#Link to Beau's Prologue
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crossroads-of-the-raven · 8 days ago
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017-b Beau | Murder Drones
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umbry-fic · 20 days ago
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Circles
Summary: Going round and round is all that they have known.
Fandom: In Stars and Time Characters: Loop Relationships: Loop & Siffrin Rating: T Word Count: 3497 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 11/01/2025
Notes+Warnings: A little Loop thing I wrote last July to see if I could capture the tone. It covers Acts 2 to 6, Two Hats, and a little bit of SASASA:AP.
General warnings for violent imagery and suicidal thoughts.
~~~
PROLOGUE A breath. Another. You feel them rattling in your chest like a bunch of loose bones as the weight of what just happened falls on you like an anvil. Wildly, you whip your head around, but the scene does not dissolve like a dream.
Bonnie is still wildly cheering, bouncing on the balls of their feet. Beau is beaming in joy, a warmth directed towards you that makes your insides go all gooey. Odile stands calmly, betraying nothing except for a tiny glint of relief in her eyes. Belle has walked ahead, peering excitedly up the corridor, barely contained trembles travelling up and down her body.
You… You’ve done it. After tens, hundreds, thousands of loops, you’ve finally done it! You’ve put an end to the king, and reached the end of your journey!
It doesn’t feel real, and you half expect your hearing to distort and the world to go all wobbly as it always does when time flows backwards.
But it doesn’t happen - the King’s armour is still scattered across the floor, the evil defeated once and for all. It’s not fading away, and you take a breath, secure in the knowledge that you no longer have to repeat this horrible day ever again.
“Hurry!” Belle rocks on the balls of her feet, cheeks dark. “The Head Housemaiden! Euphrasie is just up ahead!”
The name tickles something in your brain, something small and tucked so deeply that you have never brushed against it before. The smell of pastries baking in the oven, a gentle hand brushing hair out of your eyes, a warm voice whispering a name that is nothing more than blank space in your memories -
But just like that, it’s gone. You blink, disoriented for a moment as you stumble. Well, it couldn’t have been that important.
Crossing the short distance towards Belle, you can’t help but aim a vicious kick at a chunk of the King’s armour, sending it skittering across the floor. Good riddance! Odile’s gaze fixes on you from across the room, but you can’t care less at the moment. It’s over. You couldn’t care less about anything.
As you reach out your hand towards Belle’s, your fingertips barely brushing, your vision begins to waver. Static encroaches at its edge, and your heart freezes in your chest.
No. No, no, no, no! It’s over! It’s over it should be over why is it not over -
“Siffrin?” Mirabelle asks, her expression crumbling into fear as she reaches out desperately towards you, perhaps hoping to pull you back from the abyss you hover over, even if she cannot see it. As if she could ever save you.
As if any of them could ever save you.
You.
Feel.
A.
Tug.
On.
Your.
Stomach.
~~~
INTERMISSION Your skin burns, the heat of a dying star scorching you from the inside. You wonder if you are shining, your skin illuminated from within by a blinding light that cannot possibly be blocked. Ah, how bright that would be.
You had woken up in that same. Blinding. Clearing. The one that had haunted your life for days upon endless days, melding together into monotonous years that had stretched on into millennia. The never-ending beginning of your nightmare. And apparently, one you can never escape!
Belle had come to greet you, as she always did, a gentle smile already on her face. But you had bolted, refusing to heed her worried cries. They were almost familiar, in a way. You must have heard them too, once upon a time.
If you’d stayed, you would have been staring at an eternity that would have eventually ground away your heart - you were already most of the way there, having once shoved the names of your beloved party members away so it would hurt less. You didn’t want to betray them any further. And so you had refused to stop running, even as the others tried to catch up to you, their pleas falling on deaf ears.
You had fallen to your knees before the Favor Tree, remembering the ashes of a wish you had made in a life long before this one. And you had begged, begged, begged the Universe for a miracle. For all of this to finally end, because you could take no more of it.
And the Universe had gifted you a Star. It had caused your flesh to sizzle and pop as you cradled it in your melting palms, your face splitting into a grin as you stared at the entity destroying your mortal body. You had faintly registered the horrified screams of those you had once considered family behind you. But you had not turned back, tears of relief flowing down your cheeks as you took a big bite out of the flaming ball of plasma.
You had burned, surely bursting into flame at that very moment below the Favor Tree. You continue to burn. The world’s brightest supernova, in a void of nothingness, interrupted by a singular presence. The Universe, observing you, the world’s greatest laughingstock.
It is peaceful.
You drift away.
~~~
ACT TWO You find yourself under a massive tree, the breeze rustling the leaves on the boughs hanging above your head.
Not just any tree. A Favor Tree. And not just any Favor Tree.
It's the Favor Tree, the one that has stood in Dormont for… however long the Housemaiden had said. You would know - its every branch had been burned into your mind as you were engulfed in a brilliant light.
How. How are you back here?
You think, faintly, that there would usually be bile already on the tip of your tongue. But you can't taste it - in fact, you can't taste even taste the dryness of your mouth. The breeze is strangely muted against your skin, and you barely have time to register the lightless shade of your skin when you hear footsteps.
Coming up the path is…
Yourself.
Familiar hat and cloak. An eye patch. Shaggy darkless hair ending in lightless tips from an ill-fated dyeing session.
Siffrin carries himself with a jittery fear. It is one you can no longer remember - how many years has it been since the first time you woke up in that field, gasping as a phantom pain gripped you? But it is intimately familiar.
You remember your wish. It remains, making its burning presence known.
Please. Someone, anyone, help me!
You feel a bubble of laughter, threatening to push its way out from the chest that your fingers uselessly scrabble against, unable to scratch away the glowing imprint of a star. You wonder if you can laugh and laugh until the world crashes its merry way to the end. If you threw yourself out of this tree now, could you split your head open on the ground? Would there even be brains to leak from the wound? Would that finally put an end to your suffering, or would you wake up here again?
Trapped, trapped, forever trapped in this blinding town. Going round and round in endless circles, looking for an escape that was nowhere to be found. If it had ever existed in the first place, it must surely be shut tight by now, the door rusted shut and overgrown with vines.
What a lovely place to be!
Siffrin’s head pushes its way through the leaves, and they stare at you with unabashed shock, single eye wide.
You wonder idly how long it would take to steal the air from them. It would be as easy as wrapping your fingers around his throat and squeezing. You would know, given how many times the King had done it to you. Such a simple gesture that even a child could do it. And with the strength you’ve gathered from the loops, there’d be little chance of him fighting you off.
But you don't. For this, too, is intimately familiar. Playing a role, and pretending, hiding all the tumultuous emotions behind a smile so that no one would be any the wiser. The perfect actor, skills honed over decades of unwilling performance.
Time to get up on stage.
“Hello there, Stardust! How can I help you in this wonderful new loop?”
~~~
ACT THREE You watch as Siffrin defeats the King for the first time, triumph flashing across his face as the Housemaiden delivers the final blow, shining with that dazzling light that she possessed, welling from her soul.
Rage swirls like a nebula beneath your skin, energy fizzing up the lightless surface, screaming to be let out.
How dare they. He'd died to the King… what, three times? He hadn't had to suffer like you had, watching countless times as the life slowly drained from the pained expressions of your family. Until the agony your own body suffered through was nothing more than an impression, wounds inflicted over scars that your body did not remember. They didn't have to hear the sick crunch of Mira’s body as the King treated it like a ragdoll. Didn't have to listen to the bloody wheeze of Isa’s breaths until they petered out. Didn't have to feel the vibration of Bonnie’s terrified footsteps as Odile yelled at them to run.
How dare he.
You turn your gaze away as Siffrin continues into the hall ahead, unable to continue watching. Something like glee rears its ugly head in your non-existent heart when you feel the world warp around you, the scent of sugar overpowering on your tongue. There is something else squirming beneath that writhing emotion, something you shove far away, unwilling to contemplate it at this moment.
Your face is still by the time Stardust approaches, ready to shatter across the cracks spidering across their soul. Together, you question the loops.
Questions you were never able to field in your own timeline, truly believing the entire time that all you had to do was beat the King. That it was your own fault for being too weak to take him down. These are not questions you have ever had the opportunity to ask, your soul so worn down by the hundredth loop that the capacity to question, instead of sticking to a script written in stone, had been all but decimated.
You watch as Stardust offers help to his party (his family, your traitorous mind whispers, knowing they could never be yours), watch as these second-hand actors tell him things that you never got the chance to know as they scamper around town in cute little quests, spilling their hearts.
Or perhaps you once did, and the memory of it was yet another thing the loops had stolen from you. You will never know, and the realisation makes the star embedded in your chest dim. So you can only learn from their reflections in funhouse mirrors, smiling and talking to Stardust like they love them.
(You can barely remember the kind things your family used to tell you - the compliments, the jokes, the teasing. Were any of their words even true? Or just things they thought were still true of the silent puppet that you had begun dangling in front of them?)
Some loops, you melt the bark on the trunk of the Favor Tree. When you see Stardust talking to their Fighter, your fingers tighten and burn around the wood. You can barely bear to watch as the Fighter tries with darkened cheeks, again and again, to stumble through words that you only realised the meaning of once he was lost to you. Yet neither can you bear to look away as Stardust remains oblivious, smiling his usual easy smile and keeping their heart close to their chest. You want to scream at him, shake him by the shoulders, tell him that they should hold all of them close and never let go, that they should relinquish them to you -
You squeeze your eyes shut when the Fighter shoves them away, a familiar tug pulling on your stomach.
Even as you belittle Stardust, wanting to believe that at least in the world you left behind your Fighter would have wanted you, you know it to be a lie, a feeling like broken glass churning beneath your skin. He would have done the same to you. Worse, even.
After all, you'd abandoned them all. Unworthy of love.
Disgusting.
~~~
ACT FOUR You want to tell yourself that it is still glee that sparks in the air around you as Stardust holds back sobs, their shoulders shaking as they face a reality that had once, and still was, your entire existence.
But you know this to be a lie too. After all, you could have just left them to flounder. You could have hidden yourself and never revealed yourself to him - left him to a fate similar to yours, repeating the same two days hundreds of times over without ever knowing what to change. Sure, the Universe put you here. (And oh, aren't you the Universe’s favourite cosmic joke! A world-famous one-man act!) But you didn't have to stick to the script it had given you. What was another thousands loops to a broken being like you?
You could have watched, and laughed.
Instead, you had stared at your mirror image - no, not your mirror image, but the image of a past you that now slumbered peacefully beneath the waves, far out of reach. And you had realised you didn’t want to see Siffrin suffer.
You remember what it was like, to be standing in the middle of a nondescript corridor in the House and suddenly realise that you were stuck there for eternity, unable to see a way out. How quickly you had slit your own throat, running from the thought and uncaring of the horrified expressions on your party member’s faces as they watched you fall, hands stained with fresh blood.
So when Siffrin suggests the dagger, his entire body shaking and their eye wide, you shut him down instantly, insisting with a hiss that it isn’t necessary, your heart pounding.
There's a raging inferno in your veins, your hands shaking as you remember holding the dagger to your neck for the first time, hesitating and feeling like you’re about to be sick, before finally, finally letting it slip. How you'd missed slicing through the entire artery and had to lie bleeding out on the floor as Mira cradled your head and tried in vain to save you, her tears falling onto your cold skin. How it got easier with every time that followed. Even now, you think, if you could get your hands on Stardust’s dagger, you could end yourself in one smooth motion.
Even after the Universe forces you to tell him (because the Universe leads and we can only follow, right?) you still try, unwilling to let it end here. Until he gives you the dagger hilt-first, something almost like trust shining in their eye.
It makes you feel sick, but you take the dagger anyway, letting your fingers linger.
~~~
ACT FIVE Siffrin trembles like a feral animal before you, teeth bared and eye crazed, ragged breaths dragging from his lungs. You try and talk them down like you did before, but nothing is getting through the barrage of sharp shards he spews, cutting like glass. It barely phases you, and you keep prodding, certain that you can…
Until finally they find the chink in your armour and begin to chip away at it with ruthless determination.
Because it’s true. You had believed there was no way out, feet dangling over a void with no bottom - something to fall endlessly down, the darkness swallowing your bitter laughter as you shattered against the sides. You had reached out to Stardust and done your best to “help” them, even as, for the longest time, you had thought this all hopeless.
They had already discovered so much more than you ever had. You were beginning to glimpse a glimmer of hope over the horizon, piercing the endless dark. And though it hurt to believe once again in the idea of escape, knowing it might just be another failure in a long string of them, you want to cling onto the tiny speck with all your might with Stardust by your side.
But he slashes and slashes, as unrelenting as he is with his dagger, and with your wounded heart, you cannot help but turn away as Stardust stomps back in the direction of the clocktower.
As day turns to dusk turns to dawn, you sigh, knowing you cannot while your time away here, turning into a statue as you stare off into space. This cannot possibly end well for Stardust - the two of you have a penchant for causing dramatic situations. When you'd been at your lowest, your party had noticed and tried to mend your broken heart, one small piece at a time. But this Siffrin… he's so much better at acting than you had been in those last few loops. And somehow, you don't think the party will be able to help him. Not without some… outside assistance.
You don't want to do this. You don't want to face their reflections in the water, just a step or two removed from familiar faces that had been your everything. But you have to.
Sighing, you raise your hand to your ear.
~~~
ACT SIX You watch as the red sky knits itself back together, the ugly rip closing as the strange shades vanish like they'd never been there in the first place. The air is fresh, the sunlight warm on your star-speckled skin.
You breathe. Slowly. One at a time, feeling the strange stretch of your chest that you had become accustomed to.
Your family had looked at you like you were a stranger, somebody who posed a danger to them. Bonnie had frowned. Mirabelle had looked puzzled. Odile had looked wary, one hand already on her book. And Isabeau… his smile had been friendly, but lacking all of the gentle warmth usually reserved for you. Because it had all been taken up by Stardust. The better Siffrin, the only Siffrin that remained.
It had torn you apart from the inside to talk to them, to pretend to be civil (but not too civil!) as you guided them to the King. Giving helpful advice as befit your role of the gracious Loop, letting nothing about yourself slip, each word a lump of hot coal on your tongue.
The knowledge of the wish that both you and Stardust had made washes over you. You scratch at your skin, frowning when you fail to break through. Something boils beneath, and you ache to release it.
You could have had it all. You could have stayed with your family, if only you weren't so greedy. If only you could have learned to let go, they might still be close enough for you to touch.
It'd been so simple all along.
There is a freezing want creeping up your throat that has been your persistent shadow your entire stay in this world where you are nothing more than an unwanted stranger. You want to be with them. With Mira, Odile, Bonbon, Isa…
You want…
What exactly is it that you want?
~~~
EPILOGUE You snarl, ready to slice the scissor sign across Stardust’s neck. To let the blood contained within them spill out and stain the grass of what had been your resting place, but also your prison. You want to rip their heart out and replace it with your own, the beating dead star in your chest. You want to take their place, to be with your family again!
You want… You want to feel that warmth again. The vivid flavours of Bonbon’s cooking, the muffled sound of Mira reading under her breath, the sarcastic barbs from Dile, the sweaty palms of Isa under your own hands.
Stardust, pressed up against you, their head lolling on your shoulder.
You can't do it. Stardust stares up at you with a peaceful smile on his face, neck bared for you, and you can’t do it.
You fall back, frustrated laughter bubbling out of you as you cover your face with your hands.
After everything, you can't do it. Even as Stardust offers their life up to you on a silver platter, you can't take it. This family… it's theirs, not yours.
Your family is something you can never get back, no matter how much you try. Not unless you wish, and that is not something you want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Never again.
There is nowhere to go, and nothing more to do. These are the consequences of the actions you have taken, and nothing can change your fate. You explain to Stardust as you begin to fade, gifting him the hopes of tomorrow that you had once cradled.
You hope that he'll be happy - that he will know what it’s like to be loved.
As the darkness claims you, you close your eyes.
You hope your dreams will be restful.
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multiwreckedmess · 29 days ago
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[9:42pm] Prologueish
i'm so sorry cheater!yunho this is all i can write right now
a prologue of sorts. OHHHH they're so fucked UUUUUP
WC: 1.4k
because it's a prologue you probably DON'T need to read the previous entries, I'll link everything at the end though do not worry.
Standard disclaimer, this is meant for 18+ and my blog is 18+ please do not interact if you are not 18+ because I AM OLD. You don't WANT to interact with me just as much as I don't want to interact with YOU. This content is not intended for YEW.
This fanfic is, as the genre defines it, FICTIONAL. It is in no way a representation of Yunho or any Ateez member.
TW/CW: Fem!reader. Voyeurism. More details below the cut.
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TW/CW: cnc voyeurism? Idk how to tag it but shit's fucked up. PIV sex, protected sex (ayyyy change of pace), yn is called babe and princess, backshots. Use of terms "bad girl" and "naughty girl".
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There's too many people and you can feel a slow sickening trickle of sweat slip down your spine. Curse this cheap Shein sweater made of essentially recycled plastic that suffocates you along with the eyes of the crowd.
Realistically it's a medium sized mixed party but really mixed party is enough to start the waterworks for you. It's not so big that it would break the imagined firecode of the house you're in. Yet the combination of fabric and pressure starts to strangle you slowly.
Of course Yunho is here. He's always here. Thats what you get for fucking within the friend group. Mistake number one, or maybe number two after allowing yourself to stay friends with him after your break up. Not that there was a choice, shunning him would be social suicide. The mear suggestion of casting yourself as the ice queen, cutting out a staple member of the gang. Worse, allowing yourself to be pitied. The poor girl who couldn't keep her man's eyes from wandering, and what good were you if you couldn't keep someone as good as him.
He's here chatting up some girl, as usual at this mixed affairs. He's smart, you see, he fucks people never to be heard from again. Randoms at bars or parties or friends of friends that don't care to know the history. Girls who just want to fuck a guy not lying about his height for once.
Hanging on your newly minted boyfriends bicep you find yourself smiling and nodding along with a conversation that you've long forgotten the point of. Surely it can't have moved too far away from some simple small talk. Sports or entertainment, something uncontroversial and benign. Your boyfriend laughs, you laugh. You follow his moves and before long you'll be home and asleep safe in your bed.
You can feel Yunho's eyes even as he's leaning casually against the wall. That bitch touching his chest. No, she's not a bitch and he isn't yours. Really she's doing you a favor. He's moved on and so have you. Clearly you've moved on, you have your new beau and he's here with you and clearly you're in love because you're laughing so much with him. Your smile brightens at the thought.
"Right babe?" your boyfriend turns his head towards you, nodding. "Whatever you said, hon," you smile and lay your hand on his chest. Eyes darting you make sure that Yunho is still watching this pageantry. With a wink you kiss your boyfriend's cheek for good measure. "She's too good! Too funny!" The other person laughs, seemingly satisfied with this answer.
When you look back, Yunho is gone. Disappointing waste of an excellent performance. The girl is gone too. Good, good riddance. It was only right that both of you had moved on to dating outside the friend group. Who didn't like to expand their horizons and it certainly made breakups less awkward. It wasn't like you were avoiding him, you just needed to make sure your boyfriend didn't feel abandoned.
As if on cue your boyfriend squeezes your arm, leaning over to whisper to you. "Hey, if you need a break I can hold my own just fine."
"Yeah I think I'll just grab some air, it's a little warm right?"
He leans over, his lips aiming for yours but you lower your gaze and they hit your forehead.
"You know how I feel about PDA," you whisper.
He squeezes your ass with a smile, "I know but can you blame a guy for trying? You look beautiful."
The sliding glass door is already unlocked, the early autumn night air hits your face like a drink of ice water. Some distance from the party would be good. It's good that your boyfriend noticed. It's good that he cared. It's good that he wanted to kiss you. Everything is good even though Yunho was there talking with, well, who he was talking with didn't matter. It doesn't matter because you're doing so well.
There's a light on in a second floor bedroom.
The light shouldn't be on.
The second floor was also technically a break from the party. Someone should make sure that nothing was being stolen. But you're the only one in the yard, you're the only one who would know. The bathroom was also upstairs, you could use a quick bathroom break. Really you were just being a good samaritan it wasn't that out of the way, not being nosy at all.
You keep repeating that thought as you go up the stairs. Fingers gripped to the bannister as if you were in your own personal horror movie. Isn't this how most heroine's die? The din of the party masks the sound of your feet and the groan of the floorboards. The bathroom at the end of the hallway is wide open, warm lights lovingly winking at you. The bedroom door is partially cracked open, you'll just take a quick look.
But why is your heart beating so quickly? Really you aren't doing anything wrong. And if the light was just left on, you can quickly turn it off, save the host some on the electricity bills.
You look through the crack in the door.
It takes a second for your brain to process what your eyes are seeing. At first it's just a strange dark moving mass on the bed. As you stare you start to make out two bodies, moving together. Two people, fucking. One curled over the top of the other, hips landing hard blows while the other is face down in the duvet, gripping for dear life. And then the person on top looks up and makes eye contact with you through the crack.
Yunho.
Standing frozen, trapped, watching as he leans down and bites the shell of the woman's ear, eyes still locked with yours. Her entire body reacts, twisting in pleasure below him. It's wrong to keep watching. Your cunt throbs. The woman doesn't know you're watching, it's wrong to keep watching. But you aren't watching her, you aren't registering her, you're locked on him.
"You like that?" He purrs. It's clear that it's as much for your benefit as it is for the woman below him. He unfurls from on top of her, steadying himself with his hands on her hips. "God I love watching you," his lips twist into a sickening smile, "bad girl."
Legs bolted to the floor your can feel your core slicking. Yunho adds a particularly loud groan just for you. You know it's for you. He pushes his bangs from his sweat slicked forehead, pausing to let his cock sink deeper into the woman below him. She tries to scramble to her hands, into a more dignified position, maybe even to crane back into his chest to steal a kiss.
Yunho places one of his massive hands between her shoulderblades and shoves the weakened woman into the duvet again. Pushing her head into the sheets and snapping his hips into her for good measure. You hear her squeal, it's clear she's loving it.
"Gunna cum? Gunna cum for me?" He smiles as he looks at you, still stuck.
Your fingers twitch. The growing pit of shame and arousal itches in your veins.
He looks glorious, sweaty and panting. Mouth dropped and eyes rolling as he tries to focus on you. "Take it. Fucking, just like that, fucking take it."
Pulling out you watch him continue to pump his length, peeling the condom off and tossing it casually to the side. Fully engorged, prominent vein running up the top, still as delicious looking as you remember. He sighs as he cums, spurts of release spraying over the woman's upturned ass. "Fucking love that don't you, naughty girl?"
The spell breaks and you scuttle to the bathroom. A layer of slick coating the gusset of your panties. Your pussy puffy and sensitive as you try to clean yourself. Washing your hands you can't look at yourself in the bathroom mirror. For once you don't care how you look.
Yunho is leaning against the wall as you exit. A smirk crosses his face. All it takes is a stretch of his long arms to bar your path. "Nice to see you." "Likewise." He brushes a few stray hairs on your head into place. "I think we'll be seeing much more of each other." "Yunho," you voice warns, unable to look up at him. "Let me go." He quietly steps to the side, motioning you forward. "After you, princess."
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related stories: kinktober | [12:39AM] | [10:45PM] if you liked this and wanna see this just get worse and worse....yeah there is the order.
a related ask as well here
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kaylinalexanderbooks · 11 months ago
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Happy Storyteller Saturday!
When you finish a first draft, how does it look? Is it readable or does it have more holes than a swiss cheese? What are your next steps, and how much changes?
Hey Elli! Happy STS!
First of all - I believe every idea is at least somewhat salvageable. I hope to one day get to the point where I somehow managed to adapt the short stories I "wrote" when I was in kindergarten.
Okay my first drafts are...weird. They differ greatly from most people. Let's talk about a few examples so I can explain.
The Secret Portal
Started as a school project in fourth grade (age 10). It is readable but it's so silly. Mainly because I was ten. I've somehow managed to string it together into what it is now but the first act is the only recognizable thing.
The second version of TSP I wrote over a year later. My first step was to make it longer and have chapters. That was about it.
The third version was about a year after that. I decided I didn't like my story ideas to be stretched out across a whole book, so I combined the first two books into one. I alternated the POV and worked more on the details. My descriptions and characterization was better, though I was constrained by the limitations of following the older drafts.
The fourth version was a year and a half after that. We're nearing the end of eighth grade - I'm 14. I'd done a lot of other writing but I decided to go back to TSP. This time, I had full scenes and character introductions and even a halfway decent (emphasis) prologue. Pacing was getting better, and the story beats made more sense. I alternated POV, but realized the need for it being very deliberate whose perspective I was in.
One hole I figured out was how to differentiate my heroes and villains. Jedi and Carmen originated as villain roles but when I thought about it making them good, or honestly extremely morally gray, made a lot more sense. I soon developed a plot, a world, character arcs...
While I refer to all of it as Draft Four, I kept up with this version for so long there are technically multiple drafts of TSP in this section. I didn't start the document over until 2021.
How did I go on from here? Well, I focused on refining story beats. Characters and their voices. General pacing and descriptions. World building.
So definitely not a traditional process lol.
More detailed behind the scenes is linked in my intro post
School of the Legends
I basically hit the reset button every time. I had the idea of "fairy tale retelling" for years.
For SOTL, I did write a dual first person POV short story with Úrsula and Beau and discover third person worked better. But as SOTL it technically only has five chapters drafted. I'd say that just tossing out everything worked here.
Other
Most of the others I wrote as a kid and as I grew older I modified it to my current maturity level, taking the same plot points and fleshing them out. When I was 13+ I started outlining and planning more details and characters. More plot twists and arcs.
Sooo I don't really have the typical first draft experience. Essentially what I do is this:
Nothing is unsalvageable.
Figure out what is salvageable.
Write down ideas I have during reading old drafts.
Identify the holes.
Figure out how to fill the holes/brainstorm
Figure out everything you still don't know
???
Profit
Hope this was a satisfactory answer lol
TSP intro
TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @fairy-tales-of-yesterday
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bradsthorn · 1 year ago
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WONDER OF YOU | B.B. X FEMALE OC.
Prologue: IT KEEPS RIGHT ON A-HURTIN'
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Summary: Pete Mitchell got called back to North Island and so did two of the people that he had lost over a decade ago. He had yet another responsibility on his shoulders that he had never let be lifted.
Warnings: Child abandonment, Mentions of death
Word Count: 1.7K
Author Note: Hey y y'all this fic is my baby and I'm excited to share this with y'all. This is cross-listed on AO3!
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Being sent back to North Island after blowing up a multi-million dollar aircraft was not on Pete Mitchell’s to-do list of the day. But, here he was. He stared at a building he had sworn to never be back at or in unless it was for his daughter or the one other person he had ever grown to truly and fully love. That person had already had him there before and he was decently sure they were the reason he was standing there. The black and white photo screamed his glory days at him as he looked it over. He knew that every pilot that had come through those front doors had seen it – and he knew for some that it was one of their least favorite parts of being here. Of course, another memory rang out loud but he couldn’t dwell in the memory otherwise he’d walk out and be grounded without a second thought. There was no way his guardian angel could prevent that when he disobeyed direct orders twice on the same day. That guardian angel was always watching; at least if they were the one he was thinking of and currently looking at in the very photo that used to elicit an excited response from a much smaller and much younger version of someone who he was sure would do anything to not end up in the same place as him. Then, the familiar dull pain echoed in his heart, one of the people who once made up the very fibers of his being that were now gone or no longer wanted to be linked to him. All but a handful had since left or cut contact, one that had not left was looking over him – looking as regal as ever in his official photo. “Admiral Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky.” The name almost always sets a warm feeling in the pool of the male’s stomach. Had since the moment Goose had uttered it in the O Club all those years ago, and he was certain it would for the rest of his life. He knew that at least he would always have him, and now he was home.
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Maverick did not necessarily go out of his way to be a pest to commanding officers, it just happened. That very thing is why his welcome back, which apparently was not that, to Top Gun was not a warm one. 
“Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Your reputation precedes you.” There was a tone he was quite used to, one that clearly was attempting to put him into his place. That plus the fact that Maverick himself was proud of his accomplishments equaled the words that fell from lips 
“Thank you, sir.” There was a prideful smile and tone to his voice and that was cut short by the next comment. 
“It wasn’t a compliment.” Maverick’s smile faltered for a second, only because it had become clear that the man in front of him was not one with a sense of humor or he just had such a distaste for Maverick that the joke was not going to land regardless.
“Admiral Beau Simpson. I’m the Airboss. I believe you know Admiral Bates.” Maverick’s attention turned to the third male in the room, 
“Warlock, Sir. I must admit, I wasn’t expecting an invitation back.” There was a silence in the room for a second, two unamused faces looking back at him. 
“They’re called orders, Maverick.” At least Warlock wasn’t mad, just not excited and Maverick would have to agree with both men’s apparent attitudes, he didn't want to be back in this town. It was too painful, too much loss, a failure when he taught there, but it had also brought him his greatest treasure. 
There was a knock on the pilot’s door at a time of night when he should have been asleep. But he wasn’t, he couldn’t sleep half of the time until late into the morning. The thoughts of his father were louder than anything, which wasn’t unusual for him, he was always in his head about what happened to his father and how badly he didn’t want to repeat that. But, his was a refusal to allow Goose’s son to grow up without a father, and Maverick was the only one, in his head, that could make sure Bradley had a dad. Top Gun had been proving a tad bit more difficult than the young pilot had imagined, simply because Iceman actually gave him a run for his money. And what he was met with on the front porch of the bungalow that Top Gun had provided him with, also gave him a run for his money. A random toddler. 
The toddler found herself standing on a random porch at three in the morning looking at a strange man; who looked equally as confused as she did. The resemblance would’ve been clear, had a third person been watching this happen. 
Pete Mitchell was usually able to adjust with the flow whenever he needed to, but looking at the toddler had really thrown him for a loop. She didn’t give him a chance to look for anyone else once he opened the door again, she just let herself in; which should’ve been another clear indicator for the pilot, but it wasn’t. He tried to get her to talk, which was a lost cause, but he was too panicked by the child to even realize it was more than her being shy. But, she did offer her bag, and to him, that meant he could go through it. and once he did? he was in for a surprise. The one that shocked him the most? She didn’t have a name and she was three years old. S𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴, minus his 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚. Maverick was in panic immediately, obviously, he had to give her a name, and he had to do that fast. now, he suddenly became sentimental and maybe it was because the Bradshaws had been the only family he had known, and now he had this delicate being that was going to depend on him as he had depended on Nick and Carole. and, suddenly it hit him the only name that made sense; N𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞. perfect. it fit her, and he was sure Goose would be so excited to hear that. Then, D𝐮𝐤𝐞. His dad’s name, maybe it was because he was thinking about the fact that he was a dad now; Maverick Mitchell was a dad, and that was a big pill to swallow. But, the male thought why not honor his, hell, who knew maybe she’d want to be a fighter pilot like him. And right now was way too soon to be thinking about that. 
“Can it be done?” The older pilot had taken notice of the lack of fear of loss from the two at the table. But, then again, they weren’t Pete Mitchell. They didn’t have the past of being the reason the most important people in your life were gone. 
“How soon until the plant becomes operational?” 
“Three Weeks. Maybe less.” 
There’s a pause, Maverick shifting as he looks back over the plant and mountains on the screen. 
“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve flown an F-18… And I’m not sure who I’d trust to fly the other three.” 
The silence is deafening, but he prefers that over what comes next. 
“I think you misunderstand, Captain.” 
Confusion spread as Maverick looked over the other two, 
“Sir?” 
“We don’t want you to fly it. We want you to teach it.” 
Maverick could feel his stomach drop. Teach? That meant people depending on him and all he ever did to those that did depend on him? He hurt them. Then he lost them. Every time, it felt like. 
“Teach… Sir…” 
Nothing was said as Warlock clicked to the next screen.  Young pilots' faces on their photo I.D.'s taking up the screen behind the pilot. 
“ We’ve recalled thirteen Top Gun graduates from their squadrons, all top of their class. You will narrow this pool down to six - the best of the best. They will fly the mission.” 
Green hues locked on two faces, gaze flickering back and forth. His stomach was under the building at this point. Seeing the two of them up there side by side - as they almost always had been. 
“Is there a problem, Captain?” That tone was not helping him.
“You know there is. . . sir.” 
Cyclone’s eyes glanced over the screen before only two I.D. photos were showing. 
“Bradley Bradshaw. AKA Rooster. I understand you flew with his old man. . . What was his call sign?” 
“Goose, sir.” Maverick’s eyes were doing their best to be void of emotion. It wasn’t just — 
“And Nicolette Mitchell. AKA Wildcard. Heard she was almost grounded permanently before this.” 
His breath hitched. Permanently grounded? Hollywood hadn’t said anything about that. And if anyone would have known, it would have been him. Or Iceman. His eyes glanced over the I.D. photos taking in how stoic the two looked, he had been used to smiles and laughing, but not that. Although there was a familiar sparkle of mischief in Nicolette’s eyes. 
“Tragic what happened.” 
Maverick stiffened. The hits just kept on coming with Cyclone, didn't they? 
“Captain Mitchell was cleared of any wrongdoing. Goose’s death was an accident.” 
“That how you see it, Captain?” Maverick’s eyes followed Cyclone’s finger, once again taking in the two faces of the two kids he had once protected — or tried to protect — from this world. Eyes skimming over accomplishments he had already memorized. 
“Is that how Goose’s son sees it?” 
The Captain shifted, he couldn’t respond. He didn’t know how. 
“And your daughter… she’s been through hell based on her file. Does she forgive you for that?” 
A beat. Fists curled by his side. There were many things his daughter hadn’t forgiven him for, and her treatment in the Navy was most likely one of them. But, he couldn’t even be sure. He hadn’t ever gotten a chance to ask her. Just the result of him trying to fulfill a promise to one of his closest friends. He had lost her too, and then Bradley and Pete’s own daughter, Nicolette. Just one after another, never to gain them back; no matter how hard he had tried to with the two.
credit: I don't own any characters but Nicolette Mitchell, and any other OCs that may appear and their storylines. I have no affiliation with Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick. All rights go to the rightful owners.
Tag list: @toracsanji
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twigg96 · 2 years ago
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CONTINUED!!!!
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Metalocalypse Seasonal Zine
Join my community - Daryl Dixon lovelies (open to all TWD fans and fans of all types :3)
HCs/Fics:
Cryptid HCs (kloktober 2022) Dethklok
Leather and Lace - Daryl Dixon X Reader (Fluff)
Food Poisoning - Daddy! Daryl X Reader
Two Can Play That Game - Daryl X Reader (Jealousy Angst)
Where’d Ya Hear That At?! - Daddy! Daryl
Wedding Day HCs - Dethklok
Ashes - Negan X Reader (Angst, Song Fic)
Right Here With You - Daryl X Reader (Domestic Fluff, Lilian’s Birth Story)
Now Blow - Daddy! Daryl (feat. Beau)
Snippet! The Book of Merle - Prologue
Cuddly HCs - Dethklok
Since the Beginning - Merle X Reader
Separate Ways - Daryl X Reader (Heavy angst)
Don’t Push It - Daryl X Reader (Protective Daryl)
Merle Name HCs - a continuation of the Daryl Name HC
Daryl name HC
Blame - Arthur Morgan visits Hosea's grave to grieve
The boys feeling their baby kick - Metalocalypse
NSFW HCs/fics:
Being Walked In On Dethklok
Within These Walls - Daryl X Reader
Whumptober
Never Take Your Eyes Off Me - Day 1 (Daryl X Reader)
Even if Death Do Us Part - Day 2 (Daryl X Reader)
The Day We Lost You - Day 25 (Daryl X Reader feat. Phoenix & Aaron)
HC Alphabet Fluffy Alphabet
Pickles
Letters C & S
Charles
Full Alphabet
Toki
Full Alphabet
Murderface
Full Alphabet
Daryl Dixon
Full alphabet
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Naughty Alphabet 18+
William Murderface’s
D, G, K, and V
C, E, N, and T
Daryl Dixon Full
Chapter Fics
Ride 'Em Cowboy (Daryl x Male! Reader)
Being Family is a Promise [Ch 1]
It's a Promise we Keep Through Thick and Thin [Ch 2]
You know I Still Love You (TWD/SPN Fic) [Ao3 Links]
I Set a Course with Winds of Fortune [Ch. 1]
On a Stormy Sea of Moving Emotion [Ch. 2]
Just to get a Glimpse Beyond the Illusion [Ch. 3]
My Eyes could See but I still was a Blind Man [Ch. 4]
There
Chapter 1
Works Master list 💕
Hello my sweet lovelies. It has come to my attention by some very lovely mutuals that I should make a master list of all of the works I have posted here on Tumblr. First and foremost I would like to say I do try to reblog most of my original posts and fics over on my second page @bionicpancake00. However none of that is in order nor is that sorted. So I am making this list, categorizing the works, and will be posting this and will be updating it each month with each new entry. (Hopefully lol) so let’s get started. Shall we 💕😊
First and foremost I am going to post my AO3 HERE. Most of my long form content that is not X reader ends up there. As of right now I have been writing mainly Metalocalypse fics but I have started to write a Walking Dead/Far Cry 5 Cross over fic that I am thinking of posting there. If anyone has any request for HCs, x reader fics, longform fics, or simple suggestions I am always accepting them either in my asks or my DMs. Linked HERE is what I do ask my requester's include, just simple things that I believe most writers ask for.
Metalocalypse Dethklok HCs Relationship HCs
Dethklok with a neurodivergent S/O
Dethklok with an Autistic S/O
Dethklok with a Bipolar S/O
Sharing a bed with Dethklok
Dethklok with a smol tactile S/O
Breaking up with Dethklok part 1
Breaking up with Deathklok part 2
Dethklok with a really shy S/O
Dating Pickles
Dethklok dating a belly dancer
Dethklok helping their partner through a monthly cycle
Foot rubs and massages
The boys caring for a sick/injured S/O
Dethklok caring for a sick partner
Dethklok with a disabled S/O
The boys caring for an S/O with chronic migraines
Proposing
Wearing their shirts
Fear of public relationship in fame
Wedding reaction and Song HC
FLUFFY HCs
Dethklok caring for crying S/O
Dethklok dealing with an S/O's annoying coworker
Dethklok & Mags with a Goth S/O
The Boys receiving head scritches from S/O
S/O is Charles' Daughter
Dethklok with a crush on a shy S/O
PETNAMES
MORE PETNAMES
Dethklok with a British crush
Pickles & Magnus with S/Os who likes cute things
Dethklok helping an S/O who's mensurating
The boys with a nerdy S/O who infodumps
Dethklok with a happy/cheerful S/O
The boys realizing their partner has a angel wing tattoo
Their first "I love you"
Trying to impress their crush
Sharing a pink bedroom with Dethklok
Pickles with a S/O w/ scars on their thighs (TW: Scars)
Pregnancy/Parent HCs
Dick Knubbler, Dr. Rockzo, and Magnus as the father
Dethklok Pregnant (MPREG)
The boys as a dad to a teenage girl
Papa Murderface HC (Lullabies)
Papa Murderface HCs (Being a dad)
Dethklok Daddies
Random HCs
William Murderface cooking HC (Based off of @polyklok's post)
A Potato Flew around my Room Vine
Dr. Rockzo HCs
Dr. Rockzo Relationship HC
Yandere Magnus ( CW: Touches upon abusive relationships)
What the boys smell like
Dickface HC
Pickles' Rats
Dick Knubbler HCs
The boys as yanderes
Helping Toki when he's having a flashback
DRAMA The boys trying to steal each other's partners
Sleep HCs with Murderface
When their partner has a lot of stuffies on the bed
How old are these dudes
Skwisgaar HCs
Nathan HCs
Murderace HCs
Toki HCs
Pickles HCs
Magnus & Nathan HC (Based off @folkdevilism's post)
Continuation of ^ This
Toki's Christmas HC
Dethklok's favorite football team
Witchsona HC
Dethklok's Zodiac
Just some art I made
Just a little tag game about ships I did once
Toki name HC
Does Dethklok Tip?
Nsfw HCs
Birthday gifts
Dethklok with a Bratty S/O
Murderface's first time with his S/O
Favorite Sex Positions
The boys reacting to a loud S/O
The boys finding out they're their partner's first... everything
Dethklok Fics
Eyes like Diamonds (Dickface)
Until Next Time (Charles X Reader)
By the Light of the Library (Dethklok & Reader PLATONIC)
You're all I need Babe (Dickface)
Take Me To Church (Skwistok)
Just Us (Tickles)
The Walking Dead Daryl Daryl Dixon X Reader
You're kind of a MILF Huh? (Parents! Daryl X Reader FLUFF)
I Should Have Been There (Daryl X Reader ANGST)
Can I Trust You Dad? (Daryl being a dad)
Spring Chicken (Parents! Daryl X Reader)
Thank you for the Music (Daryl X Reader FLUFF)
In the Nick of Time (Daryl X Pregnant Reader ANGST)
Princess (Daddy! Daryl X Reader/ Daryl being a dad)
Beau as a middle child HC
Strangers like me (Daryl X Reader from Merle’s POV)
Midnight Moonshine (Pissed off! Drunken! Daryl X Reader)
Into the Darkness, I become Stronger (Daddy Daryl X Injured! Reader HURT/COMFORT with the tiniest SMUT)
Stranger Things
Steve Harrington HCs
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call-sign-shark · 2 years ago
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From Hell || A Top Gun!Secret Agents AU
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Next part
Pairing: Pete Mitchell x Villain!reader [no Y/N, callsign Hell]
Jake Seresin x Villain!Reader
Dagger Squad x Villain!/Reader (platonic)
Summary: The U.S. Department of Defense hired Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and his young aviators to form the DAGGERS: a squad of deadly secret agents. One day, they are called for a special mission: a crimelord called Wolfman stole the plans of a new generation of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, no one ever managed to catch this sadistic criminal. Their only hope lies in a former assassin Captain Mitchell threw in jail years ago. Who is that girl? No one knows her identity or her past.  All they know is that she worked for Wolfman and is a fearful and remorseless killer. Some called her Death. Others called her Fate. But most people call her Hellhound. 
A brute from hell, coming to devour them.
Theme song: Demon in a Bottle - Neon Nash
Notes: This is a +18 story. It contains extreme violence, mention of torture, dark themes, and sexual scenes. MINORS DNI!
admittedly, Hell is more an OC than reader, but hope you'll still enjoy the ride. Let's say she's your evil counterpart!
•─────⋅♢ ♢⋅─────•
PROLOGUE || Demon in a Bottle
“Shit, Cyclone. You can’t ask me that.”
“I’m sorry Maverick. I am pretty sure you know we don’t have any other choice left. She is our only hope to arrest Wolfman.” 
Captain Mitchell was pacing back and forth in the office, as a lion trapped in a cage. He pinched the bridge of his nose, plagued by a incipient headache. How could Beau Simpson dare to suggest such a solution? He understood that his team’s situation was a delicate issue; and he also understood that the Government grew more impatient days after day, but accepting this offer was not a rational decision. It was far too dangerous, even for Pete Mitchell himself. He looked up to stare at Beau Simpson and slowly shook his head from left to right, rejecting the idea.
“She’s extremely dangerous, and you know it. Besides, she is mentally unstable. She could snap at us any time.” He insisted.
His emerald eyes dived into Cyclone’s, silently begging him to change his mind. He who, since Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw’s death, remained unmoved by stressful situations was nervously scratching his neck. The admiral had never seen Maverick so anxious. Such behavior was suspicious - he was hiding something. Cyclone straightened his back and furrowed his brows.
“Maverick. Something happened with her, am I right?” 
“Why don’t you read the folder you have between your hands instead of asking?” Pete retorted in a calm voice, then he looked away to stare at an invisible spot on the wall.
Cyclone’s fingers were absent-mindedly caressing the folder’s black cover. The word “CONFIDENTIAL” had been written on it with a thick red marker pen: “I could open it and read its content, it’s true. Yet, I’d rather know your side of the story before discovering what is written inside this criminal records.” 
Pete took a deep breath through his nose, taking advantage of this short period to organize his next words properly. Then, his focus shifted back on Cyclone: “I threw her in jail.” 
“Care to explain?” Cyclone frowned, surprised.  How could he, a naval aviator, could be responsible for her arrest? 
“Do you remember when I was in Afghanistan and then in Iraq? I lied. I was there, but not to do my job as a pilot. It was there that the Government started to train me as a secret service agent. When I came back to Top Gun as an instructor I hadn’t been called for a while.”
“And what’s the link between you and her?” 
“Well, a few years ago the Government sent me to Serbia for a spying mission. I had to collect precise information to stop a case of human trafficking. And I came across her. To be true, she came across me first.” Captain Mitchell clenched his jaws.
“And what happened next?” 
“Someone had hired her to kill me. I managed to escape each of her murder attempts but it lasted a while. We were playing cat and mouse for months before I could arrest her. She had been sent in a secreet maximum-security prison. After these events, I never heard from her again.” 
“Well, shit.” Cyclone could not hold it anymore, shaken by such a revelation.
He understood Maverick's reluctance better now that he knew the whole story that linked him to the prisoner. The rest of the mission was going to be difficult. The admiral sighed and opened up the folder to discover the criminal record of the assassin. His eyebrows frowned more and more as he read the different papers.  Two short minutes passed before Cyclone spoke again.
“Abductions,  alleged torture and acts of barbarism, murders… She even killed a pimp by unleashing starving dogs at him. What a psycho.” Cyclone pulled himself together, “ Your so-called friend is no angel. I do understand your reluctance to work with her. Tell me, do you know something else about her? At least her real name?”  
“People call her Hellhound. Hell, for short. That’s all I know.” 
Pete nervously pressed his hand over his right side, where lied the scar the woman had left when she stabbed him. He still remembered the sadistic sparkles that had shone in her odd pink eyes when her blade had pierced his flesh, right under the white fabric of his shirt. Her psychotic and sinister laughter still echoed in his most recent nightmares.
“I do understand your feeling, you have to believe me. I really do. But I cannot go against this order. It comes from the Government. I am really sorry. Now listen up: a car will drive you to the prison. As for the DAGGERS, I will talk to them in person as soon as you leave.” 
“It can’t be real.” Pete whispered to himself, pressing his hand on his forehead.
This whole situation could not be real. He would probably wake up in his bed safe and sound, wouldn’t he? Yet, Maverick did not manage to wake up from this terrible nightmare even after gathering all his willpower. The Government left him no other choice than working with the killer who had tried to murder him so many times. Captain Mitchell simply nodded and left Cyclone’s office, frustrated. When he came out of the building, he could indeed notice that a car was waiting for him right in front of the entrance .It was a large black sedan with tinted windows, the kind of car he had only seen in movies before working as a spy. He sighed and sat on the backseat.
“Hey Mav’? Don’t worry, everything’s gonna be fine.”
“Hm.”
Pete was watching the landscape go by through the car’s window. He tried to allow himself a bit of rest, lulled by the engine’s purrs but the mere idea of facing Hell sent shivers down his spine. He did not remember her face quite clearly, but the souvenir of her bright pink irises had never left his mind. He felt like he could spot them in every dark corner that the car passed by. His survival instinct was whispering him that she was there, lurking in the shadows and ready to pounce on him. Maverick glanced behind him in a reflex he could not control. He knew it was stupid, but the urge had been stronger than his rational mind. The car stopped, causing Pete to tense. He stayed on the backseat for a while, eyes shut. He was trying hard to channel his emotions. Maverick opened his magnificent green eyes again: his soft features had turned to stone. His face adorned a severe look. He got out of the car, standing upright with all his height. He raised his head towards the titanic grey building that was facing him.
“Blackhood maximum-security prison.”  He muttered to himself.
Maverick took another deep breath and headed to the door.
He was ready to face the demon that had been haunting him for years.
•─────⋅♢ ♢⋅─────•
You opened your eyes, upset by a strange and sudden feeling.
Your bright pink eyes carefully observed your surrounding, bathed in twilight. You were looking for the source of disturbance that had disrupted your meditation, but nothing seemed unusual. You snort, amused. They had left you to rot in this cage for so long that your brain was probably trying to create its own distractions.
You were hanging upside-down in your cage, just like a gigantic bat. Your knees were firmly locked around the upper bars. Your long and entangled blonde mane swayed in thin air with each of your movements. Then, you frowned.
No, it was not your erratic brain. You did hear something.
The noise was footsteps coming closer.
Was it the guards?
You shivered. Damn guards, only coming to force-feed you or to wash you with an ice cold water of a hosepipe.
No, it was not the guards. Usually, they would make far more noise. 
A carnivorous smile stretched your chapped lips. You could not tell what was coming but you felt a surge of excitement. 
•─────⋅♢ ♢⋅─────•
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here" William Shakespeare.
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double-j · 2 years ago
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*STARDUST REBLOG CHALLENGE SEPTEMBER WEEK 4 MASTERLIST*
[FOR ALL FICS, CHECK THE STARDUST REBLOG CHALLENGE TAG]
*reminder to please heed the author’s warnings on individual fics!*
~ reposting september and october by week because the links were only working on mobile ~
TGM: JAKE HANGMAN SERESIN FICS
wingman, or more? p. 3 & p. 4 from @thebeautifullydamnedone​​ 
he loves me, he loves me not from @make-me-imagine
come over here and overwhelm me p. 9 from @anniesocsandgeneralstore
fake dating with hangman from @callsignvalley
self defense from @thesewordsareallihavetogive
a drunk confession (part of the flyboy universe which you need to read) from @kryptonitejelly
wingman, or more? p. 3 & p. 4 from @/thebeautifullydamnedone
major mistakes p. 2, p. 3, & p. 4 from @archivallyfound09
satisfied p. 1, p. 2, p. 3, p. 4, p. 5, p. 6, p. 7, & p. 8 from @geniedocroe​​ 
you again p. 1, & p. 2 from @ereardon​​
when we were young p. 1 & p. 2 from @andreaaamustdie​​
noughts and crosses p. 3 & p. 4 from @poetryinsilence​​
icarus and the moon p. 1 & p. 2 from @/jupitercomet
the offer (from the best benefits series) from @/writercole
adore you from @/winchesterandpie​​
party of two p. 1 from @wombtotombx​​
“you could punch me in the face and i would still want you ngl” from @seasonsbloom
TGM: BRADLEY ROOSTER BRADSHAW FICS
wishful drinking from @/thebeautifullydamnedone
something to come home to from @abliafina-18782​
game night from @dreamingathighaltitude​ 
don’t think, just do from @evansrogerskitten
the arrangement from @croimilis​ 
stay? from @winchesterandpie 
is it working for you? p. 2, p. 3, p. 4, & p. 5 from @roosterforme
till forever falls apart & i’ll always feel the way i felt from @jupitercomet
one for the history books p. 10 from @pisupsala
trouble in paradise p. 15 from @sunlightmurdock
plus one, hands on you & broken promises (from the all or nothing series) from @princessmisery666
the beach disaster & the blackout from @feralforfrank
skyrockets in flight, afternoon delight from @gretagerwigsmuse
drive my car from @gogobootz1
“you know you don’t have to” from @topguncortez
your hands only. from @scoutwritesworld​ 
speak now (or forever hold your peace) from @softspiderling
enchanted from @/feralforfrank​
jealousy, jealousy from @/feralforfrank
faking it p. 5 from @tongue-like-a-razor
show me from @/tongue-like-a-razor
ceasefire p. 1 from @/sunlightmurdock
she's a heart full of rain (red lips like a flame) (from the storm warning series, plz go read) from @hufflepuffprincesse
steady p. 1, p. 2, & p. 3 from @/callsignvalley
TGM: ROBERT BOB FLOYD FICS
enlightened from @writercole
TGM: MISC FICS
one night in fightertown ft. beau cyclone simpson from @zablife 
NHL FICS
that which we are, we are prologue from @spine-buster​ (n.mackinnon)
you are in love from @raysofcrosby​ (m.tkachuk)
the seasons are changing and so are we from @matthewtkachuk​ (t.seguin)
credence (j.anderson) from @princessphilly
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beauideals · 3 years ago
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Demo Announcement
The demo for Beau Ideals will be released December 26, 2021!
This initial release will only include the Prologue of the story, a ~10k word introduction to the world of Beau Ideals. Expect to see updates in the coming days on content warnings, age restriction warnings, and more on our pinned post, link below.
Link to Beau Ideals Pinned Post
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cornbake · 4 years ago
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Master List
Making a Master List rn bc I have more fanfic ideas I want to do in the future. Also so Shattered Pieces has links to all the chapters.
Shattered Pieces
Prologue 
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Mighty Nein
Beau
Child reader - Introductions
Caduceus
Child reader - Introductions
Caleb
Child reader - Introductions
Fjord
Child reader - Introductions
Jester
Child reader - Introductions
Vox Machina
HC Quiet as a Mouse
Percy
One Night too Short PT 1
One Night too Short PT 2
Hell held within your hands PT 1
Child Reader - Introductions
Pike
Child Reader - Introductions
Scanlan
Child Reader - Introductions
Grog
Child reader - Introductions
Vax'ildan
Spiteful Savior PT 1
Campaign 3
Dorian
Dance like nobody's watching
Rules
No NSFW, I do not write anything of the sort.
Angst, hurt/comfort, violence, and death are all fine.
Child requests are fine, I will not do anything romantic with child requests.
Less of a rule and more of a warning, I am very Ace/Aro so for more romantic heavy asks, it might take a while and it might not be great. Just letting you know, bc I don't understand that stuff very well!!
I am a full time collage student and have a very heavy issues with english based skills. Things will take awhile at times and it won't be the best, errors and mistakes will happen.
I am mostly an artist over a writer, so I tend to do a lot more with art then writing. I can only ever write when I have the mood to do so.
I only write for Critical Role sorry. Not very interested in other fandoms as much.
I have seen all of the animated show and campaign 2. Working on campaign 1 atm and am behind on 3.
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beauregardlionett · 3 years ago
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from the clouds - prologue & ch i
AO3 Link
Our story begins—like so many others—in Wildemount. Descending through the cloudy overhang hovering over the Truscan Vale, rising along the Bromkiln Hills towards Mount Mentiri in the Cyrios Mountains. Between these points sat Kamordah. This, however, is not where the story begins. Deeper into the woods of the mountains, travelling north of Kamordah along the edges of the Cyrios Mountains, were numerous streams and rivers. Many of the waterways hidden among the warm mountains bore names long forgotten. Should one be lucky enough, they might encounter the spirit of a waterway and learn their name.
Most were not lucky.
According to legend, the spirits of the rivers were benevolent, but cautious. Too many of them fell by the sword of glory hungry adventurers, or became tamed and twisted to the will of mages. It was rare these days to encounter the water spirits known as Imugi. So rare, the mundane populations nearly forgot the name itself in the present.
But the dragons were not gods, and just because they were forgotten did not mean they ceased to exist. There existed several breeds of dragons—some better known than others. Imugi, however, were not full dragons—they were considered of lower stature and lesser power than their fully dragon counterparts. Imugi required outside intervention to become fully realized dragons—an orb of power known as a yeouiju. That, or to have lived and acquired knowledge over one thousand years of life.
In a twist of sick irony, the god that created the Imugi faded from knowledge and power over time in the material plane, lost to legend and memory. Their power waned as it was wont to do, and the yeouiju sent hurtling from the heavens to the material plane came less and less frequently.
This, however, is still not where the story begins.
It begins in the fringe woods north of Kamordah and due east of Mount Mentiri, on the banks of a tumbling river. Lined with trees whose ancient roots stretched above and below the soil to the water, their branches housing birds and fauna of all sorts. Between the current and the river rocks swam fish and otters, beavers and frogs. Flowers grew a short trot from the banks, and wildlife visited the river for the life it begat.
There, tucked away and hidden among the rocky face of a short overhang, was a hollow. Screened over by trailing moss and lichen, an absent traveller would miss the opening entirely.
This is where the story begins.
-
Beauregard does not remember how she learned her name.
Her creation was a simple thing. The river she called home came into existence a couple hundred years ago. She crawled out from between the river rocks beneath the tumbling current, willed into existence by a god fading from human memory. Her name—her real name—was something she had always known from the moment awareness set in. But the trees and the animals that took up residence on her banks named her Beauregard.
The spirits of the forest that lived around her took care of Beau, taught her their common tongue instead of the warbling, watery language Beau spoke intrinsically. The fish understood when she ate a few of them, and the red-tailed doe that visited the water allowed Beau to play with her fawns. They all encouraged Beau, cheered her on, as she stumbled through comprehending her powers, her abilities, and her frustrating limitations.
Beau could not fly, nor stray too far into the woods from her river without weakening and losing her breath. She learned her lesson the hard way when she was still small and less than twenty years old, carried home by a dryad who had found her gasping and grey less than half a mile from the river. She could not maintain her true Imugi form for too long, lest it sap at her inner reserves of power and magic. And though the river birthed her, though the river was her, Beau’s control over it was abysmally lacking for the first fifty years of her life.
But the spirits all kept encouraging her, pushed Beau to keep practicing. In return, when Beau finally had a handle on it all, she protected them. When the mortals came with axes and gleaming eyes, Beau shifted and roared and scared them away from the trees. The anglers set their nets, and the hunters set their traps, and Beau sabotaged them all. She stalked the banks of her river, eyes mirroring the clear, rushing blue of the water at her feet, and refused to give an inch. This was her river, her friends, and she was the guardian. Nothing would get in her way.
Despite it all, Beau was not content. Her chest began to feel hollow after a hundred years in her river. The monotony of her days, the metaphorical chain at her ankles, tethering her to these banks, was dreary. She longed to fly, to explore the heavens above, and to wield a storm at her fingertips. Beau knew—just knew—that Imugi could do more, be more. The stories and the knowledge all sat inside of her without prompt. Beau needed a yeouiju, needed that orb of power to help her rise above the treetops.
The dryads let Beau climb up their trunks and among their branches. They let her wiggle through the topmost canopy of their crown and witness the wind on her cheeks and dancing through her hair. The thrill in her veins from the dizzying height tasted of flying in the paltriest sense of the word. But it was enough to fuel her determination.
Which was why Beau remained so determined to find a yeouiju of her own, to ascend into higher stature and power. However, she knew the dwindling knowledge of her kind afforded fewer chances to Imugi like her to gain a yeouiju. Lack of knowledge and faith meant the god that created Imugi was fading from power and existence. It took more out of them to create yeouiju now than it had hundreds of years before.
These facts did not daunt Beau’s resolve, though.
Regardless of the tedium, every day she swam the length of her river charge, eyes on the heavens. She would consult schools of fish on their numbers, give them directions, rearrange river rocks, and tend to the flora on the banks of her river. She would protect the dryads, aide the birds with their nests, collect sticks and branches for the otters and beavers, and befriend the visiting fauna. Throughout each daily chore, Beau waited. At night, when the current babbled calmly over her stones and banks, she watched the heavens. The stars would twinkle back at her, each distant flash stoking a false flame of hope in Beau’s chest. Each time her aging heart would leap, thinking this might be her falling orb, her chance at last.
Each morning, the sun greeted her dwindling patience with empty warmth.
“Haven’t you ever heard the term, a watched pot never boils?” Caleb asked her one evening. He ruffled the feathers of one wing as he groomed his beak through his primaries.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you spend too much time eavesdropping on humans?” Beau retorted, voice sharp and bitter. Caleb did not rise to the bait, but he gave her a knowing look before returning to his task.
Caleb was an eagle, and a handsome one at that. His chest dappled white down into a russet color that encompassed his lower torso, legs, and coverts. His secondary and primary feathers dappled white and dark grey, long and prideful. Caleb’s eyes were a point of interest, however; a deep, beady brown shot through with a violet blue. Beau had asked him about his eyes once, and Caleb said they were odd for a bird like him.
He was intelligent and annoying, but an excellent teacher in all things beyond her banks, and Beau loved him like family. Granted, it had taken them until Beau was in her early seventies and a near brush with death to get there, but they got along fine now. Sometimes, when Caleb was in a good mood, he would let Beau assist in his meticulous grooming process.
Beau knew all the spirits who lived on and visited her banks, but there were a select few she kept closer than the rest. Caleb was the only one of that few who did not live on her shores permanently. He came and went with the wind and the weather, bringing Beau stories and trinkets from his travels. She had long ago learned to tamp down on the bitter jealousy with each journey Caleb brought back.
Summers were the worst, when the storms rolled in with warmer weather that made Beau roil in vicious hatred. They were awesome displays of power, and she knew dragons controlled these storms—dragons that had once been Imugi like her. If she focused hard enough, Beau could summon a mild cloud cover, but never more. She could not bring forth rain, let alone thunder and lightning. Her powers barely extended past the banks of her river.
“That looked great,” Caduceus encouraged from the banks of the river, his tone a pleasant drawl. Beau huffed with frustration as her chest heaved with exertion. Water droplets clung to her bare calves where she stood in the river, hair a loose mess as tendrils hung in her eyes and stuck to her sweaty temples.
“Don’t patronize me, Caduceus,” Beau snapped, clenching her fists so hard her blunt nails almost broke the skin of her palms. “That wasn’t any better than last time.”
“Maybe not,” Caduceus agreed as he lifted the lid on his white stone teapot to inspect the state of its contents. “But it’s better than two weeks ago. Progress is progress.”
Beau wanted to yell at him for his constant positivity, his endless faith in her. But she stopped short, knowing he only meant well and was not actively trying to patronize her. Besides, he was right. Two weeks ago, Beau had struggled to maintain the rolling fog she created for two minutes. Now she could hold it for almost ten. But it wasn’t enough. Every attempt she made today in trying to raise the fog higher, to make it into clouds that would rain, had failed. The cover never lifted higher than her knees.
Giving another frustrated huff, Beau kicked at the water, only growing more upset when it parted around her foot and she missed entirely. It was a funny thing, her relationship with the river. She existed as the river, and the river lived in her, but they also existed as two separate entities. When she stepped out of the water, it did not follow. She could ask the water to do things for her, but it did not always listen. Beau tried to explain it once to Caduceus and the other dryads, ended up having an existential crisis, and never brought it up again.
Trudging from the water and up onto the banks, Beau plopped down in the grass beside Caduceus with a mighty exhale. The second her feet left the water, the bone deep exhaustion set in. Every time, it reminded Beau why she shouldn’t push herself and tug at her magic for hours on end—even after all these years.
Caduceus passed her a steaming cup of tea with a knowing look and a gentle pat to her damp kneecap.
“That’s probably enough practicing for one day. Drink up and then maybe we can track down the others for lunch.”
“Yeah,” Beau mumbled around the rim of her teacup as she blew on the steaming liquid. Her face felt tight and flush with disappointment. “Sure.”
The summer days passed in a blur of scorching sunlight and overcast rainstorms. Beau took every opportunity afforded to practice her magic, to draw upon the well inside her until it sat nearly dry. It wasn’t a healthy or wise idea, but Beau had never been known for her wisdom.
On one such day summer day, a storm raging with a rare ferocity above, Beau lay coiled in her hollow, the water dappled scales along her spine shifting restlessly. The stone offered shelter from the wind and rain howling outside the walls. The lichen and moss whipped back and forth with wild abandon in the storm, the shallow water at the front of her hollow disturbed by the movement and the rain. Beau cared for none of it. Bright blue eyes trained on the clouds, she tracked each strike of lightning, shuddered with every crack of thunder. Her mind was far from the thrashing lichen, from the soaked banks of her river, longing to know the thrill of controlling the storm.
There was a flash among the clouds, vivid white and searing purple and achingly bright. Beau’s head popped up, eyes wide and nose twitching as the burn of ozone filled the air. Thunder raged like a mournful cry and rattled Beau’s bones.
Something glowing fell from the darkened clouds.
Heart racing and veins throbbing with adrenaline, Beau shot from her hollow with a speed unknown. Heedless of the surrounding storm, Beau’s eyes locked in on the orb hurtling from the heavens toward her.
This was her chance. This was her yeouiju.
Beau could now fly in the loosest sense of the word—a discovery made a mere month ago that had filled her with joy but now was a frustration. She often made it to just above the treetops and no higher, lingering in the air for a few minutes before she had to return to the water. Without a yeouiju granting her stronger powers, she could not make it higher into the heavens. Despite this, Beau pushed herself now, straining her ability as much as possible, draining her magical well dry. Desperately, Beau pushed herself to climb higher, claws extending toward this glowing orb, this shining future.
The yeouiju hurtled closer, burning and beautiful. Beau’s heart sung in her chest with victory as her claws closed around the object just above the treetops. It was heavier than anticipated, more tangible than she thought an orb of power might be. She didn’t care, though, because this was it.
Beau didn’t care, even as her clawed foot dipped with the weight of the orb, dragging her whole body a foot or two from the sky toward the ground. She was going to fly.
But instead of the thrill of power, the surge of ascension, the weightlessness of true flight, Beau felt a static buzz singing through her veins. It seared through her as though she had grabbed hold of lightning, whiting out her vision for an instant.
She only realized the object in her claws was not an orb at all as the buzz faded away.
Confused and frustrated, unable to stay in the air any longer, Beau wove her way back to the river, magic all but depleted. Depositing her charge on the damp banks of her home, Beau coiled around herself until she stood small and human on the wet sand.
Through the sheets of rain, she glared down at what she thought would be her yeouiju, finding instead the hulking figure of a woman. Her face lay turned away from Beau, her long, thick hair the blinding white of lightning stuck to her skin like a curtain, obscuring her features. The woman’s fitted tunic was a deep black, smoldering in places and crisscrossed with straps of dark leather. But her arms were bare, the skin alabaster in hue, a stark contrast to the black of her tunic and the rest of her outfit. Finally catching Beau’s attention, though, was her right arm. The skin was marred, covered in sporadic, spiraling veins of fresh scars—evidence of lightning damage—but somehow twisted and wrong.
Unable to help her frustrated curiosity, Beau moved around to stand on the other side of the woman, crouching by her head. Without caution, Beau gathered a handful of the sopping hair from the woman’s face and moved it aside. Slack features and more alabaster skin greeted Beau beneath the hair, a solid blue line of a tattoo curving over a strong chin and down a sloping neck. An oozing gash on the woman’s temple bled sluggishly as her breath stuttered from her lungs.
Beau could not pretend to understand what had happened or how this woman fell from the sky. But she sighed, short and sharp, as she knelt beside the woman in the rain. Lightning stretched across the sky so viciously that for a moment, it was bright as day. Beau flinched as the echoing thunder followed a mere second behind and seemed to shake the very ground.
Her hollow sat nearby, and Beau knew despite her frustration, she would not leave the woman in the rain to die. She was not that heartless.
After some clumsy maneuvering, Beau had the woman draped over her back, the bulk of her figure swallowing Beau’s slighter frame. Her knees shook as she walked over the wet, unsteady sand, but she stayed resolutely upright. Ducking through the lichen screen of her hollow, Beau only stumbled twice with the relief of being out of the wind and lashing rain.
Setting the woman down unceremoniously by the shallow water’s edge, Beau cleaned and dressed the head wound as best as she was able to. Uncertain and wary of the lightning scars, Beau settled on covering them with a healing salve and resolved to ask the dryads for help in the morning.
Scooting to the farthest possible corner of her hollow opposite the unconscious woman, Beau pressed her back to the stone. Bitter and angry and upset, Beau pulled her knees to her chest and folded her arms over her legs. She glared over her forearms at the woman until her eyelids betrayed her and Beau slipped into sleep.
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crossroads-of-the-raven · 8 days ago
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017-b Beau | Murder Drones
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jovialyouthmusic · 5 years ago
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Girl’s Night Out
A multiple AU piece of fun featuring my female LIs
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Elizabeth Dalgleish wakes in an unfamiliar place in the company of three strangers. What they have to tell her will change her life completely - but she will have a lot of fun too!
Word Count 1559
A/N This might not make sense if you’ve not read my other fics, but I will try to explain.  All four of my female LI’s are going to meet in cyberspace along the lines of the Many Lives of Drake Walker and have one heck of a party. Here Elizabeth (star of my regency period drama Past Times) wakes to find herself in the company of Lucy from Two’s Company Three’s Allowed, Charlotte of Charlotte’s Choice and Sophia of Protect and Serve, and they have some ‘splaining to do…
Prologue
Elizabeth Dalgleish lay quite still. She had fallen asleep to dreams of her Captain; of the kisses they shared, of the delicious tingles that ran up her arm when their hands touched, of the warm feeling in her belly and in her womanhood when she looked deep into his eyes. But she had woken to unfamiliar voices.
‘Okay Sophia, we’re tired of hearing what a stallion Bastien is, and what a massive penis he has. Let me tell you, it’s not what you’ve got, it’s how you use it’ The first voice was regal and clipped, and as she lay quietly trying to work out what was going on, another voice piped up. It was another woman, and her voice was sultry and deep.
‘You’ve not lived until you’ve had two men in your bed, believe me – and one of them a King’
‘You two are unbelievable. Just because you’ve both got titles doesn’t mean a thing. Bas and I do just fine thankyou, we don’t need a palace to live in, or a manor or fancy titles.’
‘That’s cruel, Sophia’ the first voice went on ‘I was born into it, I had no choice’
‘More like written into it’ the second voice chimed in.
Elizabeth struggled to understand what was going on. What was this talk of other men? She opened her eyes a little to see what was going on. The three women had their backs to her, and were dressed strangely. Had she somehow woken up in the future? What could these new fashions be? Frantically she ran her hands over her long muslin nightdress, knowing how completely different she must look from the other women. She didn’t follow fashion slavishly like some she knew – but how embarrassing to be wearing last year’s dress when meeting strangers. One of the women turned and jumped slightly. She had long dark wavy hair and her dress was of the deepest purple hue she had ever seen. She blushed to see that her legs were bare.
‘Hold on, this one’s waking up’ she said ‘How come she’s self aware? Les has barely written half a dozen chapters’
‘Careful, you’ll frighten her’ The woman who had spoken of a palace had long flowing blonde hair, and came to her side ‘It’s okay darling, we won’t hurt you’ Her accent was familiar – she was very obviously English although she couldn’t place her regional accent.
‘W – where am I? Who are you?’ Elizabeth sat up. The room she was in was strange – it was white, brightly lit, and she lay on a white padded table. The other women sat on odd chairs made of a peculiar white substance like ivory, but the shapes flowed and curved and were far too large to be of that material.
‘Oh boy’ said the woman with long dark hair ‘how are we going to explain this? She’s not even from the same time period’
‘Let’s start with names’ said the blonde woman, smiling at her reassuringly ‘I’m Sophia, and this is Lucy - and Charlotte. Queen Charlotte’ Elizabeth sat up even straighter, alarmed, then ducked her head in an impromptu bow.
‘Queen? Your majesty – I’m Elizabeth’ she started timidly.
‘Hey, don’t forget I’m Queen too’ Lucy chimed in.
‘Frigging royalty’ muttered Sophia, then louder she added ‘Don’t worry darling, you don’t have to bow or curtsy – their titles are entirely fictional’
‘Fictional?’ Charlotte burst out ‘How dare you!’
‘Yes, well explain to Elizabeth here how you’re both queen of the same country in the same timeline’ Sophia said sarcastically, and Charlotte subsided. Elizabeth swung her legs over the side of the table to face the other three. She crossed her hands over her chest
‘I’m so sorry, I’m not dressed properly’ she apologised ‘I’d just gone to bed, and then – well, I woke up here’
‘Oh don’t worry sweetie’ Lucy said ‘You can wear whatever you want to – just think about it’
‘I – whatever do you mean?’ Elizabeth protested.
‘Well, like this’ Lucy said, closing her eyes.
‘Wait Lucy – don’t…’ Charlotte’s tone was urgent. To Elizabeth’s amazement, her dress changed colour – and style. She shrieked and her hands flew to her throat in alarm.
‘Witchcraft!’ she cried, terrified ‘What hellish nightmare is this?’
‘Calm down Elizabeth, it’s alright’ Sophia said soothingly, but her heart hammered in her ribcage and her breath grew short. ‘Okay, okay, it’s all a dream’ she said ‘Close your eyes and think of where you were when you went to sleep. Deep slow breaths now…’ Elizabeth closed her eyes and obeyed her.
‘Okay, open your eyes’ came Sophia’s voice as she pictured her bedroom. On opening them again, she was comforted to see she was indeed still in her very own bedroom, sitting on the edge of her four poster bed. The other bed beside it was empty, and she wondered where her younger sister, Amelia, was. The other three women were still there, so she drew a shuddering breath and stood up to go over to her closet and pull on a robe.
‘What are you all doing here?’ she asked, making her voice firm even though internally she was far from calm. ‘If this is a dream why don’t I know you all?’ Charlotte sighed
‘Do you only dream of people you know?’ she asked. Elizabeth furrowed her brow in thought
‘Not always - oh, I see your point. But why are you dressed like that? Is it some sort of foreign fashion – or a costume party?’ Sophia looked at Lucy sharply
‘Not exactly’ she said ‘I really don’t know how to explain things to you.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the mattress for Elizabeth to join her. She looked around the room and her eyes alighted on a book next to the bed. ‘Do you read novels – romances, Elizabeth?’ She nodded, blushing
‘Mama tells me they are not for refined young ladies – but I can’t help it, they are so exciting!’ Sophia smiled and patted her hand
‘Well, Elizabeth, it’s like this – we – all four of us – are characters in a book – each of us has our own story, but the same writer’ Elizabeth frowned. ‘It’s not quite that simple’ Sophia went on ‘but when a story is read a lot, the characters come alive. It’s odd because your story hasn’t been read very often, I don’t quite know how you’re self aware’
‘You mean – I’m not real?’ Elizabeth gasped. She pinched herself ‘I feel real’ she said, puzzled.
‘Well, what is real?’ Sophia smiled ‘Our writer sometimes comes to visit us. I don’t know quite how it works, but her reality is different from ours. I suppose yours is also quite different to ours.’
‘Oh?’ she asked, her mind whirling ‘Different in what way?’
‘We – well, effectively we come from the future – the twenty first century’ Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide to start with, then she squeezed them shut, starting to chant
‘This is all a dream, this is all a dream, thisisalladream…’ After a while she opened them again, and rubbed at her eyes, but nothing had changed. Her shoulders sagged. She had no choice but to believe Sophia.
‘I don’t understand’ she said ‘How can this be?’ Sophia shrugged
‘It’s just the way things are’ she replied, and squeezed her hand. ‘Hey, maybe we should tell you a bit about our stories and you can tell us about yours. It could be fun’
‘We could visit some of the others’ grinned Lucy. Sophia glared at her
‘Baby steps Lucy, baby steps’ she warned. ‘Okay Elizabeth – tell us your story. Who’s your love interest?’
‘My what?’ she asked puzzled, then realised ‘Oh – my young man’ her eyes shone as she remembered
‘I’m getting married tomorrow’ she said ‘To Captain John Lykel’ her voice was dreamy ‘He’s wonderful – so gentle, so loving. So handsome.’
‘Knowing Les, probably hot as hell and great in the sack’ Lucy piped up. ‘You’ve got one heck of a wedding night coming, darling’ Elizabeth blanched at her coarse words, which she did not quite understand. Her eye alighted on Charlotte’s ring finger, and she looked at the other two women. Lucy had two wedding rings, Charlotte had an engagement and wedding ring, and Sophia had an engagement ring.
‘You all have beaus?’ she asked, then thinking perhaps they didn’t quite understand her. ‘Sweethearts - husbands?’ Lucy laughed
‘And then some’ Elizabeth frowned. Sophia patted her hand again.
‘Yes darling, our writer has given us all someone special. We’re all linked in a way – because we’ve been self aware for a while longer than you, we know each other’s stories. But we should probably explain. Make yourself comfortable, and we will too’ She closed her eyes and waved her hand, and an odd piece of furniture appeared. Elizabeth jumped, but took a deep breath. This was obviously ‘normal’ in her new reality, so she should probably get used to it, she thought. The item looked very much like the chaise longue in her front parlour, but it had a continuous back all along it. Charlotte looked down and dusted it off and shook out a cushion before sitting on one end, and Lucy plonked herself on the other. Sophia leaned back against the corner post of the four poster bed, and Elizabeth perched on the edge of the mattress.
‘Very well – tell me all about it’ she smiled. ‘It all sounds very exciting’
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jasntodds · 6 years ago
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Summary:
Dark!Peter Parker x Stark!Reader (both age 23)
Hamartia:   noun       a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine.
Tragedy keeps striking Peter and his loved ones even when he tries his best to keep everyone safe. His best friends, girlfriend, his aunt, everyone he cares about seems to always be getting hurt because of him, because of Spider-Man. After he’s injured, it only gets worse and maybe it’s time for him to hang up the hero mask. It’s like they say, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
As always, I have a playlist for my upcoming fic and as always, y’all can always suggest songs that remind you of the series!!
Prequel | Masterlist | Spotify Playlist Link
Tag list and prologue coming soon!!
Some songs below the cut!
Dreamer (Acoustic) - I The Mighty
Save Me - Homesafe
Upside Down - The Story So Far
Lucid - Catch Fire
The Feeling - Travis Atreo
Unsteady - Transforming Duke
Moonshine - Tyler Carter
With You - Colorfire
Gasoline - Halsey
Can’t Help It - Anarbor
Want You To Stay - Autumn Kings
This Is Me - Greatest Showman Soundtrack
Wish You Were Here - Neck Deep
Hard To Love - Stateside
Good Times - All Time Low
Up, Up, & Away - Chance Pena
Can You Tell Me Something - Ky Rogers
The Fighters - In Paradise
Strangers - Before You Exit
My Thoughts On You - The Band CAMINO
In My Blood (Acoustic) - Shawn Mendes
Take Cover - All Time Low
Someone To You (Acoustic) - BANNERS
In Motion - Allday feat. Japanese Wallpaper
Harder Than The First Time - Blake McGrath
Personal - Against The Current
Adore - Dean Lewis
Ruin My Life - Zara Larsson
I Wanna Know - NOTD, Bea Miller
Ghost Of You - 5 Seconds Of Summer
Sometimes You’re The Hammer, Sometimes You’re The Nail - A Day To Remember
Let Go - Beau Young Prince
Let You Down - NF
BabyBoy - Former Vandal
Don’t Leave - Shaun Reynolds feat. Jacob Lee
Always Be With You - Walking On Cars
Numb - Linkin Park
Nothing’s Forever - Jamestown Story
Damaged People - Connell Cruise
Matches (Acoustic) - Ephixa, Stephen Walking feat. Aaron Richards
How’s This For Honesty - You vs Yesterday
23 - Chase Atlantic
Missing You - The Vamps
To Me You Feel Like Home - Madison Wonders
As You Need - Alex Aiono
Best Part Of Me - Landon Austin
Get Up - Nick Wilson
Cemetary Weather - Isles & Glaciers
I’ll Be Good - Jaymes Young
Never Coming Home - Point North
Tagging people from the Let Go prequel: @eelahsian // @spideypeach // @xxtomxo // @cadenduh // @thequeensardine // @steve-avengers-rogers // @thomassholland // @hbmoore1986 // @regulusirius // @charliepeaceout // @gracemrm // @spiderqueens // @spiderboytotherescue // @rainbowsinthestorm​ // @pancakefancake// @parkersvibes // @da5haexowin // @potts-starks // @dangerousluv1 // @starponywars // @abbuwu// @yourlocalsourwolf // @imaginingadifferentlife // @parkerspideyman
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cathygeha · 3 years ago
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REVIEW
Sweet Home Cowboy
Jasper Creek #3
 Standalone quartet of splendid stories that put a smile on my face today as I watched four half-sisters find their happily ever after cowboy partners in Jasper Creek. The four women settle into their new home, soon to be The Four Sisters Farm, and in so doing the bonds that began to form at camp when they were thirteen only become stronger. I liked all four of the sisters and the men that they ended up with. Every couple had issues to contend with and did so admirably.
 TEDDY by Nicole Helm:
Teddy ends up with Beau but only after she feels ready and he deals with some past demons from childhood. Teddy is a bee whisperer and loves chickens…sweet and charming but with a backbone
 JOEY by Maisey Yates:
More mechanically minded, Joey likes to learn from experts when tackling new projects. Hollis is the man to help with the old farm equipment and perhaps he will help with a few other things, too.
 GEORGIE by Jackie Ashenden:
Con is best friends of Georgie’s brother and has been there pretty much always until one day things begin to change and prickly Georgie is not sure what to think…even though Con is sure what he wants.
 ELLIOT by Caitin Crewes
Elliot is the sister with the freest spirit and she openly embraces what she wants, Colt. Colt’s sense of duty almost derails the couple’s budding romance…until he sees the light.
 All of the characters have some growing to do as individuals and as couples. It was fun watching them interact as I got to know them and the men they ended up with.
 Thank you to NetGalley and HQN for the ARC – This is my honest review.
 5 Stars
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  BLURB
SWEET HOME COWBOY S is a Western-themed anthology featuring four stories from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews!
Four half sisters create the family they’ve always dreamed of in this enchanting quartet from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews.
The Hathaway sisters might have grown up apart, but when they agree to move to Jasper Creek, Oregon, to revitalize their grandfather’s farm, it seems a straightforward decision. Until they meet their neighborhood cowboys…
Sweet-natured Teddy has never met a man worth taking a risk on, until now. Tomboy Joey has more affinity with farm equipment than men, until a brooding cowboy changes her mind. Prickly baker Georgie can’t resist the temptation of the most forbidden cowboy of all, and sparks fly between ceramicist Elliot and the grumpy single-dad rancher next door.
The sisters’ feelings are anything but simple, but with the love and support of each other, they discover that a cowboy might be the sweetest thing of all about coming home.
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EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
It was never comfortable for people when four sets of vi­olet eyes zeroed in on them with the level of intensity the Hathaway sisters could manage.
A fact the half sisters had learned when they’d first met at summer camp, thanks to their families, who’d been care­ful to give the girls the opportunity to meet each other, without the pressure of having to become friends or even real sisters.
But sisters they had become that first day at the age of thirteen. In each other, they’d found kindred spirits. Not just in the unusual color of their eyes, but in the depths of their passions, and in their driving need to forge family out of the fragments their father had left behind when he’d impreg­nated all their mothers at different points in the same year.
So that, as adults, though they lived in different parts of the country, they were the best of friends. Sisters, through and through, and when Georgie had informed them of Grandpa Jack’s heart attack in Jasper Creek, the rest had rushed to the small Oregon town to see what they could do.
Grandpa Jack looked at each of them with his usual squinty-eyed suspicion. Though their father had never made any effort to be a part of his daughters’ lives, Grandpa Jack had always made it clear he’d be there if needed.
But not to expect him to be cheerful about it.
“Didn’t all have to come,” he grumbled, shifting in his hospital bed.
“Well, of course we did. And we’ll stay until you’re on the mend,” Teddy said, patting his hand. The squinty-eyed suspicion became a full-fledged scowl as he pulled his hand away.
While Teddy was all about gestures of affection, Grandpa Jack was decidedly not.
Which made the fact Georgie was the only local grand­daughter a blessing as she shared the discomfort with such goings-on. He turned his glare to her. “Didn’t have to call them.”
Georgie shrugged.
“She was right to,” Joey said firmly, meeting Grandpa Jack’s scowl with her own. “We won’t hear another com­plaint about it. A waste of time. You know how stubborn we are.”
Grandpa Jack grunted.
Elliot smirked. “Wonder where we got it.”
A nurse knocked on the door, then poked her head in. “Sorry, girls, it’s time to head home. Visiting hours are over.”
“Girls,” Elliot muttered under her breath with a consid­erable amount of disdain for the word.
But Teddy pressed a kiss to Grandpa Jack’s wrinkled forehead, Elliot touched his shoulder, and Georgie and Joey hovered at the door until they all left the room, chorusing goodbyes.
“I hate leaving him all alone,” Teddy said as Elliot linked arms with her. Teddy reached out and took Joey’s arm.
“He’ll be home soon enough,” Joey reassured her. She gave Georgie an apologetic shrug, then linked arms with her too, so they were a unit as they walked out of the hos­pital into the cool spring evening.
“He’s not going to let you fuss over him, Teddy. It isn’t his way,” Georgie said pragmatically as they walked to her truck.
Teddy frowned. “I think you misjudge my tenacity.”
Elliot’s eyebrows winged up. “Do we?”
Teddy wrinkled her nose, but didn’t argue with Elliot.
“I found an Airbnb closer to the hospital,” Georgie said, sounding tired as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “I knew this wouldn’t be a quick visit and we’d need more room than Felix and I have.” Georgie had grown up with her half brother right here in Jasper Creek.
The four sisters climbed into Georgie’s truck. Whatever belongings they’d packed were strapped into the bed of the truck from when Georgie had picked Joey and Teddy up at the airport this afternoon, after Elliot had driven down from Portland.
Georgie drove onto the highway, and it was only about fifteen minutes later she parked in front of a pretty little farmhouse just outside of Jasper Creek.
“This place is amazing,” Teddy said.
“Much better taken care of than the main house at Grandpa Jack’s property,” Georgie returned.
The women got out, grabbed what they’d need for the night, then headed inside.
“I’ll make us some dinner,” Teddy said, already mov­ing for the kitchen.
“The host said she left some things for us to eat when we arrived,” Georgie replied, dropping her stuff in the front room.
They all descended on the kitchen, which was quaint and old-fashioned—something that suited all four women to the bone. On the table were a variety of baked goods.
“I found a teapot and some tea,” Teddy said.
“Scones and sweet rolls for dinner sounds good to me,” Joey said, already unwrapping the plate of baked goods and digging in.
Elliot found plates and set the table, shoving one at Joey as she’d already plowed through three-fourths of a scone.
“Do you think Grandpa Jack is stressed about the ranch? And that’s what caused this?” Teddy asked, fiddling with the stove.
“I think he’s an old man who eats poorly and smokes cigars regularly. But…” Georgie sighed.
“He’s been talk­ing about selling off the last piece of land to Colt West next door. He’d keep the
cabin and about an acre around it, but the rest would go to Colt.”
“Even the main house?” Joey asked, as she licked crumbs from her fingers.
“You could hardly call it that these days. It’s falling apart at the seams.”
Teddy frowned. “That’s just not right.”
Georgie shrugged. “He hasn’t lived in that house in de­cades. He’s a single, old, grumpy man. He’s finally accept­ing he can’t really take care of the ranch. Why not sell?”
“It’s our legacy,” Joey said. Then she looked around the table. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s our absent father’s legacy,” Elliot returned. “As­suming he’s still alive.”
All eyes turned to Georgie, who was the only one who’d ever had any contact with Mickey Hathaway. She lifted her shoulders. “Far as I know.”
Silence filled the room until Teddy’s teakettle began to whistle. She poured tea for everyone, then took a seat at the kitchen table. As far as she was concerned, this was all fate. The timing, the chance of all four of them com­ing here at a point in their lives where they got to decide what came next.
“We’ve always talked about how much we wanted to live there, so why don’t we?”
“Why don’t we what?” Joey replied, mouth full with her last bite of scone.
“Live there. Do what we all love to do. Put together some kind of…business. Honey, eggs,” Teddy said, pointing to herself. “Produce,” she said, pointing to Joey. “Ceramics.” Elliot’s specialty. “Our sweet Georgie’s baked goods,” she said, grinning at Georgie’s negative reaction to being called sweet.
“Most of us are already selling our wares anyway. Why don’t we do it here? The four of us.”
It would be more than the year her mother wanted, more than just learning some independence. It would be actually, hopefully permanently, forging that independence. Well, with her sisters. Which suited Teddy better. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to be a part of a family. Her family.
“You’d move here all the way from Maine?” Joey asked dubiously. “Leave your mother?”
Teddy sniffed. “I can leave my mother.” Then she wrin­kled her nose. Subterfuge wasn’t her
strong suit.
“She wants me to move out anyway.”
“Why?” her sisters demanded, offended on her behalf.
“She thinks I need a year of independence. To find my own way. Apparently twenty-five is too old to have always lived with your mother, according to her.”
When none of her sisters argued, she glared at them. “You agree with her?”
Elliot shrugged. “I don’t disagree with her.”
“Well, anyway, this would solve that, wouldn’t it? We can fix up the house. I’m sure some people need bee re­moval around here, so I’ll start a new hive. Buy new chick­ens. Elliot can drive her ceramics van down here. Joey, you could start the farm of your dreams with local produce and flowers—a brand-new challenge, all yours. Georgie, you can design the baking kitchen you’ve been planning since childhood. And we’ll be close enough to Grandpa to help him—and far enough away he won’t beat us away with sticks.”
They looked at Teddy, varying looks of consideration and concern on their faces. But as the idea took shape in Teddy’s mind, she knew it was exactly right. This wasn’t some new dream out of left field; it was an old dream.
And if she had to be independent, why not make that old dream a reality?
“We always wanted to live in one place. Like a real fam­ily,” Teddy said. She would have reached out and grabbed all their hands if she had three herself. As it was, she only looked at them imploringly. “Sisters. Live together. Work together. It’s the dream. Maybe something good can come out of Grandpa’s health scare. If Grandpa lets us live in the house, and we pool whatever our savings are together, it’s not a financial stretch. Elliot and I can keep our indepen­dent businesses running while we get our joint business set up. Then we split the farm profit four ways.”
“Profit. That is optimistic at best,” Georgie said.
“You know I am all about optimism,” Teddy returned.
A wind chime tinkled from the front room, which was odd considering there shouldn’t be enough wind to make it move here inside.
“Did someone leave the door open?” Joey asked, push­ing back from the table. The girls got up and walked to­ward the door, which was indeed open.
“Look at that,” Elliot said.
They stepped out onto the porch together. Beyond the dogwood in the front just beginning to bloom, the sun was setting in a riot of colors—bright magentas, deep oranges, fading into lavenders and lighter pinks.
“It’s the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s a tad dramatic, Teddy,” Georgie said gently, though her voice held all the awe of someone who agreed, but would never admit it.
“We have to do it,” Teddy said, her voice almost a whis­per. “This is a sign. Don’t you believe in fate?”
Elliot nodded. “Yeah. I’m mobile. I go where I please. Why not right here?”
Georgie shrugged. “Don’t know about fate, but it wouldn’t change much for me, except you guys would be close. I’d like that. Felix is talking about leaving Jasper Creek.”
Teddy reached out, but Georgie stopped her with a quell­ing look. “It’s fine.” She offered a smile, or Georgie’s ver­sion of a smile anyway. “Especially if you guys are here.”
All eyes turned to Joey.
“I have to talk timing over with my mom. I don’t want to leave her short-staffed,” Joey said, her eyes still on the sunset. Then she pushed out a breath and looked at her sis­ters and grinned. “But why the hell not?”
Teddy smiled at the sunset, feeling a bit teary over the whole thing. But it was meant to be, she was sure of it. “Four Sisters Farm.” She looked at each of her sisters. “That’s what we can call it. Because it’ll be ours. Always.”
 Excerpted from Sweet Home Cowboy by Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews. Copyright © 2022 by Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
AUTHOR BIO
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Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she's writing strong, hard working cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon. Check out her website, maiseyyates.com or find her on Facebook.
Author Website: http://www.maiseyyates.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/MaiseyYates.Author/
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/maiseyyates
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maiseyyates/
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Jackie Ashenden writes dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who've just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines.
She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband the inimitable Dr Jax and two kids. When she's not torturing alpha males, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media, or forced to mountain biking with her husband.
Author Website: https://www.jackieashenden.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackie.ashenden
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/jackieashenden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackie_ashenden/
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Caitlin Crews is a USA Today bestselling, RITA-nominated, and critically-acclaimed author who has written more than 100 books and counting. She has a Masters and Ph.D. in English Literature, thinks everyone should read more category romance, and is always available to discuss her beloved alpha heroes. Just ask. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her comic book artist husband, is always planning her next trip, and will never, ever, read all the books in her to-be-read pile. Thank goodness.
Author Website: https://megancrane.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeganCraneAndCaitlinCrews/
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/megancrane
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganmcrane/
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Nicole Helm writes down-to-earth contemporary romance and fast-paced romantic suspense. She lives with her husband and two sons in Missouri. Visit her website: www.nicolehelm.com
Author Website: https://www.nicolehelm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNicoleHelm
Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/nicole_t_helm/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicole_t_helm/
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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years ago
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High Life
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Claire Denis' "High Life," about a group of prisoners being used as guinea pigs in a deep space mission, is tailor-made for viewers who like science fiction in a cryptic 1970s art-house mode, and don't care if the movie is of-the-period ("The Man Who Fell to Earth," "Alien," "Silent Running") or consciously aping it ("Under the Skin," "Ex Machina," "Annihilation") as long as it delivers the goods by challenging the audience. There are no laser shootouts, lightsabers, spaceship battles or  talks of imperial succession here. Just long, often eerily quiet scenes of adults being adults, in a futuristic environment that turns every situation into a metaphor and every metaphor into a situation. 
The film is another milestone in the career of its director/co-writer, whose filmography (which includes "Beau Travail," "The Intruder," "35 Shots of Rum" and "Trouble Every Day") is rife with powerfully visceral tales of forbidden love and exotic locales. And it's yet another feather in the cap of its star, Robert Pattinson, who has become one of the most reliably intense yet unaffected leading men in cinema—and who, with his former costar Kristen Stewart, is helping to keep a particular kind of auteur-driven, middle-budget art house film alive, at a time when 40 percent of yearly North American box office receipts come from family-targeted Disney properties. 
The story begins pretty far along in the life of its main character, Pattinson's Monte, a convict turned astronaut. He's first seen living alone on the aforementioned deep space vessel, a dark and messy place plagued by technical problems, taking care of a little girl named Willow (Scarlett Lindsay). As is often her m.o., Denis keeps her narrative cards close to her vest, observing Monte and Willow with such a potent mix of detachment and fascination that this prologue begins to feel like a documentary that has somehow time-warped in from the future. 
This section of "High Life" also offers one of the clearest demonstrations yet of Pattinson's sneaky star power. The directness of Denis' images is disarming: we could just as easily be watching surveillance footage of a single dad caring for a toddler in a dilapidated and otherwise empty public housing project. Ignoring the showbiz maxim warning actors never to share the screen with a dog or a child, Pattinson bonds with the audience by treating every moment between Monte and Willow as a record of simple actions: a feeding, a bedtime routine, a grown man attempting to dissuade a child from crying for the sake of his own mental health, and most affectingly, an attempt to enjoy "quality time" while doing a job that can't be put off until later (specifically, repairing the exterior of the spacecraft while talking to Willow via video link).
In due time, Denis and her cowriters Jean-Pol Fargeau (a regular collaborator) and Geoff Cox fill in the circumstances that led to this dire predicament. Lars Eidinger is the mission’s captain, who seems to have no authority whatsoever. The true commander of the mission seems to be Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche), who performs experiments on herself and the others. "Suspiria" costar Mia Goth plays the edgiest crew member, Jessie Ross a more optimistic counterpart. André Benjamin, otherwise known as André 3000 of Outkast, is Tcherny, who left his family behind on earth and now tends to the ship's greenhouse. 
And it's in the greenhouse that a film set in the weightless reaches of space finds a dramatic center of gravity. "High Life" takes its sweet time drinking in the ship's plant life (shades of special effects-master-turned-director Douglas Trumbull's 1972 eco-thriller "Silent Running," an obvious reference point). These images of fecundity, of pistils and stamens, haunt the remainder of the story. Like so much else in this symbol-attuned film, they are plain, organic objects that are just what they appear to be (plants that supply the ship's crew with food and oxygen) and, at the same time, emblems of fertility, in a movie that's obsessed with sex, reproduction, parenting, and the perpetuation of humankind. 
By fragmenting the narrative and moving around through time, as Denis loves to do, "High Life" becomes a kaleidoscopic experience, more so than a traditional story. The filmmaker immediately establishes that something happened to the crew, then tells us what it was, but doesn't fill in the blanks on exactly how it all happened until she's good and ready. This is an alternately disturbing, intellectually stimulating, scary, erotic, and revolting collection of moments that you're supposed to watch, listen and react to, not necessarily process as one might a traditional linear narrative, or some kind of cinematic equation that can be unlocked like the final level of a videogame. 
Any film that takes a somewhat realistic view of space travel is bound to get compared to "2001: A Space Odyssey," but this one deserves it. It makes the ship feel as tactile as the interior of a submarine, or a prison. Atmosphere and sensation are everything. The sound of a character's breathing, footsteps or muttered curses can be as meaningful as any expository line of dialogue (of which there are surprisingly few until Binoche's spacey-scary Dr. Dibs start monologuing).   
What does it all mean? I have a take but would rather not share it here, in a review that's trying to convey the spirit of an elliptical and mysterious film without revealing all of its surprises and puzzlements. Suffice to say that it's the kind of movie that's direct enough in its imagery to make you feel as if you're just visiting a place that exists, yet expansive enough in its poetic and narrative aspirations to make room for a spacewalk, a daringly extended sequence of a crew-member riding a sex machine, several idealistic conversations about science and survival, a psychedelic mission to a black hole, and a final act that's at once inspirational and unbearably sad.
It's the kind of film that sparks arguments on the way home, not just about what happened and what it meant, but whether it was a good movie—and if not, precisely which expectations it failed to satisfy, and whether it ever intended to satisfy them. With its brutal violence, explicit sex, and up-close views of blood, sweat, urine, and semen, it is proudly an R-rated film, verging on NC-17—though the X-rating, which was discontinued by the MPAA almost 30 years ago, might feel more appropriate. Everything about this movie is retro, from the opaque yet fully felt performances (led by Pattinson) that make the audience come to the actors rather than the other way around, to Stuart Staples' analog synthesizer-heavy soundtrack, to the closing credits song by Tindersticks featuring none other than Pattinson, whose vocals suggest what Chris Isaak might sound like if he lost his will to live. 
If you've read this far, you know whether this is your kind of movie. If you think it is, it is—and then some.
from All Content http://bit.ly/2FRxiw9
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