#hamlet would be shorter without hamlet

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

twilight for the uninitiated

HEYLO BABYGIRLS, BITCHBOYS, AND BOYCOTTERS OF THE BINARY! It's your favourite (and I should hope only) Good Omens Mascot and Maggot Prince here. Yesterday (earlier today? idk I sleep in naps) way over on the maggots server some of y'all were insulting Twilight. Which I am 100% supportive of, but for Bildaddy's sake, you need to insult it CORRECTLY.

But should you have to hate-watch or hate-read it? Nah, you've got me. In middle school I got late to school because I was reading the books in the bathroom instead of getting ready. I'VE GOT YOU! Gonna mix up the book and movie for optimum enjoyment.

Dramatis Personae: Edward Cullen, aka Sparkles the Vampire. Bella Swan, aka Bella Sue. Jacob Black, aka Wolfy Eggfucker. Charlie Swan, aka Gunboy ACAB. And Dr Carlisle Cullen, aka Zaddy. @orpiknight taught me that word.

ALRIGHT! So Bella Sue's mum and dad are divorced and she lives with her mum. But her mum's like lmao fuck you when she gets a touring boyfriend and tosses Bella Sue to Forks, where it rains a lot, and where her dad Gunboy lives.

So Bella Sue grabs a cactus because that represents Arizona and hauls ass, and Gunboy makes awkward comments about her hair. Bonding! But then he gets her a pickup truck, which is wild-o.

First day of school and Bella Sue is very popular because Small Town and the boys are very tingly in the ballsacks if you catch my drift. Anna Kendrick asks her why she's white (YOU CAN'T JUST ASK PEOPLE WHY THEY'RE WHITE, KAREN!) and then promptly forgets she was in the movie.

INTRODUCING THE VAMPIRES! This is a vampire story, by the way. There's Himbo, Blonde Murderer, and they're dating/married. There's Bi Awakening and some constipated looking dude from the Confederate army, and they're dating/married (don't worry about it). There's Sparkles, of course, and they all walk into the cafeteria being Hot apparently. Sparkles stares at Bella Sue. This is to be a common theme.

Sparkles thinks Bella Sue stinks. No, like, literally, she stinks coz he wants to eat her and food smells etc. Bella Sue also has magic powers and Sparkles can't read her mind. He's like >:(=. Those are his fangs, btw. But then he goes away with his family to hunt animals and drink blood and comes back like :)=.

Bella Sue almost gets hit by a car but then Sparkles jumps in and pushes it away. He then gaslight gatekeeps girlbosses her, and googles adrenaline rush to explain it to her. AND GUESS WHO HEALS HER? IT'S SPARKLES'S DAD, AND MY ZADDY. He walks into the ER all blonde and gentle and competent. Oh and he's a vampire too and so is his wife but like his magic power is compassion and also he's learned to regulate himself around blood. And he's pretty. Zaddy.

He's so fucking pretty but then we have to go back to the Plot and some humans are being killed or whatever and Gunboy is takin' charge yo. Sparkles keep chasing after Bella Sue to tell her to stay away from him and finding her randomly to remind her to ABSOLUTELY STAY AWAY and then he stalks her in the night and has dinner with her after saving her from a gang to tell her to ABSOLUTELY STAY AWAY. Also, he's like 110 years old. Whatever.

Oh and Sparkles breaks into her room to watch her sleep at night. It's super duper romantic. (No, trust me, once you see Wolfy in the later books, this will be super duper romantic). Then he takes her to abandoned clearings in woods to threaten to kill her and he tells her to SAY WHAT HE IS and she's like MOSQUITE LEECH VAMPIRE.

AND THEN HE SPARKLES! A LOT! And they go to the Cullens house and play baseball and Zaddy is looking absolutely lovely and welcomes them and even stands off some random vampires that show up. But one of them likey-likey's Bella Sue's blood.

Bella Sue is like lmao fuck you you're not a good dad to Gunboy to keep him safe or whatever and runs away with the Cullens to keep herself safe or whatever. Idk man Zaddy is just very pretty throughout.

And then there's a ballet place and Bella Sue goes there to get murdered coz she doesn't want to be a burden to the Cullens (homegirl never been so real). The Cullens get there and kill the vampire but then she's vampiring so Sparkles sucks the venom out and Zaddy heals her. Looking pretty. Blonde hair, golden eyes, etc.

And then Gunboy and Bella Sue's mum show up and she goes home and she's like SPARKLES TURN ME INTO A VAMPIRE TOO and he's like yo wtf no you'll be a monster (I think he's just pissed he sucked that venom out for nothing) and she's like SPARKLES PLEASE UWU and he's like UGH WE'LL SEE and they dance at prom but anyway there it ends. It should have ended with a shot of Zaddy but anyway.

*influence voice* Like and subscribe Like and reblog for a part II coz there are three more books/four more movies. Gotta get that education. Now I have the urge to make a youtube video. Garn. ANYWAY LOVE YOU ALL BYE MAGGOTS.

[bridgetlynn]

So, for the last week or so I've been working on an outline for what was supposed to be a fun and fluffy summer-fic Mel/Langdon romance with a Sentinels & Guides are Known trope underscoring the whole thing.

Key words: Fun and Fluffy Summer Romance

Somehow instead I fell into a research spiral and haven't really pulled myself out for 3 days -

the barest of bare bones explanation of how Presidential Reorganization Authority works and under what circumstances it can be applied.

FDR's first term in office (March 4 1933 - January 20 1937). Also fun! I learned that the inauguration was moved from March to January by the 20th amendment to the constitution which was ratified in January 1933 so FDRs first term in office was 46 days shorter then anyone else's (well those that didn't die at least). But I guess getting a 3rd (and around 3 months of a 4th) term makes up for it.

Apex Predators to see what might fit Mel and Frank's personalities.

Refreshing my knowledge on the S&G fandom a bit more then I originally planned to (as I started to anticipate this getting complicated) cause, again, was supposed to be fun fluffy romance.

Colleges and med schools in New York and New Mexico.

Schools and programs for autistic children in New Mexico cause why shouldn't Becca also have an amazingly blessed and awesome time growing up.

Nuclear Physics. I didn't understand one god damned fucking word of it but, again, research spiral. And it was more a "this is the job...where does this job happen" situation. Cause why not?

Among a LOT of other things.

So much for that fun fluffy summer fic romance.

The biggest "issue" (if you could even call it that - first world fucking problems for real) with this is I've been half wavering on if I wanted to write the story. If I write it I'm gonna really challenge myself and do it for the July Rough Trade Challenge. That means I can outline and plot and plan - but no writing until July 1st. It's 25k minimum over the course of a month. It doesn't need to be "perfect" since it's right there in the name - Rough Trade. Basically rough draft posting challenge designed more for writers then readers.

I signed up for one years ago and my grandmother had a stroke halfway through the month (I think it was an April challenge) so I never completed it and I felt (unreasonably) angry at myself over that. Now, my Mom is in the middle of a chemo cycle and if she gets ill during it I'll feel like an asshole by not finishing the challenge again. I'm her sole caretaker since god knows I can't rely on my asshole relatives to show up for us without 1001 expectations attached or to "take over". It's the main reason I couldn't fly out to LA for a weekend to see Patrick Ball in Hamlet; my Mom's not that sick right now (knock on wood) but I didn't want to leave a 71 year old stressed out woman at the mercy of a bunch of insane people who probably sweat wine and beer at this point in their lives. (Anyone who might be of real use, medically, doesn't live in NY anymore and the 1 nurse cousin that does is incapable of not turning my Mother's illness into being about "her trauma over Aunt Maura being sick")

I'm probably being whiny maudlin as I'm possibly a bit over-medicated at the moment; someone spilled soap on the bathroom floor at work and I slipped and definitely felt something "yoink" (yes that's the technically term for it) in my lumbar region to the right of my spine. Pretty sure it's just muscular cause I don't feel like someone set my right leg on fire; but, I have the drugs so why not.

I write for myself but I also am starting to feel that gut punch of "oh yea, you went away from fandom for a decade" and having to rebuild readership. Only now it's with the added stress of a real "adult" type adult job. Now that I've started writing fanfic again I've started to realize that I have become "the man" and sometimes that depresses the fuck out of me.

So there's also that hovering over my head - would anyone even want to read it?

Final thought - and this'll only make sense to people who know S&G fandom but…Jim Ellison would make a way better President then the Great Big Orange Monstrosity in my little fictional world right?

[wawamouse]

Fanfic ask game but I answer all the questions on my own because I can and I want to lol (and you can too 😌)

What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today? My first fanfic was a Harry Potter fanfic I wrote in 3rd grade from the POV of James Potter going to Hogwarts (I had read books 1-6 in 2nd grade). I thought I was a genius for this because I had no idea fanfic was already a real thing.

What’s your most recent fic and how far do you think you’ve come? My most recent fic was "Riptide", answered for a kiss prompt. I've come very far! I wrote a bit of fanfic throughout high school years ago but didn't get heavy back into it until 4 years ago, during the height of the pandemic.

In your opinion, what’s your best fic? Honestly can't judge this. I have my most kudosed fic, but it definitely isn't my best. I think I would have pick one of my shorter Miguel/Chico fics, or else one of my longer rongzhi fics.

In your opinion and without looking at any numbers, what’s your most popular fic? It would have to be one of my HxH fics. I wrote a series for it in high school or college (idr). The show had seen a resurgence in popularity at the time, I think, because it was around when the remake anime was released on Netflix. I think it must be "We Who Have the Souls" that is my most kudosed fic.

Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that? Off the top of my head: "For Nothing Tender About it" (MiguelChico), "At Rise" (M/C), "Exit Wound" (Sui Zhou/Wan Tong), and "A Dying Eye" (Ding Rong/Wang Zhi)... I've been re-reading a lot of my shorter fics lately. I really like "Alibi" lately...

Is there any fic that makes you super embarrassed to reread and remember you wrote that? Probably if I reread one of the ones I orphaned or one of the ones I wrote in my early days which only exists on a thumb drive now lol.

What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)? "The Nineteenth Year of Chenghua". Zombie apocalypse fic. Someday….

What’s the oldest (longest since last update) fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)? Out of Nowhere, I guess. But I don't remember anything to finish it. Next oldest is The Nineteenth Year of Chenghua.

Have you ever written for a fandom without watching/reading/playing the source material? No.

Have you ever written for a fandom without reading other fanfic for it? Yeah, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (I started the tag), Hamlet (wrote fanfic for a class), Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. I also think I wrote Need For Speed (movie) fanfic before there were any other fics to read, but I might be wrong about that.

Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting? I don't think so? Not if 'concept' means 'same plot premise'. Yeah, no, I don't think so. There are some stories where something necessarily has to be written to cross canon point A to B to get to where you want to be in the fanfic, but… no? Maybe "Collision Course"? I wrote the in the car talking concept originally as what was going to be a remix of @/merelyafigment's tumblr snippet.

Have you ever written a fic and decided never to publish it? Why? I write really trashy smut and wattpad level indulgence in my notes app as a fun activity before bed sometimes. But those are never really meant to be published, though they're there for me to steal bits and pieces from for actual fics. Actually, a good chunk of "For Nothing Tender About It" and "Countdown" and probably smaller portions of some other fics I'm forgetting came from that notes app. Sometimes I'll read back stuff and be like "hey, that's actually not that bad" and polish it up, chop off the trashier bits, and then turn it into a oneshot.

What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today? I'm a better writer? Lol. Idk, punctuation, probably. I used to write X-men fic exclusively (the comics) so I had a horrible habit of writing out accents (think Gambit, Rogue, Wolverine, etc). I've shaken off a lot of that style, though I still like capturing some of a character's voice.

What’s the biggest change in your taste between when you started in fandom and today? I don't think I had much taste in the past… There was a point where I was very undiscerning about what I read.

Have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another because you knew it’d be more popular? No, I don't think like that. For the longest time, I didn't engage in fandom or actually make friends in the fandom. I just posted stuff and if someone read it, nice. I was more free 😂

Have you ever stopped writing a fic/for a fandom because it wasn’t receiving enough attention? I have a fanfic for a ship I am the sole writer of that has exactly 2 kudos.

In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic? One of my most kudosed fic (496 wtf, just checked) is a Glenn/Daryl fic for the Walking Dead. It's not particularly good. But the fandom is big, I guess, so even rarepairs thrive there.

What’s your most underrated fic? I would point to any number of my Miguel/Chico fics, except that all eyes looking for that pair at a given time have likely already read the fic, so it wouldn't really be correct to call any of them underrated. Underrated, maybe, in the sense of wOULD You LiKE tO TaLk AboUt IT PerHAPS?! MaY I wOrd VoMIT AbouT It?? HeLLo?

If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick? What a funny question…

Well. He could feel quite senseless sometimes. Idle-minded, it had been said of him; and if not idle-minded, then fixating on idle pleasures. That was all it was.

—Surpassing Corridors

Have/Would you ever rewrite a fic? If yes, would you take the original down? No way. That's too much work. I just make changes directly into the fic lol.

If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs? I'll often go to their profile and see what other fics they're into or what fandoms they've written for, if they have. If they write a fic later for the pairing, I'll make sure to read their fic and comment.

Has there ever been anyone who’s made you freak out because they read your work and followed/favorited/reviewed? I have a mutual who me and a friend always refer to as "AO3 User [Full URL]" because her fanfic was amazing. Even to this day, I don't like to bother her too much 😂

What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten? There's a couple of people who've read my fics or have gotten friends to read my fics despite not being in the fandom, and I really treasure that. Of course the long comments are always the best :D <3 But I also really like short comments, and this one was really touching (commented on a (sort of) vampire AU I wrote): "What a great premise - totally unexpected (which after 25 years of fic, hard to find) and beautifully written."

What’s the meanest review you’ve ever gotten? Do you think the reviewer intended it? Someone flamed me on an Xmen fic I wrote years ago on ff.net, criticising the plot and my grammar. I didn't really care, though; my response upon reading it was like "Dude I am literally 12 years old" LOL.

What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review? Never gotten any reviews like this, except maybe the one I mentioned above. I don't think I get enough comments to have seen the breadth of the type of negative reviews people leave.

What aspect of your writing do you most enjoy to see praised? Uhhh… When there was a nice thing in the plot or the dialogue and people say Wow or when they say they could imagine the character saying it or something… (< imagine I said that in a weird low voice like Eeyore)

If you could only ever write crossovers or single-fandom fics ever again, which would you pick? Single fandom fics. I'm really picky about crossovers and don't read them often.

if you could only ever write for a single crossover or a single fandom again, which would you pick? I'm gonna say Oz because that's my current interest right now LOL.

Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What���s the biggest discrepancy? I don't know what this means. No? I've written nearly 60 fics for both TSOMD and Oz for pairings that don't have that many fics to read if you subtract my contribution lol. There's some fandoms I've read an enormous amount of fic for (especially in the past) that I've never written for, too.

Do you continue to write for a fandom after you’ve moved on or do you focus solely on the new one? I'll still write for the past fandom when inspiration strikes, but I have a small brain so I forget plot stuff and can't capture the tone as well, I feel like.

Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right? Can't say. A character I've never written, probably. I'm delusional in a way so I feel like all my characterisations are valid, even if on the surface, I wring my hands and go "sorry for the OOCness!" Also, once I get into the groove of writing a certain character, it comes easier. But I guess there are still moments where I freak out and think I've not been writing them properly. I still think I write Miguel as too nice or something.

Who’s the one character who shines without you even trying? Omar White…?

Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up? Hmm. Hm… Sister Peter Marie, maybe? Got her in some unpublished wips as well as "In the Blink of an Eye". She's useful as a therapist character lol.

Was there any fic that you wrote that really surprised you in the fandom reaction? Was it just by the numbers or did they take it an entirely different way? Nope. I don't have stats like that.

Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to? No? I've added ships into wips as they've gone along and things developed. Is that the question? Then yes, I guess.

Have you ever sincerely written a ship you do not support into a fic? I wrote a fanfic for a ship that I don't really like for a fic donation drive event, if that counts. Oh wait, yeah, I've written two other ships I don't like into fics before. For the angst.

Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic? Only if it's in character for a character to shit on another one. I don't insert my meta author opinion like that, though. Kind of tasteless as well as pointless.

Have you ever purposefully written something you know your readers would find uncomfortable/would not enjoy? If yes, why? I don't think so? I don't assume anything about potential readers like that.

Do you consider yourself to have a readership? Yeah, in a sense. It's easier to identify the repeat readers when there's only like 5 of them, plus guests. I don't really consider all of you guys readership tho because I feel like that implies some kind of interaction between author and audience.

Do you feel like you put out enough content? 🤣🤣🤣 I probably put out TOO much content. "Readership", as they say, has dwindled. But by god, I'm still going.

If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site? I sometimes post to Tumblr (ask memes) or Dreamwidth (community prompts) but I prefer AO3, especially because for the rare comment that I do get, I can find it again easily. I don't really like posting fic directly to Tumblr because if someone comments on it the fic or post or whatever, I can't find it easily. And I have a really really bad memory 😭 I like things in one place.

How many views has your most popular fic gotten? Highest hit count is 12,026 hits on "We Who Have the Souls," which is my top kudosed fic (751).

Your least popular? My fic with the least kudos, "Prey Animal" (2), has 47 hits, but my fic with the lowest hits is tied between "Movie Time" and "Sore Spot" with 10 hits.

Do you follow/favorite/kudos/comment/review more stories than you have received? Yeah, I've been trying to leave kudos/comments on every story I've read since like two years ago? Sometimes if I really have no energy, I don't comment, but then I feel guilty. I'm only subscribed to one fic, though, and I'm not super into bookmarking.

If you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself? I wanna say Action/Adventure, but the more accurate would be that broader genre, Drama.

Do you consider yourself a diverse author? Idk what this means. I'm a gay chinese dude, is that what this is asking? lol

If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first? I would give them my Hamlet or RAGAD fics bc they are the most respectable ones by virtue of proximity to Shakespeare lol.

Does anyone you know from outside of fandom know you write fanfic? Are they involved in the same fandom too? My IRL friends from high school (now internet friends :') ) and my sister. No to HS friends (not anymore, anyway). And my sister isn't in fandom.

Has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just because you wrote it? :D Yes <3

Has writing fanfic had a significant impact on your life? Would you say it’s entirely positive? Yes and yes. I think fanfic has made me a better writer. I've made friends through fanfiction, and it's pretty much the only think in my life, besides other fandom creating, that keeps me creative and not wanting to slam my head into a wall <3

[mockerycrow]

CROWWWW YOUR OC'S SOUND SO COOL!!!!

Macbeth is my personal favorite so far (I'm biased cause I'm Slavic hehe) he just sounds so complex!!! And from what you wrote, I can very much tell you put time into researching the mentality of Slavic men, and that friend of yours seems to know what they're talking about. Finally, Slavic representation is more than just Russian terrorists or Balkan gang leaders. You've got no idea how much I appreciate being able to see my culture in art and writing. So far, Macbeth reminds me of my father a little bit <3 Slavic culture is iften very overlooked when it comes to representation and we see things about us that are inaccurate, offensive, or just plain rude. Glad to see we're finally getting a bit more respect within other communities, especially in books and fanfiction!

Thank you so much for this Crow, you don't know how much it made my day. I feel so seen.

Share some more random little facts about your OC's if you'd like! I'd love to hear the niche little details, like who of the characters is a night owl and who's an early bird, I'd love to know who bickers the most often, who's the tallest and the shortest, what are the deeper dynamics in the group like etc etc. I wanna hear it all!!!!

Love you Crow!! And I'm so excited for the next Undercover installment too (no pressure to hurry up, I'm just fangirling lmaoo) <33

-🌓

I’M GONNA CRY!! I really appreciate your love for Macbeth (as well as my Undercover series!!) and I’m very excited to introduce all three of my ocs. My friend who has helped me with Macbeth is Ukrainian themself and I wanted to do them right with Macbeth. (love u pookie) One of the reasons why I created Macbeth is because I was doing research on my family lineage for my father!

As for heights, Macbeth is actually the tallest! He stands at 5’10” (177.8 cm), although Hamlet is only half an inch behind him. He’s 5’9.5” (176.5 cm). Mantis is a few inches shorter at 5’6” (167 cm).

I would like to think that Mantis is a night owl. She thrives in a private setting; don’t get me wrong, she works well with other people and is a key person in her team! But she prefers being alone or with one other person. She likes the silence as there’s no chaos. Though at times, the silence does spook her if she’s just come back from a mission. Remaining adrenaline gets her jumpy.

Macbeth is an Early Bird unwillingly. He’s always been an early bird since childhood, not exactly something he could help. He will wake up at 0430 on the dot without an alarm. If he does not want to be up early, expect him to take some sleep medication 💀 Macbeth isn’t exactly mad about this as it’s typical to wake up early in the military. He also gets a few mundane tasks done before his day officially starts. Macbeth enjoys being able to watch the sun rise whilst smoking a cigarette.

Hamlet.. he’s neither. He is the definition of “soldiers sleeping anywhere”. He does not like getting up in the slightest, so don’t be surprised when you wake him up to take next watch, he complains under his breath. If he had to pick his favorite time of day though, definitely sunset or just right after it due to how beautiful the sky looks!

Mantis knows four languages like I’ve mentioned, and she’s currently learning Ukrainian. She knows English (Native speaker), Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. Macbeth sits her down and helps her practice a bit, and he can’t help but chuckle under his breath when Mantis’ lips refuse to move the correct way and she speaks Ukrainian with a butchered accent. It’s much better than a lot of other American’s attempts but again, Ukrainian is an entirely different language than her native language, so she sounds a bit ridiculous. Hamlet knows English (native speaker), Mandarin, and Arabic! Macbeth grew up in Mykolaiv, Ukraine until he was fourteen, so he knows Ukrainian (native speaker), Russian, Belarusian, and English. The order of their languages are the order of which they’ve been learned!

Their dynamics? Hmm… Hamlet is definitely a loyal guard dog type. You’ll see this throughout the tempest series. Hamlet bickers. Doesn’t matter who it is. He’s always bickering. It’s often Mantis and Hamlet getting into it with Macbeth having to intervene, or it’s Hamlet and Macbeth bickering and Mantis wanting both of them to shut the fuck up 😭

i’m really bad at sharing things about ocs without direct questions so i’m accepting any questions!!

[katyspersonal]

How would you classify Micolash’s death? Murder at the hands of a hunter? Accident? Natural death?Suicide (since he willingly signed up for the ritual)?

Hah! Like I keep saying, death is a strong word in Bloodborne (or any of From's settings) xd In this case Micolash's "death" also comes in two stages!

Yeah, first, he dies in Yahar'gul's ritual room, together with other prisoners (they all have no clothes but only rugs, they have shackles and their Mensis cages are two times shorter). The thing is... it is possible that he didn't know it'd kill his physical body! He might have just hoped to ascend:

In original script ( x ), it seems not only he doesn't know that he is dead and won't "wake up", but he even wonders whether he really will lose the Nightmare forever. There is a doubt that what if it WAS like a dream! (Fun fact while we're here: in Japanese script, Micolash never uses 'I' even once, only 'we'! It doesn't translate well, but Japanese language has ways to refer to oneself without using the word for 'I' or 'we', which is the case in this Japanese text!)

So yeah, I'd say his first death is the closest to accidental suicide! Bro just wanted to 'sleep'! His "real" body is totally a corpse now, and even the text to interact with it says 'Inspect mummy'. But not really, because he is still "alive" in the Nightmare.

And second death is as much of a murder by the hands of the Paleblood Hunter as killing Maria, Laurence, Ludwig, OoK, Mergo or Gehrman was. It is referred to as killing specifically by Simon, when he tells us to kill Lady Maria 🤔 But what it really is, is releasing their spirits from the Nightmare Realm. Doll says she feels easier after Maria died, Fishing Hamlet priest says OoK is back in the ocean and implication is that the heart of the Nightmare itself is gone, Mergo's death is seen as a good thing by his mother... So yeah, I could not really call it a murder because people we kill in the Nightmare/Dream realm are already dead! It is mercy-killing, delivering a REAL death this time. We simply released Micolash's spirit!

For Micolash specifically, however, it could be not EVEN that. When we kill Patches, he actually respawns, but simply stays hidden on that cliff and doesn't interact with the Hunter anymore. Rom's death also might be not permanent and be a 'release', since she has a body in the Dungeons (in which her head bleeds red and not 'paleblood' like it was in the Lake). Connection with Amygdalae/Spiders might do something with one's spirit that keeps them between death and life permanently! So, for all we know, Micolash is still """alive""" in spirit, in mirrors or dreams or as a summon in demonic rituals, just disconnected from the control over his own Nightmare xd

_________

So yeah, again, From's characters are rarely allowed to die for real xd First Micolash kills only his body, which is only a 'partial' suicide (like Ranni's but his was not intended), and then Hunter kills his spirit (which is also debatable, but IF Micolash dies, it is his true death this time)!

Honorable mentions: implication that Maria's spirit is in the Doll, albeit without memories, and implication from Simon that he was killed by Brador several times. That'd put the two in a similar position with Micolash 🤔 Brador himself, because although it is implied that killing his real, old form is true murder, we can't be sure what splitting into phantoms did with his soul.

[lizardrosen]

The Fruit of That Great Feast

Laertes, at four years old (and five months! he always insists), is not quite grown up enough to carry his baby sister. Thanks to some delicate negotiations and the unexpected alliance with Claudius, Ophelia’s prospective godfather, it is finally determined that if he sits in the middle of the couch and another adult is on hand to make sure he’s supporting her head, the baby can be lowered into his arms.

“After all, Hamlet wasn’t much older than Laertes here when I was born, and I only got dropped a couple times, but I turned out fine.” Gertrude gives him a reproving look and a swat on the arm. “My brother-in-law, the diplomat,” she announces, to general laughter.

Laertes isn’t laughing even a little; he looks horrified. “I would never let her fall, never ever!”

Claudius is quiet for a second. This kid is far too young to hear that sooner or later everyone gets hurt by someone they trusted and most people end up being the one to do the hurting at some point. Instead he ruffles his hair and says, “Of course you won’t, argonaut. You’re a lot smarter than my brother here.”

“It’s true,” says Hamlet, smiling good-naturedly.

“Okay, Laertes,” says Caroline. “Is that cushion comfy under your arm? Good, I’m going to hand her over now.”

Claudius glances at Polonius, who is alternately clasping his hands together and worrying at his front teeth with the knuckle of his thumb, and he rests a hand on his forearm. “You’re raising a fine boy,” he reminds him in a low voice. “Relax a little, and trust him.” Polonius lets out a held breath and presses his fingers over his chest in a silent gesture of thanks, and Claudius returns that private smile.

After a successful hand-off Laertes just keeps looking at Ophelia like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever touched and she probably is. He carefully holds out a finger for his sister to grasp and makes an amazed sound when she grabs it. “Was I this heavy when I was born?”

“More,” laughs his mother, “by two and a quarter ounces, but you were an inch shorter.

“Wow!” he gasps. “She looks so little, but she’s a whole little person!”

Claudius has never really minded that he’s not the oldest, but he does wonder how it would feel to have someone t protect and care for like this. Has Hamlet ever looked at him this way? He doubts it, just because roughhousing and academic oneupmanship has always been more their language.

“When do I get a turn to hold her?” he’s surprised to hear himself ask.

“Never!” Laertes says with a fierce little scowl. “She’s mine now and I’m never letting go of her!”

“It’s true, you’ll always belong to each other,” says Caroline. “But that kind of love only grows when you share it because that’s a bond strong enough to last even without touching. Like when it’s time for Mommy to feed her, that’s a time to let go.”

“Is that our cue to head out?” Claudius asks, preparing to stand up.

“If you don’t mind. Okay, Laertes, give Ophelia one last kiss and let me take her.”

“Can I stay to watch you feed her? I wanna know everything about her!”

Polonius has a small coughing fit. “Of course you don’t want to see something so girly and private. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Hey, now!” says Caroline. Claudius smirks to see them have a full argument of gestures and mouthed words literally over the kid’s head, even as he also wonders what it must feel like to be that much in tune with another person. Evidently Caroline wins because she says, “Sure, stick around for a bit. The rest of you, get out of here!”

As the four of them head out Gertrude catches him by the elbow so they can hang back behind Hamlet and Polonius. He tilts his head in question, but doesn’t doubt she has some good reason. “You are good at diplomacy.” She unconsciously touches her stomach, where she’s just starting to show. “I saw how you put everyone here at ease without even needing to think about it.”

She’s wrong. He’s thinking about that kind of thing all the damn time because otherwise there’s too many ways to get it wrong — but he knows how to accept a compliment when he gets one. “Where do you think I learned it, Gertrude?”

[concealeddarkness13]

WHG 20 Prompt 7 - Triel

Content warning for mentions of abuse. This one’s a lot shorter! I’ll just be writing the interview. Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @maple-writes, @pen-of-roses, @drabbleitout, @grailfish, @forthesanityofsome, and @pied-piper-of-hamlet!

I walked out onto the stage after Chess had been hurt, and good thing Ashont was still there! I was wearing this lovely dark purple evening gown with a long coat and a wide hat, and I hadn’t gotten this because I threatened the stylist, surely not!

I snagged Ashont’s arm before he could slink off the stage, and I grinned wider when I saw how bruised his damn face was already. I sat him down and took Caesar’s chair before Caesar could sit down. I hooked a foot on Ashont’s chair and pulled him closer so he couldn’t run before I could grab him again. And he was dazed enough to not say anything about it.

Caesar stared at me with wide eyes, and I grinned and ignored him to look out at the audience. “I hope this has been a good night, dear audience, because I have a treat for you! Instead of learning about me—I must be very boring, alas—you can learn about dear Ashont over here! Such an exclusive interview! You don’t want to miss it, do you?” When Caesar tried to take his seat back, I just shoved him to the side, and the audience laughed.

The audience cheered an answer to my question, and Ashont looked over at me with real fear in his eyes. Not so confident now that one of the brats from the districts could fight back without the Peacekeepers beating her within an inch of her life, now was he? I smirked at him and tapped his nose, causing him to flinch. “No worries, dear Ashont. I would never lie about you. So, let’s start with an easy one. How many tributes have you sponsored in the Games?”

He tried to smile, knowing he couldn’t convince the audience otherwise to stop this. “Why, about ten.”

“And how many of them have won?”

He looked out at the audience, who was dead silent by the way, and swallowed hard. “None of them.”

“And how many have magically reappeared for one year before they mysteriously disappeared before the next Games?”

He blinked and looked over at me, not saying anything. I leaned forward and smiled wider. “Please answer the question. Or maybe you’d like to answer how many of them were victims of the prosthetics experiments?”

He smirked, as if this would help him and not me. “All of them, of course. They deserve this treatment.” The audience cheered, of course.

I rested my chin on my fist. “Yes, but you’re Ashont. The loose Snow advisor! You always seem to have a new woman at your hip for every party! And not all of them were from the experiments. Or from the districts. You seem to have sway with the Gamemakers, getting them to take tributes illegally from the Games. But what about the other women? They never seem to have a name.”

I paused, letting the silence hang for a bit. “Have you heard of Allanah Vaca? She disappeared two years ago from the Capitol. An up and coming socialite, super promising.” I looked out at the audience. “I have evidence that Ashont has been dealing with Peacekeepers, having them kidnap young women from the districts to use and then dispose of!” I swung my head back to Ashont. “But you became a little too greedy, eh? I have proof that you had Peacekeepers kidnap Allanah for your pleasure, and that you had her killed after you were done with her!” I grinned at the audience, who was staring, dead silent. “Tune in after the Games for the shocking evidence! Should you trust Ashont around anyone? Or should he be locked up for kidnapping a daughter of the Capitol? Please be assured that no matter what happens in the Games, the information will be released!” I grinned and stood up, bowing at the audience. “See you then!” I winked and left to stunned silence.

I checked on Chess that night, but she was already sleeping, so I left her to it, and I went back to my room to banter with Nesri and Shine as we all stayed up to make sure the plans were perfect.

[apieters]

The MacBeth Demonstration

In This Scene

“Lay on, MacDuff, and d@mned be he that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’” André recited, and he swung at Chris the tyrannosaur with his heavy Scotch broadsword. Chris slipped back and lunged, and André quickly brought his sword up into a hanging guard, and the fight was on.

Simba, King of the Pridelands and Director of the Pridelands Shakespeare Company (PSC), smiled as the two fencing masters demonstrated the new fight choreography for his next production of the “Scottish Play,” scribbling notes in a notebook as he jotted down ideas that came into his head as he imagined his father and himself clashing blades onstage, he playing a Lowland Scots MacDuff and his father the role of the Highland Pretender to the throne of Scotland.

Beside him was his mate, Nala, Queen of the Pridelands, making her own mental notes. However, she found her thoughts drifting back to Scar’s regency, when she first learned of André’s skill with the broadsword. She was but a cub, then. The infamous “Hamlet Incident” had been but a year in the past, leaving Mufasa in a coma, Scar as King-Regent, and Simba nowhere to be found. She had seen the PSC’s fight choreographer hiking along the edges of the Pridelands several times, brooding silently with a sword at his hip, always looking disheveled, as if he’d slept in his clothes and just woken up. One day, she and her friends Chumvi and Kula were foraging for food (the first of several famines during Scar’s regency was just starting) when a group of hyena thugs had cornered them to steal what they’d found. They’d escaped up a tree, surrounded by hyenas, when André had appeared. He told them all to stand down. They’d sneered at him, asking to know what he was going to do about it.

That was when André drew his broadsword.

The hyenas attacked at all once, but André retreated until they’d thinned themselves out, then began attacking them one by one, hamstringing some, slashing at others’ shoulders, and smashing others in the face with his sword’s steel basket-hilt like brass knuckles. The fight was over in minutes, and when it was over he’d escorted the cubs back to Pride Rock, scolding them for wandering off alone so far from their parents. So when Nala grew older, a few years later, she knew who she wanted to teach her how to fight…

Behind the Scenes

Since I’ve been leaning a bit more heavily into my Highland broadsword fencing in the past few months, I decided to draw Chris and André doing something broadsword-related. While Chris can canonically use a Highland broadsword, his anatomy (short arms, big head) places major limitations on the techniques and guards he can use effectively, so he prefers to use rapiers and other thrust-centric swords whenever possible. Meanwhile, I’ve always conceived of André favoring more cut-centric swords and fencing styles since his earliest inception, and in the spirit of “write what you know,” I’ve given him skills in the British/Anglophone broadsword tradition.

Thus, I decided to stage a fight scene between Chris wielding a rapier and André wielding a Highland broadsword, and in that spirit decided to trace a screenshot of the final duel between Tim Roth and Liam Neeson in Rob Roy—this one, in fact:

I drew Chris using the same (anachronistic) style of rapier that Roth uses (it’s from nearly a century before the film takes place), while André gets the broadsword. From his earliest incarnation, Chris’s signature weapon was a cup-hilt rapier without a knuckle-guard, because he was a pirate captain and Disney’s version of Captain Hook had one. But as a kid, I came up with the idea that as Chris got older, he would retire his old rapier and start favoring a shorter, lighter rapier with a knuckle-guard, and Roth’s prop was exactly what I imagined. It seems that at this point in his life, he’s already acquired his new weapon, even if it’s not his main sword.

I was originally going to have the scene take place in the same kind of castle vault as the original screenshot, but the framing wasn’t working right—there was empty space in all the wrong places and the perspective was a bit too hard to nail down. So I changed the scene to Chris and André’s studio/home, Jeronimo’s.

The story is a variation on the children’s book “Nala’s Dare,” written by Joanne Barkan, as summarized on the Lion King Wiki ( https://lionking.fandom.com/wiki/Nala%27s_Dare ). In Swashbucklers of the Magic Kingdom, the Disney stories and movies we all know and love are exactly that—movies and stories. However, these stories usually end up being “fantastic retellings” of the characters’ “real lives” when they’re not making world-renowned movies, and some characters can appear in more than one story under a variety of names and even forms. In this case, Word of God says that André is, in fact, the in-universe basis for the character of Ni the rogue lion in “Nala’s Dare’—and this fact will become important in the latter half of Swashbucklers of the Magic Kingdom as Chris, André and Kopa start playing with some unusually powerful magic…

[lmaowh-at]

Actually no I'm not done talking about gesher ragad and it's stage because I was there yesterday again and I got seats on the opposite side of where I was sitting last time. And the way to those seats goes through the stage

Me fangirling at this fact alone aside, I was sitting in the first row. The stage is maybe 5 centimeters above the floor, so when Ros and Guil were standing on the sidelines, giving space for the events in Hamlet play out in front of them without interrupting and being part of the story, they were standing on the same floor my feet were touching. They were on the same level as me. They were watching the play the same way I was watching it. *explodes*

In general this production omits a lot of parts that are taken straight out of Hamlet, removes characters like soldiers, replaces scenes from the main play where there's actually dialogue with shortened versions that have less text and more silent, absurd depictions of them, changes the order of lines and jokes and other scenes, some would say bastardizes the original, but I like it. I really really like it. Maybe I'm biased because it was my first exposure to ragad and I've only skimmed through the original play and didn't like the movie too much (I just don't understand how you can move this play to a different medium since it's so reliant on the fact that its a play) but I legit don't care AT ALL lmao I get to choose how I engage with media and nothing's stopping me. Especially since this production IS good

Some more stuff they did thats worth noticing I think: instead of the pile of corpses coming after Guil's last words, everyone dies on stage after the Player says his "death to all!" Speech. The tragedians do perform everyone's deaths like written in Stoppards play, but they mirror the deaths of the main characters that pile up in the middle of the stage as Ros and Guil are watching. Like when the tragedian that plays Claudius dies- so does actual Claudius that walks to the stage- they mirror each other's moves. Horatio isnt there. After that Ros and Guil say their final words and leave the stage, revealing a pile of corpses and two hanged silhouettes behind the curtains on the two exists from the stage. Then the lights go out, all of the characters are gone and the Player, together with Alfred, walk in, put two signs that say "ROS" and "GUIL", sit down to rest for couple of minutes and walk out. The end

Also, while they start with the usual flipping coin shanenigans, after three or four coins Ros and Guil exit the stage, the music becomes louder and all of the characters walk through the narrow road- Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius, Hamlet himself- as if they're re-caping the events of Hamlet- showing us the main heroes- just to go back to Ros and Guil, who are now on the 85th heads.

Aaaand Ros and Guil have a fun little tune they whistle to each other and a little dance they do throughout the play and right before they walk out of the stage for the final time. They also do it when all the actors come in for the applaudisments. My heart :'))

Oh also, their Player fucking lives in my head rent free. Doron Tavory you one hell of a guy

That's all. Fuck . Watching it again knowing what's it all about and noticing how the Player is messing with them (im paraphrasing but "damn it, he knows all the exists!" "Well of course I do, I've been here before", or the insaneeee scene they made at the end of the second act when the tragedians are playing the murder of gonzago to Ros and Guil and then Guil says that it can't end abruptly like that and then he reads out the foreshadowing to the third act on the boat. Or, of course, the ending.) And how the narrative warps around them and appreciating more of Rosencrantz's slapstick moments (the actor is shorter than Guil's by like 20 cm) and generally just. Remembering how I felt back then. God what an insane play

[magnus-sm-writes]

My Writing Journey: The Driving Years

When I was fifteen, I watched the movie ParaNorman all the way through for the first time and realized that being an asshole just because you’d been hurt in the past wasn’t fair to everyone else. I think that shows in my writing. Things began to get a little more optimistic as I had a complete character change.

So, I had gone through quite a bit of character growth myself. I was rapidly changing into a (somewhat) better and more interesting person. My life was becoming more complicated, and so was my work. It was very difficult for me to remember what exactly I did in these two years, since all of it sort of blends together. I was in an incredibly toxic friend group for a lot of these years, and writing was my escape, my way to criticize what was happening.

I believe this was when I came up with the ideas for my novella He’s Like an Ocean and the original germination of Hamish. 

HLAO holds a special place in my heart as being the first story that came from a dream. It is (recent) historical fiction following two blind boys, Lester and Guy, falling in love. HLAO was my first complete romance novel(la). 

Part of the reason HLAO is so important to me is that, for some time, it was my refresher between projects. I would finish something and then rewrite a draft of HLAO. It was my transitional work. Quick and easy to write. Much shorter than all the novels I was working on at the time. 

When it came to Hamish, I had decided that Hamlet would get the same treatment as R&J. I was more passionate about Hamlet, and had more knowledge on it. But I wouldn’t begin to write Hamish until I was seventeen, I believe. 

I also began to get an interest in short stories. My first complete short story was written sometime during an August, I just have difficulty remembering which one. It was a reflection of my (very bad) mental state at the time regarding said toxic friend group, and an outpouring of violence borne from watching way too much NBC Hannibal for my own good. 

(And the first instance of a trope that has become very common in my works: arson!)

“Phoenix in a Bear Trap” is a revenge/metamorphosis story. Originally, it was quite melodramatic and disjointed, but I am pleased to say that it did win me a small scholarship in my university. I’m planning on revising it someday soon. (Which, of course, means any time between now and when I die.)

I also wrote a piece of flash fiction called “Fish Toes” that dealt with my (still very real) fear of drowning. It is… not good and definitely needs reworked before I drag it back up.

I was also at my most feminine (and repressed) at this point in time. While I thought I was happy, I was lying to myself. It reflected rather heavily in my writing, which dealt with mental illness and this overwhelming feeling of isolation. Not knowing what was wrong with me (so many things, like holy shit), I thought I was the biggest freak in the world. 

In 2018 (when I was fifteen going on sixteen), I made some hardcore revisions to WADAA. It was no longer a teenage angst story; it was a college angst story. By putting Kam in college (and making him best friends with Zach Amsel), I could make a far more compelling narrative and give him a lot more freedom. This was the first time that I realized that WADAA had been stuck because it hadn’t happened at the right point in the timeline. It was not a story about death; it was a story about healing. 

To make Kam feel like less of a self-insert, I made him trans and autistic. This, of course, is laughable now. I just made him more like me (when I would be in college) without knowing it. Life reflects art, huh?

This new version of WADAA needed a new name, though. It couldn’t be the same book when everything had changed. In 2019, I finally came up with a new name: Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist. Wordy, yes, but it fit the book perfectly. It was about Kam learning how to be human, something I have yet to learn how to do. 

Lessons in Humanity is kind of my baby. I’ll talk more about it in the section on being eighteen, but it really was a project that grew with me. It still is. I think about it often, and when I’m in need, I fall back on it. It’s been my baby for about ten years now.

From 2018 to 2019, I was pumping out novels left and right. I wrote Hamish, Lessons in Humanity, Jeez Take the Wheel, and various versions of He’s Like An Ocean. I was in a constant state of rewriting that continued on into 2020. 

Each time I finished a project, I would start a fresh rewrite of HLAO (again, I cannot overstate how many times I rewrote that thing), and upon finishing that, I would move on to the next task. It wasn’t particularly sustainable, or healthy. I didn’t give myself a lot of time to decompress or germinate ideas.

And then I got sick.

What happened was: I developed bronchitis in summer of 2019. It was made worse by a forty hour band camp week, followed by lots of marching band practices (where I was the low brass section leader), community college, high school, and my job at McDonald’s. I got super stressed out super fast, and my health kept declining. I developed an ulcer. I lost about fifteen pounds, which made me underweight for my height. It was not good for me. The marching band environment was absolutely toxic that year, as was McDonald’s. I was burning myself out trying to write as much as possible just to stay sane.

Basically, I hard rebooted in November. I quit McDonald’s, and marching band was over. I gave myself some time to heal. By spring, I felt like a brand new person, ready to tackle the world!

That was, until the world tackled me back again, because that was spring of 2020.

[valsverse]

𝐞𝐝𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐞 𝐡𝐜'𝐬

summary. headcanons of your relationship with edmund pevensie before dating. (fem reader)

— straight up fluff, nothing else. PART 1/2

— Caspian introducing you to him as a friend, and Edmund being absolutely awestruck by everything about you so much so that he forgets to even tell you his name. He is visibly blushing and stuttering, unable to meet your eyes.

— Him slowly becoming more comfortable with physical touch, but ONLY if it's coming from you. But once he gets comfortable, he's always trying to find an excuse to be closer to you.

— "Accidental" hand touches (which are totally on purpose) when both of you are reaching for the same book. Then getting flustered and immediately pulling away before reaching for the same book once more and brushing hands AGAIN.

— Reciting Shakespearean quotes to each other. You two can have a whole conversation with just quotes from Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, or even A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But the quotes just keep getting more and more suggestive until you're both just absentmindedly flirting with each other without even realizing it because it just seems so natural.

— Him teaching you how to play chess, which ends up being a mistake once you two have your first chess game. Because he just ends up staring at your concentrated face, thinking you're the most beautiful thing he's ever laid his eyes upon. So he just absolutely FUMBLES. Putting his king in danger, not taking your free bishops, trading off his queen, etc. But he's okay with it because it just means he'll get to see your face light up once you realize you're winning.

— Eye contact across a crowded room. His eyes just naturally gravitate towards the most alluring thing in the room.. which happens to be you. And exchanging smiles once you realize he's staring at you. The amount of hours he's spent admiring you from afar.. he can't keep count.

— If you happen to be shorter than him, every single insecurity about his height VANISHES. The height difference ends up being a great source of enjoyment for him. He's never really the tallest in the room, so he gets some sort of pride and confidence from the height difference, even if you're only an inch shorter than him. Either way, the teasing will be astronomical.

— Him finding a way to touch you one way or the other. Picking a petal out of your hair, comparing hand sizes, or sharing an umbrella. He'll make an excuse like, "My hands are so cold, feel them." but he doesn't pull his hand away.

— Hang out's that start to feel more and more like dates. Because what kind of "best friends" lie their head in the other's lap while reading, or cuddle in the library, or give each other "TOTALLY PLATONIC AND FRIENDLY" kisses on the nose and cheeks?

— His siblings noticing that he smiles a LOT more often around you. Like he's full on blushing and fidgeting.. a blind man could tell that he likes you. Peter always finds a way to tease him about it.

— Lucy being his wingwoman because YES.

— Susan, Lucy, and Peter making bets on the two of you. Like who's going to confess first, who will initiate the first kiss, and even who will propose first. Mind you, these bets were all placed BEFORE the two of you started dating.

— Him not even realizing that he's gushing about you. Like you're all he ever talks about. Always managing to bring you into a conversation. Like, "oh, Y/N would love that." or "Y/N loves that story too. She has an impeccable taste in books, doesn't she?" He makes it wayyy to obvious..

— Unsent letters. UNSENT LETTERS. Hear me out. Him just pouring out his feelings for you, and everything he loves about you, and describing every minuscule detail about your appearance, and writing a list of your favorite things. And he laminates them and everything, writes your name on the top of the letter as if he's going to give it to you, but he never does. So his stack of letters about you, and only you, are always growing on a never-ending pile on his desk.

— Star-gazing to clear your minds, with one of his arms wrapped around your shoulder. Except his eyes aren't looking at the stars, they're trained on you, thinking about how beautiful you look in the pale moonlight.

∙ a/n woop woop! first post! hope u enjoyed it. not sure when the next update will arrive, but summer break is soon sooo?? ill probably write again once finals are over AUGH.

∙ okk, au revoir! val tuning out.

[aroundtheworldwithphillyfogg]

October 22nd 1872: on the back of an elephant

The next day Sir Francis Cromarty asked Passepartout what time it was; to which, on consulting his watch, he replied that it was three in the morning. This famous timepiece, always regulated on the Greenwich meridian, which was now some seventy-seven degrees westward, was at least four hours slow. Sir Francis corrected Passepartout’s time, whereupon the latter made the same remark that he had done to Fix; and upon the general insisting that the watch should be regulated in each new meridian, since he was constantly going eastward, that is in the face of the sun, and therefore the days were shorter by four minutes for each degree gone over, Passepartout obstinately refused to alter his watch, which he kept at London time. It was an innocent delusion which could harm no one.

The train stopped, at eight o’clock, in the midst of a glade some fifteen miles beyond Rothal, where there were several bungalows, and workmen’s cabins. The conductor, passing along the carriages, shouted, “Passengers will get out here!”

Phileas Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty for an explanation; but the general could not tell what meant a halt in the midst of this forest of dates and acacias.

Passepartout, not less surprised, rushed out and speedily returned, crying: “Monsieur, no more railway!”

“What do you mean?” asked Sir Francis.

“I mean to say that the train isn’t going on.”

The general at once stepped out, while Phileas Fogg calmly followed him, and they proceeded together to the conductor.

“Where are we?” asked Sir Francis.

“At the hamlet of Kholby.”

“Do we stop here?”

“Certainly. The railway isn’t finished.”

“What! not finished?”

“No. There’s still a matter of fifty miles to be laid from here to Allahabad, where the line begins again.”

“But the papers announced the opening of the railway throughout.”

“What would you have, officer? The papers were mistaken.”

“Yet you sell tickets from Bombay to Calcutta,” retorted Sir Francis, who was growing warm.

“No doubt,” replied the conductor; “but the passengers know that they must provide means of transportation for themselves from Kholby to Allahabad.”

Sir Francis was furious. Passepartout would willingly have knocked the conductor down, and did not dare to look at his master.

“Sir Francis,” said Mr. Fogg quietly, “we will, if you please, look about for some means of conveyance to Allahabad.”

“Mr. Fogg, this is a delay greatly to your disadvantage.”

“No, Sir Francis; it was foreseen.”

“What! You knew that the way—”

“Not at all; but I knew that some obstacle or other would sooner or later arise on my route. Nothing, therefore, is lost. I have two days, which I have already gained, to sacrifice. A steamer leaves Calcutta for Hong Kong at noon, on the 25th. This is the 22nd, and we shall reach Calcutta in time.”

There was nothing to say to so confident a response.

It was but too true that the railway came to a termination at this point. The papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast, and had been premature in their announcement of the completion of the line. The greater part of the travellers were aware of this interruption, and, leaving the train, they began to engage such vehicles as the village could provide four-wheeled palkigharis, waggons drawn by zebus, carriages that looked like perambulating pagodas, palanquins, ponies, and what not.

Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, after searching the village from end to end, came back without having found anything.

“I shall go afoot,” said Phileas Fogg.

Passepartout, who had now rejoined his master, made a wry grimace, as he thought of his magnificent, but too frail Indian shoes. Happily he too had been looking about him, and, after a moment’s hesitation, said, “Monsieur, I think I have found a means of conveyance.”

“What?”

“An elephant! An elephant that belongs to an Indian who lives but a hundred steps from here.”

“Let’s go and see the elephant,” replied Mr. Fogg.

They soon reached a small hut, near which, enclosed within some high palings, was the animal in question. An Indian came out of the hut, and, at their request, conducted them within the enclosure. The elephant, which its owner had reared, not for a beast of burden, but for warlike purposes, was half domesticated. The Indian had begun already, by often irritating him, and feeding him every three months on sugar and butter, to impart to him a ferocity not in his nature, this method being often employed by those who train the Indian elephants for battle. Happily, however, for Mr. Fogg, the animal’s instruction in this direction had not gone far, and the elephant still preserved his natural gentleness. Kiouni—this was the name of the beast—could doubtless travel rapidly for a long time, and, in default of any other means of conveyance, Mr. Fogg resolved to hire him. But elephants are far from cheap in India, where they are becoming scarce, the males, which alone are suitable for circus shows, are much sought, especially as but few of them are domesticated. When therefore Mr. Fogg proposed to the Indian to hire Kiouni, he refused point-blank. Mr. Fogg persisted, offering the excessive sum of ten pounds an hour for the loan of the beast to Allahabad. Refused. Twenty pounds? Refused also. Forty pounds? Still refused. Passepartout jumped at each advance; but the Indian declined to be tempted. Yet the offer was an alluring one, for, supposing it took the elephant fifteen hours to reach Allahabad, his owner would receive no less than six hundred pounds sterling.

Phileas Fogg, without getting in the least flurried, then proposed to purchase the animal outright, and at first offered a thousand pounds for him. The Indian, perhaps thinking he was going to make a great bargain, still refused.

Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside, and begged him to reflect before he went any further; to which that gentleman replied that he was not in the habit of acting rashly, that a bet of twenty thousand pounds was at stake, that the elephant was absolutely necessary to him, and that he would secure him if he had to pay twenty times his value. Returning to the Indian, whose small, sharp eyes, glistening with avarice, betrayed that with him it was only a question of how great a price he could obtain. Mr. Fogg offered first twelve hundred, then fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand pounds. Passepartout, usually so rubicund, was fairly white with suspense.

At two thousand pounds the Indian yielded.

“What a price, good heavens!” cried Passepartout, “for an elephant.”

It only remained now to find a guide, which was comparatively easy. A young Parsee, with an intelligent face, offered his services, which Mr. Fogg accepted, promising so generous a reward as to materially stimulate his zeal. The elephant was led out and equipped. The Parsee, who was an accomplished elephant driver, covered his back with a sort of saddle-cloth, and attached to each of his flanks some curiously uncomfortable howdahs. Phileas Fogg paid the Indian with some banknotes which he extracted from the famous carpet-bag, a proceeding that seemed to deprive poor Passepartout of his vitals. Then he offered to carry Sir Francis to Allahabad, which the brigadier gratefully accepted, as one traveller the more would not be likely to fatigue the gigantic beast. Provisions were purchased at Kholby, and, while Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg took the howdahs on either side, Passepartout got astride the saddle-cloth between them. The Parsee perched himself on the elephant’s neck, and at nine o’clock they set out from the village, the animal marching off through the dense forest of palms by the shortest cut.

In order to shorten the journey, the guide passed to the left of the line where the railway was still in process of being built. This line, owing to the capricious turnings of the Vindhia Mountains, did not pursue a straight course. The Parsee, who was quite familiar with the roads and paths in the district, declared that they would gain twenty miles by striking directly through the forest.

Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, plunged to the neck in the peculiar howdahs provided for them, were horribly jostled by the swift trotting of the elephant, spurred on as he was by the skilful Parsee; but they endured the discomfort with true British phlegm, talking little, and scarcely able to catch a glimpse of each other. As for Passepartout, who was mounted on the beast’s back, and received the direct force of each concussion as he trod along, he was very careful, in accordance with his master’s advice, to keep his tongue from between his teeth, as it would otherwise have been bitten off short. The worthy fellow bounced from the elephant’s neck to his rump, and vaulted like a clown on a spring-board; yet he laughed in the midst of his bouncing, and from time to time took a piece of sugar out of his pocket, and inserted it in Kiouni’s trunk, who received it without in the least slackening his regular trot.

After two hours the guide stopped the elephant, and gave him an hour for rest, during which Kiouni, after quenching his thirst at a neighbouring spring, set to devouring the branches and shrubs round about him. Neither Sir Francis nor Mr. Fogg regretted the delay, and both descended with a feeling of relief. “Why, he’s made of iron!” exclaimed the general, gazing admiringly on Kiouni.

“Of forged iron,” replied Passepartout, as he set about preparing a hasty breakfast.

At noon the Parsee gave the signal of departure. The country soon presented a very savage aspect. Copses of dates and dwarf-palms succeeded the dense forests; then vast, dry plains, dotted with scanty shrubs, and sown with great blocks of syenite. All this portion of Bundelcund, which is little frequented by travellers, is inhabited by a fanatical population, hardened in the most horrible practices of the Hindoo faith. The English have not been able to secure complete dominion over this territory, which is subjected to the influence of rajahs, whom it is almost impossible to reach in their inaccessible mountain fastnesses. The travellers several times saw bands of ferocious Indians, who, when they perceived the elephant striding across-country, made angry and threatening motions. The Parsee avoided them as much as possible. Few animals were observed on the route; even the monkeys hurried from their path with contortions and grimaces which convulsed Passepartout with laughter.

In the midst of his gaiety, however, one thought troubled the worthy servant. What would Mr. Fogg do with the elephant when he got to Allahabad? Would he carry him on with him? Impossible! The cost of transporting him would make him ruinously expensive. Would he sell him, or set him free? The estimable beast certainly deserved some consideration. Should Mr. Fogg choose to make him, Passepartout, a present of Kiouni, he would be very much embarrassed; and these thoughts did not cease worrying him for a long time.

The principal chain of the Vindhias was crossed by eight in the evening, and another halt was made on the northern slope, in a ruined bungalow. They had gone nearly twenty-five miles that day, and an equal distance still separated them from the station of Allahabad.

[darkacademicfrom2021]

The Dark Team (part 10)

<<Previous part Masterlist   Next part>>

(Taglist: @lucywrites02, @louieboo87, @the-departed-potato, @jesuswasnotawhiteman, @idontknow296 , @beksib, @spythoschei, @geekwritersworld , @whatafuckingdumbass, @mysticunicorn7)

Warnings: adorable jerks.

As the sun finally came up (for what it felt like an eternity, a night with seven nights inside of it), you rubbed your eyes and greeted your teammates, who somehow were both already up and having breakfast.

“I was wondering when would you join us”, said Loki, covering his mouth with the manners of a Prince while eating a piece of something. “Barnes made dessert for breakfast”, pointed out more amazed than reproachful.

“Desert?”, you laughed. “A cake?”.

“Yes”, said Loki, very sure of himself, and Bucky rolled his eyes and chuckled, correcting him.

“It’s a pancake, Loki. It’s a normal breakfast in Midgard”.

“Actually, probably just in this country”, you added. “What do you normally have in Asgard?”. As you chattered, you started getting ready and fixing your hair, stealing a piece of pancake from Bucky’s plate. “Wow, I didn’t know you could cook. It’s actually great”, you said, tasting a mouthful.

“Well, as in Midgard’s nordic areas, back home it’s often fruit and bread, or porridge with dried fruits” he recalled distracted, and immediately interrupted himself with “are we not supposed to alert the rest of this?”.

“About Buck knowing how to cook? Yeah, I’m impressed, we should tell everyone”.

“I guess we should’ve told them yesterday, instead of going to sleep”, said Bucky, ignoring you. “Only God knows where that supersoldier is now”.

“I don’t, actually”.

“I didn’t mean... nevermind”, he sighed. “I'm calling Stark and let’s hope we don’t get too yelled at”.

You recalled yesterday’s events. You had so many dreams, you could barely remember being awake at all. First, the bearded man’s nightmare. Then, something about… the compound? Then, you remembered distinctly, Loki speaking Old Norse begging Thor about something. You remembered the phonetic of the words, but they were all gibberish now. Then, a last dream, something about buying rotten apples and being forced to eat them by Thanos. Your imagination surely was active on the nights.

Loki seemed paler than usual as he stared at you, without even blinking.

“What?”, you snapped him out of your head.

“You dreamt with me?”, he muttered, getting up and cleaning his plate with a snap.

"I also dreamt with Thanos".

“Don’t get too attached, I’ll be back to Asgard soon”, he promised, or alerted. Intentions unclear.

“I’m not attached”, you protested. You thought he’d smirk or be the smug idiot he usually was. He didn’t. Instead, he looked unsettled; disturbed even. “I didn’t dream with you on purpose, it was probably because of yesterday’s thing”.

“What thing?”, peeped in Bucky. “Oh no, did you two fuck?”.

“I didn’t let them die, big deal. I was just saving myself the amount of annoyance it would be to have Stank on my neck all week long if your blood was sort of in my hands”.

“Sounds like a lot of deflecting emotions to me, buddy”, said Bucky, and you chuckled.

“He’s just embarrassed he saw himself cry in one of my dreams from last night”, you mocked. He got up and you didn’t get to see his face, but presumed it would hold something near a death threat.

“You two have an intense bonding experience and decide to concentrate on it with more insults? You know, this is why you’re single”, added Bucky.

“It wasn’t a bonding experience”, you said, cutting-glass sharpness in your gaze.

“I’m not single”, corrected Loki at the same time, with an equally whetted voice.

Both Bucky and you looked at him with plate-wide eyes, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t. Neither of you asked, but surely shared a fair amount of desire to gossip about it. Oh, how much you wished to be able to tell Bucky about Loki re-reading Hamlet to reminisce about his beloved. But there was a line you wouldn’t cross in there; you knew where to stop.

“Mr. Stark”, you called through the earbud, “you there, sir?”.

“Painfully”, he answered. You connected the earbud to your phone and held it on speaker, so the rest of the team could join. “Tell me more about what I’m gonna yell at you three about”.

As you walked him through (almost) every event in the past twenty four hours, you could feel how his hands traveled all the way up to his face, and had to hold in a few sighs of disgust and utter hate towards… Well, you weren’t sure towards what, exactly.

“Are we grounded, dad?”, spat Loki with sarcasm.

“Listen, Rock Of Ages, if I could, I’d have you in a prison cell still to this day. Don’t push any buttons”.

“Come on, it’s been, what, nine years since he last fucked up something in here?” you defended him, not quite sure why. Loki grew nervous as Tony laughed obnoxiously at him.

“Sure. He didn’t keep fucking things up in here after that”.

“I can assure you I didn’t. How Odin manages his deals with Midgard does not concern me”, explained Loki, and you frowned at the mention of that name. Of course, Loki Odinson. That was where that name resonated from. Besides the Mythology. Though you weren't sure until where those stories were true or not; in there, Loki wasn't even Thor's brother.

“Going back to your current screw up, what happened to the civilians you frightened in the process? I imagine they didn’t realize about the new supersoldiers”.

“They should be extremely blind or idiotic to not have noticed, since the soldier jumped out of nine floors and survived”, answered Loki, looked at you up and down, and kept going “so, no. They have probably slept on it”.

“Wait, what?”.

“What?”.

“Nine floors? Pretty sure Capsicle and Barnes wouldn’t survive that either”.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”, you asked, concerned.

“I’m afraid so. Loki and Bucks won’t cut it, especially when we don’t know the number of new super-supersoldiers out there. And you’re coming back to the compound, directing the mission from the distance”.

“Are you kidding? I’m fine here. I’m all levels of mean, you said it yourself”.

“You’re too young and inexperienced in combat for these kinds of things, and they have special genetic advantages in their bodies, you know, the serum”, explained Tony as you rolled your eyes. But you understood exactly what he meant, and in fact, you agreed. “Do you understand?”.

“Yes; supersoldiers and Gods only”.

“Good kid. Now, Teleporting Popsicle, would you mind taking there with you the rest?”.

With an overly dramatic sigh, Loki vanished behind a party of green lights and reappeared in a matter of seconds in the same spot, holding carelessly Thor and Steve’s arms. Thor, for obvious reasons, was unfazed by the trip. Rogers, on the other hand, seemed about to throw up. There wasn’t anything balance would help with when your cells are reconfigurated inside and out in a fraction of a second. How the hell did he do all of that? You knew it was magic, but it still wouldn’t stop you from being absolutely astonished by it.

Loki arranged his hair behind his ears and locked eyes with you, followed by his typical smugly smile and a “thank you”, as if you were praising him in your thoughts. Oh, wait.

“I didn’t say anything”, you retorted, hoping to maintain at least a drop of pride left.

“You thought I was impressive”. You were going to correct him but realized that absolutely astonished was even worse.

“And since when do you offer gratitude?”.

“In case you wonder, yes, they’ve been like this the whole mission. You’ll get used to it”, said Bucky to Steve and Thor.

They started arranging their things and got updated as thoroughly as they could. Meanwhile, you stood exactly where you were the following ten minutes, absorbed in your own thoughts. Once you snapped out of them, Loki was still staring at you, standing in the same place too.

“What?”.

“I hate to break it to you, but…”.

“What?”.

“I’m your best option”.

“You’re my what?”.

“Your best option”.

“You’re not giving much context”.

“You’re going back to the compound. I figured you’d think about the mission or something about it for the past ten minutes you were zoned out, but apparently you only have room to think about how terrified you’re of that quinjet”.

Your palms got sweaty and a shiver ran through your spine by the only thought of remembering how heights felt under your feet, and how a simple machine wouldn’t stop you from landing on water and drowning, or crushing against a building and being burned to the bones until all you become is dust and…

“Hello? You’re spiraling again”, he snapped you back. “It’ll be just a blink. You won’t even notice”.

“Uh-uh. No, I’m not doing that. I’m waiting for whatever Tony sends to come and get me”.

“You’ll feel terrible”, he said, and he was right. For a moment, you considered accepting his offer. “And I’m the best”. His humble offer.

“I’m sure you are, but it’s not my best option”.

He sighed.

“Will you allow me to teleport you or not?”.

“Heavens, no”.

“Alright, you little stubborn human mortal”.

“Long nickname, you better come up with a shorter one”.

“Like what?”.

“I don’t know, something that bothers you. I’m not the one supposed to make your insults towards me”.

“Let me think”, he said, looking around the room. His gaze landed on the still unwashed plate of Bucky’s breakfast. “Pancake”.

“Not... that’s not an insult”.

“Why? They’re too sugary. They rot your teeth”.

“Yeah, but it’s not derogatory”.

“Fucking pancake”.

“It doesn’t cut it”.

“But what’s wrong with my pancake?”.

“It’s actually a pet name. You know, like the ones we said when we were in...”, but apparently that was all a distraction (of course, he was the God of Lies, after all), and when you were already thinking about how to explain to him why he shouldn’t call you pancake, he stood in front of you and held you by both sides of the arms, surrounding you almost completely, holding you still.

And just as he said, a blink later you were in the compound, perfectly fine. Peter and Tony greeted you as he pulled out and you stood there in shock. So, you really just needed some stabilization to not die in the intricate process of teleportation. Just before stepping away from you, he leaned over your shoulder and his whisper made your ear ticklish, saying “you’re welcome” with a grin. You didn’t look at him.

You started to gather all your stuff; papers, maps, laptops, and getting ready for the planning of the following steps of the mission as fast as you could, until you realized Loki was still there, and Tony and Peter were waiting for you. For what, you weren’t sure.

“Aren’t you going?”, you asked Loki.

“No, I’m staying, apparently”.

“Why?”.

“That’s what Stark was thinking, I don’t know”.

“Hey, Elsa, don’t read my mind, would you?”, snapped Tony. He was about to explain himself, but you kept talking to Loki, cutting his words.

“What’s wrong with you that you read everyone’s thoughts all the time? You know how unethical that is? It’s invasive”.

“You say that because you think slow”.

“Untrue, I’m actually a very fast thinker”.

“How would you know? You’ve never read anyone’s minds so, how could you possibly…?”.

You stopped dead on your tracks, and didn’t listen to what he was saying. That phrase. That exact phrase you dreamt with. The darkness. It was the exact same voice of the darkness, you remembered. It wasn’t darkness, it was his voice. Were you just imagining things? Too suggestionated? Definitely. How could you dream with something you’ve never heard before?

“Sorry to interrupt, you two seem to be having a long, unnecessary and avoidant conversation that could be resumed in three tiny words, as you did all mission long” interfered Tony, sick of listening to you two. Loki was observing you as heedful as he could; your thoughts had caught his attention. You couldn’t read his face. “So, I’m gonna cut it shortly”.

“What?”, you went back to reality. You needed to actively ignore Loki’s gaze on you to actually pay any mind to Tony’s words.

“The rest of the team has another mission, and both Peter and you are technically still kids…” and as soon as you opened your mouth to argue, he shut it “no, don’t interrupt me. You know I’m right. So, I can’t leave you two alone for the entire week”.

“Oh”, you understood. Peter’s innocent eyes shone at the idea. Yours, not so much. “So, Loki is our babysitter”.

“Yes”, said Loki, while Tony answered “No” at the same time.

"What about Happy?", asked Peter.

“I think we can manage perfectly on our own. Besides, what makes you think he’s more responsible than me?”.

“He’s an adult”.

“He’s seventeen in human years, and fucked a horse”.

“Wow, someone has been stalking my mythology”.

“If you two quarrel too much, Peter will tell me and I’ll be back with Clint Barton in charge of you three. So you better behave. Alright, I’m leaving”.

“Wait! What are the rules?”, asked Peter. You grabbed your face and Loki muttered what a damn nerd.

“Eh, don’t burn down the compound, I don’t know, kid”, said Tony getting inside his bright red suit.

“The bar is on the floor. Let’s play macarena”, you whispered.

[pynkhues]

.... any succession fic recs? 👀

Yes!! I haven't read a lot for it yet, but some of the stuff I've read has been staggeringly good. I'm generally more into gen fic in this particular fandom, but have enjoyed some Stewy x Kendall, Gerri x Roman and Naomi x Tabitha too.

A few recs under the cut!

“I wanted to get out. From under all this. Take the money and run.”

Kendall tells Stewy even though he knows he’ll never get it, not like Naomi does. He’ll never understand the crush of it, the heart-stopping head-fucking fear of failing a tyrant. Kendall’s been ignoring the shape of it for a long time, putting pieces of it together in the back of his mind in total darkness like a blindfolded man. It doesn’t matter that one day his dad will die. It doesn’t matter about the money or the hostile takeover or the stolen files or any of it. There’s no running. Kendall’s Logan Roy lives inside his head.

Stewy laughs. Stewy laughs for a long time.

“There is no out, Ken, what the fuck are you talking about? You were born this and you’ll die this. You are what you are, and what you are is a fucking Roy.”

Kendall hates him, for a moment. Lightning-strike furious. What the fuck does he know about any of it, about his dad’s swinging dinner plate-sized hands, about getting 24% name recognition in reliable international polling, about puking every time you think about a car swerving off the road in the rain. About finding out that you can do something unthinkably, unimaginably terrible, and it doesn’t matter to anyone you know but you. There’s a scar on his arm that no one else who hasn’t already been told how it got there can ever know about, and he’s sick of it, and it’s not fair. He hates Stewy for a moment because Stewy’s right.

“I wanted to do the right thing, Stewy, for once in my fucking life.”

Stewy laughs again, more briefly, and the predator flash of his eyes in the neon of the motel sign is a torture all its own.

‘There is no right and wrong, Ken. How the fuck do you not know that yet? Not for people like you. Like us. There’s shit you get caught doing and there’s shit you don’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You really, really fucking don’t,” says Ken, and fuck, there it is. The road less travelled, that only he has ever driven on. The path he’s down where Stewy can’t follow. That place beyond Stewy Hosseini where he never thought he could go.

“You’re not telling me something, and when I find out what that is, and I will find out what it is, Kendall, don’t you think I won’t, so I am warning you that when I do find out I am going to be righteously fucking pissed,” says Stewy, and if Kendall thought those were a predator’s eyes before—

“Yeah, you will,” says Kendall, because he knows exactly how perceptive Stewy is. Exactly how weak he is. Exactly, precisely what both of them are.

And treat this night like it’ll happen again by postcardmystery. 8k words. Kendall x Stewy. Post s2. (CW: internalised homophobia, some homophobic language)

I tried to pick a shorter excerpt, but I literally couldn’t, this fic is so. good. The voices are pitch perfect, and it’s got this incredible build to it overall that goes back and forth between time and point of views and just rips your heart out. The premise itself is pretty simple – after the press conference at the end of 2.10, Kendall calls Stewy, and they drive through rural America while Kendall has a breakdown, and it’s just - - unspeakably good. I love it so so so much, I have no words.

r/roysucks Connor’s gf just posted on Instagram (instagram.com) submitted two months ago by webbedscrum_2279 23 comments share save hide report

[–] DM_ME_SAMESMAIL 40 points two months ago I too like to escape to my yacht in the Mediterranean when my family and I are on trial for covering up rape and murder. permalink embed save report reply

AITA for accusing my father of multiple crimes on his own news station? By amleth 3k words. Gen fic. Post s2.

And now for something completely different – epistolary fic which is just reddit news threads of the Roy family drama. I love an epistolary fic and this is just totally charming, and made me laugh a lot out loud.

“You’re quiet,” she observes. “That’s a first.”

“Yeah, well, the Turks beat it out of me. Gave you a run for their money.” He waggles his eyebrows. “So what is this? Whips and chains? Are we doing the whole boat-sex thing? I heard Shiv and Tom are looking for a third —“

Gerri finds what she’s looking for: a black leather binder. She drops it on the bed and begins paging through it, and Roman cranes his neck enough to recognize that it’s just full of documents, not like, dick pics. “I’ve given some thought to what you proposed a few weeks ago, and I agree that we should make things official in some way,” she says, and he blinks.

“Uh,” he says. “Which — what part of it?”

“Take a look.”

Gerri closes the folio and hands it over. It’s deceptively heavy, and the print on these pages is way too fucking fine, he thinks, paging through it. “Is this some kind of, like, Fifty Shades of Roy sex contract? Because it’s not that I’m not into it, but I think there’s a strong argument for going paperless —”

“Strictly speaking, this isn’t legally binding,” Gerri says. “Just something I threw together with regard to our business arrangement going forward. But with no respect to the family — the past few weeks have really illustrated that no one should take anyone at their word right now. Give me a little more than your word.”

Evacuation strategies for a yacht on fire by devourthemoon. 11k words. Gerri x Roman. Post s2. Explicit.

After the events of s2, Roman and Gerri fake being married as a professional alliance, only, y’know, maybe it’s not so fake. This fic is just so, so much fun, and messy in the best possible way. The author nails all the character voices, and the sex scenes are just the right amount of hot and ridiculous, and I just love it all a lot too.

Kendall estimates it will take an hour for the first articles to go up. Some rapid-fire blog without oversight—the New York Post, maybe, or wherever those Vaulter hippies have skulked off to—will slap a catchy headline on it and report his words verbatim. Give or take a gif of his face when he switches to script number two. New York Times, Washington Post, AP, those fuckers take longer. They like to bleed the story like Middle Ages plague doctors for its marrow, fact-check and add context and analysis and as many backlinks as their servers can handle. Still, a couple of hours, and his face will be plastered on every major news outlet. His voice will play over the nightly talk shows. He’ll trend on Twitter. A few more days, and he’ll be the star of analysis segments, podcasts, weekly briefings. Maybe, fuck it, maybe he’ll trend on Twitter again.

It’s been years since Kendall read Shakespeare. But that shit sticks with you, gets under your skin and emerges when you least expect it, like eczema or Keynesian economics. He knows how the media will spin this. Kendall Roy Attacks CEO Logan for Years of Corruption. Prodigal Son Disrupts Family Legacy to Restore Credibility. That’s how Hamlet ends, right? And Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, even Titus fucking Andronicus. The spilled blood sinks into the ground, the seedlings sprout forth from the soil, and a new castle is built on the bones. Order out of chaos, or at least close enough an approximation that the tabloids will buy it.

Legacy for profit by owlinaminor Post-2.10. Kendall Roy. Kendall through Shakespeare analogies – just - - ooooof. It's a beautiful, lyrical character study that weaves through Roy family history and teases at a future none of them are even sure they want. It's gorgeous writing.

For the next few days Shiv would have to keep the pressure on Kira like an open wound because there were other women, victims that Nate’s people were going to find one by one as soon as that phone call disconnected. Mo was her father’s friend, good friend, for a long, long time. Nate and Gil, Sandy and Stewy, too many sharks in the water and the share price probably dipped to a new low but she would never check a stock ticker. Her husband’s nerves fraying at the edges on national television. She had promised a woman she’d never met before that she would kill roughly one third of the top male executives of her family’s company. Her company.

The last look Rhea gave her before she shut the car door was concern close to fear—no longer the same woman who heard their pitch in the safe room, who laughed with her at Argestes. Rhea had only looked into the abyss; she got cold feet and she didn’t even know what it’s like to grow up in it.

Her family’s company is hers, will be hers. Even from a whale fall, new life would spring.

Feed his flesh to wayward daughters by reogulus. 2k words. Shiv Roy. Set during 2.09.

This entire fic is set around Shiv bribing Kira not to testify, and god, it is so good. It’s bleak and rough, and really hones in on the complex ground Shiv walks as a character. It's another brilliant study of what it takes to be a Roy, and the way they make the awful choices in order to fulfill this legacy that they don't even know they want.

Kendall sets down his fork. “So. Tell me. Is it everything you wanted? Is it what you thought it would be?”

Roman stills. He never does that. He’s constantly a menace in motion, slouching and fidgeting, worse even than Kendall at his amphetamine peak. “What? The view from the tippy-tippy-top?”

“His regard.” Kendall wipes his mouth with the edge of the white cloth napkin. It comes away pink from the steak. “Dad. He’s all yours now.”

Roman still hasn’t moved. Finally, he lurches, like corroded machinery come uncertainly to life. “Yeah, man. It’s fucking tight as hell. I love every beautiful daddy and me moment I was a good enough little boy to earn.” He snorts. “Fuck you.” His face goes curiously slack then, like something Kendall’s own face would do. An intermission in the performance, an energy cut. Something genuine finding its way to the surface. “Why don’t you tell me. When you got everything you wanted, how the fuck did that make you feel?”

Nauseous, is the first word that springs to mind. Sick. Scared. I’ve never had everything I wanted, there’s that. I’ve never once had a single fucking thing I wanted. There’s that, too.

Interim leadership by arbitrarily 2k words. Roman + Kendall. Post s2.

I love Roman and Kendall scenes generally, but this one which features Kendall and Roman meeting for the first time a few months after the press conference in 2.10 is just a bit magic. The push pull dynamic that's just inherent to them mixed with the genuine affection and brotherly love is really special, and arbitrarily embraces both in equal measure. It's a great little fic.

There are lots more of course, and I'd also recommend checking out other works by these authors, but I hope this is a good place to start! :-)

[maggiec70]

Prince Bagration Makes a Cameo Appearance

Another excerpt from the longest-running histfic draft. This is for Tairin. I hope I did her prince justice, small though it may be.

Jean’s staff found a two-story house large enough for them all in a northern Viennese suburb. General Compans ordered the portly, red-faced owner and his large family to leave, slipping him a fistful of gold coins before he could protest. Mariana couldn’t tell how many coins constituted a fistful, but they produced an incredulous expression on the man’s face and then a deep bow that revealed his blindingly bald, pink pate. There must be a secret source of gold coins that only Compans and Thomières knew about, perhaps hidden away in a sturdy oak box labeled Bribes. She had seen these coins appear whenever Jean wanted to sleep somewhere other than a barn or outside on the ground for several days. She also knew only a very few marshals and generals bothered to compensate the people whose lives they disrupted or even thought to do so.

“Don’t wreck the place,” Compans ordered them after the Viennese family had bustled out the door, their personal belongings tied up in large, unwieldy bundles.

“Why would we?” she asked Joseph as two adjutants added more wood to a fire in the large stone hearth. She wondered how much food she might find in the kitchen cupboards and the spacious pantry leading from the kitchen. Indeed, the life expectancy of the well-fed hens she’d seen in the dooryard was measured in minutes.

“It was a pro forma reminder,” Joseph replied. “We’ve never been a horde of Vandals or Huns, and the marshal knows it.” He grinned at her and stretched so much that he almost slid out of his chair. “I can’t say the same about Prince Murat’s cavalry or anyone in Marshal Augereau’s VII Corps. Now there’s a collection of seasoned plunderers—as bad as one of the plagues of Egypt, but not, I think, as dedicated to looting as Marshal Masséna.”

Later that evening, with a cold November wind safely outside and warmth and food inside, she sipped her second cup of rich coffee laced with cream from the black and white cow standing up to her knees in hay in the barn. “After ages in Purgatory, I’ve been given my reward.”

“Savor your taste of Paradise, Gabriel, while you can. We’re leaving in a couple of days,” Jacques said, unhooking his cloak and shaking sleet from it.

“Why? The Austrians surrendered at Ulm almost four weeks ago, and we’re north of Vienna with no Austrians anywhere that I can see. There isn’t anyone to fight.”

Jacques poured coffee from a porcelain pot and backed up to the fire. “Don’t you read the dispatches, Gabriel?”

“Not often—they’re boring.”

“Well, you should. We hadn’t seen the Austrian army because it left Vienna right before we arrived. Now they’ve gone further north, with General Kutuzov’s Russians.”

“Who’s Kutuzov?” she asked, trying not to yawn in his face. She really should pay more attention to the dispatches and reports. If Jean ever asked her about the campaign's minutia, she had better know enough to answer. She’d seen what happened when an officer couldn’t tell Jean what he wanted to know and didn’t want to subject herself to the humiliation of a profanity-laced public rebuke.

“Some clever Russian general, older than God. He’s heading for Moravia, though, not Mother Russia.”

Mariana remembered Jacques’s words three days later. Ejected from the warm stone house before dawn, she bundled up in her heavy cloak and gloves and rode out of Vienna with the rest of V Corps. Now, close to midnight, she didn’t think Moravia was anywhere close or warmer than Russia. It was full dark when they rode into a tiny hamlet so small they would have missed it if the scouts and leading edges of Oudinot’s grenadiers hadn’t literally stumbled over it. Snow topped with a thin layer of rime covered the cottage roofs, garden walls, the rough pathway serving as a street, and stubble in the surrounding fields. The inhabitants had shuttered every window, but thin cracks of pale yellow light escaped from some of them.

“They’re more afraid of the Russians than they are of us,” Jean said in response to her question. Each word came out on a small puff of white, as her own had done. Soon it might be too cold to talk. “If you looked in those barns, you’d find nothing but old straw. There’s nothing of value in the cottages, either. If the villagers had enough warning, they would have hidden everything, and if not, the Russians have it all now.”

Mariana had never seen a hamlet this small before or so eerily deserted. The barrenness she saw in the faint snow light and that Jean had described made her shiver. This time the cold struck deep in her bones.

“We’ll be sleeping outside, gentlemen, on the other side of Hollabrünn and eating whatever we have with us. It will be a short night anyway—the enemy’s less than six miles ahead.” Jean spurred his horse forward over the little village track, and the rest followed, riding close enough to brush each other’s stirrups. Mariana wrapped the reins around one wrist and massaged her hands and fingers inside her gloves, afraid to take them off. The idea of trying to sleep on the frozen, iron-hard ground was dreadful. If the Russians were so close, and if Jean meant to attack them in the morning, she might as well sit up all night. If she didn’t freeze before dawn, then a brisk encounter with the enemy, even hand to hand, would warm her up nicely. “Aunt Lucrezia, you would be appalled,” she whispered through stiff lips cracked and bleeding from the cold.

Despite her plan to sit up all night, Mariana had just fallen asleep, curled into a tight ball, knees drawn up nearly beneath her chin, when Joseph shook her into befuddled wakefulness. “Get up, Gabriel,” he said, peeling her cloak away. We’re leaving now.”

She staggered to her feet, grabbed her cloak back from Joseph, and buttoned it up tight. “No breakfast?”

“No time for any. There’s a small Russian rear-guard ahead. We have to eliminate it before it reaches Kutuzov.”

Mariana didn’t mind not eating as much as she minded not having something hot to drink. However, the worst prospect was having to do the necessary at the edge of the forest to her left. She still thought it was manifestly unfair that lately, she nearly froze whenever she pissed, while her comrades did not. An inequality, however, that she was powerless to alter one whit.

Having concluded her business in the forest, she hurried to untie Odysseus from the picket line, tighten his girth, and climb into the saddle. She trotted off to join the aides, who waited in a nearly silent group, close together, their horses impatiently stamping the hard ground. Without a word, they swung around and fell in behind Jean and General Compans. She wanted to know how far away the Russian rear-guard was and how many Russians comprised a rear-guard, but she couldn’t make her lips move.

General Thomières saved her the trouble. “Excellency, how many troops does Bagration have ahead of us?”

While she wondered who Bagration was, Jean slowed his horse to respond to his senior aide. “Fewer than I have, even though I’m short two divisions and even shorter of supplies. Neither the weather nor the ground is good for much but a short skirmish.”

The air was so silent and frigid that Mariana heard the intonation beneath his words that often meant more than the words themselves. He sounded confident rather than cocky or foolhardy. A short skirmish, he’d said, and that was fine with her.

The encounter between Bagration’s rear-guard and V Corps’ grenadiers, reinforced at the last possible moment by a squadron of Murat’s heavy cavalry, was not a skirmish. Mariana thought it was more like a brawl in some wayside tavern, loud, fast, and disorganized. It ended before she’d had a chance to do anything and because Bagration told Prince Murat that he had just learned about a truce. The prince believed him, dismounted, told Jean to order his troops to cease fire, and went inside a slightly shell-shocked villa that had been some Moravian aristocrat’s summer home.

“A truce? What the fuck is he talking about? I had the damn Russians on their arses, and he rides in and orders me to stop!” Jean was livid, his expression as hard as granite. Mariana worried what he might do when he jumped from his horse, leaving the reins to trail in the snow, and stomped after Murat. Acting on instinct, aides, chief of staff, and a few senior adjutants closed around him like a protective wall and entered the villa together.

Intended for soft summer breezes, the villa struggled to combat the mid-November cold. Fires burned in hearths at either end of the reception chamber’s black and white tiled floor. Clear glass bottles filled with colorless liquid stood among scores of crystal glasses on heavily carved tables in the center of the room. Someone had shoved chairs and settees against the walls. Officers in uniforms Mariana had never seen before crowded around the tables, opening bottles, pouring liquid into glasses, and handing them around. She watched Prince Murat take a sip, then drain it and hold it out for someone to fill. She watched Jean barrel forward, his expression still thunderous, until a tall officer with the face of a young eagle and enough medals on his chest to blind half a dozen men stepped forward and intercepted him. Together they moved away from Murat and his entourage and stood by one of the double windows, heads bent close together, talking. Another officer approached them, two glasses on a silver tray, and quickly left when they took the glasses and continued their conversation. When Major Guéhéneuc tried to insinuate himself into the conversation, Jean turned on him like an enraged wasp. The major scuttled away, staring at the floor, his face scarlet. Mariana rocked back on her boot heels, a smirk spreading across her face.

As voices rose around her, followed by the rank odor of damp wool and unwashed males, Mariana felt the beginnings of a headache. To take her mind off it, she asked Thomières, “What are they talking about? And who is that Russian?”

He laughed, a soft sound but not derisive. She was glad since she rarely spoke to him at length. “I haven’t the slightest idea what they’re talking about, but that’s Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration the marshal’s talking to.” He laughed again, this time even softer as if he worried someone might overhear. “Talking now, fighting later. Fine looking general, though, don’t you think?”

“Indeed he is,” Mariana said. With his chiseled features and thick, dark hair, the tall, slender Russian looked a little like Jean. Big rooster and bantam rooster, she thought, and almost hooted with laughter. When she could trust herself to speak, she asked, “What’s in the bottles?”

“Vodka. Have you never tasted it?”

“I’ve never even heard of it.”

“Then allow me, lieutenant,” Thomières said and escorted her to the nearest table. Rummaging among the glasses, he found two relatively clean ones and filled them from one of the bottles. “Salut,” he said, threw back his head, and drank it down.

She sniffed at the clear liquid. It had no odor. Since Thomières was still standing, how dangerous could it be? She drank hers in a single gulp, and the alcohol burned all the way to her stomach, where it exploded. Tears flooded her eyes, she sneezed and then coughed. One cough led to several until Thomières pounded her on the back and filled her glass.

“Quick—drink this.”

She did and stopped coughing. This time the vodka felt smooth as silk, and she grinned at the senior aide. “You should have warned me.”

“And miss your reaction?” He filled her glass for the third time, but before she could drink it, four Russian officers joined them at the table, clutching their glasses filled to the brim and sloshing onto their dingy white gloves. Their faces were clean-shaven except for amazingly full side-whiskers, their cheeks brick red in the candlelight. Raising their glasses, they shouted in unison, “Za vashe zdorovye!” When they had downed every last drop, they tossed their glasses toward the fireplace. The sound of shattering crystal brought to a halt every conversation in the spacious room, and then other Russians began throwing their empty glasses to the floor.

“Why not?” Thomières said and threw his glass toward the hearth.

“Indeed!” Mariana replied and threw hers, too.

Whatever Jean and Bagration may have been discussing, or whatever Prince Murat may have believed about the alleged truce, or whatever the French and Russian officers thought about the prospect of imminent hostilities between them, everything disappeared beneath the sharp-edged sound of crystal shattering and the roars of toasts in French and Russian. Mariana linked arms with Thomières to keep from reeling and tried to get her tongue around the consonant-laden Russian words. Somehow, they sounded more satisfactory than light, polite French phrases and better suited to the vodka, of which she had become quite fond in no time at all.

Jean summoned aides and staff officers with a sharp whistle that penetrated the merriment and stalked out of the villa and into the icy, starlit night. The sudden cold jolted Mariana from her torpor, and the sharp air stung her eyes and nose. Her comrades showed similar symptoms of waking from a muddled sleep, and she wondered what might have happened had they stayed and emptied all those bottles.

[adventurebeforedementia]

Over the sea to Skye

We have just driven from the Kyle of Lochalsh peninsula across the bridge to the Isle of Skye and we are staying at Portree. The weather is beautiful and the campsite has an impressive mountain as it’s backdrop. So many great places.

In the last week, we have completed our journey across the north visiting Tongue and Scourie and headed down the west coast to Lochinver and Ullapool. The North Atlantic Drift passes Ullapool, moderating the temperature. A few New Zealand cabbage trees are grown in the town and are often mistaken for palm trees, giving the place a Mediterranean feel.

During our journey through the spectacular scenery, we were lucky enough to see a golden eagle hunting across the mountains and swooping down over the loch. This magnificent bird with a massive wingspan, was soaring and diving to catch its prey.

We decided to take the more scenic coastal route from Lochinver to Ullapool despite the warnings that it wasn’t suitable for buses or caravans. No mention of motorhomes here so we pressed on. In places, the road was nothing more than a single track with hairpin bends and steep drops. It took us almost an hour and a half to cover 30 miles as we had to pull over and even reverse to let other traffic through and then there were the cyclists to avoid.

As we emerged unscathed from the experience and proud of our achievement, we stopped to take a photo of Ullapool harbour. A motorhome with a German couple on board sped past and hit Big Boy’s wing mirror, catapulting the glass into the grass verge. Without Alex slamming his hand on the horn, it was unlikely they would have stopped because they had driven a considerable distance before pulling over. Luckily, we managed to salvage the glass, tape it back in place and unfortunately we will be going home more battered than we arrived.

We also visited the mile long Corrieshalloch Gorge which takes its name from the Gaelic meaning ‘ugly hollow’. But that couldn’t be further from the truth as you gaze down over a series of crashing waterfalls into the gorge below. The gorge is one of the most spectacular of its kind in Britain. I drew the line at crossing the suspension bridge over it, however, and was not alone in deciding that was a step too far.

After leaving Ullapool, we headed to Gairloch and then onto Applecross. As we drove through the countryside, we noticed a magnificent stag had come out into the open and was standing among the cars and visitors in a parking bay. He wasn’t at all concerned by the people or the cars and has clearly made a habit of dropping in to blag a few snacks. Incredible to be able to be so close to such a wonderful animal in its own environment.

There are two routes into Applecross - the shorter one, originally a cattle track, goes up and over the mountain; the second one goes up and round the mountain following the coast. We decided to take the second, known as ‘the coward’s way’, and we’re so glad we did. It was still hair-raising driving on the edge of the mountain on a single track road with sheer drops. I can’t imagine how terrifying the other one must be but I’m not planning to find out anytime soon. This little hamlet sits in the most breathtaking scenery and it was well worth the long drive. We were once again dodging the sheep on the road and one decided to play kamikaze pilot just as we were passing by, narrowly missing being hit as it ran out in front of us.

The greatest moments on this journey have been the simple pleasures, such as a picnic beside the road with the amazing loch and mountain scenery all around. But best of all, we’re doing this in the middle of a working week with no work to go back to. We’ve waited a long time to be able to say that.