#well we see kids leave neverland not just the darlings but the lost boys

[crystal-lillies]

A Rambling First Thoughts Review + Critique of "Peter Pan and Wendy" (Disney+ 2023 movie) Spoilers ahead.

Okay for being called "Peter Pan and Wendy" I think aside from prequel iterations, this movie had the least bit of connection and bonding between Peter and Wendy that I've ever seen.

Wow okay, not even sure where to begin on the rest of my thoughts but certainly that was the first one. I didn't feel much connection between Peter and Wendy at all, and the story had very little justification for the emotional moments between them it tried to eke out, which is actually very difficult to achieve since the original source material has it baked in that all the adaptations, even the ones that twist the formula, have been able to adapt and grow off of.

Oof and I gotta say the movie rushed the beginning to really crawl through Neverland. I was shocked at how fast it was that they were already going, and it didn't really seem like an urgent event. Just like, oh yeah Peter's just gonna show up at your window and take you to Neverland one day kthxbai. Rather than it being a motivated decision for Wendy to say "I'm growing up tomorrow" (leaving the nursery, going away, etc.) but I don't want to, so I'm going to go and never grow up.

Also sidebar, Wendy my love, being an ass to your brothers is not endearing to your plight and is definitely new for this adaptation which was a Very odd take. And it could be argued by the end...or even the middle...she realizes her responsibility to take care of them and look after them in Neverland but that's a weak sauce character arc for someone who HAS one built in that's just as valid.

A really odd take for them NOT to double cast Jude Law as Mr. Darling and Hook. I actually would have liked to see his take on Mr. Darling. But RIP Mr. Darling had barely a personality at all or anything to do here.

And RIP Nurse Nana. Now you are just a dog with nothing to do, and no reason to be put out in the dog house.

And then Neverland, oh my dear place of literal dreams, what they did to you! Now, I am somewhat a fan of the Home Under the Ground being a castle ruin in this version, that's actually something close to how I've seen Neverland at least once. But it felt very empty, both the Home and the island. It was too...empty. And even though every iteration we know only the pirates, Lost Boys, Peter, the Indians, the fairies, and the mermaids live in and around the island, plus animals, all the other versions haven't felt so barren. Is it because Neverland became one large same-y landmass rather than a place that has mountains and lagoons and tropical forests and literally anything children dream of? Maybe that's part of it. But it's hard to place precisely. It doesn't feel lived in. The castle ruins didn't have beds or a table for meals. It had a neat rope swing and a fireplace yes, but it still just looked visually and felt empty, when a badass castle hideout could be so cool!

And regarding Hook and Peter having a history, having a tragic background. First, I'm not opposed to the friends to enemies take. Saw it done pretty well in the prequel special Neverland, though it was from a Fagin+Snape-like mentor to an orphan Peter who looked up to him, rather than two kids and one who grew up. But again, it may have worked with a different story. I don't think it was the right choice here, or at least it was not properly executed. The voice in my head kept saying, if Hook was a lost boy and Peter's friend and he KNEW where Peter's hideout was all along, then WHY hasn't he tried killing him before? The whole sticking point in the source and other adaptations was that he had NO IDEA where Peter's hideout was, otherwise he would kill him there!

Tiger Lily being a badass is never bad in my book, but once again, her service in the story feels unearned. I don't feel the bond between her and Peter, honestly. She had more of a connection with Wendy (and it caught me off guard how I immediately thought, "okay I would ship that" after their conversation en route to the hideout.) And then her tribe is just sort of there. Without much connection to the island, or to Peter. Tiger Lily calls him "Little Brother," but taking the movie as it is without reference of any other Peter Pan media, it doesn't feel earned from what we are given up to that point. It just feels like Tiger Lily being Peter's deus ex Machina, which really historically has been Tinkerbell, and that made sense given Tink and Peter's shared history and friendship. (Something that's also sadly toned back in this movie as well)

"Peter Pan and Wendy" is not even a poor live action adaptation of a Disney animated movie, it's just... a strange and lackluster adaptation of Peter Pan, which had been done successfully as a Disney animated movie. And I think that feels a bit more disappointing.

[carewyncromwell]

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, So we'll know where you are --  Gleaming in the skies above, Lead me to the one who loves me...”

~“The Second Star to the Right (cover),” by Simone

x~x~x~x

HEY PETER PAN ANON! I MADE YOU SOMETHING!! 8D

Hahaha, yes! This is Peter-Pan!Orion and Wendy!Carewyn (Carewyndy?). No, I won’t be writing this AU before the Tangled AU at least (and yes, I should have that up hopefully by next week)...but I couldn’t resist doodling these and talking a bit about the daydreaming I did based on this concept. Orion’s ripped pants were kind of based on how the pants are ripped in the 2003 Peter Pan’s costume, but I just couldn’t resist giving him his canon fingerless armwarmers. (I see them being forest green just like his pants, though, while his tunic is a light tan.)

Basically I see eternally 12-1/2-year old Orion Amari taking a strong liking to 10-year-old Carewyn Cromwell when she comes to Neverland. Even though she does act a bit too grown-up sometimes, it’s largely because of how deeply she feels for other people -- she’s determined to protect others, whether from bullying or actual danger, and she hates the thought of anyone feeling alone. She actually is the only person who’s ever asked Orion if he was lonely, being the only child who was destined to never grow up. And as much as Orion will airily state that “to die would be an awfully big adventure,” he finds that it’s Carewyn who believes this most, for the idea of growing older doesn’t frighten her the way it does her grandfather, the man now called Captain Hook. If anything, what makes her saddest about leaving Neverland is not for her sake, but for Orion’s -- she, Jacob, Charlie, and Bill were all going home to London, along with a good chunk of Orion’s friends among the Lost Kids...and Carewyn hated the thought that she’d never see her friend Orion again. So she reminded Orion that she would always have her window open at night, if he ever wanted to come and visit, hear her read a story or two, or even just listen to her singing while she did her evening chores. Sensing Orion’s hesitance, she reassured him that she’d never forget him. 

Orion proceeded to return to life in Neverland, embarking on those same old adventures that make the days blur and make it easy to forget things. Forgetting was part of Neverland’s magic -- even Bill had almost forgotten he had a new baby sister back in London, when he, Charlie, and Carewyn had been there with Orion and the Lost Kids. But, as Orion would often tell himself, adults forgot things in the other world too: they forgot the joys of childhood, they forgot the freedom and the simple pleasures and the bottomless daydreams. All of them, every last one of them, eventually forgot how to fly. 

But perhaps because of Carewyn’s final promise, every time Orion thought of how easy it was to forget things in Neverland, and therefore how easy it was to forget things outside of it, Carewyn’s face and words always returned to his mind. And so, the memory of her conviction and caring never strayed too far from his mind...and with it, other thoughts would crop up too. How stable things had been, when Carewyn was around. How well she understood him and how easy it was to talk to her and trust in her. And it was then that Orion realized that he really, truly missed Carewyn. It was a feeling he’d never really experienced that deeply before, not even for the other children who had eventually returned home to their families. Even Bill and Charlie, who Orion likewise grew reasonably fond of, didn’t make him feel like his stomach was always empty, no matter how much food he ate -- like his heart was scraping at the inside of his chest like a hungry animal desperate to devour something outside its cage. And that feeling only intensified when his fairy guardian Merula would try to urge him to go challenge Torvus and the centaurs to a race or splash around with the mermaids, even when Orion wasn’t in the mood to do so. 

Orion felt restless, unsure of quite what was wrong with him and not knowing how to explain his muddled thought process to McNully and his remaining Lost Kids. One day Orion was eventually persuaded by McNully to lead an expedition to find a lost chest of pirate treasure, and for a short while, the Boy Who Never Grew Up was simply able to enjoy pulling one over on his old enemy and sharing the loot with his gang. That changed, though, when Captain Hook crashed the party. 

Orion and Hook traded as many blows as ever, throwing insults at each other like they always did -- but this day, Hook said one barbed phrase that stuck in Orion’s ear more than he ever would’ve admitted.

“Already forgotten my dear Winnie, I see. But I guess I can’t be surprised. After all, the only thing that can break through Neverland’s curse -- that thing that makes everyone forget...is love. And you -- ha -- you don’t know anything about that, do you, boy?”

Love. Yes. That was the thing that made Carewyn remember her lost brother and mother, even while she was a Lost Girl. That was the thing that had made Charlie remember his parents, even after he’d forgotten London altogether. That was the thing that made Bill remember his other siblings, once he remembered how his baby sister Ginny would always cry after her afternoon nap until he came home from his newspaper route and bounced her up and down for a minute or two. That was the thing that had made Jacob remember his little sister in London, even after he was kidnapped by Hook and commandeered into piracy. And, Orion realized, it was the thing that he missed most about Carewyn -- her ability to love more deeply than anyone else he had ever known...like a mother would, and yet like an equal...a companion, more than just someone to go on adventures with. 

Orion tried to broach this topic with Merula, but the huffy little fairy put up her walls and stubbornly refused to let them down. Feelings were grown-up things, and Orion didn’t need grown-up things! Orion wanted to agree, but the feelings he felt were becoming heavy -- so heavy, in fact, that he found it harder for him to find his center, to think thoughts happy enough that he could fly to any height he wanted. He actually found himself hovering and floating more than flying...and this troubled him. It made him more anxious than he could remember ever being. 

Then the thought struck him -- why didn’t he just go and visit Carewyn? She said he could, whenever he wanted. She could tell him some stories and sing some songs for him -- maybe she could even sew him a new pocket for his shirt! These thoughts perked Orion up a bit, and he decided to leave for London straightaway. 

He hadn’t expected it to be so cold -- for you see, in Neverland, it’s every season all year ‘round, all except winter. It was a fact Carewyn had lamented, for winter was her favorite season. She loved the Christmas holidays and how everyone would gather around the fireplace with warm food together and sing Christmas songs and tell stories. It had actually sounded kind of nice to Orion, when she described it to him and the Lost Kids -- but on this day in London, Orion didn’t think the cold was so nice, nor the gray, dreary city itself. There were buildings that had been crushed and holes in cobblestone streets, made by bombs that had been dropped by German Zeppelins, and just about nobody raised their heads enough to look skyward. The adults prowling the streets were just as lacking of joy as Orion had always imagined them to be, yet it wasn’t due to stupid grown-up things like wearing a tie to work or paying bills. Instead there was exhaustion, sadness...pain. Orion hated these people’s wrinkles even more than the ones he’d see on the pirates’ faces, from dwelling on mindless things like how much treasure they had or what their daily duties were. 

But none of that mattered, of course. What mattered was seeing Carewyn. But alas, when Orion arrived at the Weasleys’ house, it was still daytime...and the window to the room Carewyn, Bill, and Charlie once shared was locked. 

Orion rattled at the window desperately, slapping the glass and pulling at its handles as he cried her name. All logic left his mind -- his breathing became raspier and weaker even as he shouted louder. 

She had to be there -- she had to be there -- she couldn’t have forgotten -- she wouldn’t have forgotten -- she promised -- she promised she wouldn’t forget him -- love was what kept someone from forgetting -- Carewyn knew love better than anyone -- she loved her brother -- she loved the Weasleys -- she loved the Lost Kids and Torvus and the mermaids and the fairies -- she loved Orion -- didn’t she love -- ?

As Orion’s anxiety spiked, the magic of Merula’s fairy dust began to abandon him. He found himself becoming heavier. He tried to cling onto the windowsill, pulling at and smacking the window, but it wasn’t wide enough for him to hold onto while it was closed. Soon enough he found himself falling slowly, like someone drifting down to the bottom of a pool...and when he landed on the ground, he landed on his knees, shaking. He clasped his hands together, his eyes wide and hollow upon the frosty ground as wintry condensation fell from his panting lips. 

He’d lost his happy thought. He’d lost it. 

He tried to fly. He tried desperately to fly, only to fall and scrape his knees and hands. Never in his life had Orion Amari ever been so frightened, shuddering from head to toe in the freezing cold. 

He shakily got to his bare feet and, barely knowing where he was going, he walked. He wandered aimlessly, his eyes glassing over as he gasped for air, searching every revolted and anxious face that he passed as the faces’ owners cringed at the state of his long hair, ripped clothes, and lack of shoes. 

Orion wandered for what felt like hours, until at long last, as if by fate, he ended up not far away from a Church-funded school, which taught both elementary and higher-elementary-level students. One of those such students was a girl with a ginger braid and almond-shaped blue eyes, walking home with several classmates, including a black-haired girl with glasses carrying a bunch of books, a rather pretty blonde with pigtail braids, and a rather cowardly-looking boy with blond hair, brown eyes, and a very thick sweater and mittens over his Church-provided uniform. The ginger-haired girl herself was wrapped up in a rather thick old dark blue blanket she’d turned into a shawl after it got ripped and had been holding it tightly around herself when, all of a sudden, she heard her name being cried by a misty, and yet anxious voice. 

“Carewyn! Carewyn...!”

One can only imagine what Carewyn’s school friends Rowan Khanna, Penny Haywood, and Ben Copper thought, seeing such a scrawny, ragamuffin street boy running toward their friend. Rowan actually tried to step in front of Carewyn as if to protect her, while Ben made as if to cling onto Carewyn’s arm in terror. But Carewyn herself, her eyes very wide upon the boy, immediately tore away from both Rowan and Ben and ran to Orion without a single shred of hesitation. 

“Orion?!”

She barreled over, whipping the shawl off her shoulders and wrapping it around his instead. 

“Orion, what are you doing here?! You’re going to catch a death of cold!”

Orion hadn’t been able to stop shaking for an instant, but her shouting his name, rushing to take care of him -- her remembering him -- it made his heart feel like a beast craving food again. Her concern wet his appetite. He wanted it. He wanted her caring. He wanted her love...

She was as tall as him. She’d been so tiny before...

“Carewyn...you know this boy?” asked Rowan, looking bewildered.

“Yes,” said Carewyn, glancing over her shoulder, “he’s a friend. Rowan, this is Orion. Orion, this is -- ”

“You’ve...grown older,” Orion’s absent mumble cut her off. 

Carewyn fixed him with a faintly reproachful look. “I’m afraid that does happen, in the span of three years...”

Thirteen. She was thirteen. ...She was older than him.

Carewyn’s eyes welled up with concern as she looked Orion over. She turned to her friends quickly. 

“...I’d better get him inside and warm...I’ll see you all tomorrow, okay?”

She quickly bid her friends goodbye, before wrapping an arm tightly around Orion’s shoulders as best she could, rubbing his arm through her shawl in an attempt to warm him. 

“Orion, what were you thinking?” she whispered, her voice full of concern as her eyes stayed locked ahead at their path. “Coming here in broad daylight, in this cold...”

Orion had started to shake again, his hands clasping more tightly. 

“Your window was shut,” he mumbled. 

Carewyn looked very upset. “...My old window, you mean? The one I shared with Bill and Charlie? Oh, Orion, I don’t share a room with Bill and Charlie anymore -- I share with Ginny now. Girls’ room, you know. Charlie and Percy actually share that room now...Bill’s sharing a flat with several other boys, closer to the newspaper’s headquarters in the East End...” 

Her eyes rippled with pain. 

“...Ginny’s and my room doesn’t have a window,” she explained. “I’ve told Charlie and Percy to keep their window open for me, but...well, Percy’s grown up way too fast. He must have closed it to block out the air raid sirens last night and forgotten to reopen it...”

Orion didn’t understand half of what Carewyn was saying, but the tone she spoke with held such reassurance and remorse that it soothed the racing anxiety that had so paralyzed him. He closed his eyes as the adrenaline his anxiety had built up ebbed away, leaving him oddly drained and colder than ever. He was so out of it that he barely seemed to acknowledge that his head flopped down onto her shoulder. 

“Orion?” said Carewyn, startled and worried. 

But Orion merely inhaled and exhaled slowly. Her caring fed that beast in his chest. He wanted a bit more. 

“Carewyn,” he murmured, “did...did you think of me?”

He felt Carewyn adjust her arm around him. 

“Of course I did,” she said softly. “I told you I would never forget you.”

The tenseness in Orion’s clasped hands and face loosened its grasp. “...Because you love me.”

Carewyn looked at him, her eyebrows furrowed with confusion. “What?”

But Orion barely reacted -- as if he didn’t think what he’d said was the least bit weird. 

“There’s only one thing that can prevent someone from forgetting...and that’s love. For once you love someone, your heart never really forgets them. Instead they become part of you...an indispensable piece...that would make you feel incomplete, if it was ever removed.”

Orion slowly opened his eyes, his lips spreading into a small, rather soft smile that made him look a bit more like his usual self. 

“...It’s what helped you remember your brother and the Weasleys, while you were with me...and your brother remember you, while he was with Hook,” he said. “It’s something I know nothing about...but I know you know it very well.”

Carewyn considered him for a moment, before returning her gaze back to the road. Plenty of people passing by gave her and Orion the side-eye, but she didn’t care. 

“I don’t know if I’d say you know nothing about it,” she said at last. “You remembered me just as much as I remembered you, did you not?”

Orion’s smile faded from his lips as his eyes widened ever-so-slightly. Then his expression slowly relaxed.

“...Perhaps...”

His black eyes trailed over her arm around his shoulders and her hand rubbing up and down his arm hesitantly. His arm beside her chest twitched slightly -- then, very, very tentatively, he tried to wrap his arm around her shoulders in return. It was a bit awkward, with the shawl wrapped around him...but once Carewyn sussed out what he was doing, she adjusted enough to give the shawl enough slack that he could successfully hold her in return. Once he had gotten his arm around her, he seemed oddly proud of himself, his smile spreading and his eyes closing again as he leaned into her, his head beside hers on her shoulder. 

They stayed that way for several blocks, walking in silence and simply enjoying each others’ company. Orion felt his center of balance returning to him. It was like having this stable place, with his arms wrapped around Carewyn’s shoulders and hers around his, was the earth he needed under his feet to launch himself back up into the air. He felt like he might even be able to fly again at some point...maybe not yet, but soon. Time always moved more slowly in Neverland than in London anyhow, so no one would mind if he took his time...

“...Carewyn?” 

“Hmm?”

“I...don’t know if I can make it back to Neverland,” he confessed. 

Carewyn looked at him, her eyes once again flooding with concern. 

“I fell, when I failed to open your window,” Orion explained. “I’ve only ever fallen like that once before...when...”

“...When Grandfather made you think unhappy thoughts,” Carewyn finished grimly. She turned away from him, facing the road again. 

Orion nodded. His black eyes flickered across her face, even though she was no longer looking at him. 

Hook had taunted him then that Carewyn had no reason to stay in Neverland -- that she preferred the thought of growing old and dying to staying with him -- that he could never meet her high standards. He’d taunted that one day, Orion would go back to find her window locked and barred -- a grown woman who’s forgotten all about him, about Neverland, about how to fly...who’s replaced all of it with adult things Orion could never understand. Ambition. Family. ...Husband. 

Carewyn wasn’t an adult yet, but she certainly wasn’t a child anymore either. There was a practicality to her posture -- a steadiness and gravity to how she walked. There was a neatness and meticulousness in how she handled her appearance. And yet even so, her hands were still so warm and her eyes were still so soft...and the sincerity in the little wrinkles that creased her brow and eyes and kissed at the corners of her lips was just the same. 

Carewyn raised her head in Orion’s direction, but her eyes couldn’t quite reach his. Instead they landed vaguely on his shoulder. 

“...I never told you...Grandfather was wrong, did I?” she asked quietly. 

Orion tilted his head. “...I suppose it depends on which thing he said that you’re thinking of. You did say you’d never forget me, or Neverland...or how to fly.”

“Yes,” said Carewyn, “but I didn’t say that he was wrong, that you’d never understand ambition or family. That’s definitely not true. Ambition isn’t just an adult thing -- you dream of never growing up, of never losing your freedom or your independence...your spirit. That’s a wonderful ambition. And you have a wonderful family too, in Neverland. The centaurs and mermaids -- Merula and the fairies -- the Lost Kids! You take care of them as if they were your family.”

Orion stared at her for a moment, his face very unreadable, but his black eyes rippling with a strange emotion. Then he curled his fingers into the puffy white sleeve of her shirt. 

“...And...the last thing?” he asked softly. “‘Husband?’”

Carewyn frowned deeply. “Is marriage something you even want to understand?”

“No!” said Orion instantly, looking revolted. “No...but...well...”

He swallowed, his own gaze drifting away. “...If you grow up...you’ll eventually want one, won’t you?”

Carewyn cocked her brows coolly. “It’s possible. But honestly, marriage seems like a bit of a bother. I’ve had to answer to plenty of adults in my life: I’d hate to have to answer to one more by choice. Especially if it means I have to give up Jacob, my friends, and my dreams just to make him comfortable.”

She said this so huffily, and yet it comforted Orion more than he could ever properly express. His own chest seemed to lighten and he felt better able to breathe again. His eyes softened upon Carewyn’s face. 

“...I see.”

The two finally reached the Weasley home again. Orion noticed the house across the street that Carewyn had once pointed out was hers and Jacob’s had been boarded up. 

“It’ll get torn down soon,” said Carewyn, noticing Orion’s gaze. “The family that lived there had their house ransacked, just because they were German...”

Her eyes narrowed. 

“...It’s disgusting, how they were treated,” she added to herself. “They were very nice to Jacob and me, when we first came home...”

“Where is your brother?” asked Orion. 

Carewyn deflated. 

“...The war front,” she said sadly. “He’d been saving up so we could move into our own place, but...well, the army needed soldiers, so both he and Mr. Weasley signed up. Mrs. Weasley let me stay here, so I wouldn’t have to struggle to find a place to stay myself.”

Orion felt something oddly like pity prickling at his chest. “You mean you’ve lost him again, after only just getting him back?”

Carewyn didn’t answer as she opened the door of the Weasley home and bustled him inside. Once the door was closed, she guided him over to the main room and into an armchair, wrapping several more blankets around him. 

“Wait here,” she said. Her lips spread into a fuller smile. “I’ll make you some hot cocoa -- that’s sure to help you fly again.”

Orion felt his heart give a somersault. 

“Do you remember?” he said very quickly, before she could leave the room. “...Do you remember how to fly?”

Carewyn beamed. 

“Of course. All you need is faith and trust, and to have been brushed with fairy dust. Then you think happy, wonderful thoughts, and...”

She spread her arms, and -- amazingly -- her feet actually came up off the ground.

Orion’s black eyes widened. Then his mouth slowly spread into the fullest, brightest smile as he found himself coming up off the ground himself. He floated just below her, spreading both of his arms too so as to take her hands and hold them out on either side of them.

Even when the world was so miserable -- even when she had so much reason to forget...Carewyn still knew how to fly. 

“You’re flying,” said Carewyn with a warm smile. 

Orion’s eyes sparkled as he guided her around in a circle, just as he had when they danced with the fairies. “I found a happy thought.”

“Did you? What is it?”

“A person whose company makes you feel stronger, when you’re at your worst.”

Carewyn smiled. “I believe that’s what’s called a ‘friend,’ Orion Amari.”

Orion’s midnight-black eyes gleamed.

Yes. A friend. Not just someone to go on adventures with, or look after, or play make-believe with, or give direction -- but someone to be your shoulder to lean on. To listen, to comfort...to love. That was a friend. As much as he cherished the Lost Kids, he was the one who had found them -- they answered to him, seeing him as leader, since there was supposedly no one else who could. 

This friend...he wanted this friend by his side forever. “Forever,” as Carewyn had once reminded him, was an awfully long time -- but he didn’t hesitate in this thought at all. 

And so, not long after, the Boy Who Never Grew Up returned to Neverland. He passed his mantle of leadership onto Lost Boy McNully, said a quick goodbye to all of the members of his Neverland family...and decided to leave for good. Even his short trip back to the Second Star to the Right took up a few weeks, but when he returned to London, his friend was waiting for him. And Orion and Carewyn grew up together, as close of friends as teenagers and later adults as they were as children. Orion grew more than just a fraction of an inch -- he soon towered a good head over Carewyn once more. He even grew a mustache, and a beard too! And yet even with this, it was never beneath his dignity to climb a tree, nor to engage in food fights, nor to read adventure books about pirates, nor to crow like a rooster upon winning a game. No matter how much his other classmates at school would frown, and no matter how much the adults would disdain and scold him, Orion never cared -- and neither did Carewyn, or Bill or Charlie, or any of the other friends he made over the years. 

So you see, even if Orion grew older, he never truly grew up...for all children grow up, except one. And one day -- many, many years down the road from when Orion first made the choice to stay -- he looked at Carewyn and realized that his first and dearest friend had become something even more precious: a friend he wished to love, cherish, and live beside far longer than forever. A friend he would call “lover.” 

[kmomof4]

Operation Secret Santa

And that is not just the title to the fic! Hello @teeandsnowflakes, I was your CS Secret Santa this year! It’s been so much fun chatting with you this month! I hope you’re enjoying your Christmas break and that you like this little fic I’ve written for you! I had planned a series of scenes showcasing CS getting ready for the holidays, but then presents showed up and the fic went in an entirely new direction. I still tried to incorporate some of your favorite Christmas things though and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for you! I also hope you have a wonderful Christmas! Thank you to @cssecretsanta2k19 for organizing this fun event and to @profdanglaisstuff for beta services! 

And now for your gift Tee! Merry Christmas!!! 

Under the cut unless Tumblr ate it.

ao3 link

Operation Secret Santa “Just a little more to the right, Killian,” Emma instructed, waving her hands in front of her as if her husband, who was currently hidden behind the newly cut Christmas tree, could see her.

Killian spit out the pine needles that he’d gotten a mouthful of as he tilted the tree to the right. He was so surrounded by the spicy scent of pine and scratchy branches that he could barely tell which way was up, much less whether it was straight or not.

“No, no, no Killian, the other right… my right,” she admonished, when the tree hovered precariously near the point of no return in its potential, imminent journey to the floor.

Killian huffed. “Well, how am I supposed to know that darling?” he groused affectionately as he straightened the tree up in the stand. “Ok lad, crawl under there and screw the trunk in place,” he said to Henry who was trying desperately, but unsuccessfully, to smother his laughter at his mother, who looked to him to be trying to take flight, and his step-father who he couldn’t even see properly behind the evergreen.

Henry crawled underneath the tree and proceeded to twist the screws into the trunk. Crawling back out, he was greeted with bright, happy smiles from his parents that he immediately returned. He turned around with a flourish of his arm. “Behold, the first annual Swan-Jones Christmas tree! Now for lights and ornaments!” He dashed off toward the basement to collect the boxes of decorations that had come with them from New York and that he and Emma had collected after the Final Battle in anticipation of their first Christmas as a fully intact family.

“Need some help, lad,” Killian called down when the teenager didn’t immediately reappear.

“Uh, yeah,” Henry called back, a note of, something, in his voice. “There’s more down here than I remember.”

With a cheeky grin at his wife, Killian sauntered over to the basement and disappeared down the stairs.

When Killian also didn’t reappear, Emma started down the stairs. “What’s taking you guys so lo- ohhh!” she exclaimed. For in front of her eyes and filling the basement were boxes upon boxes of not just Christmas decorations, but presents. Lots and lots of presents. Wrapped up in brightly colored paper, topped with sparkly bows and tags with the names Emma, Henry, and Killian.

Emma stared, slack jawed at the sight. There were enough presents here to make up for all the lonely years growing up when she was lucky if she got one present. And as an adult as well, when the only presents she ever got was if she bought them herself. Killian moved forward from the foot of the stairs to the first gift with his name on it. He ripped the paper and deftly opened the box with his hook. Looking inside, his eyes got as big as, well, a child’s at Christmas. His mouth opened and shut several times, before she finally asked, “What is it?”

He swallowed heavily before bringing it over to them. Peering down into the box, they found a soft, black teddy bear. A bear that was missing an eye, but otherwise was completely whole. Tears were gathering in his eyes as he explained, “He was mine… be…” he rubbed his hand over his face before continuing, “before Flint threw him overboard. Said only babies had those. I remember the day he lost the eye. I just couldn’t leave the loose thread alone and it came off in my hand. I cried for hours thinking I’d ruined him.” Emma gathered him in her arms as a barking sob escaped him. “I never thought I’d see him again,” he cried, his words muffled into her shoulder. “Where did this come from?” He raised his head from her shoulder and turned his inquiring eyes back to the piles of boxes.

Emma shook her head slowly. “I have no idea, Killian,” she said in awe, slowly making her way over to a gift with her name on it. After opening her own, she could feel her own tears gathering. She could feel her husband and son come up behind her on either side before she turned to them. “It’s a wooden music box. I remember seeing it in a catalog when I was about 10. It had Disney characters carved into the sides and played “When You Wish Upon a Star.” I remember thinking that surely wishing on a star and having that music box would mean that my parents would find me and take me home.” Now it was her turn to be enveloped in two pairs of strong arms and to feel the tears escape.

“And now you have, Swan,” Killian murmured into her hair before placing a gentle kiss there. “Your turn lad,” he nodded, encouragingly.

Henry untangled himself from their embrace and slowly walked to the pile of presents. Picking up a large gaily decorated box, he opened it. Inside he found The Chronicles of Narnia. The entire series. In hardback. He held up The Magician’s Nephew to his parents, stunned. “This was at the top of my Christmas list when I was eight. My other mom never really listened to what I wanted for Christmas or birthdays before I brought you home, Mom. I think she gave me a remote control car for Christmas that year. Along with an art set and some other books that I couldn’t care less about. How can this be?” he asked, incredulously. “Could Santa be real too?”

“Given the denizens of our fair hamlet, I’d have to admit to a sneaking suspicion that he is,” Killian speculated.

“But who?” Emma interjected. “Who could it be?” She turned her emerald gaze upon Killian first, then Henry.

A smirk broke Henry’s face and his eyes twinkled. “Sounds like Operation Secret Santa to me!”

Killian’s anticipatory grin could have lit up the Christmas tree all by itself. “A fine name for the operation, my boy!” He turned his eyes upon Emma. “Are you in, Swan?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” she barked, “I’m the OG Operation cohort! Of course, I’m in!”

“All right!” Henry gave an enthusiastic fist pump. “Let’s get the rest of these gifts upstairs and the tree decorated, then Operation Secret Santa can commence!”

“Let’s go,” Emma agreed. Picking up as many boxes as they could hold, they moved back to the main floor of the house.

~*~*~

All of Storybrooke had gathered at Granny’s on Christmas Eve for a blowout Christmas party that rivaled any yuletide ball held in the Enchanted Forest. This was the first time since the original curse broke that they’d been able to celebrate Christmas, what with villians running amok and general magical mayhem. Granny’s was decorated with every tacky Christmas decoration you could possibly think of, from the tree in the corner covered with brightly colored lights, balls, and tinsel, tinseled garlands strung across the windows to the kitchen, balls of holly and mistletoe holding up the garlands and in every doorway, fake snow on the counters and a fairytale village in the front window. With the jukebox playing Celine Dion’s recording of  O Holy Night, Emma looked around at all her friends and family talking, dancing, and eating their way through Granny’s bountiful Christmas buffet. Catching Henry’s eye, she joined him at the jukebox.

“Well?” she asked, “What do you think? Have you gathered any clues on who Santa could be?”

“None,” he answered. “But, everyone has had the same thing that happened to us, happen to them.”

“Really,” Emma exclaimed.

“Yeah,” he began, “Ashley, Shawn, and even Alexandra got a pile of presents. Ariel and Eric, Grandma and Grandpa, Mom, Zelena, and Robin, Archie, Pongo, even the fairies! No one’s been left out.”

“Hmmmm…”

“But, from what I can tell, everyone’s gotten presents based on the years of the curse, or…” he trailed away with a puzzled look on his brow, “their years as a hero. For instance, Mom only had six presents, the years since the curse broke, and Zelena had even less, but Robin had two, since she’s two. You had thirty-four, the years of the curse plus the years since, Killian had thirty-seven, as near as I can figure, his years growing up until Milah died and he became a villain plus the years since you all saved me in Neverland.”

“Interesting,” she mused. “It’s like he was saving them up for when we could all relax and enjoy the holiday.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Henry agreed.

“But that doesn’t get us any closer to who it might be.”

Killian joined them then with a grin that nearly split his face. “I have succeeded!” he exclaimed.

“Succeeded? You know who Santa is?” Emma demanded.

“What?” he asked, startled, “No! I sweet talked Granny into giving me her secret gingerbread cookie recipe.” He slipped his arm around her waist and gave her a cheeky smirk and wink. “Since I know your fondness for that particular seasonal delight.” He leaned in and whispered, “She doesn’t measure the molasses.”

Emma shrugged with a sheepish grin on her face. “Well, okay, I guess I forgive you.”

Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas is You now poured through the speakers as Emma’s attention settled on Marco and Archie sitting in the booth nearest them enjoying Granny’s gingerbread and cocoa. Marco got up suddenly and smiled widely at her. The booth was close enough that she knew he could hear every word they said. The twinkle in his eye made Emma narrow hers at the older gentleman, and when he shot a wink her way, her eyes grew huge as the puzzle pieces clicked into place. Marco raised a finger to his lips before turning away and heading for the door. Emma could hardly contain her excitement as a plan began to take shape in her mind.

“I think it might be time for all the good little children to get to bed if they want Santa to visit,” she said, staring pointedly at Henry. “It’s getting late.”

Henry rolled his eyes at her. “Good grief, Mom. I’m sixteen, not six. I don’t need to be in bed yet.”

Killian pulled Emma closer in to his side and waggled his eyebrows lasciviously at his bride. “Well, I don’t know about ‘good little children,’ but I know a grown up pirate who’d like to go to bed.”

Emma giggled and slapped his chest playfully as Henry rolled his eyes again and groaned. “Ewwww, gross, Dad! Teenager present! Fine, I’ll go home and go to bed. Just keep it down, okay?” he pleaded.

“I make no promises, lad.”

~*~*~

Emma came down the stairs of her home, much later, on tiptoe, seeking to surprise their midnight visitor.

“Ah HA!” she whisper shouted.

Marco spun around with his hand to his chest. “You scared the life out of me, your Highness!”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You know better than to call me that, Marco.” She approached him as he turned back to his work, placing presents under the tree. “You’re Santa Claus?” She couldn’t keep the awe out of her voice as she watched him.

“I have many names around the world in this realm, my dear. The one I’m known by in the Enchanted Forest is Belsnickel.”

“Where did all the Christmas presents come from?”

“Always the sheriff,” he chuckled, “Have to have the answers to all the questions, don’t you? Henry was right. Years as a hero that I didn’t get to deliver presents,” he explained. “Whether that was because of the curse, or the chaos of the ensuing years.”

“What about Killian?” she asked. “He had thirty-seven presents.”

“That blessed boy!” Marco laughed. “As a child and lad growing up in servitude, and even at the Naval Academy, it would have been pointless to give him his gifts. They would have been confiscated or destroyed by his masters. Before he turned villain, it just wasn’t practical to give him the things that had collected over the years. A ship just wasn’t the place for them. Once he turned villain, after Milah’s death, he didn’t deserve anything from me, so there wasn’t anything for him for centuries. But once he chose the hero’s path, I started saving his gifts again. I knew this day was coming and how much it would mean to him to receive all those gifts from his childhood.”

“But…” She trailed away. He turned his bright brown eyes upon her as comprehension dawned.

He smiled gently at her. “Yes, I am many hundreds of years old. I have far sight and can see many things that are secret,” he winked at her, “and yet to be.” Emma’s eyes fell toward the floor as a blush graced her cheeks. “And now, my dear, my work here is done. I must move on to the other residents of our fair town before I retire tonight.”

Emma’s eyes were still focused on her feet as Marco raised her chin to look at him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Merry Christmas, Your Highness.” And then he was gone.

~*~*~

Christmas night, Emma sat tucked between Killian’s legs on the sofa in front of the fire and Christmas tree just watching the blinking lights and enjoying a cup of cocoa before bed. Christmas Day had been magical and perfect. Filled to overflowing with love and laughter, family and friends. Killian shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he muttered, “What in the world is that?”

“Hmmm? What in the world is what?” she replied, twisting to look up at him.

“Every time the lights blink, something blinds me. Something on the tree.”

Emma hoisted herself up and walked over to the tree. “I don’t know. Is it reflecting off an ornament? Or maybe there’s something else hidden in the tree?” she wondered, aloud. She reached in and withdrew a tiny wrapped box with Killian’s name on it. She gasped in surprise as she turned and brought it over to where he sat. “It’s for you.”

“Thank you, love.” He reached up and took the small token from her, not quite able to hide his surprise.

“Don’t thank me. I don’t know where that came from. Must be from Santa,” she whispered with a small smile on her lips.

He smirked at her. “Marco, you mean?” he cheeked. “I still can’t believe that Marco is Santa,” he murmured opening the box. Inside was something that had his eyebrows shooting all the way to his hairline. He pulled out a pink pacifier with his hook and held it up for Emma’s inspection. A bashful grin lit up her face.

“I just found out for sure this afternoon,” she began, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth.

“You’re with child?” Killian choked out, rising from the sofa and drawing Emma into his arms.

“Yes,” she beamed at him. “Merry Christmas, Killian.”

“A very merry Christmas, indeed, Swan.” He lowered his head towards her and captured her lips in a kiss filled with love and joy of the future laid out before them.

Fin

A/N Obviously in my timeline, Emma got pregnant with Hope much earlier than in canon. I hope you liked this Tee! Merry Christmas!

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 2x22 “And Straight On ‘Til Morning” Review

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That was an amazing season finale. Emma and Regina used their magic together to save Storybrooke! Greg and Tamara kidnapped Henry to Neverland! Peter Pan has been looking for Henry since Bae was a kid! Belle and Sneezy got their memories back! Hook tried to double cross Emma and then felt guilty! Neal is alive! Okay, I don’t care for Neal, but I guess Henry needs a dad right? 

Summary: Emma and the Charmings come up with a plan to steal back the beans and get the whole town of Storybrooke back to the Enchanted Forest through a portal before the trigger kills the entire town. In Neverland, Captain Hook discovers that Bae is Milah’s son, and is torn between going after his revenge or making Bae part of his family.

Opening: Neverland Island

New Characters:

Lost Boy Leader: We don’t get a name for the leader who comes to Hook for Bae, but he’s creepy. These don’t seem like the Lost Boys we grew up hearing about. Plus he looks like he’s at least 16, which seems a little old to be a Lost Boy. They’re more like the kids from the Lord of the Flies. I wonder if time moving more slowly actually lets them age really slowly. Anyway, he and his cohorts come to Hook’s ship looking for Bae since the shadow dropped him. He keeps talking about a him that runs the island (which we find out at the end is Peter Pan). Hook hides Bae so they can’t find him, but Lost Boy Leader tells Hook that if they find out they’re hiding the boy he will rip his shadow from his body and does this really creepy RIIIIP thing. So, getting your shadow taken from your body is a bad thing. Good to know. In the end, they get Bae and it turns out the boy they’re looking for is Henry!

Character Observations:

Past Hook/Hook:

Hook is looking at a hand-drawn portrait of Milah. Smee makes a comment about how beautiful she was and that they’ll avenge her death. Dude, it’s practically your fault she’s dead. You let Rumplestiltskin know about the bean. I’m surprised Hook let’s Smee talk about Milah at all since he never knew her. But I digress. Hook thinks the boy that they pulled from the sea will be a perfect bargaining chip for him. Hopefully, that will be their key to surviving Neverland. Hook goes to talk to Bae and finds it odd that he doesn’t want to go to Neverland. He calls him a hero when he tells him about saving his family by going with the Shadow in their stead. Bae calls Hook out about not knowing what it was to be a hero, but Hook reminds him that pirates saved him. Bae reveals that his mother was killed by pirates and his father left him. He uses the words that he was a coward and that strikes something with Hook. He’s suspicious right off the bat and demands to know Bae’s name. He doesn’t want to give it, but Hook basically threatens him and when he confirms Hook’s suspicions, he tells him it’s a pirate's life for him. On first viewing, I figured Hook was upset because he knew this was Milah’s child, but after several viewings, I can now see, especially with the look he gives Smee, that the fact that he’s the Dark One’s son, is the bigger emotion that’s winning out. The Lost Boys are coming to the Jolly Roger and Smee is adamant that they give Bae to them, but Hook’s need for revenge is too strong and he will save Bae from them. The Lost Boys come on board and Hook is pretty confident when talking to them. He says he doesn’t know about any boy from the sea and the leader tells him that he’ll have his shadow ripped from him if he’s found to be lying. Hook keeps a smirk on his face the entire time and doesn’t seem bothered about what the boy is telling him at all. They are satisfied that the boy they’re looking for isn’t there and leave. Hook immediately looks to make sure Bae is okay (even though he knows the Lost Boys didn’t find him). Bae thought pirates only cared about themselves, but Hook tells him he has a lot to learn. They both smile at each other as though a new level of trust has been achieved. Hook teaches Bae how to steer the ship. He carves the directions into the ship to help him out, and even ruffles his hair when he does a good job. Aw! Hook subtly asks Bae about his father abandoning him, but Bae doesn’t want to talk about it. Hook relates his own story about his father abandoning him on a ship because he was a fugitive. That’s enough common ground for Bae to tell Hook his father is the Dark One and his dagger is where his power comes from. He tells Hook how his father chose his power over him and abandoned him. Hook seems conflicted about what to do with this information and what to do about Bae. Smee wonders why Bae is still on the ship and reminds Hook what he will do to them if they find Bae aboard. Hook reminds him that he is the captain and anyone who disagrees can walk the plank. Hook is angry that someone like Smee would dare to question his orders. Smee is just asking to be thrown overboard. I get that he’s the newest member of the crew (as this is only a few months after the events of The Crocodile, but he really needs to learn the hierarchy of the ship, the main one being, you don’t question the captain’s decisions). He’s also angry because he’s pretty much decided that he will think of Bae as Milah’s son, and not the son of the Dark One. Bae comes out and attacks Hook with a cutlass, because he found Milah’s picture on Hook’s death and has determined that he’s the pirate that killed her. Once he get the cutlass away, Hook tells Bae the truth about how much he loved Milah, how Rumplestiltskin crushed her heart in front of him, and how he’s wanted revenge ever since. Bae takes from this that his mother abandoned him too. Hook tries to convince him that Milah regretted it, that they were going to come back for him one day, and that fate obviously had a hand in bringing them together now. He wants them to be a family like Milah wanted. He’s practically begging, but Bae rejects him, accusing him of using him to kill his father. Hook tells him that he did, but his emphasis on the word ‘did’ makes it sound like that part of his life is over and he would give it all up for Bae. Bae is in tears and blames Hook for tearing apart his family (I mean, yes and no. He gave Milah the opportunity to leave her life, but she made the decision to leave). He even says Hook might as well have ripped Milah’s heart out and the hurt in his eyes is crushing. Bae wants Hook to take him back to the Darlings, but Hook tells him they can’t leave Neverland. Hook is hurting, and he’s truly upset that he can’t help Bae, but he does offer to have Bae stay on his ship under his protection. Bae would rather fend for himself. He tells Hook he wants off his ship and calls him pirate again. Hook looks devastated. He finally got a piece of Milah back and he’s rejected by him. Bae is ready to go and Hook questions if he’ll be able to survive on his own. He says he’s never had a choice but Hook reminds him that he has a choice now, to stay on the ship with him. They can be his home and family. Hook even goes as far as saying he can change for Bae, but Bae doesn’t think he’ll ever be anything but a selfish pirate. Hook looks like he’s going to cry with the warring emotions playing on his face (seriously, Colin O’Donoghue just nails Hook’s facial expressions so well). But he can’t show the emotion to his crew, so he reverts back to revenge-obsessed Hook, and that’s when the Lost Boys show up. Bae realizes the Lost Boys are there for him, and Hook confirms it because it’s what’s best for him and the Jolly Roger. Bae tells Hook he’s just like his father (choosing himself over Bae, which is bullshit because Hook tried to get Bae to stay with him but Bae rejected him, so sorry Bae, this is on you, not Hook), and Hook does not like that comparison at all. Hook aske the Lost Boy Leader if he will be pleased, but he just leaves. Hook looks down at Bae with the Lost Boys and you can see the regret on his face for reverting to selfish Hook so easily, but what’s done is done and he has to live with it. He cuts through the directions he had carved on the ship for Bae in regretful anger.

In Storybrooke, Hook is with Greg and Tamara in the mines where they are looking for something to activate the trigger. Hook questions who is telling them what to do and they inform him that it’s not his concerns or their concern. This raises Hook’s concern as they have no idea who they’re taking orders from. Tamara goes all religious about their cause on him before telling him about Regina’s trigger. Hook doesn’t seem too thrilled about the fact that they plan on killing the entire town and everyone in it. Greg reminds him that Gold will be one of the people killed, but it still seems more than Hook can stomach. Hook isn’t sure that Gold won’t be immune to this trigger, but Tamara assures him that all of ‘his’ kind will be taken out. They say they are willing to die for their cause, is Hook? Hook does not seem to like the fact he’ll have to die to exact his revenge, but he tells them otherwise. Hook goes to the loft to help Emma, David, Mary Margaret, and Regina stop the trigger. David immediately punches him in the face for the last time he ‘helped’ them (in Tiny), and threatens him with his gun. Hook doesn’t feel this is that threatening since they’re all about to die from the trigger as it is. Emma’s pissed because Regina told them Hook was working with Tamara and Greg, but Hook insists he’s changed sides (again), because he values his own life over his revenge. They come up with a plan for Regina to slow down the trigger in order for them to steal back the beans, and Hook just happens to know where Greg and Tamara are so he gets to help. David says he’ll go with him so he doesn’t try to steal the beans for himself. Regina and Henry have a nice moment and Hook is reminded of the things one goes through for their children when they care for them. David and Hook pull up to the cannery and go searching for Tamara and Greg (why wasn’t that David’s first thought as to where they might be?). David questions Hook’s motives, but Hook says wanting to live is motivation enough. They come across Greg and David just holds him at gunpoint asking for the beans, not even asking Hook to keep a look out for Tamara, who comes up behind them and tries to shoot David. Hook tackles Greg and the container with the beans break and they both go after them in the most ridiculous fight scene because Hook never uses his hook to help him out. Greg apparently gets away, but Hook has managed to snag one of the beans. David wants to get the rest, but Hook manages to convince him not to and steals the bean from Hook. Then there is this whole scene where Mary Margaret convinces Emma and the whole town to try to save Regina by putting the trigger in the portal instead, and they agree, and Hook’s not having it. He thinks they’re all mad (and he would be right, seriously, just kill Regina already. Let her die a hero so she can actually feel like she did something useful for once in her sorry life), and takes the bean from them. Emma desperately tries to appeal to him by telling them how alike they are and how he can change to by giving them the bean and being a part of what they’re doing. It seems to work, as he gives her the bag he had the bean in. He asks her why she’s really doing this and she tells him Henry’s father died. When she inquires who his father is and she tells him Neal (Baelfire), Hook looks distraught at the notion of Bae being dead, and probably at the fact that he’s letting Bae’s son end up alone because he totally swapped the bean out and has left them all for dead. He ends up having a change of heart when he sees the directions on his ship that he had carved out for Bae (or rather he feels guilty because Bae just died). Emma’s understandably pissed at him, because she thought he only cared about himself, but he says he just needed reminding that he could care for others. He gives Emma the bean. He looks adorably confused when Regina tells them they need to go because he thought they were saving the town. David tells them they already did. Emma tells him that Greg and Tamara took Henry through a portal and he does the right thing and offers his ship to them. Hook and Gold agree to call a truce, although neither one seems happy about it. Gold uses the globe that Cora gave him to track Bae in The Cricket Game and Hook recognizes that Henry is in Neverland. He looks both equal parts scared and relieved. He takes the bean and throws it in the water and they all hang on tight as the ship goes into it.

Regina: She has healed from being electrocuted which, I think was just that morning, so good job Mother Superior in your healing abilities. She’s happy to see Henry when they bring him home, but then an earthquake rattles the town and Regina confirms that the trigger has been activated. Henry realizes he’ll be alone and Emma insists that this is Regina’s fault and she needs to fix it. Regina is upset because she can’t fix it and Emma starts yelling at her and Henry doesn’t want him two moms fighting. Hook comes by to try and find a way to stop it, but Regina tells him there’s nothing they can do. She could possibly slow it down a little, but the outcome would still be the same, just slower. David has the idea to get the beans and get everyone to the EF while Regina slows it down. Regina takes this time to tell Henry she’s sorry she couldn’t be the person he wanted her to be, but she’s trying, and she loves him. Aw, look at Regina trying to change for Henry for the third time this season (which is seriously only about six weeks total, despite it moving from spring to winter within 4 episodes). Regina looks on the verge of tears during this whole speech to Henry. Emma and Regina go to the mines and find the diamond. Regina lets Emma know that delaying the trigger will take all the magic she has, and Emma figures out this is a suicide mission on Regina’s part. Emma thinks there must be another way, and Regina, finally, FINALLY, admits fault in this whole thing. She feels it should take her life since she created it. Emma wants to know what she’s going to tell Henry. Regina tells her to tell him she finally did the right thing. She wants to die as Regina and not the Evil Queen. She starts using her magic on the diamond. Regina is stunned when Emma, David, Mary Margaret, and Henry come down to the mines with the idea to put the diamond in a portal. Henry tells her that her dying for them makes her a hero, so they’re all going to be heroes by sending the trigger through the portal instead. But then Emma discovers that Hook took the bean and their plan isn’t going to work, and they’re basically all going to die except for Henry. Regina looks thoroughly saddened as Emma, Mary Margaret, David, and Henry give their tearful goodbyes. Regina reiterates to Henry that she wishes she was strong enough to stop it and that’s when Emma realizes that she and Regina together might be. And it works! But Henry was taken during the confusion. Regina and Emma get to the docks just as Greg throws a bean in the water and he, Tamara, and Henry all jump in. Regina is heartbroken, because there is nothing they can do to find him without a portal. Hook happens to come back with the bean right then, and Regina just wants to find Henry. She is thankful for Hook offering his ship, as he really doesn’t have to. Regina wonders where they took Henry when Gold uses his blood on the globe. She asks Hook where he was taken. I’m not sure if this was bad direction or editing and she was supposed to be asking Gold, or she just figured Hook was well traveled so he’d recognize it better, but it just seemed weird that she asked Hook. He tells her Neverland and they all look worried. They all hang on for dear life as the ship drops through the portal.

Gold: He is watching Henry swing from afar and notices the pointy boulders all around (weirdest playground design ever). Now, I’m not sure if the next part is all in his head or actually happening, and after several viewings I still haven’t figured it out, but he starts pointing his cane at the rope and making it frey. He is shaken out of his murder fantasy/possible actual murder when David, Mary Margaret, and Emma come to the park to speak to Henry. They wonder what Gold is doing there, and he says since Neal won’t speak to him he’s spending time with his grandson (from afar). David ends up telling Gold about Neal and he’s absolutely gutted. And bravo to Robert Carlyle because this is the most vulnerable we’ve ever seen him. He looks like he’s just about to open the flood-gates and he’s trying so hard to keep it together in front of David and Mary Margaret. They ask for his help in stopping the trigger, but he feels this is his  fault and his price to pay for bringing magic back to Storybrooke. Mary Margaret tells him they’ll all die, he’ll die, but he’s okay with that. He gets back to his shop to find the dwarfs ‘looting’ through stuff. Leroy informs him that Mother Superior finally found a cure for the whole losing memories while crossing the town line thing, you have to drink the cure from something that was meaningful. Gold is incredulous that Mother Superior happened to find the cure the day Storybrooke is about to self-destruct, but Leroy tells him that she’s been working on it all along, and it’d be better for Sneezy to know who he is and be with his family if he’s about to die. Leroy happened to get a dose for Belle too. She reminded him of who he was once (Dreamy), he wants to return the favor. He pleads with Gold to not let her die as Lacey. Gold reluctantly takes it. Lacey comes out and questions what just happened, but Gold tells her it was nothing. Lacey and Gold are drinking to the end of the world (why isn’t Lacey questioning what is happening outside?) when she spills her drink. She goes to clean it up with Bae’s shawl and when she doesn’t understand the importance of it, that’s when Gold finally realizes he needs Belle, not Lacey. He looks so sad in this scene. Like he couldn’t believe he didn’t automatically give Lacey the potion right off the bat and how selfish he was being about all of this. He gets the teacup pieces from out of his cabinet (the teacup was smashed way more than that when Belle threw it), and magics it back together. Lacey comments about it, but Gold puts the potion in the teacup and a glass (to make it look like it’s just liquor for both of them), and Lacey drinks it. She changes immediately, and Gold breaks down. They kiss and he apologizes for waking her up to die. She realizes that Neal is dead, and Gold cries to her that he’s failed. This scene was so nicely done. And while it’s definitely not the moment for Belle to be angry about how he used her as Lacey,  I hope they had this conversation after Storybrooke didn’t end. After Greg and Tamara take Henry through the portal, Gold and Belle just happen to be walking by the docks where it happened and find out what happened. David and Emma beg Gold to help them but he tells them it’s impossible. He tried for years to find Bae without a bean and he had to resort to a curse, so even being the Dark One has its limits. Fortunately, Hook decides to come back with the bean, and Gold has the globe to help them find Henry. He and Belle have an emotional goodbye as he tells her to stay behind and gives her a cloaking spell to put around Storybrooke so it will be impossible to find. She wonders how he’ll find his way back to her and realizes that he doesn’t plan on coming back. He reminds her of the prophecy and how Henry is his undoing, and he will do whatever it takes to protect his grandson and honor Bae. A complete change from the Dark One we’ve seen before, putting others before his power. Too bad he has to leave Belle now that he’s finally become the man she always thought he could be. Belle reminds him that the future isn’t always what it seems, so we’ll see how this prophecy plays out next season. They kiss and she tells him that Bae would be proud of him. He watches her go, probably for the last time. He gets on the ship, calls a truce with Hook, and finds Henry through the globe. David wonders who Greg and Tamara really are, and Gold informs him that they’re just pawns and even they don’t really know who they’re working for. Seems like Gold knows a lot about Peter Pan and he may be the only person he fears, which doesn’t bode well if the Dark One is afraid of someone. Guess we won’t be seeing a nice and friendly Peter Pan.

Emma: Everything that Emma does in this episode is so that Henry won’t have to grow up the way she and Neal did. She is finally acting like a parent and doing what is in the best interest of her child. She also seems to finally acknowledge Mary Margaret and David as her parents, at least when she thinks she’s going to die. She has to start by telling Henry about Neal’s death. Poor Emma, ever since coming back from the EF she has had to tell Henry about Archie’s death and about Regina killing him (which luckily, neither were true). They all arrive back at the loft where the first earthquake hits and Regina confirms that the trigger has been activated. Henry realizes that he will be alone since he’s the only one who wasn’t born in the EF. Emma lays into Regina about it being her fault and that she needs to figure it out, but Henry tells them they need to work together. Emma is not happy when Hook shows up to help them because he was working with Greg and Tamara. David comes up with the idea to steal back the beans, so while he and Hook go to get them, she and Regina will go to slow down the trigger while Mary Margaret and Henry go to tell the townspeople about the portal idea. Emma can feel the magic from the trigger as they get closer to it. She says it feels like the oxygen is being sucked out of the air. Regina tells her it’s the magic being sucked out that she’s feeling. Regina informs Emma that slowing down the trigger will take all her strength. Emma realizes that when Regina said goodbye to Henry, she wasn’t planning on making it out of Storybrooke. Emma thinks there has to be another way, she doesn’t want Henry to lose two parents in one day, but Regina says there isn’t another way. Emma doesn’t know what she’ll say to Henry. Regina tells her that she finally became the person he wanted her to be. Emma walks away and turns to say something else, but Regina starts working on the trigger, so Emma leaves to meet back at Granny’s. When she gets there David tells her he has the bean, but Henry wants to know where Regina is. Emma tells him the truth (for once), and Henry is distraught that Regina will have to die. Henry’s insistent that they can save her and brings up the wraith, which gives Mary Margaret the idea to send the trigger through the portal. Emma doesn’t think they should do that because there is no guarantee that it will work, whereas sending everyone back to the EF would definitely work. Emma doesn’t think anyone would agree to go anyway because of how risky it is, but Archie apparently speaks for the entire town and says they would follow the prince and princess. Emma still doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Mary Margaret asks for the chance to be a parent and do the right thing, but Emma is afraid Henry will be left alone, and she doesn’t want him to grow up like she did. And she says this directly to David and Mary Margaret who look upset, or course. Another earthquake hits and Emma is adamant about using the bean to get the townspeople through and not for the trigger. Mary Margaret is adamant that she still has to atone for killing Cora, but Emma reminds her that she had to kill Cora. Mary Margaret says she took the easy way out and they should have taken the hard path, and if they take the easy path they’ll be building a future on Regina’s blood. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that, but apparently, Emma does, or at least she has a problem with her parents thinking she’s okay with it, because she agrees. But Hook doesn’t and takes the bean from them. Emma uses the fact that they’re loners that only rely on themselves to convince him to go along with their plan, but it isn’t until she tells him that Henry’s father, who happened to be Baelfire, died that day, that he seems sympathetic to their plight. They go down to the mines and realize there isn’t a bean in the pouch. Regina tells them she can’t contain the trigger much longer and Emma realizes they’re all going to perish. She calls her parents mom and dad for the first time and they are all distraught. Emma finally remembers that she has magic and thinks that both she and Regina can stop this thing, which they do. Unfortunately, while they were doing that, Greg and Tamara kidnapped Henry. They run to the docks and find them jumping into a portal. Emma tries to go in after them but David stops her because the portal is closing. She needs to find a way to get to Henry but there are no options. Hook decides to come back and help them, much to Emma’s chagrin, because she wants to still be pissed at him for leaving. She thought he only cared for himself, but he says he just needed reminding and gives her the last bean. She’s shocked. She tells him that they have to get Henry and he offers his ship, which they all immediately get on with no provisions or extra clothes or anything. Emma shows her trust in Hook by giving him back the bean so he can use it to open the portal. And they are off to Neverland.

Mary Margaret/David: They are basically still very optimistic that everything will work out. After they tell Gold about Neal’s death they expect that he will want to help stop the trigger, but he doesn’t, and they’re in shock. David comes up with the idea of stealing back the other two beans to get the whole town back to the EF through the portals (and he gets to punch Hook right before the idea hits him). He and Hook go the buddy cop route to get the beans back. David points his gun at Greg but doesn’t see Tamara behind him who shoots at him (and grazes him), before he runs after her. She trips and falls but Greg saves her before Hook comes and stops David from going after them, because he has a bean. David is a bad cop. I mean, I know he has no formal training whatsoever, but he couldn’t have told Hook to look behind him and make sure Tamara didn’t get the jump on them? I mean, that’s basic cop training 101. Anyway, he steals the pouch that Hook put the bean in. At Granny’s, Emma has to tell Henry about Regina’s sacrifice, which neither Henry nor Mary Margaret are happy about. Henry mentions how they rescued Regina from the wraith and that gives Mary Margaret the idea to put the trigger into the portal. Emma isn’t too keen on this idea because there is no proof that it will work, but Mary Margaret is still feeling guilty over killing Cora and feels she still owes Regina. She thinks she took the easy path by killing Cora, and she’d rather take the hard path, and helping save Regina with an unproven method is the hard path and will help give her closure. She also guilts Emma about it by saying that this is a chance for her and David to be good parents by helping Regina. Ugh! Emma finally agrees. They all go to Regina and fill her in on the plan and she has the same reservations as Emma, but Hook has stolen the bean so it’s all for naught. Mary Margaret and David realize the gravity of the situation when Emma calls them mom and dad and wait for the end to come. Luckily, Emma helps save the day with her magic. Somehow, in the blast that happens when Emma and Regina stop the trigger, Mary Margaret and David lose track of Henry and he gets kidnapped. They’re all running around looking for Henry and find that Greg and Tamara have jumped into a portal with him. David has to stop Emma from jumping in after them because it’s closing (very similar to when he tried to jump in after Emma and Mary Margaret in Broken). Hook comes back to help save the town but David tells him they already saved it in a very superhero-type way. David stays back to untie the ship (when did Hook tie the ship to the dock, he just docked?), and overhears Gold telling Belle the town isn’t safe. David says they can’t leave people in danger, but Gold has that covered. David leaves the conversation when it starts becoming a little more personal between Gold and Belle.  As the ship heads toward the portal, David questions who Greg and Tamara are. Gold tells him they’re merely pawns, and the person they’re working for is someone to be feared, which doesn’t bode well for our heroes.

Greg/Tamara: They’re pretty much idiots. They’re willing to die for their cause, even though they really don’t know what it is. They think they’re trying to rid the world of magic, but they don’t even know who they’re working for. Eventually, they figure out that Henry is the real prize for their boss and somehow manage to kidnap him. And then they use magic to open up a portal to go to somewhere where there is most likely magic, so they’re also major hypocrites. I hope we aren’t chasing them all next season.

Henry: He’s all about the Regina love in this episode. I get that she raised him, but this little love fest that he and Regina have been having lately is completely contradictory to how they’ve been all season. Henry has barely seen Regina because she’s been too busy trying to kill his family, but he believes her outright when she says she loves him and he tells her he loves her. Last season he didn’t believe she loved him whatsoever, that’s why he went and found Emma in the first place. So, their whole relationship in this episode was super weird. I know Henry doesn’t want her to die, but they also don’t have the type of relationship for him to not let her try to be a hero. That’s exactly what he’s been wanting her to do all season. And then he manages to get himself kidnapped and taken through a portal.

Questions:

How does Smee know the Lost Boys could hurt or kill them? When they come on board the ship, the leader asks Hook if he knows who they are. How does Smee know what they could do if they’ve never officially met?

What playground is Henry at? This is not the playground Regina built in Fruit of the Poisonous Tree.

Who builds a playground with a wooden swing and sharp rocks all around it?

What kind of app is Greg using that is navigating the mines and telling him where the dwarfs pickaxes are?

Why does Smee wonder why Bae is still aboard the ship? It’s not like the Lost Boys have come back for him since they checked the ship the first time.

How do the beans not activate when the glass bottle they’re in shatters? Do they specifically have to be thrown by someone with the intention of opening a portal to work?

When did Gold go back for the teacup pieces? He left right after Belle threw them against the hospital wall.

Seriously, Hook, you have a hook. Why aren’t you using it against Greg to get the beans?

Where are the townspeople that Mary Margaret and Henry were supposed to be gathering? The only people we see are Archie, the dwarfs, and Granny. Are the rest of them waiting somewhere else? Why are Archie and the dwarfs making decisions for the amount of people in the town?

I get that Emma doesn’t want to lose her family, but is there a reason she can’t leave Storybrooke with Henry to prevent him from being alone? Why does she have to stay and be killed with everyone else? I’m sure her parents would understand needing to go with her son. Hell, even Regina could have left town with Henry.

At what age would Bae have been old enough? He’s practically 15 by this point. 13 probably would have been a decent age to go back for him.

Where does Bae think Hook is going to drop him off when they can’t leave Neverland?

I get that Bae is angry, but why does he think Hook’s a selfish pirate? What part about having a home on his ship and being a part of his family says selfish?

If Hook had already called the Lost Boys, what was he going to say to them if Bae had taken the offer to stay on the ship? Would he have told the Lost Boys Bae was off limits?

Where did the backpack that Mary Margaret is wearing come from? She doesn’t have it in Granny’s, but then she has it when they go to Regina in the mines? Did they stop at the loft for some reason to pack up some things? Is it her purse? What is it and where did it come from?

Here’s what I’m wondering about the trigger. Why would Regina make a fail-safe that would kill her too? She had no way of knowing if she would be allowed out of the town’s borders. How does the trigger know who to kill? Does it have some sense that only kills people from the EF? Even though Henry was born here, both his parents were from the EF, so why wouldn’t that include him. Does the trigger only work in the town that the curse was in? Or does it feed on magic in general? Why not just throw it over the town border where there is no magic for it to suck up? Otherwise, sending it through a portal into another place with magic doesn’t make sense either, because wouldn’t it just suck the magic there?

How did Greg and Tamara manage to not only kidnap Henry, but get him out of the mines without him screaming and struggling? And how did they know the exact moment that the trigger would blast everyone back for him to get taken in the first place? Too many logistics had to take place that just could not have happened.

Why are Gold and Belle just strolling along the docks? The trigger just got stopped, 5 minutes ago, and they’re taking a stroll? I’d think they’d be doing more important things now that Belle has her memories back and they’re no longer going to die.

How did Phillip get away from the wraith? Will we see this story next season?

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to be below deck when going through the portal so they don’t accidentally fly off the ship?

Observations:

Hook has a slight limp in the past with no explanation (yes, he’s still recovering from his skiing accident in real life, I get it).

The Lost Boy Leader has a pretty nasty scar on his cheek. 

It’s nice that the trigger gives people time to save themselves and doesn't just make the town immediately explode. That must have been for Regina’s benefit to get herself out of town if she ever felt the need to trigger it.

I’m pretty sure Hook pockets the bean before they even go to Granny’s when they show him putting it into his leather pouch. It looks like he puts it up his sleeve.

A hair from Pinocchio’s head, someone who was returned to who they used to be, is the key ingredient for the memory potion to bring back Sneezy and Belle’s memories.

Hook’s reflections about his life and revenge don’t always jive. In The Evil Queen he made it sound like death would be welcome once his revenge was had as he had nothing else to live for. In this episode he tells David he would prefer to keep living rather than kill Gold.

Mermaids aren’t nice as Hook refers to them twice as being a curse to men in the ocean.

It’s not possible to leave Neverland even if you’re in it’s waters.

Hook has a pretty good throw, considering they have to go at least two ships lengths to get to the portal.

Portals in the water are much bigger than on land.

So that was the season 2 finale! We are off to Neverland for season 3 so that sounds exciting. Greg and Tamara need bad things to happen to them. Hook is along for the adventure! Moe Hook is always good. Maybe this adventure will mellow him and Gold out about their feud. Oh, and Neal is alive. Why? What more does he need to do and how is he going to do it from the Enchanted Forest?

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[fairydust-stuff]

Wendy Darling Embodiment of Motherhood

Here’s the thing ,I have never been a big fan of Wendy Darling from JM Barrie’s classic novel Peter Pan. Not only is she a cocktail of every bad stereotype about Victorian women casually thrown into a blender to make the ultimate Grimm’s fairy tale heroines are more bad ass then you smoothie. But Wendy is just straight up the most boring character in Peter Pan. That being said she does play a very important role in Peter Pan. Also it’s gotten the point where I’m a bit tired of seeing this idea that the Never land ladies have nothing to offer. If we don’t change everything about them or let’s just leave them out entirely trend via Hollywood. Seriously when is the last time Tink got more than a cameo and I’m not talking about the sugary princess clone Disney created from her mutilated body. Anyway I want to take a look Wendy Darling how she works, how she doesn’t work what she embodies and how she’s been portrayed in various adaptations.

First let’s take a look at some themes. Peter pan is at its core a coming of age story about accepting the inevitability of growing up. However Wendy as a point of view character is kind of an odd choice for this theme. In the original novel Wendy brings a flower to her mother who declares “Why can’t you stay like this” Then the narrator proceeds to talk about how Wendy knew she must grow up. So we already have a character who accepts the fact she must grow up on page one. In fact Wendy doesn’t run away to Never land as much as take a holiday, and to be fair John and Michel suffer from the same problem. Honestly I think the closest thing we get to a character arch in the novel is George Darling who is a seriously underrated character in my opinion. So Wendy just never struggles with growing up. However another theme of Peter Pan is motherhood and oh boy does Wendy fit into that.

“She used to come to me in my and I’d say pretty mother, now she has come and I’ve shot her” Tootles laments after thinking he shot and killed Wendy. Even Hook want to take Wendy to be the mothers of himself and his crew in typical pirate fashion coveting what Peter Pan and the lost boys have Wendy becomes a treasure for them to steal. Smee when carrying Wendy even promises “I’ll save you if you promise to only be my Mother” Every boy and man child in Never land craves a mother and want Wendy to fill the position. Wendy taking on the role turns her into a kind of ideal in the eyes of everyone in Never land even her own brothers get in on the treating her as the perfect mom.

In fact Wendy only gets to be a little girl in the narrative when Hook offers his hand to her and she takes it and only because the narrative felt the need to defend her submission to her own capture. But looking back that may very well be the point when you look at Wendy and Peter’s relationship without the shipping googles it’s actually quite interesting. You’ve got two pre teen’s on two different wave lengths. Wendy states in the novel “Peter what are true feelings towards me?” and is displeased with Peter’s answer “That of a devoted son” this seems up their relationship perfectly. Wendy uses the role of mother to try to basically become Peter’s wife something which he is deeply uncomfortable with needing constant reassurance that playing an adult couple is “ Only make believe” now whether or not Peter is flat out not interested or scared of his own feelings is up for debate. I personally lean toward the former because Peter is constantly surrounded by busty topless mermaids who like to flirt with him. So if he hasn’t had his sexual awakening yet it’s not happening ever, but the point is Peter uses the reaffirmation of Wendy as Mother to keep her at a distance. When Wendy returns home Miss Darlings offers to adopt Peter which he refuses. This highlights the fact when given the chance to have an actual mother he doesn’t want one.

Wendy is a reflection of Peter’s warped relationship with motherhood. He confesses to Wendy that he did at one point did return to his mother only to find the window barred and “There was another little boy sleeping in my bed!”  It could be argued Peter’s desire to stay a little boy forever actually steam from the fear of abandonment and being replaced. This shapes Peter’s relationship with Wendy in sense he wants a mother he can actually control. One who never makes him feels too grown up or who challenges him or his choices in a meaningful way. This shows that motherhood is important and that without a proper mom boys will never truly grow into men.

Wendy plays a similar role to the lost boys only she actually ends up helping them. While the lost boys clearly already have mommy craving’s Wendy gives them a taste of what having a mom is actually like or at least what an ideal mom from a Victorian upper middle class family structure would be like. So when Wendy wants to go home the lost boys who getting a taste of what their missing decides to go with her. Where they get adopted into the Darling Family and grow into respectable members of society who all get boring office jobs in the prolog which completely contrast their colorful energetic personalities, moving on. Wendy acts as kind of encouraging benevolent guide for the lost boys and Peter her inevitable goal being to encourage to move beyond the superficial trappings of childhood and take a step forward into adulthood. Peter is the failure, deficient as the novel itself states but the lost boys are a triumph of the power of proper maternal nurturing.

Wendy Darling has appeared in various adaptations and Spin offs though I’m mostly going to focus on Movies and TV because most of the Peter Pan book retellings where Wendy plays a key role just do not fill me with any positive feelings. And I want to mostly focus on the good today with some casual snark thrown in.

So let’s start with Wendy from the 2003 Peter Pan Live Action adaptation. I love this version it makes changes from the novel while still paying homage by using actual lines from the book. Though I have very mixed feelings about 2003 Wendy.

The movie heavily leans into the annoying I’m not like other girls trope. Here Victorian lady Wendy turns fairy tales into gore fests, and has an interest in sword play and pirates. I’m not saying girls from that era can’t have those interests but it just feels like their Wendy is the product of listening to too many focus groups not to mention she learns to be an expert sword fighter who can go toe to toe with adults after five seconds with Peter. And what is with the sudden unexplained blood thirst? Where did that come from?

Though I do like how the film unlike the novel actually gave Wendy an arch. Wendy’s aunt is mortified at her niece’s interest in becoming a novelist who travels the world.  She insists Wendy’s parents separate Wendy from her brothers and allow her to tutor, Wendy to teach her how to be a proper lady.   They also have a school teacher shame Wendy for drawing a picture of Peter flying above her bed. This seems to be subtext for the Victorian shaming of sexual expression from girls as dirty and shameful. This actually makes Wendy feel like her life is changing way too fast and it scares her. Since she is twelve and her family is already talking about marriage prospects.  While the scene where Peter and her meet is pretty much played like in the novel. There’s the added moment of Peter whispering in Wendy’s ear “ Forget them Wendy Forget them all come with me and we’ll never ever have to think about grown up things again” which unlike the novel frames Wendy as running away from growing up.

Then she develops a crush on Peter Pan and this being Hollywood they go with the scared of his own feeling interpretation. I guess her whining and screaming his name for a day was just too sexy to resist.  Wendy contemplates joining Hook’s crew because when your crush rejects you validation by pirate man children is good salve for your wounds. But then realizes she can’t remember her mother and much like the novel becomes scared that her and her brothers have forgotten their parents. Then they all get kidnapped by the pirates and Hook and Peter have a show down which is way better than the novel because here Hook attacks Peter’s abandonment issues and actually brings him to his knees. But then Wendy kisses Peter and he gains the strength to defeat Hook. Basically the implication is Wendy realizes growing up is ok because romantic love is a thing. Hey, I didn’t say it was a great arch but it’s more than the novel gave her or anyone.  I’m not a huge fan of this Wendy depiction but I’ve got to take my hat off to the writers for at least giving Wendy a coming of age narrative.

Disney’s classic Peter Pan pulled a similar move taking the focus from Peter and putting it entirely on Wendy. The implications at the end imply that Wendy’s adventure was all a dream and that Tinker bell and Tiger Lilly were reflections of her own manifesting sexuality. Peter Pan her desire not to grow up and Hook I’m going to guess that he was her daddy issues.

I actually think Walt did Wendy a solid in her characterization. This is one of the few Wendy’s were her concern for her brothers and the lost boys don’t feel tacked on. Since most adaptations do very little to build Wendy’s dynamic with the other kids. Here it’s in every face wipe and tearful good bye and every “Do be careful” thrown over Wendy’s shoulder.

Also the Disney movie does a one eighty from everyone in Neverland worshiping her to Neverland treating her rather badly. It takes Wendy’s annoyance from called her squaw from the Novel and has the Indians bully her into fetching firewood instead of joining the celebrations. Also the mermaids not only try to drown her but Peter thinks is all a big joke. Disney’s Wendy constantly stands up for herself but often gets brushed off or forced to walk the plank. In this version you can one hundred percent understand why Wendy is so done with this place and ready to grow up. Here the reality of what it’s like to experience everyone acting like a self-centered child is here on full display.

Also Disney’s Wendy is not perfect she gets angry and loses her temper attacking mermaids or yelling at Indians. She gets jealous of Tiger Lilly being all over Peter and is sour towards him.  Wendy is dreamy eyed, and polite but this version of her also doesn’t take anyone’s crap and will let you know if you’ve crossed a line or if you’re flat out awful.   But she’s still pleads with Peter on her attempted murder’s behalf. Wendy also reminds Peter that Tiger Lilly is drowning when he gets caught up in celebrating his cleverness. She still makes sure she can say goodbye to her brothers and the lost boys before Hook kills her. Even on her worst day Disney’s Wendy is a kind person even when those around her are less so.

But my favorite portrayal of Wendy has got to be from the 90’s classic “Peter Pan and the Pirates” TV series which aired on Fox was about one season then got cancelled.  While it doesn’t really focus on Wendy a whole lot since its more concerned with the relationship between Peter Pan his lost boys and Hook’s crew. 

She still has a pretty important role.  Wendy often serves as a voice of reason to the group which doesn’t go against her original role in the novel since she takes a cake that’s been left out all night away from the lost boys. Which does present her as the one with the most common sense but the show lets Wendy tell Peter this is a bad idea way more often than the book and blow up at him after he does the stupid thing every one told him not to do. Also Wendy gets to be more of a moral center lecturing Peter for stealing the picture of Hook’s mother in the episode “Hooks mother” and encouraging him to return it and even getting Peter to take care of Hook after he’s injured. This is in a positive change in my opinion because it actually expands on Wendy’s role as a guide to adult hood. Here Wendy Darling encourages a kind of good behavior she helps build moral character in her boys. Wendy has strong ideals and this adaptation actually has her stand by her principals for better or worse. This not only gives her more of a central role in the story but also gives her more chances to be active. Yay character agency!

Also this version of Wendy was the first to have a bit of an interesting relationship with Hook. (Who is voiced by Tim curry and does an excellent job.)  While the writers got rid of the almost pedophilic undertones of Hook wanting to keep Wendy from the novel and the “My beauty” pet name.  Thank god for that even in the novel i thought it was too much.     There’s still a bit of a dynamic even if its way more innocent.

In the episode  In Peter on Trial Wendy not only lands on the ship unharmed but reminds Hook executing Peter without a trial would not be proper form at all. She then hits Hook in the ego by declaring “Surely you don’t doubt your powers of debate against that of a mere girl” And not only gets a trial but manages to win even when the trial is rigged against them. Hook even congratulates her before proceeding to find his own loophole and kill Peter Pan anyway. The point is this suggests this Wendy has a bit of an insight into Hook maybe more so then Peter. She knows he’s obsessed with good form and has an ego that prides its self on being the smartest person in the room.

This cuts both ways while Wendy is capable of manipulating Hook, he also consistently manipulates Wendy by offering his word as a gentlemen when he intends to break it as a pirate. This dynamic highlights Wendy’s flaw of trusting dangerous people and allowing them to hurt her friends. Hook has picked up that she trusts or wants to trust him. In this version Hook actually treats Wendy as opponent vs the usual she belongs to Peter and I want to steal her like in most adaptations. Also despite Hook being terrifying Wendy has no problem being all “There’s no need to get cranky Captain” and I kind of love how comfortable she is with the guy despite him being an enemy.

This proves Wendy doesn’t have to be a sword wielding “Who are you to call me girlie” action girl to be a good character. She can be flawed but still remain a good person and giving her a spine is always appreciated.

Wendy Darling is at her core a guide into adulthood with a strong moral character and a voice of reason who is used to shine a light on how important motherhood is since the result of mothers abandoning or neglecting their children shape the Peter’s of the world.  This makes her important to the overall story and themes of Peter Pan.

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Peter Pan

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where Today We Continue Our Look At The Movies Of Disney...

Where Today We Look At Walt Disney's 14th Animated Feature, Peter Pan...

This Movie Sees The Titular Character (Played By Bobby Driscoll, Who Played Jim Hawkins In Disney's Treasure Island) Taking Wendy (Played By Kathryn Beaumont Who Alice In Our Last Film, Alice In Wonderland) John And Michael To Neverland, Where They'll Never Grow Up...

But Unfortunately The Nefarious Captain Hook (Voiced By Hans Conried, Who Not Only Voices Hook But Plays Wendy's Father) Has Plans For Peter That Will Blow Him Out Of Neverland Forever, Can Peter Survive This?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Peter Pan...

The Film Starts In London In The Year 1900, Where George And Mary Darling's Preparations To Attend A Party Are Disrupted By The Antics Of Their Boys, John And Michael, Who Were Acting Out A Story About Peter Pan That Their Older Sister, Wendy Told Them...

Fed Up With The Stories, Their Father Declares That Wendy Has Gotten Too Old To Stay In The Nursery With The Boys And Will Be Given Her Own Room Tomorrow, Before He Trips On Their Dog Nursemaid, Nana..

With The Kids And Wendy In Their Beds, The Darlings Leave For Their Party, Unbeknownst To The Fact That Peter Pan And Tinker Bell Have Arrived At The Nursery To Get His Shadow That He Left There The Other Night...

Accidentally Waking Up Wendy When Trying To Catch His Shadow, She Helps Him Catch It And Offers To Help Him Sew It Back On. Telling Wendy That He Likes Hearing Wendy's Stories, She Breaks The News To Peter That It's Her Last Night In The Nursery And Tomorrow She Has To Grow Up...

But Not Having One Bit Of It, Peter Decides To Take Wendy To Neverland Where She'll Never Grow Up. Attempting To Kiss Peter Out Of Gratitude, Tinker Bell Pulls Wendy's Hair Which Forces Peter To Stop Her And Catch Her...

But As He Does, He Ends Up Waking Up John And Michael Who End Up Going With Wendy And Peter As We Go Into Our First Song...

But As They Fly To Neverland, We Get Our Next Song...

(#1 (End At 0:30) #2 (Start At 2:15) )

As A Ship Full Of Pirates, That's Commanded By Captain Hook And His Henchmen, Mr. Smee Plots To Take Revenge On Peter For Cutting Off Hook's Hand And Feeding It To The Crocodile Known As Tick-Tock Who's Been Following Hook Ever Since...

Discovering Peter In Clouds With The Darlings And Tinker Bell, Hook Orders His Men To Lock On And Fire The Cannons At Them But Peter Easily Evades The Cannonballs, While Tink Takes Wendy And The Boys To Peter's Hideout..,

Fastly Flying, Tink Outruns Wendy And The Boys To Wake The Lost Boys And Tell Them That Peter Ordered Them To Shoot Wendy Down...

Despite Succeeding In Doing So, Pan Manages To Save Wendy Before She Is Killed To Tink's Displeasure. Discovering Tink's Treachery, Peter Banishes Tink For A Week...

Taking Wendy To See The Mermaids, John And Michael Go Off To Have Fun With The Lost Boys As They Search For Indians, This Leads Into Our Next Song...

However, When They Find Indian Prints, They All Find Themselves Captured By The Indians, Whose Chief Believes Them Responsible For Kidnapping Their Indian Princess, Tiger Lilly And If She Is Not Returned By Sundown, The Chief Will Burn Them At The Stake..

Arriving At Mermaid Lagoon, Peter Introduces Wendy To The Mermaids Only For Them To Attempt To Drown Her....

But While They're There, They See Captain Hook And Mr. Smee Rowing Toward Skull Rock With Tiger Lilly In Their Boat In An Attempt To Persuade Her To Reveal The Location Of Peter's Hideout...

But When Smee Hears A Ghostly Voice (Which Is Actually Peter) Hook Goes To Look Around Skull Rock While Peter Toys With Smee By Disguising His Voice As Hook And Telling Smee To Take Tiger Lilly Back To Her Village...

(End At 2:44)

For Saving Tiger Lilly, Peter Is Honored By The Tribe As We Get Our Next Song...

Taking Tinker Bell To Captain Hook, He Takes Advantage Of Tinker Bell's Jealousy Of Wendy And Tricks Tink Into Revealing The Location Of Peter Pan's Hideout...

Returning To The Hideout After Their Celebration, Wendy Tells John And Michael To Get Ready For Bed As They're Going Home Tomorrow, But Not Wanting To Go Home She Reminds Them About Their Mother While Explaining To The Lost Boys What A Mother Is Which Leads To Our Next Song....

And I Admit I Get Like Smee In This Scene Whenever I Hear This Song,..

With John, Michael And The Lost Boys Deciding To Leave With Wendy, Peter Tells Them To Go But Once You Grow Up You Can Never Come Back. So, Saying Their Goodbyes Everyone Leaves Not Knowing That Outside Captain Hook And His Pirates Are Waiting For Them...

Exiting With The Darlings And The Lost Boys, Hook Leaves Behind A Time Bomb To Kill Peter As We Go Into Our Last Song For This Movie...

But Despite Hook's Offer, The Darlings And The Lost Boys Refuse To Sign As They Know That Peter Will Save Them, But Letting Them All In On Their Evil Plan, Tinker Bell Overhears And Breaks Out Of Her Tiny Prison To Rescue Pan..

Luckily She Manages To Just As The Bomb Explodes, But Still Refusing To Sign With Hook, He Has Them All Walk The Plank Starting With Wendy, Who Is Immediately Saved By Peter, Who Fights Hook While The Darlings And The Lost Boys Fight Hook's Crew...

This Leads To A Final Confrontation With Hook...

(Start At 0:20)

Begging For Mercy And Saying That If He Spares Him, He'll Leave Neverland Forever, Peter Spares Hook's Life Only For Hook To Try To Stab Peter In The Back, Which Causes Hook To Fall Into The Water Below Where The Crocodile Was Which Leads To Hook And Men Fleeing For Their Lives...

Commendeering The Jolly Roger, Peter Takes The Darlings Home With The Aid Of Tinker Bell's Fairy Dust As Mr. And Mrs. Darling Return From Their Party To Find Wendy Sleeping By Her Window As John And Michael Sleep In Their Beds...

But As They Tell Their Parents About Their Adventures, Mr. Darling Notices A Pirate Ship In The Clouds Which He Thinks He Saw When He Was A Child A Long Time Ago..

And That's Peter Pan And It's One Of My Favorite Disney Movies...

For A Film That Was Walt's Least Favorite Of His Films, It's A Good Movie, I Love The Backgrounds, The Characters Are Well Drawn, I Love Captain Hook As The Villain (He's Honestly My Second Favorite Funny Disney Villain After Hades From Hercules) This Is Definitely One I Say To Definatly See...

Be Sure To Check Out Duke Reviews Xtra This Week, As We Look At Return To Neverland And Hook, Till Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off..

[can-i-just-delete-this-blog]

Never go to Neverland (Descendants Fanfic) PT1.

The day the barrier was placed.

King Adam and Queen Bella watched as the villians where led to their new home, the Isle. The whole kingdom was quiet, the moment felt like glass and any noise would shatter it and safety the citizens were finally feeling. That ended when a sudden gasp filled the air. Many of the kingdoms people stared into the sky in fear as the Jolly Rodger flew down landing in the pier.

The king stood in front of his queen ready to protect her and his people. Then the boy who would never grow up, Peter Pan jumped down, and a wave of relief washed over the spectators. He was the one in charge of the ship not the pirate they had heard so much about.

Jane, Wendy's daughter, stood by the railing along with the a few of the lost boys looking down. Her eyes gazing over the crowd as Peter walked up to the king. "Your highness." He smiled bowing, he feather hat falling but was kicked up back into the air before it could hit the ground. Peter caught the hat back on his head causing the boys to laugh.

"Peter it's been awhile." Adam said.

"It has, havent seen you since I picked up Jane again." He smiled he looked at Bell and smiled taking her hand kissing the top. "My queen." He smiled.

Jane stiffened watching them with a frown, causing the youngest boy to giggle as he watched her.

Bell smiled at him. "Always the charmer Peter." She said.

"Some say I'm bewitching." He grinned. "Anyway!" He called spinning on his heels clapping his hands. "We caught the crew as requested and we're ready to drop them off." He said. "Boys!" He called snapping his fingers.

A bored was laid out and Captain Hook's crew was led out with one of the lost boys in the front and one in the back. The crew kept their heads down making no eye contact with the spectators, they had all been apart of the Royal army at one point. Smee and Hook were the last to be unloaded.

Hook stared at the Kingdom he once called home and grimaced. Betrayal is the best word he could use to describe the emotion he felt. He hadn't realized he had stopped until the boy in the back shoved him. "Keep walking pirate." He said

"Captain James." The king started.

"Oh don't play coy Adam. Call me what you call me behind my back. Captain Hook."

There was a pause before King Adam continued. "You are accused of piracy, endangering the lives of children, as well as desertion. Do you have any words to defend yourself?" He asked.

Hook scowled and stood. "I was your father highest ranking Naval commander!" He hissed. "I gave my life to him!"

"He was no where near a good or fair king. You continuing to stand by him-"

"Proves I wouldn't have deserted my post! All you know is what this monstrous brat has told you!" Hook yelled.

Jane frowned and gripped the railing tighter jumping when she felt Pan's arm around her waist.

"How can you trust him! He takes children from their homes! He took Jane from her mother!" He yelled.

"Jane made a choice which her mother approve. All the children Peter took into his home were all orphaned or worse."

"All? You only see what ypu want to see! Peter Pan is a villian! Jane, tell them the truth!" Hook yelled turning to stare at the 16 year-old girl. This was her second trip to Neverland, the trip she decided to stay.

Jane stared at Hook, his eyes meeting hers as Peter stared down at her. There was a pause before she spoke. "You tried to drown me Hook. You dropped me in the ocean in a bag. You're the villain."

"You're lying." He said shaking his head as the Kings guard dragged him away. "They're lying!" He yelled. "He lied about my face! He lied about my hand! He lied!"

Adam looked at Peter once hook was out of earshot. "Will the kids be safe now?" Peter asked before Adam could speak. "Will Jane?"

Adam nodded. "As far as I can tell they should be." He said.

Peter nodded and kissed Jane's temple. "I thought about your offer but, Neverland is going to stay independent, but you can consider us Allies for as long as I remain the ruler." He told him with his signature charming grin. He knew full well he wouldn't be stepping down, why would he when he'll live forever on Neverland.

"I understand." Adam said. "But what Hook said..."

"He's a pirate who worked for your father. He may look younger than you but hes not." I described him as how me and boys view him. Old, mean and ugly." Peter explained.

Adam frowned and looked at the bridge Hook was being led across. All he had was a bag on his back, it carried a spare hook, and a small mirror. Jane had packed it for him while he was prisoner. Hook was right about one thing

Peter did lie about his face. There was no mustache, a bit of scruff but that was it. His hair was clean cut, a Royal Navy cut, and he was young, 22 years at max. But he had been in Neverland for over 30 years...

"Besides you off all people should know what a good hair cut can do." Peter said interrupting Adam's thought as he flew back down.

Bell smiled and leaned into Adam's arm. "That is true."

Peter looked at her and smiled. "I really should be going. The boys will need their rest, we have whole new territory they can safely explore thanks to you two." He said. He took her hand and kissed it again before kissing her cheek.

Bell's cheek turned a soft pink and she smiled at him with warm eyes. Peter smiled and bowed at Adam again before returning to his newly claimed ship.

Bell sighed and smiled. "I want a son." She said, causing Adam to look down at her and smile.

Peter landed next to Jane who jumped slightly having been lost in thought. Peter smiled and kissed her cheek. "Pay attention." He mutter again her skin as he held her to his hip.

"My mother..." she started.

"Wendy wasnt able to make it, I already tried. You know how much I love seeing my darling Wendy Darling." Peter said.

Jane frown but nodded. He did always love seeing her mother.

Jane looked back at the people and sighed as the ship started to fly. She looked at the bridge feeling like their were ants crawling over the left side of her face. She frowned when she saw Hook staring up at her. She couldn't help him, no one could.

10 years after the Barrier.

Harry Hook, the 6 year old son of Captain Hook was asleep in a hammock when he was awoke by a something hitting his window. He frowned and got down walking towards it. He knew the rule, 'Never open the bedroom window at night.' But he was still just a kid. He wanted to know what the sound was.

He opened in and looked down, a bird had hit the window. He frowned and stared at it as it sat there dazed. A few moments later it got up and flew off. It was Maleficent's crow searching for her daughter most likely.

Harry turned to go to bed stopping when he saw the bedroom door was open. She turned and stared at his father. "What did you do Harry?" Hook asked

"A bird-" he started.

"What did you do?!" Hook snapped grabbing the boy by the shoulder lifting his chin with the side of his hook.

Tears filled Harry's eyes. "I opened the window." He sniffled.

"Who could have come in?!" Hook yelled.

"Peter Pan." He whispered.

"And? Then what?"

"He could have taken me to Neverland."

"Close the window." Hook hissed. Harry frowned and stomped to the window slamming it shut. "I wish he would take me to Neverland!" He yelled before being sent to the ground with a smack.

"Never, go to Neverland." Hook hissed before walking out of the room slamming the door leaving Harry along in the dark slumped on the floor.

(So I kinda came up with this story while watching D3 I honestly dont know if I'll finish it I have a vague time line in my head, but it depends if I have the inspiration to finish. This story is going to follow one of the few Disney canon children outside of the Descendants story. Jane, Wendy's daughter and I do wanna try and bring in Melody because I dont care what anyone says I loved the little Mermaid 2. Anyway lmk what you think of the 1st part, this was basically a prologue to the story. )

[killian-whump]

OUAT 3x03: Rewatch Liveblog

Hey guys! It's me again, back with another liveblog of, uh, me watching another episode of Once Upon a Time.

This one is episode 3x03, called "Quite a Common Fairy" - which means, you guessed it, we'll be meeting Tinkerbell in this episode :)

Let's watch, shall we?

...and we return to the dark jungles of Neverland.

Seriously. Why is this arc so damn DARK? It makes for good atmosphere, yes, but lousy GIFs and caps :/

Is there something wrong with me that I find that lantern David's holding kinda... hot? I don't know, it's just... old fashioned and rugged and outdoorsy and... I just find it really aesthetically pleasing, the way he’s holding it.

HAHAHAHAHAHA EMMA JUST TOOK A WET LEAF TO THE FACE

Awwww, Hook got it a second later, but they barely showed it :(

WHY BE IN THE JUNGLE AT ALL IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LET US WATCH HOT PEOPLE GET HIT IN THE FACE WITH WET LEAVES D:

"If Pan's camp keeps moving, how are we going to find Henry?" Gooooooood question.

Oh, so I guess that perilous ending of 3x01 with Pan’s ominous “Let’s play!” as the Lost Boys advanced on Henry was a baseless tease, after all. Here’s Henry sleeping peacefully under a tree, not even a bruise on him.

Henry: "I don't like apples." Pan: "Who doesn't like apples?" An excellent question.

"I call it target practice." So menacing, whilst holding a crossbow inches from Henry's face. SO OMINOUS!!!

SURELY THIS WILL BE PERILOUS FOR OUR DEAR HENRY!!!

There’s no way this will be another baseless tease or anything.

Hey, I recognize this castle from the time we were in the middle of bloody damnation and they decided to cut to another scene somewhere in another realm that was nowhere near as exciting and I almost threw my mouse through my monitor.

AKA: Rumple's old place.

Bae, something tells me if dear old dad had something to make a portal with just hanging out in his cabinets, he wouldn't have needed a big convoluted plan to turn Regina into a villain and have her cast a dark curse. Just, you know, spitballing here. Just having some thoughts. Just saying.

Awww... Roland <3 One of the tenets of Once fandom: Roland <3

Hahaha, Snow. "Have you even been listening?"

"I fear such an attempt would end in your death... and more importantly, mine." Another classic Hook line <3

Oh, Emma. You poor soul. "Tinkerbell?!" Hook: "What, you know her?" This shit’s hilarious.

Oh no. Sad Regina flashbacks. Feels incoming... D:

Go ahead, Rumple. Just invite yourself to dinner. Sure.

Rumple: "Roast swan, hehehe! That's amusing. You'll get that later."

OH LOOK, GUYS, IT'S TINKERBELL

"Snow White? That's her name? Even I think that's a bit precious, and mine's Tinkerbell." Haha :)

Regina: "She had my fiance killed." Well, that's not exactly how that happened, but... no, you know what, let's just go with that for now.

Oh, hey Regina, you dropped something...

Nevermind, some creepy woman in the jungle picked it up for you.

HOOK'S HOLDING THE LANTERN NOW

OH SHIT, THERE'S TWO LANTERNS

HOOK AND DAVE ARE BOTH HOLDING LANTERNS

What the hell is wrong with me?

Regina: *catches up* Regina: "Emma! There is another way..." Emma: "Is there?" Regina: "Magic!"

LMAO The way she says it, tho. It's like a late night infomercial salesman: 'It cooks, it cleans, it'll blow your freaking mind - it's magic!'

Someone please tell me that Regina suggesting magic was a meme in the fandom during S3, because if you lot weren't photoshopping her into everything everywhere with "What about MAGIC?!" speech bubbles, then you're all a disappointment to everything ever and I'm never speaking to any of you ever again.

Emma: "Didn't we just go through this?" Yeah, about five times per episode AND IT ONLY GETS FUNNIER

Regina: "You think it's the best plan because your boyfriend came up with it." Emma: "My boyfriend? HOOK?!"

Snow: "She just lost Neal." Regina: "Sorry." I'm just too perceptive for my own good.

Oh, gee. We're back with Pan and Henry. Oh no! Pan's poisoning the arrow! Felix is looking ominous! Henry's in big trouble n-

Oh. Henry's the one who's going to shoot the crossbow. So he's, uh, not in any danger at all, actually. Huh. Okay.

YES. Henry, good move. I mean, it didn't work out so well for you, but turning and firing at Pan really WAS a solid strategy.

Hook's still got the lantern. Oh wait, that's right, there's two of them, so he can always have the lantern.

OMG YOU GUYS, REGINA HAS THE OTHER LANTERN NOW

Seriously. What the hell, self?

Ooooh... Intense Captain Charming scene D:

Oh, fairy time, everybody!!

"You got big for no reason." That's what she said.

Blue: "I will be the judge of what is fairy-like!" SAYS WHO, BITCH

JFC NOW ROBIN HOOD HAS ONE

Was there a sale at the old timey lantern store or something? Does the director of this episode have a fetish for them? Is it maybe a thing after all?

You know, it IS a dick move to ask another dude to risk his son so you can go save yours, Neal.

Oh, shit. You're seriously going to play the "you owe me one because my dad saved your wife's life" card?! Technically, he didn't even SAVE Marian. Robin saved Marian and Rumple decided not to flat-out MURDER him for it. Not quite heroic. I don't think this dude owes you anything.

Emma: "What'd you do to her?" Ahahahahahaha, looks like Emma's perceptive too XD

Regina: "What? Why would you assume I did something?"

This is the best Swan Queen scene ever. I just decided this right now xD

THEIR FACES, LOL

Regina: "Okay. We have a complicated history."

Aww... "What the hell did you do to her?" "What I always do." T_T

Ahhhhh, the man with the lion tattoo...

Why does Tinkerbell run off, though? Haha, that's silly.

NOT AS SILLY AS REGINA RUNNING OFF THOUGH

OKAY, NOW THEY'RE JUST FUCKING WITH ME

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SHOT??

Ooooooooh, Tinkerbell's a nasty little fairy... XD

Snow: “It's just a place to sleep.” Emma: “What would you know about that?” Like, have you not paid any attention to the last two seasons of this show, Emma?!

Okay, Hook, honey, you have to stop doing anything and everything, because the way you're sitting on that hammock is making me want to send a nasty little fairy after you.

I blame all these lanterns.

Regina bondage! Yay!

"About time you woke up." Bitch, you're the one who put her to sleep, and that was like, 5 minutes ago.

Regina: "How the hell did you get like this?" Tinkerbell: "I met you."

Regina: "You're a terrible fairy." Tinkerbell: "You didn't go in, did you?" EVERYBODY'S SO PERCEPTIVE IN THIS EPISODE

Pan: "Look at the fun they're having." Ummm... They're throwing knives at the ground. It's not even a target. It's the ground. It's everywhere. YOU CAN'T MISS IT.

Pan: "At one point, I had four boys with missing fingers. Cost of the game. They didn't mind." I mean, I would think they probably DID mind, at least a little...

Okay, follow me for a minute here. Peter Pan would actually make a great life coach. "You were created for a reason... and I can help you find it."

I mean, at least LOOK at it, Henry. Aren’t you even curious?!

Umm. Seriously? That's all it takes for a kid to summon a shadow? "I believe"?

Like, kids would be summoning them left and right on accident. At least have some kind of noun on that shit. "I believe in Neverland" or "I believe the Cubs will win the World Series again before I die." I mean, seriously.

Man, them shadows are creepy ass motherfuckers.

Well, here's a touching Robin and Roland and Mulan scene. Shame that Roland will NEVER SLEEP AT NIGHT AGAIN after seeing that creepy ass nightmare come to life. I mean, aside from the fact that he’s sleeping right now.

Also, wouldn't you at least put him to bed in another room or, at least, under a different window? Those fuckers COME BACK you know. We saw that last season, when they straight up STALKED the Darling family.

Dude. Mulan. Honey. You should've just told Aurora how you feel. I always kinda OT3ed you lot, anyhow. The “Left Behind in the Curse” Bang Train left 28 years ago and you were all on it.

I love how everyone's got their weapons at the ready and Hook just shoulders his sword and looks around non-chalantly, like "lovely weather we're having here in the jungle..."

Mmmm... The looks they give each other... TINKERHOOK LIVES :D

Yeah, there you go. Knew you'd look, kid. I mean, how could you not?!

Hahaha, this is why you have to be careful with drone deliveries. They just drop your packages wherever they want to.

"Welcome home, Baelfire." You're not creepy at all, Felix. "Pan will be so happy to see you." I bet! The only thing that crazy motherfucker likes more than tormenting children and hot pirates is tormenting his own family members.

CS coconut scene <3

OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, ROBIN HOOD HAS THE LION TATTOO

...and that's a wrap!

PEW PEW PEW PEEEEEEEEEEW!!!

[idreamofwolves]

Something Sweeter

Summary: After Emma left Hook for Neal, she realized she’d made a mistake. In a twist of fate, as soon as she gets the courage to beg for his forgiveness, she finds that not only is he seeing someone else, he’s actually in love with the infamous Wendy Darling.

Pairing: Captain Hook (OUAT) x Wendy Darling (Adult/AU)

It was a night of peace, one that felt like it had been a long over due gift from the heavens. The people of Storybrooke put on a carnival, something the town hadn’t done before. It was a huge event, everyone would be there, including Wendy Darling.

Wendy wasn’t the small girl she was back when she’d befriended Peter Pan. No, she’d very much grown up, and had since seemed to switch loyalties from Pan and the lost boys to Captain Hook and his pirate crew. And not only was she loyal, but she had fallen in love with the captain himself.

As Wendy finished up getting ready for a much needed night of fun, a metallic knock rang through her apartment, originating at her front door.

“You’re a little early.” Wendy laughed as she opened the door to find her devilish pirate standing before her.

“Would you like me to leave and come back?” He chuckled, knowing she had been a stickler for being on time. It was one of those quirks he knew she’d just never be able to leave behind.

“Of course not, don’t be silly.” She rolled her eyes and followed him out to the sidewalk. They decided to walk to the carnival just as the sun started to set, as Wendy always loved seeing the bright lights of the rides and food stands against the night sky.

Wendy had been given many odd looks and curious wandering eyes. She was still fairly new in town, only having come by chance, not to mention Hook did his best to keep her out of sight as possible given the common occurrences of the town almost being destroyed.

Looks also came from the fact that she was walking hand in hand with someone that had been MIA in the months since Emma Swan broke his heart when she very publicly chose Neal over him.

Unbeknownst to the pirate, Emma had, in fact, begun to regret what she’d done. She realized she’d gotten so caught up in her thoughts of having a true family that she mistook feelings of nostalgia for love. She wasn’t in love with Neal anymore, she knew this, but what she didn’t know was that Killian was officially off the market. She had assumed he’d just been doting on her the hole time they were separated, and with the peace and happiness this night brought, she thought it was time they finally reunite.

Emma caught a glimpse of Killian sitting inside Granny’s drinking from a flask. She decided she needed to speak with him and fix what she’d broken. “Hey, can I sit?” She asked as she approached him.

Killian’s facial features changed and he suddenly looked angry, which she noted was fair. “What do you want Swan?” He asked, not looking at her.

“How are you doing? I haven’t seen you since-“

“Since you stood there in front of the whole damn town and chose your ex over me? Yeah. I know.” He was obviously still upset with her. Emma knew he’d be like this, but she had a plan.

“I’m sorry I did that. It was stupid, and honestly I think I made a mistake.” His head snapped over to her and he finally looked her in the eyes. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking or why an almost smirk crept onto his face, but she was starting to doubt herself. “I was just so stuck on having our little family together for the first time, I did it for Henry, and I did it because it felt good at the time. But I realized I should never have done that, I should have stayed with you.” She paused, hoping for a reaction, to get nothing more than an eyebrow raise. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m so sorry, and I’d really like you to give us another chance.. Please.”

“Get fucked.” He murmured as he took a swig from his flask.

“Excuse me?” Emma said, taken aback. It wasn’t at all the response she thought she’d get from him, and certainly not what she wanted to hear. “Why-“

“Swan, not only did you leave me for another man, but you did it in front of everyone. Do you have any idea how that felt?” He looked her dead in the eyes and only then did she realize that the damage could not be undone. “And now that I’ve moved on from it, I’m not just going back into it head first.”

“Well we can work it out. We can take as much time as you need. We can talk through it, spend some time getting to know each other again.” She tried reasoning but he wasn’t having it. He got up and walked toward the exit.

“I’m not interested. Thanks.” He said, very calmly as he silently put a proverbial brick wall between them as he left.

She stood at the door, half in shock. She was so disoriented that she ran right into someone who had been exiting the restroom. “Sorry!” She apologized, to someone she oddly did not recognize.

“No! I’m sorry, it was my fault.” The girl said, smiling. Even Emma was distracted for a moment by her perfect, red lipped, pout. She was beautiful, and not someone she knew. Her radar immediately went off and suspected trouble.

“Who are you? I haven’t seen you before.” Emma asked, using her old bail bondsman charm.

“Wendy Darling. And you?” She asked politely, unphased by Emma’s caution.

“Emma Swan.” She said as she looked her up and down. “So you’re friends with Peter Pan then.” It was more of a statement than a question, and she could already feel the next villain stepping forward.

“Oh, no, not at all. Peter and I haven’t been friends for quite some time.” Wendy had already been slightly informed of the drama and chaos that ensued in the town, and she was well aware of the hell Peter has put everyone through.

“Wait, if you’re Wendy, why aren’t you.. a kid? Or way old? I’m pretty confused.” Emma crossed her arms like the authoritative figure she felt she needed to be. “And what are you doing here?”

“Well I left Neverland as a child, and years later I went back. I stayed there for ages, fighting Peter. Never thought he’d end up like that.” She sighed, a sadness in her heart was always felt when she thought of her old friend.

“So you know Hook then. Does he know you’re here?” She asked, assuming they were enemies, seeing as she was once on Peter’s side.

“Are you a police officer or something?” Wendy laughs nervously. She hadn’t expected this kind of interrogation. “I need to be going.”

“Answer the question. Does Hook know you’re here?” Emma demanded, praying this would be her key to Killian’s heart. If she brought him a former enemy, he might just give her a chance.

“Enjoy the carnival, Emma.” Wendy said politely and forced her way around her. She quickly stepped outside to find Hook waiting for her. “I thought you were waiting for me inside.” She said, pulling him along.

“I ran into Emma. I had to get out of there.” He explained, not understanding what her urgency to get away was.

“Me too.” She said, slightly out of breath. “She asked me a ton of questions about myself, then she started asking about you.”

“What about me?” He asked, looking irritated.

“If you knew I was here. She must not know-“

He stopped her in her tracks and dramatically held her face between hook and hand. “That we’re madly in love with each other and plan to leave this town one day and set off for a life a sea?”

“That we aren’t enemies.” She laughed as she adores his playfulness. They kept walking and stopped to get food. They both sat under a tree and took turns eating from a bag of popcorn. The smells of food and beer danced around them as they both sat back and enjoyed the lights as the sounds of laughter filled the air. “Do you think it’s okay to be out and about like this? I feel like we’ve done a good job of hiding away for such a long time.”

“Of course it’s okay. I told you before, I’m tired of hiding you. I did this to begin with to guard you from the evil that seems to be attracted to this place. But that’s no way to live, is it?” She didn’t answer, but she was happy that he’d finally felt comfortable enough to let her be more free. He hated keeping her away from everyone, but at the time he thought it to be the safest option. Now, he was ready to give her a better life, one he wished he could have given her a long time ago.

“I suppose not Captain.” She said, a hint of playfulness sparkles in her eyes.

“You know that’s a ‘bed room only’ word.” He teased, making her blush. She was never any good at flirting, but god did he make it easy.

She leaned over and kissed his lips, she tasted the familiar spiced rum on his tongue, but his lips were slightly salty from the popcorn. “Then remind me to say it again in a few hours.”

Before he could respond, they both felt a heavy presence approaching them. It was Emma, and she stormed over to them in rage. “What the hell?” Was all she could say without throwing a complete temper tantrum.

“Do you need something, Swan?” Killian answered as he stood up and crossed his arms. Wendy stood too, but stayed close behind his right shoulder. She didn’t know Emma, but she knew she was capable of incredible things. Being in her way when she was angry didn’t sound like a great idea.

“Is this what you’ve been doing? Sneaking around with Peter Pan’s lackey?” It was hard for Wendy not to feel bad, she had a feeling that Emma still cared for Killian.

“First of all, I haven’t a reason to sneak around, so don’t call it that. Second, you left me and ran off with another man. Third, don’t bring Wendy into this, it’s between you and me.” Wendy hadn’t seen Killian this irritated since they were fighting Peter Pan.

“I apologized! I told you that I wanted to fix things! You didn't even tell me you were seeing someone.” Emma had said this as somewhat of a last resort. She hoped if she upset Wendy enough that she would leave on her own.

“And neither did you. The only difference is that you were seeing someone while you were supposed to be in a relationship with me. So do not bring this into my relationship with Wendy.” The words coming from his mouth felt like fire on Emma’s skin. She hated hearing him talk about another woman, and she hated seeing him kiss one even more.

“You’re pretty mad for someone who is apparently moved on from it.” Emma smirked, taking a side glance at Wendy to make sure she was listening.

“I have moved on from it. I’m mad because you’re standing there like I owe you something. I owe you nothing, Swan.” It was the first time he’d even slightly raised his voice, and it left Emma stunned and frustrated.

Wendy placed a hand, lovingly, on Killian’s arm. “Let’s go.” She said quietly in Emma’s silence.

“Aye, love.” He nodded, not breaking eye contact with Emma. Deep inside he wanted to tell Emma everything about how she’d made him feel, and how much better his life had been since Wendy came along, but he knew it would help nothing.

As they walked away, Killian could feel Emma’s eyes on them, and although it infuriated him, he ignored th feelings of rage and took a deep breath. He wrapped his arm around Wendy and kissed her temple, half because he loved her, half because he knew Emma would be just as angry as he was when this all began. Hook may have become a better person, but deep down revenge still felt sweet. And in that moment, nothing was sweeter than the love he got to share with Wendy.

[acrobaticcatfeline]

I got an ideaaaaaa

OK has anyone heard the theory that Peter Pan is the Grimm reaper???

Well I have a story idea for that.

OK so with that in mind, captain hook was "rejected" by pan wasn't he? So with this theory, what the hell is hook??? He's an immortal.

These are not accurate in the original story obviously but headcannons.

So.

Peter Pan - Virgil

Captain Hook - Deceit

Tinker Bell - Remy

Lost boys (girls and nonbinary friends) - Roman, Logan, Picani, Kai, Elliott, Terrence, Valerie, Joan, Talyn, and Thomas

And our lovely Wendy Darling - Patton!!!

OK so in this Patton really doesn't want to leave! He loves his family very much, and becoming an adult sounds fun!!! Kids don't get to make decisions they don't get to do anything, why would he want to never grow up???

And Virgil keeps coming back, day after day, because really Patton, neverland is your home now, and your family will join you sooner than you think.

It takes a month for Patton to finally go. And it takes all of Virgil's power to keep Patton from looking back at that hospital window where his parents are weeping over the loss of him. They knew he didn't have long, they'd made their peace. But Patton was just 7 years old, and they lost him. Fuck cancer they screamed, as they were ripped away from their sons lifeless body.

When they arrive in neverland Patton is greeted by curious faces of children his age surrounding him. One, very pale and sickly thin with glasses like his own and short black and dark blue hair, matching his arms almost perfectly, drags him over to the water.

"Look!" He says, "there's a mermaid over there!!! Do you like mermaids? What's your name? My names Logan!!! Mr vee saved me about a year ago!!! Did he just save you? Were you hurting too? Were your parents mean? Mine were super jerks, but now I have cool marks that match my hair, so I guess it's alright. You wanna see some fairies?!" The boy spills out in one breath while smiling brighter than the sun.

"Um, my name is Patton!!! I love mermaids!!! And fairies!!! I dunno if he saved me, my parents were really nice!!! I was hurting though, it wasn't them though. I had a super villain in my brain and he hurt me a lot. At least that's what mommy said. I always got to wear a cool blue dress all the time though!!!!! I'm sorry your parents were mean, when we go back, you can share mine with me!!! How old are you Logan??? I'm 7!!!"

Logan stills for a second and tilts his head. "Well I'm 5! But, what do you mean when we go back? We don't go back!!! This is home now Patton!!! If you go back your super villain will come back!!!" And Patton looks terrified and looks at Virgil, who can't stand to look back.

"MR VIRGIL I WANT TO GO HOME!!!! I WANT MY MOMMY AND DADDY MR PLEASE DONT MAKE ME STAY" Patton curls in on himself as all the lost children back away. Virgil walks over and kneels in front of him, hands placed on Patton's tiny weak shoulder and hollowed cheek.

"Patton, I know you're scared, but you can't go back. This is where people go when things hurt too much. Do you understand death little one?" Patton nods, "well I'm sorry to say you've died. This is where everyone goes after they die. The last month I was trying to take you, you were so very sick. You were too sick to walk, you could barely eat, you were dying kiddo. You won't hurt ever again Patton. I promise you that everything is going to be OK. Now, there's a party here to welcome you. Go on and have some fun. I have some more work to do, but I'll be there soon." Patton cries into the teen looking person who had brought him there.

And that's how you ruin a happy fairytale. You're welcome.

ANYWAYS, THANK YOU LADIES LORDS AND NONBINARY ROYALTY, PEACE OUT!!!!!

[swanqueeneverafter]

26. And Straight on 'til Morning, Pt.5

Neverland. Past. Smee: “Captain, why is Baelfire still aboard the Jolly Roger?! The boy has given you a path to revenge, but you can't walk that path if you're dead!” Hook: “Careful, Mr. Smee.” Smee: “Captain, you know quite well that he is after the boy. If you don't surrender Baelfire to him, the lost ones will take him anyway and kill you.” Hook: “I'M THE CAPTAIN! I GIVE THE ORDERS! AND ANYONE WHO DISOBEYS CAN WALK THE PLANK AND PRAY THAT THE MERMAIDS TAKE PITY ON HIS SOUL!” (Baelfire appears, carrying a sword and the picture of Milah.) Baelfire: “Face me, villain!” Hook: “Whoa! What's this about, Bae?” Baelfire: “I found this— (Holds up Milah's picture:) —on your desk. It's my mother. How'd you get it?” Hook: “Bae—” Baelfire: “HOW?! (Swings the sword, Hook ducks:) You're the pirate that killed her!” Hook: “I didn't kill your mother. We fell in love, and we ran off together. Your father lied to you. He was too much of a coward to tell you the truth. He tore out her heart and crushed it in front of me. And I've spent every moment since then wanting revenge.” Baelfire: “She abandoned me?” Hook: “Not a single day went past where your mother didn't regret leaving you, Baelfire. We talked about going back for you when you were old enough. Perhaps fate brought us together to make good on those plans. We can live the life that Milah wanted for us, as a family.” Baelfire: “No! Stay back! You used me! You wanted to kill my father!” Hook: “Yes. I did.” Baelfire: “You tore apart my family, as sure as if you ripped her heart out yourself.” Hook: “Bae, don't.” Baelfire: “Take me back to my real family—the Darlings.” Hook: “I can't. It's not possible to leave Neverland. But you can stay here, under my protection.” Baelfire: “I'd rather fend for myself than be with you. I want off this ship, pirate.”

The Storybrooke Mines. Present. (Regina is slowing down the trigger when David, Emma, Henry and Mary Margaret enter.) Regina: “What are you doing here?” Henry: “You were willing to die to save us. That makes you a hero. Now we're gonna be heroes.” David: “They're gonna open up a portal, throw this thing into a void.” Regina: “No. You don't know that it'll work.” Mary Margaret: “We have to try.” David: “Everybody, step aside. Emma?” Emma: (Pulls out the pouch containing the bean, opens it up, and finds:) “It's empty. Hook.” Storybrooke Harbor. Present. (Hook has the bean, and prepares to throw it into the sea.)

Neverland. Past. Night. (The Jolly Roger is headed for the island to drop off Baelfire.) Hook: “Eager to go, I see.” Baelfire: “Just drop me off anywhere.” Hook: “You really think you can survive on you own?” Baelfire: “I've never been given the choice.” Hook: “Well, you have one now.” Baelfire: “Anywhere will do.” Hook: “I get that you're angry. But it doesn't have to end like this. The ship can be your home, your family. Just say the word. It's not too late start over. I can change, Bae, for you.” Baelfire: “You say that. I know you'll never change. Because all you care about is yourself.” (He walks off.) Hook: “Thank you... For reminding me what I'm all about—killing your father!” (The lost ones appear and put Baelfire in their boat.) Baelfire: “You're not letting me go.” Hook: “How would that help me?” Baelfire: “You hated my father so much, you didn't even realize you were just like him!” Hook: (To Felix:) “You have the boy. He will be pleased?” (The Lost Ones put a bag over Baelfire and row off. Hook goes over to where he etched in port and starboard to teach Baelfire, and scratches it out with his hook.) Storybrooke Harbor. Present. (Hook motions to throw the bean into the sea when he eyes the scratched out port and starboard, and stops himself.) Storybrooke. Present. (As the townspeople are running in terror as the town grows more overridden with plants, Emma, David, Henry, Mary Margaret and Regina are still down in the mines. The truth is now unavoidable--this is the end.) Regina: “I can't contain this much longer.” Emma: (Goes over Mary Margaret and David:) “Mom... Dad...” (They embrace tearfully, and Henry goes over to Regina.)

Regina: “I love you, Henry. I only wish I was strong enough to stop all this. I'm just not.” (Henry hugs her tightly.) Emma: (Small gasp in realization, then goes over to Henry and Regina:) “You may not be strong enough, but maybe we are.” (As Henry, Mary Margaret and David stand back, the two women combine their magic and successfully diffuse the trigger, saving the town, but also knocking themselves out in the process.) The Pawnshop. Present. (Mr. Gold steps outside and watches as the trees and leaves cease to exist.)

The Storybrooke Mines. Present. (Everyone is slowly getting to their feet.) David: “We're alive!” (Helps Mary Margaret to her feet.) Mary Margaret: “Emma?” (Helps Emma to her feet, as Regina goes over and picks up the now diffused trigger.) Emma: “We did it.” Regina: “Yes, we did.” (The two women share a brief smile.) David: “Gotta hand it to Henry. He's right about a lot of things.” Emma: “Yes, he is. Isn't that right, kid? (Turns around, no Henry:) Henry?” Regina: “Henry?” (The scene shifts as the four of them explore the mines for where Henry may have gone.) Emma: “Henry?” (Sees something and runs ahead.) Mary Margaret: “Emma, what is it?” (We can see the object now--Henry's backpack.) Emma: “She took him.” Storybrooke. Present. (Outside the cannery as Tamara makes her getaway, and surely enough, she’s taking Henry with her.) Tamara: “Relax, kid. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Henry: “Just everyone I love. You tried to blow up Storybrooke!” Tamara: “True, but that was never the point.” Henry: “It wasn't?” Tamara: “I came here to destroy magic, Henry, but then I found something more important, something that changed everything—you.” Near The Storybrooke Docks. Present. (Emma, David, Regina, and Mary Margaret are chasing down Tamara.) Mary Margaret: “Emma, you don't even know where you're going.” Emma: “Doesn't matter. I have to find him. I'll track them down in hell if I have to.” (They catch up to Tamara, but it is too late—Tamara opens up a portal the second she notices the four of them.) Regina: “The last bean. They've opened a portal.” Emma: “Henry!” David: “Henry!” (Tamara leaps through the portal with Henry in tow.)

Emma: “No! No! No! We have to follow them! (David holds her back:) There has to be a way!” Regina: “Not only do we not know where they went, but Hook stole the last bean!” Emma: “I don't care!” Regina: “Without it, there's no way to follow.” Emma: “There has to be. We can't just let her take Henry!” (While they were talking, Mr. Gold and Belle approach.) Mr. Gold: “They've taken Henry?” David: “Yeah. You're the Dark One. Do something.” Emma: “Gold, help us.” Mr. Gold: “There's no way. I spent a lifetime trying to cross worlds to find my son. There's no way in this world without a portal.” Regina: “So that's it? He's gone forever? I refuse to believe that.” Belle: (Spots something in the distance:) “What is that?” (She has spotted the Jolly Roger, and it is on its way to the docks.) Emma: “Hook. (Scene shifts to the Jolly Roger:) What the hell are you doing here?” Hook: “Helping.” Emma: “Well, you're too late.” Hook: “Am I?” Emma: “I thought you didn't care about anyone but yourself.” Hook: (Holds out the bean and hands it to Emma:) “Maybe I just needed reminding that I could.” Regina: “And you couldn’t figure that out earlier, you jackass? (Hook smirks at this, knowing it’s deserved:) Enough waiting around, let's go.” Hook: “Go? Where? I thought we were saving the town.” David: “We already did.” Emma: “We need to get Henry. Tamara took him through a portal.” Hook: “Well, I offer my ship and my services to help follow them.” Regina: “Well that's great, Hook, but how do we track them?” Mr. Gold: “Leave that to me. I can get us to where we need to go.” Mary Margaret: “Well, let's do it.” (Hook glares at Mr. Gold a moment before turning and heading back onto the ship, followed by the Charmings, Emma & Regina.) Mr. Gold: “Belle, I have to go. You have to stay here.” Belle: “No. Why? I wanna help.” Mr. Gold: “The town is no longer safe.” Belle: “What?” David: “What?” Mr. Gold: “Well, Tamara wasn't working alone. Others will follow.” David: “No. We can't leave people in danger.” Mr. Gold: (Takes out a small sheet of paper, hands it to Belle:) “After we've gone, follow these instructions. It's a cloaking spell. It'll shield the town, making it impossible for anyone to find.” Belle: “Then how will you find your way back to me? (David leaves them alone. Silence:) You're not coming back, are you?” Mr. Gold: “The prophecy. The boy is my undoing, but he's also my grandson. I must save him. I must do this to honor Baelfire. He's gone, and I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye.” Belle: “I understand, but I also know that the future isn't always what it seems. I will see you again. (They kiss, then tearfully begin to go their separate ways:) Baelfire would be very proud of you.” A Beach In An Unidentified Realm. Present. (A man's unconscious body lies on the ground when three figures approach. The figures are revealed to be Aurora, Mulan and Prince Phillip.) Phillip: “Who is he?” Aurora: “I don't know.” Phillip: “Is he alive?” Aurora: (Feels for a pulse:) “Barely. We have to get him help.” Phillip: “Help me get him up.” (The unconscious man's face is now visible—the mysterious man is Neal.)

Aboard The Jolly Roger. Present. (Hook and Mr. Gold are standing face to face.) Mr. Gold: “So, are you done trying to kill me?” Hook: “I believe so.” Mr. Gold: “Excellent. Then you can live.” (Magically summons the Magic Globe, pricks his finger, and a map of a strange island appears.) Regina: “Where is that? Where did they take Henry?” Hook: “Neverland.” Neverland. Past. (The Lost Ones arrive on the island shores and show Baelfire to another one of the Lost Ones.) Felix: “Is it the boy? The one that he wants?” (The other Lost boy examines Baelfire, then a piece of paper.) Lost boy: “No, it's not.” Felix: “It's your lucky day, boy. You get to live. Put him with the rest.” Aboard The Jolly Roger. Present. (Hook opens a portal to Neverland, and everyone prepares to sail through it.) David: “So who are we up against? Who is Tamara?” Mr. Gold: “She’s just a pawn, manipulated by forces far greater than she can conceive. Tamara has no idea who she's truly working for.” Emma: “And who's that?” Mr. Gold: “Someone we all should fear.” Neverland. Past. Lost boy: “If that's not the boy he's looking for, do you think we'll be able to find him?” Felix: “Of course we will. It may take time, but Peter Pan never fails.” (The other Lost One hands Felix the picture of the boy Peter Pan is after—Henry Mills.) The Jolly Roger. Present. (The Charmings, Hook, Rumpletiltskin and Regina & Emma sail into the portal. As they disappear, the waters of the harbor are still once more.)

The End.

[ohmypreciousgirl]

My Very Gay To Read List

Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo

Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker has been offered wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But to claim it, he'll have to pull off a seemingly impossible heist:

Break into the notorious Ice Court (a military stronghold that has never been breached)

Retrieve a hostage (who could unleash magical havoc on the world)

Survive long enough to collect his reward (and spend it)

Kaz needs a crew desperate enough to take on this suicide mission and dangerous enough to get the job done - and he knows exactly who: six of the deadliest outcasts the city has to offer. Together, they just might be unstoppable - if they don't kill each other first.

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

Loved this book so much: Know Not Why (Know Not Why) by Hannah Johnson 

Howie gets a job at Artie Kraft's Arts 'N Crafts hoping to score with his lady coworkers. After all, girls love a sensitive guy, and what's more sensitive than dedicating your life to selling yarn and ... stuff? (Okay, so maybe it'd be a good idea to actually learn what one sells at an arts 'n crafts store.) But things don't go exactly according to plan. Coworker #1 is Cora: tiny, much-pierced, and way too fierce to screw with in any sense. Coworker #2 is Kristy: blonde, bubbly, unattainable perfection. And Coworker #3 is, well, Arthur. It goes without saying that he’s not an option. Right?

… Right?

Yeah, Howie’s life just got straight up confusing.

Pun intended.

How They Met, and Other Stories by David Levithan

Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a confection from David Levithan that is sure to appeal to fans of Boy Meets Boy. Here are 18 stories, all about love, and about all kinds of love. From the aching for the one you pine for, to standing up and speaking up for the one you love, to pure joy and happiness, these love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down. What is love? With this original story collection David Levithan proves that love is a many splendored thing, a varied, complicated, addictive, wonderful thing.

Strong Signal by Megan Erickson

I was counting down the months until the end of my deployment. My days were spent working on military vehicles, and I spent my nights playing video games that would distract me until I could leave Staff Sergeant Garrett Reid behind.

That was when I met him: Kai Bannon, a fellow gamer with a famous stream channel.

I never expected to become fixated on someone who'd initially been a rival. And I'd never expected someone who oozed charm to notice me—a guy known for his brutal honesty and scowl. I hadn't planned for our online friendship to turn into something that kept me up at night—hours of chatting evolving into filthy webcam sessions.

But it did. And now I can't stop thinking about him. In my mind, our real life meeting is perfect. We kiss, we fall into bed, and it's love at first sight.

Except, like most things in my life, it doesn't go as planned.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.

With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

New York Times  bestselling author David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS.

While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance.

When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows it. The school bookie says the odds are 12-to-1 against him getting Noah back, but Paul’s not giving up without playing his love really loud. His best friend Joni might be drifting away, his other best friend Tony might be dealing with ultra-religious parents, and his ex-boyfriend Kyle might not be going away anytime soon, but sometimes everything needs to fall apart before it can really fit together right.

Liked this book: Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.

But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.

Lucas e Nicolas by Gabriel Spits

Lucas é um adolescente como qualquer outro: seu corpo cheio de hormônios o enche de desejos e sua cabeça de dúvidas. Na escola, Lucas é considerado um ‘loser’: tímido, péssimo nos esportes e muito inteligente, alvo constante de chacota dos alunos mais ‘populares’ e completamente inábil na arte da conquista amorosa. Mas, no caso de Lucas, algo mais o deixa vulnerável ao assédio dos colegas: ele é gay. E isso faz toda a diferença, principalmente em um ambiente conservador como na pequena cidade do interior paulista onde vive. 

A tanto sofrimento, soma-se uma novidade: recém-chegado da capital São Paulo, Nicolas é tudo o que ele não é: bonito, forte e popular. E é, talvez, justamente por isso, ou por algum outro motivo que ele não consegue identificar, que Lucas se apaixona pelo seu oposto – ou pelo seu complemento? Como lidar com isso? Pode-se considerar “Lucas e Nicolas”, lançamento do Fábrica231, um livro necessário. Com habilidade, o autor traça um perfil honesto de Lucas, um menino desprotegido e solitário em suas dúvidas e questionamentos acerca de sua orientação sexual. Sem interlocutores que possam ouvi-lo e orientá-lo, resta-lhe o sentimento de vergonha, deslocamento e medo. Afinal, o mundo parece não perdoar quem é diferente. Por conta disso, sofre toda sorte de agressões, verbais e físicas, numa homofobia que é negada conscientemente por seus perpetradores, mas muito presente na vida diária. 

Na impossibilidade de poder expressar seu afeto, Lucas corre para o abrigo da internet, onde faz um amigo, Matheus, gay assumido, mas que nunca viu ao vivo. Matheus é seu confidente e representa aquele jovem homossexual que tem orgulho de ser quem é. Assume seu caráter único e vive com intensidade toda uma cultura gay que se reflete em músicas, filmes e num linguajar muito peculiar. Ao desabafar sobre Nicolas, ele descobre com Matheus uma informação crucial sobre seu objeto de desejo. Nicolas é o típico aluno popular, forte, bonito e atlético. Mas, por trás de tanta fortaleza, esconde-se uma personalidade frágil, um menino com uma família desajustada, que o obriga a amadurecer cedo. Ele vem da capital para o interior, mas tem dificuldade de se adaptar. Sente saudades dos amigos de São Paulo, e de um em especial. Péssimo nos estudos, ele é obrigado a ter aulas particulares com o CDF do colégio: Lucas. E agora? 

How to Repair a Mechanical Heart by J.C. Lillis

Eighteen-year-old Castaway Planet fans Brandon and Abel hate bad fan fiction—especially when it pairs their number-one TV crushes of all time, dashing space captain Cadmus and dapper android Sim. As co-runners of the Internet’s third most popular Castaway Planet vlog, they love to spar with the “Cadsim” fangirls who think Cadmus will melt Sim’s mechanical heart by the Season 5 finale. This summer, Brandon and Abel have a mission: hit the road in an RV to follow the traveling Castaway Planet convention, interview the actors and showrunner, and uncover proof that a legit Cadsim romance will NEVER, EVER HAPPEN.

A Brandon and Abel romance: also not happening. Brandon’s sick of his struggle to make “gay and Catholic” compute, so it’s safer to love a TV android. Plus Abel’s got a hot new boyfriend with a phoenix tattoo, and how can Brandon compete with that? But when mysterious messages about them start popping up in the fan community, they make a shocking discovery that slowly forces their real feelings to the surface. Before they get to the last Castaway Planet convention, Brandon’s going to find out the truth: can a mechanical heart be reprogrammed, or will his first shot at love be a full system failure?

The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer

Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie. Now, only a goddess can tell the truth. Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want--except for freedom. She lives on the green earth with her mother, Demeter, growing up beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. But when Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, she experiences something new: choice. Zeus calls Hades "lord" of the dead as a joke. In truth, Hades is the goddess of the underworld, and no friend of Zeus. She offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead, so the young goddess may escape her Olympian destiny. But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself.

Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

With a steady boyfriend, the position of Student Council President, and a chance to go to an Ivy League college, high school life is just fine for Holland Jaeger. At least it seems to be. But when Cece Goddard comes to school, everything changes. Cece and Holland have undeniable feelings for each other, but how will others react to their developing relationship? This moving love story between two girls is a worthy successor to Nancy Garden's classic young adult coming out novel, Annie on My Mind. With her characteristic humor and breezy style, Peters has captured the compelling emotions of young love.

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

This groundbreaking book is the story of two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, promise to be true to each other and their feelings. This book is so truthful and honest, it has been banned from many school libraries and even publicly burned in Kansas City.

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met. She has a tumultuous, not-so-glamorous past, and lives an unconventional life. She’s enigmatic…. She’s beautiful. And she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

Him (Him #1) by Sarina Bowen

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Ryan Wesley’s biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he’ll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend... and a big one to learn about himself.

Truth in the Dark by Amy Lane

"I am not beautiful..."

Knife's entire existence has been as twisted as his flesh and his face. The only thing beautiful in his life is his sister. When Gwennie is obliged to turn a suitor down because she fears to leave her brother to the brutality of their village, Knife is desperate for anything to ensure her happiness.

Her suitor's cousin offers him a way out, but it won't be easy. Aerie-Smith has been cursed to walk upright in the form of a beast, and his beloved village suffers from the same spell. Aerie-Smith offers Gwen a trousseau and some hope, if only Knife will keep him company on his island for the span of a year and perform one "regrettable task" at year's end.

Knife is unprepared for the form the island's curse takes on his own misshapen body. In one moment of magic, he is given the body of his dreams—and he discovers that where flesh meets spirit and appearance meet reality, sometimes the only place to find truth is in the darkness of a lover's arms.

Luck in the Shadows (Nightrunner #1) by Lynn Flewelling

When young Alec of Kerry is taken prisoner for a crime he didn’t commit, he is certain that his life is at an end. But one thing he never expected was his cellmate. Spy, rogue, thief, and noble, Seregil of Rhiminee is many things–none of them predictable. And when he offers to take on Alec as his apprentice, things may never be the same for either of them. Soon Alec is traveling roads he never knew existed, toward a war he never suspected was brewing. Before long he and Seregil are embroiled in a sinister plot that runs deeper than either can imagine, and that may cost them far more than their lives if they fail. But fortune is as unpredictable as Alec’s new mentor, and this time there just might be…Luck in the Shadows.

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever.

Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.

Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal.

Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.

The Diviners (The Diviners #1) by Libba Bray

Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.

The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) by Lev Grossman

Like everyone else, precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater assumes that magic isn't real, until he finds himself admitted to a very secretive and exclusive college of magic in upstate New York. There he indulges in joys of college-friendship, love, sex, and booze- and receives a rigorous education in modern sorcery. But magic doesn't bring the happiness and adventure Quentin thought it would. After graduation, he and his friends stumble upon a secret that sets them on a remarkable journey that may just fulfill Quentin's yearning. But their journey turns out to be darker and more dangerous than they'd imagined.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

Deathless (Leningrad Diptych #1) by Catherynne M. Valente

Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century. Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei’s beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn, David Levithan

So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the bestselling authors of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have written a love story that will have readers perusing bookstore shelves, looking and longing for a love (and a red notebook) of their own.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn, David Levithan

It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, who’s just walked in to his band’s show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York City—and smack in the middle of all the joy, anxiety, confusion, and excitement of a first date.

Every Day (Every Day #1) by David Levithan

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.

It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

A laugh-out-loud, heartfelt YA romantic comedy, told in alternating perspectives, about two Indian-American teens whose parents have arranged for them to be married.

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1) by V.E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last travelers--magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes connected by one magical city.

There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad King--George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered--and where Kell was raised alongside Rhy Maresh, the roguish heir to a flourishing empire. White London--a place where people fight to control magic and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red traveler, ambassador of the Maresh empire, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

[aldreaoakley]

PETER PAN: KBTBB one-shot

(Please don't hate me as this is not an easy story to adapt when most the cast is male... Also KBTBB guys sometimes reminds me of the story. I'll explain in my note. @maidofstars this is what i was talking about.)

Ota watches as a young woman argues with a man whom he assumes is her dad.

"Dad I'm not ready yet," he observes her yell. "Don't talk back to me young lady," the man roars back. "As of tomorrow, you are no longer in that nursery!" "Fine," she hollers with tears running down her face. Wait a second he's not suppose to he watching her! Shaking his head, Ota waits on the roof top above where he'd lost his shadow a while ago. A small bell-like chatter rings in his ear and he turns to see his fairy, male, next to him. "Quiet," he hisses. "She'll hear!" The ringing twitters stop and the fairy hovers next to him. Once he feels that it was safe, Ota glides down and opens the window. He spies a doghouse and looks at his fairy and the little thing flies into it. "Is it in there Baba," he whispers. Baba, the fairy, shakes his head. Ota frowns then gestures to look elsewhere. As Baba goes one way, Ota goes the other. As he looks through a toy chest, he hears Baba and glides over to a dresser. Baba is pointing at the top drawer. Ota opens it and unknowingly shuts Baba inside with his shadow flying out. He grabs it and tries to get it on with brute force. The ruckus makes the girl wake and he cringes inwardly at his mishap. "Ota! I knew you'd come back to get it," she smiles at him. "Huh? How'd you know I'd come back," Ota asks while pinning his shadow. "Meanie! Your shadow's been causing nothing but trouble," she whines and Ota sees in time that his shadow just flipped her off. "And that dog," he wonders. "Kenzaki? Yeah he grabbed your shadow- Why are you using your hands like that? I can sew your shadow back on," she laughs and fetches something. He keeps a hold on his shadow as she deftly works. But he can't help hissing in pain. "Do you have something not as sharp," she inquires as she readies herself to move to his other foot. Ota produces the needle he uses to fix his clothes and she accepts it with a smile. Ota hides his smile and decides to tease her. "You are a brave girl, girl," he smirks. "I'm not girl," she frowns. "My name is ___." "Oh. Well thanks ___ for getting this idiot back on," Ota chuckles while flipping his shadow into place. He then notices she's looking at him with a funny face after making sure his shadow is moving with him. She didn't make a move so he holds up an acorn. "Oh... thank you," she sighs and takes the little seed. "So are you here alone," he hears her ask while he looks around the room. "Nope. I came with Baba," he replies and draws his sword upon meeting a toy soldier. "Who's Baba?" "My fairy," he pouts upon realizing that he toy soldier wasn't going to fight him. "But fa-" she starts and Ota dashes over to cover her mouth. "Don't," he hisses dangerously with his hand clamp on her mouth. "Whenever someone says that, a fairy dies." He sees her apologetic face and lowers his hand. Then he notices she is about to get close when something darts in front of him. "Baba! Where were you old man," he whines upon seeing the fairy. He watches as Baba gestures and rings like crazy before he face palms himself. "What did he say," __ wonders. "He said that if you ever dare give me a thimble, he'll personally kill you," Ota translates in an irritated tone. "Why won't you come with me to Neverland?" "Neverland?! Yes," she giggles with joy. Tactic distraction works like a charm. Flashing ___ a smile, he offers his hand. ~*~ Captain Hook pounds his hook into the table then wrench it out with a snarl. Clearly he is having no luck in finding Ota. He's still angry at the boy for cutting off his hand. He scans the map in front of him muttering. He already trapezes all over Neverland but never finds Ota's hideout. But then his crew can't find the little Ice Dragons who fight with them whenever they meet. That frustrates him more than his ship being frozen in the middle of the ocean. "Sir! Sir! The ocean's thawing," he hears his first mate cry out. A deadly smirk forms on his face. This is it. It's time to take down the self proclaimed ruler of Neverland. ~*~ ___ flies next to Ota through the skies with a wide grin. She's always dream of flying with him to Neverland and exploring the land with him and his band of Ice Dragons. When Ota directs her to land on a cloud, ___ feels nervous. After she got sprinkled with fairy dust, combining with faith and trust, she gain the ability to fly. The fact that she knows that Ota hasn't let let down yet makes her braver and settles next to him. He hands her his spyglass and points to below them. ___ peers down the spyglass and her eyes widen in surprise. It wasn't just that there are real pirates in front of her. It is the man with the hook. The man looks exactly like her father. "What's wrong ___? Cat got your tongue," she hears Ota. "Who's that man pointing at us," she asks. "Damn," Ota frowns, making her worry. "Baba get ___ to safety. I'll draw Hook's shots." She struggles to keep up with Baba as the fairy streaks off before she can even get her bearings. The next thing she knows after using her memory to follow where she sees Baba's glowing form, something knocks her out! ~*~ Ota glares at the little boys in front of him. Then Soryu steps out to take the responsibility for hitting the blow that knock ___ out, it was Rhion and Hikaru who tells him what Baba did. "Go and get everything ready to carry her to the hideout," Ota instructs them. The Ice Dragons run off to follow his order. He finds Baba and snatches him. Ota shows the fairy ___'s unconscious form then snarls at him. "I'm not letting you back. You're banished," he states then chucks him towards some trees. Ota looks at ___'s form and feels relief upon seeing his acorn being the only thing that saved her. He doesn't want anyone else to have her. He doesn't want her to grow up either. ~*~ Baba sits quietly on a twig after being thrown by Ota. He worries about Ota like a brother but that was half his problem right there. He has fallen for ___ after seeing her for the first time. He had no idea how Ota feels about her until he sees her prone form after he orders the Ice Dragons to fire. He didn't want her to die. He only wants her for himself. The only thing is that he can't argue against Ota once the youth makes up his mind. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't realize that he is inside some kind of fabric thing. He thrashes around before he flaps himself out and realizes where he's at. Baba got himself inside the captain's cabin. Now he really regrets hurting ___. And he really got from the frying pan and into the fire. The cloth thing he was under is now beneath a glass orb. /What am I to do now,/ he sulks and collapses to a sitting position. ~*~ Back on Earth, Eisuke Darling paces in his office. He can't sleep. ___ is what he has left of a family and only wants the best for her. He glances at the picture on the mantle of himself and ___'s mother when ___ is born. "Did I do the right thing," he whispers, sorrow marring his face. "I only wanted her to be a woman.... I guess it's too soon at age eleven...." Sitting at his desk, Eisuke starts to think. Thinking about how he can make it up to his little girl. ~*~ ___ wakes to the feeling of something soft and the sounds of feet pattering. She pushes herself upright and sees Ota enter. "Good, you're awake. It's time to meet the boys~" Ota grins. "Boy- Oh. The Ice Dragons," ___ realizes with a smile. "Yep," Ota laughs. Once she's inside an underground main hall, a bunch of boys barely older than seven are already there. "The twins are Rhion and Hikaru," Ota starts," the little runt with the blue tattoos is Soryu. He's a good shot." An indigent 'Hey' jumps in but Ota continues despite the small frown on her face. "The kid with the teeth marks, Samejima. Don't let those fool you because those are shark and not human teeth. The sleeping one is Mamoru." "What about the one next to the skeleton," ___ wonders. "Luke? He's always like that when we aren't- Oi! Where's Ryusuke," Ota yelps. One of the boys start coughing. ___ rushes to a small spring she'd notice in a corner and scoops some of it into a flower cup. She was about to offer it when one of the other boys (Luke maybe?) asks her what it is. "A medicine to help his cough," ___ fibs. "We don't need that! Come on! We don't leave one of our own behind," Ota snaps. "Right," the boys chime and all run after Ota. ___ sets the "medicine" next to what she can assume is Ota's chair then chases after them. The search wasn't easy and it's hard to make your way through a jungle wearing nothing more than a nightgown and light traveling slippers. A splash catches ___'s attention and she turns to see a merman sunning himself on a rock. She let out a startled yell at the sight of him. ___ has never seen a man naked from the waist up before. "Stop screaming and what are you doing," the merman snaps at her. "Um... I'm trying to find a boy named Ryusuke. Have you seen him," ___ inquires. The merman thinks then nods. "Follow me," he tells her. She does and he leads her to a cave where there is also- "Damn it," she hears the merman swear. "The pirates have him," ___ whispers in horror. "Stay here and I'll tell Ota," the merman directs then splashes off. ___ tries to wait but she couldn't after what seems to be half an hour later. She starts inching towards the cave when she hears "Thanks four-eyes". ___ looks to see Ota flying past the merman and to the cave. "It's Shuichi! Sigh... that kid," the merman complains. "And what did I say about staying in your spot?" "I couldn't help it that I wanted to comfort the little boy," ___ pouts. "Just be careful Miss," Shuichi pauses. "___." "Miss ___," Shuichi finishes then returns to the water. "First time seeing a merman," Ota wonders as a loud scream echoes around them. /Kenzaki?! That's the name of my guard dog,/ ___ puzzles. She didn't show it as she shakes her head to answer Ota's question. "Well let's get back then," Ota chuckles as he carries the one he said is Ryusuke with him, by his ankles. ___ stops him to carry Ryusuke in her arms. Ota whines that she's being too nice when she really just worries too much. ~*~ Baba watches as a drenched Captain Hook drags himself into the cabin silently. He doesn't like the hook-handed pirate because of the fact that Ota hates him with his life. Then Kenzaki rushes in to help Hook get out of his wet coat. Once that was done, he gets sent out and he realizes that Hook is now staring at him. "I can guess that Ota's done more harm than good to you," he sees the man mouth. "How about a little revenge?" The reminder of what Ota did to him has him more than willing to side with his enemy. What Baba didn't notice is that Hook's eyes had a malicious glint in them... ~*~ "I can't stay here then," ___ says to his face. "If I'm going to be causing trouble then I have to go back and grow up." "Then go and don't ever come back. I'll get some fairies to get you and the boys back," Ota fires back before slamming his door shut. The cry that he hears not long after makes him sad but he shrugs it off. It's her fault for even wanting to be involved with his problems with Hook. Hook has always been a thorn in his side because he's an adult. That was it. He hates them with a passion. He remembers that he told ___ during their flight to Neverland that his parents wanted to decide his fate. He didn't want that. So to him, Hook is the same. Trying to force him to grow up. He didn't realize that ___ and the Ice Dragons have been kidnapped by the pirates, fairy escorts dead, and Hook slipping into the small flower cup a single drop of poison. ~*~ Baba regrets this now. After freeing himself from his prison and through a small crack in the cabin window, he swallows the tainted water that Ota was about to drink. "Baba," he hears Ota's distant voice. "Baba no!" It wasn't long before the frozen cold takes over his body. With the last of his strength, Baba hugs Ota's finger then passes out. He didn't realize that he was in a limbo like state until power courses through him. It was a power he thought had been long gone. Belief of his and other fairies' existence. He opens his eyes and hugs Ota's finger while his crimson wings flutter vividly. "Now I need your help in getting them back," Ota enlists. Baba is ready. More than ready. He is so ready to screw Hook up. ~*~ The battle was hard and Ota didn't want to admit it. The Ice Dragon boys are defending not just each other but ___ as well. She however decides to help by repurposing a throwing dagger that missed her. He is in a gridlock sword fight with Hook. Hook had forced some of Baba's fairy dust onto himself and now both men are equally matched in the air. "You know she hates you," Hook taunts him. "She'll leave you forever." That was enough to make Ota not only drop his sword but plummet to the deck, landing hard on his back. "Ota!" It wasn't the boys who cries out his name in fear. It was "_-___... you're... you're still here..." he gasps. "Hook... ugh..." "Ota," he hears her whisper. "___... if it's you... can... can you give me a thimble," he requests as his voice grows fainter and fainter. "Ota... of course," he hears her soft giggle. If that giggle means that she understands what thimble means!? Ota feels a set of warm lips on his own. His eyes fly wide open while a strong rise blush floods his skin. He didn't hear anything around him as he rockets into the air with a strong whoop. "Hook! You're a dead man," he yells and nosedives for the pirate captain. The action forces him off the side of the ship and over a hungry crocodile's gaping toothy maw. ~*~ Eisuke opens his daughter's door to reveal not just her but a bunch of little boys and a huge chest of gold and precious stones in the center of it all. "Father," ___ laughs and he catches her in his arms with a warm smile. "___, I'm sorry about earlier," he whispers into her hair. "I was wrong in wanting you to grow up quickly." "It's okay father," she smiles back. "Um... is it okay if I have new little brothers?" "That's... if I can find a bigger house," Eisuke sighs. "E'en wi'h all this," Rhion and Hikaru chime while holding up some of the things from the chest. "I bet we can," Eisuke chuckles.

EPILOGUE ___ smiles as her new brothers run in the backyard after school. She then looks up at the sky. "Where are you looking," she hears Soryu ask. "Neverland," ___ sighs. "Do you think he'll still remember us," Mamoru yawns. "I bet he does. Ota isn't the type to forget easily," ___ smiles. Little did any of them know that hidden behind a tree is Ota and Baba. The duo watches them then fly off to go back to Neverland. None of them know that ever since Hook's death, Ota and Baba both have been watching and helping them from the shadows. Even though they did have some suspicions, the two don't stay near for long. But one thing that Ota and ___ knows is that "I'll always believe in you Ota," ___ whispers before turning back to her book, the gold letters Peter Pan glittering.

Author's Note: Okay so I did leave out a lot of the story. But if I left all the itty-bitty details in, it basically would be like watching a version of the story. I use a mix of Peter Pan movie from 2003 and the old classic Disney version. And I did adapt it the best I can while dealing with college stress... it is a good way to relax from focusing on my studies too hard. My usual work will be ready to read in a few days. 

One other thing: I didn’t want to make MC grow up.