#maybe I can at least stitch this experience into a romance novel setting with a single girl and a heartwarming outcome
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I hate small independent coffee shops.
Sometimes I'm like, cool, I love that I've grown out of my anxiety! and then a mildly distressing, confusing or unfamiliar situation happens and I melt down on the spot.
(this is long i had to get it out)
BACKGROUND/THE PLAN: get my dad some Real Maple Sugar Candy for Christmas, because he nostalgically mentioned that being his favorite Christmas treat as a kid. Some people online say it's only for sale in season (approx. Feb-March) but there are a flobbity billion small independent farms in the northeast offering such treats for sale online right now, so surely Minnesota has some too. Because I'm not paying as much or more for shipping if I can simply go pick some up myself.
Small local/specialty candy store didn't have any, but after some googling, I found this indie coffee shop, Native-American-owned, that the internet says sells the stuff, so that seems promising. It's near a place I have to go to pick up another present anyway, so, 2 birds etc!
THE TODAY PLAN: Sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes to psych myself up first, because ordering in these places is always awkward AF as you try to find a place to stand and browse what's for sale and where the menu and prices are while the person behind the counter is asking for your order 3 seconds after you open the door.
So to make this as clear and logical as I can, I've decided that I will treat myself to a drink while I'm here. I will simply order the first and easiest thing I see on the menu (small coffee, or perhaps a latte/cappuccino), and then add the candy to my order because it would just be silly to go into a coffee shop for candy alone, right, especially if i get a really small portion of it, depending on price.
HOW THAT GOES: the place seems the usual amount of scary (people sitting at tables and in chairs, all pretty crowded together) but it's also cute, and thank god there are 2 people in line ahead of me so I have a minute or two to peruse. Cappuccino, $4.75, one size! That's perfect. It's probably only 8-10 ounces but still less out of pocket than at a chain store these days. I don't see any candy for sale, so when it's my turn, I order and then smoothly ask if they sell it.
"No, that was just for our pop-up shop," she says sympathetically, in a tone that says she's definitely been asked this before. So, on the one hand DAMN IT!!!!!! But on the other, she didn't make me feel stupid for asking AND I'm getting a nice warm drink out of it soon to combat the cold and blustery day, so I can go home satisfied enough since this was my last stop. After minor confusion when I'm supposed to scribbled a 'signature' with just my finger on the electronic pad, I'm good! This is the best outcome I could have asked for in a case of disappointment!
At this point: I would like to note it's 2:30 in the afternoon on a Thursday, i.e. not when I would expect a coffee shop to be crazy-busy.
WHAT NOW? I'm not really sure where to wait, since everyone else wanted their orders for here rather than to-go, but I just kind of step to the side while she takes the order of the last person behind me, and then gets to work. It's actually quite pleasant at first, because now I can scan the board at my leisure, try to commit some items and prices to memory, might come back here w/ husband actually! It is cozy as long as you can find a spot.
Anyway, it takes about 5 minutes from the time I first started waiting to when the first drink is called. It feels like a very long time standing there increasingly conspicuously while eeeeeeveryone else is sitting down, but I don't think it was. I consider finding a spot to sit and wait too, but the place is about 75% full already. It would be rude to take up a whole table for myself if I'm going to be out of here soon, what if a group of people suddenly comes in.
Second drink is called. I realize now that this is not, in fact, either of the drinks ordered ahead of mine. Starting to get slightly stressed, so I pull out my phone which has no data plan and pretend I can actually browse the internet on it. I don't need a table, you see, because I can play on my phone anywhere! Also I'm totally not impatient!
A third drink is called. It is still not for either of the people ahead of me.
HELLO ANXIETY MY OLD FRIEND: I find while looking down at my screen that my eyes are suddenly full of tears, as if I were back in college or the one and only time we tried to go out and do something with husband's friends. Because I SHOULD have sat down, I realize now, but also now it's too late to ~suddenly~ decide to "casually" sit down like I knew what I was doing and only planned to move now the whole time. Also there are people everywhere, and they will Look at me because movement is an aberration that draws the eye. They truly are every damn where, this place is the size of a postage stamp. I'm beginning to feel like I'm also standing too close to the table with people at it behind me, but I simply don't know how to move now.
The tears blink down. I try to wipe them discreetly but it's a double-attack so I just have to go for it and hope not many people were looking. Well, that sucks and I definitely can't raise my head now, but if I can get my drink soon, soon, soon, I can still avoid looking her in the eye as i grab it and run away and never come back here again. My face is fully red with embarrassment, heart rate is steadily picking up tempo and I have Located The Exits and am beginning to contemplate an upsetting but potential alternate move.
PLOT TWIST! IT GETS WORSE: There are now 3 people standing at the register, so she takes a break to collect their orders before it gets backed up too far, since she's working alone. I am momentarily relieved when one of the new people also stands nearby to wait, even though now I'm occupied in wondering how obvious it is that I'm crying and if he can tell and/or is going to be awkward about it.
I elect to pretend I have just gotten Terrible News and am trying to Hold It Together while tapping out a fake reply about calling someone as soon as I can. That would be a perfectly acceptable reason for an adult woman staring at her phone in a coffee shop to have tears on her face. Bad news is extra-bad during the holiday season.
One of the people ordering seems to be dictating a very complicated order as it is taking longer than average.
I'm also starting to panic about how many more people might have already been in the ordering queue before I got here.
WORSER: And it is at that point, where it has now been close to ten minutes (this would NEVER happen at Starbucks Caribou!) and what if I actually stand here like a fucking idiot who doesn't know how coffee shops work for a full quarter of an hour or even more and it's still not ready?? that I find to my sudden alarm I am crying and can't stop. Silently, but a faucet has been turned on and water is simply streaming out of my eyes. And, oh dear...now my face is starting to contort involuntarily, beyond my control.
FUCK IT, WE BAIL: That's right. I am simply unable to hold it together any longer and have already accepted my losses. It feels awful and stupid and unfair and I might has well have just pulled a $5 bill out of my pocket and lit it on fire, but I have reached my limit. The path to the door is no longer blocked by the line so I beeline straight for it. If anyone tries to stop me or call after me, I won't falter or care, I am Done. No coffee 4 me.
Of course the door I aim for turns out to be locked, so I have to pivot (and pass another table of people), but at least the door I came through is only a few feet away so I'm out a second later, striding away and now full-on sobbing because all I wanted was a goddamn hot drink and it was so scary and intimidating to go into this stupid tiny weird hipster space I didn't even want to go to in the first place, but I DID it only to have to PAY OUT MONEY and still not get ANYTHING AT ALL.
I got in the car and sped out of the parking lot and the coffee shop's line of sight as fast as I could. I hope the worker isn't too upset about wasting a drink/not knowing what to do with it; maybe one of the seven billion people who saw me crying on my way out can let her know I'm probably not coming back, while they gossip to each other about why anyone would do something so weird and not say a word.
SIDE QUEST: ...then I immediately spent like 2 full minutes panicking that my car was suddenly breaking down because it sounded really loud when I accelerated, and whenever I took my foot off the gas it immediately started slowing down, like not just coasting, but like I'd taken my foot off the gas while going up a hill. Pulled over in a panic, wondering what to do if my car died on the spot. Finally realized in my haste to leave, I had put the gearshift on whatever "B" is instead of "Drive." Instantly fixed, but wow what a fun cap to my day!!
AND IN THE END: Stopped hyperventilating pretty quickly once in the car, but still cried intermittently the whole way home. And again when I thought about trying to explain how something this small and silly got me so upset. I cried harder the whole time I was writing this post and reliving the experience while still being really upset that I didn't get my drink (despite paying for it!! but I obviously didn't have the wits to cancel my drink order so I can't get the money back if ingredients were wasted on it), mostly because i NEVER treat myself to fancy coffee drinks in take-out cups. It has literally been over two hours since this happened and I'm still crying.
To be fair, I haven't cried in a while -- about 6 weeks since I cried at all, and longer since I had a full and exhausting weeping session that usually a good sad book can provide me with -- and when I haven't done either of those but especially the latter in a while, the tears get all backed up. But still.
Anyway, that's the story of my really crappy Thursday and in conclusion, I remain firm in my hatred of small independent coffee shops.
P.S. Joke's on me because now between the lost coffee order and the gas I already spent driving to two places in vain, I believe I've spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $8, which would sure have made a dent in the cost of shipping. Far too late to order in time for Chistmas now, though, anyway.
#a day in the life of televinita#a REAL BAD ONE#maybe I can at least stitch this experience into a romance novel setting with a single girl and a heartwarming outcome#...oh hey that thought was just an idle passing one but it actually kind of perked me up and genuinely made me feel better
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awaken the stars, ‘cause they’re all around you
Stanford Pines never really believed in soulmates.
He can't imagine the idea that there's one person out there for him in the multiverse who would stop at nothing to love him for who he is, despite everything he is and everything he's done. He can't imagine that someone out there is meant for him, someone who will stand by his side until the end of time.
Or maybe he'd just been looking at it from the wrong angle.
Notes:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @stariousfalls!!!!! I can't believe we've been friends for upwards of five years now?? You've been a huge inspiration of mine from my first day in the gravity falls fandom back in late 2014, and now you're one of my closest friends. I've been spending the last week and a half working on this behind your back, because I wanted to surprise you with a gift I thought you'd love!!
7.5k words of fluff was....not my original plan, but fluff brain wanted to go feral for you, I guess.
Huge, huge shoutout to @ariasofelegance for helping me keep my mouth shut about this, I absolutely would've internally combusted without your help & support
AO3
Ford never saw the appeal of romantic relationships.
One night when he and Stan were kids, they snuck downstairs in the middle of the night after their parents were asleep to dig through Pa’s “Secret stash” of movies he thought he was good at keeping a secret. They’d thought for sure they’d be coming across bootleg cuts of action movies that were still playing in theaters, or documentaries about how all of the politicians in power were secretly aliens.
What they actually found was much more…sensual. They were both horrified, to say the least, but each time Ford had to turn away to prevent himself from gagging, he’d hear Stan beside him struggling not to laugh.
For years, Ford was convinced coming across those tapes before he was old enough to fully comprehend what was happening in them is what had turned him off to relationships altogether. It certainly didn’t help that he was never able to experience romantic relationships firsthand, as every time he tried asking someone out in high school he’d just be laughed at or called a freak.
Though college was another story entirely, his feelings towards romantic relationships never seemed to change. He went out with a girl from his dungeons, dungeons, and more dungeons club for a few weeks, a guy from his advanced physics class for almost two months, and even tried going out with Fiddleford for upwards of nine months, but he never felt that deeper connection with any of them, no matter how much he wanted to feel that connection.
It’d be forty more years before he learned the term aromantic, but when he was still in college he would brush off his parents’ questions about his relationship status by telling them he was too busy working on his thesis, which technically wasn’t all that far from the truth anyway.
Still, the faint sense of yearning never seemed to leave him be. Whenever he found gaps in his schedule, he would spend hours in his university library reading up on the science of relationships and their place in society. Though he no longer remembers most of the papers he read, one scientific study that’s always stuck with him was a dissertation written entirely on the concept of soulmates.
Everyone has a soulmate, the paper claimed. Though it may be decades until you properly meet, your path always leads to the moment that you and your soulmate are finally united. Once finally together, not a single force on earth can tear you apart. Even if you are apart physically, the stars will always align to bring you together. Weirdest of all, the paper mentioned soulmarks, which were described as “the phenomenon that a person’s very soul is marked with a piece that belongs to their soulmate, which may appear as a physical anomaly on a person’s body, such as an oddly-shaped birthmark”.
Ford had thought for sure that somebody must’ve moved a romance novel into the sociology section of the library as a joke. The only sort of anomaly he had going for him was his polydactyly, and thinking too much about how that could connect him to a single person who was destined to love him gave him a headache.
Nowadays, though, Ford tries not to give it much thought. He’s perfectly happy right where he is, watching the sunrise from the deck of the Stan O’ War II through the steam visibly rising from his coffee mug.
He sighs contently.
“Mornin’” Stan’s voice sounds beside him, gruff with sleep. When Ford turns to look at him, he’s rubbing at his eyes with one hand while he holds a steaming cup of coffee in his other. He’s already donning one of the sweaters Mabel mailed to him, a deep blue with a tropical island and a treasure chest stitched across the chest.
Ford smirks. “You’re up early”
Stan cocks an eyebrow as he sips from his coffee. “A’course I am. I always get up early when we’re docking to see the kids”
Ford blinks, the teasing smirk on his face melting into a gentle smile. “That’s today?”
“Haven’t you checked the calendar lately?” Stan tosses a second handmade sweater at Ford. This one’s the same shade of maroon as his journal covers, and pictures an angry cycloptopus squirting ink towards the bottom left corner of the sweater. “The kids are on spring break. They talked to their parents about letting us have ‘em all week”
Ford is quick to pull the warm sweater over his head. “All week?”
He can’t help sounding like a broken record, but it’s been months since the last time he saw the kids face to face. Sure, they talk over video at least once a week, but nothing beats seeing their smiling faces and having them nearly tackle him to the ground in a hug in-person.
“Heh, you miss em too, Sixer?”
As little as two years ago, Ford would’ve flinched at the nickname. But Bill is gone for good, and Ford knows that Bill is gone for good, and Stan made a promise to do anything in his power to help him reclaim the nickname. He brings his mug close to his face without taking a sip, allowing himself to take in the warmth in his hands and the steam in his face.
“Not as much as you, clearly” Ford smirks, and Stan crosses his arms over his chest.
“You bet I missed them more than you. I’d been taking care of them all summer before you showed up and fell in love with them in half that time”
Ford smirks as he finishes up his coffee and heads into the navigation room to set their course. “By that logic, wouldn’t that mean that I miss them more, since I had less time with them?”
“Hey!” Stan groans as he follows him into the room. “It does not. It means that you don’t know them like I know them, genius. Everyone knows that it’s all about how much time you’ve spent with a person that determines how close you are with them”
Ford laughs as he enters the coordinates they need to get to the seaport they were meeting the young twins at. From the looks of it, it’d be three hours before they arrived.
“Mm, and who put that study together? Was it you?”
Stan doesn’t reply with words, just a noise that sounds halfway between disgruntled and baffled. It makes Ford laugh even harder, and he wipes at his eyes with a wrist. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Stan’s overdramatic pout melt away until he’s laughing too.
The sight of it makes the smile on Ford’s face widen. It’d been decades since the two of them were able to just be like this. It’d been so long since the last time Ford heard Stan’s genuine laugh that he’d gone and forgotten what it sounded like altogether. When he was still traveling the multiverse, he searched far and wide for a shred of hope, something to keep his anxieties and nightmares from catching up to him.
What a fool he’d been to ignore his childhood memories of home.
The trip is a quiet but familiar one. Ford can’t talk much when he’s steering because he needs to be on constant lookout, but Stan remains in the room to talk at him and keep him company anyway. The sun is well over the horizon by the time they reach the seaport, and call it instincts, intuition, or something else entirely, because Ford spots the kids sitting on a bench in the near distance the moment he and Stan step foot onto the dock.
They’re squished closely together, watching a video on Mabel’s phone. Whether they’re aware of it or not, they’re swaying their legs back and forth underneath the bench in perfect unison. On the ground beside them are their backpacks, overstuffed with so many things that both of them are popping open.
Most importantly, neither of them have noticed that Ford and Stan are approaching them.
Ford exchanges an amused glance with Stan, and clears his throat to catch their attention.
The phone nearly stumbles out of their hands in shock when they look up and meet their eyes.
“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel squeals, standing to sprint past Ford to knock Stan off of his feet. Ford chuckles at the sight, but not quickly enough to hear Dipper’s “Great Uncle Ford!”, and before he knows it he’s hitting the floor too. The young twins are laughing messes, and stumble over each other as they try to stand to their feet and help their Grunkles up.
Mabel spits out the hair that stuck to her mouth, and pulls a hair tie seemingly out of thin air to tie her hair up into a ponytail. It’s only now that Ford realizes that she and Dipper are also both wearing sweaters, and if Ford had to guess, it looks like Mabel made both of these sweaters as well. Mabel’s is a galaxy print with actual twinkling stars, and Ford makes a mental note to ask her later what she did to make it glow like that. Dipper’s is also space themed, though his pictures the big dipper splotched across a black night sky with a bright orange meteor shooting through the center.
“You have to tell us about everything you’ve encountered”, Dipper beams, once Stan finishes brushing himself off.
Stan cocks an eyebrow. “Two years’ worth is a lot to get through, kiddo”
“Exactly!” Mabel beams, turning to pick up her backpack and put it on. “Which is exactly why you can tell us on the way to the hotel!”
“Hotel?” Ford and Stan ask in unison.
“Surprise?” Dipper giggles. “Our parents rented us a hotel room for the week cause they figured you’d appreciate some time away from the boat”
“It’ll be like our summer in Gravity Falls all over again!” Mabel grins. “But in reverse! You’re in our territory now”
Stan laughs. “You’re the boss, kiddo”
“You bet I am!” She beams, and hands Dipper his backpack. “Now c’mon! If you tell us all of the horrors you’ve encountered out at sea, we’ll tell you about all the horrors we’ve encountered in high school!”
“I...think I remember those horrors pretty well already, thank you” Ford smiles sheepishly, adjusting his glasses. “But we’d be more than glad to tell you some of our own stories”
It’s a short walk to the bus stop, but Ford honestly wouldn’t mind if they walked all the way to the hotel on foot if it meant an extra half an hour with the kids. They’re just as eccentric as he remembers, attached at the hip but still wildly different people all on their own. Dipper’s still hanging on to every word he’s saying, and Mabel’s still skipping along like she’s in her own world.
Once they reach the hotel and check in, Dipper collapses face first onto one of the beds the moment he steps into the room, groaning.
Stan smiles. “Something bothering you, kiddo?”
He turns on his side to look Stan in the eye, his face smushing into the pillow. “Mabel didn’t let me get any sleep last night. She insisted on getting to the seaport three whole hours early because she insisted that she had this gut feeling that you guys would have the same idea and we’d magically show up at the same time”
Mabel pouts, and sits on the bed besides him. “Well it’s not my fault you stayed up late reading that dumb book of yours. Plus, would you rather have kept them waiting for three hours?”
Dipper removes his hat and places it on the table beside him, exposing just enough of his forehead through his hair to reveal his birthmark. It has the same faint glow to it as Mabel’s sweater, and Ford wonders how the two could possibly reflect off of each other.
“Their boat has beds and a fully stocked kitchen, Mabel. They can afford to wait. All we had were those strawberry pop tarts that you ate five minutes after we got there”
Ford can’t help but smile softly at their banter. He missed them so, so, much more than he could’ve ever imagined. He’s got half a mind to stow them away on the boat at the end of the week and homeschool them both himself so he never has to be apart from them again.
Apart. The word still feels like a knife twisted into his chest. There’s nothing he regrets more than trying to separate the young twins from each other two summers ago because he’d been so caught up in projecting his own fears onto the pair. He’d tried apologizing to Mabel over the whole ordeal, but she stopped him before he could even start to tell him he had nothing to worry about.
He only wishes he could learn to forgive himself as easily as she did.
“...Can we, Grunkle Ford?”
He blushes. Had he just said all of that out loud?
“Can we...what?”
“Take the boat out! Not right now, since Dips is being a grumpy-grump and insists on wasting precious time with a nap, but we’ve been talking about it all week”
From across the room, Stan snorts. “Let me get this straight,” he takes his jacket off and hangs it up in the closet. At this point Ford swears his eyes must be playing tricks on him, because Stan’s old burn scar is glowing just as Mabel’s sweater and Dipper’s birthmark are. “All the time you spent groaning and complaining about fishing every time I took you in Gravity Falls, and now you’re asking to go fishing?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a joy ride,” Dipper yawns from under the covers. “But if agreeing to go fishing is what gets you to say yes, then sure”
He’s smirking under the covers, Ford can tell, because he inherited that expression from Stan.
Stan’s about to bite back, but Dipper must not have been exaggerating about how long he and Mabel were waiting for them at the dock, because he’s already out cold. Stan smiles at him, gently ruffling up his hair before he takes a seat on the adjacent bed, kicking his shoes off so he can kick his feet up on the bed and relax. Ford sits beside Stan, and Stan slings his arms behind him to support his head in his hands as he glances over at Ford.
“They make you wanna retire the whole ‘treasure hunting’ thing and move into the city to be closer to ‘em too?”
Ford chuckles. “I’ve already considered hiding them away on the boat twice today already.” He taps at his chin. “Though I suppose that moving in with them would go over better with their parents then taking them away to live on a boat”
“Hmm…” Stan taps at his chin as well. “Being stuck in the same stuffy high school for four years, or living on a boat traveling all over the world whenever they feel like it? I dunno about you, Sixer, but I have a pretty good idea on what the kids would prefer”
“Grunkle Stan? Grunkle Ford?” Mabel’s voice suddenly chimes in, and Ford blushes, wondering how much of that she just heard.
“What’s on your mind, pumpkin?” Stan asks.
“Well, uh, Dipper was right about us only eating once really early this morning, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to, uh” She twirls her hair between her fingers. “Cook something for us? For old time’s sake?”
Okay, it’s settled, Ford’s never letting these kids go again.
“Sure, kiddo. Soon as your brother’s up we’ll head right back up, okay?”
“Okay!” she beams, and crawls back into her side of the bed, staring at Dipper like she can will him into waking up on command.
Though Ford would’ve been okay if they’d had to wait hours for him, it’s really only about twenty minutes before Dipper opens his eyes again and nearly shrieks in surprise at Mabel’s face hovering three inches from his own. He smacks his hand into her face to shove her away, and she giggles as she rolls off the bed and onto the floor.
Beside Ford, Stan smirks. “Better get up before we leave without you and all our food goes to Mabel, kiddo. You’ve got plenty of time to crash in Ford’s bed on the ship, since he never seems to use it anyway”
Dipper yawns, rubbing at his eyes as he kicks the covers off. “I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep”
“I didn’t realize you were even capable of sleep, bro-bro” Mabel punches him in the shoulder as she walks past him to put her shoes on. He glares at her wordlessly, and Ford has to cover up his snicker with a fake cough.
This time, the bus ride and the walk back to the ship are a quiet one. Ford never really lets himself let his guard down and relax for an extended period of the time, so he cherishes any moment he can get where he finally feels like he doesn’t constantly feel the need to check over his shoulder for signs of danger. Most of the time, if you asked him about his heightened senses, he’d call them a curse. But on days like these, when he can hear the birds chirping and the waves smacking gently against the boats in the seaport, he’d almost go as far as calling it a blessing.
The kids take a seat at the dining table as soon as they enter the kitchen, and Stan grins at them from over his shoulder as he clicks the stove on. “Whaddya say, Stancakes?”
Dipper and Mabel grimace in unison. “Ewwww, Grunkle Stan, you promised lunch!” Mabel scrunches her nose, and Stan’s grin only widens.
“Ah, ah, you said like old times. That means I get to decide what to make, and you have to eat it because I’m your legal guardian”.
“Well I wasn’t even awake when you were talking about old times, so I’d say that cancels out” Dipper crosses his arms over his chest, and Ford can’t help but smile warmly at the three of them as he reaches into the cupboard for his favorite coffee mug. The younger twins clearly had just gotten two copies of the same mug, but crossed both of them out so they’d say #1 GRUNKLES on them instead of #1 UNCLE. Stan has the other one, of course, but he keeps it on his bedside to hold small treasures and keepsakes because it’s, in his own words, “Too special to waste on something as ordinary as coffee”.
Ford sits himself in the seat between the younger twins at their okay, and after some back and forth banter between the four of them, they end up settling for burgers. Truth be told, this is the first time Ford’s eaten a meal in a group larger than two since the last time he and Stan visited the young twins in the winter, and he can’t help but smile into his food at the thought. The closest he’d come even remotely close to eating with others in his research years was his very, very brief time at the truck stop diner, and the experience had soured his view of...well, other people for near decades.
Now, though, he’d burn his own research dozens of times over before he’d even consider eating alone.
Stan’s chair scraping across the floor as he stands pops Ford out of his bubble of serenity.
“Now that that’s taken care of,” Stan cracks his knuckles, smiling mischievously at Dipper and Mabel. “I think I remember a couple of kiddos finally promising their Grunkle Stan he could take them fishing”
“Promise is a strong word-” Dipper starts as he stands to place his plate in the sink, but Stan’s already placing a fishing hat on his head before he can finish his sentence.
“Course you did! You wanna take our baby for a joyride, you gotta earn it first”
Dipper turns to Ford, like he’s expecting him to back him up.
Ford chuckles. “I don’t know, Dipper. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me”.
Dipper scoffs, sitting back down at the table. Mabel laughs.
“Aww, C’mon, Dipper! Aren’t you all about the supernatural? For all we know, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford could be harboring magical glowing bait that only attracts, like, magical talking fish men, or something!”
Dipper raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just receive a bottle message from Mermando last week?”
“Exactly!” Mabel flashes a grin. “That must mean that he’s in the area!”
Stan laughs. “You tellin’ me you only agreed to go fishing so you could kiss and make-up with your long-distance fish boyfriend?”
“Grunkle Stan, what kind of person do you take me for?” she gasps. “He’s married! You know I would never want to break apart such a loving couple!”
Ford’s smile only warms. Where else could he partake in such a conversation that doesn’t turn heads and result in judgmental whispers? Where else can he just be like this, surrounded by loved ones who are just as weird, just as out of the ordinary as himself? In his younger years he thought for sure his place would be among the monsters and cryptids everyone in his childhood made him out to be, but even in the weirdness capital of the country he felt more alone than ever.
“...Don’t think you’re immune, Sixer” Stan’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and before Ford can ask what he means Stan is smacking a homemade fishing cap on his head. “It may ruin your badass image when we’re monster hunting, or whatever, but we’re fishing with the kids.” Stan gestures to them with his thumb. They’re already outside, leaning over the railing to look out at the water in a perfect mirror of each other. “If they have to embarrass themselves by humoring me for a few hours, so do you”
Ford waits for Stan to join the kids outside before he takes his hat off to admire the stitch work. It’s not perfect, and nowhere near the fancy embroidery he and Stan have found in various markets across their world travels. But it’s personalized, and Ford knows it comes from a place in Stan’s mind that’s been stuck behind lock and key since he was seventeen.
Ford runs his hands along each individual letter, which reads POINDEXTER, before placing it back on his head to join the others outside.
Stan has, miraculously, already pulled out his joke book. Stan’s laughing too hard at his own joke for Ford to really make out what the punchline is, but the younger twins’ collective groans is all he needs to know about it. When Mabel notices him stepping out of the doorway, though, her expression shifts entirely.
“So…” she draws out, stepping towards him. “Is there a trick for attracting merpeople to your boat? I mean, asides from being super cute, obviously”
Ford chuckles, taking a glance behind her to make sure that Stan is out of earshot. “Stan’ll kill me if I tell you this, but they’re really attracted towards shiny things. If you tied one of his gold necklaces around a fishing pole and dangled it into the water, the boat’ll be surrounded in minutes”
Mabel offers up her pinkie finger. “I won’t tell him if you won’t”
Ford interlocks his pinkie with hers, smiling. “I think he’ll notice when a whole family of merpeople show up”
“Hmmm…” Mabel taps at her chin with her free hand, visibly mouthing a plan to herself. “Oh! I know! Come with me,” she beams, and before Ford can even open his mouth to respond she’s already dragging him back into the kitchen. She kneels down on the floor and opens the cupboard below the sink. “Got any empty bottles I can use?”
Ford blinks. “Empty....bottles”
“Yeah!” Mabel pulls a neatly folded piece of paper out of her skirt. “If I can send out my response letter the same time we throw Stan’s necklace over, he’ll never be able to tell the difference!”
“Wait, wait” Ford shakes his head. “You really are dating a merperson?”
“Listening skills, Grunkle Ford” she taps at her forehead, folding the letter back into her pocket as she continues to dig through the cupboards. “Used to date. We met at the Gravity Falls Public Pool, where he was stuck, but then I drove him to the lake in a golf cart I stole from the pool grounds because he really missed his family, and then he was my first kiss, and then we were in a long-distance relationship for like, two months, and I kept every single bottle he sent me, but then we had to break up because he was arranged to marry to prevent a big undersea war.” She picks up a bottle, shakes it, and puts it back when it’s too full for her liking. “I know it sounds, like, super complicated, but it’s all okay, because we’re still pen pals!”
Ford laughs, shaking his head. “No, Mabel, I had to ask because I, uh…” his cheeks warm, and he clears his throat. “Before I...came to term with my orientation, I...dated a merperson too”
The bottles in the cupboard rattle as Mabel’s head smacks against the doorframe. She’s rubbing the spot where her head hit, but there are stars in her eyes. “Really?”
Ford’s cheeks burn even hotter. “Yes,” he whispers, and takes a knee so he can get at her eye level. “Technically he was a siren, but yes, we dated for about a month. He promised me he wouldn’t entice anyone else while we were together, but I guess there wasn’t anything...there.” He turns to help her shuffle through the cupboard, and finds a near-empty bottle of olive oil that’s definitely been sitting down there for at least a year. He hands it off to Mabel, smiling. “I’m glad that things worked out with you, though”
To his surprise, Mabel drops the bottle and throws her arms around him in a hug. “I can’t wait to introduce you! He’s gonna love you”
Ford huffs a quiet laugh, and pulls her close as he winds his arms around her as well. The hug only lasts for a few brief moments, but it feels to Ford in those moments that time itself had stopped. Mabel stands, taking the bottle in one hand and offering to help Ford up in her other.
Mabel places the bottle in the sink and turns the water on to rinse it out before she turns back towards Ford, stretching her arms up in the air as if she were warming up for an exercise. “Alright, here’s the plan. You tell me where Grunkle Stan keeps all of his jewelry, and I’ll sneak in and take his necklace while you distract him. Got it?”
Ford smiles. “Got it”.
As Mabel splits away for Stan’s bedroom, Ford heads back out to the deck. Dipper’s leaning over the side of the boat pointing at something jumping out of the water, rambling excitedly to Stan beside him. He’s holding his fishing hat in his hand to stop it from blowing into the water, and his hair is bouncing in the breeze. It’s just enough for the edge of his birthmark to poke through his bangs, and even in broad daylight it seems to be emitting a faint glow.
“I found it!” Mabel cheers, bounding up from behind him. She’s wearing the chain around her neck, and for some reason the gold seems much dimmer in contrast to her sweater. She takes it off and hands it to him. “You wanna do the honors while I go and throw this overboard?”
Ford smiles, ruffling her hair. “Sure thing.” He walks over to where Stan and Dipper are chatting and picks up one of the extra fishing rods. Making sure that Stan’s too engrossed with his conversation to notice, Ford starts wrapping the chain along the line, and at the signal from Mabel, he tosses his line as far from the boat as he can manage.
Five minutes pass before Mabel squeals so loud that Ford’s afraid his glasses might shatter. He reaches for the gun he knows he’s got stashed in his pants pocket, but when he turns to run to her aid she’s leaning halfway over the boat wrapping her arms around a young merman in a tight hug.
“...so good to see you again!” She’s beaming. “I didn’t think you’d be able to find us so quickly!”
“Yes, well, you were easy to track down after we figured out the coordinates to the seaport” the young man says in a thick Spanish accent. “It is good to see you too! My family was so excited to meet you”
“Your family?” she gasps. “Did they all come with you?”
“Of course!” he grins. “We merpeople are very family oriented. Wherever we go, we go together”
Ford winces at the uncanny familiarity of the statement. Mabel must recognize the statement too, because she responds with “Oh, that reminds me! There’s someone I want you guys to meet! Wait right here,” she says, and comes bouncing back over to Ford. Taking his hand in her own, she starts to drag him back to where she’d just been leaning. “C’mon! He’s the one I was just talking about!”
Three more merpeople emerge from the water when she gently knocks on the side of the boat again. “Grunkle Ford, this is Mermando!” she grins, gesturing to the young merman she’d just been conversing with. “He’s the one I helped reunite with his family after they were separated by tragic circumstances.” She wraps her arms around Ford in a side-hug. “Mermando, this is my Grunkle Ford! He was also separated from his family by tragic circumstances, but I helped with that too!”
Mermando laughs. “Even when you think it’s the end, family always finds its way, doesn’t it?”
Ford laughs, shaking his hand. “It always seems that way to me”
“Awwww!” Mabel squeals. “I knew you’d get along!” She grins, and turns her attention back towards Mermando. “Before I forget, though, did you see where Grunkle Ford threw that gold necklace? If I don’t get it back my Grunkle Stan’s gonna kill me”
Mermando laughs again. “I was wondering if that belonged to any of you!” He takes off his shell necklace to reveal that he’d put Stan’s necklace on around his neck. He takes that off, too, and offers it to Ford. “I much prefer this one, anyway” he clicks his shell necklace open, revealing it to be a locket with a picture of his family inside.
Ford takes the gold necklace back, and he means to thank him, but a bell ringing from elsewhere in the port interrupts him before he can open his mouth. Mermando turns to Mabel, taking her hands in his own. “We must go. I’m so sorry we have to leave so soon, but we merpeople recognize the sounds of fishing boats very easily. We’ll try to come back later this week” He opens his arms for her once more, and Mabel wraps his arms around him in a quick hug before she watches him and his family swim away.
“I am so glad that all you were doing was hugging,” Dipper shudders as he and Stan approach Ford and Mabel. “I’m not sure my stomach could handle witnessing you two kissing a second time”
“Awww,” Mabel punches him playfully in the shoulder. “You’re just jealous that I had a boyfriend before you did!”
Dipper cringes. “If you having a boyfriend before I do means I didn’t have to be the one dating a fish, then I’m glad you were the one who got stuck with him first” He punches her back, and gestures at Stan over his shoulder with his thumb. “But anyways, I came over here because Grunkle Stan says he wants to get out on the open water before everyone else gets the idea, or something”.
Ford pockets Stan’s necklace and makes a mental note to put it away sometime later tonight when Stan is too distracted to notice. “Tell Stan I’m going to untie the rope from the edge of the dock, and when he sees me back on board we’re all set to go.”
Nodding, Dipper bounds off towards the navigation room where Stan must be waiting, and Ford steps off of the boat to take care of everything else. On the way to the bow, he traces a hand along the white painted STAN O’ WAR II, and a feeling of warmth sprouts in his chest. Once back on board, he waves to Stan as he passes besides the navigation room once more, and takes a seat on one of the beach chairs they liked to keep aboard.
Most days, Ford prefers to be the one at the wheel. But every once in a while he just wants to be. All he wants to do is lean back in one of their beach chairs and let the sun warm his face. It’s a good kind of warm, the same way spending time with the kids and heavy rain hitting his bedroom window and planning new escapades with Stan feel warm. After so, so long of only knowing unbearable burns, it feels indescribable to have a constant back in his life that heals, rather than hurts.
“Mind if we join you?” Dipper asks, and Ford glances over to see both of the young twins dragging a chair behind them.
Speaking of healing constants.
“Sure,” Ford says, and can’t help the warmth spilling through his tone. They pull their chairs up on either side of him, and curl up to enjoy the warm breeze. Dipper places his hat on his lap to let the wind blow through his hair, and Mabel stretches her arms out behind her head to act as her own pillow. Ford chuckles silently at the pair, and closes his eyes to let himself relax.
All is quiet when Stan finally finds them a spot out on the open water without a single other boat in sight. The water is nearly still, save for the occasional small wave that gently sways the boat. The sun is at its afternoon high, turning the water beautiful shades of teal and aqua. Fishing is tedious, but it’s careful work, and gives Ford something to put all of his focus into. Two whole hours pass before any of them catch a thing, and Stan laughs himself to tears when it’s Dipper who pulls up a single sardine.
Typically Ford prefers much more immersive activities, but right now there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. The sun is starting to set before they realize they aren’t going to have much luck catching anything, and instead decide to take the boat for another ride around the harbor to look for a better place to eventually watch the stars.
“...Great Uncle Ford?” Dipper approaches him shyly once they’ve anchored the boat.
“Yes?”
He tugs shyly at the edge of his sweater. “I…” he starts. “I know you’ve told me that the multiverse was dangerous, and all, but...was there ever anything you enjoyed about it?” He pauses. “What were the sunsets like?”
Ford chuckles, patting at the seat beside him, and Dipper’s eyes light up as he sits down.
“You’re right,” Ford starts, folding his hands together. “I wouldn’t wish what I went through on even my worst enemies, Dipper. It was practically impossible to get any decent amount of sleep and even harder to find food digestible by human kind. I lost some of my best years to the multiverse when I could’ve gone on to become the most renowned scientist in the world.” Ford turns his gaze away from the sun setting on the horizon to meet Dipper’s eyes, but he’s frowning, eyes cast downwards towards the deck of the ship.
“But,” Ford adds before the poor kid can get too lost in his own head, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It definitely had its perks.” He smiles. “The sun in Dimension 18.2 would emit a sound that mimicked a lullaby every night as it set. Dimension 47’23 had three moons that would shift phases before your very eyes. I haven’t told Mabel because I’m afraid she’ll try activating a portal of her own and run away, but in Dimension 25-12, everyone and everything looks like a watercolor painting. There’s danger in the multiverse, but there’s beauty in equal measure”
“Do you ever miss it?” Dipper fiddles with his hands, like he’s trying real hard not to say the wrong thing. “I mean, I know you don’t miss being lost, or having no idea if you’re ever going to see home again, but...is there any dimension...where you could’ve seen yourself staying, if you thought you couldn’t make it back?”
Ford shifts in his chair so he doesn’t have to twist his neck so much to look directly at his nephew. “Occasionally,” he muses. “I met the most friendly faces in Dimension 52, so my mind does tend to wander there from time to time” he smiles. “But rest assured, there is something in this dimension that makes it my favorite”
“Oh yeah?” Dipper’s eyes light up. “Over every other dimension you’ve passed through? What is it?”
Ford gently nudges Dipper’s shoulder. “You and your sister”
Dipper’s cheeks turn bright red, and he looks as though he’s struggling not to bury his face into the collar of his sweater and disappear. “Really?” his voice squeaks.
Ford nods. “Everything I had in those other dimensions were fleeting, Dipper. At a moment’s notice everything I grew to love could disappear in the blink of an eye. The very thing happened to me in Dimension 52. When I fell asleep, I woke up in a new dimension I didn’t recognize. Things may have been more advanced, and there may have been dimensions crafted to give you your greatest desires, but in the end nothing ever lasted.”
Now it’s Ford’s turn to divert Dipper’s eyes, gaze casting towards the floor. “Stan was cut from my life completely in the dimension that claimed to be a perfect world. I had nobody. Even in dimensions that actively worked towards my happiness, I was all alone” Ford shakes his head, and turns his gaze once more out on the horizon. The sun is still touching the horizon, but it’s dipped just low enough that some of the stars are beginning to show in the sky.
“But...here, at home, everything is consistent. I don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning to find that everyone I love is gone. I can keep everyone in arm’s lengths, even when Stan and I can only communicate with you and your sister over a video call. I’m…” Ford gently squeezes his hands to reassure himself that this is real and now. “...happy. Happier than I’ve been in decades”
Beside him, Dipper yawns, and when Ford spares a glance over at him he’s smiling at him sleepily. “We’re really happy you’re here too, Grunkle Ford” he murmurs, and his eyes slip closed. Ford’s cheeks flush pink, and he has to choke back a laugh because that’s one of the first times Dipper’s felt comfortable enough to call him Grunkle.
Ford stands, so as not to wake Dipper from his nap. A small glance to his right and he catches a glimpse of Stan and Mabel leaning against the side of the boat watching the sunset just outside of earshot of his current conversation with Dipper.
“You finally bore him to sleep with all your nerdy science talk?” Stan asks as he approaches, sparing a glance behind him at Dipper. “Was starting to think that the poor kid would never get a nap in”
“Yes, well,” Ford smirks. “I’m sure it helped plenty that you bored him to death by taking him fishing first”
Stan gasps in mock offense, and slugs him in the shoulder. “Hey, at least I’m engaging them in something they can actually interact with, unlike your kooky alien stories, or whatever”
Ford can’t help the laugh that escapes him. “Bold statement coming from the man who dedicated thirty years of his life rescuing me from said kooky aliens” he says, returning with a punch of his own. Stan opens his mouth to argue back, realizes he has nothing to say, and closes his mouth. The sight of it makes Ford laugh even harder, keeling over and slapping a hand on Stan’s shoulder to support himself. It must be contagious, because it’s not long before Stan is laughing too.
Ford removes his glasses to wipe the tears from his eyes, and cleans off the lenses with the edge of his sweater. Once his eyes adjust after he puts them back on, his throat nearly catches in his throat when he glances back out towards the water. He’s just able to catch a shooting star before it disappears over the horizon, and the boat’s just far out enough on the water that there isn’t an ounce of light pollution obscuring the rest of the stars in the sky. He takes a few steps back so he can look up and admire more of them at once, and if he looks close enough he can see them twinkling.
Before he can ask the others if they’re seeing the same thing, a bright flash of light coming from somewhere on the boat cuts into his thoughts. He turns, to make sure that none of the lights in any of the rooms are on, but no, they’d turned those off when they’d started fishing. Scratching at his head, he turns to Stan and Mabel to ask if they have any idea where the light is coming from, but that question catches in its throat as quickly as it formulated.
They’re the ones emitting light.
Or, rather, Mabel’s sweater and Stan’s shoulder, approximately where his burn scar should be. Those are emitting light.
...Surely it must just be the reflection of the starlight on the water, right? That same bright light must have woken Dipper from his nap, yes?
He turns heel to ask Dipper the same question, but freezes in his tracks before he can take a single step forward. Dipper’s forehead is glowing too, the same way it has since he and Stan docked the boat this morning.
It...It can’t be, can it?
Gripping his forehead, Ford takes a number of steps backwards until his back hits the wall. Maybe...maybe he just needs to call it a night. He’s been awake since sunrise, maybe his vision is just blurring because he needs to lie down?
He waves his hands in front of his face, but no, those don’t look any different. He squints, to make sure his hands aren’t shaking, but no, they’re perfectly still.
He squints at Stan and Mabel, just to try and see if his eyes are watering, and-
He gasps.
Mabel’s sweater, Dipper’s forehead, Stan’s shoulder; they’re not glowing; they’re twinkling like the stars. It was hard to tell in broad daylight, but now that they’re surrounded by a thousand shining stars, the resemblance is unmistakable.
But...that’s not possible. If he can see them twinkling, but none of them have said anything about it, that could only be if those were…
...soulmarks.
Ford suddenly feels like he’s going to pass out.
He slides to the floor.
Is...Is that even possible? Ford thought for sure that study he read years ago was nothing but a joke. Someone...who does everything in their power to bring you two together, no matter the cost? Someone who, even though you may not meet for decades, will feel as though you’ve known each other their entire lives? Someone who will do anything for you, no matter the personal expense?
Someone...someone like Stan, who spent a painstaking thirty years teaching himself quantum physics to rescue someone that anyone else would assume dead? The man who sacrificed his very mind, his very life, so he could be spared physical torture?
Or...someone like Mabel, the first friendly face he saw after emerging from the portal? The one who forgave him so easily after he tried to separate her from her brother? The one who insists on calling him a good person, despite all of those he knows he hurt?
Or...Dipper? His kindred spirit in all things supernatural? The one who, alongside his sister, sacrificed himself as bait for the most dangerous being in the entire multiverse? Who saw memories of him at his very worst, and apologized to him for snooping?
After everything he’s been through...could things really work out that well in his favor? To not have one soulmate but three, and the guarantee that they’ll never leave, because they’ve already expressed how they love him so?
There’s a tear streaming down his cheek at the thought, but he’s too distracted by a fourth light suddenly emitting from...himself to really notice.
He spares a cautious glance downward, and notices a pulsing light emerging from his chest in perfect time with his heartbeat. If he looks closely, he notices that the light travels down his arms and ties itself into a translucent bow around his fingers. If he looks closer still, the light looks as though it’s slinking faintly across the deck of the boat and reaching towards the gentle twinkling of Stan and Mabel’s marks.
Ford places a hand to his forehead, throws his head back, and laughs his throat dry, paying no mind to the tears pouring down his face.
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farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 16-17
back at it.
re: romance novel: “I saw a patch of red flowers, and I thought they would be striking against Cass’s dark hair. She wasn’t exactly a flower wearer, but maybe she’d let me pin one on her dress? The color would set off her fair skin so perfectly. And she could at least keep some in a vase by her bed. I refused to believe there was a person alive who didn’t feel better with freshly cut flowers in her room.” that’s gay rapunzel
i do admittedly have some ambivalent feelings about this passage. on the one hand it’s - yes, very gay. but also it feels to me like such a clear illustration of the difficulty rapunzel has with empathy and listening to other people when their experiences or expectations or needs diverge from hers; she acknowledges that cass isn’t into flowers, but follows it up with “but maybe i can get her to wear some anyway,” and of course there’s the whole refusing to believe anyone could feel differently about having flowers in their room than she does. and it also has this weird undercurrent of - god, i don’t know how to phrase it in a succinct way.
this specific passage was on my mind when i wrote this bit in moonless air chapter 4:
Still. She plucks at the stitches of her jack-of-plate, self-conscious.
It’s the nicest thing she owns. Soft green velvet sewn over sturdy layers of canvas and steel. Armor. She’d saved up for more than a year to buy it for herself on the anniversary of her adoption two years ago, and at the time it had been nothing but a frivolous luxury. Stupid, really. She’d never had real reason to wear it in Herzingen, not for anything besides teaching herself how to move with its weight and entertaining ridiculous fantasies—but last night, Moira had intimated that their destination in Vardaros is fancy as well as dangerous. So the jack seemed… appropriate.
Sharp. She twitches.
Clothing—fashion isn’t– Cassandra’s always hated dresses. It’s a trait that demands a certain amount of indifference to what other people think of her appearance.
And she can do indifference. Cassandra has indifference in spades. But nobody’s ever paid her a compliment quite like that before: baldly appreciative. Straightforward. Not like all the times Rapunzel coaxed her into tolerating crowns of late-summer flowers because the colors look so nice with your complexion! and not like the Commander’s gruff praise for how grown-up she looked in the hideous pastel gowns that had come with the lady-in-waiting gig.
because – like, cass is butch, and “not a flower wearer,” and here in lost lagoon we have this passage where rapunzel expresses this pretty straightforward attraction to cassandra but in the context of imagining cassandra presenting in a much more feminine way than she is comfortable with - in a dress with flowers in her hair etc - and it just... rubs me the wrong way a little bit. and this is not to say like cass can’t be butch and put a flower in her hair but when it’s paired with rapunzel specifically acknowledging that cass doesn’t WANT to wear flowers then it - yeah i feel weird about this passage.
and that translated into cass having a whole little crisis over being complimented for her appearance without implicit pressure to be more feminine for the first time ever
anyways
i still can’t get over the name monsieur lefleur
rapunzel summarizes hervanian culture as “brash but can be funny; distrustful but not mean-spirited” so, basically, they are americans
she is feeling very Prepared to meet with them, in contrast to every other time she’s met with foreign dignitaries or nobility before this. eugene tries to warn her that cass is PISSED with her and she just brushes him off, as one does, by saying that cass is “not all bubbles and moonbeams” but that she is “a softy” inside.
of course this leads up to cass blowing up and going off while rapunzel tries to calm her down and just - groan this line.
“People don’t change! You told a criminal a detail that puts my entire future at risk!”
how many times have i said “cass doesn’t act this way in tts” i feel like it’s a constant drumbeat. but i have to say, again, that cass doesn’t act this way in tts. i don’t think it’s unrealistic for her to think like this, given that her father is essentially corona’s chief of police and she idolizes him, but i feel the need to reiterate that there is zero sign of cass having this mindset in tts proper. and it does sort of bother me when people read this into cass’s character because it undermines and delegitimizes her dislike of eugene in early s1.
which like. tts itself sort of frames their mutual dislike as a mutual problem, but it’s... really not? and imo the best illustration of this is in this exchange from cassandra vs eugene:
CASSANDRA: Unbelievable. Did you eat all the cookies?
EUGENE: I’m not a pig, Cassandra. I ate all of your cookies; I’m saving mine for later.
CASSANDRA: Ugh– you are nothing but a self-serving, inconsiderate, arrogant freeloader!
EUGENE: [scoffing] You know, I can rattle off insulting adjectives describing your personality, too, but to do so would imply that you actually have a personality, and I just wouldn’t feel right about doing that!
this is the dynamic every time they squabble in early s1.
1 - eugene does something selfish or thoughtless - in this case taking all the cookies and milk for himself.
2 - cassandra calls him out for it, and he doubles down, often taking a potshot at her in the process.
3 - cassandra gets mad and calls his behavior what it is (self-serving, inconsiderate, arrogant)
4 - eugene gets defensive and insults her as a person, typically with variations on calling her icy / unfeeling / humorless / joyless.
which is to say, their fights are initiated by eugene’s poor behavior, and cassandra attacks his behavior but eugene attacks cassandra herself. like, eugene is the dude who insults you and then goes “pfft why can’t you take a joke” when you get upset with him. that’s what this is.
moreover, when eugene’s, for lack of a better term, residual flynn rider-ness starts to taper off, cassandra’s criticism of his behavior also tapers off, AND she gets much gentler about how she phrases this criticism once he starts to actually take it on board. but there’s no accompanying shift in the way eugene speaks to and about her - the jibes about her being humorless or cranky or soulless literally never stop and at no point does he ever seem to consider that cass might not appreciate them as much as he thinks she does.
(to be clear, i don’t think they bother cass very much if at all - but they do create and reinforce a perception on eugene’s end that cass Doesn’t Have Feelings and the background radiation of that contributes to the toxicity that develops in season 2.)
like again, pulling from cassandra vs eugene here, eugene is extremely insulting towards cassandra even when he’s ostensibly coming to her defense:
RANDOM THUG: Look at that, Fancy-Boots has got something to say!
EUGENE: Name-calling? Come on, we’re better than that, aren’t we? Sure, we could sit here and make fun of each other—tease Cassandra for her chronic joylessness, or me for my uncommonly good looks, or you for your poor dental hygiene, tragic fashion sense, robust body odor, and what are clearly woefully misguided decision making skills, but do you really want to go down that road?
ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY - besides demonstrating an obvious willingness to give eugene another chance once he starts doing the bare minimum to not be a dick to her, cassandra doesn’t like eugene because eugene is an asshole to her and takes the enormous privileges he is given completely for granted.
saying “well she doesn’t like him because he was a criminal and she doesn’t believe criminals ever change” erases that completely and reframes the conflict as cassandra treats eugene unfairly because of bigotry that she needs to unlearn. lost lagoon takes this even one step further in that lost lagoon eugene is genuinely trying to be responsible, he is taking his new lot in life seriously. he doesn’t need cass to tell him off for acting like an ass because he doesn’t act like an ass. he shows actual interest in getting to know cass and makes an effort to break through her hostility in order to get along. unlike his tts counterpart, lagoon eugene really doesn’t do anything wrong, and that makes cassandra’s intense hatred of him on the grounds that he was a thief look completely irrational and, like i said, bigoted.
it’s just very frustrating to me.
anyways
rapunzel tries very hard to persuade cass that it’s actually totally fine that she told eugene the secret because she just can’t keep secrets from eugene (except the lagoon which she has arbitrarily decided is totes fine to keep secret and i am pretty sure this contradiction never gets pointed out) - and cass is having none of it, and of course arianna interrupts before anything can get resolved.
they rush out and monsieur lefleur interrupts them, asking questions about the lost lagoon. he reveals that he heard an ~elegant cloaked person~ inquiring about it in the library. he asks for the book. they say no. the red herring smells to high heavens, and the chapter ends with rapunzel subtly telling cass to hide the book ~for the safety of the kingdom~ and oh my god i just can’t handle the low stakes.
seventeen picks up from there with cassandra’s point of view; she’s suspicious of lefleur and angsts a lot about how she has no time to train and she needs to get out of corona yada yada. her plan is literally to just walk until she finds someone to hire her on as a guard which. lol. this kid.
i feel like this is the strongest passage in the whole book:
She said there couldn’t be any secrets between Eugene and her. But why—especially when it meant sacrificing my future and everything I held dear? I’d read about romantic love in poems, and it seemed to me like a spell. Sounded great for the lovebirds, but what about the other people.
Did I just not matter in the face of this love, even though I had been the one to risk everything to show Rapunzel the world? Was I just supposed to fall on my sword because Eugene was uncomfortable that he didn’t have every last piece of information about Rapunzel?
she has a brief argument with owl, who is a pretty obvious stand-in for her own doubts / feeling that she truly belongs in corona and doesn’t actually want to leave. but she has no choice! but it’s stormy, so she can’t leave! oh no!
(i think if tts really strongly felt she had no choice but to free corona, a measly thunderstorm would not be enough to stop her.)
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Frat Boy Pt. 21
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13 , part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, part 18, part 19 , part 20
HI LOVIES. Please enjoy a Friday update on the Frat Boy universe. This one is a bit of a breather after the TUMULTUOUS ANGST of the last chappie. Shorter than my usual, but it’s all the chapter needed. Tons more y/n and Harry interaction on the way in the next! Have a safe and happy day loves xx
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Things I want:
Live a life that helps others
Financial freedom
Experience a great love
Visit the the Pincio Gardens in Italy
To have more dreams and fewer nightmares
Doodle more
Acquire a first edition book, either because an old friendly man who owns an antique bookshop decides to give it to me in a bonding moment, or because I have accomplished #2 and I am celebrating being a Boss Bitch
To be happy
Please note: not necessarily in that order
It was taped above my desk, waiting for me to bring it in to the next session. I hesitated to write number 6. It was a dream I hardly entertained after committing my scholarly life to pursue medicine. I used to love to doodle. All the time. Since elementary school. I doodled so much my mom dedicated a wall in the house to my illustrations. She hung a sign above it that affectionately said “Y/N’s Doodles.” Seriously, you couldn’t get me to stop. Even if it was gross sappy sketches of my crush Billy who I would NEVER show on the playground at recess.
My doodling stopped how these things normally do. Because life grew busier than anything else, and the sketchpad and easel my dad had bought for me at a garage sale became ignored, collecting dust in the corner of my room. At some point, it’d become a year since I’d drawn anything, and then it was two, and three, and by this point I’d realized I was the one who’d need to create her own stability in life and medicine was the more logical fit. It wasn’t that I didn’t see the value in drawing anymore, I just had other things take up my time. It became a comfort just knowing I used to draw. Paul had paved his way, and now I was on my way to do the same. At least with medicine, my soul felt fed. It was almost comfort enough.
“oH WE GOT A ROGUE ONE.”
A flying toenail hit my eye.
“WHAT THE-” I flailed my arms, as though there were a thousand more coming. Renny’s mouth opened in shock, her guilty body hunched over her bent leg. Clippers in hand.
“Sorry!!” Renny burst up laughing.
“oH MY GOSH CAN YOU DO THAT OVER A TRASH CAN OR SOMETHING?!”
“IT HAD A MIND OF ITS OWN!!” she screamed back.
I blinked rapidly, my left eye watering up and spilling painless tears. “Well I’m going to have conjunctivitis at the studio later. Or I’ll be stumbling in blind.” I wiped it away.
I heard another clip and she put up her hands with another giggle.
“All done. And you won’t stumble, I’m going to be there.” Renny extended her leg, her perfectly trimmed foot nearly touching the ceiling.
“You’re just going to solicit Zayn to be his next subject.”
“Maybe,” her grin grew devious. “But also because I want to see if he captured the angelic beauty and complex nymph nuances of my best friend.”
I put a hand to my chest, still aching from uncertainty. “Honored.”
“Want to watch another episode until it’s time to go?”
This whole lazy morning had been an OC Housewives bingefest. She’d seen it on my homepage and had a complete spazz, twitching whilst proclaiming but i’ve been trying to get you to watch this show for YEARS!! When she saw the old season I was on, though, she didn’t have to question why her pestering had miraculously worked. She didn’t mention him aloud besides giving me a pointed look. And so, we watched it, even though I wasn’t really in the mood to see anything about Harry right now. It’d hurt more than I thought to walk away from him last night, and to see how sad he looked when I did.
After last night, he hadn’t posted anything to social media. He’d called, twice, but I knew he was drunk, or worse, and I was tired, and whatever he would say he could tell me in the morning. Even though I knew he wouldn’t.
And he didn’t.
And therein lay the problem.
It hurt to see his family on my little box of a computer screen, weird to see his life and get glimpses of his childhood. I felt like a hacker spying on home videos. But then I reminded myself that thousands of people had already done the same. At this point, it was just… morbid curiosity.
“Nah, I don’t know if I can handle any more of that right now. Dr. Rhinecuff is going to yell at me if I don’t return these scanned copies to him by Monday.”
“Ew, he smells like meat.”
“RENNY!!”
“I’m just saying. That one time I went with you it smelled like pastrami in his office. He has a PhD, but isn’t with-it enough to buy air freshener.”
“He likes pastrami sandwiches, let him live.”
She scrolled on her phone, not bothering to respond, and my gaze turned to the window.
“Hey Renny?”
“Hm.”
A bird flew close to the glass, halting just before it hit it, then zooming off in the opposite direction. “What’d you do when your parents were fighting?”
“Ummm…” I knew the question registered in her mind when she stopped scrolling, suddenly concerned. “Are your parents okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, kind of.” I glossed over it, not caring to get into the bitter details. “I was just curious.”
“Uhh..” She plucked at the soft cotton of her cotton candy pajamas that were fraying at the knees. “I lost my virginity to Zach,” she half-laughed.
“Zach? Neighbor boy Zach?”
Renny nodded. She always sounded a little sad when she talked about him. Zach was the hot college boy who shared a backyard fence with Renny, the girl who may or may not have used her kitchen stool to peak over and see him workout on the grass every summer he came home. I’d known they’d slept together. I just didn’t think he was her first.
“I just tried to be out of the house as much as I could,” she said. “Found my true love Mary J.”
“Oh.”
“It was shitty, but I’m glad I got it over with.”
“The divorce or your virginity.”
“Both,” she chortled. “Why what’s up? Are you sad or something? I have a j in my drawer.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Mostly I was just wondering what it must be like to feel so sexually liberated. In my house sex wasn’t talked about. At all. The inevitable sex scene in every other movie would result in my dad blaring out “WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS!” in an attempt to make it less awwkard, but having it backfire and only make it horrendously more awkward. I wasn’t saving my virginity for anyone in particular, but after all those romance novels, I wanted it to be… something. I wanted to feel something towards the person where it would justify something I’ve kept to myself for so long. I wanted it to be intense. I wanted it to be like the books. Like a Frank Sinatra song that swept up your heart and transported you back to a time of gentlemen and cigars and women in long evening gowns with fur coats and martinis.
“I wish I could just get it over with,” I confessed. One half of me screamed YOU’RE IN YOUR TWENTIES HAVE ALL THE SEX while the other half said YOU’VE WAITED THIS LONG DAMN IT HOLD OUT A LITTLE LONGER. I didn’t know which part of me was compromising more.
Renny leaned in, quick. “Would you do it with Harry?”
Like the flip of a switch, I remembered the sensuous heat of his body against mine, wrapping me up and pressing me against him where we just fit. And I couldn’t imagine how much better it’d feel to be even more connected to him.
“Maybeeee…?”
But then there was last night.
I cringed. No matter how with me he’d seemed… he couldn’t have been present after mixing whatever the hell he took and a handle of alcohol. Did I really want someone like that? Someone who could only give a shell of themselves?
“No, I wouldn’t. Or- ugh, I don’t know. I don’t know if it could ever mean as much to him.”
Renny nodded. “I mean, don’t let him pressure you, obviously. If he does, I’ll kick his baby maker smack into his prostate. Prostate. See, anatomy. You taught me that.”
“Haha, no, he’s not like that.” My brows stitched. I was confused why he wasn’t more like that, actually. We’d known each other for several months now and he hadn’t even put a finger in me. When I thought about it, it actually frustrated me. Don’t pressure me to do anything, but I wanted to be pushed to do something. I was never the bold one in areas like this.
Not that I should be so willing to do anything with him anymore anyways. Something shifted in me when I’d seen him last night. It wasn’t a shift I could easily describe, but it’d set me a foot apart from my heart. A bit of me was shocked that it had happened so suddenly.
But this shift was new, and my heart still wanted what it wanted. I knew that if I watched any more OC Housewives with Harry’s toddler curls and surfer tan, I’d be sucked right back into speculating about what our future kids could look like. And if I saw him?
You were right, Harry. You are fucked.
I cringed again. That was harsh. That was very very harsh.
I didn’t know if I’d have the courage to apologize. What if my pheromones went berserk and magnetized me to his side??
Renny was right.
I needed therapy.
The clippers were tossed back on my desk.
“Thanks,” she said. “Have you started on your DG Double P yet?”
DG Double P = Renny Speak for DG Pretty Please.
I groaned. “No. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, honestly. I have to-”
“NO!!! Don’t tell me. We’re not supposed to tell each other.” Her hand extended in panic.
“Fine. I can keep a secret.”
I was getting a little too good at that lately.
She moved onto her belly, splaying her arms out in a dramatic fashion, face squished against the comforter. “Isn’t it just killing you inside.” She was dead serious.
“Yeah, more than you know.”
And I was serious, too.
--------------------------------------
I wasn’t expecting people to dress up as much as they did. Donned in my only pair of yoga pants and a chunky white sweater, I walked arm-in-arm with Renny past girls in cocktail dresses and guys in button-downs.
Something that sounded like a baby’s cry filled my ears, but it was gone as soon as we walked through the doors to the on-campus gallery. .
“Woah did you hear that?”
Renny nodded, tossing her head back. “There’s a baby somewhere.”
It reminded me of the bodiless screams in my nightmare. In my chunky sweater, I shivered undetectably.
The on-campus gallery rotated exhibits throughout the year, but this time, student sculptures were on pedestals, nightmarish portraits hung on the walls, and red and orange tapestries swooped down and across the ceiling in a cirque-du-soleil moment as if to secure us beneath fire. Some students had separate booths, but other pieces of work trailed seamlessly into the next.
A tree made from photographs and newspaper took up the center of the space. Zayn had been so adamant about his muse having life, I wondered if that was the focus of this exhibit - to capture natural life. But I suppose all art did.
“It’s the circle of life exhibit,” Renny stated, as if reading my thoughts.
“How’d you know that?”
She held up a pamphlet she must’ve grabbed from the entrance.
I quickly scanned the room, hoping to find Zayn quickly so I could skip out just as quick.
Several of my professors were here, including Dr. Rhinecuff. When he saw me, I raised my hand, but he raised his cup of red wine awkwardly and looked away.
My hand wavered.
Odd.
Zayn was standing by the tree, speaking with an older woman. Her skin was a rich brown, short hair hidden beneath a chic scarf. The man beside her looked around the same age with graying facial hair, a pocket hanky, and beaded bracelets. Art professors.
I caught his gaze, and he gestured me over.
“Y/N, these are my instructors. David and Ebony.”
Their eyes lit up in recognition. “He did you a great justice,” David said, gray moustache twitching with the words.
Ebony beamed. “Oh yes, a piece was already sold. He’s going to be the next big wig before he graduates,” she gushed. “Zayn, I’m sure you’ll be splitting the profits with the heart of the piece.”
She gestured to me and his smile widened, but my stomach sank faster.
“I didn’t know these pieces were going to be sold.”
Ebony sensed my concern. The wine in her glass swirled. “We thought allowing the pieces to be shown and auctioned was a good way to replicate what many of them should be doing once they graduate. The whole department gets involved, and these kids put in a lot of work, and the reputation of starving artists isn’t something we want to buy into here.”
I nodded. “I mean, that’s great. That’s… really amazing.”
Zayn couldn’t meet my eyes. He knew. He could sense my hesitance, too.
“Now he can finally afford a nice dinner to take you out!” David proclaimed.
We were all quiet for a minute. “You know, for a thank you dinner,” David covered up. Zayn’s brows scrunched and he shook his head a bit, not knowing where David’s comment came from.
“Do you do this regularly?” Ebony asked, steering the conversation away from an awkward moment.
My ears pricked up when I realized she was looking at me. “Excuse me?”
“Well I was just thinking…” a light laugh lifted as if her idea would be outrageous. “Would you mind sitting in for one of my classes on Monday? Our model had a sudden death-”
“My God,” David proclaimed.
Ebony waved her hand. “-in his family. I haven’t called to replace him yet.”
It quieted as they looked at me, waiting for a response. “Oh, I don’t… I don’t usually do this. At all. It was a chance thing.”
“Luck be the artist.” David raised his glass.
Ebony followed suit, looking at my empty hand. “You just going to let her stand there without a drink?”
“Yeah, Zayn. What kind of treatment is this?” I teased.
He did a slight bow. “Apologies. We’ll walk to drinks, immediately.” He pulled us away, leading us further into the showroom as his head dipped low to my ear. “Renny just passed us to meet Felix and them. They’re through here.”
We stepped under an archway that led into a darker-lit room, but his hand stopped me beneath the nook. “Did yeh notice anything?”
Yeah. I was noticing how close we were in this archway. He saw my eyes start to squint in thought and he turned me around to face the room we’d just left.
“Look closer.”
My eyes roamed the crowd, trying to find some sort of person, or pattern he could be referring to. With a brief seize of my heart, I expected to see somebody from the gang.
“Look at the artwork, Y/N.” His breath warmed my skin.
The paintings all seemed to be bright, though sticking to red, orange, blacks, and grays. Wait, forget a pallette pattern. The next painting had blue and purple, too. One sculpture looked like a writhing ghost, twisting and reaching for something above. Or maybe it was an unearthed tree root. Despite all the bold colors, there was something off-putting about how bright they all were. It wasn’t a soothing brightness. It was almost violent. The orange and red writhing tapestries warped the ceiling into something hot.
“Is it hell?” I chortled, but quickly quieted. I expected him to take offense, but his hand went lightly around my waist with a small smile.
“Could be. See-” his arm extended out to scan the perimeter “-all this art is supposed to represent death, but challenge the notion of it through color.”
“How so?”
“Yeh know it’s usually your blacks, and your grays, s’depressing shit. But we’re born from death. Before life, there was nothing, but something. It’s bold and necessary and there, and no one really knows whatever comes before. Or after.” He looked at the room, taking a sip of wine. I watched as he swallowed, and I imagined the wine running down. “What is death but an uncertain existence.” He said the thought almost happily, looking at me with a slight smirk. “Could be anythin’.”
He took a deep breath, letting his hand touch the top of the archway. It was then that I noticed it wasn’t just plain drywall. A collage of photographs ran all along the inside.
He wasn’t as tall as Harry, but his hand still reached the top, scuffing across a picture of an African landscape taped over a toddler eating fruity pebbles.
“They’re pictures. Everyone donated one,” he said.
A strand of words were painted over the collage, running from one end of the archway to the other, and I tilted my head back to read it. “Things... that…. make... m..e …...feel alive.”
“Everyone was able to design their space in order to control, to some extent, how their art was perceived. Everyone was a part of the transition space.”
“Very nice,” I noted, slightly put-off. I hadn’t been expecting this art show to be so… professional. “Zayn, this is amazing. Like, really, truly, professional-grade stuff is happening. The presentation, the pieces, everything.”
His smile grew wider, putting cool hands over my eyes. I flinched, but let him.
I felt him come closer.
“Listen now,” he urged.
I listened, but I wasn’t sure for what. There was the familiar busy rumble of people mingling, parents visiting their kids, and professors droning on about the talent of their students. But it was chatter. I couldn’t make out one conversation over another. I shrugged up against his other hand that was atop my shoulder.
“Sometimes you need to change where you’re planted to understand.”
I hoped he could see my cross expression because I couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting me right now. It’d been a day. It’d been a night. And I wasn’t in the mood for more philosophical ramblings - especially about death. “I don’t know what you mean,” I sighed.
“Meaning I have to move you closer to the speakers.” He let out a breathy laugh. “Jus’ keep your eyes closed, okay?”
I nodded. His hand moved, tilting my head to its side. Eyes still closed, I became self-conscious imagining people trying to move past me, and here I was, planted, eyes closed in the middle of the archway. My cheeks heated. It was unnerving knowing people could see me when I couldn’t see them. And anyway, I must’ve looked ridiculous.
“What do you hear?” he urged.
“I hear a lot of people talking,” I griped.
But right when I was about to open my eyes-
I heard a familiar chirping through the chatter.
“Birds?” I opened my eyes.
“Observance can be taught, sometimes.” Zayn leant back, looking mighty proud of himself.
“Why are there birds?”
“We’re entering life,” he smiled, backing into the space. I tipped my wine back, several long gulps lightening my step as I followed him. Immediately, I noticed much more natural, earthier tones. For being a room of life, it was surprisingly darker than the prior room.
Renny, Felix, and Andre were huddled in the center where a makeshift wall-on-wheels covered in vines divided the room in half.
My eyes widened, trying to adjust to the dimness. “It’s a lot darker in here.”
“All intentional. They decided to play with light in here. People usually think of life being bright ‘n that, but it’s also when we experience varying degrees of darkness. There’s a balance to things and the trouble is finding it.” Understanding laced his voice as his dark eyes bore into mine, almost completely black. One look from Zayn and I was reminded of all the weight I’d been carrying. I fidgeted, uncomfortable seeing myself in his eyes.
“Y/N, get over here!” Renny called. My shoulders visibly relaxed. My saving grace. “You didn’t tell me you did this,” she said lowly as soon as I got close enough, shocked excitement barely contained. Her giddy smile gave it away though. “Miss sexy secret keeper over here.”
“What do you mean?”
She playfully poked my sides, but Andre and Felix avoided my gaze. Something wasn’t right. And it stirred my stomach, my body already knowing, somehow.
I turned in slow motion, the charcoal drawings in my peripherals stopping me in place. Framed amidst the vines, my face was etched onto paper, scrunching and twisting in various expressions. But my body was attached and twisting, too. And it was bare, bent over, spread out, laying down… My eyes scanned over them a dozen times in a second.
I was naked.
In all of them.
One was titled “21st Century Love.” In this one, I faced the viewer, but looked past them, sorrowful eyes, brows furrowed, breasts I’d never shown on full display. A hickey or two on my neck. A painful sting gripped my chest. I looked sad. I looked so sad.
Tunnel vision, a blurred Renny rushed down to the floor, and a distant part of me registered something wet splatter on my feet.
The wine had dropped.
I’d dropped it.
I was trapped in a shell. My body was numb.
“Babes, you okay?” Renny asked, her voice somewhere far away. Somewhere outside the shell, her voice drowned in the busy rumbling, with the birds, with the watchers. People were watching me now. I was being watched. “Felix, grab some towels!” she barked.
I looked horrified, towards Zayn, but changed my mind just as fast. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t even breathe.
He didn’t know me at all. He could stare at me for a thousand sessions and paint every crevice, sunspot, blemish, and mole and still not see me. How was an artist this blind? How could he not know that this was the last thing I could ever want? How could he picture me so… intimately?
The paintings seemed to swirl into one before bouncing back out into their separate exposees.
Because that’s what it was.
An exposure.
A stranger could pay to have me in their home.
The floor spun, vision spotting.
My lungs tightened, tearing me away from Renny, from Felix, from Andre. From Zayn, the artist who painted a confused girl so unashamed. So honestly. Savagely and Unabashedly.
“I didn’t want this.”
And it was when I was halfway out the door that I realized the voice had come from me, a mantra pushing my shell all the way home.
part 22
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Headcanon meme: (answer for whoever you can think of things for I guess) 1, 8, 11, 12, 23, 26, 29, 30, 34 :3
Okay okay okay. This got long because some of them turned into vignettes, so it’s gonna be under thecut.
1.) Love
Forsomeone who professed to be a loner, Lyra has loved so many people in her life.Her mother, first and brightest and most dearly, murdered on her way back fromher shift at the pub, the Stone Crows, her gang growing up, including her bestfriend Kora, who got scooped off the streets when some passing mage saw her set something on fire with her mind (which now strikes Lyra as ironic, consideringher current travelling companions, and her own predicament).
And then her newfound family,her Magpies. The ones that were murdered so cruelly in front of her.
Love and loss are intertwinedfor Lyra, the brilliance of lightning followed by world-shaking thunder. Whichis why she has, wholeheartedly, decided to stop caring about people. They won’tleave if she doesn’t get attached, and even if they do, well, she won’t feelanything right? Win win.
8.) DreamsIt’s not uncommon for Whisperto dream of water. Even if it wasn’t literally her element,she spent so much of her life surrounded by it; snow and rain pattering on thestone, the underground inlet, the blighted mermaid tank, that it of course itwould enter her dreams at some point.
Tonight though, tonight isdifferent. Tonight she dreams of depths, of an ocean so deep there is nogranulated sunlight to illuminate it, and even her comfort with the dark isn’tenough to make it feel less… crushing. She sees in staticky black and whitehere, feels the way the currents tug insistently at her. She has to remindherself that she can breathe.
There’s movement there, in thedepths. It takes up the whole of her vision. It’s just the suggestion of agreat thing slowly winding and unwinding, pulsing slightly as if with laboredbreath. It does not move against the current. It directs it, and it makes herown breath catch in her throat. Not with fear, but with excitement.
When she wakes, she swears shecan still feel it, the current tugging at her, the great thing directing herforwards. The letter appears the next day, and the day after that, she isgone.
12.) Worst Enemy
According to Az’ar, her worst enemies are the Godsthemselves.
The Gods are arbitrary and cruel things, starting and endinglife as it pleases them, for mere entertainment. They set up laws,contradictory and unforgiving, a universe full of pain and misery, and createdsentient creatures to wade through the mud and experience every bit of it.Growing up in the Shadowfell, Az’ar has witnessed it all, and grew to despisethe traditions of the Shadar’kai, the same traditions that honor Hala by tryingto protect the living things she holds so dear, especially from the unnaturalundead things she abhors, the traditions that pretend to honor Her brother bysending them back to His domain, and by dying well.
She left her people, somethingelse that was forbidden, and fought and killed far too many of them in order tocross over to the Prime Material Plane, the tear she made between worldsallowing a few of those undead monstrosities to cross with her. It was aregrettable loss, ones that she lays again at the feet of the Gods; if herpeople had not been obsessed with their supposed sacred duties, they would nothave needed to die.
Az’ar intends to wrest their claws from her chest, by making itso she can never die, and then, she will end their grip on the rest of thePlanes, even if it means killing them. She hope it does. That would be a sweetirony indeed.
23.) Romance
Orianais a romantic. Probably in the classical movement sense as well as in thehopeless romantic sense. She has this ideal of herself: knight in shiningarmor, a blazing paragon of Wahreight’s mercy and light, beating back thedarkness and protecting the innocent.
She also is kind of obsessedwith romance novels, and novels that we might consider romance novels due tothe way books are sold, but, unlike Whisper, prefers the ones that hold a highideal of love than the vulgar. Which isn’t to say she won’t read books with sexin them, only that she prefers more comedies of manners. Jehanne Augere’s Dignityand Discrimination remains her favorite novel (and she finally got a copyof her own the last time we visited Fantasy Half Price Books), and she’s morelikely to blush at the scene where the elven hero confesses his love for thevery human Elisabet. 26.) Beauty
Thecostume is… well. It’s tight. And barely there. Whisper runs her hands thelength of her torso, fingers skimming cut-outs in the shimmering golden fabricat her sides where her midnight skin provides contrast, and she lets out ashuddering breath. She doesn’t know whether its nerves or awe that’s making herstomach clench uncomfortably but… either way.
She sneaks a peak in themirror and looks away almost immediately. Salt and storm, she is glad hermother will never see her in this, or she’d be dead. Brutally and messily andall over the place.
She sneaks another look, outof the corner of her eye at first, then straight on. The leotard is almostblinding in the way the golden cloth catches the light (Ignatius’ choice, nodoubt), small black stitching and sequins giving the illusion of scales downher stomach. At her hips is this strange, diaphanous half-skirt, more like thefrills of a tiger fish than an actual garment. The neckline—if it can be calledthat— plunges far deeper than anything she’s ever worn, and she mutters a quickprayer that she won’t spill out of this thing at an inopportune moment. Or anopportune one. She is not being paid enough for that.
But the effect… She takes astep back, so she can see the whole effect, the golden ribbons wrapped aroundher horns and pinned in her hair, the ridiculous amount of eyeshadow, thestreaks of gold shimmer on her cheeks, she looks… ethereal. Magical. Shestretches one indigo hand out, and her reflection does the same, lightlymeeting her in the mirror. She watches herself smile.
“It looks beautiful on you,”comes a voice from behind her, wobbling like the owner is about to burst intotears. “You look beautiful, Whisper. Just brilliant…”
She whirls around, a scowlslotting into place. “I can’t believe he wants me to wear this, Terrance!”
The huge man doesn’t seem tohear her, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. “Oh, I outdid myself. Just wait until the audience see you. You’re going to dazzle them.”
Whisper laughs under herbreath, and sneaks another look at herself. Okay. Maybe it’s not so bad afterall.
29.) Bedroom (and 11.) Best Friend).
She wasclose, she was so freaking close! If she could just figure out thethaumodynamic stabilizers and the aetheric channels and how to connect them tothe theurgic couplings, then the armor would definitely be finished beforeschool started. Her tongue peaked out of the corner of her mouth as sheconcentrated, wand on one hand, tweezers in the other, a soldering ironfloating above her, held by her mage hand.
The workbench in front of heris littered with such tools, awl and a few other small sharp blades and hergrindstone, linen thread and an assortment of needles, little colored glass ballsshe’d spent weeks making and enchanting so they wouldn’t break when she used them,and small gems that had cost quite a chunk of the money she made from selling herclockwork toys, not to mention all the other tools she didn’t currently needfor this project. The bed next to her, on the other side, had the rest of thearmor, chest plate and second gauntlet, both nearly finished save for the collectorsthat would collect the untethered thaumic energy from the aether.
She’s so close. She can feelit.
“Celandine!” her mother calledfrom downstairs, “Celandine, your friend is here!”
“What?” she freezes, and thewand released the spell it was holding… at the wrong part of the gauntlet. Andsomething started smoking. “Shit!”“Celandine?”
A quick prestidigitation puts the fire out but it definitely smelt like magic gone wrong and scorched leather.“Oh, hell. Coming Mom!”
”I’m sending her up!”
“Shit!” Celandine cast a lookabout her room. Her chairs were full of clothes and her bed was covered in armorand there was spare leather and clothes and books all over the floor and why hadn’tshe learned the invisible servant spell.
“Hey, Celandine? Your Momsaid—” Caela pauses in the doorway, the top of her head nearly brushing thetop of the doorframe. Her eyes widen as she takes in the state of the room.
“I know! It’s messy I’m sorry.I got uh…” she looks down at the gauntlet and then back up at her best friend,smiling weakly. “I forgot you were coming over. I’m sorry.” She puts the gauntleton the workbench and reaches over the small space to her bed, which at leastonly had the breastplate and the other gauntlet on it. “Sit down and give me asecond, I’ll have this place tidied up in a…”
But Caela is already bendingover, gathering up the nearest books that had fallen over. “It’s okay. I’llhelp. Why don’t you tell me what you were working on?”And Celandine beams.
30.) Sex
Oriana pressesthe pillow harder over her head, trying to block out the sound from the onlyother bed in the room. Since she’d been knighted in the service of Wahreight,she’d been moved out of the general barracks and into a shared room;unfortunately, her roommate decided that that was enough privacy in order tocarry on her… assignations with one of the paladins still in training. And theidea of actually talking to Ritika about it was blighted mortifying, so hereshe lies, pillows piled on her head, face burning as she tried to pretend shewas not hearing what she was hearing.
34.) AffectionIt’s not that Whisper’s family was not affectionate. Sheremembers her father’s hand on her head, her mother’s approving smile. Hugsfrom her brothers, kisses on her forehead from the governess. But compared tothe carnival, her family was as touched-starved as any dwarf.
Affection wasphysical and platonic and above all, free among them, holding hands and huggingfor no reason, kisses on cheeks and foreheads and lips, giant cuddle piles inone of the main tents the afternoon after a big show, all of them just waitingfor the inevitable cry to start packing up.
And the sex. Oh, seaand storms, the sex. There was just so much of it. After the first year she’dgone from having sex once in her entire life to having had more partners thanshe could count, of so many genders, in several different… permutations. Things would just…escalate. Someone would be feeling bad and a cuddle pile or a platonic kisswould turn into make-you-feel-better sex, someone would decide that they wereboard and seek someone out, or two people would be fighting and suddenly they’dbe up against the wall (that happened with Ignatius and a few of the othersmore than she would care to admit), or they’d be coming down off a high of asuccessful heist or a show, adrenaline still singing high gospel within them,and next thing you knew you’d be tearing off someone’s clothes. Maybeseveral someone’s.
But the real world doesn’twork that way. And after a bad experience or two on her way to Hazelscar, she isthoroughly aware of that. Most people don’t like being touched.
She meets Adoraor and Keithiafirst, and she makes sure to keep her hands to herself. Even when Adoraor isbleeding out and she has the stupid idea to stick a knife in his chest to seeif it’ll heal him, because, hey, it worked on that orc, or when Keithia (notThia, not yet) places a hand on her shoulder to press healing magic, warm andtingling, into her skin. Not even when they’re barring the door of a cold stonechamber and waiting out the night, and she knows she could stop them both fromshivering.
She’s almost starving from it,achingly aware of where people are in relation to her at all times. She finallygives in and hugs Keithia about two weeks in. She feels Keithia freeze up for ahalf a second and she closes her eyes, waiting for the rejection, before Keithiasqueezes back, just for a second, before she eases back. Whisper has to forceherself not to cling, to let her new friend go.
Oriana, she learns, hatesbeing touched at all and the boys are weird about it, so she has to make ithigh fives and playful slaps and punches to the arm. She can hug Frank, atleast, he’s not strange about it. Sing-songtoo, until he vanishes.
She nearly cries when it getscold enough that they have to huddle in the Magnificent Bubble (also screw Leomund,she’s the one casting the spell, she’ll call it what she wants), and the Bubbleis just big enough for them. If they huddle. It’s almost like the piles she’sused to, and she plays it off with a few sighs and rolled eyes, but when sheends up cuddled next to Twiggy and Isao of all people, she has to bury her headin her arms, so no one will see her face. It’s almost good enough.
#lyra the half-elven rogue#whisper the tiefling sorceress#oriana the aasimar paladin#az'ar the shadar kai wizard#celandine the gnomish wizard!#sprin'torel campaign#eberron high#whatever the hell this is#ask me anything!#character asks#sometimes kori writes things#islanderscaper
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Review, from Book to Film: The Mountain Between Us
[**Serious spoilers ahead**]
So, last week I read Charles Martin’s The Mountain Between Us and on Saturday went with my mum to see the film. We both agreed afterwards that the credits should’ve said “loosely based on the novel” as the similarities were akin to a preliminary rough sketch that captures the general details and goes on to fudge the rest.
They changed a lot, both in terms of stripping away layers from the original story and adding things to create something new and awkward. This goes beyond the inherent need to cut down on content when adapting a book into a film. Here’s some of the changes:
The Names
So many names were changed, which I half understand because this is clearly not the same story as Charles Martin wrote so why pretend they’re the same characters, and half confuses me because why bother? Ashley Knox became Alex Martin, Ben Payne became Ben Bass (even though I only recall hearing his surname mentioned once near the end of the film), Grover the pilot became Walter, Rachel (Ben’s wife) became Sarah, Vince (Ashley’s fiancé) became Mark, and the dog named Tank – whose name they couldn’t remember so they called him Napoleon – was stripped of a name entirely (not to mention transformed from a Jack Russel to a Labrador).
The Occupations
Ashley Knox is a writer and Ben Payne is an orthopaedic surgeon, whereas Alex Martin is a journalist photographer and Ben Bass is a neurosurgeon. See Heart/Mind below for the significance on Ben’s occupational shift. Alex’s career alteration seems to be so the characters can use her camera to see further, so she can send photos of Ben to him near the end of the film and for the inclusion of a story I wasn’t sure what to make of where Alex explains befriending a young female guerrilla fighter and lending her lipstick, and later seeing the girl die and taking her photograph.
The Set-up
The book gives Ben and Ashley some time in the airport at the start to get to know each other and establish the characters and their motivations to get out of Salt Lake that night. It makes it believable that when Ben sees a charter plane and organises a flight, he thinks of Ashley who needs to get home for her wedding and is stuck in Salt Lake waiting to get to a hotel, and offers her a ride. The film gives us a glimpse of a busy airport, a frustrated Alex overhearing Ben talking about a surgery he has booked for the following morning, and approaching this stranger and proposing a charter flight. It’s rushed and feels contrived, and worst of all shifts the blame for the ill-fated flight to Alex.
Walter the pilot is given a miniscule amount of screen time, explaining that he met the love of his life a long time ago but she was already married so he’s alone. He suffers a stroke while flying and his passengers try to stabilise the plane as they crash. Grover the pilot, however, is a happily married man who explains that he is more in love with his wife now than when they married, who has been recently having chest pain which Ben makes him promise to have checked out as soon as possible. He experiences a heart attack while flying and somehow manages to crash land the plane as safely as possible (“off-screen” so to speak, the crash isn’t written), saving the lives of his passengers. Walter’s death is unfortunate but impersonal, and his burial by Ben is brisk to say the least. Grover’s burial, however, is treated with reverence by Ben as he finds a suitable place overlooking the mountain landscape, and gathers Grover’s possessions to later return to Grover’s wife.
The Expertise
Ben Payne loves hiking, and is a skilled outdoorsman. His supplies and skills are what keep himself and Ashley alive, including a Jetboil stove, sleeping bags, his use of Grover’s crossbow and Ben’s handcrafted bow drill. For some reason, in the film Alex has a large pack containing some camping gear with no explanation provided (we can assume this is somehow linked to her work), but neither Ben nor Alex talk particularly about any camping or survival skills. The only food they “hunt” is the cougar Alex and the nameless dog kill in self-defence, so most of the time the topic of food is just ignored. While Ben’s improvised snowshoes (followed later by finding real snowshoes) help them immensely in the book, they somehow make it across the landscape fine without them and with Alex hobbling in the film, and show Ben try briefly and fail to make snowshoes. The survival of Alex and Ben in the film is pure luck.
Ben is stripped not only of his camping and practical abilities, but as a neurosurgeon instead of an orthopaedic surgeon his medical skills are diminished as well. For the majority of the film, his medical care consists of pressing ice against one of Alex’s wounds once, wrapping and splinting her leg and primarily dabbing her face with a cloth. He does give the dog stitches, but does not for Alex or himself. The only glimmer of his original ingenuity and medical skill is when he constructs an improvised IV to save Alex after she falls through ice, and it feels weirdly out of place after the rest of the film works so hard to show that Ben isn’t much of a practical person and is kind of doing everything begrudgingly.
Importantly, his role of carer is removed almost entirely, helping Alex pull down her pants once to urinate and then disposing of the urine, and having Alex lean on him during their trek across the snowy landscape. This is because her injuries are reduced to superficial scratches and a break in her lower leg instead of femur. She operates on crutches, able to walk independently of Ben, and only for a brief time near the end of their journey is she dragged on a sled. This is a huge difference to the book. Ashley is entirely dependent on Ben’s care, which he carries the guilt for as he was the one who chartered the flight and encouraged her to come along.
Rachel and the Recorder
Very late in the book (later than necessary in my opinion), Ben reveals to Ashley that his wife Rachel passed away years ago. While pregnant with twins, Ben and Rachel are told that due to a medical complication she is likely to die if she attempts to carry the babies to term. On the slight chance that she and her children will survive, Rachel chooses not to have surgery. Ben doesn’t agree with her decision, they argue, and soon after Rachel and the twins die. Ben is revealed to have constructed a “house” (mausoleum) for her and their children.
Rachel is embedded throughout the book – Ben can’t go a single chapter without thinking of her, sometimes talking to Ashley about her, and regularly talking to Rachel and reminiscing on their shared past via voice recordings on a recorder she gave him. The recorder is a centrepiece of the book. Ben is continually making new, lengthy recordings which are also used as gateways into Ben’s past for the reader.
The film ditches all of this completely. The recorder is just a device for Alex to invade Ben’s privacy, listening to a message his wife Sarah left him to find out more about Ben. When Ben catches her, we hear the full message and Ben reveals that Sarah died of a brain tumour, and (as a neurosurgeon and her primary doctor) he couldn’t save her. Sarah is barely ever mentioned before or after this, and this avoidance of the subject with Alex, and Ben’s inability to save her, plays directly into the film’s focus: the dichotomy of heart versus mind.
Heart/Mind
Instead of taking the characters from the pages of Charles Martin’s book and putting them on the screen, the filmmakers created two new characters – or perhaps vacant shells is more accurate – and used them to illustrate a poorly executed display of Heart versus Mind. It goes like this:
One character represents Heart. They are emotional, impulsive, and often female (Alex). They follow their gut.
One character represents Mind. They are logical, rational and distant, and often male (Ben). They repress their emotions.
The film is really heavy-handed on this one. Ben is literally a neurosurgeon. He makes a stilted comment near the start about playing Candy Crush to occupy his amygdala just to make it clear to the audience that he’s intelligent, sees things scientifically and maybe doesn’t relate to other people very well. As always, the filmmakers are on the side of Heart, showing that even though Alex’s impulsive decision to take the charter flight and invite Ben along went badly, her gut instincts are right and Ben should be more emotional like her. Case in point: Alex insists on leaving the crash site as the best chance of survival, while Ben insists that in the event of a crash you should stay there to be found. Alex is later proven right when the plane’s beacon is shown to be destroyed. (See also the above Expertise: in the book, Ben explains to Ashley that they will need to leave as he knows that the usual advice is to stay at a crash site, but realises that the beacon wouldn’t have survived the speed of their crash).
Essentially this dichotomy also sets up Ben and Alex for the typical Hollywood romance formula of the couple stranded together who initially dislike each other, eventually bonding through their shared struggle. Cue unwanted sex scene interspersed with random shots of the two of them walking through the snowy wilderness together. This is followed by the two of them agreeing that he should leave Alex there and continue on his own to get help, and him literally turning around and going back insisting to bring her too as some sign that he’s come to care for her and is maybe shifting away from pure Mind towards Heart.
For those who haven’t read the book, Ben and Ashley get along quite well from the very beginning, their shared humour helps keep both of their spirits up and he repeatedly refuses to leave Ashley. Their bond is realistic, underpinned by genuine friendship and compassion. Additionally, a few times Ben’s impulsive decisions are shown to end badly, such as near the end of their journey when he attempts to take a shortcut down the mountain resulting in re-breaking Ashley’s leg and nearly suffocating himself.
The Ending
Oh man the ending. The filmmakers could’ve/should’ve cut out three-quarters of the ending and used that time back at the start for a better paced set-up. Instead, the audience is subjected to a lengthy period after the main characters have been rescued, showing the difficulties of readjusting to their old lives and struggling to communicate with each other. We get to watch Alex being uncomfortable around her fiancé, and Ben being sad about Alex seemingly returning to her old life (and fiancé) with no acknowledgement of their sexy times in the mountains. After Ben finally contacts Alex after ignoring her calls, they have an awkward lunch (well, they sit in a restaurant and don’t eat) where they ultimately walk away before both executing a dramatic turn-around, running back to each other and embracing – cut to black. That was a lot of build-up for not very much, but then this whole film is guilty of making changes to ramp up the drama and conflict at the expense of substance.
Bonus: here are some other things I didn’t mention:
Ben is no longer from Jacksonville, he’s from London (to fit in Idris Elba, I assume)
All backstories surgically removed
Most of the details of the journey completely changed, including the addition of going around a river and Ashley falling through ice into the lake
Jump-scare in the form of Ben stepping into a bear trap
No pilot’s wife means Ben just keeps the nameless dog
The huge shift from Ben being the focal character and lens through which we see the entire story, to Alex being the main character
Offshoot of that, Alex is given more agency than Ashley in the book, but as a result she ends up less likeable (more argumentative, less friendly, more nosy, less reasonable)
TL;DR: The film characters are caricatures, their survival is a fluke and I need someone who hasn’t read the book to tell me if the film is at all worthwhile on its own.
#review#it feels good to write again#The Mountain Between Us#book to film#mine#writing#film#book#critique#Charles Martin#my writing
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