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carriagelamp · 3 years

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Since it’s Pride Month, I decided this year I wanted to raid the library for a bunch of different queer books to read. Mostly graphic novels in this case, because I’ve had a hard time settling into much reading lately... thought hopefully now that it’s summer and I finally have my second shot I’ll be able to relax a bit more and dig into some heavier novels again. For now, enjoy some light, queer reads that I indulged in this June.

A Wolf Called Wander

A beautiful novel I had been hearing lots about. This story follows the young wolf Swift, who grows up knowing that he and his pack are the mountains, and the mountains are them. It’s in those mountains that he grows and learns and loves… until disaster strikes and he finds himself viciously torn apart from his family and forced out of the mountains that have always meant home to him. Forced to survive on his own. Swift then begins a gruelling journey that makes him face injury, starvation, and the everpresent danger of humans as he seeks a new place he can call home, and new people with whom he can form a pack.

This is all based on the true story of a tagged wolf known as OR-7, following the unbelievable route he took through Oregon and northern California! It was a very neat read, and I’d definitely recommend it if you enjoy stories told from an animal’s perspective because this book is a master class in it.

Bloom

I decided for June to try to read a handful of different queer books, and this was one of the first graphic novels I picked up. It is a super sweet story and the art is lovely. It’s about Ari, a boy who has just graduated high school and is now desperate to move away from his small town and his family’s struggling bakery, to join his band in the city where they hope to make it big. An agreement is finally reached: Ari’s father will let him leave, if he can find someone who can replace him in the bakery, which is how Ari meets Hector, someone who sees artistry and peace in baking. For anyone that’s read Check, Please, it gives off those types of vibes!

Boule et Bill: Bill est Maboul

Another book of Dupuis comics, because I can’t get enough of them! This one I just stumbled across and ended up reading on a whim but it was very cute. Geared younger than the others I’ve read, but still quite funny. It’s the charming hijinks of a young boy, his dog, and the family they live with. Each page or so is a different stand alone joke, a bit like Calvin and Hobbes except expanded beyond a single strip.

Chicken Run: Chicken Pies for the Soul

This was a ridiculous urge I got and had to follow. I recently rewatched Chicken Run (which is, of course, one of the best movies ever made) and felt the need to see if it had ever been novelized. Well, I found something better than a novelization! This is a chapter book with “advice” and stories written by the various characters, post-movie. It really does a good job with grasping the different characters’ voices and making something simple and funny out of it. It was very cute (and available on The Internet Archive if anyone else feels like reading something ridiculous!)

Doodleville

I picked this up on a whim and honestly, I shouldn’t have bothered. It was not very impressive. Very mediocre, awkward feeling artwork, and a story that only slightly manages to redeem it. The concept was kind of neat, and I did like how the ending came about, the rest was rather… plodding. I did not like the main character at all, her friends felt very Intentionally Quirky Aren’t We Cute :3 in a way that just tries too hard, and… yeah. Meh. It technically gets the “queer graphic novel flag” but it’s so in-passing that it feels rather excessive to give it that.

If you are interested, it’s about a world were doodles actually exist as living creatures that can be drawn into existence (the rather unsettling implications of which is never fully explored). This is all well and good, until the main character draws a monster and takes it with her to her art club... where it begins ravanging not only her doodles, but those of her friends. Together they need to work together to figure out how to stop this menace.

FRNCK v4

Phenomenal. I adore the FRNCK series, and book four wrapped up the first “cycle”, revealing several of the big secrets dogging the series so far, and changing how things are going to be able to run in the future.

If you haven’t seen me talk about it before, FRNCK is a graphic novel (a franco-belgian bande dessinée) about a young orphan, Franck, who’s chafing under the constant parade of uninterested foster parents that visit the orphanage he lives in. Determined to learn about his mysterious abandonment instead, he flees the orphanage… but finds himself tumbling through time, landing among a family of cave-people who rather reluctantly take him in and ensure this modern boy doesn’t die in the strange, dangerous new surroundings he finds himself in. You can get these ones in English as e-books, so if you want a really kickass graphic novel series to read please try these.

Haikyu!!

I’ve heard so much about Haikyu!! that I finally gave in and picked up the first book from the library. And I gotta say, it’s well worth the hype! This series really does capture the best parts of a good sports manga -- which is to say the team is filled with interesting, enjoyable character who all need to learn to pull together, boost each other’s strengths, and cover for each other’s weaknesses. Love me some found family tropes and this series oozes it in the best possible way. And then you also get some very cool action scenes as it makes high school volleyball seem like the most intense thing on earth. I can’t wait to continue it

Queer Eye

I haven’t been keeping up with Queer Eye but I was watching it ravenously when it first came out, and this seemed like a very cathartic book to read… and it really was. It had the same gentle, loving encouragement as the show. It doesn’t expect you to change your entire life, but to learn to embrace who you are, and take small steps to enhance those things. There a segment written (presumably) by each member of the Fab Five, explaining the mentality behind what they do on the show and how you can grow in those areas too. It’s very zen.

Spinning

I got this graphic novel out at the same time as Bloom, but it was the one that interested me less of the two... though that’s just because I have less interest in “real world” slice of life as a genre and this one is meant to be autobiographical. If you’re into that, you’ll probably love this because it really is stunning. Very pretty, and the format and pacing is all really well done. It’s a coming of age story for Tillie as she grows up dealing with a crosscountry move, complicated friendships, a burgeoning attraction to girls, and attending competitive figure skating classes.

This Place: 150 Years Retold

A stunning and heart-wrenching graphic novel told by a collection of different First Nation’s authors/artists, recounting oral histories about the 150 years since the colonialist formation of the country known as “Canada”. In other words, this is a post-apocalypse story, but one that really happened and that entire peoples are still fighting to survive. It’s very eye opening and beautifully told. Very strongly recommend the read, especially if you’re at all interested in history.

Torchwood: Serenity

Whoops, not technically a book. I had thought these were technically audiobooks at first, but rather they’re audio dramas that were played on the radio. Still, I decided to include one because I’ve been listening to them like a person possessed and they’re too fun not to at least mention. Let me indulge in my obsessions.

If you don’t know Torchwood, it’s a BBC series that spins-off from Doctor Who, focusing on the enigmatic and flirtatious Captain Jack Harkness, who is running the covert organization known as Torchwood, which is tasked to protect humanity from and prepare them for alien contact. It’s goofy and campy but also more adult and heavy than Doctor Who tends to get, so it is (in my opinion) a really fascinating series. Though it also has content warnings coming out the wazoo so maybe make sure it’s for you before delving in.

Serenity specifically is possibly one of the best Torchwood stories I’ve ever experienced. The Torchwood team concludes that there’s an undercover alien hiding in the idyllic gated community Serenity Plaza, and so that means it’s up to Jack and Ianto to go undercover as a happily married couple and flush out the alien without being discovered first. Even if it means being sickly sweet together, pretending to care about the local neighbourhood barbecues, and actually caring a bit too much about the Best Front Lawn competition. What is truly magical about this one, is that it manages to make it a Fake Dating AU despite the fact that Jack and Ianto are actually dating in canon. But they’re both used to dating as a pair of alien hunters with insanely dysfunctional lives, and who now need to figure out how to deal with domesticity. It is marvellous.

Wilderlore: The Accidental Apprentice

A middle grade novel that felt a bit like a cross between Harry Potter and Pokemon. It’s about orphan Barclay Thorne who wants nothing more than to be accepted in the rule-bound village of Dullshire, and live up to his apprenticeship as a mushroom farmer. He certainly wants nothing to do with the fearsome Beasts who live beyond the village, deep in the Woods or the sinister Lorekeepers that bond with them. It was, after all, a Beast that had killed his parents all those years ago. But when he finds himself at the very edge of the forest, hunting for an elusive mushroom, he is suddenly unable to avoid any of that. Not when a wild girl and her bonded dragon appear to summon a horrible Beast and end up getting Barclay bonded to it instead. Now, if Barclay ever wants to be welcomed back into his home, he has no choice but to venture into the Woods and find a way to sever the bond imprisoning him to the massive, monstrous wolf now imprinted on his body as a living tattoo.

I honestly can’t decide how I felt about this one. I feel like it’d be a really fun read for maybe a grade 5 to 7 student? I was a bit more meh about it. It was fine, but it was very hard not to draw unfavourable parallels to Harry Potter. But for a kid who’s never read Harry Potter? Or even an adult that has but is looking for something different to scratch that itch, this might be a good book to try. I’ll probably try reading the second book when it comes out.

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eohachu · 3 years

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Post pictures of your first ever (fictional/celeb) crush to the latest one and tag five others to continue the game.

Ali tagged me, thanks. I guess 😘 @lanzhansmiles

A’ight so I’m simply taking this as an opportunity to show off my frankly impeccable taste 😌 *coughs into the crook of my elbow with my mask on and from a safe distance* More under the cut, godspeed!

I’m tagging uhh I really don’t want to expose anyone but uh. @morifinwes @ttaechwita @sunshine304 @treemaidengeek @flamingwell no pressure tho!!

Since 2006

Janina Fautz: Die Wilden Kerle, anyone?? Tbh i had a crush on quite a lot of the characters/actors but in hindsight Janina was and is the most influential one. Also probably my first ever girl crush (again, in hindsight bc it took me until 3 years ago to finally find out i’m queer lol)

Eva-Maria May: Yeah well I’m not gonna talk about where I know her from let’s say it was an incredibly bad soap opera my mom used to watch. She was one of the reasons why I went Yeah I Have Always Been Into Girls. I was pretty obsessed with her to the point where mini me secretly printed out a photo of her to look at lmaooo the signs have always been there and it’s truly amazing how I had been missing them for years

Amy Adams: Her as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum was also definitely a huge Thing to young me. Again, I had been completely oblivious about this crush for years

David Luiz: HAH! This is the point where we do NOT get into my football/soccer crushes bc this list would get WAYYY too long hahaha. I had to cut loads of people from my list for this post bc I develop a new celebrity crush every 5 minutes basically but yeah. David Luiz was definitely my biggest football/soccer crush out of..... everyone else

M*rvel

I don’t have a lot to say about any of them since I’m not into m*rvel anymore TFATWS makes me want to stick the tip of my toe back into m*rvel waters but otherwise NO THANKS

Sebastian Stan was, if my judgement of my archive is right, the longest highkey celebrity crush I’ve ever had. Mostly because I love Bucky a lot and he was so amazing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I must’ve had a crush on him for as long as I had been in the m*rvel fandom

Recent Past

some celeb crushes from last year that were all more or less short-lived tbh

Ester Expósito: As it often goes I didn’t find her spectacular in the beginning but as Élite went on I started to develop a huge crush on her. I still find her pretty hot but I’m not invested in Élite so yeah..... I have no object permanence

Mina El Hammani: Got to know her through Élite, too. She’s so incredibly beautiful. Had a hard time choosing a photo of her bc I’d stare at every single one for ages. Wow.

Danger Days!Gerard Way: Hah! The ones of you who’ve been following me for longer might remember my posts about wanting to dye my hair neon red. Well, him’s the reason and also clinical depression. Ended up with natural red/ginger bc my hair is too thin for bleaching lel. ANYWAY

Maxence Danet Fauvel: Pretty short-lived crush from my Skam days

Ramy Moharam Fouad: So Ramy has a brother, Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad, who makes INCREDIBLE music. Ramy made some of his music videos (directed them? not sure), that’s how he came to my attention. Idk man he’s just so incredibly beautiful.... gives me a hint of genvy, too......

Janelle Monáe: Became a fan when Make Me Feel came out, listened to the entire album for days and eventually inevitably crushed on her

Lera Abova: Saw her in ANИА and fell in love. I screamed to my friends for weeks about how she was the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen etc etc. Eventually my crush went away mostly, but I still think she’s stunning

Keiynan Lonsdale: Keiynan said FUCK gender and I said 😍😍😍 and that’s all you need to know.

Current

*deep breath* alright let’s gooo

Bright (Wachirawit Chivaaree): Crushed on him for as long as I watched 2gether/Still 2gether lmao. I still like him a lot and sometimes lose my mind over him but I’m not exceptionally Thirsty™

Tul (Pakorn Thanasrivanitchai) and Max (Nattapol Diloknawarit): If you search either of them on tumblr you will have to scroll for a long, long time to find seperate photos of them. However, I’m not patient enough so here we are. Re: Tul, actually I want to copy/paste what Ali said bc DAMN a man who is confident about his masculinity and sexuality really is kinda hot. Same goes for Max tbh. Also Max’ lips look so soft I [redacted]

Lukas von Horbatschewsky: Also known as Lukas Alexander. He did an amazing job in Druck and he’s just a person I admire in general. As one of the few out trans actors in Germany, he had a main role as a trans boy in Druck and also co-wrote Druck’s seasons 5 and 6. He’s just a huge role model to me and, apart from that, Big Crush Material (h i s e y e s)

Li Wei: Someone suggested him as Hua Cheng for the TGCF live action and my life hasn’t been the same since. While I’m open for whoever will get that role in the end, I could look at his face for hours and not get bored. Major Genvy, too.

Li BoWen and Liu HaiKuan: I will have to deal with these two in one paragraph bc LanLan bc they have the exact same effect on me which is. that they’re not 100% my type but I WILL go absolutely feral about them at regular intervals, if you know what I mean

Song JiYang: ohh honey. oh honey.......... hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have a natural affinity for aquarius ppl and this one lives in my heart rent free. I’d even make him soup if he’d ask.

Wang YiBo: WELL HOLY SHIT. listen. LISTEN! the hype around him is 100% justified imo he really is That Bitch and I love him so so much for it. Fucking ICON

Honorary Mentions: Gender Envy

Here’s to the People I Thought I Had A Crush On But Not Quite until I learned the word Gender Envy:

Zhu YiLong: Man, this is the person who’s mainly responsible for me finding out AT ALL about not being entirely cis. The POWER he holds!!! His performance as Ye Zun in Guardian was like a breakthrough point for me which. certain people witnessed in real time hahaha oh I love this fandom!!

Zhu ZanJin: HIM. AAAH!! He’s literally so beautiful and whenever I see him I just go ZANZAN!! in my head and in the tags bc. well. hIM.

Xiao Zhan With Long Hair: Look, Xiao Zhan is always amazing but BLESS the person who made these manips. I can finally rest.

Wang YiBo: uhh what’s he doing here again?? Tbh YiBo is one of the few, if not the only person that gives me Major Gender Envy that I would also [redacted] if they asked. Do I want to be him or be with him? The answer is Yes.

I skipped the fictional characters bc I tend not to crush on them 👉👈 Instead I will just directly crush on the actors/actresses lol!

Thank you for bearing with me. As a prize, you can choose between a ladder supported forehead kiss, or a bowl of homemade soup. ❤

#[brother this took so fucking long]#[it was fun to reminisce but please never ask me to do this again ❤]#[sorry if anything doesn't make sense. i'm very tired my sleep schedule is fucked up and i have a major headache ❤]#[thanks ali for the tag it was really really fun!]#[also i think it's kinda sexy of me not to be ashamed of any of these. does therapy work? maybe so]#about #tag game #ali tag #r.txt

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littleshebear · 4 years

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Destiny Fanfiction: Truth

Some self-indulgent Dawning-related fluff I wrote last year but never posted for whatever reason. Here’s a dark age, kinderguardian Zavala learning about the power of myth and stories, then teaching those lessons back to a Guardian Sasha.

Crunch!

“What are you doing?”

Crunch!

Zavala trails behind Sasha, watching her bunny-hop through the snow outside the gathering hall. He had recommended they leave when Sasha had reached for her knife after the tenth or so suggestion that they get a room.

“It’s really satisfying,” she replies, jumping onto another patch of virgin snow. Crunch! “You should try it.”

“Is it calming you down?” He cocks his head, smiling at the incongruity of a woman who can snipe three Fallen Vandals in as many seconds, playing in the snow like a child.

She turns to face him, grinning brilliantly. “I wasn’t actually going to stab anyone, you know.” There’s a series of gratifying crunches as she hops towards him. “You worry too much.”

“I’m never sure when you’re joking.” He hazards reaching out and brushing the back of his fingers against her chill-flushed cheek. She doesn’t flinch or pull away, a fact he finds infinitely more pleasing than the sound of freshly-trodden snow. “It’s cold, you should get inside.”

“No,” she protests, taking his hand in hers. “I’m not tired yet. Come on.” She leads him back towards the festivities but eschews the main hall. The normally sterile winter air is alive with the scent of woodsmoke and roasting meat. They weave through the crowds until they reach one of a few braziers dotted around a larger bonfire. There’s a group of people gathered around the open air fires listening to Matushka hold court. Sasha warms her hands over the flames and smiles up at him. “There. I won’t freeze to death, happy now?”

“I just worry.”

“We already established that,” she says with a chuckle. “It’s endearing." He looks sceptical so she adds, "Really.”

He nods towards the old woman. She speaks with a clear, ringing voice, in a language he doesn't understand. “What is she saying?”

“She’s telling stories.” Sasha smiles softly, unmistakable pride creeping into her expression. “Matushka knows them all. We lost so much during the Collapse but alot of our legends made it. The Fallen could burn as many archives as they liked but you can’t burn down an oral tradition. So long as there are storytellers, the stories will survive.”

“Which story is this?”

Sasha takes a moment to translate. “How Lake Baikal came to be. Well, one version of it, there are a few.”

“I thought it was seismic activity?”

“No!" She gives him a playful smack on the arm, before hedging. "Well yes. But no. It's an old, old legend. I’m no Matushka but I’ll do my best. So, Old Man Baikal had three hundred and thirty six sons and one-”

“Busy man, this Baikal.”

“Shh!” She gives him another light tap on the arm. “He had three hundred and thirty six sons and one daughter, Angara. She was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, so Baikal became jealous and cruel. He locked her away and refused to let her see anyone. She spent her days in loneliness and misery, the birds where her only contact with the outside world.” She paused to listen to Matushka speak for a while, before continuing. “One day, the birds brought her news of a young man named Yenisei who had heard of her plight. The birds carried messages between them and they fell in love.”

“Birds can’t talk.”

“It’s a myth, Luchik, work with me here. Suspend your disbelief.” She sighs to compose herself. “So. Yenisei came to rescue Angara and they managed to escape Westward. When Baikal realised Angara had fled he became enraged. He picked up a massive boulder and threw it at the young lovers to try and stop them.” The lake is shrouded in darkness but she knows exactly in which direction to point. “The Shaman Stone, that’s the rock he threw. It sits at the source of the River…" She expands her palm outwards in a revelatory gesture, "Angara! When Baikal realised he’d lost his daughter he wept and wept until his tears formed the lake.”

Sasha falls silent again and rests her head on his shoulder as she listens to the end of the story. “That’s how Lake Baikal and the Shaman Stone came to be. And that’s why three hundred and thirty six rivers flow into Lake Baikal and only one, the Angara, flows out and merges with the river Yenisei.”

There’s an outbreak of murmurs and discussion from the gathered crowd as Matushka finishes the story. Zavala says nothing for a time, he just gazes into the flames in front of them. “I don’t understand,” he says, eventually.

“What’s not to understand?” Sasha asks.

“Why do you still tell these stories? You know they’re not real. You know that these rivers and lakes happened because of tectonic plates, glaciers and what have you, not a possessive old man’s tears.”

“Just because they’re not real, that doesn’t mean they’re not true.” She need not to look at him to know that his brows are almost certainly knitting into a confused frown. “We don’t tell these stories because we literally believe them. They tell us things about ourselves. There are truths in myth.”

“Very well, I’ll bite,” he says, putting his arm around her shoulders. “What’s the truth about an angry old lake spirit throwing rocks at his daughter and her lover?”

Sasha relaxes against him, drawing on his warmth as well as that of the fire. “Well, I think it tells you about what love really is.” Zavala holds his breath, hoping that she can’t feel how much he’s tensed up all of a sudden. “Yenisei loved Angara. He wanted her to be free but Baikal...” Sasha pauses, leaning into the embrace. “Baikal said he loved Angara, he claimed she was the most precious thing in the world to him but. Well, that’s just it. She was a thing to him. He kept her locked up like a jewel in a box. That’s not love. That’s possession. In trying to hold on to her, he lost her. Attachment like that, it’s…” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not healthy. If you love someone, if you really love them, you have to be willing to let them go.”

Zavala closes his eyes and encircles her with his arms, as if to relieve her of the weight of the words she's just spoken. “You don’t need to do that, Sashenka. I meant what I said.”

She returns the hug, the way her fingers sink into the fur of his jerkin belying her words. “If you need to leave for the Traveler after the thaw, I won’t stop you.”

“I’m not leaving.” He plants a kiss on top of her head that seems to serve as a full stop.

They stand in silence for a while, watching the fire and listening to voices that float over from the main gathering. Sasha eventually interrupts the quiet with a question. Zavala knows she’s trying to change the subject but he’s willing to let her. “Don’t you have stories? The Awoken, I mean. Aren’t there stories in the Reef, creation myths, tall tales?”

“There are, I guess but…” Zavala hedges. He guesses there are but he’s damned if he can remember any of them. “We left. Maybe our stories didn’t have enough truth to them.”

Sasha tips her head back to look up at him. “So make new ones.”

~*~*~*~*

“Zavala!” Izanami flitted around Zavala’s head like a gadfly, nudging his shoulder and purposefully blocking his view of his work. She wove left and right trying to lock his gaze with her optic. “It’s the first night of The Dawning, that’s enough now. You haven’t even looked at the Dawning Crystal, Ikora really outdid herself this year. The night shift is here. Everyone else has left, you’ve got no excuse...”

“The Dawning isn’t going anywhere, The Dawning can wait a few minutes while I finish up.” He replied, gently pushing her out of his way.

“We’re going to be late, Amanda will kill us.”

“First of all, we’re not going to be late and secondly Amanda will not-”

“She’s been working hard on this dinner, if we’re late she will literally kill us.”

Zavala pressed his lips into a thin line. “Literally? Words mean things, Izanami, you know I don’t like it when you do that.” The little AI’s shell was quivering with nervous energy. If he didn’t know that Ghosts didn’t eat, Zavala could swear she was hyped up on too much sugar from Dawning treats. Maybe it was psychosomatic? Could Ghosts pick up on the mood of over-excited humans? No matter, the root cause didn’t change the fact that she was actively delaying him rather than hurrying him along.

“Let’s go!” She pleads, turning in an impatient pirouette.

“The more you pester, the longer this will take. You go on ahead, tell Amanda I will be there in twenty minutes.” He raises an eyebrow for emphasis. “Literally, twenty minutes.”

“Fine.” His ghost turns to leave before abruptly turning back to face him. “But if you’re late and Amanda does kill you? I’m not rezzing you.”

“Thats a risk I shall have to take.” Zavala returned to his work with a wry shake of his head. It wasn’t just dotting i’s and crossing t’s in these missives to the Speaker. For his own peace of mind, he had to be sure the hand over to the Night Shift was properly handled and besides, there were Dawning-specific social niceties to think of. His conscience wouldn’t have allowed him to head off to a celebration without personally thanking each and every one of the staff who had volunteered to work over this festival. It was a selfless act and that was something that spoke to Zavala’s pride in his City like nothing else.

When he finally left, he decided to take a brief detour to take a look at the decorations around the Tower. As the Dawning Crystal hove into view when he ascended the steps to the plaza, he had to admit, Izanami was right. Ikora had outdone herself. A warm feeling bloomed in his chest as he took in the sight of the lanterns strung around the plaza and the snowfall filling in the footprints of raucous guardians armed with snowballs. He turned towards Traveler’s walk; the view from there during winter was always lovely and that area was less likely to be used as a snowball field of conflict. As he suspected, it was far quieter there. It was silent save for the sound of two feet jumping simultaneously into the snow over and over. He followed the sound to see who was making it.

Sashenka. No, he couldn’t call her that, not anymore. Hunter. Guardian. Those were the only appropriate names now. She was leaping, two feet together, from one unsullied patch of snow to another. She would occasionally pause to stamp down the snow into ice before moving on. He shouldn’t be there, he could practically hear his Ghost urging him to leave, telling him what a terrible, terrible idea it was to stay. Yet, there he was. Rooted to the spot, taking in every detail; How beautiful she looked bathed in the combination of lantern and Traveler light, the snowflakes settling on and standing out against her black hair, how similar she was to that woman he fell in love with centuries ago. How very discomfiting it was how often she challenged his assertion that Guardians were not the same people they were before they died.

Sasha did a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn. Her laugh when she stuck the landing was suddenly cut short when she saw Zavala watching her. She staggered to the side, spoiling the pattern of double footprints she’d left in the snow. She gave an awkward wave.

“Evening, Commander.”

Zavala responded with a respectful nod and crossed over to her. “Hunter. Enjoying your first Dawning?”

She shrugged and nodded a little too vigorously. “Uhm. Yes?”

He frowned at how unconvinced she sounded. “No plans for tonight?”

“My friends are having a party.”

“Your friends.” He held her gaze. “But not you.”

She exhaled slowly and seemed to deflate. “I’m just not feeling it.” The lines on Zavala's forehead deepened, signalling a demand for an explanation. “It’s not a real festival. It’s all made up.”

“Not real?”

“It’s cherry-picked. It’s a hodge-podge of different cultures.” She bowed her head and looked up at him through apologetic eyelashes. “It seems fake to me.”

Zavala brushed some snow off a nearby bench and gestured for her to sit.

“Did I say something wrong?” She asked, sinking down, her shoulders hunched up as far as they’ll go.

“No,” he said,settling on the bench beside her. “Just consider the possibility that just because something isn’t real, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” He paused to let her respond but her only answer was knotted brows, so he continued. “Rites, rituals, festivals. They give structure and meaning to our lives. You don’t have to believe in the reality of the Dawning to believe in the truth of the message behind it.”

“Which is?”

“How did you feel when you were first resurrected?”

“Scared. Lonely, I guess. Doesn’t everyone feel that way at first?”

“At first, yes. Being awoken, alone, without even the memory of who you once were to keep you company is a hard thing to bear. I know I felt adrift, with only my Ghost to keep me right.”

Sasha shook her head ruefully. “It’s hard to imagine you as a confused kinderguardian. You’re so-”

“- Choose your next words carefully,” he deadpanned.

“Stolid.” She grinned up at him, waiting for his reaction.

“All right. That’s an acceptable description.”

“Well I’m relieved, Commander,” she said, through soft laughter. “But what does this have to do with the Dawning?”

He smiled, allowing himself a modicum of pride in the fact that he can still make her laugh, stolid as he is. “I was scared, yes, lonely too but I found people. Made friends, formed connections. The same goes for the refugees who came to the Traveler and founded the City. The collapse was culturally devastating, so much was destroyed; Histories, languages, communities. We lost our stories, we lost those things that teach us about the world we live in. So we salvaged what we could and made new stories. We took what was true, what mattered and made new festivals to preserve them. We survived. We joined together and were stronger for it. We rebuilt. We are the light in the Darkness. That’s the story the Dawning tells. That’s what it’s for. So yes, it’s constructed. Made up, if you will.”

“But it’s true. It's the City's truth. I get it.” She gave him a sly, sidelong glance.“So it’s not just about cookies and presents?”

“Well, no. A big part of the Dawning is about celebrating family and friendship. Cookies and presents help with that, I suppose. So go. Be with your friends. Eat drink, be merry, for tomorrow we fight.”

Sasha rose and vigorously shook her head, theatrically ridding her hair of the snowflakes that had settled there. “Wait.” She smoothed her hair out of her face and looked intently down at him. “You’re by yourself. Do you have somewhere to be? You can’t be spending the Dawning alone, not after that speech you just gave me.”

“I have somewhere to be,” He reassured her as he got to his feet.

“Oh. Well. Good.” She seemed relieved and perhaps a little disappointed too. Zavala couldn’t be sure but he wondered if she’d started forming an invitation in her head. He decided that was just egotistical wishful thinking on his part. It was safer that way.

“Happy Dawning, Guardian,” he said with a respectful nod.

“You too, Commander.” She pivoted her foot as if turning to leave but the rest of her body didn’t follow suit. “And thank you.”

“For what?”

“You always know what to say.” She shrugged, as though that were completely obvious.

“I’ve had some very good teachers.”

If Sasha were intimidated by the intensity of his gaze, she didn’t show it. She stared back at him for a not uncomfortable couple of seconds before finally blinking several times and looking away. She drew up her hood with a sheepish smile and a mumbled, “G’night.”

Zavala didn’t move. He watched her make her way down the path, waiting, hoping for her to grace him with another glance in his direction. Amanda Holliday’s amused drawl over his comm unit eventually distracted him from his vigil.

“So your Ghost wanted me to tell you that you’re officially late, Commander.”

“Are you going to kill me? She was at pains to tell me you would literally kill me if I were late.”

“Nah, you’re fine,” she explained. “You’re officially late, not Zavala-late.”

“What is Zavala-late?” he started ambling down the path once Sasha was finally out of sight.

“Half an hour after the official starting time. That lets you squeeze in all those one last, one last things you always have to get done before you leave work. So you’d better get down here before your Ghost has a nervous breakdown.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll see you soon.” He turned off his comm unit and halted where the path met a patch of snow-covered grass, deciding that he had one last, one last thing to do before he went to dinner. He regarded the pristine, gleaming expanse of white with a serious expression. He glanced around furtively, looking to make sure no one else had entered Traveler’s Walk. When he was sufficiently satisfied that he was alone, he put his feet together and bunny-hopped forwards onto the snow, chuckling softly to himself.

#destiny fanfiction #the dawning #commander zavala #zavala x oc #zavala x female guardian #dark age flashbacks #my writing #oc: sasha #zavala x sasha

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thejollyroger-writer · 5 years

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What Happens in Berkshire - Sneak Peek (CSSNS 2019)

While I thought for sure I had already posted a sneak peek for this story that I have grown to love so much, I can’t find it anywhere, so instead of simply reviving it from the archives, I’ll just post another one. I am so hyped for this fic, but even with that being said, words just haven’t been coming to me as easily as I need them to in order for this whole story to be ready to post on the 31st -- hence the sneak peek.

Greatest of thanks to @shireness-says, @captainsjedi, @profdanglaisstuff, and @let-it-raines, my forever cheerleaders, and @kmomof4 and @cssns for making the event that gives this weird-as story a home.

-----

But it’s her birthday, god damn it, and she is going to celebrate. She’s only been here for a week, but she’s already loving Windsor, loving England, how different it is from Boston, from New England, but still a little reminiscent of home. She’ll be just fine here on her own. Neal would have hated it here anyway, if he would have decided that he cared enough to come with her. If he actually loved her. Emma doesn’t need him, doesn’t need anyone.

Neal can go fuck himself. Or fuck that woman from his office that he was already fucking.

Alright, she might already be pretty drunk. But she wants more. She wants to forget, forget him enough to celebrate even more, and she’s maybe almost there.

But it’s two in the morning, last call at the only bar Belle had ever been to in this part of town, and she’s run out of time.

So Ruby bought them another round of shots, of whatever the strongest alcohol that would affect Emma the most — and, even wincing as much externally as she is on the inside, she knows the answer is tequila. One more, a double after Ruby insists, a small orange juice chaser, and they’re out.

The weather in Berkshire is far from perfect, though perhaps better than it could have been at the end of October. Instead of the regular downpour that Belle told them to expect, it’s simply drizzling, the air around them wet instead of drenching. So, of course, they decide to go for a walk.

“Did you know that Berkshire is where — where the original Captain Hook was from?” Belle asks, her words coming slowly and slurred.

“Really?” Mary Margaret seems genuinely interested, the only one of them that has stayed fully away from alcohol on their trip, mainly because of the ever-growing baby bump, though she never was one to get anywhere beyond tipsy, since that first margarita experience during her sophomore year of college.

“Yeah, there’s a statue of him and everything.”

“Let’s go see it!” Ruby suggests, arm wrapped around Emma’s shoulders, though Emma seems to currently be having her own trouble standing on her own.

The walk is only a few blocks, all of them thankfully sporting waterproof coats that Belle insisted they all bring with, even though Ruby had to sit on her suitcase to close it before the jacket was added. How that woman seemed to wear so little clothing but still have trouble fitting everything into a suitcase was beyond all of them. Their walk is quiet, all of them trying their hardest not to let the drizzle get to them any deeper than their coats.

But then they see it, lit up by a light recessed into the sidewalk before him, and he’s… well, he’s perfect. The most incredible-looking man Emma has ever seen, and he’s made out of damned stone. Just her luck.

Belle is saying something in the background, explaining to them the history of the statue, of the story of Peter Pan and how the town believes that Barrie’s villain is based off of this statue that has been here for as long as anyone can remember. Emma is trying to listen to the story, she really is, but there is just something about the statue standing in front of her that steals her attention.

He’s gorgeous, even for a damned statue.

“I thought he was an old, skinny guy with a handlebar mustache?” Emma asks, realizing halfway through her sentence that she cut Belle off in the middle of a thought.

“Why, because of that animated movie?” Belle asks, turning her attention to Emma, but Emma’s eyes are still glued to the statue.

“Well, yeah.”

“The version of him in that movie is nothing like the Hook that Barrie described. People have given him a black perm and bushy eyebrows, but Barrie himself described our villain as ‘in a word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, and he was a magnificent pirate and not wholly unheroic.’ He had black hair, yes, but it didn’t have to be a perm, and there is nothing in Barrie’s description to say that he is a tall, thin old man.”

Ruby comes to stand beside Emma, her eyes trained on the statue in the same way. “This is a perfect specimen of a man, and he’s made from a slab of marble.”

“Do we know the artist who made it?” Mary Margaret asks from the back of the group, always interested in artists.

Belle is silent for a moment, then turns to face the group, her eyebrows forming a low ‘v’ on her forehead. “Actually, I’m not sure about that. From what I know, the statue has been here for longer than the college has.”

“So no one knows where it came from?”

“Well, there’s an old wives’ tale that he used to be a sailor, a pirate, who watched the woman he loved die in his arms and was cursed for not doing anything to save her, cursed to stand here and wait for his True Love to save him.”

“But obviously that’s not true,” Mary Margaret comments, perhaps not sounding quite as convincing as she was hoping to.

“No,” Emma replies, and Belle shakes her head. “No, of course not.”

A beat of silence passes between the four of them, each of them staring at the statue from a different angle, overcome by the spell he has them under.

And then, suddenly, Ruby starts laughing. Cackling, almost, unable to stand up straight until she takes a wheezing deep breath, clapping her hand against Emma’s shoulder.

“It’s your birthday, Swan!” she barely gets out, cackling again. “Go up and give him a kiss!”

“Ruby!” Mary Margaret scolds from the other side of the statue, leaning to the side to stare at her around the man’s perfectly sculpted legs, so realistic that they can actually see the curves of muscles beneath the marble britches.

But Belle and Emma are just drunk enough to join in with the laughter, also thinking it’s a good idea.

“What the hell,” Emma says, shrugging. “I’m thirty years old and my boyfriend just broke up with me. It’s probably safer than a one-night stand.”

Belle thinks this is particularly funny, and her laughter, echoing around the courtyard around them, drives Ruby into another fit of laughter herself.

“Come on, guys, help me up!” Emma yells, hooking her arm around the leg of the statue, trying to use it to hoist herself up on the pedestal. Mary Margaret, the only one of them sober enough to give her any actual assistance, walks over to her, understanding that it would do more harm to try to talk her out of this than to just help her.

One foot up on the pedestal, then the other, grasping her free hand around the curve of his arm, the hand of which is wrapped around the hilt of his sword. She almost loses her footing as she tries to move her arm from his leg to his other arm, finding a hold on his hook. Finally, she has reached the platform, standing face to face with the statue. He really is a magnificent piece of art, from the individual strands of hair on his head to the stubble covering his chin to the embroidery work on his vest — amazing detail, she realizes even in her drunken haze, for a statue that has been standing for longer than the college around it, details surviving the wind and the rain that she has already discovered are regular for England. For a moment, Emma is overcome with compassion for the man standing before him, for the sadness visible not only in his eyes, but that’s written across his whole face.

Christ, she thinks, I must have had more to drink than I thought.

“Just kiss him, damn it!” Ruby yells, laughing at her some more, and Emma stares back at him for another moment before pulling her face to his, pressing her lips hard against the cold, wet stone.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then, suddenly, a flash of lightning strikes on the other side of the building beside them, startling Emma enough to almost lose her footing, so focused on keeping her balance that she does not notice the spark of magic that erupts from her fingertips at the same time another flash of lightning hits just a few feet from where they are.

“Emma, get down from there!” Mary Margaret yells, just as Emma feels the stone beneath her fingers start to change, and when she looks up, the statue has turned into a man. A real-life, living, breathing man with twinkling eyes and a bright smile.

Her arms are locked around his neck, and his hand has left the hilt of his sword to wrap itself around her waist, pulling her tight against him.

“Hello, love,” he says, his voice dark and deep, and if he was not holding her up, she surely would have fallen backwards off the platform.

Also tagging the regular crew: @teamhook @thisonesatellite @welllpthisishappening @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke

#cssns #my writing #cs fics #cs sneak peek #cssns sneak peek #yes everyone its almost time #statue fic #i just... have to finish it.#wordsbymeganmichael #sorry everyone #but I need a boost #this whole writing thing just isnt working for me right now

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vulpinmusings · 4 years

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Ski’tar and Friends part 16: Undercover Gladiators

This week, Ski’tar, 6, and Vemir are given another not-exactly-legal mission by Historia-7 and have to fight in a gladiator pit as a result.

Beginnings

Last time

Archive

The trip back to Absalom Station from Elytrio was relatively quick and uneventful, aside from crossing paths with that freighter crewed by a single, lonely Ysoki again. Upon arrival, we reported straight to Venture Captain Arvin, handing over the data we’d collected and summarizing the state of affairs on Elytrio. Arvin was very pleased with our performance and said that our group’s string of successes (the minor case of Vemir’s death notwithstanding) was attracting the attention of First Seeker Lorenzo, the big boss of all Starfinders. Arvin had also caught word of our group’s tradition of post-mission drinks, so he rewarded us by having the Society cover our tab for this round. Ship Captain Navasi agreed to join us when we asked, but Iseph had “personal matters” to attend to.

After some discussion of our options, we decided to go to a cocktail bar in the Eye called the Business Proposal, which logically caters to those in the corporate sector. We took a booth, ordered our drinks, and Navasi took the lead in our conversation. He asked each of us our reasons for joining the Starfinder Society and what our long-term goals were. I phrased my quest for the Perfect Boom in terms that didn’t paint me as a mad bomber, and Navasi promised to pass that info along so that we might get sent to places with more exotic compounds to find. 6 and Vemir’s stories weren’t as fancy as mine; Sixer had mostly wanted in on the prestige of the Society and Vemir had intended to only do the one job but was sticking around because he tended to find good bounties along the way. Navasi gave us his story in return (he’d always been entranced by what the Society stands for), and gave us a little more information about Scored Stars. It seems that after the Disaster, an impassable barrier appeared around the Scored Stars area so that nobody can get in and anyone who may have survived can’t get out. The first Seeker’s main priority, and by extension the whole Society’s is figuring out how to get that barrier down so we can investigate. Our group wasn’t seasoned enough to be directly involved in that work, but Navasi thought that we’d get there sooner rather than later at the rate we were rising in the Society’s eyes.

Just as our drinks arrived, our comms pinged. Historia-7 was calling to ask us to come back to the Lorespire complex immediately. Navasi went with us to the Complex, but had to part ways with us there because he had a meeting with the First Seeker. Historia-7 was deep in the Archives when we arrived, and she barely disconnected enough to acknowledge our presence and give us our marching orders.

While Historia had been going through the data we’d brought back from Elytrio and looking for leads into Scored Stars, she’d discovered a discrepancy in the Society’s archives. Some of 7’s predecessor's notes had been located and decrypted, and they mentioned a corporation called the Arch-energy Consortium that the Society had no other records of. Historia-7 wanted that gap of knowledge filled, as she believes Arch-energy may be a front for something sinister and possibly information that could useful for solving the Scored Stars conundrum. The security around the Consortium’s data was surprisingly tight for such a small company; the only weak point Historia-7 could identify from the old notes was Envar Tam, the son of the CEO. Arch-energy’s main base of operations, a space station called Brilliance, has an ampitheater were gladitorial-style fights are held for the entertainment of the employees, and Envar is a particularly big fan. Historia wanted us to go take part in the fights to charm our way into Envar’s good graces and then manipulate him into letting us access his mother’s computers so we could steal as much data as we could.

And to try and avoid linking all this back to the Starfinders, we would need false identities.

Good thing I knew a guy.

ID-man’s shop was dirtier than the last time I’d been there, but the fat human was still in more or the less same shape. For three false ID, he quoted a total of 9000 credits, which Vemir gladly paid as thanks to Sixer and me for bringing him back to life. My own credits were starting to run out, so I didn’t argue. ID-man worked quickly, and soon three new gladiators were walking the streets of Absalom Station: Ezo-14 the android, Veldaro the Kasatha, and Blip the Ysoki. To further separate ourselves from the Starfinders, since we were starting to become slightly famous, we went shopping for disguises. I obtained some fur dye to make myself brown with black markings instead of solid grey, Vemir altered his outfit to emphasize his scars and missing arm, and added some warpaint to complete the effect, while 6 subjected himself to an overenthusiastic barber and painted himself blue. It didn’t quite seem enough in Sixer’s case, but we had no time to fix it.

The three of us took the Odyssey out to Brilliance Station by ourselves, since leaving crew members behind after docking would have been suspicious. Luckily, the trip was only four days. The Odyssey is not a fun ship to spend a lot of time aboard. No engineering lab.

Docking with the station was no problem, but we nearly ran into a snag when station security checked our bona fides. Something tipped the security Lashunta off, and I had to quickly hack into the comms and modify the data we were sending to erase the incriminating info and make it look like a glitch. Once we were cleared, we were escorted straight to the amphitheater with no time to prepare and no instructions beyond “if you die, at least try to make it entertaining.”

That did not bode well.

We couldn’t make out much of the crowd as we stood on the arena floor thanks to the reflected angle of the local star shining through the transparent roof, but in the shaded box for high-profile spectators we saw a Lashunta man, probably mid- to late-adolescent, with a wildly colored hair and smoking what seemed like an extremely unwise amount of some drug or another. Possibly many different drugs at once. He was clearly eager to watch the fights and just a clearly lost in his own addled brain-space. Fortunately, he was just there to watch, not to run the show.

An unseen announcer prompted us to put on a little pre-show to hype up the crowd before the actual fight. While Vemir simply posed and gestured in an appropriately intimidating manner, I opted to do some acrobatics. I back-flipped onto my drone, rode it for a bit as it did figure-eights then jumped off, rebounded off one of the columns in the arena, and landed back on the drone as it was still moving. 6 tried to show off his strength by punching one of the columns, but wound up just cracking his hand instead of the column. That killed the mood a little, but the crowd still seemed to be mostly in our favor.

Then they brought out the monster.

I was glad we wouldn’t be expected to fight other people to the death as part of our cover. Not that I have problems with killing per se, of course, since I’ve done plenty of that, but something doing it just for sport seems… dirty.

At any rate, our foe was a vicious Crest-eater, a large and very angry six-legged carnivore with bull-like horns and a number of grasping tentacles on its back. Looking to redeem himself in the eyes of the bloodthirsty crowd, 6 charged straight on with sword at the ready. His opening blow turned into parrying the Crest-eater’s lunge, but at least he was playing to his strengths from the outset for once. Vemir and I took cover behind a column while I sent my drone rolling up in anticipation of acting as a shield for Sixer if needed. I decided this would be a good time to try out a new grenade I’d been working on: frags modified to contain some of the crystallized poison from Ulmarid. My throw fell short, but the blast was at least flashy enough to score some points with the crowd.

6 took a bad bite from the Crest-eater, but paid the beast back with interest, severing a couple of tentacles. Vemir lined up a shot and sniped the beast hard. The Crest-eater tried to back away as Sixer continued to lay into it, and spat out a venomous-looking acid that hit both 6 and my Drone. Sixer took off one of its legs for that. He was certainly making up for his poor showing in the hype-up.

Vemir finished the fight before I could contribute any more, landing a shot that went straight through the best’s head and hit some internal organ hard enough to make the creature explode in a shower of gore.

As the adoring crowd showered us in flowers and pocket-change cred chips, the Lashunta druggie vaulted out of his seat and ran over to praise us for our performance, although he went to my Drone first before realizing it wasn’t actually sentient. He then latched onto Vemir as his favorite out of us and introduced himself as Envar Tam and offering to give us a personal tour of the station.

I immediately started recalculating our odds of success given Envar’s utter lack of focus. On the one hand, he was loopy and cheerful enough to be easily led to whatever we wanted, including his mother’s private office and computer. On the other hand, I had serious doubts about his ability to stay focused on any given thing for more than ten seconds.

This was going to be a chore.

#ski'tar #Starfinder #Vulpin plays

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lavender-lotion · 5 years

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all that you are is all that i'll ever need

Teen And Up Audiences | No Archive Warnings Apply | M/M | Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) | Hulk/Peter Parker, Bruce Banner/Peter Parker | PeterHulk (Marvel)Tony StarkSteve Rogers(Mention Bruce Banner) | Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Miscommunication, Angst, Hulk Needs a Hug, Communication, Happy Ending, Kissing

***

“We need eyes on the Hulk,” Captain America’s voice crackled through Peter’s mask, and he flipped back through the air to avoid a spray of bullets. His heart was racing in his chest, his instincts kicked up to twelve with everything that was going on. Ducking, he punched a machine through its core and pulled out a handful of wires. “Someone, we need eyes on the Hulk!”

The battle wasn't going well. Doctor Doom had teamed up with some low-level magician for total world domination, and the Doom bots that were attacking the city were a hyped-up, steroid taking version of his usual creations. Tony had yet to find a way to shut them down, seeing as they were being run with a combination of technology and magic, and so far all they'd been able to do was attempt to clear through the endless hordes of bullet-shooting robots.

“Where is he?” Tony asked. He sounded tired, like he always did lately. Peter had tried to talk him into retiring, but so far he hadn’t had any luck.

“He’s cleared the city,” Captain said, sounding strained. “We don’t know why he left but it can’t be good.”

“On it,” Peter replied, leaping off a bot and shooting out a web, arching through the air in a graceful swing before he launched himself into a free throw, flipping in the air before he shot out his arms and the webbed gliders he and Tony had worked on together caught the air.

“Peter—” Tony said through their private channel, but Peter cut him off before he could say anything else.

“I’ll be fine,” he snapped, launching another web and gaining more speed, throwing himself through the air as quickly as he could until there were no buildings left for him to web to and he had to glide through the air.

“Kare?”

“I have scanned the area, and it appears as though Hulk is to your left,” Karen answered, as smart as ever. It had been years since they first met, and now they worked together effortlessly. More often than not, Karen knew what he needed even before Peter did.

“Gotcha, can you give me a boost?” Peter asked.

“Certainly, Pete,” he grinned at the nickname as the padding along his foot shifted, the nanobots that Tony had hidden within his suit shaping into a repulsor that shot him through the air. He made a little noise of excitement like he did every time he flew, unable to help himself as he zipped through the air. It was different from web-slinging, where he always had to be looking to catch himself. While flying—or gliding, as Tony insisted—he didn’t have to worry about his next web-point; he could just enjoy himself.

Peter tilted his body, aiming left, and made a little noise of victory when he finally spotted the hulking mass of green he was after.

The repulsors kept him going until he was close enough that he wouldn't need them. They folded back into his suit and Peter let himself drop, landing in a crouch only a few paces behind Hulk. His heart was racing even faster than it had been earlier, and it was practically all he could hear, surrounded by trees and grass, the noise of the city a quiet dim behind him.

He rose from his crouch and ignored the way his hands were shaking. Hulk leaving the field probably didn't mean anything, right? It totally wasn’t related to what Peter was definitely not thinking about, right? God. He was such a freaking idiot.

“Hey, big green,” he called, even though he was sure Hulk knew he was there. He was holding himself stiffly, lines of tension running along his back and over his shoulders. His hands were clenched into fists at his side, and it made Peter's heart hurt, knowing he'd probably been the cause. Such a freaking idiot.

“Hulk mad at Spider,” Hulk said, his voice rumbling out of his chest in a way that made Peter shiver. And yep, there went his heart, breaking into a billion pieces. He hugged himself loosely, quietly asking Karen to make sure they had privacy. He didn’t need anyone overhearing their first fight.

“Hulk,” he tried, stepping closer. Hulk turned, a thunderous look on his face that made Peter hate himself for being the cause of it. “Hulk, what’s going on? Is—is everything okay?”

“No! Spider not love Hulk. Spider only love Banner!” Hulk snapped, his face twisting from something angry to something heart-wrenching. He looked so sad, sadder than Peter had ever seen him, and he had no idea how to make it better.

“Hulk, I love you,” Peter told him, stepping closer again. He held out his hand, and even if he wasn’t expecting Hulk to take it, it still hurt when he was ignored. “Hulk, please.”

“No love!” Hulk argued, his hands clenching tighter. “You stopped. No love Hulk!”

“Hulk,” Peter said helplessly, his chest aching at the sorrow he could hear in Hulk's voice. God, what had he done. “That wasn’t why I stopped us.”

“Hulk isn't stupid!” he roared, banging on his chest hard enough that the ground shook.

“Hulk, I know that,” Peter pleaded, his eye stinging. He took off his mask so he could wipe at his face, trying to get himself under control so he could at least stop crying. “I promise, that wasn’t why.”

“Love Banner different. Not fair. I love you the same.” It was the first time he’d said it so clearly, and Peter’s heart broke apart in his chest.

“Hulk, baby,” Peter said, desperate. He reached out, smoothing his fingers over Hulk’s knuckles until his fist started to relax, the littlest bit. It was still enough for Peter to press closer, and he stepped onto Hulk’s foot so in a desperate attempt to get closer. “That’s not true. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I promise.”

“Why stop?” Hulk asked simply, as though the answer was anything but. Hell, did Peter even know why?

“I wasn’t sure if you knew what you wanted,” Peter told him, ignoring the justified growl his words received. He always promised himself that he would never treat Hulk like the others all treated him, but then he had. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten that Hulk knew far more than others thought he did, that he was smarter than anyone realized, and he had pulled back. He had no idea if it was fear or just plain stupidity that had caused him to do, but he wished more than anything he could take it back. “I didn’t want to do something that would hurt you or upset you. And I forgot that you are so much more than anyone gives you credit for. That...that I give you credit for.”

Hulk finally opened his hand, and Peter wrapped himself around his wrist, hugging his forearm tightly. “Hulk, I promise that I love you and that...that I’m attracted to you. You mean so much to me, just as much as Bruce. And if you’d like to try again, I would love to be with you that way. It isn’t going to be simple, and maybe I pulled back because I was afraid, a little. Not of you but of...of what my own attraction meant. But I love you so much, and I would love to share myself with you, if you still want to.”

Hulk didn’t say anything, and for the entire minute that he was silent, Peter couldn’t breathe. Finally, Hulk’s fingers wrapped around him and lifted him up until their faces were level, and Peter lost himself staring into a pair of eyes he loved.

“Still want to,” Hulk grumbled, and Peter’s entire body relaxed as though he’d been caught from strings. “I love Spider, even if Spider made me sad,” he said seriously, and Peter let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob than anything else. He stroked his hand over Hulk’s cheekbone, touching him gently, and smiling when Hulk leaned forward for a kiss.

“I love you too, baby,” Peter told him quietly, taking a deep breath for the first time in days and smiling up at his boyfriend.

***

Read here on AO3!

#lavenderlotion #hulk #bruce banner #peter parker #hulk x peter #hulk/peter parker #fanficiton #my wriring #hulk needs a hug #peter gives him one #ang #my #this one kinda hurt #mcu #marvel #spider-man

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creideamhgradochas · 6 years

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Thanks to the lovely @abovethesmokestacks for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about lovely Pia, go give her a follow and then show her some love!

These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?

I started back in 2008 when I was 21 years old.

2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I do enjoy both, but lately it's been more reader inserts. It's challenge to write a good reader insert, to make them a natural part of the setting, to make them relatable to your audience and find a way to make them click with the other characters. Because they are meant to be a character you should be able to see yourself in, it tests your ability to make the character both approachable to a wide range of readers, yet specific enough to mesh with the story.

3) What is your favorite genre to write for?

Well, I have been called the angst queen on numerous occasions. Apparently I am a sucker for making myself and others hurt.

4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

Oh Jesus, probably one of the Twilight fics I wrote during the dark days of my ff.net run. I got swept up in the hype and with a few exceptions, I have no qualms about tossing those fics into a volcano.

5) When is your preferred time to write?

When I have both inspiration, motivation and time. Sadly, sometimes that happens at night and let's just say I have sometimes sacrificed sleep in favour of a story. Generally, though, I don't have a preferred time of day.

6) Where do you take your inspiration from?

From anything and everything. Something I've seen or heard or experienced, videos I've seen, songs I've listened to.

7) In your Sweet Dreams - Assorted Flavors fic, what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

The final scenes of Assorted Flavours is close to my heart. Same with the scene in the Easy As Pie-chapter where they discuss Bucky's metal arm.

8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

I haven't made major amendments. Someone may have pointed out typos or missing words which I have edited, but nothing storyline-wise.

9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?

I am a sucker for a lot of Seb's characters, especially Bucky and Hal. And Chris Beck. They are fun to write and there is so much that can be done and explored with them.

10) Who is your least favorite character to write for? Why?

I wanna preface this by saying it's not so much I dislike them as I find them hard to write well. Tony and Thor hard for me to write because I can't seem to connect as easily with them as I can with other characters, and I'd hate to do these guys wrong.

11) How did you come up with the title for the Sweet Dreams - Assorted Flavors?

This is the eternal struggle with me, to come up with a good title. I knew I wanted something that alluded to reader being a baker and one my Spotify playlist shuffled to Emily Browning's rendition of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). For the sequel series, I wanted to continue on the same theme, and my friend Loup helped me land on Sweet Dreams - Assorted Flavours.

12) How did you come up with the idea for Sweet Dreams - Assorted Flavours?

I am not entirely sure anymore, but it may have included a conversation about Bucky Barnes (or Seb, or both) and cupcakes, and evolved into an idea about Bucky finding a nightopen bakery during one of his nightly walks through Brooklyn (because obviously).

13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

I have two. One is a Twilight fic that I abandoned and deleted when I left behind my ff.net account for good. It was never going to get finished and I didn't want any WIPs on the account. I didn't delete the account, it's basically there as an archive, but yeah. Deleted that story because I was never going to finish it. The second fic is a Gilmore Girls collab fic I started YEARS ago with a friend from Australia. It was put on hiatus when my friend started writing original fiction. That one I would love to finish, but I don't know how likely that is.

14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

None that I am really aching to do a sequel for. That being said, with the right inspiration, I could possibly nake a third fic in the little verse I created with Hal in Cling To Me and Cling To You.

15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

Surprisingly, no. I've been happy with the endings to all of my fics.

16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

Are we talking other fanfic writers or other fiction writers? For fanfic writers, just go into my fic rec tag. All of them are immensely talented in their own way. I will give special props to the writers of Not Easily Conquered because what they did with that series has fucked me up for life and I have the tattoo to prove it. For fiction writers, I do love Rowling for what she created with Harry Potter. I remember reading the books as they were published and just... I was mezmerized! I also love everything Neil Gaiman writes, it's dark and quirky and has that little something that takes hold of you. I can reread Pullman's His Dark Materials over and over just for the amazing world and mythology he created for that series.

17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

I usually don't reread stories I haven't clicked with, so not really.

18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Both. I have a Bucky playlist on Spotify that I usually crank whenever I am writing a fic that features him. But I can just as well write in silence.

19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Yes. I cried while writing With Him I Will Stay and Goodbye for example.

20) Which part of your Sweet Dreams fic was the hardest to write?

There wasn't one part that was specifically harder to write than others. I do sometimes get stuck on transitions, how to move from one scene to the next as smoothly as possible. If anything, writing Sweet Dreams has taught me that sometimes it's totally okay to just shift scenes and not make a big deal out of it. Not everything has to be complex.

21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

Often I have a rough idea of how I want things to play out, focus points that I want to include that function as pit stops for me as I write. The only time I haven't made a clear outline was for Kintsugi. I let the prompt guide me and hopes like hell it made sense.

22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

That it's a process and you learn. I was so worried about writing perfectly. When I started out in the Gilmore Girls fandom and posting at ff.net, it was really common to have a beta reader. I was new, I had no one to beta read and I kept obsessing over getting things right until I realized that I didn't HAVE to have a beta reader and that yeah, I made mistakes but I could learn from them and from reading other what other people wrote.

23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

Maybe Snapshots. Or my T.J fic. I love them both dearly.

24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Not to the point where it's an eye roll because I do like the attention my fics get. I was very surprised though by the amount of notes that flooded in for a drabble called Fight Night.

25) Are any of your characters based on real people?

I haven't really made use of a lot of OC's. Aiden from Make Me Feel Like I'm Real is the only one that qualifies and with him it's all in how he looks. When I came up with him, I had a very vivid image of a man that looked like a mix of Donald Glover and Daveed Diggs. His personality came quite naturally as he started interacting more with T.J.

26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

There are so many that have made me blush so hard. One that I remember very vividly was when @lostinthoughtsandfeelings-blog commented on Soft Devotion that it made them feel the same kind of empowerment that the Wonder Woman soundtrack evoked!

27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

I have been very lucky so far in the criticism that I've gotten. Mostly it's just been typos or something similar that's been pointed out. When I started out on ff.net there were a few who commented that they didn't understand where I was going with a certain story. I think for one fic I got a comment about having dragged it out for too long, but that's about it.

28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

I do share some of them, simply because I get excited about them or because it's an idea that comes from a conversation that ends with "I need to fic this!!"

29) Do people know you write fan-fiction?

My husband knows, but he doesn't really know what it is (despite my attempts to explain). A few of my old school mates know I write, but otherwise no. I don't really talk about writing fan-fiction with people outside the fandoms I write for.

30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?

I love Steve's parts in Sweet Dreams, and anything that involves Sam.

31) What spurs you on during the writing process?

If I'm writing a series, the feedback from previous chapters do so much to encourage me. Feedback in general motivates me. I often ask friends to give me feedback on certain scenes or passages while I write and seeing their excitement does a lot to help me push through and finish.

32) What’s your favorite trope to write?

AUs and A/B/O for sure.

33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

I can't remember exactly which one, but it was a Gilmore Girls fic.

34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

I'd love to say fluff, but angst just hurts so good, and getting screamed at in caps-lock is kinda fun.

#milestone celebration #ask the author #abovethesmokestacks

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redsoapbox · 5 years

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28 BANDS / WHAT HAPPENED TO MY TIPS FOR THE TOP?

18 months ago, in an attempt to nudge the redsoapbox blog outside of its comfort zone, I spent many a long hour trawling the internet in search of up and coming artists with the potential to make an impact on pop culture. 28 bands (click the archive link to find the original article) featured acts from the blog’s base here in Wales, from many other parts of the U.K. as well as musicians from America, Canada, France, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland. All manner of genres were included - from country, soul and easy listening to indie-noir, psych-funk and art-punk. Some artists were easier to identify than others - Liz Brasher, for example, seemed an obvious star in the making, while others, such as Turku’s Those Forgotten Tapes, had yet to play even a single gig!

So, how have they all fared? Well, as might be expected, it’s something of a mixed bag. There have been successes - one artist appeared in an Academy Award-winning musical, another in a long-running BBC soap, national album prizes have been won and summer support slots with Dylan and Neil Young secured. There have been dispiriting failures too - one or two bands have barely gigged, some have remained unsigned (though in many cases they continue to self-release sublime music) and one group folded straight after an excellent debut album.

Taking the artists in the original order in which they were featured, here’s an update on progress made -

Hand Habits

Meg Duffy released sophomore album Placeholder in January 2019 to widespread critical acclaim. Pitchfork said it best, describing the album as a ‘bucolic mix of pleasing melody, soft guitars and gentle vocals’.

Boy Azooga

It’s been a massive year for the Cardiff combo. Storming singles “Face Behind Her Cigarette” and “Loner Boogie” secured the band a spot on the cult show Later... With Jools Holland and a record deal with Heavenly followed. The band’s debut album (One) (Two) (Kung Fu) won the 2018 Welsh Music Prize (for which I was a juror) and the group has recently been confirmed as support for Bob Dylan and Neil Young gigs later in the summer. I interviewed frontman Davie Newington for New Sound Wales last year http://www.newsoundwales.com/interviews/boy-azooga-interview-by-kevin-mcgrath/

Liz Brasher

As mentioned in the intro, North Carolina’s Liz Brasher seemed an obvious choice in the ‘next big thing’ stakes. In 28 bands, I predicted a ‘tidal wave of hype’ would greet the release of her debut album. I wasn’t kidding, either, with PopMatters declaring Painted Image to be evidence that Brasher is ‘one of the next thundering and commanding voices of soul music’.

youtube

Liz Brasher live

Family Jools

A run of exceptional tunes through 2016 - 2018 including “Get Off”, “Fallacy” and “Don’t Know” was supposed to lead to a debut album by the end of last year. The departure of Jack Hawkins (guitar) was the first outward sign that the project was in danger of veering off the rails and there is no sign at present of that elusive album. Another fine single “She’s a Mother” surfaced a few months back and exactly five hours ago they band have announced a forthcoming single by the name of “California Sun”. I’m still a true believer, though. You can find my interview with the band via the archive link.

There is a Family Jools gig available here https://bndrmusic.io/

Sarah Munro

Sarah released a fine sophomore album Angel Road in June last year and, somewhat bizarrely, turned up busking outside a hospital in the long-running BBC soap Holby City which aired in February.

Armstrong

The fact that I became somewhat smitten with Armstrong last year will be no secret to readers of this blog. That this fellow Welshman’s incredible music had hitherto escaped me boggled the mind somewhat. Discovering timeless albums like “Under Blue Skies” and “Songs About The Weather” gave me one hell of a kick. In an interview I conducted with Julian Pitt (the sole member of Armstrong) for Wales Arts Review in April last year, the singer/songwriter was excited about a planned re-release of Under Blue Skies (with a whopping 8 extra tracks!) and his continuing work on a brand new album Happy Graffiti. Anyone who read the interview closely, though, might have been a little worried about how long those projects might take to come to fruition. Happily, I can confirm that the sterling efforts of The Beautiful Music and Country Mile Records have borne fruit, with Under Blue Skies available to order from the following links

http://thebeautifulmusic.com/

http://www.countrymile.org/Releases/Armstrong/armstrong.html

You can read the interview here -

https://www.walesartsreview.org/interview-armstrong/

Keeva

While the much-hoped-for album has yet to materialise, there was a richly tender EP Four Sad Songs and a Ballad to cling on to in the meantime. Keeping my fingers firmly crossed that an album is just around the corner.

The Salient Braves

Aside from a single track,“Slob,” released last July, all seems deathly quite. I assume the Braves continue ‘pissing into the indie wind’ as their twitter profile proudly boasts! Until we hear anything new then, we’ll just have to resort to re-playing the majestic Delusions of Grandeur over and over again. Believe me, that’s no hardship!

https://thesalientbraves.bandcamp.com/

Estrons

Local favourites with a fantastic live reputation, Estrons released a corking debut album You Say I’m Too Much, I say You’re Not Enough to huge approval and then promptly split. They made their mark though, 2015 single “Make a Man” should be on anyone’s shortlist for best song of the twenty-tens.

Thou Swell

Absolutely fell in love with the demo version of “What’s Your Name” that appeared on Soundcloud in December 17. There was a smattering of London gigs in the first half of 2018 and the promise of a live EP, but everything has gone worryingly quiet since.

https://soundcloud.com/user-911275129

The Regrets

Seattle’s pristine purveyors of jangle pop released a new EP, Endless Desire, which featured five frothy tracks including the rather marvellous “Under a Sideways Moon”.

https://wearetheregrets.bandcamp.com/album/endless-desire

Head Noise

Mitch Tennant’s electro art-punks continue to battle Welsh music establishment indifference. A sequence of intriguing EP’s has been met with stunned silence. Hopefully, a debut album, due before the year's end, will finally break down some of these artificial barriers. As Mitch himself often says, ‘D.I.Y or Die, Baby!’.

youtube

Head Noise

You can read my interview with Mitch here

https://www.walesartsreview.org/interview-head-noise/

Jade Jackson

Jackson’s sophomore album Wilderness earned across-the-board critical acclaim on its release last month with American Songwriter complimenting the singers ‘tenacious honey-and-grits voice’. Opinion former’s No Depression called it the same way, highlighting Jackson’s ‘warm, confident vocal delivery’.

QTY

The band seem to have disappeared from all thing social media! Still, we’ll always have the eponymous debut album!

HOTEL LUX

Hotel Lux’s latest single, the stunning “English Disease”, had more than a dab of Robert Lloyd about it. If Hotel Lux can measure up to theNightingales, then you won’t hear me complaining. Set to play Cardiff’s Swn Festival in October, where I can get a closer look at them.

youtube

Hotel Lux

Cozy Slippers

Seattle’s three-piece Cozy Slippers released a cracking EP Postcards last April and are set to follow up with a new single “A Million Pieces” for German independent label Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten on the ninth of August. The band has also confirmed that plans for a U.K. tour are in the pipeline.

https://cozyslippers.bandcamp.com/album/postcards

Common Holly

The band is about to launch it's Back From the Dead’ tour later this month, taking in Toronto and Winnipeg along the way before hopping across the border to support Mauno on their short American sojourn.

BUZZARD BUZZARD BUZZARD

An enforced name change saw Cardiff outfit Buzzard triple their moniker in an unfortunate start to Tom Rees’ campaign for superstardom. Rees aims pretty high, recently telling N.M.E. that the combo’s single “Late Night City” made him cry in a way that only “Wichita Lineman” ever had before. Fresh from playing the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury, the band are set to release a new single “Love Forever” later this month. Mark them down as potential world-beaters!

Nervous Dater

The band is currently opening for Los Campesinos! on their ‘Save America Tour’. If you haven’t invested in their spiky Don’t be a Stranger album, then why the hell not?

The Greek Theatre

As recounted in the original 28 bands blog, Swedish duo Sven Froberg and Fredrik Perrson wrote an entire series of albums and then decided on a date for their break up all within weeks of their formation in 2009. So far, the Greek Theatre masterplan has yielded two sublime albums Lost at Sea (2013) and Broken Circle (2017). I have struggled in vain to discover when the next record is slated for release, all to no avail. We can only assume that their surreal plan is still in force and that a third album is on the way!

oblong

Andrew Clement, Hwys Grav and Rob Daniel should apply to join the magic circle forthwith. The Llanelli post-punk band’s trick of conjuring up two feisty, furious and humorous albums Brilliant...Gwd (2017) and Hollulluog (2019) in double-quick time deserve the respect of their musical peers.

https://oblong1.bandcamp.com/

The Glad Machine

Nothing to report here, save for the release of a Christmas single “Days Gone By” and, wait a mo, a brand new single released this very day (5th of July). Just going to take a listen.......be back soon! Okay, the song is called “Virginia” and sits pretty neatly alongside the material from their debut album - file under thumping, melodic American rock.

Illuminati Hotties

The Hotties’ terrific debut album Kiss Yr Frenemies, the sound of which is described as “tenderpunk” by the group’s sole permanent member Sarah Tudzin, was rapturously received by the music press. Pitchfork, in particular, was persuaded, claiming that “every emotional abrasion and pang of longing on Kiss Yr Frenemies is conveyed with just the right mix of sadness and acerbity”.

Somehow

Erwan Pepiot’s tantalising description of the Somehow sound - ‘halfway between Joy Division and Belle and Sebastian’ should grab the attention of even the most jaded pop music consumer. The duo’s brand new single “Shut Your Eyes and See” certainly lives up to the billing. A new album, Low Tide, will be released on October the 25th.

youtube

Somehow

Crystal Furs

Having released a new album, Pseudosweet, in January, the band seems to have successfully overcome the departure of lead vocalist Amanda Hand (now fronting electro-pop combo Big Heaven).

Jetstream Pony

A rip-roaring EP, Self-Destruct Reality, captured the group on top form. A new song “Mitte” has just been demoed and is a forerunner for an album release later on in the year.

Sandra’s Wedding

The band’s debut album, Northern Powerhouse, is a certifiable classic of indie-pop. An album for the ages! How to follow that? - with a corking EP Good Morning, Bad Blood which builds the anticipation for a much-anticipated sophomore album.

Marlon Williams

William’s sophomore album Make Way for Love racked up three New Zealand music awards, but perhaps the most surprising development among the 28 bands featured here was Marlon’s role in Bradley Cooper’s Oscar-winning remake of A Star is Born.

Those Forgotten Tapes

I’ve left the most disappointing news until last. Sadly, Those Forgotten Tapes have put their rock ‘n’ roll project on indefinite hold. When I interviewed the Finish combo shortly after blogging 28 Bands, the group was in the midst of recording a debut album and there was a real air of optimism around. Following the interview, I kept in touch with Jari Oisalo, the driving force behind TFT, but as time went by without any word of an album it became clear that something had gone awry. Without breaking any confidences, there have been health issues which contributed in large part to the dissolution of the group. Jari intends to remix the four recorded TFT tracks (which you can hear below) and has hopes that a TFT album will see the light of day at some point.

In the meantime, Jari has recorded an album Tahtijuttuja as Salainen avaruusohjelma (Secret Space Program), there is a link below to their track “Buffalo” as well as resuming work on a shoegaze album under the moniker Tyynyt. You can listen to their track Pusuudelleen, reviewed positively in the N.M.E back in the day, below.

https://soundcloud.com/thoseforgottentapes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd91VstQyWk

https://soundcloud.com/solinarecords/tyynyt-pusuudelleen

A number of the acts featured here are reviewed/interviewed in Pop Hack, my debut collection available now via Amazon Kindle and are included in my Spotify Pop Hack playlist (see the archive link for details) while I have also created a brand new 28 bands’ Spotify playlist which can be can be accessed here -

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tKzsqVHGTQZzZVUDkxlGd?si=F1G7ZFTRTI2SXJ1uBOo_gg)

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thewidowstanton · 5 years

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Archive feature 2012: ‘Mr Follow Spot’, Linford Hudson

Following this year’s Olivier Awards when Linford Husdon’s lengthy career received special recognition, we thought we’d mark the occasion by posting this feature. I was lucky enough to be shown behind the scenes at the London Palladium by him and to stand on the famous stage while he shone his light on me. He’d deiblerately left me in the eyrie, that is the follow-spot room to see if I could find my way back down. Luckily, I bumped into someone who knew the way!

By Liz Arratoon

It can only be The Mousetrap that’s had a longer West End run than Linford Hudson, who next October will have worked at the London Palladium for 50 years. Slim and dapper, the softly spoken British Jamaican is the historic venue’s elder statesman, and describes it as “my theatre, my home”. Its Hall of Fame, lined with photos and ephemera of past and present stars, reads like his personal CV. He knows every crevice of the building, even pointing out a tiny nick he made in a wall when he first arrived to record his height.

Linford came to the UK on September 9, 1963. It might have been traumatic to leave his island home and hit the capital in the Swinging Sixties, but he loved it. He’d watch TV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium with his mother and walk past the Drury Lane and Aldwych theatres after school, taking in the scene. “I loved the hype of it all, the little lights flashing and dancers dancing, and kept going back. It was glamorous.” Just a month later, he saw an advert in the Evening Standard for a job at the Palladium and knew it was his way into a world that already entranced him. “It was for a pageboy. I came along and they employed me and I’m here still.”

He’d show people to the boxes and take messages or mail to management and artists. At 18, they said he’d grown too tall, but something better lay ahead. He explains: “When I was a pageboy I’d go up to the bio box [follow-spot room] in my break to look around and watch the shows because theatre was my first love. Mr Peter King, who was in charge of the limes, didn’t mind and said he’d teach me. I never looked back.”

But things were very different then. One of the hardest things to learn was the lethal carbon arcs; the red-hot carbon rods he had to put together to create a flame, which shone through a reflector and two lenses on to the stage. “They’d last 28 or 30 minutes. You’d have to turn them off and change them over with pliers in about six seconds without burning the theatre down, because we had a wooden floor then.” Linford laughs off the scars on his wrists, saying: “I could do it blindfold.” They also gave off noxious fumes and he had an allowance for milk, which supposedly neutralised the effects.

Another thing he had to learn was the feeling, the finesse of the lights, making the movement of the iris – the pin spot – smooth. “You have to fade it. Once you can feel a song, after a while you get used to it. I conquered it because Mr King was a very good teacher.” For example when someone such as Shirley Bassey lifted her arms, hit a high note and took a bow, he’d have to be ready to capture it down to her fingertips.

The equipment obviously advanced with time, and Linford reels off its technical details. Every spotlight – and there are about 20 types; German, Japanese, American Super Troupers, English and French – has its own sights, which he doesn’t use because “it can make you late on a cue. When you have artists going off and others coming on, there isn’t time to fade off and pick up again.” The huge lights give off incredible heat, which in summer is almost unbearable, but despite such hardships, and spurred on to succeed by a racist insult from another staff member, he mastered the job easily.

He has since lit show after show and everyone who was or is anyone. When asked to name his favourite or greatest star – maybe Josephine Baker who “still had an amazing physique and voice in her 70s”, Ella Fitzgerald or Judy Garland, whom he lit but never met – he’s slightly nonplussed. “That’s the biggest question because I’ve worked with them all. You find nice people, you find miserable people. Roy Castle was a brilliant guy, Frankie Vaughan (pictured above) was brilliant, Harry Secombe… the old boys were brilliant people. I can name names right down the line… Ethel Merman, Bette Davis, so many wonderful artists, man. Better Midler was fun to work with, Debbie Reynolds when she came with Carrie Fisher was brilliant, but my favourite lady, who I call my English rose, was Julie Andrews. Charming!”

The list is endless, and though the father of six and grandfather of ten stopped collecting autographs for a while because his kids kept taking them, he held on to Frank Sinatra’s. He remembers heady times when he was earning £12 a week and Sinatra sent his bodyguard with a massive £1,000 tip to share with the crew. “I worked with Frank here, at the Albert Hall and Festival Hall but you couldn’t get close to him. With Sammy [Davis Jr] it was different.” They’d go to London’s Playboy Club together and Sammy, always known as a big spender, would throw parties for everyone in the Palladium bar and take them and their families to events such as a new James Bond film.

Though known as Mr Follow Spot, he’s been much more than that. “I’ve been a plumber, carpenter, electrician and follow-spot operator here. I love rigging. I’d climb along very long trusses without a harness in the old days. It kept me fit,” he says, grinning. Down the years, Linford has also worked in TV and film, lighting Live at the Apollo and movies such as My Life with Marilyn. He’s worked with all the Royal Family; the Queen Mother, the Queen, Princess Margaret, Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales on Symphony for the Spire at Salisbury Cathedral, and spent three days preparing and lighting her funeral at Westminster Abbey, which he says was “an honour”.

He’s lit 41 Royal Variety Performances – more than anyone else ever – and counting. “That show is the show,” he says, “All the people in the theatre business want to work on it. I missed a couple but all those boys at the Coliseum are my pupils. I taught at the National Theatre and the BBC. Everywhere I go, someone wants me to teach them, and I’ve been doing it for 25 or 30 years so I can pass it on.” His legacy to the business is indeed huge.

Now 66, the Palladium has told him to take a break, meaning his minimum 12-hour days are down to a more reasonable eight. “They invented a job for me, so I still come in and take pride in the building I love. It’s magnificent. It’s given me a very good living and taken care of my family. I’ve no regrets. Once I perfected my work everyone gave me jobs… the 02, Wembley Arena. When there’s a big show, they call for me. I’m semi-retired but when they call I still go and do it.”

It’s doubtful anyone in the business can imagine the Palladium without Linford, but he says should that time come, the theatre will be in safe hands. Its lighting team of Danny Turner, George Antoniu and Chris Barstow is headed by chief electrician Dave Draude, whom Linford describes as “a brilliant guy, brilliant knowledge, brilliant brain. He’s very good at his job. His boys are brilliant too, and will take care of this place for me. All my friends have moved and my teachers have passed away but I’m glad I can walk out of the building and know everything will be all right.”

This feature first appeared in The Stage in 2012

#Linford Hudson #follow spot operator #feature #London Palladium #Mr Follow Spot #variety #frankie vaughan

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patricksilvrrozartistry · 7 years

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Current Music Obsessions: June 1 - 15, 2017

This whole month is gonna be a bit of a doozy for these posts. I’m purging through my watch later playlist again, so there’s quite a few entries. Let’s start with the many honorable mentions.

Ravenscry - Overload Elyose - plus qu'humain feat Florent Jannier (Arkan) Divitius - Sky Endless Main - Age of Darkness Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs Dopamine - II Mouth of the Architect - Lullabye Evig Natt - A Final Lament Blind Saviour - Reign of the Robot Clans The Longing - 40 Days Flora Cash - Nothing Lasts Forever (And It's Fine) DragonForce - The Game feat. Matt Heafy (Trivium) Tesseract - Retrospect Clouds - How Can I be There OverAlive - Lucid Reverie Draconian - The Death of Hours Chronicode - Break Out Of Devilment - Father Dali Ten - Paragon Band-Maid - Daydreaming Despite Exile - Absent Foundation Moonlight Asylum - Can't Save You Anymore Mastercastle - Drink of Me Midnight - After Death Scarlet Haven - Titan, I Am Psyborg Corp. - World Genocide Blast Port Noir - Tide Across the Divide - Worthless Lamb - Wise Enough

Now for the many actual obsessions.

1) The Anix - Again

This is the second song I've heard from them and I am really enjoying their sound. It's so lovely and so great to chill to. I love the strings in this track too. They add an extra dimension to the song's sound that really takes it to another level even though it's only something so simple. I am definitely gonna give their new album a listen.

2) Kimberly Freeman - Rust

I'm already quite familiar with Kimberly's band One-eyed Doll, so when I saw that she released a track using her actual name, I was quite intrigued. It's so very different from One-eyed Doll. The only resemblance is her voice. It's so doomy and atmospheric and so beautiful. If you've ever wondered if Kimberly could do something gorgeous, this is the song.

3) Cellar Darling - Black Moon

This song is so good! I am so hyped for the new album, you have no idea. I've always been a big fan of Anna and her voice and hurdy gurdy, and to be able to have a full album featuring her voice singing the way she does with Cellar Darling is so amazing. The unique, soft vocal lines in the chorus and bridge are so pretty, and same goes for the hurdy gurdy solo. Can't wait to hear their debut album.

4) Bonnie Tyler - Holding Out for a Hero

A friend on Facebook shared this song and I got obsessed immediately. I feel beyond late to the party for just then hearing the original version of this iconic song. Bonnie's voice is just so epic and the song itself is epic. I low key wish a symphonic metal band would do a cover of this and make it over-dramatic. I would love that.

5) Tiamat - Carry Your Cross and I'll Carry Mine

I discovered this song on Pandora one day and decided to look it up at a later date, and when I did, I kept listening to it. It's such a simple song, but the execution of it and the blend of the two singers' voices is what makes it and it's absolutely gorgeous. A great gothic metal track.

6) Nemesea - Dance in the Fire

This is Nemesea's first single featuring their new front woman, Sanna Mieloo. Bruh. This song is so good! I was very worried about the new singer not being able to compare to Manda, which she doesn't, but she's still an amazing fit for the band and will more than likely be able to give Manda's songs great justice. Well, I don't know about the stuff from their debut album, Mana, but I don't think they've performed any songs from that album in years, so everything should be good. ANYWAYS, definitely give this track a listen.

7) Scenario II - Awake

This song is so good. I just wish the choir bits were turned up a bit higher. Other than that, this track is epic. Of the few tracks I've heard from them, I feel that this track really shows this band's potential and versatility. I was especially thrown off when their female singer unleashed them screams in the bridge leading up to the song's exit.

8) Lighthouse in Darkness - Oceanbliss

I discovered this band while searching on the metal archives to see if Helen Vogt had been featured on anything or was in any new projects since the split of the epic gothic metal band Flowing Tears. When I read their description, the fact they describe their sound as melancholic, cinematic trip-hop, I was immediately intrigued. I then found this track and fell in love. This song is fucking gorgeous. It's so nice to hear Helen's voice, ESPECIALLY her singing as low as she is on this track. I can't wait to hear more from this band, because I'm already hooked!

9) The Great Discord - The Red Rabbit

Guys. This song is so good! I've been so hyped for the new album, and this song is further fueling the hype. It's so interesting, weird and catchy. I'm constantly finding myself singing "hop, hop, hop into the rabbit hole" randomly throughout the day. Also the video is insane and the imagery is slightly creepy, yet so creative and out of the box.

10) Heretoir - The White

I discovered this band through a friend when wanting to find blackgaze bands to listen to. This song is more post metal, but I still absolutely love it. The aggression and beauty of this track are both intense and it's so great to just chill out to.

11) Weeping Silence - Ivy Thorns Upon the Barrow

I decided to listen to this track because I couldn't remember it. So glad I checked it out again. It's so lovely and epic. I love beautiful gothic doom metal tracks like this. And their current front woman has such a strong and beautiful voice.

12) Symphonian - Path of a Soul

I randomly discovered this gothic doom metal band one day while listening to either Weeping Silence or Draconian. So glad I decided to give this song a listen. It's so gorgeous and wonderful. The violins are to die for. Definitely am gonna check out more from these guys.

13) Amederia - Who We Are

This is a gothic doom metal band that I need to hurry up and listen to entirely already. I have loved every track I've heard from them, and this song is no exception. It's so beautiful, haunting and melancholy. The slowness of this song, like the others that I've heard from them, capture so much raw emotion that it can be overwhelming. So good.

14) Lethian Dreams - White Gold

This is an ambient doom metal band that I discovered last year, but haven't gotten around to listening to much of their work yet. This track is so lovely and pretty. Perfect song to chill to. It reminds me a bit of Trees of Eternity, just not as aggressive (which Trees of Eternity aren't even that aggressive).

15) Omnimar - Reason

I discovered this band a few months back and decided to check out another song by them and this is what I decided to listen to. This is such a great EBM/synth pop track. It's so pretty and pleasant. I really want to listen to their new album they've released this year, as well as other bands similar to them.

16) Vuur - Days Go By-London

Bruh. I was excited when Vuur was first announced, and after hearing this track, I can't wait to hear more! It's such a great and aggressive prog track. I must admit, the thing I looked most forward to with this project was that Anneke Van Giersbergen and Marcela Bovio were going to be singing together, so needless to say I was bummed that Marcela left the project. But no matter, I'm still gonna keep up with and jam out to this band.

17) Eivør - Surrender

If you want a haunting ambient/experimental track to chill to, look no further. This track is absolutely gorgeous. The exit is everything. Those notes that she lets out are just so beautiful and haunting. So lovely.

18) Trisha Paytas - Silence

I wasn't expecting much when I decided to listen to this track. Trisha is a good singer, but I thought I would become obsessed with a song of hers like I did with this track. It's so gorgeous. This is the prettiest that I've ever heard her sing and I love it.

19) October Ends - Faith in Me

I discovered this band a while back through Instagram after the lead singer either followed me or liked one of my posts. They're a metalcore band that's rather impressive to me. There's something about them that stands out compared to a lot of metalcore bands, but I can't quite place what it is. Either way, this track is epic.

20) Sirenia - Darkling

I decided to listen to Perils of the Deep Blue after so many years and I immediately got obsessed with this song. It just exudes the vibe that Norwegian gothic/gothic doom metal bands had back in the 90's and early 2000's and the vibe the band had back in those days. Dark and slightly doomy. So good.

21) Lisa Gerrard - Sanvean (live)

I was listening to a song Lisa was featured on by Havasi one day and came across this song and immediately fell in love. Lisa has one of those voices that is completely original and can never be replicated by anyone. She's such a huge vocal inspiration of mine, and this song is just one of the many examples why that is. It shows so much of her range and is so gorgeous. Oh, how I'd love to see and hear her live one day.

That’s it for the fist half of this month. The next half is probably going to be as long or possibly longer than this half. Sorry, not sorry. Hope you guys enjoy these amazing songs!

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breeeliss · 7 years

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[Femslash February]: Tea Party

february is over when i say it is

i was gonna say this is an au, but technically all lilanette is au, so i guess just go with the flow on this one (this is a weird prompt).

Day 16: Tea Party (Lilanette)

Words: 1918

Link to Archive of Our Own: [AO3]

[Previous: Baking] [Next: Glitter]

Chloe Bourgeois hosted “tea parties” at her hotel every year during the Spring.

“Tea parties” in quotes only because, in Lila’s humble opinion, it was a load of crap meant for Chloe and all of the other rich girls she knew to come together, compare dresses, sip overpriced imported tea, and gossip about mundane drivel that no one cared about but pretended to anyway so that they wouldn’t lose face. No one in class was ever invited to it, and no one cared for an invitation in the first place.

That being said, Lila overheard Sabrina mentioning that the brunch was catered by a five star restaurant, and she figured that was a good enough reason to crash the party.

So Lila looked through her closet for the nicest teatime dress she owned, did some clever Facebook and Instagram stalking, and walked up to Le Grand Paris thinking stuffy, elitist, and boorish thoughts the entire time through.

“Oh, I don’t have an invitation,” Lila said sweetly to the girl handling the guest list at the door. “I left the silly thing in the front seat with my driver. But Colette knows me! We met at her sixteenth birthday last year. The one she did at her grandmother’s country house? You were there, weren’t you? Oh, she had this absolutely charming lavender theme, and she handed out lavender springs with personalized messages attached to each of them. Look! I still have mine!”

Lila had never met any of these girls in her entire life, but the good thing about rich people was that they’d rather pretend that they knew you (even if they didn’t) instead of daring to admit to someone potentially important that they didn’t remember them.

Which meant that if you were an excellent liar, you could essentially squeeze your way into any social event for kicks.

Lila was accepted in easily, managed to steal some expensive party favors, grabbed a plate full of delicious food, and drew enjoyment from the ridiculousness of the whole affair. Chloe walked by just as Lila was having a conversation with a stranger about Angelique’s amazing birthday cruise that Lila did not actually go on. The look of fury on her face was priceless, and Lila knew she wouldn’t dare make a scene in front of all her guests and try to kick her out. Siege successful!

She moved towards the back of room where all the cookies and pastries were when she saw a familiar face sitting alone by the window, sipping on a cup of tea. Lila raised a brow, figured this would work as decent entertainment, and took the seat next to her.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt very much you were extended an invitation to this nonsense,” Lila smirked.

Marinette shook her head and placed her cup and saucer on the window sill behind her. “Hell no. This isn’t my idea of fun. Didn’t think it was yours either. Why and how are you here?”

Lila shrugged. “Got bored. Lied my way in. Just wanted some of the ritzy catering. You?”

She popped a bite-sized cupcake into her mouth. “My parents and I made all the pastries. The bakery Chloe usually uses messed up her order last minute. She came begging for a rush order, so I blackmailed her into giving me an invitation.”

Lila snorted and bumped elbows with her. “Impressive.”

“Figured I might as well see what all the hype was about. It’s like watching a bunch of martians.”

Lila chortled into her tea cup and tried to keep from bringing attention to the two of them in their small corner. Lila liked Marinette. Sweet girl, incredibly loud and confident, hilarious, and didn’t take any garbage from anyone, especially Chloe. She was also the first one to go out on a limb and try to befriend Lila after the debacle that was her first day of school after everyone found out about her fabulous stretch of lying. She probably had Marinette to thank for the fact that she wasn’t a social pariah at the moment.

She was still trying to work out if that little crush Marinette had on Adrien was still serious or even existent so she could swoop in and ask her out on a date, but so far results were inconclusive. Oh well. Something to work on.

“I’m just so exhausted by them all,” Lila said. “They walk around sounding so fake, talking about dinners that never happened with boring people they’ve never met, and trying to act all prim and proper while doing it. How do they not go crazy?”

“This coming from the person who seamlessly snuck in here by pretending to be just like them,” Marinette smirked.

“It’s not difficult to pretend to have the personality of a shoebox,” Lila replied. “Besides, if you’re gonna lie about yourself, at least make it interesting. This is ridiculously dull.”

“Oh I’m with you,” Marinette laughed. “I’m here for curiosity’s sake only. Although, can I be honest?”

“By all means.”

Marinette crossed her leg over her knee, turned her body towards Lila, and muttered, “I almost want to do something totally inappropriate and stupid just so I can ruffle their feathers and get kicked out.”

Lila raised a brow and absently handed off her cup to the hotel staff moving through the party. “You’ve captured my interest. Any ideas?”

“I don’t know, what’s something a bunch of sheltered, rich, boring girls who go to bougie tea parties would find scandalous?”

Lila tapped her fingers against her lips and gave Marinette a wicked smirk. “What would happen if I started flirting with one of them?”

Marinette had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing too loud. “You’re gonna get smacked. Or yelled at. Or reported.”

“For appreciating the female form? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s improper,” Marinette teased.

Lila grinned and slung an arm around the back of Marinette’s chair. “What’s so improper about one girl hitting on another girl? It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

Marinette’s eyes darted towards Lila’s arm, and for a moment Lila was afraid she might have gone too far with her teasing, but then Marinette crossed her leg over her knee and draped it across Lila’s lap. “I don’t think it’s an issue with it being two girls. This just doesn’t strike me as the place to come and work on your pick up lines or start being all touchy feel-y.”

Lila bit her lip and walked her fingers up Marinette’s leg, pushing the fabric of her dress up to her knee. “What? Touchy feel-y like this?”

“Mm, I don’t think so.” Marinette reached to brush Lila’s hair away from her shoulder, slowly slid her hand across her shoulder, and rested it gently on the back of her neck. “Touchy feel-y like this.”

Her hand on her skin made Lila shiver, and she briefly looked off to the side to see the wary glances they were getting from the girls standing near them. “Hey, look. An audience. We’re getting warmer.”

Marinette tipped up her chin and winked. “We certainly are.”

Lila chuckled. “Boo. Cheesy.”

“What? That was pretty good.”

“That was awful.”

“Alright,” Marinette huffed. “Well then you do better.”

“Oh no, there’s no way I could possible do better.” She picked up Marinette’s hand, brought it up to her lips, and left a kiss in the middle of her palm. “I could scour this entire party and not find anything quite as pleasant as your company.”

Marinette inhaled and bit the corner of her lip without looking like she meant to, and that made Lila’s brows shoot up. She started to wonder if they were still joking around. “That was cheesy.”

“Alright, fine, that one was bad,” Lila admitted. “Pick-up lines aren’t my strong suit.”

“Well, pick-up lines don’t impress me. A pretty face and witty banter does.”

Lila’s other hand was busy tracing lazy circles on Marinette’s leg, and she could feel Marinette pressing it harder on her lap. Delusions about Marinette’s straightness started to fly out the window. “I can be witty.”

“For me? Oh how sweet.”

“I mean, this is a matter of flirty seduction, so technically all of this is for you. Is it working?”

Marinette’s eyes darted to the whispers that were now starting to crop up around them and leaned in closer until her lips were just brushing up against the shell of Lila’s ear, close enough to whisper. “It’s working.”

The logical part of Lila’s head was saying that Marinette meant their plan to disrupt the mood of the party was working. And that was true. People were turning their backs, muttering behind their hands, and going so far as to go into the other rooms so as to avoid having to see the two of them draped over each other. But surely, if you weren’t interested in someone, you wouldn’t work this hard to flirt with them, would you? Lila certainly wouldn’t, at least not as a joke, and Marinette didn’t seem like the type of person to play those sorts of games. Besides, Lila could recognize interest in someone’s eyes if she looked hard enough, and there was no mistaking that Marinette was interested.

Damn. She should’ve asked her out ages ago.

Lila turned her head until and whispered against the skin on Marinette’s jaw. “So, uh, crazy question. Do you want to….?”

“Go?” Marinette whispered back.

“Yeah,” Lila breathed out. “I know a nice café nearby? I’d be happy to pay.”

Marinette hummed in appreciation. “That sounds nice.”

Lila cleared her throat and figured if she had gotten this far, she might as well pull out all the stops. “My, uh….my father. Isn’t home. Gone for the weekend on business. Just. Casual piece of information.”

Marinette leaned away from her so that she could stare at her directly. “Is this you trying to be subtle?”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Do you blame me? Still a little bit shocked that you’re actually taking me seriously.”

“You find that shocking?”

“Straight until proven otherwise is usually my mantra.”

Marinette shrugged. “Well, this party is horribly dull, you have been incredibly entertaining, and I’ve thought you were gorgeous for well over a year. So I’d be happy to ‘prove you otherwise.’”

Lila whistled. “Wow. That would’ve been nice to know ages ago.”

“No time like the present.” Marinette’s eyes darted to the left and Lila watched her entire face fall. “And I mean the immediate present. I think that’s Chloe coming around the corner.”

Lila groaned at the sight of the blonde angrily stalking towards them and quickly pulled the two of them up from their seats. “Alrighty then, hasty exit stage left.”

They hurried around a huge display of pastries set in the middle of the room and made their way towards the door while Marinette plucked a few tins of tea leaves from the tables as she went, figuring that Chloe wouldn’t miss them. They kept their heads down as they passed the hotel staff and pushed their way through the revolving doors, collapsing into hysterics once they were out on the sidewalk. Lila placed a hand on Marinette’s lower back and started taking them in the direction of the café she had in mind. “Well, that’s one way to land a date.”

Marinette looped her arm with Lila’s and snorted. “If this is what flirting with you is going to be like from now on, this is set to be pretty interesting.”

#miraculous ladybug #lilanette #lila rossi #marinette dupain-cheng #lilanette fanfiction #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #my writing #femslash february 2017 #femslash february lilanette edition #tea party

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