#◇ / * （ melinda gordon * closed. ）

[thingsasbarcodes]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 2x15 - One Door Closes

[burygods]

starter call : for lana collins

melinda doesn't live in a little bubble. she knows there's just as much bad out there as there is good. has seen it firsthand. has always seen her gift as a blessing ... after all, it's a gift for a reason. not many would agree --- amongst the living and the dead. but it's not her job to snuff out, as it is to heal both life and death.

they stand in the antique store. her home away from home. she hasn't run into many of @cagedpotential's kind --- hunters. though grandview is ripe for the picking. like a hotbed for spiritual activity. but this was her home, and they would do it her way. " i could use your help. " melinda admits softly. finding it hard to trust this woman with such a personal gift --- but has a feeling lana would understand and not judge. this restless soul testing melinda. " to cross him over. "

[graysoncritic]

A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - Bibliography

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

Below the cut is a list of all sources used for the essay A Negative Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run

Andreyko, Marc, writer. Bennett, Joe, illustrator Hero’s Journey. Nightwing Annual. 2, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2007

Ashley [TheBat_Family]. Twitter, 13 October 2020, https://twitter.com/TheBat_Family/status/1316006509923520512

Bells, JL “Success in Stasis: Dick Grayson’s Thirty Years as a Boy Wonder.”Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder: Scholars and Creators on 75 years of Robin, Nightwing, and Batman edited by Kristen L. Geaman, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015, pp. 08-27

Borsellino, Mary “‘A lot like Robin if you close your eyes.’ Displacement of meaning in the Post-Modern Age,  2006

Baxi, Steve, “TRADE COLLECTION REVIEW: Nightwing Vol. 1 - Leaping Into The Light” Comics Bookcase, August 2021

Braxi, Steve, “On Superman, Shootings, and the Reality of Superheroes” Comics Bookcase, September 2021

Castellucci, Cecil, writer. Sauvage, Marguerite; Lupacchino, Emanuela; Aneke, illustrators.  Little Wonders. Batgirl: Rebirth. 50, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2020

Chen, Jess [jesswchen]. “Tweet Message.” Twitter, 18 March 2023, https://twitter.com/jesswchen/status/1636971185782259716?s=20

Dixon, Chuck, writer. Leonardi, Rick, illustrator. The Gun. Birds of Prey. 39, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2002

Dixon, Chuck; Grayson, Devin; Peterson, Scott; writers. Ha, Gene; Scott, Damion; Land, Greg; Stelfreeze, Brian; Guice, Jackson; Eaglesham, Dale; Floyd, John; Jimenez, Phil; Brown, Eliot R.; McDaniel, Scott; Nolan, Graham; Rosado, William; Kuhn, Andy, illustrators. DC Secret Files: Nightwing Secret Files #1. DC Secret Files: Nightwing Secret Files #1 no. 01, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1999

Dixon, Chuck, writer. McDaniel, Scott, illustrator The Freebooters. Nightwing. 03, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1996

Dixon, Chuck, writer. McDaniel, Scott, illustrator The Visitor. Nightwing. 06, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1996

Dixon, Chuck, writer. McDaniel, Scott, illustrator. False Starts. Nightwing. 21, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1998

Dixon, Chuck, writer. McDaniel, Scott, illustrator. The Forgotten Dead. Nightwing. 24, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1998.

Dixon, Chuck, writer. McCarthy, Trevor, illustrator. The Threshold. Nightwing. 60, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2001

Dixon, Chuck, writer. Burchett, Rick, illustrator. The Unusual Suspects. Nightwing. 66, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2002

Downey, Mason “In Defense of Dick Grayson: Objectification, Sexuality, and Subtext” Women Write About Comics. December 2015

Gail, Simone, writer. Timm, Bruce; Lopez, David; Melo, Adriana, illustrators. A Wakeful Time. Birds of Prey. 86, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005

Gail, Simone, writer. Bennett, Joe; Barrows, Eddy, illustrator. Perfect Pitch: Part One. Birds of Prey. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005

Grayson, Devin, writer. Eaglesham, Dale, illustrator. Fear of Flames Part One: Fanning the Flames. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. 116, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1999.

Grayson, Devin. Incrimination. Nightwing no 83, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003

Grayson, Devin, writer. Zitcher, Path, illustrator The Calm Before. Nightwing. 86, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003

Grayson, Devin, writer. Zitcher, Patch, illustrator. Snowball. Nightwing. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003

Grayson, Devin, writer. Davis, Shane, illustrator Flurry. Nightwing no 88, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2003

Grayson, Devin, writer. Zircher, Patch, illustrator Avalanche. Nightwing no 89, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2004

Grayson, Devin, writer. Zircher, Patch, illustrator. Rekindle. Nightwing no 91, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2004

Grayson, Devin, writer. Garcia, Manuel, illustrator Flashpoint. Nightwing no 92, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2004

Grayson, Devin, writer. Zircher, Patch, illustrator. Slow Burn. Nightwing no 93, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2004

Grayson, Devin, writer. Hester, Phil, illustrator. Cold Turkey. Nightwing. 109, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005.

Grayson, Devin, writer. Chiang, Cliff, illustrator. Signed, Sophia. Nightwing. 111, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005

Grayson, Devin, writer. Chiang, Cliff, illustrator The Scorpion and the Frog. Nightwing no 113, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005

Grayson, Devin; Barr, Mike W., writers. Davis, Alan; Robinson, Roger, illustrator. Procedure. Batman: Gotham Knights  no. 25, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2002. pp. 20

Grayson, Devin; Jimenez, Phil, writer. Jimenez, Phil; Brown, Eliot R., illustrator. The Generation Gap. JLA/Titans no. 02, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1998

Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator The Untouchable: Chapter One: Hunter. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 35, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018

Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Two: Relentless. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 36, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018

Humphries, Sam, writer. Janson, Klaus; Campbell, Jamal, illustrators. Ruthless. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 37, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018. 

Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator The Untouchable: Chapter Four: Infiltration. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 38, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018

Humphries, Sam, writer. Jimenez, Phil; Campbell, Jamal, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Five:Face Off. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 39, e-book  ed. DC Comics, 201

Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Six: Deep Dive. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 40, e-book  ed. DC Comics, 2018.

Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard; Campbell, Jamal, illustrator. The Untouchable: Chapter Seven: Final Judgment. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 41, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018

Johns, Geoff; Wolfman, Marv, writers. Nauck, Todd, illustrator.  The Brave and the Bold. Teen Titans no. 33, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2006

Jonathan [@Nightwingdagoat]. Twitter, 21 June 2022, https://twitter.com/Nightwingdagoat/status/1539267708310765568

Jurgens, Dan, writer. Cliquet, Ronan, illustrator. War for the Mind Nightwing: Rebirth. 71, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2020

Jurgens, Dan, writer. Cliquer, Ronan; Moore, Travis, illustrators. Who is Dick Grayson? Nightwing: Rebirth. 75, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2020

King, Tom; Seeley, Tim, writers. Janin, Mikel, illustrator. The Raid. Grayson no. 04, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2014

Loeb, Jeph, writer. Sale, Tim, illustrator. Orphans. Batman: Dark Victory. 09, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2000

Neb | 🏳️‍🌈 [@NebsGoodTakes]. Twitter, 20 June 2022, https://twitter.com/NebsGoodTakes/status/1538939571789934593

Pangborn, Joshua R “Fashioning Himself a Hero: Robin’s Costume and its Role in Shaping His Identity”Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder: Scholars and Creators on 75 years of Robin, Nightwing, and Batman edited by Kristen L. Geaman, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015 pp. 40 - 53

Seeley, Tim, writer. To, Marcus, illustrator Bludhaven: Part One. Nightwing: Rebirth. 10, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2016.

Snyder, Scott. Knife Trick. Batman. 01, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2011

Tom Taylor [@TomTaylorMade] Twitter, 25 January 2024 https://twitter.com/TomTaylorMade/status/1750685937292718094?t=q1n5w_a6NeZRLstUL0h_4g&s=19

Tom Taylor [@TomTaylorMade]. Twitter, 21 June 2022, https://twitter.com/Nightwingdagoat/status/1539267708310765568

Taylor, Tom [TomTaylorMade]. Twitter, 22 June 2023, https://twitter.com/jesswchen/status/1636971185782259716?s=20

Taylor, Tom. writer, Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 79, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator.  Leaping into the Light Part Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 80, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part 4. Nightwing: Rebirth. 81, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part 5. Nightwing: Rebirth. 82, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part Six. Nightwing: Rebirth. 83, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021.

Taylor, Tom, writer. Rodriguez, Robbi, illustrator.  Fear State Part 1 of 3. Nightwing: Rebirth. 84, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Get Grayson. Nightwing: Rebirth. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Get Grayson Act Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 88, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Get Grayson Act Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 90, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022.

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Get Grayson Act Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 91, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart. Nightwing: Rebirth. 92, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 93, e-book ed. DC Comics

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 94, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Four. Nightwing: Rebirth. 95, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Finale. Nightwing: Rebirth. 96, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022.

Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Power Vacuum: Part Four: The Leap. Nightwing: Rebirth. 100, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Taylor, Tom; Pacat, C. S., writers. Pansica, Eduardo; HDR, Daniel; Moore, Travis, illustrators.  

Superwing in Rise of the Underworld Finale. Nightwing: Rebirth. 104, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Taylor, Tom; Conrad, Michael, writers. Redondo, Bruno; Acuna, Serg, illustrator. You are 

Nightwing. Nightwing: Rebirth. 105, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Taylor, Tom, writer. Byrne, Stephen, illustrator. The Crew of the Crossed Part One. Nightwing: Rebirth. 106, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Taylor, Tom; Conrad, Michael, writers. Byrne, Stephen; Acuna, Serg, illustrator. The Crew of the 

Crossed Part Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 107, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Taylor, Tom, writer. Basri, Sami Nightwing. Nightwing: Rebirth. 111, e-book ed. DC Comics, 

2023

Waid, Mark, writer. Mora, Dan, illustrator. Team Spirit. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest no. 08, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Waid, Mark, writer. Lupacchino, Emanuela, illustrator. Scream of the Chaos Monkey. 

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest no. 12, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Waid, Mark, writer. Mora, Dan, illustrator. Manhunt. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest no. 14, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023

Wolfman, Marv, writer. Igle, Jamal, illustrator. Bride and Groom: Part One: The Courtship. Nightwing no. 129, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2007.

Wolfman, Marv, writer. Luque, Paco Diaz, illustrator. Bride and Groom: Part Four. Nightwing no. 132, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2007

Wolfram, Amy, writer. Kerschl, Karl, illustrator. In the Beginning… Part Three. Teen Titans: Year One no. 03, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2008.

Williamson, Joshua, writer. Sampere, Daniel; Herbert, Jack; Camuncoli, Giuseppe; Sandoval, Rafa, illustrators. Dawn of the DCU. Dark Crisis on Infinite Earth no. 7, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022

Willems, Patrick H. “The Secret Ingredient That Makes Raimi's SPIDER-MAN So Great (Season Premiere)” Youtube, uploaded by Patrick (H) Willems, 20 September 2022 

Winick, Judd, writer. Battle, Eric, illustrator. All They Do is Watch Us Kill: Part 3: It Only Hurts 

When I Laugh. Batman no. 650, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2006. Zdarsky, Chip, writer. Di Giandomenico, Carmine. The Knight Part 9. Batman: The Knight. 09, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022.

[tragcdyfallen]

closed starter ⟶ Melinda Gordon ( @hcpefuldreaming )

It was a miracle that Eris turned into a friend, a close one at that. They had been conversing when an idea sprung into her mind. Always an opportunity to annoy the male. Of course, Nesta had ulterior motives. Who this woman could be to her friend, she knew there was something going on. He spoke too fondly of Melinda Gordon, Nesta decided it was time to pry. " I knew I'd find you here. " she announced as she neared the woman.

[heavenboy09]

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎁 🎈 🎊 To You

The Most Remarkable & Sexiest Brunette👩 Teen Idol / Now All Grown Up Actress Of The 90's & 2000's

Born On February 21st, 1979

Hewitt was born in Waco, Texas to Patricia Mae (née Shipp), a speech-language pathologist, and Herbert Daniel Hewitt, a medical technician. She grew up in Nolanville in Central Texas, and has close kinship ties in parts of Arkansas.

She is an American actress, producer and singer. Hewitt began her career as a child actress and singer, appearing in national television commercials before joining the cast of the Disney Channel series Kids Incorporated (1989–1991). She had her breakthrough as Sarah Reeves Merrin on the Fox teen drama Party of Five (1995–1999) and rose to fame as a teen star for her role as Julie James in the horror films I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and its 1998 sequel, as well as her role as Amanda Beckett in the teen comedy film Can't Hardly Wait (1998).

Hewitt's other notable films include Heartbreakers (2001), The Tuxedo (2002) and the two Garfield live-action films (2004–2006). She has starred as Melinda Gordon on the CBS supernatural drama Ghost Whisperer (2005–2010), Riley Parks on the Lifetime drama series The Client List (2012–2013), Special Agent Kate Callahan on the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds (2014–2015), and since 2018, Maddie Buckley on the Fox first-responder procedural 9-1-1. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for The Client List pilot film (2010).In music, Hewitt has released four studio albums to date. After her debut album, Love Songs (1992), was released at age 12 exclusively in Japan, she went on to record Let's Go Bang (1995), Jennifer Love Hewitt (1996) and BareNaked (2002), the latter of which became her first album to chart in the United States, peaking at number 37 on the Billboard 200 chart. Her most successful single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was the 1999 release "How Do I Deal", which peaked at number 59. In addition to music and acting, Hewitt has served as a producer on some of her film and television projects. She has appeared in several magazines' lists of the world's most beautiful women.

PLEASE WISH THIS REMARKABLE & BEAUTIFUL BRUNETTE👩 SENSATIONAL ACTRESS OF THE 90'S A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

YOU KNOW HER ❤

YOU SEEN HER MOVIES 🎥 & ON TV 📺 SHOWS

& ALL THE BOYS STILL LOVE 💘 HER

I KNOW I DO 😉

THE 1  & ONLY

MS. JENNIFER LOVE 💘 ❤ 💕 ♥ 💖 💗 HEWITT 👩

HAPPY 45TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MS LOVE 💘 HEWITT👩 & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME

#JenniferLoveHewitt #PartyOfFive #IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer #TheAudreyHepburnStory #GhostWhisperer #TheClientList #911

[sunfyrd]

 PLAYLIST.   /       PINTEREST. / MUSINGS.   /    CONNECTIONS.

CHARACTER PARALLELS: fa mulan (disney’s mulan), arya stark (got), baela targaryen (hotd), merrida (disney’s brave), tomoe gozen (historical figure), tauriel (the hobbit), jo march (little women), samantha jone (sex & the city), jane austen (becoming jane), melinda gordon (ghost whisper), and mikasa ackerman (aot/snk)

BASIC STATISTICS.

full names: torrha stark

alias, nicknames: torr (by close friends/family) rha (pronounced “rya”, by her father) toh (pronounced “toe”, by a very selective few)

titles: princess of winterfell, youngest to the king of the north

age: twenty and four

monikers: terrible torrha, tolerable torrha

place of birth: winterfell, the northern kingdom

PERSONAL.

loyalties: house stark

gender: demi-woman

pronouns: she/her/hers

orientation: panromantic, demisexual

martial status: unmarried & unbetrothed

religion: old gods

spoken languages: common tongue

PSYCHICAL

ethnicity: mixed (caucasian & black)

hair color: red

eye color: blue

height: 5 ft 6 inch (168 cms)

build: athletic

scars: n/a.

modifications: n/a.

faceclaim: erin kellyman

PERSONALITY

moral alignment: chaotic neutral

myers-briggs type: ISFP-T

positive traits: circumspect, altruistic

negative traits: heedless, jaundiced

FAMILIAL

father: king torrhen stark

mother: arwyn stark nee flint

sibling(s): prince utp stark (older half-brother) princess lyanna stark (older half-sister, twin) , princess raya stark (older half-sister, twin), prince utp stark (older brother)

extended family: house flint

BACKGROUND

tba.

[melindaes]

about my portrayal of melinda gordon.

melinda sees her first ghost as young as three years old. then, though, they are passed off as imaginary friends. it's all fine for a few years until melinda gets too old to have imaginary friends, and then things start to become troublesome. "it's time to grow up," is heard over and over again by all the adults in her life. her mother beth tells her to stop being silly, they're not real. you can't keep making people up, melinda. but somehow, melinda knows she isn't. she knows they're real, she can feel it in her bones, in the way it makes her feel when they look at her.

the medical treatment and therapy sessions begin quite early. at eight years old, melinda's mother makes her an appointment at a children's mental health clinic and after several follow-up appointments spanning over the course of a few months, melinda is started on a regular routine of antipsychotics and antidepressants. she doesn't like them; they make her feel hazy and tired and out of touch with everything. the spirits become blurred figures and muffled voices, but they're still there. melinda doesn't speak of them much anymore after that, though, especially to her mother, but beth seems pleased with these changes. melinda begins to struggle a lot more with everyday things like school, making friends, sleeping too much, not eating enough—but there isn't much talk of melinda's imaginary friends anymore, so the medicine must be working.

one morning, a few months after starting the medications, melinda slips the pills under her tongue in an effort to hide them from her mother and make her believe she took them when she didn't. she didn't like the way they made her feel, and her mother didn't seem to care; melinda just wanted to start feeling a little normal again—if there was anything normal about her. however, that night when melinda is flushing the pills down the toilet, beth catches her in the act and scolds her, grounding her from the little bits of fun melinda had managed to find—for a week. "you can't just stop taking your medicine whenever you want to, melinda! you need it."

for the first nine years of her life, melinda's mother beth tells her that her grandfather died before she was born and her grandmother lives towns away. there's always a reason for them not to go visit and melinda is too young to question it. they call every so often and talk on birthdays and holidays, but the conversations are always short and beth always has an ear closely listening in. the few times they do manage to speak of melinda's "imaginary friends" and her sudden mental illness without being interrupted, melinda quickly learns that her grandmother can see them, too. they are real. this revelation is crucial for melinda, who up until this point was told she was crazy by anyone and everyone—including her mother.

melinda meets her grandmother in person for the first time when she's nine, and it's both a traumatic and lovely experience. it's for a funeral; someone in the family, someone close, someone important, but still someone melinda had never met. a maternal relation that melinda had been kept from. he'd died of old age, peacefully in his sleep, but there he was standing beside his wife with sadness in his eyes as he watched her cry. and there he was in the casket, body stiff and cold but prepared beautifully. it was a strange thing for melinda, who for over a year now has been used to the indistinct figures of spirits and their soft, barely there voices—this was nothing like that. he was clear as day even through the haze of the medications, and melinda will later learn that it's their familial bond that strengthens the connection here. this time, melinda knows what's happening; even so young, she recognizes that standing beside his wife is the old man's spirit. she doesn't say anything out loud, but somehow he seems to know that she can see him. maybe it's the way she looks straight into his eyes—or maybe it has something to do with her grandmother, who the old man turns to smile brightly at. he walks to them, to the only two people in the church who could see him, and asks for their help. "mary ann, will you talk to her? tell my wife...." but it's melinda who helps this time, for the first time. even with great dissatisfaction from her mother, who seems to know exactly what's going on despite her insistence on calling the people melinda sees imaginary. melinda relays the man's messages to his wife with quiet whispers in her ear. she thanks her profusely, and melinda gets to see the old man walk into the light with a smile on his face. her grandmother later calls it "crossing over," and she says it's when these earthbound spirits finally move on to have peace.

this would be melinda's gift.

melinda goes back home to blurry faces and little whispers, and nothing seems to have changed. her mother reminds her of her upcoming therapy appointment and they eat dinner with tension thick in the air. when melinda asks about it—"i'm just tired, melinda. it's been a long day."

beth fights her mother about it, but in the end, melinda's grandmother stays the night with them. melinda wakes early in the morning to yelling voices, loud even though they try to shout their words in whispers. they're arguing over melinda. mary ann sees the damage done by the medications, sees how out of touch melinda is, and how slow her reaction time is. she notices how after dinner, melinda can barely keep her eyes open and runs off to bed at only seven at night where other children are begging just another five minutes, mom. mary ann knows melinda's medical treatment is unnecessary and sees clearly that it's doing more harm than good to the nine-year-old girl, but beth insists that she knows what's best for her daughter. "you can't hide this from her, beth, you'll only hurt her more." and beth is angry, seemingly determined to force her version of normal on her child. she won't accept anything else; these "spirits" have no place in her life. there is no such thing, mom, you're acting— "crazy?" mary ann demands, and beth says nothing.

it's clear beth won't be convinced, and melinda rushes back to bed before she can be caught listening in on their conversation. downstairs, mary ann makes beth an offer: "let her come home with me. take a break from this, beth, if it's too much for you..."

the next day, beth sits at home with her thoughts while mary ann and melinda go out to enjoy the sunshine. they take frequent breaks, of course, considering how tired melinda gets, but it's the most fun she's had in years. they go out for ice cream and talk, and for the first time in a long time melinda feels heard. she doesn't feel crazy, she feels known. her grandmother makes her feel warm and safe and accepted, maybe even special, and while she knows her mother loves her, it felt so much different—so much better—with mary ann.

when they arrive back home, it seems beth's anger has had time to sit and fester. she's got melinda's belongings packed, sitting on the front porch and ready to go. "i guess she's your kind of mental, mom. you deal with it." without so much as a hug goodbye, beth slams the door in their faces and leaves mary ann to pick up the pieces left of melinda's heart as she cries. this is the last time she sees her mother for many, many years.

mary ann takes melinda back to her home in TBA (still developing this....) and the first thing that goes in the trash is melinda's useless medication.

more to be written. this is a wip.

notes on melinda's present verse.

i'm not exactly canon compliant in any sense, but i'm very much divergent after 4x07. jim doesn't come back. his death is tragic and horrible and awful, but he sticks around for awhile before melinda convinces him to cross over. it's a very rough thing for melinda to do, but she knows it's the right thing. she wants peace for him.

some time after that, melinda finds out she is pregnant with jim's child. aiden comes into the picture, but of course, things are very divergent here. melinda raises him primarily as a single mom with help from delia and ned.

[i-believe-in-melinda-may]

I'm never sure i write fight scenes well, so I'm not sure if this is any good and i could use some opinions. SPOILERS FOR MY WHAT GIVES US STRENGHT NAT/MEL STORY

As soon as she realizes, they are under attack Melinda throws herself onto the ground and starts to crawl over to where Bobbi is, knowing exactly what she has to do, exactly what matters, as Natasha, Peggy and Lian start to collect weapons so that they can fight back.

“Uncle Will?” Tony asks and as Melinda can feel what he is feeling Melinda realises exactly what has happened to her father, but she doesn’t let herself focus on that, as if she does, she knows she will be overwhelmed which she cannot afford to be right now, so instead she focuses on getting to her daughter.

“Mom,” Bobbi says, feeling afraid, once Melinda is close enough to hear her.

“Bobbi, I need you to listen to me,” Melinda says, trying to get Bobbi to focus on her. “I need you to use your gift, get your sisters to the bathroom, and call for your uncle,” Melinda tells her daughter, Bobbi knowing exactly which Uncle her mother is talking about, as Peggy, Lian and Natasha start to fight back, dong their best to protect the girls, while trying to get a weapon to Tony who is doing his best to protect Yelena and Daisy, Melinda knowing that the bathroom is one of the only places in the house that has no windows which means it cannot be seen from the outside and is the once place Gordon could teleport to without risking exposure.  

“Mom…” Bobbi says, sounding terrified.

“Bobbi, I know your scared, but you can’t focus on that,” Melinda says, speaking quickly as she knows they don’t have long. “Your sisters need you to do this, I need you to do this, and I know you can. Don’t look back, get your sisters, get to the bathroom, call for your uncle and tell him not to come back unless we call again,” Melinda says, and she can tell that Bobbi is about to object. “Go, I’ll cover you,” Melinda tells Bobbi, as she picks up the gun Natasha slid to her.   “Barbra go! Don’t look back,” Melinda says.

Feeling hesitant, but knowing she has to protect her sisters, Bobbi uses her gifts to get to Daisy, and Yelena in less than a second and then once she is holding each of their hands, she once again uses her gift to get them to the bathroom.

“Gordon,” Bobbi says the second they are in the bathroom with the door closed and a few seconds later Gordon appears, and a few seconds after that he is teleporting the three sisters away.

Thanks to her gift Melinda knows the second Gordon has teleported away with the girls, knowing they are safe Melinda looks at Natasha and gives her a reassuring look, feeling a bullet hit her side as she does, but before she can do anything by that she is distracted by Peggy yelling,

“GET DOWN!” As she sees one of the people who are attacking them from the outside fire an RPG.

Not needing to be told twice Natasha, Melinda, Tony, Lian, and Peggy herself thrown themselves to the ground, as the RGP hits the back wall destroying it and causing an explosion that throws everyone in different directions.

“Everyone good?” Natasha asks, being the first to get back to her feet, a few moments later.

“I believe so,” Peggy says, getting to her feat, coughing due to the smoke and dust from the debris. “Tony? Mellie? Lian?” Peggy asks, not asking about William as she realised, he was killed in the first wave, but she is trying incredibly hard not to focus on that.

“A little worse for wear, but nothing to worry about,” Lian admits, also getting to her feet.

“I’m good,” Tony says, stumbling to his feet, knowing his shoulder is hurt but also knowing that right now it doesn’t matter, they have more important things to be concerned about.

“Lin?” Natasha asks terrified, as Melinda hasn’t responded, and she quickly look around and sees Melinda on the ground, not moving, but because of how far away she is Natasha can’t tell if the love of her life is dead or just unconscious, but before she can try to get to Melinda what is clearly a specialist team use the newly created entrance in the destroyed wall to enter, and she, Peggy and Lian are forced to fight. “TONY,” Natasha yells as she engages one of the soldiers in a fight.

“I’m on it!” Tony says, ignoring everything else going on around him and just focusing on getting to Melinda. Once he gets to Melinda Tony throws himself over her, protecting her as he checks to see if she is okay.

“TONY! Tell me, is she…” Natasha starts to ask, her voice breaking, as she stabs one of the men through the gaps in the Kevlar he is wearing to kill him.

“She’s alive, unconscious but strong pulse,” Tony assures Natasha, who is beyond relieved about that, but can’t dwell as she has to keep fighting two more men.

While Natasha is fighting two men Peggy uses a piece of the destroyed table to hit two of the men in the head while Lian is fighting hand to hand with a single clearly skilled solider. Whether it be due to age or her inured state Lian is a second slower than she needs to be and the solider is able to stab her in the stomach. Not letting that defeat her, and taking advantage of the fact that the man clearly thinks he has won, Lian shoots him, killing him instantly.

“We’ve got to move,” Peggy instructs, shooting several of the approaching men, as the house fills with more smoke, decades of experience telling her that a strategic retreat is the best option right now.

“The garage, it’s our best option,” Natasha says, and both Peggy and Lian, who is doing her best to hide her injury, nods in agreement, taking down several of the men before they can make their way though the destroyed wall, reloading her gun as she does. “Tony…” Natasha starts to say, and he knows exactly what she is going to say.  

“I’ve got Mellie,” Tony responds, picking Melinda and the bag that is near her up, doing his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder which is screaming at him to stop, and as he does, he looks to where William is.

“We have to leave him,” Peggy tells her son, getting to his side, knowing they can’t take William’s body with them. “But we’ll make sure he is looked after,” Peggy assures him.

“MOVE!” Natasha yells as Lian shoots at someone coming in from the front. “If I’m not with you in two minutes go,” Natasha instructs, running towards the stairs, picking up the dropped bags as she goes, as considering everything that is going on she has to assume that what they found in Germany is pretty damn important.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tony asks as Natasha runs, faster than he has seen anyone other than Bobbi run, feeling incredibly confused about what she could possibly be doing.

“There’s something I can’t leave behind,” Natasha yells. “GO!” Natasha instructs and while Peggy, Tony, who is carrying Melinda, and Lian make their way to the garage, Peggy and Lian doing their best to fight back and clear their path as they go, while Natasha runs as fast as she can upstairs, focusing on what she has to do.

Once upstairs, Natasha, being able to tell that soon enough the entire house may be destroyed, goes straight to hers and Melinda’s bedroom and straight to where there second safe, their non weapon safe, is. Once at the safe Natasha opens it in the way only, she and Melinda know, and pulls out a large bag, a bag that exists for exactly this kind of situation, and runs out of the room, not bothering to lock it again as she has what matters.  

Getting to the stair landing Natasha doesn’t bother trying to run down them as there are several men chasing her and she knows every second counts so instead she runs and throws herself over the railing, landing perfectly on the ground, and before the people following her even realise what she has done she is running towards the garage.

As she gets to the garage just in time Natasha sees a man pointing a gun at the car, reacting quickly Natasha fires at the exact time he does and kills him. Not focusing on anything else Natasha runs to the car that is already running and throws herself into the front of the car next to Peggy while Tony, Lian, and Melinda who is still unconscious, are in the back.

“Drive!” Natahsa yells, the second she is in the car, before she even gets the door closed, and needing to be told twice Peggy accelerates, crashing through the garage door. “Did anyone get hit?” Natasha asks, once she has the door closed, looking back at Tony and Lian.

“No,” Tony answers.

“No,” Lian says, lying as she knows they have bigger things to worry about, as she does her best not to let Tony see her injuries as she doesn’t want him to worry.

“Does anyone still have a phone that’s not destroyed?” Peggy asks, as she, and Natasha realise they are being followed, and Tony checks.

“I don’t have mine,” Natasha says.

“Me either,” Lian admits.

“I do,” Tony confirms, pulling it out of his pocket and realising it hasn’t been destroyed.

“Good,” Peggy says, and she gives her son the number which she quickly calls. “When he picks up tell him Forst, Natasha and Mellie’s house, then hang up destroy the phone and throw it out of the window,” Peggy instructs, knowing they need the backup, as the person on the other end answers the number Tony called.  

“Go,” A voice Tony recognizes as Fury’s say and even though he has questions Tony knows it’s not the time to ask them.

“Frost, Natash and Mellie’s house,” Tony says before hanging up and destroying the phone.

“We’ve got another tail,” Natasha tells Peggy, feeling concerned that whoever are after them have so many resources. =

“I know,” Peggy says, feeling concerned, as she accelerates faster.

“Where are we going?” Tony asks, assuming his mother has a plan.

“Nowhere when we’re being followed,” Peggy says, knowing they cannot go to one of the nearby Carter-Stark properties or a safehouse while they are being followed by an unknown enemy.  

“Then let me help with that,” Natasha says, breaking the window with the but of her gun and climbing out of it so she can fire at the cars following them, aiming for the wheels.

[burnnouts]

Quick Bio: Azra Caymaz is a witch with the ability to talk to animals, plants, and the dead--meaning she's not so good at talking to living people. She grew up in a funeral home, as her father was a mortician, and did not have many friends due to her habit of talking to invisible people. Later in life, she married, but her husband was attacked and killed 3 years into their marriage. Azra still talks to his ghost.

Inspired By: "Melinda Gordon" from Ghost Whisperer, "Jess" from New Girl, "Persephone" from Greek Mythology, and generally The Haunting of Hill House

Extended bio under the cut:

TW: Death, Adultery, Parental Abuse (Emotional Manipulation), Depression, Suicide

Azra's life was never far from death. The daughter of a mortician, Azra grew up in a funeral home. Technically, the house had two parts: the part for the living and the part for the dead. The children were told to stay in the half that resembled normalcy with brightly colored furniture and paintings adorning the walls. But children are naturally curious, and Azra and her sister would often sneak to the offices, where the walls were covered in decoration of a different sort: samples of urns. They would watch, crouched behind doorways, as crying people came in and out, sitting on the little couches, reading out last wills and testaments. On their most daring nights, the children would sneak down to the basement, to the embalming room with its metal tables and blank walls and its bodies. Their father was careful to keep them away when he was decorating those bodies, when he was filling them with formaldehyde, when he patched their wounds and dressed them in their sharpest clothes. By the time he was finished, they looked as if they were sleeping, peaceful and content. Azra was five when she heard a rattling coming from the basement, then footsteps. She snuck away that night alone, bare feet padding down the stairs and then over metal floors as she pushed open her father's version of an office. There on the table was a body, still as ever before. And there, beside it, was a woman in a red dress--the same woman her father had patched up earlier that day. She was Azra's first ghost, but she would not be the last. Azra had run from the room screaming, woken up her parents and sister in her horror, and her father had held her as she cried and told her it must have all been a bad dream, that she must have been sleep walking, must have imagined it all. For years, Azra tried to believe that. When specters stood over her bed late at night, when she heard movement in what should have been a still and sleeping house, when she looked out at the cemetery and saw it filled with people long after visiting hours had ended, she kept her mouth shut. She pretended she couldn't see.

But apart from the ghosts, Azra's life was a good one. Her mother owned a flower shop, which sat beside the funeral home. In the day time, she helped tend to the flowers, prepare bouquets for the service, sell them to mourning families to place upon graves. There were other jobs too--flowers for weddings and graduations, for lovers and life. Azra adore watching the flowers grow, and the older she got, the better she seemed at the job, as if the petals grew brighter under her touch, bloomed in her hands. When she walked through the cemetery, frowning at the flowers that had begun to droop upon the graves, she would mentally urge them to wake up, to hold on just a little longer--and it felt as if they were listening.

They were a close family, full of game nights and weekend trips, her parents the picture of love. Azra was the youngest, kept close to her mother's side, protected. She was not allowed to date nor to attend sleepovers, her friends closely monitored to make sure they were "good influences." Not that it mattered much; no one wanted to visit the strange girl who lived in a cemetery, who was often caught talking to herself in the halls of her high school, holding conversations with people who weren't there, as if she were talking to ghosts. Not to mention the way she'd run out of the room screaming and sobbing when they'd done animal dissections, or the rumors that she'd been caught talking to the frogs when she'd led them all to escape.

Azra was seventeen when the whole mess came out--that her mother had cheated on her father years ago, that he was not, in fact, Azra's biological father. Her mother never knew that the man she'd had that affair with so many years ago was a witch, never knew that he had passed on such power to his daughter. After all, Azra had never told anyone what she could do. Her parents, who had been the picture perfect image of a working marriage, were never the same again. They divorced not long after, and Azra felt she had no choice but to go and live with her mother. Her mother had always leaned on her, always hovered, always seemed to rely on her so much. So Azra went to college in her home town, and she lived with her mother throughout. When she could get away, Azra tried to visit her father at the funeral home--her home--but he refused to see her, closed the door in her face. She was not his any longer but a living reminder of the way his wife had broken his heart. Heartbroken herself at this rejection, Azra clung to her mother in turn, and soon they were as close as could be, more like best friends than parent and child.

Then she met him, Rex. She had gone to the funeral home to try again and speak to her father, remind him how she had once been the apple of his eye, his little girl. Instead, she'd run into a woodworker, a coffin maker who had come to deliver a shipment. It was love at first sight. Or at least, Azra, sheltered and desperate for affection, believed that it was. She began to sneak out to see him, knowing her mother would never approve. She was nineteen and feeling more alive than she ever had before. They would stay out til four in the morning, dancing in the street. He drove her around town in his beat up little car, blasting music from the stereo, and he built her a jewelry box and taught her to carve in his woodshop. And one day, he told her a secret. He told her about the day he died. He told her that he was a vampire.

Here, finally, was proof that there was more to life than what she'd been shown. Proof that she wasn't crazy. Proof that there was real magic in the world. When her mother learned about her secret, undead boyfriend a year after they'd been together, she was furious. She forbid Azra from seeing him, and that night, they got into the first real fight they'd had in years. When it was over, Azra packed up her things, and she left, ending up at Rex's door. A month later, she got the news: her mother was dead and her father was preparing her body in the basement of her childhood home. Azra blamed herself, but Rex told her again and again that it was not her fault, that she had been depressed long before the fight, that she had always put too much pressure on Azra.

For the next few years, Azra and Rex lived in a tiny apartment in the city, where he continued as a woodworker and she took a job at a pet store, helping people find their forever animals; able to communicate with the creatures, she excelled at the job, and for a time, it was enough, watching people leave happily with their furry friends, chasing away her guilt by trying to make others happy. They'd been together for three years when Rex proposed. They were married the year after. For another three years, they were happy. They even talked of adoption, of bringing a child into their lives.

They stayed home that Valentine's. A romantic dinner--Rex had cooked--and flowers as the centerpiece that Azra had helped to grow. Then the banging on their door began. "It's them," Rex had said. "Who?" she'd asked. "Who is them?" But he was putting money and their car keys into her hand and telling her to go. "I'll meet you here," he'd said, writing an address quickly on her palm. So Azra ran. She ran with nothing but the car and her purse and a promise that they would be together again soon. She didn't stop until she was two states away. In the morning at the motel, she woke up to find him sitting next to her on the bed, and the joy had filled her so fully that at first she didn't wonder how he'd gotten through the locked door. But when she reached out to hug him, her hand fell through his shoulder. That was how she learned that her husband had died: when she saw his ghost.

Azra drove the rest of the way the next morning. Sometimes, Rex sat beside her in the car. Other times, the passenger seat remained empty. She's in a new town now, starting over. At least, she hopes so.

[lockhollow]

welcoming johnny cade , melinda gordon , eddie kaspbrak & liv hawthorne to lockhollow . you have twenty-four hours to send in your account .

( the outsiders , dev patel , he/him , cis male ) ⋮ the census states that JOHNNY CADE has been living in town limits for LIFELONG . it makes sense the HUMAN can be found hanging around THE DINER .  HE must be close to TWENTY-SIX by now , do you think they’re still as LOYAL as they were before ? i overheard they DO NOT remember everything leading up until their arrival . nothing reminds me of them quite like WORN SNEAKERS ON PHONE WIRES, FADED BLUE JEAN JACKETS, & A BONFIRE CRACKLING IN AN ABANDONED FIELD . ( laine , 30 , she/her , est , removed )

( ghost whisperer , jennifer love hewitt , she/her , cis female ) ⋮ the census states that MELINDA GORDON has been living in town limits for TWO YEARS . it makes sense the MEDIUM can be found hanging around HER ANTIQUE SHOP ( HIDDEN TREASURES ) .  SHE must be close to THIRTY-NINE by now , do you think they’re still as COMPASSIONATE as they were before ? i overheard they DO remember everything leading up until their arrival . nothing reminds me of them quite like SHEER CURTAINS BILLOWING BEFORE AN OPEN WINDOW, TIDES CRASHING AGAINST THE MIDNIGHT SHORE, & GAZING AT SHOOTING STARS . ( laine )

( stephen king's it , freddie highmore , he/him , cis male ) ⋮ the census states that EDDIE KASPBRAK has been living in town limits for 7 YEARS . it makes sense the HUMAN can be found hanging around THE LIBRARY .  HE must be close to TWENTY-SIX by now , do you think they’re still as HIGH STRUNG as they were before ? i overheard they DO NOT remember everything leading up until their arrival . nothing reminds me of them quite like CONVERSE AND TUBE SOCKS, SLEEPLESS NIGHTS FOR SEEMINGLY NO REASON, & STOCKPILES OF HAND SANITIZER . ( laine )

( willy's wonderland , emily tosta , she/her , cis female ) ⋮ the census states that LIV HAWTHORNE has been living in town limits for SIX YEARS . it makes sense the HUMAN can be found hanging around THE ART SUPPLY STORE .  SHE  must be close to TWENTY-THREE by now , do you think they’re still as COURAGEOUS as they were before ? i overheard they DO remember everything leading up until their arrival . nothing reminds me of them quite like 5 AM RUNS, PAINT-SPLATTERED CLOTHING, & A SINGULAR SNOWFLAKE CAUGHT ON A WINDOW SCREEN . ( laine )

[ao3feed-birdflash]

…To be decided

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/XoqEpnw

by eveyfangirl

Dick Grayson loves his family. And they love him just as much and they prove it all the time.

Words: 143, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Nightwing (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Titans (Comics)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M

Characters: Dick Grayson, Haley | Dick Grayson's Dog, Wally West, Barbara Gordon, Koriand'r (DCU), Mari Grayson, Melinda Zucco, Donna Troy, Garth (DCU), Lilith Clay (DCU), Poly Titans - Character

Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r/Wally West, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Dick Grayson/Wally West

Additional Tags: Co-Parenting, kinda poly relationship, Past Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Past Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, they broke up but are close friends, The Titans are Poly, mainly queer Platonic, they are mainly platonically in love, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick Grayson is depressed, Dick Grayson is a Better Parent Than Bruce Wayne, Bruce hits dick and doesn’t get away with it, Dick has a lot of kids

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/XoqEpnw

[chronickled]

@velvetipped​​        /    *        melinda  gordon  for  guinevere  beck.

❛ ❛      the    problem    with    being    invisible,     is    well     .  .  .     being    invisible.      ❜ ❜

[skyler10fic]

Recruit: Ch. 3 The Program

Fic summary: Daisy Johnson, Carol Danvers, Jemma Simmons, and Leo Fitz each decide to join Shield as students at Carter Academy, but when a school camping trip goes awry, will they rise to the occasion and help defeat the evil Pantheon? And will Melinda May’s Shield team survive their mission to reclaim what Pantheon has stolen from them?

Chapter summary: Daisy, Carol, Jemma, and Fitz find out about the "program" Fury is recruiting them for--or at least, they sign up to be part of it, even if they aren't quite sure what it is they are agreeing to...

A/N: AU gonna AU. This is a different universe, so let go of canon and assumptions and motives coming in. :)

Read on Ao3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

----------

Daisy, Carol, Fitz, and Jemma (Fitz’s “friend to invite” from his video from Fury) arrived at the unmarked building at the designated time. The doors opened automatically and closed behind them. The four found themselves in a dimly lit gymnasium, but the floors, walls, and high warehouse ceilings had been painted black. Giant Shield logos marked the center of each wall and the floor. Various equipment, targets, and padding were scattered along the walls. A few other students wandered in, each looking as clueless as the others.

An old video began to play on one of the black walls. Captain Steve Rogers, one of the first Shield agents, began to talk. He was dressed in his legendary battle suit, all red, white, and blue. He had to have been close to retirement at this point. He sounded weary, and yet, wise.

“You are all gathered here because you have demonstrated abilities beyond your peers. Not physical abilities, but remarkable character and honor. Resilience in the face of struggle. You have been selected for a special program, the Secret Warriors. It is the highest honor you can receive at this stage of your Shield careers. But accepting this honor must be considered carefully. It will cost you.”

Captain Rogers looked especially solemn now.

“Being a Shield agent already takes a high toll. Your life and the lives of your team may be on the line any given day. But to become a Secret Warrior is to risk much more. Someday the freedom of many or even the fate of the world may be in your hands. Will you have what it takes to succeed, to sacrifice, to protect? Will you be the Shield?”

Captain Rogers seemed to be looking directly at Daisy, or so she felt. His words were frustratingly vague but awakened something inside of her, something that had always known she was meant for more.

In stark contrast, the silence in the room after the video was broken by the bored but loud voice of a gym teacher. “Hello all, my name is Gordon, you can call me Gordon, or Agent Gordon if you are trying to impress someone, but you won’t impress me so Gordon is fine.” A man with a buzz cut and wrap-around Oakley sunglasses (especially odd given the darkness in the gym) stepped into view on a platform and gestured to two figures in the shadows. “This is Alisha, you can call her Agent Whitley, and this is the program’s global director, Jiaying, though you probably won’t call her anything because she’s almost never here, and if she is, you probably won’t be aware of it. I won’t ask if you have any questions because I know you have more than we have time to answer, and I can’t answer them all right now anyway. Continuing on with our tour, you have the equipment; do not destroy it. You have weights; do not throw them. You have padding; it is for your protection, not for recreation or procreation or anything else beds are for. If you use a weapon on a fellow student in an aggressive manner outside of training time, you will be expelled. If you attack an instructor or faculty member, you will be prosecuted. To the left are the locker rooms, to the right is the door. Leave now if this is not your thing; we don’t have time to waste on washouts in this program.”

Daisy and Carol exchanged a look just as Jemma and Fitz did the same. Sure, this was all bizarre, but that was life in Shield. They were staying.

Gordon stepped off the platform and sauntered over to Jemma and Fitz. He pointed to two sliding glass doors with Shield logos etched on them. “Over here is the lab; that’s for you two.”

“For us to do what exactly?” Jemma inquired cautiously.

“Anything we need. Biochemistry, medical, engineering, you’ll be trained in all of it and have a great deal of opportunity to invent new things to contribute. Every warrior is different. Every gift is different. You’ll help them complete their missions, your missions,” he gestured to all of them, “with your own gifts.”

“What gifts?” Daisy dared to ask.

“You’ll see.” Gordon gave her a half smile and resumed his place on the platform. “You will be here at 7 a.m. every day once the semester starts. Your schedules will be created with this in mind. Until then, prepare yourselves. Learn to fight, learn to think, learn to question, to lead, and to follow. This program will teach you to see the world differently than you thought possible.” Gordon removed his sunglasses. Instead of the blinded eyes they were expecting, Gordon simply had no eyes at all. They were just indentations of skin. The two women in the shadows came to stand beside him and in an instant they were gone, consumed by a purple bubble of energy with Gordon at the center.

“Wot the hell.” Fitz stared at the spot.

“I’d heard rumors of people in Shield with unusual abilities but …” Jemma was pale but intrigued. Carol and Daisy, however, turned to each other and grinned.

“Okay, that was cool,” Daisy admitted. “Finally, a school with something to teach.”

Carol laughed in shock. “Do you think… are we here to learn to teleport?”

Fitz shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible. Though tech like that is way beyond me. I … I don’t know how to build that or even begin to know how to work on it.”

“Certainly would make spycraft easier,” Jemma admitted. “You’re right. It’s probably just tech. Not superpowers.”

“Wait, you think it could be superpowers?” Daisy grew excited. Jemma was the smartest person she knew. If Jemma believed in superpowers…

“He did have an uncanny ability to see us, everything around him, with no eyes,” Jemma pointed out.

Carol just grinned and nodded. “Cool. I think I’m going to like this place.”

The already dim lighting began shutting off while the lights at the exit illuminated, visually ushering them to the door. An extraordinarily tall agent stopped each student at the exit before they filtered out.

“Sign this.” The agent held out a tablet with text to read.

“Stepping outside this door, you acknowledge that everything you saw, heard, said, smelled, tasted, or felt in this building never happened,” Jemma read aloud. “This applies to each subsequent visit, mention of the Secret Warriors program (henceforth referred to as The Program), and any involvement in The Program whatsoever. No one you know excepting those present here today shall have knowledge of its existence or your involvement or anyone involved.”

“So, basically, it’s secret,” Carol summed up dryly.

“Wait, I can’t even tell my parents? They’re in Shield too.” Daisy was still trying to figure out what it meant to be a legacy and so far being Melinda and Phil’s daughter had carried more weight than being plain ol’ Daisy herself.

The agent shook his head and pointed to the screen.

“Okay, got it.”

The four signed and left with their fellow students, wandering out to wherever they had agreed to meet up with their family and friends.

“So, what do we tell them?” Daisy asked her friends. No one had a good answer.

Phil saw them walking in the dark across the lawn back to the cafeteria and met up with them. Melinda and Allan were not far behind, but just out of earshot.

“How was your meeting?” Phil asked quietly. They each exchanged looks but stayed quiet.

“Good!” Daisy answered. “Just freshman stuff, you know.”

“I know.” He nodded. “I reviewed each of your applications.”

“But we didn’t…” Jemma started, but Phil cut her off.

“They were very impressive. It’s an honor to be accepted. But, of course, we wouldn’t want to make anyone jealous, so best not to spread it around.”

“Yeah, we get it, Dad.” Daisy clapped him on the shoulder.

“I just want you to know, as a faculty sponsor of the program, I’m here. I can’t answer most of your questions, but if things come up, if you decide not to go through with it or need support, I’m your guy.” He looked each of them over. They just smiled, unsure if they were being tested already.

Melinda and Allan caught up with them, and they all exchanged contact information so they could keep in touch in the weeks before school started. In some ways, it was exactly what they expected college to be like. In other ways, it was going to be unexplainably stranger.

[jane-fucking-seymour]

Every Tudor Rose Has Its Thorns - CH 2 now live

AO3 Link here

“So… you think they’re alive?” Jim asks, tilting his head.

“At least one of them is a ghost, I think,” she explains, walking towards the alley next to the theatre. They had gotten their tickets refunded due to “technical difficulties,” despite knowing that the real issue was far beyond that. “But the visions I had when Catherine and Anne went up for their songs… it felt really powerful. It could be more than one. Maybe all of them, just based on the pure strength of it.”

“What, so you think the ghosts of the ex-wives of Henry VIII are… haunting the performers when they go on?” Jim asks. “One ghost doing that, sure, but all of them? Seems pretty unlikely.”

Melinda frowned and looked down at the programme, flipping to the page where the actors were shown. She tilts her head. “You know, they never say what the actor’s names are in here. They just say Anne and Catherine and the rest.”

“Maybe it’s an acting thing?” Jim asks, though he clearly sounds like he’s fishing for an answer. “Some actors do that, live as though they’re the characters they are.”

Melinda nods in consideration, but goes back to the original theory: that the ghosts are involved.

“I mean, it’s not surprising that they would be earthbound if it is actually them,” Melinda says. “Not after everything they got put through.”

“Do you think they caused the technical difficulties?” Jim asks.

“I didn’t sense anyone else around, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Melinda replies. “Why would they want to ruin their own show, though? It’s about their story, their lives being told-”

“No, they’re not ruining their own show.”

Jim and Melinda jump a bit as they hear a voice behind them. When they turn, they spot…

“You’re Maria, right?” Melinda asks. “You’re the drummer.”

“I am,” Maria nods. “I was hoping you’d still be around. I… I don’t know how to explain this, but I really think you should come with me.”

Melinda watches her for a moment before tilting her head. She slowly walks more towards Maria, gently taking her hand. There’s a slight jolt before Melidna is once again pulled into a vision:

She’s managed to avoid the guards, sneak into the premises, and get to her door. With a running start, she bangs through it, immediately looking down at a woman in bed. She looks deathly ill, yet oddly familiar…

Melinda can hear herself speak Spanish to the woman, crying as she holds her. She can see her arm gently push back some hair, gently speak comforting words to the woman she held, crying out her name as the former queen’s eyes start to dim and close:

“Catalina!”

Suddenly, Melinda was back to the present. Maria looks terrified.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt her, is she-”

“It’s okay, she’s okay,” Jim says, nodding. He keeps an eye on Melinda, though, just in case.

Melinda took a moment to clear her thoughts before she continued. “That was… the other side of the vision I had when Catherine of Aragon’s song came up.”

“Vision?” Maria asks, taking a step back in surprise. “Are you a witch?”

“No,” Mel is quick to dispel the theory. “But I do… have a gift. I can see the dead.”

Maria pales. Melinda narrows her eyes.

“How?” Melinda asks. Maria is quiet, so Melinda clarifies: “How are you alive and dead at the same time?”

She looks down at her hands before she looks back up at the couple. “I… I need you to come inside. To come with me to see the others.” She looks from Melinda to Jim and back to Melinda. “I promise, we’re not… we’re not bad. And we didn’t do anything to cause those issues.” She takes a deep breath. “Oh, I can’t believe Jane’s going to be right on this.”

“Right on what?” Jim asks, stepping forward.

Maria makes a face.

“She said she felt someone else on stage with us tonight. Someone cold. She’s been off ever since.”

That was enough for Melinda to follow Maria into the backdoor.

As soon as they walk in, Maria takes Jim and Mel to the dressing rooms. Melinda recognized the queens: Jane was sitting next to Anne, quietly discussing something. Catherine and Cathy were getting their things together. Anna and Katherine were on their phones.

It’s the latter that speak up first.

“I mean, I’m seeing stuff where people say their electronics went haywire due to a ghost,” Katherine says. “Even as common as we’ve been having it lately.”

“It could also be some faulty wiring, though,” Anna points out, scrolling through some searches. “Or maybe the wind that’s been picking up knocked something loose.”

“I swear, I felt a cold wind, and I…” Jane starts, but she freezes up when she spots Maria and her guests. “Who’s this?”

Maria clears her throat and steps forward. “Everyone, this is Melinda Gordon and Jim Clancy.” She looks directly at Catherine for the next part. “Melinda can speak to the dead.”

They’re all quiet for a moment before Anne speaks up.

“Oh really?” She asks, a hint of joking in her voice. Melinda grimaces at that; people usually are in disbelief, but the mocking tone some can get reminded her of the high school and college bullies. It’s not easy doing her job, after all.

“Yes,” Maria continues. “Actual ghosts.”

“How do you think she can help?” Cathy asks.

“How do we know to trust her?” Jane asks.

“I think I know the answer to both of those things.”

Before Melinda or Jim can answer, someone else has jumped to their defense: Melinda recognized her as Joan, the pianist. Right behind her was Bessie and Maggie. All three of them were in normal clothes now, bags left at the side of the door as they move towards the group and stand nearby.

“Maria,” Joan says quietly. “I saw you stumble on Catherine’s song today. You were looking right at her in the front row.” Joan looks over at Melinda, almost pitying her. “And you looked incredibly pale. I thought it might be a trick of the light, but I’m assuming you being here makes it not the case.”

Melinda nods, stepping forward. “I had a vision. I was in a bed, hurting, and someone barged into the room and held me as I died. It felt like the person wasn’t supposed to be there, but I needed her to be there.” She looks over at Maria, who is looking at Catherine. “I think it was you. You called her name as she died, didn’t you? You called for Catalina. That was who you were holding, as she died.”

Maggie frowns. “Not that I don’t believe you, but anyone who knows our histories knows that Maria held Catherine at the end. How do we know this isn’t a trick?”

“Because,” Joan says, “when that… vision… of hers happened, Maria looked completely out of sorts.” She steps towards the woman in question. “What did you feel?”

“I felt… connected,” Maria explains, moving to gently hold Catherine’s hand for support. Catherine, of course, holds it firm. “I felt like someone was connecting with me. And I… I heard Catalina’s cries. I heard what I heard when she died. Then I looked up, and it was Melinda.”

“Did you… see something… during Don’t Lose Ur Head?” Maggie asks, frowning.

Melinda shivered at the thought. “Yes. I saw someone being taken to the block. A young, red headed girl called for her mom-”

Anne stands up quickly, like a reflex, but Maggie quickly grabs her arm. It calms the woman somewhat as she sits back down. Jim stands a bit closer to Melinda as she backed up at the sudden movement, but with things calmer, she relaxes a bit more.

“Not quite how that went,” Anne says quietly, “but if Catherine and Maria believe you, I’m inclined to as well.”

“Sometimes my visions aren’t exact to what happened,” Melinda replies. “Sometimes they’ve got more symbolism in them then actual events-”

Melinda stopped, though, when a sudden chill fell through the air. She felt her head reeling with no warning; she put a hand to it and tried to breathe through it. Jim was calling for her, she knew this, but the voice became less and less her husbands and more and more like someone else.

The lights suddenly turned off.

And he appeared.

What hit her first was a wave of emotions - fear, jealousy, panic.. But mostly anger. A lot of anger. She couldn’t tell who he was exactly, as the Shadows around them were so thick, but he pointed to her and spoke; it cut through her mind like glass.

“You should not be here,” he said, and Melinda winced every time he spoke. “You should not be here.”

“Who are you?” She asks, but he screamed, and the Shadows rushed her, and everything went dark…

… only for the lights to turn on a moment later.

Melinda blinked; somehow, she had ended up crouched on the floor, hands on her head as she looked around. Jim was immediately at her side, checking her over.

“Are you okay-?” He started, but someone else’s voice cut through his question. This time, it didn’t hurt Melinda at all.

“Jane?!?”

The couple looked over to find Jane Seymour collapsed to the ground, eyes unfocused and glassy, breathing rapidly as if panicked. With a nod from Mel, Jim rushed over to see if he could help.

“What’s happened, why is that happening again?” Katherine asks, clearly panicked.

Melinda picked up the clue. “Again? When did it happen before?”

“It happened yesterday, too,” Bessie says, stepping forward. “She’s been having these type of spells for a while now.”

“Anna had some to start with as well, Cathy too,” Joan points out. “But Jane’s been hit the hardest with them.”

Melinda nods, looking over at Jane just in time to see her gasp for air. She coughed, being helped to sit up by Jim.

“Are you alright?” Jim asks, looking the woman over.

“Jane?” Joan is right beside her queen in an instant; now Melinda knew what she meant by they took care of their queens; Joan was Jane’s Lady in Waiting in their previous life, after all.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Jane mumbles, a hand to her head as she collects her thoughts. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s the damned ghost, that’s what’s come over you,” Katherine says, clearly angry. “What does it want and why does it keep on messing with our productions?”

Anne looked over at Melinda before stepping towards her. “Alright, I don’t quite believe you, but… what did you see? Before, in the dark?” Melinda seemed to be confused, so Anne continued. “If you’re having those vision things, I’d assume you’d have one when things go bad.”

“That’s not how it works all the time,” Melinda says, “but I did see the ghost. He was…” she swallowed thickly at the next few words, looking over at Jim. “He was surrounded by Shadows.”

Jim’s jaw set with anger for a moment, before he corrected his expression. Melinda continued.

“He said I shouldn’t be here. He was tall, that’s all I got from it.”

The lights flickered again and Melinda once again felt a wave of nausea. She blinked, squeezing her eyes shut. Catherine frowned when Anna did the same.

“We should leave,” Melinda said through shaky breaths. “Whoever it is, they’re going to try again.”

Anna is unsteady, but she powers through it to get to the alley. As soon as they’re out of the theatre, Melinda feels her head clear up considerably. She breathes a sigh of relief as she looks at Anna; she seems far better, too.

Maria steps forward. “Do you mind if we go somewhere a bit more private?” she asks, looking at the couple. “Our flat’s nearby. Might be the best place to discuss this more.”

“Sure,” Melinda says. “We’ll follow you.”

Maggie leads the group as they walk down the street, Jim and Melinda in the middle of the pack. Maria and Bessie hang at the back. They’re silent, before Maria speaks:

“You’re on the fence for this, aren’t you, Bessie?”

She sighs. “I don’t know what to think,” she replies. “But if you think she’s the answer to what’s been happening lately I think it’s worth a shot.” She shrugs. “Not like we had any success with anything else, so…”

Maria looks back at the couple, who are quietly walking, Melinda’s arm in his. “Yeah. I really think they are.”

As they walk, Jim looks Melinda over some more. “You sure you’re feeling alright?” Jim asks quietly.

Melinda glanced over then shook her head. “A little woozy,” she admits. “The visions are strong, and I think it’s because of who they are.” she gives him a small smile. “I’ll be ok. I’ve got you here.”

Jim tries to smile back, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. Melinda understands this, but her focus right now is moreso on Jane.

“She looks about as good as I feel,” Mel mumbles.

Jane looked as pale as a ghost, stumbling occasionally as they moved towards the queen’s flat. Joan was right next to her, watching her closely as they moved.

“Yeah, and Anna doesn’t look too well either,” Jim observed. Anna was at the front of the pack with Katherine, answering her questions and smiling with her, but Jim’s EMT training allowed him to see the occasional stumble and wince in pain. “It took a lot out of them, too, I think.”

“When we get to the flat,” Catherine says, having heard their conversation, “We can all take a breather there.”

Cathy watches the couple very closely for a moment before she just continues on with Catherine in tow. Catherine narrows her eyes at Cathy for a moment before moving on.

The sound of a child’s laughter rings through the area; it makes Melinda smile as she and Jim are let into the flat. From there, everyone comes together in the living room.

“The weird stuff hasn’t followed us home before,” Cathy says. “So we should be safe here.”

Melinda breathes a sigh of relief; her head already feels like it’s clearing, and some of her energy’s returned. “This place feels a lot better than the theatre.”

“Please, sit down,” Anna says, offering them two spots on the couch. Melinda and Jim sit down next to each other while the others settle down on chairs around them.

Catherine, with a small smile, starts the conversation:

“If you don’t mind, Melinda, I think it’d be best if we just get into it, okay?”

Melinda nodded, and Catherine continued.

“Maria seems to be convinced that you’ve got special powers,” Catherine replies. “And you definitely saw something at the theatre multiple times.”

Melinda nods. “It’s more powerful than what I usually deal with, to be honest,” Melinda says. “I just feel… a lot of energy, coming from all of you.” She looks around the room. “It’s not bad. It’s better than when you were at the theatre. From personal experience, that means the Shadows aren’t able to affect you here.”

“Shadows?” Cathy asks.

“They’re dark energy,” Melinda continues. “Powerful, dark, negative energy. It’s sometimes leftover energy from bad souls, other times those souls are… converted, into the Shadows.” She shivers at the thought, remembering when they took her over, remembering when they made her think and almost do terrible things…

“What’s the Shadows have to do with us?” Jane asks quietly, looking down at her hands. “Why are we being tormented?”

“And some of us more than others,” Anne replies. “It seems to be tormenting Catherine, Anna, and Jane more-”

“Is it, though?” Katherine asks. “You almost died on stage. Again.”

Melinda sat up at that. “You said that it happened before at the theatre, too. Can you tell me what’s been going on?”

They all look at each other, uncertain. Jim speaks up then.

“We want to help,” he tries. “But we need all the information we can.”

“You have to at least believe that there’s truth to what I’m saying, don’t you?” Melinda asks. “You wouldn’t have invited me into your homes if you didn’t.”

Katherine narrows her eyes. “You said you got a vision every time you touched one of us, right?” When Melinda nods, Katherine stands up in front of her and offers a hand. “Well, prove it.”

Melinda looks at Jim and, with a nod his way, looks back at the hand. With some hesitation, she takes it, and-

-she’s suddenly not in the room.

She’s on stage, the exact one Melinda had been watching only an hour before. She’s singing something, on her knees, breathing heavily as she talks about being touched and enough being enough and people supposed to be different. Just as she finishes it, she hastily blows a kiss at the audience as she gasps for air and looks up, a single pink spotlight on her.

The crowd is silent for a moment, and it seems to save her life - she can hear something above her crack.

Her eyes go wide as the spotlight momentarily is blocked by something. Realizing what’s about to happen, she instantly backs up, straight back as a bar suddenly slams right where she just was.

She gasps, catching her breath, wincing as she feels something hit her hand as the bar makes impact with the ground. She ignores the pain as someone grabs her and rushes her off stage, the audience being evacuated…

… and Melinda gasps as she is brought back to the present.

“Holy crap,” Katherine says, eyes wide. “I… Maria was right.”

“What did you see?” Bessie asks.

Melinda catches her breath for a second. “She was singing, then she looked up at the spotlight, and a bar fell and hurt her hand,” Melinda says, pointing to the mark on Katherine’s hand.

“That’s what happened Thursday,” Katherine says. “That’s what happened when I was injured. And I never told anyone who I knew about it.” Katherine looks back at Catherine. “She’s legit, swear it.”

Catherine nods at the girl and then looks at Melinda. “I think it’s enough evidence to continue,” Catherine says quietly. “Now… what would this shadow want with us?”

“The Shadows work best through people,” Melinda says. “That’s how they became a threat to us back in Grandview, they influenced people to make their move.” She shivers at the thought, but doesn’t get too into detail; they’ve only just started to trust her, she didn’t want them to be scared.

Not yet, anyways.

Catherine nods. “So you think it’s possible whoever is doing this is trying to influence us?”

Melinda leans back on the couch. “Katherine was almost killed that time, and Anne was today… did anything else happen?”

“Yeah,” Anna says. “Catherine was almost electrocuted the other day.”

Catherine winces at the memory. “I was on stage and about to sit on the throne during No Way, and suddenly the damn thing broke apart. One of the legs splintered off and cut a nearby wire. If it wasn’t for Maria, I would have been shocked.”

Melinda nods. “Anything else?”

“There was that time Katherine tripped and knocked herself unconscious last week,” Anne points out.

“And the slip and fall Catherine had,” Cathy points out.

“And Anne’s phone literally blew up in her hand the week before on stage,” Maggie added.

Jim had been keeping count. “So it’s really only been physical ‘accidents’ for Anne, Katherine, and Catherine?” He asks, nodding towards the correct C/Katherines to clarify who he was talking about.

Cathy nods. “The rest of us… when those things happen, we start to feel weird.” She crosses her arms in front of her chest defensively. “It’s like something’s there. Something cold. Something not pleasant.”

“You feel an anger, right?” Melinda asks, looking directly at Cathy. “You feel like you’re helpless, and you feel cold and angry and not yourself, right? And you can’t let that feeling go because it’s taking you over?”

Jane nods, but looks wary. “They seem scary the more you talk about them.”

“They are, to be honest,” Melinda says, looking down. “But it’s beatable. It is.” She looks up again, a gentle smile on her face. “With some support from others, we can beat it here.”

Cathy seems hesitant to say something, but after a moment (and a deep breath) she steps forward. “The ghosts that you can see… can you see anyone else?”

Melinda tilts her head, confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you see any other ghosts,” Cathy repeats. “Can you see any other ghosts around us?”

Melinda frowns. “Who would I be looking for?”

“A young girl, probably,” Cathy says. “Or, uhm… maybe two women, or maybe a teenaged boy.”

Melinda considers Cathy for a moment before she nods quickly, looking around the room. She’s been at this long enough that she can filter out the queen’s and ladies in waiting’s presence well enough to find other people when she needs to, but right now…

“... there’s no one else here,” Melinda says, looking back at the woman. “I’m sorry, is it someone you know?”

Cathy sighs. “It’s nothing.” She gets up and leaves.

Catherine steps in. “I’m sorry about her.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Melinda says. “I just… who was she looking for?”

Catherine isn’t sure she should answer.

Anne cuts in.

“Well,” she says, getting up. “We should probably start preparing dinner.” She smiles to try to diffuse the tension in the room; it’s kind of working.

Melinda nods and goes to stand up with Jim when Katherine gives them a look.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Kat asks, raising an eyebrow.

Melinda blinks. “Uh… didn’t you say you were preparing dinner?” she asks. “We were headed to the door.”

“But then you’d miss dinner,” Katherine replies.

“Sorry, uh, we weren’t aware we were invited,” Jim replies.

“We’ve still got a bit to talk about, if you’re interested in hanging around,” Maria says. “It’s likely this’ll happen at the show tomorrow, too. It’s been like this for a while now. And if you’re our chance of stopping it… well, I think we can all agree we’d want to give you all the time in the world to figure it out.”

“Besides,” Maggie says, smiling widely. “We need an extra hand in the kitchen. Anne’s not allowed in there since the Knife Incident.”

Melinda looked alarmed. “The accidents have been happening here, too?”

“No,” Maggie replies. “We just can’t trust Anne, Katherine, and Cathy to be on their own with a bunch of knives and a dart board anymore.”

Jim looks concerned and Melinda’s very confused.

“Which K/Catherine-” Mel starts, but the queens laugh.

Catherine motions towards the kitchen. “Come on, Melinda, you can chop up some vegetables and we can keep on chatting.”

Melinda nods, then looks over at Jim. “Are you ok with this?”

“Free dinner? Yeah, sure,” he replies, smiling back at her. “I’ll get to work on some research while you guys are talking.”

“I’d like to help with that,” Anna says. “If you don’t mind.”

Mel nods appreciatively. “The more the merrier.”

Jim gives Melinda’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, and Melinda nods in his direction. It’s an unspoken conversation between them - if Mel needed anything, she can go to Jim, and Jim’ll be there. On the flip side, if he found anything out, he could come into the kitchen to let her know. All that exchanged in two movements and no words.

Honestly, Catherine thought as she led Melinda into the kitchen, it was rather adorable how the two interacted. A happy, healthy couple who had each other’s backs. She wouldn’t know what that felt like - not really - but she’s glad at least someone seemed to have a love story out of a storybook. It was a nice change of pace from the usual.

Anna was thinking something very similar as she replaced Melinda on the couch. “You two are something special, aren’t you?”

Jim chuckled. “We’ve been at this for years,” he said, unlocking his phone. “I’m not usually this involved in it, but I’m glad to be when she asks me to.”

“You guys are really adorable,” Bessie replies with a grin.

Jim’s about to reply when Anna sharply inhales some air, frowning as she looks down at her phone. Jim springs into action.

“Can I see?” Jim asks, offering Anna his hand. With some consideration, Anna puts her wrist in Jim’s hand, watching as he looks it over. “Bessie, do you guys have a first aid kit?”

“In the closet,” Bessie nods.

“Does it have an ace bandage?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring it over, please, and some ice in a bag from the freezer if you have any,” he says, and Bessie rushes to grab the requested materials. When she’s not in earshot, Jim speaks to Anna quietly so no one else can hear: “You know, if it was hurting this much, you shouldn’t have let Katherine grab it so often on the way here…”

Anna huffs.

“How’d you know?” Anna asks, tilting her head.

“When we were walking here,” Jim said, “I noticed that you were wincing, but it wasn’t in time with the walk. Then I saw Katherine take your arm and that’s when you winced.”

Anna is impressed. “All that from looking at me?”

“I’m an EMT back at home,” he explains, taking the first aid kit and pulling out the ace bandage. He wraps it and puts the ice on top.

“Amongst other things, I take it.” Anna replies. “More like us than them, right?”

Jim looks up at her, and Anna smirks a little bit. Jim tilts his head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Anna smiles a bit wider and goes back to researching, leaving Jim confused.

Meanwhile, Melinda had been helping prep for dinner, watching as the other queens and ladies were preparing things as well.

“Are you sure it’s ok if we join you guys for dinner?” Melinda asks, cutting the vegetables as requested.

Catherine smiles. “It’s no problem at all. It’s been a while since we were able to cook for people, anyways.”

Melinda smiles politely back before looking around - she can hear some of the others talking in the other room, she can hear a child laughing again somewhere in the building, and she can already smell the dinner cooking. It seemed… peaceful.

“How many people know about you all?” Melinda asks, going back to preparing vegetables. “The truth, I mean.”

Catherine hums. “Not many. A handful.” She nods towards Cathy, who is putting something in the oven. “Cathy is the one to keep track of that.”

“It’s mainly need to know,” Cathy says. “We don’t exactly want everyone to know, it would scare quite a bit of people.”

“So do you have fake names for the board at the front of the lobby?” Melinda asks, genuinely curious.

Cathy nods. “Just there. It’s not in the programmes or anything. Just didn’t feel right.”

Melinda nods, wincing in pain for a moment before getting her bearings together.

Catherine tilts her head. “Are you ok? Here, eat something,” she says, putting an apple in front of the woman.

Mel shakes her head. “Not really that hungry, sorry,” she mumbles, a hand to her head. She sighs. “I was running a fever back in Grandview, too, when this all happened there.”

“What else happened while you were fighting these… Shadow, things?” Katherine asks, tilting her head curiously.

Melinda swallowed. “I… was consumed by it.”

Cathy tilts her head. “Consumed?”

Mel nods. “It wore me down. I couldn’t differentiate ghosts and visions from people and real life.” Her arms involuntarily cross as she remembers. “It was scary. I didn’t think I’d find my way back. I thought I was lost.”

“What got you back?” Catherine asks.

At that, Melinda smiles. “My son. And the memories of my family, my loved ones - it helped me break through.” She frowns. “We don’t have Aiden around this time, though. He was the reason why I could break through in the first place. He gave the opening. And he’s not here.” She frowns. “So… the big question is, what are we going to do if they try to take one of you?”

No one had an answer for that.

Meanwhile, Jim and Anna were sitting in the living room, looking through papers and websites to find leads. They had sat in relative silence for a while - a comfortable one, but silence nonetheless.

It’s broken when Jim makes a small noise of annoyance and puts down a piece of paper.

Anna raises an eyebrow and looks at him. “You alright, Jim?”

He looks over, a bit surprised by the question, but sighs and answers. “Look, Anna, the last time Melinda dealt with the Shadows… she almost didn’t make it out. It’s practically a miracle that she survived.” He sighs. “I know this is important, and I wouldn’t dream of stopping her from doing her work, but-”

“You don’t want her hurt in the process.” Anna finishes, a knowing nod.

Jim leans back a bit, slightly more relaxed. “Yeah.”

Anna thinks about it for a moment before she stands up and walks over to him. “Listen, Jim… I know we’ve only just met. But from what I can tell, you two have gone through much, much worse.” She points to his hair. “Your reflection is blonde, but you definitely aren’t. So, basically… this isn’t your first body, is it?” She looks him over. “It looks good, by the way, though I think I see what Melinda saw in your reflection, which I’m assuming is your second form? So I can see who you were but in reflections I see the body you’re in now?” She shrugs. “That’s what I’ve come to the conclusion to, anyways.”

Jim sits back, absolutely floored. “I’m extremely impressed that  you figure this out so quickly - I couldn’t even figure it out for a while.”

“It was more of theory than fact, but I’m glad I was right,” she says. “Maybe souls can see souls. And maybe you’re not so different from me and my family, and maybe you’ve been through something similar. I get supporting your wife and all, but you take it to an inhuman level.”

“I’m not…” He runs a hand through his hair; guess it’s time to come clean, he supposed. “This body was someone else’s before it was mine. He crossed over, and I took his place as soon as he did.” He looks her over. “Originally, Melinda was thinking you guys did something similar to the bodies you have now.”

“We didn’t,” she assures. “I know you can’t completely trust me, but we didn’t. We showed up in these bodies.”

“Have you tried sending off DNA or fingerprints or death records?” He suggests. “We’ve seen weird stuff, Anna, maybe you all happened to die at the same time and you jumped in after that. I didn’t remember doing that at first, either-”

“We didn’t.”

The two look over to find Katherine. She’s standing in the doorway, two plates in her hands, Melinda right behind her.

“Kat-” Anna starts, but Katherine moves into the room, offering Anna and Jim plates. They both take them. Jim moves over so Melinda can sit next to him as Katherine continues.

“We showed up with them,” she says firmly, looking over at Melinda.

Mel nods. “These bodies… they’re here, but they’re not,” she explains. She frowns as she looks at Katherine’s hand. “I get visions any time I touch them, and their energies are so strong… it’s like the Shadows, but not threatening. Not dangerous.”

“That’s… not something we’ve seen before,” Jim says. “Payne might know something about that. He said to call him if anything gets wild, didn’t he?”

“I left a message for him already,” Melinda explains. She sees Jim’s worried look next to her and gently squeezes his hand, letting him know she’s okay. “We’ll have an answer tomorrow.” She looks at the group. “He’s a professor of the occult. Used to work in Grandview, now he’s researching off in the Himalayas.”

“And you think he’ll be able to help us?” Anne asks.

“I think so,” Mel confirmed.

“That’s all we can do for now, right?” Jane asks, looking around. “Just wait until Professor Payne gives us some more information?”

“I think so,” Catherine replies with a nod. She looks at the couple with a soft smile. “You two should get some rest. Call time is fairly early.”

Melinda blinks. “Call time?”

“Well,” Anne says, smiling. “You want this solved as much as we do, right? Might as well give you the best access we can.”

“So you’ll be our VIP guests for as long as you need to be,” Jane continues. “Behind the scenes access before, during, and after the show.”

“We figured it would help with the investigation,” Anna replies. “Maybe help you catch whoever’s behind it, since we’re all in agreement it’s supernaturally aligned.”

“And besides,” Jane says with a teasing grin. “If someone gets injured again, Jim won’t have an excuse for being slow to help.”

Jim chuckles at that and looks over at Melinda. “Well, I guess we’ll reschedule the ghost tour of the Tower of London.”

“Why would you pay for that?” Anne jokes, waving her hand dismissively. “You’ve already met them.”

[fxndomxofmxn]

starter: closed for @inxthexhallofxfame​ location: the gordon home

Always an early riser, Melinda bustled around the kitchen as she worked to complete breakfast, knowing Gil would soon be up and moving around the kitchen himself. On the table she had already placed a stack of pancakes, a plate of turkey bacon, and a plate of toast. Currently she found herself standing in front of her stove, moving a hearty helping of scrambled eggs across the skillet with her spatula. Hearing movement behind her, she smiled, turning to face Gil as he made his way into the kitchen. “Well good morning, sunshine.” She said with a laugh, glancing back at the stove to ensure the eggs weren’t sticking. “I’d ask if you’re hungry, but we both know that’s a question I already know the answer to. Do you want juice, or coffee?” She asked, pulling the pan from the burner as she carried it over to the table. “Did you sleep well?” 

Stepping towards Gil, she leaned forward to press a kiss to his forehead, standing on her tip-toes to account for their height difference. Things had been such a whirlwind since she’d adopted him, having found him in a situation which she didn’t believe could have gotten much worse, though she hadn’t been willing to risk finding out. As she gazed at him now, a smile spread across her face, and she couldn’t help but to think about how lucky she was. When her husband had passed, Melinda had been left feeling as though perhaps there wasn’t much else left for her in the world, going about her days in the heaviest of fogs, believing that she’d already experienced the best days of her life with Jim. Then, like a miracle for them both, Gil had been placed directly in her path, and she’d been given a second chance at life, at happiness, and to have a home filled with love. 

[mtab2260]

I realized I never actually gave a... I guess— description on what Turbine Addition really is. Then also how I got the idea and built Lukian.

(Warning long essay)

Basically, when I was on my third rewatch of the show since august, I was watching episode 3x10: Maveth and I had a interesting thought after May snuck away from everyone to find Andrew. What if, Lash or Andrew actually spares one inhuman In that compound? It’s not completely unheard of/ unrealistic, he did spare Daisy on multiple occasions. But— obviously, I had to give a reason why this inhuman was spared over the others.

It was a idea that floated in my mind for maybe a month, I wanted to create an Inhuman who was spared by Lash and ends up joining the team from there on. I kept thinking of angles on how I could do it but none of them ever seemed right. Until I watched episode 2x17 with my friend— who I had blackmailed into watching the show. (Yes, I did two rewatches at once.)

For those of you who don’t know by heart each episode by it’s number (I had to look it up)— the title is Melinda, and it’s the episode where we finally learn about Bahrain. When I rewatched that episode the idea just teleported into my brain.

Lash spares an Inhuman because one of them is a child.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Obviously during episode 3x10 Andrew still had some control over Lash and wasn’t fully tainted by him yet. So when Andrew/ Lash saw the kid Andrew definitely fought for every ounce of control he had over the situation. He knew how killing a kid— no matter how much the situation demands it— can destroy a person, because he saw it happen to May.

Then I also kept thinking about the inhuman epidemic and then later— Robin, like how she definitely couldn’t only ever be the only inhuman child during the outbreak, right? It was just highly unlikely. We know Terrigenesis at a young age, or any age really can change a person. Not just physically, or on a cellular level, but mentally. We see it with Andrew and also with Katya, and Robin. Which, all in all is really fitting— Andrew was May’s husband, May killed Katya, and Robin was May’s daughter.

But nonetheless that’s not my point, my point is at Afterlife there was a certain age everyone went through the mist. It was an age where they’re young enough to adapt, but old enough to understand. Now, Katya and Robin were both young when going through Terrigenesis and their gifts were something that were more mental than others. It was contained to their body, it wasn’t an external gift like Daisy’s, Lincon’s, Joey’s, James‘, Kora’s. It was like Jiayang‘s, Gordon’s, Raina’s, Yo-Yo’s, Andrew’s— all of their powers are contained to their person.

So if they didn’t have a mental gift like Katya and Robin, and they were at-least mature enough to understand then having a kid go through Terrigenisis could work. And obviously if you’re gonna create a character that has an external gift, you gotta give them an uncontrollable destructive power like Daisy’s. But the fun thing about Daisy’s power, is that it also has endless creative possibilities.

I wanted a power like that.

After some workshopping and a few completely terrible ideas... I got: air molecule manipulation. Or other words, tornado powers. Before I started thinking on how his powers worked I needed an explicit way to think of how Daisy’s powers worked since I was modeling his power after hers. From my two rewatches at the same time I started making notes on what we knew about her powers and how they feel to her specifically.

She can hear the vibrations of everything around her (but it’s not as noticeable at first glance)

Can amplify the ’sound’ of the vibrations to cause an earthquake, or avalanche

Internalizing her powers improperly caused her arms to fracture

Strong beam of concentrated vibrations for a long period of time can cause her to blackout/ nosebleed

The vibrations don’t only just come out of her arms

Lack of care can also lead to her arms to fracture

Now vibrations and electricity, are both element related powers, but they work differently. Lincoln said after he went through the mist every cell in his body generated a different electronic charge. Basically, the power (pun intended) came from his body without needing an external source. Yes, I know I said Lincoln‘s power was an external one, but it isn’t contained to his mind— or person. I feel Daisy’s vibrational powers are different, mostly because, if she could generate vibrations directly from her cells then her bones wouldn’t be breaking from too much of it. Kinda like how Scorch had those fire pellets in his blood to prevent him from burning himself, Daisy doesn’t have vibrational immunity.

Gordon said everything in the universe was giving off it’s own vibrational frequency, and Daisy could control that. So in order for her to quake Talbot’s ass to the sun she need to obsorb the vibrations around her, store them in her first (the bees under her skin), then send the vibrations out through her palms.

I’m not gonna get into why her bones crack and everything, but it’s an important downside.

Obviously.

As I said I wanted to model my character’s powers as closely as I could to Daisy’s, which I did, but I couldn’t do it exactly for obvious reasons. Yes, you store air like oxygen and carbon dioxide (not for long) in your body temporarily— but your body is going to use it because it needs it. Plus you can’t send air molecules through skin tissue like vibrations can— it’s why we have noses. The skin tissue is too dense for the diffusion of the molecules to take place there. So if I had to say, his power is more of a cross of Daisy’s power and Joey’s power. He needs an external source to wield his power and manipulate the element he can control, but can’t store it in his own body.

So I had a powerful power for my character but I needed a downside. Each incredibly OP power had one: Daisy with her bones, Robin could see the past— present— and future but just didn’t know what went where, Raina became the monster under the bed (or Sonic), Jiayang had to kill someone to heal herself. I thought for a while on this, how can I make a downside for a power like that?

Obviously there’s not many options because oxygen is such a fragile thing to living organisms, and lack of it isn’t exactly ideal. Fitz’s brain damage being a prime example, another example being all those people who died due to hypoxia on the floating ship where the Gravitonium was. So as I said— fragile.

I was going over my notes again of Daisy’s power when the hearing aspect struck a cord. Since their powers are so similar in the aspect of they’re both natural disasters, he was going to need a way to create those tornados around him, like with Daisy and the earthquakes— when the power isn’t concentrated but it’s still triggered. I wanted the sound to be like what you hear when you hear wind over the phone, and when it’s blowing past your ears and it creates that sound. That’s where I got the inspiration from really, static noise and whistling.

So I had that down, and instead of it being like Daisy’s, the sound is much, much more apparent. Mostly because you can hear the wind, like when is passes your ears or if the wind current is just strong enough— but you can’t necessarily hear vibrations. You can when you put your finger on the rim of a water glass and go around the edge, but if you don‘t... you don’t really hear much (I think). And also another thing, sound in general.

The reason why there’s no sound in space is because there’s no air molecules in space, there’s nothing for the sound waves to hitch a ride on. Which leads me to my next point. If he can hear the wind and the air molecules around him and sound passes through the air molecules then he could hear sound through his powers without needing ears. You’re basically adding a third— non-connected to the others— ear.

And people get sensory overload just normally, adding that third ear would be too much. So long story short: the down side to air molecule manipulation powers is... headaches. But like a really bad headache, I don’t know if they’re migraines at that point, I know there’s a difference but I haven’t done my research on that yet. But essentially, headaches. And later on there will be a fix for that.

Just keep in mind chapter seven.

Now the one thing I absolutely love about AoS is despite all the crazy, outlandish stuff they go through— there is always science and reason to back it all up, making it seem ever more realistic. And that’s what I love, the realism of it all (Yes, I‘m well aware they do time-travel, and there’s aliens/ superpowers). So if I was going to make a story, then I needed it to be realistic, otherwise I’d probably hate it myself.

And I’d rather not hate my own fic— thank you very much.

So when I thought about Flint, him being fifteen, with inhuman powers and the team was still hesitant to bring him in because he’s a kid— I knew I had a problem. Especially since my character is thirteen. I needed a realistic answer to why and how the team would actually allow a thirteen year old to join SHIELD.

Being inhuman helps, sure. Especially with a power that could rival Daisy’s (tornadoes are bloody strong). But he’s still a kid. It does help that with how tense season three is with inhumans and Hive they’ll need all the backup they can get, even if it’s an inhuman kid who Hive can control. I have very logical reasons why Lukian stays with the team despite everything, but it hasn’t been revealed yet so I’m gonna keep my trap shut.

I’ll give you a hint though, there’s a reason why he can lie so well.

Now onto the character himself, Lukian. Why I made Lukian the way he is? Well the trauma part is very clear, you can’t have a main character without trauma. That’s just simply unheard of.

For gender, I thought about making him a girl at first because that’s what AoS is all about really— Strong women. But... all the lines I had in mind, just made it seem cheesy and with poor writing. So he became a boy. Sorry.

For his name, Lukian, honestly it’s not much of a story. I just really suck at creating names and thought a kid in my class had a really cool name so I copied it for my character. I know it’s Ukrainian, but that doesn’t mean that’s Lukian’s (my character) ethnicity. Especially since Lukian isn’t apparently his name... cough cough (Kelly Clements) Cough. That specifically will be revealed in the next chapter, if I ever finish it. And when I first thought (copied) it, I didn’t realize how close it would be to Lincoln and how much similar those names look if you read them really fast.

So, my bad on that part.

For Lukian’s (Kelly’s) age it goes back to Terrigenisis warping his mind, and the logic and reason. No matter how kick-ass a seven year old may be, he’s still a seven year old and everyone but May won’t see past that. Plus, school.

For his personality it goes back to that trauma section. Trauma and experiences make us who we are, so obviously that will play a bit part in who Lukian is. And for all the trauma you pick up you will need a coping mechanism to hand all of it. Whether it’s break down right there, bottle it up, run away, hide from it, ignore it— whatever it is, we all have one. And for Lukian his coping mechanism is just pretending that he doesn’t care, that he’s fine— that there’s nothing wrong. It’s not that he’s completely like Simmons who created a horror movie in her locked up tight music box, though in a way it’s simular. A big part is bottling things up, putting on a mask— but another part of it is just simply not caring.

Personally that’s my coping mechanism, it’s terrible and when I become a real adult I’m bloody fucked, but it’s what I do. I have a big test coming up, what do I do? I don’t study and don’t let it stress me out. I just don’t care about it and don’t think about it until when I’m actually taking the test. I still get decent grades too so it’s not a completely bullshit mechanism, but boy, my future is going to die fast. Mostly because I’m in high school and I don’t really know how to study now because of this.

Anyway, back to the story, that’s essentially his coping mechanism. Along with a hint of deflection with humor too. Again, like Daisy. As I go more into the story you’ll find there are many Lukian and Daisy parallels. It’s probably why Daisy has taken such a liking to Lukian in the first place, and why they get along so well despite barely knowing each other for three weeks. Or it’s because I wrote them that way, who knows?

The reason why I had Lukian have an interest in robotics and in engineering goes back to the downside with his powers. As you may know, the kid may have stolen a few things from the lab to help with that headache of his. Plus if he’s good in science and has a usefulness besides fighting, then it’s another reason for him to join. Obviously the team isn’t gonna just let him ditch school, so him actually being smart helps if school isn’t well... at a school.

Now, why did I name this fic the way I did?

The Addition part is very simple and easy, Lukian is an addition to the team. I wanted that to always be in the title, but what I wanted before that was something that related to Lukian. Whether it’s his powers, or personality, it didn’t really matter but nothing really called out to me or fit properly. And again as I said I’m terrible at naming things, currently on chapter ten I’m more than half way done, I still don’t have a bloody name for it. So like my coping mechanism, I forgot about it for a bit.

So I went on to what the team’s connections will be with Lukian, thinking about who each member of the team is to Lukian and how close he is to everyone. Obviously May’s relationship with him will be most strained, not because of May herself and her trauma, but because of his too (I’m not saying anymore). And the closest relationship he’ll have will be with Daisy, because again paralells. And, because she was the one to find him and she is also his transitioner and trainer.

And while I was thinking about all of that, no matter where Mack was on the closest relationship list, there was no way Lukian was getting on the team without a nickname from the nickname king. And since if you’re inhuman basically it’s a rule your nickname will be based off of that I started sorting through air related nicknames. Breezy was my top choice originally but Breezy Addition just didn’t sound as strong as Turbine Addition. But don’t worry Breezy as a nickname from Mack isn’t going to disappear, it’s just going to take a while to get to from a writing standpoint.

And.... this is when I’ve realized I’ve been writing this for the past three hours and now it’s bloody three am. Thanks for coming to my extra long Ted Talk/ fifty paged essay.

And if anyone actually read all of this... holy bloody fuck you have a long attention span.