#a stranger arrives to a family tragedy already in progress

[marxalittle]

More terror from the depths of my notes app (ie, story ideas half-framed and hardly fleshed out, growing more deeply embroidered without ever getting properly written), this time a Gothic romance featuring lighthouse keeper ex-sailor exile Jaina and haunting-her-own-manor ghost/banshee Sylvanas, with bonus dark rangers running a bar and Vereesa who knows very well who's in the locked west tower doing the accounts and seeing to the estate and refuses to come home until her sister is willing to leave her room and be civil.

It was definitely a mage tower. The maps of the area and all the local records called it a lighthouse, and to be sure, that was its function; but even before she'd moved into it, it had been a mage tower. An elven mage tower, at that: elegant and refined, to her eyes too delicate for the rugged coast it oversaw, but older and more powerful than it looked. Folded full of functional spaces-- rooms with workbenches and pigeonhole shelves, rooms with reinforced walls and ceilings-- the tower had been stripped bare when she'd arrived. When the last keeper had gone for the war, they had left nothing behind.

The great lamp and lens at the top were mundane enough, though the way her fingers itched at the feeling of old arcane magic she doubted that had always been the case. Two levels down, the room beneath the lamp's machinery housed only the spiral stair and the still-operational magical apparatus: a communication system, tied into a net of wards and leylines and humming with power, if badly in need of maintenance. Maps covered the walls, marked and marked over in different hands, different colors; the fading lines told stories of old emergencies, storms past, battles long forgotten.

A watchtower.

A watchtower at the end of the world, as far as the fallen kingdom it had served had been concerned; and as far as Jaina Proudmoore was concerned as well. It suited her. There was a certain symmetry to it.

What was one to do when one's world had ended? Travel to the end of the world, perhaps.

[pomegranates-and-blood]

Σέργω (νοσταλγία deleted scene)

νοσταλγία Masterlist

Σέργω (stérgōto): love (mostly of non-sexual affection), to show affection, to be content, to acquiesce (Ancient Greek)

Pairing: Ivar/Reader

Summary: So, another deleted scene/chapter. This takes place between chapter 26 and 27. It’s just filler stuff that I particularly liked cause it’s the closest thing I can get to fluff without making myself feel insecure.

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: Aside from the usuals to this story, mentions of poisoning.

A/N:Yes this is one giant thing of me just referencing Orpheus and Eurydice’s story and making a lot of parallels between Persephone/Hades and the Reader/Ivar. That is about it.

Self indulgent? Yes. Unnecesary? Also yes. Do I love it tho? Another yes.

Taglist: @youbloodymadgenius​​ @heavenly1927​​ @toe-vind-ek-jou​​ @xbellaxcarolinax​​ @pieces-by-me​​ @angelofthorr​​ @samsationalwilson​​  @peachyboneless​​ @1950schick​​​​ @punkrocknpearls​​ @ietss​​ @psych0crybaby​​ @revolution-starter​

And calm slowly but surely starts returning. Granted, it is slightly disrupted by the ‘diplomatic’ visit of one King Harald, who, according to Ivar, probably comes to Kattegat as a subtle reminder of the deals Ivar once made and to gauge at how stable the marriage proves to be.

And the possibility of children, which is not something you had considered before.

And something you won’t start thinking about now, definitely.

You smile in greeting, try not to recoil in disgust when the man with the inked face presses a kiss to the back of your hand; and for once stay quiet and only watch.

The nights that he spends progress simply enough, though you do notice Ivar goes to bed by the time you’ve already fallen asleep most of the nights the King spends in Kattegat, presumably talking with Harald, and you notice Hvitserk be colder than you could have ever believed him to be, as he smiles at the older man.

Even Ubbe, in all his apparent calmness, seems on edge during the time the other man spends in his brother’s kingdom.

The realization he is very much a threat, especially now that he has grounds to feel wronged by Ivar; is something you don’t know what to do with, how to feel about.

“Is he…a threat?” You ask one night, laying on your back in the darkness of the room you share with the man they made to be your husband.

Ivar sighs, “No. He is an ally. He is…angry, but nothing to be worried about.”

The low cadence of his voice, the choice of words…a part of you wonders if Ivar is truly trying to, in his own way, soothe you.

“You angered a great many people marrying me, didn’t you?”

“Just Harald.” He grunts, getting more comfortable.

“And me.”

Ivar smirks, “You won’t go to war against me.”

“For now,” You concede with a breathed laugh. After a moment, you whisper, “What will you do with him?”

“Giving him a looser leash in York will keep him happy. When Stithulf is dealt with and winter passes, we will raid from York again,” Ivar explains, closing his eyes again, “We’ll see then what we can grant him to keep him settled.”

You hum in response, letting your eyes fall closed. Too late you think about what you’re doing when you move closer to Ivar, one of your arms intertwining with his and your cheek resting against his shoulder. You feel him tense under you, and though you wait a few breaths in silence, he doesn’t move. He may not be breathing. With a sigh, you mumble, “I can poison him and make it look like an accident, you just say the word.”

That does manage to make a short laugh leave Ivar’s lips. You pretend to ignore how it trembles past his lips, how his breath is still uneven before he goes back to the unnatural stillness.

Though you consider moving back, wishing that he can relax again, you don’t move. He is too unbelievably warm for you to do anything other than closing your eyes and letting his controlled breaths lull you to sleep.

____

You eye the man with the inked face from your place at the other end of the long table, and, laying your chin on your husband’s shoulder, you silently demand his attention.

Ivar turns his head slightly towards you so, making good use of many late hours teaching him your tongue, you whisper, “I don’t like him, not one bit.”

He chuckles, and a strange pride fills you at being able to make him laugh.

In the accented and still rough Greek, he replies, “Me neither.”

“I don’t appreciate how he looks at me.”

Ivar smiles at this, a lot colder, a lot more…cruel. You know he delights himself in knowing he has you while others want you; especially someone like this King.

“He always wanted what he cannot have. But Harald is harmless.”

“No one is harmless here. Your people ar-…”

“Our people.” He corrects, switching to his own tongue. You roll your eyes.

“The people of Kattegat may be my people as well, but not…Vikings. You have strange customs and even stranger…moral values.”

“Didn’t you promise your love in exchange for an army?” He taunts without hesitation, making you narrow your eyes at him. Ivar offers only a shrug and a mocking smile in response.

“How else was I supposed to get one?” You intone after a moment, tilting your head to the side.

As the night progresses, though you find yourself offering too many fake smiles, you also find yourself learning a lot about the world -and family- you married into.

“And your wife…”

“Ex-wife.” Ubbe corrects, you remain in silence for a moment or two before you continue.

“Your ex-wife, she was…happy with this arrangement?”

“More than ‘happy’, I’d say.” Hvitserk points out, and a smiling Ubbe knocks his cup with his.

“Gods above,” You mutter to yourself, and the Princes laugh. Rolling your eyes at their reaction, you lean closer to your husband, whispering, “When you told me about her, you could have told me…about all that.”

Ivar only shrugs, a tension that only comes up, you’ve noticed, when that particular blonde is brought up coiling around his shoulders and back.

A woman that wasn’t so aware of the dark eyes of King Harald studying her ever since he arrived in Kattegat would have let her hands settle on her husband’s back; but you only stay silent and listen with an absent smile to the tale some rugged warrior starts telling.

“Did anyone tell you about Harald and the Princess he was supposed to marry?” Ivar asks by your ear a while later, bringing your attention back to him.

“I’m guessing it is a good love story.”

“There’s better ones.” He replies, and a smile starts to spread on your face.

“Like?”

He returns his gaze to the feast going on before you, and instead of replying starts telling you of a young Harald that set off to become worthy of a princess that -even though Ivar does not see it, and you are certain the protagonist of the story did not either- was never of a mind to marry him. He tells you of how he found her again and she had already married another, a man that, when it comes to land or titles, was lesser than Harald.

He tells you of how her husband was killed in front of her, and how there’s whispers that she tried killing Harald under the guise of seduction only to be stopped and slaughtered by the King’s brother.

He finishes the tale, and you consider the story in your mind as you chew on a few almonds.

“You feel sorry for him, don’t you?” Ivar asks, incredulous. You turn wide eyes to him, and before you can give form to your explanation, the Viking chuckles, “You do. Gods, woman, you’d let someone escape Hel if they told you a love story, wouldn’t you?”

“I…It was tragic. Moving.” you insist, still betraying a smile at the expression on Ivar’s face, “Stop it, it’s not a fault to have a soft heart.”

He laughs, probably at you, but you find yourself still smiling like a fool. Ivar leans back on his seat, and after a breath of hesitation -that you pretend to ignore, but you both know you’ve noticed- grabs your hand in his and intertwines his fingers and your own.

“Alright. Explain to me why it is that some old fool thinking a princess could love him enough to wait for him is…moving.”

You shrug, your eyes on the stark contrast between his hand and yours where they lay on your lap.

“He loved a woman she never was and she…well, she never loved him at all. Yet Fate brought them together, again and again. It is a tragic tale, as most love stories are, and…”

“And you like tragic stories.” Ivar finishes for you, and you roll your eyes.

“I don’t like them, they just…it’s easier to tell a tragedy than a happy story,” You lean closer and once again resting your chin on his shoulder as he looks back at the feast, you whisper, “Harald’s story with his Princess wouldn’t be one to tell if it weren’t tragic. With her death, with that fallout, the illusion of how happy they could have been, of how perfect everything could have been, remains alive.”

“Is that how you feel about that commander of yours?” He asks suddenly, and when you lean back in surprise he only grabs your hand tighter and keeps his eyes ahead, “You think of how perfect everything could have been with him?”

“Narses?” You ask, incredulous, “No, why would I-…?” Realization dawns on you and you narrow your eyes, “You can’t be jealous of a dead man.”

For a moment you see the clear tell that you’ve struck a nerve, but Ivar recovers quickly enough, leaning closer to you and eyeing you with a barely-there smirk in place.

“You were jealous of a slave.”

“Former slave. A slave you freed, and didn’t tell me about even when she became my friend.” You point out, furrowing your brows at the way his smile grows even more smug.

“I married you,” He reminds you, but you roll your eyes. Ivar chuckles, knowing, “Doesn’t help much, does it?”

“It should to you!” You insist lowly, “I never let him marry me, and he was…”

“Perfect?” He supplies bitterly.

“Someone that didn’t abduct me.”

“And why did you let me make you my wife then, hm?”

Because I wanted to, because it was the one thing that let me stay.

“The Gods only know.” You reply, mock annoyance on your voice, because you cannot bring yourself to be upfront, you cannot bring yourself to give away this truth just yet.

____

Thank you so much for reading!

I’ll try my best to get a one shot done today and post it, but in case I can’t, here’s wishing you a fantastic end of 2020 and an even better start of 2021. Love you!

[rightintheguts]

The Witch of Birmingham

Decided to re-post this, so here's the summary: Her family wasn’t the same after the War. Her father lost a leg; her brother an eye; her sister a husband. And for Bianca? She lost her family in the aftermath.

Though, she’d be damned if she let the tragedy of that war consume her, as it had her family.

With a split decision, Bianca leaves her family, transitioning from the scenic sight of Galway, to the industrial streets of Birmingham, hoping for a fresh start away from the memory of her broken family.

She gains employment at a local business, and she falls into a steady routine. A routine that soon takes a turn, when on one afternoon, a group of Blinders comes looking for her boss for due money. Wonderful.

The chapter begins under the line.

Chapter One:

Birmingham was vastly different from Galway. With that singular thought, Bianca made her way off the over-packed train, and onto the equally crowded platform, using some effort to stay afloat with the mass of strangers that she was crammed in between. She hissed out a curse when she almost tripped over the heeled shoes of a blond woman. Shooting out a hurried apology to the Miss in question, Bianca was once again sucked into the departing crowd. Soon enough the crowd thinned, and she was able to separate herself from the lot of them; she took a moment to gather herself, not used to being in such overly large crowds.

Once she took stock of both herself, and her belongings she looked around the platform, watching as others boarded the train; some hurrying off to wherever they’re meant to be.

Her gloved hands twisted over her suitcase, chest twinging at the sight of families reuniting, or bidding farewell. Her mind conjuring up the image of her own family, before she willed it away: there was no time thinking of that. No, instead she should focus on finding her way to her newly purchased flat, a thought that felt odd to her--of having her own space, but she welcomed the feeling, even though it frightened her. Be brave, Bianca.

Taking a deep breath, she held it and closed her eyes. No more ‘Theo’. once I open my eyes, I’ll only be ‘Bianca’. Exhaling, a smile bloomed across her face, and her eyes snapped opened a second later. With her head held high, Bianca briskly strut through the doors of the train station, and out into cobbled streets of Birmingham.

_____________

(A Month Later)

The moment her neighbors started screaming at each other, was a clear indication that she needed to get ready, and start the day. Bianca groaned into her scrunched-up pillow, rolling onto her side and sitting up, haphazardly tossing her quilted covers to the side, as her bare feet touched the worn hardwood floor. Who needs an alarm clock, when you have the Hughes?

Lord, bless them! Sighing in resignation, Bianca sluggishly rose from her creaky mattress, and began her morning routine. She was never a morning person, and moving to Birmingham sure as hell didn’t change that.

Setting her copper kettle to boil, she finished pinning up her blonde hair, all-the-while glaring heatedly at the wall across from her. Throughout the month she’s been here, the couple have made it a habit to argue from the early hours of the morning, to the very moment Mr. Hughes arrives home from either work, or the local pub. The only time she gets a hint of peace, is when she is out of her bloody flat, and those few precious hours before Mr. Hughes gets home.

Thankfully, Bianca had managed to concoct something during her second week here, that could instantly knock her out when she needed to rest.

Though, perhaps I won’t need that now? Bianca had made it her personal mission to either befriend, or get to know her neighbors to some extent. What she had learned during her first week, was that Mr. Baker hated visitors, but he had liked the apple crumble she had brought him; the Millers, were an elderly couple who were very fond of her pies.

Finally, there were the Hughes: Mr. Hughes was a short, and stocky man with a ruddy face, and even ruddier hair. Mrs. Hughes on the other hand, was a thin, bird-like woman with short brown hair, and a tired face. They had been pleasant, completely different from the screaming entities she had conjured within her mind in those first few days.

She eventually found out that the Hughes were having trouble in the marriage bed--or rather, Mr. Hughes was, ahem, having trouble downstairs, to the increasing frustration of Mrs. Hughes. So, naturally the couple began taking their frustration out on each other--thankfully, their fights never escalated to anything physical.

With that train of thought, Bianca made her way to her small pantry and briskly opened it. Finding what she was looking for, she snatched it up, and closed the pantry door with her hip. The kettle let out a startling hiss, almost causing her to drop the small vial, but she quickly righted herself and stuffed the glass solution into her bra.

After finishing her morning tea and toast, Bianca slid into her coat and donned its matching hat. Mr. Hughes had left just as she had finished fixing her tea, so she was secure in knowing that she wouldn’t be spotted by him. Gathering the rest of her things, she exited her flat and locked the door, before she ambled to her neighbor’s door.

Rapping thrice upon the scuffed wood, she waited until a haggard looking Abigail Hughes opened the door. Her friendly grin was met with confused eyes, before they turned sheepish.

“I, I’m sorry Bianca, were we too--?” The woman’s apology was cut short when Bianca reached into her blouse, and plucked the safe-kept vial from the insides of her bra. Holding it out for the woman, who took it after a few short beats, Bianca instructed her to place a drop of the liquid into either her husbands food, or drink.

“W-what--” Once again, the woman was cut off.

“No more than a drop, eh? And first time’s free charge--the next will be three pounds 50.” With that, she turned on her heel and strode out her apartment building.

________

Her earlier cheeriness lasted up until she stepped through the door of her workplace, and punched in her time card, where she happened to catch sight of her desk: riddled with piles of meeting notes--notes that she would have to spend all day typing up, and filing away. Shoulders slumping, she withheld a sigh and replaced her card in it’s designated slot, then Bianca made the short trek to her, now, cluttered desk. She had just placed her purse down, when her boss suddenly opened his office door with a loud bang, startling her before abruptly barking her name.

“Ms. Kovac!” upon not immediately seeing her, the man called for her again, before said woman pushed the door back a smidge more, revealing herself. Mr. Thompson jumped, though was quick to try and play it off as a mere shuffling of his feet.

“Yes, Mr. Thompson?” she asked, forced smile stretching across her face. She could already feel a headache coming on, and it was barely the start of her work day. The man produced an even larger pile of documents for her, carelessly thrusting them into her limp arms, causing her to scramble in order to not drop them--which was possibly his intent, if the unsatisfied frown was any indication.

After briskly informing her that these documents, along with the ones on her desk, will need to be finished today, he closed his office door and then headed for the entrance of the small office building.

“Oh, and keep tabs on my messages, yeah?” with that, he exited the building, leaving her slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

Oh, damn that man! Snapping her mouth shut, she huffily slammed the papers on her desk, before closing her eyes and took in a lungful of air. Counting to ten, Bianca told herself to calm down--she needed this job, that she should bare a stiff-upper-lip and march through the day. It was only six hours.

Reaching ten she exhaled, and opened her eyes. Sitting down at her desk, she lugged the documents onto her piled desk, and readied her type-writer, officially beginning her day.

_____________________

Around lunch-time, the office door opened and closed, followed by long, sure steps that languidly made their way towards Bianca, though she was far too focused on her work to notice this. She had made a surprising amount of progress with the mountain of documents, and with her decision to work through lunch she was confident that she wouldn’t be forced to work over-time.

The only sound after that, was the fast rhythmic tap, tap, tap of her type-writer, fingers flying over the keys; eyes solely focused on her task, and mouth absent-mindedly chewing half of her sandwich, the other half hanging from her sealed lips, waiting it’s turn to be consumed.

A throat clearing broke her out of her trance, she idly glanced up, and nearly had a stroke right then and there when she registered exactly who stood in front of her desk; along with the sudden influx of mortification at the picture she no doubt made.

Thomas Fucking Shelby!

She may not have been in Birmingham long, but she sure as fuck knew who the Shelbys were--especially the one who happened to be looming over her desk currently. Face burning, she reached for her sandwich and bit through it, setting the rest down on the napkin she had wrapped it in, and desperately sought to reclaim some-sort of dignity. Swallowing, she tried mustering a smile, though it fell short and morphed into a grimace.

“How can I help you, Mr. Shelby?” She’s heard quite a bit about the Shelbys--especially about Thomas Shelby in particular. She had once heard that his icy stare alone, could melt a man’s face off--though the man who said as much was quite drunk at the time, so she didn't have much faith in his word. In fact, he didn’t appear that frightening, if anything he appeared amused--most likely due to having caught her off guard. He gestured a bit to his mouth, glancing to her own before she caught on and hastily wiped the mustard away with a quick swipe of her tongue, face once again heating in embarrassment.

Dear Lord, please strike me down.

“Is Jimmy ‘round?” At the mention of her boss, the frustration from this morning reared its ugly head, but she was quick to stamp it out--she didn’t want to come across as defensive or hostile towards Mr. Shelby, especially when she realized he wasn’t really alone--two Blinders were standing guard outside the door. Shaking her head, she informed him that he had left in the early morning, and that no, he hadn’t told her where he had gone, nor when he would be back.

Seeing Mr. Shelby subtle frustration at her employer’s absence, along with the news that she had no idea where he was, Bianca was anxious to placate the man.

“Was there anything you were expecting, or wanting to discuss with Mr. Thompson?” she asked pleasantly, a sudden thrill racing down her spine when he looked at her, a dark brow raising at her inquiry.

“I was expecting a payment two days ago, and ‘ave yet to receive it.” He reached into his pocket, and slid a cigarette from it’s cartridge before lighting it. Bianca froze in place, her mind began rapidly turning in thought; and dread practically twisting her intestines into intricate knots.

“I’d graciously given him an extra day to get the money, and still I haven’t received the three-hundred quid he owes.” a pause, accompanied by a ghost of a smirk. “Now with interest, of course.”

Bianca cursed, verbally. She couldn’t help it, finally realizing what this was, and why her boss had made sure she would be present during this time--no doubt having quickly learned, that she would rather work through lunch than work a second of over-time--and why he wasn’t.

That kreten! (1)

“Now, I know--” Mr. Shelby had started, seeing as she was growing emotional, but Bianca cut him off by standing abruptly, the two Blinders jerked to attention, but she paid them no mind. Oh, she was furious with her boss--why, if he was here this very moment, she’d strangle that little kozí kurva (2); God forgive her, but she would!

Making the short trek to her employer’s office, a litany of Slovak curses following her wake, she began to fumble with one of her hair pins. She jerked the door open with a bang--the bastard didn’t even lock it--and marched towards his desk, her heels furiously clicking against the hardwood floor.

Reaching for the tasteless painting that hung behind his office chair, she yanked it from the wall and carelessly tossed it aside--if the kretén had any problems with her treatment of his things, she’d tell him to shove ‘em up his arse. Bianca released an inelegant snort at the man’s predictable mind set. He’d had thought himself so clever; thinking that he was the only one in the world with a safe hidden behind a painting, that they’d neither find him, nor his money: forcing her to deal with the gangsters, the complete ass.

Well, he won’t be laughing for long when he finds his cash gone!

Analyzing the safe, she ended up letting out another haughty snort; he hadn’t even bothered to purchase a decent one, she’d have no problem cracking this one--hell, a babe could crack this pathetic excuse of a safe.

“What’re you doin’?” Glancing over her shoulder, she found Mr. Shelby standing in the doorway, smoking all care-free like, and watching her with a sort of detached amusement. She finally managed to pluck a pin from her hair, then gave the man a one-armed shrug.

“Quitting.” she said simply. She heard something suspiciously like a laugh, but when she happened to glance back at him, he was as grim as the Reaper. Crossing herself at both the thought, and for what she’s about to do, Bianca set to work.

She was severely disappointed, with barely any thought, she heard the tell-tale click and voila: the safe was opened and the money inside was ripe for the taking.

“Three-hundred quid, you said?” she asked absentmindedly, already counting out the notes.

“Plus interest.”

“Ah, right.” having counted out the correct amount, including the required interest, she placed the stack of pounds on the desk so he could do so himself. While he began his own counting, she turned back towards the safe and took the rest. Grasping the leftover pounds, she turned and began walking back towards her own desk, all-the-while stuffing half the notes down her bra, and folding the rest with her purse being their future home.

Feeling eyes one her, she found Mr. Shelby once again watching her. Giving him her best smile, she began gathering her things and idly asked him, “You won’t mind too much, if such an outcome happens, that I tell the authorities that the Blinders took all the money?”

“I doubt you’d have to talk to any copper.” he informed her, and after a second of contemplation, she nodded in acquiescence, tossing her forgotten lunch away. Her employer--ah, former employer--would be too much of a coward to confront the Blinders, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to contact any officers.

“Well, then I bid you a pleasant day, Mr. Shelby.” She went to gather her coat and hat, and punched out her time card, before tossing it in the bin near-by.

“You as well, Ms…?” She twisted to face him, and smiled once again.

“Kovac. Bianca Kovac.” He tilted his head in acknowledgement, and she took that as her que to leave. She nodded farewell towards the two Blinders stationed outside, before reaching for her compact and lipstick from the recesses of her questionably large purse. After re-applying the bold red to her lips, she smiled and winked at herself before snapping the compact closed.

Well, time to find a new job.

______________

Translations:

1.) Asshole

2.) Goat fucker

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Life Without Reverend Moon by Jen Kiaba – October 22, 2012

Thirty-thousand feet seems like a good altitude at which to question one's life. “I am already in motion,” I tell myself. It's a kind of progress. Shortly after my twentieth birthday I was in progress, between JFK and Heathrow, en route to Oslo.

After takeoff the girl sitting next to me smiled kindly, asking where I was headed. I told her:

“To Norway. To visit my husband.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of glossy women's magazines, offering me several. They promised hot sex tips, orgasm-inducing positions, and advice on how to find a man to orgasm with. She pointed to a few with a wink. “Maybe you can find something nice in there for your husband.”

Today, almost a decade later, to use the word husband feels wrong; I avoid it. But at the time it was what he said I should call him. “I am your husband!” he would say. The word sounded foreign in my ears; "husband" was supposed to be a word attached to “honoring” and “cherishing,” and whatever else heartfelt marriage vows should entail. But I had not been given the choice to say those vows.

My parents were married, along with two thousand other couples, in Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church at Madison Square Garden on July 1, 1982. I was the first of five children, and we were all raised as members of the Unification Church's Second Generation, who were thought to be born sinless and of God's Lineage, through the Blessing marriage ceremony officiated by Rev. Moon. Theologically this meant that Rev. Moon, as the purported Messiah, had created a heavenly lineage through his personal perfection, relationship with God, and marriage with (the much-younger) Hak Ja Han, in 1960.

Growing up, I always had the expectation that Rev. Moon would choose my spouse. In the Unification Church, one didn't date. Flirtatious interactions with the opposite sex were severely frowned upon, all activities were separated by gender, and we referred to one another as brother and sister in order to emphasize platonic relations. Sex before marriage was absolutely out of the question. The Church had a word for that: falling. To fall was the greatest sin that could be committed, and it could not be undone. To fall was to enter the realm of Satan, to be cut off from God and to wound His already-suffering heart.

Perhaps childhood's greatest tragedy is what we learn to normalize. In my upbringing, to question what we were taught was to invite Satan and the evil Spirit World into your mind; to fend off evil, one must quiet the questions and dive further into the readings and teachings of Rev. Moon. Some of the most effective brainwashing was what we had been taught to perpetuate upon ourselves.

At 19 I found myself on a terrifying personal precipice. I was seriously considering leaving the Unification Church, but with no means of supporting myself and no safety net outside of the insular church community, the notion was enough to bring me to panicked tears. Yet I didn't know if I believed Rev. Moon, his world, or his supposed messianic mission. As a reflex, I was ashamed and hated myself for feeling that way.

When word of an administrative opening in the US Second Generation Department reached my family, I was intrigued. What better way was there to understand what this movement was all about than by working for one of the central organizations? So, before making a decision to abandon the culture of my childhood, I climbed into the belly of the beast looking for truth. That’s where I lost my way.

When the Christmas holidays rolled around, I took my miniscule stipend and boarded an Amtrak train home to ponder the nothingness I had found but had not yet accepted. When I arrived home, there was news: after five years of having parents match their children, Rev. Moon was stepping up again, and was going to conduct a matching ceremony for the Second Generation.

My parents sat me down in the bedroom, listing all of the reasons why I should go. Though it was left unspoken, we all knew that at almost 20 years old, my eligibility expiration date was staring me hard in the face. My mother finished with, “If Jesus came to you and said that he had found your perfect spouse, what would you say to him?” She paused for effect. “Now, how much more is Father?”

How could I say no? To refuse was to deny the remotest possibility that this man might be who he said that he was. I simply had not gotten there in my journey. Besides, I told myself, it was just a matching. My match and I would have time to get to know each other before deciding to get married.

My biggest mistake was to assume that I would be allowed to exercise free will.

My mother dropped me off at East Garden, one of the Moon family's mansion-compounds in Tarrytown, NY, and I entered into the ballroom of the estate with approximately 10 other nervous young people. For the next several hours, one of the Korean leaders proceeded to lecture us on our unworthiness. That’s when I found out that by the time we left, we were all going to be Blessed to someone.

The panic blossomed. I had to leave and began approaching anyone, even strangers, to ask to borrow their cellphones. Repeated calls home, begging my parents to come pick me up, were answered in the negative.

By the end of the day, the ballroom was packed to capacity. Young people from all over the United States, Asia, and Europe had answered Rev. Moon's call. Late in the evening, Rev. Moon came out to address us through his interpreter. Though I had never heard them from his mouth before, I desperately wanted to hear words of wisdom — or something that rang true — from the man who held my future in his hands.

One phrase stuck out to me in the monotony: “Do you want me to match you tonight?” A thunderous “Yes” answered Rev. Moon's question, and we were lined up into rows, divided down the middle, and categorized.

I should have left, I tell myself. I should have simply snuck out of the sweltering ballroom, slipped out of the mansion, and found my way through security to get outside of the compound. Even if I had had to follow the train tracks from Tarrytown back home, I should have left. But with no money, no means of communication, and no idea if I would have a home to go back to if I left, I was frozen in place. Besides, I had been trained to obey.

Suddenly Rev. Moon began pointing. A girl, then a boy would stand up, acknowledge each other, bow to Rev. Moon, and then be ushered out to be “processed” by administrators. My breathing was shallow; I tried to quiet my mind and draw upon the things I had been taught.

Absolute faith. Absolute Love. Absolute Obedience.

When Rev. Moon's finger pointed to me, time stopped. I looked deep into the eyes of the man who had bidden me to rise with his gesture and saw nothing. I was gazing into the eyes of the man who was determining my future, and I had expected to see some sort of timelessness, or to feel as though his eyes were digging into my soul. But he was looking through me, as though his finger had arbitrarily found its way to me in a game of love roulette. I felt suspended over an infinite emptiness.

Then time sped up, his finger jabbed in another direction, then another and another. Three other people stood up, and I had no idea which of the other two men I had been assigned to. One I had met at a summer camp several years ago, but he was looking at someone else. The other man gestured to me and I found myself eye-level with a shrunken and pilled sweatshirt emblazoned with the word “Norway.”

In an instant, I was no longer suspended. A kind of darkness engulfed my mind, the words “game over” ringing in my ears. Afterward, everyone was abuzz with excitement; I desperately looked around to try and find someone whose face mirrored the same panic I was trying to fight. A gesture from above caught my attention. “Norway” was trying to introduce himself to me.

Finally I looked up at the man that Rev. Moon had chosen for me. "Tall" was the only word that came to mind. Over the noise, he tried asking me questions; what they were and how I answered, I forget. Those next hours were a strange blur — alternating between sadness and terror. At one point I borrowed someone's cellphone and called home. It was 2 a.m. and my mother's sleepy voice answered. “I'm matched,” I said without emotion. “To a Norwegian. His name is Chris.” Then I hung up.

We were woken up the next morning at 5 a.m. for morning service. I had lain awake all night, clutching my stomach, trying to keep nausea at bay. Chris found me and approached me with a bagel — the first meal I remember receiving in 24 hours. The smell of food made me ill and I politely refused. Despite his best efforts to chat with me and have the “getting to know you” small-talk, I could barely muster words.

Every so often I would sneak away to borrow another cellphone, calling home in tears. But if my parents had refused to budge before, they certainly weren't going to now that they had a son-in-law waiting in the wings.

The day after Christmas, at the back of that crowded ballroom, I was wearing a wedding dress that didn't fit, standing next to a tall stranger, and repeating vows in a language I didn't understand. After the Blessing ceremony, we had official photos taken. As the photographer told us to say “cheese,” I realized that I couldn't remember how to smile.

I still have that photo. I look like a confused child playing a bizarre game of dress-up; I'm gazing into the camera with a lost expression. Chris is looking away, dressed in an equally ill-fitting tuxedo. The picture would have been funny if it weren't so sad.

That was how I found myself several months later at 30,000 feet, bound for Norway. To fight the mounting dread of the impending arrival, I immersed myself in the magazines that my neighbor had kindly lent me. It was the first time I had ever picked up any material that encouraged an expression of sexuality, and I felt a delicious bit of rebellion wash over me.

As I pored over the pages, I could feel certain gears shifting as pieces of me unlocked and unwound inside. The women in these pages catapulted me into an exhilarating daydream in which my choices were my own. That daydream left an intense hunger within me.

As a 20-year-old virgin, I wanted to know what it would be like to sleep with a man because you wanted to, or because you loved him, not because you were pressured by your parents and his parents to “start family life.” The idea of sex with Chris made my skin crawl, and I had no idea if I would face pressure from him or his parents when my plane touched down.

Rev. Moon died on September 3, 2012, at the age of 92. His daughter, In Jin Moon, stepped down from her role as leader of the American church a few days later, after having given birth to a child from a three-year affair with a married man. While the church has not been a part of my life for many years now, I've watched these recent events and their fallout with interest.

At first, this news of Rev. Moon's daughter didn't bother me. Then the leadership began trying to explain away her actions and affair, saying that she "chose love when she had a chance.” How many of us were given the allowance to "choose love when we had the chance"? That was something we were explicitly denied; instead were taught to feel ashamed for our feelings unless they were chosen for us, and then sanctioned by someone with power over us.

Sometimes I wonder where my life would be if I had sat next to someone else on the plane, who offered to let me borrow a copy of The Economist instead. The girl next to me on the plane offered a small form of salvation; in a kind gesture she offered me a glimpse into a world that I had had no idea existed. It was a world in which I did not need to be ashamed of my body and my sexuality. My desires for love were not evil. It was a world that encouraged me to discover who I was, not a world in which I had to break my inner-self down to fit a preconceived notion of goodness and of womanhood. Most important, it was a world that let me take ownership of my future, my free will, my reproduction, and my heart. It was a world that I finally knew I needed to escape to.

And I did. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen while I was in Norway. It took me almost two years of fighting with Chris, fighting with his parents and my own, before a church divorce was granted. The decision to "break the Blessing" was an agonizing one that took me turning myself inside-out, trying to reform into the kind of person who could love and accept Chris. But finally, I walked away — free but with a proverbial Scarlet "A" branded into my chest, as far as other church members were concerned. Today I am proud of it. It is my battle scar from a fight I am proud to have survived, because I fought my way into this new world.

Jen Kiaba is a photographer living in New York's Hudson Valley. Her work explores dreams, memory, fantasy, and the realms where all three blend. This is her first personal essay. She and her sister also have a blog about their experiences within the Unification Church.

___________________________________

The Purity Knife: Sex, Death and Human Trafficking in the Unification Church

http://summerofcheesecake.blogspot.com/

https://www.jenkiaba.com/portfolio

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Jen Kiaba on the Ares Meyer podcast

Conceptual Self Portrait Artist
Join me in conversation with Artist Jen Kiaba as we talk Poetry, Self Portraits and Child Marriage.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conceptual-self-portrait-artist/id1549515902?i=1000507915214

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Why Didn’t You Just Leave?

Jen Kiaba
: Hello and welcome to my least favorite question in the entire world. It’s one I’ve heard more times than I care to count, and sadly I think that’s something many cult survivors can relate to. In the past that question used to make me clam up and spiral into shame, or mumble, “It’s not that simple.” But in those days I didn’t fully understand the coercive control mechanism that were used to keep me, and so many others, trapped.

Read more:
 https://jenkiaba.medium.com/lessons-on-leaving-why-didnt-you-just-leave-789953c4689a

___________________________________

We Are All Vulnerable

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‘Falling Out’ Elgen Strait podcast  April 6, 2021

13. Fuel For Nightmares: Jen Kiaba – Part 1

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-fuel-for-nightmares-jen-kiaba-part-1/id1550448436?i=1000516011584

• Jen’s website: jenkiaba.com • Introducing a new segment “Autotune the Moon.” • “Bad Moon Rising” by John Gorenfeld – Recommended by Jen.


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‘Falling Out’ Elgen Strait podcast  April 13, 2021

14. Scorpion House: Jen Kiaba – Part 2

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/14-scorpion-house-jen-kiaba-part-2/id1550448436?i=1000516958607

Recommended reading from Jen: "Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free" by Linda Kay Klein

[charlemange1]

Ask of the Lesser (Frankenstein/Lovecraft Works): 1 Paradise Lost

“I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you.”

—The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

“…did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?”

—Paradise Lost

Some folks are born destined for greatness. Others live content in ignorant mediocrity, never knowing what could have been. Then there is me. Born into wealth, but barred from inheritance. Raised to be great, but crippled from illness. Dinning amidst kings and counselors, yet ever aware of that unseen barrier separating me from them. Was that not my first memory? My brother halfway out the door, glancing back to remind me I was too little to follow. Too weak. Left behind while he set out to make a name for himself. A name that has haunted me long after fleeing Geneva.

“But I am alive,” I whispered. Whether it was to my drink or the cockroach circling its rim, I could not say. Usually I could handle the memories, but tonight was the four-year anniversary of my brother’s death, and by God I longed to forget amidst this shabby tavern.

Taking another swig, I half listened to the men behind my lonely table clank mugs and bet on who was the lowest on Fortuna’s wheel. Their strange accents branded them fellow refugees.

“The revolutionaries ransacked the whole farm!”    

“Well, the bloody peasants welcomed Napoleon in my city! I had to flee with only the clothes on my back. You know how the French handled their own revolution. Can you top that, mates?”

My heart ached for these poor souls. Seeking connection through tragedy, I tipped my chair back to face them.

“Illness struck my mama down when I was a boy,” I said.

“Did it?” The grit on the central speaker’s face cracked beneath a mocking smile.

“Yes, and our trusted family maid strangled my little brother. Shortly afterwards a good friend was murdered abroad, and my dear cousin’s neck was snapped on her wedding night. The pain of it drove my papa to an early grave and my surviving brother insane. The servants thought our family cursed and fled, and I followed suit when the riots escalated.”

Silence fell over the already solemn tavern. A few men on the sidelines glanced up.

“I’ll be dammed,” someone called. “We can toast to that! To…”

“Ernest,” I raised my glass, holding back a cough. “Ernest Frankenstein.”

The tavern chanted my name with a bitterness only hardened refugees could master. Many of them had likely been noblemen or magistrates, all pointless titles once the fever of revolution had gripped the masses. The upper class had been blamed for every economic and social injustice, and in the fires of vengeance, not even my deceased parent’s philanthropy had saved the Frankenstein villa from rioters.

From the lakefront I had watched the flames devour my past, present, and foolishly assumed future dwelling. I would compare it to Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise, but they at least had one another. What had I? A few hastily gathered heirlooms and happy memories trapped inside coffins? Wretched world! Paradise was lost to me the day Captain Walton presented my last family tie in a casket. He had found Victor half-frozen in the Arctic, chasing imagined monsters he blamed for the misfortune that plagued us. My poor, hysteric brother! I downed the rest of my drink, so much for burying bad memories. As I tried (and failed) to get that miserable captain from my mind, I pulled a few silver francs from my pocket. I would last three months, best. The only heirloom I had not bartered for bread was Victor’s pocket journal, and I doubted the ravings of a madman would fetch a high price. Taking my cane, I started toward the splintering door. A little girl dashed in front of me and I clutched the counter to steady myself. She pranced to the bartender and tugged on his pant leg with tiny hands. The patches on her dress were the same fabric as his pants—his daughter no doubt.

“My apologies,” the bartender bowed to me while shaking off the girl. “Turn away for an instant and the children wreak havoc!”

“You are fine,” I nodded. The girl held an empty bowl in her sooty fingers. William had been around her age when Elizabeth and I had first taken him to the lake to catch crawdads. The memory made me smile, and I dropped a few francs on the counter as I passed. “Feed your family.”

Two months now, but I would manage. A tall gentleman with arms crossed over his half-buttoned coat opened the door for me, and I thanked him before stepping onto the dirt road. The moonlight enveloped the surrounding forest in dancing silver. If I walked all night, I could arrive in the next town by morning, presuming my legs could carry me that far. The sooner Ingolstadt was behind me, the better.

A multitude of steps thundered after me. Biting my lip, I continued onward.

“Pardon me, Monsieur Frankenstein.”

There was venom in those words. I turned to face the group of three, recognizing the badly buttoned coat of the man in front who had held the door. I had not anticipated such a broken-down tavern housing learned readers. It seemed that in times of war even the mighty seek to forget the world.

“I presume you have read that captain’s so-called biography of my brother?” I interrupted the expected affirmative. “You should know that Victor was aliéné, completely insane.”

“Graverobbing will do that to a man,” Button Boy’s meaty fingers flexed. “As will lurking around God’s domain doing the devil’s work!”

The absence of people in the streets was not lost on me. Most people had wisely laughed Walton’s narrative off as a madman’s rambles, but others saw their deepest fears galvanized within Victor’s delusions. Thrusting their terrors of a quickly modernizing world onto who they saw as the ultimate embodiment of progression gone wrong. They had taken fiction for fact, and once they made the connection between him and I, well…

“Tell me, Ernest, are you aware of the concept of the hereditary taint?”

“Oh my, I just realized that I have important business elsewhere,” I backed away and thumped against solid muscle. Fingers gripped my boney shoulders as a hoarse voice whispered into my ear.

“It is the belief that characteristics are passed from parent to offspring.”

“Interesting. A fine theory to consider while being on my way…”

Button Boy took a bold step forward. “Characteristics like madness, for example, taint the entire family. It is only a matter of time before they all go the same way.”

Victor’s journal weighed heavy in my pocket.

“Good sirs, I fear you are mistaken,” I said, straining my neck to the man restricting me. “I have been an invalid since boyhood. These bones are incapable of mimicking my elder brother. If you hold that biography so dear, you would know that I had no say in his monster’s creation!”

“Perhaps.”

The tone was not reassuring.

“I am not my brother,” I jerked around but the hands easily held me. “Release me! Or I-”

Button Boy stuffed a rag between my teeth to stifle my pointless threats. What could I have said? That wounding me would have them tried by my high standing dead father and jailed by my dead country? You have nothing, Ernest. You are nothing now!

The exhaustion in my heart made my pitiful thrashing falter. My head fell against my attacker’s solid chest, soaking the shirt with sweat. If this was the climax to nineteen long years of suffering, why had I been born at all? What was your intent, Lord?

“This is for the good of humanity,” Button Boy leaned in close. Had William also stared into the eyes of his killer? What were his final thoughts as the maid he loved choked the life from his little body? Fingers gripped my throat and I gagged.

A shout came from somewhere, though my world had shrunk to those two murderous eyes. Out of the night, a fist punched Button Boy’s head with a force that broke his grip. I gurgled a choked gasp and collapsed on the road as the man behind me fled toward the trees. Light and dark wrestled for my vision as shouts and sounds of flesh on flesh erupted nearby. A new man whose blond curls drooped from wet sweat wrestled with Button Boy. Though Button Boy boasted a greater strength, his slim opponent easily dodged his fists and hit back with the skill of a man well-versed in human anatomy. Button Boy leaped up to strike the stranger’s face, but the taller man easily knocked his fist aside and punched his jaw with a force that sent him reeling. Button Boy clutched his mouth as he rushed off, dodging bottles the tavern hurled after him. The blond watched his escape with icy eyes before walking over to me.

“Is the boy injured?” the bartender called from the doorstep.

“Slightly stunned, but he will recover. I shall tend to him,” the stranger called back with enough confidence to convince the onlookers to file back inside the tavern. Better to avoid conflict than catch the eye of the wrong people.

“Can you walk, Monsieur?” the stranger asked with a poorly disguised American accent. He plucked my cane from the ground and handed it to me as I staggered to my feet.

“I am fine. Thank you, kind sir. Who knows what ditch I would be in now, had you not arrived,” I shuttered, extending my hand that he shook with the upmost class. A peculiar odor clung to him that I had never smelt before.

“Anything for a Frankenstein.”

Our hands dropped and I tried to cover a bad tear on my pants. “I take it you knew Papa, in better days.”

Better days. When my parents regularly welcomed renowned scholars to our villa. Justine had kept little William and I occupied while they discussed politics and theory. My throat burned from more than the aftertaste of cheap brandy. Justine. How could we have known what she was capable of?

“I never had the privilege to meet your father,” the stranger shuffled his shoe in the dirt. The moonlight reflected the fine quality of it. “Though Victor told me he was quite distinguished in your republic.”

My head lifted. “You knew my brother?”

“We shared several classes here at Ingolstadt,” the stranger explained. He looked to be in his late 20’s, what Victor would be now, had he lived. “Victor must have mentioned the name Joseph Curwen in passing? I was his chief competition.”

“I am afraid your name is new to me, Mr. Curwen,” I admitted. “From what I could gather, Victor would forget this place if he could. He guarded his secrets, I fear.”

“To a fault,” Curwen muttered. “It is a great shame. Your brother was a genius. Truly the Modern Prometheus of this age!”

“A fitting name,” I muttered. “Eagles feasting on your liver day after day would make even the greatest man go insane.”

“I heard he passed away, if this is to be believed.” Curwen pulled a book from his satchel. Even in the low light, I recognized Walton’s publication. “A great loss for humanity, to lose a mind as cultivated as his. It is quite the coincidence that I should meet you, Ernest, I was on my way to visit his grave and pay my deepest respects.”

Poor man! I owed him the truth, horrid though it was. “I am so sorry, Mr. Curwen, but Napoleon runs Geneva now. The Frankenstein tomb could be desecrated for all I know.”

“But not destroyed. It would be there in some form, correct?” Curwen’s voice fell to a whisper and I shuttered despite the warm breeze. “You would know your native land better than I. Could you take me to your brother?”

“Suicide,” I stumbled backward. Having just escaped death, I had no intent on testing my luck.

“I shall make it worth your while,” Curwen returned the book to his satchel and pulled out a piece of strange jewelry. It looked to be a tiara, though the patterns etched on its front held an unearthly splendor unlike any I had seen from Europe. The moonlight sent the golden coat sparkling, though the reflection suggested some foreign alloy.

“What metal is that?”

“One that will fetch a fine price,” Curwen winked and tossed me the tiara. I scrambled to catch it in time. “Us merchants have our secrets too.”

I tipped the headpiece back and forth, ever aware of the loose change rattling in my pocket.

“Please Ernest, merchantry may be my occupation, but respect for the dead is my duty,” Curwen gave a dramatic bow, perhaps an American attempt at being cordial? The habits of foreigners were largely unknown to me, when they visited our villa, Victor’s company was understandably preferred to mine. Yet hearing this stranger speak of my infamous brother so fondly was a gift in and of itself, and, I reminded myself, he had saved my life.

“I cannot promise you results, Mr. Curwen, but for the sake of my brother I will assist you as best I can.”

Curwen shook my hand again, how I missed such kind contact! “It would be much appreciated, Monsieur. We shall embark tomorrow. Until then, you must rest at my residence.”

“Really?” It was as though I were a human and not an assumed madman’s relative or corrupt aristocrat!

“For Victor’s brother, it is the least I can do,” Curwen turned from the tavern. “Come now, the university is nearby.”

“University?” my cane plunked in the dirt. “You cannot mean Ingolstadt University?”

“Where else?”

“But they closed earlier this year! From financial troubles, if I recall?”

“Which makes it the perfect abode to rest in peace,” Curwen chuckled, as though the last bit were humorous. “I assure you it is safe. The few remaining stragglers fled when the French invaded.”

Break in? Did this man consider me a criminal? Closing my eyes, I reminded myself that I was not much anymore, us invalids had to take what we could. Without Papa’s cushion of wealth, the sooner I accepted that reality the better.

“Alright, as long as no one will mind.”

**

Curwen and I made quick work of sneaking past the dark neighborhoods and French watchposts to the university’s outer gates. The night enveloped the massive buildings within to leave them warped pillars of shadow. I had kept away from this place for good reason. On this very campus those shadows had sprung and consumed my brother, spitting out the shaking husk that arrived home for William’s funeral. Curwen opened the unlocked gates effortlessly. There was no creaking, as though dark forces meant to fool us. The air weighed thick in my lungs.

“Come along, Ernest. Thankfully, I took the initiative to drag a few sofas into the library for my leisure. You may rest there.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. I stayed close to Curwen as he led me by torchlight inside one of the buildings and down several stone corridors that seemed to stretch forever. Finally, he stopped by a warped wooden door that opened to reveal shelves upon shelves of books lining the cobbled walls. Several piles of tossed volumes lay scattered from the hastily abandoned move.

Curwen chuckled as he stepped inside and began lighting the mounted torches.

“Does something humor you, Mr. Curwen?”

“I was thinking of your brother,” he said. “This library would close after dark, but Victor was never the type to grovel at authority. We would alternate between causing distractions so the other could sneak in and study! I presume he roped you into similar mischief, did he not?”

Curwen stopped by a cluttered desk and quickly placed several of the open books into his satchel. I seized the moment and blotted my runny nose with my coat-sleeve.

“No, I was Victor’s junior by seven years. I am afraid he never did much with me at all.” I could still see Victor’s sneer as he left for university so soon after Mama’s death. Free from his weak, invalid baby brother. “Did he mention me much?”

Curwen continued lighting torches with his back to me. “Victor kept his home and work life in private corridors. You likely noticed that in his letters!”

“He never wrote home,” my shoulders fell. “Not once.”

“Do not take it personally. Men of Victor’s caliber often find themselves so caught up in their work that the real-world slips by.”

“What sort of work?” I questioned, watching Curwen place another book in his satchel before buttoning it shut. “Mr. Curwen, surely you do not believe Walton’s lies?”

Curwen paused, choosing what to say. Victor had done that too. Shifting through information, pulling out the choice details.

“He worked in the sciences. Victor was a genius, as you know,” Curwen walked out the door with a nod. “Now rest, Ernest. We shall start for Geneva tomorrow.”

The door shut and I was left alone in the disorganized room. I picked up a badly bent copy of A Vindication on the Rights of Women and returned it to the shelf. Reading had never come easy to me like with Victor. I was still a child when my parents had abandoned their academic aspirations for me and left me to my own devices. A fine thing for a young boy, perhaps that was why I had found Victor’s insistence of making a scholar out of me so tiresome. He had appointed himself as my principal instructor, and not even Elizabeth’s sweet voice pointing out the obvious had swayed him…

“Ernest lacks the constitution for these theorems and formulas, cousin. He ought to strive for a more peaceful occupation, such as a farmer,” she said, almost pleading.

“Nonsense,” Victor muttered. He pushed another book in front of me, as though my confusion would be overpowered by his desire alone. “He is more than capable of being a lawyer, or a judge like Father. If he would just apply himself!”

“Victor,” her voice grew quiet. I still heard her. “You know his mind is incapable of severe application.”

“Well, I do not care for boring books,” I jumped up and Victor’s handwritten lessons scattered. “Or being a boring farmer! I will be a great soldier, fighting off vicious invaders and going on adventures!”

Victor and Elizabeth had shared a look. I did not understand at the time, but even back then they knew my limits. My weak frame could never survive the grueling life of a soldier. The trappings of my flesh outweighed my dream. I abandoned such fantasies soon enough. Probably for the best, there was no longer a Geneva to fight for anyways.

“But you are sleeping on silk tonight,” I lectured my inner demons while brushing dust from an old sofa. “And fate has been kind enough to gift you a companion! I am no longer alone, there is much to be thankful for tonight.”

Warmth spread through me as I sunk into the cushions. Curwen needed me, and as the torchlight shadows danced on the ceiling my thoughts left the past to focus on how I might aid the generous American in the future. My mind was at peace, though sleep eluded me as I slipped in and out of consciousness. It must have, for the shapes within those swaying shadows had no place in the waking world! A ball of sprawling tentacles flickered forward and back in some wicked séance while very human shapes danced around it to an unheard beat before crumbling to dust. Those horrible shadow tentacles licked up the dancers’ remains with an eagerness that paralyzed my limbs from silent terror. Then the tentacles leaked down the library walls to consume me just as the knowledge stored here had devoured Victor.

**

The next morning, a voice speaking in an unknown tongue shattered the nightmare. Curwen stood over me expectantly, speaking that same foreign language again with raised eyebrows.

“I take it you do not speak English?”

“No,” I yawned, rubbing my eyes to hide growing shame.

“I apologize, your brother was fluent—”

“I am not my brother,” I curled my trembling fingers around my cane. We could talk after leaving these cursed grounds behind! “But I can take you to him.”

NOTES:

Of all the characters in Frankenstein, few have been slighted as much as Ernest. He switches from sickly invalid farmer in the 1818 version to aspiring soldier in 1831, but despite losing just as much as Victor, he gets brushed to the sidelines by the end. The aftermath of the insignificant sole survivor of the Frankenstein house is just too good to not explore, and who better encapsulates the insignificance of us lonely humans more than the works of H. P. Lovecraft? Or amplifies it more than the disastrous French Revolution sweeping across Europe around the same time the events of Frankenstein take place? Considering Joseph Curwen spent nine years abroad in Europe studying dark arts, including necromancy and graverobbing, it didn’t seem like much of a stretch to write this crossover.

Scholars typically place the events of Frankenstein’s in the 1790’s, so for this adaptation I have Victor dying in 1798 and Ernest fleeing shortly after when the peasant riots in Geneva were escalating in want of reform. Since Curwen was stated to be killed in 1771, I have bumped up the events of Dexter Ward to overlap with the timeline of Frankenstein. This crossover serves as a prequal to Dexter Ward and sequel to Frankenstein, taking place in 1801, after Ingolstadt closed in the real world amidst financial troubles/French Revolution as well as near the tail end of Curwen’s nine years abroad in Europe, as stated in Dexter Ward.

Please comment and let me know what you think! ^^

[siarven]

NaNoWriMo Update #2

Guess what—

I reached 50k :D Maybe half of the words will actually make it into draft 3, but who cares... it’s all part of the journey... or something... 

✿ Progress

WIP: As Dreams Collide, 3rd Draft (intro post | nanowrimo)

Day 07 - written 2,502 | total 31,090 Day 08 - written 4,212 | total 35,302 Day 09 - written -------- | total 35,302 Day 10 - written 4,748 | total 40.050 Day 11 - written 5,163 | total 45,213 Day 12 - written 4,852 | total 50,065

✿ Excerpt

1,318 words; rest below the cut. Kiyera visits the grave of her son because her mind doesn’t let her sleep. Kiyera is the woman Ben crashed into (=”the Accident”) and who brought him to the hospital. She’s a side POV character, and is introduced a lot earlier in this draft :3 I hope you like it, it’s sort of gentle-sad? 

Kiyera is deeply tired by the time she finally arrives at Tamoh’s clearing. It’s the kind of tiredness that goes down to the bone, and if she could assign it a colour it would be dark grey, like the leaden sky she hated so much back in the good ol’ days; like the grey of her grandfather’s eyes. 

Oh, what she would give to see him one last time… one last time. It doesn’t matter how much she hates him. Even if she had him by her side, life would be easier than trying to survive the flow of time on her own.

Tamoh’s stick is still there, but now it lies at the side of the clearing, half-overgrown with moss and grasses. A few mushrooms have erupted from its molding wood, and even if it makes her sad, it also gives her hope. New things can come from the dead, and even if they might not be what she actually wants, they can still be beautiful. The feathers are still there, too, but they’re almost unrecognizable nowadays, little more than a tangle of dirt. 

She remembers the day she went to the Sanctuary grove, remembers the tears in her eyes when she collected the seeds, remembers the pain in her soul. The pain was so much stronger than the hate back then… She remembers looking up into the endlessness of the trees, remembers studying the small, delicate bridge-paths criss-crossing between them, feeling tiny and unimportant by comparison in this vast, uncaring, beautiful space—

Nowadays she knows that that feeling was a lie. She’s brought so much pain to so many families, so much death, so much destruction. She’s never been unimportant, even if she nowadays wished she was. All of it was bound to get back at her one day, really. The only tragedy is that only those closest to her paid the price for her crimes. She can almost hear her grandfather’s voice now, standing at the edge of Tamoh’s clearing, seeing nothing but smudged greens and browns as the past drags at her soul: You are cursed, my dear. The atrocities you have committed will haunt you to the end of your days, and Oyaka has turned Their back on you. They say it is never too late to repent, but I am not so sure if that is the case for you. 

A shiver runs down her spine, but there’s nothing she can do. Even now, decades later, her grandfather still haunts her. Even now—

She shakes her head, walking forward slowly, carefully. Looks up at the tree. His tree. 

Almost all of the seeds she collected that day started growing during the next spring. Green, tiny, fragile—shooting up toward the hole in the roof of leaves, trying to be the first, trying to be the strongest. 

Except something happened along the way.

She still doesn’t understand what exactly it was, and how it came to be, because it doesn’t really makes a lot of sense. Tamoh was dead, burned to nothing but a small pile of smudgy ashes, and besides: the thing they burned wasn’t him anymore anyways, just a stranger with his father’s eyes. 

His soul must have escaped long before then. 

Still, all sixteen tiny saplings grew until they were half as high as her, and then they started intertwining. She remembers her confusion, her fear, when she saw it for the first time. Had someone else found her clearing? Was someone who wasn’t her coming back here again and again, just to bind the trees together and weave them into an intricate shape?

But no.

As the years went by and the trees grew, the weaving continued, even at heights no person could possibly reach. 

And now, standing in front of them, they look like a braid, forming a single tree trunk, too thick for her to reach even half-way around—after just ten years! One tree created out of a unity, created by what can only be magic; but who would come here to guide the trees into this form? It reminds her of the tale of Treeweaver… just another story told by the Merreki to their children, of course, about how the Sanctuary Grove came to be; but now, staring at Tamoh’s Tree, she wonders. What if the tale isn’t just something made up by adults, to explain the unexplainable? 

What if Tamoh’s spirit came to rest in these sixteen trees, and made them become one? What if he’s a tree now? What if he can still hear her when she talks to him, here?

Wasn’t this kind of the reason why she put the seeds into the box in the first place, hoping that one of the trees would make it, that his ashes would become part of another being?

She closes her eyes, tries to centre herself. Deep breaths, deep breaths… just like she learned when she was a little girl— 

The tears still come, and she falls apart before managing to take even one more step into the clearing, collapsing a few steps away from Tamoh’s stick. It’s starting to fall apart these days; she can still read his name, but only because she knows what it says. Only if she peels off some of the moss, and it’s not worth it; she took the stick from the forest, and in time, it will become part of it again. Just like him. 

The world blurs, and she takes a deep hitching breath. 

It takes a long time until the shaking stops, until she’s ready to open her eyes again. The coolness has made its way through her clothes, and she knows that they’ll be green and slightly wet where she lay, but she does not care. 

The world is cooler here, a mottled dark green, the shadows dancing when a wind moves the leaves high, high above. There isn’t even much of the original clearing left, because Tamoh’s tree has almost made it to the top. 

The other trees have grown, too, trying to close the gap, to become bigger and take the new space. She knows that Tamohs’ tree will make it, though, because she knew him, and he’d always been the best at everything he did.

A tiny part of her knows that this is why he died when he was barely twenty-four—burning hot, but short. Going up like a firework, and lighting the world with his particular flavour of magic, if only for a short time.

She remembers begging him, remembers talking about it. Somehow she knew that the magic killed him—the Essence Fluids, as he called them.

He refused.

Oh, how she still wishes he’d listened, even after all these years. If he’d been less talented, if he’d tried less, he might still be alive, if only just. Not many of them make it past thirty, after all. 

Another sob breaks through, and her whole body shivers. She makes herself get up, crawls on all fours toward the trunk of his tree, curls up against the rough bark. All sixteen seeds were taken from the Sanctuary Grove; she knows that they won’t be the same out here, because there’s something special about that place. Still, she doesn’t care. Even out here, the bark has turned black and shiny, and a flaky red in the areas that are already rusty. Ironbark giants don’t grow outside of the Sanctuary Grove, and yet—here she is. Maybe Asim ashes are special.

She kisses the gnarled root next to her, stares up and up and up into his outstretched branches. It’s nice down here, and somehow it feels like a gentle, sad hug, rough and cool, but still filled with as much love as a tree can give.

And slowly but surely, Kiyera slips into the world of dreams, and for once, she doesn’t remember her dreams when she wakes up, hours later.

[ultimavolatusrpg]

ACCEPTED // FALCO FIELDS

35 years old, Father to Aspen Fields, Fc: Jay Ryan

Humble, loyal, closed-off, idealistic, intuitive

tw: murder, execution, death

As a boy growing up in District Nine, Falco Fields thought that he would do what every boy in District Nine would do. They would be born, they would go to school, meet the woman of their dreams, get married, have a baby, work in the fields, and eventually die. It was a typical circle of life in the Grain District. At first, that was how his life started out. He was born as one of three boys, him being the oldest of them. However, at his youngest brother was born, his mother died shortly from birthing complications, leaving him and his brothers with his father. 

Their life didn’t end up as different as he would have thought it would, looking back on it. He started young in the fields with his father, learning quickly how to harvest grain and the proper methods. Due to how badly they needed help to put food on the table, he rarely went to school so his brothers could have the privilege of doing so. At the time, he didn’t mind it. It was his duty as the oldest brother to help provide for them since their father didn’t have their mother to help with everything that should have been helped with. 

As he grew older, he took the mantle of caregiver seriously, and that branched off to when he met Orla when they were fourteen. As much as he wanted to take care of his newfound love, she had made it an impossible task for him to take care of her. She was headstrong and spritely, bringing out the adventurer in him. She made him care about what was happening beyond the bounds of their village despite the Peacekeepers always looming around them. Every time she took his hand, he knew it would be an adventure in of itself. 

Their young relationship had blossomed overtime, creating love from the two of them. Orla gave Falco a reason to want to see a bigger picture while Falco had given Orla a reason to stay still for a moment and see the world as it was in that moment. Falco loved her more than anything else in the world -- until they found out at seventeen that she had gotten pregnant. 

It wasn’t uncommon for many people of District Nine to have children at such a young age, but they normally waited until after they were freed of the Reaping. Of course it wasn’t on purpose, but his family was supportive and offered to help each other when they could. It was five months into the pregnancy at their final Reaping that everything seemed to shift and then right itself all at once. It was the second loss that Falco would experience in his life, and something that he still to this day felt he needed to repay.

His name was pulled from the bowl, only to be saved within seconds by his best friend, Harlon. The amount of shock that pummeled through Falco in that moment was enough to make him quiet for days, even as he watched the screens and saw Harlon try to charm his way into sponsorship, only for him to die at the hands at the Victor of that Games on the second day -- Fell Vasile. 

Falco didn’t have long to grieve after Harlon’s body was brought back to Nine. A few months later, his girlfriend had gone into labor and she delivered twin girls. First came Aurelia, and then came Aspen. Falco was an eighteen-year-old father that was attempting to navigate a new world of parenthood. Orla never lost her spirit. In fact, she gave some of it to her daughters, especially Aurelia. While Falco spent most of his days in the fields attempting to get some money for his family and put food on the table, it was Orla who stayed at home and raised their girls. Before long, it became apparent that the two girls, while they were identical, had very different personalities.

There were days that Falco and Orla would lay in bed, talking about how much alike the girls were in comparison to them. It was obvious Aurelia had taken after Orla, while quiet little Aspen had taken after Falco. It was extraordinary to them at the time, but that was a time long passed. They spent a lot of years happy, but Falco knew that Orla was not someone to abide by the law of the land. She was rebellious and outspoken and always had been. Falco knew of his wife’s allegiances and never spoke about them. He stayed quiet, but encouraging. Then, ten years into their marriage, tragedy had finally struck them.

Someone had ratted out the family as being of a rebellious nature. However, as they hunted them down, Orla had taken the blame, leaving him nearly blameless. They rounded her, her parents, and him and dragged them out into the open in the middle of District Nine while their daughters were at school. As they tore Falco’s shirt off, they chained him to the pole and forced him to watch as they executed Orla’s parents first. As they put the woman to her knees, facing him, Falco plead and cried for them to spare her life. The last words upon her lips was ‘Falco, I love’ before the trigger was pulled. She couldn’t finish her words as her blood sprayed him in the face.

Falco was lashed thirty times as he cried and screamed in his emotional and physical anguish. It didn’t take long for him to realize that his twelve-year-old girls had walked up while he was still being lashed. It was the only time in his life where he couldn’t bare to take care of anyone else, even his own children. After that, it felt almost like he lost half of who he was. It was only after his wounds began to heal thanks to the help of a local nurse and his daughters that he managed to get out of bed at all. 

It took a long time for Falco to get back on track, but he dove into taking care of Aurelia and Aspen to the best of his abilities as a single, young father. Having just turned thirty and already being a widow, it was hard enough as it was. His best friend was dead and all he could do was try to take care of his daughters. Then, shortly after the incident, his father had a heart attack and passed away. It felt like one thing after another that kept assaulting his heart. He thought that the tragedies were over, until one day, Aurelia had turned up missing. He spent weeks trying to find her, trying and praying that she didn’t get caught by Peacekeepers, but nothing turned up. She was gone too. Just like Orla. Just like his mother. His father.

After all of that time, after all he did to try and take care of the people he loved most, all he had left was Aspen.

And then weeks after Aurelia’s disappearance, she was Reaped into the 96th Hunger Games. The moment he heard her name over the loud speaker, everything came out from under him and he collapsed to his knees, the soul ripped from his very bones. It took three Peacekeepers to pry Aspen from his arms so they could take her to the train to ship her to the Capitol. Every ounce of Falco’s resolve was stripped from him until the only thing left to hold onto was his brothers, who immediately came to his aid as soon as Aspen had been shipped off.

While Aspen was in the Capitol, Falco didn’t leave the television screens. Whenever he wasn’t forced to work, he was in the Square watching the screens to make sure his daughter was doing okay. They had dolled her up, put makeup on her, paraded her around as if she were a toy. He would have felt enraged if he hadn’t felt as though he was losing his baby girl. Every night as he went to bed, laying in the dark, he would pray his heart out and apologize to his wife’s spirit, where ever she may be, that he couldn’t protect their girls. 

As the Games progressed, no one thought Aspen would win, but her resilience and her ability to be faceless in the Games had benefitted her. As the Games continued, the longer she stayed alive, the more hope the man had. As it came down to the final Three, District Nine congregated in the Square. Then it became the final Two. As they watched the two of them running for their lives on the island, Falco standing alone in the Square with his brothers, he was suddenly surrounded by support. Strangers he only knew from passing by, grabbing a hold of him to keep him upright. It was a moment that he had never experienced -- a whole District coming together to take care of one of their own as it came down to the wire.

And then suddenly, Aspen was the Victor of the 96th Hunger Games, and Falco lost feeling in his legs all over again as he collapsed from relief and joy. He had never felt like that before, but all he could do now was hope he could have her back in his arms again soon. It took over two weeks until he could get her back into District Nine. As soon as she stepped off, he bolted to the stage and grabbed a hold of his daughter and fell to the floor with her, hugging her and sobbing from joy that she was still alive. The last little bit of his heart was still hanging on. 

Eventually, however, he knew that he and Aspen had to leave District Nine behind forever to let her join the ranks she earned in Victor’s Village. Their arrival there was slow and steady, but getting moved in and settled was the hardest part. Falco knew it would be a weird change of pace for him, but it was a better alternative than losing his daughter forever.

PENNED BY: TABBY

[ohcnnes-archive]

               The Milton’s: Northlake’s Happiest Tragedies

ft. Christine Evans, Jonathan Milton, Jacklyn Milton, Anne Milton, Daniel Milton, and Hera  contents: history, quick facts, and too much detail for a bunch of npc’s written by: sam, avoiding her uni work as per the usual triggers: death, depression implications

Christine Sarah Evans ( mother )

better known as: Chris

faceclaim: Madchen Amick

age: forty eight (born: 1969)

occupation: chiropractor

relationship status: widow, casually dating but considers herself single

zodiac: sagittarius

Jonathon Robert Milton ( father )

better known as: Jonny

faceclaim: Simon Baker

age: deceased at thirty eight (born: 1966, died: 2004)

occupation: military major

relationship status: died married to Christine Evans

zodiac: taurus

Jacklyn Diana Milton ( older sister )

better known as: Jackie

faceclaim: Tiera Skovbye

age: twenty one (born: 1996)

occupation: studying in Chicago, part time kitchen hand in a steakhouse

relationship status: recently started dating Xavier Levy (fc: Bob Morely, born 1994, met through friends)

zodiac: gemini

Anne Marie Milton

better known as: Anne

faceclaim: Lili Reinhart

age: eighteen (born: 1999)

occupation: Senior at Northlake High, babysitter

relationship status: dating Blake Henley (fc: KJ Apa, born 1999, met by being long time friends and neighbours) officially for the past 8 months

zodiac: virgo

Daniel Paul Milton ( younger brother )

better known as: Dan

faceclaim: Ross Lynch

age: sixteen (born: 2001)

occupation: Sophomore at Northlake High

relationship status: single

zodiac: aquarius

Hera ( family angel )

better known as: Queen of the House

faceclaim: any white and cream cat tbh

age: two (born: 2015)

occupation: owning everyone in the Milton household

relationship status: the girl every man wants

zodiac: scorpio

History

note: um this is long as shit so first paragraph is about Jonathon, second about Christine, third about the start of their family, fourth about the loss of Jonathon (this where all the triggers are), fifth is about Jacklyn, sixth is about Anne, seventh is about Daniel

The Milton family has had at least one relative with their name in Northlake for the past four generations, and most of that time it had been large families. Jonathon Milton, being the eldest brother of four, was always expected to carry on this legacy. Born and raised in Northlake he was well loved by the community, as Milton’s had always been, but he had no direction in life. There was nothing keeping him in Northlake but there was nothing inspiring him to leave either. By the time he finished high school he had no idea what to do. He worked in Northlake for a while, but doing odd jobs here and there but wasn’t living. Joining the army gave him a purpose, something to focus on. It wasn’t until his mid twenties that he really felt he could continue on this Milton legacy. Of course, it was when he met newly local chiropractor: Christine Evans. 

Christine Evans was very different from Jonathon Milton. An only child raised by single father. She travelled all across America during her growing up due to her father’s work. Most of her childhood she lived in motels, doing her her homework under a broken desk light. Her first chance at stability was college, and even then she quickly lost contact with her father, forcing her into a whole new world of challenges alone. She didn’t know any other relatives and after a few months of being bitter, alone, and tired in college, already swimming in debt: she didn’t want to know them. They’d never known her so why would they help her. She quickly learned she had to help herself. And that’s how she survived. She never relied on anyone for anything. Until she moved to Northlake, working as a chiropractor and met Jonathon, a soldier visiting home before his next deployment.

They were like two lost souls finding their home. Hitting it off within in moments of laying eyes on each other for the first time. Within a year they were married and by the next Christine was pregnant. An element of their relationship always felt rushed, maybe it was because they were only ever seeing each other for months at a time, and then not seeing each other for longer. But that’s how they were. Shortly after Jacklyn’s birth, the two were able to save up and by a small house of their own, by Jonathon’s childhood home. It was important to keep the family nearby, no matter how much Christine protested that she could handle it on her own. Over time Christine let her walls down, she became reliant on her new family and no longer doing absolutely everything on her own. But the further Jonathon progressed in his career, the more money he made for his family, but the less he was around. Their family grew two more times in the arrival of Anne and then later Daniel over the next five years.

It had been almost fifteen months since they last saw Jonathon Milton when they received the news. Killed in action. It felt so without warning, they had been so happy beforehand. Eight year old Jacklyn and five year old Anne had been preparing all sorts of things for their father’s return. Jacklyn had a collection of welcome home posters and had taken charge of printing photos for him. Anne laid out her girl scout’s uniform on her bed every morning, so if she had to make a quick change to show it and all her badges off, she’d be ready. Even Christine, after years of living like this always kept every aspect of the house orderly and clean, just in case he returned unannounced. Daniel was too young to ever understand, but even the three year old noticed the shift in the house when the news came. Christine broke. She managed to keep a strong front for three days before she locked herself in her room. Jacklyn was old enough to make sure her younger siblings ate, but she couldn’t look after them. Thankfully, Jacklyn was, still is, and probably always will be the smartest of the Milton children. She managed to get herself and her siblings over to their grandparent’s house. They stayed in between there and their family home for months while their family, especially Christine, recovered from the loss. A year after the loss, the family moved to Evercrest Lane, they needed a new home to continue the healing process.

With the loss of her father and her mother continuing to struggle with the loss, even as the children grew older, Jacklyn quickly became the secondary caregiver of the family. Forced to grow up quickly she became very serious. When she’d been younger she’d been rather silly, even among her love of books and learning, she’d loved jokes and stories. But once her father was gone, she had more important things to do. Like sometimes making sure that everyone in the house ate, including her mother. This responsibility that weighed down on her caused her to not have a great relationship with Christine. In school she was an academic before anything else. She dreamed of leaving Northlake but knew she’d never be able to go far without feeling like she was abandoning them. So she studied and studied and studied so she’d hopefully have more choices. She worked part time at Maya’s Cinema so she had a little more to add to the family’s college savings. Graduated valedictorian and received a partial scholarship to University of Chicago. She and Anne have remained just as close since her moving away, and the distance has started to heal the relationship between Jacklyn and Christine.

Anne Milton, unlike the older females of the family did not seem to change with the loss of her father. Even as a child she found it more important to bring happiness to other than to dwell in sadness herself. That being said, she struggled to adjust to a life without her father. She still struggles to know that she��s “missing” something, or at least that some people might perceive that she’s missing something. Not blessed in academics like her older sister, Anne filled her time with just about everything else. Gymnastics and Girl Scouts took up a significant amount of that time, as did being a bit of a social butterfly. By the time she reached high school she was being welcomed into the Queen Bees largely thanks to her closest friend Tilly Worthington, and welcomed into the cheerleading squad, her dreams coming true! Even if the reality behind her being selected was a little shady. Between freshman year and senior year, she blossomed. Becoming a much loved smiling icon of school spirit and good nature. Involved with a million and one things, dating the quarterback and her best friend, 

Daniel is the only of the Milton clan that had no memories of his father. No matter how much he stares at photos of the blonde stranger holding him as a baby, he can find nothing. But he has been just as much affected by that. Being raised entirely by women, save for his grandfather, always left him feeling left out and in the dark. He’d once said he didn’t want to get his period, assuming it was a thing that everyone got, not just girls. He became very quiet, barely speaking with people he didn’t know and even being quiet among his own family. He’d always been more expressive through drawing, and as he got older he played around with different art forms but always returned to drawing. He opened up more once he reached high school, comfortably finding his place in the Artists and having his older sisters watching over him.

[justinehudock]

Luçien Petiot, Spacefarer.

Going to Earth was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I felt helpless, wet, and generally uncomfortable about the whole darn thing. When I touched down onto the land of grapey Sardinian groves and meat-shreddy delicatessens and boring yellow houses that make the third planet from the Sun the place to be that it is for most beings, I was a newborn. How cute! And as a newborn, I was still enslimed in that lip-glossy coating of placenta like a parmesan chicken cutlet post-egging, pre-breading. They named me Luçien Petiot, a very fine name for any male French newborn, though I prefer to call myself “I”, despite my mother’s objections to get as much mileage out of this really super nice name as I can. She’s an odd woman, my mother. “Melinda Terry”. Very modern. So modern she didn’t take my name in birth. And she was exercising her extreme modernness when, three months pregnant with me and also, not insignificantly, hard up for cash, Melinda applied to be in a clutch of young pregnant women to be “pressed under the thumb” (she’s stupidly florid, I don’t know) of one of France’s more daring late 21st century experimental national space programs: giving birth in space. “Like the universe does™”, to take the slogan from the pamphlet the gov sent out. I used shreds of it sometimes to pad my duck stuffing.

In the large print, the authorities assured applicants that the process was, theoretically, totally safe. That the terrible pressure of the government’s metaphorical big surveilling eyes, watching and observing, noting and looking, would encourage super fast birthing, aside from giving accepted applicants a really cool story to share with friends and family, a neat certificate, a souvenir moonrock that looks just like a regular rock but in fact isn’t, and, they were told, even better oxidation to their new infant’s brain because of the ultra-pure supply that spacemen get and we earthmen don’t; not all dirty like our tree air. A step in the right direction, you’d think, but in fact I’ve just experienced a lot more farting between my encephalonic folds. It’s all gilded oxygen. My thoughts are interrupted all the time. You never think fart sounds will get old, but boy you’d be wrong about that. 

Melinda was, pretty remarkably, among hundreds and thousands of other women, selected to be the experiment’s only off-white subject. Among her co-subjects there were also a sundry of browns, several dusty blues, a pair of tuscan suns, a currant, and even one bright mulberry pink mother, Miss Rea, who had been, as her name comically predestined, remiss. She neglected her oxygen mask back on the launch facility green, still in the hands of the engineer she had been chatting up with the story of how she was just about to be a spacefarer. Let her talk, we said, certain this was foreshadowing something pretty funny. I’ve been told that my own mother, actually, did have an extra mask to spare, but she imagined there might be a better use for it in aerating a bottle of wine that had been brought to toast the many births. Miss Rea was so humiliated, the story goes, slowly suffocating to death as new life was being brought about all around her, drinking to it, toasting it, as I mentioned before. It was taunting. “Look, even a tiny baby can do it,” our loud first breaths rubbing her magenta face, choking on its final few, into it. I think perhaps that she wanted to die, in the end, to spare herself this acerbity of embarrassment. And so she did. Ah. 

It was a necessary experiment for the golden age of French research advancement, characterized by massive increases to the scientific pursuits budget, free enterprise, lots of very friendly under-the-table bailouts and smiling at one another. Despite how I felt about it all, as a subject, I can admit that free of bitterness: it was a necessary phase for the betterment of French life, bastard cocksuckers ruin my whole life will you. The Centre national d'études spatiales interspace birthing project, sponsored by the France government, proposed to observe how the delivery of babies, and whatever else that came out in the delivery (can’t control just for children, you know; occasionally a kidney stone or an organ on shaky standing will splu-splutter out. And what a noise it makes, too!), would be affected by the vicissitudes and vacillations of a spaceborn rocket; the dearth of atmosphere upon human delivery, and how human delivery affected the spatial atmosphere. If, on arrival, we babies fractured into lots of smaller babies through progressive fragmentation, as asteroids and tragic love stories do. If our heads exploded. Would have been so gross. Happy mine didn’t. Less conceivably, but nonetheless on the observation sheet, if our vocal cords were at all prematured by the level of prominence we had already achieved, literally just born and already spacemen, and if, thusly, we softly cried anything of ad rem interest, like, “Goo, goo, interga-ga-lactic.” I think I gurgled something close, but, as my friend the wonderful Dr. Rinaldi would say, “Close but no cigar.” What do I care, anyway? 

In the end, zero-gravity delivery didn’t appear to have much effect on any of us babies, or our mothers — with the small exception that I personally still think that screaming at the top of my lungs will propel me backwards really fast — but did, productively, reveal that the medical field itself is not ready to do interspace deliveries. Babies can do it anywhere. Scoops and scalpels, on the other hand, had to be attached to the obstetrician’s wrists in infantilizing soft safety bracelets. There were a lot of problems like that. For one, the space program’s safety crew — who had, admittedly, done so badly at school that they couldn’t meet any intelligence standards on the planet and so resolved to make a fresh start extraterrestrially — almost didn’t allow the medical staff on the rocket, with all of their dangerously pointy apparati. I hear my mother was searched, too, they thinking her huge baby bump was some new kind of collapsible bazooka. This is a holdover from the fears of space terrorism which, I have to be honest, doesn’t bother me that much. So long as it doesn’t happen on Earth, that’s my motto. 

We touched back twenty-nine years plus several minutes ago, and to this moment, I do not feel properly naturalized to this planet. Maybe the next moment? … Nope. Jerk moment. Everyone asks this question, so I like to state outright: yes, I’ve told the researchers at CNES, they’ve taken all this down in their notepads and shared it off the record with their spouses and family friends at sumptuous weekend dinner parties and sparkling evenings of champagne and strawberries, which rich doctor people each from a trough. I’ve told them how I feel to the final troublesome detail: as though my body, its tropospheric tautness, is a sharp tongue constantly attempting to pronounce the slothier sounds of English while I’m really native to the flexing, visible-vein rapidity of Francais. That I can’t get the positioning right, no matter what I try or how often I practice, or what diet I go on. That, still, each time I have occasion to jump in the air, into a fireman’s arms, or to evade a long rope that is repeatedly swooped back around by some pair of children — typically a pair of creepy twin girls wreaking of evil — a dominating part of my intergalactic hindbrain assumes I will stay there, mid-air, unfettered by what you might call gravity but which I know better as Earth’s invisible iron maiden straps and buckles, bad bad buckles. When I crash to the ground, I crumble emotionally, and to worsen matters the little twins’ rope — if we’re in Scenario #2, here — continues to slap me in the face, leaving these twisty imprints you notice now. I’m forced to lie to strangers who stare, explaining (a lie) that the skeletal composition of my facial bones is afflicted by a hereditary disease, creating this plaited pattern. The truth humiliates, but in a lie, I am safe. 

My existence on Earth has been pure tragedy, and here’s the clincher: I was recently sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. For a crime I didn’t do! Swear!!!!!!!! I have a therapist here, at the prison, who forces me to acknowledge that it’s not all terrible in this kind of soft, antipsychotic voice. To count my blessings. I do get to have a kind of impotent-type proto-sex with the possums who blend in with the rocks my pickaxe penetrates. That’s nice, I guess. I have all my friends in the world around me constantly. Nemeses, too, but optimism is braver than despondency, so don’t mention it again. The manual work means my wrists pain me constantly, but this tight pair of cuffs do well to keep the bones set correctly, so from the outside, they look pretty alright. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Sucks here…………...

[wanderingcas]

Week 9: Slow Burn

[Thank you, everyone, for your wonderful submissions to Week 9 of Spn Fanfic Submission Thursday! There’s some absolutely quality fics in this list, so check them out. If you want to participate in next week’s fic submissions, check out the schedule.

If you read a fic, make sure to leave a comment and make an author’s day!]

Moonlight Dancing by @wearingmywings

Set during season 12. Cas comes home after looking for Kelly, without success. Dean awaits him, but when Sam comes home old fights start back up again. Will the brothers be able to sort everything out? And what about that night in the barn? Were they ever gonna talk about it?

Explicit. 14.5k words (WIP)

[angst, angst with a happy ending, fluff, kidnapping, slow burn]

warnings: graphic depictions of violence (if you also meant general warning stuff, “implied/ referenced torture” is in there too along with graphic description of injuries)

The One with the Fanfic Competition by @tenoko1

In which friends and family of the Winchesters have gotten into a secret weekly fanfiction battle for best scenario of Dean and Cas finally getting together. That is, until Castiel finds out.

What follows is a journey of friendship and personal growth for all, filled with all the ups and downs that make and bind a family.

Teen and Up. 87.8k words. (WIP)

[Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Accidental Plot, Personal Growth, Found Family]

Howling The Moondogs by @cuddlemonsterdean

Canon divergent from 08x23: Sacrifice. Fallen and slowly being eaten up by guilt for having helped Metatron empty out the skies, Castiel seeks refuge at the bunker and tries to find a way to set everything right. He clings to the one connection that he has always trusted to anchor him over the years, until it starts to crumble under the weight of all their combined responsibilities and finally disappears into the dark without a trace.

Mature. 41k words. (Complete)

[Angst with a good ending, Human Castiel, Castiel in the bunker]

Warnings: Hurt!Dean, Sick!Dean, Hurt!Castiel, PTSD, Canon-typical violence

Young Volcanoes Series by @someoneworthfinding

After a sudden tragedy, Castiel Milton and Dean Winchester reflect back on their youth in the beachside town of Sileas, Oregon, and all the lessons they learned on the path that led them to each other.

This is a Destiel love story, in seven parts

Explicit. 238k words. (WIP)

[High School/Teen/College AU, Artist!Dean, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers]

Warnings: Character Death (not Dean or Cas), Implied Drug Use, Underage, Depictions of Depression and Anxiety

For What We Are by @hekate1308

Castiel Novak was one of the best agents the FBI had ever had. His new case, however, was almost too much to handle even for him. With the arrival of Dean Winchester, a demon, he realized that his world wasn’t as black and white as he had thought. Destiel. AU. FBI agent!Castiel, demon!Dean Winchester.

Teen and Up. 134k words. (Complete)

[Alternate Universe, FBI Agent Castiel, Demon Dean Winchester, destiel au]

About angels, humans, and everything in between by @nera-solani

When a girl randomly shows up at the bunker, claiming she knew Charlie, tells them about having visions, Dean and Sam struggle, trying to figure things out. Meanwhile, Castiel is still possessed by Lucifer and Amara is doing God only knows what. Things keep getting stranger, as Crowley develops a really weird relationship with the newcomer and God decides to be creative by creating a new creature.

Mature. 108k words. (WIP)

[Work in progress, already completely written, updated twice a week (on Fridays and Tuesdays)]

Return to the Sea by @casanddeanwinchester

Swimming too far is dangerous, despite being one of the royal families, one of those who governed the ocean, his home as a whole, the ocean itself, wasn’t safe. Some places were more dangerous than the land. The land. The land was off-limit. It was forbidden to go up to the dry soil. The land is dry and desolate. Was written everywhere. Men are creatures of wrath and envy and greed. Of hate and hypocrisy. Mankind is dangerous. They’re killers who kill for pleasure. Who take pleasure in polluting their given land. They live in so much filth, they started using the waters as a place for their waste.

But Castiel is curious. He wants to see.

There’s nothing he wants more than be up there, to feel it with all his senses, to see if the stories are all true… He didn’t know what to expect, but what happened, was certainly not even on the list.

Teen and Up. 1.4k words. (WIP)

[angels are merpeople, merman!Cas, slow updates, minor background relationships]

A Priori by @whelvenwings and @thebloggerbloggerfun

Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak are headed to Hogwarts.

Castiel, as a member of the old Novak wizarding family, is fully expected to be sorted into Ravenclaw, like all of his ancestors before him. Dean, as a Muggle-born, has no idea what the Houses even are. With a surprise sorting and classes starting soon afterwards, they’re both pitched headfirst into the unknown - and they find themselves in competition with each other almost at once, both of them needing to prove themselves to the people they left at home, and the people with them at Hogwarts.

Over the course of their seven years at Hogwarts, Dean and Cas learn what it means to prove yourself, what it takes to discover who you are, what it feels like to fall in love, and what it is they’ll fight for - what matters most of all.

General Audiences. 146k words. (WIP)

[Hogwarts AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn]

Borrowing Sugar by @blissfulcastiel

It’s the moment every neighbor should have - the ‘Borrow Sugar’ moment. Dean would very much like to have that moment with his new neighbor, Castiel - if only he could ever get up to even speak a full sentence without freezing up and fleeing the scene. He just didn’t picture it playing out the way it actually did.

Explicit. 52k words. (WIP)

[mechanic!Dean, phone sex operator!Cas, artist!Cas, neighbors, phone sex, mutual pining]

Warning Siren by @osirisapollo

For Dean Winchester, it’s hard being stuck in the closet. Especially when he didn’t even know he was there in the first place. It gets a lot harder when his new neighbor seems determined to be in there with him. Literally.

Castiel is scared of tornados, and asks if he can take refuge in Dean’s closet during the storms. Of course, Dean can’t say no to that.

Explicit. 37k words. (WIP)

[Neighbors AU, College students, Brother feels, Everyone ships it, Sexual exploration, Texas, Tornados, Slow burn, FLUFF]

The Interview by @spearywritesstuff

It begins at an award show. Dean Winchester is a well-known actor, standing before a crowd with Charlie at his side. The world looks at him and sees someone that has everything. The fame, the fortune, the life. They don’t see the loss or what he refuses to tell. Then Charlie, his manager, sets up an interview with a journalist that seems to know how to get at the truth. It seems to take no time before Dean is sharing more than he intended, and Benny is ready to capture it all on camera. Because some stories just must be told.

Mature. 69k words. (Complete)

[MCD, Suicidal Thoughts, Heavy Angst, Slow Build, AU: 1980s]

The Unclean by @jellyfishfresh

Dean should know by now to expect the worst when his brother calls him in the middle of the night with words like, we have a situation on his tongue. Still, he’s more than a little surprised when Sam asks him to take in a young man recently rescued from a cult. Castiel - malnourished, abused, and afraid - might be more than Dean can handle, but someone’s got to do it. Dean searches and finds a bright, loving man buried under those years of abuse, and he’ll do just about anything to help Castiel feel whole again.

Mature. 53.8k words. (Complete)

[Alternate Universe, fluff, past abuse, healing, slow burn]

What is Hidden, What is Seen by @expatgirl

The Darkness has descended, and Castiel must make a choice. What, in reality, is the nature of Free Will, and where does love end and self-effacement begin? And why didn’t Castiel know about the Mark of Cain and its relation to The Darkness in the first place?

Mature. 83k words. (Complete)

[Post Mark of Cain, Break up, Reconciliation, Angst with a Happy Ending]

Warnings: Canon typical violence, mentions of suicide

 Welcome All Winchesters by @almaasi​

When Dean’s engagement breaks off three days before Christmas, he’s left with nobody to accompany him on a road trip to his family’s mountain log cabin. His best friend Castiel happens to be available, and is willing to help him through a tough time. But when Dean’s mother and brother arrive, expecting to meet the person Dean plans to marry, they understandably assume Castiel is Dean’s fiancé. After a weekend of comfortable domesticity, sharing clothes, intimate conversations, and definitely-one-time-only therapy sex, it feels almost too easy for Dean and Cas to fake a loving, romantic relationship. The hard part is going back to being friends afterwards. They can’t keep their hands off each other, and they’ve discovered some fun things to do together which they’d never tell another soul about. And, oh boy, feelings. Now being ‘just friends’ is so impossible, it seems as if fate had another plan for them all along…

Mature. 60.2k words. (Complete)

[Human AU, Romance, Domestic Fluff and Smut, Christmas Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mistaken For A Couple, Friends to Lovers, Bi-Curious Dean, Bottom Dean, Dean in Panties, Artist Castiel, Virgin Castiel, Dominant Castiel, Switch Castiel, Agender Castiel, Castiel Wearing Dean’s Clothes, Sharing a Bed, First Time, Consensual Somnophilia, Spanking, Biting, Marking, Edging, Rimming, Comeplay, Aftercare, Car Sex, Communication Failure, Marriage Proposal, Snowed In]

Warnings: References to alcoholism, depression, prison, addiction to bidding at auctions, the bad kind of BDSM, and John Winchester’s abusive parenting.

[reaper-the-futa]

i'll go with your dnd character back story, sorry if i stressed you out with all my bombardment of endless questions and chatter... i just really enjoy your stories, they're amazing and interesting.

It's fine it's just I've been dealing with headaches recently and it makes it a little hard to think when they happen, and before you worry I'm going to the doctors and the dentist soon so I'm going to get looked at, what about my DND character it's a plague doctor/necromancer named dr. Abraham Gallas, also before I go into any more detail I just wanted to say that the creation of this character alone had such a drasticinfluence on the world that my DM is running due to something I gave him the idea for on but he's a 57 year old man standing at about 6'2, with paleish white skin and graying hair, the backstory for him is a rather tragic one, he was happily married with a wife and young daughter, together they ran a small clinic in his village to help treat the people there, one day though him and a few of his colleagues from other villages were called to investigate rumors of an illness going around one of the farther villages affecting lots of people, when they went there every user of magic was slowly dying a horrifying death, and soon it became apparent to the doctors that whatever they were dealing with couldn't be treated and they fled before they themselves were contaminated, but it was already too late as a few of the doctors that were there were already infected and had spread it to everyone, including doctor Gallas.

When arriving home he initially didn't show any symptoms, due to the virus starting up in people very differently, his wife though started showing symptoms a few days after him coming home and then within a week she had passed, his daughter tho seem to be all right until a few weeks in she also started to show symptoms and then slowly she passed as well, there are approximately 6-7 stages to the disease in the progression seems to be wildly different four everyone, dr. Gallas was just starting to show stage 2 of the symptoms when he decided he was going to get his family back, you spent days looking tho his wife spell book before finally stumbling upon something that it caught his eyes, a passage his wife had told him about years ago, necromancy and its abilities to bring back the Dead...

Stricken by grief and loss he gave into the dark or in started practicing it trying to do spells that we're way past his limits since he originally had in practice magic and was more towards modern medicine he didn't know what the spells would, until he brought back the corpses has his wife and daughter as zombie, horrified by what he had done with his own hands he killed his wife and daughters bodies and put them back to rest.

Eventually he locked himself away from the rest of the village and the world, kepting to himself in isolation, now obsessed with finding a cure for the virus, and making sure no one else has to bear the tragedy that he has.

On the few short occasions that he needed to leave his home for supplies he used an old plug doctor's outfit at his in modified it to be airtight making sure that the virus cannot spread by his touch, but now something has changed as a mysterious figure appeared to him one night promising hopes of a cure, take back by this as his first chance in a long time of some sort of drive, he collected his thingssitting his house ablaze knowing that he won't be returning to it before sitting out in the night to where the stranger promised he would meet people that would lead him to the cure of the plague.

Here's the best photo I could find of what he would most likely look like.

[rilenerocks]

People talk about their spirit animals. Or about which animal they’d be if there was really reincarnation. My mind has glanced over that topic more than once in my life. I used to think that if I wasn’t human, I’d be a dolphin. I like their big brains. I like that they hang around in groups and are strong communicators. And they’re helpful, seemingly altruistic. All of those traits appeal to me. As I’ve matured and looked at myself differently than I did years ago, I realized that my personality has shifted, along with my interest in nature. A bird girl when I was little, I’ve grown more interested in them in more recent years. I’m a skywatcher, a cloudchaser. I still love water. What could be a better spirit animal for me than an albatross? They’re gliders. They can fly for thousands of miles, never touching land, feeding from the sea. The majority of them mate for life. I mean, seriously, is this me or what?

So you might think the quarantine has pushed me over the edge. Not really. I’ve just been a little raw lately. Unlike the brave health workers who go to their hospitals daily, experiencing horror and death, I’ve been able to have the luxury of distance from that harsh reality for some time. This month will mark the third anniversary of Michael’s death. I was at his side, holding his hand, in our own home. An event so unlike these tragedies I read about, when people drop their loved ones at emergency rooms and never see them again. How unbearable, as is so much in the news cycle. Since March, I’ve experienced three deaths. One was my dear friend, Julie, an expected loss, but the end of a 50 year relationship. Last week, I heard of another friend’s death, this one a more casual friend, the kind with whom you can have a nice chat when you run into each other. She died from Covid19 at only sixty-one. This week, it was a man I’d known since he was very young, a musician who worked in my husband’s music store, and was part of a circle of people who moved in and around the periphery of my world for four decades. Michael and I were invited to his first wedding, an alternative and off-beat affair. I watched him perform in his bands until eventually the 10 year gap between us, meant that I was chasing children around while he was still doing gigs. In the past few years, we’d reestablished contact and exchanged thoughts and music over social media. His death was by suicide at age 59. This tough month of May also contains the birthday of my best friend from childhood, another suicide who I still grieve after 32 years. Everything suddenly felt like too much. So I headed out to chase the clouds on a beautiful sunny day, trying to climb over the mounting pain from each end of life.

The endless changing cloud formations never bore me. Instead they make me feel more centered and conscious of my place in the world. After driving around for an hour, I headed back home to push a little further into my never ending list of things to do. I started with the garden, checking out the latest blooms and the ones getting ready to open. I always have some anxiety every spring as I know there will be losses due to who knows what. And then there’s the satisfaction of the reliable, familiar ones who come back each year. Now, given the always surprising Illinois weather, a polar vortex has been served up for tonight, with frost expected. I admired what plants already arrived, hoping they’d survive this night. The ones in pots, hanging baskets and raised beds cost me an hour of bundling them up as best I could, trying to make sure they have their best shot at seeing another day.

I was really happy that I’d restrained myself from repotting and putting my tropical miracle from last year outside to weather the elements. Last year, a friend of mine gave me a gorgeous plant called a Duranta Sapphire tree for my birthday, also this month. I showered it with care, pretty certain I’d kill it in this unpredictable environment. But it hung on. So I kept watering it until suddenly, it was November and still it survived. I thought that any plant that wanted to live so much deserved a chance, so I brought it into my house.  It’s still alive and soon I’ll repot it and bring it to the garden where I hope it will enjoy another glorious summer. Next I crossed the street to see how my kids’ new chickens were doing. The older hens had them boxed into a corner, making them perfect targets for a few photos.

After that, I went back home to work in the garage for a bit. I’ve made progress in there, finding some things that were easy to toss out and others that I’ll be keeping for a long time. A while back I wrote a blog called “The Soul of a Garage,” basically a commentary on how Michael’s presence was so palpable in there. I’m carving out my own space now,  although his hobbies and projects still emerge from the corners. Today was no exception. Michael was one of those guys who could do almost anything. In the old days before cars were so heavily computerized, he was always fixing carburetors, doing brakes, dealing with oil pans and lots of other stuff I can’t begin to name. So how great was it when I found his creeper and his coveralls? After wiping away some grime, the oak sheen of the creeper came shining through, along with the name of the company which produced it. I looked it up, The Anderson’s and found that it finally closed its doors in 2017. Because Michael was 6’4,” his auto mechanic coveralls were so long I could barely hang them up. But I used a garden tool and finally reached a hook. Those will stay in the garage.

I found one of his baseball bats. His glove is in the house. When he played softball for years with the High and Mighty team, his nickname was “Stick,” because he was such a reliable hitter. He loved that game, but years of swinging gave him a string of herniated disks and one back surgery. I also found his tackle box still filled with lures, reels, filleting knives and other gear. Every summer for many years, he and three buddies headed up to Nelson’s Resort In Minnesota, near the boundary waters, where they fished for walleye and northern pike. At night they played bridge. I always missed him when he was gone but they always had a great time and brought their trophies back for a fish fry.

I was feeling pretty good after hanging around in the garage. I’d cleaned, discarded old junk, found things worth keeping which brought good memories, and had gotten a bit over the top of a sad day. I decided to continue my newly recovered baking skills and went inside to do a banana bread. As I got my ingredients together, I cracked my first egg and got a double yolk. My mom always used to tell me that was a sign of good luck.    I assembled everything, put the bread in the oven and reflected on how my day’s choices were positive and had smoothed the rough edges off my sadness. By this time it was nearing dusk and I went back outside to snap a few shots of the lovely sky. When I came back inside, the bread was a warm golden brown and the house smelled and felt warm and homey. After dinner, I popped the computer open to catch up on social media and  the news.

On a mutual friend’s Facebook page, there was commentary on the man who’d committed suicide. Someone I didn’t know had written the question, “So is anyone else from the Record Service(my husband’s former business,) dead besides Nick and Michael? I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. This stranger couldn’t have known that I was a person who might read that line. I’m sure she didn’t know that the anniversary of Michael’s death is bearing down on me and my family. Reading her dispassionate, gossipy question threw a big bucket of cold water on my improved mood. I couldn’t imagine asking a question like that in a public forum because to me, it’s remarkably insensitive. And so is a lot of the world. Within seconds, I was back in my albatross dream. I am gliding away from any land mass, following the water. I hear no human voices saying thoughtless things. I can go for miles and miles with nothing but sky and clouds ahead and ocean below. Eventually I’ll get back to my mate, my mate for life. And beyond. Sounds like a plan to me. 

Albatross Dream People talk about their spirit animals. Or about which animal they’d be if there was really reincarnation.

[marxalittle]

To begin with, it's important to acknowledge that the issue with Warcraft/World of Warcraft, from my perspective and for many who seek to write stories in the setting, is that war is the name of the game (literally). The whole edifice rests on the necessity of constant open armed warfare, in a way which is completely and entirely impossible for a world with, just for instance, an economy or recognizable forms of government. Of course, the Legion can wage wars like this because they are demons and summon unending numbers and arms from the hateful will of the fallen Titan Sargeras; no one else possibly could, so all the factional and internecine strife would eventually either dry up, shift into proxy wars, result in weird deadlocks and standoffs, or form some other state of semi-stability for a few decades. However, since an MMORPG requires fresh content and resource and unit building strategy games are games no matter how many tie in novels are written desperately attempting to embroider a setting which is doomed not by the narrative but by the structure of wargames, the actual canon will only ever get more complicated as the conflict escalates, changes venues, switches midstream, travels back in time, and does all sorts of other loops in order to keep going. That's not even going into how elite unit tactical games being backwritten into stories make for totally implausible military and government structures. Like, no, that is not how anything works and it never has been, no not even with magic involved.

Therefore when one wishes to explore, as I always do, the human-sized spaces in a setting which functionally doesn't have "ordinary life," sometimes you just have to make your own. Besides, tell me this isn't a perfect setup for the distinctly sapphic genre of Gothic haunted house horror/romance: a family estrangement, an ancestral home harboring a dark secret, an old friend in need of a place to go, with a long and terrible war finally ended behind it all. A stranger to the area arrives to find a family tragedy already in progress. I'm always more interested in what war does to people than in war itself, and so I've ended this one in order to see its effects more clearly. Also there's seaweed involved.

More terror from the depths of my notes app (ie, story ideas half-framed and hardly fleshed out, growing more deeply embroidered without ever getting properly written), this time a Gothic romance featuring lighthouse keeper ex-sailor exile Jaina and haunting-her-own-manor ghost/banshee Sylvanas, with bonus dark rangers running a bar and Vereesa who knows very well who's in the locked west tower doing the accounts and seeing to the estate and refuses to come home until her sister is willing to leave her room and be civil.

It was definitely a mage tower. The maps of the area and all the local records called it a lighthouse, and to be sure, that was its function; but even before she'd moved into it, it had been a mage tower. An elven mage tower, at that: elegant and refined, to her eyes too delicate for the rugged coast it oversaw, but older and more powerful than it looked. Folded full of functional spaces-- rooms with workbenches and pigeonhole shelves, rooms with reinforced walls and ceilings-- the tower had been stripped bare when she'd arrived. When the last keeper had gone for the war, they had left nothing behind.

The great lamp and lens at the top were mundane enough, though the way her fingers itched at the feeling of old arcane magic she doubted that had always been the case. Two levels down, the room beneath the lamp's machinery housed only the spiral stair and the still-operational magical apparatus: a communication system, tied into a net of wards and leylines and humming with power, if badly in need of maintenance. Maps covered the walls, marked and marked over in different hands, different colors; the fading lines told stories of old emergencies, storms past, battles long forgotten.

A watchtower.

A watchtower at the end of the world, as far as the fallen kingdom it had served had been concerned; and as far as Jaina Proudmoore was concerned as well. It suited her. There was a certain symmetry to it.

What was one to do when one's world had ended? Travel to the end of the world, perhaps.