#MC!Nora

[foxyk7]

[sallowsswan]

When he calls my MC ignorant

MC: You're not listening-

Sebastian: Why would I listen to someone so ignorant?!

MC: *Immediately points wand into the side of his neck* I'm ignorant? I'm not the one manipulating my friends into following a crazy dark path for knowledge and a 'cure'. I'm not the one being cruel to those trying to help me in my quest to save my twin sister, but also help me try to see reason. I'M not the one that used the cruciatus curse on my friend and didn't even bother to show any sign of remorse or concern when they were on the ground, SCREAMING in pain because they wanted to help me! Oh but I'm ignorant? Fuck you Sebastian Sallow!

Sebastian: Unbelievable

MC: *pulls wand away, but only to smack him before turning around and walking away*

[raehstats]

people don't realize how shocking is Andrew's "that doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you" because some people read aftg already knowing they end up together (bc of spoilers).

BUT AS A PERSON THAT DID READ THE BOOK JUST THINKING IT WAS A SPORT BOOK, I WAS SHOCKED, TO THE BONE, I FELT LIKE SHOCKING ON MY OWN SPIT, I FELT LIKE THE DISLEXIA WAS ACTING UP, I FELT LIKE I WAS MISUNDERSTANDING, MISREADING SOMETHING.

[spadesofgrass]

failmarriage trysnora

[robotvampire]

Nora: kill Sameer and fulfill the prophecy.

Me: No. Eat shit.

50 years later after I get with Nora

Nora: still won't fulfill the prophecy?

Me: Still no and eat shit, honey.

Nora: *Ben Affleck smoking meme*

[snowbellewells]

MY CSSNS23 MC: "Carolina Moon" {prologue}

**Thank you SO MUCH to my event artist @eastwesthomeisbest for the absolutely amazing cover art she created (in much less time than I should have afforded her). I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it, and am thrilled to be able to put it with each update of my story. Also, I'm so grateful to have @xarandomdreamx as my beta for this fic as well, though I did not give her this prologue, so any mistakes here are absolutely and unfortunately mine! And thank you too to the @cssns as a whole for once again providing such a great event of which to be a part!!***

Here is my second submission to the @cssns23 event!! This one is a modern au of the Nora Roberts novel and subsequent tv movie Carolina Moon. The main female character in the movie is psychic/clairvoyant (I’ll admit, I’m not too sure about the distinction between the two) and I thought her visions and what she goes through in connection to them made a nice real-world parallel to Emma’s magic. (There’s also a scene in here where the male lead says something that I could so perfectly see Killian saying to Emma… I just cannot wait to get to that point!)

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this romantic thriller with some murder mystery elements.  There are some instances of abuse and violence in here though - which I feel like I should mention, since that’s a little darker than my typical style. Most of them are in flashbacks of Emma’s past, or in visions she has of victims, more than in the actual present day plot; still I wanted to make people aware before we got too far.

Please enjoy! (I’d love to hear what you think.)

Prologue

July 1993

The water at their hideaway always feels so good. She could sink into it until her head slips below the surface and never, ever want to come up for air. It’s cooler, more luxurious than even the rich, satiny sheets on the trundle bed those rare nights when she gets to sleep over at Rose’s. Emma Swan’s gangly, 13-year-old limbs slice through the murky water as if the constant humidity and sultry air of Storybrooke, South Carolina can’t penetrate here in their little forest haven. She knows, of course, logically, that the real world isn’t all that far away. The shaded pond she and Rose discovered two summers ago is just a short trek into the woods at the furthest edge of Rose’s family’s boundless acreage. Still, it feels removed enough to bring Emma a sense of peace and contentment she gains nowhere else.

Looking over her shoulder to the large, smooth boulder jutting out of the pond at the bank where they left their flip flops and cutoff denim shorts, she can see her best friend stretched out with her new book where they had spread their towels on the rock’s surface, just in the wash of warming sunlight that streams through the tree branches overhead. Rose’s flawlessly creamy pale skin is prone to burning, but at the moment her friend seems willing to take the risk for the benefit of lazing cozily to read as she dries in the sun after taking a quick dip. Shaking her head, Emma plunges back under, happy to stay in the chilly water a bit longer herself. She knew as soon as they’d met outside Rose’s house that afternoon, and she had seen that Rose held a new Boxcar Children book in her hand, that her friend would not be able to resist burrowing into those pages for long.

It’s funny, Emma supposes, but that’s exactly what bonded she and Rose Jones in the first place. They might seem different on the surface, but in the end, neither of them quite fit with everyone else, and so they gravitate to each other, and have ever since Emma first arrived in Storybrooke as an eight-year-old orphan. They are each willing to give the other at least one person who takes them as they are and with whom they won’t have to pretend. Emma doesn’t care if Rose wants to read quietly and tell her about the stories she’s already finished instead of picking out dresses for the next cotillion class or preening in front of the mirror, practicing batting her eyelashes to charm boys or bragging to Emma about which ones she intends to kiss. Her sister Ruby, who shares the same thickly shining, burnished mahogany hair and pretty pink lips but little of her fraternal twin’s calming, gentle personality, does enough of that for the both of them. Their mother, a former debutante and southern belle, delights in the one daughter’s traditional coquettishness, and despairs of the other’s shyness. Cora Jones is a true throwback to another time who wants nothing more than to see both her daughters marry well and retain their places atop the social ladder. Emma could not care any less about such details; she is already clinging to the very bottom rung of such a social structure - if she and the so-called guardians with whom she lives are on the ladder at all. In turn, Rose doesn’t mock Emma for her thick, dark-framed glasses or secondhand clothes, nor does she cringe away from the “fits” that sometimes take hold of her friend, making strange, disturbing scenes Emma can’t understand flash across her mind with such intensity they sometimes knock her off her feet. Emma knows Rose’s mother and sister find her an unsuitable and embarrassing companion for Rose, but she is eternally grateful her friend seems able to see the best in anyone - even a lost girl nobody else wants - and so blithely acts as though she has no idea about the rest of her family’s opinions.

Cringing even while still submerged in the pond’s depths and practically invisible, Emma tries not to think of her unwanted visions. Her strict, hypocritical, and more than a bit deranged, foster father claims she’s possessed - and more than once has taken her episodes out of her hide. The man swears he’s beating the devil out of her and putting the fear of God in Satan’s place when he takes the thick leather strap to her shoulders, back and legs until she bleeds, but Emma has already lived long enough in a cruel and unfair world to know that his violence and “discipline” have less to do with parenting and concern for her soul, and more to show for his own twisted mind and overindulgence in the bottle. She wants to hide her spells from him, but when they come on her so abruptly and with such power, they are impossible to miss. She can’t fathom how a person like him was deemed fit to take in and care for a child, but mistreatment and injustice seem to be her lot in life thus far, and so she simply grits her teeth and survives.

It’s different though when the spells happen around Rose; the slight brunette merely rests a cool, steadying hand on Emma’s forehead or her arm until they pass, then she helps Emma stand until she feels in control again, listens as she attempts to make sense of whatever she’s seen, and most importantly… believes her. If only she could stay in the huge house Rose’s family calls home. She’d cook, clean, do chores, even stay in the servant’s quarters; Emma isn’t picky. It would still be a far sight safer than the situation she has in the rundown shack with the monster who’d been deemed her caretaker. Barring that, she would honestly rather live wild in these woods and survive off the land. She knew which plants and berries were safe to eat; Graham, her first friend, once a fellow orphan now happily adopted, had shown her ages ago, as well as taught her how to fish. It wouldn’t be easy, but she’d get by, and at least no one would lay a hand on her again.

This afternoon, those eerie images she sometimes has seem far away as she splashes up out of the water, trying to arc playfully like a mermaid as she breaks the surface. Drawing in a big gulp of air after staying underwater so long, Emma startles at the sound of teasing laughter, and whirls to see three figures on the bank where she and Rose left their shoes and shorts. 

“Well, look here,” calls out a taunting voice that never fails to set Emma’s nerves on edge. “It’s the baby beached librarian and her drowned rat friend!” None other than Emma’s nemesis, Killian Jones, crows from his vantage point on dry land.

Rose sits up ramrod straight, book still in hand and annoyed scowl on her face at Killian and his friends’ interruption to the quiet peace of their sanctuary. She isn’t genuinely angry, though; for all that she and her sister share little in common, she and her two-years-older brother are affectionately close. “Shut up, Killy!” she shoots back, throwing in the childhood nickname they all know he hates. “Who asked you to come looking anyway?”

The boy standing next to Killian speaks up next, making Emma scowl just as playfully as Rose had moments before. Graham Hunter might as well be her big brother; he’s the closest thing she’s had to family since her parents were lost in a car crash and she was thrown into the foster care system. Be that as it may, he and Killian Jones are thick as thieves, and he’ll give her a hard time for all he’s worth while in the presence of his buddy. “We just wanted to swim,” he calls across the water to the two girls, smirking at Emma, who now stands in the water with one hip jutting out and hands planted on her waist. “How were we supposed to know you two were infesting it?”

“Ha!” Emma jeers back, the affront plain in her voice; despite the fact that the entire routine is like a practiced girls-versus-boys exchange they’ve all engaged in countless times. There isn’t much else to do for entertainment in their sleepy little one-horse town. “You idiots know this is Rose’s and my hideaway, fair and square!”

“Well, Rose’s anyway,” a third voice cuts in snidely.

The cruel jab reminds Emma once more that to most folks she is just a charity case, quite possibly only included in anything at all because of her friend’s kind heart, and at the intentional slight, cuts her gaze to the third member of the boys’ little crew, skulking a step back in the shadows behind where Killian and Graham stand, as he always does. Her green eyes narrow to slits in genuine dislike and suspicion. Where before her animosity was largely for show, when they land on Walsh Ozman, it is all too real.

She has never understood why the other two boys - jokers and annoyances though they may be, but good guys when it comes right down to it - hang out with Walsh at all.  Where Graham and Killian are much more cut from the same cloth - athletic, outgoing, well-liked and pleasant - Walsh is a splindy, sniveling character, complaining and whining whatever their little trio gets up to. He lives not far from Emma’s foster father’s cabin with his single mother - a bushy-haired redhead who seems strangely overprotective and attached to her only child. Most people give the property a wide berth, except when high schoolers teepee it the whole month of October, and the general town consensus is that Zelena Ozman might be a witch and to steer clear. Still, beyond all of that, Emma might have been able to look past the boy’s circumstances and see him for himself - she of all people knew the gift it was not to be judged by where a person came from - if Walsh hadn’t simply given her “the willies”. Even standing too close to him made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end - and not in the way that nearness to Killian sometimes did; an altogether much more pleasant tingle, even if she was just as unable to explain one as the other.

“We could take their things,” Walsh suggests, holding up the threadbare, faded jeans Emma had left on the bank. “Make them walk back in their skivvies.” The wicked smile on his face makes Emma’s stomach turn over sickly.

Something sharp flashes in Jones’ eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly and his head giving a subtle shake of dissent that Emma can see even at the distance she stands away from him. Protectiveness, chivalry, or maybe the honor of a southern gentleman passed down to him through generations of his impressive family line; whatever it is, it sparks to life in his eyes at that moment as he quashes Walsh’s mean-spirited suggestion in no uncertain terms. “That’s my little sister you’re talking about Oz,” he growls, smacking the worn material from the smaller’s boy’s hands, even if the article of clothing isn’t Rose’s at all.

Emma feels her breath rush back into her lungs, though she continues to watch the guys warily for whatever they might do or say next. Before long, they grow bored of standing around and move on, hollering out age old taunts of “Bye, losers” and “Hey, smell ya later” to Emma’s derisive snort and Rose completely ignoring them to flip open her book again.

However, even with the intruders gone, it seems as if the perfect comfort of their retreat has been shattered by the unsettling interruption.  Soon, Emma wades to the shore and Rose clambers down from her perch, to dress once more and return to the world outside. For a moment, as she refastens her jeans around her skinny waist, Emma feels a strange prickling along the fine hairs on her arms… like they’re being watched. She jerks around, searching the surrounding trees and brush, but can’t see or hear a thing.

Rose’s small hand takes hers, snapping Emma out of the moment. “What is it?” she whispers, only true caring in her voice. “Did you sense something?”

Emma nods, but can’t give her suspicions voice. Usually her visions are clearer than that - this had just been heavy breathing and like looking at herself and Rose through another person’s eyes, outside her own body.

Rose stooped to grab the little canvas bag she’d bought along with water bottles, towels, and a second book in it. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” she offers, hopeful and kind as always. “You’ll figure it out. Wanna meet back out here tonight? Secret Sister bonfire?” she winks mischeivously. “I have to get to dinner now. You know how Mama hates it if I’m not washed up and properly attired for the evening meal - or a second late. But we can talk some more then, maybe you’ll remember more and it will be clearer.”

Emma nods gamely. “The stars’ll be beautiful by midnight,” she suggests. “And we’ll definitely have the place all to ourselves.”

“Since we were so rudely interrupted,” Rose chimes in with a giggle and roll of her eyes.

“Shake on it, pinkie swear,” they say together in practiced unison, executing a complex handshake that ends with their pinkies hooked together and wide, matching grins on both their faces.

“Thanks Rose,” Emma whispers sincerely, trying to speak around the lump in her throat as if it’s no big deal. “I’ll be out here as soon as I can sneak away.”

Rose, for her part, wraps her taller, golden-haired friend into a tight, momentary hug. “Hey, we’re Secret Sisters! You can count on me.  I’ll see you then!”

They part ways at the edge of the forest; Emma heading to the rundown cabin that serves as her nightmarish version of a home, and Rose to the pristine Jones family mansion standing tall over all the surrounding land. Rose looks back over her shoulder with a smile and wave that bolsters Emma, and the memory fades back into the haze of the past…

Eighteen years later….

September 2011

The blaring of the horn as a sports car whizzed by, barely missing the nose of Emma’s beat-up yellow VW where it had begun to edge out into the country intersection, jarred her back to the present with a gasp and painful jolt to her chest. Panting for a moment as she gripped the steering wheel, Emma tried to clear her head and calm the pounding of her heart at the near-miss.

‘Get it together,’ she berated herself. It might have seemed like only yesterday as she remembered that sunny afternoon at the swimming hole, but that day had been nearly two decades ago. She was a grown woman, had made a way for herself, fighting tooth and nail for every step forward, and she answered to no one. She had learned to stand up for her rights and her needs, to control her visions and use them for good, and had even served a special consultant for the Boston PD. But, more than all of that, she had come back to this place to find peace, to lay to rest the ghosts that had followed her everywhere else she’d gone in the years between, once and for all. If she expected others to leave the past in the past, she would first have to manage to do the same.

She’d had no way to know as she and Rose parted that afternoon with promises and plans for later that it would be the last time she would ever see her friend. Emma had harbored the pain and the guilt and the unanswered questions ever since. Finally, it was time to meet the gazes of all of those who had stared at her in suspicion before she’d been packed up and moved away once more, and it was time she found answers. She wasn’t the scared, whipped, mistreated adolescent she had been at 13. What she had lived through then was not her fault, nor was what had happened to Rose that muggy July midnight. 

And if she had to return to Storybrooke, South Carolina to lay that burden down… well, it was long past time she did.

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @cssns @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @stahlop @jrob64 @apiratewhopines @wefoundloveunderthelight @eastwesthomeisbest @xarandomdreamx @sotangledupinit @justanother-unluckysoul @booksteaandtoomuchtv @kazoosandfannypacks @anmylica @motherkatereloyshipper @jonesfandomfanatic @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @xsajx @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @resident-of-storybrooke @drowned-dreamer @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @blackwidownat2814 @blowmiakisscolin @let-it-raines

[haledamage]

put Nora (my Fernweh Saga MC) into the height difference site just for the sake of visuals and it's everything I hoped for

she is so leetle (5'3", to be exact)

I headcanon that she's the exact same height she was when she left Fernweh. And also that she has some clothes that were left at the Corvin house that definitely still fit her...

something something "not growing past your trauma" something something "everyone else grew up and moved on but you're the same as you ever were"

(some vaguely-related thoughts, under the cut)

deciding that Eleanor's super short was kind of what solidified James/Reese/Silas/Becca as her RO variations

because as much as I love Ruby being defensive on behalf of a short MC, Reese teasing her about her height was just so good. And then I had to pick James for the whole "you know you aren't actually the tallest person here, Reese 🙄" scene.

I've been torn between Silas and Sofia the most out of all of them, but after joining the patreon and seeing the portraits, Silas has won out on account of he's the most beautiful man I've ever seen ever 😳🥺

and then I chose Becca because A) I wanted at least one female RO dammit, and B) something about having all of Nora's Fernweh friends being men and the friend she met outside of town being a woman feels very poignant, especially with the way the townsfolk treat Becca like an outsider. It's also very true to my lived experience; most of my friends as a kid were boys, but most of the ones I've made as an adult are women. I don't know why that is, but here we are.

(I don't know that purple is Nora's color, I see her more as a light/neon blue (or like a dusky magenta?), but I didn't want her color to be too similar to Silas's, so I picked purple. Reese's color is more black than red, also, but I like a rainbow.)

anyway I just really, really want her to borrow a shirt or something from James or Silas because the visual is perfection

[if-mirrormine]

Will we get a chance to see Nora and Callie react to the fact that the mc is dating one of the ros in game?? Because I can only imagine the things they’d have to say at least about finding out the mc is finally dating Grayson or is dating Alex again (or, god forbid, their reaction to gralex) (I’d say Kennedy too but idk how well they really know her, so idk if they’d have any particularly strong reaction to that relationship)

definitely! i won't give away too much but their reactions to each would be something like this:

grayson: FINALLY !!

alex: alright

kennedy: good for them

gralex: oh...?

[nthflower]

I hate Nate fallout tbh like not the concept of male sole survivor but default Nate as sole survivor. He is just what? A soldier who loses his wife and baby how original.

A normal lawyer who loses her husband and baby and then turns into a terminator post apocalypse to find her baby is funnier.

Plus being a lawyer in the post apocalypse is more interesting than being a soldier post apocalypse.

Like a lawman in a lawless world, first trying to find her baby but then fights for the rights of people and against injustice. But this time not only in the courtroom but also with being a double agent and using her fists as her mind. Becoming a defender but in a different way.

Also I hate soldiers and I love women so I am super biased btw <3

[rollercoasterwords]

What other fandoms do you think you’d write for? Or are you strictly an HP writer?

PS. Love ATWMD and THTF. Your writing is impeccable.

i’ve written a captive prince & succession fic as well so! & have also briefly written fics in some other fandoms when i was much younger which r now too embarrassing 2 name lmao

honestly not sure what other fandoms i’d write for it honestly just comes down 2 whether i’m gripped w an idea for certain characters…would love 2 escape hp fandom lol but i think part of why it’s sucked me in so bad is that i like fucking around w the holes in the canon universe…like most of the marauders fic i’ve written has been either canon compliant or canon divergent & me going “hmmm what would these characters do in this context” & now bc i’ve spent so much time thinking abt & writing them it’s just also becoming easy 2 plug these characters into aus 🤧

actually thinking abt my fic writing experience generally the thing that tends 2 make me wanna write fic is if there’s something abt canon that i wanna patch in…like my captive prince fic is just canon but from a different character’s pov & my succession fic is just “what if kenstewy were canon” lol. have thought abt writing aftg from andrew’s pov & the first book of the feverwake duology from dara’s pov simply bc that’s something i enjoyed doing w atyd & captive prince but never actually did…guess i could also see myself potentially writing spn fic if i came up w an idea i liked…& honestly i think if i ever reread trc i might go crazy for real & could then potentially decide 2 write fic who knows. but atp i feel like marauders fic has just become my comfort zone…it’s just a weird balance to strike where a story has to have characters i love but be unsatisfying (poorly written/queerbait/not actually queerbait but i’m delusional/would be fun 2 see from another character’s pov) enough that there r gaps i wanna fill. so like there r various stories/franchises/series i’ve loved where i’ve just never felt compelled at all 2 read or write fic bc i got everything i wanted out of the story etc!

[vampirkit]

HAPPY VALENTINES @inlocusmads

I am your secret admirer!! hehe

Nora x Trystan! THEY WERE SO FUN TO DRAW I ADOREE NORA'S EYE SCAR! and i hope you enjoy this (it was inspired by a post of yours), have a good day :))

for @choicesfandomappreciation valentines event

[slow-reader-reads-books]

And Another Lovely Day looks like a really cute webcomic about two aros who accidentally have a meet cute and agonize over it not knowing the other is also aromantic, ima read the shit outta it

[cangrellesteponme]

btw to anyone who cares about my thoughts on tsc getting a trilogy:

ngl i was fine with one book. i was fine with jerejean never getting anywhere near romantic territory. it was very emotionally satisfying.

BUT

give me more of jean i love being in jean's head i love him as a narrator it is so so awful and very very triggering but MAN even if i have to take breaks every 5 pages i do not CARE i will be reading books two and three promptly!!

[jedidragonwarriorqueen]

I. I just. Okay.

Wow.

I just . . . Geez Louise

[spadesofgrass]

Something about Drakovian media being family-controlled is so important to me because narratives are born and they die right out of the hands of the Thornes.

Juliana being favoured by the public is also really important because her being this kind of crown jewel reflects back to the family and it is framed in this really intricate way where Juliana isn't some kind of pioneer or a rebel, she is just that charismatic. Her political stances aren't dynamic, no, she's just that feisty. She's popular because she's Juliana Thorne. The same way, Trystan being painted in a popular light is also really really important (the magazines, the fanfictions, all that) because it excuses all of their ignorance. No, they're your typical sweet-talking little goof. We're a big, happy family and none of us have ever defied it. The illegitimate children? No, of course not! They're a part of us! We don't own their actions! We are so seemingly betrayed, though, yes. And we don't draw special lines for family at all. One of us is in jail!

And maybe they'll frame the same kind of narrative for Nora (or mc, but using N here because this is just my vision here). Word of the wedding would certainly reach the family's ears and eyes. Question is, will Trys get thrown under the bus? A child betraying family by forcing an abdication is certainly as bad as Vasili's actions. It reflects poorly on Trys - so does that mean they carried no love for the family at all? Or perhaps the family - whatever is left of it - is waiting to slowly extend an olive branch. But Trys controls the story as much as their family does - so either, the secession has only just begun or it is a race to the finish line with Trystan's own loyalties on the line.

[thesnowyprincess]

I cannot help myself but the Caucasian MC from Astrea's 💔 reminds me so much of Nora von Waldstätten, one of my favourite actresses 🫶

~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~

~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~°~

If you know the TV-serie Die Toten vom Bodensee, you're a real fan 👏