#or red dead redemption - before everything went to shit because of the big plan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gaast · 10 months

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Since October 2022, I've been playing only one game at a time. That might not sound like much but for something that struggles to keep its number of concurrent games even at two, it's a pretty big deal. I did it because I wanted to commit to games, and to commit to finishing them. And for the most part, I've been successful.

As part of this, I've been tracking the games I've played and want to play, and I've been marking down the days I started something (usually) and the days I've finished them.

Now that this much time has passed, I've got a year's worth of games down, and I wanna do little write-ups for everything I played in 2023.

That means that anything I played in late 2022 (Silent Hill 2, Xenosaga Episode 1, Observation, and Red Dead Redemption, among others) can only get mentioned honorably here. But I'm gonna go through everything I started in 2023, beginning with:

Outer Wilds, January 1-January 7

What a way to start the year. Outer Wilds is unique and charming. It's really fun to fly through space in the awfulest space ship ever with the worst autopilot (have fun in the sun!) and check destroyed, abandoned planets, read ancient peoples' logs of their attempts to save the universe, and to be there at the end of everything.

Unfortunately: the fucking angler fish. I hate those fucks so bad that I actually didn't finish the game. I never brought X to Y (no spoilers) because I hate dealing with those guys. So I can't class this a perfect game. Those dudes need some changes.

Still, highly recommended.

The Sims 4, January 6-the ride never ends

I'm not gonna lie. This is just a sex thing for me.

Even still, I don't quite get why people hate it so much. I played the third game, too. This one's fine. This franchise isn't amazing. It's weird and held together by Scotch tape. I like that about it.

What a weird world.

Anyway, this must be around the time my ISP sent me emails telling me to stop pirating shit or they'd kick me off their plan, which would be bad because that ISP is the only one we can get in our building! Imagine being unable to work because you wanted TS4 DLC.

Bioshock, January 14-January 28, canceled

I couldn't do it.

This was my second attempt at getting through this game and I had to just admit that it's not for me. I didn't enjoy it. It was a chore. I decided to just set it aside.

Wish I hadn't paid for a PS4 copy when I already had a Steam copy. Ah well.

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, January 31-February 2

A very aesthetically-pleasing puzzleish platformer with a cute story and good music. I enjoyed my time with this simple little game.

Half-Life, February 3-February 5

You starting to see a pattern where I only manage to finish games, like, late at night, so I can't start a new one until later? Anyway.

This was my second attempt to get through this game. I did it this time, and I regret it. I didn't have fun.

I don't really know why I didn't have fun, I just didn't. Maybe the combat was too tedious. Maybe the jumping was too iffy. Maybe it just went on for too long. Maybe it's a case of "Seinfeld Is Unfunny." I don't know. I just know I don't like Half-Life.

So maybe I don't like the game, but I love the Headcrab Fucker 9000.

Poison Control, February 8-February 11

Sometimes you just wanna play a mid game.

Look, I like poison. I love pink. I love androgynous characters in suits. I like NIS. This game had it all. And it was perfectly. It made me want to stop playing a little while before it was over. It had a really good OST. I got the platinum trophy and I didn't feel satisfied.

I liked it. And sometimes that's enough.

This is the first on a small series of mid NIS-related games. I'll have more to say when I hit the other.

Grasping, February 15

Obviously I couldn't play this as intended, but it's not hard to imagine having shoved your hand into an awful box.

Anyway, this was good, I think. I don't really remember it.

The House in the Woods, February 15

Another horror game I absolutely do not recall playing.

Apocryphauna, February 15

I remember this one! It's good! I liked it! I wish there were more to it--like, a lot more. A lot lot more.

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, February 25-March 21

I held off on playing this for a long time because I had always heard it was "made by the B team" and "not as good as the other games." But I decided to play it. It was the gaping hole in my From résumé.

It's not as good. It has a ton of bosses and none of them are memorable except for a select few DLC bosses (Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Sinh). It makes a lot of weird gameplay choices. It takes way too long for Estus sippies to heal you--like, in terms of the health bar going up. The Iron Keep is infuriating. So many of the runups are abominable. It runs with the clunkiness of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls despite having the svelte ambitions of Bloodborne and Dark Souls III. It has way too many sections where it just says, "okay, deal with a ton of enemies now."

And I loved it.

Honestly, this is probably my favorite of the three Dark Souls games. I think it is by far the most aesthetically complete game of the trilogy. It fulfills its own promise, you know? And I disagree with the people who call it bleak. I think it's the only game of the trilogy that actually offers hope. A real hope, too. One that says that, just because our struggle may not take us anywhere, at least our struggle itself is beautiful.

In a strange way, I think that Dark Souls II is the only Souls game that actually understands the Souls series.

"A lie will remain a lie."

Pokémon Violet, March 21-March 25

I didn't want to play this game. I didn't want to like it. I just wanted to play it. I love Pokémon. Sure, this wasn't a Pokémon game (according to me), but I wanted to play it anyway. The morning I finally decided to go for it, I had read that the professors were antagonists all along. How stupid!

And the reaction. Oh boy. All the glitches. All the performance issues. All the memes. What trash, right? Right?

I fell in love. I didn't think anything could unseat Gen 7 in terms of my love for a Pokémon generation, but honestly, this game might do it.

Did it need more time to cook? Absolutely. I'm not gonna sit here and say it should have been released as it was. No; it is in many ways a disaster, and it is certainly unacceptable.

But every inch of it oozes with love.

This game wasn't just shit out to make a buck. It feels that way at first, but no, everyone who had a hand in making the Gen 9 games absolutely loved what they were doing. You can feel it--from the sound design to the music to the character design to, fuck, everything. They did the best they could with what they had and they made one of the most charming, wonderful games I've had the pleasure of playing in far too long.

There is so much heart here. It convinced me that the future of Pokémon is still bright. Very much so.

Just... let's take a couple extra years to make the next one, all right?

Heroine Conquest, sometime in April

Look. It's actually pretty good.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, March 31-April 18

I'll get this out of the way: I didn't really have fun.

The game has aged surprisingly well. Or Skyrim is just a truly unmotivated sequel. Either way, it holds up.

The problem is that I just don't think that TES games are for me. They're just so fucking boring. And I never end up liking literally any character in them.

I have fun actually playing for a while, but the general guideline with Oblivion is "don't level up." Fun! Either way, it's just rote after a while. Nothing really feels satisfying, and you're always worried something is going to break.

Frankly, the main story quest isn't compelling, either. With hindsight, knowing it'll lead to the rise of the Dominion again, it's like, well, shit.

Anyway, I played it. And it's certainly a game that you can play. If you wanna.

FEWAR-DVD, April 23

I called it "an arcade game" in my notes and that's basically what it is. Doesn't mean it isn't fun.

(Have you noticed I'm not reviewing games yet? It's write-ups; I'm giving my thoughts and impressions. Also, it's been a while, so I don't super remember a bunch of these. Oh well!)

Bleak Sword DX (Demo), April 23

I think I liked this? Apparently it's out. I should review it and see if I wanna get it at some point.

It looks pretty cool.

The Signal State (Demo), April 23

I liked this a lot because it's so unique and it taps into a specific type of autistic urge for me but god is its price tag just too high for what I suspect that it is.

Deltarune (Chapters 1 and 2), April 22-April 23

This was a replay of Chapter 1 and a first play of Chapter 2.

I think when I first played Chapter 1 I felt... you know, I didn't want Undertale, or a sequel to Undertale, but a secret third thing. And when I first played it in... late 2019? It wasn't whatever that secret third thing was. I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I think I didn't... get it?

Not to say I wasn't excited for me. It just took me a while to convince myself to finally get to Chapter 2 and to meet the funny spambot man.

Anyway, I won't bother spending too much time on Deltarune. I'll just say that in this play, I realized that Deltarune is that secret third thing, and that I think it's better than Undertale.

I'm scared.

Pizza Tower, April 14-April 23

I think I'm guilty of wanting this game to be something it isn't.

I wanted WarioLand, and it's like that, but it isn't precisely that. It isn't trying to be precisely that. It's trying to be Pizza Tower.

I like the game, but not as much as I thought I would. Not as much as I think I should.

I'll probably reply this game in a year or two and it'll click and I'll love it the way I was always meant to love it. But for now, I'll just let the "Tombstone Arizona" guitar impregnate me.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, April 19-May 27

...It took me that long? Really? Huh.

Anyway, I love this game. I love love love it. I love the characters and the art style and the way they tell the story and the story itself and the gameplay (holy shit the gameplay!) and just. Man. I wish more games were just like this. Weird, experimental, talky, confident, cool, and unique.

This is the type of game that inspires you to write your own sci-fi. Or to write about its world. To think and to imagine.

And that's the best type of game.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, May 28-June 6

Come to think of it, how can a sky be unknown. There's just the one.

As mentioned above, I played this after Ace Combat 2. With both of those under my belt, I now know: the way I want to play these games is not the way I'm supposed to play these games.

And that's fine. I feel like "gamers" nowadays are so fixated on the idea that games should let you play them however you wanna play them, and that if they can't accommodate that then they're somehow inherently flawed. It's like everything needs the mutability of Minecraft, the problem-solving freedom of Scribblenauts, and the role-playing depth of Dungeons & Dragons. If it doesn't score highly on all those axes, it's got problems.

Obviously, I disagree. Games can and should have "supposed tos." You should be expected to play a specific diegetic role. You should be limited (and by the way, you're always limited, so don't act like you aren't).

If I ever play another Ace Combat game (and I wanna play Electrosphere), I might do it on easy. I like these games but man do I not know how they want me to engage with them.

no-one has to die, June 4

I had to replay this Flash game that I had originally played once when I was probably 14.

I'm glad I did.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, sometime in 2022-sometime in mid-2023

The strange thing about the Danganronpa games is that they're actually really good.

They shouldn't be. They shouldn't work. But they do.

This was kind of a replay. I had read most of the original orenronen LP back in... 2012, 2013? I only now have actually played it. And it's good. It's really good. I'm glad I went through it, and I'm glad I went through it with my fiancé, and I'm glad he knew nothing of any of the twists, and I'm glad I got to experience someone experiencing those twists for the first time.

SCARLET NEXUS, June 4-June 6, canceled

This was a second attempt after a first attempt in 2022 got deep into Yuito's story before I aborted it.

It's not for me. Not to say I don't like it--I do. A lot. I wish I could play this game. But I demand such fucking perfection from myself when playing it that I get too caught up by how poorly I'm playing to enjoy myself and actually let myself proceed.

I had to stop because I just wasn't having fun. I'm sad about it.

Risky Sanctuary, June 10

This is one of those games that I hope the developer comes back to, not to spruce up but to make anew. Because it's a really fun concept that basically got held back by being made in a month for a jam.

It really shouldn't take that long to clean come off of a wall.

HYPNOSCREEN, June 10

I keep forgetting I gotta play this more.

Parasite Eve, June 9-June 15

I'm still not super sure how I feel about this one.

The plot is fun but it never becomes compelling. There's an obviously evil scientist and he does obviously evil things. Never a good sign.

The gameplay is fun but it never hits nearly the level of intricacy and care that a close relative, Vagrant Story, does.

The dungeons are well-designed, though, and even if the setting is New York, it feels... fresh? It feels like NYC is always a backdrop in games and its specifics aren't important to it (see: Prototype). Parasite Eve actually cares that it's in NYC and it goes to locations there. The game feels like the developers enjoyed making it.

Also the OST is awesome. And Daniel fucking jumping out of the helicopter, getting lit on fire, throwing the bullets to Aya, landing in the water, and surviving is by far the coolest shit I've ever seen in anything ever.

This feels like a game you have to play at least once. I don't know why it feels that way; it just does.

WASTE EATER, June 17

It asks for like 20 minutes of your time and makes you cry. It's awesome.

EXPERIMENT: GROCERIES, June 17

I was more bored than spooked. It was a good try and maybe someone else will find it more fun than I did.

I'm sure if I replayed it and turned a critical eye to it I could talk at length about it. But I just don't want to.

I feel like if you're going to make uncanny the grocery store, there's other ways to do it.

Final Fantasy X: HD, sometime in 2023-sometime in 2023

We're about to see schedule issues. You'll find out why later.

This was, obviously, a replay.

I swear, this game gets better every single time I play it. I don't know what it is. It's such a smart, insightful game, with lovingly crafted characters. I love the inexorable northward journey, the feeling like you're constantly outrunning something even if you know you're running straight into the very thing you're outrunning.

Maybe it's because once you're aware of the spiral, its pull becomes that much stronger. I swear, I cry more with each playthrough, maybe because it just becomes all the more apparent how hopeless the journey is, and how much strength it takes to hope regardless. Yuna and Tidus are fantastic.

The gameplay ages like a fine wine, too. I know, it's turn-based, so it's hard to get clunky, but the game knows how it's being lenient to you and it knows just how to turn it against you. It's a system you can get better at. It's a game that rewards you in proportion to the time you're willing to put into it.

I don't need to tell you that FFX is a masterpiece, I hope. But it's worth reminding ourselves that it is. Because I think it's willing to be vulnerable in a way that most games just aren't anymore. I think the only Final Fantasy game that I've played that is more vulnerable than X is XIII. I respect the hell out of that.

(Speaking of, another honorable mention from the end of 2022 is my replay of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy--and frankly, my love and appreciation for those games grew only deeper. They rule!)

You can talk about X forever. You can live in its world. It's fantastic, and it's always worth returning to.

Even if you have to make Yuna dance again, at least you know there'll be a time when she won't have to anymore.

Succubus Academia, September?-September 16

I tend to stay away from RPG Maker games, not for any valid reason but because creators, especially of eroge, tend not to really edit much. They end up looking fairly samey, with similar gameplay. Menus don't get edited, music is pretty bland, it's a fantasy setting... Exceptions exist, like Miwashiba's games ("that's a different engine!" yeah well they're still well-crafted despite being Made Like That) and, apparently Succubus Academia.

I won't tell you what tag I searched to find it on DLSite but anyway, I found it, I got it, I played it, and I loved it.

The map graphics are standard RPG Maker fare, sure, but the battles are totally custom and they're actually really fun. The music, though, the music fucking rules. I was there to bust a move, not bust a nut, I swear.

The concept is really fun too. "The only way to proceed is to literally get killed the right way. Sorry! But hey, at least you'll save the world. Snrk." Coupled with a battle system that actually has a really fun push-pull kind of resource management/health system, it just works. It helps that the battles all have Live 2D animation work going on, too.

Give this one a shot (no pun intended) if you like eroge. Seriously.

Dohna Dohna, sometime in September?-sometime in October

All right, look. It's not the best at anything. But it's pretty good at everything.

The character designs rule. The color palettes are awesome. The gameplay is fun. The OST is actually pretty outstanding. The combat is really fun. The mechanics are interesting. The writing has a lot of care put into it.

Alicesoft wanted to celebrate its anniversary and they were welcome to do it. I enjoyed celebrating with them.

Kirakira best girl. Even if Joker is truly best girl.

Baldur's Gate 3, sometime in October-November 14

One of the first sounds you hear in this game is a Wilhelm scream. This is a subtly masterful introduction to the game, as it signals to attentive players a lot about the artistic experience they're about to embark on: It will be more or less the same as everything else they've ever experienced, just remixed so it will hopefully be less noticeable.

And that's the thing. We've seen everything that BG3 does before, over and over, and we're so used to seeing all of these signs and tropes that it's actually become difficult to tell when they're being used poorly. BG3 throws so much of the same old shit at the wall and it can only stick because the shit that's there from last time still hasn't dried.

But here's the thing: I don't even know if any of its shit sticks. It's all so bad.

For instance, the party. Each individual party member is a collection of about 3 traits, plus their own unique brand of "horny for you." They're about as complex as late-stage Tales characters, but they have way less charm because they don't have anything like skits to round them out. In fact, because there's no guarantee that you'll have X or Y party member, or that they'll be present for conversation A, your party doesn't really have conversations together so much as they just talk through you like you're a telephone. You don't really have a party. You are a guy who has friends.

So you drag along this uninteresting, blandly-designed crew of the same fucking shit you've seen a billion times (literally one dude's whole thing is "I'm a vampire and I have vampire problems") who never really engage with each other (they'll maybe trade quips here and there, and they've got some dialogue they'll run through ambiently when specific ones are in the party together, but it's clear that This Does Not Matter) through a pretty standard fantasy world that by its own popularity offers little novelty. As you do so you meet asshole upon asshole who has a quick trait or two and says things in a European accent and maybe you'll get the scummiest Narrator I've ever heard say something smarmy based on a passive roll you'll probably fail mid-conversation. Go kill some shit and come back and maybe I'll try to help you not die. Idiot.

But you can't not die. You need to keep dying, and people need to keep failing to help you not die, or people need to keep trying to kill you because you're dying the wrong way for them, or else there'd be no reason to have the game. Honestly, if you lost the tadpoles before you killed the final boss, like, two party members would probably just outright try to kill each other, and everyone else would fuck off back to their shitty little lives, except for the ones who managed to escape their shitty little lives, in which case I guess the adventure continues! I don't feel like any of these people, with maybe three exceptions, would actually keep litigating the campaign if their lives weren't on the line.

But hey, even if almost every time someone speaks it's just to either whine about how hard they have it or to criticize you for a choice you made or to give you a quest because everything in Faerûn is your fucking problem, at least you get to have the gameplay! At least you get to slog through some of the most bullshit combat encounters they can throw at you with their barely-working mess of a battle system! With the most boring bosses imaginable save one! (Why is Gortash the only fun boss? Why does he get to have those explosives systems that aren't anywhere else?)

But oh, you get to make so many choices! You can be whoever you want, so long as they're someone who'll make any of these specific choices. Fuck off.

Meanwhile the music makes you want to fucking tear your hair out because I swear to god every single track uses the exact same leitmotif and it is so boring. Oh my god this game takes absolutely no fucking risks with anything. There's no fucking reason to play this thing. It's miserable. It's miserable, it'll make you save scum, its loading times (to load saves; loading areas is quick as can be!) are atrocious, and every time you have an option to pick something cool, you get fucking despised for it. You can become a fucking mind flayer and the game makes sure to tell you you're a complete fucking scumbag for doing it.

I hate this game. I hate it so fucking much. It is so bad and it has nothing redeemable in it and it has nothing noteworthy in it and worst of all it is just not at all fun. It's awful.

Game of the Year. Play it.

Monark, November 25-December 3

Time to fulfill the promise I made back with Poison Control.

This game is good. It's not great. Maybe it's pretty good. I liked it a lot. I enjoyed playing it.

Does it have problems? Sure. Could they be easily corrected? Yep. Does that hamper my perception of it? Of course.

As I said, sometimes you just wanna play a mid game.

After I finished Monark, I checked out its TV Tropes page, and I of course linked to "So Okay, It's Average." The Quotes page on that trope all seem to imply that just being all right is somehow worse than being bad.

I can't agree with that.

First of all, I think the binary of "good" and "bad" art is a false one. There's value in literally all art. There's something to mine, to find, to take home, to use, to learn--to whatever--in everything. Meaning and worth aren't exclusive to the good.

Maybe something isn't as good as it could be, but it's certainly what it is, and nothing else is as good at being it. Monark maybe isn't a great game but it's awesome at being Monark. I doubt any other game could compare.

So many articles from game writers and journalists lament the concept that "there's so many great games out there that it's just impossible to want to make time for anything that isn't great." That's... such a sad state, to me. Imagine playing a game only because it is considered "great." Imagine needing everything you play to have an award or a green Metacritic score just so you'll make time for it.

I don't think these writers mean to do this when they say it, but they're really benefiting a capitalist mindset. Companies have to do everything they can to get your attention. They have to make "great" games, or you won't play them. They need hype machines. They need stellar reviews. They need people talking. They need public reception to manufacture their game's own greatness, so that it will be great and then be played and then make money. If the incentive to get good reviews is to make money then the game is just a product and it wasn't made to be art.

I don't think people purposely set out to make shitty games or average games. I just think they set out to make the game they make, and the question is how well they achieve that goal. And that's entirely personal. It's something that only the creators can decide.

But in the end, some of the creators are producers and directors and executives at publishing companies who look at games in terms overhead, costs, projected income, earnings statements, financial reports.

But these are the people who make great games. Because they have to money to spend to make them great, the clout they need to keep exploiting their specific workers, and the agents necessary to make sure that reviewing publications will be predisposed to helping make their game great (you know, like what Nintendo relies on pretty much exclusively). The game doesn't have to be good. People just have to be told that it is, and then when enough people believe, they'll police the narrative so much that others will be scared to voice their opinion without getting a ton of clown emojis in their inboxes.

I'm not saying that's every "great" game. I'm willing to argue it's probably most Games of the Year as determined by Big Industry Figure Geoff Keighley, though (borne out for sure with 2022's winner; Elden Ring is so mediocre, dude).

Anyway, there's no need to play all the "great" games that are out. You know what you can play instead? The games you want to play.

You don't have to agree with me that sometimes you just wanna play a mid game. But you'll probably agree that sometimes you just wanna play a specific game. Good, bad, or mid, it's what you want to play because it, in some way, speaks to you.

That's all you need.

Mediterranea Inferno, December 4-December 6

Until now, I was cautious about pandemic stories.

The problem has always been that, sure, the lockdown happened for a year (in the US, at least), but it was only a year. It was major, to be sure, and I'm not downplaying that, but in the grand scheme of human history, it was a year. There's no guarantee (or even, necessarily, reason to believe) anything like it will happen again for a long time. So, I thought, how applicable could stories that come from it be to the future?

Don't get me wrong, I always recognized that in the lockdown was stories about isolation, grief, illness, fear, loss. But those are all distinctly human things we've been writing about since we could write. They weren't unique to the pandemic. Why use the very specific imagery of the lockdown to tell a story about those things when there's definitely more universal things to use?

I'm, as always, an idiot.

Beyond just the fact that it was an event and we'll never stop needing to take stock of it, to examine it, to see who we were and became through it, the pandemic was a world-ending phenomenon, a sea change, a new way of understanding ourselves, or misunderstanding ourselves, or misunderstanding others.

Mediterranea Inferno is about having lost yourself. The lockdowns made three young Italian men lose themselves, and when they came back together in 2022 they found that they had lost each other, too. It presents continuity with their histories: their self-destruction wasn't inevitable, but the pandemic forcing them to grapple with their places in life created living nightmares of isolation, grief, powerlessness, loss of identity, and loneliness.

When you start a new game, a card informs you that the creator made it "about his generation." He seems to think that we're lost, not in the way that the Lost Generation was, but in a different way. Whereas in the 1920s we lost faith in symbols, institutions, and humanity, in the 2020s we lost faith in ourselves and each other.

It's terrifying to admit that we can't do this alone, and that the crutches we always used to get through each day were other people. Claudio relied on his family name; it lost all meaning when his father blew his inherited fortune, revealing that there isn't necessarily a continuity between past success (Nino) and the present. Mida relied on the ways he could keep people at arm's length and when he couldn't get closer to the only person he wanted to grow closer to, he decided that others were there for him to take. And Andrea was never able to identify precisely what he needed from other people to keep him going, mistaking sex and skin-deep pleasure for the validation he so desperately craved.

Of course, if one of them gets accepted to Heaven during the Assumption, one of the others kills their friends and, in one case, accidentally himself. And if none of them make it--or if all of them do--they tell themselves that they're no longer friends. They walk away. They fall to the ground. They feel, sharply, the absence. They try to feel it in the crutches they replaced each other with (the past, the prestige, the plenty). But it isn't there.

Alternatively, if they suffer enough, they can give their spiritual guide through their pain an opportunity as well, and through him learn that they went through all of it to encourage them to revolt against their fathers, against the endless history that suffuses every rock in Italy. Paraphrasing: "There's never been an Italian Revolution. We've always been satisfied with what our fathers gave us, so long as we had permission to kill our brothers." He, like so many, wanted the pandemic to become a watershed moment, one that spurred on change, made the world a better place.

And the Sun Guys reject it. Their revolt is to refuse to be told what to do.

Just give them time to figure out what to do next.

I don't think you can tell this story without the pandemic.

This game is bleak. It's harsh. The style is immaculate. The soundtrack rules. Play it.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, June 16-ongoing

Here is why the schedule slipped.

I like this game a lot. I burned myself out on it. Over the course of months.

I'm still not done. I'm not letting myself uninstall it until I'm done.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Pokémon Fool's Gold, unknown

The new music was great and the sprites were awesome and I love Eris. But to me this was mostly a fun new way to experience Gen 2. That's not a bad thing, really. Gen 2 isn't great, but there's a lot about it to love.

Pokémon Unbound, unknown

This and the previous entry are the only two Pokémon mods or fangames or whatever that I've ever played. I'm glad I started here!

If you're into playing fangames or whatever you know about this one and you know it rules. I'm not gonna bother praising it directly, though I'll say it earns all the good things said about it.

For me, projects like these really remind me of why we're still drawn to the Pokémon series even when the people in charge of it keep making pretty drastic decisions. I've said for years that the series is for kids and that it's not only fine but right to keep its focus firmly on kids, but Black and White proved that we can actually have our cake and eat it, too. We can have a game for kids that is also just flat-out a good game.

But for some reason, even if I ended up loving Gen 7 more than I did Gen 5, I feel like it's harder to call Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon good games? It's more like I can call them good Pokémon games. But are they good games?

I want them to be.

But what I want Pokémon games to be is totally different from what anyone else wants Pokémon games to be. Fool's Gold and Unbound confirmed that to me. I mean, I always knew it was true, but they confirmed it. What surprised me about them was that they were also good. That even if they weren't my vision, I still enjoyed them as a vision for Pokémon.

But to return to what I said a few paragraphs ago: We're still drawn to Pokémon because in each new entry we find more promises. We find new things to enjoy, to marvel at, to wonder about, to fill in. Every new mainline entry, especially since Black and White, feels like a new reinterpretation of what Pokémon is and can be, and even if we as fans don't always agree, we still have the conversation and we're still often compelled enough by something in the new interpretation that we hang onto it and let it be a part of what Pokémon is to us.

For as much as it stays the same, Pokémon is very much a living franchise, one that changes and, no pun intended, evolves. Maybe it does so in different ways than we might want, but there's nothing stopping us from knowing better. Well, nothing except Nintendo, a company that is more than welcome to fucking die immediately.

Pokémon, both the franchise and its fan works, is constantly grasping toward perfection. But we all know that perfection doesn't exist. We head towards and we know that we'll fail and we also know that even if we were to attain perfection, we'd reject it. Perfection is an illusion, a cruel one; even were it not, it would still be cruel, a poison pill. Real beauty isn't in perfection, it's in striving for it knowing you'll fail. It's about being weak, bad even, useless even, and still being loved. It's about trying, hard, getting nowhere close, and smiling afterward. It's about working together to make something new, something that loves, something that brings us all together to love even harder. It's about the struggle; it's about the effort; it's about the handshake after the battle.

Wherever Pokémon goes, no matter who's propelling it along, it'll be Pokémon. And that's what I want.

#long

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splat-dragon · 3 years

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Dutch had had it all planned out. A long speech to distract the lawmen as they edged towards the edge of the cliff. He’d gesture and nudge Arthur, and together they’d jump, land safely in the water, and be gone by the time the lawmen processed what happened.

But he hadn’t taken into account the waterfall.

“You can’t fight…” he nudged Arthur back, his own heels dangling over the ledge, “Gravity.” and with that Arthur, quick on the draw as ever, twisted and jumped.

They hit the water so hard it knocked the breath from their lungs. Dutch only just managed to keep from inhaling water, and he was just close enough to clap his hand over Arthur’s mouth to keep him from doing so.

They broke the surface with twin coughs, Arthur spluttering while Dutch coughed.”See son?” he laughed, flailing more than swimming as he dodged one of Arthur’s kicking feet, “I told you to trust me.”

“Sure Dutch,” his boy choked as a wave caught him in the face, “Real pretty.”

He laughed as Arthur was thrown ass over head, righting himself with a splutter, near-hysteric with the rush of survival.

“Dutch?” the man struggled to reorient himself, “Dutch!” Arthur’s eyes went wide, and Dutch’s bulged to match when he saw the source of the noise.

Rapids. Jagged rocks erupting from the river. Frothing white waves crashed across them, dashing the unlucky fish that were caught in the tide.

“Shit!”

Shit indeed.

“Swim son, swim!”

If Arthur weren’t too busy struggling to fight the tide, he’d have said ‘no shit, Dutch!’ but the river was pulling them closer and closer, exhausting them as they fought.

As foam filled his mouth, Arthur had just enough time to think ‘this is going to suck’ before he was slammed into the rocks.

He choked, cried out - and got a mouthful of water.

Arthur was there one moment, and gone the next. Dutch shouted his name, surging through the water but regretting it when he barely dodged a protruding stone, the thrown up water burning his eyes. “Arthur!” he squinted against the pain, kicking off an oncoming rock, barely managing to keep his own head above water.

But he couldn’t see him - not even a flash of his shirt, or his blond hair, and his head never broke water. He tried to call his name again, though what that would do he wasn’t sure, but he felt he needed to do something and he couldn’t dive under to save him, he’d never come up again and maybe, just maybe, if he called for him he’d hear him?

Arthur never disobeyed him.

Well, not until recently. But that was neither here nor there, because when it came down to the line, when it truly mattered, Arthur always obeyed him, always came when called. But Arthur was disobeying and just for a moment there was a flash of anger - that unsettling anger that had become to common to him as of late - and then it was drowned out by the chill of horror, because Arthur had been under too long and if he wasn’t responding… no, surely he’d been washed further downstream, surely he just couldn’t hear him over the crashing of the waves and the roaring of the rapids.

Because the alternative… well, Dutch didn’t want to think about it. And then he couldn’t think about it, because he was slammed into a sharp boulder and agony lit along his ribs and he cried out, swallowing water and spinning through the water like a piece of cloth in a modern day washing machine, barely managing to thrust his head above water long enough to catch a breath before he was being tumbled again. And he understood John’s deep rooted fear of the water, and his refusal to learn to swim, and his ‘hidden’ panic when he saw Jack on the shore back at Clemens’ Point and Shady Belle. Granted, the second had been warranted on account of the gators but - well, that didn’t matter at the moment, considering he couldn’t breathe.

He tumbled and spun, clawed frantically as he abandoned all the lessons Hosea had given him in swimming (and would he be seeing Hosea soon? he couldn’t help but to wonder as his chest squeezed and his lungs burned) to instead flail desperately, the energy draining from his body, beginning to slow and weaken as he grew painfully heavy—

—and then his head broke water and half his breath was water but, though it burned and he choked and coughed, he couldn’t have cared less because it was blessed air, air that loosened the iron grip on his chest and returned life to his limbs, and he twisted and had enough breath to scream as he tumbled over the edge of the waterfall, seeing his death before him because he’d seen men hit water and break every bone in their body, had personally put down a young boy who’d leaped to avoid a train and shattered everything, something had gone wrong inside him and he hadn’t been able to breathe and it had been kinder to shoot him.

He still hurt for it, Jasper had been a good young man, but he’d been dying anyway and a death of choking on your own blood was a long, painful death and so he couldn’t regret it.

But somehow, impossibly, he hit the water and sunk, only the briefest of pain from the impact and a shooting pain in his side where he’d struck it, and then his head was breaking water again and he could breathe, could get the breath that gave him the strength to strike out for the shore that was so, so close, and when he struck it it hurt, pebbles and sticks digging into his skin but it might as well have been a caress for how relieved he was, clawing up the bank and there was some pain there, yes, as his palms tore open and his nails were pried off by the stones but when he collapsed on the shore, even his feet free of the water, it was a welcome pain because he’d made it. He’d escaped the water, managed to survive—

where was Arthur?

—he jackknifed up, scrabbling at the stones and having to take a moment to bend trouble, coughing and choking as he cleared his lungs of the water, burning eyes snapping this way and that, darting first to the water which grew shallow not long after the water pooled beneath the waterfall, and he feared seeing Arthur splayed across those rocks, feared he’d not had Dutch’s luck and had hit the sharp stones, feared seeing his blood darkening the water and his limbs at horrible angles.

But he didn’t - pink water was trickling, a ribbon that spread slowly across the pool, but there was no body broken on the rocks and his eyes followed the ribbon to a blue lump that bobbed in the water, something he couldn’t make out with his blurry eyes but he knew, Arthur had landed in the pool too but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t trying to get to the shore, was floating motionless in the water and he didn’t even remember getting to his feet, lurching through the water to paw at the lump until he managed to find an arm and flip him over, his head finally breaking the water and thank god Arthur could breathe as he slung the arm over his shoulder, grabbing the other and awkwardly swimming back for shore.

He laughed a hysterical thing, breaking into coughs as he managed “I told you — I told you son — we made it!”

But Arthur didn’t laugh, or respond in any way, and Dutch didn’t want to look but he had to.

A pale face, blue lips and far-away eyes looked back at him and his heart skipped one-two-three-four beats, because Arthur was never still, even in sleep he moved, twitched and shifted and curled in on himself, but Arthur wasn’t moving — his chest wasn’t moving — he wasn’t coughing or clearing his throat and vomiting up water, he was laying there like… like a corpse and Dutch refused that, he’d already lost Jenny, Mac and Davey, Sean and the O’Driscoll boy (Kieran, his name was Kieran, he deserved as much as to be called by his name), Lenny and poor Hosea and he couldn’t lose Arthur too.

He drew Arthur up, fumbling him when he was far lighter than he expected because Arthur had always been a big man, not since he’d been young and terrified of them had he been this light, even when he and Hosea had half-carried him across camp when he’d returned after the parley they’d struggled under his weight.

But picking up Arthur was easier than lifting his saddle and his heart jumped into his throat, he’d have worried more but Arthur’s head lolled in a way that could only be accidental, water trickling from his mouth but he didn’t cough or so much as clear his throat and Dutch hurried to prop him up, leaning him over his knee and beginning to thump him between the shoulder blades as hard as he could. His ribs screamed as he struck Arthur harder and harder, the man’s body jolting but only producing small bits of water from his mouth and he began to count in his head because how long had it been since Arthur had breathed?

Too long, even Arthur who seemed superhuman couldn’t hold his breath so long.

He set Arthur down more heavily than he’d meant to, cringing at the clattering of his body against the rocks. He threw his coat down, taking just a moment to tug Arthur onto it, before shifting to kneel awkwardly over his prone son, lacing his fingers together and beginning to push on his stomach in rhythm, trying to work the water out of his lungs. With each push water trickled from the corner of his mouth and he leaned forward, tilting his head to the side so he wouldn’t choke.

“C’mon son, come on!”

(“Do you trust me son?”

“...Always, Dutch.”

“Then just follow my lead.”)

Something cracked beneath his hands and he groaned, leaning forward and pressing his mouth to Arthur’s, blowing a breath into his mouth and pulling away with the taste of brackish water and metal on his lips, pinching his nose and trying again when his chest didn’t rise and this time it did with a horrible gurgling and he pulled back, beginning to push down on his chest over and over and over, bones crackling with the force of it, counting off fifteen (or was it supposed to be twenty? thirty?) compressions before leaning forward, alarmed at the taste of blood as he gave him two breaths, praying to a god he didn’t believe in as he returned to his compressions.

He’d lost so many people, he couldn’t lose Arthur too.

Annabelle... Hosea… so many he’d considered family.

He’d raised Arthur up from a boy, just a young thing, scared and cowering as Dutch helped him off the ground. From a kid that cowered when they raised their voices and flinched when they moved their hands, to a father, to a man who stood tall and proud, the backbone of his family, always at his side—

“With you watching over us, I’d walk into Hell itself.”

—always there, no matter what. No matter how angry he’d gotten, how frustrated he was—

“We each got... fifteen dollars. Oh, and a quarter. Don't forget the quarter.”

“Shut up, Arthur.”

—he’d always been there. Even when Hosea had left them for a time, wanting to start a proper family with Bessie, he’d cried, and hidden, but never left him behind. And he’d paid for it, hadn’t he?—

“So, I met up with Leon. That situation with the workers is dealt with. Captured, tied-up, beaten…”

“Poor bastards.”

“No, that was me.”

“I told you it was a set-up Dutch…”

“My boy… my dear boy, what?”

“They got me… but I got away.”

“Yeah… that you did.”

—more, probably, than he’d been rewarded. Always crawling home to lick his wounds, digging out bullets and stitching wounds, having to be wrestled into bed to keep him from going right back out and doing it all over again. How many times had one of the girls come to him because they found blood on his clothes and they’d found Arthur hiding a wound so he could ride out again or join them on a job?

But he wouldn’t let Arthur suffer this time, he’d make sure he was rewarded. But to do that, he’d have to breathe breath back into his lungs, uncaring of the blood he tasted on every rescue breath, of the crunching of broken bones shattering beneath his hands. He could fix broken bones, could let Arthur rest for as long as he needed to recuperate, if only he would breathe.

His arms buckled, each breath shooting pain through his ribs, his hands sinking into Arthur’s chest so much had he broken his bones, his muscles burning from the force of the compressions and his chest tight with how hard he blew breath into his boy’s lungs. Each time the man’s chest rose hope soared in his own, but he crashed back to earth as he never did continue breathing.

Dutch crumpled atop of Arthur, arms giving way and gasping for breath, shaking his head even as he did so. “No, Arthur, please…” but Arthur, of course, couldn’t respond.

A month later, Dutch developed a cough.

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guigz1-coldwar · 3 years

Text

'Redemption of a Bell' : an crossover....between RDR2 & COD Cold War

What if.....Bell, the main protagonist of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, was in the story of Red Dead Redemption 2 ?

As the Dutch Van Der Linde gang's is on the run to escape the authorities after their botched robbery in Blackwater and trying to survive through the cold of the Ambarino region, one of their attempts against their longs rivals, the O'Driscolls, lead them to discover an woman left for dead by their leader after the attack.

However, this woman is an whole mystery for the gang, trying to find out what they could do about her, not even knowing her real name.....but Dutch has an plan for her.....and he will find an name for her.....

An crossover between Red Dead Redemption 2 & Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War

To read it on AO3, click here !

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1899

Dutch van der Linde's gang is on the run, fleeing the authorities after what happened in Blackwater in West Elizabeth. It was the perfect occasion for all of them to get some money and everyone had plans for this to happen : Arthur Morgan & Hosea Matthews were on an easy job and it was all going to be nice but then, an bad idea from one of the gang's member and it all turned to shit, causing an bloody massacre in this town and causing everyone to flee.

The gang had no choices because of it but it was better to run than to be catched by the Pinkertons. They went up north in the snowy mountains of Ambarino and it was an nicely cover with an storm that were covering their tracks, avoiding the authorities to get them but they also lost people on the road and the morale was an bit low after these losses but like always, Dutch is here to bring up back the morale, asking everyone to have faith.

They took shelter in an abandoned town called Colter, awaiting for the storm to calm down and the snow to get lower as it was also preventing them to use the wagons to left the place. But of course, it's not that they were hiding that they couldn't try to make some moves in the mountains : Dutch, Arthur & Micah Bell has rescued an widow named Sadie Adler and next day, Arthur & Javier Escuella were saving the friend of the wolves, John Marston but now, it was more serious for Dutch.

He knew that in the mountains, there were some O'Driscolls boys hiding too and knowing the hatred he & the gang has for these peoples, there were no other perfect occasion to....see if their stuff couldn't change hands, Dutch having heard of plans about an train and some dynamite to be used so he took the chance : he brought Arthur Morgan, Lenny Summers, Javier Escuella, Bill Williamson & Micah Bell for this mission. He wanted to hit them O'Driscolls hard.

"Good." Dutch started after the posse arrived near the camp these O'Driscolls were hiding. "Now, Mr. Morgan and I, we’re going to head up here a little, see if we can’t get a sense of the layout of the camp." He explained, putting his feets on the snow, making an little sign towards the ridge that were going to allow him & Arthur to take an better look of the camp. "Mr. Williamson, Mr. Bell, you two take up a hidden position just outside the camp." He added, gesturing to the two before looking at Javier & Lenny. "Mr. Summers, Mr. Escuella, you two hold position here. Let’s go." He ordered before he start to walk towards to climb higher, followed by Arthur and then, they took out some binoculars once arrived. "There they are… That’s definitely them." Dutch said.

"Colm ?" Arthur asked, looking through his binoculars as he was focused on an man that was on an brown horse, talking to someone.

"I think..." Dutch tried to guess, moving his binoculars to look at the situation

"Yeah...that's him." Arthur stated after an closer look, recognizing the man that Dutch was hating deeply in him, still talking to that person near by.

"Who’s he talking to? He don’t seem very happy." Dutch demanded as he was trying to find out who was the person was talking and by the look of it, it was resembling as an young redhead woman, dressed like every men around her but as Colm was looking ready to go, Dutch & Arthur watched in horror as Colm took out one of his revolvers and fired 3 bullets in direction of the woman who immediately fall in the snow.

"No..." Arthur whispered, shocked by what he just saw. "That bastard !" He exclaimed as Colm was not even looking anymore at the woman he just shot down before he got up back on his feets. "Should we go get ’em?" He demanded in an voice that couldn't tell if he was angry at all about the situation

"Yes but Colm can wait. Best to get some of them outta there. And much less fun to rob him and his score if he never finds out about it." Dutch replied as he was walking away from the ridge to get back to their respectives horses....he wasn't shocked by the event, it was mostly Colm's behavior from time to time towards his followers. "Alright, let’s go pay our old friends a visit. Don’t forget to grab that rifle from your horse." He expressed his enthusiasm to get those boys, pointing out the rifle on Arthur's horse. "You boys be ready to pick them off from up there." He adressed himself to Lenny & Javier before starting on an path that Bill & Micah took to get down.

"Sure thing." Lenny told him, getting ready with Javier to greet any escapers on this path as Arthur & Dutch were going down to join the others.

"Like you said, revenge is a luxury we can’t afford." Dutch exclaimed to Arthur as the two were at the middle of the path, walking slowly to not get spot in advance by the O'Driscolls & mentioning words that Arthur said on the way to here.

"Yeah, I just wasn’t sure you agreed with me." Arthur explained, not sure of how to think about this...about everything to be honest.

"Arthur, Arthur, have you completely lost faith in me? Our needs right now are supplies, equipment and a way out of here." Dutch insisted on that 'faith', wanting everyone to keep it for the future, he was very insistant on it. "Everything else, including Colm, can wait." He added, arriving at the same level of the camp & seeing Micah & Bill awaiting in another hidden point of the camp.

"So what are we doing, Dutch? I can take this if you want." Arthur questioned Dutch after they sneaked further into the camp, hiding right below an cabin.

"Just make the call. You wanna take the lead? Go." Dutch complied, making an sign to Arthur, meaning that he was the one in charge here.

"Okay, I’ll go first." Arthur took an deep breath before going out of cover with his rifle. "O’Driscolls! You’re dead, you sons of bitches!" He literally yelled towards them, signifying the beginning of the attack against these poor devils.

At the second that he yelled that every O'Driscolls in the camp were like chille by the sound of it, totally unprepared for that situation as Arthur, Dutch, Micah & Bell were the first to open fire on every person they were going to try to fire back at them. The first victims were two guys that were going to move up the body of the woman that was gunned down by Colm himself and then, the long list was following for the O'Driscolls.

They could have tried to open fire.....they were immediately greeted by the bullets from the revolvers & the rifles of Dutch's boys. They could have tried to flee but they will be killed by the suppressing fire coming from Mr Summers & Mr Escuella, still on top of that ridge but now descending the main path to help the others in need, seeing the advance they were making inside the camp, killing every bastards that were hiding in the old cabins.

However, as it was seeming that everything was in order after an few minutes of fighting and that the group were going to search for anything useful that they had to fight again, this time, bullets coming from the trees that were in another part of the camp but it was not knowing the bravery of Dutch's men that the surprise that the O'Driscolls tried to do turned out to be the very last mistake they did in their lifes.

If they were not coming at them, Arthur and the others will come at them and like before, the surprising advance that the group did at this O'Driscolls group turned in their big favor, killing one by one everyone of them but there were also some lucky guys....cowards as Dutch proclaimed that managed to get away from the camp, not wanting to meet an bullet with their names on it. With now the camp peacefully secured, the group could finally proceed on what they came for.

"Good work, boys. Now, let’s tear this place apart. Bill, you go search that wagon there. Arthur, you take that building to the left." Dutch congratulated his men, happy about their exploits today and destroying hopes for an O'Driscoll future heist before giving the orders. "Alright men, quick! Find those detonators, explosives, anything you can. Let’s go." He ordered, causing everyone to split up to search what they needed : Micah was looting the cabins, Bill, the wagon Dutch pointed him to, Arthur, the building he was told to look at as Javier & Lenny were searching the bodies.

"Seems so good thing here." Lenny was with Javier as they were looking at the guys Arthur first killed with his rifle, holding an little silver watch in his hands.

"Don't be too greedy, Lenny." Javier scoffed as an good joke for him, seeing Lenny trying to put the watch on his wrist before something got his attention....an sound. "Wait, it's you that is breathing like that ?" He asked, hearing that loud & weird breathing near him, thinking at first that it was Lenny doing that.

"What ? No !" Lenny replied, half-joking. "I'm not Bill." He added, this time joking before realizing that Javier wasn't laughing, trying to figure out where that sound was coming.

"Must be near by." Javier looked around him until his eyes went on the woman he also witnessed to be shot but without binoculars, approaching her with curiosity but then, he fall back, scared after he put his ears near her. "My.....Dutch !" He shouted, asking for him.

"What's happening, Mr Escuella ?" Dutch demanded in an worried & serious tone, arriving at the scene, almost running.

"The woman....she's breathing !" Javier replied, his hand pointing towards the body of the woman for Dutch.

"You're kidding ?" Dutch thought that he was messing with him before he decided to verify his claims to be sure....and then, he realized that he was telling the truth : that woman with 3 gunshots wounds, one near her right kidney, one near her left lunge & the last one on her right shoulder....shots that were surely fatal...was still breathing despite the small pool of blood on the snow. "My god, the poor girl." He gasped, seeing that woman still alive.

"Hey, Dutch, found those plans you needed." The moment were interrupted by Micah Bell himself, holding in his hands some plans before he was trying to figure out what the fuck was happening by seeing Dutch, Lenny & Javier near an woman. "What are you looking at ?" He demanded, an bit annoyed as Dutch was taking the woman's body in his arms.

"That poor girl survived." Dutch responded, turning around to face Micah, holding her.

"Good and now, we can kill her, she's an O'Driscoll." Micah stated in an weirdly happy tone, wanting to draw his pistol but Arthur, who was coming out of the building he was now with Bill stepped in front of him.

"Ain't going to let you do that, Micah." Arthur defended, standing right between Micah & Dutch and it was looking like Micah was alone in this situation, despite the fact that this woman is an O'Driscoll...was.... "What are you planning, Dutch ?" Arthur asked to him.

"We're going to bring her with us, I will....take care of her with Hosea." Dutch responded, walking towards his horse that Lenny & Javier has all brought down with them during their descent on that camp during the attack. He then put her on his own horse before mounting on it. "Alright, let’s get outta here. I'm proud of you boys! All of you. Not a man down." He proclaimed as everyone was going back on their horses before leaving the camp.

They were able to get what they needed in here : dynamite for an future job and plans for an train attack, belonging to an certain Leviticus Cornwall and it was all good for Dutch but he was now also curious about the woman that they managed to find on that camp, he was trying to know how she was able to survive this long with 3 bullets in her in the middle of the snow. Everyone was very curious about it because they saw it happen too : Colm shot her in plain sight and she survived....this woman is kinda strange to say.

When the group come back to Colter without Arthur as he was charged to capture an lucky O'Driscoll guy that managed to flee the original attack, everyone in the camp was worried about seeing Dutch arriving with an wounded woman on his horse but instead of putting her with the others, he decided to....bring her inside the cabin that, Hosea & Arthur were using, stating that she needed peace to recover and that too much people around her can kill her.

Hosea, who was quite curious about this choice, resigned himself to agree to let Dutch install this woman in their cabin, taking the lead to heal her with the only tools he got to remove the bullets that was in her and luckly, he was able to save her life but she wasn't recovering, still unconscious and now on Dutch's bed. For him, he was seeing...something in her and that thought was taking over him during the rest of the day, still thinking of it when the night came, sitting peacefully in front of the chimney with Hosea.

"What are we going to do with her, Dutch ?" Hosea questioned him, breaking Dutch out of his thoughts as he was worried about that woman too but curious about what Dutch was thinking. "We can't let her like that here." He added before the front door of the cabin was opened, revealing Arthur.

"Dutch, Hosea." Arthur saluted them, entering the cabin as the two saluted him.

"Arthur, how are everyone ?" Dutch asked him, Arthur walking to one of the free chair in the room.

"Fine but they want to have news about the woman, they're worried." Arthur replied, sitting down on his chair and crossing his arms. "Like you said, I couldn't tell them that she was an O'Driscoll because of Mrs Adler's situation." He continued, remembering Dutch's advice before the group spot that O'Driscoll on the way back to Colter....guy that he was able to capture and now, kept by the others boys.

"You did good, Arthur, you did good." Dutch reassured them, his look on the fire of the chimney, thinking.

"So, Dutch, what are we doing with her ?" Hosea repeated his question to him, seeing him like that....that was strange.

"Like you said, we can't let her like that." Dutch responded, joining his hands together, peaking his eyes for an mini-second to look at the room where that woman was. "Colm would kill her if he saw her again and the Pinkertons....they could kill her too." He added, taking an breath. "No, we're taking her wih us but...." He stopped himself, trying to think about an problem. "I think that she isn't going to be pleasant with us."

"Really ? You saw what happened, right ?" Arthur scoffed, thinking that Dutch was joking, why would someone stay loyal to the person who shot you down. "You told us yourself : Colm doesn't give an damn about his men and also women."

"Maybe but there's exceptions." Dutch corrected him, raising his little finger towards Arthur. "She can still be loyal to him despite that and she can be useful to us." He stated, looking at Arthur. "Looking how though she is, interrogating her is an loss of time."

"And what are you exactly thinking her, Dutch ?" Hosea asked, now worried about what could possibly got out of Dutch's mouths after his statement.

"A while ago, I read an book about an secret experiment....something that we can try on her....mental manipulation." Dutch answered with an grin on his face, causing Hosea & Arthur eyes to go wide like that.

"What ?" Both literally protested in unison, shocked to hear that from Dutch.

"Dutch, that's crazy and almost inhuman." Arthur objected, even going up off his seat to face Dutch. "We can just let her wake up and tell her everything."

"No....we can't, Arthur." Dutch said in an clear voice, staying on his seat, thinking about that book he read....he wanted to try that and he knew that was going to be discussed in an bad way. "We don't know who she is and what she can do one she got up." He continued, defending his opinion on the subject as Hosea was quite disturbed. "You don't need to worry : I have an plan with her, keep some faith in you !" He exclaimed.

"Hosea, it's...what do you think ?" Arthur demanded, looking at Hosea that was still disturbed, looking down at his feets.

"I can't believe that I'm going to let this happen." Hosea muttered, resigning to debate with Dutch himself who has won the argument and now, if Hosea was resigning....Arthur was soon following because of Dutch's persistance to do so.

"All we need to do is to make everyone believe that the thing we're doing is for her good, that we're trying to save her." Dutch told the both of them before he decide to got up from his chair. "Keep some faith, I have an plan !" He insisted on that to the two before he decided to get out, going to get that book that was in his wagon.

That plan....it was surely crazy & inhuman but there were actually nothing that could have stop Dutch to execute it, he was going to do it, end of the story. That was fucked up but Dutch was ready to do anything because he has plans for that woman, she could help them with things and he wasn't going to let her in the hands of the Pinkerton or the O'Driscolls again. This was an big chance that was given to him.

He....he started his experiment on her the very night he proposed his plan to Arthur & Hosea who had to get along with it, everyone was going to get along with it, only Arthur, Hosea & Dutch knowing the real motives of that experiment. The others will probably thinking that this is only to help her to be better, purposely forgetting to mention an lot of details about the whole thing. It was Dutch in command here, he's only doing this to keep the morale up.

It was mostly Dutch that were making the experiment going to be true with Arthur & Hosea, often helping him along the way and he was doing that for almost 2 days straight, letting the storm going down and the others to survive while he was doing his job here. After these 2 longs days, he finally managed to succeed in his task, she was now 'changed' and now, the trio were now awaiting for her to wake up.

"So, how is she ?" Arthur asked after he came back inside the cabin after an hunting session with Charles in the forest, seeing Hosea & Dutch near the woman, still on Dutch's bed.

"Her condition is stable." Dutch replied, closing the book he has been using for two days now in his hands. "Now, we will be awaiting for us that she awake, how are the others feeling about it ?"

"You know it, Dutch." Hosea said, his hands behind his back, sounding an bit sad that he had to let his friend doing all of this. "They unfortunately thinking that what you're doing is good for her." He responded, looking at his friend. "This is going to be bad when she will find out." He added as an personal opinion.

"I'm thinking the same, Dutch." Arthur joined Hosea's thought about the situation but Dutch shook his head.

"Don't worry about this, I can make sure that she's not going to drift away." Dutch told them, reassuring them with an tap on each of their shoulders. "I have implanted something that will keep her in control." He continued before he looked back at the woman on the bed, seeing the bandages covering her chest.

"And now....I was thinking....what's her name ?" Arthur demanded in an curious voice. "We didn't find anything about her at all." He stated before Hosea look at him, raising his shoulders

"I'm guessing that Dutch is the one giving it to her." Hosea sighed, seeing Dutch thinking of an name about her with his hands below his chin before he approached the woman at the same level as her, having found the name for her....an name that is linked to something he saw in his book.....

"Bell !"

#cod bocw #cod bell #cod black ops cold war #red dead redemption 2 #RDR2 #fem!bell #dutch van der linde #arthur morgan #Sadie Adler #John Marston #RDR2xCODColdWar fic #Because....#Why not ?

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twodaysintojune · 5 years

Text

The Tale of the Kidnapped Maidens 4

Supernatural, Warnings-None Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Long Stories Masterlist, One Shots Masterlist Find me at AO3

“Come on Dean!”

Dean huffed. “No Sam!”

“Deeeeean!”

“No!”

“Just a little!”

Dean turned to look at his brother annoyed, not without realizing the few people around them were already looking at them. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren't you?”

Sam ran towards him and hugged his torso, looking at him from below, doing his best puppy dog eyes.

“Pleeeeease!”

Dean groaned. “Alright, alright. But you’re gonna let me take some pictures later for Rowena.”

“Deal.”

Sam let go of his torso and Dean turned his back to his brother and kneeled down. Sam ran towards his brother’s back and threw himself on it ready for the piggy back ride he had managed to get. Dean grabbed his legs with ease and stood up once more. Unable to avoid it, Sam began to giggle. Dean moved his head in reprobation but he couldn’t stop smirking as well, listening to Sam. His very young brother’s giggles felt like suddenly finding an oasis after walking tirelessly through a desert.

Sam let his chin rest on his brother’s head, arms tight around his neck. It had been a spur of the moment thing and he didn’t regret any part of it.

Dean carried Sam all the way to the Impala but instead of dropping him on the ground once more, he crossed the street.

“Dean?”

“If you’re making me carry you like a kid then I’ll take you where the kids go.”

Saying this, he strode towards the playground and unceremoniously dropped Sam. Sam looked around at the currently abandoned place that promised to be for his entertainment only, the rest of the children still at school and only a couple of toddlers in the sandbox.

“Are you kidding me?”

He felt Dean pushing him forward softly.

“Come on Sammy, I thought you wanted to be a child!”

Sam turned back and was about to call him something nasty when he saw his brother already glancing at a group of ladies apparently doing a stretching session before their run. He frowned and felt the frustration grow inside. If Dean thought he was the only one that was going to get away with stuff he was going to be rather disappointed.

“NO!”

He screamed, startling Dean and calling the ladies' attention.

“I want to go to the swings!”

“Well then go to the swings!” Dean was frowning already, motioning at the swings dismissively.

“But I want you to push me!”

“Wha— You don’t need me to push you!”

Sam ran towards Dean’s hand and began to pull with all his limited strength. “I want you to push me! DADDY PLEASE!”

Dean stumbled forward a couple of steps, he looked sadly at the group of ladies that were currently looking at him very judgmentally and then gave up frustrated when he realized that even if he threw Sam at the playground none of the girls would pay him attention anymore.

“Urgh, Alright. Alright I say!”

Sam sent him a shit eating grin and ran towards the swings laughing. Dean pressed his fingers over his frowning forehead and sighed. He was definitely going to make Sam pay for this one.

When he finally reached the swings, Sam was already sitting very properly on the middle one, waiting for Dean to push him and giggling.

“You better get ready for this, Samantha.”

Dean pushed Sam so hard that Sam could only let out a high pitched, surprised yelp. When he got himself together from the scare he gruffed.

“That’s not a way to treat a lady!”

Dean huffed “Well I’m so sorry princess, I thought you liked thrills.”

Sam glared at Dean the moment the swing went past him all the way back and showed him the tongue. Dean answered back with a cheeky smile. Despite everything, Dean kept pushing Sam a lot more softer.

“This is too slow...”

Dean raised his eyebrow and pushed him harder until Sam was effectively going up and down in a pendulum motion.

“Higher! I wanna go higher!”

“You’re going to fall”

“I won’t!”

Dean pushed even harder and couldn’t stop smiling when Sam began to laugh wholeheartedly. He had never been able to push him that high when they had been at the playground age and he was feeling some sort of redemption from that particular guilt he’d had.

Sam on the other hand was elated. He was basking in the feeling of being able to do something he had not been able to do so many years ago; regaining a part of that childhood that he’d had to leave behind so fast and he liked it. In the middle of his reverie, he briefly wished from the bottom of his heart he could stay like this forever.

Suddenly, he heard a high pitched cry and a rumble and saw movement on the edge of the woodsy area beyond the park, but it wasn’t a shadow. it was the complete opposite of shadow; it was pure flame and shimmer and he could not believe what he thought he was seeing.

He jumped from the highest point of the swing and almost tripped when he landed but he didn’t stop looking at the thing and began to run towards it despite Dean’s initial call. In the middle of his sprint, he couldn’t find the thing anymore and stopped panting a little. A second later his brother was by his side.

“Dude, what’s up?”

They both heard again the deep rumble that reminded them of a finely tuned motor ready to burst into speed getting away from them and froze for a moment. Sam looked at Dean confused and then back to the edge of the forest. Trying to gather his thoughts, he took a deep breath, grabbed Dean’s hand and walked towards the unknown. Once they were a couple meters into the place, Sam looked around puzzled, obviously searching for something. Dean stopped him with a soft tug.

“Sam... Sam, I can’t follow you if you don’t talk.”

Sam looked at his brother and huffed a bit frustrated, “It’s just… I think… I think I saw a… bird?”

“A bird?”

“Yes, a bird. Or something like it… It was, it was flaming red and freaking huge! But I think it went away, it disappeared before we heard that noise.”

“Well, I didn’t see anything take flight. Bet I would catch that too if it’s as big as you say.”

“What if it can shapeshift?”

“What? Like dragons?”

“Yes! I… Let’s ask Cas, see if he finds anything about shapeshifting birds.”

“Okay.”

The brothers walked away from the forest while a soft blur of red peeked from behind a large trunk, far behind them. Before stepping out into the park, Sam heard a ruffle of leaves and a rumble once more. He looked back but saw nothing. Frowning, he turned back to follow his brother back to the Impala.

They spent the rest of the evening waiting for Castiel’s call back while Sam was desperately trying to find something better than just three paragraphs on the wiki of any given bird-like creature. An hour later Dean sighed and gave another swallow to his beer.

“Dude, knock it off, it’s easier for Castiel to find something. Come on, let’s see what we find on the tv.”

Sam stopped typing and sighed, “I’m sorry Dean I just… have you wondered if those girls are still alive? Maybe we’re letting them die while stalling in here.”

Dean got up with a groan and moved towards Sam, “I know Sam, but Castiel is doing all he can. Now come on over, let big brother pamper the princess a bit.”

Sam frowned at Dean in question while his brother gave him a shit eating grin. In a flash, Dean shut the laptop and picked Sam up from the chair before he could react. Sam squealed.

“What are you doing!?”

Dean laughed and threw Sam at the bed and then himself, he manhandled Sam until he was half laying on top of his chest, an arm surrounding him.

“Alright, what do you wanna see?” Dean began to click the remote. “Night of the Living Dead? Mad Max?” He looked at Sam, who was fumbling, arms crossed around his chest. “Alright, Casa Erotica it is then.”

“Dean!”

Dean laughed, eventually finding a channel doing reruns of Scooby Doo and left it. After a couple of episodes Sam was feeling less upset, Dean's grins and barks of laughter shaking the both of them and causing the younger brother to giggle as well. It felt good, and more importantly, it felt safe to be in his brother’s arms like that. He wondered for a pained second if his brother had ever wanted to do these simple things with him when they were young, if he had actually refrained from doing so because he had to be there for him as both father and mother. He looked upwards to glance at Dean’s profile for a moment and turned back to the tv blinking hard to stop his eyes from tearing up. Unconsciously, he cuddled himself more in the nook between Dean’s chest and arm and hugged him, a leg thrown over his brother’s huge thighs and sighed. Dean stiffened slightly when he noticed the change in Sam’s humour.

“Sammy?”

Sam looked up, he wanted to tell Dean that he loved him, that he hated him sometimes, most of the time some days but deep inside he loved him unconditionally, that he would do anything to stay by his side, that he knew Dean would always do the same and more for him. But he knew Dean, and he knew himself, and he knew that none of those words were ever going to be said out loud between them. He sighed, and then, he looked back to the talking dog on the tv screen.

Dean was about to ask him what was going on when his phone rang. He stretched his arm and fished the phone from the lamp table.

“Cas?”

“I have looked for a couple of matches but none fit the description of the monster entirely.”

“Wait a sec, I’ll put you on speaker.”

Sam had already turned the tv off and was eagerly looking at Dean while he placed the phone between them.

“There ya go. Can you hear us?”

“I can, can you hear me?”

“Hi Cas!”

A pause of doubt came from the other side of the line.

“Sam? Is that you?”

Sam and Dean snickered.

“I’m twelve right now.”

“Is that the way you pretend to lure this creature?”

“Pretty much, that’s the plan, yeah.”

“Sam please forgive me but I don’t think—”

“We know Cas” Interrupted Dean, “It’s a calculated risk, now tell us about the creatures.”

Castiel sighed, you could sense his frustration seeping through the line. “As I was telling you, I have found several files, I’ve gone through eight so far but I don’t believe it’s any of them.”

“How come?”

“Well, for starters, none of these beings appear in a negative concept on their respective myths.”

“Same with the phoenix and he was a real douche, killing everyone that wronged him.”

Sam hummed, “But that one died, remember?”

“Do we know if there are more phoenixes around?”

“If these files are correct, there’s a colony in Malta but I would daresay there is no reason they should travel away from their own flock.”

“There’s an entire flock of phoenixes!?”

“Sam, geeking.”

“Right, uhm,” Sam coughed, “So we should leave the phoenixes aside.”

“There’s not much about the feeding habits of the creatures I’ve found so far but none of them seem to be inherently human flesh inclined, or carnivore at all. Most of them seem herbivores or they feed on completely different matters. I have not found anything about any rumbling sounds yet either. It would be of great help if I had at least one more clue.”

Sam and Dean sighed. They were going back through their days trying to find something more that they could use. Sam went once more through the experience of catching a glimpse of the thing in the woods. The flash of bright red and gold, flowing in between the treeline like the flow of a hippie skirt. His eyes widened and he felt chills going through his body.

“Look for Chinese or Japanese birds, possibly Vietnamese? Any country with a large population of people with epicanthic folds.”

“Got it.”

“I’m sorry, epi-what?”

“Epicanthic folds.” Sam rolled his eyes when Dean kept the same puzzled look. “Slanted eyes Dean!”

Dean formed an “Oh” with his mouth and quickly put together Sam’s mental process, Sam could tell the moment everything began to fit.

“Wow, wait a second, you think it’s Mei?”

“Mei?”

“The librarian.”

Sam was about to nod when he gasped in betrayal.

“You got her name? I don’t believe it! You were only a couple of minutes in there!”

“Dude… Asian,” was the only thing Dean could muster as an apology.

Sam groaned.

“Uh, anyways, Mei sounds Chinese so maybe start with the Chinese lore?”

“I’ll get to it. Take care Dean, Sam.”

Sam could feel the stress on his name. Castiel was bad at cueing his feelings but was still able to convey quite a bit of sternness to his voice when necessary. He flinched.

“Alright, we’ll be waiting for anything. Call us asap.”

“Bye Cas.”

The line went dead, the brothers sighed. A little bit tired, a little bit annoyed, a little much frustrated about the fact that they were still at square one.

“Hey.” Dean turned towards Sam. “Wanna go back to the park?”

Sam sighed, it was a long shot but they didn’t have much else to do.

#sam and dean #fanfiction #fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural fanfic

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ruvikkin-art · 6 years

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Dutch’s voice was droned out as he got distracted, watching the way Charles moved and how his hair feel in front of his face only for him to shove it back multiple times. Arthur barely noticed he was staring until a tickle in his throat made him cough.

Dutch paused his little speech as he watched Arthur cough into his fist, a full body cough that made him shake. “Are you alright there son?”

“Yeah Dutch, just-” Arthur coughed once more and slapped a hand over his mouth as he felt something fall from his lips. Arthur spun away from the camp and carefully removed his hand from his mouth, seeing a fistfull of purple petals in his hand. “Shit…”

A Hanahaki Disease AU for Charles/Arthur from Red Dead that I’m working on.

This is the first chapter, please enjoy!!!! You can read it below or follow the link~

Arthur stood outside his tent, taking long drags of his cigarette as he watched the people in the camp hustle around as they settled into their newest place, a little area called Horseshoe Overlook near a small town. It was quiet enough, the area was nice and it was covered by trees. Anyone who would come in would either come on accident or with a purpose and everyone would hope someone dumb enough to wander in would quickly turn tail and run.

“What do you think Arthur?” Dutch walked over, standing next to him as he ushered to the camp. “I think this is a nice place to settle for a while.” Arthur nodded and tossed his cigarette on the ground before stomping it out.

“I think its great, but whats the plan after this. Where to next?” Arthur looked over the camp again, watching everyone until his eyes settled on Charles, who was currently setting up his and Javiers tent. Dutch’s voice was droned out as he got distracted, watching the way Charles moved and how his hair feel in front of his face only for him to shove it back multiple times. Arthur barely noticed he was staring until a tickle in his throat made him cough.

Dutch paused his little speech as he watched Arthur cough into his fist, a full body cough that made him shake. “Are you alright there son?”

“You better get that cough under control. We got work to do.” Dutch pat his back a few times before walking away, shouting something to someone in the distance. Arthur sat on his bed, clutching the petals tightly.

“God damn it.”

```````

Arthur had been hanging around the camp the past few days only going out to hunt or buy supplies before coming back and trying to act like everything was normal and fine. Although his coughing wasn’t going away he was able to hide it for the most part. Dutch hadn’t said anything to him about it, and the only other person who noticed the petals was Mary Beth. She had given him a sad smile but hadn’t said anything to him. He was sure she had spoken to someone because Abigail and Karen had been whispering anytime he began coughing. Arthur was just glad nobody knew who the flowers were for, and that all of the camp seemed oblivious to it.

“Arthur!” He sat up at hearing Hosea call his name. “Arthur, sorry to bother you son but Javier wants to meet you down at the bar in Valentine.” Arthur nodded and stood, pocketing his journal that he had been doodling in. “Dutch… Dutch tells me you have a cough.”

“Yeah, its damn stupid. Can’t even pronounce the damn name of it.” Hosea nodded and rolled his shoulders.

“Hanahaki. I had it once upon a time, before Dutch and I picked you up.” Arthur looked up at Hosea, giving him a funny look. “Oh yeah, of course it was settled easy. Unrequited love, its rather stupid but it will go away if you talk to them.” Hosea shook his head and smiled. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but hey, if you run and bring me some herbs I can whip you something up I took when I had it. Won’t get rid of it but it can help the coughing.”

“Thank you Hosea.” Arthur smiled and Hosea nodded, walking off to go talk with the gang. Arthur head to his horse, patting her on the neck before jumping on to ride down to Valentine.

The ride was quick, seeing as he had been down there often he knew shortcuts to head down and ways to avoid trouble. All he’d like to do was go down, meet for a few drinks, and then he could head back to camp- maybe get some hunting done.

Arthur hitched his horse outside the tavern, heading inside he noticed Javier and Charles, or course Charles had to be there. The one person he had been avoiding since he started coughing up the flowers was now unavoidable. And to boot, had his arm around a woman and was obviously trying to sweet talk her. Arthur felt a cough rise up and he backed out, coughing into his fist until the few petals came out and he stuffed them into his pocket. Jealousy was a bitch. He tried again to go inside, making his way over to the two and the women.

“Oh Arthur!” Javier noticed him quick and waved him over, the other three looking up at him. “Arthur come over here I want you to meet our friends.” The two women turned to Arthur, eyeing him up quickly with smiles on their faces.

“Pleased to meet you.” Arthur nodded to them and the red-head pushed her chest out to him, grinning.

“Well ain’t you just the tough as teak mountain peak.” The other one shook her head with a smirk.

“You be quiet Anastasia, anyone can tell that this one is a pussy cat.” Arthur wanted to roll his eyes until they were in the back of his head, but he held off from doing so for everyones own sake. Javier laughed next to him at her joke.

“Yes he is a pussy cat. Ain’t that so Arthur?” Javier nudged Arthur and he shrugged it off, noticing Charles arm trying to slip around the girls waist again he decided to get rid of them quickly.

“Whatever you say.” He waved his hand to the red head. “How much you cost anyway?”

“Well ain’t that a nice way to talk to a lady.” She replied and bent over just slightly, trying to tease him into something but all he felt right now was another cough coming up being close to Charles again and he wanted to get the hell out.

“Sorry, I didn’t know I was talking to a lady.” Arthur responded, and the two girls were quick to leave in a huff. Javier and Charles looked at him, both disappointed but he could care less. They could go get laid another time, so long as he wasn’t around to see it. Not wanting to keep the conversation lingering he squeezed into the space where the two women were, grabbing one of the shots on the table and taking it with ease. “Where’s Bill?”

“Oh man, I dread to think about it.” Javier said with a laugh, and of course just like clockwork Bill walked into the bar. “Hey, hey there he is.” Arthur looked over his shoulder to see Bill bumping into someone, and he couldn’t held the dread that he felt seeing Bill- already drunk- getting in the mans face.

“He about to kiss that guy or punch him?” Arthur spoke, just a second before Bills fist connected with the mans mouth and it was a brawl suddenly. Javier smashing a bottle against a mans head while Charles picked up a chair and chucked it at someone- how that didn’t kill the man he had no idea.

Arthur got into it with someone who had grabbed him by the shirt and landed a fairly good punch on him. Knocked him just enough for him to get his mind off Charles for the first time in days, long enough for him to beat the man senseless. One the man had fallen back, Arthur was quick to help Bill by pulling one of the three men off of him, knocking him out quickly. Arthur felt pissed, of course a day just couldn’t go by without someone getting into a fight.

It was all a quick blur suddenly, one moment he was beating up someone, the next a big man had tossed him out of the window and into the mud like he weighed no more than a bag of feathers. Now, the fight was outside in the mud and rain and half the town was watching. Tommy, the big man was named he only just remembered, had rushed at him and pinned him to the ground quickly, punching him in the jaw. Arthur had just barely been able to get the man off of him and back on his feet when Tommy had begun swinging at him again. Arthur ducked out of the way, punching him in the face and the chest to just try and get him down. That was when, of course just for a moment, he noticed Javier; Bill; and Charles staring at him. Arthur noticed the concerned look on Charles’ face and he felt another coughing fit trying to hit him at the worst time.

Arthur was able to hold it back, but in doing so he distracted himself which gave Tommy the perfect chance to grab him and punch him in the gut. When Arthur felt the fist connecting he couldn’t help the cough that sputtered out of him and he could feel the petals falling out of his mouth. The crowd around them went silent and Arthur wanted to crawl under a rock- he didn’t want so many people to know about it and of course not Charles. Tommy took a step back and Arthur took the opportunity to punch him, just right in the face so he fell back into the mud.

He didn’t even bother looking at his gang members, only stumbled his way over to the store to wash the mud off of his face while the town muttered and began to slowly break apart.

“Making new friends again I see Arthur!” Arthur perked up at the familiar voice, and let out a laugh.

“Josiah Trelawny.” The well dressed man gave a bow and Arthur grinned. “I thought you had gone to New York.” Arthur dipped his hands in the water bucket, washing the dirt from his face.

“And miss all this glamour? You must be joking.” Arthur sat on the stores steps, rubbing his sore jaw. “I went to Blackwater to find you gentlemen and you are not very popular there it seems.” Arthur only shrugged and looked over to see Javier, Charles and Bill walking up. Arthur noticed that Charles was holding one of the petals in his hand, inspecting it closely. Arthur drowned out the rest of the conversation, more concerned that Charles was putting together two and two together. He only hoped to god that the purple petals weren’t distinct enough.

Arthur only snapped back into the conversation when Dutch spoke his name. “Are you with us son? Go get cleaned up, we’re going to get Sean back from Blackwater.” Arthur nodded, trying to act like he hadn’t just been staring at Charles hand for however long they had droned on. He stood and rinsed his face off again as everyone left- everyone except for Charles of course.

“Are you alright Arthur?” Arthur closed his eyes, damn him for being so caring, it was almost enough to make his heart jump again and his throat tingle with another cough.

“I’m fine, just… Just more shit.” Charles nodded and held the flower petal up to him. “I don’t need that back thanks, I seem to have a good supply of them right now.”

“Its Aster.” Charles stated, flipping the petal over to show it to Arthur as if he was just stating the obvious. “Common wildflower here.”

“Well its too bad theres not a market for the petals or I’d be rich enough to get us out of here.” Arthur leaned on a wooden beam, trying to act calm while his heart was beating out of his chest.

“They are a symbol of Love and Patience, I used to see them all the time when I was younger. Usually given as a gift, sometimes used to ward off evil spirits.” Arthur nodded along and rubbed his jaw again. “Arthur-” “Don’t start Charles, I know the whole han-a-hacki thing can kill ya. I’ll see if I can scrape together money to see a doctor or somethin. For now though we should get Sean out of Blackwater before Dutch loses his mind about us not doing anything.” Charles’ shoulders slumped for a moment before he nodded and walked off quickly. Arthur groaned, punching the bridge of his nose.

At least he knew the flower now.

#Red dead redemption #charles smith #arthur morgan #charthur #hanahaki #fanfic #fic #my art #the shit #please let me know what u think

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write-havoc · 5 years

Text

Of Sons and Daughters Ch 11

Summary: Arthur is tasked by Dutch to watch over a young woman who had just lost the last member of her family she had left. That young woman just so happens to be the daughter that Dutch told no one else about.

This is a non canon AU with no major spoilers

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2

Pairing: Arthur Morgan/Original Female Character

Status: Ongoing

Contains: swearing, PG 13 smut

Intended for readers 18+ of age only

Masterlist in my bio

Several days pass as the gang comes to terms with Micah’s betrayal to them. With what Charles had told them about what he had seen, it’s evident that after Micah’s plan to get Dutch out in the open to meet with Colm had failed, he went out to that train station to telegraph Milton. Once the agents arrived, Micah must’ve told them Dutch didn’t take the bait. Milton’s impatience apparently had gotten the better of him because he then decided to just raid the camp instead of going about contriving another plan to get Dutch away from everyone to arrest him.

During these days, Emmeline settles in more. She tries her best to do jobs around the camp at Shady Belle. Laundry, mending clothes, washing up, none of it is really new to her, anyway. Once the sun goes down, she starts to help Lenny in his pursuit to teach Sean how to read. The Irishman seems more inclined to listen to Emmeline than Lenny, so he actually makes progress.

“The... dog... j-j-“ he reads along as he points to the words on the page with his finger.

“Sound it out,” Emmeline says in support.

“J-um-p-ed. Jumped!” he calls out excitedly. “That fucker jumped !”

Emmeline and Lenny both laugh at his reaction.

“You’re doing good,” she comments. “See, you’re getting it down. You’ll be reading novels in no time.”

Karen, who is close by, decides to see what all the hubbub is about. “Who jumped?” she asks as she comes to stand by Sean.

He points to the illustration of the little puppy in the book that Lenny had borrowed from Jack. “The dog!” He follows the words with his finger again as he reads. “The dog jumped!”

“You can join us, Karen,” Lenny mentions. “If Sean can learn, you surely can, too.”

She thinks it over a minute. “If I learn to read, Mary Beth will be shoving those stories she writes in my face all the time askin’ if they’re any good.” She moves to sit down next to Sean. “But I guess I ain’t got nothin’ better to do right now.”

Soon enough, Abigail and Jack join in on the lessons, though Hosea has to be recruited to help out with the teaching. It helps to keep spirits high in this time of uncertainty. Arthur often sits next to Emmeline as she continues to help, though most of the time he’s sketching in his journal instead of helping out.

“Who taught you to read, Emmeline?” Abigail asks one of the days they’re all sitting around the fire.

“Both my parents loved books,” she answers. “They didn’t send me off to school, but they both taught me all they knew. Taught me to read and write. How to add numbers. Even had me read some history books, too. They wasn’t really educated, but they did their best.”

“Well you’re loads smarter than Arthur, here,” Sean calls out at Arthur’s expense. “How’d you manage to convince a sweet girl like that to be with you.”

Before Arthur can respond, Emmeline steps in to defend him. “He didn’t have to convince me. Arthur is sweet and kind. And he ain’t dumb. He’s taught me a lot.” She looks over to Arthur and smiles.

“Ain’t that sweet!” Sean razzes him further.

Karen slaps the back of the Irishman’s head. “He’s a better man than you, Sean.”

“Aw, you love me. Give us a kiss.” He leans into Karen, his lips puckered.

“I don’t love you, you pig!” Karen calls out, but everyone knows she’s not serious.

About a week after they had moved into Shady Belle, Arthur finds Dutch standing at the back of the property looking over the swamp.

“Whatcha doin’, Dutch?” he calls out as he approaches.

The older man doesn’t even turn around, though he does answer. “Watching the alligators,” he says with very little emotion in his voice.

Once Arthur comes to stand next to Dutch, he can see blood in the water and an alligator moving around underneath it. “They fighting or something?”

“I watched a boar walk over to the edge of the water,” Dutch starts, eyes still fixed on the swamp. “I watched as one of those gators silently swam up to it, the boar none the wiser. Only took but a few seconds and that gator had that boar in its mouth, dragging it in the water as its meal.”

“Shit,” is all Arthur can think to say.

Dutch lets out a sigh. “All this time, I thought I was the alligator. Turns out I’m the boar.”

Arthur could tell that Dutch hadn’t been taking Micah’s betrayal very well. He had shut himself in his room, barely talking to anybody, which isn’t normal for him. This is actually the first time Arthur had spoken to him in days.

“Now come on, Dutch,” Arthur replies gently. “You ain’t no boar. You’re a man. And men make mistakes on occasion. I know that more ‘n anyone.”

“I’ve been thinking about... him ,” Dutch says, refusing to use Micah’s name. “About everything he’s done. Everything he’s said.” He lets out a heavy breath and casts his gaze to the ground in front of him. “He played me, Arthur. Like a fiddle. Told me everything I wanted to hear. Then he tried to get me to turn on you.” He finally looks over to the younger man. “And John. And Hosea. I nearly fell for it.”

“But ya didn’t.”

“But I nearly did. And everything I’ve been working for would’ve been lost .” He lets out a sigh. “I’ve just been trying so hard ,” he brings his hands up and clenches them into fists in front of him, “to hold onto everything. To keep everyone together. Not to fall into the trap of this...” he waves his hands around, “ civilization .”

“I know, Dutch. We’re still here. We’re still with you.”

Dutch turns his body to face Arthur and places his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “But for how long?” He doesn’t stay to get a response, instead, walking past him toward the house.

Just a little while later as almost everyone is eating their supper, Sean calls out, “Hey, English!” in Arthur’s direction. Bill is walking next to him, which can mean nothing good, most likely.

Arthur lets out a sigh, causing Emmeline to chuckle beside him. “Yes, Sean?” he replies, already exasperated.

“Me and Bill was ‘avin a drink at some saloon in San Denis when we hear these two blokes talkin’ about some train that’s s’pose ta be carryin’ a lot of gold. Apparently they gonna be movin’ money outta the bank fer some reason.”

“And...?” Arthur says after a pause.

Bill jumps in. “We rob it!”

Arthur just shakes his head. “I don’t think we should be doin’ nothin’ like that right now. All the heat that’s been on us... we need to lie low.”

“Don’t we need the money, though? To get to Tahiti?” Sean asks, parroting Dutch’s words.

“Right now we gotta focus on not getting nabbed by them Pinkertons,” Arthur explains. “Micah don’t know where we went to, but I’m bettin’ he’s told them agents that we’d head further east once they ran us outta Clemens Point. If we do something big, they’ll know it’s us and it’ll only be a matter of time before they find this place.” Arthur scratches at his beard as he thinks it over. “We need to do shit much more quiet than we have been. No train robberies. No banks or stagecoaches. Nothin’ like that. We send the women into the city to pickpocket some rich folk. Javier and whoever else can rob homesteads as long as it’s quiet. Me and Charles can hunt and sell the pelts. It won’t get us a heap load of money, but it’ll make us enough to keep surviving. For now, anyways.”

Since Dutch is continuing to lock himself away most of the time, there’s no one else giving the gang orders but Arthur and Hosea. They are both in agreement that the gang needs to lower their profile for the time being. Especially until Dutch gets back to his old self. Arthur hopes he’ll come out of it, sooner rather than later.

During this time, Emmeline and Arthur try to figure out what it means to be in a relationship together. She, of course, has no experiences of her own to draw off of. Arthur isn’t much better, though, only having one serious relationship in his life. There are some awkward moments, usually coming in the form of Arthur being teased every time someone catches him even so much as looking at Emmeline. She shrugs it off, but Arthur usually has to try to hide his blushing cheeks.

While he’s never been very comfortable with public displays of affection, he makes up for it in the privacy of their own room. He’s tentative for the first few nights, but with Emmeline’s assurance that she is fine with his advances, he gets more comfortable with her physically. Before too long, he comes to crave the intimacy that she provides. He had long since accepted that he would never have another woman in his life, but then Emmeline showed up and awakened parts of him that had been dormant.

One morning, Arthur and Emmeline are cuddled up together in the small bed in their second floor room. Arthur has been working hard lately, so he decides to sleep in a little today. As for Emmeline, her pregnancy has continued to take the energy out of her, so some extra time in bed doesn’t bother her any.

“You awake, Emma?” he whispers when she stirs a little from her position lying on his chest.

“Yeah,” she answers sleepily without lifting her head. “But I’m still tired. I might just fall back asleep.”

He kisses her crown. “Go on ahead. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Just a few minutes after she tries to fall back asleep, she’s overcome with a wave of nausea. Thankful that she decided to put her nightgown back on last night after she and Arthur were done with their “activities,” she runs out of their room to try to make it outside before the contents of her stomach could come up. Unfortunately, she just barely makes it out into the hallway before she starts to heave.

Abigail can hear the commotion from her room just a few feet away. She leaves Jack, still sleeping soundly, to see what’s going on. “Are you alright?” she asks Emmeline when she sees the mess at her feet.

Emmeline clears her throat and wipes her mouth. “I’m fine,” she says as she looks up to the other woman, unsure what else to say.

Arthur comes out of the room, having hastily put on his pants to cover himself. He shares a look with Abigail before he gently lays a hand on Emmeline’s back. “Why don’t you go back in and lay down,” he says to her. “I’ll clean this up.”

Abigail’s face suddenly lights up as she calls out, “You’re pregnant! I knew it!” She had her suspicions, but the fact that Emmeline had gotten sick and Arthur isn’t at all worried about it confirms what she had thought.

Both Arthur and Emmeline snap their heads to look at the other woman.

“Keep it down,” Arthur growls out.

Abigail lets out a scoff. “Ain’t nobody up here but Jack. And he could sleep through the end of the world. Even Dutch and Molly are out, for once.” She starts to vibrate with excitement despite Arthur glaring at her. “But it’s true, right?”

Emmeline smiles gently as she nods slightly. There’s no use in lying at this point.

Abigail can’t hold back the squeal of happiness as it leaves her mouth. The thought of having another child in the camp for Jack to play with swirls in her mind.

“Shh!” Arthur pats the air to try to calm her. “You can’t tell nobody, Abigail. Especially not the rest of the girls.”

“I wont.”

“Abigail?” John’s raspy voice rings out from the steps. “You alright up there? I heard you yell.” He starts to come up the stairs before she even answers.

Abigail runs over to meet her husband on the landing. “Emmeline’s with child!” she tells him immediately.

Arthur throws up his hands and rolls his eyes. “Abigail! I just told you not to tell no one!”

“John doesn’t count,” she replies as she leads John over to where the group stands.

“Is that sick?” he points to the pile a few feet away.

Abigail swats him on the chest. “Don’t worry about that! You’re gonna be an uncle!”

“Don’t tell nobody else,” Arthur asserts. “I mean it. Both of you.”

“Alright, alright.” Abigail turns to leave. “I’ll get a bucket to clean up that mess. Then we’re gonna talk all about this.”

John shakes his head and claps Arthur on the shoulder. “Looks like we’re more alike than I thought.”

Emmeline scrunches up her face in confusion at his comment. “What?”

“I knocked Abigail up with Jack on accident, too.”

Arthur shakes his head. “Shut up, Marston.”

She looks over to Arthur for a moment before turning back to John. “But you were happy, right?”

“Little Johnny Marston ran away. Like an idiot,” Arthur answers for him. “I won’t never do that.”

“I came back,” John defends himself.

“It only took four years for you to get your shit together to be somewhat of a father to the boy,” Arthur bites back sarcastically. He had always looked down at John for his decision to leave instead of accepting his role as a father. Now that he’s put himself in the same position with regards to an unexpected pregnancy, he’s focused on not repeating the younger man’s mistake.

Abigail reappears carrying a bucket and some rags. “Stop fighting, you two. You should be celebrating.”

“We ain’t ready to tell everyone just yet,” Emmeline comments. “So I think we’ll have to wait for any parties.”

“It’s your news to tell. But the second you do it, there’s certainly going to be a party.” Abigail bends down to start to clean the floor. “I suggest you nibble on some biscuits to settle your stomach, though. If you start getting sick all the time, people are gonna get curious and ask questions.”

Early one morning, Emmeline takes Abigail up on her advice. Once her stomach starts to roil, she sneaks out of bed quietly enough not to wake Arthur to head down to Pearson’s wagon in search for biscuits. The sun isn’t even up yet, so it takes her a few minutes in the dark to locate the small tin on the table.

After eating a few of the biscuits, she decides to head over to where Miss Susie is hitched at the edge of camp to visit with her for a moment.

“How ya doin’, girl?” she asks as she pats the horse on the neck.

Upon hearing a rustling behind her, she flips around just in time to see Kieran exiting his tent not far away from her.

“Miss Emmeline?” he croaks out, his voice still tinged with sleep.

“I’m sorry, Kieran. I didn’t mean to wake you. I honestly forgot your tent was over here.”

“That’s okay.” He moves to the other side of Miss Susie, petting her on the nose. “It ain’t too much before I’d get up anyway.”

“I need to thank you for taking such good care of her,” she says as she continues to stroke the horse’s coat. “I haven’t gotten the chance to take her out much lately.”

“She’s a real good horse. Very friendly. I must admit that she’s my favorite to ride out of all of them.”

She smiles. “Really?”

“Most of the other horses only accept one rider in the saddle. Miss Susie here don’t mind me taking her out at all.” He pats her neck. “I’ll get her a couple of carrots for a treat.”

He starts to move further away to where he keeps his supplies while Emmeline continues to pet her horse. Suddenly, there’s a scuffle and when she turns to look, she sees a man in a green vest grappling with Kieran, trying to pull him off into the woods.

“No!” she screams at the top of her lungs and instinctively runs toward the man that she realizes must be an O’Driscoll with what Arthur has told her about them. She doesn’t have any weapons on her and she’s only in her nightgown, but she doesn’t let that stop her from trying to help Kieran. Jumping on the O’Driscoll’s back, she forces one arm around his neck and tries to pull him away.

Unbeknownst to her, the O’Driscoll hadn’t arrived alone. His partner roughly grabs her by the shoulders and throws her off the first man and onto the ground hard. She’s stunned for a moment, but once a gunshot rings out, she comes to just in time to see the man on Kieran crumble to the ground.

With the O’Driscoll’s plan well and truly bungled by the surprise appearance of the raven haired woman, the remaining man can only think about making it out alive. He quickly pulls the woman in front of him up by the hair and holds her to his chest, using her as a shield.

“One move and she gets it,” he calls out to Bill, first and foremost, since he’s the only one close by with a gun. That’s not going to last for much longer, though. He can hear everyone else in the camp stirring at the noise. And with the sun starting to bathe the landscape with light, he no longer has the cover of darkness on his side.

“Let her go,” Kieran pleads.

The O’Driscoll knows he has to make a run for it now before he has more guns trained on him. He figures that the only chance he’ll get is if he kills the girl, catching them off guard enough to make his escape. He cocks his gun then a shot rings out.

Meanwhile, Arthur is pulled from sleep by the sound of Emmeline screaming “No!” It’s faint, but it’s like his mind is attuned to her voice. Without much thought, he grabs his gun belt and runs out of his room in only his union suit. As he’s running down the stairs, he’s bucking his belt around his hips and drawing his Schofield, ready for a fight. The sun is just barely up, but there’s enough light that he can see a man on the edge of camp holding Emmeline to his chest. Their right sides are facing Arthur so he gets a good look at the gun the O’Driscoll is holding to her head.

Arthur runs full bore at them. Without slowing even a little bit, he readies his gun to shoot the man behind Emmeline. Despite everything going on around Arthur, he somehow sees the small movement of the man’s thumb pulling back the hammer on his gun. Time seems to slow as Arthur lines up his shot to the side of the man’s head before he can fire his gun. Arthur wastes no time in pulling his own trigger, sending a bullet straight into the O’Driscoll’s temple, dropping him.

Emmeline thinks she’s been shot for a moment. She waits for the pain to radiate through her, but it doesn’t come. The only feeling she gets is the cool morning air rushing over her back, signaling that the man that had been holding her isn’t behind her anymore. Before she can turn to see what had happened to him, Arthur rushes over and turns her back to him.

“Don’t look, sweetheart,” he says hurriedly.

Bill’s voice calls out, “We got more bastards coming!”

Without a thought, Arthur picks Emmeline up, cradling her to his chest and runs back to the house. Gunshots start to ring out as he gets closer to the front doors. Before he can open them himself, Dutch bursts through them, both of his guns in his hands.

“Get her in here with the women!” he calls out to Arthur then starts shooting from the porch.

Arthur deposits her just inside. “Run upstairs to Abigail.” He places a kiss on her forehead then turns to go back outside.

Emmeline does as instructed and rushes up to the Marston’s room. She finds Abigail cradling a crying Jack to her chest on the bed.

“Get in here!” Abigail holds her free arm out to Emmeline and she huddled up next to the woman.

Though they’re about the same age, Emmeline allows Abigail to hold her as if she were her mother. She wraps one arm around Abigail’s back and places the other around Jack as an added layer of protection for him.

Outside, the firefight is intense. Round after round of O’Driscolls come at them. It has to be every single member of the gang, Arthur reckons. He sticks right beside Dutch as the man takes down his fair share of enemies. That is until he hears Sadie scream from behind the house.

“Go,” Dutch calls out unprompted. “I’ll cover you.”

Arthur runs around the house as Dutch takes down any men that might shoot at him. When he sees Sadie, she’s pinned down behind one of the buildings in the back. He fights his way toward her, then the two fight their way back out, clearing out all the O’Driscolls that had flanked the house. Soon, the gunshots fade as the few remaining enemies retreat.

Arthur doesn’t even give himself a minute to rest before he’s rushing back into the house and up the stairs. John is hot on his heels as he’s thinking similarly to Arthur in wanting to check on his family. Both men come through the door to the Marston’s room and see the women and Jack sitting on the bed, still cuddled together.

Upon seeing Arthur, Emmeline jumps up and runs over to him, enveloping him in a hug. “Are you hurt?” she asks into his shoulder.

“I’m okay.” He pulls back to look at her. “You okay?”

She nods, her eyes still watery with unshed tears. The battle had certainly shaken her up.

He pulls her back into him and cradles her head to his chest. “It’s alright. It’s over now,” he whispers to the top of her head. After a moment, he looks over to John, now sitting beside Abigail and Jack, his arm around them. “We need to get out of here,” he says suddenly.

John looks at him confused. “What do you mean?”

Emmeline backs up to look at Arthur as well. “Are they coming back?” She takes his statement as meaning that they need to clear out the camp again.

“No. I don’t know.” Arthur shakes his head. “I mean we ,” he gestures between himself and John, “should leave.”

“What are you saying?” John bites back.

“This life ain’t no place to raise a family, John. We all know that. Jack shouldn’t be raised like this.” He looks over to Emmeline. “No child should. Both of us need to seriously start thinkin’ about leaving.”

John stands with a huff. “All the shit you gave me for leaving and now you’re suggesting it?!”

Arthur takes a step towards the younger man. “You didn’t just leave us . You left them .” He gestures to Abigail and Jack. “Your responsibilities to the gang are one thing, but you left your responsibilities as a father. That’s what I gave you shit about. That boy needed a father. Still does. And this life more ‘n likely is gonna end in him losing you. Or bein’ an orphan.”

“Arthur’s right, John,” Abigail concurs as Jack still clutches his arms around her, though he’s cried himself out and is now falling asleep despite the voices around him. “We can’t keep doin’ this forever. Jack’s getting older and he’s gonna be aware of what we do pretty soon. What you do. He’s a good boy. Smart, you know. He could do so much more than either of us.”

Emmeline feels a bit like a third wheel in this conversation. Though, undoubtedly, she’s one part of the subject of the conversation, everyone else besides her is dealing with a history she’s not involved with. Arthur and John have lived together for over a decade as brothers, for lack of a better word. And Abigail has been with the gang for a few years as well. The decision whether or not to leave the group certainly must be a difficult one for them. The input of a person that’s only been there for a few weeks probably won’t be very welcome at this point, so Emmeline keeps her mouth shut.

John looks from Abigail to Arthur then flicks his gaze over to Emmeline. “You plannin’ on leavin’ with her?” he asks Arthur.

“Don’t have no plans, really.” Arthur runs his hand over his beard as he lets out a sigh. “That O’Driscoll had his gun to her head, fixin’ to shoot her,” he says as he gestures to Emmeline. “In one second she coulda been gone. I coulda lost that chance to...” he swallows roughly at the thought, “to be a father. All because of some old gang feud she ain’t had no part in.”

Not knowing what to say, Emmeline just takes Arthur’s hand in hers. Truth be told, she was specifically avoiding thinking about how close she came to death. And how close Arthur came to it as he battled outside. This whole situation is something she’s never had to deal with before.

Heavy footsteps echo in the hallway outside the room causing everyone to look in that direction.

“Arthur, John?” Dutch’s voice calls out as the footsteps grow nearer.

“In here,” Arthur answers.

A moment later, Dutch appears in the doorway, looking more lively than he has of recent. “Everyone alright in here?”

Everyone nods.

“Good,” Dutch continues. “No major injuries on our side. It seems the O’Driscolls plan was thwarted thanks to you, Emmeline.”

“Oh?” she replies. “I didn’t really do nothing.”

“You alerted us,” Dutch says, pride in his voice. “And Kieran told me you went after the man that attacked him. That was very brave.”

Arthur whips his head around to look at her. “You what ?”

“I just reacted,” she answers. “I saw someone hurting Kieran, so I tried to stop it.”

“You can’t do that,” Arthur asserts.

“Now, son,” Dutch interjects, “she most certainly saved that poor boy from a grisly fate. I think she deserves praise for that.”

Emmeline gives Dutch a genuine smile. Despite the fact that she hasn’t known the man that fathered her for that long, she’s not immune to his charms. Much like the way he’s fostered loyalty in Arthur over the years, she feels a sense of pride that the man is complementing her.

Arthur, on the other hand, is not happy. “I don’t think we should be encouraging her to put herself in danger.”

“It’s not encouragement, Arthur. Just acknowledgement.” Dutch pauses then lets out a heavy breath. “That’s not why I’m here, anyway. Javier caught one of the O’Driscolls before he could run away. I thought I could use you two,” he gestures to Arthur and John, “to interrogate him. See if he won’t tell us where that bastard Colm is so we can return his hospitality .” The word is laced with venom.

Arthur and John share a look before nodding.

“I gotta get dressed first,” Arthur says as he turns to leave with John and Dutch.

“Meet us in one of the buildings in the back,” Dutch calls out as he an John start to descend the stairs.

Emmeline follows Arthur over to their room. “Did you really mean all that?” she asks while he gathers some clothes from his trunk. “About leaving?”

He pauses his motion and turns back to her. “I’ve been scared since... the doctor told us we was gonna be parents, really. Scared what kinda father I’d be. Scared what Dutch is gonna say. Scared about it changing everything here, my whole life, everything I’ve ever known. But all of that weren’t nothing compared to how scared I was when I thought I was gonna lose the two ‘a you. And I don’t wanna leave you a widow, neither. We both need to get outta this. Together.”

She gives him a soft smile as she looks up at him. “That’s what I want, too.”

Over the last few weeks, Emmeline has come to care for the people around her in the camp. All she’s seen is people working together in a normal way, doing everyday things like tending the horses and cleaning up. But this burst of violence is unlike anything she’s ever experienced. She’s never been so close to gunfire, never seen anyone be fought with or shot. Now that she has, she wants nothing more than to never experience that again. If that means leaving everyone here... it’ll be hard, but she’s fine with it as long as she, Arthur, and the baby are safe.

#of sons and daughters #writehavoc Of Sons and Daughters #writehavoc writes #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x oc #arthur morgan / oc #arthur morgan x original female character #Arthur Morgan / Original Female Character #Red Dead Redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #rdr

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galadrieljones · 6 years

Text

A Funeral: Chapter 8

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth | Rating: Mature

Content: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Fake Marriage, Epiphanies, Backstory, Banter, Deep Emotions, Sharing a Bed, Swimming, Arthur to the Rescue, Forests, Abduction, Angst, Heavy Angst

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their journey, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. In their desperate search for meaning together, they endure a number of trials, some small, some big—all of which bring them closer to one another as well as to the future, and to the unchecked dangers of the natural world.

Masterpost | AO3

Thanks @bearly-tolerable for the banner!! ^_^

Chapter 8: Veteran Hearts

“It’s okay,” said Arthur in the rain. “It’s all okay now."

More thunder went off overhead, and the sky turned big and white. Somewhere, you could hear the horses, getting frantic, but there was nothing he could do about that now. Arthur felt split down the middle. He did not know what to do. He was typically a calm man in the face of adversity. He was good at improvising and very good at surviving. He had been in rough predicaments like this many times before. But never with a woman, not like this.

Arthur's anxieties, subtle as they often were, were real and quite mean, and they felt right beneath the surface of his heart that night, pressing in and up until the pressure in his head became almost unbearable. He kept thinking of that dream, that goddam polar bear. Why the hell was it a polar bear? What did that mean? Why was his mind such a series of obstacles these days, so much heavily in his way? If he could just move everything around, make a goddam path. But he wasn't afraid of the storm, and he wasn't afraid of the goddam Murfee Brood. That was true, because it wasn't things like this that scared him. In truth, Arthur rarely understood his fears until they were right up on him. He had spent a long time pushing them down into that barbed wire and that is where he liked to keep them.

But they were creeping now. He had been afraid, earlier, when he saw Mary Beth being hauled off by that ingrate. That was something he learned about himself that night, something that scared him. Even still, Arthur did not rightly seem to realize just how much he cared about her. He knew he held affection for her, but it had all started to crystallize in new ways these past couple of nights, ways that he had not yet found the guts or means to acknowledge. She had become a fixture in his life, an anchor, and the prospect of her being in danger or sadness terrified him far worse and far more specifically than the simple, generic anxiety he felt over protecting the other members of the gang. He just didn't realize it yet. He didn't know, or else he just could not yet find a way to acknowledge why he was so goddam shook.

But he was not afraid, that is what he told himself. He was in control. Because the ingrates were dead, and a storm was just a storm. He just had to calm Mary Beth. Once he calmed her, then his next choice would reveal itself. He was not one to underestimate Mary Beth. He knew she could handle things. He'd seen her handle things. He'd been robbing and dancing and living with her for many years. He would not have taken her on this trip if he did not know she could handle things. He knew she'd come out of it. She was a strong girl. He just needed to wait.

So he did. The wind settled. Some minutes went by of him waiting and looking around, telling her it was okay, and cradling her wet head. He could no longer hear the horses. There were no more enemies in the forest. At some point, as he was squinting into the darkened rainscape toward their camp, that is when he finally felt her. He looked down and she had stopped crying. She planted her hands on his shoulders and pulled herself up to look at him. She was shaken but alert. It was like she had surfaced from a long, restless sleep, but there she was. She blinked into the rain. She looked full of guilt for some reason. "Oh my god," she said, shaking her head. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry, Arthur. I lost my composure."

"Don't be sorry," he said, removing some of the matted hair from her cheeks, desperately relieved to hear her talking. "That was bad, Mary Beth. Real bad, but it's over now. Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"No," she said quickly. "I mean maybe a bruise here or there, but I'm okay, Arthur. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay."

“What do we do now?” she said.

“We should go," he said.

“Go where?”

“We should get back to the tent, see if it's held up. We need to take shelter."

"What about the horses?"

"They won't stray far," said Arthur, looking around again. "They're good girls. Don't worry. We'll find them tomorrow."

He heard a branch breaking then, somewhere in the trees behind them. More branches. It was footsteps, loud. Over this shit, he wasted no time. He shielded Mary Beth to his chest, stood and drew his pistol. He pointed it straight into the indecipherable shapes of the trees.

“Show yourself,” he shouted over the storm. “I know you’re there. No use running."

It took a minute of waiting, squinting through the rain. He pulled back the hammer, ready to shoot. But then, someone appeared. It was a man, an old man, stepping out of the brush with both his hands in the air. It was not Murfee Brood. He was wearing a white hat, a big old rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked rightly serious but unafraid. “Don’t shoot,” he shouted, hobbling out into the open with a considerable limp. “I ain’t here to hurt nobody. I live nearby, and I am just passing through.”

"Passing through in the middle of a thunderstorm?" said Arthur.

The man seemed amused by this, but in a good way. He said, "I was out hunting, on my way in on account of the unfortunate weather. I found some horses, wandering the trees. Just through there." He gestured to the trees behind him. "They got saddles. A pretty little Apaloosa and a right expensive-looking Foxtrotter. They are spooked to high hell. They yours?"

Arthur eyeballed him hard. “They might be," he said.

"Well, I wrangled them for you. I'll take you to them. But I would prefer you lower that gun first, son. I promise, I ain't here to hurt you. You can trust me."

Arthur was breathing heavy, unwilling at first. But then Mary Beth tugged at his collar, stood up on her tip-toes to reach his ear. She said, "I think he's telling the truth. Put down the gun, Arthur."

Arthur hesitated, but ultimately, he listened to her. He released the hammer on the pistol and dropped it into his holster. Then he took a step toward the man, keeping Mary Beth a little behind him. "Okay," he said. "I'll trust you. For now."

The old man immediately smiled. He had long white hair and a good white beard. He said, "About time." Then he held out his hand. "I'm Hamish Sinclair. Like I said, I live around here."

"Arthur Morgan," said Arthur, clasping the man's hand with his. They shook once in the rain. "This here's Mary Beth."

"Hi," she said, reaching out her hand. Hamish shook it, albeit gentler than he'd shaken Arthur's.

"Very nice to meet you both," said Hamish, in all earnestness. "Now, tell me. What the hell are you doing out here?"

"We was just camping," said Mary Beth. "And then we was ambushed."

“By what?” said Hamish, looking at Arthur now.

“Murfee Brood,” said Arthur. "Four of them. They're all dead now."

“My god,” said Hamish. He wiped his face with a handkerchief, though it seemed fruitless given the rain. “This far west?”

“Apparently."

"Goddam creeps. Jesus. Well." He looked around, satisfied over something. "At least they're dead," he said. He adjusted the belt around his waist. His clothes were hanging off him, soaked, but he was dressed well for the rain. "What is your plan now?"

"We was just heading back to our camp, to see what's become of our tent," said Arthur. "We need shelter, obviously."

Hamish nodded, squinted up at the dreaded sky. “Your tent won't do in this," he said. "Besides, I seen your camp. Down by the lake? It's torn to pieces."

"Seriously?" said Mary Beth.

"It's okay," said Hamish, determined as he surveyed the flooding terrain. "You two can come with me. I got room in my cabin, a little loft overhead. It ain't much, but it's space enough. You can take shelter till morning.”

Arthur stared at him, a little incredulous. Then he glanced at Mary Beth. "Are you sure?" he said to Hamish. "You don't know us."

"Sure I do," said Hamish, smiling. He was real canny, that was for sure. He didn't seem to miss much. He reminded Arthur a little of Mr. Lawrence Winterson back in Emerald Station. "I know a good buck and his doe when I see one. Come on."

“Thank you,” said Mary Beth, right away.

"Yes, thank you, sir," said Arthur.

"Don't mention it."

The man reached then to help Arthur forward and down the bluff. Arthur released Mary Beth and took her hand instead, their fingers laced tightly. Once they got down past the trees, Arthur could see what had become of their camp. The tent was still standing, but only just. Anything else they had laying about was strewn to the trees with the wind and some of it was blowing still. Mary Beth looked at it in mild disbelief. They would come back tomorrow, he thought, salvage what they could. Hamish had the horses tethered together, idling by the water where they looked cold and wet but no longer distressed or fearful. Beside them was one more horse—a pretty Dutch Warmblood in a pale champagne. Arthur took this for Hamish’s horse and admired its clean cut beauty. It was only a good man to keep a horse like that.

“Let’s go,” said Hamish. “It's about a mile or so, around the lake. It’ll be faster to ride.”

“You good to ride?” said Arthur to Mary Beth.

She nodded. He helped her onto her horse. She hugged Watson and patted her dearly on the cheeks and forehead. Arthur mounted up and told Mary Beth to trot out in front of him. He would pull up the rear. They went in a humble trot north then, eventually east around the top bend of O’Creagh’s Run, ducking their heads against the rain. The wind had since eased up, but the thunder was still rolling strong in the distance. Arthur reckoned it would be another several hours before the storm ran its full course through the sky.

“Boy, I bet you're glad you ran into me!” said Hamish, laughing and jovial. He was way up front. "This storm ain't kidding."

“We sure is," said Mary Beth.

"No doubt."

Mary Beth glanced back at Arthur then, like she was just reminding herself that he was there. He nodded, and she turned back facing front, shielding her face with her freckled forearm.

“What was you doing when they struck?" said Hamish now. His horse spooked a little. Another bolt of lightning flashed through the sky. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Arthur was just fishing," said Mary Beth. "I was picking carrots for our dinner when that disgusting man grabbed me and the whole thing started. Lost my damn basket in this hellstorm.”

Hamish chuckled. “Well, luckily, I don’t think those ingrates travel in packs bigger than three or four.”

“Too stupid for anything else,” called Arthur. "But it allows them to be quiet."

"Indeed," said Hamish.

They got to Hamish's cabin very soon after that. It was a modest structure, right near the edge of the lake, but very upright. He had a small stable where they were all able to tie up their horses out of the rain, and a couple stacks of dry hay for them to feed on. They made a run for it to the door, as if they were not already each soaked to the bone, and Hamish let them in first, followed behind and then closed the door and bolted it tight. Arthur and Mary Beth both stopped to look around and notice the humble scenery of the cabin. The kitchen was tidy, with a small display of Civil War paraphernalia hung up by the entrance, and there was a low fire in the hearth. They saw the loft, too, that Hamish had mentioned out in the woods. Right tucked up in the bent of the roof with a small ladder leading down, just past the kitchen. The air was dry and warm and a welcome commodity. Arthur and Mary Beth both looked at each other, each of them nodding, acknowledging their mutual sense of reassurance.

Hamish entered the room and immediately removed his hat and jacket. He wore chaps that looked impervious to the rain, and he removed those as well. Arthur and Mary Beth were waiting for instructions. After giving them a long one-over, Hamish nodded his head as if having an internal conversation with himself, and then went to what appeared to be his bedroom, a small space cordoned off to the side, hidden behind a heavy curtain. “Looks like you two might need some new clothes, eh?” he said. He went to the armoire first, opened the cabinet doors and searched a bit until he landed upon a pair of linen slacks and a large blue shirt—also linen—with a button-up style in the front. He came back to the kitchen and handed the clothing to Arthur. “Now, I’m not as big as you, young man, but these is…pretty comfy on me. I reckon they might fit you yet.”

“Thank you,” said Arthur. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Sure I do,” said the man, nonchalant. He waved Arthur off and went back to the bedroom. At that point, he seemed to have a thought, and then he stiffly got down to his knees. It seemed to take him a great deal of effort to do so. He picked up the lid on a great big hope chest. Inside were some books and photographs and folded stacks of pretty white clothing. From it, he drew what appeared to be a woman’s nightgown. He admired it for a second and then staggered to his feet, and he came back and gave the nightgown to Mary Beth.

She touched the fabric, smiled kindly up at the man. “This is lovely,” she said.

“Well, I had a wife once,” he said, scratching at his old, white beard. “Like every man should. She was about your size. She liked white. That should do, I reckon.”

“Thank you,” said Mary Beth, like she was taking in the story—the terrible romance of it all. This old man who kept his dead wife’s beautiful nightgowns, folded neatly into a memory box by the foot of his bed. “You’re very kind, sir. I’m sure it’ll fit just fine.”

He smiled, charmed by her as many tended to be—politely of course. He went past them then to the kitchen where he lit the stove and put a kettle on. “Please feel free to use the curtain, miss," he said to Mary Beth.

She nodded, looked at Arthur.

“Go on,” he said.

So she did. She went into the little room and pulled the curtain closed behind her. Arthur sighed, deeply, surveying the little pile of clean clothing in his hand. “Thank you again, sir,” he said, “for your generosity.”

“Oh, enough thanking for one evening,” said Hamish. “I just done what any decent man would do. And besides, I am glad for the company. This storm is a right bitch."

Arthur smiled to himself. “It sure is.”

Hamish continued putting together that pot of tea then, and so Arthur began to undress in front of the fire. His clothes were truly stuck to his skin. The old man was right, in that the pants were a little short, but for the most part, the clothes fit just fine. The linen was worn and very soft. Arthur stacked his boots by the fire and Hamish showed him how he could hang his wet clothes on a little line strung up in front of the locked window. Arthur hung them all up and then joined Hamish back in the kitchen, where Hamish had taken to removing the prosthetic from his upper eg. Arthur had guessed that it was so—based on his gait and his difficulty with bending at the knees. Removing that prosthetic seemed to give the old man a considerable amount of relief. He watched him massage the carefully wrapped stump above where his knee had ought to be for a while and then lean back in the chair to close his eyes and breathe. He seemed tired by the night’s fateful wanderings, but also refreshed. Arthur waited patiently to see what would happen next.

When Mary Beth finally came out, Arthur showed her where she could hang up her skirts and her blouse and how she could dry her boots by the fire. They went to the kitchen and Hamish welcomed them to his table. The kettle on the stove was getting hotter and starting to hiss. Mary Beth offered to pour the tea as Hamish had settled in. Hamish was happy to oblige her and even directed her to top off all their cups with a healthy shot of Kentucky bourbon, which he kept bottled in a little cupboard by the floor. She poured the tea, and then she poured the booze. She served them each a cup and then sat down at the table with the men. Arthur watched as she held her face over the hot steam and breathed it in through her nose. Her hair was still very wet but she had taken it out of the braid, and it was drying now to long, scrunchy waves around her face and on her shoulders. He sipped his tea, looked at Hamish who was nursing his cup and very content.

“So,” he said, eventually, now that the night seemed settled. You could still hear the rain, pounding overhead. “What brings the two of you fine young people all the way out here to my neck of the woods?” he went on. "Just fishing and camping?"

Arthur glanced up toward the roof. “Hunting,” he said, and then he sipped his whiskey tea. “We was looking to hunt moose.”

“Well you come to the right spot, though farther north would be better. Where you hailing from?”

"South,” he said. “Near St. Denis, but that ain’t where we hail from originally.”

“Wanderers?” said Hamish, looking at Mary Beth.

She smiled. “Something like that.”

This satisfied him. He looked at Arthur, took a drink, and continued. “How long the two of you been married?” he said.

Arthur was confused at first, but then he glanced down at his hand. He had never taken the ring off. He closed his hand into a fist, opened it again. “Not long,” he said.

“Newlyweds?” said Hamish.

“Yes sir,” said Mary Beth, drinking. “This is our first time hunting together. Our first time in the woods.”

“Well you seem capable,” he said to her, and to Arthur. “To survive an ambush by the Murfee Brood. One of you must be a sharpshootin son of a bitch.”

Both Arthur and Mary Beth smiled at this. Mary Beth leaned forward and placed her hand on Hamish’s wrist, but only for a second. “That would be Arthur,” she said, real quiet, like a secret. “The truth is I’m no good with a gun.”

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short,” Arthur said. He took a long drink. “Mary Beth shot a turtle once. Dented it and everything.”

“Arthur!” she reached across the table and shoved him good. Arthur was amused by this and felt himself smirking. It was a smirk of the likes he had not smirked in some years. He was surprising himself.

They all sat, drinking after that, like they were waiting for a bell to ring or something.

“So you is a veteran of the war, I see?” said Arthur after a little while. He finished his tea, got up to pour himself a bit more. It was quite satisfying. “Is that how you lost your leg there?” He brought the kettle and the whiskey back around to top off the rest of them. Mary Beth declined the whiskey, but she took more tea. Hamish wanted a lot of whiskey in his.

Hamish nodded, scrubbing a hand through his beard. “Yes sir,” he said. "That old war. It took its toll, that's for sure."

“You seen battle,” said Mary Beth, eager, warming her hands to the mug. “That must’ve been something. Very dark times.”

“It was,” said Hamish. “But I ain’t complaining. You know how lucky I am, to get to live out here, in this—this preserved place of wide open wilderness? Pretty damn lucky. It’s all power lines now, everything I seen. Civilization. The corruption of man sticking it to nature with his…disease. I seen enough horrors for one lifetime. I ain’t buying in. No, ma'am."

“Nor should you,” said Mary Beth.

“We know the feeling,” said Arthur, “of being chased.”

“What do you do?” said Hamish to Arthur, straight up.

“I’m just a wanderer.” Arthur made no attempt at fooling. He took a drink. “Like you said, sir.”

Hamish smiled, turned to Mary Beth, full of humor. “You wander with this fool?”

Mary Beth blushed and laughed and drank from her cup as well. “Of course,” she said. “What else would I be doing? Working a sweatshop? Marrying a banker with a monocle? Ain’t really my style, Mr. Sinclair.”

Hamish was laughing now but seemed to understand this. “That there’s a good answer,” he said.

After a little while, and some more talking, the tea ran out, and the old man became sleepy and a little worse for the booze. It was getting late. The rain still fell outside in big whooshes against the rooftop. Arthur helped him up and back to his bed. Rubbing his eyes, the old man seemed weary but grateful. He seemed to have very much enjoyed their company, and their conversation. “Thank you, son,” he said, clapping a hand to Arthur's shoulder. “Promise you’ll stay through the morning. Have breakfast. You'll need your strength if you're going after moose.”

“Of course,” said Arthur.

“There’s a soft mat up in the loft,” he said, hauling onto his back and closing his eyes. “It ain’t much, like I said, but there’s a lamp, and room enough for two, I reckon.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Arthur.

“You’re very welcome.” He was drifting, slow but hard. “Oh, and watch your head,” he said. “Low ceilings.”

Arthur smiled. “I will.”

“Very good.”

He was asleep after that, Hamish Sinclair, their humble savior. Passed out cold, breathing heavy and even with his head on the pillow.

When Arthur closed the curtain and returned to the kitchen, Mary Beth was cleaning up, rinsing their mugs in the basin. “Mary Beth let me do that,” he said.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “Plus it’s sort of like habit at this point.”

Arthur sighed. He placed his hands in his linen pockets. He was not tired. He was still wide awake from the encounter on the bluff. He felt terrible for all that had happened to them that night. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head at the floor. “What happened back there, Mary Beth. On that bluff. I messed up good. I shoulda seen them coming.”

She stopped what she was doing, turned around to look at him. “You saved us,” she said, disbelieving of his somber tone. “You couldn’t have prevented that from happening, Arthur.”

“Maybe not,” he said, scrubbing at the advancing scruff on his chin. He was looking right into her now, fixing her with his focus. “I still feel responsible.”

“You always feel responsible, Arthur,” she said. She wiped her hands off on a towel and went to him. “I know you. But you ain’t always responsible. It wasn’t your fault, and we’re okay now. Like you said before. A million times. While I was crying my damn eyes out like a total girl on that bluff.”

Arthur blushed a little. “Well, you are a girl, Mary Beth. To be fair of course.”

She socked him again, like before. He flinched and laughed. “Watch your tone, Arthur Morgan,” she said.

“I’m only kidding.”

“I know.”

“You done a good job on this trip," he went on. "Seriously. You saved my life that first night. We would both be plain dead by now if it weren't for you and that frying pan.”

“And don’t you forget it,” she said, smirking.

She finished up the dishes while Arthur stoked the fire. She washed their mugs and all the rest of the dirty dishes in the sink. She said it was the least she could do for such a kind man of the war.

“He seems a little lonely,” said Mary Beth, folding his kitchen linens into little squares. “But spritely. Anyway, I’m probably just reading too much into things. I tend to do that. I don't like men who is missing their wives.”

“He might be lonely,” said Arthur. "But it ain't too bad. I seen lonelier men living in the thick of the city." He truly meant this. "Don't worry."

"I'll try."

They went up the ladder after that. Mary Beth went first. Arthur followed. When he got up there and into that little loft, he could see what Hamish had been saying—it really was low ceilings. He could barely scoot on his knees. But the mat was big and soft, maybe stuffed with down feathers. There was an oil lamp and a stack of blankets, a couple pillows, and the roof over head was sealed very well with good craftsmanship. It felt a little like a nest of sorts. Arthur lit the lamp so that the space looked as warm as it felt.

“I don’t feel much like sleeping,” said Mary Beth after a minute. They were sitting on either side of the lamp, their legs folded up, facing each other. “I can’t seem to calm down.”

“Same here,” said Arthur, studying his hands. There was still mud caked into the crevices of his palms, in his fingernails.

“Wanna read?” she said. She had that little blue book again, in the big front pocket of her nightgown. It seemed she never parted with it.

“Sure,” said Arthur. “What is that book anyway?”

“It was Sean’s,” said Mary Beth.

“Sean’s?” said Arthur. “I didn’t think Sean could read.”

They heard a snore then, coming from Hamish, down below, behind the curtain. They both smiled.

“He couldn’t read," continued Mary Beth, smiling to herself. "Not really. But I was teaching him, a little, here and there. He wanted to keep it a secret. On account of his reputation as the gang’s cocky Irishman.”

Arthur laughed at this. “He was a good kid.”

“Yeah, he was," she said. She slid the book open, turned to a page marked with a pretty gold ribbon. “It’s not the easiest reading material for a beginner. Apparently though, it’s quite new. He said he picked it up in Blackwater.”

“Is it a novel?”

“Poetry,” she said. “W.B. Yeats.”

“I ain’t read no Yeats,” said Arthur, watching her turn through the delicate pages. “Keats maybe. I always liked him.”

“Keats?” she said, looking, real bright. “Why, you are a romantic, aren’t you?”

He smiled, a little giddy. “Maybe,” he said. “I like the odes. It was like…he was thankful for something. You don’t run into too many thankful men these days, it seems.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Mary Beth. "Who gave you the Keats?"

"Hosea," said Arthur. "When I was pretty young. Maybe twenty or so."

"Well, this is much different," she said.

“Can I see it?" he said, holding out his hand.

"Sure." She gave him the book. It was small in his hands, real small. It had looked so much bigger in hers. He opened it to a random page, to a poem called Into the Twilight. He began to read silently, but then Mary Beth asked which poem he was on and urged him to read it aloud.

“Aloud?” he said, a little nervous all of a sudden.

“Yeah,” she said. She grabbed both his wrists, encouraged him, and then hid her hands back in her lap. “Go on, Arthur. I want to hear.”

He gathered his courage. It was funny. He could shoot four men dead on a bluff in the middle of a wild thunderstorm inside a minute, but when it came to reading out loud, in front of Mary Beth, he became a boy again. Anyway, he rose to the challenge. He cleared his throat, squinted down at the words to make sure he got the rhythm right. Then, he began to read, going slow, his voice sounding deep and dusty in his own ears:

OUT-WORN heart, in a time out-worn,

Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;

Laugh heart again in the gray twilight,

Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

Your mother Eire is always young,

Dew ever shining and twilight gray;

Though hope fall from you and love decay,

Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:

For there the mystical brotherhood

Of sun and moon and hollow and wood

And river and stream work out their will;

And God stands winding His lonely horn,

And time and the world are ever in flight;

And love is less kind than the gray twilight,

And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

When he finished, he sat to contemplate for a moment. He turned the page, and then he turned it back to examine the poem one more time. Then he closed the book, and he set it down on the blanket between them.

He looked up, and Mary Beth had grown solemn, staring at him, her face lit by the yellow lamp light. “That was real nice, Arthur,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said. “Ain't like I wrote it. Seems weary though.”

“How do you mean?”

He took a deep breath and opened the book again, right to the same poem, studying. “Seems like it’s about…morals, forcing in. Times changing, mixing everything up. It takes everything,” he said. “But it don’t take nature. That’s the brotherhood, I reckon. See? That’s the dew of the morn.”

He took one last look at the words, thought hard on it for a second. Then he closed the book again and gave it back to Mary Beth. She held it in her small hands, with the freckled knuckles. She seemed contemplative as she set it down once more. Then she smiled like she was embarrassed.

“What’s the matter?” he said, trying to catch her eyes.

“Nothing,” she said, sighing. “Only that I wish I did not feel and look so much like a wet rat right now—a pretty moment like this.”

Arthur was surprised, even confused by this. He sort of laughed at the sentiment. It was strange.

“What's funny?” she said. She looked up, finally.

He smiled. ��You are."

"Why?"

"You couldn’t look like a wet rat if you tried,” he said. He just shrugged. He was being real. “Come on, Mary Beth. You know you’re a beautiful woman. Don’t lie about yourself that way.”

The rain was coming and coming still, a regular rhythm now, part of the scenery. Mary Beth did not know what to say. She was amused but also her heart was beating very hard in her chest, right out its delicate cage. Looking at him, he did not seem keyed up or like he was fooling around or even putting on a show. He just grinned his easy Arthur Morgan grin, like he was just telling truth.

So she reached for him. That’s just what her instincts told her to do. Mary Beth tended to trust her instincts. They seemed to be all she had sometimes. She placed one of her palms on each of his weathered cheeks, feeling the scruff, the soft of his beard starting grow in, so many days in the wild. He had high cheekbones, Arthur. His bones were a little feathery on the whole, delicate, she thought, which was not apparent unless you studied him close. Because he was otherwise a big man and he seemed it in every way. But not in his bones. At first, she didn’t know if he would pull away from her or remove her touch. But he just seemed to be searching her eyes with his, trying to figure out what was going to happen next, same as she was.

He had saved her life how many times and yet it didn’t feel desperate, or unruly, she thought. It didn’t feel strange. It just felt normal. She touched her forehead to his, softly, felt him give a little, then she closed her eyes. He was hesitant. She could sense it. But then she felt his eyelashes glancing off her cheek as he closed his eyes, too. They breathed like that, just for a little while, taking comfort in one another. But soon, their faces hovered closer together, by nature, and she felt him then—responding. His hands, lightly at first, planted softly just above each one of her knees. They were not smooth. They were big, sure of themselves. She felt him exhale.

"Mary Beth," he said.

The gravel in his voice emboldened her. She made the move. She kissed him.

Waiting, seeing. It was everything. She didn't know what would happen. She felt his breath catch, just a little, his mouth soft on hers, but he was not caught off guard, and when she thought he might pull away, because he was Arthur Morgan, and that seemed so often to be his conservative nature—to pull away—she then felt one of his hands on her neck instead, a surprise, grazing her ear, pushing into her hair. It was sending a whole lot of electricity into her, his hand. This good knight. She was kissing him after all. He was still hesitant at first, but then he was very smooth, and she waited, patient, still tense, their mouths touching but only just until finally, he kissed her back, real slow, like he meant it, and then all of their muscles seemed to release at the exact same time. She felt herself moving into him. The kiss deepened naturally, but only just. It was not a reckless abandon type kiss. It was not the end of the world. It was just the two of them, tucked away in yet another kind stranger's home, existing.

When it all came to a close, they parted, looked at each other. Arthur felt warm and good, clear as windows all of a sudden. She tasted like whiskey. He lingered, his breathing shallow, his heart beating rapidly. He had made a choice, he realized, and now there he was, before he even knew what hit him, staring at this person who he did not want to leave. It was that simple. It was the truth he could not previously acknowledge, which is that it was fun, being with her, and easy, and terrifying all at once. And it hit him hard, what this meant, took hold of him in ways he could not have foreseen or designed. All it took was her heat, her skin, her safety, something good, not a fantasy or a fool's errand, just something real, pulling him downward by the chest until he felt like doing nothing but lying in the cool earth, peaceful, becoming a part of its roots and growing.

Together, they could hear the crackling of the fire still from down below and the rain on the roof overhead. Arthur had tucked the damp hair behind her ear. Mary Beth's hands had fallen from his cheeks and to his wide, warm chest. All these things going on inside them, but between them, it was just quiet. They just studied one another, in the lamp light, beneath the fateful call of the storm, because that is just who they were when they were together. When times got safe. Studying. Whatever else there was or wasn't, whatever still remained to be seen, that is just what they did.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #mary beth gaskill #arthur x mary beth #my writing

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thetravellingvagrant · 5 years

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Day 14: Cusco - In Which I Ride Through A Desert (National Park) On a Horse With No Name (It Was Called Treacle)

We were up earlyish again, today, for the second of our booked excursions in Cusco. This day, however, we had eschewed the ATVs to instead ride around a lovely big national park on horseback, like the rough and ready cowboys that we (I) definitely are (am).

We hauled ourselves out of lovely warm bed and into horrible cold flat and, after a frankly joyless breakfast of children's cereal, which, by this point, I am utterly sick to my back teeth of, bade a temporary goodbye to our apartment and all its resident ants and headed to our horsey pickup point: San Blas temple.

After a few (twenty) minutes wait, our driver, Marciel appeared from nowhere, like a little Peruvian goblin and ushered us into his car. He spoke no English, though insisted on speaking to us at length, anyway, so lots of smiling, nodding and saying “si” and just hoping ensued.

Marciel drove us up through the outskirts of town and, annoyingly, alongside the Saqsaywaman ruins, where he stopped, insisted we get out and take pictures from an infuriatingly better angle than we had enjoyed a couple of days ago, thereby making the incredibly gruelling uphill walk now entirely pointless on every conceivable level. Don't tell Sam, though, even though she knows and was also there.

After around twenty five minutes total drive time, we pulled up alongside the actual, for real ranch, with horses and men in hats and everything, and were quickly greeted by our incredibly lovely guide, whose name, unforgivably, I have totally forgotten- I'll call him Ruben, because I think it was probably something like that – and Robert, another punter, also from Britain, whom you could tell just by looking at, was definitely in Peru to do Ayahuasca, but was fairly nice, regardless.

After a brief bit of small-talk, which I hated, we were assigned our horses. I had, from nearly the exact moment of booking this particular tour, some month and a half prior, been insisting that my horse would be called Treacle, because for some reason, it seemed to annoy Sam and I found that incredibly funny. In actuality, my horse's name was Caramel, which I'm sure you'll agree is startlingly close to my original guess and indeed definitely close enough for me to continue referring to it as Treacle, throughout this post, which I will.

After only a single incredibly ungainly failed attempt to get on top of Treacle, before finally cracking it (meaning I managed to get into the saddle- I didn't punch the horse) I was up and on horseback and officially a cowboy. Yee haw. Neat. Wowzer.

I had never ridden a horse before this point, never really having had the cause, interest or availability to, but despite feeling constantly for the first half hour or so like I was definitely going to slip off my saddle to the side and be trampled under Treacle's magnificent, pounding hooves, it wasn't all that bad, at all. It was a bit like driving a living car, I suppose - one which could arbitrarily decide to go mental and kill you at any point. I concede that does actually sound quite bad, now I read it back, but it really wasn't.

After a while, I found my bearings and settled into clopping around like I was in a very, very slow version of Red Dead Redemption. No sooner had I begun imagining myself as a cowboy, clad in a poncho, shooting all the natives to bits with a very big gun, however, than we stopped, demounted and went for a bit of a wander around the nearby Temple of The Moon.

Neat.

The temple, despite not getting to go inside it – site of delicate historical significance my arse – was incredibly neat. It was created by the Incas, as a sort of partner to the nearby Temple of the Sun, only this one was used to worship...yeah, the Moon. Exactly. You're really good at this. Apparently, though, due to the Spaniards being undeniable bastards and smashing up, murdering or building over everything Incan they could find, some savvy natives decided to cover the entire temple in soil to hide it. I have no idea how they might have accomplished this, or if indeed it is even true, but Not-Rubem says it was, and honestly? I trust him more than you. What this meant, however, was that for many years, up until even the last six or so, a lot of the temple had remained undiscovered by modern eyes and indeed, was still, in part, in the process of being excavated. It also had a hole in its ceiling, where the moonlight would shine through during clear nights, illuminating an alter, where they performed ritual sacrifices and if that ain't the most HP Lovecraft shit, I ever heard.

Our brief, though interesting interlude now completed, I hopped back onto Treacle (first try) and we continued our sojourn. Now quite enjoying myself, even when Treacle arbitrarily broke out into a gallop for a while, terrifying me ever so slightly, we climbed up through the valley along winding paths and eventually reached a genuinely very impressive viewpoint. I'd describe it as breathtaking, but at that altitude, everything is, so it would be pointless to do so.

Still pretty alright, though...

Afterwards, we sidled back down the path, Ruben talking about all the different wildlife we had seen (including apparently an Andean Condor, which I didn't realise at the time are actually quite a rare find, but also, still just birds so basically a bit shit) and plant life we were passing, making me feel every inch the outdoorsman, despite how much this sentence implies the opposite.

Despite a couple of interludes, wherein Treacle unexpectedly galloped, or launched himself over tiny puddles in the most overly dramatic way possible, crushing my hands and genitals against the saddle in the process, I was now decidedly enjoying my time on horseback and had begun to feel so comfortable that when Ruben suggested that we gallop back to the ranch on the final strait of road, I eagerly(ish) agreed. Sam's horse, however, whose name neither of us can remember, but whom she dubbed “Li'l Asshole” was not so gallop-inclined and so, once back at the ranch, we did have to wait for some time, while Sam and Li'l Asshole trotted along at entirely its own pace, which was close to that of molasses. I befriended that ranch's cat in the meantime, however, so didn't mind in the slightest. In fact, I only wish they could have taken longer.

We lunched at the ranch, “enjoying” a little packet of salted crackers, a melted chocolate cake bar and a bottle of water (and also, the ranch's cat, Arthur, now sitting on my knee, purring loudly like a big idiot) and the smalltalk began, once more.

Robert told us that his plans for the rest of his time in Peru were to attend a three week ayahuasca retreat (I fucking knew it). I mean, again, he was a nice guy, but for fucks sake, Robert. Grow up.

Conversation then turned to Machu Piccu. Robert asked us if we had been; we told him we had not. He asked when we planned to go and we told him that we had no plans to do so. We had been wavering on going, since initially booking the trip. Wonders of the world are neat and all, but when viewing them with with literally thousands of other people at the same time, for about an hour and at a cost of several hundreds of pounds, it just didn't seem that worth it and by the time we had reached the point of saying “fuck it, lets just spend the money and do it”, all of the limited entrance tickets had sold out.

Ruben, however, chipped in to tell us that the travel agency for which he and his ranch worked would have some available tickets and he may be able to hook us up for tomorrow, should we still want to go. We told him we were definitely interested and he made a quick phone-call to check availability and prices. Four hundred and fifty dollars. We weren't that interested, fuck. We sadly declined Ruben's proposal and vowed to come back at some point in the future instead, perhaps to walk the Inca trail for like eleven days to get there, which apparently, even that you have to pay for. Walking. You have to pay to walk there. Get your shit together, Peru. Absurd.

A little dejected to not be going Piccu-side, we said our goodbyes to Ruben, Treacle and Li'l Asshole and clambered back into the taxi to be briskly driven back to San Blas temple. Once there, we also said goodbye to Robert, who at the point of writing this, is probably off his little tits on drug-soup, and headed to a cafe we had had our eye on since arriving, for a bit of lunch.

Once inside, I opted for half a basil, mozzarella and tomato panini (which turned out to be absolutely gigantic; I could not even fathom eating a full one) and a frankly monstrous slab of tres leches cake. The food was incredible and honestly, definitely the best thing I had eaten on this trip. All other food I had eaten thus far (including the chicken roulade, from the previous night, which at the time, was lovely, though in comparison was like chewing through a bag of soot) can eff off into the bin, where it clearly belongs.

Now feeling a little sleepy - we had been up since like 6am, had a fairly physically demanding day and now, as I say, were full to the brim with bread and cheese – we decided to head back to the flat, despite it only being around 2pm, to nap and otherwise relax for the rest of the day and indeed, to figure out what to do with our last remaining day in Cusco, tomorrow. Tentatively, our plans were to go and see some of the other, less amazing ruins that the city and surrounding are had to offer. Did we actually do that? Who knows! You'll have to read the next entry to find out! (We didn't. We're lazy and have spent all our money.)

#cusco #peru #travelling #vagrant #horse #treacle #travel #photography #myhorseiscalledtreacle

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star-nova · 5 years

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The Lives of the RiffRaff: Vera Sherwood-Little Sister

We Are the RiffRaff Rickie Johnson-The Art of War

My brother Leon knows me more than anyone else in the world. He knows that I'm Vera, his little baby sister, and that even though I turned twenty-six last month, I'm still his little baby sister. I think sometimes he looks at me and still sees the awkward-looking little freckled girl from the old pictures, holding a teddy bear and smiling too big for my face. But Leon also knows that he respects me. If he didn't respect me, he wouldn't have patted me on my shoulder and said, “You hold your own just fine, Vera.” I never loved him more than I did when he said those words.

Leon knows that I have cerebral palsy, and he knows how it happened. When we were kids, he just loved the story of how I came out with my cord all wrapped around my neck, gasping for air in my very first moments in the world. “But you lived, Vera,” he would say with big eyes. “You didn't have any air, and you lived.” The way he said it, he thought I was some kind of superhero for surviving so many minutes with no air. Even if it crippled me, I lived.

Most of all, Leon knows that he's my big brother and that he has to take care of me. When he finished college and was ready to move out, our parents told him that he had to take care of me now. Leon didn't ask to, and they didn't ask if he wanted to. They just pulled him aside, talked to him for a long time, and told him, “You take care of your sister now.” When Leon moved to this small apartment in Tanager, I went with him. Since then, he's been taking care of me even though he knows that I can hold my own just fine.

Leon knows me more than most brothers know about their sisters. He helps me dress and bathe because I can't reach my arms far enough to do it all on my own, and because my muscle seize and spasm and I can't stand up for a shower. All my life, Leon's been right there while my mother ran the warm soapy water over my back and down my neck and shoulders. He watched as she washed my hair and scrubbed my feet, under my arms, and the back of my legs. When we got older, she started sending him out of the room because “Vera needs her privacy right now.” She'd hand me the sponge and say, “You need to wash your under-theres on your own.” Then she'd leave the room. I knew that my “under-theres” meant private parts.

When I was ten and Leon was thirteen, he started combing my hair because I couldn't reach to do it all on my own. Back then, I had long hair that went all the way down my back. But one time, I felt too bad that Leon had to comb out all that hair, which could get very tangled when it wanted to. When I was fourteen, I asked for a short cut, and I've worn it ever since.

Going to the bathroom is the worst, because of the nasty looks we get. He stands outside the bathroom door to wait for me, but then he has to go in to carry me back to my chair after I'm done. Security cops have gone up to Leon before and asked him why he's going with me to the ladies' bathroom. They see me in my chair, they see that my arms seize and my head lolls to the side, and yet they still have to ask! Because I can't go by myself, that's why! Do you want to know what I do in there, too?! Instead of yelling that out, I just show them my medical bracelet, and Leon shows them his own bracelet that says he is my brother and legal caregiver. They let us go, but it doesn't stop the looks. I wondered if I should just start wearing diapers to spare us both the humiliation.

“You don't think shitting in a diaper will be even more humiliating?” Leon asked me. “And I bet you think I'd just love to change a grown woman's diaper.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, “I see your point.” We both laughed, because if you don't laugh, you cry.

There's still so much about me that Leon doesn't know. He doesn't know how bad I feel for him—not for me, but for him—because he didn't get to choose whether or not he wanted to take care of me. I wonder if he wanted to get married or have children, and if my parents did give him the choice, would he have said no? I've never asked him because I'm scared of the answer. If I had the choice, I wouldn't want to take a grown woman to the bathroom, or button her jeans, or drop everything and run to her when she has a seizure. Leon doesn't know that I cry because I wish he had a different sister.

Out in the world, people look at us with sad eyes. Oh, you poor crippled girl, their eyes say, and you poor man that has to take care of her for the rest of your life! When they don't say that, they say that Leon must be a creep for being so close to a crippled woman that they have no idea is his sister. Somehow, in their messed-up heads, he's the creep for doing what he's supposed to do, and they're not the creeps for minding our businesses and watching us as we go down the street. They're not the creeps for going up to me when I'm alone and asking, “Miss, do you know that man?”

“No,” I say. “He just popped out of a portal to another dimension. I think he may be an alien and he's trying to abduct me for his experiments...of course I know him, he's my brother.” They walk away without asking anymore nosy questions, looking at me like I'm the crazy one. Leon doesn't know how much I wish I could pluck their all-seeing eyeballs out and crush them under my wheels. He doesn't know how much I wish their watching eyes would bug so far out that they pop off and go rolling down the street. He has no idea about all the tears that I swallow everytime things like this happen, because I want to be his little sister who holds her own just fine.

It's things like this that made me decide I'd had enough. I wasn't going to be crippled anymore. Why did it matter that I was born with no air? What difference should that make now?

Leon had to run out to get pizza; Kali and Zatch were coming over and we were playing Red Dead Redemption 2. “If they come by,” Leon had told me, “just let 'em in and tell them I'll be right back.”

“You got it, dude,” I said, giving him a thumbs-up and imitating Michelle Tanner from Full House. He gave me a thumbs-up back. You hold your own just fine, Vera, his eyes said.

“Buzz me if you need me,” he said just before he grabbed his keys and left. “Buzz” meant to hit the button on my chair that told him if I was in trouble. I've had to use it when I felt a seizure coming on, and the one time I pitched forward and fell out of my chair. Please, I pleaded, don't let me need that button today. It would ruin everything that I had planned.

My walking cane was leaning up against the wall. I used it during PT and when I had to walk for exercise. Usually, Leon held my other arm when I used it. I wheeled over there and reached for it. My hands shook and my heart pounded wildly; what would Leon do when he came back and saw she wasn't crippled anymore. What would he say? He might cry, and I'd take a picture with my phone and save it to my Insta-story. I tapped the cane around on the floor for a few minutes. Then the doorbell rang. I knew that it was time.

I pressed down hard on the cane, as if I was pushing away a mountain. With my other hand, I pressed down hard on my left armrest. You can do it, I told myself. You can stand. You've done it before. I've done it plenty of times with Leon, a friend, or a nurse at my side. Billions of people in the world stand every day, and I was one of those billions of people. I pretended to be a phoenix, rising from the ashes. My body rose from the chair. The doorbell rang again, longer and louder.

“Coming!” I hollered. I tapped the floor with my cane again, refusing to think about falling forward or backward no matter how much my whole body shook. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot; I sang myself the little song that my parents had taught Leon to sing me when we were kids and he took me out walking. Now I only sang it when I wanted to annoy him. I wouldn't think about what would happen if I put down a right foot instead of a left foot, or a left foot instead of a right foot...

The doorknob was right there. My hand shook and I ignored it. I turned the knob and chucked my cane against the wall. Quickly, I held on to the knob with both hands and pulled the door open, still holding on when I faced Kali and Zatch's big-eyed stares.

“Hey, Zatch,” I said. “Hey, Kali.”

“Vera, you're...” Kali's mouth was half-open. She didn't know what to say. She looked at me like I was flying instead of just standing.

“Hi, Kali,” I said again. “Come on in. Leon's picking up some pizza.”

They came inside. Kali couldn't take her eyes off of me. Zatch looked over at my cane lying on the ground, like he wasn't sure if he should go pick it up or not. So when Leon came back with the pizzas, he saw me standing there against the doorframe, my whole body pitching and wobbling but really standing, talking about Red Dead Redemption 2 with Kali and Zatch.

“Vera!” Leon sounded like he did the day I fell out of my chair and he found me facedown on the floor. I looked at him. “Hi, Leon.” My smile was too big for my face.

It didn't last. My body finally gave out and I quickly reached out for my chair. Leon almost threw the pizzas down before he took me in both of his hands and guided me into the seat. But he looked right at me, and his eyes told me that he had never been more proud to have me for a little sister.

#Fiction by Me #The Lives of the RiffRaff #work in progress #writing

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layla256 · 6 years

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Key to Her Heart Chapter 3/52: Wants and Needs

A/N: Chapter 3! I was actually really excited to write this episode because I wanted to talk more about the different characters besides just Spike and Buffy, who were pretty much the main focuses of the last two chapters.

For reference, in the universe, Giles never becomes a Watcher because of his dark past. Instead he continues to study magicks while assisting the Council on a consulting basis only. We also get to see a bit more of SoleSlayer!Faith in this one.

I know a lot of people really like Faith, and I know she gets redeemed in season 7 and some in Angel, but funny story . . .

So I got to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on rented DVDs from Hollywood Rentals, and yes, I type this knowing I’ve dated myself in the process. We didn’t have any kind of streaming subscription because my mom was scared of entering her card number on the internet, and the episodes only aired while I had dance class, so I only had access to the first four seasons of Buffy for years, and none of the seasons of Angel. Meaning that, from middle school until college, I never saw any indication of a redemption for Faith.

Now that I have seen everything, I don’t hate her nearly as much, but she still sets off a lot of red flags for me as a character, and I know I’ll never really get over those several years of thinking of her as the girl who took over Buffy’s body and slept with Riley using it. Then again, after watching seasons 6 and 7, I just generally don’t like anyone past season 5. They kind of become assholes.

The prompt this time was:

“You really think this is a smart idea?”

“Nope.”

“Good. I’d be concerned if you did.”

And that, to me, just reeked of the Angel-Plan. I should be posting the fourth chapter tomorrow at the latest!

. . .

Giles was totally wigging, and Buffy was worried. It’s not that Giles never wigs. He’s in a constant state of wigging, but there was something different about this panic-fest.

And Buffy wasn’t just saying that because he went to Faith instead of her. Either way, that seemed like a problem/conversation for after Giles was being hunted by the demon of the week.

“Look, B,” Faith said, brushing off Willow and Buffy’s concern with a wave of her fingers, “We’ve got this, all right? We’ve got a whole plan and everything. Once we get the big bad demon out of Ms. Calendar, it’ll jump to Angel who can fight it off with his own demon. Then it’ll be dead, your would-be watcher can play his Get Out of Hell Free card, and everything’s five by five.”

For a solid ten seconds, Buffy considered bashing Faith’s head in with a four by four. It probably wouldn’t stick (Slayer healing and all), but it would certainly make her feel better about the situation overall.

“And Angel’s sure he can fight Eyghon off?” Xander questioned, raising a disbelieving brow. “Doesn’t he have a big ‘I can’t fight my demon without curse-y help’ problem?”

This was apparently the worst thing Xander could have said because Faith was immediately in his face. “Angel’s more man than you can manage to be Harris,” she growled. “Way more. So just shut your breakable face and stay out of our way.”

“Not gonna happen,” Buffy declared, drawing their attention to her. “If it was just Rayne, I’d say go ahead, but it’s not. If Giles is involved, we’re all involved.” Stepping between the Slayer and her best friend, Buffy made sure her voice was firm and clear, almost mimicking her mother when she threatened a grounding. “There’s no version of this where we don’t get involved. Got it?”

Faith looked like she wanted to argue, but Amy cut her off. “Let them tag along Faith,” she sneered, looking down at Willow and Buffy over her nose. “See how actually protecting the Hellmouth looks for once.”

Big talk for a girl who got possessed by her own mother the year before, but Buffy wasn’t enough of a bitch to throw that in the other girl’s face. Just barely.

“They don’t need to,” Jesse complained, glaring daggers at Buffy. She held back a scoff. Frankly, she much preferred him glaring daggers than staring at her tits.

“I don’t care what you think,” Buffy growled. “That ‘would-be-watcher’ is our friend, and we’re not turning our backs on him and just hoping you three aren’t gonna toss him to the wolves to save your own asses.”

Faith scowled at Buffy, chest puffing up in aggressive arrogance. “Fine. Just remember this: your ‘friend’ got himself into this mess, and he came to me to get out of it.”

“Only because he didn’t want us in danger!” Willow protested, looking just as annoyed as Buffy felt, but Buffy put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. They needed each other.

In the end, everyone agreed to run home, lie to Mommy and Daddy, and make it back to the library for the main event.

Except Buffy didn’t go home.

. . .

“Have you lost your bloody mind you stupid bint?” Spike growled, prowling carefully in the shadows of the refinery with a furious look on his face. “This close to fucking sunset an’ you walk to a demon nest like you own the bloody place!”

“Giles is in danger,” Buffy said quickly, pulling Spike out of his wrath. “Some Emo-thingie demon is chasing him and they’re main plan hinges on Angel beating it.”

Spike stood for a moment, blinked twice, and sighed heavily. Something he seemed to be doing often in Buffy’s presence. He held no malice for her pseudo-Watcher, but he was getting a little tired of this white hat that kept getting dropped on his head.

Still, it seemed the man cared for Buffy at least.

. . .

Spike had been enjoying luring some idiot blonde named . . . Melody? Something like that. Name didn’t matter, just that she was stupid and full of delicious human blood. Suddenly though, his meal was out of his arms and a crossbow was pointed at his chest.

He looked up, expected the Slayer or one of her annoying little shit friends, but instead looked at the face of a furious Would-Be-Watcher. Rupert Giles looked like a bloody demon hunter the way he was decked out, not a hint of tweed in sight. Yes, he looked every bit the man willing to fight his own battles.

Odd for a Watcher.

“What the fuck are you planning with Buffy?” Watcher growled, tightening his grip on the crossbow.

Spike was honestly surprised. From his own experience with Watchers, he assumed that they weren’t even allowed to know a curse any worse than damn. More and more, this man was moving up in Spike’s esteem.

It didn’t mean Spike wasn’t going to kill him, but he’d at least do it in a respectful way.

“Ain’t got a problem with the girl Watcher,” Spike finally said, putting his hands in the air. “She an’ Red are fine by me. Know better than to piss off a couple of witches.”

Watcher obviously wasn’t buying it. “Ah, yes. That would be why you murdered the entire Frat house they partied at last night then. Angry you missed your intended dinner perhaps?”

Now that was a line crossed. Spike moved faster than the other man could see, knocking the crossbow out of his hands before slamming him into the nearby brick wall.

“Now you listen ‘ere,” Spike snarled, face deformed into his usual demonic visage. “Now, I like me a good slaughter. Screams every which way, blood soakin’ the soil. Get’s me all touch-y feel-y with the Brit deep down in me.” His mocking smirk turned into a frown, “But I don’ touch girls like that. Any bint comes to my bed comes willin’ or not at all. That’d be your boy Angelus’s schtick.”

The Watcher’s face, now red from a lack of air as opposed to anger twisted in disgust. “Not . . . my . . .” He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to; the point was made clear enough.

“Ah, you don’ like the lad either then. Good, then you’ll understand.” He lessened his grip. The human wouldn’t be able to escape, but he’d at least be able to breathe. “I don’ do the ‘rape’ bit Angelus was so keen on back in the days. Don’t let my boys do it either. They know better.” He looked down, focusing on the water puddles at his feet. “Those bastards at the Frat should ‘ave as well.”

Suddenly, he released the Watcher, pacing in front of his gasping form. Spike’s hands clenched and unclenched while his fangs pricked at his lips. His demon howled angrily, demanding blood and retribution. More than had already been taken.

“Buffy an’ Red, they’re good chits, yea?” he asked, turning to stare at a shocked Giles. “Genuine good ones. Ya don’ see that shit often. Girls that strong or kind. Showed some kindness to a soulless shit like me. An’ what’d they get for it? Bunch of arrogant fuckin’ shits slippin’ ‘em roofies and—and—”

Spike couldn’t finish. Much like Buffy the night before, he couldn’t seem to get the words out of his mouth, seeming to find them caught behind his fangs. He kicked at the wall opposite the Watcher, watching the bricks breaking under the force.

It didn’t make him feel better.

Not like their blood had.

“They—” it seemed Giles couldn’t handle it either, staring at his knees in disbelief as he knelt on the filthy ground of the alley. “Those repugnant little cunts,” he finally ground out, knuckles white as he gripped his hands tight. “I’ll—”

“Whatever you wanna do Watcher, I promise I did it already,” Spike said, face fading back to his human image as he came back to himself, shoulder slumped and heart still heavy. “Every damn thing I could think of.”

Giles nodded, standing up and brushing his knees as that good, old British upper lip kicked in. “I’d best check on them then,” he said. Though his stance and face were neutral, the shaking in his voice belayed his true emotions. It seemed the git genuinely cared for the girls, unlike the actual Watchers of Spike’s past.

The two began walking away, Spike not feeling like a meal after having his stomach turn the way it did. “Thank you.”

The words stopped him. Spike turned around, shock on his face as he stared at the still neutral Watcher. “Wha?” he said, not understanding.

“I said ‘Thank you,’” Giles repeated, picking up his crossbow, but not pointing it at Spike. “You defended my . . . charges when I could not. I may not approve of your methods, but . . .” the words were left hanging in the air.

Watcher may not approve, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful in the end.

…

“How’s Peaches ‘sposed to help you lot then?” Spike asked, taking out a fag to pull on so Buffy couldn’t see his worried face. “He’s killed plenty o’ demons ‘fore. Sure even a poofter like him’ll be alright in the end.”

Buffy shook her head, not looking convinced. “Faith and her merry band of muck ups think it’ll be a great idea to have him get possessed by the demon and fight it back with his demon. You know, like a shitty WWE match that no one wants to see.”

Spike almost choked on the puff of smoke he pulled in, saved only by the fact that he didn’t need to breathe in the first place. “You really think this is a smart idea?”

“Nope.”

“Good. I’d be concerned if you did.” He threw his finished fag into a puddle nearby, biting the inside of his lip in thought. She was right to be concerned. Angelus couldn’t control his own demon, let alone another. Either he’d keep his own demon too far at bay and lose to the interloper, or he’d let it loose far too much, and Spike doubted that good ol’ Angelus was all there after a hundred years trapped with a soul.

“I’ll let them try, though,” Buffy admitted, folding her arms over her chest. “Faith is the actual Slayer. Even if she doesn’t act like it half the time.”

Spike snorted. The Slayer acted it often enough to get on his last bloody nerve.

“But I want you there, in case something goes wrong.”

He stopped and stared at her for a moment. Want. It was an odd word to focus on, one he rarely heard in reference to himself. Drusilla had needed him. Needed her Dark Prince to shield her from all the dark monsters that prowled their world, but she had never wanted him. No, she only wanted her precious Daddy. Anything she said differently, he knew, was either a momentary delusion or an attempt to placate him.

Buffy though—Buffy meant it.

“I’ll be there.”

…

Spike was almost disappointed to see his Grand-Sire manage his feat, pouting at the thought of a lost fight. Still, he figured this was for the best. Watcher was safe and sound, Buffy had been appeased by his mere presence, and the Slayerettes had no idea about Buffy’s “special friend”, meaning they wouldn’t be giving her any kind of hell.

Catching her eye as she carried a harried Watcher between herself and the Whelp, he gave her his signature smirk before sinking into the shadows, glad to see her smile in return before he disappeared from sight.

She hadn’t needed him tonight, and, deep down, he was sure both of them knew that when they’d come up with their little “Plan B”.

But she had wanted him there, and that was the important part.

...

The part about want vs need was added in completely last minute, but I loved it so I kept it. I recently had a talk with a friend about relationships and how some people prefer to be wanted over needed and vice versa and how that can say a lot about a person.

Spike always seemed, to me, like the kind of person who would prefer to be wanted. In my headcanons, going to those awful parties was a requirement for both him and the hosts out of polite obligation. No one but his mother ever really wanted him around, meaning she was the only one who ever gave him positive affection. As a result, I think he spends the rest of his life and unlife chasing that dragon; wanting to be wanted.

#spuffy #Fanfiction challenge #52 prompt challenge #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy #willow #xander #jesse #amy #giles #angel #spiderman #ep 2x08 #dark ages

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thenameismaynard · 7 years

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THE LAST JEDI REVIEW AND SPOILERS GALORE

Ok folks, just got back from my viewing of the last jedi

under the cut SPOILER GALORE, I repeat SPOILERS GALORE

Overall, it was a fantastic movie, finally a truly GREAT star wars film after the lackluster TFA. It is a marvelous anti-war film, an intelligent movie, an ORIGINAL film, that had something to say, that had complex characters all around the board, my god why is JJ taking this back and dumbing down 9 when everything is so fucking great and well written and original

and it is a multishipper’s wetdream

however, oh boy you thought the fandom is horrible now, lol, we were summer children, the fandom is gonna be batshit from now on and it will be a shipper bloodbath, tumblr will drown in shippers blood

anyways without further ado

so since i know most just want spoilers , i’ll just do a clinical recap of the movie and then for those interested my feelings about it, and there are lots

Reylo is onesided on kylo’s part and could be seen as real but it will definitely never happen on screen, and will be relegated to fanfiction (which i am very ok with). Their bond and relationship IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC THO and wow, just wow, i’ve never seen such a balanced, complex relationship written between a female and male characters of equal strength, of equal power and with an equally devastating past that just make them all the more tragic. It is fanfiction ambrosia but with a very bleak ending, so be warned. and for this Rian thank you so much, i hope other writers take fucking note

Damerey is real guys, this is the craziest, damerey might have a shot at being endgame actually(i’ve always shipped it so i’m happy)

Finnrey is real and strong (AND WAS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL) and might have a shot at happening in 9 but it might also end up being friends and may be replaced by

Finnrose that could also be the final endgame for Finn

Kylux is fucking real as well, Kylux is gonna rise after this film

And we have a fantastic rebel OT4 that will carry on the star wars saga but yeah the skywalker line is gone tbh

OK RECAP / SORRY FOR THE TYPOS

As far as i can remember, Rey is gonna be on the island for the first part trying to get Luke to train her, while Luke is very unwilling to

Kylo was reprimanded by Snoke and because of it leads a campaign to kill the last of the resistance, wants to kill Leia but can’t because mommy ( these two, MY HEART, they had no scenes, i’m so pissed). however his fleet succeeds in bombing leia’s ship but the force save her and she’s in a coma and is replaced by admiral holdo

Finn wakes up, is afraid for rey the whole movie and meets Rose just as he wants to escape. then both him and Rose talk with Poe to find a way to infiltrate Snoke’s throne room and blow it to pieces. they go on a mission to canto bight to get DJ so he can help them get into Snoke’s throne room

Poe is given a lot more to do in this film and his arc is fantastic and a great coming of age kind of way to become a true military leader. he comes against holdo’s way of doing things without having the big picture

Rey tries to sway Luke into becoming the hero of the resistance again and finally gets him to train her but while she’s alone on the island the force bond between her and kylo starts to manifest and they start to have conversation ( ACTUAL DEEP CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THEM BOTH, THEY’RE SO ALIKE BUT REY MAKES THE GOOD CHOICES WHILE MY TRASH SON FUCKS UP EVERYTIME)

anyways, Rey doesnt tell Luke about those bouts of conversation with Kylo through Force bond and learns from Luke why Kylo failed him, and Luke tells him what reylo peeps have been sayign to that damn fandom the whole time. Snoke targeted Kylo because Kylo had a lot of darkness in him, han didnt know how to react aroudn that and leia put Kylo under his care and Luke tried to train Kylo but he realized that Snoke won all along as the darkness in kylo only grew more and more and one night he went ot his room and realized how dangerous he would become and kylo woke up and destroyed the temple

however through another force bond convo, kylo tells rey that luke lied and that he was sleeping when he woke up and found Luke tryign to kill him whit his own green lightsaber and then his power went in overdrive and he destroyed the jedi academy

rey confronts luke and luke confesses that the night in question he went to kylo’s room and realized he was too dangerous and ignited his saber as his first instinct was to kill him but then he came to his senses and only felt shame to want to kill his nephew but too late as kylo woke up and thought his uncle tried to kill him and went dark phoenix style like int he xmen and destroyed the academy

such a fucked up family, anyways

there is a gaping hole under a cave in the island and it’s kind of a force well that pulls you and is filled with dark side, rey is attracted to it and after Luke’s final story on kylo goes into the well to know what it’s all about and there comes the greatest, freakiest, force scene ever

and then we seen rey and kylo talking in the infamous hut , sharing their loneliness, and they touch hands through the bond (CRAZINESSS) and rey tries to bring kylo to the light, he’s tempted but luke crashes literally in on them and the bond is cut, and luke and rey fight (reverse blue saber scene in the storm scene) and rey tries to persuade luke to go to kylo and bring him back to the light so they can defeat snoke at ast. Luke says kylo is too far gone so rey offers him the anakin saber so he can come with her and help with the resistance. luke refuses so rey goes with chewie on the falcon to try to get kylo back to the light, but for her there it’s only to use his turn to the light to defeat the resistance.

meanwhile, the FO has the las ship of theresistance surrounded as it is only surviving thanks to its shield but it’s running low on fuel so Holdo is commanding an evacuation, Poe discovers the evacuation and is against it as he wants to fight and orchestrates a mutniny but Leia wakes up and stops his mutiny and finishes the evacuation, as their plan is for the resistance to survive to be able to fight another day isntead of going into suicide missions that have no tomorrow.

Holdo stays put in the ship as last resort as everyone evacuates, and FINALLY A FUCKING DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO WOMEN. Star wars finally passes a bechdel test for the first time in its history ever. it’s beautiful to see thoe two badass female war general veterans talking together and sayign their goodbyes before Holdo makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Finn and rose infiltrate the FO huge ship while Rey infiltrates the same ship after sending chewie to hide away with the falcon. she is met by Kylo and his guard of stormtroopers to bring her to Snoke. they are in an elevator ALONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and that CONVO IS FANFICTION GOALS, and rey tries again to bring Kylo to the ligth while calling him BEN, (you can die now reylo peeps) and sayign that teir shared vision when they touched hands showed her that he would turn to the light. but kylo says that he too has seen her and she’s the oen to turn in his vision and he has seen who her parents is

Finn and rose are betrayed by the DJ dude (benicio del toro) aboard the ship and are arrested and brought to Hux and Phasma

Luke is fucking lost mentally and is saved by YODA appearing as a force ghost and delivering the msot beautiufl message of the film, that they were the old gen and they have to pave the way for the gen, and let the past and old structures go to build new ones upon it ( HEAR THAT SW FANBOYS). and yoda also tells luke to stop beating himself down, that yes he failed ben, but failure is the biggest teaching experience and he has to learn from his failure to rise harder and stronger (like the fucking greyjoys) and that rey is the new jedi hope

Snoke welcomes Rey and Kylo into the throne room and kylo bows, he’s uber strong and tells rey to give her luke skywalker’s whereabouts so he can defeat the last jedi and have darkness reign upon the galaxy

rey refuses and asks ben to turn to the light as she has seen the cracks in kylo’s darkness (also here snoke says that he thought rey was a skywalker but apparently is not so REY SOLO and REY SKYWALKER HAVE BTH BEEN FOUD DEAD IN MIAMI BEACH) . Snoke laughs as he says he knows everythign about kylo and exploited that chunk in his armor to use the force bond so he could bring rey to him and kylo here looks up, surprised and betrayed (Dude gets fucked up by everyone he thinks kind of cares about him). then rey tries to fight snoke and escape and calls for kylo’s saber when she is surrounded by guards and the anakin saber is taken by snoke but snoke takes kylo’s saber away from her and it falls near kylo.

Snoke gets into rey’s mind (the rey toture scene) to get luke. kylo looks conflicted but doesnt do anything. snoke then laughs and turns rey to kylo so he can kill her, essentially telling rey that kylo has no will and will do anythign snoke says. kylo picks his red lightsaber and acts as though he will kill rey but uses his hand behind his back and the force to turn the anakin lightsaber that snoke had put beside him and ignites it effectively cutting snoke in half ( i was udnerhwmlmed at how easy it was to kill snoke after he showed he was more powerful than both rey and kylo)

then REY AND KYLO FIGHT THE SNOKE GUARDS AND IT IS AMAZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG REY IS A BADASSSSSSSSSS

AND THEY SAVE EACH OTHER AND I WANNA DIE

but now is where it goes to shit for the kylo redemption as he will not be redeemed. Rey is ready for her and kylo to escape and help the resistance who is fighting still the FO ships but Kylo tells her that they shoudl let everything burn and rebuild from the ashes, this is where he says let the past die thing to rey (SOFT FUCKING VOICE AND ALL) and asks her to join him so they could rule together

- (which is kind of understandable on his part as he has been betrayed by everyone in his life, so rebuilding from scratch is his way of surviving and being free of all the pain that has paved his life because he was always kind of seen as a threat to be eliminated by his own or a tool to be used by his predator mentor or an obstacle to be dealt with with hux- this is not woobifying, the dude has had a fucked up emotional life, added to him being weak emotionally and making all the wrong decisions every fucking time. kylo is so relatable it hurts, but in the way no one wants to admit) -

you can see then Rey beign really distraught because you know she wont come with him and i think she is them mournign the kindred spirit she coudl have had with him and she feints giving him her hand and calls the her lightsaber instead but kylo understand her move and calls the lightsabe rback to him so the saber is stuck in the middle of both their outstretched hands pulling in their direction with the force

and then Holdo drives the last resistance ship into one of the FO ships that were attacking the evacuating pods while the resistance goes to crait to fall back there. the blast makes rey and kylo fall and anakin saber is cut in half but Rey takes both of the parts of the saber and escapes leaving kylo who got knocked out.

And this helps Finn fight Phasma and the fights i kinda too short lived but he beats her and then escapes with Rose who is just the ultimate BAD ASSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hux finds kylo in snoke’s throne room and is about to shoot/kill him but he Kylo wakes up and takes on snoke’s mantle and becomes the new supreme leader and he’s pretty much gone all full dark side, even worse than vader as everyone he wanted left him or betrayed him so he wants everyone and everything dead.

then the resistance hides in a cave in crait and behind a huge metal door but Kylo orders the FO to go to crait and kill everyone

poe and finn and rose go on the resistance kinda old tie fighter to try to shoot the big FO metal killer bazuka (the scenes of the rebel squadron tearing red lines on crait), however they’re losing a lot of people so Poe learn his lesson from Holdo and Leia and asks them to fall back so not to,lose more people but finn does not want to let the FO win and wants to sacrifice himself to shoot the FO weapon but rose save him in extremis, kisses him and falls into a coma from her wounds

then they all fall back into the cave and try to find a way out while Kylo and the FO continue to attack the door that keeps them safe, kylo is all the way gone now, he doesnt even care about leia. while rey gets back into the falcon and taers some FO ships apart and finds the rest of the resistance that were blocked behind a wall of rocks

and then we see Luke astral project and appear in the cave to talk to leia and it’s very emotional and they talk about kylo and leia resigns herself to accept that her son is gone so luke tells leia to save her people while he will try to save them

leia and poe and finn, and rose and the rest follow the salt foxes and come against a wall barring their route but they are amazed to see rey lift all those rocks with the force and save them and they all board the Falcon to escape after REY AND FINN HUG IT THE FUCK OUT, PEANUTS ARE BACK

meanwhile Luke gets out of the crait cave to face the FO alone and kylo orders them to kill him but he survives and kylo then tells the FO to stay put and goes to face luke alone . they fight and Luke says that he will always be conflicted even though he kills him just like he killed his father, this enrages kylo who slashes through luke but we discover it was a projection. luke stayed on the island and projected himself into crait and then dies of too much use of the force

as rey and everyone board the falcon rey stays behind and looks behind her, she feels kylo get in the crait base now deserted and there is a last FORCEBOND MOMENT where kylo looks up imploringly to rey but rey loks back with pity and then close the falcon door on their bond

Aboard the falcon, Rey FINALLY meets Poe in the falcon and SPARKS FUCKING FLYYYYY and it’s pretty much the cute deleted written scene in TFA and those two have hearteyes for each other so yeah.

then Rey watches as Finn covers Rose who is still knocked out and as he watches over rose. Rey smiles as she watches finn with rose and them Liea comes to her and the SECOND GREAT BECHDEL TEST PASSSSSSS with Rey telling leia she felt luke go but he’’sin peace and asking leia how they can build a resistance with just them and Leia says it’s more than enough and the rebel OT4 and leia will become the big resistance HEROES

So, GREAT FILM, blows TFA out fo the water a thousand times over, written perfectly, KYLO is definitely the big bad and he has kind of to die and that’s why it will be the end of the skywalker line. JJ has not a single original bone in his body so he will be more than happy to copy Return of the Jedi and have Kylo die in rey’s arms or at rey’s hand so this conclusion is pretty much obvious if it was rian, at least we would have had kylo paying for his actions and delving deeper into his psyche, because his character is so fucking rich and complex and interesting and just wow

AND REY IS THE NEW JEDI AND WILL BUILD HOPE AGAIN THROUGH HE GALAXY

REY WAS SO BASDASS AND EVERYTHIGN WE WOUDL WANT IN A FEMALE HERO, RIAN DID HER WAY MORE JUSTICE THAN EVEN JJ

AND THANK GOD ROSE IS NOT DEAD AND SHE WAS THE BEST ADDITION, SHE WAS SO FUCKIGN BRAVE AND HEARTFELT AND RESILIENT AND BADASS AND INTELLIGENT AND SMART AND FULL OF HEART

REY IS THE JEDI BUT ROSE IS THE REAL HEART OF THE REBELLION AND THE REAL SPARK OF THE RESISTANCE

so much fanfic material it’s insane

ok gotta go watch it again in an hour

let me know if you have any specific questions

#reylo #tlj spoilers #star wars

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virginiamurrayblog · 6 years

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Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career

(Photograph: iStock)

Of the many mantras Oprah, Bruce Springsteen and Louise Hay have taught me, the one I’ve repeated most often, I cooked up all on my own: I don’t deserve this. Those four words loop around my brain like an uninvited earworm, chipping away at hopefulness I’ve felt for everything from personal relationships to my career.

I didn’t always feel so unworthy. This started because, while freelance writing full-time five years ago, I tried to do the right thing. In case my name reminds you only of macaroni or Madonna Ciccone, I wrote that salacious xoJane article about Jian Ghomeshi’s predilection for subverting the personal space and safety of women, years before anyone else came forward publicly about his conduct and a criminal trial that ensued. In the article, I talk about a terrible date I went on with the former radio host, during which he aggressively touched my body without invitation. I wanted to warn other women about him, but after it was published, I was what they call “shamed”—which really felt more like career exile.

Although it was only five years ago, the overall feeling in 2013 was that you deserved what you got for speaking out against powerful men online. No one stood up for you publicly, detractors verbally bullied and threatened you, and the powers that be at social media platforms were even worse than they are now at dealing with online harassment.

What I loved about writing for xoJane—a site started by legendary Sassy founder Jane Pratt and which called itself a place “where women go to be their unabashed selves, and where their unabashed selves are applauded”—was the idea that women could talk about the things we, at the time, still weren’t really supposed to talk about in public, or at least on mainstream media platforms. There was a freedom to the content that made it exciting, and I took full advantage of the opportunity to write about everything from upper lip hair to past abusive relationships. But that unbridled freedom came at a cost, and when articles blew up in a negative way, writers were often left to deal with the consequences alone. There was no support from my editor, who at the time refused to change both the very long and very bad title given to the Ghomeshi piece and the editing errors within it, and I was attacked from all angles—Canadian media, social media and even within my inner circles. Nowhere felt safe.

Despite their mistreatment, I kept writing for xoJane. Weird, right? Not really. My self-worth had been reduced to 140-character or less insults from Ghomeshi enthusiasts and men’s rights activists. I was doing the only thing I thought myself worthy and capable of. One trusted magazine editor reached out to me—someone I had written for in the past—and told me I ought to be more selective with what I was putting online. She seemed embarrassed for me. After that, I didn’t bother reaching out to editors from other pubs to pitch stories because I was sure no one wanted anything else to do with me. I felt barely worthy of xoJane.

During the backlash, I also started behaving in ways that *would* embarrass most people—drinking often and a lot and getting into situations with men, women and strangers that could have easily turned dangerous. I also gave the universal signal of a lady going through some shit: I cut my hair off and got bad bangs.

“People can sometimes respond to trauma by engaging in reckless or self-destructive behaviour, or by acting paranoid, jumpy, irritable or aggressive,” Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, a psychologist and author of How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, tells me over the phone while we are discussing the fallout from this period in my life. “You’re trying to manage your feelings of being betrayed or unsafe, so there’s this sense of falling apart or being damaged or broken.”

Before this happened, I had a downright plucky approach to my career. After working an editorial job at a city magazine in Calgary, I moved to Toronto in 2011 and tried my best to hustle my way through the big city and line up media work, without a clue how to do that—or the implications of being a woman trying to do that. But after that encounter with Ghomeshi in the summer of 2012, which I had gone into with networking in mind, I started to doubt the resolute approach that had gotten me where I was.

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It takes a lot of willful passivity to protect inexcusable conduct from people in power positions. It seemed to be a laughable open secret in Toronto media that this man regularly violated and hurt women. Even a former friend of mine, who happened to be an equally powerful player in Canadian media, responded to a text about whether he was friends with Ghomeshi with, “Yeah, why did he try to fuck you? Lol.”

After writing the xoJane article and dealing with the resultant online shaming, I went from hungry to hunted, and I barely had the confidence to apply to positions I was more than qualified for, let alone boldly put myself out there. Toronto, in my mind, had become an unsafe place.

“Trauma generalizes,” says Dr. Hendriksen, “Instead of one terrible man and a few untrustworthy people, the entire city becomes evil.” Despite this, my solid experience as a writer and producer landed me a handful of interviews.

Unfortunately, more than a few of the people I interviewed with stoked the flames of my career fear. Over the phone, one woman briefly asked me about my background and qualifications, then said, “So was it true? The article. Did that really happen?” She later let me know that she couldn’t see me working at her tech company but thought that the piece was entertaining. Another potential employer had me in for an interview and asked if I planned to use my professional experiences as fodder for more pieces like the xoJane one. He also wanted to know if there was more to the story that I didn’t write—seemingly hoping for hot gossip. A different man in a one-on-one interview asked if I regretted writing the piece, and after I told him no, he patted me on the back and said, “Well, good luck.” No callbacks.

After a series of dead-end interviews and leads in Toronto, I decided to move across the country to Vancouver to write copy for a yoga pants company. It was a contract gig, and I relished the opportunity to write inconsequential words in a place where people didn’t seem to know or care about the xoJane story. When I returned to Toronto in the winter of 2015, it was long after the news broke about Ghomeshi, and the city seemed less threatening than it had before. My job search came to a sardonic pinnacle later that year, when I was invited to interview for a music writer gig at CBC Radio. Ghomeshi was out of the building by then, but CBC—and Q especially—hadn’t fully come to terms with their part in actively supporting Ghomeshi’s problematic behaviour for years.

I made my way to the interview with a strong need to prove that I still had some nerve. CBC’s Toronto HQ, which I was familiar with from working there on a contract three years before, has the tree house from Mr. Dressup on display in one of its hallways. Thoughts of Casey and Finnegan served as a comforting reminder that this company could still be and do good. I would ace this interview, get back on track in my career and everything would be ok. But when I walked through the front doors and saw red chairs in the lobby, I was reminded of Q and promptly began to hyperventilate.

I didn’t get the job—because I had a panic attack and performed terribly—but I did stay in Toronto long enough to watch the Ghomeshi trial unfold. I decided to write an essay for Chatelaine about my experience, marking a return to personal writing after over a year of silence. It was cathartic in some ways and re-traumatizing in others, because of course, I still had a great deal of detractors. Since the comments were left on, many of those detractors got to share their opinions right below my article.

Although it started out as a redemptive opportunity for his victims, the Ghomeshi trial turned out to be a permanent stain on the Canadian legal system that will forever be an example of everything wrong with the way we try sexual assault cases. The star got a slick lawyer and his accusers got the Crown. They were woefully underprepared for what would ensue. It was disorienting and painful to watch these brave women share their experiences and be torn apart for it.

It is scary as hell to call a bad man out on his bad behaviour, especially when others won’t. Before #MeToo created a movement out of believing and supporting women, those who came forward were routinely disbelieved, cast aside, laughed at, harassed and abused. Many of us are still dealing with the impact of that trauma. In fact, a common theme among of those who develop PTSD is that they often get negative reactions from those they initially share their stories with. “Regardless of the kind of trauma you’ve gone through, your first responders can make all the difference,” says Dr. Hendriksen. “If you are believed or not, or supported versus rejected, can really set the course for whether you heal naturally or develop PTSD.”

Since finding out I have PTSD, which to be honest, I genuinely didn’t know I had before I started this essay, I’ve been able to process the impact the past five years has had on my life and career in a much calmer way. I’d been struggling, even at contract gigs, to adjust to office culture—based largely on the fact that I’d been telling myself I wasn’t worthy, likeable or good. Realizing that I wasn’t always this paranoid, and that this behaviour came as a result of going through some shit, has been a relief.

I’m now freelance writing again, and currently in therapy to move on from PTSD and help build my confidence back up, career-wise. Dr. Hendriksen recommends seeking out positive experiences with people in media, to replace the negative ones I’ve had. The editors from various publications that I’m writing for have been incredibly kind and supportive, and they’re helping me shape a new, non-threatening idea of what it means to be a woman working in media. Freelancing comes with its stresses, but I’m now open to the possibility of a thriving career, which was a dream I had all but given up on a few years ago. I’ve stopped telling myself I don’t deserve a good life. It’s also probably time to revisit my beloved mantras. I’ll leave you with one from Oprah: “Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide by the judgments of others.”

Related: Eight Men and Women on Dating in the #MeToo Era Shitty Men, CanLit and the Legal Ramifications of the Whisper Network Why Margaret Atwood Is No Longer a Millennial Hero

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virginiamurrayblog · 6 years

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Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career

(Photograph: iStock)

***

Related: Eight Men and Women on Dating in the #MeToo Era Shitty Men, CanLit and the Legal Ramifications of the Whisper Network Why Margaret Atwood Is No Longer a Millennial Hero

The post Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career appeared first on Flare.

Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career published first on https://wholesalescarvescity.tumblr.com/

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virginiamurrayblog · 6 years

Text

Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career

(Photograph: iStock)

***

Related: Eight Men and Women on Dating in the #MeToo Era Shitty Men, CanLit and the Legal Ramifications of the Whisper Network Why Margaret Atwood Is No Longer a Millennial Hero

The post Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career appeared first on Flare.

Years Before #MeToo, Outing a Powerful Man for Bad Behaviour Nearly Ruined My Career published first on https://wholesalescarvescity.tumblr.com/

0 notes