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lu-undy · 4 years

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Chapter 82 - SBT

Here it is!

Mundy went to the kitchen and found his lover in a dressing gown, standing in front of the stove. The gentle smell of the omelette he was dealing with floated in the air.

“Mundy…?”

“Mmh…” The Aussie wrapped his arms around Lucien’s silhouette from behind and nuzzled in his hair and his neck.

“Bonjour, mon amour.”

[Good morning, my love.]

“Mornin’, love.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah, but I woke up and you weren’t there.” Mundy answered, complaining but still peppering kisses on Lucien’s neck, who chuckled under the gentle tickle.

"My apologies, mon loup. I woke up a long time ago and I didn't leave your side for an equally long while. Eventually I decided to stop being lazy and start the day."

"Mmh…" Mundy buried his head deeper in his lover's neck.

"Come now, the omelette is ready." Lucien started moving and the Aussie followed, still stuck to him like a slug.

"It's for me?"

"For us, or for you if your appetite allows it." Lucien answered.

"You callin' me fat?"

"Brave enough for it is what I am calling you." Lucien chuckled. "I have seen you eat that and more than that by the past. Do you remember the pizzas?"

"Lu', c'mon, it was a one off and I hadn't had lunch that day! Also, c'mere…"

Mundy sat down and pulled Lucien to sit on his lap. Everything was laid on the table, from the coffee to the toasts and butter. The two of them enjoyed their breakfast as it was the weekend now and they didn't have to work.

"Meow…" The fluffy white cat appeared at the door with her black companion. They both took a second to yawn and stretch before trotting to the table and finally jumping on it.

"Bonjour mon bébé."

[Good morning my baby.]

"Sooty boy."

"You have your milk in the bowls." Lucien said and the cats went to the bowls that were on the side of the table before lapping it happily.

"Look at them, they're beautiful." Mundy said, lacing an arm around Lucien's waist.

"Indeed they are. But now that I think about it, you never told me how Perle met with Soot." Lucien said.

"Well, I have no bloody clue. The only thing I know is that it was when you were supposedly dead. I was working for Maurice and would set Pearl free. She'd roam around without going too far. And then there was this one time where she just went away at night as I was having a chat with Maurice. I called her but she didn't come back. I already had the kittens back then and they started mewling cause Mum was away. I called again and at some point, she appeared. Right behind her was a dirty, slim black cat."

"So Soot was a stray?" Lucien asked.

"Yeah. Poor thing was bone thin when he came to me. I fed him, which he liked, and washed him, which he hated. Now, he's happy as he can be with the wifey and the two old gramps."

They exchanged a smile and Lucien handed Mundy his mug of coffee.

"What about the kittens? You said you had them before Soot came to you?" Lucien asked.

"Found the kittens almost by chance. I noticed Pearl would go out in the evenings but i didn't think much of it. I thought she just wanted to stretch her legs, and she'd always come back. One night she went off and I decided to come along, see where she goes off to. She led me deep in dark alleyways that had nothing but bins, and I saw her slip in a soggy cardboard box. Remember that, baby?"

"Meow." She answered as Soot was bathing her.

"I tried to open the cardboard box but she scratched me. I tried talking to her, to soothe her. I didn't get why she was bein' aggressive at me. When she finally let me open the box, I saw those little balls of fur clinging to her and my heart bloody stopped!"

Lucien chuckled.

"So you brought them back to the van?"

"Yeah. I asked Pearl first and then carried the whole box back home. I washed them and together with mummy Pearl, we found names for them. Star and Diamond were obvious, Glovy too. Then, I struggled for Lu' Junior."

"Oh?"

"It's Pearl who found it. She told me there was really one person who had black hair except for the temples and the top." Mundy looked at his lover still sitting on his lap. "Only one gorgeous guy like that… And I understood she meant you." He kissed his cheek and Lucien smiled under the tender attention.

"But Mundy?"

"Yeah, darl'?"

"That means that you didn't notice her being pregnant? I am not an expert for cats but it is very apparent for us humans."

"Yeah, well…" Mundy was ashamed. "I didn't notice even though she must have had a belly like a house…! I just noticed that she liked to eat a bit more, is all. And uh, to be honest, I was in my own bubble of sadness. Waking up to the same day without you."

"Aw…" Lucien hugged him.

"I feel bad about it."

"Why?"

"Cause you asked me to take care of her and I failed to do it. Felt awful. She had to give birth far away and alone. God only knows how painful and scary it was for her… Alone and in a dirty cardboard box… To this day I look at her and feel guilty for this."

"Don't be, please." Lucien comforted him. "If she felt like she needed you, she would have begged for your attention and would have got it in the end, do not worry for that. Non, she might have wanted not to worry you more than what you already were."

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean that she might have preferred to give birth on her own to not put you under any more stress. You said it yourself, you were so distraught by my absence that you didn't even notice that she was pregnant. Chances are that you would have been a burden rather than an asset to her in such an intense moment."

"Hm. Maybe…"

"Aw, mon amour, please, give your old Lucien here a smile…? Ah, much better." Lucien cupped Mundy's face and gave him a tender kiss.

"Thanks, luv'."

"My pleasure. Now, go and get ready, I will clean up this mess we made." Lucien said.

"Get ready for what?"

The Frenchman stood up from his lover's lap and started getting busy with the dishes.

"For today might be the day the idea of leaving me makes it to your head, and your heart."

Mundy's breath cut sharp.

"What?! No!" He pushed his chair back and went behind Lucien and his gown, flying after him. "Love, don't say that, I told you. I won't leave you, not after the hell I've been through without you."

Lucien sighed.

"We shall see."

Mundy gulped audibly. Whatever Lucien had in mind, it was putting him through a lot of distress.

They both got dressed and ready to go. Lucien put on his jacket and went to the door.

"Are you ready?"

"Don't know. You tell me. I have no idea where we're going." Mundy answered.

"I shall take you there but then leave."

"Why?"

"Because this does not concern me but only you." Lucien answered.

"Don't say that… Whatever's mine is yours, luv'... Almost sounds like you're a stranger."

Lucien frowned and left the house. Mundy locked the door after him and joined him on the motorcycle. They put on their helmets and the Frenchman started the engine.

As usual, Mundy held on to Lucien, pretending that he was scared of the ride where in fact it was an excuse to just cuddle up with him, without it raising suspicion and bad looks around. But he found Lucien cold and unresponsive; not that he would usually turn around and hug him, but he would lean back or sometimes just turn his head slightly when the traffic lights stopped him.

But no. Today, Lucien was cold.

They drove all the way to the suburbs, where small houses lined up as far as the eye could see. They all looked like copies of each other, apart from the color of the doors or the curtains that one could see from the outside.

Lucien drove the motorcycle through the streets while slowing down. Mundy understood that they were getting closer. When they finally reached their destination, the Frenchman braked and stopped the engine. He turned to Mundy and removed his helmet to speak.

"Here we are."

Mundy removed his helmet and looked at the little house.

"What?"

"Maurice gave me this address. He said it would be the dark brown door."

"What am I supposed to do?" Mundy asked.

"Give a knock."

"That's it?"

"And please," Lucien raised sad eyes to his lover. "Forgive me, mon amour."

Mundy's eyebrows jumped as Lucien lowered his head.

"Don't look at me like that, luv', you did nothin' wrong, did you…?" Mundy put a finger below Lucien's jaw and pulled it back up. "Did you…?" He repeated, but Lucien didn't answer.

"I will drive back to the city. I have some business to attend to but I shall be back in half an hour at worst and will be waiting here."

"You sure you don't wanna come with me?" Mundy asked.

"You have to do this on your own." Lucien splayed his hand on Mundy's chest and lightly tapped it before putting his helmet again. "I… will see you later."

"Yeah."

Lucien started the engine again and as he was about to drive off, he felt something tap his shoulder. Mundy smiled at him and the Frenchman read on his lips.

I love you.

Lucien nodded and a few seconds later, Mundy was left alone in front of that house. He looked at the mailbox. No name. From there to the front door of the house, there were only a few meters paved by grey flat slabs of stone, gnawed by the years. There were a few flowers left and right from it, daisies and tulips. Mundy wasn't sure what the other ones were called but whoever lived there clearly took good care of them all, as the washed out water can showed. It used to be green but years under the sun made it lose its vibrant colour.

The Aussie sighed. What the hell was that all about?

He walked on the paved way and stopped in front of the door. Naturally, his eyes fell on the doorbell and he had a second of hesitation. Lucien's sorry eyes flashed in front of him and Mundy thought that he didn't have to do anything. No one would arrest him if he didn't ring that bell.

No, he could just wait for Lucien to come back and go back home, never to talk about this ever again. If it disturbed his otherwise calm lover that much, it must have been quite serious, especially if Lucien thought that Mundy could end it all because of it.

But he didn't want to! Mundy didn't want his story with the Frenchman to stop and he would fight to make it last, as he did in the past. He had lost everything of value in his life such that the only one thing that remained was Lucien. Lucien, and the cats. He would never lose them.

Well that was it then. Problem solved.

Mundy spun on his heels and went back to the pavement where he waited for Lucien to come back. He sat there, on the ground and watched the occasional passer-bys. The neighbourhood was pretty calm. Only families and old people lived there. It was calm, but lively. Neighbours seem to know each other and get along well.

Mundy daydreamed for a moment, wondering what it would feel to live in such an environment. Back when he used to live with his parents, Mundy's house was quite far from the city, in a green area just next to the desert. And now, with Lucien, he lived bang on in the city centre. Now that he thought about it, he would never believe he could settle in a city.

"Sorry Sir!"

"Oh, sorry, mate."

A kid passed along with his bike and broke Mundy's train of thought. The Aussie stood up and moved out of the way. The young boy's mother passed along a few seconds after. He nodded politely before putting his hands in his pockets and walking back and forth on the pavement.

What on Earth would scare Lucien to the point of thinking that Mundy would leave him…?

The Aussie stopped walking and looked at the dark brown, wooden door.

What on Earth was stronger than Lucien's death, may it be fake, such that the Frenchman would think it was strong enough a reason to break up…?

Nothing Mundy could think about. There was nothing. He knew Lucien was faithful, he knew he himself was faithful. So what could it be…?

"Hm. Guess there's only one way to find out, eh?"

Mundy gathered his courage and walked to the door again. He raised his hand and gave a short knock.

Unbeknownst to him, Lucien had never really left. He had hid his motorcycle and was observing everything from a safe distance. He had seen it all, Mundy's hesitation, his refusal, and finally, his going anyway.

It had been a heavy weight to carry on his shoulder. Maurice had trusted him with a truth that Lucien wished he could have trusted to Mundy before, or at the same time. Of course Lucien was used to carrying lies around and with the years and long experience as an outstanding spy, lies had just become a second truth.

However this time was different. The truth he had hidden from Mundy had nothing to do with the Frenchman himself, and all with Mundy. It hurt, having to look the man who made his life complete and know that he held a life changing truth from him.

It often kept him up at night. Lucien would pretend to sleep and when he would hear Mundy's breath stabilise, he would open his eyes and watch him sleep. He looked so peaceful, so innocent, oddly enough for a scruffy, almost forty-year-old man. But if Mundy had a clear conscience, Lucien watched him with his brow furrowed and doubt in his eyes.

How to tell him the truth?

Well, Lucien thought that it wasn't his responsibility to tell Mundy about it. Non. He had nothing to do with it. Maurice had just thought it would be good to let him know. Lucien found it ridiculous. It didn't have anything to do with him. So why tell him? Why make him an accomplice in bearing the burden of this?

Lucien watched keenly from a few houses away, his motorcycle hidden in plain sight, invisible. Mundy gave a knock. He removed his hat and fumbled with it nervously. The door soon opened and Lucien's eyes opened wider. They were riveted on Mundy.

The Aussie's jaw dropped and his hat dropped from his fingers. He took a step back and fell limply.

"Merde…"

[Shit…]

It looked like he fainted. Lucien rushed to him, he knew the people he was meeting wouldn't be able to do much.

"Let me help…" Lucien hopped over the low wooden fence and carefully avoided the flowers.

"Who're you?" The man standing at the door asked.

"His best friend." Lucien answered.

"I thought he was supposed to come alone… Bah, nevermind…"

"Can you carry him inside?" A woman appeared at the door.

"Oui, I can." Lucien slid a hand below Mundy's neck and made him sit up before carrying him off of the ground. "Gnh-!" He grunted.

"Come through here, put him on the sofa." The woman went on and pushed whatever stood in Lucien's way.

"Please, bring some water and a few sugar cubes, I will wake him up." Lucien said as he made sure Mundy was lying comfortably on the old, worn-out sofa. Of course, the Aussie was too tall and his legs dangled off at the end. Lucien took his hand and gently tapped Mundy's cheeks. "Mundy…? Mundy, réveille-toi… Mundy…?"

[Wake up…]

The woman came back with a tray containing a bottle of water, a glass and a few sugar cubes in a bowl. She placed it on the coffee table.

"Is he alright?" She asked. The man came at her side after shutting the door and she leaned on his side.

"He will be. Give me an instant." Lucien answered. He opened the water bottle and poured some in his hand before slowly brushing Mundy's face with it. "Come on, Mundy… Please… Wake up… Wake up, mon loup…"

[My wolf]

Eventually, Mundy's lips parted. He groaned and blinked a few times before pulling his heavy eyelids up.

"What… the… Lu'? Lu', is that you?"

"Oui, it is me."

Mundy frowned.

"What happened? Where am I…?" Mundy's eyes scanned the room. He didn't recognise the old wallpaper or the dark wooden furniture. The room wasn't too spacious, certainly a bit smaller than their own living room. The wallpaper used to be yellow but the years and the sun through the windows made it beige. Mundy couldn't clearly see the motifs on them. There was a fireplace opposite the sofa, beyond the wooden coffee table, and on the mantelpiece was placed an equally old clock.

"I need to go and leave you, Mundy."

"No!" The Aussie grabbed his lover by his shirt, on his chest. "Where're you goin'? And you're leaving me alone? No, please stay…"

"Mundy…" Lucien put his hand on Mundy and pushed it away. "This is your business, not mine."

The Aussie was about to answer something when he saw a hand on Lucien's shoulder tapping him gently. The hand was old but looked like it had done manual labour all its long life. There were wrinkles but they looked quite sturdy, oh and Mundy noticed the golden ring on the ring finger.

"Your friend's right, Mundy. We need to talk."

Mundy's eyes snapped wide.

"What the hell-?!" He jumped to his feet, tripped and fell back on the sofa. "L-Lu', tell me you can see him! Please! Tell me I'm not going mad!"

The poor Aussie was sweating, his face was pale as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Oui, I can see them." Lucien calmly answered. "Sit down, please." He sat on the sofa and laced an arm around Mundy's shoulders.

"B-But what the… Fuck me, I'm going mad, aren't I? They can't be there! They can't!" Mundy frantically rubbed his eyes.

"Micky…?" The woman sat next to him on the other side and put her old and tired hand on Mundy's thigh. She was old, in her seventies surely, wearing a beige dress and a pink pair of glasses.

Mundy stared at her intensely, his eyes rediscovering a face he had known all his life but hadn't seen in years. It had changed very little, that face. It still beamed with empathy, kindness and softness, even though, admittedly, there were more lines on it. Her hair was more salt than pepper but the bun was the same, the locks of hair around her face too…

"M-Mum…?" He stammered and she smiled, her wrinkles made her grin look even wider.

"Micky, sweetie."

Mundy's head spun from Lucien, to his mother and the man whose hand was still on Lucien's shoulder.

"Dad…? Lu', tell me you can see them too, tell me it's really not just me… I-I don't know, slap me or something, please, I-I'm, I'm-"

Tears came faster than he could hold them and he clenched his grip on his mother's hand, his whole arms and legs were shaking.

"Oui, Mundy, I can see them too." Lucien put a hand on his shoulder.

"Micky, sweetie, come here…" Mundy's mother pulled him and he dived in her chest, crying out loud, drowning his face and her dress with tears he did not fully understand. How on Earth were his parents there? How were they alive? How did they survive? Why had they hidden for more than a decade? Why resurface now?

Mundy's head burnt and hurt. It felt like it was too full and about to burst. He screwed his eyes shut and let the waters of his shock flow like waterfalls down his face.

Lucien stood up and let Mundy's father take his place on the sofa. He stayed standing on his feet.

"Micky, son…" Mundy's father took one of his son's hands and clenched his grip on it.

"W-How…? You were alive…? All this time? Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Caroline, go and make some tea, honey. I'll take care of him. And you, whoever you are, thanks." Mundy's father looked up at Lucien.

"It was the least I could do. I shall leave you now."

"No! Please, Lu'... Please stay…?"

Caroline looked at her son and then at Lucien.

"Non, Mundy, you need to have a chat with your parents. I shall be there whenever you need me."

"Thanks." Mundy's father added before pushing himself to his legs to stand up.

"Non, please, it is fine, I shall find the door myself. See you later, Mundy."

"I'll get you to the door before I go and make some tea." Caroline stood up and accompanied Lucien back.

"Here, son." In the living-room, Mundy's father handed his son a handkerchief and the Aussie wiped his face from all the surprise wetting his rough cheeks.

"Thanks…"

Mundy rediscovered his father's face. It had a few more lines, but nothing had changed. Even the glasses were the same. Similarly to his mother, his father's hair was almost completely white now but it was still there. Mundy blinked repeatedly as he saw that even his father's love for short-sleeved shirts was still going strong.

Caroline crossed the living-room again and went to the kitchen.

"You're still shakin'. Are you cold? Should I bring you a blanket?" She asked as she passed.

"N-no, it's just the shock."

"Mike, go and get him one of your jackets or a blanket." She addressed her husband.

"Right, don't move, son, I'll be back in a second."

Mundy smiled and nodded. It slapped him across the face. His mother still could tell when he was lying just to be polite and save his old parents some trouble.

Soon, his father came back with a blanket and laid it on Mundy's back. Caroline entered the room not a second later with a tray. She placed it on the coffee table in front of them and each sat left and right from their son. Caroline served a cup of tea for everyone, starting with Mundy.

"Here, sweetie."

"Thanks, Mum… But… Is that really you?"

"Yes, it is."

"Hold on." Mundy lowered the cup on his lap. "I… I'm not buyin' it." He frowned.

"What?" Mike's bushy eyebrows jumped behind his square glasses.

"How can I be sure? I mean, you're supposed to have been dead for more than then ten years now. I saw the house, no way you could have escaped that. I was at the burial, I saw the… the coffins lowered to the ground. I visited you, even with Lu'... We both visited your graves!"

"Well, we're callin' you Micky, aren't we?" Mike asked.

"Anyone could know that."

Mike looked at Caroline and sighed. She put her cup back on the tray and cleared her throat.

"See the sunset,

The day is endin',

Let that yawn out,

There's no pretendin'."

Mundy's eyes popped wide, he looked at his mother with the same eyes as he had three decades earlier, and she gave him back the same grin that she used to. He remembered his room with the green wallpaper, the jungle foliage motifs, his little desk when he was a young boy, his shelves, full of illustrated books about animals, his telescope next to his window, and even the smell of his room after his mother cleaned it. She used to always use a lavender freshener...

"I will hold you,

And protect you,

So let love warm you,

Till the mornin'."

She stopped singing the lullaby and put a hand on his cheek.

"Would anyone else remember this?" She asked with a sweet smile. "Whenever you'd wake up from a nightmare, or you couldn't sleep, I'd sing that to you, remember?" She brushed his cheek tenderly and Mundy was back to being a young boy with messy hair and big, round, curious eyes. "Remember when I had your father try to learn it but he kept on getting the lyrics confused?"

"I… I do…"

Mike stood up and went to the coathanger.

"We couldn't save anythin' from the old house. But I kept this." He went to his coat and fetched his wallet. He sat back down on the sofa and opened it. "Here, have a look."

It was a picture, not much bigger than a stamp, of young Mundy. It was old, and the black and white had turned into shades of washed-out light browns. He was but a child on it.

"How could I have this picture of you if I didn't keep my wallet with me, eh?" Mike said as he tapped Mundy on his shoulder.

"Dad… Mum, I… I've missed you so much."

And again, Mundy let the cup rest between his thighs on the sofa and hugged his mother. He almost clawed at her as part of him still struggled to believe that after all that time, he was in his parents' arms again.

#tf2 spy #tf2 sniper #sniperspy #SBT

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treatian · 3 years

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The Chronicles of the Dark One: Magical Loopholes

Chapter 25: Highlights and Lowlights

Things were going…well…they were going. His night and day were peppered with small moments, moments that were good and moments that were bad, but all of them kept him moving forward, one foot in front of the other. Returning from his workshop to slip into bed beside Belle in the early hours of the morning, feeling her roll back into him and mutter his name sleepily, that was a good feeling. Leaving her only an hour later to get up and go to work, that was a bad feeling. Getting into the shop and seeing the shards of glass he's smashed up yesterday before leaving and hadn't cleaned, that was a low point, but using magic to repair the cabinets so that it looked as though nothing ever happened, made it better. Managing to go to the town line and cast a spell that allowed him to bottle samples of the magic at the Town Line, that was a positive piece of progress, not knowing where to begin with those bottles was a kink in his celebrations. Going home and having lunch with Belle was the same oasis it had been each and every day, but the call he'd gotten from her right before he'd left reminding him to bring home the art supplies he'd been purposefully forgetting was frustrating.

It was his own fault. When they'd stayed in bed talking over the weekend he'd let slip the news about the bulletin board he'd seen in town, the one where people where posting pictures and drawings of loved ones. Fortunately, he'd remembered himself enough not to mention that her father had done a very poor, very wrong drawing of her, one that he was still keeping at the shop, but ever since he'd told her about it, she'd been asking him to bring her back art supplies for her. She had asked about her father that day, he'd answered that he honestly didn't know where he was. It was the truth. He didn't have a tracker on the man, at that moment he legitimately didn't know where he was, he could be at home, or the shop, he could have been out at the Evil Queen's mansion protesting for all he cared. But he didn't know. So, it hadn't been a lie.

Still, after that conversation when she'd begun to ask for "art supplies", he'd known what she wanted them for. That was why he'd "forgotten" them. This time, when she'd finally appeared to master the telephone and asked for them herself before he left for lunch, there was no avoiding it. He told himself that it could have been worse. She could have chosen to ask him about his past and either forced him to lie or danced around not answering her at all.

But that night, when he saw what she'd actually drawn, he realized that simply drawing a picture of her father wasn't the worst thing that could come of it.

After she'd cooked dinner, he'd begun dishes and other clean-up tasks while she sat at the kitchen table and worked on her drawings. That was the first time he noticed that she was working on not one but two drawings. Two…one for her father and another for…he hadn't gotten a clear sight of it yet. Certainly not her mother, they both knew that she was dead, but perhaps there was another distant family member that she'd been close with. He practically swallowed his own tongue when he thought of the boy she'd once brought back to the Dark Castle. Samuel, that had been his name. He'd never quite found out about who they had been with each other, but he'd wanted to take Belle away with him and cared for her a great deal. He'd let him go and never seen him again at least not that he could remember. For the first time, he found himself wondering if that was a mistake, if he should have killed him or if he needed to look for him just to make sure-

He was being ridiculous, jealous. She was here with him, she shared his bed, his life, he didn't need to worry over silly things like that when he had a Curse to break.

"What do you think?"

His heart raced as he rung out the rag he'd been using on the counter tops then looked over his shoulder at the drawing she was holding up. A picture of her father, not the mysterious second individual, but not exactly a man that inspired great admiration in him either. Regina's story of the old man locking Belle up so that she killed herself might not have been true, but that didn't mean he wasn't responsible for a great number of other grievances. Bile rose in the back of his throat as he stared at the picture that was a little too accurate for comfort.

"I think it's surprisingly detailed," he managed to choke out before finishing his work at the sink. It was the only good thing he could think to say. He knew she loved to read, knew she loved to clean, but until she'd held that drawing up for him, he hadn't a clue that she was also an artist a far better one than her father. "I didn't know you could draw," he commented, changing the subject as he came to sit beside her. He hoped he might get a glimpse of the mysterious second portrait she'd been working on.

"I was a Princess," she shrugged. "It would have been improper not to learn how to draw. Besides…I didn't know you could clean."

He smiled at her jest, at the way she raised her eyebrows and managed to insult him while making him want to kiss her at the same time.

"There was a time long ago before you were born that I didn't have a caretake to rely upon. And good help is always hard to find, no matter what realm you're in.

She laughed as she shook her head and returned to her work. They'd done this sort of joking in the castle, when they were relaxed with each other, to see it return to her instead of anxiety and wonder at the world around her…that was a highlight of the day. Finally catching a glimpse at the other picture she was drawing, was not a highlight. He picked the finished drawing up and examined it closer in disbelief. Dark hair, chiseled chin, cold eyes, haughty expression; he recognized that face. Not her father or a family member or even Samuel. Her former fiancé…Gaston. He'd been prepared, in a way, for her pronouncement that she wanted to find her father. But he couldn't have been prepared for her saying she wanted to find him, not after the way she'd described him in the castle. "I never truly cared for Gaston." She'd said that. So why was she so preoccupied with finding him now?

"I still don't understand why you need to find him."

"Well…" she sighed casually before taking the drawing from him. The expression on her face as she looked it over was comforting in a way. It wasn't care or concern he saw there. Curiosity, perhaps, maybe even a bit of sadness. But it didn't help him to understand. "As vain as he was, I did know him. I didn't love him enough to want to be married to him, but he was part of my life for a long time and…I just want to know he's all right, Rumple. For me, not for him. I don't suppose you've seen either of them around town, have you?"

Honesty or nothing. Just because he wasn't bound by magic, just because he hadn't made a deal with her when she thought they had didn't mean that he wanted to lie to her. Yes, he had seen her father around town, not since the Curse had broken, but he could probably get a hold of him fairly easily. And as for Gaston…he'd never told her that he'd killed him already and he couldn't see himself doing it now. He couldn't be honest with her, so he chose to continue staring at the picture and give her no information at all and allow her to interpret the silence as she wanted to.

Suddenly she shifted beside him, put her pencil down and overturned the picture of Gaston so his face was out of sight. She took his hands in her own and looked up at him. "Love comes in different forms, Rumple. I love you differently than I love my father. Just like you don't love me the same way you loved your son."

"I know," he answered, feeling his hands tighten over her own.

Jealous. She thought he was jealous of Gaston or else scared that she was going to leave him for her father. She was only correct on one of those counts. He was scared she was going to leave him, in fact he was almost certain it was going to happen one day. One morning she'd wake up and notice the monster she went to bed with, and she'd want to leave him behind. He could accept that. He'd promised to keep her safe all the days of her life whether she was with him or not. If she went back to her father…that might be harder than he wanted it to be. Maurice had caged her, kept her closeted, used her as a bargaining chip more than once in a war against ogres…if she had to leave, he didn't want her going back there. The idea that these drawings, if ever hung on the bulletin board as intended, might reunite father and daughter, that they might grow closer, that they might figure out Gaston had died at his hands…it made him shiver. Was he staring at the catalyst to the end of what they had? Was their time together already coming to a close?

"Come on," her voice penetrated the silence, forced his eyes up away from where they'd drifted to the picture of her father. She was up and out of her seat and pulling on his hands to rise with her, taking him away from the table, away from the memories and the faces. "Let's sit out back."

"Sit out back." In all his years in Storybrooke he'd never sat out back on the patio. He'd never seen the purpose of it, certainly not in his good pants and since he owned nothing but good pants there was simply no reason. The sun was setting, it would be dark soon, it might be growing warmer during the day, but it was still chilly at night, and he couldn't fathom why she'd want to sit outside in a dress that barely covered her shoulders. But he followed. Because something about even the simplest of requests from her rendered him useless to fight back. She sat down on the steps, and he followed suit so that she could thread her hand over his arm and lean her head against his shoulder.

"Why, exactly, are we sitting here while it's freezing?" he asked, playing the role of Scrooge just so he could get his mind off her father. It wasn't a bad question, to be honest. She would catch cold if they spent too much longer here.

"We are enjoying each other's company like we always do, we're just doing it outside this time. Since you prefer me to stay in the house while you're out, this is the only time I have."

That was a fair and valid point. He figured he had to wait at least another five minutes before he could make the argument that it was too cold and insist she go back inside. In the meantime…he turned his head and kissed the top of her head. She sighed into him, and it was then that the wind blew a scent that was distinctly her own in his direction. Her own scent…he hadn't realized how he'd missed it. Since they'd been living together their scents had begun to twine together in a way that complimented each other's beautifully. He hadn't smelled her uniquely for days now. It was a welcome scent, but also a lovely realization. She'd begun to smell like him, and he'd begun to smell like her. He didn't ever want to lose that. If her father came back into her life and took her from him-

"I love you, Rumple," she insisted as if she'd read his mind. "Whether or not I find my father and Gaston won't change that fact."

"I know," he answered honestly. It wouldn't be finding her father that would change that fact, it would be listening to her father, to the rest of the world, learning what happened to Gaston. He hadn't ever thought that he'd have to answer for killing that man when he'd done it, he hadn't ever assumed she'd care enough to want answers for him. Why it was coming back to haunt him, of all his sins, all these years later was something he couldn't understand. "But you told me you didn't care for him. You said-"

"I don't care for him and never will. I just need to be sure he's all right in this world. It's like…this strange feeling I have that he's not."

Fuck.

"And your father-"

"Whether or not he approves of this isn't something I care about."

Whether he approved wasn't something that he cared about either. Whether or not he took this light from him, the light that he saw in Belle and snuffed it out again when it was just starting to burn bright…that was what he cared about. That was what he couldn't allow.

He felt her turn to look at him, his neck burned as she stared at him but he refused to yield. The answer was simple. Those drawings could not make it to the bulletin board. He couldn't allow it. For her sake, not just his own, he couldn't let her father get to her yet, not when she'd only come this far. She wasn't ready to be on her own in this world with neither of them. Of course, that begged the question, would he ever be able to admit when she was ready to live without him? Would he be able to let her go?

Suddenly the fingers he'd been tapping nervously together were frozen by the presence of her own fingers lacing with his. Her head fit perfectly against his shoulder, his mouth fit perfectly against the crook of her neck, and their hands matched beautifully…how was he supposed to let her go when the time came?

"I left them once for a reason, Rumple," she whispered. "Many reasons actually, but one of them was that they didn't understand me. They didn't see me and I doubt they ever will. Not like you do, no one sees me like you do. You were the better option once and you're not just the better option now, you're the only option, the best option."

He turned to meet her gaze and felt guilt twist in his belly the second he saw that she believed that. He was the best option for her now, but he knew it was only because this was what she knew. The second she left, the second she had other options and saw other ways of independence-

"I have no intention of returning to the life they planned for me," she assured him. "I just need to know they're all right, that their life here is good…like mine is wither you."

He forced a smile to his face. He believed that in part. She'd never let her father auction her off to the highest bidder again, she'd certainly never marry Gaston or be Queen and bear royal children, not so long as they stayed in Storybrooke and Gaston remained dead. But as for the rest…

"I believe you," he smiled just so that he could watch her smile and drag him down to kiss her. He squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head before letting his smile safely falter as he stared into his own backyard. He believed her when she said that. But he also believed that just because someone believed something, that didn't make it true. Information could change opinions and beliefs-they could change people too. She was smart, her opinion could be changed with more information. He imagined her opinion would change with more information.

So, for now he was content to hold her close while he still could and watch the sun set in the distance until he moved a hand over her bare skin and felt the chill himself. "You're cold. Come on, let's go back inside."

"Rumple," she muttered as he moved to pick up his cane and get himself on his feet again. "Will you take those drawings into town for me tomorrow morning? Put them on that bulletin board?"

He sighed as he stared out at the lawn. Honesty or nothing. He couldn't let those drawings back it to the board. He wasn't ready for this to end. So he settled on a truth that was easily misinterpreted.

"I'll take care of it," he answered honestly. He'd take care of it by burning the pictures to ash so they never saw the light of day again.

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Mr. Gold #Belle #Gaston #Maurice #Moe French #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfic

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kariachi · 5 years

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Okay, we’re gonna see how much liveblogging I can get done today. We’re still in full Kevin mode, and we’re starting the day with Heads of the Family. I have minimal idea what to expect, but I love Kevin and I love the Bugg Brothers, so it can’t be bad.

Right?

My love for this show’s music selection continues.

Oh good lords, these people take family reunions seriously. There’s a fucking banner. You can see more people in this frame then there was at my last family reunion in it’s entirety. And that was everybody from this farming family that still lived in the northeast within six generations of relation. Not kidding.I know nix and I play with there being too many fucking Joneses but goddamn there are canonically too many fucking Tennysons!

Just, goddamn.

...Last year Ben and Gwen had a burping contest where Ben won by so much a fucking gazebo collapsed on them and several relatives. I’m not surprised, just concerned

And Aunt Kathy damn near banned them from future reunions. Honestly I can’t blame her. Made Max give her a month’s worth of foot massages to re-earn the right to attend.

They’re bringing the deviled eggs.

That is, a sad amount of deviled eggs for the number of people here.

Nobody is happy to see Ben, which, given last year, not surprising.

...yep, that’s a level of offhand rudeness you only get from relatives.

Honestly I gotta write a fic involving family reunions, that’s shit’s gotta be confusing for an Erinaen like Argit.

(probably Great) Aunt Kathy likes bacon in her deviled eggs. The presence of them was likely planned ahead.

There’s a Sweden branch of the Tennyson family. The representatives shown are Sven and Len. I’m horribly amused. Also Max apparently can’t tell which is which.

...Somebody just showed up given a headcount of nearly 600. What is wrong with these people?!

The headcounter’s name is Alfred. He has pumpkin pie. This earns him a point.

He’s Max’s second cousin. This is a relation I can accept as a family reunion.

Somebody is showing off Max’s baby pictures. Making him out to have been a worse-looking teen than he was though. Doesn’t look good, but I was expecting worse from the characters’ reactions.

Also this is apparently Grandma Rita, which given it’s Max saying that I have to assume she’s either his mother or his grandmother, so Ben & Gwen’s great-grandma or great-great-grandma. Probably great-grandma. Either that, or she’s aged real well, or she and Max’s mom had kids real young.

“I’m gonna get some deviled eggs“ Ben says before being stopped by the realization that there, by the food, is his archest of nemesises, Kevin. Who, given there’s nearly 600 people here, may actually belong. I mean statistically, with this many people just attending the reunion, nonetheless in the family, there’s acceptable odds he’s a cousin of some bent.

Also my son, dual-wielding fried chicken

Gwen, concerned Kevin might be related to them. Max, concerned Ben’s going to do something that gets them banned from the family reunion.

“Don’t do anything rash“ like Ben has ever done something not-rash ever in his life

Boys please. I know you’re both disasters but, for five minutes pretend to have something resembling chill.

Ben: *totally down to kick Kevin’s ass for daring to eat a food* Kevin: *certain he won’t because they’re surrounded by innocent relatives* Ben: *does not care one iota* Gwen: *about to have an aneurysm because holy shit is her cousin trying to get them disowned*

I have to admit, I do enjoy the addition of episodes where Kevin is just existing and it’s Ben who’s starting shit? Having a wide range of hows with regards to the boys getting into fights makes sure that we get some real character depth out of both of them, as well as making sure the episodes don’t get samey and that they can always do something new. They aren’t pigeon-holing themselves.

The boys have left to a less target-rich environment and are now fighting because, again, how dare Kevin come to a Tennyson family reunion and eat the food. And we still don’t have any real evidence he doesn’t belong. I mean he makes that ‘where you got all your weird’ comment, but it’s Kevin, if they were twins he’d say that just to rile Ben up.

Me thinks these boys should’ve gone out a little further. Attract less attention.

...Ben knocks Kevin clear across the fairgrounds, jumps into a dumpster to stay out of sight until he comes back for round 2, finds the Bugg Brothers. Of course.

Ben is just having A Day.

A particle decimator. Okay, cool, but why you guys hiding in a dumpster?

It’s a shrinking ray. The plan is to use it to destabilize the national economy, undermine the government, disrupt social order, and wreak havoc among the entire world population. I feel like Maurice needs to start thinking smaller.

And lo, they were using the wrong device and accidentally switched Heatblast and Maurice’s heads. I’m shocked.

This is gonna be a weird episode from here out isn’t it

Kevin, gonna kick somebody’s ass even if he’s not sure what the fuck is going on

Kevin, rolling with the head swapping thing. Though honestly with some of the shit he’s been through this probably don’t seem too bad

I do like how Maurice made a head-swapping helmet and yet he and Sidney have not swapped heads, despite, well, everything.

Ah, this is presumably the device that swapped their heads in the first place. Cool cool.

My son

So clarify, he’s outnumbered, his head in on the wrong body, and the Maurice and Sidney are looming. He shows no signs of concern, or lack of confidence he can handle the situation. He still gets divetackled, but hey

And he’s not doing bad, given he’s wrestling against two guys his size.

And Ben has the helmet

“You need to fix us!“ And how, pray tell, do you expect your cousin to do that, Benjamin?

Welp, Gwen and Max got their heads swapped now.

And the watches timed out, meaning how Maurice and Sidney are basically helpless until shit times back in.

Welp, Maurice and Kevin swapped. So now Kevin’s head is on Ben’s body and Maurice is on Sidney’s. Meanwhile Ben’s head is still on Maurice’s body, Max’s on Gwen’s, and Gwen’s on Max’s.

This play-by-play brought to you by Fanta. Thirsty? Get a fanta.

And now Ben’s head is on a squirrel body. And a squirrel head on Maurice’s.

“Gotta fix this before I get infected with this dork’s genes“ Kevin pls.

Okay, Maurice is whole again, but now there’s a squirrel using Sidney’s body

Wow, Maurice, maybe you should’ve hedged your bets on whether you wanted to leave the helmet in the care of an 11-yo or a fucking squirrel.

And lo, now Maurice is back on Ben’s body and Kevin is on Maurice’s.

And I’m not even gonna give a play-by-play of these last several switches, just assume everything happened including the rise and fall of the roman empire

Kevin is fucking done. Also he and Ben are on each other’s bodies now.

Oooo, I was wondering if this episode came before or after Kev joined up with the Forever Nerd, turns out it’s after. Also this phone doesn’t have the spikes.

Oh gods and Ben is answering the damn phone.

FN: Kevin where are you? Me: Kevin is dead. Yeah, horrible accident involving a sprinkler system, a can of soda, and a mountain lion. Just awful. So, ya know, you may as well just lose this number-

Oh fuck

Oh gods damn

Okay so Ben imitates Kevin and claims he’s hanging out with his family (which, kudos Ben for trying to cover for him, your sweet child) and the Forever Nerd fucking- The quote-

“Family? *scoffs* That’s a laugh. You have noone. Without me, you’re all alone, remember? Now stop playing around and report back here at once.”

I’m gonna kill him, y’all. I’m gonna kill him and then wrap Kevin in a blanket and feed him cookies and cocoa until he pops.

Even Ben’s like ‘wait, no family?’ Which, given this clearly takes place after Introducing Kevin 11, what is going on in Kev’s life and what did Ben think was going on in Kev’s life?

Also Ben theorizing that maybe that’s why Kev crashed his family reunion, just to be part of one, and gods preserve me that’s a painful thought.

Kevin, critiquing the Bugg Brother’s evil plot.

Ben: If you want your body back you just need to blast me- Kevin: *blasts him*

Maurice and Sidney have been getting on so well this episode, it warms the heart. And makes sense in an episode involving a family reunion and the official reveal that Kevin has jackshit in the way of familial relations. Now to find if this is because he dropped them for being shit, because he’s actually an orphan, or he’s been taken from his family because they were shit.

Rath trying to be friendly and welcoming towards Kevin.

Kevin, just walking away from that shit.

And Max and the squirrel are still mixed up, and continue to be as the family flees the event.

9/11 solely due to Kevin things. My son deserves better.

#achi liveblogs #ben 10 2.os

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garbagequeer · 5 years

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hey hello im writing a piece for laptop ensemble that involves sampling and i need the most repressed/tender/yearning quotes you got. just as gay and heart wrenching as you can. but also no pressure I know youre a stranger on the web I just feel like you post that kind of stuff a lot thank you bye

hope this isnt like too late school keeps me busy :( (also can you put a read more on asks? guess i’ll find out). i ended up choosing many quotes from the same texts cause im indecisive as shit but i’ll bold my favorites from those in case that makes it easier for you!

anyways first of all you can never go wrong w richard siken as obvious as that is. these are both from you are jeff

You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.

Let’s say you’ve swallowed a bad thing and now it’s got its hands inside you. This is the essence of love and failure. You see what I mean but you’re happy anyway, and that’s okay, it’s a love story

this one’s from planet of love (the format got fucked bc tumblr is not actually a finctional website but :/ )

I have a megaphone and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have. Imagine this:You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting. You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,you’ve memorized it,

from litany in which certain things are crossed out

I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, I talk to you as if you’re really there.Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live? Let me do it right for once,

sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known.You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I sayor love me back.

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made meeven more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud.Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.

from snow and dirty rain

I had a dream about you. We were in the gold roomwhere everyone finally gets what they want.

that scene from when harry met sally where sally says:

One day I was taking Alice’s little girl fro the afternoon. I’d promised to take her to the circus, and we were in a cab playing “I spy” - you know, “I spy a lamppost”, “I spy a mailbox” - and she looked out the window and there was this man and this woman with two little kids, and the man had one of the kids on his shoulders, and Alice’s little girl said “I spy a family”, and I satrted crying, you know? I just started crying, and I went home

(like anyone else sometimes cries when u see a family doing something nice? is it because i want to participate in a sense of family of my own but have been excluded as a gay person from it’s portrayals and it makes me go :^( cause i dont feel there’s room for me there but i want there to be and i just have to long for this nuclear family heteronormative way of life that i’ve been made to believe is idylic? is it because my parents got divorced and my dad’s an ass and my mom is just a very angry lady and i want to re-do my own childhood? who knows. should we ban movies? yes we should!)

from maurice (ultimate source of tender)

“There was something better in life than this rubbish, if only he could get to it, love, nobility, big spaces where passion clasped peace, spaces no science could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend”

‘Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Nothing else but just “my friend”, he trying to help you and you him. A friend’ he repeated, sentimental suddenly. ‘Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep’

we are all so lucky i don’t actually own maurice in english this would just turn into me quoting the whole book

ee cummings voices to voices, lip to lip

the thing perhaps isto eat flowers and not to be afraid.

from virgina woolf’s letters to vita

7 september 1925

january 21 1926 vita writes

I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it …

and on january 26 virginia writes back

Your letter from Trieste came this morning—But why do you think I don’t feel, or that I make phrases? ‘Lovely phrases’ you say which rob things of reality. Just the opposite. Always, always, always I try to say what I feel. Will you then believe that after you went last Tuesday—exactly a week ago—out I went into the slums of Bloomsbury, to find a barrel organ. But it did not make me cheerful … And ever since, nothing important has happened—Somehow its dull and damp. I have been dull; I have missed you. I do miss you. I shall miss you. And if you don’t believe it, you’re a longeared owl and ass. Lovely phrases? …

from virginia’s diary, about vita on december 21 1925

I like her and being with her and the splendour–she shines in the grocer’s shop in Sevenoaks with a candle lit radiance, stalking on legs like beech trees, pink glowing, grape clustered, pearl hung.

from virginia woolf’s to the light house

What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs Ramsay’s knee. Nothing happened. Nothing! Nothing! as she leant her head against Mrs Ramsay’s knee. And yet, she knew knowledge and wisdom were stored up in Mrs Ramsay’s heart.

Love had a thousand shapes. There might be lovers whose gift it was to choose out the elements of things and place them together and so, giving them a wholeness not theirs in life, make of some scene, or meeting of people (all now gone and separate), one of those globed compacted things over which thought lingers, and love plays.

there forced themselves upon her other things, her own inadequacy, her insignificance, keeping house for her father off the Brompton Road, and had much ado to control her impulse to fling herself (thank Heaven she had always resisted so far) at Mrs Ramsay’s knee and say to her—but what could one say to her? “I’m in love with you?” No, that was not true. “I’m in love with this all,” waving her hand at the hedge, at the house, at the children. It was absurd, it was impossible

(fun fact: the spanish translation adds something that i’d translate as “one could not say what one meant / what one wanted to say”, which i really like and i was disapointed to find out isnt on the english edition)

It was love, she thought, pretending to move her canvas, distilled and filtered; love that never attempted to clutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians bear their symbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and become part of the human gain. So it was indeed. The world by all means should have shared it

from the great gatsby

I didn’t want to go to the city. I wasn’t worth a decent stroke of work but it was more than that—I didn’t want to leave Gatsby. I missed that train, and then another, before I could get myself away (…) Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around. ‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’ I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him

from kafka’s diaries

may 27 1911: Today is your birthday, but I am not even sending you the usual book, for it would be only pretence; at bottom I am after all not in position to give you a book. I am writing only because it is so necessary for me today to be near you for a moment

parts from a from a letter he wrote to oskar pollak on february 4 1902

When we talk together the words are hard; we tread over them as if they were rough pavement. The most delicate things acquire awkward feet and we can’t help it. We’re almost in each other’s way; I bump into you and you - I don’t dare and you. When we come to things that are not exactly cobblestones or the Kunstwart, we suddenly see that we are in masquerade, acting with angular faces (especially me, I admit), and then we become sad and bored. Does anyone make you as bored as I do?

then I fall silent and you fall silent and you become bored, and I become bored and it’s all like a stupid hangover and there’s no use lifting a hand. But neither wants to say this to the other, out of shame or fear or - You see, we are afraid of each other, or I am.

Of course I understand it. It’s boring to stand for years in front of an ugly wall and it just won’t crumble away. Of course, but the wall is afraid for itself, fro the garden (if there is one), and you get out of sorts, yawn, have headaches, don’t know where to turn

You often talk with her, not only for the sake of talking. You walk around with her somewhere here or there, or in Roztok, and i sit at my desk at home. You talk with her, and in the middle of a sentence somebody jumps up and makes a bow. That is me with my untrimmed words and angular faces. That lasts only a moment, and then you go on talking. I sit at my desk at home and yawn. I’ve been trhough it already. Wouldn’t that separate us? Is that so strange? Are we enemies? I am very fond of you

from his leters to milena

Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.

jane wong. from clearing

We want to believe everything has meaning.Plums blossom over a power grid

and I am in love again. The shame of it.

from leslie harrison’s [sirens]

I’m not Penelope married to faith married to waitingbound in fine soft strands of silk dyed and stretchedin my world longing has teeth and fins has a tastefor blood longing is a room built entirely of knives

Lorde’s melodrama tour interlude

Don’t you wish you could go inside a heart, see the strings and atrium’s, everything beating and bleeding. It’s kind of funny, I spend almost every minute thinking about love. Being guided, and divided by love. But I’ve never seen it. It’s just a rumour, a comedown, an afterglow. I wanna see it, in colour. In the summer, I can almost picture it

from Andrea Long Chu’s on liking women

One day, you tell yourself, it will give you what you want. Then, one day, it doesn’t. Now it dawns on you that your object will probably never give you what you want. But this is not what’s disappointing, not really. What’s disappointing is what happens next: nothing. You keep your object. You continue to follow it around, stash it in a drawer, water it, tweet at it. It still doesn’t give you what you want—but you knew that. You have had another realization: not getting what you want has very little to do with wanting it. Knowing better usually doesn’t make it better. You don’t want something because wanting it will lead to getting it. You want it because you want it

ada limón, In a Mexican Restaurant I Recall How Much You Upset Me

But love is impossible and it goes ondespite the impossible. You’re the muscleI cut from the bone and still the boneremembers, still it wants (so much, it wants)the flesh back, the real thing,if only to rail against it, if onlyto argue and fight, if only to missa solve-able absence.

i dont think i need to get into mitski songs because you probably already know but basically pink in the night/come into the water/once more to see you/in happy when she says if you’re going take the train so i can hear it rumble one last rumble/in i want you from the first verse to the first time she goes “i just need a quiet place where i can scream how i love you” (YES the card thing is very important)/the first verse of i will (w emphasis on everything you feel is good i f you wold only let you)/abbey/strawberry blond

sufjan steven’s futile devices obviously predatory wasp of the palisades you know the drill

was going to find some twin fantasy lyrics but i started thinking about famous prophets (minds) and like. emotionally left my body so. i wont be thinking about it or any other songs anymore it makes me too crazy

from frances ha

It’s that thing when you’re with someone and you love them and they know it and they love you and you know it but it’s a party and you’re both talking to other people and you’re laughing and shining and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes. But not because you’re possessive, or it’s precisely sexual, but because that is your person in this life and it’s funny and sad but only because this life will end and it’s this secret world that exists right there. In public. Unnoticed. That no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.

from ellen lee’s notes on twin fantasy that i revisit constantly

there’s no going back to deliver these words to the ones they were really meant for. That’s how heartbreak feels, I guess. It feels like your heart in between the teeth of someone who’s looking away. When you’ve lost your loved object, what happens to all the things you have to say to them? When they’re turned away, what happens to all the things that you couldn’t, but desperately need(ed) to, say to their face? He dissociates himself from his own romance until it becomes a fantasy. You have your bleeding heart, you have a finite set of memories — when nothing new enters and you’re unwilling to let go, then you have a fantasy. The loved object enters into you and transforms.

the journey home by dermot bolger(havent read this at all dont really plan to/dont know a thing about it either i just came across this shit like 2 years ago and i still think about it)

I wanted to hurt him; I wanted just to touch him. What I wanted I’m not really sure. If he had stopped and opened his arms I would have walked towards him; I would have sat on the kerb all night with him

adam b, sweet i have a (really gay) heart

i feel like my body is the extension of a lake. i feel really badabout not telling you the truth, sometimes. i feelreally small next to you. tall boys remind me of bean stalks.i wish i had your legs. i wish i could know your handsbefore i even touch them

aaaand i think that’s all i could think of and track down, hope this is actually helpful and not too long (i am indecisive no kidding). also ksjdfg it’s nice that you thought to ask me this and i did have fun going over all these quotes so thank you 💖💖💖

#answered #i hope this fits what you were looking for!!#and i hope read mores are working on mobile djfgk #c #thing #Anonymous

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worryinglyinnocent · 6 years

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Fic: A Match Made in Heaven

Summary: When Lord Maurice arranges a betrothal for his daughter Lady Belle to Sir Rumpelstiltskin, hero of the Ogre Wars, Belle is determined to make the best of the situation, and begins a correspondence with the intended she has never met…

For the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “Fake dating/Arranged Marriage AU”. This is the arranged marriage version, natch.

Rated: G

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A Match Made in Heaven

Lady Belle would never let it be said that she was not grateful for the end of the ogre wars. The death and destruction that had rained down on the Marchlands and all the surrounding duchies during the bitter conflict was terrible and devastating, and the lands were well rid of the beasts that had plagued them for far too long.

She held immense gratitude for the brave soldiers and knights who had fought back the ogres, and whenever they passed through the Marchlands, she was always quick to ensure that they were comfortable during their stay. Indeed, Lord Maurice and Lady Belle’s hospitality was well-known throughout the kingdom.

There was just one thing that the end of the ogre wars had brought that Belle was not at all grateful for. The process of her betrothal had been put on hold indefinitely during the fighting, and Belle hadn’t been sorry to see the back of all the various suitors that her father had paraded in front of her. She didn’t even know why she had been meeting them; ultimately the decision would be her father’s, not hers. She supposed that it was just a formality, a courtesy to make it seem as though she had some kind of choice in the matter, but Belle had long since come to the conclusion that she would far rather not know any of the young men, in case she took a particular liking to one of them and then he turned out not to be the one that her father chose.

Naturally, when the wars had started, all the eligible young men had gone off to fight, and Belle had been grateful for the reprieve. Although death was a terrible thing, she was also rather relieved to hear that Sir Gaston of Avonlea had been slain in battle, because she had been certain that he was her father’s first choice and on the one occasion that she had met the man, he’d taken several liberties that were not at all becoming of a gentleman and Belle had had to smack him around the head with a thousand-page tome on leatherworking in order to get him away from her person.

Still, the fact remained that Belle was of a marriageable age and was not yet married, and now that peace had returned to the land, she would be expected to marry and produce children as soon as possible to make up for the delay that the wars had caused. It was looking increasingly likely that her father would pair her up with one of the great military heroes of the war. The Marchlands was not the most prosperous of duchies and Belle knew that she couldn’t hope to marry into grand nobility or royalty, and nor did she want to. A good knight with a little land to his name was probably the best that she could hope for, and in the aftermath of the wars, all the good knights were being snapped up by other unwed maidens with alarming speed.

Of course, ideally, she wanted to marry someone of her own choosing, but she had accepted that wasn’t likely to be an option. If she could gain at least some control over her own fate, she would be happy, even if she was never destined to have the final say.

When her father called her into his private study one sunny afternoon, Belle knew exactly what he was going to say. She could tell from the looks of the serving staff and her father’s advisors, and she sighed inwardly at the fact that no matter what it was, any news concerning herself always managed to get disseminated throughout the entire household before it actually reached her ears.

Her father was standing by the window when she entered, and he turned, smiling indulgently at her.

“Bluebell,” he said as she came over to kiss him. “I’m sure that you can guess what this is about.”

Belle nodded.

“I have finally reached an agreement for your hand,” Maurice continued. “Are you familiar with the dowager duchess of the Frontlands?”

Belle nodded again. Most people were familiar with the dowager duchess of the Frontlands. Lady Fiona was certainly a force to be reckoned with in spite of her advancing age, although Belle had never actually met the woman in question, reports of her were consistent and unlikely to be exaggerated.

“Her son, Sir Rumpelstiltskin, was a great fighter during the ogre wars,” Maurice continued. “He was one of the bravest knights that our kingdoms could boast, and he remains unmarried.”

Not for much longer, as Belle already knew where the conversation was going.

“I have agreed with the dowager that you and Rumpelstiltskin should be wed at Michaelmas.”

Belle gave a single, curt nod. So, she had never met the man in question and had no idea what he might look like or act like, but if he was anything like his formidable mother, then he probably wasn’t a man to be crossed. It was all decided, and as expected, Belle had had no say in the matter at all.

Maurice was beaming, evidently thrilled by the good fortune that had played out. The Frontlands were rich and a match that would bring them into alignment and alliance with the Marchlands would be extremely beneficial. Maurice could well be proud of his negotiation skills, but at the same time, Belle had to wonder why she had to get involved in all the politicking. It wasn’t Maurice who was going to have to marry this man and bear his children and generally pretend to like him for the rest of her days.

Belle stayed in her father’s room for a little while longer, chatting aimlessly about the small, everyday trifles of life within the Marchlands, and pointedly avoiding talking about the wedding. It was too soon to begin preparations yet, although no doubt as soon as she woke up the next morning she would be assaulted by seamstresses and haberdashers trying to get her measured up and ready for her wedding gown, but right now Belle did not want to think about them. Finally, she retired to her own chambers, in something of a dour mood.

Just because she was now betrothed didn’t mean that she had to like it, or that she had to think highly of her future spouse.

Belle threw herself down on her bed with a sigh. Perhaps she was being too quick to judge, after all, she had never met the man. It was perfectly plausible that he was going to be very nice and not at all like any of the other knights that she had encountered during her time. She screwed her face up at the unlikelihood of that happening. War heroes always tended to be the same. Young and cocky and far too fond of boasting about the number of heads that they had claimed on the battle field.

“Are you all right, Lady Belle?” She had not noticed her maid come in and begin folding freshly laundered linens into the chest at the end of her bed. Belle just gave a grunt; she felt no desire to even attempt to act lady-like in her current mood. Idly she wondered if she could run away from her arranged marriage. Tie her bed sheets together in a rope and climb out of the window, never to be seen again as she raced off to have adventures by herself, no need of any man’s protection.

“Yes, I’d feel the same way if I had to marry Sir Rumpelstiltskin,” the maid said sympathetically.

At this statement, Belle raised her head off the bed a little and gave her maid a quizzical look.

“What do you know about the man?” she asked, intrigued.

Her maid shrugged.

“Nothing much,” she said. “I just know that he’s been a knight for a long time; he’s not exactly one of the brave and dashing young knights in their shining armour, if you know what I mean.”

“Is that all?” Belle asked. “He’s older than other knights?”

“Isn’t that enough? You don’t want to have to share your bed with an old man, Lady Belle. He’ll hardly provide you with children.”

Belle tried to piece together her maid’s logic in her mind and failed miserably.

“He can’t be that old if he’s still an active knight and he took a frontline role in the last war,” she pointed out. “You’re making him out to be a decrepit octogenarian. Even the dowager isn’t a decrepit octogenarian yet.”

Then again, her maid was not yet twenty so anyone over the age of thirty was probably old in her book.

“I’m just passing on what I’ve heard, Lady Belle,” the younger woman said, chastised.

“Well, maybe you should have a little more care before you speak.”

The maid left the room and Belle got up off her bed, the exchange having woken something inside her. Perhaps it was her independent and impulsive nature coming to the fore once more, but having learned that other people seemed to pity her for the match that had been made for her, Belle was determined to prove them wrong. So her intended might be on the mature side. That in itself was enough to pique Belle’s interest, as it went against all the notions she had previously held. Suddenly, she was very keen to learn more about this mysterious knight, whereas before she had been content to remain apathetic to his existence until her wedding day. And perhaps escape out of her window with her bed sheets if necessary.

Belle went over to her writing desk and took up a fresh quill and sheet of paper, beginning to write.

To the Honourable Sir Rumpelstiltskin of the Frontlands,

Since we are now engaged to be married on Michaelmas, I see no impertinence in writing to you like this. As there is a little time to wait before we are officially introduced to each other and that first introduction will be only a few days before our wedding, I think it might be beneficial to our future life together if we were to make our acquaintance in the written word before that time, so as to get to know each other a little better and ensure that the first meeting is not so awkward as such meetings often are. I must confess that I know very little about you and your family and I would very much like to learn.

I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Lady Belle of the Marchlands.

It was only a few days later that a reply came.

To the Honourable Lady Belle of the Marchlands,

It pleased me greatly to receive your letter, and I think that your idea is a sound one. I have only ever passed through the Marchlands on campaign and I look forward to learning more about it and about you. My mother has only good things to say about your father, but she has not mentioned any of your qualities. I have always preferred to make judgments for myself on such matters, and so far this first impression is favourable.

I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Rumpelstiltskin.

The missive brought a smile to Belle’s face, and she took some time to consider her reply. This correspondence was definitely one that had potential.

Belle could safely say that she was in the middle of a crisis, one that she had never found herself in the middle of before and hopefully never would again. It was one week until Michaelmas, and the dowager and Rumpel - Sir Rumpelstiltskin, she corrected herself - would be arriving within a few short hours. They would meet officially for the first time, and Belle would lay eyes on the man she had pledged to marry.

For the briefest of terrifying moments, Belle wondered if perhaps her maid had it right and he was incredibly old and ugly. She liked to think that this would not diminish her feelings for him in any way, but it would be a bit of a shock after the mental picture of him that she had built up over the past few months.

Belle drew his latest letter from the folds of her dress and looked at it, a smile creeping over her face. Ever since those first letters were exchanged, they had been writing to each other on an almost daily basis, and although she had never met the man, she felt like she knew him inside out already. In him she had truly found a kindred spirit, someone who would support her love of books and adventure, and had promised to take her to all the places in the world that she wished to go to once they were married. Matrimony did not have to mean the end of all adventures, he had said in this latest letter. In fact, matrimony itself was just one big adventure.

He had signed it in the way that she had come to call him: I remain, your Rumpel.

Belle sighed and stopped her pacing up and down her chamber. It was time to make the confession that she never thought that she would make.

She was completely and utterly in love with this man, a man she had never met, never spoken a word to for all the many that she had written to him. Just his voice on a page had been enough to paint a picture for her, a shadowy figure with no features but nonetheless one that she had fallen helplessly in love with.

And now she had to face him, not knowing whether he returned her feelings at all, not knowing whether the impression he might have formed of her in return would have been shattered by her actual appearance.

Still. At least she knew that she was never going to have to go through this nerve-wracking wait again. Once he was here and they had met for the first time, then they would never have to meet for the first time again.

The time dragged on, but at last, she heard the commotion of their imminent arrival and Belle raced down into the main hall to greet the incoming guests. The dowager entered first with her small retinue, and Belle dutifully curtseyed to her, the obedient future daughter-in-law.

Then came her betrothed and the man she was helplessly in love with.

Rumpelstiltskin was indeed older than most knights and it was undoubtedly his skill in battle that had allowed him to remain so long-lived in the midst of the wars. He wasn’t the tall, muscular type that had so often courted her in the past, but there was a strength in his slight build, and a maturity in his face and greying hair. His eyes were dark, and if Belle didn’t know better, she’d say that they were nervous, darting here and there and everywhere as he entered this unfamiliar territory full of unfamiliar people, about to meet an unfamiliar penpal who would soon be his wife. He was not conventionally good-looking in the sense that the younger maids so admired, but he was most certainly handsome.

Maurice encouraged Belle to step forward, and as soon as Rumpelstiltskin’s gaze finally landed on her, his worried expression became a wide smile with something akin to wonder in it.

“Belle,” he said, his voice full of awe and barely above a whisper.

“Rumpel,” she replied, forgetting propriety for the moment as jubilation that her impressions of the man had not been shattered by meeting him in person. If anything, his smile grew even wider at her use of his nickname.

Yes, Belle was definitely head over heels in love with this man, and it appeared that the feeling was indeed mutual.

“Ah,” she heard Maurice say behind her. “Love at first sight. Truly this was a match made in heaven.”

Belle had to giggle at that, although her eyes never left Rumpelstiltskin’s. It was hardly love at first sight. This was a love that had been building for a long time, only capped off by first sight.

It might be a match made in heaven yet.

#rumbelle fic #A Monthly Rumbelling #rumbelle #Rumpelstiltskin #Belle French #Lady!Belle #Knight!Rumpel #Fic: A Match Made in Heaven

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emuchipmunk · 5 years

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Booster Gold would love E.M. Forster’s Maurice and here’s why

This might get a little crazy but bear with me, if not for the actual content then for some of the best quotes you’ll ever read. Since DC doesn’t do shit with Booster Gold or Blue Beetle until it’s time for one of them to be evil or die (or both), that clearly means that I get to steal the characters and make them my own and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. I’ll put this all under a cut because golly gee I went off on this one. Also, like, this went from analysis to a little fic of sorts??? Have no clue what happened honestly.

Ok so even though Booster is from the future I’d imagine that he’d still have to read some old ass books in school, even if “old ass” to them means like,,,now for us. BUT for the sake of this, I’m just gonna mirror Booster’s education and discovery of Forster off of how I discovered Forster with little detail changes.

So in this English class, everyone in the class has to choose an author that they’ve never heard of before and read a few books from them and make a project of any kind that they think represents the author and whatnot right. The teacher maybe hands out a list of authors put in different categories of what they write and since it’s the future I’d think that the list probably has a few more LGBT authors than mine did, but Booster sees it and says he’ll give mister E. M. Forster a try because it’s a goofy name so he reads this book called Maurice. Now Maurice isn’t one of his more popular books, it’s actually kind of hard to find in book stores and I’m pretty sure it got most of its fame because of the story surrounding the book rather than the actual book, but the point still stands.

Booster starts reading Maurice and literally from the first page absolutely falls in love with it. The dedication page says nothing about Forster’s family, nothing about his friends, it only says:

Begun 1913

Finished 1914

Dedicated to a Happier Year

Now Booster isn’t a pro at history (at least this point in history) but he’s pretty sure that the dedication in the book and the LGBT category Forster was in on the teacher’s list probably had something to do with each other and not in the good way. But still, he reads on, already convinced that he’s going to like the book just from seeing that. And he’s right.

Like I said, the future is probably hopefully a lot more open to different genders and sexualities so it’s not like Booster is particularly closed off about the fact that he likes girls and boys, but it still kind of is a complicated thing to come to realizing, and instantly he’s drawn to Maurice as he tries to navigate his feelings once Clive is in his life, showing him all these ancient Greek texts that are about same sex love and Maurice and Clive end up spending a lot of their time together. Booster just keeps waiting for this thing to fall apart because he knows this isn’t how same sex love happened back then, he knows that something has to go wrong. Yet Clive and Maurice continue being happy together and being off in their own little world.

That is, until Clive realizes the dangers of being a practicing homosexual at this point and what it could mean for his future. This is it, this is where the story changes and it’s only going to go downhill from here. Except...it doesn’t. Sure, there is a chunk of the novel where Maurice has to deal with the fact that Clive, his first love, left him after opening his eyes to his own sexuality, but it doesn’t end like that. And once Booster finishes the book, a little teary eyed and unable to let go of the story, he reads the author’s note and falls even more in love with it once he reads Forster saying,

“A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn’t have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.”

So after the project is finished, Booster has other things to focus on and kind of forgets about the book for a little while. He goes through all of the time travel, ends up with the JLI and all that stuff. And then as they’re hanging out, they start talking about school and all the dumb books they had to read for classes and someone asks Booster what kind of cool books they have in the future. He responds with “I wouldn’t know, I was reading old books too” and he remembers his favorite project he did in high school and starts getting really excited to tell them all about it. He keeps the story itself for himself, just tells them all about the cool poster he made that represented the Forster books he read. Eventually the conversation drifts off to something else but Booster’s still stuck on this book that he connected to a few years ago.

He gets a new copy of the book and falls in love with it all over again and starts underlining the passages that he likes and making little comments on the edge of the pages. He comes back to read it every few months when he’s having a particularly hard time or even when he’s having a good time, whenever he just wants to look at it with a fresh perspective. He leaves different notes and likes different quotes every time.

“There has been, is, and always will be every conceivable type of person.” He likes that one when he starts thinking he stands out too much and people won’t like him because of it. Finds comfort in the fact that it was like that back then too.

“He could die for such a friend, he would allow such a friend to die for him; they would make any sacrifice for each other, and count the world nothing, neither death nor distance nor crossness could part them, because ‘this is my friend.’” He liked that one before him and Ted had such a close bond and he didn’t have any true friends in this time yet, not knowing how close him and Ted would get and knowing that the quote would become a little too real in the coming years.

“He lived on, miserable and misunderstood, as before, and increasingly lonely. One cannot write those words too often: Maurice’s loneliness: it increased.” That one jumped out to him after Ted died and he was left on his own for the first time in years without realizing how much his best friend meant to him until it was too late.

There was even one line that he remembered word for word from back before any of this hero business even started, when he was in his own time and didn’t know what he was going to do with his life. Maybe it’s what brought him here without him realizing. “The past is devoid of meaning like the present, and a refuge for cowards.” He was a coward, he couldn’t manage to get anything right and he was terrified of what would happen when he grew up and lost his good looks that everyone kept him around for. So he ran away to the past and now he’s here.

It was when Ted came back that Booster decided that he needed to share the book that meant so much to him with somebody and so who else to share it with than his best friend? So he brought out the book one night while it was kinda slow for the JLI and Ted was hanging out with Booster in his room. The book at this point was pretty beat up, had sticky notes and pencil and pen all over it. Ted was immediately curious, as Ted is all the time, and saw how nervous Booster was and immediately knew that this was something important to him. And they spent the rest of the night talking about Maurice, the quotes that Booster comes back to time after time and what it meant to him as a kid when he read it for the first time. They’d both be lying if they said there weren’t plenty of tears that night.

After that night, Booster read it one more time and this time a new quote jumped out at him. “He had brought out the man in Alec, and now it was Alec’s turn to bring out the hero in him.” He realized that Ted was Alec all along and maybe it was possible to have a happy ending, maybe Forster wasn’t lying when he gave Maurice and Alec that happy ending so long ago.

Years and years later, that quote from the authors note his first readthrough of the book stuck with him, and when Ted and Booster finally got married, the inside of the wedding bands reminded them that no matter what happens, “A happy ending was imperative.”

#bro what the fuck #I have no control over what happened here #I just wanted to compare booster and maurice #and use some good quotes #literally no one is gonna read this ope #it'll be here for me to integrate into teacher au #booster gold #ted kord #boostle #mine #maurice #em forster

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cryptoriawebb · 7 years

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War for the Planet of the Apes: review

*Captain Kirk voice* “CAEEEEEEEEEEEESERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR”

There was a lot I loved about this movie. A lot. That isn’t something I say so easily. Especially with trilogies. Over the last couple of years, sequels and “threequels” as they say haven’t have been all over the movie map. Some have leapt levels above their predecessors, while others miss the mark by such length it’s all you can do not to cringe. Still, some hang squarely in the middle, neither good or bad, memorable or forgettable. This is especially true for reboot films: X-men, Star Trek and now Star Wars come to mind. Ironically, all three serve both as reboot-prequels to three iconic franchises. You can argue til the cows come home which of these is more successful (much less which are better in terms of content and characters) and maybe one day I’ll write up my own thoughts: I think it’s pretty obvious who the winner is.

I mean, of course, Planet of the Apes (like I said, one day I’ll do a comparison; that day is not today.) I don’t know how these movies manage to maintain their ongoing success…I mean, I do, but it’s so rare to see in Hollywood these days. So many movies rely on the same, tired plots, conflict and cardboard character chemistry. More often than not I find myself walking into a sequel on eggshells: will it be good? Will it maintain its predecessor’s pace? Will it exceed my expectations? Will I remain engaged and attached to these characters? This movie checks off every box. Well…most of the boxes, but even so, this is the one trilogy I trust to deliver the same excitement promised in its trailers. I’m honestly awed by that, even all these years later. So many of their predecessors got it wrong: the original sequels, Burton’s remake…how, I wonder, how have they managed to get it right after so long?

(I ask because I’ve lost a lot of faith in Hollywood, not because I don’t understand creative mechanic.)

Right, staying on track—this is about War, not the franchise overall.

I absolutely adored the opening text sequence. Paired with the ambience, it was so subtle and eerie and immediately sucked you into the mood. The lingering words (rise, dawn and war) didn’t feel corny or excessively enforced, either. Actually, the summaries themselves remained on screen long enough to read through without rushing—I would know, I rushed through the last segment fearing it would fade before I finished. It didn’t, so shout out to the editor.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of opening a movie with battle sequences but it works very well for this setting and storyline, especially given how the last one ended. It didn’t last too long either. In my opinion, fight scenes and battle sequences should be like cinnamon to French toast: included to enhance the flavor without overpowering it. I will say it took me a little while to figure out why there were apes fighting on the human side but that’s probably because I haven’t seen the previous film in some time. I really liked the whole ‘donkey’ concept, too…although ‘like’ isn’t the right word. Sad, maybe, to see how these traitors chose to survive and knowing despite what they’ve been told they likely won’t be spared.

That’s an odd thing about this movie: yes there were a few standard Hollywood plots but the way they were presented prevented them from feeling stale. To watch Caesar struggle with the death of his wife and son, this empathic leader who never wanted war…it’s so different from watching, say, Magneto give in to heartache, or Logan, or Spock in the new Star Trek films. Caesar carries himself with a different weariness, one that isn’t guarded or hesitant and mistrusting. He’s a different kind of survivor, a leader aware of his importance without letting it go to his head. He’s good. Genuinely good and despite the biblical parallels circulating these movies that goodness feels grounded, tangible and vulnerable. Capable of wavering if pushed too far…yet even when it was, it never shattered completely. I felt I could see the conflict swarming him throughout this movie: that part blinded by rage and grief that seemed to give up on everything but revenge, and that goodness that kept him going, kept him from falling completely into self-centered destruction. I’m in awe of Andy Serkis; each time he takes on Caesar his performances get better and better. While I must confess there were a few times I felt the camera lingered a little too long on his face (which of course isn’t his fault), he never wavered, and gotta throw a shout out to the visual effects department because they outdid themselves again. We might still live in an era where CGI characters look distinctly computerized, but technology has come a very long way, and each year past closes that gap a little more.

Maurice definitely came into his own as well. He was starting to in the last movie, from what I remember, but here I really felt like I learned who he was as an individual. Like Caesar, he too, possessed an emotional heart, yet more rational and empathetic, able to maintain a neutral outlook when needed. Doing this helped highlight Caesar’s diminishing ability to do so as time went on, and while, again, it brought up points used often in films, it worked without feeling tired. The more I think about it, the more I realize these tropes actually help this budding world: a second civilization rising to prominence, dealing with self-doubt and personal loss and shaken loyalty—humans have dealt with for centuries. I adored his relationship with Nova. It reminded me a little bit of Zira and Taylor from the first film, although with far less strain and a lot more trust. It’s both sweet and sad, knowing where the relationship with apes and humans will ultimately go—where it’s heading already. On a slight side note, part of me worried Maurice would die; I’m glad he didn’t, he’s always been one of my favorite side characters.

Speaking of Nova, I’m super curious about her character and possible future development. I’ve heard more films are in the works, I’m just not sure how far ahead they’ll jump. I hope not too far. I want to see this new civilization before we launch to Charleton Heston’s time, and like I said, I want to see what happens to Nova. Will she regress into a primitive state? I’m not sure how long Nova lost her voice before the apes found her. The Colonel devolved so quickly part of me wonders if Nova might be some kind of exception. If not, then she’ll probably become the first example of apes coexisting with animalistic humans.

I’d also like to see what happens to Cornelius. One thing I can’t tell about these films: if these names (Bright Eyes, Nova, Cornelius) are designed as a throwback favor to fans or if these characters are meant to grow into the ones we see in the original movie, however closer to modern time it is. Maybe their significance are important to characters and become popular and circulated in their society centuries after their original use…I hope the former is true, only because this new world is a little more interesting than the popular 1960s “NUCLEAR WAR DESTROYED ALL THE THINGS” post-apocalyptic settings.

I think if there’s any character I’m iffy on, it’s Bad Ape. You know, the hermit who learned to speak while living in a zoo. I did find the outsider angle interesting—we really don’t know how apes in other parts of the world have evolved since the Simian Flu outbreak. I also loved the nod to their future society’s uniforms (which I initially didn’t catch; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the first film.) I just wasn’t sold on the humor. It felt very out of place in an otherwise intense movie. I kept getting a “Disney dopey sidekick” vibe from his antics—added to lighten a mood I don’t believe needed lightening. I mean, it wasn’t so jarring it completely severed the tone, just nudged at it, created a small ripple and I didn’t particularly like it. I liked Bad Ape as a character, though. His past, like I said, made him unique and an outsider in different ways than Koba’s followers. He and Nova both stand as interesting parallels: she can’t speak but understands (at least somewhat) sign language, while Bad Ape doesn’t understand it but can speak almost as well as Caesar.

As far as characters go, I think the Colonel is the last one worth nothing. I only vaguely remember Rocket from the last film and I have no recollection of Luca or Winter. Blue Eyes, I had hoped, would play a larger role, given his significance in the last film, but I suppose his character arc could only go so far without fading to the background or losing someone close to him…at least in the Hollywood handbook. Even for a franchise like this one. Although the love interest, side note, I kinda felt was shoe-horned in there. I realize two years have passed, but it’s hard to engage in so short-lived a relationship, on-screen. There was one soldier I took interest in, too, the survivor at the beginning of the film. What was his name, Preacher? I thought he’d play a larger role, apart from the wary observer. Perhaps that’s all he needed to be. Either way, I’d have liked to see more development.

I’d like to go back to the Colonel again: he, too, followed the same “similar yet different” pattern the rest of the characters maintained. I’ve seen a lot of movies over the years, and ‘General Badass who believes the different species is expendable’ is no stranger to the silver screen (Avatar, anyone?) I almost wrote him off, during that scene he spoke with Caesar. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s cardboard villains (alright there are a lot of things I can’t stand but this really irritates me.) Imagine my surprise when I learned the intent of his to-be wall. He wasn’t the commanding force of all or most survivors at all, but rather the boxed in outsider trying to survive. I don’t agree with his methods of course, much less the treatment and execution of his men but it was interesting, from that sort of psychological perspective: how far fear will push someone. Fight or flight and all that.

His final scene with Caesar broke my heart. I knew what had happened of course—admittedly not as early as I’m sure others did but certainly from “where the hell is he?” I also admit I thought he was going to use his remaining humanity to kill Caesar (both at first and then when Caesar put his gun down.) Begging for death and killing himself spoke more of his own humanity, and I use that term in reference to the humanness in him, rather than compassion towards others. The tight shots of their faces didn’t help. Part of me wonders if that was intentional, beyond capturing the emotion. I believe it was the Colonel who noted that Caesar’s eyes were almost human: in those final scenes, the eyes were front and center and you could see the almost animalistic terror in the Colonel’s, while tortured conflict filled Caesar’s. I still maintain the close-ups lingered too long but it was an interesting contrast nonetheless.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Simian flu reverting people to animalistic creatures. It’s certainly an interesting take, but it almost feels like a plot device, as opposed to regressing naturally which I believe happened in the original film? The more I consider it the more I wonder if these reboot prequels will shorten the distance between present day and ‘Planet of the Apes.’ Instead of, what was it, two thousand years, crunch it down to two hundred, if that. This does, admittedly, heighten the horror, and I do like that…but I also like my continuity (ignoring the original disastrous sequels.) I guess we’ll see what happens.

Let’s see, what else…

I took particular note of the score, something I don’t always do. One of those things where, at least in my case, it tends to weave its way through the brain as part of the mood, subconsciously. Rarely does a score jump out at me unless it’s either unusual (Tron Legacy, for example) or I make a point to listen. I’m not sure what about the music stood out to me, this time around. I will say now that I have noticed I found the choice for the more humorous elements worked—not too subtle, not too loud or excessive—but still felt a little out of place.

The set design, too, I feel worth mentioning. While I haven’t watched any behind the scenes I’m assuming it was, in large part, computer-generated. I tend to be partial towards practical sets; it speaks to the creative individual in me, always marveling over how it manifests in others. That isn’t to say I didn’t appreciate them as they were, especially as someone with a fascination towards abandoned buildings. The gift shop stands out as my favorite of the ‘human’ sets, although my favorite overall has to be the ape society before the ambush. Not only did I love the design, but found it practical and appropriate for the skills developed by the apes since the flu broke out; still primates, but more and more human with each day gone by. It’s amazing and fascinating to see how they’ve developed and knowing where they’re ultimately headed.

I think the last thing I want to mention is Caesar’s death. I thought Blue Eyes said the distance from their home to the desert was a long one…I realize since then they resumed their journey from a different location, but I find it a bit odd Caesar managed to survive with a bleeding wound. If their new home is far enough away from human life, how far did they have to go from the facility? It really is just a minor quibble I have; I wouldn’t have had him go any other way. I’m going to miss him though. Caesar and his journey are half the reason I enjoyed these films, he’s such a compelling character. I hope whatever comes next can hold together without him.

All in all, really liked this movie, would definitely recommend. I think the first two were better, but I was far from disappointed. RIP Caesar, I’ll miss you.

#war for the planet of the apes #planet of the apes #war for the planet of the apes spoilers #movie review #war for the planet of the apes review #spoilers #returnedtothecrypt

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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Ah thank you the first one (Genesis was actually what I was looking for) but it'd be super cool if you did write headcanons about it too! (If you don't mind that is)

No problem. :) Although, I do really hope you read Genesis, because I worked pretty hard on it and it’s the fic that I’m most proud of writing for the Pokémon fandom. It would be super cool if you read it. ^^ As for general headcanons (that, again, take place before Genesis does, given that Alan leaves the village in Genesis):

As mentioned in Genesis, Alan was discovered in the woods as an infant by the village’s florist, a young woman named Felicia. Felicia was in her early twenties; she had been going through the woods looking for wildflowers (she is, after all, a florist) when she found Alan abandoned on a rock. He was dressed and swaddled in a blanket, but she didn’t see anyone else nearby, and didn’t have it in her to just leave him there, so she took him back to Isolé right away. (It should be noted that he was abandoned purposefully close to the village. His biological mother was hoping that someone would find him.)The thing is, Isolé Village is a very small little village. Everyone knows everyone, and so everyone knew Felicia, knew that she didn’t even have a boyfriend (much less a husband), and so the sight of her walking through the village with a baby was not too well received. She attracted attention, and a small crowd trailing her as she went straight to Mayor Gosselin’s house, because even though she felt that she couldn’t just leave the baby in the woods, that doesn’t mean that she knew what to do with him. It was obvious that she hadn’t given birth to the baby herself, of course (everyone knew her and knew that she hadn’t been pregnant), but some of the more superstitious members of the village wondered if there was some kind of magic involved. As mentioned in Genesis, even five years later Maurice still thinks Alan is probably a changeling.Either way, once the mayor was notified, they had to make a decision on what to do. Everyone agreed (well, most people agreed) that they couldn’t chuck the infant back into the woods. However, there was also no one there who wanted to adopt him (including Felicia, who felt that she was too young and this was too sudden, even as Maurice said that she shouldn’t have brought the little changeling back with her then, now should she have?). Mayor Gosselin made an executive decision then and there that everyone would raise him, then, everyone taking a turn with each new month. No one was happy about this, but what else could she do? It was the only fair choice to make.Since Felicia was the one who found him, she was the one who named him (since she had no idea what name he was originally given by his biological parents). The name Alan can have several different meanings, among them “harmony,” “little rock,” “noble,” or “fair; handsome.” Felicia chose it because she hoped that he would not disrupt the harmony of the village, but also because she found him on a rock in the woods, and therefore felt it fitting.

As mentioned, none of the villagers had wanted to take Alan in. They either already had children of their own, didn’t want to have children of their own, or otherwise were just not open to the idea of raising a child. Nonetheless, they had to, and for this reason Alan was seen as a burden. Some of the villagers, such as Maurice, had some superstition or prejudice to back their dislike. But even without that, Alan was still seen as an extra burden none of them had asked for, and so it really didn’t matter what he did or didn’t do as he grew up; every little thing he did that was “wrong” was perceived as a major slight that caused them grief, whereas the things he did “right” were expected of him and nothing to be really praised or congratulated. (In other words: “You cause enough trouble just by being here, you better be on your best behavior.”)He was an unwanted child from the start, and he quickly came to realize it.

As you know, Maurice often referred to Alan as a changeling and, at least to some degree, genuinely believed that. As a whole (and as mentioned in Genesis), the village disparagingly compared Alan to an absol, feeling that he was a bad omen and brought disaster upon them time and again.

As mentioned, there were other children in the village---children who were born into families that, to put it bluntly, actually wanted them. Children don’t have inherent prejudices from the start and Alan didn’t really do anything to earn their ire (any more than any other children would), but children do learn the prejudices of their parents, can pick up on when their parents do or don’t like someone, and can at times be cruel and find fun in bullying. Alan was a convenient target, and a very alluring bully magnet as far as the other children in the village were concerned, because:- He didn’t have parents, and wasn’t a part of anyone’s family, so it wasn’t like he had anyone to go tattle on them to.- None of the adults liked him. Since none of the adults liked him, if the kids pushed or hit him, the adults would often act like they didn’t notice (or else half-heartedly tell them to stop). On the other hand, if he pushed or hit them back, he would be punished pretty much immediately, since none of the adults liked it when their kids were bullied.- Since none of the adults liked Alan, and felt that he did nothing but cause trouble and bring disaster (“little absol”), it made Alan a convenient scapegoat for the other children. Particularly if Alan was around, if the other kids did something wrong, they could just blame it on Alan, and he would be punished for it nine times out of ten. It didn’t matter if he was actually involved or not; the adults were far more likely to believe he did something wrong, especially if it was someone’s own child telling them that Alan was the one who did the bad thing. And as a specific example, there’s a point in Genesis when the mayor tells Augustine that she walked in on Alan and her son eating cookies from a broken cookie jar on the floor. Alan, in his first (and last) instance of speaking openly, told her honestly that a bunnelby had knocked the jar on the floor. She didn’t believe him, and he was punished. And I want to emphasize that: He got in trouble for breaking the cookie jar. The mayor’s son? He was just told “don’t eat cookies before dinner, you know that’s not right” and let off the hook. It was pretty disproportionate, but the mayor would feel justified and say that Alan had clearly lied, had roped her son into it, and all sorts of other nonsense. The kids of the village picked up on this, recognized him for the scapegoat he was, and took advantage.(And note: In canon we see that Alan has a tendency to take the blame for literally everything on his shoulders, even if someone else is clearly at fault. While canonically we only have the abuse he suffered under Lysandre to look to as a reason for this---and while I wholeheartedly believe that Lysandre’s abuse absolutely compounded the C-PTSD we see Alan exhibit in canon---I also look to the headcanons I have about his early childhood to explain it as well. Things like this---being blamed time and again for things that were either accidents or not his fault at all---certainly helped contribute to the guilt / shame complex we see in canon, where he earnestly believes that everything is his fault even if it isn’t. If nothing else, look at it this way: Early childhood laid the foundation. Sycamore helped ease a lot of that and helped Alan heal . . . only for Lysandre to bring everything surging back to the forefront so that it could crash down all over again.)As a final note on the other kids, there were times (when the adults weren’t around) that some of them might have tried to play a little bit with him, if they had no one else to play with, or were bored. But for the most part they just saw him as a fun bullying target, believed that he was just as bad and unlikable as all the adults showed them, and if asked about him in present day times, would probably remember him as “that freak” because that’s how they always thought of him. They might have been kids, but they weren’t kind. They weren’t taught to be. (And while you could ask, “Shouldn’t they change their opinion as they grow?” what reason do they have to do that? He left when he was five. They only know what they remember, and perhaps what others say when he’s brought up. If anything, he’s a joke to them. A memory to laugh at. They have no reason to think of him as the person he grows to be; he only exists as the boy in their memories, and those memories aren’t good.)

Physical contact wasn’t something positive for Alan. Once he learned to walk, he was never picked up and carried around---and before that, he was only carried when they explicitly needed to move him somewhere. No hugs, no hair ruffles, no kisses---none of that. Positive physical contact was something he wanted, because he gathered from watching other kids that it was something that signified love and family, but it wasn’t something he ever got.Not until the day Augustine found him in the mountains, anyway.

Much of the abuse Alan suffered during this time period was in the form of neglect. As can be gathered by how Alan meets Sycamore in Genesis, the villagers often ignored him unless he needed to be punished for something. This is what gave him the mindset that he could wander off whenever and wherever he wanted, something he often did because being alone was more pleasant than being around the others (however much he tried his best to be good enough for someone to want to keep). But that said, there was plenty of verbal and emotional abuse to go around as well---many reminders that he was a bad child who did bad things and caused trouble for everyone. Many reminders that he wasn’t good like the other children. Many reminders that he was a nuisance at best and a curse at worst. Many blatant reminders that he was not wanted nor needed where he was. The opposite, really.There was some physical abuse, too, depending on who he was staying with that month and what it was that it was perceived he did. Maurice very often threw him into the hall closet for “Time Out” (i.e. to get him out of the way for a while). Usually Maurice would let him out after an hour or so, but sometimes he’d forget and Alan would be in there all night (except for when he sneaked out after Maurice and his wife went to bed to try and get some food from the kitchen, or use the bathroom or something). More than once it was only discovered when the closet door was opened the next morning because Maurice or his wife needed something, and there was at least one time when Maurice was actually angry that Alan was in the way again before his wife had reminded him, “You did put him there.” Alan at least wasn’t punished for that, but he was told to get the hell out of the closet and out of the way, at which point he scampered off to go stand awkwardly in the kitchen because he didn’t know what else to do. (Maurice’s wife gave him an orange---a whole orange, for four-year-old---and told him to go outside and have breakfast. Alan ended up puncturing it on a rock in the mountains. He still got some of the fruit out of it, but it was messy and sticky and got everywhere, which neither Maurice nor his wife were very pleased about when he came home later.)I should note that, had Augustine listened to Fulbert and left Alan there, Maurice most definitely would have tossed Alan in the closet when they got home, especially since (as witnessed in the fic) he very quickly jumped to the conclusion that Alan was at fault for the houndour incident, which infuriated him on top of already being upset that it was his month to look after Alan to begin with.

All the children in the village were home-schooled, but Alan’s education was largely ignored, save for what he picked up on himself. He would join the lessons of whatever house he was staying at that month (with varying degrees of success; sometimes the adults let him sit in and learn, other times they treated him like he was disturbing the lesson), but mostly he patched together things on his own. For instance, Alan taught himself how to write; he picked up pencils in a tight fist and tried to figure out the best way to draw letters from workbooks entirely on his own. This is one reason why he has a very loose grasp on capitals when Augustine finds him, as well as why some of his letters look weird. He didn’t know the right way to write them, he just tried his best based on what they looked like. His spelling was also bad, and while he could sound out words to try and read them, his reading was still shaky even if he could read some things.

Out of everyone, Felicia was probably the nicest to him, given that she felt some degree of responsibility because she was the one who brought him back in the first place. But even then, she would sometimes ask him things like, “Why did you have to be in the forest that day?” and “Why did I have to find you?” Alan, being a child, had no answer for her. Neither of them were happy about this.

#my valiant dragon son #fic: genesis #they were so horrid to him #but Papa Sycamore saved him #bless Papa Sycamore #decadeoldtiger

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imgilmoregirl · 7 years

Text

Vowed For Eternity (Epilogue)

AO3 Link

Notes: And here it is: the epilogue! When I started this story for @ethereal-wishes I had no idea where it was going to take me. Of course, I had a plan. No, I didn't use the real plan at all, just small bits of it, but by now I should know that once I start writing, the story kind of tells itself to me, not the other way around. So, here it is my big thank you for everybody who read, commented and gave this fic all those kudos! You guys are amazing and you give a reason to write more everyday.

For Eternity And Beyond

The sun was shining bright in the sky, the warm spring day perfect for a little adventure near the river. Rumplestiltskin was sat on a rock, waiting for Belle to come back with the apples she promised Baelfire, while the children played near there. He could see Bae pretending to swordfight against an invisible enemy and looked around, trying to locate his daughter and, when he finally did, Rumple's jaw dropped, as he realised that she was holding the Dark One's dagger.

"Papa," the little girl started, sitting by his side, "what is this?"

Her blue eyes were shinning with curiosity, auburn hair glowing in the lights of the morning. She resembled Belle as much as Bae resembled him, with those small details that belonged completely to the other parent and made them even more special. Smiling at her, Rumple slowly took the blade from her hands, pulling Colette close and stroking her hair mindlessly while he stared at the dagger that cursed his life for so long.

"This is an ancient object, my dear, that once held an enormous dark power, but today, is just a useless relic."

Colette's face contracted in a frown. He always thought it was amusing to see her frowning this way, because it meant she was getting concentrate and putting her mind to work, just like when her mother had a problem to solve.

"Why does it have your name in it?"

"Because it used to control me," Rumple explained, "just not anymore."

With the corner of his eye, he saw when Belle arrived, holding four red apples on her apron and slid to sat by Colette's side, the three of them leaning against each other as she offered her husband and daughter the fruits she brought.

"That's the biggest proof love can save it all," Belle said, showing she had heard a great part of their conversation. "The dagger lost its power the same way I woke you from that sleeping curse."

"Oh," Colette murmured, tracing the lines of her father's name on the blade as he held it. "This is so cool."

Rumple was about to start telling her a story, when Bae interrupted him, coming running towards them with flushed cheeks and a slightly sweaty face from the long time he had been playing there.

"Mama, can we go to the village tonight?" Baelfire pleaded. "I really want to see the festival."

"If papa agrees," Belle started Look straight at her husband, "then why not?"

"I think it is a great idea," he shrugged.

A big smile appeared in Bae's lips, and Rumple could see his excitmenr mirrored in Colette's own expression.

"Yes," the boy celebrated, rushing back to the riverside.

In a slip second, Colette was up on her feet, the dagger completely forgotten by her now. She grabbed the remaining sword Baelfire had let dropped on the grass near them and started to chase on him.

"Wait for me, Bae!"

Rumplestiltskin smiled at his children, his gaze fixed on them as he slipped closer to his wife, pulling her into his embrace. It had been eleven years of marriage now and his love for her had only increased during that time. The best deal he had ever made, the loveliest wife a man could want, accompanying him to new places every few weeks or even days, being the best mother for the twins he could ever wish for. He never thought he would feel so grateful for something in his life as he did his family.

Along the years, they had travelled around many realms, seen different things, tasted new foods, stayed in different hostels and taverns or just simply slept under the starts. Countless were the times he found himself acting like a silly boy, playing with his children like he was as young as then, although he knew he clearly wasn’t – and the marks of the time and his and Belle’s face and bodies were the very proof of that – but that didn’t prevent any of them to keep being happy, crazy and reckless when they wanted to. Their love was also something that time didn’t seem able to diminish; they would still sneak away from the children for a few couple of hours, so they could have the other’s full attention and lost themselves in torrents of passion.

Occasionally, Rumple and Belle would talk to the ones they left back home through the same magic mirror that had helped them approach at first. Avonlea was in peace, Maurice was meaning to marry a rich duchess to form a powerful alliance with another kingdom; Fiona and Malcolm lived among the peasants and had taken some orphaned children under their care. Life was good and they had nothing to complain about.

So, as Belle leaned her head against Rumple’s chest and they watched the twins playing with their swords, there was no real worry in their minds.

"Then where shall we go next?" He asked.

She took a deep breath, fingers tracing the patterns of his blue and gold waistcoat.

"What do you think about home?"

"Home?” Rumplestiltskin blinked. “Really?"

Belle was the very reason they started that journey. He wanted to fulfil all of her dreams and travelling around the world was on top of her list, and that got them discovering those amazing new places for about nine years; he just couldn’t understand why she would ever want to end it.

But when his wife lifted her head to properly look at his eyes and he saw the intensity of her gaze, he understood she had already lived her dream. And she did it very well.

"Life is short, my husband, we've seen quite a big portion of this world, so why don't come back and settled down?" Belle queried, softly. "My father and your parents won't be around for many years now and I want to enjoy each second I can."

He nodded, kissing her knuckles.

"You're right as always," Rumplestiltskin said. "Life is precious because we only have one. And where you might lead the way, I will follow."

"Forever, huh?"

"Yes, sweetheart,” he agreed, tightening his grip around her waist as he sealed a kiss on her lips. “Forever and ever."

And that night they would enjoy the village’s festival, before they found a room to sleep, were Rumplestiltskin would tell their children an old tale before sleep. One about a beast who married a young princess and about how they wronged each many, many times before they finally come to terms and fought together for the little family they had created. Then, when the morning comes, they would leave, heading to the Dark Castle, where everything begun.

#rumbelle fic #gift fic #rumbelle #mine #writing #rumplestiltskin #belle french #dark castle #ao3 #fanfic

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