#where everyone was wealthier than me by MILES

[cath-lic]

i literally do not understand how prosperity gospel and evangelicals have gotten this far. like have u even LOOKED at the bible??? does luke 18:25 mean nothing to you?????

[beatrice-otter]

Such an exhibition

I have been thinking about the breakfast scene in Pride & Prejudice. You know the one:

“Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office.” ... “You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley; “and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition.” “Certainly not.” “To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.”

It strikes me that there are some nuances that people often miss when talking about this. The first is that Miss Bingley attributes this "conceited independence" not to a flaw in Elizabeth personally, but to the difference between the manners of the country gentry (such as the Bennets) and the fashionable people who live in cities (like the Bingleys). In town, fashionable and wealthy people did not walk long distances. Fashionable people either owned horses/carriages, or took cabs. They would walk in parks where it was fashionable to walk. But they rarely walked alone, especially women. A man might walk to his club alone, in the afternoon, but when walking home from his club that evening he would hire a man to walk with him to discourage pickpockets and muggers. Even in posh neighborhoods!

But in the country ... there aren't cabs, and while there were robbers on the highways who would stop carriages to steal from them, they weren't lurking along footpaths such as the one Elizabeth would have taken. Elizabeth didn't ride horses, and her father is of the lower gentry, which means that the same horses which pull the carriage also work in the fields, and thus the carriage is not always available. Even when it is available, she's one of five daughters. If her dad or mom wants it, they get it; if she or her sisters want it, they have to argue over who gets it. And riding in a carriage was jolting and unpleasant (bad roads and no shock absorbers). So Elizabeth, like many members of the country lower gentry, often walks when she wants to go visit her neighbors.

Then there's the "alone" part. Everyone can quote "six inches deep in mud" but we forget that part of what shocks Miss Bingley is that Elizabeth walked by herself. In Regency England, the more wealth and status a woman's family had, the less often she would be alone. And again, big difference between the city and the country. In the city, a woman of Elizabeth's family status would never go anywhere alone. Either she'd have a female relative with her, or a friend or chaperone, or a servant. For protection, and also to vouch for her propriety. In the country ... as long as she's going to visit another woman, or just going out to walk for the exercise, and she's not going too far, nobody bats an eyelash. This is true both at Longbourn and also at Hunsford. If she were wealthier, that would not necessarily be the case; both Georgiana Darcy and Anne de Bourgh have companions who are paid to go where their mistress goes. So it's not just that Elizabeth is walking that shows the difference between town and country manners, it's also that she's walking alone.

Miss Bingley is criticizing Elizabeth in particular, but she is also criticizing her class, as a way of asserting both that the Bingleys have better manners than country gentry (despite their money coming from trade), and by appealing to Mr. Darcy about it she is also positioning herself as closer to his sphere and manners than to anyone else's.

Then we come to the question of how much does Darcy judge Elizabeth's actions. Mr. Darcy says he wouldn't want Georgiana to do what Elizabeth has done (walk three miles alone through muddy fields), but there's a big difference between the upper gentry and the lower gentry. Georgiana probably has her own horse, and she's much less likely to have to worry about whether the carriage horses are needed on the farm, and also she has someone who is literally paid to go with her everywhere. Also, Georgiana is sixteen years old, has already been targeted by a fortune hunter, and is very shy and timid. So the fact that he wouldn't want Georgiana to do it doesn't mean he necessarily sees it as a big deal when Elizabeth (older, not as wealthy*) does it.

*People sometimes claim the Bennets were either poor or middle class. They were at the bottom of the gentry, but that is still quite wealthy. Mr. Bennet has an income of £2,000/year, which is peanuts compared to Darcy. However, let us compare them to other people in their day. William and Dorothy Wordsworth spent the 1790s with an income of about £170-£180/year, with reasonable comfort. P&P was written in 1796-1797, so about the same time.

[qqueenofhades]

How accurate is the ‘medieval peasants worked less then we do today’ statement? I looked it up because I find it very hard to believe, but had trouble making sense of it since history is not my strong point.

The answer to this is complicated, and represents a lot of (indeed, often erroneous) assumptions about past and present alike. Either the past is presented as a terrible place where everyone was miserable and dirty and assaulted all the time, or as an essentially more idyllic and pastoral place where people didn't have to contend with capitalism, credit scores, minimum wages, underpaid work, and all the other onerous apparatus of the modern economic system. Of course, neither the excessively bad or the excessively good version is true, and usually reveals more about the point that the modern debate wants to make, rather than anything to do with history itself.

First, I would like to note that the whole "all non-king medieval people were peasants" stereotype likewise really grinds my gears, and it is often presented uncritically in claims of this type, clearly intended to draw a parallel between overworked medieval people and overworked modern people. Which is fine, but again, not entirely accurate. As should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds, medieval society consisted of all kinds of people and all kinds of occupations, both skilled and unskilled. Like, who do y'all think built the cathedrals? A bunch of random grain harvesters from nearby Podunkville? There were brute laborers who pushed wheelbarrows and hauled stones and etc, but there were also highly educated architects and engineers, who knew how to do things like make sure Durham Cathedral would minutely adjust over hundreds of years to the boggy ground it was built on, and not just fall down. There were master artisans, masons, glassworkers, sculptors, carpenters, etc etc. (See the creator of a recent "medieval" Netflix show claiming that medieval people had no use for art and me wanting to kick him like a football into the stratosphere). In towns, there were merchants, brewers, embroiderers, greengrocers, butchers, bakers, everything else you need to run a basic local economy. There were soldiers and mercenaries and other military occupations, which became increasingly professionalized throughout the medieval era and not just a matter of recruiting the local guys from down the road. There were priests and clerics and an extensive church bureaucracy. There were academics and professors and scholars and writers. Etc etc etc.

Anyway, the point is that when you're talking about medieval peasants, you're probably referring to the people who lived in largely rural or agrarian environments and made their living primarily from subsistence farming and animal husbandry for a landlord. Obviously, they did work hard in physically grueling occupations (though they were generally not malnourished and starving, as I have written about before, except in years of bad famine or crop failure, and then their wealthier employers would suffer too, because they all existed in the same material goods universe, whereas the rich and poor are millions of miles apart today). Their wages were often low, and even in the absolute worst of the Black Death’s first wave in 1349, King Edward III of England issued the Statute of Pleading that attempted to keep wages down and prevent peasants from negotiating for higher rates, even in the middle of a literal fucking apocalyptic plague and crushing labor shortage. (He was ultimately not successful). Widespread discontent with the exploitation of the peasantry, the crushing tax rates to fund pointless foreign wars, and other oh-hey-that-sounds-familiar problems led to the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, and the widespread popularity of the Lollards, a social and religious reform movement who criticised the static hierarchy and endemic inequality of medieval European society. So there were obviously some of the same problems as there are today, especially in regard to economic inequality and systemic oppression, and medieval peasants, far from being stupid sheep who just put their heads down and took it, were just as involved in trying to organise movements and protests to change it.

However, medieval peasants did not exist in global capitalism (obviously) and thus both their work and the reason for it was different. This was before the Protestant Ethic of the late 19th/early 20th century, that explicitly linked religious salvation with hard work in the capitalist system. Martin Luther bitched about indulgences so much because it was an accepted system to just pay the church something and be like "okay I'm good, I can kick back and not worry about it." (The medieval Catholic church had many, MANY problems, but the fact that Luther is so often presented as the "good guy" heroically saving these lazy dissolute people tells you all you need to know about how Protestant triumphalism informs Western historiography). In 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III had to issue an explicit degree to order people to go to church or take communion more than once a year, which he would not have had to do if they were all mindlessly devoted zealots who spent every waking moment there. Medieval people liked to sleep late and chill out on Sunday, just like modern people do now.

Obviously, religion was a more explicit and structured part of their lives than it generally is now, but sometimes the "medieval people worked less" argument is presented as the all-powerful and Machiavellian church craftily providing the people with a lot of public holidays so they didn't revolt against them. As noted, medieval people complained about and ignored and rebelled against the church anyway, and anyone who ever tells me that they were all uniform and brainwashed and always accepted the Catholic church's view on things needs to read one (1) book on the 13th century. Besides, the church just never had that level of total control over society anyway, and this presumes that everything they did was in deliberate bad faith solely to preserve their secular/social power -- which, while secular/social power was also often at stake, is likewise a wildly simplistic misreading of how things actually worked, and what the church actually wanted to do.

There were indeed a lot of public holidays, both religious (i.e. saints' days) and folk (Lammastide, the harvest, Celtic festivals, etc), where people weren't expected to work, and/or to go to church instead. As noted re: Pope Innocent and his struggles in this department, this was often not necessarily the case. There were also ordinary community holidays like house-raisings, weddings, christenings, Christmas, etc etc., where people could (and did) often have a good time for days. There were fairs, tournaments, carnivals, markets, and other opportunities for leisure or to attend entertainment events. So it certainly wasn't the case that peasants were always slaving away with no respite, and that if they weren't working, they were in church. They also didn't have to work for their entire lives; elderly peasants could retire and be supported on a portion of the overall estate yield, in medieval social security, and if this wasn't given to them, they could and did sue their landlords to get it. So yet again, medieval life was NOT just nothing but filth and misery and being worked until you dropped. People are people. They have lived as people in all ages and eras of the world. They have enjoyed themselves and worked and lived and died. We do need to examine the very real problems of the modern world, but I continue to hope, however vainly, that we don't need to keep relying on excessively distorted versions of the medieval world to do it.

[ridreamir]

Short Character Questionnaire-- "Feral AU" Ingo

I'm quite sleep deprived, so forgive me if you, a functional human being, read this and think "wow, this makes no sense to me. Yayay!" I did also steal the list of questions off the internet, so, well, here's where I got them from [https://www.novel-software.com/character-questionnaire/] Tumblr is also giving me a hard time about the formatting, so let's see how it looks once it's posted.

Do they have a catchphrase? "BrAvO!!" It scares away any Pokemon within a fifty-mile radius.

Are they more optimistic or pessimistic? A strange amalgam of "trying not to think at all", "head empty" and "Chaotically switching back and forth between optimism and pessimism in the dead of night".

Are they introverted or extroverted? Yes.

Do they ever put on airs? Scruffy feral man, put up the works? (I had to look it up but here's the definition I got off the net) "Behaving as if you're better than other people — wealthier, better dressed, or better educated — is to put on airs." He doesn't have to pretend, he just is better than everyone. Look at him.

What bad habits do they have? Ignoring authority figures, making impulse decisions, doing generally reckless and/or dangerous things for fun or for no reason other than wanting to (such as climbing trees and cliffs, he's gotten too used to having Sneasler be his safety net.)

What makes them laugh out loud? His obscure mental thoughts that occur at random times that don't actually make sense to him but for some reason greatly amuse him, and the village children when they play with him. Sometimes you might as well, doing whatever it is a once domesticated interdimensional traveler and his not yet that corrupted companion do together.

How do they display affection? Affection, desired but not initiated. Verbal praise and the giving of random scavenged items (or cool rocks) are his go-to methods, but if you dare to touch him he will windows error sound bass boosted.

Mental handicaps? Plenty. Has emotions, thoughts, opinions, and memories that aren't fully there or don't make complete sense to him. In his failure to cope he's become overly difficult to reach and he tends to ignore things that hurt his brain too much (memory or trauma triggers).

How do they want to be seen by others? Pleasant, proper, well-spoken and well mannered, someone trustworthy. Well adjusted and dependable, someone to look up to, and a good role model to the kids.

(News flash, he's all of those things and none of those things. It's... complicated.)

Had to stop here because the formatting kept breaking :| Not a good look Tumblr, not a good look at all.

[moral-turpitudes]

Deal with the Devil: Ch. 1

Trigger Warnings: Swearing, Mentions/Heavy Descriptions of Death, Murder, Gore, Blood, Guns, Knives, Fires, PTSD, Angst. All Explicit/18+ Content is indicated by (**).

Characters: Thomas Shelby x Isla Maxwell (OC)

Word Count: 2,142

Plot Summary: With nowhere to turn after the failed assassination of Oswald Mosely, Thomas Shelby accepts the help of a covert assassin with a knack for nabbing fascists.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | *7* | 8 | 9 | 10

“Authorities Puzzled as Third Man Goes Missing” read the headline of the local newspaper.

“In the span of one month, three men have gone missing from Birmingham and surrounding areas. They were last seen entering the a meeting for the fascist party. No suspects have been brought in, nor have any witnesses reported seeing suspicious activity around the building. Please use caution when going out, and report anything of concern.” The column read. The paper was wrinkled at the ends, the ink fading in spots where rain had fallen too hard. The pictures of the three missing men posted under it with stoic expressions on their faces.

Not many people cared as to why they were missing it seemed. The police’s lack of involvement and general chatter around town made clear of that. But the one thing everyone wanted to know was who caused their disappearance? considering they had the guts to take three men in broad daylight from a highly publicized event.

The news made Isla chuckle as she flipped through the paper, her eyes gazing lazily at the scene before her. Not many people knew her name, but the ones she caught were sometimes lucky enough to hear it before taking their final breath.

The three men from the photos sat before her tied to chairs, stripped from head to toe of all clothing. Weary looks graced their faces as their jaws slacked from the exhaustion of holding their ties in their mouths.

Isla’s heels clicked on the ground as she reluctantly got up from her desk. Looking at each of the men as their tired gazes followed her.

“So....You lot thought you could take me down aye?” She asked, lighting a cigarette as she leant against her desk. They hesitated before shaking their heads, fear evident in their eyes as she stalked closer.

“A little birdie told me you all were going to. All for your beloved Fascist party right?” She remarked, stomping her cigarette out on the groin of one of the men. His groans erupting from clenched teeth as she reached under her dress, the men watching nervously with their hands tied. She felt the cool handle of her knife hidden against her thigh as she lifted her foot off him.

“You should know better than to follow someone blindly, gentlemen. The sheep are often led to the slaughter.” She said, retrieving it and slitting the men’s throats with an easy flick of her wrist. A small smirk playing at her lips as their blood sprayed about. Their eyes fixed in a permanent state of shock as they fell limp before her.

Un-phased, she quickly wiped her hands of the blood and silently walked back to her desk to finish the letter she’d been writing only mere hours ago. The three faces on the newspaper staring at her as she swiftly moved her pen to sign one initial: “I.”

She kept most of her business to herself and her closest informants, only using the initial as her signature, along with the bloody thumbprints of her victims. Thinking it would give them a more “personal” touch.

As she pressed the third mans bloody thumb onto the bottom of the letter, she sighed, knowing she’d have to clean up her mess after sending it out.

The dimly lit room made her silhouette dance along the walls of her office. The flames from the candles flickering brightly as she counted down the minutes on the clock, waiting for her informant to arrive at midnight. It was always evident that she had a method to her madness, that was for sure. The people she employed knew that their fate was not only in her hands but in her wallet. They knew that if they failed, she failed. And if she failed...they might as well offer her their necks.

As the clock struck midnight, she heard the distinct knock on the door. The numerical tapping signaled that it was her informant, Jay, with cash from her latest job in tow. He quickly handed her the cash and she gave him a small smile before handing him the letter wrapped in a black envelope.

“Thank you. You know where to send this. Have it out by tomorrow morning.” She said, closing and locking the door behind her.

Jay swiftly headed down the dark hallway and out the door, the rain finally letting up as he made his way to his car. The destination was written on the envelope with gold ink, shining brightly as the street lights illuminated her thin handwriting.

As he headed to his destination, she began cleaning up the mess. The clothing the men wore hours ago reduced to ash in the fireplace.

With a loud huff, she stuffed their bodies into large flour sacks she’d taken from a certain “bakery” around town, known for its bread, pastries, and illegal business ventures.

Along with her interesting choice of connections, Isla always did her dirty work at night. Making it easier for her to evade capture. But one of the grimmest parts were disposing of the bodies, so she called in her other two informants to help with the task. Therefore, many nights were spent in her car under the guidance of the moon. Not many women drove around at night - let alone with men’s bodies in the backs of their cars - but she figured someone had to do it. And given the life she chose, it had to be done one way or another. After all, it was her best chance at keeping people off her trail.

As the tires skimmed along the damp roads, she saw the cemetery in the distance. Knowing this was the last stop for the month-long job.

Despite her small circle of connections, she had one outside person she could trust: the mortician. Along with his weekly salary, she paid him hush-money from her hits to incinerate the bodies of the men who crossed her. It was the easiest way for her to get rid of the evidence in her case, knowing authorities would have to spend days upon days trying to find any clues, especially in the ashes.

“Thank you again. I’ll let you know when I’ll be back.” She said, watching him throw the bodies into the flames with ease.

“And thank you for the money miss. It’s really helped me out.” The mortician said, fidgeting with his glasses.

“I’m glad. Keep up the good work.” She said, tipping her hat and walking quickly to her car.

When she arrived back home, the two other informants were finishing up scrubbing the floor. Making her finally realize that she too had blood on her. It was trapped in her hair, and splattered on her face in a morbid constellation. It was often on big hits like tonight, that she’d forget she was covered, becoming accustomed to the metallic smell and sticky feeling of it on her skin.

“We’ve finished boss. What’s the pay?” One of them asked, wiping their hands on a bloody towel before throwing it into the fireplace.

“No one gets paid until this job is completely done. Tomorrow morning Jay will be back, but until then you’ll have to wait.” She said sternly. They too only went by short, fake nicknames. Her head informant and messenger was Jay, while the other two went by Nick and John. This was done so that if they were captured and interrogated, none of them would know each others real names, making the trail leading to Isla herself all the more complicated.

As the months passed since she’d begun her work, families grew fond of her skills, and that was especially so for the wealthier ones in the community. They resorted to hiring her for protection from the men like the ones she killed, and she used that money to pay herself and her informants as they took on new jobs.

These men she targeted weren’t just any average trouble makers though. They had close ties to the emerging fascist party. A party that turned against some people and turned towards others. A party who brainwashed their followers with money and empty promises. And for her, it was a party that killed her family.

As she excused Nick and John, she locked the door behind her once again, heading off to her bedroom that was adjacent to her office. She was never one for extremely lavish houses. Preferring less stuff around just in case she had to leave town abruptly. Despite this, amongst her tough outer shell, she was still wounded on the inside as the memories of her family plagued her mind.

An old picture hung on the corner of her bedroom mirror. It was a family picture of her mother, father, little brother, and her all sitting by the big oak tree a few miles out. It was the one thing she was able to save before the flames spread around her. The old rafters of her house coming down as she lay there in fear. Her mother’s screams echoing in her ears as she tried to protect her son from the flames. Her father somehow running through the fire and picking her up, ushering her out the door before collapsing from the smoke. The flames engulfing the small wooden house in minutes.

She remembered hearing her neighbors rushing out from nearby to help as she grabbed her arm without registering the pain. She had been in shock for most of the ordeal, knowing that even the physical pain she was in couldn’t top the pain she felt seeing her family perish before her eyes. She was only 20 at the time, and she had no family to go back to.

Fortunately, she worked her way up after her recovery. Living in abandoned houses and singing in the streets for money. She even ran into a friend of her fathers by mere luck, who took her in and told her the truth. He’d said that her father had gotten in the way of a deal between some of the early fascist party members, trying to stop them from antagonizing some of the families in the area, which they didn’t appreciate. In turn, they punished him by punishing his whole family, not knowing they’d left her behind.

As Isla stared at her now 30 year old reflection in the mirror, she let a tear slip as she brushed her hand over the scar on her arm. Hearing her mother’s voice telling her, “You have to take what you want in life my love, because the only thing we’re guaranteed to get in this life is death.”

She shivered at the memory every day, but heeded her mother’s advice nonetheless. She gathered information and took lives, but it wasn’t easy.

Over the years since the fire, she learned to fight from her dads friend, and learned to shoot as well. Eventually earning some good money from hunting for families near them. When she got tired of shooting birds though, she upgraded to humans, often joining hit men on their travels to gain experience and information. Seduction was also a facet of her plan, but she eventually made enough to end that part. Earning enough to buy the quaint apartment that she stood in now, alone with tear filled eyes as the water in the sink ran red from the blood being washed away.

Though through all the pain and training, she managed to gather a plethora of information over time. Leading her to finding the whereabouts of some of the fascist party members. For the last two years she’d been scoping out their meetings, taking note of the problematic ones and bribing vulnerable party followers with hush-money for more information. Slowly taking their power away from them one by one as she built up her empire.

But when news of the recent rallies came to light, she knew she had to lay low and act fast. Knowing other powerful people had an eye on her throne while the party gained traction at an alarming rate. It was during this time that Jay snuck into one of the rallies, overhearing the three men they’d captured, talking about the big meeting to come with a certain Oswald Mosley. And since his life depended on it, he reported it to her. Knowing he’d be paid a decent amount for the information.

Mosley’s life was the one thing that she genuinely wanted to take, given what happened to her family. And by taking out the leader, she hoped to take down the whole system before they hurt more people. She promised herself that she’d stop at nothing to take down the man who started the fire. But she’d have to make a deal with the devil himself in order to do so, and that devil was a man named Thomas Shelby.

[zenosanalytic]

Good and Ridiculous

I’m not a great aficionado of Emma adaptations(aside from Clueless, of course uvu), I’ve always been more of a Pride&Prejudice viper myself uwu uwu, but Emma(2020) by Autumn de Wilde is really Very Good. My immediately impressions:

A good tagline to this would be “everybody thinks they know what they’re doing, and everybody’s wrong” u_u

shrinking and removing the written age gaps was a Very Good Idea, though there is ONE SCENE, where Elton snubs Harriet by dodging a dance with her via the excuse that he is “an old married man”(while being both young and only recently married), where having Knightley be a much older man(and a “confirmed bachelor” at that, long publicly disinterested in courting and marriage) absolutely adds to the scene, as having a genuinely older man publicly asking her after such a slight not only shows his compassion but also acts as an absolutely ruthless, and again Very Public, incineration of Elton(you are a MAN of the CLOTH for heaven’s sake!).

This version of Emma is a VERY rare example of a movie which presents marriage NOT as a breaking of families, but as a realization and binding together and growing of both families and communities. Admittedly that’s already there in Emma itself(every step in Emma’s path to marrying Knightley is her realizing and then abandoning the folly of her arrogance&condescension, then to truly value, and so reinforce, her connections to others), but de Wilde does an Excellent job of foregrounding that in this adaptation, espcl with the comic-lovablness of Emma’s father(played wonderfully by Bill Nighy here) and with her friendship with Harriet, and with a real&sensitive subtlety as well.

to wit: the treatment of his(and his oldest daughter, Isabelle’s) fear of illness. This is played to (sometimes brutal)hilarity throughout... and then the out-of-hand drop that Emma’s mother died of a sudden illness. The comedicness is never sacrificed and yet the realness and continuing presence and depth of that pain and fear is not only conveyed, but looking back you see it in what of the film you’ve already watched, and it explains all of it so heartbreakingly. And to then build off of that by showing -purely through Nighy’s physical acting- how Emma’s marriage is reworked to care for that pain(again, building on the theme, to strengthen her connections rather than sever them) is just really done so movingly.

Another good tagline for this movie: “Everyone is both Good and Ridiculous” u_u

And speaking of Nighy, there’s this exQUISITE look of surprise/dismay/disgust he gives a painting while touring Knightly’s house that had me in stitches. I had to stop the movie, rewind, and watch it again four times. I Loved It, Entirely u-u u-u u-u

Obvsl this is a comedy, and Obvsl it’s focused on the lives of the landed and monied aristocracy(mostly petit, though Emma&her father seem to be big fish in their little pond), but Austen was an astute observer of class in her day(if primarily focused on class-precarity WITHIN the gentry), and de Wilde does a good job of emphasizing this without straying from the source-material or breaking the setting? I mean: it’s certainly not a focus of the story, but that aspect is sort of implicitly conveyed by the filmmaking?? Idk; I was impressed by it but can’t really put it into detailed words, I need to think on it, probably read on it, and very likely watch it again.

speaking of the fish metaphor, de Wilde does an EXCELLENT job of using the Jane Fairfax:Emma Woodhouse::Frank Churchill:Mr. Knightley dyads to examine these issues. Obvsl, to point out Emma’s LACK of the refinement and society she aspires to(pointedly in the body of a fortuneless orphan who, by pure misadventure, just happened to grow up in London where she can be educated to the level Emma, as a provincial[albeit only a mere 16 miles from town] never could), but also, I would say, through Frank and Knightley. Frank isn’t treated unsympathetically as a cad here; the performance is certainly caddish, but there’s a(again X|) subtle sense of his rakish behavior being a ruse to divert attention from himself, Jane Fairfax, and their connection. One could surmise that, having spent so many years in London, he’s aware that ppl are always watching, and talking, and how easily information can get back to ppl who might hurt him with it(namely, his aunt who wants to use him to climb higher through an even wealthier marriage). Knightley, in contrast, is blunt and earnest because he can AFFORD to be; his fortune is secure in Himself, the Land he owns, and its productivity. Likewise, he can AFFORD to interact with his tenants, in a way someone like Emma or Frank is too concerned to do, because that interaction is economic for him and thus not only expected but praised in a landlord. OK the more I think abt this the more stuff I come up with, so I’ll stop there and with the observation that, really, it’s not a dyad but a triad with Harriet&Mr. Martin thrown in to each grouping(and also that Knightley and Emma are likewise examinations/critiques of each other).

This is a Very Funny movie.

This is a Very Painful to Watch movie, if you strongly feel second hand embarrassment.

Mr. Elton is the WORST.

Mrs. Elton is the WORST(until she’s not, and you realize Emma’s just kind of a snob).

Emma just straight-up disemboweled Miss Bates. That was VICIOUS. Like, seriously, the filmmaking around that scene really emphasized the cruelty of her comment, espcl in that context, it was So Excellent uwu

Ok, I understand now how ballroom dancing was, at one time, Very Horny(again: very good filmmaking: I’ll leave it at that u_u u_u)

Also very good casting&directing. Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma obvsl just grabs the camera in every scene she’s in, effortlessly, like she’s the Flipping Sun and it’s a sunflower, but everyone here is knocking it out of the park, constantly.

MIRANDA HART! Miranda Hart as Miss Bates is a Fucking Revelation >:| >:|

Emma/Harriet is Real u_u u_u so, So, SO Real u_u u_u u_u

Honestly I want a Queer reimagining/rewriting of this story Very Much u_u u_u

Emma’s a Rose u_u

ok Im gonna stop there

[maggicsorceress]

So, I have something a little different here from the normal fanfic stuff I post. Instead, this is just a little snippet from an original piece of writing I’ve been working (and re-working tbh) on for a little over a year now, and I thought I’d share it! Just for the hell of it, and so you lovely people that decided to follow me have something to read on this unscheduled hiatus of mine thank you college

Few trigger warnings before we start? Blood and death, basically battlefield imagery.

Anyway, I hope you all like it!

—

There were a lot of things that could’ve gone better, Anise thought.

There were a lot of things that had gone wrong, plans that had backfired and ideas that had slipped the mind, and she wondered if the end result would have been a better one if she had only paid more attention. Another part of her doubted it would have made any difference.

She’d been out here for a week, a mere week, one that passed like hours as she slept only every second night, eyes glued to the murky horizon as she waited, as they waited, for the sound of footfalls, the rattling of armour, to grow closer and closer. For an army to appear before them. For the enemy to finally arrive.

They hadn’t been expecting to be caught off guard, not when they were being so vigilant. Their foes arrived quickly, struck brutally, and in the chaos of it all Anise was separated from the rest of her squadron, and the only thing she could afford to concern her brain with was staying alive.

And she had.

There was nowhere else that Anise felt more alive than when she was a moment away from death. She craved the adrenaline rush, the ring of metal in her ears and the coolness of sweat on her brow. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating, and though she’d never seek it out, she welcomed battle like an old friend.

Now though, taking harsh breaths of cold autumn air, her sword hanging heavy in her hand as she scanned the land around her, she felt no adrenaline nor excitement. The plain was littered with bodies, crumpled and pressed heavy into the ground from the weight of their armour. The stench of them was all Anise could smell, the scents of earth and mud concealed under the overpowering copper and shit. She stabbed the end of her sword into the ground and rested her weight on it, eyes darting across the battlefield, from person to person. Only about fifteen of the soldiers she had arrived with were standing, staggering around heaps of fallen flesh. Her heart gave a pang when she noticed that her captain was not among those fifteen and, wanting to give him a proper send-off, Anise began scouring the field for him.

This was something she always hated, the silence and mourning that befell after the fight, the solemness in the air, the way no one made eye contact, and instead of words only comforting pats on the shoulder were exchanged.

Anise looked upon the smouldering city that sat quietly to her east and wondered if there was even a point to them all being there, some fallen and some on shaking legs, if Mal’mia’s troops had found their way into Inshalle regardless. She hoped, futilely, that the people of the city were okay. Judging from the smoke, the fires appeared to be mostly out. Behind her, someone was yelling, long and loud, laced with frustration and grief.

She looked over her shoulder at the culprit, at the young man gripping himself so hard it seemed like he might burst. His heavy armour, the plating of which had been shiny and new when they set out, was dull and smattered with blood, and the pale blonde hair she remembered being fluffy was stuck to his forehead with sweat. Even without the crown on his head, the torn cape hanging from his shoulders was adorned with the royal crest and the way he carried himself, through his emotions, made it plainly obvious that he was the prince. She came here with him. His name, if she remembered correctly, was Layne.

“Your Highness…” One of her fellow soldiers began. She turned her attention off of the prince and back to looking for her captain.

“This is all my fault.” Layne lamented. “I should have seen this coming.”

Walking slowly through the mud and blood and feces, Anise kept her sword drawn, on edge even though the corpses around her never so much as twitched. She understood where Layne was coming from, but realistically she knew there was nothing they could’ve done in their situation. There was no reason to blame themselves. They were told to meet the army head-on, in hopes of taking all of the enemies out before they could reach the city. They fulfilled half of that duty, and Anise wondered if there were enough soldiers left in Inshalle to defend its citizens. Stumbling momentarily over one of the crumpled bodies, Anise huffed and turned her gaze to the ground.

She had found her captain.

Alexis lay across the cold ground, splayed awkwardly, ridged limbs bent at odd angles and brown eyes blown wide, glazed over and unseeing. Blood had long since stopped trickling from his parted lips and now sat in crusted tracks down his chin and over his bottom lip. His neck was split open, the blood pooling around him still warm and glistening. Anise removed her helmet from her head, shaking out her hair and running a gloved hand through it, soothing the residual ache left behind by the metal casing. She lowered herself to her knees, uncaring of the mud and blood covering the ground, and set down her helmet, removing her gloves one at a time. Reaching out with a bared hand, skin tanned and scarred and worn, Anise gently placed the pads of her fingers on Alexis’ eyelids, guiding them closed in one smooth movement. She brought her hand back to her chest and mimed a small ‘x’ across her chest plate, over her heart.

“Are you alright?” A voice asked above her.

Anise looked up into concerned green eyes, at the young man stood before her, his hand clasped around a bow. She frowned, shrugging, and clambered back to her feet.

“I’m fine.” She said.

“Layne asked me to gather everyone for him.” The young man said. “He wants to meet with everyone before we head back. My name’s Farran, by the way.”

“Anise.” Anise replied curtly. “Are we meeting by the river?”

Farran nodded. “I’ll meet you and everyone else there, I have to go get the others.”

He darted away and Anise watched him go for a moment, eyeing the way his long brown hair drifted behind him, multiple strands having come loose from the band that held them in place between his shoulder blades. She tugged on a strand of her own hair, short and sloppily cut, before turning on a heel and heading towards the river.

The Dribbin River ran through the majority of the land, reaching from Inshalle in the far north all the way to Emond in the south. It branched off in multiple locations, providing towns like her own with clean water and occasionally salmon. Not that she could ever fish, she couldn’t sit still for long enough, but it was a staple thing in her life. Bread and fish, unlike the wealthier eating of the kingdom capital. It was strange to think that she now sat by the same river she often sat by near her home, and yet her own bed was miles away, and it was likely she wouldn’t be seeing those familiar streets anytime soon.

[punk-chicken-radio]

Future Forecasts.....

.....this playlist started from me hearing a Prince song from over 30 years ago and thinking how the lyrics still seemed current, like it was some kind of prediction......and back in the 80s there were all kinds of predictions for the 2000s.....all I want to know is where is the flying car and robot slave that you promised me you lying bastards.....

.....I said flying not swimming 🙄.....So anyways, I started thinking about all the predictions about the future, and all the things that we’re told that we need to do to get to a better future.....and the only thing I can say with any certainty is that the people making all the plans for us seem to be getting wealthier whilst everyone else runs round in circles.....so don’t believe the hype.....

........recently I was told that eating avocados flown in from Mexico would be better for the environment than eating free range beef from a farm 10 miles down the road.....now I don’t eat a lot of meat but I’m calling bs on that carbon footprint math.....probably better for the cow though.....anyways, most of these new lifestyle changes are being pushed by large corporations that are purely in it for how much cash they can suck out of us.....so basically.....

.....so here we go.....a bunch of songs about the future.....or possible future 😬

Killer Robot Kisses 😘

love(hahaha that’s you)axiomatic

The Old (and don’t you forget it) Smelly 

[imagining-sio]

Adventure Awaits I

Medieval!Bucky AU

A/N: loved this movie as a kid among many others and I kinda wanna do my own version of it, hope you like it! 

Chapter i

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

The gulls cruise over the shoreline, the thermal wind lifting them up with grace and fluidity. The tides themselves crash upon the wet sand with a rhythmic sound, a beat that, if standing upon the right cliff-face, it stems for miles. The very same winds that drive the gulls upward hit the cliff-face with the force of a stampede, and can knock one off its balance if not careful. Most stay clear from the edge, as the rocks are known to crumble at the faintest step. 

Though, there is one who run toward the danger, or worse yet, dance upon it’s edge.  It would be heresy for one to do it routinely. Such as it is today, a heretic to the sensible, responsible, and reasonable; in other, more plain words, an adventurous teenager. 

With her sword and shield in either hand she slashes at her imaginary foes. Her grace and stamina are matched to few, more so that there are none left on this field but her and her horse who is grazing a few feet away, completely oblivious to this imaginary war. The female, ducks down to block a fictional wave of arrows, lifting the circular shield over her head. Her sword wushes in the blustering wind, her grip firm or else the metal knightly sword would fly from grip, as it had when she was a naive beginner with the weapon. 

The Knightly sword itself looks out of place in her hand. It looks like a far wealthier object than the stature she would come from. Her clothing is muddy and worn, showing much use over the years. A stark contrast from the intricacy of the shield and the weapon that lie in her firm grip. The shield is of the same make, it’s light blue inlay of the circular design show a royal craftsmanship. 

“King stark! Behind you!” The female, Y/n, shouts at her to the imaginary ally, protecting him from the even more imaginary and faceless foe. The great ruler of the Kingdom, in reality resides in his great towered castle, which itself sits firmly set in stone in the great Capitol. Y/n smites the fell creature with three staggering blows, finally finishing it off by stabbing the Knightly sword into the grassy knoll of earth. 

There was a quick surrender of the foul troops, and they dissipated into the winds, like a wave of ashes, stemming her back to reality. The thrumming of hooves draws her out of her battle, and back to the land of Midgard. Her black horse lifts her head, the noise finally drawing her attention. Y/n readies herself for her approaching enemy, the sweat pouring from her brow. Her stance lowers, her shield in front of her, enough for her to see over it and sword pointing to the approaching figure. 

“Y/n!” the shout makes her instantly relax, the sword practically plummeting to the ground again, while still in her grip. As she stands, the figure is finally spotted riding her speckled work horse over the beach grass covered hills of the cliff-face. The winds whisk her bright cherry red hair, and the flaps of the apron she wears as she rides side saddle. The young woman hops off the horse with the grace of a dancer, her hand coming to tuck her hair behind her ear. 

“You mother is looking for you!” The redhead shouts over the winds, in case she cannot be heard from that distance. Y/n rolls her eyes so hard her head begins to follow. She tucks the shield over her back, trudging to the black horse that has lazily resumed her grazing. 

“Of course she is!” Y/n grabbed the leather sheath for the sword itself, and tucked it away within it. Grabbing the saddle, Y/n hauled herself up to horseback, her feet easily finding the stirrups. Her horse raises its head in attention, and trots over to the redhead and her speckled horse. 

“You know that you should be out here. Be lucky I found you before she did.” The redhead mounted her horse once more, riding side saddle as to protect her skirt and apron. The two girls stared at each other, only to begin laughing seconds later. 

“You should’ve joined me. You would have made good practice.” Y/n giggles as the two trot their way back to their village. The gusting winds soon become a lulling breeze, one completely harmless, as it barely manages to move the braches of the wheat grass starts to overtake that of the beach grass on the cliff-face. 

“Oh yes, because we have enough swords and shield for one single person in the village and you keep stealing them.” The redhead, Natasha as she was known, scoffed, throwing her head back in laughter. 

“I could still teach you!” Y/n rebutted defiantly. 

“You forget I am better with a stick that I am a sword.” Natasha eyed her, a knowing smirk grew across her face. The two rode from grassy undergrowth to a paved stone road, a showcase that civilization drew near. Soon, you could hear the hustle and bustle of the small village. Small plumes of make were starting to come into view, as did the thatch made roofs atop the stone houses that slowly and surely became more and more closer in proximity. Soon the market came into view, and People were running about for setting up decorations, as they did every year around this time. 

The end of summer brought the celebration of the foundation of the Midgardian alliance, when the multiple city states finally sanctioned itself as a single country when it came under attack from foreigners of a dark and mysterious country merely twenty-two years prior. For the founding of the kingdom, they appointed their catalyst for their alliance, as he risked life and limb for the people of Midgard to be protected. The great King Stark then appointed a host of knights to join him in the Capitol as not only representatives of the city states, but to be his advisors and his men at arms. The Iron Knights as they are known throughout Midgard, the fiercest warriors of the kingdom. 

Y/n’s own father was a great warrior, and the leader of the Iron Knights. As leader, he was practically the King’s right hand, hence the reason for the intricacy of the shield and sword Y/n covets so precious to her. 

“You seem to be making progress on your wild goose chase.” Natasha stated, hopping off her horse, tying the bridle to the horse post beside Y/n.

“Very funny,” Y/n gave a empty glare. With their horses tied up accordingly, they set out into the village center, where the decorations were being tied up. 

“Are you still on the hunt for your bird brain?” Y/n shot a knowingly look toward the red head, her smile only growing wider as Natasha’s cheeks were beginning to become as red as her locks. 

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” she muttered, shoving the woman lightly, enough to move her a step to the side as she laughed. 

“Hello, Y/n, hello Natasha!” the villagers greeted the two women as they passed. the two women would respond accordingly, as the custom in the village. Everyone knew everyone here, and they most likely watched the younger generation grow up to their current age. 

“Y/n you mother’s been looking for you. What did you do this time?” 

“Nothing much, I’m sure.” the woman grinned. 

“Y/n you know better than to run off like that! You mother has been worried sick!”

“I didn’t go far.”

“Y/n L/n!” her mother’s voice pierced the air. The young women easily spotted the elder woman, and angry expression on her face as she stormed toward the two who sat on horseback.

“How many times have I told you, don’t run off like that!” she pulled the young woman by the sleeve toward their home. 

“Thank you for finding her Natasha, Clint has been looking for your help in the bakery.” she quickly diffused any attempt of help from the red head by merely mentioning the boy’s name. Y/n watched in horror as her friend ran off in the direction of the bakery, where her little bird was working. The remainder of the walk to the house was silent, Y/n’s guilt mounting with every step. 

With the slam of the wooden door, Y/n could feel the eyes of her mother glare towards the back of her head. 

“Y/n, I understand you miss father greatly. But this running off has got to stop. I don’t need to worry about the village and you running around somewhere. Souls forbid, the cliffs.” Her mother ran a hand over her face, the exhaustion prevalent in her tone.

“How am I supposed to be a good knight if I can’t go anywhere!” Y/n protested. 

“Knights don’t go running off into battle or for seeking adventure! Your father never ran into a fight, he only fought to protect us. Y/n Knights protect their people, more so, Ladies don’t become knights! So please, stop this impossible dream!”

“What if I don’t want to be a lady? I want to be a knight! And if I can’t do that than what am I?” Y/n flung her arms in frustration, the palpable silence the fell over the house was enough to hear a pin drop. 

“Y/n, you will always be my daughter, no matter what life you choose.” Her mother sighed, bringing her child into an embrace, only pulling away to placer her within arms’ reach. 

“I know how much you want this, no matter how hard I try to understand it. But you need to know there are other aspects to being a knight than fighting. Your father was an example of what a knight is supposed to be. He protects his people, he supports his people, as if they were his own family. The village is our family, Y/n, and we as the lairds of the land, must protect them should they need it. They’re other ways to protect people, please, let me teach you.”

Y/n’s lips formed a tight line, her brow furrowing. A sigh fell through her nostrils, her shoulders sagging at the weight of her decision. 

“Okay.” She nodded her head weakly. 

A great sigh passed through her mother’s lips. The elder woman happily embracing the younger with renewed vigor. 

“Oh, thank you, Y/n. I need you to get ready for the festival tonight. Wear your Sunday best! The clothes are in your bedroom. For now, I need to help Mrs. Atkins, I’ll be back before evening.”

“If only you were here papa, maybe you could try to help me get to the Capitol for training, like you always promised.” 

  ———————————————————————————————————— 

The night had proved good reason for the decorations, the whole village was in attendance. The people were alight with joy, sharing drinks and food with one another. Y/n’s mother was conversing with the successful owners of the village, as she was making her rounds with her constiuents. Y/n stood in full sunday best, her long dress in a pristine white cream color, the thick fabric concealing the fact that she still wore similar clothing that she wore earlier that day, only this pair was much cleaner. 

“And how are we this evening,” Clint, the son of the local baker approached her.

“Well, Barton, though I am surprised that our mutual friend is not beside you.” 

“I was wondering the same thing.” He mulled over his drink, taking a sip before speaking again; “I was wondering if you had seen her yet?”

Y/n’s head tilted to the side, her brow furrowing. It was not unlike Natasha to not show up somewhere. More so when it involved Clint. She always showed up at the agreed upon time, if she didn’t there was something wrong. 

“I haven’t Clint.”

“Then we are in agreement.” he set his mug down upon the table Y/n sat. Y/n herself stood up, walking with her friend to find the missing redhead. 

“Mother have you seen Natasha?” our protagonist asked her mother. The elder woman, shook her head, her brow also furrowing, having so much experience with the young girl and her habits. 

“I have not, when was she last seen?” she asked her fellow townleaders. 

“Last I saw she was over by the entrace facing the sea.” one member spoke. 

“I thought she was over by the barn?” Another chorused. 

“Alright, Y/n, you go to the sea road; clint and I will check the barn; you two go see if she is anywhere in the fields. Come back in ten minutes, here.” Her mother spoke with a level headedness that helped quell the young baker’s nerves. 

Y/n hiked up the road toward the sea for a solid five minutes, the dress was definitely a hindrance on her progress. 

“Tahsa!” she shouted as she struggled not to trip over her feet. Y/n cursed the dress under her breath as she nearly fell to the road for the umpteenth time. 

A rustling in the bushes caused the young woman’s body to shoot upward. The darkening raod made it as if everything moved, that anything had a face to it, this was nothing like her imaginary foes from earlier that day. Of course, that was in the afternoon sun, this was in the covent of night, where the imagination may come back to haunt you. 

“Natasha?” Y/n leaned toward the noise, which led to the cliff where she was that afternoon. A low drumming sound began to thrum through the air. Y/n, following the noise, quelled the uneaase in her stomach, nor did she care that the hem of her dress was bound to turn brown from the sand and dirt. 

A shirll cry stuck the air as thunder from behind. Y/n whirled around in time to spot the flying figure. It was much larger than a bird, and was far to fast to be a seagull. Y/n was able to duck from the creature in time, with enough room to remain undetected as it descended down the cliff-face. Our protagonist followed the beast until she reached the cliff’s edge, to be met with a horrible sight. 

Ships were beginning to dock upon the beach, with mass amounts of troops debarkig upon the same sands that she often rode upon her horse. Shouts and orders were being barked around as supplies were also being dumped as for the troops. The large beast that almost hit Y/n landed next to a figure whom stood directly beneath her. The large looming figure stood surveying his infantry, not even giving the flying beast the time of day. 

“Do you have it?” he asked, his gravelly voice was enough to send chills up Y/n’s spine. 

“N-no master.” The beast, whom now could apprently talk, spoke with a serpentine cadence, it’s head ducking low. 

The figure backhanded the creature without a second thought. 

“You were to steal the Iron sword. How hard could that have possibly been you imbocile!” the man boomed, his rage boiling over. 

“They will never find it, master.” the creature defended.

“Oh, do explain, while you still breathe.”

“It fell in the Darkened Wood. No one dares go in there.”

Y/n processed the information with fever pitch. The Iron sword of the King had not only been stolen, but lost in the Darkened Wood. The sword itself was forged by the king, and it is said to have fabled abilities. Without it, the Midgardian would have never won their independence. The king has never parted with it, and it is said that without it he would perish. The king himself could very well be dead as we speak, and without this fabled sword, there is no hope of victory. 

Invaders now line the beaches of her home, and without the fabled sword of the king, no one would be able to mass the amount of hope needed to defend themselves. 

The Darkened Wood was what stood in the way for these people. It stood directly in the way for the path to the capitol, the road around it would take another week to get to the capitol, which was why it was presumably more used than the overgrown and dangerous road that ended within the confines of the Darkened Wood. The Sword lay within the confines of that forrest. That certainly narrowed down the playing field. 

A faint touch upon her shoulder sent Y/n to jump out of her skin. A hand clasped over her mouth, silencing her from any noise she would have presumably made. Natasha held a finger to her mouth as to continue the silence, the same finger then pointing doward as to reference to the figures beneath them. The redhead tugged on Y/n’s arm, carefully guiding her to her feet. The two women crept backwards until they were at a safe distance, to which they turned and ran at full sprint. 

Y/n’s dress tore as it came in contact with a thron bush, the ripping sound emanating throughout the fields. The two didn’t stop to think if it was heard or not, they simply kept running back into town. 

As soon as the town came into view, they began shouting with great frivor. Their sout drew the attention of the entire town. Soon Y/n’s mother, and even Clint came to meet them. 

“What’s happened?” Y/n’s mother noted her daughter’s dress and it’s dissaray. Clint rushed to Natasha, whom was in a worse condition. He quickly snatched a strewn tablecloth, draping it over the red head with great care. 

“Ivaders, they arrived on the shore, they’ll be here shortly.” Natasha spoke between pants. 

“Y/n?” Her mother probed for an answer. The young girl nodded her head. 

“We need to get word to the Capitol, Mrs Atkins! Get my husband’s sword and shield!” her mother began to order towspeople to bring up barricades. The tailor, Mr Hilberg, handed Natasha an overcoat in place of her tablecloth. 

“What do you need me to do?” Y/n asked her mother. 

“No, I have something more important for the three of you. Clint go get their horses. Hurry!”

“Torches up ahead!” a man shouted from atop the roof.

Mrs Atkins returned with the sword and shield, handing it off to Y/n mother, who promptly handed the items to her daughter. Clint had arrived back with tow horses, his own, and Y/n’s, whose was the fastest in the village, but not necessarily the fastest on earth, it was a slim margin. Clint was already armed with a bow and quiver, as he was a prolific hunter in the village. 

“I need you three to get word to the capitol as soon as possible, the sooner the king knows, the better the chance we have. Do you understand?” 

“We do.” Clint set Natasha atop his horse, a large belgium workhorse big enough to fit the both of them. He then mounted, making sure Natasha was situated comfortably in front of him, despite the bright red tint on both teenagers’ cheeks. Y/n mounted her horse, looking to her mother, grasping her hand, at silent sense of peace in the midst of the fray. 

“Go, hurry!” her mother slapped the bottom of Y/n’s horse, sending it into a gallop out of the town. Clint was quick to follow, the horse easily catching up to Y/n as they headed toward the Capitol as fast as possible. The three dared not look back, in case if anyone actually had seen them escape. 

It wasn’t unitl daybreak that they had slowed down. The long grassy knolls were soon replaced with large evergreens of vibrant color. Birds sang throughout the woodland, to the point it was tough to say what bird was singing due to the amount of overlay. 

Soon a giant fork in the road appeared. the one on the left retained its bright cheery image, it’s sign was well kept, and was inscribed with a newly painted ‘Captiol’. The other, which pointed to the opposite direction, was unkempt, and riddle with dark thorney vines. As Clint and Natasha rode forward upon the well worn road to the capitol, Y/n remained at the fork, mulling over a great decision. 

“Y/N?” Clint asked puzzled, turning his horse with the bridle. 

“The Iron Sword is somewhere in the Darkened Wood. The Ivaders are after it.”

“Y/n I don’t like where this is going.” Clint said with a warning tone. 

“You shouldn’t.” Natasha voiced for the first time since they had been dispatched. 

“They will most likely be after it just as much as they want to invade the Capitol. You go, I’ll go this way.” Y/n dismounted her horse, offering her to Clint and Natasha. 

“You know no one comes out of their, right.”

“What choice do we have?” Y/n ripped her dress apart, revealing her clothing that she held under it. She attatched the sword to her belt, and placed the circular shield upon her back. Natasha disounted from Clint in order to mount Y/n’s horse. Before she did, she pulled Y/n into a warm embrace, one filled with a layer on morbid sadness. 

“Be safe.”

“You too,” 

A loud shout drew the three from the tender moment. The three turned toward the direction of the shout, which was the exact direction they had spent all night and morning running from. 

“Go!” Y/n urged the two, watching them gallop away upon the safe road toward the capitol. Gathering the remnants of her dress, she hoped to buy her friends a few moments of time, by trailing the torn fabric behind her toward the more dangerous road. Y/n turned toward the road she had travelled, the sound of running footsteps growing louder, before finally turning toward the unkempt road filled with thorns and fog, running full speed into the Darkened Wood. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you enjoyed it, message me if you want to be tagged!!! 

[hollenius]

I'm so so sorry but I have to: Werner for the character meme (and/or Chuck McGill, if you can't think of anything!)

What the hell, I'm gonna do Werner AND Chuck

Werner

Fav thingabout him: He is so sweet; if I had a German uncle or grandpa or something, I'dwant him to be mine. He obviously takes his work very seriously too. He(initially) seems like a very cautious, careful sort of guy...unfortunatelythis attitude does not extend to all aspects of his life.

Least favthing: He's too sweet, dammit. His naivete and trusting nature made megenuinely angry, because I couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid aboutanything when he seemed fairly smart about everything else. I don't think youhave to be "street-smart" to understand that breaking out of an enclosedcompound without permission isn't the sort of thing you'd be allowed to getaway with. I was annoyed at how he felt like a plot device at the endthere--that he just existed to force Mike to have to kill him. It's a fault ofthe writing more than the character. Everyone could see the end coming from amile away, which is (as far as I can remember) unprecedented in the series.Even things that were heavily telegraphed and seemed obvious usually carriedsome sort of unforeseen twist, i.e. everyone thinking the lantern was going tobe involved in Chuck's death, but not knowing it was going to be a suicide. Thesecond they showed Mike building up a relationship with Werner, everyone knewexactly where it was headed. Also, this is a weird pet peeve, but I hate how healways called Mike "Michael". Bro, you've been working with him formonths, you are the only one who calls him that.

Fav line:(agh, unfortunately I can't recall any because I don't have any way ofrewatching season 4 at the moment. I love that he was courteous enough totranslate into English that he felt like he was going to throw up in the bumpyvan ride.)

brOTP: Him& Mike as cute old man drinking buddies.

OTP: Werner& his unseen wife, I guess. (That phone call before his death was so sad. I hope nothing happens to her, but this is the Breaking Bad Cinematic Universe, so bad things often happen to innocent people.)

nOTP: idk,Werner/Kai? I haven't really seen him shipped with anybody so I can't say Ihave any strong opinions on the matter.

randomheadcanon: (again, I need to rewatch all of season 4, because I remember thestory arcs, but not enough of the little details in dialogue and stuff.)

unpopularopinion: I have to admit, I don't know enough of what the popular opinions onWerner are to know what an unpopular opinion would be. I liked him, I just wishhis character arc felt less contrived and that he was treated like less of adevice. I also have seen some people in some places comparing him to Walt,which doesn't really make sense to me, because personality-wise they're justtoo far removed from each other. (Then again, people were even comparing dopeyPryce to Walter White, which was also a stretch!)

song Iassociate w/ him: I...I have no idea! Sorry. (So long, farewell, aufwiedersehen, goodbye?)

fav picture: the cute little drawings @callmcgills did of him! (Also, ugh, the shot where he is, uh, shot...is beautiful. Depressing, but cinematically beautiful. I’m not posting that here though.)

 Chuck

Fav thingabout him: Honestly, as a fellow cowardly, anxiety-ridden, socially maladroit, perfectionistolder child, aspects of him are extremely relatable, frightening as that may beto admit. (My younger brother is of the slacker/moocher variety, rather thanthe con man variety, though.) I don't agree with everything he does, but I understandwhy he does it. (This is actually pretty similar to my attitude towardsSkyler's actions in Breaking Bad--I don't necessarily agree with her decisions,but I mostly understand why she acts the way she does.)

Least favthing: I think he should've been willing to at least put Jimmy on some sort ofprobationary path to HHM after he landed Sandpiper. HHM was under no obligationto hire Jimmy after he passed the bar (a lot of fandom seems to feel otherwise,which makes no sense! I don't think any other firm would've wanted to hireJimmy either!) Jimmy probably would've still managed to screw something up, butat least then if Chuck wanted to officially bar him from working for HHM forgood, Jimmy would know why, and what it was that he had done to cause that. Itdoes no good to punish someone if he doesn't even understand he's beingpunished, which is what the whole issue is in the first place with Chuck goingbehind Jimmy's back and using Howard as the perpetual bearer of bad news.

Fav line:"Because if there's one thing kids love, it's local printjournalism."

brOTP: lmao Chuck is bros with nobody except his space blanket, and his ol'sipping-scotch-and-chortling companion Howard, before that relationship gotdestroyed...

OTP: ...althoughI must also confess a SHAMEFUL desire to ship Chuck/Howard, because it's gotsuch a messed up power dynamic, because they've known each other for at least18 years, because Howard's clearly still so much in awe of Chuck (which Chuckprobably enjoys), and because neither of them seems to have any other friendsor close relationships. (Are we ever going to learn what's up with Howard'swedding ring? Even my mom thinks Howard is gay at this point! And what's upwith papa Hamlin? Did he die? Retire?) Canon-wise, I'm actually really curiousabout Chuck & Rebecca's relationship, because I have to wonder what it washe did that caused her to divorce him, but not bear any particular grudge oranimus towards him afterwards. He was clearly really upset about the divorce,but doesn't bear any ill-will towards her either. She doesn't appear to enteredinto any new relationship after the divorce either. It's all very mysterious.

nOTP: I can'ttell if this person was serious or not, but I swear I remember seeing someonepropose some theory that Kim had fucked Chuck at some point, and that's gonnaget a BIG NO from me.

randomheadcanon: oh god I've got like five hundred of them at this point. Themassive infodump that was Chuck's obituary in the season 4 premiere contributedto a lot of them, I think. I imagine Chuck's freshman year of college, at age14, was absolute hell for him. He was so proud to get accepted to an Ivy Leagueschool, but had been upset it wasn't a more prestigious one, like Harvard,Yale, or Princeton. (He had applied to them and had a few interviews, but unbeknownstto him, he had been heavily penalized in their byzantine admissions proceduresbecause, despite his sterling academic record, they didn’t find him outgoing or athleticenough.) His parents put him on the train to Philadelphia by himself, with afew suitcases, a map, and $50. He had no problems getting to the university,but was pretty overwhelmed right off the bat by the fact that everyone else wasolder and wealthier than him; he had dealt with this to some extent in high school, butnot to this degree (I headcanon his fictional alma mater, Francis Xavier HighSchool, as a typical Jesuit all-boys preparatory school that draws heavily fromupper-middle-class suburban families). Here he was, a literal child, thrustinto the adult world, and the world of the elites, at that. He probably feltself-conscious about things he hadn't even realized he could feelself-conscious about before, and spent at least a couple nights sobbing intohis pillow, and praying that his roommate couldn't hear him. He made a coupledesperate attempts to fit in, with a relatively low level of success (e.g. goingto a party and trying to impress people there by playing piano, only to get abeer spilled on him instead), before deciding it wasn't worth it and he wouldthrow himself singlemindedly into his classes and extracurriculars. He had hisfirst-ever panic attack sometime during his first semester, and wound up at thecampus doctor's office because he had convinced himself he was having a heart attack.On being told he was physically fine, he was indignant, but all the same, henever told his family about the incident, or anyone else either. Somewherearound this time, he also gets a letter from his parents, telling him he'sgoing to be a big brother in a few months, and won't this be exciting for him?(He wants to tell them his life is too exciting for him as it is, but saysnothing, instead writing back that he is sure having a younger sibling to helplook after will be the greatest experience of his life. He almost convinceshimself that he means it.)

unpopularopinion: I DON'T HATE CHUCK. (The most unpopular opinion of all!) He's myfavorite character on the show, with the obvious disclaimer that saying acharacter is my favorite doesn't mean I approve of all the character's actions,etc. Also, I know he's just a fictional character, but I'm still pissed offabout people celebrating that he killed himself & saying they hope it waspainful & stuff like that. Like, how much of an asshole do you have to be?What a horrible thing to say.

song Iassociate w/ him: Burning Down The House j/k, probably Faure's Sicilienne,because I too, cannot play it on piano without screwing up

fav picture: Not a picture, but I can’t resist.

[perfectly-balanced]

Thanos, I understand that you're trying to accomplish something good from your perspective, but I think you're overlooking the resilience of human nature. Even if the Earth gets destroyed humanity would be able to find a way to escape, to go to another planet or solar system perhaps. That's the beauty of human nature, we adapt under any condition and overcome to survive.

Since you have come to me with a rational, at least in comparison to others, approach, I am inclined to humor your argument.

Even though of course the very thought that you believe you were able to come up with an angle that I, an immortal all-powerful being, was not able to is still naive at best and insulting at worst.

Now, I have many counters to your points, as just about everything you said is deeply flawed under closer inspection. First of all, the human race isn’t the only species I did what I did for, far from it. So even assuming your arguments were correct, which they aren’t, the same couldn’t be said for all the other species.

As always, you humans remain self-centered and assume everything revolves around you, which is part of the problem that got you into this mess in the first place. To me, your kind is merely one infinitesimal grain of sand in the beach of the universe.

A particularly stubborn and irritating piece of sand, rougher than many of the others, mind you, and one insistent on getting into places it shouldn’t be, but still a single grain nonetheless.

Now, aside from that, as I said before I am immortal, which means I have been alive for a very long time. Long enough to have changed drastically since I was young.

I wasn’t always so intent on my current mission. Before I reached the conclusion that I would have to erase half of all life, I considered other options first. As in, all of them.

I was raised as a scientist, and so my first approach was naturally to eliminate all other possible solutions, the ‘nicer’ ones, first before resorting to drastic measures.

After my planet was destroyed, I traveled to many different worlds that were similarly on the brink of collapse, and ran experiments to test out my different options. Thousands of them. Even accounting for all of the variables, they all inevitably failed and the result remained the same: total self-destruction.

Believe me, I never wanted to harm anyone, and I never would have chose to do so without good reason. Had you known me as I was as a naive and helpful young man, you would believe me.

Now, from the experience of what I have observed and lived through, as well as just basic common sense, here is the truth. For convenience’s sake, let us merely talk about humans and Earth, since that is all you understandably know of.

The first flaw in your argument is that you are assuming that your planet will even see your own doom coming before it is too late. But all it takes is one event, one second to change everything.

For example, my own planet, Titan, appeared completely fine to the naked eye. It was only from studying and looking into the patterns and signs that I was able to predict what happened. But to anyone who simply lived there, everything seemed relatively fine.

Sure, there were massive population issues, as well as a shortage of food and other resources, but the same can be said for your planet, and you certainly wouldn’t consider that an apocalypse by any means.

Because you have grown up in a time when this is very normal, and likely haven’t had to deal with it yourself, slowly escalating warnings and catastrophes are expected for your society.

So even though your climate is changing and more damage is being done environmentally, you don’t take the increasing rate of hurricanes, floods, disease, starvation, fires and earthquakes to mean the world is ending. No, it is normal to you, what you have always known.

It is easier to get used to something when it is increased in gradual increments, and naturally humans as a whole are complacent in their ways of life until they are forced not to be, so as long as these inconvenient natural disasters are manageable, you will find a way to persevere through it. The sad fact is that most of you wouldn’t even notice your own total doom until it has already arrived.

After all, it is such an ugly concept that denial is truly the only option for most people until they are slapped in the face with the cold hard reality. But wouldn’t you rather take control of your own destiny for the better than to be at its mercy on its terms?

Regardless, as I was saying, on Titan things looked relatively fine on the surface, nothing to visually indicate the end of everything was near, which is why people were so quick to deny me. But I knew the truth, and just as I predicted, the first catastrophe to strike Titan came from the depths below.

Our planet’s surface was littered with cryovolcanoes, and our main center of population, the Eternal City, was surrounded by them. Everything seemed fine, up until the very moment when they erupted.

The initial wave of eruptions wiped out two-thirds of our population in one fell swoop. No one in their path even had time to escape. Most, I suspect, didn’t even see it coming. The spew of liquid nitrogen exploded miles above into the sky and flooded down, freezing the people solid until their corpses were reduced to broken little bits.

Unluckily for me but luckily for the universe, I was not on Titan during this time, as I had been banished into space by my own father, by my own government, for trying to help. I was spared the fate that so many suffered below me.

Of course, the volcanoes were merely the catalyst in a long series of resulting disasters that within days wiped out everyone who had survived that initial disaster. And that part I was there for but couldn’t ultimately do anything to help but put people who lay half-dead on the streets out of their misery.

The point is, chances are you won’t see destruction coming unless you know where to look and have the motivation, intelligence, opportunity and resources to look into it like I did.

But alright, let’s say for the sake of the argument that you are correct and enough people will see it coming. The first problem with that is that not everyone on Earth is of the same credibility and privilege.

Because you place your value socially on wealth and other material criteria, the smartest people are often not the ones in power. If someone smart enough to predict this sort of thing was able to in time, who’s to say anyone would even believe them?

Damn, you already have actual respected scientists on your planet coming forth daily with strong warnings, and no one of consequence listens or cares. Even citizens who do believe them forget about it quickly and go back to their daily lives and distractions. It’s all background noise until it affects them personally.

So somehow, the people who figured it out on Earth would need to convince the governments, the powers that be, of their validity, just like I had to try to do on Titan and many more planets.

And in my case, I was actually the son of the ruler of Titan, so I had the connections to back me up. On Titan our higher classes consisted of the most intelligent individuals rather than the wealthiest, and you would think rational men would be easier to convince of the truth than those who could profit from denying it, but alas.

All in all, even though I was not popular among my people, I still had more in my favor than a human would as your leaders are often corrupt and foolish and uneducated on scientific matters. I had all those advantages going for me, and yet I still wasn’t able to convince my government. That bodes ridiculously ill for the average human.

But again, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the best case scenario despite all reasoning. The next problem that comes up is that even if both the masses and the government do listen, the result is that only people with power and influence will be able to save themselves.

Rest assured that were the apocalypse on your door, the only people who would be able to buy a ticket off your planet would be the people who could literally buy a ticket off your planet. And trust me, it wouldn’t be cheap.

Why should it be the rich and powerful who get to live on to continue humanity’s legacy, when they are quite plainly the worst among you, the ones who got you into this mess in the first place? Would they not just repeat the same mistakes on their new planet?

The human race would quickly die out in these hostile foreign conditions not meant to host them, seeing as these are not the best of you to begin with. Your chance of survival as a race would die out with these people who do not carry the necessary traits for survival and are not qualified to represent you or anything greater than their own self-interest.

Keep in mind as well that these people are mostly older since the elderly tend to be wealthier, so they would not be able to reproduce very quickly if at all and would not have a lot of time to actually implement their changes to a new planet that they would need to terraform it to be suitable for human life. All signs point to them being one of if not the last generation regardless of leaving Earth.

Which brings me to my next point. Would those who escaped not just end up destroying other planets, either quickly or in the future? How is that fair to other planets, to other species even who may get invaded and corrupted by those unpleasant humans who were rich enough to escape?

Why continue the cycle to its bitter end until everything is gone and ruined, when my plan halts that downward spiral completely? Sure, you get to live, but at what cost?

As I said, I don’t only care about whether humanity lives on, but life as a whole. If humanity surviving means other life being negatively affected, then the choice is very clear to me which takes priority.

You see, you self-righteous humans who fight me claim to desire only to preserve the life I will take, but the truth is you think only of preserving your own lives and, selfishly, the people you care about, not life itself.

Which yes, saving loved ones first is still selfish because you only wish to save them because you personally would be affected by their absence. You save your children from me, yet you give no thought to the futures you leave those same children you leave behind.

The truth is that you only have selfish reasons for saving yourselves. You, the generations who have ruined the Earth to begin with and left this mess for others to clean up.

But then you get mad when I, a person with the desire and ability to fix things, come around and do exactly that cleaning for you. You are simply unhappy because you have to live to see it instead of shifting it off to your descendants once its not your problem anymore.

They deserve a voice advocating for their best interests too, you know, arguably more than you do, and I will always seek to stand up for the little guy, the ones those in power overlook and bully.

Just like the rich people who would leave this planet behind and go off to a new world, you, the very generations who have caused this mess, would simply ‘leave’ to a peaceful death content in being able to preserve your own moral self esteem and leave everyone else behind to suffer.

These people will die either way. At least with my plan, they disappear painlessly, with a snap of my fingers, a merciful end compared to the prolonged suffering and fear and confusion you would leave them with. I do not wish to cause them pain, they simply cease to exist in order to be spared a torturous life.

As I said before, I am old, and so this truth is all very apparent to me. I see the long game because of my age and experience, so quite frankly I care more about maintaining a future overall than I do about your individual happiness right now, because the generations of the past and present have done nothing to deserve what you would leave those of the future with.

The future is innocent and savable, seeds of potential and hope, whereas you are sinful and damned and your plight self-inflicted through selfishness and ignorance and laziness.

I know because I have seen it time and time again. I have not only thought this out, but lived it, for millennia upon millennia. Can you say the same? Do you have any right to call me crazy or deluded when you’ve never been through what I have?

I know people have taken to calling me 'mad’, but I am not insane, as many would have you believe. Especially because you simply cannot use human terms like 'crazy’ to compare to me because I am not human, and cannot be compared. There is no human word for my state of consciousness, it is beyond anything you could ever even comprehend.

And so the word 'insane’ as it relates to me is not only false but irrelevant because humans have no idea what it is like to live for thousands of years or the kind of change in perspective that brings when you can see the bigger picture outside of your own existence.

It brings wisdom, and eventually you reach a point where you achieve the highest form of yourself possible. I have already reached that potential through all of my experience.

I am a visionary, and historically, visionaries have not been treated the best. They all get called insane in their time, simply for seeing the larger story and daring to defy the norm.

So for you, a human who has never had to think about anything outside themselves, to consider life as a whole beyond the eighty or so years of your own life, my ideas seem mad. Because they affect your whole life, and to you, based on your perspective, eighty years is a long time, so obviously it seems much more harsh than it is objectively.

But the truth is, your individual eighty years don’t matter in the grand scheme of things once you are gone, and whether you’d like to believe it or not, the world doesn’t stop once you and everyone currently around you is dead. Your legacy continues only through the new generations who you have set up to take your place.

To you it might not matter what happens in the future because you won’t be around to see it, but for me, I see it all, generation after generation, and so each one is all the same to me.

I am not blessed with the same ignorance as you, I have been cursed with responsibility and opportunity that cannot be overlooked. Your flawed if noble intentions to preserve your lives matter to you, but not everyone is human and not everyone sees things that way.

There is an order to the universe, one that mortal beings have no business meddling in because they cannot fathom the big picture, how everything connects. 

And so like your gods from your religions on Earth, you simply must trust in your higher powers and believe that they have a grand design in mind that makes it all worth while, such as the Christian god did when he flooded Earth, an objectively cruel and vengeful act, for the greater good.

Which, curiously, people still defend him for and worship him regardless yet hate me for doing the same thing. You wouldn’t question whether you know better than a god, who can see all ends and beginnings, so why do you question me, for whom the same can be said?

The answer, I can tell, is simply because you do not like me on a personal level, and because it is easier to defend the actions of a god that occurred in the past and which you are standing on the other side of unaffected. Which is a foolish reason.

I have always said that if any of your very gods came down to Earth and stood before you, they would be rejected, attacked, defied, just like Christ himself was, to use another Christian example.

Society hated Christ in his time, it was only with the benefit of hindsight that people realized and appreciated his divinity, his pure intentions, the necessity of his actions, just like those of his 'father’s’.

Like the Romans, you may crucify me now, but my work has been accomplished and your future generations will thank me for it whether you like it or not. History will look down upon you, the selfish and misguided blasphemers who tried to save themselves at the cost of goodness.

Now, I believe I have explained everything adequately, so I will leave you with one final thought to counter your last claim.

If you humans are so resilient and capable of adapting under any circumstance, why weren’t you able to adapt to my snap? I agree that you are able to adapt theoretically, but your choices and refusals to adapt play a bigger role than your potential capabilities.

So long as you are unwilling, you will not adapt. The same applies to any potential disaster situation you are referring to if I were to have not intervened and let nature run its course.

Accept it, you will always deny and cling to your ways to the bitter end, unless you are forced to change. In this case, you were forced by me. You’re welcome.

[branlovestowrite]

The Man of Misthaven: Part 1 of 4

I can’t believe it’s finally here! I have been working on this story for a while, and it feels a little surreal to be posting it now. I must give thanks to @gingerchangeling for being my beta as well as my go-to source for all my bog questions. And of course many thanks to @hollyethecurious for creating this beautiful photo set. Go give her all the love! And finally, many hugs and thanks to @kmomof4 for creating and coordinating @cssns. This is such a fun event, and it’s been amazing to see all the great supernatural stories. Keep up the good work everyone!

And now, without further ado, I give you...

The Man of Misthaven

Summary: Storybrooke Maine is preparing for their annual fourth of July parade when they stumble upon a 300 year old body buried in Misthaven Bog, just beyond the town line. This is the first bog body discovered in the Northern US, and could put the town on the map… if only it hadn’t gone missing. Deputy Emma Swan should be focusing on the search, but she’s been a little distracted by the dark haired, blue-eyed man with amnesia she rescued the day before. Just who is this man she feels such a strong attraction to, and does he have any connection to the missing body?

Rating: T

Words: ~5,900

Also on AO3 and fanfiction.net.

Part 1

Storybrooke, Maine, Friday June 29, 2018

The morning sun was just rising when Emma Swan parked her car. She pulled her long blonde hair into a low ponytail and grabbed her travel mug of coffee. Stepping out of her car, she huddled against the slight morning chill and tugged her favorite red leather jacket closer to her body. Once she was settled, she headed toward the boardwalk that traversed Misthaven bog, just outside the city limits of Storybrooke, Maine, where Emma had lived for most of her life.

Storybrooke was the textbook definition of small town, with not much to recommend it. There was a quaint main street lined with cute shops, like every other small town in America, and a small harbor to the east, where the smell of fish from the cannery destroyed any romantic notions a passerby may have. The north and south of the town held forests with a single, two-lane highway bisecting them. To the west of town, a quarter-mile past the town line, lay a small wetland known as Misthaven bog.

Nestled just beyond the forest, the bog was not large and easy to miss if you didn’t know where to look. Clouds of mist rose over the area in the mornings, earning the warm wetland its name. The flat plain held a wide array of plant life, which in the summer included brilliant orange flowers and wild blueberries. The ground was made up of squishy peat moss, a requirement for the area to be considered a bog, and pools of water gathered in the more saturated areas. The landscape was punctuated with a few short, scrubby trees, but for the most part you could see for half a mile in all directions. The sky felt enormous there, like you were standing under a clear dome and looking up at a beautiful blue tapestry, decorated with soft balls of cotton made to look like puffy white clouds. It was one of Emma’s favorite places to go when life felt overwhelming. Quiet and unchanging, she especially loved it in the mornings, when she could come and sit on one of the benches on the boardwalk and think while she watched the birds flit in and out.

She had a lot to think about this morning. She would turn 30 this year, and although she considered herself a feminist and bristled at the idea, she couldn’t help but feel lonely and worried about her future prospects. Emma loved Storybrooke. She’d arrived in the town as a frightened eight-year old, being sent to live with an aunt and uncle she’d never knew existed. Now, 21 years later, she was part of a community. She had family, friends, and a really great kid. But her son, Henry, was 12 now. It wouldn’t be much longer before he’d be grown up and out of the house.

After the group homes and foster families Emma had experienced in her short life before Storybrooke, she’d had no idea what to expect from Ruth and Robert Nolan. Now she looked at them, Ruth in particular, as her saviors. They’d made her feel part of the family from the very beginning, incorporating her into their life with their twin boys, James and David, and their dog, Wilby. The boys were two years older than Emma, and at first James liked to torment his family's newest member. However, as they grew older he became protective of Emma and looked after her like a true little sister. David, in contrast, took to Emma right away, always looking out for her and protecting her from James in the early years.

And now David was engaged to Mary Margaret Blanchard, Emma’s best friend. She was happy for her brother and her friend. She really was. But she couldn’t help the twinge of jealousy she felt. At least James was still single, though his bachelor status was more a product of his owns deliberate actions than of circumstance. James detested small town life. He moved away from the town as soon as he could, and currently worked as a lawyer in New York. In his typical fashion, he’d ridiculed David for getting engaged. But despite his teasing, Emma knew James loved his brother and was happy for him.

As she sat and inhaled the mossy, earthy odor of the bog, Emma continued her reflections. Her friends had thrown David and Mary Margaret an impromptu engagement party the prior evening at Granny’s, the local diner and de facto gathering place. Her ex, and current boss, Graham, was there and he’d none-too-subtly hinted that he wanted to get back together with her.

“I’m happy for David and Mary Margaret. They deserve a little happiness. They’re good people.” Graham had approached her as he said these words, a seemingly innocuous opening.

“I agree,” Emma replied, trying to avoid engaging with him too much.

“You’re a good person too, Emma. When are you going to find your happiness?”

She’d forced a smile at his words. “I am happy. I’ve got a nice house, a good job, and a great kid. What more could I need?” Oh she could hit herself for leaving him that opening!

“What about love, Emma?”

“I don’t think that’s in the cards for me, Graham.”

“That I can’t agree with. You’re a beautiful, passionate woman, and you deserve to be loved.”

He’d leaned in closer during the last sentence, and if she’d wanted to, she could have closed the gap and kissed him. Most likely that was what he wanted, but it wasn’t something she desired. She’d turned away from him and stood up from her barstool. “Well, good talk, Graham. I’ll see you in the morning.” She’d escaped and stayed close to Ruth for the remainder of the night.

Despite Ruth’s knowing looks, she’d sheltered Emma from any further unwanted advances. It wasn’t that Graham was a bad guy. Quite the opposite, actually. He was a wonderful man, sweet and sensitive, and very handsome, with, a tall, strong build, soulful blue eyes and soft, light brown hair that curled adorably. Graham was a great guy, he just wasn’t the one for her. She couldn’t help herself; she liked a man with a little bit of a bad boy streak.

That was probably what had first attracted her to Henry’s father, Neal. The opposite of Graham was Neal, tanned, with shaggy brown hair and brown eyes that defined mischievous. The wayward son of one of the wealthier families in town, he’d run away as a young teenager and came back when he was 21. He was five years older than Emma, and he’d flattered her in a way none of her high school peers had. She was so charmed that she agreed to let him take her virginity in the back of the used yellow Volkswagen Beetle she’d been saving up to buy from his father. He skipped town again before she found out she was pregnant.

When his dad had realized she was knocked up, his “gift” had been to give her the car and tell her to keep the money she’d saved up to support the baby, “since she would need it.” It had been a struggle to get him to even contact Neal and let him know she was pregnant. Now, Henry only saw his father twice a year, and never spent any time with his grandfather. But Emma was lucky that Henry had two amazing uncles to help raise him, and she never felt her son had gone without.

After Neal, Emma had only dated one other time, with Graham, and that was after caving to pressure from her friends to “give the nice guy a chance.” It hadn’t worked out, and for many years she was fine with that. But last night had brought fresh feelings of loneliness, and as she sat on the bench now while the sun climbed higher, she made a wish. A simple wish.

“I wish I could find the person meant for me.”

It was silly. She felt silly. But she held it in her heart as she enjoyed the peaceful surroundings for a little longer before standing up to head into work.

Weymouth, Dorset, England, May 23, 1743

The hoofbeats sounded surprisingly quiet as they approached her cabin. She knew he’d found her, and she’d expected him to bring a contingent of guards. He always was quite the coward. To know that he’d come relatively unguarded meant one of two things. Either he’d gained more confidence in his ability to best her, or, more likely, he knew already that she was no longer a threat.

She hadn’t locked up the cabin, expecting his arrival. The door swung open and he walked in, but not alone. He’d brought one guard with him, a hulking specimen of a man. So, perhaps he did not know her secret yet. He was just too cheap to hire extra men.

His deceptively warm brown eyes took in the small space, and his upper lip rose in a sneer as he examined the sparse furnishings and dirt covered floors. “Secluding yourself in such drudgery… were you trying to throw me off the scent by burying yourself in filth?”

She chuckled and tossed her long ginger hair over her shoulder, fixing him with her own cold, blue-eyed stare. “Perhaps I just enjoy the charm. This place could be quite cozy with some work.”

He raised his chin and looked down on her as much as was possible given his shorter stature. “And yet I doubt you are willing to put in that effort. Let’s not be coy, Eloise. Why are you here? Did you really think you could hide from me?”

“On the contrary, I’ve been expecting you.”

His expression changed ever so slightly. “Ah,” he said, tilting his head, “are you ready to acquiesce to my proposal then?”

She raise her eyebrows and gave him a dismissive gesture. “Not likely. I have no intention of becoming your slave.”

“Is that so? Well then how do you expect to escape me? I will have your power. Your bloodline is a scourge that I will wipe out.”

“You are more than welcome to try and wipe out my family, but you won’t be able to do that with me.”

“What are you saying?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“I’m no longer the youngest in my bloodline.”

“That’s not possible. There can only be one descendent in every generation, which we both know is you. Now, it would be easier if you gave me your power willingly, but I do have other ways to take it.”

He shot his hand out in her direction, directing a bright stream of magic to her heart. The charge stunned her and surged through her body, but she only laughed. The energy lifted her from the ground, suspending her in midair for a moment as she continued to laugh at him. He cried out in frustration and pulled his hand back as if he’d been burned, abruptly halting the charge and dropping her to the floor.

She rose slowly to her hands and knees, her laughs becoming a cackle. “You’re too late, you monster!”

“No! How did you rid yourself of your power? Where is it?!” He raised his hand again, invisibly grasping her by the throat and choking her windpipe. Her face began to turn blue before he yanked his hand away and she collapsed to the ground once more.

“I told you,” she said between coughs and desperate breaths of air. “I am not the youngest in the bloodline.”

“How could you have had a child? There hasn’t be enough time since our last encounter.”

“Time isn’t as much of a requirement for the process when you have the magic of the golden flower to speed it along,” she huffed as she stood on shaky legs.

He froze and stared at her. “Where is the child?” he asked, his voice menacing.

“Somewhere nearby, I suppose. I didn’t bother myself too much once the process was over.”

“You fool! You would give up your immense power so flippantly?”

“A power which you say is a scourge! Yes, I would do so again a hundred times to free myself of the specter of you everywhere I go.”

“Foolish child. Tell me where your offspring is, and I’ll let you live.”

“I may not care much for my child, but I do care about thwarting you at every turn.” She reached into the pouch at her waist and extracted the last bit of magic at her disposal: a potion that would transport her hundreds of miles away in a flash. Laughing at him once more, she thrust the bottle to the ground. It smashed brilliantly, surrounding her in plumes of white smoke that quickly filled the room. When it dissipated, she was gone.

Storybrooke, present day

Emma dropped her phone as she hastily exited her car, heading toward town hall. She’d lost track of time during her morning excursion and as a result was now late for a meeting with the mayor.

“Shit shit shit,” she whispered to herself as she picked up the phone and thanked her stars that the screen wasn’t cracked. She shoved it into the pocket of her jeans and raced toward the second floor conference room where the meeting was taking place.

She stepped into the room as the mayor was mid-sentence. “Oh, Miss Swan. How nice of you to join us.”

Her face flushed and she took the only available seat, which happened to be next to Graham. “Sorry,” she said as she sat and tried to nonchalantly move the chair further away from her ex. “I had car trouble.”

“I’m sure,” the mayor said in reply, before continuing the discussion.

The meeting was a planning session for the upcoming 4th of July parade, now only a few days away. The parade was always a big event for the town, drawing visitors from other nearby municipalities. Crowd control was a big issue, which is why the mayor was currently holding a meeting with the entire Storybrooke Sheriff's Department, a team consisting of Sheriff Graham Humbert and his two deputies, David Nolan and Emma Swan. The current discussion was whether they needed to bring in additional help for the day of the parade.

After some contentious discussion where Graham insisted the team would need more support and the mayor insisted they just didn’t have it in the budget, a compromise was agreed on, where part-time support would be brought in for just before the parade started until just after it ended. The mayor would not support anything else.

Emma had a hard time paying attention during the meeting. Graham kept idly resting his hand on her arm. Halfway through the meeting, he got bolder and let his palm settle on her knee. By that point she was so on edge that she jumped at the contact. At that same moment, the lights in the room flickered, bringing the meeting to a pause and all eyes to focus on her. She blushed a deep red, though she couldn’t really understand why. Somehow she felt like the thing with the lights had been her doing, but that didn’t make any sense.

Graham continued pleading his case the entire time, not showing any discomfort. The mayor, however, took a long pause before responding, continuing to stare at Emma, as if seeing her for the first time. It was extremely disconcerting, and Emma sunk in the chair as far down as she could before finally, blessedly, the meeting continued.

By the time she got out of there, it was lunch time. David and Graham piled into one of the cruisers to visit the next town over, a half hour drive, to solicit help for the parade. Emma headed to Granny’s to grab a quick lunch before heading to the station to work on the never ending struggle that were police reports.

Thirty minutes later found Emma sighing loudly as she smelled the heady mixture of bread, butter, and melted cheese that made up her favorite meal. Her stomach grumbled in response, and she was grateful that no one was around to hear that. “I really need to get into the habit of eating more regularly,” she said aloud to no one in particular.

She picked up one of the sandwich halves and raised it to her mouth. Just as she was about to take the first heavenly bite, the phone rang.

“Damnit!” she cried in frustration, before dropping her sandwich and picking up the receiver. “Sheriff’s office,” she answered in a clipped tone.

“Emma, it’s Robin.”

She wanted to be mad at his call, but it was hard to be angry when she heard his eloquent tone. She’d always had a weakness for men with British accents. She sighed, “You’d better have a good reason for calling me now. I was just about to eat the first meal I’ve had in over twelve hours.”

“I am sorry to interrupt, but I need you to come down here. I’ll buy you another grilled cheese to make up for it.”

“How do you know I’m eating a grilled cheese?”

“What else would it be with you?”

“Fair point,” she said with a laugh. “Make it two sandwiches, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

He chuckled in reply. “Deal. See you soon.”

As soon as she hung up, she grabbed the sandwich half she’d started on and shoved it in her mouth, sad that she didn’t have a chance to appreciate the crispiness of the bread or the gooeyness of the cheese. She held the sandwich between her teeth as she stood and shrugged on her jacket.

Wiping her hands on her jeans, she slid into the squad car, driving back toward the bog. Robin worked for the Maine Department of Forestry, and oversaw the bog and the surrounding nature preserve. Parking the cruiser in the gravel lot in front of Robin’s cabin, she exited the car and followed the boardwalk until she came upon the sandy-haired, broad-shouldered figure of Robin, looming over the stockier, frightened figure of Anton, the high school science teacher, who was shaking so hard his long, brown curls were bouncing off his shoulders.

“What’s going on here?” Emma asked as she moved closer to where they stood.

“I found this one digging in the bog. Illegally digging, may I add,” Robin said through clenched teeth.

“Anton, come on,” Emma chided. “You know this area is protected. I really don’t want to arrest you.”

Anton shrugged and held up his hands. “I just wanted to get a few samples so I could talk to my students about the ecology of the bog.”

Emma reached for the handcuffs holstered on her belt. “Well, it’s still against the law to dig up a protected area. I have to take you in, at least for a while.”

“Wait,” Robin said as he reached out and stopped her. “I didn’t call you here to arrest him, Emma.”

“No? Then why am I here?”

“Anton… he found something. We think it’s a body.” Robin turned and stepped over the low rail and motioned for her to follow. “Stay with me and only step where I step. I don’t want you sinking in.”

Emma followed him warily. She’d been to the bog multiple times, but had never set foot anywhere other than the designated walkway. As she stepped on the surface, she was surprised to find how springy it was. It was a little like stepping on a trampoline. She had to bite back a giggle as she got her footing.

Robin waited for her to get her bearings before he turned and walked along a narrow path that seemed firmer than the rest. When they’d walked about 5 yards, he stopped and turned to her. “Come stand right here. I’m going to step down to the water.”

Emma did as he instructed and watched as he traversed an especially spongy patch that led down to a small pool. He removed a pen from his shirt pocket and bent over. As he did, he pointed the pen to what she at first thought was a small pile of mud. However, when she looked closer, she saw that it was a human hand, balled into a fist.

“Shit…” she muttered under her breath. She met Robin’s eyes as he stood up. “Any idea who it could be?”

“I would think I should be the one asking that question, seeing as how you are the deputy. But this is also a small town and I think we all would have heard if someone was missing.”

“Could it be from another town?”

“Maybe, although that seems a long drive to dump a body. And considering how far into the bog we are, I would have noticed had someone tried to drag a body out here.”

“Might be the perfect cover up, though,” she said, reaching for the radio at her shoulder. “I need to call this in. We’re gonna have to remove it and take it to be examined.”

Robin heaved a long sigh. “I was afraid you would say that.”

Two hours later Emma stood in the hospital morgue with her brother and Graham. Two volunteer firefighters had extracted the body from the bog, under Robin’s careful supervision. She looked over the body laid out before them, still wearing shoes and leather trousers. She’d learned about bog bodies in high school, and was fascinated now, seeing one up close. Other than the dark tanning of his skin, he looked like he might open his eyes at any minute. He still had facial hair peppering his cheeks and chin.

“What are we looking at?” Graham asked Dr. Jefferson Milliner, or ‘Jeff’ as he preferred to be called, head of the morgue. “Is this a recent victim?”

“I don’t believe so,” the doctor replied. “Look at his clothing. These pants are hand stitched. He’s been in the bog for a long time.”

“But he’s not all… deflated like those pictures they showed us in school,” Emma said.

“Those bodies were in the bogs for much longer than him, and in different conditions,” Jeff said with a chuckle. “I think this one’s bone structure is still intact, although it’s likely weakened.”

“What happened to his hand?” Graham asked.

Emma looked down and noticed for the first time that the corpse’s left hand was missing.

“The flesh looks pretty mangled, but it was probably separated after his death,” Jeff replied. “The weight of a bog has been known to cause posthumous injuries to bodies buried in them. I’ll need to do some further analysis to be sure, however.”

“How old do you think it is?” David inquired.

“Hmm… maybe 200 or 300 years old? I’m not an expert, but he looks like a colonist. We really need to get an expert in here to look at him. I have a contact in Boston I can call.”

“Yes, doctor, that would be helpful. Thank you.” Graham said.

The others filed out of the room, but Emma stood a bit longer, staring at the body stretched out on the table. There was something about him, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. She couldn’t shake the thought that she had just been to the bog that morning, and there had been no sign of him. The pool where he was found was not far from where she’d been sitting. How had she not seen him? Where did he come from? She couldn’t figure it out, and she stayed there staring at him until David came back down the stairs to retrieve his sister.

Misthaven Bog, June 30th, 1755

The smell of decay filled her nostrils and made her sick to her stomach. She wanted nothing more than to run far away from this place. The landscape was eerie, with sparse vegetation punctuated by steaming pools of water. The ground felt unstable, as if she were walking on a blanket spread over a pond. The water here was stagnant and dead, nothing like the sea her Papa had taught her to love.

“Do you know what the ancients thought about bogs?” The cruel voice disrupted her thoughts and brought her attention back to her captor. He stood before her, while two large men held her Papa behind him. He sounded like the mean school mistress she’d had for a short time when she and Papa first settled in America. When they thought they had escaped this evil man’s clutches. When they thought they could have a normal life.

She stared owl-eyed at the man she’d been in fear of for the last three years of her life. He was shorter than she’d remembered him being. She’d always thought of him as a looming figure, but she now saw he was barely taller than Papa’s shoulder. However, every other aspect of him fit her nightmarish memories. He had the same leathery skin and wavy hair hanging down to his shoulders that she remembered. His eyes were cold and seemed to bore into her very soul. And his voice was like a snake, slithering through her ears and invading her thoughts.

He looked down at her now and sneered. “I asked you a question, little girl,” he hissed with his snake tongue.

“No?” she replied, her fear stopping her from saying anything more.

“The ancients,” he responded condescendingly, “thought bogs were the gateway to the underworld. They used to leave offerings to the gods: jewels, books, food, and even,” he paused and turned his head to look at Papa, “human sacrifices.”

She felt her tears begin to flow freely at his words. “Please, sir,” she begged, “don’t kill my Papa. He’s all I have!” Her voice was hoarse, but she continued her pleading.

“Your Papa brought this upon himself, child, when he ran from me! He knew what I was after, and he knew I would stop at nothing to get it. Had he listened to me years ago, we could have avoided this whole mess.”

Despite being beaten and restrained, Papa growled at his words. “I would never have let you take her, you bloody demon!”

The man turned to Papa again. “And yet here we are! All this fuss and I am still victorious.”

“You may take my life, but this isn’t over! You will be stopped. I have faith in my daughter.”

“She’s just a child!” the man scoffed. “You stubborn imbecile. This is over. You will die, and I will take your daughter’s power and rid the world of the scourge that is the Gothel bloodline once and for all.”

“You bastard! You have no care for the world! You only wish to take her power. You can try to use her, but you will never be successful. She’s too strong for you!”

“I’m tired of this.” The evil man lifted his gaze to the larger of the two men holding Papa. “Kill him.”

“No!” she cried out, but it was too late. She screamed as a dagger was plunged into Papa’s abdomen over and over, until his torso was covered in blood and his head hung limply on his chest. “No no no no no!” she cried as her tears poured down her face. “Papa…” she sniffled and wiped her eyes, though it did nothing to stem the tide. She refused to accept that he was gone; that this was the last she would see of him. “Papa, I promise you,” she said, biting her lip to stop its quivering, “I will find a way. We will be together again.”

“I think not, dearie,” the evil man said. He pulled a length of rope from his belt and threw it to his henchmen. “Bury him in the bog, tie him down. Drive stakes through his body if you have to. Just make sure he isn’t found.” He turned to his captive and roughly grabbed her arm. “You’re coming with me.” He began walking and pulled to make her follow, but she dug in her heels.

She could feel it coursing through her. This place was alive. There was something otherworldly around them, and it didn’t like what had just happened. It mixed and mingled with the magic that flowed through her veins. It was speaking to her. Calling out. Promising something. Not vengeance. Retribution. Justice. Reconciliation. She nodded her head in response. Whatever was there, it would make sure she could keep her promise to her Papa. She just had to be patient. And, fortunately, Alice Jones was a very patient girl.

Storybrooke, Saturday, June 30, 2018

The next day was Emma’s day off. She was looking forward to spending some time with her son. Henry was 12 now, and seemed less and less interested in hanging out with his mom. But she had mentioned the bog body the previous night, and he was very eager to see it. Emma decided to bring him by to hospital, just for a peek. If she couldn’t use her cop status to impress her pre-teen son, what good was it for?

She and Henry parked outside the small hospital and walked in. They took the stairs down to the entrance to the morgue, where they met with David. His sandy blonde hair was mussed, like he’d been nervously rubbing it.

“Emma,” he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Mom’s gonna show me the body!” Henry said excitedly.

“Is she now?” David asked, crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his blue-eyed gaze to glare at his sister.

“Come on Dave,” Emma pleaded, trying her best to meet his steely gaze with her own green-eyed, puppy dog look.. “We probably won’t have much access to this guy once the experts sweep in and take him back to their lab for research.”

“As it is, we don’t have an access to him now.”

“What?” Emma furrowed her brow. “Why not?”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean he’s gone? Did they already come and get him?”

“No. Jeff took some scans and pictures of him yesterday, then locked the place up. When he came back this morning, the body was gone.”

“That sounds fishy. It’s not like a 300 year old body can just wake up and walk away.”

“You’re telling me. It’s the weirdest thing.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“Graham and I are going to keep interviewing the staff and looking for evidence. You get to go home, since it’s your day off. I’m sure there will still be plenty to do tomorrow.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Okay dad.” David was forever driving her crazy with his paternal instincts. She turned to Henry. “What do you say to a stop at Granny’s, kid?”

Henry looked at his mom, his brown eyes wary. “Actually, mom, Avery’s dad has been letting me help on the parade float he’s building. If we can’t see the body, can you take me to his house so I can help finish it up?”

“Really? I was hoping we could have some bonding time.”

Henry gave her a sheepish smile and pushed his brown hair back from his face. “Later this week, after the parade? This is our last chance to finish up the float.”

“Fine.” She swatted her son lightly on the back. “Let’s go.”

“Bye Uncle David,” Henry said as he turned to walk away.

“See you later kid,” David replied. “And don’t tell anyone about this. Last thing I need is the mayor breathing down my neck about it.”

“You got it,” Henry said.

“I’m serious!” David yelled after them, but Emma and Henry just smirked as they left the hospital.

After dropping Henry off at Avery’s, Emma decided to take the scenic route home, enjoying the beautiful Saturday she suddenly had all to herself. She was so lost in thought about what to do that she almost didn’t see the man walking along the side of the forest road. A naked man walking along the side of the forest road. She slowed down and pulled over just ahead of him. He stopped walking and stared quizzically at her car.

She watched him in the rearview mirror for a moment before exiting her Bug. He was not anyone she recognized. Maybe he was one of the new cannery employees, and had a bit too much to drink the night before? She took a deep breath and stepped out, turning to face him.

Her first thought, after facing him head on, was how attractive he was. He was a beautiful man, with hard, lean muscle under a layer of dark body hair. The hair on his head was a little shaggy, but fell in his face, making him look younger than he probably was. As she got closer, she saw his jaw was covered in scruff that was too short to be called a beard. And to top everything off, he looked at her with the most beautiful, piercing, cobalt-blue eyes she’d ever seen.

She stopped about ten feet away from him. Her left hand slid around her back and touched the handcuffs still holstered to her belt. “Are you okay?” she called out, watching him carefully for any erratic movements.

Surprisingly, he flashed an adorably dimpled smile at her, the crows’ feet at his eyes crinkling merrily. Yes, she thought to herself, he is definitely drunk. She tried again, “Where are your clothes, buddy?”

He looked down at himself and then back at her, a blush creeping up his cheeks and reddening the tips of his ears. “Apologies, miss. I could not find my garments when I awoke.”

She suppressed a groan. Of course he had to be British, because he wasn’t already attractive enough. “And where did you wake up? Did your friends play a trick on you? A little hazing for the new guy?”

He furrowed his brow. “Sorry. I don’t really know where I woke up. I didn’t recognize it. Truthfully, I don’t recognize much of anything.”

Emma relaxed her stance. He either drank so hard he blacked out, or he hit his head and was suffering from amnesia. Either way, she pitied him. “What’s your name?”

“I can’t recall.”

“Okay… so what do you remember?”

He gave her an apologetic smile. “Not much, I’m afraid.”

Emma looked at him for a moment as she tried to figure out her next move. She pointed to him. “Wait right there.” She walked around the front of her Bug and opened the trunk, fishing out a blanket she kept there. Moving back toward the stranger, she handed him the blanket, which he took gratefully and draped over his shoulders. She noticed, for the first time during this exchange, that he was missing his left hand. The mangled flesh at the end of his arm was heavily scarred, but the wound looked old.

“Thank you, milady.”

“Come on,” she said, gesturing toward her car with her head. “I’ll take you to the hospital. You need to be checked out.”

He followed her without protest. When they reached the car, he looked up wide-eyed. “This is a marvelous carriage. How does it operate without horses?”

“Huh?” Emma asked. She leaned around him and opened the door. “Can you sit down?”

He stared blankly for a moment, but acquiesced and settled into the seat without trouble. Emma walked around the car and got back in the driver’s seat. She saw he wasn’t buckled in, but decided to spare herself the headache of trying to explain seat belts to him. Instead she started the engine and made a u-turn, heading back to the hospital.

To be continued in part 2! Updates weekly.

If you want to learn more about bog bodies, I’d recommend the stories by National Geographic and the Dublin Museum. It’s a truly fascinating process! Search for “Tollund Man” and look at the some the pictures. The way these bodies are preserved is incredible!

Tagging some friends and fellow CSSNS participants. Let me know if you want to be on the tag list for future updates:

@artistic-writer @bleebug @cat-sophia @courtorderedcake @distant-rose @flipperbrain @flslp87 @huffleporg @initiala @kymbersmith-90 @killian-whump @laschatzi @lassluna @lillpon @resident-of-storybrooke @rouhn @sherlockianwhovian @searchingwardrobes @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @teamhook @winterbythesea @winterbaby89 @wingedlioness @wyntereyez

[tothewaterhq]

ACCEPTED // FRANCIS BELLE

district 6 mentor → victor of the 51st → oscar isaac fc

positive traits: optimistic, sincere, likable negative traits: anxious, delicate, moody

describe their arena: For the 51st games, the gamemakers decided to take all of Panem into the heart of one of its most prestigious schools. Only twenty-four lucky students were allowed to enter its golden halls and reap the rewards of such an advanced institution. Of course, not everyone who entered was entirely grateful for the chance at bettering themselves at Panem’s Preparatory School for the Gifted and Blessed.

The school itself was multi-leveled and extended about a mile or so in each direction (with the school serving as the centerpiece). Due to its small nature, the games did not last as long as the previous Quarter Quell. It was fairly short and (not so) sweet. The school itself was decked out in the finest educational facilities the Capitol could offer: gymnasiums, science labs, a swimming pool, etc.. Only the best and most expensive for Panem’s chosen children.

biography

Born to a pair of mechanics who operated out of a family run and owned garage in the center of District Six, Francis Belle never really suffered from any major hardships that came with living in Panem. He was never deprived of food as a child, forced to wear to wear hand-me-down clothing, or stuck doing labor to earn extra money for the family. He was just one of the many members of the mediocre middle class of District Six, nothing more, nothing less. Of course, this would all change the moment he was reaped for the 51st annual Hunger Games, but that was yet to come…

Most of the time, when he was a child and even when he was a teenager, Francis spent a large majority of his time in the garage with his parents. He had always been fascinated with their craft and, even as a little baby, he would become mesmerized as their grease-stained fingers seemingly fixed everything they touched. On rare occasions, Francis’ mother, Barbara, would get special orders from wealthier men and women in District Six, mostly members of the Mayor’s family or just upper class people in general, to fix their cars. Once, Barbara received an order to fix the interior of one such vehicle and, for the entire time that she worked on changing the seat covers, Francis watched her. In fact, she eventually had to shoo him from the room because he was getting in the way too much.

In school, Francis focused more on his studies than being active and social with the other children. He was always a shy boy, something that his parents always longed to “fix.” In their eyes, if he were to take up the family trade, he would need to be social with others in order to conduct proper business. They lectured him on that, and he would always listen and try to apply himself, but he just never could. His anxiety was too strong and, whenever he was confronted with social situations, he would just shrink into a pathetic little ball. He was nothing. He was, in a word, useless. He was unworthy of anything. These were all thoughts that swam through his mind at varying points, all of which he genuinely thought about himself. As years passed and he got older, his anxiety became lessened, but those thoughts… they stayed.

One of the causes of Francis’ anxiety was his sexuality. He was gay, and he always knew that he was, but he struggled with this. He often found himself wondering why he had been made this way, or, sometimes, why he had even been made at all. There were times when Francis would sit in the mirror, stare at his own reflection, and just curse at what he saw. Sure, he didn’t look any different than everybody else, but on the inside, he could tell that he was different than many of them, a thing that he didn’t want to be. Eventually, however, Francis began to accept the way he was and became happy with himself. At around age sixteen, in fact, he became romantically involved with a boy from school who was one of his only friends. Both of them decided that their feelings for each other must be preserved for private environments only. They were both afraid of what others would think of them as well as what their families would think about them and their relationship. So, they just never told a soul and their relationship stayed healthy, fun, and overall, a positive influence on Francis’ life.

This didn’t last long, however, because at the age of eighteen, Francis was reaped for the 51st annual Hunger Games.

When Francis was forced to the stage, he suffered from quite possibly the largest anxiety attack of his life. His breathing increased, the blood drained from his face, and he just stopped what he was doing and started crying. He silently cried with his hands around his head as the rest of the Reaping ceremony took place. Eventually, he was ushered into the Justice Building where, once again, he started to cry. This time, however, he was able to cry with his family. His mother, father, and his three sisters held onto him and only let go when they were told their time was up. As they left, Francis watched them, tears brimming in his eyes. He was tempted to scream for them, but he knew that would never work. So, he just sat in silence, something that was a precursor of things to come.

As the Games progressed, Francis, well, he didn’t make much progress. On the train ride, he barely said a word to anybody, effectively shutting himself up in his room and brooding for the entire train ride. When they arrived, he did his best to stay low, to stay away from the attention that he was getting, but it seemed nearly impossible with all the cameras flashing in his face and the screaming Capitol citizens. The Parade came and went and, despite having one of the most stunning outfits of the year, he was barely noticed. He was overlooked, passed over, never thought of… and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

When it came time to train, Francis stayed as far away from all the other tributes as possible. Many of them were training at weapons in order to brutally murder all the others and, because of this, Francis spent most of his time at stations like camouflage and stealth. At one point, his own District Partner, Abigail, tried to come up to him and help him out, and Francis just walked straight in the opposite direction. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want to talk to, well, anyone, really. He was fine training by himself. Finally, when Private Training rounded the corner, Francis went in and, unsurprisingly, froze. He tried to do his best but, unfortunately, his best just wasn’t good enough. Francis ended up with the lowest score that Game, a measly two.

Eventually, after days of listening to the babble of his Escort, hiding from people, and looking like a meek, pathetic little fool in his Interview, Francis and the twenty-three other tributes prepared for the Arena. They stepped on their plates and, a minute or so later, they found themselves rising into a courtyard. Not just any courtyard, though, a school courtyard. There, all around them, were various buildings that combined together to form a high-school. When the countdown ended and the gong sounded, instead of going for the glorious weapons of destruction that lay inside the golden cornucopia, Francis turned around on his heels and booked it out of there as fast as he could. He ran through the main doors and didn’t stop running until he found a classroom as far away from the bloodshed as possible. That night, as he hid under the teacher’s desk, he listened to thirteen cannons blasting off in the distance. Thirteen tributes had died, and now only eleven were left. He had survived for now, at least.

For the next three days, Francis went from classroom to classroom, doing his best to stay out of sight. There were several times when another tribute had entered the room that he was hiding in, but they didn’t see him and they just moved on. In fact, once Francis was forced to watch from behind a bookshelf as two tributes fought it out in the middle of the classroom. Desks were tossed, weapons were flung and, eventually, one tribute was dead and another was slowly bleeding out on the floor. His moans of agony carried throughout the room and, Francis was sure, throughout the building. There was only one way to ensure that other tributes wouldn’t find his hiding place, and so, taking a letter opener that he had found on one of the teacher’s desks, he ran over to the dying tribute and silenced him with a stab to his neck. No one saw it coming, not Francis, not the tribute who he killed, or the entire viewing public. Most people had just forgot Francis had existed. There were other tributes who were far more interesting than he, so their attention was just focused on them. Now, however, since Francis had just ensured his position in the top five, did the people of Panem start to pay attention to the little boy from Six.

Later that night, the fire alarm sounded throughout the school, alarming the remaining five tributes that something was wrong. Francis, in a panic, bolted from his classroom, covering his ears and just straight up running for his life. Hallway after hallway, it seemed like the school was just a giant maze. Tears started to brim in his eyes when he rounded the corner and saw flames dancing in one of the hallways. It was true, the school really was on fire. The next thing Francis knew, he was being tackled to the ground by the girl from Nine. A scream escaped Francis’ mouth as he kicked his way out of her grasp, made his way to his feet, and then sprinted as far away as he could. As he ran, he took a look back to see if she was following him. Fortunately for him, it seemed that she, too, had been snuck up on and was currently in a fight to the death with the male from Three. The only thing he could think as he continued running, listening as cannons started to fire in the distance, was that he just wanted to go home.

Eventually, Francis found his way to the front of the school and burst through the door. His hair was singed, his clothes were darkened by the smoke, and he felt like he was about to cough up a lung. He was so busy coughing up a lung and being overwhelmed by the roar of the fire that had taken over the entire school that he didn’t hear the sound of another tributes bursting through the door. In fact, he didn’t know he wasn’t alone until he turned and saw her standing right in front of him. The girl from Nine, her body badly injured and her eyes wide and filled with a sort of insanity, lashed out at him with her weapon, an axe. She managed to hit him, causing a deep gash to form along his chest. He sputtered out a stream of blood and collapsed to the floor, his body spasming at the pain that he was feeling. Watching the boy, the girl from Nine, started laughing at him. She didn’t laugh because she was enjoying his suffering, but because this meant she was finally going to be able to go home. She had won, she had–

Then, everything changed when Francis reached into his pocket, grabbed his letter opener, and jabbed it into her leg. The girl, who had already been extremely injured from the fight with the boy from Three as well as trying to get out of the school, fell instantly at the strike, screaming her heart out as she fell. Despite his pain, Francis used the pure adrenaline that was coursing through his veins, crawled over to the girl, and, taking the letter opener, plunged it into her neck. Blood splurged from her neck with each stab which, because of the dullness of the knife, took a few tries to pierce through her neck completely. Francis’ made eye contact with the girl as he killed her, watching as her eyes melted from ones filled with insanity and rage to ones that just stared off into the sky without any hint of a presence behind them. Soon, her cannon fired in the distance, Francis’ was announced as the Victor. He didn’t hear any of this, however, because all he could hear was the sound of himself crying and, once again, the roar of the flames all around him. Then, suddenly, he collapsed on top of the girl. When he woke up, he was in a clean, white hospital room. He was alive.

After winning, Francis became praised as one of the greatest underdogs to participate in the Hunger Games thus far. Similar to how he was before being thrust into the arena, Francis reacted to all the attention he was getting with nerves and anxiety. He absolutely hated all the attention he was getting, but, on the bright side, he also liked the idea of living. So, with that in mind, he tried not to shut down when faced with rampant Capitol reporters and socialites. When he was brought back home, naturally, he was met with more cheering and applause and attention. He had been one of Six’s only victors, something the District as a whole never thought that they would obtain. He was greeted by his family and… Hugo, his boyfriend.

Upon seeing Francis, Hugo immediately embraced Francis and planted a kiss on his cheek. At the time, neither of them cared about their public display of affection. The idea of losing the other had been too much to bear for both of them, so when they were actually reunited, they just let their emotions out for all to see. Later, that would prove to be a giant mistake. Since the returning home was broadcasted to the Capitol, the entire populace witnessed the kiss. It was as if someone had dropped a bomb in the Capitol. The amount of screaming was endless. People demanded to know more about Francis, to know more about his boyfriend, their relationship, and pretty much everything else about his life. They had barely gotten to know him at all during the Games, so now, they were determined to know everything about the boy.

The only problem was that, because they now knew that he was gay, they expected something entirely different than what Francis was. They expected an extremely flamboyant and feminine boy, but in reality, Francis was none of those things. He was just… Francis. When he went on “visits” to the Capitol, people ambushed him and questioned him about the latest fashion trends in District Six – as if he would know anything about that –, what was in and what was out, and, most importantly, on his love life. The whole thing made Francis extremely uncomfortable and, through all of it, he just wanted to leave and never talk to any of them again. He knew that if he did this, however, it would end badly. So, at that moment, he decided to put on a mask and be what the Capitol wanted to be. He would be the flamboyant homosexual, he would be the one that people could come to when it came to tips and tricks, he would be anything they wanted him to be just as long as they left him, his family, and Hugo alone.

Now, at forty-three years old, Francis has inherited his father’s role as head-mechanic of their family run business. His sisters, just like him, also took over and joined him as fellow-mechanics and businesswomen. Francis used the wealth that came from his win and used it to spruce up his family’s garage. Now, they are one of the most successful small businesses’ in all of District Six. Of the many prizes that he won from the Capitol, a lavish house in the middle of a place called “Victor’s Village” was given to Francis. Despite its size and its overall luxurious atmosphere, Francis barely uses it. He does live there, along with Hugo, who is now his husband, but the two rarely stay there. They spend most of their time in the District with their families. Finally, after being forced to act like the Capitol’s token gay Victor, years of strain in his relationship with Hugo and his family, and internal struggles with himself about his time in the arena, Francis can finally afford to be happy and, most importantly, live in peace and quiet… for the most part, that is.

PLAYED BY // OSWALD

[mareebrittenford]

The Extra Fakes- Shadow Mirrors Chapter 3

The story so far... Lyse is drawn to the charming old house over on Orangethorpe, but when she tries to point it out to others, it’s like they can’t even see it. Only her two closest friends, Georgia and Lionel seem to be able to see it too. Them and David, the weird chess nerd turned distance runner. But he’s loaded up with his own issues.

Lyse is just about convinced it’s an elaborate prank, when her little sister momentarily disapears right in front of the place.

Here’s links to the previous chapters 1, 2

Please let me know what you think, I love feedback! 

I sleep like crap Friday night, stressing about that weird moment when Melody seemed to cease to exist.

Maybe I should have come straight home and told my parents about it, but what would I have said? Besides, I can't seem to trust anyone or any thing.

So instead I tried to sleep on it. When that didn't work out I decided to try my next best option for clearing my head. Running.

I decide to hit the river trail.

The river trail is not nearly as nice as it sounds. There are nice parts, the coves is a pretty little stretch, but this is the Santa Ana River, and long ago the banks were reinforced with concrete, so it looks more like a drainage culvert than a river. Since its dry right now it looks like a massive culvert with sand at the bottom. It's dry most of the time, and you can't imagine it ever filling up, until the winter rains come and turns into a raging torrent overnight.

If you head north eventually you'll get to the wealthier areas where it's lined with trees and moderately pretty. But here in Anaheim it's a big ditch paralleled with seepage pools, and a few hardy trees set back behind the trail. At this time of year the trail is hard packed dirt, dry and dusty, and not at all scenic. But you can run for miles without a traffic light, or worrying about cars.

I never go south, there's a huge homeless encampment right before Angel Stadium that my parents made me promise to stay away from. Me running on the river trail makes my parents nervous in general. But today, on a Saturday in the bright early morning there's plenty of runners and bikers out along both sides of the river. It's perfectly safe.

I'm not surprised when someone draws along side me, although I should be. He's been avoiding me for weeks, but now when I desperately need to talk to someone who maybe gets why I'm so scared he just appears, like I summoned him to me. And I expected him to.

"Hey," David says.

Of course I did come out here looking for him. He told me he likes running the river trail in the early morning. So it's not like he magically appeared. Perhaps outside of school, away from the pressure of that environment he can relax. Maybe he's ready to give me some answers. I should've tried this ages ago.

"Hey," I reply.

And that is literally all the conversation we have. I can't seem to figure out what to ask, and he's as avoidant as always.

When I reach my turn about spot I half expect him to go on further, but he sticks with me, all the way back to the gate onto the street near my house.

Okay, I want to talk to him, but he's not a puppy that I'm going to let follow me home. Even though he does know where I live (thanks Lionel!) that doesn't mean I'm fine with him following me back there. As much as I want answers he still makes me nervous.

So I stop under a shady tree and take off my sunglasses, waiting for him to look at me. He does, with reluctance, taking off his cap. His eyes are just as magnetic as I remembered. Brown, I note. They're brown. Probably why I couldn't remember the color before. I kept trying to imagine deep blue or exotic green. Now I know why I couldn't make it fit. I can't define what's so special about his eyes, but I find I have to force myself to look away.

"Why do you hide your eyes? They're beautiful." Not quite the opener I intended.

He hunches his shoulders. "Most people say creepy. I'd rather not freak people out when they look at me." That's weird, but not my concern right now.

"So, are you okay? We were worried about you." After you freaked out and ran off, I don't add.

"I'm okay. I mean, I get it. You had to test me, right?"

"Test you?" I want to be incredulous, but wasn't that sort of what I was doing? "I wasn't testing you."

He backs up looking nervous, and I hold my hands out, trying to look nonthreatening.

"Okay, I wasn't testing you, but maybe I was testing something. That house..."

He frowns. "What is that place?"

"I don't know!" That's what's scaring me.

"Okay, then easier question. What are you? You and Lionel. Are you, are you guys like me?"

His special eyes are lit with such hope. I don't want to disappoint him, but-

"Like you? Like you how? Do you mean your anxiety stuff?" What do I call it. Anxiety issues? Problems?

"No. Never mind. I thought something dumb." He looks away, breaking the connection.

I reach out to him, slowly, mindful of how he panicked when Lionel touched him, but even though he flinches a little when I touch his arm, he doesn't run.

"Are you okay? Seriously?"

To my horror he bursts into tears.

He sits down on the curb and puts his head in his hands. "Am I okay? Is it okay when your whole life is gone to hell and the people you thought were your friends don't want anything to do with you, and you don't really blame them, because you've become a monster."

Crap.

All I want is some answers and instead I've got a 16 year old guy crying his eyes out right in front of me.

I so don't want to deal with this.

I sit down beside him anyway and awkwardly pat his shoulder.

"You're not a monster. Lots of people have mental health issues."

He laughs, that sort of sob laugh that people do when they're crying and laughing at the same time.

I press on anyway. "You know you can ask for help if you need it. I'm not judging you."

He's quiet for a few moments.

"You really don't know what I am, do you?"

"Dude, unless you're going around hurting people you're not a monster. I know that."

"How about freak? Does that fit me better?"

What happened to this guy? He said that he had these panic attacks because he went through something. What happened to him that makes him think he's a monster? I don't ask, what if asking makes him cry again? I don't want him to cry more. That was hella embarrassing.

"You're not a monster, or a freak."

"You don't know what I am."

"I know my instincts, and I trust what they're telling me." And I do. Somewhere in the last few minutes I've realized that the nervous edgy feeling I'm getting is because he's radiating it. I feel anxious for him, not because of him.

Amazingly that seems to calm him down, and he tilts his head, studying me, like he's been doing at school. Like he's trying to figure me out.

"How good are your instincts?"

The question feel oddly loaded. He's not asking casually, this is important. So instead of the flippant way I normally would deal with a question like that I answer seriously.

"I always know what people want. And you, you're a harder read than most, but you don't want to hurt anyone. You're just-- really scared."

And there's something else. Something I'm not sure how to express. It's why I had such a hard time reading him.

"Please," I ask. "I just want to know what's going on. I'm scared too. You know something about this weird stuff that's happening. Help. Please?"

He gives me a look, straight on with those eyes, I'm suddenly aware of my heart thumping in my chest, the swish of my blood, the thrum of my muscles, tired from the run, as if my body is a machine and I am aware of each part.

"I have to go," he says, and before I can say another word he's on his feet, face hidden beneath his cap, and leaving.

I clench my teeth in frustration as I watch him lope away.

I curse Lionel for asking me to help with his exciting new recruit. Does he even know what kind of mess he's handed me? Because from where I sit this whole mess seems to have started with David.

I stand by my belief that he doesn't want to hurt me, but he's set something in motion, something strange and frightening.

And I'm afraid that neither of us can stop it now.

#

I can't stay focused on my day after that. I go through the usual, chores at home, some homework, I meet up with Georgia and Alexis for lunch.

Alexis is Lionel's older sister, but she's a grade ahead of us in school, and we never seem to see her much anymore, so it should be nice to spend some time with her.

Instead all I do is wonder what she'd see if I put her in front of the fairy house.

Luckily the two of them chat on together and so I eat my hamburger and say no to going over to Alexis' place to hang out. Although Lionel would probably be around I don't feel up to coping with their loud busy household.

It's a relief to get home and find that my family has gone out, and I have the place to myself.

But hours of silence don't deliver any answers. Either there is something extremely weird about that place, or everyone I know is delivering up a massive prank. And I can't truly believe either. And now I have to weigh David and his cryptic comments in on the issue.

I start to type in an internet search, although what search terms should I use? I can't explain this in a few specific words.

Googling invisible, and only visible to some, and other related types of terms lead, predictably, to lots of stories about ghosts, stuff about science fiction, and finally some interesting articles about real science. How some people can literally see more colors because of an extra cone thing in their eyes.

That's cool, but hardly seems to explain what's happening to me. It's not like we're arguing about the line between pink and purple.

Besides, if it was some sort of genetic mutation (which, really? That makes a whole building seem to be another different building?) wouldn't my own sister be the person most likely to share that? Instead of my two best friends, with our fairly divergent gene pools, and some random other white guy who just conveniently showed up when this all started.

There's one page I read about how in fiction if a person can see the monsters that makes them one too. And I pause.

David seemed certain he was a monster. Is there something spooky and supernatural going on? If David is a monster, then what does that make me? I mean if I'm going to believe that I can see things that other people can't, then that is, strangely, the most logical conclusion.

It all seems so crazy. But I can't unthink it. My sister disappeared right in front of my eyes. A a place where I seem to be able to see things most other people can't.

David claimed straight up to be a monster. And he was asking if I was like him.

I need to make that guy talk to me.

I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for a while.

Should I text Lionel and ask him for David's number and deal with the inevitable teasing? Or should I call Georgia and get her help to try to talk this out?

My phone vibrates with a text from an unknown number.

-Hey, it's David

-I got your number off Lionel, hope that's okay.

I stare at my phone for a moment. I summoned him again. It sounds crazy but today I feel like I could believe anything.

C- Can you read my mind?

I follow it up with an emoji, to show I'm not serious. Can’t be having him think I’m totally crazy.

D- No. At least I don't think so.

D- I just assumed you'd want to talk to me.

D- Should I be able to?

Well, this can't get any weirder.

C- I don't know how what anyone should be able to do anymore.

D- are you okay?

C- No.

D- I'm sorry about before. We can talk if you want.

C- Yes!

C- Can we meet?

#

By the time I get there I'm seriously regretting my decision to go over to his house, hurrying along in the orange light of the sunset. David assured me that his mother will be at home, and he didn't act like it was a stupid question. He knows that he makes me uneasy. It's why I didn't tell him to come to me, because somehow inviting him into my space feels too invasive. It's stupid, stupid, I'm trusting him with my secrets, but not my safety?

I'm hanging onto my confidence from earlier, that he doesn't want to hurt me, that what he wants from me is a friend.

It doesn't help when I realize that his house is a large, creepy Victorian, looming 3 stories high and painted dark shades of green and plum that seem to fade around the edges into the dusk.

It's in one of those strange little pockets of history that you get around here. Four fabulous heritage listed houses sit in a row, complete with vintage lamp posts and permit only parking, and right across the street there's crowded rows of shabby apartments. Not a good neighborhood. Not one I feel safe walking in after dark. How am I going to get home? So yeah, to sum up, I'm going out at night, to a rough neighborhood, into a creepy Victorian mansion, to hang out with a guy who believes he's a monster, and we're going to talk about the supernaturalish stuff that's been happening. Absolutely nothing about that can go wrong, right?

I stop and text Georgia and after I think for a second I text my mom too, telling her I'm working on something for school with David. She responds immediately, telling me it's getting late and to message her when I'm ready to come home and she'll pick me up.

The mundane conversation breaks the weird anything can happen type sense I've been building up for the last twenty four hours.

But then I turn back to David's creepy house. There's no easy access to the front door. I mean, there's a wrought iron fence with a gate, but there's also a huge black dog, some sort of boxer crossed with a bear by the looks of it, lounging on the front porch.

So I stand there and text David to come let me in. Some men cat call me from across the street, I'm many generations Californian, so despite the color of my skin I don't really speak Spanish, but I still know what those words mean. I try not to cringe, and regret not changing into something less revealing, although my shorts are hardly skimpy.

"Hurry up jerk," I mutter, resentful of David for not being here to let me in.

He appears in front of me suddenly.

"Hey, why didn't you just come on in? The gate's not locked."

I point to the dog, still lounging on the porch.

"He's fine, he won't bother you."

In fact, as we walk up the front steps the dog whines and backs away, it's eyes fixed on David.

"Your dog is afraid of you?" That seems bad.

"Yeah. Just another sucky development in my life. Come on. My mother is dying to meet you."

He opens the door and gestures ahead of him. I know he's just being polite, but somehow it feels like the point of no return. But who am I kidding? I'm not walking away from this. I need to know what the hell is going on.

To my relief his mother is hovering in the living room, just as promised. She's the most elegant, beautiful woman I think I've ever seen in real life. Her shiny dark hair is highlighted with deep red undertones and is beautifully styled, laying in artful curls and waves, and her makeup is impeccable. I feel shabby and sweaty, thoughtlessly dressed in a pair of jean shorts and tank top plus one of my vintage finds, a wool openwork top that I've repaired the moth holes in. I thought I did a good job of it, but I'm sure someone as fancy as this can tell.

But I feel no judgment. She seems truly thrilled to meet me, telling me to please call her Meredith. She takes us back to the kitchen and offering me a snack, a meal, whatever I want.

I accept a bottle of water, giving David a wary look. He shrugs and hunches his shoulders.

"No hats on indoors, you know that dear," his mom scolds, tapping him on the head.

He reluctantly removes his cap, fidgeting with it like he's just waiting for the moment he can put it back on.

It seems that his parents are going out for the evening (something I should've realized when I saw how nice his mom looked) and I shoot David a deadly glance.

"How are you going to get home dear? I don't want a young girl like you wandering around after dark." She looks back over at David. "Perhaps you can get your brother to drive her home?"

David frowns. "I'll walk her home."

At the same time I say "My mom is going to pick me up."

David smirks at me and then hunches back up.

Meredith frowns at that, wrinkles marring her smooth forehead. "Oh I suppose that's all right. We won't be leaving for another thirty minutes anyway, so if you're done before then we can drop you off."

David’s eyes flick to me. "We might hang out for a bit longer, so..."

And his mother smiles indulgently. Is this what it's like being a boy? You can have random girls over when your parents aren't home and your mom just smiles?

She pats me on the head and tells me how lovely it is to meet me and how she hopes to see me again soon.

I follow David upstairs to his room. I feel like I'm following a bear into a cave. I might be exaggerating the gothicness of all of it. I don't feel threatened by David, and at any time I can call my mom to come and pick me up. I'm not trapped. But it's all so weird.

We pass a door in the hallway with music vibrating out around the seams.  

"My brother," David says, waving a hand toward the music emanating door. "He's not going to surface any time soon, don't worry."

Why should I be worried about seeing his brother?

"Why was your mom so excited to see me? Don't you have other friends? You better not have told her we're dating."

"No, no, it's just-- part of what is going on with me. My friends aren't around much any more. She's just been worried about me."

His room is kind of a mess. The normal kind of mess. It looks like he picked up a bit before I came over, if the overflowing laundry hamper in the corner is any indication. But it's a comfortable, lived in sort of mess. It's not the mathematical perfection of Lionel's room, nor the regimented chaos Georgia lives in.

"This is nice," I say, looking around. The room is more of a suite actually. It's two fairly big rooms with a wide arch in the wall between them. He's got a bedroom, and a sort of living room, with a couch and a couple of armchairs. There's a big flatscreen tv, a desk along one wall littered with books and papers. Everything is done in pale neutral colors, like something from a magazine, if it was all tidy. He's got several gaming systems laid out below the television, and I can see an attached bathroom through a half open door. Everything about the space looks expensive. I should've realized when I saw the house, but David is rich.

"I'd have started hanging out with you before if I knew you had this kind of set up," I say, running my hand across a throw blanket, plaid in shades of grey and cream. Is that wool? I pick it up and drape it around my shoulders, instantly feeling safer and more comfortable.

"Why are you going to school with us regular people, shouldn't you be going to some place that ends with 'Academy?'"

"Yeah, yeah. My parents don't believe in private schools." He slumps down into one of the armchairs, and I take the one opposite, relieved that we're not going to be hanging out in his bedroom, even though the textiles on that bed look extremely desirable.

"So, ah, sorry about this morning. I'm really not usually so dramatic."

I laugh. "Really? Because from where I sit, you're just one dramatic moment after another."

He scowls and slouches down even lower. "Okay, fair," he mutters, tugging his cap down onto his head.

He really does seem to prefer to remain invisible.  

"Whatever happened to you must have been rough, for you to be having so much trouble dealing with it."

"Yeah." But he doesn't volunteer any more.

I study him. Perhaps invisible is the wrong word. Hidden. Seeking the shadows, even here in his own space. He looks almost relaxed, but it's relaxed like a cat lounging, ready to run or fight at the slightest provocation.

He's a human fight or flight response. Does he ever truly drop his guard?

He's also not talking.

Waiting. Waiting for me to set the tone of the conversation.

I take a deep breath.

"Look. Something weird is going on, and I don't understand it. But I think you do. Help me. Please. This is all scaring me."

"I don't know anything about that freaky house."

"but you know something," I persist. "You thought we were causing it or testing you or whatever."

"I know what happened to me. That's it."

"And?"

He squirms. "I don't know if you really want to hear about that."

I don't know if I want to either."If you don't want to tell me then fine. But I thought that was why you had me come over. I thought you wanted to tell me about it."

He stares for a moment. "Okay. I'm nervous I guess. That you'll run away, that you'll hate me?" He leaps up and goes to the french doors, opening them out onto a balcony,that runs along the back of the house overlooking the jungle like back yard. Not a lot of maintenance going on with that, or perhaps they like having a yard that looks like unkempt wilderness.

Heavy shadow are gathering beneath the trees.

"Let's go into the back yard."

"Do we have to? Can we at least take a flashlight?"

"Flashlight, good idea. I forget about that now."

He ducks around me and back into his room, returning in a moment with a heavy duty looking light. The kind that you take camping, and floats in water and all that good indestructible stuff. He hands it to me, and then swings himself easily over the railing, dropping down to the ground below. Because, oh, there's no stairs.

"Are you for real? I know you have actual stairs in this house. We just came up them. I could go use them. It'll take one minute longer."

"This is faster. And my mom won't see us. Come on. You'll be fine, you're an athlete. Just toss me down the light first."

And despite never having done a thing like this before, I find that it is easy. I grab the railing and swing my legs over like David did, and then lower myself down to the ground.

"See? Easy."

"Why do we have to talk outside anyway?"

"So I don't freak out. Sorry. It's the enclosed spaces thing. Come on." He slips silently into the shadows.

Am I really doing this? Am I following this boy, who I know so little about, who makes me uneasy, into the dark? I seem to recall promising myself not to do this exact thing. But that was before.

He's not going to hurt me. I met his mother ten minutes ago, and despite how strange and remote this place feels there is a busy crowded apartment complex across the street. If I stop and listen I can hear cars and voices. Surely if I scream someone will come for me. Besides. I trust my instincts. And my instincts say he needs my help more than I need his.

David has disappeared anyway. I turn on the flashlight and pan it across the bushes, and I almost jump out of my skin when I see the flash of golden eyes. I swing the light back quickly, my heart pounding, but it's just David, standing patiently, waiting for me.

"Jeez you scared me. I thought for a second that I saw some sort of animal."

He's finally lost the cap, and he's staring at me with those odd eyes of his.

"Yeah, well not too far wrong."

"Well? Are you going to tell me something? Because I'd rather not get eaten alive by mosquitoes if it's all the same to you."

Bugs like mosquitoes aren't something that we normally have a problem with around here, the area being more desert than anything, but I'm sure that this lush yard has lots of places for them to breed. My skin itches in anticipation.

"I'm just trying to decide if I should just show you, or try to explain things first."

"Just show me. Unless it's the graves of your previous victims or something. In that case, I'm really hoping your mother isn't in on it with you."

He grins, and unease ripples down my back.

"No previous victims."

But then he's jiggling on his toes looking as unthreatening as can be.

"Okay, just, promise me that you'll wait, and let me explain, after. Okay?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing that will hurt you. I promise. I'm not even going to touch you. But, I think it's going to scare you a bit. I'm going to do something to myself. I'll try to change back right away, but sometimes it's really hard, so be patient, okay?"

Why did I get myself into this?

"I ah, I need to take off my clothes first," he says, and and promptly pulls his tee-shirt over his head, and then kicks off his All Stars and starts unbuttoning his jeans.

I yelp and turn my back on him to give him privacy for whatever the hell he thinks he's doing. But somehow this had gone from intimidating to comedic.

"You can turn back, I'm keeping my shorts on, I think that should be okay."

I grudgingly turn back, and seriously. I cannot feel threatened by this guy standing there looking so pale and skinny. He's not very tall, maybe 5'7" at the most, and while he's definitely got some muscle definition he's still skinny and pasty. He can't weigh more than 130 pounds. Not at all threatening.

And despite his near nudity, nothing about this says sexy either. He just looks anxious and embarrassed.

"Okay. Here goes. Don't freak out, okay?"

He closes his eyes and takes a few slow deep breaths, like he's centering himself.

And then, and then he starts to change.

Yay cliffhanger ending. I’m sure no one at all can guess what David is lol.

If you’ve made it this far thanks for reading, As always I appreciate any support for my writing, so please check out my novels #1, #2, patreon and ko-fi!

Links to the previous chapters 1, 2

tagging @pinehutch @focusdumbass @timeenoughforamasterpiece @maximillianvalentine @q-oetry @rosy-writes @sunsetsrmydreams @goddessofnothingatall

As always if you’d like to be added or removed from this list please shoot me a message or comment on this post!

[sapphicscholar]

Prompt from @aliesanvers for a fluffy and smutty one-shot about Maggie and Alex celebrating Maggie's bday? :)

Happy (slightly belated) birthday, dear! Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Text:

Maggie woke up to the feeling of Alex's tongue hot against her, Alex's fingers wrapped around her hips, Alex's hair tickling at the insides of her thighs.

"Fuck," Maggie rasped, her voice thick with sleep and desire. Her brain struggled to make it to fully awake even as her body surged up at the flick of Alex's tongue up and around her clit, one of her hands falling to the sheets as the other tangled in Alex's hair, holding her in place. "So close," Maggie panted. And god, how true it was.

"I've got you," Alex whispered, bringing her mouth up just enough for Maggie to be able to see her chin and lips glistening with the proof of her own arousal, to see how dark Alex's eyes were even as her lips curled up into a loving smile. And then she was ducking her head back down and taking Maggie's clit between her lips, her tongue flicking across it, and Maggie didn't stand a chance of lasting any longer, coming with a sharp gasp as her thighs tightened around Alex's head.

Trying to get her heart rate under control, Maggie took deep breaths, whimpering slightly when Alex's tongue flicked out once more before she began her slow descent back up Maggie's torso.

"Good morning." Alex planted a soft kiss on Maggie's lips.

"Really, really good morning."

"Just because you have to work today doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate..." Alex trailed off, letting her gaze dart over to the bedside table where Maggie noticed a plate of french toast waiting for her along with a coffee mug and light blue envelope with her name scrawled across it.

"Danvers, you really didn't have to."

"I know I didn't have to. I wanted to," Alex explained, pulling herself up onto her knees and helping to prop up some of the pillows for Maggie to sit up and enjoy her breakfast in bed.

"One of the many reasons I love you." It was meant to be teasing, but Maggie's voice dripped with sincerity—the kind of earnestness she once mocked in cheesy romcoms and love stories. Because she had barely even talked about her birthday, let alone asked for anything, but Alex had noticed—of course she had—and had gone out of her way to make her morning perfect.

"You're totally getting soft on me, Sawyer," Alex teased, earning herself a faceful of pillow. By the time Alex had gotten resettled, pushing her hair out from her face, Maggie was sitting beside her, plate in her lap and coffee mug in hand looking the picture of innocence. "You're lucky you're cute."

"Don't I know it," Maggie answered, popping a bite of french toast in her mouth and humming happily. "Oh my god, this is so good—it's just like that diner I used to love!"

"That's because it is from that diner you used to love."

"What? That diner's all the way out in Gotham."

Alex simply nodded, busying herself with her own cup of coffee.

"Did you get Kara to fly out there for me?"

"Ah, apparently she paid a certain masked vigilante a visit while she was out there," Alex shrugged, like it was perfectly reasonable to have gotten her fiancée breakfast from hundreds of miles away, just to make sure it was perfect.

"Well, be sure to thank Kara for me, okay?"

"I think the owner of that diner did plenty of that for you, if the number of takeout boxes Kara was holding was any indication." Shaking her head, Alex laughed softly. It was just like Kara to turn a quick errand into a morning-long exercise in making friends with strangers. "Plus, I thought, well, if you're up for it, maybe we could do a little party over at Kara's tonight?"

"For my birthday?"

"No for this random Thursday, Sawyer," Alex deadpanned.

"Shut up. I'm just saying, you don't have to make it into such a big deal. I'm sure everyone is busy." She shrugged. "This morning is already way more than we ever did back home." It wasn't like her parents had completely ignored her, but birthdays simply weren't a big deal when both of her parents worked long days just to make ends meet. Plus, her birthday was so close to the holidays, it just got wrapped into the bigger celebrations, and she learned from a young age not to ask for more, not to demand something bigger or better. Just because the wealthier white kids in her grade—the ones whose parents owned the stores instead of working at them—got big parties where they rented out whole ice skating rinks or took all the girls or boys in the grade to go see a movie and had stacks of presents to open at the end didn't mean that she could. And it was fine. Her mom would bake a cake, and they would sing happy birthday after a dinner that was just like the dinners they had every other day of the week, and Maggie was happy. It was fine.

"But you're not opposed to the idea of something small?"

"Not opposed, no," Maggie confirmed, smiling at Alex's consideration.

"Perfect. Then I'll pick you up from work tonight, okay?"

"Deal."

Maggie's day passed by in a flurry of activity, having been called in to work a few minor non-Science Division cases since half the precinct was out with a nasty bug, and by the time 5pm rolled around, she was excited to be able to turn off her scanner and relax.

"Sawyer!" her captain's voice boomed out across the bullpen.

"Yes, sir?" Maggie quickly wove her way through the clusters of desks over to his office door.

"Thanks for picking up the slack today."

"Oh, uh, yeah...yeah, no problem."

"It might not be a problem, but you did more than your share of helping to keep our team running today." Maggie rubbed at the back of her neck, ducking her head slightly. Accepting compliments had never been her strong suit. "Oh, and Sawyer?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy birthday." She didn't miss the rare smile as he passed over a card signed by many of her coworkers, most of whom had written short notes thanking her for the work she did, talking about how nice it was to have her at NCPD and a few joking that they'd willingly fight Gotham to keep her forever.

Biting back a surge of emotion, Maggie nodded. "Thank you."

"And consider tomorrow a mandatory day off."

"But half the team is already—"

"Just take the day off. Consider it my insisting that you use some of that leave time you keep racking up, if you must."

"If you insist..." Maggie trailed off, not bothering to hide her grin.

"Now get out of here. I'm sure you've got a glass of scotch and a fiancée waiting for you at home."

With a nod, Maggie gathered her coat and bag and headed for the parking lot where Alex was waiting for her. With a quick kiss, Alex pulled open the passenger door for Maggie.

"So chivalrous."

"Only the best for you." With a charming smile, Alex climbed back in, starting the car only to have stereo roar to life with the chorus of a My Chemical Romance song she'd loved back in high school and had been playing on her drive over to the precinct blasting through the speakers.

"I take back the chivalrous comment!" Maggie yelled over the music while Alex fumbled with the knobs to turn it down.

"Hush now, you're just getting the full Alex Danvers chauffeur experience."

"Mm, now does this Alex Danvers have any qualms about making out in the backseat to complete the high school mood?"

"She does not...but she does have a hungry alien sister who might eat the birthday cake if we don't get there on time."

"Fine," Maggie relented with an exaggerated huff of exasperation.

By the time they got to Kara's, Winn, James, and J'onn had already arrived and were scattered around the apartment. "Happy birthday!" Kara squealed, jumping up from the sofa when Maggie and Alex walked in and running over to hug the birthday girl.

"Thanks, Kara." But before Maggie could get any further than the doorway, she found herself being pulled into a hug by Winn, who whispered, "It's the one day of the year when you can't threaten me for hugging you...unless you want me to stop."

As tempted as Maggie was to mess with him, she just laughed. "You're alright Schott—but only today."

"Understood!"

James was next up. "Happy birthday, Maggie. I'm really glad to have you as the newest member of the superfriends." They both cracked up at the name, shaking their heads at just how extra Winn and Kara could be—a level that increased exponentially when they were left to work together.

"Maggie," J'onn greeted her with a nod and a shake of his hand, which she quickly turned into a hug. She wasn't going to say no to a nice space dad moment.

Eventually they made it all the way into the living room and settled in on the couches and chairs around the room. Playing hostess, Kara used a small burst of super-speed to dart back and forth to the kitchen and back with trays of drinks and bowls of popcorn and chips to snack on while they waited for the pizza to arrive.

When Lena arrived, she let the pizza delivery boy up with her and paid, waving off the protests with a flick of her wrist and a "Happy birthday, Maggie!" Over dinner, they chatted about their days and the plans for the coming weekend, and J'onn insisted Alex take off the next day to be with Maggie once he found out that her captain had instructed her to stay home.

"Okay, so, I know that presents traditionally wait until cake," Kara began, looking far too excited to wait that long, "but I figure nothing about our friend group is really all that traditional, so..." The group just snickered and rolled their eyes, none of them having expected Kara to make it all the way to dessert.

"You really didn't need to get me a present," Maggie insisted.

"Aha! We knew you would say that!" Maggie tilted her head to the side, feeling like she was missing some part of the puzzle here. "That's why we didn't technically get you anything but a card."

Maggie accepted the proffered card and sat back, skimming over the sweet notes from each of them, including one from Eliza that Maggie could only assume Kara managed to get by flying all the way to Midvale. "Well thank you, I really appreciate it."

"But that's not all!" Kara announced, sounding like she could have been a game show hostess revealing what was behind curtain number two. "See, we knew you would say no presents per se, but you can't say no to a fun experience... So! We all made proposals about what we thought you might want to do. I still think we should do them all, but Alex suggested that we let you pick."

"I just said she might not want to spend the next several weekends in a row doing big group activities—fun as they may be." Maggie stifled a laugh at the wink Alex threw her way; she had a feeling she knew exactly what kinds of activities Alex thought they should save time for, and those activities were definitely more of a two-person variety.

"Well I thought it could be fun if we all went and played paintball together," Kara began. “You and Alex seem to bond best over shooting and dodging and strategizing, and what better way to do than in way with no risk of death?”

"And I suggested laser tag," Lena threw out there. When everyone looked at her in surprise, she simply shrugged. "Kara made a convincing argument for why the guns and the shooting would be appealing, but I thought a version where nice clothing needn't be destroyed could be preferable."

"I vote for gocarts!" Winn called out, looking absolutely delighted by the suggestion. He might not ever be able to keep up with them on motorcycles (not that he'd ever tried), but he thought a new kind of vehicle might even the playing field. He didn't mention that the track had been set up to look like National City and the carts had been painted with different villains, vigilantes, and heroes, though it had been a real selling point, especially once the owner added a steel gray Guardian cart to his lineup.

"I could call in some connections from CatCo to get us front row 'media' seats to the roller derby championship tournament that's coming to National City in two weeks," James offered, delighted to find that Maggie's eyes lit up at the suggestion.

All eyes turned then to J'onn, who had remained mysteriously quiet. "I offer nothing more than one of the testing facilities at the DEO."

After a moment of silence, Kara shrugged and smiled at him. "Maybe next year, J'onn!"

He chuckled, winking over at Maggie as he elaborated: "Just you, a testing facility, and a whole batch of the newest model of our flash grenades to throw at moving targets."

Maggie's mouth dropped open at that. "Babe!" she squealed. "Did you hear that? I'm gonna get a flash grenade after all!"

"She should know," J'onn added, biting back a smile at the sight of the older Danvers looking beyond happy as she smiled down at her fiancée, "she designed the new model just in time for the occasion."

James managed to slip out his camera just in time to capture the sight of Maggie's ecstatic grin as she nearly bounded into Alex's lap, kissing her soundly.

When the pizza was just about finished, Alex disappeared, shooing Maggie back into the living room as she busied herself in Kara's kitchen. Trying not to peek, Maggie turned back toward James to listen to what he was saying about the latest news from CatCo. When the lights suddenly dimmed, though, her attention was drawn back to the source of noise coming from the kitchen, where Alex stood clutching a large glass pan of tiramisu, a smattering of candles decorating it and bathing Alex's face in a warm, flickering light.

As the group began singing a surprisingly in-tune version of Happy Birthday, Maggie laughed softly, blinking back the happy tears threatened to fall, which she would vehemently deny later.

"Happy birthday, dear Maggie, happy birthday to you!" they finished, Winn drawing out the note for several bars until Alex finally silenced him with a glare, and everyone joined in to clap and cheer loudly, urging Maggie to blow out the candles and make a wish.

Closing her eyes, Maggie found that the kinds of wishes she used to have—wishes for a chance to see the world outside of Blue Springs, to do well on her midterm tests, to be allowed to have Eliza sleep over that weekend—just didn't come to her anymore. Looking around and finding a room of friends and chosen family who had all given up their evenings to be here, supporting her and celebrating her, she found the only wish that came to mind was for more moments just like this one.

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