#Laura either ended up drowning‚ or chose to drown herself

[anonymous-gambito]

Adolescence Of Utena 1999 / Innocence 2004 - Imagery

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

[owlswhisper]

Rage Against The Dying of The Light 1/2

Hulloo to whoever reads this! Haven’t written in a while so yeah... Rusty brain and fingers. Little fic for Mad Sweeney of American Gods because...well I am not happy with what happened.

So briefly after S2e7. Hope you like it.

Sweeney’s grasp on his memory was fleeting and very momentary. These last couple days have been a little more trying for the Leprechaun. Banshees, he was saying. Calling to moments of death. He wasn’t sure whose, but an unsettling feeling had him guessing that if he wasn’t in the spotlight, he wouldn’t be far from it.

And his mind of course decided it was the time for blotchy reminiscing, threats from a life long gone, and melancholy’s hollow embrace. All of which just pointed shamefully at his present conditions.

He was slipping. The lack of his lucky coin wasn’t helping the situation either.

By some happy coincidence however his conversation with Shadow Moon seemed to have unsettled said man, to the point where he was willing to bring Sweeney to see a particular group of people he had met briefly in Wednesday’s vicinity. They caught Laura on the way out, and after a brief explanation of the situation, ended up tagging along.

Shadow explained that some of these people could look into the memory of things, as well as other unusual skills. Memories of elements organic or not, and perhaps this could help Sweeney out and get a better grasp of himself.

The drive there was silent. Tendrils of tension could almost be plucked in the air. No one was quite sure what to expect. Sweeney only agreed because Shadow convinced him there was nothing to lose, and it was the only way for him to drop it and shut up.

As they got closer to their objective though, Sweeney of course started complaining, muttering under his breath about the futility of it all, and the stubbornness of going against the inevitable.

“Will you shut up and give it a try?” Laura interrupted him as they stepped out of the car. He muttered a last few words under his breath before lighting a cigarette.

The bungalow was of moderate size, wooden and old. Moss grew up the darkened planks and a warm light radiated from behind thick cream-coloured curtains. Distant voices could be vaguely heard. Neither of the men stepped up, leaving Laura to sigh audibly and knock on the door instead of either awkward coward behind her.

The voices stopped. A moment passed before the door slightly opened to show a sturdy round face with dark eyes peering suspiciously out at them.

“We’re here for the seer” announced Laura in a bored tone. “What do you want with her” the face asked, eyeing each of them in turn. Laura looked back at the Irishman who seemed to think looking away would exclude him from the present situation, “For her to see someone who needs answers”, she finished looking back at the door-keeper. “Do you have payment?” came the gruff response.

Sweeney grumbled with as much enthusiasm before cutting in, “Aye, ye’ll get what ye want. Let’s just get this bloody thing done with”, he pushed his way past Laura and through the door.

The woman who was behind backed up, placing herself squarely between the newcomers and the rest of her group sitting around the table. Incidentally they all looked up observing curiously, a mug in their hands.

“So which one of you would be the seer?” Sweeney asked flatly, looking down at the three women around the table. The smaller one, closest to them, gave a quick glance at all the faces around the room before finishing on the Irishman, green eyes alight with curiosity, “that would be me” she exclaimed with little to no emotion. A moment passed where no one seemed ready to move or speak. A small smile creeped up the lips of the seer, “come on then. Have a seat. I won’t bite unless you ask me to big guy” she gestured towards a chair with a kind smile.

Sweeney scoffed with a pinched smirk before making his way over and folding up his body into the chair. The seer looked him up and down, clearly a little impressed by his size. Shadow and Laura looked a little uncomfortable before the door lady gestured them towards a small couch at the back of the room, “care for something to drink” she asked with her eternal grumbling tone. The two visitors declined, preferring to sit and observe.

“So what do you want to know?” the seer asked, this time with a little wariness as she studied the redhead’s face. He studied her right back before simply saying, “Whatever ye can see”. Her eyes softened somewhat at that. Empathy was something that plagued her actively, regardless of whether she chose or not.

The seer extended a hand towards him, waiting for his move. Sweeney suddenly looked suspicious, “no stupid tricks. Or dead girl over there will tear you all up and keep yer skin for her own use”. The two remaining women at the table looked at one another with an amused smirk. The door-keeper just frowned with distaste before looking over at the girl in question.

“No tricks” the seer simply responded in a low voice, eyes dulled to a shy glimmer. Sweeney gave a heavy sigh, glanced at his companions before landing a heavy hand in the small woman’s.

She placed their hands more comfortably, then let her gaze go out of focus.

Reading a person or an object’s history felt a little like opening sensorial floodgates. She could choose the intensity of the flow, and if undisturbed navigate it at will. Streams varied in emotional density, making them sometimes hard to stomach, or so insignificant she’d have to slow to a crawl to really take them in. Depending on how much she wanted to see as well, she could “speed-watch” or pluck every moment, every emotion, every impression, and every sense. It was like stepping and being within the stream, plucking tendrils and moving them about.

She expected the flow to be more intense, and indeed harder to navigate than most, him being a god or as good as. And so, she opened the link.

This however, was not the case with Mad Sweeney.

She opened the gates, and there was a moment of absolute nothingness. Like when a vertically thrown object reaches its pinnacle and has that moment in suspension before going back into motion. She felt stuck in that momentum, holding her breath.

And then it happened. Too fast for her to react properly.

No flow rushed out to meet her, no. She fell through. A vertiginous drop in utter darkness. Her insides felt like they were crunching in on themselves from the height.

And then she saw it. The ages rose in great waves about her. Millennias, centuries, decades, years, seasons, months, weeks, days, and moments. The emotions through it all came tearing through her chest like knife through rice-paper. All the pains, the joys, the love, the hate, the hope, the fear.

She drowned.

What brief, gasping moments she had to attempt bending the currents to her will were fruitless. They would not answer to her. They were slippery, and untouchable. Like attempting to catch the wind without the power to bend it. She could only spectate, and relive his most expansive life.

The start of it. Oh, the start! They did not call him The Shining One without reason. Magnificence could not have been given truer form. A God King indeed. The seer basked in his existence, his craftiness, wisdom and greatness. His distant light shone into her very self and warmed some long lost places of her own being.

Just as quickly, the era went by. His family stepped onto stage only for the scene to suddenly stutter and choke. The curse of madness. This was what prevented her grasp on his story. This is where the longer pains of existence stretched through his mind. The centuries that rolled by. The dwindling of his name and folk. The gradual fracturing of himself. A light dimmed by modernisation. Her heart ached, and broke at the happening. Drowning in his story didn’t cut out her breath nearly as much as the story itself. Tears traced a path down her cheeks, and a scream tore itself from her throat.

There had been so much light. So much warmth.

All that remained was a distant echo of a light at the back of a worn cave. A flicker of hope.

Her mortality shivered in the face of this life.

She cried at its loss.

She cried for what was robbed from this world.

She cried for what he was robbed of.

The last of his events engulfed her, a tenacious blanket, yet lighter, so very much lighter than everything before that. A weariness leaded his chest.

The signs of his final moments approaching. The dying of the light. The pain in her chest redoubled. Her breath fell short, or stopped, she didn’t know anymore. He wouldn’t have much longer. Not in his current state.

                                       *  *  *

She opened her eyes to both her hands gripping onto his arm for dear life, speckled with teardrops. A normal session would last a few minutes at most. She had been sitting there with him for 15.

She looked up into his eyes, sorrow and endearment aplenty in hers, worry and pain in his. He had been there with her. He saw, and he lived again. He looked pale. Watery eyes searching for some solace or meaning in hers.

He tore his gaze away and looked to the floor. A barely breathed “thank you” was whispered from his lips, and his other hand stretched above the table to drop some coins out of thin air.

He took a moment to gather himself, and stood, eyes avoiding all others before heading towards the door. His companions were already up and ready to follow.

The seer’s heart sank. The loss of the light, was debilitating her. ‘Unless given a fighting chance’ a thought seemed to supply from somewhere within.

And just like that the answer surfaced.

“Sweeney” she called on a breath, as she got up and turned to him. The man in question turned his pained gaze back, waiting her words.

None came. Instead, she grabbed his jacket, pulled him down and pressed her lips to his, hands then moving to the sides of his face. A pulse went through the both of them, and she let go, something lighter in her eyes now. “Be safe” was all she breathed to him, before watching them leave in silence, confusion and surprise on everyone’s faces.

[cottontail20]

A Legend All Their Own, Chapter 57: As Long As They Live

Summary: Vision is home. 

Queen Wanda sees no reason to wait.The Avengers scramble to turn the planned Coronation into a Coronation/Wedding.

Ao3 link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/16736589/chapters/48349618

Clint and Natasha loaded into the cart to ride back with Laura and the kids. This left Wanda and Vision to take to the sky together, flying back towards the castle. They swooped and spiralled around each other, hearts alight with the joy of their reunion.

"I knew you were coming back for me" Wanda grinned. She'd been flying just below him, so she twisted onto her back to look into his face. "Some were starting to doubt it.."

"Of course I came back" Vision frowned. "I couldn't leave you and the baby.."

Wanda opened her mouth to correct him (babies), but paused, smiling slyly to herself. No, not yet. She'd save the news that they were expecting twins for later, a special little Wedding gift for him.

"Where were you, Vizh?" She chose a different question, flying a loop so that she now hovered above him. "We searched everywhere. A few people were worried that you'd fallen in the river and drowned.."

"I did fall in the river" Vision chuckled, twisting to look at her as she had for him. "But I didn't drown. I think the Mind Stone protected me. Remember how you thought the river probably had a branch feeding into our Spring?"

"Yeah.."

"Well, that's where I ended up."

"At our Spring?" Wanda's smile widened.

"Yes" Vision grinned. "It's so wonderful, isn't it? Meant to be. The only downside was how long it's taken me to travel back from there.."

"It's okay. You're here now" Wanda replied, dipping slightly so she could kiss him. Vision's arms instinctively wrapped around her. The pair hovered there for a moment, enjoying each other's embrace.

"I'm here" Vision promised. "I'll never leave your side again."

"You'd better not. I've missed you far too much."

Both shifted again until they flew side by side, Wanda reaching to hold Vision's hand. Then, the new Queen burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Vision asked, although his heart soared at the sound of her laughter.

"Well, there could be a bit of panic going on back at the Castle. I was in the middle of getting ready for my Coronation when Clint showed up with the letter about you, and.. I may have pulled a jailbreak out the window without telling anyone."

Vision couldn't help laughing at that.

"Just like old times then." --

"What do you mean the Queen is missing?" cried Tony. Princes Thor and Loki, and Doctor Strange were also present.

"She was supposed to be getting ready with Natasha" Steve, now Head of the Royal Army replied, equally worried. "I went to ask if they needed anything, and when there was no answer, I checked inside.. Window open, and no Queen Wanda!"

Peter Parker, dressed in fine new clothes reflecting his position as the Castle's new Messenger, hurried over to them.

"I can't find Miss Romanoff anywhere, Captain Rogers" He told Steve. "No sign of Mr. Barton, either."

"Great!" Tony threw his hands in the air. "Great advisers we all are. We've only been at the job a few weeks, and we've lost our Queen before her first big royal event. What if she's been kidnapped or something?"

"Weren't you going to kidnap her before a big royal event?" Doctor Strange asked. Contrary to the panic currently settling over the two leaders of the Avengers, the Sorcerer seemed remarkably unfazed by the current situation.

"That was a completely different situation!" Tony snapped.

"We must search the Castle!" Thor declared. "Search the grounds! Search everywhere until.."

"Calm down, brother" Loki cut him off. "I'm sure there's no need for alarm just yet. We all know Queen Wanda is a little more free spirited than the average royal. I'm sure she's just.."

The rest of Loki's words were cut off by an almighty cheer from outside. The assembled group looked at each other. Then they ran. --

"Are you absolutely sure you want to go ahead with this, Vizh?" Wanda asked him, as the city came into view. "Becoming King is a pretty big life-changer.."

"It is" Vision nodded. "I'm still not entirely sure what kind of King I will be. But I am sure of you, Wanda. If I have you by my side, I can face all the rest of it."

"Well then, soon to be King.." Wanda grinned cheekily as they hovered near the City's edge. They could hear quite a lot of commotion, the streets full of well-wishers out to celebrate Wanda's Coronation. "Are you ready to greet your people?"

"I think I am.." Vision smiled.

"Then let's go.."

A few people were already beginning to point and whisper at the strange figures in the sky. Still holding hands, Wanda and Vision flew over the City walls. They swooped low, and the crowds scattered, but soon erupted into cheers once they recognised their new Queen. They flew onward toward the Castle, gathering a following of excited commoners as they went. The pair soon arrived at the Castle, landing just inside the gates as the Avengers, Doctor Strange, and the Asgardian Princes burst out the front door.

"Where the hell have you.." Tony began, then froze. "Vision! You're alive!"

"Of course he is" Wanda grinned, letting go of Vision's hand now that they were safely home, and moving to rush inside. She had a few preparations to make. "Get him Wedding-ready for me?"

"Uh.." Tony and Steve glanced nervously at each other.

"I will help him, Your Majesty" Loki bowed.

"Thank you. If it helps, he looks really great in teal. Peter, spread the word.. Today we will have a Coronation and a Wedding."

"Yes, Your Majesty" Peter bowed and sped off.

"Nat and Clint should arrive soon via Horse and cart with Clint's family" Wanda added before disappearing inside. "Make sure they're all allowed in.."

"I'll handle it" Steve nodded.

Loki turned to Vision.

"Hmm.. let's see what we can do for you.." --

Surprisingly, adding 'Wedding' to the Coronation day itinerary was not that difficult. Both ceremonies could take place in the same venue, and be performed by the same person, an elderly and slightly eccentric Holy Man who resided in Stanville, and had arrived at the Castle a few hours earlier.

Getting Vision ready, too, was easier than one might have expected. While Vision bathed, Loki raided the Castle's vast wardrobe, finding a fine outfit of teal gold, and a few striking streaks of red, that had belonged to Wanda's father. It fit Vision perfectly.. Once again, meant to be.

Vision took a deep breath, readjusting the Mind Stone's circlet on his brow.

"How do I look?"

"Quite handsome, as far as I can tell" Loki replied with a smile. "Your Queen will be pleased."

"I hope so" Vision took another deep breath. "I think I'm ready." --

"Out of my way, special adviser to the Queen coming through!" Natasha pushed past the group of slightly annoyed Ladies' maids Wanda had shut out, bursting into the room and quickly slamming the door behind her. "I'm here!"

"Great" said Wanda, relieved. "Could you button me up please?"

"Of course" Nat rushed over to help.

Wanda had changed from the gown she'd been wearing earlier into a dazzling white Wedding dress. She'd had the dress commissioned soon after her return to Sokovia, in hopes that Vision would be back before it needed any extra bump-concealing adjustments. Once Nat had buttoned up the back, Wanda settled the veil atop her head, pulling it carefully into place over her face.

"How do I look?"

"Beautiful" Natasha smiled. "Ready to go get married, Your Majesty?"

"Yes" Wanda's eyes sparkled. "I am." --

Vision waited nervously at the front of the Castle's great hall. The Holy Man, an elderly fellow with a moustache wearing strange, dark glasses, sensed Vision's nerves, and gave him a comforting smile.

"You'll do great, kid."

"Oh, thank you Mr..n Um.."

"Stan" the man smiled.

The hall was full to bursting with all the people who had helped Vision and Wanda come this far. The Avengers, Doctor Strange and the sorcerers of the Sanctum Sanctorum, Thor, Loki, Valkyrie and the other Asgardians.

Vision's heart was racing. Then, the door at the far end of the Hall opened. Vision saw Wanda, making her way slowly towards him, and all his fears melted away. Before he knew it, she was standing before him, smiling shyly beneath her veil, and Vision couldn't help smiling as well.

"Hello.." He whispered.

"Hello.." Wanda's smile widened as she whispered back.

The Holy Man was speaking, but neither Vision nor Wanda really heard him, entirely lost in each other's eyes.. Until he cleared his throat, nudging Vision.

"Hmm?"

"Your vow, kid.."

"Oh.. um.." Vision took another shaky breath, searching for words. "Wanda.. I don't have much to give you, except myself. I hope that's enough. I do know that I love you, more than anything else in this world, and I promise that I will continue to love you, always. I will stay by your side and help you to rule Sokovia to the best of my ability, for as long as I live.

Wanda looked up at Vision, happy tears in her eyes, and took a deep breath of her own.

"My life was supposed to be so different.. So much.. Well, looking back now, it feels like it would have been less. I wanted to just run away from it all. Then I met you, Vision, you with your strange wonderful eyes.. And you saw me. Not just as a Princess, you saw me, Wanda, who I really was. I don't know if I can ever express just how much I loved you for that.. And you loved me, just as I was. So, I promise to always love you, just as you are. You are enough, you have always been enough. I wouldn't be here without you, and I wouldn't want to be. Nothing will make me happier than to rule Sokovia with you at my side."

Vision gazed at Wanda as she spoke, entranced by her, his own strange eyes filling with happy tears.

Stan cleared his throat.

"Vision, do you take Wanda to be your wife, for as long as you live?"

"I do" Vision smiled softly.

"Wanda, do you take Vision to be your husband, for as long as you live?"

"I do" Wanda nodded, her eyes sparkling.

"Well then" Stan grinned. "I now pronounce you Man and Wife. You may kiss the Bride."

Wanda threw back her veil, and Vision swept her into his arms, kissing her deeply.

The cheers of their friends and supporters rang in their ears. The newly married couple kissed until it almost hurt, only breaking the kiss when their lungs burned for need of air. After a few moments catching their breath, gazing adoringly adoringly into each others eyes, Wanda and Vision were about to dive in for another kiss, until their Holy Man interrupted again, calling for quiet from the crowd.

"Usually," said Stan, "You'd be allowed to run off and celebrate now, but we have one more piece of business to attend to. If you would both kneel, please.."

"Oh, of course.." Vision knelt, suddenly nervous again, but Wanda's continued presence beside him was a comfort.

Stan moved to take Wanda's crown, one of two sitting on a pair of elevated cushions nearby.

"Wanda Maximoff, do you swear to rule the people of Sokovia fairly and justly, to the best of your ability?"

"Yes" Wanda nodded. "I promise."

"Very well.. then I bestow upon you this crown, a symbol of your commitment to your people.." He gently placed it atop Wanda's head, then moved to retrieve the other crown.. Vision's crown.

Vision watched, his heart racing. The crown looked heavy, and he knew that it was. So many responsibilities, so many people relying on him..

Then Vision felt Wanda taking his hand in hers, flashing him a warm, comforting smile. Almost instantly, his worries began to fade. The crown was a burden, but he could bear it easily so long as he was with her.

"Vision, do you swear to rule the people of Sokovia fairly and justly, to the best of your ability?"

"I swear" Vision replied. Stan laid the crown on his head, the Mind Stone's circlet fitting surprisingly well against it.

"Arise Queen Wanda, King Vision, Rulers of Sokovia!"

Vision and Wanda rose, together, to rapturous applause from the crowd. They turned to each other with amazingly bright smiles.

They'd done it. They'd defeated Ultron, taken back the Castle and the Crown. They were the King and Queen of Sokovia.

But more importantly, Wanda and Vision were together. They were married.

Nothing could tear them apart now, not ever again.

[feelingsdusk-writes]

Runes and all kinds of things

Chapter 1

It's a sound that penetrates the fog first. At first it comes as if from afar, muffled and without a discernible pattern, then the sound gradually develops into a constant beep and it's volume grows until it becomes an annoyance that forces him to make the effort to pry his eyelids open to localize its source.

Waking up to the discovery of an E.T. tube inside his throat is not a situation Stiles is eager to experience ever again. Period. He thinks the only reason he doesn't start gagging and choking on it immediately is that the action requires an energy that he can't spare right now because he needs it to keep himself awake... Or another valid explanation would be that he’s doped to his ears, since his vision is fuzzy around the edges (or everywhere really) and he knows that’s not normal by any means.

He absently identifies the source of the constant beep as an electrocardiograph that he wishes would stop because it feels as if each beep is steadily rising in volume towards perforating his eardrums, but the machine is too far away to reach it and he can't muster the will to raise his arm anyway. Speaking of said arm, there's an I.V. drip tube connected to it if the bags he's spotted are any indication, and he really doesn’t want to look where it's hooked into his arm. He hates needles even more than he hates hospitals and that's saying something, because every time he has to step into one (and especially anywhere near the psychiatric ward), he feels the anxiety building inside him slowly but steadily, until he thinks he won't be able to breathe.

It's really, really, good that he's stoned right now, or an anxiety attack would be rearing its ugly head at the thought of being stuck here with, by the looks of it, no possibility of leaving any time soon.

Something twitches in his hand, averting his line of thought. There’s a hand grasping his loosely and it takes a titanic effort to will his eyes to look in that direction. His heart constricts at the sight of his father’s haggard appearance, all worry lines and sunken eyes with a dark purple under them that speaks of many sleepless nights. His hair looks a little bit matted too and his clothes rumpled even if mostly clean. There's a little coffee stain on his dad's left breast and a plastic cup is halfway squeezed in the hand that isn't grasping Stiles'. How many days have passed?

Try as he might, he can’t even begin to guess... and to be honest, he doesn't give a damn right now. He's alive, his dad's alive, and Gerard is not. That's all he cares about right now.

He's not in denial or in shock. He remembers the second of stupefaction right after being shot, then feeling nothing as he fought for the gun, then the jarring surge of white-hot pain after shooting Gerard and after everything (including, as he guesses now, his adrenaline) came crashing down. He remembers the dark satisfaction of seeing Gerard's wide unseeing eyes and his prone body as a pool of blood formed fascinatingly quick under the old man's head. He remembers that the tiles had felt incredibly cold when he fell after his legs couldn't stand his own weight anymore, but also how they had warmed up barely a moment after. He remembers laying on the Argent's kitchen floor with Allison pressing on his wound with that pale pink rag that was turning red stupidly fast and he couldn't stop looking at it for some reason he can't understand now, his own pool of blood growing significantly slower than Gerard's but steadily so. He remembers so many things of those traumatizing moments, so many crystal clear details, but he just doesn't care about anything of that right now.

And that’s a good thing because if he starts to dwell on the things that have happened on the last few days he may entertain the idea of killing Scott… Well, maybe not that... if only for the sake of old times.

His dad must have felt him stir because he wakes up with a start, almost choking with the sharp intake of air he takes in relief when he sees his son awake and cognizant. Has Stiles woken up before and he doesn't remember it? John squeezes his hand and Stiles tries to squeeze back when he notices the small tremor that makes his dad's free hand shake when he reaches to pull his own fringe back before letting it rest on Stiles' forehead. The sight makes his stomach clench. Nothing can make this moment worse.

“Werewolves, Stiles?”

He starts choking with the E.T. tube almost instantly and the next thing he knows nurses are rushing in to pull it out, though it seems that they debate putting him under again for precious moments in which Stiles just hates everything.

He’s going to kill Scott.

Afterwards, he gives his father the truth he wants. Part of him is relieved at finally being able to do so, to be open about everything and not having to spew more lies and defections than actual words. The other part of him, the one that has endured for the sake of keeping his only remaining family safe, is terrified to the core of the consequences this will bring.

——–

So it seems to more or less have gone like the following, and excuse him if he's not in the mood to feel charitable or understanding about the whole thing at the moment.

Apparently while Stiles had been busy busting his ass with Scott’s control issues, being traumatized by having to watch the kanima kill somebody, saving a very vocally ungrateful Derek from drowning while said kanima tried to kill them, helping keep Scott’s grades at least on a passing level apart from not letting his own drop and dealing with his father’s distrustfulness and disappointment; Scott had gone behind his back to make a deal with the devil himself for whatever reasons he had thought to justify his betrayal (maybe getting back on Allison’s good graces or finding a cure, who knows?) at the moment, if he even thought about the whole situation in those terms, the self-centered oblivious little shit. But, moving on, if he understood Scott's ramblings well (and there's a possibility of him misinterpreting them, he was, after all, losing a lot of blood and going into shock), he had a plan that involved using Derek or something like that? And a failsafe in case everything else failed?

Obviously it hadn't worked, whatever the plan was. Gerard, of course, had decades on Scott (and to be honest Scott isn’t the sharpest tool in the box to begin with, even when the Allison factor isn't fogging his brain up) and when the moment of truth had come and Derek had been a no-show (probably because he had suspected something was fishy), he had turned the tables on him so fast that Scott had to hightail to avoid being cut in two.

Literally.

(Case in point: Laura.)

Afterwards, while Scott was panicking and thinking of a way to salvage the situation, Gerard had crept back to his basement like a bad Disney villain to continue having his fun with Stiles and to try to convince him to lure Derek to him (which still blows his mind, because he has made his dislike of their pack pretty clear even if he's stupid and grudgingly continues to help), only to find out that Stiles had been a busy little bee and had let Erica and Boyd out of their bindings. Both had tried to help but had ended up leaving Stiles to face the music alone (thanks a lot, dynamic duo, may you get fleas and stomach worms for that) and in the middle of the scuffle with grandpa, Allison herself had appeared. Of course, that was after listening in, hidden in some dark cranny, to the mandatory villain speech where the man had quite stupidly revealed all his secrets. She was understandably shocked about what was revealed (especially the part about her mom), but thankfully it changed her mind and she was therefore opposed to the idea of killing slash harming Stiles, which, awesome, less problems for him.

More fighting plus more yelling plus more guns plus china breaking plus a stupid stunt to help Allison equals a nearly dying Stiles and splattered walls that will need to be repainted. He really doesn't envy Mr. Argent the task of cleaning his own father's brains and probably some pieces of the cranium too from the adjacent cupboards. Or all that blood either, because Stiles bets that getting it from in between the tiles is going to be a bitch.

(He might be acting and feeling entirely too flippant about the whole thing, but the alternative leads to a much darker path that he'd prefer to avoid, thank you very much.)

Anyways, the icing on the cake that was already a shitshow was Scott appearing after Stiles had blown Gerard brains out (with his own gun, oh, the irony, so satisfying) with a what are you doing here?! followed by a what have you done?! after seeing Gerard’s body. Never mind that Stiles had a hole of his own in his stomach, apparently that wasn’t noteworthy? Ironies of all ironies, Allison had been the one that had finally shaken herself out of shock and remembered to call for an ambulance while Scott, after finally realizing the state he was in, had a stress induced panic attack.

Seriously, the irony, he can't stress that enough.

Derek was nowhere to be seen, Erica and Boyd were gone, Scott was having technical difficulties and Allison, try as she might (and hell, was she trying, Stiles will give her that), knew nothing of first aid, so Stiles was sure his future, if there was any, was very dark and was trying not to think that things couldn’t be worst than they already were to avoid jinxing it. So who chose to slink from the shadows at that same exact moment?

Peter.

Fuck his life.

Peter had effectively shut off Scott (by rendering him unconscious, which, yeah, he has to admit that seeing him drop like a sack of potatoes was extremely satisfying and a relief to his ears at the moment) plus snarked Allison down into some sort of compromise before Stiles could even blink, and then proceeded to sassily keep him alive long enough for his father and the ambulance to arrive.

Fuck it twice.

And before almost theatrically crawling back to the shadows from whence he came (conveniently before his father’s appearance and Scott’s return to the land of the awakened) he had proceeded to declare Stiles in his debt in the most roundabout way he could possibly find.

Where was a Molotov cocktail when you needed it?

To date, he still doesn’t know what happened with Jackson. So long as he doesn’t give them any more trouble, he doesn’t care.

—–

They get interrupted by the staff's visit, which is almost a relief for Stiles, because his throat is smarting a bit and the ice chips are only helping so much.

Stiles' main doctor is a partially white-haired blond man with a wrinkled face whose warm features and even warmer voice make him instantly comfortable, which is inexplicably surprising for him given his overall stance on hospitals and doctors. It may be helping that the man doesn't treat him like a kid or tries to keep things from him (that Stiles can tell anyway) when he explains what's going to happen in the near future and in the long run regarding his injury.

Apparently he’s been very lucky. When he struggled with Gerard he must have altered the path of the shot the man was trying to make or something because no major organs were punctured. His stomach was dangerously close to being ruptured but thankfully it wasn't, or he would have died before any help could arrive. The bullet tore only fat and muscle but since he had continued struggling for control of the gun afterwards, he had aggravated it significantly. It had been a point-blank shot that had gone through and through (apparently his dad had recovered the bullet on the Argent's stove) and it had left a stippling tattoo apart from burning him. All in all, the highest risk would had been the blood loss and the infection, except he went into shock and wouldn't stop thrashing by the time he had arrived at the hospital. He had to be sedated and then intubated when he stopped breathing. The E.T. tube had been scheduled to be taken out today regardless of whether he woke or not, because he seemed to be breathing well on his own. They'll be monitoring that just in case and Stiles is instructed to call the nurses if he has any trouble breathing again.

When the doctor leaves, they remain silent for a bit, mulling over all the information. Stiles’ father clears his throat a couple of times before telling him in no uncertain terms (hands, no, everything still trembling because the thought of having nearly lost Stiles too makes him feel sick, terrifies him) that the one that has to do the protecting there is him and after giving him a hug that nearly hurts, he also wastes no time in giving him a month’s worth of punishment for the lying and the going behind his back. Stiles doesn’t bother arguing because it will get him nowhere and because he’s too exhausted to make any good points. Never mind that they both know that Stiles wouldn't be able to go out with his injury anyway, so this punishment is as fake as they make it, a token one. His father frowns at that, because normally Stiles would argue against it anyway, just for the sake of it. John sighs and kisses him on the forehead, like he used to do before everything started going to hell, the sickness and his mom’s death and the alcohol and the long working hours and suddenly everything crashes on Stiles and he has to bite his lip to avoid babbling like a baby.

Of course Scott chooses that moment to appear at the door and to announce himself with an uncomfortable clearing of his throat.

Stiles promptly tells him to leave and not come back.

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[lolcat76]

Perdu

your-otp-prompts

Your OTP is dead and both of them live together happily in the afterlife…. until they find out Person A is due to be reincarnated. Person B refuses to spend the rest of existence without them and asks to be reincarnated too. They then spend their new mortal lives trying to find each other again.            

@okaynextcrisis just a THOUGHT in case either of you are BORED and/or NOT ENTIRELY FILLED WITH ANGSTY FEELS“I think you were right,” Bill said as he sat on the side of the bed next to her. “The Gods – or God – they exist.”

Laura sighed and stretched, one long leg creeping out from the covers to tease his thigh with her toes. He always woke before she did, long before they’d found themselves in this cabin, where the days were always sunny and the nights were just cool enough that she needed to curl into him to stay warm. Back when she’d fall asleep without him, and wake up with him breathing ambrosia, or worse, Joe’s rot-gut on her neck. Even in the throes of his worst hangover, he was still awake before she was, breathing a night of regrets into her skin as he tried to keep the chill of mortality from creeping any further into her bones.

Then, he woke her with reports and updates. Now, he woke her with random thoughts. Was your hair always this red, or is it just the sun here? Are there fish in that lake? Is it against the rules to find out? There’s a constellation of freckles that looks just like Virgon on your chest. When I was a kid, we had a dog that kicked in its sleep, but damn, woman, nothing like you.

Non-sequiturs and random thoughts, but never theological debates, and she was too warm, too comfortable and too naked to engage in any sort of deep conversation. “Hmmm...I would have thought the cabin and the pantry that’s always stocked with food was enough to tip you off on that score.”

“I had a pretty good idea,” he agreed.

She liked his ideas, especially here, especially now, where there was no concern of infection or exhaustion or dropping dead while he rambled about gardening. She had some damn good ideas as well. Laura wiggled a little closer to him, her arms escaping the comforter to wrap around his waist. “If you want further proof, come back to bed, and I’ll shout them, or him, or whomever, down again just for you.”

He didn’t pull away – he never pulled away from her, not once, not since that first handshake after the end of the worlds – but he didn’t come any closer. This was apparently a serious conversation.  Laura tucked the duvet under her shoulders. “Bill? What brought this on?”

“We had some guests this morning.”

Guests? They didn’t have guests. That was the trade-off – sacrifice for the good of humanity, die of cancer, and walk around naked if she so chose in her little cabin in the afterlife. She’d held up her end of the bargain, so why the frak were they suddenly worrying about guests?

Gods, if it was Ellen Tigh, she’d give up her immortal soul here and now.

“Maybe guests is the wrong word,” Bill sighed. “Landlords? And I guess our rent is due?”

“Bill, you know you’re awful at metaphors. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

He shrugged, the grin her teasing brought to his lips not quite reaching his eyes. “All this has happened before, and all this is happening again.”

He was even worse at quoting Scripture than he was at metaphors. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, I’ve been told I’m going back to Earth.”

***

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. She was not spending the rest of eternity alone in a cabin. She was not giving up Bill, not just when she’d gotten used to his snoring and was finally able to live with him without wanting to smack him every time he asked her why she didn’t just wash her dish rather than leaving it in the sink.

No. She might not have been the most devout follower of the Gods, but she was devout enough. And sure, she thought Baltar’s sermons were 97% bullshit, but she’d believed in the other 3%, so why the hell were the nebulous Almighties showing up now and ruining her happily ever?

No. She wasn’t losing Bill again. Not now, not ever.

Laura kicked off the covers and dug through the rumpled bedclothes at her feet to find the t-shirt she’d tossed aside last night. No, she muttered as she tugged the shirt over her head, no, not this time. She pushed him out of the way and strode into the living room of their cabin, ready to do battle with…with what, exactly?

They didn’t have a phone, and even if they did the cabin didn’t have a phone book. She couldn’t just look up Gods Comma The in the Yellow Pages, punch in a phone number and insist that whatever holy beings were in charge of their interior design report for the full Roslin interrogation. She didn’t even have a damn airlock here.

She might have been the more faithful, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t shove a deity or two out an airlock if it meant keeping Bill with her.

But deities were nowhere to be found, and she was left standing in one of Bill’s old t-shirts and bare legs, trying to choke back tears at the realization that if this was going to happen, there was nothing – nothing – she could do to stop it.

“Laura?’ Bill asked. So hesitant. He hadn’t been timid around her since she was dying of cancer. He wrapped his arm around her waist, so gentle that she could almost feel him slipping away.

There was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing, except this. She twined her fingers with his, squeezing so tightly that she was almost certain she’d broken a bone. Hers or his, she couldn’t tell, and didn’t particularly care.

“You’re not leaving me again. I don’t care what they said, I’m holding on to you and I’m never letting go. If they want you, they have to take both of us.”

***

It was her little ritual to mark the day her life fell apart with a strong drink in a shitty bar. Counterintuitive, but she had a sick appreciation for life’s little ironies. A shitty bar was where Rick told her he wasn’t going to leave his wife, and a strong drink was what led her to wrap her car around a telephone pole.

If she’d been as good a drunk then as she was now, she could have made it home, her car, her criminal record, and her unborn child intact. But, shit happened, and she was perfectly happy to revisit her past mistakes every year on this day. Maybe this time would be the time she’d finally get drunk enough to really wreck her car and never wake up. Practice makes perfect.

“All this has happened before,” she muttered, before throwing back another shot of tequila.

“All this will happen again.”

Laura looked up, her vision more than a little blurry. Most of the regulars at Joe’s knew to steer clear of her, if not by her attitude, then by the sharp tongue of the bartender who usually lectured her about being self-destructive, then dumped her in a cab. Rich coming from a man who was well past retirement age, but still pouring shots and cleaning up vomit. All this will happen again, she’d heard Jack say every Friday and Saturday night, when she’d been perched on her barstool. She’d never heard someone say it so…hopefully. As if all of this happening again was a good thing.

Maybe for him it was. This guy was new, and by the looks of his white starched uniform, not someone she wanted to know. Damn San Diego anyway. She should have moved back to New York or headed north to Los Angeles. Any city where she could hide among the freaks and dregs, instead of fighting for a spot at the bar with sailors and college students.

He looked a little long in the tooth to be a sailor, white uniform notwithstanding. He looked too old to be in a bar like this, and if she hadn’t just knocked back her fifth shot of tequila – Your last shot, young lady – she might have thought she was too old to be there as well.

“What do you know about what’s going to happen again?” She wobbled on her barstool, and she would have fallen off if he hadn’t grabbed her by the belt loops of her jeans and jerked her upright. She yanked his hands from her jeans and slapped them on the bar. “I didn’t ask for a hero.”

“I didn’t volunteer.” He smiled at her. Warm, his smile. Warm, his voice, too low and rough to be safe. Warmer still, his hands curling into hers.

They fit, his callused fingers twined against her own. Laura hadn’t held hands with a man since the accident that had broken 17 bones in her body, including four in her hand, but damn if his grip didn’t fit perfectly in hers.

Jagged edges looking for a match. If she were less drunk, she’d be pleased. If she were more drunk, she’d fuck him on the spot. She was just drunk enough to know that whatever this was, it was a bad idea. “I’m going home.” She slapped a couple of bills on the bar and pushed herself off the stool.

“That’s only two bucks,” Jack yelled after her as she weaved past Chads and Brads and Tyffinies and sailors, but Jack knew she’d be back. She’d make it right with him tomorrow, or the next day. Tonight, she needed to get the hell out of this bar.

She swayed on the street, punching in her password for Lyft again and again before giving up and muttering fuck it, I’ll walk. Laura made it halfway down the block before the night caught up with her, and she ducked into a storefront to throw up a night’s worth of booze and fish tacos.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth.

“As far as birthdays go, I’m guessing you’ve had better.”

Yes, just what she needed, the creep in the Navy uniform following her home. “If you touch me, I’ll fucking rip out our balls and feed them to the rats.”

He shrugged. “In San Francisco, I’d be worried, but this is San Diego. There are no rats.”

Not with four legs, anyway. “Whatever you think is going to happen, I can assure you it won’t.”

He brushed her hair back, then offered her a bottle of water. She swished it in her mouth, then spat the remnants of $60 worth of dinner and drowned sorrows into the gutter.

“Thanks,” she said, and held out the bottle.

He grimaced “Keep it.”

“Well, I’m going home now.” She stumbled down the street and would have taken a header in the middle of Friday night traffic if he hadn’t caught her again.

“Do you mind?”

“Matter of fact, I do. You might be intent on killing yourself, but I don’t want to see it.” His hands were still on her waist, still holding her more or less upright.

“I’m not trying to kill myself,” she said, unsure whether she was trying to convince him, or herself.

“I’m glad,” he said, “because I’ve seen you die once, Laura Roslin, and I don’t want to see it again.”

Who the fuck is Laura Roslin, she wanted to ask, and she would have if those five shots of tequila hadn’t chosen that moment to knock her ass right out.

***

The first thing she thought when she woke was that she desperately needed to brush her teeth. The second thing was that she probably owed Jack an apology, and definitely a tip. The third thing was who the hell was in bed with her?

She was still dressed, more or less. Shirt, underwear, socks, but her jeans were gone. Cracking her eyes to survey her surroundings, she was relieved to see that she was in her own bedroom, and her jeans were folded nightly on her desk.

Small mercies, but it didn’t explain how she’d gotten into her own bed, or who was breathing on her neck.

She’d had awkward mornings after before; she could survive this one. Wake him up, send him home, pretend that nothing happened for another 364 days.

Only problem was, he was already awake.

He was always awake before her, waiting for her to open her eyes and smile at him before he got out of the rack and started his day. “I love waking up to you,” he said, every morning.

Dammit, Jack, she’d settle up her tab but she wasn’t giving him a tip if whatever he’d given her last night led to hallucinations like this.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. Nothing better than bringing up bodily functions to chase a man from her bed.

“Okay. Go.” He rolled onto his side and burrowed his face into his pillow, breathing into her 800-thredcount pillowcases just as easily as he’d breathed into her neck.

Is this all there is, Bill?

“You don’t have to be here when I get back,” she said.

Is this all there is?

“You said you wouldn’t let go.”

“No, I didn’t.” Yes, I did. Didn’t I? She didn’t remember saying it, but it felt real.

“Go to the bathroom. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Hair a little too processed, crow’s feet a little too prominent. She was too old for this, for waking up to a stranger in her bed. Even her robe, soft cotton instead of satin, was an old lady’s robe.

Is this all there is? A late night and too much to drink?

It was all that she had to offer. She tugged the belt of her robe a little too tight around her waist and ventured out of her bathroom, only to find her bed empty. Thank god, she sighed, breathing in a moment’s relief.

Until she heard pots and pans clanging in her kitchen. Why wouldn’t he just leave? She didn’t need to have breakfast with a stranger.

Saul will be here right after Jaffee brings breakfast, he said.

“Are you telling me you don’t want me to be here when breakfast is served?”

He pulled her closer, whispering the word no over and over again into her skin, brushing his lips against the ribs that had become too prominent in the last few weeks. “I want you to eat. If I could make you breakfast in bed, I would.”

Laura shook her head, trying to clear it from the fog of too much tequila and too much…whatever this was. She didn’t know any Saul. She didn’t even know this man’s name, or why he was here.

He was cooking her breakfast. Nobody had cooked her breakfast since college. He was making a mess of her kitchen, dipping low-calorie, high-fiber bread into an egg wash. He looked up and caught her eye, grinning at her as he dropped two slices of bread into a frying pan. “The French call it pain perdu, lost bread.” He gently laid a slice into her skillet. “Lost. How sad is that?””

“Lost bread.” Laura hummed. “It has a certain romance to it. Lost in what, I wonder?

“Do you really want to know?”

“No,” she admitted. She pulled plates out of her cabinets and folded napkins, waiting for breakfast to be ready. “I think I prefer things to be found, not lost.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” he muttered as he slid the French toast on her plate.

For the first time in she didn’t know how long, she thought God just might be listening.

[latestnews2018-blog]

'The Handmaid's Tale' Lays Bare The Utter Hell Of Raising A Daughter In Gilead

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/the-handmaids-tale-lays-bare-the-utter-hell-of-raising-a-daughter-in-gilead/

'The Handmaid's Tale' Lays Bare The Utter Hell Of Raising A Daughter In Gilead

No child is safe in Gilead. Well, more accurately, no girl child is safe in Gilead.

In Season 2′s penultimate episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), June (Elisabeth Moss), Nick (Max Minghella) and Rita (Amanda Brugel) learn this with certainty. Eden (Sydney Sweeney), who has spent weeks on the edges of the show and of Gilead’s notice, makes the brash choice to run off with her Guardian lover. They are caught and dragged back, only to be punished with death. Nick pleads with her to save herself by lying, but instead Eden is true to herself and her faith to a fault. She refuses to renounce her “sin” ― being a teen girl in an oppressive society who wants both love and a baby ― and is killed because of it. This death, which the entire Waterford household is forced to witness, shakes every one of its members to her core.

We also see Emily (Alexis Bledel) placed with Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford, in an incredible guest starring role). The Commander is a fascinating character, a man who supposedly created the model for Gilead’s economy and the colonies, but who fills his home with art and books and music. He oscillates between potential ally and potential abuser, and we leave the episode still unsure which he will end up being.

Emma: Women are both the lifeblood and biggest threat to Gilead, and this episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale” made that very clear.

The episode, aptly titled “Postpartum,” both opens and closes on two women mothering a baby girl ― specifically, Serena and June mothering Nicole/Holly. Both women, in their own way, care deeply about this child, and we see how Gilead expects to regenerate its population and continue building its society. At the beginning, the tasks of mothering are separated: Serena mothers and June pumps. By the end, they’ve reached some sort of dark and twisty symbiosis, bound by the baby girl they both consider their own. For a season that started by focusing on the way women oppress each other, it feels like “The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 2 is hurtling toward its end driving home the message that no matter how complicit some women are in this society and how integral they are to sustaining it, it’s only the white powerful men who truly see any benefits. And there are some things that women will always turn to each other for.

What did you think when you realized that June’s baby had ended up back with the Waterfords?

Hulu

Laura: At first I thought it was a dream sequence, because of the dream-like way the scene was shot of Serena cradling the blue-eyed baby in the soft light. But I think they chose to shoot the scene that way so they could contrast it with the harsh, bleak scene of June pumping milk into a machine, staring hopelessly forward, like a cow being farmed.  

I think this episode really explores the difference between the natural bonds created among humans ― between mother and baby, for instance, or two teenagers in love ― and the unnatural bonds forced upon those humans by this cruel patriarchal dystopia they’re trapped inside. It’s not that a woman raising another woman’s child is necessarily a bad thing; adoption can be a beautiful, loving choice, of course. But for Serena, who is cruelly keeping June close enough to hear her baby’s cries but not close enough to hold or breastfeed her while Serena offers the baby an empty breast, it is a deeply cruel and selfish choice.

We see the agony on Serena’s face as she is unable to breastfeed the baby she so desperately wants to be hers, which almost made me feel empathy for her again. But it really drove home the fact that even when Gilead works as its supposed to, and the handmaid produces the child for the rich woman, it’s still not a sustainable model for a society. Serena still has to reckon with her own cruelty, the choices she made that helped to create this fucked up system in the first place, and she’s realizing the pain and frustration and desperation that come along with motherhood.  

As you said, Serena and June are now bound by the baby girl, and Serena finally realizes that she needs to allow June to breastfeed her for the sake of the child. But as we know from episodes past, these moments of tenderness and empathy never last long in the Waterford house.

Emma: You’re right, and as we’ve said before, there is no “redeeming” Serena. But she’s never been all bad or all good, and I like to believe that she has the capacity to grow (at least a bit). I also think that we’re seeing her shift her actions bit by bit ― not out of some desire to be kinder to the other women around her, but because the walls are closing in on her own access to power and safety, and her ability to protect those she loves, namely Nicole.

Hulu

But to talk about Serena’s shifting perspective, we need to talk about Eden. Eden, who we have alternately dismissed and been suspicious of in these chats. In this episode, she runs off with Guardian Isaac, incurring the wrath of Gilead’s judicial arm. It turns out that our worst instincts about Eden were all wrong. She’s not a spy or a snitch or an impediment to our heroes finding love. She’s a 15-year-old girl growing up in a hellscape, trying to understand God and her faith and her sexuality. There are few creatures Gileadean society, and our own society, are more fearful of than curious teenage girls.

Rita and Nick and Serena largely treat Eden as a nuisance, and even June only shows a few moments of compassion for the girl. (Reminder: Even though she’s Nick’s wife, Eden is most certainly a girl.) Fred hardly notices Eden’s existence, considering her a mere reward to Nick for his loyalty ― that is, until she threatens the Commander’s standing. When she does that, he’s terrified of her, specifically of her sexuality. To Serena, Eden is a “pious girl.” To Fred, she’s a “slut,” “a married woman swept up in her own selfish lust.” In reality, Eden is a young woman who simply wants “to make a real family,” and dares to imagine a world where she could pursue love and motherhood on her own terms. But this is Gilead, so instead her potential is cruelly extinguished. 

Hulu

Laura: I loved that line that June tells Eden in the kitchen ― “I think, in this place, you grab love wherever you find it.” Unfortunately, this advice ultimately leads to Eden’s downfall. It’s not the first time June has encouraged a woman to break the rules in Gilead and later seen her abused or tortured or murdered for her “transgressions.”

We see a lot more emotion out of Nick in this episode, finally. Eden becomes a real human to him when she admits to being in love with someone else, because he can finally relate to her. And I think, as you said, that the viewer has the same experience with Eden. She’s no longer a snake in the grass, as it were… she’s just an extremely pious teenager trying to navigate love and hormones.

Nick obviously cares about Eden because he tries to save her, at first advising her to lie and then offering, in what must have been a moment of desperation, to give her the baby she wants. But she’s already decided she doesn’t want to raise a baby in a loveless family. “Nick, I love Isaac and he loves me and we want to be together,” she says. “I don’t want to have your baby, I’m really sorry.”

Nick seems both relieved by her honesty and wracked with guilt for having been so icy to her throughout their (albeit forced) marriage that she is essentially willing to walk the plank to get away from him. “You don’t have to be sorry for that,” he says.

Of course, Gilead always finds new ways to introduce violence into the show, and here we see a weighted drowning, similar to what some societies have done to women who have been deemed “witches.” And judging from the reactions of Serena and Nick and June, it seems that this difficult scene may precipitate a turning point in the plot.

Emma: I completely agree. Nick, Rita, June and even Serena seem shaken to their core by Eden’s government-sanctioned murder. And honestly it’s a relief to see the plot moving forward, as we wrap up this season and head into Season 3. If this show is going to continue, we need new storylines and motivations introduced, rather than retreading the same ground over and over again.

Emily is another character who sees things changing for her in this episode. She is delivered by Aunt Lydia to her new posting ― Commander Lawrence’s home. Commander Lawrence, played by the brilliant Bradley Whitford, is an odd bird. According to Lydia, he’s an extremely important man, the architect of Gilead’s economy. By all accounts, he should be terrifying. And yet he seems far less attached to Gilead’s ideology than Commander Waterford. His house is filled with art and books. He responds to Lydia’s “Blessed be the fruit” with “Glory be.” And he seems to have a sarcastic rather than oppressive relationship with his Martha. He oscillates between totally creepy (“Have you healed properly?”) and totally intriguing (“Do you miss the classroom?”). The whole time I kept thinking: Are you a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

Either way, I think he’s going to be very important in Emily’s development and the development of the world of the show. How thrilling that we might finally get a male character whose values are as messy and compelling as Serena Joy’s.

Hulu

Laura: It’s so interesting how we assumed at first that he was a “good guy” because he seemed so worldly. A man with books and sculptures and paintings and maps all over his house ― whose Martha is comfortable enough with him to respond to his threat of a beating with “Try it, old man” ― must be some kind of savior-type, right?

But there’s a twist in the plot. His wife, who’s apparently living out some kind of “crazy woman in the attic” cliché, barges into Emily’s room and announces that not only is Commander Lawrence the architect of Gilead’s economy ― he came up with the idea of sending people to the Colonies, which are, essentially, concentration camps. “Real people are digging up that dirt, and it’s poison!” she says. Of course, Emily is well-acquainted with the reality of the colonies, having just been liberated from them.

We don’t know why this man chose Emily as his handmaid. She doesn’t either. “I’m wondering why such a brilliant and important man would take in such a shitty handmaid,” she tells Aunt Lydia. But we get the sense, as the two face off across the table sipping beers, that she may be a formidable match for Lawrence. They’re both intellectuals, both extremely feisty; neither buys into the premise of Gilead. Will she partner with him or will she kill him?

Emma: At this point, both scenarios feel equally likely. My gut tells me that he was a brilliant man who created Gilead in the abstract and now feels conflicted about its reality. Sometimes guilt is an effective motivator to do better.

To wrap up, I just want to touch on the quiet beauty of that final scene. After so much horror, we see Serena and June tap into that inexplicable bond you mentioned earlier in the chat. A common enemy can be helpful in uniting women, but a common desire to protect something (someone) might be even stronger. Serena’s eyes have finally been opened to what it really means to have a daughter in Gilead.

Laura: How nice! Serena finally lets her slave breastfeed her own baby. The man who created Gilead may finally be having some second thoughts. As June says when she’s handed a not-so-tasty-looking bran muffin: “Praise fucking be.”

To read more of HuffPost’s “Handmaid’s Tale” coverage, head here.

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