#Miss Follet

[gwinverarrouz]

I’m doing an October inking challenge! The rules are: work traditionally, in black and white, in a 1:1 format, and try not to spend more than 20 minutes on a piece at most. Unfortunately 1) I’m a perfectionist and 2) I want to get better with hatching and doing tons of tiny lines takes longer than just filling an area with black, so. Some of these may have taken longer than 20 minutes. But it’s been really fun so far. :D

Part 2 here! Part 3 there- and finally part 4 :)

[aperiodofhistory]

20 books in 2024

Another year, another year of a TBR pile. I'm really satisfied with my reading in the year 2023. I read some books I wanted to read for a long time. But still, I left some for the year 2024. So I'm transferring the remaining ones into this year, and adding a few more. I'm happy about the upcoming year, as I want to read a lot of fantasy.

The library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

Babel by Rebecca F. Kuang

Legends & Lattes by Baldree Travis

Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World by Victoria Finlay

The Island of missing trees by Elif Shafak

Ways of being by James Bridle

The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by various authors

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The return of the king by Tolkien

A game of thrones by Martin

Shakespearean: On Life & Language in Times of Disruption by Robert McCrum

A court of thorns and roses by Sarah J. Mass

Femina by Ramírez Janina

Anything by Ava Reid

The road by Cormac McCarthy

Red rising by Pierce Brown

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Spinning silver by Naomi Novik

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

I'm tagging @artmill-danaan for its book list for the year 2024.

-------

Other read:

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The Bridge on the Drina (Bosnian Trilogy, #1) by Ivo Andrić

Love and Friendship by Jane Austen

A court of Mist and fury by Sarah J. Mass

[conradscrime]

What Happened to Novelist Barbara Newhall Follett?

November 6, 2023

Barbara Newhall Follet was born in New Hampshire on March 4, 1914 to literary editor, Wilson Follett and children's writer, Helen Thomas Follett. Barbara had one older sister from her father's first marriage, Grace, and a younger sister Sabra, who later became the first woman to become a graduate student at Princeton University in 1961.

Barbara was homeschooled by her mother and at a young age began her love for reading and writing. At age 4, Barbara was writing her own poems, and by age 7 she was writing about a world she created called Farksolia and writing about it's language, called Farksoo.

In 1923, as a birthday present for her mom, Barbara began to write a story called The House Without Windows with a typewriter she had been given. Later on, the manuscript actually burned in a house fire, but Barbara completely rewrote it and her father published it in 1927 as he was an editor for Knopf publishing house.

Due to the success of the book, which was about a young girl who ran away from home and lived in nature with her animal friends, some considered Barbara a child genius. Barbara began to review other children's books and her book was critically acclaimed by the New York Times.

Barbara's next book was called The Voyage of the Norman D, based on her experience travelling on a coastal schooner in Nova Scotia, Canada. This was published in 1928.

Though another success, 1928 would not be a good year for Barbara. Her father left her mother for another woman, and this was incredibly devastating to Barbara who was very close with her father.

Her family was then struggling and the Great Depression of the 1930's only made it worse. At the age of 16, Barbara took up a job as a secretary in New York City, writing several manuscripts.

Barbara met a man named Nickerson Rogers in 1931, and together, the two of them travelled to many different places in the world including the Appalachian Trail and also Spain. The couple settled in Brookline, Massachusetts where they married in July 1934.

Barbara was still writing, however she was not having much success with publishers. By 1937, her marriage wasn't so happy anymore either, she began writing to her friends about being dissatisfied with married life.

Her marriage began to crumble further, as Barbara had suspicions that Nickerson was being unfaithful, causing her to fall into a depression.

Barbara's husband stated that on December 7, 1939, Barbara had lelft their apartment after they had gotten into an argument. Nickerson said that Barbara had $30 in her pocket and she was never seen again.

Initially, Nickerson had not reported his wife as a missing person until two weeks later, telling police he was waiting for her to come home. Four months after Barbara's disappearance, Nickerson requested a missing persons bulletin be issued.

The bulletin had actually used Barbara's married name of Rogers, so the public had actually not recognized or known about her disappearance until 1966.

Thirteen years after Barbara disappeared, in 1952 her mother wanted the authorities to look more into it, believing that Nickerson had something to do it due to him putting in very little effort to find his wife.

Barbara's body was never found, and there was no evidence authorities could find suggesting or excluding foul play.

In 2019, a theory that Barbara's body was found but incorrectly identified was brought forth by a writer named Daniel Mills. Mills supposedly found evidence that Barbara's body was found in 1948, but identified as another missing woman named Elsie Whittemore.

The body was found on Pulsifer Hill, half a mile from where Barbara and Nickerson had a rental agreement. The possessions found with the body were consistent with Barbara's belongings, but local police were unaware of her disappearance. The cause of death was determined to be suicide, a bottle of barbiturate residue was found at the scene, which Barbara had been known to take.

[writeforget]

References in Salman Rushdie's "The Golden House"

Lady Chatterley's Lover- D.H. Lawrence

Le Fantôme de l'Opéra

Goodbye to Berlin

Moby-Dick

The Purple Rose of Cairo

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Mémoires d'Hadrien- Marguerite Yourcenar

Woodcarver Steiner- Werner Herzog

Pina- Wim Wenders

The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler

Two Philosophers Deep in Meditation - Rembrandt

The Longest Journey - Forster

Auto-da-Fé - Canetti

Wired

The satyricon - Mennipe

Cyclops - Euripides

The Net Fishers - Aeschylus

The trackers - Sophocles

The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus - Tony Harrison

The Golden Ass- Aesop

Rain Man

Sad- Eyed Lady of the Lowlands- Bob Dylan

La Belle Dame sans Merci

The Man who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton

Monty Pythons Flying Circus

Spamalot

Oklahoma!

West Side Story

Dr Mabuse The Gambler - Lang

One Thousand and One Nights

The Diamond as Big as the Ritz

The Privilege of Owning Yourself- Nietzsche

Tokyo Monogatari

Orfeu Negro

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

Water Lilies - Claude Monet

Adoration of the Magi - Peter Paul Ruben

Wild is The Wind - Bowie

Famous Blue Raincoat-Cohen

Under the Bridge-RHCP

Pierrot le fou

Arthur Schlesinger

Gayatri Spivak

Baba Yaga

Green Eggs and Ham- Dr Seuss

Twilight

The Silence of The Lambs

The Hunt for Red October

Metamorphosis- F Kafka

The Graduate

Mansoon Wedding

The Deer Hunter

Kill Bill: Vol. 2

The Princess Bride

Yellow Earth- Chen Kaige

The Godfather- the trilogy

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives- Apichat Pong

Rosemary's Baby

Fedorovskaya icon of the Mother of God

V for Vendetta -Wachowski

The Great Gatsby- FS Fitzgerald

Jeeves series-PG Woodehouse

Odyssey

Six Feet Under

The Seventh Seal- Ingmar Bergman

Hannah and Her Sisters

Flash Gordon

Invisible Cities- Italo Calvino

Closely Observed Trains- Jiri Menzel

Sanjuro- Kurosawa

Bonnie and Clyde - Arthur Penn

Amarcord- Fellini

L'argent de poche- Truffaut

The Hustles- Rossen

L'année derniere à Marienbad- Resnais

Knife in the Water- Polanski

La belle noiseuse

Breathless

Le mépris

The Jungle Book- R Kypling

Aguirre, the Wrath of God- Herzog

Funes the Memorious. L Borges

The Dignity of Man- Pico della Mirandola

2001: A space Odyssey- S Kubrick

Birdman

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Marx Brothers comedy

Reservoir Dogs- Q Tarantino

Within You Without You. Tomorrow Never knows. Norwegian Wood. Love to You- The Beatles

The Inheritors- Golding

Alexander Nevesky. The Battleship Potemkin- Sergei Eisenstein

Seinfeld

Le feu follet- Louis Malle

The Best Bits

La La Land

Arrival

Manchester by teh Sea

Oedipus the King

Sheppey- Somerset Maugham

Night Watch- Rembrandt

Madame Bovary- Flaubert

Beetlejuice

Age of Innocence- Edith Warton

Poetry & Aeroplanes

Mars Attacks!- Tim Burton

The Court Jester

The Golden House (the film)

Citizen Kane

Porky's XXII

Dumb FucksXIX

Titanic

Rear Window

I Confess- Montgomery Clift

Bombay Talkie

Kuch Nahin Kahin Nahin Kabhi Nahin Koi Nahin( Nothing Nowhere Never Nobody)- Maratha Mandir

Company- Raj Gopal Varma

Shootout at Lokhandwala- Sanjay Gupta

Once upon a Time in Mumbaai (1&2) - Milan Luthria

Shakspeare in Love

Psycho- Hitchcock

Ran-Akira Kurosawa

Pather Panchali-Satyajit Ray

The Outcasts of Providence Street/the Exterminating Angel- L Bunuel

Some works might have been missed.

[fundiesimsfamily]

How did that go?

Nancy Landgraab: Are you alright?

Belle Follet (Rogers): Yes

Nancy: That wasn't easy

Belle: No, it wasn't. I hate to see my mom crying like that

Nancy: Yeah, she has been through a lot

Belle: I feel sorry for her.

Nancy: yeah, it's hard for mothers to miss their child

Belle: I thought they would be more angry and not sad

Nancy: Why did you think that?

Belle: Because that's all I knew. They where always angry with me when I did something that wasn't good in their eyes. Never sad.

Nancy: How does it feel now that they are sad.

Belle: Weird, I don't know what to do with that. I can handle them being mad at me.

Nancy: haha, are you going to stay in touch with your mother, parents?

Belle: Yeah. Not like talking to them all the time. But I do want to their to be contact.

Nancy: I think they will be happy to hear that. Especially your mother

Belle: I hope she won't be this sad anymore

Nancy: It might stay hard for her for a while longer.

Belle: Yeah, you're probably right

Nancy: haha

[70sstarlet]

About me

- Hobbies: Reading,sleeping,listening to music and i think that's it

-Birthdate: 11 september,2009

-Some facts: I'm french,and i learnt english by watching bunch of english content on YouTube when i was 8 or something like that.

-Favorites: Food: Candy,pizza,spaghetti,coca cola

- Music artists/Groups Lana Del Rey,Ethel Cain,Nicole Dollanganger,Field of The Nephilim,Deftones,Mazzy Star,Elton John,Melanie Martinez, Fleetwood Mac

-Books: The Stranger by Albert Camus,Les Misérables by Victor Hugo,and a Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follet

-Authors: Victor Hugo,Albert Camus,Guy De Maupassant above all

-Movies: Rocketman above all,Edwards Scissorhands,Miss Peregrine Home for Peculiar Children,Buffalo 66,Americain Psycho

-Series: Daisy Jones And The Six,Supernatural, Continental

-Actors: Taron Egerton (my husband),Jeffrey Dean Morgan,Gregory Peck

-And then idk :)

#lizzy grant #about me

[dollycas]

Death and Fromage: A Novel (Follet Valley Mystery) by Ian Moore #Review / #Giveaway

Death and Fromage: A Novel (Follet Valley Mystery) Humorous Literary Fiction/Amateur Sleuth 2nd in Series Setting - France Publisher ‏ : ‎ Poisoned Pen Press (March 5, 2024) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1728270588 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1728270586 Kindle ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CCBHGFC4 Middle-aged B&B owner Richard Ainsworth is enjoying his quiet life in the Val de Follet—that is, until the local cheese supplier is found dead in one of his own pasteurization tanks… Running a B&B in the Val de Follet means nothing exciting ever happens to Richard, and really that's the way he likes it. Until scandal erupts in the nearby town of Saint-Sauver, when its famous restaurant is downgraded from three Michelin stars to two. The restaurant is shamed, the town is in shock, and the leading goat cheese supplier drowns himself in one of his own pasteurization tanks. Or does he? Valérie d'Orçay, who is staying at the B&B while house-hunting in the area, isn't convinced that it's a suicide. Despite his misgivings, Richard is drawn into Valérie's investigation and finds himself becoming a major player in solving the crime. After all, the French do take their cheese quite seriously and it's quite clear there's nothing gouda happening in the close-knit, small village that Richard calls home. Dollycas's Thoughts The French take their cheese very seriously and Richard Ainsworth takes his quiet life seriously too. When he becomes involved in a cheese scandal in the nearby town of Saint-Sauver and a local cheese supplier is murdered or was it suicide, he is not happy. Then his wife comes to town with some plans of her own. Richard just wants to relax and spend a little time with his chickens but the murders keep stacking up. Can he cheese out what the heck is going on and get back to his quiet life? or will the murders and mayhem continue? ___ I really enjoyed the 1st book in this series, Death and Croissants. It was laugh-out-loud funny with crazy situations. But Death and Fromage missed the mark for me. Femme fatale Valérie d'Orçay returns and pulls Richard into another strange case. Richard's wife, daughter, and son-in-law arrive for a visit in the middle of all the drama with some interesting plans to shake up Richard's life. Plus we are introduced to way too many people connected to the cheese world. Sadly, all the characters felt flat and like they were just going through the motions. No one stood out to get me engaged in the story. Genie and Martin, the unique couple that brought laughs in the last book when Richard met them added nothing to the story this time. Their proclivities are no longer surprising or humorous. The mystery has multiple deaths in a small town but no one seems to be put out about them, it is all about the dreaded vegan cheese, male egos, other "investments", and someone who felt wronged. I feel this could have been an interesting mystery but the author kept trying to insert humor in the wrong places and he brought way too many characters into the story that weren't developed. I do like the premise of Richard and his B&B in Val de Follet. I love that he loves old movies that he escapes to watch several times throughout the story and that he names his chickens after legendary ladies of Hollywood. He and Valerie working together has worked so it should be able to work again. Death and Fromage was cheesy and not in a good way. I kept reading hoping that the qualities I enjoyed in the first book would appear, but sadly, they did not. In the last line of my review of Death and Croissants, I wrote "I don’t know how the author would top this story". He sure didn't do it in Death and Fromage. I know there are more books in this series so I hope this book was just a fluke. Your Escape Into A Good Book Travel Agent About the Author  Best-selling author Ian Moore is also a stand-up comedian and conference host in the UK, and husband, father of three boys, farmhand, chutney-maker, and Basil Fawlty impersonator in France. Since doing less stand-up, he’s stopped taking himself so seriously. Death and Croissants is the first book in the Follett Valley Mystery Series. Thanks to the publisher I have 1 paperback copy of Death and Fromage to give away! The contest is open to anyone over 18 years old with a US or Canadian mailing address. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Void where prohibited. You do not have to be a follower to enter but I hope you will find something you like here and become a follower. Followers Will Receive 2 Bonus Entries For Each Way They Follow. Plus 2 Bonus Entries For Following My Facebook Fan Page. Add this book to your WANT TO READ shelf on GoodReads for 3 Bonus Entries. Follow Poisoned Pen Press on Twitter/X for 2 Bonus Entries! Pin this giveaway to Pinterest for 3 Bonus Entries. If you share the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere you will receive 5 Bonus Entries For Each Link. The  Contest Will End on March 19, 2024, at 11:59 PM CST The Winner Will Be Chosen By Random.org The Winner Will Be Notified By Email and Will Be Posted Here In The Sidebar. Click Here For Entry Form  Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” Read the full article

[lleah]

Feeling stuck, numb, melancolic or lost movies

Melancholia

Festen

Drunk

La chasse

Boy Meet Girl (CHOC)

Pola X    

Les amants du pont-neuf (91)

La reine des pommes

La guerre est déclarée

Main dans la main

Marguerite et Julien

Le feu follet****

Un homme qui dort ***

Little Miss Sunshine

500 jours ensemble

Le monde de Charlie

Oslo 31 Aout

Deux

Libre et assoupi

Yes man

Démolition

Sick of myself **

Mariage Story

Chien de la casse

[vampywriter]

I haven't been writing lately and I miss it, but I've been reading, and I've been feeling very inspired in a "Wah that is so cool I want to do something like this too!" with Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth. This book is very long, and I do not exactly aim for something that long... but the way he paces the story is something I think I can use!

[theomachst]

Lee and Wilde for munday!

Munday Bookish Asks [ACCEPTING]

Lee: Favourite book?

UGH, THAT'S A TOUGH ONE. I think it's a toss up between Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (the original metaverse creator- everyone ripped this book off) because of the humor, insightful vision of the future (hyperinflation and anarcho-capitalism? Seems legit), and incredible characters. The focus on language/communication is a prevalent theme and plot device of the story and it's just a damned fun and wild read.

Second choice would probably be... Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth. It's a wonderful look into the civil war that occurred in England and Normandy that lead to a break down in law and order in society. It's a period political thriller, lots of courtly plots and also secular drama all tied together by extremely well-researched data on the emergence of Gothic architecture.

Wilde: Would you rather relax by reading a new book or by re-reading a well loved book?

I think I'd rather be introduced to something new (I say as I read yet ANOTHER Joe Abercrombie fantasy hardcover), but re-reading books I haven't thought about in years is a fun trip down memory lane. It's also interesting seeing all of the little details I may have missed as a younger reader due to impatience or limited attention span (I used to read 3 to 4 books at a time), new insights and interpretations that can be parsed out.

[aperiodofhistory]

23 books in 2023

I have seen this floating around on Tumblr, so I decided to join the party. There are so many books still left from 2022 and years before. Last year I read 25 books and I hope to read even more this year.

The book of imaginary beings by Jorge Luis Borges

Alamut by Vladimir Bartol

Donava by Claudio Magris

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

The middle ages; A graphic history by Eleanor Janega

The library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges

Babel by Rebecca F. Kuang

Legends & Lattes by Baldree Travis

Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World by Victoria Finlay

The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson

The salt path by Raynor Winn

The Island of missing trees by Elif Shafak

Ways of being by James Bridle

Book lovers by Emily Henry

The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by various authors

The memory of Babel book 3 by Christelle Dabos

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The return of the king by Tolkien

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

A game of thrones by Martin

Shakespearean: On Life & Language in Times of Disruption by Robert McCrum

The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher

Tagging @artmill-danaan for it's 23 books in 2023 list.

-----------

Other books I read in 2023:

Midnight library by Matt Haig

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Love on the brain by Ali Hazelwood

Fourth wing by Rebecca Yarros

Iron flame by Rebecca Yarros

Things we lost in the fire by Mariana Enríquez

[gwinverarrouz]

THE 2022 OBJECT HEAD ZINE IS OUT so here’s the piece I did for it! :D 

It’s the third time I’m making a piece for the zine, I was in the 2020 and 2018 editions as well~ Many many thanks to @objectheadzine for organising this!!

[the-coda-project]

The Coda Project | 1.02 - Inherit the Flames

After reuniting Tommy Collins with his family, Dean and Sam stop for the night in a town called Rifle.

They’re about two hours out of Blackwater Ridge, at a dumpy motel on the edge of a town called Rifle, and Dean’s been staring at the tree-print wallpaper for so long that he’s started detecting patterns in the branches.

A cheap plug-in air freshener in the bathroom has the whole place reeking of artificial pine. Between that and the walls, Dean’s starting to feel as though the wilderness they just barely managed to escape from has followed them here. Hell, maybe they didn’t escape. Maybe he’s still strung up in the mine; maybe the wendigo is still tossing him around like a ragdoll, scrambling his brains just enough that he’s dreaming of a motel that doesn’t exist.

Outside, an eighteen-wheeler passes on the I-70, close enough to make the windows rattle. Dean shifts in his bed as if a different position is going to be enough to distract him from how badly his ribs ache. His scratched-up neck feels raw as road rash.

No matter how hard he tries, sleep still feels so far out of the realm of possibility that he starts wondering how long he should lie here before he can cut his losses and call it.

But then Sam pipes up—“Hey, can I ask you something?”—from across the room, not bothering to check first if Dean’s awake, and immediately he wants to just keep feigning sleep until morning. He might have sought out his brother’s company only a couple of weeks ago, but right now, with the memory of Sam’s dismissive attitude toward helping the Collins family fresh in his mind, he doesn’t feel much like talking to him.

“Dean.”

He presses his eyes shut, ignoring the part of himself that’s berating him for being childish. Whether he can get to sleep or not, he’s too goddamn exhausted to talk about anything that isn’t life or death.

If he thought there was even a chance that his brother was angling to talk about Jessica, he’d be sitting up and listening in a heartbeat. But his tone is inquisitive, not hesitant, and Sam’s been so closed-lipped about his grief that Dean only knows how much her death is affecting him because of how loud and frequent his nightmares have been.

“Dean,” Sam says again, slightly louder. “I know you’re awake.”

With a huff, Dean tilts his head to squint at him across the gap between their lumpy mattresses. He grimaces as the motion pulls at the claw marks on his neck. He’ll be lucky if they don’t scar, but maybe it’d be better if they do. Maybe it’d help if he could see something visibly fucked up when he looks in the mirror. Maybe that would make it easier to explain away the revulsion he feels when he meets his own eyes.

“Dude, can it wait until after I get a solid four hours?”

Bullheaded as ever, Sam ignores the question, sitting up and tucking his shaggy hair back behind his ears. He looks twelve years old. Dean figures he always will, in some ways.

“Did something happen with Dad? Before he took off, I mean.”

“Like what?”

He’s not sure why he bothers asking Sam to clarify.

Maybe it’s just to buy himself some time; to give himself a second to come up with some version of the truth that doesn’t amount to Dad’s an overbearing, pigheaded prick, just like you’ve always said, and if I didn’t think he was in trouble right now I’d be glad to be rid of him for at least another month.

Even thinking it makes him guilty. Like he’s a bad son for being so angry with the guy. But he’s gotta believe that his actions are the important part here; proof that no matter how much he hates his dad sometimes, he still loves him enough to want to keep this family as connected as he can.

Still, a part of him is wondering if it’s really worth it anymore to keep up the act. If his clinging to John and clinging to Sam is just making things worse for all of them. Making John think he’ll put up with whatever he throws at him. Making Sam think he doesn’t care enough to take his side against John when he’s being unreasonable.

A part of him wonders—but it’s not a big enough part to win. The thought that something might have happened to him keeps him from letting the bile spill.

Because if they can’t find him—or worse, if they do find him but they’re too late—Dean doesn’t want Sam to have more reasons to be angry with a dead man than he’s already got.

It’s not as though Dean’s not used to keeping this shit locked down, anyway. There’ve been other disagreements, other fights, other circumstances over the years that he knows weren’t even close to being fair on him, but that’s just his life. It sucks, but it’s how it’s always been. No use complaining about it if it’s never gonna change, and after living this way for twenty-two of his twenty-six years, he sees no reason to consider change a possibility.

In the grand scheme of things, this particular incident doesn’t even make the top five list of awful things John’s put him through. The honors there go to that time with the shtriga, abandoning him at Sonny’s and then uprooting him as soon as he let himself get comfortable, the hunt he sent him on as a seventeenth birthday “present”, the night he told Sam not to bother coming back if he left for school, and the simple act of raising his kids into this shit in the first place.

This one might make it into the top ten, though. He hasn’t decided yet.

“Well,” Sam says, pulling him out of his thoughts. “You said you hadn’t heard from him in… what, three weeks before you got that message? Seems weird that it was so long, is all. You were on a hunt, he was on a hunt… it’s just weird that you weren’t checking in more often.”

Dean rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. There’s a water stain on the popcorn tile overhead that almost looks like a cactus if he looks at it the right way.

Christ, he could use some tequila right now. Maybe he can find them a case further south while they wait for some sign of John to turn up. Someplace warmer than the mountains in Colorado. Someplace where he can roll into town, waste a ghost, and then knock back a few drinks on a motel patio without having to talk to anyone at all.

“I mean, you usually check in more than that, right?” Sam goes on, and Dean sighs. He lifts one hand to rub at his brow.

“Yeah, usually.”

“So… what happened?”

“Nothing you gotta worry about,” he says, and immediately knows it was a mistake. Sam zeroes in on what Dean didn’t say just as intently as anyone else would focus on what he did.

Maybe he should go to law school after all—he’s already got the artful-conversational-trap shit down.

“You had a fight.”

“Sam—”

“No, c’mon Dean. You asked me to help you find him. If you had a fight before he left, that seems like it might be relevant.”

“It’s not.”

“So why won’t you just tell me?”

“It was nothing,” he insists. “Dad isn’t exactly Mr Congeniality, Sam. We fight all the time.”

“No, me and Dad fight all the time. The two of you are usually on the same page.”

Dean suppresses a snort and rolls onto his side, his back to Sam now as he looks at the narrow strip of moonlight edging past the thin motel curtains.

“You know I’ll just ask Dad when we find him if you don’t—“

“Jesus, Sam. It was nothing. Just a stupid disagreement about the hunt we were on. You know how he can get.”

“What was the hunt?”

“A witch in Louisiana. We had different ideas about what was going on, but it’s done, the witch is dead, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Okay?”

“That’s all?”

It’s not all.

Thanks to a botched salt-and-burn in Kentucky the previous month, things had already been tense well before they checked into a motel in Souffran, Louisiana. It only got worse when they ran into a woman Dean knew on their second day in town.

She’d been a civilian, last he’d seen her. Said she was a hunter now.

John had been ready to leave as soon as he found out she was already looking into it, but Dean wasn’t so eager.

It wasn’t that he thought Marisa was helpless—far from it, in fact. She’d been teaching capoeira when Dean met her in Texas a few months back. Had the thing terrorizing her students been corporeal, he has no doubt that she never would have needed any help in kicking its ass. But she was inexperienced as a hunter. Green as they come.

Dean didn’t love the idea of her taking on whatever was killing kids in Souffran alone.

When he told John as much, his dad just gave him a sly look, as if he thought the only reason Dean cared was because he was looking to get into Marisa’s pants. Dean wasn’t, for the record. As he saw it, it was his fault that she’d decided to try hunting on for size in the first place. He figured he owed it to her to back her up while she was still so new.

At first, all they’d had to go on was two kids who’d gone missing and turned up dead a week later without any visible injuries beyond a circular burn in the center of their chests; a girl named Lucy Parker who’d disappeared without a trace from her grandmother’s backyard yesterday but was yet to be found; and half a dozen wildly inconsistent reports of strange lights being seen in the swamp running along the north edge of town.

John had been convinced that they were dealing with a fi follet—a kind of malevolent will-‘o-the-wisp known to enact vengeance and drain the blood of children. When Dean disagreed with him, explaining to Marisa that the whole thing felt witchy to him, and pointing out that neither of the kids who’d died had shown any signs of blood loss, John got pigheaded and petty.

He called Dean arrogant. Accused him of acting like John was an idiot ever since they left Kentucky. Spat, “You spend one day showing a civvie the ropes and now you’re an expert, huh? Well go ahead, kid. Handle it on your own.”

And then he bailed.

Left Dean and Marisa to track down a missing eight year old on their own, and made Dean feel about three inches tall when he did it.

It took them almost a full two days to track the thing responsible. A witch, like Dean had thought, who’d been draining the kids of their life force in a desperate, last-ditch effort to stave off some sickness that was eating away at him. But the spell he’d been using was unstable and ineffective, and he’d been haggard and jittery when they found him in a rusty little shack out in the middle of nowhere.

Lucy Parker was right there with him in the room, suspended in mid-air by some unknown force as pale, flickering light leached from the center of her chest and down into a copper bowl on the floor beneath her. Her eyes were wide and rolled back to the whites. Her mouth was open as if she were screaming.

Marisa shot the witch point blank, right between the eyes, and Dean had darted forward to catch Lucy before she could hit the ground. He’d spent the entire time terrified that they were going to get to her too late; that she’d turn up dead before they could figure out where she’d been taken or how to deal with the thing that had taken her.

When she landed in his arms, he’d almost been sick when he felt how cold she was. How limp.

But after a second, she gasped, and coughed, and then she was clinging to him. Shaking.

He couldn’t put her down. She wouldn’t let Marisa take her.

He’d been forced leave the shack while Marisa dealt with the witch’s body and destroyed all the evidence before some local could stumble upon it, and when she’d emerged gray-faced and bloody half an hour later, with the crackle of fire just audible over the steady croak of frogs in the nearby water, he’d known that Marisa wasn’t going on any more hunts.

Lucy still refused to let go of him once they got back to the car, so he’d let Marisa drive them back to town, sitting in the back seat with the kid clinging to his side and sobbing snot into his jacket. He hadn’t even minded. If he didn’t think it would scare her more, he might have let himself cry out of sheer relief at finding her.

Late that night--once Lucy was back with her grandmother, and Marisa was on her way back to San Antonio, and Souffran was far enough in the rearview that it was safe to stop for the night--Dean had called John. He didn’t pick up.

Just sent Dean’s call straight to voicemail, then texted him coordinates for a poltergeist case near Mobile, Alabama an hour later. A few days after that, more coordinates directed him to the voodoo hunt in New Orleans.

So yeah, a witch in Louisiana is not all. Not by a long shot. He doesn’t tell Sam that, though. What would be the point?

“Yeah, that’s all,” he lies, still staring at the gap in the curtains. Another truck rumbles past, air brakes hissing as it slows to take the town exit. It’s so loud that he’s not sure that he’d manage to sleep here even if he wasn’t a headcase. “C’mon, I gotta crash, man.”

For a minute, it seems like Sam’s gonna keep at it. Like he’ll needle at Dean until he spills everything out onto the pilled carpet between them. How scared he is. How angry. How resentful. All the ugliest feelings that seem to be pressing up his throat and onto the back of his tongue like bile.

But he doesn’t. Just sighs, sounding as tired as Dean feels, and says, “Yeah, okay. Night, Dean.”

Dean grunts in reply, and Sam starts snoring after a half hour. Another half hour after that, his nightmares begin. Low, helpless murmurs of Jessica’s name and high-pitched whines of terror that stick in Dean’s chest like buckshot.

With dry eyes and an ever-present lump in his throat, Dean pushes out of bed and heads for the bathroom, taking the laptop as he goes.

If he’s lucky, he’ll find them a hunt before Sam wakes up. He can get them back on the road as soon as the sun rises. Keep them focused on something that isn’t the complete lack of leads on John.

If he’s not, maybe staying up will wear him out enough to sleep tomorrow. He’ll take what he can get.

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[anactorya]

What Doesn’t Kill You (2200 words, PG-13, hospitalization, grief/mourning, mild horror)

Written for the @sambuckylibrary Halloween bingo. Prompt: witching hour. Also on AO3.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sam’s heard it a hundred times, even believed it a few of them.

Right now, clutching the edges of his hospital chair tight enough to leave fingernail imprints in the scratchy plastic, watching Bucky waxen and still and breathing through a tube, he’s pretty sure it’s a bunch of bullshit. Because he’s fine, got a few scrapes and bruises and a knock on the head that didn’t even give him a concussion, nowhere near death’s door, and he feels weaker and more useless than he ever has. Worn out like an old dishtowel. You could hold him up to the light and see right through him.

He keeps thinking back to Steve. All the hours Sam spent sitting at his bedside after they found him half-drowned on the bank of the Potomac, waiting for him to wake up. He held it together pretty good back then, but this is different. The doctors keep saying shit like minimal brain activity and invasive life support and limits of enhanced healing, and Sam knows what that stuff means. Bucky isn’t going to wake up.

In a way, it’s more like the day Riley died, except the whole thing’s happening in slow motion and Sam gets a front row seat to every excruciating inch of that spiral towards the ground. Another person Sam loved, gone before he ever plucked up the courage to say how he felt, because he can fall backwards out of planes and leap off buildings and go toe-to-toe with alien megalomaniacs, but when it comes to letting someone else in on his heart, he’s a fucking coward.

So, yeah. Sam’s lost people before. Riley, his parents, Nat. Steve, who never even said a real goodbye. Karli, who could’ve been good if he’d gotten through to her a little earlier. But this might be the one that finally breaks him.

A hand finds his shoulder, startling him out of his reverie. It’s Rhodes, his face set in a carefully neutral expression that makes Sam want to say something shitty just to wipe it off.

He doesn’t. Rhodes has always been good to him, better than he has to be, and the guy knows what it’s like. He lost a best friend too.

Except, no, he doesn’t know, not really. Nobody does. Sam’s never told them.

“Sam,” Rhodes says, heavily, “you’ve been here for three days, and I hate to say it, but you’re starting to smell like it.”

Sam shakes his head, breathes into his hands.

“At least take a shower, sleep in an actual bed. The doctors–”

“The doctor told me to contact his family, make arrangements,” he hears himself say. His voice is very distant, very flat. “I’m his family.”

“Pepper has people,” Rhodes offers. “If you don’t wanna deal with that stuff, you don’t have to.”

A flash of anger burns in his chest–at the way everyone’s talking about this like a done deal, like it’s already over, and at the same time, at the thought that if he has to organise a, a fucking funeral for Bucky he might want to be hands-off about it, not make sure himself that everything gets done right. It’s a tangled, inchoate mess of feeling, none of which makes it out his mouth. His hands are shaking.

Rhodes squeezes his shoulder. “Go home, Sam. Be with your family.”

He leaves, and the only sound left in the room is Bucky’s mechanical breathing. The bruises on his face have faded away, healing where the damage inside of him couldn’t and leaving him looking unfairly normal. Like a still photograph of himself, except for all the damn equipment keeping him alive.

Sam got wake up you asshole and you’re not allowed to leave me here alone out of his system days ago, and now all he does is reach for Bucky’s hand and squeeze it. Bucky doesn’t squeeze back, doesn’t react at all, not even a flutter of an eyelid, and after a moment Sam lets his hand fall back to his side.

#

Louisiana means you grow up knowing magic’s real. Sam knew it long before he ever met Wanda or Strange, or saw an alien god opening portals to another world on the TV news. It isn’t some big mystery, and it’s probably the same anyplace you can head out on the water–or up a mountain or into the deeps of a forest–and not see a living soul for hours on end. It just is. You know there are things out there, strange and old and probably best left alone, so you avoid them unless you’re desperate.

Sam’s been desperate before, or thought he was. He got halfway out here after Riley died, before he remembered he preferred physics to folklore and turned the hell around.

Tonight, he isn’t so sure.

There’s a post sticking up from the bank at the edge of the water, probably the remnant of an old dock that’s long since crumbled into the water. Some people claim it’s the signpost of a drowned crossroad, though that doesn’t make a lick of sense geographically.

Either way, what the rumours say is it’s a place to get help when all human means have failed. Come out here in the hour after midnight–the witching hour, when the veil between worlds is thinnest. Take a photograph and a drop of your blood, bury them beside the post, and something will come out of the water and help you. For a price.

Now, Sam scrapes away damp earth with his bare hands, Carlos’s borrowed boat bobbing in the water behind him. Hurried out here so fast he forgot to bring tools. Lucky Carlos left his penknife in there.

The photograph is from Torres’s Polaroid phase. Ankara, he thinks, after a mission. Bucky’s usual scowl has slipped as he crouches to pet one of the ubiquitous street cats (It doesn’t matter if he’s got fleas, Sam, they can’t bite vibranium!) and Sam’s in the foreground, smiling way brighter than he’d realised at the time.

Sam bisects it carefully with the penknife, making sure no part of Bucky is visible on the section he presses into the ground, and slips the other half into his back pocket. Then he grits his teeth and draws the blade across his palm, watches the blood spatter his sunlit face.

After that, he waits.

It’s almost peaceful out here for a while, just the insect noises of the night and the plashing of the water and the sound of his own breathing. The minutes tick down toward the end of the witching hour, and he almost convinces himself this isn’t gonna work.

And then.

It’s like the air and the silence thicken, a veil drawn between him and the rest of the world. Each breath feels a little harder, the night heat heavy on his skin and a chill somewhere beneath it. A sound reaches his ears from the edge of the water. A quiet splash, and a drag of wet fabric, and a shape resolves itself out of the darkness.

She’s like the swamp made flesh. Water-weed green and dripping from head to toe, fingers slender and reaching as cypress roots, eyes feu-follet balls of light in the mossy mass of her face.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Her voice is a wet rattle like a dying breath, the sympathy in it startlingly out-of-place. “I could feel your pain miles away.”

Sam grits his teeth and draws himself to his feet. He forces himself to look her in the eyes, but there’s a wrongness about the light that burns there that makes it an effort, keeps making him want to lower his gaze. “Can you help him?” he demands. “Bring him back?”

“Help him?” says that voice. “Or help you?” Her hand comes to rest over his heart, skinny fingers splayed, and he tries not to flinch. “He isn’t the one suffering.”

His throat feels tight. “Does it matter?”

A sludgy croak of a sound. It takes Sam a moment to realise it’s her laugh. “Maybe not.” She regards him steadily. “But you’ve survived worse than this. You’d survive it again.”

It’s the kind of statement that ought to be encouraging, but the way she says it, it’s perfectly neutral, like she’s observing that there’s rain on the way, or it’s Tuesday.

The thing is, she’s right. Sam knows she is. He pulled himself back together, piece by painful piece, after Riley died. He learned to fly solo. He rebuilt his life after the Blip and talked himself around to trusting his own judgement after Steve waltzed off to the past. Now, he’s gotten used to having Bucky at his side, in his life, watching his six in the field and teasing him over dinner, but he could learn to live without it. Fly a little more carefully, trust Torres to have his back, spend more time with Sarah and the boys and the neighbours to fill the silence. He’d be almost whole again, eventually.

But godfuckingdammit, he is sick of being strong.

“Didn’t come out here for daily affirmations,” he says. “Can you help me or not?”

She inclines her head. “You can’t claim I talked you into this.”

“So you’ll do it?” He takes a deep breath. “What’s your price?”

She shrugs, trailing a hand down his arm and crouching to dig into the ground where he buried his photograph. It’s damp and dirt-stained when she unearths it, but she smiles anyway. “You’ll owe me. That’s all.”

“Owe you what?” But even as he asks, he knows the answer doesn’t matter. He’ll promise anything if it means a do-over, a chance to get it right this time, say all the things he should’ve said to Riley way back when, the things he should’ve said to Bucky months ago.

“I’ll know when I need it.” She tucks Sam’s photograph away somewhere in the folds of her garment. “Seal it with a kiss.”

Her mouth tastes like swamp water, brackish and bitter. Sam swallows down bile. And at the same time, he feels a creeping sensation like the water itself wrapping around him, twining roots around his heart, pulling him under like a gator’s death roll. He fights for breath, lungs filling up with it, tears springing to his eyes, darkness crowding his vision.

As abruptly as it crept up on him, it’s gone. He sucks in a huge breath, bending over, hands on his thighs, and when he comes back to himself, she’s gone.

#

By the time he gets back to town, he has three missed calls. One from the hospital, one from Rhodes, and one from–

His heart leaps in his chest. He’s on a plane to DC within the hour.

At the specialist treatment facility, nobody stops him to ask for ID or what he’s doing here. He finds Bucky sitting up in bed, drinking orange juice through a straw and looking bitchy about it. His face lights up like Christmas when Sam walks in, that wide unashamed smile, and Sam aches with realising how much he’s missed it.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he says.

Bucky shakes his head. “Rhodes told me the docs thought I was a goner,” he says. “Sent you home to plan my funeral. Don’t know that I could’ve stood being here, either.”

Sam exhales dizzily. “Yeah, well. Shoulda known better with your stubborn old ass. What’d you do, annoy the shit out of the Grim Reaper until he got sick of you?”

“Something like that. Guess I gotta thank that shitty knock-off serum for something, huh.” There’s an edge to his voice, like always when this stuff comes up, and Sam gets it, he does. Owing your life to something you hate is complicated.

He tries not to think about how much more complicated it would be if Bucky knew the truth.

“Hey,” he says instead, “don’t think you get to make a habit of this.” He tries to sound stern, but the tears pricking at his eyes make it hard. “Three days sitting on the crappy plastic chairs they got in here, I thought my ass was gonna fall off.”

Bucky smiles up at him, crooked, a little looser. “Now that’d be a real tragedy.”

Sam’s breath catches in his throat, heartbeat skittering. But shit, if he’s in the hole to some creepy-ass swamp goddess for who knows what kind of favour, or maybe his immortal soul, he’s damn well gonna make it count.

So he ignores the plastic chair and perches on the edge of the mattress, close enough to smell antiseptic and orange juice and feel Bucky’s warmth through his hospital gown.

(Roots wrapped around his heart, foul water on the back of his tongue, shapes moving in the depths.)

San leans in, telegraphing his intent, Bucky’s eyes fastened on his mouth. Presses their lips together, soft.

“About damn time.” Bucky sighs into the kiss, resting his forehead against Sam’s; and after a moment, Sam tastes only oranges.

[the-dragontamer115]

stop in and say hi!! 👋 safe space :)

~in progress list~

May start doing book reviews... and message me if you want my Goodreads or Wattpad handles!

Book fandoms: Harry Potter, Anne of green gables, ink heart, Percy Jackson (& heroes of Olympus & trials of Apollo), fable haven, the way of kings, the hunger games, divergent, the fault in our stars (and all John green), miss peregrine, Eleanor and park, shadow and bone, six of crows, globe of tarahabi, ken follet kingsbridge and century trilogies, game of thrones, the maze runner, chaos walking, scythe, land of stories, the lunar chronicles, I am #4, to kill a mockingbird, all Elizabeth Wein, all Kate Morton, where the Crawdads sing, all Khaled Hosseini, the clay girl, all Allistair MacLeod, the handmaids tale, darkest minds, all Rupi Kaur, Sherlock Holmes, the outsiders, all Kate DiCamillo,

My movie fandoms: little women 2019, love Simon, Enola Holmes, Dead Poets Society, Breakfast Club

my TV fandoms: umbrella academy, Anne with an E, Gilmore girls, shameless, friends, b99, the office, ted lasso, downtown abbey, Sherlock, stranger things, Bridgeton, fleabag, Dickinson, letterkenny & Shoresy, Wayne (2019),

My YouTube fandoms: Elena Osborne, girl in calico, fairyland cottage, the cottage fairy, ruby granger

Musical fandoms: Hamilton, come from away, wicked, little shop, phantom, dear Evan Hansen, legally blonde, Oklahoma, cinderella (Rogers & Hammerstein), the sound of music, grease, west side story, the colour purple, mamma Mia, all disney, Les misérables, into the woods

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My aesthetics: cottagecore, farmcore, fairiecore, witchcraft, paganism, fairycore, oceancore, piratecore, birates, farmyard animals, naturecore, forestcore, grandmacore, dark academia, academia, college core, light academia, strawberries, candles, strawberry shortcake, flowers, grass, trees, tea, plants

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Literature discussions: exodus, perfume, candide, animal farm, lord of the flies, things fall apart, if Beale street could talk, pygmalion, Macbeth, midsummer nights dream, Romeo and Juliet, so you want to talk about race, the crucible, catcher in the rye, how to be an Antiracist, between the world and me, the alchemist, slaughterhouse 5, the colour purple, the help, gone with the wind

Social justice stances: feminist, anti-capitalist/unconfirmed socialist, anti-racism & Black Lives Matter, love is love & LGBTQ2S+ equality, anti-ableism

Languages: English (Canadian and British), French (Acadian, France & Quebec), forgot most of my ASL, 10 words in German but would love to pick it back up, currently learning Scottish Gaelic

iPhone games: HayDay, iMessage games, getting Stardew Valley?

[dollycas]

Death and Croissants: A Novel by Ian Moore #Review #Giveaway @PPPress

Death and Croissants: A Novel Humorous Literary Fiction/Amateur Sleuth 1st in Series Setting - France Poisoned Pen Press (March 14, 2023) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1728270553 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1728270555 Kindle ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BGYQZ4K2

Meet Richard Ainsworth: an almost divorced part-time B&B owner, part-time film historian, and full-time self-deprecator. Hoping to continue running his B&B in the quiet Val de Follet, he has no idea of its hidden intrigue, from the mafia to swingers, to the peddling of (il)legal grape seeds. His quiet has flown the coop on a fateful afternoon with a bloody handprint, a missing guest, and one dead Ava Gardner (a beloved hen). Dollycas's Thoughts  This is the first book in the Follett Valley Mystery Series. It features Richard Ainsworth, a middle-aged Englishman living in France and running a small B&B as he goes about living his boring life and he is very happy doing just that. He has a vast knowledge of old Hollywood movies and watching them keeps him entertained. His wife has left him to find a more exciting life which shouldn't be too hard. He stays in touch with his 27-year-old daughter, Alicia, via FaceTime but the conversations are usually pretty short. He also has 3 chickens, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, and Joan Crawford.  Nothing much exciting happens in his life. Then an elderly guest disappears, leaving behind a pair of glasses and a bloody handprint and a beautiful Italian woman checks in with her dog named Passepartout for an open-ended stay. The woman, Valerie, takes one look at the handprint and easily persuades Richard to join her in investigating the elderly guest's disappearance. From that point on Richard's life is new longer his own and it is far from boring. Mostly dazed and confused he follows Valerie hither and yon to solve the case of the missing guest. Oh, my stars! Ian Moore puts his comedic talents to very good use in a tale that will have you laughing out loud and shaking your head as you read this twisted-up mystery. Laid-back Richard is a feckless individual that gets drawn into a web of mystery complete with the Italian Mafia and nudist swinger B&B owners as femme fatale Valérie d'Orçay drags him deeper and deeper into the world of crime. It is not long before Brigadier-Chef Principal Philippe Bonneval enters their lives along with Chez Bruno and Judge Grandchamps and they find they end up with more questions than answers. I also have to mention Richard's cleaning woman Madame Tablier. She is a hoot! All these characters are cleverly created and intriguing in their own right. Mr. Moore wraps his characters in a madcap mystery with so many secrets, twists, and turns I totally lost count and just hung on tight and enjoyed the ride. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the French countryside and the village of Vauchelles and every other place Richard and Valerie traveled. The people and the food and drink were well described as well. When I started the book I wasn't sure if it was going to be my "cup of tea", and truth be told I had seen some reviews that almost kept me from reading it, but I couldn't stop reading,  Death and Croissants had it all. A lighthearted mystery, quirky characters, laugh-out-loud funny, and unbelievably crazy situations, along with a few chickens.  I escaped right into this story and I was delightfully entertained. Now I hope we don't have to wait too long for the series to continue but I don't know how the author would top this story.

About the Author  Best-Selling author Ian Moore is also a stand-up comedian and conference host in the UK, and husband, father of three boys, farmhand, chutney-maker, and Basil Fawlty impersonator in France. Since doing less stand-up, he's stopped taking himself so seriously. Death and Croissants is the first book in the Follett Valley Mystery Series.

Thanks to the publisher I have 1 copy to give away! The contest is open to anyone over 18 years old with a US or Canadian mailing address. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Void where prohibited. You do not have to be a follower to enter but I hope you will find something you like here and become a follower. Followers Will Receive 2 Bonus Entries For Each Way They Follow. Plus 2 Bonus Entries For Following My Facebook Fan Page. Add this book to your WANT TO READ shelf on GoodReads for 3 Bonus Entries. Follow Poisoned Pen Press on Twitter for 2 Bonus Entries! Pin this giveaway to Pinterest for 3 Bonus Entries. If you share the giveaway on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere you will receive 5 Bonus Entries For Each Link. The  Contest Will End April 13, 2023, at 11:59 PM CST The Winner Will Be Chosen By Random.org The Winner Will Be Notified By Email and Will Be Posted Here In The Sidebar. Click Here For Entry Form  Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”                                      Read the full article