#congratulations to anyone whose family relationships are easy

[apparitionism]

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Happy random Saturday to those who celebrate! This is a one-shot bit of slightly serious, mostly silly Bering & Wells holiday nonsense, set in a fantasy timeline in which the Warehouse didn’t explode, Leena didn’t die, and Helena actually managed to face up to, and come to terms with, the fact that she’s head over heels in love with Myka (and vice versa). Not that that would have solved all their problems... it might, in fact, have led to some new ones.

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Pete doesn’t like to confront Myka. He tries to do it only when it seems absolutely necessary... but right now it does seem like that. Overwhelmingly like that.

So when they’re walking the aisles one December afternoon, taking inventory, he asks, “Are you okay?”

Myka turns to look at him—not even with the skeptical neck-thing. This is just a normal look. “Why?” she asks. “Don’t I seem okay?”

Pete nods. “You seem totally okay.”

Again with the normal look. “Then okay, right?”

“Wrong,” he declares. “Because that’s what’s not okay.”

“You’re great with clarification,” she mutters.

That sounded better... almost the right level of annoyed, because they’re heading to check up on a bunch of bells, then on the misfit toys from Rudolph, which are all things he might be tempted to touch, because: “It’s almost Christmas,” he reminds her.

“Also very reliable with a calendar,” she says. “Are we done now?”

“Not even close. Why aren’t you being all tense and shouty?”

“Why would I be?”

“Because you always are. Like, where’s your ‘Don’t touch anything, Pete!’ red alerts?”

Myka shrugs, like nothing has ever been a big deal. “Touch what you want.”

It’s a sentence that doesn’t make any sense, so Pete says the most sense-making thing he can think of: “You’ve been whammied.”

“Have not.”

Usually she’d say something like that sassy, like a challenge. Instead she’s laid-back. He thinks “whammied” again, but then another possibility occurs to him: maybe she’s just... happy? She’s swoony-moony in love, and H.G. seems to feel the same way, even though they both keep trying not to be obvious about it. It’s sweet and silly, and usually that’s great. But being happy with H.G. hasn’t ever meant she leans off the gas when it comes to being Ms. Hands-Off-The-Merchandise around artifacts.

At least, not until now. Pete realizes he himself is feeling kinda not-okay, so he shakes his head, shimmies his shoulders. The shake and shimmy tell him this is definitely not Myka being happy—this is a vibe. From her. There’s something strange about it though, even for a vibe, and he doesn’t get it. “Are you really okay?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asks back.

Pete’s done plenty of interrogations in his time, and that was federal-criminal-level unresponsive. Now, with the vibe, he’s feeling like he needs real answers.

He considers going to Steve for truth-o-meter help, but that’s a last resort. So that evening he tries his second-to-last resort: H.G.

She’s in the kitchen eating something bready with icing... cinnamon roll. It smells fantastic, and for a second he forgets what he’s there for, wondering whether she’s got another one hidden somewhere and if he can talk her into giving it to him.

She and Myka have a little agreement about sweets—she doesn’t eat them when Myka’s around. It’s the reverse of how nobody drinks when he’s around because they’re worried about tempting him: it’s not like Myka would be tempted by sugar; instead, she’s grossed out. And weirdly, H.G. has a real sweet tooth. He isn’t sure what their signal is, like if H.G. has to put a sock on the kitchen door handle or what, but it seems to work.

Thinking about Myka, and how far away from this situation she’s likely to be, makes him think about the vibe. He asks, “Is Myka okay?”

H.G. chews her bite of cinnamon roll. She can be really slow when she feels like it... and she is obviously really feeling like it. He’s wondering if he should just give up by the time she swallows and says, “Define ‘okay.’”

Pete finds that surprisingly hard to do. As far as Myka’s concerned, anyway. “Well, not giving me a vibe, to start with. It’s all weird, a vibe but like she knows it and she’s trying to butter it. As a disguise.”

“What is the ‘all weird’ she is attempting to disguise with butter?” H.G. asks. She gets that sly look—and then she takes the butter out of the fridge, slathers some on her cinnamon roll, and puts it in the microwave. He sighs. She’s making fun of him, but also, this is another episode of H.G. and the Microwave: A Love Story. Not quite as epic as hers and Myka’s, but it was definitely love at first nuke. Then again he’s not sure there’s any kind of technology she wouldn’t fall for.

He ignores the butter. And how it’s melting as the carousel turns. And how the smell of buttered cinnamon and sugar and bread is filling the kitchen and—yep, he’s totally ignoring that. “I don’t know what the weird is,” he says. “What’s different?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” says H.G. She’s cheerful. Always dangerous. “We’ve been invited to visit her parents for Christmas.”

“Oh my god,” Pete says. No wonder she was hiding it. “She wants me to ruin Christmas. ‘Touch what you want,’ she said. She wants a disaster.”

“There is a simple solution,” H.G. says, still cheerful. Still dangerous. Pete waits for the hammer to fall, and it does: “Don’t give her one.”

“See, but I have this Christmas problem,” he tells her. This won’t go well.

“Don’t have it.” That sounded a little less cheerful.

“But if I don’t... does that mean you want to visit her parents? I’d’ve figured you’d go for Myka being happy on Christmas.”

“Happiness is often relative.”

“I see what you did there! Relative! Relatives!”

She gives him a snooty look. “I did not intend to do that there.” That wasn’t cheerful at all.

“So is your Christmas plan some compare-and-contrast deal, to make her understand how good she’s got it with you? Happiness-wise?”

Now she squints. “I always hope, ‘happiness-wise,’ she believes that to be true. Separate and apart from whatever her relationship with her parents is, or might otherwise be.”

“Might otherwise... oh, I get it. You think you’re the special sauce. Trust me, you’re not. I’ve met that family.”

H.G. doesn’t say anything. She’s looking at him like she doesn’t understand what he said, but wasn’t that pretty clear? Then he gets it: she’s caught on “special sauce.”

He helps her out: “What I mean is, you won’t make a difference.”

Her face clears, and she recovers enough to say, “I always make a difference.”

“Right. I’m not sure if I should give Myka the disaster she wants or let you be the disaster.”

“Perhaps I’m the disaster she wants.”

Pete snorts. “If that was it, she’d be dragging you into that Bering bookstore by your pretty, pretty hair.”

“Thank you for the compliment. I confess to being somewhat vain about my hair.”

“It’ll be on fire when you realize how fast you gotta get out of Colorado to save Myka from her family.”

“You’re failing to consider one as-yet-unknown quantity.”

Well, no real surprise there. “And that’s?”

“Perhaps I am the special sauce.”

Yeah, disaster. Pete sighs again. This Christmas is gonna be difficult. “I’ll try to keep my hands in my pockets.”

H.G. nods a serious nod. Then she gets out another plate, cuts a large chunk off her cinnamon roll, plops it over, and hands him the result.

Bribery. Pete respects that. “I’ll try really hard,” he tells her, which is about the best he can do, this time of year.

She looks at her plate. She dumps what’s left of it onto Pete’s, then looks up at him.

“Super hard,” he offers.

She nods. “I believe everyone will appreciate that,” she says, “but, I hope, Myka most of all. And with that, I leave you to your sugar high.” She H.G.s her way out of the kitchen, like there’s some invention he was keeping her from finishing, like he hadn’t interrupted her chasing her own sugar high.

Pete resolves to have a cinnamon roll, a plate of Christmas cookies, or an entire candy store ready to hand to H.G. when she and Myka roll back in from Colorado, because she’ll probably have to be satisfied with non-Myka sugar for a good long time. Plus Myka’s likely to be avoiding her completely, if things go like Pete thinks they will, so she’ll have lots of free sugar-eating time on her hands.

In the meantime, he focuses on what’s most important: eating a cinnamon roll.

****

Claudia loves the Warehouse database. It’s an amazing record, an infinitude of records, and the wonder of it really truly is endless. The looking and then the finding: being rewarded, surprised, overcome.

But there’s always a downside, and with the database, that’s the updating. Which is also endless. And if there’s one thing Claudia finds more boring even than a lecture from Artie about whatever offensive thing young people are doing today (or, usually, months and months ago that he’s just heard of), it’s data entry. It’s just typing stuff, not even thinking about it. She tries to find any excuse she can not to do it, so she’s thrilled when, as she’s sitting in the Warehouse office trying to figure out a good one for getting out of this day’s tappity-tap-tap, Myka walks up behind her and says, “I need your help.”

Unusual. Kinda cool. Best of all, Myka’s a pretty good typist, so it won’t be that. “I’m Claudia and I’ll be your server today,” she says. “What can I get you started with? Some jalapeño poppers? Mozzarella sticks?”

“I need a crisis.”

“Blooming onion it is.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“An artifact crisis.”

“Maybe still works.”

“Come on,” Myka groans. “Humor me, okay?”

“I thought that’s what I was doing.” Myka can sometimes be... less fun than Claudia wishes she would be. She’s always awesome, but sometimes Claudia thinks they’re just playing, and then it turns out that’s wrong, so—

“Look,” Myka says, short and sharp, and she is not playing. “I would like you to find something artifacty that really really needs to be taken care of. By me.”

“If it’s a crisis, the mission might end up taking more than a couple days, and remember, Christmas is sneaking up on us all, so if you—”

More short and sharp: “That’s fine.” She stops and slows down. “I’m more than happy to be your server.”

Myka is very, very bad at pretending to be less serious than she actually is. “That wasn’t funny,” Claudia informs her. “But look at me still humoring you.”

“Thank you. Probably. But again: crisis.”

“One problem with that though.”

“Fine. I bet I can solve one problem.”

“I can’t actually make a blooming onion.”

Myka crosses her arms and frowns. “You’re not humoring me anymore.”

“Not really, no,” Claudia admits. Because why, honestly, would anyone manufacture a crisis? Even to get out of data entry.

Myka makes a strangled noise that she’s clearly trying to keep from being a growl. Then she stalks off.

Claudia would be worried and/or scared, but she’s learned that H.G. is amazingly good at taking this particular sort of Myka-configuration and defusing her... so she puts that higher on the priority list than boring typing (formulating her case to Artie in her head) and goes looking for H.G. She finds her in her room—it isn’t her bedroom anymore; the bed got moved out to make space for a workbench, because she doesn’t sleep in there except when she falls asleep at the bench. Right now, she seems to be taking apart a space heater, or maybe she’s putting it back together? Sometimes with H.G. it’s hard to tell the difference. “Okay, give,” she says. “What’s up with Myka?”

“Define ‘up.’” H.G. doesn’t look at Claudia as she says this.

“She wants a crisis. Why does she want a crisis?”

H.G. sighs a little, like she really does know why—but of course she knows; she’s H.G. She knows everything. Everything in general, but particularly when it comes to Myka. Now she does look. It’s her pointy-focus look. “I suspect she subscribes to the belief that every crisis is an opportunity.”

“An opportunity to what? Save the world? Bank karma points? Show off?”

“Admirable guesses all,” H.G. says, “and most likely all more or less accurate. But overriding them all, I fear, is the opportunity to avoid visiting her parents for Christmas. With me in tow.”

Claudia gasps. “This is the big ‘here’s the lady of my life’ reveal? Making your whole thingy-thing that much more official?”

“Not if Myka has her way.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll put a stop to... wait.”

H.G.’s face hardens, and she blows out a sharp breath. “I’m quite practiced at that.”

Which brings Claudia to a screeching halt. She cringes and says a heartfelt “sorry,” trying to make clear she’s cringing for the right reason: I should have known better. Not very long ago, Myka had, in a rare moment of what seemed like real honesty about what being with H.G. was like, said the word “minefield.” Claudia told her that was real for all of them, but Myka had said the number and placement of mines was probably a bit different for her than for everyone else. As was the blast radius.

Moments like now, Claudia’s not so sure that’s true, and so she’s relieved, outsize relieved, when H.G. says, “No, no. You did nothing wrong. The apology is mine—my response was oversensitive. Vestigial. You were saying?”

“I was... I was! You want to meet the parents?”

“Now seems as reasonable a time as any.”

“But you could put it off. Maybe forever. Like Myka wants?” Why does H.G. not want that?

“I suspect Myka also subscribes to the belief that every opportunity, particularly in this context, is a crisis. But must that be so?”

“I kind of see your point,” Claudia says, because opportunity. “I kind of don’t,” she follows, because crisis, but H.G. seems to have some plan, so: “Anyway I won’t crisis her up. Not intentionally.”

“Thank you,” H.G. says. “Now, help me with this surveillance device.”

Claudia squints. The view doesn’t change. “That’s a space heater.”

“It may have departed a factory as a space heater, but you of all people should know that one’s origins do not determine one’s destiny.”

She turns back to the former heater, leaving Claudia to contemplate origins and destiny... and to begin to realize why H.G. might want to meet Myka’s parents after all.

****

Steve is gulping a cup of coffee before heading back to the Warehouse. He sets his mug in the sink and turns around to find Myka leaning against the kitchen doorway, contemplating him. It’s a Mrs. Frederic move. Disconcerting.

“You look like you need a vacation,” she says.

He probably does look like that. They probably all look like that. But vacations are hard to come by, and he’s had probably more than his share. “I’m supposed to be holding the fort over Christmas,” he reminds her.

“I’d be happy to take your place.”

“In exchange for...”

“Nothing. I don’t need a vacation.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Completely.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“Oh come on. Just say yes.”

“Not until I think through the repercussions,” he insists.

“I just said, in exchange for nothing. What repercussions?”

“Around here, there are always repercussions.”

“Repercussions!” she barks out, then exhales like he’s being unreasonably frustrating. “Honestly, I had legitimately hoped to do this in one of what I thought were several easy ways.”

“Do ‘this’? What’s ‘this’?”

“Never mind. Harder ways, here I come.” She stomps off, heavy-footed and rigid, in a way that doesn’t at all resemble a Mrs. Frederic move.

The exchange leaves Steve completely, unsettlingly baffled. He goes to see H.G., who’s putting together... a space heater? Or taking it apart? Best not to ask questions. About that, anyway. “Does Myka need a vacation?”

“Define ‘vacation.’”

“Um. Time away from here?”

“I might ask you to define ‘need’ as well.”

“This was the problem I had talking to her. I think she was holding her definitions hazy, so truth versus lies couldn’t come into focus.”

“I am not surprised. Myka’s definitions can be self-serving.”

“So what’s this about?”

“The dryly factual, and most legibly truthful, answer is that she is attempting to avoid seeing her parents, and showing me to them, this Christmas.”

“Wow. Big step. Is there another answer?”

“‘This’ is also ‘about’ whatever is motivating her attempted avoidance. But I’ve yet to determine where that truth lies.”

Steve enjoys talking to H.G.—and more specifically, he enjoys listening to her talk. The timbre of her voice soothes him, and he’s able to relax into it doubly, because she never lies. And on top of that, what she says often carries an extra layer of truth, or maybe he means an insight into truth? Like what she’s just said, which he comments on: “It’s weird how we say ‘truth lies.’

She smiles. “I don’t disagree.”

“So what are you putting together here?”

“Truth and lies,” she tells him.

“On the bench.”

“Oh. I’m dismantling a surveillance device. It didn’t work as intended.”

“I thought it was a space heater,” Steve admits.

“So does it, apparently. Sometimes origins do seem to be destiny... or rather, sometimes recognizing and accepting origins seems to be the better part of valor.”

“Are you talking about the space heater or Myka?”

She smiles again, this time mysteriously. “We’ll see,” she says, and it’s the truth.

****

Leena is regretting having taken Pete up on his offer, last January, to pack up the Christmas lights for her... she’s opened the first box to find wires snarled in a way that she finds hard to believe could have happened accidentally. Not that Pete sat and tangled them all up together, but Leena wonders if there might be some knotting artifact that he, in his inimitable Pete fashion, got himself entwined with.

She sits down next to the box and pulls experimentally on a twisted green strand. The entire clump of lights, vaguely cube-shaped, emerges, and she wonders whether there might be decorative Christmas value in setting a blinking green block in a corner somewhere... but she shakes her head and starts poking through the jumble, trying to find at least one beginning or end.

A throat-clear makes her raise her head. Myka’s standing there, looming, a little fidgety, shifting from foot to foot. “I really apologize for bothering you,” she says, “but could you give me a quick aura check?”

“You hate it when I say anything about your aura. I’m pretty sure you hate that I can even see it, so I try to ignore it as much as I can.”

Myka blinks. “That’s... considerate. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I focus on other people’s, and yours fades out.” Leena shrugs. “Cocktail party effect.”

“Thank you. As a general rule, I appreciate it. But right now, I need some data.”

“Reading your aura has nothing to do with data,” Leena objects.

“I need a data point.”

“Why?”

“Because if nothing else works, I need to make a case. And I think it would help to have data points.”

Data points. About her aura. Absurd; not even a thinkable thing... but that’s quintessential Myka: trying to make the mysteries that surround her fit her paradigm, rather than the other way around. “Your aura right now is a mess,” Leena tells her truthfully.

“That helps. Thank you. ‘Leena says my aura’s a mess.’ I can work with that.”

“It’s hard to read at all. Kaleidoscopic?”

“That might be a little less helpful. Somebody might think it was artful.”

Leena has no idea what to make of that. “Seriously. How many planes do you exist on? Or how many are you trying to exist on?”

Myka gestures into the air. “Uncountable.”

Leena finds this an insufficient answer. So once Myka has long-legged herself away, she abandons the light-tangle block and finds H.G., who’s straightening out some wires of her own (smaller, no lightbulbs, attached at various points to a small ceramic heater). “Why does Myka needs data points to make a case?” she asks.

“I would ask you to define one or more of the words you’ve uttered, but I suspect I still wouldn’t understand what you’ve said.”

“I don’t either,” Leena admits. “What’s going on?”

“Myka is attempting to stave off an inevitability,” Helena intones.

Leena ignores the portentous intent. “Which is?”

At that, Helena drops the grandiose pose. She says, like a genuinely normal, if somewhat befuddled, person, “I’ve had to explain the situation several times. Does no one gossip in this Warehouse?”

As if this bunch could manage to do something as conventional as that. “There isn’t even a group text.”

“Again, I’d ask you to define, but this time I gather your meaning. That nonexistent ‘group text’ would have informed you that Myka and I are visiting her parents for Christmas.”

“Are you?”

“Unless Myka’s efforts to the contrary prevail.”

“How serious is she about those efforts? She’s really not acting like herself.”

“Pete said the same thing,” Helena tells her. “She was willing to let him touch artifacts. Eager for it, in fact.”

Leena gasps, and she’s not really kidding. “Oh please no. I’m struggling right now with what I’m really afraid are the results of that.”

“Struggling? I’ll assist if you like.”

“See, this is what I mean. Myka didn’t even notice... didn’t offer to help. That’s not like her at all.”

“She’s a bit preoccupied. And I must admit that my own reasons are partially selfish: a shift to a different problem may encourage the emergence of a solution to my current one.”

“You mean Myka’s efforts to the contrary about visiting the parents?”

H.G. looks down at her crossed wires. “In a way,” she says.

****

Artie doesn’t enjoy being ambushed, particularly not in his own office—but that’s the sense he gets from the way Myka approaches him when he’s alone, as if she’s trying to be cagey, trying to catch him out somehow.

Then she says, “Help me, Artie—you’re my only hope.”

“That sounds like something I’ve heard Pete say. And Claudia. Is it some reference?”

“Maybe. But right now, it’s a serious request. I need you to help me.”

He also doesn’t enjoy being suspicious of Myka’s motives. “How?”

“I need more work. And I need it right now. Now, and extending through the holidays.”

All suspicions flee his mind—instead, he would send up a prayer of thanksgiving, if he believed that that were the right direction to send it. “I... am more than happy to accommodate that request.”

“At last,” Myka says.

She’s speaking for them both, Artie feels.

He feels also, now, an obligation, and he seeks out H.G. Wells to discharge it. His trek takes him to the B&B’s upstairs, which disturbs him. He traditionally avoids calling on any of the agents in their own spaces; there’s too much overlap between personal and professional lives in the Warehouse as it is, and he has no interest in worsening that off-putting intimacy. Yet here he is, regarding H.G.’s... workroom? When did this cease to be a bedroom? He consoles himself with the thought that at least that function should be restored soon.

“I just want to... thank you,” he says. These are words unfamiliar in his mouth—particularly as said to H.G. Wells. He knows he has several reasons to thank her. But distinct discomfort accompanies even the thought of articulating them... well, in any case, just one today.

“Words fail me,” she says. Clearly, she understands how strange the circumstance is. “Thank me for...?”

He doesn’t bother trying to keep a gleeful, satisfied note out of his voice as he says, “For lifting whatever spell you put on Myka. She’s herself again—wanting more work. Right now, during the holidays. I can only assume that the two of you have given up your... association.”

H.G. raises her hands—fast, like the weapons they are—then lowers them slowly. “I have withstood as much as a human could,” she says, low and heartfelt.

Her words surprise Artie. “That seems overly disparaging. Even if you and Myka didn’t make a success of your... endeavor, and I do thank heaven for that, I find it hard to believe that you had to withstand much of—”

Now she makes a strangled noise, her hands rising again, this time to be clenched into fists of... what? Rage? She says, in that same low and heartfelt way, “Anything disparaging I might say has to do with Myka’s failure to be direct. With me. And your assumption, alas—that is, alas for you but not for me—is invalid. Our association, endeavor, liaison, relationship”—the emphasis on that contemporary word is a needle, an “I have made progress in terminology for a reason that you despise” dig—“is ongoing.” The wicked smile that follows is yet another dig.

Artie wishes he could wave a magic wand and keep the two of them apart. Life was simpler when Myka was dedicated, particularly when she was rededicated, and H.G. was... gone. The idea that he’d been transported to that simpler time once again, via some sort of seasonal miracle, had been a comfort. He’s hardly surprised that H.G. would be the one to yank that comfort away. He knows it was his own fault, for jumping to a conclusion...

...but he’d based that jump on evidence. What, then, had Myka’s request for more work actually been evidence of? He’s sufficiently perplexed that he asks that very question of H.G., who says, “I’ve recently been educated regarding the concept and functions of the ‘group text.’ I believe I should start one and issue periodic updates.”

Nonsensical. “Updates on what?”

H.G. smiles. “The ongoing relationship that pains you so. And mark my words, if you give Myka more work for the holidays, those updates will include information on your foibles.”

“What do you know about my foibles?”

“Less than I might. But I may yet prove that origins are not destiny. Isn’t your office in the Warehouse rather chilly?”

Artie tries to formulate something to say to that, other than “yes?” But H.G. Wells talks a lot of non-sequitur nonsense, so he persuades himself a response isn’t necessary. He hopes that keeps being true.

****

The day after Christmas is when Myka and H.G. are supposed to get home from Colorado. Pete’s been expecting them to stalk back into the B&B since, honestly, a couple hours after they left, late on Christmas Eve, because things had seemed pret-ty frosty then, never mind the weather... but they actually stick to the schedule.

They walk in and don’t say anything. They shake snow off, set their bags down.

Things might still be frosty—or worse. Pete glances around at everybody—Claudia, Steve, Leena—with raised eyebrows. They shrug at him.

Leena, the brave one, says, “Myka! H.G.! Did you eat yet? I just put the dinner remnants away.”

“I’m not hungry,” H.G. says, walking into the living room. “Myka?”

Myka follows her in, looking weirdly smug, though also massively strung out. “I’m fine,” she starts with. Then: “And what is it you need to tell Pete?” she says to H.G.

H.G. sighs, like she’s in pain. “Pete, you were correct. I am not the special sauce.” She raises an eyebrow at Myka, though, which makes Pete pretty sure they’ve been talking about somebody being special, and saucy, in hey-hey situations too. Then H.G. drops the eyebrow and says, “However: Myka, what is it you need to tell everyone?”

Now Myka sighs. She says, “Happiness is relative, I shouldn’t seek out crises, I sometimes need a vacation, and data points don’t help if the overall argument is invalid. And Artie isn’t here, but I guess part of what I should say out loud is that I really don’t need more work.” She turns to H.G. and says, “Are you happy now?” It’s fake-annoyed. And it’s a huge relief to Pete, because there’s no vibe at all.

“Relatively,” H.G. says. Not a purr, but close.

Pete points at her. “I see what you did there. Again!”

“I again did not intend to do that there. And I assure you I am not happy in that sense. They hate me.” Like she’s almost proud of that.

Myka smirks, like she’s proud of it too.

“Even your pretty, pretty hair?” Pete asks.

“My hair was not a topic of attention. Alas. Had they focused on that... but here we are.”

Myka says, “It’s true that it might have gone better if I’d just taken your hair with me.”

Steve laughs at that. “Leaving her with my cut?”

H.G.’s clearly trying to hide something like horror at the idea as she says, “No thank you. It’s charming on you, but I don’t have the necessary bone structure.”

“Please,” Claudia says with a snort, “the rest of us are jellyfish compared to you. Besides, nobody hates you.”

“I invite you to take that up with Artie,” H.G. says. “And if you do so in his office, you might consider first remarking on the draftiness of that cavern.”

****

As a child, Helena consistently failed to heed her parents when they admonished her about speaking only when spoken to. As an adult, however, Helena had become quite practiced at meeting silence with silence—or rather, at recognizing when silence was a meet response, to silence or any other proffer.

Myka had initially said, with a conspicuous lack of affect, “My parents want us to come to Colorado Springs for Christmas. They want to meet you. On Christmas.”

“All right,” Helena agreed.

But then Myka said nothing more, leaving Helena to infer the contours of the situation, and to tread exceptionally lightly while doing so.

She inferred that Myka did not want to go to Colorado Springs. That she did not share her parents’ desire that they and Helena meet. That she did not want this to happen on Christmas—or any other day, apparently, but particularly not on Christmas.

But Myka’s increasingly ridiculous machinations notwithstanding, to Colorado Springs they went, utilizing airplane tickets that Helena had bought, staying in a hotel room Helena had reserved. Helena half expected Myka to refuse to exit the plane or, once in the hotel, to reject Helena’s suggestion that she pilot their rented car to wherever it was her parents lived... yet she did everything that “visiting her parents” required, including introducing Helena to her parents and several other relatives, papering over her parents’ and those other relatives’ strangely smooth hostility, making conversation that included reminiscences about her own childhood—“yes, that was when I was going through my gloomy poetry phase,” she said—and Helena wanted further details but did not want to bring even that small bit of pressure to bear.

Myka even covered for Helena’s momentary dudgeon in response to her father’s statement that H.G. Wells’s work suffered due to the shadow of Verne. “And of course parts of both hold up poorly,” he said, in response to which Helena could not properly school her face. But she did not leap to strangle him. A small victory in this impossible circumstance: Helena tried to be charming, volunteered to help in the kitchen, made every effort to engage, to be respectful, to show them why. Nothing connected. Nothing worked.

Through it all, Myka was not herself, not even noticeably sparking at the Verne-Wells conflict. The only hint Helena received that her Myka had not been replaced by a passively pleasant stranger was her facial expression when her mother brought to the table several pies as the conclusion to the day’s celebratory meal: pumpkin, pecan, cherry, and apple. Myka’s extended family expressed pleasure at them all, their presence and appearance, and Helena agreed, privately, with them. The apple in particular looked delectable.

Before the pie consumption began, however, Helena said, “I think Myka and I should take our leave. While this day has been lovely, we’ll be traveling early tomorrow.” She could certainly spare Myka any further discomfort, and she could take on the burden of departure-impetus as well—the Berings would not be sad to see her leave, and they could blame her for spiriting Myka away.

Silence ensued on the drive back to the hotel, and Helena now felt it right to wait until they reached the room, until Myka might feel the “visit” was truly complete, to attempt to speak. When the door closed behind them, Myka took the few steps to the bed and sat, slumping. She closed her eyes.

Helena opened her mouth to say... something, but Myka preempted her. “Thank you for diving on the pie to save me from it.” She grimaced, then opened her eyes. “The whole thing. Not my finest hour.”

Helena offered, gently, “You could have simply said ‘I don’t want to introduce you to my family.’ And refused to go.”

“You would have taken that the wrong way.”

Joining her on the bed’s edge, Helena said, “Would there have been a right way to take it?”

“Yes. I would have explained, but I didn’t have the words then.”

“And do you have them now?”

“Not really, but something like, ‘I don’t want to introduce you to my family because my family has no idea who I am and you will complicate that to a truly unimaginable degree.’”

To a truly unimaginable degree. Helena bowed her head. “It’s been some time since I dealt with a family. I was nonchalant, and I apologize for allowing myself to exaggerate the power I might have had to alter the situation. The situation upon which I did not and still do not have purchase.”

“I wish you really did have that power.” Myka shrugged once, then again with exaggeration. “I recognize that I let myself pretend I was finding an adult way out of it when really it was just a kid way in an untailored adult suit. ‘Find me an excuse!’ To everybody.”

“I remain unsure as to why there had to be some excuse. Why you didn’t simply decline.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“I won’t pretend to understand.”

“Better that way. It’s not your fight.”

“Must it be anyone’s?”

“Yes and no.”

“I couldn’t present as smooth a surface as you, but I did try not to fight... they do hate me.”

“They don’t hate you. They don’t know you. They aren’t bothering to know you, because what they really hate is that you make me happy. I mean, not that I was demonstrating that, and I’m sorry I couldn’t. But the fact that I brought you at all.”

“I’m fairly certain I brought you. But I find their stance more than a bit perverse.”

“Not totally,” Myka said, a touch defensive. “To break it down some more, they hate that what makes me happy isn’t what they think should make me happy.”

“And what is to be done about that? Anything?”

Myka shook her head. She smoothed the bed’s coverlet.

Helena said, “My intention is to continue attempting to make you happy. Do with that what you will.”

The smoothing continued as Myka said, “It’s a relief.”

“Is it?”

“This’ll sound weird, but: that I have to factor you in. I can start to do that now.”

“Would that we could reverse the situation. I would love to show you to Charles, to shock him: see this woman, how she shines. How he never envisioned a woman might. I can picture it so, so easily.”

“Imaginary, though,” Myka noted.

A valuable corrective, and Helena nodded. “While your family’s response is real. I know. They do hate me, or whatever happiness I bring you. Does that color your response to me? Be honest.”

“Yes,” Myka said, with no hesitation.

Helena had asked the question; she had to accept the answer. “All right,” she said.

But then Myka went on: “It increases my distance from them. They hate you—or the idea of you—and I don’t.” She paused, and her mouth formed something not quite a smile. “So it makes me love you more.”

This twisted Helena’s heart in a way she had not expected. She should have expected Myka to twist her heart, but she always anticipated poorly when and how the wrench would come. “And in turn,” she said, knowing it was too formal, yet that was her response to being caught so severely off guard, “I suppose it colors my response to you. For I must love anything that makes you love me more.”

Myka offered in response to that a full, yet quiet, smile.

“Your origins do matter,” Helena said.

“I know.” Myka sighed. “It’s not going to get any easier, though. And I can’t promise to quit being a kid about it.”

“Well. In future we can keep these conflicts from the others, can’t we?”

“That, I’m not sure about. I heard we’re starting a group text.”

“Oh, now there’s gossip.”

“What there is, is everyone coming back at me, being concerned about what going to Colorado Springs would mean—more for you than for me. Leena said you were frustrated that nobody knew anything about anything, and she seemed to think some kind of chat might be helpful. Just as a time-saver. Going forward.”

“Going forward, everyone could simply gather around the Warehouse office space heater.”

Myka laughed, an easy, restful sound. “You don’t make any sense,” she said, and there she was at last, fully herself, dry and affectionate and the shining, shining sun.

“But I do,” Helena told her. “Or I will. In time.”

“In time,” Myka said. “That’s when everything happens, isn’t it.”

“I hope so.” Helena hoped also that she would be welcomed if she leaned to kiss Myka—kiss her for the first time in some days, and did Myka know, had she intended, to provoke a period of anticipation, and then to end it as a reward?

Initially seeming to lean in as well, Myka suddenly stood up, leaving Helena to very nearly pitch sideways onto the bed. “Hold that thought,” she said, “just for a second. I got you a present. Kind of impromptu, but I think you’ll like it.”

“More than kissing you?” Helena asked, and she felt comfortable enough, now, to pout. Felt immensely glad to feel comfortable  enough to pout.

“Differently than kissing me,” Myka said, rummaging in the satchel she’d taken to her parents’ house—she’d delivered to her father a first edition of O. Henry’s Cabbages and Kings, which he had accepted somewhat grudgingly—and produced an item swaddled in plastic film.

Helena took it into her hands: a slice of apple pie.

“Saw you eying it,” Myka said. “And I should point out that it actually does come with a secret, or I guess I mean special, sauce.”

“Pete told you,” Helena said, heavily.

“Of course he did. You having a high opinion of yourself? Particularly when it’s likely to be proved wrong? He lives to spread that around. Anyway, this secret sauce is butter rum. The recipe’s been in the family for generations. I’d tell you how to make it, but I don’t actually know... that distance thing. I tried really hard not to learn.”

“I suppose it does involve sugar.” Helena stood up herself, now, to put the pie somewhere safe. Even through plastic, it still looked delectable. “I’ll save this for later.”

“No, go ahead. I’m told it’s best right after it’s made,” Myka said. To Helena’s skeptical eyebrow, she said, “I need a shower. You eat the pie, I’ll wash everything off, and we’ll start fresh.”

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Helena informed her. “You unwashed, myself unsugared.”

She did that. An affirmation: slow and sure, sweet and clean.

They shared the shower.

****

Helena gives the slice of pie, which has traveled back to South Dakota with her, to Pete. “Secret sauce,” she tells him, conspiratorially.

He regards the crushed package in his hand. “Want to split it?” he asks, and Helena considers saying yes. Even mangled, it continues to look delectable.

But she declines, because: “Myka and I have plans. We are extremely happy to be home.”

END

[blossom-hwa]

hi! i really liked your sungyoon fanfiction, light the pyres—apocalypse aus are great. very nervous to ask for your 4th anniv event but could i perhaps get kang yeosang + the title "3 of hearts?" (if anyone reading here knows what show it's from ily!)

hi love! light the pyres is actually one of the works I'm most proud of so it makes me so happy to hear that you liked it! thank you for your request - I'm not sure what 3 of hearts it from lol (maybe one of my followers does), but I hope you still enjoy this!

4 year anniversary drabble game: send me a Stray Kids/The Boyz/Golden Child/Ateez member + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and I’ll write a drabble for you!

I guess this could be seen as a sort of spinoff of Kingdom (read the series here) - I haven’t posted the next parts yet, but this takes place in the Queendom of Hearts, which is where Checkmate is set :D like Kingdom, it’s heavily inspired by Marissa Meyer’s book “Heartless” - the story of a queen who went mad over love >:)

Uh so TXT Yeonjun is technically here but please don’t take my characterization of him as anything even close to who he is irl.... just think of it as me taking just his name and slapping it on a character I made I’m sorry

~

Title: Three of Hearts

Pairing: Yeosang x gender neutral!reader

Word count: 1.6k

Triggers: mentions of blood and death (semi-graphic)

~

They said you were born under the three of hearts, a spell of kind fortune, a card of good omen. "Your child will be beautiful," the diviner said when she placed you in your mother's arms. "They will love deeply, and in return, they will be loved greatly."

It was a blessed birth for the Kingdom of Hearts, whose rulers, though loved, had not been able to secure an heir for many years. Already the conception of a child was a miracle - to have you born under such an auspicious card only heightened the excitement, cast even more light on a day already filled with laughter and joy. Your parents showered you with love, and as the years passed, you grew in blissful happiness, surrounded by those who adored you. And truly, it seemed you were the three of hearts personified - for with you were two boys, Yeosang and Yeonjun, your best friends, who followed you everywhere you went. 

It was inevitable, then, people whispered, that at least two of you would fall in love. 

At the age of six, seven, ten, even twelve, you could ignore this. You could play the innocent card that came so easily to those born under the three of hearts, bat your eyes and cock your head and ask “What do you mean?” in reply to the questions people asked - do you have a crush? I’m sure you do. It must be on one of the boys you’re always running around with, yes? But as you grew older and the question of to whom you would extend your hand in marriage became increasingly important, your eyes began to fixate on soft blond hair and warm brown eyes, smile widening in the presence of a deep, gentle voice accompanied by the loveliest sparkle in his eyes. 

The traits of a certain best friend and heir to the Kang family fortune. 

He offers a courtship under the flowering wisteria tree just under your window, pale cheeks tinted with blush as he stutters his way through a short confession. Your heart warms, lifts, bursts with joy as you accept with a smiling nod, rejoicing that you have found a match who will love you as much as you love him. Three of hearts, you think giddily - I will be loved as much as I give it.

The stages of courtship seem to pass by all too slowly and at the same time, all too quickly. Caught up in a whirl of fine clothes and presents and ceremonies, you fall asleep every night eager to wake at dawn, if only to see Yeosang’s face the next day. Every moment with him seems too short, and every moment with him feels too long. 

One afternoon under the wisteria tree, you complain of this. Yeosang laughs at your indignation, though when you go to hit his shoulder, he catches your fingers with soft, warm hands, before kissing your forehead gently. “It will be all right,” he murmurs, pulling away just enough for you to see the sparkle in his eyes. “We’ll have a lifetime together, after this.”

A lifetime. Born under the three of hearts, destined for a life of love and happiness, you believed it. 

So much, in fact, that you forget to watch out for the second best friend at your side. 

It never occurred to you to take caution with Yeonjun. He was your best friend. Even upon the announcement of your engagement, he only ever smiled and congratulated the two of you, knocking your heads together teasingly when you got too mushy for his taste. Yeosang even asked him to be one of the groomsmen when the wedding date was set. 

So you never notice the way Yeonjun’s gaze always lingers on you a little too long, the way his eyes darken whenever you place a chaste kiss on Yeosang’s lips. You do notice that he spends more and more time away from you, away from Yeosang as the wedding approaches, but it’s easy to put it down to affairs of the Choi family that you simply aren’t privy to. Perhaps something has gone wrong. Yeonjun would tell you about it in due time, wouldn’t he?

On the night before your wedding, you and Yeosang dance together under a sea of sparkling stars, white engagement outfits shimmering under the night sky. The people cheer. Your parents wipe away tears. You almost cry, too, wrapped in the warmth of Yeosang’s arms around your waist, his eyes smiling into yours. 

You part ways with promises of tomorrow and a lifetime hanging on your lips. When you finally fall asleep, it is to dreams of a beautiful future, complete with Yeosang by your side. 

Instead, you wake up in a world where he is dead.

They say the servant who found the body went mad afterward. You don’t blame them. When you saw the body covered in its rips and stains of red, it felt like a part of your mind simply disappeared. Scrambled. Something. All you could see was the body splashed with blood, unseeing eyes wide open and glassed with the sheen of death. 

And there’s no time to grieve, either, because the next day, the Choi family storms the castle with shouts of a coup and rebellion on their lips. 

All you can do is stare into Yeonjun’s stony expression as he orders the execution of your parents right before your eyes. 

He finds you in your rooms a week later, a beautiful prison of silk and satin that they took away so you wouldn’t hang yourself before he came. His eyes soften upon seeing you, but when he reaches out a hand, you slap it away. 

Only one word leaves your lips. “Why?”

Love, he says. Love for you. Love that burned fierce, hot, so unlike the soft warmth of Yeosang’s hand, love that burned so bright it couldn’t stand to fall second to the gentleness of Yeosang’s smile. His heart burned for you, beat for you, enough to plan all of this, enough to ask, even now - 

“Will you marry me?”

The wisteria tree outside your window is in full bloom under a bright, cloudless sky. A mockery of the day Yeosang asked for your hand and you gave him your heart. 

In the absence of blades and bullets, no one should underestimate the power that fingernails can do to raw skin and bone.

“You worthless, worthless human being,” you snarl, even as guards drag you back from Yeonjun’s bleeding face. “Worthless - worthless - I will never marry you -”

“You will,” Yeonjun snarls back, now a safe distance away from the blood caking your nails. “You will or you will die.”

You don’t die. You almost do, jamming the lock on your door and smashing the fortified window with a superhuman strength you believe Yeosang and your parents have lent you for one night, just one night before leaping into the branches of the wisteria tree, crashing to the ground in a heap of branches and flowers and glass. They nearly catch you - an arrow pierces your shoulder and another streaks so close it almost cuts off your ear - but you escape. And hide. For days, weeks, months...

Until you return with a sword and murder in your eyes, slashing through every guard on your way into the castle until you come across Yeonjun sitting upon your father’s throne, the crown of your family on his head. 

“Would you?” he whispers, the tip of your sword positioned over his heart. “Would you, truly?”

A blank smile curves your lips. “Of course,” you whisper. “Just the same way you would.”

They crown you queen with triumph in their eyes, songs of a royal who avenger their lover’s death when a jealous suitor got in the way. You listen to it with stony eyes and teeth gritted behind your lips, especially when they speak of the three of hearts, blessed above all, destined for a life of love -

There is no love left in your heart that wasn’t taken away with the death of Yeosang and your family.

You execute the Chois. You execute their allies. You root through the kingdom, imprisoning those with even a semblance of a relationship to the man who killed your love, who took the blessing of your card away. The songs die away, replaced by whispers of a queen gone mad with the loss of their love. Triumphant shouts of a blessed three of hearts turn into murmurs of a curse, a new meaning to your card - perhaps not one destined for love, but one whose life will end in tragedy. Pain. Suffering.

They are wrong. Your life was full of love, love that you gave on your own and love that was given by those around you. It was the cause of your happiness and the reason for your suffering - love killed Yeosang and your family, just as it killed the last bit of humanity in you. 

The words of the diviner mock your grief. 

“Your child will be beautiful.”

Not as beautiful as he ever was. 

“They will love deeply.”

Where did that get you? 

“And in return, they will be loved greatly.”

Where did that get him?

No longer do they speak of the three of hearts as a blessing, as a sign of blissful omen. Instead, they speak of it as a curse, a curse of love, a curse of madness, a curse of tragedy to follow at every bend. 

Good. They’re right.

The love that the heavens wrought never brought anything more than pain, anyway.

[avengerscompound]

The Tower: Family - 20

The Tower: Family An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing:  Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 1857

Warnings:  Pregnancy, mentions of past child abuse

Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family.  When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.

Chapter 20: The Road to Forgiveness

I organized to meet my mother for lunch a week later.  Natasha, Wanda, and Thor came with me.   There had been a very long discussion full of a lot of debate about who should come with me.  If I’d let them they all would have, but I didn’t want the whole thing to be overwhelmed by them.  Part of me had wanted to go alone, but then when it came down to it, I was still scared to be left alone with either of my parents.  Besides, we were trying to keep the pregnancies out of the tabloids and if I was going to go out in public, I needed to take Natasha with me so they couldn’t see me.

Wanda came so that she could read my mother’s mind, to see if she was genuine in her attempts to shake off my father and start a new life and relationship with me.  While, Thor was coming because he had that ability to both be a calming and relaxing influence, but also intimidating if need be.

We thought we’d grab lunch somewhere with a private dining room that we could just be free to talk without too many prying eyes.  Then afterward we’d go shopping for baby clothes and maybe something for ourselves.

We were all well and truly showing now, and I did worry about how mom would take the news that all three of us were pregnant.  Natasha wore a short, black maternity dress with knee-length black leggings underneath and a chain belt that sat above the baby bump that’s chain hung down her side.  Wanda was in a long, flowing, off-the-shoulder, lace dress in cream with red flowers embroidered on the bust and around the hems.  I was in a short black dress with a blue tartan skirt and a pair of black lace tights under it.  Thor was in black jeans, a gray v-neck t-shirt, and his favorite red velvet jacket over it.  When we suddenly appeared in front of the staff of the restaurant they almost jumped in shock.  That shock was quickly replaced with a look of slight awe and definitely attraction as they looked Thor up and down.

Mom was already waiting for us when we were led into the private room.  She was with my brother Ian and a small, slight woman around his age that I didn’t recognize but I assumed must be his wife because there were two kids there too - a girl who looked around eight years old and a boy around five.

Mom got to her feet and seemed to move forward like she was going to come and greet me with a hug, before stopping dead and looking me up and down.  “Elise! You’re pregnant!”

“I am?” I said, looking down at myself.  “Oh wow.  I guess I am.”

She gave me that look moms are so good at.  The ones that tell you that you’re not as funny as you think you are.  To her credit, she didn’t press the issue.

“Congratulations,” she said. “And both of you too?”

Natasha gave a terse nod, while Wanda smiled.  “That’s right,” she said.

“Mom, you met Wanda,” I say.  “And this is Natasha and Thor.”

Thor offered her his hand.  She seemed grateful to take it.  “It’s nice to meet you,” you said.

Ian moved forward.  “Hey, El,” he said.  “This is my wife Rachel.”  Despite not having touched either of the people that were related to me, I offered my hand to Rachel.   She shook it and trembled a little as she did.

“So nice to meet you.  Ian said you were his sister and I didn’t believe him,” she said.

“Well, we’ve not had a lot of contact over the last fifteen or so years,” I said.

“Oh, this is Josh and Hannah,” she said.

“Hello,” I said, though their attention was completely drawn to Thor.  They stared up at him with their mouths open.

He crouched down and smiled warmly at them.  “Hello, children,” he said.  “How are you?”

“I hope you don’t mind us coming along too,” Ian said.  “We came to visit mom and then your people set up the lunch…”

“It’s fine,” I assured him.  “It’s good to see you.  Let’s sit.  I’d really like to get off my feet.”

We all sat down, the kids both choosing chairs on either side of Thor.  A waiter took our drink orders and left us to decide what we would order.

“How are your kids?  You have two right?  I read that somewhere,” Rachel asked.

“Yes, we have twins.  A boy and a girl.  They’re in preschool right now,” I answered.  While everyone else seemed to be relaxing a little more, Natasha seemed to be getting more wound up and I was wondering if it was a good idea to bring her.  “They’re good.”

Wanda looked at Natasha and Natasha pursed her lips.  I was pretty certain that Wanda was telling her off because as the rest of us looked over the menu and Thor spoke with the kids about what they wanted to order Natasha’s face got tenser and tenser until she sagged and let out a huff of breath.

The waiter brought our drinks out and took our orders.  I ordered four cheese gnocchi but as soon as the waiter left I regretted it.  I wasn’t sure how well I was going to be able to stomach such a heavy dish considering the circumstances.  Thankfully Thor ordered four different entrees and three starters, and among them was a salad and bruschetta so if I needed to, I knew I’d be able to swap with him.

“How have things been going, mom?” I asked.  “They told me you’ve settled here.”

“Yes,” Mom said.  “It’s a big change.  Originally I was just going to stay in Ohio with Amanda but then part of me worried that if I did that I’d end up just going back to him.  And I wanted to show you I was serious and make it up to you.  I missed so much and I know ... I know how I treated you - all of you really - was terrible.  Making you think it was okay for him to treat us like that.  Making you think that was the only way to have a life.  I don’t want to make excuses but it was all I knew either.  And now here you are… with this other way.  Are you happy?”

I smiled a little and my eyes felt a slight prickle from tears forming.  “Yeah, mom.  I’m really happy.  This is different, you’re right.  And sometimes it’s not easy.  But while most people see the difference as us all being together as a group rather than just paired off, what’s different to me is I feel safe, loved, and supported.  Even during our worst time, I had people who loved and supported me there helping me get through it.  I just… never felt that growing up.  I was scared all the time and I couldn’t see any way that would ever end, because you kept telling me all the ways I had to act to get a good husband, but a good husband wasn’t a good man, it was a rich one.”

“I know.  I’m sorry.  I want to try and make it up to you,” mom said.  “But I know I can’t.  I just hope you’ll let us start from scratch.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for too,” I said.

“Is it true that you’re all married to each other?”  Hannah asked.

“That’s right, young one,” Thor said. “In fact for a while, your Aunt was the Queen of Asgard.”

“Woah,” Hannah gasped. “Really?  Why not anymore?”

“After we wed I gave up the throne to my sister.  She is taking care of things now so I have time to be a husband and father,” Thor explained.

“Are you really all married?  I mean… officially?” Mom asked, looking between the three of us.

“As you know, on Earth Elise is legally married to Tony,” Wanda explained.  “We did that for a sense of security and to protect the children’s inheritance.  But prior to that, we all participated in a ceremony known as bonding on Asgard.”

“Asgard is more forward-thinking than here,” Thor added. “They are all legally my spouses and count as Asgard royalty.  They are all princes and princesses there.  It is much deeper too.  We are connected.”

The starter came out and I pinched one of Thor’s stuffed mushrooms and began to eat it with a piece of warm rye bread that was provided for the table.  I definitely wasn’t as tense as I had been when I arrived but even still, the rich buttery stuffing on the mushroom sat like a brick inside me when I swallowed it.

“Can I ask something?”  Mom said.  “I don’t know if this is offensive or rude but… do you know who the fathers of the children are?”

I sighed and took a sip of my drink, wishing the sweet and acidic juice had the deep burn of alcohol to go with it.  “They’re everyone’s mom.  Just like I’m going to be mommy to the babies that Wanda and Nat are carrying.”

“No,” she said, a little flustered.  “I know, but…”

I shook my head, interrupting her. “Look, I know it’s different, and maybe even hard for you to grasp because you did play favorites.  But we don’t.  Not with these kids.  We do happen to know biology.  Part of that was because of medical issues that might have arisen depending on whose biology was involved.  But as far as how we act and how we treat the kids, they are loved equally by everyone as their own.  Because they are.  That is no one’s business but ours.  And I want to make it clear, they could biologically have been anyone’s. We aren’t confused friends, mom.  They’re my husbands and wives in every sense of the word.”

“Right,” she said.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said.  “I do want you to feel okay around us.  But… not if we have to fit some ideal you still have set in your head about how my life should be.  It is how it is and if you want to meet the others and even the kids then you just have to be open to that difference.”

“Can we meet the other avengers?”  Hannah asked.

“Perhaps someday,” Thor said.  “I am sure your cousins would love to meet you too.”

“Thor,” Natasha warned, giving her head a tiny shake.

“Does that mean you’re our uncle?”  Hannah asked.

A large smile broke out on Thor’s face.  “Why yes it does,” he said.

“I’ve got a safer topic of discussion, and one Rachel and I can reciprocate,” Ian said.  “How did you all meet and start seeing each other in the first place?”

“Oh, yes please,” Rachel added.  “I would love to hear that.”

I smiled and looked at Natasha.  “That we can do,” I said.  “But it depends on how far back you want to go.  Because it really starts way back in 1929…”

// NEXT

[personasintro]

My Tiny Secret | 05; Name

𝑴𝒚 𝑻𝒊𝒏𝒚 𝑺𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕 𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒍𝒆 | 05; Name

⏤𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔; Pretty face doesn’t make it up for an ugly personality. And Kim Seokjin is the perfect proof of that.

⏤𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: seokjin x reader

⏤𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: angst, smut

⏤𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: toxic relationship, mistress au, strong language

⏤> 𝒇𝒊𝒄 𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒙

buy me a coffee?♡

unknown number: I think Yoojin is a beautiful name

You don't have to think about who sent you this message, knowing it could be only one person. One person whose number you blocked, but you're not surprised by the easiness of texting you despite of it. You blocked his number for a reason, a very specific one, but Kim Seokjin has no boundaries.

The message popped all of a sudden a day after you gave birth, along with congratulate messages you got from your family and friends. No one was supporting enough about your pregnancy and you know all those messages are genuine.

“You really need to give him a name. I'm kinda tired of calling him pumpkin.”

The gentle sound of Hoseok's voice leaves his lips as he holds your son in his arms, admiring the small baby in his hold. It was him who insisted of holding him and help him to sleep, claiming you need a rest. But you know he's already in love with him.

You glance at the message you haven't deleted yet, nor responded. It's not like you're planning on doing that. Yoojin. The name is cute and sounds beautiful, but once you actually realize it has 'Jin' in it, your mouth gets dry. Has he done it on purpose? Texting you a name which has some part of his own in it? He's ridiculous.

“Hey, what do you think about Yoojin?” you ask your best friend, locking your phone before tossing it on the couch beside you.

“Yoojin?” Hoseok asks, his heart-shaped lips slightly pouting as he curiously looks at you. He glances at the baby in his hold, smiling cutely at him before he nods along. “I think it suits him. It's nice.”

Standing up, you cringe at the slight throb between your legs since you're not completely healed from the labour. You just gave birth five days ago.

Hoseok eyes you carefully as if ready to stand up and help you, but you smile at him letting you know you're fine. You sit next to him, tucking a thin blanket from baby's chin to have a better look at him. He slightly squirms in Hoseok's hold but soundlessly continues to sleep.

Yoojin.

It really does suit him.

“How did it come up?” he asks softly, caressing your son's cheek with his point finger.

Gulping, you bite the inside of your cheek looking at your son. “I googled it.” you cringe at the lie coming straight out of your mouth.

And you feel bad to lie to Hoseok, that's the least he deserves. But it's coming from a good place with good intention. If Hoseok finds out the truth, that Seokjin contacted you and saw you other times than that one time you were shopping, he would flip out. He hates Seokjin's guts for valid reasons.

Hoseok has been always very protective of you and you can't imagine what he would do once he would found out. He would probably go to straight to his company, not caring about possible consequences of being throw out by Seokjin's security.

“You googled it?” he chuckles and for a second, you're scared he can see straight your lie. “Well, I was thinking more about some sentimental meaning behind the name, but I like it. It's really nice.” he jokes before a gentle smile settles on his lips.

“Yoojin.” you speak out softly, testing out the name loudly. Your son slightly moves with his tiny fingers with his eyes still closed, his mouth cutely pouting. You know he got them from him.

“I think he likes it.” Hoseok says and you snort.

“He doesn't even understands us.” you tell him with a chuckle at Hoseok's cuteness but he only scoffs in response, believing that your son hears you despite of his current state.

He's probably dreaming about your breast milk, your poor nipples are already so sensitive and cracked.

It feels unreal having a baby, an actual human being that you've to take care of. If it wasn't for Hoseok, you wouldn't be able to pay for all the baby's needs like stroller, crib or all the nappies.

It was only a couple of days after that you got more than interesting message.

'₩13000000,00 has been transferred to your account.'

Your eyes almost bulged out once you saw it. No, this can't be real. So you checked your bank account. It is real. You've never had that kind of money on your bank account, it's a lot.

You're not stupid. You know very well who could be able to send that kind of amount of money to your bank account. It surely isn't anyone from your family. And once you called to a bank, asking about information they confirmed it. Kim Seokjin sent you money.

So you asked Hoseok if he could watch Yoojin, which he gladly did. Of course, you never mentioned him those money. You will, once you'll solve it.

You need money. But not filthy ones and especially not from him. You could easily pay back to Hoseok with that amount, god, it would help your constant feeling of being burden so much. As much as Hoseok doesn't want you to pay him back, you have to. You've your own pride. And maybe that's the reason why you won't take those money. Because you've your pride. You won't let Seokjin control you while using the money to do it.

You never been to his company personally, his own house was the only place you both had your encounters. He tried to keep you away from his life as much as possible, that means not letting anyone know about you.

You're not surprised by the strict attire of all employees, wearing suits and dress shirt with pencil skirts. Trying to act as much natural as if you belong here, even though you're wearing just simple jeans with blouse that keeps your tendered breasts to breathe and not hurt that much, you successfully avoid to the receptionist behind the huge white desk. Luckily, she's on the phone with someone, so you got a chance to hide yourself if one of the elevators. You've no idea where you going, standing in an elevator with a man wearing, of course, a black suit. He taps into his phone while brief case in his other hand, while you nervously shift behind him.

“Do you know, by any chance, where Kim Seokjin's office is?” you ask him, your voice resounding against the metal walls of the elevator.

He looks up from the phone, his sharp eyes adverting to you as he eyes you for a moment. You think he's going to call a security, or whatever people here do when there is someone who isn't supposed to be here, before he answers.

“Top floor. At the end of the hall on the left side.”

“Thank you.”

Despite of your politeness, he doesn't say anything before he gets out of the elevator once it stops on sixth floor. The door closes behind him shortly after and you're left alone, letting out a shaky breath.

Fuck, why are you so nervous? You're going to kill that man. Why are you so nervous to face him?

Once you get to the top floor, which seems to be the busiest, you listen to the man's words and follow his instructions. You see couple of rooms with glass walls, seeing people having meetings. The place seems to be super busy but it holds this nice smell that you can't put your finger on. Everything looks expensive and modern and you know, this is where Seokjin comes from. This is his life. You were never part of that life, nor you will.

It's not that hard to find his office, the silver plate on the wall right next to door with 'CEO Kim Seokjin' written on it tells you you've found it. You ignore all the weird stares you get by the employees, probably wondering what a woman like you is doing here. So with a swift knock, you knock on his door listening patiently.

You were the one who decided to come here and confront him, but you wish he's having his late lunch break or whatever. Maybe you could leave and nobody would notice you--

“Come in.”

Fuck. It's his voice.

It seems hard and strong even through the barrier in form of black door, and your knees shake for a moment before you take a deep breath. This is it. You've to do this.

You snatch the door open, your figure barging in the huge room. It doesn't take a long for you to find him, sitting behind his desk with a few papers in his hands as he scans it before he's interrupted by the rude opening of the door. He looks up, his dark bangs pushed back showing his forehead as you immediately notice his plush lips contrasting with his honey skin.

He looks so much like Yoojin and you hate it. You hate that he's the father of your child. You hate that fact that Yoojin takes so much after his father. He's only two weeks old and he already looks so much like him.

Closing the door with a loud thud, you look back at him. His dark eyes are already soaking into yours, not really showing any emotion. If he's surprised, he's hiding it well.

“What are you doing here?” he asks lowly, speaking out first as you slowly walk up to his desk.

You ignore the way he stares at you, mostly feeling insecure. Your body isn't what it used to be, even though you can't even tell difference, as Hoseok says.

“Tables have turned, huh?” you can't help but chuckle bitterly, which he ignores and simply continues with staring at you.

So you open your bag, pulling out a couple of stacks of money, precisely wrapped as you throw it onto his desk.

“I know you're the one who sent me those,” you speak, raising your chin high while you're trying to hide your shaky hands. You give him a few seconds to deny it, but he doesn't and you know you've been right. He confirms your thoughts with silence, so you continue. “I don't want it. I don't need it.” you emphasize the word 'need'.

Does he think you're some charity case? As if he doesn't make you miserable and insecure enough.

“I could dispute about it,” he speaks, leaning against his chair confidently as he intertwines his fingers on his lap. “Did you seriously walk with those kind of money around city?”

You're taken back by that. Is that what he really cares about?

“Don't tell me you actually started to care about my safety.” you bitterly chuckle, finding that thought more than absurd and unrealistic.

He puts his mouth in straight line, your heart sinking down to your stomach and you don't even know. Why does he keep hurting you? Even with the smallest things.

“I sent you those money for our son.”

You grit your teeth at the mention of Yoojin.

“I told you--”

“I know what you told me,” he cuts you off, your mouth shuts right after once he speaks. “That doesn't mean I'm going to listen to you.”

You're speechless. Not in a good way though. He has the audacity to resists your words and wishes again.

“Listen,” he sighs, straightening up before he stands up. Your insides shakes once he stands tall behind the desk while buttoning up his suit. “I'm not going to give up. You can't take him away from me. I'm his father whether you like it or not. And we could do this the right way, or the rougher one.”

You gulp, a shiver creeping on your back as you lick your lips. “What do you mean?”

You probably got an idea, but you still have to ask.

“We'll make a deal, or I'm going to take this to court.” he speaks confidently, as if he absolutely made-up his mind about this and you know he's not bluffing.

You see the fire behind his eyes and how he dares you to say otherwise.

“Choose wisely, Y/N,” The usage of your name causes your breath to hitch. It feels weird hearing him to say it since he barely called you by your name. It was like he was trying to put as much distance from the two of you as he could. But now, he just speaks bluntly. “You know I'm a man of my word.”

You know that much. He told you he'd come back. He always did. He always kept his word no matter what, even though he never promised you anything close to an actual relationship.

“You say--” you take a deep breath, not letting him get through you. “You say that you want to be in his life. How do you want to do that when you can't even respect me as a woman? I'm his mother and all you've done is treat me like a piece of shit.” you tell him with disgust, the words you're letting out is burning your tongue as your features harden.

You feel like crying, knowing you never healed from how he treated you. You were just stupid enough to continue seeing him, you couldn't resist him. You gained some strength and confidence ever since you stopped seeing him, but he could still throw you off with a single word and specific tone like a house of cards.

“I never promised you anything. It always was just sex.” His tone isn't cold as you would expect it to be, he simply just reminds you.

You know he's right. He is not being rude, just honest. And you hate yourself for feeling this certain way that makes you want to bawl your eyes out. You don't love him, but you at least felt something for him. You're nothing to him. He makes you feel like nothing.

“That doesn't make up for your attitude.” you point out and he walks around the desk, stepping closer to you and you slightly flinch away but he doesn't seem to be phased.

“You say I don't respect you as a woman or mother,” he bluntly ignores your previous words which annoys you. “But do you respect me as a father?”

He doesn't sound anywhere near emotional, almost emotionless but that doesn't come as surprise to you. You got used to it. That's what doesn't make any sense to you. When he saw Yoojin for the first time, or when he wasn't even born yet, he seemed like a person who is capable of feelings. You've never seen him that way.

His question catches you off guard. And you grow only more irritated with him because this is just his way of turning things against you. When you point some thing out, he does the same to you without properly giving you an answer. He is a wise man, there is no doubt of that. He actually thinks he's better than anyone.

What are you supposed to say?

'I won't respect you because you never respected me'?

That sounds just childish. It's like 'you first then I'll' children use to say whenever they're bickering.

“Seokjin,” you speak up, letting his name out of your mouth after a long time. “This is just plain stupid. I'm not doing this with you.” you shake your head.

“Is it? How is it stupid that I want to be in my son's life?” he asks you, raising his tone just slightly to let you know he's not playing around. You never thought he is in the first place.

“Because it is!” you bark, not able to hold it in. “Because there is no way you don't have some intention behind this! There is no way you suddenly want to just be a father. Let's not forget that you've tried to buy him from me! Buy, Seokjin! That's so fucked up!”

He doesn't seem to be surprised by the loudness of your voice. “You don't know me,” he barks out this time, but still quieter than you did. “I thought you don't wanna raise a kid.”

“So, what? You thought buying a baby that wasn't even born yet is a good idea?” you let out a bitter chuckle, your eyes wetting up with unnecessary tears.

“Look, I know that wasn't good of me. I never had an intention to take him away from you. I just thought, considering your financial situation, that you would just-- and me and my wife have been trying-- it doesn't matter.” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he exhales.

“It does matter! It matters to me.” you tell him, letting out a soft whimper as you quickly wipe away your tears that threatened to fall.

“Nothing I could say will help or make things better.”

And for the first time, you feel like you're both on the same page about something.

“But you could try.” you whisper, biting your lower lip as his eyes linger on you.

You feel pathetic to cry in front of him. He has seen you cry too much for the past few months, or at least this vulnerable. You used to mask it until you were alone, not anymore.

“I'm trying,” he tells you, his fingers finding their way to his dark locks as he brushes through them. “Don't you see, I'm trying? You want to be his mother and I respect that. Because you are and it doesn't matter that I'm fucking married and that I was supposed to get my wife pregnant, not you. But here we're.”

You're speechless with your mouth opened as you feel your eyes slightly getting swollen by the burn feeling.

“So either we're going to do this together, or I'll take it to court. I want to be in my son's life.” he tells you firmly, his cold side back.

So you dryly gulp the lump in your throat and with your heart beating loudly in your ears, you blink couple of times.

You know he has his rights and that he's Yoojin's father. You don't want him to be in his life, knowing he hurt you so much and that he just isn't a good person. And if you don't agree now, there is a chance he'll ruin you. He'll take Yoojin from you.

“Do you promise not to take him away from me?” you ask quietly, your voice shivering.

The simple thought just makes you want to curl in a ball and cry yourself to sleep. You can't loose him.  

“Not when you'll cooperate.” he tells you, relaxing his features for a moment but you don't dwell on it although, it's a rare sight to see. Especially when it's aimed at you.

“Fine,” you breathe out, your shoulders tensing. “But I don't want that money.”

“Those money are for my son.”

“Our son.” you quickly correct him with furrowed brows and he smirks.

“Yeah, exactly,” he nods and you know he did that just to annoy you. He liked it to hear finally saying it's not just your son, but his as well. “So, you'll take that money back or you know what? Don't. I will transfer it to you. Don't walk with that kind of money just like that.” he tells you, turning around and picking up his phone from the desk.

You stand there all dumbfounded, blinking as he types something before he takes all the stuck of money and hides it in one of the draws.

“I told you--”

“I know, but let me take care of him.” he cuts you off, not even looking at you and with a huff, you don't try to insist anymore.

At the end of the day, he's always going to do what he wants. And if this means he can ensure Yoojin's better life, that you can't give him, so be it.

[heauxplesslydevoted]

Heart to Heart

Missing scene from the latest chapter of The Nanny Affair. My MC comforts Sofia after being publicly embarrassed by her father. I hated that scene, and I hate that Sofia is such a one dimensional character. 

Background MC (Luna Stafford) x Sam Dalton, but only if you tilt your head and squint.

Tags: @choices-lurker @paulfwesley @zodiacsign1 @thatysn @ermidc @badchoicesposts @senseofduties @canknot @drakewalker04

~v~

Luna can’t enjoy the fact that she’s drinking her salary in fancy champagne, enjoying a rooftop dinner with some of the richest people in the tri-state area. Any other day, this would be a dream come true, but in reality, she’s stuck in a nightmare.

For the past two hours, they’ve been forced to listen to Paolo make snide remarks on everything under the sun from her nannying skills to Sofia’s business acumen. Luna is not a fan of Paolo Russo. He seems like a miserable, stuffy old man whose only joy in life comes from whining and looking down on other people.

She casts a quick glance at Sam. The always poised and out together man looks as bored as she feels. His elbows are on the table, a finger lazily tracing the rim of his champagne flute. Gone are the manners and the fine dining etiquette that’s been drilled into him since infancy.

He looks up, sneaking a glance at her. An easy grin adorns his features as they lock eyes, and she quickly looks away, heat blooming on the apples of her cheeks. It’s rare that Sam is so unapologetic in his flirting with her, especially in the presence of his kids. 

The sound of a knife hitting the stem of a champagne flute is all it takes to pull Luna out of her thoughts. Paolo is standing at the head of the table, waiting on everyone to watch him with rapt attention.

He clears his throat obnoxiously, “Ahem. Thank you all for coming to congratulate my beautiful daughter and her future husband on their upcoming nuptials.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Luna sees Sofia sit up a bit straighter, eagerly awaiting the praise she’s sure her father is going to heap onto her.

“Sofia has been run ragged at Russo Industries for far too long,” Paolo continues. “Now she can finally fulfill her purpose to become a wife and mother. After all, a woman in a position of power in the business world is like an unstable explosive, especially around that time of the month.” The older man turns toward Sam, hoping to get a co-sign on his speech. “Right, Sam?”

Luna clenches her fist tightly underneath the table. She can’t believe the unmitigated fall that his man has. “Did he really just say that?”

Sam turns to her with a mournful expression. “Unfortunately.”

Luna isn’t the only one at the table embarrassed by Paolo’s speech. Sam’s mother Vivian leans over to her husband, whispering harshly. “Mason honey, I thought you talked to him about this.”

“I tried, but you know how it goes with Paolo.”

Luna balks at the scene unfolding in front of her. So they all just let Paolo get away with talking like this? It’s just talk, that they all chalk up to Paolo just being Paolo?

Paolo, the arrogant man, is far too caught up in his own spiel to notice that they’re all openly horrified. He just keeps going. “...A family disarms the bomb! That’s why it’s called a biological clock.”

Luna wants to scream. She wants to hit something. She wants to do anything else but listen to this man continue on with his horribly misinformed and misogynistic speech.

“Finally we’re getting to the good stuff.”

“I predict a Sofia meltdown in three...two…”

The countdown doesn’t have to finish as Sofia all but slams her champagne flute down on the table. The noise startles Luna and she flinches slightly.

“I’ve heard this speech before. I don’t need to hear it again.”

Sofia scrambles, attempting to gather her belongings. Luna notices that her hands are slightly trembling and her eyes are glossy, tears threatening to spill.

Before she can stop herself, she’s opening her mouth, “Actually Paolo, men and women have the same brains. Neurologists have been searching for differences for years, but nothing ever turns up. And this society makes girls lesser than men, which is a gross assumption that’s pushed by men like you.”

The admonishment causes a faint blush to appear at Paolo’s neck. “And what does that have to do with my daughter’s role at Russo Industries?”

Luna shrugs. “Even I can tell she would make a great CEO. In fact, I bet you’ve already seen gains under her management.”

“My daughter’s abilities aren’t in question. It’s a matter of right and wrong. Women belong at home. It’s why you became a nanny, right?”

“Paolo, you are way out of line,” Sam says, his voice taking on an uncharacteristically gruff tone. “I won’t have you speaking to Luna like that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Luna sees Sofia rush off, heading back into the country club, not sticking around for any more of the conversation.

“It’s fine, Sam,” Luna says. The last thing she wants to do is cause a confrontation. It’d raise too many questions. Why is Sam so quick to defend the nanny and not his own fiancée? “This conversation is done anyway.”

Pushing her seat back, Luna throws her napkin on the table and gets up, leaving behind an awkwardly silent dinner party.

Sofia is a very fast walker, but Luna manages to keep a decent pace behind her, her platinum blonde hair making her an easy target to follow. The older woman heads to the restroom, angrily pushing open the door. Luna weaves through patrons of the club and various waiters carrying trays until she reaches the bathroom as well.

Luna is instantly swept up in just how fancy this restroom is. The lighting is dim, it smells like eucalyptus and mint, there’s soft music playing, and she’s pretty sure the faucets are made of real gold.

It isn’t until she hears a sniffle coming from one of the stalls that she is reminded of the reason she entered the restroom in the first place. Taking a peek under the stall, she sees Sofia’s signature Louboutin heels.

“Sofia, I know you’re in there.”

“Go away,” Sofia orders. Her tone doesn’t have its usual bite or chill. Luna frowns at how small she sounds. “I don’t need you here to coddle me.”

“I can’t do that. My conscience won’t let me leave a sad woman crying in the restroom alone.”

“I’m not crying!”

“Sure you’re not. But my point remains, I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

A minute ticks by and Luna is met with silence. Sofia is just as stubborn as she anticipated, maybe even more so.

She leans against the marble countertop, careful to not lean against any wet spots. “If anyone knows how you feel, it would be me.”

More silence.

“I’m a black woman in STEM,” Luna continues, not waiting for a response. “I don’t know what it’s like in the business world, but if I got a dime for every time a man, and sometimes other women, told me to not pursue chemistry, I’d probably be able to afford your shoes.”

“Really?”

Luna smiles to herself. Sofia actually responded to her! She’s making progress! “Really. I was told to focus on nursing or a social science, like sociology or anthropology by multiple teachers, classmates and counselors. Not saying there’s anything wrong with those fields, I think they’re great, but that wasn’t the path for me. I’ve always loved chemistry. I’ve had the periodic table memorized since I was in 3rd grade. Thankfully I have parents that support my passion, because everyone isn’t so lucky.”

Sofia scoffs. “Got that right. I got my BA from Yale, I graduated summa cum laude and I went to Wharton for grad school, but let my dad tell it, I simply wasted 6 years and half a million dollars in tuition costs. Those degrees mean nothing to him because he’s the stereotypical, conservative and traditional Italian man. I’m not the correct sex or gender for him. In a perfect world, I’d be the perfect song but instead, I’m his fussy daughter. I’m not supposed to do anything other than get pregnant and cook, and how dare I want anything else out of life.”

“I say this with the utmost respect, but your father is a sexist jerk,” Luna deadpans. “You can yell at me for saying it, but I don’t regret it. And I’m shocked Russo Industries is still standing because I can only imagine the HR complaints and harassment lawsuits against your father over the years.”

“There’s no need to apologize because it’s the truth. My father doesn’t respect me. He doesn’t respect women at all. My mother was never allowed to have an opinion, and mine isn’t all that valued either.”

“I thought taking the initiative and getting engaged to Sam would make him respect me,” Sofia adds. “I wanted to do this in order to prove to him that I’m worthy. I thought he’d see that I’m a go-getter, and I’m ambitious, and I want the Russo family to thrive, but he doesn’t care about the business aspect of the merger like I do. He’s just glad I found a rich husband.”

Another bout of silence falls between the two women, but this time it’s not as awkward as before. it’s almost peaceful. Luna still hears the occasional sniffle, but she doesn’t call any attention to it. Crying is too vulnerable for Sofia to be open about.

“Besides, I don’t know if things will even pan out the way I want them to,” Sofia says. “The boys aren’t that fond of me, and Sam is just so...cold. I’m trying to make this a decent transition, and I’m trying to find out where I fit in that family dynamic, but it’s not working. He didn’t want me around for his birthday, he doesn’t respect my opinion on how to raise Mickey and Mason. More times than not, it feels like he’s counting down the minutes until he has to be in my presence anymore.” The stall door opens up and Sofia steps out. Her eyes are bloodshot and her nose is red and raw. Luna averts her gaze quickly, not wanting to draw too much attention to it.

“I don’t even know if this is worth it anymore. I’m exhausted, and I’m trying to sustain a relationship all by myself. Sam can barely sustain a conversation with me, and my dad isn’t impressed, so what’s the point? What am I doing this all for?”

Luna frowns. Sofia has always seemed so...bold and intimidating, like nothing ever rattled her. But looking underneath the perfectly put together surface, Sofia is just a woman trying to fight and claw for every inch of success, despite the lack of a support system.

“I meant what I said earlier,” Luna says. “I think you’re smart, and I think you’d make an excellent CEO of Russo Industries. And I don’t think you need Sam at your side to do so.”

That shocks Sofia. Her eyebrows shoot up past her hairline at the compliment. “You really think so? You have that much faith in me?”

Luna doesn’t know if she’s giving Sofia this advice because she truly believes in it, or if a selfish part of her wants the other woman to leave Sam alone, so they can finally be together. Her stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought, full of guilt. Does this count as manipulation?

She swallows thickly, pushing down whatever guilt is trying to bubble to the surface and nods. “I do. You don’t need a man to be successful and fulfilled. You don’t need your dad’s approval. And you don’t need to feed into the bullshit cycle of misogyny that your dad perpetuates.”

Sofia walks over to the sink and turns the faucet. After she splashes cool water on her face, she turns back to Luna. “Thank you, I guess. No one has ever talked to my dad the way you did, especially not in defense of me. And thank you for coming in here.”

“You’re welcome. Even the rich and powerful Sofia Russos of the world need 5 minutes to vent and cry.”

“Never mention to anyone that you’ve seen me like this,” Sofia orders sharply. No one, especially people in New York high society, can know that the ice queen herself shows emotion. 

“What happens in the ladies’ room, stays in the ladies’ room. Scout’s honor.”

“Good.” Sofia sighs and straightens herself up. Luna watches the cool facade slip back into place as Sofia fixes her makeup and runs a brush through her hair. Sofia is back to being the poised, elegant woman everyone knows.

Once she’s done, she straightens out her clothes and heads to the door. Hesitating, Sofia lingers by the door. She turns back to Luna, her eyes softer than the younger woman has ever seen them. “You know what? Maybe I misjudged you. You aren’t as bad as I originally thought.”

A soft smile tugs on the corner of Luna’s mouth. “That’s high praise coming from you. I’ll take it.”

Without another word, Sofia sweeps out of the restroom, leaving Luna all alone, the sound of her heels clicking against the floors now an echo. With the presence of the other woman no longer stifling her, Luna lets out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding in.

She didn’t know what to expect coming in here to comfort Sofia, but now everything feels much more complicated.

[bigdlittleibignlittleozzo-moved]

@sebastianshaw​ asked  A, C, G, L, P , Q, S, T, W

A: Who are their exes? Do they still keep in touch?

It sounds funny to Tony, when he says he only has two exes and they’re both women. Well how can that be? He’s a gay man, and he’s never had sex with a woman, but both of his exes are women, and both of them (rightfully) pin the downfall of their relationship on him. 

At least with Wendy, they ended somewhat amicably, even if he stood at the front of that church for two and a half hours, waiting for her, worried that something had happened to her. When her bridesmaid had shown up and told him that Wendy was calling the wedding off, it had been a relief. Tony hadn’t really wanted to be married anyhow. It was just what had been expected of him, and that was the wrong reason to get married, the wrong reason to trap someone with him, tie them down.

Jeanne... well, what could he say about the woman who had accused him of murdering her father, who had tried to get him locked in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed? He didn’t blame her at all. After everything he’d done to her, the lies that he had told her, he’d deserved to be treated the way he was, to be accused of murder, to be treated however she saw fit. Hell, if she’d wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t have blamed her. He was the reason her father was dead. 

Not being in contact with either of them was what was best for them, and him. They deserved better and he- well all he wanted was peace. He didn’t want fighting, didn’t want to feel the need to justify his actions. He’d done what he’d done, and it was terrible. He knew that. He could never take that back. Best for all of them if they just moved on.

C: If they had to pick one sport to play/watch which would it be?

Getting into football had been an accident. He’d needed to pick a sport when he was at RIMA and he hated riflery with a passion. But he could throw a ball like no one’s business, so he’d joined the football team. When he’d discovered that he was actually good at it- well it had taken care of his bullying problem almost immediately. No one wanted to bully the star quarterback, even if he was only a freshman with ADHD and behavior problems. 

Maybe that’s why he loved it so much. Football had been his sanctuary, the thing that had saved him from being harassed by the other kids. No one liked the rich kid, no matter that most of the other kids were also from well-off families. No one liked that he knew more about war than they did, despite not coming from a military family. No one liked that he was constantly making jokes, that he couldn’t hold still in class.

Oh, but they liked him on the field. When he threw that ball in a perfect spiral, everyone liked him then. That was when everyone cheered his name, wanted to be his friend. Football made him popular, in a way that he’d never thought he would be. It was amazing, how much people changed the second they discovered he was good at the sport. He just wanted to bask in it, in the praise that they heaped upon his head. It was such a nice change from the derision that was usually pointed at him, he didn’t think anyone would blame him.   

G: What was their first job? 

It was a busy Friday night. He was late to work because of the football game, the same football game that meant that they were busy. He skidded into the kitchen wearing his post-game sweatshirt and apologized in rapidfire Spanish, pulling off the sweatshirt and hanging it up, grabbing his apron instead. There was a sink full of dishes, but he was good with that. It wouldn’t take him long to wash them all up, get everything clean. He was good at that, at physical work like that. He’d had a lot of practice.

Tia Maria came and patted him on the shoulder, congratulated him on the big win, and Tony smiled at her, his entire face brightening. He loved this job, loved the family that he’d come to have here, the people he’d befriended. Between Maria and Pablo, the owners of the restaurant, he never went hungry. They were always sending him home with food, and Joaquin was always teaching him how to make new recipes when they had some downtime. There wouldn’t be any downtime tonight, but that was okay. He was ready to work. That’s what he was paid to do, after all.

L: How often do they post on their social media accounts? 

Twitter was a new thing to him, but he liked it. He could follow all his favorite actors, comment on their movies. He’d once upset Mark Hamill by mentioning the Star Wars Holiday Special, something his Nonna had gifted him with when he was six. 

He didn’t post often though. He couldn’t afford to. He was still an undercover agent, after all, and he couldn’t afford to blow his cover. Risking his job for the sake of posting a few selfies seemed dumb, childish and immature, and Tony wasn’t about to do that. It wasn’t safe, for the people that he protected when he went undercover. It was why he didn’t have a Facebook, or any other social media outlet. It wasn’t like he knew anybody he would want to keep in contact with using social media. The only frat brother he was still friends with was Steve, and they called each other on the phone, met for coffee. There wasn’t the need for social media. 

Maybe he was just old. He didn’t see the point behind these websites he would never use, though. They weren’t for him. 

P: What are their thoughts on going vegan? Could they do it?

He’d gone kosher after Ziva started working for NCIS. It was an easy change to make for him. The hardest thing to give up was shellfish, but he’d made the adjustment. It was just easier. They didn’t always label their lunches, had habits of grabbing whatever bag was in the fridge and just eating what was inside, no care for whose it was. Tony wasn’t about to make Ziva eat something that she couldn’t because he was too selfish to give up pork, too selfish to adjust his diet. 

But vegan? He had no problem with vegetables. There were certain times of the year, centered around certain Jewish holidays, where Tony didn’t cook with meat at all. But that had everything to do with the fact that Ziva was always grateful when she grabbed his lunch and it was something she could eat, saving her the trouble of having to order out, hoping that the Jewish deli had someone who could get onto the Navy Yard. They both knew McGee wasn’t going to change the way he ate, so Ziva grabbing his lunch was out of the question.

Still, vegan... as much as he loved vegetables, Tony also loved meat, loved the taste of it, the way it added flavor to his food. He had no problem with other people going vegan, that was their choice. It wasn’t the healthiest dietary choice they could make, and that was coming from the athletic nutrition courses he’d taken when he was studying for his degree, but it wasn’t the worst either. It just- it wasn’t for him. He needed proteins from meat, needed the flavor too. He respected the choices others made for their own bodies but it wasn’t for him, that was for sure.  

Q: Do they have a good luck charm they often have with them? 

It was stupid. The thing had been given to him as a joke. Holding onto it was just silly. But there it sat, on the corner of his desk where everyone could see it, where it had sat for years, since his Captain in Baltimore had given it to him. He didn’t even like Mighty Mouse, had never seen the show. So why was it that the stapler meant so much to him? He couldn’t rightfully say. But the thought of getting rid of it-

He couldn’t do it. That stapler had been there through too many rough cases, too many cases that Tony shouldn’t have solved, by all accounts, but he still had. He’d used it on too many reports that he never should’ve been able to close. Maybe it was dumb, to consider a little blue and red piece of metal and plastic his good luck charm, but he did. Some cops had their St. Michael medallions, and he respected that, but he wasn’t Catholic, and he’d never really believed in the saints. 

His stapler though. His stapler brought him luck. It brought him success. He loved his stapler. Even after it came out that the Captain was a dirty cop, Tony couldn’t get rid of his stapler. It had seen too much, had done too much for him. The stapler and he, they were a team. He wasn’t going to give up on it. It hadn’t given up on him.

S: How do they tell someone they’re sorry?

Rule 6 existed for a reason. Never say you’re sorry. So Tony had to find other ways to apologize when he screwed up, because he screwed up a lot. He couldn’t just not apologize and move on. Because while Gibbs may hate apologies, he also hated it when Tony ignored his mistakes, completely acted like everything was normal. It was a tricky game he was playing, a complicated dance, but he was figuring it out, slowly but surely.  

He didn’t apologize anymore, not after the first half dozen times those words had passed his lips. No, now he owned up to his mistakes and sucked it up when the slap came to the back of his head, biting back the wince that was inevitable. Gibbs never pulled his punches with Tony the way he did with McGee and Ziva. 

“Right boss. Won’t happen again, boss.” That’s what Gibbs wanted to hear, the only apology he would accept. It left a dirty taste in Tony’s mouth, but if that’s what Gibbs wanted, that’s what Tony would do. This wasn’t about Tony’s preferred method of apology, it was about what Gibbs wanted.

T: How quick are they to cry?

He didn’t cry after Kate died. He was emotionally drained, but he didn’t cry. He didn’t think that he could, too drained and angry at the world, at Ari, at Gibbs, at himself. He couldn’t cry. He could only think about revenge, about getting back at the bastard who had taken his partner away from him.

He did cry when Jeanne left him. He’d loved her, in his own way. Loved her as best as he could. But everything he’d ever told her had been a lie. Everything about himself, about their relationship, about all of it. It had all been a lie. How could he have loved her if he had lied to her constantly, if he hadn’t been honest with her? So why did losing her feel the way it did? He hadn’t ever slept with her but their relationship was something more, something emotional, something that he could just- it hurt to lose it. And he cried.

He wasn’t positive what he was crying for. Maybe it was the loss of Jeanne. Maybe it was the loss of himself. After all, he’d given up a lot of his own self respect and pride in order to go undercover the way he had. He’d sacrificed a lot of who he was in order to be who Jeanne knew. He didn’t even know who he was anymore, half the time. Maybe that was why he was crying. Maybe it was just the broken heart. He didn’t know anymore.    

W: Would they be starstruck if they met a celebrity? 

Growing up the way he did, he’d rubbed elbows with a lot of old money, people with names that would be recognized. He’d met a lot of people who others would consider famous, and it had been just another Tuesday for him. It wasn’t unusual for Senior to namedrop someone important, even today, wasn’t unusual for Tony himself to have connections that went beyond what a normal NCIS agent would have. He didn’t think anything of it.

He wasn’t the type to really care about somebody’s fame. Why would he, when he’d grown up around money? He’d gone to school with Frank Sinatra’s nephew, the closest he’d gotten to knowing the man himself, and he’d never once freaked out about it. The kid was a bully, and Tony hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, even if his uncle was one of the coolest singers he’d ever heard. 

Maybe it was a rich kid thing, a money thing. Maybe it was a Tony thing. Fame and money just didn’t matter to him. Not really, not anymore. Maybe they never had.  

[theholycovenantrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, MAI! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ABADDON.

Admin Cas: Where to begin with this firecracker of an app, Mai? Abaddon is full of complexities, but that didn’t pose a problem for you: you captured every single one of them to perfection. The way you described how she clung to her divinity in Hell, even as she felt it rotting inside of her, was truly *chef’s kiss*. There was so much to admire about your application — the clear development you have planned for Abaddon, the way you expanded on her relationship to her pseudo-family of demons without diminishing any other part of her, the balance of her divinity and her profanity — but I think the standout for me were your writing samples. She’s so level-headed, so elegant, and I’m completely in love with her and this whole application. I’m so excited to see what you do with her! Your faceclaim change to Nazanin Boniadi has been approved. Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | mai.

Age | twenty-four.

Personal Pronouns | she/her.

Activity Level | 6/10. i work and am in grad school full time, so my activity varies depending on my workload for the week, with end of fiscal quarter and midterms/ finals being the busiest, though i try to post a reply every 2-3 days. i’m pretty much always on my phone though, so i respond to messages quickly!

Timezone | est.

Triggers | REMOVED.

How did you find the group?  | rosey!

Current/Past RP Accounts | kenna

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER | abaddon. & i would like to change her fc to nazanin boniadi! 

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? | 

my libra ass saw the light/ dark conflict and said BET. but actually — i’ve always been obsessed with the concept of DUALITY and the fragility of the line that exists between two extremes (a line that is very much jagged, drawn with shaky hands into the sand; too easily, too inevitably erased by the violence of the tides). this quote i especially love: 

“the distinction between holy & heresy was always

a question of fire: the distinction between whore & saint lies

in who’s burned for it — the distinction between martyr & false

god lies in whose testimony is set ablaze”

with abaddon, there is the obvious light and dark conflict: the war between her angel and demon sides. but there are also more subtle dualities: her roles as a mother and jailer (and even within this, guard and executioner); her loyalty to God and affection for the great betrayer; the righteousness she brandished against raphael yet acceptance of soul’s damnation. she’s a mess of contradictions, a wildfire contained in a matchstick; a rose flooded with blood.

abaddon’s biography also reminded me of a conversation i had with rosey. i asked how she chooses her characters, and rosey said it was easy: she likes to take characters that live behind the curtain and polish them until they shine. this was a revelation for me, as most of my characters are larger than life: with the precision and heat of a single beam of light or the ferocity and tragedy of a monster who eats their own heart. always in the forefront. it was why abaddon captured my attention. not because she is a background character, but because she chooses to be. she is the maternal figure; the one who quietly deigns to pass judgement with nothing more than a cool flash of her eyes. at least, outwardly. i view her as the margaery tyrell type — subtly calculating, biding her time and moving pieces behind the scenes when no one’s watching. tugging strings gently. 

doubtless, she carries love in her heart. love and tenderness — and she wields them like a finely crafted weapon. (gotta love that #range). it is very much an exchange, though the vulnerability comes from a real place. as does the manipulation. 

PLOT IDEAS

THE SELF.

i like to call myself wound

but i will answer to knife.

keeper of the black cells | many millennia spent in hell and still shining gold. bloodstained gold, perhaps. but gold nonetheless. and how did she do it? i struggle not to sigh as i type, she followed god. but really, that’s the answer. because even as she rose within the ranks of the demons; even as hell easily latched onto her soul, a beast with all claws and no shape, a beast that looked like her; that tried to eat its way out from the inside, abaddon clung to her divinity. she accepted the punishment given to her; she became her own executioner. and within the abyss then the black cells, even as she is able to walk through without chains, abaddon is the oldest prisoner of them all. because even as she doles out torture with nothing more than indifferent press of her lips, she allows herself to feel. there is the guilt, resting upon the rust of the chains that tear apart limb. there is the recoil, the violent churn of her stomach as blood mingles with air until her vision is spilt wine. and then there is the pain — her own pain — as if it is her flesh she is slicing apart. as if it is her joints being separated from limb. 

but as with everything for abaddon, there is a duality. for as much as she is a prisoner, she is a KING. she owns the black cells. she’s its keeper; its protector. its mother. the black cells are her territory, and i think it is very much on purpose. i think abaddon gives out punishments as often as she gives out scraps of tenderness. it is she who paints the darkness, but it is also she who gives light, with the knowledge that a man dying from thirst will close his eyes in reverence as a single drop of water lands upon his tongue. the prisoners bend to the sound of her steps prowling the stone halls, equal parts devotion and fear within their black hearts (hearts that they are all too willing to carve out of their chests at her will). i love entertaining the idea of abaddon using the  cells for her own purposes, whether it is seeking out information to stay in the loop with what is happening in every corner of the land, to an insurance policy, if anyone were to catch her ire (looking at you, judas). 

dmitri | her heart is half darkened, half rotten. yet whenever her gaze meets with his, the drumming in her pulse turns to something tidal. and in the waves: potential. i think dmitri is the key to the reconciliation between the two opposing sides of abaddon. after all, they are a creature wrought from calamity, yet they still shine molten gold, and she can’t help the comfort and exhilaration she feels in their presence, as if discovering her reflection for the first time, awed by the glory yet frightened by the carnage. 

maybe, in another world, this could have been a love story. but it’s not. more likely, i see the potential for abaddon dragging dmitri further into the darkness — judas has plans for them, after all, and abaddon’s loyalty rests with her makeshift family. (but that begs the question: is she then choosing to damn herself along with him? is she choosing to forsake the light within her — the balance within her — for the only love she has ever known? for family? and is that not another sort of light? a different sort of divinity?)

THE DEMONS.

“you can turn around in the dark, 

with the man who wants your heart looming so big, 

so big over you, and you can give it to him, 

so bright and red and pure that it destroys him.”

the mother | i think it is very possible that the demons seek out abaddon before judas or damien. she is more gentle, more kind, more approachable. and less likely to slit their throats in one move (though let’s hope they remember to guard their hearts, too). and for her part, abaddon plays into this image. she listens to their concerns, often abstaining from comment; but there is something to be said for the steadfast gaze in which she regards them, the way the smoke clears from their lungs as she fixes them with her serene, though cool, eyes. it’s not love. but there’s a tenderness all the same, a mother’s sweetness; honey given to an ailing child — even if the honey is dripping off a knife. even if the mother has her own plans. 

judas |

it’s something like a waltz. 

loyalty to the great betrayer. the irony is not at all lost on her. 

he had been there, when she fell. and some days, she wonders if he had not been waiting, for how quickly she had taken to him, even when their companionship felt too much like holding onto a switchblade that cuts before it opens — but this, she reasons, is different sort of knife; terrible and beautiful and coated with poison at the hilt. abaddon is, after all, too accustomed to the spill of her own blood; to the moments when she stitched herself back together with nothing more than the fevered faith of a child looking up at the moon every night, even when its face is turned away in indifference — maybe especially then. 

let him cut me then, she reasons, as she walks with judas hand-in-hand through the cells. let him try. i will give him tenderness; i will give him devotion. i will be the lamb at his altar, all delicate flesh and wide eyes. and i will wound as i am wounded; twist PRAYER into PREY. 

the child waits. the moon blooms blood red. 

many thoughts… head full. at first glance, one might be tempted to label abaddon as the antithesis to judas. he betrayed god. she clings to her devotion. he destroys. she nurtures. he is the snake within the tall grasses. and abaddon? nowhere to be found (and maybe that’s because she is the grass — ever present and plainly within sight, swaying to the wind, both everywhere and nowhere at once; a place of sanctuary until it becomes the unfurled curtain). i would argue, however, that they’re more alike than you might think. 

when she had first been hurled into hell, she’d grieved. she’d fallen, and the faces that stared back at her wore smiles that she couldn’t discern from snarls, lips pulled back and teeth gleaming white against the shadows that clung to their frames (the same shadows she would come to wear like glorified battle scars). yet, for as far as she had fallen, ABADDON WOULD ASCEND. and judas played no small part. of course, she had known exactly who he was. still, she followed him, pulled towards him with the same inevitability as an apple to a bruise. from judas, she learned to tear apart skin with a tongue sharper than teeth. and then later on, that she didn’t need to open her mouth at all, for what weapon is more powerful than the hands that bear the skin? 

but he is still judas; there’s no division between where his name ends and his person begins — something abaddon has never forgotten. and as much as she learned from him, she kept her eyes wide open, just as she had when watching raphael’s ease in cruelty. and this, i think, is where abaddon sets herself apart — why it is she who is considered judas’s equal and confidant. she sees and understands exactly who he is, what he is. still, she stands beside him. (she would not kiss the ring, as so many had before her. abaddon, instead, kisses the flesh beneath.) still, she extends to him her tenderness, baring the delicate skin of her throat for him to kiss. for him to slit. it’s almost like a game — a balancing act, as everything in her life is, turning herself into a sacrifice filled with poison. and if he were to bite? (to betray her, as is etched into his nature?) he would find that it is a poison of his own making.

personally, i find the idea of judas getting betrayed by the one being he considers his confidant very sexy. the most obvious way is if he questions her loyalties and throws her into her own black cells (as mentioned in the judas app) — in which case, he has a wicked surprise coming his way. the second, more likely way, is if he harms damien or azazel (though damien is more likely). abaddon holds their makeshift family very close to her heart, for they had been the ones who made hell feel like home for her. but family doesn’t mean stability, and abaddon has long accepted the possibility of a conflict between judas and damien. i don’t even think it’s a matter of loving damien and azazel more than judas. it’s not the betrayal of the person; it’s the betrayal of their family. it’s the betrayal of her last whisper of hope for some semblance of peace and happiness within the punishment she has accepted for herself. and for that, he will not be forgiven.

THE ANGELS. 

“who am I? […] a monster among angels or angel among monsters,”

raphael | i think it’s funny that the raphael app casted him as cersei, because from the beginning i described abaddon as margaery (though i also have not watched game of thrones, so we may both be bobo the clown on this part). raphael and abaddon’s dynamic really does make me a clown, though, if not bobo. for as much as they are antagonistic to each other, circling each other like hawks, elegant and watchful, they are foils. raphael is the healer; abaddon is the punisher. yet it is he who revels in pain and she who recoils. it was he who god favored, sending the ill-fated angel with the justice to strike at him into the depths of hell. yet it was she who mourned the loss of their creator; she who desperately clung to the shreds of her divinity, of Him, while raphael sat back and watched mutiny unfold. 

but they are also similar. because it is in perfect synchronization that circle each other, as if guided by an invisible hymn for which no words exist. they are both patient — too patient, with their clever little machinations while watching the other players make their moves. poised to strike. lightning in a bottle. so what if we were to smash that bottle? 

arael | it would be too easy, to use arael as a pawn. the angel does nothing to hide the pain and desperation in her eyes as she drags another being to the cells, and even if she looks away (she doesn’t), abaddon can hear the rage that thunders in her throat as she tells her to keep going. and of course, she does. and of course, the idea artfully arranges itself on the slight arch of her brow: how natural it would feel, to create leverage. to plant false information, use arael’s wrath for her purposes? and it would be no one’s fault but her own, for letting rage blind her to the monster in front of her. yet, as quickly as the seed plants itself, the ground dries up at its feet, barren of any notion of willingness, and abaddon isn’t stomach carving arael into a weapon, as she does with her own prisoners. even as the grief melded bars that encase the angel are thicker than any within the cells. 

why? because she’s soft!! abaddon knows vulnerability well; so used is she to wielding it like a weapon. she knows the dance, the game, the exchange. yet arael had shown vulnerability without abaddon giving any at all. TO BE SEEN ALLOWS YOU TO BE HUNTED and arael had exposed herself without asking for anything in return. so as much as it is easy; as much as the possibly calls to the darkness within her heart like siren’s song, the other part, the part that loves, that understands, simply can’t get herself to manipulate arael. 

overall | i’m interested to see how abaddon interactions with all the angels, honestly. i think she definitely feels a spark of anger whenever she sees them, for their betrayal of god, and it’s ironic how the being that mourns Him most is the one He casted out of His domain. and i’m hoping that the angels try to use her as a pawn. she is, after all, within the hearts of judas and the anti-christ. and within her own heart: light. wouldn’t it be all too easy, then, to try to get her on their side? to coax information from her under the guise of her first family? 

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE KILLING OFF YOUR CHARACTER? | yes.

DRIVING MOTIVATION 

peace. stillness. she never thought she’d find it, after her descent from heaven, and she’d spent most of her days yearning for it, using the little light she had left inside of her like a candle against the darkness of hell, never recoiling from the pain as the wax melted and burned her flesh, for she deserved it — had god not decreed it so? yet somewhere along the line she’d found family. precarious, fickle family. but one she cherished all the same. it was in the companionship of judas, the intensity of damien, and the bright glow of azazel had she found a love she had never know within the ranks of the angels, even as she had called them her brethren while their creator looked down upon them with the cool judgement of a father. within the ferocity of the demons, she had found love. and i think that’s what abaddon would claim her driving motivation to be. 

i think it’s cute. fanciful. but no. 

i suppose it could be called love. or peace. but more precisely, it is labeled as CONTROL. she had sliced raphael down with her own definition of justice, despite the consequences she had known would be enacted upon her. i do think some part of it is rooted in morality and what she thinks is right and wrong, but morality only serves as the thin veneer for the control of the world around her and the sight before her eyes. 

when god had punished her, it was with acceptance that abaddon had descended, giving up control for her creator, as she views His will above her own, trusting in His judgement and the notion of balance. but had she not wrestled back that same control, as soon as her wings touched hell? had she not gripped onto the light within her, the divinity within her, with claws sprouted from her determination? she had refused to give up her agency, her identity, even as hell tried to chew her up and dismantle her heart brick by brick with all its rotten teeth. even the black cells serve as a mechanism for control — abaddon is its sole ruler, and it is with her will that punishments and tortures are enacted. even when it’s upon herself. 

so my long haul pitch is this: TAKE IT AWAY. threaten her sense of control. abaddon is too content watching behind the curtain, moving chess pieces discreetly, balancing power and molding it into her definition of peace. while that is a very fun and sexy time, i would love for her to be forced into the light she cherishes so much. to make big, impactful moves. to rise into her full power and call in the favors she gift wraps as tenderness. i want her to be driven to choose, to forsake balance. TO SMASH THE SCALES ALTOGETHER. 

CHARACTER TRAITS

(+) empathetic, diplomatic, loyal

(-) indulgent, obsessive, manipulative

I / 

She searches for Him. 

In the folds of dawn. In the hallowed darkness. 

For years she wanders during the brief moments of respite; in the space between silences while the world is made anew, taking every chance she can to escape the gazes that dance over her form, tenderness and devotion briefly landing upon her before they flit away to the other demons within her family. And for once, she wishes they would overlook her altogether — such is her desperation to find Him. Such is the love and loss that seizes what remains of her soul, grief so acute that she wonders how the others haven’t heard its echoes within the empty chambers of her heart. 

She will find Him. 

And she will hold Him within her arms, bestowing upon Him the divinity and light she has so stubbornly held onto. (The traitorous, infested part of her heart can’t help but grin at the thought; Heavenly Father casted down from his throne, just as he had done to her. Spat from above with all the care of a rotten seed of faith.) 

He will not ask for forgiveness, but She will give it anyway. 

II /

How many years has it taken for violence to become sweet? Once metallic and revolting, now familiar, comforting; like a poem known by heart, and Abaddon gives herself a moment to savor the taste, swirling it in her mouth before she knows is the time to spit it back out, lest it transform into an addiction of her own making (sometimes she wonders if it hasn’t already). Such is the price of balance. 

But the moment is interrupted, her back slammed against vibrant cobblestone, ridges pressing onto tender flesh (this, too, does not hurt as much as it thrills — as much as it comforts). 

“You were gone.” Level. Casual. Elegant, even, and her lips curve upwards as she meets the gaze of Judas, though elegance gives way to a quiet sort of rage lined within his dark eyes. It’s a warning as much as it is a privilege, his rare show of genuine emotion. 

“I was.” She waits, and she can feel the wearing of his patience. 

“Where?” A demand decorated in politeness, ever the gentleman. 

It only takes a moment’s shifting of expression; her subtle mocking of his empty decorum shifting into a confirmation of his suspicion that there is a detection in movement, Judas’s arm moving to unsheath a dagger and hold it to the base of her throat. Warmth trickles from where divine metal meets skin, but she doesn’t move away. For a moment Abaddon simply closes her eyes, wondering how it would feel to be enveloped in such warmth — even if it tastes too much like self-destruction. 

It is at the same time that she opens her eyes does her head tilt towards the dagger, lips ever so gently caressing its blade and coming away stained pomegranate. A tender kiss, not unlike any of his own. 

And she smiles before she moves, a lightning strike to match his own, wrenching the dagger from her confidant’s hand and plunging into her chest without so much as a wince of pain, her gaze never leaving his. 

“Do you doubt my loyalty, dear Judas?” 

He doesn’t answer, and she merely listens to the echoes of his retreating steps.

[orchidbreezefc]

OKAY COOL I WAS ON THE FENCE ABOUT POSTING MY OWN EXPERIENCES IN THE KFAM DISCORD BECAUSE A POST ABOUT People Being Mean To Sage Specifically SEEMED KIND OF MASTURBATORY OR SELF-PITYING OR WHATEVER BUT IF WE REALLY ARE GOING TO STILL BE OUT HERE PUSHING THE This Server Is A Lovely Familial Community And Dissenters Are The Problem NARRATIVE EVEN NOW? HELL NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

obviously this is hard to be objective about. this stuff is a lot less concrete than my first post, a lot more based on vibes i got, which, yknow, is why it’s not in my first post. but if anyone identifies with this, if anyone sees their own experiences in this discord reflected in mine, then it’s going to be worth the worry i’m reading too much into things, or others thinking the same of me. if i can help anyone who felt like THEY were mistreated there and weren’t sure if they were reading too much into things, then. it’s worth it. especially since the M.O. in there was ‘everything’s fine and if not we’re going to MAKE IT FINE by silencing anyone who disagrees’.

a lot of talk has been done about the censorship (word used loosely, first amendment protects from the government not from the mods etc, definitely a specific suppression of dissenting ideas though) the mods have been doing--once more i suggest @kfam-tea for receipts and screenshots. not something i feel great about, but not something i have personal experience with, so i won't speak to it. see also my first post about my interactions with the creators. it touches on the dogpiling, which i'll go into more depth on in this post. you can find it [link: here].

so. the first thing in the official discord that tipped me off about the hivemind samethink phenomenon is that the whole place is distinctly frosty on the subject of samben. that’s a post all its own, one that follows through to numbers on ao3 and whatever, but i’m not here to make a ship manifesto. suffice it to say i got attached to the ship upon listening, inhaled the (suspiciously small) ao3 tag, and was stopped in my tracks at the discord server where any implication of such ship inclinations were met with silence and pointed changes of subject.

distinctly weird. distinctly unusual fandom behavior, that i couldnt even hint around shipping the two men whose incredibly profound relationship is literally the crux of the show, who have exchanged ‘i love you’s, one of whom is confirmed gay--all other romantic entanglements aside, because when have those stopped shippers? that was weird. i realize that's maybe a bit tinfoil hat of me. it could have been the goldfish-bowl big-brother-is-watching vibe from having creators in there, except, as i said, it carries to other sites.

anyway, much more concrete was when i spoke out about my thoughts on ben’s actions in ep68. again, enough there for another post, so tl;dr: he was doing his best, he’s a good guy and a good friend, but his actions DIRECTLY outed sammy to the WHOLE town, without allowing sammy to say the words himself. it was an accident, yes, but it had tangible, harmful consequences, and even accidental harm warrants apology. it should at least be... acknowledged. at some point. by the show OR the fandom. it's a disservice to ben himself to never get the chance to own up to it.

this was an unacceptable take. i tried breaching this topic and making my case twice, and got THOROUGHLY dogpiled both times. a dozen fans crawled out of the woodwork to argue heatedly, sometimes getting quite aggressive, sometimes toeing the line of outright hostility toward me personally. definitely some downright rude messages. not once did anybody speak up to defend my right to put forward my dissenting opinion, let alone SUPPORT my argument, god forbid. ben’s were the actions of a good friend, i was told. outing someone to their whole town without giving them the chance to say it on their own terms didn't qualify as harm at all, i was told, on account of ben's heart being in the right place.

still, the opinions being argued matter less than the attitudes and behaviors. people don't have to agree with me about that ep, i don't care. i do care about being given the right to, as a single person on my own, have space to make an argument without being shouted down by a dozen people. i do care about how it fit into a greater pattern of forbidding any criticism of the show, and ben in particular, who is a good friend and therefore all of his actions are good and harmless, who is our resident heterosexual unassailable paragon of purity. which might explain the samben problem--sammy/ron[/jack] was perfectly fine, even popular, but there was never a whisper of shipping ben with anyone but emily. they're Official. theyre The Perfect Couple. don't you dare challenge that (and for the most part, i didn’t dare. i quickly learned not to).

my [link: previous post] details kyle's response to these fun events, where he specifically went out of the way to follow me being shouted into silence (a result of me being driven to literal tears and shutting down rather than invite more argument) with a warm congratulations to everybody for their conduct in this discussion. because that's the kind of conversation kyle wants to specifically and explicitly praise and encourage, i guess.

anyway. this contributed to the growing sense over my time in the discord that people held a certain distaste for me but didn’t want to say anything direct. instead they talked around me, ignored me, immediately changed the subject from my messages, the whole while bestowing constant glowing compliments on each other and endlessly repeating saccharine sentiments about what a nice family type community they were, how grateful they were for the discord being such a positive space. i suppose that’s an easy impression to get when negativity is ruthlessly suppressed (and apparently outright censored nowadays) and instead of insults or, god forbid, communication with people with whom folks might take issue, they just (more or less) silently stonewall and cold shoulder them.

again, i could be misreading cues, being egocentric or tinfoil hat by reading this pattern into how i in particular was treated. either way, the fact that i was given the fandom friday shout out the week after KFAM live was definitely... strange. fishy, even. i was already mostly out the door at that point, had been for weeks--it was actually in my last few days speaking there period. i felt strangely guilty that they would dedicate a day to me when i didn’t like being there much and hardly spoke any longer. one thing’s for sure: my congratulations were fewer and more impersonal, perfunctory, and/or generic than other fans got (i kept a screenshot). i still have no idea what to make of that one, but there you have it.

p.s.: since vagues are in vogue now apparently, i might as well mention the person who's been accused of being A Problem In The Discord For A While Now, among nastier things, which definitely is not an effort to justify kyle's passive aggressive response to their untagged post which used the phrase 'death of the author', or kyle subsequently crying on twitter about death threats because apparently he couldn't be bothered to google a basic literary analysis term and thought if he was vague enough nobody would look into what was actually said. i guess he was right, if the hundreds of asspats and outcries against The Evils Of Podcast Fan Meanies were any indication.

i digress. i just wanted to testify that the fan in question was one of maybe three or four people on the server who consistently treated me nicely and acted like they liked me. and that another fan who claimed to be uncomfortable around death-of-the-author-person was the person who came the closest to being outright nasty to me when i expressed a critical opinion. make of that what you will i guess!

p.p.s.: if i never say anything more about this whole thing or the creators’ part in it, i do want to say for the record: noah james is fully exempt from all of this and remains absolutely wonderful and a whole treasure. like dont pedestalize male creators and assume them incapable of wrongdoing etc etc but i had an hour long midnight denny’s breakfast sitting across from him and he was nothing short of an angel the whole time. sweetest guy i’ve ever met. he hasn’t breathed a word about any of this drama. he may not even know it’s going on because he’s too busy being the most beautiful and talented man in america or something. i love you noah

[schoethe]

Some sources state Schiller have ignored Christiane at Goethes house. Like he despise her and Goethe because of her. Maybe do you know where is the information from? I don't remeber the sources, but I've read this quite a lot.

pheew, there is no easy answer to that question and i don’t have all the sources at hand rn and no time to do proper research so what i write now might be biased by my personal memory and interpretation but here’s what i remember (edit: ups, novel ahead):

so the thing with Christiane was that 

a) she was from a ‘simpler’ background than people would have liked a women who was the woman at Goethe’s side to be

b) during most of the time of their relationship Goethe didn’t marry her - and I say that he didn’t marry her bc I am quite sure that she would have liked to get married to him (earlier) and also would have benefited greatly from being married to him. While Goethe may have had his reasons to not get married it left Christiane in a very difficult position. She was left with no offical standing in society, she couldn’t accompany her partner to events, couldn’t receive (official) guests, couldn’t parttake in activities etc. because officially she didn’t exsist. That doesn’t mean however that people didn’t know about her. They knew very well and they didn’t approve of the relationship in any way. People were scandalized how Goethe could live like that, unmarried with a woman of low education, not from a high society family or, how they put it, how he could share the bed with his housekeeper - an idea repeated even today even though it absolute bs of course. Christiane was not his housekeeper. (Even though she did run the household obviously as any wife would have.) They had a very intense, romantic and sensual relationship and had moved in together very shortly after haven fallen in love head over heels almost at first sight and even though Goethe himself was facing difficulties because of it with his friend and sponsor, the Duke (Herzog) of Weimar, Carl August. If I remember correctly they at first weren’t allowed to live in their later home at the Frauenplan in the center of town but had to live in the house that is today known as Goethe’s Garden House a little outside of town.

And so to Schiller. Schiller’s wife Charlotte (I’m going to call her Lotte from now on for less confusion) was very close friends with Charlotte von Stein, a very important figure in Weimar’s high society and Goethe’s quasi ex-girlfriend who particulary despised Christiane as Goethe had left her and turned to Christiane after his trip to Italy. 

I’ve said earlier that people didn’t approve of Christiane and of Goethe’s living with her. That was very mildly put. They hated her. Made fun about her, gossiped, called her names as nice as “a round nothing” or “das Mensch”, which translates roughtly to ‘the’ or ‘that human’ but in German the phrase uses the neuter article instead of the masculine one which usually goes with “Mensch” which makes the term very strong and dehumanizing. 

She was socially outlawed, women refrained from visiting Goethe’s house in fear of meeting her and becoming a subject of gossip themselves.And well as I said, Charlotte von Stein as someone who was very important and as someone who particulary didn’t like Christiane was one of the leading figures in that scheme. (One time Christiane made the mistake of sending her a cake for her… birthday? and not enclosing a note but instead have the maid who brought the cake verbally say greetings and also say out loud who the cake was from and as other people were present Charlotte was outraged and mortified as she apparently had been humiliated in front of all her guests)

And Lotte as her friend and also as a women of high morality adopted and/or shared that attitude towards Christiane in many aspects. I wouldn’t hesitate one second to agree that she ‘hated’ or despised Christiane. 

But I wouldn’t say the same about Schiller. He probably didn’t speak up or defended her in front of his wife but I also can’t quite imagine that he took part in the mean gossiping about her and there’s also no form of proof indicating that (that I know of). If anything I think he avoided that topic and probably tried to blend out that part of Goethe’s life. 

But in the end we also do not know very much about Schiller and Christiane except very few things. Here’s what we know:

- if he saw her at all he saw her very seldomly at Goethe’s house. I don’t know whose choice that was, that is whether it was Goethe’s, Christiane’s or an agreed decision between them both but as I said ealier it would have also been just improper for her to officialy receive guests, this was the 1790s, this was high society, there was a protocol for certain things and the famous poet’s girlfriend greeting his guests just wasn’t a thing and there was probably no exception made with Schiller. however… the main source we have of Schiller not meeting her (when he stayed there for the first time for a couple of days) is a letter to his wife where he states that he has never seen Christiane and I think there’s a possibility that that’s not even true and Schiller only wrote it in order to not worry Lotte but idk

- Goethe mentions Schiller’s wife in like almost every single letter (sending greetings etc.) and Schiller doesn’t do the same with Christiane but then again he probably didn’t even know her very well and, well, greeting your friends wife (besides the fact that Goethe and Lotte had known each other since long before either of them met Schiller) was more a thing you did than greeting his girlfriend

- he does however send her greetings one (1) time in 1802 to congratulate her on the birth of a daughter (who died a couple of days later as did all of Christiane and Goethe’s children after their eldest son, August - it is today supposed that they had mismatching blood groups which is why none of their later children was able to survive more than a few weeks or even days):

Empfehlen sie mich der Kleinen recht freundschaftlich und versichern sie meines besten Anteils ~friendly greetings to the Kleine and assure her of my best regards

I’m not going to overinterpret the word freundschaftlich/friendly (which in this context I’d read as literally friend-ly, as in from a friend, in a friendshipy way etc.) here but he’s callig her ‘Kleine’ (which means the small one but it’s used as a nickname so it doesn’t really translate), and to me that means that Goethe must have referred to her by that name when talking to Schiller about her, which means that he, well talked to Schiller about her and in such an intimate manner that he referred to her by a nickname, so make of that what you may

- there was one time (this is mentioned in a letter from Christiane to Goethe but unfortunately I can’t find those online anymore so here’s a very cloudy memory:) when both Schiller and Christiane were at the annual theatre festival or sth in Lauchstädt and Christiane wrote to Goethe who had stayed in Weimar that she had been… sitting at a table together with Schiller? and they had… a lot of fun? and/or they went on some kind of boat trip and sat (amongst others) in the same boat?? (if anyone has those letters please let me know!!) anyway from how she wrote it, itsounded like Schiller spoke to her, was at ease being in her company etc.

So all things considered I think Schiller’s behaviour to her was if not particularly great also not particularly bad. He surely wasn’t very straightforward about including her or having close contact with her, but then Goethe probably didn’t even introduce her to him properly. To me it seems that he was somehow caught in beetween - between Lotte and her friends and the entire Weimar society and between his friend Goethe and his beloved Christel whom he for some reason just didn’t marry. What he really thought of her, how well he actually knew her? I think we just don’t know. But I think that compared with what Christiane was facing with the rest of Weimar’s society Schiller seems to have been okay with her to some extent and seems to have been almost friendly to or even with her (in comparison!).

So that was a very long answer to a very short but important and also complex question. I hope that at least some things are clearer now?

But anyway, if you care to learn more and something better-informed than this jibberish was about Christiane I strongly, strongly recommend to read Sigrid Damm’s biography on her (and Goethe): Christiane & Goethe!!!

[agent-ccarter]

secrets. richard madden

Request: Hi! Could you do a richard madden imagine where the reader and him have been in a relationship for months but have managed to keep it from the public due to her not being famous and wanting privacy. But photos have them have been leaked and now everyone knows, there's some pretty harsh comments about reader and they freak out. Prompt 18. Thank you :)!

Prompt:  18. “Fuck them! I don’t care what they think!”

Pairing: Richard Madden x Reader

Warnings: None

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

“You look handsome, as always,” You smiled, kissing your boyfriend's nose as you neatened his tie ready for the carpet, “when are you leaving?”

He pulled up the cuff of his jacket, glancing at the silver watch, “10 minutes, still enough time for you to change your mind and come with me.” He smiled, kissing you back, knowing your answer to the statement already. Richard and yourself had been in a relationship for 7 months now, 7 months that you both managed to conceal from the public eye. Of course, your family and close friends knew, but your normal job and normal home wasn’t a good mix with being thrust into the public eye, so the two of you decided to keep it on the low.

“I’ll be there, at the back at the theatre, with (Y/Brothers/N). I’m not ready.” Richard smiled knowingly, and pressed a kiss against your forehead.

“I know, I’m sorry.” A knock on the hotel room door signalled that it was time for him to leave so, after posing for a few pictures together for just the two of you, he made his way to the door, “I’ll be looking out for the girl in the pretty green dress.” He winked, making you giggle and shout back, “It’s blue!” as the door closed behind him.

You were able to track almost his every move on social media, watching the constant fan uploads of fan selfies with your boyfriend as he made his way down the red carpet. You smiled down at your phone in pride; if there was one thing Richard loved more than actually filming, it was meeting people whose lives the films touched.

You left the hotel room around a half hour later, your brother meeting you outside near to Leicester Square where the cars let out. He did the obligatory complimenting your outfit, then taking your arm in his and entering the theatre. The man at the door checked your tickets, leading you to your seats about halfway back.

“Wow, Richard got good seats.” Your brother muttered, adding another item to the list of why he liked your boyfriend.

“He did, didn’t he.” You smiled, glancing up to the screen where all of the cast were stood being interviewed. The theatre was relatively small, and Richard found it pretty easy to find you in the crowd. He sent a subtle wink and smile your way, something you’d definitely question him about later. The two of you sat and watched the film; you’d been on set often, so every once in a while, you'd find yourself laughing as you remember something the day certain scenes were filmed on. As always, Richard was great, and you couldn’t wait to congratulate him once you were back in the confines of the hotel room. As you headed out, your brother left to go to the bathroom, leaving you out in the foyer, smiling as the odd familiar face walked by. You took out your phone, noticing a text from Richard that he must’ve sent during the movie.

That girl in the blue dress looked beautiful. Her boyfriend is a pretty lucky guy…;-)

You smiled at your boyfriends games, sending back a response of “He is, isn’t he?”.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing alone in a place like this?” You looked up, recognising the familiar Scottish accent immediately.

“Smooth,” you giggled as Richard walked closer to you, causing your eyes to dart around the surrounding area, “What are you doing? What if someone sees us?”

“Your brother is outside, it’s quiet. And, we are just to adults, having a normal human conversation. Nothing weird about that.” He smirked, undoing his cufflinks and putting them in his pocket.

“Okay then. I must say, you were rather brilliant, Mr Madden.” Richard smiled gratefully, leaning forward and kissing you hard before either of you could even think. You pulled back quickly, almost knocking yourself out on the wall behind you.

“Richard!” You hissed.

“Y/N!” He shot back sarcastically. You hit him hard on the arm, scowling at him compromising the secrecy of the relationship.

“I’m sorry, I couldn't help myself.” He looked around, making sure there weren’t any people about, promptly pressing his lips against yours when the coast was clear. You pulled back again, rolling your eyes at him again.

“You. Are. Too. Sneaky,” You scowled, nipping him in between each word, “I am going to go get in a taxi, and I will see you back at the hotel.”

He stopped for a second, showing a face of deep thought before grabbing your arm, “No. You will get in my car out back. I will go out the front to meet some people and I will get in when the car comes round,” you try to stop him, but he continues, “You don’t need to worry. The car’s windows are tinted, so no one will see you. I’ll grab your brother too, even if anyone is suspicious I can just say you’re my friends.”

You sighed in defeat, muttering a fine before kissing him swiftly and heading out back with Richard’s PA so she can show you which car is his. Everything went as he said; he went out to see the screaming girls out front, taking his fair share of selfies before eventually calling it quits and entering the car.

“You ok?” Richard asked as he climbed into the car to sit beside you, resting his hand on your knee.

“Yeah, of course.” You smiled back, though the thought of pictures of the two of you being leaked online made you feel sick. You were constantly refreshing your instagram feed, photos tagged Richard Madden or Rocketman premiere, even twitter, for any possible trace of yours and Richard’s relationship.

It wasn’t until the next morning until anything surfaced. Richard laid fast asleep next to you, surprisingly not woken up by the constant buzzing of both of your phones on the nightstand. When you picked yours up, the alarming number of texts you had from your family was astounding.

(Y/Brothers/Name)= Have you checked social media?

Taron :)= (Y/N), there are pictures everywhere. Why isn’t Richard answering his phone?

(Y/Parents/Name)= How lovely it is that yourself and Richard have finally made it official! Call me when you get chance xx

You quickly went on twitter, seeing pictures of the two of you in the cinema foyer without even needing to search hard. Instagram was exactly the same, endless pictures plastered everywhere. Richard had warned you that when it eventually came out, you’d have your fair share of love and criticism from his fans. But, unluckily for you, you hadn’t properly prepared yourself for the level of criticism you’d get. The captions of pictures were nice enough, but the comments were where the trouble really started. People called you a slag, a gold digger, every derogatory word under the sun. You were so engrossed in the phone that you didn’t even notice Richard wake.

“Are you alright?” He asked, sitting up in bed. He looked down at your phone, grabbing it out of your hands as he saw the picture, The two of you sat in silence as he scrolled through, and when he finally looked up, he immediately saw the look of sadness in your eyes.

“I love you. I love you so much.”

You nodded in his chest as he hugged you tight, “I know you do. But, most of them don’t like me! I can’t do this!”

“Fuck them! I don’t care what they think! I love you, Y/N. I’m the one who is dating you, I'm the one that wants to marry you and have children with you one day. This has nothing to do with anyone but us.” He sighed, holding your head still to properly talk to you.

“You really mean that?”

He smiled, almost shocked that you didn’t believe him, “Of course. And if any of my fans don’t believe that, well, that is there problem, not ours.”

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, KYLIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of RICHARD III. Admin Rosey: My favorite thing is when a line from the character’s biography is highlighted -- especially that singular line because it was one of my favorite that demonstrated Ronan’s humanity, like you noted. Yes, he’s a terrible, awful human being but the nature of his corruption is something so centrally highlighted in the play -- and now in the way that you write him. Kylie, you have no idea how absolutely over-the-moon I am that you decided to apply, and for Richard III no less! Your writing is so refreshing in its cadence and beat, it perfectly accents Ronan and what he has to offer. Truly. Absolutely. Ecstatic. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | kylie

Age | 25

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | I would say I’m about a 5-6, I’m currently finishing up my schooling so I’m not taking as many course hours.

Timezone | MST

How did you find the rp? | i’ve been stalking for a while now, finally worked up the courage!

Current/Past RP Accounts | n/a

IN CHARACTER

Character | Richard III / Ronan Ivarsson

What drew you to this character? | When I first read Ronan’s bio I was reminded of a quote from Les MIserables, that I thought summed up my thoughts about him pretty well–”He was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible.” I was really attracted to the dichotomy that exists within him–the difference between his public face, the face of the politician, and who he really is, the darkness of his true self. I liked that he seemed capable of moving between the two with ease–that he could placate a crowd of people with only his words and force of personality, and keep the fact that he is capable of doing terrible things for the sake of his own advancement hidden from the people he supposedly “serves”.

I was also really interested in this particular line--”It was not because his heart was made of stone, though, it was because he enjoyed, far too much, how the dilapidated organ seemed to squeeze merrily when they said his name.” I liked that there was a human element to him–that there’s an element of himself that he has a hard time controlling. That despite being cold and intimately familiar with his own darkest instincts, he has a heart that still beats wildly and craves the attention of other human beings, that at one time, for a brief fraction of a second, felt something akin to love for someone else.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

AND SEEM A SAINT, WHEN MOST I PLAY THE DEVIL

Ronan has no interest in being subservient to anyone, but he’s also aware of the fact that in order to make any kind of advancement within the Montague ranks, he’s going to have to play their game to a certain extent. I’m interested in how his two faces would work within the context of the Montagues–How long will he be able to play at being the loyal soldier before the enormity of his ambition starts to get in the way? Has he ever really been good at hiding his true nature? Being in the mob would be an interesting litmus test for how well his carefully crafted facades would stand up against real and intense scrutiny.

SINCE I CANNOT PROVE A LOVER

I’d love for Ronan to have to reckon with the fact that his heart isn’t made of stone, and that for a half second he believed that he could have actually been in love with someone else. What was it about Lucien that caught Ronan, whose heart is so firmly fixed on himself, off guard in that moment? There’s clearly something about him that Ronan can’t let go of–why is he so intent on keeping the man that could so easily destroy him so close to his chest? I’d love to explore the mutual destruction of their relationship further, because I feel like it’s the one area of his life where Ronan actually feels really vulnerable. It’s the thing in his life he has the least control over, no real contingency plan for–ever since their eyes locked across that room, he’s never been able to plan for Lucien’s role in his life.

THIS GLORIOUS SUN OF YORK

I’d like to see how Ronan would react if he faced some kind of concequences for his past actions–specifically the murders of his parents, which set him on his fated path. I think that Ronan only belives in real religion when it’s convienent for him, but the belief that he has been set on some kind of divine path since he was young is a fundemental part of his being–if an obstruction appeared on that path, would it shake his faith in both a religious sense, and his faith in himself? I’d love to explore the relationship–or lack thereof–he has with his family, how the way his parents views of him might have shaped how he views himself with regards to his disability, or how he might have strived to overcome their views of him. His name is the reason he is able to get his foot inside of so many doors, the reason he is able to dress his body in the finest fabrics, the reason he is able to walk his divine path–and yet he hated the two people who gave it to him. How does he feel about that legacy?

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes! Ronan lives his life in such a way that I think he’s prepared for that eventuality.

IN DEPTH

What is your favorite place in Verona?

The smile that Ronan gives at the question is a practiced one, designed exactly for moments such as this–a small quirk at the corner of his lips, just enough teeth. Enough to give the general idea of interest and a certain level of enthusiasm, and to hide the quick shaft of iritation that shoots up the curve of his spine and into his shoulderblades. The truth of the matter is he has no favorite place in Verona–places are just vessels for people and the actions that occur within them. He’s never understood sentimentality in a larger sense, but it seems particularly like a waste of time when it’s applied to something as inconcequential as a particular arrangement of bricks or wood. However, he can’t say that to a reporter–constituents wouldn’t take kindly to their councilman brushing off their beloved city as buidlings with arbitrary meanings assigned to them.

“That’s easy,” He says with a wave of his hand and a chuckle. “The Hotel Emilia, where I met my husband Lucien. How can I answer any other place than where I met the love of my life? That’s not to say I don’t enjoy other spots in the city as well–the library has a special place in my heart as well.”

What does your typical day look like?

“Can any day ever be considered typical in Verona?” He laughs and lifts his shoulders in an attempt at a shrug–it’s a painful motion, but he does the same thing he’s done since childhood when he didn’t want to give away his position at the top of the stairs–he bites down hard on his tongue to keep the sound from escaping.

“I’m usually up before my husband.” Because he sleeps in a bed in one of six apartments scattered throughout the city on any given night, because Ronan’s bones have never known comfort, even in sleep. “I like to check the news, make sure I know what’s going on in the city and around the world. Answer emails, texts, sometimes I get so wrapped up in things that I forget breakfast entirely.” Because you cannot make plans for battle without first knowing your enemy as intimately as you know yourself, because the best performance is a well informed one. “And then depending on the day I’m either off to my weekly physical therapy appointments or straight to work. I’m a bit boring I’m afraid–always a little too focused on my work for my own good.” Because he is born to do it, because he does it better than anyone else in this city, because there is no difference between divine will and the will of Ronan Ivarsson.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

His muscles tense for a fraction of a second as he processes the question–an imperceptible hesitation unless you knew to look for it. He makes a mental note to double check the publication this reporter claims that he works for, before leaning back in his chair and tapping his fingers idly against the arm of his chair. He doesn’t believe in mistakes, mistakes would imply wrong steps and Ronan Ivarsson does not make wrong steps–every decision he has ever made has been to serve his own purposes in the best way possible, and the fact that he is sititng in this office is proof that it has all been nessecary, that his actions have been ordained by a higher power. He resolutely does not look at the silver band on his finger, does not probe the uselessness and empty symbology of that particular object. “Any moment where my constituents have felt like I have not been representing their interests to the best of my ability could be considered a mistake, but I have to be honest with you–I see mistakes as starting points for learning, and making better decisions. All of the mistakes that I’ve made have helped me to become a better man, and a better leader for Verona.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

Bending the knee to Damiano Montague, without question. A necessary evil, but evil all the same.

“Making the best possible decisions for the people of Verona. The trust of the people is the most important thing an official can have, and I want to do everything in my power to prove to them that they made the correct decision when they gave it to me. It’s not a responsibility I take lightly.”

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

It’s the first question all day that has considered a real modicum of thought, that has required Ronan to choose his next words with care. He leans foward so he is better able to clasp his hands together on top of his desk, even though the motion pulls at the muscles in his shoulders in a way that is uncomfortable. “So often in these kinds of conflicts there are no real winners, are there? My only thoughts are for the people of Verona, and my sincere hope that they do not suffer the concequences of a fight they have no stakes in.” Soon enough they will both bend the knee to me. Soon enough their blood will mix as it flows through the streets, as it slips between the spaces of my fingers.

Extras: If you have anything else you’d like to include (further headcanons, an inspo tag, a mock blog, etc), feel free to share it here! This is OPTIONAL.

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inspo tag x

[heelsheadandstandardshigh]

Opening Night - A Lawyered Ficlet (Chris Evans/OFC)

Author’s Notes: Thanks to the encouragement of some of my lovely readers, I finally took the plunge and let myself write a ficlet set in the Lawyered verse. Lawyered is hosted over at @chrisevans-sexualfrustrations and you can read the whole story here.

This takes place in present day (specifically, on March 1, 2018). I’m not sure whether it is actually going to be canon in the Lawyered verse and show up in the story down the road. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!

[WARNING: Very mild Spoilers for Lobby Hero ahead. However, if you’ve read any reviews of the play or the NY Times profile about Chris, there is nothing in here you aren’t already aware of.]

With ten minutes until curtain, silence lingered in the dressing room as Chris sat on the tiny sofa with no other company but his thoughts. His parents and siblings had cleared out twenty minutes ago with many words of encouragement and ‘break a leg’s prior to their departure, though there was one person whose absence he experienced acutely while he struggled to calm his nerves.

Boston and its suburbs had always been Chris’s stomping grounds, but it was undeniable that New York City was Danielle’s. He felt it every time they walked down the street while carrying on a conversation, her steps carrying her to their destination as though she were operating on autopilot, deftly bobbing and weaving around the tourists. Everything about her screamed that she belonged.

And living in TriBeCa now? Well, that was a bit of a kick. It was almost serendipitous that he would wind up moving somewhere that had served as the backdrop for their first meeting and the deepening of their relationship, where Chris had irretrievably fallen in love with the blonde law student who looked at him and saw an out-of-towner in need of culinary recommendations, rather than the actor who usually wore the Captain America suit.

The time was rapidly approaching where he would don the cowl for the final time, yet there was so much opportunity ahead of it. He’d undoubtedly find it strange to see Sebastian or Anthony wield the shield, but he would be embarking on a new path of his own, too.  The sprawling, albeit temporary TriBeCa loft had cemented recent discussions with his mother about maybe setting down some roots in the area because it had been increasingly difficult to spend large stretches of time with his girlfriend when her work load required late hours and put a damper on any flexibility to travel. While he loved the Boston house and seeing his family at his mom’s house fifteen minutes away, Danielle’s job was in New York City and looked to be for the foreseeable future. At some point, Chris would have to decide just how invested he was in their relationship because he knew she couldn’t be okay with living constantly apart during most of his downtime forever, even if she hadn’t voiced that opinion just yet.

He’d never forget her face when she told him that he was strongly considering the play and he would be required to live in Manhattan from the end of January through mid-May if he took the role. If Chris wasn’t entirely sold on the role of Bill before, the hope and sheer excitement in her eyes would have been the last push he needed.

Apartment hunting with her was an eye-opening experience. It wasn’t because he learned anything about her that he didn’t already know; her 3am Property Brothers marathons when she couldn’t turn her brain off enough to sleep were pretty legendary. Instead, it was the feeling of warmth that pooled in his stomach at the realization that they were partners in the search, looking for a home that would suit both of them, a space that blended their tastes and their needs together.

Their lives were more intertwined in TriBeCa than they’d ever been and with it came a sense of contentment and belonging that rivaled the one he felt as his mother’s house. It was a scary realization, but one that he took to heart.

After years of talking about it in articles and interviews, Chris Evans was finally going to settle down and he was going to do it with Danielle Blake. It didn’t matter if it was in New York City or suburban New Jersey; he just knew that he couldn’t spent any more time waking up in a bed that wasn’t one they called theirs rather than his or hers. It was a huge step that was not to be taken lightly, but he was ready for it nevertheless.

What he didn’t feel ready for, however, was curtain on the first night of Lobby Hero and certainly not without Danielle. She’d promised that she would leave work with enough time to be in the audience to support him, after cursing the legal gods that they had set a massive deadline in the European Union for that day. Everything needed to be filed by 7pm EST or they would automatically default.

She told him that she would see him out there so he didn’t get anxious and made him promise not to look for her. Chris had been hesitant, but ultimately gave in. Of course, he hadn’t expected his sister to hand him a folded piece of paper with a knowing smile on her way out the door.

It had taken ten minutes to build up the courage to open it, but he was glad he did once he finished reading its contents.

Dead center, row 3. Don’t look for me, I know you’ll be tempted. Just know that I’m here and I love you. I am so proud of you, sweetheart. Break a leg. xoxo Danielle

The roling in his stomach stopped and Chris found himself able to stand to adjust his belt by the thick buckle just beneath the polyester police jacket. He was finally ready.

--

It had been over a decade since Chris had last taken a bow on stage following a long-rehearsed performance. So much had changed since then, but the exhilaration that surged through his veins with the rousing applause from the audience had not.

For the first time on that winter evening, he let his eyes roam the crowd. His brother was the easiest to spot, though that was because his whistle was as clear as day and probably sent all dogs within a ten-mile radius running for the hills. From there, it was easy to find the remainder of his family members.

Then, during the curtain call, he realized that they were all in the third row, a mere 10 feet from his place on stage in the tiny Helen Hayes Theater.

Dead center, Row 3.

His blue eyes darted over seat by seat, landing on his parents then his siblings and brother-in-law, and then—

And then.

Despite the burning stage lights, he could see the familiar green eyes that made his heart hammer against his ribs, even after nearly four years. She, like everyone else, was on her feet and it was apparent that she was clapping so hard that he thought she might bruise her palms. Yet, the warmth and pride that was evident on her soft features clearly took the cake.

The lights dimmed and hindered his ability to keep eye contact, but Chris could still feel the tight pull of his cheeks due to the grin he hadn’t even realized appeared. He desperately hoped that she would come backstage to see him soon, anxious to hear her thoughts and maybe, be on the receiving end of such a look once more.

The walk back to his dressing room was delayed by shared congratulations from the cast and the crew alike, embraces and cheek kisses all around. He didn’t want to rush because there’d only ever be one opening night, even though they were technically previews, but it was hard not to let his mind drift to who might lay ahead.

He tried not to be disappointed when he found the space empty. Then a knock on the door filled him back up with hope again.

“It’s open,” he called out from the small vanity where he had leaned to toe off his boots.

The door opened with a snick and he watched in the mirror as a head of blonde hair became visible. A grin rocketed across his face.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Chris echoed.

“Can I come in?” the blonde asked softly, surprisingly cautious.

He nodded his ascent as he turned in the direction of the voice, but added “Of course” for good measure. His face had grown a little more stoic by then, though he couldn’t understand the source of the nerves.

She slipped inside and shut the door behind her, leaving them alone for the first time since she’d left for work that morning. Although, Chris had still been mostly asleep in bed when she kissed him goodbye.

Her green eyes carefully raked down his form, taking in the uniform up close. “I feel like I could bump into you on patrol in Port Authority like this.” They flicked up with a smile. “It’s not only the costume, though.”

He removed the hat to carefully set it down on the tabletop. “Did you like it?”

“The costume?”

“The whole thing,” he clarified. “What did you think?”

The woman took a few steps closer, crossing the tiny room in virtually no time at all. “I cried,” she confessed. “It was funny, it was horrifying. And you—you were like nothing I’d ever seen.”

He breathed in deeply prior to exhaling, the knot in his belly loosening. “Danielle.”

“Chris,” she answered, drawing nearer to him and hearing the light crinkle of the police jacket as her arm brushed against it. “You made my skin crawl. I never thought that was a feeling I’d tie to you, but you somehow managed it. While the second act was running, I didn’t know how I was going to come back here and let myself be in the same room as you without anyone else around.” The corner of her mouth rose. “Then I watched you come out behind the screen of the building doors on the stage and I saw you react to something Michael said. I’d recognize that laugh as yours anywhere. It wasn’t anything like Bill.” She reached for his cheek and could feel the familiar texture of makeup under her palm, but paid it no mind. “You were wonderful, sweetheart. I am so unbelievably proud of you.”

Neither knew who initiated it exactly, but a few moments later, they found themselves tightly wrapped up in each other’s arms, Chris’s mustache tickling her neck where he burrowed his face against her skin.

“I’m not the only one, you know.” She stroked her fingers over the fuzzy hairs at the back of his head, shorn down for the police-appropriate crew cut. “When you delivered Bill’s line about being nice, you made my mom cry.”

He laughed and she felt his chest reverberate against her. “Yeah, he’s a piece of shit.”

“He is,” she emphatically agreed, “which is why I’m even prouder. He’s absolutely nothing like you.”

“The mustache and hair help.”

“Oh, yes. Because we both know that awful facial hair and a bad haircut can save a terrible performance,” she noted dryly.

Chris pulled back just enough to kiss her. “Thank you.”

Satisfied he was taking the compliment, she smiled. “You’re welcome.”

After another few kisses, he begrudgingly backed away so he could get started on shedding Bill’s attire. The jacket came off first, followed by the belt and all its accessories. He was sitting in the chair to take off his boots when he realized his girlfriend was staring, focus unmoving.

His blue eyes lifted curiously and followed her line of sight until it led to his left hand.

Oh.

He tucked his boots neatly beneath the table. “I’m not used to it either,” Chris admitted, straightening again. “I’ve been acting professionally for nearly two decades, but I’ve never actually had to wear one.”

Danielle paused in thought prior to answering. It was difficult to find an appropriate response now that she’d been caught looking.  “You twist it a lot. In the play, I mean.”

“I’m glad you picked up on that.” He smiled, pleased. “I only do that when you see Bill leaving the elevator.”

The implication of the habit dawned on her. “So we’ll know it’s because he’s just put it back on?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow. That’s fucking brilliant.” A small, quiet laugh. “You’re brilliant.”

“Says the lawyer who was just complaining to me yesterday about how archaic and corrupt the Argentinian trademark opposition procedure is,” he countered, pointing at her.

Her heartbeat thrummed at his argument. She knew Chris listened to her complain about cases and clients sometimes, but it still caught her off-guard that he was usually able to paraphrase back to her the details of her lament because he’d listened so intently. It also didn’t hurt that for the first year they’d known each other and before she’d gotten experience in practice as an actual attorney rather than an intern, he knew little more of trademarks outside of famous brand names.

If he wasn’t already going to get laid later as a result of his utter brilliance on stage that evening, he certainly was now.

“Does it bother you?” he asked suddenly, interrupting her thoughts.

“What? That your character is an utter bastard?”

“No.” Chris snorted. He held up his left hand to illustrate the actual meaning of his question, the silver catching the light. “The wedding ring.”

“Oh.” She shook her head, recently-shortened blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders from the action. Though, Chris noted a little extra tint of pink creeping up her neck that he suspected reached her cheeks, but the cosmetic blush on her skin made it difficult to tell. “No, it doesn’t. It’s just… strange to see, I guess?”

Any further discussion was derailed by a buzzing noise, the source of which he realized was her iPhone that had been stowed in her back pocket.

“It’s my mom,” she advised once she was able to look at the screen. “She and dad are with your parents and siblings. They want to know if it’s okay to come back or if you’d rather they meet us at home since it’s kind of a tight squeeze.”

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t mind being squished in here with them,” he chuckled. “We can all go back to our place after.” The words home and our place reverberated in his head like an echo. “We should probably order in some food for everyone, though. I’m not sure what’s open.”

“Come on, honey. Have I known our families for a day?” Danielle scoffed. “I called last week to schedule an order from that Italian place we like on Reade Street.”

God, he loved this woman. “The one that makes the greatest asparagus on the planet?”

“With pancetta, parmesan, and bread crumbs, yeah. There’s a tray of them waiting for us on sternos as we speak. Someone from building management has been checking in every thirty minutes to make sure the apartment isn’t on fire, so all of the hot food will be warm by the time we get home. Plus, I may have ordered an extra half-tray to stash in the fridge for ourselves.” Her phone vibrate three times in quick succession. “Okay, both of our mothers are harassing me now, so I’m gonna go out and get them.”

He caught her hand before she could fully turn around and pulled her in for a long, slow kiss. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Does that include putting up with the fuzzy caterpillar on your face?”

Chris rocked back with the force of his laughter and clutched a hand to his chest. “Especially with that.”

“In that case, you’re welcome,” she said definitively and slipped away to the door. She had just turned the knob to let herself out when she stopped and glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Just so you know. What we talked about before?” Danielle glanced at his left hand again for context before her gaze returned to his face. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Maybe not right now.” She tilted her head a little. “But someday.”

The corners of his mouth lifted just enough to be noticeable. “Good to know,” he replied and watched her disappear into the narrow corridor, closing the door behind her.

Tagging per their usual requests, as well as those who voted in favor of ficlets: @patzammit @duncedgoofball @renntastic @beautifulrare4leafclover @avaalons @danielleharmony @tchitchou26

[kaylahill94]

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[jayceearr]

I learned some things at 25

J'ai vingt-six ans . 

I have to admit. I thought it would be cool to write twenty six in french. Turns out it’d be really corny. I had a pretty eventful day today. Today (well not when you’re reading this but when I wrote this) is the last day being twenty-five. I have seen a lot, grown, and learned a lot about myself and the man I’m going to become. 

I’m pretty sure I said the same thing when I turned 21 but to be frank I didn’t know jack shit. Does anyone at that age? Anyways I went to work, got some things done, drove to Philly for a job interview then back home. Tried to make time for the gym but being behind the wheel for so long drains you. I’ve commuted waaaayyy too much for someone my age. I know my way just about everywhere. A walking atlas is what I call myself but I haven’t really walked anywhere since getting a car and now another one.

Okay. Let’s get to the meat of this. I don’t really know how to express my feelings right now so bear with me. 

Jesus.

It’s something about that name huh? In my twenty fifth year on this planet I have accomplished so so so so much. I got my degree. Well two of them. Finally. a four year journey took me double the time. I used to hear old folks say as long as it gets done it doesn’t matter. I didn’t agree with that at 17 because I was a B student-athlete and thought shit came easy. Anything worth having is met with resistance. At least that’s what I tell myself every time someone tells me “No.” I guess that’s going to be my next goal and milestone, learning how to say no.

One night last summer I spent with a couple old coworkers, a to-be trump supporter, and my coworker’s father drinking spiced rum, bourbon, smoking cigars and playing cards on his porch. Gorgeous day. Mr. Polk (my friends father) shook my hand and didn’t let go upon meeting me. My friend Charles introduced us and said to his dad “This is the guy I was telling you about.” To that point I had been a little rude to Charles because he was new there and got the job I had applied for. My boss then asked me to train him and I told him in front of Charles I wouldn’t because if you didn’t think I was qualified for the position why would you expect that of me (I did relay to Chuck that there were no hard feelings. He was simply a guy that applied for a job and got it. Why would I hold a grudge with him? We’ve been tight ever since).

After a couple of hands and drinks in fellowship his father stopped the game for about a half hour. Chuck took it as him ranting but I think I understood something in his drunken speech. At that point I took about a year off from my site www.WhatsTheMovement.net and all my music industry ventures. I promised my mom I would graduate first. She told me that if I hadn’t poured all my energy into that I’d finish school faster. After that I’d have all the time in the world to hustle. She was right. Reluctantly I went with her plan. Anyways his Dad said something to be about the word no. I was having an emotional week but kept it all inside. His father kept saying to me during the Texas hold em game “This guy has a real twinkle in his eye. It’s fire there.” The other players took it as bluffing or game tactic especially because I had shades on but he knew.

He stopped the game, I took off my shades and it’s what he said to be that has stuck for a little more than the last year of my life. It’s almost my daily devotional aside from John 15:7.

"You got all the tools already, but when you wake up and been told no a million times WHAT IS YOUR RESOLVE?" 

Damn. Right? That’s what I felt then and still now. What are you going to do when you know you’re the right person for every opportunity and they choose someone else? Are you going to quit? Or are you going to meet resistance with some resistance of your own? Funny enough I’ve only seen him twice since then but Charles always tells me his father asked about me. I’ve been trying to get that fire back. Not that the flame extinguished but it’s been put on hold for school and the promises I made my parents. 

That’s another thing I did well at twenty five. I made them a promise and I kept it. Not just one but all of them. I became a better man which made me a better son. I realized this year they are just as good at being parents as I am at being a son considering we’ve done it for the exact same time. They are human just like me. I got tired of letting them down and pointing the finger. My mother said my dad told her that me graduating is like a weight lifted off his shoulders. This was so much bigger than me. I knew it but I didn’t really understand. I’m not the first college student in my family. In fact my parents met in college and are in black greek organizations. Life happened to them in college and neither of them got to finish. Well in my college years life happened to me too. 

I wasn’t sure if I was gonna finish. I didn’t even want to finish anymore. I hated school. I almost flunked out. I ran out of money. My relationships failed. My best friend died. I started losing faith in myself. I felt like God was listening but had better things to do no matter how much I preached about his glory to everyone. I believed but I was in a dark place and I buried my feelings in the bottom of liquor bottles. I wanted to be numb. The therapist I was seeing wasn’t helping. 

One day I remember waking up and just sat there on a day off with no intentions except let’s go grab a redd’s wicked ale without eating and be buzzed before lunch. So I’d sit in my friends bedroom watch him play 2K while I got numb and listen to some Goldlink or Childish Gambino or whoever else at the time for the sake of my music blog (at least that was my excuse to be wavy). When I sobered up at 3PM and went home with nothing to do it hit me. All the opportunities in the world. All of that potential. Was I going to keep saying tomorrow I’ll get it together or was I going to start the first day of tomorrow?

Tomorrow is here. Tomorrow was yesterday. My friend who was playing 2K had flunked out of school himself. I got super inspired and went back to his bedroom and told him something that resonated and I tell people all the time.

“We are in a hole. whether we dug it ourselves or someone else did, are we gonna sit in the hole and complain about everyone else or are we going to be the catalyst for the next thing that happens in our lives? No more being victims.”

That inspiration got me out of the hole. I made a promise to him too that we’d get out and we’d do it together. Long story short I’d travel this road alone. Another life lesson I learned at 25. My friend (whose name I won’t mention for sake of respect) got back into school but wouldn’t enroll for whatever reason. I went back to school alone and embarrassed because the peers I went in with were already finished and making their lives happen. It’s about reaching your own level though not someone else’s right (That’s from Love Jones)? His life went left, he got engaged, had a couple daughters, called off the engagement, lost a couple jobs and is struggling but he’s staying encouraged. I don’t say this to shit on him even if I told him to stick with our plan. He didn’t and now tells me how lucky I am to have my degrees and the people around me instead of congratulating me on my hard work that no matter what no one can take away from me. My cousin six years younger than I is now enrolled at that same institution. I hope I’ve made her proud and inspire her. She said something to my girl at my graduation.

“He looks really happy. You really helped him a lot.”

“Nah, he did that on his own. We are all just here to witness.” she replied.

That’s what I try to explain to my friend and now you guys. Happiness is an active emotion. It’s a job. You have to always actively try to make yourself happy because you alone are responsible with your own happiness. Period.

I said all of that to say this. No matter who you are. What your situation is. God is bigger than that and I don’t mean to sound cliche but it’s for real. This is part of my testimony. I just needed to share that with someone who’s been in as dark a place as I. Tears roll down my face as I type about how much I’ve learned. I spent the last couple hours of my first quarter century alone with the lord in thanks for all he’s done for me. I’ve been broke. I’ve been suicidal. I’ve been alone. All of that sucks especially when you’ve been the opposite and lost all of it. You can either curse God and wallow in it or you can do what you need to do. Be like Job. He lost everything and praised the lord and got tenfold. He was proactive about exiting the season of his life he was in. He sowed what he reaped and that was everything God offered him and according to John 15:7 that’s EVERYTHING you ask for in prayer. Be proactive about changing your life and hopefully throughout 26 and the rest of my life I’ll follow my own advice. I’m just excited to see what lessons I learn next and how I can implement them into my life. 

We’re only getting better from here. Hopefully this touched someone that needed it as much as I wish someone could tell me back then. Yall don’t understand I really really did not want to live anymore. I am just so thankful because at any moment I could have ended it all but I stuck through, trusted the process and was strong in the last moments I wanted to throw my car off the bridge. The place I am at is not the destination or end of this journey. It’s only just begun.

Thank you Jesus. 

In the words of my fellow Scorpio Brother....More Life.

[parabellum-rpg-archive]

Congratulations, Polly! You’ve been accepted to play Violet Costello. Please make your page and send it in within 24 hours.

Admin note: I LOVED the part where Violet sort of scoffs at the idea of a marriage between Luca and Paisley because, in her experience, it did not work out. This was some seriously good writing. I’m gonna go cry over Violet and Leon’s failed marriage, brb. - Admin V

CHARACTER DESIRED

Violet Costello

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN WORDS

For a long time Violet Moore went along with the narrative that had been written for her. Beautiful, successful, admirable parents had a charming, lovely little thing of a daughter, one that had the fire of her enigmatic father along with water from the force of nature that was her mother. Special, they said, when the dark eyed baby was born. Gifted, they told her, when she could spell nearly every word in the English dictionary by the age of ten. A real talent, they admired when she mastered the fouette by the age of fourteen. Destined for great things, they prophesied when she scored a 1580 on the SAT and guaranteed her acceptance into Juilliard. There was a collection of words: brilliant, ambitious, lovely, well spoken, promising… Throughout her youth it felt as though each of those words were written into her skin, cutting into her flesh to create the young woman they all expected her to be. She’d pushed, and shoved, and twisted, and contorted until she fit the mold that had been formed for her. She was good at pretending, good at smiling, and nodding, and excelling. At playing the part and making those around her proud. It came with ease, and perhaps that was why she eventually gave up on it. She despised how unchallenging it was. Violet was bored with the role, tired of the image, and altogether uninterested in where that particular path led.

She’d been told what to do, and who to be her whole life that Violet had never taken the time to explore what she wanted and needed from this fateful miscalculation called life. She craved the adventure of her father, and the importance of her mother. She yearned for the unruliness of her father, and the lethal nature that her mother carried into the courtroom. She wanted calamity, and exhilaration, and the chance of failure. And she knew it wouldn’t come at Julliard, she knew it wouldn’t come at any college, or any alternative plan her parents provided in a panic when she announced she wouldn’t be attending. Whatever it was she was looking for would be found beyond the confines of the words that had been written for her, and in an attempt to capture her desires Violet left everything behind.

It turns out the real world is only exciting if you know the right people. Working odd hours at dive bars and diners was only exciting for so long. Lewd comments, and wandering hands could only be excused a number of times, and with nothing to apply herself to, Violet found she had very little drive. Why show up for the graveyard shift if there was an underground concert she’d heard about from her dealer? Why wake up before noon if she’d stayed out until four in the morning in pursuance of a thrill. She struggled to hold down a job, and her savings account was growing emptier and emptier as months turned into a year, and a year turned into two. She’d succeeded in finding that discord she’d been searching for, but Violet would be lying if she said something wasn’t missing. And she hadn’t known what exactly that was until Leon Costello walked into the doors of The Alibi Room, bringing with him the smell of gunpowder and money. She watched him, noticed the way the room resettled to accommodate the man, and when he sat down at the bar, glancing her way, eyes dark with the promise of proper exhilaration, her mother’s warning rang through Violet’s head like a bell. “You steer clear of those Costello boys Violet Cynthia Moore, do you understand me? They will tear you limb from limb.” And she was counting on it as she made her way to where he sat, and leaned over the bar to ask what it was he wanted. And as they say, the rest was history.

She’d never known life until him. She’d never known the pure ecstasy with which moments could pass until he was pulling her in tight as she joined him on the roller coaster of his existence. He was dangerous, yes, but it was the world that he introduced her to that really drew her in. He lit a fire between her ribs, stoked it with oxygen that he pumped into her lungs until she was consumed by the flames. Being with him was breathless, and only then did she understand what she had been searching for. He opened the door to endless excitement, and she threw herself past the threshold with abandon, falling into him and his reality with a readiness that could only end in chaos. But she didn’t care, and at the beginning Violet only wanted to know and understand every aspect of this new and thrilling world she found herself in. And she did what she does best– excelled. Again, she found something to attach herself to, something to work for and obtain except this time it was what she wanted, a mold that shaped to fit her form instead.

She was so blindly infatuated, and so thoroughly invested in achieving her need to thrive that it was alarmingly easy for the woman to strip away the ethics society had readily equipped her with. Violet shed yet another expectation with a frivolity that combined the recklessness of her father, and the moral ambiguity of her mother; it was easy for her to accept the ruthlessness when the stimulation left her with an addicting buzz. It wasn’t easy to learn, to train, to master the skills of a killer, but when the time came to pull the trigger she did it with ease. Perhaps the heartlessness had always been there, lying dormant or going unnoticed, or maybe it was forged out of pure will, either way, Violet embraced it along with the Costello name.

If they’d taken the time to pump the breaks they might have seen the glaring faults, and the wide spread cracks that riddled the foundation of their relationship. She might have been able to recognize how jealousy had seeped beneath her skin, how her possessiveness was out of bounds. But it was all speed, all delerium, and it didn’t take long for their ride to reach the end of the tracks, and with it’s halt the pair descended into a toxicity that poisoned everything that had once been so alluring. The very attributes that had kept them bound together, clawed and tore at them until their relationship with a mangled mess of what it had once been. They were hot and cold, on and off, screaming or hardly speaking, fighting or fucking, and when there was nothing left, and nowhere left to turn, they finally called it quits. But even then, Violet had formed a deep seeded loyalty to the family whose name she still bore, and like hell if Leon would change that. She had accepted a position among them years ago, and though she had relinquished her claim to the crown, Violet Costello was as dedicated to the blood as she had ever been.

As for this wedding, Violet has absolutely no hope of it working out. This bright idea of using marriage as a form of peace was enough to make Violet laugh. From her experience, it would only expedite the unraveling and they’d have a war on their hands faster than anyone could have predicted. But she’s counting on it, hoping for it really. After all the Sinclair’s don’t stand a chance, and some high stakes, and proper danger would be exciting. If only she didn’t have to see her ex-husband at the wedding, Violet might have even considered it a happy occasion.

WRITING SAMPLE

The steam filled her lungs as the water pounded into Violet’s skin in a gentle massage against her tired limbs. She dipped her head back, eyes closed, and breathed deeply, slowly, calmly. The water slid down her body in rivulets, falling pink against the white tiled floor. With her eyes shut the darkness gave way to memory, and the night’s events played against her eyelids as vivid as the moment they happened. She saw it clearly, even felt the moment of panic again, the moment where she knew she’d screwed up, that she’d miscalculated, assumed too much. He’d reached under his desk, for a gun no doubt, and she remembered something Leon had told her: if she hesitates, if she freezes, if she allows unexpected circumstances to stall her, then she would die. It was as simple and vastly complicated as that. She knew it was true, she remembered it the way he said it with such easy conviction, but that didn’t really matter in the moment. It was just a reflex, and whether or not her muscle memory responded with a quick enough reflex could only be determined in the moment. As it turned out, it did. She leapt behind the door, and slid towards the wall.

Water filled her mouth and Violet ran her hands through her hair, tugging at the braids. She remembered the brief pause, her deep breath, before one, two, three, four, five shots were fired, riddling the door with holes. She waited, holding her breath, gun drawn. The water rushed over her face, softly drowning her.After the fifth shot there was silence, and she swiftly dropped to the floor, lying flat on her back, pistol aimed at the approximate location of his head. It would only buy her a split second, and when he came around the door, gun raised, he wasn’t looking at the ground, of course he wasn’t, and that moment was all she needed. She released her breath, and her trigger finger twitched. The warm spray of blood on her face, the lifeless crumple, like the strings of a puppet had been cut. Violet threw her head forward, out of the water and sucked in the steam laden air.

It was too thick to breathe, and the woman reached turn the shower cold. The coolness cut through the humidity, and the sudden rush of cold water riddled her skin with goosebumps. Her heart leapt into action, and she remembered the moment of thrill, the wave of adrenaline, the challenge to turn on a dime, to make a choice in an instant, and to reap the rewards of winning. A sudden laugh escaped her, brought forward from the lingering exhilaration. The job was done. And Violet was reminded that greed was no man’s ally, and that you never get away with it, not with the Costello’s.

[disneyparktreasures]

Disneyland Paris: impressions d'une expérience unique

Let me be the first person to tell you - one of the most searched phrases about Disneyland Paris is: “is Disneyland Paris worth it?” (The second is “is Disneyland Paris open?” which is a fair question given how little it’s talked about.) 

Last week, during my first ever trip to Paris, we took a day to head out to Disneyland Paris. It’s an easy train ride from the city- the RER A takes you right to the entrance of Disney Village, Disneyland, and Walt Disney Studios. There’s even signs at the train stations with little Mickey ears so you know where you’re going without having to out yourself as a tourist and ask someone where to go. Merci beaucoup!

The tl;dr version of this is:  as a Disney parks enthusiast, it’s a super cool experience with a slight “but” attached. This post is about the “but.” The park is unique, keeping many experiences from Disneyland and Disney World itself, but using other themes specific to this park. If you are nerdy about Imagineering and park design, it’s tres cool and I really enjoyed finding our way through different lands. And, remember that this is not an American park! There are many things I didn’t realize I valued about Disney experiences until we are having a Disney experience inside of a culture that values different things. Customer experience is a HUGE tenet of American Disney parks- employees are always a step ahead of guests, giving a real experience of being taken care of as a customer. In Disneyland Paris, they seem to have different priorities.

At Walt Disney World, especially if you are staying in a Disney hotel, you really get this experience of 360-degree magic. When we were in WDW to celebrate our engagement, we were upgraded at our hotel, given buttons, and clearly they put an alert on our Magic Bands that we were getting engaged, because every time we checked in to a ride or a restaurant, they would say, congratulations! In WDW and Disneyland in California, they have crowd control down to a science. The moment a line is getting too long for whatever area is designated, there’s a cast member there to direct people and add a new space to wait. This was literally the opposite experience we had at DLP - and, to be fair, throughout all line-waiting/attractions in Paris itself, Louvre and airport included - where it was pretty much up to you as the visitor to figure stuff out. I said to my fiance, it’s almost like the employees at Disneyland Paris took the imposed structure of the park and said, “well, if we must,” and tend to work with that particular mindset (if you read about the formation of the park itself, that’s probably not far from the truth, as Disney created it without sufficient collaboration from the French in general). 

For example, at DLP they are using a new FastPass option. As a ticketholder, you can use the original FastPass system, where you go in person to receive a ticket that has you returning to the ride at a particular time. You don’t need anything special for this. But you do have the option of purchasing different levels of extra special FastPass that give you guaranteed FastPasses for different rides - the options are thrill rides (3), family rides (3), super fastpass (one fastpass for each of the 9 fast-pass-able rides) or ultimate fastpass (unlimited fastpasses to all fastpass attractions). At Disneyland Paris, at least sometimes they tell it like it is... by offering FastPass for the iconic (and notoriously impossible to ride) Peter Pan’s Flight.

We didn’t realize you couldn’t purchase these online the day before you visit, so we went to the park prepared to figure out where to buy one. It was French spring break and we expected high volume in terms of crowds. My friend who lives in Paris recommended it to cut down on wait times. 

There was a kiosk at the entryway to Disneyland itself that said: FASTPASS. But it also had a sign that said, “ferme” - French for “closed.” It took asking a few different cast members for them to tell us, go wait in line at Walt Disney Studios to buy them, you will have a chiller wait time there. 

So we do. And we wait in the FastPass line for about half an hour. And then after talking to the cast member at the kiosk for a few minutes, she tells us that the FastPass we want is sold out. And we were like, we just waited in line for thirty minutes for you to tell us this?!?!?!?!!

Kicked off our day in a pretty annoying way. And, that was most of the “not great” part of our visit - waiting in lines for forever to get relatively disappointing information (or food). “Quick Service” dining in DLP is not quick service, lol. This is all EXTREMELY different from the experience in American parks, where every detail of your experience is already thought out by an Imagineer, whose sole job is to make sure you have the best possible experience while you are there. 

The other part of visiting Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney Studios that was challenging for me as an American was honestly waiting in line. Not just how long we waited - I grew up in a pre-Fastpass era, where we waited two hours to ride Splash Mountain (and walked uphill in the snow both ways to do it) - but because people from other parts of the world don’t have the same idea of personal space as we do here in the US. I’ve heard about this before, but I studied abroad in Spain and didn’t notice any differences. But when you are tired, walking around all day, thirsty because there are no water fountains anywhere, and your feet hurt a lot and the adults behind you keep standing super close to you as you all inch forward together toward Crush’s Coaster at a snail’s pace, it is hard not to get frustrated by it. It was almost comical... at first we were like, why are these kids always bumping into us, and we were like, well, they’re children and probably just antsy, and then we realized it was actually their parents and my passive aggressive attempts to retain my personal space were falling on deaf ears, so to speak. 

My fiance and I live in New York City, and I think we are probably above-average when it comes to navigating crowds (and probably have above-average expectations, honestly). I noticed during our day in the parks that anytime there was open pavement I wanted to speed up to enjoy the brief luxury of being able to walk in a straight line to get where I wanted to go. My fiance said at one point, can’t anyone just walk in a straight line here?!?!!?! I had to laugh that going to Europe is what made me appreciate things about the US.

In similar complaints, there were tons of odd bottlenecks happening in weird spaces that were sending messages to our brains of “something important must be happening” or “ugh maybe don’t wait in that line” but there was nothing happening . . . there was no line . . . just people standing in the middle of a walkway and then other people reacting to that by stopping and waiting. 

Bottlenecks to get into the parks . . . bottlenecks to get out . . . . it was odd. But eventually we all got where we intended to go!

Call me a control freak, but the formless lines and bottlenecks added a lot of stress and confusion. I think this is a pretty American thing to think about; waiting in lines for other things in France was similar and eventually everyone did get where they wanted to. I think the American in me is always thinking, “make sure you get the most out of your time!” and “this is my place in line!” and what’s fair/not fair, and perhaps the mindset in other places is more like, “we’re here.” I am making this up. I really don’t know. But check out the photo above - taken about 75% of the way through the entry line to Disneyland Paris; we were waiting to have our tickets scanned and were part of a giant mass of human beings until suddenly we were in one of the lines (?). It was weird. 

Disneyland Paris, originally called EuroDisney, was created and opened without a lot of relationship with the French... and you can tell. It feels like the structure of American parks, begrudgingly operated by people who just handle things differently and who have let go of some structures that they just don’t want to use. I am super curious about what the park would be like if it had been engineered in collaboration with the French. What I’ve read is that the Disney company tends to conveniently forget that they have this park to operate, and you can tell - much of the facilities seem like they haven’t been updated or renovated in a long time, including Disney Village across the way, which looks straight out of 1995. 

There was lots to enjoy about the experience, but clearly this was what stuck out to me the most because it’s what my first post ended up being about!!!