Welcome to the place where I have stored all the marbles I've lost over Kingdon! I hope you enjoy them (sometimes they're shiny!) ✨
Microfic Challenge: August 25
August 01st: Pool (499 words)
August 10th: Tank top (497 words)
Microfic Challenge: What should've been you (chronological)
August 06th: Lemonade (499 words)
August 14th: Picture (496 words)
August 25th: Sweat (500 words)
August 27th: Jellyfish (475 words)
August 28th: Festival (841 words)
August 30th: Bottle (500 words)
Bonus thoughts & Director's Cut
Microfic Challenge: November 25
Day 4: Apple (1.4k words)
Day 13: Moon (499 words)
One-Shots
Forever again (to love you the way that I should've back then) (6k, exes to lovers)
Cheating fic: Mel takes care of Frank, even if that includes sleeping with a married man. If things go her way, he won't be married for long anyway.
Current WIPs
Regency au: Just when Melissa King expects a proposal from the handsome Mr. Langdon, he disappears. Months later, she meets him again in London as she searches for a husband...
Rules: Shuffle your “on repeat” playlist and post the first ten tracks, then tag ten people 🎶
Tagged by @fellowshipincynicism thank youuuu 🥰🥰🥰
Rivers and Roads- the head and the heart
Can’t help falling in love with- Elvis Presley
Iris- the goo goo dolls
Rebel Girl- Bikini Kill
Teenage Dirtbag- Wheatus
Crush- Ethel Cain
Werewolf Heart- dead man’s bones
No Surprises- Radiohead
Dead Hearts- Dead man’s bones
Do I Wanna Know- Arctic Monkeys
No pressure tagging @kayleigh-rae @smolfangirl @kingdonagegap @slidewhistlebj @musing-and-music @dad-inside @queenofattolia @mitskiiiiii @disgracedprinceera @holywaterhangover and anyone who wants to play!
Hello. Since I've seen people submit finished wheels, I thought I'd submit a wheel I came up with. In this case, it's a wheel to tell you something that you can't do for a week.
As someone who was alive when Bob Ross (and William Alexander before him — that’s where the approach is from) was on PBS, I can 100% testify that you can paint along with him.
You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:
SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!
They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.
I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.
Thank you @pansiesandposies for beta-reading, you're the best 🥰
A few shelves behind him, Abby whisper-yells his full name – one more reason he should’ve kept it a secret from her. It’s only a matter of time before her fury-fueled legs catch up to him. Still, Frank would never run in a library. His mother may have raised a coward, but she didn’t raise a monster. Instead, he ducks into another aisle and speedwalks.
“Do you really think you can hide from me?” Abby shouts.
Where the fuck did he leave his invisibility cloak? How else will he find his way back to his home, his heart?
“You bastard! Stop!”
He picks up the pace, but a glance over his shoulder reveals flaming cheeks and a glare intent on killing him.
Fuck.
“Shh, Frank! Over here!”
His neck snaps to the right. A shelf, no, a door opens towards him. A long braid flashes golden in the windowlight, a small hand grabs his wrist, his feet stumble into dark safety, the door slams behind him.
A familiar body softens his fall. With a snap of his finger, a floating candle reveals hazel eyes and a lovely smile.
“Thank you for falling for me,” he says and brushes a golden strand out of Mel’s face.
Mel pushes her cute glasses back up. “Thank you for the mattress. Very quick thinking.”
His eyes flicker to the mattress underneath her. Undoubtedly, a trick of his subconsciousness, but of course she gave him more credit than he deserved.
“But I didn’t fall,” Mel adds, “You took me down with you.”
A gentle laugh dances over his lips. “Good to know I can always rely on your honesty, Miss King.”
Her heartbeat picks up its pace and hammers against his chest, and oh. He’s never been this close to her before. She smells sweet, like the meadow by the lake of his childhood summers. He could finally count her freckles or leave his marks all over her pale skin.
…Only Abby’s banging on the other side of the door keeps his blood away from his groin.
“Thank you for saving me from her,” he says, then places his arms next to Mel’s pretty face and lifts his weight off her.
A tiny frown tugs at her eyebrows and mouth. He sinks back down.
“Why is Abby mad at you?”
He swallows hard. “I told her I could never marry her because my heart belongs to someone else.”
“Oh.”
“To you, Mel.”
Her cheeks light up. “Oh. Really?”
She wraps her legs around him and before he knows better, he rocks his hips against hers. A perfect little moan escapes her lips. Fuck, how quickly can he marry her? Maybe Queen Samira will grant them a special license, or he can convince the skittish young pastor, Whittaker or whatever, to hold the ceremony in two days’ time anyway.
He leans in until he’s half an inch away from her lips. “Of course, sweetheart. Will you marry me?”
Her hip twitches. “Yes, please. I never want you to leave again.”
“Perfect,” he replies before he finally kisses her the way he dreamed about for months. She melts into him; her hands wander to his bicep and then tug at the buttons of his waistcoat and –
“Unbelievable! Did you forget your manners?”
Mel shoves him off her.
With a groan, Frank sits up. A few feet in front of him, his invisibility cloak dangles from a chair he spent most of his last few months in. Next to it, all too familiar green eyes glare at him.
“Calcifer?”
Calcifer turns to Mel. “I tell you he needs help, and this is how you thank me, young lady? Have I not been clear enough? I do not want to see any of this… this courting!”
A lovely shade of red blooms on Mel’s cheeks. He leans down to kiss it, then asks, “The purple door is connected to the library? Why didn’t you just say that?”
“It leads to wherever you are, you simpleton,” the fire demon spits in his direction. “Now will you please go court her somewhere else!”
With the widest grin of his life, Frank obeys and pulls Mel up with him. She barely meets his eyes, but he nods upstairs anyway, toward the only door in her moving castle that he hasn’t walked through yet. “Where does this door lead to? Your bedroom? Or heaven?”
That cat is legitimately getting a state funeral, several statues, a weepy 10 thousand word obituary from The Guardian and an Elton John tribute song when he goes.
day twenty-two: connect, 491 words
@kingdonmicrofic
He doesn’t mean to, but she puts her hand on his thigh when she’s telling him goodbye from the passenger seat of his car, and he gasps, then laughs it off when Mel gives him a look, saying he hasn’t been touched like that in a while.
It takes him a few seconds to realize how inappropriate it is. He’s only known her for two months, he’s her senior resident, and he’s trying to be a friend.
He stutters through an apology, but she says it’s OK, that he can tell her anything.
So, Frank tells her, voice gravely, that he and Abby haven’t had sex in more than a year, omitting that Mel is all he thinks about when he gets himself off now.
“I mean, we haven’t even kissed in months, and I just miss the physical intimacy,” he says. “We don’t connect like that anymore, and we had problems before rehab, but at least when we were fucking there was something and —”
He shakes his head and says, “You know what I mean.”
“Not really,” she says quietly. “I’ve never had sex, never wanted to.”
His mouth opens, but he can’t get any words out, and her expression is unreadable.
“I would for you, though.”
It’s earth-shattering, and he drops his gaze to her lips, sees her tongue peeking out like she’s biting it.
She squeezes his thigh, the touch meant to put him at ease, but it makes him buzz as she tells him that she wants to do this for both of them if that's what he wants.
“I do, Mel, but you’ve never wanted to have sex, so I don’t understand,” he says, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “What’s different now?”
She shrugs and says, “It’s you.”
It knocks the breath out of him, two words and that look in her eyes. She wants him to be her first, and he’s overcome with the desire to be her only.
“Do you want to come inside?”
He lets out a strangled what, his face heating at the thought of doing that, and she motions to her building.
“Oh, I can’t, uh — she’s expecting me home soon. We’ll talk later, though?”
She smiles, caressing his thigh, then she opens the door and gets out of the car, waving as she walks away.
Later, when he’s in bed next to Abby, he unlocks his phone, going to the messages app instead of going to sleep.
He opens the chat with Mel, not knowing what to say now.
And like she knows he’s thinking about her, she sends him a list of the dates and times she has the apartment to herself, and a screenshot of a colour-coded spreadsheet detailing everything she wants to do with him.
[FL, 10:58 p.m.]
That’s... wow, Mel. Let’s do Thursday?
[MK, 10:59 p.m.]
Yay!!! Can’t wait
He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath, and holds the phone against his chest.
day 22 -> connect (460/257) warnings: infidelity, mild sexual content
...
SEPTEMBER 2, 2024
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 15:32
“I don’t know.. he was just.. really attentive, if that makes sense. He seemed to know exactly what I needed even if I didn’t realize it myself. He’s so smart, I’d love to bounce ideas off of him tomorrow if we have time. Oh! And gosh, I felt so relieved when he came back during the.. um.. M..C..E? Yeah, that’s it. My brain is scrambled. It’s late and I should sleep but I can’t stop thinking about how kind Dr. Langdon was to me today. Definitely a good first shift. Minus the.. Yeah.”
DECEMBER 13, 2024
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 25:59
“Robby still won’t tell me anything. I’ve heard whispers and rumors but.. I don’t like to listen. Gossip isn’t for me. We’re professionals, for fucksake. Oh. That sounded kind of unprofessional, didn’t it? Whatever, it’s okay. Nobody’s going to hear this anyway—”
JULY 4, 2025
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 45:48
“—like, I cannot believe it! Today started off just sooo horrible and all I could think about was the deposition.. what they tried to say about me.. I’m— I’m good, I’m capable and smart and I made the right call. Dr. Langdon even said so. He, um.. we watched the fireworks, too, which was very nice. And he.. he listened, and we talked for a while. He seemed kind of.. he just didn’t seem interested in going home, I think. I asked multiple times if he was going to see the fireworks with his family but he changed the topic. He.. um, he also gave me a ride home. He drives one of those fancy Audis—”
AUGUST 17, 2025
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 12:22
“It happened so fast, I don’t.. I don’t know, it’s.. it’s hard to feel guilty when he’s so.. good to me. We just connect and I’ve never.. [sigh] had that before. Someone who gets me right off the bat and I don’t have to.. overexplain why I feel and think and act the way that I do. He sees me and that.. that makes everything worth it. All of it.”
SEPTEMBER 29, 2025
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||| 32:13
“Oh, fuck— Mel— I have to.. we—we have to— she’ll— fuck, that’s good. Yeah, like that, sweetheart. Perfect, so fucking perfect—” “I think— oh, oh! Okay, that’s— that’s deep, you're so deep—” “Mel.. baby.. my— my love— we need to get out of here before she—” [distant slam] “Fuck, okay [shuffling, grunting] just— just be quiet—” “No. I’m tired of her thinking you’re still hers. Let her see.” “Yeah. Yeah, okay, fuck. Anything for you, baby.”
“What the fuck?! You piece of shi—”
“Oh, hi Abby. It’s so lovely to finally meet you!”
Every time I'm forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.
The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.
The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don't tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.
I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.
I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.
I just went back to the two chapters of Pride and Prejudice directly after Wickham tells his lies to Elizabeth – Chapter 17, where she talks with Jane about it, and Chapter 18, the Netherfield Ball – because I was reminded of the fact that within those chapters, Elizabeth gets advice about Wickham and Darcy by three other young women. First Jane, who is reluctant to believe the worst of Darcy; then Charlotte, who encourages Elizabeth to dance with Darcy and urges her not to be led away from him by her preference for Wickham; and finally Caroline Bingley, who plainly tells her that Wickham is a scoundrel who did Darcy wrong, not vice-versa.
All three of their viewpoints turn out to be right, but all three are "right for the wrong reasons." Jane wants to think well of Darcy because she wants to think well of everyone, and she doesn't suspect that Wickham is lying, but thinks he must be mistaken about Darcy's actions, because she wants to think well of Wickham too. Charlotte is only being pragmatic and thinking of Darcy's status and wealth, not his character. And Caroline ends her speech about Wickham's villainy with blatant classism, by adding that of course it's to be expected from a man of such low birth.
In the post I recently reblogged defending Elizabeth from Austen fans who accuse her of so many wrongdoings, one of the arguments was against the idea that she should have listened to Jane and Caroline, because between Jane's naïve idealism and Caroline's snobbery, their opinions at that point really do ring hollow.
Except now, having reread those chapters, I'm not sure if I fully agree. Amid Jane's simple idealism, she does make one sound argument: that Bingley, a man whom they know is genuinely kind and decent, is Darcy's close friend. Maybe Elizabeth should have more strongly considered that fact instead of deciding so easily that Bingley must be deceived by Darcy. Indeed, after Darcy's letter, she does realize that his friendship with Bingley would make no sense if he were really the monster Wickham painted him as. And everything Caroline says about Wickham and Darcy's history turns out to be true: she just puts her own classist spin on the story at the very end.
I suppose this shows the cleverness of Austen's writing. If Jane, Charlotte, and Caroline were to give Elizabeth unquestionably good advice, but Elizabeth still ignored them, Elizabeth would seem less smart and be harder to sympathize with. But because their advice has obvious flaws, both Elizabeth and first-time readers have good reason to disregard it. Yet they still turn out to have been right about Darcy while Elizabeth was deceived.
I think this is where Jane Austen is very masterful, Elizabeth learns the truth, but from very questionable sources. It's not something she can really bring up with Darcy in casual conversation (so hey, did you disown your father's godson?) The misunderstanding is so well done and it doesn't feel contrived. Elizabeth not really believing was very normal and human.
