MillieBee

Oops I Skipped a Couple of Months

milliebee — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 19:32:54 GMT

In my defence, I was really focused on getting my dissertation finished and sparkly and beautiful. While also doing part-time summer work in a busy clothes shop at manic sales time.

Still! The job is over, the money is saved, and (after some furious struggle with the printing company, who ripped me off, the fuckers) the dissertation is handed in. It's been weeks since I woke up in a cold sweat, following nightmares about incorrectly aligned page numbers. I won't get my results until some time next year, probably January or February, and I won't get to graduate from my Master's until October next year, because my university can be pretty awkward sometimes.

I'm afraid my life has been pretty mundane since hand-in day. Not in a boring way, but in a nice way. I'm working on my novel, and editing my friend's novel; the sequel to Sons of Thestian. (I didn't get to edit the first book, which is a shame because I'm enjoying working on the sequel immensely.) I'm also volunteering at the library because, y'know, books'n'stuff. Some of my saved-up money is gonna go towards driving lessons, since I'm nearly twenty-three and still can't drive anything bigger than a bicycle (to be honest, if you needed a license for a push-bike, I wouldn't be allowed on that, either).

It's very much autumn now and it feels weird not to be at university. I'm trying not to get all gloomy about summer being over. I bought an orange jumper and a matching checked scarf! They're seasonal! Also lots of pumpkin spiced lattes.

Sometime I'm probably going to do a melancholy list of things I miss about university. After four years of longing for home, it's strange to be back and just miss uni instead. I'm useless!

Last note: I'm doing nanowrimo next month. Anyone else joining my insanity?

Oops I Skipped a Month

milliebee — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 15:58:00 GMT

Something incredible happened in England last month: we had beautiful, sunny weather. I topped it off with a holiday to Rhodes, Greece, where I got more vitamin D than if I'd chugged a bottle of supplement tablets.

Look how happy I am! (It was windy on the beach, thus the shawl.)

Since I got home, it's been heads-down, focused on my dissertation. I also got a new job, part-time in a clothing store I won't name, but that looks promising. I start on Tuesady.

However, sometime over the period when I had my head down, nature decided that I'd had my share of sunshine. In fact, all of England had had its share of sunshine. It's been so cloudy and miserable for so long, I keep mistakenly thinking it's autumn. After that, I mistakenly think I have to go back to university soon, when in fact, I never have to go back again.

Before I went away, I made this lovely long playlist full of upbeat, summertime songs, perfect for the hundreds of BBQs I expected to have. I would do awful things to see enough sunshine for that playlist to be useable. Maybe not murder, but I'd probably sacrfice a goat.

Have a Vine to describe my feelings on the matter (warning, bad language):

Sleep Paralysis, Part Deux

milliebee — Fri, 29 May 2015 16:27:45 GMT

Probably due to a string of late nights, I got sleep paralysis again.

I woke up around 3AM, because I heard drumming. It sounded like those beats you hear in horror films, when they're played in reverse so they steadily get louder and make a kind of ssssssssSSHHHHUMP noise. I remember thinking 'heartbeat' at the time. My eyes must have been partially open, because I could see my room, but then a kind of screen flashed over my vision with the next drumbeat.

It reminded me of a Youtube video screen. White text on a black background said '26 CHILDREN DISAPPEARED THIS YEAR'. Then it flashed through a bunch of photos of kids. I only remember one: a girl, about thirteen, with shoulder-length hair, wearing a pale blue summer dress outdoors. She had a watering can and was standing next to a tree stump, smiling but apparently caught candid. Then the text came back: 'WHO KNOWS WHEN THEY WILL STRIKE AGAIN?'

I don't know how, but I got this strong, terrifying suggestion that the children were not victims. The children were the 'THEY' the text was talking about. Watering-Can-Girl and the Other Children were somehow ... evil? Dangerous? I don't know.

I remember trying to open my mouth and feeling pressure against my jaw, like something was pushing back, holding it closed. That's pretty much what told me it was sleep paralysis. I did the usual routine: close my eyes, breathe slowly, focus on just moving my hands and feet. As my fingers started to move, I heard this high-pitched whining, something in between an old kettle whistling and a scream. Again, I got that horrible gut-feeling -- that the sleep paralysis was angry. It didn't want to let me go.

When I did wake up, it took two hours for me to fall asleep again And that was with the assistance of my friend/uni housemate, Tob,* who calmed me down over the phone. (He has insomnia, so I didn't feel too awful about bothering him at 3:30AM.)

But yeah. That really, really sucked.

As a writer (and occassional painter), I get a lot of my ideas from nightmares/night terrors/sleep paralysis. But I would gladly go somewhere else for inspiration if there was a guaranteed cure.

*Not his real name, but what I really call him, so close enough.

Home is Strange

milliebee — Tue, 26 May 2015 17:08:24 GMT

The worst thing about being at university was the sense of being constantly unsettled. I've gone back forth between home and uni so much over semesters and weekends and bank holidays and summer breaks, it's been very difficult to feel comfortable in either place. I've taken to calling 'home' whichever place I'm not.

But, yesterday, I packed everything up at uni and brought it all back here permanently. I have a short weekend trip planned to go back up there, but otherwise ... that's it. No more travelling. Everything's put away in my bedroom, and that's where it's going to stay.

I usually feel enormously relieved to be 'home' (whichever home it is), but this time I still feel a bit weird. Possibly because I'm never really going back; I keep noticing things that are different here than at uni. Things like:

The water tastes different. It's colder and more metallic down here than up at uni.

The house is so tidy.

If I start singing in the kitchen, nobody screeches along to try and put me out of key.

It's too quiet at night. I spent ages adjusting to noise at night - my flatmates are mostly night-owls - and now it's actually hard to sleep without the explosions and soothing calls of, 'An enemy has been slain!' from League of Legends downstairs.

My curtains are really thin. I had blackouts at uni; here, I get woken up with the sunrise.

I'm sure I'll get into the rythm of home before long. My brother is supposed to be home from his uni next weekend, so I'm sure I'll have the League of Legends lullaby back then. He also has a thing for metal-screaming along when I sing, so I'll look forward to that.

Saint George's Day

milliebee — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:49:37 GMT

It's Saint George's Day here in the UK, the day that's given a quiet nod of English pride and then ignored, because we're not nearly as rowdy as those silly Irish with their Saint Patrick. It feels strange - almost sacriledge - that the weather has been unseasonably bright and sunny most of the day. We're usually all about the clouds and rain in England (touchwood, TOUCHWOOD).

I've finally managed to finish my coursework, at the price of setting off my RSI again and having to put my right hand in a support. Wooorth.

I don't have much else to report, so have a silly and years outdated comic I drew for Saint George's Day before. Because I do enjoy having such a ludicrously violent patron saint.

Four Years

milliebee — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 15:29:47 GMT

I hope everyone had a good Easter! For me, it's been mixed feelings. On the one hand, I crave chocolate to the deepest depths of my soul, and being home in the sunshine by the beach is wonderful. On the other hand, the Easter break marks the end of my classes at university.

I've still got a dissertation to write - due in September - and I can live in my rented place up by uni until the end of August, so I'll still be working and going back and forth but ... no more classes. School is pretty much all I've done my whole life. Uni was very different, sure, but still technically school.

Now watch me attempt to summarise four years of uni in a few brief bullet points.

YEAR 1
Semester 1

Somehow, the uni managed to gather together ten people who were totally unalike for my dorm. Much arguing ensued. One window was punched through (not ours, thankfully).

Me: anxiously humming People Are Strange and trying to convince myself not to drop out.

WOLVES WOLVES WOLVES

(We had a weird art class meant to ~*~inspire~*~ us that virtually everyone but me hated, and part of it involved a trip to a wolf sanctuary.)

Semester 2

Me: Oh hey these are those 'friends' things everyone was saying I'd make at uni. How nice.

I only passed my poetry class because my lecturer told me to write purple prose and stick paragraphs in. To this day, I'm amazed it worked.

Summer

THE SUMMER THAT ENGLAND WENT INSANE WITH PATRIOTISM

OLYMPICS AND ROYAL WEDDING AND QUEEN'S JUBILEE IT WAS LUDICROUS

I'VE NEVER SEEN SO MANY ENGLISH PEOPLE NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT ENGLAND

(My very patriotic holiday to London.)

YEAR 2
Semester 1

I tried to play piano for two choirs, go to tap classes, do NaNoWriMo and finish all my coursework - including a class that required song writing and performance - all at once. WAS I INSANE?

Also this was the year I lived in cardboard box in t'middle o' road. AKA a tiny, mouldy flat on the main road.

Semester 2

The weather was hellish (rain, constantly, for three months, and then snow) so it's not surprising I worked out I had SAD this year.

Also I started eating meat because you're happier when you have bacon for breakfast. SCIENCE.

I did my steampunk LARP this year too. I'm so cool.

(I'm on the left at the front.)

Summer

The summer I discovered Welcome to Nightvale, quoted it incessantly and nearly drove my family to violent retribution.

Whatever, I thought chanting 'WHEAT AND WHEAT BYPRODUCTS' every time I had a sandwich was hilarious.

YEAR 3
Semester 1

I started weeping because I couldn't bear to leave and subsequently signed up for the MA.

Everyone started making scared whimpering noises about their dissertations and I laughed because I wrote mine - about cults in YA literature - over the summer like a MANIAC.

Semester 2

Even though I wrote my dissertation over the summer, my tutor had me edit it a million times (not complaining - I got a 1st). My brain was pretty much screaming 'CULTS CULTS CULTS CULTS' at me all semester. To this day if anyone says, 'Tch, Christianity is like, basically a cult,' in my vicinity, I will leap at them shrieking the well-researched reasons why they are wrong like a pterodactyl.

Summer

The summer I learned to skateboard and pretended I was cool (see aforementioned LARPing to understand that I am not).

YEAR 4
Semester 1

The semester we had to do a research project, but our lecturer for the subject was ill and hadn't left any notes for our substitute, so we basically all ran around screaming and crying and yelling at each other until she came back.

I decided to do my research project on sexual abuse in YA literature, because something easy would have been boring. This involved doing a presentation on NSPCC child abuse statistics and child marriages, which one lady in my class refused to attend because it would be too upsetting. Yep.

(At least this isn't going to be my dissertation.)

Semester 2

MOTHERFUCKING HODOR FROM GAME OF THRONES WAS OUR DJ FOR A NIGHT

I avoided clubbing for the entire time I was at uni but Rave of Thrones called to my very soul and it was EXCELLENT.

Oh yeah and then there was all the coursework. So much coursework. I still get confused as to what thing I wrote for which class because there's so much.

This whole last year at uni has felt like this gif of a cat poking a squid, if the cat was me and the squid was all the coursework I had to do.

(Huh, this looks interes--GET IT OFF GET IT OFF.)

That was an odd metaphor. And this was a long entry. Hopefully it'll tide me over for another month, or at least until something interesting happens.

I predict that this summer will be the summer of my brain once again chanting angrily about my dissertation, although now it will be 'STEAMPUNK STEAMPUNK STEAMPUNK' instead of cults.

Noli Temere Messorem

milliebee — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 19:23:42 GMT

Sir Terry Pratchett is dead and I am heartbroken.

Those books got me through a lot of hard times. I'm juggling a lot of difficulties in my life right now, too. I always try to stay positive but this is a real blow, and I'm amazed at how hard I can cry over a man I never met.

Rest easy, Pterry. I hope Death greeted you as a friend.

Nothing says romance like taking a picture of your boyfriend being strangled by a YA horror writer.

milliebee — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:12:33 GMT

Wow today was draining, in part because I'm not very well and I knew that when I agreed to help out at work but I went anyway because my flatmates were being grumpy, and - now that I work at a bookshop instead of waitressing - I actually enjoy my job. In part because I've got a lot of coursework to do, and that workload was pretty much doubled this week. I've watched three episodes of Community and I still can't seem to claw my mood above 'sleep for twelve hours and maybe it will be fixed tomorrow'.

In the spirit of not dragging anyone else down into Sucksville, I'm going to (belatedly) talk about my 100% awesome Valentine's weekend and just forget about today.

Mike came up for a four-day weekend over Valentine's and, being the deeply romantic souls we are, we both agreed not to go out to dinner on Valentine's because everything would be booked to hell. Instead, we went to dinner the night before and spent the 14th in Basingstoke, where Darren Shan was doing a book signing. Nothing says romance like taking a picture of your boyfriend being strangled by a YA horror writer.

Sarcasm aside, it was great fun. I'm not very well-read in Darren Shan's books, but I did finish the vampire series and thoroughly enjoyed them. Cirque du Freak is not a good example of those books - the series massively improves around books three and four, when Mr Crepsley suddenly starts being awesome, and Darren (the character, not the author) gradually stops being a whiney little shit.

Basingstoke itself was lovely, although we didn't really leave the shopping centre because of the good ole English rain. I did manage to get a copy of Majora's Mask for the 3DS, though! I let Mike play it while he was over, planning to have my go when he went home but, typically, we were both airheads and he ended up taking it home by accident in his 3DS. Oh well, I'll get it back when I next go home.

Mike and I spent the rest of our Valentine's weekend relaxing in my room, eating take-away, playing various video games and watching anime. We completed the story mode on Hyrule Warriors while he was here, and watched whole first season of Sword Art Online. In spite of some uncomfortable upskirt angles, that anime was incredibly good - and since it's set in an inescapable RPG, part of me suspected the whole 'men wear armour, women wear miniskirts' aspect was an intentional jab at video games. It is something that's irritatingly common in RPGs, so it made sense to be present in SAO, too, and there was at least one scene of a girl trying to pull her skirt down and complaining about it. I couldn't tell if this was just SAO being weird and creepy because hey, anime, or SAO making a point about sexism in RPGs. I choose to believe the latter because it makes the series that much more awesome, instead of less.

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's, and if not I hope everyone had a great Cheap Chocolate Day on the 15th.

If you see something, say nothing and drink to forget.

milliebee — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 12:46:54 GMT

Today's title is from Welcome to Night Vale and today's journal is copy-pasted from my forum post in Flight Rising (with some of the swearing repaired because, although not as bad as Neopets, FR's profanity filter is a pain in the arse).

Pre-Warning: I'm going to talk about nightmares and sleep paralysis so if that freaks you out, read with caution. Or leave if you like. I won't mind, honest. :3

So after an excellent day yesterday where I got lots of good news and basically strode through life walking on sunshine and rainbows and unicorn glitter, I went to bed and struggled to sleep. When I did get to sleep, I had nightmares. Luckily, I've learned to lucid dream so I just punched the monster in the nose and woke up, and that should've been the end of it.

Except:

ME: Oh I'm awake. And it's not morning yet. I guess I'll go back to sleep.

(My door moves.)

ME: Wait what?

(Ominous Shadowy Person shuffles into my room and stands next to the bed, but behind me as I'm sleeping on my side.)

ME: Is that [housemate]? What's he doing in here. I guess I'll ask.

ME: ...

OMINOUS SHADOW: (Stands ominously)

ME: ... ... ...

OMINOUS SHADOW: (Shifts around behind me ominously)

ME: ... ... ... !!!

ME: I don't appear to be able to move my mouth. Or any of my body. Interesting. And by interesting I mean:

Since I've heard of (and had) sleep paralysis before I sussed pretty quickly that the Ominous Shadowy Person was, in fact, not really there, and I managed to calm myself down and eventually move and turn my lamp on.

Then I went to sleep and had more nightmares and woke up again.

ME: Oh god, come on it's STILL not morning yet?

(Something moves at the foot of my bed.)

ME: WTF.

(The something is some kind of enormous, black eldritch snake creature slithering up my bed towards my face.)

ME: (Cannot move or yell.) Oh shit.

So ... yeah. I've had sleep paralysis before but never twice in one night, and it's been a long time (maybe two or three years?) since my last episode, where, incidentally, I thought a character I'd killed in my NaNoWriMo was standing outside my window after vengeance. xD

Hugs and funnies from around the internet would be much appreciated right now. :p

Rave of Thrones

milliebee — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 23:08:56 GMT

Last year, I was resolved to try and post every month. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep to that this year (my New Year's Resolution was more along the lines of 'get published you lazy fuck') but hey ho. My other sort-of resolution was a collection of mini tasks to do while I'm still at uni, since this will be my last semester. For instance, I'd like to have a go at busking, since I'm an okay musician and my uni's in one of the few towns in the UK where you don't need a license to busk. I also want to get my sleep cycle to a more sensible rythm by getting up and going to bed earlier.

However, my other other task kind of fucked that last one up, at least for today: I wanted to go to a club, probably at my university's own little club since there are basically no others in this town.

As one would likely guess from me keeping a LiveJournal, I'm a massive fucking introvert. I'm also claustrophobic and agoraphobic ('agoraphobic' here meaning 'a fear of having no escape', not of open spaces), so clubbing for me was never really going to be a thing. Lots of loud, energetic crowds closing around me in a small dark room just seemed doomed to end badly. But, after talking to so many friends about the uni's own events, I sort of felt like I was missing out.

Then Rave of Thrones was announced at uni, at which Kristian Nairn (aka Hodor from Game of Thrones) would be DJing, and I kind of yelled, 'Fuck the consequences!' and bought a ticket. I went to pre-drinks and then to the venue fully expecting the nerves to kick at any moment, and they kind of ... never did. I spent a full hour and a half dancing around in a crowd of very enthusiastic students, chanting 'HO-DOR, HO-DOR!' and I actually had a freaking whale of a time, even at 2AM when I was walking my plastered flatmate home.

I feel like there should be some grand moral at the end of this about growing as a person and coming out of your shell, but it's now tomorrow and I've spent all day curled at home playing video games and watching TV, sooo ...

So Long, 2014

milliebee — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:28:05 GMT

2014 has been a ridiculously long year: so long I keep forgetting that all of these things actually happened this year and not, say, over the last three years. I actually managed to keep up with writing an entry here every month, which is impressive.

The following things occurred this year:

I got a 1st for my dissertation

I graduated from my Creative Writing BA with First Class Honours

I started and completed Dragon Age: Origins (a less impressive achievement, but it usually takes me several years to complete a video game)

I cosplayed Sarah Kerrigan, which involved making and installing my own fake dreadlocks

I got addicted to Flight Rising and continued playing long after most of friends (including the one who recommended it to me) gave up and let their dragons starve

I learned to skateboard

I did Camp NaNoWriMo and wrote my first ever science fiction novel

I was pretty much the only person who managed to get drunk at my Graduation Ball

I cheated and watched a Let's Play of FFX

I got accepted onto the Writing for Children MA at my university

I started learning to play the harp

I guess I'll end with my favourite New Year poem:

The Year - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.

Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.'

milliebee — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 18:10:37 GMT

I am home at last for Christmas! Everything about the panto went just fine - even the romantic duet - and my 22nd Birthday was great, except for the fact I lifted my satchel to get into a taxi and sprained my rotator cuff. If I move my shoulder too hard it hurts like hell, and if I don't move it at all it gets stiff and achy, but at least it isn't dislocated like I first thought.

My presents mostly involved stuff to keep me warm, because Raynaud's, so I've been cuddled up and cosy ever since. I also got a ceramic ocarina, a la the Ocarina of Time, and when I came home on Sunday my parents presented me with a fuckmothering celtic harp.

I was pretty stunned - I'd mentioned once on the phone to my dad that I fancied learning the harp sometime, but I hadn't thought for a second he'd go out and get me one. In spirit of the season, and because it's relatively slow, I'm learning to play the Coventry Carol. Between my new harp and my new ocarina, my poor piano is looking a little neglected in the dining room.

This year, I started naming my musical instruments - all after Zelda companions. So far I have:

Midna the Yamaha Upright Piano - because it's easily the most beautiful instrument I have and by far my favourite to play

Fi the Electric Piano - it works nicely but it's mostly just a less fun, electronic copy of Midna

Navi the Plastic Ocarina - it's old and functional, but extremely shrill and annoying to listen to

Red Lion the Panpipe - because although I like it I never actually seem to play it

Now I have to decide on names for my new instruments ... hmmmmm.

Oh Wow it's Winter, Also Mockingjay

milliebee — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 16:58:44 GMT

December sort of crept up on me this year, although I suppose that's partly because I didn't spend November torturing myself with NaNoWriMo. Well done to anyone who suffered through that malarky.

I went home this weekend to go to Mike's grandad's funeral, which was horrible and sad because it was, y'know, a funeral, but was also kind of nice because I got to meet Mike's extended family. We're planning on travelling up north to stay with his dad sometime around Christmas, and it was nice to actually meet the people I'll be imposing myself upon. I also had the happier times of getting to see Mike's new flat (beautiful, with a huge balcony overlooking the sea and the marina and a swimming pool and sauna downstairs) and picking up my Christmas tree and festive knitted jumper. I can now decorate both my uni house and myself for Christmas.

My panto is in a week's time. This is deeply distressing because a) I haven't learned all my lines yet and b) it turns out I'm required to sing a romantic duet. I'm a decent singer (my flatmates actually can't get me to shut up around the house) and I've done big choir gigs before, but nothing where the audience is quite so focused on my voice in particular. Eeep.

I also went to see Mockingjay this weekend. It was unbelievably good - one of the many things I've been belting around the house is actually the Hanging Tree song from it, which Jennifer Lawrence performed really beautifully. Reading the books, I felt that The Hunger Games was great, Catching Fire was okay, but suffered a touch from Unplanned Sequel Syndrome, and Mockingjay was brain-achingly awful. The films actually seem to be going in the opposite direction: the first film was a bit disappointing, the second was a very decent adaptation, the third is better than the book it was based on. It seems Mockingjay was actually a book that needed to be longer, so splitting the films up was a ... good ... idea? God it feels weird to say that.

Still, my majorest of major irritations with Mockingjay was actually in the very end of the book. I've always thought killing Prim was pointless. Since Katniss's motivation to do literally anything (volunteer for the games, join the war effort ...) was 'protect Prim', going on to give her a happy ending after Prim died felt weird and uncomfortable. Either Prim died or Katniss got a happy ending; it didn't work with both. Killing off either Peeta or Gale, on the other hand ... *evil cackling*

It'll be interesting to see if they manage that better in the films. I hope they do. I forgot just how much I enjoyed The Hunger Games until I saw that film.

I shall stop now, however, because I am capable of writing pages of essays about those books and I've talked long enough. Happy December, everyone. Try not to let your tits freeze off.

Homesickness Averted

milliebee — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 21:48:52 GMT

I've finally come home for a break after seven weeks of uni, and have spent all day chain-watching Countryfile and Doctor Who. I actually have a BBC license in my uni house, but for a combination of reasons I suck at keeping up on TV. I think I'll wait until the season finale this weekend to comment on Doctor Who.

On top of my part time waitressing job, I now also have a very part time job in a bookshop. Very part time meaning that I'm only called in when someone else is ill, or when there's an event on at a weird time that nobody can make. One such weird event was a mass book launch - weird meaning awesome. I worked at a little stall selling the newly published books (and then getting very flustered when our till stopped working) and got to meet Melvin Burgess, author of Junk, and Barry Cunningham, who used to be J.K. Rowling's agent.

While giving me a lift home, my boss mentioned that he's putting together a panto of Sleeping Beauty. Sooo ... I'm going to be in a panto. :D

Other than that, my life right now is taken up almost entirely with writing for my coursework, reading books for my coursework, and doing a metric fucktonne of research for my coursework. Who knew that doing a Master's would be hard work?

I've Achieved Something

milliebee — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 21:29:10 GMT

This week is super hectic and I don't really have time to write lengthy entries about anything, but I thought I'd stop by to mention this.

Today I (finally) had my graduation ceremony, officially finishing my BA in Creative Writing. It didn't exactly feel like 'ending' anything, since my classes actually finished five months ago, and also because shortly after the ceremony I set out for my MA evening class. Nonetheless, it was nice to wear the cap and gown and be reminded that, even though I'm still working, I've already achieved something.

Also, I raided the merch stalls. My graduation hoodie is super comfy, especially in combination with my graduation scarf, my graduation teddy bear and my graduation sugared almonds.

Can't You See We've Got a Good Thing Here?

milliebee — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 21:16:14 GMT

This next post is going to be about the weather. I hope that's not boring, but in case it is, I'm going to intersperse it with links to my favourite weathers from Welcome to Night Vale (if you haven't listened to it yet, you should!)

The autumn weather this year has been surprisingly mild. I'm accustomed to my seaside hometown, where autumn starts halfway through August -- and by 'autumn' I mean 'constant oppressive rain'. Some way into November, this usually becomes 'constant and oppressive rain with ice cold winds', which eventually petres out into 'constant and oppressive rain with slightly warmer winds', and then 'oh my god it's stopped raining we have to get to the beach now, go, go!'

This is probably why I find it so confusing when the hip Tumblrites start making posts like this and talking about how peaceful rain is:

However, we've barely had a drizzle in my uni town. Throughout September, the weather's remained fair. I've actually been sending regular Snapchats to my mum of our sunny skies, with the simple message, 26C TODAY OMG on them. For someone with a mild but still infuriating case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, all this sunshine is a godsend. Especially since, for the first time since I started uni, I actually have a garden this year.

Today, however, we had our first proper English downpour. Typically, it also coincided with my first day at a new job (nothing special, just waitressing). The cafe I was working at has only one 'solid' wall; the other three are all windows. So I got to watch everyone scurry about in their raincoats and blustering with their umbrellas outside as I carried orders around. At the least, everyone looked happy to finally know what they should be wearing. Walking through the high street for the last month has been an odd experience, when half of the people are sweating bundled up in hats and scarves and the others are shivering in short-shorts.

I don't know why I wanted to talk about the weather, but I do find it oddly fascinating. How's the weather been where all of you are?

Not Talking About Video Games This Time, Honest

milliebee — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 12:40:25 GMT

I think I'm overdue an update in what's actually happening to me.

My indulgently long summer break is finally over, and I'm back at university. This is my fourth year - I passed my BA in Creative Writing with Honours and I'm now moving onto an MA in Writing for Children - and my fourth house. It's definitely the nicest place I've lived at uni, with its two bathrooms and its real living room and its space for my electric piano in my bedroom. It has only two disadvantages: it's the furthest from the uni I've lived so far, and it lacks in one Mike.

Mike graduated this summer and is starting an awesome engineering job back home by the sea. I'm really happy and proud of him, but I'm more than a little sad to living without him again. This especially because he has been my head chef for the last two years, while I took the proud role of dishwasher. I've already reverted back to microwave dinners without him.

That said, my flatmates are all excellent cooks. We've agreed to have weekly communal meals, so I got to enjoy a fantastic autumnal roast dinner on Sunday with half a dozen vegetables I'd never normally eat. I've also been promised bubble-and-squeak from the leftovers, which I've never had before and always sort of assumed was a kind of champagne. My flatmates also made butterbeer last night, which I didn't realise was even a real thing outside of Hogwarts. I am very much enjoying this shared cooking, and I will continue to be until I am expected to prepare a meal. Then the house will burn down.

So far, we've only had introductory lessons in the MA so I can't yet comment on how good it will be. I started to get a little alarmed when everyone was discussing what they liked to write, though. I took this MA based on the promise that I can still write for YA in all of my coursework. I, however, was the only person who wanted to write for 14+ - everyone else's target audiences were roughly 8-12. I hope this doesn't mean the lessons will all be tailored to writing for tiny people.

As a last point, I don't like to refer to my home and uni towns by name, but since I talk about them a lot, I'm considering referring to them as the Shire and Camelot respectively. Would that make sense or just be incredibly confusing?

FFX Review Finale

milliebee — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:02:39 GMT

I actually finished watching the FFX Let's Play weeks ago but the ending was sad and I was sad and I didn't want to think about it. But! In the interest of completeness, I'll copy up my last notes and give an overall review of the game.

Tidus is not a real boy and my jaw just dropped

Tiny Seymour is adorable

I love how none of the parents in FFX seem to give a flying shit how much they're messing up their kids. 'I will kill Sin! I'm sure my child will be fine and not at all emotionally scarred by my death!'

Poor Wakka: first he had to fight FFX Pope and now he has to fight FFX Jesus.

I genuinely did not guess at all that Auron was unsent. I approve of this twist.

Everyone recklessly leaping off the ship after Sin instead of landing the damn thing made me laugh.

I love that Tidus refers to Sin as 'Dad'. Enormous, terrifying whale monster. Just straight up 'Dad'.

It turns out I'm actually pretty attached to Seymour, ridiculous as he is, because I'm DYING for him to show up again.

Wait, no meteor crashing through the whole galaxy? Pfft, Sephiroth sneers at your lack of style, Sin.

Holy shit was that an ENORMOUS SEYMOUR?

YAY HE IS BACK! I missed Seymour's hamminess.

Tidus's little, 'Dad, I hate you,' is 100% heartbreaking.

Jecht!Aon has badass metal music

The guy I was watching used Zombie of Jecht!Aon so his own healing pillars damaged him every time they used heal spells and that my friends is fucking ingenius.

'God Tidus stop being such a crybaby, you've only murdered your own father. Jeez. Seymour murdered his father and I bet he didn't cry.' ~Jecht

I'm not sure I like the fact that you're just indestructible in the final battle against Yu Yevon. I do like that you have to fight your own Aons, though.

I haven't mentioned it before, but I love the name 'Yojimbo'. Hee hee. Yojimbo.

Wait to drop the 'I'm not a real boy' at the WORST possible time, Tidus.

Tidus.

Tidus no.

Tidus don't die. I like you.

Auron you can be sent I don't really mind but--

Tidus no.

Wait, was Seymour actually just chillin' in with Jecht and Auron in Heaven? That's ... odd.

I like that, in Yuna's final speech at the end, she mentions her dreams and the image of her kissing Seymour flashes up. Yuna dreams of kissing Seymour.

Actually, both of the men Yuna's kissed have died. YUNAxLULU REIGNS SUPREME.

Seriously though, I'm super sad about Tidus.

... End of credits implication that Tidus is alive? Yay?

That's actually a lot more bullet points than I remember writing. Oops! So: overall!

I enjoyed Final Fantasy X. Having watched a Let's Play instead of playing myself, the only thing I really can't comment on is the gameplay. I did like the idea of being able to switch out characters mid-battle, though. I'll give the game that.

The characters were mostly great: I was crazy attached to Tidus, Kimahri, Lulu, Wakka and Rikku. I didn't like Auron particularly, but then I'm not sure you're meant to like him. He's kind of an unapologetic arse. So I was willing to forgive that. Even Seymour, who was a completely ridiculous villain, in actions, motives and appearance, was just plain fun. He was so silly, I enjoyed him even though I didn't think he was a great villain. And, to be honest, Sin more than made up for him in intimidation factor.

The only character I consistently failed to get attached to was Yuna. This was a real wrench because she's basically the poster child of the game (and I know she's the main character in the sequel). She felt so bland to me. She never developed through the game, because she was never even given any flaws to develop. She was just perfect: beautiful, polite, funny, self-sacrificing, intelligent. I hate to throw the term around, but with all those traits, plus the half-Al Bhed heritage (just enough that no one's mean to her!), the one-blue-one-green eyes, the whole marriage-to-the-villain plot ... she struck me as agonisingly Mary-Sueish.

Moving on, then, the plot! Jesus wept the plot was good. I loved the way that Yevon was slowly unveiled as a lie; I loved the mystery of whether this world was real; the plot of how to kill Sin; every single little twist was beautiful. I guessed a few of them, but that was okay because they were recognisably good plot even though I knew what was coming. Using Tidus as an 'innocent abroad' was an excellent way to give information to the player without sounding weird or just flat out leaving them in the dark (looking at you, FFXIII). And the ending, although it broke my little heart, was wonderful. Bittersweet endings stay with you for longer than straightforward happy ones, I feel.

MatPat of The Game Theorists said in a video once that he thinks, 'Your first Final Fantasy game is always your favourite.' I have to agree - FFX can't quite top FF7 for me, sparkly graphics and all. It is a fantastic game though, and I absolutely loved it. If you haven't played it, please do, or at least cheat like me and watch a Let's Play. It's awesome.

Now I'm not sure what I'd rather do: watch FFX-2 or FFVIII. I was leaning towards X-2 until I realised it's all about Yuna, and judging from the poster, it's all about Yuna in pointlessly fanservicey booty shorts. So perhaps I'll be reviewing gunblades next.

The FFX Review Continues

milliebee — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 15:36:47 GMT

I just wrote this out nice, and then my laptop crashed and I lost it all. So you get bullet points! And that is all. >8|

I disagree with Auron: Yuna is not 'naive and serious to a fault'. Rikku and Tidus are naive; Kimahri and Lulu are serious. Yuna's actually pretty knowledgable, and that whole laugh scene with Tidus shows she has a sense of humour. Yuna has no faults.

Every time Jecht calls Tidus a cry baby, I WTF. Tidus was only a little boy when Jecht disappeared. You, sir, are a dick.

Seymour's sliminess concerning Yuna reminds me of Mr Collins from Pride and Prejudice.

I love Rikku and her steam/cyberpunk home city ... BUT WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE ON FIRE?

I keep hoping Dona's last name is Kebab.

AH I KNEW YUNA WOULD HAVE TO DIE TO KILL SIN.

I love Rikku all the more for being the halfway decent one to tell Tidus that Yuna's going to die.

That pope/wedding hat actually makes Seymour's hair look less ridiculous.

Seeing the party slide down those ropes to get to Yuna put this in my head.

I'M GLAD I CRASHED THE WEDDING, IT'S BETTER THAN FORGETTING, I COULDA BEEN A LOSER KID AND RUN AWAY AND HID, IT WAS THE BEST THING I EVER DID

Where the hell was Yuna hiding her staff wearing that wedding dress? Clenched between her buttocks?

MY WEIRD FUCKO SHIP HAS A CANON ONSCREEN KISS AND A MARRIAGE

Laughing at Yuna wiping off Seymour's kiss

Laughing even harder at Seymour being a moron and staring straight at Rikku's flash bomb after she's screamed, 'Cover your eyes!'

Kimahri helping Tidus break the rules and get into the Fayth to help Yuna is adorable.

It's handy that the baddies happened to dump the party swimmers in the water trial and the non-swimmers in the ... not ... water trial.

Kimahri stabbed Seymour while he was monologuing. I love you, Kimahri. Don't die.

IT'S SAFER ~~SEPHIROTH~~ SEYMOUR

Poor Yuna gets the worst kisses: one from the creepy zombie villain and one underwater while she's crying hysterically.

Tidus, don't do the sex with Yuna underwater. She cannot hold her breath indefinitely. She will drown.

I hope Tidus gets the whole 'be nice to my baby princess' talk from Kimahri after that underwater sex.

I occasionally misread 'Lord Gandof' as 'Lord Gandalf' or 'Lord Ganondorf'.

CHOCOBO RACING YES SON

And that is where I will leave this.

Literal Naval Gazing and Booby Sephiroth (FFX)

milliebee — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 19:10:59 GMT

So August has arrived, and apparently that means 'not summer anymore' to English weather. Hurricane Bertha is blowing over us, which isn't as bad as the word 'hurricane' implies, but it is really annoying. Lots of wind and rain and grey, gumpy days. I'm wearing jeans for the first time in months.

Anyway, screw the crappy weather, I've been watching more FFX Let's Plays. I'm just past the Farplane now, going into the Thunder Plains.

I've actually been scribbling notes in a book and some of the quick points I made are fine to just relay as they are, but since half of them just say '[name] WTF?', the others require a little more explanation.

Bullets first!

I love the way chocobos look - it's a great progression from the blockiness of VII, and much prettier than the weird look in XIII. So adorable, I want one.

It's pronounced choh-cah-boh? Not chokka-boh? THIS IS 'MAKO' ALL OVER AGAIN.

It really seems the fashion in Spira is to have your buttcheeks hanging out.

Kimahri starts talking and I actually realise I like him. He reminds me of Sten from Dragon Age and he smiles like Toothless.

Auron seems like a dick. Also, WTF does he have against his left sleeve?

The Moonflow sounds like a euphemism for menstruation.

Yuna and Kimahri's talk about Baby Yuna scaring Kimahri by repeatedly jumping off the shoopuff for fun is adorable.

Tidus's narration feels out of character. He's mostly this cheerful, happy-go-lucky guy, but his narration is all morose and dramatic. Like ... cheer up, Narrator Tidus. It'll be okay.

I hate the word Guadosalam. 'Guado' just sounds too much like 'guano', which keeps making me think, OOH, SHIKAKA!

Wow both of Tidus's parents were dicks.

All of the stuff that requires more explanation is about Maester Seymour, except for one point that I remember writing the moment a shoopuff appeared. It literally just says 'AW SHIT SON DINOSAURS'.

So, Maester Seymour. Once I (finally) stopped snorting when his name was spoken, I started giggling at his hair. I guess the whole Guado heritage thing explains it, because they have pretty wacky hair, but still ... damn that 'do looks wierd. Like a big blue spider sitting on his head. Then I started looking at his clothes and giggled again because I realised his shirt is done up just high enough to barely cover his pubes. The whole of the rest of his chest is exposed, plus he has that necklace thing that practically points in a line towards his navel.

Perhaps he realised how strange his hair was and decided to dress to draw people's eyes down, so between the hair and the (literal) navel gazing they'd sort of end up looking at his face once in a while.

As soon as Maester Seymour requested an audience with Yuna, I scribbled, 'I bet there are Seymour/Yuna shippers out there', because I've been in enough fandoms to know that when the slightly sinister probably-villain shows an interest in a main protagonist, shippers gonna ship. Heck, I usually am one of those shippers (see Cloud/Sephiroth, Slade/Robin, L/Light ...)

So I watched the hologram scene where all the pretty lights are going past, and I thought, Heh, this is kinda like Seymour acting all flash to come on to Yuna, and then the rest of the party disappeared and Booby Sephiroth (Yunalesca) started snogging some guy while Seymour got all leery, and I thought, Wow I'm starting to see creepy ships where they don't exist, haha, silly Millie. Then Seymour starts whispering to Yuna as Booby Sephiroth and whoever she's snogging go off-camera, and since you can't hear what he's saying I mentally substituted it for, 'Hey, they bangin'. Wanna bang?'

I was halfway through handwriting these thoughts down when Yuna said, 'He asked me to marry him!' and my notes suddenly became, 'OMG FOR ONCE MY WEIRD FUCKO SHIP IS CANON'.

I still like to imagine that Seymour just casually asked Yuna if she was up for bangin', and she just called it a 'marriage proposal' to be polite, and then and everafter Seymour had to bullshit it was a marriage proposal to save face.

Sorry, Seymour. Yuna/Lulu is still topping you, by just a tiny bit.

Heh, topping you.

Video Games That I'm Technically Not Actually Playing

milliebee — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 20:11:26 GMT

So, instead of reviewing the things I mentioned in my last journal, I'm going to talk about Legend of Zelda and a Final Fantasy that isn't VII. For once.

Holy crap have you guys seen the trailers for Hyrule Warriors?

Adorable bby Link

Badass armoured Zelda

Motherfucking BAMF Ganondorf apparently wearing Vincent Valentine's glove on both hands with two lackeys in tow, all of whom are playable characters.

If Ghirahim doesn't have at least one special attack that involves licking people, I will be sorely disappointed. Ditto for Zant doing screaming backflips across the battlefield.

I don't own a Wii U and I am weeping. I am going to watch so many Let's Plays.

Speaking of Let's Plays, I've been watching DavetheUsher's Let's Play of Final Fantasy X HD Remaster on Youtube. I've never played the game before. I'm currently up to the Mi'ihen Highroad which, judging from the fact it's video 18 out of 89, is barely anywhere. That said, I do have a few thoughts:

Tidus is the derpiest little blond surfer boy ever. On the one hand, his peppiness is refreshing when you're accustomed to the gloominess of Cloud Strife. On the other, it's weird and incomfortable when you're accustomed to the gloominess of Cloud Strife. (I pronounce his name TIE-dus rather than TEE-dus even though I know it's wrong because damn it the pun on 'tide' makes so much sense.)

I kind of ... don't ... like ... Yuna? I expect she develops, but at the moment she's all angelic and perfect - rather like the FFVII fandom portrays Aerith, even though Aerith is really cheeky and fun in the actual game - and actually pretty dull. I'm just dying for some fatal character flaw show up and make her more interesting soon.

Lulu, on the other hand, is my new waifu. I freaking love her. I also may or may not be shipping her with Yuna.

Wakka is pretty neat, even though his name sounds like the noise Pacman makes. Also I keep expecting him to tell Tidus to bite his shiny metal ass.

I recognised Seymour from reputation, but I never knew until now that his name was Seymour. That is the absolute worst name for a villain. I keep imagining Mr. Skinner's mother from The Simpsons screaming, 'SEYOUR GET ME MY FOOT SCRUB!' from behind him.

The other characters haven't really been around enough for me to have opinions on them yet. I'm enjoying the plot, although Tidus's constant narrating is a little grating. Then again, I get attached to any plot the moment a controlling religious cult is introduced. I also love the gameplay element of being able to switch out party members mid-battle. I would have loved to be able to do that in FFVII.

Actually, the most infuriating thing about FFX so far is that fact that I'm having to watch this Let's Play. DavetheUsher clearly knows how to play the game, but his narration is even more infuriating than Tidus's: every time a cutscene ends, he stands in place and re-explains exactly what the characters just said before moving on. Did I say moving on? I meant going back through every village three more times just to make sure he's spoken to everyone. Twice.

I understand the urge to do that when you're playing casually by yourself, but it's extremely frustrating to have to skip 15 minute intervals of nothing each episode when you're watching a Let's Play. I think I was spoiled by players like FuzzfingerGaming, who is simultaneously very knowledgable and very witty.

So! If anyone knows of a better Final Fantasy X/X2 Let's Play that's better than the one I'm watching, please send it to me!

Camp NaNoWriMo

milliebee — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 16:33:56 GMT

Phew. That was tough!

I'm pretty much all worded out now, so I'll keep this brief. I was writing Repa for Camp NaNoWriMo this month, and even though I dropped my word count down from 50,000 to the much more managable 30,000, I wavered and struggled. BUT! It is all over now and I'm very glad to be able to set that story aside and move on.

... Move on to next year's dissertation, that is.

8¬|

She had a pretty face but her head was up in space

milliebee — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 15:38:05 GMT

Hello, LiveJournal! It's been a while between updates, mostly because I've been busy this month:

Throwing my CV in every shop in town and grumbling when no one responds

Trawling through my daily word count for Camp NaNoWriMo

Playing Flight Rising

Learning to skateboard

I've been doing okay for Camp NaNoWriMo, keeping one or two days ahead most of the time and often writing much more than I need to for each day. I attribute this to being accustomed to Proper NaNoWriMo's gruelling goal of 50,000 words (~1,600 a day), where I set my Camp goal to the much more comfortable 30,000 (~930 a day).

However, I have become very, very bored with my story for this month. It was bound to happen eventually, but it's still frustrating. Since my story is a sci fi, I decided to absorb as much science fiction as I could over the last week or so, in an attempt to encourage myself. This meant watching and then reading Ender's Game, and then watching Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odessey in the same day. My mum also bought me Aliens All Like Burgers, a little self-published book advertised as being similar to Red Dwarf and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which will be a nice change of tone. I need something light hearted after all that serious business.

I may or may not review each of them according to anyone's interest, but right now my brain is burning from all the lasers.

On the bright side, learning to skateboard is both interesting and going well. I have yet to fall off in any spectacular manner, and I managed to skate to the local pub and back with my boyfriend (also learning) yesterday. Since it's hot as balls in the UK at the moment, we're thinking of skating the ~8 miles into town and back tomorrow. If Avril Lavigne can learn to do it, I can to do it.

(PS Thorne, I may have slightly pinched your method of titling entires using song lyrics for this entry. I'm sorry.)

Bachelor of Creative Writing

milliebee — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 16:15:09 GMT

My Uni results came through yesterday: I recieved a First Class Honours in my BA Creative Writing.*

Obviously, I'm absolutely delighted. A lot of hard work went into the last three years, especially my dissertation, and I'm thrilled to see it was worth it. I didn't think I'd ever enjoy uni - I had a lonely start, and was distraught when I failed my first essay. Now I've not only pulled through, but I've also been accepted onto the MA in Writing for Children (or in my case, young adults), which I can look forward to starting in October - when I'll also have my Graduation Ceremony.

It's also given me a bit more confidence to take on Camp NaNoWriMo this month. I'lll be writing my science fiction story, Repa, which may or may not wind up as part of my dissertation next year. My username on there is MillieBee, so feel free to friend/track me and bully me into writing more!

Congratulations to everyone else who's got their results this summer, and good luck if you haven't yet!

_{*For those unfamiliar with UK university grades, this is the equivalent of an A+. There is no higher grade!}

FFVII: Top-and-Tail (Fanfiction)

milliebee — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 21:05:14 GMT

I started writing this one for Ayahalloway months and months ago. She is an unbelievably patient woman.

Title: Top-and-Tail

Genre: Humour, Romance

Rating: M

Relationships: Cloud/Zack, implied Cloud/Sephiroth and Zack/Sephiroth

Characters: Cloud, Zack

Word Count: 1,500

Summary: He’d just looked at him and said, ‘Want to crash on my couch for a while?’ Of course, the kind gesture was ruined when Cloud realised he didn’t actually have a couch.

Warnings: Underage (jailbait)

***

Cloud woke up under a warm duvet. He sighed, content. Happy, even.

Then he was suspicious.

He opened his eyes. It was a complicated process that involved gradually convincing himself that the muscles around his eyes still existed, and then cajoling them into a warm-up before finally heaving his lids apart. He was in a dark room, and a strange bed. Zack’s bed.

He shifted up on his elbows and fumbled for the bedside table. Why hadn’t his alarm gone off? His fingernails tinged against a half-empty glass of water, but he found nothing else. Nothing PHS-shaped. He turned over and blinked stupidly at the empty space on the other side of the bed, where Zack’s feet had earlier been poking out by the headboard. He was alone.

Zack had been a godsend last night, at ridiculous o’clock in the morning when Cloud was pacing the halls of Shinra HQ for the third night in a row. He hadn’t asked what was going on: hadn’t demanded to know about the troopers shredding Cloud’s clothes, or stealing his PHS and sending lewd messages to his mother, or putting that live, furious cactuar in his pillowcase.

He’d just looked at him, a quick glance to sum up Cloud’s pathetic size and muscle mass, and his pale, exhausted face, and said, ‘Want to crash on my couch for a while?’

Of course, the kind gesture had been somewhat ruined when Cloud got to Zack’s apartment and realised he didn’t actually have a couch.

‘Oh,’ Zack said, scratching the back of his neck, ‘yeah. Reno kind of stayed a while ago and trashed, like, everything … look, it’s not a problem. You can top-and-tail with me.’

What Zack lacked in living room furnishings he made up for in the size of his bed. The more-than-king-size, big-enough-for-three-Zacks, buried-under-a-million-pillows bed. Even sharing with Zack, who snored like a chainsaw and somehow managed to steal the blankets when the blankets were big enough to build a circus tent, it had been the best night’s sleep Cloud had had in weeks. Maybe even since he came to Shinra.

And, apparently, it had also been the best morning’s sleep. Cloud had set his PHS alarm to wake him, painfully, at 05:00 hours. He felt far too well-rested for only a few hours sleep.

His CO was going to kill him. It’d be laps, all day, and then he’d miss out on even more important training that the others would lord over him while they stuffed his mattress with chocobo shit and leered at him in the showers.

His sat up fully, clutching the duvet. ‘Zack?’

The door opened and light spilled in. Cloud winced and then blinked at the tall silhouette that was Zack in the doorway, before he kicked the door shut and sauntered in.

He sprawled on the end of the bed, head at Cloud’s feet. ‘I’m here. You can start breathing normally again whenever you like.’

‘Zack, I have drills! My alarm—’

Zack stuck his arm out and waved Cloud’s PHS at him. ‘Relax. I borrowed it to call your CO. You have the day off.’

Cloud took the PHS and held it in both hands. ‘I do?’

‘Yup.’ Zack tucked his arms up under his head, mako-eyes glowing through the dark and spectacularly fucking up Cloud’s readjusting eyesight. ‘I told him you helped me out of a scrape and needed a day off to recover.’

‘You can do that?’

‘I’m a SOLDIER, First Class,’ Zack waved one arm lazily in the air. ‘I could make your CO parade through Sector Six with his pants down if I wanted.’

He dropped his arm and it landed on Cloud’s leg, heavy through the blanket, just under his knee.

‘Really?’ Cloud said. Zack lifted his head to look at him, grinning.

‘Why? Want revenge for something?’

Cloud realised he was smiling as he shook his head. ‘Not on my CO.’

‘Hey, give me names and I will give you results,’ Zack said earnestly, and Cloud laughed.

‘Isn’t that an abuse of power? The director would be pissed.’

‘Pfft. I go drinking with Turks; there’s no kind of trouble I haven’t already been in twice before. Lazard doesn’t scare me.’

At the word ‘trouble’, Zack stretched his arm up, hand sliding over Cloud’s knee and coming to rest on his thigh, palm-up, not groping but still very much there.

‘Um,’ Cloud said.

Zack was still smiling, but it wasn’t as broad, and he was peering as if trying to gauge Cloud’s reaction. Cloud’s face was suddenly burning hot.

Zack rolled onto his side, flipping his hand over. He squeezed Cloud’s leg. The blood not already in Cloud’s cheeks rushed downwards.

‘Only if you want to,’ Zack said. ‘You don’t have to fuck to stay here. You can crash as long as you want.’

Cloud’s brain missed a turn on Zack Logic Road and went swerving into a ditch. Zack Fair was propositioning him, and he thought he was going to say no? But Zack was already lifting his hand away.

Cloud jerked forwards to kiss him, missed, and barely stopped short of head butting him in the face. His mouth mashed against the corner of Zack’s eyebrow. He took it, tried to make it as kiss-like as possible, and then said,

‘Wait. Yes.’

Zack’s grin was back, in full force, so fast Cloud expected it to send his facial muscles into spasm. He leaned over and kissed him again, actually on the mouth this time. Zack’s lips were dry and soft, and Zack sat up, gently pushing Cloud down into the pillows. A calloused hand ran down the side of his face and cupped the back of his neck.

Zack’s arms were warm, solid pillars to his either side. Cloud reached up and put a hand in the black tangles of Zack’s hair, and Zack kissed him and then moaned against his lips when Cloud arched up to press up against him. Pulling back, Zack reached over his shoulder and yanked his shirt off, and then shucked his trousers down and kicked them away. Cloud reached out, almost reverently, and Zack caught his hands.

‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘You must be at least this naked to ride.’

Releasing Cloud’s hands, he shifted back and whipped the duvet away. Cloud flinched at the sudden chill, but started fumbling at his shirt – the loose, oversized t-shirt Zack had lent him to sleep in – nonetheless. Zack’s hands were suddenly there to help, not quite gentle anymore, but firm, practised. Cloud could feel his own pulse in the corners of his jaw.

He actually heard his boxers hit the wall when Zack threw them aside. Then Zack was over him again, head down to kiss his neck, hips pressing down. Cloud curled his fingers into the sheets and gripped. The chill was gone; he was warm.

‘Fuck,’ he whispered. ‘Fuck.’

*

Twenty minutes later, cleaned up and sipping slightly too-sweet coffee in Zack’s kitchen, Cloud said, ‘I’m starting to think you had an ulterior motive in calling my CO, you know.’

‘I had nothing but your health in mind,’ Zack said, and grabbed Cloud’s arse as he reached for more sugar.

‘What a scandal.’ Cloud leaned back against the counter. ‘First Class SOLDIER abducts rookie trooper for sex.’

Zack was quiet for a moment, and then he said, ‘How old are you?’

Cloud’s hands tightened on the mug, and then reflexively loosened against the heat. ‘Sixteen is legal in Nibelheim,’ he said to his bare toes, curled against the cool kitchen tiles.

Again, Zack was quiet for too long. ‘And you are sixteen?’ He didn’t sound angry, or even worried – just resigned, as if he’d spilled his drink and knew he’d have to clean it up.

Cloud didn’t answer and Zack sighed,

‘Sephiroth is gonna kill me.’

‘Sorry,’ Cloud said, for lack of anything better.

‘S’all right,’ Zack said, staring pensively into his coffee. ‘I don’t think Seph’s ever yelled at me for jailbait before. He might actually use his full-level materia for this one. It’ll be a new experience for both of us.’

Cloud cringed. So much for ‘no kind of trouble I haven’t already been in twice before’.

Zack was looking down at him with a calculating expression. ‘Unless…’

‘Unless?’

Zack grinned and sipped his coffee. ‘Wanna sleep with my boss so he doesn’t kill me for sleeping with you?’

‘Oh.’ Cloud looked away and shrugged, nonchalant. He face was scarlet. ‘Yeah, sure.’

Zack nudged him and he almost tipped coffee down his shirt. ‘Don’t sound too eager there, kiddo. You might break my heart.’

‘Hey, you suggested it.’ The flush deepened to what was probably a plum-purple, but Cloud was smiling.

‘Well,’ Zack set his mug down on the side, all business. ‘Let me tell you, Sephiroth is a scary bastard in battle. Doubly so in bed. If you’re gonna screw him, you’ll need some practise.’

As Zack put his hands on Cloud’s shoulders and steered him back into the bedroom, Cloud said, ‘How do you know what Sephiroth’s like in bed?’

‘All will be revealed in time, my pupil.’

Cloud managed to swig down the last of his coffee before Zack plucked the mug away and set it on the bedside table.