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angel-tries-to-write · 29 days

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Bisexual disasters

Fandom: Assassin’s Creed Rating: General Pairing: Jacob Frye x Reader (not quite, can be platonic) Word count: 1501 Genre: fluff

In Victorian England, people who love differently, aren't really welcomed. Thankfully, the Rooks have different opinions.

Underground London would always follow its own rules. What was forbidden among the upper class, was common in places like this. It also meant it was fun, because nobles rarely knew how to have fun. The clock in this bar was showing almost eleven in the night, but you knew the real fun hadn't started yet. That night you wanted to take it slow, so you were sipping your ale when the others switched to something stronger already. You were fine with what you had, after all you wanted to get relaxed, not wrecked.

Apparently Jacob had similar plans, though he already had whisky, he was sipping it much slower than usual. But what didn't change was a bunch of omnipresent Rooks surrounding him, though the closest spots were taken by enamored young women who looked at the Assassin with adoration, they were drinking in his presence rather than drink alcohol like everyone else. You could also notice a group of men by the window, they were whispering and watching the scene with amusement. You assumed they were making fun of the girls and their loud gasps every time Jacob was flirting with one of them. And the more drunk he was getting, the more flirty he would become.

Suddenly one of the men from the distant group stood up, emptied his mug and approached Jacob. You could tell he was nervous.

“Boss, may I have a request?” he asked and Frye looked at him for a moment, then smirked.

“Ask whatever you want, lad” he answered and the poor guy got even more nervous. You observed it with curiosity.

“M-may I ask it privately? I mean, I...” he sighed. “I've lost a bet and I need to do something, but I don't want to lose my place among the Rooks” he explained with cheeks redder every moment. Jacob stood up and came close to the lad, then pulled him out of the prying ears. They talked for a brief moment, then Jacob approached the group by the window and he was rather upset. You had left your spot and moved closer to them, so you would be able to hear what they were talking about. The gang leader leaned on the table and looked at the young men.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, boss! We just wanted him to do something and confront his fears. We had no ill will, we swear, Rook's honor!” said one of them and the others nodded vigorously. Jacob looked at the lad, seeking for confirmation in his face. As soon as he had found it, the Assassin stepped back from the table, pulled the man close and kissed him shamelessly.

You couldn't believe your eyes. That huge flirt and womanizer was kissing a man. Unbelievable. But the more shocking was that no one around them actually cared. The guy's friends were shocked, but not offended, they were more surprised than disgusted. You couldn't take it anymore, you needed to leave, now. The sound of your chair moving rapidly drew more attention than Jacob's action, but you couldn't care less. You stormed outside, not bothering if someone saw you or not, you needed some air, you needed to calm down. Your head was spinning, your mind was a mess, and you didn't know what to think anymore.

Suddenly you heard footsteps behind your back, but you didn't turn around to see who it was. It's not like you had to, Jacob revealed himself pretty soon, when he called after you.

“(Y/n), what's wrong?” he asked. You didn't answer, only started to walk faster, then run. “(Y/n), wait!” he ran after you and soon he grabbed your hand, stopping you. “What happened? Why are you running away?” he asked, trying to understand what was going on.

“Why did you do that?” you asked instead.

“(Y/n), I...”

“Why would you do that? And so casually, like it was nothing, when we both know it's a big thing! You were not supposed to do that, then why did you do it?” you kept asking, not noticing the raise of your voice.

“What's gotten into you?”

“Just tell me. Please.” You looked at him with desperation in your eyes. You needed to know the answers.

“I just felt like it” he shrugged. “The boy is cute and he really should stop overthinking stuff.”

“Are you... do you... like... uh...” you tried to ask but the words kept stucking in your throat.

“Do I like men? Honestly, I don't know. It's all so wrong and messed up. But I think I do. And I like women too. It's confusing” he confessed. “But why did it upset you?”

“I'm sorry. It's not about you, it's about me” you admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“I... I understand this confusion. I've been feeling it my whole life. I like men, but there was always something drawing me to women either” you confessed and you could see Jacob's face changing from concern and confusion to understanding and relief. “When I saw you kissing that lad, I just couldn't take it anymore. All those feelings I've been trying to hide and get rid of through all my life just overwhelmed me.”

“Come here” Jacob opened his arms, offering you a hug. You hesitantly accepted his offer, but soon you had found peace in his embrace. “You have no idea how much it means to me. I have never met someone who would feel like I do.”

“Neither have I.”

“Can we go back to the pub?”

“Yes. I think I owe everyone an explanation.”

“Good point.”

You came back to the place you had left and the first thing you did was to find the lad Jacob had kissed. When you saw him miserably drinking his ale, you nearly ran there.

“Hey, I just wanted to say sorry for storming out like that. I can imagine you might have thought that it was your fault, but I swear it wasn't. You just helped me understand something about myself” you said smiling sheepishly and the guy smiled with relief.

“It's alright, miss (y/n). The Rooks have a lot of space for people who love differently and that's why I love this gang. So many people who don't judge and just let us be ourselves... It's nice”

“It is. But until tonight I was convinced I would always have to hide who I am”

“You have nothing to worry about” the lad's friend spoke. “In this gang either are the ones who love differently or we fully support those who do. Even the boss.”

“What do you mean?” you asked

“Jacob is not very discreet. It wasn't hard to figure out that he's into men as well as women. Of course, no one speaks loudly about it, but no one judges as well. You either accept it or leave the Rooks. That's a rule.”

“I'm surprised it's commonly known.”

“It is. Most of us are open about our preferences.”

“Well, I wish now I knew this earlier. I love like this either and I thought it's not something I should ever talk about.”

“We all did” some other guy spoke. “But once you're one of us, you can stop worrying about it.”

“Thanks.” You smiled with relief. After years of living in fear and shame, it felt nice to be in a supportive environment. You felt like you were freed from some shackles, and like you could finally be truly yourself.

A couple of days later, you were sitting in a pub with Jacob once again. But this time, both of you were having a great time, chatting about stuff. You were telling him a really funny story about one of your fights with Blighters, when suddenly you trailed off and forgot the rest of your words. Your attention was caught by a gorgeous woman, who's just entered the pub and you couldn't help but stare at her. Until you realized Jacob was laughing at you.

“I see your new identity suits you well” he joked.

“Oh, shut it. Did you forget how you almost fell off the roof last week, when you noticed a cute girl on the street?” you reminded him.

“And you were laughing so hard that you almost fell off the roof yourself.”

“She wasn't even that pretty.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Me? Jealous? I think you've had too much alcohol.” You shook your head.

“Oh my... wow...” he said and you thought he was teasing you further, but you noticed him looking above you. When you turned around, you saw a guy undressing, as if he was preparing to fight.

“Woah, he's hot” you commented and Jacob nodded.

“Not as hot as the girl you spotted, but indeed, he's quite attractive” he admitted.

“Is this how our relationship is going to look like? Drooling over attractive people and comparing our findings?” you half joked and Jacob shrugged.

“Are you complaining about that?”

“Not at all. Actually, I quite like that. Cheers.”

#my fic #assassin's creed #jacob frye x reader #jacob frye

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aurorawest · 3 months

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2023 Reading Wrap-Up

Is it February of 2024? Yes! Am I still going to post my favorite books that I read in 2023? Also yes!

Ginn Hale's Cadeleonian Series, the second half of which I read in 2023: Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book Two; Master of Restless Shadows, Book One; and Master of Restless Shadows, Book Two

This series begins with Lord of the White Hell and continues with Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, then concludes with Master of Restless Shadows. Each duology follows a different set of characters, but it's a true series so you need to read them in order. It's a toss-up for me whether I preferred Champion of the Scarlet Wolf or Master of Restless Shadows. Both are fantastic duologies. I particularly loved getting Atreau's story in Master because he's sort of an unlikable playboy-esque character in the preceding books...but wait! Turns out there's more to him after all.

After Francesco by Brian Malloy

Who would think a book about living through the AIDS epidemic in NYC in the 80s would be as funny as this book is? It will also tear your heart out and stomp on it. Also takes place partly in Minneapolis (and is by a Minnesotan author).

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

Folklorist meets the Green Man and they fall in love. This is the first half of a duology, the second being Drowned Country, which I just finished today so can't included it on my 2023 wrap-up. All the dark and violent whimsy of the mythic past and the most brutal versions of fairy tales, plus a lovely romance.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Imagine the love child of Lost, Person of Interest, and Battlestar Galactica, but queer and with multiverse shenanigans thrown in (the author has cited Ender's Game as a huge influence). I don't want to say anything more than that, because I feel strongly that you need to go into this book knowing nothing. The twists and turns are so good, the main trio are wonderful, complicated characters, and the world is super cool.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

In some ways the most heartbreaking of Pulley's novels. Also probably her most dreamy and magical. It's my least favorite of her books, but my least favorite Natasha Pulley book still ended up on my best of 2023 reading list.

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

This book awakened in me a latent love of Soviet queers. You'll see this book filed under sci-fi by booksellers, but it isn't really—it's historical fiction about a very real nuclear disaster in the USSR that was covered up for decades. Like all of Pulley's books, the characters are deeply complicated and flawed. The pleasure is really in reading the way she tells a story and her beautiful use of language, so even if you're not interested in Soviet nuclear disasters, I absolutely recommend you read this. Also, you'll probably be interested in Soviet nuclear disasters when you're done.

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

Haha, you thought The Watchmaker of Filigree Street punched you in the chest with feels? Get ready for the sequel, which will have you Curled Into A Sobbing Ball On The Floor™. Join Thaniel Steepleton, Keita Mori, and their adopted Waifish Victorian Orphan, Six, as they go to Japan, where things are weird, there are ghosts, and Thaniel and Mori still somehow don't understand what they mean to each other.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

"What if France won the Napoleonic Wars because of time travelers" shouldn't have shattered me the way this book did, but of course it's a Natasha Pulley novel so it absolutely did. Missouri Kite is the most Gay Little Man™. And Joe, poor Joe. The PINING. The YEARNING. When the reveal happens, I had to go back and read prior sections of the book and good god do they hit different. Different and SADDER. This book is my favorite of Natasha Pulley's novels.

Tommy Cabot Was Here and Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian

The first two books in Cat Sebastian's The Cabots series. The books are historical fiction that follow various queer men in the Cabot family. The Cabots are one of those old money, liberal New England families—think Kennedys. Both books are about Sad Gay Men™ finding love in soft, tiptoeing Cat Sebastian fashion. Peter Cabot is a road trip romance and a bit longer, so the characters have some time to breathe.

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly

This was probably a Stucky fic at one point, right? I mean. No shade though, truly! This was my favorite romcom that I read in 2023. It was also a comp for Strangers to Husbands, haha. I love the setting—hiking the Pacific Crest Trail—and I love the main characters, Alexei and Ben. Alexei came out to his family recently and got rejected, while Ben is from a big, accepting Portuguese family. Funny, touching, and an excellent love story.

Cattle Stop by Kit Oliver

Looks like a romcom but will stab you in the heart repeatedly. Kit Oliver has a gorgeous way with words and captures the dynamic between two people who have no idea how to talk to each other so well. I'm also a sucker for farm settings.

The Sugared Game and Subtle Blood by KJ Charles (The Will Darling Adventures)

I've read almost all of KJ Charles's books at this point, but the Will Darling Adventures are my favorites (I read the first book in the series in 2022). I love the combination of romance and action/adventure. I've never met a m/m book set in the interwar period that I haven't loved. Will and Kim are wonderful characters, and sometimes I think about what other adventures they had after book three ended.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. There's a road trip, a family dinner, and FEELS. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. Remember how I said I love Soviet queers? Here's another example.

Wranglestone and Timberdark by Darren Charlton

What if the real dystopia isn't the zombie apocalypse, but "normal" life? I don't know if I've ever read a YA series that sucker-punched me as hard as this one. I know I've never read a zombie book that sucker-punched me as hard as this one. I don't think these books have even been published in the US (only in the UK), but if you can get your hands on them, they're worth it. Really beautifully written in a style that evokes the emptiness of the great national parks of the American west.

Honorable mentions:

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

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villain-sympathizer · 11 months

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Hey, hello. Any chance I can get a nsfw hc or a confession of love with mr Compress? (Or both) 😁

I love this man so much.

YES ugh i love him so much too you have no idea 😭💕

i started writing this as general / romantic headcanons before realizing you asked for NSFW so uh, surprise! you got so much more content now! SDKFJHSDF blame (or praise) my adhd for not fuckin comprehending the entire question first

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Mr. Compress General / Romantic / NSFW headcanons

This post contains NSFW content, so minors DNI! [not to mention mans is like, 32 yrs old so y'all shouldn't be shipping urself w/ him anyway]

────── ･｡ﾟ: .☽ . : ｡ﾟ･ ──────

General

This man is eccentric - that's a fact. So of course he’s likely to talk with big flowery words and large hand gestures to accentuate his topic of conversation - regardless of how much or little needed to be said

Like I said, he talks with his hands, A LOT, and he also likes to walk around or pace while he talks as well

Probably has ADHD but that’s likely just me projecting lmao

Obviously a theatre guy, adores musicals and old fashioned plays

If he were to have a Spotify it would be full of musical theater show tunes, both modern and retro

Everyone says he’s inept at technology, but I say that's just modern tech. He’s got an old laptop, a CD player, an old MP3 player (filled with musical show tunes and other indie stuff), and of course: a Nokia

He has a modern smartphone courtesy of the League, but he only uses it for phone calls and texts since he has no idea how nor want to use anything else on it unless necessary

Somehow both a fashion icon and disaster. Theatre kids, y’know?

Really only calls himself an old man due to the fact he talks like he just got transported from the Victorian era; because seriously, being in your 30s is not at all old

Despite always having his face covered, he takes great care in his complexion and appearance. Lots of skincare products, lotions, soaps, creams, etc.

Before the whole ordeal with the League, he would always join a community theater as a hobby! He adored doing silly little play sketches for charity or volunteering as a drama coach. He even directed some small local plays himself! (Under a pseudonym, of course)

Romantic

I headcanon him as gay, or at the very least bi/pan with a strong lean towards men

Love language is words of affirmation and gift giving! I mean, he’s such a talker that his love for speech is bound to extend to his partner. And he’s a master thief, so of course he’s going to steal only the best for his lover. They just have to say the word, and it’s in front of them the next day

Such a romantic, in the most classy yet extravagant way. Romantic candle lit dinner? Of course! But it’s at the top of the tallest building in the city with a gorgeous view of the moonlit ocean and bustling city all at once

Will absolutely do the cheesy magician move of pulling flowers out of his sleeve or hat and bows as he presents them to his partner, and no matter how many times he does this - which is at LEAST twice a week - his partner will always find it so charming

His partner will hopefully be willing to deal with his criminal record that only continues to grow, because he doesn’t plan on stopping

And if his partner wishes or does work alongside him as a thief/League villain? Incredible! Romantic! It’s like a Bonnie and Clyde type duo!

Just as long as his partner understands that he can and WILL compress them into a marble if things get too dangerous

Doesn’t often get jealous, or at least doesn’t make it obvious. When it IS obvious, it’s honestly adorable because he gets so pouty and clingy. Might even purposefully put on his frowning mask just to make a point, especially if his partner still hasn’t noticed how awfully and truly upset and ignored he is :’(

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Below here are the NSFW headcanons!

NSFW

Tops and bottoms equally, but leans towards service dom most times. However, it’s VERY easy to get him into a submissive, begging mess

With a few well placed touches and hushed words whispered in his ear, his partner can have them as putty in their hands

While he’s a romantic and would prefer being slow and intimate, he’s also secretly into quickies and fast, yet passionate sex

His kinks are a little all over the place and in some cases a bit strange. While he’s into more mainstream stuff like sensory play and roleplay, he’s also into things like frotting, clothed sex, semi-public sex, consensual exhibitionism, orgies, hands-free orgasms, using quirks during sex, all that sorta stuff

More than willing to wear the mask during sex - loves the sense of mystery it can bring

Before he was with his partner, he was super into alley quickies with complete strangers

Buzzed/drunk sex is something he likes, just with how often he drinks wine or champagne

#bnha x reader #mr. compress x reader #mha x reader #mr. compress #sako atsuhiro #sako atsuhiro x reader #bnha #mha #x reader #dame writes #mr. compress headcanons #nsft #minors dni #smut

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crystallinearts · 6 months

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so hey guys, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year! if you want, come be writing buddies with me! https://nanowrimo.org/participants/aj-strong

and check out my latest project, which I'm hoping will be my first published novel (if I'm able to publish it for people to read for free somewhere uwu), The Lovely Disaster Sideshow! It's a mystery, horror, adventure, historical, weird mishmash that takes place in a Victorian Era circus!

Here's the cover, and below the cut are some bullet-point details about the main characters!! Let me know what you think so far, and... well, get ready for me to do very little else throughout November XD

ABIGAIL HUGHES AND EULALIA "LALI" HUGHES

Mother and daughter protagonists

Abigail (late 20s) is missing a hand and Lali (6 years old) is unable to speak due to trauma (Abigail’s missing hand and Lali’s trauma are both from the accident which killed Abigail’s husband)

They fill the jobs of whatever needs done within the circus after joining; cooking, mending, running errands

Abigail occasionally performs with Bharata after he teaches her tricks on how to live without one hand

Lali enjoys working with Estelle and Cedar particularly, but the entire circus is protective of her as their youngest member

Native English

RINGMASTER

The circus ringleader, the master of ceremonies who runs shows and hires new workers

A friendly fellow (late 30s-early 40s) who welcomes anyone into the circus, regardless of disabilities or age, as long as they can work in some way or another

Creative in describing the sideshows to attract the attention of the public

In reality a cold, calculating bigot who is bitter toward, resentful of, and disgusted by the ‘freaks’ he employs in the circus

Native English

GWYNN

“The Eyeless Albino” visual oddity (pure white hair, no eyes)

A young man (early 20s) who is completely albino and was born without any eyes

He is entirely blind and relies on other people (most often Bharata and Siobhan) to help him around, though he’s learned to navigate most of the circus by sound as long as he has landmarks to go by; new areas confuse him until he learns the layout

His skin burns incredibly easily, meaning he often carries a parasol to block sun rays even when it’s cloudy

(His parasol also double functions as a makeshift cane) Welsh and a little English

SIOBHAN

“A Marvelous Mouth” sword swallower and fire breather

A young woman (early 30s) who is a former prostitute, leading the Ringmaster to capitalize on her relaxed gag reflex to make her into a sword swallower (and, occasionally when the shows need that extra oomph, fire breather)

Quite heavily tattooed, at least for the time period, she sports many tattoos on her arms, legs, back, and hands, as well as one on her neck; this causes many people to view her as a degenerate and adds to her ‘freakishness’ for the circus

Irish

CAIN AND ABEL

“Two-For-One Twins” visual oddity (conjoined twins)

Two young men (mid 20s) joined at the hip, they’re unable to be separated and sometimes have issues with moving around; they have separate bodies (two arms each, two legs each, separate torsos, separate heads, etc.) but their bodies are fused at the hip and doctors have all told them separation is too risky

They get along fairly well, with the occasional sibling fights, though they feel isolated even from the rest of the circus, stemming from only having had each other for most of their lives, especially given that they were the most recent additions before Abigail and Lali

Native English

ESTELLE

“Silent Angel” trapeze artist

A young woman (early 20s) who is almost entirely deaf and can only hear (barely) if someone is shouting right next to her ear, she cannot speak very well and prefers to communicate in other ways

She can’t read or write, but she’s made up her own variety of gestures (basically an individual sign language) to speak with the other circus performers, and she can read lips quite well

Short, petite, and kind… and will simply walk away from anyone who treats her or her friends cruelly

Spends hours teaching Lali her individual sign language, so that Lali can communicate even though she’s too traumatized to speak verbally

French and English

BHARATA

“One-Armed Wonder” knife thrower

A young man (late 20s) who has only one arm, and is perceived by many others as very clumsy; every household he’s worked for has set him up to fail by assigning him tasks that simply can’t be done with just one arm, leading him to find a belonging in the circus

Wanting to prove everyone wrong, he trained to do something that others thought couldn’t be done with only one arm: knife throwing… and is very good at it

He’s sympathetic toward Abigail and tries to teach her every single tip he has about how to live without one arm/hand

Indian

CEDAR

“Crystal Ball” fortune teller/palm reader/astrologist

A young nonbinary person (mid 20s) who was ostracized from society when they refused to answer to ‘she’, who ran away from home after their parents tried to beat them into conforming

No physical disability aside from dysphoria (which is obviously helped when they’re around supportive people who respect what they want to be called), and very supportive themself of the people in the circus who do have disabilities

Rather easygoing in terms of interacting with other people, they tend to simply go with the flow, but they’re also incredibly perceptive which is what makes them such a good fortune teller; while they do study palmistry, astrology, and tarot, they also employ the use of cold reading techniques (“might as well take advantage of all the gifts I have, including observation, right?”)

Native English

SALEM

“The Lizard Man” visual oddity (has X-linked ichthyosis resulting in scale-like skin)

A man (late 30s) who was cast out from society because of his strange appearance, stemming from his medical condition; people have been ‘terrified’ of his looks before, not to mention fearing that whatever he has is ‘contagious’ (despite him knowing from experience that he’s not)

Soft-spoken and gentle in general, but if one hits the right buttons he’s very capable of getting violent, particularly in defense of his friends

He has anywhere from 1-3 animals (that he’s nursing back to health) in his tent at any one time, even though he’s allergic to anything with fur… he has a soft spot for reptiles, though he adores all animals

Native English

#Bellum babbles #writers on Tumblr #NaNoWriMo 2023 #genuinely so excited!! <3

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steinbecks · 5 months

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preliminary thoughts on aco/tar (35 chapters into the book)

fey/re is the worst. self-centered. a gaping black hole at the center of the universe. insecure in a way that makes me hate her (boohoohoo tam/lin might've fucked someone prettier than me before he ever met me. me who is skinny with a straight nose and soft lips and sharp, high cheekbones!! ME. CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE SOBSTORY McHOT GIRL. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?) boring. stupid. her diction contradicts her literal inability to read and her forest huntress lifestyle. I miss katniss with every fiber of my being, and i wish F. tremendous ill.

WHAT makes F better than all her sisters that her mother made her swear a vow to care for them? she assumes the worst of her family at all times. at the same time, her family is so Mean and Evil it verges on parody rather than serious complex family dynamics

tam/lin and luc/ien have no personality to speak of. they are generic "tanned" hot men with many muscles, none personality left beef, and i wish them both ill as well.

SJM should be banned from using the words feral and lethal. the prose leaves so very many things to be desired, at all turns.

none of this worldbuilding makes any sense whatsoever, at any point in time. is it regency era? victorian? gothic medieval? are F. and her family part of a mercantile merchant class? (the answer is yes, but "aristocracy" and "wealth" are treated as identical bc SJM didn't think about any of this.) is this a feudal society? pre-industrial? anything at all that would situate this in any kind of time or place for reference???

BONES ARE NOT STICKS YOU CAN'T SNAP THEM OVER YOUR KNEE LIKE POOL CUES!!!! I HATE THIS!!!!

both the character development and the pacing (exposition vs. events) are a disaster. everyone stops mid-conversation to deliver the most hamfisted and convoluted "tragic backstories" of all time.

when rice/sand was introduced as the most beautiful man to have ever beautiful manned, i thought of sephiroth. and he will not stop being sephiroth, because that would save this, i think.

ne/sta's one mid-book scene where she tells F. about trying to save her is like, the single saving grace, a shining point in the middle of the book. surprise, F.! the sister you decry as an evil bitch loves you more than you thought.

#texty post

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eirinstiva · 1 year

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The word "Queer" and the Holmes brothers

One thing that I like about reading Sherlock Holmes' stories in English through Letters from Watson is the use of the word "queer", because in Spanish is translated to "extraño, raro" if the meaning is "strange" and as "queer" if we talk about someone or something non cis-het. Let's see some examples in past letters from my dear friend Watson:

“Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough.”

-Stamford about Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet

In this case the text is bold is translated as "Es un hombre de ideas raras". In another letter we have this:

The Inspector shrugged his shoulders. "I don't quite know, sir. Between ourselves, I think Mr Holmes had not quite got over his illness yet. He's been behaving very queerly, and he is very much excited."

-Inspector Forrester about Sherlock in The Reigate Squires

Due to context is translated as "strange" in "Ha estado comportándose de una manera muy extraña".

What happens with this quote?

"The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of the queerest men."

-Sherlock about his brother Mycroft in The Greek Interpreter

It's translated as "El «Club Diógenes» es el club más raro de Londres, y Mycroft uno de sus miembros más raros." Again the translator choose "weird" as meaning.

The first time I read this in English was as a quote in Graham Robb's book Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century. There's a footnote about this word in chapter 10 "Heroes of Modern Life":

Well, the ✨magic✨ is lost in Spanish. Sadly I lost the double meaning of Mycroft's description the first time I read this story in my native language, and now as a queer person myself (disaster bisexual) I can't hide my smile when I read it just like some queer victorian people when The Greek Interpreter was published in 1893.

[Robb's book is available in Spanish as Extraños. Amores Homosexuales en el siglo XIX by editorial Fondo de Cultura Económica.]

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grapecaseschoices · 6 months

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Idk if you've been asked this before but what would you like to see more of in IF genre wise and RO wise. Are there any tropes you wish were more prevalent or genres?

i may have? [i think so!] but thoughts change. so it's all good in the hood.

My response to the first one would always be more diversity. More characters of color, more characters of different ethnicities, variety in body types. More characters with disabilities. More short male and nonbinary ROs. More amazonian female and nonbinary ROs.

I've seen some improvement in body types, at least from the recent IFs I've been eyeing, especially when the ROs don't have pictures but more is always great.

As for TYPES:

For IFs:

I'm a historical romance fan, so I would love to see more of those. In general. I don't mean in a magical world [though I will get that to it], but slice of life during the Harlem Jazz Era, murder mystery in Japan in the 1930s, etc. And if you MUST, must, must do it in a European setting [nothing wrong with that, I love a good Regency romance], there is no reason for it to be all white. Or even entirely white. 1- I don't care about historical inaccuracies [half the time people get corsets and medical stuff wrong anyway] 2- if you MUST be accurate, do your research.

Though, I do love fantastical/sci-fi in historical settings. And I don't mean aliens made the pyramids [don't try it]! More like a Victorian era IF making influence of the steampunk genre [which go hand in hand]. Or netflix's taking zombies and putting them in ancient Korea [is it Korea? I don't watch those shows]. Give me elves in the Mayan empire. Or maybe something like where people advanced tech-wise but the social mores are very Regency. "Urban" Fantasy in Imperial China. Werewolves vs Vampires but make them Vikings.

More isekai IFs. Both in how they do it in manga/manhwa but also like a Kid In King Arthur's court, kind of vibe. You're not Alice but you're in Wonderland.

I love the slices of life coming out. Particularly the ones that are inspired by shows. I want more of that! Maybe even films.

I want more witches and werewolves. That is it. Separate. Together. Any era. I want them.

I also want more stories with the Fae. Changelings and hobgoblins and The Hunt. Tam Lin and kelpies and trades. The nightmarish stuff.

More stories about second chances in life, especially for older characters.

Um. I had more thoughts but I've lost them.

ROs.

Second chance! But something like you and your ex got a divorce, but there are kids [hi thicker than!]. Or the one who got away in high school/college [hi dropout!]. I don't want fresh feelings being washed out [though that's nice]. I want scratching at old scabs. I want you thought these feelings were dead but they're back. Or they did die, but now we're different people and -- oh, hello ... again?

Speaking of second chance. I would like more ROs who have pasts. Lost loves. Heartbreaks. Mistakes they've made and they're trying again.

Tired of alpha men. More 'alphas' of other genders.

I want ROs who are messes. And not in the shy, awk introvert~ Who is sometimes klutzy but its cute! I mean someone who thinks they're good with people but is actually a disaster. Characters who are angry. And mourning. And have their own issues that make them imperfect. That also won;t be solved just because MC is there.

This.

Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Friends and then Lovers again.

Enemies to Enemies with Benefits to Grudging Friends to Bickering Lovers.

Older ROs.

MORE FAKE DATING/MARRIAGE PLEASE!

A King and a Lionheart. But make it dark.

And my all time fave: this right here.

#anon #grapecase answers #long post #thanks for the ask anon #i sorta smooshed relationship tropes with type of ros i want #i expanded my brain on types of IFs #idk if i have types of ros i want to see more of other than older and more characters of color #i think if i were to do types i might have to focus on a specific genre #liike what i want from slice of life ros. what i want to see in urban fantasy ros. etc #i will say more personalities for e. asian ros that isn't shy/awk or cold and stoic. and more personaliies for black ros that isn't #the soft and supportive bff #im sleepy i will ponder tho.#honestly my shipping tropes/ship inspo tags could give you a great picture #but this gives me so much food for thought anon #so thanks <3 :-D

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aro-attorneys · 1 year

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nrmt = jekyon?? tell me more share your theories friend

(All J&H characters mentioned below are from the The Glass Scientists webcomic; other adaptations do not count for this analysis)

Oh nice, free infodump real estate!

I'll start off saying that this is entirely subjective and not everyone might agree with the connection I made between the two ships.

Furthermore, at their core they're both very much their own unique dynamic. If this seems like a stretch to you, that's totally fine!

That being said, here are my theories/takes/connections (screenshots will mostly be from TGS since that's more easily accessible):

My brain sort of made the connection after recent chapters came out. The focus on Lanyon's feelings and how he expresses (or not expresses) them reminded me very strongly of the "thanks to you, I am saddled with unnecessary feelings line." It also reminded me of this bit from chapter 3:

(ugh feelings, am i right)

Lanyon has Edgeworth Vibes to me lol. They have their "repressed victorian man" thing going on (although Lanyon literally is one).

I made a post about Lanyon's way of expressing his feelings before if you're interested.

Comparing Jekyll to Phoenix might be a bit of a stretch, perhaps. But with earlier flashbacks about Jekyll's university years and the much, much earlier scene during the Frankenstein Play, I can safely say the following things:

Both started out more expressive/open about their feelings. Only after having their hearts broken (Phoenix with Dahlia and Jekyll with Lanyon), did they take a turn and bottle their feelings up or stopped expressing them in a healthy manner.

Both have...little sense of self-preservation. Phoenix has shown over and over again that he's willing to hurt himself or even die for the things important to him. Jekyll also literally admitted to being willing to die for science. Although Jekyll has gotten a little better with it. One of the major developments he's going through right now is putting himself and his feelings and safety first.

Here is the evidence for Jekyll's case:

And Phoenix is infamous for eating a glass vial with possibly still potent poison and running across a burning bridge. And he's been more than willing to get hurt to help the people involved in his cases. It's something about sacrificing yourself because you think something or someone else is more important.

Although Jekyll has been recovering from this mindset ever since Hyde forcefully took over his body:

Another thing I've noticed with both ships is that there is a strong mutual admiration for the other, but neither actually voices it. It's a little more obvious for Narumitsu, where Phoenix admits in Turnabout Goodbyes how much he looks up to Edgeworth after the class trial. And in the Miles Edgeworth: Investigations games, he expresses the same admiration for Phoenix. They both are influenced by the other all the time and it makes them better, more well-rounded people.

This mutual admiration isn't as healthy in Jekyon, at least not consistently. In Jekyll's manifestation of his mind, he sees Lanyon as the perfect gentleman, as someone to look up to and follow no matter what. Even though he broke Jekyll's heart many years prior. But still, Jekyll believes he became a better person for it. Vice versa, Lanyon used to be kind of a heartbreaker. But meeting and dating Jekyll changed him. He wanted to commit to a relationship* and not Hurt Feelings anymore if he could help it. Unfortunately there was an arranged marriage so there's that.

*I am not saying that suddenly wanting a romantic and sexual relationship made him better, it's the not wanting to break other men's hearts that made him better.

I think...that's it? If I had to put it shortly, I'd say both ships have a unique dysfunctional way of communicating. Avoiding sharing any thoughts or feelings and then being surprised that the other party is upset. They're disasters and I love to watch it unfold :) (mainly because there's also actual character development to look forward to).

#the glass scientists #ace attorney #narumitsu #jekyon #sorry @ non tgs jekyon shippers for being in the tag w tgs. i know tgs is a little controversial in the j&h fandom #if it helps i already shipped them when i read the book <3 #book from the 1890s: wow isnt it fucked up to have repressed feelings and splitting your soul?#me: yes but the lawful neutral doctor should kiss the chaotic neutral doctor #it's a case of...deriving the same sort of joy from these ships #of course the characters involved are still unique bc they're their own characters and they're in their own settings #but i think maybe they'd get along in a crossover au ?#anyway thank u for sending the ask i hope this makes sense #am i gonna proofread this post? ....... nah

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avantegarda · 2 years

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South Asian Tolkien Week Day 7: Alternate Universes

I was so hype for this day because I have a ton of highly specific headcanons for (Goan) Anairë in my Victorian AU, and now I finally get to subject you to them! So you're getting a moodboard, some headcanons, and a short fic.

(Thanks for putting this together @arwenindomiel!)

London society adores Mrs. Anairë Gates (nee Torres), daughter of a Goan shipping magnate and wife of Mr. Fingolfin Gates. Miss Torres met her future husband on a family holiday to England in 1859, and while the British ton was initially scandalized at Fingolfin's relationship with a foreign lady, Anairë's impeccable manners, excellent fashion sense, and convenient Catholicism made the match a highly suitable one.

Mrs. Gates and her husband, along with their four children, reside in Marylebone, London, close to a vast number of other, less reputable relations.

"Your children," said Anairë, "seemed to have turned into wild animals."

Fingolfin Gates, having only just returned from the office and in desperate need of a stiff drink, sighed deeply. Whenever anything went wrong, of course, they were his children. The dignified Torres family could never produce unruly youngsters. "What have they done this time?" he asked wearily.

"While poor Turgon was sleeping, Fingon and Aredhel conspired to draw a mustache and rude words on his face with their oil pastels," Anaire said stiffly. "When Turgon woke up he was, naturally, upset, and chased them all the way to the kitchen, at which point Fingon and Aredhel started a 'food fight,' as they called it. The kitchen is a disaster."

"Ah, I see. Well, I will certainly have a talk with them, but no harm done really..."

"Baptista," Anairë hissed, "has put in his notice."

Fingolfin went pale. The family chef, Nikel Baptista, had come with Anairë from Goa when they were first married, and was nothing short of a wizard at his craft. Though it had taken some months for Fingolfin's English stomach to adjust to Goan cuisine, now the thought of returning to plan English roasts was pure torture.

"Are you certain he's not simply being...theatrical?" he asked hopefully. "Baptista does have rather an artistic temperament..."

"Oh no, he's resigned," said Anairë. "There was no mistaking his tone. And I am not hiring an English cook, Fingolfin, I am not. We would starve in a week."

"It's unconscionable," Fingolfin fumed. "To abandon a family on such short notice, and leave us in such a position! Where does he think he'll find better employers than us?"

"Apparently he plans to inquire with the other branches of our family," said Anairë distastefully. "As though any of them would dare to take him from us. Not even..." She trailed off, a smile spreading slowly across her face. "No need to panic, my dear husband, I believe I've just thought of a scheme. Your stomach is spared."

"Thank God," Fingolfin muttered, heading to the brandy decanter. "A man has got to eat."

Four o'clock found Anairë in the parlor with her sister-in-law, renowned Irish sculptor Nerdanel Gates. A greater contrast between two women could not have been found: Anairë tidy and regal in her navy-blue jacket and bustled skirt, Nerdanel in men's breeches and a leather apron, her ginger hair piled on her head and clay dust covering her skin. Still, they greeted one another with genuine enthusiasm. Along with their Welsh sister-in-law, Earwen, they were the only women in London who knew what it was like being married to a Gates brother.

"You look grand as always, Anairë," Nerdanel said. "And here I am, looking a fright. Still, always nice to see you. What brings you here today?"

"Actually, Nerdanel darling, I was hoping to ask you a favor," said Anairë. "If it's not too much of a bother."

"No trouble at all, my dear. How can I help?"

"My chef has recently given notice after an... incident with my children," said Anairë. "He mentioned he might like to work with another branch of the family, so if he comes calling..."

"You want me to turn him away, I imagine," said Nerdanel. "Sure and that won't be difficult. You know how my husband feels about hiring servants."

"As a matter of fact, no," said Anairë. "I would like you to hire him."

Nerdanel's green eyes widened. "Hire him? Whatever for?"

"Clearly, Baptista feels our home is a trifle too chaotic for his liking," said Anairë. "What he needs is a bit of... perspective. And if you'll forgive me for saying so, Nerdanel dear, your home is a tad more chaotic than mine from day to day."

"Aye, no point mincing words there," Nerdanel snorted. "Why Fëanor and I decided to produce seven wains will always be a mystery. So you'd like us to take him on temporarily, give him a wee shock, is it? Well, I'm certain I can talk Fëanor into hiring Baptista for a week or so, though I doubt much longer..."

Anairë, thinking of Baptista's sensitive nature, smirked. "Dear Nerdanel, I doubt it'll take more than three days."

Approximately forty-eight hours later, Anaire was interrupted at her afternoon tea by one of the parlormaids, who explained that Mrs. Gates was desperately needed in the kitchen.

Upon arriving downstairs, Anaire was greeted by the sight of Baptista, who seemed to have aged about ten years overnight. His usually neatly slicked-back hair was unkempt, and his jaw unshaved.

Suppressing a smile, Anaire sat at the kitchen table across from him. "Baptista. How pleasant to see you. What brings you back here?"

"Senhora Gates," said Baptista, and quickly switched into rapid-fire Konkani. "I would never ask such a thing under ordinary circumstances, but I must beseech you to consider hiring me back to my old position. I was mistaken in leaving, I see that now. Your home seems like a paradise, compared to..."

"Compared to my brother-in-law's household?" Anaire looked at him in false shock. "Baptista, you surprise me! The family of one of the most respectable inventors in Europe is difficult to work for?"

"Those children of his are demons," Baptista practically snarled. "The elder ones make more noise than a marching band, and the younger ones are practically wild animals. They threw eggs about the house, let squirrels into the kitchen, and played the violin at all hours. I cannot believe they share any blood with your dear children, madam."

Anairë permitted herself a smirk. "Indeed, I think my children misbehave far less frequently. It won't inconvenience you too much to stay in a household where they're present?"

"Madam," said Baptista, "after the last two days, it would be my delight."

Outwardly calm, it was all Anairë could do to keep from whooping in self-congratulation. He has learned his lesson, all right, she thought. I may solve things politely, but no one crosses Anairë Gates.

#tsaw22 #anaire #fc amita suman btw #she was so good in shadow and bone #silmarillion #tolkien #anaire acts posh but she's as schemey as the rest of her fam

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eggcatsreads · 8 months

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January Reading Wrap-Up

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Favorite Read of the Month:

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (GR review)

Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

Code Name Verity is the heart-wrenching story of a woman captured by the Gestapo as a Nazi spy - and her confession.

I HIGHLY recommend going into this book blind, without looking at ANY spoilers as I guarantee you will not see everything that's going on. This is also a book that really lends to a re-read, which is what this was for me. I had read this book last year, and even still this was still a top read for me - despite knowing what was going to happen. This book has a lot of hidden clues throughout that you only really catch on a re-read, but absolutely do not spoil the book for yourself. Trust me.

The beginning portion of this book can be very slow and seem to drag on for a while. Believe me when I say you need to push past it and finish to the end. Once the second section of this novel starts it's a whirlwind and everything you thought you understood for the first part is suddenly turned on it's head.

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Other Five Star Reads:

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham (GR review)

The story of Chernobyl is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth. A harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the 1986 disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand.

I highly suggest this read if you have ever been interested in the Chernobyl disaster and wanted a nonfiction book that brought it to life, and also explained nuclear physics in a way that even non-nuclear physicists could understand. I mostly listened to this through audiobook, and there were times I was glad I was working alone because my jaw literally dropped and I gasped and reacted out loud to what was going on.

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The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by Multi

Hauntings, and a variety of horrifying secrets, lurk in the places we once called home. These stories shed a harsh light on the scariest tales we grew up with.

What it says on the tin. An anthology of horror stories by various authors (many of which I personally love their other works). If you like horror, especially creeping gothic horror, check out these stories. It's a quick read, and a fun way to bring some spice into your life without the commitment.

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Rest of Books Read Under the Cut:

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

The inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Superheavy by Kit Chapman (GR review)

An in-depth look at how synthetic elements are discovered, why they matter and where they will take us. From the Cold War nuclear race to the present day, scientists have stretched the periodic table to 118 elements.

Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher by Brandy Schillace

In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body.

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

As the age of the photograph dawns in Victorian Bath, silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. But then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another... Why is the killer seemingly targeting her business?

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff

Twelve women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery.

Plastic Fantastic by Eugenie Samuel Reich

This is the story of wunderkind physicist Jan Hendrik Schön who faked the discovery of a new superconductor made from plastic.

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God.

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Rating: ⭐⭐

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

Haunted by visions of her mother and hunted by this mysterious creature, Kari must search for what happened to her mother all those years ago.

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All my reviews and opinions are my own, and if you liked something I didn't that's great! My rating system is super subjective (like all of them are) and I definitely don't like books others do, and that's fine since we're not all the same person, lol.

My ratings are generally:

5 stars: Books I enjoyed the entire time I read them. I had fun, it was exciting, and I wanted to continue reading. Many times, the difference between a 4 and 5 star read to me is simply the Vibes. If I had fun reading the book, or was really invested, I'll give it 5 stars even if it's not objectively That Great of a Book. If the Vibes say so, they say so.

4 stars: Great book, but there was simply something that didn't fully connect with me or there were a few slow spots. ALSO many of the debuts I read I tend to rate 4 stars, since they're a new author and I don't want to rate too harshly. 4 stars is my safe rating when I can't fully commit to a 5 stars, but it either wasn't "bad" enough or I don't want to be mean enough to rate anything lower.

3 stars: Run-of-the-mill. Nothing surprising. Book was read, but I could handle having not read it. If "Ehhh?" with a waving hand was a book.

2 stars: I disliked something about this book, and at times I may have finished it because I had already invested this much time into it. This book might have made me angry with something the author chose to do or include, but it never quite reached the spite reading stage.

1 star: I finished this book out of spite. If I could fight it in an alleyway I would. I wish I could bring back the tree that died to make this book so it could fight the author personally for doing this to it.

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Books read so far this year: 11

#reading wrap up #january 2023 #books #2023 reading #reading wrap up 2023 #january #bookblr #long post

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bopinion · 1 year

Text

2023 / 10

Aperçu of the Week:

"Because I do not care to enlarge my menagerie of pets, and I find the animal man less docile than a dog, less affectionate than a cat and less amusing than a monkey."

(Answer to a survey in Victorian times, why some women choose to not marry)

Bad News of the Week:

Last Wednesday was "International Women's Day." Officially a holiday, one can't really feel like celebrating. Because this day should be seen as a reminder that there is a huge social problem in almost all nations of this world: Women are not equal to men. Still. In the year 2023.

And I'm not even thinking of blatant excesses like the Taliban, who deny girls and women practically any rights.

No, even in so-called "developed societies" like ours, discrimination is omnipresent. In Germany, women were not allowed to work without their husband's permission until 1977. Now last week was also "Equal Pay day." Until then, German women worked for practically nothing, since their income for the same job is 18% lower than that of men. Still. In 2023. And women's shelters, the last refuge from male assault, are overcrowded.

And in many places, there is even regression. In Iran in the 1970s, women wore miniskirts; today, even a slipped headscarf can cost them their lives. Not to mention the poison gas attacks by radical Islamists on girls' schools. And in the USA, the legislation against abortion is nothing other than a restriction of self-determination. "Women is the nigger of the world" sang John Lennon in 1972, "Think about it, do something about it." Yes, we must. Still do. In 2023.

Good News of the Week:

The two largest Arab nations, Saudi Arabia and Iran, have always been enemies. One Sunni, the other Shia, both oil-rich, both see themselves as the regional leader. A conflict that also has bloody features, for example, with the proxy war in Yemen, but also in Syria.

It is therefore a significant step that the two nations are now re-establishing diplomatic relations for the first time in decades. It is also significant where the agreement was signed: in Beijing. Since Barack Obama deliberately withdrew U.S. influence in the Middle East, a kind of geopolitical vacuum has emerged that the new superpower China is only too happy to fill. Unfortunately, with an agenda that leaves out issues such as human rights and democratization.

According to CNN "the détente appears to go far beyond the resumption of diplomatic relations. Saudi and Iranian officials say they will also work to reimplement a decades-old security cooperation pact and revive an even older agreement on technology, and trade." And even if a questionable constitutional state like China is now becoming the godfather of that deal "it’s a rare piece of good news for a region still reeling from their rivalry."

Personal happy moment of the week:

The absence of mayor disasters. One becomes modest...

I couldn't care less...

...about "Luther: The fallen sun". As big fans of the BBC series in which Idris Elba portrays a London detective who likes to push the envelope, we were really looking forward to the movie. The day before yesterday, Netflix finally released it. And it was a disappointment. We're not the only ones who think so. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, only 68% of 72 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10. Rotten Tomatoes concludes, "Longtime fans will be happy to have more of Idris Elba's brilliant detective, but Luther: The Fallen Sun is a fairly uninspired addition to his case files."

As I write this...

...I am not surprised that piece by piece war crimes on the part of Ukraine are coming to light. War is a dirty business. And people in extreme situations do not always act by the book. And one should never forget: the first victim of war is always the truth.

Post Scriptum

As expected, Xi Jinping has consolidated his power. Whereas in China there were actually rules such as a maximum of two terms of office or 10 years for the head of state as well as an age limit, he has even had the constitution changed in order to unite a fullness of power to himself that has not been seen since the founder of the state, Mao Zedong. With the "election" of Li Qiang in the sham People's Congress as prime minister, his henchmen have now been installed in all important positions. While at the same time the members of the Hong Kong Alliance - the last representatives of criticism of the system - were sentenced to prison. What a coincidence.

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amarrymeinbostonwriter · 1 year

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NaNoWriMo 2022: Day 11

Turning in earlier today because I have work tomorrow and I finished an assignment for school earlier. Still got a lot of writing done on my NaNo and wrote notes for two other story ideas (unrelated to the Victorian disaster gay girls story that I’m currently drafting for this year’s NaNo).

Day 11 Word Count: 4,289 words

Word Count Total to date: 37,901 Words

Excerpt:

“Why do you think I’m going to abandon you, Hess? What’s going on, honey?” I asked her softly and reached out to her. She crawled into bed next to me and I wrapped her in the covers and then took her in my arms. She sighed and then shuddered and cried. I kissed her forehead and she held unto me with a vice-like grip. Her nails bit into my bare shoulder blades as she clung to me.

“This is going to sound so stupid, but I thought you’d find a better girl at the Huntresses’ and run off with her as soon as you had the chance, Tilly. I thought I’d lose you to a girl who wasn’t such a twisted little broken doll. I love you, but the way I love you is warped like I am. I’m sorry, Tilly, you deserve someone who will just love you in a straight-forward manner. You aren’t confusing; I am. Now I’m dragging you into my confusion because I saw you dancing at the Huntresses with all those other girls.”

“You left before we could dance together, Hess. I was gentlemanly, I swear. I didn’t say or do anything with those girls that wasn’t proper. All my improper and dirty thoughts I share and act upon with you only. Hess, you’re my wife- only you get access to that side of me. I swear on my old family name- Murray- it’s true!”

I had only danced in good fun with the other girls because for once I could as an adult woman. Now I was expected to dance exclusively with men; I had to be spirited off to a secretive London club to dance exclusively with other women who craved the same thing as me. We were all having a little harmless fun. I was Hess’ husband after all and it was a duty that I took up with all seriousness.

“They’re nothing to me, Hess. We’re leaving London soon enough. We may not come back for several seasons, if ever. I just wanted to experience a London lesbian club once. I’m satisfied now. We can go back to Scarborough and I won’t have to wonder what it would be like to go to such a place.”

#Artemis' Huntresses is the lesbian bar in the story #after mulling over the story I like to give my characters various psychological conditons because psychology is fascinating #Hess is borderline and Matilda's got ADHD pretty severely #I think those conditions fit them for their personalities and functions in the story #Tilly & Hess #this was actually all one scene too #so I'm not jumping around as much as I was earlier #I like psychology so I try to apply it to my characters as I write to make them seem more realistic #lesbian characters #lesbian romance #victorian lesbians #drama #period drama #nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2022 #my writing #writeblr #WIP #word count #current WIP #I'm bipolar and have had bipolar characters in my other novels #this time I wanted to try something a little different #female husband #female wife #historic fiction #victorian era

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sharkselfies · 3 years

Text

The Minds Behind The Terror Podcast Transcript - Episode 4

Our journey comes to an end with the transcript for episode 4 of The Minds Behind The Terror Podcast, where Dave Kajganich, Soo Hugh, Dan Simmons, and Adam Nagaitis discuss the last two episodes of the series. Once again, Adam steals the show with his revelations about Mr. Hickey, but we also hear about everyone’s favorite death scenes, the fight to let Mr. Blanky say fuck, the many changes the writers made to the ending that differed from the novel, and the importance of trusting your audience’s intelligence.

The Minds Behind The Terror Podcast - Episode 4

[The Terror opening theme music]

Dave Kajganich: Welcome to the fourth and final installment of The Minds Behind AMC’s The Terror as we discuss our final two episodes of the show! I’m Dave Kajganich, creator and co-showrunner of the series, here with the honorable Dan Simmons, creator of the novel The Terror on which the series is based. Also with us is Soo Hugh, executive producer and co-showrunner of the show, and Adam Nagaitis, who plays a man who plays a man called Cornelius Hickey. Welcome back!

Adam Nagaitis: Hi!

Dan Simmons: Hi Dave.

DK: So we launch into our final episodes. Now we are in an episode where the show begins to bend time. We cover a lot of ground in episode nine, a lot of distance, we say goodbye to quite a lot of characters, and we start to really bend the tone and the shape of the narrative towards the kind of horrible collision that’s coming between Crozier and Hickey and our Tuunbaq.

Soo Hugh: So in nine we say goodbye to so many of our characters. I mean Dave and I cried so--

[laughter]

SH: The amount of tears that he and I shed editing this show, especially with nine and ten. For you guys, Adam and Dan, which were the deaths--well, what did you think of the deaths?

DS: What’s your favorite death?

[laughter]

SH: Yeah, what was your favorite death?

AN: My favorite was probably, the one that really moved me was Fitzjames, it’s such a fantastic story, his character’s so interesting, that transition, discovering, you know, admitting who you are, and the firework at the Tuunbaq being his feat of courage, and then to end up, to embrace death, and to do it in such a beautiful way. And then the line of “there will be poems” that Mr. Bridgens says.

[show audio]

[sad, eerie music]

Bridgens (through tears): It was an honor serving you, sir. You’re a good man. There will be poems.

AN: It’s a beautiful death, it’s probably the best you can ask for, in that situation, you’re with a friend. Yeah, it’s quite sad. Of course you gotta love Blanky’s death as well, that’s, I’m cheating, now, yeah, but Blanky’s death is the greatest line to go out on, surely.

[show audio]

[Tuunbaq growling, shales crunching underfoot]

Blanky: What in the name of god took you so fuckin’ long?

[Tuunbaq snorts, Blanky laughs maniacally]

DK: We weren’t entirely sure whether AMC was going to permit us to use that word, a curse word, because on AMC you’re not meant to. Luckily for us, there are a number of AMC shows that have a precedent of using that word and we argued successfully that, you know, could you ask for a better show, a better scene than a Victorian disaster show to use the F-word, and they finally allowed us to use it, and we’re really grateful.

SH: I think just visually Bridgens’ death was so beautiful, and that pull out. And what was interesting was in our research found, we discovered, there was a corpse they discovered who had rolled over and was found sleeping on a set of papers, and in the show Bridgens takes Peglar’s diary when he chooses to die out there in the cold alone comforted with his memories, we see him roll over, and so that’s just our nod to history. Now it turns out we don't know whether or not it was actually Peglar’s diary, it could have been Armitage’s--

DK: No, I think we know it’s Peglar’s journal, but we don’t know whether the man lying on top of it was Armitage or Bridgens.

SH: Then there’s Goodsir’s death. Oh my God, Goodsir! I can’t believe Hickey! Adam! Goodsir!

AN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. He had it comin’!

[laughter]

AN: I forgot that death, I forgot all of those deaths, actually, what a--so beautifully acted. I mean, unbelievable. It was perfect. The pure clean images of the coral, and the shell, oh I loved it, and the end, I think it’s an orchid, I just loved it, I absolutely--it’s something that I don’t like talking about, that death, it’s really horrible.

[show audio]

[the rising music from the scene of Goodsir’s death]

DS: They were all very moving in their own way, saying goodbye to each of the characters, surprisingly powerful, you know, some of ‘em were not major characters, but everything connected for me watching your version. When--earlier, when Fitzjames is out with Crozier alone, and Fitzjames sort of acknowledges that he’s a fake, that he’s just been faking this heroism, you know, the admiralty thought they sent a hero, they sent Fitzjames, he was the man of the moment, but he hadn’t done that much, so he had the courage to say that, and Crozier immediately had the compassion to point out, “No, you’re here, now, and you’re doing fine,” that’s not the dialect but that’s the essence of his message. So all through these scenes with the different characters, I found compassion again. [It] was the way Crozier touched men who were close to the end, the tone of his voice, you know, it wasn’t mawkish, he wouldn’t like being at all sentimental, but it was so supportive. It was like Goodsir helping the poor boy at the beginning of the show, telling him how death could be good, how you see light, you cross over. The kid died in terror; some of these people did. But most of ‘em, they’re like--Fitzjames, when he’s, you know, when he finally has to be carried in the sledge, and he has a sense of humor at the end, he can laugh at himself, somewhat, ‘cause he tells Crozier that that the bullet that went through his arm into his chest, that area is now so gangrene--er, rotten, you know, the bullet is finally going to kill him. Haha.

[polite awkward laughter]

DK: Well you pointed out a line from the first episode, where Fitzjames is talking to Franklin and he says, “Sometimes I think you love your men more than God loves them,” and Franklin's response is “For all your sakes, let’s hope you’re wrong,” and we brought that line back in a different way in episode nine, which is where the survivors of the Terror Camp attack are about to leave, and they know Hickey’s out there somewhere, and Fitzjames’s impulse is to hide or destroy all of their extra supplies so that Hickey’s group can’t benefit from them, and Crozier has the opposite instinct, which is because he knows some people in Hickey’s group probably made that decision because they were afraid that the alternative was worse to stay with Crozier and so many people, that he wants to offer them the resources in case they can use them and in case they wanna make a different decision in the days ahead.

[show audio]

Fitzjames: And the supplies we cannot carry? If Hickey’s band are waiting us out to loot the camp?

Crozier: Some of the men with them made their choice out of fear, I’ll not take away any chance they have to survive. We may meet them yet again, and if we do, I want them to make a different choice. Leave our supplies in a tidy pile, as an offering. I want the men with Hickey to know that’s how we meant it.

[shales crunching underfoot]

Fitzjames: More than God loves them...

DK: Lines like that are a real test, I mean, you struggle with them in the editing room. Did we earn that line? Is it important that an audience remembers that as an index point that line has now been sort of superficially applied to one man, but more sincerely applied to another man, and, you know, that goes back to sort of a close reading of the book, Dan, just sort of scouring through your dialogue trying to figure out how does a master, if I can refer to you that way, approach this idea of a relationship with an audience? And we learned an enormous amount from your book about restraint and indirection, and credit, giving the audience credit. And I will say this, the series is different enough from your novel that I would encourage everyone who has seen the television show but not read your book to seek it out, because they will have just as rewarding--even more so, possibly!--a time of learning about this history through the lens of horror than they did watching the show. So I think they complement one another. I hope they do, and I hope people will seek out both.

DS: That’s kind of you, Dave. My wife keeps track of the tie-in version of the book, and it’s selling very well, so some people are gonna get that.

SH: There is this fantastic scene that is in your book, that we had neither money nor time to shoot, but it’s where they discover leads, and they take the boats out going around, and they realize they’re just going around in a circle. We didn’t have the time to shoot that and we re-jiggered our narrative so that the leads ended up being a ploy on one of Hickey’s secret mutineers. Nine is a very quiet episode, and in some ways when you, in television shows--did you miss a set piece, in nine? Did anyone miss having a bigger narrative punch?

DS: Well, I'll answer, then let Adam answer, but for me, who had that boat scene and really liked it a lot, I didn’t miss my stuff too much, because what happened was when the young man, a boy actually, who’s secretly under Hickey’s control tells Crozier and the others he sees open water, and they rush to the rocky beach to see it, and of course that was a lie and a ploy to get them there so Hickey can seize them, but my heart just flew, that, “Open water! Ohh boy!” You know? How would men have felt if they’d heard that, in reality, what was their reaction? ‘Cause the open water could conceivably be their savior, they could get other places, not just cross over and start marching through middle Canada, but they could go anywhere on open water, and to see it all locked in with ice was just stunning to me, it was such a disappointment. So no, I don’t miss my part of it very much.

AN: I never thought of it as something that suggests a quiet narrative like you described it, Soo, to me it sort of links--I see nine and ten as one episode, really. It’s this slow build, the creation of that relationship that these two--the antithesis between these two camps, and between the tactics employed... I just think that the way you guys wrote it and put it together is flawless, I just think it’s so beautifully weighted, between, you know, the deaths that to me they don’t seem to just sort of monotonously pile up, they’re all just so beautifully handled and acted. And the whole time you have this tension building, slowly, slowly, that, you know, that it’s gonna come to a head. I didn’t feel when I watched it that it ever lacked punch. It had such clarity and such patience that made it really beautiful.

DS: And I don’t know if we can say the C-word on podcasts… cannibalism?

[laughter]

DK: Yes, that one we can.

SH: Yes.

DS: Oh, ok. You know there was a--if Hickey hadn’t already divided the troop into his people, the anointed, and then Crozier’s group, it would have happened anyway because of the cannibalism. And when you think about it, think of that rugby team or soccer team or whatever that crashed in the Andes. They went back into society. They were cannibals, they admitted it, they got a book deal. And so, presumably, even in England, these people would have been forgiven, or they would have kept it secret like some do. So cannibalism, what it did in this show, I think, divides the people. I didn’t see, until he was forced to imbibe in cannibalism, I didn't see Crozier even considering it. And so that fascinates me, just how far people will go to survive.

[show audio]

[tense music, tent canvas flapping in the wind]

EC: I’ll give you some advice. Don’t indulge your morals over your practicals. Not now. Don’t you also wanna live?

SH: Dave, we talked a lot about this, is when you’re in that moment, you’re not Dave Kajganich and I’m not Soo Hugh, in that moment, choosing whether or not we decide to eat someone. Something else will take over, whether it is the Goodsir in us or whether it is the Hickey in us, in that moment. I think that’s why when we shot that scene, you know, after Gibson is cut up, Adam, remember when we shot the reaction shots from each one of you eating your first bite of human flesh meat, and we took so much footage, we shot so much. We shot, you know, closes, mediums, just because Dave and I, you know, at that point, we were very confident of how to shoot everything, that was probably the moment when we were like ugh.

DK: Well we wanted to know how little we could get away with, and what we found, of course, which is typical for the show, the performances were so terrific, that we didn’t need very much. And I remember on the mix stage, the first mix that they did of the show, of that episode, I mean, there was quite a lot of chewing.

[laughter]

And so when I said, no no no, let’s pull all of that out, and use the most minute changes in expression, because all of you at that table were so well in character, that even the slightest muscle movement on your face communicated everything we needed you to. And we were obviously very interested in not overplaying that scene, knowing that audiences had been waiting for it, wondering how, in what kind of taste we would show it, you know, how we would modulate it, and you know a rule throughout the show was to try to present everything with its most practical face, including this. And so, you know, hopefully when that lands for people it will be both satisfying in the sense that they will understand how these characters made that decision but it won’t feel that we have over-articulated it, somehow.

DS: I’m not religious, but I’m obsessed with religion, and in your story, the way you structured it, you have, in a sense, we’ve already talked, or at least I have, about how Hickey seems to be evolving towards Messiahdom, I think he near the end he thinks he is the Messiah, but it’s Goodsir who provides The Last Supper. How much more powerful a story of Christ is there, than, you know, “Take, eat,” and it’s yourself? And it’s fascinating to me that the man who dedicated his life to helping people and curing people and being empathic at their ending, his last act is to kill as many of Hickey’s people as possible. And, you know, so there’s--that’s where the trial was, it wasn’t when Hickey was gonna be hanged, it was inside Dr. Goodsir when he decided that “These people need to end and I will do it.”

SH: So should we talk about the big scene at the end--well, it’s not the end, it’s the Tuunbaq sequence in 1.10?

DK: To set it up, Adam, you know, Hickey--we’ll keep calling him Hickey even though we’ve established he isn’t--you get an important piece of information in episode nine where Tozer, Sergeant Tozer, relays to you a piece of information that he hasn’t shared with anyone, that he watched Collins be killed and he watched Collins’s soul be pulled out of his body. And, you know, for Hickey, suddenly a lot of things make sense. What happened to Private Heather, who was alive for many episodes but no longer sort of present in his body, I mean you even have a scene where you poke his brain hoping to get some kind of reaction out of him, and you take that piece of information and you suddenly realize you’re not longer in a kind of survival story, you’re in kind of a spiritual story, you’re in kind of a mythological story, suddenly. Can you talk about how you decided to play that so it was sort of clear to an audience what that opportunity was? Because we did not devote a lot of dialogue to it, it was going to have to be something an audience felt as much as was described to them.

AN: I can only describe the way that it--the process--the mind of it, that, you know, you see Hickey has a plan, up until that point, he’s started--the way that I thought about it was that, you know, once he starts to hear things, he starts to have this space of this area, creates this space in his mind and he understands the things that have come before him and his curiosity leads him to, you know--one element in him is still practically engaged in survival, and outmaneuvering the captain, and heading south, and coming up with a plan and, you know, a story as to what happened, but then there are other elements of, you know, consuming human flesh, that there might be an answer there, it might be an enlightening experience. And if it’s not in that, is it something else? And he finds the hill, and he understands when he sees that hill, that he hears something, and then he’s not quite clear on what it is, what’s drawing him, and what’s talking to him, and what he’s feeling, but he’s becoming one with this realm, and, you know, he starts to, once he discovers the supernatural element--not that he hasn’t already established that there is one, but the fact that it’s such a specific--he’s been developing his knowledge of the summoning song that Lady Silence sings to become a Shaman, you know, the rules of this particular realm, this empire. And he’s been gathering this information as we go along, all the way through the series he’s been taking pieces of information, and he pockets it and learns and keeps it for later.

[show audio]

[mysterious music]

Hickey: Tuunbaq… a spirit that dresses as an animal, and yet we shot it with a cannon and drew blood. How do you reconcile that?

Crozier: I can’t. There’s much about this voyage I can’t reconcile.

Hickey: What mythology is this creature at the center of?

Crozier: About the creature I have no answers, Mr. Hickey. We were not meant to know of it.

AN: And when he gets this key piece of the puzzle, that the Tuunbaq is taking souls, and that... there’s a hierarchy of what the Tuunbaq wants to eat. You know, a captain, and important people, he realizes that he really is the center of this universe. I suppose the way that I adjusted it was that everybody else became irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. I no longer needed to worry about manipulation, control, fear. Everything was gonna sing for me, everything was gonna work as if I had magic hands, and my voice just dictated what the universe would do.

[show audio]

[mysterious music continued]

Hickey: I didn’t have anywhere near an equal on this expedition. But you. I wanted to thank you for that. On the eve of what is quite an important day.

AN: Every single conversation was an annoyance because it was getting in the way of me listening to the universe, this world, this empire, this realm that was now speaking to me. And I was talking to the Tuunbaq, you know, from this distance, and we had this dance going, and everything that happened was just getting in my way. It was all gonna work itself out because I’ve been chosen to ascend, to reach this ascension, to, you know, ride the Tuunbaq into my new empire, to take my new throne, and I was finally gonna be given the answers to these questions that I’d been asking.

[show audio]

[rushing wind, men singing weakly in the background, creaking]

Hickey (shouting): Bugger Nelson! Bugger Jesus! Bugger Joseph and Mary! Bugger the Archbishop of Canterbury! None ever wanted nothing from me!

SH: When you offer the Tuunbaq the tongue, and there’s that pause, what’s gonna happen, and he bites your arm off instead, and that look on your face of just, you know, “You too have failed me.”

DS: Et tu?

[laughter]

“Et tu, Tuunbaq?”

[laughter]

AN: “Et tu, Tuunbaq,” that’s a great T-shirt. But that scene, I drifted, but that scene in particular, is a slight difference to what his plan was, which was to climb the hill, sacrifice the men, sacrifice the tongue, and to become one with the Tuunbaq and to take my place on the throne in this new realm. And to find the answers and maybe, you know, climb through to a different realm, or who knows what. This empire was now my empire, which was the culmination of all of Hickey through his entire life has been leading to this point, and he’s quietened himself enough to hear it, and then suddenly he gets sick, because somebody poisons him. And so it’s a slightly different feeling, as he’s climbing the hill, and it’s a different--something else is happening inside him. He’s still perfectly capable of executing his plan, he gets carried away in that scene, and then by the time the Tuunbaq appears, he kind of focuses again, and becomes very excited. It’s a relationship with the Tuunbaq, it’s a dance, that everything is for him and the Tuunbaq. Everyone else is irrelevant.

[show audio]

[Tuunbaq snuffling, boat chain clanking]

[the Tuunbaq roars, sound of chomping flesh, then the screeching sound of the soul being eaten]

SH: And what he gets so wrong about the Tuunbaq, and I think what a lot of the Western characters in our show get wrong about the Tuunbaq, is that the Tuunbaq is not a deity, the Tuunbaq doesn’t ask to be a god, right? All it is is just this arbiter of what is good or what is not good for the land, you know, there’s no sense of the Tuunbaq wanting to be the ultimate creative force here, and I think that’s where Hickey was wrong, right?

AN: I think he sees it as a supernatural creature, and again, because everything comes through him, and the universe revolves around him, that it’s a challenge for him, it’s a question for him, and he deals a lot in questions as opposed to answers, and what his position is in the universe, and by the time he meets this creature that eats souls--and the creature’s sick, and it’s because he hasn’t united with it yet! It’s because of me that it’s sick, it hasn’t, I haven’t been in contact with it, and we haven’t united ourselves and taken over this empire, and he doesn’t see it for what it is. SH: And when you guys see the Tuunbaq’s death in the very end of that sequence, how did you guys feel?

DS: Speaking for the novelist here, I was surprised; and then I got through the surprise and thought yeah. And then I immediately wondered how Lady Silence would have to pay for this death, ‘cause you’d already shown me that she’s in charge of protecting the Tuunbaq, so it was controlling it in some way, and she wasn’t really up to the task, so I liked that in going, when Crozier’s with the Inuit band, learning that she’s been punished and sent out by herself. But the Tuunbaq’s death itself just seemed right at that time.

[show audio]

[Tuunbaq’s death scene--growling noises, boat chain clinking, Crozier struggling]

AN: It was a horrible thing to watch, as a viewer, it was so sad, and it spoke to me of this sort of contemporary sort of--to me it was sort of a global warming issue, not to bring it ‘round, but it was sort of like, that’s it, they’ve killed it.

SH: No, absolutely, yeah!

AN: They’ve killed it, they’ve killed the Tuunbaq and we’re actually rejoicing at Crozier’s survival. But really, the man deserves death, with the creature that creates balance to this culture should be alive. And we have this upside down world that we are celebrating, which is so, you know, intelligent of you guys to create, and it’s difficult to take, but that creature is gone, and so balance is gone, and here we are.

DK: The very specific and subtle thing that we put in the show that probably no will decode it ‘til they hear this podcast, but was important to us as a structural element, was Sir John dies, when he’s killed down the fire hole in episode three, he has some flashes of subjective kinds of hallucinations, I suppose, or visions, I don’t know what you would call them. But one of them is of open water, it’s just a vista of the future of the Arctic, that there are going to be these, you know, that there’s going to be a huge melt, and there’s going to be all this open water. And for the final shot we tried to match, as much as we could, the angle, so that all of that frozen water that Crozier is sitting on at that seal hole would maybe possibly evoke that memory, to speak to what you’re saying, Adam, which is that this whole thing is a kind of, from the Netsilik’s point of view, it’s a huge tragedy in which these Europeans are the terrors, in a way. And not to be too reductive about it, but, you know, we wanted the season to have that kind of change of polarity, which is one reason why we couldn’t quite use the sort of the ending of the book, as much as we loved it, Dan, it felt like a lot of things that would feel--that would pull the point of view of the season across that line too much and too late. We wanted to try to modulate it a little bit so that every episode felt like you were giving some room in your point of view for Lady Silence’s perspective, or the Inuit’s perspective, and that that change would sort of happen so slowly you might not even notice that it was happening at all, which is one reason why we made that decision.

DS: You gave every character I saw room to have his or her own apotheosis, which is a big theme with you guys, I meant, the arcs end and people becoming someone else. Crozier grows into his leadership, I think, beautifully. Maybe he deserved punishment, but I found Crozier and his empathy, as Fitzjames is dying in the boat, it’s Crozier that touches him and lets him know, you know, through physical contact, that he’s not alone. And giving them room is unusual. I just find there’s so many unusual elements to what you three have created, that, I have to warn you, I think it deserves a lot of intelligent attention.

DK: Well I hope we can volley a lot of those right back to the book, Dan. Well we should take some time at the end to--given that after the sequence, this really becomes almost a kind of silent film to deliver the ending to Crozier’s arc--to really sing the praises of Jared Harris in this show, I mean, what he did with this role is remarkable. So, Dan, I would love to know what you thought of Jared Harris’s Francis Crozier?

DS: After watching the ten episodes of him and all those, and watching what he did with it, I just wanted him to adopt me.

[laughter]

SH: He would love that!

DS: But it certainly--leading is the operative word, isn’t it? He just, he didn’t give 100 or 1000 percent, he gave more than that to the character. He became Crozier for me. I’m the one who had to dream up the man, and see what he looked like, and write about him for about 1100 pages, 700 finally in type, and so I had my Crozier, he was pretty solid. But now Jared Harris is Crozier. There’s no doubt in my mind.

DK: The ending of the season is quite different from the ending of the book, Dan, how did you feel watching the ending of the show, and, in all candor, do you feel that it was satisfying? Do you feel that it was at least a good companion piece for the ending of the book?

DS: Well I’m glad I didn't video record my reaction the first time I saw the different ending, because speaking for two million readers I stood up and shouted, “What's wrong with my ending!”

[laughter]

“Is it chopped liver?” And I realized it would be. I realized that I don’t think you could have taken my ending and made it a sensible finale visually in the way it went. So I tracked--the whole episodes, the last two episodes, were enlightenment to me, because I’m just a viewer now, I’m watching something I didn’t create, these are not my ideas, so I sat back and enjoyed it, as horrible as they were. So when I watch your ending, the only thing I was bothered by was I’m sentimental. And the real Crozier, I believe, and certainly the fictional Crozier that we’ve all created, was so lonely, he was so alone in life, I think he was less alone than Crozier was, and, you know, rejected by Franklin’s niece several times from marriage, a life where he really felt rejection, probably more than Hickey did, and at the end I wanted him to be with someone. So as much as I liked your ending and I really thought it was proper and appropriate for the series, I woulda put a person next to him as he’s fishing out there in, you know, in his Inuit outfit at night waiting by a seal--he’s not fishing, he’s waiting by a seal breathing hole to kill it. So if I’d seen a glimpse of two of them, you wouldn’t even need to see their faces, you know, the sentimental side of me woulda been happy.

SH: But we leave that ambiguous in the ending, in terms of he’s not with Lady Silence, she, you know, had to pay the bill in some ways for the loss of the Tuunbaq and her destiny is to venture forth alone, and in some ways her storyline is the most tragic of all the characters in our show because, I mean, the price she paid is so harsh. But in terms of the last shot, which Dave and I just knew from pretty early on that was gonna be our last shot, and it felt right. We don’t know much about Crozier’s biography, you know? For all we know that child could be his, it may not. We actually didn’t want to fill in too much of the coloring book at that point. It’s up to the audience to describe whether or not that last shot is--it’s interesting ‘cause we had this big argument, lovely argument in the color suite, the grading suite, of how we grade that last shot. Whether we grade it bright and sunny to be optimistic, or we grade it with a lot of contrast and stamp down a lot of the light to make it seem that, you know, there’s a sense--a harshness, to this reality. And in some ways we split the middle, so the audience can decide whether or not the life Crozier has at the end is one of punishment, reckoning, or whether or not he will move on and have something different.

DK: And I think something in that final shot that certainly we couldn’t have planned, that tipped things in a warmer direction was the child that plays that boy in the shot, who’s meant to be sleeping against Crozier as he’s waiting at the seal hole, really fell asleep because he was wrapped up in fur, and Jared’s a very welcoming person, and he fell asleep. And in the middle of that shot he twitches in his sleep, like children do. And I think that if you catch that it’s quite undeniably a warm moment. You don’t know whether that’s Crozier’s son, whether that’s just a friend’s son, someone he’s taking care of, but you do get a sense that there is a community and that it’s a warm one, even though that life will be difficult and he will occupy no position of leadership in that world, he will be--you know, he’s missing a hand at that point, it’s going to be a rough rough road ahead of him, but we decided to sort of be as ambiguous as we could but for that child who twitches in his sleep, which we just loved that, that that’s a part of that final shot of the show.

DS: Now you’ve made me wanna go back watch that scene about ten times. I think you did at the ending essentially what you chose to do throughout the series, which is to trust in the intelligence and the sensibilities of the audience. So in that sense I like it a lot, but I admire it too. It just, I’m just sentimental, I just want Crozier finally to find somebody.

[show audio]

[”The Gates of Paradise” by Robert Fripp, which is the music from that aforementioned final scene of Crozier and the little boy asleep at the seal hole, plays]

SH: And with episode ten, the story of the Franklin Expedition on AMC is completed. And Dave, you’ve been working on this project now for ten or twelve years, I’ve been on it for two and a half years, Adam you’ve been on this journey for a long time, Dan you’ve probably been--how long has it been for you?

DS: Oh, since about 1994!

SH: Yeah, wow. I mean, what is it about this story that means it’s hard to let go? Even now I feel like there’s a grieving process that I feel like I have.

DS: I know why it’s hard to let go. You created real people, you did something that is incredibly rare I think, for any media, movies, series, anything. They’re real people, and when they suffer the viewer suffers with them. When they try to fight back and survive, that’s the viewer’s impression, and we’re sorry to see each one of them go, including Hickey. So, I think there’s a success in what you set out to do.

SH: We’re just so thrilled that, you know, you gave us the trust to do your book but also that you love it! We were so nervous that you would hate this adaptation!

[laughter]

DK: Well and now what’s amazing is we all get to sort of take a seat in the theater of real history playing out again, now that they’ve discovered the ships. You know, we’ve been told by Parks Canada and by people we’ve met who are actively on the archeological expeditions now, dives to the ships, that there is a chance that they will find a ship’s log, and that all of the questions that have come up and perplexed us and preoccupied us and fascinated us in the researching of both the writing of the novel and the creating of the television show, that those questions may have answers soon. And so now we are all now back in that position of being riveted by this actual history. And what a treat it will be to have a conversation in a year when we have learned hopefully much more about what actually happened on this expedition.

[“The Gates of Paradise” begins playing again softly in the background]

DS: If I were on the expedition ship and found the log, the diaries, everything, I would hide them.

[laughter]

DK: Agreed.

AN: Yep, absolutely.

DS: I mean we’ve all done a lot of work here, who cares about reality?

[laughter]

DK: Well thank you, Adam, thank you Dan, for joining us, Soo and I have had a fantastic time having this extended conversation that hopefully is interesting to people who have watched and appreciated the show. So thank you for the opportunity to do it, it’s been fantastic to talk to you both, and onwards we go, into the future!

SH: Onwards ho!

DS: Onward.

AN: Onward. Thank you so much guys, it’s been a pleasure.

DK: Thank you, and thank you for everyone who’ve watched the show and thank you for everyone who’ve read the novel, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!

[“The Gates of Paradise” fades out]

#the terror #the terror amc #dave kajganich #soo hugh #dan simmons #adam nagaitis #the minds behind the terror #personal #aaah the last one! we're finished!#as always lmk if you catch any mistakes and google docs link will be in the reblogs #this has been a great project and i hope this was helpful for you guys!#<3

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sobeautifullyobsessed · 3 years

Note

Besides Dark!Stephen, Khan, and Richard III, are there any other villains you'd like to redeem through the power of love? :)

Aren't you just diabolical, my dear @strangelock221b, to come up with such a question!!

I'm sure if I took a good gander through the MCU, I might find one or two. Certainly, if I had ever been inclined, Loki absolutely fits my type to 'save' 😉 And I just went to Benedict's filmography to see if there is anyone I've missed--because, as you know, he remains My Constant Muse. So I'll shall list those characters not entirely heroic and/or possessed of dubious qualities, who would be good fodder for saving via the love of my typical 'good woman' OFC:

Major Jamie Stewart

Pride and hubris went-ith before his fall, that's for sure--and he realizes how terribly foolish he was, only after leading his men headlong into disaster. Holds onto hope of being a better man if he ever escapes captivity by the Germans. Survives his travails because he knows his good woman is waiting for him back in London--and she will be a source of forgiveness when he can't even forgive himself. Is compelled to try his damnedest to make amends for those lost lives by going back into the combat. I've actually got that WIP in the works, if anyone cares to take a peek.

Victorian Sherlock

I'm writing him darker than modern day Sherlock. With some seriously sensual appetites. Problem is, I've written the dark and delicious sex scenes (featuring a returning OFC, whose life he saves and who is fully amenable to indulge his dark desires, as there's been heat smoldering between them since she asked him to take her case), but I need to write more of the actual story before I can post the good stuff. A redemption of sorts would be him recognizing he actually loves her by the end of the story. Another too long dormant WIP.

Smaugbatch

A dragonish human or dragon/human hybrid would be a helluva fun journey to write! Wish I could add some of the amazing fan art I've seen of just this conception - but that would be very bad form. But if anyone wants to see, just google 'human smaug'

Wallace/Ace-(Little Favour)

Because he's mysterious, sexy, badass, and obviously has mad secret agent skills. I've always wanted to know his backstory; is there PTSD there? And is that something love could help heal?

okay now, please hold your laughter on this one until you read it through...

Patrick Watts

Because somewhere deep beneath his absolute tight-ass, total prat exterior could be buried a lion in the bedroom...if he could ever find a woman that could see past his ridiculousness (maybe a bit of a nerd herself, but smarter than him about relationships, very in touch with her own femininity). Once he gets some great sex (maybe his first sex, mind you) he could become more patient and mature, rather chill--and in touch with the positive aspects of his own masculinity. I have a short synopsis of such a fic sitting in my long list of dusty old drafts.

Now, if you have any villains in mind that might be ripe for my 'saved by a good woman' trope, please send me some names. I may not won't have a spare moment to write them a fic...but I might be able to come up with exactly how I'd go about achieving their salvation. 😉😉

PS You really do send me some of the best questions, my friend!!

#tumblr Asks #this is one of the best I've gotten in a while #strangelock221b #thank you dear - love your Asks!#Dark!Stephen #Khanbatch #Benedict's Richard #Major Jamie Stewart #Victorianlock #Smaug #Smaugbatch #Wallace/Ace #Patrick Watts #yes I know one of those names just doesn't quite belong here #but I could make it fit #my writing

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percywinchester27 · 4 years

Text

A lot like ‘Us’

Word count: 3.8K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Warnings: Fluff

Series Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is eager and honestly, still in awe that she managed to get herself an acceptance from Stanford Law School. On the face of it, her life seems as put together, mysterious and independent as one might hope for. On the insides, she carries the burden of past that haunts her till date. Seemingly, she’d left it all behind; that is until she sets foot in the class of the Law School’s youngest, most promising professor.

Warnings: None for this chapter

A/N: I am so excited to share this story. I am really loving it <3 This is also written for @sdavid09 ‘s Tale Teller’s 2020 Bingo Challenge.

Beta: My amazing girls @deanssweetheart23 and @anathewierdo Thank you!! I love you both <3

Finally the last of the boxes had been pushed up the five stories of stairs and into your living room. The guy from the movers quickly accepted the payment and disappeared before you could even utter “thanks.” You didn’t blame him. Anyone would be over eager to leave after hauling boxes up the stairs given that the lift randomly stopped working.

You were just relieved that none of his men got stuck inside. That would have been awful. He complained about the sort of shitshows the rental buildings in the locality were, but all things considered, he had been pretty nice about the untimely disaster.

You closed the door behind and slid to the floor, glad that you didn’t have to smile for strangers anymore.

The lift might have been a shitshow, but the flat you were renting was really nice. It had two bedrooms, a living room and a small kitchenette. The flat had only one bathroom, but the grand balcony on the other side of the living room all but made up for it. You got off the floor and made your way towards the balcony. It overlooked a small meadow of sorts, and the entry wall beyond it was high and covered with thick vines. Right in the middle, was a small fountain in the shape of a mermaid, carved out of what must have been once pristine white marble. The mermaid had a mysterious look on her face, like she knew your secret, and was contemplating if it would fetch a good gossip. In her hand, she held a beautifully carved flask, from which the water fell into the basin below.

It was like being in your own space, enclosed in this beautiful Caribbean meadow. That was until a voice called your attention.

“Hey!”

You looked sideways to find an Asian guy who couldn’t have been more than 20 waving at buy. You waved back awkwardly.

“So, I see you’ve met judgy Judy!”

“Who?”

He tilted his head towards the mermaid. “That’s judgy Judy.” he said, smiling. “If you happen to walk past her after 12 in the night, you are bestowed upon the judgiest of looks. And if you’re drunk…” he let out his breath in whoosh.

You laughed, then were surprised at the sound of it. You didn’t laugh this easily.

“My name’s Kevin,” the boy said. “Kevin Tran. Aren’t you the new girl renting 502? Meg?”

You shook your head. “I’m Y/N, actually. Meg won’t be here until Wednesday.”

You knew nothing about your roommate except that she loved her privacy. That was her only demand in the advert. That she was looking for someone who knew of basic hygiene and didn’t poke their nose in her business. You couldn’t argue with that.

He smiled, “So what brings you here, Y/N?”

Before you could answer, Kevin put out his hands excitedly. “Wait! let me guess. You’re a pastry chef, looking to start your own little bakery in this quaint little town.”

You rolled your eyes. That was about as far as he could get from why you were here.

He caught on. “No… no… you’re an artist? Looking for inspiration?”

You pursed your lips, trying not to smile. “I’m actually starting the year at the Law school.”

Kevin whistled. “Law school, huh?” Then added, “Hey, what do I know? I’m just an engineer!”

You sized him up. He looked too young to be a professional.

He raised his hands up, “I know, I know what you’re thinking,” he said and you instantly felt guilty about judging anyone by their looks. Judgy Judy would be proud.

“You’re thinking why would I live out of the city,” he said and you breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s ‘cause San Francisco is boring. Besides, I get to work from home a lot, and it’s an hours drive anyway.”

“Seems fair,” you said. He didn’t ask you why you weren’t staying in the official campus dorms. Maybe he had already done the mental math and figured out that the Law building was less than a ten minute walk from here. Besides, most of Stanford was a student town anyway. This building was closer to the college than even the Faculty residence.

“Hey, Y/N,” Kevin said genially, “Why don’t you join us for dinner? It’s just me and my roommate Jack. We can order some pizza and pop some beers. It’ll be cool. That way you don’t have to worry about cooking in the middle of all that unpacking.”

It was starting to get chilly outside, and you wrapped your arms around yourself, “I’m not much a drinker.”

“That’s fine,” he said, unfazed. “We have soda, if you want.”

You hesitated, “Thanks, Kevin, really. Maybe some other time.”

You waved at his somewhat confused face and stepped inside, closing the glass doors of the balcony behind you.

If Kevin thought you were weird, he’d get used to it like everyone in your life. He would get used to not talking, stealing glances and the fact that you weren’t exactly the sort of person people wanted around in fun times. He’d learn to ignore you like everyone else.

Most of the weekend was spent trying to put your room together. There really wasn’t much to your belongings except books and some clothes, which you arranged as neatly as you could. If the blaring music on your speakers disturbed Kevin and his roommate, neither of them complained.

On Monday, you attended orientation lectures by a few alumni and the Dean. It all seemed like a dream to you. On Tuesday, they had a pre-law show you around in groups, the grand campus that was Stanford University. By the end, you were biased about the Law building being the best, maybe because you had dreamt of being here day and night for as long as you could remember. The Law school wasn’t a grand facade. It was functional and built in a pale beige sandstone which had weathered wonderfully over the years. The corridors were breezy and opened on to landscaped spill out spaces … and the building itself seemed to breathe through the tactfully placed fenestrations.

The pre-law showing your group around the campus talked and talked and talked, while you followed her dumbfounded at the expanse of it all. One day, you’d get used to this, you knew that… but that day was nowhere near close. In fact, it had barely even registered that you had done it! That you had actually been accepted into Stanford and that you were going to be a lawyer!

Stanford had twenty libraries. Twenty. The place that you absolutely fell in love with was the Cecil H. Green library. The high, vaulted ceiling made you feel like you had stepped right into the Victorian era. The rows and rows of shelves absolutely boggled your mind. You could live here and it still wouldn’t be enough.

You touched the richly colored mahogany table in the library and unwillingly, like it was the most inevitable thing in the world, you thought of him. The look in his eyes when he talked about this very place. “Y/N,” he’d say “You’re gonna fall in love with the smell of those books!”

You immediately yanked your hand from the table, as if a current had passed through your body. The girl next to you, looked over. “Everything alright?” she asked kindly.

You nodded and moved away from the piece of furniture. You couldn’t think about him now, not here. So, you took a couple of deep breaths and closed your eyes, focussing on the things around you, the long shelves, the smooth tables. And it eased some, you could feel your chest constrict a little.

Meanwhile, the guide talked on.

“Water?” The girl next to you offered as you all stepped out of the library. You needed it, but that meant talking to her, and you weren’t sure you were up for that.

“C’mon, take it,” she insisted, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You took the bottle and splashed some water on your face, then took two gulps, feeling better immediately. The water tasted funny, but in a refreshing way.

You looked at what was inside.

The girl laughed. “It’s cucumber water,” she said. “I figured we’d be doing a lot of walking today and this is a saviour.”

“Thanks,” you said, actually looking at her properly. She had a slim build, with dark brown hair and eyes. Despite knowing that they would be walking a lot, she was dressed in a black pencil skirt and a flowy baby blue blouse, with matching heels. She was carrying all that effortlessly without breaking a sweat, while you were wearing your most worn pair of comfortable jeans, a sweater and sneakers. You did notice that she looked really pretty and when she smiled, it reached her eyes.

“Better?” She asked

“Much. Thank you.”

She put her hand forward. “I’m Madison. Madison Maxwell.”

“Y/N Y/L/N.” You shook her hand.

The others had already gone ahead while she had waited for you to catch your breath and drink water. You started walking together.

“So, excited for the classes to begin?” She asked peppily and you nodded.

You figured that Madison was the sort to fill every silence with words. After a while, she was going to be really disappointed in you for your lack of responses or initiating a conversation.

As you walked, Madison told you everything that she could about herself in the span of the couple minutes it took you to reach the rest of the group. She was born and brought up in Pasadena, to a lawyer dad and a socialite mom. “I feel like my mom was born as a socialite! Her first words were probably, ‘well, hullo, Dahling!”

You laughed, and encouraged by your reaction she continued. She was a pre-grad in sociology from USC, where she was voted the most likely to charm people with her smile (seemed fair). She had two older brothers both lawyers in their Dad’s bigass firm, and they lived in this huge house overlooking a hugeass swimming pool. Her words, not yours.

The fact she was rich was pretty much in your face, from the gucci bottle filled with cucumber water to the Prada shoes, but it wasn’t because she was pushing it… she was just used to it.

“What about you?” She asked as you reached the group. “Where are you from?”

“Kansas,” you said.

“And?” She coaxed good naturedly.

“And I did my pre-law from University in Texas.”

“That’s nice. What about your parents?”

You looked down. “They died in a car crash when I was little.”

“Oh no!” Madison gasped. She looked like she was about to tear up.

“It’s okay,” you said quickly, offering her a smile. “I’ve made my peace with it.” It was true. You’d had twenty odd years to adjust to it. It was a way of life now.

Madison still gave you an apologetic smile, but thankfully, for the rest of the tour she didn’t talk much. It wasn’t that Madison wasn’t charming, but everyone charming usually expected the same from you… and you weren’t. Why pitch her up for disappointment?

“So, see you tomorrow, Y/N?” She asked, tentatively.

Poor girl, you thought. “See you,” you said. “It was nice meeting you, Madison.”

“Likewise,” she said brightly.

You watched her walk over to another group of girls, all dressed fancily,who squealed when they saw Madison. You shook your head, smiling to yourself that Madison had found some kindred spirits.

It didn’t explain why she had been so nice to you all day though. If she already had friends, she didn’t have to care about you, right?

It took you a while to figure out which was your exit. Roaming around in the campus as it was dark, was anxiety inducing. Yet, a voice in the back of your head kept telling you how the Oval was at the centre of the campus, and the Law building was just to the south east. You didn’t want to hear the voice, hell you didn’t even want to think about whom the voice belonged to, but slowly and surely it guided you back to the gate closest to your flat. Once you reached it, you made a run for it, not stopping till you were inside the tall building gate and into the meadow. You ran into Kevin.

“Y/N!” He said, “I didn’t see you there.” Next to him was another boy, dirty blonde hair and a smiling face. “This is Jack. Remember, I told you about him?”

Jack took one look at you and concern rippled across his face, “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just tired,” you whispered.

Before any of them could say another word, you dashed up the stairs.

“The lift is working again!” Kevin called after you, but you bolted into your room without halting. Once you were inside, you locked the door behind and you rolled into a ball on your unmade bed, finally letting the tears make their way.

You knew this was coming, you knew it the moment you set foot in this town that it would remind you of him… the way he smiled, the way he ran his hand through his hair when he was nervous… the way you loved him. Over the years you had trained yourself to snap out of it whenever your thoughts even inched towards him. You could shut it off and just stop thinking. It had taken years and years of practice, but finally you could lock him in the darkest part of your mind and not look at it. Not feel anything for him. In return, you barely felt anything at all. About anything, about anyone.

In the long run, you preferred that bargain, though. The numbness.

And after spending so much time in it, the numbness felt homely. It cushioned you against the pain and the memories. So what if it cushioned you against feeling anything at all, too? At least this way you were functional. You could get through the day and be productive. Besides, who did you have to live for except yourself, anyway? So it was okay to just survive. To just feel enough for you to feel human. At one point even that had felt like an impossible feat.

You tried not to remember the days and nights wishing for the endless pain to end, wishing to just give up on everything, on life. At least now you didn’t feel that way. You had re-learned to aspire, to work hard. You didn’t feel hopeful anymore, but you had a goal set in mind and you were willing to work as hard as you could to fulfill it.

Most of the time, you managed to block out all unwanted noise in your head and outside, and just concentrate on surviving. It will have to suffice till one day you could actually start living.

But once in a while the box cracked, like today, and all the memories came spinning out. In the library, somehow Madison’s prattling had kept you from spiralling. Now, there was no one to help. The thoughts simply overwhelmed you and you shut your ears, rolling into a smaller ball, as flashes of light from that night flared behind your closed eyes, the rain pouring down on you and all the blood. The thing you remembered most clearly was the cold. The skin-numbing, bone chilling cold as the water soaked through you.

You woke up to the blaring alarm. It was 7:15 in the morning.

“Shit!”

You jumped out of bed and then immediately slipped, landing on the floor with the thud. You cursed again as you got to your feet and rushed into the bathroom. Not only had you overslept, but last night you hadn’t even gone through your schedule of classes and lectures. The plan had been to wake up at 6, and go through the schedule once more, which you should have had studied last night, wear the perfect first day clothes that you should have picked out last night, and reach early to the classroom which you should have already figured out before 8 in the morning.

At 8 in the morning, however, you were still trying to shimmy yourself into the only formal skirt you owned. You quickly threw on the first decent shirt that you could find and tied your hair in a ponytail, then made your way out of the apartment without breakfast. Your bag was threatening to spill out the laptop and notebook you carried as you all but ran across the street to get to the campus.

By some extreme luck, you remembered the building perfectly. With a quick look through the schedule and the help of a very offended senior, you finally made your way to the class, completely out of breath by 8:20. Even though your hair was falling out of the ponytail, you were covered in sweat and your shoes were permanently damaged, you were miraculously ten minutes early.

The classroom was huge and circular. It was stepped upwards, with desks curving around to focus downwards on the podium at centre, right underneath the big projecting screen mounted on the opposite wall. If you had entered the normal way, you would have probably entered through one of the two doors at the top of the class, but with your luck, you had obviously entered through the one door at the bottom, presumably which the faculty used. This way you had to climb up all the way to an empty spot with over a hundred people staring down at you in your hassled state.

“Smooth,” a blonde guy from the third row muttered as you began climbing.

“Y/N! Hey, Y/N,” a voice called. “Over here!”

You saw Madison waving at you from the corner seat on one of the top rows. A few people were looking at where the commotion was coming from. To avoid more of it, you hurried towards her.

“Saved you a seat!” she said, moving her books from the seat next to her, to make space.

“Thank you,” you said gratefully. The three girls seated on the other side of her, gave you a curious look. The sort that is given to old cheese, wondering if it has gone stale.

“Girls,” Madison said, “This is Y/N. Y/N, these are Lacey, Meredith and Rebecca.” In your harrowed state, you only remembered that the brunette with long hair was Lacey.

“Aren’t you excited?” Madison asked, smelling like she had stepped straight out of a beautiful orchard, while you were sweating bullets.

“Mhmm,” you said. Madison went on to talk about how excited she was for this particular lecture, while you hurriedly set out your laptop, and readied your papers.

“He’s just so dreamy and hot,” Madison gushed and the other girls nodded in agreement. “I can’t believe we have him for the first lecture.”

“How are we supposed to concentrate?” One of the girls wailed.

Like that was really a problem.

“Civil Procedure,” you read from the time table, quickly going through the syllabus, not even looking at the professor’s name the girls were raving about. In your experience, the content mattered, not who was teaching it.

There was a sudden ruffling, and everyone quieted at once.

“Sorry, I’m a little late,” an apologetic voice said.

It was 8:32, you thought absentmindedly, as you looked up from the papers, that was hardly late. That voice felt like long forgotten music.

The professor was facing the board, printing “Civil Procedure.”

When he turned, the floor dropped from under your feet.

He wore a light grey suit, with a striped tie and a white button up shirt, and stood tall against the black board. His soft brown hair was long and silky, curling slightly at his collar, and even though from this far you couldn’t see the colour, his hazel eyes were warm and slightly abashed.

“My name’s Sam Winchester,” he said, the words each felt like a separate stab to your gut. “I'll be taking the Civil Procedure Module for this semester and the next. And, I’m usually never late… especially in the courtroom.”

Some laughter ran around the room. He gave it a minute acknowledging it with a smile, then opened his laptop, and a tech hurried over to set it up.

“While Paul here is helping me with the wires, let me introduce myself more fully,” he said, leaning against the table. “I did my pre-law from right here at Stanford, so I’m still your senior. You all better be respectful.” More laughter rang around. “Then, I went to Yale for law school. I’ve practiced in New York for two years before moving to California, and practicing in LA for a few more. I currently work as the Senior Associate at Acton Griswold in San Francisco. You guys heard of it?”

“Is he kidding?” Lacey whispered. “Who hasn’t heard of Acton Griswold?”

“You’re even paying attention to what he’s saying?,” said the girl next to Lacey. “I can’t get over the way he looks. What is he? 30? Hot damn!”

“I have to impress him,” Madison muttered, though her voice had become softer. “I need that internship at Acton Griswold.”

On the podium Paul was done setting up the laptop, and Sam walked over to it opening the presentation. He pulled out frameless glasses from the box and slid them up his long pointed nose.

“Damn!” Lacey said again.

Your vision was tunneling in, and the room was spinning around you. Nothing made sense anymore. Not where you were, not what you were doing. Nothing mattered except the fact that he was standing there, right in front of you.

You could hear the rustling of papers, and the tap-tap of fingers hitting keys. while you just sat there numbly, not knowing what to do, not caring what was happening, or how long it had been.

“Y/N? Y/N?” Madison was calling your name. “Are you okay? You look really clammy.”

Maybe she had been calling you for a while because a few people ahead of you turned to look, visibly annoyed. and it was in slow motion, almost reluctantly, as if to seek the source of disturbance that Sam’s eyes found you.

A second passed and you could see them widen, then freeze in absolute shock. Unadulterated and profound shock.

“I’m sorry, I need to go,” You muttered, then grabbed your laptop and your bag and rushed out of the door at the top, without caring about the papers you had spilt… and bolted across the corridor, without a sense of direction till you found yourself in a toilet cubicle, locked and in hysterics.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not ever.

You had closed that chapter of your life, fled as far away as you could and yet, and yet he was right here. Sam was so close to you, how had your heart not known?

***************************************

A lot like ‘Us’ Masterlist

A/N 2: SO WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK? Are we off with a good start?

PLEASE PLEASE please let me know?

If you want be tagged, you can send me an ask or add yourself to the taglist here.

Or here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to know about updates.

ALLU taglist:

@feelmyroarrrr @gabavaldman @im-a-light-child @cosicas-cuquis @bllyjianne @hoboal87 @i-is-for-inspiring @daughterleftbehind @wackiekebab @mylovelydame21 @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba @superbadassnatural @bellastellaluna @babypink224221 @badlittlehabit99 @anathewierdo @sams-bubblegum-bitch

#sam winchester x reader #sam x reader fluff #reader x sam winchester fanfiction #sam winchester fanfic #sam winchester fluff #lawyer!Sam #professor!Sam #Ana writes allu #anawrites #anawritesspn #q

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