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baka-monarch · 3 years

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The Borrower Spy

I did that thing I said I was gonna do- the Borrower Me thing- I did it- here it is- (btw it takes place before Dream is in prison-)

I'll reblog this later once I have drawings made since I'm going to count this as dsmp sona-

Roman ran through the rain, trying to get to the community house before the mud would begin flooding. He did not want to almost drown again. Luckily he made it just in time as he jumped onto the wooden floor, the mud where he had once stood caved into mush as the water flooded out of the dirt making a huge muddy lake. As Roman looked around he spotted the Prime Path and suddenly wondered why he hadn't just walked on it….. until the water continued to flood up and cover it. Right. That's why. If he'd been standing on the path when that happened he would've been dragged away with a current- not exactly a good thing.

Either way, he'd made it. Now all he had to do was grab some stuff from a chest and wait out the storm. Roman made his way over to one of the many huge by comparison, chests in the Community House. He didn't even bother to get out his hook, already having a small hidden door in the side of it for him to enter at the bottom. It was something he'd worked with some other Borrowers to make a while back so they could always have access to the extra resources the Beings of this server didn't need. Most of the time Borrowers came here for food, small pieces of wool, or string- but today Ran had a different goal in mind.

Weapons. It wasn't a surprize that any of his fellow Borrowers found it difficult to move around the server, there weren't enough torches in some places to keep the huge mobs from spawning, and it was difficult for Borrowers to get the supplies to make torches (as Beings seemed to have a tendency to burn up coal quickly or leave it in dangerous smealters), it was made even more difficult as they could only move during the night unless they wanted to be seen. So Roman had decided to come to the community to gather supplies for weapons- because even if not all the Borrowers he knew could fight, at least those who did would now have the proper weapons to protect those Borrowers with. What Roman had not accounted for, however, was the thunderstorm that had started halfway to the Community House. Which is how he found himself stuck for the time being- but at least he would be able to make weapons.

There was another problem though that Roman hadn't planned for that he quickly discovered through the all too familiar booming footsteps now accompanied with a loud splash each step. "Shit…" the Borrower hybrid muttered to himself as he looked out of the Community House door to see a human wearing a smiling mask running through the rain right in his direction. In a split second decision, Roman climbed into the chest and sealed the door behind him, but not before spotting a bottle. For once he was glad that his poncho was a dark purple instead of black as he climbed inside and curled up, hoping to look like a potion.

The roaring thunder almost seemed to pause as Roman listened to the footsteps get closer and closer, until they stopped in front of his chest. The world was silent for a minute as the loud creaking of a chest opening rang out around Roman, in a deafening silence that didn't even exist. The Borrower covered his mouth instinctively, as if he needed to stop the Being from hearing his breathing. He listened to the items around him being shuffled around by a huge hand that he could almost see if he looked up just enough- but he couldn't less he be caught, he didn't want to see it anyways.

Time froze when it finally happened. In slow motion, Roman watched as huge fingers wrapped around the glass holding him and began to lift it out of the chest… taking the Borrower with it. As Roman was raised to be face to face with that emotionless white mask, he felt a scream get caught in his throat. This was every Borrower's worst nightmare, and it was now happening to Roman. What was even worse was that he recognised that mask from rumors- he had been caught by none other than the infamous Dream.

"Well, isn't this interesting?" Roman could practically hear Dream's smile as they spoke. It was terrifying, but he forced a glare onto his face as he looked into the green eyes of the masked man. "A brave thing then?" Dream shook the bottle, eliciting a yelp from the Borrower. "Or not." The Being tipped the bottle, shaking it a little more as Roman tried to hold the walls, forcing the tiny hybrid to fall right into their hand.

Roman shivered at the uncomfortable warmth of the hand and tried to scoot away from the Being, but was quickly stopped by a wall of fingers behind him. Dream chuckled, pulling Roman out of his frightened state enough to go back to glaring at them.

"I assume you're here for items?" It was a simple statement, pointed by Dream tilting their head to the chest Roman had previously been hiding in.

"Y- yeah… a- and why's it matter to- to you?" Roman spoke, cringing at his own stutter. He knew it was dumb to try and talk his way out of this, but what else could he do? Even if he followed the rules he'd more than likely be killed by this person.

"Well…" It only took a millisecond for the Being's grip to change, so fast that Roman didn't even process it, before he was being squeezed Inna fist. "I can give you them- for a price" Roman barely listened as he squirmed in the fist wanting nothing more than to be let go and mlg to safety.

"H- how the fuck wo- would I even pay you back?" Roman glared up into the mask, continuing to writhe in a fist that had an unloosening grip.

"Quite easily actually, you don't even have to do anything you don't already- I just need you to listen" Dream shrugged, as if he hadn't just spat nonsense that confused the Borrower even more.

"What's… what's that supposed to mean?" He looked into those ominous eyes with confusion.

"It's your size- I need it for information, I know that you and your little friends hear a lot in those walls of your's" Finally, the Being set Roman down, as if they knew he wouldn't run… and he didn't, he was far too shocked to.

"Y- you… you know-"

"Of course I know! It's my server you think I'm not going to notice a bunch of tiny… THINGS running around?" He laughed a little. "No, I've known for a while… I could've asked any of you for this…" The Being bent over and leaned their face in close to Roman, making the Borrower stumble back. "The problem was catching you. And look! You've practically given yourself to me!!" They stood up straight again, spreading their arms, proving a point… and sending a shiver down Roman's spine.

"S- so…. You… you want information?" Dream nodded. "Information that I overhear… l- like… like a spy?" Roman hugged himself, needing the small bit of comfort as he priced it together.

"Exactly! I knew you things were smart!!" As Dream cackled in victory, the Borrower backed up, a horrible feeling of dread taking over.

"Can't- wouldn't it be better to just have a Bei- a big person- do it?" Roman fidgeted with his poncho nervously. What was he about to get himself into.

"Oh, I already do… but people can't always be around to hear everything… like when someone's alone- which is why using you would be so great!" Roman could hear their smile and hated it. "Now, of course, you'll be payed in whatever items you need"

"...What kind of items?" Roman couldn't stop his curiosity. Of course it was dumb to even be considering this but… it's not exactly easy to borrow.

"Anything you need at the time- not want, need. Food, wool, weapons-"

"Weapons!!" Roman shouted, and immediately raised his arms up in defense as he realized he'd city of what Dream had been saying…. But nothing happened.

"Yes, weapons" Dream said it slowly, a curiosity playing at his words. "Do you need weapons?" Roman hesitated with an answer, but began to nod. He doubted he would have even been able to find stone here anyways. "Then get me the information I want."

"I…." Roman paused. Would this really be worth it? Working with a human- not just a human but one that everyone seemed to hate? If he didn't they'd probably kill him anyways- but if he did…. He could help so many of his friends, and family. Besides, it's not like the events in the Beings' lives would affect Borrowers too much. What'd they even do that'd be bad, blow up all of L'manburg? Nobody would do that again after Wilbur died. "... I can do that. I'll get your information."

"Good. Then it's a deal." The Being gave his finger to the Borrower, who quickly shook it.

With that, the deal was made.

#mcyt g/t #mcytg/t #tiny!roman #borrower!roman

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black-dragon1998 · 4 years

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First day back at the office

part 8 ‘Out of the box wat of starting a family’

summary: Lena has to go back to the office but Kara has a Supergirl emergency so Lydia has to go with her.

part 1 Beginning a family

part 2 Meeting the rest of the family

part 3 Going shopping

part 4 Waiting for Supergirl

part 5 Sick

part 6 Game night part 1/2

part 7 Game night part 2/2

Lena had imagined her first day back to work a little different. Kara and her had agreed on taking turns on staying home and taking care of Lydia. Kara’s job as a reporter gave her a little more leniency about her work hours and place. Lena had to eventually go back to the office, even how good Sam did a job as a CFO L-Corp didn’t run without her signature. She did however hoped it would be a little smoother.

Of course, their life couldn’t be that easy. The day Lena was support to go back to work, she really couldn’t put it off anymore. Alex called in Supergirl for some alien crisis, forcing Lena to come up with a new strategy. Lena woke up a grumpy Lydia, trying to explain why she had to go with her to the office. Luckily Lydia took her baths in the evening and only needed a fresh pair of clothes.

Putting her in her highchair Lena gave her an easy breakfast that she couldn’t smear out over herself, while she gathered everything to take with them. Next to two different outfits she also packed a couple of toys, Lydia’s favorite color book and crayons, her noise-cancelling headphones and a couple of soothers.

Forty-five minutes later Lena had both of them strapped in the car and was driving toward L-corp. Lydia had back asleep.

It still being early in the morning L-Corp wasn’t as busy as it usually was, so Lena could move Lydia to her office without her little girl being scared by all the noises. Lena installed Lydia on the couch so she could sleep for another couple of hours. She didn’t have any meetings planned for today, so she could become up to date with all the paperwork she had missed. This also mend she could keep a close eye on Lydia, not quite ready to let the girl be alone.

It was close to 11 o’clock when Lena saw the mountain of blankets on the couch start to move. Lena signed the paper in front of her and got up from her desk to go see her.

“sleep well a chroi.” Lena crouched down in front of the couch and started stroking Lydia’s head to help and ground the little girl. Waking up in unfamiliar places was hard for the little girl, evident when she woke up at Alex and Sam’s house when they had laid her down for a short nap. Seeing her mother made the girl relax, preventing an meltdown.

“Mommy! Mama?” the little crinkle in the little girl's forehead reminded her so much of herself and couldn’t help but smile.

“mama is with aunt Alex, they are helping people.” Explaining to a two-year-old that your mother is a superhero is one thing trying to explain what the entails are on a whole other level.

Seeing the familiar object Lydia dropped her thump and opened her mouth for her mother to put in the soother. Putting in the soother Lena strokes Lydia’s cheek with her other hand for comfort.

“do you know where you are Angeal?” Lydia nodded, still whining for her mama. Lena and Kara had noticed Lydia had taken on the habit of sucking on her thump while feeling fussy so Lena searched Lydia’s bag for her ‘Supergirl’ themed soother, a gods gift to keep the girl calm in hard moments. If only had they had it the first couple of weeks.

Lena stood up, getting back to work hopping Lydia would sleep for just a little while longer. No such luck, because like every time Lydia woke up she craved human contact when she just woke up.

“Mommy!” Lydia makes grabby hands at Lena, the young mother knew she shouldn’t give in so fast or her little girl would get spoiled. Thinking back at her times with the Luthor’s. She couldn’t remember if Lillian has ever hugged her, makes the decision very quickly.

Lena picked up her daughter and walked back to her desk to continue working. During her time at home, Lena had learned how-to work with a little human attached to her hip or on her lap.

A couple of hours had passed when Lydia started squirming on Lena’s lap. Looking down Lena saw Lydia looking up at her.

“Mommy, potty.” Reacting quickly Lena lifted Lydia and puts a hand under her to feel it heavier than before.

“Okay little one, let’s get you cleaned up.” Lena got up from her desk. Putting Lydia on the ground to grab her bag with clean cloths. The little girl started to get fussy when putting down and Lena had to act fast.

“just a moment Angeal, I’m just grabbing your bag and clean cloths.” Slinging the bag over her shoulder she grabs Lydia’s hand and leads her toward the restroom, the on the hall and not in her office because the one in her office didn’t have enough room for her to help Lydia let alone changer her. Nobody used it beside her and Jess so nobody could see her being soft and ruin her reputation.

Exiting the restroom Lydia was walking next to her, full woken up and was animatedly talking about her dream. Lena was listening intently while they were walking back. The talking instantly stopped when the little girl noticed the woman standing in front of Jesses desk, who was out on her lunch break.

The woman looked very agitated her foot tapping rapidly on the floor and her arms were crossed over her chest, huffing every few seconds to let people know she wasn’t getting what she wanted.

“mommy wo that?” Lydia talking seemed to draw the woman’s attention, she spun around on her high heels and levelled them with a glare. Lena was unaffected by this but Lydia hid behind Lena.

“ah finely, somebody to assist me. I have to say this is one of the worst welcomes I have had in a long time.” The tone in the woman implied that Lena should feld bad for this, which she didn’t. All Lena could do was stare at the woman. Who was she? What was she doing here and more importantly how did she get up here?

Lena felled a extensive talk with her security team coming up.

“what can I do for you, ma’am.” Lena didn’t show any emotion on her face. She knew the woman wasn’t here for an appointment because she didn’t have any today and had told Jess to redirect everybody that wanted to make one to another date.

the woman sends her another glare, looking very annoyed.

“well because of your tardiness ‘I’ am late for my appointment.” Lena couldn’t help but look at the woman with a questionable look. What was this entitled woman talking about, what nonsense was she spouting. It also seemed she didn’t know who she was talking about and that Lena was the secretary.

Lydia didn’t like this woman. She was mean snarky and not in the bubbly way her mommy could be with her mama and auntie Alex. She made her feel uncomfortable. The little girl pulled on Lena’s pants to get her attention.

Looking down Lena saw her daughter outstretched, silently making fists at her. Lena picked her up and put her on her hip, stroking her back to soothe he, sensing she was feeling uncomfortable.

Seeing Lydia seemed to double the woman glaring, making the little girl shrink back into Lena.

“if you weren’t so busy slacking off at your job maybe you could let the CEO know I am here.” Lena was getting fed up with this woman and her making her daughter uncomfortable was the last straw.

“Sorry to disappoint you but are no meetings plant for today, so if you would be so pleased to leave before I’m forced to call security.” Lean fired back, stepping behind Jesses desk ready to call security.

Not giving up that easy the woman started spouting other lies while calling Lena names.

“that is impossible I know the CEO and he is expecting me, so if you would be so nice as to go and get him you and that runt of your can go back to doing nothing. Let me guess you want to sell the kid as he don’t you, making him pay for your expenses.”

“I’m sure you know the CEO, but she doesn’t know you and is asking you to leave.” Lena fires back, picking up the phone and call security. Hearing Lena call security the woman loses it completely, razing her voice while spouting insults and pointing an accusing finger at Lena saying that she was lying. Lydia buried herself further into Lena, not liking the loud noises.

“I don’t know if you think you are funny but I demand to speak to your superior!” keeping a calm face Lena walks into her office, leaving the woman behind screaming.

She placed Lydia on the couch stroking her cheek, calming her down.

“you okay a chroi?” Lena asked looking wordily at her daughter. Lydia didn’t say anything but did give a little nod. Lena decided to leave Lydia in the office while she dealt with the raging woman and after that, she thinks it might be best to go home for the day, maybe stop for lunch. Giving her a final kiss on the forehead Lena walks back outside the office.

Lena had informed her security team of a code yellow, trespassing without violence. So they should be here soon. She closed the door behind her so Lydia wouldn't see or hear anything that would happen. The woman was still where she left her and attacked Lena the moment she saw her exiting the office.

“I thought you were going to get your superior and where did you leave the brat.” That was the last straw for Lena, nobody called her kid a brat.

“I don’t have to go and get anybody because in this company there is no one higher than me. What I did do was notify security and they should be here any moment to escort you out.” The grave mistake she seemed to have made settled on the woman’s face. The ‘simple’ secretary she thought she was harassing turned out to be the CEO of the company she wanted to get an appointment with.

Behind the woman, Lena saw the elevator doors open. Stepping out were Jess and her security team. If this was something Jess had to deal with on the daily the woman deserved a raze.

“the next couple of minutes will determine whether or not I press charges for trespassing or not.” Lena watched on in amusement how the woman’s face flushed with rage but held her breath. Informing Jess over what happened and trusting she will handle everything with security Lean stepped back into the office to check on her daughter.

Lydia had retreated to one of the corners of the couch, knees pulled up to her chest and plush wolf squeezed tightly between her arms and legs. Lena sat down next to her, not touching her to not startle the girl even more. It took a minute for Lydia to notice her mother had reentered the room.

“mommy! Woman gone?” Lena pulled Lydia on her lap and started stroking her hair. Seeing the state her daughter was in Lena did have to have a firm word with her security team, so things like this never happened again.

“it’s okay now little one. The mean lady is gone.” Lydia visibly relaxed into Lena and hugged her mother closer.

“Why don’t we pack up and go home, we can stop for lunch and maybe mama is done with her work already and can join us.” Lydia nods in the crook of Lena’s neck. Lean picked up the things she needed, the rest she would leave at the office for if Lydia stayed over again. Before leaving the office Lena put on Lydia’s noise-cancelling headphones and picket her up.

She took the elevator straight to the underground parking where her driver was waiting for her. On their way home, they stopped for Kara’s and Lydia favourite lunch at Noonan’s. sending Kara a quick text to tell her where they were and how things where going moments later she got a text back from Kara saying she would join them at home for lunch.

When Kara entered the apartment for lunch Lydia’s mood had gone back up again and she was telling Kara about the day she had at the office. Kara was a little confused when Lydia started talking about a monster that had yelled at her mommy, but with Lena clarifying Kara was listening intently.

food devoured Kara played with Lydia for a little while, letting Lena put on the final touches on the papers she started in the office before laying the little girl down for her afternoon nap. While the little girl slept Kara finished the article she had to finish before cuddling with Lena on the couch to listen to how her girlfriend was feeling. She knew Lena was good at bottling up her feelings and prioritizing other people over herself. It didn’t take long before all the stresses of the day were released and Lena snuggled into Kara to take her own midday nap.

The first day back to work had certainly interesting, but Lena if she had Kara and Lydia coming home to she could do it forever.

want to support me Buy me a Ko-fi

#supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #kara danvers x lena luthor #kara danvers x reader #mom kara danvers #lena luthor x reader #protective lena luthor #mom lena luthor #Kara Danvers x Daughter OC #oc daughter #protective Kara

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ravs6709 · 3 years

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Home With You- Sevade

@arre-rider-of-pyrxe so, here we go. This was the oneshot I said I was writing.

It's another snapshot kinda thing that starts off post WoS. A lot of timeskips. There are mentions of unfamiliar names, but those are just ocs. Most of them aren't important. It's primarily fluffy, but there is a brief scene of a panic attack. If I wrote that part poorly, please let me know! I'll try and fix it!

Anyways, here we go! 4k words!

•~•~•~•~•~•

For a while, Sev had thought that he would never be able to return here. Hillsbridge, the place he had lived for the early years of his life. The place his parents had defended with their lives, and the place that he had helped destroy.

"We're going to fix it, remember that," Kade said from in front of him. "We told each other that we're going to help rebuild it. And that's what matters. Now... you're squeezing too much!"

Sev loosed his grip around Kade's waist, not realizing that he'd been holding on so tightly. They were on top of Kade's phoenix at the moment- Luxuna. In some ways, Sev was never going to be used to being on a phoenix, so high in the air. But he trusted both his boyfriend and Luxuna to hold him, and save him if something were to happen.

With a flap of their wings- red tipped with both gold and purple, signifying that the phoenix didn't fit in the binary of being male or female- they landed on the outskirts of Hillsbridge.

While the damage looked awful from above, it looked even worse up close. All of the materials that had been burned during the attack were still there, and not much looked like it could be salvaged.

"You want to go make our meal while I start sorting through all this stuff?" Sev asked.

The flight to Hillsbridge had taken several hours from the Eyrie, and while they were able to pack some food, not much could be carried for long. While Sev did know how to cook, he usually wasn't required to, since the bondservants were normally in charge of that.

"Okay. You can keep Luxuna with you. I'll be by the centre."

He nodded, before turning to the phoenix. Delicately, he reached out to them with his magic- which despite some recent practice, wasn't strong at all.

Will you help me move the severely charred wood into a pile?

They squawked. What made you think I wouldn't?

Sev gave them a smile, not wanting to use up the energy he would need to be lifting wood. He didn't have much experience in any of this, and it was just the three of them, so he knew that it would be difficult. But after Veronyka was crowned Queen, and Tristan became Commander of the Phoenix Riders, the Riders were given a position that would require for them to stay by Aura Nova.

Sev knew that Kade had enjoyed his time with the other Riders. He'd even tried to convince Kade to stay with them, because look at him, he had his freedom and a phoenix meanwhile Sev was still just a weak animage without a phoenix.

Kade had cut him off with a kiss, and then explained how Sev wasn't just a nobody, but a hero. And that even if he was just a nobody, he still mattered to him more than any status would. And that he never really wanted to be a noble, but wanted to just live in a small home for the rest of his life.

At that point, Sev had never really considered his future. He'd been working for the Empire as a soldier, then spied on them pretending to be a soldier, and all of the stress he'd been under never really gave him time to think. All he knew that the time was that he wanted to spend his future with Kade.

His body moved on its own, sorting through the wood idly as he wore a dopey smile. Even if the rebuilding process would take a long time, it didn't matter, because he was with Kade.

He remembered some of what Veronyka and Tristan had told them when they said that they were going to Hillsbridge to make repairs. Apparently the two of them had gone to Vayle and the other settlements when there was that attack on the Eyrie. They explained some of the basic steps, and gave advice.

The first house didn't look too bad compared to the others. He had to climb and get rid of the loose pieces from whatever was left of the roof, before it would fall on someone. But other than that, the house had remained intact and he moved aside all the irreparable materials.

A few hours later, and Sev was exhausted. Despite the help that he got from Luxuna, they only managed to clear out two houses. By then, the scent of whatever Kade was cooking was prominent in the air, even drawing the phoenix's attention.

"Empire food is good," Sev said while chewing. "But your food is better."

"Sev, don't choke." Was all Kade said, but he was smiling.

Neither of them really talked for too long after that, as Sev was still tired. It wasn't a depressing silence, especially with the squawks of Luxuna as they devoured a few pieces of candied ginger.

After that, the both of them continued working. It felt a little easier with Kade at his side, whether it was extra arms, or just his mere presence. They were able to clear out one more house before they set up to sleep.

When he woke the next morning, he noticed that Kade wasn't around. For a moment, he panicked, but noticed that Luxuna was also gone. They probably went out for a fly. After a few minutes, he saw a red blur in the blue skies, coming closer until it landed on the ground.

"I didn't think you'd wake up until a little later," Kade apologized, as he starting taking off his saddle. "Sorry if I worried you."

"It's fine," Sev said. "You probably needed that fly, with everything that's happened."

In these past two years, a lot had happened. Sev had been forced to become a soldier for the Empire, he'd met Kade and was forced to aid in Ilithya's rebellion, then spied on the Empire as a soldier, and had continued to do so until all of them- not just Sev and Kade, but Tristan and the others too- were safe.

Kade nodded. "Do we start now?"

This time, they started the day off early, so they managed to get more work done. By the end of the day, most of the loose wood had been cleared from the houses, though there was still a lot of ash that had lingered from the fires.

"Do you want to try flying on Luxuna?" Kade asked him, while they were setting up their little camp for the night. "I mean, this time by yourself?"

Sev blinked. While he knew the phoenix decently well, he'd never actually rode on them without Kade being with him.

As if noticing his hesitation, Kade continued. "Or I could join you, but this time you sit at the front."

That sounded like a better and safer idea. He smiled and agreed. Minutes later, they were on top of Luxuna. Everything felt so different, for one, he didn't have anyone to grab on to.

"The reins, Sev," Kade told him, guiding his hands towards them.

When they took off, he was confused as to what to do. But they seemed to understand that much, flying low and slow, wings spread wide.

"Kade, what now?"

"Try communicating with them. Our bondmates usually know what we're thinking, but it's always best to communicate with them. Besides, it'd be practice."

He wasn't wrong. Simple tasks that normal animages did as easy as breathing took effort from Sev. But that was what happened when he neglected his gift, had actively suppressed it. And Kade had been in charge of the messenger pigeons in the past. But he reached out anyway. It took small steps in order to get better.

Where are you taking us? He asked.

Where do you want to go?

Back to Hillsbridge, please.

He hadn't realized it at the time, but they had flown a decent while. By the time they got back, they would be resting.

•~•~•~•~•~•

They'd manage to take off all the extra wood off the homes, and got to work on surviving the floor. The action was so minor, but something about being there made everything spin. The smell and feel of ash on the floorboards, everything about this reminded him of the attack. He could hear the sound of soldiers, him among them, setting the flames to bur-

"Sev. Can you hear me? Sev?" The voice was so soothing, a shelter within a raging storm, a small light within the darkness.

"It will be alright, we're fixing it, remember."

We're fixing it. But it wouldn't have needed to be fixed in the first place if he had done a better job.

"H- hold me," he whispered, not knowing whether he was heard or not.

Warm arms wrapped around him gently, a hand rubbing circles across his back.

"Sev, tell me what you see outside, anything."

He opened his eyes, seeing that Kade was right in front of him.

"You."

He smiled. "Yes, tell me something else."

He turned around. "This house. The sky. I see Luxuna. There's grass."

Kade's amber eyes gleamed. "Okay, tell me some things you hear."

"Your voice. The wind. Luxuna flapping their wings and squawking."

He had to list more things, each thing requiring more effort. Then he was breathing, slow breaths that cleared his mind. Kade hugged him, and Sev buried his face into the crook of his neck.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"Those were some hard times. It's to not feel okay. Just know that I'll be there."

•~•~•~•~•~•

They went back to scrubbing, but Kade had made sure to distract him with conversations. It was clear that he was a little out of his comfort zone, but Sev couldn't help but love him more for his dedication. They were cut off though by the sound of wings flapping.

"Anders? Latham? What are you two doing here?" Kade asked when the two new phoenixes had landed.

On top of them were two boys- men? Sev couldn't recall how old they were- one with dark hair and a bright smile, the other blond and also smiling, but it didn't quite look as cheerful. Sev had met the two a few times, but hadn't remembered much about either of them. All he knew was from what Kade had told him, such as Latham's resentment for Veronyka, which had eventually gotten better.

"One of Veronyka's first orders was that a bunch of us were to spread out and help rebuild some of the settlements," Anders explained. "We also remembered that you two were here, and figured you'd need the help."

"It was tough in Vayle, when there were six of us and the villagers. You're gonna grow old before you finish all this," Latham added. "We're not here for long, just to help speed up the process."

•~•~•~•~•~•

With four people, everything had gone by so much faster. Anders and Latham had experience, which only made things easier. They quickly managed to clean out the ash and soot that clung to the floorboards, now leaving the actual rebuilding process to be done.

With three phoenixes, Kade and the other two would fly out further, chopping down larger trees that normally wouldn't be able to be used due to the distance.

Still, it was tough. They had the wood needed to repair the homes, but they had to make sure that they were sturdy and would be able to handle the occasional rainfall. It was even more tedious than taking down the loose pieces.

The extra company also made things livelier, especially since they were the two most talkative out of everyone in Tristan's patrol. There were jokes and singing and once there were even drinks. The last time he was drunk, he was still trying to keep his feelings for Kade hidden, so this time, his supposed lack of filter had been emphasized, much to his embarrassment later on.

After three weeks, Anders and Latham had left. Xane- Latham's bondmate had gotten a message from Rex that it was time to go back to the capital. They wouldn't be able to stay and rebuild forever, not when there was so much going on in Aura Nova itself.

Veronyka had likely had the Riders go out to do repair work partially because that was just the type of thing that she would do, and also as a way to gain trust from those who had been suffering all their lives. Having the trust from both people of Pyra and all around would make things better for her reputation.

Each day was tiring, but at the end of the day, Sev felt proud at the small amount of progress that they would be able to make. Afterwards, they would go for another short fly on Luxuna. One time, he let go of the reins, and it felt almost freeing.

"I think... I think I want to try by myself this time," he said one day.

"Go ahead, try."

He climbed on to the saddle, and held the reins gently.

Don't drop me. He told them.

Really? You think I'd drop you? Even if I did, Kade would be angry. They replied, and Sev could imagine them rolling their eyes.

He smiled at that. You know what to do, then.

Luxuna began to take to the skies. They flew their usual route, a relatively short circle before heading back. With the wind flowing at his face, Sev felt nice up there. He understood why Kade would come up here every morning. The rest of the world would feel so insignificant, no other problems existed up there. When they landed, he was smiling, and Kade looked at him with a fond expression.

"I did it," he said, feeling like a little child.

"Yeah, you did."

And then Kade gave him a kiss, and it made him feel all mushy inside. No matter how many times they'd kissed, he would never get used to the warm feeling.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Days and nights had passed by, and Sev was beginning to lose track of the time. It was a routine every day, but it was helpful. The both of them needed this routine after everything.

The next break came when a few people came in. They looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't recall where. They introduced themselves, and said that they had lived in Hillsbridge before that final attack, but had always wanted to return. They offered to help with the rebuilding process, so once again, they had more people.

•~•~•~•~•

"Your full name is Sevro, right?" A woman- Ameliya asked him one day.

"Yes, why?"

"Were you the son of Alys and Sevono Lastlight?"

It'd been a while since he had heard the name of his parents.

"I never knew them personally," she continued. "My mother said she knew them. And that she knew you too, so I was curious to see what you were like. You helped Queen Veronyka a lot, I heard. I think your parents would be proud of you."

"Thank you," he told her. "That means a lot." It really did.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Most of them had worked on the houses, but Ameliya and one of the others had decided to work on the farming instead. After all, Hillsbridge had been known for their farming community. Getting a farm set up would also take a long time, since everything had to grow.

But each day that passed was more progress. The more houses that were set up, the more people that began to move in. Some were people who had been there before, others new to the city and its history. They were still a relatively small group, but larger than before.

But their efforts were paying off, and Sev was able to recognize a few people. Whether from the attack or before, he wasn't sure, but he still recognized them.

•~•~•~•~•~•

"Ameliya, you said that your sibling was a jeweler, right?" Sev asked when there was no one else around.

She nodded. "Yes. What do you need from them?"

Sev looked away, feeling his skin flush. "A ring."

Understanding flashed in her brown eyes. "Oh, I see. Do you know how large his fingers is?"

He looked at his own hand. "Larger than mine?"

She laughed. "I'll figure it out."

•~•~•~•~•~•

"Look at everyone Sev," Kade said beside him. "It hasn't felt this lively since before everything. Almost like the older times."

"Yes," he agreed. "We've come so far. It feels just like home."

"This is our home," Kade reminded him. "You and Hillsbridge, this is our home."

Sev smiled at him. This would have been a really nice time to ask the question, but the band wasn't finished yet. He'd have to ask Ameliya about it.

He also remembered some of what Kade had told him about his past. How he didn't have a home, how Hillsbridge had been the first place he'd felt so welcomed.

"It'll always be our home," Sev promised. "We've got our memories from before, and we'll make new ones."

•~•~•~•~•~•

Ever since Sev had received the ring- it was surprisingly cheap, but Ameliya's sibling insisted that he had a discount for all of his efforts- he'd been fidgeting with the box in his pocket.

"I've been thinking about the future," Kade said abruptly.

"What about it?" He asked, hoping that his eagerness wouldn't show too much. He had to consciously stop himself from reaching into his pocket, or Kade would end up noticing.

"I've wanted a daughter for a long time," he admitted. "But I was thinking that I want to raise more than one child. Something similar to what your parents had done."

"You want to give children a home, just like you had," Sev guessed.

Kade nodded sheepishly. "What do you think about it?"

"I think... I think I like that idea."

This was the perfect time. Don't back out now. He told himself, reaching for the box.

"Kade," he murmured. "A lot has happened in these two years. The biggest being that I met you. I was lost and angry and selfish, but you taught me how to be a hero. You've been with me for this long, as both a friend and lover, and I hope that you continue to stay with me for longer." They were both sitting next to each other, but still, he kneeled anyway. He was pleased at Kade's flustered expression. He took it as encouragement and took the box out and opened it.

"Kade, will you marry me?"

The smile that broke out was the most precious thing that he had ever seen.

"Of course, Sev." He extended his hand, and Sev put the ring on it.

Then they kissed, sitting on a hill underneath the moonlight, occasionally illuminating reds and golds from the phoenix soaring above them.

•~•~•~•~•~•

They started extending their house in order to create the orphanage. It didn't take too long, but then they had to make sure there was enough beds and other basic necessities.

They had made some of the wedding plans, and were finally going to go through with them.

"Veronyka, Tristan, the other riders, Hestia," Kade listed. "Am I missing anyone else?"

Sev shrugged. "I don't think so."

Most of the other people that they had met had either died, or they were unsure as to where they would be now. But the people invited were those that they were closest to.

The two of them had briefly left Hillsbridge to visit Aura Nova. They both knew that Veronyka would be busy, which was why they wanted to schedule a date that suited her. When they had arrived, Veronyka was beaming, and was even happier to know that they planned to get married.

"In Hillsbridge, right?"

They both nodded.

"We'll be there. I think I can manage to be away for a few days, next month."

That was the agreed date.

•~•~•~•~•~•

When the wedding day had come, Sev was both nervous and at ease at the same time. Because this was it, he would pledge his life to Kade's, and Kade's to him. They would be partners for life.

Tristan and a few of his friends had stayed with him, just to make sure that he was doing okay. Their presence did help, along with Hestia who acted as his mother during the ceremony.

The ceremony itself wasn't that huge, despite the company that was there. They stated their vows, pledged their eternal loyalty to each other, and then they were married. There was dancing and phoenix lightshows, but after everything, it was just the two of them- Luxuna gave them the privacy that they needed.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Two weeks after that, Sev and Kade opened their orphanage. The first child had arrived quite quickly, but it wasn't surprising, since many people had died.

It was a little girl named Adarra, with light hair and dull brown eyes. She hardly ever smiled. The both of them understood that this would take time, that it would never be easy, but it seemed like Kade took it a little more personally.

"She's usually quiet, but she ended up snapping at me. What do I do?" Kade whispered, clinging on to Sev's hand. "Do you think that we're good parents?"

He hadn't sounded so unsure in a while, and he was usually the one who was reasonable. But now wasn't the case.

"She's lost a lot. And this is our first time. We're going to get better, and she's going to trust us," Sev promised. "We'll show her that we truly care for her. We can't give up on her now. That would break her."

He nodded slightly. "I think you're right."

It took a while, but Adarra finally warmed up to them. They'd realized that she wasn't comfortable speaking in general, so they instead worked out ways to communicate non-verbally. It worked out, and before they knew it, she was starting to smile.

Another kid named Robyn had them approached them, but they were a lot different. Adarra was reserved, but they were energetic. Robyn spoke a lot. Sev and Kade had to adjust to this, learning about the different ways that people react, the different ways that they would display their emotions.

The two of them were exhausting, but when they interacted with each other, smiling, both Sev and Kade knew that they didn't want any future that was different than this one.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Sev nearly stumbled out of the orphanage door. Kade was about to give the kids breakfast, but Lidiya had decided that it was a good idea to run off, so Sev had to look for her.

"Lidiya!" He called out.

When there was no answer, he ran around, looking to see if the little girl was running around Hillsbridge. But after no sign of her, he ran back inside to find Kade. Said man was busy fussing with their hair of one of the children.

"Kade, help, I can't find our child."

Kade turned to face him really fast. "What do you mean you can't find our child? You lost Lidiya?"

Before Sev could reply to that question, he was interrupted by yelling.

"I'm on the roof! But now I'm stuck!"

Kade took a deep breath. "Sev, I'm leaving you here with the children. Do not lose them. I'll be right back."

"That's rude!" He replied.

Lidiya was brought back a few minutes later, and the children were giggling at Sev.

"Kade, they won't be able to take me seriously anymore! This is embarrassing!"

Kade rolled his eyes but smiled. "Well next time, don't lose the child."

•~•~•~•~•~•

Because this is a different Fandom, its a different taglist. So no taglist yet.

But if you want to join, just let me know!

#crown of feathers #cof #wings of shadow #wos #sev #kade #kade cof #sevade #too lazy to tag the others because theyre only mentioned #ravi writes a thing #also im inventing the cof fandom tag on ao3 so thats a thing #sevro lastlight

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milks-writings · 4 years

Note

Hi hi hi!!! Omg LOVE your headcanons!! Can I please have one with Kyoutani, Koganegawa and Aone (most under appreciated squad) as boyfriends?! Thanks so much!!

✿.｡.:*☆.:*:*:.☆*.:｡.✿.✿.｡.:*☆.:*:*:.☆*.:｡.✿.

☆*.:｡.✿ 𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘: Kentarō Kyōtani x GN!Reader; Kanji Koganegawa x GN!Reader; Takanobu Aone x GN!Reader

☆*.:｡.✿ 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: swearing, crackkk

☆*.:｡.✿ 𝕒/𝕟: underrated squad headcanons are da best don’t @ me

OMG THANK U SO MUCH ANON AHHH I AM GLAD YOU LOVE MY HEADCANONS HSHSHHS 🥺❤

I really hope you like those too! And thank you for requesting, I love writing for underrated boyos <3<3

☆*.:｡.✿ 𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

☆*.:｡.✿ Headcanons:

Kyōtani, Koganegawa, and Aone as boyfriends:

KYŌTANI:

HE IS TSUNDERE IDC WHAT YOU SAY

Ok not always, almost never but he is!!!

I think he will def be shy around you and barely do the first steps since he is a little bit too shy and scared to make you uncomfortable

Ngl, at first you were totally scared of him aojsdfa

But who wouldn’t be??

N E WAY

He is totally that type of boyfriend who gets all quiet and affectionate whenever he is jealous

He gets jealous easily, since he is insecure, not about you not loving him, but about him not being enough :(

I can also see him being this cuddly type, and be into PDA

Like he will just randomly hug you in public, but not really give kisses?

Idk man I never dated him you tell me pls

But fr he will be into hugs and holding hands in public if that’s okay with you!!!

A gentleman

He will walk you home if you waited for him to finish practice and make sure that you are safe awe

He will listen to you!!! Always!!! And he gives a big fuck over what Iwaizumi says

After you came into his life he barely started to listen to Iwaizumi if you were around

HE STANS YOU SM ALDSJFA

And will always compliment you if you wear something new

Will take you to the sweetest dates!

Like for example he once took you to stargaze and also to a restaurant you were talking about a few weeks ago

He might not give you many kisses, but he makes it up with the sweetest hugs and cuddles

He could never say the three words first and will start of with “I like you”

But after a while of being together with you that three words will turn into “I love you”

He will def take things slow since he has no idea about dating, but is totally down to learn new things about dating!

Probably confessed just randomly under a tree, without no plan what to say

Gets pretty easily embarrassed awe, so if you tease him there is a 99% chance of him getting embarrassed

HE IS PROTECTIVE IDC WHAT Y’ALL ARE SAYIN

Like he will do anything for you to stay safe n so on

Of course the other two are also worried about you but he is probably the most protective out of them three

THE BEST THING ABOUT DATING HIM IS THAT HE IS SUCH A BIG SOFTIE FOR YOU

Behind the doors, he is so clingy and a baby

100000% a babey for you

No fr, he is such a smoll baby, and I am so sure he loves resting his head on your lap while you two cuddle 🥺

He will spoil you with anything you want! If you mention something like you liked this or that the next day it’s in front of your door, wrapped in a sweet paper!

Him dating would have not many downs since he always apologizes first and tends to be really insecure. I feel like he would be this type of boyfriend who is a little awkward at first, but will warm up pretty quickly

He won’t call you things like darling, babe etc. but he will get a very sweet nickname out of your name and add something like chan since he thinks its more personal this way???

If you get what I mean;;;

He is also this type of boyfriend who is very patient!

His favourite thing to do with you is watching films while cuddling

He isn’t the type to talk much, so he loves listening to your rambling, but sometimes if he needs to get off something from his chest, he will just tell you without hesitating since he knows that you will listen

KOGANEGAWA:

His one braincell is 100% not working around you

Soooooo, first of all, he is so soft

Like not only in the relationship but in general

So if you get into a relationship with him think twice if you can take his one braincell brain

If you can, then yay, you got the sweetest boyfriend ever 🥳

I feel like he would be this boyfriend everyone loves, because he is so sweet and a little dumb, but handsome!

He is a big softie and would do anything with you, if you want to go to somewhere he would arrange that

But you have to take care of him since he is literally baby

He is def into PDA and will give you a few kisses here and there

And he gets immediately into this whole dating thing!

It’s pretty easy to date him, since he is simple-minded and you will immediately understand what he wants

As dates I can imagine him taking you often to the arcade or to the amusement park, just to fool around with you at those places

He doesn’t mind being in public while hugging you or showering you in kisses, but if you don’t like it, he won’t do it :)

Respects you a lot! Sometimes you would think that he does not drink his respect wo/men juice but he does!

I feel like he would def be a big baby, so he is pretty clingy n so on but in a sweet way

Sometimes it might get annoying though but if you tell him he will immediately stop

He is very well mannered, you might not think this way since he radiates the biggest crackhead energy, but in a restaurant, on a date, he is behaving so well just so you can enjoy the time with him <3

No way he is insecure, I think that he would never been very insecure, but if he is, its just because someone told him something really mean like ‘They don’t love you’

If he gets jealous it’s he is baby

Honestly when is he not?

N E WAY

He will just pout the whole time and be so clingy ugh

But in a cute way

He would def get jealous easily, not giving him attention might make him jealous

But he is not that toxic type of jealous!

He really needs much attention, almost like a puppy, so you have to be a person who would take that

Is that type of boyfriend who would cuddle you everywhere where its possible!

Loves giving you small kisses, on cheek, forehead, nose tip, corner of your mouth, small pecks are very important to him!

He would buy you always ice cream while walking back home!

Though he has no money for something else to buy you---

So he spoils you with ice cream :)

Sometimes, he would just randomly come over to your house and ask you if you want to cuddle <3

Your parents would def love him because they know that he is just a softie and would do nothing to you

If you are also a crackhead that’s def a big plus point

Anway---

He would be into those type of things where he snuggles up to your side while placing his head on your shoulder and just be a softie

He would also always ask you If you need ever help with something

Will call aone if someone if being mean to you just to protect you >:(

He is not very protective, but still always makes sure that you are fine <3

All in one I would say that he is the best boyfriend who everyone would love to have, even though he might be sometimes a lil dumb. He would do anything for you, and if you need help, he would be immediately there, without hesitating. Also, he is a big baby, and 100% bottom, idc what you say :(

AONE:

Ngl at first you were a lil scared of him

BUT GOD DAMN IT HE IS SO SOFT

At first, it might have been a little harsh for you to date since he shows barely any expressions but him hugging you, giving you small pecks n so on would reassure you that he is an actually big softie

100% radiates best boyfriend vibes

Like, for you he is the sweetest person on earth but if someone only looks weird at you then he will kill them with his gaze

He is not into PDA at all, just sometimes holds your hand in public and so on, but not more than holding hands

But behind the doors, he is the person who would cuddle you till death 🥺

Yes, he just gives this vibe off, do not question

He would def take you on very expensive dates, like to restaurants, but also to the cinema to bring something different into this dating thing

At first, he would be prolly a little bit weird with dating, and he would have no idea what to do, but gets into it pretty quickly!

He is a little bit insecure since he barely shows expressions, but the small smiles and small laughs he gives you reassure you that you are not dating a fucking stone

He doesn’t get jealous really easily, but he does tend to get jealous

Like if someone gets too close to you, in an uncomfortable way

And then he will just wrap his arm around your shoulder, but stay quiet

Like Kyoutani he is not the person who talks much, but I guess he talks a little bit more than him?

So if you had an exhausting day he has no problem to let you ramble about it

He will also try to talk more if you really want him to

Once even let you draw eyebrows on his non-existing ones but you two just ended up cringing and you have never done it again hshsaodif

He loves being the big spoon and having you in his arms!

Would also sometimes come over with some food for your fam since his mother told him to do so, but also because he really wants your family to like him

At first they were probably a little bit confused bout why he is so,,, idk,,, emotionless?

But after seeing him smile at you so tenderly and hold you like you are his everything they fell in love with him as well!

This type of boyfriend where no one knows why you date him but after a time they would probably find out;

Before he kisses you, hugs you, or holds your hand he always asks for permission!

Also, he is protective! Not very much, like in the middle of the other two

If he sees that someone is clearly making you uncomfortable or feeling weird he will just glare at them but uses no violent ways

Sometimes he has to ask you for advice what he has to do next since he doesn’t want to mess up awe :( <3

He loves playing with your hair and doing it!

He will always do it whenever he gets the chance to

Aone is the type of boyfriend who will always bring small snacks for you, it’s his way to spoil you

All in one I would say that he may not show much expression with his facial expressions, but his small kisses and hugs, also snacks he brings always for you to make sure that you eat well, shows that he cares a lot about you. Sometimes he even cracks a smile and is also surprised himself how soft you have gotten him. He is a little bit insecure since he knows that you could’ve gotten a way better boyfriend, but again, this kind of reassures him that you choose him for who he is and that you are dating him, not his looks etc.

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kittinoir · 4 years

Text

Phantoms Ch. 3

Read on Ao3

Chat Noir’s tail skittered across the rooftop, the metal loop on the end occasionally emitting sparks as it whipped from side to side. He glared at it and debated wrapping it around his hips until he could get his heart back under control, but something told him it wasn’t exactly a viable solution. He’d loved his Miraculous and the freedom it had granted him for a long time, but it did have an unfortunate tendency to give him away.

“I’ve done this a thousand times,” he reminded himself, unable to help a glance in the direction of a certain bakery. “A million times. It isn’t any different than before.”

Except it was. Everything was different now that they knew each other.

And yet…everything was the same. He still loved her, there was just…more. He thought he’d be ecstatic when he finally knew, thought it would be as easy as breathing, as it had always been - a simple admission of the truth to add to the rest.

It was nothing like that. Knowing Marinette was the girl he’d been in love with this entire time, the girl he’d been adamantly trying to put his feelings for aside as both his Lady and his friend, was like drowning without dying.

Chat Noir brushed a clawed finger against his lips, his face heating under the mask as he remembered the taste of her lips. He knew she’d felt…something for his alter ego, but she hadn’t mentioned it since her memories had returned. Sometimes he wondered if some of the memories Marinette had made as she was influenced by the Miracle box magic had been lost when her old memories had been restored, that brief moment among them. She hadn’t brought it up since, and it had felt too selfish to do it himself - and, if he was being honest, a part of him was terrified of the answer. Marinette had made it abundantly clear she didn’t feel that way about him as Adrien. Maybe knowing it was him behind the mask had changed things.

The memory of Marinette’s lips vanished as a figure in red appeared in the distance. Chat Noir couldn’t take his eyes off her as she approached. It had been over a week since he’d finally found her, but he still had trouble reconciling they were the same person. Even now, he couldn’t quite believe the person somersaulting through the air towards him now was the same girl who’d tripped over her own feet earlier that day, sending the dozens tests she been handing back flying into the air like snow.

His tail finally stilled as she made her final approach, as though the thundering of his own heart had beaten the rest of him into submission. It drowned out everything else until she finally flipped down in front of him, as graceful and confident as he’d ever seen her.

“It’s not like you to be late,” Chat Noir said after a moment, glancing at the time on his baton.

But Ladybug merely grinned. “It’s not like you to be early,” she countered, but her face softened. “I had a meeting with the Ladyblogger.”

He laughed. “She’s still pumping you for all the details?”

“It wouldn’t be Alya if she didn’t,” Ladybug said fondly. Those blue eyes - how had he really never noticed? - scanned the skyline, and he didn’t think he imagined them lingering on the Palais.

“Do you want to see her before we start or after we finish?” Chat Noir asked, guessing at her thoughts. Her gaze flashed to him and she bit her lip as she considered their options, never knowing the way his pulse skipped at the sight. It was just Marinette, he reminded himself. His friend who brought baked goods for the whole class and created spectacular garments and always tried to do what was right, even at great personal cost and…and…and she had never been ‘just Marinette’ to him, he realized. And there was certainly nothing ‘just Marinette’ about her now.

“Before,” Ladybug decided, drawing his focus. “How do you feel about her joining us for this patrol? She wouldn’t let me come to the press conference today, and I don’t think she’d ever ask, but I think she could use a friend right now. Besides, it’ll be good for people to see her out with us. What do you think?”

He thought the Chloé he’d known would tell them all to jump off her balcony before she admitted she needed her friends, but he’d realized some time ago he hadn’t known her for a long time. When he’d finally figured out what she was really like, she’d already been in the process of changing again, because the person he’d thought she’d been never would have made the sacrifice she did.

“Sounds like plan,” he said finally. Besides, the more time they spent with her, the more chance they had of figuring out how to get her memories back - memories she deserved and, he knew, Marinette felt guilty for taking.

Not, he thought as they began to make their way across Paris, that there was much hope of recovery. Something in Chat Noir’s gut told him beyond real logic and reason that Chloé had been right when she’d used the Miraculouses to make her wish - that they had been the only way to combat the magic of the box. At the same time, another part of him felt just as sure there would be no similar miracle for his friend. The magic came at a cost, and no one, not even them, was exempt from it.

Sure enough, Chloé scowled as they landed beside her chaise on the balcony, lifting her sunglasses to glare at them, the Miraculous in her hair shining silver in the sun.

“You’re blocking my sun,” she said, dropping the sunglasses back onto her nose - a tactic, Chat Noir knew, to hide how she was really feelings. Some things at least didn’t change.

“We thought you might like to join us,” Chat Noir said with a feline grin. “Whaddya say?”

“That you’re still blocking my sun,” Chloe said. This time she didn’t bother to lift her head. “I think the people of Paris have already seen more than they wanted to of me today - and if you wanted to check on me that badly, you could have simply called.”

Chat Noir glanced at his Lady - no, not his Lady, not anymore - but she wasn’t giving anything away.

“That’s a shame” she said with a sly look to her partner. “Chat Noir bet me he could beat both of us to the Eiffel Tower - without using his baton.”

Chat Noir wondered if Ladybug noted the way Chloé’s shoulders tightened as she focused on them behind her sunglasses. If her widening smile was any indication, she had, and he had to marvel at that. She picked up on more than she let on.

“He what?” Chloé demanded.

“Seriously,” Ladybug said. “But I get it. If you’re not interested, we have to get going.”

Ladybug cocked her head, and Chat Noir turned to follow her to the edge of the roof.

“And just what did I bet?” he asked, amused. He was rewarded with a quiet laugh and caught himself wishing he could play the melody of it on his piano to fall asleep to every night.

“What do you want?” she asked. She paused to look up at him, the joy still glittering in her eyes, and he found himself breathless again.

<em>A kiss</em>. He almost said it - the words caught in his throat, and they burned as he swallowed them instead.

“A rose from your window box,” he said instead after a moment. “But I don’t think it matters - it doesn’t look like it’s going to wo - ”

“Pollen’s been bugging me to go out anyway,” Chloé said, standing abruptly behind them. “Pollen, buzz on!”

Chat Noir just shook his head as the yellow light enveloped his friend. “Unbelievable.”

“I think…she needed the challenge,” Ladybug said simply.

He actually understood what she meant as Queen Bee stalked to them. Chloé was almost as good at shutting people out as his father. Sympathy and pity only ever made her feel worse. She didn’t know how to ask for help - and so Ladybug hadn’t made her ask, but rather given her an excuse to join them.

As she reached them, Queen Bee’s eyes slid to Ladybug’s and a spark flashed between them. Chat Noir tensed, prepared to defuse whatever barb Queen Bee was about to deliver, when both girls abruptly leapt from the edge of the building without so much as a word - leaving him in the dust as they streaked for the Eiffel Tower

“That’s cheating!” Chat Noir shouted as he scrambled after them. He reached for his baton, but a knowing glance from his partner reminded him of the rules of their ruse. So, cursing, he chased after them. He never stood a chance.

Queen Bee was examining her ponytail for split ends and Ladybug was just watching, smug, as he finally caught up to them, panting.

“Better luck next time, Kitty,” Ladybug said. Chat Noir blinked as the line between her and Marinette finally blurred for him, until he could see his classmate looking out at him from behind the mask.

“What’d we win?” Queen Bee asked, sparing Chat Noir from uttering one of the dozens of disgustingly romantic things that had popped into his head.

“Bragging rights,” Ladybug said smoothly.

Queen Bee made a face. “That’s it?”

“With him around, they become necessary,” Ladybug said, hooking a thumb in his direction. Chat Noir swallowed a laugh and felt like, for the first time since she’d come back, he could finally breathe. He never realized just how much he’d missed her until he hurt with it.

But as they began their patrol, a reluctant Queen Bee in tow, the pain of the past few months began to ease, so slowly that he almost didn’t notice until they were laughing and, for the first time, it didn’t hurt at all. She was really back. She was really here, and whole, and perfect.

It was enough, he decided as they finished up an hour later. Enough for her to be there and happy and…and for him to love her, even if she never knew it. Even if she never wanted anything more. Enough to love her quietly as she was, rather than to have the phantom of the girl she’d been - the girl he’d lost.

Chat Noir watched her disappear from Chloé’s balcony as Queen Bee’s transformation dissolved, trying to stifle the urge to follow, trying to convince himself he meant it. It was enough, it was enough, it was enough, it was -

“Thanks.” Chat Noir turned to find Chloé standing behind him, clutching her arm self-consciously. “For bringing me with you today.”

“It was fun to have you,” he said cautiously - honestly. She was still the cynic, but when her wit was turned outward instead of on them, she was actually pretty funny.

She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, squeezing her eyes shut. “I wanted to give the Miraculous back,” she said, looking up at him. “After the press conference today. It was… And then when you two showed up, I thought maybe you might have come to collect it. That maybe you’d changed your minds about me, and I realized that, even though no one wants me as their hero, that I still want to try. I want this chance. I know it’s not…it’s not second-nature to me, not like it is for you, but - ”

Trying. She was, for the first time, trying to rely on someone else.

“It’s not second-nature to me,” Chat Noir said simply. “And doing the right thing isn’t always the easy choice. In fact, it’s almost never the easy choice. Remember my fifteenth birthday?”

Chloé scoffed. “How could I forget?”

“I let Nino continue to be the Bubbler - let him hold you guys hostage because I was convinced that I deserved to be free for once.” Chat Noir shook his head. “I’m not proud of it, but it happened. I’m sure if you ask Ladybug, she’ll have a similar story. We’re not worried about you, Chloé, anymore than anyone else. We trust you.”

Chloé glanced up at him, her face totally open and vulnerable for the first time in her life. “How? After what I did, I…how?”

There was no way to explain, no way that the magic of the Miraculous would not obliterate overnight. He hated it then, because she deserved to know the amazing things she had done, the sacrifices she’d made, the person she’d become. The person she was.

“You’re a different person now,” he said. “You’re the reason Ladybug is here today. We trust you.”

Even as he said, he saw the fog drift across her eyes, easing her confusion over the words. Chat Noir glanced away, gritting his teeth. He hoped, if nothing else, the emotion behind the words would last.

“I’ve gotta get home,” he said, looking back at her. She nodded vaguely, massaging her temple. “See you tomorrow - and…I’m glad you didn’t give it back.”

Chat Noir struck out for home, letting the cool wind ease his frayed nerves. Wherever he was, he hoped Hawkmoth was still in agony. The lack of physical damage and Chloe’s wish had negated the use of the Miracle cure after Marinette had been deakumatized - which meant his cataclysm was, hopefully, still ricocheting like a pin-ball around the villains ribs.

But all thoughts of their nemesis and the cost of their deadlock vanished as Chat Noir arrived home and beheld a familiar, single pink rose on his windowsill. His heart skipped a beat as he gently pulled it loose from the frame and dropped into his room, his transformation dissolving. If this was losing, he decided with a grin, he could live with it.

#phantoms #ahh!#ch. 3 #a plot would be real nice right about now

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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i’ve been watching Handsome Siblings on netflix only in chinese to just like. see where i’m at.

and now that i’m on ep 4 it would feel kind of weird to suddenly switch back to english subs ok, for one.

but anyway like general level-wise: i am pretty much at where i can follow a lot of the gist of scenes even if i don’t pause to translate - but then i’m going to be relying on visual context a lot more. which is fine, it means i can go watch a show with no english subs to rely on Ever and at least follow along.

i do notice that if i PAUSE, i can catch the specifics of a lot more scenes. There’s a scene where the two princess sisters are talking to their nephew (who is a spitting image of Jiang Feng), and then after he leaves - discussing telling him to go take a mission to kill Xiao Yu’er, and then when he leaves the two princesses discuss their plan. I paused over and over after EVERY line that episode, because I really wanted to know the specifics of what they were saying. A lot of lines I could read, and there were a lot of one-words-in-a-sentence i had to look up for a more precise understanding. Same with a scene later in the town said-nephew and his girl kickass companions go to - i could follow the gist, but paused after some lines (and looked up a couple words) for more specific details.

I will say that the more characters you learn, the easier life is. Really! The more characters I know, the easier my gist-guess is right, the easier remembering new words (made up of known characters) is, and looking up new words is VASTLY easier because I know their pinyin and can look them up faster than drawing.

If you’re going to do this: I’d still recommend using googletranslate to look up multiple characters you don’t know/phrases, since you can draw and easily get the correct result looked up. I’d recommend pleco if you know the pinyin, or if its a single word (because pleco’s definitions are more thorough and explanatory than googletranslate’s), or if it might be an idiom.

I would recommend that if you like watching stuff on the computer, to get the learn-with-netflix dual subtitle add on, and just click your subtitles for a definition on-the-video-itself instead of needing to open an app like me.

---

I am immensely excited and happy that I can watch a chinese show with no english and follow the gist now. That is a huge amount of progress for me compared with August 2019 when I started (and only knew ‘ni hao/wo hen hao’ and the numbers ;w; ). I am so proud of where I’ve gotten to. I definitely think really focusing on increasing known frequent words helps a lot. (Also, reading a grammar guide - grammar is again becoming understandable, so idk my brain is just acclimating again i guess). I’m going to keep focusing on frequent words, and the 2,000 most common characters, for a while and hopefully eventually this payoff will translate to reading as well.

If you DO happen to want to try watching a chinese show without english and testing yourself/studying, I have some mild recommendations you might take into consideration.

1. If it’s too difficult, do it a little, then come back to it in a few weeks, repeat. This task really only gets enjoyable once you understand enough to be ‘comfortable’ with the remaining ambiguity you still don’t comprehend. That is going to be different for different people. I am comfortable with a pretty high amount of ambiguity/lack of understanding, so I can at least try to watch even stuff-i-barely-grasp at least a little for practice until my brain feels fried. But I’ve been trying this for months... its only NOW that my brain feels relatively okay just watching without pausing, without feeling Completely overwhelmed. And if you do intend to watch without pausing much, you’ll have some degree of not-understanding-everything. Likewise, if you plan to pause the show (and how much you plan to pause it) should be tolerable for you as well. If you have to pause everything, understand everything - do you know enough words to do that in a timely enough manner to get THROUGH an episode? If it takes you a long time, are you willing to intensively focus and look things up that entire time? Basically - what is your tradeoff between you being able to pause and focus intensively on looking things up, versus you being able to watch without pausing and interpret from the words you know/context only. Whatever balance is most enjoyable/bearable for you is when this will start being something that’s easier to do regularly, instead of only occasionally as practice. At least, that’s how it was for me. I’m only finally at a point where I can do this regularly - before I could only do this for maybe 10-20 minute chunks of time occasionally.

2. Pick a genre of show/material you are going to engage in frequently. If you’re ALWAYS watching case-type shows, those words and those scenes will be more familiar to you and easier for you to interpret from context and with less looking things up. If you try this with a wildly different kind of show, you may know MANY less words and many scenes may be harder for you to comprehend the gist of. I watch a TON of case type shows so they’re very easy for me to see and pick up words I’m familiar with, single out the parts that are ‘important explanation’ versus ‘some crowd saying unimportant WOW oh No how Horrible’ type lines. So i can cherry pick important things to pause and look up words for, and guess at what kind of line i’m trying to interpret (i can guess if it’s about a case, an emotional discussion, a simple ‘lets do X’ statement etc - because i’m familiar with the plot type). In a similar vein - an easier show/material to do this with, may well be a show you’ve already watched in your native language/with your native language. For all the same reasons - you will be much more familiar with the context. I could in theory watch Guardian again (which i’ve rewatched... a lot) and I would probably follow the plot very easily. But I like a challenge too much apparently, and I’d rather practice with things I can’t fall-back on my existing knowledge for as much. A show I’ve never seen has much less I can rely on for context, BUT the trade off is I can really clearly test how well i’m comprehending the plot and lines - because they are all completely new to me, so I either comprehend or I clearly do not understand what’s going on/obviously misinterpret. So it’s a very quick way for me to see if I’m achieving anything or not. Whereas if I was watching a show I already saw, I might learn new words noticably, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if I’m getting better at understanding overall plot with no english to rely on (since I already saw it before with english).

3. If you’re like me - maybe pick a show either heavy on action, or heavy on daily life. While I am familiar with case-type shows... I generally think (for me) they’re harder to follow when your existing vocab knowledge isn’t high enough to follow it... They’re big on mysteries, on plots that are actually not what they appear, and surprises. They’re big on ‘strategies’ and I find for myself, strategies are kind of hard to follow when I know less words. In contrast: if you pick a daily-life type show, you’re more likely to either know the words or NEED to know the words at some point because they’ll be useful to you. And the scenes should be relatively easy to comprehend visually even when you don’t know the words. (My caveat being - if you want the language specifically FOR understanding certain genres, by all means go for the topics you’ll actually be using - if you’re gonna read a ton of wuxia, or case-stuff etc, then go for stuff you’ll Actually Use which might well be THEM). For me... my end goal is to be able to read creative fiction, so wuxia settings and fantastical settings and mystery-words and period-words are all things I better get used to. So I haven’t really watched much daily-life stuff (although there are daily-life scenes WITHIN a lot of dramas, and I do think they’re some of the easiest scenes to follow and comprehend).

Now, why might you pick an action-heavy show: easy to comprehend. Especially if you often watch action-oriented stuff already. The first chinese show I watched a whole episode of in only-chinese (it’s first episode, so that’s when i figured out the entire show’s set up) was The Shaw Eleven Lang (I really wanted more of Zhu Yilong’s acting in my life okay?). I DID in fact, manage to follow the plot. Without pausing much, because I was just watching it with dinner. What made it easier to follow was SO MUCH of the dialogue was really straightforward - stuff like ‘i want that sword’ or ‘i hate you’ or ‘lets eat and drink together to celebrate’ or ‘you need to go save/kill x’ or ‘do you think i’m pretty’ etc. So much of the dialogue was NOT schemes/plots/mysteries, it was really straightforward ‘we are doing X, we like Y, we hate Z’. Which for me are the sentence types I find the easiest to understand, and especially found the easiest at that point in time. In addition, because the show has so much action, often the dialogue is accompanied by action scenes that make it pretty freaking CLEAR what their objective is/what they just said. Yes, there are still plenty of unknown words to look up if you want to pause - but it should be obvious enough that you might have a decent guess at what they mean before you look them up (I had to look up words like sword, princess, clan leader, but those were pretty clear even beforehand from the context of the scenes). After I watched the first ep (which i don’t think i could even find english subs for), I watched the second ep with eng subs to see if i’d interpreted the plot correctly so far - i had. It felt pretty motivating to get through 40 minute episodes without much pausing, and know I’d followed along. I think, at least if you’re already an action-show/movie watcher, action series are going to be a relatively approachable thing to try watching in just your target language. (Another positive is a lot of verbs as commands lines, in context, so for me it’s easier to pick up new verbs, and those kind of lines are very easy to pick up in context - also lines like ‘xiao xin’ be careful, bubi, meiguanshi, danxin, ni fangxin, etc - all these short lines that are easy to understand in the context they often come up in).

(Also, do I recommend The Shaw Eleven Lang? Well... I need to go back to watching it but uh... it’s definitely AN EXPERIENCE... with wild fighter-game-tetsuya-nomura-would-be-proud kind of costume designs, wild af scenes so far, and uh as far as i can tell Zhu Yilong’s on point to play a pretty crazy bastard in it... also there’s a LOT of genuinely kickass girls and kickass main women, which i appreciate, i believe also the main women are all 30+ which is refreshing in general in any-show tbh. also just... everyone in the show is kickass... that’s the point... its a lot like to me, if a absolutely Wild fighting game got a budget for a full drama and just went wild on the plot - very fun to watch, very bizarre... not particularly deep but like, did you play Square enix’s The Bouncer on ps2 for a Good Plot or for an absolutely wild bizarre Time? This show is like the game The Bouncer... just freaking Wild conceptually).

And now, I am watching Handsome Siblings, and managing to get through episodes with only a little pausing for when I want to figure out specifics. It is also very action-scene heavy. At least for me, that’s been making it a lot easier to follow the gist of. There’s scenes where robbers attack - and even if I don’t know every line, its easy to figure out the gist of what’s being said. There’s scenes where people fight - again, very easy to follow. The parts I’ve been pausing the most on are the sisters plotting, because I feel that’s probably the most intensive-mystery in this plot so far, and because I want to make sure I interpret the details correctly when they’re mentioning them (since I think they’ll play out more in the plot later). I think the fact this show is Action-Heavy is making it tremendously easier for me to follow then like... me trying to watch Nirvana in Fire would be. The very straightforward action scenes are much easier to follow using visual context, at least for me, compared to dialogue heavy scenes where the vocabulary is not going to be emphazised with visuals nearly as much. (Another bonus of Handsome Siblings, at least so far, is the dialogue heavy scenes ARE accompanied by visual flashbacks to EXPLAIN the dialogue). Another bonus for Handsome Siblings: the writing seems very straightforward and decently paced. You don’t have to wait long for new scenes, for new developments, and that means a lot of dialogue and action is doing something right away and has a lot of context you immediately see result in something else. For me that just makes it... approachable and understandable in the kind of way like... movies like The Mummy were paced, or Indiana Jones, or Independence Day... do you know what I mean? It’s fun to watch even if you couldn’t understand, and the structure makes it quite comprehensible again even if you heard no dialogue at all. So for me, at least, it makes the balance of ‘ease of watching versus patience to look things up slowly’ much easier. Because its ease of watching is pretty high even for scenes where actual words-you-know isn’t high, so you can save looking-things-up for only when you WANT to, not necessarily as something you need to constantly do just to catch the gist.

---

I tried reading again - I tried reading the novel for the Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. It was BRUTAL because I apparently know NO dynasty-royalty-govt related words (which really explains why Men With Swords political scenes I know so few words lol). I got through 10 out of 39 ‘small’ pages on my phone for the first chapter. I think I managed to follow it, the grammar thankfully was really straightforward and I imagine the original author is quite talented. The difficulty was in the very common use of turns of phrase and idioms for so many parts of sentences, which were all new ‘words/phrases’ i’d never seen before.

#handsome siblings #chinese studyblr #rant #nts #watch progress #a lot of this is notes for myself but if anyone finds it useful thats cool #i am just. so happy about the progress #a few months ago watching a show in all chinese was a pipe dream #and in august that would have been completely unimaginable #i really... started in august practically useless

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diabhals · 4 years

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as promised, i have no fucking self-control, so below the cut is approximately 2k words of sappy wedding fluff. no i’m not sorry.

Bea's fingers run, fleet-footed, tap tap tap over the mahogany. A dance conducted by her thoughts, and the orchestra sails on, minutes ticking down to seconds of tap tap tap. Now she misses her little finger; now the dance is disjointed, the beat faltering as it comes to that knotted scar, tap tap stop. Now her hands move to straighten her tie again, for the fifth time, and they shake.

"How do I look?" Flicking her gaze to Matei, she licks her lips, expectant. A clock ticking over before the chime.

"Horrendous." He reaches up to brush an imaginary speck of dust from her forehead. "I'm sure he'll run away in horror at the sight of you."

"Oi." Bea huffs a laugh, her breath hot enough to blossom into a crystalline cloud; her jacket keeps out the cold of the room, though it still knifes at her fingers. "He wo-- what if he does?"

It's not a joke when it's a possibility, when she's stamping her feet in the antechamber and wondering exactly what part of the ceremony calls for husband and wife to freeze to death. For contemplation, Kiriya had said, in case you get cold feet. It's not a joke when those words are breathed into a fine mist of physicality, when she knows her Kit and she knows there's always some knife in his broken soul, ready to cut all mooring ropes and cast him into the stormy seas again. Such sharp things must be handled gently, softly, kissed by cherry lips and told they are beautiful, or they will not stay. They will not come to the call of a woman whose lips are chapped and whose hands are hard.

"He won't." Matei's words are a firm finality, even as the breath that spoke them dissipates. Bea returns to her pacing and tap tap tapping.

Looking around the antechamber, she can't believe this is where the last moments of her unmarried life are slipping away: the same place where they prepare bodies, the same place where squalling babies are brought in nests of blankets and greeted by the priest for the first time. She understands why it's so cold, now: it keeps the bodies from rotting on that marble bed, white shot through with tear-tracks of black. It keeps the soon-to-be-weds on their toes, keeps them walking, walking, needing to hear the sound of their footsteps echoing into the vaulted ceiling to know that they are there and this is real.

The door clicks open to admit an altar-maiden, her spider-spun skirts rustling over the threshold. Everything about her is soft: the hair that cascades over her shoulders, the milky, blue eyes that stare up at Bea.

"It's time." What was her name again -- it escapes her, but Bea follows the girl just the same. One last glance over her shoulder to make sure Matei is coming with her, then into the body of the church.

It never fails to take her breath away, the stone pillars like ribs stretching up and bowing together overhead. The way her footsteps echo, a heartbeat filling the cavity of space between her and the stone as she hurries to the altar, taking her place in front of it; she longs to savour it, light pouring in, a sticky-sweet blood, through a stained glass window, but her own heart is hammering. Her eyes are too fixed on the other end of the aisle, the door that seems to do nothing but stare at her. Asking, do you consider yourself worthy?

If the waiting room was supposed to still her doubts, it hasn't worked. They all flood back in a rush: if she were him, this is when she'd do it. She'd spend the whole night pacing as she was, debating, only coming to a decision the moment before she sealed her life away. She'd run, though Bea can't imagine he'd get too far, he limps all the worse these days, and a bad leg is an easy weakness to spot. What she can imagine is that he's afraid, that he'd fold himself into some dark crevice and dissolve into the shadows, to reappear somewhere else, under a different name.

He may also persuade Tammy to put rat poison in her whiskey, but in light of all they've been through, Bea considers that quite rude.

With a sound like the groaning of gears, the door opens, letting in another shaft of sugared-pink sunlight.

Letting in Kit.

Her first thought is that dress must cost a fortune; her second thought: no, it's alright, we have the time and the money for a dress now. Her third thought is nothing at all, just an intake of breath.

Walking slowly, supported by Micah, Kit's skirt rustles across the stone like a whisper. The dress is white, white as a funeral shroud, as a newborn's shawl; its train stretches back, a wave of taffeta topped by the veil, a frothing of lace. She barely gives the dress more than a cursory glance, though, searching underneath that veil for his familiar face. Even through it, the white deepens the colour of his skin, a warm brown almost set alight by the sunrise's caressings. Even despite it, she can piece together the contours of his face, the scar, the freckles, and lose herself in them: call him beautiful, call him majestic, call him mine. Hers because she knows him in every detail, knows him down to the rhythm of his steps -- even in a good dress, they don't change. Quick-slow, soft-heavy, the weight always falling on his good leg.

She's just about ready to succumb to wonder when Matei elbows her in the ribs.

"Stop it. You're embarrassing yourself." His wolfy grin says wait until I tell the others about this, as if they aren't already watching.

"He's going to be my husband, you know," Bea whispers, pouting. "I'm allowed to look."

"Don't I know it." Matei snickers, loud enough that the altar-maiden shoots him a venomous look. "Beatrice Poisontongue, scourge of two kingdoms, a blushing bride. I never thought I'd live to see the day."

"Fuck off, it'll be your turn soon enough." Doesn't she know that; she would tease him about the way he drapes himself over Vall, but Micah is handing Kit up the altar steps, and she reaches down to help him.

As Bea takes Kit's hand, Micah's eyes meet hers, the message in them clear. Look after him. It's something she's heard from Matei, Tammy, even Kiriya -- a promise she's already made, and intends to keep.

Handing Kit up the steps, she gives him a smile, as gentle as she can muster. Beneath the veil, it's returned; his hand grips hers, tightening like the fastening of a good rope to a mooring post.

Finally, they both stand before the priest, before the Stitched Goddess, or at least her stained-glass effigy. It seems to smile at them, perhaps a touch indulgently, making Bea want to spit in its eye and hold Kit all the tighter. I know I've not earned him, but I have him. And I don't know why either of us decided to get married before you.

"Beatrice and --" The priest doesn't manage to say it and earn himself a kick in the teeth before Kit interrupts.

"Kit. It's just Kit." He returns the squeeze of Bea's hand, and she wonders whether she would've had to get in line to deliver the teeth-kicking.

The priest gives Kit a nod, one Bea supposes must pass for understanding.

"Beatrice and Kit, we are here today to celebrate your union before the Goddess, and before your family." Family -- she glances back across the audience, mostly full of Sewer People. Free citizens of Den Tiel now, part of her family. "Do you understand the commitment you are about to make?"

Last chance for you to back out, her eyes say.

"We do." The unison surprises her; Kit's shrouded eyes whisper back, why would I want to?

"Very well. Beatrice, repeat after me --"

Bea doesn't need his prompting, not when she's been repeating these words to herself for weeks, perfecting their exact cadence. For a moment, everything else fades away, and she sees nothing but Kit as she speaks:

"Kit, I promise to be your safe harbour and your mooring post. I promise to be your lighthouse and your wind. I promise to keep a lamp lit for you in my heart wherever I am, wherever you are, in poverty and in riches. In happiness and strife. With this necklace--" somehow Matei remembers his cue, pressing it into Bea's hand, "I also promise you myself." Til death sees fit to take me, she's supposed to add, but just let death try and take her without him.

Slipping her hands under the veil to clasp the necklace, her stomach churns with excitement. There's something strangely illicit, an open secret, in breaching the lace, feeling his pulse flutter beneath warm skin. She had wanted to get him something more ornate, but in that silvered moment the simple gold chain seems fine, a single ruby dripping like a drop of blood onto the white dress.

"Now, Kit, if you would--"

"Bea." He almost cracks; she can hear the laugh in his voice before he continues. "I promise to be your compass and your road home. I promise to be your north star and your map. I promise to keep a lamp lit for you in my heart wherever I am, wherever you are, in poverty and in riches. In happiness and in strife. With this necklace, I also promise you myself."

Tammy hands him the necklace; it's equally simple, an emerald-eyed snake on a gold chain. Clasping it, Kit's fingers brush the back of Bea's neck, sending a shiver webbing across her skin.

All too soon his hands are gone; the priest smiles, placid and fatherly.

"My children, at the dawn of the world, the Stitched Goddess knew you. She sewed every part of you together, and wove the paths of your lives; now she has seen fit to weave those two colourful tapestries together. With the utmost joy, and my heartfelt blessing, I charge you to cherish each other always, as husband and wife." Say it, Bea thinks, say it. "You may now kiss."

She lifts the veil almost reverently, revealing the divinity beneath -- and Kit pounces on her, drawing her into the kiss. Rapacious, hands cupping her cheeks as if afraid she'll slip through his fingers. All she can do, all she wants to do, is offer herself up, leaning into the kiss. Every part of it is known to her now: the way he tastes, bittersweet, the way his passion washes over her, the way it baptised her the first time she knew it. They way it wasn't exactly freely given, not this vulnerable, and that -- she must've done something to earn it.

Somehow, that's the best part of it all: that when they pull away, everyone's clapping, and she finally knows the answer. She is worthy.

Her slips her hand into his, wanting to never let go. A look passes between them; Bea's heart swells when she catches his smile, a genuine smile. Turning back to the aisle laid out before them, she gives his hand a little squeeze, then one more glance at her new husband.

"Walk with me?"

"Always."

They begin to descend the steps; idly, she wonders how much the house with the turquoise door costs.

#joan.docx #oc: bea #oc: kit #ship: bea x kit #right for some context:#they've been through a LOT of shit #including a war #to get to this point #bea used to be a mob boss before she ended up founding her own city-state #alongside kit #who basically led a group of outcast people #and she's so afraid of loving him because he's been through so much #(ie an abusive father #which is why he has a bad leg and why he doesn't like his full name)#and she doesn't want to make it worse #micah is his adopted dad #tammy is their mutual friend #a courtesan and renowned backstabber #as for the dress #theyre both gnc af #and this was a test of how much i could stop fangirling over the dress #ANyway #'walk with me' is their little thing #micah said it to kit after he first had to relearn to walk #bea said it again after he had to do so AGAIn in the middle of a war #and now it just passes for 'im here to support you'#/end rant

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davidfarland · 5 years

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What Rejection Really Means

For the last few weeks I’ve been scurrying to finish up judging on a large contest. I’ve had to “reject” thousands of stories. I hate the word “reject,” because it doesn’t really express what I want to say.

Very often I will read the opening to a story and it is obviously the first work of a very young writer. It may have a multitude of problems—from simple typos, to a lack of understanding as to how to set a scene, to clunky dialog. I know that I can’t accept the story for publication, but at the same time, I wish that I could shout some encouragement to the budding writer, much the way that my mentor Algis Budrys did to a young Stephen King.

I think that people need encouragement. It may be the only thing that will spur a young writer to greater effort.

So what does the word “rejection” mean to you as a writer? I think it’s simply: “Try harder.”

A lot of fine works get rejected. The bestselling works in nearly every genre experienced rejection. Lord of the Rings was rejected by several American publishers. Dune was rejected by all of them. Gone with the Wind made its rounds through every major publisher. Harry Potter was rejected by all of the biggest houses, and Twilight was rejected by a dozen agents before it got picked up—yet all of these novels became the bestsellers in their fields.

So does that mean that these were all bad novels? Of course not. It means that the author didn’t find an editor with a matching taste, a matching vision, right at the first.

Very often when I read a manuscript that is close to being publishable, I think, It’s a shame that the author didn’t try a little harder to . . . That’s what “rejected” means to me.

I was talking to international bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton last week, and asked her to confirm a rumor that I’d heard. With her first novel, she received over 200 rejections before she made a sale. She said, “When people tell me that they’ve been rejected five or ten or twenty times, I just tell them that ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’”

Laurell has the perfect attitude toward rejection. Try harder.

***

Here is one of my short stories that I published on Amazon last year, Hellfire on the High Frontier. When Morgan Gray meets a stranger that might be God or might be the devil, he agrees to travel to the "High Frontier" and try to gun down a clockwork gambler, in a journey that will take him to a dead god's heaven, where feral angels are the least of his problems. You can read the full short story below.

You'll find more short stories like this one for $.99 on Amazon under my name, David Farland.

Hellfire on the High Frontier

Wyoming Territory

Circa 1876

Morgan Gray sat alone, peering into his crackling campfire, eyes unfocused, thinking of girls he’d known. In particular, there was a dance-hall girl he’d once met in Cheyenne. What was her name—Lacy? She’d had red hair and the prettiest smile—so fine he almost hadn’t noticed that she’d worn nothing more than a camisole, bloomers, and a green silk corset while she lay atop the piano and sang.

Out here on the range, there was little more to do than cook his beans over the campfire and remember. For weeks now, he’d been trailing a skinwalker, a renegade Arapaho named Coyote Shadow, but the skinwalker had taken to bear form and lost Morgan in the high rocks of the Wind River Range.

A schoolmarm murdered, her child eaten. Morgan hadn’t been able to avenge them.

Sometimes you lose a trail, he knew. Sometimes you lose the fight. You have to figure out how to keep fighting.

He downed some coffee, as bitter and cold as the trail.

Out in the rocky hills, a wolf howled. It sounded wrong, a little too high. Could’ve been a Sioux warrior, hoping to count coup. Morgan would have to watch his horse tonight, sleep with one eye open.

The burning ponderosa pine in his campfire smelled sweet, like butterscotch boiling over in a pan. Some pitch in the heartwood popped. A log shifted, and embers spiraled up from the fire. They rose in balls of red, and seemed to expand, dancing around one another as they sped toward heaven.

Morgan watched them drift higher, wondering when they’d wink out, until time stretched unnaturally, as if the embers planned to rise and take their place among the stars.

Suddenly, The Stranger took form across the campfire, a shadow solidifying into something almost human, sitting on a rock.

Morgan had met him only once, seven years back: a man in a black frock, like a traveling preacher. He wore his Stetson low over his eyes and had a wisp of dark beard. The spurs on his boots were made of silver, with glowing pinwheels of lightning. The cigar clenched between his teeth smelled of sulfur.

Could’ve been an angel. Could’ve been the devil. Morgan’s gut told him that The Stranger was something different altogether.

“Long way from Texas,” The Stranger said in a deep voice, lips hardly moving.

Morgan had no authority outside of Texas. So he kept his ranger’s badge in his vest pocket. “Justice shouldn’t be bound by borders,” he said. “The whole world’s gone crazy.”

The Stranger smiled. “Got a job for you.”

Morgan should never have asked this stranger for help seven years back. Might have been better to just let his horse, Handy, drown in the quicksand. With folks like The Stranger, there is always a price.

But, hell, Morgan had loved that gelding.

“A job?” Morgan asked. “I catch ’em. Don’t necessarily kill ’em.” He’d seen too much bloodshed in the war. After more than ten years, the scars were just beginning to heal.

Morgan wasn’t afraid of a fight. Once you’ve stared death in the face a few times, nothing riles you. Yet . . .

“He’s good with a gun,” The Stranger said. “Few men would stand a chance against him. He’s a clockwork gambler, goes by the name of Hellfire. Shooting one of them . . . it’s not the same as killing flesh and blood humans. . . .”

It should be more like stomping a pocket watch, Morgan realized. Clockworks were all springs and gears inside. But Morgan had known a clockwork once, a soldier by the name of Rowdy. Morgan swore that the thing was as alive as any man of flesh and blood. Rowdy had once joked, “Us clockworks, we got souls same as the rest of y’all. Ours are just wind-ups.”

“What did this gambler do?” Morgan asked.

“Fought alongside Jackson at Chancellorsville,” The Stranger said, as if to ease Morgan’s mind. “Is that enough?”

Morgan had always hated slavers. “The war’s over.”

“But this old soldier still kills,” the stranger said. “Not sure why. Some say he took a knock from a cannonball in the war. When the gears turn in his mind, he cannot help himself. The last victim was a boy, sixteen years old. Hellfire called him out. Before that, he shot a Chinaman, and before that, a snake-oil salesman. Each killing is four months apart—to the minute.”

The Stranger spat into the fire. His spittle burst into flame, like kerosene, and emitted a rich scent that reminded Morgan of blackberries, growing thick on the vine beside a creek.

Morgan suspected that The Stranger was right. This gambler needed to be stopped. But killing a clockwork wouldn’t be easy. Their inner parts were shielded by nickel and tin, and you never knew where their vital gears hid. Thirteen Comancheros had had a bout with one down on the border a couple years back. Rumor said it had taken twenty-three bullets to bring him down. Eleven Comancheros died.

Clockworks were quick on the draw, deadly in their aim. The Stranger called this one a “gambler,” but clockworks had been created to be soldiers and guards and gunslingers.

“What brand is he?” Morgan asked.

“Sharps.”

Morgan ground his teeth. He’d hoped that it might be some cheap Russian model, built during the Crimean War. The Sharps clockworks had a reputation. Going up against one was almost suicide.

Yet Morgan had taken a handout from a stranger, and he’d known that there would be a day of reckoning. “Where do I find him?”

“Heading toward Fort Laramie . . .” The Stranger said. “The gambler is like a bomb, with a fuse lit. In four days, six hours, and seven minutes, he will kill again.”

The Stranger turned into an oily shadow and wafted away.

***

Morgan hardly slept that night. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, and prospectors were crawling all over the wilderness north of Fort Laramie, the biggest supply depot in the West. Tens of thousands were riding in on the new rail lines.

The Indians didn’t like it. After getting pushed around for years, Sioux holy men like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were on the warpath, trying to drive off the miners, much as they’d tried to hold off the homesteaders and buffalo hunters.

Only this time, the way Morgan figured it, there was going to be a bloodbath. You can only steal so much from a man before he has to push back. Morgan didn’t fancy blundering into such a mess. Some Sioux had big magic.

At dawn he rode east toward Frenchman’s Ferry, climbing over the hills. A day later, he found a single skinwalker’s track between two boulders, in a land covered by worn sandstone rocks and sparse grasses. The creature had been leaping from boulder to boulder, hiding its trail. But it had come to a place where the rocks were too far apart.

Like many skinwalkers, Coyote Shadow had turned himself into a beast once too often, and now he’d lost himself. His print was something halfway between a human foot and a bear’s paw. Coyote Shadow had become only half a man.

Much like me, Morgan thought. He’d carried a torch for Sherman, had forced womenfolk from their houses and set entire cities aflame. Sometimes folks had refused to leave their homes, and he’d heard the women screaming in the fires.

He forced down the memories.

Morgan slid from his saddle and studied the print. The dusty ground here had given easily, yielding a deep track with crisp ridges. The track looked fresh—hours old.

Morgan searched the bleak landscape: sandstone thrusting up from broken ground, dry grass and sage, and little else.

During the heat of the day, any sane Indian would have stopped in the shade, though there wasn’t much of it here to take solace in

Morgan’s mare nickered and shied back a step, as if she’d caught a dangerous scent.

Morgan sniffed. Between the iron odor of rocks and dry grass, he smelled an undertone—like garlic rubbed in fur.

A skinwalker.

He’d been hunting the creature for months, and now he resented finding it. He was on his way to kill the clockwork gambler.

But justice demanded that he finish this monster.

He searched uphill. A pile of sandstone boulders stood at its crown, with a single rock jutting up from it in a small pinnacle. Yucca plants and a few junipers grew tall in the pinnacle’s shadow.

The skinwalker is up there, Morgan realized. He could be watching me.

Morgan studied the shadows. Nothing stirred. Perhaps the skinwalker was sleeping.

Morgan tied his pony to a mesquite bush, pulled his Winchester from the saddle holster, and began picking his way uphill, weaving behind rocks and bushes in case the skinwalker tried to take a long shot.

Fifteen minutes later, Morgan reached the rocks, and in the shade of a juniper found some crushed grass where the skinwalker had bedded. He’d left only moments ago.

Biting his lip, Morgan leapt to the far side of the rock and scanned the landscape. He saw the skinwalker, rushing uphill toward the next ridge, a lumbering mound of shaggy fur. His long arms swung with every stride, and he ran low to the ground, like an ape, but Coyote Shadow still wore the scrap of a loin cloth. He moved fast, faster than a horse could run.

The creature was more than two hundred yards out, and as he neared the ridge, he turned and glanced back.

Morgan had time for one shot before the sorcerer escaped. He crouched behind a rock and steadied his aim. The skinwalker saw him, whirled, and doubled his speed.

Morgan’s hands shook. Mouth went dry. Heart pounded. He gasped.

Buck fever.

He didn’t want it to end this way—shooting the skinwalker in the back. Morgan had imagined catching Coyote Shadow, taking him to some town where a judge would see that he was hanged proper.

Morgan forced himself to stop breathing, lined the skinwalker up in his sites, and squeezed gently.

The rifle cracked and jumped in his hands. The skinwalker didn’t jerk or stumble. Instead, his stride seemed clean, uninterrupted, as he disappeared over the hill.

Still, that didn’t mean that Morgan hadn’t wounded the beast. Morgan once had seen a rebel lieutenant die in combat—he charged into battle, swinging a sword in one hand and shooting a revolver from the other while bullet holes blossomed on his chest like roses. “Charging Dead,” Morgan called it.

So he took note of the place where the skinwalker had stood as Morgan fired, near a large rock with a yucca plant, then hurried to the spot.

He found the monster’s tracks and studied the ground for blood, a clump of hair, hoping for any sign that the skinwalker was wounded.

Morgan tracked the monster over one ridge, then another.

As the sun began to wallow on the horizon in a leaden sky, and bats wove through the air, he admitted defeat. Not a drop of blood could be found. He’d missed.

***

That night, the moon hid beneath bands of clouds, and a south wind from the Gulf of Mexico smelled of rain. Morgan camped without a fire, not wanting to risk setting the prairie alight.

He couldn’t sleep. He’d ruined Coyote Shadow’s rest, and he worried that the skinwalker might come creeping into his camp, hoping for vengeance. So for long hours, Morgan lay quietly listening for the crunch of a foot in the prairie soil with his pistol in hand, just beneath his blanket.

As the hours stretched, he dozed sporadically, but would wake again with a start. A screech owl hunted nearby, flying low, shrieking every few minutes as it tried to startle mice from their hiding places.

Long after midnight, Morgan decided to relax and put his hat over his eyes. Suddenly it was knocked away, and he rose up and fired blindly, just as the owl winged off.

His hat lay on the ground next to him. The bird had swooped low and struck it. Apparently the bit of rabbit fur on the brim looked too much like a varmint to the owl.

Morgan turned over, indignant, and after many minutes he slid into an uneasy slumber.

He dreamt that he was in a shop, where a tinkerman with a big, white handlebar moustache and penetrating blue eyes worked at piecing together clockwork soldiers.

One soldier lay like a patient on a surgeon’s table. The tinkerman had its chest cavity open and was grasping something inside: it was a huge golden coil spring, nearly lost amid gears and pistons. Part pocketwatch, part steam engine, the insides of the clockwork soldier were somehow more greasy and filthy than Morgan had imagined they could be.

The tinkerman nodded toward a crate and said in a deep Georgia drawl, “Son, would you be so kind as to fish a heart outta that box?”

The shop had bits and pieces of clockwork everywhere—a shelf of expressionless faces, waiting to come to life; arms and legs hanging from the rafters like dry sausages in a Mexican cantina; tubes and gizmos lying in heaps on counters and on the floor.

Morgan looked into the box. He found dozens of hearts in it, barely beating, covered in grease and oil, black and ugly.

Morgan picked up the largest, strongest-looking one. It throbbed in his grip, almost slipping away. He handed it to the tinkerman.

“Much obliged,” the tinkerman said.

He thrust the heart into the contraption, piercing it through with the gold coil, and the clockwork soldier jolted to life—hands flexing, a strangled cry rising from its throat. Its mouth opened, and it whined stupidly, like an animal in pain.

The tinkerman smiled in satisfaction. “Perfect.”

Somehow, that pronouncement scared Morgan. Would the clockwork gambler that he was hunting be “perfect?” It sounded presumptuous.

Morgan wondered at that. He said, “When God made man, he only allowed that his creation was ‘good.’”

The tinkerman glanced up, lips tight in anger, eyes twinkling. “God, sir, was not a perfectionist. He failed as an organism. We superseded him.”

“Superseded?”

The tinkerman smiled cruelly. “He drove Adam from the Garden of Idunn. In some tales, afterward, Adam made a spear and sneaked up on God while he was sleeping. . . .”

Morgan wondered. He’d heard in the war that God was dead. He never heard any legends, though, about how it happened.

***

Startled from his sleep, Morgan feared that someone was sneaking up on him. He lay still for several minutes, listening for the crackle of a footfall. Thin clouds filled the sky, which was beginning to lighten on the horizon. Morning would not be far off.

Small birds flitted about in a nearby sage. Here in the desert, most birds were silent, unwilling to call attention to themselves.

Morgan felt that something was wrong.

Suddenly, he realized that he hadn’t heard anything amiss. It was what he didn’t hear that bothered him—his horse. He lurched to his feet, swung his pistol around, and peered into the shadows.

His horse was nowhere to be seen.

***

Coyote Shadow had circled Morgan, stolen his food, his hat, his rifle, and his horse.

Morgan must have worn himself out, trying to keep watch. The skinwalker could have killed him in his sleep, but this Indian was more interested in counting coup, humiliating Morgan, than taking his scalp.

“Hope you’re getting a good chuckle out of this!” Morgan shouted to the horizon.

He turned away from the skinwalker’s path and set off for Frenchman’s Ferry.

Morgan wasn’t the kind of man to chew on regret. In life, he believed that you have to do the best you can. Sometimes you succeeded, sometimes you failed.

He’d lost Coyote Shadow, and by now the renegade was probably heading to join up with Crazy Horse’s men; either that or he’d gone up into the aspen forests in the high country. Morgan figured he’d never see Coyote Shadow again.

Yet he began to regret missing his shot at the skinwalker. He wondered about his buck fever—the shaking hands, the dry mouth.

Too many men, when they get in a gunfight, will draw and fire wild, hitting only empty air. That’s what gets them killed. A more experienced man will take a moment to aim—half a second, if need be—and thus shoot his opponent.

Morgan was fast on the draw and had a steady aim, but he’d gotten buck fever.

His failure seemed a portent.

The clockwork gambler wouldn’t suffer from human debilities. He wouldn’t get excited and drop his gun. He wouldn’t get a case of tremors. He wouldn’t pause because he was having an attack of conscience.

He would just kill.

In some ways, Morgan realized, he’s better than me.

Morgan survived the next two days off strips of sliced prickly pear cactus, which tasted like green beans, and yucca fruit, which were more like potatoes. The odd jack rabbit added protein to the fare.

Four days after meeting The Stranger, Morgan was hobbling along on sore feet, thirty miles from Fort Laramie. If the stranger was right, someone would get killed today. Morgan wouldn’t be there to stop it.

When he reached Frenchman’s Ferry, down on the North Platte, he spotted a miserable little log shack. Bear traps, snowshoes, and other durable goods hung outside. A pair of dogs—half mastiff and half wolf—guarded the door. Its smokestack was roiling, even in the heat of the day, producing black clouds of smoke.

A bevy of greenhorns had just left the post, heading north into the wilderness.

Morgan hurried inside.

At the counter, an aging squaw sat with a basket of big turkey eggs. She hunched over a lightbox—a box with a mirror on one wall, and an oil lamp in the middle. By holding an egg up to the contraption, a person could check it for cracks or the blobs of half-formed fetuses.

The squaw’s blouse was white with red polka dots—a Cheyenne design. But she wore buckskin pants like a trapper, and her perfume smelled imported. She didn’t spare him a glance.

“Look around,” she offered in that Indian way that was more “careful” than “slow.” The shop was filled with merchandise—tins of crackers; barrels of pickles, beans, rice and wheat. On the wall behind the counter were hunting knives, a pair of shotguns—and above them hung Morgan’s Winchester.

So the skinwalker had been here.

The gun didn’t interest him right now. The skinwalker had stolen it fair and square. He’d counted coup and sold the gun. No sense arguing with the squaw about who owned it. Morgan would just embarrass himself by admitting that it had once been his.

Of everything in the shop, the things that most interested him were those eggs. Hunger gnawed at him. When Morgan was a child, his ma had often sold eggs to folks in town. She’d taught him young how to candle one, to check it for damage.

“Is Black Pierre around?” Morgan ventured.

“Gone for supplies,” the squaw said. “Back in three, four days.”

The squaw was turning an egg experimentally, studying it. She didn’t look up. Morgan could see how judging such an egg might be difficult. Most chicken eggs were a uniform tan in color. Finding blood spots inside was easy. But these eggs were white, with big specks on them—some sand-colored, others more like liverworts. The shells were thicker than a chicken egg.

“I’d be right happy to buy some turkey eggs off of you,” Morgan offered.

“Not turkey eggs,” the squaw said, “thunderbird! Traders brought them in this morning. Found them in an old geyser vent over in Sulfur Springs.”

Morgan had never seen a thunderbird egg before. Back east, they were called “snakebirds” but had been extinct for at least a hundred years. Down in Mexico, the Spaniards had called them quetzals, and some of the tribes still prayed to the critters.

“Want to see?” the squaw asked.

She held an egg to the hole in the lightbox, and Morgan peered in. Sure enough, the light shining though the egg was bright enough to reveal the embryo inside—a birdlike head with a snake’s body. Many of its bones were still gelatinous, but he could see its guts forming, a tiny heart beating. Its scales were still almost translucent, just beginning to turn purple.

“Well, I’ll be!” Morgan whispered. “Didn’t know as there were any snakebirds left. They’re fading faster than the buffalo.”

“Mmm . . .” the squaw mused. “The world must get rid of the old wonders, so that it can make way for the new.”

Morgan thought on that. He’d seen some of the last real buffalo herds as a child, darkening the plains of Kansas. Now the railroads were coming, and the railroad men were killing the buffalo off. The big herds were a danger to trains.

He imagined the clockwork gambler. Would such things someday replace men?

“Those eggs for sale?” Morgan asked.

“Not to you. They’re for the Sioux—big medicine.”

“How much you reckon to get?”

“My scalp,” she said. “The Sioux slaughtered General Custer last week at the Little Bighorn. I’m going to need some gifts, to make peace.”

Morgan didn’t have a lot of money. He was able to buy back his pony and his hat at the trading post, but couldn’t afford his rifle.

He set off down the Platte toward Fort Laramie, riding overland, well south of the river, far away from the pioneer trails where the Sioux would concentrate their patrols.

When he reached Fort Laramie, the post was full.

People of every kind had taken refuge just outside the fortress walls in tents and teepees—gold miners, fur trappers, homesteaders on the Oregon and California trails, Mormon converts from England and Denmark on their way to Utah, railroad workers of the Chinese, Irish, Dutch, and Negro persuasions, Omaha Indians and a few Comanches, Bible thumpers. Morgan had rarely seen such liveliness on the frontier.

He heard a rumor that there was a plague merchant in town—with bottles of black death and boxes of locust larvae.

Hell, there was even a freak show in town with a three-headed woman, an elephant, and a genuine Egyptian mummy.

The town hadn’t seen rain in weeks, and so as Morgan entered the fortress, he found a rainmaker at the front gates—pounding a huge drum that sounded for the world like the crashing of thunder.

“Come, wind!” the rainmaker shouted. “Arise ye tempest, I say! Let your water soak the gnarly ground. Let cactus flowers bloom, while toads claw up from the mud!”

Morgan sat on his horse and studied the slim man—a tall beardless fellow in a fine top hat and tails, who roared as he drummed and stared off toward a few clouds on the horizon like a lunatic, with manic eyes and a grim smile.

The clouds were drawing near, blackening from moment to moment.

Morgan tossed a penny into the man’s cup. “Keep your eyes on them clouds, Preach,” Morgan said. “Don’t let ’em sneak off.”

“Thank you, good sir,” the rainmaker said, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “There will be rain soon. Mark my word.”

Morgan didn’t want the clockwork gambler to know that he was hunting for him. But the rainmaker seemed like a trustworthy fellow. He hazarded, “I’m looking for a clockwork gambler. Seen him?”

“You a friend of his?” the preacher asked. His tone became a bit formal, suspicious, and he backed away an inch.

In answer, Morgan pulled the badge from his pocket, a star made of nickel.

“You’re too late,” the preacher said. “He went on a rampage yesterday. He was sitting quiet at a card table, and suddenly pulled out his gun and shot a showgirl. There was a big row. Some cavalrymen drew steel, and seven men died in the firefight. The gambler escaped.”

“See which way he went?”

The rainmaker nodded toward the clouds. In just the few moments since they’d begun speaking, Morgan realized that they’d shrunk and had begun to drift away. “He headed off into the High Frontier, where no one can give chase. There won’t be no posse. Major Wiggins has got more trouble than he can handle, with them Sioux.”

Morgan had heard tales of the High Frontier, but he’d never been there. Few men had. There had always been stories of castles in the clouds, but truth is far stranger than fiction.

“How’d he fly?” Morgan asked.

“Private yacht. He won it in a poker game.”

Morgan wondered. The clockwork gambler was far away by now, more inaccessible than Mexico, almost as remote as the moon.

The rainmaker said hopefully, “Wells Fargo has a new line that goes to the High Frontier. Got to stay ahead of them railroads. Schooner lands next Monday.”

“What day is today?” Morgan could guess at the month, but not the day.

“Today’s a Wednesday.”

Five days to get a grub stake together. Morgan bit his lower lip. He’d seen an airship once, a big copper-colored bulb glowing in the sunset as it sailed through ruddy clouds. Pretty and untouchable, like a trout swimming in deep, clear water.

“The dancehall girl,” Morgan said. “She have any friends?”

The preacher squinted, giving an appraising look, and nodded sagely. “You thinking ’bout going after him?”

It seemed audacious. Hunting a clockwork alone was foolhardy, and few men had the kind of money needed for airfare.

Morgan nodded. “Justice shouldn’t be confined by borders.”

The rainmaker nodded agreement, then thrust a hand into his pocket, pulled out some bills and change, handed them over. “Here’s a donation for your cause, Lawman. Lacy didn’t have a lot of friends, but she had a lot of men who longed for her from afar. Check the saloon.”

Morgan’s heart broke at the mention of Lacy’s name. He remembered the red-haired girl, her innocent smile. He’d seen her before. But what was she doing in Laramie?

She’d come here for safety, he figured, like everyone else. Scared of the renegades. They were like sheep, huddled in a pen.

He’d felt so in awe of Lacy, he couldn’t have dared even speak to her, much less ask to hold her hand. In some ways, she was little more than a dream, a thing of ephemeral beauty.

The preacher smiled and began pounding his drum with extra vigor. “Come, horrid bursts of thunder!” he commanded. “Come sheets of fire! Groan ye winds and roar ye rain!”

On the horizon, the clouds darkened and again began lumbering toward Laramie.

***

A week later, Morgan found himself in the gondola of a dirigible.

It turned out that Lacy had had a lot of friends in Laramie. Though none was rich enough to afford passage to the High Frontier on their own, and none was mad enough to shoot it out with a clockwork, Morgan was able to scrape together enough money for his passage.

The balloon above the gondola was shaped like a fancy glass Christmas tree ornament, all covered in gold silk. A steam engine powered the dirigible, providing a steady thump, thump, thump as pistons pounded and blades spun.

The gondola swung beneath the huge balloon, connected by skywires. Its decks were all hewn from new cedar and sandalwood; their scent complimented the smell of sky and sun and wind.

City slickers and foreigners sat in the parlor cabin, toasting their good fortune and dancing while bands played.

Morgan could hear their music, smell their roast beef, sometimes even glimpse them dancing. But he wasn’t a railroad tycoon or a mining magnate or a politician.

He’d taken passage in the lower deck, in the “Belly of the Beast,” as they called it, and had one small porthole in his cabin to peer through.

Still, the sight was glorious.

The dirigible reached the High Frontier at sunset, just as the sun dipped below the sea, leaving the clouds below to be a half-lit mass of swirling wine and fuchsia.

One could only find the High Frontier at that time of day—when the sun had set and the full moon was poised to rise on the far side of the Earth. It was a magical place, nestled in the clouds.

Down below the skyship, a silver city rose—elegant spires like fairy castles, with windows lit up like gemstones. The colored glass in those windows made it look as if sapphires, rubies, and diamonds were scattered over the city.

The skyship landed amid glorious swirling clouds, and the rich folk marched down the promenade, arm in arm, laughing and joking and celebrating their good fortune. On the deck, the band came out and played soft chamber music.

Women oohed and aahed at the spectacle, while men stood open-mouthed. Morgan imagined that saints might make such sounds as they entered heaven.

The High Frontier had only been discovered four years back. Who had built the silver castles, no one knew. How the cities of stone floated in the clouds was also a mystery.

Angels lived there—scrawny girls with wings, ethereal in their beauty. But they were feral creatures, barbaric, and it was said that when the first explorers had entered the silver city, the angels were roosting over the arches—little more than filthy pigeons.

Some thought that it had once been an outpost, that perhaps angels had once been wiser, more civilized, and that they rested here while carrying messages back and forth between heaven and Earth.

One guess was as good as another. But a new territory was opening up, and folks were eager to be the first to see it. Morgan couldn’t figure how a man might make a living here. The sky was always twilit, so you couldn’t grow crops. The clouds were somehow thick enough to walk on, but there was nothing to mine.

Just a pretty place to visit, Morgan thought.

When the rich folk were mostly gone, Morgan made his way down the gangplank. A fancy dude in a bowler hat stood at the top of the gangway, smoking a fine cigar that perfumed the air.

He glanced at Morgan, smiled, and said, “Das ist schön, nicht wahr?”

Morgan grinned back. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I don’t reckon we speak the same language.”

Morgan walked down the gangplank, his spurs jangling with every step, and trundled through the city. He imagined that madmen had fashioned the soaring arches above the city gate, now planted with vines and lianas that streamed in living curtains.

Maybe a fellar could grow crops up here after all, he mused, though the light is low. Butterflies and hummingbirds danced among the flowers.

As he entered the silver city, spires rose up on either side. There was something both strange and yet oddly organic about the tall buildings, as if some alien intelligence had sought to build a city for humans. Perhaps dove-men had designed it, or termites. He wasn’t sure.

People filed off in a number of directions. It was rumored that many a tycoon had bought houses here—Cornelius Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, along with royals out of Europe and Russia. Even Queen Victoria had a new “Summerhouse” here.

All the high-falutin’ folks sauntered off to their destinations, and Morgan felt lost.

One fairy castle looked much like another. He searched for an hour, and as he rounded a corner, he found what he was looking for: the wing doors of a Western saloon. He could hear loud piano music inside, and smell spilled beer on its oak floors.

He walked into the saloon and found a madhouse.

On either side of the door were golden cages up over his head, and angels were housed there—small girls, perhaps eight or nine, with fabulous wings larger than any swan’s. Their hair was as white as spun silver, their faces translucent.

But their dark eyes were lined with a thick band of kohl, as if they were raccoons. They drew back from Morgan and hissed.

Unbidden, a dark thought entered his mind. When he was a child, Morgan’s mother had always told him that when a man dies, the angels come to take his soul to heaven.

He could be walking to his death.

A verse from Psalms came to mind, one of his ma’s favorites: “Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels . . .”

As if divining his thoughts, one of the angels hissed at him and bared her teeth. She scooped a turd up from her cage and hurled it. Then grabbed a corn cob and tossed that, too.

Morgan dodged and hurried past.

Inside, the place was alive. Dance-hall girls strutted on stage to clanking pianos and catcalls. Men hunched at tables, drinking and telling jokes. It was much like a saloon, but it suffered from the same miserable clientele as he’d seen on the dirigible—European barons in bright silk vests and overcoats. Eastern dudes. Moguls and robber barons.

The beer wasn’t sold in glass jugs, but in decorous tankards, inlaid with silver and precious stones.

The place smelled more of gold than of liquor. Pipe smoke perfumed the air.

But the clockwork gambler was surprisingly easy to spot. In fact, Morgan gasped and stepped back in surprise when he saw him.

The clockwork was obviously not human. His face had been sculpted from porcelain, like the head of a doll, and painted in natural colors, but there were brass hinges on his jaws. When he blinked, copper eyelids flashed over glass eyes.

He wore all black, from his hat to his boots, and sat at a card table with a stack of poker chips in front of him. He had a little gambling kit off to one side. Morgan was familiar with such kits. They held decks of cards for various games, dice made of bone and ivory, and always they held weapons—a pistol and a throwing knife.

The clockwork gambler sat with three wealthy men. By the piles of solid-gold coins in front of him, he was winning.

Morgan steeled his nerves, walked up to the table, and said, “You gentlemen might want to back away.”

The patrons scattered aside as Morgan pulled back his coat to reveal the star on his chest.

Some men cried out as they fled, and others ducked as if dodging imaginary bullets. The clockwork gambler just leaned back casually in his chair, as calm as a summer’s morning. His mouth seemed to have little porcelain shingles around it that moved to his will, so that when he smiled, it created a crude approximation of a grin. The creature’s teeth were as white as shards of ice.

“Here to try your luck?” the clockwork asked.

“Your name Hellfire?” Morgan replied.

The gambler nodded, barely tipping his hat.

Morgan felt his hands shaking, and his mouth suddenly dried. He’d never seen a man face death with equanimity the way that this clockwork did. It was unnatural. Almost unholy.

I’m betrayed by my humanity, Morgan thought. Flesh and blood, gristle and bone—they undo me.

In that instant, he knew that he was no match for the clockwork gambler.

“Tell you what, stranger,” the clockwork said. “Let’s draw cards for your life. You get the high card, you get the first shot at me.”

Morgan shook his head.

“Come on,” the gambler said reasonably. “It’s the best chance you’ve got. Your flesh was created by God, and thus has its all-too human limitations. I was made to draw faster than you, to shoot straighter.”

“You might be a better killer than me, but that don’t make you a better man.”

“When killing is all that matters, maybe it does,” the clockwork said.

The silence drew out. Morgan wasn’t sure if he should let the clockwork draw first. He didn’t know where to aim. The creature’s chest provided the biggest target, but it was the best protected by layers of metal. The joints where its neck met its head might be better. But what was a head to this machine? Did thoughts originate there, or elsewhere? The head looked no more serviceable than that of a poppet.

The gambler smiled. “Your human sense of honor bothering you? Is that it?”

“I want justice,” Morgan said. “I demand justice.”

“On the High Frontier?” the gambler mocked. “There is no justice here—just a pretty tomb, the ruins of a grander civilization. This is Rome! This is Egypt!”

He waved his hands wide, displaying the ornate walls carved with silver, the golden cages with captive angels. “This is what is left of your dead god. But I am the future.”

Morgan had heard a lot of talk about God being dead over the years, from the beginning of the Civil War. But the discovery of these ruins proved it to the minds of many.

“Tell you what,” the gambler said. “Your legs are shaking. I won’t shoot you now. Let’s try the cards. I’ll draw for you.”

The gambler placed a fresh deck on the table, pulled a card off the top, and laid it upright. It was a Jack of Hearts. He smiled, as if in relief.

“I didn’t come to gamble,” Morgan said. “I came for justice.”

“Seeking justice is always a gamble,” Hellfire answered reasonably. “Justice doesn’t exist in nature. It’s just the use of force, backed up by self-righteous judgment.”

The gambler cut the deck, pulled off the top card, flipped it: the Ace of Spades.

“You win!” the gambler grinned.

Morgan was all nerves and jitters but pulled his piece anyway, took a full quarter second to get his bearings, and fired. The bullet ripped into the gambler’s bowtie, and there was a metallic zing as it ricocheted into the crowd.

Someone cried out, “Mein Gott!” and a woman yelled, “He’s been shot!”

Morgan’s face fell. He hadn’t meant to wing a bystander. He glanced to his right, saw a fat bloke clutching his chest, blood blossoming on a white shirt.

Morgan ducked low and tried to aim at the clockwork, but faster than the eye could move the gambler drew, aimed, and fired. The bullet took Morgan straight in the chest and threw him backward as if he’d been kicked by a horse.

Morgan fell and wheezed, trying to suck air, but he heard blood gurgling from the hole in his ribs. His lungs burned as if someone had stuck a hot poker through them.

He looked right and left, hoping someone would help him, but all that he saw were frightened faces. He had heard that there was no law on the High Frontier, only money.

No one would stop the killing. No one would avenge him.

As he lay on his back and felt blood pooling on the floor, he fought to stay conscious. The clockwork gambler strode toward him, smiling down, his porcelain face a mockery of flesh.

Morgan realized that he’d been charging dead, from the moment he’d started this hunt. When he’d missed the skinwalker, he should have seen it as a sign.

“Your human tinkermen have made me well, have they not?” Hellfire asked. “You humans, in such a hurry to create. It was inevitable that you would fashion your replacements.”

Over the clockwork’s shoulder, Morgan saw his angels—leering from their cages. One was grabbing at the lock on its golden door, trying to break free, as if to come for him.

But Morgan was on his way out, like the buffalo, and the Indians, and thunderbirds, and all the other great things in the wide world.

The gambler aimed at Morgan’s head. There was no shaking in his hands, no hesitation. He pulled the trigger.

Thus, a new wonder in the world supplanted an old.

#writingtips

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alexdrawsagain · 6 years

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yo me. Alex this is probably a weird question but since you like Rosario Vampire so much ( or just the couple of kurumu and tsukune ) have you thought up of your own headcanon of how they got there or what the other characters are doing?

Oh no problem at all anon! I have a backstory for how they got there, and what the other characters are up to. It’s a bit of a long read.

If you’re into that sort of thing.

How did Tsukune and Kurumu end up together?

My idea is that Tsukune was so damn sure about Moka but in the end the relationship doesn’t really go anywhere for several reasons. People change, what people want change, and sometimes people grow apart. Add onto that nearly marrying into a whole rigid vampire society with all of the backhanded power plays makes things worse. I imagine that the ending was mutual because under those conditions they didn’t like the people they were turning into which really crapped out the relationship but they still are on good terms. Tsukune and Moka still believe in monster human coexistence and will still work together on that in the future but as friends now. Both need space.

For Tsukune, it’s been an awful ordeal that he’s trying to move on from but it’s a long ass process because of all of the history. It’s only when he moves away to a new town that he accidentally finds Kurumu again. Where he’s walking downtown and finds advertisements for a live show with song and dance learning that Kurumu is the star and that her mother owns the establishment. He initially wants to avoid the thing because he’s certain that a.) she’s moved on b.) he practically destroyed her choosing Moka at every turn c.) her mother probably wants to murder him too.

Unfortunately he’s spotted by her mother, who practically drags him in to see her perform. And afterwards she convinces him to go see Kurumu after the show, reassuring him that the thing Kurumu would want most in the world is to see him again. As the show ends, Tsukune musters up the courage to say hi, she tackles him in a hug and cries her eyes out. When she regains her composure, the two leave and where they get to talk to each other for the first time in years. They’ve grown quite a bit in that time. And without the blinding light of Moka in his face, he can actually see kurumu in a new light.

It’s the very very first step to the road to them being a couple.

It is not an immediate thing. He’s not ready, she is completely ready but she’s grown enough as a person to know she has to be patient. And she also wants him to think of her as something besides the empty headed girl she was. But the additional hurdles come in the form of not wanting her to feel like a rebound girl or the guilt he has knowing just how completely unhappy she’s been since he’s been gone from her life. Which poses the question: Is he being with her because he’s lonely and feels sorry for her? Or is he doing this because he actually loves her? The answer comes in the most simple of ways. During a date to a festival, the grand finale shows up in a fireworks display. He watches her swept up in the excitement of the spectacle and he gazes on that happy face and in that moment he knows there is no place he’d rather be than right here. With her.

It’s not always an easy relationship but they make it work. And Kurumu despite maturing quite a bit, is still the silly lovesick girl who does things that make Tsukune go ಠ_ಠ . And maybe the two balance each other out.

What’s everybody doing at the time?

Yukari: I imagine she either went to a very prestigious college like a Harvard or something. But I vastly prefer that she went to a magical college for witches created to foster future generations of powerful witches and to promote coexistence. (Yokai can’t be the only game in town in that respect)

Ruby: Probably still at Yokai. Either she’s still the principal’s right hand (wo)man or she’s a teacher. I prefer her being a homeroom teacher to a class filled with wannabe tough guys(and gals). They listen to her out of a mix of respect for her not taking any guff and half of them are madly in love with her. She genuinely tries to help them get their act together which appears to be working.

Kokoa: Probably still with her family. I honestly have no clue what’d she’d be doing since she didn’t show any interest in anything but fighting. Probably just runs all of those errands for the family and being bored by being in a uber rich family meaning no day job.

Gin: If he didn’t go back and marry san, he’s probably a journalist for the japanese equivalent of “Al Extremo” (a trashy mexican news program that puts heavy emphasis on the MOST shock stories/scandals/gorey incidents/sex stories). Either that or he works for a legitimate news source where he writes a weekly segment.

Mizore: This is the important one i want to talk about.

Be warned: your mileage may vary.

In this case, I write that she tries to hold off being put into an arranged marriage for as long as possible. With hope dwindling so long as Tsukune was with Moka. And while she helps out with much of the local activities of the village, i imagine her decisions make her unpopular since it makes it seem like she’s being selfish and unfair. I mean, snow people are heavily concerned with re-population. And when hope pretty much dies and marriage is being arranged, she learns that Tsukune is no longer with Moka. And gives one final try at being with the guy she loves. Which poses a problem because Kurumu relations with Tsukune is getting serious. In the end they get into another brawl that neither of them wants. To which they end up sobbing in each others arms because of everything they’re going through. I mean, they’re still best friends. They fought alongside each other and nearly died for each other in the past. It’s there they work out an arrangement when they realize they don’t have to make him choose one over the other. the problem comes from convincing monogamous Tsukune. it doesn’t take long for them to convince him to “stop being a dumbass“.

And now Mizure no longer has to be in an arranged marriage. And while being with 2 girls isn’t easy, well….. they make it work…..

(yeah i know i have to draw Mizore with Tsukune eventually, don’t worry, i will)

So there’s all my cringey fanfic for all the world to hold over my head.

It’s been a blast, anon.

Thanks for the asks.

#alexdrawsagain #asks #my cringy fanfic #rosario + vampire

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hramblings · 3 years

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❀ A N I M E ❀

In this journal, I would like to talk about the anime I watch this season. XD It might contain spoilers (?) but I will try not to spoil much.

Watch-list:

Ijiranaide Nagatoro-san

Nagatoro somehow reminds me of Takagi from Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san. In both anime, the female lead character teases and pranks the male lead character. I have watched it until the fourth episode and so far I really liked it. The story is enjoyable and not too complicated since the genre is school rom-com.

Koi to Yobu ni wa Kimochi Warui (Koikimo)

I somehow think this anime is really UwU despite the age gap of the main characters. It should be creepy... I guess? But oh well... I like simple rom-com and the story gives me my daily dose of uwu, so I don't really mind. The cover reminds me of Wotakoi, the heart shape and white background. I should not expect anything but still, I hope they have a happy ending.

Tensura Nikki: Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken

I watched the first and the second season of Tensei shittara Slime Datta Ken and totally want a third season. Although Rimuru is kind of too over-powered, I like the simple story where he struggles and then reaches his goal in the end. Tensura Nikki's storyline is more peaceful and relaxed. The drawing is a bit different than the first two seasons, but I will still watch it. It brings me happiness to see Rimuru's daily life with his friends.

Slime Taoshite 300-nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max

I just binge-watched the first four episodes today. Another, isekai comedy anime with an easy-to-understand storyline. Like Bofuri and Tensura, the main character is too over-powered. It has a pair of cute lolis and an elf.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 2nd season

Actually, I haven't started the second season yet. I plan to binge-watch it after Muse Asia publish all of it on YouTube. MWAHAHAHA. The first season was entertaining and fun to watch. This anime is about human in demon school. I love the story and comedy. If my brain doesn't betray me, in the first season they give a sneak peek of the second season. Iruma will be more 'demon-like' after spending some time in hell.

Unsure if I want to continue watching:

Hige wo sore. Soushite Joshikousei wo Hirou. (Higehiro)

There's something about Sayu that I find annoying. The male lead character (I forget his name) is not helping to reduce the annoyance either. Is it cringy? I don't know. I don't get why this anime can get the highest ranking for anime this season and I would like to understand. I watched until the third episode so far and l am planning to drop it if I don't feel happiness or if it annoys me too much.

Dropped:

Tokyo Revengers

It might be too early to say this (?) I just watched the first episode and I have so many questions in my head. I feel like I skipped an important part of the story. I don't really like the drawing style in this anime or maybe just I don't consider the main character attractive or sparks joy (?) I guess I can probably appreciate this anime more if I take my time to rewatch it. But certainly, not today or anytime soon.

Yeay! So, all of them are anime I am currently watching this season. See you in another journal entry~

[ 06.05.21 ]

#daily journal #journal #anime #anime journal #anime 2021 #anime thoughts #watch anime #opinion #journal entry #anime blog

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curtiskyle · 4 years

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#What Brings Premature Ejaculation Astounding Diy Ideas #How To Make Lip Fillers Last Longer

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gossipnetwork-blog · 6 years

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Meet Rupi Kaur, Queen of the 'Instapoets'

New Post has been published on http://gossip.network/meet-rupi-kaur-queen-of-the-instapoets/

Meet Rupi Kaur, Queen of the 'Instapoets'

Rupi Kaur is too sick to get out of bed and wishes she had realized this a few hours earlier. Sitting on a king-size mattress in her Soho Grand hotel room, Kaur tells the story of how she almost lost her brunch all over actress Jennifer Westfeldt. “I knew something was wrong when I was talking to Jennifer and the green haze came over me,” she says in between sips of red Gatorade. “I was like, ‘You’re talking about something so deep right now, but the strawberries are coming back up girl, I gotta go.'”

Trying to keep fruit down isn’t exactly how the 25-year-old imagined she’d be celebrating the release of her second collection of poetry, The Sun and Her Flowers. It’s a celebration which kicked off the night before with a live performance of her work featuring Westfeldt, YouTube star Lilly Singh and fellow poet Chloe Wade. But this story of what was supposed to be a nausea-free victory lap, which she spares me the gross details of finishing, is just the kind of anecdote her 1.9 million Instagram followers would adore.

Since 2013, Kaur has been sharing poems about love, heartbreak and womanhood that perfectly exemplify the self-care movement. Most are bite-size affirmations, accompanied by Kaur’s own delicate line drawings, that go down easy when scrolling through Instagram. Kaur’s most-liked poem, which is just six lines and begins “how is it so easy for you/ to be kind to people, he asked,” earned over 240,000 likes.

Her poetry has gotten her more than likes, though. Her debut, Milk and Honey, has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide since its 2015 re-release by Andrews McMeel Publishing. (Kaur self-published it a year prior.) In its first week of release, Kaur’s follow-up was duking it out for the top spot on Amazon’s best-seller list with Dan Brown’s latest novel. It would win the coveted spot atop The New York Times list for paperback trade fiction where it stayed for nine straight weeks before E.L. James usurped it.

Uncomplicated and concise, Kaur’s poetry has been criticized for being too simplistic. Parody accounts have shown up on Twitter that intend to show how easy it is to write a Rupi Kaur poem – the gist being you take any conversation, format it in all lowercase and insert random line breaks. Milk and Honey officially became a meme earlier this year when people starting taking the text from Vine videos and stylizing them like one of her poems. Now there’s even a book called Milk and Vine that’s quickly become an Amazon bestseller since its October release.

Kaur doesn’t think her poetry is simple. To her, it’s straightforward. “It’s like a peach,” she says. “You have to remove everything and get to the pit of it.” Kaur – who moved from Punjab, India to the suburbs of Ontario, Canada, when she was three and a half years old and now lives in Toronto – doesn’t want readers to agonize over each and every word like she did when learning poetry in school. “I would have to pull out the list of literary devices my teacher gave me and my 10 colorful pens,” she says, her big, almond eyes getting wider. “It was like doing surgery on the damn thing.”

Instead, Kaur wanted to do something more accessable. “I’ve realized, it’s not the exact content that people connect with,” she says. “People will understand and they’ll feel it because it all just goes back to the human emotion. Sadness looks the same across all cultures, races, and communities. So does happiness and joy.”

Though she’s made her name with words, Kaur’s initial Instagram fame had nothing to do with her poetry. Three years ago, Kaur posted a shot of herself lying in a bed with her back to the camera, menstrual blood leaking through her sweatpants. Instagram removed the image – which was for a college assignment in which she was asked to “challenge a taboo” – two separate times for breaking community guidelines. The site eventually apologized and reposted the photo, but not before Kaur wrote a letter reprimanding them for trying to censor her. “Their patriarchy is leaking. Their misogyny is leaking. We will not be censored,” she wrote on Facebook, in a post that’s been shared over 18,000 times.

Kaur’s response went viral and soon she was doing interviews with The Huffington Post and Vice about the need to “demystify the period.” Talking to Kaur now, she says she wishes she never wrote that letter – curious, since that’s how so many people found her Instagram. “I think that day, this anxiety came upon me that’s never left,” she says, recalling how scary it was to get “that much hate literally from every corner of the planet.” While Kaur says she received overwhelming support from the letter – the most memorable, she says, was an email from a war general in Afghanistan – she also never experienced “so many people saying so many mean things and telling me they were going to kill me.” Still, she doesn’t deny that the strongly worded letter benefited her career: “They came for the photo, but they stayed for the poetry.”

Why they stayed is simple, according to Kirsty Melville, the president and publisher of Andrews McMeel Publishing, which had previously been best known for releasing Calvin and Hobbes. “She’s given voice to things that people may not have been able to articulate for themselves,” she says. “In this digital world where content marketing is this sort of buzzword, Rupi is the content and it doesn’t need the marketing.”

Kaur’s popularity on Instagram is part of a trend so prominent in publishing right now that it’s spawned its own genre. “Instapoets” has become the term used to describe a new generation of writers including Lang Leav, Tyler Knott Gregson, Nayyirah Waheed and Robert M. Drake, all of whom have landed book deals thanks to their respective social media presence. “We were told for so long that there isn’t a market for this, and there is,” Kaur says. “I’m seeing so many more poets who are getting published, which I hope isn’t just a trend that goes away.”

Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter have allowed more poets – especially those of color – to share their work with a larger, younger and more diverse audience, but not everyone loves the “Instapoets” nickname. “Personally, I think it is ridiculous that a social media platform is used to define a genre of writing,” says Leav, who has 393, 000 Instagram followers. After all, Leav released her first two bestselling poetry collections – her 2014 self-published debut, Love & Misadventure, which sold 10,000 copies in the first month, and Lullabies, which was published that same year by Andrews McMeel – without ever writing a word on Instagram. (She preferred Tumblr.)

No two Instapoets are exactly alike, but there are similarities between writers that even those in the community find worrisome. Earlier this year, Waheed, who self-published her debut, Salt, a year before Milk and Honey, accused Kaur of “hyper-similarity” after fans on Twitter and Tumblr made those charges. Waheed wrote in a Tumblr post, which has since been taken down, that in 2014 she emailed Kaur, “woc writer to fellow woc writer,” to share her concerns “in the hopes that upon awareness on their part. efforts would be made to cease and desist.” In the post, Waheed, who keeps a low public profile, rarely giving interviews, said that her concerns went ignored.

Kaur declines to comment on Waheed’s specific allegations, but when speaking in her hotel room says she believes some crossover between poets is natural when they have “similar experiences and similar ideas about the world.” She also wonders if some of the accusations of similarity between her work and others are a way of silencing women of color. “It’s like that scarcity complex,” Kaur says. “‘We already have one and it’s enough,’ as if we have to fight each other off now and I think that’s really dangerous.”

Over 900 fans came out to see Kaur read at the Tribeca event. John Halpern

Kaur certainly isn’t spending her time duking it out with other poets. She holds her own unique space in the literary world where her poetry readings are more like pop concerts. To launch The Sun and Her Flowers, she put on a special theatrical performance at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York City to a sold-out crowd of over 900 people willing to shell out $75 to $100 to see her.

In a nod to the book’s cover, Kaur’s fans – mostly women in their late teens and early twenties – took photos with gigantic sunflowers. Beyoncé, Rihanna and Drake played over the speakers before the petite poet took the stage in a dress that hit right above the knee. It was something that gave her pause, knowing that her Sikh father was in the audience. “It’s the shortest thing I ever wore in front of him,” Kaur says later. “I was like, ‘My legs! He’s never seen my legs before!'”

When Kaur speaks, her fans, which she says are “60 percent female and 40 percent everything else,” listen. They also whoop and holler when she delivers the climax of her most suggestive poem, Milk and Honey‘s “How We Make Up”: “Sweet baby, this is how we pull language out of one another with the flick of our tongues.” They snap their fingers in solidarity after “What’s stronger than the human heart/ that shatters over and over and still lives,” a line that found its way onto posters at the Women’s March in January.

“Whenever I read her poems, I have the same thought: ‘This is exactly how I feel but never knew how to say it,'” Lilly Singh writes in an email days after sharing the stage with Kaur to read selections from The Sun and Her Flowers. “Rupi’s words make people, especially women, feel safe and understood.”

Kaur has no problem connecting with her audience, but now she’d like the literary world to take her more seriously. She admits that her goal with her new collection was to improve as a writer and show “that just because your work is successful does not make it bad work.”

Kaur started writing Milk and Honey when she was 18. Now 25, Kaur doesn’t deny that she’s outgrown some of her early work, but isn’t ashamed of anything she’s put down on paper. “We grew up in a time with every single one of our moves being recorded and documented forever and in that was this idea that we can’t make mistakes,” she says, “but when that’s not happening you’re also not growing.”

The way she looks back at her life and lets her fans know it gets better is a big part of Kaur’s appeal, but some critics question whether the stories in her work are really hers to tell. Kaur’s been criticized for blurring the lines between her own experiences and the experiences of others when writing about the trauma women face – rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse – most notably in the Buzzfeed piece “The Problem With Rupi Kaur’s Poetry.” The essay makes the case that the poet’s “use of collective trauma in her quest to depict the quintessential South Asian female experience” is a way of forcing universality to reach a larger, more mainstream audience. It’s a dilemma that many writers of color face, knowing that sticking with specifics in regards to their own story could mean alienating readers.

Kaur tells me she writes about the South Asian experience – hers, her friends’, her family’s – because she doesn’t want to see these stories go untold. “I began writing pieces about violence at the age of 16 after seeing what the women around me were enduring and facing,” Kaur says. “It was my way of reflecting on all of these issues.”

With so little South Asian representation in entertainment, Kaur also understands how important it is for her to share these stories even if it may come with some backlash. “This name,” she says, pointing to the “Kaur” that appears on the binding of her latest book, which she pulls out from underneath the white comforter of her hotel bed, as if scripted, “is so important on a bookshelf. That’s the name of every Sikh woman. If I was six years old and I saw this in Barnes and Nobles, I would cry. I would sit there and be like, ‘If she can do it, I can do it.'”

With Sun and Her Flowers, Kaur’s still following her peach-pit philosophy, but she’s also getting at the core of who she is, delving deeper into her South Asian identity in a section of the book fittingly called “Roots.” The eldest of four writes at length about her parents, specifically her mom, whose struggle with being an immigrant is something Kaur admits she’s often taken for granted.

During her Tribeca performance, Kaur tells a story about how, as a kid, she would ignore her mom at the supermarket, too embarrassed by her accent to be seen with her. The anecdote acts as the perfect lead-in to “Broken English,” the standout of her latest collection in which she chastises herself and anyone else who’s ever been ashamed of their immigrant mother. “She split through countries to be here/ so you wouldn’t have to cross a shoreline,” she writes. “Her accent is thick like honey/ hold it with your life/ it’s the only thing she has left of home.”

The funny thing is, Kaur almost didn’t include this section in her book. “I thought nobody cares about this,” she says. “It’s not cool to talk about your parents.” But it’s the part that’s gotten the most feedback from fans who want to tell Kaur about their own mothers and how far they traveled for a better life. “When you start writing those other poems about your parents and all that, it’s like, how can you write about love and heartache?” Kaur asks. “That just seems so silly.”

For those who want it, there are still plenty of traditional love and heartache poems in The Sun and Her Flowers, but Kaur’s expanding on these topics. She’s now writing more authoritatively about the love and heartache that accompanies her mom and dad’s immigrant story and discovering that her specific experience of being a woman, being Punjabi and being a child of immigrants has universal appeal.

Knowing how far her reach is, Kaur doesn’t just want to write poetry, but prose, too. Back in 2015, she wrote 10 chapters of a novel that she’s still figuring out what to do with. She’s also thinking she might even want to give music a try. “It would be cool to write a song with Adele,” Kaur mentions with a chuckle. “You know, if she calls me up.”

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byronheeutgm · 6 years

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5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process

“The theory of relativity put an end to the idea of absolute time,” wrote Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time. “It appeared that each observer might have his own measure of time, as recorded by a clock carried with him, and that identical clocks carried by different observers would not necessarily agree.”

Do you ever feel, in your workplace, like different members of your team are operating from a different perception of time? You say it will take two weeks to get a project done; your colleague says three weeks. You’re both experienced content creators, relying on the same historical experiences in the same workplace. How can you determine who’s right? Or should you just split the difference and get going on the work, figuring a few days doesn’t really matter?

In recent years, content marketing has become increasingly data-driven, at least when it comes to analytics and results. The efficacy of our work is something we can and do measure and manage. But there’s a tendency to avoid content creation data—how much time and resources the work really takes—which can make it difficult to:

Meet deadlines

Accurately forecast future work

Tap into our team’s full potential

Justify new resources

Prove the ROI of our time

Push back against unrealistic requests

Clearly, there are significant downsides to ignoring this front-end data, but it’s something content marketers are almost universally guilty of.

“As content creators, we are very results-focused,” said Todd Patton, content marketing manager at Branch Metrics in Palo Alto. “I’d much rather go to my boss and report that we acquired 100 MQLs from a certain ebook than how long it took me to put that ebook together.”

I think this is partly because not every executive appreciates how much effort it takes to write, design, concept, and create high-quality, original material. We’ve all seen the suspicious looks and heard the disbelieving questions throughout our careers. “It takes how long to produce a blog post? Hmm . . . I can write a 1,000-word email in 10 minutes.”

But pretending to others (and to ourselves) that we churn out the work more quickly than we really can, while still meeting the necessary quality standards, will only hurt us in the long run. It’s time to stop hiding from the truth of our content processes. Here are five ways for any content marketer to be more transparent and successful with project planning for both recurring work and one-off initiatives.

1. Involve the Team Throughout the Content Process

In a recent speech about project planning and forecasting, PMO Manager Eric Lucas of Crowley Maritime Corporation said:

“There’s something I call Mighty Mouse syndrome: There are people who love hiding things and then giving a ‘big reveal’; they love the grandeur of saving the day at the last possible moment. But that’s not how humans are successful. You have to work as teams.”

He offered seven tips for how project managers can improve the accuracy of their forecasts:

Humans learn in iterations—getting better at forecasting is a repetitive process.

Involve all the right people.

Adjust the forecast often.

Ensure the forecast reflects reality, not desire.

Communicate the forecast often—and through multiple channels.

Conduct a “lessons learned” meeting at the end of projects to codify what everyone has learned.

Accept that forecasts are approximations of the future; forecasts have to be “good enough.”

2. Guesstimate Granularly

“When I worked in-house and had limited resources, it always surprised me how long a project would take,” says Megan Maybee, a content marketing strategist at ThomasARTS in Salt Lake City. “Something simple like creating a social contest had so many elements, from design and writing to compliance and legal review. There were a couple times I didn’t give myself enough time, and then it was a huge scramble.”

I, too, am often surprised at how long certain projects take, even those I complete over and over again. It’s because it’s human nature to gloss over the difficulty of the journey mentally and only remember the destination. This tendency to forget accounts for people going through childbirth more than one time (or so I’m told), running more than one marathon, agreeing to more than one dental procedure.

No content marketing project can be predicted or controlled with 100 percent accuracy from the outset, no matter how much experience we have cranking out similar projects. There are always variables, and we must always rely on guesstimation to one degree or another. The key is to get as granular as possible with your project and resource guesstimations—to leave nothing out.

Start by meticulously documenting your workflow, including each little step it takes to execute each content type. Account for every brainstorm meeting, every interview, every individual contribution, every outline, every draft, every proofreading session, and every round of review and approval. Get input from every person who has a role in the production process. Ask questions to understand every aspect.

What I’ve just described is called Bottom-Up Estimating in project management circles. You can also try Analogous Estimating or Parametric Modeling, as described here. But whatever approach you take, be aware of the temptation to underestimate your time in order to appear faster or more competent. It’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver than to do the opposite.

3. Expect Everyone to Track Their Time

Once you have your repeatable processes granularly documented, start tracking the hours and minutes spent on each project phase (brainstorming, researching, writing, illustration, design, etc.) to make your future guesstimations even more reliable. When you add up all the time you tracked and build in some buffer time, that’s how you’ll know whether the next project is likely to take two weeks or three—whether you or your colleague was right all along.

If you use a work-management software solution like Workfront, the “adding up” is done for you. Individuals can just navigate to the task and use built-in time-tracking tools—or add in their hours manually. Just don’t fall prey to the temptation to assume you’ll always be able to beat your fastest time on each step. Rely on a padded average instead. Not everyone will be thrilled about tracking their time on projects (see tip 5), but it’s an excellent way to reveal which steps are taking more time than you assumed or expected, where time is being wasted, and how you can work more efficiently.

“When I proactively track my time, it helps me focus more immediately and intensely,” says freelance content marketer Angie Lucas (no relation to Eric). “Any time I’m under the gun, the first thing I do when I sit down at my desk is to open my Paymo time-tracking widget and hit Start. I know every minute I spend from that time forward will be billed to a client, which keeps me laser focused on the task at hand.”

4. Rely on a Single Source of Truth

Even if you use nothing but a spreadsheet, it’s relatively easy to keep track of the quantitative data from your project—things like hours, dates, and hard costs. But your qualitative data—emails, shared documents, instant messaging activity, etc.—can be just as important, revealing how smoothly (or bumpily) the project progressed, what roadblocks you encountered, and more.

But who has time to track all of that? Am I seriously expecting you to file away every email into project-specific folders and copy-and-paste relevant IMs into a post-mortem document? Heck no.

There are work management solutions available that enable all of this communication to happen in the space surrounding the quantitative data. These allow you to visit one online location to not only see how long the last project took and how the schedule played out, but also view the finished assets and deliverables—and you’ll be reminded that design asked for two deadline extensions on the layout phase because they weren’t given enough time in the first place.

A single tool, or at least fewer tools, from which to draw data will give you more power to speak with confidence about what you’re working on, how long it will take, and whether you have the bandwidth for that next upcoming project.

5. Understand Polychronic versus Monochronic Time

Remember when I asked if it ever seems you and your team members are operating from different perceptions of time? The truth is, you probably are. Understanding this can open up windows of insight into how you (and others) approach your work.

We live in a monochronic culture, which sees time as “being divided into fixed elements that can be organized, quantified and scheduled.” Time is linear. Time can and should be organized into a daily routine. “Obviously,” you’re thinking. “Doesn’t everyone think that?”

Actually, no. Not only are there entire polychronic cultures (parts of Latin America, sub-Sahara Africa, and the Middle East), there are polychrons even within monochronic cultures who view time as “a never-ending river, flowing from the infinite past, through the present, into the infinite future.” That’s not just highfalutin nonsense. Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. They prefer task-switching and thrive in environments without a fixed schedule. (Incidentally, these preferences are also exhibited in a growing number of digital natives.) They’re often late because, to them, time is truly relative.

If you and your team members can understand your own natural perception of time, you can harness each individual’s strengths for a stronger, more balanced team. For example, you might not want to put one of your polychrons in charge of project scheduling and forecasting (and they’ll probably thank you for it). But you can and should expect them to track their time and meet deadlines just like their monochronic counterparts, recognizing that some employees will produce their most brilliant work with a little less structure.

Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. Click To Tweet It Takes Time to Make Time

If there’s one thing content marketers are constantly running short on, it’s time. At any given moment, each person on your team might have dozens of projects in the pipeline—all in different stages of planning, ideation, and creation. With so many moving parts, it’s not easy to pause long enough to collect and analyze the up-front data about your content production process. But unless you do—and remember, much of these metrics are available via automated tools—you’ll always be left guessing how long things take, how much bandwidth your team has, and whether you have the resources you need to meet your goals, now and in the future.

This post is part of a paid sponsorship between Workfront and Convince & Convert.

http://ift.tt/2AhhIFG

#5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process

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maryhare96 · 6 years

Text

5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process

Meet deadlines

Accurately forecast future work

Tap into our team’s full potential

Justify new resources

Prove the ROI of our time

Push back against unrealistic requests

Clearly, there are significant downsides to ignoring this front-end data, but it’s something content marketers are almost universally guilty of.

1. Involve the Team Throughout the Content Process

In a recent speech about project planning and forecasting, PMO Manager Eric Lucas of Crowley Maritime Corporation said:

He offered seven tips for how project managers can improve the accuracy of their forecasts:

Humans learn in iterations—getting better at forecasting is a repetitive process.

Involve all the right people.

Adjust the forecast often.

Ensure the forecast reflects reality, not desire.

Communicate the forecast often—and through multiple channels.

Conduct a “lessons learned” meeting at the end of projects to codify what everyone has learned.

Accept that forecasts are approximations of the future; forecasts have to be “good enough.”

2. Guesstimate Granularly

3. Expect Everyone to Track Their Time

4. Rely on a Single Source of Truth

But who has time to track all of that? Am I seriously expecting you to file away every email into project-specific folders and copy-and-paste relevant IMs into a post-mortem document? Heck no.

5. Understand Polychronic versus Monochronic Time

Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. Click To Tweet It Takes Time to Make Time

This post is part of a paid sponsorship between Workfront and Convince & Convert.

http://ift.tt/2AhhIFG

#5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process

0 notes

kraussoutene · 6 years

Text

5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process

Meet deadlines

Accurately forecast future work

Tap into our team’s full potential

Justify new resources

Prove the ROI of our time

Push back against unrealistic requests

Clearly, there are significant downsides to ignoring this front-end data, but it’s something content marketers are almost universally guilty of.

1. Involve the Team Throughout the Content Process

In a recent speech about project planning and forecasting, PMO Manager Eric Lucas of Crowley Maritime Corporation said:

He offered seven tips for how project managers can improve the accuracy of their forecasts:

Humans learn in iterations—getting better at forecasting is a repetitive process.

Involve all the right people.

Adjust the forecast often.

Ensure the forecast reflects reality, not desire.

Communicate the forecast often—and through multiple channels.

Conduct a “lessons learned” meeting at the end of projects to codify what everyone has learned.

Accept that forecasts are approximations of the future; forecasts have to be “good enough.”

2. Guesstimate Granularly

3. Expect Everyone to Track Their Time

4. Rely on a Single Source of Truth

But who has time to track all of that? Am I seriously expecting you to file away every email into project-specific folders and copy-and-paste relevant IMs into a post-mortem document? Heck no.

5. Understand Polychronic versus Monochronic Time

Those with polychronic tendencies actually see time as circular. Click To Tweet It Takes Time to Make Time

This post is part of a paid sponsorship between Workfront and Convince & Convert.

http://ift.tt/2AhhIFG

#5 Ways to Harness Time and Data in Your Content Process

0 notes