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hopevalley · 3 years

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I've actually enjoyed watching new episodes of the show for the first time in a LONG time! I thought Lucas being frustrated w/ Elizabeth was contrived and misplaced. Was his mom like "me & your father are separated btw i told elizabeth before you?" The bit felt off. But hey, these past three episodes have been fun & much-better written than anything last season. How much of this season's improvement over recent prior ones do you think is due to the season having a new showrunner?

As to Lucas and Elizabeth, I feel this is an issue with shows in general of this runtime and episode length. I like to compare WCtH with Road to Avonlea because both shows had short seasons and 40ish minute long episodes, were family shows, and featured ensemble casts. Avonlea had a similar issue with pacing in the occasional episode. I know I like to nitpick WCtH a lot about its writing, and I never shy from honest critique, but I really do think the hiccup with Lucas and Elizabeth in Ep3 was just a product of needing a few more minutes of screentime—preferably the start of Helen telling Lucas about the situation with his father, since it did feel like him knowing everything came out of almost nowhere. We knew Helen would have to talk to him, but we never really saw her resolve to do so, and I think we earned the emotional payoff of the truth coming out. (As an aside, Helen should have apologized for telling Lucas that Elizabeth knew as well as putting her in a position where she had to keep a secret from someone she cared about. Elizabeth being put in a bad position was awful enough, but then she went and told Lucas that Elizabeth was aware the whole time? Yiiiikesssss...)

I’m pretty confident that Helen told Lucas something like: “I have to tell you something important... Your father...left me...a few weeks ago. I need to apologize for keeping it from you but I didn’t know how to bring it up...” and then probably responded to something Lucas said with a comment about how she’d talked to Elizabeth about it, or Elizabeth suggested she be honest about the situation because Lucas would find out eventually and it would be better if it came directly from her. I could definitely see Helen accidentally being too honest in a situation where she’s nervous about admitting the truth to her own son. She’s probably extremely embarrassed and ashamed, and the episode doesn’t really go into how Helen feels about it. They just jump into talk about love and how it needs to be nurtured and nobody ever asks Helen if she actually loved/loves her husband, let alone if he was a good man/husband to her.

Not getting a scene where Helen confesses the truth weakens the entire plotline. I’m hoping they’ll just keep improving on this specific aspect of the show, and consider getting rid of unnecessary scenes or entire unnecessary storylines in favor of stronger, more complete stories.

I know their hesitation is based on the idea that not everyone cares about (for example) Lucas, so focusing really hard on Lucas’s relationship with his mother might feel Bad, but the entire “chair” plotline with Rosemary and Lee was unnecessary, as were the longer Florence and Ned scenes. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed them! But if they cut those out, or mostly cut them, then there would have been enough screentime for a full scene showing Helen telling Lucas about the truth.

And Chris McNally is clearly an actor who can handle an emotional scene like that, so it would have turned out well, and been well-received by the fans...even the ones who aren’t rooting for Lucas. Because what people who watch this show want to see is...depth, I think. So many relationships feel tacked on or fake. I’ve seen improvement this season, but they could definitely do more to bolster the “community” feel of the show.

As to the quality of the season so far...

@trash-god and I were chatting earlier this week about how wild it is that we’re both, like, actively looking forward to the next episode regularly. Sure, it’s still pretty early in the season, but we’re 25% of the way through. If the writing stays this consistently decent I think we’ll have the best season in a long time on our hands!

It’s funny because if you lurk on the WCTH subreddit, you’ll see most of the fans there are bored of this season, but I disagree with them in a bit way; this season is DEFINITELY better-written and smoother. As to where to place the credit, I think it’s worth considering the last few seasons and what the writers/writing teams have struggled with.

Season 4: They knew something was going to happen with their lead man so they tried introducing other things and in many ways had success. There were some REALLY GOOD scenes in S4, but there were also scenes or arcs that had a lot of potential that just fell flat. For example, they had that plot where Frank and Abigail got annoyed with each other over the fact that he’s kind of still living (mentally) as a carefree bachelor, and even though it wasn’t as thorough as it should have been, it was a pretty good and realistic storyline. But then later in the season, they introduced Carson, and Frank is suspicious of him for almost no reason (or at least, no solid reason), and then actively is...like a BAD PERSON for NO REASON. Two completely different plots, one was good and felt natural, and the other was awful and cringey. We also have the AJ plotline in S4. It started out super good because it was one of those plots that was genuinely built up to over the course of several episodes. We find out the accountant that was going to testify has withdrawn their statement, then we find out they’ve disappeared and we have a name. Bill discusses it with Abigail and Frank both, multiple times. He thinks it’s a payoff and he’s determined to prove it so he starts poking around. Eventually he gets a lead and follows it, and it’s revealed that AJ is a woman. Bill is annoying. AJ is a liar. I think conceptually this is one of the more interesting plots they’ve cobbled together, but in execution it was lacking toward the end of the story. Bill spent two episodes fighting AJ’s attitude and in the end he just lets her go with a smile? That isn’t like Bill at all. There’s a scene or two missing to make that reaction make sense. They don’t interact enough to give us the idea that Bill *understands* her, let alone would be okay with her literally breaking out of his jail ON HIS WATCH.

Season 5: They had to write Jack out of the story and had to rush a wedding in to “appease” the fans. They also had to write Shane, Philip, Frank, and Dottie off the show in this season (Dottie because the actress deals with a chronic illness and can no longer do acting work—I want to say she has Lyme’s). So they cobble this like, awkward storyline to write Frank out that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. They put this dramatic story together for Philip (when him just moving away would have been better/more interesting), and they try to bring AJ back for another 2-part episode, which sounded fun until we actually had to watch the episodes. It was at this point that I thought, “The people writing this show...think they’re writing a movie script.” It’s not that I think AJ isn’t pushy or emotionally blunt, but it definitely came across in those episodes that they wrote her that way specifically because the plot wouldn’t work out if she wasn’t. She does unreasonable things. For some reason Bill still has feelings even though she’s done nothing to earn them. (And vice-versa; he’s just so mean to her...why would she be interested?) Everyone was like :O when the AJ episodes weren’t very well-received. But like, I didn’t want AJ to come back for a huge dramatic rattlesnake bite scene. I wanted her back to see her emotional struggle with facing prison. I wanted to really see where they’d go with her seeing Henry Gowen. She says she wants to start over in Hope Valley after prison, but like...WHY? The only people who are nice to her are Dottie and Abigail! And then after this super dramatic poorly written set of scenes that pretty much ensured AJ would never be seen on the show again (because her presence was actively mocked by a lot of fans) they actually kill off Jack and try to have a deeply emotional and thoughtful episode.

The worst part is that...the post-death episode was good. The actors were great. Then you look back at the dramatic rattlesnake stuff and you’re just like, “What went wrong here?”

Season 6: They decided they were going to introduce a love triangle, so they start doing that, but then Abigail’s character AS WELL AS CODY’S CHARACTER has to be cut from the show, so they edit those out. I still think doing this was the right thing—Abigail as a character was literally UNBEARABLE throughout most of S5—but I also can’t deny that it probably brought the cohesiveness and overall quality of the season down by a bit, particularly with Abigail acting as a buffer between Nathan/Lucas and Elizabeth. I have no way of knowing if they edited other characters into those roles (it’s possible Bill became a buffer between Nathan and Elizabeth, for example), but the editing still gave us some scenes that just didn’t...quite work, like the one where Elizabeth comforts Henry, or when Lee becomes Bill’s confidant regarding the position of judge being offered to him.

Season 7: In their attempt to make Lucas seem “mysterious” they accidentally made him come off almost creepy. More than once. They had some good ideas in this season, but the writing felt a bit choppy and isolated from episode to episode. Of course Nathan’s father was innocent. Of course it was resolved in five minutes. You could see they were trying REALLY hard for cohesiveness at certain points (Elizabeth tried talking to Henry about his attitude; Jesse mentioned Frank; Dottie was mentioned), but each episode felt very isolated from the others, almost as if most of them were written completely separately from the rest.

And you’ll notice in S4, 5, and 6, we kind of have a similar problem, where some plots feel like they were written or inserted into the story independent of the other plotlines. Frank breaking into Carson’s room at the saloon to snoop through his stuff was one of the worst things in the season (literally cringey—and not in that “character is doing something in character that is hard to watch” way, but rather, “this character would literally never do that” way). The AJ storyline in S5 felt like the person who wrote it watched AJ & Bill’s interactions in S4 and absorbed ONLY the fact that they bickered a bit (and then didn’t know how to write that dynamic in a pleasing way). Writing Abigail out of the show was for the best, but it forced cracks in the plotlines that weren’t necessarily filled, as well as gave us interactions that didn’t feel quite right.

And I think S7 was trying to get on the right track, but wrote episodes in a very disjointed, haphazard kind of manner. There were good things about it, yes, but there were also some very...bad things.

And overall the problem almost universally was that it felt like some of the episodes/interactions were written as if they were part of a movie, as part of a one time deal, instead of something that would need to be carried forward. If you go back and look over some plotlines you can start to see where the writers...didn’t know how to write fanfiction. S5 AJ is not the same character as S4 AJ. She doesn’t feel the same. She’s not written with S4 AJ in mind. She’s not a natural version of the character that exists a year later in the storyline...and then she was given a storyline that they had to force the character to fit, instead of tailoring a storyline to match the character. And they continued this trend...over...and over...and over...and over.

And now, finally, it feels that they may actually have a head writer who knows how to write television, who knows that in order to write a successful television series, you have to go back and watch the early episodes. You have to see how the characters have evolved. You have to consider how they’ve gotten to where they are, and where they will LOGICALLY go from here based on things that happen to or around them.

I don’t want to state this as Fact too early, but I definitely think it’s a factor. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out, but I hope the quality continues to be as good as it is.

#when calls the heart #answered mail #season 8 shenanigans #season 8 spoilers #analysis and meta discussion #long post #anonymously asked

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ddaenghoney · 5 years

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Series: of Silver

Part 21

Attending a performing arts university, you’ve been managing just fine until the fall semester of your third year starts off by making out at a party only to realize the random guy was actually transfer Jeon Jeongguk, whom you had previously agreed to help get used to the city.

Pairing(s):

Jeon Jeongguk x Y/N

Below the cut is a written scene from the story, but you don’t need to read it to follow the plot for the fake texts portions!

masterlist link is in blog description

disclaimer: any character depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.

Warning(s)/genre(s): College!au, fluff, developing relationship, love triangle(s)??, some angst/drama here and there– Jeongguk has a dog this series isn’t allowed to be too tragic.

Tag(s): @butterflylion @rjsmochii @mahakookie @dammit-jjk @joanc24 @detectivebts @insaisissables @fuzzyballoontrash @sweet-unicorn-world (if you would like to be tagged send me an ask to let me know!)

If you enjoy, let me know!! : )

set after the first conversation between Jeongguk and Y/N

wc: 1132

warning(s): none

The rehearsal dinner’s location appeared as extravagant as the actual venue itself. Situated on the top floor of some small tower, the professor mentioned that one of the family’s businesses actually owned the tower and did a lot of work on the lower floors. Jeongguk felt nervous as he and two other students rode in the clear elevator that gave them all ample time to look at the surrounding metropolitan area.

Mostly all of the wedding party and important guests had already arrived, just the parents of the groom were being waited on before they began. Professor Choi was discussing something Jeongguk assumed was serious with the wedding planner, but as they started laughing he considered that it may have just been a chat. He looked to the center of the room as numbers started being called out to a beat. The bride and groom practiced the the slower of the few dances they were going to do, while Hoseok counted the steps and watched with intent eyes, countering the couple’s light-hearted, cheerful expressions.

After running around to monitor positions of cameras, and try to understand the ins and outs of the gesturing that felt common when those speaking did their parts, the guests started eating the catered meal while the student quatrain waited along one of the walls for their professor to let them in on what would be happening next.

“I can’t believe they wanted to learn four dance routines.” Jeongguk decided to comment, only catching Hoseok’s attention to the question from the corner of his eye. “It seems exhausting to put on top of all of this.”

“Right, I told them two would even be a lot, considering all the clothing they’ll be wearing.” Hoseok nodded as he leaned back against the wall, hands boredly in his pockets while the chattering of a meal took place in front of them all. “Well, I guess because it’s a special night.” He shrugged, “Anyways, it gave me something new to work on, so I can’t complain.”

“New?”

“I don’t usually choreograph to formal events like this,” He gestured with a hand forward to all of the people dressed in over-the-top outfits that were all mostly designer, if not then likely customized in some way. “Just like music video stuff, or some things for the theatre department. Well, hip-hop or more contemporary style is what I mean, I guess.”

Jeongguk nodded, recalling that your main focus after graduation was to work to film music videos and their conceptualizations. Considering the connection, he wondered if that’s how the two of you had met whenever you both had, through some project or competition. You both seemed very involved with extracurriculars so it wouldn’t have been surprising.

“You’re dating Y/N, right?” Jeongguk turned his head to look at Hoseok, the other two students having wandered off to try and find a vending machine out in the hall. Hoseok’s expression was mostly unthreatening--aside from the confident way he held himself usually, but the intent of the question seemed simple. “Don’t worry about me; she and I have nothing left there.” He averted his attention to a passing host that offered the two flutes of champagne. Politely declined.

“I wasn’t really worried.” Jeongguk said then, voice clear and resistant of Hoseok’s neutral comment “How’d you find out she and I were together though?”

“A couple of weeks ago Jimin and I saw you both at the cafeteria. He mentioned it to me then.” Hoseok explained all coincidentally as it happened, still not sounding anything more than commentative. “Well, anyways it’s good she found someone new. She had a rough time last school year.” Jeongguk stayed quiet, biting the inside of his cheek. He really didn’t get the sense that Hoseok meant anything by what he said, but nonetheless being brought up history and ideas of stories about his you, his girlfriend, by your ex just didn’t feel comfortable to hear.

“You guys used to work together on projects, I take it?” A change in subject, more for his own concerns of the question you asked him earlier about Hoseok getting involved with the project, but Jeongguk felt like it wouldn’t be far enough from the previous topic to settle him completely.

“Oh, yeah, quite a few things freshman year.” Hoseok nodded, then took a pause to let the background noise take over before speaking again, “A couple of things last fall semester too, I guess.” Jeongguk’s eyes narrowed in confusion at the sudden quiet tone and he stayed wrapped in the feeling when he glanced to Hoseok’s then drifted gaze aiming towards the marble flooring. “Well, anyways, it’s no big deal.” A shrug, then the return of a brighter expression when he looked at Jeongguk, “In the first place, I just wanted to bring up her and I to tell you there’s really nothing to be worried about there. I kind of got the feelings today you weren’t sure what to think of me-”

“Oh,” Jeongguk interjected out of surprise more so that he had been acting off, “My bad.” Hoseok shook his head, shrugging because he understood why Jeongguk would feel apprehensive. “It’s not just you, I was thinking about other things.” Other things concerning Hoseok, but- “Anyways, I’m not worried about her and you.” Genuine. Hoseok nodded. The two quieted as small applause carried throughout the room.

“That’s good. I think Jimin feels bad that he’s friends with both of us. Like he has something to hide.” Hoseok laughed shortly, glancing to Jeongguk, “He felt like he was apologizing for a secret when he told me you were his roommate a couple of weeks ago at the cafeteria.” Jeongguk smiled, thought about how Jimin hadn’t mentioned anything at all about Hoseok to him either, “Probably for our benefit.” Hoseok nodded,

“Yeah, but he shouldn’t worry either; I don’t have anything to think of that’d make me want to fight you for dating Y/N, that’s really old and gone feelings at this point. Besides,” Hoseok turned more towards Jeongguk, using a hand to gesture a line in the air around Jeongguk, “I couldn’t fight you anyways. I’d get my ass kicked; not cool.” Jeongguk laughed, shrugging while his shoulders finally relaxed against the wall,

“At least you know-”

“That’s a threat.” Hoseok said with theaterics, “I have the police on speed dial.”

“It’s just 911; how couldn’t you?”

“Boys,” They both turned their heads before Hoseok could sarcastically retort. Their professor walked to them from between the tables, “I think we’re all mostly settled about the videography plans for this weekend, and, Hoseok, I meant to let you leave earlier on after the choreography practice was over. Sorry about that, but you can both leave. Let the others know on the way out, please.”

#jeongguk #jungkook imagines #jungkook fake texts #jungkook smau #jungkook social media au #jungkook au #jungkook fluff #bts imagines #bts fake texts #bts smau #bts social media au #bts au #bts fluff #all #series of silver

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witchqueenofthemoon · 5 years

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BODY AND SOUL Part 1 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: This is basically a Millory AU/Alternate Universe where Cody’s character Duncan from HOUSE OF CARDS meets a version of Mallory/Billie. I might eventually tie it into some kind of reincarnation arc/parallel AHS universe? Her name is Mackenzie Stone and I’ll illuminate more on who she is in time regarding her HoC character, but for all intents and purposes she is Mallory/Billie and Duncan is Michael/Cody. Part 1 is their fortuitous first night together. There is gonna be a LOT of smut in this fic, it’ll be some light plotty stuff but mostly them fucking on everything and looking super hot and dreaming about ripping each other’s clothes off in rooms full of important people. And a lot of stuff about their clothes. But mostly them touching each other with aching fingers and fucking. Please leave me feedback if you like it! Writing this was a big deal for me; it’s the longest bit of fiction I’ve written in a long time and the project will be the realization of an important goal for me this year.

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I send my soul through time and space. To greet you. You will understand.

--James Elroy Flecker, from To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence, 1910.

Love can be scary; not because of heartbreak or being left, but because it can consume you all at once. It’ll spread in your veins like the poison of a snake; it’s unstoppable and only when it’s too late, you’ll find yourself drowning in it. It’ll intrude your daily life, step by step until you find that love is everywhere you may go or look or even listen to. It’ll haunt you at night; in the morning; every time of the day, there’s no escape. Love will make you fear the person that has sparked this mess inside of you; overwhelming you with waves of emotions which will bring you to your knees. But in all of this, you’ll recognize the sensation of happiness, you’ll love the weakness and inability to control it. At some point you’ll crave it so much, that you’ll face your fear and walk to the other side of it - right into the arms of your loved one. And that’s when you know; love is just a hurricane that demands for you to face your fears.

--s.m.

The other morning I heard a woman on the radio describe her art, enormous conceptual installations that involve manipulations of breath and light. As she was explaining her process, this artist used a phrase I'd never heard before: "thin places." It's a Celtic concept, one that stems from an old proverb that says, "Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller." In thin places, the folklore goes, the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world wears thin and becomes porous. Invisible things, like music or love or dead people or God, might become visible there, or if they don't become visible they become so present and tangible that is doesn't matter. Distinctions between you and not-you, real and unreal, worldly and otherworldly, fall away.

The original thin places were wild landscapes because the idea was born in the heaths of Connemara, a place that's so austere and ancient, so full of twists and hiding places and divots a thousand years old, that it seems somehow likely you might poke a hole through to another reality. But the radio lady said that the delight of thin places was the unpredictability of their location. You can find them someplace with magic written all over it, like Connemara or the Himalayas, but they also pop up in dive bars, bedrooms, hospital rooms. They can appear and disappear.

--Thin Places, Jordan Kisner.

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Duncan let the wine glass hang limply from between the crook of his fingers. Even drinking felt boring among these dull people. He stared off into the night, leaning on the ledge, imagining dropping the glass down onto the head of an unsuspecting suit below as a bored smile played at the edges of his mouth, the cool early-summer air ruffling the halo of his curls. He didn’t know it, but his blue eyes appeared much darker than usual in the glow of the soft, round lights that lined the opulent deck. Roses adorned the balcony; row after row of dark red, richly in bloom, almost obscene in their beauty, defiantly organic, thrown against the careful architecture of a DC penthouse. They were, thus far, the only interesting thing here.

“Fuck,” he muttered, sighing and pulling one long-fingered hand through his hair, absently straightening his already perfectly pressed, perfectly tailored black blazer as the hand fell downward. One more hour and he could leave; he stared at his silver Cartier watch absently; his mother had insisted he make an appearance here for the benefit of several wealthy donors to the Foundation (“just let them stare at you for awhile, you know how people love to do that, reel them in,” she said with a dry smile, and he nodded at her, smiling in return, ever the obedient son), but she hadn’t said he need stay for the whole party, after all. Showing up, killing time for a few hours should do the work she wanted, and he’d already made nice with those in the room he recognized from charity balls and fundraisers and galas past. Now the long, slow clock-watch until 11 PM, when he could make a stylishly early exit.

He was lost in these thoughts of escape and duty, still staring out at the glittering affectation of the capital city, when someone gazing similarly into the night caught the corner of his eye.

It was the hair first; then her expression. Chestnut-honey waves cascaded down her back; a small band of gold adorned with six-pointed stars nestled into them against her head, giving her a strangely angelic glow in the dim light, the idea of a halo. She was small--she couldn’t be any taller than his shoulders--and that only with strappy, stiletto-heeled black sandals, twisting up her slender, smooth leg above her ankles, tied neatly in double-knots, at that. Double knots, he thought absently, I tie my shoes that way too. He blinked, eyes traveling up, falling on the black velvet babydoll dress she wore, bodice hugging her slender waist and small breasts, hiding the curves of her hips--I wonder what they look like, he wondered again absently, surprising himself with his immediate interest--up further to the incline of her neck and the dip of her clavicle, adorned with a gold circle that had several chunks of quartz crystals shaped into points along her smooth skin. What a beautiful piece, he thought. So unique. He felt an uncharacteristic tremor in his composure; and then he looked at her face. Her features were small and delicate; her lips slim and colored with a dark red that reminded him of the roses she was leaning against, brushed into her cheeks a soft blush that reminded him of evening sunlight on sand. Her eyes were darkly shadowed, long lashes framing wide hazel eyes that glinted with a strange combination of innocence and wisdom that startled him. On her wrist was another slender gold thing, an intricate woven cage of criss-crossing artistry that fell down her arm as she lifted her graceful hand and pushed an escaping wave of hair behind her ear; tiny crystal points hung from her ears. She grasped a small black clutch in her other hand (her nails were unpainted, he noticed, a rarity in DC society) and her face seemed lost, angry, sad, and bored at once, her small mouth pouting in a silent, secret disappointment, her lips parting to release an almost inaudible sigh as she absently touched the crystals around her throat. As his darkened blue eyes watched her, their glowing fascination invisible and unrealized yet to him, she finally seemed to notice she was not alone; her wide eyes traveled over the cascade of city lights, down through the roses, and into his.

He felt as though time stopped for a moment; how long the moment extended he could never be sure later, but it felt like a blink and an eon at once, as though something vast and previously immovable had fallen into its long-sought place. Her eyes were even more mesmerizing now that they were locked on him; he felt an obscure ache in anticipation of the moment she must inevitably look away.

“Hi,” he said quietly, and he couldn’t help but smile; he knew it had a strange effect on some people when he smiled, but it was almost involuntary; looking at her was a hand around his heart that had begun to press insistently, and he felt his cheeks burning; his jacket suddenly seemed too tight and he felt odd, dizzy, almost giddy; looking at her.

“Um, hi.” He saw the cloud fall over her gaze; she recognized him. He silently cursed in his mind, biting the inside of his cheek, a habit he’d acquired from a lifetime of being Annette Shepherd’s son. Maybe this was not going to go as well as he’d already begun to hope. He saw the way her head shifted, her mouth turning down at one corner, her hand coming around the opposite arm, hugging herself in a seemingly absent-minded impulse. Hugging herself away from Duncan Shepherd, notorious, infamous; but maybe also from the cool breeze that blew over them, smelling of roses and woodsmoke.

“I’m Duncan.”

“I know who you are.”

He smiled again at that; “Oh? And what have you heard?”

“Plenty. More than enough to know I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

He unleashed a light laugh at that; something about this petite, gold-adorned creature was absolutely intoxicating, as if she was touching him without any physical contact, whispering in his ear while she was speaking in a normal tone of voice. There was something else going on here; there was some kind of hidden current, he could feel it, like an electrical charge. It extended from the hot core of his belly to the blush of her, the sunset-gold of her. He’d only had one and a half glasses of wine, but he felt suddenly drunk. He longed to know what she smelled like, but she was still too far away. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to run his hand along the skin of her bare arm; around the incline of her throat. His cheeks burned.

“I promise, I’m not that bad.”

She rolled her eyes at him and he couldn’t help it; he laughed a little again. He could see her steely introduction melt ever-so-slightly this time, her eyelashes fluttering down, the corner of her mouth turning up the tiniest bit, her lips pressing together to stifle her own smile. Her arms relaxed, coming to rest on the edge of the balcony once more.

He chanced to step toward her; she seemed hesitant, but she let him, watching him warily, the wind gently kissing her hair, fluttering the hem of her short dress; it was everything he could not to not look at the smooth skin of her thigh where it ended. He absently hooked a finger around his high, buttoned collar, feeling his throat clench in a second of uncharacteristic nervousness, the wine glass in his other hand mostly forgotten. He watched her eyes travel up and down his tall form; they stopped for a moment on his russet-brown curls, skirted around his intense eyes, flicked to his full lips with an embarrassed interest, to his adams apple and his tailored jacket and down his body, flitting to his tailored slacks (an ever-so-slight pause, almost unnoticeable, over his crotch) and Prada leather chelsea boots. She inclined her head, shyly, and despite her hesitancy, he could see her interest, her attraction, glowing under her skin like a light.

“I’d love to know your name. I promise, I won’t tell anyone,” he smiled at her again, knowingly acknowledging that they were both out here for a reason while the party raged inside--these people were awful--and his own proclivity to use DC socialites to his and his family’s advantage.

He saw her hesitate again, one small hand coming up to hold a tendril of her long chestnut hair, twisting it between two fingers, smoothing her lips together as though her lipstick weren’t already perfectly applied. He watched her swallow, lost in some silent internal struggle, for a moment.

“Mackenzie,” she said, leaning away from the balcony. He was only a few steps away from her now: he could smell the wave of scent coming off her, as delicate as the intricate gold jewelry she wore: vetiver (a scent he loved and would recognize anywhere, he thought with a thrill) and something else, a delicate flower more complex than the roses, and rarer. Geranium? He thought. How unique. Who is this angel?

“No last name?” He grinned at her, knowingly. “Or one you won’t tell me for a reason?”

“I’m an orphan, they found me on the doorstep of a church,” she replied, grinning back, and he found himself goggling at her loveliness, and the pressing feeling around his heart doubled down to an almost painful ache. “Oh, really?” He laughed again, dizzily, staring into her eyes. “I guess I can pretend I believe that for now. Sometimes it’s nice to play anonymous, I wish I could do it; in a city as tightly-knit as this one is, anonymity has eluded me.”

“I’m sure that happened to you through no fault of your own,” she replied in a biting tone, but he could see her smile, the rosy glow of her cheeks. And he knew that she liked him, or at least, liked the look of him. Duncan knew that he was objectively attractive; he had felt the hungry gazes of men and women alike hundreds of times before, but something about this woman, her eyes, her hair, her gold, her light, was filling him with an intensity of desire that felt like warm water running over the edge of a glass; his nerves felt like they were vibrating, his skin felt flushed, and he knew what he wanted with a sharp clarity; he wanted this girl. Badly. She was the most beautiful, the most luminous, the most intoxicating being he had ever seen.

A small silence stretched between them; he ached to know what she was thinking, for now she stared at him with a boldness she seemed to have sussed from his obvious interest in her; the exposed feeling settling under his skin was intensely foreign to him, and it made him wildly nervous. The fear that she’d disappear at any moment began to press at his temples; he felt unhinged, that he would do anything to get this girl, this angel, into his bed.

“...May I get you a drink?” He murmured to her, the aching edge in his voice taking him by surprise. His throat bobbed; he extended the fingers of his right hand slowly, almost unknowingly, towards the smooth skin of her arm. But he did not touch her. The air seemed to hum around them, a frequency of sound that was almost visible; he felt that they were somehow touching each other without touching, feeling each other somehow without any physical contact. The wind blew softly again, filling his senses with her smell, intoxicating and delicate. He wondered what it would feel like to kiss her, gazing at her lips.

She regarded him for another long moment; he could see her hesitation, no doubt kindled by a dozen or more Post articles about his family. But then something in her gaze shifted inexplicably, softened, opened, and she smiled again, dazzling him. A barrier seemed to have been breached; her eyes shimmered, and he felt the heat from them pierce into his heart.

“You may.”

He’d feverishly gone to the bar (bourbon, she’d said, shaking his heart again with desire), skirting around the attentions of a Senator who tried to speak with him, anxiously watched the bartender crush together the ingredients of two old fashioneds, the fear that she would no longer be leaning against the roses when he returned shaking his confidence with an icy grip, but as he slipped out onto the otherwise-deserted balcony once more, his body flooded with an intoxicating dose of relieved dopamine; there she was still, turning toward him with that glow, stepping against him slightly as she pulled the tumbler from his elegant, large hand with her finespun fingers, and he shivered at the first touch between them, filled with an overwhelming lust for more. He reached out with the other glass and clinked it against hers.

“To the mystery of first meetings,” he said impulsively.

“To familiar strangers,” she replied, and something about her words shook him strangely, coiling around them, loaded and full of hidden meaning. They both drank; Duncan watched her from the rim of his glass, taking a deep gulp of the whiskey to calm his buzzing nerves; she closed her darkly shadowed eyes, sipped, and when they fluttered open again, he noticed the lust that had settled in behind them for the first time.

“I’m sure people tell you this all the time,” she said, her voice soft and hazy in his ears, “but you’re very handsome in person.”

“Some do,” he said, stepping into her space, achingly close, watching her reaction; she did not move away from him, but stood very still, resting the drink against the wide ledge of the balcony, eyes focused on his face. “But rarely is it someone as beautiful as you are.” He set his drink down beside hers, the bourbon humming against his skin; being this close to her felt almost unbearable in its intensity. She tilted her head up, waves falling back, the crystals around her neck glinting in the glow of the fairy lights. Her face came only to the incline of his chest; perfectly level with the space in which his hands hovered for the throe of a moment before he could no longer resist temptation; he moved them so they came to rest against her small face on either side, in the delicate spaces between her chin and her ear with an imploring softness. He looked into her eyes for a moment, questioning; and he saw the lust there again, saw that she desired him too, and that was all he needed; he tilted his face and his lips fell on hers, hungry, starving, immediate.

The eagerness with which she returned his kiss filled the pit of his stomach with a wild ardency; he could taste the whiskey on her lips, smell her richness, the ache of her perfume and the musky scent of her body, and he wanted her with a desperation that felt like madness in the corners of his mind. She opened her mouth more to him; he kissed her more deeply, his tongue brushing against hers, his fingers stretching out to feel the delicate skin of her neck, moving there to caress her, causing a small moan to escape her that drove him absolutely to the edge. She was pressed against him now, her small hands flitting down his chest and stomach, causing warmth to pool in his cock immediately in anticipation and want; he felt he could drink her in forever and still not have enough, he wanted the scent of her all over him, wanted to feel her against him without the barriers of her velvet dress and his silk shirt, her skin on his skin everywhere. The kiss kindled in him a fire that burst into a blaze; the soft insistence of her lips was the first page of the book of her, and he wanted to read all of it; he wanted to devour her until morning tinged the sky.

They broke the kiss breathlessly, both breathing heavily, their faces still achingly close, and his hands were moving down across the skin above her small breasts under their velvet trappings, further down, around their round incline to the top of her waist where he grasped her under her arms, fervently, his fingers pressing into her insistently, holding her there, her warmth and weight and scent hovering around him like a crown encircling his head.

“Come to my apartment with me,” he whispered. She leaned into him, her lips falling on his again, and he shivered into her mouth, his composure fracturing, his red and burning lust falling into her and crashing against her. His strong hands held her there, in that delicate space under her breasts, and her head reached up to meet his full lips, tasting insistently. He felt as though she were weaving a spell into him, tying him to her with an invisible thread, touching a hidden place in his soul that he hadn’t even known was there. “Please.”

He felt her smile into his mouth; felt her small hands reach up to his face, trailing along the stubble that lined his chiseled jaw, pulling him down to her; “...yes”, she whispered into him, and he couldn’t stop himself, he laughed quietly into her again, delighted, full of desirous joy. He pulled away from her reluctantly, only to grasp the tumbler of bourbon and gulp from it again; he needed just a little more courage, just enough to make it back to the penthouse with this vision he feared would disappear in a flash of gold; she looked at him with eyes shining with excitement and perhaps the tiniest tinge of trepidation, grasping and drinking deeply from her own glass, and the edge of that feeling he wanted to erase; he longed to reassure her, hoped wildly that he could soothe her.

He grasped her small hand in his large one, intoxicated by the way they fit against each other, and led her, insistently but carefully, to the side of the balcony that led to a side-door to the stairwell leading to the street; a mutual desire seemed to pass between them to avoid any of the other guests seeing them leave together, and he laced his fingers through hers tightly, helping her down the two flights, stopping briefly as she pushed him against the cement wall, hurriedly kissing him again, capturing his bottom lip in her teeth gently, and he clutched her against him, moaning into her, his hands falling to the small of her back, one sliding against the velvet of her skirt, feeling the rise of her small, round ass through the fabric, igniting new desire in his groin and his head. God, he wanted her. He wanted her so fucking bad. She giggled into him, and the bourbon clashed against him with a short wave; he buried a hand in her golden-tawny hair, marveling at its silky cascade through his fingers.

“Come on,” he insisted, and they were finally at the bottom of the stairs, and he pulled his phone from his back pocket, absently using his free hand to call an Uber Black; the sidewalk outside was miraculously and mercifully almost empty of people besides a woman walking a dog across the street and a few cars passing by, headlights flashing momentarily before they moved on. Mackenzie--god, he loved her name, Mackenzie--leaned into him again, small hands on his belt, filling him with her scent and her closeness and her heat, and he wanted to push her into the wall and kiss her and touch every inch of her until she was breathlessly shaking with the edge of climax.

Their car pulled up with an almost supernatural quickness and quietness; the driver quickly forgotten as they pressed once more into one another in the backseat, Duncan snaking a hand around her neck to pull her against his mouth, her hand flitting over his cock, now painfully confined in his tailored crotch. “Oh god, Mackenzie,” he murmured into her, his other hand falling around the soft rise of her breast, gentle and insistent, “I want you so much.”

“God, shut up, just kiss me,” she laughed. He couldn’t help but laugh again with her; when was the last time he’d laughed like this? Laughed at all? He knew somehow it wasn’t just the bourbon making him light-headed. She had appeared out of nowhere and nothing, absolutely intoxicating, as though she were a being from another world. She was astounding; he was absolutely drunk on her.

They broke apart with loathe urgency as the driver pulled up to Duncan’s Georgetown high rise, and the blur of the next few minutes ran into an accelerated mix of running paint in Duncan’s mind when he looked back on it; they were in the elevator where he could see her tender mouth against him in the full-length mirror that made up one of the walls, her tiny body pressed against him, her hair falling in a glow, and it made his cock throb. The doors fell open and her pulled her fingers into his again, leading her gently down the hall to the tall black door of his penthouse apartment, fumbling with his keycard; her hand wrapped around his, steadying it, her lips pressing into his neck with a tenderness that made him groan, and they fell inside. Thankfully he’d left one lamp on by the slender leather couch; the better to see her by; the better to lead her into his bed. He picked her up--she was light as a feather and as soft as one too--and pressed her against the back of the door that had swung shut behind them, his mouth urgent on hers again; “you know--” she said breathlessly between his lips crashing against hers--”I don’t usually do stuff like this--”

“I’ll take that as a compliment--” he smiled into her, his hands winding up the skin of her thigh, pressing her down to the ground again, pressing ever-so-briefly against the softness between her legs, making her gasp. She dropped her clutch unceremoniously on the spotlessly clean polished wood; reached down to unknot her shoes in a marvelously cute almost absent-minded gesture, a wonderful, frustrated whine escaping from her mouth as she fumbled with them. “Here, let me help,” he murmured, and he knelt before her--his hands fell down the softness of her leg to the knot, and he felt her shudder with desire under his touch. He loved the way he was suddenly looking up at her from here, suddenly beholden to her whim; he wanted to make her feel fucking good, he wanted her to writhe with pleasure. He unknotted the laces of the sandal, freeing her small foot, thumbing the red stripes they had left on her ankles; he couldn’t stop himself, he pressed his lips against the redness, and felt her shiver under his touch again, breathlessly.

He undid her other heel easily; as she stepped out of them, he saw that she was even smaller, reaching only right about level to his chest; he wanted to hold her small frame against him with desperate longing. She reached out, pushing his blazer from his shoulders insistently, their swollen lips coming together again; “god, you taste so good,” he whispered into her, “you’re so beautiful, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen--”

She shushed him again, her breath humming on his lips, as if she was afraid of his words. “Take me to your room,” she insisted. He nodded, sure that he would do anything she said in that moment, her eyes so intense, dark and wonderful that he felt he could see into her soul through them, and pulled her into his bedroom, its black sheets and spread perfectly pressed and quiet, waiting for them. The side-lamp on his pristine nightstand was dimly lit; its glow cascaded over her, striking him with her loveliness once more; he pressed against her desperately, pulling the headband of stars gently from her head and setting it on the nightstand with reverence next to his exorbitantly expensive watch, kicking his shoes off as he clutched at her, once more filled with a terrible fear that she would disappear, eager beyond all words to be against her.

“Duncan,” she moaned into his mouth, “fuck me.”

He needed no more prompting; he pressed her gently but insistently down onto the immaculate spread, and she opened her legs, sidling their bareness against his clothed thigh; he pressed his lips into the softness of her neck as her fingers found the buttons of his high-collared shirt, undoing them expertly, freeing his torso from the suffocating confines; then they moved to his belt as she moaned under his mouth, his lips grazing the crystals that hugged her throat, pressing into the hollow between her breasts above the velvet of her neckline. She pulled his belt away with a snap; he flipped her over with concentration, and she gasped, the sound of it thrilling him so his cock pressed harder against his pants, painfully.

He carefully pulled the zipper at her back down, his mouth pressing between her shoulder blades now, grasping the cascade of her hair to the side so as not to get it caught; his hands went to undo her necklace’s clasp, but she murmured “no, I want to wear it while we fuck,” and the thought of it thrilled him; it seemed only natural that she’d wear it, it seemed intense beyond a normal object, cut against her like a second skin, a miraculous piece of jewelry that hummed with eroticism. He pulled at her dress; she flipped over with an agile sweetness as he did, slipping out of it, laying on her back so her breasts were now exposed to him, wearing only a pair of silk black underwear now, and he hungrily captured one of her nipples in his lips, sucking hungrily. She moaned again, this time more loudly; who was there to hear them now, indeed, and he groaned happily into her body, intoxicated with it. He leaned up once more to undo the button and zipper of his pants; as he kicked them off, he watched her hazy eyes, bright with lust, lave over the bulge of his erection under his black briefs; “take those off too,” she murmured teasingly, her playful smile driving him to the edge of desire again, and he obediently pulled them down, grinning at her, his cock springing out and causing a bubble of surprise to fall out of her mouth; “god, you’re fucking big,” she murmured, and pulled his long frame down to her insistently. His mouth was all over her now, moving down her ribs and belly button to where the black silk panties clung to her, wet with her desire now, and with his large hands he pulled them down and threw them to the side. Her sex was glittering with moisture and her pussy was smooth, hair shaved away; he pressed one long finger between her folds to the bundle of nerves he knew was nestled there, and she moaned again, this time long and loud and stretching into a groan of ecstasy.

He pushed her legs apart insistently and pressed a hard lick against her clit; she cried out with an involuntary spasm of pleasure, and he smiled with desire. “God, you taste good,” he moaned, before pressing his mouth flush against her, working his tongue into her with measured circles; but their eyes, his stormy blue with want, hers taking on an ethereal dark-green hue that both shook and amazed him, stared into one another as he did, and he could see the way she was unraveling in his fingers, his mouth filling her up and bringing her dangerously close to the edge. “I don’t want you to come yet,” he whispered, stopping, watching her body clench under him with the lack of his mouth, “I want to fuck you and I want us to come together, god, you’re so beautiful,” and she nodded and whispered “yes,” and hushed him with her mouth, the taste of her mingling in their mouths, her hand finding his painfully erect cock and using the precum that dripped from its head to smooth her hand up and down his shaft, rattling him into a wanton thirst to be inside her.

“Do you want me to?” He asked, gazing into her face, her cheeks flushed with cupidity, her body hot under his hands. He couldn’t believe she was here in his bed; he gazed at the crystals against her neck, against her ears, into her eyes, fluttering as they looked at him, god, she was so lovely, she made his heart quiver; she made him want to die.

“Yes, Duncan--fuck me.”

He moved and he was between her legs--he paused for one deep moment, the head of his painfully hard cock against her cunt, and then he pressed himself into her as his mouth pressed into her bruised lips again, one hand grasping her neck, the other grasping her hip, and they gasped into each other, the intensity of this connection overwhelming them both in a cascade of sensation. He moved, a rhythm building in his hips and his groin, and she cried out--”Duncan, fuck, Duncan, oh fuck, yes, fuck me hard, like that--” and he pulled her against him, their bodies flush against each other, sweat mingling, the scent of their sex and their perfume (his like smoke and cedar wood, hers heady and sweet) crashing together--he moved, pulling her upright onto him so her ass smacked against his knees and the hard length of his cock crashed into her again and again, her clit rubbing against his abdomen, her eyes rolling back in her head, his mouth leaving red welts on her perfect neck, her hair falling back and glittering in the light. She kissed him, grasping his stubble in her small fingers, kissed his forehead as he buried himself inside her, causing small entreating words to fall from his lips like a prayer, like a spell, a mantra; “Mackenzie, Mackenzie, Mackenzie, please, oh god, god--”

He felt his climax rushing forward, a wave that he wasn’t sure he could stop if he tried, and she moaned into him--”Oh god, Duncan, I’m gonna come, keep doing that, just like that--” And as she cried out in wild delight a moment later, her cunt convulsing down onto him, he exploded into her, buried inside her warmth, grasping her against him as though he could never bear to let go; the sweat on his brow mixing into the sweat that pooled at her throat, and his cock shuddered its release deep into her, pulsing and falling into tenderness and still very hard. They stayed that way awhile; panting, spent, holding each other, pressing soft kisses into each other’s flushed skin, his length still inside her, her cunt dripping down onto him, still pulsing.

She laughed, suddenly, gasping, and it thrilled his heart to hear it; “Wow, fuck, fuck.”

“Mackenzie. Fuck.”

“Duncan. Hi.” She laughed again. He nuzzled his face into her neck. She lifted her hips and his cock fell out of her, going limp after his release, a small bit of white cum dribbling out. They both collapsed beside each other, chests still heaving, hands absently entwining with each other. He turned his head to her; his was just a little below her, under the incline of her arm, and she smiled down at him, and her smile was unbearably lovely; he could see the beauty that was hidden from him and the outside world shining from her eyes, still clouded with her climax, and knew in that moment that she was going to be someone special to him; he just knew, like the clashing sound of a giant gong resounding into the universe, like a shooting star that only he could see.

“That was incredible. You’re fucking incredible.”

She shyly pressed a hand against his cheek and he turned his face to kiss her palm; she turned towards him, sidling her legs together with a overwhelmed sigh as her still-sensitive sex pressed against her thighs.

“You’re pretty incredible yourself. And fuck, this penthouse. This is insane. Your cock is just...gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.” She blushed, locks of wavy hair falling over her shoulder against her breasts. Their hands still pressed into each other, feeling each other’s fingers softly, feeling each other’s veins, wrists, the soft pads of each other’s fingerprints. “But I meant what I said. I...I really don’t usually do stuff like this. This is....really unexpected.”

“I know what you mean. Mackenzie, you’re…” His eyes fluttered; he realized with a wave of intensity how tired he was, how much their fucking had exhausted him, body and soul.

“Mackenzie.”

She yawned; he wanted to grasp her to him, cradle her in his arms. He couldn’t understand what was happening; he wanted them to fall asleep together. That’s all he knew, all he could decipher. He wanted her to sleep in his bed until the sunrise kissed it and blessed them.

“Hmm?” Her eyes had fluttered closed, a small smear of eyeshadow, mussed in their passion, streaking away across her temple. He pressed the pad of his thumb there, wiping it away.

“Stay here with me tonight. Please?”

Her eyes fluttered open for just a moment; he was astonished to find he could still see that strange, hidden something still nestled inside them. That secret thing that seemed to be only for him. And then she said “okay”.

He pulled the coverlet over them so it was folded over the sheets; he couldn’t bear to disturb her again as her eyes fell closed once more and her breathing slowed to a soft whisper. He soon fell asleep himself, their hands still clasped together, her small, slender fingers entwined in his large, long ones. And the moon rose over them in the window, and the night fell away. Slowly, as they slept there together, a deep sleep that neither had experienced in a very long time, dawn came.

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afanoftheglassscientists · 5 years

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The Glass Scientist Read-Through - Chapter 1, Pages 1-9

The webcomic’s on break at the moment, so lets just take this moment to go back to the beginning. I’m going to look though the entirety of Chapter 1, starting this Sunday and finishing it next Sunday. This week I’m only doing pages 1-9 because I have no restraint and I talk too much because it sets one type of mood but then there’s a sharp cut in the atmosphere with the last panel of page 9. Chapter 1 is probably going to be the easiest chapter to cut apart because its mostly set-up with just one problem that needs to be tackled. With that in mind lets enjoy the Spirit of London at Night setting up the mood here.

As of writing this post Chapter 7 in the comic was just finished, so if you haven’t read up til now there’s going to be light spoilers throughout. I suggest keeping a tab open with the comic itself as we go through page by page. Now come read with me!

Chapter 1 (The Wolf on High Street) Cover - It’s the Babey!!!

First cover is a simple one for the eyes. It features Jasper’s werewolf form front and center. A part of his body is missing, leaving only his his bones, fur, clothes and two furry hands politely folded in front of him. Behind him is a wave of lit torches. Without his face Jasper appears unaffected by the flames behind him, which spoilers is not true. But my read on it is that the people holding the torches don’t care what he’s feeling, or what is beyond his bone structure. They just see the shape of a werewolf and they’re not cool with it.

What’s important to note here is that as of Chapter 7 we still don’t know why Jasper is wearing a dress on the cover. He hasn’t worn anything similar to it since then, and while there’s conceptual backstory on why that might be on Sabrina’s blog, that backstory is no longer in line with what may be the actual explanation. So for now I think its just good to put a pin on this cover for when we learn more about Jasper’s life before our story began.

Pages 1-2 - “The Spirit of London at Night” by TSoLaN (The Spirit of London at Night)

...Alright I’ll admit it: I love Hyde’s monologues. His way with words shows how he truly sees himself as both immortal and unparalleled - he is powerful and never wrong. He really thinks he’s hot stuff, and he’s completely shameless about it. Which, you know, is the opposite of how Jekyll feels most of the time.

I also love how Hyde can’t just say, “Hey I like spooky stuff and this is my hangout.” No it has to be poetic. His thoughts must be worthy of Shakespearean prose (whatever that means.) For someone who can’t stand still for five seconds and claims to have few cares he sure seems to spend a lot of time working on his monologues.

I’ve read through these two pages so many time I’ve lost count, and Hyde’s love for the dramatic and the spooky, along with the imagery, is forever ingrained in my mind. I could close my eyes and see the fog rolling past the will-o-wisp lamps and I can hear Hyde not even trying to contain his excitement when he says things like, “It is a magical place, a spooky place, my favorite place in the whole wide world!”

Pages 3-5 - Hey Spirit of London [at Night] Shut Up We Needs to Save Babey!!!

Page 3 - So Jasper bursts into the scene teeth out and already terrified. I don’t know how conscious Jasper is after taking the botched poison, but I know when a dog’s snarling it means that they want you to back off. I feel like Jasper was already terrified the moment he transformed, and so he bursts through the wall feeling everyone and everything is out to kill him. Which I mean...he’s right. Its those fight or flight instincts kicking in. He chooses flight, but if someone tried grabbing Jasper earlier it might have gone bloody. I feel like in Jasper’s case being a werewolf before taking the potion was akin to having a six-hour panic attack, but that might be me asserting too much.

I think of this page as changing the scene from “setting up a spooky tale by the campfire” to “chasing away a misunderstood creature by a murderous human mob.” Every time I get to this page I can’t help but think of the mob song from “Beauty and the Beast.” Where’s the fanart where Werewolf Jasper is attempting to feed birds but then too many birds land on his hands and soon enough they are perched all across his head and shoulders people!?

Hyde calls Jasper a “beautiful brute,” which I have to laugh at because Jasper is neither beautiful nor a brute. I mean, he is a cutie pie, but he’s no Morcant, which I feel would disappoint Hyde. Werewolf is broken, too small!!!

Page 4 - As Jasper runs away we catch a glimpse of the spoopy man himself, taking his sweet time enjoying the scenery. There’s excitement in Hyde’s eyes as he stares at the mob, like he wants to jump in it. There’s a lot of high energy going around that mob and Hyde’s a high energy man. I feel like Hyde wanted to started brawling with the mob. He could take ‘em!

Meanwhile Jekyll’s like, “Oh no baby is in trouble!!!” Even before he knew Jasper as a person he calls him a “poor thing.” This goes in line with how he dealt with Morcant in “Bleeding Heart,” even though an injured Morcant is both way bigger and also far more intimidating than Werewolf Jasper.

Page 5 - Hyde cuts a nice silhouette as he readies a jump from one rooftop to the next, which makes page 5 a bit of a favorite of mine. Interesting thing to note is Hyde has a cape that quiet similar to Jekyll’s a mysterious stranger who will appear later in the chapter.

Jekyll has to push Hyde to get moving, mainly because I think Hyde enjoys annoying Jekyll. He probably thinks no matter how late he is on moving Jekyll will find a away to save Jasper, so who cares right? I’m sure that way of thinking will not come back to bite Hyde in the tush later.

Pages 6-9 - Jasper the Generic Mad Scientist Versus Jasper the Burgeoning Character

Page 6 - I like the transition of Jasper going from fearful sounds as a wolf to fearful sounds as a person as the potion starts leaking out of him.

Page 7 - I’m absolutely sure Jasper thought he’d meet is end when he sees he’s cornered by the mob. If not for the police he would have met his end, which is a weird thing to feel. Not that it makes him feel any better that the police are going to lock him up in place of being killed by the mob. We get to see Half-formed Jasper, which sadly we don’t get to see after the first chapter.

Page 8 - We meet Sergeant Brokenshire. He’s pretty calm when talking to Jasper. I suppose the nicest thing you can say about him at the moment is he’s not trying to kill Jasper. I do find it weird that he somehow knew Jasper was a mad scientists werewolf instead of just...a werewolf. Was Jasper being investigated before this happened? I feel like I’m forgetting something...

Right now we don’t know Jasper yet. We don’t even know his name at this point. So it feels like he’s saying a lot of <insert mad sciency line here> stuff. Like, “my formula” and “repeat my results” and stuff. Which goes with having to set up the world of The Glass Scientists as having a lot of mad scientists who get in trouble with both mobs and police.

Page 9 - I think this is where I feel like there’s the biggest clash between Jasper the character and Jasper the generic-mad-scientist-that-needs-rescuing. We don’t really get into Jasper the Character until Chapter 2, but knowing what I know now about Jasper I can’t imagine Jasper referring to his creatures as “my experiments.” He doesn’t number his creature, he names them! He has an attachment to them. So I just find that a bit weird.

Brokenshire has Jasper restrained only after Jasper pukes glowing goop, which shows that Brokenshire isn’t scared that Jasper will fight back as much as he is of him trying to escape. He’s very much in control of the situation. But with the clip-clopping of hooves his grip on the situation is going to loosen.

Speaking of the clip-clopping I think the last panel marks an abrupt end to the “misunderstood beast is being attacked” setting and swiftly goes into “an elegant and out-of-this-world gentleman has come!” vibe. This is where the mob song stops mid-sentence.

That’s it for today. Next weeks I’ll finish off Chapter 1 with pages 10-23, and then the Sunday after I’m going to do a Sunday Prediction for what I feel might be featured in the upcoming chapter. Just hang in there! Two more weeks and we’ll be back to weekly updates.

Until then, let me know what you thought of when reading this first part of chapter 1.

#tgs #the glass scientists #tgs read through #comic #webcomic

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whirlybirbs · 6 years

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PREVIOUSLY ON #BITTERCOFFEE | THE MASTERLIST

summary: #bittercoffee. in which the reader is ghosted after the date with bucky and tony stark is to blame. but, an internship opportunity at the tower has her ready to bite back. rating: mild swearing and a brainiac reader. fight me. word count: 1.6k a/n: my bittercoffee!reader is about to fuck shit up. sorry for the lack of buck-o in this one. he’s coming up next part. enjoy!

Bucky doesn’t come in for coffee the next morning.

And when you text him, wondering sweetly if maybe he had “avenging to do”, your text is met with silence. Nothing. You don’t text him again until late that night when you’ve hiked back from the shop in the rain. You ride the subway in silence. You have your earbuds in. No music. Your body rocks with the train. Your fingers move quick across your phone screen.

I hope everything’s okay?

You make it to your apartment, sad and somber and angry. You’re soaked to the bone and weighed down. The growing anxiety that Bucky had decided you weren’t worth his time, or maybe he didn’t like you enough was eating away at you, and though it feels childish, you cry. It’s muffled into the sleeve of your NYU sweatshirt.

Marissa comes in, having heard the quieted sobs, and offers you some microwaved pizza. You decline, to sick on sadness to think about eating.

“Sometimes boys just don’t work out,” she said, “No matter how much we like them.”

You look like hell, and the next morning? Still nothing. No texts, no Bucky. The coffee shop is slow and empty thanks to the rain. You feel the same way. You try not to let Matt into the inner turmoil, but he knows something’s not right.

You push the feelings down and away and pretend you’re fine.

You do for the whole week.

And then you begin to think you’re never going to see Bucky Barnes again.

Until, one night, on your walk back from campus, you notice you’re being followed. It’s a taxi - or at least you’d thought - until it follows you to the subway stop and a man in a suit steps out. He’s bigger, no older than his mid-forties, looking less than pleased with the rain. He sits in the same subway cart as you, gets off at the same stop. He walks past your apartment, though, and from your dining room window you watch him climb into another car. A black Lincoln.

The license plate reads ‘HAPPY’.

The back window has a Stark Industries decal on it.

You begin to notice more of strange little things like this - the same man comes in and gets coffee one morning. You pretend you have no idea who he is, but your heart rate is pounding and you’re half-convinced he’s going to gun you down at register one.

He doesn't though. He sits, he watches, he sips his coffee. You think maybe this is some kind of intimidation play.

You stand your ground though; you even bus his table, smiling and asking him how his day is.

When he’s leaving, you snap a picture of him, pretending to snapchat, and you save it.

Sniped.

You reverse image search him when you get home that night and land a positive ID. You’re hunched over coffee and the notes surrounding your midterm thesis paper around integrated militarized biotech. The blue light of your laptop illuminates the room, and you cheer, mouth full of popcorn, when you nail his name down.

You think maybe Bucky would be proud of you. You’re a good sidekick. But, well, that ship has sailed. Your heart hurts a little bit thinking about him.

The guy from the shop is Harold Hogan. Personal bodyguard and trainer to the one and only Tony Stark.

You begin to note more Stark property along your walk to work. The building across from you has been bought out. Apparently some housing project Stark is working on. You learn to look at the license plates. The Avengers Tower decal for parking is minuscule but apparent if you know where to look. It includes security clearance.

You’re clearly being watched.

And then your wifi starts to act up, too. Through some more backwards engineering, you delve into the internal system codes of the apartment router and find that a external proxy has been set up. Your cookies, data, history and any and all saved files are being copied and routed to an apartment in Queens. You get the IP address. You track it to a May Parker.

No doubt a relation to Peter Parker.

No doubt you were being watched thanks to that Stark Internship.

You call Bucky that night, curse him out on his voicemail - it’s long winded and angry and maybe you had a little bit too much wine - and tell him to tell Stark to fuck off. You don’t hear anything back, but you’re sure someone got the message -- if anything, Stark probably tapped into your cell long ago.

Things are starting to stack up against Iron Man.

You’re starting to think maybe there’s a reason why you haven’t seen Bucky Barnes. That reason has got to be Tony Stark.

You’re not sure why, but you can’t let it go. You know deep down it’s because you like Bucky far too much for it to just slip your mind. You didn’t date often -- and Bucky was pretty. Handsome and funny and shy and… Sad. You find yourself worrying about him, wondering if he’s walking around Brooklyn late at night, trying to find himself. You hope he’s okay. You regret telling him he ‘fucking sucks’ on his voicemail the other night.

So, you start to formulate a plan. You think about sauntering right into the Tower downtown, strolling up the reception and asking for Tony Stark -- but no doubt the man was busy, and there was no guarantee security wouldn’t drag you out kicking and screaming when they explained he wasn’t there and no, you couldn’t speak to him.

Email was a no-go. He’d probably just ignore it. Phone, too.

You could knock on Peter Parker’s door and interrogate the high schooler for information on why you’re being watched. But, you knew why you were being watched -- it was because you knew too much about Bucky Barnes.

Then, when you think you’re shit bum out of luck, an opportunity falls into your lap. Trips and lands. You catch it by the throat.

Your last class of this particular Thursday is a lab; normally running about four hours, it leaves you hungry and tired and wanting nothing more than to bolt home and kick start your homework. Though working on your actual conceptualized thesis is fun, time seems to drag on.

But, today, you were talking internships.

“You know,” your professor’s name is Sarah -- she insists you call her Sarah -- and she’s sweet. The class is dominated by men mostly, so she excitedly chatters with you when she can. You like it. Sarah leans against your lab bench after the small lecture. You’re soldering some wires together on the mechanisms functions panel, “I have a certain internship in mind for you.”

“Oh?” you say, a smile tugging at your face, “Please, enlighten me.”

Sarah laughs. “I got an email earlier this week… NYU typically isn’t one of the Universities gets these type of offers, but… Stark Industries is looking to hire.”

You feel the color drain from your face. “Stark Industries, huh?”

“They’re looking for medical students, actually,” she murmurs, “But, I want you to apply. You’re biomedical and you’re great, so if anything, they’ll be even more interested.”

“Have you… put my name down on anything yet?”

Please say no, please say no.

“No,” she says and you nearly cheer, “But, the interviews are next Monday -- are you interested? I can always email them back --”

“No!”

Sarah nearly jumps back.

“I mean -- yes, I’m interested,” you reassure her, gloved hand touching the sleeve of her lab coat, “I’m just thinking maybe don’t let them know who I am or my major or...? They might discriminate because of the medical thing…”

Totally not because of other reasons.

“Right!” Sarah hums, “You’re so right. And the best part? You’ll be surprising Tony Stark.”

You nearly laugh in her face. “Are you saying…”

“He’s doing the interviews -- some special involvement campaign, I guess. He wants to get to know our grads, get to know who he’s hiring. After the whole H.Y.D.R.A. infiltration thing, it makes sense. A lot of grads have turned it down, but I can dig up some recommendations for you. You can bring them with you --”

“Please do,” you grin, hands clasped in a tight ball, “You’re the best.”

Sarah grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she claps you on the shoulders. “I’m so excited!”

Me too, Sarah. Me too.

It’s 8:30 am, Monday morning.

Marissa is looking at you like you have three heads.

You’re tugging on your patent leather heels, sweeping your hair into a professional looking bun. The romper you have on is black with a dipping neckline -- your blazer is bright red. You feel like you could kill a man with a single look. It’s a confidence boost. You need all the help you’re going to get.

“So... you’re meeting with Tony Stark. For the internship.”

“Well,” you mumble, bobby pin between your teeth as you fix your bun, “Not really.”

Marissa blinks down at your resume. In fine print, along the top, under your name, it reads:

‘Please, ask me about my slideshow!’

“You… You have a slideshow.”

You swivel your laptop across the kitchen counter. The screen glows alive with the slideshow in question.

Marissa’s jaw drops. She reads from the title slide.

“Why I’d Like Tony Stark to Fuck Off?”

You shoot her an award winning smile, sweeping your resume and faux cover letter into a protective cover. It slips neatly into your handbag and you yank the memory drive from your laptop as well.

“Is this some activism stuff?” she mumbles, “Anti-Avengers propaganda?”

You pause.

“Sure.”

And with that, you’re out the door. Behind you, Marissa shouts.

“Let me know if I have to bail you out of jail!”

TAG LIST:

@cutiefrankie @luxieluu @justalittlebitofhisheart @oh-glory @dutchnorkat @buckyb4rnacle @chuckennuggets1213 @pandalandalopalis @valiantlymysticfestival @soggysouls @buckywhitewolf @radrouda @moony-you-fold-your-socks @kitty-and-bats-0 @rulesbyproblematique @allltheships @im-not-insane-im-a-fangirl @louieisbae42 @itshinothey @simplystarsinthesky @model-howell @marveltotheendoftheline @moroiboy @ghost-with-spaghetti-arms @swimmeranxiety @sigynwrites @shadowhunters-warlock @magic-from-the-ordinary @josiehosiedaninja @smarvills @rollcalls @simplyonehellofapilot @marassberry @shrekssunflowers @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameronstars @avengedhearts @commanderrpoe @roadtripsonspaceships @whyisbuckyso @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian @bulletproofseb @boyzines @nataliarxmanxva @alexblrus @henrietteoaks @omg-imagines-for-days @iamgabby22 @silence--in--the--library @sebashtiansatan @fangeekkk @llianniall

#bittercoffee #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #winter solider x reeader #winter soldier imagine

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tysonrunningfox · 6 years

Text

Open Flames: Part 6

I left that cliffhanger so long. That was really mean. I’m sorry but also, not really, because look at this dork.

Masterpost

“Oh.”

Fuse isn’t like other people. It’s what I love most about her. She doesn’t take silence to mean anything other than silence. I don’t think her mind races like mine does, hers paces carefully forward, eyes farther on the future than I can conceptualize.

My brain is awfully thor-damned eloquent, all things considered.

Fuse thinks she’s pregnant. I don’t remember a time Fuse has ever been wrong about anything that mattered.

My mouth opens and closes and nothing comes out. I’m not sure air goes in.

“Eret,” she prompts me, gently, crossing her arms, and that’s just Fuse. It’s Fuse and Fuse isn’t pregnant. How can Fuse be pregnant? It’s Fuse. It’s…

“How?”

“After I...you know, bombed the princess who tried to marry you, I didn’t drink the herb tea I usually do and...I mean, statistically.” She sounds like rationality distilled, like only Fuse can do.

I gulp.

“Oh.”

That’s reasonable. That’s a reason. Of course I know how this is a possibility, this being Fuse being pregnant with my baby. A baby that we made. A baby that’s going to be a baby.

A baby that’s half Fuse and half me and Gods, is there any way to make sure it’s more Fuse than it is me? That thought makes my heart swell almost painfully, the idea of another Fuse in the world. Another Fuse that I get to love and take care of and keep safe and I think I might cry. Two Fuses.

“How long have you known?” My voice cracks across the question and Fuse shrugs, cool under pressure, even though she’s the one dealing with being pregnant and I’m just the one hearing about it.

I haven’t been around pregnant people aside from my mom, years ago, and that went horribly and now I’m terrified. I understand the chief’s grief at a new level and I’ve known about this all of a few minutes. And women die from having kids, Fuse, I...it’s too dangerous, she can’t be pregnant. I think I might throw up.

“Last week I went on a scouting trip with Arvid and I felt really awful and tired and he kept asking if you knew I was sick and I realized I was late. And I’ve never lost track of that before but with you being gone I guess it just slipped my mind.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t understand what your face means right now.” Her voice trembles a little bit, somewhere between scared and nervous. “How do you feel about this?”

“How do you feel about it?”

“Nauseous.”

“I’m sorry,” I finally get my feet to move and rest both hands on her shoulders, stroking the shoulder seam of her shirt with my thumbs, “is that normal? Are you ok?”

“It’s normal.” She nods, biting her lip so that her cute little snaggletooth catches the candlelight and my heart thuds again. Two Fuses. I feel lucky and terrified and unsure if it’s rude or not to kiss a nauseous person. I’ve never known Fuse to be anything but healthy and stable, even when she had that cold last winter it only lasted a couple of days. “Really, Eret, are you--”

“I know you’re nauseous, does that--I mean, even though you’re nauseous, is it ok if I think I’m kind of happy about it?”

She smiles, one of those rare, wide smiles I rarely see unless the rubble is still on fire and I hug her too tight, kissing the side of her head. She doesn’t feel pregnant, her stomach is still flat against mine and I don’t know when that will change. I have so many questions. I rock back and forth slightly, burying my nose in her hair and kissing the soft skin behind her ear.

“It’s really early, a lot of stuff could go wrong.”

“Shh, it’s going to be great. You’re going to be great,” I pull back and kiss her forehead, “this is--I’m still wrapping my head around it, I…”

All of the nerves condense into a molten ball of purpose and dread in my stomach and I look down at her, exhaling shakily.

“What?” She frowns, “you’re giving me whiplash here--”

“I love you.”

It’s too loud. It echoes. The candle flickers in the breeze that it makes. Fuse cocks her head and wraps her arms around my neck, drumming her fingertips on my shoulder.

“Ok,” she narrows her eyes, “I know that.”

“That’s not...the dream response, especially right now.”

“You sign all your letters and notes to me: Love, Eret.” She backtracks slightly, “why are you so nervous about saying it?”

“It’s kind of a big deal, I guess,” I bark out a nervous laugh, “the first time you say ‘I love you’ to someone is a big deal and it just finally felt right with you being pregnant and all.” The word sounds absurd and impossible and as terrifying as the fact that she hasn’t said it back yet. And she’s not happy about it or at least she didn’t say she was happy about it. Being nauseous is a good excuse but still, what if she’s not happy about it and I am and I just messed up by rubbing her face in it?

“Finally? How long have you wanted to say it?”

“A year,” I snort, “since the fire.”

She shakes her head at me, exasperated, and kisses my cheek.

“That’s what all those really weird compliments were.” She scans my still nervous face, “what is it now?”

“You didn’t say it back and I know you’re nauseous but are you happy about this? Or at least--”

“I thought it was obvious, of course I love you.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal for her to take the massive, crushing weight off of my chest.

“I don’t mind you saying it, sometimes,” I take a step back to lean against the wall and she follows, resting her head on my shoulder. “If you want.”

“And I don’t know how I feel yet.” She yawns, “besides tired and nauseous and just kind of off. It doesn’t seem real, I can’t see it, I can’t touch it or prove it.”

“Ok, the concept then,” I kiss the top of her head, “I mean...we’re going to have a baby? Does that--how do you feel about that?”

“Nauseous,” she rubs my sides with gentle palms, sliding cool hands under my shirt and tracing my scars. “Tired.”

It’s not the answer I’m looking for but I don’t mind it as much as I probably should, because it’s Fuse and she loves me and I feel things loudly and quickly and she tends to work on them a bit longer. And I’m exhausted, doubly so from telling Fuse that I love her which...I was expecting more of a response, but this is fine too. Better than fine.

And she’s pregnant. With a baby. A baby that’s also going to be my baby and that baby will expect me to be a father to it and I can’t even think through freaking out about that right now.

I think if I don’t get somewhere soft and horizontal, I’m going to pass out on the floor right where I’m standing.

“Can I interest you in tea and a nap?” I kiss her head again, rubbing her lower back through her smooth leather vest.

“Do open door rules still exist if your mom and the chief know I’m pregnant?” She asks, pushing her face into the front of my shirt and sighing.

Shit. I haven’t thought about that.

If we tell anyone, the marriage pressure is going to triple. More than triple. It’s going to be ten times worse. A hundred times worse.

And if I marry Fuse because she’s pregnant and it ruins everything, am I going to resent her? Am I going to resent the baby that comes from it?

Maybe I’m more like the chief than I thought. Maybe I just have to pass through all the milestones and Gods. Fuck.

“Of course they do,” she stands up straight and adjusts my shirt, “those rules are about marriage, not babies.” She’s as wry as Fuse ever gets, her smile slanted and understanding and as exhausted as I feel.

“I love you.” Saying it the second time feels better than the first. Somehow, the person fighting me the least is the person whose opinion I care about the most, and she’s the only one who ever gives that to me.

“I love you too.” She says it because I need to hear it and I kiss her forehead.

“So, are we on the same page with the not telling anyone right now?”

“Well, Rolf knows.”

“Huh?”

She steps back, sheepish, reaching back to open the door and blow out the candle. She looks tired in a way she didn’t when it closed, faint bluish bruises more obvious under her eyes, like she’s also slumping under the relief of shedding secrets.

“I went to the library and asked for a book on being pregnant. He brought me back to his house and we talked.” She shrugs, “he brought up marriage a lot, it’s…”

I’ve seen Fuse not struggle for words this much after not sleeping for three days. Is being pregnant really that exhausting?

Is Rolf going to tell Mom?

That’s a question I can answer, at least, Rolf loves having information that other people don’t have. If he shared his knowledge, what would he lord over us all?

“What is it?”

“It’s best if we don’t tell anyone.” Her face is almost green in full sunlight and she reaches for me like an answer. “We have some time. I just...I’m still wrapping my head around it. It didn’t feel real at all until I told you and it still...I just feel tired.”

That sounds like a trick. It’s too easy that she’s agreeing with me but I’m too tired to figure out why right now so I grab her hand and start walking towards the chief’s house, mostly in silence. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s that everything I do want to say spirals immediately into ten more things I don’t know what to think about. I need to sleep. Fuse needs tea.

Pregnant Fuse who doesn’t want to tell anyone. She could have not told me, I guess, and the weight of her trust is both welcome and terrifying. We can’t not tell anyone forever, but we can put it off today. And tomorrow. And maybe even until things feel a little more stable and I know what’s going on around here.

“Knock knock,” I open the door to the chief’s house and see Mom sitting at the table, fixing a tear in what looks like Stoick’s shirt.

“You still live here, last time I checked,” she sets it down and looks up, smiling at Fuse with a friendly familiarity that I can’t wrap my head around, “no need to knock.” She walks over to me, putting one palm on each of my cheeks and looking at me carefully, her lips pursed. “Why is it that you always come back looking like you didn’t sleep the entire time you were gone?”

“Because he doesn’t sleep,” Fuse and my mom share a sigh and I can’t say I’ve ever felt ganged up on like this in this particular set of company.

And I have a secret. A big secret. Mom is going to read it all over my face.

“And you’re too skinny,” she thumps my stomach, right on the hammer shaped dent in me that’s just starting to be more green than blue. “You flinched, you’re hurt, what did you do?”

“What did I do?” I let go of Fuse’s hand and pull my shirt up to my armpits to show off the bruise. My scars are bright pink against the yellowing edges of it and it’s still throbbing from scrubbing it in the bath. “This is Smitelout’s handiwork, you should be asking her what she did to me.”

“Right, I’m sure she had no reason at all.” Mom raises an eyebrow at me and I know instantly that Smitelout told her about it already.

And I remember Smitelout pointing out Elva’s attempted betrothal in the crude forge, which isn’t really a thing I need to mention around Fuse, especially because now she’s pregnant, and isn’t stress bad for that? That’s what the chief was always saying about Mom’s pregnancy--and I really need to stop thinking the P word in front of Mom, at least until Fuse and I have time to figure this out.

And until she makes a decision about feeling something other than nauseous, because I know she needs time, but it’s already starting to make me nauseous.

“Tea?” I ask Fuse, tugging my shirt back down and avoiding eye contact by walking to the hearth and hanging the kettle back over the fire. It takes a couple pieces of kindling to get the coals going again and I can feel Fuse’s eyes digging into my back.

“Sure,” she takes too long to answer and I hear her and Mom ignoring me as they sit down at the table.

“How was your trip with Arvid last week?” Mom starts sewing again as I pour the tea into a mug, setting it in front of Fuse. The smell makes her wrinkle her nose and she spins it between her hands, a little green again as she stares at the table.

“Fine. Nothing too thrilling.”

What if she’s sick and she’s not telling anyone because she thinks she’s p--the other reason? I glance at Mom like she could have read that slip up in my head, but she’s sewing without looking up, and my tired eyes start to itch.

“You’ll have to tell me about it,” I rub Fuse’s shoulder with my fingertips, tracing along the sleeve of her vest. “Upstairs, maybe? I’m dead on my feet.”

“Sure,” she stands up with the tea and I brace her with a hand on the small of her back, because she really does look green and tired and like she’s going to fall over if I let her negotiate the stairs by herself.

Mom narrows her eyes at me and I pause, shrugging.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she looks between me and Fuse, opening her mouth to admonish me and I roll my eyes.

“I’ll leave the door open, I know the rules.”

Not that they worked, really, because whatever Fuse said, I think they’re rules about both babies and marriage and the inescapable ties between the two.

“Don’t worry about it,” she stands up, “you’re obviously both exhausted and the house will be empty anyway. I have to go talk to Arvid about something.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” I want to ask what she needs from Arvid, but I’m too numb from dealing with today on so little sleep to really care. That and Fuse is sipping at her tea and looking as tired as I feel and the pull of my bed is getting impossible to ignore.

When I shut my bedroom door behind us, I sigh and lean back against it, rubbing my temple and watching Fuse sit down on my bed, staring into her mug.

“That went ok.” I kick off my boots and pull my shirt off, eyeing the soft, clean blankets at the foot of my bed. “I half thought as soon as I saw my mom I’d just blurt it out. Or as soon as she saw me she’d read my mind.”

“That’s impossible.” She sets the mug down on the table by my bed and curls her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her eyes catch on my bruise and she frowns, “Smitelout has pretty good aim.”

“Yes, she does,” I crawl around her, flopping onto the pillow as soon as it’s within reach and tugging at the back of Fuse’s leather vest. “I’m glad she doesn’t use it on me very often.”

My bed tries to eat me whole and I’m inclined to let it. It makes my hip throb worse and relax entirely all at once and my back muscles go slack as I adjust the pillow under my head. Bed. Yes. I’m going to try my thor-damned hardest to be here for two weeks this time.

“She shouldn’t ever use it on you,” Fuse scowls at her hands and I sigh.

“Don’t go starting your next list of targets, alright?” It’s not the right thing to say and her shoulders tense up. “Not--I’m sorry. Have whatever list of targets you want, just tell me about it next time. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” she gives me that much, unclasping her vest with slow, meticulous fingers and hanging it on one of the empty hooks for my axe. My axe is...somewhere. I think it’s with the pile of my stuff in the barn outside. Bang was guarding it with his snores when I left to take a bath and I’m sure he hasn’t moved, lucky dragon. Everything is still the same as far as he knows.

Hel, as far as I know everything still seems the same. Fuse lays down facing me and presses her forehead into my shoulder like she’s hiding from the sunlight and her stomach is flat against mine, her waist thin as always under my elbow.

“For the record, I love how you...take initiative.” I try to say ‘obliterate your perceived enemies’ more gently and hope she hears what I mean. “But you don’t need to do it on my account.”

“It was on my own account.” Her lips brush across my chest as she talks and her quiet groan reverberates in my ribs.

“What’s up?”

“Still nauseous.”

“Did the tea help at all?” I can’t quite open my eyes to catch her answer, because the bed is winning and quickly, and Fuse’s warmth pressed against me is on its side.

“Maybe,” she huffs an obvious lie, only said to make me stop asking. Usually I’d push, but I’m all out of push right now.

Her breathing goes quiet and even and I’m sure she’s asleep until her hand snakes its way between us and rests on the bruise on my chest.

“M’fine,” I assure her, or at least I try to, I’m not sure I understand my own half-asleep mumble.

“This time,” she sighs.

“We can talk later,” I pull her closer, slinging one of my legs over hers so that she can’t get away while I’m asleep. “Let’s just get some sleep.”

I take her silence as agreement or more likely, I drift off before I hear her answer.

#open flames #eret iii #festerverse #feret #astrid is just like ummm...wut #eret hasn't dealt with a single self esteem issue in 4 years

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tarredion · 3 years

Note

1 and 27? :)

thank u for the ask sweetums,, <3

1. What's your favorite kind of fic to write?

i’m having difficulty answering this question right of the bat tbh, bcs i feel like i can find good things in all i’m writing - eg. i really like the concept and style of the dragon au, and thats a chaptered story with looong chapters, while i checked and i think most of my fics are oneshots under 5k words? which isn’t surprising tbh despite how long i sometimes seem to write my descriptions i dont often bite away so many words (i dont prefer either, essentially)

my thing is mostly just to write the concept i enjoy and see how much it ends up as. i did have a lot of fun writing the last two fics of 2020 bcs they were so short and such a fast lil thing to write that surprisingly (for more of a first/second draft) turned out rlly good?

i guess for this answer i won't give a specific ‘kind’ of fic in terms of length or how it comes to life, but rather which tropes or theme or ‘vibe’ i enjoy lmao

this is a ramble but what im trying to say is that ‘kind of fic’ is up to interpretation :D and therefore i will say i enjoy writing mostly fluffy things n mostly established relationship bcs i dont enjoy uncertainty too much. and always, always, a happy ending (looking at u lil concept over there that follows the ambiguous ending)

27. Easiest part of writing?

easiest?? is anything easy lmao

i did have a writing spur the last couple of days n i was really happy with the results, so then coming up with ideas and putting them down just as i wanted to was very easy. this... doesnt apply all the time though

this isnt the act of writing itself, though i think i have a quite easy time (in my head) to come up with descriptions for everything. but this isnt often benifital (an exception would be the dragon au), and as both english is my second language and i can’t w o r d sometimes,, it can sometimes be really hard to put it down on the page and have it makes sense to anyone that isn’t me - ive ran into the problem multiple times, and ofc i wouldn't notice until... someone else read it. I’m really glad i have some good buds looking out for me that can tell me if it .. doesnt

went on another rant!! maybe i should apologize to anyone reading oops

i would say that maybe that can be my answer - describing things originally. all i really do after that is saw n cut things down.

but,, i wanna answer a bit more on this one bcs its not clear cut (i need to stop w the puns) -- so read more below?

lol ok so i had random thought-- writing/describing phil. hes cute. i like him. i can describe his lil face n stuff, i guess. maybe that plays into a lil that i find writing characters physical descriptions easy? and i dont mean easy as in incorporating them into the story - that varies,, but more like. i see ur face and i know which adjectives to use yes yes (dont tell me to do it from memory tho visual imagination s u c k s)

maybe that is the moral - i write, describe, good, easy

...and i would say it probably is- still want to answer m o r e though (if this is getting annoying i dont blame u)

the easiest part in terms of the p r o c e s s of writing is not the act of jotting down dialogue or fleshing out thoughts or characters or knowing the space or even coming up with ideas (though they are plenty yet fleeting) but,, the random thought stage - as i call it (now. i came up with it just now. dont be fooled). i use this in dms and (unfortunately) quite a lot in a lot of my wips lmao (ospbb fic im so sorry for u) wayyy before i come up with exactly what i need to write instead of what i want. its literally just sending you random thoughts, ideas, incoherent or coherent, into a place outside ur brain where they can survive. sometimes they become one liner openings to a potential fic, or segments of a story that needs to unravel later on (once again, ospbb fic), or only conceptually strung-together phrases of 7k words of smut (woops. might flesh it out sometimes)

but yeah. long post long answers weird brain,, i think thats just it.. n 27 is ,, descriptions, and random thought stage

#asjaksdfjs #me #ask game #long post #fanfiction #writing

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hellobarbarellauniverse · 7 years

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Starting from scratch...at 31

When you feel like you’ve faced it all and it can only get better from here. But it doesn’t. I was fully aware that all new beginnings are hard but I was not ready for this. The months of July and August had me bent over, staring blankly at walls in rooms that were not mine to keep, crying, wanting to give up and go home, not knowing if I have enough money for food, wanting to keep fighting because I have always pushed through no matter what, feeling alone, feeling thankful for my friends and feeling hungry. But mostly, feeling depressed. After victoriously returning from my 4 months in Longreach thankful that I have made it back with no major injuries (well, I did loose a toe nail but that’s a small price to pay) I imagined that just like everywhere else in the world I was living before, I will land a job easily. Finally get this Australian dream going. Get a car, start surfing, live in a cool shack. After all, I did suffer enough, right? I have the motivation, I have the experience, I have the skills. Let’s do this. Man was I wrong. Noosa is a paradise. It is also a spot where everyone from Australia and overseas wants to live so the competition is crazy. If you don’t have your own business or a history here, your options are pretty much hospitality or tourism. If you are not a certified barista (like everyone beyond the age of 16 seems to be) or a knowledgeable cocktail barman, there is the option of waitressing (if you can gracefully carry at least three full plates and casually entertain your posh guests). If none of those apply, plus you are an immigrant (”What visa are you on? Oh, sorry, we don’t really like that.”), there are the options of dishwashing or cleaning the resorts. I shrugged at that thought, thinking never-ever-ever will I sink this low. I did not come all the way here to wash dishes or scrub toilets (which I will learn later is not all that bad when your account is cleaned out).

Long story short, I have spent two months looking for a job. It does have a (hopefully) happy ending, but I am certainly not there yet.

To avoid being too pathetic, these are just few moments and things I have learnt along the way. I thought it would be good to have them somewhere in case I should get too comfortable with life again.

I have moved five times during two months. I was living with a girl that pretended I am not really there and watched cheesy American teenage shows and stupid movies way too loud. For someone who needs their own space to keep their sanity this was also the time when I got that psychically unstable that I made myself sick and ended up projectile vomiting a whole night through. Holding on to a glass in my bed at the end of that madness because I was too weak to run to the toilet and there was not enough liquid in me worth making it all the way anyway. I think I was suppressing the stress both from my living situation and being unemployed and running out of money. I was told that I should stop hoping that I will get a normal job and should go stocking the shelves in supermarket. Apparently, that is the “price you pay when you’re living the Noosa lifestyle”. I would be spending hours filling in the applications for dream jobs in Melbourne and updating my LinkedIn. And 5 minutes later, I would be compiling an excited cover letter saying why I am the right candidate to clean rooms in resorts. Which never worked out anyway because I “don’t have the right resort cleaning experience”. I did not know that there is a special technique to scrub the toilet but OK, fair enough.

At one point, I considered packing my stuff and fleeing to Melbourne since I thought there must be more job opportunities, also in my field. I did not go through with it as I did not have enough savings to get me going not even the first month and I couldn’t go through this all over again. Plus Melbourne in winter is misery. I received the best feedback from a dream job application to a conceptual design studio in Melbourne saying that “as we are looking for a candidate with around 5-6 years of experience, we did feel that your background was not yet extensive enough to fulfill the needs of this role, though given your enthusiasm and work history so far, I am sure in time you would grow into the perfect fit.” I did not get this job, but I was given hope that a) being foreign does not necessarily disqualify you b) I have got what it takes to apply for these kind of ambitious jobs.

This made it so much harder trying to understand why none of my applications and walk-ins in Noosa were successful. Not even a freaking job in a shitty restaurant! OK, I was a bit selective but what’s the point of living in Australia when you slave away in an Indian joint? I basically begged for jobs, saying that anything would work for me.

At this point, your whole persona starts to slowly fade. The self-esteem and believing in your skills are gone.

I have spent a few nights on a couch with friends, depending on them to feed me, cheer me up and keep me going. Bless them. I have moved to another room that belonged to a surfer dad with a small child who is surfing in South America at the moment and was kind enough to rent me his own room. I have photos of his son next to my bed. I have shoved all toys, kids books, Lego castles and other random shit into shelves and under the bed, as I couldn’t see myself living 5 weeks in a room of a bachelor without losing my mind again. The Lego castles went, the fleas came. The fat grumpy cat George infested the whole house with fleas. Me and the two other girls living here have dozens of bites all over our bodies as the fleas have spread from George to all the carpets and rooms and thrive. When I finally forced the girls to clean and flea bomb the whole house after days in agony we washed George and pulled (I’m not kidding) what would have been close to 300 fleas out of him. I fucking hate living with cats. And since I was the only one following the requested routine to keep cleaning for the next 14 days, they are back. I will be out. I got excited that I can exhibit my photos from Longreach during the Horizon Underground festival. I got so excited because I love this project and I want to go places with it. It’s the first project I truly believe in. Then the curator shut me down claiming that “ he thought that they were not significantly linked to the other material planned for display ”. The other material next door was an exhibition about how we perceive death. I guess my raw images of dead lambs and dingos hanging from sign posts are not a very obvious link. All right then, I will find a more suitable place. I don’t have the money for prints anyway. I am an occasional babysitter. I am not that person who thinks kids are cute and uses silly kids language. I think I was not too bad with Izzie, she is a cool kid. Until her sleeping time when she realized both her mum and dad took off to Splendid in Grass festival and I was afraid the neighbours will call the child protective services hearing her agonised screams “Mommy! Mooooomy” for almost half an hour before I gave up and rocked her to sleep again (what killed my back a bit). Or that moment when aa old lady asked me on a playground “How old is your girl?” and I replied “Dunno, 15 months?” :D

I can hardly talk about living healthy as I am far from buying all good stuff I would like to have including fresh veggies, smoothies, quinoa salads with feta and such. Meat-what? One positive thing is that I have hardly touched sugar as I’d rather buy an apple or bread than a chocolate stick. When you have budget of 10 bucks and are hungry, you weigh your options carefully. It’s actually fun looking back at my emotional rollercoaster. I am also surprised I am not in an institution yet. Here is where I would like to thank my loyal friends (you know who you are) that let me pour my heart out and keep me going. JULY 11 Homeless and living out of my suitcase again. Squatting at Anna’s before moving in to Andy’s. JULY 12

Hi Barbara yes I would like you to exhibit in the green room at the old Ambo and to be on our volunteer staff during Horizon. Publicity! Please someone buy my prints. I got invited for the interview from the mysterious graphic design studio in Noosa that had no info on who they are but their requirements matched my skills perfectly!

JULY 13

I think I can’t make it anymore. JULY 18

Interview with Jaxon and Megs from Clandestino Roasters. Not so casual as expected, they made me sweat with tasks questions and “tell us something about yourself” questions. Somewhere along 50 minutes into the interview I gave up and pulled out my Longreach card. I really want to work for them, such lovely people and such a cool company. JULY 24

I think I’m done. I have no money, I am in debt back home, I owe money to my friends. I have no job. I eat the same breakfast (on a good day it is the same ritual of adding a quarter of an apple, stolen honey and three almonds to muesli, on a bad day it’s a discounted bread with butter). I am not buying basic things. I have no insurance in case something happens. I have no car. I ride Anna’s bike. I take buses together with school kids that don’t have a drivers license yet and an old guy with a catheter coming from his private parts that is ducktaped to his thigh who smells like lemongrass air refresher (I’m guessing to cover the smell of urine). I think it’s time to think about giving up and flying back.

JULY 25 Jaxon called me and offered me the job! Starting August 14. Hallellujah!!! Things might be happening! FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. Happy but still broke. I went to a bottle shop go buy prossecco to celebrate it but then I realized I got no money. But I still wanted to celebrate. So I bought myself a body lotion instead, since I haven’t had one for a couple of weeks considering it a luxury. I might be broke but I’ll be smooooooooth.

JULY 26 The worst 8 hours shift at Skal cafe that left me thinking that hospitality (especially busy bistros) might not be my thing after all. Too many orders, zero training, too much stress and no lunch break. I was bugged. Since my first interview with Kelly, I had two trial shifts of 3 hours and this shift. I still don’t have a definite answer if I have the job. I am starting to think that building doors in a factory is the way of less resistance. JULY 27 I might have a job on the horizon but it’s only 2 days weekly which will not give me enough to cover my basic needs. And I want the luxury to have the insurance if I ever go to the ocean on a board again. I keep looking.

JULY 28

I wrote my artist statement. It is taking shape. When does this end and I can finally eat like a normal person and sleep without having nightmares of how much money I already owe. JULY 29

Brankos B-day bonanza. Fun. Patrick told me that they hired someone for the factory job who had a forklift license. That’s out of the window too then.

...........

August is a bit of everything. I keep being broke, I need to move out by 16th (somewhere), I had to turn down offers from friends to rent out cool places because I have no idea if I can pay the rent. But I also started this job this week and some of it is just too good - I feel like a person again and I am doing what I love to do. I also have an occasional cleaning gig. It least Donna talks to me like I am a person and not just a cleaner. The highlight of this week was meeting that local who was sending me to go pack carrots at night at Cole’s and telling her how much I love working for one of the coolest family businesses in Noosa while she snorted that she has to go to a staff meeting at a bar.

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