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rachaelswrites · 3 years

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Green Light, Red Light

Spencer Reid x daughter!reader

Based on Criminal Minds Season 12 Episodes 21 and 22 “Green Light” and “Red Light”

Word Count: 1,796

Warnings: kidnapping, gun violence

A/n: Part of the Episode series (also was a request)

You were used to seeing Cassie in the mornings, but today she wasn’t there. There was another girl, but she looked too young to be a nurse.

“Where’s Cassie?” you asked. Your gut told you something was wrong and your dad always said to trust your gut.

“Cassie isn’t here today,” the nurse said, “I’m Carol,” she stuck her hand out for you to shake but you declined.

“I’m sorry about her. She’s so much like her father,” Diana said, resting her hand on your shoulder.

Carol bent down in front of you, “Speaking of your dad, I’m taking you two to visit him today. Would you like that?” she was talking to you like a child. You were technically a child, being only twelve but you were a lot smarter than kids your age.

You shook your head, “No. JJ or Emily always take me.”

“Don’t be silly Y/n,” Diana said, “Let’s go see Spencer.”

You had no choice but to comply. Maybe this could be your way to warn your dad about what was happening. On the bus ride to the prison you sat in between Carol and your grandmother.

“Come on Y/n, smile a little. We’re seeing your dad today,” Carol was trying to get you to trust her, but you were too smart.

“I don’t care,” you moved seats away from her, “I don’t like you,” you said under your breath. The lady you were now sitting next to you heard what you said and laughed a little.

You noticed as you were walking down the hallways to the visiting room, Carol acting strange. She would walk on different sides of the hallways and look down at certain times. You knew there was something up.

You got to visit Spencer first. You were sitting in a chair and your dad was pushed inside. He didn’t look like himself, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days, “Dad!” you reached out to hug him but he stopped you.

“We can’t touch,” he nodded over to the guard watching you two, “I’m sorry,” he sat down on the chair across from you, “What’s wrong? You look upset?”

“I mean my dad is in prison so, sorry if I’m upset about that.”

“Besides that. Tell me if I can do anything.”

You sighed, “I don't know. Something just feels off about the nurse.”

Spencer raised his eyebrows, “I thought you liked her?”

“I’ve never met her before dad.”

Spencer leaned forward towards you. He had done some reading about kids acting up when something happened with their parents but this was something else, “Stop messing around Y/n,” he said seriously, “If something's going on, tell me.”

“I just did! I don’t know any Carols,” you didn’t understand why he was getting mad at you.

“Who’s Carol?”

“Cassie’s replacement? Carol said you hired her?” you knew for sure there was something wrong now, based on the look on your dad’s face.

“Y/n, I didn’t hire anyone besides Cassie.” Spencer was now confused himself. What were you talking about?

“But-” you were interrupted by the door opening and Carol walked in.

“Come on Y/n, we have to go now,” she said, reaching her hand out for you.

Spencer grabbed onto you tightly, ignoring the no touching rule, “Y/n, no.”

“Dad?”

“Spencer I’m sorry but I have to get her back now. She has school tomorrow. I wish you could have more time,” Carol faked her sympathy. She knew Spencer would recognize her. This was her way of throwing him off.

“She’s not leaving with you,” he turned to the guard, “I need Emily and my lawyer here. My daughter isn’t going back with her,” he was still holding onto you, “She’s not leaving here.”

“Back off inmate,” the guard said, pulling you away from him. He gently shoved you to the door and into Carol’s arms. She tried to wrap her arms around you but you pushed her off.

“I want to stay!” you yelled but the door was already closed in your face. Carol grabbed you and started walking towards the exit. Diana was nowhere to be found. You heard your dad yelling for you but there was nothing you could do. Surprisingly Carol was a lot stronger than you and it was hard to get her hands off.

“Diana said you were a good kid. I guess she was wrong.” she sneered.

“You’re not who you say you are. Why didn’t my dad want me with you?”

She laughed, “I’ll tell you later. We have someplace to be.”

~~~~~

Carol told you her real name was Lindsey and your dad worked a case that she was a part of. Lindsey had taken you and Diana captive. She put Diana in the truck of the car and put you in the passenger seat, “If anyone asks, I’m your babysitter. If you yell for help, I’ll kill her,” she gestured toward the trunk of the car as she got out at the gas station.

“Can I get some air? I get car sick.”

“Sure. Just stay by the car.”

You knew the team would realize you were kidnapped and would put out an AMBER alert on you, hopefully someone would recognize you. Lindsey had dyed her hair and cut yours. There was another person filling up his car. He smiled at you and then at Lindsey. You heard the AMBER alert go off on the guys phone and on Lindsey's. She checked it and whipped her head up to you, “Get in the car. Now!” she hissed.

You did as she told you and climbed back into the passenger's seat.

“I think I see the people you’re looking for,” the guy had called the cops and was reporting you two, “Their hair is different but I’m pretty sure it’s them. I’m at a gas sta-” before he could finish, Lindsey shot him.

You jumped back out of the car, “Why did you do that?”

“Are you really that stupid? Get back in the car,” she pointed the gun at you and shot. It just grazed your arm. Enough to scare you and make you bleed, “Put pressure on it. I need you alive.”

You scrambled back into the car and found some napkins to cover the wound. Her phone rang and she answered. Her gaze kept shifting from you to the trunk. She opened the driver’s side and shoved the phone at you, “Speak.”

“Hello?” your voice was shaky.

“Y/n? Is that you? Are you ok?”

“Dad! Please help me.”

Lindsey took the phone back, “She’s alive,” she hung up and got back in the car, grabbing gasoline. She poured it around the car and opened the trunk. She yanked Diana out and shoved her into the guy’s truck. She walked around to your door and did the same. She then set the gas station and drove off, leaving the building burning behind you.

Once at your new location, you were met by another man. He grabbed you, while Lindsey had Diana.

“I thought they weren’t supposed to be harmed,” the man said, motioning to the napkins that were placed on your arm.

“She’s a brat and needed to be shut up,” she replied

“And you’re a bitch.” you responded.

The man laughed but Lindsey grabbed you roughly by your hair, “Keep talking like that and I’ll make sure you die slowly,” she let you go and shoved you forward, making you fall.

“If your intention was to not hurt me, you’re doing an awful job,” you stood up and brushed yourself off.

They led you into the cabin and tied you and Diana up in one of the bedrooms.

“Y/n, you look awful,” she wasn’t in one of her clear head moments so she didn’t really understand what was happening.

“Well, being kidnapped that happens.” you said blatantly. Not really thinking about softening the blow.

Diana’s eyes grew in shock, “We’re kidnapped? How’d we get here? Where’s Spencer, is he coming?”

You shrugged. You could tell the injury in your arm was getting to you, because you were growing tired, “I’m sure the team’s working on it. They’ll get here,” you slurred. You heard Diana try to tell you something but you lost consciousness.

You weren’t sure how long you were out but you remember being woken up by someone shaking you and calling for a medic. You opened your eyes groggily and saw a familiar face, “Emily?” you tried to move but you were still bound to the chair.

“Oh Y/n, let’s get you out of here,” she helped Rossi untie you and helped you stand up, “Can you walk?”

You shook your head and she carefully lifted you into her arms, “Is my dad here?”

“He’s at Quantico. He’s been worried about you,” everyone was worried about you. There was no way Spencer would be able to handle losing either you or his mother.

“I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do,”

She set you on one of the gurneys that the medics had brought out, “You did everything right. Spencer would be proud,” she lifted your head up with her hands, getting a good look at your injuries, “They really did a number on you huh?”

You nodded and laid back on the gurney, “Can I see him soon?”

“Yeah. The medics just need to check you out,” she followed as the medics wheeled you into the ambulance, “I’ll stay with you if you want,”

You nodded again and she stepped into the back, sitting next to you.

Your injuries weren’t bad so they were able to patch you up in the ambulance. Emily was with you in the elevator. Diana was cleared before you so she got back sooner.

“Excited much?” Emily teased since you were bouncing up and down on your heels.

“Sorry. It’s just been so long since I saw him as a normal person,” you explained. Emily placed her hand on your shoulder as the doors opened. The rest of the team was waiting for you.

The doors had just barely opened before your dad pulled you into a huge bear hug. He wrapped his arms completely around you and rested his chin on the top of your head, “Oh my god Y/n, I’m so sorry,” he kissed the top of your head and pulled away, “This never should've happened to you,” he looked you over and saw the bruises on your wrists and the bandage on your arm.

You noticed his gaze had shifted to your arm and you placed your hand over it, “I’m fine dad. I’m just glad everyone’s ok.”

He pulled you back into a hug, “I’m never leaving you again like this. Ever,”

Taglist

@ssebstann @peachyprincessss @emmy-writes-sometimes @dudele @kerrswriting @laura-naruto-fan1998

#x daughter!reader #x teen!reader #spencer reid daughter #spencer reid x teen #spencer reid x daughter!reader #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fic #criminal minds #bau #episode

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stomp-that-ho-regard · 3 years

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Retcon

noun

(in a film, television series, or other fictional work) a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

verb

revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events.

Retroactive Continuity

Reframing past events to serve a current plot need. [...] In its most basic form, this is any plot point that was not intended from the beginning. [...]

Post-hiatus C2, and the Great Retcon...

(The retconning really started with the playlists, but we’ll come back to those.)

First, some context:

SDCC (July ‘18) - Marisha was asked directly about Beau and Yasha and if she and Ashley had discussed it. “After the first few times that I kinda put the moves on her, we were at break, and I could sense that Ashley was wanting to ask me something. And she was like, ‘Hey, I’m just curious... is Beau- ’ And at that exact moment someone’s like, ‘Yo Ashley! We gotta go! We gotta get on stage!’ And I was like, ‘Bye!’” Then Brian asked, “And you haven’t had a further conversation about it?” Marisha said, “Nope!”

(Seven months into the campaign, and no discussions. Hmm.)

NYCC (Oct. ‘18) - Marisha was asked about who would Beau get flustered over if they ever flirted back, and yes, she said Yasha and laughed, but then said, “It’s like throwing pebbles at a brick wall.” Meaning, she was putting stuff out there and not getting anything back. (And, she really wasn’t. I still remember when a major portion of the fandom, including the diehard shippers [of which I was one at the time], weren’t sure if Ashley was even interested in this. More than that, it wasn’t until the Zuala reveal, that the fandom and the players found out for certain that Yasha was actually into women.)

(To me, Marisha’s answer here also suggests that at this point, there were still no discussions.)

Talks Machina for ep61 (May ‘19) - Marisha was asked ‘What was going through Beau's mind when Yasha revealed her past with Zuala? Has this changed any feelings Beau might have? Or has Beau's character growth allowed her to mature a little more with regards to her feelings about Yasha?’ Which Marisha instantly pegged as a shipping question. And she said, “I’m trying to figure out a way to answer this to not ruin everyone’s internal canon, in their brains. I don’t want people to overestimate Beau’s intentions towards Yasha. But then also, is that on me? Have I been leading everybody on?”

So, you had all of that, all the way up to ep61.

None of this indicates that ‘it’s been happening since ep1′ or that it’s ‘the slowest of slow burns.’ In fact, it shuts that down completely.

Moving forward to the Beau and Fjord convo (ep108)...

Marisha suddenly having Beau say “There was something about Yasha from the moment that I saw her”. She’s retrospectively attempting to give that moment more weight, when (based on the examples above) we know that the over-the-top flirting was just for fun. And truthfully, she really wasn’t flirting with Yasha any differently than she was flirting with any hot female NPC the party crossed paths with.

And now it’s clear that that one line she said is the reason why BY shippers have suddenly clung on to the idea that “It’s been happening since episode one! SLOooOowBuUuuUrn!!!!!” when its clear that it was not planned. (Not before the hiatus-from-hell, anyway.)

Then Marisha having Beau go from describing Jester as “She's fun. She makes me laugh. I like her ridiculous plans. I think she's complicated and layered.” to “It’s easy to lust after her”. I’ll direct you to Talks for ep85. After Marisha had mentioned that it was a bunch of little things that build, and then pinpointed a few of them, Brian tried to make a joke and said “So you’re saying it’s been more a series, than just one moment that you can point to and say ‘It was right here when I went, let’s fuck!’” Marisha specifically countered that with “It’s not even about 'let’s fuck’. It’s nothing sexual in this case.” (Having her backpedal on this so heavily was such a huge gut punch and was the thing that wholly soured everything for me.)

There were so many better, more delicate ways Marisha could’ve had Beau examine/come to grips with her feelings for both women, but all the reduction and saying they were ‘transferable’ was nothing short of insulting.

On that same Talks episode, Marisha also said this: “Going into this campaign all of us were like, ‘No relationships!’ I didn’t want it! I didn’t ask for this!”, while smiling. What this shows me is that she was thinking of a relationship in regards to Beau’s feelings for Jester. As if she was maybe even anticipating this culminating into something? Why even mention relationships at all if this was nothing serious and was always meant to fall by the wayside?

Brian then followed up with, “In my opinion, as a viewer, Beau’s someone who seems to be on the search for innocence. Whether innocence lost or just innocence in general. And to me it makes sense that you would be attracted to someone who exudes genuine and sort of intrinsic innocence.” Marisha replied with “Fairly astute.”

The next question was, ‘Beau has taken a pretty casual, no-strings-attached approach toward sex and relationships so far. How do her feelings for Jester compare to her previous romantic flings?’ Marisha answered immediately and very seriously with, “Noncomparable. It’s more than that.” She wasn’t playing coy and it didn’t take her a century to find the words. She didn’t even have to think about it. Succinct and direct.

How did all of that ‘organically’ disappear completely, after only 14 episodes?

(Everything felt more genuine back then, because it seemed like Marisha was going where the character was taking her, and not where she thought the character should be going.)

Post-hiatus, everyone and their mother are acting like BY is some epic romance-of-the-ages that was all mapped out, and like Beau having feelings for Jester was just some sort of temporary curveball. That Beau was confused, or was just missing Yasha and projected onto Jester.

That’s really fucked up no matter how you try to justify it. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen another piece of media backpedal this hard, and this callously.

None of that squares with what we were shown or with what we were told. Until, everybody made a hard pivot and now they've done (and continue to) do everything they can to rewrite campaign history, even though we have plenty of footage that contradicts the new ‘company line’.

Now, where the retconning truly began, with the playlists...

Remember the first round of playlists? Those were released randomly, whenever the cast felt like posting them. I also don’t remember there being announcements every time one came out either.

This time though, they had a fixed schedule, complete with official twitter announcements. As they started to just get back into the swing of things, Yasha’s playlist was released right after the first episode back.

So, right out of the gate, they had to make sure they started to drill home a certain mindset for viewers. That’s why Yasha had a song called ‘Let Me Hold You’. (Lo and behold, a few episodes in, Beau randomly asks Yasha to hold her.) A few weeks later, Beau’s playlist was released, and there was a song with the caption saying ‘Ultimately, all she really wants is someone to hold, and someone to hold her’. (But sure, no planning here! The wording is just a total coincidence, folks!)

The other song, directly about Yasha, mentions ‘a crush forged in battle’ (ok), and ‘awkward flirtations’ (???). Yasha never openly flirted with Beau before the hiatus, until maybe right after the Obann arc, in a very vague way.

On Beau’s playlist, there’s nothing about Jester. The one track that mentions her is actually about Artagan. Which, after all they’ve been through together, is fucking ridiculous no matter how you slice it.

In addition to that, Marisha had made Beau’s time in Kamordah (ep92/e93), and the incidents with her family and the Hag, about the group now, not about Jester, fully contradicting her own reiterated words that ‘Jester saved Beau’.

When Beau was talking to her dad, reverting back to her old self and getting all riled up, Jester helped her in that moment, and saved her. Yes, the group was very supportive, and yes, Yasha said something to him before they left the house (that Beau was out of earshot for by the way), but Jester was Beau’s rock throughout that whole thing.

With the Hag, when the group was having a hard time coming up with a solution, and they realized they might actually lose Beau, Jester stepped up and took control of the situation. She, single-handedly, saved Beau/the group from the Hag. And with that, Jester also became Beau’s hero.

In both instances, Marisha thanked Laura/Jester. First on Talks for ep92 with both of them on it. She reiterated, “You saved me. You saved Beau.” Then on Twitter after ep93 with, “Still processing last night. Saved by a cupcake? Eh - saved by @LauraBaileyVO ... again.”

But now suddenly, it’s the group. Just the group?

Now, don’t get me wrong. The entire party showing Beau support was incredibly important. The M9 showed her that they value her, that she’s important to them. It solidified the theme of ‘found family’, which was beautiful. But, to not also highlight how crucial Jester was in all of this, after making such a big deal about it?

That is very deliberate retconning of some hugely important, highly emotional moments for Beau that directly involved Jester.

Any of Beau’s organic and genuine connection with Jester (which encompasses their deep friendship as well as Beau’s romantic feelings) has been massively reduced (and now erased), specifically to prop up a supposed ‘deep’ connection with someone else that was barely ever there, is still barely there, and has no actual depth at all.

Case in point, the BY date (ep126) showcased this fact to the most extreme degree...

Yasha’s infamous line: “I fell in love with you in Kamordah.” So, Yasha literally watched Beau relive her childhood trauma, and caught feelings during it. I’m not wrong in thinking that that’s just a little disturbing, am I? Also, if that’s the moment she supposedly fell for her, why did she not offer her any form of help? I mean, besides that one sweet moment with TJ, the entire time Beau was in Kamordah, she was the most broken down she’d ever been and needed some real comfort, which is something Yasha did not give her. (Jester did though. In spades.)

So, on multiple levels, this seems highly out-of-place.

Several people have said that that line was not thought through. In my opinion, it actually was thought through and was only said specifically to have viewers completely dismiss everything else that happened in the Kamordah episodes. Despite the FACT that Beau and Yasha barely interacted during those episodes, they have now stripped down the party’s experience there, and twisted it into a giant BY shipping moment. (Further feeding into the retcon.)

Their ‘trip down memory lane’ was laughable. Most of the things that were mentioned, Yasha wasn’t even around for.

Gee, remember when the cast was actually good at separating what they knew from what their character knew? When you start injecting what you know into your character (who isn’t supposed to know, because they literally were not physically there), you are metagaming.

The entire date was one big metagaming bonanza. And it had to be, or else they would’ve had nothing to talk about. There is not one thing they have to call their own. To people who don’t have BY tunnel vision, it was made glaringly obvious that they have nothing in common and their dynamic is fairly shallow. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast are sitting there watching this unfold, smiling and nodding along as if it all makes perfect sense and isn’t utterly ridiculous. (And I’m sitting here wondering when I got shunted into the Twilight Zone.)

The shallowness holds true for FJ as well. Aside from both of them being from the Menagerie Coast, what exactly do they have in common?

While Fjord has grown as a character, as far as Jester goes, he still does not seem to have the capacity to fully understand her as a person, or fully respect her abilities/emotional strength/intelligence. He doubted her often, which led to Jester getting irritated with him several times over the course of at least the last third of the pre-hiatus episodes. He even continued to doubt her judgment (in regards to the Traveler) in the post-hiatus Rumblecusp episodes. But hey, they’ve kissed now (ep118) so all of that gets wiped clean, and he’s being touted as her ultimate romantic soulmate who’s oh-so-perfect for her.

For fuck’s sake, why does that sound like something pulled right out of a CW show?

(I'm convinced that the only reason FJ is ‘popular’ is because the shippers have projected Travis and Laura’s real-life marriage onto the characters. If Fjord and Jester were played by different people, or Travis and Laura were not together, people would realize how paper-thin and half-assed this pairing is and hardly anyone would care about it.)

Beau and Jester had developed the deepest, most genuine friendship and overall dynamic in the entire party, that should have absolutely been given the chance to be explored further. They constructed a pretty solid foundation that could have easily been built upon, and the fact that it’s been unceremoniously pulverized and snuffed out in favor of such overwhelming tepidity and flavorlessness will never not infuriate me.

Finally, to finish this off, I will say with my whole chest, that that is one of many nasty, rotten patterns that I’ve seen far too much of in all kinds of scripted media, which is...

Not wanting to commit to the thing that’s actually growing organically, because it’ll ruffle too many feathers. It’s too inconvenient. It gets in the way. Because of course, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to take a risk, or you know, actually follow where the natural fucking chemistry is taking you. Of course not! Heaven forbid, we go down a different road! You have to go with what’s ‘expected’, no matter what, at the great expense of something new that’s come along that’s clearly better. Even when what’s expected is hollow as fuck and doesn’t make sense anymore, because characters have grown and dynamics have changed, they decide to dig their heels in with the most fanservice-y options instead.

Yet this is UNSCRIPTED media. A D&D campaign, that’s supposed to be mostly improvised. D&D, that’s all about taking chances/going with your gut/making bold choices/etc., from people who have claimed up and down that they “like to see things play out at the table”.

So why are those same disingenuous patterns being utilized here too?

One of the big reasons I got into CR was because I naively believed that because the format was different, that the storytelling would be different. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about running into this nonsense here. That I wouldn’t have to worry about getting bullshitted, jerked around, and having my intelligence insulted left and right, but alas, here we are.

In conclusion... [TL;DR, kinda?]

Reframing past events (between B & J, and B & Y) to serve a current plot need (railroading BY):

Beau playlist ignores Jester’s importance to what transpired in Kamordah. (minimizing/erasure)

Beau playlist doesn’t acknowledge/hint at Beau’s feelings for Jester. (total erasure. could have at least included a song about feelings being lost, or being confused about feelings for a friend, but Marisha took the cowardly route, and didn’t bother mentioning it at all.)

Beau playlist claims that Beau and Yasha have both been flirting forever. (easily debunked by session footage.)

In her conversation with Fjord, Beau says, “There was something about Yasha from the moment I saw her”. (it was just about hooking up then, and stayed that way for a majority of the campaign. This line suggests that Beau has had ‘deeper feelings’ for and/or has been ‘in love’ with Yasha since the first episode, that this was all intentional build-up, which again, is easily debunked by session footage, panels, and TM.)

In her conversation with Fjord, Beau says, “It’s easy to lust after her.” (minimizing/erasure/twisting of Beau’s feelings for Jester, which Marisha had previously stated were ‘noncomparable’ , ‘more than that’, and that her attraction is ‘nothing sexual in this case.’)

This isn’t a fucking conspiracy theory. This is plain evidence of a planned retcon.

#op #super long post #uber rant #happy thursday! ;)#beaujester #i wrote this up back in december but didn't have the energy to finish it until now #it got longer as i went #guess i still have a lot of bitching left in me lol #that's what happens when you feel like you've been getting kicked in the teeth for nine months

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aurora-daily · 3 years

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You Don’t Need A Cure For Yourself! – Norwegian Pop-Star Aurora On Songwriting, Self-Doubt, And Community

Interview by Laura Gruebler for TITLE Magazine (August 14th, 2021).

If you haven’t heard about Aurora yet, you will surely recognise her song “Runaway”. Although this single was released back in 2015, it was only this year it gained massive popularity. “Runaway” has gone viral on Tik Tok and Instagram and is accordingly to Spotify amongst the top 50 TikTok songs of 2021.

However, this young singer/songwriter from Norway is more than just a one hit wonder. Aurora is a promising talent for songwriting and composing. In addition to that, her open mind, and sympathetic character enabled her to establish a loyal and ever growing fan base. In our interview we got to know this musician from a very personal side and she ceratinly gained some new supporters.

How are you today? What does a typical day in your life look like right now?

I’m fine, thanks for asking. It’s a bit of both, I’m a lot in the studio, but I just finished my album that is coming out soon, so I’m having a tiny holiday, which has been great. But yeah, it’s busy but fun. I’m very excited about what’s coming.

(The pandemic has been challenging for everybody differently. How did you experience lockdown? Did it have any impact on your creativity?)

Personally, I have quite enjoyed being forced by the virus to be more inside and to be less social. I do enjoy that kind of lifestyle, I like being home and alone. But of course it is a different experience when you know you don’t have any other choice. But I’ve enjoyed the space and the time. It’s been great for my creativity, I’ve been creating quite a lot. But of course, I’ve been sad on behalf of the world and the people. It’s been sad and equally healing. I’ve been very lucky, although I couldn’t work as much or go on tour.

What inspires you? How do you decide what to write about?

It can come very suddenly, very out of the blue and I’ll know when it’s the perfect line. I also always have long album titles, which just happen to me and from there I get very inspired and know what I’m going to do. For example, for the album that I just finished now, I knew the title last year in January, and then I started writing for it.

I always write a song with a mission to fit into a new story. It’s like every song is a new chapter of a book. And the meaning is very important, instinctive, and driven by my heart.

What makes a good song? What is more important: melody and instruments or lyrics and meaning?

Meaning always comes first, and often the melody. Or the title, I often begin with the title actually. I know my record name and the vision before I start writing for it. I like to write conceptually.

Your only Norwegian song “Stjernestøv” which means stardust has been quite successful in your home county. Why did you decide to write and perform mainly in English?

I love to read, it’s my favorite thing in the world. But it breaks my heart that I’ll never get to read many of them in their original language. And I guess I’d suggest always writing in your mother tongue but it’s so sad that someone else then has to translate. And I feel like it’s the same with my songs. I want as many people as possible to be able to understand my music in the way I write it. English is a more direct and universal language.

What makes a good music video? Your recent song release “Cure For Me” comes with a really fun video. Do you have any impact on the outcome – what is important to you to communicate with your visuals?

I am very inspired by the visual world. And I guess people are more used to understanding visual things and pictures in comparison to sound. We need to work harder to understand just sound. I love to take on the opportunity and create a video for each of my singles and take care of how people perceive my songs. It’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s so fun. I love hiding details and clues in my videos. And my fans are so clever – they always figure out what things mean or guess what my next song will be.

You have uploaded a tutorial for the dance moves in “Cure For Me”. Is dancing something you like to express yourself with?

I love dancing. My favorite thing is going to rave parties and dancing until the next morning. It’s the best thing ever. I think we’re meant to dance and shake our bodies way more than we do. I can’t understand people who can resist dancing. It doesn’t even have to look good, it should just feel liberating.

At TITLE Magazine we focus on being true to yourself and your True Identity. Have you found your True Identity yet? How would you describe it?

Yes, I think I have found my True Identity. I feel very grounded in myself and I feel very grounded on this Earth. I feel very connected to the ground and my place in this world. So my True Identity is a very grounded and calm one. Luckily, it’s been like that for a little while now.

“Cure For Me” basically has the message to not doubt yourself, and love yourself regardless. No one needs a cure for themselves, no matter what other people say. Have you experienced any negativity towards yourself before? How did you deal with it?

I haven’t experienced it much in comparison to others. I was teased in school because I dressed quite strangely and I guess I act differently. I didn’t feel very connected to other people. I struggled with finding a sense of belonging in a group at school or within the system. But now, I’ve really found my place. And my fans helped a lot to show that I can be connected to so many people out there in the world, however, not in my neighborhood in the countryside.

I spent a lot of time in nature, which made me gain energy, but I often disappeared again when I entered a room with other people in it. I didn’t like people so much when I was younger. And this feeling you are not the same as the people around you goes into this feeling that something is wrong with you instead of accepting the differences.

What advice would give others that are being told they are not good enough or doubt themselves?

The little box that has been put out in front of us is so small and the world is telling us that we have to fit in this box – this pattern of behavior, this way of looking, being, loving, or you’re not going to be accepted. It’s a very narrow whole we are supposed to fit into and it simply doesn’t make sense. It’s very soul strangling. And if you worry about fitting in, think of how little your perspective is and how little you actually see, and how little you have left to actually experience life and yourself in this world. So, it really doesn’t matter what the world or our parents or even ourselves think of us. We can be our harshest critics. It can be so difficult to love ourselves but it really shouldn’t matter to fit in this useless box.

Since the kickstart of your career and the successful release of your EP “Running With The Wolves” in 2015, you have been doing some great performances and achieved some amazing things. What is your personal highlight of your career so far?

I am very proud of my community. But I am also scared by it. I don’t like the idea of worshiping one single person so much. It’s not natural. But I feel like I have a different relationship with my fans. It’s based on mutual respect and admiration. They opened my eyes to how beautiful the world is and made me believe in mankind again. It’s the best gift I could ever get in life.

The highlight of my career is realizing how much we can do, or use our voices to speak up against the wrong, and loudly about love. It’s so beautiful and powerful. And change can only be done with many people standing together.

How do you percieve community online? How do you feel about virality and hype on Tik Tok and Instagram?

I guess it’s the same online as well. I think of every person as a single human being sitting at home. The people I want to reach the most are the people that are most isolated and lonely. I am a big fan of the online community and I find it magical that we’re all connected. I don’t care too much about the numbers of streams etc. It doesn’t seem to make anyone, including me, happy. Maybe for like a moment in which I’m joyfully surprised but then it’s over. It’s so short living.

#aurora #aurora aksnes #new album #cure for me #interviews

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lucky-bucky-boy · 4 years

Text

Cruel Summer

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x Reader

Summary: Based loosely off of Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift; You shouldn’t have given in, shouldn’t have caved to him. But what could you say? Some people were just too irresistible. But one too many bad choices lead to tension that even the worst of the worst couldn’t bare.

Word Count: 5473

Warnings: Angst, smut, dom/sub elements, daddy kink, dirty talk, very slight age gap, please let me know if I missed any

A/N: Tags are at the bottom. Please please please let me know what you think, this writing style is a bit out of my comfort zone. I’m trying some new things out before writing my book and really need all the feedback possible. Positive and constructive please. NO spoilers, taking place before the events of Knives Out, age difference of Meg and Ransom was skewed to fit timeline/idea // Read on AO3 here

I do not own these characters. Do NOT repost my writing and/or fics anywhere without my written permission. Reblogs welcomed and highly appreciated!

The wintery chill of the evening Massachusetts air threatened to seep in, blowing harshly against the windowpanes and spinning it’s way through every bare branch and thickly coated pine tree on the property. A typical monthly gathering of family and those like family, a gun show and jab contest dressed up to look like a quiet evening around the fire with loved ones and good food.

Gazes darted around the room, a tension so palpable it made even the Thrombey family uncomfortable. No one could quite place why though, or even which pair was causing the air to thicken. A typically thin lipped, on edge, cut throat monthly dinner was somehow even more treacherous this time around.

But no one would have guessed that it involved you. Usually revered as the quiet one, the one who steered away from trouble and left before the tension boiled over, the girl who brought bright smiles and a sharp mind, Meg’s best friend since diapers, your father’s accomplished author for a daughter; not one person would have even thought to have blinked an eye in your direction.

But no one in that room knew why the air was so thick you could taste it, why the sound of the metal knives scraping against expensive glass plates was more bearable than breathing in the smog of tension. One wrong move and-

“So, what’s got everyone’s knickers in a twist, huh?” The smug, faux caring, intoxicating drawl that got you in this mess.

The flood gates were open now. Everyone talking over the other, talking louder and louder, unknowingly looking for the cause of the uncomfortable feeling that sat low in their bellies. It didn’t last too long, maybe over a minute before it fell silent enough that you could hear the wind whistling outside.

Even with your gaze downcast to your plate you could feel everyone turn to look at you, eyes judging and calculating, picking apart every move, ever wrinkle in your clothes, and twitch of a muscle.

“You’ve been quiet,” it was your father speaking now, and for the first time you were thankful for that, “What’s new with you, dear? How’s your third book coming along?”

A shrug as you met his gaze, a smile on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s coming.” Your tone was practically unreadable, unamused and almost annoyed.

A snicker from the other end of the table had all of you snapping your heads in the direction of the noise. A shit eating grin was plastered on Ransom’s face, eyes glinting with mischief. You tried your damnedest not to notice how the ruby color of his scarf brought out the ocean blues you got lost in too many times, or how the cream color of his worn sweater was practically taunting you with every memory of you in that sweater. But you knew him, you knew him too well for your own liking, for your own good. And you knew he did things with a purpose.

“What’s so funny?” His mother snapped at him, his lips pulling into that smirk that had you at his will one too many times.

“Just never thought I’d hear little ol’ (Y/N) say something along those lines again.”

Pin drop. Silence and shock coursed through every fiber of every person sitting at that table. Confused glances between the two of you, unnerved and in disbelief.

“What the hell, Ransom? Why do you-” Meg started, voice loud and higher than usual in agitation.

But you cut her off, staring back at the man who seemingly was doing whatever he could to get under your skin. “Hugh, if you’ve decided you’re going to tell a story, at least make sure to tell the fucking truth.”

A few hushed gasps echoed around the table as Ransom matched your stare. “Oh, come on, sweetheart. You know that’s not what I like you calling me.”

You scoffed, “You lost the privilege of me calling you what you want the day you told me to leave.”

“As if you didn’t want it just as badly. I seem to recall rather clearly you begging for me.”

“And I seem to recall rather clearly you telling me to get my shit and get the fuck out.” You snapped, feeling your skin heat with embarrassment and agitation. No one was supposed to find out like this, no one was supposed to find out at all.

Ransom stood suddenly, stalking over to you, eyes never leaving yours. He towered over your sitting figure for a moment, trying to melt your resolve before he leaned down, face only inches away from yours. The musky vanilla and cedar scent of his cologne, the mintiness of his breath with a hint of whiskey, the warm scent of clean cotton from his clothes, it was all almost too much. “Let’s get this straight, baby girl,” the nickname was taunting you like a schoolyard insult, “we had an arrangement. That arrangement didn’t involve feelings. You ruined that.”

“Yeah, because me loving you is the worst thing you ever heard.” You stood as well, at your wits end with this situation, with him, “Dumbest mistake of my life was thinking how you felt when you were drunk was how you felt when you were sober. Fuck you, Ransom."

He stood back some, moving out of your way as you grabbed your jacket off of the back of your chair, storming out of the too warm mansion and into the freezing cold. Ransom’s voice followed after you, "Don’t forget you already did, sweetheart.”

Notification after notification, endless vibration making you want to pull your hair out. A long drive home with a clenched jaw and a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. The day couldn’t be over soon enough, an escape from the embarrassment and misery of that excuse of a dinner much too far away for your liking.

The hope that your apartment would have been your ticket to peace and quiet was quickly destroyed when there was banging on the door. A huff as you trudged out of the blankets on the couch to the door, swinging it open to see a distraught Meg.

“What the hell was that about?”

There it went, any bit of resolve and composure went out that front door when she took a step in. Tears quickly welled in your eyes, falling in little streams down your face. The agitation on her face was quickly replaced with worry as she wrapped you in a hug, “Hey, hey, no need for that. Come on. Let’s get you something to drink and then I want you to tell me what that was all about, okay? I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on, alright?”

She walked you through the kitchen, making you both a cup of hot tea and grabbing a handful of snacks before steering you back towards the couch, sitting the both of you down. Meg’s eyes filled with relief as she watched you sip at the warm liquid, sniffling softly as you calmed yourself down.

“Okay, start from the beginning. What happened?”

Warm, low lights, a soft thumping from the outdated speakers, a happy, giddy atmosphere floating over the table. A small, cheesy banner sat taped to the edge of the booth, bright tacky colors spelling out “Congratulations”. Two of your friend sat with you in the rounded corner booth, your leg sticking out to the side and bouncing with slight anticipation. Even though you requested a small thing, your beloved friends Shelby and Laura had a hard time doing things small.

But they insisted it wasn’t a lot. Meg was off studying for finals and wouldn’t be able to make it so instead Shelby invited her boyfriend Jay and told him to bring a friend or two along. And not to forget the cake. Their last phone call twenty minutes ago consisted of reiterating the confirmation over and over again. You’re on your way? Awesome great. Who’d you bring? Okay. Did you get the cake? Okay. Don’t forget the cake. Okay. Don’t ruin the cake. Okay you’re sure the cake is okay?

Laura and you couldn’t help but giggle at her, anxiety and anticipation evident in her features as she checked her phone again and again, eyes darting to the entrance waiting for her boyfriend and his friends to enter the hole in the wall bar with that god damn cake.

Excusing yourself to the bathroom seemed to speed up the time because as you returned you nearly tripped over yourself. There was Shelby, cuddled up next to Jay. And Jay had two men sitting next to him, one you didn’t recognize and one you knew all too well. Hugh Ransom Drysdale.

A man you hadn’t seen in easily a year or two. He had began to skip out on family dinners, tired of the endless drama and bore of it all. Even when the family took their yearly vacation together and during the holiday parties he somehow managed to not be anywhere insight, despite his mother insisting he was there.

“Look at you, little (Y/N), all grown up now.” His eyes shamelessly raked over your figure, taking in how your body had changed over the years, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, brat. Since before you published the first book.”

You huffed out an anxious laugh, nodding as you took your seat at the end of the booth, opposite of him. “Y-yeah, it’s been a while. You kinda stopped coming around.”

“Can you blame me? My family would make anyway go insane. I’m surprised yours has stayed around as long as they have. But enough about me, sweetheart, from what I’ve been told we’re here to celebrate you-”

Shelby squealed some, “Yep! And that’s why,” she hung onto the end of the word as she lifted the lid of the box that was now sitting in the center of the table. Once the top was off, the sides fell down, revealing a cake decorated to look like a book with the title of your second book you had just published on it. The whole reason you all were here.

Your heart swelled at the gesture, “Aw! Shelbs! Thank you so much!” You gave her a small little pout, “God I’m gonna cry. I can’t believe I actually did that. Twice now!”

Laughter erupted around the table, the group continuing to shower you in drinks, gifts, and affection. Jay bought you a drink and some food, Laura had gotten you a customized journal with your favorite quote from the book on the front of it, Shelby kept giving you little cards with her favorite things about the books you’ve written in them. It wasn’t long until the group started to dwindle though. First Jay’s other friend who probably felt awkward, then Laura who had to work in the morning.

Ransom and Jay decided to play a round of pool before Jay and Shelby headed out for the night, and Shelby took the time to interrogate you.

“Oh. My. God. He is so fucking hot. How the hell do you know him? You never leave your apartment.” She fawned over Ransom, who currently had his back to the two of you at the other side of the bar.

You sighed, shaking your head in disbelief. “First off, you have a boyfriend,” your reprimanded playfully. “Second, that’s Meg’s older cousin. He’s like 4 or 5 years older than us. Spoilt brat. Never worked a day in his life. Third, before you even suggest it because I see that look in your eye. I’m not sleeping with him. I didn’t even let him buy me a drink when he offered let alone going home with him.”

She pouted at you, “Come on, (Y/N/N), you’ve been so stressed with the editing and the publishing. Just have a little fun.”

You rolled your eyes, leaning over and grabbing a nacho to throw into your mouth. “The only fun I need after all this is my handy dandy blue vibrator under my bed. No need to go home with him.”

She scoffed. “Fiiiine, whatever. I still think he’s hot.”

The two men came back a few minutes later, laughing loudly and teasing one another. It was odd, rare even to see Ransom genuinely laughing, whole chest vibrating with the motion, genuine happiness seeping off of him. Jay collected his things as did Shelby, both bidding you a goodnight, Shelby throwing a wink in as well as they exited.

“Then there was two,” Ransom drawled, smirking lazily at you as he finished off his drink. “Come on, (Y/N/N), let me buy you a drink.”

You smiled, huffing out a small laugh as you shook your head. “I’m good, Ransom. Really.”

“After all those years of you stealing my stash I’m actually willing to buy you a drink and you’re telling me no?”

You rolled your eyes, butterflies beginning to swarm inside you. “I’m telling you no because I still have at least a thirty minute uber ride home and don’t want to be overly intoxicated. The only thing I want right now it a plate of pancakes and some greasy hash browns.”

“Then let’s go get some,” he offered, a somewhat uncharacteristically sweet smile replacing his smirk. “Look, I haven’t seen you in a while and you just accomplished something so let me at least try to do something nice.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You? Hugh Ransom Drysdale? Do something nice? Oh I must be dead.” He pouted at you, the slight disappointed look in his blue eyes sending you reeling. “Fine. I won’t pass up on an offer like that. Just make sure you take me somewhere good."

Thirty minutes later you sat in a small diner that was essentially in the middle of nowhere. The name GiGi’s was in neon pink light on top the structure that looked like it was plucked out of Grease. A few semi-trucks littered the parking lot and only a couple of faces of customers sat in the diner.

Ransom had already threw you for a loop, opening doors for you, turning the music down to ask you about your book; and not just what it was about, but what inspired you to write it, what was your muse. He had let you pick the seat and even ordered for you when the waitress came over. Two breakfast samplers with extra crispy hash browns, and two strawberry milkshakes because ‘why not? It’ll be just like when we were kids’.

You were beyond shocked at how comfortable you felt around him. No awkwardness or anxiety that had hit you earlier. It was simple, felt easy, felt right.

"So, I have to ask, why are you suddenly being nice to me?” The question was simple enough, lips wrapping around the straw of the milkshake after you asked, watching him and waiting.

“Was I ever not nice to you?” He asked, bemused and quirking an eyebrow at you.

Swallowing down the cold liquid you scoffed. “Seriously? You’ve been a dick to me since I was like 12 or 13. Whenever you started hanging out with that one guy in high school - Chuck? I think. Anyways, it got even worse after you turned 21. You pretty much outright refused to acknowledge my existence."

He pursed his lips as he thought about it, "I- okay yeah, you’re right. I did do that- but in my defense I stopped acknowledging you because I thought you were hot and I was older so it was creepy and just easier to ignore you.”

You blinked a few times, shocked and processing what he had just said, “You what?”

He shrugged, taking a bite of his food. “Yep. And Chuck thought you guys were annoying so I dunno, guess I thought being a dick would keep you guys from pestering me.”

You couldn’t help but glare at him softly. “Then why did you come out tonight to celebrate my book? And offer to buy me drinks and food?”

Ransom suddenly looked a lot less relaxed, stern and serious as he kept his gaze on you. “Do you really want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” You challenged back, heart thumping in your chest.

He broke out into a huge grin, chuckling some, “Still not the one to ever back down from me. God, I love it. The reason I came out tonight was because, whether you believe it or not, I’m actually a fan of your writing. I have two copies of your first book and I already preordered the second. The reason I stayed out is because I realized how much I missed you. Most of my favorite memories from when I was younger involve you.”

“Really?” You inquired, munching on the food in front of you. “Like what?”

“Should’ve known you wouldn’t have let that one slide.” He chuckled softly. “One of my favorite memories is when I was probably 10 or 11, I think you and Meg had just started school. And you guys were learning about the stars and space and for some reason I was really obsessed with astronomy at the time. So one night, Meg, you, and I decided to camp out back of granddad’s and mom set a fire up for us and we sat there for hours roasting marshmallows and me teaching you guys about the constellations.”

A bright smile spread across your lips, so big it practically hurt. “I’m surprised you even remember that.”

“Hey, what can I say? I’m a man full of surprises who aims to please.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Once the bill came, Ransom didn’t even let you see it, immediately pulling out some cash and handing it to the waitress, telling her to keep the change. He watched as you pulled out your phone, opening the uber app. “What’re you doing?” He asked quizzically.

“Calling myself a ride.” You answered, not even looking up.

“Nuh uh,” he shook his head, reaching over and grabbing the phone from you. “I’ll take you home.”

“But my apartment is like 45 minutes away and your house is down the street,” you protested.

“Then stay at my house tonight and I’ll take you home in the morning. I’ll sleep on the couch, you can take the bed.”

You quirked an eyebrow, obviously not believing him. “You sleeping on the couch? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” He promised, offering you a warm smile. “Now, am I taking you home or are you staying at my house?”

“…I’ll stay at your place,” you mumbled.

Something about Ransom’s house felt oddly comforting. The large window at the front of the living room let the moonlight stream in, the darker colors that the walls were painted contrasting beautifully with every sleek modern piece of furniture he had. It was obvious his family influenced his taste some. The intricate designs on the patterns of the throw pillows something you could very easily see Halarn buying, while his kitchen was practically black, white, and silver - looking like it popped out of the modern section of an HGTV magazine. But it all flowed and melded together beautifully.

He showed you to his room, grabbing himself a change of clothes before heading out and leaving you alone. You couldn’t help but stand there and take in your surroundings. Being in there, even without him, felt intimate. Like he was showing you a secret page in a book he loved. A few pictures were on his dresser, various ones or him at parties with friends, one of the family which was smaller than the others. It was neat, clean and tidy but most likely because of a maid and not because he took the time out to clean up his mess. And it smelled of him, everything in the room just breathed Ransom.

Sitting down on the bed, you kicked your shoes off, sitting them down by the end before lying down and attempting to get comfortable. But to no avail, you tossed and turned for a few moments, and despite the softness of the mattress and sheets below you, you felt uncomfortable. Jeans too tight, bra irritating your skin, face feeling oily and heavy. You needed a shower and a change of clothes if you wanted to even think of falling asleep.

Hesitantly you made you way back downstairs, where Ransom was currently sitting in a pair of gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, book in hand. You didn’t even have to say anything, his eyes moved from the book to you, cocking an eyebrow, “Guessing you need a shower and some comfy clothes?"

You nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, kind feel blah after the bar and greasy food.”

“That’s okay. Towels and wash rags are in the standing closet in the bathroom. Both bathrooms with have them but the master bathroom has better shower pressure. Just take something out of my closet to wear for the night.”

You nodded a thank you and headed back upstairs, grabbing the first sweater you saw in his closet and heading into the bathroom. A part of you felt as if you were dreaming, that this wasn’t actually happening. Any residual crush you had on Ransom from your childhood was coming back full force, and doubling all at one. A quick shower you hoped would calm your slightly growing nerves, but drying off and slipping on the damned creme colored sweater you knew you were hopeless. It smelled like him, was warm and soft.

Before you could stop yourself you were padding back down the steps, not caring that the sweater barely covered your ass and that you hadn’t bothered with any underwear. Ransom was staring at you before had even looked at him, eyes taking in the sight of you in nothing else but his sweater, jaw set tight with a slight tick. “Whatcha doing there, sweetheart?” He urged, trying to keep his composure.

You sat on your knees next to him on the couch, staring at him for a moment. “Debating if I should do something I’ll probably regret in the morning.”

He smirked, “I promise if you’re gonna do what I think, you won’t regret it. You can hold me to that.”

“Then make sure I don’t-” you leaned forward, closing the distance between the two of you and pressing your lips against his. The fullness of his pouty lower lip slotted between yours, kissing you in a way you had never been kissed before, completely and utterly stealing your breath and any logical thought from you.

His hands were on your hips, pulling you into his lap, groaning softly against your lips at the feel of your smooth skin in his hand. It was a battle of tongues for dominance, which you quickly surrendered at the feel of him gripping your ass, kneading and pulling before spanking the plump flesh.

He pulled away first, a wild look in his eyes. “Get your ass upstairs, baby girl. Daddy’s gonna make sure you don’t regret a thing.”

A shiver went up your spine and you squealed softly before giggling, high on adrenaline and him. You stole another kiss before running upstairs to his room, heart pounding and mind racing.

Ransom came in a few moments later, quickly discarding his shirt and tossing it in the direction of the hamper before stalking towards you. He moved to hover over you, lips dancing along the skin of your neck. “God fucking damn it, baby girl, seeing you in my clothes - fuck you’re gonna drive me crazy.” He pressed a few kisses to the sensitive skin before biting down on the junction where your neck met your shoulder.

The whimpers and moans that left you spurred him on, lips continuing their worship of your skin as his hands traveled along the outside of your thighs and up to you hips. Fingers traced along to curve to your waist, up and over your breast as your nipples prickled at the sensation. He felt every movement, every time you squirmed, every time you squeezed your thighs together, every time you rutted.

“Can I take this off you, sweetheart? Make you feel real good, promise, baby.” A nod was all he needed and the moment you leaned up some he pulled the sweater off, tossing it aside. Ransom moved to lean back, moving to sit on his haunches, moving your thighs and spreading them to be on his clothed ones.

“Fuck, princess. You’re so fucking perfect. So fucking wet for me, I can already see it. You my little whore, hm?” He leaned down, pressing kisses against the skin of your chest.

A sudden slap to your thigh caused you to gasp. “What was that for?” You whined, moving to card your fingers through his hair.

“Speak when you’re spoken to or I’ll have to punish you.” The thought riled you up even more. Being splayed across his lap, hand coming down on you as you squirmed relentlessly, taking every bit of the 'punishment’. But that was for another time, hopefully. Right now you wanted, no needed him.

“Sorry, daddy.” Your voice was so soft and innocent, absolutely driving him wild.

He wanted nothing more than to ram into you, make you scream. But not yet, he wasn’t done teasing. Ransom’s lips moved from the skin of your chest to you nipples, pressing a chaste kiss on one before moving to the other and back again. Back and forth as the motions increased. A kiss to a flick to a suck to a nibble.

His lips begin to move south, nipping at the soft skin along the way. “Absolutely stunning.” He hummed, “Better than I could have imagined, pretty girl.” Soon he was situated between your legs, breath fanning over your soaked folds. A soft groan left Ransom, kissing at the skin of your thighs. “Smell so good, gonna taste even better I guarantee it.”

“Stop teasing,” you whined, tugging on his hair.

He looked up at you, “Baby, that’s not how this works,” he tsked softly. “You want something, you need to beg.”

Another deep throaty whine ripped from you. “Please,” you whimpered, squirming. “Fuck please, need you."

He chuckled softly, "I’ll let you off this time - Wanna taste this pretty little pussy.” Without any other warning he delved into your cunt, licking a stripe from entrance to clit before suckling on the little nub. He licked and sucked and nibbled, two fingers prodded your entrance before pushing in to the second knuckle, curling and immediately finding that spot that made you see star.

Ransom basked in your mewls, the feel of you tugging on his hair before your grip would loosen as your eyes rolled into the back of your skull. Talented was an understatement and a part of you hated how good it was, how good he was treating you.

He didn’t stop, determined to coax an orgasm out of you. Fingers moved swiftly, in and out, scissoring and curling. Lips worked in tandem, listening to your cries of pleasure to determine what you really liked and kept at it. It wasn’t long before your toes were curling, back arching off the bed in a loud moan, his name like a prayer on your lips.

“Ransom,” you whimpered as the aftershocks rolled through you, his lips never leaving your core, “fuck, Ransom, daddy please. Want your cock.”

He pulled away, pressing one last chaste kiss to your clit before moving to kiss you, letting you taste yourself as he pulled his sweats down and kicked them off. Your hands quickly moved to his length, stroking softly and moaning against his lips.

“You’re so big,” the little whine caused him to chuckle softly as he pulled away, leaning over to pull a condom out of his bedside table.

“Yeah? Think I’m big, baby girl? Want me to split you in two?” The cockiness in his voice only added to how much you wanted him.

All you could do was nod, looking up at him with a pouty lip and wide eyes. “Please, fuck me, wanna cum on your cock.”

He growled softly, pulling the condom on and lining himself up with your entrance. Ransom teased, moving the head to hook your clit a few times, loving the little jolt and whine that would come from you. He pushed in, slow at first to let you accommodate to his girth, then a quick thrust to bury himself to the hilt, feeling as though he was hitting your cervix.

If you had ever wondered why Ransom was a playboy, why he was so cocky and self assured, you knew why now. He pulled out almost fully before slamming back in, angling his hips to hit that spot that had your legs quaking every time he pushed back in. Each push and pull had your head reeling, moans falling freely from your lips as you scratched helplessly at his back for purchase. One of Ransom’s hands snaked between the two of you, flicking your clit in time with his thrusts.

With his face buried in the crook of your neck, he growled out words into your skin, pushing you closer and closer to the edge;

“Such a good girl for me.”

“Perfect fucking pussy, squeezing me so good.”

“You were made for this, made for me. Weren’t you baby girl?”

“Come on, princess. Cum on Daddy’s cock. Show me how much you love it.”

One particularly rough thrust paired with a bite to your sensitive skin had you tipping over the edge, mouth open in a silent scream as your toes curled and thighs squeezed his waist. A few more sloppy thrusts and he emptied himself in the condom, groaning and moaning low in his chest.

A few moments of breathing, neither of you bothering to move as you came down from your highs. Ransom pressed a few kisses to your neck before taking what little breath you had away as he kissed you, an obvious heated passion still boiling beneath the surface. He pulled out while he lips where still on yours, swallowing down your whine before pulling away.

Ransom left the bed, your body quaking ever so slightly with aftershocks as he disappeared into the bathroom. He returned a few moments later, condom gone and holding a damp wash rag. He handed it to you, letting you clean yourself up as he slid back under the comforter, taking it from you when you were done and tossing it into the hamper.

Without as much as a word he pulled you into his side, pressing a quick kiss to your hairline. The two of you stayed quiet for what felt like forever, never quite falling asleep and taking in what exactly had just happened. Just as the sun began to break the night sky, he moved so he was facing you, lying on his side. Crystal clear blue eyes searched your face, a look of contemplation evident.

“Would you want to do that again?” He asked, voice almost hushed as if he was telling a secret.

You hesitated your answer, nodding softly, “Yeah, actually. I would.”

He smirked softly, “We’ll discuss the details after we sleep. But let’s just make sure no one finds out. Our little arrangement, okay?”

Meg stared at you, a look mixed between confusion, disbelief, and a little bit of disgust. “That was-” she sighed, shaking her head and running a hand through her hair, “That was a little more than I needed to know. Is he the mysterious guy you were seeing last summer?”

A small nod as you sipped at the tea more before looking at her, giving her a look that could only be compared to that of a kicked puppy. You watched as puzzle pieces fit together in her mind, slowly seeing the big picture.

“He’s the guy who bought you all that jewelry. And the guy that got you a dog - he hates dogs - The guy who took you to Maldives and Paris? What the-” her brows furrowed some, nibbling at her lip as you nodded in confirmation, “The guy that got drunk one night and told you he couldn’t live without you? That you were his everything?”

Her words sliced deep and you sniffled to keep yourself from crying again. “Yep,” your voice was still hoarse with emotions. “It was all Ransom.”

Meg sighed softly, her sympathy evident in every move and noise she made. “I’m so sorry… Do - do you still love him?”

Time seemed to freeze momentarily, every single memory whirling through your mind. With tears brimming your eyes again you looked at Meg, feeling utterly broken and lost. “I’m scared there won’t ever be a time where I don’t love him.”

Tags: @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @et-lesailes @necromaniackat @dramaticsassmaster @bval-1 @writingoneficatatime @lokilvrr

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forthegothicheroine · 3 years

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american psycho, the company of wolves, beauty and the beast (og disney), beauty and the beast (disney remake), tim burton's sleepy hollow, the over the garden wall miniseries, disney's legend of sleepy hollow (lmao i want it to be fall so bad), sofia coppola's marie antoinette, sofia coppola's the beguiled, the innocents, fire walk with me, crimson peak, coppocula

Hoo boy! Stuffing this big series of answers below the cut.

American Psycho:

Love it! I don't think the book would do it for me (I don't do well with graphic torture) but I thought the movie did a good job of showing us the kind of things he was doing, while also leaving enough ambiguity even before the twist at the end, and letting us sympathize with his depression (even if he can't name it) while also making him deeply unpleasant.

The Company of Wolves:

Do I like it as a big feminist statement? Honestly, not really- there's no sympathy for any women who aren't Rosalie or maybe her mother, and I think we are supposed to be conflicted over whether the choice she makes at the end is the right one. Do I like it as an exploration of an adolescent female id? Absolutely. Sex and violence and terror and quests are all on her mind and are all equally awful and thrilling, and Rosalie wants what's bad for her and isn't sure it's actually bad for her and the balance of power is always see-sawing and the whole thing feels like the most amazing dream.

Beauty and the Beast (original):

I thought the Beast was too mean when I was a little kid and forming my Disney opinions- I might actually like it more now. This is probably why I like the Cocteau version, even though what he does is basically still just as bad, because at least he's not a dick about it (and Panna a nevtor, which plays it all for gothic horror.)

Sleepy Hollow:

In retrospect, this one shows a lot of the problems that would later kill my love for Tim Burton, but it's still a lot of fun. The Hessian is genuinely scary, Johnny Depp is mugging a bit but it's not as bad as it would eventually get, and I want all the dresses.

Over the Garden Wall:

Pure distilled autumn in its aspects of both harvest and death, fun and fear. It's a world based on vintage Halloween postcards and fairytales that don't actually exist but feel like they do. I love every character, and that momentary flash where we see what the Beast looks like haunts my nightmares. My only caveat is that I do sometimes have to tell other people to keep watching after Schoolyard Follies, there will be a plot I promise!

Disney's Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

I think this is one of those where I never saw the whole thing, just the main song on one of those Best of Disney compilation videos. I'll at least give it credit for preserving the original story rather than making the Headless Horseman actually real (which I think most adaptations do because frankly the original story isn't long enough for feature length.)

Marie Antoinette:

This seems like one of those movies where you've supposed to get into the mood of the music and the visuals more so than the plot or characters? I can get into that.

The Beguiled:

I still don't know if I want to see this or not! The concept sounds cool and creepy, but I don't like the idea that these ladies are the good guys. Or maybe I'm wrong and nobody's supposed to be a good guy? Or maybe I should watch the grimier original since I unfortunately find young Clint Eastwood hot?

The Innocents:

I'm personally of the opinion that the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw were real (it's just that screaming at a child is not a good way to exorcise them), but the deliberate ambiguity/unreliability of this version is also creepy in its own way. It's a much darker ghost story that you'd get from most big studio films of the time, certainly.

Fire Walk With Me:

This really did a good job of portraying its protagonist as a real person rather than just an object of clinical observation or perverse whimsy (which I think Twin Peaks the Return fell into.) It's just so heartbreakingly sensitive and Sheryl Lee does such a good job of portraying Laura as both kind and mean, loving and hateful, and absolutely the victim of someone she should have been able to trust. And then the end, where Cooper is smiling gently at her and the angel has come back and she's laughing in relief? Oh my god.

Crimson Peak

I didn't love this as much as I thought I would (maybe because I was spoiled about what was up with the Sharpes, or maybe because I didn't like the implication that Edith should have gone with the nice boy best friend she didn't love) but I'd still say it's a good entry in the gothic romance genre. Stunning clothes and scenery, great actors, scary ghosts, an ending open enough for fanfiction. If I picked this up as an Avon Satanic Gothic at a thrift store, I'd definitely be happy!

Coppocula (Bram Stoker's Dracula)

Oof. I don't want to be a snob about this. I've definitely liked Dracula movies that were wackier or dumber than this (looking at you, 2004 BBC version!) This one just breaks my heart because there's so much talent on display and I just. fucking. hate it! That soundtrack deserved a better movie. That red dress deserved a better movie. All the characters deserved better writing. Whenever someone tells me they love this movie, I have to nod and say that it's certainly beautiful looking, because I don't want to be a terrible gatekeeper, and if it was an original vampire story it might well be a guilty pleasure of mine. I just fucking hate it. On the bright side, it did give us Vlad the Poker in the What We Do in the Shadows movie, a pitch-fucking-perfect parody of Gary Oldman's Dracula, and the Nadja/Gregor plot in the What We Do in the Shadows tv show, a pitch-fucking-perfect deconstruction of the reincarnated wife trope.

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rainingpouringetc · 3 years

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Hi! So, I’ve been wondering what the problem with Anna Lightwood is, because my brain saw that she was bending gender norms and hit love. But, now that I’m on tumblr, people are saying that she is problematic?

hi! i’ll try my best to explain, idk if i’ll hit everything but i hope this helps. and i’m sorry it took me a while, i wanted to do it justice so i tried to cover my bases and do my research.

basically, anna has said and done things that came across to many as ignorant, racist, and even misogynistic.

first, let’s look at “every exquisite thing” from ghosts of the shadowhunter market.

“If I were to tell my parents the truth about myself, if I were to reveal who I really am, they would despise me. I would be friendless, cast out, alone.”

Anna shook her head.

“They would not,” she said. “They would love you. You are their daughter.”

Ariadne drew her hand back from Anna’s. “I am adopted, Anna. My father is the Inquisitor. I do not have parents who are as understanding as yours must be.”

“But love is what matters,” said Anna.

this is from when ariadne was trying to explain why she would be getting engaged to charles. anna is very lucky: her family loves and accepts her and she’s able to live her life as she wishes, which we see her doing in chain of gold. ariadne, however, is not as lucky, and she has to take into consideration the conditions of her parents’ love. anna apparently struggles to understand this, ignoring ariadne’s valid concerns and telling her that it doesn’t matter because “love is what matters,” as if it makes everything perfect.

this is where anna’s ignorance begins to show through. ariadne is: (a) a woman in the late 1800s/early 1900s (i don’t remember for sure what year this story took place but i’d assume 1900s), (b) indian at a time when india is under british rule, (c) adopted, and (d) a lesbian shadowhunter. we know enough about how intolerant people have been about homosexuality, but shadowhunters are a whole other story. put all of this together and you have someone who is terrified of letting down her family and being shunned by society more than she already has been. in ariadne’s mind, she has no choice but to hide who she is.

anna ignores this. entirely. she doesn’t take the time to talk to ariadne about her concerns, but rather skirts around them and insists that what she wants is what’s more important. this is highly indicative of her privilege and how she puts herself before others and others’ feelings.

now let’s look at chain of gold. there are two scenes in particular that i want to look at, but there are more.

“I quite like your mother. She reminds me of a queen out of a fairy tale, or a peri from Lalla Rookh. You’re half-Persian, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cordelia said, a little warily.

“Then why is your brother so blond?” Anna asked. “And you so redheaded--I thought Persians were darker-haired.”

Cordelia set her cup down. “There are all sorts of Persians, and we all look different,” she said. “You wouldn’t expect everyone in England to look alike, would you? Why should it be different for us? My father is British and very fair, and my mother’s hair was red when she was a little girl. Then it darkened, and as for Alastair--he dyes his hair.”

“He does?” Anna’s eyebrows, graceful swooping curves, went up. “Why?”

“Because he hates that his hair and skin and eyes are dark,” said Cordelia. “He always has. We have a country house in Devon, and people used to stare when we went into the village.”

Anna’s eyebrows had ceased swooping and taken on a decidedly menacing look. “People are--” She broke off with a sigh and a word Cordelia didn’t know. “Now I rather feel sympathy toward your brother, and that was the last thing I wanted. Quick, as me a question.”

this scene is from cordelia’s tea with anna. i won’t touch so much on the “peri from lalla rookh” comment so much as i’m afraid i don’t feel well enough qualified or researched to adequately represent people’s concerns about this statement, but i do know that there were several posts going around about people discussing how it rubbed them the wrong way, so i thought i would include it as well.

the rest, though, is a bit more obvious. one of the things about books is that it can be more difficult to interpret someone’s words and their meaning because we don’t have things like tone or facial expressions or any of that unless the author explicitly includes it. however, we can draw on the way other characters react to certain comments. cordelia goes on the defense, answering anna’s question “a little warily,” setting aside her tea and explaining rather bluntly that not all persians look the same. it’s pretty easy to infer from her reaction that she’s uncomfortable from anna’s words. now, is that to say anna was intentionally being racist toward cordelia and her family? absolutely not. this is where microaggressions come into play. we see them with anna and also with matthew and even jessamine (though we see hers in the infernal devices rather than the last hours). microaggressions, while often unintentional, are still a form of racism. given the times these characters have grown up in, it’s not necessarily a surprise, but that certainly doesn’t excuse her behavior.

there is, however, a more intentional party to this scene that really rubbed me the wrong way. it’s her discussion of alastair. cordelia has just explained that alastair dyes his hair to stop people from staring at him when he’s walking down the street, and anna replies that she feels sympathy for him and that is “the last thing” she wanted. i understand that she has her own feelings about alastair, likely from listening to the merry thieves’ depiction of him, but that doesn’t excuse her. she even starts to say something about it, likely drawing on her own experiences of wearing menswear at a time when fashion was much more strictly regulated in society than it is today. but she stops herself and instead goes on to reemphasize her dislike for cordelia’s brother and changes the subject.

She held up a small black-bound memorandum book... “This,” she announced, “will hold answers to all our questions.”

...

Matthew looked up, his eyes fever-bright. “Is this your list of conquests?”

“Of course not,” Anna declared. “It’s a memorandum book... about my conquests. That is an important but meaningful distinction.”

...

Anna flipped through the book. There were many pages, and many names written in a bold, sprawling hand.

“Hmm, let me see. Katherine, Alicia, Virginia--a very promising writer, you should look out for her work, James--Mariane, Virna, Eugenia--”

“Not my sister Eugenia?” Thomas nearly upended his cake.

“Oh, probably not,” Anna said. “Laura, Lily... ah, Hypatia. Well, it was a brief encounter, and I suppose you might say she seduced me...”

i hope i don’t have to explain this one too much. there’s just something... unsettling about the fact that anna is held up as this feminist icon and yet she keeps a book with the names of and her encounters with all the women she’s slept with... and then reads those names aloud to everyone. it’s a bit much, don’t you think? and all of this is even without touching the leak we got about her and ariadne, which i’d rather not speculate on too much but is also quite damning.

all in all, i’d like to believe anna is really a good person who’s just misguided and confused, much because i love the idea of a genderqueer character, especially one in an era before stonewall, but her actions and behaviors have led me to believe that she has a long road ahead of her. as i said earlier this week:

let me get something clear: i would die for fanon anna but canon anna needs to get her shit together before i’ll willingly breathe in her direction

i really hope this was helpful... i did my best lol. if anyone else has more to add, please feel free.

#ask answered #anon #anna lightwood #tlh #the last hours #chain of gold

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typical-simplelove · 3 years

Text

Part One: Red Envelopes (T. Jost)

Part One to Red Envelopes, Dragon Boats, and Mooncakes; a Tyson Jost fic.

Summary: Kayla and Tyson spend Chinese New Year with Kayla’s family.

Series Masterlist (I ask that you go over to the Masterlist to read a brief message I wrote about this series, thank you!)

Pinterest Link

Author’s note: Here it is!! Part One! I worked so incredibly hard on this and I hope you like it! As the summary says, this first part is during Chinese New Year. Throughout the fic, I have linked links to any references to Chinese culture. I didn’t want to assume a reader knew what I was talking about so I provided pictures for you. I also have a Pinterest Board linked above. Included are a bunch of pins that represent the story and to better understand the culture. (This is just me trying to be helpful, only that, I promise!) There are some words that are written in Chinese. I have put the pronunciation in parenthesis and the meaning are at the end of the sentence in brackets. I hope you enjoy reading this. It is Lunar New Year, if you celebrate, Happy Lunar New Year! If you don’t, I wish you a year filled with good fortune, wealth, and prosperity for you and your family. Please let me know what you thought!

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: Being Chinese, eating meat, a very, very, very small insinuation to sex

Before Lunar New Year

When Tyson came home from practice that day, he was greeted with a note on the door telling him to make sure there was no mud on his shoes from the melted snow outside. He was baffled. In the three years that he and Kayla have been together, never has this request been made via note. Normally, she would yell it to him as he unlocked the door. Making sure that his shoes had no mud on them, Tyson walked in the door cautiously.

When he walked in, Tyson was greeted with tons and tons of shopping bags sitting on the kitchen counter. Despite the shopping bags, Tyson couldn’t see Kayla anywhere. He called out her name. The only sound that was given in return were the sounds of a sponge scrubbing the base of the bathtub.

“You know, babe,” Tyson begins when he’s at the frame of the bathroom door. “I don’t think my mom will care all that much if the bathtub is pristine when they visit. They know the way I am.”

“It’s not just for them,” Kayla responds. “It’s for Chinese New Year.”

Tyson just looks at Kayla confused. He isn’t sure how to respond. Despite being together for three years, Tyson doesn’t know much about her Chinese culture. This thought makes Tyson sad internally. Kayla knows all about his family’s traditions and pregame superstitions but he knows little about much of the Chinese culture and traditions that Kayla grew up with.

“May I ask why you need to clean for Chinese New Year?” Tyson cautiously asks, not wanting to annoy his girlfriend for not knowing something.

“Yeah, you can.” Kayla enthusiastically responds. “Before the New Year each year, families are to participate in cleaning the house together. It is supposed to symbolize clearing the hardships and bad luck of the previous year and opening away for new good fortune for the New Year. Cleaning last year’s fortune and bad luck shows that the family is ready to accept this year’s fortune with open and gracious hands.”

“That’s interesting,” Tyson responds. “How can I help?”

“What?”

“You said that families are to clean the house together, right?” Tyson begins and Kayla nods in response. “So, that means that I should be helping, too, right?”

“Oh, yeah. If you really want to clean, then you can start by cleaning the toilet.”

Tyson and Kayla clean the bathroom and the rest of the apartment in harmony with very little conversation passing between the two. Two hours after Tyson came home, the cleaning of the rest of the apartment was finished. This was when Tyson noticed that Kayla's hair looked as if she went into the salon that day.

“Hey, Kayla?” Kayla turns her head to listen to Tyson. “Did you get a haircut or go to the salon this morning?”

“Yeah, I got a haircut.” Kayla responds.

“May I ask why? It seems kind of out of the blue.”

“It’s because of Chinese New Year.”

With her response, Tyson is feeling sad because he, once again, doesn’t know anything about her traditions. Tyson looks at Kayla with a weird look in his eyes. She can’t seem to decipher what it means but decides to explain the symbolism anyways.

“It’s similar to why we had to clean the house. The cutting or trimming of hair represents that I am wiping away what happened last year. Cutting away the bad luck that occurred last year. When the hair grows back, it represents that the new year brought good fortune to me and my family. It also represents a fresh start.”

“Does this mean I should get a haircut?” Tyson asks, quirking one of his eyebrows and running his hand through his hair.

Kayla laughs. “No, I was going to get a haircut anyways but I thought ‘why not wait until Chinese New Year.’”

“Well, for Chinese New Year or not, your hair looks really beautiful.”

“Thank you, Tys.”

. . .

The next day, Tyson woke up to an empty bed. What he woke up to was not what he was expecting. Lining every corner of the apartment were lanterns. On the coffee table sat four gold ingots. Additionally, all the pillows on the couch were clothed with red pillow cases and the normal throw blankets were sitting in a box and replaced with red blankets. Tyson had no idea what to attribute this to. Christmas was long gone, Valentine’s day maybe? No, hanging from the ceilings would be hearts not lanterns.

“Hey Tys,” Kayla begins. “Sorry, I had to get these up today before we pick up your mom from the airport later today.”

“Why did you have to get it up before she came and what are they all for?”

“Chinese New Year. And it doesn’t matter to do it before she comes but there is a lot we have to do before you go pick her up.”

Kayla’s response shook Tyson to the core. He was upset with himself that Kayla had to explain everything to him. Shouldn’t he just know these things?

“The lanterns are just traditional decorations and the gold ingots sitting on the coffee table represent wealth. The changing of everything to red represents good luck. Sorry, that I’m going overboard this is just what I grew up with.”

“Hey, don’t apologize for anything. I just didn’t know what everything was. Don’t worry about putting up too much.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well then, in that case, I have these posters that need to go up.”

“Yeah, well, then let me help.”

Kayla passes Tyson a few of the posters and a roll of tape. She directs Tyson on where to put up the poster and demonstrates how.

“How do I know which side is the top and which is the bottom?” Tyson asks.

“The bottom of the character goes at the top and the top of the character goes at the bottom. This one is just the way it looks.” Kayla explains.

“Yes, I understand that. However, I, unlike you, cannot read Chinese and don’t know which is which.”

Kayla giggles and proceeds to point at what she’s showing. “Oh yeah, right. Sorry. Here. Top. Bottom.”

When Tyson and Kayla finish, they both take a step back to take a look at what they did.

“Is this how your parent’s house will look like when we go there in a few days?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure. It always depends. Sometimes they do more and sometimes they do less.” Kayla says before walking away to put oranges on a tray. Tyson goes to reach for one to eat.

“No!!” Kayla abruptly yells. “You can’t have one yet. You have to keep them sitting in your house to symbolize the luck, wealth, and prosperity they bring. Yes, I know it sounds kind of crazy but that’s the way it is.”

“It’s good, babe. If you tell me no, then I won’t eat any. Just make sure to tell my mom. She will definitely want one.”

“Maybe you can do that then, Tys.”

“Are you scared of my mom, babe?”

“No, I just don’t want to come off as a crazy Asian lady that their son is dating. My grandfather on my dad’s side thought that about my mother.”

“Really?” Tyson amusingly asks.

“Yeah. I mean, my dad is not Chinese so it makes sense why they would think that. But, obviously, it worked out for the best as everyone is happy now.”

“I can promise you that she doesn’t think you are a crazy Asian lady.”

“If you say so. Anyways, come on, get ready so that you can go pick up your mom at the airport.”

. . .

“Oh, look, oranges.” Laura, Tyson’s mom, says reaching for an orange on the counter.

“No, you can’t have one. We can’t eat them until Chinese New Year on the 12th. They have to sit on the counter to represent the wealth and luck they bring .” Tyson explains to his mother.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, Kayla.” Laura apologizes.

“No, no. Don’t worry it’s fine! You didn’t offend me. I have more in the fridge that are good to eat.”

Laura sighs in relief and heads over to the fridge to retrieve an orange.

“Tyson, I didn’t know you remembered any of that what I said. I also don’t remember ever telling you the date.” Kayla tells her boyfriend.

“What’s wrong, Kayla? Don’t think that I take in any information?” Tyson tells her.

“I don’t think that,” Kayla defends herself but is given a raised eyebrow in response from Tyson. “Anyways, on the 12th, we’ll go to my parent’s house for dinner. Tyson doesn’t have a game that day so that works well.”

“Perfect, is there anything in particular that I should wear?” Laura asks.

“Just red is fine, I am going to be wearing a red qipao but other than that the rest of you can wear red or a version of red.”

“Great! I can’t wait! Tyson has been talking my ear off about everything that you have told him this far about the holiday.”

Kayla gives her a puzzled look. “Yeah. I’m glad that he’s excited!”

Later that night, Kayla questions Tyson about what his mom said earlier that day.

“Look, I just feel bad. We have been together for almost three years and yet I know nothing about your Chinese culture.”

“You don’t have to feel bad. I can just tell you things. But, thank you for making an effort to learn more though.”

“Of course. You learned a ton about hockey so it’s my turn to repay the favor. I know it’s not quite the same but still.”

“So, care to tell me what you have learned?”

Tyson laughs. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I really want to know, Tyson.”

“Ok then. Let me tell you some then. I learned that there is a twelve year cycle for what the zodiac animal was. I learned that mine is a Tiger, which will be celebrated next year. And the year that you celebrate your animal is the years that you turn the ages of the multiples of 12. Like 12, 24, 36, 48, etc.”

Tyson pauses for a moment but Kayla gives him a nod to continue. “The different foods that you eat represent the different fortunes that you wish to eat. Like, noodles mean longevity and fish means surplus. Did you know that one-sixth of the world celebrates Chinese New Year?”

“No, I did not know that.”

“Also, did you know that flowers also have symbolic meanings? Like the plum blossom symbolizes courage and hope. While the water narcissus represents good luck and prosperity. The holiday can also be called the spring festival? Additionally, did you know that you’re not allowed to sweep on Chinese New Year? That means no sweeping, Kayla. I mean it, no sweeping!”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I did know some of those facts. Not all of them, like the flowers.”

“See it was a good thing that I googled a ton of facts, right?”

“Yeah, thanks, babe. I love you, Tys.”

“I love you too, Kayla.”

中國新年 (zhong guo xin nian) - Chinese New Year - February 12, 2021

“I’m not sure how intense everything is going to be this year. My parents didn’t really explain. We might do the incense practice. I doubt it, though. It is possible that we might be making dumplings from scratch. But, I also think probably not. They would have told me to warn me because I am really clumsy. I would think it is a little bit more extravagant because Laura will also be joining us.”

“Kayla, slow down your brain. It will be ok.” Tyson tells Kayla trying to calm her down.

“Yeah, you’re right. It shouldn’t be too bad. You won’t be meeting any extended family which is good. That would be chaos right there.”

Everyone in the car laughs at Kayla’s attempt at making a joke.

When the car arrives at Kayla’s parents house, they are all greeted by Kayla’s mom.

“Hi mom, you know Tyson, this is his mom, Laura; Laura, this is my mom, Judy, and my dad, Dave, my sister, Charlotte, her husband, Michael, and her daughter, Elizabeth.”

“Come in, come in. We aren’t doing the incense ceremony this year but we’ll be eating soon. Come in, take a seat.” Judy says.

“Hey, Kayla. What does that sign say?” Tyson asks, pointing to a sign hanging from the ceiling.

“That says 新年快樂 (xin nian kuai le) which means Happy New Year!” Kayla explains.

“Kayla, can you speak the language?” Laura asks.

“Yeah, I can.”

“她說得很好 (ta shuo de hen hao).” Kayla’s grandmother pipes in. [she speaks very well]

“謝謝婆婆 (xie xie po po).” Kayla responds. [thank you, Po Po] “My Po Po said that my speaking is very good and I responded with a thank you. 婆婆這是 (po po zhe shi) Tyson, Laura; everyone, this is Po Po, or my grandmother.” [po po this is]

Kayla’s grandmother waves. “I can speak English, just not good.”

“It’s ok, Mrs. Po Po.” Tyson responds.

Kayla and her grandmother chuckle in response. Before he can ask why, Judy is announcing that dinner is ready.

“So, tonight’s dinner is pork dumplings, steamed fish in soy sauce, braised brisket stew, Yifu noodles, pea shoots, and bok choy.” Judy explains.

Everyone sitting at the table all murmur small acknowledgements of how everything looks and smells really good.

“Hey, Tyson,” Kayla prompts. “Why don’t you tell everyone what each food represents in the terms of good luck and fortune. He’s been Googling things to impress me!”

Tyson’s face grows red and everyone giggles at Tyson’s embarrassment. “If you really want me to and it’s not really to impress you.”

“Please! You can show everyone all the new knowledge that you possess.”

Judy and Dave nod in agreement knowing that Tyson was the only one to put in all this effort for Kayla.

“Um, ok,” Tyson begins, awkwardly. “The dumplings are symbolic of wealth and money; the fish is symbolic of wanting a surplus, I think. I read the surplus is more for the harvest than anything else; however, it can be used synonymous with wanting a surplus of luck in your career. The noodles represent a long life or longevity. And that’s all I can remember.”

“The vegetables represent wishing long life upon elders,” Elizabeth pipes in knowing that Tyson missed that one.

“Very good,” Kayla’s grandmother praises both Tyson and Elizabeth with a smile. Tyson smiles back at her.

The rest of the meal passed in conversations that were filled with catching up, sharing embarrassing stories of Kayla, remembering stories of past New Year’s celebrations, and getting to know the new members of the group, Tyson and Laura.

“Remember when Gong Gong got a haircut but it was so short that it looked like he had no hair and one of the great-uncles told him just to shave it off?” Charlotte remarked with a giggle. [Gong Gong is grandfather.]

“Or, remember that one year we had Chinese New Year at Auntie Lisa’s house and she burned all the food so we ate ramen?” Michael says, reminiscing of the Chinese New Year of his and Charlotte’s first year of dating.

“How about that time that Kayla was in charge of bringing the dumplings into the dining room and she dropped them all over the floor? She was crying so badly and refused to leave the bathroom.” Charlotte says knowing how to bother her sister.

“Yeah! And the rest of you laughed at me and let me be there. I probably would still be in there if it weren’t for Gong Gong. He told me the story of when he messed up the dumplings.” Kayla defends herself. Tyson rubs her back in reassurance.

“I don’t remember that story,” Judy says. Charlotte and Po Po nod in agreement.

“Really? He said that when he was thirteen or fourteen, he was in charge of making the dough for the dumplings. He made it too watery and didn’t know how to fix it. He kept on adding flour but it wouldn’t harden or solidify. He opted to just cook the meat in the shape they would have been inside the dumplings. Gong Gong told me that Wai Po was so mad at him that they didn’t talk for three days.” Kayla spells out. [Wai Po is great-grandmother.]

“I don’t ever remember hearing this.” Judy says.

“I think he told me it wasn’t a New Year Celebration. Just a family dinner. Maybe that’s why.”

“What other stories has Gong Gong told you that we don’t know about?” Charlotte asks, feeling left out.

“Do you know about the story about the chicken he lost but found?” Kayla asks.

“No, what’s that story?”

“He was working in the chicken coop one day and when he got there that morning, he noticed that the gate was already open. When he counted the chickens, there were only six, not seven. Gong Gong spent the entire day trying to find the chicken. He was going to tell Wai Gong and Wai Po. He went into his bedroom before he went to confess and he heard a loud noise from the dresser. He opened it and inside was one of the chickens! Gong Gong was so happy that he grabbed the chicken and danced around with it. That was a bad idea because the chicken scratched Gong Gong’s face. Wai Gong and Wai Po still found out because of the scratch.” [Wai Gong is great-grandfather.]

“I remember that story,” Judy says, smiling at when her father told the story to her.

“Obviously, Kayla was the favorite granddaughter of Gong Gong,” Michael says, getting a laugh out of everyone, except for Charlotte. Charlotte has a pout on her face.

“Don’t worry Charlotte, you are Po Po’s favorite.” Kayla’s grandmother tells her granddaughter. “You have already given me great-grandchildren. Kayla has not.”

Kayla’s grandmother’s response gets an exasperated ‘hey!’ from Kayla.

“Don’t worry, I’m still waiting for grandchildren from Kayla and Tyson, too.” Laura chimes in and now it’s Tyson’s turn to give the same exasperated ‘hey!’

“Us too,” Dave responds.

“I am younger than Charlotte. The least you could do is give me some time!” Kayla defends herself. She is met with an ‘if you say so’ and Tyson was getting a glare from Kayla’s father. “At least I was Gong Gong’s favorite. That has to mean something.”

Once the meal was finished, Chinese tea was brought out to the table and the beginning of the exchange of lucky Red Envelopes began.

“The tea is to honor our elders and ancestors. We have to drink it to remember where we came from and to honor and celebrate where we may get to and become.” Judy explains.

“Do I have to drink this tea? It’s yicky.” Elizabeth whines. Kayla’s sister, Charlotte gives her daughter a stern look but Elizabeth continues complaining about the tea.

“Lizzie, you have to drink the tea.” Kayla’s grandmother explains. “It’s tradition.”

“I hate tradition, then!” Lizzie exclaims and then storms out of the room. Charlotte and Michael apologize profusely and then go and find Lizzie.

“I always hated drinking tea, too,” Kayla’s grandmother explains. “But tradition is important to pass down.”

“I actually like this tea,” Laura says, trying to ease the awkwardness. “May I ask what kind of tea it is?”

“It’s Oolong tea,” Judy responds. “It symbolizes the wish for good health.”

“Maybe I should drink this every morning, then!” Tyson jokes and gets a laugh out of everyone.

Kayla is about to agree with Tyson when Charlotte, Michael, and Elizabeth come back into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry for my outburst, Po Po” Elizabeth says sadly. “I’m sorry for disrespecting the honor of our family traditions.”

No one says anything because everyone is waiting for Kayla’s grandmother to respond first. Kayla’s grandmother gets up and everyone is hesitant as to what she might say.

“I was like you and didn’t want to participate in tradition. It is important to remember.” Kayla’s grandmother says to Elizabeth. When Elizabeth nods, Kayla’s grandmother smiles and pulls out a Red Envelope for Charlotte.

“這是你的紅包 (zhe shi ni de hong bao)” Kayla’s grandmother says. [This is your red envelope.]

“恭喜發財, 外婆. (gong xi fa cai, wai po)” Elizabeth replies with a bow and hugs her grandmother. [Wishing you luck and good fortune, Great-Grandmother.]

After Kayla’s grandmother gives her red envelope to Elizabeth, the exchange continues with Judy, Dave, Charlotte, Michael, and Kayla receiving theirs. Each responds the same as Elizabeth. A surprise for both Laura and Tyson is when Kayla’s grandmother walks over to them to give them red envelopes. Both are shocked and don’t know how to respond. Tyson gives Kayla a look and she jumps in to help him and Laura.

“You respond with gong xi fa cai and then bow.” Kayla tells Tyson and Laura. Both of them reply hesitantly not wanting to butcher the language too bad. When Kayla’s grandmother smiles and nods at Kayla, Tyson releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding and smiles at Kayla.

After Kayla’s grandmother gives her red envelopes, Judy passes out her red envelopes to Charlotte, Michael, Kayla, and Elizabeth. The four of them then reply the same way. Once again, Tyson and Laura are surprised when Judy gives them red envelopes. The pair have to look to Kayla again for how to respond. After they finish replying, Charlotte then gives her red envelope to Elizabeth and Kayla gives her red envelope to Elizabeth as well.

Once the exchange of red envelopes had been completed, Kayla’s grandmother lightened up the mood by asking, “Who wants dessert?” For dessert that night was sesame balls and glutinous rice cakes.

. . .

“Congrats, Tys,” Kayla says as she and Tyson are getting ready for bed. “My grandmother likes you. And Laura, too.”

“How do you know that?” Tyson questions skeptically.

“A. You learned about Chinese culture willingly. B. She gave you a red envelope. And, C. she talked to you. If she didn’t like you then she wouldn’t have talked to you at all.”

Tyson doesn’t say anything, still skeptical about that fact. “Don’t worry, Tys. I think she knows you’re a good person and that you are going to be in the family for a while and help me make great-grandchildren for her.”

That remark got a smile out of Tyson. Tyson was about to say something but he stopped when he saw you put your red envelopes under your pillow case.

“Kayla, what are you doing?”

“I am putting my red envelopes under my pillow case.”

“No yeah, sure I see that, but why?”

“It’s for luck purposes. You put them under your pillow and wait fourteen days before you open them.”

“Good to know. Let me do the same.”

Once settled into bed and red envelopes securely under the pillow, Kayla and Tyson cuddle into each other. On both of their faces are soft smiles at how great the day went.

Part two will be posted on February 19, 2021

#hockey imagine #hockey fic #tyson jost imagine #tyson jost x reader #nhl imagine #hockey fanfiction #colorado avalanche imagine #tyson jost #chinese culture fic #chinese new year #red envelopes dragon boats and mooncakes #woc oc!#lunar new year #claudia writes

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merryfortune · 3 years

Text

Tear ducts of Coral

Fandom: Tropical Rouge PreCure

Ship: Laura/Sango

Word Count: 3.8k

Tags: Out of Character, Body Horror, Gore, Xenobiology, Unrequited Pining

Minori adjusted her glasses and blinked when something had suddenly caught her attention during the Tropical Club’s latest endeavour: script writing. She turned her head, robotically, to the side and the increasing motion in just one little square of the desks they had bumped together had gotten Sango and Asuka to notice as well. Manatsu, however, was still scribbling away at her Ultra Hyper Pineapple Squad idea, whatever that was.

“Laura, do you mind me asking a personal question?” Minori asked.

“Huh?” Laura’s hand flopped around as she lazily, but in a fashion that was oddly regal at the same time which indicated that Laura was now paying attention. Somewhat, at least. “Pardon, you want to ask a personal question?” she addressed Minori.

Her tail twitched as Laura played with her hair, all whilst she remained propped up on Manatsu’s desk. Speaking of, Manatsu was paying attention as well, she chewed on her pencil as Laura tried to decide if she wanted to answer Minori’s question or not before, ultimately, she shrugged her shoulders.

“Yes.” Minori confirmed.

Laura sighed heavily, “So long as its not too personal, I suppose I don’t mind.”

“Good, I don’t think it is too personal, but you may find it odd,” Minori prefaced her statement, “but how accurate is the human trope of mermaids who cry pearls?”

“Only happens once in a while.” Laura replied. “Sometimes its rubies, emeralds, it can be anything and everything. There have even been instances of mermaids crying seafoam, seaweed, and even sea grapes. It really depends.”

Manatsu gasped and then blinked, “What are we talking about?” she asked.

“The thought crossed my mind whilst I was adapting my novel into the script format of a movie and I recalled hearing notions of mermaids crying seafoam, and even pearls, so the curiosity struck me to ask.” Minori explained.

“I’ve never heard of any of that but I’m not exactly a mermaid otaku like you, Minorin.” Asuka said and she crossed her arms, glancing at Laura, and her brow twitched, “Argh, now I gotta know, what kind of tears do you cry, Laura? We all cry salt water, if that alleviates the burden.”

“Crying hurts so I don’t cry.” Laura replied, brusque.

“O-oh,” Sango piped up shyly, “I thought you would have looked really pretty crying tears of pearls, that’s probably a cruel thing to say.”

“It is.” Laura sniped but she looked smug about it.

Sango flinched. She hadn’t meant to be cruel about it and Laura relished the reaction. She laughed. But then when Asuka gave her a scolding glare, Laura let it go. She sighed again.

“It sounds peculiar to me, that crying doesn’t hurt.” Laura mused.

“Yep, not at all, in fact, it feels really good after.” Manatsu said. “I cried heaps on the way to Aozora when I was leaving my Dad behind on the island but whoa, I felt tropica-shining afterwards once it was all done.”

Laura cringed, she was unsettled by the idea that crying could be painless, “But I suppose unless you’ve actually experienced it, its difficult to understand but yes. Crying hurts so I don’t cry. Besides, mermaids only really cry when love is involved,” she explained, “so I don’t ‘love’ either.”

“I don’t follow?” Sango murmured.

Laura glanced at the others and sighed heavily, “I mean, yes, mermaids ‘love’ one another. We go forth, procreate, bring more spawn into the world. We love swimming and we love pretty, shiny objects but there’s a love that is uniquely human. More than a means to an end or a satisfaction of greed or lust or gluttony. We are not in possession of this feeling that I see in each and everyone of you each and every day.”

Manatsu gasped ad her face began to glitter with a huge grin. Laura’s own expression softened in return, pleasing Asuka and intriguing Sango. Regardless, Laura continued after this micro-second of a pause to her speech.

“Fittingly, it does make me envious, but every boon has its bane, so I am content not being flawed by this particular human characteristic.” Laura checked her nails and her voice quietened, not to a mumble, just became disheartened. “Of course, not every mermaid is as pragmatic as I. Hence, they cry. Poor little silly things who have gone and hurt their hearts. It’s a sickness, a contagion, and I will do anything to remain impervious to it.”

“I see.” Minori said, her voice calm and even in a way that none of the other girls’ voices could have been had they been the first to respond to Laura’s tirade. “Thank you for answering my question, I can make amendments to my script – and my novel – per this new information.”

“Your welcome.” Laura replied like she was bragging.

With that, the conversation finished and when the girls checked the time, they realised it was late enough to end club activity anyways, so they tidied up and left for the day. They parted ways thereafter with an unusual mood to them. It was sombre and peculiar. Laura seemed mostly unaffected by it, based on what she would yell from the Aqua Pot but the person who seemed most affected, but it was Sango.

She had done her very best to hide it but her old facades were more difficult for her to wear nowadays since meeting and befriending Manatsu. She couldn’t quite suppress herself and her feelings quite so adeptly nowadays. She had thought it for the better but the tremor in her heart of present was disturbing her. Asuka and Minori could both tell but they waved Sango goodbye without issue, nonetheless. Their small gestures looked so out of place beside Manatsu who waved huge arcs goodbye to her when Sango could barely muster flicks of her fingers in reply.

Sango went home and her head was swimming with Laura’s words. They were blunt but they were also morbid. Sango had never been intrigued by that sort of thing before. She was the type to be scared of her own shadow, let alone of all the bumps in the night and anything else a little unusual but this was something else. Perhaps it was because of how she pined for Laura, to know that it would be doomed because of some sort of incompatibility of emotions – that human love and mermaid love were completely different – or maybe its because she was vain.

Ruminating with this new knowledge that was ruining her, Sango stood in front of the mirror in her ensuite bathroom. On her tiptoes, she got up close enough to the mirror so that even the shallowest of her breaths fogged it, so that she could see every pore underneath her eyelid. She was the daughter of an accomplished make-up artist and seller, she would be considered scathed if she wasn’t a little bit vain and now Sango wondered what she would look like if every bout of her own cry-babyishness had caused her to be scarred. The notion of her cheeks being scarred by the rivets of tears previously shed was particularly made her shudder.

In the involuntary movement, Sango felt her heart tremor. She disliked the sensation and what lingered after it. This first twinge that something was amiss inside of herself.

She had been trying to ignore it all afternoon. To know that her crush could never come to fruition, Sango had avoided thinking about it but now her eye was all that she could see which meant all she could see was herself and her own flaws of being human. A human with a big but fragile heart, no less.

Her crush on Laura could be pinpointed to one specific catalyst: meeting her and becoming a Pretty Cure. She had been awestruck, seeing a real-life mermaid for the first time, and she had felt her heart flutter. The sound of her singing lured Sango: it was sweet, melodic, utterly incomparable to anything that she had heard before, so Sango opened that door. Beyond it, there she beheld Laura for the very first time, leaving her breathless.

She was beautiful, basking in the sun and its ray glittering off the surface of the pool as she swam through it. Elegant but slovenly. Sango knew immediately that she wanted to get closer. And so, she did. Hands on the glass, eyes wide, observing this creature that she had only seen before in the wildest of dreams and in the most fictional of fairy tales.

Given that Laura – and Manatsu – had offered to make her a Pretty Cure, Sango had assumed that maybe Laura wanted to get closer to her as well. Even if she turned her nose up at the idea of storybooks where mermaids gave up their mermaidness for humans that they fell in love with. She had thought, at the time, it was because Laura was uniquely a self-absorbed priss, but she realised now that she was wrong.

The books were wrong. Sango felt her eye grow wet as she stared at her own reflection distorted by being so close up to it. A mermaid would never give up her tail because mermaids don’t fall in love like humans do. Sango swallowed and the teardrop in her eye shone before turning into a jewel.

Sango watched, in horror, at the clear bead of her teardrop turned blood red. It streaked down her cheek and her stomach lurched with pain. A polyp branched out jaggedly from her tear duct. Sango squeaked in pain and her eyes watered. Only for that water to twist and form into a tentacle of… of… of coral.

Sango stumbled back away from the mirror. She clamped her hand over her mouth, and she willed herself not to make a noise. Not a sound. She didn’t want to disturb her mother because she didn’t know how to explain the fact that coral was growing from her tear ducts. Well, she was reasonably certain that it was coral.

These clusters that edged ever so slowly and so painfully out of her eyes were beautiful. As fearful of them as she was, Sango was awed by their innate prettiness as she tried to understand what was happening. As her vision now had criss-crosses and peculiar formations in the peripheries. Twisting, branching out like they were completely and utterly natural.

She inhaled deeply and slowly took her hand off her mouth. She could feel her eyes water but the stinging pain of calcium carbonate solidifying in the teeny tiny channels of her tear duct and the veins of her eyes was unimaginable. But she was a Pretty Cure. She would be strong and so, she tested her theory.

Very tenderly, Sango touched the scarlet polyps that were growing from her eyes where her teardrops had been cried. Her heart fluttered and her stomach twisted as every inch of her common sense told her not touch the delicate branches climbing out her eyes and yet. Sango did it. And they crumbled at her touch with immense pain.

A squeal of pain escaped Sango’s mouth and her heart leapt her throat. She heard her mother cry out, “Is something wrong, sweetie? Do you need me?” and the lie that she was okay came out her mouth just as easy as the pain. Sango swallowed and she began to cry again. Sango was harrowed as she looked at her fingertips. They were dusted with a crumbly powder that was a pinkish red. Just like coral looked in her mind. And that scared her more than the terrible sensation of cutting and ripping just under her eyes.

The fresh jolts of pain branched through her eyes and with it, came the blood. Sango was chilled as she felt these thin streaks on her cheeks, and it was a vicious cycle. Every time she was hurt, she would cry and every time she cried, she was hurt. The punishment emphasised by her mind which raced as she tried to comprehend the impossibility of what was happening to her.

Although… maybe it wasn’t all that impossible that a human in love with an actual mermaid would contract some sort of gemstone lovesickness from a mermaid. Sango felt herself grow hopeful, but it was a terrible feeling riddled with the polyps of the coral that was emerging from her tear ducts. If a mermaid had gotten her sick, maybe a mermaid could be her cure.

Sango’s hands shook as he made her way back to her bedside table, where her phone was charging. She was very calm as she took her phone off the charger. She opened it up and then her contacts app and then rang Manatsu.

“Hello! Manatsu’s phone!” she bellowed back.

Sango whimpered. The polyps protruding from her tear ducts quivered with the reverberations of Manatsu’s exuberant greeting. Sango tried not to cry but more tears escaped her eyes, mixed with blood and calcium, becoming yet more fragile branches of the coral that was growing from her face.

“Hi Manatsu… I need to see Laura.” she said softly.

“I can just put her on the phone, you know, she’s not totally out of touch with human technology.” Manatsu laughed.

Sango swallowed a strangled noise. She adored Manatsu, she really did, there could be no friend truer nor a friend more hard-headed. She wasn’t normally this abrasive but with such delicate structures spurting out her tear ducts, Sango’s tolerance for such antics was less than usual and yet, she remained sweet as sugar with Manatsu.

“Something has come up, an emergency,” she replied, strained, “so can we please meet somewhere in private?” she asked.

“Oh, okay, um… oh! What about at the cove! Its nice and private and stuff. Its close by both our houses, too!” Manatsu suggested, her voice very, very loud.

Sango winced. She could feel flakes of coral burst and twinge and sprout all over again in reaction to Manatsu’s voice, but she hazarded a smile anyway.

“That sounds good, thank you Manatsu.” Sango replied. “See you there.”

“Yeah, see ya soon.” Manatsu bade her goodbye and thankfully, she hung up first.

Sango sighed with relief. She shuddered and she felt more coral break off her eyes but at least she didn’t shed a tear with it. Though, Sango was still worried about what she looked like. Blood and dust and the like so she hobbled back into her bathroom and was sickened by her own face.

She could hardly recognise herself so frayed with fear. Her own ‘charm point’ mocked by this illness. She saw how the polyps twisted and arched on both sides of her face into sick, love-heart shaped. Her heart throbbed with the whiplash cruelty of that realisation and she felt the polyps move. Their rocky exoskeletons puncturing her veins as she shed more tears that turned into coral.

Sango put her hands over her mouth again. She felt her heart thud in her chest as she tried to power on through the pain, breathing in and out was so difficult but she tried so hard. When she achieved that shaky equilibrium again, where the cycle was temporarily diffused, she put her phone in her pocket and slipped on some shoes.

She felt awful sneaking out, but she didn’t want to worry her mother with this exotic, underwater disease. It was difficult but somehow, she made it out of the house in not too many pieces. It was cold for a late spring-early summer night, making Sango shiver and leave coral dander as she slowly made her way to the cove that Manatsu had agreed to meet her.

Sango had been there a handful of times before. It was a nice little spot that was cosy and even romantic in the daylight hours but at night, it looked a little scary. Even with the cityscape lights behind it and the stars twinkling on the ocean in front of it. Fortunately, Manatsu was there to greet Sango and she waved her down.

“Oiiii,” Manatsu called out, “over here!”

Sango was glad to see her. Tired. But nevertheless, glad to see Manatsu as she hobbled closer and Manatsu blinked. She could tell, immediately, that something was wrong with Sango; how she was trying to hide beneath her fluffy fringe and the floppy plaits by her face was uncharacteristic, even to someone as shy and repressed as Sango.

“You okay?” Manatsu asked.

“Y-Yes, I’m fine,” Sango lied, “so, um, where’s Laura? I really need to speak with her.”

“Oh, um, she’s just over there, in the water, you may have to call for her if she’s underwater, but she was floating just a minute ago.” Manatsu said and she pointed towards the eroded cove.

Even in the dark, that striking image of a twisted love-heart was apparent in the sandstone structure of the cove. The twinkle of the stars above it was dull and below it, the water lapped at the ground. Sango swallowed her fears and her tears. She flashed a smile at Manatsu that was mostly missed.

“Thank you,” Sango replied, “and do you mind giving us some privacy? This matter it’s a bit, um, a bit unusual and hard to explain.”

“Er, yeah, that’s fine, I’ll just, um, wait over there.” Manatsu pointed in the opposite direction of the cove with both her fingers.

Sango sighed with relief, “Thank you.” And yet that didn’t feel competent enough with her gratitude. Nonetheless, Manatsu awkwardly tried to exit from the cove but not too far given that she was Laura’s ride home back to the safety of Manatsu’s place.

Sango, however, began to draw closer to the water’s edge. Her heart thumped in her chest and she could feel the vibrations in the polyps dangling from her eyes by a thread. They were weakening now that she had all dried up the tears that she had wanted to shed but that didn’t make them less threatening to her senses of security in her body or self. She got down on her knees, sitting, at the edge of the cove and Laura breached.

Her eyes were suspicious and cynical, even when barely reflected by starlight bouncing off the water’s perpetually moving and choppy surface. She hiked up her arms over the edge and anchored herself like that. Her tail coming backwards, forming a crest of her back and the water’s surface.

Laura hummed, “I thought humans cried seawater and only seawater.” she teased. “Isn’t that what we established this afternoon at the club meeting?”

“Well, er, we did but…” Sango said. “But have you ever heard of such a thing?! A human who cries coral?”

Laura sighed heavily. It was too late at night for Sango to be so loud and in her exclamation, her hot flush of emotions, there was the sparkle of a possible tear in the moisture of her eyes that gleamed in the dark, framed by coral dyed a blood red in the dim. Laura made a floppy hand gesture as she was deep in thought.

“No, I haven’t.” Laura admitted. “Mermaids crying coral isn’t impossible, of course, but humans? No, not so much… But given when love is involved – and it is, isn’t it, Sango?”

“It is…” Sango murmured, and she fidgeted with the ends of her plaits.

“How trite.” Laura’s voice was pithy with disdain. “A human girl has gone and gotten a crush on a mermaid. It is called a crush, yes?”

“Yes.” Sango mumbled.

Laura wanted to laugh but something stopped her. Even though she could feel the tickle in her throat, something about Sango’s expression was too pathetic even for Laura to worsen.

“I suppose it is possible…” Laura murmured aloud in half spoken thoughts. “I did describe it as a sickness. Given that humans don’t look too dissimilar from the top half to mermaids, yes, it is entirely possible that our weaknesses of physiology are capable of transferring.” Her skin crawled. “I better not have any of your disgusting germs. No way in Triton’s good underworld am I coming down with that ghastly influenza you lot speak of.”

Sango giggled. Although, maybe it was more than a hiccup. She felt just as whiplashed by the unspoken cruelty than if Laura had just straight up addressed it with her jeering.

“But every sickness has a cure, I suppose.” Laura said.

Sango perked up, “Does that mean?” she gasped. “Can you help me?”

“I can think of something, but I have no way of knowing if it’ll cure you.” Laura replied.

“What do you mean?” asked Sango. “How do mermaids normally rid themselves of this sickness?”

“The affliction typically goes away on its own, but I believe a token of severance could go a long way.” Laura explained but it didn’t feel like an explanation.

Sango’s heart skipped a beat and she felt her shoulders prickle as she asked, “And what is a token of severance?”

“A kiss.” Laura replied all too simply on a breathless voice.

“A k-kiss?!” Sango exclaimed.

Laura stared at her idly. She didn’t think it was all that of a big deal. Being stared down by such a cold, if somewhat expressionless, look Sango calmed down. Even though her heart was racing, and she could feel the sting of coral pushing through her tear ducts again, Sango calmed down.

“If you think it’ll help…” Sango murmured.

“I do think it’ll help.” Laura quipped.

And it was upon that cue, before Sango could quite adjust or ask to go slow, Laura swooped in with a kiss. Sango made a noise, but it was smothered in the press of Laura’s lips against her own. Her eyes went wide but Laura’s, curiously, were closed. Her brows twinged as she kissed Sango as hard as she could, like she was trying to perform some sort of CPR. It was awful yet Sango didn’t hold a grudge.

She softened into the kiss. It was her very first kiss and it wasn’t happening anything like she had ever daydreamed, but it was freeing. She could feel the remaining coral in her eyes and her tear ducts crumble to nothingness. To just flecks of sand that she could bat away with her eyelashes. She felt a wet lump in her throat, and she kissed back. She wanted to be cure so badly of her pain, but she could feel the smirk in Laura’s kiss.

Self-important with nothing to spare. Perhaps even relishing having this vast power or strength over Sango since Laura deemed the humanlike ‘love’ of crushes and pining to be beneath her since it caused nothing but pain. A teardrop – yes, a real teardrop – rolled down Sango’s cheek and Laura moved her kiss to lick it. Seawater. How peculiar but she liked it even though it didn’t quite have the nostalgic taste of her underwater home, it was endearing, nonetheless.

“Thank you,” Sango whimpered, shedding more tears, not coral, “for curing me.”

Laura tutted. She pulled back from the kiss and Sango looked a mess in the starlight. Pitiful and pathetic, crying her tears of seawater.

#femslash #tropical rouge pretty cure #tropical rouge #precure #laura (precure)#suzumura sango #sango suzumura #laura x sango #sango x laura #cure coral #cure la mer #writing tag #if this fic is what gets me kicked from r slash precure i'm gonna be sad bc its really not that risque

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nattikay · 4 years

Text

Do you miss it?

Based on a prompt by @nb-demon in which Jim is “fixed” via a stone that allows him to shift forms like a changeling....except uh probably not exactly what you had in mind because hoo boy do I stand by the idea that troll!Jim does not need to be “fixed” whoop ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ao3 link

Jim turned the smooth stone over in his hand. It shimmered lightly in a way not unlike the sheen of the blue stone in his amulet. The amulet that had changed his life forever when it called out his name nearly forty years ago.

“I’ve been…researching transformation magic,” Douxie the wizard had told him when he presented the stone. “Because of the way Merlin’s potion worked, it can never be truly reversed…but this should allow you to take a human appearance at your leisure. Like a changeling without the need for a familiar. In case…in case you miss it.”

“O-oh,” Jim had stammered as he accepted the gift, pocketing it gently. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t this. “T…thanks. That’s…really thoughtful of you.”

Douxie nodded. “I thought it was only fair. It took a long time to develop, but…I figured you should have the chance to choose the form in which you live without the threat of evil breathing down you neck. Let me know if you have any problems.”

And with that he simply left, off to take care of whatever business wizards do. Jim, too, had duties to tend to, and for the next few hours left the stone in the back of his pocket and mind.

That had been this morning. Now Jim was sitting alone in his home, perched on the lip of his bathtub as he carefully examined the magical stone.

Did he miss being human? He wasn’t sure. Sure, there were days—the particularly tough days that trollhunting lent itself to—when he yearned for the nostalgic days of his human childhood, racing bikes with Toby and eating dinner with his mom. But those days were so far behind him. So much had changed. He had changed—and not just in the obvious ‘I’m partially a different species’ way. He’d grown up, made new memories and experiences.

Jim glanced up into the mirror across the floor, studying his face. His features were a bit more mature—jaw stronger, shoulders broader, scruff thicker—but despite fast-approaching his 53rd birthday, he looked remarkably similar to how he had the day he defeated Gunmar. He supposed his troll half was responsible for that. Trolls, after all, generally lived for many centuries. He hadn’t asked many ages, but he knew that Blinky, at least, was over 600. Whether he would make it as long as a full-fledged troll, only time would tell—but it certainly seemed he’d outlive most humans.

Claire, too, no longer looked her age. When she began officially training in sorcery she had gained a wizard’s longevity. Though she certainly appeared more mature than the teenager she’d been when she first began to dabble in the magical world, no one would guess just by looking at her that she was really in her early 50s. In fact, when they were alone together, a part of Jim almost genuinely forgot their true ages.

Of the original trio, only Toby showed the true passage of time. He’d kept remarkably upbeat and positive as his ginger-brown hair grayed and his face wrinkled, but while their friendship remained true, Jim knew that this gap would continue to widen until one day it would reach a length he could not cross.

Jim’s brows furrowed. His heart ached to think of loosing his lifelong best friend to human age when he, as a half-troll, still had so much life left to live.

He glanced back down at the smooth stone in his hands. Did he miss being human?

Had he been presented with this opportunity before, he would have leaped at it. He had made the choice to go half-troll—with the imminent threat of Gunmar and Morgana, it had felt necessary. And, indeed, the improved strength, speed, and stamina he gained from it certainly helped win the battle.

But once the battle had been won? Well, there had been a lot to get used to. After a lifetime of barely even noticing whether or not the sun was out, suddenly needing to avoid it was a jarring adjustment. His entire palate and nutritional needs changed and his body both felt and looked so strange, so foreign. With the need for trollish strength and speed over, it would have been so much easier, so much more comfortable and familiar to revert to a human form, had it been possible.

But…

It had actually been years since Jim had to worry about the sun. As the Trollhunter he had access to a variety of stones he could add to his amulet to grant special abilities, including one that immunized him to the trollish sunlight weakness. It was still wise to be careful, and limit his time in the sun if and when possible, but nonetheless the workaround had been effective.

While he was no longer found enjoyment in some of his old favorite foods, he’s found new favorites. It had taken a fair while of experimenting to find the balance of his new palate, and now he couldn’t imagine not being able to eat his spiced metal-mouse stew that had taken Trollmarket by storm.

And his body…well, it had taken adjustments, but after a while he had come to accept it as it was. Claire had helped a lot with that.

Claire. Her love for him had not wavered for an instant, no matter what he looked like. In fact, he recalled her bashfully admitting not long after beginning their exodus to New Jersey, she rather liked his new appearance. Yes, she’d insisted, even the horns and the teeth and the blue skin.

This year would be their 35th wedding anniversary.

They’d even had children together, all four of whom had now grown and left the nest, but still visited frequently. They had been fully bracing themselves for the thought that this would not be possible—would a half-troll still be able to have a baby with a human, or would he be like a mule, unable to breed?

Finding out Claire was pregnant for the first time was one of the most exciting moments of his life…though even that could not compare to the day their daughter was born nine months later, looking surprisingly normal save for unusual pinkish coloration that never quite went away and the two tiny bumps on her little head that would later grow into stubby horns.

Jim turned the stone over in his hands again and again. His life had turned out pretty well, all things considered. Would it have been better if he were human?

This should allow you to take a human appearance at your leisure, Douxie had said. Like a changeling without the need for a familiar.

Like a changeling…so nothing permanent. He’d be able to switch back if he changed his mind. So what could be the harm in…trying?

Jim closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he focused on the magic in the stone. He felt himself shifting…

…and opened his eyes to see an older, startlingly human man staring back at him in the mirror.

Jim examined the appearance in shock. He hadn’t seen himself as a human since he was sixteen years old. Of course this form would look different now. Even still, seeing it for real…

He was about half a foot shorter than he’d been before, his dark hair grayed. He’d lost his scruff but kept his sideburns, as well a shadow of hair around his mouth and chin that suggested he ought to shave (unless he wanted to start growing the beard). His skin, though wrinkled, was soft and decidedly not blue.

He was surprised how strange and fragile he felt in this body. In fact, it almost felt as strange as that day he’d woken up on his mother’s couch as a half-troll for the first time…

With a start, Jim suddenly realized that at this point in his life, he’d spent more time as a half-troll than he had as a human. Being half-troll was more normal to him than being human.

“Jim!” a familiar call came from the front door as Claire walked into the underground house. “Are you home? Laura’s here to visit!”

Jim grinned, shaking his head lightly as he reached out to the magic in the stone, re-assuming his half-troll appearance.

“In here, I’ll be out in a minute,” he called back, leaving the stone on the sink as he left to greet his wife and youngest daughter.

No, his life had not been perfect. He’d gone through more than his share of hardships, both before and after finding the amulet, before and after turning half-troll. But it wasn’t without the happy times, either. Throughout all his challenges, he’d been surrounded by friends and family, love and support. Each obstacle he’d faced and overcome helped shape him into who he was today.

Despite the hardships, in the end, he was happy. His life didn’t need fixing. It merely needed living.

And if he could go back, he would’t change a thing.

#trollhunters #tales of arcadia #jim lake jr #troll jim #fanfic #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#gotta go to aikido now so I don't have time to edit and therefore apologize in advance for typos and the like

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rave-recs · 4 years

Text

soulmate au

I’ll Dissolve When The Rain Pours In, When The Nightmare Takes Me by clotpolesonly

38,794 / teen / stackson / 5/5

When Stiles finally managed to contort himself the right way without causing injury, he stared at the words on his inner thigh. And then he stared some more, long enough for the water to grow cold around him, wondering if this was part of the dream. Finally he decided that it had to be real only because his subconscious was not creative enough to come up with this.

There, in freckle-brown letters stark against pale skin, was the name Jackson Whittemore.

i looked at you and saw forever by cywscross

25,607 / teen / stallison / 1/1

Prompt(s): [Stiles x Allison] + [Soulmates AU]

When she walks into the classroom and catches his eye, it’s like all the puzzle pieces in the world clicking into place. Like finding something essential to their survival that neither of them ever realized was missing to begin with. Like coming up for air and finally being able to breathe unrestricted.

where others fade away by pr1nc3ssp3ach

9,054 / teen / sterek / 1/1

When the name Grzegorz tattoos itself across Derek's wrist in neat, thin strokes, his mother pats him on the head in sympathy and Laura laughs so hard she has to go to her room, the sound echoing down the hall as she goes. When it stays there for six years and no such Grzegorz appears, Derek seriously considers moving to Poland.

Meanwhile, on Stiles' eighteenth birthday when Derek crawls onto his skin, untidy and volatile, Lydia shrieks in sudden realization, and Jackson looks so entirely offended that even Danny can't kiss him back to normal.

deny deny deny by oh_captain

5,212 / mature / stallison / 1/1

It's a known fact that soul mates exist. You get the name somewhere on your body, and you have, well, at least a small head start to finding them.

So what's Stiles supposed to do when he gets his best friend's girlfriend's name?

Fate Thinks It’s Funny by AsagiStilinski

5,036 / gen / sterek / 1/1

In a world where everyone has their soulmate's first words to them printed on their wrists, Derek and Stiles end up with some of the worst: "Oh God please help" and "Derek" respectively

To be fair, their first meeting is almost as ridiculous as it sounds like it would be

They will be best friends forever and that’s fucking awesome by madsmurf

2,473 / gen / sciles / 1/1

Soulmates were fickle, some years there would be dozens of registered soulmates and the next few years there would be barely a handful of pairs and amongst those dozens or handfuls there would barely be any platonic soulmates. They were so rare that they never got a passing mention in the storybooks or movies, to the point were people were more likely to believe that true love soulmates were the only type of soulmate.

In one of the dozen years a platonic pair was born and they were matched the very next day. The perks of being born in the same room, in the same hospital. The platonic pair were mistaken for true love soulmates until the third grade.

spice up your life! by callunavulgari

1,890 / teen / sterek / 1/1

“I said,” the girl drawls, setting her elbow down in a saucer of ketchup and grimacing. “That this whole soulmate thing is fucking stupid. You’re supposed to find someone based off of the music they’re listening to? How would you even know what was really stuck in your head and what was in theirs? It’s complete shit.”

Derek, who has had everything from Dancing Queen to the Barney theme song stuck in his head all night, winces, and says abruptly, “I think my soulmate is in middle school.”

if it’s meant to be, it’ll be by allhalethekings

1,396 / gen / sterek / 1/1

The last thing Derek wanted in life was a soulmate -- especially one who thinks, What the fuck is that. That’s it. No question mark, no exclamation mark, nothing. Ever since the words -- the soulmark -- appeared on his inner wrist in tiny Times New Roman font, Derek was lost.

Or, the one where Derek finds his soulmate when Stiles storms into his shop because Jackson is being a dick.

#teen wolf fic rec #teen wolf #rave-recs #soulmate au #stackson #stallison #sciles #sterek

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unfolded73 · 4 years

Text

Kitchen Gossip (1/1) - schitt’s creek ff

Yesterday Jen Gunter published a piece in the New York Times celebrating the WAP, and so I guess somehow Jen Gunter and Cardi B led indirectly to this, the little fic that pushed me over 1,000,000 words on ao3.

Rated Teen, 1452 words. David stumbles into some girl talk with Marcy and her sisters. (ao3)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David picks up the pinot noir bottle and upends it over his glass and… nothing.

He can probably do without another glass of wine. If he stops drinking now, he’ll be stone cold sober by bedtime and will thus be best-positioned to seduce his husband, the fact that they are sleeping in Patrick’s childhood bedroom down the hall from Patrick’s parents during this visit notwithstanding.

A cheer erupts from the living room.

On the other hand, Patrick is going to be watching hockey with his relatives until late, and David’s got just enough of a buzz going that another glass of wine will make the next couple of hours much less boring.

He sets the empty bottle down and goes into the kitchen in search of another.

Marcy has wine bottles lined up on the counter, and David sets his glass down, grabbing one and peeling the foil away.

“Mom told me once that I wouldn’t be that interested in sex after menopause, but I’m not finding that to be the case,” a woman behind David says surprisingly loudly, given the topic.

He doesn’t want to whip around and stare at the person speaking, so he focuses on inserting the corkscrew and twisting it. He didn’t look over at the women clustered in the kitchen when he came in, but he’s pretty sure that’s Patrick’s Aunt Laura talking.

“Well, Mom was probably just as happy to have an excuse not to have sex. She never talked like it was something she enjoyed.” That’s Marcy talking now. About Patrick’s dearly departed grandmother’s sex life. Not a topic David expected to hear anyone talking about during this visit to his in-laws’ house. Or, you know, ever.

The women are giggling to themselves as David deftly extracts the cork from the wine bottle. “God rest her soul, but she may have thought the female orgasm was a myth.” He supposes, from context, that this is the younger of Marcy’s sisters talking. Jennifer. The short one who makes the Nanaimo bars that he’d be willing to commit unspeakable crimes for.

“Or she just didn’t want to let us in on the secret in case we ran out and lost our virginities in high school,” Marcy says, and the women laugh.

“It was too late for me by the time she started lecturing me about it,” Jennifer says as David fills his glass.

“David!” calls Laura, the oldest sister. Wincing, he turns around, expecting her to tease him for inadvertently bumbling into this private sisterly conversation. “Bring that wine over here; I need a refill.”

He does as instructed, shooting Marcy a look that he hopes is apologetic for intruding on her bonding time with her sisters. She smiles and waves her hand to dismiss his apology, and when he finishes topping off Laura’s glass, Marcy holds hers out as well. He ends up emptying the bottle, between himself and the three sisters who are gossiping in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Laura says to Jennifer, “You could fill a book with the stuff that Mom didn’t teach us about sex.” Continuing as if he’s not still standing there. So David starts to turn and go.

“Did your parents teach you about sex, David?” Jennifer, the youngest, asks him. Her lips are stained red with the wine, and he’s guessing she’s had at least as many glasses as he has. Maybe more.

He tilts his head to the side and tries to answer honestly. “Mm. They weren’t shy about talking about sex around me. There wasn’t any shame about it. But ‘teach’ is probably the wrong word. They never sat me down and had a ‘talk’.” He makes air quotes with his one free hand.

Marcy and her sisters are hanging on his every word, nodding in sympathy, and it’s disconcerting but also kind of nice.

“When I was eleven, my mother had her hairdresser Evan talk to me?” He shudders a little. “I guess because he was gay and she I assumed I was too.” He waves his hand to try to shoo that memory away. “But it was kind of horrifying. In retrospect, not appropriate topics for an eleven year old.” He sips his wine.

“Did Mom tell you that oral sex was unsanitary?” Jennifer asks her older sisters.

Marcy raises her eyebrows. “I don’t think she ever mentioned to me that it existed.”

“I’m not sure which is worse,” Jennifer says, and then shakes her head. “No, mine is worse. It kind of gave me a complex about it. I had to get over the idea that it was dirty. The idea that no man would want to put his mouth… you know. Down there.”

David blinks, and wonders if he should try to slink away before these women (who include his mother-in-law) remember that he’s standing there listening to them talking about mouths and vaginas. But also, he has something to contribute to this conversation, and the alcohol has vanished the filter between his brain and his mouth.

“To be fair to your mother, the culture instills in women a lot of that shame. There are all these products telling women they don’t smell good or taste good or that they’re too wet or not wet enough…” Oh god. Did all of that just come out of his mouth? In front of Marcy?

But all of them are nodding at his sage words. “David, you’re so right,” Laura says. “I had to talk to my daughter about that. She’d gotten this idea that her labia of all things should look a certain way. From porn, I guess.”

“As if we don’t have enough pressure from the media about our visible body parts,” Marcy says, taking a big drink from her wine glass.

“I mean, you aren’t going to be putting your mouth down there on any women anyway, are you, David?” Laura slurs, elbowing him in the ribs.

“Well, not now,” he says, tipsy enough not to be offended by the assumptions of his… aunt-in-law? Is that a thing? “But I’m pansexual, so I enjoyed doing that in my day.”

Laura, meanwhile, is drunk enough to be unphased and unashamed. “Oh, I thought you were gay.”

“Well, it just goes to show you can’t make assumptions about sexual orientation based on how someone acts,” he explains easily. “My hockey-loving, beer-drinking husband in there only enjoys sex with men, while for me, gender doesn’t figure in to who I’m attracted to.”

Jennifer takes another sip of her wine. “I might have been bisexual…” She looks at David. “Or pansexual. If it had occurred to me to explore any of that before I married Eric.”

David smiles at her. “Your sexual identity doesn’t have to align with who you’re sleeping with. You can be bi or pan and still be in a monogamous relationship with a man.” He gestures up and down at himself, the dregs of his wine sloshing dangerously. “Case in point.”

She nods but looks uncertain. He wants to hug her and take her by the hand and guide her into the wonderful world of queer identities, because it’s never too late. Reining himself in from any inappropriate demonstrations of affection, David drinks and then looks down at his wine glass, surprised that it’s already empty.

“We need more wine!” Laura says, and she’s going over this time to open a bottle.

“So what did Mom tell you?” Jennifer asks Marcy.

Marcy sighs. “That I would regret it if I didn’t save myself for marriage. And that part of being married was, you know. It was the whole wifely duty thing.” She rolls her eyes. “Fortunately, I knew better than to listen to any of that.”

A part of David is intensely curious to know more, but he has just enough sense not to ask Marcy to elaborate. He holds his glass out to let Aunt Laura fill it.

“So your parents assumed you were gay and then you had to… what? Come out to them that you also liked women?” Laura asks.

David leans back against the counter and nods. “That is almost exactly what happened, yes.”

The women nod at him, the overly aggressive agreement of drunk people. “That must have been difficult in its own way,” Marcy says.

“Well, we all have our crosses to bear,” David says.

~*~

“How did you get so drunk, is the question,” Patrick says, putting a glass of water and a couple of headache pills on the bedside table next to David.

“It was your mother’s fault,” David groans. “She and your aunts were talking about your grandmother’s sex life, and things kind of went downhill from there.”

Patrick puts his hands on his hips. “Ew, David.”

#schitt's creek #schitt's creek ff #schitt's creek fic #marcy brewer #my fic

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sparklywaistcoat · 4 years

Text

I find the online version of the 1967 TV Times interview with Diana Rigg unreadable online, so I’m reproducing it here for anyone else who has difficulty with accessibility due to the web page’s design.

The Girl Behind Emma Peel, TV Times, 12/10/1967 (reprinted here from http://deadline.theavengers.tv/tvt1067a.htm)

...the two worlds of actress Rigg... above, as Emma Peel of THE AVENGERS; a series seen in 40 countries; men feast their eyes on her while muttering endearments in 22 languages. Right, Diana as she is to herself...

Diana Rigg has returned to Shakespearean acting - she is the female lead in a film version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

As far as she was concerned, it was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her in years.

She had been Emma Peel's alter ego so long she had to get away - - or else.

"I had become paranoid," she assured me, "with an underlying urge to pack and run. It is a curious thing. People who have never been subjected to it can never really understand what it means.

"I can only describe it as a sense of panic that seizes you when you are Diana to yourself and you are walking down the street. An instant later, you are somebody else to a lot of people who behave as if you belong to them.

"If you are quite a private person, which I am, this seems an intrusion on my privacy. I just have to run.

"Mind you," she adds, with an apologetic smile, "I am not ungrateful. I will be the last to minimise what television has done for me. It is a phenomenon, a miracle medium, that can accomplish in six months what takes years on the stage. Suddenly, you are famous. Suddenly, everybody knows you.

"The point is, though, that you are not yourself. Only the other person you portray in the series. That person is, of necessity, imposed by television, one-dimensional. You ask yourself - - is it worth it?

It should be. In the three years that Diana Rigg has spent in THE AVENGERS she has been catapulted into a position of bargaining power.

Hollywood producers have offered £100,000 to work in one film. It seem they would go higher, if that is what she wants. But she has turned them down.

"So far I have not been offered anything I want," she says. "I don't want a long-term contract. As an actress I will work where and for whom I want, if the script is exciting enough.

"If a script is good and they have a director I can trust, then I will do it."

Really it is a matter of time. The big, international film-makers are confident they will have lassoed this high-spirited long-legged English girl long before Emma Peel loses her hold on the masses - if she ever does.

THE AVENGERS is eagerly watched each week in 40 countries, and Emma Peel (Mrs.) is the series' irrepressible whimsical Amazon of the jet set. Men feast their eyes on her while muttering endearments in 22 languages, and their women try to emulate her - - but they never will, of course.

Consumption of champagne the world over has been increasing ever since John Steed and Emma Peel began toasting each other in bubbly stuff, from the television tube.

"Avengerwear" - - Emma's fancy "cat" suits and things - - is reaching the shelves and racks of department stores all over the world.

"Emma Peel's" international fan mail, still growing by leaps and bounds, promises to assume astronomical figures before the winter is out.

Diana never touches this mail and has enlisted mother, in Leeds, to head the Emma Peel fan mail operation.

Says Diana: "We have this room at home, measuring 20ft. by 15ft., and it is full of letters. More are delivered each day - all addressed to me.

"I am supposed to answer them. But I can't, and that worries me deeply. I get persecuted by the mere thought that there's an obligation which I am not willing to fulfil.

"That is where mother comes in. She reads, and she answers. And I feel ashamed. But I can't help it.

"People have made up their minds to identify me with a fantasy of theirs on television. In their minds they want to have a relationship with me based on fantasy which can take any form.

"I have heard from my mother that there have been letters from children saying: "You look like my dead mother and so I write to you." I think that is terrifying."

The story of Diana Rigg is, in a way, the story of two women - the real one and the imaginary one. They are identical twins.

The conflict within this beautiful and intelligent young woman, who is just a little older than 29, reminds me of the case of Sean Connery, alias James Bond.

In Connery's case, though, there was resentment. Connery, the man, gradually developing such a passionate hatred for the image he had created that he refused to continue as Bond even at a million dollars a throw.

He made his last two Bond films under protest. Bond made him a multi-millionaire, but you cannot escape the feeling that he would settle for half this amount if his identity remained - that of himself and not that of the slick, women-loving, superb and deadly Secret Agent 007.

Emma Peel has some of the same qualities as 007, well-screened and suppressed, to fit into a family-watching hour on television.

The innuendo, contained in the name has been a source of Rigg's unconcealed unhappiness.

Asked what innuendo, she blushes and confides in a conspiratorial whisper: "Believe it or not, Emma Peel is a phonetical transposition of "M Appeal", the M in this case standing for Men. In other words, "Men Appeal." Isn't it a scream? Sorry that I blush."

She adds wistfully: "I wanted to be Lady Peel, not for any grandiose reasons, but simply because it seemed to get some rather good comments over on the English aristocracy. Of course they wouldn't do it."

"They" being the producers who have been running the show like a tightly-run ship.

Not unlike Sean Connery after "Goldfinger", Diana Rigg said goodbye to THE AVENGERS on the last day of a contractual stay at an ITV studio in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, last August 31st.

"They" were highly hopeful that she would be back, if not immediately, then later.

The production schedule could be stretched to accommodate her, she was reminded. A new regime was taking command of the series, and this, it was felt, would offer Diana an incentive.

She was not sure. But on the last day of the last batch at the close of shooting at 5.20pm she produced a bottle of champagne to toast her co-star and co-workers.

They had become a closely-knit family, and she would miss them if she were not to come back.

"I am devoted to Patrick," she says, referring to co-star Patrick Macnee, who plays John Steed. "I'm frightened of minimising him by talking about him, because it always sounds so glib, but he's an extremely generous and gentle and marvellous man."

They are comrades-in-arms on television. Off screen they are the best of friends, but that is all. Macnee married a second time during the series. Again to quote her, she is "totally committed" to another man.

Diana is simply devoted to a number of other people on the series, including her stand-in, Diana Enright, and her double, stunt-woman, Cyd Child, who resembles her so much that all three directors of the series have dared to have Cyd perform her stunts in full-face and semi-close-up.

Viewers have yet to write to complain that the girl hurling herself through the air at an adversary is not Diana Rigg.

And then, there's Diana's studio chauffeur, John Taylor, who is also her "Man Friday".

"I wouldn't know what to do without him," she says. A confidante, he also does her shopping while she is working, and has the ability to always be there when needed.

Diana didn't join the series under duress. She was tested for the role, as were others after John Steed's leading lady Cathy Gale (actress Honor Blackman) left the series - - ironically for a Bond flick, "Goldfinger".

Why did a promising young Shakespearean actress offer her services to a television series Shakespearean actors have looked down on with patronising dismay? To quote the lovely Diana: "I did it because I had left the Royal Shakespeare Company knowing that if I renewed my contract and stayed on for three or four years, I would have progressed and played good parts, but I was yearning for additional scope.

"To accomplish this I would have to plunge into the deep end, and nothing seemed deeper than this. I was right. Nothing is deeper."

Before dawn in a delightfully feminine bedroom the phone jangles. The young woman sleepily answers. Then struggles out of bed, just like a scene from THE AVENGERS.

But the call was from the telephone service Diana Rigg instructed to wake her. It is still only 6.30 a.m. She gropes through the house, takes her luke-warm bath, drinks a glass of lemon juice. Into the street by 6.50 a.m. - without a touch of make-up. "I've got no vanity at that time of the morning."

North London's suburb of St. John's Wood is still fast asleep and there's no one to catch sight of Diana Rigg below her perfectly-groomed best. Except John Taylor, her chauffeur. He arrives a few minutes earlier, but his instructions are to wait .... about two lines are incoherent here...

"I'm never late," she shudders, "comatose that I still am, and I hate that sound of the bell - at this ghastly hour."

Off to the studios in Borehamwood, Herts. She reads the morning paper on the way.

"It isn't my paper," she says, "It's John'. I don't like it but it's the only paper there, so I read it. Every morning." Apparently it had never occurred to her to ask John to bring her a paper. And so... another day in the life of Emma Peel.

This has been her routine since she became a television star. Diana moved to this house, a lot more compatible with her status, from an old mews cottage she has lived in for five years. Not that she was so concerned with status symbols. Diana Rigg couldn't care less about such things.

She simply fell in love with the old house in St. John's Wood. And her accountant approved of the move.

At her new address previously lived the artist Augustus John; and once Dame Laura Knight.

There, Diana Rigg now lives in the style and comfort of her private world revolving around a specially designed kitchen and window boxes sprouting home-grown herbs.

The house is out of bounds. Except close friends. Not that she is a recluse. She feels that her life is her "own ruddy business". But when in the mood, she will readily explain that she is every jealous of preserving her own privacy.

She insists on leading a life she considers right for her; not concerned with what she defines as "other people's social consciousness. I like to do because I wish to, not because I ought to."

Diana was born in Doncaster, in Yorkshire, on July 20th, 1938. She had spent the early part of her life at Jodhpur in Rajputna. Her family was in the Indian Government Service. Later, she was sent home to school at Great Missenden in Bucks. Eventually, her parents returned to Yorkshire to settle in Leeds, where they now live.

There, Diana finished her education at Fulneck Girls' School, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (The RADA) and two years later graduated to an acting career. Was she withdrawn as a child? "No, I don't think so. I had the ability to withdraw and I still have it. But above all I always has a strong sense of personal identity.

"One thing that I never did was dream. I was always very practical. I grew interested in the theatre when I was small but not because it offered me an entrance to a world of fantasy, but because it gave me a chance to assert myself. And I loved its freedom. I thought of it as a challenge."

Diana reflects: "I can still remember the first time I met an audience on these terms. I was an understudy at Stratford-on-Avon, when I was called on to replace the principal in 'Alls Well That Ends Well'. Her name was Priscilla Morgan.

"They gave me maybe an hour's rehearsal. By a coincidence my parents were out front that night. I didn't tell them that I was going on, so that when I came out and started shaking, they thought I was just walking on. Then they realised, and sort of clutched each other in absolute fear.

"My fear was of a different kind. I was simply not sufficiently prepared and so I was annoyed with myself. Still, the audience was very kind as it always is when an understudy takes over and doesn't want to make a complete mess of the play, and I was led forward and allowed to take a solo bow.

"I played it for about a week, I guess. And it was about the end of the week only that I began to enjoy it."

Then Diana was 20 years old and earning £7 10 shillings a week. "To make ends meet, I was living on faggots, scraps of meat put inside intestines you still get at the butchers in the provinces. Poor people's food. They cost fourpence each.

"Four times a week, my dinner would consist of two faggots and maybe some potatoes and another vegetable, and fruit. And you know what? I was very healthy. And very happy."

Diana had an old second-hand bicycle for transport around Stratford. "And not only did I make the £7 10s stretch, but I could never do without perfume. I guess I was so very young and this particular perfume was very heavy and musky and made me feel extremely sensual ... I never changed my perfume in all these years!"

Her faggot-eating period came to an end when she moved to London to appear in the London productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The bicycle went. Now she drives a green Mini. She lived in the mews cottage, all this still modestly. No more faggots, but all the perfume that she felt was required, by a young actress, not too bad-looking.

She took a small bottle when she travelled to the United States, appearing in 'King Lear' and 'The Comedy of Errors' on alternate nights.

The company also toured the Continent, as far as Moscow. From her experience on this tour comes Diana's boundless admiration for actor Paul Scofield.

"He's been my ideal since I first saw him on the stage. I was working with him in 'King Lear' when I became aware of his sense of identity, a strong totally compromising identity."

She says: "The beauty of it is that here is a man who has just won an Oscar in an Oscar-winning film and Hollywood is after him. What does he do? He's gone back to Stratford. Obviously, he doesn't care for the money. And he's right. Of course, it's your beliefs that matter.

"In a way I followed his example when I agreed to film "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Peter Brook was doing it and I believe in him and I grew up with him, so I had to answer his call. Professionally speaking, I am part of his troupe.

"Even though I think I'm too bad for the part. The pay? Obviously a pittance by comparison with what I'm making, but then, money is so transitory ... I will not forget that I could, when forced to, live on £7 and 10 Shillings.

Tourists at Athens airport could swear that the young woman killing time in the long drab waiting room by stopping at souvenir counters to inspect, for the umpteenth time, the pseudo-Grecian vases for sale was... Emma Peel.

She wore her auburn hair loose, letting it flow to her shoulders in the manner of the star of THE AVENGERS. And her mini-skirt revealed a pair of very feminine, familiar and beautiful legs.

"It was not easy to say I was not Mrs. Peel," Diana Rigg recalls, "because I dislike lies. But I would have had to explain why and what I was doing there, and it was a long story."

Actually, she was changing planes, going from London to a little-known place in Western Greece.

Eventually a shaky little plane which flies up into the mountains over some breathtakingly lovely countryside delivered her there, to make the trip worth her while.

Two days later, she took the same route back to London and Borehamwood, Herts., to resume where Emma Peel had left off.

It was an unconventional way to spend two days off the series. "I go to the craziest places for the weekend," she said, dismissing all attempts to explain herself.

In the case of the Greek place, a British film unit was there shooting "Oedipus, The King", and lots of friends were there.

One weekend last winter she flew to Zurich, rented a car at the airport and set out, a map in her lap, for Klosters, the Swiss ski resort.

"I drove through the night, with the craziest Swiss drivers whizzing past me over the ice-covered road," she said. "It twisted its way through the mountains, and I just hung on the wheel and prayed. I could have turned back, but I didn't. Too proud."

Until this experience, she had never motored on the Continent before, much less had snow-covered mountains by herself.

All of which seems to indicate that, not unlike Emma Peel, Diana Rigg is a rather unusual person.

It was she - and not Emma Peel - who helped to launch the mini-skirt, in an attempt to be different.

"The designer and the other men were horrified," she said, chuckling at memories of production executives looking aghast at the abbreviated skirt she was wearing and which she wanted Emma to wear.

"They pulled their hair ... said you can't do that, it's impossible ... I argued that one must look forward and not back and by wearing these brief skirts, one was looking forward.

"In fact, one was creating fashion very avant-garde, rather than remaining at the tail end of last year's styles. And it turned out that I couldn't have been more right."

Not that she has profited financially from the so-called "Avenger-wear" that mirrors her ideas. After all, she's an actress!

Nor does she care to identify with an image. "I never wear the clothes in the series outside," she said.

"But there's a style there that I think is common to both of us, and I have no intention of changing my appearance after Emma Peel is no more. After all, it was I who affected her."

She has no intention either of abandoning the mini-skirt, which, as far as she is concerned, was from the beginning Diana Rigg expressing herself.

Where the tastes of Emma Peel and Diana Rigg meet is champagne. Emma loves it, Diana loves it. And, for the record, she loved it before she became Emma Peel.

"I'm always very well stocked," she said, "but I never drink it at the studio.

"The stuff Patrick Macnee and I drink on camera is bubbly lemonade, very harmless. I don't touch the stuff then. You mustn't when you work. At home, well, that's another story ..."

Diana's secret passion is to cook, and to have friends come to her house in London's St. John's Wood to enjoy her meals, without much ceremony, exquisitely prepared with the help of her home-grown herbs.

"I'm not joking," she proudly expounded on the subject of her herbs. "They are all mine, and they all grow in window boxes outside my kitchen. Every window has its own herbs.

"Left to right, I have sage, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, which is very beautiful, chervil, and two kinds of mint, sorrel and my bay trees.

"Bay tree leaves are marvellous for fish ... true mine are more like baby trees. And basil, and fennel, and chives. And that's it. Except that they all live and prosper, outside my kitchen windows in London." The secret passion of Diana Rigg ...

"I had always wanted to grow my own herbs," she said. "This was my obsession. So I got the address of a herb farm 95 miles out of town, and one morning I went there.

"A little old lady took me around and she muttered under her breath and said they would never grow in the London smoke. I said I'd like to try anyway. So, she shook her head and gave me what I wanted.

"They came in little pots, as I brought them back to London they were all looking sad and sick.

"So I put them in larger pots and stuck them in my window boxes and every day I watered them out of a jug. And the miracle came to pass."

Diana Rigg has become enriched as an actress in the years at Stratford-on-Avon; on tours and the three years that she has played Emma Peel in THE AVENGERS.

She tells about the director she met at a party who told her he had a marvellous script for her. She had it sent over.

"Well, if I wasn't the girl who comes tearing through the door with a gun in one hand and a flame-thrower in the other," she reported in mock despair, "I was the sexy siren sneaking through the door in Veronica Lake style. I lost my temper, for the first time.

"I sent them a message saying that I couldn't do it."

#diana rigg #tv times #emma peel #the avengers

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thestarkerisobvious · 4 years

Text

A Better Ghost Story

amazing art work by @starker-sorbet

A snugglefic for @mrstarksbabyy

With great thanks for the betaread by @mrstarksbaby

You know who you are.

Sixteen: The DeSlaughter House

4 A Better Ghost Story

Like Peter’s house, the DeSlaughter house had a front door that was never used. The two boys sat on the little front cement front porch that Mke’s dad had made. They sat awkwardly for a long time before Mike spoke.

“Look, I’m sorry I said… I don’t know if you heard or not, but I told the guys sometimes there were strange lights over your house. Or whatever. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Peter opened his mouth, but nothing came out. For a moment he looked around the DeSlaughter yard, as if he were thinking. The yard looked so different from his own, a large patch of grass scattered with multiple bikes and toys and sports equipment and fishing gear leaning against the wall. It told a story of a life so much different than Peter’s, a life of siblings and parents who took their kids camping and boating and fishing. Peter had always lived a solitary life, even in New York City. The life of an only child whose guardians were elderly on the day he met them.

Finally he realized Mike was waiting for him to speak.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t mad mad, I was just like, confused. I’ve lived in that house for three years now, and I’ve never seen strange lights there.”

“It’s just that my parents said that. They said they had seen that before I was born.”

“Well that was before I was born too, so why should I give a care? Look, I know the guys talk about me when I’m not there…”

“They talk about you a lot when you’re not there,” Mike admitted, looking at his bare feet.

“Well, that’s their problem, isn’t it?” Peter snapped, repeating Aunt May’s favorite saying without thinking.

“Hey don’t get mad at me. Look, the weird-light thing is the only thing I’ve said about your house, and I could have said a lot of things, Peter,” Mike said, his voice raising suddenly, then just as suddenly he closed his mouth hard.

“Okay, okay, no problem,” Peter said carelessly, looking away again. Normally when voices were raised, especially when it was a boy his age, Peter walked away. He could certainly do that today (Mrs. DeSlaughter was inside making his pancakes now) but quite suddenly he decided on a different tactic.

“You know, whatever. I just don’t know I couldn’t care less about boys who brag about how many F’s they got in science…” he casually, making Mike grin with the inside joke. “Look, I’ll make you a deal, I’ll forget the whole thing. If you tell me every strange story you know about my house.”

“Oh there are tons…” Mike said, hopping up from the step, no longer looking embarrassed. Peter relaxed. Mike had taken the deal. It wasn’t a deal that made a lot of sense, but it was a deal, and Mike had taken it.

“Ok, so like the first Post lady was a witch who was running away from the Spanish Inquisition. Like her whole family was. And how the girls all had to learn Portuguese so they could read all her witch’s spellbooks. And how right before the Civil War the whole family made a deal with the devil and they could fly, and swing from tree to tree like Tarzan and outrun cars like the Six Million Dollar Man…”

“It sounds like you’re describing my favorite comic books,” Peter said, laughing.

“Yeah, it’s really weird. And there was this one Post son whose skin could stop bullets, only he died in the Civil War because he thought he could stop cannon balls. And right before the Civil War? Tom Dylan Post chopped up that girl who wouldn’t marry him, because she didn’t want to marry into that crazy-witch-devil family? And he disappeared like that,” Mike snapped his fingers. “And the whole town went to the Post Homestead to search for him, like the sheriff and the girl’s family and everybody, and the family said he had left for Tennessee but no one had seen him go, like on the only road out of town or something, and they never found him. Because he was hiding in an underground house that his family had dug for him, and he had to live there for the rest of his whole life. And he died down there and they couldn’t bury him onaccounta’ they couldn’t let on that they had been hiding him, so his body is down there to this very day…”

“Wait… wait!” Peter said laughing. “Now this sounds like a Tale from the Crypt comic book, and I never waste my money on those! Wait, this is a cool story, why isn’t this story of my haunted house?? Dying in an underground house you had to live your whole life in is a much better story than Evan Post’s pigs didn’t die in the Great Pig Die-off of 1935…”

They laughed for a while, and for a few minutes they compared Tales from the Crypt plots, debating which ones would fit in well with Peter’s haunted house.

Then Peter remembered why he had run all the way there in the first place.

“So… why are you… why are we talking about this anyway? I never told anyone I was mad about the lights thing. I mean it was annoying, but I didn’t tell anybody about it.”

Mike’s face clouded and he looked away. And his answer didn’t surprise Peter at all.

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I think I dreamed about it last night, or something. And then I woke up this morning and my mom was all like ‘Why is everyone so mean to that sweet Peter?’” Peter laughed at his high falsetto tone. “He’s so sweet and so smart and polite and nice all the time and he’s an orphan!’ And I’m like ‘He’s not exactly Little Orphan Annie, mom.’”

“No, not exactly,” Peter said, laughing at the picture.

“Hey man, I always stand up for you when the boys start to talk. I told them Missy really is your girlfriend, and you’ve probably gotten to second base…”

“Oh crap no!” Peter said suddenly, his eyes going wide. “No, Mike, for serious. Please don’t tell anybody that. Missy is terrified of her father, I mean seriously she talks about him all the time. She says he’ll kill her and me both if he ever sees us holding hands together…”

“Then why does she hold your hand?” Mike objected.

“That’s what I said!! I mean when we’re walking home from school if she hears a car coming she’ll jump over to the other side of the street so it doesn’t look like we’re walking together and I’m like ‘Well maybe you should just stop holding my hand please?! And she tells me this weird story about how some girl that used to live on her land wanted to marry some boy that lived on my land, and how the girl’s father didn’t want them to…”

“Yeah, that’s Laura Foster. That’s the girl Tom Dylan Post cut up with his big bowie knife.”

“Okay that just makes it weirder, Mike.”

“Peter? Seriously? Shut up. I mean it man, you have got to stop complaining about girls wanting to hold your hand. That’s why they talk about you at school. No matter how crazy she is you can’t complain that you’ve already gotten to first base with her,” Mike explained, shaking his head solemnly. It irritated Peter, watching Mike trying to sound like a wise old man, dispensing his wisdom. Mike was two months younger than he was.

“It’s not all the books you read, or how you seem to know more than the science teachers do, or how you’ve never fired a gun,” Mike was continuing. “And it’s not really the Post-Ghost. It’s because you’re from New York City and you think it’s normal that fairies and queers just walk around like it’s nothin’. It’s because you’re from New York City and you don’t even own a single Playboy or anything.

“Is that what the magazine I was supposed to find in the shed? The one I didn’t see because I thought the prank was about the dead squirrel on the floor? And that was supposed to be gross or something, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to be a veterinarian or an exterminator if I get grossed out by a dead squirrel….”

“I don’t know anything about the squirrel. Yeah, there was a magazine in there you were supposed to find.”

“What was it? A Playboy?” Peter asked, hoping he sounded casual. Hoping Mike couldn’t tell how hard it was to act casual right now.

“Or something else? Like a Playgirl?”

Mike shrugged and looked at his feet. “I don’t know if it was a Playgirl or what, I mean it didn’t have a cover. Cole found it in this box of old books, at his uncle’s house, he said. It was all these men with big mustaches doing nasty stuff. It was so gross. It was Buster that put in the shed and said we should prank you with it. I told them you saw that sort of thing in New York City all the time but Buddy said it would be funny.”

“Weird. Cole’s uncle is weird.”

“I’ll say. You know what I heard?” But then Mike’s dad was calling them from inside.

Knowing how many members of the household had dreamed about him, it didn’t really surprise Peter that Mr. DeSlaughter was now shaking his hand, asking him how he was and generally acting like they had been best friends who had been separated for years.

“Sorry to hear about your dog. I used to bury all my pets out in a cemetery my brothers and I had made in the yard behind our house. Call your uncle and tell him I’ll come over. If you’ve got snakes I’ll be able to tell…” and then continued to discuss snake bite symptoms for the rest of breakfast. Peter listened attentively. Mike’s dad was as good as any science teacher.

After Peter had finished off his pancakes (and assured Mike’s mother that he didn’t want anything else to eat, he had to assure her many times) he was pointed to the kitchen phone to call home.

Walking toward the phone, Peter was struck, for a moment, at the irony. (Not irony, his English teacher would tell him. This was not irony. This was coincidence.)

There was a time when Peter had a great fear of phones. Just the idea of dialing a number himself made his stomach hurt and his palms sweat. He had nightmares, as a child, of the clear plastic rotary dial spinning around endlessly, knowing he couldn’t have possibly dialed the right number. May always dialed the phone when he wanted to talk to his friends, but when he turned 12 Ben said he was too old for that and made her stop. As an experiment, he fed that fear to Tony, but only after carefully writing out the instructions in one of his notebooks, titled “How To Use A Rotary Phone.”

And he needed them. Two days ago he found the instructions by accident and read them with fascination. He spent the whole morning practicing calling numbers, time, the weather, the radio station to make a request. He practiced dialing his home number and listened to the busy signal over and over again. That-Peter found the whole procedure delightful. That-Peter couldn’t imagine the boy who had been afraid of it.

This-Peter realized that the entire DeSlaughter family was watching him now. He turned around and smiled at them.

“You have a touch-tone phone. I’ve always wanted one. Those are cool.”

“I can play Mary-Had-A-Little-Lamb on it!” Monica trumpeted as Peter dialed home.

* * * * *

Peter’s friends’ parents had taken them to quite a few outdoor plays in the city. Peter felt like he was in a play now. He hoped he was remembering all his lines.

Sitting in the cab of the pickup truck with Mike’s dad while the two boys rode in the back (riding in the back of a truck never looked safe to Peter) he made polite noises while Mr. DeSlaughter tried to talk him into going on hunting trips with them in the summer, or working for him after school was over. At the house he dutifully took them on “the tour” because Aunt May had declared him the expert. At the table he kept up his side in an argument about which was better, Super Friends or the Super Powers Team and why Apache Chief was a terrible superhero.

It wasn’t all bad. Mr. DeSlaughter and Uncle Ben stood outside and talked for ages, and Aunt May fussed over lunch for the three boys as if she had been doing it her whole life. Still, Peter couldn’t help watch the clock. Counting the hours. Calculating how long he had to wait until he could talk to Tony.

After lunch he took Matthew and Mike to climb his favorite trees, and to see the owls’ nest in the barn. He even took them to the lake where he pointed out the dead oak that pointed the way back to the chimney and the shed.

“They said Tom Dylan cut up his girlfriend because she really wanted to marry his brother,” Matthew was lecturing as Mike and Peter tossed rocks into the water. “But Laura Foster didn’t want to marry him at all. Like she was best friends with his sisters, so she was always at his house, at your house, all the time. Because that’s where her best friends lived. Only he didn’t know that, and thought she was there to see him.

“Why would she be best friends with his sisters if she didn’t like his witch-devil-running-from-the-inquisition family?”

“She didn’t mind being their friends, but she didn’t want to marry into the family. Once you marry “into a family” it’s different. Now you’re a part of them.”

“How do you even know all this anyway, smartypants,” Peter needled. He actually liked Matthew, just like he liked Monica, but felt obliged to talk down to them out of loyalty to Mike.

“Our Mee-ma grew up here, our Mom’s grandma. Her whole family is from here. She can tell you anything. She’s full of old stories, and Matthew is her favorite.”

Peter thought about that for a moment, looking up at the ridge. Beyond that was the shed, which he’d be happy to burn to the ground right now. But there was also the lone chimney and foundation to a small house that stood there too, another Post house where some Post family member had lived. It piqued his interest, now.

“I should talk to your Mee-ma. I can interview her for that Social Studies project we’re supposed to do. That’s probably a good idea.”

“Why do you want to do that?” Mike said with an eyeroll.

Peter smiled. For a very brief moment, he suddenly didn’t feel like he was acting at all.

“Because all your looser-ghost stories about my house are all boring. I think it’s time to write up a better one.”

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The next chapter of SIXTEEN will be posted on Monday.

Master (Post)

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#The Thing That Lives Under The Bed #Demon!Tony #But not THAT Demon!Tony #Starker #TheWitchway writes stuff

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