#but he probably does not think that he was being cruel at all to abigail by putting his life in danger

[newhanovere]

hi all i’m here to say i think john marston is often unintentionally selfish and when it’s pointed out to him that he was manipulative towards his partners he makes this face and means it

[k-s-morgan]

Do you think that if Will had found out Hannibal was in love with him right on S2 when he was planning his revenge, he’d have used that as part of his revenge? Like honeytrap Hannibal for real and then betray him?

No, I think they would have probably eloped just as they'd been planning to! The biggest conflict of Will in S2 is his inability to accept that Hannibal loves him, which is based on Abigail's death. His revenge is not about the justice served for the sake of the greater good; it's not about Beverly or Alana or even himself - it's all about the implications of Abigail's death.

Will doesn’t understand why Hannibal killed her. It doesn’t make sense to him because Hannibal claims to have cared for her, and if so, what does his care mean? Will forgives things when he understands motivation for them, but he sees no motivation here, which makes him bitter and angry. He can forgive Hannibal who truly loves him - that's why he forgives him for Abigail's real death in S3, but he refuses to accept a monster who will tell him he loves him today just to kill him tomorrow.

Throughout the second half of S2, Will has these doubts. He knows that Hannibal wanted to help him Become. He knows Hannibal is the one who got him free and that he wants to be his friend - Will says this much to Chilton. Hannibal is not a psychopathic killer who’s doing things out of amusement and curiosity, he’s capable of deep feelings; he’s lonely and he loves Will. But then again, why did he kill Abigail? Why was he so cruel about it - she was killed sadistically, he cut off her ear and implanted it in Will? How can Will trust that such a person loves him when this is what he did to a girl he supposedly cared about? We see Will’s inner struggle in his insightful dream:

Will: I want an admission. Admit what you are.

When Hannibal doesn’t reply directly, Will amplifies violence.

Dream Hannibal: Why not appeal to my better nature?

Will: I wasn't aware you had one.

This is extremely illuminating. Will is in denial. He wants Hannibal to confirm to him that he’s a monster and thus not worthy of Will’s attention - Will is trying to literally torture the answer he wants out of Hannibal. Like he said to Peter in the previous episode, killing is much easier when you know how to feel. And Will doesn’t know how to feel about Hannibal, not until he finds a way to label him as a hollow monster.

But the truth is, Hannibal isn’t a hollow monster. And a part of Will knows it. That’s why as Will tortures Hannibal, Hannibal replies with love, not violence. I’ll include the deleted last sentence:

Dream Hannibal: No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true. I love you, Will.

Like Will suspects, Hannibal is doing everything out of love for him. He sees what Will is. He accepts it, admires it, and he wants Will to act on it. His motivations are complex and he refuses to give up his love even under torture.

A part of Will is probably overjoyed at getting this answer. But a bigger part is frustrated because it just complicates things. He would love to convince himself that Hannibal is soulless, kill him, and be done with it, but that’s not what he is and Will is lost in his conflicting feelings.

Back to your question: if Will knew for certain that Hannibal is in love with him, I think his conflict would be resolved. He chose Hannibal in the end even in spite of still thinking Abigail is dead and doubting Hannibal's feelings. So if he had a clear answer to his dilemma, I think he would have made his choice even sooner and he and Hannibal would have run away long before the events of Mizumono.

[spk234]

An honest ranking of The Quarry characters after my first play though:

Jacob: 4/10 (already making enemies with this one)

Honestly Jacob I was really just not a fan of, even outside of the whole “intentionally stranding the group” thing. I did like him in the first few chapters when everyone else (cough cough Nick and Dylan) were just being exceedingly mean to him for like, no reason, and yeah Emma was also absolutely giving mixed signals. But also at the same time, you do not have to be smart to learn when something isn’t going anywhere and to just cut your losses. Emma literally ACTIVATELY made you jealous dude, just wrap it up and move on. Also after Chapter 6 he really just doesn’t do…anything. Maybe it’s cause I didn’t infect him or get the scene about the truth with him and Emma, but like I forgot he was even there when it came back to him in Chapter 10 (not really a critique of his character tho that’s more so to the balancing of the game) Anyway yeah lackluster to me but I can see why people like him I guess.

Nick: 2/10

Wow I did not care about you. Nick is a prime example of The Quarry’s issues with balancing its cast. Nick is literally meant to be a main character yet you spend less than like, half the game with him even around, much less playable. Even when he is around though he has almost no personality, more so bouncing off other character’s actions without much drive of his own. Also, I’m gonna say it: the romance with him and Abi was just NOT it. It starts off okay, in fact their scene together gathering firewood is probably his best one. But then when he gets infected and just becomes so…unreasonably sexual towards her?? Like yeah, the infection makes people act weird and aggressive towards people, but there wasn’t a single instance where it was like him, it was just so unnecessary. And speaking of his infection, THAT’S what killed his character the most. It just took him out of the game way before he has a chance to really establish himself as a character, and it just wasn’t that necessary considering we already had two guaranteed infections to happen.

Emma: 7/10

Oh boy this character sure is divided. I’m gonna take a stand and say that I actually like Emma. No I don’t like how she kissed Nick when Abi liked her, and I feel like she could’ve been a bit better at cutting things off completely with Jacob. But also at the same time, she really knew how to get through encounters with the werewolves which was pretty cool to watch, and I thought her overall attempts to be positive even towards the climax of the game were interesting, given how the rest of the cast was around that time. Plus it’s impressive how they made her be the YouTubed/vlogger WITHOUT it being annoying, that’s a real feat in itself. So yeah, kind of doing too much but also a girlboss at times, Idk what else to say. Actually I do, the scene where she tazes the werewolf then takes a picture was iconic, she gets a whole ass point for that alone.

Abigail: 8/10

Abi’s probably the first character here so far I genuinely like. She’s probably the least issue ridden of the cast, not doing anything stupid or annoying or unnecessarily cruel. She really just minded her business drawing and getting away from the dangers around her. That said her biggest problem is that she has really unbalanced game time, with a lot of scenes near the beginning and not doing very much in the later chapters. I think maybe one or two more sections where she’s playable in the second half of the game would’ve helped her character out a bit more. All in all a great character who just needed a bit more screen time to really shine.

Dylan: 6/10

Oh this is gonna be real controversial but I did NOT like Dylan at first. I get that his whole thing was that he was faking this confident showboating personality but that does not make it any less annoying. Like there was no reason to be tormenting Jacob like that in the beginning, just help him with the bags??? But that part of it at least waned out as the game went on and I can say that in the latter half of the game he had some genuinely funny moments. Him with the frying pan at the end and when he’s in the basement like “OMG Ryan it’s literally nothing” were probably the funniest parts of the game for me. But he’s also like, one of the biggest perpetrators of the stupid ass “is that a bear” bit going on throughout the game that just went on for WAY too long so I’ve got a problem there /hj. All in all an okay character to me at best, sorry.

Laura: 8/10

Okay after looking at other people’s takes on Laura, I definitely agree that she just took over the end of the game. It really just felt like they forgot the other characters other than Ryan and just shoved her back in. If they wanted to bring her back they could’ve done a way better job at balancing out the final chapters, maybe have another counselor come with her and Ryan to the Hackett home. That being said, I still think she was a girlboss. I really enjoyed her personality and how out of all the characters she had to fight the most for both her own and Max’s survival. Playing through as her and just blasting through the Hackett’s at the end was really satisfying and fun, even if another character probably should have filled the role instead. And this is probably a hot take, but I think her and Max have the strongest relationship in the game. I know it’s a little unfair since it’s the only established relationship in the playable characters, but even then without it having much screen time I still believe they have interest in each other more than most the rest of the cast. Overall, flawed in a technical and story formatting sense but I still love her.

Max: 8/10

Listen I know he didn’t have much screen time but I really loved Max. Even if he’s only in a few chapters overall he was honestly one of the most consistently funny characters to me. I can’t think of a single moment in the game where I felt like he was being dumb or annoying, it was genuinely good dialogue and sweet moments with Laura. I can’t wait to get the ending where they reunite on the island, it’s so funny when he ends up having to where Laura’s clothes and is just “you gotta be kidding me”. His biggest problem again is that he just has like, no screen time, only playable in one chapter briefly. But even with that he leaves more of an impression on me then some characters in multiple chapters. If he has just a couple more playable times he’d easily be a perfect score to me, but as is he’s still great and I’m glad we got to see him past the prologue.

Ryan: 10/10

Absolute the best of the guy characters. He’s like the only one in Chapter 1 that I didn’t find myself immediately annoying with, and he continued that streak throughout the game. Ryan is a perfect example of a horror character that thinks in an emotional way that completely makes sense. Even if they don’t explain it well, you completely understand why he doesn’t want Laura to kill Chris, and I wish it was more gut wrenching for him if you choose to actually make him do it. But he’s also a very logical character, able to react to situations in a way that I couldn’t foresee most of the other characters doing. The chase with Bobby is so intense and he’s an absolute badass for being able to do it with the knife still stuck in him. The fact that he can only live if Chris dies does suck a bit, but I can’t think of anything about him I particularly hate. He’s even pretty funny when he has joke moments. Honestly the closest to a perfect character in this game.

Kaitlyn: 9/10

Absolutely deserving of the Final Girl title. Kaitlyn is one of the best characters of survivability from the get go, able to lead and protect the others around her even when you’re not in control of her. She just always seems to know what to do in a situation, even ones outside of survival. But I also appreciate that they didn’t go boring with it and have her just unexplainably strong and did need help from the others every now and again; it makes her incredibly well rounded and shows that her ability to lead is able to rub off on others. The only problem is that for a character meant to be the Final Girl, she doesn’t have nearly enough screen time. It’s not as bad as other characters, but she really needed more times where you controlled her all throughout the game; you should at least start at her in the beginning since she’s meant to be like “the last one standing” in some scenarios. But that’s not a complaint to her character, she’s still a badass who’s able to pull off amazing things assuming you know how to play.

BONUS

Travis: 3/10

Okay I know he’s not a playable character but I’ve been controversial enough and I just need to talk about him; I did NOT like Travis. Like I get that he’s probably the best out of his family (which for me isn’t saying much cause I really didn’t like ANY of the Hacketts) but he still has his problems. Mainly the fact that he is just so cryptic for NO reason. Like I get you can’t just be like “yeah my family has werewolves in it” but like…once Max was infected and he’s keeping him and Laura in jail, like bro EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT’S GOING ON. WHY ARE YOU WAITING TILL THE LAST CHAPTER TO TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENED. This is more a problem I have with the story overall tbh, he’s just the biggest perpetrator of it. It’s just a giant information bottleneck that has no reason for existing other than plot convenience. Basically just like…dude, EXPLAIN what is going on instead of being vague, holy shit.

Anyway yeah those are my takes on the cast. If you like or dislike any characters I don’t really care, it is just a game of fictional characters and I’m sure my interpretations of them is different than others. Just wanted to share my thoughts after playing

(P.S. kinda unrelated but if you’re a Laura x Travis person do NOT interact with this. Weirdos)

[partum-memoriae-muses]

Name: Abigail "Abby" Simmons

Series: Fandomless

Faceclaim: Kisa Sohma from Fruits Basket

Age: 8

Height: 4'4"

Birthday: September 24th

Birthplace: Florida, United States

Species: Human

Occupation: Elementary School student

Father: Ronald Simmons

Mother: Annabeth Simmons

Sibling(s): Ryan, Aubrey and Amy

Bio:

Abby is often viewed as the “middle child” when she tells other girls of her siblings. She’s a bit soft spoken but otherwise a sweet girl despite her abusive household. Perhaps she’s a bit like her older brother where she chooses to ignore her parents and act like all this doesn’t effect her when she’s already shown signs of it effecting her. She’s best friends with meanest bully in her school, a rather intimidating looking girl who’s much taller than her. Her and this girl go around and bully the other girls and boys in their school in pretty cruel ways, one time she did assist in punching an exchange student solely to expel out her anger at her home situation. Her sister Aubrey has no idea about this situation, as she played innocent to the situation to a point where the teachers didn't call Aubrey in.

Abby can be a sweet girl when she’s not around toxic people, being the typical personality for someone her age, but around other’s she can be difficult to deal with. The teachers don’t do anything with Abby as Abby often lies to the faculty and tell them she was trying to break the fight, she is shown with high grades and perfect attendance so why would she lie? To them, Abby is the perfect student while everyone else is suffering from her intense bouts of bullying.

She’s extremely close with her big sister, Aubrey, and does try to be close with Ryan. Though it doesn’t work as Ryan often pushes her away or actively runs away from her. She doesn’t understand why he does those things but maybe his feelings are related to her in some way. She has a baby sister named Amy that she used to help Aubrey take care of when they all still lived in their parents home. She hasn't seen her baby sister for a while since living with Aubrey, but she does care about her.

She just wants a happy home in the same way the other girls at school have nice homes. Of course, if Aubrey brings someone into their life, she'll pretend to be a good kid for her sister's sake but if the two of them are left alone? Abby might just insult them or pull some other kind of childish way to hurt someone's feelings.

One day, she did stay with her best friend for the night and discovered how loving a family could be. Her friend’s parents spoiled her immensely and let her do whatever she wanted out of love, probably explaining why this girl was so evil at school, but Abby felt like she was watching a fairy tale come to life. Could a home really be filled with hugs and i love yous? She only hoped that someday she could have that too but she doubts it as life goes on for her.

Abby is still very young so she has absolutely no idea what Aubrey does for a living. All she knows is that her sister works at a mall during the day and goes out with fancy clothes on during the night. She's not one to question it, she honestly thinks her sister must model or something.

[mypoisonedvine]

You know what, my request is a second part to that heiress Zemo request because I need to know what happens. 😤

(Please and thank you, I am just very much on the edge of my sit, ma’am. 🥺💕)

alright... I can take a hint lmaooo (first part here!)

“De mama?” Addy asked in that sweet little voice of hers, tilting her head as she looked up at him.  Her Sokovian was coming along well, though not quite as fast as her English since that was all her mother ever spoke to her.  And of course, that’s who she was asking about now, and even though it was adorable, it was a bit heartbreaking, too.  Is this what it will be like when the contract expires? he was forced to wonder.  Will she ask where she is every day, until someday she forgets she ever had a mother?  What kind of father would I be if I let her live like that?

“Vona na prohulyantsi, skoro povernetʹsya,” he answered with a shrug.  She’s on a walk, she’ll be back soon.  How would he ever find the heart to tell her the truth someday, if he didn’t fix this soon?  She’s gone forever, I cast her away because I chose my pride over my love and your happiness.

No wonder he was so relieved when you got home, and he couldn’t help but smile as Addy reached up for you and you scooped her up into your arms with a smile.  “Oh, you’re getting big,” you cooed at her.  “How’d you get so big so fast, huh?”

Now was his chance to ever so casually bring up the contract and see how you reacted.  Part of him was hoping that if he just never mentioned it, you’d just forget about it and things could stay this way forever.  Unfortunately, that was nearly impossible, and it didn’t even really solve his problem fully because if things stayed this way forever then it meant he would never be with you again as he so longed to be; if things stayed this way forever, he would keep being a man desperately in love with his wife and powerless to do anything about it.  

He wanted to touch you again, so much he couldn’t stand it.  These days the only time you really spent together was when it was the three of you.  It was so painfully obvious that the only love for him you had was the love you had for your child, extended to him as the father.  You were only accessible when Addy was involved, you barely even looked at him when he wasn’t holding her.

It was actually rather cruel.  Especially at times like this, when Addy wanted to be read a story and it ended up with her on your lap and you between his legs on the floor, forcing him to reach around all of you to hold the book open as he read.

You were right there... but a million miles away.  If he had any courage he would just turn his head and kiss your cheek or bury his face in the crook of your neck.  Instead he was paralyzed, and he could smell your hair from here which was adding insulting to injury at this point.

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, who lived in a tower,” he read aloud, watching his daughter’s tiny fingers trace over the illustration of the princess on the page.

“Pryntsesa,” Addy mumbled to herself as she looked at it, and he felt pride warm his chest to hear her speaking Sokovian to herself.

“You’ve been teaching her without me,” you realized as you turned back to look at him with a smirk.  God, your face was so close now that it was almost more work to not kiss you, especially when his eyes couldn’t help but dart down to your lips for a moment.

“She’s going to learn Sokovian whether you like it or not,” he reminded you.

“I’m not saying I don’t like it, I’m just saying I wanna be there for it,” you explained.  “We can teach her together.”

Another co-parenting activity, another way you could get close to him only under the pretense of being with Addy.  He needed to find a way to get you alone because this was going to drive him crazy.

“What happen?” Addy frowned, and both of you seemed to realize at once that he’d totally forgotten to keep reading.

“Oh, um,” he stammered, turning the page as you faced forward again.  “A brave knight wanted to scale the tower to see the princess, but he didn’t know how.”

~

When he entered the bedroom, he wasn’t expecting to find you there, changing into your pyjamas.  His first instinct was to look away and step back, pulling the door partially shut again with a mumbled apology.

“Helmut, you can come in,” you laughed.  “I don’t mind if you see me changing, you’ve certainly seen much worse than this.”

He cleared his throat and stepped back in, gaze sweeping up over your exposed back.  “I, uh, wanted to ask you something before we go to bed.”

“Yeah?” you prompted, pulling your nightgown over your head and walking to the bathroom where he followed you as you applied some sort of night cream to your face.  He stood behind you, meeting your eyes in the reflection of the mirror.

“You mentioned teaching Addy together,” he remembered.  

“If you just want that to be just a dad-daughter thing that’s fine,” you shrugged.

“No, it’s fine, I like the idea,” he nodded, “I just thought... well, I wondered...”

I wondered if you would go on a date with me.  Why was it so hard to get it out, to his own wife, to the woman carrying his last name and wearing his ring?

Of course, it was hard to get out because when he thought about you with his name and his ring, all he could think was for how much longer?

You waited patiently with raised eyebrows, and he sighed.

“Nevermind.”

“Wait, what is it?” you chuckled, following him when he turned away and sat on the bed.  “Now I’m curious.”

He glanced down at the bed he was sitting on, running his fingers over the quilt.  “Why do we even share this bed?” he mumbled to himself.

“What?” you whispered.

“I mean, does it even matter?  Are we just trying to look like something we’re not-- a normal couple?”

His eyes darted back up to your face when he heard your voice waver.  “Are you asking me to sleep downstairs?”

“No,” he corrected instantly, standing up and stepping closer to you even as you tried to hide the way your eyes were watering.  “No, darling, I just-- I don’t want you to feel like you have to share a bed with me.  I may not be the best bed partner.”

“Oh, you’re quite the bed partner, if memory serves,” you blurted out, and his eyebrow raised suddenly.  You seemed to regret it right away, turning to go back to the bathroom and examine yourself in the mirror.

“Hey, wait,” he followed you, turning you with a hand on your arm.  “Let’s not let go of that topic so quickly.”

“It’s nothing.  That’s over now.”

“What’s over?” he pressed.

“The part of this where we... did that,” you explained.  “It was just a necessary process, to get pregnant in the first place.  And then it happened a couple of times after I got pregnant, but that was just... I don’t know, you were so high on finally getting what you wanted and now--”

“What I wanted?” he repeated.  “Explain to me what it is I want.”

“An heir!” you answered immediately.  “Duh!  That’s what this is all for.”

“I’ll tell you what I want,” he shot back sternly.  “I want a family.  I want this family.  I want...” he took in a slow breath, afraid to say it aloud, “I want to hold you again.  I want to call you my wife not because we both signed a contract but because we’re both in love.”

You blinked up at him, eyes wide and wet, and he tried to stay calm as he continued.

“Most of all, if that’s not what you want, then what I really want is for you to... pretend, please, just for a day.  An hour, even.  Pretend it’s real.  Pretend it’s not just a show for our child, pretend you could really love me back.  And then you can go.  I don’t know how either of us will live without you, but, if you don’t want to be together then I don’t think I can take much more of this.  I need to have you or I need to let you go because... because I’m too selfish to let Addy keep her mother while I lose my wife, I’m too weak-- and I can’t fucking do this anymore!”

He didn’t raise his voice often.  Honestly, this was probably the first time since he met you.  And it wasn’t quite yelling, but he was still terrified that it would scare you.

You didn’t look scared, though.  You looked... peaceful, you even looked almost happy as you reached up and placed your hand onto the back of his neck and pulled him closer until your foreheads were pressed together.

He could smell your hair from here, and he took a deep breath in case it was the last time.

“Tell me what you want, darling,” he requested softly.

Your eyes fell shut before you took a deep, shaky breath.  “I want you,” you whispered, making his heart stop.

He swallowed quickly.  “Is that all?”

“I want another baby,” you added.

Carefully, he pulled you closer as he nodded, pressing his lips to yours.  All this time he had spent convincing himself that kissing you wasn’t as good as he remembered... and he’d been a liar all along.  It was just as perfect as he’d been imagining.

“I can give you both, right now,” he whispered against your lips, and when he felt you nod he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into him, carrying you to bed.

He did his best to make up for lost time that night, though it would take a lot more than one night to overcome years of running from his love for you.  Thankfully, you had the rest of your lives to try.  

Although one of the great accomplishments of it all was finally being husband and wife, rather than just parents, you were both ecstatic when you were due to become parents again.  No contracts required, no need for an heir, just a new addition to the Zemo family that would hopefully love being a part of it as the rest of you did.  And the soon-to-be big sister got to help pick out a name:

Abigail | feminine

origin: Hebrew

meaning: My father’s joy

[shittybundaskenyer]

✹ ▬   𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐃

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈.   — 𝓖𝓻𝓲𝔃𝔃𝓵𝓲𝓮𝓼 𝓔𝓪𝓼𝓽      |     𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟏  — The Goddess of War, Morrigan Marlowe I.

pairing: Arthur Morgan x Morrigan Marlowe (OC)

summary: She saved him and with that he saved her in return. It was a strange symbiosis, like wildflowers in a fruitless garden, alluring curious bees. He made her garden bloom.  —  Arthur Morgan thought he was done with living, but in a gentle golden sunrise, on that cursed mountain, he's rescued by a mysterious woman. 

warnings: descriptions of injuries and sickness, blood, Arthur has TB, some self-hatred and unkind thoughts

𝑁𝐸𝑋𝑇 𝐶𝐻𝐴𝑃𝑇𝐸𝑅    |    𝐴𝑅𝐶𝐻𝐼𝑉𝐸 𝑂𝐹 𝑂𝑈𝑅 𝑂𝑊𝑁

There’s a wolf. 

Between gently swaying raspberry vines and dried grass its eyes glint. Golden, with a hint of forest green. He can see it clearly, even though his vision is getting cloudy with stinging tears that are forcing their way through until they can escape from the corners of his eyes. He was never a man who cried easily but the happenings of those last few hours are starting to clear in his mind, and loneliness is slowly sinking its sharp claws into his barely beating heart. 

The wolf scents the air, maybe it smells his fear now, or the lingering gunsmoke the wind stirs towards its way. Will it rip his throat out? That would be at least quicker than slowly choking on his own blood. 

But the wolf doesn’t move like it would attack. It just watches him, cautiously stepping closer until he can feel its fur brushing the torn up knuckles on his right hand. It brushes its muzzle over the ripped fabric of his shirt where a bullet grazed his shoulder and where Micha's punches start to bruise a dark reddish purple. 

He feels blood mingling with the tears on his cheeks, a salty copper taste lingering in his mouth as he gasps for air. The wolf snarls, but not threatening, drawing closer to his face. 

Their eyes meet and the sun slowly creeps over the horizon, painting the landscape purple and golden in the early morning mist. Arthur's chest hurts, so much that he can barely catch his next breath. The wolf sniffs his face and for a second they inhale the same air. Its ears flatten, golden eyes meeting his. 

There's something in its gaze, a warmth almost, like when he would look at sunlight filtering through the canopy of a forest on a hot summer day and let it gently caress his face.

Arthur struggles for another breath, even more desperate now. He starts shaking, wrecked by sobs and pain and the need to fill his lungs with the air that is barely pushing past his throat. The wolf nudges him then, places its head between his collarbone and neck, bares its teeth and he thinks now, it will tore his flesh open. 

He tries to reach for the light fur that grows on the wolf's head but he doesn't have that power in him anymore. His hand lies limp over his stomach, absentmindedly pressing down on a wound to slow the bleeding. Not that it would mean too much. 

His vision starts to go black around the edges but it's not from the wolf's attack. It just… rests there, like it would listen to his breathing, the slowing beats of his heart, until it rises and stomps its large paw on his chest, flaring up the pain from broken ribs again. He wheezes and the wolf growls, almost annoyed. It circles him and pushes its head under his arm and shoulder and turns him to his side. It's even worse now, the pain and the lack of air, and he moves as the wolf pleases, too weak, so goddamn weak.

The wolf rams its head into his back, making him cough until a thick patch of reddened spit and phlegm leaves his mouth. He can feel blood trickle down from his nose and he retches, helpless, and spits again.

There now, he can gulp down a breath. 

It doesn’t let him rest. Hits him with its paw and nose, bares its teeth when their eyes meet after the reddened saliva dribbles down his chin. He’s too tired to do this, too weak to keep on breathing, but the most animalistic instincts of him and the wolf doesn’t allow him his final rest, not yet. So he wheezes and coughs and chokes until he calms down, until the wolf looks at him once more, with the rising sun glinting in its eyes, and rests its head on his aching chest, huffing a warm breath over his jaw. 

Sunrise paints the landscape golden and under, the misty forests a warm reddish-purple. The world is quiet, only his tired breaths are mingling with the quietly whistling wind that twists and turns around the Grizzlies and the old, crooked pine trees. A whitetail buck grazes not too far, the sunshine glinting on his antlers. He raises his head and Arthur and the wolf stare back at him until he turns and jumps, disappearing between frost-kissed blackberry bushes. 

The wolf and the sun warms him, caressing his face and pained body, gently lulling him until the sky turns into pink, purple, and then a brilliant blue. 

He can’t keep his eyes open anymore. 

 *

 When he wakes the wolf is gone but there's a woman. 

He's in a room, laying in a bed that is covered with something soft, maybe a pelt. His senses are still muddled, but they slowly creep back to him. The ache in his body is still present, breathing is still a struggle. The light coming from a hearth and a kerosene lamp is making him blink back tears, but with his hazy vision he notices the woman quietly busying herself with brewing something, and the air is heavy with the sweet smell of burning herbs. 

And then he coughs.

The coughing fit wrecks his body, makes him gasp for air between spitting up blood and choking on it. It stains the fur he's laying on, and drips down the corner of his mouth, disappearing in his beard. 

The woman drops the kettle she was holding and rushes to him, carefully pulling him by his uninjured arm to lay on his side. He spits again, the blood finally clearing from his mouth while she holds him in place with one hand and hits his back with the other until he coughs up the mucus that's choking him. 

Arthur goes limp when it's over, wheezing in painful breaths while she regards his face and the stained pelt under his head. She reaches for his overgrown hair and brushes it out of his face, her gaze meeting his. She has doe eyes that glint golden in the light of the dimmed kerosene lamp placed on his bedside. He doesn't recognize her but somehow he feels he knows her at the same time. Maybe from another life. 

"Better now?" she asks quietly while she places his hand on the bed and gently lays him back. 

Arthur tries to speak but only a tired groan leaves his lips while a string of bloodstained saliva dribbles down his chin. He tries again.

"Not much," his voice is so quiet that only a whisper of a gentle breeze could blow the words away. But she listens and lays her palm flat on his forehead. His skin is clammy there, probably the result of a fever, and she clicks her tongue disappointedly, confirming his assumption. "If—If I may ask," he rasps out, trying to be polite, even if speaking feels like being stabbed in the throat every second, "where am I, Miss?"

She pulls back her hand and glances towards the window on the far wall for a minute, where blinking stars and an inky black sky is visible through the glass, and then back to his eyes. 

"Found ya half-dead while I was huntin'. You're in my home now, up in the Grizzlies." 

Arthur just nods and closes his eyes, not having the energy to keep them open anymore. The woman pulls back for a little and when she returns he feels a cool, wet rag on his forehead, and soon after, her hands again, sneaking under his head to keep him upright while a tin cup is lifted to his lips. He forces himself to look up at her when he feels the fresh water hitting his tongue. 

She’s a bit surprised when he grabs the cup she’s still holding, his palm wrapping around hers so he can drink all of the water. When he’s done she doesn’t pull away immediately, but regards his face, the scars and blackened bruises still lingering there. The blood on his chin over an old, jagged scar. 

“Why did ya bring me here?” he rasps, every word a stinging pain to form. She looks down for a moment, at his bruised hand that carefully releases hers. The tin cup is empty. 

“Guess life ain't done with you yet.” 

That's all she says and he sighs, regretting it the next moment as his lungs try to expand, so tired, so weak. He stifles another cough into the fur he stained with blood earlier.

“You’re wrong, Miss. I’m as good as dead.” 

Her face turns a bit worried, but she tells him she saw him fighting on that mountain. That after all he did she couldn't let him die while those other men in black swarmed the place like rats to search through the dead. 

His face falls at that, a frown drawing his brows together while she watches him. He tells her that she got herself into something that could kill her. She answers with a sad, bitter smile and that she knows exactly how cruel men could be. He doesn't ask her how or why, he only nods and turns his head to the side where he can see the stars glinting silently outside the window. He knows women who met cruel fates. 

If the Pinkertons didn't find his body, they'd track him down. Milton assured him that he would be hunted to the ends of the earth until the end of time. Agent Milton was dead now, shot down by Abigail when Arthur's strength failed in fighting him off. Still, his voice whispers in his mind regardless. 

Arthur is sure that they'll hunt him down and shoot him like a dog, or make it last like they did with Mac Callander. The sick bastards .

And this woman, they will kill her too. There's no mercy after what happened, no offer for amnesty. Just a gun and a finger on the trigger. 

"If they turn up… They'll kill us, Miss."

"They can try," is her only answer.

She lifts the rag from his forehead, puts it in a bowl of water he can't see from where he's laying, but he can hear it splashing as she wrings out the cloth. The cool touch of the fabric is back in a few seconds while she rises from the chair next to him and her pinky finger accidentally brushes his scarred knuckles as she lifts up the tin cup from his weak grasp. 

Arthur doesn't feel like talking anymore.

 *

 He spends a week sweating out his fever. The woman brews him herbal teas that taste awful and knock him out cold within five minutes. She feeds him broth when he's too weak to even lift a spoon and she tends to his wounds and bruises. 

Arthur tried to refuse her help, the food she made for him, the care she gave so willingly. He never could defeat that kindness in her, however stubbornly he tried. She just gave and cared and made sure he was living day after day, not letting him succumb into that self-destructing hole he dug for himself. Arthur marveled at how such a pure soul can still exist in such a cruel world. She told him it's easier when she's alone in the mountains, and that people are kinder here than stuck up city folk. That, he agreed on. 

And now, after each passing day he feels vulnerable. He never had to rely on someone else when he was wounded or sick—he always managed on his own, even stitched his own wounds sometimes. They always left a jagged, ugly scar, but he never had to bother someone else with them. Now, he's furious. But his anger is directed only at himself, his weakness, his foolish self that got himself sick, that worked himself to the ground, that didn't die on that mountain. 

He asks her to stop once, when she's taking out spoonfuls of broth into a bowl. She doesn't understand. Arthur looks at her when she comes closer with the bowl in hand, sitting down next to him on an old wooden chair. He tries to sit up but his broken ribs protest and he sinks back into the bed with an annoyed huff. 

"Why're ya still doin' this?" he asks while she lifts the bowl to his lips. He drinks it, his body fighting, not as stubborn as his stupid mind—it fights to live, because it always fought for that. 

"'Cause you're not gettin' better."

"You know what I mean."

"We're more similar than ya think. I was in your place once. A stranger helped me, and now look at me. I live. And you'll live too," she manages to be so openly honest with him without revealing any real detail about her past. Arthur's beyond curious, but he just takes the bowl from her now, gulps down a mouthful because he feels, for the first time in a month, truly hungry. 

She watches him while he finishes the food, smiles at him when he pulls away the bowl and his upper lip and beard is smeared with the broth. She has a kind smile, a lady's smile that was not born to live in the wilderness like this. 

He wipes his mouth with the back of his palm, the ache in his shoulder flaring up like gasoline poured onto embers.

Arthur realized a few days back that she was the only person who lived here. One night, when he couldn't sleep from the nightmares and his aching chest he listened how she walked around the house, checking the doors and lighting the lantern outside, on the front porch. 

But no one was coming home in the late hours of the night. 

He asks her then, that she lives alone or her family is just away. She looks down, a hint of sadness softening her features before she can hide it behind a fake, barely there smile. They're not coming back. 

"I'm sorry."

It's not pity, not when he's lost so much too. It's more like a deep understanding, a knowledge of hidden wounds that never can heal fully. She looks at him again until their eyes meet and he's confronted with an honesty that usually only mirrors can muster. 

"It was a long time ago now," she tells him while she takes the bowl into her hands, leans back on the creaking chair. Arthur follows her movements with tired, bloodshot eyes. She looks outside, through the small window where the curtains are only half-open, the early morning sky burning behind them in a deep red and purple. 

She rises then, takes the bowl to the washbasin in the other corner of the room. She brews coffee, its familiar scent awakening a comforting warmth in his still aching chest. She offers him a cup, leaves it on his bedside to cool a little while she takes her own and steps out to the front porch, into the sunrise in red.

 *

 She asks his name the next week, when he still doesn't start to heal. Arthur answers her with a bitter smile and his name, so strange now on his tongue that still tastes of coppery blood after coughing. 

"You wanted something to write on my gravestone, ain't ya?" 

"Don't be silly Arthur," she scolds him, walks closer from the stove where she's brewing some new kind of tea. He likes how his name sounds when it rolls down her tongue. It's soft. Strange. After so many other people had said it with hate and anger, it's nice to hear it like he could be a normal person. Not a no-good ugly bastard like him. It's also nice hearing his first name, the one that is stained with a bit less blood than Morgan , the one that shines inky black on every wanted poster from Blackwater to Annesburg.

She sits beside him, on the bed this time, and she checks the cool rag that's draped over his forehead. Her hands smell like various kinds of herbs, of the outside, of the wilderness. Arthur inhales it deeply, fights down a cough while he ignores his aching chest. He misses the outdoors. It's nicer dying in a forest than a bed. It's more fitting for him, too. No outlaw deserves the warmth of a home in his last days. 

"It's still burnin'," she sighs and pulls back her hand. 

"I'm not gonna get better, Miss." Arthur turns towards the window again, where he can see the pine trees basking in the early afternoon sunlight. Frost glimmered on their branches earlier and painted the cobwebs in the corner of the windowframe a shining silver. "I have consumption."

Admitting it to her feels like a mistake, just like being in her house, eating her food, accepting her care. He doesn't deserve all this, not when he has taken so much from kind people like her before. He tried to do good in the end, he tried , but—

"I know," she nods, a hint of sadness sparkling in her eyes. "My Pa had the same symptoms. He had it as well."

He starts to understand now, the things she said about her family. He wants to ask but he bites into his lip instead and nods. She watches him for a moment, her eyes following the tired lines of his face. 

She tells him her name then. Morrigan. Arthur remembers the Irish tales and legends Hosea used to read for him when he was still young and somewhat careless and happy . A Celtic goddess, war and fate and doom and death. How fitting for him. But not for her, not when she's so gentle. She reminds him of Boadicea, another kind soul named after women of war. 

"I've seen enough death, Arthur," she whispers and she stands up from the side of his bed, walks towards the whistling kettle on the stove, but she turns back for a second to look into his eyes and say "I don't wanna see yours too."

[corvidiss]

6 for Adelaide and 7 for Ambrose for the 'hard mode' asks 👀

Oof uhhh damn, I haven't thought about this at all XD

I also like how you gave Adelaide the nicer one. I appreciate that. There will come a day where I find angst for her but it is not this one. (Probably.)

6. Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?

I don't think Adelaide has very complex dreams just yet, since she's still very early on in brain development, and she's unlikely to remember them much aside from general atmosphere just as she wakes up, but I think they'd largely reflect her life as it is in abstract ways. Things like sitting in wildflower meadows and looking for her family around the house and fields.

But... Having said there would be no angst today...

I feel like she'd also have other dreams. Dreams that are tranquil and sweet and homely, but that leave her feeling a little empty on waking. Dreams she never quite remembers but is always left with a kind of barren longing when they're over. Dreams... of childhood. Of being smaller than everyone else, of running round with other children through the fields. Dreams of things she doesn't know and shall never have.

But it takes a long time for her to understand these dreams; a long time before Henry explains that she's not like other children. When he describes to her with shining eyes the world beyond their secluded home. When he smiles at her, an aching woven in his wonder. And when she asks to meet some of the children he describes, the slow, mournful shake of his head.

"Not yet, Abigail," he shall say. "One day I hope that freedom will be yours. But for now..." He squeezes her long, bony hand. "People would not favour a child like you."

~

7. Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares?

Ambrose, on the other hand, knows exactly what Henry describes. He's been through it all and washed up, worn and wounded, in this unexpected paradise, where his sister gets a chance at life he never had.

Therefore his nightmares are often of a similar strain.

Before Adelaide, the topics were not surprising. Being shunned was a regular occurrence in his dreams, of course, and being attacked by people who've never even heard him speak. But the worst ones were of the day he faced the De Laceys. Of going through the whole process again and again, each time doing something differently, something which might make it work, which might fix everything, but every time it ends the same way. With Felix darting in, stick raised, face contorted and cruel.

Ambrose thought it couldn't get any worse than that. But then Adelaide came along, and he was wrong.

Because, now and then, Ambrose dreams of Adelaide going through the same thing.

He dreams that, despite everything, the outside world will reach into their quiet seclusion and steal her away, that it will beat her down like it did him and throw her out, bruised and bloody. He dreams of finding her lying in a field, limp and broken and barely breathing. He dreams of finding her sitting on the grass, and she turns her face away when he comes near. He dreams of his own despair in her eyes.

Sometimes, Ambrose goes to her in the night. She doesn't know why for a long time, but she's always happy to let him cuddle up with her and lie in peaceful silence. She's familiar with the sight of weary unrest on his face in the dark. And even though it confuses her when he comes up to her and gently holds her head to his chest with no prompt or explanation, she gladly allows it, because it always makes him look a little more at peace.

[scarfacemarston]

Do you remember that weird spontaneous rant Abigail goes on about how she thinks Jack is ungrateful and she tells all the men in camp not to be mothers while they look at her like she's lost her marbles? Do you think that's how she actually felt about Jack at the time or she was just lashing out in frustration from being slut-shamed by the gang? I vaguely remember her actually sounding a little drunk.

Yes! I do! I actually have the audio conversation files. I’m having to put it in order. I was going to write a meta about it. I’ll write the short version here. Abigail only has a few tipsy/drunk files and they are only in the epilogue. It’s entirely possible that there are others, but I’ve heard all of the Abigail files I could find. I personally didn’t think she sounded drunk or tipsy, but that’s just my opinion! It doesn’t mean I’m right. I absolutely think a part of her felt that way about Jack. I hardcore headcanon that she had postpartum depression. It just makes sense to me. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was depressed or was at least anxious from the moment she discovered she was pregnant. A small part of her may have been excited, we just don’t know. 18 is very young to be a mother. (Granted, this was a bit different back then.) We don’t know how John and Abi treated each other at the time. Hopefully decent enough. She had John with her for at least a year but after that? No such luck.   I do know that she had a mental break down of sorts. I mean, who wouldn’t? She lost everything. Joining the gang was probably the very first time she was a free woman. Before, she was a working girl as we all know - but that’s not something that was done by choice if you catch my drift. For others? Sure, for Abigail? Not likely and I have a separate post to explain that. So that was definitely taken away from her. Her body, her mind, her freedom, her time, her friendships and romantic relationships, etc. So she definitely sometimes resents him - but that’s very normal for any parent. I’m very serious. If a parent claims they haven’t ever felt resentful towards their child at any time in their lives, they are lying, imo. Even if it’s something simple as - “I can’t go to this party / sports game because I have to watch xyz”. My sister went through it. However, Abigail adores Jack no doubt about that. He is literally all she has at this point.

I was very surprised to hear her talking about how cruel Jack was. I’ve taught preschool. Kids can definitely be cruel at that age - but that would kind of surprise me with Jack. I do think it’s entirely possible that he’s ungrateful, but he’s also four and doesn’t realize what Abigail has sacrificed. I think she’s more at her rope because she is alone and Jack is her main social life. It’s just him, Arthur  and Hosea until John comes back. Tilly tries though. Sadie does as well, but Sadie is so incredibly busy. Anyone else who talk to her seem to just want her to mother them. She’s 22. That’s not her role.   I think Abigail is also venting her frustration that she can’t give Jack something better. If she was living in better conditions - she would probably have still said this - but I think she would have at least felt slightly less tense. So I honestly do think a lot of it is resentment towards the gang like you suggested. They definitely seem to gossip about her. They seem to greet her and that’s it. Sure, her problems with John aren’t private - they loudly argue sometimes - but lord knows they aren’t the only ones and they don’t have any privacy.  Arthur’s journal hints at the gossiping as well. So yeah, I think a lot of what she is saying about “Jack” is also heavily applied to the gang and their view of her. Great question! I love these. Feel free to send more in.

[squidproquoclarice]

So according to tv tropes's rdr2 page, Sadie is just "Micah with tits", a recrimination I've seen multiple times on various websites including tumblr. It seems fandom really has plenty of ability to empathize with violent, angry, revenge-obsessed men, but not women.

Somehow I’m not surprised that “Micah with tits” is something that gets flung at Sadie.

I’ve remarked before on the misogyny in RDR2 (it’s in every fandom, frankly), but Sadie often finds herself the target of it, because she’s the woman who most visibly challenges the “acceptable female character” paradigm.  Sadie seems to be very much a love or hate character, and the hate is very virulent and often misogynistic.  She’s “shrill” and “annoying” and “stupid” and “unrealistic”.  (To the last point, we’re very clearly shown she has great aim, has a history of hunting talent, and great survival skills in a harsh area, so her becoming a capable gunfighter is not at all unrealistic.  As she says herself, she was not baking pies all day.)

And you’re right.  Men are allowed to be traumatized and violent and angry and seek revenge for the murder of loved ones, but women aren’t.  Women are “supposed” to let the men avenge them.  There’s little room in us to allow for angry, violent women except by demonizing them and turning them into the villain.  They also have to be irreparably broken by it (which the universally underwhelming writing for every character in the Epilogue does somewhat throw Sadie under the bus by implying it.)

The thing that kills me is that everything people criticize in Sadie is present in a male character and normalized, and what they do is almost always worse. Sadie’s profoundly emotionally damaged from the murder of loved ones?  Hi, Arthur Morgan, I see your Eliza and Isaac damage and how you describe that it “hardened” you. People seriously obsess about Arturo Bullard (the balloon guy) and cite how Sadie “killed him” as the reason she is The Actual Worst And I Cannot Forgive Her.  Did Sadie kill Bullard?  No.  Did her provoking O’Driscolls accidentally lead to Arturo Bullard’s death, alongside Arthur and Arturo’s mutual agreement to go closer and help out?  Sure.  Did Arthur beat a man into permanent brain damage unnecessarily in a brawl?  Did Arthur beat a man with TB to the point it hastened his death, evicted his wife and children, caused his wife to have to resort to survival sex work and very strongly implied she’s caught an STI (and if it’s syphilis, it’ll very possibly be fatal in that era)?  Did Dutch cynically use an entire Native American tribe as pawns and decoys and get several of them killed?  Did Micah slaughter an entire town just to get his guns back?  Exactly how many innocent people get killed in-game through direct action or accidental circumstances? Did Sadie actively hunt down the O’Driscolls?  Yes.  Does the game encourage you, as Arthur or John, to actively and even proactively hunt down the O’Driscolls, Lemoyne Raiders, Murfree Brood, Nite Folk, Laramies, Del Lobos, and Skinners, kill them in every encounter, and seek out and take down their hideouts?  Yup.  Do we even have Sadie’s probable traumatic association with needing to wipe that gang out to feel safe?  No. Does Sadie lead to a bloodbath in Guiteau Square at Colm’s hanging?  Yes.  I’m really not sure how anyone thinks surreptitiously holding several people at gunpoint in public in front of lawmen was ever going to end peacefully.   And exactly how many reckless bloodbaths do Dutch or Micah cause in Blackwater, Valentine, Rhodes, Annesburg, Strawberry, and St. Denis?  Look at the ferry job where Dutch outright murders an innocent woman he had held hostage, or how he executes Leviticus Cornwall just for the hell of it. Micah is a sociopath.  He kills, and often overkills, for the hell of it, to the point Arthur remarks on how everything with him turns into a massacre.  He harasses women and enjoys it, and there’s the implication he may have raped Jenny, and makes rape threats about how the gang’s women wouldn’t “fuck you if you put a gun to their head”.  He regularly makes shitty, overtly racist remarks, especially to POC in the gang. He murders half a town for his guns rather than escape, including coolly slaughtering a couple inside their home for them.  He manipulates Dutch for the joy of causing more mayhem.  There is no remorse or empathy in Micah. Everything he does is selfish, and he doesn’t care about anyone aside from himself.  The intimidation, the manipulation, the senseless slaughter, is all purely for his own cruel pleasure. Sadie’s a woman who makes some violent and reckless decisions based on anger and fear born in profound trauma.  She doesn’t show misogyny or racism that I can see.  While she insists she should be allowed to do something other than chopping vegetables, she doesn’t talk down to the women who do those domestic tasks or treat them as weak.  She also led the gang pretty much singlehandedly for weeks during a horrible time, made a plan to rescue John for Abigail and Jack’s sake, has friendships in the gang, does her utmost in Chapter 6 to protect and care for Arthur.  She cares about people, even while she’s chasing O’Driscolls.  And she does have insight and remorse.  She considers herself ruined, agrees with Arthur about the “more ghosts than people” comparison, breaks down crying at Hanging Dog Ranch and refers to herself as a “monster”.  She’s reckless and violent sometimes, but she’s not cruel. I’m really not sure how that’s so different from Arthur, who also has made violent and reckless decisions based on anger and fear born in profound trauma.  Who shows a lack of misogyny and racism.  Who still cares for those around him and tries to protect them, even alongside doing other violent things.  Who has insight and remorse, and feels hopelessly like a monster.  Who’s reckless and violent sometimes, but not cruel. So yeah, if we’re forcing a crude comparison to male characters, Sadie’s absolutely “Arthur with tits” if she’s anyone.  (But wouldn’t it be super if we stopped referring to female characters as just being genderbent male characters and appreciated them in their own right as individuals?)

[hopevalley]

Don't see how Mike will have time to run the petroleum company AND be Mayor, so hoping that job goes to Lee. Apparently Lee isn't kept very busy running his own business, so let's toss him this bone. Being mayor probably isn't a full time gig anyway. As for he & Rosemary having kids...why does everyone think their life can't be complete until they have some? I think it's a very realistic to feature a childless couple getting over that disappointment & having full & happy lives anyway.

I’m sure the job will go to Lee, or they’ll do a huuuge dramatic plotline about it where there are cutthroat politics afoot. Personally I think it’d be a little insensitive to do that type of storyline right now, but 99% of this town would suck at being mayor.

If Bill wins: he’s the objectively BEST choice because he knows the most and is the most fair/likely to do the right thing always, BUT he’s also a judge so that seems like...a conflict of interest. If he quits being a judge it could work really well, though.

If Lee wins: he’s maybe a little too passive for mayor and would think too long and people would get annoyed with that. He is really level-headed, though, so he won’t be impulsive, but I hate the suggestion that his job doesn’t keep him busy enough. In most previous seasons Rosemary worked because Lee worked so much and she was lonely, so it feels stupid to throw that away now. He’s always been a workaholic...let him stay one.

If Fiona wins: she doesn’t feel like a part of the town enough to me to logically get elected, but it sure as HELL would reek of Hallmark pretending to be feminist just like they did when they randomly decided Abigail was head of the town council and thus Henry’s replacement in S4. No thanks... At least she’d be bossy about it, though.

If Mike wins: he’s a good guy and likely to listen to people but I don’t think he has the backbone that’s necessary, and he sure as heck doesn’t have half the knowledge he needs. He’d mean well, but meh.

I wish Dottie had stayed on because she would have made the BEST mayor: a big part of the town, she’d know everything about it from being married to a mayor (and having worked with Henry when he was one), she’s smart, she’s got good sense, and she’s decisive without being hateful. She’s always been written that way. She always made more sense than Abigail.

(I’m not saying there aren’t other choices, of course. Joseph would be so good at it with the right knowledge but he’s not integrated enough into the town yet. Neither is Minnie. I hate the idea of Jesse and Clara getting more screentime at this point. And on and on.)

Anyway, after this awful triangle, the LAST thing I want to watch are characters I like tearing each other down (or lying) to try and win. I can see the plotline already... Bill, Lee, and Fiona all at each other’s throats and either Mike wins by default because he’s too sweet to lie or be mean to anyone, or Fiona wins because Mike accidentally talks her up so much. I mean it’d be in character but I’d rather not see Lee and Bill look like jackasses for a whole season, thanks.

--

I absolutely HATE the fan desire to have Lee and Rosemary reproduce. I’m not a big fan of children to begin with, but the whole infertility plot needs to mean something. If they just magically get pregnant ~wow what a miracle~ I would never watch this show again. Just like the whole Becky plotline (where she magically didn’t need the wheelchair wowzer it’s just mind over matter haha!) it’s just cruel to dangle that in front of the faces of people who have experienced that kind of heartache. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’d LOVE an adoption plotline, preferably of a young teenager (or several kids). They did that in Avonlea and it was incredible. Imagine Rosemary latching onto like, three orphaned siblings. It’d be so sweet. 

Like, if children would make Rosemary and Lee feel fulfilled in life (and that IS the case for some people out there!) then they can adopt. Yes, it sucks that they can’t just have their own kids, but this is a time period where it was cheap and easy to adopt children, so there’s no real reason not to do it. They even know the right people to help them find the perfect kid match(es) for their personality and lifestyle!

(By this I mean, they had their infertility plotline, and now they’ve had a break from that to think about their future and themselves and with no baby in sight maybe it’s time to consider adoption as a valid way of getting what they desire. My favorite part of this is that it feels SO SO SO in character for both of them to be on board adopting because they could adopt kids who were a little older, better at communicating, not so messy and disruptive in their day to day life, and...they get to CHOOSE...so that kid (or those kids) would always know that Lee and Rosemary CHOSE THEM.)

I get emotional thinking about an adoption storyline. I just think with the option right there, and with it feeling like it would work SO well for the characters, it’d be silly to go the baby route with them. And I’m tired of the fans who want another pregnancy. Clara can get pregnant if they want that. It makes sense, it could kickstart an adoption plotline for Lee and Rosemary, and then everyone is happy.

Of course they could be childfree forever, and happy that way! But only if they’ve come to terms with the infertility thing and how it feels to have that choice taken away from them. Maybe they could conclude that it doesn’t really work very well with their chosen lifestyle anyway, and it’s for the best that it didn’t happen for them, but still feel upset that it wasn’t an active choice they were able to make. I just seriously do not trust the showrunners/writers to handle this in a sensitive way.

I’d prefer adoption if the plotline was going to be carried forward, though of course they could do that poorly, too.

[m-u-n-c-h-y]

Arthur and Abigail’s Relationship

To piggyback off of my Eliza Hot Take post, I have another fan theory/ramblings about the very interesting relationship between Arthur and Abigail. And no it’s not because they’re my guilty ship okay...

Everyone likes to talk about Arthur’s journal entry that appears at the “A Fisher of Men” mission. It’s a nice touch, in that, it establishes their close relationship and why Abigail trusts Arthur more than anyone to look after Jack.

However, everyone also has to take a second glance when Arthur writes about how he should have married Abigail. And while my guilty shipper heart would love to go down angst lane, let me be clear that my feelings towards this statement are similar to the last post I made.

Just like with Eliza, I don’t think it was out of romantic love.

Personally, I think a large part of Arthur caring for Abigail and Jack the way he does, is very much connected to Eliza and Isaac and his own guilt surrounding them. One could easily find this in canon and draw some parallels between Eliza and Abigail. Such as their young ages when they became pregnant (Eliza at 19 and Abigail at 17/18), or their status of being mostly single mothers with complicated relationships with the father of their children.

Now to make sure this doesn’t go off track, I’ll try to be focusing mostly on Arthur and Abigail’s relationship rather than Arthur and Jack’s. We can easily draw the Jack/Isaac parallel... because there is only one parallel. We know virtually nothing about Isaac except that he’s Arthur’s son, we really can’t draw too much between the two, but we at least know that Arthur definitely cares about Jack a lot, and a lot of that most likely stemmed from Isaac.

Anyway...

I believe that Arthur took a special interest in Abigail’s well being when everyone in camp found out about her pregnancy. Most likely because it brought up old memories of Eliza. And I can imagine Abigail being somewhat surprised by Arthur’s sudden helpfulness, but not being completely opposed by it due to her own lack of knowledge and understanding of motherhood, something no one is really prepared for honestly, but Arthur having experience, would help.

And when Jack’s born, the fact that Arthur actually knows how to handle a baby, unlike any of the other members of camp, is a weight off of Abigail’s shoulders (now whether she’s aware of Arthur having had a child isn’t stated in canon, and I personally think she didn’t as it seems Arthur never talks about Eliza and Isaac). She would have appreciated his help especially when John seems to be so... absent, both emotionally and physically. And probably set a high bar for how a father should act in Abigail’s head. Poor John didn’t stand a chance.

But really, I believe Arthur was doing all this for more than a little selfish reasons.

As I mentioned in my Eliza Hot Take post, Arthur would have carried over the guilt and bitterness of not being there for Eliza and Isaac as much as he should of. That his misunderstanding of Eliza’s rejection for marriage, culminated in even more self-loathing. And later, when they died, Arthur would’ve blamed himself for their deaths, for not being there like a father/man of the family should. The associated guilt, bitterness, and self loathing, coupled with the similarities between Eliza and Abigail I pointed out earlier, probably made him subconsciously start associating Eliza with Abigail, and after Jack was born, with Isaac. 

Essentially, replacing them. 

I think he saw Abigail and Jack as a means to make up for past mistakes at first. To be there for them like he hadn’t for Eliza and Isaac. And thanks to John’s disinterest in taking responsibility, it was rather easy for him to form a trusting and close bond with Abigail.

When John leaves, Arthur is obviously bitter about it, as he views it as an unforgivable act that he himself committed against Eliza and Isaac, which he believed got them killed. But I also think Arthur saw it as an opportunity to fulfill a want he’s had since maybe even before getting Eliza pregnant. To have a family of his own. 

So, Arthur began making advances without realizing it. Yes, he had the intention to marry Abigail for a brief time, probably convinced it was to do right by her, something Arthur failed to do with Eliza because Eliza straight up rejected that notion. That Arthur was trying to insert himself as a father/husband figure into Abigail and Jack’s life, due to the guilt and bitterness he harbored and this need to make up for it. To get Eliza and Isaac to stop haunting him. However, I don’t think he was consciously aware that that’s what he was doing. 

But, unfortunately for him, I think Abigail caught on, and being the “ride or die” kind of woman that rejected every man that tried to do the same after John ran off with his tail between his legs (her pov not mine), she rejected him too. And she rejected him just like she had rejected all the others, in that very blunt but very honest way that she does. Not that she does it to be cruel, but because, like Eliza, she cares about Arthur. That she doesn’t want to cause them more pain later down the line because they got together for the wrong reasons.

Personally, I imagine the scenario rather vividly, so this can be taken as my own version of how that rejection when down. You know... for funsies~

I can imagine Arthur taking Abigail and Jack out on a picnic of some sort as a little break from camp. It’s a nice day and the three are having a genuinely nice time for once, as the mounting frustration of camp duties and John leaving have been hitting them hard. When Jack waddles off within eye shot, Arthur makes a rather promiscuous comment about how Abigail hasn’t found a new man yet, sense at the time, it seems rather obvious that John doesn’t want to come back. There’s also this underlying tone of Arthur asking her why she hasn’t chosen him. A subtle thing that Abigail picks up on, because she’s seen it before while working as a prostitute.

And without missing a beat, she turns to him, looks him right in the eye, and says, “Mr. Morgan, I like you plenty. But I got this feelin’ that whenever you look at me, you’re lookin’ at someone else.”

And that... shatters Arthur. 

It’s not the rejection that hurts initially, but the fact that Abigail made Arthur keenly aware of the fact that he was basically replacing Eliza and Isaac with Abigail and Jack. And as a result, even more guilt and self-loathing sprang up. Leaving him bitter at himself for thinking he could even do that and think it was okay. At Abigail for ripping that bandaid off so viciously (he can’t stay bitter at her for long, but sometimes it reers up without him meaning to). And, of course, even more bitter at John for having a woman like Abigail, for having that love he has craved for so long, but hasn’t gotten.

[emily-strange]

Growing Pains...

So here it is. The first chapter of my RDR2 Story. I can’t believe I’m doing this….please be kind? But also really happy for constructive criticism! Bit of a long one to start, just to get it all going. 

Any advice on Titles? I’m terrible with them!!

Summary: Emmy has been with the gang since she was a little girl. Her mother moved on, leaving her to be raised by Dutch, Hosea and Susan. Arthur and John are her brothers (argue and she will fight you). Becoming a woman is hard when everyone still sees you as a child. Since the Blackwater mess she’s trying to find her feet while dealing with her new feelings for the gangs resident douchebag. 

Pairing: None yet, eventual Micah x female OC.

Warnings: Swearing, Sexual themes, Minor mention of blood (they’re outlaws after all).

Chapter 1

God it’s good to have Sean back. I know how much he pisses everyone off, but that guy has been my partner in crime since before I can remember. My life lacked a lotta fun before he found himself with us. He’s like my weird, Irish, little brother…. who’s older than me. And hooks up with my favourite aunt/sister/best girl-friend. Yeah, this family is one screwed up party.

“Whatta you writin’ there?” John asks before almost collapsing on me, “You know there’s a party goin’ on right?”. I look around and in fact only see Uncle, the Reverend and Susan still up, chatting around a table scattered with bottle.

“Yes, I’m well aware” I say rolling my eyes. I close my journal before he can catch a glimpse. He’s always trying to.

“You’ve spent way too much time with Arthur” he slurs before taking another swig of whiskey and handing the bottle to me. I take a glug like it’s water. Hell, been drinking the stuff since I was young enough to only have water.

“I like the writin’ thing. Gives me a way to complain about ya without getting in trouble from Hosea”.

John takes the bottle and clutches his chest like he’s been shot, “Cruel, just cruel. I came all the way here from that tree to check on ya” he laughs and points to a tree only a few steps away, “….you were on ma stop before Abiga..”, I can’t help but interrupt him.

“No, John! You’re drunk. You’ll do more damage than good. You haven’t fought in days. Why ruin that!?”. I know I sound shrill but my God, he’s exhausting sometimes!

“Cauz. I’m horn…….nevermind.” he quickly takes another glug of his drink and avoids eye contact until I’m pretty much staring him down, face to face. Idiot boy. I can’t believe that after Jack I’m the youngest.

He finally meets my eyes, “Alright! God damn, I’ll goda bed! Jeesus. From now on ya Emmy Morgan not….ya know…..whatever” he says while slumping down, clearly fed up of being scolded like a child. I hate having to be his brain sometimes. But if I didn’t think for him, he’d of never come home. It was one of my best days riding back into camp after getting him from the station. It was hard but he’s my brother. Blood or not.

I kiss his cheek and hug him around his shoulders.

“Go to bed John,” I mumble into his shoulder “it’ll all look better in the mornin’”. I pull back and he nods before getting up on shaky, drunken legs.

“Yeah, yeah. Night little sister. Just. Please do me a favor?”. I tilt my head to signal him to continue, “Don’t just write about ya life like Arthur. Live it. Ya young.”. He pats my head clumsily and I smile. I quite like drunk John. More often than not he talks more sense than sober John.

I watch him stumble towards his own tent. I can just about see him collapse onto his cot and after a few moments, when I’m sure he won’t stumble back out of it into Abigail’s, waking her and Jack, I turn back to the fire and my journal.

Lord this gang. This family. I’d be lost without them but sometimes feel smothered by them. Dutch hasn’t let me leave the camp once since we got here. Too worried about Pinkertons and O’Driscoll’s. I should be grateful that he wants to act as my pa when mine was so shite, but he isn’t my pa. And I’m not the child I once was. Hosea sees it, John sees it, Arthur….well, Arthur begrudgingly sees it but he sees it nonetheless. Maybe if I get Arthur on side?

I slam my journal with an incredibly audible huff, “Why do I have to get anyone on side. I’m 18 God dammit, nearly 19! Abigail had Jack at my age”. A voice cuts through my quiet and has me jumping out of my skin.

“I wouldn’t model yourself on Miss Roberts if I were you,” Micah comes into view in front of me. Taking a seat on the other side of the fire, “A bit of a ‘loose’ cannon if you follow my meanin’”.

He’s not got his coat on and he’s wearing that red shirt he loves so much. Sleeves rolled up. Why the heck do I keep looking at his arms? His hat’s sat as always on top of his blonde mop of hair.

“Micah” I greet. Somewhat curtly, not that I was meaning to. Still catching my breath from his shock arrival. “I didn’t hear you.”.

He laughs deeply at that and opens his arms in a wide gesture, “It’s a skill sweetheart”. I hate it when he calls me that. I don’t like what it does to me. And it ruins the sweetness of it that Arthur has when he calls me it. But I know asking him to stop will only encourage him more so I keep quiet.

“So”, I whistle out the word, “how much of that did you hear?”. I take a chance and look up at him, only to regret it. He’s sporting that shit-eating grin of his.

“Well, I heard you play mother to scar face aaaand then mutter to ya self about not bein’ a child….bit childish though aint it? Talkin’ to ya self I mean”, Micah huffs a laugh at his own joke and takes a hearty swig of the bottle he’s holding. He holds it out to me and stupidly, I accept.

“Teasing other people about their private thoughts Mr Bell. Also a bit ‘childish’ aint it?”, I finish the bottle and put it down by the log I’m leaning against. I watch him as he pretends to ponder.

“Maybe.” Is the only answer he gives. Well this was well and truly pointless.

We look at each other for a few moments. I hate that smug look on his face! So why can’t I look away?

Thankfully he breaks the silence before it gets too awkward.

“Dutch been keepin’ ya on a short leash?” he asks while throwing twigs into the flames. I’m almost stunned at how normally he asks the question. No mirth or venom. I catch myself smiling, hopefully just before he notices. I clear my throat.

“Um, yeah. He has. He’s worried. But I used to do quite a lot outta camp before, well, ya know”, he nods along with my words “It’s kinda suffocating here sometimes”. I feel guilt wash over me at admitting my plight to another person. Some people would give their right leg to be coddled like this. To be kept safe in camp away from the evils that stalk us. Micah breaks me out of my own thoughts.

“Don’t do that” he says. I look up at him but he’s still staring at the fire. When I don’t reply, only look quizzically at him he continues. “Don’t feel bad for wantin’ more. For wantin’ to do somethin’ other than sew and scrub shit off people’s shoes. Guilt. It’s pointless. A useless emotion. Used by weaker people to keep the better ones down.”.

“You don’t actually believe that right? Guilt. It….the feeling means you’re human….that you care about other people.”, he looks at me then. Dead in the eyes. Unblinking.

“Well then sweetheart. I guess I’m not human”.

What can I possibly say to that?

I clear my throat again and take a moment to ruminate on what he’s just said. I break the eye contact but I can tell he’s still looking at me.

“That’s not true Mr Bell. You’re human. I’ve seen you bleed like the rest of ‘em. Patched you up a bit too if you remember.”. I think briefly of a time before Blackwater, when he came back to camp after a run in with the O’Driscolls’. He’d been slashed on the side by a knife. Nothing too bad but my word did it bleed. I gave him the stiches myself. Been doing that for a long time now. Everyone thought it best to get another person in the know of how to do the basic stuff.

He’d come back into camp clutching his side and shoved everyone away. Saying he could do it himself. Grabbed the needle and thread before dropping the flaps of his tent and getting to work. Everyone let him. I mean, wouldn’t you? In the months he’d been running with us he hadn’t been kind to pretty much anyone. I’d kept my distance. Arthur asked me to and, well he’s my big brother so. But when I walked past Micah’s tent, and I heard him whimper like a dying rabbit. I couldn’t just head to bed.

“Mr Bell?” I called gently, “Mr Bell?”.

I received a strained “what!?” in return. I’ve never really been one to scare easily. Maybe this was my own little version of playing with fire. But I just walked right into his tent. No asking, no preamble. Just, walked right in.

He was sat on his cot, shirtless. He was using his black shirt to try and stem the bleeding and despite the dark colour, I could see it become drenched in crimson. He looked at me, breathless and pale.

“What the hell do ya think ya doin’?!” he said. He wasn’t shouting. Probably felt too weak for that. His mouth hung open and he was almost panting. Sweat beading on his forehead and chest.

Despite my very best efforts, my eyes were drawn to his chest. It looked, firm? Firm and rippled with patches of light hair. Scars were scattered on his chest and stomach but his arms were basically intact. I was pulled from my thoughts by his gruff voice. “Girl!?” he spat as sternly as his condition would muster.

I gathered myself quickly and rushed to his side, kneeling on the floor.

“I’m gonna help you Mr Bell whether you want me to or not so for this once, just hush. I won’t tell anyone that you let me help you and once you’re sewn up I’m gone.”. As I hurried my words out, I took the needle and thread from beside him on the cot. I figured if I did it quickly enough he’d be too slow in this state to refuse. I threaded the needle easily and gently pushed on his chest to move him back a bit. He was warm and clammy under my palms but it wasn’t lost on me that this was my first time touching the chest of a man who wasn’t what I considered ‘family’.

Micah had grunted but stayed quiet. I could feel him watching me.  

I took the shirt away from his side and with as much cold detachment as I could muster, poured alcohol onto the wound from the bottle he’d readied on the floor. He held is breath and despite him trying to be as silent as possible, he groaned in pain. I tried to ignore that horrible noise as I started sewing up his wound. He muffled his groans by biting his lips and punching the cot next to him. I glanced up at his face and his eyes were screwed shut. My God, he looked….vulnerable.

When I was done I fished around the floor for something that looked almost clean to press to his side. I knelt there as his breathing returned to normal and I chanced my luck by letting my eyes wander a bit more from the wound. I took in his stomach, his face, his hands. But in particular, his arms. They looked solid. And at that moment I felt myself blush.

I pushed myself up to standing and looked anywhere but his face. I nodded at nothing in particular and basically ran out of the tent.

That night I came on my fingers to the thought of biting Micah Bell’s strong biceps as he hovered above me. Couldn’t look him in the eye since then. Well until Colter. Had much bigger fish to fry then.

I was brought back to the present when I felt a weight lean against my arm. In my distraction, Micah had moved to sit next to me. Shoulder to shoulder.

“Oooh I remember” he drawled, facing forward, “remember you scurrying away quick as lightening as well” he mused further. He smelled of whiskey and cigarettes. Nothing new for the people around here. But he smelt of something else. Something spicy. Woody? Is that a thing people can smell like?

“I uh, remember you not wanting help. So thought I’d spare you the embarrassment of small talk.” I replied not looking when he turned his face towards me. Leaning in close to my ear.

“Hmm well ain’t that kind”, he whispered and I’m so very proud of the fact that I could keep the shiver I felt from showing. What on earth was happening here.

I turned to face him. “Well I’m a kind person”, I smiled. He pulled back and looked at me like I was a puzzle. Like my face was covered in a maze he couldn’t find a way out from. And while he looked at me, clearly trying to work out his next move. I made mine.

“Well, goodnight Mr Bell,” I proceeded to get up from my spot on the floor. “Thank you for the drink and your lessons on empathy. Even though I will ignore it.” I nodded and before he could respond, I walked to my tent with my head held high. I undid the flaps without looking his way and once I was alone, I threw myself onto my cot.

What the fuck was that?

That night I came on my fingers to the thought of being Micah Bell breathing against my neck.

What the hell am I doing…

[dabblingandbabbling]

Ianthe was the best necromancer but she as an absolute dumass about the living...

Now spoilers

To continue....the three most dangerous/powerfull necromancers were Ianthe, Palamedes and harrowhawk.

Judith Deuteros (2)(for she was shitty) refused to play the rules to any game but her own and Marta functioned as her inforcer. I cant remember marta ever questining her necro...in retrospect that was a bad sign.

Isaac Tettares (4) was 14 and doing his best but he was in over his head and got necr-ophaned to young. And Jeanemaire was doing her best to have his back like a best friend should but they never stood a chance.

Abigail Pent (5) was a badass but i think she cared as less about being a necro-mancer then she did about being a good necro-parent and historian. So she died of perfectly understanable, wrong genre assuming, lack a paranoia. Magnus was an awesome husband, abigail was lucky to be necro-married to him but he was shit in a fight.

Palamedes Sextus (6) the sex-pal himself, was an awesome human being who had pretty much all his shit together... and any shit he missed camilla took care of quickly and effectivly. But they functioned as equals....love... repect...paranoia...all that jazz, they were comfortable working independantly or together and Paladedes CHOOSE not to become a lycter. He picked his moral mountain to die on and camilla had his back.

For the sake of this rant Dulcinea Septimus (7) does not count..... for reasons

Silas Octakiseron (8) is an asshat who used Colum as his servent/battery and silad would rather sit on his dubius moral hillock then learn anything.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus (9) only truely seemed to care about two things: keeping the tomb locked and keeping gideon with her. She was cruel and cunning and hardworking to ocomplish her goals. She was also a rageing bitch but she loved gideon and HARROW IS VERY VERY BAD AT EXPRESSING HEALTHY EMOTIONS. Normaly I am very not okay when love is expressed as abuse but I dont think it ever occoued to Harrow that she could hunt Gideon. Because nothing could kill Gideon. Everything else in Harrows world was decaying or dead but Gideon was unkillable. Harrow did some fucked up things to gideon, but i think it was always about gettingngideon to focus on harrow. So when they get to the first house Harrow firstbtries to limit gideons contact with the others for Harrow knew that Gideon was pure of heart and dumb of ass so a gernerly likeable human being...and she understood that she(harrow) was not. Then Gideon come and saves harrow and harrow starts to understand that maybe there are options to keep a persin with you ither than controll. So they land in a great lesbian pile if rage and respect, horemones, facepaint, and fair two many sharp boney bits for two girls to resinanably have.

Which brings me back to the idiots of the third house. Ianthe, Coronabeth and Babs who clearly have about 50% to much human for thier partenership. From what they say ianthe was being strangled in the womb by Coronabeth...and thier father wanted a Matching set so Ianthe faked Coronabeths power.

Coronabeth should have been Ianthe's cav. They would still have been a matched pair. Babs was basicly Coronabeths overgroomed beard. Ianthe was an idiot for killing Babs instead if enlisting Caronabeths help. I think that Corona would rather have been awknolaged as Ianthes cav even if it meant dieing just to be honest. But ianthe was shit with people and let coronabeth do all the heavy lifting of human interactions and she went off to be smart and skulk around....if ianthe bothered to investigate the other houses eeven for an hour or two she would probably has figured things out a lot soonner.

Also if the lycters have the mucle memory of their cav's then ianthe/coronabeth would have worked best! Identical bodies....different memories

In conclusion

1. I cant spell/tpe worth shit on a tablet keyboard

2. Judith is the kind of bitch who woukd declair herself king during the apoclypes just because she had been in the army

3. Ianthe should have picked her twin over the duechhair

4. Isaac snd jeannemaire could have kicked 14 year old harry potter and hermionie grangers ass.

5. Abigail and Magus were the adults eveyone else needed when they were 6.

6. Sexpal and cammilla were fully functional adults whos lifechoices and threats i fully respect

7. Dont trust the girl made of Cancer and her man made of lemons

8. 8th house is full of asshouses

9. Harrow and gideon really needed abigal and magnus when thy were 6 to show them how adults have relationships

Thankyou for reading my shitpost

[50-percent-winchester-sister]

Valentines Pool Game

Sam & Eileen 24 & 30

Dean & Abigail 28 & 27

Y/N & Ben 17 & 15

Word Count: 1,553

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY YOU SPN FOOLS! I literally forced myself to finish this before the day and post the of Valentine's day, so here you go.

Prompt: Its Valentine's Day and nothing beats hanging out with your boyfriend and your brothers.

Angsty at the beginning but fluffy at in the middle and end :). I'm mean, not cruel

  You wake up when you check your phone and "Great its THAT holiday." Ben is grounded for sneaking out to see you, so you don't get to see him today, fantastic! You wake up to go in the kitchen to see Eileen and Abigail, your brother's girlfriends. You love that they make your brothers happy, but even if in your mind they could never compare to Jess and Lisa. You walked a little bit back to where they can't see you and you hear Dean say "Hey Sammy, is Y/N awake yet?" "I don't think so, I'll go get her." Once he left the kitchen he jumped a little when he saw you. "Oh Y/N, hey me, Dean and the girls are in the kitchen if you want to-" "Not really, its Valentines' Day, you four do your own thing, I'll just head back to my room." "I'm sorry" "Nothing to be sorry about Sam, now quit talkin' and get back to Eileen."

  Sam walks in the kitchen and Dean asks "Is Y/N okay?" "I don't think so Dean, today's rough for her" "What? Because Lis grounded Ben? Please it's her fault for making him sneak out to see her" "You used to do the same exact thing with Charlie Dean, don't say that" "And you with Jess when you went to college," Dean said with a smile. You heard all of them laughing which made you both pissy and sad. You loved Lisa like she was your mom and Jess like she was your big sister, so hearing the boys laughing with Eileen and Abigail leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth.

  You finally decide to come down in the living room around 5 pm and they look all nice and dressed up. Dean came up to you, shaking your shoulders and said: "Y/N you need to get dressed NOW!" Startled you asked "Wait Wha? What for?" "You're coming with us!" Sam chimed in. "But wait why though? I'll just be a fifth wheel..." "Okay, I didn't want to do this but.." Sam lifts you and picks you up over his shoulds by your legs "Samuel William Winchester you put me down right now I'm too heavy!" "Oh shut up no you aren't." He drags you to your room to get dressed.

  To say you didn't look nice was an understatement. you wore black tights, grey oversized dress sweater, brown kneehigh boots and you had your hair up in a ponytail, the way Sam used to put it up when you were little. "Wow bugaboo, you look really nice' "Thank you, I'm not big on formality so this is the best I got" "Well let's get rollin' I made reservations, Don't wanna be late," Dean says. You five walk outside when you decide to say "I'll take my bike, you four take the Impala?" "Uh no Y/N, you're riding with us." "But Dean-" "No buts Y/N, now come on" you heavily sighed as Dean knows exactly why you wanted to take the bike. Being so close to Abigail and Eileen makes you want to freak out. The whole time you were the only one that was quiet and thankfully, Sam let you ride shotgun with Dean so you don't have to sit so close with them.

  Once you get to the restaurant you blink for a second, "Wait, Dean, this place has expensive food, when did we get the money for this?" You turn to look at Dean to see him wearing a shit-eating grin. "Pool, of course, what do you take me for, a Real job employee?" he says as he chuckles afterward. "Alright whatever, let's just get inside," Abigail says while getting out. Everyone soon follows her when Sam lightly pushes you forward and says "You get to go in first" "Why?" "Just go," Sam says while having a big smile on his face. Dean holds the door open for you, Sam, Abigail, and Eileen, "Ladies first, you too Samantha" "Jerk" "Bitch" "Shut up" You say while walking passed them. You walk inside when you look up to your left and you see "Ben!" You run towards ben and he twirls you around. "Happy Valentines Day Y/N." He says while giving you a small box of chocolates and a single white rose. "You too! If I would have known you would be here I would have brung what I bought you, I thought you were grounded" "Yeah, hehe I am, I snuck out to see you, Its Valentines Day, you really can't expect me to leave you alone of all days." "Your mom will find out sooner or later" "Yeah yeah, I'll deal with her, but right now-" He looks behind you and looks at Sam and Dean, then looks back at you. "Right now, I'm here for you and you only."

  You and Ben sat by yourselves at a different table then Sam, Dean, and their girlfriends, but close enough to where they can still see you two. It's not every day that Sam and Dean actually let you have a boyfriend, let alone Dean letting you date Ben, Lisa's son. Its been around thirty minutes until Dean comes up to you and asks, "Hey, Y/N, I kinda need you in the bar, were hustling at pool and there's this guy with a LOT of money and uhh, Sammy kinda shot himself in the foot and decided to go up against him, we need you." You stare at him blankly, why does he need 'my' help? "Sure? Can Ben come?" "Yeah of course, just keep him hidden, he's too young to be in there." "Dean, I'm too young to be in there." He scoffs but has a smile on his face, "Yeah, but you have a fake ID, you're good." You, Be, and Dean walked into the bar to see Sam acting super tough to the guy he challenged. You whisper, "Sam, I got this." You walk up to the guy and say, "Well, hey there baby, it seems like you just leaped into hell for that money didn't ya?" "You wanna go, girly?" You really don't like the word girly, you aren't girly. "Stripes or solids, baby?" "You choose, I'll win either way." You go to the pool table and fix the balls into a triangle, "Ill be stripes then" you say as you smile as you pick up a cue stick. "You can go first, it won't be long until this game is over," you say smiling. You look at Sam who looks deeply confused, and Dean who is grinning like he's never had before.

  "What's your name girly? I want to know the name of the girl I steal thousands from." "The names Francisca Montiga, and don't worry, I won't be the one who looses." You won't tell him your real name since this will be the last him you'll ever see him. Once he goes he gets two of his balls into the nets, numbers 2 and 5. Impressive, you thought, but obviously not a pro. "My turn, you sure you won't back out baby?" "Just go, you're an easy target." Ouch, you're so utterly hurt, it almost makes you cry. you laugh as you take your turn. You hit the cue ball and boom, stripe numbers 9, 10, 13 and 15 falls into the net. 'Hell yes!' you think to yourself smiling hugely. You look back at Sam with a shocked expression and Dean laughing loudly. You hear Sam ask Dean, "Dean, how the hell did she learn to play like that?" Dean, still laughing says "Come on, don't act like it's my fault! She's always been a pro!!"

  Eventually, the game ends and of course, you come out victorious, but with a small problem, the guy was super pissed that you won and you walked out of the bar with a black eye. "Here," you say obviously in pain, giving the money to Dean, "It's yours I was just helping out." "No Jen, don't worry, keep it, but don't spend it all in one night, trust me, I've done that, not pretty." Once you six are outside, your brothers and their girls get inside the Impala while you stand there on the sidewalk talking with Ben. "Sorry this isn't the best day of your life," you say with a sad smile, you felt like you just ruined his day. "Y/N, stop this all of this was actually pretty fun, though, I didn't like it when you kept calling him Baby." You lightly laugh, but apologize, "Sorry, it was all part of the act, I promise I won't call another guy baby again." "Apology accepted." Ben is the sweetest boy in the world, you thought to yourself. "Well my brothers are probably mad I didn't walk with them to the car." "Once I get ungrounded ill come by to the bunker so we can actually be by ourselves." "Sounds like a plan." You hug him and kiss his cheek while walking to the passenger seat of the Impala. "Today was a fun day, We should do this again next Valentine's day, minus the black eye," you say to your brothers and even their girlfriends.

[rheyninwrites]

Old Friends Part 3

f!OC Modern AU

I He was only nineteen when they met, still a kid, same as the rest of us. Once he laid his eyes on her, his big dumb heart was just taken away. He swore that she was The One for him, no doubts in his mind at all. He followed her around like a puppy dog, and she loved every damn minute of it.

Charles, who was his best friend besides me, tried to talk sense into him. We all knew she’d be bad news for him. If it wasn’t her, it would be because of her father. The man was probably the wealthiest person any of us had ever seen, or even heard of at the time, and all of his efforts were being put into finding a “suitable” husband for his precious daughter. You practically needed a six figure salary to even be considered, so it was highly unlikely that an ex con who performed manual labor for a living would make the cut.

“You realize she’s rich, right?” Charles said one night as we hung out in the townhouse we all shared. “Like, more money than all of us will ever see in our whole lives put together rich?”

But he just waved the advice away and dove headfirst into love. And boy oh boy was it love, or maybe obsession would be a better way to describe it. He was practically glued to her side. Almost stopped hanging out with us completely. He ate, slept, and breathed her name, her face, her figure. All she had to do was walk in the room and he went all gooey, all heart eyes and floating across the floor after her.

Of course, I found it utterly disgusting, but at that point I had realized I had major feelings for him, so I knew some of my distaste for it came from jealousy. She was everything I wasn’t. Tall and thin to my average height curves, rich to my poor, graceful to my clumsy. Some of us can’t afford facials and finishing school. So different than me, so much more refined. And he wanted her , craved her, so I knew I didn’t stand a chance.

God, the dance went on for years. “Daddy” wouldn’t have approved, so of course it was all kept very secret, while in daylight she paraded with the suitors her father sent her way. Arthur would meet her at night, often springing for a fancy restaurant he couldn’t really afford, and she’d have him out with her all night. Then he’d race his way to whatever job he was working, apologize for being late, and drag his way through the day on whatever little sleep she’d let him have.

I know I’m making her sound like a bitch, my recollection colored by bitterness. It’s hard to let some hurts from the past go. Not only did she have the man I wanted, but she had the easy life that comes to the rich and beautiful. I think she probably did really care about him, just not enough to do what really mattered.

That became clear one afternoon, just as I was graduating college. Most of the rest had either never started college to begin with, or had dropped out in favor of a job offer. Tilly was starting work at the flower shop she’d own in a few years, Bill had gotten Charles in at the factory he was working at, while Javier, Sean, and John were starting at a construction company. Karen had convinced Abigail, newly in love with John, that they should start a business together, which, unfortunately didn’t go so well. Mary-Beth had just moved in with us, one year into her English degree, and Lenny wouldn’t be showing up until the Fall, a genius seventeen year old hell-bent on being the first in his family with an MD. Sadie didn’t join us until years later, having met Charles at work.

Tilly, Charles, and I were sitting at the kitchen counter, having a quiet conversation, when suddenly Arthur burst through the door, a grin nearly splitting his face in two. The three of us looked at each other in confusion as Arthur stomped to the fridge and grabbed a beer, guzzling half of it down at once.

“This is it, I ain’t never gonna have to worry about another thing in my life. Not in my damn life!”

“You gone tell us what all this stomping and shouting is about, Arthur Morgan, or you gone just leave us here wondering?”

“Ah, shit, Tilly. I’m just so damned excited! You ain’t gonna believe this. You remember that position I applied to? The one at the summer camp up in New York?”

Of course we all remembered. It had been the only thing he’d talked about for weeks, hemming and hawing about whether or not he should apply. It was training and handling horses used in equine therapy, something he’d wanted to do for years. Unfortunately the application had said that anyone with a criminal background shouldn’t apply. Thanks to his fuck-up of a father, he a few pick-pocketing charges, and one or two shoplifting incidents. Luckily, instead of being a victim lost in the often cruel justice system, he ended up with a great counselor who got him help and got him sent to a rehabilitation facility, where they used horses as part of the therapy. When he came out, he was a different person, and he said he wanted to be able to give that to others. Unfortunately, between needing a steady income and having poor grades, he hadn’t gotten into any of the training programs he’d applied to, and he’d all but given up hope.

When he told us about it the camp opportunity, we all encouraged him to apply anyway. Since the charges had been so long ago, and he’d been through the rehabilitation program, we thought maybe it wouldn’t matter as much. Mary-Beth helped him to write a cover letter to include with his application, explaining not only why the charges were there, but how they lead to him finding that passion and how it changed his life. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, maybe they’d throw out his application, but if he never applied, he’d be certain he never got the job.

“I got it! I got the damn job! They said that, while they normally ain’t keen on hiring people with a criminal record, I was clearly a fine example of ‘the transformative power of the horse’. “

Grin still splitting his face, he stood there, arms out and nearly crying from happiness as we all gathered around him to hug and congratulate him.

“And that ain’t the only thing. My story touched them so much, they’re thinking they might want to use it in their new advertising campaign.”

He plopped into the chair while we all screamed and shouted our excitement, filling in Karen, Sean, and Javier as they tromped downstairs to the kitchen to see what the noise was. Karen was the first to form a coherent sentence.

“Hot damn, Arthur, that’s the best damn thing I heard in a long damn time! Sounds like we might have to get ourselves out tonight to celebrate!”

“Aw, thank you Karen, but I’m afraid I’m gonna have to pass on that tonight, as I already got other plans.”

“Shit, Arthur, what plans could you have that are more important than celebrating your success with your best friends?”

Arthur looked down sheepishly, the first blush I’d seen on him in ages starting to creep up his cheeks. I got a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as he reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a tiny velvet box, which he sat on the table slowly. I glanced over at Tilly, whose eyes widened ever so slightly in an “oh shit” face. Charles was already backing away, ever so slightly shaking his head.

“I, well, I’m gonna see Mary tonight. And I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”

My heart fluttered its way to my mouth before finally deciding to drop down into the pits of the fiery depths below . This was definitely not good. Not just because I loved him romantically, but because I loved him as a friend, and I knew that there was precisely a snowball’s chance in hell that she was going to say yes. But as his friend, I also knew it wasn’t my place to say that, and that my job was to support him, so I was the first one to speak.

“That’s great, Arthur. I hope you guys have a really great future together. My best to you.”

And because I knew I couldn’t stand there anymore without shedding tears, I excused myself to the bedroom Tilly and I shared. Flopping onto my bed, I laid there, facing the ceiling and thinking about all of the things Arthur and I had done together, all of the moments we had shared. I let all of the feelings I had for him wash over me, and let them flow from my eyes.

Why can’t he love me the way he loves her?

It had been a constant refrain in my head for the last several years. Every time I heard of some new thing they’d done together, every time I’d overheard him gushing to someone about how amazing and how incredible she was.

Why can’t he love me the way he loves her?

After a few minutes, I heard a gentle knock on the door, and Tilly’s voice asking if she could come in. I guess I mumbled something in the affirmative, or she knew she should come in anyway, because the next thing I knew, she was lying in bed beside me, wrapping her arms around me as I cried. She’d known for a long time that I cared about him as more than just a friend, and she knew how much this was hurting me.

“You know it’s gonna be a disaster. He’ll propose, she’ll bat those long eyelashes at him, clap her hands together and say ‘oh, Arthur’- you know how she does- and then she’s gonna turn him down flat. Either that, or she’s gonna say ‘yes’, make him feel like a big man, and then blame her daddy when she has to break it off!”

Tilly sat up and did her best comedic impression of Mary’s clasped hand gesture, which did get me to laugh. But laughing turned back into tears soon enough. I pushed myself up to lean my back against the wall and looked at Tilly.

“I don’t hate her, you know. I really don’t. But she knows damn well that she’s not going to spend her life with Arthur, that it’s not even an option for her, but she still keeps seeing him. And she knows it’s gonna lead to him getting hurt, but she still won’t let him go. It’s so damn wrong.”

“ I know honey. In a lot of ways Mary’s a fine girl, but she’s selfish, and there ain’t no getting around that. Rich girls nearly always are- I don’t think they can even help it. I guess, you grow up getting everything you want, you don’t really learn that sometimes getting what you want ain’t the best for others.”

Turns out, we were right. Mary said no. We didn’t see Arthur for two days, and when he finally showed, he was a broken man. All the life seemed to have gone out of him, all the pride. His shoulders slumped, he trudged to his bedroom and shut the door. He only ate because Charles practically force fed him. I think he would have happily starved himself to death over her.

And he never did get to that position in New York

[pplowden]

PRE FMP Exaggeration and storytelling

Exaggeration and storytelling are inherent in human society. What I really find interesting is the structure of how humans live their lives. People find a comfort in routine and success in repetition. There is a unanimous decision in how we should form our days; at what times we brush our teeth, eat, get dressed, go to bed etc. Not only does this satisfy people, it makes them feel secure and entertained, we even try to recreate this artificially, for example the game ‘Sims’ is all about building your own society, it is like playing with your own life, only with slightly more control.

I decided to take this even further, living by a strict manifesto of only eating orange food in my orange room. While there was a sense of comfort in the limitations this provided, it felt ridiculous and inevitably, made me physically sick. There are many artists who decide to live with such extreme routines - the most famous probably being Gilbert and George. People are infatuated with the mystery around their commitment to structure. Real or not they provoke the idea that structure provides something for humans, even if it is just people's interest in it.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gilbert-george-day-routine-life-453958

Perhaps this obsession with routine is about allowing us time to search for what is really important; our purpose in life. Often people long to turn the mundane into the interesting, which seems both an act of desperation and a form of existential crisis. The thought that there is something beyond us is scary, exciting and somehow important. The artist David Huggins is a 74 year old man who has spent his life painting the extraterrestrial woman who took his virginity and the hybrid human alien-babies this produced. What interests me about him is that he refuses to sell the works of his (fantasy) wife - his paintings are personal objects which form a part of his life, not mere pieces of work.

https://www.theartblog.org/2011/08/david-huggins-an-uncommon-life/

Furthermore, although he has lived his life in what we assume to be half fantasy, he has embedded these alien figures into an ordinary, human life. He is in a monogamous relationship and fathering a family. As much desperation there is to find something beyond humanity, there is still an urge to bring it  back round to what we have created. This led me to draw a series of imagined scenes of aliens performing the daily acts of humans, such as eating dinner.

This is why I am interested in exaggeration; people want to find something new and exciting, but only so they can share it with what human experience we already have. There is an absurdity in how dramatic humans are often tempted to be, it is humorous.

https://www.siff.net/festival/dj-nicfit-presents-fantastic-planet

Inspired by Roland Topor's ‘La Planète Sauvage’, which explores the relationship between human and alien, and his costumes for a production of the ‘Magic Flute’, I decided to knit alien costumes and perform a ballet, green screening it onto a background of the face on Mars.

I decided performance is a good way to dramatise what I am trying to explore, as it relies on amplification and being extravagant. The use of a green screen allows importance to be placed on the movement of the performer and any connections with setting to be removed. By replacing it with the the face on Mars, it represents perfectly what I am interested in, how humans have grasped a familiar figure and celebrated it, in a place full of the unknown.

It is this balance between truth and fiction which really holds my attention. Ultimately, fact and fiction is merely what people claim them to be. If stories are about perspective, how can we deem one version true and another false?

https://www.henson.com/storyteller.php

Folk tales, fables, and legends are interesting here, as the oldest and most famous forms of stories historically. The kids tv programme ‘The Storyteller’ by Jim Henson tells such tales, emphasising the importance of dramatics in storytelling through voice, setting and humour. The opening lines of each episode being;

“When people told themselves their past with stories, explain their present with stories, foretold the stories with stories, the best place by the fire, was kept with for storyteller”.

The act of a story is presented almost like a ritual which affects everyones everyday life, but also something which has a skill to it. As often seen in literature and art, this programme is a story about stories. It is not simply a retelling, there is importance in its own characters and their narrative.

Inspired by my own experiences and stories about being attacked/attacking birds, I researched the greek myths of Icarus, Prometheus and Leda and the Swan. Once again I found myself interested in the dramatic nature of such myths; the dramatic monologues and inevitable rise and fall of characters, the shifting perspectives and interpretations and mostly, the tendency to fabricate something unimportant to transform it into the important. To reflect on this idea, I wrote an essay;

Reflections on swans (and seagulls)

The swan is often considered to be the most beautiful and powerful creature. As described in Yeats’ poem ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’, they are “mysterious, beautiful” and “unwearied”, traits all humans aspire to have. We are in awe of them; as we are tempted by materialism and infidelity, grow cynical and die, their symbolic beauty doesn’t fade: the swan remains monogamous and elegant, living a simple, pure life.

Swans carry a purity in their graceful paddle and colouring as well as symbolising a sort of British greatness. They are believed to be silent until singing a final “swan song” – the pinnacle of their greatness - at their death. Perhaps this and the fact they are owned by the Queen, gives them a mysterious authority. We are taught to admire them from a respectful distance.

However, no matter how blinded by their beauty we are, we know never to forget their power. They are fierce, quick to feel threatened and will “breaking our legs” to protect their young.

This recognition and portrayal of their danger is not a new one. The myth of Zeus disguising himself as a swan to rape Leda has been a prominent tale explored in art for centuries. Although this story uses the swan to represent a cruel and deceiving character, Michelangelo painted it as an intimate and romantic scene, supposedly causing it to be destroyed in the seventeenth century due to its ‘lasciviousness’.

I find Stephen Pearsons’ ‘Wings of Love’, famously known for illustrating the divide between Laurence and Beverly in Mike Lees ‘Abigail’s Party’, reminiscent of this. While ‘Wings of love’ symbolises the progression and divide between romanticism and realism, exposing people for being over consumed with nature while also applauding nature for holding such power, ‘Leda and the Swan’, symbolises the relationship between cruelty and power.

Yeats has also written a poem on this, emphasising a much cruel explanation: “A sudden blow”, “He holds her helpless breast upon his breast”. Immediately we feel the brute force of Zeus raping Leda. However, what becomes surprising as you read on is the threatening softness in which he continues to describe it; “feathered glory”, “thighs caressed”. This seems to perfectly sum up the character of a swan - silent but deadly.

I find this imbalance of opinions peculiar and recurring with swans - perhaps it is only superficial beauty and the fact that the Queen owns them which makes us feel so proud and protective of them? In reality, they are dangerous and cruel.

I once ate a swan after it died flying into an electrical wire on my grandparents’ farm. Its flesh was dark, forbidding and fishy. It was unpleasant and I felt as if I was being let down, as if it was meant to be something life changing when in fact it was vulgar and sickening. I wonder if the pride of national ownership only added to this feeling? It was meant to be an honour to be eat something usually untouchable, admirable and wild; free but royal; yet it was disgusting.

Do we misunderstand all animals, all birds, all nature? We, like the Queen, assert ownership over animals with our pets. Yet we keep them in cages and on leads. We have a hierarchy – swans above seagulls, seagulls above caged budgies. What does it mean and is it more about ourselves than the animals we portray?

I am interested in this and in our relationship to other birds. I wonder if it is the status of Royal ownership which separates swans from the common bird, which we often fear or diminish. We fear birds trapped in houses. In a recent news story, we fear a seagull that stole a woman’s pet chihuahua. Why underestimate the seagull? It is an enemy because it steals our chips and our chihauhuas. But what has changed since the lesson of Prometheus, which warned humans not to be arrogant or misunderstand the natural order of the world? Why are we now taught to hate and disrespect the common bird?

I think we often use nature in art to try to understand and illustrate power complexes and ourselves - there is a craving to understand our place in the world. The conflicting views on swans is an example. In a way, swans are irrelevant to humans, they are in our art because there is a deeper craving to understand something much larger about ourselves. Thinking about this prompted me to make a film about the neglected and maligned seagull; to draw comparisons between the survivalist impulse which exists in these lonely, maligned birds and in lonely, maligned people.

What writing this essay and the script for my film really taught me is that it is the absurdity in the obsession of trying to understand something bigger than us which interests me, whether its natural order or power complexes, the need to exaggerate human importance until we understand such topics seems unavoidable. David Lynch’s new film ‘WHAT DID JACK DO?’ I find represents what I mean here: the nonsensical, circling script of cliches eventually defeats the storyline. Instead, what becomes entertaining and successful is the humorous journey of the dialogue.

netflix.com

In some ways, it seems a critique of stories as they are meant to be, instead suggesting it is the ludicrous way in which we tell them through exaggeration is what becomes the story.

Since realising this, I think what I am really interested in is not just the stories people are telling, but how they tell them that I am attracted to. For example, at my aunt and uncles house there are three stone sculptures of heads on their mantle piece which my uncle found in a skip. He says that in the medieval times they believed murderers all had the same anatomy, and these heads are in fact death masks of murderers used to figure out the bone structure that would possess every murderer. While sat at a candle lit dinner, the heads glowing and watching over us, I was told the story of the severed head. Our family friend had gone to open day for a boarding school and while playing football had kicked the ball into a nearby bush. Going to retrieve it and continue the game, he kicked it out into the playing field. What landed was not the football, but a severed head. The school sent out a small apology letter, but covered up the story and it was never heard about again, except through word of mouth. Becoming its own kind of myth, I hear and retell this story often, surprisingly regularly receiving a similar story in reaction.

I am interested in how to turn such accounts into their own visual stories or pieces of work. I believe one way to do this is to learn what is so interesting in each individual story and focus on this, whether it as obscure as the fact it is so dramatic and making an installation full of shadows and mystery, or as specific as a particular description of an object and recreating it.

I am interested in interactive works; I believe giving a role to the audience to be immersed is very powerful in its effect, especially when exploring storytelling, where the audience and the memories they are left with is half of the experience. Saying that, I believe it should be a memory they are left with only. Often people are interested in taking a physical object away from an artwork, as well as a memory.

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/yoko-ono-cut-piece-1964/

For example in Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’, the audience members were invited to come and cut off a piece of her clothing. What is powerful about this performance is not the fact they walk away with a piece of her cloth -  an artefact of such a famous artwork - but the fact they committed the act. The fabric has become the documentation, the intimate act the work. Therefore, I find it more exciting to leave the room empty handed. If there is nothing to tell except for the story of the experience - we are left with a series of interesting experiences and accounts, becoming a story and artwork in itself.

Another way in which we can dramatise is through physical size and dominance. Working on a large scale excites me. Phyllida Barlows' work at the 2017 Venice Biennale felt almost like a stage design. The construction and emphasis on under cladding became the artwork, it was compromised of monumental structures of various, large heights filling the gallery.

https://www.designboom.com/art/phyllida-barlow-british-pavilion-venice-biennale-05-28-2017/

I hope to continue researching storytelling and exaggeration through an interesting, dramatic aesthetic.