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willardswritindump · 5 years ago

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Days turned to weeks, and most of the time all Odie would get from his battle buddy was quick, harsh glances and puffs of aggravation. The only time they shared conversation was in situations when they were required to. She was intent on following through with her words.

June 3rd, 2525

1800 hours

It was cold, wet and muddy. The Drill Sergeants saw the lovely weather and decided to take the recruits out for target practice. Up on a small ridge lay about a dozen or so Cadets, letting off short bursts from their ARs and BRs that mimicked the thunder in the background.

Sarah pulled the spent magazine from her BR55, replaced it, and set her iron sights down the firing lane. She fired three consecutive bursts, and nine holes appeared in the targets torso region 100 meters out. The Academy has some skilled students and soldiers, sure, but Sarah seems to have more experience than the rest of the idiots here. She fired two more bursts. Three rounds hit the torso, two the head.

The only one remotely close to Sarah’s skill was Oliver. While she sent well placed bursts into each of her targets at 100 meters he was carefully placing every single shot out of his BR55 into the chest and head of the target at 200 meters. Each one being fast but not so fast as to allow the recoil from the last shot to throw him off. The groupings, one for the heart, one for each lung and one right between the eyes of the target weren’t any larger than an inch in diameter. Just like his oldest brother Christian taught him.

“Well well well, looks like you two fucking psychos were made for each other!”

Their platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Declan Wrtezky said as he kicked each of the cadets in the boot as they continued to fire.

“You two are some of the best shots we’ve seen in a long while, if only you two actually fucking spoke to each other you’d maybe make a decent fucking team!”

"Yes Sir, thank you Drill Sergeant, Sir!"

Sarah kept firing down range, watching her ammo counter tick down with every successful burst.

12.

Click.

An empty magazine plops into the mud, ready to be replaced by a clean, fresh one.

“Sir, AXIOS, sir!”

Odie said before continuing to plink away at the target.

“CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRING ON THE FIRING LINE!” A loud voice called out over the range.

"Great. Some dumbass probably shot themselves"

Were Sarah's first initial thoughts, which quickly narrowed down to two dumbass tards. "Fuckin Hoffman, probably."

She put her gun to safe, and stood to attention

Without even thinking Oliver dropped the mag and ejected the round from the chamber and placed the weapon on safe before joining Sarah at attention.

“LOOK AT THIS SHIT!” The Sergeant in charge of line said as he walked up and down it holding up a BR with a split and still smoking barrel.

“I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS SHIT! FUCKIN AMATEUR! THIS IS WHY YOU CLEAN YOUR FUCKING WEAPONS! NOW WE HAVE A CADET DOWN AND ANOTHER PIECE OF SHIT TO GET FIXED! THESE AINT YOUR GOD DAMN WEAPONS TO BREAK, GET YOUR FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER! Y’ALL AINT SOME SHIT FOR BRAINS GROUP OF INNIES, ACT LIKE YOU ARE UNSC OR I SWEAR I WILL HAVE SUPPLY OUT OF BOOTS BECAUSE I PUT THEM ALL UP YOUR ASSES!”

Sarah swallowed, and with that her pride

"Sir, respectfully, Innies can't shoot for spit. We can, Sir."

She had to say something about them. Test what some of the Sergeants and Cadets actually thought about the still hot topic. At least she can back her words with the proof behind them. Let's just hope speaking out of line is excused for both of their excellent marksmanship.

“WHO SAID THAT!? WHO THE FUCK JUST SAID THAT!” The Sergeant said before whipping and walking back in Oliver and Sarah’s direction “Well well if it ain’t miss charity case, just cause you think y’all shoot good does not give you an excuse TO MOUTH OFF AT ATTENTION FUCK FACE!”

With that Odie’s Hans shot up. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT DANIELS!?” The Sergeant snapped as he turned to him. “Sir with all due respect, she does have a point. She’s the best shot in the company, sir.”

All this chatter and lack of gunfire infuriated the Range Sgt, who looked like he was just about ready to shit his pants. The still smoking rifle not doing him any good, either. He had overheard Daniel's praise of Oliver's shots, and simply didn't believe it; There's no way in hell the shortest Cadet in the platoon was the best shot.

"YOU, YOU SHORT LITTLE SHIT? YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD BARELY HOLD MY GODDAMNED SIDEARM!"

Speaking of said sidearm had given the Sergeant an idea. Storming up to the recruit, he grabs his M6G, flips it, hands it to Sarah, and points to the 500m lane. He wasn't outright screaming now, but there was definitely rage, angst, and disbelief in his rough, dry voice

"Tell ya what, short-stack. You empty this entire magazine into the head of that target over there, and I just might let you and your Battle Buddy off the hook for my broken goddamn gun. Miss a single round, and I'll make sure this entire FUCKING platoon never forgets-"

Oh damn.

Odie's face remained neutral as his gut felt like it dropped. He knew Sarah was a good shot, but this would've been a tall order for even an experienced marksman, let alone a new cadet from the outer territories. "Aye Aye Sir." was all he said in response

Sarah gave a quick nod of responsibility, and took her NCO's sidearm

"Sir."

She made her way over to the 500m line, readied her position and steadied her aim. The safety flicks off her Magnum, simultaneously with the pit pats of light rain against its metallic bull-barreled hull. See, The Sergeant knew there was no goddamned way anybody was gonna make those shots, least not without any sort of Neural Implants for aim assist on the bigass pistol lacking iron sights. He thought Sarah wouldn't have any goddamn chance with a clunky, sightless M6 Magnum

BLAM

Fire spat from the hand cannon, and with it a spinning messenger of "Fuck this guy in particular." The targets head exploded like a damn watermelon. Sarah smirked, and the animatronic figure slammed to the ground, summoning another one just near it.

BLAM

He met the same fate as his comrade.

BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM-

Half of their piers nearly shat themselves at her unbelievable accuracy. It was borderline inhuman, targets would fall in perfect succession of each other.

It sure was a good thing the Range Sergeant wanted Oliver to succeed in her endeavors, which is why he immediately ordered her go prone and fire with her belly-up, insisting in a somewhat elevated tone:

"YOU WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE THE PRIVELEGE OF CHOOSING WHERE YOU WISH TO FIRE FROM, CADETS. YOU WILL LEARN THIS NOW AND IT JUST MIGHT SAVE YOUR PATHETIC FUCKING LIVES."

She did as ordered, getting mud and shit in her hair and face. She steadied her right arm above her head, and held her forearm with her left. She could barely make out the dot on the other side of the lane. Closing in on her kill count, Sarah begins to pace her shots.

BLAM

BLAM.

All targets neutralized. She stood to her feet, flipped the M6 around, and handed the empty gun back to her superior.

"Sir... Done."

For once something made it through Daniel’s blank exterior, that thing being a smirk.

“Sir, I believe my point is proven, Sir.” He said in a completely neutral tone, he knew this entire act of rebellion was pushing it, sarcasm despite how much he wished to use, would most likely defeat all the hard work his battle buddy had put in.

"Jesus Mary Joseph..."

The Range Sgt looked over to Wrtezky, who returned a hidden face of pure and utter shock. He slowly grabbed the gun and stared at Sarah dead in the eyes. His words were calmer now than they'd ever heard

"That was the best fucking shooting I've seen in years."

"You two, Take your weapons to the armory, and then PROPERLY CLEAN THEM. No amount of divine intervention will save your ass if you don't clean my fucking rifles. Dismissed."

"Sir."

She picked up her empty BR55, gave Odie a quick glance, and began her way to the armory.

Sgt. Kozlov turned to the other Cadets, half of which were almost shivering.

"THE REST OF YOU SHIT-HEADS GET TO DO WHAT IT SEEMS THIS PLATOON WAS MADE TO DO. YOU FUCKERS GET SHITTER-DUTY FOR A MONTH!

Daniels followed quickly behind Oliver, silently celebrating his small victory in the safety of his head. Once the two were out of earshot Daniels piped up.

“Excellent work out there Cadet Oliver, looks like we got second platoon out of shitter duty.”

Oliver tapped on the side of his rifle which was kept a crisp low ready for the entirety of the walk back to the barracks

"Can it, kiss-ass. I don't need to hear the opinions of a bastard's son, and I don't need a brown nose to give me a gold star every god damn time I do what I do. Now please, shut the hell up."

Her tone seemed somewhat disgusted and agitated, and her face had a similar look. She flipped her almost muddy bangs to the side, and sighed.

"Whatever. C'mon, armory is east wing."

“No no listen here I have taken a lot of shit from you and just let it slide! If I hadn’t of said anything you would’ve just gotten yourself screwed even more!”

Something in Odie finally snapped, after weeks of staying quiet and taking whatever abuse Sarah would throw at him, he finally snapped.

“So what if my father is a piece of shit, hate to break it to you but. I AM NOT HIM!”

“You know what, fuck you bitch.”

Daniels said surprisingly calmly as something inside him finally broke, after all the abuse he suffered from Sarah in the weeks spent together. He calmly took the buttstock of his BR and slammed it hard into the back of Sarah’s head.

“How’s that for tough!”

"Ow, Vycher kotny piss da! -"

Or at least that's what Odie heard the stumbling girl say. Sarah held her head where the butt of the gun said hello for a brief moment, steadying herself. She shakes her head thrice or so, washing it off. Sarah then griped her rifle like a baseball bat and smashed it into the side of Odie's lower leg, sending him falling to the cold, hard ground. She raises the firearm above her head, as if to pummel the stock into his nose.

“Scheisse! Du Rotzlöffel Hurensohn!” Odie yelled as he reflexively kicked Sarah square in the groin and knocked her off balance, then using his other food to trip her. Through the pain in his leg he threw himself on top of Sarah and started to throw punches at her face. He didn’t want to knock her out, or incapacitate her like most people he caught, all he wanted to hurt her as much as possible.

Sarah was able to block a fair portion of the blows to her face, before tucking both of her flexible legs in between them and slipping a hidden blade from beneath her boot, giving Odie a pretty damn fairly painful but probably non-lethal gnash on his left abdomen as she kicked him away, before immediately jumping to her feet. She wiped a trail of blood coming from her nose, and spat out pink fuzz to the side.

"Sova i zmeya. You're outmatched."

“Ich bin der Adler!”

Odie’s anger and adrenaline outweighed the knife wound and all that was on his mind was making Sarah hurt. Odie charged and tackled her back down onto the stairs before grabbing the hand with the knife and continuing to pummel her face and kneeing her in the gut and groin. “Fuck you!”

She used her left hand to give Odie one hell of a deck on the chin, then immediately kicked him off again, sending him staggering back. She reached her arms behind her head, tucked in her legs, and then sprung both out, hopping to her feet. Whilst Odie was recovering, Sarah flipped the knife to it's blade, stuck her left hand in front of her, and was ready to throw. A stab from it's 6" blade could easily be fatal. Odie could almost feel his eyes dilating in "Oh shit." As her arm went back, a mysterious figure jumped from the shadows and tackled her to the ground, sending the knife flying to the grass. The figure shouted out in a voice Odie couldn't possibly forget.

"FUCKING CRAZY BITCH-!"

It was Hoffman, and behind him his battle buddy, some ginger chick named Christina Roads. Hoffman held his elbow at Sarah's neck, and had his right fist aimed and ready to pound in her face. He looked over to Daniels, who's entire left side was covered in blood. It looked worse than it was, for sure.

"Jesus Chris- You okay dude?! Goddamnit, Christie! Get him to the Infirmary, NOW!"

Hoffman gave Oliver one hell of a nasty look, and tightened his fist.

"Give me a reason to get more involved, I swe-"

"Hoff, she needs medical attention too. Hitting her will get us both knee deep in shit just as much as them. You don't know what happened"

The ginger's voice was almost raspy, kind of dry. Sarah smirked

"I know what happened! This crazy bitch stabbed Odie! Uuuuugh, fine! Get up! Pull another trick and I'll break your kneecaps."

Hoffman released Sarah, as she stood and wiped blood from her nose.

"Thanks, hot stuff."

"Shut up."

"C'mon, Infirmary's this way..."

As he was escorted to the infirmary Daniel’s consciousnesses faded in and out as he quietly babbled nonsense in German interspersed with the occasional

“I fuckin had her.”

As soon as he made it inside, he finally blacked out

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reconditarmonia · 6 years ago

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Dear Chocolate Box Author

Hello, lovely writer!

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things). I have anon messaging off, but mods should be able to contact me if you have any questions.

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink, whether commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms, and the trust associated with it. Sometimes-but-not-always relatedly, idealism. I guess the two combined might be, in general, the idea of nobility of character and what that means. Also, gestures of loyalty.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

– Eucatastrophe.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes.

—

Fandom: Coriolanus

Ship(s): Coriolanus/Aufidius

Fightsex ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Or fighting with high UST? (I should mention that Hiddleston!Coriolanus’s bemused reaction to Aufidius’s speech and kiss is, shall we say, not my headcanon; I like how equally obsessed with each other the two of them are.) The “he is a lion that I am proud to hunt” line seems to get quoted a lot, but I’m more interested in the part of the line that immediately precedes it - “Were half to half the world by th' ears and he upon my party, I'd revolt to make only my wars with him" - and this coexists with how they see each other as being so similar.

Fandom-Specific DNWs/Exception: PWP should be all right on this one. Cultural hangups around penetration in the context of fighting for dominance are fine, but DNW shame/reluctance when getting down to whatever they decide to do, please, and also DNW dialogue descriptions of what’s occurring in the sex.

—

Fandom: Discworld

Ship(s): Polly “Ozzer” Perks & Jackrum, Polly “Ozzer” Perks & Sam Vimes, Tonker Halter/Lofty Tewt/Maladict, Tonker Halter/Lofty Tewt/Polly “Ozzer” Perks

/ ships: Destroy the Polly/Mal and Tonker/Lofty hegemony! /sarcasm These just seemed like ships that would be interesting to see - I guess I imagine them as being short-term given Tonker and Lofty’s one true love, but I’d be interested in seeing why Tonker and Lofty might let someone else in, why Mal or Polly might accept, and how that’d play out. Probably post-canon? How does it come about, if Tonker and Lofty have retired (to be criminals/freedom-fighters, or did they just rob the one bank to get enough to retire on and burn down the one place as personal revenge?) while Mal and Polly are still in the army? (Again, sarcastic about the Polly/Mal, I ship it and would be up for Polly/Mal pining in the context of one of these trios if that’s what you’re into.)

& ships: Just more of Polly and her mentor/s! I love that Monstrous Regiment is about a woman who joins the army in response to an immediate crisis but comes to learn that she’s a cunning bastard and that being a sergeant is what she’s good at. More of Polly learning from Jackrum (or deciding to do things differently, having things to teach) would be great. (She hasn’t heard nearly all Jackrum’s stories - or, even in retirement, there must be some adventure they could have, or something could come up around Jackrum’s big secret, or the book of blackmail.) So would Polly finding a new mentor in Vimes, learning how things work in Ankh-Morpork (as big city - how does she react to all the cultural differences? - or as a power structure where the rules of getting stuff done might be different than in Borogravia) or across periodic meetings when he’s in Borogravia. What are they cynical about, what do they believe in?

I request Monstrous Regiment a lot, so I have previous prompts for it in my “dear authors” tag.

Fandom-Specific DNW/Exception: gender headcanons, identity musing, or non-canonical pronouns. “He” or “she” for Jackrum are both fine, but I would not want to read the character making a big deal about gender identity or pronouns. Also, er, PWP would probably be fine for the / ships, although I’m still interested more in the character dynamics than in what would be hot.

—

Fandom: Harlots

Ship(s): Charlotte Wells & Margaret Wells, Lydia Quigley & Charlotte Wells, Nancy Birch/Margaret Wells, Nancy Birch & Margaret Wells & William North

Charlotte & Margaret: There are so many levels to their relationship! In some ways it’s the usual “your baby is an adult person now”, but especially in season 2, Charlotte’s also working/fighting for the “side” that Margaret leads, and of course who Charlotte is as an adult person is so dependent on Margaret’s great betrayal of her. It’d be great to read something dealing with how thorny and complex their relationship is, their ambition and moral ambivalence, a conflict they have over something that’s not a keeper/relationship, ways in which their personalities are similar or different. (I would prefer to have Margaret’s selling of Charlotte remain an element of their backstory, rather than being the focus of the fic. If you want to start the story post-canon with Margaret back in place, don’t feel obligated to explain how she avoided transportation - I’m fine with that noodle incident or tacit canon divergence, but I’d prefer that the fic didn’t ignore the events of season 2 in general. Explaining it, or having her indeed transported, are also fine!)

Lydia & Charlotte: The other mother-daughter pairing! I love everything about the “loyal and beloved henchman secretly plotting revenge” plot in season 2. What if the secret hadn’t been revealed when it was, and Charlotte had become more and more compromised? Or, without that canon divergence, tell me more about what they genuinely like or admire about each other, or what Charlotte learns from Lydia about managing her house or her persona. Or maybe there’s another situation where, even as open enemies, they have to work together and help/rely on each other. (If you don’t feel like explaining how Lydia gets out of Bedlam and want to start the story post-canon with her back in place, I’m fine with that, whether we assume she manipulated her way out or that canon divergence happened and she wasn’t committed.)

Nancy/Margaret or Nancy & Margaret & Will: I was really happy that Nancy and Margaret got to kiss, because I’d been shipping them. What interests me most about the ship (and which is the reason I’m prompting both Nancy/Mags and Nancy&Mags&Will together) is Nancy and Margaret as partners-as-family. Both Nancy and Will are Margaret’s unmarried partners, to some degree or other, and play a parental role with the children that are hers but not theirs - do they have words for that when so many other relationships in their lives are definable and quantifiable? Did Nancy and Margaret ever try to live together or go into business together (after leaving Quigley’s - I’m not really interested in reading about them when they’re very young) or did they decide to live close but separate from the start? What’s a day in the life like for Margaret, Will, and Nancy?

I’ve requested this fandom before, in my “dear author letters” tag.

Fandom-Specific Exception to DNW: I recognize that rape and dubcon are endemic to the canon and specifically to a subplot I like, and I don’t expect you to avoid all reference to them, but would prefer not to have them described in detail, or to dwell on specific instances.

—

Fandom: Original Work

Ship(s): Crime Boss/Right Hand Man or Woman/Undercover Police Officer, Female Aristocrat/Her Right-Hand Woman, Female Berserker/Female Officer She's Absolutely Loyal To, Female Commissioned Officer/Female Non-Commissioned Officer, Female Historical or Fantasy World Assassin-Spy/Her Female Patron, Female Re-Enactor Playing Male Soldier/Female Re-Enactor Playing Woman, Queen in a Court Full of Intrigue/Loyal and Vicious Female Writer, Recently Promoted Female Officer/Her Female Comrade-Now-Subordinate

So, clearly I love loyalty kink, stuff about how people relate to one another across a difference of rank or responsibility, questions of doing potentially fucked-up things for someone else because you’re loyal to them or are replacing your ethical judgment with theirs, or alternately of stopping someone from using the skills at their disposal in order to protect them or for a more farsighted goal. What kinds of situations could these characters be put in to risk themselves (whether that’s physically, or their ethics, reputation, secrets, position, goals...) for each other, or to ask someone they love to risk themselves? Maybe they’re the best at what they do, but what is it and how do they do it? How far do they need to go to prove their loyalty, if that’s what they need to do for personal reasons or for their own ambitions or wider goals?

Female Re-Enactor Playing Male Soldier/Female Re-Enactor Playing Woman does seem to be the odd one out, even if it also has to do with women soldiers, but I’d be so curious to know how they came to the decisions about who they would play, if they fall in love first or if their characters fall in love first and how all that plays out, all the tropey stuff that you might write for a historical canon but played as re-enactment, costume stuff...

For the military ones, these can be made-up societies, AU history where integrated or all-female armies were the norm, both women disguised as men in male armies, contexts where male soldiers are the norm but our female characters are there too for reasons...I think I'd prefer a context a little removed from the modern, but there's a lot of room for flexibility there. Same for the Aristocrat/Right-Hand Woman and Queen/Writer - historical or fantasy world, as with the assassin/patron, would be ideal. The re-enactors can be modern, or also in a made-up or future world. Gender wasn’t specified in the Crime Boss ship - I’d especially love to read that as f/f/f if you can swing it, but if that doesn’t work out, I would prefer f!boss/right-hand man/f!cop or f!boss/right-hand woman/m!cop over options with m!boss or two men.

I’ve requested this sort of thing before, so there’s more in my “dear author letters” tag.

Fandom-Specific DNW: If you go with a fantasy world for this, I would prefer human characters or, I guess, elves; DNW orcs, goblins, demons, dragons, etc.

—

Fandom: The Revenger’s Tragedy

Ship(s): Lussurioso/Vindice, Vindice & Hippolito, Vindice & Hippolito & Castiza

It is my firm belief that had Lussurioso’s target not happened to be Castiza, Vindice would have loved being Lussurioso’s henchman. They hit it off right away - both times! I’d love to see something that explores that (not that it has to be AU, I mean, just the idea that Vindice actually likes the guy and really enjoys/is well suited for this job). And Lussurioso’s got the measure of him, too, to some degree (“Yet [swear to be true in all] for my humour’s sake...’cause I love swearing.”) Uh, not that this means you can’t write it as incredibly fucked up, though; I mean, a big part of Vindice’s character for me is that he might have no place in an honest world. Does Vindice have any scruples that aren’t related to his own family? Sex as manipulation one way, both ways? How much murder?

Or give me some family dynamics! I’m weirdly curious about birth order, which is not specified in canon - I firmly headcanon Vindice as not the oldest and Hippolito as older than him, but would be interested in your perspective on the rest of the configuration. How alike or different are they (beyond the canon path of Hippolito getting more into Vindice’s whole “elaborate murder” shtick)? What else might happen to our battlin’ brothers that’s off-screen in canon, where they’re more, or less, in sync/on the same wavelength? If Castiza learns about what the brothers have been up to during or after canon, how might that play out?

Fandom-Specific DNW: No movie canon. The razor scars? Just in the movie. As well, please don’t have Castiza (or Antonio, if it comes up) be truly corrupted.

—

Fandom: Simoun

Ship(s): Aaeru & Neviril & Paraietta & Rodoreamon & Floef & Vyuraf, Aaeru/Neviril, Mamiina/Rodoreamon, Paraietta & Neviril, Paraietta/Rodoreamon

I’m so interested in the way that the war affects the relationship dynamics of this show - how Mamiina and Rodoreamon have this troubled backstory that they need to set aside and end up loving/respecting one another, how both Paraietta and Aaeru’s relationships with Neviril are personal relationships but also about them being soldiers and her being commander. And the way their experiences change them as people, and what that could mean for their relationships with one another. One thing I love about the canon is how, in the mold of all my favorite epic yuri/shoujo animes, Everything Is Beautiful And Then Shit Gets Real, and that’s not just an out-of-universe fact of the show but something that the characters themselves, who are “supposed” to be priestesses and not an air force, have to deal with.

I don’t have a lot of ship-specific prompts, but I’m always interested in loyalty; sexual first times probably tie into the canon’s themes in a lot of ways; time loops or timespace play? I did start wondering (when prompting this for Yuletide) what might happen post-canon if Neviril and Aeru make it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but Neviril has no one from the old cohort to lead because they can’t fly anymore - so what do they do? (I think the way the show is allows for lost characters like them or Mamiina to be brought back, although I think I’d prefer it to be acknowledged in-story as due to magic or time weirdness rather than a tacit canon divergence/retcon.)

I request this allllll the time, so I have a lot of rambling in my “dear author letters” tag.

Fandom-Specific DNW/Exception: I don't need you to retcon the attempted assault(s), but please don't dwell on them. No Dominuura/Limone if that comes up, please.

—

Fandom: Sleep No More

Ship(s): Bald Witch & Sexy Witch & Boy Witch, Bald Witch & Macduff, Sexy Witch & Fulton, Witch/Witch/Witch

I saw Sleep No More for the first(?) time in November, and it was really neat to explore and see all of the intertwining stories. I was especially interested in the Witches and the parts of their stories that I saw (I spent a lot of time with Bald Witch and with Fulton). One of my favorite things was the idea of this world of darkness and magic that’s underlying or intertwined with the social world, rather than in a separate space - I loved seeing the Witches at the ball and, holy shit, Bald Witch pulling off her wig after the ball in her solo ritual thing! This was the place in the loop where I first ran into her/noticed her, so I hadn’t realized it was a wig until that moment, and I was hooked. So, how do the Witches interact with the normal world, or deliberately carve out other spaces (like the apothecary shop)? What’s under the physical foundations of the castle and hotel and shops/what was there before, that they (or people like Fulton) might know about but that the world at large doesn’t know or has forgotten?

But also - who are the witches and how did they find each other? Are they still human, or are they immortal in some way? Do they have day-to-day lives or are they witching all the time?

BTW, I’d be happy to get just Bald Witch/Sexy Witch or Bald Witch & Sexy Witch if that’s what you’re more interested in, rather than all three.

—

Fandom: Spinning Silver

Ship(s): Miryem Mandelstam/Irina, Miryem Mandelstam/Original Female Staryk Character, Miryem Mandelstam/Wanda

I really liked the book’s ideas of power - Miryem’s real-world power of accounting and hardheadedness becoming magic in the Staryk world, being a queen in one world while belonging to a disenfranchised minority in another. Power, rules, exchange - these play into a number of my prompts for these ships.

Miryem/Irina: Two queens with very different kinds of power, and different ideas of where their commitment lies - Miryem’s to “her people” whether that’s her family/other Jews/the Staryk who have bound themselves to her, Irina’s to “Lithvas” - and what’s consistent with their own ethics to fulfill those commitments. Widow them both and have the ultimate human world-Staryk world power marriage? A more serious rivalshippy thing where you make Miryem and Irina deal with the fact that they’re respectively a Jewish queen of a super-powerful magic country and the queen of a largely anti-Semitic country who’s not totally free from those beliefs herself? (I should mention that I am explicitly okay with the story touching on anti-Semitism or having anti-Semitism as a central issue.) What about different court traditions, when they visit each other - or, what happens when Miryem is back in the human world, knowing she’s a queen somewhere else? Can Miryem use the mirror from Irina to do an end run around the whole Persephone setup and travel back and forth whenever she wants?

Miryem/Wanda: I liked the early development of their relationship and wished we’d had more of that later in the story. How would Wanda’s gratitude to Miryem and the Mandelstams play in a land that views gratitude so differently from the human world? Might Wanda’s real-world “magic”, like the reading and writing Miryem gave her, manifest differently in the Staryk world too? Do you want to go full Tam Lin and have Wanda rescue Miryem from the Staryk world? Would Wanda ever consider converting to Judaism? What if she’s less settling into comfortable forest retirement and more becoming a magical gatekeeper of Miryem’s land in her own way?

Miryem/Original Female Staryk Character - Miryem must have more adventures in the Staryk world post-canon, not just the post-war rebuilding. Or maybe in an AU, there’s a different way that she comes into their land, or a Staryk character who comes into the human world. Who might she meet?

I also requested this for Yuletide, so I have more prompts in my “dear author letters” tag. And you can also feel free to ignore these pairings and write another fairytale about the Staryk and the Jews (possibly with Original Female Staryk/Original Female Human, Original Female Staryk/Original Female Staryk, or not).

Fandom-Specific DNW: I’m not interested in Miryem/Staryk or Irina/Mirnatius (as m/f, anyway), so please don’t get into either infidelity angst or poly negotiation. AUs where they never married them, killing both the husbands offscreen, or the assumption of an open relationship are all fine.

#dear author letters #chocolate box #original work #spinning silver #harlots #coriolanus #sleep no more #monstrous regiment #simoun #the revenger's tragedy

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theliterateape · 3 years ago

Text

Without Honors

by Paul Teodo & Tom Myers

I was nodding off. Choking on my drool, I coughed like a cat with a hairball lodged in its throat.

Turning, a lengthy piece of white chalk firmly planted between two bony fingers, she pointed. “Mr. Scracci, are you in need of assistance?” My brain stuttered. I was unaccustomed to being addressed with such formality.

Shaking my head, I gave her my grandpa Carlo’s “evil eye,” trying to back her off. We’d tangled all year, hence I truly believed her offer of assistance was lacked any real concern for my well-being. And I, to be totally forthright, never had any of her interests in mind. I was a 16-year-old smart-assed punk with a hurray-for-me-and-the-hell-with-you attitude.

“Very well.” She turned back to the chalkboard awash in quadratic equations that would assuredly prompt me to, once again, return to a state of slumber. She tapped the chalk sharply on the slate leaving no doubt who was in control, who commanded attention, and who not to mess with.

Concentration was foreign to me. It was so much work, and it was so intrusive to the circus of events performing in my head; fantasizing about girls, conducting instant replays on the tv screen of my mind, or wolfing down more red hots than any of my amigos.

There was a knock on the door. Before Miss Peck could respond, the visitor, dressed in khakis, brown wing-tips, blue shirt, and red bowtie, entered, note in hand, striding towards Peck as if she was the finish line. He was a runner; a purple lanyard held his laminated “license to roam” placard dangling from his pencil neck, its big black block letters reading “Permanent Hall Pass.” Runners were sequestered in the office that housed the deans of law and order and administrative staff, who always looked busy and who seemed to do absolutely nothing. He was either an offender, a rule breaker, on a work release program, delivering messages to teachers in lieu of serving detention, or a Christianly high achiever en route to an Ivy League education, or William and Mary, or some other bastion of Evangelical godliness, who would never misuse his position of free-reign throughout the hallways of our edifice of higher education to enjoy himself, such as dropping into the john to smoke a butt, sip a beer, or score points with a “bad girl.” My bet: the Christianly one, given the khakis, wing-tips, and the blue shirt. The bowtie just made him a holy dork.

He handed Peck the note. The class fell silent, knowing full well that such communiqués were always demand notices for a student to be released to the holder for escort to the office of law enforcement.

Peck seemed to enjoy the tension. She dramatically unfolded the note as if it were the decision by the “academy” for best picture. All results of the voting kept in absolute secrecy, only known by the bonded firm of Price-Waterhouse.

Lifting her purple, affixed-to-a-rhinestone-chain reading glasses , she studied the notice. Her eyes swept the page, lips pursed, reading to herself, she looked up, scanning the room. Would the award go to the Western? The Romantic Comedy? The Art Film that nobody understood but was scared shitless to say stunk? Or was it The Foreign Film starring an Italian actress whose breasts would excite even good Christian boys?

“Mr. Scracci,” she announced with the tone of a staff sergeant, exuding a combination of authority and sarcasm.

What the hell had I done now?

“Go with him.” She pointed at the runner.

“Miss Peck,” I began, conjuring up some wisecrack that had yet to be totally formulated, “if I leave now…,” I paused, searching for the right line of bullshit, “I will miss your class, and you know how much I enjoy your tutelage.”

“Now! Mr. Scracci.” She pointed to the door.

Again with the Mr. What had I done to deserve such reverence?

Me and the runner exited class and headed to the stalag.

“What’s up Howie?” I had developed a habit of calling all males under the age of 18 “Howie” when I was not aware of or had forgotten their name.

Howie picked up his pace, not gracing me with a response.

I tried again. “Where to?”

He glanced back furtively and increased his gait to a near sprint.

“What’s the hurry?”

“Dean’s Office.” His shirt now armpit-damp, given his frenetic pace.

“So Howie.” I was hoping to slow him down, “You doing time, or this is your gig?”

His high-pitched hiss of disdain sealed it for me: this was his religion.

The office was an immense glass box separated into smaller cells by metal beams and glass doors, which segregated the thugs from the support staff. Each tiny space caged a frustrated disciplinarian anxious to instill terror in the name of justice into rowdy teens whose yet formed brains were scrambled, with hormones raging through their pimple-faced, voice-changing, bodies. Each thug had his name affixed to the glass. Bruno, my crew-cutted football coach, his whistle of authority, ever dangling from his thick neck, with a penchant for overstuffed and aromatic sandwiches, which he devoured as if someone was about to yank it from his meaty paws.

Eppelman doubled as an honors English Lit teacher, whose wool sport coats smelled of mothballs, and was rumored by many to be fond of torturing student-criminals using Medieval methods, viewing them as just desserts for fires being set in a trash cans, bottles of Mad Dog being discovered in a “Howie’s” locker, or lonely hunks of aromatic dog-shit resting precariously on a window ledges in the Science Lab. And Router, who served as a shop teacher. Router was the most curious as Router was a she. A no-nonsense, I’m on to your shit, kinda woman. She was fair, but didn’t coddle you. If you were wrong, which all teens were (that was their biological, developmental, responsibility), she would point it out, leave no room for excuses, and ask you “what the hell are you doing?” And not wait for a response. No “ifs, ands, or buts” about it, Router was a hard-ass.

Howie pointed to Router’s office.

Shit.

✶

I raised my hand to knock. She beat me to the punch. The door flew open. “Scracci, get in here.”

No Mr. from her.

“Sit,” she said, as if I was an unruly dog.

Router took a seat behind her desk. She picked up a thick file and thumbed through it. I waited, figuring since it was her party she should make the first move.

More time passed. I told my foot to calm down and my gut to stop acting so bijigitty.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Finally.

“No clue,” I said.

“Have you ever heard of the National Honor Society?”

“Nope.”

“I would think not.”

I said nothing in response, learning from all the legal tv shows my old man watched that criminals who were about to be interrogated for any illicit deed they were suspected of committing, should answer the question only, and offer nothing else.

“Well, Scracci,” still no Mr.? “The National Honor Society is a prestigious organization for high school students. It acknowledges outstanding academic achievement, high moral character, and community service.”

“Okay.”

Again recalling Perry Mason and his sidekick Della Street’s counsel to their clients. Offer nothing.

“You qualify academically, but your attitude is not up to standards. Therefore, we are disallowing your induction into the Society.”

I looked over her shoulder through the glass. I noticed Bruno, his whistle still dangling from his thick meat-like neck, hunched-over, wolfing down a sandwich. Pepperoncini? Salami? Mortadella?

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Router leaned over her desk.

I couldn’t contain myself. I mean, it was like when Joey Farillo hit the cop car with the snowball and they nailed me for it. I told ‘em it wasn’t me. The cops were grilled me hard, trying to get me to rat out the perp. I acted like they had broken me. Showed ‘em a phony tear. They got all happy and shit. ”So who was it, Kid?” they snarled. And without skipping a beat, I blurted, “Your momma!” Needless to say, my disrespect for their mothers did not sit well with the men in blue. I walked away with a shiner that I blamed on an errant encounter with a door knob when my good mother, acting as if she was in total shock upon seeing my purple eye, screamed, “Frankie, what happened?”

“I’m waiting.” Router stood up, my fat file still in her hand.

I looked at her, and then it just came gushing out. Like a geyser, uncontrolled, but very pointed. “Bullshit.” I could feel the smirk tighten across my face. Enjoying my utterance immensely, I repeated, with more gusto, this time. “Pure bullshit.”

She slammed the file onto her desk. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Whataya mean, Ivanka?” I had learned her first name from another delinquent who’d clued me in to it subsequent to one of her rigorous interrogations.

“You can leave. We are done here.”

“C’mon, what’d I do?”

“You got a good head on your shoulders, but that head is shoved very far up your ass!”

She stopped me in my tracks. I needed to regroup. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. But I hated hearing it. So I flipped to attack mode in my mind with a fuck her and her stupid society, instead of using her pointed observation as an offer of assistance and a back-handed compliment.

“You know what you can do with your stupid Honors or Society!”

“Scracci, you’ve got a lot to learn.” She threw open her door and pointed for Howie to escort me back to Peck’s prison.

I was gonna blow her a kiss goodbye, but I figured I’d stepped in enough shit for the day.

✶

For the next two years, me and Router had our share of run-ins. But I still made it through and graduation was only a few days away.

“Frankie, you goin’?”

“Where?”

“The assembly.”

“When?”

“Wednesday.”

“Why’d I wanna go to that? It’s bad enough I’m goin’ to graduation.”

“Last fling kinda thing. Four years in prison and now we’re free.”

“I gotta work. I start Monday, at the Mill. The graduation thing is Thursday, and I’m takin’ the day off for that. I ain’t losin’ another day of pay for some assembly.”

“You serious about this?”

“Yeah. She’s the one.”

“You’re 18.”

“The old man went to war when he was 18.”

“Different times.”

“Like I said, she’s the one.”

“You set a date?”

“Nope. Gotta make some dough first. That’s why I’m at the Mill. $2.85 an hour plus shift diff and overtime. I should be set in a year. It’ll be small thing, at the VFW. The old man’s got an in.”

“You should go.”

“I got no time for an assembly. What the hell do you assemble?”

“It starts at 10. You work 3-11. You’ll have time.”

“What is it with you?”

“Fuck it. You’re like talkin’ to a wall.”

That was Joey. He always tried to set me straight. Get me to do shit I didn’t wanna do, usually on the side of the law that was opposite of my inclination. Sayin’ it’d be good for me. Joey was going places, at least he said he wanted to go places. And it wasn’t anywhere near Avenue L or J. It was far, far away. Me? I knew my place. The Mill.

✶

Stella and I met at a dance. Some guy was botherin’ her. I stopped him. It wasn’t’ much. No fists or nothin’, just a couple a words and a shove or two. He came at me, but I had my guy behind me. Once he saw my deputy, he backed off.

So that was thatI had this thing in my head that no girl’d like me unless I did something special. So when the asshole started botherin’ her, I got my chance. . I was Prince Charming and she was the damsel in distress. After that, me and Stella were tight. She was at a Catholic School and I was public.

She wasn’t pregnant or anything, but we both thought it was time. I mean, in South Chicago, guys and girls got married right outta high school all the time. The girls’d get a job at a cleaners or a restaurant and the guys’d go to work in the Mill.

Love at first sight. Or something like that.

✶

Joey got to me. I mean, he was a smart guy. Maybe it’d be fun. Maybe I could give Peck or Router some grief just so I could end our relationship on a sour note. I decided to go. The old man would be at work and my ma too, and Stella would be in school. I’d get in, and I’d get out. Zim, bam, boom.

I’d go home about midnight from the Mill, dead tired. So I set my alarm, giving myself time in the morning to scrub my crusty skin and blow the mud outta my plugged nose.

I popped an eye open as the radio flipped on. “It’s going to be a hot one today. 93 by 10 a.m.” Bob Sirott was new on CFL and he had his squeaky kid overwhelming enthusiasm for such a ghastly temperature on this miserably humid day was not what I wanted to hear. I clicked him off before he could spread anymore joy.

I searched for my cap and gown. I’d heard you had to wear them if you were coming to this shindig. The gown was rolled up in a ball in my closet and the cap’s cardboard brim was busted, given my proclivity for whipping it through the air trying to outdo the neighborhood Frisbee freaks. I figured my natty attire would not sit well with the fashion hounds who would also be attending this ceremony. Good.

Hydration. That’s what I was in need of prior to showing up to this oven-like event. The Mill was always 110 or more and sweat poured outta me like a fountain while I toiled away, trying to stay out of sight of my hard-ass foreman. So to sit through this thing, I’d need liquid, and lots of it. I threw open the fridge and there they were, barely visible, winking at me. Two fat bottles of Schlitz. Quarts. The old man would buy two a week, but somehow, way in the back, hiding behind two overstuffed purple eggplants and an aromatic vat of sausage, peppers, and garlic, were the brewskies, resting on their sides. So if I liberated these big boys from behind the leftovers he’d, in all likelihood, never realize they had gone missing.

I dug through the junk drawer for a church key and found one that displayed the insignia of the old man’s favorite haunt. Cholak’s. Yes, that Cholak, Edward, Moose, Cholak, the wrestler. He had a joint on 103rd. A big moose head nailed to the wall, and a horn made of an antler that The Moose would blow into whenever someone would drop a tip into his pickle jar, trying to replicate the animal in heat. Gave the place some tone, now you call it ambiance.

Moose’s giveaway worked perfectly on the bottle cap and I chugged the entire brew in four or five gulps. The cold beer caught me off guard and made my head spin. An empty stomach and a quart of beer was what the experts on Avenue L called a “cheap high.”

I looked up. It was time to go. The brew just made me sweat more; I was dripping, to be exact. So I stripped down naked and grabbed my wrinkled robe. Realizing I had not finished the other bottle, and knowing additional hydration would be needed, I searched for a roll of duct tape. I figured if I could tape the other quart to my body and cover it with my robe I’d have a “take out” beverage to tide me over during the proceedings. A straw would be needed, however, to discreetly suck the beer from its open nozzle.

While the gown covered my beverage well, the hat made me look like an idiot.

Why was I going to this thing? Answering that could get me in trouble. Pondering the question would do me no good. But maybe I just wasn’t ready…. Shut your yap, asshole! You’re gettin’ married, you’re workin’ at the Mill, and that’s your life.

✶

As soon as I hit the door, I saw Router. She eyed me with the look of a presidential guard and locked on like radar. The place was packed with robed-up students laughing, talking, and maniacally signing. Yearbooks. I didn’t have one and I didn’t need one. Router took a step, then another, wading intently through the throng of giddy soon-to-be graduates.

“Scracci!” Her voice broke through the chaos. “Scracci!” she repeated.

She charged with purpose and anger like a hunter, and I was her prey. She parted the ocean of teens and we came face to face. What the hell, I’d see what’d happen. So, I gave her a warm welcome, which was contributed to, heavily, by the beer. “What’s shakin’, Ivanka?”

“Scracci, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Assembling,” I said, my swollen tongue crippling my response.

Router paused, then stepped closer. Her nose shot up in the air like a hound greeting the new neighborhood mutt. She sniffed twice, paused, then glared at me. I was a dead man. “I smell alcohol,” she barked. The once-chaotic hallway fell silent.

I tried not to breathe, surmising that stalling oxygen intake and exhalation would keep me safe. No use. I was busted. “You’ve been drinking.”

I did not respond. Offer nothing, just as Perry Mason had advised.

“What’s that?” She pointed to the straw poking up from under my wrinkled robe.

In one fell swoop she grabbed the zipper affixed to my graduation gown and ripped it straight towards the ground. And there I was, buck naked with a quart of Schlitz duct-taped to my chest, a white plastic straw spouting from its nozzle.

“Scracci, you’re out of here! Now, this minute! Out!” She grabbed my arm and yanked me towards the door, pushing the robed-up, capped-up, tassled-up teens out of her way. She was a woman on a mission, pushing me through the door and out into the blazing sun. I squinted hard, totally disoriented, the sunlight an affront to my sensitive eyes, then finished my beverage. Ripping the tape off my skin I wept, hair follicles tearing from their roots. I tossed the empty Schlitz big boy into the trash and proceeded to walk home, genitals swinging freely in the breeze.

✶

It was a struggle to fit the key into the lock. My eyesight had been seriously impaired from the alcohol and the blinding rays of the sun. After four or five poorly-placed jabs, I was able to cram the key into the lock and push open the door. The couch beckoned me, and I accepted, plopping down on the sofa, spread-eagle, and promptly falling into a drunken slumber. Thoughts of sugar plums were not dancing in my head.

✶

I was awakened by an icy splash to my face, cubes dribbling down my naked torso, soothing – only slightly – my fiery hair follicles. Over me was the old man, a bucket in his hand, his face angry, crimson. My ma next to him, in tears.

“The fuck’s goin’ on?” The old man, a man of few words.

“What happened, Frankie? Are you all right?” Ma, aware that at this moment only the slightest amount of sympathy for her wayward son would be acceptable.

“Router told us.” The old man stood over me like an executioner ready to flip the switch.

“Router?”

“We went to the assembly, Frankie,” Ma said, her voice sounding as if she were blocks away.

I tried to sit up. He pushed me down. “I took time off work, a goddamn vacation day.”

“Me too, Frankie,” Ma said, dabbing her tears, her voice still deferring to the old man. “The Honors.” A gold tassel dangled from her hand.

“Honors!” I yelled indignantly. “What the fuck are you talkin’ about!”

The slap was deserved. The crack echoed throughout the room. The next one caught the tip of my nose and ripped open my nostril.

My father hovered over me like a ref, and I was down for the count. “Cover yourself.” He said, pointing at my naked torso.

“Miss Router called us.” Ma took a step closer. “She said you were getting a gold tassel. You were in the National Honor Society. We were proud. We took off work to come.”

“But you got tossed, boozin’.”

I was puttin’ the pieces together through the Schlitz haze. I had to regroup, my nose thumping, blood dripping to its beat. “Can I sit up?”

“Keep your ass down,” the old man said.

“That stuff is bullshit. It don’t mean nothin’. I’m graduating tomorrow. I got a job, a good job,” I forced myself to say, “in the Mill.”

“You gonna marry that girl?”

I’d been asked that question a lot lately. Somehow, this time seemed different. But I couldn’t back down. “Yeah, for sure,” I heard dribble from my mouth, half-heartedly.

“You got your head up your ass.” He rubbed his face like a guy who’d just finished welding a pipe without a mask.

Again, a reference to my cranium as it related to my rectum.

“What about college, your scholarship, football. You love it.” Ma was working me good, pulling out all the stops.

“I got a good job!”

“You’ll be busted up before you’re thirty. The Mill will beat you down.” The old man’s way of offering concern.

“Me and Stella….” I could feel the lump in my throat, my defense weakening. I would soon be in tears or in a rage, lashing out to inflict damage on those who I loved the most, but felt I needed protection from.

“You’re a fuckin’ kid.”

“Kid?!” I was headed to a very bad place. What does a rat do when cornered? “Fuck you! What about you! You ran the streets of LA till the war broke out. You were a liar, thief, and a cheat. The fucking Nazis saved your dumb ass. Don’t give me your bullshit wisdom! You can’t even read!”

It was as if I had thrown the icy water in his face. I thought for a moment he was gonna take another shot at me. I sure deserved it, but he didn’t. I had hurt him, and for that I was sorrier than I had ever been for anything. He stepped back as if I had smacked him. I’d never seen the old man look so old.

“Do what you want,” he said, and walked out.

Ma wiped her tears, her eyes trailing the old man. She then turned to me, “Frankie, he loves you. And he is a good man.”

Problem was, but I wasn’t.

✶

It’d been 5 days since the assembly fuck-up. The house was like a morgue. Nobody’d talked to nobody. I worked as much overtime as they threw at me just to stay away.

I was lacing up my boots, getting ready for work, making sure the metal plates covering my toes were firmly in place, to protect my heat-rashed, scabbing feet from the errant steel that fell regularly from the cranes sliding back and forth overhead. I was a gopher in a purple hard-hat that identified me as just a common laborer.

The phone rang.

“Yeah.” I wasn’t in the mood.

“I’m sorry,” Stella said.

More than I want to say here and now.

She found another guy. A beach boy. While I was working in the Mill, preparing for our life together she’d been going to the Dunes with her friends. That’s where she met him. A fucking beach boy.

I hung up. I didn’t need to hear anymore.

✶

Walter Cronkite always sounded serious. He had a voice that demanded you believe everything he said. The old man watched him every night at 6, channel 2. He couldn’t read, but he knew the score. If he’d had more than a glass of his Schlitz he’d yell at Walter. He’d scream “War is hell and anybody who starts one with anybody should have his balls cut off!” His time in the Big One was horrific. Normandy. The Battle of the Bulge. The Hertgen Forest. Couldn’t talk about it, but you could feel what he went through from his eyes. He’d start to say something. His voice’d drift off, and his eyes would almost leave his body. A blank stare and a sullen head shake would end the conversation.

Cronkite was going on and on about America, recruits, and the draft was the only way. I believed him. I didn’t wanna be one of them . Canada was an option. Maybe that scholarship could be an option too.

✶

“You visited one of them?”

“Yeah, Hillside, and a few others,” Joey said.

“What’s it like?”

“Nice.” He said more after that, but I didn’t hear him. All I heard was Nice.

“You thinkin’ about college, Frankie?”

I did not respond.

“Frankie?” he said again.

✶

I went home and rummaged through the letters and brochures crumpled in the bottom of my dresser drawer. I’d never heard of Hillside College. It looked green, clean, peaceful. Nice. They were interested in me both as a student and as a football prospect. But academic achievement was their main focus. They referred to my good grades, high test scores, and horseshit-attitude membership in the National Honor Society.

I was backed in a corner.

✶

So I jumped in. With both feet.

✶

Graduation Day at Hillside. No cap and gown. No Schlitz. Just a diploma and a ceremony. I would get through without being an asshole. Four years at Hillside was nice. It was way more than nice. It was a world I had not lived in before.

“Glad you made it here.” Joey said, standing in our dorm room dressed in his cap and gown.

“Wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for you.”

“And Router,” he smirked.

“Yeah, Router,” I said reluctantly.

And the old….

“No robe for you, Frankie?”

“Nah, not my style.”

“Your Ma here?”

“Yeah.”

A thin ray of brilliant sunlight slid through our dorm room window, illuminating a picture that had been resting on my bookshelf the past four years. Ma took it of me and the old man right before I left, his arm uncomfortably wrapped around my shoulder, my yellow tassel dangling from his gnarled fingers, an awkward smile spread over both of our faces.

Joey’s eyes shifted back to me from the photo. “I wish he coulda been here, Frankie.”

“He is, Joey, he is.”

0 notes

droo216 · 7 years ago

Photo

if we’re going to reboot CLUE, let’s do it right

On the stormy evening of October 13th, multi-billionaire John Boddy (Christian Bale) held a dinner party. Unfortunately, the host did not make it through the night. Who killed Mr. Boddy… and where… and with what? And why did he throw a party with so many people who might want to kill him??

Was it Miss Scarlet in the Dining Room with the Candlestick? Passion, love, seduction; anger, violence, danger – red is the color of extremes, and Veronica Scarlet (Gal Gadot) is aptly named. She’ll be insulted if you call her a gold digger and correct you with the word “platinum.” This saucy woman drips sarcasm and oozes sex, so it’s not a surprise to most when they learn that she runs a specialized hotel and a telephone service which provides gentlemen with the company of a young lady for a short while. But this sinister seductress has secrets to hide her secrets, and her business is actually a front for international espionage. She’ll steal, spy, and stab for anyone willing to pay the price. Men and women alike are smitten by her charm, allowing her to avoid suspicion. Her recent relationship with Mr. Boddy has caused quite the scandal, but Miss Scarlet insists she has finally found love. Are those real tears she shed at the sight of his corpse, or was Mr. Boddy just another assignment?

Was it Colonel Mustard in the Study with the Revolver? Heavily decorated for his service, James Mustard (Denzel Washington) is a retired military man who holds honors as a marksman with both elephant gun and small caliber pistol. He and Mr. Boddy became acquainted through their shared membership in a distinguished gentlemen’s hunting club. The Colonel can talk for hours on end about guns as well as his escapades – apparently when he retired, his arrogance did not. The Colonel may be regarded as a hero among his peers, but he is not without a dark side. One evening, over several shared cocktails with Mr. Boddy and one of the Colonel’s former colleagues, a certain Captain Victor Navy, Mustard divulged that during his service, he stole essential Air Force radio parts and sold them on the black market. Furthermore, the Colonel is currently part of a team developing the next fusion bomb for the government. Captain Navy passed away quite unexpectedly just a few weeks after his visit, and the Colonel has been paranoid about Mr. Boddy carrying around his secret ever since. Did Mr. Boddy go the same way Captain Navy did?

Was it Mrs. White in the Kitchen with the Knife? The daughter of an opera singer and a construction worker, Millicent White (Viola Davis) has been in the service of the Boddy family since she was twenty years old, when she became their maid upon her marriage to then-butler Laurence Snow. She’s held five different roles in the Boddy Mansion over the years – maid, cook, nanny, housekeeper, and now head of household – and has been married five different times as well. The butler, the illusionist, the funeral director, and the nuclear physicist all died under, shall we say, mysterious circumstances. The most recent husband, Henry White, Mr. Boddy’s accountant, was the shortest marriage and the most graphic death of the five. He was found dead at home, his head had been cut off and so had his… you know. She describes herself as a “poor devoted soul” and does seem quite distraught over Mr. Boddy’s death, despite claiming that he’s treated her horribly for years. She does not at all seem to be the short-tempered matriarch described by her staff. Did this dutiful servant’s attitude finally spoil?

Was it Mr. Green in the Billiard Room with the Lead Pipe? A businessman known across the country for his charm – and his connections – Matthew Green (John Cho) entered into a partnership with Mr. Boddy several years ago. Raised on the streets of New York City by his single mother, Mr. Green was exceptionally bright and did not surprise anyone by rising to the top of his class at Yale. A whiz with numbers, money, and finance, this perfect gentleman may be known for his charisma but not necessarily his charity. This greedy man has never been married because every man he’s dated has eventually been scared off by his massive jealousy. Mr. Green is a loyal friend, for better or for worse, and was truly take aback when he learned that Mr. Boddy did not share this quality when their business relationship came to abrupt ending. Mr. Boddy killed his business with Mr. Green – did Mr. Green make it his business to kill Mr. Boddy?

Was it Mrs. Peacock in the Conservatory with the Rope? A faded flower, but by no means wilting, Henrietta Peacock (Cate Blanchett) spent her younger years dominating the pageant scene until she gave it all up to study ornithology with a specialty in birds of prey. After marrying her husband, Senator Graham Peacock, she established the Peacock Salvation Society and single-handedly saved the loggerhead shrike from extinction. Swept up in her husband’s world of political games, Mrs. Peacock began accepting bribes in return for delivering the Senator’s vote by slipping greenbacks in plain envelopes under the door of the men’s room. The Boddy Estate resides next to the Peacock Mansion, and the neighbors were quite friendly until a stray shot shattered a glass pane of Mrs. Peacock’s aviary, taking out her last pied-bill grebe and releasing the remaining birds. Mr. Boddy invited his distraught neighbor over for his dinner party with the intention of making amends, but sharp-as-a-hawk Mrs. Peacock detected his insincerity, bringing her anger to a boil. Did Mrs. Peacock manage to exact her revenge on her nasty neighbor?

Was it Professor Plum in the Library with the Wrench? Curtis Plum (Michael C. Hall) and Mr. Boddy were roommates for all four years of college, and over the years their relationship developed from strangers to close friends to bitter rivals. They hadn’t even spoken in nearly a decade and a half. Professor Plum has made a living practicing psychology while simultaneously teaching classes at a local university. About a month ago, rumors began circulating that the Professor was a bit too friendly with some of his female students, and finally the girls started coming forward and he was sacked. His practice was shut down not long after when it came to light that some of Professor Plum’s lady patients had received special treatment as well. The Professor was initially surprised when his former roommate reached out and offered an invitation to his home but it all made sense when he arrived and realized it was all a ploy so Mr. Boddy could gloat about his amazing success and ridiculous fortune. Were hs current woes and problems of the past enough to push him over the edge?

Was it Miss Peach in the Lounge with the Poison? Two days before Mr. Boddy’s fateful dinner party, Caroline Peach (Jessica Chastain) showed up at Mr. Boddy’s door claiming to be his long-lost niece. It’s hard to invalidate the story. After all, Mr. Boddy was only two years old when his older sister ran away from home, and Miss Peach does seem to have a rather elaborate and specific explanation: allegedly, when sixteen-year-old Pearl Boddy left home, she met and fell in love with Samuel Peach. They ran a little flower shop together and were a happy family until Caroline was seven years old, at which time a fire burned their house down, claiming Mr. and Mrs. Peach’s lives. Caroline was taken in by family friends Benjamin and Annabeth Meadow-Brook, and at age eighteen she took over the flower shop. Her favorite flower, of course, is the deadly nightshade. Apparently she only just learned of her relation to Mr. Boddy and thought it would be “just peachy” to reconnect with the only family she has left in the world. Although she certainly seems upset over dear Uncle J’s passing, everyone knows what she’s wondering: did he change his will in time for her to receive an inheritance?

Was it Monsieur Brunette in the Hall with the Axe? A man of many talents, many accents, and many passports, Alphonse Brunette (Oscar Isaac) deals in art and arms. Last year he almost made a killing in Paris when he produced what he swore were the missing appendages of the Venus de Milo. Monsieur Brunette’s adversaries claim that he deals entirely in the black market, but it has never been proven. Over the past decade, he sold a number of Impressionist works to Mr. Boddy, who was thrilled to own a series of genuine Monets. Monsieur Brunette arrived at the dinner party believing himself to be in good terms with Mr. Boddy, and even thought perhaps he was being set up with his business partner, the charming man in the emerald suit. But Monsieur Brunette was horrified when Mr. Boddy cornered him and started dropping names: “Joseph Brown,” “Friedrich Brun,” “Diego Marrón.” With his secrets in danger of coming to light, did this man of many names give his primary purchaser the finishing stroke?

Was it Madame Rose in the Ballroom with the Crossbow? Mr. Boddy’s eccentric former secretary, Valentina Rose (Salma Hayek), moved back to her hometown in New Orleans several years ago after a loud and aggressive argument with her then-employer. She has been seeking her fortune as, well, a fortune teller. Claiming to have the Third Eye, Madame Rose uses her crystal ball and tarot cards to “help” those who stumble across her doorstep. Although her past is shrouded in mystery, she seems to see the future as clear as crystal – at least, sometimes she does. She can’t be expected to get it right every time, now can she? Not long ago, in the midst of a séance, she saw a dark and ominous cloud descending over the Boddy Mansion, and took the next train to warn her old boss. But was the message she delivered a warning – or a threat?

Was it Sergeant Gray in the Cellar with the Blunderbuss? Local law enforcer Julian Gray (Clark Gregg) has known Mr. Boddy for years, and upon an early retirement due to a leg injury, was hired full-time as Boddy’s head of security and live-in body guard. Never married and no children, Sergeant Gray has nothing but time on his hands, and has used that particular commodity to his advantage by snooping around the Boddy Mansion. The Sergeant has been paying off a blackmailer for years – in fact, he is the co-founder of the Police Blackmail Awareness Program – and was shocked when he recently broke into a locked drawer in Boddy’s Study and discovered dozens of files documenting his secret past as an assassin. After living so many years under Boddy’s thumb without even knowing it, was Sergeant Gray finally able to turn the tables?

#clue #clueedit #halloweenedit #fake movie meme #dreamcast #my graphics #HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!#tw: guns #tw: death #tw: murder

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wangdrew · 7 years ago

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Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Wang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone. But I believe Wang can save the world

my god this has been an emotional roller coaster

andrew rannells could fucking deck me and i would thank him

wangdrew is why god doesnt speak 2 us

cuz i want a tight knit wangily, i want a chat that makes cat jmemes

top ten anime betrayals

onceler pouting his lips and calling you pookie

tag urself i’m the slow decline of our general will to live

how does this gc turn from being pure to being pure sin in the span of 5 seconds im-

“I got flash backs from the Bee movie, which is also beeutiful”

this is why the falsettos proshoot is not on netflix

wangdrew wangells: the wang whisperer

whizzer is a twunk

sometimes i read sentences that make me want to abandon the internet and become amish//

its brandon uranover

bella thorne is my favourite type of pastry

“march of the voresettos” “march of the NOsettos”

maybe the real vore is the friends we made along the way

“NO VORE IN MY LOBBY” “NO NO IN MY NO”

“BACK FROM THE DAD™”

“Welcome back I hate it here”

“i’m just a vore, yeah i’m only a vore, and i’m voring here on capitol vore” chloe

“night guys im done w the vore” aren’t we all

“i’m gonNA MAKE THEM CRY WITH MY FISTS” chloe

“hello mr rannells sir, how lorge is ur wangus?” CJ

“welcome to hell lucy” Elise S

“gounod” chloe

swooty swooty coming for that booty

My mom, *ordering pizza, says it’ll deliver at 6:45*: “What fuck are they doing? Swimming to fucking Italy for the tomatoes?”

it comes with stickers and theres a whole section of the sticker sheet thats just andrew failing to do the jump on the album cover its so funny

cj is mothman???!! nOT clickbait

a vore blog just followed me

THEY FOUND US (chloe is cia)

there’s no way god would let this chat exist in his realm

ok but like am i the only one who hates when you’re in class working on some personal writing and someone leans over like “wHAt R u wRiTING??????” like your eulogy if you don’t back the fuck up you soggy lampshade

people found out christian was straight and were upset

“That you hate this gc?” “that too but mainly that i live in sweden”

are you fucking kidding me?? i was so happy, this endless hell could finally be over, all the supernatural fans who i forgot to unfollow will stop posting and i would be free, i was planning a party for the last day it airs and we would pointedly not watch it, i was going to cry of happiness, and instead,, This

Sophie

there were loads of theatre references in shrek too i think that’s bdj’s kink

groff dick pokes your eyes out even with its unimpressive length

i will stab you both with a rusty metal dildo

headline: groffs dick causes world war 3

“CAUSE OF DEATH: DILDO TO THE HEAD”

i sold it for my will to live

hey jess? what the fuck

hold on babes just gotta * loud cracking as he snaps off his velcro dick* ok

you’re in the bedroom with wangdrew. things are getting heated. you’re ready for the dicking down. everything is perfect, and you’re in love. he pauses, and whispers in your ear, “hey babes, just one sec”. he pulls away, leaving you wanting. there is a loud, resounding cracking, tearing noise, and wangdrew is holding his disembodied dick is his hand. he smiles. you smile.

me: why will no one date me also me: dick me down, rannells

moisten my gams kate(legs)

songs include: billy ray broke my achey break heart, wangdrews green coat, crusty june and clangy janet, and our true friend is vore

our new reality tv show, called “sometimes.. wangdrew is worse”

starring:

me as me phoebe as my favorite child chloe as vore queen cj as vorer anjie as sidekick monse as mongoose holli as opponent sophie as foolish mortal geneva as judgemental death bird jess as nutbox lucy as k i n k y kate as kinky kate kev as kinky kev haven as side salad claire as foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach reilly as commondore elise as flagelise grace as covenant kristyn as chicken pot pie amanda as kraken tasha as jigglytata asher as sneaky dorito sel as sergeant cactus cait as mcmuffin jill as diet scooby snack and faith as medalling kid

“Good mother fucking morning I am going to school wtf”

“THE DICKS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE”

“2 inches of nothing”

pe poole

Hey what’s poppin’ my name is Jake Paul I’m here in the *pans up to ‘team 10 house’* Team 10 House, I hope you are having a good day hope you’re smiling hope you’re working hard I hope you *pans out to dab* dabbin’ on them haters

hey what’s up selina reeviers, if you’re new here my name is selina reevie and i’m here in the wangdrew groupchat, i hope you’re having an awesome day, i hope you’re listening to musicals, i hope you’re *whips* whipping on the hetros and let’s GET BACK TO CRYING

Skinny beetles = Skaneateles

the only 2 genders *walks up to a straight couple* so which one of you is the jazz choir and which one is the gospel choir

Chloe: what’s a good free website Jess: google.com Solie: THE SARCASM

my whole brand is made off of andrew memes

rt! the wangdrew blog is basically an archive of all our mistakes

He gad it mumming He gad it mumming He gonly gad gimself to maine

Jizzer Brown

cronch the fucking pickle man

Good Morning Everyone My Only Mood Is Death

cunt nugget

youre on punkd lucy

ok but like am i the only one who hates when you’re in class working on some personal writing and someone leans over like “wHAt R u wRiTING??????” like your eulogy if you don’t back up you soggy lampshade

Happy VORE 🍴 lentine’s day! Hope you’re ready to get some 🍫 chocolate from your special someone ❤💋!! And mayBEE 🐝 you can give them a special 😉 SURPRISE ☝💋 and VORE 😱👅👄 their CANDY 🍭🍬🍭 ASS 🍑! Send this to 10 of your TASTIEST 🍰 friends this VORELENTINE’S DAY 👄👅🙀! Get 🔟 back and you’re the TASTIEST 😋 EVER! Get 5 back and you’re GETTING SOME 👄 MOUTH ACTION 👅 Get 3 back and you’re TOTALLY VOREABLE 😋🐯🍑! Get 1 back and you’re either a VORER 👄🍭😉 or SAD

Hi! 💁😋 I’m so happy 😁😆you’ve applied for the 🎭musical 🎼group chat, we’re over a hundred 💯people who want to make new friends 👯👯‍♂ and that’s so exciting!😜 I saw 👀👀that you were okay 👌 with using Whatsapp 💬as a platform and so I was wondering 🤔if you could give me your number📲 so that I can add you?😘 I’m very excited 😝😊and hope 🙏🙏that this will work out for everyone!!😂😂😍🤳🙌

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willardswritindump · 5 years ago

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June 3rd, 2525

1800 hours

Sarah pulled the spent magazine from her BR55, replaced it, and set her iron sights down the firing lane. She fired three consecutive bursts, and nine holes appeared in the target’s torso region 100 meters out. The Academy has some skilled students and soldiers, sure, but Sarah seems to have more experience than the rest of the idiots here. She fired two more bursts. Three rounds hit the torso, two the head.

The only one remotely close to Sarah’s skill was Oliver. While she sent well placed bursts into each of her targets at 100 meters, he was carefully placing every single shot out of his BR55 into the chest and head of the target at 200 meters. Each one being fast but not so fast as to allow the recoil from the last shot to throw him off. The groupings, one for the heart, one for each lung and one right between the eyes of the target weren’t any larger than an inch in diameter. Just like his oldest brother Christian taught him.

“Well well well, looks like you two fucking psychos were made for each other!”

Their platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Declan Wrtezky said as he kicked each of the cadets in the boot as they continued to fire.

“You two are some of the best shots we’ve seen in a long while, if only you two actually fucking spoke to each other you’d maybe make a decent fucking team!”

"Yes Sir, thank you Drill Sergeant, Sir!"

Sarah kept firing down range, watching her ammo counter tick down with every successful burst.

12.

Click.

An empty magazine plops into the mud, ready to be replaced by a clean, fresh one.

“Sir, AXIOS, sir!”

Odie said before continuing to plink away at the target.

“CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRING ON THE FIRING LINE!” A loud voice called out over the range.

"Great. Some dumbass probably shot themselves"

Were Sarah's first initial thoughts, which quickly narrowed down to two dumbass tards. "Fuckin Hoffman, probably."

She put her gun to safe, and stood to attention

Without even thinking Oliver dropped the mag and ejected the round from the chamber and placed the weapon on safe before joining Sarah at attention.

“LOOK AT THIS SHIT!” The Sergeant in charge of line said as he walked up and down it, holding up a BR with a split and still smoking barrel.