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spookyspaghettisundae · 6 months

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Crossroads

Chloe Grant saw stars.

Their blind leap of faith rewarded her with a coppery taste of blood in her mouth. It was, as is said, not the fall that kills you, but the landing. In their case, the landing itself didn’t serve to kill anybody, though, it just hurt like hell. The kind of fall that would cover you in green and blue spots.

To escape the living tide of a swarm of dog-sized insects surrounding them, they had backed up and ran through the blinding light of the Anomaly. Mischchenko gasped in surprise, Ruiz shouted in pain, and Grant herself felt the world spinning all around.

The Anomaly, connecting two different points in time, failed to offer them stable footing on the other side. In the Appalachian mountain woods of 2024, the glowing orb of light had been hovering inches off the forest grounds. On the other side, the Anomaly must have been hovering several feet above the ground, because their combat boots found no solid footing after their leap of faith, and the three field operatives from Future Proof immediately tumbled down a grassy knoll.

That’s why Grant saw stars. Bit the inside of her cheek. Black-gloved fingers tore up loose earth and turf where she grabbed the ground in a futile attempt at braking her fall.

The bright spots and blinding light refused to subside. She not only saw stars, but something far more breathtaking.

Light. Everywhere.

All around them, orbs of light shimmered… scintillating, glittering, blinding. Spinning, hovering, glowing, flashing, flickering. Some of them flared up, growing brighter. Others dimmed. One of the Anomalies flickered and vanished, and another opened seconds after, like an exploding sun.

Dozens and dozens of Anomalies surrounded the agents. So many Anomalies that their combined light engulfed the world around them.

The trio had landed on some kind hilly grasslands. Something resembling a blue sky almost shone through the brilliant curtain of anomalous luminescence. The light drowned out anything beyond their immediate environs.

Even their black body armor and jumpsuits looked bright gray under such brilliance.

The sights were stunning and invited Grant to ponder what this meant. Mischchenko cut those ponderings short as she yanked at Grant’s arm, helping her back up.

The three operative scrambled.

Just like the light, noise also surrounded them. Even through the helmet, the Anomalies sounded like they were singing. Like a choir of wind chimes. Amplified by their numbers in close to proximity to one another, and… eerily pleasant to the ear.

Through that soundscape, the skittering and scuttling sliced through. The swarm of mutant insects poured through the anomaly atop the hill down which the agents had tumbled. Chitinous bodies with flightless wings scampered and poured out like pulsating waves of black tar, flowing down the hillside.

Acting on instinct, Grant and Ruiz fired more shots. Their futuristic EMD rifles hurled bright blue electric blasts at the small creatures—and the Anomalies reacted. Lightning arced between the blasts and Anomaly orbs, crackling and flashing ever brighter. A pulse of pure pressure pushed the agents and insects both backwards, away from the reactions, staggering and stumbling the agents and dispersing the front rows of the living flood of insects.

Then the mad chase continued.

Ruiz swore.

The dog-sized bugs hit by blasts immediately fell, only for the living tide to wash over them and sweep them up in pursuit of the three human agents.

The volley of shots had accomplished nothing but a strange chain reaction—

Mischchenko yelled something at them; something about conserving their batteries, though her words were otherwise incomprehensible—static crackling and fuzzy clicks almost eclipsed the speech Grant heard in her headset.

The agents turned tail and ran.

They ducked past another Anomaly, swerved past yet another, and the tide chased them. The humans had no idea where to go, avoiding the Anomalies on instinct. They were just trying to outrun the insect swarm. Its horrid buzzing mixed in, tainting the pleasant chimes of the Anomalies.

The coppery taste of blood only grew in Grant’s mouth, coating her tongue in a terrible film. She wanted to spit, but couldn’t because of the helmet. And she suppressed her instinct to unload her EMD’s battery for more suppressing fire against their pursuers, as another survival instinct kicked in. Having seen the chain reaction between EMD discharge and the Anomaly cluster was almost like…

Touching the stove. She still had the scars to show from touching a hot stove as a kid.

The chain reaction now resembled that hot stove, so she wasn’t going to place her hand on it.

She was going to keep her hands off it. And like that, she stopped her finger from squeezing the trigger.

Ruiz and Mischchenko must have shared that sentiment. Their run took them outside the cluster of hovering, star-like orbs, though black spots remained in Grant’s vision, long before and after she screwed her eyes shut.

The grassy hills sloped down to a wide and serene beach of bright white sands, with no signs of humanity or life otherwise.

The mutant insect swarm chased them from the cluster of Anomalies. Their hundreds over hundreds of black bodies glistened in the broad daylight of this age—wherever, whenever they were now.

The creatures looked like a crossbreed between locusts and wasps. Sleek, deadly, and with snapping mandibles, their flightless wings glistened in beautiful rainbow colors. Had they come from the future to feast?

Once they had gained distance from the cluster of Anomalies, Ruiz decided to belay Mischchenko’s previous order. He took more potshots at the swarm, downing another handful of insects. It wasn’t even close to making a dent in the unstoppable onslaught on their heels.

All those snapping mandibles, working together, could probably strip the armor from their bodies in seconds, then eat the flesh from their bones even faster.

Mischchenko shouted, “What the hell did I just say?”

Ruiz stopped firing.

“This way!”

The team curved away from the Anomalies, running for the beach.

Without mercy, without stopping, the insects changed direction in perfect harmony, like a well-drilled army. They honed in on the three agents without fail. The living tide curved in the exact same direction, giving relentless chase.

“Water! Get… get in the water,” Mischchenko shouted, losing more and more wind as they ran and ran from the unyielding swarm.

Grant didn’t hesitate. Didn’t question it. Her mind was too busy imagining the swarm, all around her, suffocating her. Eating her alive. Thus, she ran. Mischchenko’s orders were as good as any others to secure their survival now.

The soaking sensation inside her combat boots immediately turned her socks into sponges, while water splashed up to their waistlines. In a frenzied charge into the ocean waves, the agents sloshed and splashed, all holding their EMD rifles up high to secure them from exposure while backing up from the swarm. Even so, even with how useless the weapons seemed against this menace, they all aimed at the big bugs.

The ocean afforded them time to breathe. They panted in their helmets. And their labored, winded breathing still fizzled with static.

This swarm would not follow them into the water. The living tide had stopped just short of entering the watery waves where they lapped against bright white sand. The locust-wasps scuttled up and down the beach, searching for a way to reach or find their prey, and always shying away, backing up from the wet waves like frightened animals.

The tide shook Grant, but its waves weren’t strong enough to sweep any of the agents away.

Against the coppery taste in her mouth, she had never been so glad over the stinging scent of saltwater, burning in her nostrils.

Still, the insects refused to wade into the water like the humans had.

The three field agents waited. Watched.

The insect swarm flooded up and down the beach, visibly confused over having lost their free lunch.

This finally afforded Grant some glimpses of the Anomalies. So blinding was their combined light, and so erratic their patterns of flaring up, flickering, and dimming, that Grant gave up on counting after thirty orbs.

One of the Anomalies flickered, then vanished entirely. Grant suppressed the urge to swear out loud, in case that had been the one they fell through to get here—potentially stranding them in a time millions of years ago. Or thousands of years in the future? Who knew?

Yet the many Anomalies remained.

Where did they all lead? How was this even possible?

None of the records she had pored over at Future Proof could have prepared her for this. And Grant sensed the same air of fascination from her colleagues, who, like her, stood in stunned silence.

They stood in the ocean waves of this alien beach, waiting as minutes passed them by like the elements, and the briny water soaked them, while the mutant-insect swarm slowly changed direction, dispersing, turning, and eventually leaving. They had given up on their prey.

The flood of creatures poured back uphill, heading towards the Anomalies. Were they responding to the sounds?

Only once the swarm was far out of sight, did anybody speak up.

“Good thing they don’t like water, huh?” Ruiz mumbled into their radio intercom.

Mischchenko cackled. Without doubt a stress response. Grant followed up with her own: a litany of profanities without rhyme or reason, just venting into the void of their closed radio comms, as they were stranded somewhere in another era of Earth’s history, or somewhere in Earth’s future.

The swarm crawled its way back up the grass hills, pouring into an Anomaly at the edge of the cluster, until the last ones of them vanished. Even the ones that had been stunned by EMD shots were gone, dragged along by the living avalanche. Perhaps devoured.

Hard to tell.

“I hope one of you got an idea which Anomaly we just exited from,” Grant grumbled, “because I sure as shit can’t tell them apart.”

Ruiz said, “On the bright side—sorry, pun not intended—those bugs went in a different one, right there at the edge of the Anomaly… crossroads? This is like a crossroads, huh?”

Mischchenko emitted a shuddering sigh.

“We better not waste any time—get back to those Anomalies—start knocking on different doors till we find the one back home. I don’t know about you two, but I am not getting stuck here, wherever ‘here’ is. I got family to get back to.”

Dripping with oceanwater, they slowly marched back up the beach, then the hills. Their advance started cautious, slowed by the weight of their drenching. Then courage or fear drove their pace, swifter steps into the blinding jungle of light.

The rest of the landscape around them looked so familiar and yet so alien. So untouched by mankind, so distant, yet so vibrant—its grass glistened bright green in the sunlight and the light of Anomalies.

Grant’s mind reeled with the possibilities, as to what time they had wound up in. What if there was a way to navigate these wormholes?

And she wondered how it was even possible for so many Anomalies to appear in a single spot like this. Connecting different eras, bridging disparate worlds that had existed and would exist on their planet. Crossing all through time.

Crossroads.

On cue, halfway back up the hills, an Anomaly flared up brightly. A man ran from it.

He wore armor. Ancient armor. In his hand, he clutched a sword, and sandals clung to his bloodied feet. Cloth on his body was dyed in a bright blue, while the rest of him was covered in a slick, dripping crimson. Whose blood it was would have been impossible to say, leaving no space for examination, for this stranger from the past ran headfirst into the next Anomaly, vanishing as abruptly as he had appeared.

A monster followed. Chased him.

Its appearance froze the blood in Grant’s veins. And all three field agents from Future Proof froze where they stood, standing rooted to the grassy grounds like statues.

At the size of a horse, the terrible creature chasing the ancient warrior featured four long, stalky limbs, all ending in deadly claws. Its upper torso was hunched and the silhouette of its gaping mouth revealed long, jagged teeth that could mangle and entrap their prey. This predatory beast crossed the hills in frightening, leaping bounds. It vanished into the next Anomaly that the ancient man in armor had run into, gone again as fast as it had appeared.

A streak of crimson amidst the blinding light, from the blood that had coated its gray and slender body.

“Holy what the hell?” Grant blurted out.

“My word,” Mischchenko said with trembling voice, “my cue. Let’s get the hell outta here!”

Neither Ruiz nor Grant needed to be told twice.

With EMD rifles raised, ready for any threats to leap out at them from the Anomalies, they waded into the maze of glowing orbs, seeking one atop a hill.

The eerie singing chimes welcomed them like a heavenly choir. Now, though Grant’s heart pounded like a drum, she sensed a deep resonance between these Anomalies.

A hum. A thrum, resonating with her own pulse, all the way down to her very bones.

It was both menacing and soothing somehow. Awesome in the original sense of the words. Like standing in the presence of something divine—something that could wink you out of existence by accident, and very prone to such mishaps.

“This one, I think,” Ruiz said.

“Wait,” Mischchenko answered.

Too late. Ruiz walked into an Anomaly atop a hill.

“Shit.”

They followed him in.

No crossroads awaited them on the other side of the blinding light. The resonance also felt weak here.

Fierce winds howled all around them, strong enough to shake them in their boots, and cold as ice. The sky was red and bleak, drowning in clouds of dust on the wind, and ominous thunder rolled in the distance.

Only a desert of rock and sand yawned all around them.

A monstrous shriek echoed across this wasteland.

Mischchenko shook her helmeted head and was first to back right out, returning through the Anomaly to the crossroads. The others followed.

“One down, huh,” Ruiz muttered, “how many more to go, now?”

“Shut up,” Mischchenko said, leading them to the next hill, with confidence and dread alike in every stomping step of her stride.

EMDs still raised in anticipation of the worst, they walked into blinding light.

Grant’s heart fluttered. She stifled a shuddering sigh of relief at the sight of Solomon’s new Anomaly Stabilizer, the upgraded Anomaly Locking Device.

They were back in the foggy Appalachian woods. The generator attached to the ALD chugged with merry rhythm. And no insect swarm in sight.

“Shit, I can’t believe it,” Ruiz said. “Holy shit.”

“Stay on your damned toes,” Mischchenko said. “Ruiz, you and me, quick sweep. Grant, you lock that Anomaly now.”

Wait—

Something inside of Grant screamed to rebel, to resist. She could barely believe what she herself was thinking, yet it couldn’t be helped.

They had stumbled upon something incredible. If Future Proof’s R&D department—or really anybody among humanity at large—if anybody could study all of what they had just experienced, who knew what revelations awaited them?

Grant finally gave her protest a voice. “Wait, wait, what—what about—what about the pterodactyls, putting them back, or stabilizing this Anomaly? I mean, we got everything recorded on helmet cams, but I think R&D should investigate this place.”

“Grant,” Mischchenko sighed. Shades of disappointment, grief, and despair turned her next words sharp, sharper than Spencer had ever spoken to her. “Are you out of your damn’ mind? Do you realize how dangerous that place is?”

A crossroads of Anomalies.

“Yeah,” Ruiz butted in, “you wanna hear my two cents, I say we send the big birds to containment, get this bad boy locked up. I’m with Mischchenko on this.”

“Thank you,” she replied to him.

Grant shook her head. She was torn. She agreed with them, and every fiber, every survival instinct in her was screaming at her to just lock up the Anomaly.

Yet she could not help but wonder what they might lose by losing their connection to that crossroads.

She turned to stare at the Anomaly. Much fainter than with the resonance amplified between the many of them hovering together in a cluster, the one’s solitary presence here still emitted an eerie, pleasant chime, nearly inaudible, though Grant now almost felt more sensitive to it.

A nervous laugh escaped Mischchenko’s throat. Then she said, “Shit, whatever, I know how you’re feeling, Grant. I wanna know more, too, even if it’s just so we can deal with these things more safely, hell, save more lives, maybe. And, hey, like you said, we got it all on headcams. Trémaux’s going to have a field day with it, let’s—”

Burch had warned them about the pterodactyls.

That it might only be at the last moment when the beating of their wings heralded their presence.

In line with the warning, a huge flap echoed across the mountain woods like a thunderclap, and a winged beast descended upon them.

Mischchenko was the first to react, but her EMD’s shot missed, hitting only a pine tree.

The pterodactyl screeched in response.

Right when it pounced on her.

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hannahhook7744 · 2 years

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Chloe Charming headcanons revised;

Chloe is Cinderella and Kit Charming's only biological child.

She is 8 years younger than her.

She is 18 by the time the pocketwatch takes place.

Her middle name is Cordelia after her maternal grandmother.

She is 8 in d1 and too young to go to Auradon Prep which is why the vks didn't know about her.

She's very athletic and loves fencing in particular.

Chad use to play them and other games with her before their grandfather died when Chad started middle school. Chad hasn't played games or really spent real time with her since. At least not as much as he used to.

Chloe is sickly and has a heart condition which takes up a lot of her parents' time and attention.

She's also small and frail for her age.

She is her parents' miracle baby since they thought they couldn't have bio children.

Which is one of the many reasons why Chad is the way he is.

She has a pet cat named 'Bumpsy'. Bumpsy is an old cat and one of the many children of Lucifer and Pom-Pom.

Chad has a kitten that is a child of that of one of Lucifer and Pom-Pom's litter, but he doesn't let Chloe touch it.

He doesn't let her touch his mice,horse, and dog either.

It bothers Chloe even though she has her own mice, horse,and dog.

Chad does love his sister but he can't help but resent her sometimes.

Chloe gets along with her cousins usually (if they're alive during whatever story I'm using her in, anyway).

Chloe has alot of stuffed animals that were her only friends for the longest time.

Her favorite is this werid, bat-thingy that she named 'Charm'.

She, like Chad, is wary of the vks because of the things they were told about them from adults around them.

She was homeschooled unlike Chad.

She also never grows out of being bored by council meetings.

She has quite the collection of swords thanks to her parents spoiling her every chance she gets.

She is a sweet and friendly but competitive, athletic girl who just wants to make her kingdom and parents proud.

Though in any other situation she is shy and nervous. Mainly because she hasn't been away from home that often.

Her favorite song is 'Happy' by Pharrell Williams.

Chloe is quite good at sports as well as dancing and singing.

Her favorite dances are the waltz and the polka.

She has a pink and blue phone that she loves dearly.

Not as much as she loves fairies and flowers however.

When she was little she liked to play fairies, which was basically pretending to be a fairy, since of course she's heard all about the fairy that granted her mother's wish, and she knows FG and Jane. She's very close to Jane, sort of like Dizzy and Evie.

She was at the coronation when Maleficent showed up and that scared her into never leaving her home for like the next few years.

It took hours for her very frantic parents and brother to find her.

It took her ages to not be afraid of Dragons after this.

Chloe is a quick learner and loves school as well as reading.

She loves corn, chicken, toast, and porridge as well as hot chocolate. It's pretty much all she eats.

Her horse's name is 'Speedy'.

Her dog's name is Bailey and she is one of Bruno's litter.

Her favorite color is blue.

She was homeschooled until she was 10.

She met Red Hearts, Danny Darling, Hadie Olympian, and Maddox Hatter— her future best friends—not long after.

She considers Prudence, The Duke, The Baker, and Fg her aunts and uncles.

She also considers Jane and Eliza her cousins.

She doesn't get the whole 'magic being frowned upon' thing.

She named her dolly 'Jane' and never changed the name.

She loves parades and carousels as well as other festivals.

She adores Chad despite his flaws.

In a world where he disappears she never stops looking for him.

Her parents take her to them often when she's well enough.

Her earliest memory is of her, Chad, and their grandfather at the circus when she was a toddler.

She has a small pastel blue and pink bicycle with a bell, basket, tassels, tail lights, and brakes.

Christmas is her favorite holiday and her least favorite is Valentine's day.

She hates her parents and brother being sad.

Her 2nd favorite color is pink and her 3rd favorite is gold.

The kingdom loves her. As does anyone who meets her.

She is allergic to hair dye and strawberries.

Her favorite aunt is Anastasia.

She hates Drizella.

She likes her uncle Hans and his brothers and her other uncle, Jacob, though.

She thinks the world of her parents.

Chloe is also a fan of chickens and has several pet chickens that run around the castle.

She loves musicals and balls as well as water fountains.

She grows up to be a famous fencer and horse racer and becomes a seamstress before taking the crown when her parents die.

Like her grandfather before her, she adores chocolate, elephants, stewed prunes, romance, bird watching, fencing, and beaches.

She eventually gets a pet elephant when she is a teenager and names it 'Circus.'

She use to watch the birds and go to Circuses with her brother and grandfather.

She was devastated when her grandfather, Prudence, and the Duke died.

She ends up being a fine Queen like her grandmother before her and there are statues of her, her cousins, her brother, and her friends all around her kingdom years after their deaths.

Eventually, after Auradon falls, an ancestor of her cousin, Dizzy, builds a mansion where their castle once stood. And has a son named Fred. And that's how Big hero six plays out in the descendants universe.

#descendants #disney descendants #melissa de la cruz #the pocketwatch #chloe charming #my descendants headcanons #disney descendants headcanons #descendants headcanons #my headcanons #pocketwatch headcanons

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pixie88 · 2 years

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A good impression

Chapter 18 - The Neighbour.

A/N | Sorry, it’s been a while I have a lot going on atm. I hope this is worth the wait!

Comments & reblogs welcome!

Let me know if you would like to be tagged!

Summary | Alana has to decide what to do…

Check out previous chapters Here!

Word count | 2k

Warnings | 18 + Only! Angst.

Pairings | Dean x Alana.

Enjoy!

Later...

"Come on Chloe, you must have a story about Alana?" Dean pleads with her, "don't you dare Chlo!" Alana warns her, "Oi, if anyone is going to have the dirt it's me?" a drunk Fifi points at herself.

"Fifi you've not given me anything yet!" Dean baits her, "and she's not going to are you, Fi!?" Alana raises a warning brow to her sister, "hmm....that depends!" she winks at her sister, Dean raises his brow interested.

"What do you want to know Dean?" Fifi teases, "anything!" Alana narrows her eyes at him, "nothing she tells me will stop me from loving you," he pecks her lips. "Aww, you two are so cute!" Chloe coos at the pair, squeezing Elliot's arm, "there is the time she got so drunk she chundered all over her boyfriend's lap, he dumped her on the spot or there's the time she tripped over at my birthday and her face landed right in my cake!"

Alana runs her hand down her face, then an idea springs to mind, "what about that time we went on that weekend away, you asked me to get out and see how far back we needed to go, and you didn't hear me telling you to stop. The next minute she smashed the Merc's brake light into that wall!"

Fifi eyes go wide as well as Simon's "what? You told me, someone drove into you and drove off before you got the reg!" Fifi gives him an awkward smile, "come on, Si! It was ten years ago and she did pay to get it fixed!" She teases him, "I guess!" He sips his beer.

"What would you have done if Alana broke your brake light, Dean?" he looks towards her, "I'd be pissed, but I'm sure I could think of a way for her to make it up to me!" he throws her a wink, she pecks his cheek, "I couldn't do that to, Baby! But if I did, I'm pretty sure I could pay for the work in a different way!" She bites her lip, knowing it drives him wild.

"Baby?" Elliot pinches his brows together, "his nineteen sixty seven Chevy Impala"

"Wow! Impressive, I bet she's a beaut!" Elliot says, clearly impressed, Alana pulls up a photo on Dean's phone. "Oh, she even knows his pin number!" Chloe teases, Elliot looks impressed with the photo. "Nothing to hide, so why shouldn't she know!" Dean winks at Alana.

"Hiya guys, you lot want to join in the couple's quiz?" Leona looks round the group, "sounds like fun!" Alana takes a sheet from Leona as does Dean. "We'll ace this, sweetheart!" he kisses the top of her head. "No, we will. Sixteen years!" Fifi takes a couple of sheets from Leona, "come on, give us one!" Chloe takes two sheets as well.

"It starts in five minutes, good luck!" she winks at the group.

"Question one, what is your partner's favourite sex position?" Alana writes her answer down, smirking at Dean, who starts to write down his own answer.

Twenty minutes later...

"I have tallied up the scores, the couple that came third is.....Gemma and Tony, the couple that came second is.....Chloe and Elliot and the couple that came first is.....Alana and Dean!" she squealed kissing him on the lips.

"You two have won a night Glamping!" Leona congratulated the pair, Dean and Alana made their way to the bar to claim their prize, Leona took their photo, but looking back at their table she could see Fifi looking deflated.

Before they made their way back to the table Alana stopped him, "Dean, I know we won....but I think Fifi and Simon could really use this prize!" he looks down at the envelope, "you know what, you're right. Also I have no idea what glamping is!" he chuckled, she presses her lips to his.

Finally pulling away, she smiles up at him, "thank you! But also if they go away for the night we might need to babysit!" She smiles brightly at him, "sounds like we got the better side of the deal!" He pecks her lips.

"Come on, let's go and tell them the good news!" She pulls him over to their table.

Simon was a bit put back by the idea, but Alana wasn't taking no for an answer, looking online they had a free date for this weekend.

"We'll have to check with our parents first! I want to know the kids are sorted!" Simon protested when Fifi tried to book the night away, Fifi's phone chimes, picking it up her face lights up, "your Mum said she'd have them, Si!" he awkwardly smiles at her.

An hour later...

Simon had gone home with a headache he couldn't shift, Chloe could barely stand, Elliot had decided to take her home and offered for Fifi to get in their cab as they pass hers on the way home.

Alana and Dean waved them off as they began to walk the ten minute walk home, "do you think they liked me?" Dean asks her, "Fifi and Chloe do because I love you, but Elliot? I think you stole his heart when you mentioned Baby!" She playfully nudges him, "...and Simon? Well, he and Fi are going through a rough patch at the moment, so he's a little off! But my question is do you like them?" She looks to him.

"Of course I do! They can drink, I can drink....but you Brits seem to drink, drink!" He teases her.

The next day...

Dean and Pete had gone on the super fast car experience, Alana promised her Dad to take her Mum's lunch in, she had forgotten, she decided that it was also the perfect opportunity to speak to Simon and see what is going on with him and her sister.

Pulling up to Aylesbury College, she couldn't believe how much it had changed, they had a brand new building, she stepped inside, even with a new building, they still had Morris the security guard. His face brightened when he saw her, "Alana!!! How are you?" she hugs him, "I'm great thanks. You're still going?"

"Yup, I can't be one of these old farts, watching daytime telly! You here to see your Mum?" he asks her, "uh huh! I don't suppose you can tell me what floor and room she and my sister's husband is?"

"Arrh, Mr. Mulvery? Yeah, he's the opposite end to your Mum!" She sighs before she gets an idea, "Morris, could you give my Mum her lunch? While I go and speak to Simon?" Morris looks round, "as it's you? Of course, Mr. Mulvery is on the third floor room two six eight!" He smiles softly at her.

"Morris, you are a star!" she hands him the packed lunch before she rushes up the stairs, finally on the third floor she looks for his office, she tries the handle. The door is open, so she pushes it open, "I think we need a little chat about you and my sis.......!" she froze in place she was shocked by the scene behind the door, Simon had what she guessed was a student on his lap and her skirt hiked up, his trousers round his ankles with his boxers.

His face turned white realizing he had been caught by his wife's sister. Her face turned to thunder, she wanted to scream and shout at him, but she couldn’t instead she stormed out of his office and back down the stairs as she reached the ground floor she felt someone grab her shoulder.

"Alana, please it's not what it looks like!" his Irish accent hissed, she turned and looked at his hand on her shoulder, he dropped it, he leans in, "Alana...please?" she turns away marching through the exit, he chased after her, "Alana...you can't tell Fiona! It would kill her!"

She got back to her car, knowing she had to break the news to her sister that her husband was a lying cheating scumbag.

Later...

She had twenty three missed calls from Simon, she sat staring ahead trying to figure out how to tell her sister, she didn't notice Dean and her Dad come home, "sweetheart?" Dean collapses down next to her, she wipes her eyes. Dean looks at her concerned, Pete notices her too, "pickle? What's wrong?" Pete looks at her.

She looks between the pair, "sorry Dad, but can I speak to Dean alone?" Pete nods, "ok, I'm going to look for a shirt, Simon has invited us all over for dinner tonight!" Alana looks up at her Dad walking out worried, Dean watched her face turn when Pete was finally out the room he asked her, "sweetheart, what's up?"

"I-I took Mum's lunch in! I thought I'd speak to Simon about, him and Fi and I err I-I er I caught him having sex with a student! I-I don't know what to do, I have to tell her, right?" he wraps his arm around her, "I'm not going to tell you what to do, but what would your sister do if it was the other way round?" he kisses her forehead.

"What did Simon say?" he rubs her back to soothe her, "he doesn't want me to tell her. Now we have to have dinner with him! How can I not? I know what it is like" she huffed, "you know what, we'll go and you stick with me. He won't say anything to you while I'm there. Plus, you can decide what you are going to do, he can't make that decision for you." He pulls her up to stand and they head up to her room to change their clothes.

A few hours later...

She gets up from the table Dean looks up, "I'm just going to use the bathroom!" she mouths to him, he nods, she walks through the kitchen behind Simon hoping he doesn't notice her. But he does, he takes the pan off the heat and grabs her arm stopping her, "Alana! I want to know what you are going to do!?" he hissed at her, she leans forward, "I DON'T KNOW!" she pulls her arm out of his grip.

Unbeknownst to them Dean followed her and watched them from the door frame, he wanted to step in but didn't want to cause a scene.

As she leaves the kitchen through the hall door, Dean wandered in to where Simon is cooking, "hey, how's it going in here?" Simon schooled his expressions and smiled, returning the food to the heat, "great, it should be ready soon!"

"Awesome! Look, I'm not one to beat around the bush, but I know...Alana told me! I'm not going to stand here and pretend it's any of my business because it's not. That's between her and her sister, and them alone! But what is my business is you laying hands on her...." Dean leans in "do it again and I promise it will be the last thing you ever do!" Dean pulls away smiling softly at him, Simon smiles awkwardly back "it smells great by the way!" Dean pats him on the back as Alana walks in to go through to the dining room.

She looks up at Dean, "the other bottle is in the fridge, did you say?" he looks at Simon, who nods, Dean grabs another bottle and puts his arm around Alana leading her to the dining room. "What were you two talking about?" she whispers, "I was just warning him, if he grabs you again....."

"You saw that?" she looks at him horrified, he nods, "believe me, if it happens again....I won't be responsible for what happens next!"

The rest of the meal was awkward, Fifi asked Alana to help her take out the dishes, she avoided Simon's glare.

They placed the plates on the kitchen counter, "right, what's wrong?" Fifi quizzes her sister, she puts on a fake smile, "nothing!" Fifi narrows her eyes at her, "I know somethings up, you have been quiet all evening" Alana takes a deep breath, she wants to tell her then he walks in, "you two forgot these," Simon places the last few plates on the counter.

Alana still avoids him, "me and you, tomorrow, lunch and I'm not taking no for an answer!" Fifi warned her sister, "we have lunch tomorrow" Simon chips in, "no we didn't!" she looks at him confused. "Oh no! It's lunch with the Evans" she quirks her brows at him, "you can go, I don't like Janine anyway...Alana will be saving me from dying a slow death" she giggles.

"Ok, say about one pm?" Fifi nods.

In that moment Alana knew what she was going to do.....

Chapter 19

@secretaryunpaid @aussieez @munstysmind @gloriousalmondvoiddreamer @palmaviolet @rookiemartin @deandreamernp @leigh70 @reallyloudstudent @peonierose @pixie-b @pixiesreadinglist

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lovest0rie-archive · 11 months

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﹙ starter call. ﹚ chloe / grace﹙ @iworryalotdarling ﹚

“WAIT, PUMP THE brakes. back up. your dead husband and his family did WHAT now?”

#╭ starter. chloe chapman #iworryalotdarling

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theworkprint · 11 months

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Upload Episode 3x4 Review: "Download Doctor" Remedies Some Problems, Ignores Others

Upload's "Download Doctor" offers up some interesting shifts and sets up new stakes with a few unfortunate side-effects.

Review Picking up where we left off with Nathan (Robbie Amell) and his predicament, the fourth episode of Upload (Prime Video) titled “Download Doctor” darts right out of the gate with Neveah (Chloe Coleman) coming through in a pinch with a tampon to stanch the flow- a smart pump of the brakes so as not to redline it so soon with the nosebleed. We do get a fun glimpse into their vision of the…

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#Andy Allo #Bassem Youssef #Ellegra Edwards #Jeanine Mason #Jessica Tuck #Kevin Bigley #Peter James Smith #Phoebe Miu #Ravi Kapoor #Robbie Amell #Zainab Johnson

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valancietrinit · 1 year

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option 1: took a bath (couldn't drown my wrath)

option 2: you're still the one pool where i'd happily drown (jesus, where do i start?)

option 3: forget and ignore who i used to be (that kid is never coming back)

option 4: you just can't do things your body wasn't meant to (take your foot off the brake)

#val og posts #val writes fic #wip posting #poll #tlt #the locked tomb #griddlehark

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foreversecrets · 2 years

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When Juliana Coerced Lloyd

Rogers Family Expansion Masterlist

Pairing: Lloyd Hansen x Juliana Fitzroy (OC)

Summary: Thinking he is going to finally avenge his sister, Lloyd signs up for more than he ever imagined.

Rating: Mature

With his family distracted with the wrap up of the Rumlow case and the wedding of Curtis and Chloe, Lloyd finally has the opportunity of avenging his sister's murder. He needed all his siblings distracted so they wouldn’t stop him, none would have agreed with his ‘eye for an eye’ philosophy. Danie’s death had hit them all differently, for Lloyd it brought for a motivation of violence and suffering he needed to take down the Fitzroy Family, starting with the precious daughter of Donald Fitzroy, Juliana Fitzroy. She was often left unguarded, the concern mostly being for the heart problem cousin, Claire Fitzroy. Juliana was the definition of a spoiled brat with a pretty routine schedule. Which is how he knew she’d be at the italian restaurant down on 5th this evening for her friend's birthday.

He waits until she goes to the restroom, observing her from the bar, indulging in the wide variety of liquor the restaurant had to offer. When he spots her heading to the restroom, he hops off his stool, tittering slightly but not worried about his buzz as he follows her with dastardly intentions. When he rounds the hall where the bathrooms are located he loses her, something he never does. He is about to double back when he feels a pistol tip pressed into his lower back and lips on his ear lobe.

“I was starting to think you were a voyeur,” the whispered voice belonged to his target. She chuckles and nibbles on his lobe before moving to stand in front of him, pocketing her pistol, and putting her wrists out to him.

“What?” he stumbles a bit in confusion, it's not the pleasant buzz he’d feeling that has him so disoriented so the crazy bitch in front of him. “You know I’m going to kill you right?”

“I do, I prepped the warehouse where you intend to leave my body for my father. The security system will go down in exactly 64 minutes so we should chop-chop, time is ticking." She leads him out of the restaurant to his own vehicle where she plops into the passenger seat.

Completely thrown off but not wanting to lose any more control than he already has, he hops into the driver seat and takes off down the road. “Are you one of those idiots who fetishize death?”

“Nope, I just know how determined you are. You’ve been following me for a few years now so my only hope is to go along with your plan and hope I can convince you my plan is far superior.”

“And what is your plan?”

“Marry me.”

Lloyd slams on his brakes, pissing off the other drivers on the road that he promptly ignores to stare at this psycho. How hadn’t he seen signs of her insanity during his reconnaissance, and how hadn’t he noticed he’d been made a long time ago? Did the bitch get off of being stalked? She offers him a sad smile as she tosses her cell phone out the window, further proving she will go along with whichever path Lloyd chooses.

“You aren’t the only one who wants to hurt my father.”

Lloyd resumes driving toward the Fitzroy warehouse he’d planned to carry out his nefarious revenge but he changes his mind and starts driving towards his own penthouse. “What, did daddy get you a cheap car?”

“My reasons are petty but that’s my business. Does that change your mind?”

“How will marrying you accomplish my goals?”

“Killing me, that will hurt my father for the necessary mourning period, maybe occasional moments of sorrow but continue business as usual. But his only daughter who he intends to take over the business marrying his largest rival? Knowing I’m alive feeding all the knowledge I have to the enemy? Wouldn’t that enrage you?”

“Keep talking, you’re winning me over with that sweet talk.” he smirks.

“And you’d cuck six.”

Llody parks his car in the private parking garage for his building but makes no move to get out of the car as he thinks of his last encounter with Sierra Six, the man who’d killed Diane. He’d been cocky enough to believe he could handle the man himself which resulted in Six nearly killing Lloyd. If Steve hadn’t caught wind of Lloyd’s plan and showed up in time to save his life, Six would have taken another sibling from the Rogers Family. That recovery had taken far too long with a few complications popping up along the way, Steve had ordered Lloyd to drop the matter entirely not wanting to lose any more family to the feud.

“My family intends for Six and I to get married and continue the family line. Apparently my fathers second-in-command who was supposed to be my protector fancied himself a rebel. Went and caught feelings for me that my father was only too happy to encourage.”

Hurt both Fitzroy and Six in one action, keep her dangling in front of them and if he decided that wasn’t enough she would be living here anyway. He could kill her at any time should her plan prove ineffective to his goals but lasting suffering sounded far better to temporary pain. He can easily overpower her, she’s petite, not very threatening. He shows her to his guest room and then heads out to his balcony to make a call.

He knows he can’t ask Steve to act as a witness, he’d only stop Lloyd, probably Andy too. His best bet would be Ari or Ransom since Curtis was away on his honeymoon. Ransom would just tease him a bit while Ari would break out twenty questions so he chooses to call Ransom. If all else fails he can get Ari there tomorrow morning. Ransom is unreliable and lazy but rarely passes up the opportunity to talk shit.

Ransom laughs at Lloyd when he explains he’s eloping in the morning, reminding Lloyd the two of them had promised to be perpetual bachelors enjoying a plethora of men and women. But his brother promises to be in attendance if only to mock Lloyd signing away his life. Lloyd smirks but doesn’t burst Ransom's bachelor bubble, he saw the contract Stark and Steve were discussing at Curtis’ wedding. Lloyd will get to mock his own brother soon enough when he’s forced to marry Victoria Stark.

When Lloyd heads back into the house the lights are out, he assumes Juliana has gone to bed. The blue eyed, redhead is turning to be more than he bargained for, in all that time he watched her he thought he’d learned everything but there was still more to her that he didn’t know. Entering his bedroom he starts removing his shirt and flips on the light, discarding the article of clothing he notices something on his bed. Juliana lays naked on top of his bed smirking at him.

“If we are going to get married then we should get used to sleeping in the same bed.” she smirks, rolling around so she lays on her stomach, elbows propped up to hold her face in her hands to look at him expectantly.

“Where are your clothes?”

“I like to sleep naked.” she rises up to stand on her knees. “But I do like to play before bed.” she looked down to his trousers, a faint outline starting to show. “Unless you aren’t attracted to me?” she pouts at him.

“I’m not having sex with you.” he ignored her pout and entered his closet continuing to remove his clothing, she followed waiting until he was completely undressed before pushing him against the wall and dropping to her knees in front of him. Eager to please.

“Fuck Princess!”

How the hell does Juliana constantly keep him on his toes? She gets under his skin in ways no one else has, his responses so far being uninvolved but he finds himself enjoying her in more ways than one. In one night of interacting with one another she manages to break down all his mental barriers and he allows himself to be vulnerable as the little spoon. He’d never told anyone or let anyone know that he was a big cuddler. Years learning about her and now its Jewls turn to learn about him, the first thing being that under all the guns and knives he is a teddy bear.

The next morning when the two of them make it to the courthouse to elope, Ransom is already waiting with a smirk on his smug fucking face. His pompous attitude is grating but proof enough that his little brother doesn’t recognize Juliana as a Fitzroy. Which means Ransom doesn’t stop them while they go through the motions. It's not until Ransom signs the document he sees Juliana’s maiden name that he realizes the severity of Lloyd’s actions.

“What the fuck have you done?”

“I got married, thought that was obvious.”

“Not the nicest wedding, but I think we could have done worse.” Jewels smirked from within Lloyd’s arms where she’d placed herself after they’d both signed the marriage license.

“Steve’s going to-”

“Maybe but at least I got one last, good fuck in frist.” Jewls quibs, pulling Lloyd’s hand as they start heading for the door.

“She’s a fucking psycho!” Ransom snaps.

“I know, isn’t it great?” The utter reverence in Lloyd’s voice is so sickening Ransom feels like he’ll vomit.

Lloyd looks like a kid in a candy shop as he willing follows his bride from the building leaving his little brother trying to decipher Lloyd’s angel on marrying a fucking Fitzroy and why he’d let their rival have a foothold into their family.

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that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you · 2 years

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I posted 1,018 times in 2022

That's 982 more posts than 2021!

222 posts created (22%)

796 posts reblogged (78%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@so-scarlet-it-was-maroon

@harryandginnydeservesbetter

@a-ladys-gotta-kiss

@iwasbored777

@taylorswifff

I tagged 335 of my posts in 2022

#harry potter - 106 posts

#harry potter series - 102 posts

#hp fandom - 97 posts

#harry james potter - 95 posts

#hp - 72 posts

#hp books - 71 posts

#hermione granger - 67 posts

#ron weasley - 67 posts

#ginny weasley - 66 posts

#ginevra weasley - 58 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#but according to the swm alone it is even though i dont support him using a slur against lily but in accordance to the sa it is pro snape

My Top Posts in 2022:

In love with her

See the full post

759 notes - Posted September 29, 2022

Okay but marichat is so awesome (not cuz of the fake "true selves" bs that half the fandom believes in) cuz adrien and marinette are already huge chaotic messes, but as as marichat, it increases sm like they are just those unlikely friends who joke together and do dumb stuff and fall down and laugh at themselves and judge random people on the street and whenever someone tells them "awe you guys are so cute together" they just look at each other and burst out laughing until one night they are just venting to each other and they just go "wait... maybe I do like them"

It's just idiots to lovers and I love em so much YOU DONT UNDERSTAND

1,353 notes - Posted July 16, 2022

Alya, teaching marinette how to drive: okay so you're driving and you see chloe and sabrina on the road. Quick, which do you hit?

Marinette: oh without question, chloe

Alya, rubbing her temples: the brakes, marinette, YOU HIT THE BRAKES

1,471 notes - Posted November 17, 2022

"Abortion is killing babies" no. It's not. It's not so simple. The argument doesn't end there. People's lives are at stake. Some of those pregnant people were r*ped. Some of them struggle to afford daily food. Some of them have mental health issues. Some of them are alone. Some of them are kids. Some of them cannot give birth safely. Some of them are in life risking situations where they can get abused if someone else finds out they are pregnant. Some of them just don't want kids and know that they cannot be good parents to them because they are not ready.

It's not about "you didn't have protected sex, so you must now suffer the consequences". Because one action should not determine the rest of their life. They deserve to be happy. They deserve to have a life.

They do not deserve to get punished for one small mistake. The kids they forcefully gave birth to do not deserve to suffer the consequences.

They all deserve to live a life they can be content with, and you, a stranger who will never know them, should not control them or their lives.

2,091 notes - Posted June 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Kagami: do you know your gay name?

Marinette: my...my gay name?

Kagami: yeah, it's your first name-

Marinette: haha, very funny, kagami-

Kagami: *gets down on one knee* and my last name

Marinette: oh-oh my god-

6,849 notes - Posted July 15, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false #my top post is legit the gayest shit ever #I mean marigami is just top tier you cannot disagree #Also I haven't posted hp stuff in ages why tf are those my only top tags #What about the mlb ones :((#This seems to less compared to other people cuz I joined last december I think

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gumballrightfoots · 2 years

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To fucking late I'm braking down in the kitchen cooking food and doing homework I'm girlbossing tonight and tomorrow. I'm also crying over Chloe.

Kelly. PUT IT DOWN. I mean keep girlbossing babes 😔✨ but still but the song down. Noewwwww

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princess-of-the-corner · 9 months

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I wanna start by saying I'm not trying to start a fight, but you saying that Chloe had some kind of mental break or dissociative episode in Queen Wasp as a way to excuse the train incident has always felt like a bit of a reach

Idk if you've ever had a dissociative episode or mental breakdown or anything like that, and I'm not demanding you share if you have, but I have, and the way we see Chloe act in Queen Wasp is not how someone who is dissociating would act in my experience

She's too cognizant

After snapping, transforming, and running, Chloe has the presence of mind to stop on the closest vantage point she could find, look around for an idea of how to prove herself, focus on the subway, come up with the idea to stage a crash, dial Nadja Chamak's number to tell her about the train so there are cameras present, and stop and paralyze the driver before trying to stop the train

There was a time when I was dissociating after a massive fight with my parents and walking through my neighborhood, and I came to a cross light.

I remember seeing that I couldn't go straight across bc of the red light, and seeing that a car was coming down the street, but I kept walking straight.

The car was too far away to be dangerous to me, but they did slam their brakes and honk.

I didn't register any of that, I just kept walking. I didn't even realize what had happened until hours after I had gotten back home and calmed down.

That's not what happened to Chloé in Queen Wasp. She wasn't thinking clearly bc she was rightfully upset and hurt and acting impulsively, but it wasn't a mental break

BUDDY

Okay okay okay we're just gonna.

Firstly: Different experiences and different words for different things!

Yes, some people's breakdowns are the type of disassociation where they're not aware they're just in full zombie mode.

Other people's breakdowns are organized and focused and seemingly aware! They're still not quite in the right state of mind! But they do things that are a little off and they wouldn't usually because they think it'll make them feel better!

This isn't a disassociation state, this is more like a manic episode. Like, I'm not saying that this is genuinely a manic episode for Chloé because I am not an expert and I don't know if she hits more checks for that sort of disorder and it's a very short episode as far as we can tell while a proper episode would be a longer period of time. It's just the best word I can find to describe this type of breakdown But I have 100% seen and experienced both the 'zombie mode' and the 'oh let's do something about this!!' breakdown.

And yes, in the real world, an episode like this wouldn't result directly to 'fake a train accident', it does result in extremely poor decisionmaking as they ride it out. Things like impulsively chopping off hair, spending money they can't afford to, taking risks in sexual situations, etc. But in a kids show with superheroes, that is 100% on the table.

Again: I am not an expert, but Chloé was going through some hell and I've seen people snap in that sort of way where, were they a cartoon character, could end up in that situation.

Secondly:

You make it sound like I'm just excusing it like 'haha whatever it's chill'. Which, to be fair, Canon did that! The train thing is just never brought up again and she never faces any consequences for it so Canon thinks it's fine!

But even if she is in the most manic or dissassociative or whatever state? She is still responsible for what happens when she comes down from it. And yeah in a fictional world like this you can handwave that action when everyone ends up fine instead of having her go to jail or some shit.

Thirdly:

We aren't talking about how this incident should be ignored. We're talking about how this is considered the worst thing that Chloé has done, and proof that she's 'evil', but it was something done while not only not in the right state of mind, but something that never intended to harm anyone, didn't end up harming anyone, and also did in fact get brushed off by the rest of the cast.

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xtruss · 3 months

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A River Runs Through It, 2021, oil, acrylic, resin, aluminum, fishing line, fishing hooks, wood, nails, cigarette butts, graphite, glass flakes, lipstick, hinge, ink, canvas on shaped panel, by Chloe Chiasson © The artist. Courtesy Albertz Benda Gallery

The Worm Charmers! A Florida Family Coaxes Earthworms From The Forest Floor

— June 04, 2024 | By Michael Adno

A Hint Of Blue On The Horizon meant morning was coming. And as they have for the past fifty-four years, Audrey and Gary Revell stepped out their screen door, walked down a ramp, and climbed into their pickup truck. Passing a cup of coffee back and forth, they headed south into Tate’s Hell—one corner of a vast wilderness in Florida’s panhandle where the Apalachicola National Forest runs into the Gulf of Mexico. Soon, they turned off the road and onto a two-track that stretched into a silhouette of pine trees. Their brake lights disappeared into the forest, and after about thirty minutes, they parked the truck along the road just as daylight spilled through the trees. Gary took one last sip of coffee, grabbed a wooden stake and a heavy steel file, and walked off into the woods. Audrey slipped on a disposable glove, grabbed a bucket, and followed. Gary drove the wooden stake, known as a “stob,” into the ground and began grinding it with the steel file. A guttural noise followed as the ground hummed. Pine needles shook, and the soil shivered. Soon, the ground glowed with pink earthworms. Audrey collected them one by one to sell as live bait to fishermen. What drew the worms to the surface seemed like sorcery. For decades, nobody could say exactly why they came up, even the Revells who’d become synonymous with the tradition here. They call it worm grunting.

Audrey and Gary Revell took to each other in high school. In 1970 when Gary graduated, he asked Audrey to be his wife, and they married at his grandfather’s place down in Panacea, about thirty miles south of Tallahassee. For his entire life, he’d lived on an acre six miles west of Sopchoppy, Florida, in an area known as Sanborn. The place is set deep in the heart of the Apalachicola National Forest, a vast expanse of flatwoods and swamp that covers over half a million acres struck through with rivers. It’s where he and his siblings grew up in an old church building, where his great-grandfather had settled after finding his way up Syfrett Creek into the wilderness. It’s where Audrey and Gary settled after their wedding. “I was only sixteen, so I feel like I grew up here,” Audrey told me. Soon after, they started looking for ways to make ends meet, and Gary suggested, “We might ought to look into that worm thing.”

His family was already deep into worm grunting. Three generations preceded him, and by 1970, his uncles Nolan, Clarence, and Willie weren’t only harvesting the worms to sell as bait but were working as brokers with their own shops that distributed the critters throughout the South. It didn’t hurt that Audrey fell in love with it immediately. The work was seasonal, busiest in spring. During other parts of the year, their family trapped for a living, dug oysters, logged, raised livestock, and set the table with what they grew in their yard or caught in the water or in the forest. “That’s how we learned the woods,” Gary said. “We went in every creek, water hole, pig trail. You name it.”

By the 1970s, the cottage industry had reached its peak. Then Charles Kurault arrived in 1972 to film a segment for his eponymous CBS show, On the Road with Charles Kurault. The attention led the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start regulating the harvest of worms, investigating unreported income, and implementing permit requirements. Back then, the sound produced by grunters in the first hours of daylight was as common as birdsong in this forest, and hundreds of thousands of worms were carried out in cans. Folks who once turned to grunting to make ends meet seasonally were soon in the woods year-round during that decade, competing to summon the bait to the surface and sell to brokers among the counties set between the capital city and the Apalachicola River. Millions of worms left those counties bound for fishing hooks across America. Money followed the pink fever, but as with any rush, the demand eventually dimmed as commercial worm farms caught on and soft, plastic lures became popular.

By that point, Audrey and Gary had decided to shape their own outfit. His uncles had told them, You ought to just think about keeping all that money to yourself. The couple had grown tired of depending on others for work. So, they set up their own shop full time, cultivated clients as far away as Savannah, and delivered bait all over the South, driving it themselves, or sending it north in sixteen-ounce, baby blue containers via Greyhound buses. “All the money was coming our way, what little we made,” said Gary. “We struggled with it for a long time, because when you get off the grid like that and try to do it for yourself and you’re young, it’s hard.”

I wanted to know what spending their life in the woods hunting for worms meant, but I also wanted to know where this mysterious, artful tradition came from. In the UK, there are a handful of worm-charming competitions and festivals in Devon, Cornwall, and Willaston that began in the 1980s and another in Canada that started in 2012. I’d heard of similar events in east Texas, of people using pitchforks and spades as well as burying one stick in the ground and rubbing it with another to coax worms up to the surface. Later, I even found a newspaper clipping from 1970 reporting on the first International Worm Fiddling Championship, in Florida. I searched for a deep well of literature on the practice but found nothing. Certainly, worm grunting predated the Revells. But why did rubbing a stick stuck in the ground with a metal file conjure earthworms? The only way to understand was to follow the Revells into the woods.

In February, I carved out toward the Revells’ place from St. Teresa, a strip of homes along the Gulf coast. Going first through Tate’s Hell, then turning west through the tiny town of Sopchoppy, I slipped into the forest as the distance between each home grew wider and wider. I found myself in a sea of slash and longleaf pine. Six miles later, I met Gary Revell in his driveway beneath an eastern redbud throwing its first spray of pink flowers. “Morning, Mike,” he said with a contagious warmth. In their kitchen, I met Audrey, who had already poured a cup of coffee, set out milk and creamers, and had a jar of sugar in hand. A few minutes later, we piled into their truck and drove down a narrow vein of road near Smith Creek. A horned owl drew a line through the trees, where the yellow flowers of Carolina jessamine crawled over palmettos. Black water pooled in ditches alongside the narrow road lined with bald cypress and the periodic sweet bay magnolia. By the time we reached where we were going, I had no sense of how far we’d gone or where we were.

Although the northern borders of the Apalachicola National Forest press right up against the Tallahassee airport, the place is remote. Across nearly six hundred thousand acres, you could spend lifetimes trying to map its dizzyingly vast flatwoods, hydric hammocks, and cypress stands. Two hundred and fifty million years ago when our contemporary continents formed, Florida’s peninsula broke off a fault line belonging to what’s now West Africa; they share the same basement rock today. Fifty-six million years ago, as sea levels receded, the Suwanee Current flowed from the Gulf of Mexico across what’s now Florida’s panhandle, bisecting Georgia before running into the Atlantic. And over the next twenty million years, Florida appeared first as an island separated from North America by a sequence of patch reefs before sea levels continued to fall and a bridge formed with Georgia, revealing this very forest. A few thousand years later, the bones of the southern Appalachians, ground into dust by glacial erosion, washed out of the Apalachicola River Valley and formed barrier islands that rim Apalachee Bay today. That river carried sediment down through Georgia and into the Gulf, which flanks the western edge of the forest. And as you move east, the New River, the Ochlocknee River, and the Sopchoppy River flow through the forest made up of two districts. An archipelago of sinkholes and hardwoods is lacerated by thin roads that mirror oxbows in the rivers. In 1936, when the land was declared a national forest, it became one of America’s southernmost pockets of wilderness and among the world’s most unique ecosystems. As the Revells told me, many are afraid of the place, scared to step foot out of the car. “I’ve walked all over all these woods, so I love them,” Audrey said. “A lot of times when we’ll be going to work in the mornings, we won’t meet a single car. It’s just nice being out here mostly alone. You know?”

Left: Gary Revell roops in a stand of recently burned trees in the Apalachicola National Forest just after daybreak. Right: A native earthworm, Diplocardia Mississippiensis, crawls across the ground before Audrey Revell collects it by hand. Photographs By Michael Adno

That first morning I spent with them, the Revells made their way to a part of the woods called Twin Pole. The forest service had recently burned a block of woods there, which meant the ground would be clear and easier to work. As we got closer, I could smell the sweet fragrance of smoldering slash pines and palmettos. For centuries, pine scrub and prairie throughout the South has burned naturally and been torched deliberately, first by Indigenous peoples like the Timucuan or Apalachee and then later by ranchers and land managers to replenish the soil and promote growth. Worm grunters follow the forest service’s burns like a compass, as the open ground makes it easier to spot worms and avoid venomous snakes.

“Alright, Mama,” Gary said to Audrey before changing into a pair of boots, fastening knee pads, and slipping on gloves. We walked through the burnt palmettos, coated in a film of black soot, before he pointed to a few holes in the soil. They were clues to where worms were and where they were headed. He took his stob, one his son had hewn out of black gum, and knocked it a foot into the earth with his steel file before rubbing the file against the stob’s head. He called each pass a “roop.” With every roop, he mirrored the sound himself, groaning first in a low pitch then ascending to an abrupt stop. Gary would roop, pause, tell a story, then start again. It didn’t take long before a dozen large earthworms began crawling around the earth between us as Audrey gathered them by hand.

“Gary can call up any kind of animal,” Audrey said. Screech owls, ducks, even a bull they once came across in the woods. Once, after he called to a quail, Audrey swears the bird landed on his head. I looked down as Audrey picked up worms and could see this was a corollary. As Gary rooped and talked, Audrey drew concentric circles around him, picking up the largest worms and carefully placing them in a one-gallon paint can. Audrey noted the difference between worms—“milky” that are lighter in color and frail, and dark pink worms that last longer on the shelf. Gary roops most of the time, but Audrey does sometimes, too. “They’re coming up tail first,” Gary said. He gazed down and read the ground: Here were some castings left by worms; some mounds of fresh earth; a transition in the ground that meant prime moisture. The Revells’ intuition was like that of the fishermen they were collecting bait for, a catalog of knowledge assembled from spending time out here and bound together by deep curiosity. Gary knocked his stob down against the serpentine root of a palmetto and demonstrated how to change the pitch. “When I see that,” he said, pointing to some larger holes, “I know he’s right here somewhere close.”

With a couple of paint cans filled, about 500 worms in each, Audrey and Gary headed back to their truck, collecting scraps of trash and some firewood along the way. An hour later, they dumped their catch out in a shed where they store their worms, counting them out by hand and then placing them in five-gallon buckets filled halfway up with sawdust they collect in the forest. Folks that know them come and collect worms from the shed themselves, leaving the money they owe in a box on the wall. Often, they’ll leave notes scrawled on pieces of cardboard, check registers, and even a cast-off piece of packing tape that read, “I got 200. I paid back the ten I owe.”

For two convenience stores in Wakulla County, Audrey and Gary are the source for worms. At home, they pack the bait in clear plastic cups with baby blue caps and deliver them each week. In the decades since the Revells struck out on their own, the market has winnowed with the advent of artificial baits and farmed nightcrawlers, and so have the venues to sell worms. In good years, they earned $30,000, according to a 2009 piece in the Tampa Bay Times, but they told me they didn’t want to discuss what they make today. Some years, they harvested oysters for part of the winter and then baited throughout the warmer months. The two found their way through, together, even when bad weather, drought, and competition reshaped the way they worked. They started traveling farther into Liberty County, hiking deep into the flatwoods to avoid previously worked pieces of land. In summer, when the temperature turned mean, they worked Tate’s Hell at night. “This earthworm deal is something that you got to live with and stay on top of to be able to survive it,” Gary said, “and we can say we’ve lived a very good life.” They’d raised their two sons this way, spent their lives living with the forest, watching almost every sunrise out there together. “It ain’t been no easy deal, but there’s really nothing on earth I’d trade for it,” Gary said. Today, one of the Revells’ sons, who is now forty-eight, marks the fifth generation of their family collecting the pink currency from the forest.

In the nineteenth century, Gary’s great-great-grandfather paddled up the Ochlocknee and into a branch that bent into the trees before it dissolved into a shallow stream. Audrey and Gary live in that area today, near a creek named for one side of his mother’s family, the Syfretts. As kids, Gary and his two brothers, Lucious and Donald, came up in the woods, often passing the days with three cousins opposite the creek from them. “We didn’t have a lot of people around, but we had this forest, and that kept us occupied.” Their father, Frank, was an equipment operator for the county during the week, but worked alongside his brothers on the weekends, grunting in the forest at first light. Fifty years ago, he could earn as much as a hundred dollars in two days of baiting, which dwarfed what he made in a week for the county, roughly eight hundred dollars in today’s money. Gary tagged along any chance he got. That’s how he first heard the tale of his great-grandfather’s worm discovery in the 1940s. Living along the Ochlocknee River, his great-grandfather fished often, and developed a sense of what baits worked where and when. While repairing his car one day, he’d left it running, jacked up the chassis, and removed a wheel. As the tire rolled away and his eyes followed it, he saw the ground strewn with pink worms.

As the story goes, his great-grandfather tested the theory elsewhere, leaving the car to idle and seeing worms sprout up on the spot. It was clear the vibrations stirred the worms, making it easier to collect bait and therefore sell it. This is how the mysterious practice became central to the Revells’ lives.

The Revells’ Intuition Was Like That Of The Fishermen They Were Collecting Bait For, A Catalog Of Knowledge Assembled From Spending Time Out Here And Bound Together By Deep Curiosity.

Later, the men noticed worms appearing when they chopped wood or ran saws against saplings. Gary remembered using an axe handle as a stob, rubbing the blade of another axe against it. Some folks in north Florida called it worm fiddling, worm rubbing, worm snoring, worm charming, and, of course, worm grunting. Styles and materials for coaxing worms to the surface varied. Some people preferred hickory stobs and used steel leaf springs from cars as a file. The Revells used different-shaped stobs for different sorts of soil, but they always used black gum, persimmon, or cherry wood, and preferred flat, thick steel files.

What’s strange is that despite the widespread practice of worm grunting, I couldn’t find a definitive origin story. There wasn’t a deep well of folklore to draw from online: not in the University of Florida’s special collections archive, the Florida State University archives, or those of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. I searched my copy of the Federal Writers’ Project’s guide to Florida, organized by Stetson Kennedy and partially written by Zora Neale Hurston, with no luck. I couldn’t find anything that went farther back than the 1970s. But after another pass through the newspapers at the University of Florida, I found a path that stretched back more than a century.

On Friday, July 16, 1946, the Bradford County (FL) Telegraph ran a front-page item, “Know Anything about ‘Worm Grunting’?” They asked readers to submit letters, offering a five-dollar prize for “the best replies to a series of questions on this fascinating subject.” Among them: how long had the practice existed, who told them about it, where they grunted, what they looked for, what they used, and what time was best to do it. Three months later, the paper published six letters. Dave Crawford from Starke wrote that he’d learned of it in 1933. Some claimed that it had existed at least since 1896, another since 1866, while one reader claimed it had been around in some form since 1786. One man wrote, “When I was a small boy, there was an old colored woman that worked for us. In the afternoon she would take me out and teach me to grunt for worms. She told me her mother taught her to grunt worms.” Those anecdotal accounts raised the question of whether this was a tradition that extended back to the period of chattel slavery in America or even farther, before Indigenous peoples were forced from the land that settlers would come to call Florida.

The Revells’ tales of grunting echoed those long-ago anecdotes. Readers referenced an axe handle method, or crosscut saws, and an iron and a stake—all before Audrey or Gary were born. The winning letter from Dave Crawford revealed a bit of poetry and intuition that grunters still practice today: “When the wen is from the west the werms come up good and when you see the birds feeding on the ground and the red heads flying from tree to tree you can grunt up better. Just get a old ax or tire iron and a good pine stob about 2 feet long and a old lard bucket and get down by the swamp where it is wet and boy go to rubing and get busy and grunt long and loud and the old boys will come out they hiding place.”

That tradition endures, largely unchanged here in the Apalachicola National Forest. Yet, it’s vanishing like so many other foodways, forms of heritage, and ways to earn a living in this part of the country. Lots of folks preferred this work to other forms of labor, such as driving an Uber in town or food delivery, but commercial fishing, crabbing, and the shrimp industry have shrunk with each passing year due to increasing regulation, depleted fisheries, climate change, and cheaper imported seafood. The same is true for oyster harvesting, once a mainstay of the region’s foodways. After years of oyster decline partly due to overharvesting and negligent water management, in 2020 the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission mandated a five-year halt in harvesting oysters from the Apalachicola Bay. It was part of a $20 million plan to restore the habitat and population. That ban promised to leave local oyster tongers without work until 2025. As for worm grunting and its slow decline, the passage of time is responsible, too. “All the old people is gone,” Gary said. “That was the key to the whole thing. They set it up.”

In 2002, a committee was organized to preserve the tradition and put on the first annual Sopchoppy Worm Gruntin’ Festival. Every second Saturday in April since, Rose Street and Winthrap Avenue fill with vendors, bands, and demonstrations. There’s a ball and an annual queen. Media outlets flock to Wakulla County to cover the festival, often centering the Revells in their pieces. In 2009, they appeared on the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs. That same year, Jeff Klinkenberg profiled the Revells for a cover story in what is now the Tampa Bay Times. Nobody could say definitively why the worms responded to vibrations, though, until a neuroscientist arrived in Sopchoppy with a theory.

As A Kid In Maryland During The 1970s, Kenneth Catania had a curiosity about the woods near his home that shaped his career path as a neuroscientist with a bent toward ecology and biology. His obsession with moles came later during a job at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. And that obsession eventually grew into a dissertation on star-nosed moles, which revealed how their sensory cortex evolved and developed to process information. This, by proxy, revealed how all mammals’ senses evolved. In 2006, he earned a MacArthur Fellowship or “Genius Grant.” The award came with $500,000. Two years later, he headed for the Apalachicola National Forest, thinking that the moles there might help him unravel another mystery about a different group of underground creatures.

For years, he’d wanted to visit the worm festival in north Florida, but annual field work always overlapped. Finally, in 2008, he drove to meet the Revells in Sopchoppy. He arrived with a question shaped by a few sentences written a century earlier by Charles Darwin about worm behavior as it related to moles.

Darwin published his last book in 1881, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms With Observations on Their Habits. A sentence that struck Catania read, “It has often been said that if the ground is beaten or otherwise made to tremble, worms believe that they are pursued by a mole and leave their burrows.” Darwin continued, “Nevertheless, worms do not invariably leave their burrows when the ground is made to tremble, as I know from having beaten it with a spade, but perhaps it was beaten too violently.” Seventy years after Darwin’s shovel experiment failed, Dutch biologist and Nobel Laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen claimed that herring gulls tapped their feet to drum up worms, employing “exploitative mimicry.” By 1982, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins had built off that notion, staking claim to the idea of “rare enemy effect,” by which predators cast themselves in the role of another predator to exploit their prey’s behavior.

Then in 1986, a paper by John H. Kaufmann of the University of Florida drew a connection between wood turtles’ stomping to draw worms to the surface and the work of worm grunters. “Many humans collect earthworms for fish bait by hammering or scraping on a stake driven into the soil…. There is now evidence that wood turtles, Clemmys insculpta, use the same principle in obtaining earthworms for food,” Kaufmann wrote. He also noted an earlier paper from 1960 by Tinbergen that identified a corollary in herring gulls among other birds like flamingos and geese that drummed up prey by “paddling.” Especially fascinating is that Tinbergen hypothesized that the worms mistook the birds’ paddling for the vibrations of a mole. “That’s what drew me down there,” Catania told me. He wondered whether worm grunters were unintentionally mimicking a predator, possibly a mole like Darwin and Tinbergen suggested. “Nobody had formally studied it,” he said.

On that first morning in Florida, Catania’s alarm woke him at five. He got ready and met the Revells, who charmed Catania immediately as he took a seat in the cab of their truck. As they drove into the forest, he thought of this Darwinian theory that shaped his own hypothesis: that earthworms had developed an escape response to vibrations caused by a foraging mole. “What’s beautiful about the system there is the earthworms are native, so they evolved there, and if the moles are there, they evolved there, too,” Catania said. Most importantly, he wanted to find out if the vibrations generated by worm grunting echo that of a digging mole and, if so, how the earthworms respond.

As they rode along, Catania noticed mole tunnels crisscrossing the backroads. He saw more around the stand of trees where Audrey and Gary worked. Catania was spellbound as he watched the couple work. Weeks later, he returned with recording equipment, marking flags, and a garden trowel. He spent hour after hour, day after day in the forest, dropping geophones into tunnel routes, hoping to record the vibrations of moles digging, as well as those produced by Gary’s grunting. For every worm Audrey picked up, he placed an orange flag in the ground, mapping just how many worms appeared, in what directions, and how far from Gary’s stob. Then, he stalked moles underground, using stakes placed along their routes to reveal where they were headed, and used the garden trowel to catch them. Back at the Revells’ place, they took a handful of worms, placed them in a five-gallon bucket, and dressed them in a pile of sawdust. Catania picked up a mole and dropped it into the bucket. The worms fled to the surface. “Okay,” Catania thought, “things are pretty clear.”

He replicated this experiment in larger bins with controlled variables. The result was the same. As soon as the mole entered the soil, the worms fled to the surface. Catania later recorded the sound of an eastern American mole digging and compared it to his recordings of Gary rooping. It was a sonic match. The vibrations were almost identical.

Catania’s work with the Revells confirmed Darwin’s theory set forth more than 125 years earlier. Worm grunters had unknowingly applied “exploitative mimicry” like that employed by herring gulls or wood turtles to lure the worms to the surface. Catania published his paper that same year in PLoS ONE, a peer-reviewed journal. The New York Times even ran a small story about his findings, as did NBC News and other outlets. Before he returned to Nashville, Catania received a parting gift from Audrey and Gary—a rooping iron that had been in their family for decades. As he drove north that day, he stopped one last time in the woods, drove a stob into the soil, and rooped with a clear sense of what was happening underground.

Audrey Revell collects worms by hand in the Apalachicola National Forest as Gary Revell moves to the next spot, carrying his rooping iron and stob. Photograph by Michael Adno

On My Final Morning With Audrey And Gary, a seam of blue sky between the pines grew brighter as they drove out into the forest. Slowly, the first signs of light threw deep shades of purple against the clouds before pink, then scarlet bands passed through the trees. “That’s beautiful,” said Audrey.

They parked their truck along the road, collected their gear, and walked into the woods. As we neared a brake of trees, Gary passed me the stob and file, pointing to a patch of earth, and I clumsily drove the stob down. I tried to place my hands on the file the same as Gary, and I slowly slid the steel at an angle. A deep noise followed, and I just smiled, rooping again and again. I varied speed and angles, making some wince-worthy goose noises on bad passes, but I found a rhythm, and soon I’d drawn up a dozen worms. I moved a few times, continuing to work, removing some layers. When I finally got up, Gary asked, “So, Mike, what do you think?” My chest throbbed and sweat ran down my neck. “It’s fucking hard work,” I said.

Back at their place, Audrey made some sweet tea and showed me a couple albums of photographs she’d made of flora and fauna in the forest. She told me of terrestrial orchids “as pretty as one you would buy,” of the pitcher plants in spring, and the white “worm flowers” that signal damp ground. “You never know what you might see,” she said. Finally, she brought out some scrapbooks and clippings of articles from the New York Times, Scientific American, and the Tallahassee Democrat. In 2010, the Revells received Florida’s Folk Heritage Award, an honor recognizing Floridians who preserve living traditions. Governor Charlie Crist presented the award in a ceremony at the state Capitol. As we looked through those reminders of their life in the forest, Audrey and Gary turned serious. “I’m a steward of this forest,” he said. “I don’t do nothing to try to abuse it or change it.” I asked Audrey what the forest meant to her. “Everything,” she said.

That afternoon, as I prepared to leave, I found myself moved in a way I hadn’t been in years, fascinated by their connection to the forest, above ground and below. “As much as we’ve done it, I’ve thought, ‘Man, you’ve got to be crazy,’” Gary said of their work. “But, if you take me away from it, I ain’t worth nothing. I’m one of the last.” I drove away with a sore palm and a cup of worms beside me.

#OxfordAmerican.Org #The Worm 🪱 Charmers!#Earthworms 🪱#Florida Family #The Forest Floor #Apalachicola National Forest #Diplocardia Mississippiensis #Gary Revell | Audrey Ravell

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