#So by definition they should love Charles more than life itself... So this plan could work right?

[levana-stark]

Little sneak peek:

[free-pool-trash]

disappointment - peter maximoff

i’ve yet again lost my ability to write :D anyway here you go lovelies <3 idek know what this is tbh i just had to post something (it’s not good im sorry I seriously hate this omg anyway im going)

word count: 2k

warnings: senseless angst, WandaVision spoilers, swearing

comments are appreciated <3

masterlist

“Are you nervous about the mission tomorrow? ‘Cus I am.” Peter’s voice sounded beside your ear. His head was tucked between your neck and shoulder while his chest was pressed flush against your back, his arms wound tightly around your middle.

With a tired yawn, you rubbed your boyfriend’s forearm soothingly. It was late and you were half asleep but you’d been dating Peter long enough to know that he could never sleep if there was something on his mind. “You’re not even going on the mission tomorrow, baby. Why’re you nervous?” You lazily played with his fingers, stopping them from anxiously drumming against your stomach, as you slurred your words sleepily.

Peter let out a heavy sigh and hid his face against your neck, pecking the skin softly with his lips as he did, “I’m not going, but you are. M’worried about you…”

His confession caused your eyes to flutter open.

Peter Maximoff had the biggest heart of anyone you’ve ever met. He loved hard but he worried harder. So when you heard the slight shake in his raspy voice, you twisted in his grip to face him.

His lips were turned downwards, as were his eyes as he avoided your gaze.

“Pete…” You whispered, moving your arms to wrap around his neck. “I’m gonna be okay. Raven and Charles will be with me the whole time, we’ll be in and out. I promise.” You pressed your lips against his quickly before pulling away to look at him, his brown eyes finally meeting yours, his hands holding you tightly against him still.

“I just don’t get why Charles won’t let me come.” He complained with a childish pout.

You let out a quiet laugh before tugging Peter’s head down slightly so his forehead could rest against yours, “We really need this mutant on our side, Pete. Charles insisted that only X-Men with the “powers of persuasion” are going.” You explained, making air quotes despite the fact he couldn’t see them.

With another light kiss you continued, “And hey, what’s the worst that can happen?”

Peter scoffed at that, scrunching his nose up in distaste, “He could blast the only woman I’ve ever loved into a different dimension.” He grumbled, rubbing his nose against yours.

His worry wasn’t exactly misplaced. There’d been a group of mutants on a warpath lately, one of the group slightly friendlier than the others, albeit, still highly malicious. The man in question had the ability to open portals to other realities, and he’d been using said ability to get rid of anyone who stood in his way.

Charles thought he’d be an asset, Raven thought he should be taken out of the picture and you thought the man was more than just a lackey, like he let on.

So Peter, as much as he liked to overthink, was definitely onto something. There was a huge possibility that, if anyone was going to get blasted into another reality on tomorrow’s mission, it was probably going to be you.

Your mutation was mind control, you could make anyone do anything just by saying the words. Charles’ tactic was to try persuade the mutant and if that failed, yourself and Raven would be brought in to manipulate his decision.

“That won’t happen.” You tried to reassure him, letting your hands run through his hair but Peter remained on edge.

“But what if-“ He started but you cut him off with a gentle tug on his silver hair.

“No buts. I’m gonna go on this mission, it’s gonna be a pain in the ass but it’s gonna be fine. I’m going to come home with not even a scratch on me. Then I’ll find you and you’ll kiss me and welcome me home like you always do.” You rattled off the usual post-mission routine with a fond smile across your lips.

Peter let out a defeated sigh, a smile of his own beginning to form as you placed lazy kisses against his jaw.

“Fine. I believe you. But if you don’t come back I’m gonna be seriously pissed.” He jostled your body, chuckling happily when you let out an airy giggle against his neck. “Don’t go getting any ideas, sweetheart. Even going to a different reality won’t get rid of me.”

You continued placing short kisses against his neck and jaw until you worked your way back up to his pink lips, you ghosted over them with your own, only barely pressing them down and pulling a whine from Peter when you pulled away to look at him with a teasing grin.

“So say your lovely girlfriend does get sent to an alternate reality… would you follow?” Within a second of your question, Peter had flipped your positions so that your back was against the mattress and the man in question was hovering on top of you with a cheeky grin.

“Sweet cheeks, I’d follow you anywhere.” He told you and you giggled at the stupid pet name before pulling him down to kiss you.

Your eyes fluttering shut as you murmured against his lips, “I love you, idiot.”

Softly, Peter tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I love you too.

*

It was safe to say that the mission was a complete failure. As you’d thought, the mutant Charles wanted to befriend turned out to have plans of his own, one of those plans being to throw you head first into a different dimension, apparently.

As much as it pained you to admit; Peter was right.

Fuck, he was probably going out of his mind with worry. You kicked yourself internally, not believing that you’d actually been careless enough to get caught out by the burly mutant. Not that it was entirely your fault, now that you thought about it actually, it was pretty much entirely Charles’ fault for doing his usual; not listening to you. You warned him it wouldn’t work, yet he sent you in anyway. If he didn’t find a way to get you home soon you’d… well, you weren’t really sure what you’d do. Probably find Peter and tell him you love him then go kick Charles’ ass.

Dreams of giving your professor the biggest telling off of his life came to a crashing halt when you took in your new surroundings. It seemed you’d been regurgated out in the middle of some run down town, if you didn’t know any better you would’ve thought you were still in your own reality, but unfortunately, you did know better.

There was something wrong, or if not already, something was about to go very wrong in the little town. You could feel it. Someone very powerful was about to lose control of themselves. You couldn’t exactly tell the future but you had something of a disaster radar that told you when shit was about to hit the fan.

With nothing else to do, you decided to follow the feeling as it led you to a red car.

Noticing a woman in the driver’s seat, you approached cautiously. When she noticed you walking towards her she rolled down the passenger side window, looking at you with a questioning gaze.

“Sorry to intrude,” You told her genuinely, “It’s just I thought that maybe someone needed help.” You bet around the bush slightly, you knew it was the redhead in front of you that needed help but it wasn’t in your nature to use your powers to demand someone to spill their souls to you.

When her eyes lit up red, you didn’t startle. The feeling of someone poking around your thoughts wasn’t a new sensation to you, Charles seldom knew when to mind his own business, so the fact that the woman before you was reading your mind hardly phased you.

“I’ve got abilities too.” You told her with a small smile before going on, her eyes back to normal and her form more relaxed.

She nodded in understanding, “You’re very far from home, no?” Her tone was sympathetic and you let out a humourless laugh.

“That might be an understatement. Pretty morbid thinking I’ll probably never find my way home.” It was only when you spoke the words that it really hit you that the chances of returning home were slim to none. You’d probably never see the love of your life again, you’d probably have to wave goodbye to any possibility of having a future with your speedster.

Catching onto your miserable train of thought, Wanda leaned over and opened the passenger door for you, motioning for you to get in. Gratefully, you took the stranger up on her offer.

“I’ve lost everything too.” She confessed and you weren’t sure why but you felt the need to comfort her, once again following your instincts, you squeezed her hand and to your surprise, she reciprocated the action.

“My name is Wanda, by the way.” She introduced herself and you responded with a kind smile.

“I’m Y/n. It’s nice to meet you.”

With a deep breath, Wanda squeezed your hand one last time, then turned to face you. “I have to do something. Will you wait here until I come back? I believe we could be of some help to each other.”

“Of course. Take your time, I’ll wait for as long as you need.” You promised her. Watching as she took another shaky breath and got out of the car and made her way towards the foundation of a house.

After about a minute, Wanda fell to her knees. And then you saw nothing but scarlet.

*

Life in WestView was good. Sure, there were some holes in your memory, but other than that, things were good.

You had a nice house, right next to Wanda’s, your hair seemed to style itself most of the time and the nightmares that plagued you were hardly ever your own. Things were fine.

Being blissfully ignorant was good enough for you for a number of days, until a familiar face caused all of your hopes of living happily unaware to crumble to the ground.

You’d been over at Wanda and Visions house for dinner when he’d knocked on the door. Standing on Wanda’s front porch was the one and only, Peter Maximoff. Your Peter. The person you loved the most and your ticket home.

The second his brown eyes locked on yours you’d been so sure. You would’ve bet your life that the person playing Wanda’s twin was Peter.

Perhaps your fatal flaw was wishful thinking as the hope of your love coming to rescue you, however romantic, was naive.

It hit you like a freight train, that realisation. You were truly and completely alone, for when WestView fell it took all of your hope with it.

He wasn’t Peter and he never had been. Sure, he had his face, his body, his personality and even his superspeed… but he wasn’t him.

When you’d uncovered his true identity with Monica, a part of you shattered on the spot. A familiar, decolate feeling washed over you in the moment and you weren’t sure if you’d even bother to carry on.

It was the kind of gut wrenching feeling of being so disappointed to the point where it physically hurt. It was the pain of truly accepting that he hadn’t actually followed you into another reality, that maybe your love wasn’t strong enough to warrent a visit to another reality and it was the pain of knowing that his life would go on without you.

The X-Men would encourage him to move on and, you had a fair idea of how it would go, he’d fight them relentlessly but eventually he’d cave, he’d let Jean set him up on a date and then he’d go from there, however reluctantly.

And you? You’d simply be a name lost in time. The one they think about, from time to time. You’d be spared nothing more than, “I wonder how she’s doing’ or ‘whatever happened to that girl? Remember the one?”, but life would go on without you.

That sting, you knew, would never leave you. As hope was dangerous and unreliable and painful you made yourself a promise, you wouldn’t hold out for a knight in shining armour to come rescue you. All you could do now was find a way to live. By yourself.

PART 2

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

Toki’s Psychological State Through the Seasons

Toki is by far for me personally the most interesting member of Dethklok; I know to some degree he’s deemed as a potentially over hyped character by fans and even the show itself, but there’s countless reasons why people cling onto that character, and they’re good reasons. Even if said reasons just come down to “I think he’s neat.” that’s valid.

For me I am so fascinated with his character development, personality, and the varied chunks of background information we get about him throughout the series. A big part of this character is that when you look at him in season one compared to season four he is very different or at least he appears to be much different. Season one does establish that Toki does have a childish personality, his bedroom looks more like a room for a kid than one for a guy in his 20s. Season one establishes those basic facts about him that do heavily carry out through the show, but also increase as the show goes on.

Toki goes from immature but not overly immature to....a complete fucking wreck by the finale of season four (before Doomstar) and the reason for it is simple; it’s trauma.

Toki starts to act differently in season one after the Dethfamily episode; he spends practically that entire episode in a catatonic state, his parents always looming nearby like figures of danger and doom. After this we do get to him being bitter about being seen as immature and seen as the kid of the band (despite the fact he was barely 16 when he joined Dethklok) and when a charity informs him that a dying girl wants to meet him he turns into a complete prick. He finally comes out of that when he sees a video the kid made of herself singing a song about death and hatred, with that scene we see a small flashback of Toki’s childhood; him about the little girl’s age standing out in the snow staring up at his parents looking confused and a moment later he’s being smacked across the face. 

We could already gather beforehand when we found out he came from a very devout religious sect outside of Lillehammer that his childhood was sketchy, plus how he locked up when around his parents, but seeing the flashback of him being hit as a little boy.....Answers the obvious question of “did they beat him?”

Season one is the least eventful of the seasons. Season two is when shit begins changing drastically.

Season two Toki receives a call to inform him that his father has cancer and is on his death bed, the family and the church wants him to return to Norway to see his father. He acts completely fine about this initially, the phone conversation and the way he announces his father’s terminal illness to the band is as if somebody just asked to borrow his car. When it gets close to time to actually go and when they are in Norway it’s different though; he becomes anxious and clearly uncomfortable, in Norway he stays in town mostly, stalling around places he went to as a kid and a teenager before he ran off to America. 

He does handle his father’s dying well once he finally convinces himself to go inside his house and see him then follow through with his father’s dying request to carry him up to his old childhood home (which goes wrong because his friend’s are dicks.) 

I am not going to go into personal detail at all and my situation was nothing like Toki’s (it’s incredibly rare to hear situations like that anymore), but Toki handling his father’s passing freakishly well kind of was a red flag for me, because I know from my own experiences that when you find out something complicated like a terminal illness or the death of your abusive parent theres’ a chance you may respond way too calmly to it, and then later down the line days or months or years later something will trigger a big reaction to it. Which is what happens.

After handling his dad’s death well we get the most iconic scene involving Toki at that point and honestly still the most iconic; he beats a man to death with his bare hands. The thing that triggers this is a hallucinated image of a rabbit, an animal he associates both with his father and his childhood, the image of it triggers him to fly into an insanely feral blind rage taking it out on a guy who had been annoying him all night. Toki has always throughout the entire series shown signs of being a tad violent, but never THAT bad. Sure he shot down a plane and had accidentally caused a death or twenty (the whole band is, it’s part of the sacrifices to the Gods deal) but we had never seen him before or after that moment beat somebody to death. That is new and it came from a place of pent up....shit. Shit he never worked through and even after that continued to not work through.

Because after this we lead into him worsening further; he begins drinking. A lot. The band consist of dudes with addiction issues, mainly alcohol, but Toki never seemed to drink quite as much as them until after he went feral on that straight edge guy. 

Toki deals with his childhood trauma in several ways:

He drinks. A lot.

He focuses on fantasy and daydreams to keep himself from focusing on his past.

He spends a lot of time with Dr. Rockso who takes advantage of his kindness often, he also spends gross amounts of money bailing his clown buddy out of jail. Constantly.

He occasionally gets violent, but never to the point of manslaughter.

Seasons three and four are when we get fully introduced to Toki acting like a kid more than a guy in his 20s and it makes sense. Toki didn’t have a childhood; we learn that his parents essentially made him into a slave at a young age having him do pointless “chores” like sweeping snow during a storm, carrying stacks of wood much too heavy for a small child, etc. and when he failed to work quickly enough or failed a task they punished him. They punished him by locking him in a shed, they punished him by chaining him up like an animal, they punished him by smacking him, by beating him with a bull whip, and worst of all (who knew it could get worse) they would force him to stay for long periods of times in a deep hole dug into the ground. A hole where he hid a clown doll made of twigs and straw, the only friend he had as a little kid.

From all that we can gather through the show he didn’t exactly have a social life of any kind until his teens, the older he became the braver I think he became, and that was responded to with worse violence from his parents. I think the statement in season one about a vision of father killing son wasn’t totally off, I think if Toki had never run away from Norway that his father would have murdered him. I think his parents knew somehow that he isn’t entirely human, they knew he was something else, and I do think his parents had plans to kill him before he could become “too powerful”. 

That aside though.....Once we the audience as well as his friends find out far more details about his horrifying childhood Toki changes. A lot. He’d already been immature and a tad bit off but he regresses further after that, more prone to depression and outbursts, clinginess, and a need to feel like he’s loved by pretty much anybody.

This is a dude who is about my age that came to the horrid realization that any person or animal he loves will die because that’s his “gift”, the gift of death. He works his ass off to repress and rationalize a brutally nightmarish childhood, and the guys he’s in a band with who he loves and sees as his family....are dicks. We know that when he joined Dethklok before they got famous that they were all close, but when they began becoming popular and became immensely wealthy the others became more focused on self indulgence and power, less focused on this still a child who desperately just wanted a family.

I think a key factor with Toki being the way he is comes down to the band’s “no caring” rule. A rule that only existed because of Magnus. Toki is the baby in a group of people who have known each other for a good while, people who came to an agreement to not give a shit about each other for a reason they never explained to him because it’s too painful for them to think about. I think he always tried to live by that rule of not caring, he tried to bury all the shit wrong with himself the best that he could but he was never good at it. It’s also clear they all care about each other and they definitely care about Toki; Nathan and Skwisgaar often being the most protective of him. 

In season four aka the season where the show becomes less of a comedy and more of a drama with stunning animation. Toki is immensely more immature and awkward, he’s clingy with the band especially where Skwisgaar is regarded. Near the end of season four he’s completely fucked up; he splits his time between Rockso (his comfort object) and Magnus (a father figure to replace Nathan) in the dinner episode which has so much going on in it. So much. Toki is at his lowest point in the series; he shows up late, drunk as fucking hell, shirtless, and covered in bruises and cuts. Rockso is with him and when Charles tries to tell him Rockso shouldn’t be there Toki goes into a full fucking anxiety attack until Charles tells him it’s fine to have the clown there. Toki’s heavily dependent on Rockso by that point; his found family is quickly falling to shit. God knows what kind of shit Magnus might have been feeding him about the band at that point. 

Toki’s entire thing from day one/the pilot of the series is that he just wants a family. When he feels like he doesn’t belong in the one that he found and was taken in by he searches for family in other places, when he can’t handle the memories of his childhood he spirals hard. I understand that the guys didn’t really know how to handle it after they heard about Toki’s childhood so I can’t fault them completely for just.....shoving him off onto Rockso after that, but I still think they should have tried to be there for him more so, more directly. I think an outlet that isn’t a drug addled clown might have helped him in some way, I think if when he’d been a teenager if one of them had found out about his upbringing and just pointed out “that isn’t okay, at all.” then things might have panned out differently. 

Mental regression isn’t uncommon when it comes down to victims of trauma caused by extreme abuse. Especially considering his trauma all occurred basically from the get go; he was a child slave, the closest I would guess he ever got to having a childhood when he was a kid was seeing other kids childhoods. Going into town and seeing kids playing, sneaking into birthday parties just to be around other kids his age, etc. and he definitely was childish as a teenager, but I think he tried to bury that side of himself when his bandmates started teasing him or pointing out how unmetal it all is.....But then a douche bag journalist brought his parents to America, a little girl died, his abusive father died horribly (as he should) in front of him, he beat a man to death (allegedly), etc. 

He spent a lot of years away from all the trauma and the death and the bull shit then suddenly it started piling on top of him again and his escapism was fantasy, clinging onto a junkie clown, partaking in childish hobbies.....because why not? 

Each member of the band suffered some messed up shit when they were kids and it shows in different ways, this is Toki’s way of dealing with it....or not. I’m not entirely sure what his psychological state would be post Doomstar; the way he bounces back from immense trauma makes me think that he would be okay given some time and that’s a safe assumption to make, especially now that his bandmates/family will be there for him the way he needs them to be.

I want to tag @theidiotwiththepaintedface who hopefully will enjoy this painfully long deep dive into a character’s psychology lol.

[bookswitchcraftandcats]

Rainy Days (Part 4 of 4)

Link to AO3 -----  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

Summary: Emma and Julian are in charge of the London Institute for a week and find a box that once belonged to Cordelia Carstairs and contains poems written to her by James Herondale. The story switches between Emma and Julian and oneshots about things that happened in Jordelia's life to inspire the poems.

Sorry if the formatting for the poems is messed up, I tried.

Thank you all so much for reading this story, I really enjoyed writing it <3

---------------------------------------------------------------------

“Daisies must have been her favorite flower or something” Emma says as they look around the room. Looking now that was a very obvious statement. Even some of the blankets neatly folded on the end of the bed had daisies embroidered on them. The wall paper was lined with a daisy print and on the box itself was intricately carved flowers. There are also some very old flowers that were carefully pressed and put in the box next to the poems. They were afraid to touch them for fear that they would fall apart. 

“Yeah, maybe I will do a painting of her when we go home,” Julian says thoughtfully, “I should include some daisies if I do.” 

“I’m sure it will be great,” Emma says thinking of his other paintings. He has done so many great pieces that if he was a mundane she was sure his work would be in an art gallery. The institute itself had turned into a sort of gallery these days, some people visited just to see the murals Julian painted on the walls.

They both were laying back on the bed and Jules had his arm around Emma. This was a nice day off after the busy day they had yesterday, they had run into some demons by the river and were outnumbered. Luckily, Emma is the best shadowhunter of their generation. Her wielding Cortana was definitely a scene he wanted to paint when he got home. The grace of her movements when she was fighting was like a dance, he could never quite capture the movement with a set of acrylics. 

He checked his watch, they had plenty of time before Jem and Tessa would get here. 

“We should read another poem,” he suggested. “They are kind of interesting to see what they said to each other 100 years ago.”

“Ok, I will,” she says, reaching into the box again for another poem. There was one titled Rainy Days.

“That seems fitting for today,” Julian says, glancing out the window. Emma reads the poem aloud.

Rainy Days

Outside the sky is dark and gray, The rain falls in puddles on the ground, We are in the library by the fireplace, Listening as it down pours all afternoon.

The heat of the flames warms the room, You by my side warms my heart. Even on the darkest of dreary days, You light up everything by being there.

Now you are asleep next to me, While I write about our day. I'm starting to think that I quite like, These warm and rainy days.

It was another rainy spring day in London, the snow had just melted and it was still very cold out. You could hear the wind blowing all around outside, it was quite the stormy day. None of the merry thieves or their family members would be venturing out today, they too were curled up by a fire, just like Cordelia and James. 

James now looked at the sleeping Cordelia on his lap, she looked so at peace. Her soft red hair was undone and free from it’s unusual style, he combed his fingers gently through it. He thought about the day they had had. Today was very good weather for writing. With a notebook in his hand he began to come up with ideas. 

------

“Good morning,” Cordelia says, sitting next to James at the kitchen table. She poured a cup of tea and looked out the window, it was raining very hard and forming puddles in the street. 

“Good morning” James responds, reaching for some breakfast, “Looks like any plans for today are cancelled”

“I think it is far too cold to go adventuring in London,” Cordelia says with a shiver, it was almost spring but they still had many cold days ahead of them. 

They finished their breakfast talking about rain and what crazy things their friends have been up to lately. Christopher had been working on a new invention, Mathew caused some trouble at the Hell Ruelle, nothing much different than usual. They then decided to head upstairs to the study where they could sit by the warm fire and play a game of chess. 

“Shâm-Mât” Cordelia says, winning her 12th consecutive game in a row. James just laughs as they reset the board for another game. There isn’t much to do and he is still holding on to hope that he can win at least one round.

“You're too good at this,” James says with a smirk. She has always been brilliant at battle strategy, she could outsmart any opponent she faced. He looked at her with a smile as she planned her next move, her face was full of concentration. He could feel her plotting his demise. 

They played chess until it was time for lunch, the sky was still gray with rain clouds. They then decided to venture to the library to look for a book to read on this cold and rainy day. James walked over to put more wood on the fire while Cordelia went to look for a book. They settled on the couch by the fire, Cordelia leaning her head against James’s shoulder while he read from an old volume of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. There were a lot of Dickens novels in the library mostly from James’s parents' fascination with the author. Will and Tessa were both staying in Wales for a week and were not at the institute, it was just James and Cordelia. 

She began to fall asleep and he smiled as he see the book on the night stand. He grabbed his notebook and began to write. 

---------

So now James was still sitting on the couch trying to write a poem about the letter but he realized the poem wasn’t what he should be writing about, he spent the whole day with Cordelia and she was more fierce and interesting than any storm. 

______________________________

“That was very fitting for today,” Emma says, putting the poems back in the box. She looks at the time quickly, Jem and Tessa would be there soon. 

“It must rain here a lot,” Julian says, “I miss the beach” They laugh, they would be back in LA soon enough to deal with the chaos that ensues there. 

They had just renovated the institute more and had been busy painting more murals on the walls. They also updated their computer and Jules got a laptop which made some things easier and more organized. 

They hear footsteps coming down the hall and Tessa looks into the room. 

“I see you found James and Cordelia’s room,” she says with a smile. 

“I haven’t been here in years,” Jem says looking around the room. Tessa was looking at the box in Emma’s hands. 

“I see you found Cordelia’s jewelry box,” Tessa smiles as though she is remembering her, “She is an ancestor of yours, she was a Carstairs before she married my son.” 

“James, right? Did he write poetry?” Emma asks. Tessa looked a bit confused.

“Yes, he did. But I thought I had all his notebooks saved at my house, did you find one?” 

“We didn’t find a whole notebook but we did find a few poems he wrote to Cordelia.” Jules says. Emma opens the box and pulls out the pieces of paper. 

“I always wondered where the ripped out pages went, I always assumed they were just rough drafts that got tossed away.” She paused for a moment, “did you two happen to find a book called The Beautiful Cordelia. I have been looking for it for a while now and I know Cordelia had it.”

Emma pointed over to the shelf they had originally found the box on. Tessa pulled out the leather bound book that had The Beautiful Cordelia across the top in fancy calligraphy and a small “by Lucie Herondale” on the bottom. 

“Thank you,” Tessa said, holding the book. Jem was looking at something across the room. 

“Hey, did some of our stuff get moved up here too,” he asked, picking up a stele. 

“I think so, did you find something?” Tessa asks. 

“This was Will’s stele,” He says, handing it to her and looking slightly incredulous. “How much of our stuff is still here?” Tessa laughs.

“Leave some for the other generations, we don’t want to fill our house with 100 years worth of clutter.” 

They all turn to leave and go get something to eat. They would never forget the poems they found, the remnants of someone else's rainy day, of another time period far away yet so near to them. While the day was dreary, dark, and wet, never let the weather depict whether there is a storm cloud raining on your day off.

_____________________________

Cordelia looks at the poems one more time with a smile before placing them in her new jewelry box. It had been an anniversary gift from James. It is wooden with her name and intricate little daisies carved onto it. The box truly is beautiful. It had been raining so she took the opportunity to organize a bit but now the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. 

James walked over and kissed her on the cheek while she latched the box shut. 

“ We were invited to a picnic in the park, just the usual group. Do you want to go?” He asks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

“That sounds lovely,” she says, standing up from the bed and carrying the box over to the shelf. She puts it between The Beautiful Cordelia and a book of persian mythology her mother had given her. She slipped on her shoes and took James’s hand. They walked off happy as can be, standing in the sun for a change instead of being stuck inside on those rainy days.

Tag list: @fortheloveofthecarstairs  @thehotfaeriethreesome  @shadowrunner2000  @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @surrounded-by-exquisite-clutter @gabtapia  @niathesanctuary-bolastair-kanej

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the tag list :)

[irishmacguirefucker]

Home

Or alternatively, Charles Smith loves his new family and would follow arthur anywhere

(4 pages of writing brought 2 u by me blacking out and typing a lot. TW: Hunting, non-descriptive skinning/harvesting of animals, Wolves)

Charles may be a newer member of the gang, but he was there long enough to be just as loyal as any other.

He found a family in these people, brothers and sisters and friends. He would stick with them until the end. An end that seemed to be rapidly approaching.

Charles Smith wouldn't consider himself much of an intellectual, but it doesn't take much to see that the gang life is dying out. As he and Arthur got close, they spoke of it a lot.

Arthur's new focus on treasure hunting was really confusing. For the second time, Arthur asked Charles if they could take a detour on a hunting trip to go find some treasure stash or another that he heard about.

They weren’t exactly in a rush to get back, so Charles didn't exactly have a reason to decline. And Dutch was in a foul mood lately anyway, so maybe coming back with a little treasure might help with that.

So he agreed and followed Arthur and his weird map, all the way up assfuck nowhere Amberino, AKA Coterra Springs.

The whole way there, Arthur seemed off. Neither of them are exactly talkative men, but this wasn't their usual comfortable silence. Arthur barely stopped, not taking the time to comment on landmarks or interesting animals, they even passed a herd of paints and he barely glanced at them.

Getting there was somewhat of a blessing, Arthur seemed happy they had made such good time and immediately wanted to try and find the treasure. Charles had to be the one to pull him back and point out the obvious signs of a wolf pack living nearby.

This seemed to ring a bell in Arthur’s mind, and he pulled out his journal, flipping to the back where he had various maps tucked away. Pulling out his Legendary Animals map, he showed it to Charles. Should they encounter wolves today, they would be dealing with some dangerous ones.

They made a plan, Charles would keep an eye out for movement along the treeline (as well as pull a distracted Arthur away from the geysers), and Arthur would search for the next piece of the Jack Hall Gang's treasure.

(Charles had broken the silence on the way there to ask. “Jack Hall Treasure...as in the gang? What were they doing hiding maps and treasure?”

Arthur responded lowly, not wanting any passersby to hear what they were out for. “Apparently ‘fore they died out, they robbed some banks out in California, ran out here to escape the law. Buried the gold they stole an’ wrote out the maps to find it again, but Hall got his gang killed and arrested with a bad robbery ‘fore they could go back for the money.”

“Huh, some story. Song don’t quite hold up, specially with Sean and Uncle singing it.” Arthur chuckled at that, “Most songs don’t with ‘em.” The break in heavy silence was nice, but short lived as Arthur set back to studying the map.)

Arthur seemed to be getting more and more frustrated with the doodles on the map, trying to compare it to his regular map, and his surroundings. Charles said nothing, focusing on what looked to be shifting forms in the trees, wondering if it was elk or wolves.

By the time he realized it was wolves, it was too late. They had herded the men and their steeds without the knowledge of either. Just as Charles was about to quietly get Arthur’s attention, the man spotted what he was looking for.

“Charles, I think I found the damned treasure!” He said loudly, and pulled out a rattling bag of coins, effectively scaring the nervous horses into rearing and setting off the wolves.

It was a close call, the wolf of legend was massive and more intelligent than the average wolf. The pack was bigger than either of them had seen. A few of them ran off after the fleeing horses and the men could only hope they would be alright as they dealt with the majority of the pack and the biggest of them all.

The wolves seemed to run at them in waves of 3 or 4, always outnumbering the men and getting mighty close to biting distance before they were shot down. It was almost sad, having to take out such a large number of mighty animals, but it was the wolves or them.

Just when the pack seemed to be thinning out enough that they might start to retreat, the massive legendary wolf made his move. He took down Arthur from behind, and it was pure luck that Charles landed a shot through its massive head with his rifle.

The moment the legendary wolf went down, the rest of the wolves seemed to realize they would not be getting their prey and retreated. Several wolves ran back from the direction of the horses and based on the lack of blood covering their muzzles, they were unsuccessful in their pursuit.

Before Charles could even be relieved by the horse's success, Arthur groaned from beneath the massive animal. Charles quickly fell to his knees and dragged the wolf's carcass off Arthur, briefly marvelling at its weight.

Arthur groaned again in relief and heavily pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Christ, I'm too old to be getting knocked down like that. Creature outta be nothin but muscle, taking me down like that.”

Charles laughed, half in relief and half at Arthurs commentary. “He was huge, I’ll give you that. He was likely nearing 150 pounds, very large for a wolf. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just outta breath. Caught me off guard.”

Charles looked at the bag of gold coins sitting on the ground a few feet away. “Was it worth your treasure?”

Arthur seemed to remember it and quickly reached for the bag, apparently not wanting to get up yet. “Suppose we’re gonna find out.” Inside the bag was another map, that Arthur sighed at, but tucked aside to look at after.

He quickly counted the money. “15 dollars, not quite a damn treasure Hall.”

Charles was confused. They had been finding stashes of money like this for a while and as far as he knew, Dutch was just putting it away and it had barely been spent on anything. “It's not a bad haul Arthur, especially not for us. Why are you so focused on treasure lately? We could earn more if we went back to robbery.”

Not that robbery seemed such a good idea right now, after the mess that chased them out of Valentine. But it would certainly get them a larger haul than chasing ambiguous treasure from a years-old map like pirates.

Arthur was silent for a while, what he was contemplating, Charles had no idea. He seemed to be thinking mighty hard on it though. Finally, he sighed deeply and seemed to make up his mind about something.

“It’s quite the story if you wanna hear it. It's a pretty big secret too, not that I've ever been worried ‘bout you running your mouth or nothin.”

Charles smiled warmly at his friend, attempting to put him at ease. “You don't have to tell me Arthur, but you never have to worry about me sharing secrets with anyone. And we have nothing but time, we’ll be skinning these wolves for a while anyway.”

Arthur sighed before dragging himself to his feet. “Suppose you’re right. Let’s start getting these dogs together and I’ll tell you all about Hosea’s plan.”

Arthur did just that. He told the story from the beginning, every detail he remembered as they carefully skinned the wolves and salvaged what meat they could. Partway through, the horses had found their way back, a little antsy but no worse for wear.

By the time Arthur had explained the entire plan, night had fallen and they were finding a spot to camp. (Away from the spot where they left the stripped carcasses, lest they be attacked by a damn bear in their sleep.)

Charles had a lot of thoughts. The plan itself seemed rather solid and safe, definitely a result of Hosea being the one to make it. He would definitely need some time to think about it before he could make any real comments on it. For now, he could only say; “Certainly explains why Dutch is so irritable lately.”

Arthur laughed loudly, and Charles smiled. Arthur seemed so excited about this plan, happier than he had seemed in the whole of their friendship.

“Yeah, he weren't a fan of our lack of faith...Do you think you’ll go, Charles?”

Now that was quite the question. Such a life wasn’t anything Charles ever thought of as a possibility for himself, though he expects that how most everyone feels about it.

He thought about his family. Not so much his father, but his poor mother. She had always wanted a peaceful life for her family, and he can’t help but think she would have been thrilled at the idea of her son finding a ‘proper’ home after just wandering since he was 13. The lone wolf was never a title she would have wanted for him.

He also thought of the rest of his gang, his new family. He would never say it to her, but he had always hoped that one day Abigail would take her baby and find herself a safer home, he never wanted that boy to end up an orphan like him and many of the other members. Them and everyone else in the gang could be safe and fed and happy, and in a way, he felt he deserved to be a part of it. After being a lone wolf so long, he had earned a home to share with his family.

“I think I will. I’d like to see what it's like to have a real home. I haven't had that since my mother was taken.” He hadn't meant to be so open when he started speaking, but he supposed that Arthur is his closest friend now, so why not.

Arthur seemed surprised at his open words, but it shifted to happiness. “You know, I think that's somethin’ I’d like to try as well.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a while as the fire got properly warm, and Charles couldn't help but notice that this silence felt so different from Arthur’s silence on the way here.

And on their way home, Arthur stopped to study the herd of American paint horses, and Charles knew all was well once more.

[abybweisse]

Victoria and John, a contract (part one)

I’m pretty much convinced that not only is John Brown not human (demon or angel would be my best guess), but he has made a contract with Queen Victoria.

We’ve talked about the Albert hand puppet quite a bit, and I truly do believe it serves the same purpose as what Sebastian offered to our earl in ch138 — make the contractor feel as though a dead loved-one has returned.

Our earl didn’t fall for such an offer, but I think Victoria found it all too tempting to pass up. Sure, she still dresses in the black of mourning, talks about Albert in past-tense, and then breaks down crying. However, as soon as the puppet appears, she genuinely behaves as though she thinks Albert is there with her.

This is not simply a puppet; it’s a mind control device, a powerful tool to manipulate her feelings, thoughts, and actions. Sometimes John even uses that deadpan Albert voice to give her ideas and plans of action... not just words of encouragement... as if they are coming from Albert himself. We could simply see it as a parody of real life, since Queen Victoria claimed John Brown was a medium who allowed her to communicate with her dead husband, but I think it’s something way more sinister in the Kuroverse.

However, ch21 shows us, right off the bat, that whatever charm/power John has over her with the puppet, it’s not perfect. As I pointed out above, sometimes she realizes Albert is dead and gone. Historically, Victoria stopped making such frequent public appearances after Albert’s death because of her deep mourning. Here, it’s because John/“Albert” suggests she stay home and out of the public’s eye. John realizes her behavior when she’s upset about Albert, as well as her reaction to the puppet, must take a toll on her reputation. If this says anything about the rest of the contract terms, it’s a poorly-made contract.

But, what else would be in the contract, and what might have been left out? I want to look at the wishes and terms spelled out in ch138 for a possible framework, since a contract between John and Victoria would likely parallel the contract between Sebastian and our earl.

I don’t think it’s simply for Albert’s “return”, since there should be some finiteness to fulfilling the contract. Perhaps it’s to make her think Albert has returned for the remainder of her natural lifespan, and then — upon her deathbed — John gets his “payment”, whether it be her soul or something else. Or it could be until she has achieved some other goal. Or John didn’t make it clear the contract had to have a distinct end and couldn’t be extended.... More on that later.

If there is another wish for John to fulfill? That’s a bit harder to guess. Some specified level of power and influence? Some achievement for the legacy she leaves behind? Revenge against some foe (real or imagined)? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Ch138 might actually give us clues to Victoria’s desires, and not just the one about Albert.

Victoria had been queen since she was 18, she married her beloved around the same time, and she lives in luxury. But her reign saw the new expansion into foreign lands, the wealth raked in by controlling serval industries abroad, and the exotic goods and other treasures that this brought to her and to the British markets... for those who could afford them. Ch21 might essentially confirm this, since John (while being stepped on by the horse) starts listing off her achievements since she’s been queen. The increased power and reach of the nation, her influences on fashion and popular culture, etc. Maybe we should be getting the idea that these grand merits, like creating the “empire where the sun never sets”, are actually achievements made possible only because of John, just like our earl’s successes are largely due to Sebastian’s abilities. It does read similar to ch2’s initial assessment of our earl’s business successes. It also makes sense when paired with Undertaker saying he doesn’t like her, won’t accept “the queen’s coin”, and complains how she sits in comfort and safety while others do her dirty work. Maybe all of her accomplishments are not her own.... More on that later, too! 😏

Some guesses for what might have been included... and left out... of the terms. Let’s go with three wishes, just like our earl was offered. Looking at ch138, we see this about our earl’s first wish:

Wish 1. Speaking the truth.

John must be able to lie to her, simply because she might not have been thinking clearly enough at the time to demand otherwise. Sebastian acted like our earl’s demand to always speak the truth is somewhat of a novelty; he was taken by surprise. We know John can lie to her because he does so every time he says Albert is there with her. That entire wish about Albert is fulfilled by lies.

Wish 2. Obeying orders.

Sebastian is being particularly sneaky here to put an extra condition on the terms... after the terms had been agreed upon. This gives him the ability to not follow every order he is given, unless “I command you” is stated. And to accomplish assigned tasks without following very specified ways of doing so. That’s how he was able to “interrogate” Beast for information about the signet ring... instead of going to the two places our earl told him to go. And he was able to say he completed the task, without admitting he never went there... and without lying, because of how he got our earl to rephrase his questions.

John likely has to pretend he’s a normal human, but also like Sebastian, he’s going to pull off some weird shit that’s definitely not normal for humans... and witnesses will just have to remain willingly ignorant to the oddities... much like Finny realizing he had brought Sebastian iris bulbs, not plants full-grown and in bloom.

Sebastian also makes it clear there need to be limits to the contract terms; there cannot be extensions or alterations to the contract terms by way of orders.

How about with Victoria and John? It seems to me that John must have a lot of leeway, when it comes to obeying orders — how he accomplishes them... if he really obeys at all. He might even be able to obey orders in a way that doesn’t always achieve the queen’s desired results... if he doesn’t want to. It’s difficult to see how this part of the contract works (or fails), since we don’t see much of what they say and do.

What we do see, however, is Victoria making hints about what she wants... and sometimes we see John taking note of it. It makes me feel as though the terms could be as vague as “fulfill my desires” or “make my wishes come true”. If so, we run into the issue of contract limitations again. Where does that end? John really might have accidentally made an open-ended contract....

Sebastian is smart to state that he will not accept orders to give more wishes, extend the contract, or make further changes to the terms. Yes, he is trying to take advantage of the kid, but the kid is also hoping to take advantage of the demon. Each one wants as much as they can get from the contract, just like Sebastian says is to be expected. Which brings us to the third wish.

Wish 3. Protection and no betrayal.

Sebastian threw in the “no betrayal” part as a freebie, since it’s a personal policy of his to not make multiple contracts. He specifies this is a fourth wish that he’s allowing only because it’s an automatic, to him. Our earl set aside the offer to be kept safe from illness; he didn’t think the asthma would return. Besides... imagine how this story would have gone if our earl was stuck inside Sebastian’s body? Very differently, indeed. Entirely different.

I see a setup here for John to be one of those greedy, gluttonous sorts. Charles Grey would be in awe? 😆 I have no idea what sorts of protections John might have offered Victoria, or what she might have agreed to. However, I suspect that 1) the terms might be changeable, so we could later see John do weird things to protect her and 2) John might have another contract with someone else, so betrayal is quite possible. I’d even say it’s likely. With the terms of the contract as loose as I suspect, John could be like Ash/Angela without even changing names, appearances, or personalities.

TL/DR: If John Brown is a demon or angel in a contract with Victoria:

One goal or wish is to make her think Albert has returned.

Other goals seem to be about her achievements and influence as queen. (However, it might even include the crown itself and her marriage.)

He can lie to her, since he lies every time he says Albert is there.

He has to make her wishes come true, but he has a lot of wiggle room on how to accomplish that. And the wishes might not be properly limited.

He probably has to protect her as she achieves whatever goals she has set.

However, he might betray her. Particularly if he’s stuck in a contract that has no well-defined end (other than her natural death).

It’s pretty wild to think about, but it’s entirely possible that Queen Victoria (in the Kuroverse) is a fraud of some kind. What if she made the contract when she was young... and the crown, her beloved husband, her life of luxury... are all just wishes being granted for her? Considering that:

Her birth year is around the time Undertaker rebels and tries to destroy the reaper organization’s HQ... ohh? 🤔

She ascends to the throne the year that Molly G. dies. Her coronation takes place the following year. Hmm. 🧐

And she was, historically, quite attracted to Albert and pursud him to be her husband. As queen, she had to propose to him. Sure, his feelings were mutual IRL, but... maybe not in the Kuroverse? Uh. 🤨

More to come later!

[merrythievesfanboy]

Lucie Herondale's 17th birthday! Takes place after the events of Chain of Thorns,which hopefully will have a happy ending!

Enjoy the reading!

Summer,1904,Idris

At the Herondale Manor in Idris,Lucie could barely pretend not to be excited,as she stood in front of the mirror.

Today was her birthday,her 17th birthday to be exact. Birthdays were quite important for the Herondales,since they knew how short a life could be.

Most of Lucie's birthdays were in London though,as her father,Will,would take her to the Portal,they would appear at the gates of the Institute,and inside Lucie would find her family and friends in a surprise party.

A surprise party she obviously knew about,so she usually spends a good amount of time rehearsing surprised faces.

That is what she was doing now,in the bathroom of her room. It wouldn't take long for Tessa to show up and congratulate her,and also tell her to speed it up.

Lucie wasn't really in the mood to speed it up today though,she was trying to make the perfect surprised face today,after all,she had a certain Blackthorn to impress.

James would make fun of her,no doubt. Luckily,he would be with Daisy so he wasn't going to pay attention to Lucie on that matter.

-Lucie! Are you done there darling!? Your father wants you to come and have breakfast with us!-Tessa said.

Lucie opened the door,she was still wearing the pink nightgown Grace had given her,as a way to thank her for helping bring Jesse back.

Lucie accepted the gift with quite some joy,since it wasn't like Grace to give anyone gifts. And the nightgown was very beautiful.

-I just need to get dressed Mam! I won't take too long!-Lucie said,as Tessa pulled her to a hug.

-My darling Lucie! Happy birthday my sweet girl! Seventeen years! You are almost an adult now!-Tessa said,nearly crying.

-Mam! Please save your tears for a more impactful moment of today!-Said Lucie,truth was,she was almost crying as well.

-Well get dressed then! And please hurry!-Tessa said,and left the room.

Lucie decided to wear a pink dress,one she used when Will asked for a portrait of her to be made. It was one of her favorite dresses.

She went downstairs and to the dining room,where her parents and James were having breakfast.

-The birthday girl finally decided to show up! Happy birthday sister!-James said,kissing Lucie's forehead.

-Thank you Jamie.-Lucie said,smiling,as Will approached her and hugged her.

-I cannot believe my Lulu is turning seventeen. I feel as if i ought to cry the entire day.-Will said,grinning.

-Papa! Enough with that silly nickname! It is embarassing!-Lucie said.

-And what are parents for if not to embarass their children?-Will asked,and they all laughed.

Those were really happy times. But the day was just beginning.

Later

Lucie and James were walking around the Herondale Manor. Truth was,apparently James had found a mysterious lake nearby that they never knew about. But Lucie was not buying it.

-That sounds so untruth! As a writer,i should have been the one to find this lake,so i could describe it in The Beautiful Cordelia!-Lucie said.

James shook his head.

-Try to forget about novels today,Luce. You are almost eighteen now. Do you have any idea which Institute you would like to visit?-James asked.

Lucie had already thought about that. She was waiting to see if the Clave would approve of Jesse's visit to the New York Institute. He wasn't seventeen anymore,obviously.

He had two ages,but since he did not had the chance before,he was considering visiting now.

And if the Clave approved,she would choose the New York Institute to got with him.

-Not really. I don't really want to think about that right now. Much can happen in a year. I am sure i will be certain of my answer in my next birthday.-Lucie said.

James nodded.

-Seems fair. I am sure we will have lots of fun today. By the way,i know that you were rehearsing today.-James said,and smiled.

Lucie felt like punching him in the stomach,which would be easy,since she was much shorter than him.

-My surprise faces are the best! And i was under the impression you would keep my secret! I think it pleases Papa and Mam if they think that i am really surprised.-Lucie said.

-I am sure they probably know that you pretend. But now is not the time to think about that. Let's go back to the Manor.-James said.

Lucie nodded,and so they did.

As Lucie opened the great doors of the Herondale Manor,she shrieked when she heard a very loud "Surprise" shout.

The living room was full of people,her parents,her family and all her friends.

She covered her mouth with her hands,and turned her attention to James,who was standing beside her,with a smile on his face.

-This was definitely your best surprise face,Luce.-He said.

Minutes Later

-I cannot believe it! This was your idea Daisy?-Lucie asked,looking at her Parabatai,that was laughing.

-James told me that usually your father would bring you to the Institute,so i thought it would be good if we changed the routine once in a while.-Said Cordelia.

-That was brilliant! For the first time,i was truly surprised!-Lucie said.

-And we had help from Magnus to make all this food appear here. I was afraid the cake would loose itself in somekind of random realm.-Matthew said.

Lucie looked at him. It has been almost an entire year since Matthew was sobber. It was good to see that he was being able to overcome his problems.

-Good thing it didn't! A birthday without a cake is quite anticlimactic!-Said Lucie.

She stared at the cake. It was quite big,a combination of strawberry and chocolate,Lucie could only hope that her mother would eat as well. She knew Tessa wasn't very fond of chocolate.

-You better go greet the others Lucie,and allow them to congratulate you.-James said.

Lucie nodded. James was right,she had to do that,it would be a good opportunity to talk to Jesse too.

Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Henry were the first to come and talk to her. Charlotte could barely go to the other birthdays she had,but since they were in Idris,it made it a lot easier for her to show up.

Charles came after,Lucie still had a hard time being around Charles. Some of his actions and words made Lucie seriously doubt if he would ever be a decent Consul.

-Lucie dear! Happy birthday! This is quite the party you are having!-Said Anna,and with her was Ariadne.

-Congratulations! I really loved your dress Lucie!-Ariadne said.

-Thank you! I'm so glad you two could come! How is your father dealing with the both of you being together?-Lucie asked.

Ariadne shrugged.

-I'm not really sure. He says it is okay,but always avoids the conversation.-Ariadne said.

-Don't let her fool you Ari! She is only trying to get a description out of you! She is a bloody writer!-Anna said,and Lucie laughed.

Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Cecily came to her,apparently Alexander was playing with his red rubber ball somewhere else.

-Lucie my beautiful niece! You will soon become an adult Shadowhunter! And then we will start our plan to take control of the Clave! Only women will lead!-Cecily said,hugging Lucie.

-That seems quite a difficult plan!-Lucie said.

-Don't listen to her Luce! We all know that you will become a great Shadowhunter and a great writer as well! I'm still waiting to have my own copy of The Beautiful Cordelia.-Gabriel said.

-Sorry Uncle Gabriel,but i'm afraid you will have to wait for it's publication.-Lucie said.

Eugenia,Sophie and Gideon also congratulated her,and it reminded Lucie of Barbara,and how she was always nice and cheerful. Lucie missed her cousin.

Lucie began to feel a little tired since she had been standing for quite a while now. She sat beside Thomas.

-Thank goodness you are not standing Tom! I wouldn't like to make you come all the way down just to hug me!-Lucie said.

Thomas smiled and kissed her forehead.

-It would be for a good reason. I am so glad to see that you are enjoying the party. When Cordelia had the idea of having the party at the Manor,i wasn't really sure if you would like it or not. Since we can literally see the ruins of the Blackthorn Manor from here.-Thomas said.

It was true. James had accidentally burned the Blackthorn Manor to the ground,and it was possible to see the outcome of that.

Lucie wasn't sure if seeing that would be awful for Grace and Jesse,but they didn't seemed to mind.

-Have you heard the big news Lucie? Christopher and Grace now have an understanding!-Thomas said.

Lucie would literally have screamed if the Manor were not so full.

She stood up and went to Grace's direction. It was Impossible not to recognize Grace,always in her ivory dresses.

-Grace! By the Angel,is it really true?-Lucie asked.

-Happy birthday Lucie. I hope you won't mind my presence here?-Grace asked.

-I'm glad that you came Grace. Our friendship has a special meaning to me.-Said Lucie.

Grace nodded.

-To me as well. I will always be grateful to you,for you helped me get my brother back. I will never forget your kindness.-Grace said.

-I am just as happy that Jesse was able to return. But do tell me! Is it truth? You and my cousin Christopher have an understanding?-Lucie asked.

Grace laughed. That rarely happened.

-It is true. Almost every men i met in my life thought that i was like all the other girls. That i only wished for emotions and feelings. But Christopher is different. He doesn't try to give me what he thinks i want. He listens to me,he makes me laugh with all that science of his. Being with him makes me feel lighter.-Grace said,smiling.

-That is adorable! I wish all the best for the both of you!-Lucie said.

-Gracie,might we have this dance? I swear to you i have been practicing the waltz with my mother and i will not step on your toes! Oh,hello Lucie! Happy birthday!-Christopher said,almost too fast.

-Of course,Chris. Excuse me,Lucie. Before i forget,my brother is in the garden,he wishes to speak to you,in private.-Grace said.

Lucie did not waste a second,she went straight to the garden of the Herondale Manor.

It was a sunny day in Idris,and the big trees in the garden created long shadows on the ground.

Jesse was near the tree,the shadow protecting him from the sun. It has been quite some time since he had returned from the dead,but he was still getting used to the light.

When he saw Lucie,a smile appeared on his handsome face.

-Finally,the Secret Princess Lucie has found time to talk to the Good Old Ghost Boy.-Jesse said.

Lucie put her hands on her hips.

-In her birthdays,Secret Princess Lucie can barely escape the attention of the Cruel Prince James,of the Demon Pox King William,and of the Shape-Shifter Queen Theresa.-Lucie said.

Jesse's eyes widened.

-Your father is Demon Pox King?-He asked,astonished.

Lucie only giggled.

-Perhaps Good Old Ghost Boy should have come to her rescue?-Jesse asked.

Lucie shook her head.

-Absolutely not! I am no damsel in distress i assure you! Grace said that you wanted to talk to me,so here i am! You may talk to me now!-Lucie said.

-How lucky i am,to get your attention for myself when everyone seems desperate to be with you.-Jesse said.

-That only happens in my birthdays. My attention will be on you,mostly.-Lucie said.

Jesse smiled. It did seemed like he had something important to say.

-So how has it been with the Clave? Will they allow you to go to the New York Institute?-Lucie asked.

-Charlotte Fairchild have talked to me when i arrived for your party. As the Consul,she said that i have permission. But it can't be this year. Since i was brought back,the Silent Brothers want to keep their closed eyes on me for a little more time. I can only visit next year.-Said Jesse.

Lucie beamed.

-That is absolutely perfect Jesse! How lucky of you!-Lucie said.

Jesse raised his eyebrows.

-Why am i lucky?-He asked.

-Well,i do become eighteen years old next year. In other words,i could go with you,if you are willing to wait.-Lucie said.

Jesse laughed.

-Well,it seems i really am lucky. Nothing would please me more than having your company.-Jesse said.

-It is settled then! You and i in New York,next year!-Said Lucie.

Jesse took her hands.

-Have you taken a look at your gifts? I'm sure you will love most of them. Perhaps all of them,if you are in a good day.-Jesse said.

Lucie was rather curious. What was his gift for her?

-What have you gotten me,Jesse? Will i like it? Or will i hate it?-Lucie asked.

-We shall see. If you don't mind,i would like to give you your gift right now.-Jesse said.

-Very well then. Please do.-She said.

Jesse leaned in close to her,and his lips touched hers,smooth and nicely.

They were holding hands as they kissed. Jesse tasted like honey and something more sweet than that. It was a taste she could only associate to him.

Their lips parted,and he smiled. That was probably the best gift Lucie had ever gotten.

-Happy birthday Lucie.-Jesse said.

[that-cunning-mind]

The Untitled Chuckie Sputterspark Origin Fanfic Pt.1

(Guess who wrote a fanfic for the first time in years lmao...

Read below if you want to see my take on how @based-ducks​ and me thought up of Quackervolt fankid Chuckie Sputterspark’s origin...somewhat)

As the crisp, evening air descended upon the moonlit shadows of St. Canard, a particular purplish protector of the poor found himself investigating a case of deductive interest. A case of shadowy intrigue and mystery. A case that would decide the future of St. Canard in its epic battle between good and evil.

A case of price gouging tickets at a pizza arcade.  

“Twenty dollars for an adult ticket and twelve for kids over ten years old? Why these crooked capitalist crooks, thinking they can force parents to come in here and charge them extra! I should just quit SHUSH and open up one of these places myself! I’ll be richer than Glomgold!” Part-time superhero and full-time parent Drake Mallard grumbled under his breath as he handed over his card to the tired teenager manning the cashier. His daughter, Gosalyn, was busy putting on the paper bracelets on herself and her other father, Launchpad McQuack. 

“It can’t be that profitable,” Gosalyn said, “I mean, they’re taking out all of their animatronics! Can you imagine Pepper Panda’s Pizza Pagoda without Pepper Panda and the Pie Gang? I tell ya, there’s gonna be rioting in the streets after tonight! RIOTS!!!” Launchpad, not expecting the outburst, startled and ripped his flimsy paper bracelet. 

“Eheheh,” he laughed nervously, “you guys got any tape or...”

“Ten dollars to replace any missing or broken bracelets,” said the cashier. 

Launchpad turned to his husband with big puppy-dog eyes, a method that tended to work about 99% of the time. Drake grumbled some more as he took a solitary bill out of his wallet. 

“If it wasn’t for our case,” Drake whispered harshly as they walked inside the pizza eatery, “I’d leave you outside in the car.” 

“Aww,” Launchpad pouted, “but you know how much I love coming here! Plus, I know how much the animatronics scare you, DW.”

Drake scoffed. “Scared? The daring duck detective isn’t scared of any cheaply-made robot! Drakey Mallard, on the other hand, never recovered from that time he thought Cheddar Charles was going to bite him at Elmo Sputterspark’s tenth birthday party.” As he spoke, a run down animatronic of a child-sized rat in blue overalls and a yellow shirt sprang to life, scaring Drake into Launchpad’s arms. Gosalyn just rolled her eyes and sighed. 

A crackly speaker from the animatronic known as Cheddar Charles started. “Hey kids! Pepper Panda and Pie Gang’s Nighttime Spectacular is about to start in ten minutes! Grab a seat now!”

“I’ll go grab us a table,” yelled Gosalyn as she ran to a booth. 

Launchpad let Drake climb off of him, then sniffed and wiped away a tear. “I can’t believe it, after forty years the Pie Gang is going away for good!”

“Launchpad, the case? Remember the case?” asked Drake. 

“Buh-“

“We’re here to stakeout the joint and lie in wait for that nefarious thief, Dr. Anna Matronic! Dishonorably discharged from the Imagineers, that raving robotics rascal will be using the Pie Gang’s farewell show to unveil her deadly creations. Little does she know that I, Darkwing Duck, will be waiting for her! Now, any questions?”

“Uhh, can we order the extra-large with cheese?” 

Drake simply sighed as he moved to sit down on the sticky seat. 

“Gee DW, what makes you think she’ll show up with all these people around?” asked Launchpad. 

“Because, as a former Imagineer, she’ll no doubt want to watch such a historic show one last time. Although, I can’t imagine what kind of psyche an adult must have to want to watch Pepper Panda and the Pie Gang willingly.” 

———

“Come on Megsy! I’m not gonna miss Pepper Panda and the Pie Gang’s final performance because of you!” 

Little did Darkwing Duck know that behind the scenes, his two mortal enemies Quackerjack and Megavolt would be attempting to watch the show as well. However, they were taking a break from their usual crimes and attempting to have their monthly date night, per Quackerjack’s insistence on coming to see the last hurrah of the animatronics he grew up watching. Megavolt, meanwhile, was trying to carry leftover pizza boxes up the scaffolding over the stage as he and Quackerjack prepared to take their seats. 

“You know, I think I kinda remember coming here as a kid,” said Megavolt. Quackerjack was surprised to hear this, as it was rare for Megavolt to remember anything before his fateful transformation into Megavolt. He pressed on with a simple, “Oh?”, demonstrating a rare moment of selfless interest. 

“Yeah,” Megavolt continued, “I think I had a birthday party here once. Mom forced me to invite everyone in my class, so I spent most of the day playing with the animatronics. I even got Cheddar Charles to almost bite this one duck, Jake. Or was it Lake...” Megavolt trailed off as his train of thought was derailed yet again.

“You must have been quite the kid growing up, a public nuisance in the making,” laughed Quackerjack. He looked off to the side in an almost wistful manner. “Though if I was a parent, I wouldn’t force you to hang out with any snot-nosed brats that stuck their faces into an arcade game!” Megavolt twitched, deciding not to tell Quackerjack that he definitely remembered sticking his face into arcade games as a kid, one of the happiest moments in an otherwise bullied childhood. 

But more importantly, Megavolt picked up on Quackerjack’s wistful tone and cursed himself internally for bringing up his childhood. “Come on Quacky,” he whined, “we’ve been through this already. We can’t just-“ 

“Well, so what?” interrupted Quackerjack, “It’s just not fair! Lots of kids have parents that go to jail!” 

“Yeah, but their parents aren’t criminal masterminds guilty of trespassing, theft, vandalism, and littering!” 

Quackerjack pouted, “You throw a banana peel on the ground one time...”

“I’m serious Quacky,” Megavolt frowned, “we can’t just bring a kid into the super-villain business! Do you want to be like Dorkwing and have a pipsqueak get in our way?” 

“Need I remind you,” hissed Quackerjack, “that his pipsqueak is fully capable of handling herself?”

“Ugh,” shuddered Megavolt, “don’t. Remind. Me. I still have the bruise marks from the last hostage attempt...”

“See?! The two of us could totally take care of a kid! All a kid really needs is food, a loving home, a pocket grenade...,” Quackerjack droned on, almost forgetting the point of his argument. Megavolt had to snap him back to reality if he was ever going to finish this conversation. 

“Hey don’t get me wrong, it’d be nice to have some kids that aren’t just the poor, enslaved bulbs of St. Canard,” said Megavolt. “But, don’t tell me you aren’t the tiniest bit worried of screwing the kid up?” At this, Quackerjack pursed his lips and went uncharacteristically still, not daring to look at Megavolt in the eye.  

“Besides,” Megavolt continued, “what if we go to jail without it? How would a normal kid protect itself? What if F.O.W.L or Negaduck found out about them and-“

“Oh alright fine! You’ve made your point, gloomy pants!” Megavolt shut his mouth quickly, turning to get a slice of week-old pizza and hopefully move on from this talk. Quackerjack pulled out his beloved Mr. Banana Brain, in an effort to calm himself before his temper took over. “Some date night this is! I’ve seen better chemistry in a high school science lab!” 

“Butt out, banana boy!” Megavolt grumbled. “Great, could this date get any worse?” 

The explosion that rocked the building answered that question. 

———

The duck family ducked under their table as dust filled the room, sending screaming families in a panic. A giant hole had opened up in front of the stage, and from it rose a goose in a purple trench-coat honking maliciously. This was-

“Dr. Matronic!” Drake shielded Gosalyn behind himself as Dr. Matronic climbed onto the stage. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she cried out, “children of all ages! To all who come to this happy place, Pepper Panda’s Pizza Pagoda is now MY Pizza Pagoda! Which means the animatronics are now mine to keep! Mwahonkhonkhonk!”

Gosalyn stuck out her tongue in disgust. “Ugh, you call that an evil laugh? A baby would sound more menacing than that!” 

“Never mind that now,” said Drake, “we’ve got to get these people out of here! Launchpad, Gosalyn, evacuate the building while I keep her busy.” With a plan of action in place, the daring duck of mystery went off to find a broom closet to change in. Unfortunately, it was a very tight squeeze, as Drake tried to change and avoid the brooms at the same time. 

“This night couldn’t possibly get worse...,” muttered Drake. 

——

“Megavolt! That stupid doctor just ruined our date night!” Quackerjack’s temper had come out in full force, and now he was ready to let it all out. 

“The nerve of some people! I mean, who breaks into a pizza parlor and steals the animatronics??” Megavolt yelled. Sparks started to fly as he locked onto the target of his ire, who was beginning to disassemble the helpless robots. “D’ohhh! Well at least it can’t get any worse.”

The blue smoke cloud that burst out answered that. 

“Gah! Will you stop saying that!” shouted Quackerjack. 

“I am the terror that flaps in the night!”

“I am the cheese pizza that burns on the taste buds of crime! I am Darkwing Duck!” Like clockwork, the purple caped crusader appeared out of the smoke. 

“Oh no. It’s Darkwing Duck. Whatever shall I do,” said Dr. Matronic, not intimidated in the slightest. Failing to frighten his foe, Darkwing pulled out his gas gun as his mood worsened. 

“Listen here doc! I may not like these rusty robots, but there’s no way I’ll let you take them away! Now suck gas, evildoer! Schpadoink!” As he shot off a canister of knockout gas, a Dalmatian puppy came out from behind Dr. Matronic and caught the canister, throwing it away from the doctor. 

“What the-!” 

“So,” Dr. Matronic grinned maliciously, “you don’t like rusty robots, eh? Well, I’m sure you’ll find that they have their uses!” Dr. Matronic pulled a walkie-talkie from her coat, and yelled, “Code 101: ATTACK!!” 

From the crevice, a noise of barking and howling approached, growing louder and louder until from out of the hole, one hundred robotic Dalmatians came bursting out. 

Darkwing gulped, hoping to hide his nervousness. “Alright, you digital dog deviants, prepare to face the might of Dark-AAAACK!!” The dogs never let him finish, immediately pouncing on Darkwing and biting everything that belonged to the flapping terror. 

“WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND DALMATIANS!!!” 

“Well, since you’re tied up at the moment, I might as well explain my origin story,” said Dr. Matronic as she got to work detaching the Pie Gang from the stage. “You see, those Imagineer fools said it was impossible to make one hundred and one animatronics! They said it was too expensive! That I was a lunatic! Well who’s laughing now, huh?! Mwahonkhon-AHH!” 

Before the doctor could finish her evil laugh, a bolt of electricity from behind the stage curtain zapped her and sent her flying off the stage. In her hands she grasped the Cheddar Charles figurine, the remote controlling the chaotic canines flying off somewhere else. 

Megavolt stepped out onto the stage, a wide manic grin on his face as his hands lit up. “Well, looks like we’re the ones laughing now, and much better at it too! Aheeheeheeheee!” With a flick of a wrist, Megavolt shot another electric bolt at the pack of piranha-like puppies, putting a stop to their attack on the poor, punctured defender in purple as they scattered off.  

“Th-thanks for that...Megavolt,” Darkwing said shakily, as he attempted to stand up and not jostle his wounds at the same time. “Wait a minute, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! I swear, if that lunatic toy-maker Quackerjack is here too I’ll-“

What Darkwing would do, Megavolt would never know, for at that moment Quackerjack decided to introduce himself with one of his patented exploding toys. Laughing maniacally, he took out his signature mallet as he attempted to stomp out any robot trying to attack him. Dr. Matronic began turning her attention towards the most annoying threat in the room, directing robot after robot at Quackerjack. 

“What, did all the freaks decide to come out tonight?!” yelled Dr. Matronic, as she whipped out a small flamethrower aimed at Quackerjack. The jester merely giggled and blew raspberries as he dodged all of her flame attacks. Darkwing and Megavolt, however, were not as lucky, and had to hide behind an overturned table to avoid the flames. 

“Oh great,” sighed Darkwing, “the cherry on top of my already lousy sundae. Could this possibly get any worse?” Megavolt let out a yipe and braced himself. 

“Uhh, you alright there Mega-,” asked Darkwing, before Megavolt clasped a hand around his bill. 

“Don’t say that again! The universe has been more vindictive than usual today whenever somebody says that!”

“Alright alright, I’ll stop! Now, either help get me rid of this riddle-some ridicule of our rights, or GET OUT!” Megavolt’s train of thought got back on track, his temper overtaking him as he remembered his terrible night. 

“Uhh, Sparky-“ said Darkwing, before a stray bolt from Megavolt zapped him away as the electric rodent turned back to Dr. Matronic. 

“YOU RUINED DATE NIGHT!!!” roared Megavolt. Darkwing was dumbfounded, for once Megavolt hadn’t responded to his hated nickname of Sparky. Dr. Matronic began to worry, as she was inexperienced against the full force of the Quackervolt duo. Darkwing stepped back, hoping to get the upper hand as the villains fought each other when who should appear but Gosalyn.

“Don’t worry Darkwing, I’ll help ya!” cried Gosalyn. 

“Gosalyn, NO!” Darkwing dived towards his daughter, shielding her from the wayward flames with his cape as he caught the full brunt of the attack. Dr. Matronic took the time to gloat evilly at her fallen foe. 

“Well well well, guess the Pizza Pagoda is serving roast duck tonight! MWAHAHAHAH! How’s that for an evil laugh, by the way?” In her distraction, she failed to notice Megavolt and Quackerjack charging up the remaining animatronics, bringing them back to life. 

“Hey lady, ever heard of the Bite of ‘87!?” they both yelled. 

“The Bite of ‘87? That’s just a-“ Dr. Matronic looked back and saw the looming, terrifying animatronics trudging towards her. She gulped.

“...Just a myth,” she finished quietly. 

As the robots began their attack, Launchpad came in and helped Darkwing to his feet. “Gee DW, how’re we gonna stop those three?” 

“Oww, can’t we jus’...let ‘em kill each other?” Darkwing meekly asked. 

Gosalyn, guilty over her father’s second degree burns, tried to remember about any useful information pertaining to the animatronics. 

“Well, I read online that old robots used to explode from time to time...” she suggested. Inspiration struck Darkwing, reaching into his pockets for a special gas canister. 

“Launchpad, hand me my gas gun!”  With his weapon in hand, Darkwing loaded up the canister and aimed between the animatronics. “Get behind that column,” he motioned. 

Megavolt, taking a break from the action that was almost too exciting to put in words, took a side glance to see Darkwing’s fan club hiding behind a concrete column. As he wondered what was going on, the duck pulled out his gas gun and yelled, “hey Dr. Matronic, see if your pooches can stop this knockout gas!” 

Darkwing shot out the canister towards the animatronics and quickly took cover. As planned, Dr. Matronic took aim with her flamethrower, unable to tell the difference between knockout gas and explosive gas. 

FWOOSH! 

KABAM!! 

“SHPOOSH-“

“Dad! Do ya have t’ make sound effects right now?” 

“Oh, right, sorry,” Darkwing sheepishly said. “Well, better make sure no one died or anything.” As the smoke dissipated, he could see Dr. Matronic knocked out on the ground, singed and certainly not triumphant. Quackerjack, who had tried to run from the explosion, was somehow still standing, albeit close to passing out at any second. Behind them, all of the animatronics were nothing more than scrap, their somewhat cute faces now melted and resembling characters in a subpar horror video game franchise. 

Megavolt was nowhere to be seen. 

“Uh-oh, Megavolt?” The prospect of being arrested for manslaughter began to unnerve Darkwing.  “Hey Quackster, you seen your boyfriend anywhere?” 

The only thing Quackerjack heard through his concussion was ‘Megavolt’, and tried to snap out of his daze as best as he could. 

“Megsy! Sparky-poo, where are you!? Ooooh, I’m gonna get you for this Darkwing Duck!” But before Quackerjack could get him, the sound of police sirens could be heard in the distance. 

“Mmm, but maybe not today,” said Quackerjack, and then took out Mr. Banana Brain. “Time to hit the road, Toad,” he said in a falsetto voice. 

“MEGAVOLT! See you at the hideout!” And Quackerjack ran backstage, toppling over Launchpad who had attempted to catch him. 

“Ah geez, sorry DW, he got away. Should we go after him?”

“Nah,” said Darkwing, “I’ve got enough on my plate with Miss Robot over here. Also I gotta make sure Megavolt didn’t explode or something,...”

“Ughhh,” groaned Dr. Matronic, “that’s DOCTOR- wait. The animatronics! What have you done to them you fiend?!” Before she could freak out entirely, the police came in, slapping handcuffs on her and leading her away. 

“Why I say I say, ah-thank you Mr. Duck sir.” 

The team looked back and saw a rotund rooster in a tacky pizza print suit come up to them, taking Darkwing’s hand and shaking it profusely. “I am the owner of this here establishment, Rolan N. Dough the Third, thought you may call me Mr. Dough. I must congratulate you sir on a job well done!” 

“Ah-yep, yep, yep, all in a day’s work for Darkwing Duck, Mr. Dough!”

“So you’re not mad that he blew up your animatronics?” piped up Gosalyn. Darkwing hurriedly placed his hand over her bill, “Gosalyn! Ix-nay on the obot-ray! Ahaha, kids...” 

“On the contrary, Mr. Duck, I’m overjoyed! Thanks to you, I’m gonna save a fortune on properly preserving those robotic freaks! And receive a rather sizable insurance check! A nice little profit for today’s events!” 

Darkwing soured, remembering his distaste for the Pizza Pagoda once more. “You’re welcome, sir.”  

“I simply must reward you! How does a coupon for a free pizza sound?” 

Launchpad’s stomach rumbled at the sound of that. “Gee DW, can we cash it in now?” 

Darkwing sighed, “Fine, fine, we’re not coming back here anytime soon.”

As Launchpad and Mr. Dough made their way to the pizza station, Darkwing crouched down to check on Gosalyn for any injuries. 

“You ok?” he asked. “I mean, aside from seeing your favorite pizzeria in ruins that is?” 

“Yeah,” she sighed, “I’m just sad the Pie Gang met their end like that.”

“Well it’s an Italian eatery owned by a Southerner themed around China, it was bound to end horribly. You gotta admit though, it was a pretty cool explosion.”

“Okay yeah, it was pretty cool. I mean the way that flamethrower just went GWOOSH and the canister was like SCHPAAAAM! Not too bad from Darkwing and his helpful sidekicks, huh?”

“Oh, that reminds me, you’re still in trouble for running in like that.”

“WHAT? Daaa-uh, I mean, Darkwiiiing!” The two walked away, preparing to stop Launchpad from spending more than $50 on pizza. 

“Hmm, I feel like I’m forgetting something though,” said Darkwing.

“Ah well, I’m sure it was nothing important,” reassured Gosalyn. 

———

In the subterranean hole where Dr. Matronic had come from, Megavolt had begun to regain consciousness, slowly sitting up as he willed the surroundings to stop spinning. 

“Owwww, that’s it, next date night will be at the mini golf...” 

From below, he could hear the faint voice of Quackerjack at hysterics, then fading away. Then he heard the shrill voice of Dr. Matronic screaming over the ruined animatronics. Megavolt perked up, remembering the explosion with clarity now. 

“NO NO NO! The animatronics! Darkwing Duck and that stupid doctor lady ruined my childhood! This is worse than that reboot of my favorite movie with an all-female cast! Why I oughta-OW!!”

In his rage, Megavolt failed to notice an object in his path, and stubbed his already fragile toe against it. He was prepared to blast it to smithereens, when he noticed something familiar about the object. 

Something metallic. 

“Wait...it can’t be,” he muttered. He crouched down, digging through the rubble until the object was set free. It was Cheddar Charles, banged up a little but perfectly intact. 

“Oh you poor thing,” Megavolt cooed, “you must’ve fallen down here after that mean old Darkwing blew us up!” He cradled the orphaned robotic mouse in his arms, feeling his paternal instinct flare up as he gently dusting the dirt off of it. A ghost of a childhood memory panged within him, recalling a time in his life when he felt safe and loved, unaware of the harsh realities of life that would face him later on.

Was it too insane to believe that he could pass that love on to something else?

He loved Quackerjack. He loved his life of lightbulb liberation. But if Megavolt was honest with himself, maybe there was something nice to the whole family concept. Maybe the idea of taking care of something and watching it grow with someone he loved seemed exciting to him. Maybe Darkwing had the right idea about having a kid sidekick-

Nope. It’d be a cold, day in Hell before Megavolt would admit to being jealous of Darkwing Duck. 

He took out one of his trusty light bulbs to illuminate the scene, when an idea came to him. 

“Wait a minute,” he said, “Quacky and I want a kid. This little guy doesn’t have a family anymore. That means...that means! Wait, where was I going with this?”

The Cheddar Charles let out a shock, charging up Megavolt once more. 

“Oh right! Welcome to the family, new son! This is gonna turn out way better than that time I split Darkwing into two.” He took his son into his arms, already bonding with the temporarily lifeless robot. 

“But ya know, Cheddar Charles is kinda long for a name. How about I call you...Chuckie!” 

------

Meanwhile, on the other side of town…

“OH MY GOD,” cried out Drake Mallard, “I BLEW UP MEGAVOLT!”

[runawaymarbles]

Fanfics With Epic Worldbuilding

This reddit thread got me thinking about epic fics that take canon and expand it in incredible, thoughtful ways-- some that seem seamless, and like they could be canon if the creators had gone in another direction, and also alternate universes with very cool canon integration. So. On that note. Here’s some of my absolute favorites. (And feel free to let me know some of yours.) 

(More rec lists here) 

The Changeling & Armistice, by @annerbhp | Harry Potter | 180k, 320k  Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

This is the best take on Slytherin house, and especially women in Slytherin house, that I’ve ever seen. Features: traditions, mythology, history and types of magic that aren’t part of the canon universe but feel like they should be. (And a cast of wonderful original or almost-original characters.) 

 A Curious Carriage of Crystal and Cold by @etharei | X-Men | 115k  Charles, a miner from a poor village in the countryside, saves the life of Erik Lehnsherr, scion of a successful business family and the richest man on the planet Eisen. Charles is a telepath and somewhat anxious about it, while Erik abstains from relationships because the lights flicker and doors open and electronics vibrate when he gets too excited. Also featuring a long-suffering sister, a foul-mouthed bodyguard, and a best friend with a heart that is definitely not gold.In which there are princes, spaceships, long journeys, and old secrets uncovered

This is just. A whole sci-fi world. Class structure, different forms of etiquette, government structure, real history, fake history, and practical considerations about toilets in space. 

 The Eden!Verse, by @improbabledreams900​ | Good Omens | 550k  Picking up where canon leaves off, [the] Eden!verse chronicles Aziraphale & Crowley's adventures through great losses, gains, and life's cosmic curveballs. From a village on Earth to Heaven, Hell, and Eden itself, Aziraphale and Crowley make many new friends, learn God's plan for them, and discover what it means to love each other. 

The first fic in this series is relatively self contained, but by the second one it’s exploring heaven, expanding on biblical canon and the laws and hierarchy of angels, and weaving lots of different theological and mathmatical theories together. The plotting is so good it makes me want to cry. Also, the original characters are fantastic. 

 Home Out in the Wind by @bomberqueen17​ | Star Wars (Sequel Series) | 320k Poe gave up a lot of things when he defected to the Resistance, but there's always more to lose. War is an expensive lifestyle. You've got to keep your affairs in order and do the best you can with what you have. He owes this former Stormtrooper a life-debt, and beyond that he knows the kid's exceptional, so he's going to do everything he can to get the kid a fair start in this messy business. Finn wakes up and has no idea what to do beyond joining the Resistance, but he knows he’s got to keep up with Poe somehow. 

Dameron family history! Lore, history and culture that’s so well integrated that I had to do some Googling to make sure it wasn’t already Star Wars canon! Other planets! Drugs! Songs! Original characters I would pledge loyalty to forever! The most well-developed OT3 I’ve seen in this fandom! (There’s also a second series, The Lost Kings, about Shara and Kes.) 

The Lay of Looking-Glass Land by KL_Morgan | The 100 | 175K Clarke wakes up wearing the tattoos of the Ice Nation. (OR: Soulmates, parallel worlds, and Ice Queen Clarke; oh my. Canon divergent from 2x16.)

Intricate! Rituals! Grounder lore and mythology! And a wonderful what-if ‘verse being explored more in the sequel.

Pantheon, by Yahtzee | X-Men | 130k  In the year 96 AD, all Rome is aware that their gods have begun to Mark certain people with their gifts -- the healing power of Apollo, the metal control of Vulcan, the deathly touch of Pluto, or the mental powers of Minerva. When those gifts fall to slaves or barbarians instead of the Romans themselves, strict control is necessary. Then a gladiator from Judea meets an enslaved scribe from Britannia, and the repercussions will shake the Empire itself.

An amazing integration of X-Men canon into Roman mythology and life, re-imagining of mutations, and epic scale. You could make a religion out of this. 

Honorable Mention: 

All Things Shining by Askance and Standbyme | Supernatural | 140k  Something in the world is waking up.It isn’t long before it’s brought to the attention of the Winchesters and Castiel: miracles are spreading across the country, the paranormal seems to be shrinking back on itself—and it all has something to do with the missing prayer book of a traveling preacher who died over a century ago. Dean is convinced it’s all the lead-up to another Apocalypse; Sam and Castiel aren’t so sure. Regardless, it sends them out on a less-than-typical road-trip, following the Mississippi and remnants of a very old story that seems increasingly to call to them. And along the way the trio learn much more about themselves—and the consequences and origins of love—than they’d ever have anticipated.

I last read this fic in 2013, but I remember loving the religion that it created. It’s got a lovely fairytale/folklore vibe. And a mythological crack ship that’s... strangely beautiful. Putting it in the honorable mentions because I don’t remember how it ends. 

Redemption Road by multiple authors | Supernatural | 650k  Redemption Road is a fan-generated, large-scale AU project created by members of the SPN and Dean/Castiel fandoms.

This is another one I read once in 2013, but it also had some pretty spectacular expansions of Supernatural mythology, and lovable original characters. It’s set up like a season, with episodes and subplots. 

[firesign23]

fic writer asks: 45, 41, 50?

41) What’s you favourite minor character you’ve written?

Look, I really, really have a soft spot for “Isolated character has a childhood friend who knew them pre-defining trauma, has a similar competence, and supports said isolated character without tolerating their bullshit.” If the character doesn’t exist, I create them, but the Rise of Addam Marbrand for this role in the JB fandom gives me life. I haven’t written him much yet–he’s been off-screen but becomes plot-relevant in yonder, and in a few ficlets in what I’m affectionately dubbing The Worst Timeline–but he has semi-large roles in at least two of my (eventually) upcoming fic, as Brienne’s captain in the modern AU where she’s a police officer and Jaime’s caught in a bank robbery (and I had Actual Canon Reasons for this decision rather than just wanting to), and as the Charles Musgrove type character in the Persuasion AU. I’m stoked.

45) What spurs you on during the writing process?

(x)

Okay, that’s probably an oversimplification. Spite can be a big motivator--spite towards the canon, sometimes, but more often there’s a lot of spite towards culural narratives or ideas that I find chafing. And sometimes spite towards some Fandom Hot Takes™ that I don’t have time for.

It’s not the only motivation though--a lot of my writing is also driven by a love of the characters and wanting to celebrate what they mean, even if it doesn’t seem like a celebration on the surface. I love the collaborative discussions that writing can produce. Selfishly, I love the comments. I love, love, love that rush of puzzling over a narrative problem--how do I portray X?, why isn’t Y working?, etc--and then having it slot into place; it’s a perfect blend of logic and creativity that feeds my soul.

And sometimes I have no motivation and message people with my plans to orphan my WIPs, fake my death, and enter witness protection. Today has been one of those days.

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

I’m an all things in moderation person, but… right, presuming this is “Angst with a positive or at least hopeful payoff”, then angst 100%. I love writing angst. But I don’t enjoy writing unrelenting misery with no catharsis, which kind of feels like what the question is asking. I like fluff with a little bite, to the point I’ve definitely had people tell me that it doesn’t really count as fluff as such, so I’m not sure I could write fluff. I think the angst and fluff are sides of the same coin, really–my most formative influence as a reader and a writer has been Terry Pratchett for years, because he so often captures that thing I love that life can be terrible, people can be bastards, but we can and should choose to be better all the time. Endless angst wallows too much in the former, while fluffiest fluff ignores it too much and therefore misses that doing better is a choice.

Smut can go fuck itself.

(Jokes aside,  have a lot of admiration for people who can write good smut. Mine is… I can write good scenes that involve sex, because that level of vulnerability makes for some great emotions, but I cannot claim it’s good smut.)

| Fanfiction Writer Asks  |      

[lilithscry]

i love you; goodbye

pairing: arthur morgan x female!reader

word count: 5.3k

warnings: death, emotional distress, grief.

summary: somethings are better left unsaid.

notes: i listened to you’ll be in my heart from the tarzan soundtrack while writing the ending and it Shows.. i also haven’t written for a while so pls ignore if this Sucks!

Sat on the edge of the campsite, you watched the world surrounding you go by. 

Squirrels and rabbits skidded past at the speed of light while the sun slowly fell asleep and the moon dragged herself from her slumber. The earth was starting to be bathed in the blueish glow of the moon, the harsh kisses left by the sun now being soothed. You hadn’t noticed the growing bite of coldness to the air, too far in your own head to realise that goose bumps now littered your arms.

“You good?” The familiar voice that belonged to Charles rang through your ears. He sat himself beside you as you just nodded, trying your best to push down the fear and worry that sat uncomfortably at the pit of your stomach.

“Jus’ fine.” You murmured while avoiding contact with the male. It was a crock of bullcrap and you knew it. He knew it too, but you had to put on a brave face for him and the ones who need help. The Wapiti tribe. Forcibly driven from their home once more, you and Charles realised it was your duty to ensure that they were safe, healthy and happy.

But this was the opposite of what you had planned. You had set to yourself to help Arthur with the rest of the gang, to make sure that everyone else was safe before retreating so that his illness didn’t worsen. He had other plans and it wasn’t until after he had returned to the tribe with Charles and an awfully wounded Eagle Flies that he refused your pleas to go back with him. You still remember being soaked to the bone through your clothes and the sickly-tired look on his face as you argued against him.

Now you were sat in a place unknown to you with no clue or even an idea as to what was happening back down south where everyone else was.

Charles didn’t press any further as he knew that you would soon spill out everything that was weighing you down; but you could tell he was itching to speak about a pressing matter. There was something he wanted to say, and it had to be said now. The way he’d subtly glance over at you is what gave it away really since he was someone who seemed to always be approached rather than do the approaching.

Did you want to know what he wanted to say? No. Were you going to tell him to just say it? Maybe.

The silence between you both wasn’t one bit pleasant, all the while the sing-song tune of the crickets that habituated at the nearby stream of river filled the air; which somehow contrasted the heaviness between you both. You craned your neck to stare up at the clear sky and Charles watched you diligently as though he were about to walk on a pile of burning-hot coal pieces.

“You’ve something to tell me, Charles?” Looking away from the night sky and towards him instead, the expectancy of being told that you were about to move further up north steadily ate away at you. You just wanted to go home.

There was a slight hesitation to Charles’ words, his lips parting to speak before closing right away as he looked for the right words to say. You were on your last few strings of patience, something that rarely happened.

“I heard a few things while in the store earlier.” He started, eyes darkening with blatant worry as his eyebrows furrowed. “News of a shootout near Annesburg a week and a bit ago. Pinkertons were involved.”

You felt your chest tighten and a knot form in your throat. “A…Were…there any deaths?”

“From what I’ve heard, yes.” He saw you went to cut him off, so he held a hand up to stop you. “But I didn’t hear any names being thrown around.”

The air grew heavier by a tonne and your stomach did flips as anxiety made your bones rattle. Your hands shook slightly in fear of who may just be dead back down near Beaver Hollow. It’s not like the Pinkertons cared enough to dispose of the bodies, unless it was Dutch himself. Then they would’ve snatched his cold corpse away in a heartbeat, acting as though it was a trophy. A trophy to show that they took down the deadliest outlaw in the South-West.

“We have t’ go back.”

“Excuse me?”

“We have t’ go back, Charles.” You said with a strict tone while pulling yourself up to your feet. “We need t’ give whoever has died a proper burial.”

Charles followed you suit, reaching out to grab your shoulder as you walked towards the campsite. “That’s suicide, (Name), and you know that. Pinkertons might still be in the area.”

You spun around to face him properly this time. He saw the fire in your eyes and the thick-black smoke from it seething out of your pores on to the dirt below you.

“And do ya think I care? Charles, I need t’ go back there and…” You cut yourself off, too sick to even think about how Arthur may be one of the deceased, let alone say it aloud. So, you regained your posture again and continued. “I need t’ go back there, whether ya like it or not.”

His eyes downcast as you avoided to prompt the idea of Arthur being dead. He felt the same sick feeling grow on him as he started to think about it, but there was unfinished business with Rains Fall and his people. But there was also unfinished business back down south.

“I’m leavin’ tomorrow mornin’, whether ya come with me or not, that’s up to you.” Voice soft, you turned to leave the taller male be in his thoughts.

“Safe to assume I’m letting you ride all that way by yourself.” He mumbled to himself while sitting down to plan out the travel back down.

So, when morning came and you saw Charles talking with Rains Fall by the horses, you couldn’t help but smirk in triumph at the success of convincing him. You plainly left them to speak amongst themselves while you readied your saddle for the long trip back; and it wasn’t until Rains Fall was by your side, thanking you for helping his people, that you finally spoke.

It was painful to say goodbye to the good people of this tribe, but you knew life had a funny way of bringing the past back. Hence, you promised to see them again before kicking your spurs into the sides of your horse, telling her to go.

The trip back past through the Rocky Mountains and thick-luscious forests didn’t feel near as stressful as it was the first-time round, possibly since it was just you and Charles, and not with a posse that included some elderly men and children. However, with every day and moment you grew closer to New Hanover, the fear of what you would find once you reached your destination only caused you to want to retreat.

Would you find the two disgusting men that were known to be Micah’s friends be the ones half eaten by wolves, or would there be the bodies of someone you loved? Would there be a letter left by a certain Tacitus Kilgore, telling you that he had retreated to his getaway home in Mexico?

Many-a night were spent with you and Charles huddled closely to one another, storms passing by after they wreak havoc in their path, simply disappearing as though they’d done nothing wrong. You couldn’t help but allude and imagine your former leader as a storm. Dutch Van de Linde, barging his way through the country like a hurricane, only to rip apart everything and everyone surrounding him; striking lightning down on those who don’t follow him like a lost puppy. Sending whirlwinds and tornadoes to throw away those who had been devotedly loyal to him for years on end.

And as you watched the sixth storm that week wash itself over Emerald Ranch, you could only see what your life used to be like.

“We’re close now, (Name).” Charles spoke from the bonfire of the makeshift camp you both had made, keeping a close eye on the grey clouds that slowly started to hover above. “It looks like the storm’s heading this way.”

Spinning on the balls of your feet, you faced Charles before briefly looking up above you. “Should we wait it out then?”

“It doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.”

You nodded, catching on to the idea to stay put and moved to the tent you both were sharing. He followed short and the familiar silence between you both settled in again as it always did. You held your knees close to your chest after placing your hat behind you, and Charles sat cross-legged, cleaning his smaller guns in languid movements.

“Charles…”

“Yeah?”

The neither of you looked at each other, you too busy watching the rainfall start and him starting down at the gun in his lap. “Are ya scared of what we may find?”

That caught his attention and when he finally directed his gaze towards you, he could see the worried look painted across your face. Eyebrows furrowed, corner of lips drooped and eyes glassy with tears that may escape; a look he had never seen you adorn before.

As much as he wanted to ensure you that everything was going to be alright, he couldn’t lie for once. Charles couldn’t form the words to tell you that everything will be fine, and that Arthur is somewhere safe and sound. False hope was a fool’s game and unfortunately, you were a fiery fool that would definitely tamper with a game such as false hope.

“Aren’t we both?” He countered, and in that moment, the silence that fell over you both this time was sickly uncomfortable.

You felt your stomach drop as you looked for any kind of flittering hope, and Charles felt his shoulders weigh down more at the realisation of what was to come the next day.

That night, you didn’t sleep and neither did Charles.

With the bitter taste of burnt-black coffee at the back of your throat, you were set off again to the old gang campsite in the early hours of the morning. The woods of Roanoke Ridge always sent a shiver up your spine as it always felt that someone or something was watching you, whether it be from the canopy of lush leaves above you or the large boulders that were scattered throughout the wilderness. But you spurred and gave your horse reassuring words as the pace increased by tenfold.

However, riding past the familiar areas that you had grown accustomed to while your stay there, you dreaded getting closer and closer to Beaver Hollow. The path leading you up to the small flat-surfaced area was littered with disposed rifles and pistols, and blood was too scattered over the dirt and greenery of the bushes. It was obvious that there had been an intense battle here.

As you dismounted your horse, you noted that equipment that had belonged to the Van de Linde gang was still present, meaning no one had been past since. So, you scurried over to where you and Arthur had shared a tent, searching and searching through boxes and bags in search for anything to lead you to where Arthur may be. Yet to no avail, you found nothing. No note, not even a small clue as to where even his whereabouts might be.

“(Name).” Charles called out, gathering your attention right away and allowing a least a tiny bit of hope to bloom in your chest. You hadn’t even looked at what he was standing over as your body started moving on its own.

“Did ya find a—” All hope had been drained from you as what he had seen finally caught your attention. Your blood ran cold as you stared at the lifeless body of Grimshaw, a large hole sat right in the middle of her stomach which was crawling with bugs that had no right to be using her as their feast.

Turning away, you held your hand to your stomach and choked back a sob. “How…could they just leave her?” You spat in disgust, aforementioned hand balling into a fist. “Leave her here to rot?!”

A sigh left Charles as he too turned away, rubbing his face.

“C’mon, we need to see if anyone else is here and then I’ll go and bury her.”

You nodded and let Charles lead you around the old running grounds. No letter was seen to be anywhere both inside and outside of the cave, serving as a ground for your anxiety to rise. After coming to a mutual agreement that there was nothing else in this general area, you gathered any lasting supplies that remained while Charles took Grimshaw’s body to bury it. By the time he returned, covered in mud and a dreadful look on his face, you then set off to search the general area for anyone else.

It was hard, but eventually traced of a shootout near the border of Roanoke Ridge and the Heartlands were found by Charles. Rifles and pistols once again were scattered here and there, and as well as the wolf-scavenged corpses of two horses. They smelt bad and rotten, something you noted while walking past after hitching your horse to the closest tree.

“They sure got far whoever rode out this way.” You observed and walked up to Charles who looked up at the small mountain before him. “Either that or we’re ‘bout to find the corpse of some other wanted man.”

“These horses have been dead for a while now. Not a recently killing at all.” He responded, motioning for you to follow him up the small mountain before you

The tread up to the mountain was tiring, both physically and emotionally as you felt you were about to be at your wits end. No proper sign of where Arthur was, you started to doubt whether it was a good idea to come back down south. You hadn’t need to come back this way until all the information on what exactly happened was official, but alas you listened to your heart rather than your brain. And here you were, hiking on a mountain with a man who you forced to leave the duty of protecting people so that you could see what happened, as well as also growing rapidly tired and cold within minutes of being on this trek. Charles caught on to it at your quietness, throwing a glance over his shoulder towards you to see how you were. Your eyes were heavy with dark circles surrounding them and you were chattering, pulling your coat closer to your body.

Maybe I should’ve made extra coffee for the trip…

He stopped walking and you bumped into him, too busy in your own head to realise that he had halted completely. Looking up at him, you frowned ever-so slightly and pouted. “Why’re we stoppin’?”

“Because you’re tired.”

“I’m…fine.” Shaking your head, you let out a weak smile. “Let’s just continue looking.”

Charles blinked, staring at you for a few moments before directing his attention to his left, seeing a small flat surface that was large enough to rest. He pointed towards it. “Go rest up there for now. If I haven’t found something soon, I’ll come back and we can set up camp there, okay?”

You paused, the urge to fight back being appealing but with the lacking energy, you rolled your eyes at him. “Fine.”

Parting ways, you trudged up to the area Charles told you to go rest by while rubbing the tiredness from your eyes. Hope on finding Arthur was starting to wither away as new intruding thoughts came to mind. Maybe the Pinkertons grabbed hold of him after all, and this search from him was starting to become an impossible mission. Maybe in the next few days, you’ll see an article in the newspaper about the hanging of Van de Linde gang member Arthur Morgan.

You sat down with your back against the rocky formation and you sighed, keeping your eyes closed. The peaceful sound of birds chirping and eagles gawking in the distance helped you relax, and with a low sigh, you finally opened your eyes to see the evening sky start to set. Hues of orange, pink, purple and blue all blended together, creating a picture so perfect that for a moment you wished you could paint. The clouds stretched across the horizon looked like the bags of cotton candy you’d frequently steal for Jack after news of the new candy made its round through towns and a part of you wished you could just reach out and pluck a piece from it.

With a smile, your eyes then wandered to your close surroundings on the mountain ledge. Rocks, pebbles and stones was all you could see until a large-lumped figure sat near the cliff edge caught your attention. Obviously, a person, they were sat there unmoving and instantly at the sight of them, you felt your heart pound against your chest as though it was trying to escape. There was no movement of the chest, indicating they were no longer breathing.

In a quick-shaky movement, you jumped up to your feet while your hand hovered over your chest to feel your heartbeat. Slowly and steadily, your feet carried you to the body and at the sight of the recognisable mop of blonde hair on top of the corpse, a scream was ripped from your throat.

Albeit it was a little delayed as you stood there in shock, but it caught the attention of Charles fast. You heard him calling out your name loud and clear. You heard his footsteps against the smooth rock paths of the mountain, but you were stood there, frozen and in shock.

It wasn’t until it had really settled that the body of Arthur Morgan was in front of you that you dropped to the ground, long-overdue tears spilling out on to your cheeks. Charles was by your side within seconds of finding you, not needing to ask what was wrong as the first thing he saw was the body.

You felt your stomach twist and turn and do back flips. It made you feel sick. Choking out a loud sob, you turned to your side the best you could and let the bile that’d made its way into your throat out; and it didn’t stop. The pain in your chest burned as though someone had just set it on fire and your stomach was turning itself inside out. Every fibre in your body was in pain yet somehow numb at the same time.

Perhaps it was the cold air that numbed the pain, or maybe that was what was causing you to be in pain. You couldn’t tell, but as soon as you turned to Charles, you gripped on to his shirt and leant your head on to his chest. Tears stained his clothes and your body rattled with each sob that escaped past your lips. One of his hands rested on your shoulder while the other was on the small of your back. He enveloped you in the warmth you needed and stayed quiet, letting you grieve.

And for what felt like eternity, there were no more tears left to cry. You simply didn’t have the energy left to cry no more, and slowly, you felt yourself drift off to sleep in the arms of a man who grieved the loss of his friend in silence.

The next morning you woke up in the comfort of your sleeping bag with the warmth from the large figure sitting next to you. For a moment, you believed you were back in Horseshoe Overlook and you were about to be challenged with whatever drama Grimshaw threw at you while the other girls motioned for you to dismiss her and sneak over to them. You believed the man next to you was Arthur and that he was about to start off your day with a kiss to the forehead and some witty comment about how you put Snow White to a shame.

But reality hit hard when you saw that it was in fact Charles next to you and that you were in a tent near the mountains, not in the beautiful plains of the Heartlands. Arthur was only a few feet away, long dead and never coming back ever again.

Charles noticed you stir awake and glanced over at you, halting his arrow crafting and keeping his gaze on you to see how you were. The distraught expression that painted itself over your face caused him to look back ahead.

“I’ve covered his body.” He spoke with a soft voice, catching your attention right away as you sat up. “So…you don’t have to see…y’know.”

You hummed and mumbled a small thank you before dropping your head to stare at your hands.

Goosebumps had risen on your skin and as you shivered, Charles reached forward to grab a cup and the small percolator that was packed for your trip. Pouring the coffee into the cup, he handed it to you silently which you too accepted in the same manner.

Heavy grief weighed down on to your chest, making you feel as though someone was standing on you. It was hard to swallow and breath, and it was hard to simply even think, knowing that the body of your lover was basically next to you. It was astoundingly ironic, and all you could do was laugh.

So, you did.

A painfully-hearty chuckle rumbled in your chest and as it turned into a laugh, Charles’ attention was drawn back to you. He threw you a look of confusion, but you were too busy laughing to even bother responding to him.

You held on to your stomach before wiping the tears away from your eyes, finally catching on to the look Charles was giving you.

“What was so funny, (Name)?”

You guffawed once again, having to set down the cup of coffee this time so that you could vaguely motion to everything. “This situation we’re in right now. I wasn’t expectin’ to be buryin’ the love of my life this early.”

“I wasn’t expectin’ to be finding him on a mountain ledge, lookin’ like he had the shit beaten out of him and skin grey as fucking old dog shit.”

Your voice wavered as you spoke with every word, the wall that you were desperately trying to build already starting to crumble.

“Isn’t it kinda funny how I can’t breathe properly, and his body is right next to me?”

“(Name)…”

“It’s almost like something is tryna tell me to stop breathin’.”

“(Name).”

Laughing, you picked up the cup of coffee to take a sip out of it, but you stopped yourself and looked at it bitterly. It was then that you shuffled out the tent and got to your feet, shuffling over to the ledge. You gripped on to the cup tightly before hauling it out into the wilderness, a scream of pain leaving you again – much like the one from the night before.

Then it was quiet, aside from the sad howl of a wolf in the distance. Both you and Charles instantly recognised the cry to be one of a grieving wolf; a wolf that has lost its loved one to the hands of nature.

Charles had made it to his feet, slowly walking over to you in a cautious matter. “(Name)…”

“What is it?” You snapped back, refusing to look at him.

He paused for a brief second before letting out a puff of breath and glancing over at the covered body. “I’m burying him today. In a few hours at most, and I know a place that would be the best for him. A place where he would’ve wanted to be buried.”

“Facing the west?” Your voice grew quiet and he nodded.

“Of course.” 

You swallowed the lump in your throat and faced Charles, keeping your gaze glued to the ground. He stared at you while awaiting what you were going to do next. Then you looked up at him, eyes glassy with tears and your bottom lip quivering. You looked broken, oh so broken and not ready to be glued and fixed back together just yet.

“Alright, let’s get packed up then…”

As you packed the tent and bedrolls, you couldn’t gain the courage to face Charles as he carefully wrapped Arthur’s body and stowed it on the back of Taima. The small fire was put out and any signs that showed someone was present was extracted. You agreed with Charles to ride ahead this trip after he showed you where to go on the map, and he obliged. Not a single part of you was ready to look at Arthur just yet.

The ride was completely silent between you and Charles aside from you questioning whether you go left or right at some points in the ride. It gave you a moment to think to yourself. To gather your thoughts and place them out nicely before realising what the hell are you going to do next.

Unless John and the rest have fled across t’ the other side of the country, I might be able t’ track ‘em down.

You just knew that you couldn’t be here in this part of the country for a while. You needed to leave. 

Because like an artist, every little thing about this place would be painted with the memory of the downfall of your family, the storm that Dutch unleashed amongst you, and the death of your soulmate. Each paint stroke of the fields of the Heartlands or the swamps of Lemoyne would remind you of painful times, something you know that you’re not ready to face just yet.

You wiped away the tears that you hadn’t even noticed were travelling down the expanse of your cheek and called out to Charles, who directed to go left and then keep going. 

“I’ll tell you when to stop.”

As you neared Bacchus station, you saw swarms of workers about with wagons of construction items to fix the broken railway line that was the work of Arthur and John, after all. You held back a small snicker and glanced back at Charles who threw a knowing look in your direction. That was definitely a conversation needed for later.

It wasn’t long after seeing the construction workers that Charles told you to stop. This time he took the lead up to a small ledge of a much larger mountain and rode past a particular looking hill house that you noted to investigate later on. You avoided looking at the lifeless body on the back of Taima, instead occupying yourself by dismounting early and making your way to the other side to overlook New Hanover.

Not one word was said during the process of Arthur’s burial, out of respect and also to avoid any more tearful moments. You sat yourself at the edge of the flat ledge, your legs dangling off and swinging idly back and forth; something that was a habit of yours.

You remembered the first job you’d done with Arthur. It involved robbing the small-town bank of Tumbleweed in New Austin, a job that went relatively easy since you both were still considered rookies to the outlaw life.

(“Y’know,” Arthur started while flicking through the stack of bills to ensure that yours and his share was evenly split. “I must say that ya pretty darn good with a rifle.”

A gasp of false shock and offence slipped past your lips as you sat yourself on the edge of the creaking bridge you were situated at, the blue water of West Elizabeth looking utterly beautiful. “Now, Mr. Morgan, d’ya say that ‘cause I’m a woman?”

The blonde male’s eyes glanced at you as he halted counting, noticing the stability of the bridge not being too reliable.

“No, yer just clumsy which is why I must ask for ya to get off tha’ bridge, Miss (Name).”

Now you laughed, mocking his tone and repeating what he had said all the while you swung your legs, back and forth, back and forth. And it wasn’t until one of the planks of wood next to you snapped all of the sudden, that you’d gotten up quicker than Arthur could say I told you so.)

A peaceful sigh left you as the light Spring breeze filtered through the strands of your hair.

You missed him already. The way he’d roll his eyes when he was proven wrong, or how he would guffaw whenever Micah got the shit taken out of him by one of the girls. Or, how he’d hold you close at night, his arms wrapped around your waist gently yet firmly at the same time. It was almost as if he thought you would disappear in the dead of the night, leaving him and the gang.

Many fond memories flooded you and you couldn’t help but let a bittersweet smile etch itself across your face.

Then the faint sound of hooves against the rocky surface caught your attention. Spinning around slightly to see if the horses were moving, you saw that they were still in their assumed position from beforehand.

Weird.

Facing forward, they only grew louder and louder, and before you knew it the sight of a larger than normal buck approach you. It stood tall, a certain humble regal aura making it seem too human to be a wild animal. You were sat there in silence as it stared back at you before bowing its head to graze on the small patch of grass that was next to you. There was something weird about this animal and as it ate the plant life next to you, it eventually nudged the hand that laid resting next to your leg with its snout, indicating that it wanted to be pet.

So, you followed its instructions, softly petting the space between the eyes of the buck. It was then that you got a good clear look at the eyes of the animal. A piercing blue that seemed all too familiar. 

The buck let out a huff, shaking its head in irritation and lowering down so that it was resting next to you. It turned its head after having its moment, looking over at Charles digging the grave for Arthur’s body.

You blinked in confusion, your eyes darting back and force between Charles, Arthur and the buck until it clicked.

Slowly, a wide smile stretched across your face as you looked back at the “wild animal”, a laugh of disbelief bubbling in your stomach and tears welling up in your eyes.

“You stupid-sneaky bastard.” You blubbered, hands reaching out to cup the buck’s head. His ears twitched as you leant your head forward to lean on his and closed your eyes, that laugh of disbelief finally escaping. 

After a few moments of sitting there in silence, you pulled away to look at him. To look at Arthur. Stroking and petting down on the tufts of fur on him, you placed a delicate kiss in the same spot you had rested your head before nudging your nose against him.

“I love you, you big-stupid-oaf.”

Meanwhile, Charles stood from a distance, a small smiling tugging at his lips as he saw the reunion unfold.

[artificialqueens]

i hope you've got the time [to keep that air between your lungs]  (Trixya) - PinkGrapefruit

[trixya soulmate au]

A/N - this has taken me way too long. thank you to meggie and frey for being the angels they are and getting me through this in one piece - i love them both more than they know. enjoy!

*

Seeming when I’m older that it’s younger how I feel

Learning that you only get the raw end of the deal

First one to the finish line, but the last one left to know

Second place adorns you no matter where you go

It started on a Monday, except it didn’t - not really.

It started on the day she was born, in a small town in Russia where the rain hadn’t stopped for three days and everyone was a little on edge. It started when the doctor, a sweet old man from St Petersburg, announced loudly, “It’s a girl!” and then, much quieter and with a little sorrow, “and she has a soulmark.” It started when she was five and asked her mama why she had a flower on her arm, and the woman cursed and told her to be quiet, because ‘good girls don’t ask questions.’ When she never heard of the word ‘soulmate’ spoken in the small town she grew up in, not a speck of blood in the snow as the lily rooted its way into the crook of her elbow. When she cried going through test after test to see if they could remove it, uproot it. When a nurse tried to pull the lily out, tried to yank her second heart straight from her arm. It started when they moved to the USA when she was eight, her father explaining in a hushed tone that the small ‘sm’ in her passport wasn’t anything special. And then it changed.

It changed in seventh grade when they did a lesson on soulmarks in biology and the teacher was so proud to show off the daffodil on the back of her neck that Katya almost cried. It changed when she watched Alaska’s black dahlia start to uproot itself from her calf midway through a sophomore baseball practice because she saw an exchange student through the fence - their eyes meeting for a brief second before a petal fell onto the grass next to them. She watched them fall in love, until the flower had long removed itself, leaving a faint outline of the flower that had scarred under her skin. It changed when she learned she was one in a million - an urban myth, a soulmate. Half of a whole, unbreakable.

It changed when she met Trixie.

Well I’ve been out to Austin, back to Boston

Where I’ve been

Following the highways in my hand

It’s a Monday in spring and Katya is 19, but she feels like she’s 30. The cold of Boston has started to dissipate; instead, a warm breeze tickles her ankles through the DIY rips in her jeans. She is that kid, and she is proud of it. Her long sleeves cover the slight protrusion of a soulmate mark, but if you were to look closely enough, you could make out the raised stem of a lily following the river-like path of her veins under the white jersey.

She raises her keep-cup to her lips, lets the bitterness of the coffee overrule the sap that’s filling her mouth more and more often these days, the flower routing deeper into her body with each passing day. She hums to herself as she sketches, letting her ankles catch the sun a little as she sits on her coat on the Charles River Esplanade. Katya is majoring in mechanical engineering at MIT with a minor in women and gender studies - something she finds almost fulfilling when she isn’t frantically sketching out a design that would have been done weeks ago if it wasn’t for the new girl in her team. She’s bright blonde, wears heavy makeup and big, pink dresses to the lab; it’s a different kind of feminine to Katya’s messy hair, messy jeans, messy aura of comfort, and she isn’t necessarily intimidated, but she is stressed. And distracted.

“Who in their right mind wears a dress to the engineering labs?” she’d whined down the phone to Alaska after the girl’s first day. “It didn’t even cover her knees.”

“As if you cared about her safety,” croaked the girl, knowingly. “You’re just a whore who can’t focus.”

“And you’re paying for a linguistics course?” Katya bit back, laughing as she said it.

As she’s lost in her thoughts, a text comes through. She chuckles as she reads it, types out a hasty reply before throwing her possessions into her rucksack. She drains her coffee, ready to return to the flat and see what in the name of hell is going on.

“Your lollipop came round,” yells out Alaska before Katya has even locked the door. The girl shakes off her jacket and stands on the back of her Docs to get them off, shot-putting the cup into the sink from the doorway and letting out a little whoop when it goes in on the first try.

“My lollipop? That’s new,” she responds, launching herself onto the couch with a huff.

“Lollipop, Candy Cane, Sugarplum Fairy? They’re all the same to me.” The girl rubs the scar on the back of her leg subconsciously, checking her watch as she does so. “Shouldn’t Sharon be home by now?” she questions, reading the ache in her leg.

“Said she set off a few minutes ago,” reads Katya from Alaska’s phone - the other girl grabbing it off her when she realises.

She stands up, potters into the kitchen to make a fourth cup of coffee and tries to start a conversation over the whistling of the kettle.

“So Trixie was here?” she yells over the din, answered only by the nodding of the giant space buns sticking up from the back of the couch.

“Uhuh, said something about a double major being shit and meeting somewhere at six-ish.”

“Alaska, you bitch!” she shouts as she checks the time on the oven. It’s five forty-five and she’d promised to meet Trixie at a little cafe twenty minutes away (not that she’d realised, the river seemed to speed up time).

She sprints out the door like she’s on a mission. She sort of is.

When I go back to Wisconsin

And when I come home again

Has anybody out there seen my man?

Trixie never intended to do engineering. She intended to do fashion design and become, well, a fashion designer, but life doesn’t always go the way you plan and, like a cat afraid of water, she’s swimming now.

She switched to MIT in her third year because she was told she could, decided to swap design to design engineering and then mechanical, because two days before school started again, she was told they weren’t running that course - double majoring in biology too, because why the hell not. She thinks like a fashion design student, but works like a physicist - something that’s made her very few friends in the new course, but someone she appears to be especially at odds with is Katya. It’s not a cruel rivalry - nothing about it is malicious or rude, they’re just very different. Katya thinks like an engineer and dresses like an edgy art kid, Trixie - doesn’t.

It’s been three months since she got there and she feels she should probably make peace. It’s definitely her own choice, not the spines that are tearing holes in her clothes as they slowly extrude from her arm. The way they twist in her vein like a bad cannula, bruising, til her arm looks like a galaxy and her freckles are the stars. She’s started bandaging over the worst bits, the spikes getting stuck in her coats, so when she takes them off, they pull and tug. She’s not stupid, she knows what it means. But she doesn’t have to be excited about it.

He parents had always explained soulmates very nicely and concisely, and like they were a choice. Like she didn’t have to have one, like it could go away. They’d said ‘Trixie, darling, that cactus isn’t everything, you are more than it,’ and yet she’s always treated it like it was. Like it ruled her destiny - she believes it does.

They meet on a sunny Monday in April, Boston raining intermittently, but the sun trying its very hardest, like a halogen bulb about to blow. She reckons she has enough time to redress her arm before the other girl arrives, takes a seat in a comfy armchair by the window, ripping off the cover like it isn’t pulling out parts of her heart - tiny needles that were once veins. Maybe it’s because she has her eyes closed in pain that she doesn’t notice Katya. The girl floating in, pausing at the counter to get a refill in her reusable cup and pulling out a metal straw for Trixie as she sits down opposite. She looks in awe at the Gymnocalycium in the crook of her arm. How its tiny spineless flowers sit flush to the skin, while the rest seems like it’s jumping out.

“So,” she says, breaking the silence. “Hi.”

Coming home reminds you that you ain’t got long to go

‘Til you can’t make it to the mailbox, not in all this snow

I hope you’ve got the time to keep that air between your lungs

I hope you’ve got the hand to pull the plug when that day comes

Their tutor calls them into her office on an unusually hot day, both women sweating under their respective overalls and cotton dress. Katya feels the heat like it’s under her skin, splitting muscle from fat with a hot layer of wetness that makes her shiver a little. She’s the sweatiest woman alive, or so she likes to say, but the stuffiness of the basement office isn’t helping the way her skin crawls under the chino cloth. Trixie, despite being significantly less covered, doesn’t seem to be faring any better. The humidity makes her skin flush the colour of cyclamen flowers in the summer.

Katya feels a tug in her arm as she watches the girl listen intently. It’s like the lily has a mind of its own, and she’s not stupid, but she’d like to keep her denial for a little bit longer. It smells like pink gin and tastes like comfort.

“I want a paper on the advancement of bionic prosthetics on my desk in two weeks. It’ll be 20 percent of your final grade,” the teacher drones as if it hasn’t crossed her mind how absurd of a task it is. It probably hasn’t, and it makes Katya’s blood boil in a way that she isn’t so willing to chalk down to heat or some form of ailment that this flower is definitely giving her. Can you boil sap? She vows to google it when she gets home.

They leave in a discontented silence, Trixie thumbing the loose edge of her bandage as they let the slight breeze remove the sheen of moisture covering them. The light hurts their heads a little, but so does the assignment, so they can’t win. Katya texts Alaska a series of angry emojis and the girl replies with a squid.

“Two weeks? Fucking ridiculous,” Trixie mutters under her breath, eyebrows furrowed and teeth gritted slightly as she stomps down the stairs ahead of the other girl.

“I know!”

They sit in a huff on the cool concrete steps of the main block. The height of the building casts a shadow that they bask in as they grumble, each wondering how exactly they got stuck together.

“How do we do this?”

“How much do you like the library?”

Well I’ve been out to Austin, back to Boston

Where I’ve been

Following the highways in my hand

After two days, they have a permanent table in the library. It’s in a private study room off to the side, which the librarian has stuck a reserved sign on. When Katya goes to ask who’s reserved it, the woman just hands her a key and the rest is history. It’s nice though, they can leave their notes there instead of taking them home and forgetting them (after Trixie did that one morning, Katya didn’t speak to her for four hours).

The shorter girl thanks god that her minor finished months ago, is almost grateful that this project means she won’t have to do any more stupid things at the same time. She feels something that could almost be called empathy for Trixie, her biology professor throwing lab work after lab work at the girl, like she’s a women’s softball player and not an overworked college student. Trixie can play softball, that’s just not the point.

She divulges this information when Katya returns with two coffees, a black for herself and a sakura latte for Trixie. She doesn’t point out the irony that the girl is willing to drink the thing that’s killing her, doesn’t think they’re there yet. They discuss the ins and outs of everyone’s favourite lesbian sport and there are points where Katya even laughs.

They are high on life and caffeine when they lean in, slow, tense. The air feels humid and full of pent up stress that drips down the walls like wet paint - smells like despair and tastes like tea leaves. Katya takes two fingers, tucking Trixie’s blonde hair behind her ear before moving them under her chin, pulling it up, so it is angled in a way that leaves her vulnerable. She looks so pretty, eyes closed and lips parted and they almost forget where they are. Then the clock strikes eleven and Trixie’s eyes snap open. She is like a Cinderella when she realises how close their lips are (an inch, maybe less), and she jumps away like she has been burned. Like Katya’s fingers were candles, flaming and hot.

Katya wishes for a second that she had not felt the flower’s roots loosen around her lung, snake their way out of her aorta and her small intestine for a second there. It would make it all easier to accept as Trixie runs out of the room in a state of panic. The dark blonde reaches for the dredges of her coffee, downs what is left as she rubs on the protrusion taking up her forearm. When she coughs, she feels it shift and it hurts. She supposes the pain reminds her she is alive. She wishes it wouldn’t.

When I go back to Wisconsin

And when I come home again

Has anybody out there seen my man?

After a few more days of quiet working, Katya notices something. It’s not a subtle change, comes rather suddenly, but the girl she is working with looks different. Trixie has lost weight, her eyes are hollow and dark as she flicks the pages of research they have been doing for hours. Her hair, that once glistened like it contained the sun, looks limp and flat. There is no sheen, just plain yellow. She has to work up the nerve to ask what has happened as the girl sips her water.

“Are - are you okay?” She hates the way her voice breaks. She hates how Trixie’s voice sounds even more.

“Uhuh, peachy,” comes the other girl sardonically. Her voice is unnaturally hoarse as if she has been screaming for days on end. Katya winces at the sound of it.

“Are you sure? You don’t look well.”

Trixie turns, makes eye contact with her for the first time in days and it’s like Katya was  looking through a façade as she sees her skin grey under the warm lights of the study room.

“My body is a temple that has been overtaken with weeds,” she chuckles and the other girl wants to make a joke about poetry slams and spoken word but, ironically, she cannot find the words. She does not know the prayers to make this go away.

They return to the complacent silence they held - it is not comfortable but it does not feel so much like thorns.

When Katya gets home that night, she falls onto the couch, eyeballing Sharon and Alaska cuddling, but more so the Thai food they have spread on the coffee table.

“’Lasky, Shar-Bear,” she starts, earning a cold glare from Sharon and a gesture towards the food. She picks up a random noodle dish and helps herself as she continues. “I think Trixie is the one.”

“Trixie?”

“Lollipop, Candyfloss, Barbie - That one, yes.”

“And she’s the one?” Alaska’s eyes narrow, she might have known this, but the urgency with which the idea is being conveyed now frightens her a little as she melts a little further into Sharon’s side.

“Yes,” replies Katya, mouth full of noodles, “And I don’t know what to do.”

“How much time you got?” enquires Alaska’s partner, muting the television less out of common decency and more pure nosiness. Katya pulls up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, reads the lily like one would read a watch. The marks and clocks are rather similar in their idea, she muses to herself, although only one predicts your death. She doesn’t think any deeper into that.

Sharon mutters something under her breath that sounds like 'Jesus,’ but could have easily been anything else.

“You might want to work fast, Kitty-Cat, that flower isn’t gonna wait much longer.” As Katya looks down, the penultimate petal falls off - she inhales sharply. Sharon definitely mutters 'Jesus’ this time.

Hippodromes and hedons sipping Seagram’s from my mug

Pills at all the parties that we sweep beneath the rug

Figuring that loving’s just the kind of dice you throw

Can a cactus and a lily find a common pot to grow?

It ends on a Monday too.

Trixie keels over after they have handed in their paper, a couple of pages tear-stained and one slightly darkened (although Katya swears she did not spill coffee on it). The blonde falls into Katya’s arms as they walk down the shallow steps outside the main building; it’s almost in slow-motion as the girl has to reach to grab her safely. She retches a couple of times as she lays there, eyes streaming as she holds her stomach like it’s falling apart.

It feels like it is.

Trixie’s always wondered if cacti have spikes on their roots, and, based on this moment and this moment alone, she truly believes that they do.. She feels every organ is being squeezed, the air forced out of her lungs, acid out of her stomach and blood from her heart. Her pulse is simultaneously skyrocketing and bottoming out, and her mouth is filling with the artificially sweet taste of sap. Her mama always told her that she would never have to know what it’s like to never find your soulmate, and the worst part is that she did find hers. All five feet and four inches, with dirty blonde, messy hair; paint splattered rucksack and ripped jeans; loves books but loves maths more, nerd. But she can still feel the roots of her love tearing her up inside as she looks into Katya’s eyes through the sheen of tears.

She cannot hear what is being said through the pounding of her heart and the all-encompassing ripping of her organs. It’s like a violin playing Dvorak’s 'New World,’ but the strings are loose and the bow is torn up and there is no sheet music. It’s an awful cacophony of suffering and hopelessness.

She does not feel when she closes her eyes.

She does feel when everything stops.

Well I’ve been out to Austin, back to Boston

Where I’ve been

Following the highways in my hand

When their lips touch, Katya wants a cosmic supernova. She wants to feel a universe expand and collapse in a second between them, some fiery explosion that tells her this is right. She needs bright lights and flashing words in the sky, 'congratulations dumbass’ spelt out in fireworks. She gets none of that.

Instead, she feels the unmistakable tug of heartstrings as they pick up a song she’d long forgotten, years after dropping violin in sixth grade. She feels her fingers move to the second fret of the A string, vibrato against the low wheezing of Trixie’s breath, the only sign she’s still alive. Her body plays Largo by memory as the lily snakes out of her vena cava. It’s uncomfortable, like pulling out a tooth or popping a dislocated elbow back into place, and as the low G swells in her heart, she feels something push against her sleeve.

She pulls away with a start.

Gently moving Trixie’s head further onto her knees, she rolls up her sweater, hands shaking a little. When it moves past her elbow, a lily falls onto the concrete next to her.

She feels its loss like a dead weight in her arm.

It’s hard to explain how it feels to lose something so dear to you, even if it means you gain something more. The lily that had caused so much grief, so much pain as it rooted its way deep into her being, gone in an instant. An uncomfortable few seconds followed by a lifetime of freedom. She examines the arm with fervour, the flower having left no exit wound, just a perfect scar.

It is then she has the idea to check on Trixie’s.

The girl lets out a heavy breath followed by a hacking cough as Katya twists her forearm. Surely enough, the cactus has left an imprint of buds and needles on the soft skin. It feels a little rough to touch but still has the thrum of a heartbeat under it, rooting it home.

Trixie studies Katya for a little, before moving her head up to meet the girl. She doesn’t taste of sap anymore, she notes, but of strawberries. She decides that it is now her favourite flavour.

When I go back to Wisconsin

And when I come home again

Has anybody out there seen my man?

“So, this is Lollipop,” Alaska teases when Katya brings her girlfriend over for the first time. It’s like an obligatory meet the family dinner, except they’ve already met and they’re ordering Chinese.

When Sharon turns up, she gives Trixie a once over before mouthing something along the lines of 'nice ass’ to Alaska, who rolls her eyes a little before nodding. Ever one for subtleties, Sharon repeats the same sentiment to the girl in question, who blushes the colour of raspberries and mutters a quiet 'thank you.’ The older girl decides she likes her.

“So, Candyfloss, what’s your flower?” questions Alaska once they’re deep on champagne and sweet and sour chicken. Trixie buries her head in Katya’s shoulder for a second, before rolling the sleeves of her dress up to reveal the cactus she’s had painstakingly tattooed over her mark.

“It felt a little more permanent,” she justifies as the other girls goggle, Katya looking smug. “Plus you couldn’t really see it before.”

Her girlfriend takes her hand gently in her own and presses a featherlight kiss to the tattoo.

“I love it, babe,” she whispers and when they kiss, it tastes of strawberry chapstick and she feels the supernova she’s always wanted.

Has anybody out there seen my man?

*

[alternate ending]

Katya feels Trixie go limp in her arms and wonders if this is where the train stops. If this is where she gets off and never returns to the land of the living, destined only to act as a word of warning to everyone. Romeo and Juliet could never.

She feels the lily tighten its hold on her heart, learnt enough biology during a work placement with pacemakers to envision its roots working their way into her right atrium through the superior vena cava and down into the ventricle. Imagines it as it snakes back up and out the pulmonary artery and round through her lungs. It goes back through the pulmonary vein and into her left atrium and ventricle, before exiting her aorta like some weird bread plait, but less tasty.

As the pressure increases she wishes they’d gone somewhere more comfortable, because the concrete steps digging into her back are almost as bad as the way her kidneys are twisting to accommodate her second heart.

The taste of sap burns the back of her throat, and as she slips under, she swears she feels a whisper of strawberries on her tongue like a promise. A solemn goodbye.

*

Heaven has more pink than she imagined.

*

Tags - rpdr fanfiction, trixya, trixie mattel, katya zamolodchikova, shalaska, sharon needles, alaska thunderfuck, angst, fluff?, eventual happy ending, also contains an alternate ending, lesbian au, soulmate au, pinkgrapefruit, concrit welcome

show my blog please V XX

Seeming when I’m older that it’s younger how I feelLearning that you only get the raw end of the dealFirst one to the finish line, but the last one left to knowSecond place adorns you no matter where you go It started on a Monday, except it didn’t - not really.  It started on the day she was born, in a small town in Russia where the rain hadn’t stopped for three days and everyone was a little on edge. It started when the doctor, a sweet old man from St Petersburg, announced loudly, “It’s a girl!” and then, much quieter and with a little sorrow, “and she has a soulmark.” It started when she was five and asked her mama why she had a flower on her arm, and the woman cursed and told her to be quiet, because ‘good girls don’t ask questions.’ When she never heard of the word 'soulmate’ spoken in the small town she grew up in, not a speck of blood in the snow as the lily rooted its way into the crook of her elbow. When she cried going through test after test to see if they could remove it, uproot it. When a nurse tried to pull the lily out, tried to yank her second heart straight from her arm. It started when they moved to the USA when she was eight, her father explaining in a hushed tone that the small ‘sm’ in her passport wasn’t anything special. And then it changed. It changed in seventh grade when they did a lesson on soulmarks in biology and the teacher was so proud to show off the daffodil on the back of her neck that Katya almost cried. It changed when she watched Alaska’s black dahlia start to uproot itself from her calf midway through a sophomore baseball practice because she saw an exchange student through the fence - their eyes meeting for a brief second before a petal fell onto the grass next to them. She watched them fall in love, until the flower had long removed itself, leaving a faint outline of the flower that had scarred under her skin. It changed when she learned she was one in a million - an urban myth, a soulmate. Half of a whole, unbreakable.  It changed when she met Trixie. Well I’ve been out to Austin, back to BostonWhere I’ve beenFollowing the highways in my hand It’s a Monday in spring and Katya is 19, but she feels like she’s 30. The cold of Boston has started to dissipate; instead, a warm breeze tickles her ankles through the DIY rips in her jeans. She is that kid, and she is proud of it. Her long sleeves cover the slight protrusion of a soulmate mark, but if you were to look closely enough, you could make out the raised stem of a lily following the river-like path of her veins under the white jersey. She raises her keep-cup to her lips, lets the bitterness of the coffee overrule the sap that’s filling her mouth more and more often these days, the flower routing deeper into her body with each passing day. She hums to herself as she sketches, letting her ankles catch the sun a little as she sits on her coat on the Charles River Esplanade. Katya is majoring in mechanical engineering at MIT with a minor in women and gender studies - something she finds almost fulfilling when she isn’t frantically sketching out a design that would have been done weeks ago if it wasn’t for the new girl in her team. She’s bright blonde, wears heavy makeup and big, pink dresses to the lab; it’s a different kind of feminine to Katya’s messy hair, messy jeans, messy aura of comfort, and she isn’t necessarily intimidated, but she is stressed. And distracted.  “Who in their right mind wears a dress to the engineering labs?” she’d whined down the phone to Alaska after the girl’s first day. “It didn’t even cover her knees.” “As if you cared about her safety,” croaked the girl, knowingly. “You’re just a whore who can’t focus.” “And you’re paying for a linguistics course?” Katya bit back, laughing as she said it.  As she’s lost in her thoughts, a text comes through. She chuckles as she reads it, types out a hasty reply before throwing her possessions into her rucksack. She drains her coffee, ready to return to the flat and see what in the name of hell is going on. “Your lollipop came round,” yells out Alaska before Katya has even locked the door. The girl shakes off her jacket and stands on the back of her Docs to get them off, shot-putting the cup into the sink from the doorway and letting out a little whoop when it goes in on the first try. “My lollipop? That’s new,” she responds, launching herself onto the couch with a huff.  “Lollipop, Candy Cane, Sugarplum Fairy? They’re all the same to me.” The girl rubs the scar on the back of her leg subconsciously, checking her watch as she does so. “Shouldn’t Sharon be home by now?” she questions, reading the ache in her leg. “Said she set off a few minutes ago,” reads Katya from Alaska’s phone - the other girl grabbing it off her when she realises. She stands up, potters into the kitchen to make a fourth cup of coffee and tries to start a conversation over the whistling of the kettle.  “So Trixie was here?” she yells over the din, answered only by the nodding of the giant space buns sticking up from the back of the couch. “Uhuh, said something about a double major being shit and meeting somewhere at six-ish.” “Alaska, you bitch!” she shouts as she checks the time on the oven. It’s five forty-five and she’d promised to meet Trixie at a little cafe twenty minutes away (not that she’d realised, the river seemed to speed up time). She sprints out the door like she’s on a mission. She sort of is. When I go back to WisconsinAnd when I come home againHas anybody out there seen my man? Trixie never intended to do engineering. She intended to do fashion design and become, well, a fashion designer, but life doesn’t always go the way you plan and, like a cat afraid of water, she’s swimming now. She switched to MIT in her third year because she was told she could, decided to swap design to design engineering and then mechanical, because two days before school started again, she was told they weren’t running that course - double majoring in biology too, because why the hell not. She thinks like a fashion design student, but works like a physicist - something that’s made her very few friends in the new course, but someone she appears to be especially at odds with is Katya. It’s not a cruel rivalry - nothing about it is malicious or rude, they’re just very different. Katya thinks like an engineer and dresses like an edgy art kid, Trixie - doesn’t. It’s been three months since she got there and she feels she should probably make peace. It’s definitely her own choice, not the spines that are tearing holes in her clothes as they slowly extrude from her arm. The way they twist in her vein like a bad cannula, bruising, til her arm looks like a galaxy and her freckles are the stars. She’s started bandaging over the worst bits, the spikes getting stuck in her coats, so when she takes them off, they pull and tug. She’s not stupid, she knows what it means. But she doesn’t have to be excited about it. He parents had always explained soulmates very nicely and concisely, and like they were a choice. Like she didn’t have to have one, like it could go away. They’d said ‘Trixie, darling, that cactus isn’t everything, you are more than it,’ and yet she’s always treated it like it was. Like it ruled her destiny - she believes it does.  They meet on a sunny Monday in April, Boston raining intermittently, but the sun trying its very hardest, like a halogen bulb about to blow. She reckons she has enough time to redress her arm before the other girl arrives, takes a seat in a comfy armchair by the window, ripping off the cover like it isn’t pulling out parts of her heart - tiny needles that were once veins. Maybe it’s because she has her eyes closed in pain that she doesn’t notice Katya. The girl floating in, pausing at the counter to get a refill in her reusable cup and pulling out a metal straw for Trixie as she sits down opposite. She looks in awe at the Gymnocalycium in the crook of her arm. How its tiny spineless flowers sit flush to the skin, while the rest seems like it’s jumping out.  “So,” she says, breaking the silence. “Hi.” Coming home reminds you that you ain’t got long to go'Til you can’t make it to the mailbox, not in all this snowI hope you’ve got the time to keep that air between your lungsI hope you’ve got the hand to pull the plug when that day comes Their tutor calls them into her office on an unusually hot day, both women sweating under their respective overalls and cotton dress. Katya feels the heat like it’s under her skin, splitting muscle from fat with a hot layer of wetness that makes her shiver a little. She’s the sweatiest woman alive, or so she likes to say, but the stuffiness of the basement office isn’t helping the way her skin crawls under the chino cloth. Trixie, despite being significantly less covered, doesn’t seem to be faring any better. The humidity makes her skin flush the colour of cyclamen flowers in the summer.  Katya feels a tug in her arm as she watches the girl listen intently. It’s like the lily has a mind of its own, and she’s not stupid, but she’d like to keep her denial for a little bit longer. It smells like pink gin and tastes like comfort. “I want a paper on the advancement of bionic prosthetics on my desk in two weeks. It’ll be 20 percent of your final grade,” the teacher drones as if it hasn’t crossed her mind how absurd of a task it is. It probably hasn’t, and it makes Katya’s blood boil in a way that she isn’t so willing to chalk down to heat or some form of ailment that this flower is definitely giving her. Can you boil sap? She vows to google it when she gets home. They leave in a discontented silence, Trixie thumbing the loose edge of her bandage as they let the slight breeze remove the sheen of moisture covering them. The light hurts their heads a little, but so does the assignment, so they can’t win. Katya texts Alaska a series of angry emojis and the girl replies with a squid. “Two weeks? Fucking ridiculous,” Trixie mutters under her breath, eyebrows furrowed and teeth gritted slightly as she stomps down the stairs ahead of the other girl.  “I know!” They sit in a huff on the cool concrete steps of the main block. The height of the building casts a shadow that they bask in as they grumble, each wondering how exactly they got stuck together. “How do we do this?” “How much do you like the library?” Well I’ve been out to Austin, back to BostonWhere I’ve beenFollowing the highways in my hand After two days, they have a permanent table in the library. It’s in a private study room off to the side, which the librarian has stuck a reserved sign on. When Katya goes to ask who’s reserved it, the woman just hands her a key and the rest is history. It’s nice though, they can leave their notes there instead of taking them home and forgetting them (after Trixie did that one morning, Katya didn’t speak to her for four hours). The shorter girl thanks god that her minor finished months ago, is almost grateful that this project means she won’t have to do any more stupid things at the same time. She feels something that could almost be called empathy for Trixie, her biology professor throwing lab work after lab work at the girl, like she’s a women’s softball player and not an overworked college student. Trixie can play softball, that’s just not the point.  She divulges this information when Katya returns with two coffees, a black for herself and a sakura latte for Trixie. She doesn’t point out the irony that the girl is willing to drink the thing that’s killing her, doesn’t think they’re there yet. They discuss the ins and outs of everyone’s favourite lesbian sport and there are points where Katya even laughs. They are high on life and caffeine when they lean in, slow, tense. The air feels humid and full of pent up stress that drips down the walls like wet paint - smells like despair and tastes like tea leaves. Katya takes two fingers, tucking Trixie’s blonde hair behind her ear before moving them under her chin, pulling it up, so it is angled in a way that leaves her vulnerable. She looks so pretty, eyes closed and lips parted and they almost forget where they are. Then the clock strikes eleven and Trixie’s eyes snap open. She is like a Cinderella when she realises how close their lips are (an inch, maybe less), and she jumps away like she has been burned. Like Katya’s fingers were candles, flaming and hot. Katya wishes for a second that she had not felt the flower’s roots loosen around her lung, snake their way out of her aorta and her small intestine for a second there. It would make it all easier to accept as Trixie runs out of the room in a state of panic. The dark blonde reaches for the dredges of her coffee, downs what is left as she rubs on the protrusion taking up her forearm. When she coughs, she feels it shift and it hurts. She supposes the pain reminds her she is alive. She wishes it wouldn’t. When I go back to WisconsinAnd when I come home againHas anybody out there seen my man? After a few more days of quiet working, Katya notices something. It’s not a subtle change, comes rather suddenly, but the girl she is working with looks different. Trixie has lost weight, her eyes are hollow and dark as she flicks the pages of research they have been doing for hours. Her hair, that once glistened like it contained the sun, looks limp and flat. There is no sheen, just plain yellow. She has to work up the nerve to ask what has happened as the girl sips her water. “Are - are you okay?” She hates the way her voice breaks. She hates how Trixie’s voice sounds even more. “Uhuh, peachy,” comes the other girl sardonically. Her voice is unnaturally hoarse as if she has been screaming for days on end. Katya winces at the sound of it.  “Are you sure? You don’t look well.” Trixie turns, makes eye contact with her for the first time in days and it’s like Katya was  looking through a façade as she sees her skin grey under the warm lights of the study room. “My body is a temple that has been overtaken with weeds,” she chuckles and the other girl wants to make a joke about poetry slams and spoken word but, ironically, she cannot find the words. She does not know the prayers to make this go away. They return to the complacent silence they held - it is not comfortable but it does not feel so much like thorns. When Katya gets home that night, she falls onto the couch, eyeballing Sharon and Alaska cuddling, but more so the Thai food they have spread on the coffee table. “’Lasky, Shar-Bear,” she starts, earning a cold glare from Sharon and a gesture towards the food. She picks up a random noodle dish and helps herself as she continues. “I think Trixie is the one.” “Trixie?” “Lollipop, Candyfloss, Barbie - That one, yes.” “And she’s the one?” Alaska’s eyes narrow, she might have known this, but the urgency with which the idea is being conveyed now frightens her a little as she melts a little further into Sharon’s side. “Yes,” replies Katya, mouth full of noodles, “And I don’t know what to do.” “How much time you got?” enquires Alaska’s partner, muting the television less out of common decency and more pure nosiness. Katya pulls up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, reads the lily like one would read a watch. The marks and clocks are rather similar in their idea, she muses to herself, although only one predicts your death. She doesn’t think any deeper into that. Sharon mutters something under her breath that sounds like 'Jesus,’ but could have easily been anything else. “You might want to work fast, Kitty-Cat, that flower isn’t gonna wait much longer.” As Katya looks down, the penultimate petal falls off - she inhales sharply. Sharon definitely mutters 'Jesus’ this time. Hippodromes and hedons sipping Seagram’s from my mugPills at all the parties that we sweep beneath the rugFiguring that loving’s just the kind of dice you throwCan a cactus and a lily find a common pot to grow? It ends on a Monday too.  Trixie keels over after they have handed in their paper, a couple of pages tear-stained and one slightly darkened (although Katya swears she did not spill coffee on it). The blonde falls into Katya’s arms as they walk down the shallow steps outside the main building; it’s almost in slow-motion as the girl has to reach to grab her safely. She retches a couple of times as she lays there, eyes streaming as she holds her stomach like it’s falling apart. It feels like it is. Trixie’s always wondered if cacti have spikes on their roots, and, based on this moment and this moment alone, she truly believes that they do.. She feels every organ is being squeezed, the air forced out of her lungs, acid out of her stomach and blood from her heart. Her pulse is simultaneously skyrocketing and bottoming out, and her mouth is filling with the artificially sweet taste of sap. Her mama always told her that she would never have to know what it’s like to never find your soulmate, and the worst part is that she did find hers. All five feet and four inches, with dirty blonde, messy hair; paint splattered rucksack and ripped jeans; loves books but loves maths more, nerd. But she can still feel the roots of her love tearing her up inside as she looks into Katya’s eyes through the sheen of tears. She cannot hear what is being said through the pounding of her heart and the all-encompassing ripping of her organs. It’s like a violin playing Dvorak’s 'New World,’ but the strings are loose and the bow is torn up and there is no sheet music. It’s an awful cacophony of suffering and hopelessness. She does not feel when she closes her eyes. She does feel when everything stops. Well I’ve been out to Austin, back to BostonWhere I’ve beenFollowing the highways in my hand When their lips touch, Katya wants a cosmic supernova. She wants to feel a universe expand and collapse in a second between them, some fiery explosion that tells her this is right. She needs bright lights and flashing words in the sky, 'congratulations dumbass’ spelt out in fireworks. She gets none of that. Instead, she feels the unmistakable tug of heartstrings as they pick up a song she’d long forgotten, years after dropping violin in sixth grade. She feels her fingers move to the second fret of the A string, vibrato against the low wheezing of Trixie’s breath, the only sign she’s still alive. Her body plays Largo by memory as the lily snakes out of her vena cava. It’s uncomfortable, like pulling out a tooth or popping a dislocated elbow back into place, and as the low G swells in her heart, she feels something push against her sleeve. She pulls away with a start. Gently moving Trixie’s head further onto her knees, she rolls up her sweater, hands shaking a little. When it moves past her elbow, a lily falls onto the concrete next to her. She feels its loss like a dead weight in her arm. It’s hard to explain how it feels to lose something so dear to you, even if it means you gain something more. The lily that had caused so much grief, so much pain as it rooted its way deep into her being, gone in an instant. An uncomfortable few seconds followed by a lifetime of freedom. She examines the arm with fervour, the flower having left no exit wound, just a perfect scar. It is then she has the idea to check on Trixie’s. The girl lets out a heavy breath followed by a hacking cough as Katya twists her forearm. Surely enough, the cactus has left an imprint of buds and needles on the soft skin. It feels a little rough to touch but still has the thrum of a heartbeat under it, rooting it home. Trixie studies Katya for a little, before moving her head up to meet the girl. She doesn’t taste of sap anymore, she notes, but of strawberries. She decides that it is now her favourite flavour. When I go back to WisconsinAnd when I come home againHas anybody out there seen my man? “So, this is Lollipop,” Alaska teases when Katya brings her girlfriend over for the first time. It’s like an obligatory meet the family dinner, except they’ve already met and they’re ordering Chinese. When Sharon turns up, she gives Trixie a once over before mouthing something along the lines of 'nice ass’ to Alaska, who rolls her eyes a little before nodding. Ever one for subtleties, Sharon repeats the same sentiment to the girl in question, who blushes the colour of raspberries and mutters a quiet 'thank you.’ The older girl decides she likes her. “So, Candyfloss, what’s your flower?” questions Alaska once they’re deep on champagne and sweet and sour chicken. Trixie buries her head in Katya’s shoulder for a second, before rolling the sleeves of her dress up to reveal the cactus she’s had painstakingly tattooed over her mark.  “It felt a little more permanent,” she justifies as the other girls goggle, Katya looking smug. “Plus you couldn’t really see it before.” Her girlfriend takes her hand gently in her own and presses a featherlight kiss to the tattoo.  “I love it, babe,” she whispers and when they kiss, it tastes of strawberry chapstick and she feels the supernova she’s always wanted. Has anybody out there seen my man? [alternate ending] Katya feels Trixie go limp in her arms and wonders if this is where the train stops. If this is where she gets off and never returns to the land of the living, destined only to act as a word of warning to everyone. Romeo and Juliet could never. She feels the lily tighten its hold on her heart, learnt enough biology during a work placement with pacemakers to envision its roots working their way into her right atrium through the superior vena cava and down into the ventricle. Imagines it as it snakes back up and out the pulmonary artery and round through her lungs. It goes back through the pulmonary vein and into her left atrium and ventricle, before exiting her aorta like some weird bread plait, but less tasty. As the pressure increases she wishes they’d gone somewhere more comfortable, because the concrete steps digging into her back are almost as bad as the way her kidneys are twisting to accommodate her second heart.  The taste of sap burns the back of her throat, and as she slips under, she swears she feels a whisper of strawberries on her tongue like a promise. A solemn goodbye. * Heaven has more pink than she imagined.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Reviews: Carrie Lite

Since we’re all under government quarantine, i mean, since we’re all social distancing, i figure this is a good opportunity to catch up on some of the things is didn’t have enough tome to see otherwise. There were a few movies coming out that i wanted to take a legit theater gander at but i think they’re hitting streaming instead. Invisible Man, i’m looking at you. In the meantime, i took in a few shows on the Netflix that caught my interest, the first of which is I Am Not Okay With This. It’s the new show from Jonathan Entwistle, the director of the excellent End of the F*cking World, and appear to be a mixture of that show and Carrie. I absolutely adore End and Carrie is one of my favorites stories ever told, so my anticipation for this adaption was palpable. After binging the entire show in a day, i must say, i have opinions.

The Good

I rather like the overall plot of this show. It feels real. Telekinetic powers aside, this feels like one of the more realistic portrayals of awkward teen development i’ve seen in some time. Everyone is so awkward. Everyone is so clumsy. It’s like watching actual high school kids living high school lives. No one knows who the f*ck they are except the weird kid, which is the truest thing about this narrative that you never see in lesser, teen oriented dramedies.

Speaking of narrative, the writing on this show is strong as f*ck. Easily one of the better written shows out right now. Seriously, this is about as tight in the writing department as End of the F*cking World and that was, easily, the best written show i had seen in probably a decade. Okay gives that masterpiece a run for it’s money.

My, goodness, is this thing beautifully shot. The frames chosen, the pans, the wipes, that use of slow motion at just the right time; All of it comes together in a feast for the eyes. This show is truly a joy to watch. It’s not super laden with effects or saturated with Bayhem or whatever but if you’re a fan of camera work, the composition of shots, or the way Wes Anderson frames his scenes, you’ll definitely appreciate the look of this show.

The direction of this show is good. I can’t say i’m enthused by it because i already saw it in The End of the F*cking World, and this show skews to hard toward that one. That’s a choice made by Jonathan Entwistle, considering he was a director and creative force behind both shows. Now, i understand that cats have a certain style, a certain flair to their craft. You know a David Fincher flick when you see it. You know a Chris Nolan flick when you see it. That said, their movies are not the same. Dunkirk does not feel like The Dark Knight. Alien 3 does not feel like Gone Girl. There are, of course, superficial similarities; Cinematography, shot composition, editing style, etc. But, the sum of the parts does not make the same whole, over and over again. Michael By has that problem. It’s why no one takes him seriously as a director anymore. You have to innovate, evolve your style, to stay relevant and Entwistle seems to be resting on his laurels with Okay. He’s good at his job, don’t misunderstand, i’m just left wanting, you know?

The casting of this show is pretty legit. I mean, there are those twenty-somethings masquerading as teenagers but the gap isn’t as bad as you’d assume. I’m pretty sure these cats are supposed to be around Junior/Senior level age and, for the most part, the main cast falls in that wheelhouse relatively adequately. That lends itself to the believability of this teenage dramadey. I mean, who the f*ck is trying to watch a show at thirty-year-teenagers? Riverdale, i’m looking at you.

Sophia Lillis is absolutely brilliant as the our heroine, Sydney Novak. An obvious Carrie White allegory, Sophia was able to inject a genuineness to her character that give Syd an independent energy. Syd’s plight is rooted in very real, very emotional, turmoil that lends itself to what a lot of real life teens nowadays, have to face. Ma was excellent as Beverly Marsh in the IT films and i hear great things about Sharp Objects so i had confidence she could carry this show. I can’t say i was surprised when she hit it out of the park but i was, one again, incredibly impressed. I mean, she’s f*cking fresh 18! There’s no way she should be this god at her craft, so early in her career!

Another standout, and easily my favorite character in this show, was that of Stan Barber. Stan is that weird kid i poke of earlier. He has his own issues at home but Wyatt Oleff’s portrayal makes that sh*t real. He embodies that high anxiety and awkward waywardness. You can tell Stan has lived a life and is just done with the nonsense superficiality of High School bullsh*t, a fact that i can identify with. Stan is delightful eccentric, lovably awkward, and refreshingly real throughout his arc, all testament to the outstanding portrayal of Wyatt Oleff. Interestingly enough, he, too, is an IT alum. That cast of kids was truly excellent. It’s dope seeing them branch off into other great roles.

Sofia Bryant’s Dina, Syd’s best friend and object of infatuation, deserves a mention as well. She was excellent in her role, mostly. There were times when i felt her portrayal a little wooden or flat but, overall, she did a great job. It was necessary for whoever was cast as Dina to have that chemistry with Syd and Bryant played well off Lillis. Without that relationship, this entire show wouldn’t work. Fortunately, Bryant and Lillis are excellent together onscreen.

The supporting cat is pretty strong as well. No one feels fake or inorganic to the world created in this show. I have to recognize Aidan Wojtak-Hissong and Richard Ellis as Liam Novak and Brad Ellis, respectively. These cats were integral, if underutilized, to the plot. I was a little disappointed with Jenny Tuffield, played by Sophia Tatum. Her generic bad-boy turned bad-girl archetype, complete with cliche leather jacket and everything, felt too manufactured. The Fonz doesn’t exist in modern day. Greasers are extinct. Still, i think she did a decent job with what she had but she ain’t have much.

The Bad

Some characters felt underutilized. For instance, Maggie Novak, Syd’s mom. There is a lot there for the character to do but it feels like her role was purposely mitigated to exposition and cameo. I wanted more of their mother/daughter relationship. I wanted a more intimate exploration of their family dynamic. They found a way to work around that absence but it felt a little cheap. Missed potential for sure.

This show feels a little too much like End of the F*cking world. That’s not a terrible thing for me as i love that show, but it kind of handicaps what I Am Not Okay With This can truly be. If you’re constantly looking at this show through End colored goggles, you’re not truly seeing this specific show for what it is. In the long run, i think this is a detriment. End is the superior show, easily, but Okay has enough originality to stand on it’s own. They’ll definitely need to pivot for season two.

It’s very obvious that this season is only a set up for future seasons of this show. Unlike End, which had a definitive end after their first season, Okay seems to want to continue some sort of narrative. That’s fine as long as it’s planned out. Netflix is good about nixing shows before they over stay their welcome but the way this season climaxed has me worried. it feels like some Riverdale nonsense or that goofy Walking Dead thing they do where it ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. That does not bode well for the future. However, Netflix has succeeded more than they have failed in this avenue so i’ll keep the faith. For now.

The Verdict

This Is Not Okay With This is a great show, if a little derivative. It’s filled with beautiful cinematography, a compelling if a little familiar plot, and excellent performances. The teenage interactions feel real and organic while the overall narrative is decently executed, testament to the strong writing. Okay feels a little too much like End of the F*cking World at times and definitely wears it’s Carrie influences on it’s sleeve but that’s okay. For a first season, this show gets off to a strong start. Hopefully, it becomes more of it’s own thing going forward but, for a first attempt, they definitely stuck the landing. I’m Not Okay With This is definitely an easy recommend and worth your time. Since the world has stopped for at least a few weeks, there’s more than enough time to check this gem out.

Also, both of these shows are comic adaptions by a guy named Charles Forsman. You should check the books out, too, since we got all the time in the world. Literally.

[hcartcycs]

- happy together ;

ship : you’re the one i wanna go through time with - peter maximoff x self insert ( em / emily ) word count : 2 331 ( if u actually read this i’ll die for u ) note : i love him so much i went unhinged i spent the entire day on this so if any of u read this i’d be the happiest dumbass in the world

( under the cut for length ! )

“Wanna sleep over?”

The question had slipped out seemingly by itself as Peter stared down at Emily from his doorframe. He was always fast-paced, if it was anyone else standing in Emily’s spot right now, he’d have already slammed the door shut and focused on fidgeting with whatever he had in his room. But she was here now and he was willing to slow down as long as he could match her. And now, having spent the day together, walking around town (albeit a bit too slow for him, he was still having fun, to his surprise), it was theoretically time for them to go back to their rooms. There was a small problem though, Peter didn’t really want to go his own way, even if it was just for a night. He didn’t want to annoy Emily either, but the need to be close to her overpowered him this time, prompting the sudden question.

“O- Oh.” Emily looked down, averting her gaze from Peter’s and rubbing her arm awkwardly. “Me?”

“There’s no one else in this hall, sweets.” In a sudden, he zipped behind her, arms wrapping around her waist and chin placed delicately on her shoulder. “I wanna…be with you, you know?”

Emily’s face went scarlet red, still not used to Peter’s affectionate behavior. She loved it, of course, but it was more than she was used to, which made her nervous, which made her throat close up every time he did something like this. As much as she would’ve loved to sing him a serenade, she found such out there acts more difficult to do than she had previously imagined.

“I mean, if you’d rather not-”

“No, no!” She turned around to face him in his hold, hands moving from her sides to grab him by his squishy cheeks. He could tell from the rainbow-tinted sparkles her fingers emitted that she wasn’t angry at him, rather excited and he couldn’t help but grin at her, his dimples showing.

Her eyes twinkled. “I wanna be with you too!”

Emily felt one of Peter’s hands snaking up to the back of her neck and it made her recall the first time he had done that. To avoid whiplash, he had told her back then. She hated it, she still did now, but as her eyebrows furrowed and she opened her mouth to protest, before she could even get a single word out, she already found herself in the middle of Peter’s room. He was sporting a mischievous grin, knowing that Emily absolutely hated when he dragged her around with his super speed.

“You’re a scoundrel, I hope you know that.” She said, though the dizziness made her lean her head on his chest, hoping she wouldn’t barf.

“Yeah, but you love me.” He grinned, backing away and letting her sway in her own little daze. “Plus, shouldn’t you be used to this by now?”

“I’m never going to get used to that, I can barely sit on a damn swing without feeling like my heart’s gonna leap out of my chest.” Emily shook her head, leaning on one of the cabinets in Peter’s room, which made her notice the boombox sat atop it. “Have anything to put on this?”

“Oh, definitely.” Peter grinned and sped towards his bed, eventually pulling out a box of tapes from under it. “Any requests?”

She snorted. “Well, since I’m here, how about some really corny shit?”

In only a split second, he was already standing next to Emily, putting the cassette tape in the boombox and starting it up. “So, like, this is a mixtape I made, right? And I swear to god, you’re gonna die from how corny this is. I made this specifically for moments like this!”

“Moments like this? What, like, when there’s a girl in your room?” She raised an eyebrow with a taunting smile.

“Uh, well, I guess?” He chuckled nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “The definition is very, very loose since I never really thought there’d be a girl in my room anyways.”

He pushed his goggles off the top of his head, placing them on the cabinet next to the boombox and proceeding to grab Emily by the hand, pulling her away to the middle of the room again. Spinning her around, he declared that she should just focus on the music instead, but before she could properly focus on what had started playing, Peter opted on belting out the words instead.

“-I think about you day and night, it’s only right-!”

“Oh my god, Peter, please.” Emily laughed. “I swear, Charles could probably hear you yelling from his office!”

“If I should call you up, invest a dime-” He continued to sing, or rather, yell obnoxiously. Shrugging his iconic silver jacket, he flicked it in some random corner of his room, earning a playfully scolding glance from Emily. Though in a moment, she shook her head, doing the same with her leather jacket; it was pretty humid back in the school.

And, oh god, then the chorus started.

“I can’t see me lovin’ nobody but you!” Peter dramatically formed his hands into finger guns, pointing at Emily. “For all my life!”

Before she could jokingly complain again, he grabbed her by the hands and started spinning with her like a lovestruck twelve-year-old who had just gotten married to the prettiest girl in class near a jungle gym. Laughing, he continued to belt out the lyrics of Happy Together, garnering a laugh from her too, which eventually turned into more of a nervous giggle.

“I’m honestly scared you’re going to use your mutation now, because if you will, I’ll actually puke on you!” She exclaimed, still giggling, and Peter’s smile shifted into a more mischievous one, causing the poor girl to actually worry. “H- Hey now, don’t get any ideas!”

But Peter wasn’t that evil; instead he tugged her close, so he could wrap his arms around her waist, garnering a yelp from the girl. She instinctively threw her arms around his neck, making a flurry of the rainbow-tinted sparkles appear around the two in a burst of happiness and excitement. He was used to her mutation, in fact, he loved it when she would literally sparkle in joy and though it was only an addition to her full powers, he appreciated it nonetheless.

“These for dramatic effect?” He asked, looking to his sides and gesturing to the sparkles with the tilt of his head.

“No,” Emily rolled her eyes with a smile. She leaned closer, making their noses almost touch. “I’m just really happy, is all.”

Peter let out a toothy grin, closing the space and practically eskimo kissing her, both their noses scrunching up at the contact and garnering a small giggle from Emily. She felt his grip around her tighten and he let out a quick ‘alley-oop!’ before lifting her up and spinning her around, then using his super speed to zip towards the bed and sit her down.

“Peter…” She whined, plopping her head on his chest once more, before looking back up at him with wide eyes. “I swear, can you not-”

The speed in which his lips made contact with hers garnered a small muffled gasp from her. She could feel her heart jumping wildly in her chest and her face flush, and it took her a second, but her eyes eventually fluttered shut, arms wrapping around his neck in an attempt to feel closer to him. In turn, he placed one of his hands on her cheek gently, the other still on her waist, and propped one of his knees on the bed.

Eventually, he pulled away, his lips still lingering close to hers. He backed away slightly, removing his hand from her cheek and lifting his index finger as if to tell her to wait a moment. She squinted her eyes, and then-

“How deep is your love!” He exclaimed and only then did Emily realized he was singing along to the Bee Gees song that was playing, proceeding to echo the same sentence similarly to the song. “I really mean to know!”

“I literally can’t with you.” Emily smacked his chest lightly, shaking her head with a small smile.

Peter hummed. “Like kissing me that much, baaabe?” His voice trailed, tone shifting to a teasing one at the word ‘babe’.

“W- What of it?”

Her red cheeks made the grin on his face widen more, if that was even possible in the first place, and it sure did make him forget that he was probably just as red. The way she pouted and looked away, each blink emitting a little batch of sparkles, but this time probably because she was flustered; it all made Peter feel like he was in a dream.

Who knew that the second he got out of his mother’s basement he’d get so lucky?

“You’re the cutest.” Peter muttered.

Emily huffed, a smile inching on her face. “That’s not true, you’ve met Kurt, haven’t you?”

“Oh yeah, because I’m so head over heels for him.”

“No way, you aren’t?”

He sighed, shaking his head with a smile. Cracking his knuckles, he scooped her up in his arms and it took less than a second for the two to be completely on his messy bed. Peter was basically straddling Emily, which, truth be told, made her scream internally. She was already dizzy from him using his damn mutation too much, but this whole thing was…a lot for her poor heart. Her wide eyes were looking up at him and she only hoped that he didn’t hear her wild heartbeat.

She exhaled, trying to dismiss her nerves. “Saucy. Though it’d be more comfortable if you actually made your bed.”  

Peter groaned. “Oh my god, don’t ruin the cute moment.”

“I’m just saying!”  She clapped her hands together in front of her chest, fingertips sparkling. “If I’m sleeping over, I don’t wanna sleep on a mess!”

“Oh.” He had to stifle a large grin. “I, uh…you’re actually gonna?”

“I’m already here, aren’t I?” She smiled gently, raising her sparkling hand to caress his cheek. “I’m not planning on running off anytime soon.”

He leaned into her touch, relishing in the warmth of her hand on his face for a few moments, before inhaling and moving to kiss her again. She picked up on it this time, moving her hand from his cheek to the back of his head, fingers beginning to play with his silver hair and subconsciously pulling him closer until his lips finally met hers in a gentle kiss. It didn’t take long for him to smile in the kiss, making her smile in turn too, nearly ruining the whole thing. Though when he giggled, they both knew the kiss was over. So they opted to laugh at how mushy they were being instead, Peter’s forehead leaning against Emily’s. He looked so happy; laughing and grinning ear to ear, even when his laugh subsided, the dimples on his face still confirmed he was giddy as ever and she could’ve sworn if he kept looking at her with those happy eyes of his she would’ve started crying. Luckily, he moved to kiss the corner of her lips, so he didn’t notice her trying to suck in the happy tears.

He, on the other hand, was focusing on moving his lips to her jawline, pressing them and smiling against her skin as he trailed down to kiss the side of her neck. He could feel her hand still playing with his hair and he couldn’t help but wonder if his hair was going to sparkle later, causing him to smile even wider.

“Peter…” Emily began. “I love you. A lot. And I hope you know.”

He breathed against her skin and stayed still for a second, before moving to look at her, a baffled look on his face as he stared for what felt like eternity.

“You mean it?” He asked, his eyes suddenly becoming serious. “Really truly?”

She looked away, gazing to the side momentarily and then turning back, moving her hand from his hair and lifting up her index finger, telling him to wait a moment. He continued to stare and as she finally let her hand plop down to her side, she looked back at him with a wide grin.

“I wanna know what love is!” She loudly sang along to what was currently playing on the boombox, making sure to emulate the sound of the instruments during the small break before sentences. “I want you to show me!”

Peter’s serious expression shifted to the cute happy one as he snorted. “You are a terrible singer.”

“Hey, I was trying to confess my love for you! You could at least pretend it wasn’t awful!”

He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it instantly, a better idea popping into his head. Leaning backwards, he stretched and began poking Emily’s sides, which already garnered a surprised yelp from her and as she started to tell him to stop, was when he decided to use his super speed to tickle her properly. She was both yelling at him to stop and laughing, and he could only tauntingly declare that if this was an actual fight, she’d lose. He was glad she couldn’t see the fond smile on his face as she doubled over in laughter, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, he was also glad she was here with him. And maybe for once, he thought, the entire world slowing down for him wasn’t that bad, because that only meant he could enjoy his time with her for a lot longer than he would’ve if he wasn’t like this.

It was the first time he was truly happy to be a mutant, too, a freak with silver hair who couldn’t catch a break for all his life, because if he wasn’t, perhaps he wouldn’t have met someone who loves him just as much.

[mautadite]

october book round up

19 books this month, which brings me to 125 for the year, and i’ve officially completed the yearly challenge! :) a little later than last year, but still earlier than i expected. i don’t imagine that i’ll read as much as i did last year, but i can still get a good bit done in two months i think. this month was pretty much just different flavours of romance, once again all audiobooks.

poison kiss - ana mardoll ⭐️⭐️⭐️ mixed feelings about this one. urban fantasy/paranormal with a neat setup and world building, but i feel like the author didn’t tell the story in the most effective way? not enough time spent on certain sections, time skips that were not needed, too many flashbacks. the poly romance was really sweet, though i didn’t much care for the love at first sight aspect when the third character was introduced. but this was a good book overall, with a unique plot and cast; might revisit the series.

the best boy ever made - rachel eliason ⭐️⭐️⭐️ very cute coming of age/ya romance. a conservative country girl is at first shocked when her best friend comes out as trans, but she slowly finds herself becoming his biggest champion, and then falling in love with him. took me a while to warm up to it bc i found the protagonist to be kind of obnoxious. and some of the later plot events were kind of ham-fisted. but i definitely liked it, mostly for sam and how good and kind he was.

i wish you all the best - meason deaver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ BRUH I’M CRYING IN THE CLUB. this was a really fucking sweet ya romance. the main character finds themselves homeless after they come out as nb to their parents. they move in with their sister, enroll in a new school, and find themselves making friends with (and slowly falling for!) a literal ray of sunshine. this was great, another one of those books i wish i could have read when i was younger. dealt with coming out, depression, anxiety and first love, had great writing, and i’m still thinking about how great the ending lines were.

the neighbour - gerri hill ⭐️⭐️ eh... a book that COULD have been good (woman with a stunted career as a writer moves back home to take care of her ailing mother, finds herself falling for the rich lesbian player next door) but both main characters were so thoroughly unlikable lmao. judgemental, snooty, made jokes about harmful things, kind of elitist... there was one aspect of this book that i really liked (the main character changed careers later in life and it wasn’t seen as a failure, just moving on) but otherwise this was a disappointment.

the turner series - cat sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ historical romance!!! always a fave. this was a pretty fun series; first three m/m, last one f/f. a bit of mystery and intrigue in all of them, good humour, and a great cast of characters through and through. the second one was probably my favourite; one of the mcs suffered from anxiety attacks in an era where there was a lot of wrong information about mental health, and his love interest (a cheat and a scoundrel) ended up being the best thing that happened to him. although now that i’ve said that i just remembered how very much i love the third book’s protagonist (the rake, to be specific). standout character for sure. the last book has a dear place in my heart bc even though you can tell that the author doesn’t often write f/f, and it was a pretty short novella, it’s still historical lesbians, and i eat up historical lesbians with a spoon. (i could make a pretty bad joke here but lo and behold; i have GREAT self control.)

the secret casebook of simon feximal - k.j. charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ when k.j. charles is good, SHE’S REALLY FUCKING GOOD. this is a paranormal-mystery/romance book styled after the adventures of sherlock holmes (if you must know one thing about me it’s that i’m a slut for acd holmes, don’t fucking @ me), set in the very universe itself. not quite a pastiche but close enough, and it was so well written, with great world building around the magic and paranormal events, great characters, GREAT ROMANCE. told as stories published by robert, simon’s biographer and lover. i adored this and will definitely reread.

puppy love romance - georgia beers ⭐️⭐️⭐️ a trio of f/f novels centred around an animal rescue, and the women who work and volunteer there and fall in love there. each of these novels was really sweet, grounded in a way that i like for contemporary romance, and they all had adorable dogs in them. and i feel like beers really knows her way around plotting and pacing a novel, especially small town romances. but i also had pretty sizeable nitpicks for each of them lol. part of it is that i just got tired of beers’ writing style (as you can see, i took a break between the series). this is such a weird complaint but oh my god she uses too many adverbs lol. also there was always an emphasis on how amazingly stunningly gorgeously beautiful all six women were and it got so tiresome. idk who wants to read about women who are physically perfect all the time, but it’s not me. and one half of the romantic pair in each book (lisa, emily and sydney, in that order) had attitudes that i found obnoxious and were not resolved and i felt bad for their girlfriends having to deal with them. a fun read all in all, but some of those things rubbed me the wrong way, and i’m ready to take a break from this author. 

bound series - ava march ⭐️⭐️ a resounding meh. historical m/m romance that wasn’t bad, but there wasn’t anything great about it. i only read these like maybe a week and a half ago but i’m struggling to remember details. there was bdsm, which i didn’t hate, but i also didn’t care. the plot was bleh, the sources of conflict were weak, and one of the dudes was kind of an asshole. /shrug emoji

reverie - eliza andrews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ god... GOD. the ride i took with this book was like... a really sexy butch took me out to dinner, wined and dined me, and in the very last course she leaned over and spit in me food. the premise: a woman on the run from her abusive ex-husband settles into a small town where she find herself drawn to the only out lesbian in town, a sweet butch ex-marine, and her mysterious nurse of a neighbour. this book was soooooooo well written, so well crafted, so moving, so beautiful. a paranormal mystery that actual kept me guessing. i was ready to name it the best f/f book i read this year, if not the best romance period. and then the ending. the FUCKING ENDING. i’ve rarely been so let down in my life. i’m looking at the four stars i gave this and wondering if i should go lower because SERIOUSLY. thinking about it is getting me kind of upset. this book could have been SO good. uuuuuugh. 

brothers of the wild north sea - harper fox ⭐️⭐️ this is tricky because like. this book was definitely like, not good lmao, but it was good enough that i almost feel guilty giving it 2 stars. this is a historical romance that takes place more than a thousand years ago between a viking and a monk. it wasn’t badly written, probably wasn’t historically accurate but i mean, i don’t care. but it was too long, i didn’t care about the characters, it was badly plotted, and just really confusing overall. i think harper fox is great at writing romance, but all other aspects of this novel fell flat.

escape velocity - anah crow, dianne fox ⭐️⭐️⭐️ sci-fi m/m romance. a linguistic researcher and a pilot struggling with his religious beliefs fall into a whirlwind romance. pretty cute. i found it too short as i find most novellas, but i think the authors did a lot in relatively few words. definitely wish there was more worldbuilding. kind of hope the authors have plans to make this a series.

nowhere ranch - heidi cullinan ⭐️⭐️⭐️ a sweet romance between a farm hand and his boss. i didn’t think i’d like it much, but it was pretty enjoyable! very simple writing stuff that fit well with the gruff, no-nonsense, trying to shut everyone out protagonist. i really liked him; identified with him a lot, and his journey into opening up, dealign with his anxiety and self-worth issues. and the romance was sweet (though oooof, some of the sex scenes were too much). the book went from being really raunchy to really domestic and i kind of liked that. the resolution came a bit too quick, but i enjoyed it nonetheless.

that’s it for october! still currently unemployed, waiting for the people i signed a contract with to call me. since i don’t want to dip too much into my savings i’ve been doing odd jobs here and there, and might take a more steady part-time job in the meantime? all of that to say: i probably won’t be reading as much in november. i’m currently reading the first book in the spencer cohen series, and not... really loving it, lol, so i might pass on the others.

[pink-grapefruit-cafe]

I’d forgotten it’s Wednesday. I could really do with some opinions on this one so please throw them into my anons! It’s not even 1/4 done i don’t think but have some Trixya!

Seeming when I'm older that it's younger how I feel

Learning that you only get the raw end of the deal

First one to the finish line, but the last one left to know

Second place adorns you no matter where you go

It started on a Monday, except it didn’t - not really.

It started the day she was born, in a small town in Russia where the rain hadn’t stopped for three days and everyone was a little on edge. It started when the doctor, a sweet old man from St Petersburg announced loudly, “It’s a girl!” and then, much quieter and with a little sorrow, “and she has a soulmark.” It started when she was five and she asked her mama why she had a flower on her arm and her Mama cursed and told her to be quiet because ‘good girls don’t ask questions’. When she never heard the word soulmate spoken in the small town she grew up in, not a speck of blood in the snow as the lily rooted its way into the crook of her elbow. When she cried going through test after test to see if they could remove it, uproot it. When a nurse tried to pull the lily out, tried to yank her second heart straight from her arm.  It started when they moved to the USA when she was eight, her father explaining in a hushed tone that the small ‘sm’ on her passport wasn’t anything special. And then it changed

It changed in seventh grade when they did a lesson on soulmarks in biology and the teacher was so proud to show off the daffodil on the back of her neck that Katya almost cried. It changed when she watched  Alaska’s black dahlia start to uproot itself from her calf midway through sophomore netball because she saw the exchange student through the fence - their eyes meeting for a brief second before a petal fell onto the grass next to them. She watched them fall in love until the flower had long removed itself, leaving a faint outline of the flower that had scarred under her skin. It changed when she learned she was one in a million - an urban myth, a soulmate. Half of a whole, unbreakable.

It changed when she met Trixie

Well I've been out to Austin, back to Boston

Where I've been

Following the highways in my hand

It’s a Monday in spring and Katya is 19 but she feels like she’s 30. The cold of Boston has started to dissipate and instead, a warm breeze tickles her ankles through the DIY rips in her jeans. She is that kid and she is proud of it. Her long sleeves cover the slight protrusion of a soulmate mark - if you were to look closely enough you would make out the raised stem of a lily, following the river-like path of her veins under the white jersey.

She raises her keep-cup to her lips, lets the bitter of the coffee overrule the sap that’s filling her mouth more often these days, the flower routing deeper into her body with each passing day. She hums to herself as she sketches, letting her ankles catch the sun a little as she sits on her coat on the Charles River Esplanade. Katya is majoring in mechanical engineering at MIT with a minor in women and gender studies, something she almost finds fulfiling when she isn’t frantically sketching out a design that would have been done weeks ago if not for the new girl in the team. She’s bright blonde, heavy makeup, dresses to the lab kind of feminine and Katya isn’t intimidated but she is stressed. And distracted.

“Who in their right mind wheres a dress to the engineering labs?” she’d whined down the phone to Alaska after the girls first day. “It’s not even a covering dress.”

“As if you care about her safety,” croaked the girl, knowingly. “You’re just a hoe who can’t focus.”

“And you’re paying for a linguistics course?” Katya bit back, laughing as she said it.

As she’s lost in thought a text comes through. She chuckles as she reads it, typing out a hasty reply before throwing her possessions in her rucksack, draining her coffee and returning to the flat to see what in the name of hell is going on.

“Your lollipop came round,” Yells out Alaska before Katya has even locked the door. The girl shakes off her jacket and stands on the back of her docs to get them off, shot-putting the cup into the sink from the doorway and letting out a little whoop when it goes in on the first try.

“My lollipop? That’s new.” She responds, launching herself onto the couch with a huff.

“Lollipop, Candy cane, sugarplum fairy? They’re all the same to me.” The girl rubs the scar on the back of her leg subconsciously, checking her watch as she does so. “Should Sharon be home by now?” she questions, reading the ache in her leg.

“Said she set off a few minutes ago,” reads Katya from Alaska’s phone - the other girl grabbing it off her when she realises.

She stands up, potters over to the kettle to make a fourth cup of coffee and tries to start a conversation over the whistling of the kettle.

“So Trixie was here?” She yells over the din, answered only by the nodding of the giant space buns over the back of the couch.

“Uhuh, said something about a double major being shit and meeting somewhere at six-ish.”

“Alaska you bitch!” She shouts as she checks the time on the oven. It’s five-forty-five and she’d promised to meet at a little cafe twenty minutes away (not that she’s realised, the river seemed to speed up time).

She sprints out the door like she’s on a mission. She sort of is.

When I go back to Wisconsin

And when I come home again

Has anybody out there seen my man?

Trixie never intended to do engineering. She intended to do fashion design and become, well, a fashion designer but life doesn’t always go the way you plan and like a cat afraid of water, she’s swimming now.

She switched to MIT in her third year because she was told she could, decided to swap design to design engineering and then mechanical because two days before school started again she was told they weren’t running that course - double majoring in biology too because why the hell not. She thinks like a fashion design student but works like a physicist, something that’s made her very few friends in the new course but someone she appears to be always at odds with is Katya. It’s not a cruel rivalry - nothing about it is malicious or rude, they’re just very different. Katya thinks like an engineer and dresses like an edgy art kid, Trixie - doesn’t.

It’s been three months since she got there and she feels now she should probably make peace. It’s all definitely her choice and not the spines that are tearing holes in her clothes as the slowly extrude from her arm. The way they twist in her vein like a bad catheter, bruising til her arm looks like a galaxy and her freckles are the stars. She’s started bandaging over the worst bits, the spikes getting stuck in her coats so when she takes them off it pulls and tugs. She’s not stupid, she knows what it means. She doesn’t have to be excited about it.

He parents had always explained soulmates very nicely and concisely and like they were a choice. Like she didn’t have to have one, it could go away. They’d said ‘Trixie, darling, that cactus isn’t everything, you are more than it,’ and yet she’s always treated it like it was. Like it ruled her destiny - she believes it does.

They meet on a sunny Monday in April, Boston raining intermittently but the sun trying it’s very hardest like a halogen bulb about to blow. She reckons she has enough time to redress her arm before the other girl arrives, takes a seat in a comfy armchair by the window, ripping off the cover like it isn’t pulling out parts of her heart, tiny needles that were once veins. Maybe it’s because she has her eyes closed in pain that she doesn't notice Katya, the girl floating in, pausing at the counter to get a refill in her reusable cup and pulling out a metal straw for Trixie as she sits down opposite. She looks in awe at the Gymnocalycium in the crook of her arm. How it’s tiny spineless flowers sit flush to the skin while the rest seems like it’s jumping out.

“So,” she says, breaking the silence, “Hi.”