main characters.

Submissions are going to be open from July 1st until August 12th 11:59pm EST. Stories are expected to be between 2.5k-5k words in length. We will be paying $.02 per word as well as giving you a digital copy of the anthology. Submission Guidelines can be found here.

Now the whole me being hard to scare; I want to be scared. Submit your best, your scariest, and most bone-chilling stories.

Also, not so subtly gonna add a nudge to @thebibliosphere because I feel like she might have something up her sleeve. If not for this anthology then definitely our erotica one that will be announced later this summer.

We also have a podcast series in the works but I will do another post on that once I or my awesome soon to be brother in law (that’s STILL weird) have a moment to do up some graphics.

Click below for my rant on why traditional publishing right now is a soul sucking leech on EVERYONE.

On average with hardcover books an author is lucky to make $1.50 off each one sold and that’s only AFTER they sell enough to cover their advance. I also found out the average advance is like 3k per book. Some (not including the wicked big names who get a shit ton more) can get as high as 5k but others can get as low as a 1k. An author is lucky to see that twice a year (selling 2 books) because they have to spend time MARKETING book 1 instead of writing book 2.

Keep in mind fiction hardcovers are generally sold between 19.99 (usually YA) or 29.99 (usually adult). Wicked big difference, huh? I get there’s a lot that goes into making a book, trust me I do but the split between should leave the authors getting around $4 per copy instead of less than $2. That $2.50 is just extra that the publishing house takes because it can.

Then there are the mass paperbacks which an author gets paid 50 damn cents per copy. Yes, those books retail for anywhere between 7.99 and 14.99 per book and sell way faster than hardcovers. Take it from an ex-bookseller.

Most books take on average 500 to 1,000 hours of work put into them before they even get handed off to the publisher for the FIRST time. At minimum that author sees an hourly return wage of $6 which is BELOW the United fucking States shit-tastic minimum peasant wage. We devalue the arts so fucking much- arg! But that can be a separate rant for another day.

Then after doing more research I realized just how off balanced the publishing world STILL is in the year of hell 2020. Don’t believe me click the link. Sarah Park Dahlen did a great article with a great graphic on it.

As of 2015, yes I’m paraphrasing to continue to rant, children’s books had ALMOST more books about anthropomorphic cars, household items, and animals than there were books about Black kids, Asian Pacific kids, Latinx kids, or Native American/First Nation kids combined. Talking teakettles and their kindred got a whopping 12.5% while if you add up all the groups above you get 14.2%. None on there own beat out the freaking Easter Bunny! Of course books about White kids are the highest at 73.3%. Yes, this was as of 2015 but as an avid reader who reads middle-grade and up books for fun I can tell you nothing much has changed. Books about black kids maybe SLIGHTLY higher since the BLM movement (fuck yes progress!!) but I’d be heartstoppingly shocked if they beat out talking fucking trucks.

And that’s just race. From what I gathered with all the publishing houses less than 100 books with LGBTQIAP+ main characters are published each year. Wtf? And among that as of 2015 55% percent are about cisgendered males and 31% are cisgendered females. (Thank you @malindalo, you are awesome and I’ve enjoyed meeting you at the Boston Teen Author festival the last few years.) So, just focusing on those 2 first letters, huh? I want to read a story about a kickass transwoman that has to deal with transitioning WHILE demons have torn their way out of hell. That would be badass! Holy shit, someone trans write that!

Same goes for people that live with disabilities whether they are physical or mental, including mental illness and neurodivergents like myself. If you haven’t figured out by this rant just how ADHD I am than you might need an ADHD in your life. My brain works differently and I would have killed growing up to read about characters that have to deal with what I deal with. We have Percy Jackson now and his all ‘verse but it’s not enough and it wasn’t published until I was on my way to college.

All that aside we now have all the bs coming out about what’s been going on in traditional publishing. About all the dickweeds that have been using their power and pull to sexually harass new authors, most often the new authors are young women. I unfollowed people and canceled a pre-order because fuck that shit! Also, I don’t give a fuck how big a name someone is if the hate they spew makes all their trans fans collectively feel like shit for not believing the simple fact that transwomen are women then they deserve to get dropped like the bag of shit they are. TERFs can fuck right off.

All the publishing bs has made me more determined to get VeL off the ground because no, no, no. We’ll have none of that. All the listed above reasons can go play in traffic. We will be paying our authors better and taking care of them from day 1. We will be making sure our catalog is so damn diverse that you’d have to be looking at the wrong website to not find a story that you can’t see yourself in and lastly, if we hear of any of our authors pulling a Myke Cole or a Sam Sykes than they are dropped. It is in the best interests of our authors futures that they aren’t shitbags. /end rant

If y’all have any questions about anything of this, I think my dms are open or if I’m wrong just tag me. My days lately have been chained to my shit dell computer with one or both cats pinning me to the couch. I finish this up as Percy settles in on my legs. Also, thunderstorm is starting up and both are sleeping through it? If only I could be so lucky when the fiance and I have kids...

#publishing #anthology #writing #writing challenge #writers unite #supernatural #horror #writblr

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softforcal · 5 years

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Calum Hood Masterlist

(BLURBS HERE!)

Oneshots

First tat : Tattooist!Cal oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, soft, 1.5k

Reader gets her first tattoo from Tattooist Cal

Coverup : Soulmate!Cal oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, soft, 3k

Cal doesn’t believe in his soulmate until he meets her

Oreo : Cal oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, smut, 1k

Reader finds out Cal likes eating more than just Oreos

Breathing : Cal oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, soft, 500 words

Reader thinks Cal is hot when he smokes

Delicious : Demon!Cal oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, smut, soft, 15.5k

Demon Cal is appointed to take care of the reader

Noise : Neighbour!Cal oneshot 🍭

OC, smut, soft, slow burn, 13.7k

Annabelle’s new neighbour is a panty dropper and Annabelle has to hear it every night

Gang Au masterlist of oneshots 🍭

126.8k of all the guys finding love. ft Cashton

Floral : Tattooist!Cal oneshot 🍭

OC, smut, 13.3k

Calum takes on an adorable new apprentice who specializes in floral tattoos

Bro Code : Prince!Cal oneshot 🍭

OC, smut, 11k

Prince Calum toys with breaking the Bro Code all for his best friend’s little sister

Cromulent : Cal oneshot 🍭

OC, smut, 18.5k

Calum is not a fan of PR relationships, or his new ‘girlfriend’

Opaque : Grung!Cal oneshot 🍭

OC, 8k, Love Triangle

Model Luke and Grunge Cal like the same girl

Drifting : Gang!Calum oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, 3.2k, pure smut

Gang Cal takes you for a ride on his Harley, fucks you on his car, then takes you drifting and fucks you again, you know, as one does.

Fuck Your Ex : Coachella!Calum oneshot 🍭

Reader Insert, 2.3k, smut

You’re a co headliner with 5sos at a festival and when you run into your ex, it spurs Calum to finally tell you how he feels

Band Baby : Dad!Cal oneshot 🍭

13.7k, oc, smut

When Luke’s roommate gets out of an abusive relationship and is newly pregnant, all the guys, especially Calum are there for her and as Calum takes her to ultrasounds and hangs out with her and grabs 2am junk food cravings, he falls more and more in love with her.

+ video on how i made the entire fic 🍭

Something Like Love : Ceo!Cal oneshot 🍭

OC, 23.5k, some love triangle

Calum likes his new assistant more than he should, but there are... obstacles (slow burn)

Monte Carlo : Racecar Driver ! Cal oneshot🍭

OC, 14k, slow burn

They’d been going to the same bar for a while, too shy to talk to each other. Then they meet across the globe. He’s there for an F1 race and she’s there as an Instagram promoter. Angst and slow burn ensues.

Familiar : Cal oneshot oneshot (P)🍭

Reader Insert, 3.6k, smut

It’s new, but when you know, you know.

Contract : Dom!Cal oneshot (P) 🍭

Reader insert, 4.2k, smut

Dom!Cal sleeps with his new sub for the first time

Be Nice: Bodyguard!Cal oneshot (P) 🍭

Reader insert, 2.6k, smut

You see a hot bodyguard at an event and think might as well invite him over

PART 2

Unfinished Fics + planning hc

Elusive : Grunge!Cal (from the Opaque universe) (P) 🍭

2k fic + 1.7k hc style fic planning for unfinished sections

Grunge Cal falls in love with a popular DJ who is everything he hasn’t been looking for.

HCs

Slytherin!Cal x Hufflepuff Reader HC 🍫

Slytherin!Cal x Ravenclaw reader HC 🍫

Slytherin!Cal x Gryffindor reader HC 🍫

Slytherin!Cal x Slytherin reader HC (P) 🍫

Calum x opener!reader HC 🍫

Cal on tour with Reader HC 🍫

Being Cal’s celebrity crush HC 🍫

Roommate!AU Cal x Reader HC 🍫

Dating Tattooist!Cal HC 🍫

Tattooist!Cal x reader sex HC 🍫

Dad!Calum HC 🍫

Being Cal’s flatmate Moodboard/HC 🍫

Twin-Dad Calum HC (P) 🍫

Cal x interviewer!reader HC (P) 🍫

Cal x 5th 5sos member HC (P) 🍫

Smoking Buddy Cal HC (P) 🍫

Cal x rock/grunge singer HC (P) 🍫

Cake

Stay Still : Tattooist/Piercer!Cake 🍭

Reader Insert, 3k, pure smut

Reader just wants their tits pierced and runs into a hot tattooist and their fuck buddy

Opaque : Cake 🍭

OC, 8k, Love Triangle

Model Luke and Grunge Cal like the same girl

Movie Snack : Cake 🍭

Reader insert, smut, 3.2k, poly

Luke gets bored during movies and Cal is over

Road Trip : Cake 🍭

Reader insert, soft, smut, 3.5k, poly

A Road Trip with the boys leads to smutty Cake

Road Trip pt 2 🍭

Reader insert, soft, smut, 3.3k, poly

The Road Trip continues

Poly Cake on tour with Reader HC 🍫

Poly Cake (Slytherin Cal, Hufflepuff Luke, Gryffindor Reader) HC 🍫

Poly Cake x reader, your first tattoo blurb 🍬

Poly Cake clubbing with reader blurb 🍬

Dirty talk with protective!Cake blurb 🍬

Putting on a show for Cake after their show blurb 🍬

Cashton

2 snakes and a badger : Cashton 🍭

Reader Insert, smut, 4k, poly

Slytherin!Cal and Hufflepuff!Ash have a thing for Slytherin reader

Nascar and Nuero : Cashton 🍭

Reader Insert, Smut, 3.5k, poly

Neuro!Cal has a thing for his patient, Nascar!Ash’s girlfriend

Both : Cashton 🍭

Hemmings!Reader, smut, soft, 11.2k, poly

Reader is Luke’s sister and Cashton like her too much

Luxury : Gang!Cashton 🍭

OC, smut, soft, 12.6k, poly

Bartender Puppy catches the eye of 2 gang members

Patience: Gang AU Bonus Chapter 🍭

OC, Smut, 5.3k

Cashtonxpuppy smut and girl friend bonding

A Whole Lot of Love : Dom!Cashton (patreon exclusive) 🍭

reader insert, 3k, smut, poly

reader is a brat at a party and Cashton is not pleased

Camping, cockwarming and Cashton (patreon exclusive)🍭

Reader insert, 3.2k, smut

Cockwarming while camping gets even more interesting when a game of truth or dare reveals you think Ashton is hot

Poly Cashton on tour with reader HC 🍫

Poly Cashton (Slytherin Ash x Hufflepuff Cal x Slytherin reader) HC 🍫

Poly Cashton (Hufflepuff Ashton, Slytherin Cal, Hufflepuff Reader) HC 🍫

Poly Cashton sugar daddies x reader HC 🍫

Poly Cashton lazy day with reader HC 🍫

Poly Cashton (Gryffindor Ash/reader x Hufflepuff Cal) HC 🍫

Breaking Dom!Cashton’s rules blurb 🍬

Ash walking in on you and Cal blurb 🍬

Slytherin!Cashton x gryf!reader vibrating panties blurb 🍬

Dom!Cashton punishment and panties blurb 🍬

Cashton compete for reader’s orgasms blurb 🍬

Cashton birthday spanks blurb 🍬

Sex with doctor!Cashton in an on call room blurb 🍬

Cashton treating you on mothers day (P)🍬

Malum

Poly Malum (Toys) HC 🍫

Poly Malum on tour with reader HC 🍫

Poly hogwarts Malum (slytherin cal/michael x hufflepuff reader) HC 🍫

unnamed : fashion designer!Malum x reader oneshot (P) 🍭

reader insert, 3.8k, smut

why not fuck two of the biggest fashion designers in the game

4/4

Feeling Down : 4/4 🍭

reader insert, 1.5k, soft/fluff, poly

Depressed/Sad!Reader is feeling down while they vacation in a winter wonderland lodge, 4/4 help her feel better

4/4 x reader + all poly here

Kink masterlist Here

#softforcal #masterlist #softforcal masterlist #luke hemmings #calum hood #ashton irwin #michael clifford

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xxla-vie-en-rose · 5 years

Text

TDBM Drabble (Melbourne 500 words....x3....)

@it-is-bugs

This ran away with me, hence the tripled drabble.

Prove Them Wrong

"Lucien." She was shocked that he had suggested the idea and after her disapproval he proffered the tickets in his hand.

"You always said you wanted to see it. And they're in town...well, they're in Melbourne... I wanted to surprise you."

Her furrowed brow was smoothed over with the look of his boyish grin; it was too much and she couldn't be upset with him. It was a gesture to be sure. One that would get people talking....some more. But that wasn't anything new. He could see the wheels turning in her head. The proverbial elephant in the room. The one thing they dared not talk about but screamed so loudly in their brains it was almost as if it could be heard.

But he put the idea to rest. Nobody had to know their business. Even if they didn't go, they would still talk. They might as well enjoy themselves.

He was more affectionate as of late. His hand squeezing hers, rubbing up and down her arms standing just a little bit closer. It was welcome. She cared for him to be sure. A little too much. But she desired his closeness more and more and she wondered when it would be too much and everything would shatter all around them in a heap and they would have to pick each other back up and make a whole new piece...hopefully together.

"And If you're worried about gossip..."

She interjected quickly. "I'm not worried. I don't give a fig about what others say."

His eyes smiled. "Good, because you're my dearest...." he paused for a moment not wanting to say too much or too little "person," he made a face at his lame description of what she meant to him and attempted to rectify it.

"You're my dearest friend and I want to take you out for a spectacular night on the town."

He reached for her hand and she stared down at his touch.

"That and nobody will know anyway as we'll be in Melbourne far away from all the biddies. And whatever they say I know they're wrong."

He held her gaze for a little bit longer. Just long enough to force her to look away with a blush. How he loved making her blush.

"We'll leave in the morning and make a day of it."

He squeezed her hand and walked back to his study.

The drive down was uneventful. Though filled with pleasing conversation and comfortable silence they usually found when they were together. Talk of what to do with the studio and new recipes Jean was eager to try. Shocking old medical practices and Jean's plan for next year's begonia festival. It was pleasant and he knew there was no one he'd rather be with than her.

The show was incredible. Her thinking was because the seats were perfect and his thinking because at the climax of the show she grabbed his hand in shock and then didn't let go. Well, she did eventually but it was thrilling all the same. He wondered if she even knew she'd done it. Or were they so at ease with each other now that it was just the next step in the evolution of their relationship? He didn't know and he didn't care. He just reveled in the way her small hand fit in his and the happy thrills the action sent through his body.

The standing ovation left them excited and winded with delight. What talent! What fun!

And the evening wasn't over. Drinks at his favorite hotel were in order.

"Scotch, neat please."

"And for the Mrs.?"

"Oh, erm..." Lucien paused.

"I'll have a sherry. Thank you." The waiter left to gather their order.

"One evening in Melbourne and I suddenly have a wife."

His smile was teasing in the way he was wont to do. And then he saw her falter. That wasn't what he was suppose to say. They didn't talk about it. That was the rule. Don't talk about obvious feelings. She ducked her head and he dipped his down to meet her eyes. "Jean," his voice low and sultry. His hand covered hers. He could see the wheels turning again.

"Lucien," she whispered. "Not here," breathy and full of uncertainty.

The waiter came back with their drinks and she pulled her hand back quickly to down her Dutch courage.

"Where then?" Allowing her to take the lead... To hell and back if she so desired.

Her head swung around and looked to the front desk. She stood up and smoothed her skirt. He saw where her eyeline was fixed upon and he quickly shot his scotch back in a gulp feeling the burn down his throat. Though it had nothing on the reaction she instilled in him. She started walking to the desk and he was hot on her heels.

"We'd like a room for the night, please."

"Of course. Name?"

"Blake."

"And do you require assistance with your luggage, Mrs. Blake?"

"That won't be necessary."

"Very good. We have a lovely suite overlooking the gardens. Would that be to your liking?"

"That's fine."

"Is there anything else you require tonight Mrs. Blake; Mr. Blake?"

"We'll let you know," she said as she took the keys and walked towards the lift.

Lucien almost didn't know what to do. His face was slack and his eyes were wide. He almost didn't follow her. The bell man in the lift asked for the floor and she promptly replied, "Four."

The ding alerted him out of his trance at the happy, unexpected turn of events. And she walked out quickly again leaving Lucien to keep up. She set the key in and opened the door.

And there they were....in a quiet room all alone...without any luggage. His expectations were confused downstairs, though now they were rising mightily by the second.

He stood there against the door waiting for her to turn around. But she didn't. She stood there just in front of him as he could hear the tinkling of her toying with the small set of keys. Her shoulders rose and fell at a quickened pace. The adrenaline likely still coursing. Maybe it was now his turn. Actions surely spoke louder than words where they were concerned.

His hands reached out and gently touched her shoulders waiting for any clue as to what to do. Though the obvious clue that they were alone in a hotel room by her hand was pretty telling. He still wanted to take things as slowly as she needed. So his familiar touch on her shoulders and down her arms would be his first step to this whirlwind of an occurrence. She leaned back into him. Something she'd never done before. Their distance always the barrier between them with their unspoken desires. So he ventured. His hands lightly trailing down her arms to her hands where he interlaced them and she took the cue to wrap his arms around her front. Her head leaning against his chest just so. Her scent made his head spin. Holding her, having her hold him, allowing him to embrace; it was glorious. He couldn't help himself. He dared to taste the sweet skin of her neck. Her breath escaping more forcefully now. "Jean," he mumbled into her skin. Her reply of, "Mmm?" was enough for him to continue. "Is this alright...my kissing you here?"

"Mmm." Her hands started to rub along his arms as her breath became more erratic. Then she grabbed a hold of the back of his head to allow him further, more intense explorations. When she spun to meet his gaze.

"Lucien." Their breath was fueled and their bodies close; pressed together feeling the heart beats beneath.

"Maybe we should talk," he suggested.

"Yes, maybe."

His eyes glanced at her mouth and he was lost. "Maybe we can talk later?" coming closer and closer to feel her lips under his.

"Yes, later sounds good," she agreed. And he was on her. His hands traveled all over her back down to her bum, pressing her further into him. She then began chanting his name with each press of his lips to her flesh. He was frantic with his want for her and she in equal measure.

"We should probably stop," he breathed through his kisses. His hands kneading her body into him. "Yes, or else the gossipers will be correct."

"Wouldn't want that," he said as he laid her down on the bed and crawled over her. His fingers flicked at her buttoned top exposing her silky underthings.

"What do they say anyway?" he asked as his lips found the swell between her breasts.

Her back arched at his touch and she moaned, "That we're lovers," her hands flew to his hair pressing him more intimately into her chest.

Then he mumbled, caressing her skin with his lips, "Well, in this instance I'm very happy to prove them right."

#tdbm drabbles #well a little longer than a drabble #jean beazley #lucien blake #melbourne prompt #my otp #fluffy for the win

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skybound2 · 5 years

Note

David x Michael, on a road trip, arguing over music choices (or whatever permutation of that you would like to use!).

Hey, so 500 years later, I know, but I’ve written a thing! Well, several things, sorta? This is basically a series of short ficlets each focusing on a different song, but all connected, and is basically a direct follow on to the response I wrote MONTHS ago for a different prompt (You Are My Sunshine)!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the prompt, it helped get me out of a rut, LIKE A LOT. (Also, I had a TON OF FUN thinking up songs to set each piece too :-D)

Takes place in my Walk Unafraid universe sometime after Michael has gone full vamp, and is maybe just a little bit cracky ;-P

Hope you enjoy!

Billy Idol “Rebel Yell”

Michael frowns as the first few beating notes of the song start pouring out of the speakers. Before the first line is over, he’s a freshman again, shuffling into the streamer and tinsel decorated nightmare that was his first (and last) high school homecoming dance.

He hadn’t wanted to go. Would rather have been playing chicken with his skateboard on the highway. Or at home, babysitting Sam and rewatching that movie with the talking rats for the fiftieth time.

Or working on his math homework.

Really, just about anywhere else doing anything else would have been preferable.

But he’d made junior varsity on the football team (Thanks, he’s sure, to him being a year older than the rest of the freshman class. Flunking third grade. So helpful.) and even though he hadn’t played a second of that day’s game, it had been made clear that he was expected to attend that evening’s festivities.

To support his team. And school.

Rah rah rah.

He hadn’t given a rat’s ass about any of it, not when the girl he’d been seeing (if you could call one awkward make-out session ‘seeing’) had broken things off with Michael the day before, opting to go to the dance with Michael’s friend Keith instead.

The situation might have been less of a mess, Michael suspects, if the sight of his friend and former almost-girlfriend dancing together had sparked the expected kind of jealousy for Michael.

Which of course, it hadn’t. Instead, it had dosed Michael with a confusing case of adolescent ‘what the fucks’ when he’d caught Keith and Jenny kissing mid-dance, and he’d realized just who he was jealous over.

The whole thing had gone topsy-turvy not long after, in a spectacular (sloppy, messy, pathetic) fist fight between Michael and Keith on the dance floor to the tune of that damn overplayed Billy Idol song.

Michael had been suspended for two days following the fight. Which had been fine by him, as it gave him time to first come to terms with what he’d been feeling, and then to find a careful place in his psyche to shove said feelings into, to be dealt with never.

Three years later, Michael had moved away, the bond between him and Keith forever broken.

As the memories play back in Michael’s head, Michael finds that the old agitation, that bitter ache of confusion and loss he’d always felt in the past, is muted. The scene’s a faded sort of matte gray, instead of technicolor. Like it happened to someone else, and he’s just catching the repeat on late night TV.

Which in a way, he guesses it kind of had. The person he is now so far removed from who he was then as to be unrecognizable.

Different person or not, he still hates the song. (Maybe he hasn’t changed that much.) And so Michael’s lip lifts up in a sneering approximation of the blond singer’s trademark curl as he reaches for the knob and seeks out another station.

“Hey. I was listening to that.” The complaint from the driver’s seat is annoyed but without any real heat.

Michael keeps twisting the knob, not looking at his companion, skipping over white noise in search of something - anything - else. “We’ll find something else. Can’t stand Billy Idol.”

Even though Michael knows it’s not actually possible, it feels as if the temperature inside the car drops several degrees. Shock reverberates across the link between Michael and David loud enough that it bounces Michael’s brain around inside his skull, forcing him to turn his head away from the radio towards the blond as he continues to spin the dial.

David appears downright scandalized as he stares back at Michael, eyebrows making friends with his hairline. “You can’t stand Billy Idol?”

Michael nods, head tilting at David, confused by the obvious annoyance rolling off of him.

And also a little worried by how long David has kept his eyes from the road, regretting having let the blond take over driving duties at the last gas station. “Uh, yeah. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Can you watch the road, David? Don’t feel like getting up close and personal with the guardrail.”

David sneers, but turns his head back to the road, grumbling incoherent words beneath his breath that, try as he might, Michael can’t pick out.

Not that it matters, as when an audible sentence finally does work its way up and out, Michael’s still as confused as when all he’d heard was gibberish. “I’ve made a mistake.”

Michael frowns. “With what?”

“Making you immortal. I can’t spend eternity with someone who doesn’t appreciate Billy Idol.”

Michael snorts, his hand dropping away from the dial when he locates something less detestable to listen to. The fast pace guitar chords and beats of Mötley Crüe playing through the speakers as a backdrop, he leans back in his seat, head angled towards David, the better to watch the exaggerated play of disgust on his lover’s face. “Too late. No take backs.”

David’s frown deepens, but there’s a twitch at the corners of his mouth, like he’s fighting the upward tug of a smile. “Never too late for anything, Michael.”

Michael smirks at him, stretching his legs out and dragging his tongue across his bottom lip in a deliberate attention grabbing move that pulls David’s eyes straight to his mouth. “Yeah. Right. After how hard and long you fought for me?” Michael drags the words out with dirty intent. Feeling playful, and eager to wash away the lingering remnants of that earlier time, of that earlier life. He draws upon more recent, much more pleasurable memories, letting them hover at the front of his mind. The spike of lust that floods the air between them all the proof he needs that David’s on the same page. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“So damn sure of yourself, aren’t you?” The question is spoken with careful neutrality that does nothing to disguise the visceral want pouring off of David.

A growl thrums across Michael’s vocal chords. “Pull over. Let’s find out.”

David does.

And they both forget all about Billy Idol.

Abba “Fernando”

Sated and settled back in the passenger seat on the road south, David knows what song it is from just the first couple of notes. He has no intention of subjecting himself to it, so he reaches for the dial only to have his hand smacked away by Michael. Shocked, he looks up at the man behind the wheel, the driver’s blue eyes alight with mischief as he starts to sing along with the music while David watches on in horror. “No. No absolutely not. Turn it off. Right now.”

But Michael’s hand stays covering the dial as his voice gets stronger. When he hits the title lyric he leans heavily away from the wheel in David’s direction and croons it in his face. David’s frozen in place by the disturbing sight. “Why do you even know the lyrics?”

‘You’ve met my mother and my brother, you honestly think I wouldn’t know the lyrics?’ The thought jumps from Michael’s mind to David’s, but Michael’s singing voice doesn’t falter at all as he sings about crossing the Rio Grande.

Under any other circumstances, David would be damn proud of Michael that his ability for telepathic multi-tasking has come along so far, but as is, he’s too distressed to feel much of anything else.

“Is this a method of torture? Is that why you’re doing this? Testing the waters? Because if so, bravo. Very effective. But it’s time to stop now.”

Michael cackles. Cackles! As he smacks David’s hand away from the dial again, the sound bleeding into an off-key “Liberty” with a devilish grin upon his face as he turns the volume up.

David sinks as deep into the leather bench seat as is possible, all the way against the door, trying to put distance between himself and the… horror happening on the other side of the car. “Just stake me. It would hurt less.”

The gleam in Michael’s eyes is pure evil as he sways towards David again, all his earlier concern for road safety seeming forgotten in his Abba-induced haze.

He manages to keep the car between the painted lines and away from any ditches as the song comes to an end - though it weaves a considerable amount. The smile on his face when he looks David’s way on the final note is wide and brilliant and blinding. Pleasant waves of giddy happiness echoing across the bond so strongly, that David’s own treacherous emotions race to sync up with those of his tormentor.

David hates himself a little for being so far gone on the bastard, but the shared laughter that fills the car between them feels good all the same.

Deep Purple “You Keep On Moving”

Another tank, another station, another song.

Michael smiles as the beat of a tune he never hears getting radio airplay hits his ears. He drums his fingers against his knee, mouthing along to the lyrics and bouncing his leg in time. Thinking it might be fun to finally learn how to play something other than his kneecap. The drums, or the guitar even. Or hell, why not both? He’s got nothing but time now, right? Why shouldn’t he spend it learning how to play a dozen instruments if he wants?

David speaks up when the song hits the third verse and Michael’s halfway through an imaginary worldwide tour as the next biggest drummer since Bonham. “Paul had a copy of this album.” He chuckles, once, the sound dark and heavy. “Two copies, actually. One he’d worn down to nothing. Sounded like garbled shit, but it was the only one he’d play. Said he was keeping the other ‘for posterity’ or something.”

Michael returns from his European stage debut and looks to David, trying to judge the meaning behind the story. The other man offering up information on the absent boys so rare, that he figures there must be a reason for it.

There’s not much light to illuminate him, the dash on the old vehicle mostly dark, but Michael’s eyes don’t need much light to see by these days. Not that it matters, as there’s nothing to read on the blond’s face, his expression that disconnected mask that Michael’s grown so familiar with in the past year.

“Think he bought the first one on account of the cover, but turned out he liked the music too.” David’s voice is muted - not so soft as to be wistful, but a next door neighbor to it maybe.

Michael digs through his brain, trying to recall what the cover looked like, but comes up empty. He prods at David for some help, snorting when David reproduces in Michael’s mind the image of the band’s disembodied heads floating in a wine glass of dark red liquid, with the tagline ‘Come Taste the Band’ scrolled over the top. He guffaws at the sight. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Paul was always easily amused.” The comment is said with a quiet intensity that peters out to a heavy silence, despite the song still rocking through the car.

It leaves Michael feeling like he’s intruding on something he shouldn’t be. He inches back and forth in his seat, tapping the leather seating between the two of them instead of his knee. “You, uh, you want me to change it?”

David glances at Michael, the expression on his face a little mournful, but not despondent or angry as it may have been in the past. “Nah. It’s a good song. Let it play.”

Michael nods once, and the song plays on.

Fleetwood Mac “Landslide”

“…”

“I - you can change it if you want.”

“Course I can.”

“…”

“Are you gonna change it or…”

“Nah. Took too long to find this station. Probably just be static everywhere else.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. So…we leave it then?”

“Might as well. It’ll be over soon.”

“Okay.“ Michael takes a deep breath, uncertain about what he’s about to say, but unable to stop himself. “This was Star’s-”

“I know.”

“And you still don’t mind-”

“No. Should I?” The questions is flat. Unconcerned, but Michael doesn’t miss the way David’s face tightens when he asks it.

Michael moves his right shoulder in an awkward shrug. “Just got the impression you didn’t care for her much.”

David makes a low humming sound. “Liked her well enough at first. Liked her a whole lot less later on.”

Michael doesn’t have a ready response for that, knowing damn good and well why David’s feelings towards Star changed.

“You heard from her lately?”

Michael whips his head towards David, surprised by the question.“No. I haven’t.“

David hums again, fingers flexing on the steering wheel as he does. “Sure about that?”

“When exactly do you think I would have talked to her, David?”

“No clue. It’s why I asked.”

Michael thinks that’s a lie, but doesn’t call David on it. Instead, he settles back, letting Stevie Nicks serenade them for a few verses before offering what little he does know. “She calls my Mom sometimes. They…talk.” David’s gaze stays firmly on the road, though Michael can feel the way tension thrums through his frame. “Think she’s still with Laddie, wherever they went. I don’t - I haven’t spoken to her since she left.” It’s the truth, but for some reason it feels like a lie.

“She took Laddie back to his father I take it?”

Michael gives a noncommittal bounce of his head. “Think so.”

“Hmm. Maybe we should pay them a visit.”

Michael lets out a low laugh at the comment. “Doubt we’d be welcome.”

A sly smile that Michael knows can’t mean anything good lifts the corner’s of David’s mouth. “Never know if we don’t try. Could pencil it sometime after Phoenix.”

Michael rolls his eyes, knowing he’s being baited and not about to be caught. “Yeah sure. Why the hell not?” Michael smirks at the way David’s forehead scrunches up at the easy agreement. He means it - he’s curious enough about where Star ended up and what she’s been doing that visiting her isn’t the worst idea he’s ever heard - though he’s not so much of an idiot that he doesn’t know that David’s reasons for wanting to see her are far from benign.

No longer in the mood for the song, Michael changes the station.

Billie Holiday “You’re My Thrill”

David hums as he twists the dial through station after station of white noise. He spins it past an old jazz tune, but then twirls it back again, making an appreciative noise as a crooning female voice starts to spill from the speakers.

Satisfied with his find, he slouches back into the leather upholstery, eyes closed and an almost dream-like smile on his face.

From his spot in the driver’s seat, Michael goggles at him. “Seriously?”

“Michael Emerson, if the next words out of your mouth are that you don’t like Billie Holiday either, I’m leaving you at the next truck stop and you can find your own way back to Santa Carla. I don’t care how close to sunrise it is.”

The way his voice doesn’t falter when he says it brings Michael up short, making him think that it may be more than just an idle threat. (Not that Michael would let him leave him behind without a fight, but that’s beside the point).

Michael manages to keep his mouth shut for a cool twenty seconds, during which he watches David out of the corner of his eye. Watches as the bleached-blond, spiky-haired murderous vampire clad all in black - not a small amount of it leather, hell, there are spurs on his boots for Chrissakes - quietly enjoys the old-fashioned song. The disconnect between the image he presents and the one the song evokes makes Michael laugh. “Damn, what decade are you from, Old Man?”

“The seventies, Michael.”

Michael snorts, rolling his eyes. Not that David can see him with his own eyes enjoying the view behind their lids. “Yeah sure. You’re younger than me. Explains the occasional tendency to throw tantrums still.”

“The eighteen-seventies, Michael.” David says, calm and cool and not at all joking.

Michael’s hands on the wheel jerk sideways in surprise, sending the car swerving over the line before he can yank it back where it belongs. David’s eyes crack open at the disturbance, leveling a glare at Michael, but he doesn’t react otherwise. “Seriously?”

David smirks at him, slipping the cigarette he had stowed behind his ear down and to his mouth. He doesn’t give Michael an answer, just flicks his lighter open and sets flame to the stick, puffing on the end to get it to light, and settles back into his seat, eyes half-closed.

Michael molls the unexpected tidbit of information over in the space between verses. One particular thought standing out in greater relief against the rest. “Shit…you’re older than my Grandpa. By a lot.”

“I am. And if you want to be too one day, shut it and let me enjoy the song!”

It’s only the lingering shock of the information that keeps Michael quiet. It has nothing to do with the amber gleam in David’s eyes.

Really.

Besides, as far as old-as-sin songs go, it’s not half-bad.

Starland Vocal Band “Afternoon Delight”

Approximately one point five seconds into the song, David’s hand meets Michael’s as they both reach for the dial. David growls, fangs dropping. “I will break your hand, your arm, and all your fingers if you try and stop me from changing the station, Michael.”

Michael’s hand raises up in the air in a placating gesture that David doesn’t trust. At all. “Hey! I was trying to change it too.”

“Sure you were.” David twists the dial, spinning it through endless seas of static and snowstorms and a whole lot of absolutely nothing else.

“I was.” Michael’s voice is pleading, but there’s mischievous glint in his eyes that doesn’t match the sound.

David gives him a sideways glare. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

Michael breathes out a heavy-handed sigh. “So little trust. And here I thought we’d really been getting somewhere this past year.”

David rolls his eyes. “You forfeited all rights to musical trust after that horrendous ‘Mamma Mia’ sing-along.

“Hey! First off, it was ‘Fernando’, and second: you enjoyed that. You were smiling. I saw you.”

“That was a defense mechanism, Michael.”

“Liar.”

Which is true, but David’s not about to admit it. So he ignores him, and stops the dial on a patch of white noise; settling back in his seat to enjoy the scratchy sound of absence.

Less than a minute of quiet passes between them before Michael’s hand inches for the radio. David’s voice is curated calm when he says: “Try me, Michael.”

“Idle threat.”

“When have you ever known me to be idle, hmm?”

Michael scoffs, giving David a tilted smile that tells the elder vampire just how little Michael thinks of David’s threats. “Go ahead, tell me all the ways that you’re gonna torture me if I change the station. What’s it gonna be this time? Something more creative than holy water dipped knives, I hope?”

“You ever heard of ‘torpor,’ Michael?” David asks, dipping into the darker part of his psyche. To the blackened memories of his early life under Max’s so-called-care. Fully intending to shower Michael with the visual of being trapped - buried - deep beneath the earth in a impenetrable box, screaming for his maker to let him out. To let him go. Screaming until his throat runs dry, and the blood in his veins slows to a trickle. Skin gone paper-thin, and ashen. So desperate to be released that he’ll say anything. Do anything.

David doesn’t plan to exact such a punishment on Michael of course, but he’s not above a little mental torment. Especially not after being trapped in a car for two-hundred plus miles with Michael and his previously undocumented love of country music and disco.

But before David can so much as conjure up an image of a box or a handful of dirt, Michael frowns in his direction. “Don’t think so. That a New Wave group or something?”

A surprised bark of laughter bursts out of David, amused eyes latching onto Michael. “What? No, it’s-” He shakes his head, small peels of laughter leaking out of him as he does. David’s laughter grows in time with Michael’s confusion. The uncertain look upon the younger vampire’s face endearing to David in a way that it has no right to be.

David shakes his head, his plans to teach Michael a lesson forgotten. “You know what, never mind.”

A frown stays planted on Michael’s face for a while longer, the confusion fading at a snail’s pace. But he drops the subject, and the two of them drive on in silence.

A silence that lasts for the length of time it takes Michael to forget why the radio was off in the first place.

But David hasn’t. So really, it’s Michael’s fault that David launches at him, teeth bared, and the car is sent skidding off the road.

At least there aren’t any guardrails to hit.

And if the only casualty of the accident ends up being the radio, well, they were do for an upgrade anyway.

Preferably one with a cassette deck.

~End

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writsgrimmyblog · 5 years

Text

Writcraft’s 2018 Fic List

Now that Erised reveals are up, I can finally post my fic list of 2018 and do one of those summary memes I’ve been dying to post. Better late than never!

2018 was a year of faltering muses then writing in quick, intense bursts of inspiration. When I look back on 2018, although there are one or two works I’m not overly satisfied with, some of the things I’ve written are personal favourites when I reflect on the fanfic I’ve produced over the years. I’m going to answer some yearly evaluation questions, but here’s my list of 2018 fics and as a self-contained post. This list doesn’t include ficlets posted on Tumblr only.

Number of Fics Written in 2018: 36 if you count the 10 chapters of my Festive 500s that published in 2018. The final 10 of those are going up in the next few days too, I promise.

Total 2018 Published Word Count: 341,000. Although 31,000 of that total includes a co-write, we edited each others words too and worked on the fic as a whole together. I have also underestimated how much I wrote on LLM this year and not counted some drabbles and tumblr ficlets, so I think this total is about right.

Most Written Pairing:

Harry Potter Fandom: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy

R1 RPF / 1D: Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson

Fests (Moderator): Harry Potter Kinkfest, Harry Potter Horror Fest, Harry/Draco Big Bang, Grimmy Appreciation Fest

Fests (Participant): Secret Snarry Swap, HD Erised, HD Fan Fair, Sirius Black Fest, Harry/Draco Big Bang, HP Femslash Minis (November Challenge), Harry’s Birthday Mini Fest, Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge, Snarry-A-Thon, HP Goldenage, HP Horror Fest, HP Kinkfest, Tomlinshaw Exchange, Grimmy Appreciation Fest

The full list of the fics I published on AO3 are below the cut.

HARRY POTTER FANDOM

Harry Potter and The Bisexual Awakening written for @hd-erised

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 23,186

Harry is perfectly content being single, heterosexual and living in Godric's Hollow with his very clingy rescue dog, Snitch. When Draco Malfoy turns up on Harry's doorstep demanding that Harry teach him how to drive, things quickly become a lot more complicated.

In The Palm of His Hand written for Secret Snarry Swap

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 6,969

Harry has a thing for Snape’s hands. Snape indulges him.

Slice of Life written for @hd-fan-fair with art by @phoenixacid

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 16,300

Luna and Ginny are worried about Harry, Greg is a very a fine baker, Snape’s portrait has a lot of opinions and Draco Malfoy is (probably) up to something.

In which one man’s love for jam tarts blossoms into a different kind of love entirely.

Winter of ’79 written for @siriusblackfest | Little Compton Street Series

Sirius Black/James Potter | 17,000

Post-punk Britain is in the grip of another brutal winter, Thatcher is in power and Muggle gay bars keep getting raided for no reason at all. Sirius just wants to find somewhere to go drinking with the best mate he definitely doesn’t fancy. When they’re directed towards a tatty Soho sex shop during a night out, neither James or Sirius expect to find a magical street that will change their lives forever.

Little Compton Street (One Rainy Night in Soho) written for @harrydracobang with art by @llap115-reblogs | Little Compton Street Series

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 65,500

Draco is lonely, Harry hates the press and it won’t stop raining in London. Harry discovers a magical street that’s close to disappearing forever and Draco realises he’s one rainy night in Soho away from finding everything he’s been searching for.

Independent Love Song written for @hpfemslash-minifest

Millicent Bulstrode/Ginny Weasley | 6,300

Millicent Bulstrode is a tailor and Ginny is losing her mind over a woman in a tweed blazer and burgundy brogues.

Dirty Talk

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 3,000

Harry is rapidly becoming obsessed with Draco's mouth.

Sky Full of Song written for @harrybirthdayblog

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 2,000 (podfic by semperfiona here)

Draco turns up at Harry's birthday party unexpectedly and Harry takes a leap of faith.

Treading Water written for the Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge

James Potter/Sirius Black | 2,000

I’m sorry, Sirius wants to say. I’m sorry people in this stupid world made you think loving me could only ever be a joke.

Ten Points to Gryffindor written for the Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 2,000

Harry is of the opinion that using a desk solely to mark papers is a wasted opportunity. He decides to take up the matter with Severus.

Stone Butch Blues written for the Drarry Discord Rare Pair Challenge

Minerva McGonagall/Wilhelmina (Wil) Grubbly-Plank | 2,000

Wil and Min reminisce.

Potterzine written for Snarry-a-Thon

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 11,000

When Severus Snape finds a fanzine with a picture of Professor Potter in a compromising position with Draco Malfoy on the cover, he confronts Potter about the offending literature. Severus probably should have looked inside, because it turns out some of Potterzine’s writers have a different suitor in mind.

Not Even A Little Bit

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 2,000

Harry is asked to investigate Severus Snape. This isn't going to go badly at all.

Maybe Just A Midnight Rendezvous

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 3,900

Harry's back in London and he's determined to show Draco how things have changed.

Life Has Just Begun written for HP Goldenage

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 6,200

Harry has been carrying the weight of his secret desires for a long time. Severus is there when he’s finally ready to talk.

Dysphoria (poetry and art) written and drawn for Harry Potter Horror Fest

Teddy Lupin | 250 (please heed content tags)

Who is it here who can tell me who I am?

Take Him to the Stars (Cut to the Feeling) written for @hpkinkfest

Harry Potter/Scorpius Malfoy | 9,800

Scorpius has a thing for older men. For one older man in particular.

Bedroom Hymns

Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy | 11,200

Harry asks Draco for dinner out of the blue. Draco’s about to find out that dinner isn’t the only thing on Harry’s mind.

Lonely Without Him (Everything Changes But You)

Harry Potter/Severus Snape | 3,500

Severus hasn't celebrated his birthday for years. Harry decides it's time for that to change.

Don’t Stop Believing

Remus Lupin/Sirius Black, Implied Sirius/James Potter and Sirius/Remus/James | 1,800

Sirius looks up at Remus and he’s close enough that Remus could count every one of his eyelashes, if he wanted. He drinks in the glint in Sirius’s eyes, the lazy curve of his smile and the light shadows under his eyes.

RADIO ONE RPF / ONE DIRECTION FANDOM

Stuck In The Middle (Of Nowhere) With You written for @tomlinshawexchange

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 10,500

Nick throws a party at Soho Farmhouse's new Yorkshire retreat, to celebrate his X-Factor victory.

He didn't anticipate getting trapped in the middle of nowhere with rival judge Louis Tomlinson, who's a terrible duvet thief and a surprisingly good kisser. Not that Nick's been thinking about that last part for the past three weeks. Much.

Nick and Harry’s Infinite Playlist written for @grimmyappreciation

Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles | 13,400

At an indeterminate point in the future it happens, just when Nick least expects it.

Lost and Found co-authored with @shiftylinguini for @grimmyappreciation

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 31,400

In a year when things are coming to an end for Nick, an unexpected chapter begins at the start of a long, hot summer. An accidental romance in Malta. Featuring Annie on the decks, Nick and Louis below deck, a handful of bad nautical puns and weather that's far too hot for trackies.

Knead You Now written for @silveredsound

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 11,400

Harry used to be a baker, Louis definitely didn't and Nick just wants to know how the fuck they got into his kitchen.

Little Lion Man

Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson | 123,600

It’s his final year at Hogwarts, and Louis can’t wait to leave for good. He hates being in Gryffindor and he can’t even enjoy a smoke with the Slytherins now his best mate Zayn’s fucked off to Durmstrang. Louis would be completely miserable if not for WWN and Nick Grimshaw. As Louis tries to negotiate coming of age, homophobia in the wizarding world and his growing feelings for Nick, a new evil emerges which puts Louis and Nick in serious danger. Louis is about to learn exactly how brave he can be as he finds himself fighting for his life, his friends and everything he’s ever loved.

SUPERNATURAL FANDOM

Baby Love

Dean Winchester/Castiel | 3,000

Dean and Castiel share a moment in the Impala.

MULTI-FANDOM

Festive 500s (chapters published in 2018 only)

Chapter One: Introduction Chapter Two: His Wasted Heart (Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald) Chapter Three: Vanilla (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy) Chapter Four: Just Like A Movie (Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles) Chapter Five: Festive Friendship (Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall) Chapter Six: Beware of Gryffindors Bearing Gifts (Severus Snape/Harry Potter) Chapter Seven: Ways To Say ‘I Love You’ (Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter) Chapter Eight: Darling So It Goes (Minerva McGonagall/Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank) Chapter Nine: Desperate (Harry Potter/Scorpius Malfoy) Chapter Ten: Phoenix (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy)

#fandom year in review #my fic #my 2018 fic #drarry #snarry #tomlinshaw #gryles #destiel

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