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friendofcars · 4 months

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Hello! Here is data on point of view distribution across characters in The Dreamer Trilogy (which I will abbreviate as TD3) as a follow up to my TRC data from last year (viewable here). A rather long-winded discussion of the data, methods notes, and some supplemental figures and tables are under the cut. As it was not possible to include all values and stats in this post (nor in the alt text for image IDs), my spreadsheet can be viewed by clicking here,

This project quantifies and visualizes the distribution of chapters and pages in the books of TD3 across characters from whose POVs the story is told. I didn’t have much of a hypothesis going into data collection/analysis, especially not like I did for the TRC data, but I did expect to see Ronan’s POV having the most chapters and pages for the entire series, given the fact that he is the most central of the protagonists. I don’t think page time is the be-all-end-all for a character’s importance, of course, but it is still interesting to consider how spending more time from certain perspectives affects the perceived narrative. I won’t get much into that aspect of analysis in this post, but if anybody would actually like to discuss that, I’d love to!

Results (and Interpretation):

TD3 consists of 173 chapters and 1184 pages (using the U.S. hardcover editions), making the average chapter 6.84 pages. The longest chapter is 16 pages, and the shortest is 1 page.

Figure 1A: The average chapter in Mister Impossible (MI) is considerably longer (9.26 pages) than the average chapter in Call Down the Hawk (CDTH) (6.00 pages) and in Greywaren (GW) (6.40 pages), which makes sense as MI has just 38 chapters while CDTH has 80 and GW has 55 (see Fig. 2). To me, the effect of the longer chapters (and therefore extended time with the current POV character) makes the various POVs feel more temporally distant from one another- not in a narratively incoherent way, but in a way that echoes the sense of isolation experienced by dreamers and weaponized by Bryde as he tries to convince Ronan and Hennessy to abandon their loved ones.

Figure 1B: Chapter length is fairly consistent amongst POVs across the series. Matthew has the longest average chapter length (8.40 page) over a small set of chapters (5 total)- his character development (as told from his own POV) is limited to a small number of instances, which may have stretched his chapters a bit longer. The 'Other' category has the shortest average chapter length (5.13 pages) (Fig. 1B); it includes the typically short chapters from witnesses of Visionary explosions/aftermath (Mags, Dabney) as well as Nathan's manifesto excerpts. (As a side note, I've described the chapters depicting memories from the Barns as 'Mór and Niall.' These chapters do not collectively portray an equal balance of their POVs, but this was the simplest way to categorize them.)

Figure 2A-B: These graphs are representations of chapter distribution across POVs in TD3 in terms of chapter count (2A) and proportion of total chapters (2B). Some observed trends include Declan's proportion of total chapters remaining quite constant throughout the series, Ronan's decreasing, Hennessy's proportion of chapters nearly doubling from CDTH to MI (and staying at a similar proportion to MI in GW), and Jordan's proportion following an opposite trend (consistent proportion in CDTH and MI, followed by a more than 50% drop in GW). Carmen's proportion of chapters also declines after CDTH.

Figure 2C: This graph compares total chapters per character POV over the entire series. We can see that the largest proportion of the series is told from Ronan's POV (53 chapters, or 0.306 of all chapters). To put that in perspective, Hennessy has the next highest number of chapters (26, or 0.150 of all chapters), which is just under half the number of Ronan's. If all characters had an equal number of chapters from their POV (including the miscellaneous POVs as one category labeled Other), they would each have 21.6 chapters, represented by the horizontal dashed line; Declan, Jordan, Carmen, and Hennessy all have chapter counts relatively close to this number.

Figure 2D-E: These are representations of page distribution across POVs in TD3 in terms of page count (2D) and proportion of total pages (2E). Trends are similar to those depicted in 2A-B, but 2E does make Declan's increased proportion of page time in GW salient.

Figure 2F: This graph compares total pages per character POV over the entire series. The dashed line shows that if each character (plus the Other category) had equal page time in the series, readers would spend 148 pages with each POV. Again, page data is similar to chapter data, but comparing graphs 2C and 2F gives a clear visual indicator that Jordan's chapters (on average, 8.11 pages) are longer than Carmen's (on average, 6.08 pages), since Carmen has visibly more chapters in 2C yet nearly the same number of pages as Jordan in 2F.

Figure 3: Figure 3 shows distribution of chapters (3A-B) and pages (3C-D) in CDTH, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (3E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 13.3 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 80.0 per character. The 'Other' category included chapters from the perspectives of Lock, Breck Myrtle, Shawna Wells, Jason Morgenthaler (and Lin Draper, briefly, in the same chapter), Mags Harmonhouse, and Dabney Pitts. Carmen's average chapter length in CDTH (4.67 pages) is the lowest single-book average for character POVs appearing throughout the entire series. (Nathan's average chapter length is just 1.00 [Supplemental Figure 2], yet his POV only appears in GW via his manifesto excerpts, and while I have attributed these chapters to his POV, I interpret the POV as actually ambiguous. As with Kavinsky's text in TDT, it's not absolutely certain if we are reading from the writer or the reader's perspective [although in TDT, due to the lack of Kavinsky POV elsewhere, it's probably the latter]).

Figure 4: Figure 4 shows distribution of chapters (4A-B) and pages (4C-D) in MI, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (4E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 5.43 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 50.3 per character. The 'Other' category included two chapters, both with what I deemed omniscient narration. Declan had the shortest chapters in MI (8.20 pages), and Jordan had the longest (11.4 pages, the longest average for a character for a single book in this series).

Figure 5: Figure 5 shows distribution of chapters (4A-B) and pages (4C-D) in GW, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (4E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 6.88 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 44.0 per character. The 'Other' category included Nathan's manifesto excerpts (3 chapters), 1 chapter from Liliana's POV, and 3 other chapters with omniscient narration. While Ronan never has the longest chapters, his chapters are shorter relative to other POVs in Greywaren, perhaps as a result of the way his chapters are written during his time asleep/in the sweetmetal sea. I have not yet investigated whether chapters tend to be longer while characters are awake vs asleep or dreaming, but that's something that could be measured from the existing data in the spreadsheet! There is also a dramatic drop in Jordan's POV time in GW compared to the previous two books, perhaps because of her increased divergence from Hennessy and desire to establish a life that follows her own narrative.

Other findings: A major difference I noted between TRC and TD3 was the lack of split chapters in TD3. In TRC, the data analysis was made slightly complicated by having to account for the fact that a non-negligible number of chapters would make a distinct and discrete switch between POVs partway through. While I did not observe this in TD3, I did encounter more ambiguous/nebulous POVs as I previously mentioned. The increased presence of omniscience in the trilogy, for me, contributed to the increased sense of scale and stakes compared to TRC. This increased continuity amongst POV (not amongst core/recurring POV characters, but amongst groups of characters/communities depicted in the omnisciently narrated chapters) also contributed to a sense of dissolution of barriers and identities, perhaps thematically in line with Ronan's character development and increasingly holistic perspective of both his humanity and otherworldliness (although Ronan is not necessarily featured in these 'boundary-breaking' chapters). I also briefly looked at occurrences of back-to-back chapters from the same POV; this happens most frequently for Ronan in all three books, mainly in CDTH, and sometimes featuring a dreaming chapter directly before an awake chapter (or vice versa) in immediate succession. Declan (MI), Carmen (CDTH), and Jordan (CDTH) all have a pair of back-to-back chapters at some point in the series; Hennessy has 2 (MI, GW).

Conclusions: In all honesty, despite this project being quite fun and fulfilling and of course, worth doing, I do not think I have any particularly insightful conclusions about the data beyond what I've already discussed. Ronan took up the largest share of the chapters and pages as expected, although I am not sure I expected this to be true by such a large margin. I also was surprised that Declan did not have more chapter/page time, but it is possible that his notable inclusion in chapters from other characters' POVs increases his prominence in the series (and I suppose this is probably true for all characters who frequently appear in chapters outside their perspective). As with TRC, the number of POVs expands as the series develops, often with the effect of increasing the scope of the story's implications, and perhaps, more importantly, showing the story from additional angles that contextualize and/or distort narrative established by other characters' perspectives. I hope you've enjoyed exploring the data as I have, and those interested in my methodology may continue reading below!

Methods:

Data collection was straightforward in the sense that I simply counted the pages in each chapter and then assigned each chapter to a character based on the POV represented. The POV character assignment was more difficult than it was for TRC, as TD3 has more omnisciently narrated chapters, which in itself is easy to categorize, but they often zoom in on or are 'biased' towards the experience of a particular character, so I had to make some decisions as to what, for me, constituted sufficient focus on a character’s internal narration and expression vs. omniscience. In the spreadsheet, I took notes on these more subjectively driven decisions. Again, you can view it here! It also contains data on whether the chapter is from an awake or dreaming POV, and has the first lines of each chapter, among which are some fun repeating patterns.

For bar graphs with dots, each dot represents a single chapter. You may also notice that the graphs are missing p-values from statistical tests this time around! This is because, since completing the TRC data, I’ve realized that such measures of uncertainty re: significant differences are not appropriate for my dataset, which is not a sample representing a population, but rather a complete group of chapters (so parametric tests are not necessarily helpful or valid). However, I still like to run the tests for my own amusement and to see what the results would be if this were a dataset for which ANOVA and contingency tests were appropriate, so I have standard deviation bars on the graphs where calculable (but no standard deviations in the text of the results section for legibility) as well as the p-values in tables at the end of this post for anyone also curious. I did still calculate the numbers of chapters and pages that would represent an equal distribution across POV characters, which are represented by the dashed lines on the relevant figures. I think this is helpful to visually gauge 'over-representation' and 'under-representation' of character POVs.

Below are the supplemental figures showing all character POVs rather than lumping some together in an 'other' category. The MI data in figure 4 is not expanded below because the chapters designated as 'other' were omniscient and thus would have remained in the same category.

And finally, here are the omitted p-values, if you'd like to pretend along with me that all the chapters in TD3 are not a complete set but rather a representative sample of a greater population of chapters that's out there in the universe. :) When I give a p-value below the 0.05 threshold but still write 'no significant differences amongst any combination of characters, I mean that the p-values generated for the comparisons between each possible pair of characters were all above 0.05, which are distinct from the overall p-value generated from the ANOVA.

#the dreamer trilogy #call down the hawk #mister impossible #greywaren #ronan lynch #declan lynch #jordan hennessy #carmen farooq-lane #long post #rchl #now onto more qualitative/linguistic things! xoxo

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malina-33 · 10 months

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Femme like you - Chapter 1

Summary: You are the new tour manager for Arctic Monkeys during The Car era. You are practically the only girl in the team, also younger than the rest (27), so your skills are immediately called into question. In particular, by the frontman who is not used to being led by a woman.

Word count: 3,1k

Warning: age gap

A/N: Hi, you all!!! I'm so thrilled and excited to do this kind of stuff, but it feels like I'm making my dream come true. This series won't be very long even though I have an eye-watering number of moments I want to release in this fic, but English isn't my first language and it's pretty tough to write in it (so if you find any mistakes don't be afraid to text me and correct). I spent a lot of time to write this small opening chapter, that’s why following parts won't appear regularly, but I promise to uptade them every 2-3 weeks! They will definitely be longer that the opener😉

I read a lot of works with Alex, 'cause my addiction doesn't seem to disappear, so this idea just popped in my head and I couldn't resist. Never thought that I would be an author, not a reader in Tumblr, but voila - here I am. I really expect you to love it❤️

And yes, I know that their current tour manager is Steven Champan, but for the story I changed it slightly, hope you won't mind :)

“James, seriously?” Alex looked away in bewilderment from the bottle of Hennessy to Ford.

“More than you can imagine” producer chuckled. “I will be with my family in Scotland, I haven’t seen them in a while, and she will replace me for the UK and European parts only, it’s about one and a half months”.

Turner looked him up and down with a displeased look, still sitting on the couch with a bottle in his hands “That’s ridiculous. She has never worked with us! She will break into all our well-established processes, not knowing the specifics of the work and will only interfere. We'll make it on our own, not the first time, man, huh?” Alex decided to soften his tone a little to appease his friend and cutely knitted his eyebrows.

“Al, you are being childish. C’mon, we have already agreed on everything, she is a good specialist, don't let yourself be deceived by her appearance” Ford threw a jacket over his shoulders, silently saying that the conversation is over.

“Just because she's your friend's daughter doesn't mean she's good!” The singer spat out the last argument hoping to reach out to the conscience of their producer.

“Give her a chance, you won't be disappointed” James said mysteriously, closing the door quietly behind him and leaving the disgruntled frontman alone with his obsessive thoughts.

***

You sat in your car in the parking lot in front of the Domino Records headquarters, nervously clutching a Starbucks cup. There were still 20 minutes before the meeting, but you arrived early. All the documents had already been signed, the agreements had been discussed, but the most thrilling moment remained - the meeting with the group itself and the technical crew.

When James Ford, your father's old friend from university and at the same time music producer for Arctic Monkeys, called you several weeks ago with an unusual request, you simply didn't have a chance to refuse. You've been dreaming of working in this industry since 16, especially since you adored this group and were at their concerts six times. Being their manager for one part of the 7th album tour sounded like a fantasy, but here you are, sitting in front of their label building, where you have a meeting with the musicians. If you caught the lucky girl syndrome, then you definitely didn’t want to let it go. At least not now.

From the trance into which you plunged by shaking coffee in the cup, you were brought out by the deafening creak of tires on asphalt. You immediately snapped out and looked in the rearview mirror. An elegant Cadillac whistled and stopped 3 parking lots away from you just passing the dividing line.

You weren't stupid not to realize whose car it was. The passenger got out, slamming the door sharply. He was wearing a beige trousers and matching jacket with black vest underneath, translucent red aviators were on despite a cloudy day. Paying no attention to your car and not even bothering to close his, a man quickly walked inside the building.

You followed the door closed behind Alex Turner itself with a blank look, finished your coffee in one gulp and also got out of the car, taking your purse from the passenger seat. Having heard about his "punctuality", you assumed that everyone else had already arrived, so you walked to the building as well. "There's no point in delaying this moment, let's start early" you bravely told yourself.

The studio in southwest London wasn't as big as you expected it to be. The guard pointed you to room 14, saying that you were already awaited. Inside, the bright corridors were hung with rare photographs, including images of early Monkeys' concerts. You smiled slightly as you looked at the photos of four young people laughing with their hands in their pockets. "Nice time" you thought.

You didn't really understand why you were so inflamed. You are all adults, lads have been warned about the change in management in advance so it won’t be a surprise for them, what could be the problem? You had enough work experience to know what to do, you were excellently good-looking and successful, then why did your palms sweat? Immersed in your thoughts you didn’t notice that you had reached the end of the corridor and stopped at the half-open door, from behind which quiet voices could be heard.

“Oi, she better buy me a bottle of beer on the way, my head hurts after yesterday. Why did I come so early, gosh?”

“It's been 5 minutes since you've been here, and you've already blown my mind’’. Seemed that it was Matt.

"I prefer to come sober to meetings scheduled in advance, but for the future I will keep in mind to see you no earlier than Tuesday, Mr. Turner”. Maybe it wasn’t the best greeting phrase, but you just couldn't resist. When you entered the room with these words, 7 surprised pairs of eyes met your figure. Alex, Matt and Nick were sitting on a leather sofa in the center of the room, Jamie was pouring water into a glass at a side table, Steven was sitting in a chair talking to Ben, who was reclining on the arm of this chair, behind them was a man whose name you didn’t know.

"I'm sorry," you quickly became embarrassed, realizing how inappropriate those words sounded. Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds, but was quickly interrupted by the awkward coughing of that same unfamiliar man. "Um guys, this is your new tour manager for these two months, Y/N Y/S" He said softly enough, stepping out from behind the chair and holding out his hand for you. "I'm Marcus, James' assistant, the rest you should know".

"Yeah, right, he told me about you, I'm very glad to meet you," and carefully shifting your gaze to the others you added "everyone".

You stood in your knee-length leather boots, denim shorts and an oversized cream-colored jacket not knowing what to do with the burning eyes on your persona.

"Actually, I brought a homemade cider as an ice-breaker, it's in my trunk, so after the official part of the meeting we can try it. Not beer, but still tasty," you said with an apologetic smile, trying your last attempt to ease the conversation. The room froze in silence once again, and in this moment Matt laughed out loud, slapping his knee and throwing head back on the headboard. Jamie and Nick joined him, smiling broadly, while Ben, Steven, and Marcus chuckled hoarsely as they looked at each other. Only Alex remained frowning as he continued to scan your figure.

"I like her already! Great move, miss Y/S" Matt said, obviously being amazed.

You breathed a sigh of relief as you sat down in the chair Marcus offered you. He was noticeably younger than the others, near your age, which immediately made you sympathize with him.

"Well, when we finally got to know each other, let's get down to business. As you all know James is on an unscheduled vacation due to family circumstances. Hence we are going to work with Miss Y/S in UK and Europe festivals, while I will assist her. I know that Y/N discussed with James all the main points about dates, places and stuff, but now we have to delve into details of the organization process itself. Ben and I will explain the tech part and the lads will share their preferences" Steven began the discussion by leaning a little closer to the center of your improvised circle. He seemed to be a very wise and at the same time charismatic man. Attractive, but platonically.

“Sorry, may I interrupt before we start” It sounded more like a statement from Alex. “How old are you, once again?"

"I'm 27, Mr. Turner. And let's make it clear, since this still raises questions. Yes, I'm quite young relative to you and indeed a stranger to your team. But I've known James for a long time, as well as your work, whose main fan I have been since 18. I have been in show business for 7 years now and worked with Maneskin at the very beginning of their career. It’s not difficult for me to provide my CV if necessary, but I’m here because I sincerely want to help my father's friend and ensure that you have the most comfortable atmosphere during your stay in Europe. I have an idea what it's like to be on tour for a year, I understand how tired you are, and that you need conditions for rest and creation. So I'll let you do your job without the interference and you’ll give me freedom to do my work properly, I'm sure we both do it very well, especially since you are not the only one, Mr. Turner, who can make a show out of nothing”. At these words the drummer whistled, turning to the gloomy vocalist, but you continued “I’m really extremely happy to be a part of Arctic Monkeys team, for me this is a great opportunity to test myself and work with such big people like you. So I don't see any problems in our interaction, taking into account that I'm here temporarily.

You glanced at the men with a soft, but tenacious look, catching your breath “Didn't seem to miss anything at this point, deal?”

Steven was the first to answer, smiling paternally at you and accepting your little speech. You also noticed that Turner shook his head, but smirked to himself, which relaxed your muscles a bit. If you didn't get along from the first sentence, then at least you can establish a normal business relationship. You understood that the nature of a rock star is unpredictable, following the development of the group and the change in the image of the frontman for many years, but you couldn't imagine that he would talk so irritably to new people. Yes, he certainly behaved ugly, but you also started the dialogue with a caustic comment. Apparently, you deserve each other.

After the temperature in the room dropped and everyone took a more relaxed posture, you began to discuss current tasks. Your first gig will be in Bristol on May 29th, so you have two weeks to get ready. In fact, everything has already been done even before the start of the whole tour. Now your duty is only to coordinate the setlists with the guys for each performance, to make sure that all agreements with venues are fulfilled, the rider is completed, the equipment is working properly, the buses are ordered, the hotels have confirmed the reservation, and the whole team has arrived safe and sound. Okay, maybe it's not so little, but you're ready for any challenge. This is your passion after all.

You will ride in a separate minivan with the management team, and not with the guys, which in general wasn’t a big surprise for you, but in hotels you will be provided with a separate room, unlike the rest of the staff, who live in double suits. You didn't know what caused such generosity, but you were pleased anyway. You talked for about an hour, agreeing to meet again at the sound check in a week, and then only before leaving for Bristol. During this time you will have to study all the venues, call the transport company and confirm the details of the trips.

Your meeting ended on a positive note, the guys were asking you about your life, your education and hobbies, you said that you had been dancing professionally for many years and even took up drumming at the university, to which Matt happily promised to give you lessons, triumphant that he finally met someone who doesn't play the guitar, but the drums.

“Be careful, Matthew, if it turns out that she is more talented than you, we’ll replace you without any hesitation. She looks better” Nick joked and immediately got the middle finger in response from the drummer. Even Alex genuinely smiled, looking back at the friend.

"Oh, don't worry, it's unlikely. But as for the cider I wasn't joking, at least I'm definitely good at that"

"Wait, did you make it yourself?" surprised Ben.

"Yes, I live in the suburbs of London and have my own small garden, I make cider for friends during the season"

"You know what, I'm already tired of this stuffy room, you say it's in your trunk?" Matt, confirming his status as the most talkative member of the group, stood up impatiently, stretching his stiff limbs.

"Yes, let's go and give it a try" you said, also getting up from your chair. “Who is with us?” you raised an eyebrow in question and the answer was six men who rose to their feet.

"Definitely need a smoke” murmured Alex in addition, patting his pockets for a pack of cigarettes.

“Damn, where did James find her?” you heard Jamie's question addressed to Steven as you left the room with Matt and couldn’t hold back a short, but self-satisfied smirk. "That's not the last ace in the hole, Jamie" flashed through your head.

"I'm asking the same question" but instead of Champan, the voice was given by Alex.

"Al, will you calm down today or not? Did yesterday's booze give you such a headache?" Cook hissed almost angrily.

But you didn’t hear the answer, moving away along the corridor to the exit.

***

When all the lads came out from the studio, you and Matt had already taken a wooden case with 12 bottles of cider out of the trunk of your white Range Rover and put it on the hood. Coming closer, Alex threw a jacket over his shoulders and took out cigarettes, offering you one.

"I don't smoke, thanks," you replied calmly. He arched an eyebrow in surprise and took a pipe of tobacco between his lips. “You better start, darling” He took a quick puff, blowing smoke in your face, and looked intently from under his eyelashes. Despite the sweet name, from his lips it sounded somehow humiliating. You didn't answer, turning around and taking one of the bottles, silently passing it to him. He thanked you, and you gave each man a bottle as well. "For the new leg of the tour! Cheers!" Steven exclaimed, raising the bottle in the air and you all clinked glasses together.

The eight of you stood in the parking lot next to your car. You and Marcus leaned on the hood, Chapman nestled next to your right, and the guys were in front of you. You stayed in pleasant silence, interrupted by the chirping of birds from a nearby square and breezes of the wind that swayed your styling. Satisfied sigh followed by Marcus and Jamie, which made you laugh cutely.

"Enjoy?" you asked playfully, taking a sip.

"Y/N, that's amazing! I’ve never thought our team would feel so acutely short of a personal alcohol supplier" Jamie savored the taste, taking small sips.

"It's only 6% alcohol, I brought this one on purpose, knowing that you will most likely be driving. But there is also 12% sort in my basement, so in case of anything, you know where to find me"

"Actually not, but for the sake of such a case, we will definitely get your address from James" Nick answered cheerfully.

You spent 20 more minutes talking about the process of making an apple brew and sharing your alcohol tastes. “What a topic to discuss” you hummed to yourself. Eventually you gave Ben, Marcus, Jamie, and Matt one more bottle, promising to bring more of 12% sort to the concert, and you were about to leave when suddenly your phone rang. A dark and mystical tune played from the back pocket of your shorts.

"Woah, that’s pretty old one" Alex said with unexpected liveliness.

"One of my favorites from yours" you replied quickly, pulling out the device. It was James. You decided to call him back when you would be alone, so you dropped the call, texting him that you would call back later.

"Hey Al, we haven't played it in a while. What do you think, mate?" Matt asked conspiratorially, giving him a little nudge on the shoulder.

"We’ll see, I think it's possible. NME will especially rejoice at this, still considering it insanely vulgar" the singer rolled his eyes, but couldn't help smiling.

"Isn't that right, Mr. Turner? Whose propeller is it then?" you grinned as you took an empty box and returned it to the trunk of the jeep.

"Miss Y/S, don't make me doubt your foresight as well" to your surprise, he came over to help you close the tailgate. You dusted your hands and shifted awkwardly from one foot to another, being locked between the car and the frontman. You could literally see wrinkles around his eyes and cider-wet lips that now were gently stirring.

"Who called?" the man asked more quietly than usual. "Uh, James, I think I should call him as soon as possible"

"Yeah, most likely" Turner reluctantly backed away from you, letting you through, and you walked to the driver's door.

"Well, guys, I was very glad to see you, I'm sure fruitful work awaits us!" you smiled reassuringly, swaying from heel to toe from jitters and excitement from upcoming events.

"See you in a bit, Miss Y/S, I will send you all our numbers and other necessary contacts tonight. Sleep enough these days, you will soon miss it" Steven winked and extended his hand to you for a handshake, so you answered him willingly.

“Goodbye, guys, see ya!” you only waved at other lads as you climbed onto the running board and sat inside the car. The Rover started with a pleasant growl, vibrating under your hands. You drove off, leaving the men in the parking lot, but noticing one fixed look of chocolate eyes in the rearview mirror. You attributed the recognition of the color of his eyes to a million views of concert photos on the Internet, but not to those few seconds near the trunk when you smelled his cigarette breath on your face.

That will be a roller-coaster indeed

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A/N: Please, let me know what do you think about this duo, what are you expecting from them, what do you want to read in the next chapter? Let's get to know each other better in comments - how long are you in fandom, what are your favorite type of fics and etc? Your feedback is my force to write, love you and stay tuned - a big adventure is going to happen 🤭❣️

I also publish the work on AO3:

#alex turner #arctic monkeys #alex turner imagine #alex turner fanfic #alex turner fic #alex turner x reader #alex turner x y/n #alex turner x you #am7 tour #the car #the car era #am7 era #matt helders #miles kane #jamie cook #nick o malley #alex turner fanfiction #femme like you fanfic

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crimeronan · 2 years

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can you talk about chronic illness themes in greywaren pretty please I’m so curious what you thought about the conclusion or lack therof

i've had this in my inbox for weeks and keep thinking about it and like. on the one hand i want to answer on the other hand i don't enjoy spending a lot of time talking about things i don't like. but i think i've nailed down the broad shape of my grievances wrt chronic illness real quick, so here's this and moving on

i think the first 2/3rds of greywaren were perfectly suited in tone to what dreamer trilogy had set up and there were Really good questions raised about matthew and jordan and declan and ronan and hennessy, i also think hennessy's arc (and the ronanessy culmination) was the only one that felt like it actually followed through on the chronic illness themes that had been set up. i was very very interested in jordan's thing about the act of creation keeping her awake, there's some good metaphors about artist survival there, tho ymmv. i know a lot of people with chronic fatigue aren't fond of it bc making art is Tiring and sometimes you Cannot Do It but tbh what i didn't get from jordan i got fine from hennessy so. that's all fine. then the last few chapters of the book take a hard transition into "now i have to wrap this whole universe up prettily to avoid rude tweets" and that apparently meant not having any messiness on the page, which is a shame because complex nuanced messiness is where stiefvater's writing most thrives.

adam and ronan's resolution was boring they didn't fix any of the things that were a problem wrt ronan's chronic illness and adam's Everything, joining souls in space is stupid, they already KNEW they loved each other, the love was not the PROBLEM, the problem was that they were on fundamentally incompatible life paths and loving each other DOES NOT MAKE THOSE COMPATIBLE.

declan and matthew's resolution was nonexistent, i'm actually Very Okay with the whole "matthew walks home" plotline but i needed his POV of that journey and i needed WAY more on the page from declan at the end there and i needed WAY more than "i can be fine relying on you guys bc bryde told me i should" when declan's treatment of matthew up til then had shown NO indication that matthew can EVER trust him.

bryde is the sickest person in the series and his end was far too ambiguous for my taste, especially when up to that point he and matthew had been interrogating the EXACT themes i'd wanted to see about what it means to be a dream and to be this kind of chronically ill. like we were almost somewhere there and then we just dropped everything about.... everything.

meanwhile adam is torn apart on the astral for days and days and days but wakes up fine and then bam, we flip forward 4 years and he's normal and there's no indication of any potential issues even tho there were themes traced all the way back to cdth about him and hennessy having similar chronic illnesses (thru lace metaphor). the epilogue firmly establishes that everyone is Better and that they all have stuff Figured Out Now and while i like knowing where people end up, i don't like a resolution that boils down to "and now we never need to struggle again."

i did not like greywaren's takes (or lack thereof) on chronic illness because it felt like we can't exist in a "joyful comfort read" because chronic illness is Bad and the author wants to avoid nasty tweets about doing Bad Things to characters.

i want to know what greywaren would have been if its main purpose had been to carry thru the series themes instead of to make trc fandom shut up and feel pleased about their blorbos and move on. stief talked about how she had to do a lot of rewriting with the dreamer trilogy up through greywaren bc she was so angry about being sick and. i want the angry book. i want the drafts that weren't pared down and rearranged and cut apart and spliced together to appease every normie person who's never felt constant pain or fatigue a day in their lives. the first two books were for me and will always have been for me, they are The Most Personal Books I Have Ever Consumed, but in order for greywaren to be for me, it would have had to Not be for certain people, and. well.

greywaren is for everyone.

so. shrug emoji. i guess.

#replies #greywaren #greywaren spoilers #greywaren negativity #another post that is NOT for stief's eyes do not tweet this at her or so help me god #greywaren meta

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twosroos · 2 years

Text

all grown up [ch. 8]

roos says ! first writing posted since moving into my dormmmm :D!! im very excited. anyway, hope u guys enjoyyy and pleaseeee leave feedback i love reading what people think >:)! (pls someone find me more bob gifs i feel bad having to use rhett-- and a soft reminder that reblogs mean more than likes!)

desc: the dagger squad being at the house starts to shake things up, especially for you and your siblings. Partly because they think you still hate Bob, but mostly because they're just worried about you.

fluff, a bit angsty?

notable characters: robert "bob" floyd, natasha "phoenix" trace

TWs: alcohol, cursing, mentions of past relationships, unhealthy coping mechanisms

ao3 link ! last chapter ! next chapter

Drinks are being passed around, your hands growing sore from pouring various bottles and grabbing cups in the mini-bar in the pool deck area. Avalon and Gisele help you by passing out the drinks to everyone, while Asher stays back because of his body’s inability to process alcohol. He eagerly takes a mocktail from you, though. In the back of your mind, you remember the day you'd found out about your brother's alcohol intolerance. He'd gotten extremely sick on his twenty-first. Though the both of you had been going drink-to-drink all night, you assumed he had too much.

Then he started to have severe chest pains, you could feel his quick heavy heartbeat against his shirt and see it in his throat, he was pale, flushed, and clammy all at the same time. Too ad onto that, for a few minutes he couldn't breathe or see properly, and then he passed out slumped on your then seventeen-year-old shoulder.

Yeah. It had been an interesting night.

Asher looks across the yard, murmuring something to his boyfriend-- Robyn, as he stares at Bob. Robyn hummed, smacking Asher's shoulder as he whispered, "It's been a decade, Ash. Maybe he's changed."

Asher gave an unimpressed shrug and you huffed, fishing a bottle of Tito's out from your mother's hands as you whipped around and tried to ignore your siblings. Even if you owed them an explanation, you weren't sure how ready you were to give one. To distract yourself, you quickly mix up a drink for Bob, Tito’s Lemonade. Something you'd noticed was his favorite. Dodging a stare from Gisele, you walk over and hand the cup to Bob, the Tito's still in hand.

"You make the best drinks," He smiles, a hand coming up to hold your arm as he says it.

"And you're already tipsy." You hum, tilting the bottle to top off his drink a bit more as a joke.

Bob goes to open his mouth, the words, "On you" leaving before PHoenix wolf whistles and you hear Fanboy snort, watching as Molly sticks her tongue out to Phoenix (who does it back) before speaking.

“Little Robert’s drinking alcohol!” Phoenix grins from where she lounges with her drink. She lifts her sunglasses and squints as if trying to get a better look from her spot only a few feet away from Bob and Fanboy.

Rooster, who's next to her, laughs along, a small smile as he speaks, “for real?”

“He’s always had alcohol?” You muse as you hand the Tito's to Avalon, so she can bring the bottle to your mom. The sliding door squeaks as Penny slips out, pushing Maverick and grinning at him when he sends her a look of 'what the fuck was that for?' Penny comes over to where you're standing, her hand balancing a bowl against her hip.

"He never takes anything to drink when he's at The Hard Deck." She hums and Bob huffs out a small laugh, adjusting his glasses as he looks up at you before casting his gaze slowly across the yard until he settles back on your frame. Molly curls against his side, her head resting on his shoulder as she happily accepts a drink from Avalon, a virgin martini in a small travel mug.

"I drank too much in high school." Bob laments, his accent coming out a bit thicker with the alcohol in his chest, "My mom found out the day I left for Bootcamp and her Hennessy was empty. She made me promise to stop drinking, so I did... at least until I turned twenty-one and it was legal to do. It's just a weird habit for me now to not drink anything. God, I swear working out more made me into a lightweight."

"You were al-co-mol-hall-tic," Molly says, thinking she's being matter-of-fact, but when the pilots start to giggle her face falls until Bob tells her the right pronunciation and she groans as she hides her face and kicks her foot out to splash Fanboy.

"Molly!" Genevieve whines from where your mother sits with her on a raft by Sarah and Ice, who sit on the edge of the pool next to Carole and Goose, MAverick joining them with a few different cups of various drinks he hands out.

"What, Gen?" Molly perks up.

"No roughhousing before dinner," Genevieve huffs, and in a perfect replica of her mother's voice she shouts, "It's bad for your digestion!"

"My digestion is too strong." Molly declares, crossing her arms, and Bob takes a chance to hand you his cup before he moves forward with Molly in one arm and she shrieks as he manages to grab her by the waist and chuck her up, sending her splashing the older adults on the other side of the pool.

"That was cruel!" Carole laughs, watching as Molly lights up.

"Again!" She screams, and Genevieve's sliding off the raft she's on, declaring it should be her turn instead. You hear the sliding door open, and glance over to see Jenny exiting the doorway with stacks of plates and such in her hands.

"Dinner's ready, guys! Hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs... and roasted veggies! We also have a bunch of chips and such!" Tom calls from where he's standing by the grill, and slowly people begin to make their way out of the pool. Bob gets one more throw of each kid in, Goose declaring he was gonna swim over and knock him out, which Maverick said was a terrible idea. As you walk back over to the bar, your mother catches your gaze and waves you over.

"I'm worried about your siblings and Rob." she whispers once you're in earshot, "Asher and Gisele are really mad at him, hon. Any reason why?"

"The last time I talked to them about Bob was right after he'd left for boot camp." You sigh, crossing your arms, "So they kinda hate him for me."

"But you don't hate him anymore?"

"Yeah, but the twins and Asher don't know we had a sort of heart-to-heart." You look over at your brother, watching as he kind of purposefully walks the long way through your yard so he doesn't have to be near Bob. Your chest tightens, blood boiling your skin in something akin to protectiveness.

"Okay. Let me know if I need to talk to sense into any of 'em." Your mom smiles, squeezing your arm, before leaving to go get food. Now that no one else is around, you make yourself a drink and tell yourself to keep calm and try your hardest to not want to kill everyone in your general vicinity. The alcohol will take the edge off, or so you hope.

"Hey," Halo's head pops around the little fence separating the bar from the rest of the pool area, and you glance up as you finish off adding some margarita mix to your tequila, scotch, whiskey, and basically every type of alcohol possible. It wasn't a coping mechanism, you swore to yourself, except it definitely was.

"Do you have any vegetarian stuff?" she asks and you hum, setting the Don Julio bottle back in its holder as you grab your drink and make your way over to where she anxiously rocks from foot to foot in her flip-flops and full body neon green bathing suit. It made her look super tan.

"Avalon doesn't eat red meat, so we might have some Beyond Burgers? Those plant-based ones?" You say, guiding her over to your house and letting her inside, "How long have you been vegetarian?"

"Since I was... nineteen? I got that red meat allergy from Lymes, so I just decided to become vegetarian because I had always wanted to. I would be vegan, but considering food in the Navy is limited I'd have to wait a long time before I could do that." She explains as you both enter the kitchen. Halo pauses by the table while you walk to the freezer and pop it open.

"Do you guys do those... what are they called, oh! MRE's! Do you guys have vegetarian ones?" You ask as you bend down and begin rummaging through various boxes and other assorted items. Your mom must've driven to Publix or Kroger because your local mom-and-pop grocer didn't have all of this stuff.

"Some are vegetarian-ish. But, not many that I've seen have been fully vegetarian. Maybe I missed 'em." She chuckles and then claps when you stand up with a box of plant-based burgers in hand.

"I'll have Tom throw these on the grill for you," You smile, and Halo nods.

"Thanks, and tell him I say thanks too! Isn't he Bob's dad?" Halo asks as you rip two out of the box and toss the box back in the freezer. As you hip bump it closed and carry the burgers in their plastic over to the backyard, you look back.

"Bob's stepdad." You muse and she nods, before quickly slipping out of the door and calling over to Tom with a grin. You look across the yard, eyes bouncing from group to group as they eat. Eventually, your eyes settle on Avalon and Gisele, who sit across from Aspen and Robyn. The look you're given by your brother makes you realize that, at some point, you'd have to have this conversation with them anyway.

Tom sets a plate Jenny made up for you in your hands and ushers you over, that all-knowing look in his eyes. It was something the majority of the adults in your life shared, an insane amount of observance.

You end up settling between Avalon and Robyn, knowing the two had purposefully left a seat open in that spot so they could act as buffers for you against your siblings. You secretly appreciate the sentiment.

"So." Aspen starts, "What's with Rob?"

You sigh, "Straight for it, huh?"

"We wanna know," Gisele sighs, "You're all over him, practically."

"That's a bit dramatic." Robyn hums, shoving fries in his mouth, Gisele sends a glare at him. You scoff, grabbing your drink and taking a long swig as you try to keep your face steeled against the strength of the alcohol in it. You probably should've made a normal martini instead.

"Well, he came back a couple of days ago. I was pissed he was here because I thought I hated him. I was mad at him for the shit he pulled before leaving for Bootcamp, as anyone would be. We got stuck in a storm and had an argument that led to us both being in tears, so I think we kinda worked it out." You explain, "I've spent time catching him up on things, and he's opened his heart to me about things he's gone through and such. We clicked back together and suddenly it's like... I dunno, I can breathe right again. He fits like a missing puzzle piece in this family and I knew that there was no way for me to completely avoid him... no matter how much I wanted to. And I'm glad I gave him a second chance."

Avalon pats your back twice, giving you a soft smile as she looks across the table at Aspen, "I'm glad you both could stop being mad at each other. You hadn't been the same after Rob left for camp, always so snippy and angry. It faded a bit when you went to college and made more friends there, but now I feel like you're finally coming back to us fully."

"Yeah," Gisele nods, "I agree with Av. Seeing you mix up drinks, laughing with the pilots... that wouldn't have happened eight years ago."

"That wouldn't have happened last year," Aspen butts in after taking a swig of his bet, "I'm just weary about you jumping back into a relationship."

"Especially after Mike," Gisele mumbles, a hand coming up to block the chips she's shoveled into her mouth. Robyn hums in agreeance, washing down his burger with what you think is just a normal soda. Next to you, Avalon nods as she folds her hands under her chin. Darting your eyes away from her, you watch across the table as Aspen pushes his salad around before he meets your eyes and speaks.

"Yeah, especially because Mike's back. Chris told me he got a job in Myrtle as a contractor. He's living in a hotel there when he has to work, and coming back home when he's off for more than a few days. Y/n, there's a high chance Mike will be at the party."

"Who cares?" You huff out a laugh, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in your gut or the way you suddenly feel a chill in the air, "If he even comes within ten feet of this party, someone is gonna knock him on his ass."

"And that's not what I meant about Mike," Gisele sighs as she picks up her drink and swirls it, a nervous happy you remember her doing since she was young, "You know how hard it was with Mike when he was away. He was only a few hours away, at most, and you could always call him or text him if you missed him. With Robby, you’re not gonna know what he's doing half the time when he’s days, even weeks, away from you. The Navy may only allot him like ten minutes to call, and that would be generous. You might have to stick to just emails. Y/n, I don't want to see your heart broken again.”

You look over to the pilots, watching as Hangman's blindfolded in front of the dartboard. Jenny is betting something while Tom shakes his head, and you can tell Hangman's gloating by the way Phoenix playfully shoves him to disorient him and Fanboy and Payback try to convince your mom to not make a bet on whatever's about to happen. Bob's watching, arms crossed over his bare chest as he leans over to your mom with some sort of explanation and she laughs.

"You've got the lovesick look, honey," Robyn hums, squeezing your shoulder, "Asher's told me he's afraid you'll be hurt, just like the rest of your siblings. But also, I know that they'd want you to be happy no matter what."

"Maybe wait a bit," Avalon hums, "That's what I had to do with Hannah. Now she's working towards being an admiral. We're praying that she'll get a station to stay at before we get married."

"Maybe." You hum internalizing what your siblings (plus Robyn) had said. It was all true. Mike was an asshole, and you'd been hurt by him for months (even before the split), and even if you knew you probably should wait for this relationship it was so exciting to feel like you were in love again. You felt every rushing emotion from high school throwing itself in your chest again, and when you look over again after sliding your plate away, it's no surprise to see Bob watching you.

What you would give to let yourself just fall into his arms. But it was too late, you'd promised you wouldn't go there. Now, you knew if you fell you'd never get back up. And that was absolutely terrifying. But you steel your heart, lock it up and throw away the key, so you can stand and walk over to his giddy smile as Hangman (after being spun around) narrowly misses a bullseye.

"That near bullseye was bullshit." Maverick announces and the pilots laugh, and you gaze across the yard to see your sisters, escorting Amelia around. The three girls are currently talking to Halo, Omaha, Harvard, Yale, and Payback at a table near the darts. Next to them sits Ice and Goose, who watch as Sarah and Carole attempt cornhole. Your mom and Jenny watch from the other team, throwing out tips, while Tom carries stuff inside with help from your siblings.

You glance back over when Maverick slaps a ten-dollar bill in Hangman's hand and cuffs his shoulder with a headshake as he makes his way over to where Penny sits off to the side with Phoenix, Coyote, and Fanboy. And when Hangman offers for someone else to play while he goes back in the pool, Bob meets your eyes.

"No." You immediately say and the party, or those who heard, start to laugh.

"Come on!" Bob shouts, wrapping an arm around your waist as he pulls you into his chest. You squeal, laughing as you fall against him and he smiles into the skin on your neck. He smells like pine and cinnamon, it makes you want to kiss him even more.

"One game, for me?" he begs, giving you puppy dog eyes that make you sigh dramatically before you nod.

"One game of darts." You declare and he cheers, untangling his arm from your waist to grab your hand and pull you over with him.

An hour, and maybe five games of darts and two drinks later, you find yourself settled in the pool. Bob had left to show most people where they'd be sleeping for the next few days, and now you sat with Phoenix, Fanboy, and Coyote in the pool as most everyone else had gone inside. It was super late now, nearing midnight, and though you knew you should be heading to bed since you had to be up at four, you couldn't find it in yourself to feel tired.

"So." Phoenix kicks her raft off the side of the pool and you look over as she drifts towards where you float aimlessly in your floaty.

"Hm?" You look over from where Coyote was showing you pictures of his baby cousin on his phone, his legs kicking idly in the water as he sat on the ledge next to Fanboy's raft.

"Bob?" She says and you give her a look, so she continues, "You have to have a crush on him or something."

"Oh please say you do, I've never seen him look at someone like that, not even Talia." Fanboy awes and you give an odd look.

"Who's Talia?" You ask and Coyote kicks Fanboy's raft, sending him drifting to the other side of the pool.

"No one important, she's his ex." Coyote quickly covers, but the way he stares over at Fanboy tells you something different. With a soft splash, Fanboy quickly dips into the water and then out of the pool. That alone tells you there's a lot more to the story.

"Talia," Phoenix hooks her leg onto the pole of the steps, just like you were doing, so she could stay near the conversation, "is a fucking bitch. It's not our place to tell what went down between them but if you need to know anything, just know that when Bob got hurt she didn't even ask anyone if he was okay. Never, not once."

You think back to the look in Bob's eyes when you'd told him about Mike, and note not only the protective look in it but the way he'd also seemed upset. You'd assumed it was a side effect of the anger, but maybe it was something else entirely.

"He doesn't talk about her. I think he kinda forced himself to forget her after the accident, but that's not important." Coyote waves a hand, "Why won't you make a move on Robby there?"

"For one, it's none of your business, but this stays between us. I'm worried that if I do those things, open my heart to him, and be vulnerable like that... something will happen. He'll get hurt or something. Being a pilot, even a WSO, is dangerous. I don't know if I'm able to be so open like that again." You sigh gently, tapping your feet along the edge of the pool, "He was my best friend for years, I can't lose him. It's selfish but I can't. Especially if we become more."

"Being in love with Navy is hard." Phoenix sighs, "but you and Rob have something special, I can see it. I'm not gonna push you towards him, hoping you'll fall in love but I don't know if It'll be as bad as you think it will be."

"I might just wait." You announce, eyes staring up to the stars. After maybe another half hour of pointless talking, Coyote announces he's off to bed, and you decide to get out too. Before you can fully leave though, Phoenix stops you, and what she says stays in your head for the rest of the night.

"I promise you, he loves you. It won't be a mistake."

#all grown up twosroos #top gun #top gun: maverick #top gun maverick #robert bob floyd #top gun fanfiction #robert bob floyd x reader #robert bob floyd x y/n #robert bob floyd x you #bob floyd x reader #bob floyd #robert floyd

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mariacallous · 2 months

Text

There is, it turns out, one phrase that perfectly captures modern Britain. When economist Duncan Weldon wrote a history of the country’s finances two years ago, it was called Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through. When, 23 years before that, politician and historian Peter Hennessy published a collection of his writing on politics in postwar Britain, it was titled Muddling Through. No racing ahead, please, we’re British.

In Steve Richards’s latest book, Turning Points: Crisis and Change in Modern Britain, From 1945 to Truss, the British journalist tries to identify the tidal shifts of the past eight decades in U.K. politics. Still, even he admits in his conclusion that “on the whole, turning points are reached, passed and the UK muddles on with the old familiar patterns still in place.”

He should know: Now mostly a TV presenter and columnist, Richards first became a political journalist in 1990. Since then, he has worked for several newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations, and was, for a time, political editor of left-leaning magazine the New Statesman. He’s not quite seen it all, but he has certainly witnessed a lot of it.

Frustratingly, he never quite takes his thesis to its logical conclusion. That Britain keeps failing to turn is a worthwhile observation, but why is entropy stronger there than elsewhere? The clues are strewn across the book, but he never quite picks up on them. Instead, he looks to the usual explanations: short institutional memories and the conservative nature of the political class.

Yet, page after page, Richards mentions the all-powerful British press, menacingly glaring at the political class from Fleet Street. In the book, prime ministers often do not do things because they fear the Daily Mail’s ire, and ministers are pushed to do things they’d rather avoid because they want to keep the Sun on their side.

British newspapers are especially ideological and more likely to stick to their political guns—low taxes, less regulation, social conservatism, Euroscepticism—than politicians themselves. Couldn’t this explain why things never quite change, and why Britain forever remains a small “c” conservative country? It’s the theory Richards accidentally puts forward, without ever reaching it himself.

Even today, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher still looms large in Westminster. All of Richards’s chapter titles are descriptive, but the one about Thatcher’s years in power is simply named “1979.” Everyone knows what happened then. She took a postwar consensus that favored or tolerated a strong union movement, reasonably high taxes, nationalized industries, and a healthy welfare state, and she tore it to pieces. She wasn’t afraid of unemployment or the occasionally cruel hand of the markets. She went to war against Argentina, and she won. She took on the miners, and she won. She fought three elections, and she won, and won, and won.

Thatcher’s real victory came years after her premiership. Once asked about her greatest achievement, she named “Tony Blair and New Labour”—the government that came into power in 1997, after 18 years of electoral failure. “We forced our opponents to change their minds,” she said. She was right: In order to win, Blair had to give up on many of Labour’s once-flagship policies. He embraced privatization and the promise of lower taxes, because the rules of the game had been changed for good.

As Richards points out, these rules are still in place. When current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave his first speech to the Conservatives’ annual conference last year, he praised the “party of the grocer’s daughter and the pharmacist’s son.” Sunak’s mother was a pharmacist. There are no prizes for guessing who was raised by a grocer.

None of this feels especially revelatory. Anyone with a passing knowledge of British history could tell you that Thatcher was influential. They could probably also tell you, as Richards does, that the Suez Crisis and the Iraq War were disquieting to the British psyche, as they revealed that the country never quite knew where it stood in the postwar world. A medium-sized power with grand ambitions and an illustrious past, always uncomfortably stuck between Europe and America, yadda yadda. We all followed the Brexit vote and the chaos it unleashed. We’re aware.

Still, Turning Points doesn’t merely identify those watershed moments. It also seeks to understand why Britain may turn, and why it often doesn’t. This is where things get interesting, but perhaps not in the way Richards intended.

Take Thatcher, again. As Richards points out, much of her success cannot solely be attributed to her political genius. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was formed in 1981 and, for two elections after that, split the center and left vote. In both 1983 and 1987, “more voters in total backed Labour and the SDP/Liberal Alliance … than Thatcher’s Conservative party.”

Why, then, was Thatcher allowed to cement such a legacy? Richards offers some clues: “With much of the media fully on board with the Thatcher revolution…”; “In the Conservative newspapers, the constant demand was for more tax cuts to be financed by spending cuts”; “Much of the media and quite a lot of voters were by then with the change-maker.”

It doesn’t stop there. Why did Blair so successfully manage to reshape the image of the Labour Party? “The media broadly accepted Tony Blair’s narrative that he led ‘New Labour’”; “He managed to persuade many columnists who might be otherwise sceptical that New Labour’s break with the past was an act of breathtaking radicalism in itself.”

Why, once elected, did Blair manage to instigate peace in Northern Ireland, something all his predecessors had failed to do? “Although highly complex … the process was safe in the sense that this was not an area where The Sun newspaper would erupt.” How did he, a few years later, successfully bring more investment into the national health service? “[E]ven the Daily Mail had started campaigning for higher pay for nurses.”

As for the Iraq War, what made Blair decide to side with the United States? “Blair wanted at some point to win a referendum on the euro so it was important as far as he was concerned to show that he was pro-American in order to build up credit with Rupert Murdoch and his newspapers.”

On and on it goes, all the way to Brexit, which was backed by a majority of newspapers, and to Liz Truss’s disastrous 44-day premiership, which nevertheless found many cheerleaders in the British press.

Amazingly, these newspapers do not feature in the book’s conclusion. They are mentioned at every juncture, in every chapter, yet their presence and influence are never meaningfully acknowledged. The media may well be a natural phenomenon like the weather, present but only ever in the background.

It isn’t really Richards’s fault: He has, after all, been a journalist in Britain for more than three decades. You could hardly give a fish a voice and complain that it doesn’t end up mentioning the water.

The British press campaigns for and against things and revels in its own power, bragging about turning certain politicians into rising stars and condemning others to obscurity. Most famous is perhaps “It’s The Sun Wot Won It,” the headline on the front page of the Sun after the Conservatives’ shock election victory in 1992.

These newspapers’ owners are, for the most part, Conservative and conservative. The Daily Mirror, a left-wing tabloid, was influential for a while, but it stood alone. Among the broadsheet newspapers, political opinions have always been somewhat more balanced, with the Independent and the Guardian respectively representing the center and the left, but their readership figures could never quite compete with the remarkably popular “red tops.”

As journalist Adrian Addison writes in Mail Men, the Daily Mail’s voice “does carry far beyond its loyal readers; it howls through Westminster corridors befuddling politicians … before whistling on through the nation’s newsrooms to help define the media agenda for the day.” In Stick It Up Your Punter!, journalists Chris Horrie and Peter Chippindale note that “the Sun had made Rupert Murdoch a political power in Britain,” and that it “was widely believed that Murdoch had an effective veto on any policy that might negatively affect his business empire.”

This isn’t hyperbole: In Where Power Lies, Lance Price described the way Blair and his senior advisor Alastair Campbell had to work with the media magnate. “If Murdoch were left to pursue his business interests in peace he would give Labour a fair wind,” he writes. The deal was never committed to paper, but it was there, and honored by both parties.

By merely noting newspapers’ influence instead of delving into how they became so influential, Richards never quite gets to the crux of the issue: Why did those big bad hacks manage to get away with it for so long?

Again, hints can be found in Turning Points. When discussing the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, Richards notes that “[c]ontingency planning was not part of the UK’s political culture with its focus on the short term and in its wariness of planning ahead.”

Some decades earlier, Richards explains, Thatcher’s drastic reforms could happen because “there was no grown-up conversation in the UK … about whether a modern state might have an important role to play and what form it should take.” Elsewhere, he laments the fact that Britons keep stubbornly refusing to learn from political events.

This is, or ought to be, the real thesis of Turning Points: Britain keeps muddling through, largely unchanged, because it cannot escape from the vicious circle governing it. The political class isn’t especially interested in the past and the lessons it can hold. It finds the idea of thinking deeply and precisely about the future to be a waste of time. Anything that happens today might just about be of interest, though it will probably be forgotten tomorrow.

The press, on the other hand, is opinionated and has a fierce memory. It doesn’t forgive or forget, and it is clear in its aims. More than inform its readers, it seeks to reshape the country in their image. Speaking of former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, journalist Peter Oborne once said that “he articulates the dreams, fears and hopes of socially insecure members of the suburban middle class.” In practice, this can look like support for “traditional” families, an inherent suspicion of local authorities, mistrusting anything that feels “foreign,” sneering at feminists, stoking anti-immigration sentiment, and fighting for good, honest, British values, whatever they are. These days, hatred of anything deemed “woke” is likely to feature in tabloid pages.

It’s a marriage made in heaven: Media owners and editors can—often rightly—feel like they are making the weather, and politicians get to absolve themselves of real responsibility.

But the landscape is beginning to change. British people do not read newspapers like they once did. Even the tabloids, once feared by all, are now shadows of their former selves. Richards’s argument is that the shape of the country’s political class has prevented it from ever being too swayed by events. His real conclusion, hiding in plain sight, is that the political class spent just under a century shackled to a press that distrusted any and all change, Thatcherism aside. The shackles are now coming loose. In the coming decades, Westminster will have to realize that it no longer needs to look behind its shoulder to check that Fleet Street is on board.

If Richards’s headline thesis is right, little will change. Memories will remain short, and lessons will remain unlearnt. Britain will keep muddling through. But if the press is indeed the culprit, Britain may finally be entering an era in which politicians no longer operate inside the unhelpful feedback loop they have been stuck in for a lifetime. Might some real turning points be just around the corner?

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yeetlegay · 2 years

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For fake love and hennessy! #15 & #27!!! Your posts and fic are my current addiction lately 😂❤️

15) Who is your favourite character to write?

Oof, that’s hard! I love writing both POVs pretty much equally to be honest. The side characters have also been really fun, especially Chan and Pete, and of course the handful of OCs thrown in the mix have been a blast too (Praya my beloved I’m so sorry for what those two gremlins did in chapter 8 and I hope the multiple pay raises make up for it 💖).

27) Do you have a folder for inspirational pics/gifs/aesthetics? Please share some!

Not really! I obviously have a ridiculous amount of screenshots from the show lol, and I get inspiration from some of the photo shoots Mile and Apo have done too. But I don’t really do things like moodboards because I just end up using them to avoid writing lol. I do include visual aids and my little emoji spoilers when I post about a new chapter, but those are almost always things I look up/choose when the chapter’s already done, not before or while I write it.

Below are some pics I’ve referenced in some way for the fic, mainly for clothing or callbacks to moments in the show.

Ask me about Fake Love and Hennessy!

#also sorry this is late anon! and glad you’re enjoying the fic/shitposting 💖#yeetle asks #pretty woman au #ask game: flh

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seavoice · 10 months

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16 and 22!!

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

adam and ronan being fully functional teenage parents to human child opal...dark days. and sanding away trc characters' assholery! i also just in general don't get the appeal of non-magical aus, but that's a firmly personal taste thing

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

there is sooooo much in trc that fits this. in no particular order: jordan and hennessy's fucking insane backstory. lynch family fuckery especially the fact that declan and ronan were living their own private nightmares throughout their childhood. batshit crazy DREAM lore. implied fairy market shenanigans, that whole time period from when niall gave up his memories till he gets killed is so fascinating for me. recently i reread the gwenllian and artemus chapters from trk and i'm so so so intrigued by that whole deal (but this one i can understand not being so popular lol). aurora's whole deal 😔

i mean fandom, but tbh i also wish canon itself went deeper into these.

#thank you ❤️#asks #thedreamthieves

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neurosses · 7 months

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And how was it the second time

anon, this is a thesis type question that I will attempt to answer succinctly <3

I was reading it to re-familiarize with Jordan and Hennessy primarily because I want to write them in a future fic, and it (it being the Dreamer Trilogy) is so good... when you set expectations.

Call Down the Hawk is really good book! I love all the Lynch family dynamics and learning about Hennessy's circle of clones (I love you, Jordan! Woman who wants to live her own life! Who wants a career and romance and to be great!); tons of iconic imagery, like Matthew looking over the Potomac River, or Hennessy drowning in night-wash, or Hennessy and Ronan reiterating over Hennessy's trauma in Lindenmere. Ronan's insecurity about his relationship with Adam is such a ghost in the machine, visible in all/most of the decisions he makes in the book/series. His friendship with Hennessy — two assholes who are drowning, out of hope, left behind (a fate both prescribed by the world and by themselves) — was incredible.

The worst part of it was all the rumors about Bryde; I understand that Ronan created the rumors, but they became really tedious. Also, (personal opinion) but the Liliana chapters were really, really hard to get through.

Mister Impossible is alright. I loved how it took us down the road of Hennessy and Ronan's indoctrination into a cult, and the changing settings as a cool backdrop for Hennessy and Ronan's fraught, dark friendship. Matthew's arc was incredible. Jordan and Hennessy's character development and changing relationality to each other was lovely (Hennessy's memories of her mother and the highway scene where she pushes Jordan away are easily some of the best scenes between TDT/TRC). I loved the idea of Declan, Jordan and Matthew's new lives unfolding in Boston. And Ronan's self-implosion at the end when he pushes away everyone he cares about (Declan, Adam, Hennessy, Matthew implicitly) trying to play hero to an idealized narrative he created via Bryde was iconic, even though I was screaming at him <3

However: HATED Bryde + HATED the Moderators in general. Carmen Farooq-Lane had a lot of potential (Declan Lynch brand of sister-daughter trauma FR) but she wasn't written well enough.

Greywaren is... not good, especially the second half. But it's such a lore-dump of information and some chapters were incredibly beautiful. The Numquam Solas dream. Hennessy's self-actualization as an artist and dreamer. Jordan and Declan's incredible romance. Every single Mór and Niall flashback (they were so mutually delusional — the unreliable narration! ah!!). Ronan and Adam being wanted, being wanted, being wanted. I was even charmed by the Hennessy/Farooq-Lane romance because I wanted so badly for Hennessy to try at love, even if I didn't personally care that much about Farooq-Lane.

However, the ending is very rushed. Matthew's arc was cut short IMO and there should've been more Lynch-on-Lynch confrontation in general after both that betrayal but also because of the way things ended off between the three brothers at the end of MI. A proper Ronan and Hennessy was due, also! Declan being Niall's favorite is just a lie to me and if Maggie Stiefvater was going to do it that way at all, @friendofcars suggested she ought to have leaned into the self-iterating cyclical bleakness of it — which I totally agreed with! The Visionary lore felt cluttered and wasted because the sweet-metal lore was both already there and also better. Psychics could've and should've been used to predict the apocalypse. Nathan was a dumb and ill-thought-up villain. Mór and the New Fenian living at the Barns was a hate crime against me personally. Ugh!

Overall, I would classify the series as good-bad. It's bad but also good but also bad but also good.

#trc/tdt meta #self-tagging so i can find this laters #asks #anon #thanks for asking! i love thinking abt trc/tdt

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nialltlynch · 2 years

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hii I read ur fic on ao3 “solipsism falsified” & it was v beautifully written and i was just very obsessed with the fact that you titled it that bc I haven’t seen anyone else talk about ronan’s solipsistic tendencies and fears which seemed very present in gw to me (was he awake or was he dreaming. the endless ronan’s in the mirror. on and on and so forth) and its something I deeply relate to and Feel a lot about so it just excited me to see someone else touch on it. guess I was wondering if u had any other thoughts on it cuz I could talk for hours about it - the ayhuasca-trip-ego-death-level-insanity that was the first few chapters of him in the sweetmetal sea, him remembering parts of himself by watching jordan and others, hennessy finding him and grounding him in his moment of terror, and the conclusion of him deciding who he is…. did it make u as insane as it made me

(also I’m on anon cuz my fandom blog is a sideblog but it’s @thotforest )

goddddddd okay hi sorry this took me a minute to respond i was letting it percolate you know how it is (and sorry AGAIN because my thoughts. are all over the place. so much for percolating lol)

of all the things in tdt i do feel like this was a theme or question or motif or whatever that held up all the way through !!! the question of what, if anything, exists outside of onself was presented in such an interesting way and i think it's present in all dreamers but ESPECIALLY ronan given his whole. yknow. thibg. i loved his gradual descent into isolation and the realization of the thinness of reality!! super compelling!! like!! he was a king!! he had a kingdom of his own making!! BUT AT WHAT COST ?? the tension between the enormity of What Ronan Is versus the intensity of What Ronan Knows and how these two things often conflict but still point to the same bleak possibility: maybe he is all there ever was and is and will be. and it's sooooo satisfying how the book teases this possibility but consistently dismisses it. tastefully balanced. loved that tension. (that might be more a craft thing but it's also a theming thing and it's sooooo good).

oh also the MIRRORS! the PORTRAITS! in attempting to reference the self through the self you only ever see what youre willing to look at WHICH will always be biased and incomplete. there's such an emphasis on knowing throughout this book. deep meaningful relationships are made or broken on how much the characters know one another and that in itself is such a response. experience!! is a tapestry!! of memory!! and history!! and yes!! your reality is woven by your hand!! but there are countless other people intersecting and weaving along with you.

anyway omg im so sorry i don't know that this has anything to do at all with what you were talking about. i hope you have a lovely night / day / week 🥰🥰

#asks and answers #i haven't had a cohesive thought in one thousand years.........#i am compelled by this so much tho #thanks for asking #really let the hamster wheel in my head go SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK #greywaren spoilers

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iammistressofmyfate · 1 year

Text

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Jordan/Declan Lynch, Carmen Farooq-Lane/Hennessy, Matthew Lynch/OC

Tags: Kid Fic, Magic, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Established Relationship, Adulthood, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Found Family, Family Love, Grief/Mourning, Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Greywaren Spoilers, Running Away, Piercings, Tattoos, Mentions of Death, Vomiting, Minor Injuries, Coming of Age, Anal Sex, Mentions of Depression

Summary: The sample size was small, but literally everyone Ronan knew, besides Hennessy and Carmen Farooq-Lane, were having babies. He didn’t necessarily consider himself the baby having type. Most people would look at him and think that he would be the one to drop said baby. He would be the first to say that his lifestyle was not necessarily accommodating to a baby. But nonetheless…Ronan Lynch wanted a baby

The one in which Lindenmere manifests a baby and catapults Ronan and Adam into Parenthood

Excerpt:

The first few months of Aoife being home was a whirlwind.

Everything that Adam and Ronan had discussed around a theoretical child now had to come to some kind of fruition. This included talking to the other Lynches.

“We need to talk to Declan,” Adam said, almost three weeks into having Aoife at home. “We can’t hide her forever.”

“I know,” Ronan replied, fists pressed to the kitchen countertop. “I don’t want to hide her.”

“Whatever Declan says, we’ll deal with it together. And at the end of the day, we’re adults who can make our own decisions. I can get her a birth certificate and a social security number just as well as he can.”

Ronan had known for a long time that Declan and Adam didn’t have the warmest of relationships. This was partially his fault, for having been so angry at his brother for so long. They’d reconciled and their relationship was better than it had been in years, but Adam and Declan’s relationship wasn’t so quick to be repaired.

The two of them were cordial and tolerated one another. Their relationship had warmed somewhat, especially as Declan had seen how happy Adam and Ronan were together. Jordan and Adam got on like a house on fire, which helped.

[Chapter Seven]

[The Beginning]

#pynch #ronan lynch #adam parrish #bluesy #blue sargent #richard campbell gansey iii #jordeclan #jordan hennessy #declan lynch #kid fic #the dreamer trilogy #the raven cycle #my writing #fanfiction

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andyjwaldron · 5 months

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ANDY WROTE ABOUT GOOD ALBUMS FOR HIS JOB

End-of-year list season is a big stinkin' deal over at Rough Trade. Listening back to the previous twelve months' worth of releases not only became a clear delineation of time passing (especially during the pandemic that kept us asking, "Oh, wait, what month is it again?") but it was also great for Andy when he worked there, as staff were asked to write about a few albums that really stuck with them.

Plus, it's always refreshing for a record store employee to provide a solicited opinion, rather than the usual unsolicited comment while ringing you up.

Here are some blurbs Andy wrote for Rough Trade about LPs from SASMI, Bartees Strange, Little Hag, Mitski, and Illuminati Hotties:

SASAMI - Squeeze

In the same way one realizes working retail can seem like you're creating sand mandalas (i.e., organizing LPs in the morning), knowing full well how ephemeral they can be (finding Sheryl Crow in the Metal section at night), the turbulent start to the 2020s has proven that, despite the best efforts to make sense, everything is messy now. I've held onto SASAMI's Squeeze in the same way we grasp for something steady when the boat starts swaying.

In a little over a half hour, hard truths are thrown down (the systematic aggression detailed in "Skin a Rat") and then processed ("I tried to understand," "Don’t wanna agonize, just say it") and met with earned affirmations ("I want you to know you're not alone…you can always call me home"). The guitars that accompany these sentiments shred, strum, and surround the listener – almost swallowing us whole. By the time "Not a Love Song" arrives, the waves of distortion become still enough to see ourselves in the reflection.

Writer Michelle Hyun Kim put it best: In "[bringing] seemingly disparate elements together, finding slippery ways to be both/and, neither/nor, between/outside in all categories," SASAMI meets a messy world with messy creation – gleefully collapsing genre with artists who know a thing or two about frustrating binaries (Patti Harrison, No Home, Rin Kim, Vagabon, Mitski, Andrew Thomas Huang). Squeeze recognizes those who've worked hard on themselves and the world around them and gets drinks with them afterward to celebrate: a beautiful, beautiful sight. (x)

Bartees Strange - Farm to Table

Building on the promise of his first album, Live Forever, our On the Rise artist Bartees Strange carries a fiery ambition throughout his next chapter, Farm to Table. It lights up the dance floor on "Wretched" and "Cosigns" and powers the fanfare of my personal song of the year, "Heavy Heart." It becomes a campfire that warms the quieter second half, carrying the heartbreaking ode to Gianna Floyd ("Hold the Line") to the closing, cyclical singalong, "Hennessy."

It's been exciting watching artists of my generation make work reflective of our fickle upbringing; the way we've watched genre break down, earnestness break through, and connection rise above all other priorities. And while Farm to Table may seem like a 4AD fever dream (from the belt and croon of TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe to the inertia of The National's most anthemic moments), make no mistake: Strange's first LP with the storied label marks a young, bold new moment in capital I capital R Indie Rock™ – one whose flame won't go out anytime soon. (x)

Little Hag - Leash

Take a heaping spoonful of Liz Phair's down-to-earth humor, a touch of Elvis Costello's cutting attitude, and a splash of Jeff Buckley's killer vibrato, and you get Little Hag's Leash, one of the most exciting releases to come from Bar-None Records in recent memory. Avery Mandeville, the NJ-based songwriter behind Little Hag, may be one of the legendary indie label's newest signees, but she's been honing her unique knack for catchy and sardonic tales of her self-described "absurd and profane occurrences of being a woman" for the better part of the past decade. Her lyrics deliver the anthemic quality from other accomplished musicians who have emerged from the Garden State. However, the power that drives them is less "We gotta get outta here!" and more "I'm stuck here… now what?" While their other digital-exclusive releases that came out in the past year (Whatever Happened to Avery Jane? and Breakfast) are worth adding to your playlists, Leash, their first album full of new material for Bar-None, is next level for Little Hag. Stories bearing weighty text messages ("The Whole World," "Cherry," "Red"), dangerous and disappointing men ("My Last Name," "Get Real!"), and self-defense weaponry ("Brass Knuckle Keychain") are conveyed with an urgency matched by a skilled rhythm section that rips. Sure, these eleven tracks are told by a singular voice, but the universality of both the shit that they’ve gone through and how she's powered through all of it makes a vital promise for anyone who listens: crank this up, and you'll feel less lonely. (x)

Mitski - Laurel Hell

The new wave nods of Mitski's Laurel Hell come in spades; not just in its production (where uptempo numbers like "Should've Been Me" navigate the liveliness of ABC and moodier tracks like "Working for the Knife" find kinship with Peter Gabriel's self-titled era) but also the paranoia and devotion beneath the sheen (the album starts with "Let's step carefully into the dark / Once we're in, I'll remember my way around" and nearly ends with "I'm standing in the dark / Looking up into our room / Where you'll be waiting for me").

In meeting acrobatic arrangements with clear lyricism across five records, the 32-year-old songwriter has proven to be one of her generations' strongest craftspeople. The difference now on her sixth is how a wide-eyed weariness emerges in a familiar fashion to the era Mitski references, how the push-and-pull between partners can stand in for the heart and mind… or the artist and the consumer: "I give it up to you / I surrender." (x)

Illuminati Hotties - Let Me Do One More

At times in-your-face like an unexpected conversation from a hilarious stranger at a dive bar, while at other times contemplative, standing beside you and huddling for heat during a smoke break, Let Me Do One More was the perfect buddy to have during a year of bumpy restarts. My favorite albums have historically become teaching moments, usually by artists getting by despite constraints both internal and external, and this album finds the endlessly-talented Sarah Tudzin doing her best in trying relationships with the personal ("Growth") and political ("Threatening Each Other re: Capitalism"). These songs truly helped me find warmth through the uneven sway of 2021. (x)

***

You can go back home by clicking here.

#does.a.lot #rough.trade

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pankowfruitsnacks · 2 years

Text

free falling (r.p)

chapter eight

summary: Hennessy Buchanan was terrified to fall in love, constantly living in the aftermath of her parents divorce and a toxic relationship. what happens when she meets Rudy, an highly successful actor, willing to change her mind? (series master list)

Warnings: smut (oral fem receiving, oral male receiving, light chocking, pretty vanilla and soft)

┏━━━━༻❁༺━━━━┓ The trip to IKEA was uneventful despite the tension between the pair. Rudy loved watching Nessa explore every aisle with a child like wonder. She picked out a simple box frame to match the other furniture left in the apartment. Unfortunately it wouldn't come in until Friday, so she would have to make-do with the leather couch.

Now Nessa sat in Rudy's car screaming along to every song that came through the car radio. "I've been waiting so long, to be where I'm going. In the sunshine of your love.

"Rudy beamed at her carefree spirit. Not to mention the fact he knew his favorites. Elaine knew all the classic. The ones that would go down in history. But Hennessy, she knew the songs that made Rudy feel joy, the ones he remembers blasting with his brothers as kids. All he could do was smile.

Suddenly, the girl slowly turns down the radio and looks at him. Her blue eyes full of life and hope.

"What's up, Ness?" He sensed she wanted to speak, but saw the hesitance in her tightened lips.

"Thank you."

"Ness, there is no need to thank me." He let out a small sigh. Part of it came from frustration due to her constant need to thank him.

"But I am thankful for everything you have done." Her eyes focused on the road ahead. "I just want you to know that."

As a gesture to calm her down, Rudy subtly grabbed her hand, intertwining their fingers. She pressed a chaste kiss to the back of his wrist, grinning before resting her cheek on it. "You're a sweet, sweet girl. It's my pleasure that I've had to the chance to know you."

Her hair graced Rudy's skin, sending goosebumps down his arm. "Really?"

"Yea." All he could do was tap her head with his, leaning in close for a mere second. "How are you doing?"

"You ask me that all the time." Nessa's eyes were glued the intertwined fingers. The feeling was bizarre to her. Aiden rarely held her hand after the first year. She almost forgot the feeling.

"Because I want to know." A soft smile played on her lips.

"I'm okay." He gave her side eye, not believing it fully. "Really, Rudy. Just big changes. I never thought things would change. And now that they have, I'm not sure if I really wanted it to.

"Confusion filled the man. "Why wouldn't you want it to change?" How could someone like her, with all her hopes and dreams, want a shitty excuse for a life? The thought itself baffled him. Especially after he experienced the purest form of joy in her eyes.

An exhausted sigh left her lips. He wouldn't understand. That life was the norm for her. She always knew what to expect. Nessa knew what every twitch in Aiden's facial expressions or the subtle change in tone of voice, all hidden behind a smile. In some odd way, she felt free to do as she pleased, well knowing her limits. Now Nessa had no clue in how to handle herself, unsure of how far was too far. That made it more complicated. Her head knew she was better and safer now than she has ever been. But her heart beat stuttered with every step she took in this new direction. "It's complicated. I don't understand it all."

"Clearly." Rudy huffed, quickly pulling his hand away before crushing hers.

The loss of touch affected her. But the worse feeling was the silence the filled her mind. He probably thought she was some dumb blonde who doesn't know what's good. Maybe he believed she needed saving and that's why he wanted to be friends with her? Her mind creates a million and one scenarios before her next breath.

Nessa let her hand fall on the console. "Sorry?"

Rudy wanted to be angry. The rage he gained the moment he met her. Not at her, but everything that happened to her. He slipped his hand back into hers. "No. I am sorry. You're right. I don't understand. It makes me angry that I don't."

"I promise, I'm trying. It was three years." A soft smile played her lips while she did her best to push down the good memories as they surfaced. "Three years of good and bad."

"I'm sure it was." The guilt rushed through his finger tips as he rubbed his thumb in circles on her skin. She sensed he felt bad and knew it was because she decided to open up her mouth. "I know things are confusing and changing and I guess that's why I am always checking in. I'm processing my own feelings about it all. Then with you in the picture. I mean now that I am getting to know you."

"I mean this with the most respect possible. This is not your problem. You aren't brother or even Drew for that matter." Her tone managed to stay level, but not hiding the deeper emotions in the background. "Thank you for caring, but asking about it constantly sucks. Just a reminder."

It was comforting always having him around, but somewhere between then and now, Rudy stopped treating her as a person, more so, someone to take care of. "I don't know what else to say other than sorry. I don't know how to be a friend for you through all of this."

"Start with that. Being my friend through it all. I'll bring it up when I feel like it and am ready. I'm not saying you can't worry and care because I can't control that, but just stay by my side and be there." She turned to flash a smile at him as he placed the car in park. "I really like having you around."

"I can do that."

With that, Nessa leaned in and pressed her lips against his. There was no rush or dying urgency to do that other than it was a perfect moment. And the fact that she wanted to forget the previous conversation.

Rudy's hand slipped to the side of her cheek, deepening the kiss. He was so gently with her, yet it hit her all at once with a great force. "Thank you." She placed one small kiss to the corner of his mouth before pulling back to notice the swelling of his lips.

"I like kissing you, Miss Hennessy." He pulled her back. She slowly slipped into the driver's seat, allowing him to wrap her in his arms. "Could stay like this forever." He mumbled.

Nessa nodded, letting her fingers twist into the hairs on the back of his neck. "I think I have some time." Leaning in once more. This time with more passion.

Rudy swiped his tongue against her bottom lip, begging for entrance. She smiled into him, denying his request. "Please." He muttered, but she didn't budge. Nessa loved playing this game and she could do it for hours. All just to get a kick out him. Rile him up. But he would have none of it.

He shifted his grip to her waist, almost forcing her to straddle him. If she wanted to play games and tease him, he was very much adequate to playing along. Rudy slightly bucked his hips, pressing his grown bulge against her crotch. Her lips parted allowing his tongue to push back the gasp of air dying to escape.

"Rudy." She moans while pushing herself down, attempting to gain some form of friction.

The steam from their bodies began to stick to the windows. It seemed to be colder in the complex parking garage, but the warmth from Rudy alone could keep the two warm for a thousand winters. "You want me to fuck you in the back seat of my car like a whore? So needy you couldn't wait till we got upstairs, huh?" She nodded as they both shifted towards the back.

Nessa felt on fire as he began to trail kisses down her neck, slowly sucking on her sweet spot. Rudy grinned as she moaned his name once more. His fingers toyed with the hem of her shirt. "Need to see you, pretty girl.

"Nessa's face reddened, complying to his wishes. His hands automatically went to her breast. Tugging and pressing them together, giving her some form of pleasure. Her hips rolled on top Rudy's, allowing both the friction they desperately close. Rudy's breathing hitch as he slipped her out of her bra, closing his lips around the nipple. "Feels so good." She whispered. "Need more.

"Rudy took his time trailing the kisses back up, nibbling on her ear. "Your wish is my command, princess." In seconds, both their clothing was discarded. His breath lingering on her core.

Nessa was in a state of pure bliss as his tongue lapped the fold teasing her. Wrapping her legs around his neck, Nessa pulled her hips closer. The most pornographic sound left her lips causing Rudy to moan against her clit. The vibration could be felt throughout her whole body.

He slipped two fingers in without any warning, still rolling her clit softly between his teeth. "Look at me." She demanded to see his icy blue eyes that were now clouded with lust.

He loved the way she wasn't scared to take control. It turned him on more than he thought was possible. His eyes looked up through his eye lashes catching a glimpse of a smirk on her face. Rudy felt like putty in her hands. He picked up pace as he felt her clench around his fingers. "I'm close." She stuttered out, trying to maintain some form of control as the knot in her stomach built up.

"Please." He groaned. "Cum for me, baby." She released her pleasure, letting out a scream. Her body radiated every ounce of heat. The beads of sweat clinging to her skin. Rudy pumped his fingers a few more times, letting her ride out her high before completely removing them. Rudy tasted her sweet arousal on his fingers, grinning before turning his attention back to Nessa. "You did so well."

"Your turn" Rudy groaned with pleasure as she slipped off his boxers and stared at his member. She felt the drool pool in mouth and wetness fill between her legs. "I wanna make you feel just as good as you made me.

"Nessa's hand wrapped around his shaft as she began to kitty lick the tip. She could feel the power she held when his body jerked at the contact. "Take it, Ness." She willingly obliged, slipping him in. Without realizing it, Nessa began to grind on his thigh. The action drove Rudy wild. So he pressed his knee upward giving her some form friction.

She moaned, feeling him hit the back of her throat. Rudy placed a hand on the back of her neck, encouraging her to go even further. The gags filled the car, causing the heat to grow even more. Nessa allowed her fingers to tease his balls as she sense him nearing his orgasm. She was close to her second one as well, but managed to focus on his climax solely. "I'm gonna-". Rudy threw his head back once more as he released.

Nessa never removed her mouth, allowing his load to hit her stomach. Rudy was in awe. He pulled her face towards him, noticing a little bit of cum that dripped out the corner of her mouth. He simply kissed it away, causing her to smile. She looked tan through, yet absolutely beautiful and this was just the start.

The two sat in the back seat of the car tangled up together and sharing long kisses. Nessa was trying to catch her breath when Rudy flipped her on to her back. Her breathing got caught in her throat, excitement growing quickly once again.

"Something about being in the back seat like this reminds me of high school." He chuckled.

"Oh they joys to be sixteen once more." He planted a kiss to her, rolled on a condom, then lined himself up.

"You okay with this?" Nessa nodded. "I need your words, sweetheart."

"Yes please."

He grinned. "So polite." Rudy inserted himself fully, enjoying her walls pulsating around. "So pretty."

"Thank you." Rudy looked at her with the upmost adoration, then began pumping back and forth. The girl beneath him adjusted herself to let him hit the right spot. His hand went to her throat to lightly hold her down.

"This okay?" He asked once more. The way he continuously sought her consent made her smile.

"Yes, Rudy." The bubble building in her belly again as he hit all the right spots.

"I feel you're close." The way he already knew her body and the signs she showed shocked both of them. "Me too." He mumbled, sucking on the soft skin behind her ear. "Come with me." Rudy cooed.

"Please." He pounded harder, rubbing a thumb in circles over her nerves.

"Ready?" He back a count down before groaning and releasing himself in the condom in her.

Watching pool over his now soft dick was enough to send him to a bliss. They just stayed there, not moving, staring into one another's eyes. She felt seen. For the first time in a long time her needs were met. Aiden stopped caring what she wanted years ago. Only seeking his own pleasures then disregarding hers. It felt nice.

Rudy stayed in her as he pulled her upwards into a warm embrace. Nessa rested a cheek on his shoulder. A stray tear slipped from her eye. "Did I hurt you?" She mumbled a plain 'no'. "I felt that tear."

"It was good, Rudy. Absolutely perfect." She pulled back to look into his eyes once more. They were soft and comforting. "Thank you."

All he wanted to was kiss her, but they needed to get out of the car. It's been too long and some nosy person would be sure to knock on the window soon. "Let's get dressed and we can go up to mine and just watch some movies and popcorn."

"Sounds good." Neither of them moved. The feeling of her just sitting around him was addicting. Nessa read his mind. "Can we just sit like this upstairs? I like being close to you." Her mind spoke before she could even process what she just said. And when it finally hit her, her cheeks reddened.

He breathed out a soft beg or please before slipping out. The loss of connection made the girl whimper. Rudy gently rubbed his hand over her head. "I know, I know.

"Nessa quickly shuffled her clothes back on, while simultaneously helping Rudy with his. He loved the way she helped him with the simple task but it made him feel cared for. All he wanted to was care for her and protect what was left her genuine and precious soul. He desperately wanted to see it grown and blossom to its full potential.

Nessa on the other hand nearly wanted to run and hide. Something about opening up like she has been made her want to curl into a ball and disappear. But there was no denying the events have been equally as good. It confused her heart to be hooked on someone she just met and so soon after ending things with someone longtime. She still never got her closure with knowing his response. That scared her the most. Did it hurt him like it hurt her? She knows he probably has someone else, he did while they were dating, but did he regret it? So many questions filled her brain.

"Come back to me, Hennessy." Rudy placed a finger beneath her chin, gaining her attention once more. "There you are. I said we could take a shower then turn something on."

"I might fall asleep, if I'm being honest." She chuckled.

"I have some cozy pajama pants you could borrow. Knocks me out within seconds."

"You want me to fall asleep or something?" She cocks an eyebrow.

"It would be pretty boring if you stayed awake while I got my beauty sleep."

She wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to carry her out of the car. Kissing him once more before being placed on the ground.

"Let's go clean up." He slowly dragged her by the hand to the entrance. ┗━━━━༻❁༺━━━━┛

A/n: sorry it's been a long time since I've updated free falling. Been working on some other things and was extremely burnt out. But I'm back! Hope you enjoyed. Likes, comments, and re-blogs are appreciated and welcomed

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