#everyone is a sea creature except peter

[occudo]

A fish out of water story I just remembered last year I did some siren!jon and selkie!martin, so here is some more of them, for the end of May

[neverland93]

Peter Pan Imagine/ I won’t say I’m in love

If there’s a prize for rotten judgment, I guess I already won that, no man is worth the aggravation, except… well.

You arrived on Neverland a couple months ago, everything was fine , until it wasn’t.

You and Peter were getting closer friendship wise

He’d always ask you to go fishing with him, find fire wood, or go exploring with him, you loved it, but that’s what was scaring you, you loved hanging out with Peter and you were too stubborn to admit it.

*knock knock* on your door

“It’s open!” You yell

Peter comes in and smiles at you

You do the same and continue to braid your hair

“Whatcha up to today?” He ask as he sits on your bed

“Oh probably just head to the lake, see the mermaids.” You said still focusing on your hair

“Oh.” He said a little blankly

“Why ?” You said

“I think I found something, wanted your help.” He said as he looks at you

You turn around

“Peter pan needs my help?” You said smiling in a cocky way

Peter smirks “hey now don’t get all cocky on me.” He says as you both laugh

“Well I’d love to go , let’s do it.” You say grabbing his hand and taking him outside the cabin

As you’re walking you realize he hasn’t let go of your hand and it’s making you blush big time, you try to hide the fact that it is because you had no reason to. Peter was your friend. That’s all, right?

“Pan!” Felix called

he stops in his tracks “what ?” He yells

“What are you doing today?” He yells

“With Y/N!” Peter yells back

“Oh.” Felix yells “okay!” He yells again

Peter laughs and continues to walk with you , still holding your hand

Finally after a long walk he takes you to a what looks like a cave

“What is this ?” You ask him

He smiles “you’ll see.” As he starts to walk , you follow

Following him you realize it’s waterfall inside of a cave, it was beautiful.

“Wow…” you say in awe

“Right?” He says

He starts to take off his shirt and pants

You panic

“Wh- wha- what are you doing?” You say

“Oh come on, you’re telling me that you don’t want to swim in this bad boy?” He says almost naked

“First of all I don’t know how deep it is, second I don’t have any clothes to swim in.” You fold your arms

“That hasn’t stopped me.” He jumps in and splashed you

“Ahh! Peter!” You say wiping your face

“Are you coming or what?” He says cocking his eyebrow

You fold your arms and think about it but you couldn’t say no.

You run and jump in, splashing him

He laughs

You both start to splash one an other

Swimming with the waves and even seeing new sea creatures you haven’t seen before,

You discovered dolphins , sea shells, starfish, and more exotic fish in the sea, it was really cool to see all this with Peter.

“Thank you for taking me here.” You say as you two sit on a rock near the water

“I knew you’d like it.” He says looking at you

You just smile and look away

“I’m glad you came to Neverland Y/N.” He says still looking at you

“I’m glad too Peter.” You look at him

Inn that moment it was like your world stopped

You couldn’t hear the exotic birds anymore

You couldn’t hear the water fall splashing on the rocks

You couldn’t see anything but him and that’s when you realized you were in love with Peter Pan.

You were going to say something but then the sun got in your eye

“Ouch” way to go Y/N you say to yourself

“Is it sunset already?” Peter ask

“Looks like it.” You say

“We need to get back, the lost boys are probably starving.” He says as he gets back up

“Oh yeah right haha.” You say rubbing your head

********

Getting back to the campsite the boys look so hungry

“I’m on it boys!” You yell as you run past them

Peter just looks at you and smiles

Since they were already hungry you made them some sandwiches and soup along with fruit and punch

They were always so grateful that you were so fast with cooking or just making food in general

You’re all eating and everyone seems occupied

That’s when you decided to wonder off to your friends, the mermaids.

“So how was your day?” You asked them

They all answered their usual answers, something was always going on with them , they were girls so they would talk to the lost boys here and there, they’d have boy drama and you always listened and gave them advice

In return they’d braid your hair or make you awesome jewelry from the sea

“And what about you?” A mermaid asked

“Oh I just hung out with Peter at the lake.” You said with your head down, trying not to blush

“Alone?” She asked

“Did you kiss?” An other asked

“What? No!” You say quickly

“Why not?” She asked

“Because? I- I don’t know?” You said confused

“Well I mean it’s about time.” She said

“Why I don’t like him.” You say folding your arms

“Oh please! He’s the earth and heaven to you.” She said

“Excuse me?” You say

“Honey we can see right through you, “ a mermaid said

“Okay no chance! No way .” You said flipping your hair

“Why are you denying it?” She asked

As you were all talking one of the mermaids boy toy came by to see if she could hang out but saw you all talking so he decided to lay low and see what you all were talking about.

“It’s too cliche I won’t say I’m in love with Peter.” You say

(Gasp) the lost boys says quietly “she loves Pan?” He says in shock

He runs back to the campsite

“Pan ! Pan!” He says yelling

“What’s wrong?” Peter comes in a hurry

“I have some news” he’s panting and sweating

“You’re so dramatic , just tell me.” He says rolling his eyes

“Can we talk in private?” He says

“Of course.” He leads him to his cabin door step

Tell.” He says bluntly

“I was walking to the mermaid lagoon right? And then I saw Y/N talking to them.” He said explaining

“Okay and?” Peter says curiously

“Well, they were talking.. about you.” He says

“What about me?” He cocks a brow

“Pan, Y/N in love.” He confessed

Peters eyes widen and he gulps

He just stares in silence, not really knowing what to say.

“Thank you for that information.” He says “go on the .” He gets up and walks to you…

You’re sitting on a log watching the fire

“Hey.” He said

“Hi Peter.” You said kinda down

“Is everything okay?” He asked in concern

“It’s a secret.” You say bluntly

“What if I want to know the secret?” Peter said

You wave your hand to come closer , signaling him to and he does.

You whisper in his hear “Then it wouldn’t be a secret.” You giggle

He smirks at that

“You got me there” he smiles

You laugh at that and just stare at the fire

“Neverland is the best thing that happened to me Peter.” You say

“What are some things you love about it?” He asked

Your eyes grew

“Well the mermaids, the nature, the birds, the lost boys..”

“-me?” Peter Interrupts

You turn to him with a questionable look

“How?”

“One of the lost boys heard you and the mermaids talking.” He smirks

“Ugh.” You put your hands over your face , irritated with yourself and the lost boy.

“It’s actually a good thing.” Peter says

You look at him in a confused way

“What how?” You say

“Because I feel the same way.” He smiles

“How do I know you’re not just saying that?” You say folding your arms

“Because this.” He grabs your face and brings it to his

Kissing your lips , your world once again stopped, time stayed still, your heart became warm, and the feeling of Peters touch was the only thing you felt at that moment.

As you came up for breath he smiled and you did the same

Rubbing your face

“I guess I’ll say it.” You say

“Say what?” Peter turned his head

“I’m in love.” You smile.

[selene-borealis]

Selene’s Fic Recs

I’ve debated making a fic rec list since I read...a lot of fanfiction, so here you go. I’ve organized it by fandom, starting with the oldest fandoms I’ve read (unfortunately, Harry Potter is the oldest). Each fic has a short description by me, a rating, and link. Will also be pinning this/updating it in the future. Hope y’all have fun looking at all the fics!:

(Note: If you do not want your story being on my rec list for any reason, please message me either here or on FFN and I will remove it!)

Harry Potter: The Firebird Trilogy, Book 1, Book 2, & Book 3 by Darth Marrs (FFN): A serious, mature AU of Harry Potter that is vastly different from the canon we know. Harry/Harem. 10/10, fandom-defining story that will make you cry. Harry Potter and the Four Founders by Darth Marrs (FFN): Harry is the heir of the four founders. Harry/Harem, 9/10. (The rest of the stories in the series are also good, but imo they do not compare to the original, so there’s that.) Genius Fratris by a lonelysock (FFN, but is also on AO3): A WBWL story where Harry is older than in canon. No bashing of the Potters, with realistic depictions of family life and how being older affects Harry’s personality and willingness to fight Voldemort. Still currently a WIP. 9/10. Blood and Chocolate by Lady Lemon Drop (FFN): Harry finds out he is becoming a vampire at the end of OotP. Some changes are made to canon, like Sirius surviving, the timeline is a little wonky...and it’s abandoned. But, it’s a Harry/Ginny story I give a 9/10. Vanteeria Domestica by andrea_readwolf (AO3): A creature!Harry AU meets a Harry/Harem!AU, with beautiful relationship dynamics that do a good job at reflecting how complex it is to be in a poly relationship. Harry/Harem, 9/10. Forget-Me-Not by Lomonaaeren (FFN, but is also on AO3): Dumbledore accidentally casts a forgetfulness spell a little too powerful on Harry, leading to him basically being ignored by everyone. Harry/Theodore Nott, 9/10. The Commoner Queen by Pilargirl (FFN): A royalty AU where Harry is the prince of magical Britain and Ginny Weasley has caught his eye. Harry/Ginny, 9/10. The Bonds of Blood by Darth Marrs (FFN): A Harry/Ginny soulbond story that takes a serious look at what a soulbond would really look like between two children. Harry/Ginny. 8/10.

PJO: From Amidst the Darkness and At the End of the Tunnel by Mrs.PercyJackson3 (FFN): A mortal AU where Poseidon only finds out about Percy after a car crash kills Sally and leaves Percy blind. 10/10 the traces of life with you by shadowtraveled (AO3): God!Percy falls in love with Luke, four times over. Lukercy, 10/10, ship-defining story. Maybe I was sent to bring you home by percy in panties (AO3): Another Lukercy, ship-defining story featuring reincarnation, 10/10. The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by midnightinjapan (FFN): Nico’s social-avoidance tendencies come back to haunt him. Percy/Nico, 9/10.

Twilight: The Movement of the Earth and The Fire of the Sun by audreyii-fic (FFN): In which Jacob imprints on Bella in New Moon. 10/10, this is a fandom-defining duology and should be read by everyone if they’re a fan of Twilight. All the Ways You Know Me by FlamingMaple (FFN): Jacob and Bella get together in New Moon, except Jacob is killed by Victoria and Bella is left to raise their baby, who she is still pregnant with. Enter Edward back onto the scene. Edward/Bella, 9/10.

Teen Wolf: To Accidentally Be by mylegsaremine (AO3): Scott and Isaac get together...except, neither of them have been told that beta, male werewolves can get pregnant, and they haven’t exactly been practicing safe sex. Like, at all. Mpreg ensues. 10/10, was one of the first fics I read for this fandom. A Pox on Hope by spqr (AO3): Fem!Stiles gets bitten by a vampire while trying to investigate a case and decides to call up Peter to help. Peter/Stiles, 10/10. Keep It Together by ravingrevolution (AO3): Stiles needs the Pack’s help after someone steals something from him. Derek/Stiles, 9/10. a collapsing star with tunnel vision by CerinityKS (AO3): Theo is dying...and has feelings for Scott. Naturally, this means he isn’t going to tell Scott either of those things. Sceo, 8/10. Calling a Spade a Spade by RhysLahey (AO3): Isaac comes back to Beacon Hills. The Princess Bride references ensue. Scisaac, 8/10.

Star Trek (AOS): Strange Courage by Joules Mer (AO3): A Bones/Kirk AU series that begins post-ST:ID, then involves into something more. Does have mpreg in it, but not in the way you’d usually expect. 10/10. the sum of a man by phalangine (AO3): Kirk is ordered to get married by the brass, so he does...to Bones. The marriage isn’t real, until it is. 10/10, had me rolling in bed laughing when I first read it. Warning Labels (are meant to be ignored) and Find Me in the Ashes by drmcbones (AO3): A Bones/Kirk soulmate AU where neither of them really want to have a soulmate, yet find out they are each other’s anyways. Extremely good, 9/10. Fly Me to the Moon by Horolojium (AO3): Bones tries to deny his feelings for Kirk while the standard shenanigans occur on the Enterprise, with interesting effects. Bones/Kirk. 9/10.

MCU: The Third Option by Uncertainty_Principle (AO3): Ben and May get divorced before Peter’s parents die, leading to Peter going into foster care after Ben dies with...not so great results. Irondad/spiderson. 10/10, one of my favorites of all time. Pretty Maids Universe by Finny3120 (AO3): A bio irondad/spiderson AU where Tony is siblings with May and raises Peter...and also falls in love with Steve. The portrayals of grief, slow burn, and etc. are some of the best I have ever seen in fanfiction, 10/10, another favorite of all time. built from scraps by peterstank (AO3): Peter survives the Snap instead of Tony, then finds out that Tony is his biological father. Bio irondad/spiderson, enough feels to make even veteran readers of fanfiction cry. 9/10 Silent Screams and Surprising Saviors by normalisoverrated (AO3): A fem!Penny becomes selectively mute after meeting Skip as a kid, but is able to speak as Spider-Woman. Unfortunately/fortunately for her, it does not take long for the Avengers to connect the dots between the two anyways after she gets an internship at Stark Industries. Irondad/spiderdaughter. 9/10 Intern Spider by Emily_F6 (AO3): A fem!Penny becomes an intern at Stark Industries, while still trying to keep her identity as Spidergirl a secret. Irondad/spiderdaughter. 9/10 Revelations by Anonymous (AO3): An Infinity War AU where Thanos doesn’t Snap and everyone survives, leading to Peter and Tony circling around each other in a slow burn. Starker. 10/10

X-Men Movies: The Way Back by Baamon5evr (AO3): A post-First Class AU where Charles finds out he’s pregnant with Erik’s child after the Beach Divorce. And, as the title suggests, follows the events leading to him and Erik getting back together again. Cherik, 9/10, read it in like 4 hours because it was just that good! An Earlier Heaven by Regann (AO3): Another post-First Class mpreg Cherik AU, except in this one Charles becomes pregnant with Jean. A very sweet story, and since it was written before DoFP nobody dies! 9/10, very very good!

[ashesandhackles]

More Snack, courtesy me and @thedreamermusing

This is a continuation of the fic we wrote. You can find it here.

Sirius never thought that his life would turn into this. A twelve year stint in Azkaban, two years on the run and now... scrubbing the bathrooms of the Most Ancient Noble House of Black. He smiled, knowing that his Mother dearest would have a fit that he was cleaning the house "the Muggle way". The Muggle way ate up time and time was all he had now....This long purgatory of time in a house he thought he would never, ever step foot in again. A fitting punishment for him. A reminder of how wrong he is, a place where he was reminded how wrong he was from the very beginning. "It's the inbreeding," he remembered telling his mother when she lamented what has gone wrong with her first born. Her hysterics, when not painful, were a delight. And now, there is just silence..even Azkaban wasn't this silent. There was roar of the sea hitting the walls, and strange mutterings of fellow prisoners. Silence unnerved him.

Silence is where he could obssess over that one mistake that changed the course of his life. Wormtail. He wondered about how to approach Snape about this the next time he sees him. He sure seems to love hanging information over everyone head. But now, he knows something about him...a weakness, perhaps. A weakness too uncannily similar to his own.

A knock interuppted his musings. "Padfoot," it was Remus on the other side of the door. "We have a problem".

"What is it?" Sirius wrenched the door open and saw Remus carrying a bag of dead rats. "Where are all the rats you have been feeding Buckbeak coming from?" Remus asked. "Around the house," Sirius said, with a dawning realisation. "You don't think-?"

"I think we need to reinforce your father's protection on Headquarters. To ensure that no living creature steps foot out from anywhere except the front door," Remus continued.

"That bastard-" Sirius whispered. Little Peter got one over them again, did he? "That fucking bastard -"

Remus looked at the bag of rats. "I don't know how many of them actually got out. You have been keeping Buckbeak fed with a large amount of them - "

"I should have realised," Sirius said hoarsely. "What a rat infestation that did not go away after a year of cleaning this bloody house meant."

"We have got him," Remus said. "Like I said, Buckbeak's been eating awful lot of this. So we don't know how many of his little rodent friends got out and whether he knows anything worthwhile."

"We have to tell Sniv- Snape," Sirius said, abruptly. "We don't know what he knows-"

"-and it could put him in a precarious position," Remus finished.

"And, I hope he comes around to our plan when he listens to this" Sirius added thoughtfully.

Remus rolled his eyes. "You don't let things go, do you?"

"Would you?" Sirius asked quietly.

Remus was quiet for a moment. "No, no I wouldn't. I haven't. "

**

Severus walks up to his house in Spinner’s End, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to stretch the nets of Occlumency over his enraged mind. He would need to be calm, logical, if this plan was to go perfectly. When Black and Lupin had told him what the slobbering pustule was doing (after placing Muffliato to avoid eavesdroppers, the bastards), his immediate reaction had been to go and cast a Sectumsempra to finish the problem known as Wormtail once and for all.

“You live here?!” the second-most hated enemy of Severus’s schooldays pipes up. “In this dung hill?”

Severus’s lip curls. “Yes, not all of us were fortunate enough to be afforded the riches of the ‘Most Ancient and Noble House of Black’ growing up. I apologise for not meeting your blue-blooded expectations.”

“That’s not--I didn’t mean it like that,” Black says, looking abashed. “I--I didn’t know you grew up in such a place.”

“Let’s not pretend you didn’t suspect. Both you and Potter understood what I was that first ride on the Hogwarts train.”

Black’s brows furrow uncomfortably. Severus feels a burst of satisfaction in his chest.

As they approach closer to the front door, Severus turns to Black. The mutt could not compromise this.

“Black, no matter what happens, you must stick to the plan. You cannot allow a repetition of what happened at the Department of Mysteries.”

“You think I can’t follow a simple plan?!” Black says haughtily.

“Do you really need me to remind you what your recklessness has brought you? Or are twelve years in Azkaban not enough?”

Black flinches, and his expression shutters. It was the emptiness he feels emanating him from him that makes Severus feel a twinge of regret and shame. It bunches together in his chest, rising up his cheeks in a flush. Lily’s words echo back at him. “Why do the most hurtful words come so easily to you, Sev?” she’d said to him once after he made Petunia cry their first summer back from Hogwarts. “You need to stop saying everything that enters your mind. One of these days, you’ll say something you can’t ever take back.”

And she was right. Here he is, doing the same thing again because he doesn't know how else to handle the world.

“I-that was uncalled for. I should not have said that,” he manages.

Black sneers. “It’s no worse than what Molly has said to me. Don’t get your knickers in a twist about it, Sniv.”

Severus allows the nickname to slide; just this once, he thinks he can be gracious.

“Follow the plan,” Severus repeats, giving Black what he hopes is a sufficiently sober look. “If this goes wrong, we’re all fucked.”

Black swallows and then nods. Severus takes a breath and knocks the door.

**

The door opened and Wormtail's eyes widened in shock: there was Snivellus and Padfoot, smirking from the door way.

Sirius was lounging lazily against the doorframe and Wormtail recognised that faux casual and deliberately insolent stance: it was a pose he adopted right before unleashing terror on the next authority figure who told him what to do.

"Long time no see, Peter", Sirius said, lazily, quite enjoying the abject terror on his old friend's face. Wormtail stared wide-eyed at Snape, who was looking at him with a terrible mocking smile.

"It seemed so terrible that I was spending all this time with your old friends and you so little," Snape said, silkily. "So I brought him here for a little catch up".

Wormtail needed to hear no further. He stepped back and immediately proceeded to transform when Snape, who seemed to be quite ready for this turn of events, pointed his wand at him. "Immobilius". He dropped, frozen, to the floor. He felt paralysed in his terror when Sirius advanced on him.

Sirius bent down to look at his face, and smiled. "Now, now", he tutted. "We just have a few questions about your adventures with your little friends".

Snape levitated his frozen body into the drawing room. "And if you value your own life Wormtail, which seems to be all you seem to value -" Snape sneered. "You will be truthful. And if not, I have means to make your position more miserable than it already is"

**

It was strange, seeing Padfoot walk with Snivellus, both faces showing equal amount of gleeful cruelty. Although Snivellus seemed to be doing a better job of hiding it - hiding how much he enjoyed watching him frozen, with an added insult of the Incarcerous binding him.

His eyes were on Padfoot. He had no right to plead for mercy. But if appealing to merciful impulse of these men is how he would save his own life, he will do it.

Snape seemed to have released his body. The bindings remained. He could speak. "I don't know what you both want from me-" he began, and it seemed to be the wrong thing to say.

Sirius let out a bark of laughter. "Of course," he said, harshly. "Poor innocent Wormy. What could he have possibly done?"

His eyes narrowed, and Wormtail could see the fury building in Sirius. A dangerous sign. "How dare you? How dare you - after he saved your miserable hide? After what you did to him? How dare you attack Harry!"

Wormtail opened his mouth, probably to come up with a defense but Snape, who seemed to have sensed the danger of the scene spiralling out of control, cut them both off.

"While your paternal instincts are rather touching, Black, I would rather we get to the point", Snape hissed. He turned to him. "You have been sending your little friends to the Black family home. Why is that, Wormtail?"

Oh. "I - I don't know what you are talking about", he told them.

It was the strangest scene, after all that happened in school, to see them exchange knowing looks. "You don't?" Snape asked, in a quiet voice.

He could feel the fury radiating out of Sirius and without Remus, without James to check the worst of his temper, Wormtail didn't know whether he had his best chance with the lie or the truth.

Sirius stalked closer, and Wormtail discovered that he could flinch under these ropes. "You don't?" he repeated Snape's words. "You don't know what your rodents were doing in my house, Peter? Did you forget - I can communicate with animals too? I was the one who helped you with this form, remember?"

"You might as well tell the truth," Snape called from behind Sirius's looming form. "I have ways to see your truth and this tedious interrogation would be over in an instant".

"Why did you bring him?" Wormtail burst out, shrilly. "What did you want?"

To his horror, both Sirius and Snape laughed. "Well, he couldn't exactly deny me the joy of a reunion, Peter. We could break into your mind and get answers. But, really, where is the fun in that?" Sirius' tightly wound fury seemed to ease a bit with the laughter.

"I brought him here because I finally see the advantages of being brawny rather than brainy," Snape smirked at Sirius. "It provides more entertaining motivation for vermin like you to tell the truth".

Sirius transformed into the giant, bear black dog he was, baring his teeth at him. Wormtail knew that look - it was the look Padfoot had when Moony had given them the slip. The look when they had to rein an often unwilling Moony in. The look promised violence. "To spy on you," Wormtail admitted to Snape, looking quickly away from the monstrous black dog. "I was getting nowhere with it in your own house. The Dark Lord suspects that you are not entirely faithful. He kept me here to make sure that you are."

"Oh?" Snape was amused. Hardly the reaction he was expecting. "He kept you here to make sure I was faithful? He doesn't hold a piece of filth like you in high esteem either, Wormtail".

"Two birds with one stone, Sniv" said Sirius, who had transformed back. "The Dark Lord" he began, mockingly, in an imitation of Wormtail's speech, "probably thinks you both can spy on each other. Wormtail here seemed to have taken the job far more seriously than you ever did".

"I regret that I didn't take that job seriously" Snape looked from Sirius to him. "I probably should have - there are costs to not taking you seriously. It's a mistake none of us intend to repeat ever again"

"What- What are you going to do to me?" he whispered.

"Far, far less than what you deserve" Sirius said, poisonously. "If it weren't for the fact that Harry- "

"What do you know?" Snape asked, abruptly. He was determined to keep the conversation away from the Potter brat. It was bad enough he inherited his father's way of looking at rules as mere suggestions, and now he has inherited the passionate loyalty of, for all intents and purposes, a mad man who broke out of prison for him.

But then again, Snape reflected quietly, here he was too - centering his life around the last piece of Lily alive in this world.

Wormtail avoided looking at Black and answered him. "I know where the headquarters is. But the enchantments it is under, it's no use. I can't speak of it. I have simply been reporting what you have said in your meetings. The Dark Lord has not found anything out of ordinary in your reports so far," Wormtail paused. "Whose side are you really on?"

Snape gave a thin smile and thanked the wisdom of Dumbledore for all the control he exercised in what information gets told in the meetings. If Wormtail thought this information would unsettle Sirius, he was wrong. Sirius was smiling too, as if he realised something. This was the most curious of all developments for Wormtail. How can Padfoot trust Snivellus? What did he know? He looked at both of them suspiciously.

"Well, now, "Snape said, readying his wand. "I need to see what exactly you have told the Dark Lord. Legilimens!" And his memories came forth.

Update: Beyond the Veil is currently on Ao3 and has gone farther as a story than we expected. Read it here

[mymovingfingerwrites]

courage, dear heart

When we think of Lucy, we think of her golden hair and her cheerful smile, we think of a girl walking through a wardrobe and accepting a new world without question. We think of Queen Lucy, blessed with the power to heal, the only girl on a ship full of boys searching for a hint of whence they came. We think of her at the end of the world, kind and lovely and sorrowful as a mouse rows away, and in the world beyond the end of the world, her eyes lit up with delight. Resolute Lucy, bold Lucy, perched like a bird on the back of a lion.

When we think of Narnia, we think of Lucy. How could we not? Was it not Lucy who opened a wardrobe door and found winter, was it not Lucy who refused to be minimized, was it not Lucy who infused the land with good cheer for years after her coronation, was it not Lucy who first cocked her head and said that the land was speaking to them and they must listen?

We think about Lucy, bright Lucy, glittering Lucy, and we know instinctively that Lucy was always the heroine of her own story. What we don’t consider is that in her darkest moments—for Lucy, like us all, was not always bright, no matter how the legends insisted otherwise—she felt at times captive by the winds of fate stirring her hair. Perhaps we are–though we don’t like to admit it—some of the many people in both worlds who looked at Lucy and resented her for having the audacity (the privilege) to fill the pages of her book with her own words without considering how heavy her pen may be.

(Was it really her book, though? Lucy did not deny she wrote her own narrative. She was Lucy the Valiant; she spoke the language of High Narnia, she heard when Aslan called, she commanded the long-dormant trees into existence once more. Lucy was familiar with the power of words. What she objected to was the idea that her life was her very own, that her canvas was blank except for marks of her own making. Dear Lucy, pulled uncomplainingly into heroics, a simple game of exploration leading to death and betrayal and heartbreak (and majesty, and light, and animals that could talk). No; this was not her book but if she had the (mis)fortune to open it she certainly would inscribe her legacy on it herself).

To our credit, we sense what Lucy had always known: she felt as though her role was inevitable. (In boys, we call that responsibility, or heroism). Perhaps that is what we resented. When you are a young girl with golden hair and blue eyes and the lightest smattering of freckles, when you are the baby of the family and coddled and loved dearly, when you are born with an infinite well of self-possession and three protective older siblings, when you believe in your own worth–stepping into the pages of your story and titling it as your own looks like a foregone conclusion from afar.

(Her sister, Susan, struggled with this for many years. Though she was the pretty one, or at least that was what her mother told her, Susan eyed Lucy’s waterfall of blonde hair with envy. Though she was meant to be gentle, Susan watched how animals flocked to her sister first, how even the most timid of creatures lined up to whisper their secrets into Lucy’s ears. This would take Susan a considerable amount of time to overcome, but let us not blame her too harshly. Being a girl is difficult enough; being the other girl in the story is harder still).

But what we do not see, unless we look very closely, is that nothing felt foregone for Lucy. What looks easy from afar was not from within. Lucy chose herself, over and over; she chose to follow the path Aslan lay out for her, and she chose to do so with good humor and kindness as armour against the inherent cruelty of the world, even the magic one.

Of all her siblings, Peter understood this best, though they never discussed it in so many words. Perhaps that is why Peter always trusted Lucy, or at least apologized to her without resentment when she was proven right. The bookends of the family, they were as temperamentally different as any other pair of siblings. Peter sometimes felt blinded by Lucy's incandescent optimism; Lucy at times was weighed by proximity to Peter's practicality.

But both of them understood duty, more so than Edmund, led so easily astray by pleasure, and Susan, who believed (at times to her credit) that the world owed her the same that she owed it. Neither Lucy nor Peter strayed from their tasks, not even when Lucy picked her cold and lonely way down to the shadow of a godly voice, nor when Peter first felt the undeniable weight of his gleaming sword marred by enemy blood. They chose, and they chose again, even when those choices did not feel like choices but inevitabilities.

For when one understands duty, taking one's place as hero is not self-indulgent. It is not privilege; it is a prerogative, and it is difficult. But where Peter found his duty in protection and caregiving, in oversight and the hard labor of daily majesty, Lucy found hers in vision and clarity and momentum. When Susan hesitated over the unknown and Edmund lay sniffling quietly when he thought nobody could hear, Lucy knew that her relentless confidence was as necessary as Peter's guidance.

(This was a burden, too. Who was positive for Lucy? Her siblings tried to be, of course; they loved each other dearly, more so in the following years. But this sense of need never left Lucy, this fear that if she did not smile that nobody else would ever smile again).

Cheerfulness and friendliness can be their own prisons. When you believe in yourself, others are relieved; they need not take on the responsibility of believing in you too. Lucy never allowed herself to stray (save from moments alone in a large, soft bed, save from a magic book that in its pages contained temptation, save from tears that splashed hotly in the cool Narnia wind) all the more rigidly because everyone expected that she never would.

(It takes strength to choose optimism; it takes willpower to respond to situations with cheerfulness. Lucy was valiant even at seven years old, remember. She knew that raising her head high was an act of defiance, she knew believing in her own experience was brave, she knew that daring to rescue a friend from the clutches of an unknown evil was perhaps foolhardy but nevertheless necessary. She may not wield a sword but do not mistake her empathy for weakness).

Beauty and softness can be their own prisons, too. Youth and innocence and loveliness can make you more—it can mark you as worthy to speak to a god-turned-lion, your friendship as worth the threat of eternal damnation—but it invariably means that more is all you are allowed to be. There were days when Lucy fled back to her castle, her nose red and her eyes stinging, her hair twisted into disarray, and wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath a heap of blankets and throw pillows at the door just to prove that she too could be cruel, she too could be wanting. It is no easier to smile when tasked to in Narnia than it is anywhere else.

Sometimes Lucy resented her role as the youngest, the softest, the angel (or was she meant to be the prophet?). She saw Susan notching an arrow to her bow, watched Peter and Edmund joust in the courtyard, and looked down at her glittering bottle of cordial and longed to smash it against the door and take up war instead of peace.

Father Christmas gave her that vial, after all, a children’s story speaking to a child. Her power was limited, finite. Lucy began to use it sparingly, though she would have liked to heal every small hurt that befell a member of her kingdom. Part of her always felt a frisson of fear at the thought that she may one day no longer have the power to heal. Part of her felt anger that even Father Christmas did not think her capable. None of her siblings had gifts of borrowed power.

(Edmund did not get a gift at all, but he was, surprisingly, placid about this slight. He still remembered the enchanting taste of Turkish delight, even years after it last melted on his tongue. He knew that even now he would betray his family for another taste of that wickedness, and that knowledge made him humble. His gift was that he would never be tempted again, and for that, he would trade all the gold in the world).

Let us talk about what it must have cost Lucy, more than her siblings, to return to a world of mundane happenstance. Let us think about her, forced to be seven years old, forced to plait her hair and be seen and not heard and befriend children scarred from years of war. These playmates did not want to be coaxed into the brilliant world of Lucy’s imagination. They did not want to hear of Aslan, they did not want to pretend to be anything they were not. They had survived days or months or years away from their parents, but not in the warm embrace of a magic land; they had been torn from their families by trains and cars leaving in the dead of night, they had been sent to farms where food stretched thin, to towns that covered their windows with black paint and slept six to a bed, heel to head. Magic to them was their father, home from the war, with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes but was nevertheless warm. It was their older siblings, reunited and once again casual monarchs of the family dynamic. It was their mothers chiding them to eat, their friends once again within easy access, the serenity of the night broken only by lorries and not sirens.

Lucy had experienced hardship before, of course. Everything has a balance, after all. When you feel joy deeply, sorrow cuts you to your very core. When you are easily delighted, you understand how ephemeral delight can be. Lucy carried joy with her, of course: the wild exhilaration of Bacchus and his nymphs, how right it felt when her and her siblings rushed out to the parapet to see a brilliant golden sun nestle into the cool embrace of the Narnia forest, the softness of Reepicheep's fur tinged with drops from the sea at the end of the world, how Aslan looked at her and she felt seen. Lucy never shied away from emotion. Lucy was valiant in this too.

But she never forgot the lesson of dear old Tumnus. In Narnia, he was a constant presence in her dining hall. But she never forgot that the cost of her entrance into this glittering world was an innocent creature frozen for daring to take her home for tea. She never forgot that her siblings doubted her, that her youngest brother was led astray by sparkle and glitter. She remembered the silent despair of Caspian searching for his family, Eustace wondering which poor soul he devoured in the guise of a dragon defeating another. To the end of her days, she thought of the quiet dignity and terrible sadness of Lord Rhoop gazing upon the still bodies of his very closest companions, choosing to condemn himself to an endless sleep to be by their side on only the faintest suggestion of hope. Because Lucy was Lucy, she took those feelings into her own and cared for them as she cared for their benefactors.

But in a way, Lucy had not yet experienced loneliness and fear, not like her siblings had, not like these war-torn children. The closest she had gotten were those first few days in the professor’s house where none believed her, or when she walked alone to Aslan in the middle of the night wishing desperately someone would follow. For most of her time in Narnia, however, Lucy was easily, automatically accepted, her majesty unquestioned. In Narnia, she was unique: lovely Lucy, Queen Lucy, friend of centaurs and fauns and nymphs, immortalized in ballads, welcome in badger dens and banquet halls alike. Lucy was Aslan’s favorite, of course–didn’t he speak mostly to her, didn’t he cuddle her in his great and terrible paws? Queen of peace and harbinger of joy.

When she twisted back into an unfamiliar body she expected this world to accept her, too. Yet Lucy was not celebrated in this world; at least not automatically. Susan took one look at her circumstances and tossed her head and vowed to be queen in this life too. Edmund chewed his lip and sighed a little to Lucy but bent his head to his studies, just in case Aslan was wrong and he would be forced to rely on the battles to be won in schoolhouses and universities. Peter raged, in his own way, at the loss of his kingdom, unable to cope with his duty and his purpose and his raison d'être so brutally torn from him.

Lucy tried to talk to the trees, but they ignored her, their bark cool to the touch. She tried to dance in the meadows, but the grass was sharp and covered her legs with rashes. She tried to befriend the dogs at her local shelter but they snapped at her suspiciously. She tried to talk to her peers and hear their stories and stand up for them like she stood up for her subjects but they eyed her with mistrust and laughed at the boundless optimism she tried desperately to embody. This generation of children was not prone to easy positivity, remember. Those in Narnia had been so desperate for help after their long years of winter. Humans, she found, were surprisingly not.

Lucy had never been ignored before. She had never been disliked openly, she had never struggled to make friends. She did not know how to handle girls eyeing her with jealousy or derision, how to process boys that pulled her hair not to flirt but to hurt. Her gentle heart and loving manner had always won her praise and acclaim, but in those brittle years after the war, she was playing a game where she did not know the rules.

She was not able to admit until years later that perhaps this loneliness was good for her. Heroines need strife to grow, even in all the old stories. Lucy could have turned her back on who she was in Narnia; she could have tempered the blaze of her spirit, fell obediently into the ranks of conformity. She could have stemmed the flow of her hope and turned instead to sheer practicality. Was that not what her siblings were doing?

(No, dear Lucy, stubborn to the very end. That was not what they were doing and you should have given them the benefit of the doubt).

In some sort of twist of fate, Lucy did most of her growing in this world, off the pages of the book, trying to decide what was important to her in a world where the rules were more (less) rigid, the values were more (less) prescribed. This was where she became truly valiant, in the mundane manner as well as the majestic. In this world she learned how to listen: quietly and patiently. Here the silent trees aided her, providing a calm and soothing canvas on which a friend could shyly begin to paint her troubles. She learned that being bold and brash could sometimes be selfish instead of brave.

Lucy remembered what it felt like to be seven and ignored. She remembered encountering a fawn risking death for her company, even though she was not yet a decade on this earth. She remembered her own siblings’ gentle condescension. She knew what it felt like to be dismissed. Sometimes you do not want somebody to fight for you. Sometimes you want somebody to help you as you learn how to fight for yourself.

In this world, Lucy learned what it meant to be valiant without pride. She learned how much bravery it takes to be heroine of a story with many other heroines and heroes and warriors and soldiers, that being one of many provides strength. (It reminds her of those old sunny days, playing chess in the courtyard, all her siblings casually, loosely together). In this world, when she lifted her head and smiled warmly, when she woke in the morning and greeted the sun, she did so with optimism she crafted herself, with positivity she forged out of the steel of her spine. She learned you did not have to be in the forefront of a story to blaze in it, that sometimes people did not want love and laughter but truth and honesty and justice. She met her peers’ eyes and they lifted their chins and she made them feel fierce, not protected.

When Lucy thought, years later, of the vial Father Christmas gave her, she realized he was giving her an instrument of her own power. Her ability—her great burden—was that she could not save everyone but she could save many. She had to choose. Lucy was not alone in this; a sword gives one the ability to take a life—but to trade a death for many lives. A bow allows one to even the stakes while remaining aloof, to assign death to others from a great distance. No gift at all forces one to look inside themselves and find the strength that was always there. Magic to heal, like all of these gifts, like all gifts, was meaningless unless one wielded it.

Lucy could have been afraid of indecision; she could have kept her vial locked away or pretended it had run out. She could have used it all within years, saving this generation of her subjects only to damn the next. The choice was hard, sometimes. Sometimes she left the vial behind and had to grasp the hand of a dying soldier and know in her heart that she could have saved him had she only decided to bring it. Sometimes, particularly toward the end, she had it in her pocket but knew she could not use it, that she had to be brave for those ahead as well as those now. These choices were not easy. These choices were her own. Peter, burdened with majesty, had to make choices about who to damn to combat, what was worth fighting for—but he never had to choose who to save. Susan, gentle, had to weigh the many competing demands of the land and decide which to prioritize, strategize how to best achieve her goals, knowing the weight of her kingdom was on her back—but she knew there was always a second choice, always a way to optimize a situation. Edmund, even and fair, had to devise a system of just rule, had to know when to stick to it and when to revise it, even when a friend had to be punished, even when it hurt to be the judge—but he did not have to enforce these laws, only set them.

Warrior, strategist, arbiter, healer: all four Pevensie siblings shouldered their own burdens and supported each other in the heavy task of ruling over many. When three of them returned (when six of them returned) to see their land destroyed, to see a new land created, they remembered those choices and they vowed to uphold them. Lucy had no vial in the kingdom of heaven but that had never been what gave her power. Even in the golden light at the end of the world there were jealousies and anger and injustice and strife. Even in the endless summer of forever there was the chance to be brave.

(Susan, on Earth, mourned her baby sister more than anyone else. Peter had death in the shadows of his eyes since he took a life at thirteen years old and was praised for it. Edmund too seemed to know that he was living on borrowed time. But Lucy, dear Lucy, did not deserve to be struck down so young. Susan had watched her grow into the set of her shoulders and ignite the light in her smile not once but twice. She watched Lucy forge a mortal crown out of sheer determination and optimism and she felt something like awe. She wanted her sister to wear it; she wanted her sister to join her in this brave new world, where women were beginning to display the beauty of their resilience and their wild and clever strength. She wanted to apologize, to admit she too remembered Narnia, that she had not understood the type of strength Lucy drew about her like a warm shawl.

Susan did not know for many years where that fateful train journey took her siblings. She deliberately did not consider Narnia, for why would a land full of kindness and light steal her family senselessly, randomly? (She did not know of their mission, of magic rings, of beasts lurking in the darkness. How could she, when they deliberately did not include her?)

She chose to believe that Lucy and Peter and Edmund were in a land of eternal stillness. Susan remembered those burdens, too, even if the details of Narnia were on some days blurry. It seemed more sad, somehow, to think of her siblings once again wearing their crowns on stone thrones, as if their time on Earth meant nothing.

When she opened her eyes and saw Lucy again, young and royal, she felt at first a deep pang of regret before the relief flooded in).

For Lucy, going to the world after the world of Narnia was not frightening but exhilarating, not limiting but empowering. It did not take long for her to forget what she left behind on her mortal world; they had teased Susan, once, for shutting out remembrances of talking animals and magic dancing along the stone paths. If Lucy remembered that, she might have felt shame, now that the quiet majesty of a row of silent English oaks faded into blurs, that the chatter of her peers became as dim and incomprehensible as squirrels.

But Lucy was never one to look back; she was eager to flip ahead to the new pages in her story, here in a world where the pages had no ending. There were new friends to meet and a kingdom to build and cheers to receive and challenges to fight. Susan would realize this too, one day, joining her siblings in this world beyond the world. Lucy was suited for this, as if she were chosen for this, as if she chose this over everything else she could have chosen.

She wrote her own story, yes, but we should remember that does not mean that all of her words were her own.

[slashingdisneypasta]

Creepypasta’s As: Quotes On My Laptop And Phone

Right so this has been stewing in my drafts for forever and it was just supposed to be something quick and fun but turned out be harder then I thought so not all the characters are here but I got most of them! Don’t really know who the audience for this apart from me but ah... ?enjoy? 

BEN Drowned: You don’t get to die and be reborn the same. You come back, but you come back wrong. This is the price you pay for resurrection. – Nathanial Orion G. K

Bloody Painter / Helen Otis: I hope that someday when I’m gone, someone, somewhere, picks my soul up off these pages and thinks: I would have loved her him. – Nicole Lyons

Candy Cane: Come away, O human child To the waters and the wood with a fairy, hand in hand. For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. – Willian Butler Yeats

Candy Pop: Turn on you before you turn on us. We’re all just savages. – Theory of a Deadman, Savages

Candy Cane and Candy Pop: Forgive, sounds good. Forget? … I’m not sure I could. – Dixie Chicks, Not Ready To Make Nice

Clockwork / Natalie Ouellette: This woman that I’m becoming gives me chills. I’m obligated to move differently. I have work to do. – ???

Eyeless Jack: You don’t get to die and be reborn the same. You come back, but you come back wrong. This is the price you pay for resurrection. – Nathaniel G. K

Hobo Heart: I’m not used to being loved; I wouldn’t know what to do. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Homicidal Liu / Sully: If I told you how it all ended; Would you have done it? – ???

·         Extra for Liu: The seas were getting rough, but I thought we were worth it. – Hunter Hayes, You Think You Know Somebody

·         Extra for Liu and Silly: I am not a bad man… Even though I do bad things. Very bad things. Such horrible things… But it's not quite what it seems. (Not quite what he seems) Not quite what I seem… … … Aw, hell. It's exactly what it seems. – Creature Feature, Such horrible Things

Hoodie / Brian: Remember that I am still a monster. I can listen to you scream, and cry, and beg, and I still wont le you out. – Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Jane the Killer / Jane Richardson: She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr, if they killed her quick. – Flannery O’ Connor, A Temple of the Holy Ghost

Jason the Toymaker: [Said to him] You’re a tragedy! She was leaving you, Pan. Your Wendy is leaving you. Why should she stay? You are incomplete. She’d rather grow up then stay with you. – Captain Hook, Peter Pan 2003

Jeff the Killer / Jeffry Woods: [Liu, on Jeff] Once you lose someone, it is never exactly the same person who comes back. – Sharon Olds, Satan Says

·         Extra for Jeff: Do you know what happens when you light a fire in you? It burns everything that’s standing in the way. – ???

·         Extra for Jeff and Liu: And if the black banners raise as the crooked smiles fade; Fallen heroes who quite too late. – Fall Out Boy, The Kid’s Aren’t Alright

Laughing Jack: Forever is a long, long time… And time has a way of changing things. – Willow Tweed, The Fox and the Hound

·         Extra for L.J: This is how the world works; You gotta leave before you get left. – Taylor Swift, I Did Something Bad

·         Extra for L.J #2: All this has happened before. And it will all happen, again… - J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Laughing Jill: [L.Jill, to Mary’s father] You didn’t realise that in breaking my heart you were strengthening my soul. You didn’t realise but I did. And it changed the whole goddamn game once and for all. – Niharika Bhatt

Masky / Tim: I needed to be somewhere different. Maybe I needed to be someone different, too. – Heather Davis

Nathan the Nobody / Nathan Lux: Just because she’s gone, doesn’t mean she’s gone in your heart. Because the worst thing ever is to forget. – Christina, Allegiant

Nina the Killer / Nina Hopkins: When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it. – Caitlyn Siehl

·         Extra for Nina: Maybe our favourite quotations say more about us than about the stories and the people we’re quoting. – John Green

Offenderman: [Said to him] There isn’t a decent thought in your nasty little mind! – ???

·         Extra for Offender: [‘Him’ instead of ‘Witch’] When you visit a witch, bring an offering: Food, tobacco, alcohol, secrets, sex, or death. – Honest Louis

Sally Williams: Real monsters are human. – ???

·         Extra for Sally: I’m sorry this world could not keep you safe. May your journey home be a soft, and peaceful one. – Rupi Kuar

Slenderman: Heroes are always remembered. But legends never die. – Babe Ruth

·         Extra for Slender: Do not believe anything except the whispers of the trees. They have never lied to you. They won’t start now. – ??? Maybe Nikita Gil?

·         Extra #2 for Slender: The fuckers. There, I feel better. Goddamned Human race. There, I feel better. – Charles Bukowski

·         Extra #3 for Slender: Forests hide secrets - he said gently, - It’s practically what they’re for. To hide things. To separate one world from another. – Catherynne M. Valente

Splenderman: I believe this world ain’t half as bad as it looks, I believe most people are good. – Luke Bryan, Most People Are Good

·         Extra for Splender: A little consideration, I little thought for others, makes all the difference. – Eeyore

Ticci Toby / Toby Erin Rogers: I make no apologies, for how I choose to repair, what you broke. – Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Trenderman: My whole being calls for an act of violence, but I still wear velvet gloves. – Anaïs Nin

Zalgo: Funny. Cause I look around at this world you’re so eager to be a part of and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for fastest ride out. Who’s not crazy? Look around. Everyone’s drinking, smoking, shooting up, or just plain screwing their brains out, cuz they don’t want ‘em anymore. I’m crazy? Honey, I’m the original one-eyed chicken in the kingdom of the blind; Cuz at least I admit the world makes me nuts. – Glory, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

·         Extra for Zalgo: God’s busy. Can I help you? – Pinhead, Hellraiser

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 2022 Easter Special Review: Legend of the Sea Devils

Air date: 17 April 2022

So it’s been a little while since the boring slogfest that was the 2022 New Year Special, Eve of the Daleks. Let’s take a look into the 2022 Easter Special and see if it is a little breath of fresh air in a polluted landscape.

This episode is another first for Asian representation in a while outside of my personal project fanfiction, with Chinese pirates being the focus of this episode which is also directed by Chinese director Haolu Wang. This episode is also another episode to not be solely written by Chris Chibnall as it was co-written by Ella Road, so it’ll be nice to see how it differs from Chibnall’s notable episodes.

My spoiler-free thought for this episode comes in the form of a song which I’ve been dying to use when I heard that Madam Ching would be featured in this episode:

Spoilers continue after the break.

About the featured song

OK, I feel like I should explain my choice of song that I used for the spoiler-free thought of this episode in case people tell me, “Cheung Po Tsai? He wasn’t featured in the episode!” It’s true that he wasn’t featured, but the figure himself was related to Madam Ching at some point in time, so he is kind of relevant.

The song is the opening theme to the 2015 TVB drama Captain of Destiny, with the Chinese title literally being named after Cheung Po Tsai (張保仔). I’ve never watched the drama since I stopped following TVB dramas a year or two before after adapting some pretty violent storylines in my personal project (see Kisekae Insights #15 and #16), but from what I’ve read of Cheung Po Tsai, he was adopted by Madam Ching along with her husband, Zheng Yi (鄭一) after the latter either kidnapped or was attracted to him. After Zheng Yi died (in 1807), Madam Ching made Cheung Po Tsai her assistant to solidify her position among the Red Flag Fleet before they were later married.

Easter airdates

Member when new Doctor Who series used to start in late-March or early-April? I member. In the past, a new series would have started by this point as new series typically start on the Saturday before Easter, with 2007 and 2008 being the exception as Series 3 started a week before and Series 4 started a week after, but then Series 7 came and really screwed things up for five years until a brief reprieve in 2017 for Series 10 (Series 7 Part 2 technically was also a reprieve, but it wasn’t actually the start of the series so it doesn’t count).

It’s also been 13 years since we got a proper Easter Special with Planet of the Dead in 2009, one of David Tennant’s final episodes as the Doctor. Thing is, while the prospect of an Easter Special was redundant in the past due to new series starting around Easter, it would have been nice to have an Easter Special in the Peter Capaldi or Jodie Whittaker years given the excruciating wait between series. Aside from that, even Planet of the Dead was broadcast on Easter Saturday, but knowing how the Chibnall era treats traditions, this special was broadcast on Easter Sunday. Am I the only one who totally knew that this was going to be the case?

Anyway, enough faffing about. Let’s get on with the review.

The return of the Sea Devils

The episode starts off in 1807 with Madam Ching going into a village and breaking a piece off a statue of a sealed Sea Devil apparently known as Marsissus, releasing it in the process. The Sea Devil kills the statue’s protector, Ying Wai, and everyone else in the village, leaving his son, Ying Ki, and Madam Ching alive just as the Doctor, Yaz and Dan arrive, having been dragged off course by a geomagnetic disturbance.

Having managed to escape capture, Marsissus returns to his kind while the Doctor and Yaz attempt to seek a lost ship helmed by the great captain Xin Ji-Hun, which contained the lost treasure of the Flor de la Mar that Madam Ching was seeking. Meanwhile, a creature known as the Hua Shen engulfs a fisherman and his boat while Dan and Ying Ki wander off and sneak onto Madam Ching’s ship, where Madam Ching initially captures them before allowing them to join her.

The Doctor and Yaz head to the past and they see Ji-Hun in 1533 apparently throwing his crew off his ship and bowing to Marsissus, who presumably uses the Hua Shen to sink Ji-Hun’s ship just as the Doctor and Yaz escape. They head back to 1807 to the exact coordinates of Ji-Hun’s ship, but it isn’t there. The ocean floor suddenly collapses and the TARDIS is eaten by the Hua Shen...

Madam Ching tries to use celestial navigation when none of their equipment works, but the stars begin to move. Dan asks Madam Ching why the treasure is so important to her, to which she explains that her crew and her two sons are being held hostage by Guo Podai (郭婆帶) and the Black Flag Fleet and that she agreed to give them the treasure as ransom. When the apparently mythical Hua Shen approaches their ship, Madam Ching, Dan and Ying Ki fire cannons at it, but their cannonballs are deflected as they collide in mid-air.

Inside Hua Shen, the Doctor and Yaz climb out of the TARDIS and confront Marsissus about Ji-Hun’s ship; Marsissus reveals that he made the ship his own and that he kept Ji-Hun himself alive for over two centuries. As the Doctor and Yaz talk with Ji-Hun, they learn that he made no pact with the Sea Devils and that he was actually allowing his men to escape, stating that he gave the keystone, a tiny part of the treasure of the Flor de la Mar with infinite powers which is actually a plutonic crystal created by the Sea Devils, to his most trusted crew member, Lei Bao, before throwing him off the ship. As such, this makes Ji-Hun yet another misunderstood villain, but not to the extent of the other misunderstood villains we saw so far because he was imprisoned for the first half of the story.

When Marsissus manages to locate the keystone thanks to the Hua Shen, the Doctor brings the Sea Devils’ ship up and together with Yaz and Ji-Hun, they board Madam Ching’s ship. It is revealed that Lei Bao made it to land and ended up passing down the keystone through the generations, eventually ending up in Ying Ki’s possession. Marsissus had followed Lei Bao to land only to be sealed as a statue of stone thanks to the power of the keystone.

Marsissus takes the keystone back and drops it into his systems in an effort to flip the poles and cause chaos on Earth in an effort to flood it. The Doctor and the others fight off the Sea Devils, with the Doctor knocking Marsissus’ sword out of his hands before Ji-Hun finishes him off, causing the Doctor to say, “You didn’t have to kill him!” Ah yes, the Doctor’s misguided moral outrage over someone killing someone who was previously a threat and would possibly remain a threat if kept alive, never gets old. She didn’t even give Marsissus a chance to stay in the ocean and never surface again to terrorise humans.

The Doctor brings the ship back down into the ocean and together with Yaz, attempts to localise the power in an effort to flood the ship instead of the Earth while Dan and Ji-Hun fight off some Sea Devils and Madam Ching and Ying Ki gather Ji-Hun’s treasure from his ship.

When the Doctor accidentally rips away a cable from a console and has to hold it together with only 50 seconds remaining, the Doctor is about to sacrifice herself to hold the cable when Ji-Hun offers to do it instead, saying that the world would be too different for him. I mean, if you consider the Ming Dynasty any different from the Qing Dynasty other than the latter being ruled by fucking Manchurians (lol) then ok. Oh wait, a few white people would be crawling around in China by 1807 before more of them would continue to flood China in the coming years. In that case, yeah, I understand why Ji-Hun would choose to sacrifice himself.

The Doctor brings everyone back to Madam Ching’s ship with Ji-Hun’s treasure. The Doctor offers to bring Ying Ki back to his village, but Madam Ching allows him to join her crew. Later, the Doctor takes Yaz and Dan to a rocky beach where Dan leaves a message for Diane before she picks up the phone and calls him- wait, you’re still dating this woman, a woman who considers being ghosted by you worse than extradimensional threats threatening the universe? Man, do I feel sorry for you, Dan. Aside from that, yeah, having someone call you back while you’re in the middle of leaving a voice message is honestly relatable given what I do at work.

Bringing up “Thasmin”

The Doctor’s Yaz favouritism continues in this episode as they are shown together in a thread of this story, though some development is included as they try to address Yaz��s feelings for the Doctor.

At this year’s Gallifrey One convention, which was held in February at the Airport Marriott in Los Angeles, executive producer Matt Strevens stated that the “Thasmin” ship wasn’t planned, but he incorporated it into Flux after forgetting about it in Series 12. I always knew that the Doctor’s Yaz favouritism from her first episode would lead to something, but I never thought we’d end up getting so little out of it. It’s like they’re making up for lost time at this point. I didn’t talk about this in the review for Eve of the Daleks, but some people thought that Dan telling the Doctor about Yaz’s feelings for her was “outing” her to the Doctor. I’m not LGBT so I never really touched on it because like I said, I’m not LGBT and I don’t know anything about the intricacies of being LGBT. As such, I can’t really comment on this.

The main bulk of the “Thasmin” development happens towards the end of the episode. In the two minutes (that later gets reduced to 50 seconds, though it could have been excused as passing time given how long that scene went for) they have to prepare Ji-Hun’s ship, the Doctor mentions to Yaz how she is “not a bad date” and then says that she doesn’t really do dates and if she wanted, she would have done it with Yaz, but she can’t because time always runs out at some point. River Song is also briefly referenced in this scene.

Later, after the Doctor heads to the rocky beach with Yaz and Dan, the Doctor tells Yaz that she can’t fix herself to anything, anywhere or anyone and that she has never been able to because that is what her life is; if she fixes herself to somebody, it will hurt her sooner or later because it has happened before. Yaz tells the Doctor that her grandmother (Umbreen) told her that courage is knowing that something will hurt and then doing it anyway, which is also the definition of stupidity. The Doctor asks Yaz if they can just live in the present while they still have what they have, to which Yaz agrees and invites the Doctor to make a wish, which she does; the Doctor wishes that this could go on forever as she skips the stone into the sea.

If you were expecting a kiss or anything significant, then you might be disappointed because the “Thasmin” development (so far, at least) was mostly just words put in towards the end because the production team failed to do so. Did you think this relationship was handled “delicately”, according to Ella Road and the production team? I don’t want to say for certain.

Cantonese language representation

This needs its own section because it’s just that important to me.

When Madam Ching mentions the names of herself, Xin Ji-Hun or Guo Podai, you can hear her saying those names in Cantonese, but naturally, they’re not transliterated properly because the production team are a bunch of fucking normies. This can also be attributed to Madam Ching’s actress, Crystal Yu, being born in Hong Kong and being fluent in Cantonese as a result. Good on you for moving to the UK and not wasting your talents at a shithole like TVB (for all you normies out there, TVB has been the pinnacle of mainstream media in Hong Kong since 1967, but over the past decade, it has devolved into becoming the fake news of CNN combined with the banality of mainstream TV networks and the copyright Jewishness of Toei).

Most of the pirates in the South China Sea in the 1800s either grew up in and/or operated in Guangdong Province, where Cantonese was more prolifically spoken (in addition to the province also being known as Canton), so having Madam Ching saying those names in Cantonese adds to the geographical accuracy and also provides some well-deserved language/dialect representation for Cantonese in a world where Mandarin/Putonghua is the more dominant dialect of the Chinese language because the Chinese government pushes its use within China at the cost of other local dialects. On top of that, there seem to be very few schools outside of China that teach the Chinese language in Cantonese and with traditional characters, and even then they’re mostly limited to weekend language schools and not LOTE classes in day schools. And let’s not forget the situation in Hong Kong either, which is also affecting the local culture there and leading people to emigrate to other countries.

I have no disdain for Mandarin whatsoever, but I hope that normies can learn about the Cantonese language, the culture of its associated communities and their differences to the Mandarin language and their associated communities just like how the #StopAsianHate crybabies want white people to recognise the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian, Burmese, Malaysian, Indonesian and Filipino cultures along with other Asian cultures I may or may not have mentioned.

You may like or dislike how the representation of minorities or the LGBT has been handled by this series or even the BBC (or any other company, for that matter) over the past few years, but if there’s one type of representation I’m glad to see, it’s language representation, specifically Cantonese language representation.

Other general thoughts

Surprisingly, no tokusatsu references in this episode that I could find. It’s nice to see Doctor Who standing on its own without needing to reference other franchises... only to end up referencing or ripping off older episodes. You know how the Doctor says “Geronimo!” while moving between the two ships? Literally ripped off from the Eleventh Doctor. There were a couple instances in Last Christmas where the Twelfth Doctor could have said that and it’d feel more like a callback rather than a ripoff, but in the case of this episode, it’s more like a ripoff because of how the Thirteenth Doctor is basically an expy of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors.

On that note, there’s no SJW red flags in that episode. I wish SJWs cared about marginalised dialects like Cantonese and their communities just as much as they care about black people and trans people. Yes, I basically just said “I wish SJWs cared about Hong Kong just as much as they care about Ukraine.”

The Doctor, Yaz and Dan are not shown in modern attire in this episode, with the Doctor and Yaz wearing traditional Chinese clothing while Dan dresses up like an actual pirate. Joking about cultural appropriation aside, Dan’s costume really suits the comedic tone of his character.

The geomagnetic disturbance somehow manages to attract the jewellery on the Doctor’s ear until she uses her sonic screwdriver to demagnetise it. Even though it’s probably a one-time thing, I’m still going to press X to doubt.

Xin Ji-Hun appears to be a fictional character created for this story, so out of interest, let’s work out what his name is. Ji-Hun sounds like a Korean name so it doesn’t really help (he was probably only named that way because his actor, Arthur Lee, is of Korean descent, meaning that this tokenised casting decision is racist), but from the way Madam Ching says his name, I can deduce that his Chinese name is 仙子恒 (Sin Ji Hang), 仙 being a rare surname in China that mostly originated from the emperor bestowing that surname onto someone.

I don’t think Madam Ching would have called herself Zheng Shi/Ching Shih (鄭氏), because that title basically translates to Madam Ching anyway, which means that she basically said it twice when she was introducing herself. Chinese articles don’t use that exact name to refer to Madam Ching, which means that it’s just normies assuming things just so her actor can have a Mandarin name to say. If I wrote the episode I would have used her birth name, Shi Yang (石陽), or just omitted the Mandarin name altogether. Also, Ching Shih isn’t exactly an accurate transliteration either because it was based on the Wade-Giles system and not the Hanyu Pinyin system, meaning that the name Madam(e) Ching is another wypipo assumption, but I’ll forgive this because dub-sub debate and all that.

The transliteration of Guo Podai’s surname in Cantonese should be Kwok - the name itself is passable enough. 

Ying Ki and his father, Ying Wai, are never mentioned by name in this episode. You’d think that with someone that important to the story you’d mention their name at least once or twice, but somehow you can just get away with not mentioning their name at all.

Marsissus, the chief Sea Devil, was played by Craige Els, who previously played Karvanista in Flux. Kudos on managing to get him back. It was probably cheaper and easier to do it anyway because of coronavirus restrictions. By the way, he’s only credited as “Chief Sea Devil” in this episode - the name Marsissus apparently comes from IMDb or Radio Times (but then in the latter article, Ying Wai is credited as “Ying Was”, the state of journalism in current year I swear to God).

Ying Ki wanted to kill Madam Ching and avenge his father because he stated that Madam Ching killed him when we clearly saw that it was the Sea Devil who killed his father. Yes, Madam Ching was the one who released the Sea Devil and therefore, indirectly caused Ying Wai’s death, but that’s us Chinese people for you; blaming the people who indirectly cause the death of our loved ones even though there were probably other circumstances to it. 我個家人都因為你而被害死啊!

The last time the Sea Devils were featured was in 1984′s Warriors of the Deep. That story also featured their sister species the Silurians, who would be reintroduced to the revived series in Series 5′s The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood twelve years earlier. Come to think of it, this is the only classic series enemy to be reintroduced in the Chibnall era (if you don’t count the Eternals, that is). Anyway, the Hua Shen appears to be the revived series’ counterpart of the Myrka, a monster that was notable for contributing to the ridiculousness of Warriors of the Deep, shall we say. On a side note, I adapted that story in my personal project for my Eleventh Doctor-expy in 2014, meaning that I “reintroduced” the Sea Devils to my canon exactly thirty years after their original appearance. Anyway, let’s move on.

Unless I missed something, this is the first time that the Doctor opens the doors of the TARDIS while underwater in a manner similar to when the doors are opened while in space. In this case, the oxygen bubble around the TARDIS is reinforced with an aquashield. In my personal project, when the TARDIS goes into Salacia (fr. Sea Princesses), the Doctor doesn’t need an oxygen bubble or an aquashield because the Salacians have equipment to create a signal that will allow humans to breathe underwater and also allow sea creatures to swim and breathe normally on land.

This “special” is just under 50 minutes long, which is enough to constitute a normal episode of Doctor Who, given how nobody says “Happy Easter!” in this Easter Special. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ten extra minutes got moved to the Centenary Special, though given how it was promised to be “feature-length”, if it ends up only being 70 minutes long I’m going to be disappointed.

Hiatusbreaker Update 3

I have no plans on doing another hiatusbreaker update post this year because we only have this and the Centenary Special left. Also, I’m too busy these days to analyse every Doctor Who-related article that seems interesting to me, plus it’s not like I end up covering every article I save anyway. In the lead-up to every new special or series, I’ve noticed that the news cycle begins talking about Doctor Who to hype it up, aided by all the social media pages that repost things, and in the end, I just can’t keep up with everything. As such, here is the third hiatusbreaker update.

So yeah, now that his role in producing the series is all but over, Chris Chibnall said that he’s done with Doctor Who and that we shouldn’t expect him to return. Yeah, that’s what Russell T Davies said in 2018 and now look what’s happened. On the other hand, Steven Moffat did also say as much, but given that NoelZone’s rumour from 2020 did mention Moffat along with RTD, I probably wouldn’t rule it out for the next 5-10 years. Chibnall also said that he would have left after Series 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic if he and Jodie Whittaker hadn’t planned on staying on for Series 13, which would have made The Timeless Children an even bigger spit in the face to the fandom.

Chibnall has also stated that he expects RTD to ignore the changes he made to the series, because who could forget a massive canon-destroying retcon like the Timeless Child? To be honest, ignoring it can only do so much because if RTD wants to retcon the Timeless Child, he needs to explicitly retcon it by firmly establishing that William Hartnell always was and always will be the First Doctor and maybe also saying that the Timeless Child was just some random kid the Time Lords experimented on with NO connection to the Doctor whatsoever. But I wouldn’t bet on it personally because RTD seems to be more subtle with things like this, though if we see the montage from The Timeless Children being reused as stock footage in another episode, then we’ll know that it’s real.

In slightly unrelated news, the BBC has had its funding frozen for the next two years with the licence fee system to be abolished in 2027. Honestly, to that I say good riddance. The ABC in Australia runs off government funding while PBS in the US runs off both government funding and public contributions. For years they’ve never needed to chase up people for not paying their licence fee, particularly if they’re elderly or they just managed to find a roundabout way of watching television without exactly using the television to watch it. Also, from what I’ve been hearing, the BBC’s efforts at diversity and representation look more like tokenisation of minorities for the sake of diversity and representation and not hiring based on merit. Doctor Who probably isn’t the only show that has had this problem and I doubt that the Timeless Child storyline alone was the main factor in this decision, but regardless I say good riddance.

Apparently, while speaking at Gallifrey One in February this year, Matt Strevens stated that the production crew didn’t know that there would be another series of Doctor Who and that they were only told of RTD’s return the day before the announcement on 24 September 2021. I don’t know why it took the BBC so long to find a new showrunner and while I don’t doubt that the coronavirus pandemic played a part in the delay, I still believe that they sought out RTD because of the backlash that The Timeless Children got and they waited that long to tell the production team because they weren’t happy with them for some reason, leading to rumours that the series would be cancelled. It’s just a theory, but it’s good that we’re getting RTD back regardless, otherwise I’d be finding myself sharing Doctor in Distress unironically as a response to this era. Oh what the heck, let’s get it over with.

Also, Matt Strevens told Doctor Who Magazine that Flux was a gamble given the coronavirus pandemic and that the plan was always “to do something a bit different in the third season”. Yay, I suppose?

And finally, don’t quote me on this but I think I saw somewhere that the Centenary Special will just end on the Thirteenth Doctor’s regeneration and not feature the Fourteenth Doctor. The main reason I say this is because the announcement of RTD’s return seemed very last minute, being announced over three weeks before filming on the Centenary Special concluded on 13 October 2021 (and remember, the production didn’t know about RTD’s return until the day before the announcement). At the time of writing, no new Doctor has been announced, meaning that they were either cast in absolute secrecy or RTD’s plans for the 60th Anniversary didn’t involve casting a new Doctor (for the time being at least). However, this article states that Jodie Whittaker’s replacement “is expected to be revealed in the coming weeks”, so it’s likely that they were cast in absolute secrecy.

Adding on to that last point is the possibility that the plan for the second RTD era is a reboot detached from the series so far, starting the series on a clean slate. This can be cited from a 4chan rumour that Noel of The TARDIS Zone retweeted a few days before this episode aired. According to that rumour, the show was going to be cancelled until this was pitched and that RTD was willing to do it. If that ends up being reported by the media, then I suppose that The Timeless Children did more damage than we thought and all the fans defending it will have egg on their faces.

Summary and verdict

Unsurprisingly, given how this episode was co-written, this was another one of the better episodes in this series so far, next to Village of the Angels. Surprisingly, Ella Road is the first to be credited as writer next to Chris Chibnall, which seems to indicate that Chibnall wasn’t as involved in the writing of the story as much compared to Village of the Angels.

Nonetheless, this was a pretty great episode. They didn’t feel the need to double down on the Timeless Child again (the Flux wasn’t mentioned as well for that matter), the Sea Devils got a great return and nobody’s death was unnecessary. After all the negativity and disappointment that came with Flux and Eve of the Daleks, I feel like this episode is good enough to deserve this score.

Rating: 8/10 Series 13 cumulative total (with Eve of the Daleks): 3/70 (4%) Series 13 cumulative total (with Legend of the Sea Devils): 11/80 (14%)

Centenary Special preview

Ladies and gentlemen, we have nearly reached the end. At the end of this episode, a teaser for the Centenary Special, Jodie Whittaker’s final episode on Doctor Who, was shown. Although no indication of a title or release date was given, we got a sneak peek of what to expect; Daleks, Cybermen, the Lone Cyberman (Ashad), the Master, Kate Stewart, Vinder, and even Tegan Jovanka and Ace, who were introduced as the companions of the Fourth/Fifth and Seventh Doctors.

I must say, I don’t recognise Janet Fielding as Tegan, particularly in the scene where she and Ace are shooting machine guns at an enemy (presumably), given how Tegan left the Fifth Doctor because the violence of her adventures made it stop being fun. It has been nearly forty years, but I guess we’ll see how that gets addressed in the Centenary Special, which, knowing Chibnall, is pretty unlikely. By the way, talk about desperate attempts at nostalgia baiting...

Given how Bradley Walsh was also seen during the filming of the Centenary Special, Graham wasn’t seen in the trailer. I swear, if Graham doesn’t end up in the Centenary Special, or heck, even Jo Martin as Ruth...

In the epilogue for my Series 13 (Flux) reviews, I said that I hoped to finally get around to doing Doctor Who 10 for 10, which is me stating 10 things about the revived series up to Series 10, between now and the Centenary Special. Right now, I’m currently occupied with writing Kamen Rider Zi-O for my personal project and doing the Dynasty Warriors Weapon Moveset Power Rankings - I’ve dedicated a whole day to writing this review just so I could get it done the same day it became available on ABC iView. I was going to post Doctor Who 10 for 10 concurrently with the Power Rankings, but then I slowly realised that I work better when I focus on one thing at a time, so they’re going to be posted separately from each other.

Here’s my projection for what’s going to happen. The BBC’s Centenary is on Tuesday 18 October, but knowing the Chibnall era, it’s probably going to be on either 16 or 23 October, both days being Sundays. Since there are no public holidays during those weeks, the review definitely won’t be out the same day it becomes available on ABC iView (Monday), but I’ll reserve the week after it airs for the review to come out. Given this, the latest I can start posting Doctor Who 10 for 10 will be the start of August. As for the Power Rankings, there will be 12 instalments plus a prologue and epilogue, making for a total of 14 instalments. The plan for it is to post 2 instalments per week, which means that the start of June will be the latest that I can start posting the Power Rankings without having it overlap. Kamen Rider Zi-O will be finished when I finish it and speaking of which, I dread my schedule for Kisekae Insights right now, because at this rate, it’ll probably end up going into 2023. I guess that’s what I get for having high expectations of myself while working a full-time job.

Anyway, that’s more than enough rambling and ranting from me. Feel free to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr to see more content from me, otherwise I’ll see you all in about six months (hopefully) when I review the BBC Centenary Special and Jodie Whittaker’s final episode on Doctor Who, the title of which is yet to be revealed at the time of writing.

[spooderboyandtincan]

Do you have Spooder bby and Tindad fanfiction recs? Maybe that don't have any hospitals please,,,? I just see way too many and can't read them-

of course, i’d love to! i’ll rec:

Turn My Day from Good To Great by @superherotiger 

When Tony invited Peter to the tower for 'official internship training' out of the blue one day, the teen had to admit he was a little suspicious. Tony was a strange person. A creature of habit and somehow unpredictable all at once, a paradox that would forever throw Peter for a loop, he was sure. Whatever Tony had planned for Thursday, Peter had the feeling he wasn’t getting out of it no matter how hard he fought it. And so, with a lazy shrug, he figured he might as well settle in for the ride.

But then why were there so many children running around Stark Industries? And why did everyone keep looking at him with these soft eyes whenever he stood beside Tony? What on earth did Tony plan to put him through today?...AKA Tony brings Peter to 'Take your kids to work day'! Only problem is, he hasn't told Peter that just yet...

(Gift to Malya for the Friendly Neighbourhood Exchange!)

Of War and Starlight  by @superherotiger

No matter where in the universe you stood, no matter what species you reigned from, no matter how hard you fought the laws of nature, there were some things in the world that were inevitable. Life. Death. Love. Hatred. Destruction. Creation… But above all the others, only one force made every soul in the universe cower.

War.

It was never satisfied. Never pleased. There were no winners in war…

Except, of course, for the King of War, who the other Celestials simply named Stark.

But when the King of War senses a strange lifeform at the edge of his kingdom one day, he approaches the bright presence fully expecting to be the one to snuff it out of the galaxy. What he doesn’t expect to find is a baby drifting in the midst of space, wrapped up in a blanket of comet’s tail and shimmering like a star against the void they lay abandoned in.

And above all things, the King renowned for violence and destruction certainly never expected to find that this small, innocent baby was in fact no ordinary child, but a Celestial just like him...

~~~

(Celestial Irondad AU)

Tea for Tony by @joyful-soul-collector

Tony gets sick (but insists he isn't) and it's up to Peter to help him out

Misser Star’ by @joyful-soul-collector

“Woah there Sea Legs,” Tony said, catching him under the arms and setting him up straight. “Wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

“The sea is in my legs,” Peter said, clinging tight to Tony’s arm as he wobbled slightly. “What if my legs… were in the sea?”

“Oh wow--this is going to be fun.”

OR

Peter gets his wisdom teeth taken out, and is a very silly lad

Blanket Forts and Midnight Stories by @joyful-soul-collector

Tony and Peter spend the day building a blanket fort and watching movies!

(Rated Teen for swearing)

and there are so many others that i’d love to rec! (i have a terrible memory and there are so many other fics out there that i just love i just forgot about!)

[wannabe-fic-writer]

Natasha Romanoff x Reader : Escape

Summary: The Red Room haunts you, from the moment you stepped foot inside to long after you’ve left. Truth is, you don’t think there is any escaping it.

Warnings: 18+ Violence, Depression, Mentions of Death, Smut

Chapter 15

******

Silence settles over the building. Aside from the pained breaths escaping Bruce’s lips no one makes a sound.

After the stones had been set in the gauntlet, and there was a brief discrepancy over who would snap, Bruce decided to do it. Despite it being painful, he’d still managed to do it. Now you all wait for some sign of it having worked.

You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

It’s the faintest sound but you recognize it, birds chirping. Scott walks over to the window. 

Natasha’s hand squeezes yours when a trill ring sounds. All eyes snap to the plastic device ringing on a nearby table.

Moving like a snail, Clint inches towards his cell phone. Tears spring into his eyes immediately and he scoops it up.

“Honey? Honey?” 

A smile breaks across you face. Natasha throws herself into your arms kissing your lips repeatedly. 

“Guys! I think it worked.” Scott calls.

But the joy is short lived. For you before anyone else.

Rushing wind. You listen closer. An aircraft of some sort? It gets louder.

You panic and quickly press the Black Widow symbol on your wife’s belt, just barely watching the black nanotech cover her body.

A weight presses on to your left arm. Pain bursts through your ribs. Water drips on your forehead.

When your eyes snap open there’s nothing but darkness, minus the sparking of electricity coming from your wrist. Cursing, you tap the band and almost jump when the nanotech suddenly spreads from the bands and over your body.

The dark toned suit covers you and gives you the additional strength to un-wedge your arm from the rubble.

You roll your shoulders, adjusting to the additional armor.

Tony was right, an iron suit would come in handy.

Suddenly you remember.

“Tasha!” You exclaim into your comms.“ Natasha answer me! Is anyone with Natasha?”

Assist finally boots up and you frantically search for Natasha’s vitals through the A.I.

“Tasha, baby, please tell me you’re okay.” 

Under different circumstances you wouldn’t have wanted everyone on the comms to hear your panic and distress. But this is your wife, you don’t give a single damn who hears if it means making sure she’s okay.

Just as your blasting through another wall of rubble, you hear the static in your ear, followed by her voice.

“Y/N, I’m-” she breaks up,“ I’m okay.”

“Where are you?” You ask, eyes searching the opening you stumble into.

Assist finally displays her vitals. Her heart rate is a little high but you expect nothing less. On a whim, as you hadn’t designed it for this, you ask Assist to find vitals on the baby. 

It’s highly possible it won’t work. 

So you’re breathing a sigh of relief when Assist displays the babies heart beat. They’re still alive and until an actual check up can be made that’s enough.

“I don’t know, but I’m with Clint.” Natasha answers after a minute.

Hearing that calms you. At least a little.

Still, you won’t truly settle until you see her, until you have her in your arms.

The three of you aren’t the only ones trapped. Eventually you hear Rhodey’s distress call, he’s under here somewhere in danger of drowning. 

You move as quickly as possible, searching for wherever Rhodey is. He’s with Rocket and Bruce. As you search, you catch bits and pieces of Tony, Steve, and Thor’s voices. 

A broken statement from Thor, of killing someone, comes through and you’re filled with dread. 

Thanos. 

It has to be. But how?

Everything that’s happening confuses the hell out of you. It’s clear that Tony, Steve, and Thor are fighting Thanos. Rhodey, Rocket, and Bruce are taking on water but Scott says he’s there. You’ve yet to hear from Clint or Natasha again, sans some unidentifiable grunting. 

You know you’ve reached Rhodey’s location when you step into knee deep water. 

Not wasting a second, you go under the water. It’s easy to find Rhodey and Rocket, they’re holding their breaths but struggling to get free. Swimming over, you lift the bits of rubble that have Rhodey pinned down before grabbing him and Rocket and bringing them to the small space you’d come from.

You dive back under in search of Bruce. 

Whatever is happening above is making the rubble down here fall faster. 

Finally you reach him. Despite the suit it’s still difficult to get the large man to the surface. But you manage to.

“Tha-thank you.” Bruce speaks through water filled coughs and deep breaths.

Simply nodding, you survey your surroundings. Assist lets you know that there’s a thick layer of debris above you. Too large a shift will result in your inevitable demise. 

“Guys we’re trapped down here. There’s too much rubble above us for me to break through.” You speak into the comms.

More static hits your ears and you know you’re too far under to get the signal to anyone above.

Just as you’re about to give up, a rapidly growing Ant-Man emerges from under the water. He scoops you all into his hand and bursts through the wreckage of the compound. 

As you rise, a big blue and red metal capsule flies over. It breaks apart before forming around Rhodey’s body. A suit.

Looking down you take in the many light circled portals. Familiar faces stand outside of them, the people you’d fought beside in Wakanda five years ago. Others you’ve never met. 

Scott lowers you to the ground and you jump out of his hand. A glance to your side reveals your wife, clad in her own black iron suit, and her best friend. 

War cries sound behind you. 

“AVENGERS!”

Everyone turns to face Thanos and his large army. You quickly produce two standard pistols. 

“Assemble!”

When you fight this time it’s harder than the last. Determination to beat Thanos drives each move you make. Every time you take down one of the many aliens, you feel as if you’re getting stronger.

The first time Thanos came you were solely motivated by protecting the universe. Now though, now you fight for your family, you fight for your wife and unborn child. You fight for the future that is so close you could taste it.

A groan falls from your lips at how many of these creatures there are. Ones you remember from Wakanda and new ones as well. 

Managing to clear the enemies in your immediate area, you pause to take a breather.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting tired lyubov moya.”

Natasha stops beside you, the mask of her suit disappearing to reveal her face. Apart from some dirt she looks fine.

“We both know I have stamina for days baby.” You retort cockily, also revealing your face.

Before you can see the flush of her cheeks, her mask reforms. 

“You two should really learn how to read a room.” Sam’s input in your conversation makes you laugh.

A smirk clear on your face, you shrug, speaking a noncommittal sorry into the comms before resuming the fight.

The fighting seems to last hours with no clear view of who’s to win. It all shifts though when Clint asks Steve what to do with the gauntlet.

Steve is unsure at first. The original plan was to return them after the snap but the bombing destroyed the portal. Scott is quick to remind you all of his van.

Except it’s in the middle of the sea of Thanos’ army. So everyone begins to work together to get the gauntlet to the van.

It literally becomes a game of hot potato. The gauntlet is passed through multiple sets of hands. Even getting from the King’s hands to yours to Peter’s.

Faintly through the comms you hear the gruff shout of the mad titan, but you have no clue what he said. It becomes clear though when his ships start to fire relentlessly.

Being completely out in the open, you scramble to find cover. Only for your wife to appear at you side. She throws her arm up, the shield from her suit covering the top of you both.

No, you hadn’t put the shield interface in your suit. You hadn’t had the time.

The blasts do more damage to Thanos’ army than it does to your side. He’s thinned his army by an enormous amount but doesn’t let up firing. That is until it suddenly stops. 

Everyone looks on as the ships aim to the sky.

A literal ball of fire shoots through the clouds. Crashing through the biggest ship and completely disabling it.

The second you recognize it as Carol you smile wide. Not just at seeing your friend but also at the obvious shift in the battle. It finally seems as though you have a chance.

Now to get those stones to the portal.

Both you and Natasha head toward where Carol landed, arriving to see Peter Parker handing her the gauntlet. 

“I don't know how you're gonna get it through all that.” The kid states, looking from the advancing wave of enemies to Carol. 

Wanda lands right behind the space traveling woman,“ don't worry-”

“She's not alone.” Your wife finishes.

Wanda smiles over at Natasha. Every woman apart of the battle assumes a spot around Carol, readying their weapons.

“Is it just me, or do you ladies feel insanely powerful right about now?” You ask, smiling approvingly at the female power surrounding you.

Pepper chuckles and Carol agrees.

From there each of you kick as much ass as possible to clear the way for Carol.

Natasha, Valkyrie, Wanda, and Pepper handle covering the air. They take down the giant flying creatures while also shooting at enemies on the ground. 

Despite trying to stick close to Carol, you end up getting caught in an onslaught of ape like aliens and the creatures from Wakanda. 

It takes a minute but you are able to take them all out. Chest heaving, your eyes snap over the field, lingering on the battles being had, and focusing on the most important part of everything.

Carol speeds through ships and enemies toward the van. From your position you see Thanos charging at her, only to be stopped by Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey. 

He stumbles back, but doesn’t lose focus of Carol and the gauntlet. You watch as he throws his weapon toward the van and you blast it with a repulsor beam that is milliseconds from missing but hits it’s target.

The sword is knocked off course, flying in the opposite direction as Carol gets the gauntlet to the van.

Pure euphoria spreads through your chest as she hands the gauntlet off to Scott before he and Hope vanish into the quantum realm.

Thanos rages, concentration switching from you to Carol, essentially locking on to you, the reason he’s failed.

“Uh, angry titan, angry titan!” You exclaim into the comms, shooting a repulsor beam at the giant, pistols forgotten all together.

It knocks him back, but only a little. You look around for a possible plan of action, only to stop short when the problem is resolved.

A lightening covered axe sails towards you, cleanly slicing through the neck of the titan, stopping inches from your form, and then returning to the hands of the god.

Beheaded, the titan’s body falls to the ground. The so called children of Thanos have long since been dealt with, leaving the few seemingly mindless creatures behind. But they’re quickly being dealt with.

Still you hold your breath, eyes falling to the ugly brown van stuck in rubble.

The quantum tunnel still pulses with light and you watch it closely. Only to mentally fist pump when Scott and Hope reappear in front of it, empty gauntlet in hand.

With the mad titan dealt with and the stones returned, the threat to the universe vanishes. Everyone deals with the remaining aliens until the field is littered with their bodies and rubble from destroyed ships.

Yet you don’t breathe easy. Instead you look all over the field, panning over superheroes and warriors, familiar faces meet your eyes but not the one your looking for.

Next you search the ground. Maybe she’s just unconscious or underneath a bit of rubble. But nothing.

Dread floods your system, thoughts whip through your head as you process that she’s nowhere to be seen. She can’t possibly be gone. You’d done everything you could to ensure you didn’t lose her.

What could’ve possibly gotten through the suit? How had you managed to screw that up?

Tony and Pepper, in each other’s embrace, look over to you. Their concerned gazes grabs Steve’s attention who looks at you as well. The lack of your wife’s presence beside you has them searching the field as well.

Your vision starts to blur, panic blinding you to whatever they start to say.

You quite literally start to crumble in on yourself, until you feel the soft hands on each side of your face, a familiar warmth accompanying them, but you struggle to focus on her.

“Breathe lyubov moya.” Her sultry voice slips into your ears and soothes your mind.

She strokes your cheeks with her thumbs, coaxing you into security.

With her whisper of “I’m okay” you’re finally breathing properly. Blinking back unshed tears, you pull her into your embrace. Your suits clink together but you couldn’t care less.

Instinct has her face resting in the crook of your neck, warm breath fighting the sudden chilly wind. You kiss her neck, just above the retracted metal of her iron suit.

You remain in her embrace for a moment longer, needing the assurance and grounding. After pulling away, you can’t help but smile at the sight of everyone that you’d watched disappear five years ago, plus the additional faces of the people you’d yet to meet.

A nonverbal agreement is made to reconvene to celebrate at a later time, when things have settled, and you all aren’t standing in a crater moments from flooding.

Hand in hand with Natasha, you exit the hole in the ground. 

“Please tell me you’re taking me home.” 

Getting a good look at your wife, you see the adrenaline slipping away and revealing her exhaustion. She’s still incredibly gorgeous behind the thing layer of dirt on her face and minor cuts.

How she managed to get cuts on her face through the mask is unbeknownst to you, but you’re determined to make sure she’s taken care of.

“Hospital first, home second.”

She gives a tired sigh, but agrees nonetheless.

Knowing they may not have anywhere to go, you offer the keys to your lake house to Steve, telling him that they are free to use the place to get clean and rest up.

You don’t leave with Natasha until after she’s said a couple ‘goodbye’s and ‘see you later’s.

******

Taglist: @thelastavenger-3000 @aaron-despair @messuhp@izalesbean @bvb-bk @username23345 @sighsam@confusinggemini612 @natasha-danvers @rileigh519@higherfurther-romanova  @dynnealberto

[thejollyroger-writer]

Where Your Heart Will Fly on Wings - 1/2

Part One: A Ship, A Map, and A Secret

A Neverland arc (season 3A) rewrite where the gang doesn't meet Captain Hook until they get to Neverland to rescue Henry. Most of the end of s2 ("Second Star to the Right..." "... and Straight on' Till Morning," the last two episodes of the season) are the same: Greg and Tamara kidnap Henry. With Killian not present, I imagine that David succeeds in wrestling a bean away from Greg. They go to Rumple for help, and though he refused before, Blue's potion worked in giving Belle her memories back and he changes his mind. Somewhere in his shop, there is a ship in a bottle, and he removes this ship, docks it in the harbor, and leads Emma, Regina, Mary Margaret, and David through a portal that takes them to the waters surrounding Pan's island.

Also on AO3

Special thanks to @shireness-says my forever beta who only makes my life (and my stories) better, and all the ladies on discord who answered all the little questions I struggled with while writing this. Thanks, ladies. ( @kmomof4 @hollyethecurious @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @stahlop ) Written for @neverlandnewyear. Some other interested pals: @thisonesatellite @darkcolinodonorgasm @scientificapricot @carpedzem @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @regi-writes-stuff @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @winterbaby89 

The ship touches down on the waters, the portal disappearing from around them — but what they find is no better. Fat, cold rain drops pelt them from above, and below them, the waves begin to toss the dilapidated ship in every direction.

“Great job, Gold!” Regina yells, wrapping one of the ropes around her wrist. “You landed us right in the middle of a storm!” 

“Believe it or not, dearie, my powers do not include the ability to control the weather, and certainly not in this realm!” 

"We don't have time for this!" David chimes in, helping Mary Margaret keep her footing on the quickly-dampening deck. "If we're even going to make it onto the island, we have to get through this storm together!" 

"And how do you expect we do that?" Regina chides. "This ship is barely more than a pile of old boards, it's not going to survive this storm." 

"Then maybe we should work together to try to make it through this!" Mary Margaret yells. 

"What do you expect us to do?” 

"Well, we can start by trusting each other!" 

Regina scoffs. "You think trust is going to get us through this storm? Is your trust going to keep us from taking on water?" 

"No," Emma mumbles, looking down to her feet, and the water that she finds there makes her realize just how much trouble they're in. 

And that's when something rams into the side of the ship. And again. And again. 

"What the hell was that?" 

"Sharks?" 

"Afraid not," Rumple mumbles, trying to plant his feet on the slippery deck to keep control of the helm. 

Regina looks over the railing, conjuring a fireball in her hand. "Mermaids." 

"Mermaids?" Emma repeats. "They're real, too?" 

"Does that really surprise you anymore?" Regina asks. 

"We have to do something!" Mary Margaret yells over the wind. 

"I am not being capsized by a fish!" David sloshes across the deck to a small cannon, which he loads a length of chain into before firing it into the water.

Mary Margaret picks a large net up off the helm, tossing half of it to Emma. “Help me get this into the water!”

“What are you going to do, catch one of them?” Regina tosses a fireball towards the surface of the water — which, surprisingly, works, and a mermaids around them back off the ship. 

“Yes!" Mary Margaret stops for a moment to glance at Regina before tossing the net into the waves. "And ask her to help us.” 

“Mermaids aren’t going to help you, dearies!”

“Obviously you’re also not going to help us, either!” Regina crosses the deck and throws out another fireball, clearing the starboard side just as she did the port. “There.” She wipes her hands on her soaked slacks and smiles at the fact that the storm also seems to have left with the mermaids. “They’re gone.” 

“Not all of them!” Mary Margaret says, grunting as she and Emma struggle to pull their fishing net back onto the deck. “What about this one?” 

With a flick of Regina's hand, the creature is out of their net and sprawled on the boards of the deck, her hands bound in front of her and her shining tail flopping into the inches of water that have settled onto the boards of the deck. 

But her presence on the deck only causes an argument to break out between them, each offering their own way to deal with her — to ask for help, to kill her, to let her go. With every question they ask her, she offers them a vague but threatening answer, and the storm that Regina thought was over slowly begins to reform around them. Even after Regina turns her to wood with a whoosh of her magic, they continue to argue amongst themselves, the storm surging around them — all except Emma, who realizes the mermaid’s plan was to set them against each other to be destroyed by the storm. With no other option, she tries to get their attention, screaming across the small ship towards them, but nothing works — and she dives into the sea. 

Quickly followed by a piece of metal rigging, pulled off by the winds into the water behind her and making hard contact with her head, immediately knocking her unconscious.

Without a second thought, David moves to dive in behind her, but Mary Margaret’s hand tight around his arm stops him. “No! You could get pulled under, too!” 

“Not to worry!” A voice cuts through the rushing wind and water, another ship appearing out of the darkness of the storm. Within moments, it is close enough for the man to follow Emma into the water, a rope tied around his waist. 

For a few long, terrifying moments, nothing happens. The storm still surging around them makes it impossible for them to see into the water, and they can only hope that the mysterious man can save her before it's too late.

After what feels like forever, a head breaks the surface of the water, Emma's bright hair a strong contrast to the dark waves, and the other man follows. 

"Pull me up, Scarlett!" he calls, facing away from their small ship, and the man just visible on the deck of the nearby ship does as asked, pulling the man with Emma in tow. David wants to oppose, beg the man to bring Emma back to their ship, but just the feeling of Mary Margaret's hand on his arm keeps his mouth closed.

"Can you get us over there?" Mary Margaret asks, turning towards Rumplestiltskin. He rolls his eyes, but twirls his hand in front of him anyway, taking them all onto the other ship's deck in a wisp of smoke.

"Is she okay?" David asks as soon as he finds his footing, kneeling beside where Emma is laying on the deck — just as she spits out a mouthful of seawater and rolls onto her side. Mary Margaret drops to her knees on the deck beside her daughter, wrapping her arms around Emma's shoulders.

"Perhaps we should give the lass a moment? A bit of space?" the man who rescued her says, leaning against the bannister behind him, his arms crossed behind his back.

"Oh, come on !" Regina cuts him off, raising her hand towards the wave, moving ever-closer to their ship. "We don't have time for all this." 

"Alas, she's right. I'm afraid we'll have to save the pleasantries until after the dashing rescue," he says, striding to what can only be his rightful place behind the helm and leading them quickly away from the waves, away from the storm. David helps Emma to her feet and they all watch as their old ship crumbles beneath the waves, after which the storm around them seems to disappear at an alarming rate; within mere minutes, the sun shines down from a cloudless sky and the soft wind blows lightly on the sails.

The man locks the helm into place and holds his hand out in a welcoming gesture. "This seems a much more appropriate time for introductions. Welcome aboard the Jolly Roger. "

"Okay,” David says, crossing his arms across his chest. "Who are you?"

"Captain Jones," he says, mimicking David's position -- which only draws attention to his left arm, which is blunted just shy of the elbow, replaced with a shining, metal hook. "But most people have taken to calling me by my more colorful moniker—"

Rumple laughs, cutting him off mid-sentence. "You've really owned up to your ailment, haven't you, Captain Hook ?" he says, spitting the last two words between his teeth. 

The man turns around, noticing Rumple standing behind him for the first time. "Oh, now that's just my bloody luck, innit?" He pushes his dark, wet bangs off his forehead with his wrist and lets out a small laugh. "All I was expecting was a few damsels in distress," he says, turning towards Emma for a moment and waggling his eyebrows at her before returning his attention to Gold. "Yet it appears I've caught myself a crocodile." 

"Like, Captain Hook Captain Hook? Waxed mustache and perm and Peter Pan?" 

"Well, love, I must admit I'm uncertain about the first two, but I'm glad to hear that you know who we're going up against."

"Up against? I just want to save my son." 

"Why do you think they brought him here, dearies?" Rumple asks, flourishing his hands to conjure a whisp of purple smoke, revealing a new outfit of dark pants and a black, reptilian-scaled vest. "Pan is the one behind it all, I have no doubts about that. And he is a far more powerful foe than any of you are able to go up against." 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Regina bites back, but Rumple is gone in another wisp of smoke before the question even leaves her lips. 

"It appears that even after all these years, he is still as helpful as he's always been," Hook says, his jaw obviously tight with tension.

Emma's head is spinning. She's spent months trying to wrap her head around everything about Storybrooke and her life, around the idea of true love and fairy tales and everyone's stories intertwining — but this, running into handsome, one-handed pirates in Neverland that have a history with Gold, goes beyond all else.

"Wait, you know Mr. Gold?" Mary Margaret asks, voicing the question they all seem to be thinking.

"Aye, " he says, wrapping his hook around one of the spokes of the helm, where his attention is also focused. "though he was not known by that name. Before he became the Dark One as well, if the rumors are to be true."

For once, Regina seems interested in what he has to say." But he's been the Dark one for —"

"Lifetimes, aye," he says, cutting her off, but turning his eyes down to where she is standing on the lower deck.

No one knows how to respond to him, so the deck stays silent. For the first time, Emma looks around, taking in the small crew that stands around them. There are five that she can see, not including the captain: another tall, dark-haired man standing against the railing, arms crossed over his chest; a stout man with a red beard and an even redder hat; a fierce-looking woman with a mess of dark hair piled high on the top of her head, her dark orange tunic and black pants having seen better days; and two dark, brooding young men, no more than twenty, on the far end of the deck.

"What brings you all to Neverland?" the woman asks. Emma is not surprised that she is the one who tries to make conversation, though she vaguely remembers something about women being bad luck on ships. 

"They took my son," Emma and Regina say simultaneously, and none of the ship's crew are able to keep their immediate reactions off their face.

The dark haired man leaning against the railing behind David barks out a laugh, but when Regina turns her glare in his direction, he snaps his mouth shut.

"What could Pan want with your son?" Hook asks. 

"Does it matter?" Emma spits back. "We need to get him back."

Hook holds up his hands in a gesture of reluctant surrender. "Of course, of course, you're right." He turns to the man still leaning against the railing, who pushes off to his feet when he sees the look on the captain's face. "Prepare for a return to open waters, I would like to dock at Pirate's Cove before dinner time, Mister Scarlett."

Emma expects a salute, given the rest of the captain's countenance, but the man — Scarlett — just nods and walks away.

"Dinner?" Regina asks, her voice dripping with anger. "What part of ' we don't have time for this' don't you understand, pirate?" she spits.

"Can I ask you how many times you've visited this island, your Majesty?" he asks, the same fire in his voice.

She's taken aback for a moment, but answers nonetheless: "Never."

"That's what I thought. I, however, have been here for longer than any of you can even imagine, which gives me the kind of knowledge you could use on this type of quest. Are you really going to turn that down?"

To this, Regina has no response.

"Now, the beaches at Pirate's Cove will prove much more useful to your mission here, and by sailing around the island, it will rid you of the necessity of walking either through or around the Dark Jungle, which I can assure you is something you do not want to do. So, yes, we are going to chance the few hours it will take to sail around the island to hopefully cut days off of what it would have taken you on foot, and then we will be closer to Pan's camp and it will hopefully prove easier to find your boy."

This time, it's David who is angered by his response: " We ? What do you mean 'we'?"

Captain Hook practically rolls his eyes at this, which almost pulls a laugh out of Emma. “Do you expect to navigate the island yourselves?"

Emma intervenes, trying to calm the tension while also ensuring they stay focused on rescuing Henry: "He's right, David, we could use his assistance."

He winks at Emma. "I had a feeling I was going to like you." 

  Though she knows she should be resting, bunking with Regina, David, and Mary Margaret belowdecks, Emma instead finds herself drawn to the crew of the Jolly Roger , and spends the next few hours chatting quietly with them as the ship makes its way across the surprisingly quiet waters surrounding Neverland.

Especially the woman — Tiger Lily, Emma learns. Something about her keeps Emma interested in their whispered conversation, and it does not take her long to learn that, like her own, the woman's background is full of sadness and sacrifice.  She tells Emma how she sacrificed herself to try to stop someone from turning evil and spending the rest of her magic to get to this island after exiling herself; tells her about being found by Pan and working for him in return, only to learn how evil and twisted his ways are, stealing boys from their families and never allowing them to leave. (" And there's something deeper and darker behind it all, something that he only mutters about with his second in command, a Dark Magic that keeps the island alive — I believe with the sacrifice of the boys who decide they want to leave." ) And Captain Hook, saving her as she tried to escape Pan, though she knew it was impossible — or, well, improbable. 

"And I've been in his service ever since. He was working with Pan for a while, too, and able to leave this realm. He asked every time we docked somewhere if I wanted to leave, to live a better life, but I've enjoyed the time I've spent with him as my captain. I've never known a better man." 

"Oh, is that so, Lily?" the very man appears behind them, a smile covering his dark features — except his eyes, Emma realizes. His eyes are the brightest blue she has ever seen, the same color as the soft waves moving in the sunlight. 

"Now, come on, Captain," she laughs, and the way she sets her hand on the captain's arm sends an unwanted shiver down Emma's back. "You and I both know you're nothing if not a man of honor." 

"Yes, but you're not supposed to divulge that knowledge to our new guests just yet." 

"And why not?" Emma asks, knowing that her crossing her arms over her chest is a defense mechanism, but that only makes her pull them closer to her. 

He wags his eyebrows across his forehead, then winks at her once more. "Can't go around telling everyone that Captain Hook is a big softie. I have a reputation to uphold." 

Emma rolls her eyes and walks away, if only to save herself from any more unwanted shivers or repressed feelings. 

Their mission is to save Henry. Henry comes first and everything else has to wait.  

  "Well, what are we going to do once we're ashore?" David asks, hunched over the Neverland map spread across the desk in the Captain's cabin. 

"Pan's camp is only a short distance from the Cove, remember?" Mary Margaret adds, the focused planner and adventurer that Emma has only seen glimpses of. "We can sneak up on him and—"

"Nope," Hook says from where he has planted himself in the corner, one boot crossed over the other and his arms crossed over his chest. "There's no way to sneak up on Pan." 

Regina's eye roll is practically audible. "You keep saying that but offering no helpful advice." 

"And you keep saying that but not actually listening to what I have to say." 

"Hook is the one with the knowledge of the island, Regina," Emma reminds her. 

"And I'm the one with the knowledge of magic, maybe we should just give that a try!" 

"What are you suggesting?" Mary Margaret scoffs. " Poof ing yourself into the middle of a camp on a magic island you've never visited before?" 

"What do you suggest, Hook?" David asks, if only to keep Mary Margaret and Regina from fighting. It's obvious that the last thing he wants to do is take advice from a pirate, but even David realizes that they are left with very few other options. 

"There is no way to plan what is going to happen once we reach those shores. Everything we do, everywhere we go, Pan will know about it and will always be steps ahead of us." 

"How have you spent all this time in this realm and not learned even a few tricks that could help us?" 

"Most of my years here have been spent on this ship, provided with rations by the very demon himself. Before that, he and I had an agreement that made us more comrades than foes, and all the time I spent on the island was for his own doing." 

"Oh, that's helpful," Regina mutters, leaving the cabin without another word. 

"So, let me see if I understand this," Emma asks, knowing that neither David nor Mary Margaret will be able to be civil about this. "Your plan… is to not have a plan at all?" 

Hook nods. "There is no other option in Neverland. It's Pan's game there, and he makes all the rules. Best we can do is be ready for whatever he throws at us." 

"I don't like this," Mary Margaret mumbles, and David wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to press a kiss against the top of her head. 

"It's what we have to do to get Henry back, and that's all that matters," he says, a princely tone of finality in his voice, and the room falls silent.

  "Can I ask you something, love?" Hook asks, his eyes leaving the horizon for just a moment to look at her (again, though she has only noticed a few of them) where she is sitting against the railing on the starboard side of the ship. 

"I'm not your love," she bites, looking up from one of Hook's maps that she's borrowed from his quarters. 

"I've had my share of run-ins with the Crocodile, and I've even crossed paths with the Evil Queen once or twice. The other two, that's Snow White, the princess, right? And her husband?" 

"And how do you know that?" 

He pauses, trying to chose his words carefully. He knows that if he says the wrong thing, he'll lose the small amount of ground he's made with them trusting him. "I've been… through an agreement with Pan, I can leave these waters every once in a while, as long as I fulfill some of the things he asks of me." 

"You work with him," she says, but her face fails to give away any of what is going through her head. 

"In a way, aye. But I've been to the Enchanted Forest, and I know what happened to it. How is it that you got here?" 

"Well, there was a curse." 

"Aye." 

"And I — I broke the curse." 

" You broke the curse?" 

"Yeah, I — I'm the Savior , apparently, because I — I'm their daughter." 

"Snow White's?" He's not nearly taken aback enough. "And the Prince." 

She nods. So does he. Somehow he is wrapping his head around all of this much easier than she did. Maybe once you're alive for a few lifetimes, things like this are a lot less surprising than they were for Emma. 

"How is it that you and the Evil Queen share the same son?" 

Emma can't help but laugh. Where does she even start? "No offense, Hook, but it's a very long story that we don't really have time for." 

"Aye, that I can understand." He lifts his hand off the helm to scratch his beard before moving his hand behind his ear and to the base of his neck. "But do you — you know — live together?" 

"No, no, it's more like… joint custody." 

"Come again?" 

Right. "Joint custody," she says again, even though the centuries-old pirate knows nothing about the ins and outs of child custody. "We, uh… share him, I guess. Take turns." 

"And what about the boy's father? Is he a part of this taking turns ?" 

His question turns her blood to ice. Neal. Where does she even begin? For a moment, she's angry — at Neal, at herself. "No." How dare he. How dare Hook to even ask about Neal, he has no right — 

He has no idea. It was an innocent enough question, there's no way he knew the still-gaping wound that a question about Neal would inflame. 

"He's — dead." 

"Apologies, love, I didn't mean to stir up any unwanted emotions." 

"Stop calling me that." 

"I'm afraid it's more of a habit than anything." 

She has no response to this and turns her attention back towards the map.

    "Bloody hell," Hook mumbles, though Emma and Smee, his first mate, are the only ones close enough to hear him. At first, they don't see whatever the problem may be, but as the ship continues to approach the shore, Emma sees him leaning against one of the trees just on the other side of the shore.

Pan. Emma can sense it somehow — her motherly instincts, maybe, or something like that, but she can feel that the man on the shore is Peter Pan. 

No. No, not man. Boy , with a pudgy teenaged face and dark hair that falls down to his eyebrows. 

"That's him," Emma says. She means for it to be a question, but it does not come out that way.

"Aye." She turns to him just in time to watch the edge of his jaw tick as he grinds his back teeth together. "That's the demon Pan." 

For a moment, Emma is unsure how she feels about all this. Hook's plan to take them around the island has already taken hours of their precious time, and all under the guise to keep them from Pan — only to have him waiting for them right where Hook brought them to shore. What if Hook had been playing with them the whole time? Giving Pan time to plan ahead while he wasted time sailing them all around the island?

But then she looks at him again, sees the rage obvious on his face, and she almost feels bad for questioning his motive even though she has every right to. 

"Bested us again," he mutters, but then straightens his back and looks out over the ship. "Prepare for docking!"

Pan watches, unmoving, from the shore as Hook and his crew lead the Jolly Roger to the dock — and, still unmoving, as they come ashore. Finally, he speaks. "Thank you for bringing our special guests ashore, Captain," the boy leers. "Good to see you're still good for something."

"You know I can't pass up the opportunity to give assistance to a damsel in distress, nonetheless three. And Dave." There's a joking tone in his voice, but it's not present anywhere else in his body. 

"Ah, yes," Pan says, pushing himself away from the tree. "Welcome, your highnesses. I hope you find Neverland as welcoming as you have spent all those years hoping your Enchanted Forest would be. And you, Regina, you and I have more in common than you may want to believe." 

Regina rolls her eyes, conjuring a fireball in her left hand. "Oh, please," she spits. "Let's do this the easy way: give me my son back and I won't burn your whole island down." 

Pan just laughs. "No, I’m afraid that's not going to happen. You're on my island now, and you're going to play by my rules." 

"Do you think this is a game?" 

"Oh, your majesty , that's exactly what this is. So, Emma, I'm going to give you a map." He pulls a folded piece of parchment out from under his tunic. "A map that will lead you straight to your son." 

"If this is some kind of trap," she starts, taking a step towards him with her hand on the sword on her hip. 

But Pan's soft laugh stops her. "I may not be the most well-behaved boy on the island, but I always keep my promises. The path to finding Henry is on this parchment."

"Why are you giving it to me?"

He chuckles again. "See, it's not about finding Henry. It's about how you find him. And, Emma," he says, placing his hand on her wrist as she reaches out to take the parchment. "You're the only one who can."

She takes it from him, then unfolds it — only to find it blank, save a pattern around the outside. "It's blank." 

"You sound surprised," Regina bites, but no one pays attention to her. All eyes are on Pan. 

"You'll only be able to read that map when you stop denying who you really are." 

Emma looks down at the map once more. Everyone around her looks at it. 

And when they look up, Pan is gone. 

  As they follow Hook's lead through the jungle, Emma's focus is on the map. She thinks of all she can: her background, everything she's learned since coming to Storybrooke. She even attempts to admit that she's the savior during a short break, but nothing works. 

Regina, angry and impatient and nothing if not motivated, takes it from her, insisting on magic, despite the arguments from the rest of the group. It works — to a point, leading them not to Pan's camp, but to an ambush by a group of Lost Boys. It does not last long, the heroes quickly overpowering the boys, but David gets nicked with a Dreamshade-tipped arrow — a secret he tries to keep from the rest of the camp.  

Hook sees it, though, the one in the group that really knows how deadly the poison can be, but he, too, keeps it to himself. 

He leads them away from the ambush, towards a cliff that looks out over most of the island. From there, he insists, they can plan a route through the jungle and maybe even scout out Pan's camp. But by the time they get there, the sun has set, and all they can see is shadow. "Now that you've seen what Pan can do in just a few short hours, we need our strength. I suggest we make camp."

Regina, unsurprisingly, is against his idea. "You want to sleep while my son is out there suffering?"

"If you want to live long enough to save the boy, yes," he argues, and no one has a comeback for this. Regina is first to walk away, huffing knowing that Hook is right. Hook is second, closely followed by David, who barks an order about finding firewood, leaving Emma and Mary Margaret looking out over the jungle.

They are silent for a moment, Emma obviously worrying about something, but Mary Margaret has learned not to push. And after a few moments, Emma does say what's on her mind:

"Regina's right, Henry's out there somewhere."

But Mary Margaret is ready with her positive comeback. "And Hook is right. We have to survive if we're going to get him."

"I know. I just hope we're not too late."

Mary Margaret leaves her there, knowing that sometimes, her daughter just needs her space to think. She stands there as the others build their camp, her attention turned once more towards the blank parchment — the map , removed from her pocket.

Though he does not mean to, Hook startles her with his approach. "I opted for first watch so you and the others could get your rest." 

Emma just shakes her head, starting towards the campfire, needing the monotony of the crackling fire to slow her mind down. "There's no way I can sleep here without solving this map."

"Then it appears you and I will be not sleeping together, love," he jokes, waggling his eyebrows at her with a smirk on his face.

Emma just rolls her eyes. "Listen, Hook. I am here to save my son. The very last thing I'm going to do is get distracted." 

His smirk is gone, not even a trace of a smile left on his features. "Of course, Swan. I meant no insult."

They sit in relative silence, the rest of them falling asleep quickly — or, at least, staying quiet. The sounds of the Jungle seem to grow louder in the darkness, almost deafening. But Emma's attention is still on the map.

"Nothing I can think of is working," she groans, dropping the map to the ground beneath her feet.

"None of those are what Pan is looking for. What have you been avoiding? What have you been hiding from, love?" 

She is already on edge, and his endearment only makes her angrier. "I am not your love, Hook. Why are you helping me, anyway?" 

He's been wondering the same, so he's quick to answer. "I've been searching for a glimmer of hope when it comes to defeating this demon for as long as I can remember. If finding your lad and ruining his plans takes his power from him, then helping you is the very least I can do." 

"But why? What did Pan ever do to you?" 

He's silent for a moment, trying to decide how much he wants to divulge to her, and he maks a quick decision. "It wasn't me personally," he lies. "But it's the principle of the thing. He preys on boys who think he's taking them to a better life, but all he's doing is taking them from their families. Growing up alone is the worst thing that could happen to a boy, and Pan thrives on separating families." 

"Sounds like something you know a lot about." She doesn't mean to be so forward, but once it's out, there's No taking it back.

"Pardon?" 

"Only someone who grew up alone would talk like that." 

Now it's his turn to get defensive. "And how would you know that? You're the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. What can a princess know about growing up alone?" 

She knows that there is no way for him to know otherwise, to know the truth about her childhood, but his assumptions about her still make her a little angry. "You have no idea what you're talking about," she grits, trying not to let her anger get the best of her. "My parents sent me through a portal when I was only a few hours old. I grew up alone , spent my whole life alone . I was an orphan, too, Hook. Or, at least, I grew up believing I was." 

"I'm — I'm sorry, Swan, I shouldn't have assumed—" 

"No, you shouldn't have." 

"You're right though, love. I, too, spent much of my life alone. My mum was sick and passed when I was a boy, and my father took my brother and I on a ship to a far-off land. Until one day, we woke up and he was gone. He left us there to settle a debt and we never saw him again." 

Silence settles between them for a moment, and then he smiles. "It seems you and I have quite a lot in common, then, love," he chides, but Emma barely hears him. She's too distracted by the parchment in her hand, which has revealed a map at some point in their conversation. 

"Hook—" she tries, but he cuts her off.

"Apologies, I know, you're not my love ." 

"No, Hook, that's not it." 

Finally he looks at her, trying to find what she is talking about on her face, following her eyes down to the parchment in her hands. But there is something else that has changed, too, something about her . He can't quite put his finger on it, but he thinks he maybe sees a glimmer of hope in her eyes. 

[peter-pan-on-neverland]

Nightmare’s: Part 2

request: I want from the fluffy prompt list 10 ,11,12 with Peter Pan where reader has a nightmare and Pan comforts her

Pairings: Pan x reader

Warnings: I make a shitty rhyme in the 2nd paragraph :/

Prompts: fluffy 10 - “Shhh... go back to sleep”

Surprisingly I didn’t wake up screaming, or in a cold sweat, this time I was woken up by the sunlight peeking it’s head through the thin curtains. Quickly, I bolted up, remembering last nights event.

My eyes danced around the strangely familiar room I was in, but they boy in green was nowhere to be seen. The make shift bed which lay at the foot on my....his bed, was vacated. A little note was left in his place.

Steadily I rose to my feet, grasping the small bit of paper in-between my fingers.

Y/n I have something I need to do today, I wont see you until the bonfire tonight. I hope you had a better nights sleep. -P.P

I smiled to myself, he sure did know how to fool people. I had always tried to keep my distance from him, I had seen first hand how cruel and vicious he could be with the boys, so why was he being so nice to me?

It’s probably just because he doesn’t want me to wake up screaming in the middle of the night again, making everyone jump out of their skin again,

I couldn’t tell if the version of him he showed around me was real or fake, maybe the cruel side to this boy was real and I was the one being tricked. After all this is Pan were on about here.

The rest of the day carried on as normal, except the blonde second in command was in charge of the large group full of rowdy teenage boys. I tried my hardest to get on with my day as normal, but the boys just couldn’t restrain themselves from asking questions. And the fact that they had seen Pan himself carry me in his arms all the way to his tree house didn’t help my case at all. 

“What happened last night?”

“Are you OK?”

“I saw Pan carry you to his tree house, is there something you want to tell us Y/n?”

“No way, Pan would never do that!”

“I saw it with my own eyes!”

“Is that true Y/n?”

I silently watched in awe as the boy squabbled among themselves, looking at me in search of answers. 

“Boys!” A British accent rang loud and clear, cutting through the thick air, “If you think there’s something going on between me and our resident lost girl then I’m sorry to say you’re mistaken. So please, get your porn somewhere else.”

There seemed to be a dark rain cloud hanging above the leaders head, following him where ever he went. He was clearly annoyed, but why?

We all watched in silence as he angrily stalked across the camp, before shutting himself away in his tree house, leaving us all dumbstruck and confused. What was going on with him? He had suddenly been acting nice towards me and now he’s angrily stomping around camp?

I shrugged the thought off, it was none of my business anyway.

That was the last time I saw him all day until the sun came down and the flames of the fire licked at the navy sky. The sound of the boys cheering filled the air while they danced around the bonfire as if they were performing some kind of Satanic ritual. 

I wasn’t one for dancing, I sat on a log a little ways away from the boys. My eyes were fixated on the flames of the fire as they danced and twirled around each other. The reds and oranges swirled together, looking like they had been painted on a canvas. 

Usually this sight would calm me, but tonight it felt different. There was an unsettling feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t seem to shake for the life of me and I had a daunting feeling I knew what was causing it. Like it was written on the pages of a chilling story book those glowing, red eyes seemed to peer at me through the flames of the fire. 

My breath imminently hitched in my throat. I could feel my pules quicken along with my heart rate as blood was pumped through my veins at a dangerously fast pace. His menacing laugh seemed to echo in my mind, haunting me, following me. He was right all along, I could never run, I could never hide, he will always find me no matter where I roamed.

“Y/n,” A low voice sounded beside me, making me jump slightly, I visibly relaxed when I saw it was only Felix, “Someone’s jumpy.”

His sharp features were illuminated by the glowing embers of the fire, lighting up his face in a calming blossom.

“yeah, I guess.” I chuckled slightly, trying to act as normal as possible.

“You want to talk about what’s bothering you?” He asked, I wasn’t going to bother to hide the shock of my face, of cores he knew something was up. He’s Felix, he knows just as much as Pan does.

“Nothings bothering me,” I jumped in, desperately wanting him off my trail, besides it wasn’t like he could help me, like he said he will gets what’s his.

“I know that look in your eyes,” The lost boy spoke slowly, “Every boy who’s come to this island has all had that look, you’re scared. Does it have anything to do with last night?”

I could feel my muscles contract and tense with awkwardness at his words.

“It’s nothing, OK?” I tried to reassure him.

“Whatever you say.” With that the normally motionless boy flashed me a smile before walking off. 

My eyes went back to gazing at the flames, this day was getting weirder and weirder. First Pan was acting weird and now Felix is going round like his world had just been introduced to rainbow cakes and unicorn stickers? I wanted things to go back to normal, to how they were before, and fast.

The faint sound of a flute shifted me from my thoughts. The soft notes floated out of Pan’s pipes, spreading through the atmosphere for everyone to hear.

The boys seemed to be hypnotized by it, falling under the spell of the song while they banged their sticks to the rhythm.

My eyes gazed beyond the flames of the roaring fire to see Pan perched on a log, Pan flute held to his lips as he played the soft tune. Our eyes locked and I flashed him a quick, small smile only to be met with a smirk of the king of Neverland.

He stopped playing, leaving the boys to dance to the music in their head for a while before he came and sat down next to me.

“How did you sleep?” He asked, for a guy who was always so mean, acting nice was becoming second nature to him.

“Better, I’m sorry I woke everyone up.” I said, my voice sounding small and weak conspired to his.

“Don’t apologize,” If you want you can always stay another night, just to make sure you’re going to be OK.”

What’s the catch? Is this all kind of some plan he has?

“Sure.” I say, smiling over at him, “I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.”

The leader scoffed at my remark, “What kind of host would I be if I let a lady sleep on the floor?” He left before I could argue back.

I couldn’t help but crack a smile as he walked away.

“Oh, love!” He yelled back, “Feel free to go to bed whenever you want, I might be up for a while.”

Silently, I gave him a nod, this wasn’t really my scene anyways, sleep was basically my escape at the minute.

Jumping to my feet I made my way over to Pan’s tree house, I could feel the eyes of the lost boys fixate on my as I climbed the ladder. Whispers and gasps could be hear among the crowd, but in fear of getting their fingers chopped off they kept their mouths shut.

I entered his candle lit room, it was simple but pretty at the same time. The first time I was in here I only payed attention to the basic things, now I could clearly see the things that clung to the wooden walls. Various sea shells, some kind of dust, leaves, feathers and millions upon millions of books to read, some factual and some full of adventure and mystery, I never would’ve though Pan was a reader.

Slipping off my big, brown, knee high boots before flopping onto the make shift bed on the floor, there was no way I could stay in his bed again, no matter how comfy it was.

Laying my head on the soft pillow, I wrapped the thin blanket around my small body before closing my eyes, letting peaceful bliss take over my body. 

The moon was so bright it almost blinded me, popping out against the jet black backdrop it sat upon. I was surrounded by dark, tall trees that towered over me like a sky scraper, I was enclosed by nature, not being able to escape.

“I told you I would be back.” That dark voice I knew oh so well spoke from among the trees.

Panic flowed through my veins as I felt those long nails scratch the back of my neck, clawing at my back. Hot drops of blood rolled down my back, I couldn’t move. I was stuck in place no being able to do anything about the pain I was feeling.

“Are you willing to give me what I want now?” He was so close to me I could feel his hot breath tickle my ear, “I will visit you every night until I get what’s mine, so you might as well give it to me.”

“No!” I screamed, “I will never hand it over, I wont come with you, I wont be apart of this little game I didn’t even sign up for!”

His slender fingers wrapped themselves around my neck as my chest quickly rose and fell out of pure fear. I wanted to wake up, I wanted Pan to be here like he was last night.

“Come one, It’ll be over soon, just let me have it.” His slimy tongue licked a long stripe from my neck all the way up to my cheek.

“You can’t have it! You’re never going to have it! Just leave me alone.” I pleaded as salty tear rolled down my face.

The monstrous creature tried to reason with me, tried to persuade me and lure me into temptation, but I kept screaming and screaming over the top of him.

“No! No! No! No! No! No!” I screamed over and over again.

“No!” I bellowed as I bolted up in...Pan’s bed? But I thought I fell asleep on the floor?

I could hear a faint groan sounding from the side of me, my eyes slid to the left only to find a very tired looking boy, with messy brown hair. I couldn’t help but freeze in place, was I really shearing a bed with the leader? I could feel my cheeks heat up at the thought.

“What’s wrong, love?” He groggily asked after letting out a yawn.

“W....I thought I fell asleep on the floor?” I said, tiredly rubbing my eyes.

He let out a low chuckle in response, “You are a stubborn one aren’t you?” He sat up, leaning on his elbows.

It was only then I realized he was shirtless, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Was this his weird way of trying to seduce me?

We sat there in awkward silence for a minute, I couldn’t stop my eyes from wondering over the parts of his exposed skin, it set off something inside. I could feel my entire face grow hot, there was no way in hell I was about to let this guy soak my panties.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asked, genuinely seeming to care.

I shook my head no, forcing my eyes to stay glued to his blankets instead of him. Although anything to keep my mind off that nightmare was very welcomed in my books, even if it was the king of Neverland fu-

“If it helps, I can tell you one of my nightmares?” He spoke up, stopping me from finishing that though which I was silently grateful for.

“...O-Okay.” I said.

“Lie down,” He said, I did as I was ordered, getting comfy on his bed which could easily be mistaken for a cloud, “The worst dream I’ve ever had was about losing everyone, Felix, The boys, you. I was here all alone and I was dying. I had no one to talk to, no one who could help me. I was forced to wonder around on my own, hopelessly calling out for everyone, wondering where they had all gone.”

It was strange to hear Pan of all people open up and talk about the things he was scared of.

“I would hate that too,” I told him, making him feel like he had someone to relate to.

“Shhhhhh...” He whispered, “Go back to sleep, love.”

I nodded before rolling over, my back was facing him as I scooted other to the other side of the bed, being as far away from Pan as I possibly could before letting my eyes close.

I woke up before the sun did, watching the soft shades of pink, orange and purple blended together, but that wasn’t what alarmed me. 

I looked down only to see Pan’s arm slung over my waist, his faint breath tickled my ear as my back pressed against his bare chest. I felt oddly comfortable in this position, but I knew how awkward this situation would be if Pan woke up.

Carefully, I removed his arms from around me before crawling out of bed. I slipped my boots on after I left a note by his side.

Pan, Gone for a walk, be back in five ~Y/n

Silently, I slipped out the door, making my way towards the stream, I needed to cool off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 2 is up, I hope you guys like it! Look at me actually sticking to deadlines hehehe, I’ll try and get the next part up by Tuesday! Xxxx

[reading-while-queer]

Hi, I was wondering if you could recommend any LGBT fantasy that isn’t based in a highschool? Thanks

Hi! Thanks for sending in this question, I would be glad to!

Books I recommend: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (Review) Ensemble cast of criminals pull off a heist in a magical original setting, during the rise of a fascist regime. YA.

With Roses in Their Hair by Ennis Bashe (Review) (Read Here) Lesbian retelling of Tam Lin in a fantasy/dystopian setting. Adult short story.

Peter Darling by Austin Chant (Review) A trans and gay reimagining of Peter Pan. Adult.

Quoria by Calhoun Crimin (Read Here) An early 20th century-inspired fantasy setting starring a con man-turned-detective who gets in way over his head solving magical crimes. YA appropriate.

Amberlough Dossier by Lara Elena Donnelly (Review) Speculative rather than strictly fantasy (it takes place in a non-magical original 30s-inspired setting), the series is about spies and revolutionaries facing the rise of fascism. Adult.

Heartwood ed. Joamette Gil (Review) A collection of non-binary comics from various authors, all with fae inspiration. YA appropriate.

Huntress by Malinda Lo (Review) Two girls must go on a journey to the city of the fairy queen to restore the balance of nature. YA.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (Review) A fantasy comic about a shapeshifter, and the villainous Lord Blackheart she works for. YA appropriate.

Taproot by Keezy Young (Review) A gardener who can see ghosts gets involved with something bigger when his ghost friends find themselves transported to a creepy forest on another plane of existence. YA appropriate.

Books I’m excited about (but haven’t read): Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (Goodreads) It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again. Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew… YA. (Blurb from Goodreads)

Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden (Goodreads) By night, Razia Khan is one of the most sought-after dancing girls in the desert city of Bikampur. Later in the night, she is its most elusive thief. When Razia finds herself dancing for the maharaja's son, the handsome prince Arjun, she knows that she's playing with fire. As a trans girl, known as a hijra, she can never be a wife to any man, and as the former crown prince of the Sultanate of Nizam, she guards her identity carefully, lest her father's assassins find her. But in the dragon-riding prince of Bikampur, Razia sees not just a ticket out of the gutter, but a kindred spirit. (Quoted from NoveList)

Once & Future by Amy Rose Capetta (Goodreads) When Ari crash-lands on Old Earth and pulls a magic sword from its ancient resting place, she is revealed to be the newest reincarnation of King Arthur. Then she meets Merlin, who has aged backward over the centuries into a teenager, and together they must break the curse that keeps Arthur coming back. YA. (Quoted from Goodreads)

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst (Goodreads) Betrothed since childhood to the prince of Mynaria, Princess Dennaleia has always known what her future holds. Her marriage will seal the alliance between Mynaria and her homeland, protecting her people from other hostile lands. But Denna has a secret. She possesses an Affinity for fire—a dangerous gift for the future queen of a kingdom where magic is forbidden. YA. (Quoted from Goodreads)

Pet by Akweke Emezi (Goodreads) In a near-future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people, a creature emerges from a painting seventeen-year-old Jam's mother created, a hunter from another world seeking a real-life monster. YA. (quoted from NoveList)

Spellhacker by M.K. England (Goodreads) Magic was a natural resource until a corporation used a magical earthquake as an excuse to make magic a controlled substance - and an outrageously expensive one. Diz and her friends run an illegal magic-siphoning operation, and are about to pull their last heist. YA. (Paraphrased from Goodreads)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (Goodreads) A mix of fantasy and African history and myth. Tracker is sent to track down a boy who disappeared three years ago, and must break his rule of working alone, joined by a shapeshifting man/leopard, and other strange characters. Adult. (paraphrased from Goodreads).

The City We Became by N. K. Jemison (Goodreads) An evil stirs in the underbelly of NYC, threatening to destroy the city and her 6 avatars. Adult. (paraphrased from NoveList)

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (Goodreads) Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. Adult. (Quoted from Goodreads)

Ash by Malinda Lo (Goodreads) In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves. YA. (Quoted from NoveList)

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan (Goodreads) Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honor they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead of paper, she's made of fire. YA. (Quoted from Goodreads)

Shark by Kevaughn Ryder (Goodreads) Silver Shark, youngest of the royal family of Near Shallows, has been having strange dreams for many nights. He barely remembers them, except for a handsome man with a beautiful smile.On his first trip to the surface, Shark is horrified to discover that the man is human; a creature feared and hated by those of his underwater kingdom. In his confusion, Shark commits unspeakable treachery: he saves this human from drowning. Age range unknown. (Quoted from Ryderworlds.wordpress.com)

Everfair by Nisi Shawl (Goodreads) Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated. Adult. (Blurb from Goodreads).

The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith (Goodreads) After a terrible political coup usurps their noble house, Hawke and Grayson flee to stay alive and assume new identities, Hanna and Grayce. Desperation and chance lead them to the Communion of Blue, an order of magical women who spin the threads of reality to their will. Middle Grade. (Quoted from Goodreads)

The Deep by Rivers Solomon (Goodreads) Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Adult. (Quoted from Goodreads)

Crier's War by Nina Varela (Goodreads) After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will. YA. (Quoted from Goodreads)

A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson (Goodreads) After meeting a handsome Dalucan soldier, Aqib bmg Sadiqi, a fourth cousin to the royal family and son of the Master of Beasts, struggles with his family's expectations and the love he feels for Lucrio. Adult. (Blurb from NoveList).

[peterpan-ouat-imagines]

More than Human: Part four

“Look I get you hate this place which makes sense because your a girl, but it is almost midnight and I don’t want to deal with keeping track of you with it being this dark,” he orders in his course, low voice as I continue talking to him.

“Whatever, as long as I get out of this horrible place I will be fine,” I huff, “Is there a tent I can use to sleep in?” I ask somewhat politely.

“No, you get to sleep on the ground because that is what your kind deserves, especially for intruding this land,” he barks.

I scoff, “I get that the female sex offends you, but you can at least refer to me as the noun I am!” Inside my body starts baking in a way I have not felt in a long time.

He does not answer and walks off. I try to go to sleep but the cold hard bumpy ground makes it impossible.  I start feeling a little sad knowing that I’ll be away from Pan for the rest of my life which makes no sense.  I decide to use this sleepless night and have a conversation with myself to figure shit out.

Why do I feel so happy when I am with Pan and he isn’t bothering me?  Even when he does bother me there is still a small part of me that helps me relax.  Why can I not get his gorgeous green eyes and devious smile out of my head?  I should not be attracted to him.  In reality we would be bad for each other. 

These kind of thoughts take over my brain until I fall asleep.

I feel my side being poked with something hard and blunt, “Eh give me a minute,” I groan, slowly opening my eyes and stretching out my back that hurts from last night and you can hear it crack which sounds disturbing.

“You get a second, everyone wants you to go away, is that right?” I hear Felix say.

I slowly get up, “Alright let’s get out of here,” I follow after him on to the canoe.

“Come on girl get in,” he spits.

“This entire time you haven’t asked for my name once, why?” I ask curious.

“Because you don’t matter, you are just something pathetic and irrelevant added to the island by mistake,” he snaps.

I start getting furious as my body starts feeling something I’ve felt before, “Look, I get it, you hate me.  But the feeling is the same towards you.  At least I am the one who is mature enough not to act like an asshole unlike everyone else!”

“Stop being so dramatic, Is it your time of the month?  Well sucks to be you because we are not going to provide for that,” he chuckles and it gets on my last nerve.

I feel my body begin reverting to something familiar and dive into the water.  My body becomes scaly as it elongates to eight feet. My scales thicken as I become extremely large and my scales turn the darkest shade of black there is and I finally feel myself revert to the creature I truly am.  I slither under the dark water, my body swiveling, as you can see the silhouette of my gorgeous body that is noticeable from far away. I come up and make a loud croaking noise, going into what feels like attack mode, speeding towards Felix.  I whip my tale around and water splatters all on him and skull rock and over on neverland, soaking everything around me and I see the terror on his face with my dark blue eyes staring deep into him.

Rather than choosing to devour him as a snack like every other serpent would I can’t bring myself to use that amount of aggression. I whip my body around and begin swimming away.  I start feeling euphoric.  Finally, I am who and what I should be.  I’m not being stuck in a trap on an island by an idiotic boy.  I start swimming and swimming just feeling over the moon.

I see a pirate ship and since I just transformed I naively decide maybe I can finally do what sea serpents are supposed to.  Like I’ve tried many times before just like my family does. 

I swim low in the water and look up until I am finally at the correct spot.  I do not think for a second and speed out of the water and wrap my heavy strong body around it, feeling the wood and sail on my scales.  I hold myself on the ship but can’t bring myself to squeeze the vessel and crush it and everyone in it.  The only thing my kind is meant to do and when I finally wrap myself in the correct position, I just can’t do it, I can’t destroy them.  Just like always.

I feel my body burn as cannons are being shot at me and I release the boat groaning loudly in pain. I start swimming away but I feel the blasts more.  Their aim being better than my speed.  This is impossible, my brother or father usually save me.  I have never had to go through and experience fearing my life like this! How do I save myself?

I continue croaking my ugly cry and I get caught in nets as they start to capture me and trap me in place and I swivel and move but I just can’t get out and I panic and start to groan of pain from everything that is happening.

I hear a blurry *whish* sound and my body is no longer cramped and I’m able to stretch out and move.  I don’t get why nothing is holding me down anymore or why no one is trying to hurt me.  I swim up and look above waters and see Pan floating. He winks at me and flies off.

Now that I think I understand how to turn myself back human I swim ashore and rest.  And rest. And rest. Apparently I was wrong with that theory.

I get very impatient and irritated that nothing is happening because I want to be human again so I can talk to Pan and thank him, and talk to Baelfire to make things right and apologize.  I decide to go swim to find my family since this human land walking chapter of my life is clearly over, but pieces start to form and I remember what happened before I washed up here.

My father was telling me how wasteful I was because unlike my three brothers I can’t kill sailors and destroy their ships.  How they are constantly saving me because I’m too afraid and too soft. He shouted at me to go away and flexed the end of his tail and made himself look bigger than he really is.  I was distraught and furious by being spoken to that way which I normally feel around them but this time it was different. I remember how I went for a swim that I never came back from. Except this time during it I got to the point where I started thinking about what I wanted, which I’ve never done before and I was trying to understand my wants and needs which slowly started to calm me down and that is when it all went black.

Now that doesn’t matter.  Family doesn’t matter.  I find a dark spot deep in the water away from shore and sleep during night being left with my depressing thoughts but that just keeps playing over and over again, keeping me awake.

I start to think of Baelfire and Pan and how they make me feel which starts to soothe and calm me.

As I become calmer I start to get tiny and have body parts and skin instead of scales.  I start choking on my breath and swim upward as fast as I can.  Oh my god I know the secret to changing forms.  I find a place to rest and the next morning the first thing I do is go to find Baelfire.

Being as discreet as possible I go and find him but he isn’t in his cave, around any of the beaches, or captured by Pan (thank god). Finally I find him in the forest with a coconut, “Bae!” I exclaim.

“Y/n?  What are you doing here? I don’t care what you have to say. I saw you the other day in the water, How are you-” he questions before I cut him off.

“It’s a long story, I’ll share with you later.  Bae I’m sorry for how I treated you.  You were only trying to help me and I yelled and was rude and you didn’t deserve that,” I apologize sincerely.

He stares at me deadpan for 10 seconds, “Okay, I forgive you.  Now you gotta tell me what happened!”

I explain everything to him and we sit around and laugh and talk for a while.

“This was fun, and I will be back, but I have someone else I need to see,” I start walking away and try to find Pan.

I go to the camp and peek around but only some boys are crowded around the fire as I hear Felix make everything that happened between us an understatement, sounding stupid as if he’s some cool guy.

I go to checkout his cave and sneak in there and I see he is busy with some person who I don’t bother getting a good look at. I go walk around and see this tall rocky mountain that I’ve found interesting.  I put one foot on a big rock I can step on and put my other foot on one higher up and pull my body.  It clicks in my mind that I could probably walk up it in that way to the top which I do.  It is quite strenuous because I have never done that kind of exercise before.  

I sit up there and admire the view as I catch my breath.  I hear a trickling noise and see that there's a waterfall behind bushes with weird thorns that are oozing some dark liquid.  I decide to brace the pain in order to drink and walk towards it.  I move my body sideways and start to scoot through.

I feel something jerk me back, “Ah!” I yelp

“What the hell do you think you are doing? Those are dreamshade bushes!” Pan exclaims as I am in shock by how worried he is.

“Peter Pan, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re worried about me?!” I smirk.

He coughs and makes his voice lower and cooler, “I’m not worried about you it’s just dream shade is extremely dangerous,” I roll my eyes, “What are you doing back here anyway? I thought you were a... a” he looks almost afraid to say it.

I cross my arms and tense up, “A sea serpent? Yeah that’s what I wanted to say,” I begin quietly, “To begin with thank you for saving my life the other day. Secondly, I need you to know how I changed back,” he stares at me waiting to go on and I put my arms down and take a deep breath, “I learned that all my life I’ve been so angry, at my family and how they treat me, at how I suck at killing people, which is like the only thing we are meant to do, and so much else,” I take a second deep breath and relax my body, ‘but when I’m here, especially around you, I’m calm. I learned that my calamity is what drives my human form and my anger and sadness drives who I really am,” I take a step closer to him, “you keep my anger at bay and make me calm,” I look at him waiting for an answer.

He takes a step back and pushes me away, “I am what keeps you calm? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? What do you expect me to say? I care about you or something equally as foolish?” He laughs.

“Actually I do! Believe it or not you have seemed to taken quite a liking to me. The only thing that needs to happen is for you to realize that you feel for me too!” I state yelling.

He slowly stops laughing but he is still amused, “Y/n, I have heard a lot of foolish things in my life, but this is the most,” he starts to get more serious, “Now go away,”

“What?” I ask confused.

“I banish you from Neverland.  I do not know how you really change forms, but magical creatures of your kind are not wanted on this island,” he gestures to the cliff for me to climb down on.

My heart drops as he tells me the last thing I want to hear and I slowly and fearfully make my way down.  Yet my heart is not dropping because of my fear of heights.  It drops because someone I really care about for a reason I don’t know sent me away.  I slowly go over to the water and try to figure out how to change.

After thinking and thinking, trying to get myself over the top furious, the only thing I can think of is Pan.  The sadness overwhelms me which turns into anger, but not enough. I can’t get myself to become who I am... and honestly, I’m not sure if that is who I want to be anymore.

I give up on using land methods and emotional methods and I straight up swim deep in the waters and let myself sink and see if that does anything.  I let myself gag with my mouth barely able to hold air, thinking that is helping the transformation but I...

[narniagiftexchange]

                                      THE WINTER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

                                   for @kadmeread  by  @tarragonthedragon .

LACKING.

Edmund had always considered himself more similar to Susan than to Peter or Lucy. This had been the cause of some contention between the two of them– from Susan, who even at seven had liked to think herself much more grown up and sensible than her baby sister or her two brothers, and from Edmund, who hadn’t realised until he was at least twelve that Susan thought herself to be the only one with any brains at all almost as often as he did. It was, perhaps unfairly on either, a relief to both of them when the siblings, in Narnia or in England, found themselves split into older-and-younger, or brothers-and-sisters, since it meant that even if they didn’t happen to be correct on this particular occasion, then at least the other wasn’t there to be correct instead. Peter had been a wise king, and even when they were young again usually explained why he didn’t agree with them. And he was both of their older brother, which always made it sting a little less when he made the decisions. And Lucy, while rather more prone to gleeful I-told-you-so’s than any of her siblings, was eminently tolerable once they had been old enough once over to realise that she wouldn’t have been half as delighted to be right if she didn’t consider them both rather intelligent to begin with. Susan and Edmund left alone together, even well into middle age, were almost guaranteed to solve any problem that relied on wits or cleverness, but only once one or both of them had been in tears. Lucy and Peter, by contrast, had been the best of friends since she was just a baby, climbing his trousers and running to him in tears whenever Edmund, competitive even at five, had knocked his fellow toddler over.

Standing on the prow of the Dawn Treader, looking out at the empty water, Edmund wished Peter were here to talk to Lucy, to say just the right things and make it look like it was easy. Or Susan, who would probably just know somehow what had been bothering her since the Duffers’ island, and he could be angry at her for acting like it was obvious, instead of furious with himself for not knowing. But Lucy wouldn’t be standing here staring at the skyline if it was him who was hurt. Lucy, who always seemed certain of what she was going to do next, even if it wasn’t the cleverest or kindest thing, because it was almost always the best she could do. Lucy was the one who pushed, and let the others hold her back or be dragged along as they wished, because they hadn’t let her push on ahead since they had first come through the wardrobe together.

But it was just Edmund. Or, well, Edmund and Eustace, who was a loss less of an ass but still as much of a know-it-all as ever, and who was perched on a beam with Reepicheep again anyway. It would be like talking to Susan, except if Susan really was as stupid as he sometimes acted like she was in uncharitable moments.

This was probably an uncharitable moment. It would be even more uncharitable to assume that Peter and Susan and Lucy didn’t have those. Even if it did always seem unfairly easy for them to be kind, and nice, and good. Edmund only ever seemed to have a decent handle on good.

“You’re moping,” Eustace said, from right next to him. Edmund did not jump.

“I’m watching the horizon,” he replied, which had the benefit of being factually true if not much else.

“Is it because of whatever’s bothering Lucy?” Eustace asked. Clearly he had learnt a little more about being a decent chap, though Edmund rather sourly considered that if he had learnt any more he might not have come over to bother him.

Uncharitable again. This, frankly, was why Lucy didn’t usually let him alone for more than a day or so. If he forgot how annoying his siblings were, he started to remember how much more annoying he found everyone else.

“That’s a yes, then,” Eustace carried on. The area around them was suspiciously free of sailors, because Reepicheep was a little traitor. “Well, it’s not like I know anything about younger sisters–”

“No, you don’t.”

“But when I was brooding, you sent Reepicheep to hit me with a sword, and if you don’t talk to her I’m going to just assume the same tactic will work again.”

“You can’t–” Edmund broke off, scowling at Eustace’s gleefully smug face. “The difference is, I actually like Lucy when she’s herself.”

“I probably deserve that,” Eustace admitted. “But I promised Caspian I wouldn’t be an ass if he let me do this talk, so really I should be commended for the work I’m putting in.”

If Peter had said that, Edmund would have been certain it was a joke. With this new, rather less annoying and slightly less incompetent version of his cousin, it was very much a guess either way. He was spared having to respond by a shout of land, and rushed to his station.

Of course, because this was a magical voyage in Narnia, the shout of land led them to a lost lord and an island of thick mist and even before they saw anything Edmund could hear her, hear it, hear his nightmares looming down on them.

He was not much good at comforting his siblings. He was becoming worryingly good at resisting the call of the White Witch.

Lucy, because of course, was already making quick work of the horrors coming down upon them whilst he was transfixed. Lucy, who got angry instead of scared, leaped down to the deck in front of her brother with a kind of barely-human snarl the second Jadis was vanished, arrows flying and dagger flashing, not missing a step when he reclaimed himself enough to join the battle. And of course the sea serpent didn’t scare her, or if it did it didn’t stop her firing an arrow clean into the creature’s head.

He had never had a head for archery. Fighting was a lot easier, in Edmund’s book, when you had a sword and ‘at something’ was a good enough direction to swing it in a pinch. Clearly Eustace agreed with him, since he had managed to break one on scales like stone. Maybe it was a particular madness of the Pevensie sisters, because Susan didn’t get scared either, always channelling it into doing something useful.

Lucy sat down next to him behind a lashed-together row of barrels. “You’re thinking too much.”

“You don’t think enough,” he said, on fourteen-to-fifty years of fraternal instinct more than conscious thought.

“Well one of us has to be impulsive. You’d never get anything done if we sat around waiting for you three to decide what to do next.”

“Usually, we’re sitting around arguing about whose turn it is to hold onto you by the collar, actually.”

She huffed indignantly through her nose. “It’s not like I’m ever leading you wrong. I remember quite a lot of I-told-you-sos, when we were here the first time. And the second time, for that matter.”

“Not this time?”

“This time, we’ve got Eustace instead of Peter and Susan. There’s no fun in it with you two, you just mope and he ignores me.”

“I don’t mope,” he protested, biting back the urge to cry hypocrisy. “I ponder.”

“Maybe when you were a grown-up you’re pondered. You’re a teenager again, and you’ve been moping an awful lot.”

Edmund laughed. “He’s getting a lot better,” he said, making the most of the lack of uncharitable urges while it lasted. This turned out to be only a few seconds. “Aunt Alberta will be furious.”

Lucy hummed in agreement, and then paused, flopping over onto him. “I still wish we had them instead. I was just thinking, before– before the island. I was thinking that Peter would know exactly how to handle Eustace. And how to talk to him now that he’s not such a terror. And Eustace would probably listen to him.”

“People do,” he agreed. For a moment they made equally crinkled-nose expressions of frustration in silence, both thinking of being a king and queen grown. “I was thinking that if Susan were here, she’d have an answer for everything.”

Lucy went quiet. “I’ve been having rather uncharitable thoughts about Susan lately,” she admitted after some time.

Edmund bit back his initial response, which would not have been helpful. Lucy didn’t sound like she expected him to have much of a good response, but it wasn’t like anyone else on the ship would have a better one. “Would it shock you at all to know that I have uncharitable thoughts about Susan almost every time I talk to her? Sometimes even just hearing Caspian mention her is enough to set me off.”

“Edmund!”

“Just yesterday we went past a rock that looked a bit like her and I thought, she’d be awfully smug if I told her I thought that.”

“I saw that rock!” Lucy exclaimed before she could catch herself, and then bit down on her grin. “And anyway, I don’t mean..”

When it seemed like she wasn’t going to find the right words, Edmund sighed. “I always rather imagine that Susan has as many uncharitable thoughts about me as I do about her. It’s the ones about Peter I feel guilty about.”

“He can be quite annoying when he thinks he’s right.”

“He always thinks he’s right. And in charge. Somehow it’s less irritating when you do it.”

“I do not!” She pushed herself off his shoulder, glaring. “You always think you’re right, too!”

“So does Susan,” he commented. “And Eustace. Clearly there’s an awful lot of pride in the blood on that side.”

“Maybe that’s what’s needed in Narnia. Noone here seems to think like that.”

“It can’t be too bad, then, can it?”

Lucy bit her lip again, looking all of nine. “Or we’re supposed to learn better.”

“We did learn better,” he pointed out. “At least, I did. Eustace has. And you grew up an awful lot, the first time.”

“We all did. But then…”

There was nothing to be said for being young again, but at least she looked pensive rather than upset.

“Come on,” Edmund said, pulling himself up. “I’m going to borrow you a sword. Eustace doesn’t look nearly as scared of you as he should be, after that shot. We’ll have a spar on the starboard deck.”

Lucy grinned, thwacking his arm as he pulled her after him, but didn’t argue.

[quilloftheclouds]

Four misfits of the Golden Age of Piracy have to settle their differences long enough to get back a stolen magical artifact---not so easy when His Majesty’s Royal Navy wants you dead, and when the shadows swimming under your ship want just the same…

One Siren’s Soul → a story of sailors, sea witches, sirens... and the absolute chaos when those three meet.

genre -- Historical Fantasy, LGBTQ+, YA pov -- First Person Limited, Multiple features -- LGBTQ+ themes, disabled/neurodivergent MCs, POC MCs, science-based magic system, ship logs/journal entries, and all sorts of pirate-y shenanigans~ content warnings -- Violence, mild body horror status -- Nearing the end of the first draft!

A vagabond sea witch, Dione’s been on the run for the past twenty years, unaging and alone, aside from the little dog now following her. Oh, him? His name’s Colin. He’s not really a dog. He’s a pirate that Dione cursed. The worst part? It was completely unintentional, and fixing it is far more of a challenge than either could imagine.

Particularly when the cure requires an ingredient from a creature that doesn’t exist, and even if it did, a creature that would much rather pick their bones from its teeth than give them what they need.

A little Spanish girl lives in the old cabin over the hill, a silver band about her ankle and an empty eye socket in her head. No one knows how she came to be there, who she is, or how she survives on her own. Celestine thinks that’s fair, considering she believes everyone else is a moron. It’s likely also helped by the fact that she has the ability to erase recent memories of her… “borrowing” escapades.

But a simple underestimation of a Navy sailor, the living legend Phoenix Solarin, leads to a bit more than she bargained for---an accident with a sleep charm, and next she knows, she awakens in an unfamiliar cabin. Except… this is a ship’s cabin.

And she’s afraid of water.

playlist -- Ship in a Bottle - Steffan Argus // The Sea - HAEVN // Coastline - Hollow Coves // Ready For The Storm - Déanta // Conquest Of The Sea - Peter Crowley // Black Sails - Christian Reindl // Shiver Me Timbers - Colossal Trailer Music // Literally Anything from the PotC soundtrack

Find links and tags under the cut!

WIP Page | General Tag | Excerpts | OC Intros/Playlists | Inspo Tag | Worldbuilding Tag

Celestine | Colin | Dione | Phoenix

OSS Taglist (lmk if you want to be added or removed!); @scottishhellhound @mvcreates @half-explored @waterfallwritings @runningonrain @bookish-actor @bookenders @mouwwie @onfablesandfictions @anaestheticdisaster @yearlyaquariace @elizabethsyson @your-local-imagination-station @imaghostwriter @orphicodysseywrites @esoteric-eclectic-eccentric @elisabethrosewrites @lookslikechill @fuyuuki513 @purpleshadows1989 @fiama-l-hernandez @keithislactoseintolerant @tenacious-scripturient @mackerelwrites @writingwitherebus @lady-redshield-writes @bloomseey-writes @livvywrites @planets-and-prose @dcdarrells @halfbloodlycan @penzag @sunlight-and-starskies @pen-in-hand @scribe-the-write-thing @leave-her-a-tome @royalbounties @ardawyn @klywrites @dogwrites @semblanche @tricksexual @writingnosefreak @lost----souls @penumbrics @dove-actually @kriss-the-writing-nerd @vhum @writinginslowmotion @wrenegade-writes @livingthelovelylife @wildswrites @kowlazovdi @weathershade @thewritinggodmother @ettawritesnstudies @belles-library

I was supposed to do this forever ago. Oh well! Have a wip introduction after it’s long been obsolete from all the stuff I’ve already posted up!

[slashingdisneypasta]

Can you do a headcanon where a disney villain get bitten by a werewolf and they experience their first transformation? The villains you can use are Clayton, Professor Ratigan (as a human), Sykes, Judge Claude Frollo, Gaston, and Captain hook. I wish you a lovely day.

Sure thing! Hope these are okay, I got a bit sleepy at the end. You have a wonderful day, too! ^^ 

~~~

Captain Hook:

·         Of all the beasts trying to get a bite of me, it had to be a WEREWOLF!? (By beasts, he refers the Tic Toc, the sea monster, Peter Pan, the lost boys, and all the Darlings)

·         Captain Hook is cursing is deliciousness right now.

·         It’s a whole thing when he gets bitten. He is in such panic, and its all Smee can do to get him to bed all wrapped up! Never mind getting the captain to sleep in this state.

·         He’s already traumatised from getting bitted by Tic Toc! The next couple of days, he’ll be shaking and extra easily frightened. Smee will be the only comforting part of his life.

·         When the full moon eventually comes, our Captain has been so anxious leading up that he didn’t eat. Which makes for a very, very hungry werewolf. Which is never good.

·         (The mermaids are about to learn that they should stay under water on the full moon for the foreseeable future. Especially seeing as Hook will not age and die any time soon)

·         The only good thing about this situation is that Peter is able to distract him (For fun, of course.) all night by dangling himself before the hungry eyes and then zipping off in the air again so Wolf!Hook has to make chase.

·         When Hook wakes up the next morning, he dry heaves. See, the uncontrollable hunger from when he was a werewolf (Since he didnt actually end up getting to eat anything because of Peter) transferred to his human form and he’s so hungry, and also so sick from fear and anxiety that he needs to vomit. The nausea is so terrible it literally leaves his stomach feeling empty but he’s too unwell to eat.

·         Eventually Smee makes him eat some porridge and he starts to calm down…

·         He decides his next transformation will not turn him into this nervous wreck. Not him. Not Captain James Hook.

Clayton:

·         Clayton is pissed when he gets bitten- more from the outrage that an animal hurt him instead of the other way around (I mean, with all of his experience in the field you would imagine he would be able to take care of himself sufficiently). So, he’s furious and wielding his machete (Or better yet a gun) instead of being worried about the wound that is gushing out blood from his arm (He would never let a predator near his middle. He’s too practised in defence - and more notably offense, - to let that happen).

·         Now, he doesn’t realise that what he came in contact with was a werewolf, of course. He just thought it was… I don’t know… just some kind of large, steroid implanted dog.

·         It gets away before he can shoot it. Now he’s pale from blood loss, hair a greasy mess, his muscles are weak and the wound probably has had dirt rubbed in it from the struggle of surviving against a werewolf.

·         So, for the time before his first transformation, he’s very sick and gangrene is creeping around his wound and down his arm. He’s vomiting, he’s got muscle weakness, and theirs a metallic taste stuck in his mouth all the time. A doctor sees to him and says that its expected that he would die from this, seeing as they’re in the middle of nowhere (On whatever expedition he’s on. He’s certainly nowhere near a proper hospital, not that they could have done much more to help then this field surgeon anyway. Although, they might have had anaesthetic) unless he lets them cut off his arm and cauterize it with a branding iron. Of course, he would not let that happen and continues on like a brave (Stupid) soldier.

·         By the time the full moon comes around, he’s already a disgusting, struggling mess. So when he’s tossing and turning in his cot that night- no one there really does anything. He’s just left to struggle.

·         Not that they could have done anything to make his first transformation any easier, or save themselves.

·         Of course, when the next day breaks, Clayton wakes up sprawled on the forest floor with a killer headache, and when he gets up and wonders who the hell carried him out of his tent last night, he finds that he feels… oddly better. Healthier. Pulling up his… torn?… shirt sleeve, he tries to assess his wolf bite... just to find that it isn’t there. Perfectly clear, unscarred flesh stretched over muscle sits there instead. 

·         He’s so confused. Was all that about the beast and his bite, and the nightmare afterwards, just a fever dream? Did he eat something bad out of the forest?  

·         … But then, he finds he still tastes metal on his tongue. A deep taste of iron that Clayton cannot deny is blood.

·         Then he looks around, and his heart plummets (Not because he feels remorse because 1. He doesn’t realise all this mess was him yet, and 2. Clayton? Remorse? Hahaha) to see the nearly unrecognisable bodies on the floor around him and the tents torn to shreds not half as bad.

·         He’s beyond confused, alone, and has a mess to clean up. But he does feel better then he did before the transformation, at least. 

Gaston:

·         Gaston is similar to Clayton. He can take the injury, but he is furious that an animal, a beast, was able to get the drop on him.

·         I think Gaston would have claimed this beast that bit him was a werewolf (Or something along those lines) even if it was just a fox or something. The shame! The shame, of Gaston getting beaten by an animal (Or anything or anyone)!

·         He goes ahead and tells the town that he beat 2 werewolves but the last one got him when his back was turned- and he was so strong that the powers of lycanthropy didn’t work on him! A lie, of course. Because, I mean, he did end up scaring off the wolf after he had been bitten, getting some good hits on the beast as well with his knife, but did he beat the wolf? I don’t think so. And there was only one werewolf. 

·         So when he does turn on the next full moon, he’s mortified and furious… and that transfers into uncontrolled rage in his wolf form.

·         The last thing he remembers when he awakes is the claw marks he left on the wall, through the wallpaper. With his own damn hands. Like a beast.

·         And when he does wake up to his room in disrepair; Wooden chairs ripped away their legs, claw marks on the walls, antler’s ripped from the frames on the wall, scratches along the wooden floor… its just a mess. A huge, monstrous mess, and it shocks Gaston.

·         He literally has nothing to say. He knows if he leaves out his front door, people will ask what the noise was last night (I mean, he’s GASTON. Everyone wants to know about him. He knows this.), and he just doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to explain away a reason, he doesn’t want to make any sort of mouth noises at all; Especially not to anyone.

·         He gathers up his gun and his rucksack and he sneaks out the backdoor and into the forest to do some camping and hide out for a couple days… or a week.

Judge Frollo:

·         Oof, what a thing for a ‘religious’ man like him to become… Maybe he’ll finally admit that he isn’t as pure as he thinks he is.

·         He knows what he’s being hunted by the moment he sees those glowing yellow eyes. He rushes into the cathedral, for safety. As if those pillars and stain glass windows can protect him from what’s coming, as if the cross could.

·         The werewolf just follows him in, and that’s where he attacks. Bites Frollo in the shoulder because he was dumb enough to turn his back on the animal, but luckily the priest of the cathedral hears his screams and comes with silver and scares off the yellow eyed devil- saving Frollo from certain death. He never would have been able to fight off the wolf himself. No one could (Well except Gaston)

·         He feels absolute dread and anxiety up until the full moon. He can feel the monster growing in him, feeling it taking form and taking control of his instincts, ready to strike and take his strength and mind, too. (Whether this is his delusions or a real thing he’s able to feel because he’s so aware, you can decide).

·         It makes him volatile and extra murderous in those days leading up to the full moon. 

·         When he wakes up the morning after the full moon, his limbs are heavy and Frollo just rests head back on the wall he was just able to drag himself to with remaining strength, and he cries. He sobs. He begs God to excuse him, he asks what he did to deserve this.  

Sykes:

·         Ooooh, Sykes would make a great werewolf. He’s huge on a normal day- can you imagine how big he is as a wolf? How vicious? Luckily he’s usually pretty calm. So, he’d make a large, well humoured wolf. He just wants to chew on some shoes and rest.

·         Anyway- the wolf was aggravated by the smell of dog already on Sykes and that’s why he got bitten. He didn’t hunt the creature, didn’t step into his territory, didn’t do anything to purposely aggravate the creature at all like most of the others.

·         Also unlike the others, this werewolf just bites and runs. It doesn't attempt to take Sykes completely down or anything. This is purely a hit and run kind of dealio. Probably because it heard Desoto and Roscoe respond to their Daddy’s pained yell and decided to leave on a high note.

·         Sykes tries to brush it off. Just applies pressure to the wound until he can properly dress it, and then ignore it. He has more important things to do then focus on that huge wolf that bit him. He doesn’t know what it was, he has no trauma’s surrounded the incident, and he’s stressed usually (Being a successful gangster and all), so how he feels leading up to this first full moon since he was bitten isn’t much different from how he usually feels. He’s driving around everywhere, putting the fear of Bill Sykes into people like Fagin, and doing paperwork. He doesn’t even notice the bite in his side unless he stretches, or he showers

·         (Which, by the way, doesn’t occur as often as it should. He’s very busy).

·         When the full moon finally occurs, it’s the one night in like a month that he finally gets to have a rest. So he’s just in his living room, reading a newspaper, eating his dinner, reclining, when he starts to feel an uncomfortable prickling feeling rush up his back like a hot flash. He tries to ignore it…

·         But then he looks at his hand, and its furry. And then the claws start to break through his skin and he’s in horrible pain and of course terror for about a minute before his eyes change and he loses human consciousness.

·         The next day, he wakes up with sore gums and an aching jaw, and as he sits up from the odd position of being half on the floor with his chin on the bed, rubbing his throbbing jaw, he sees various pairs of his shoes, chair legs detached from the chairs, and… doorknobs? On the floor around him? They all have dents and scrapes all over them as if a dog (A huuuuuge, stroooong dog) came along and had the time it its life chewing on them.

Human!Professor Ratigan:

·         Ratigan is, obviously, a smart man. But he didn’t see this coming. How could he? He’s a man of science. He got himself home, disinfected and dressed his wound / s and thinks that’ll be the end of it. Apart from, possibly, some mental scarring, but luckily- he is also a trained psychological practitioner! He can handle this.

·         But of course, that’s not how this goes.

·         On the first full moon after the attack, he starts to feel… symptoms. He wonder’s if he’s getting sick, or if he neglected to disinfect his bite properly but- no. No way would he make a mistake like that. His wound is securely taped all the time, so even if he had missed out on disinfecting it one day after a shower or something, how could it be infected?? Its very unlikely. So, then, where is this sweating and general irritation coming from? He’s not usually an even-tempered man, but this is becoming… concerning. Even for him.

·         Like I said, he’s a man of science, but when a little after he retires early for the evening, fur starts to prickle up and all over his skin, he finds he’s able to figure it out just before he loses consciousness.

·         Lycanthropy.

·         That was a werewolf that bit him.

·         He has to do somethin-

·         When he wakes up in the morning, puffing out the experience and rage of the beast inside him, he starts by standing motionless in the shower that’s so hot his skin goes pink, but he can’t feel it- he’s too lost in his thoughts. Analysing everything, trying to remember what he did, asking himself if he can weaponize this with any accuracy (Like find out how extract the venom and inject it into Basil), calculating how this can be possible... trying to just figure out how to fix it because this will absolutely not do.