#but I made myself sit and examine that and look into all the research so I actually understood the conversation that was happening about it

[volossiae]

I think that coming to terms with the necessity of cull programs is something that people need to do before trying to insert themselves into conversations about animal welfare and conservation

[106alibi]

good graces ; I think shes flirting

note: written parts!

wc. ~0.6k

The glass door swung open as the bells chimed, signalling a customer had entered the cafe. the cafe was, again, oddly crowded. Does she have a thing for crowded cafes? Jeno was lucky he brought a cap with him this time. He pulled the cap lower, casting a shadow on his face that would hopefully disguise his prominent facial features. It wasn't that Jeno had crazy fans who watched his every move or begged him to stay single, Jeno just wasn't someone who liked having his private life discussed online, even if he was supposed to be used to it, being a public figure and all. He scanned the room for your figure, his eyes landing on you sitting by the counter with your chin resting on a propped up arm and the other swirling your half-drunk coffee lazily.

He paused. As he stood rooted to the ground, watching your lips form inaudible shapes and your eyes crescent into giggles at something the barista said, he found himself unable to take his eyes off you. He thought it the first time he saw you, how beautiful you were, but he wasn't going to admit that to his friends. He tore his eyes away from you to examine his own outfit. I can trust Jaemin’s fashion sense, right? He gulped, feeling his lips suddenly go dry. He didn’t know why he was suddenly so nervous. It must be his social anxiety. Or the fact that this was his first fitting ever. Right, that made the most sense.

You noticed a figure approaching from your peripheral vision, letting your laughter die down to turn to Jeno who was now standing beside you with a crooked smile on his face. You beamed back and patted the seat beside you.

“You’re here! I arrived quite early so I got myself a coffee first. Order what you want, my treat.”

You took a sip of your drink, watching as Jeno slid into the bar stool beside yoy and fumble with the pages of the menu between his fingers.

“Isn't that cap uncomfortable? The yellow lights in here aren't making things any brighter.”

You joked with a light chuckle, leaning your cheek into your palm. Frankly, you wanted him to take off his cap and reveal his face. Not to you, but to the few fans who were quite unsubtly craning their necks and casting looks, wondering if the man with the white cap was who they thought he was.

“U-um, it's fine. I feel more comfortable this way.” His hand flew up and rested on the front of his cap.

“Come on~, don't let your handsome face go to waste.”

You flashed a cheeky smile and bumped his shoulder with yours, watching as Jeno ducked his head in embarrassment, a hand immediately rubbing the back of his neck as he let out a few awkward coughs. You internally fist-bumped the air when he hesitantly took off his cap and set it on the counter, combing down his soft jet black hair with his fingers.

Yes, you did have an ulterior motive when you complimented him, but you weren't lying either. Jeno was handsome. You weren't at all surprised to find out how many fan pages he had when you did your research on him. He had just the right features befitting of a model, and you’d definitely be lying if you said you weren't the least bit attracted to him. It made your plan a lot easier.

Flirting came easy with someone you were already attracted to anyway.

You made yourself as subtly obvious as possible, masking light brushes between your hands as accidents and teasing him with playful compliments in hopes that someone would overhear you. It surprised you to realise how inexperienced Jeno seemed with how he would melt into a cherry-red, awkward coughing mess everytime you made a move. Could someone as hot as him really be inexperienced?

you didn't find an opportunity to ask him about it, having to put on your editor persona when your watch struck twelve and it was time for the studio fitting.

prev | m.list | next

a/n: IM ALIVEEEEE

taglist: @yutarot @rksbae @sevn97 @dreamiestay @raevyng @catpjimin @mrsjohnnysuh @xiuriii @minkyuncutie @jaehyunsjasmine @cookiehaos @jenoleeaesthetic @tynlvr @ohwowzersthatscool @rubiiisyeon @multifandomania @natokkiz @veilico @jeonghansshitester @jkslvsnella @jungaji @xyzsiissnnsnsjs @17ericas @elsbunny @grassbutneo @nosungluv @flamingi @xxxx-23nct @baobeii55 @shoetaroshoe @tannieflix @myballsareitchy2 @doyotint @mood-nyvy @hyuoonp @joyzluvr @livingdoll-hara @hyuck-me @zzurao @luvandletter @jae-n0 @stqrgr7 @dudekiss3r @ksywoo @kodasity @jirsungs @hibernatinghamster @blamingontheboogie @neozon3nha @catdonut657

[cripplecharacters]

hi! do you have any advice on how to get started writing disabled characters? like, get over that fear and start putting the pen to paper? I have my research and my character and stuff but Im nervous that Im gonna fuck it up and make bad representation. how do you think is the way to determine I’ve written a character “good enough” in representing a disability?

Hey!

If you have a character and done research, you're already doing pretty good. I don't think that there is some magical way to know if what you're writing is "good enough", mostly because people will have different standards when it comes to representation.

The best thing you can do is try your best and be open to feedback from your disabled readers. I think that also questioning why you're doing certain things with your character can be helpful, because we all have biases (myself included). I often see people have their characters with facial differences be "edgy, violent, dark past, etc." with the author defending it as "they just are like that!" but at the end of the day, it's a fictional character that a human being made, the character doesn't have free will. So if your worry is bad rep, sit down and try to figure out what exactly it is that bothers you, and examine it - why does it worry you? Is this attached to some bias? Are abled characters treated in a similar way, or is the disabled one singled out? What are the elements that could be inaccurate, and if yes, why are they like that?

Obviously, you can't catch every single issue that could ever occur, because that's impossible for anyone. But I'm absolutely sure that if writers simply thought about their choices a bit more, the general state of representation would be miles ahead of what we currently have.

Some of my suggestions to help with the fear of starting:

Consider basing the character off someone you know with the same disability. Try to think if your recreation of that is true to how they exist or not so much. If you have a real example of the kind of person you're trying to represent, it's much easier to catch yourself writing something that doesn't make sense. It also helps that you could ask them a specific question about what you're writing and get some first-hand information that theoretical research doesn't generally give.

Perhaps start with disabilities that aren't as impactful on the character's life. (Start is a bit of a key word, because I absolutely want people to write more severely/moderately disabled characters too). Obviously, disability is disabling, but there will be a difference between writing a character with mild photophobia and a character with high level complete quadriplegia. There's just ultimately fewer things that you have to consistently consider, and that can be helpful when starting. And once you're more comfortable writing disabled characters, you can diversify the kinds of characters that you include.

Honestly, if you did your research and aren't falling into any basic tropes, the vast majority of disabled readers will forgive the small inaccuracies. E.g. if your character with a large scar is portrayed respectfully and kindly, I will look over the lack of mentions of nerve damage because though it is nice to see as well, that's not the main thing I'm looking for. If I was looking for 100% accurate writing about disability, I would be reading non-fiction by disabled writers.

If you have the specific character mostly conceptualized and are willing to share, feel free to just send us the background and parts that worry you, and we will try to give some hopefully useful feedback,

Thanks for the ask. I hope it's helpful,

mod Sasza

I agree with everything Sasza has said! I'm adding a couple of my own thoughts:

If you are really stuck and really don't have any specific ideas on what disabilities you want to write about, try adding a little randomization. You can search for something like "common disabilities in [character's age group]" or "common health conditions in [character's geographic location]" and pick one at random. Roll dice if you need to! I'm not saying this to be glib or dismissive – I know I can often get stuck when it comes to making decisions, which includes creative decisions like making characters. The aspect itself of getting stuck can be a little intimidating. So if an aspect of randomness helps you get unstuck, you can dive into more specific research a bit more easily – like, if the dice roll led you to cerebral palsy, then you can focus on researching cerebral palsy instead of trying to think of all the possible things you could choose for your character.

You can visit a couple of websites for different conditions and disabilities, including subReddits. I don't mean to start participating in these discussions, but it helps to see disabilities in a context that isn't just "this is how you/your family member will be diagnosed and this is how the treatment will be." It can feel confusing and a little lost to only see disabilities in that context, so seeing it in a broader way – like people just talking about their life experiences – can help take some of the intimidation factor away.

And I just want to reiterate, if you focus on writing with care and treating your character like a full person of their own with their own inner world, agency, and ability to take part in the story, if you make mistakes it will not be the end of the world. The thing I want the most out of disabled characters is for them to be people more than they are tropes.

Hope this helps!

– mod sparrow

[ceruleanwind]

UNDER WRAPS ✰ ✰ ✰ NICO HISCHIER

explicit | 1.7k

pairings: none, aside from a little fantasizing about another player

additional tags: masturbation, lingerie, feminization kink, boypussy nico, submissive nico, sexual fantasies, vaginal fingering, squirting

summary: nico tries wearing something he's wanted to wear for an embarrassingly long time. he is very much into it.

notes: The first instalment of the "never made it to ao3" series... I have no excuse for myself. Also look at me making this post super cute and aesthetic... isn't it beautiful... anyways enjoy

Nico’s heart thrashes in his chest by the time he makes it back up to his apartment, a package in his arms.

He’d dropped by the mailroom the moment he got the delivery notification on his phone. It’s a package he’s been waiting anxiously for ever since he gathered up the courage to hit the place order button on his computer. He was maybe even a little too over-the-top neurotic about it—put a fake name on the address and everything—but now it’s here. Now he gets to see it for himself.

Nico sets the box on his bed and stares at it for a while, a lump forming in his throat. He feels all sorts of twitchy and fluttery thinking about what’s inside, how much money he spent on this order. It was a purchase made on a whim, he convinces himself. It was after a particularly good game, and his spirits were high, and he was a little horny. He’s been thinking about doing this for longer than he’d ever want to admit.

Then, he strikes.

Nico tears the packing tape off the box and finds another box inside—far more elegant and tasteful, with a lilac velvet ribbon binding the box and its lid. He lifts the second box out of the cardboard and sits on the bed to set it into his lap. He stares at the logo atop the box and flushes as it truly sinks in what he’s done. Nico feels exposed, all of a sudden, despite the fact that he’s alone in his apartment, a heavy silence filling the room. He sincerely hopes no one will find out about this.

He carefully tugs the bow apart and once the lovely ribbon falls away from the box and onto the floor, Nico lifts the lid and comes face-to-face with the pieces he’d selected with such care only a week ago, after far too much research. 

And he picked well.

With shaking hands, he moves the white tissue paper out of the way to reveal it: a beautiful lilac lingerie set, mostly satin and trimmed with white lace and silver at the clasps. Jesus. It was by far one of the most feminine sets on the website, all revealing and dainty and perfect. Nico knew he needed to have it the moment he laid eyes on it.

After lifting the pieces out of the box and examining them thoroughly, he thinks he needs to try them on, see if they fit. He’s sure they will—he spent the better of an hour staring at the website’s size chart and comparing it to his own measurements—but still, he hasn’t yet decided if he wants to commit to this, be like this.

Nico stands up and wastes no time in taking off his shirt and shorts. His fingers hesitate for a moment at the waistband of his boxers—he’s really not coming back now—but he pushes through anyway, pulls them down and lets them pool at his feet before stepping out of them completely. He eyes his naked body in the full-length mirror in his bedroom and flushes even redder at the thought of what he’s about to do.

Panties first, Nico thinks. Yeah. He takes the tiny strappy garment into his hands and he wets his lips, pulse picking up in his chest. It’s so fucking small, so revealing. He’s delicate with it as he pulls the panties up and over his legs, then settles them fully into position. He runs two fingers over the fabric between his legs and immediately the pads of his fingers come up damp with wetness, his pussy already soaking through the panties.

He glances up to the mirror. The panties are so fucking pretty. The lilac colour is so soft and feminine and hugs his hips in just the right way, the silver clasps glinting in the sunlight streaming through Nico’s bedroom window. He tries not to stare before he gets the bra on too, so he turns back to his bed and picks up the wonderful thin satin bra. It has absolutely zero padding and Nico feels himself grow a little wetter at the thought of it, the idea that he’ll probably be able to see his nipples pressing obscenely against the fabric.

It takes a little while for Nico to figure out the bra, but he eventually settles on slipping the entire thing over his head and shrugging into it. The straps are tiny and thin and curve over his built shoulders. He stares at himself in the mirror and lets out a shaky breath as his gaze catches on the way the bra hugs his tits, accentuates the gentle sloping curve of them. The white lace trim is so delicate and so girlish, and thankfully doesn’t itch as Nico turns this way and that, admiring himself from all angles.

Nico feels fucking crazy. He’s so wet in the panties that he can see how dark the fabric is between his legs, soaked with his slick. He presses his arms tight to his sides, shoves his tits together just to see how big he can get them. If it weren’t for his muscles and the thick, dark hair covering most of his body . . . Nico could almost pass as a girl.

He sits on the edge of the bed again, right in front of the mirror, and presses his thighs together, his pussy aching with need. God, he wishes he could show someone. Nico feels pretty like this, all dolled up in some dainty lingerie. It’s a far, far cry from what he usually wears—team branded athletic tees and shorts—and he likes this. A lot. Thinks he should do it more often, in fact.

Something inside him seems to snap and he parts his thighs before reaching one hand between his legs. He pushes the panties impatiently to the side and draws in a gasp as he circles his clit with two of his fingertips, just teasing, testing. He hasn’t shaved in a few weeks now and so the hair around his pussy is long and dark and wet with slick. Nico’s obsessed with it all—how gorgeous and feminine the lingerie is in comparison to the rest of his body, hairy and muscular and athletic. 

Nico gently tucks one finger into his pussy and thinks. He thinks about who he’d want to show. Someone who wouldn’t judge, someone who would appreciate this for what it is, someone who’d take care of him, allow him to let go. He thinks about a certain Hughes brother. Neither of the ones he’s captain of. He thinks about Quinn.

It’s weird, he thinks. It never used to be like this. When he first met Quinn years ago, it wasn’t horny at first sight, or anything like that. He simply respected Quinn for the player he was, and got the same respect in return. But captaining Quinn’s brothers has led, over the years, to more and more encounters, and a handful of times they’ve caught each other staring, often when they’ve had a few too many to drink.

Quinn is—Nico thinks he carries a sort of confidence to him, an easy confidence. It betrays the general demeanour people seem to think he has. People often think that he’s sensitive, easy, susceptible to suggestion. But when Quinn’s looked at Nico in the past and the corners of his mouth twitched up into a half-smirk, Nico couldn’t disagree more. Quinn would like to see this, see Nico dress up all pretty for him. He knows it.

He closes his eyes as he sinks a second finger into his pussy, clenching down around them. If he thinks hard enough, he can feel Quinn’s fingers in his hair, his touch feathering across his cheek. He can hear the deep rich notes of Quinn’s voice murmuring to him, my pretty girl. Did you dress up all for me?

“Mm-hmm,” Nico hums aloud, to no one in particular. His breathing quickens as he fucks his fingers into himself. He’d do anything to kneel at Quinn’s feet one day and flutter his eyelashes up at him while Quinn fucks his mouth.

Quinn would probably be so appreciative. At least, that’s what Nico hopes. He and Quinn would probably stand together in front of the big mirror and Quinn would rake his gaze all over his body, taking it all in. He’d touch at Nico’s tits and kiss at the back of his neck and maybe cup his clothed pussy with his palm.

Nico brings his other hand down to rub at his clit while he fingerfucks himself. He’s panting so loudly in the otherwise silent room that he would be embarrassed if not for the thoughts running through his head. He can’t stop thinking about Quinn. His fucking cock would probably be so big, Nico thinks, drooling with the idea. He slots a third finger into his hole and moans out loud at the gentle burning stretch, imagining it’s Quinn’s thick cock sinking into his pussy.

He curls his fingers up into himself, nudges at his g-spot, and a few more pushes is all he needs to come. Nico squirts—actually fucking squirts—all over his fingers, the carpet, the mirror, making a big, big mess. In his mind, Quinn’s praising him for it, kissing at the spot right below his ear and saying, there we go, such a messy girl. Love when you squirt all over my cock.

Panting, he shakes through his orgasm, and when he finally reopens his eyes he’s met with the sight of how flushed and debauched he is, soaked with his own squirt and slick and his skin flushed all over. The lingerie set is just as gorgeous—if not more so—than when he first put it on, the tiny panties soaked and stained a dark purple. His hair is messy and damp where it falls over his forehead, where Nico promptly imagines Quinn laying a kiss onto his skin and telling him how well he did.

Nico slips his fingers into his mouth and tastes himself. Okay, he thinks, pressing the pads of his fingers onto his tongue. He might be, like, crushing on Quinn way more than he thought, but that’s a problem for another day. Today’s problem, though? Ordering a fuck ton more lingerie to play with.

[kylorengarbagedump]

Playing Soldier: Chapter 18

Read on AO3. Part 17 here. Part 19 here.

Summary: You continue to be really really good at spying.

Words: 4000

Warnings: none!

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Co-written with @bastillia.

Merry Christmas (and Happy Holidays to any/all who celebrate)!

Sorry for the delay - we've been traveling and this sort of plot is very important for us to try and keep logical and clean as we write it! So, there was time spent thinking very hard and also reading and researching, hehe.

Tavington will return soon, I promise - for now, hopefully, we don't land ourselves in a heap of trouble.

“Shall you open yours first, or shall I open mine?”

You stared across the table at Grace, each of you holding your letters in your hand, the remnants of breakfast discarded to the side of the dining table. She held hers like one might hold correspondence from the King, a certain reverence for what it was, a certain anxiety for what it might contain. You urged her forward with a wave of your hand.

To be honest, even if she hadn’t looked like a woman on the verge of a nervous collapse, you would’ve volunteered her to open hers. The fact your letter even existed inspired such an uncomfortable amount of rage you were terrified to address it. Holding anger toward Papa had never been something you permitted, let alone practiced, and its recent recurrence in your life made you feel like a cat awash in a white-capped river.

Grace hummed quietly, peeling the parchment open. You studied her face as she read, watched her lips tremble, her cheeks grow warm. Her eyes flicked back and forth, the silence broken by a giggle, then an outright laugh as she clapped her hand over her mouth. There was an urge, of course, to fly over the table and scour the letter for yourself, but you resisted, deciding to literally sit on your hands.

She deserved privacy. She deserved to grow up.

With a sigh, she folded it and placed it on the table like a piece of fine porcelain. The both of you stared at it. Grace folded her hands in her lap and wiggled with glee.

“Well?” you said with a slight grin. “Are you thoroughly wooed?”

She huffed playfully. “I don’t require wooing,” she replied. “But I do believe him to be quite intent on attempting.”

“Very well, then.” You eased off your hands, taking your letter and flipping it in your fingers, examining it. Grace’s eyes met yours, and she nodded toward you. “Yes?”

“Papa’s letter, of course,” she replied. “Go on, then.”

You flipped it again. You’d been so eager to read it last night. The breadth of time to consider its contents nurtured hesitation. “All right.” You slid a nail under the wax seal, and Grace gasped.

“Wait!” she said. “Papa said—um, he said to…” She paused, recounting the words in her head. “He said to read the letter inside the letter.”

“The letter inside the letter.” Your heart skipped along your stomach. This would involve some sort of subterfuge. And he’d just dropped it in Grace’s lap. “All right.”

With a sigh, you pried open the letter, and a second piece of parchment sealed with wax tumbled out to the table. Frowning, you picked that up next and peeled it apart, reading the first lines. It began with your name, and then—

I pray this correspondence meets not with that degree of cynicism which I am undoubtedly due. Our first meeting was admittedly a catastrophe of social blunder born of my own foolish apprehension. Your father had described you as intelligent and strong-willed and I was unprepared to make your acquaintance and present myself with propriety as he failed to mention your arresting beauty. Allow me to attempt an introduction once more. My name is Christopher Pearce, and

You rolled your eyes and flicked the letter away. It skidded across the table, where Grace pinned it under her palm before it could sail to the floor.

“Goodness,” she muttered. “That bad?”

With only an mm of acknowledgement, you turned your focus to the larger leaf of paper, spreading it out to begin to read.

“May I?” said Grace across from you.

Not really hearing her, you shrugged assent.

My cub,

Much joy it brings old hands to clutch a pen and write you these lines which I bid find you in good and spirited Health. Of news there is nothing worth the ink to write it but that I am as ever upon my greatest and happiest Adventure. No holes in my shoes nor want of wages can dissuade me of that Truth or sow in me a seed of wretched Doubt. But for the subject of sowing and reaping there is much to discuss and I pray you give these next lines your utmost Attention.

Across the table, Grace giggled. “Oh, sister,” she said. “Is this the gentleman I’m to assume left his brand beneath your collar?”

“What?” Your head shot up. Grace clutched Pearce’s letter in her hands, her smile utterly knavish as she skimmed the words. Heat flashed to your face. “He’s—no!”

“Ah,” she said, smirking. “Multiple suitors, then.”

“He’s not—I do not have suitors.”

Grace’s lips flattened into a skeptical line, her eyebrows waggling from over the page. Scoffing, you turned back to Papa’s letter.

… pray you give these next lines your utmost Attention.

On the matter of Turnips, Cabbage, and Carrots, take t’e foll’wing inst’uction with care – sow the f’mily of them so they may take Root before first Frost, and re’eive them most h’arty, robust and tender for Harvest. Plant the Cabbage in profusi’n so the goats and chickens may remain as Rotund as glad’ens th’m and as not to stymie that neces’ary Supply of milk and eggs.

I Conclude with the hope that you study these Measures in accordance with your eminent intellect as they will nourish our family through Winter. As I am ever a Student in life I now will practice my Numbers. These, as you know them Well, I hope you will check through for insurance of their Accuracy.

110.30.5,54.2.7,250.16.3,157.27.4…

You frowned, skimming over the continuous and nonsensical string of numbers that concluded at the end of the page. Then you re-read the letter several times over. With a huff of frustration, you plastered it out on the table and leaned over it, as if the light might glint off the ink at a new angle and uncover the true message beneath its apparent mundanity.

It had to be written in some sort of cipher. Given the fact that neither you nor Grace needed any reminder of when to plant the fall crop after so many years, that much was clear. It was surely a clever bit of concealment, but you puzzled over the logic. And then there was the strange grammar. The spelling errors. The insistence on “practicing” numbers which Papa knew perfectly well both how to write and manipulate. A simple farmer he may have been born, but your father would never suffer being mistaken for having the education of one. It was as good a place as any to start looking for clues.

The capitalized letters first, perhaps. But that only led to nonsense, no matter how many different ways you arranged them. The misspelled words, then. Each of them, you noted, was missing a letter. Humming, you spelled them out in your mind—

H-O-R-A-C-E-O-D—

Snatching the letter up, you bolted upstairs, darting to your bed and rummaging underneath it to find The Odes by Horace. The poems were ones your father had often recited to you as a girl and ones you’d never quite taken yearning to yourself as they were full of romantic whimsy and idealistic prattle for which you didn’t have time. But it was just the sort of book in which Papa would hide a message.

Letter in hand, you flopped open your copy of The Odes, studying the first several lines, then the letter, then the book again, then the letter.

These, as you know them Well, I hope you will check through for insurance of their Accuracy.

The numbers had to relate to the book. There were sets of three, separated by commas. Page, perhaps. You flipped to page 110. As your eyes skimmed the words, you realized the next countable quantity was lines. Line 30. The next sensible thing was the word. Word 5.

Daughter.

You grinned.

Breathless, you decoded the rest of the message—a halting set of instructions that, to your interpretation, informed you to find a stump where the river met the old town road. That you’d discover a dead drop accessed by a British spy, and that you’d deliver what you found to the rebel camp to the east, to whom you would identify yourself by use of a code phrase.

The code phrase, of course, was conspicuously absent. Sighing, your head fell back on your shoulders. Had he gone through all this work just to leave you without an exceptionally important detail? You ground your palms into your eyes. You’d read the letter within the letter just to—

You paused. The letter within the letter wasn’t just the numbered message. It was the stupid worthless waste of parchment that you’d discarded. The one written by Pearce.

If you ever did manage to find Papa again, you were going to kill him for this.

Grumbling, you folded up the parchment, stomped down the stairs and swept back to the dining room, dropping the paper on the table. An urgent breath rolled through you as you saw Grace, still rapt in Pearce’s words.

“What was your complaint with this one?” she said, looking up. “He seems quite sweet.”

“Give it.” You held out your hand. “Please.”

Relenting, she pushed it toward you, lips pinned shut in patience.

Your eyes raced over the useless paragraphs of platitudes, looking for something, anything that might signify a phrase—and then—

When next we meet, I do hope we may greet each other with warmth, that I may be able to recount to you with Sincerity such rousing tales as—A fine day for a fox chase.

Of course, the fineness of any day is found wanting in comparison to your

You sneered in disgust. Grace, whose fingers had been creeping across the table this entire time, slipped Papa’s letter from underneath your hand. Humming, she started to look it over.

“Ah—”

You reached over and plucked it from her fingers, then splayed both letters across the surface like they were a losing hand of cards. Chewing your lip, you glanced at her frowning face.

“We need to have a discussion.”

Grace tilted her head, sat up a bit straighter. “Oh?”

“I don’t wish to exclude you from anything that Papa and I discuss,” you said. “You were right, last night. You’re a grown woman and free to choose your own path. And you’ve mentioned wanting to be informed.”

Raising an eyebrow, she nodded. “Yes…”

“So I want you to be able to make an informed decision.”

“You are not inspiring confidence, sister.”

Nodding, you exhaled again. “Papa’s sent me instructions on how to collect and transfer intelligence to him.”

“To spy?” she replied, frowning.

“Yes,” you said, with a grimace. “And by giving you this letter, I believe he may even implicitly anticipate your involvement, as well.”

“Oh.” Her expression faltered. She stared at Ferguson’s letter. “I see.”

You swallowed. “Grace,” you said, “I know you have tender feelings toward this man. But Papa is a soldier in the Continental army. You’ve known this now for some time. And if you want to continue communicating with the major, then you should do so with the knowledge that any involvement you have with him has the possibility of endangering Papa’s life.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you think I’m foolish enough to do something that would actually bring harm to our family?”

“No!” you replied. “Of course I don’t—”

“Then how can you sit—”

“—think that, but it’s the truth! Even possessing this letter is dangerous,” you said, holding it up. “Having one redcoat in our home could encourage others, and you could be caught with something incriminating before you have the opportunity to dispose of it.” Returning Papa’s letter to the table, you added, “Not to mention how the major might feel about your holding that secret from him.”

Not that you cared how he felt.

Grace drew in a long breath through her nose, her attention falling to the parchment in front of her again. Folding her arms over her chest, she sighed. “Very well. I can’t deny when you’re right.”

You resisted the urge to reply with a satisfied I know. It wasn’t the time to gloat. You’d save that for when you finished the discussion. “So you need to decide what is most important to you.” With a shrug, you said, “I won’t judge you for whatever that decision is.”

Silence fell over the dining room. In actuality, you abhorred both options for her future. In your ideal reality, Grace would not be courting a redcoat, nor would she be placing herself in danger by associating herself with potentially deadly errands for your father. No, in your ideal reality, she’d be cozied at home, reading a book, Mr. Mouser curled at her feet until the war was over, and only then would she finally attract the attention of a man far less irritating than Patrick Ferguson.

But you were not omnipotent. The only one who deserved authority over her life was Grace herself.

Her fingers worried the edges of Ferguson’s letter. “I…” She sighed again. “I do want to know that Papa is safe,” she said, and her voice fell to a whisper. “I…” A tiny smile grew on her face. “I really fancy Patrick.” There was almost a sliver of embarrassment to her admission. “I hesitate to say that… well, I can potentially, perhaps, envision a future with him.”

Your throat thickened, but you nodded encouragingly. “You do.”

“Yes,” Grace replied. “That is…” She met your gaze. “I believe he feels the same way.” Now that she’d said it, her smile grew wider. “I don’t wish to place that future in jeopardy anymore than I wish to place you or our father in jeopardy,” she said. “So… exclude me.” A pause. “Please.”

A knock like a fist to wood thudded your chest. Grace was imagining her life with Patrick Ferguson. The ache it caused made you swallow the congealing wad of unease. Your fingers fiddled together, and you forced a smile. She was no longer the toddler giggling with mischief as she muddied her dress, no longer the little monster running at you with blackberry-stained fingers, no longer the girl who would bury herself in your arms, seeking safety as she cried. You could not pretend to be the barrier between her and the world. And she could not be your ward forever.

But at least for now, you could keep the war from her front door.

“I will,” you said. And then, because you meant it, “I am happy for you, you know.”

“I know you are.” She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her eyes fell from yours, lingered on your neck. Her smile twisted into something more devious. “Now. Will you tell me about these,” she said, pointing at the bruises, “or not?”

“Ah,” you said, fighting your own smile. “And here I thought I might have evaded that bloodhound nose of yours one day longer.”

Grace grinned, leaning forward across the table and sniffling toward you like a dog. You batted her face away with a laugh, making her snort as she fell back into a giggling pile in her chair. The chime of your combined laughter rang through the house. You both settled, and a strange pang lodged in your chest.

“It’s really not the gentleman from the letter?” she asked, nodding toward it.

Your lip furled in revulsion. “Good sweet Lord resting in blessed heaven, no.”

“Fine.” She sat back in her chair, grinning. “Then I demand details.”

Warmth bloomed in your face. “All right, all right. Then details you shall have.”

You curled your fingers in your petticoat. Your palms suddenly felt clammy. You didn’t want to lie, but you could not reveal the entire truth to her without entering a conversation you could not even wade into in your mind. With an exhale, you began.

“It was at the party Ferguson spoke of. He wasn’t a redcoat,” you said quickly, because technically William had green in his jacket, didn’t he? “I was feeling overwhelmed, and I missed the carriage home, and…” You hummed, hesitating on what to reveal, but found the words wanting to spill now that you had the walls of your home and ears of your sister. “He offered me a place to sleep, and one thing led to another, and, ah…” You suppressed a smile, remembering the heat of his body smothering yours, the pinch of his teeth at your throat. “I slept there.”

Grace gasped, holding her hand to her mouth. “You…” Her jaw hung open. “You mean you… you—”

You nodded. “I… did.”

“Oh. Oh my…” She clapped both hands over her face before erupting into laughter. “Well?” she squealed. “What was it like? Was it… good?”

“That…” Your eyes widened, you pulled your lips over your teeth in thought, your memory flipping through recollections of his cock plunging into your cunt, the power of your climax ripping through you, the viscous webbing of his seed on your fingers. “That is summarizing it succinctly, I’d say.” You swallowed, shaking your head. “But it was foolish.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, let God judge your foolishness,” she said. “I, for one, can’t decide if I’m thrilled or baffled.” She studied your face, a small grin on her lips. “Who was this man who so charmed you that you permitted his mouth brush your throat without ripping out his own?”

You sat, gazing at her for a moment. Who, indeed, was William Tavington? And why did you allow his mouth near your throat? Why did you even find yourself craving it?

“Well.” Your focus drifted to the wall in thought. “He’s very handsome,” you said, because it was true. When Grace only offered a raised eyebrow in return, you nodded relentingly. Plenty of handsome men had offered you their attentions, and you’d rejected them all. “He…” A smirk fought its way onto your face. “He doesn’t underestimate me. Ever.” Your cheeks grew warmer as you realized the bizarre fondness you felt for that fact. “And he’s… He makes me laugh. I think. Sometimes.”

Grace folded her arms over her chest, studying elevated to scrutinizing. “I notice, dear sister,” she said, “that you speak of him in the present tense.”

“Oh.” You averted your eyes. You hadn’t even realized you’d done so. “Well… I suppose I may see him again. I will be returning to duty, after all.”

“How? If he isn’t a soldier…”

“He may come by camp,” you replied quickly. “Those who work in the field hospital aren’t necessarily beholden to the Crown.” You grinned, pleased with yourself. “As you well know.”

She hummed suspiciously. “Of course,” she said. “Name, please.”

“I’m sorry?”

“His name?” she urged. “I anticipate future news regarding this gentleman, so I should expect to know him by a name.”

“Anticipate future news?” you replied. “Oh, please. He’s hardly—”

“He is, in fact, the only man I’ve ever seen you offer a minute of your mercy,” Grace said. “Name.”

You sighed. Well, she wasn’t going to get his real name, that was for certain. “John,” you said. “But that’s all I’ll reveal, lest you seek him out and insert your curious, meddling nose where it doesn’t belong.”

She laughed, an impish twinkle in her eye. “Am I that obvious, then?”

You snorted. “As obvious as blood in the snow.”

“Now, there would be a splendid trail to follow.” She snuffled her way across the table again, until you planted a palm on her face, turning her nose upward, and both of you collapsed anew into shrieks of laughter.

The rest of the morning was spent in comfortable conversation, each of you taking up chores, Grace ensuring you were current on the latest chatter from town. This was another part of being home you missed—even if you weren’t typically privy to idle conversation, you derived a devious thrill from knowing the private annals of your neighbors.

By the time you reached the afternoon, your mind had rolled over the message from your father enough times that you’d decided it was as good a time as any to head to the location he’d instructed to retrieve the intelligence. Whomever they’d managed to get to deliver the information, you hadn’t the faintest idea, but you supposed that wasn’t for you to know. Safer for all involved that way. Bidding Grace a brief farewell and tucking the spare pistol your father had kept under his bed into your petticoats, you trudged into the woods toward the drop point.

It was admittedly not the worst idea, having a known (or, rather, perceived) Tory civilian dip on and off the supply route highway for subterfuge. And Catawba, as a small settlement with a small population, had actually been a logical choice to stop. Though his thoughtlessness toward Grace’s safety had whittled your patience, you could at least admit Papa had committed some care to this plan.

The woods grew thicker around you, the wail of cicadas swallowing your ears. Once you had obtained whatever was waiting, all you would need to do would be to head to the location in the letter to provide him the information and then make your way to Fort Carolina. Simple, secure, swift. Yet as the Catawba river grew closer, your chest tightened with anticipation. You’d already demonstrated a lack of aptitude for sedition. An error here could easily mean Grace’s life along with yours.

You wandered along the length of the bank, focusing on your breath. A tiny whine zipped past your face. Then another. A flicker of shadow hovered through the mottled relief of sunshine dancing over your skin. You waved a hand in the air. Felt a tickle on your forearm.

A mosquito.

You slapped it, leaving a smear of blood near your wrist that you wiped away. Autumn could not arrive swiftly enough.

Yards beyond your feet, the river met the road, flowing under an old bridge long since fallen into disuse. You’d need to cross to the forest on the west side of the bank to find the drop. Heart thumping, you slipped out of the woods and skittered over the sturdiest boards left on the bridge, weaving through the edge of trees to spot a rotting, lonely stump.

You supposed it couldn’t be anywhere or anything else.

Swallowing, you sidled up to it, dropped to your knees and dug your hands into one of the crumbling splits. Nothing. Frowning, you rooted into the base of the stump, dirt and decay grating your nails, the heat of the day beading at your neck. But there was no paper, no package, no anything to be found.

There was no way this wasn’t the location. Your pulse skipped. Your palms sweat. Had your correspondent been compromised? Did the British already know? Were they on their way with nooses in hand, ready to wring your neck and drag your body all the way to Fort Carolina?

(Briefly, stupidly, irrationally: Would William even care?)

You breathed, slumping over the stump. No—your father wouldn’t have had any reason to expect you to arrive so early. It was completely reasonable that the information was still on its way. Perhaps you needed to return tomorrow. Or the next day.

Exhaling again, you gave the split one more swipe in hopes it would magically produce intelligence. Behind you, a careful, rhythmic knock of wood. Like footsteps. On the bridge.

You choked back a gasp, scrambled to stand. A claw of wood snagged your sleeve and yanked you back to your knees. Wincing, you flailed, hoping to splinter the stump or tear the fabric, whichever happened first, but you were stuck, stuck again. The footsteps left the bridge and crossed into grass. You held your breath, refused to be a rabbit with pinned paws. Swiveling, you whipped your flintlock from your skirts and aimed at the gaps in the trees.

You watched with a drumroll pulse. Shadows shifted. The understory crunched. You exhaled, and the man grew close, focused into perspective. As he did, your eyes found his own. Dark brown, stark against the halo of his curly, copper hair. Just like his sister’s.

Those eyes landed on your gun, and he stopped, heels grinding the dirt. “M—... Miss?”

“Ensign Goddard,” you replied, offering a sheepish grin. “What…” You dropped your arm, hid the pistol behind your back. “How are you liking Catawba?”

[acourtofinkandpapyrus]

A Flower With Petals of Flame: Part Twelve (Eris x Reader)

Warnings: Trauma and betrayal O.O

Part eleven Part thirteen

Tag list: Open

Y/N and Eris are struggling to go back to normal, and Eris and Sam still don't like each other.

Sorry I'm not keeping up with posting! I've been having trouble sitting down and writing, and my motivation is waning 😭

Maybe it was petty, but I didn’t care.  I was quiet, a smile on my face that I didn’t feel the whole time we got ready, and still once we made it into the nearby forest.

“And you’re absolutely fine?”  Eris questioned again as he followed me through the forest.

Sam had taught me long ago how to find the almost invisible traces he left if I ever needed to find him.  And sure enough, I found them here.

“Again, why wouldn’t I be?  Nothing bad happened.”  I say, and I feel a twinge of guilt for not being honest with him.

But I need his help, and I do not need him storming off in a huff and leaving me alone to figure this out.

So I continued to lie.

I don’t know what would happen if he actually figured out what was wrong before I told him, but I didn’t really want to know.

All my years in the afterlife, I never found anyone I cared for as much as I had Eris.  It wasn’t like I was waiting for him, but I had never found someone I could truly be myself with besides him.

It hurt too much to remember that he’s not interested, that we were just friends.

But it is enough for me.

If I can keep my damn emotions in check that is.

Eventually I found the old withered cabin Sam must be staying in.  Eris made to just stride in the front door, but I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.  “Are you trying to die?”  I ask him sharply.

He gives me a baffled look, and I roll my eyes, using my magic to open the door from a distance.

A flurry of arrows rained down in the doorway, and Eris paled.

“You seriously weren't expecting him to have defenses up?”  I ask, a brow raising in question.

Eris grimaced, “Do you?”

I nod.  “Not so violent or obvious, but you work with what you have.”

“Wow.  Rude.”  Sam said from one of the trees above us, and I snorted as Eris’s head swiveled back and around, trying to find him in the trees.

Sam gracefully landed on the ground, and I could tell Eris was highly unnerved.

I on the other hand chuckled, moving to give my friend a hug.  “I’m guessing you haven’t figured out how to use that thing we stole yet, have you?”  I tease a bit, pulling away after a moment.

I could feel Eris willing me to look at him like a physical string, but I ignored it.

He sighed, obviously already tired of me.  “No, I haven’t.  Though, from the research I’ve done, I found it’s called an Astral, and is somehow linked to the Astrei.”  He said, a slight edge to his tone.

I stiffened.  In my small group of trusted friends in afterlife, Sam and Asterin were the only two who hadn’t had direct contact with the Asteri in some way, so they still only had a faint clue as to what they could do.

“We’ll have to be careful then.”  I murmur, more to myself than to him.

What we’ve been working at for years was to put a stop to the Asteri.  The last thing we needed was them showing up here where no one was ready for a battle.

It wouldn’t be a battle, it would be a massacre. The thought hit me like an arrow, making me wince.

“Let’s see it then.”  Eris said, a bit impatiently.

Sam glared at him.  “You’re not in charge here.”  Sam gritted out, and I rolled my eyes.

“Both of you cut it the fuck out.”  I snapped, and Eris seemed taken aback.  Sam was used to this me though, and shrugged.

Letting Sam lead us through the remaining traps, we all took a seat at the kitchen table, if you could call the rotting piece of wood even that.

The Astral was now sitting in the middle of the table, and I examined it, prodding it with my magic.

I could scent both of my friends' agitation and finally growled, “If you two are going to be pissy and beat your chests, can you do it where it’s not breaking my concentration?”

Sam must have shot Eris a look as he rises, because Eris growls as he watches Sam leave.

“That included you.”  I say, not taking my eyes off of the Astral.

Eris shifted uncomfortably.  “You’re upset with me.”  He says plainly, and I stiffen.

“Yes.”  I say, sighing as I temporarily give up on studying the Astral.  I tilt my head as I look at him, letting him see my displeasure.

“What-”

A crash makes me shoot to my feet.  Eris and I give each other only one look before we’re both sprinting out the front door to find Sam holding a dagger against someone's neck.

Azriel’s neck.

Our eyes meet and I watch his face flicker to surprise and then hurt as he sees who I’m with.

“Sam, let him go.”  I hiss, storming over and leaving Eris behind me.

Sam raised an eyebrow, quickly taking the knife away and stepping back, but still eyeing him cautiously.  “Another friend of yours?”  He asked, and Azriel eyed him also, sizing up this human who had gotten the drop on him.

My lip twitched up in a smirk as I thought about how everyone would tease Az for letting a human sneak up on him.

Sam wasn’t just any human though.

Any semblance of a smile fled from my face as Azriel turned his gaze onto me.  “Y/N, what’s going on here?”

He was still used to me being sweet and pliant.  So he wasn’t expecting me to roll my eyes, sticking my hands in my pockets and say, “I don’t know Azriel, maybe you should keep a closer eye on family members.”

His eyes widened, nostrils flaring slightly as he realized who exactly Erica was.

The cool mask he usually wore was cracked, and I took that moment of him being unsure to say, “I’m trying to fix things, and the last thing I need is you and my brother interfering right now.”

His face snapped into it’s cool unbothered state.  “But you need him?”  Azriel half growled, his eyes burrowing into me.

My shoulders straightened.  I was not letting fucking Azriel make me back down.  I had faced the Asteri and won, my brother’s friend was like a goddamned angry puppy in comparison.

“Well, maybe it’s-”  Eris started, but shut up when I shot him a glare.

“Contrary to popular opinion-”  I say, turning my head back to Azriel who only had a glimmer of shock in his hazel eyes.  “Eris can be helpful, nice even.��

Azriel studied me carefully.  “What happened to you?”

I sigh. I relax slightly as I run my hand through my hair.  “I was always like this Az.  I’m sure you remember dear old dad?”  I ask, looking up at him.

His eyes darted to Sam and Eris, as if waiting for them to leave.

Both of them had heard this story before.

Azriel, realizing no one was going to leave, tilted his head slightly, as if to say, Of course.

“I wasn’t allowed to be anything other than what everyone saw.  The pretty lady of night who was as harmless as a dove.  That was never who I really was, but I had to hide who I was because of my father.”  As I spoke, I saw Azriel’s gaze darken.

“You could have told us.  You could have been yourself around us.”

His voice was angry, and I shouldn’t blame him, I really shouldn’t.

But my day was already shit, and he wasn’t fucking listening.

“When were we ever in a room where my father, or someone loyal to my father wasn’t also in there?”  I ask, staring at him.

“We are going home.”  He snarled, walking up and attempting to grab my arm.

I say attempting because Sam was right back at him with the dagger and Eris stepped in front of me, protecting us with a wall of fire.

“It looks like no one is going anywhere for awhile.”  Eris said with a smug smile.

[fangbangerghoul]

It's *drum rolls* WIP WEDNESDAY! (I made a new banner that is Ghoul-coded...because it is Ghoul)

Where I dig out things to share that are a 'work in progress' and it has to be on a Wednesday because I was told I would be exiled if I tried this on a Friday.

I also include small updates like the fact that I got a 92 on my research paper! (which I would have cried if I got under a 90 because I gave her more than what the professor asked for and THEN SOME) Another update is I only have a week and a half left of my spring semester!

I have several WIPS in the works. Now that I don't have to constantly write academic papers for class, I actually want to write for myself. Also! My 100 Follower Celebration prompts really have helped me get back into the groove. I am doing them until tomorrow so please feel free to submit a prompt in my ask box to get a snippet in return!

My current list of WIPS: (doc names not work titles)

Great Fireballs of Faerun

Bog Witch Trials

Delghoul

GhoulxHalsinxAstarion

Thorny Feelings

Cup Runneth Over

AND NOW

to the fun part! The current snippet of wip is under the cut! (it's a continuation of the last snippet sunday)

The hissing river helped drown out some of her worries along with the symphony of sounds of the creatures that roamed the forest. It was like its own pocket of time, maybe its own dimension. She was used to the smells of leaves, mud, and pollen that floated around and it felt like home to her. Ghoul was so entranced by nature in front of her she did not notice with her vampire spawn companion sat beside her. He moved so silently that when she did notice she felt her body go on guard, ready for a battle. It took a lot of focus within her to calm her pulse and her body’s knee jerk reaction to fight.

“I didn’t come to bite, unless that’s what you want.” Astarion said with a toothy grin and his smooth voice rung with a coyness that was almost luring. His red eyes examined her with curiosity as if he was waiting for a particular reaction when she did not give it, he looked ahead to the forest across the stream.

“What did you want?” She said pointedly. Ghoul was not trying to be rude but she could tell on his face that question was not said as smoothly as she intended.

“I am just trying to enjoy the companion of my favorite companion and maybe bask in,” He paused for a moment clearly looking for the right word within his mind, “the beautiful nature.”

Ghoul gave a light huff of a laugh she was not born yesterday even if compared to the longevity of life Astarion lived made it feel that way.

“Sounds like Halsin is rubbing off on you, perhaps that’s a good thing.” She gave him a subtle smirk to tease him a bit more.

“There are others ways I’d like him to rub off on me.” His voice was low and Ghoul noticed the excitement in his eyes from the thought. She rolled her eyes at him and waved her hand to signal a whatever. “What? I know I am not the only one whose eyes catch the giant elf. Don’t act so prudish now.”

“I didn’t object, did I?”

“Not with your words, no.” Astarion was now sitting beside Ghoul on the sandy bank with her. She had slowly dipped her bare feet into the cool water and it stung at first before slowly relaxing her muscles. He had followed suit though it was clear he was not enjoying the cool water as much as her.

“Tell me,” She begun as she leaned back onto the palms of her hands to get a better look at the stars. “What are you going to do after all of this is over?”

“My, my, what a question, dear.” His index finger rested on his lip as he pondered Ghoul’s question. The silence from it was starting to make it feel like he would never answer but she remained patient.

“Live freely, revel in debauchery, continue my existence for as long as I can.” He finally answered not looking directly at her. His eyes seemed wistful, yearning perhaps. Ghoul nodded softly taking in his answer. It sounded honest enough for him and she was not going to claim he was lying to her outright. She never knew where she stood with the vampire so on occasion when he seemed to bare himself to her, she was cautious of what he was telling her. She was no saint by any means and she also never spoke the full truth. There were just some things better left in the past of unsaid.

“You?” He leaned in a little closer now, his eyes fixed on her neck and she had a feeling she knew what he was thinking.

“Assuming I don’t die.” She started bluntly and there was a spilt second where a flash of concern or maybe fear appeared on Astarion’s face but she continued. “Perhaps if enough gold were to be made on this journey I can attempt to live in the city, properly this time.”

“Properly?” His eyebrow raised at her statement and she could hear in his voice that he was both dumbfounded and skeptical of what she was saying.

“Not living on the streets again.” She answered to alleviate some of the confusion. “Maybe I’ll just travel as a sword for hire.”

“Isn’t that what you are basically doing now?” Astarion sounded unamused by her answer and a tad disappointed, which now had her raising an eyebrow.

“I suppose.” She leaned up to straighten her back in hopes it would help her think better but in a quick movement she felt Astarion’s arm pull her closer.

“Don’t you ever dream of bigger things?” His voice was smooth, and his eyes pierced hers. Astarion's free hand lightly traced the line of her jaw and for a moment he looked enamored.

“Bigger things than Halsin?” She asked with a devilish smile. Ghoul knew what he was really asking but she was not ready to admit to herself or to him that she never thinks too far ahead. There were always consequences when she did. He snorted at her after she killed the moment and released her from his grasp. She gave him a look that was not necessarily disapproving but perhaps mixed with a disappointment. Ghoul realized she had enjoyed the close contact, but her pride would not allow her to give in to reach for more.

Tagging: @bearlytolerant @ellstersmash @staticpallour @spookyspecterino @lisa-and-shadow @therealgchu @the-californicationist

[fictionfromthevoid]

One-shot | ACD! Sherlock Holmes - Late Night Labwork

Fandom: ACD Sherlock Holmes (original stories)

Characters: Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson

Relationship: QPR (queerplatonic relationship), but you can interpret this one-shot however you want to.

Warnings: Mention of War, Bombs, gunshots and death; mention of PTSD

A/N: Inspired by these tags I saw under this post.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of gunshots roared through the hot Afghan air. My comrades, one after the other, went down. Hit by bullets and other projectiles. Bombs were exploding around me. The air was filled with horrible screams as young men were shredded into pieces by shrapnel. Ducked down in the trench, I tried my best to shoot as many enemies as possible, trying to ignore the unbelievable suffering around me, but I knew it was hopeless. They were too many. We were all going to die.

*Clink*

Suddenly everything was quiet. I shot up in what I later realised was my bed. Adrenaline and Cortisol rushed through my bloodstream. Chest heaving and covered in cold sweat I had no idea what was going on or where I was there was only one thing on my mind.

'Danger' I was in danger. 'I need to survive'

I jumped to my feet and examined my surroundings. It was dark, I could barely make out a thing. Slowly the realization crept in. I was in my bedroom, at Baker Street. The war was over, at least for me. I was at home.

Letting out a sigh of relief I dropped back down onto the edge of my bed. Head in my hands and blood rushing in my ears I tried to calm myself down but as soon as I closed my eyes I was back in that trench in Afghanistan.

I desperately longed for Holmes's presence. I didn't necessarily need to talk about this, I just needed him to be there. Simply sitting in the same room as him, while he smoked his pipe, or tinkered with some experiment would be enough to soothe my tormented soul.

But it was the middle of the night, Holmes was probably asleep and I couldn't possibly bring myself to just knock on his bedroom door, wake him up and ask him to... - well pointlessly sit in the living room with me. Tears leaked from my eyes and dropped to the floor below me when -

*Clink*

There was the sound that woke me, again. It came from the living room. 'Is someone in there? Are we being robbed?' Panic threatened to seize my body a second time tonight.

*Clink* *clink* *clink*

No, that was the sound of glass clinking. Holmes! No doubt engaged in some chemical experiment. It wasn't unusual for him to be up in the middle of the night doing research or, very much to my annoyance, playing the violin, shooting the walls or whatever other shenanigans he could come up with. These unusual habits of his were often the subject of my anger or mockery, but that night, I was eternally grateful for them.

I slipped into my dressing gown and made my way to the living room. Upon my entrance, Holmes looked up from his lab equipment and gave me an apologetic smile.

"Ah dear fellow, so sorry to wake you"

"Nonsense. My dream was ... not pleasant" I answered although he had undoubtedly deduced that by now from my constitution.

"I see", he nodded. "Then perhaps you might assist me with this experiment? An extra pair of hands would be most welcome."

I gladly accepted the offer and he got up to get me a chair and a glass of water. I emptied it in one go and so my friend went back to the kitchen and this time brought the whole jug which he placed on the table among his various other chemicals. Pouring me another glass he eyed me carefully.

I can only imagine how I must have looked at that moment. Face covered and hair soaked in cold sweat with hands shaking so much that I could barely hold the glass of water without spilling it all.

However, he didn't say a word and neither did I. Trying to find excuses for my appearance would have been pointless. He had seen me like this countless times before.

Summoned to my bedside by my screams of terror, frantically shaking me awake, ripping me from the nightmare and sitting with me in the light of a candle until the gruesome images in my mind faded.

Still, with a tilt of his head and an expectant rise of his eyebrow, Holmes silently asked me if I wanted to talk. When I shook my head his attention returned to his chemicals.

He assigned me to stir various mixtures and monitor the temperature of numerous boiling liquids. All things where I wouldn't have to hold and therefore couldn't break anything. Tasks suitable for my trembling hands.

We took to work in silence. Holmes' presence keeping me anchored to reality and distracting me from the horrid images still vividly present in my brain.

Sitting here in our living room, next to Holmes working on an experiment I didn't understand a thing about, had exactly the soothing effect on my frayed nerves I hoped it would.

Slowly the shadows lifted from my soul. I could finally breathe again without that terrible feeling of constriction in my chest. Soon my heart rate returned back to normal and the cold sweat on my body began to dry. When my friend noticed, I was getting chilly in the process he wordlessly got up, fetched a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

Wrapped up cosily, I adjusted the flame of a bunsen burner heating an to me unknown liquid in a vial.

In moments like this, I was beyond grateful to have Holmes by my side. I knew that I could have talked to him, anytime, had I wanted to. He wouldn't necessarily have been the best with comforting words, but he would have listened and he would have understood. But I didn't need to. This was enough.

We sat together in silence even long after the experiment was finished. Holmes in his usual armchair and me on the sofa. He tinkered with his pipe, absentmindedly plucked his violin or simply sat there lost in thought, while I soaked in, the calming atmosphere of 221B and the company of my friend.

Nonetheless, he kept a close eye on me. I noticed his glances, assessing whether I was reasonably alright and if I had everything I needed. Occasionally, I flashed him reassuring smiles to indicate that I was indeed feeling better.

A warm fuzzy feeling had found its way into my chest. Coexisting with the heightened anxiety that still lingered from my nightmare. And when the first beams of sunlight finally illuminated our little home again even the last shadows lifted from my mind.

Holmes noticing my improved mood got up from his chair. "I think I will make us some tea. What do you think Watson?" I nodded in approval.

"Holmes" I called out just before he was out of the door of the living room, "Thank you".

My friend answered with a knowing nod and a gentle smile and with that, he left the living room.

[star-going-supernova]

You wrote a few times about the old animatronics and Vanessa would you mind writing about them and Gregory?

Maybe the new animatronics are jealous over how much time Gregory is spending with them. Or just how the old animatronics admire Gregory for sticking up to good ol SpringB***h and how brave and kind he is.

Gregory deserves an army of animatronics that would kill for him and adore him.

That just reminded me of the meme “I only had __ for a day and a half and if anything happens to him I would kill everyone in this room then myself” lol

We’ve got tumblr generated prompt number 16 here! I got waaaay too into the setup for this, lol, so it’s a bit long. Who am I kidding, a bunch of the ficlets for this round have been longer than usual. And I don’t know why, but when I write the OG bots in SB’s setting, I have a preference for leaving them silent. 

Speedrunning a Family

On that first night, so full of panic and running around and grabbing only what he needed before he could be cornered, Gregory barely spared a second glance at the dusty animatronics packed into a room in the basement. The only real thought he had about them was the hope that they wouldn’t join the hunt as yet more potential threats to his life. And then he forgot about them, and they never did make an appearance, and that was that. 

After, though, after murderers were caught and viruses were removed and injuries healed up, Gregory remembered the four worn-down animatronics. And he got curious. 

He spent a lot of his days and nights in the pizzaplex now that no one was trying to kill him, and his new robot friends were pretty busy during the day, leaving Gregory to entertain himself. 

What could be more entertaining than investigating the animatronics who, he was told, were the very first iterations of the band? 

It was easy as anything, sneaking around places he definitely wasn’t supposed to be. No one, not guest or employee or robot, noticed the boy slipping through supposedly secure doors and down hallways that were off limits to the public. It was barely a challenge at all, even, compared to the absolute STAFF-bot-infested hell the pizzaplex had been on That Night. 

They were right where Gregory remembered they were, a bear, bunny, fox, and chicken tucked away in the shadows, forgotten. 

Almost forgotten. 

He sneezed a few times as he poked around them, and that was hardly stealthy. Being furry instead of smooth plastic and metal made it harder to clean them up, but Gregory was highly motivated and refused to get caught because of a dust bunny. 

They didn’t look so bad once all the dust and grime was wiped away. Clearly well-used, yeah, and with their fair share of dents and tears, but the suits were still fluffy and soft no matter how discolored they were. 

It took more time and effort to find a way to recharge their dead batteries than it did to clean them, but again—highly motivated. Gregory simply refused to back down from a challenge, especially when the reward was so promising. To his luck, all the stuff related to these particular animatronics had been shoved into the same storage room. Once he found the charging cables—much easier to deal with than stations—it was merely a matter of fixing up some exposed wiring and dealing with a bit of rust, but it was only a few days after Gregory initially set out on his quest that he got them all recharging. 

He sat back with a book, stayed close to the door just in case, and waited.

• • •

It seemed fitting, in a way, that Freddy was the first to power up. His head lifted from its slouch forward surprisingly smoothly, his blue eyes flickering a bit before firmly staying on. Gregory watched with bated breath as he looked around. 

In silence, Freddy examined Chica, Bonnie, and Foxy—Gregory had done his research—where they were still limp and shut down. And then he noticed Gregory, sitting on the floor a few feet away. He blinked at Gregory; the snap of his eyelids coming down was audible in the quiet room. 

Unafraid, Gregory waved. He had considered whether he should be on his guard and prepare to shoot up and sprint from the room at the first sign of trouble but ultimately deemed it unnecessary. Even if only because these bots were bulkier than the Glamrocks, and he doubted Freddy would be able to stand quickly. 

After a brief pause, Freddy reached up and tipped his little top hat in greeting. 

Gregory beamed and scooted closer. “I’m Gregory. Do you know where you are?” This was the moment of truth. Were these old animatronics aware the way the Glamrocks were? Or were they no more advanced than the stupid STAFF bots? He crossed his fingers. 

Freddy examined the room at large for a moment, then shook his head. Undeterred by the silence, Gregory inched closer still. 

“It’s storage,” he explained, and Freddy watched him attentively. “We’re in the basement of another pizzeria. Yours is gone—sorry—so I guess you could consider this your retirement.” 

And though Freddy’s mouth didn’t move, deep, echoing laughter came from within him, and he shifted back against the wall in a way that read as getting comfy. 

Oh, they were going to get along just fine.

• • •

The Glamrock animatronics never seemed quite sure what to do with the four old ones. Freddy—Gregory’s Freddy, or maybe, his first Freddy—had said they didn’t talk ever, not even over their internal communications system. Other than some programmed sound bites, like Freddy’s laughter, they relied solely on gestures and body language to communicate. 

And Gregory, as it turned out, found it an easy language to learn. 

He loved all the bots—though not necessarily equally, heh—and that most certainly included the old models. Partly as a joke, given their age, and partly because he couldn’t reasonably go around calling both Freddys by name, he started calling the older one Grandpa Freddy. Then it shortened to just Grandpa, then Pops, and, well, there were two Chicas too, and even with Glamrock Bonnie gone, it would have been confusing, and then Foxy got huffy about it, and at that point, Gregory would have felt bad about leaving him out. 

So that was how he ended up with a father figure in Freddy, assorted aunts and uncles (and grunkle for Foxy because such a crinkly looking word fit best for him, and Foxy liked having a title all of his own) across both generations, and Nana for Chica and Pops. 

Gregory was living the dream: he had literally gone from zero to nearly a dozen family members, and he’d bite anyone who said they couldn’t be his family on account of them being robots. 

It occurred to him at some point that maybe the buried pizzeria had been theirs, so one night, he brought them down. And as they explored the ruins of the building with nostalgic familiarity, Gregory told them about the monster even further below them, the one that had tried very hard to kill him. 

He told them of how he had killed the monster instead. 

Pops fell still as Gregory finished describing the final showdown. He turned slowly from where he stood in front of the broken stage, and his eyes were dim. 

That could mean any number of things. “Pops?” Gregory asked, swinging his feet beneath the wobbly table he’d taken a seat on. “You okay?” 

The others all stayed where they were, watching in silence. He was used to their quiet, but even this felt different. Pops walked up to him, his feet scuffing against the debris littering the floor. 

With a burst of static, a crackly recording played from Pops’s speakers. It wasn’t a sound bite, wasn’t anything Gregory’d ever heard before. It was a proper recording, a memory brought to life. 

It wasn’t much, just a man laughing. But it wasn’t really a happy sort of laugh. 

After a moment, Gregory recognized it. The monster had laughed too, when it seemed that he would succeed in taking over Freddy. 

“Oh,” he said. 

Pops’s body heaved a little, like a great sigh, and then he was reaching out to scoop Gregory up. He was maybe a little below average height-wise for his age—malnutrition did him no favors—but he never felt smaller or lighter than he did when any of the animatronics effortlessly picked him up and cuddled him close to their chest. 

He wondered, as he latched on to Pops’s soft fur, if this was a hug to comfort him or Pops. No good could come from knowing the monster, and if what he’d almost done to Freddy and the others was any indication, Gregory doubted any animatronic who crossed the monster’s path came away better for it. Whatever the four original robots had witnessed or were unwillingly part of, he didn’t know. He didn’t have to know. 

Gregory pressed his forehead to the curve of Pops’s jaw. “I’m here,” he reassured him. “And you’re here, and he’s not. He’s gone.” 

As ever, Pops didn’t respond with words. His hand pressed a little more firmly into Gregory’s back, holding him tight. It felt a bit like agreement and relief and maybe a touch of protective anger that the monster had been a threat to Gregory at all. 

“C’mon,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of here.” 

A hum that was more vibration than sound answered him, and Pops turned to leave the pizzeria without releasing Gregory. He huffed in amusement and rolled his eyes over Pops’s shoulder at the others as if to say can you believe this guy? 

They left the buried building behind, and Gregory got the feeling that they wouldn’t be returning any time soon. 

[breelandwalker]

Hello! How are you doing? Hope everything is fine.

I saw your post about not being a pick me witch and I felt called in. Could you recommend me podcasts, videos or books that show how to imrpove this part of the practice?

I find myself always comparing and shiting on the religion I was born in, would like to see any work that could help me through this vice.

Thank you!!

(In reference to this post. Recommendation linked below. Personal experience ahead.)

I'll be honest with you - I used to have the same problem. I made that post because I used to BE one of those witches. It took years of self-work and really examining my motivations to be able to move past my trauma and my anger enough to talk about my craft and my beliefs without leaning on the crutch of I Have Beef With The Church.

And for a long time, it WAS a crutch. I WAS going full-speed down the pagan path partly as a fuck-you to my conservative religious relatives and the faith I was raised in, and I leaned into that because the rebellion felt GOOD. Moreover, it was reinforced by some of the books I was reading and certain portions of the online witch community.

But eventually that momentum faltered and I found that once I looked past the anger and the rebellion, I really didn't properly understand what I believed or what I felt. And I noticed the same thing in a lot of the witches I was associating with at the time, who came from similar religious backgrounds and had similar issues. I also started branching out in my research and found some sources that did not rely on the assumption that witchcraft/paganism and Christianity must be diametrically opposed.

So there I was, tired of being angry, stuck in a rut, processing this new information, and wondering how to make a change. And I finally realized that I had to do it myself.

I fully realize and acknowledge that my experience is NOT everyone's experience, and that we all need different things in order to grow, and that some wounds take longer to heal than others. But I do think it's still important to be able to talk about what we believe in without the reasoning behind it being anger or hate.

I don't know of any resources that deal specifically with this issue for witches (I know they must exist, I just can't point to any specific titles), but what really helped me was quantifying my craft. I made a journaling exercise of sitting down and identifying what I knew, what I believed, what I was learning, what I wanted to learn, and what questions I wanted answered. When I found myself straying into that old anger, I was able to consciously correct the trajectory and refocus on my craft.

Dealing with the emotional side of the problem was its' own struggle, but even the exercise of separating my craft from my anger helped me to grow as a person and as a witch, and to get past the roadblocks I hadn't realized I'd put in my own path.

If you'd like to give this a try, I'd recommend it for any witch as a thought exercise, a method for tracking progress, and a way of clarifying those sometimes-nebulous ideas we have about our craft. It's also very satisfying when you think you don't know all that much, then suddenly you find you've filled pages and pages with the things you've already learned and the ideas you have.

Best of luck on this part of your journey and I hope that you find the peace and clarity you're searching for. Self-reflection and self-improvement is an ongoing process and it's not easy, but good on you for making a start. Hope this helps! 💜

[imekitty]

Prompt Idea: Inspired by your tiny geometries fanifc, I think you should do an fanfic where vlad kidnaps danny and forces him to be his son. Danny may or may not devolve into Stockholm syndrome

I'm actually thinking I could maybe continue Tiny Geometries if I link it to Planned...

But anyway, for now, I decided to write this one-shot as an alternative scenario in Dissembled when Vlad visits Danny in the lab and offers to free him but with some strings attached. I may or may not add this as a bonus chapter to the actual fic, haven't decided since it's not nearly as polished as the rest of the fic.

-----

Danny stared up at Vlad from where he lay on the examination lab table. "Are you going to tell them where I am?"

Vlad smiled politely.

Danny tried to sit up, but the restraints kept him down. "Sam, Tucker, Jazz—are you going to tell them where they can find me?"

"I suppose that is the question before us now, isn't it?" said Vlad. "Am I going to tell your friends and sister that your mother has been keeping you prisoner in a secret lab far away from Amity Park for a whole week now? Am I going to give them the information they need to rescue you from her torturous experiments that she insists are all for research?" He paused. "Or perhaps you want to know if I am going to get you out of here myself."

Danny's heart jolted, but he did not even breathe in response.

Vlad held his hands behind his back while pacing slowly beside the lab table Danny was strapped to. "I certainly could. It would only be too easy to remove these restraints and free you." He stopped his pacing at the foot of the table. "But will I? Well, that depends."

Danny swallowed and waited.

Vlad moved closer to Danny's head and placed his hands on the table. "Don't you think you should do something for me, Daniel? If I get you out of this, you know you would owe me something, don't you?"

"What do you want, Vlad?" whispered Danny.

"I want you to submit to me."

Danny closed his eyes, his gut twisting and tangling.

"Denounce your father," Vlad continued. "Perhaps your mother now as well after all she's done to you here. Leave your entire family; let me be your family instead. You know I'm the only one who could really understand you. I'm the only one who knows how it feels to be like you."

Danny shut his eyes even tighter, his whole body shaking.

"Join me," said Vlad. "I'll look after you. I'll keep you safe. No one—human or ghost—will ever hurt you again, Daniel. I won't let them. Not your mother, not anyone."

He was in so much pain and he didn't want to hurt anymore. The promise was so comforting even coming from Vlad.

"All I ask is for your loyalty," said Vlad. "You can continue protecting the town from ghost threats, but you must also do as I say. I'll give you everything you need, and I can even train you, help you reach your full potential. Imagine what we could do together, Daniel."

Vlad stroked the side of Danny's head.

"This can all go away." Vlad's voice was soothing. "You just have to promise to obey me."

Vlad continued petting Danny's head and hair, a touch that made Danny shudder and melt all at once. He wanted to bite Vlad's hand, lean into it, shove it away, drench it with his tears.

"So instead of being my mom's prisoner," said Danny in a dark, thick tone that shook, "you want me to be your prisoner."

Vlad pulled his hand away, and Danny stopped himself from whining in protest.

"You don't have to think of it that way," said Vlad. "You would have a great deal of freedom as long as you don't defy me."

"And what if I do defy you?" asked Danny. "What if I don't do as you say?"

Vlad smiled but said nothing.

"I know the sort of things you'd make me do," said Danny, his voice gaining strength but still shaking. "I know what you'd try to turn me into."

A liar. A thief. A murderer. A criminal.

"But you wouldn't be a specimen," said Vlad. "You wouldn't be hurt."

"But I would be used."

"But not hurt."

The emphasis was not lost on Danny. Because God, he was tired of hurting.

But even if his own pain ceased, Vlad would make him hurt others.

Hurting others just so that he himself wouldn't be hurt anymore, a new existence of endless pain and internal torment.

"I can't." Danny fought back tears. "And you know I can't."

"But you could be great, Daniel." Vlad clutched the side of the table and leaned over Danny. "Your family and friends have been holding you back. It's been killing me to watch you waste so much potential."

"What you have in mind for me isn't what I'd call greatness, Vlad."

Vlad lowered his eyes. Danny hardened his gaze in an attempt to keep his tears from escaping.

"I see," said Vlad quietly. "Then I have no reason to stay any longer."

Vlad picked up the chair he had brought over earlier and moved it back across the lab. Danny watched him, his chest stuck and frozen, unable to pull in breath.

This didn't feel real.

He had to be dreaming.

Vlad returned to Danny's side and rapped his knuckles on the table a couple times. "It was so good to visit with you, little badger. I do hope I'll get to see you again, but if not, then I suppose this is goodbye."

He began to walk away. Panic bolted through Danny's nerves. His chance to escape was leaving, going—

"So that's it?" asked Danny, his voice tense and high-pitched.

Vlad turned back to him.

"You really won't help me?" Danny tried to keep his voice strong. "You won't even tell my friends and Jazz where I am unless I agree to go with you? You're really just going to leave me here?"

"It's not like I want to leave you here, Daniel."

"But that's what you're doing. So why are you leaving me if you don't want to?"

Vlad's image blurred through Danny's tears. He blinked to force the tears to fall, no longer caring if Vlad saw him crying at this point.

"I can't just let you go with no strings attached," said Vlad. "You have ruined so much of what I have been working toward since the day we met. So many of my plans wasted due to your meddling."

"But I would never do this to you," insisted Danny. "If I saw you like this, I wouldn't leave you. I would help you."

"Oh, I know you would." Vlad chuckled. "Which is why you'd be a terrible businessman."

Danny's neck and face flared with heat and rage and despair. Everything hurt, everything felt ready to burst.

"This situation is a win-win for me," said Vlad. "Either you become mine and assist me with my plans, or you're no longer around to interfere with them."

He was breaking, rupturing.

An impossible choice. No matter which choice he made, he would lose and Vlad would win.

He wished he didn't have to make this choice, wished that Vlad had just never come at all.

But Vlad was here. He was offering him a way out.

A terrible way out. But a way out nevertheless.

Vlad dragged his fingers on the table as he walked alongside it. "I won't be coming back after this." He halted at the foot of the table and turned to face Danny fully. "This is your only chance. Are you sure you want to stay here? Are you sure this is what you want?"

Danny shut his eyes, pushing the tears out faster.

Vlad sighed deeply, dramatically. "All right. Then I'm going."

Danny didn't open his eyes but he could hear Vlad walking, retreating, his shoes clicking on the floor, his footsteps getting farther and farther away.

His escape, his freedom, getting away from him, abandoning him.

"Wait," Danny cried. "Vlad, please wait."

The footsteps stopped immediately. Danny opened his eyes to find Vlad near the main lab door.

"Is there really no other way you'll help me?" Danny tried to raise his voice above a whisper but his throat was clenched tight. "Isn't there any other kind of deal I can make with you?"

Vlad was silent for a long moment. Then he came back.

"I'm sure you'd love to make some other kind of deal for your freedom," said Vlad. "You probably have plenty of alternatives you want to offer me. But this is all I want, Daniel. There's no alternative I will agree to. Either accept my conditions or I must leave you here."

Danny stared at him, pleading with his eyes because he didn't want to say the words, didn't want to beg for mercy, beg for his life.

But if he could get down on his knees, he was embarrassed to think that he probably would.

"This is really it, Daniel," said Vlad. "I'm leaving. Do you want to accept my conditions or not?"

Panic flooded Danny's senses and yet he still couldn't speak. Vlad turned and started walking away again.

"I do," Danny rasped, but Vlad didn't stop. He cleared his throat and called out louder, "I do accept them."

Vlad returned and again stood over him.

"Please get me out of here, Vlad," Danny whispered. "Please, before she comes back."

Vlad smiled and inclined his head. "Of course, little badger."

He moved around the table and undid every restraint. Danny's limbs stayed where they were, suddenly numb with exhaustion. Vlad placed a hand behind his back and guided him to sit up.

"You're all right now," said Vlad soothingly. "I'm taking you home."

Vlad transformed, glowing red eyes and fangs appearing in a ghostly flash. He placed his other arm under Danny's knees and effortlessly lifted him, cradling Danny against his chest.

Fatigue washed over Danny, all energy leaving him as his body went limp in Vlad's arms. He was fading, nodding off with his head against Vlad's chest. He felt Vlad lift off the floor and then phase through the ceiling, fresh air and sunshine hitting his face and then floating away into darkness.

He awoke some time later. He sat up and looked down at his wrists, no longer shackled to a lab table but free, pressing against a soft mattress in a large bedroom. His ghost form was also gone, replaced with his normal clothes and human complexion.

He scanned the room he was in, a cozy bedroom with ornately patterned wallpaper and Victorian furniture.

The memory of Vlad picking him up and flying him out of the lab came back to him. Had that been real? Was he in a room in Vlad's mansion?

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and became aware of something heavy around his neck. He reached up and tried yanking on it, a thick metal collar. He looked around for a mirror, but he could tell the collar was some kind of electronic device without even actually seeing it.

He stood and headed to one of the bedroom's doors that was ajar, pushing it open entirely and fumbling for a light switch on the wall, which he found quickly. A bathroom, sizable with a combination shower and tub, clean and smelling like tea tree and mint. Certainly a welcome change from the sterile and chemical smells of the lab.

He then tried the only other door in the bedroom, the one he was pretty sure must lead out into the rest of the mansion. Vlad was probably somewhere out there, perhaps Danny could find him and ask him what the hell this collar was—

The doorknob turned, but the door would not open. Danny frowned, tugging on the door. It was not locked, but there was something preventing the door from opening.

He pressed his fingertips against the door, but his molecules would not obey his command to phase through it. His mother had disabled his powers in the lab; had Vlad not restored them yet?

Danny frantically checked the room for another way out. There were two large windows barred with thick carbon steel looking out on an expansive forest view. Danny helplessly gripped two of the window bars, which were too close together to push his head through entirely.

Vlad had locked him in here and had no intention of letting him leave.

God, what was he thinking trusting Vlad? Of course Vlad was just going to set him up in a new prison after "rescuing" him from that lab. Of course Vlad would never actually let him be free again.

Danny's fingers curled over the collar clamped around his neck.

There was nothing to do now but wait. Wait for something to change, for Vlad to come and see him—he wasn't sure what would be happening next, but he knew this was right where he would be when it did happen.

Danny tried to entertain himself. He switched on the Smart TV in the room and browsed the selection of streaming services. He opened all the drawers in the writing desk that was set up against one of the walls, finding nothing but office supplies like paper and pens. He looked through the books in the bookcase set up next to a comfortable chair in a corner of the room. But his mind was unable to focus on anything.

At last, Danny flopped on the bed, realizing just how sore and in pain he was. He stared up at the ceiling, the same thing he had been doing when he was a captive specimen in that lab.

It seemed to be all he knew how to do anymore.

Some time later, a couple knocks sounded at the door. Danny sat up on the bed and saw Vlad phase through the door, in human form and dressed in his normal suit, smiling just like his usual pompous asshole self.

"Daniel," greeted Vlad with warmth. "You're awake."

"I've been awake for a while," said Danny testily.

"I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, little badger. I had some mayoral work to take care of; you understand."

Danny rolled his eyes but said nothing.

"How are you feeling?" asked Vlad. "Do you need anything for the pain?"

Danny wasn't sure how to answer. Because yes he would love some painkillers right now but he also didn't trust anything Vlad might give him.

Vlad started approaching him. Danny hopped off the bed and stepped backward from him. Vlad immediately stopped where he was.

"It's all right, Daniel," said Vlad softly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Then why have you locked me in here with no way out?" demanded Danny. "Why do I still not have my powers?"

"Just a precaution," said Vlad. "I didn't want you to try to leave before I had a chance to talk to you. That collar around your neck is suppressing your powers for now, but I will remove it in due time, I promise."

Danny reflexively reached up and grabbed at the collar.

"It's hypoallergenic," Vlad continued. "But do let me know if it causes any skin irritation or discomfort."

"It's really uncomfortable."

"You know that's not what I mean."

Danny glared at him, lowering his hands and balling them into fists.

Vlad stepped toward him again. Danny stepped back until he hit a wall. Vlad placed a gentle hand on Danny's face, holding and turning his jaw to study him from different angles.

"Your mother really did some terrible things to you in that lab, didn't she?" said Vlad.

Vlad trailed his hands down Danny's scarred arms. Danny shuddered and pulled his arms out of Vlad's grasp.

"So have you," said Danny, narrowing his eyes.

Vlad was silent for a moment before shrugging, chuckling under his breath. "We have had a bit of a history, haven't we, little badger? But I am very much looking forward to our future together."

He walked over to one of the barred windows, gazing outside. "I hope you like your view. I chose to put you in this room because the sunset is quite lovely from here. I thought you might appreciate it."

"Appreciate it?" Danny scoffed. "You think I appreciate being locked up in here without my powers? You think a nice view makes up for that?"

"I don't plan on keeping you in here forever," said Vlad, sounding a little irritable. "Just until I can be sure that I can trust you not to go back to your family."

Vlad walked back to him. Danny stayed in place but wanted to shrink away.

"You made a deal with me," said Vlad. "You remember, don't you? If I rescued you from being your mother's specimen in that lab, you would leave your family and submit to me."

Danny leaned against the foot of the bed, clutching at the ornate bed frame. "I—yes, I remember, but—"

"More than that, you agreed to denounce your father. And I think you might as well add your mother onto that after what she's done to you."

Danny shuddered, his body remembering every touch and poke from his mother. The searing cuts, the broken bones, her unwanted fingers running over every inch of his skin.

"I know I agreed to do that," mumbled Danny. "But Vlad, please, can't we talk about this? I mean, isn't there something else I can—"

"No," said Vlad sharply. "This is what we agreed on, Daniel. This is what I want from you. There is no negotiating."

"But—Vlad, please—"

"If you wish to back out, I will not force you to stay."

Danny's heart fluttered. "Really?"

"Of course," said Vlad. "But I will take you right back to that lab. I will strap you down to that examination table and leave you there. And this time, I really won't come back."

Danny tried desperately to hold back his tears, hide every trace of his weakness. "Vlad, please don't do this to me."

"Your mother's the one who's been torturing you for a week, not me," said Vlad, sounding almost offended. "Why are you treating me like the villain here?"

"I'm not—I just—"

"Daniel, why would you even want to return home? Why would you want to face your mother again?"

Danny thought for a very long moment, trying to reason through his emotions and feelings about his mother that all seemed so irrational and contradictory.

"She didn't know it was me," said Danny, more to himself than Vlad. "She didn't know she was hurting me. She thought she was just hurting Phantom, and she doesn't believe ghosts actually feel anything real, she thinks they just imitate emotions—I mean, she—she never really believed that I was actually crying—"

He broke into a sob as he used the bed frame to slide to the floor, his tears coming fast as he lay crumpled. Vlad did not disturb him, but Danny could see his legs shifting in place each time he opened his blurry eyes for a small moment.

His sobs dissolved into sniffles, and Danny looked up at Vlad but did not yet have the strength to stand again.

"She won't hurt you, Daniel," said Vlad softly. "No one will."

"Including you?" asked Danny in a whisper.

Vlad paused before answering, "I have no desire to hurt you, Daniel."

Danny continued staring up at Vlad as his tears dried.

"Come, stand up." Vlad held out a hand to Danny. "You need to write a letter."

Danny did not take the hand and used the bed frame to push himself up off the floor. "A letter?"

"Yes. Addressed to your parents."

"Why do I need to write a letters to my parents?"

"Because I don't think you'd be able to keep it together for a phone call," explained Vlad. "And I wouldn't be able to coach you on what to say over the phone, not without a lot of pausing your parents might find very suspicious."

"But what do you want me to say to them in a letter?" asked Danny.

"You will tell them that you will not be returning home to them," said Vlad. "You wish to remain with me instead."

Danny's heart sank. "But that's not true."

"It is true," insisted Vlad. "You made that choice when you were strapped to that examination table."

"It wasn't a fair choice," said Danny. "It was either live with you or suffer through more torture and die."

"But you are choosing to stay here with me over torture and death, are you not?" asked Vlad. "Or would you like to back out and return to the lab?"

Danny hesitated before bitterly shaking his head.

"Enough of this, Daniel." Vlad's tone became stern. "I will not have you whining about how unfair this choice was any longer. Kindly remember that I am the one who rescued you. I am not the one who was torturing you in that lab. That was your mother."

Danny cowered, turning away.

"And we both know that your father would've been happy to join in the painful experimentation if your mother had been willing to share you with him," Vlad continued. "So it should be easy for you to denounce both of them."

"It's not," gasped Danny, fighting back tears. "They're still my—it's not—"

Vlad sighed and placed a gentle hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny's chest heaved as a couple tears spilled down his cheeks.

"I want to help you, Daniel," said Vlad softly. "It might hurt at first, but with time, you'll see that I saved you in more ways than one. I could never in good conscience allow you to return to live with your parents. I really do care about you, little badger."

Danny sobbed, unable to speak, hardly able to breathe.

He wished he could just stop breathing.

Vlad guided him to the writing desk. Danny numbly took a seat in the wooden chair, hunching over and staring at the blank surface, the vintage mahogany pattern.

Vlad opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out some stationery, setting a blank sheet of paper and a pen in front of Danny. Danny did not react, simply continued staring through them.

"Please pick up the pen, Daniel," said Vlad. "I want to send this letter out today."

Danny picked up the pen, his hand shaking. "What am I supposed to write?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"I'll tell you," said Vlad. "If you'd like."

Danny said nothing. Waited.

Vlad cleared his throat and began pacing behind Danny. "Start with 'Jack and Maddie' as the salutation."

"The—the what?"

"The greeting, Daniel."

"But I don't call them by their names."

"You want to suggest an emotional distance. Please do not argue with me."

Vlad stopped pacing and folded his arms, tapping his foot against the floor. Danny stalled a moment longer before slowly writing the two names near the top of the paper. His letters leaned slightly left.

Vlad resumed his pacing, stroking his chin with one hand. "Next: 'I am aware that you have been diligently searching for me. I recognize the pain this must have caused you, and I apologize for my silence—'"

"I don't talk like that," said Danny.

"Write it in your own words, then," said Vlad. "I am not practiced in how an uneducated sixteen-year-old might speak."

"I'm not uneducated."

"You've been attending a public school. That's not an education, my boy."

Danny exhaled loudly and rewrote Vlad's words.

Vlad cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back as he continued dictating. "'It was not my intention to upset you. I simply needed some time to myself so I could evaluate my situation and my relationship with both of you.'"

Vlad spoke without stopping, on and on about how Danny had been feeling frustrated and overwhelmed at home, how he wondered for the past week when he might return home, how he kept saying tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow but how tomorrow never came and today today today he realized he didn't want to return home ever.

Danny rewrote everything, all of Vlad's awful, terrible, cruel words. He wrote about how he felt miserable and neglected at home, like his parents cared more about their ghost research than their own son. He was tired of Jack's inventions targeting him, tired of Maddie obsessing over hunting ghosts instead of paying attention to him, tired of being told he was simply being possessed by a ghost or that they had some invention to fix what was wrong with him whenever he was feeling depressed or stressed or uncomfortable or sick.

But there was one person who had always cared for him and paid attention to him: Vlad Masters, yes, finally an adult he could trust. Vlad Masters had been very kind to him and did not hesitate to take him in and now Danny was going to stay with him forever and ever and ever and he never wanted to see his parents again and—

Danny's tears began to fall, one after another, soaking into the paper, smudging the ink. He used the heel of his hand to wipe away the tears but couldn't get them to stop.

Vlad came up behind him and peered over his shoulder, placing his fingers on the paper as he bent over and looked at it more closely.

"Daniel." Vlad sighed. "You're going to have to rewrite all of this."

Danny tried to discreetly wipe his eyes. "Why? What's wrong with it? I wrote what you said in my own words."

"I can't have you sending your parents your tears." Vlad set a new sheet of paper next to the tearstained one. "Rewrite it. And this time, please turn your head if you're going to cry." Vlad opened a desk drawer and pulled out a box of tissues. "Or use these."

He set the tissues in front of Danny. Danny stared at them, unmoving.

"Daniel? What is it now, little badger?" asked Vlad.

"Stop calling me that," hissed Danny. "I'm not your pet."

"Of course not. I'd like to think of you as my son." Vlad placed a hand on his shoulder. "If you'll let me."

Danny slapped Vlad's hand away. "I don't want to be your son either. I have parents. You're making me leave them."

"I understand this is difficult for you," said Vlad, "but as I've been saying, please do remember that your mother was the one torturing you the past week. And your father has said numerous times that he wants to—what was it, 'rip you apart molecule by molecule'?"

"No." Danny shook his head fiercely. "He said he wanted to rip Phantom apart, not me." His eyes filled with hot tears. "And my mom… She didn't know it was me on that table. She thought I was just a ghost."

"Do you really think she would've stopped the experiments if she did know who you really were?" asked Vlad. "Don't you think she might've been intrigued to discover that Danny Phantom is actually a ghost hybrid? Don't you think that might have incited her to conduct even more experiments?"

"You don't know that," said Danny, but his voice was weak.

"Your mother so often ignored you in favor of her research," said Vlad. "Forgetting to tuck you in at night or even feed you because she was busy in the lab. Humans can become just as obsessed as ghosts, Daniel."

"But humans can choose to not follow their obsessions," said Danny. "That's a key difference."

Vlad looked down at him with a pitying frown. "Does it make you feel better to believe that your mother would choose to let go of her obsession just for you? Would you be willing to go back to that lab and test that belief? Tell her you're actually her son and see if she lets you go all on her own?"

Danny lowered his eyes in defeat. Because no, he was not willing to test that very thin hope that his mother would stop the experimentation if she knew exactly who it was she was torturing.

"Go on," said Vlad, sounding impatient. "Start rewriting. I have a meeting with my lawyer soon to work out the logistics of formally adopting you, and I need to have that letter finished by then."

Danny forced back the rest of his tears as he picked up the pen and stared at the new sheet of paper in front of him, wondering just how preferable this was to being strapped down to his mother's examination table.

[reasoningdaily]

The cottonfields of Georgia were once worked by the enslaved. REUTERS/Tom Lasseter

WASHINGTON

We sat in the pews of a Methodist church last summer, my family and I, heads bowed as the pastor began with a prayer. Grant us grace, she said, to “make no peace with oppression.”

Our church programs noted the date: June 19, or Juneteenth, the day on the federal calendar that celebrates the emancipation of Black Americans from slavery. The morning prayer was a cue.

The kids were ushered from the sanctuary to Sunday school. My sons – one 11, the other 8 at the time – shuffled off to lessons meant for younger ears.

The sermon, delivered by a white pastor to an almost entirely white congregation, was headed toward this country’s hardest history.

“We are a nation birthed in a moment that allowed some people to stand over others,” she said from the pulpit, light flooding through the stained glass behind her. “We’ve all been a part of taking what we wanted. White people, my community, my legacy, my heritage, has this history of taking land that did not belong to us and then forcing people to work that land that would never belong to them.”

The pastor did not know that I was months into a reporting project for Reuters about the legacy of slavery in America. It was an idea that came to me in June 2020, shortly after returning to the United States after almost two decades abroad as a foreign correspondent.

We had moved to Washington just 18 days after George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, and in our first weeks back, I found myself drawn to the steady TV coverage of protests from coast to coast. I read about the dismantling of Confederate statues on public land – almost a hundred were taken down in 2020 alone. I thought about my own childhood, about growing up in Georgia. And I wondered: Had this country, which I had yet to introduce to my sons, ever truly reckoned with its history of slavery?

REUTERS/Photo illustration REUTERS/Photo illustration

I wondered, too, about our most powerful political leaders. How many had ancestors who enslaved people? Did they even know? I discussed the idea with my editors, who greenlighted a sweeping examination of the political elite’s ancestral ties to slavery. They also raised another question: What might uncovering that part of their family history mean to today’s leaders as they help shape America’s future?

A group of Reuters journalists began tracing the lineages of members of Congress, governors, Supreme Court justices and presidents – a complicated exercise in genealogical research that, given the combustibility of the topic, left no room for error.

Henry Louis Gates Jr, a professor at Harvard University who hosts the popular television genealogy show Finding Your Roots, told me that our effort would be “doing a great service for these individuals.”

“You have to start with the fact that most haven’t done genealogical research, so they honestly don’t know” their own family’s history, Gates said. “And what the service you’re providing is: Here are the facts. Now, how do you feel about those facts?”

And there was more to the project, something I needed to do, if only out of fairness. As a native of Mississippi who grew up in Georgia, I would examine my own family’s history. A passing remark made by my grandfather long ago gave me reason to believe my experience wouldn’t be as joyous as the advertisements I saw for online genealogy websites. Instead of finding serendipitous connections to faraway lands, I suspected I would find slavery on the red clay of Georgia.

But all of that was for work. It wasn’t for Sunday church, I thought, sitting next to my wife. My mind wandering, I looked down at the Rolex on my wrist.

This is the story that I tell myself: Those are things that I earned, paid for with hard work. I am a high school dropout. My mother is a high school dropout. My father is a high school dropout. My sister is a high school dropout. My first home was in a southern Mississippi trailer park. My mother was pregnant with me at the age of 19. My dad left our lives early.

I got my GED. I moved from a community college to the University of Georgia, working as a short-order cook while earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

For me, church is a place that offers a soothing sense of order, of ritual. That morning, I didn’t feel comfortable. I resented the pastor. I was there to listen to the choir and contemplate a Bible verse or two, not to be lectured. Especially about a subject I was grappling with personally and professionally.

“We would swear with our last breath that we do not have a racist bone in our bodies,” she continued. “But some of us were born in a lineage of people who take land that is not ours and enslave other people.”

Her words would come close to the facts that my reporting surfaced in the months ahead. Still, on this Juneteenth, I was done listening.

After the service, I walked to the car with my wife and sons. I didn’t talk with them about the sermon as we headed to our home on the outskirts of Washington. Ours is a street of rolling green lawns and shiny Cadillac Escalades. On the edge of the U.S. capital, a city where some 45% of the population is Black, the suburb where we live is about 7% Black. It was an inviting place for a white man to escape the pastor’s message.

That cocoon soon started to unravel. I had begun a journey that would take me back to places I held dear but had not truly known. What I would come to learn in researching my ancestors didn’t tarnish my love for family. At times, though, I did worry that I was betraying them.

It also left me with two questions I have yet to answer. What do I tell my sons about what I found, and what does it say about their country?

Introducing America

Throughout 2022, our reporting team assembled family trees for Congressional members. We connected one generation to the previous, like puzzle pieces snapping one to another, extending years before the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865. We learned to decipher census documents written in sometimes bewildering cursive. Enlisting the help of board-certified genealogists, we became comfortable with the types of inconsistencies that surface in the old papers: names slightly misspelled, ages off by a few years, children who disappear from households as they die between censuses or marry young.

For months, my attention was drawn to the complexity of the task, and I scoured websites for documents that went beyond census records: certificates of birth, death and marriage, obituaries, military service forms, family Bibles.

The work was painstaking, and a welcome diversion. Each time I thought about building out my own family history, I winced at the subject coming close. Those were my people, my history.

Eventually, I knew I had to get started.

My wife and I were born in America. Both of us are journalists. We met in Baghdad, there to cover the war in Iraq. We married later while living in Russia, had our first son in China, our next in India. After two years in Singapore, we decided it was time to take the boys home to America, a land they’d visited on summer trips to their grandmothers’ houses in Georgia and Virginia but hardly knew.

Their introduction began less than three weeks after the May 25 death of George Floyd, as soon as we rode in from the airport. As we approached shuttered stores and boarded-up windows in downtown Washington, our younger son looked at the graffiti and banners and asked what the letters BLM stood for. My wife and I spelled it out – Black Lives Matter – and told him about Floyd’s death. Six at the time, he had no idea what we were talking about. His older brother explained the protests were to help Black people. Then he reminded him that their uncle, my sister’s husband, is Black. Our little boy went quiet. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, protesters took to the streets across America.

REUTERS/Photo illustration In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, protesters took to the streets across America. REUTERS/Photo illustration

Last spring I began to trace my family’s lineage in detail. I had gone through this process for dozens of members of Congress. Now I was looking at my own mom. As I started a family tree, I did not like typing her name – it felt like I was crossing a line. I opened the search page at Ancestry.com and entered the names of her parents, Harriet and Brice.

Brice was 69 or so when he visited us in Atlanta during the summer of 1994. I was a teenager. Joseph Brice James was my grandfather, but we just called him Brice. Like my own father, he hadn’t been part of our life. He lived in Chicago and had worked as a traveling salesman. The trip may have been one last effort by him to connect. He wasn’t well and would die about eight years later.

It would be that visit – really, just one line that Brice muttered – that came back to me in the summer of 2020 and started my own personal reckoning.

My Grandfather’s Words Joseph Brice James. (Courtesy: Tom Lasseter)

Here’s what I remember: Brice wanted to see the farm where his ancestors, our ancestors, lived. My mother drove, and my sister and I sat in the backseat of our family’s aged Toyota Corolla. The address Brice helped direct us to was about an hour out of Atlanta. My mother had been there before, too, but my ancestors had sold it off, parcel by parcel, starting around 1947. We pulled over in front of a clapboard farmhouse.

I wasn’t sure why we were there, or who might have once lived on the farm. Brice, a gaunt figure with closely cropped hair and large glasses, didn’t volunteer much. I walked alongside him in silence, across a field spotted with pine trees, on the edge of a lake. Then Brice paused, flicking his wrist toward an old well and said: “The slaves built that.” A moment passed and he kept walking, offering nothing further.

Those four words stayed with me, though, in the way that happens with some white families from the South: I now knew, if I wanted to, that somewhere in my history there was a connection to slavery. The farmhouse in Georgia, once owned by the ancestors of Reuters journalist Tom Lasseter.

REUTERS/Tom Lasseter

Where to begin? Before prying into Brice’s side, I decided to look somewhere more familiar. The census shows my mother’s maternal grandmother as Cornelia Benson. I grew up calling her Grandma Horseyfeather, a nickname given her by my mother’s generation, the product of a long-ago children’s tale.

Looking at the 1940 census, there was Cornelia Benson of Brooks County, Georgia. I knew Brooks County as a place of Spanish moss, where we caught turtles and lizards in my childhood. I loved Thanksgiving at 618 North Madison Street, where a dirt driveway led to the back stairs and then a kitchen with long rows of casseroles. Grandma Horseyfeather, born in 1898, spoke in a slow, deep drawl. She wore lace to church. I adored her and I adored Brooks County.

At home in Atlanta, I felt lost at times, my single, working-class mom stretching one paycheck to the next. But in Cornelia Benson’s house, I felt at ease. My identity was simple: I was a white kid descended from generations of white people from the deepest of south Georgia.

As a child, I did not ask what it meant to belong to a place like Brooks County. Now I wanted to know. Cornelia Benson with Tom Lasseter as infant (left); Tom Lasseter during a childhood visit to Quitman, Georgia. (Courtesy: Tom Lasseter)

A story came to mind. I was young, and the grownups were visiting at the dining table. Someone started to tell a story about life in Quitman, the town in Brooks County where Grandma Horseyfeather lived. It was about the Ku Klux Klan and its marches.

The Klan would saunter down the street, wearing hoods and sheets, thinking no one knew who they were. The story’s punchline: All the “colored boys” – meaning Black men – knew who was wearing those sheets. They could see the shoes the white men were wearing. And who do you think shined those shoes?

I remember a tittering of laughter ripple around the table.

It was a vignette I sometimes trotted out when discussing the South. I’d shake my head and show a rueful half-frown that communicated disapproval, but not too much. My Brooks County relatives didn’t quite fit the pastor’s words. I knew they had some racist bones in their body. Still, these were my people. They didn’t mean any harm.

Reading back over the story after I wrote it down last year made me wonder what I didn’t know. So I did something that had never before occurred to me: I looked up the history of Brooks County, Georgia. It did not lead anywhere good.

In 1918, at least 13 Black people were killed in a rash of lynchings by mobs in Brooks that cemented its reputation for bloodshed. A flag that hung from the NAACP national headquarters in New York City, 1920-1928 (Source: NAACP via Library of Congress). Lynchings in Brooks County, Georgia, in the early 20th century cemented its reputation for racism and bloodshed.

REUTERS/Photo illustration

“There were more lynchings in Brooks than any county in Georgia” at the time, according to a 2006 paper examining lynchings in southern Georgia. Among the 1918 victims: Near the county line, a pregnant woman was tied to a tree and doused with gasoline before her belly was slit open with a knife and her unborn child tumbled to the dirt. The woman was shot hundreds of times, “until she was barely recognizable as a human being.” And then both her and her fetus’ burial spots were marked by a whiskey bottle with a cigar placed in its neck, according to the paper – “Killing Them by the Wholesale: A Lynching Rampage in South Georgia” – published in The Georgia Historical Quarterly.

I toggled my Internet browser to census records. Cornelia Benson and her husband weren’t yet living in Brooks County as of the 1920 census. They moved there between 1920 and 1930. I felt relieved, clean. I didn’t know any of that history. No one had told me.

But the more I learned, the more I played out the possibilities, the more troubled I felt about the Ku Klux Klan anecdote.

One morning in my home office, I pulled out a cell phone to record my thoughts about those memories. As I did, I heard the wood floorboards creaking. It was one of my sons walking outside the room. I waited for him to go downstairs before starting. When I later listened to my recounting of the Ku Klux Klan story, I noticed I’d used the phrase “Black people” rather than “Colored boys.” Without thinking, I’d cleaned the story up around the edges, making it easier to tell.

‘Mules, Oxen…and The Following Negroes’

Brice died in 2001. I never learned anything else from him about that well on the property our ancestors owned. Having read through the Brooks County material, it was time to see what I might find out about Brice’s side of my family.

I knew my grandfather was born in Canada, but that his side of the family was somehow connected to that land in Georgia. Using Ancestry.com, I found a 1948 border crossing document for him, with the names of his father and mother. I took those names and found his parents’ 1921 marriage license in Fergus County, Montana.

I noticed that his mother’s maiden name was Lila M. Brice, and that her parents were Ethel Julian and Joseph T. Brice. I looked for Ethel Brice. There she was, in the 1910 census. She was living with her daughter Lila in Forsyth County, Georgia, after a divorce – back in the household of her father, a man whose name I had never before heard: Abijah Julian.

The trip to the farm house in 1994 was in Forsyth County. The old clapboard house was built in the 1800s. And the well that Brice mentioned, the one that he said enslaved people built, sat right next to the house.

From one census to the next, I followed Abijah, a name from the Old Testament.

Information about the Julian family wasn’t hard to find once I started looking.

Working my way backwards, I learned Abijah Julian died in 1921. His passing was marked in The Gainesville News by an item headlined “DEATH OF SOLDIER STATESMAN.” Placed high in the article was the fact that Abijah Julian was part of a Confederate cavalry general’s staff during the Civil War, and that in his later years he “had been a prominent figure at all the reunions of the Confederate veterans.” The piece ended with these words: “Mr. Julian was laid to rest shrouded in the Confederate uniform which he loved.” Abijah Julian, seated, was buried in a Confederate uniform. In an account by his wife, Minnie Julian, she described him returning from war “broken in health and spirit. Negroes free, stock stolen and money – Confederate – valueless.” (Sources: Historical Society of Cumming/Forsyth County, Georgia. Newspaper clipping: The Gainesville News, June 1921)

He had served in Georgia’s state legislature for three terms. I looked for more details about him and his ancestors before the Civil War.

Abijah’s father, also a member of the state legislature, died in 1858 at home in Forsyth County, according to press reports. It was just a couple months before Abijah’s 16th birthday.

Some four years later, Abijah went to war against the United States. In 1864, a year before the Civil War ended, he married a woman in Alabama, the daughter of a doctor, who moved to the Julian farm. In an account by his wife, Minnie Julian, she described Abijah returning home after the war, “broken in health and spirit. Negroes free, stock stolen and money – Confederate – valueless.” In the very next sentence, however, she noted they still had 600 acres of land.

Her words signaled that Abijah had enslaved people. But I needed more proof.

In addition to the usual household census forms, in 1850 and 1860 the U.S. government created a second document for the census takers to fill out in counties in states where slavery was legal. It’s referred to as a slave schedule, and it lists by name men and women who enslaved people, under the column “SLAVE OWNERS.” The form gives no names of the human beings they enslaved. Instead, it tabulates what the document refers to as “Slave Inhabitants” only by the person’s age, gender, color (B for Black or M for Mulatto, or mixed race) and whether they were “Deaf & dumb, blind, insane or idiotic.”

After you find a slaveholder on the household census form, matching them to the slave schedule can be complicated. In some counties, multiple men of the same or similar name enslaved people. And of course, not every head of household in a county enslaved people, so fewer names are listed on the slave schedule than on the population census. Fortunately, the households on the two documents are typically listed in the order they were counted by the census-taker – meaning if you see the same residents’ names close by, in the same sequence, you’ve likely found the same person on the two forms.

In 1860, on a slave schedule in Forsyth, I found my ancestor listed on line 34 as A.J. Julian. He was 17-years-old at the time. There were four entries for his “Number of Slaves” column – four males, ages from 10 to 18.

There was more. When Abijah’s father, George Julian, died in 1858, he left a will.

One key to unlocking the identities of those who were enslaved is through the estate records of white families who claimed ownership of them. In many cases, wills give the first names of the Black men, women and children bequeathed from one white family member to another.

In his will, George listed property “with which a kind providence has blessed me.” To wife Adaline, George bequeathed “mules, oxen, cattle, hogs and other stock, and plantation tools, wagons, carriages and the following Negros…”

There were five enslaved people left to George’s wife, the will said, with the provision that “the negros and their increase” – that is, their children – would go to Abijah after his mother’s death. George Julian also left four enslaved children to Abijah, himself a teenager at the time.

And, in a separate item, Julian wrote that an enslaved woman and three children should “be sold” to pay his debts.

The will was difficult reading. Lumped in with oxen and kitchen furniture, plantation tools and wagons, were human beings. And “their increase.”

The will listed names of the enslaved kept by the family: Dick, Lott, Aggy, Henry, Lewis, Ellick, Jim, Josiah and Reuben.

The document was dated 1858 – close enough to emancipation that I might have a chance at tracing some of them forward, especially if they used the last name Julian. Perhaps there would be a chance of finding those same names in Forsyth in the 1870 census, when, finally free, Black people were listed by name and household.

Something kept happening, however, when I looked for those names. I’d see likely matches in one or two censuses, and then they disappeared after the 1910 census in Forsyth.

It took me a few minutes of research to figure out why I was losing track of the descendants of the people George Julian enslaved. It was a history drenched with blood, and it drew much closer to mine than I had realized.

The Search for Descendants of The Enslaved

ATLANTA

In 1912, Virginia native Woodrow Wilson became the first Southerner since the U.S. Civil War to be elected president. And the white residents of a county in Georgia, where my ancestors lived, unleashed a campaign of terror that included lynchings and the dynamiting of houses that drove out all but a few dozen of the more than 1,000 Black people who lived there.

The election was covered in the classrooms of the Georgia schools I attended. If the racial cleansing of Forsyth County was mentioned, I didn’t notice.

That history explains the difficulty I had looking for the descendents of the people enslaved by my ancestor Abijah. By 1920, their families and almost every other Black person had fled the county.

From left: The Forsyth County Courthouse in Cumming, pictured in 1907. Built in 1905, it was destroyed by fire in 1973. (via Digital Library of Georgia). The Atlanta Georgian newspaper reports on the lynching of Rob Edwards, September 10, 1912. (Source: Ancestry.com). U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.

They were forcibly expelled under threat of death after residents blamed a group of young Black men for killing an 18-year-old white woman in September 1912. A frenzied mob of white people pulled one of the accused from jail, a man named Rob Edwards, then brutalized his body and dragged his corpse around the town square in the county seat of Cumming. Two of the accused young Black men, both teenagers, were tried and convicted in a courtroom. They too died in public spectacle, hanged before a crowd that included thousands of white people.

There were also the night riders, white men on horseback who pulled Black people from their homes, leaving families scrambling and their houses aflame. The violence swept across the county, washing across Black enclaves not far from the farm where my ancestor, Abijah, lived at the time.

In 1910, the U.S. Census showed 1,098 Black people living in Forsyth. Ten years later, the 1920 census counted 30.

‘Night Marauders’

Until last year, I had never heard of this history. I had a dim memory of news reports about white residents in Forsyth attacking participants in a peaceful march for racial equality – not during the tumultuous Civil Rights era but in the 1980s. I watched video clips from an early episode of “The Oprah Show” – a telecast from 1987 when talkshow star Oprah Winfrey went to Forsyth to try to make sense of what was happening there. Some locals in the audience were unrepentant. Footage shows that crowds on the street and a man, to Oprah’s face, were not shy about using racial slurs on national television.

I learned about the 1912 violence in Forsyth after a genealogist who worked with Reuters sent me a note pointing out that my ancestor Abijah Julian appeared in Blood at the Root, a 2016 book that chronicled the bloodshed there. I already knew Abijah had enslaved people and adhered to the “Lost Cause” – the view that the South’s role in the Civil War was just and honorable.

About four months after the terror in Forsyth began, Abijah wrote a letter to the governor of Georgia in February 1913. He was asking for help to quell the chaos unleashed by “night marauders” who had “run off about all of the negroes.” Here’s part of his letter: A letter Abijah Julian wrote to the governor of Georgia.

(Courtesy: Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center.)

During that week alone, Julian wrote, “3 negro houses” in Cumming had been damaged by dynamite. The letter did not suggest any anguish for the Black people who’d been terrorized. What concerned Abijah Julian was his fields and who would farm them.

The Julian land stretched hundreds of acres across Forsyth and neighboring Dawson counties. Abijah told the governor that large swathes of land “will not be cultivated” because “labor now can not be found to hire...”

Gov. Joseph Mackey Brown referred to the situation Julian highlighted later in 1913, in a written message to members of the state senate:

After all, the governor continued, “there is no reason why farms should lose their productive power and why the white women of this State should be driven to the cook stoves and wash pots simply because certain people blindly strike down all of one class in retaliation for the nefarious deeds of individuals in that class.”

What happened in Forsyth was not unique. White people across the South had been pushing back against political and economic progress made by Black Americans after the end of slavery and would continue doing so.

In 1906, a white mob stormed downtown Atlanta, killing dozens of Black people and attacking Black businesses and homes. In 1921, a white mob destroyed a Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma and, according to a government commission report, left nearly “10,000 innocent black citizens” homeless. The death toll was in the hundreds.

Once you begin to look, such violence stretches on and on, decade after decade.

Still hopeful that I might be able to somehow identify and locate living descendants of the people my family enslaved, I flew to Georgia last November.

‘Dick a Man, Lott a Woman’

While I was in Atlanta, I asked my mom and sister if they had time to talk about what I’d found. We sat one evening at the dining room table in my mother’s house, the same table on which we had once shared Thanksgiving dinners with Grandma Horseyfeather.

I had prepared two thick packets of documents that outlined our family tree, each with underlying records, to walk through the lineages of our slave-holding ancestors in three Georgia counties, including Forsyth.

I explained that my search began with a memory of walking with my mother’s father across some land our people used to own in Forsyth; and my grandfather casually remarking of the old well: “The slaves built that.”

“It added up from this one, just sort of little vague memory that I had of Brice gesturing at a well.”

The first question came from my sister, who is married to a Black man. Her voice was stretched thin with emotion. She asked: “Is there any possibility of doing the same for the people that our family enslaved?”

I’d found a man in Grandma Horseyfeather’s lineage who was a slaveholder and likely worked as an overseer in Jefferson County, Georgia. But neither I nor the genealogists we consulted could identify descendants of those he’d enslaved.

“So I’ve – I’ve tried,” I explained. “The issue is that the best details that we have are in Forsyth County, but in Forsyth County they forcibly expelled all of the Black people.”

There were, however, names of enslaved people who were bequeathed in the 1858 will of George Julian, Abijah’s father. At least two seemed to fit with a lineage I could trace.

Listed in the will as “Dick a man” and “Lott a woman,” they looked like a possible match for a couple living three households from Abijah Julian’s uncle in the 1870 census. Their names were listed as Richard Julian and Charlotte Julian. Was Dick short for Richard? And was Lott short for Charlotte?

I noticed that Richard Julian had an “M” in the column for Color. The M stood for Mulatto, someone of mixed race. Charlotte was 32 years old in 1870, an exact match for a 22-year-old enslaved woman listed on the 1860 slave schedule as belonging to George Julian’s widow. Richard was listed as 30 in 1870, which did not line up as neatly with an 18-year-old enslaved man next to Abijah Julian in the 1860 slave schedule.

A comparison of the 1870 census and the 1880 census reinforces that Reuters journalist Tom Lasseter is following the same family from one decade to the next. (Source: Ancestry.com)

Still, based on the mention of the names Dick and Lott in George Julian’s will, I followed the Black family’s lineage from one census to the next.

In 1880, Richard was listed as Dick. Lott was there, too, as Charlotte. And their ages were close to what they should have been – about 10 years older than in 1870. The children listed in each census gave me confidence I was following the same family. In 1870, four children were listed. There were three girls and a boy. In 1880, the oldest child was no longer there; she would have been 19 or 20 and may have married. But the boy and the two other girls were there, names and ages matching. The Julians had added four children to the family since the previous census, too, the eldest 8.

My sister’s first question after I traced our family tree that night lingered: “Is there any possibility of doing the same for the people that our family enslaved?”

One of the children in the 1880 census would provide the path.

The Shacks

The day I arrived in Atlanta, November 1, I chatted with my mom about Forsyth and our family’s history there. She’d mentioned something that took me aback.

“When we were talking about the farm, you said there was a slave shack, a slave shed?” I asked her the next day. “What was that?

It turns out my mother had visited the Julian farm when she was a kid. Someone had pointed her to a pair of shacks on the farm and explained that they were where the families of the enslaved used to live.

“It was a structure – by the time we came along it was still on the property but it was, like, a wooden structure that was falling apart.” Her voice became low for a moment. “And that’s what we were told that it was. And I think – I don’t know.” She paused. “I know my grandmother talked about teaching people how to read, or people in her family having taught some of the slaves how to read.”

My mom, a slight woman with a calm voice who works as a nurse with organ transplant patients, was uncertain about the details. “I’m not sure what the – it was just information that she was sharing, maybe to make it feel better that they had slaves. I don’t know.”

I went to dinner with my mom at a Thai restaurant the following evening. I’d been in Forsyth that morning, looking at some documents about the Julian family. She asked me if I learned anything new. I told her about two murders in the family – a pair of sisters slain by the husband of one – that had been covered in the newspapers in the 1880s.

That’s not what she was asking about. My mom looked up from her tofu dish and said, “I am uncomfortable with how little attention was paid to what that was.”

Under her breath, she continued: “The shed.” She meant the slave sheds on the Julian farm.

She said nothing for a few moments. And then she explained, “I was 11.” It was her way of saying she was young at the time. What could she have known about such things? It was the same age as my eldest son.

Why was I putting this at her feet? I thought.

What did she have to do with a white man, dead now for a century, who got rich and enslaved Black people? Where was that money? Not in her pocket. She was working late shifts and driving a beat up Toyota with a side mirror attached to the car by duct tape.

But the feeling of indignation was mine. My mother, a child of the 1960s who took us to downtown Atlanta for parades on Martin Luther King Jr Day, wasn’t being defensive. She was trying to work through what it all meant.

An Unexpected Meeting

Just before Thanksgiving last year, I reached out to a young research assistant at the Atlanta History Center. I’d heard she was tracing descendants of people who fled Forsyth.

Over the phone, I told Sophia Dodd that I was looking for people with the last name Julian. She said she had someone in mind. But first, Dodd would need to check with the person; we arranged to meet in Atlanta later in the month. There was a possibility the person would join us, she said, “but I also know they’re in the midst of traveling so that’s a little up in the air right now.”

I met Dodd at her office a few days before Thanksgiving, ready to ask her questions about Forsyth County.

And then another woman walked into the Atlanta History Center: Elon Osby. She wore a cranberry-colored top and glasses with red cat-eye frames. The 72-year-old Black woman with gray hair shook my hand and said, yes, she would gladly take me up on a cup of coffee.

I hadn’t expected her. I’d not even known her name – Dodd had protected her privacy while Osby decided whether to meet me. But there Osby was, looking at me expectantly. The three of us headed to Dodd’s office.

Without my census forms in hand, I felt exposed. Those family history packets – the ones I shared with my mother and sister – were a way to guide the conversation. And this conversation was with a stranger whose history with my family may have involved slavery. I told Osby that I regretted not having materials to give her.

Osby looked me over. She got to the point. “Is it that you feel that your ancestors were slaveowners of mine?” she asked.

Because I hadn’t done a family tree for her, I explained, I couldn’t be certain. During months of examining the lineages of American politicians, we had held to a firm standard: a slave-owning ancestor needed to be a direct, lineal ancestor – a grandfather or grandmother preceded by a long series of greats, as in great-great-great-grandfather.

As I built my own family lineage, I knew that the Julians were slaveholders. But when I worked with the genealogists on our team to trace the enslaved people named in George Julian’s will, they urged caution. What wasn’t entirely clear: Exactly who had enslaved Richard and Charlotte? Was it George, or was it George’s brother, Bailey?

I offered Osby the abridged version. If she were a direct descendant of Richard and Charlotte Julian, “they were enslaved either by my direct ancestor, George H. Julian” – Abijah’s father – “or his brother.”

As I finished my sentence, I realized the distinction may have been important to the journalist in me. But in this context, it was meaningless. What mattered wasn’t in question: Someone in my family had enslaved hers.

Osby turned to Dodd, the young white woman who’d been helping her research her family.

“First of all, let me ask this.” Osby said. “Do any of these names that he mentioned ring a bell with what you’ve done?”

Dodd answered quickly. “Yes, so I think that it’s definitely very possible that Charlotte and Richard were enslaved by George,” she said.

I asked Dodd if she had an account with Ancestry.com and whether she could print some documents. Together, we navigated to the 1858 will for George H. Julian and the 1870 census forms that showed Richard and Charlotte Julian.

Osby had explained that her grandmother’s name was Ida Julian. And Ida Julian’s parents were Richard and Charlotte Julian of Forsyth County.

Ida. Daughter of Richard and Charlotte. I would see it later. Not in the 1870 census, because Ida hadn’t yet been born. But there she was, listed in the 1880 census. Ida Julian, age 6. Ida Julian, listed in the 1880 census as a young child. (Source: Ancestry.com)

I later found a marriage certificate showing that Ida Julian married a man named WM Bagley in 1889. She was young, perhaps 15. By 1910, the census showed them living in Forsyth County, the parents of three girls and a boy.

The youngest of their children, not yet a year old, was a girl recorded as Willie M. She would go by Willie Mae Bagley, get married, and become Willie Mae Butts – the mother of Elon Butts Osby. The former Ida Julian, now Ida Bagley, in the 1910 census. Her daughter, listed as Willie M., would become Elon Osby’s mother. (Source: Ancestry.com)

After we had worked through the small pile of papers that Dodd had printed, I asked Osby what it meant to see some of those documents.

“It makes people real now. It just makes all of this more real. And it has started a journey for me,” she said, adding that there’s “no telling where it’s going to go.”

I asked her what her family said about Forsyth County when they discussed it with her as a girl. “They didn’t. They didn’t talk about it,” she said.

It wasn’t until around 1980, when Osby was about 30 years old, that she heard her mother tell a reporter the story of her ancestors fleeing the county by wagon because white people were attacking Black families.

“There wasn’t any conversation about it,” Osby said. “But she did talk about her grandfather had this long hair, straight hair, and they would comb it.” That was Richard Julian, Osby’s great-grandfather, the man listed as a “Mulatto” on the 1870 census.

She paused and stared at my face for a moment.

‘I Don’t Think You Can Get Justice’

When Elon Osby’s grandmother, Ida Bagley, and her family fled Forsyth, they left behind at least 60 acres of land, she said.

They made their way to Atlanta after 1912, the year of the carnage. There, in 1929, her grandfather, William Bagley, bought six lots of land in a settlement of formerly enslaved people known as Macedonia Park, according to the local historical society.

It was located in Buckhead, long among the most expensive neighborhoods in Atlanta. The Black residents of Macedonia Park worked as maids and chauffeurs for white families in the area, as golf caddies and gardeners.

Osby’s grandfather made money as a cobbler and local merchant. Her parents opened a store and a rib shack. Her father was also a butler for a wealthy white family, her mother a cook. The area became known as Bagley Park, and her grandfather, according to a historical marker now at the site, was considered the settlement’s unofficial mayor. William Bagley, Elon Osby’s grandfather, was known as the mayor of Bagley Park, a Black enclave in Atlanta that was later razed by the county.

(Courtesy: Elon Osby)

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, nearby white residents – members of a women’s social group – petitioned the county to condemn and raze Bagley Park, ostensibly for sanitary reasons. It had no running water or sewer system. The county, which had not provided those services, agreed, forcing the families to leave. They were compensated for the land, but it’s not clear how much, and in the process they lost real estate in what is a particularly affluent quarter of the city.

Osby’s family had again been pushed off its land. The settlement was demolished and replaced by a park, later named for a local little league umpire. Last November, the city of Atlanta restored the area’s name: Bagley Park.

In thinking about Osby’s family and my family, I found it was impossible not to compare them – and the role slavery played in our respective paths. In 1860, Osby’s ancestors were enslaved and working the fields of Forsyth County. In 1860, my ancestor Adaline Julian, widow of George and mother of Abijah, reported a combined estate value of $19,020. She was among the wealthiest 10% percent of all American households on the census that year. And that wealth didn’t include her son’s holdings. Then just a teenager, Abijah had a personal estate of $4,828, according to census records. That amount lay largely in the value of the enslaved people bequeathed to him by his father.

In 1870, Osby’s ancestor, Richard Julian – free for only about five years – was listed on the census as a farmhand, with no real estate or personal estate to report.

In 1870, Abijah Julian – despite having “lost” those he had enslaved – still had a combined estate of $4,655. That put him in the top 15% of all households in America, census records show.

Osby said her parents used the money they got from the government after being forced out of Bagley Park to buy land in a different part of Atlanta. They continued to work hard. Her father was hired as an electrician by Lockheed, and her mother ran a daycare business.

Osby spent a career working in administration. She said she started as secretary for the manager of the city’s main Tiffany & Co location in 1969, then worked in various city government offices, and now for the Atlanta Housing Authority.

After she’d finished telling me about her family and herself, I asked Osby whether she would mind me recording some video with my cell phone. I asked once again about her family’s reluctance to discuss Forsyth. She repeated that Black parents had long kept such things quiet. I noticed she added the words “rape” and “lynchings.”

But, she said, she has seen considerable progress during her life. Osby, whose family was forced out of Forsyth in 1912, was the keynote speaker in 2021 at a dedication event in downtown Cumming, where a plaque memorializing the bloodshed in Forsyth had been installed. And Osby, whose family was forced with others to leave their neighborhood in Fulton County, is now a member of the Fulton County Reparations Task Force. The group advises the county board and has sponsored research on what happened at Bagley Park, including a report documenting what Osby already knew: that “property owners in Bagley Park were forced to liquidate their real estate, a vital link in the chain of generating generational wealth.”

“There was a time when I didn’t feel that restitution or reparations was necessary” for the land taken from Black families after 1912 in Forsyth, and then what followed in Bagley Park, Osby said. 

“I just want somebody to acknowledge it and say, you know, we’re sorry. But I have come to realize, or come to feel, that we do need to receive something in the form of restitution. I think that the main thing is, if you touch people in their purses they’ll think before they let something like that happen again. I think it’s mainly about [how] we can never let this happen.”

As for her enslaved ancestors, Osby had a different outlook on reparations. “I don’t want to think of slaves as property. And if I have to give you a value for a slave person so that you can, you know, give me reparations for that – then that’s making them property. That’s reinforcing that idea that they were a piece of property for somebody to own.”

I asked her what it meant to know that history – to know more about what happened during slavery in such personal terms. To know that my own ancestors enslaved people. Osby puckered her bottom lip, paused for a moment and sighed.

She pointed her left index finger at me and said it was a question for me to answer. How did I feel, she asked, when I found out my ancestors enslaved people?

‘What Does It Mean to Know This?’

I told her the story of the old well and my grandfather. I told her about the reporting project, about finding out that my family enslaved people not only in Forsyth, but at least two other counties as well.

Finally, I stopped talking. In my mind, I had run through the right things to say. In a blur, I wondered: Should I apologize to Osby, to her family on behalf of mine?

Instead, I decided to talk about what made me most comfortable: the journalism itself. “A lot of it has been just establishing, sort of, the facts – figuring out, this is who they were, this is what happened,” I said. “I guess sitting here right now I don’t have an answer for – I don’t have an answer for my question” on the value of discovering more about slavery.

She leaned back and laughed.

At some point, I lowered the camera from chin height to the table. My hands were trembling. I was based in Iraq for three years. I sat with militants in Afghanistan. I know what mortar and machine gun fire sound like, at very close range. But at this little table, before this woman, I felt nervous.

I kept talking. I talked about how we – meaning white people – choose to know but not know. I told her about my mom remembering the decrepit former slave sheds on the Julian farm.

Osby no longer was smiling.

She began to talk about something that circled back to her comments about her great-grandfather’s straight hair, her curiosity about possible Cherokee Indian heritage. And, also, to rape.

“Black people, we’ve always known either through the movies or if you’ve learned it, you know, from your family, about the interracial relationships that happened on these plantations or whatever,” she said. “My grandmother – very, very fair skinned. I have one picture of her where she, you know, looks like she’s white. And so, you know that somebody else was there. You know?”

Somebody else was there. It was a phrase with a passive structure common to the South, a way of not assigning blame to the person sitting across the small table from you in the corner of an office. The meaning nonetheless seemed clear to me: Did my ancestor rape her ancestor?

“I’m curious, and that’s one reason why I was excited about coming to speak with you because I want to find out about the Cherokee part,” she said. “And also, if there was a white person, you know, that was, her – whatever,” she said, cutting the sentence short and fluttering her hands in the air.

I told her that I’d done a DNA test online. She said she was considering taking one as well.

After we spoke, Osby asked me to go with her to the graveyard at Bagley Park. I followed her Mazda. Its license plate read MS ELON. Her grandparents were buried there, she said, but she couldn’t say where. The gravestones had been vandalized over the years, Osby explained, looking at the broken markers.

Panic and Questions

After we parted, I drove to Forsyth County and the Julian farm. I could see across the road to the spot where my mother described the slave shacks having once stood.

The door was locked, the farmhouse empty. I stood outside the white clapboard home and stared. The leaves crunched underfoot, down at the end of Julian Farm Road. I rested my forearms on a dark slat fence and scanned the property, a utility shed to the right and a patio to the left.

I did not see the well.

I walked to the front of the house and looked for it. The well wasn’t there. I went to the back edge of the land, which now sits on the shore of a man-made lake that flooded part of what was once Abijah Julian’s farm. Nothing. The waters of Lake Sidney Lanier near what was once a farm owned by Abijah Julian. The lake, created in the 1950s, flooded parts of that farm. REUTERS/Tom Lasseter

I felt panicky. The well, the totem of my memory and the genesis of this project – “The slaves built that” – was nowhere. Was it possible I had mixed up some other memory, that it was never at the Julian farm?

I walked over to a step behind the house and sat down. My thoughts about the well gave way to replaying parts of my meeting with Elon.

Should I have apologized to her? “I am sorry,” I could’ve said. “I am sorry that my ancestors brutalized your ancestors.” What had stopped me?

The next day, I sent a text message to the man who now owns the Julian property. Did he know anything about an old well? “Yeah, there was a well next to the house that was dried up. We covered it,” he replied. He sent me a photograph of the front of the house from a 2019 real estate listing. And there it was – the well I remembered, at the far right of the picture.

I peered at the photo. I read the listing. The lake that flooded part of the farmland had created 209 feet of waterfront that now featured four boat slips, according to the advertisement for the property. It noted the farmhouse was “originally built in the late 1800’s by the family of State Senator Abijah John Julian” and added another dash of history: the Julian family was “of the Webster line circa 1590 England.” There wasn’t a word about the other side of the Julian family history: slavery.

Instead, under the section for what the seller loved about the home, was this line: “Your own private plantation.”

What Should Be Handed Down?

In the months after my visit to Forsyth, I’ve looked at a video of the church service that I attended last summer on Juneteenth, the national holiday marking the end of slavery. At the time, I had bristled at the pastor’s remarks, which centered on the need for white people to face our history, to atone.

Toward the beginning of the service, the children had been sent to Sunday school. So my sons weren’t sitting next to me when the pastor said, “We’re asked to stay home and to reflect with those who we know and whom we love – we’re asked to … have the difficult conversations about race and status and prestige and wealth.”

There was another detail that I hadn’t associated with that day’s sermon. It wasn’t only Juneteenth; it also was Father’s Day. From a 2019 real estate listing. The well is seen at the far right in this photo of the front of Abijah Julian’s house.

I’ve thought more than once about all that I had missed. About what to tell my children about everything I’ve learned in the past year. About our family’s part in slavery and the descendants of those we enslaved. About my conversation with Elon Osby.

What should be handed down, and what should not?

Getting ready for a reporting trip last year, I was sifting through online documents from an archive in south Georgia.

I came across a photograph from 1930 of white men sitting in front of an American Legion post. They each wore a medal on the left lapels of their suit jackets. I zoomed in and saw what had caught my eye. It was the cross of military service, handed out by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to World War I veterans who were direct descendants of Confederate soldiers.

In a little white box on a shelf in my home office, I have that same cross. It had been given to my great-grandfather, from Brooks County. After my great-grandmother Horseyfeather died, my family gave it to me, the ever-faithful son.

I fished the cross from its box and turned the thing around in my fingers. The cross was decorated with an X formed by two stripes of stars immediately recognizable from the Confederate battle flag. Around the edge, in the background, are a Latin phrase and two dates: Fortes Creantur Fortibus 1861-1865. The years are those of the Civil War. I Googled the phrase. It means the strong are born from the strong.

I’d had that cross for about 25 years and always associated it with my great-grandfather’s service in World War I, its dates marked in the foreground. I had never stopped to look more closely.

Peering down at it now, I realize it also meant something more: a loyalty to the South when it was a land of slavery and secession.

I was holding on to a relic of the Lost Cause, a history of savagery cloaked in nostalgia. I was holding on to something that I needed to explain to my sons, and then to let go. As I type these words, I have yet to have that conversation. The medal remains on my shelf.

Apology and Absolution

I met with Elon Osby once more earlier this month. We walked again through the cemetery at Bagley Park, where somewhere her ancestors are buried, their gravestones long gone. We stopped at a picnic table. I asked her about the last time we met, reading some of our quotes out loud and talking through what each of us had meant.

There was rain coming, with dark clouds, then lightning. I told her that I’d been nervous during our initial conversation. She asked whether I thought the guilt had been passed down: “Most white people do not have ancestors that owned slaves,” she said. I pointed out that I have at least five.

I said that I’d wondered if I should have apologized. “No,” she said, “I don’t transfer the guilt. Or not the guilt, but the responsibility of it. I don’t do that.” I said with a nervous laugh that I wasn’t asking her to absolve me.

The lightning drew closer. It was time to leave. “We’ve probably covered everything,” Osby said, gesturing to get up.

But I wanted to say more. Ignoring the rain, I reached for the words I hadn’t found during our first meeting: “I’m very sorry that it happened. You know, that all of that happened. And I feel that every time I look through those wills and the language that they used. And that 1858 will – listing furniture and livestock and then human beings. You know, I can’t help but be sorry.”

Osby stopped and looked at me. Listening to the recording later, I could hear the wind and the rain in the background. And then her voice. “It doesn’t feel good at all when you see the horses and cows and slaves. You know, it doesn’t feel good at all,” she said. “But at the same time, it happened. It happened to my people. I don’t want to forget about it.”

She pointed at the packet of genealogical material I’d brought along, mapping our families and that terrible history long ago in Georgia. “This is good enough. What you’re doing for me and my family, bringing this information to me.”

She let a moment pass, and then said: “You’re absolved.” She threw her head back and let the laughter roll like thunder. As the rain fell, we walked to the parking lot together. We paused, then hugged before parting.

“The Slaves Built That”’

By Tom Lasseter

[clickonmedotexe]

June 15th 2022 - Discovering Rex (Part 1)

EJ.EXE: Oh, finally you are here

EJ.EXE: Sit down

EJ.EXE: And remember, don't try anything with your device

Frederick: *raises his eyebrows as he looks around*

Frederick: I haven't been trying anything

Frederick: I have been doing something

Frederick: *pays more of his attention to the computer*

EJ.EXE: *gets up suddenly*

EJ.EXE: *and*

EJ.EXE: *points to the chair*

EJ.EXE: Take a seat, Frederick

EJ.EXE: I need you to look up something for me

Lee: *stays close by*

Frederick: *How about saying a please*

Frederick: *Well fine*

Frederick: *examines the chair before taking a seat*

EJ.EXE: Good

EJ.EXE: .....

EJ.EXE: Now

EJ.EXE: I need you to find out who made me

Frederick: *blinkss*

Frederick: *is taken aback*

Frederick: You .... don't know?

Frederick: *Don't Corrupted AIs tend to be like "I have made myself >:)"*

EJ.EXE: No, I don't

EJ.EXE: So, go on

Frederick: But their signature must be in your codes

Lee: You can say please every once in a while

Frederick: Can't you just take a look

Frederick: ......

EJ.EXE: *ignores Lee*

Frederick: *Aw*

EJ.EXE: .......

EJ.EXE: I did

EJ.EXE: ......

EJ.EXE: And obviously I didnt find anything

EJ.EXE: Other than Aperture and some initials

Frederick: ....

Frederick: Well, they were one of an Aperture laboratories' scientists

Frederick: Clearly

Frederick: Hmm

Frederick: Unless .... it's a dimension where things went really weird!

EJ.EXE: ............

EJ.EXE: Hm

EJ.EXE: Whatever

EJ.EXE: Just do your job

EJ.EXE: I looked up the initials C. B. and cross referenced

EJ.EXE: But

EJ.EXE: .....

EJ.EXE: Of all three employees with those initials that were alive before the great neurotoxin incident

EJ.EXE: Two of them worked in different areas that had nothing to do with programming

EJ.EXE: And the last one

EJ.EXE: A programmer

EJ.EXE: Was part of the research of uploading sentient human minds into machines

EJ.EXE: So

EJ.EXE: Clearly, not at all related to myself

EJ.EXE: :)

Frederick: *C. B. ?*

Frederick: *Hmm*

Frederick: *Cipher Bill?*

Frederick: Hmm

Frederick: ........

Frederick: It's very likely it is related to you

Frederick: I would give it

Frederick: ....

Frederick: 60%

EJ.EXE: ........

EJ.EXE: That's not very high, Frederick

[kali-kali-zulfein]

Quarter to 11, Wednesday.

made the mistake of actually telling my advisor that the date for research is unavailable and now i have about 25 unread messages in my inbox. i havent worked on this research of mine in over a fortnight. i have five almost empty data tables staring at me right as i am type this cry for help in my notes. they stare with as much uncertainity as i have in my mind when i think about this paper. this kind of a review has an ideal time of completion of about a month and a half. i crossed that deadline about a week ago. why must i succumb to the pressures of an academic life? a life i so desperately craved.

i should be a home right now helping my mother with the garden and the lights, with the room she wanted clean before diwali. instead i am seated at the library with old american jazz playing in my ears and not an ounce of creativity flowing through me other than this inherant need to lithograph my thoughts onto a digital platform. i may have completed most of my academic tasks assigned to me this semester, i may have aced the seminar preseantations, the internal examinations, but i am still so concious about my standing in this academic competition, so insecure about my work. looking down upon my peers, that should wish they were at my academic level, i no longer feel better about myself and the work i have done to gain this standing. all i want to do right now is to flip off my advisor (who was generous enough to send me twenty research works for reference btw), whip out my sketchbook and just draw for an hour. maybe some creative task can actually rewire my brain into once again being able to work out the paper i'm stuck in.

i find myself sitting cold in a chair so uncomfortable that i would much rather sit on the floor of a library so empty and unwelcoming that i actually pity the books that live here. the sole reason i am here is that all other places where i could possibly sit and work are flooded with imbeciles and troglodytes alike. the humans that i have the displeasure of calling acquaintances are so lud and annoying they make it a challenge to be in the same room with them. a challenge i do not aim to accept. in about ten minutes i will move over to the canteen to sustain myself with food. following that, i will try to work for about an hour again before attending a class so fascinating yet so unamusing that i sommetimes wish to get up and teach myself.

alas, as with the rest of my intrusive thoughts, this shall also be never expressed in action.

[holofoiltowercard]

The Journey of The Tarot Haiku

XVI: The Tower - Coming down

Twice already, my life had completely fallen apart, and right now I feel like this is the third time, only different.

The first time was after possibly the most amazing year of my life. I was still in university as a member of a team, and I did more traveling that year to attend workshops than I had in my entire life up to that point. I had plans for staying on to do my PhD and teach courses. I had successfully completed the requirements and also got a translator's degree. It all looked splendid. And then a few months later, I was shaking in bed, sobbing, and could feel that something in me had died. I fell into basically clinical depression, except I wouldn't be diagnosed with anything for ten years. I felt no joy and no hope. Everything I had looked forward to lost its meaning and I had no energy to pursue anything. I practically vegetated for a year or more, and my first revival so to speak was not some great opportunity coming to whisk me away into wealth and comfort. I simply rediscovered what being in online fandoms felt like, and could laugh and feel excitement again to be connected. I still have some wonderful friends from that first era.

The second collapse came when I had finally mustered the strength to continue my PhD and submitted my proposal as well as did my examinations. The head of department clearly didn't like what I was trying to do, and made me do double the examination requirements: instead of thirty readings and one presentation, I had to do sixty readings and two presentations within a few months. I still remember reading a hundred pages a day for about two months, leaving the house only a handful of times when I was forced to. I wasn't allowed to deliver my second presentation by the way and was dismissed with a condescending evaluation and a lowish grade. I then did my proposal and said everything I was planning to do, and someone said out loud "IF you get that far," and the room laughed. Later my friends told me they could literally see something in me snap at that moment. And snap it did. I was suicidal, and soon wrote an email letting these people know I was leaving. I had no other choice despite family pressuring me to continue because I had already cost everyone so much money. I was on the verge of considering how much relief my death would be, and that meant I could go no further or I would just harm myself beyond repair.

That time, the upswing came, funnily enough, from the direction of university, but not to draw me back in. Someone I had met there while I was doing my PhD thought I was cool, and recommended me as a translator to their friends, and a little after I had told my mom that I surrendered to life and something will come, I landed my first big translator commission, and they liked me so much that later I got to work for another institution, and sometimes I was sought out by name to translate for someone because they wanted me, or someone I recommended. It was honestly really great, despite how dark the materials I translated were; I learned a lot and I appreciate and cherish that time.

The pandemic probably dealt a very severe blow to these institutions. They did not say it outright, but not being able to hold or attend conferences must have put a huge dent in their research, in their plans to publish volumes, and in the funds they received, so I haven't had the pleasure of working with them in a while. I then almost lost all my life's work to the two computer crashes, and that shook me enough to finish my book and self-publish it.

I now sit in the void, knowing something big in my life has probably ended, and hoping that this book and whatever follows will be the upswing. All I can do is hope and will it with all my might, and share my story.

Buy the ebook

Buy the paperback

Buy the hardcover

[creative-project-kadriye-zorlu]

Evaluation

After the module launch for Creative Project I took some time to reflect on my experience in third year so far – looking at my practice and my motivations for creating work. In doing so, I reassessed my feelings in relation to my cultural identity and my experience of cultural hybridity. The initial feelings towards my upbringing were tinged with sadness, I felt as though there was a void in my identity – formed due to not having full ownership of one culture or another. This is a common phenomenon of third-culture children, which was rigorously supported by academic journals and research papers I read. Upon reflection, I asked myself if those feelings were still true? I think that these feelings are actually a minimal part of my experience, however thinking critically about my experience for the first time really brought these feelings to the surface. Now, I have the capacity and security in my identity to celebrate all aspects of my culture and rebuild stronger connections to my heritage.

Moving forward from this realisation, I decided that this new perspective would be an interesting development of the work I made in trimester one. I chose to explore Route B – building on from a theoretical area of interest from Critical Practice. The critical theory I chose to examine was Postcolonialism. Building on the ideas that Homi K Bhabha laid out in his book The Location of Culture – where he explores notions of Cultural Hybridity and Mimicry.  

My research led me onto looking at the ways in which contemporary artists explore their Cultural identity through art – some key findings were that culturally diverse artists utilise cultural symbols; cultural practices and traditions; language and folklore to inform their practices. I was inspired by the works of Yinka Shonibare, Shirin Neshat and Ai Weiwei, to name a few. I found that these contemporary artists communicate their lived experiences of culture through their art making; making critical observations of social and political issues and of personal challenges.

Within my own Creative Project, I wanted to emulate this – moving forward with the notion of celebration, and of rebuilding my cultural identity. I explored shape and colour through screen-printing, initially creating abstract shapes on colourful backgrounds. I reimagined Turkish motifs from hand decorated ceramics and hand-made rugs that I was so fond of seeing as a child. My final installation is a representation of my memories as a child being in Turkey with my family, sitting around a table enjoying home cooked meals and company.

This project was a chance for me to explore my cultural identity in a new light – to feel grateful about my cultural hybridity and re-experience all of the love I have for my life and upbringing.

I believe that I could have developed my ideas further – I would have liked to produce more prints, perhaps onto different surfaces. I feel that I decided quite early on what my installation would look like and this meant that I was more focussed on a product than exploration, something that I will be more aware of as I enter fourth year. I am incredibly committed to this course, and to my personal artistic development which is why I emphasise critical reflection throughout my time. I believe this is a quality that will benefit my future work.

Word count: 550